Scaling Without Burnout: How to Grow Your Business and Keep Your Joy

Briana Dai [00:00:00]:

So there are some people who get their creative wind at nighttime.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:03]:

Yes.

Briana Dai [00:00:04]:

And they do really great work overnight. I am not one of those people.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:07]:

Right.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:07]:

Been a little bit of grieving, of letting go of some of that. Because there's joy in feeling really confident in something, even if it's not serving you as well anymore.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:18]:

Yeah. So rewarding.

Briana Dai [00:00:20]:

Yeah. The people around you can only perform to the level that you're expecting of them. So if you don't have clear expectations, Welcome to she means Millions. You are in for a treat because this is the first ever episode of the podcast where you just get the duo.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:47]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:00:47]:

The mother daughter duo.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:49]:

Yeah. The two facta.

Briana Dai [00:00:50]:

Yes. Instead of the trifecta, the two factor, the duet.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:55]:

Yes.

Briana Dai [00:00:56]:

And yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:00:57]:

This is kind of fun.

Briana Dai [00:00:58]:

It is kind of fun. We were discussing over videos of my baby. He's pretty darn cute. That's not why we're here. The reason why we wanted to come into this is because there's this whole thing around hustle culture, particularly amongst working women, especially working moms and just driving to burnout. And when you are a mom and a wife and a friend and a seed CEO and a, you know, all of the. All of the ands, all of the pluses, it's. It can be really hard to be all of those things and actively scale your business.

Briana Dai [00:01:32]:

And we're kind of living that right now. And so we thought it could be a really fun episode to talk about kind of how you scale without completely crashing out.

Sandra Yancey [00:01:41]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:01:41]:

And what has had to change for us in order to do that.

Sandra Yancey [00:01:46]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:01:48]:

So I would say prior to 2026, when we decided to 10x our business, which is just way bigger than, to be honest with you, I imagined it to be, honestly, because it's not about moving faster. It's about doing things very differently. So things that have been working for us for, say, 20 of our 26 years, processes and systems that we've had in place, they are showing the wear and tear. They're starting to crack. And what I've learned is that you don't want a band a. You don't want to get the tape out and wrap it up and fix a. You know, what could be a $200 mistake, because if the pressure is not ever going to get under control, it's going to burst. And now you've got a 20,000, if not $200,000 mistake.

Sandra Yancey [00:02:34]:

Yeah. So I didn't know going into this that we were going to have to rethink how we do everything. Everything. And I certainly did not understand that it was going to have the pressure on my time that it was going to have. So as someone who has been whose mantra is that you shouldn't have to work a lot of overtime Monday through Friday, you shouldn't have to work weekends, with some exceptions, but rare, it really is the exception and not what happens regularly. That is gonna happen from time to time, but minimally, other than our conference and our, our platinum event, you know, obviously going into big events, that takes a little bit more time and energy, but for the most part, and you know, 10xing, the business has been humbling for me, but I come back to some fundamental things, and that is, I don't need more time. It's 1440 minutes a day. It's not like I can add a minute on anyway if I wanted to.

Sandra Yancey [00:03:36]:

But that is the equal playing field. Me, you, Briana, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Whoever, Oprah, all 1440 minutes in a day. So what I know is I don't need more time. What I need is better priorities and just really getting clear on where I can't insert my time anymore. How does Sandra need to change? How does Brianna need to change? Right. What are the things we need to shed and release? Whether we release it forever because it just no longer serves us, or we have to reconfigure the team process that takes us out of it. Right. So that things can continue to move.

Sandra Yancey [00:04:18]:

And in some cases, I'm learning move faster. To be honest with you, I think I've taken myself out of things that have allowed the team to move faster. I think I've been the bottleneck. I think I've slowed it down, which has been eye opening, revealing, and oh, so powerful for me to see. But I also believe that I've got to be very laser focused on noise, not distract distractions. The distractions come after the noise. First you start to get a wince and start to hear things, and then you start to lean in, turn your head, and before you know it, now you're distracted. So I'm fine tuning, noticing the noise and allowing myself to say, sandra, that's noise that's taking you off where you're at.

Sandra Yancey [00:05:03]:

You need 100% focus. No such thing as multitasking. It's a joke. Women wear it like it's a badge of honor. Yeah, no such thing. The psychologists, whoever have proven that you're just doing things, you know, stopping and starting, stopping and starting. Stopping and starting.

Briana Dai [00:05:18]:

Yeah. If there's any positive that came out of my traumatic brain injury, it's that it prevented me from being able to multitask because there's this thing called divided attention. And when I was in my recovery stage, being able to multitask and do several things at once and retain what I was doing and picking up where I left off became incredibly hard. And so it forced me to get really intentional about focusing on the one thing and not getting distracted by all the things over here, because otherwise this isn't going to get done right or well or I'm not going to remember where I. To pick up where I left off. Kind of.

Sandra Yancey [00:05:52]:

Oh, it's interesting. I. I've not heard you explain that before. And so that might be. I mean, I've been telling people she's better.

Briana Dai [00:06:01]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:01]:

She's actually better. Yeah. You know what I mean? In many ways. And a lot of that is perhaps your ability to focus. And, you know, Warren Buffett does a whole thing on. That's the number one thing. He. He looks.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:11]:

He's a goat.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:12]:

I always study the goats.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:13]:

And that's one of the things that he, you know, values most in people that he hires to work him is their ability to laser focus.

Briana Dai [00:06:23]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:23]:

And see things through to total completion without a lot of stops and starts. Because that's where a lot of things fall through the cracks.

Briana Dai [00:06:31]:

Yes. Now, I, 10 out of 10 don't recommend enduring a brain injury to hone in on this skill, but it is a skill that you can learn.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:38]:

You can learn it, you know, And

Briana Dai [00:06:39]:

I think it's the time blocking piece is so important. And I think recognizing when you are your most creative and honoring that. So there are some people who get their creative wind at nighttime.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:52]:

Yes.

Briana Dai [00:06:52]:

And they do really great work overnight. I am not one of those people.

Sandra Yancey [00:06:56]:

Right.

Briana Dai [00:06:56]:

When I start to get tired, I need to honor my body and I need to go to sleep. I do my best creative work in the morning. So I find that I try to protect my mornings as much as possible and block off time so that you can't schedule anything over that. Because that is when I can be in my creative. My. That's really when I get into my flow.

Sandra Yancey [00:07:16]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:07:16]:

We call it flow state. And I can get into a flow state in the morning. And I love my early mornings to myself because I get the best ideas, and if I have the space to sit with the idea, to document the idea, then I can actually go and implement it later on. But if you were just immediately jumping into the day and you don't have the time to process that, you can lose it really easily. I think it's really important to know.

Sandra Yancey [00:07:39]:

What's interesting for me is I've changed. I used to be a night owl.

Briana Dai [00:07:43]:

Yeah, you did.

Sandra Yancey [00:07:44]:

Yeah. And I'm much more of a morning person. I got up this morning because I after we cut the shows today, I'm heading to the airport and I'm speaking to a non e women network audience of about 150 women financial advisors. So I have a custom, you know, keynote for that. And I got up early this morning at 5:30 just to kind of like really fine tune my stories because I think stories are the most important part of anything that you teach. It's the anchoring moment of the point point that you make. How do you anchor it through a story? And I didn't feel like I had that all buttoned down. And before I even got on the plane, I wanted to make sure that even though I have all the content that I've anchored to my stories very intelligently.

Sandra Yancey [00:08:27]:

And last night I was tired and I said I'm going to get up early. And it was kind of fun to get up, like you said, by yourself. I love it when I spend the night at your house because I tend to get up early with Tatiana. So we can just have our time, you know, and start the coffee and have the first cup of coffee while, you know, I'm talking to her and getting her breakfast ready. I've. I've transitioned into a morning person, interestingly enough. So the point of the matter is it can change. And maybe if you don't know which one you are, you try.

Sandra Yancey [00:08:53]:

Yeah, both. And then notice where, what did you call it? Flow. You get into your flow state.

Briana Dai [00:08:58]:

Flow state.

Sandra Yancey [00:08:59]:

I love that. Yeah, it's great. I know.

Briana Dai [00:09:02]:

Yeah. I think being able to recognize your performance and how you perform the best and honoring that and then building your life around that is so important when someone, especially when it comes to this whole scaling conversation. I did a really fun exercise. I think you should do it too. So I went to AI and I did this like dream life exercise. So you just get unapologetic about what is your dream life look like. So we're talking revenue in your business. We're talking the house that you live in, the car that you drive, the way that you spend your day, the ability to, you know, do you have your own, you know, driver? Do you like, go all in on the absolute biggest dream life, Every, every facet of it, from your professional to your personal level, and just write it all out.

Briana Dai [00:09:50]:

Be, be more unapologetic about it than you would if you had to say it out loud. Like, it should almost make you. Like, if you had to read it to somebody, you would probably cringe. That's how unapologetically big I want you to be with this exercise. And then ask AI once you've described all of those things, to now describe a day in my life as this person.

Sandra Yancey [00:10:10]:

Yeah. Mm.

Briana Dai [00:10:11]:

And it will literally create your agenda for your day and then have it work with you on. Okay, this is now how future me performs. This is how future me acts.

Sandra Yancey [00:10:23]:

So it's your moonshot.

Briana Dai [00:10:24]:

That's your moonshot, but it's not just where you want to go, but it's how you spend your time.

Sandra Yancey [00:10:27]:

Yeah, yeah.

Briana Dai [00:10:28]:

And then you can work with it to say, okay, now help me bridge the gap to this.

Sandra Yancey [00:10:31]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:10:32]:

Because oftentimes, when it comes to scaling, it's really a matter of just showing up as her, you know, I mean, for me, my biggest change that I've noticed in myself professionally through this new version of the company that we're moving into, is I used to never like numbers. You know, I used to kind of, like, I'm not really good at numbers, you know, and I just kind of accept, like, that's just not my strength. So I'm not gonna.

Sandra Yancey [00:10:56]:

Creative.

Briana Dai [00:10:57]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:10:57]:

I don't do numbers.

Briana Dai [00:10:58]:

Yes. And that's a. That is a thing with creatives. Right. Oh, I'm a creative person, but future me is obsessed with numbers. And so I have just started to adopt the personality that is demanded and required of me to get to the level that I want to be, and now I am obsessed with the numbers.

Sandra Yancey [00:11:16]:

Well, part of it, I think, Brianna, is that the numbers have some relevance. I mean, you're really tracking and fixing and tweaking and, you know, capitalizing on the numbers that we have, you know, to surge. And I think when you think about numbers you learn at school, and they're flat equations that have no basic, you know, meaning to it. If you're going 20 miles an hour carrying, you know, a bushel of, you know, apples, you know, how fast can you really go and say, two apples fall off, and we had three peaches, and, you know, all these crazy kinds of equations that they start having you fix, and it has no real meaning. But now you. You really. And now that you have, like, cracked some codes, that's. I have seen you just go all in.

Briana Dai [00:12:03]:

Well, it's fun now, because you can't see scale if you don't know what you're scaling to. So you have to know what that number is that you're scaling to and then you have to know how you're going to get there. So for us, it's just, it was, it was literally a numbers game and it became a matter of saying, okay, well, out of all these applications that we might get for a managing director every single month on average, only about, you know, eight managing directors are going to come from that. So. Or what was it? It was that we need eight managing directors a month to hit our 10x goal.

Sandra Yancey [00:12:33]:

And so, and before we were doing four, so we needed to double.

Briana Dai [00:12:37]:

Exactly. Yep. And so this is how many applications we need to get in in order to meet that. And what you start to realize is like, oh my gosh. Scaling a company is actually not that hard if you just know what you're aiming for. And it became fun to say, oh my gosh, okay, so this is how many we need a month. Then this is how many applications we need and this is how much it's costing for us to get an application. So how can we bring that cost down? And now I know that number.

Briana Dai [00:13:04]:

And so now we can tweak this and tweak that and get that number down. And now we're getting the applic and now we're getting the MDs, and now this is like, oh my gosh, this is really kind of fun. And it's actually not that hard.

Sandra Yancey [00:13:15]:

Right.

Sandra Yancey [00:13:15]:

You just embraced it.

Sandra Yancey [00:13:17]:

Yes.

Sandra Yancey [00:13:17]:

And surrounded yourself with people that you could ask good questions and they're at, you're listening for the education component and then you know the overall strategy. They're implementers. So now you can bring strategy and help. Fine tune and fine tune and fine tune. Do you feel like you're drowning in your business? Like you're doing everything and something has to give but you're afraid it might be you. What if I told you there's a network of over 500,000 women entrepreneurs all dedicated to supporting each other. A network of women helping women. I'm Sandra Yancey, founder of Ewomenne Network and I'm inviting you to join us and become a member.

Sandra Yancey [00:13:56]:

Ewomennenetwork.com we can't wait to meet you.

Briana Dai [00:14:01]:

Well, it's interesting too with people and team you talk about that is that, you know, I've noticed them up level as well because now I'm so clear on the metric that I need. So now they're more accountable. And I have found that when you come with clarity, the people around you now know that now they know what they're Being measured on.

Sandra Yancey [00:14:18]:

Right.

Briana Dai [00:14:19]:

And so they've up leveled with us.

Sandra Yancey [00:14:22]:

Yeah. Which is so fun and so, so rewarding.

Briana Dai [00:14:26]:

Yeah. The people around you can only perform to the level that you're expecting of them. So if you don't have clear expectations, then they're not clear on what they need to do to perform well for you.

Sandra Yancey [00:14:36]:

Right.

Briana Dai [00:14:37]:

And that is the biggest eye opener, I think for me and getting really granular is being able to identify like, okay, this is my KPI, my key performance indicator. This is how I'm measuring success. And I need this from you. This is your KPI in order to. Because this is how it impacts me, which is how it impacts the vision, which is how it impacts the goal that we're all going to benefit from if we hit it.

Sandra Yancey [00:14:58]:

Exactly. And if you go. The fun part about going really big is that it comes with really big rewards. And when you have really big rewards, then don't forget to include the people that helped you get there.

Briana Dai [00:15:11]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:15:11]:

I mean, I'm really excited for some of the secrets that we have, you know, on, you know, including our team, you know, in that that I think is going to be a surprise to them besides just everything else they already know, you know what I'm saying? And it's harder when you aim really low. I'd rather you, I always say aim really high and maybe miss a little bit than aim low and nail it. Because when you aim low, it feels safe and it feels like you can accomplish it. But there's often not a lot of wiggle room around that. And it does take money to make money. I mean, it really does. You can't build a business all on your effort because I think you will a run out of time and you will run out of money. You'll find that there's too much month at the end of the money.

Sandra Yancey [00:16:01]:

And I think you become buried and overcome in the overwhelm. So you know that constant thing of, like you said, you talked about kind of shedding the beliefs around that you had around numbers. That's why I loved last year, the year the snake. I bought snake everything. You know, I got bought myself a snake watch. You know, I had a snake necklace. I mean, I had everything because it was a reminder to me that, Sandra, you have to shed in order to grow. That's why the snake sheds its skin so it can grow.

Sandra Yancey [00:16:31]:

So what is it? I think it's about constantly asking ourselves, you know, what is it that we need to release? What is it that we need to let go of? What Is it that. That we need to actually eliminate in our life? And some things we just need to put a pin in it and just say, not now. I can come back to that later. You know, it's interesting. I love what you were talking about, Brianna, with asking AI about if you put in all the things that you really wanted to create. So a couple of weeks ago, our director of International Chapter expansion and Operational Excellence, Debbie Page, she said to me her husband was out of town. And she said, hey, you know, we got to talking about how we both love flowers, and we started talking about the arboretum and how you got married at the arboretum.

Sandra Yancey [00:17:18]:

And she said, oh, they're having a

Sandra Yancey [00:17:19]:

big, you know, event going on. Would you be open to going? I said, I would love to go.

Sandra Yancey [00:17:25]:

So.

Sandra Yancey [00:17:25]:

And as you know, I love flowers. And when you were growing up, my quiet time was going to the corner and working on my perennial garden. I had the most gorgeous perennial garden on the corner of the house. And people would pull over, right, and get pictures and front of the flowers. And as they would annualize and expand, I would, you know, take them apart a little bit and plant some more, or I would leave some in pots. If I was buying new things, I would leave them. My neighbors knew that if they were

Sandra Yancey [00:17:53]:

there, they could come and get them,

Sandra Yancey [00:17:55]:

you know, and a lot of them were thanking me for, you know, all the flowers that I've helped them with and starting their own perennial gardens. Anyway, fast forward as we got bigger, you know, I didn't have time for that. And so at the risk of sounding diva ish, and that's not my intention

Sandra Yancey [00:18:14]:

here, but, you know, I hired somebody to do that.

Sandra Yancey [00:18:16]:

I thought, what are the things I

Sandra Yancey [00:18:17]:

don't really necessarily need to do? So we hired a groundskeeper who, you

Sandra Yancey [00:18:23]:

know, took care of all my flowers and did all the pruning and, you know, changed my flowers out for the

Sandra Yancey [00:18:29]:

seasons and did all the things.

Sandra Yancey [00:18:30]:

And the yard always looked great, but

Sandra Yancey [00:18:31]:

I've always kind of missed being in the dirt like I used to be.

Sandra Yancey [00:18:36]:

And when we were cleaning out the garage one time, Kim even said, why don't you get rid of all these tools? You don't do that anymore. And I haven't been able to do that. And I think it's just I've had this.

Sandra Yancey [00:18:44]:

And some of the tools are my

Sandra Yancey [00:18:45]:

mother's, because my mother's the one that

Sandra Yancey [00:18:47]:

taught me how to garden. Anyway, we go to the.

Sandra Yancey [00:18:48]:

We go to the. The arboretum, and I fell in love with flowers again. I found myself just getting really Obsessed with flowers.

Sandra Yancey [00:18:59]:

And so a couple of weeks ago,

Sandra Yancey [00:19:01]:

I asked Kim, because we were out and about. I said, I need to pull over to the nursery.

Sandra Yancey [00:19:06]:

I want to get some flowers. And Kim looks at me and says, really? I said, yeah, I want to do the pots by the front door and want to do. And I've gotten myself back into, you know, having my hands in the dirt and pulling out my tools and doing all the things.

Sandra Yancey [00:19:18]:

And you know what, Brianna? It's actually some creative time for me. That quiet space of just me in the dirt and what I'm thinking and

Sandra Yancey [00:19:26]:

growing and all of that, I find

Sandra Yancey [00:19:29]:

to be like refueling me.

Sandra Yancey [00:19:31]:

It's a way to just. Just give me joy. And that joy changes my disposition, changes the way in which not only I see my. My house, but I see myself and I see possibilities and my. My own little creative. I don't do a lot overly creative because I'm so operational focused that it

Sandra Yancey [00:19:52]:

gives me some of that space and time, too. And I.

Sandra Yancey [00:19:56]:

It's funny that you mentioned this thing about, you know, using AI to craft, put in what you want and have it kind of give you some ide. Ideas of how to factor that in. I'm going to do that on the plane because I've told Kim I want to make my Saturday mornings my get up my coffee, walk the dog. Kim and I usually take the dog on a walk together every Saturday morning.

Sandra Yancey [00:20:16]:

And then, you know, you can go

Sandra Yancey [00:20:18]:

do some of your things.

Sandra Yancey [00:20:19]:

I want to be in my yard again.

Sandra Yancey [00:20:21]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:20:21]:

And planting and even Julio, who, you

Sandra Yancey [00:20:24]:

know is my groundskeeper, takes care of everything. Was like, you did your pots, like, what's going on? Or did you hire somebody else to do the pots or something? No, I did them.

Sandra Yancey [00:20:33]:

I actually did them.

Sandra Yancey [00:20:34]:

Just fun to. To go back and do all of that. And if you came to my house and in my little bar area, which is sunken, so you don't see a couple of big windows there. I've taken clippings of things, and I'm starting starters, you know, of my ivy and some of the things that I brought to your house and. And just I'm like, starting things again, you know, that to other people, it's like, no big deal, or, you know, that looks like a lot of junk in your, you know, bar area. But I love. And I go in there every day and see if little roots have started, you know, so that I'm. When I'm ready to repot it.

Sandra Yancey [00:21:08]:

And then I go and buy fun little pots and give them away as friends and I was even thinking, you know, we're remodeling the fourth floor here as we're getting ready to move right after the conference. It'll be done at the end of July, and our conference is the 14th through the 15th, so we won't be moving into our new offices until after that. But the staff doesn't even know it. But I'm creating little pots for everybody's office because it's so good for your health just having plants anyway. So great. And you know what? I don't even need them to worry about watering it. I'll water them. It'll be my little thing that I do every Friday and walk around, water everybody's plants if you really have that bug.

Briana Dai [00:21:46]:

I've got some flower beds. Exactly.

Sandra Yancey [00:21:51]:

So I could turn. Not do dinner and do some flower beds works, too.

Sandra Yancey [00:21:55]:

Okay.

Briana Dai [00:21:56]:

Yeah, yeah. Little activity. No, No. I love that. It is powerful when you really start to think about how to scale without sacrificing your joy.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:06]:

Yes.

Briana Dai [00:22:07]:

You know, I mean, even in the midst of this growth, it's been really rewarding to see, you know, we're actually not working that much harder. It doesn't feel like it.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:17]:

I feel like I'm thinking way differently, though.

Briana Dai [00:22:19]:

Yes.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:20]:

That's a.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:20]:

That's.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:21]:

That's hard for me because it's forcing me to not rely on old patterns and data. And this is the way we've always done things. But. So there's. There's the thought. Hard thinking, but, you know, success is hard, and so is being broke, and so is not growing, and so is not surviving your business, so, you know, got to pick your heart.

Briana Dai [00:22:41]:

I feel like we're retraining your brain.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:43]:

Yes.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:44]:

A little bit.

Briana Dai [00:22:44]:

And anytime you're training something new, it's hard at first until it starts. Starts to become more second nature.

Sandra Yancey [00:22:50]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:22:51]:

You know, and I feel like we're kind of. I. I feel like I'm starting to hit my stride with that a little bit, because. Yeah, you. It does demand you to think differently, but that doesn't come at the expense of having to hustle more.

Sandra Yancey [00:23:02]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:23:03]:

You know, in fact, there's been more that I feel like you've had to give up, like. Like you said, to not become the bottleneck of things.

Sandra Yancey [00:23:08]:

Yeah. In fact, I. I have my seven things.

Briana Dai [00:23:10]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:23:10]:

In my phone, and I read it every morning and before I come into the office because it really helps me. You should share that. Get. Get in my thing.

Sandra Yancey [00:23:19]:

It's in my.

Sandra Yancey [00:23:20]:

Which is under my thigh over here. And then I often read Them at night as a way to say, how did I do? You know, kind of a plan do review. You start out, you plan your day. Here's what I'm not going to do, and then the day happens, and then it's a review at the end of the day, and it's a good checkpoint for me. And so there are seven of them. And did we share them all?

Briana Dai [00:23:43]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:23:44]:

Okay. So the first one is that I will never be the bottleneck for decisions that don't require my genius. And, you know, that's what I was saying earlier, just kind of getting out of the. I'm asking myself, do I really need to be here? Yeah, Right. Trusting that the team's got this and they don't need me. I will never spend my prime energy on tasks that don't directly. That don't directly drive impact and then therefore revenue. So focusing on impact has been really important, like, what kind of impact are we trying to have? And when we focus on the things that impact our customers, our current customers and prospects, people that are considering joining us, the revenue takes care of itself, ironically enough.

Sandra Yancey [00:24:30]:

That doesn't mean that you don't have to watch the numbers, but it's what drives the numbers. And when I focus on impact, and that's what we're doing, the revenue takes care, is taking care of itself. I will never say yes to opportunities that dilute our brand or attract the wrong audience. And I think we've learned some real valuable lessons on things that take a lot of energy and time with people that maybe don't share our same values or customers that don't appreciate, you know, all the extra miles that we're going through. And just realizing that she probably maybe never taken that client on to begin with or that partnership to begin with, because undoing is a total time suck, too. Right Then I will never avoid hard decisions just because they affect people I care about. Hashtag lbm, right? We call it hashtag light bulb moment. It's hard.

Sandra Yancey [00:25:30]:

It's hard because I really do care about the people that I surround myself with. But everybody's got to be on the 10x journey or someone is holding us back. Someone's like, you know, putting the. Remember when we went dog sledding through the Canadian glaciers, and when they want the dogs to stop, they drop this anchor. Yeah, it's like a blade, right. That goes into the snow and slows them down. And that's what happens when you don't have everybody on board. And so it's not that they're Wrong.

Sandra Yancey [00:26:00]:

It's not that they're bad people. It's just that they don't share the journey. And then maybe that means that. That maybe it's time to separate. And that's hard for me because I tend to get emotionally connected and care about everybody. I will never. I will never operate without clear metrics for what success actually looks like. And that's something that I think you have really mastered, like crazy mastered in just the last six months.

Sandra Yancey [00:26:30]:

Not that you. You've been doing it, but you've gone

Briana Dai [00:26:33]:

this, you know, I've really embraced. There's a difference between knowing it and embracing it. And that is a very core differentiator. Do you know your thing or are you embracing your thing? You know?

Sandra Yancey [00:26:43]:

Yeah. It's amazing to me, just the little things that when we're walking down the hall, you say, hey, by the way, I just wanted you to know this happened. Or that it's all related to a number and a metric that you're measuring and you're seeing moving in the right direction. It's like fuel, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And then I will never say, I will never stay in roles that belong to a past best version of me.

Briana Dai [00:27:04]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:27:06]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:27:07]:

And there's been a little bit of grieving, of letting go of some of that, because there's joy in feeling really competent in something, even if it's not serving you as well anymore.

Briana Dai [00:27:18]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:27:19]:

You know, so it's like I. That used to be one of my wins, and I can no longer claim that as a win anymore. So I have to go develop the competency to claim a new win. Yeah. Yeah. And the final one is I will never. This is a big one. This is an LBM too.

Sandra Yancey [00:27:35]:

A light bulb moment. I will never confuse being accessible with being available.

Briana Dai [00:27:43]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:27:45]:

You know, we have a very open office environment. I don't like to shut my door very often at all. It's very, very rare. And my calendar isn't hidden. I mean, anybody that wants access to my calendar can have my calendar. And they don't just see times where I'm blocked. They see what I'm doing, they see where I'm at, but they also see where they perceive that I have a break. And what I've learned is, because I have such an open door policy, I've had to learn when someone comes in to say, hey, you got a minute? Because they know I've got a minute, they've looked at my calendar, and I'll have to say, is it quick or do we need to schedule another meeting because even though I don't have something on my calendar, I need to try

Briana Dai [00:28:22]:

and get things done.

Sandra Yancey [00:28:23]:

Yeah. I need. There's. There's things I gotta do in this, what is perceived as accessible time. So just because I'm quote, unquote accessible doesn't mean I'm really available. Yeah. And that's. That's a setting boundaries piece, you know, so that I'm really done when I leave.

Sandra Yancey [00:28:42]:

Yeah. Yeah. I'm complete for sure.

Briana Dai [00:28:45]:

So good. So good. So powerful. I feel like all of these have been game changers in our ability to grow and also be excited and not be in this place of complete burnout and the journey of it. So, yeah, I've really enjoyed this conversation.

Sandra Yancey [00:29:03]:

I have too. And you know what's been really fun for me is not having not seeing our team, you know, having to work a ton of overtime.

Briana Dai [00:29:10]:

Right.

Sandra Yancey [00:29:10]:

You know, like, I've even said to Rachel, if. If you're going to work late, I need to know why and what we need to do differently because this can be an exception and do not want it to be the rule here. And when exceptions come, you'll know it. And I know you're in for it, and I love that and appreciate that about you. But let's look at what needs to change. If you feel like this needs to be something that is going to consume your time, let's look at what you're doing, what we might be able to take out, what may be able to hit the pause button, what maybe could go to a different department. What are the types of things so that, that as a general rule, you know, you feel like you've got balance too.

Briana Dai [00:29:48]:

Yeah. I mean, it's one of our core values and we live those. So that ninth value of self, care

Sandra Yancey [00:29:54]:

and life balance is a real deal.

Briana Dai [00:29:56]:

It's the real deal. It's the real deal. And I'm pretty unapologetic about leaving at five every day.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:01]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:30:01]:

You know, because I got to get

Sandra Yancey [00:30:02]:

home to the kids.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:03]:

Yep. And you get up early. You're working. Most people, I mean, you work before you get in because we're talking.

Briana Dai [00:30:08]:

Yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:08]:

I know that we're both working before

Sandra Yancey [00:30:11]:

we get in, but that makes my day here feels so much more manageable

Sandra Yancey [00:30:14]:

and not so weighed down.

Briana Dai [00:30:15]:

For sure.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:16]:

Totally.

Briana Dai [00:30:16]:

You're showing up and not just getting your feet on the ground. You've already been on the ground.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:22]:

Yeah.

Briana Dai [00:30:22]:

You're showing up and you kind of

Sandra Yancey [00:30:23]:

know your marching orders on my pace with my coffee and my robe. You know, sometimes on my phone, out in the backyard, walking with the dog. You know what I mean?

Briana Dai [00:30:31]:

Oh, yeah.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:32]:

Thanks.

Briana Dai [00:30:32]:

Yeah, totally awesome. I mean, I love this conversation. And we're literally right at 30 minutes.

Sandra Yancey [00:30:39]:

It's the perfect way to talk about not just running your business, but really looking at. Are you one of those people where you know that she, meaning you, means millions?