The Myth of Work Life Balance with Tash Jefferies

The Myth of Work Life Balance with Tash Jefferies

Kelly Kennedy: Welcome back to the Business Development Podcast. On episode 34, we have Tash Jeffries back again to chat with us about entrepreneurial health and wellness. This is an amazing episode. Stay tuned.

Intro: The great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more.

This is the Business Develop Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and broadcasting to the world. You'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development Capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome to the Business Development Podcast. Podcast, and now your expert host. Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello. Welcome to episode 34 of the Business Development Podcast, and today we have yet another amazing entrepreneurial interview. However, We have a, a repeat guest and on a different topic than we have ever discussed on this show before, but an important and very critical topic to any person in forward facing business development, sales, entrepreneurship, founders.

CEOs, presidents, we all struggle with mental health. And today, like I kind of mentioned in the last show that we had with Tash Jefferies we are pleasantly, pleasantly surprised to have Tash Jefferies back yet again, who is a mental health and wellness expert. She's been through it, she's dealt with it.

She's she's helped over 300 different founders and startups, and she has experienced plenty, plenty of challenges with both, I'm sure, in her own businesses and with founders with their own mental health challenges. Tash, it's amazing to have you back. Our, our show that we had was amazing. I, I've had so much fun on that show and I know that we're going to have a lot of fun on this one as well.

However, it is a very serious topic as well, and I want that to be put through, that I take mental health incredibly serious. I think if you guys are having any mental health challenges, please don't, don't ignore them. Don't think that you're an abnormality. Many people are struggling with mental health, especially since Covid, and it is serious, and you are worth whatever it takes to feel better.

A hundred percent. Tash, amazing to have you back. Thank you for coming.

Tash Jefferies: Thank you so much, Kelly. Thanks for inviting me back. And considering on the last show that we did, we were talking about business development and sales. I am so thankful that you brought me back to talk about something that's near and dear to my heart, which is wellness for founders, entrepreneurs, high performance folks.

Really. So if you heard me last time, hello again. I got so many outreaches from the last show, so I'm thrilled to be back and know that people are listening and here to help in any way. I can't.

Kelly Kennedy: So your show was actually pretty recent. Your last episode with me was episode 28. Think like a scientist.

People loved it. By the way. Your, your show alone, like how, what has it been? Three weeks? Not even. Yeah, just about three weeks. Not even. Yeah. Yeah. You've had over 600 downloads of your episode, so we're somewhere, are you kidding? Somewhere in the neighborhood of 700, 750 hours of people listening to Tash Jefferies.

Tash Jefferies: That is unreal. Thank you everyone for downloading it and I hope this one actually gets and beats that record. Oh. Because it's super important and I like to talk about it. And as I was saying a little bit before we start this podcast, like it's been over 10 years Yeah. Over 10 years since I told this story about how wellness became near and dear to me.

So you will be the first who gets to hear this story since anyone back in the day heard it during my TEDx over 10 years ago.

Kelly Kennedy: We were just talking before the show and this is really where, where your whole entrepreneurship journey started, wasn't it? You know, you started Absolutely.

You started out in wellness.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely. So to reframe. I started out being an entrepreneur and running my own business in wellness. And I'll tell this story cuz it's super important and once people hear it, they never forget it. So I would've been working in management consulting, which I loved cuz I'd been doing that for over seven years.

But I had just gotten to the point where back in this would be 2011, I had lost my brother, almost lost my other brother cuz I have three. So there's two almost gone, one gone, one almost gone. And then in December of that year, I had been so stressed out between work and management consulting and working super long hours.

And I got viral meningitis. And like I, even now I get goosebumps because I remember exactly what that was like. I had no idea what was going on. I knew that what I had could potentially kill me. I knew that what I had contracted was pretty much from a rundown of my entire immune system for not checking my mental, spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing and health.

And so I remember lying in bed and I still have photos that I, I, I'm sure I have somewhere where I just kept saying to myself, if I come back from this, because the doctors were like, it'll take you, you know, anywhere from six months to a year. And possibly this could be something that lasts your entire life.

You could find issues with your health, with breathing, with operation, everything. And I remember saying, if I come out of this, I'm n I'm never gonna be afraid to share my story and hopefully prevent this from happening to others. And so, because I had all the elements, like I knew how to live healthy, I had been in sustainability and been like, you know an eco advocate, clean, living, all those things before, but because I had such a clean lifestyle, I was able to bounce back.

It literally, I was back to like 100% of my energy in less than three months. Wow. And it was because I had such a great naturopath in Toronto that I was working with. Erin, if you're listening, you know, it's you. And because I had such great practices from the beginning, again, it's like many of us get into, we know the right things we're supposed to do.

We just don't do that. Mm-hmm. And so I started practicing all the things that I knew to keep my health in check and ended up finally publishing the book that was like waiting to be you know, emerged from me through that experience. So I published the Little Book of Green Minutes where all of those elements that I used to get my own health back, I share it with the world.

Kelly Kennedy: That is, first off, amazing.

Second off. I'm terribly sorry for the loss of your brother. I could see the emotion on your face. It's still very fresh.

Tash Jefferies: Yeah. Oh, it is. And I mean, my other brother who I just literally had a phone call with too, like, we just tell stories. I just spoke to him this morning and we tell all the fun stories that we have of our older brother.

Right. But it's, it's like one of those things where it happens and you do your best, you pick it up. Yeah. And then you take what you can with you to be able to make yourself stronger and resilient. And that's my second book, which I've been working on. Amazing. But I'm gonna have to publish it, which is all about how do you develop that resiliency, which is one of the things that I think as founders as entrepreneurs, and even as high performing individuals, CEOs, VPs, C-level executives, those of us who are in leadership roles and wear such heavy hats, We have to build resiliency.

And there's some really good tips that I hope to share today that are part of building up that resiliency on all four levels of your holistic health.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, absolutely. And I would love it if you would touch on all of those because I think, you know, I, I think a lot of us, like you said, it's like we know we should be doing better.

And I'm one of them. You know, the reality is it's like, I think a lot of times I put my responsibilities above my own wellbeing, and I don't think I'm alone in doing that. And I, you know, I've worked in business development now for. Pretty bloody long time. I, like, I would say directly business development, at least 12 years direct business development at this point in my life.

And I've gone through a lot in that time. I've also lost people that were incredibly close to me and had to kind of keep on going, even though inside I was feeling like a total mess. Dealt with, obviously fights with the family, dealt with all sorts, you know, breakups, God knows whatever else. I'm still going through it.

And yet, and yet I'm right with you. And yet life goes on. And when you have a job like business development or a outward facing job where you have to put on a pretty face and show up to meetings and be okay you learn to compartmentalize. And I think I, you know, I have had plenty of times where like in inside I was dying, but outside I looked like a million dollars.

Why? Because I had to. I genuinely had to, and I know I'm not alone in this, and I don't necessarily know if there was a better way either.

Tash Jefferies: Well, you know what Kelly, this is something that I wanted to make sure that we talked about. Listen, at the end of the day, all of us need to figure out how to be able to dust ourselves off, get up and do what we need to do.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. So that compartmentalization that a lot of us have, I would say that's not necessarily a bad thing. Like if that's what you need to get through your day so that you can show up how you need to. Absolutely. But the caveat to that is once you're done, once you leave work, once you've done all that heavy lifting, if you're not able to understand what you need to do and actually fill, like truly fill your own cup up.

So that means when work is done and you can take off, you can compartmentalize and put it back to work. You still have to come home to yourself. You still have to come and deal with family. Yeah. You still need to be able to make sure that you build time into your day for you where if you need to go and have a good cry, go have a good cry.

If you need to get it out right. If you need to vent and you need to speak with someone, you need to develop that person and have that person in your life that you can go to, that you can share things so that you can then like truly release it. The one thing that a lot of founders try to do and a lot of leaders try to do, is just ignore that it exists.

Mm-hmm. You can't ignore that it exists. You can definitely go to work, do what you gotta do. And I know my founders know this. I do this all the time. No one ever really knows when something's going on or I'm dealing with loss. But when I come home my bestie, she knows totally. She'll get a WhatsApp voice note where I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna download cuz I had to put everything on hold for the day.

So you gonna hear it? Or I exercise and I would say for founders who say, oh, I never have time to exercise. Listen, all my founders know if I come into a program, I'm like an energizer bunny, I'm bouncing off walls. Yeah. And the reason being is that exercise is such a stress reliever. It helps like keep all your bodily functions in order.

And it's a great way to be able to release, listen, I go and I do my punch out my boxing and get all the, I'm angry at somebody, listen, I get it out my exercise. And it's, it's a really good tool to be able to just get out that extra energy so that you kind of level set. And I would say that's super important.

I would tell if anyone said, oh, I don't have time. Like do high intensity interval training. It's like four minutes. Yep. If you can't fit four minutes to exercise into your day, we're all doing something wrong. And just something gets the blood pumping. Yeah. Yeah. Get that stress out. Right. And you feel like you come away no matter what else you're dealing with.

Whew. That was a workout. I just got through that. I'm good.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. I, I completely agree with you. I'm also one of those people that is totally neglected my relationship with exercise. I, I do love exercise and I totally get it. Like when I get there and do it, I feel great. I think for me, oh boy, I am one of those in Incre.

I'm one of those people that you'd be like, Kelly, get your shit together. You know, like, I know this because, because I genuinely do. I genuinely work that hard. Tash, I work that hard. Between capital business development and this podcast, my gosh, it. And you know what? I love what I'm doing. So I think that is the flip side of this is that like I understand that like a hundred percent I need to devote more to my exercise and my personal health.

No question. I need to, there's no question. But the flip side is, is that it always feels like my personal time is stealing from my family time and from the time that I need to be doing the work that I need to be doing. And I get it. I understand that that's a shitty way of looking at it, but I know I'm not alone in looking at it that way.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely, you're not. And so what I would say too, like anyone who's listening as well is if you do not find the time, To fill your own cup back up, meaning you are at the top. You've got the energy, you've got that clarity of mind. You're not stressed out like you. If you are not the best that you can be, then even though you think you're taking away from family time to like to have to be yourself.

If you're not showing up 100 for your family, then aren't they getting the short end of the stick? Sure. Aren't your customers getting the short end of the stick? And I always make sure to remember that. I, I hold a very high bar as to the standard of what people get when they interact with me. I mean, other than my bright fuchsia and my colors that I'm always wearing, it's like, Nope, you're gonna get energy.

You're going to get authentic. Yeah. You're going to get straight shooter. I'm gonna just be real with you. I got no time for heirs. And so in order for me to do that, I know I need to make sure that I take time to veg out. Completely clear. Yeah. I have to get my sleep or else I'm cranky, I have to get my meals or else I'm cranky.

Yeah. And I'm never gonna come across as what it is that I wanna give back. Yeah. So when I take care of myself, if I go, if I miss the gym, my founders even know when they're working with me cuz they see me on a daily basis. What's going on? You're not your usual high energy self. And I'm like, I miss the gym.

Yes. So I don't miss the gym. So you raise the bar as to how you're showing up in the world and it's. It makes a difference.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. You know, you, you totally hit the nail on the head. You know what I struggle with a little bit, and this is not, you know, first off, let me just state, this is not my fiance's fault whatsoever.

I feel guilty, I think at times, taking my own time to do that because I am so busy with work, with life, with, with the podcast, with my business, which is, it takes a lot outta me. It's, it's a, I'm a very high performer. Yep. And so I think for me, and once again, this is not her fault, Shelby would say, you know what you do, you do, you do whatever you need to do.

So this is not on her whatsoever. It is 100% on me, but I start to feel guilty because I recognize, you know, like we have three boys and we're very busy. There's always lots to do, lots to go on in the family side of things. I think I can feel like if I take time for me, I. What about her? And it's not her fault.

This is 100% on me. This is 100% on me in the way that I think, but I start to feel guilty. Like I understand that she also works hard too and deserves her own time, and she doesn't always take it either. And so to me, it can start to feel guilty. If I'm taking that time for me,

Tash Jefferies: I'm smiling Kelly because I'm sure Shelby hopes she hears this and she hears it as well.

So I'm in a very similar situation where my partner is very high performing. C F O always on point, deals with high level people, always has to have higher energy. Yeah. So what we've done is both of us are committed to exercise, keeping ourselves together. So guess what? Right after we record this, we're going out and taking a long, long hike, getting our exercise in together so you can actually make some of this a family event.

Sure. Or if you're committing to eating better and doing all of that, well make your meals together as a family so that you're getting in that wellness side. Like you know what's in your meals. You're not ordering out, you're not doing that instant stuff. Yeah. Make a pizza, make it together. Include the boys and all of you come together.

So there are ways of integrating your own wellbeing with the wellbeing of those around you. So it doesn't necessarily have to be a solo event. Yes. Now mind you, I say that with the, the fact that at least on a weekly basis, Sorry, Kelly. You're gonna have it do it. Sorry, Shelby, if you're listening, he's gonna have to do it.

You're gonna have to give him his time where it's like an hour and it's just Kelly time.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Like I said, it's not her. It's not her. It's 100% me.

Tash Jefferies: No, I'm sure it isn't. But it's good for her to be aware of, listen, I'm doing this for both of us and doing it for the entire family. Mm-hmm. And that approach is something that, you know what?

All they have to see is the difference before and after. You know, when. Kelly wasn't doing this, and now he is. Yeah. And he's much happier. He is more integrated. He's taking ownership. He's, you know, he's, he's more energetic and that change is going to make the difference where you're, you'll see that your family will start to advocate for you taking that time out.

Or we do family walks and we do family hikes, and all of us do a little, you know, go out and do something active together. Yeah. So there's always ways of sneaking it in without it looking like, you know? Yeah. And how to get rid of the guilt part of it, because everybody's engaged so that when you do need your hour alone just to do you Yeah.

That you get to do it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's, it's, it's really hard work-life balance is a flippin nightmare. And you know what? They don't. I am a huge am advocate for entrepreneurship. I think the empowerment that entrepreneurship brings to your life. You know what? It's so funny cuz actually the guest right before you that this show isn't even live yet.

It's we record, I ended up recording two shows, kind of back to back this week. So the essentially the, the episode, the interview episode before this one. We talked with Erin Holowach she did ComFree a really big real estate company here in Edmonton. And we talked a lot about work-life balance and kind of like finding the freedom and like the benefits that entrepreneurship brings to your life.

And I think, like there's no question in my mind like being an entrepreneur is just such a great avenue to go down in your life. It provides so much freedom, so much flexibility. However, it also provides a level of responsibility unlike anything that you have ever experienced before. Absolutely. I think the only thing that comes even close is parenting.

I, I really believe that.

Tash Jefferies: It's true. And so I'm gonna address something that you mentioned also for anyone listening, especially if you're an entrepreneur, founder have a tech startup of any kind. Let's say it and I will stand behind this. That work-life balance thing. Absolutely A myth. Absolutely a myth.

There are going to have to be times where you just run it. And I know myself cuz I've been here where I don't feel, feel guilty about it anymore. There will be literally two days, maybe even three days, where I'm just giving her, I'm missing my sleep, I'm missing whatever. I've got deadlines to hit. I'm prepping for demo days and big events and what have you.

You know, I'll miss some meals, I'll still stay hydrated, but like, you know, my exercise is running back and forth on the floor so I don't have my usual gym time. Yeah. But. When whatever that is is done, everyone on my team knows, listen, I got like two or three wellness days coming out so you can try to email me, but I responded to you.

Yeah, I am done. I am by my fire. I am binging on the golden girls and I'm chilling. So peace out to the world, like you're not gonna find me. And to me that's the, if you get used to knowing, okay, some days you're gonna have to givver absolutely fine. Yeah. But number one, I'm never gonna feel guilty because whatever I needed to get done, got done.

And I know there's a lot of people that I've talked to. Who feel guilty when they're doing nothing. I'm not one of those people. Yeah. I will check out and be like, Nope, no emails today. And not feel guilt. So guilt is one of those personal feeling Totally. Feelings and emotions. Totally. And you have to train yourself not to feel guilty with these things.

If you have to work a super long night, but you know something needs to get done and everyone in your life is gonna benefit from you completing this project, then you're just like, Nope, this is just, this is not guilt. This is just what needs to get done. But when I'm done, we're going to dinner, we're going for coffee, we're going for that walk.

Yeah, we're going to spend some time. And you ha, it's a, it's that mental toughness as an entrepreneur, as a founder, that if you don't understand how to train your own emotions, And it's through practice. All of this is through practice. Then you're gonna miss the boat and you'll still have, you'll hang onto those other feelings like you have to control.

And I mean, entrepreneurs, it's easier said than done. So the only way to do it is you gotta like make that commitment to yourself and just do it. Yeah. And take that one step at a time. Oh, I missed today. Okay, well I'm gonna, Recommit to doing it today and keep trying until it builds a new habit.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yeah.

Well I think it's so funny cuz like as entrepreneurs, I think we're some of the most motivated and committed people on this planet earth. The amount of effort that we will put into making our businesses successful, making sure that we're delivering for our clients, like creating the, the world's great new products.

Right? We'll, we'll put everything into that. But when it comes down to, and it sounds funny, and I'm not, I'm not like just saying like, entrepreneurs are the greatest people on earth. I get it. There are some that maybe aren't so great, but I think like, I think on a whole, we, we do it because we care so much about other people that we genuinely, in some cases care about other people more than we care about ourselves.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely, absolutely. And but I think as entrepreneurs, you also have to remember that. How you show up is a product of your own holistic health. So there's four pieces that I always explain are involved in that. There's your physical health, so are you sleeping, are you eating your, you know, balanced nutritional meals and drinking your water?

You've got your spiritual health with, which a lot of people don't think of, but you have to. All of us, even if you are not a religious person, we all have some type of spiritual practice that we go to. Like what is, what is our reason for being? What are our values? What do we believe in? You have to nurture that as well.

Mm-hmm. Your emotional is how well are you able to control and be there for the relationships and the people in your life, and understand who are the ones you need to keep close versus who need to let go. We're gonna get into that in a next discussion about detoxing, by the way. Sure. Then the last piece is your mental health.

So this is what are the thoughts you give yourself? How well are you able to control that guilt or whatever's coming up when you have to devote a little bit more time to your work than you can to your family and your friends and those who matter to you? And so your ability to manage your wellness is a component.

Each of those are a component of that. And when anything is off balance, remember your body is going to be your feedback mechanism that tells you something's off. And we need to start listening to those things that our body tells us to say. Oh. Hold on, something's off kilter here. Sometimes it happens in the form of headaches or body pains or any other forms of stress, or you get sick really easily.

Mm-hmm. And that's the way that your body is telling you, hold on, we need to go back and we need to do that scan. Where is something off in our entire system of health? So you gotta listen to the signs and then use that to guide you and say, okay, we're gonna come back. Something's off. Let's get back on point and on schedule here.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. No, you're, I totally, you're, you're nailed it, right? Like, you know, for me, I'll be honest, I've fought colds now for like two months and I, I know for a fact it's because things are a little off balance here. The, the worklife, the work-life balance has leaned a lot towards get it done The Alberta Way.

Yeah.

But oh boy. And not to mention, you know what, it's also been tough here. I, I mentioned it before, but we've been dealing with a lot of fires up here in Alberta, and yeah, that's not been good. Our, our, our oldest has asthma and the poor kid, he's just, yeah, he is dealt with a lot of, a lot of coughing.

He's in soccer, loves playing, but like, we kept him home a couple games because, oh boy, the smoke is so thick here, actually times that like, you can't see 30 feet in front of you. Like it's. It's brutal. The fires at one point got probably within about 80 kilometers of Spruce Grove where we're recording from.

And yeah, basically just a blanket of smoke for about a week. And like we, we finally got sunlight here, I think the last two days we could see again. But it's been absolutely brutal and you get environmental factors like that and yeah, we've definitely been struggling.

Tash Jefferies: Well, that's it. Yeah. And again, when we have environmental factors that kick in, right, like, then we have to figure out what are some other ways that, you know, we can kind of counteract these.

Like I've learned now because I travel so much, I walk with my apps that like, literally I don't need a stick of equipment of any kind and I can do my workouts. And again, if you can do workouts with family members, even like yoga, yoga you can do with anyone just together to get your body moving and to get your family involved.

And yoga is very good for kids and young people. So there's always ways of being able to say, okay, this is, this is super shitty. Yeah, it is. The world's gonna throw whatever at you, but how can we make the best out of this situation and still keep, you know, energy up and kill, still keep that mental wellness and still keep that emotional connection with your family.

There's always ways of doing it and it's just that, again, you, you kind of gotta figure out. I was saying earlier to you, my mind always goes to, if there's a problem, let's acknowledge what it is, but let's move to a solution. And there's always solutions for anything that we could be dealing with, especially when it comes to stress for founders and high performing folks, there's always a solution and it's like, find what it is and move to the solution.

And then even if you're dealing with, let's say you're dealing with sicknesses or colds or what have you, you'll find that you end up moving through them quicker because you're saying, okay. I'm gonna get my help back, or I'm gonna take that time and just build in, even if it's 30 minutes a day, I'm gonna build in my 30 minutes.

So I can just do something that, you know, puts me in a better head space to focus and things will, your body will work itself out. Yeah. Like things will come back into alignment.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think one of the things too that I wanted to touch on, That. I think as an entrepreneur, sales business development people, we can feel like these problems are just ours.

We're the only people experiencing them. And I, you know, with this show, I've really tried to like normalize, you know, stagefright, anxiety, things like that. Things that I still struggle with to this day that I've had thousands of meetings and I still get nervous at meetings. I still have people that I get nervous when I'm, when I'm gonna meet them.

I still have, you know, sometimes I'll be reading a bio and I'll be like, holy crap. Like, I find that, and I don't know whether, just like the reading of the bio itself, but every once in a while while reading my bios, I'll get like an anxious response in my body. And it's like, it's silly, but it's just the way that my body is doing things.

And I guess what I wanna say and what I want to make normal is that, We all have these things. Like this is not just you. If you struggle with stage fright, if you got incredibly nervous, like I used to get nervous before interviews. I used to get nervous before all sorts of crap, like insanely nervous.

But like I want you to know that if that is you, you are normal. There's nothing abnormal about you. And I think that as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, as of someone in business development, you can feel like, this is my job. Like why is this happening to me? It's happening to you because you're human.

There's nothing wrong with you. And I, I really want people to take that away from shows like this, from episodes like this, that we all experience nerves, we all experience sickness, we all experience human life. Absolut. And just cause you're an entrepreneur doesn't make you immune.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely not. And what I would also say to back this up, Kelly, is the fact that.

Nerves is good because it means you care. And guess what? When people don't care, that's when they just, they, you know, they don't, they don't get nerves cuz they're like, they don't care. So to me, nerves is just showing that you care. You wanna do your best, you're looking for that, connecting with that guest or, or your entire audience, no matter what it is that you're doing.

And again, it goes back to the mindset of being able to understand and realize that. It's, it's a perception thing for you as a founder to say, listen, I have nerves. Number one, like you said, it is super normal. Yeah. Everybody gets it and it shows that you care about something. And I mean, I would rather be known as a person who is nervous because I wanna give my A game.

And so that's what comes across. So that little bit of nerves, people are like, nah, like she's killing it. She cares, she's doing her, she is pumping it out. Like, look at her goal. Yeah. And so to be able to take that on as that means a good thing, it means that you wanna do well, we should wanna do well. So why not get nervous because you know you are shooting your shot.

Yeah. Take it and, and be okay with this. There's so much I think. And again, this is from the social media talk that we had on the, the past episode about a lot of fakeness, a lot of shiny happiness going on. Mm-hmm. But I'm so thrilled that you're doing this because you're showing what's really going on, and yes, all founders deal with imposter syndrome.

Totally. I must tell you though, I'm gonna be honest, I rarely do it. And the only reason I don't do it anymore is because I've practiced myself, talk to myself for so many years. But when I be was back in the day, especially like, oh my gosh, every day it's like, sh, do do I deserve to be on this stage? Do I really deserve to be here doing this TEDx?

And I used to a lot, every, every day, it was like, do I deserve to be here? And the only reason that self-talk has changed is because I made it into a new habit where I'm like, no, everything that happens, all these opportunities, They deserve to come my way and I expect them.

Kelly Kennedy: You know what I That's, yeah, you 100% deserve to be there.

First off, there's no question. When I first, thank you, first saw you on a stage, that was the first time, my first introduction to you was at a Global 500 event the Alberta Accelerator. And yeah, you were sick that day. You told me in the episode, yes, but you look like a million bucks. Your energy was the next level.

You were pumping up the crowd. You were so excited. I'm like, yeah, I need to meet this woman. I need to meet Tash Jefferies. And I'm so happy I did because that is truly who you are. You really are that person. And I really love that authenticness that you pump out and you know, whether it be in a podcast episode, you're just our discussions on the phone or whatever, it's, this is really who you are and I think that's really important.

Yeah. And with regards to imposter syndrome, what I find is life catches up so. You may feel like an imposter, and that's nothing wrong with you. There's nothing wrong with that. Right? Absolutely. If that's how you feel like in that moment, absolutely fine, but understand that as you do that more and more and more, life catches up and one day you wake up and you don't feel like an imposter anymore.

Tash Jefferies: That, and you know, thank you for mentioning that, Kelly, because that's exactly what I know. That's what happened with me now. I mean, I wake up and I'm like, no, I'm really good at what I do. Yeah. I love what I do and life has put me in a place where I. I don't have to put on errs with anyone. I don't have to do anything fake cuz I'm like, no, I'm gonna show up.

I'm kind of bougie when I travel and I like what I like and high end stuff and that's okay. Yeah. But I've also worked to get to this place where life has caught up to me and so I can now sit back and enjoy it and have that confidence that comes along with all the hard work and the grit that I've been doing for more, that hustling for more than 20 years.

I get to say, okay, now this is like gr, this is freedom time. Let's just go full bore. Let's take it on. And let's just go with it. Go with the opportunities, be present. Be totally with it. Own who you are. Show up every day. Do what you need to do to be your best, and just take that on.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely. And you know, you touched on, you touched on some ways that people can look at their wellness as a whole and say, okay, these are four categories that we need to look at.

How are we doing in each of these categories? As you know, sometimes life is just incredibly hard. You know, you might be going through mm-hmm. A, a, a breakup with somebody who you love. You might be going through a divorce who knows, maybe you lost a family member. Like Yep. What would you recommend for people that are dealing with the truly incredibly hard situations at life, do you think that, you know, I guess I like the reality is for everybody.

There's not always an option. Sometimes they have to continue life, even though life would be a lot better if they could just not continue it or take a break from it for a minute. Do you have any advice for the people that are truly struggling, that are struggling with some of life's hardest challenges?

How do we, how do we handle those situations and still move forward? Especially if we carry a lot of responsibility?

Tash Jefferies: I love that Kelly, and I'm so glad we're talking about it. So the first thing that I would say to you if you are listening to this podcast, the very first one is you have to, no exceptions.

You have to build up a tribe around you. Meaning that you need to find people who can relate to what you're doing. And especially if you're a founder or you're an entrepreneur, there are so many places where you can find other entrepreneurs and connect with people who are in similar situations, who, you know, run their own schedules.

They're doing business development, and so they know what the sales game is like. Sales is a lot of rejection so they can understand what you're dealing with. They're also, you know, heading up families. They're taking care of a lot of responsibilities inside and outside of the home. Like there's a lot on their shoulders.

So I would say find your tribe. So that at any given time you don't feel alone. The worst thing that you can do as an entrepreneur is feel like nobody understands what I'm going through. Nobody understands all of these challenges at any given point in time. My mother used to tell me all the time, you don't know what anybody else is dealing with.

They're dealing with the same challenges, if not worse than you. Yes. So how do you combat that? You have people that you can turn to who are going to understand what it's like to have the hustle to own their own companies, to be the one that everybody goes to. Yeah. And the head of everything, like even myself, I run my own business, but then I run programs.

I'm the, I'm the youngest in my family, but I'm the one that everybody comes to to get things together. So what do I do? I have a strong network of friends and fellow founders who know what it's like to be that one, that alpha that everyone's like, okay, go, go, go to him or go to her. Yeah. And they'll help you clean up the situation.

Totally. You gotta have your network. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would say, which is just as equally as important and on the opposite side, detox. And it's a hard thing to talk about, especially if you come from big families or you're ver a social butterfly, you've got a lot of connections, guaranteed there is people in your life that are bringing you down.

Mm-hmm. Are making it worse for you to be able to connect with yourself and others that aren't being supportive, that are helping you stay in that mindset that's holding you back. So don't be afraid to go through, and I advocate people, do this on a quarterly basis. Go through and look at the top, top five people that you spend the majority of your time with.

Watch how they talk, watch the language that they use, watch the things that they do in their life. Watch how their relationships are with their family and their friends. And if you're looking and noticing and seeing trends, which I guarantee you will, they got to go. Yeah. So it's great knowing you, but I'll talk to you another day and you constantly look, where are people who are supposed to be supporting me?

Yeah. And this is another hard one. And when it comes to family supposed to be supporting me, but they're holding me back, they're pushing me down, they're telling me no, they're constantly having negativity that's thrown my way. Yeah. Clear 'em out. And it's hard and it's tough, but guess what? You're also an entrepreneur or a founder.

You already know what it's like to do tough things. You do it every day in your work. So guess what? Now it's time for you to do it in your life, and it's one of those harsh realities, but it is one of the most beneficial. Mm-hmm. Practices that you can integrate to bring wellness back into your own life.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I love, I love that you've had tons people, family is such a fun one, so I'm so lucky. First off, let me just state that like my, my mom and sister have been nothing but inspiring to me my entire life. I would not be where I am today without the support of my mom and my sister. I love them immensely, and they've always supported me in anything that I want to do.

I went to college because of my sister. It would've never happened without her. Love it. But yeah, like I definitely see like the people that tend to be the largest naysayers in your life, they do tend to be the people closest to you. Like that. That's what sucks about that, is that like, in some ways, if you're detoxing, like you said, who the people you're detoxing from are your best friends or your, your family or your brothers, your sisters, absolutely yours, they're the closest people in your life or tend to be the ones that are the most critical.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely. And so it's a hard thing, but at the end of the day, I always go back and I say to people, well, do you, do you just wanna do it or do you wanna do it? Right? Mm-hmm. Because if you wanna do it right for you, and what makes the most sense for you and gives you the most results in your life, guess what?

You're gonna have to do things that are hard. You're going to have to, you're gonna make hard choices, hard decisions. And again, if you're an entrepreneur or a founder, you already know you've had to do that. You are choosing this path. Yeah. That there is no direction for, there is no blueprint. Totally. You can't say, I'm gonna do this and this is gonna happen at the end.

So again, you're already used to making hard choices and hard decisions. So now how about do one for yourself? Yeah. For your own mental, emotional, spiritual and physical wellbeing. Just do it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It takes a lot of mental toughness to go out on your own and start any kind of business or take any kind of path and do like, unfortunately, you really are the only person who's going to understand what that means for you.

Even, even the people that are supportive in your life, they will never truly understand what it truly means to be you paving this new path, especially if that's what you're doing. I. So understand that like while, yes, it's nice to have people that are positive, it's you. You need to be the one who's the most positive about, you're doing the most optimistic about what you're doing.

Because if you lose that, nobody else is gonna understand you.

Tash Jefferies: That's right. But again, though, that's where the first tip comes in, which is when you find your tribe, and it's one of the reasons why I do the programs that I do and why. I am, I am like literally all about building ecosystems. So I'm getting ready to do a trip and do a bootcamp in Egypt right now.

And my very first founders that I worked with back in Saudi are based from Egypt. Wow. And so I'm going to reconnect with a a ton of them. A lot of them. And I am connecting them with all three batches that I've worked with and the new system ecosystem fund that's there because it really does take a lot of people to help build this up.

And if you can find people, they might not exactly know your journey and not be on the path you're on. But the founders that I know, once they are in a cohort, They stay together. We have WhatsApps. They're constantly reaching out, and at least in that, that kind of scenario where you're around people who are doing something and understand the journey and the path that you've decided to take, they're going to understand.

And in that moment when someone else is mirroring to you that they're dealing with the same thing. And I've seen it happen. I see it all the time. You can noticeably know, see the physical change. Like someone actually, their body relaxes and like, ah, yeah, okay. There's another person here who knows what this is like.

Kelly Kennedy: I found my, my people.

Tash Jefferies: Yes, that's exactly it, Kelly. And that within itself is so important to know that. Like, cuz it's lonely enough to walk the entrepreneurial path. Yeah. But when you, when you meet someone and they're saying it's, it's like almost like I hear this all the time. They are taking the words right out of my brain.

What is happening?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, absolutely.

Tash Jefferies: It, it can change what you're doing cuz it's like, oh, okay. I'm not alone and you're not. And that's what I wanna go back to. Yeah. Because I know a lot of founders who either have dealt with, you know, suicide and, and, and depression or have even died because they didn't reach out, they didn't do any of these things.

Mm-hmm. And so, again, another reason why I talk about it a lot because I've just seen too much of it that has impacted people's lives way beyond what it should have. If they would've reached out for help or started doing some of these things and being proactive and realizing that they're not alone.

Yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: absolutely. You are like, I want that to be the takeaway from the show. A hundred percent. You are not alone. You are not alone. No matter what you're doing, you're not alone. There's people who care about you, who love you, who love what you're doing. First off, you're an entrepreneur. They love what you're doing.

They, you know, the reality is, I, I. Entrepreneurs inspire me. People like you inspire me because you are, you're truly changing the world. You really are. Like, you know, the 300 plus different founders and startups that you have worked with, they're gonna create technologies and products that will genuinely change the entire planet.

I can't think of anything more meaningful as to to place yourself in your position in the world than to help. People change the world. And I truly think that that's what you're doing. And very inspirational. Very inspirational.

Tash Jefferies: Thank you Kelly. And I think one of the things that I do, and my founders know this too, in all of the programs that I run, it's almost a non-negotiable.

And even if it's not, I still do this session and make it optional for founders. We always do a session like this about wellness. What are things that you can do to keep your energy high when you've been running on fumes And how to know the signs of when you know you need to just check out. I mean, we do programs where we have, you know, mandatory sessions where everyone's gotta be there.

But if I know a founder just did a three day all nighter. I'm like, go to sleep. If you do not go to sleep and then just come back and watch the recording when you're going up, I'm gonna kick you out of the session. And it's, it's true. Yeah. Cause I mean, I am, I, I, I practice what I preach in the sense that I want my founders to be well and alive and full of energy and contributing.

And you can't do that if you just done, you've just done like three all-nighters and you have no energy and you know, you think you're gonna get kicked out because you missed a session. Yeah. Miss the session. So sleep.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Let's talk burnout. Let's talk burnout. Burnout is a serious, serious problem that we have in our modern culture.

I think it's gotten a little bit worse, maybe even since Covid, I think. And I, burnout is not just an entrepreneurial problem. Burnout happens to basically anybody in a high performance that's a high performance individual. They do experience walls and burnout. And I think what I've found too is is that, People are just not stopping work.

And I think that's really, and I, I'm a huge advocate for working at home. I love working at home. I've been doing it for a long time now. I, I've gotten very good at it. However, I did not start out very good at it. It took me a while to be able to compartment, you have to literally compartmentalize your house to a point where you have a room and that's your work room.

I literally have a room here in this house where when I go to work, this reg go, I shut my door, I bring my dog in, but it's just us. And we drink coffee Nice. And we do the work we gotta do. But when I, when I, I think what can happen is, is that if you do a lot of work from home, especially if you're not finding a way to compartmentalize, you never turn off and then burnout becomes a real problem.

Can we speak to burnout?

Tash Jefferies: Yes, absolutely. One of the biggest things, first of all, I think it is important for us to talk about prioritization because as a founder, As an entrepreneur, you know, you have a to-do list that never gets done. It just keeps growing. It keeps growing. It keeps growing. Yeah. But what I've come to find out, not just from working with other founders, but also for myself, is that just because something is on your to-do list doesn't mean that it's essential to move the needle forward that needs to get done now.

Mm-hmm. Even if somebody else is barking down your throat saying, oh, I want this now, I want this tomorrow. I'm gonna ask the question, do you really need it tomorrow? Is it that essential? What? What happens if this doesn't get done? And so I keep advocating, and I learn this actually from consulting days, so I do it all the time.

So every day is a productive one. Once my time comes, I shut down. No guilt, no need to check anything, I'm good. Yeah. But it's prioritized. All of those things that are on your to-do list. And I would suggest to founders, take a look at what is on your list and think about what actually is moving the needle forward.

So I'm gonna tie this back to business development because that's the show, and that's also what I love to talk about and say that give, I'll give a just a nuts and bolts examples so people understand. There are people who might be trying to kill themselves to do their Instagram posts every day.

Why? Because they think that it's going to be important for customers to see them. However, what really, and that's maybe that's four hours of your day that you're just trying to make these posts. You could alternatively find 10 new customers that you know, that you found on LinkedIn and you literally just cold call them or email them, and then that could take 30 minutes.

Which one takes less time and which one is going to more positively move the needle for your business? Totally. Well, guess what? If you gave me those two options, I'm gonna do the one that's harder, which is picking up the phone and calling people. Because guess what? I just found another three and a half hours in my day.

Yeah. Now that's a hardcore example because it's true and it's one that I tell to my founders all the time. Mm-hmm. Why are you building up all this other extra extraneous stuff that's not bringing in and actually moving the needle for your business? There are probably easier ways to do the tasks that you have on your to-do list.

Also, cuz I go back, I got a a, a session booked just talking metrics cuz someone heard me say no, your numbers. I'm gonna go right back to that. You can actually say I made 10 calls. And I got five people live and I booked two additional meetings to send out proposals for the product or the service that I have that goes directly into your K P I dashboard or your metrics to be able to say, wow, that was a direct impact.

Totally. You spend the four hours on social media. Yeah. It goes out and there's like 5,000 views. How many people actually called you? How many people filled out a form on your website? If it's a big fat zero, then you're done.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. And

Tash Jefferies: so prioritize.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Cold calls is just one of those things that everybody struggles with.

There's, there's this fear. Yeah, there's just this fear. But just remember, they're just people. Like the people you're talking to are just people and they probably do need what you're trying to talk to 'em about. So have a little pride and just make the call.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely. And I think that a lot of founders, story founders, here's a hard truth for all of you listening And entrepreneurs too.

I can, I'm sure if you were to book time with me, we'd probably be able to find. At least five to 10 hours a week in your schedule that you're spending on things that aren't moving your business forward that we could transform into two hours a week. So that, guess what? We found that time for you to make your own meals.

We've found the time for you to go and spend that quality time with your family. We found the time for you to be able to go to the gym. We've found the time for you to be able to have that hour where you just check out and do nothing. Yeah, and every founder, ev, there's no exceptions here because we're talking about your life.

You only got one shot. Live it and find it. And that's something that I've just been blessed with being able to help founder see and be able to say, hold on, let's free up some time in your schedule. Cuz I know it's there. Yeah. And you can't tell me that it's not We'll find it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's it's a fear. It's a fear.

It really is. It's an unfounded fear. First off, I do wanna kind of clarify that. It is a fear though, that most people have, and I actually did an episode, I think four episodes back from this one. It's literally called Cold Call Courage. And I'm hoping, hoping with that episode to motivate people to make some cold calls because it's probably the, the one thing that you could do that's gonna have the biggest effect on your business.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely. And it's one of those things where I know, because I experience a lot of founders who spend a lot of time like building up things that do not convert into real dollars or real customers into their business. And it's that social media sinkhole, like why? I mean, I, I know we talked about last time about my Friday dance videos.

Yeah. But like, it's nice, but I can find other ways also of spending that time. But if it's not converting to my business, Why am I doing it? Because there's a lot of time that it takes to go and build, you know, content and beyond digital media and all of those things. But spend the time where you know it's going to convert back.

And if you keep optimizing for that, and again, it's something that at this point in my life, like I said earlier, I started off doing all the same things that entrepreneurs and founders do, which is they're spending sinking all of this time and money into stuff that does not convert. So I've been there done that, which is why I talk about it.

But now I'm at the point where everything I do, I know what, what converts. I know what actually brings business for me and where my customers and my clients are. And I just optimize for that, so that I build my day so that, okay, I'm talking to people, I'm getting on the phone, I'm doing Zoom calls with people who I know, like I solve a problem for and my team can solve a problem for.

It's hard and it's scary. Yeah. But it just works.

Kelly Kennedy: I think unless you're selling t-shirts or something that like that, someone can just buy very easily online. The reality is, None of this social stuff is gonna work unless it gets you in person. And the problem with socials, I talk about it all the time with capital, with all my customers, we use an 80 20 rule where 80% is active marketing.

Phone calls, emails, direct contact. 20% yes. Is on the social side of things because absolutely. The social side in my mind is for brand recognition only. It's not converting to money, it's just letting people know who you are so that when you do finally reach out to them in person, they maybe have seen you.

They're, maybe you're not coming in completely cold, they, they might have seen your ad or something. But the problem with socials and people aren't thinking about this, it's too many hoops to jump through. It's too many. You're asking too much of your customer. They have to click, they have to, first off, need your ad.

First off, they have to need the product. They're actively searching for you. Then they click your ad. Then they have to, I dunno, find a way to reach out to you via email or contact form. They have to wait like you're just asking way too much from your customers. If that's your only strategy.

Tash Jefferies: Kelly, preach like, I like one 1000000% agree with everything that you've just said.

And again, though, I think for a lot of founders, we also do the same with our business where we're saying, we've built it, we've built this awesome thing, but why isn't the phone like ringing off the hook? But it's like, hold on, path the lease resistance for your customers. Always think about what they need to do to get to you.

Or you could just find them. Yep. Go pick up a phone and say, listen, I know what you're looking for. I saw your last post. I know where you're at. I know that we can help you. Yep. Can we, can we talk about it? Is now a good time or shall we book it done? You have just like you've cleared the path. You're like, no, I'm right here.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And you did something that even like 90% of salespeople fail to do. Oh my gosh. And that's just simply ask for a meeting. Right. How many people, like how many times have you been on a sales call and they're, they introduce a product and then silent and it's like, okay, bye. Like, not, not if you don't book a meeting to clarify, to be able to have that conversation in person, like you have to ask for the meeting.

That's like the most critical part of any of these contacts.

Tash Jefferies: There's nothing worse for a business development person than to have a bad business development call cuz I, it's like, I almost wanna be like, Oh, George, can I help you out here? I'm not gonna buy from you solely on your pitch. Can I tell you how you can approve this?

And it's like, oh man, I shouldn't, that's not my job. Yeah. Like just, oh man. But there's nothing worse. And yes, we, we've always gotta be asking for it in the easiest way is pick up a phone and call, send an email, do a LinkedIn outreach, but get them live. Get them in person, get them on the phone, whatever you need to do.

It's, it's one of those founders have a tendency to try to fill their time and say, I'm always busy with things that don't move the needle. And so I'm, I'm that harsh person who tries to pick that out. Yeah. And get them used to cold calling or finding out what their solution really does, which a lot of.

People don't like to make those calls. Especially tech people. Yes. Or engineers. Yeah. Integrate. But once they make those calls, hundred percent, they're, they're game changers. And so I love seeing that transformation for people who end up loving talking to their customers. Yes. That's my goal. Absolutely.

Love talking to your customers.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally, totally. And always try to bring positivity to the conversations. I, I always say like, if you're making a cold call, you can hear a smile. Make sure that you're smiling, make sure that you're in a good mood. Try to improve your customer's day. I always like to think that anybody that I cold called over my time.

My goal was always to, number one, improve their day, come across kind and happy. And, and if you gotta, you know, the reality is 80% of the time you're leaving messages, leave a happy message. Don't leave that like boring robotic messages. Like, Hey, it's John with a b, c company and we sell this. I think you might want it.

Call me back later. Right? Like, are you calling that person back? No, you, you're not calling him back.

Tash Jefferies: Kelly, we've had the exact same sales training. I love it cuz that's exactly it. That's my approach to life. When, when you are around people, and this is why that surround yourself with people who are upbeat, optimistic, because it does, it is infectious.

Like who wouldn't wanna have a discussion with someone? Like, honestly, I'm sure in the last episode, which is why it had so many downloads. People were hearing how much fun we had on that call. Totally. They're like, I want in. Totally. Give me more.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, yeah. You know what? And the funny thing is, is that like business can be fun.

It's as fun as you make it. That's my honest opinion. It's, it's what you make it. So if you wanna make it this horrible, tedious task, that's what it's gonna be. If you wanna try to bring some optimism lightheartedness and make a business that's fun, you can do that too.

Tash Jefferies: Same. And you know what? So I'll tell another little secret that most people don't know.

People who meet me, who knew me when I was a kid, they can never believe it. They're like, you speak on stages, you travel internationally. Yeah. You work with hundreds of founders. Because I was super shy as a kid. I was super, super shy. And so what flipped was, and I was shy right up until probably 18, and when I got to university, something clicked on for me, which was I realized, and from whoever heard last time knows I'm from Halifax.

So I used to start university at Dalhousie, graduated from Ryerson in Toronto, but I started at Dalhousie and I remember being in one of the, the bar downstairs on campus and I started meeting all these people and I always thought Halifax was small. I was like, I need to get the hell outta here. So I remember seeing all of these people from all over the world and then something clicked in to say, I wanna find out why they decided to come here.

And it was so funny was from talking to all these international people who like said how awesome Nova Scotia was and there's like Peggy's Cove. Mm-hmm. And we have so many lakes and there like we have the best schools in all of Canada in Nova Scotia. And I was like, Wow. I think I'm in love with Nova Scotia again too.

And so I started finding people so super interesting. And so that's what helped me break out and start talking to people. I find people just humans Yes. Are interesting, beautiful people. And there's not many people in this world where you'll come across where if you don't approach them with, you are a human.

Mm-hmm. And I'm so excited to talk to you that aren't gonna reciprocate. Totally. They get happy when you smile. Yeah. Like you were saying, you can hear a smile over the phone. And so I just flipped and then I started talking to people and people always responded like, who the hell are you? Like you're so fun and happy.

And I'm like, I really do find you interesting. I wanna hear your story. And like it changes everything on your approach, especially in business development, if you approach this, not like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to convince this person on the phone. Like why they need my stuff and just say, hi, I'm Tash and this is what I do.

Yeah. And I think it might be useful for you. Would you like to hear more? Love to tell you about it. People are gonna respond, even if they don't need it. They're gonna be like, wow, you are happy. What did you have this morning? I want some of it. Totally. And then a conversation happens. Yeah. Just don't be afraid of people.

They're human just like you. They cry, they enjoy things. There's something that they love. Just be open. Mm-hmm. It was the biggest thing that changed my life. And so I approach all business development, all cold calls with that same kind of energy from when I was 18.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And I wanna transition this even once you get to the meeting stages, right?

Recognize that like, yeah, we all have business to you. We all got things to do, but guess what? We're human first. So why don't you spend a little time getting to know the person before you nail them about your product or service? Because the reality is most of us have families, most of us have loves and hobbies that are like most of us love sports or whatever else we love.

You get to know people. The reality is the worst thing is if you end up in a meeting and it's all business, don't be that person.

Tash Jefferies: Nope. And it's never fun. No. And I mean, it's, it's a, it's a great way to have a, a meeting and then just feel like you're going through the motions. But guess what? Like I always say, Kelly, we say we are, we're doing it right now, which is have fun in what you're doing.

There's ways to enjoy everything in life. And I'm now at the point in the stage in my life where I, I like my colleagues that I work with, shout out to Simon, Shahil, Rosa Fatima, like they are amazing people. When we get together and we're doing an intense program that has still has deliverables, we still have KPIs at the end.

We have NPS scores that we have to get back from our founders, but we have a ball and our founders know it because we appreciate each other. We get along and we're like, we gonna make this best experience ever. Yeah. So that we also enjoy it because, Everything changes when they, when people see that you're having fun and you're enjoying it, everything changes.

Kelly Kennedy: Totally. Totally. And it's like, how do you wanna live your life being the other side of this? Do you want work to be this horrible, stressful thing that you have to do every day? Or do you wanna enjoy it? You get a choice. Absolutely. You really do get to choose.

Tash Jefferies: Absolutely. And to bring this back to the whole wellness piece, because that's what the, is the focus of today.

It's about viewing any situation that you have to deal with, like how you saw me when I was talking about my brother and I fill up. But listen, my brother taught me a lot of hustle about how to do, like, by the way, his name was Tony, that's my older brother. That we lost. Like, he taught me so much about business development.

About how emotion helps people come around and understand what you have, what they want, how to connect with people that, that man knew so many people, and I've, to this day, I've not met anybody who didn't say, I just absolutely loved your brother because he knew what charisma was. He knew how to be authentic.

He knew just who he was and he showed up and yeah, like it's, take whatever you have, whatever you're dealing with, even hard moments can be transformed into something. Yeah. That is a bonus and a blessing to your life. And that's the, it's the hard work to do it, but the hard work, it's worth it to be able to be able to show up consistently day after day and take what's on your plate, you know, figure it out a little bit better, take something out.

Put something else in and cost to be looking at how to improve, you know, the time that we have on this planet.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. And none of us know how much time we have left on this planet, first off. Nope. But here's the thing, like what a legacy that Tony did leave you are the legacy of him. And look at the change that you are gonna impart on this world.

What an amazing legacy to leave. Let me just, let me just say that first off, something else that you talked about. And I don't think that, you know, we talked about this actually on the last show. We touched on it a little bit here, but I don't think a show on mental health would be complete unless we talked about the social media aspect of it.

You talked about, I think you called it super happy people syndrome in the last one. Yes. But can we elaborate social media on the one hand, you know, we utilize it for marketing. We utilize it for connection community. But it can also be an incredibly negative community. It can also be a place that can drag on you.

It can become an addiction. Can we talk a little bit to social media, maybe some healthy ways to use it, and if we're using it unhealthily, how can we detox? How can we make some space there?

Tash Jefferies: I think you just hit on the word, it's called detox. If you feel worse after spending, you know, even 10 minutes on social media than you did before you went on, then it's time for a detox.

You need to just stop using it. Very simple thing that can work. Delete the app from your phone. Right. You can actually, there's tools now online where you can block out access to websites. You can set it so that even if you try to get on that website, it will just not give you access to it. So you, you have to take ownership of that and go back to your own, your own wellbeing.

And all of us have triggers. Now, for me, I know if I'm getting stressed out or I'm feeling negative or I'm feeling overwhelmed, I get stressed all up the back of my neck where I can't even move from side to side. And it is that notice to me that, hold on, what did I do? I did something today. That I shouldn't really be doing.

And if you are getting any kind of your own body's physical ailments, something that shows up in the physical form for you when you're using social media or you're on a certain channel or you notice that, you know, you're not usually a crier or someone who gets angry, but then you've been on this channel and then all of a sudden you're crying or you're angry mm-hmm.

Time to detox, take it off your phone. Just delete it, delete it, make sure you don't have access to it anywhere. And I would also suggest that you check whether or not that, that you actually need that channel for business or for work. Mm-hmm. Again, it's one of those harsh realities that, you know, some founders and entrepreneurs don't wanna hear.

But are you on Instagram, which is a very negative channel for you and you're not converting any of your customers there. But you still feel the need to go on, or is that just, you know, that masochist within you saying, no, I'm just gonna go on cuz I wanna go on. Yeah. Is it necessary for you and ask that hard question because not all social media channels are going to be effective for your business.

So ask that hard question. And if it is a channel that definitely you do activate, you do get customers from it, then you need to actually get like, just like we talked about earlier, you need to put that front on what are you going for? Are you looking for customers? Are you doing direct outreach? Go on and put compartmentalize.

Go on and do what you need to do and use it like any other channel that you would go on. Do your sourcing, get your customers, know what you're looking for. Go in with a result in mind. Yeah. And not get dragged into all the other things. So you have so many options, founders, entrepreneurs, high performing, people who are listening.

You have to start using your own clues or get better at using your own body's clues to be able to help you navigate what's your next step, what's the resolution? And your body will always respond once you've hit on what's working and what's not.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. Amazing as always, Tash, I think. I think that is where we are going to end off our our episode here on wellness and mental health.

I think you provided an absolute ton of value and I think a lot for all of us entrepreneurs to think about. You just finished your website and it's beautiful and my pretty face is on it right at the bottom.

Tash Jefferies: It is! Cause it's my favorite podcast and it's right there. Absolutely. Yeah. And I'm excited because I do think that founders.

Are going to change the world. They are changing the world and we still need, they still need all the support and help that they can get. And so I will continue to do what I do and do it with that bright and cherry file. Absolutely. And my bright colors.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. And if if people are listening, and this is your first time meeting Tash Jefferies.

We have a previous episode. It's episode 28, I believe. Think like a scientist. We talk about entrepreneurship, business development. It's more of the same. So if you're really enjoying this episode, you're really gonna love that one. Tash, if people wanna get ahold of you, they're founders, they're entrepreneurs, they're startups, they're trying to get something off the ground.

They're struggling. You can help them. How how

Tash Jefferies: can they get you?

Absolutely. Two ways. Easiest one is if you're on LinkedIn, I'm Tash J. Just look for the hair. I have big, wild hair. Or you can go to my website where you can sign up to connect with me there. And that is tashjefferies.com.

Kelly Kennedy: Amazing. This has been episode 34 of the Business Development Podcast.

Just another amazing interview. I still, I, I, I never. It never ceases to amaze me that I get interviews like you like with the amazing guests we get on this show. It never ceases to amaze me and I love the stories. I think that's probably one of my favorite things about this podcast is getting to hear my, my guest stories, cuz they're all amazing, they're all inspiring, and they all bring a ton of value to people looking to grow.

So always thankful. Very thankful to have you. I hope this is not the last time. I hope we get to, we get, get back together.

Tash Jefferies: It'll be, I'll be back as long as you have me.

Kelly Kennedy: We get to do this again. Cause I always enjoy this interview once again, episode 34 of the Business Development podcast. If you have been enjoying this show, please follow us, like us on whatever platforms you like.

Feel free to leave us a reviewer or rating. Always helps more people enjoy the channel. Yeah, please tell your friends and family. That's how, that's how these shows grow the most. And until next time. We will catch you on the flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development. The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development specialists.

For more, we invite you to the www.capitalbd.ca . See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.