4 Reminders when everything feels broken

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:When my marriage was a mess, when my business was a mess, when my time, I was reacting in every possible orifice of responsibility. I didn't feel like I was as present as I wanted to be for my kids. I felt like I was reacting to my own health. I had a moment, more than one moment, lots of moments, where it was like, what do I have to give back to life? What do I have to not say yes to what has to be an or for for me to be able to feel like my life is sustainable?

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:29]:I'm a small town kid born with a big city spirit.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:32]:I choose to play a lot of awesome roles in life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:35]:Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. 17 years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy. And ever since, my husband, J.R. and I have been building our careers and our family on the exact same timeline. Yep, that means four kids, three businesses, two careers, all building towards one life we love. When I discovered I could purposefully embrace all of these ands in my life, it unlocked my world. And I want that for you, too. Im Tiffany Sauder and this is scared, confident.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:11]:I have a friend thats going through one of those seasons in life and business where, like, everything is super hard. And I think whenever you watch somebody close to you go through a season like that, you can't help but call up and remember your own moments when you practically felt like a fool for having worked so hard towards what suddenly felt like it was just a dead end. And 2018 was that year for me. Literally everything broke in the most extreme way. And I remember just being like, I'm just an idiot. Like, I'm an idiot for having dreamed. I'm an idiot for having believed I could do this. I'm an idiot for working so hard.

Tiffany Sauder [00:01:58]:I'm an idiot for taking so much risk. I'm an idiot for just, like, believing I could be one of the ones. That was, like, not a statistic of just being a casualty of somebody wanting to start a small business. And it was a really, really, really hard time. And as I was sitting in her story and pain and reflecting on my own, there were four pieces of advice that I offered up that I thought, maybe I'll just go ahead and record a podcast about it, too. Because maybe you're in a season where everything is hard, everything is breaking, and secretly you feel like a fool for having believed that you could do something special and that you were something special and that there was something special in you that the world needed to see. So these are my four pieces of advice, and I'll add a little bit of color to them. I don't know if it's even advice.

Tiffany Sauder [00:02:50]:It's like the letter to myself in 2018. This is what I wish I would have known or what I would go back and tell myself is coming. So the first one is that patience is your friend. Patience is your friend, and it's going to take longer than you think to fix your problems. But fixing it right is going to give you everything you want. And fixing it quickly will only delay the eventual timeline of needing to fix it right. Fixing it quickly will only delay the eventual timeline that will only start when you fix it right. When you're in pain and you're in this, like, vulnerable state, it can feel like, I just want this pain to go away quickly.

Tiffany Sauder [00:03:34]:I want to make a magic higher. I need to get a great big client. There's like, this triage that, yes, needs to happen to stop the bleeding. But in your desire to make the pain go away, you can try to fix it too quickly instead of realizing, like, there are a lot of layers and a lot of consequences and a lot of things that are going to need to be fixed for the thing I want, the thing I need to actually be redeemed. So for me, I was working my face off. I needed a financial return for my risk and my time that I was not getting. I needed more availability for my family that I did not have. I needed more flexibility.

Tiffany Sauder [00:04:16]:There were things that I needed in my life that were not sustainable for me in what was happening in that season of my life. And I wanted all of those things in 90 days or less to come true. It took like, three years, maybe three and a half years, because it was like we had this really, really tough season in the business. We made a lot of really, really hard decisions. And then, bam, COVID came. And just as I was, like, thinking I was going to get my breath, we had a baby and COVID hit, and it was like, anything but getting my breath. And so there was another twelve to 18 months of, like, just working really hard and being really, really, really tired, but beginning to see some increments of progress towards the right people being in place, the right decisions being in place, the right strategy being in place, pulling back on my time in some areas so that it was more sustainable. So patience is your friend when you're a high achiever and you are used to getting quick success and you are used to being the results not typical person on the field, which I feel that so strongly.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:21]:The idea of being patient feels ridiculous when you're in pain. And three years, when I say that out loud, sounds long when you're in pain, but is actually short in the grand scheme of your life. When it comes to, like, getting things to a completely new place, a completely new level of functioning, it's actually not that long. So that's the first one. Patience is your friend. It's going to take longer than you think to fix it. That doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. This is not a place where one big band aid, one big hire.

Tiffany Sauder [00:05:55]:If it was simple, you would have solved it a long time ago. It's complex, and there's a lot of little things that need to be solved. I remember, I don't know, actually, if she's a good leader or not, but I remember Meg Whitman, like, a thousand years ago, was hired to, I think, turn around HP. It was, okay, so, like, how long ago this quote was? And when she was hired, analysts and stuff were like, yeah, how long is it going to take you to, like, turn this thing around and fix it? And she's like, if it was one or two big things, they would have already found it. It's a hundred small things that need to be changed for this organization to get back on track. And I remember reading that, and I was probably in my early twenties, and I was like, oh, jeez, that sounds so overwhelming. What a terrible job. But that's how it is.

Tiffany Sauder [00:06:38]:When you're creating massive change, it takes patience. So that does not mean sit in the pain and let it just boil. You need to see incremental progress along the way, or you're not moving in the right direction. But patience is your friend. That's the first one. The second is that gut instinct is still your superpower. Again, when you're in these moments of pain, you can lose your confidence so quickly, or at least I did. So when you lose your confidence, you're sort of like, what do I fall back on? I've never seen these problems before.

Tiffany Sauder [00:07:10]:If I knew what to do, I'd already be doing it. If I had the right people in place, we wouldn't be here. If I was the right person for the job, we wouldn't be so screwed. It's like, where do I start? And so the second one is your gut instinct to sell your superpower. Don't ignore it. Yes, you're solving problems that you've never seen before, but your gut about people and problems will continue to serve you. And when you're in this place of, like, extreme insecurity, you cannot call up your instincts that, like gut that has led you along the way is still your friend. So it's this teeter totter between surrounding yourself with people who have been there before, asking questions of people who have seen bigger fields than you, have solved bigger problems, who have led bigger organizations, who have closed bigger deals, whatever it is, yes, you have to get knowledge from people who have been in this war before.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:02]:But your gut, your culture, your rudder is still relevant in this situation, because there is not just one right way to do this business thing that a lot of us are trying to do. So your gut instinct is still your superpower. Don't turn it off. Yes, you might be in a jam. Yes, you might feel like you've got some issues on your hands, but go back and trust your gut. For me, it's always served me very, very well, especially when it comes to people. I just have a sense about things. So your gut instinct is still your superpower.

Tiffany Sauder [00:08:35]:Okay. The third one is your dreams are not irrelevant. Being a present mom, an accomplished businesswoman, a respected person in the community, and a passionate marriage, these are all possible simultaneously. But the tools you have may not be the ones to get you there. So the tip I have is you've got to change your tools, not your dream. When my marriage was a mess, when my business was a mess, when my time, I was reacting in every possible orifice of responsibility. I didn't feel like I was as present as I wanted to be for my kids. I felt like I was reacting to my own health.

Tiffany Sauder [00:09:11]:I had a moment, more than one moment, lots of moments, where it was like, what do I have to give back to life? What do I have to not say yes to what has to be an or for me to be able to feel like my life is sustainable. I didn't want there to be ors. I wanted to live this life of Anne. That's like the premise of this whole crazy show and a life of and requires you to continue to level up the toolbox that you have to manage your time, to manage yourself, to be proactive, to manage your home, to communicate with people that you love, to set priorities, to understand your values, to look ahead and understand what the season of life requires. That is how you change your tools and not give back your dreams. And I think in this, like, mid life stage of living where you've committed to jobs, you've committed to mortgages, you've committed to kids, you've committed to communities, you've committed to churches, you've committed to all these things, we can get to the place where we're so overwhelmed that what we do is we give back a dream, and we don't have the humility to step back and say, I just don't have the toolbox to grant that life to myself yet. I have got to level up the way I am doing life, not level down my expectations of life. And it's hard both ways.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:31]:It's hard to give back dreams, and it's hard to level up your toolbox. But, like, that, for me, was a huge unlock. That is how you live a life of. And is that you constantly stay in the game and level up your toolbox and not give up your dreams. So do they happen all at the same time? Absolutely not. Can you do 100% of the things 100% of the way? Well, every single day of the year? No, you can't. It takes progress. It takes intention.

Tiffany Sauder [00:10:56]:It takes rabid prioritization. It takes all of those things. But change the tool is not the dream. And I lived for a while in this moment of, like, I'm so overwhelmed and I'm so tired and I'm so defeated. I don't know how to get back on top of life without giving it back all the things that I think I want. And so do I have to decide to be a mom or have this business? Do I have to decide to just have element three or be able to invest in other people and ideas and leaders that I believe in? Like, can I do both of those things? And now I, like, tell myself, I don't have the tools yet to be able to do that. But once I've learned them, then I can step into that. So change the tools, not the dream.

Tiffany Sauder [00:11:40]:The last thing I'll talk about may not be relevant to everybody listening, but some of you, it may. When you're in a place of pain in your business, it can also be an option to take on other people's money to help you out of that pain. You know, maybe you're in a financial hole. Maybe you need a partner, maybe you need to hire, and you can't afford them. And I took a look at that a couple of times about what would it look like to bring on a financial partner to help us get out of the season that we were in, and we ultimately have decided to remain independent and to not do that again. That can be a right choice for people. And who knows? Someday that might be a right choice for us. But it does not.

Tiffany Sauder [00:12:18]:It's not. Not on the horizon right now, for sure, but a reminder that other people's money comes with other people's plans, other people's pressures, other people's expectations. And that's a very expensive thing to give up. And again, not to say you never should, but really, really thinking through that thoroughly, because that is a long term choice. To say I have a short term problem that feels very financial. If I get this big check or I relieve this financial pressure of the business, then that at least takes care of that. But you do inherit a new problem or a new problemity because you've got other people's plans, other people's pressures, other people's returns, other people's expectations that have to be fulfilled. And I think I'm mostly unemployable at this point in my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:08]:I value independence a lot. I like to be able to do decide what growth rate is right for the business. I like to be able to decide how long we want to give talent, to be able to get up to speed and be successful. I like to be able to decide if there's a quarter that we want to eat into our margin, to make a big investment in a marketing strategy that we're trying. I want to be able to make those choices. And so remaining independent and not taking on somebody else's money, and therefore their expectations and their returns has been a, I would say an anchored part of our strategy. There were seasons where that was very confusing to me. I didn't know what the right thing was, and my near term pains were so great that taking on somebody's money would have felt like a life raft.

Tiffany Sauder [00:13:55]:But I would have been giving up a lot in exchange for that. Again, this is not to tell you what the right decision is for you, but it is to say, in anything in life, sometimes the short term pain can get us into long term payoff. A long term contract that we may not want to fully fulfill, I think that's the right way to say it. A short term fix can sometimes turn into a long term contract that we don't necessarily want to fulfill, or we didn't understand the impact of what it would take to totally fulfill that. So just some encouragement. If you're in a season where things are just hard, they're very, very, very hard. I see you. I hear you.

Tiffany Sauder [00:14:33]:Be patient. Trust your gut. Level up your tools, and make sure that you're making decisions today that are aligned with long term, where you want to be, where you want to go, and what you want your life to look like. Those can be really important. I shared my story, some of you listening joined when I talked last year at the, at a big conference for small and mid sized businesses. At the EOS conference. We'll also put a link in show notes if you want to a little more, I'd say, like upfront look at the story of 2018 and how I, we, all of us came back from that. There's more.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:08]:I'd say insights inside of that presentation. If you have an interest in looking at it, it's on YouTube, and we'll provide a link in this episode as well. But hang in there. It doesn't persist forever. But make sure that you see incremental progress on what you're moving towards. And if you don't know what you're moving towards, start there. Figure that out. Thanks for listening.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:27]:Thank you for joining me on another episode of Scared Confident. Until next time, keep telling fear. You will not decide what happens in my life.

Tiffany Sauder [00:15:36]:I will.

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