Regrets & Good Decisions. What I'd do again, and what I'd do differently

Tiffany Sauder [00:00:00]:

Once I began to be like, oh, my word, I'm actually going to get a lot further, faster if I have a problem in my pocket that I'm always trying to solve, so that when I meet people that are further along than me, I can just say, like, yeah, this is what I'm dealing with right now. And it created more authentic relationships. It helped me solve faster. All kinds of good things happened from me asking for help, and I think I'm much better at that now. But I would have go back and tell myself, like, do that faster.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:32]:

I'm a small town kid born with a big city spirit. I choose to play a lot of.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:37]:

Awesome roles in life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:00:38]:

Mom, wife, entrepreneur, CEO, board member, investor, and mentor. 17 years ago, I founded a marketing consultancy. And ever since, my husband, junior, 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. I'm Tiffany Sauder, and this is Scared Confident.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:01:14]:

I got a really good question sent in, and so I thought I would just actually use that as the prompt for this episode today. And the question was, what decisions would you make differently, both in your professional and your family life? And I expanded this question to be also, like, what are decisions? I'm grateful we made, because I think that maybe just because it's more natural for me to see what's right about things versus what's wrong. But I do have a list of good decisions that came to mind for me and some things that we would. I think I would do differently if I had a chance to. But I would encourage you to ask yourself this question, too. It was like, a really interesting journal prompt to just go back through the last, I don't know, 20 years. I'm looking at this as, like, our. My married life, and pull out, what were the decisions I'm glad we made, and what were the things that we do differently? So I'm gonna buzz through those real quickly.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:08]:

I'll start with the things we would do differently. We'll end with the positive things that I would do differently. I would go back and plead with myself to make time with junior more of a priority. I think we were really good at, I don't know, doing things that were scheduled for us, like when friends got married and things like that. But we didn't have a good habit early in our marriage. I don't think of just making one another a priority. And so I don't know, I would just do that differently. Make the habit of making one another a priority.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:02:43]:

I'm very independent and so is he. And so it like, it's, the thing that happens to us is that we drift apart and we drift into our individual worlds. I think just couples have different natural habits that they fall into, and that is ours is that we fall into independence instead of dependence on one another. And so that would be one. And this is a work thing is I would elevate an operational partner earlier in the journey of element three. So I am a sales and marketing mind. I feel like I know how to create demand and have ideas. I am not as good at creating the operational infrastructure for those things to take place repeatedly, to not reinvent things over and over again, to let things actually get to like, mastery level.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:29]:

Those are not things that I'm good at. And I understand that about myself much better now. And so I think we would have gone further, faster if I had elevated a true operational partner earlier in the journey. At elementary, I just think that would be true. And I'm seeing the evidence of that kind of having the yin and yang inside the business today. It's much more successful. So I would do that differently. And then the other thing I wrote down was just like asking for help sooner in all areas of my life.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:03:57]:

And I was going back to my, like probably late twenties, early thirties with this, where I was a really young leader. I didn't really know anybody in the city. And I was like, felt like I had this huge chip on my shoulder that I needed to prove that I was smart, that I could compete, that I could figure out how to grow this business. I could do all the things. And I remember kind of feeling like I needed to have almost like Teflon on, like everything needed to be. And I think as I started to exercise, I think is actually pretty natural vulnerability. And once I began to be like, oh my word, I'm actually going to get a lot further, faster if I have a problem in my pocket that I'm always trying to solve. So that when I meet people that are further along than me, I can just say like, yeah, this is what I'm dealing with right now.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:04:45]:

And it created more authentic relationships. It helped me solve faster. All kinds of good things happened from me asking for help. And I think I'm much better at that now. But I would have go back and tell myself, like, do that faster. Some good decisions that we made, I don't know why this one came to mind for me first, but in home care we've always had nannies. Only one of our kids went to an outside daycare for like a year. Other than that, we've had in home care.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:05:15]:

And I have a full episode on why I think that's been the right decision for us. But outside of whether your kids are learning their abcs and getting socialized and all of that, like, you need to decide kind of what you want for your kid and what's the right solution. But in home care for us was less about that stuff, actually, and more about when I had somebody home all day long, they could help me with stuff in the house. So I preach like, stop doing your laundry. Our nanny has, I mean, I haven't done the kids laundry in a really long time because our nanny always helped with that. Like, even when we just had one at home. Helping with things like can you peel the vegetables, can you prep things for dinner? They don't have to like do the full meal deal. But helping you just get that like 1st 20 minutes done really helped me be able to be more efficient at home for like a really, really long time.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:06:07]:

So I set the expectations when we were hiring our in home care that, hey, this is probably 75% childcare and 25% helping with other stuff in the house, wrapping gifts, going to the grocery store, cutting veggies, making a return, going to the post office, getting some stamps, just the stuff that needs to happen at home. And so I think that was a really good decision. I think it allowed me to maximize the time that I was away from the kids, that like 98% of it was spent on working on the business and creating revenue and creating the business and creating growth. And I was able to be really focused because I had support at home. So again, I'm not saying you have to do that, but I think that was the right choice for us and has continued to feel like the right choice. Another good decision that we made is Jarrah and I have been always on the same page with this. It's just not going into personal debt like consumer debt. We have a mortgage and we've at times had a payment on one car, but have just lived under our means for most of our lives.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:07:14]:

And that has allowed us to take risks financially. That has allowed us to take some of our income and make investments that create income and just not going into debt for things like vacations and designer handbags and making sure that you have a new dress for a friend's wedding. Like, we've just always been really disciplined about that. I think we both grew up in fiscally responsible households, and so that is certainly part of it. But I think that that has created a lot of flexibility in the risks that we could take in our jobs because we didn't have a bunch of debt that we were servicing as we've gotten older. So that continues to, I would say, be a real guiding piece for us as we make choices for our family. And then the other just good decisions column I wrote, living close to family, we have had opportunities to move and live different places other than here in Indianapolis, but living close to family has been a real intentional choice for us. Some of it is certainly the support that it lends us.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:08:16]:

And, like, just having somebody that can go pick up a kid, I know not everybody has this option, but this has been a really intentional choice for us. And just also having people that love your kids as much as you do and, like, are speaking into them and helping to raise them. And again, I know friends can do this, too, and we have friends that feel like family, but it's just been a good decision for us. And I think we both feel really at peace with that choice. I made a list of the questions. I was like, I wonder what this person was really meaning when they said, what decisions would you make differently, professional and family? And I was like, I bet it actually didn't have anything to do with the things I chose. I wonder if it was things like, are you glad that you had your kids far apart? Are you glad that you got married relatively young? Are you glad that you worked outside of the home? And to me, those are such foundational choices, like having your kids close or having them far apart. Like to say, I wish I would have done that differently, would change the construct of our family to such a material degree.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:24]:

I can't even picture it. That would be a different family. So that feels like unpicking my kids. That, to me, is not one of those things where it's like, oh, wow, I wish I would have had them closely. Like, this is really hard having them far apart. And I look at these choices, like, when do you have your kids? When do you start a family? Do you get married young or not get married young? Do you work outside of the home? Some of those choices are things like, there is not a right and a wrong way to do them. There is your actual path. And having any kind of regret around those things.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:09:58]:

I guess to me, my energy more goes towards how do I make the things that happened be the right thing. For me, so, like, having my kids far apart is hilarious. There are some really sweet things about it. There are some really funny things about it. There are some really awkward things about it. Literally, yesterday, I was in the pool in the afternoon, and one of my very well dressed friends walked by. She's got, like, a dress on to go out to dinner and, like, full makeup. And I'm, like, splashing around with my kidney in the pool.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:10:30]:

Cause I still have a three, four year old, like, hilarious. And all of her kids are in high school. So there's things that are, like, so funny, like, what is happening? I'm so old. I have a kid this young. And this is so weird. But it's also amazing to have a little one that I'm still snuggling with and still needs me to put her to bed and her blankie and jammies and the stuff. The sites in our household are such a blessing also. So, I don't know, I guess I offer this up.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:01]:

Some of it's just, like, my own stuff of, like, these are things I think we did. I'm glad we made these choices, but in some of these bigger things that maybe are what the purpose of this question was, was like, are you glad you did it that way? I think that a lot of life is making what happens work for you and knowing that some of it, we can choose. Some of us get to choose exactly when we have our kids. Some of us don't get to choose that. Some of us date the same person for ten years. And whether you married them at 22 or 32, you get to set. Some of us don't meet who we're going to marry until we get older. So some of these choices are not really choices.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:11:39]:

They're how life plays out for us. And in those things, I think most naturally don't choose to go towards, do I love this or regret it? But more, how do I put my energy into it being the thing that I love? Because it is in my life and is a fact. You've probably heard me say this before, but I guess maybe how many kids you have can be at regret. But I had a conversation with a very professional woman early in my career, and she said to me, Tiffany, never let your career decide how many kids you're gonna have. She had stopped at two. Her heart's desire had been that she had three or four, and she just didn't feel like she could do it if she took on, if she had more kids. And she's like, I know I could have figured it out. So I guess that's a place where, you know, maybe I.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:12:28]:

If we wouldn't have had a couple more kids, I would have had some regrets. I had always dreamed of having four kids, and I think that's probably why the door was not totally closed for junior and I. Although at 40, it was kind of seemed like it was. So. I don't know. I think some of those things, you have to go towards a place of acceptance and saying, you know what? This is what did play out my life. Maybe my younger self had visions of what this was going to look like and the way it actually played out is maybe a little bit differently. But I don't know that regret serves us in those spaces.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:04]:

I think that we just need to put our energy towards, like, how do I make it what I love? So anyways, some musings about some things that we've done well and some things that I think I'd do a little differently if I had a chance to do life again. As always, thanks for listening. And I hope that you are seeing the parts of your life where you said, you know what, I'm doing pretty well. I'm doing pretty well right now.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:30]:

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.

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Tiffany Sauder [00:13:39]:

I will.