#48 - You Can't Give 100% to Everything: A Working Mom's Guide to Excellence with Rasheité Calhoun
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Welcome to the In Bloom podcast where we are exploring what it means to design a truly fulfilling life. Today I'm joined by Rashida Calhoun. She is a revenue leader, a mom of four, and also someone who refuses to compromise her authentic self. Rashida is so honest about the fact that we don't actually have to fragment ourselves to succeed. In this conversation she opens up about the reality of imposter syndrome, how she balances the difference between excellence and perfectionism,

the exhaustion of code switching, and the freedom that finally comes from giving yourself the permission to define what good enough looks like for you. Her perspective was really refreshing. And for someone that is thinking about the future and kids and career, hearing how one mom did it all was just so helpful. And I hope that you get a lot from this episode.

Before we dive in, I would love it if you would hit the subscribe button and also share this episode with a friend. That is the only way that this podcast grows. And every time that you share the episode, the more listeners that we have, the more incredible conversations that I get to share with you. So if you could do that, then let's jump into the episode. You are excellent. You become unforgettable. Welcome to Indie Media.

Welcome to the podcast, Rashida Calhoun. Thank you for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm super excited. I want to kick this off. Start strong. How do you spend your day today? Oh my God. How do I spend my day? No day is the same. When I get up in the morning, so I try. I am failing right now. I used to be a 5 a.m. girly where I would get up at 5 a.m.,

And that first hour from like five to six, I would read my Bible and meditate and do devotions and journaling and all that. And then from six to seven, I'd work out. I get on the Peloton for 30 minutes and then I'd spend 30 minutes in my basement. I have a home gym that's like super decked out and I would do that. And then I'd shower and then I'd get the kids up at seven and get them ready for school, get them off to school, start my day.

It was amazing. I am no longer a 5 a.m. girly. I am a get up in enough time to get the kids to the bus stop. And if that is not enough, then they're car riders. Not because I don't like my kids riding the bus, but because it means I can stay in the bed for 20 more minutes. And so that's how my days start. And you know what? I'm not ashamed. It is what it is because I'm like in this

I'm in a different season of my life right now where I don't get to go to bed at a decent hour where it makes sense to wake up at 5 a.m. anymore. So I get my journaling in and my meditating in a different time of the day. I get my workout in sometime in the middle of the day when I can schedule it in between calls in the workday. Right. I, um,

I have two sets of kids. One is gone. My oldest son is at Ohio State. He's a freshman. He came to visit me this weekend. It was amazing. I cooked all this food for him and his giant track teammates. But he's gone. I've got a senior in high school who is amazing, but she is always with her friends now because she's a senior and she's nearly grown. And so now, and then these two younger kids who...

used to just be on the go with us wherever we'd go. Now they're becoming active, right? I've got an almost five-year-old and a seven-year-old in soccer and basketball and football and gymnastics and playdates and all things. And

We don't really, my day doesn't end with work and the kids and friends and church and everything until like sometimes 10 o'clock, I'm finally able to sit down and have a moment to myself. And 5 a.m. wake up me would go to bed at 10.

And I don't want to go to bed at 10 because I want to watch a show or I want to read a book or I want to scroll Instagram for an hour mindlessly. Right. And so I don't get to bed until 11 or sometimes midnight or sometimes I'm still up at one, which means there's no way that I can get up at 5 a.m. So, yeah, my day's nuts. OK, and then bring in work. Tell me where does that fit in?

I would love to be able to say that work fits in nestled between nine and five, but it doesn't. A lot of people would tell you that that means that I don't have work-life balance because I don't shut off. But that isn't true, right? Because there are days where I am here in my office and as soon as my nanny gets here, I go and start working. And then as soon as she leaves, I'm done and I shut off and I'm done for the day.

It just doesn't work that way, right? Like I live in Indiana, but I'm on East Coast time zone, right? And so some of the partners that I work with are in California. And so that means I might have to have some calls later in the evening. I also may want to leave in the middle of the day to go have lunch with my kid because she's having something at her school and that's at two o'clock. And so I'm going to go and I'm going to do that.

Um, and so then I make, make that time up later in the evening. Um, and so what I really do is I look at all the things that I have to do in a week or in a day, everything that I have to get accomplished. And so that could be things that I want to do with my kids, things that I have to do with work, things that I have to do with church, because I also serve things, all my volunteer things I want to do. Um, I never leave out my girls. So things that I want to do with my girlfriends, right.

And I look at all the things that I'm going to do for a week. And then I figure out how do I schedule that? If I showed you my calendar, you would think that it's crazy, but I literally have every single piece of my life on my calendar, even my workouts. Right. And so work happens at some point throughout the day. I am typically in my office during work hours, but I also travel a lot for work.

which also makes work look a little bit different. And so it's hard to answer where it fits in. You know, I get it in where I can fit it in. That's incredible. I'm going to come back to this in a little bit, but first I want to call out the fact that I love your mentality. It's very flexible and also full of just giving yourself a lot of grace and also just recognizing the fact that like,

I know you and I know that you're an overachiever and I know that you do everything to the, you know, 100th degree, but it also sounds like you have a lot of

of awareness that, you know, your life is this dynamic thing and there's your girls, as you were saying, there's your family, there's your spiritual life, there's all these things that are the composite of who you are and it's not just work. And I really find that inspiring because I don't think that's a very commonly held belief. Where did you get that belief? Or like, how did you start to really pull all of these aspects of your life into your day to day?

Yeah. So there was one particular car ride with a female executive that I had years ago, someone who I really admired, who I was very strange how I even got an opportunity to talk to her because I didn't interact with her. I was sort of a lower level employee at that time in my career, but we were leaving, I think maybe an NSM, some big meeting that we were all there together. And we happened to be standing in the taxi line together and she turns around and she goes,

do you want to ride with me? And I was like,

sure. So now we have this 45 minute ride with a stranger who's an executive, right? She's like, and in my mind, I'm like, I'm like this lowly person. And then that company, she doesn't know who I am. She didn't, she had no idea who I am. She had seen me enough to know that we worked for the same company and she knew we were going to the same place. But so in this car ride, we're talking about kids and just kind of small talk. And I asked her once I learned that she was a mom and she had a husband and she did things outside of work. I'm like,

How did you make all of this work? And one thing that stuck out to me that I will never forget, she said that you have to submit to the seasons. And so, you know, at that moment, what does that even mean? And she was like, well, there was a season where before I had kids, all I did was work.

Right. And so I could spend all of my time working. I could do things late at night. I could get up early in the morning. I could say yes to every single work trip. And she said, but then I had kids and I had to submit to that season. And it didn't mean that I no longer wanted to be a working mom, right, a working woman. It no longer meant that I didn't want to be a high achiever or climb the corporate ladder. Right. For many of us who want to do that, she said, but it did mean that I needed to reset a little bit.

And I needed to accept that I was in a different season of my life. And so I wanted, you know, while the kids are young and they're in diapers and they're not sleeping, you do say no more at work. Right. And you give yourself the grace to do that, knowing that at some point this season is going to change. And so I think, you know, when I slowly moved out of being that 5 a.m. girly and we see lots of professional women say that in order to be a high achiever, you have to get up at 5 a.m. Right.

And I think I don't buy that. You don't necessarily have to. How do I know that? Because I am a high achieving woman who doesn't get up at 5am. I used to, but I don't anymore. Right. And so, but I did kind of beat myself up about it for a while because I'm like, I just got to get back to that mindset.

to that version of myself, right? But we all know that we're always growing. We're always changing. We're always evolving. And so I reminded myself to submit to the season. This is just not the season for me that I'm going to get up at 5 a.m., right? Now, maybe I shouldn't be like snoozing my way into the car rider line.

every day. That's probably not the best practice. I'll get out of that, right? But I am going to submit to the season that I'm in right now that just this 5 a.m. just isn't my thing. I will still, though, find another way to get everything done that I need to get done. And I'm going to give myself grace when I can't do it.

Yeah. Before she told you that, were you doing that? Like paint the picture for us. You have your first kid when, before you have your first kid, are you already, you know, high achieving? You're like, okay, these are all my ambitions. These are all my goals. And then you have your first kid. What happens next? So,

So good question. I was actually lucky enough to have had that conversation with her before I actually birthed my, my first kid. I do have four children. I always say that I have four children. People are very confused by that. So my oldest two children are my stepchildren. I did not birth them, but I did raise them. And so I think we, they came to live with us full time when they were in like in middle school age. And so that is, that's why there's like, okay, there was a,

a part of time where I didn't have kids in the home full time. And that's when I had the conversation with her. And so I was lucky enough to be able to sort of have my mindset prepared for that before I birthed kids and had to go through that stage of having kids that don't sleep at night, going to all the doctor's appointments, them getting sick, having work trips planned. And like my first son that I birthed, Donovan, he, I breastfed him. He did not take a bottle.

And when it was time for me to go back to work, I think I had a work trip planned like the week that I returned from maternity leave. Oh my goodness. And I'm like, what am I going to do? And, but I submit to the season. And so what I did for his first two years of life, I did breastfeed that long. Don't judge me. My mom traveled with me on every single work trip that I had. People thought I was nuts, but you know, what's so beautiful about that is I live in Indiana. My parents live in Florida and,

And she got to see my son probably once a month for his first two years. And I'd be working, doing all my meetings, and they'd be off. She'd go and find all the things that you could do with the child. So they'd go to museums and zoos and parks, right? And

They'd be sending me pictures next to statues. And I'm like, where are you? How did you find these things? Right. But me submitting to that season and just saying, okay, this is what it is, right? I'm traveling with my kid. I'm also going to bring my mom. They would join me for some of my work dinners, which was super sweet being able to show up with the team that I managed as a mom with my kid and say, you can do this, right? There's a way to do it. You just got to get creative. You got to think out of the box. Now, I also do want to acknowledge that I am in a position to be able to do that.

Not every woman can do that financially, right? Say I'm going to get my mom to come with me on every work trip with my child. Not every woman has a mom who is maybe even willing or able to do that. So I get that, right? And I want to make sure that I acknowledge that. But I think the point here is how do you get creative enough in each season that you're in to make it work and then...

And the situations where you can't make it work. So for example, fast forward to when I had my daughter, my youngest, I was not able to do the same thing with her that I did with Donovan. So she doesn't have that experience of the first two years of her life. She's never been on a work trip with me. I couldn't do that. I had to do something different, right? But I still had to get creative or accept, right, that this doesn't work. I wanted her to have the same memories with my mom that Donovan did.

but I just couldn't do that, right? So we had to find other ways to kind of, to make that work and make that happen. So you mentioned that you have to get creative sometimes to make it work. Why did you decide that this was something that was so worth it to you to get creative? I fell in love with being a mom. Like prior to Donovan, I was in love with being a step-mom, bonus mom, whatever you want to call it, right? But when I had the opportunity to do it every day,

I literally threw myself into it and there was nothing else that I want. And even now today, and it exhausts me. I like, I, um, oh my gosh. Okay. So I'm going to tell you, I don't believe I'm going to say this. So I had this conversation with a friend of mine. So my youngest daughter is, um, she has some health issues that we're trying to navigate and it is exhausting. And I was literally in tears with one of my closest friends yesterday, um, where I'm like, I just, I don't know if I can do this.

Right. It is exhausting me. It's taking so much energy. And then she's like reminding me of she's like, but you you're doing it right. You're saying that you don't know if you can do something that you are doing. And it was just such a reminder that, yeah, like I am doing it and I'll keep doing it. I love doing it. There's no thing on earth that I enjoy doing more than this.

making pasta with my kids. Is it easier to just open the box and drop it in the water? Absolutely. But is it like, is it such a better experience for me and the way that I, you know, want to spend time with my kids to be playing in the flower and seeing them making a mess and rolling it out. And then it's exhausting at night. Cause I got to go scrape my counters because there's like guns of,

Like flour, right? All over. But I love it, right? I love making bread with them. I love making cakes with them. Folks are like, how do you manage to do it? Like I have gotten off the plane from a work trip and gotten right in the kitchen to like do stuff with my kids, right? But there are also times that I make sure to schedule a work trip to not be home until after their bedtime, right? And so I think it is those things where it's like, I love being a mom. I also love working. I love being a working mom and-

Finding balance never looks the same. It's always different. Sometimes it is getting on that flight to get home in time to see them. And sometimes it's recognizing this particular work trip has exhausted me. I have been on for four days straight. I need to get home and go to bed. And so that also means that I need to get home at 9 p.m. or later after they're already in their bed and sleeping. And then I will see them in the morning when I am refreshed and ready and not overstimulated.

Another thing, I think it's funny, my kids, they also sort of know my patterns. So a couple of days ago, I had gotten to a place where I was a little overstimulated and my son, he's seven, he called it out.

He was like, mommy, you're really irritable right now. I think you're overstimulated. I'm going to take Ryan. We're going to go in the playroom. We're going to give you a second. Now I wish he had given me a longer second because I'm pretty sure he only gave me like 12 minutes and I could have used at least, but I just love that they recognize it too. And I think it's just, you know, that's just kind of how I am with my kids. I'm very open with them. I'm very honest with them. Hey, I need a break. Mommy's going to go sit in her room for a second. I'm going to go read a book. You guys should read a book too, right? And so that is a part of it too. I think it, I think that plays into some of the

my creative parenting. My parents think that it's insane because it isn't the way that they parented me, but it works for me. Oh, I love that. So I want to, before I go further, I want to go back a step.

When you were trying to, you know, get creative and even before then, when you decided that you were going to continue working even while you had kids, right? Did you ever question that? Did you ever wonder like, maybe I'll actually stop. Maybe I won't continue working. Or was it just like so clear to you that you wanted to be a working mom? Do you know why it's so, this is going to sound maybe a little hypocritical to everything that I just said.

Okay, go for it. I don't want to spend 24 hours a day with my children. I think that's so real. I just need the break. I mean, I do also love working. I love being a high achiever. Like I love being in rooms and having that executive presence and, you know, and doing all that. I love my partners. But there are for the small, very period, very teeny tiny periods of time where I thought,

I just want to be home with my kids forever. Then I was like slapped back to reality because I'm like, oh my God, could you imagine being home with these beautiful human beings for 24 hours? Absolutely not. I knew I just can't do it. I need a break. They need a break from me too, because I'm a very big personality. We need breaks from each other.

No, this is so real and I'm so glad like I'm so glad that you just will say it. But I think something that I've been battling inside of myself is the question of like what do I need to show up as my best self, you know, and eventually when I have kids and eventually when I get married, like what do I need as a human and as a person and as an individual in order to be my best self for all these people that I care about and love? Yeah.

And like, I need a project. I need something where like all my mind, cause I have, and I would imagine you're very similar. Like I have a lot of energy and a lot of thoughts inside my head whizzing around all at all times. It's like, I need somewhere to put that because otherwise it's going to be a detriment to our relationship because I'm going to put it into you and you do not want that. You don't want that. I'm going to be over, like, you're going to need a Donovan to come and be like, yeah,

I think you need a minute. I'm going to take everyone in another room because you're clearly about to explode. Right? Like, so yeah, you need, you need the break. And, and, and the break for some people maybe is volunteering. The break for others is, you know, church or something spiritual or reading a book. The break for me is work. Um, work makes me feel good. It makes me feel like I'm doing something good. Um, and honestly, maybe, I don't know, I don't, maybe this doesn't sound great, but it makes me feel like I have some power. Um,

You know, when at home, especially in the toddler years, you have no power. You have no power, right? They ask for a banana and you peel the banana and they're screaming because you peeled the banana that they asked for, right? And then you're like, what is going on? So sometimes you need work to remind you that you are sane and they are just toddlers. That is so funny. And I'm so glad that you're willing to say that. And like...

to be fair, there are different, there are different needs. Like the, the answer to the question, what do I need to show up in my best is very, very, very different for, for every different type of woman. But it is interesting to me that, that, that is, that is your answer. That is my answer. Um, and maybe back to the season idea, maybe that will change in different seasons. Like maybe as, as I go along. Right. And, and I asked myself, okay, honestly, like,

what does my best look like? This is taking every single thing out of me. Like this is, this is the new structure of best. How have you determined what different seasons are asking of you over time? And how have you been like, just so real enough to say, okay, this is what I need to give. And this is actually what it's going to cost me. And I need to let go of these things or, or this is, this is how this restructuring is going to change my life. Yeah, that's a good question. I, I sort of,

Assess continually, right? Early on in my career, I traveled a ton. I enjoyed it even like when I sort of talked about coming back from maternity leave. And instead of quitting travel, I was like, I'm going to keep going and find a way to do it where I can bring my son with me.

Fast forward two years, I wasn't able to do that. And it wasn't even so much that I wasn't able to do that. I could have found a way to do it. I just wasn't willing to do that. Right? Because I didn't want to miss moments. Right?

Right. Because at that point, Donovan was already in school. And so while I could have traveled with Ryan and had tons of time with her, it would have meant that I was giving up time with Donovan. We also had my older two kids were living with us full time. I had one that was running track, one that was cheerleading and show choir. Right. And and there were events all the time and I didn't want to miss those either. And so in that season, I.

Being a mom, even though being a mom is always more important, right? But it also trumped all the things that I wanted to do and excel at in my career.

And so I decided to reposition myself in a place where I didn't travel as much. Right. I said no to the trips. I took a role where I knew I could be home and I did the best that I could do in that role, but I didn't have to be on the road. Fast forward to now, which I am actually reassessing this current season that I'm in right now. I am a road warrior again. Um,

And I am learning that I don't like it. I'm like on the road, like a couple of times a month. It's entirely too much. I thought that I was ready to pick it back up, which is why I said yes to the gig. Right. And now that I'm doing it, I'm recognizing that.

Not so much. Now, am I going to quit my job? No, but I am going to figure out a way that I can better manage this, that I can reposition what I'm doing. I got to figure something out, right? Because it's kind of driving me a little insane. It's not working for me. And I think also the other thing that I didn't factor in is when I came into this role, I had a partner who was at home.

We are now juggling. He's gone. He's on a four month assignment outside of the home and another state not doing anything crazy. Right. Like, you know, he's not fighting a war or anything, but he's gone. And so it's like, you know, what happens when I need to be gone? We live in a place where we don't have any family close. So that requires us. I can remember my mom lives in Florida, so I have to fly her up there. Well,

Do we, does that make sense to do for the next four, five, six months? Right. And so even if it does make sense, it's a little, it's a little exhausting, right. To have to manage another thing every time I want to, or need to leave to go to work. And so I'm now in sort of another reevaluating period. Right. And so I don't think that there's,

I'm not really a big, it's the beginning of the year. Let me set my goals for the year. I don't do that. I am very much a continual assessor, right? Where it's like, okay, this is working for now. Let's keep doing it. And the second that it feels like it's not working, let me start brainstorming how I can pivot and how that pivot makes the most sense. I'm also not a start a diet on a Monday girl, right? If I wake up on Wednesday and I feel like my body's not right and my weight is fluctuating too much, that's the day.

Right. And that's just how I've always been. I don't need the beginning of a week. I don't need the beginning of a year. The second that something doesn't feel right, I'm going to fix it. I'm going to, my friends will tell you this. My husband will tell you this. It probably annoys him. Right. If I, if something's not, I'm not waiting. I'm saying it right now. I can't hold it. I can't sit on it. I hate this. I don't like it. Let's change it. Right. And I expect that.

the rest of the world around me to change because I said change, which probably is a little problematic. And I'll talk about that with my therapist on Monday. Okay. Well, I have a question on that one, but I do actually think it's very, very good and a great thing to highlight the whole idea of using your emotions as a guide, right? If you feel bad, right?

Assess. Like what is going on? And using that as a guide because it's not like we can feel great at all times. But if you are trending toward feeling bad multiple days in a row and it's just like weeks in a row and months in a row, it's like, okay, well, at some point you have to realize that this is not just a fluke. Like there's something actually going on. And I think something that I've –

come to realize about myself is how important like consistent reflection is. I think you can live a life that you are not pleased by if you don't ask yourself the question. What's like, what is going on? Am I happy by my life? Is there anything that I would change? And I think that's

If you start asking yourself the question consistently, like you can't lie to yourself as a human. We don't lie to ourselves, right? Like if you straight up ask yourself the question, you know the answer. You can pretend you don't and like you can continue doing things that don't help you, but you can't lie to yourself. So the faster that you figure out and or create this habit of assessing often and paying attention to the signals inside of your life,

the more that you can create a life that actually fulfills you. Like everything that you're saying is entirely correct. Like I don't actually think that it's wrong to say, okay, well, this world, my world, my experience of this world can and should be good. If it is not, there's something off. Let's figure it out. And like, let's make this good.

Yeah, let's make it good. Because like, who wants to be in a situation that sucks? No one. Right? Like, and I am very much so you know, there's this saying that is like, it is what it is, which Yeah, okay, maybe it is it things are what they are. But they also are what you make them.

Right. Like, and, and I am a creative and I am a maker. And so I think by nature, I also am one that knows that I can affect change. And I also know the power of ingredients, right? Like if I want a cake and I can't buy a cake,

I have the ingredients to make a cake. And sometimes I actually don't have all the ingredients to make a cake, but I have the ingredients to make something. And so I will make something as close to cake that I can possibly get.

And if when I'm done, it tastes good, that's a win, right? Like I've activated my brain. I've put my hands to work. I've done something. I am, I don't know. I think just the creative in me sort of is always seeing life as ingredients and figuring out how can I take something from here and here and here and make something that is really good. And here's the joy of cake, right?

Right. Like I'm going to eat the cake by myself. I'm going to share it with other people. Right. And so we're all going to sit around and have cake and hopefully the cake's good. And I make really good cake. So the cake's probably good.

I love that. Whenever you were talking earlier about, it sounded like you have this overachieving mentality that you pursue excellence and that you pursue excellence as a family. Like if I caught this correctly, your son is a track athlete in college. Yes. Ohio state. That's awesome. Um, how, how have you permeated that throughout your family? Like, it sounds like it's a family value to just pursue excellence. And then how do you also make sure that you are living that out as a

Because, I mean, the most important thing is that the values that you say are important, that you live them for your family. Yeah. So, you know, actually, this makes me want to ask my kids, especially the older ones, because me and my husband sort of have that same mentality where excellence is the standard, right? Like even something like growing up, my dad used to say this, if you're on time, then you're late.

Right. And so that is the way that I approach literally everything. Excellence is a standard. And we show up that way in the house. And as we raise the kids and the way that we set expectations for them, but we also have a lot of grace. Right. And so by that, what I mean is we're going to be really hard on them and we're going to have hard conversations like, like our dinner conversations. I won't reveal them here to not embarrass my children, but everything, nothing is off limits at our dinner table. But,

But what I love about that is it allows us to be really open and transparent about things. Right. So even though there's a really high, hard standard, it's not off limits to ask us the hard questions. Right. I'm coming at you with hard questions and you can come right back at me with those same questions. I think the other thing that has been really important for us in balancing the excellence piece is humility.

Right. Like humility is so important to me, even as a mother and being able to go to my kids and say, Hey, I messed up. I'm sorry. I apologize. I shouldn't have done that this way. I should have done like, or how did that make you feel? Right. Like, I know that I was coming down hard on you about this, but.

Did I hurt your feelings? You know? And if I did, then how can I reposition that? How can I pivot that? Right. And so I think those, that is the humility piece is also important because sometimes excellence can feel really hard. It can feel unattainable. It can make you feel really beat down. And that isn't something that I want to do ever to my children, to teams that I manage, right. To people that I work with. And I think the other sort of third piece, so it's the excellence, the humility, and it's the fun.

Right. Like I have so much fun with my kids. Right. We can in one minute be talking about how this be an econ is unacceptable. And I don't say it's unacceptable across the board. But for my kids, there are certain things where I'm like, all right, I know that you're that you can do better than this. Right. But we can do that.

And then we can turn around and we, this is going to sound insane, but we can turn around and we can have a twerk contest. Right. Yes. I do that with my kids. Right. Fun is like the third thing. Right. So excellence, humility, and fun. We have so much fun. Right. We love taking trips. We love, like, we'll get in the car and just go do random things. We'll drive and just with no plans at all and just go and like do ridiculous things. Right. We love to sing. We make up songs. We have freestyles.

battles still right we love awesome like we'll go to the store and just like we'll be in Walmart for no reason at all but to go in Walmart and act like complete fools and I do like my kids are my favorite people in the world and so I think that that's what balances it right so it's like

They know that no matter how hard the expectation is, it's coming from a good place. And while this moment right now might suck and it might be hard and she might be like really laying out the accountability because I am a part of excellence is accountability. And I believe in holding my kids accountable. But at the same time, I'm humble enough to allow them to hold me accountable. And then at the end of the day, when all the accountabilities are checked, we are going to have the time of our lives.

That's incredible. I want to dive in a little bit deeper into this conversation of excellence and ask you specifically about your experience with excellence. So like,

Has excellence ever been daunting to you, right? Whenever you set the standard and you're laying it out for yourself, you're like, okay, well, I have four kids. They're messy, right? Excellence for me in every single aspect of my life is this for work, this for home, this for my relationship, this for my relationship with my kids, this for my girls. Like when you set out this standard of excellence for yourself, is it scary the fact that, you know, you have 24 hours in a day and like everything

Doing things excellently takes time, especially in the beginning before it's a habit. And then obviously it's like sometimes you have to make you make sacrifices and things cost you in certain directions. But has it ever been daunting to you? Yes. Yeah. So it's funny because it's actually daunting for me right now in this moment. So in my role, I recently moved from reporting to our chief marketing officer to reporting to our chief revenue officer.

Which I absolutely love. I prefer to be on the revenue team over the marketing team. No knock to marketing. I love my folks in marketing. But I just think the way that my brain works, it's more aligned with sort of the way that a sales leader's brain works. But that being said, I also inherited some other responsibilities on top of what I'm doing right now. And so as we were going through and talking about how we might look at goals for this year, I started to get overwhelmed.

Um, and I'm like, and it's hard because sometimes I don't know what to do with that. Sometimes I don't know what to do with like, when I feel overwhelmed and I even talked about it with my friends. I'm like, I don't know. Like I'm feeling overwhelmed by this job. One of my friends was like, do you need to quit? And I'm like,

You got shout out to the friends who are always telling you to quit your job. Like maybe don't listen to them. But yeah, I don't know. I just love like I have this one friend who was always like, girl, quit. And I'm like, no, that's not that's not what I was looking for. Yeah.

Yeah. So Scott, if you're listening to this, I am not going to quit my job. I am game for the challenge, but I did feel really overwhelmed. And so this was like the middle of last week. And the thing is, and this is going to sound insane. Do you want to know what I did? I do. I took a nap. I went in, I took a nap in the middle of the workday. Maybe, hopefully Scott's not listening to this, but-

I took a nap. And the reason, and so I, and I do that when I get moments where I feel really overwhelmed and there are sometimes I can't write, like if overwhelmed happens in the middle of a meeting or in the middle of a presentation or, you know, at your kid's football game, you can't just take a nap right then. But when I can, when a nap is accessible to me, I will go and I will just sleep. I will to just shut my brain off. And it's almost like unplugging the TV.

Right. The TV is not working. You can't find, figure out how to get the Netflix to work. You unplug it and you plug it back in.

I've like, there's a meme that was going around on Instagram that said it works for us too. Well, it does, but the way that you do just take a nap. And when I woke up, yes, all the same issues were there, but my brain had reset. My nervous system had reset, right? Like on that call, like in those moments, you're like, you're getting sweaty and your heart's beating. Right. And you're like out of breath and you're ready to cry. Maybe right. There's nothing wrong with that, but you sort of have to reset yourself. And so then I was like, you know,

I can do this. Right. And it's going to be hard. It's going to suck. But there are also some things that I can push back on. Right. I can say, all right, you're giving me this new book of business that I need to manage. And so that means that I need to offload some of these other things or, you

if my goal is tied to these, this specific set of partners, these other partners that I'm doing off the side of my desk, please know they're not going to get the same attention that the other ones are going to get that are tied to my goal. Right. And so it just helped me to be able to take a step back, not think about it.

I think it's the not thinking about the thing that is overwhelming you that is so important and that so often as women we don't do right because we have this sort of we're always on. Right. That's why it's so easy for me to work throughout the entire day, because even when my computer is shut, when I lay down at night, I am thinking about this proposal that I have to get done tomorrow. Right. And putting all the pieces together in my head before I go to sleep. I'm working. That's working.

But we need to find ways to like completely shut off. And the only way that I can completely shut my brain off is by going to sleep. And so that's why napping is so important to me because it helps me to stop

thinking about the thing that is overwhelming me. And then I can come back to it after I've sort of freed myself. Yeah, this is funny that you mentioned this, because I had a moment like this very recently as well, where I also got put into an interesting new position. I was under marketing. Now I'm under revenue as well. And like revenue is

awesome because where else would you rather be? But it's also very daunting because there are clear numbers and also there's clear success and there's clear not success. And so very similar to you, I was getting overwhelmed by all the things that I knew I needed to do. And what you said actually makes a lot of sense. It's like going to nap is like closing the book. It's like

not allowing the spiral of emotion. Cause that's what happens, right? Like when you feel overwhelmed, it's, it's not the overwhelm that's the issue. It's the death spiral of emotions. That's going to take you in so many places. You don't want to go maybe send, you know, communications. You don't want to send, um,

And I couldn't take a nap in that moment. But I did turn to my boyfriend and I was like, okay. I was like, well, after a little bit, actually. I waited for a second. But after a little bit, I was like, okay. I was like, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Here's why. And I was like,

because he doesn't get phased by many things. And I was like, I was like, what do you do whenever you feel like you're not winning? And he, he just looked at me and he was like, I look for my next win. And I was like, that's awesome. Um, and, and so he was basically like, he, he's pretty great about having all of his values very clear to himself. And then within his values, he's basically like, I'm going to do every single thing in my power to win if I can. Um,

And I think that is the practice of excellence. It's like compromising important values. I will do every single thing in my power to win. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. I love it. Yeah. Yeah.

One question that I had for you there. So that's not at all how my brain works, not naturally at least, but how do you determine when you're not willing to compromise? So like, for example, you were talking about, you know, cleaning up after your family or staying up late and doing some work. When are you the person that also says, okay, it's time for me to go to bed. Like I will finish this tomorrow. Like work will be there tomorrow. Yeah. I think that's where I had to learn to give myself a lot of grace and I

I'm trying to remember. It's so...

while ago. So when I first moved to Indianapolis, I worked for this small startup. Oh gosh, what was called like Slingshot SEO. And I was an editor, just a little measly editor. I used to edit content. And then I started coming up with these different ideas to support some of the clients. We had some clients that weren't ranking really well. And I had some ideas for how we could play with the content a little bit. And we created what everyone now knows as personas.

And so we would write to personas, right? That is now the way to market. But back then it wasn't so much. And so I was like building out this program for everyone in the entire companies to start to follow. And it was all driven by like our chief revenue officer, right? Which was great. And he and I are really good friends.

And it was a super late night. I didn't have any kids, right? I had the older kids, but they weren't with us full time yet. So it was just me. My husband didn't care. Matter of fact, I don't even think we were married yet. I think we were just dating. So it didn't matter, right? Like I could work for 24 hours if I wanted to, if my body would let me. And it got really late. And there was a guy named Paul. He was our chief product officer then. Yeah.

And I don't talk to Paul anymore. I don't even think I continue to talk to Paul after I left, but I adore him for the one thing that he said and it was go home. And it's like, well, why what's so philosophical about that? But when he said go home, I said, no, I need to finish this. Like I need to like crack this. And he was like, you've already cracked it. He was like, you're chasing perfection. And that's not the name of the game here. He was like, if you want to go far, you need to know when to go home. And I,

And I love that. Right. And so that applies to everything. You're never going to get it perfect. Get it to be good enough. Right. Get the bread to be good enough. Get the pasta to be good enough. Get the school project to be good enough. Get the work proposal to be good enough. Right. And then go home.

And so that means go to bed. That means shut the computer. That might mean like go get drinks with your girls. Right. Like love throwing like crazy birthday parties for my kids that can just get out of hand. That also means like cut it out. Right. Like,

You don't need another snack for the snack table, right? Like you don't need another decoration. You don't need 50 more balloons, right? Just let it be enough, right? Good is good enough. And that is where I'm able to sort of shut off and find balance. I think a lot of times, like we feel like we need to give 100% to everything and we don't.

Right. There are times where you can give 20% and someone will look at that and feel like it is the most amazing thing that you have ever done. Now, inside of ourselves, we're like, well, no, I could have done better. But if you're 20%,

on that proposal is all it takes to get it done, to win the deal, then give 20% there, right? Because then that leaves you 80%. And now you can go and do how many more of those deals that only took 20%, right? Like, I think sometimes we think overachieving always means giving every single piece of our lives 100%. But that math doesn't math.

Right. We have to figure out how much how much percent of me is good enough to get work to a point where I'm a high achiever, to get mom to a point where I'm a high achiever, to get wife, to get friend. Right. Because there's only 100 percent of me. And once the pie is gone, the pie is gone. Right. And so I think that me getting to a point where I understood that that's what actually makes me a high achiever, because I recognize that it only takes 20 percent for me to.

to win opportunities with my partners. I'm going to 20% it. And then I'm going to take the rest of this 80% that I have left and I'm going to put it into something else. And so now it looks like, oh my God, she's like giving her entire self to her job, to her kids, to her husband, to her church. Like when does she sleep? I sleep. I just told you, I'm waking up at like seven 30 in the morning and giving myself 45 minutes to get me and my kids dressed and ready and off to school.

Right. But no one would ever know that people still think I'm a 5am girly and I'm not, but it's because I have learned the balance of everything doesn't take a hundred percent. And as a matter of fact, nothing takes a hundred percent of you. That's incredible. Yeah. That, that right there.

So how have you determined how much is enough? Basically, you just iterate. It's like, okay, I'm going to do this. I learn out loud. Basically, I share with my team if they're like, okay, this is amazing. This is awesome. And I think I can turn it into gold. That's enough. That's enough. Right. I think the other thing is it is very iterative, right? Because sometimes I need to give a little more this time than you gave last time. Yeah.

But we know ourselves, right? And also results, which is why I love being tied to revenue, right? Because the results are clear, right? Did I make my goal? Yep.

Yep. So relax. Right. If I'm not making my goal, then what do I need to do to get myself to that point? And so that's sort of where it comes to like quantitative stuff, but more qualitative things are a little harder. But like, did you feel like you gave your best?

Right. Did you give your best to that presentation that you did? Did you show up as the best version of yourself? And sometimes the best version of their self is, you know, the woman who maybe didn't get enough sleep last night because you stayed up late doing a school project with your kids. But is it the best version of yourself that was available to you right then in that moment? If the answer is yes, then you have given enough. Sometimes the answer is no. Then give yourself grace and give more next time.

Yeah. Are you honest with yourself whenever you feel like you have not given enough and you look back and you're like, okay, that wasn't enough. I give myself grace in this moment, but next time it's different. I am. I know when I'm BSing my way through something and I own it. I was on a meeting today and

It's funny. It's a meeting that I was running. I called the meeting. I pulled the meeting together. I should have run the meeting. And I had no interest in the meeting once the meeting started. And I sort of let the meeting run itself. Zero out of 10, do not recommend. But I did. And when I got off the call, like I sent a note to one of my girlfriends and I was like, I literally just BS my way through this meeting and I cannot do that for the rest. Like I can't do that for the rest of the day. And so I had to turn myself back on. Right. Like, and so it happens. But I think to your point, like we,

Whether you want to be honest with yourself or not is between you and yourself, right? But there's no point in lying to yourself. You know when you're showing up well, and you know when you're showing up unwell. And only you can fix it, right? And so what I did in that moment was I made a promise to myself that the rest of the calls for the rest of the day, I was going to show up. And the funny thing is we break promises to ourselves all the time.

Right. But we will not break them to our mom. We won't break them to our children. We won't break them to our bosses, but we break them to ourselves. Right. And we break them when we say I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to work out and then I sleep through it. Right. I'm going to get up tomorrow and I'm going to get this thing done. I'm going to clean my kitchen. I'm going to do my laundry. I probably have like six loads of laundry left.

on my bedroom floor right now. No lie. It's so bad. And I refuse to promise myself that I'm going to get it done because I don't want to do it. But if I did promise myself to do it, I might be willing to break that promise.

And we shouldn't do that, right? Keep the promises that you make to yourself the same way that you would keep them for someone else. And so that's what I did when I got off that call that I know I BS my way through. I was like, all right, I'm going to get my crap together and I'm going to do right by the rest of these calls. And that's what I did. And lucky for you, I'm showing up. I didn't show up to this as the girl that showed up to that call this morning that let the call run itself.

Yeah, no, true. That's so fair. And the funny thing is, is that honestly, it doesn't take that much more. Like whenever I look at the difference between the meetings that I run that are incredible and the meetings that I run that are just like, you can tell I didn't know what I was doing and I just was not interested. It's the difference between a couple of bullet points on my notepad. Like that's it. Yep. Yep. 100%.

So I want to take this and segue a little bit into your relationship with your husband. So you said that he travels a lot. It sounds like, you know, in this crazy life that you've led so far where you're traveling a lot, you're working a lot, you're raising four kids. How have y'all done it all? Lots of communication. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's easy. Sometimes it flat out sucks. But at the end of the day, we have the same goal.

Right.

we have the same goal. We also like someone's got to back down. And so we honor that sometimes it's me that backs down. And sometimes it's him. I obviously prefer when it's him that backs down because I think the world should do everything my way. But there are times when his way is maybe marginally better than mine. How do you when y'all are like in the heat of it, make sure that you remind yourself that you have the same goal? Because that is so key, right? Like,

What is the thing that, I don't know if you've heard of or seen that like triangle visual where it's like, y'all are both working towards something together, right? And you're both on the same path and going in the same direction. How do you make sure that you remind yourselves and each other like, hey, hold on, we're on the same team? In the heat of it, I don't. In the heat of it, I go for broke. When things settle down, then I come back. That is the honest to God truth. Yeah.

Which is so bad. Oh my God. I can't, but yeah. Thinking about, I'm thinking about my goal in the heat of it. He has this thing that he, he says to me where he's like, you are just trying to win. What is it? I'm just trying to win like the battle.

He was like, and I want to win the war. And I'm like, yes, like if I, how many, if I can win more battles, then ultimately I win the war. And he's like, you know, so in the heat of it, I'm probably terrible. But then when it comes down, I'm better.

It sounds like y'all also, y'all enjoy each other though. And what would you say are the pillars of y'all's relationship that has made it successful throughout the periods of your life? I think we, so we're both high achievers. Excellence is so important for both of us. We both value family and,

Um, and we both love our kids. Right. And so even in seasons and there have been seasons, we're coming up on 10 years in June of being married. And so there have been seasons where we maybe weren't totally aligned, but, and I don't know, we just didn't.

You know, you submit to the season. It's the season that it is right now. We'll figure it out. And maybe I shouldn't say this, right? But if we don't figure it out, we'll figure that out, right? But we have these children.

that we are focused on and so we're super leaned into that and there are people that I think would probably agree because they're like no it shouldn't only be about your children but I'm just being honest about my situation and so that's what it's been sometimes and you know we submit to those seasons and then when those seasons are done then we submit to the season that's next and that's sort of it.

I love it. And I love how, thank you so much for being so real. Like there are very few people that I talk to that are just like so willing and able to be as real as you are. So I really appreciate it. Um,

You know what I have learned is that, uh, the, and maybe this doesn't work for anyone else, but one of my friends was laughing when she heard me talking to my seven year old. She was like, who are you talking to? And I was like, I'm talking to Donovan. She's like, you're talking to him. Like he's a grown man. But the thing that I have learned is that it is easier for me to show up as myself everywhere. Right. And so like,

It's easier. I don't have to like be this version of me here and this version of me here. It's like, this is what you get. This is Rashida. Hi, this is like my kids probably the same person of me with less profanity that my girlfriends get. And the folks that I work with, same thing, right? It's just, it's easier for me to just kind of show up as myself. It's one less thing that I have to like cover up and do and figure out and maneuver. Yeah.

Yeah, were you always comfortable with yourself? Because I feel like that's a difficult thing for a lot of women is just showing up as themselves. I was not always comfortable as myself. So growing up, my, it's kind of funny now, it wasn't funny then. And I hope this isn't offensive. But so my brothers and cousins used to call me white girl because of how I talked and how I laughed and how I and so I would like try to be more black, right?

And now I'm just like, now I'm like this mix of like, I don't, I don't know, whatever, but whatever comes out, comes out. Right. Right. Like I literally sat on this podcast and told you that I twerk with my kids, which is insane. But yeah, I, and, and I used to even at work, you know, code switching and we all do that.

Right. It's not something that's limited to one color or culture. Like we all sort of change in different environments. And of course, like I said, like I don't curse around my children. Right. When you're when I'm with my girlfriends, I probably curse like a sailor. Right. When I'm at church. Right. Like my language is clean. And so there is that sort of changing. But outside of that, like the personality, it's me, the family.

fluctuations in my voice, my laugh. I have the most ridiculous laugh. Like when I laugh from my belly, it is like an alien. But you know what? And I used to like try my hardest not to like laugh from my belly at work. And now I'm like, screw it. I'm going to, if it's funny, if you say something funny enough for me to like cackle, then a cackle, I will go. So yeah. Yeah.

That's funny. So rapid fire questions playing off of this. What advice would you give to somebody that has trouble being themselves and or is trying to live up to some image that they think they're supposed to be at work with friends, anything else? Practice in the mirror. You know, I,

you got to, it's weird. Like, why do you have to practice being yourself? Because you need to get comfortable with being yourself, right? You need to accept all your flaws. You need to just like, I have this thing that I said that I fly with broken wings, right? Everything that I do isn't perfect and everything that I do isn't even great, but I still fly. And as long as I'm flying, I'm getting the job done. Good enough. Yeah. I love that. I was listening to something and it was this, uh, this person's motto for his life. He's like, he's like,

I don't have to run faster than anybody else. I just have to run fast enough and more consistently to be ahead of them. Yeah. Because they're going to run out of gas. Yeah. The second rapid fire question. What advice would you give to your daughter today about life in general, about careers, about anything, looking and thinking through the life that you've lived so far? You can do it. Put your back into it.

That is the advice that I would give her. And that is the advice that I gave my four-year-old who the other day was like crying and having a fit about something that felt ridiculous to me, but it obviously wasn't ridiculous in her four-year-old mind. And she, and I was like, stop crying so we can figure this out. And she's like, I can't. And I was like, yes, you can, you can do it, put your back into it. And so then my 17 year old is like, who made you a mom? Like, why are you saying that? And here's the thing, right? Like,

It sounds very silly, but you can do whatever you want, right? You just have to make up in your mind that you're going to do it and put your back into it. Get it done.

Yes. I love it. I love it. Okay. And my last question for you, it sounds like you and your mom are pretty close. So what is a pivotal lesson you have learned from your mother? Ooh, pivotal lesson that I have learned from my mother. So there's one lesson that I would say, but if my dad is listening, then I probably shouldn't.

So I'm going to say it anyway, and we'll just like fingers crossed. Hope my dad isn't listening or he like skips this part. And I'll make this make sense, but a pivotal lesson that I learned from my mom and maybe people will agree with this. And if they do so, what I don't care is have your own stash. And so when she first said that to me, what it was is sort of, you know, create your own nest egg just in case. Right. Right.

But what I have taken that to mean is not necessarily that I'm like hiding money from my husband in case we divorce so that I can, you know, take care of myself.

But to truly have my own stash of joy, to have my own stash of time, to have my own stash of friends, right? Separate from my marriage, separate from my children, separate from work, but just something for myself that I can keep to myself, that I can do on my own, that doesn't require anyone else, right? And that is mine so that I don't lose my identity and who I am in all the areas that I show up. Have your own stash.

This has been awesome and you're incredible. So thank you. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.