Yvonne McCoy is a Woman’s Business Strategist who helps women entrepreneurs grow their impact and income with productivity strategies by starting with one key question, “what do you want to be remembered for?” With that clarity, clients maximize their talents to step into their CEO mindset.

Her extensive experiences in coaching, divisional operations and diversified job training as well as life experiences, raising a family and attaining an MBA in Finance and Accounting from the Wharton School of Business, are the basis of her practical systems. 

In this episode we discuss: 

• The clarity that comes with knowing the legacy you want to create 
• How productivity is like a water bed 
• Growing from situational awareness to develop our own understanding 
• Why boundaries are blurring between the Nurturing Stage and the Warrior Stage 
• Reasons to start with what you want to do, before what you “need to do” 
• How a shorter working hour can stretch time 
• Whether it’s really possible to “do it all”

Happified listener’s can enjoy Yvonne’s free gift, a 20 minute video course plus bonuses to help you consider your legacy and ways to optimize your productivity. www.theonesmallchange/gps-giveaway 

Susi: Welcome back. I’m so happy to have you with us today for another short sweet conversation from the podatorium. I am here with Yvonne McCoy at Podapalooza. We have just connected and I’m really excited to explore some of her topics and expertise with you. So let me share a little bit. Yvonne McCoy is a woman’s business strategist. She helps women entrepreneurs grow their impact and income with productivity strategies. With new clarity about constant uncertainty, clients maximize their powerful genius and talents to step into their CEO mindset. 

Yvonne, thank you for joining me on the show. I want to dive right in. So you’ll get to tell us a little bit more that I didn’t even get to scratch the surface in your bio.

But you’re joining me from Philadelphia on the east coast. I’m bringing the west coast to the conversation. And how did you get into this space? First of all of helping women entrepreneurs and where do you see some common points of struggle that you’re, you’re always helping your clients out of the weeds with?

Yvonne: Well, I think one of the reasons that I help women entrepreneurs is because we are always balancing business and life, and there’s an incredible amount of stress and, you know, feeling that you’re not being a good, you know, wife or mother or whatever, and it always amazes me that it always amazes me. 

When I talk to my women clients, I’ll say to them, okay, you know, what did you get that was the most helpful? And, you know, I have an MBA from Wharton, so I, I kind of wanted them to say, you gave me this great business strategy and, and they’ll say things like that tip that you gave me about how to handle cooking is really helpful. 

I mean, just, you know, because here’s the bottom line, nobody has more than 24 hours a day. No matter what you do, that’s it, right. And it’s non renewable. Once a day is gone, it’s gone. And so the real issue is where am I going to put my time? And that’s why in my course, the one small change I talk about your legacy. What do you want to be remembered for? You know, you don’t want to be remembered that you spent all night writing a proposal and you missed your kids.

I mean, that’s not. So your productivity has to happen both in your business and in your personal life. It’s it’s, you know, this is a really old analogy, but it’s like a water bed. It’s an enclosed system. You push it on at one place and something happens someplace else. You don’t, you know, you don’t know when you’re going to get that call from the nurse.

You don’t know when something’s going to happen with your parents, which is what I went through three years of, you know, my parents lived to be 94. And, and there was that three-year period where basically all I was doing was maintaining my business and being thrilled that I had a client to talk to, so I didn’t have to think about what I had to do for my parents.

And so one of the first things that I teach is situational awareness. There’s a wonderful model that has to do with women and men kind of go through it too, but it’s, it’s, it’s basically, you know, you start out as a child and that’s where you get all your beliefs. And unfortunately, a lot of those beliefs are there because your parents want to keep you safe and they make us women risk averse.

Right. And then you get into the nurturing stage- and that can be nurturing your career nurturing, nurturing your kids, not, you know, nurturing your pets, whatever. And then you go into what’s called the warrior stage. Okay. And that’s where you say, okay, I’m ready to do something. There’s something missing.

I’m ready to do something. Okay. And for a lot of us, a lot of that gets stunted somewhat because our parents are living longer. And, you know, so now it’s like you are in that sandwich generation. You’ve got kids. And, and my, my new joke is I have two adult women, you know, girls, women. And I tell anybody who has daughters, please make sure your girls find companions that are handy for fixing things, because.

Mine don’t and my husband spends all his time running to their house, fixing things. Right. So you’re into that stage and what I’ve realized for myself as I have now moved into a little bit further that into what I consider the, the mentor stage. There are people who can learn from me and some of that learning is just the simplest everyday things.

It’s all right to have a dustball. You know, if your time is better spent making you several thousand dollars, you know, it’s not about the money. It’s what you can change. You know, you make that money so your kid can go to a great camp. For me, several years ago I took my family to Mexico. It was the most amazing thing.

I mean, I never thought about that years ago that I would want it to do something like that, but I wanted to spend time with my husband, with my kids, with my grandkids and. You know, the other tip is don’t let one of your kids plan the trip, because she had a champagne budget and I had a beer pocket book, but we ended up at this Villa in Mexico on the beach with a concierge, with a pool. I mean, it was, it was like, you can’t go back. You can’t say no, I’ll take a little, a little, you know, little plates, right. 

So, situational awareness is knowing kind of where you are in life and what’s important to you right then, so that it still builds on, you know, what you want to be remembered for. Okay. And it takes the stress out of it because it makes it easy, much easier to prioritize.

What do I want to do? Do I want to spend time doing this? Do I want to spend time doing that? And then we come up with strategies to do that and having some processes in place. It gets rid of that stress, whether that is, I have a backup babysitter to my babysitter, whether that’s having the conversation that I had with my husband that said for four days, I’m going to be in morning to night trainings and things. Pretend you’re single, and I’ll see you on Monday on the other side and we’ll do something. Okay. Whatever, whatever it happens to be. So that’s that to me is where productivity comes into having a less stressful life and still doing the things that you enjoy and having energy. 

Susi: Yes. I think that unfortunately a lot of us maybe have been raised and watched models, successfully or unsuccessfully, power through and say, you know, I’ll get my chance to rest later. I’ll come back to that. I’ll get to take that nice vacation with the family when I retire. Unfortunately we all know stories where that didn’t play out, where we didn’t get to enjoy that opportunity. And so I love that you are first of all, identifying these different stages, because we do move through some very significant stages of just our own maturity and energy levels and perspective. And what’s important is going to change, of course, over time. And being present to what is most important right now, and how do I want that to be reflected in my life? How much do I want to enjoy that? Right? Sometimes we have to push. Sometimes we have to put in some long hours for different seasons or maybe different phases along the way. 

I didn’t have my own kids. I have a stepdaughter, so my hat is always off to women who raise children. And then I also see reflected in my friends. You know, society again, those expectations. There’s criticisms if you choose to stay home with your children, there’s criticisms. If you choose to leave the house and maintain your career, you can’t win for trying. 

So why not get clear on what is most important for you?

Yvonne: Absolutely. I mean, there are, I remember when I was in graduate school, we had, I had a final and that morning, my daughter was sick, and you know, my husband was working and I literally trucked her to the school, sat her on a bench outside, across from a bathroom and said, if you have to throw up, go in there, I’ll only be an hour.

I don’t know that I would’ve, I don’t know that I would do that now, but the point of it was that, you know, I think the thing that made a difference was that we always talked about as a family. You know how we needed to support each other and how we needed to do things together. And my, you know, my kids are, like I said, they are adults.

So they tell me where I did, you know, where I went wrong. So I have good feedback for other people. But yeah, there were times when you just, I mean again, when I was in graduate school, I remember the one, one of the fondest memories I had of my mom , who was a difficult woman, was my mother always made me handmade, Halloween costumes.

I mean, these really amazing Halloween costumes. And I remember I was like, I’m in school, I’m not doing this. I’m going to the store. I’m buying a costume. And it looked like a bag with a picture on it. And I was like, I can’t do this. I can’t do this and ended up spending an inordinate amount of time, making these costumes for my kids and they are in their forties and they still talk about it, that it was one of the best things. It was time so well spent creating memories for them. 

But I think that you know, and as I had other jobs, I had my kids work in my business. Do you know, I mean, they said it was child labor, but had to play some, you know, having caretakers and stuff like that. But the thing is.

I think that when you know what you want to be remembered for, and you realize that, you know, I was brought up to believe, you know, you’re a power woman, you can do everything. And I, you know, what I realized is you can do everything. You just can’t do it all at the same time. And so you just kind of have to pick and choose and, and you get to do that.

That’s your power is that you get to pick and choose. So I think that. I’ve learned a great deal about stress. And I’m not, I’m not beyond saying you know, if you need a pharmaceutical, I mean, my, my doctor said to me, do you have anxiety? And I was like, no. And then I said, well, what is anxiety? And he said, that’s when you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re worried, about, and that was when I was going through the caretaking with my parents and I’m like, oh God. Yes, do I have anxiety? 

And so as an entrepreneur, one of the things we tend to do is think we can do it by ourselves. That feeling that I am strong, I should not need help, or I can do this myself, is like the kiss of death. 

There is so much help it’s out there. If you ask, if you let somebody know, because you presented yourself as being so strong, everybody thinks, well, she can handle it. And so they don’t think that they don’t think of asking you, can you help? And sometimes the help shows up in the weirdest way.

It’s a simple thing. Like I’m going to the store, you know, a neighbor saying I’m going to the store. Can I pick something up for you? Or it can be it, or it can be a collaboration that you have with a business person where you say, you know what, I’m so far behind in my marketing, can you send this out on an email to your list and help me?

Right. So it comes in lots of ways, but you know, you have to, you have to show up and you have to have. 

Susi: Right. We need to keep our eyes open for those opportunities and stop thinking- and I certainly came through- so I’ve had a lot of different careers and I worked in technical theater and scene shops, you know, with the guys and “I can do anything, any guy can do”.

You know, and I, I imagine getting ahead in the corporate field as well, there’s a long time where you feel, you have to prove you can do anything any guy can do just as well. And finally, we get to that place where we get to stand in our own power and say, You can help me out with that. 

Yeah. Let me, let me hand this off to you because I’m better spent here. This is where my energy really shines. This is what I can move the needle on. Yeah. So thank you for that. I think that productivity is one of the primary issues that I see coming up. You know, we wish we had more time in the day and we’re not asking ourselves, well, what are we doing with that time? What can we start to move off of our plate, in order to make better choices and, 

Yvonne: Can I give you a really fast exercise that people can do. If any of you are list makers, I’m going to suggest that you, I call it the divided to do list. So you start your list on the left-hand side of the page, you know, one through 10 or whatever, but you draw a line through it.

And so on the left-hand side, there are the things that you have to do. And on the right hand side are the things that you want to do. Now, the reality is the things that you have to do will get done. They always do. You know, the things that you want to do, you don’t make time for. And so what I tell people to do is put your list of the things that you want to do and start your day off with something that you want to do, right? And then do something that you have to do then do something that you want to do then go back. 

So one of the things that happens is that old law, which is true, is whatever you have to do, will fill whatever time you have. When you fill some of that time up with what you want to do, you will spend less time on what you have to do.

And you’ll be so much happier. You will have so much. It’s amazing when you start today, one thing that you want to do, how energized it makes you during your day? 

Susi: Permission granted! I love this because we do and so many different aspects. Everything expands to fit the time it’s allowed. So we have to put ourselves first.

If we’re going to make that list at all, I love this. This is a new kind of list on me, and I think I’m going to give it a try. 

Yvonne: Oh, you should. And the other piece to that is what I call the 45 minute hour, is that instead of locking out an hour, you only block out 45 minutes. This is not something you can live with indefinitely. This is, you say, I’m going to do this for a morning because you know, it really gets you going, but you spend 45 minutes on whatever that project or big thing is, and then you take the 15 minutes left to do those little things that you have to do. Answer the email, make a call, then you go back to it. And you would be surprised. It basically adds a couple hours to your day. Of accomplishment, not the actual hours.

Susi: Ooh, two to two fabulous tips. I love that. I love that the 45 minute hour, I have to say having those really clear designated blocks of this is what I’m doing. This, this is what I’m doing. This helps. I just, I need some rails, especially when it comes to finding my way out of the email inbox. Right?

Yvonne: Oh, and, and, and here’s the best thing. This is probably something you could benefit from, is if you have a meeting that’s scheduled, that has a hard start, the 15 minutes before that meeting is when you go into your email or go into the Facebook or whatever, because it makes you stop. Right. 

And, and the last part to this is modify whatever to fit you so that it works because if it doesn’t work for you, it doesn’t work. It can be the best strategy in the world, but if it doesn’t fit your personality or the way you like to work, it, it doesn’t work. And it’s not, it’s not that there’s something wrong with you. It’s just that you need to modify that strategy so that it succeeds.

Susi: Beautiful. I love it because we do, as we go through this journey and get to know ourselves better, hopefully we are getting clear on what works for us and doesn’t, and so we can better adapt and modify and optimize that for our benefit. And I love that you, you were talking too, so I want to come back to the benefit of, of doing this with your legacy in mind of doing this.

And you mentioned, and I think it’s so important. People overlook the power of just simply being present for experiences. 

Yvonne: Yes. 

Susi: And so I’m so glad that you share that too, and I hope that might spark some ideas or give people permission to daydream. What kind of experiences would they like to make time and space for?

Yvonne: Yes, absolutely. 

This has been a lot of fun. Thank you. 

Susi: Terrific. How can people get in touch with you? 

Yvonne: I have a giveaway. A free gift. If that’s possible, it’s www.theonesmallchange/GPS giveaway. It is a 20 minute video course, and it’s got some bonuses that go with it that talk about how you can think about your legacy and how you can be more productive.

Susi: Beautiful. Thank you for bringing your wisdom and insights, your MBA from Wharton and your cooking tips. It’s, it’s the, it’s the full spectrum. You know, we really are everything that we choose to bring to the table. And I appreciate the example that you share. 

Yvonne: Well, I enjoyed this immensely and I’m so glad we got the hookup at Podapalooza- that’s a hard one. 

Susi: I know it’s a tongue twister and, and a fast and furious day, but this has been such a treat. I’m so glad that we were matched. I know my audience is going to love these tips and have fun taming their to do list. 

Yvonne: Sounds good to me. Be effective. 

Susi: That’s right. That’s right. And enjoy more.

Yvonne: Let me, can I just say one other thing and that is. You’re never finished. So that’s a fallacy that’ll make you crazy. And when the time when you’re finally finished is, when you’re dead, so you don’t want to be finished, 

Susi: it’s time to take the pressure off. Right. Let’s just take that expectation off the list.

Beautiful. Thank you so very much, Yvonne, it’s been a treat. I enjoyed it. Take care and enjoy the rest of your day. 

Yvonne: All right, you too, bye.