Do it or delegate it: A candid Q&A chat about in-home help

Tiffany Sauder: I wanted to expand on a few things I talked about on last week's episode. So I invited Rachel Downey onto the pod this week to help us dive a little deeper into the challenges of doing life with a really big job. So as a quick reminder, who's Rachel? Rachel Downey I think, plays two roles.

One, she's been part of this project with me since the very beginning, like the first word. and she's the founder and CEO of Share Your Genius, the company that produces this podcast. and I'm an investor in that company. And so I would say I have a really close relationship and I have a window into the fact that she is trying to figure out this two career life for sure with her husband and her three kids.

So that's who Rachel is. And I thought she'd just have a great perspective on this Q and A, I always find her questions so insightful and they help me remember a little bit differently. And so I invited Rachel onto. Kind of help us dive into this conversation a little bit deeper. So we're going to pick right up in the conversation where I'm expanding on what does it mean when I say having a big job, like that's a pretty opaque thing to say. So listen in, this is what I mean.

So when I say big job What I mean by that is you don't have to be a founder or a CEO or have some VP or C level title What I mean by that is that you are responsible for solving not just doing Inside of your job at work and likely you're at some level of leadership in the job that you're in.

And that could be like actual organizational leadership. Like, you have direct reports or you're leading a client or you're leading a campaign or you're leading project management. And the reason I say that is because I think. You know, they talk about how we only have the capacity for so many decisions in a day.

I think we only have so much solving capacity. And when we are solving. All day long in our jobs, meaning we're given something that is the unknown. We're asking to give form to it. that capacity gets all used up in our jobs. And then we have.

No capacity for that at home. like, you're just tired. It's not that you can't, it's not that you don't actually have any ideas. It's that you've spent all those units of energy in the place that you're leading in the place that you're solving in the place that there's complexity. And so then you're given a very similar set of things at home, which is like, Hey, can you solve this thing that has a lot of different people involved and a lot of variabilities that you're trying to control. And you're just like, I just, I literally, I just can't, because we're just out of capacity. And so that's what I mean by having a big job. It doesn't mean that you have to have taken on venture capital or be a leader from the age of four years old. That is not what I mean. I mean that you are in a solving capacity and you're trusted with hard problems. That's what I mean by a big job.

Rachel Downey: Okay. So the thing that I was most attracted to personally when I was listening to the episode is when you started to talk about the, Sort of emotional demands when it comes to like relationships. Cause like, that's personally where I start to feel overwhelmed in my own life is like, you know, leaving text messages on red or not actually getting my social cup refilled because I don't want to do anything  how do you, think about making time for relationships? Do you retire some friendships? where do you create capacity for that? Especially when you have kids. that you're raising that are starting to have friends and like, I want to know the friends parents that my kids are trying to play with. like how do I manage all these relationships?

Tiffany Sauder. : Yeah. So,I have recently taken the, six geniuses assessment. it's one of Patrick Lencioni’s like new things. And one of my strengths, this is relevant is galvanizer, which is about bringing people together. And so I would say that strength. Is something I didn't know I leveraged and keeping communities like those relationships maintained, but it definitely is.

So, like, for example, do things as much as possible, like, more than 1 thing is getting done. So, when I was at the height of my. Time demands inside of element three. I never worked out alone. That was a social time for me. And it was like, other friends that were working 30 in the morning, like I would train for a half marathon with a girlfriend or with my sister in law.

And I would do that a, it was like a trap for me if I'd committed to it with somebody else, it was going to make me do it, but also It was usually with somebody where I was like, I want to tend to this relationship. It's important to me, but the concept of it being additive to my life is like functionally not possible.

I don't have time for coffee. I don't wine with the ladies, like that kind of stuff. I just didn't have capacity for it. So I would put the relationship stuff inside something else I already wanted to do, or it was like very directed to my priorities. and you know, some would say, well, I need that time to be by myself and my thoughts.

I totally get it. to me, it was the better of the 2, those are like, both good outcomes, like running with a friend and running by myself. But for me, I just knew I wasn't going to touch those relationships. Well, if I didn't have an activity that was towards 1 of the things I wanted to do, I would say another thing I do is I use my drive time to like pretty much always be on the phone. that's when I call my mom, that's when I call my best friend, it's when I call my sister and I don't always get a chance to talk to them, but I can leave them a message that says, I want, you know, I'm thinking about you, I love you. And like almost an automatic for me now but it's just a way that I tend to those things. The other behavior I've tried to do is both like before I go to bed or kind of like your last touch of your phone, I try to go through my text messages. At the end of the night,  like, I'm just gonna go through all my texts, make sure that I've taken care of the things that I can.I would say I'm notorious for not being good at. The,text message banter and the, like, gif game and all that, I'm sort of the one to, like, I just read 32 of them, like, ha ha, and then I move on, it's just, like, not a thing that gives me energy,  you know, I think people get a lot of energy from one to one, I'm a one to many, I can have dinner with eight people and feel like I connected with each of them. So being thoughtful about whether it just be like quarterly or like three times a year with like the people you really care about, get them all together, get them to know each other and have that be a thing you host. It's like the people you love dinner and it becomes a way for you to attend those relationships. But I'm really thoughtful about, like, every board I join is another community to maintain relationships with, like, every coaching, community that you sign up for is another place that you have to tend to those relationships. And so I don't think we always. Quantify well, the impact of saying yes to some of those things and what it means for some of that invisible time to do it. Well, and I just, I prune that.just aware that I, I, I don't have the capacity for there to be as many groups as I'd probably like, for me to go as deeply as I want to, and the communities that I think I can really serve.

And so I've just, I've learned that over time. like I'm a woman and I know marketing. Every board is looking for diversity. I love that. And everybody needs marketing. And so I get tons of board opportunities. I'm like very judicious about if those things do not drive primary value for the things that are my primary priority.

Which is the companies that I am building, then I am going to say no to them right now. So like, being part of things that are impacting children, being things that are dealing with food insecurity, like those are really important causes. Those are just not my causes right now.  it's like, the best thing I can do for my energy is to do things that are aligned with the things I've already said yes to. And there will be a season. I know it where I have capacity to go and dug into some of the things that we love the one not for profit that we're involved in. lambs where like they don't have a minimum age that you can volunteer there. Well, when you have kids from 14 to 3 years old, you can't go volunteer as a family at a lot of places like food pantries and where those places like, like rightly have minimum ages. And so I really looked for something that was connected to something that we cared about kids in the foster care system was connected to something I wanted to do, which is serve as a family.  And like we are involved with them in our church, we're involved with them as a family, we're involved with them in our family foundation. And so There's a lot of different paths into that organization, and we can do it as a family. And not taking me away from that community of my family was an important choice and what we chose to get involved with as a family.

So I'm not going off to some board meeting that everybody can't be with me. not just like me and the big girls going to do something. It keeps our whole family together to serve that organization. And I would say that as an example of like being judicious with. You're putting your energy to be sure it's aligned to your first priorities. And right now I'm in the meat of raising these kids. And, to the extent that I can take them with me on the things that I'm doing, I think we're all better for it.

Rachel Downey: cool. the other question I have is, how do you weigh the option of like, well, if you have sort of like a bonus or extra money that you could put aside towards getting more help for your home, would it be wise to do that? Or would it be wise to actually allocate that towards paying down any other debt you might have?

Tiffany Sauder. : So there are definitely competing schools of thought and let's talk about those maybe individually. And then I'll tell you how I decided how to think about these, you listen to You know, thought leaders like Dave Ramsey, and they are rightly telling, us as consumers and households, like pay down debt as fast as you can. That is the primary objective. That's kind of like me summarizing what I hear is like, Hey, look, you know, pick your highest interest rate thing, make as aggressive payments as you can, because the sooner you can get that free.

The better. And like, generally speaking, that is very sound advice. And then you have this other world where they say, Hey, if you're doing 25 an hour work and you are earning more than 25 an hour, then you should not do 25 an hour work. You should think about an exchange of. Resource and time pay somebody to do 25 an hour work. And then you have the capacity to go make 150 or 250 or 398 an hour, whatever it is. And so then there's that school of thought. And I think either one of those taken to an extreme. In my experience, don't work for the way life actually lives out. In my own experience, there were seasons where Jr and I could be in aggressively paying down debt mode without sacrificing our relationship and without sacrificing our sanity and without sacrificing this word sustainable. Like our life being sustainable and there have been seasons where we're in one of them now. I mean, there are a lot more I don't know things we could have savings we could have if I was not spending so much money on help Like it is just true. We would have more cash

Tiffany Sauder. : We could invest that cash right now at 8 percent just in a CD, It's like, why would you not try to save as much money as you can right now and put it in a very low risk financial tool that's going to give you 8 percent back. but the, stress and the conflict and the lack of peace and the lack of sustainability that would come from making that decision would make it where we were sacrificing things that were much more important to us than money. We would be sacrificing our relationship.

We would be sacrificing just like intimacy that we have as a family because we actually have time for each other. And so I think that that's the tightrope that we have to walk as families and like in our individual situations of there are seasons where you. Are not going to be uniquely qualified to fold your laundry, but you have to fold your laundry because you don't have the resources to pay somebody to do it.

But most of us are in places where we make more money than it would cost for somebody else to be the 1 who's folding underwear. And so. You know, most of us are spending four to eight hours a week on laundry. That's a ton of time. What would happen if you took half of that time and gave it to your family or to yourself and half of that time and gave it to your job and the thing that's paying for you, like what would happen to your earning potential?

What would happen to your income? What would happen to the thing you're building? What, what would happen? And I think you know, at the end of the day, we're making bets on that. You don't have a crystal ball to say a hundred percent, but that's how I think about it. These are 15 an hour job or a 20 an hour job or a 25 an hour job. I can get somebody to do it for that. And I can use that time productively. to add more value to the leaders I'm leading, to add more value to the businesses I'm invested in, to add more value to myself and my health, or to add more value to my family, that, that's like an exchange I'll make all day long and I've become of manic about that exchange, and proving to myself.

Cause it's sometimes actually easier and more mundane to just be like, I'm just gonna fold my laundry instead of figuring out what am I going to do with eight more hours of time? How do I use that productively? How do I like three X some stuff I'm working on? how do I do that? Like that's actually harder just tactically administering.

The mundane the same way every week is easier than figuring out how to strategically solve and do that exchange. So, you know, I think we think about that in our businesses all the time. How do you get the right level of person doing the right level of work? You know, if you're paying somebody 150 grand and they're doing work, somebody for 40, 000 can do, you'd make that exchange every time, but we don't think about our households in the same way.

and. those of us who are in like high earning income,jobs, I think sometimes we're doing ourselves a disservice and not thinking about that exchange productively.

Rachel Downey: So the last two weeks, Olive had two events at her school, a bingo bash and a Halloween parade, both at like 9 a. m. Um, guess who didn't attend either one of those things? there's no way. And so, I didn't make it a big deal. I didn't even like talk about it. I just was like, I have commitments and the way that my calendar's been lately, it's like, two weeks out now is as far as I Can go, and that's a newer experience that I've had in the last six months, where it becomes less flexible than it used to be.

and so she came home and she was like, Hey, I almost cried today. And I was like, why? And she was like, because we had a parade and you weren't there. And I have never felt mom guilt ever until then. And I was like, damn, like, should I have been there? Like, should I have made that a priority and showed up?

what I'm like thinking a little bit about is like how you balance those demands. Cause it's not even the guilt. It's just kind of like, man, my priority is out of whack. Do you know what I mean? Of like, yeah,

Tiffany Sauder. : and all of us who have worked outside the home for a long period of time and have kids you'll have a couple of those

Well one of the things I do is ask my kids what's important to them because we make these unilateral Choices for our kids about what we're there for and what we're not thinking if one of them cared They're all gonna care.

So I would like talk to her about Like what made you cry? why did you want mommy there? And like kind of begin to understand for that kid, how is it going to be important that you show up for her? Because this parade thing is going to be some version of the same thing that was like meaningful to her when she's 8, when she's 13, and it's like, it's the same.

I find with my kids, they need me very differently. Ainsley, my second one. She wants me to be in the classroom. It's so important for her that like her friends know who her mom is. And this is like all a part of her feeling like everybody's a community and together and everybody knows my mom.

Aubrey literally doesn't. Hardly acknowledge my existence. If I come into anything, it's like a little embarrassing to her that I'm there. Stop making a big deal. You know, so it's, I think it's learning and understanding because for her, you may need to say, I've learned this is really important to my kid that I'm there.

This came up four days ago. and just going to have to like work hard to move it. But don't make the unilateral choice that for every kid, for every event until the end of time, this thing has taught me that I always need to make sure I'm there for my kids.

Okay. Because they're for your kids means a lot of different things and it means a little something different to each kid.

I have missed lots of things. First days of kindergarten and all that kind of stuff. but what I would be looking for somebody at church, somebody in your neighborhood, a babysitter who is there a lot, somebody you can call to be the familiar, loving eyeballs in the audience when it can't be you. And know that that's more what it's about likely is seeing somebody familiar is seeing somebody who's there for me and I use my sitters for that. Sometimes I've used old nannies for that before and just be like, I just need somebody to be there to be like, Hey, I saw you. You did so good. I sent a video to your mom, or for me to send a video to them that says, I'm so excited for you today.

to be doing this. And it's just like. Them knowing I see them and I want to be there and it's another way of being there because sometimes you are actually out of town or you're at a conference or whatever. It's like looking for those people that can be stand in like love and familiarity because it's often as much that as it is it being my mom was there. Um, I also actually think it's okay for our kids to experience being disappointed. And I think that it's okay for us to work through with them. How could I have made you feel seen and loved if I couldn't have been there? I mean, like I've missed birthdays.

And so I like make the breakfast the day before a really big deal. Cause what I've learned, it's about not about me being there for their birthday. It's about them feeling like I made a big deal about them. And so I sometimes put that on my timeline. and so maybe that night you could have like done a family parade and she could have had a chance to sort of do the things she did and show you.

And so think being creative with the way that they feel loved and being disappointed as part of life and us. Being okay in that space with them doesn't make you bad or wrong, you know, it may mean that we need to learn from it and we need to communicate and we need to like, make sure that we're evolving our understanding of what our kids need from us,

Rachel Downey: Great. Those are my questions.

Tiffany Sauder. : okay, great.