INTRODUCTION

Lesley Logan
Hey, Be It babe. How are you? So here’s this cool thing. Many, many moons ago, years ago, I was driving in LA and traffic trying to go from like one thing to the thing that I was trying to make the thing. And I heard this woman on podcast. And I was listening to what she was saying, I was listening when her book was about and it’s like, “Oh, my God, I, I need this.” So I downloaded her book on one of the audio versions. And I listened to it, and I really loved what it was. And then I kept going with my life and implementing some of the things I heard on a pod and … and some things from that book. And, and today, I’m interviewing that woman. So Tanya Dalton is our guest, I’m so excited for you to hear her because she is on fire for you, like really, truly wanting to make sure that women like you have what you want to have in this place. And it can be so easy to look at what she does in his world, or even what I do, or what other women in your life do and go, oh, must be nice. We talked about that, talked about that with a asteric. And we or must be like you think like, oh, I just they can do it but I can’t. When you think like, well, they can have all the things and I can’t or who am I to do these things. And she and I just really want you to know that you can do those things. Yes, you can. And it requires some work. And it’s not going to be easy. And what I can’t wait for to hear is how that is all possible. And there’s some work involved. But with that work, creates endless possibilities for you and what you want to do here. And so I’m going to let you listen to Tanya and her amazing words, right here right now. And I cannot wait for you to tell us what takeaways you had. So, aside from leaving us a review, thank you for doing that. I’d love for you to share this podcast with friends, tag us on Instagram, TikTok, any of the places that you loved hanging on social and make sure that your friends hear it because the more people that are hearing these words that you’re hearing about the things you want to change the people around you will do it too and then becomes so much easier for you to implement the things that you want to take away from it because it’s hard to sounds strange. It’s hard to be alone and be like the only person doing it but if everyone around you sort of is it makes it a lot easier. Right? So let’s change everyone together. Alright, here’s Tanya Dalton. And I can’t wait to hear you’re takeaways.

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Lesley Logan
Welcome to the Be It Till You See It podcast where we talk about taking messy action, knowing that perfect is boring. I’m Lesley Logan, Pilates instructor and fitness business coach. I’ve trained thousands of people around the world and the number one thing I see stopping people from achieving anything is self doubt. My friends, action brings clarity and it’s the antidote to fear. Each week, my guests will bring Bold, Executable, Intrinsic and Targeted steps that you can use to put yourself first and Be It Till You See It. It’s a practice, not a perfect. Let’s get started.

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EPISODE

Lesley Logan
All right. Be It listeners, I’m really thrilled. This is, this today’s guest is someone I actually heard on someone else’s podcast way many years before I ever thought I’d ever have a podcast and I read her book. And I am just so excited to have Tanya Dalton here. Tanya, can you tell everyone who you are, what you write about, how they can, what you’re talking about these days?

Tanya Dalton
Absolutely. Well, I like to say that I am redefining productivity for women. So they really understand. It’s not about doing more. It’s doing what’s most important. So I do that through several different ways. First of all, I’m a wife. I’m a mom. I’m a business owner. I’m a podcaster. I’m an author. So I get it when women feel like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so busy. How do you get things done?” Right? You and I were kind of chatting at the beginning about how do you get it all done. And the secret is you don’t. Right. So that’s, that’s a lot about what I talk about what I what I really love to have women understand is that, really when we prioritize, and we make choices in our lives about what we want to do, we can pour ourselves so fully into it. So that is what I write about in my books. I have two books, The Joy of Missing Out, as well as On Purpose. I have a podcast, The Intentional Advantage, which you can listen too right here or whatever podcast platform, you’re listening to this right now. And I have inkWELL Press Productivity Co. I’m the founder of that multimillion dollar company as well. So several things on my plate, which is why I love speaking to people about it, because it’s like, listen, if I can do these things, you could do these things.

Lesley Logan
Well, (Tanya: Yeah.) yes. And I, first of all, like, I love how many plates you’ve got, and I love everything that’s on your plates. I have so many, I have so many things I want to go down the road. But what started this process of you focusing on like the joy of missing out. What what was, were you always someone who was like it was easy for you to prioritize what was important, or did you have a have to learn that the hard way?

Tanya Dalton
Well, I think our best lessons are learned the hard way to be honest with you, which is kind of a bitter pill to swallow, but it’s true. You know, I started my first business back in 2008. So gosh, that feels like forever ago at this point, right? 2008. And I was just supposed to be a small business, a side business, something I did on the side, I was really a stay at home mom. My husband was doing, well he was doing marketing for Fortune 500 companies. And so he would leave our home in Dallas, Texas, and he buy a ticket called the around the world ticket, he would circle the globe and come back the other side. And I was like I need to have something I’m doing other than mothering. But it’s like I need something else. So I started a business and I was like, “Oh, yeah, it’d be this thing that I do on the side.” I started it with $50. That was my investment. So don’t have a website, just selling to friends, maybe friends of friends. And I had this call with my husband who was on the other side of the planet. And he called me and it was end of my day, beginning of his day. And I was telling him all the things that the kids were doing and all the things that were happening. And he got really, really, really quiet. And I was like, “Are you okay?” And he said, “I’m missing everything. I’m missing all the moments with the kids. I’m missing watching them grow.” And I was like, “No, no, no, it’s okay.” But I could tell that really hold on him. And that really bothered him. He loved doing the marketing, but he didn’t love being away. And so I hung up the phone that evening, in my bright yellow kitchen, I stood there and I made a big bold decision, I decided I was going to grow that tiny little side hobby business of mine, big enough to absorb his MBA income, which was a pretty bold decision to make in my bight yellow kitchen with two kids, right? Who are literally playing at my feet. And I had zero business experience. I had never even taken a course in college on business. But I sat down that night, I mapped it out, I started making plans, I created systems, because here I am, I’m a stay at home mom. So I have two small kids take care of, a husband who’s gone for three or four weeks at a time. And I wanted to grow this business. So I knew I needed to be really proactive with all of this. And within about a year I was able to make that goal happen. I was able to hit six figures, I was able to absorb his MBA income. And that was amazing. But …

Lesley Logan
That’s amazing.

Tanya Dalton
Thank you. Well, I mean, I think this is the thing it is really when you start honing in on the things that matter most but there were, there were really moments in there within that first couple of years where I was trying to do all the things and I was wearing myself out. And I was frustrated. And I was irritated. And I was not the best person. Not the the wife, mom, person, friend, aunt that I wanted to be or any of those things, right? And so I had moments where I would feel like what is this all for? Why am I doing this? And it was really that realization that I wasn’t gifting myself the time to really grow, which then doesn’t allow my business to grow with just which doesn’t allow my family to grow all of those things that I really needed to make a shift. And in about 2013 at that point, John was working for me. He’s been working for me since 2009 …

Lesley Logan
And I was gonna say you had to like how did you? I’m like, I’m hoping you mark like took him into the business because if he does have this MBA, you’re like we need we do need an operation.

Tanya Dalton
Oh, totally, yes. Why don’t you come on board and work alongside of me? Yeah. So he’s been working for me since 2009. I like to say we sit across the desk from each other. We are like together 26 hours a day, we’re always together. But it works for us. It works for our marriage. We were really happy with it. But in 2013 I looked at him and I said, “I love you. I love working with you but I don’t love what I’m doing.” You know that business I’d started was a side hobby. Something I was just doing on the side, I wasn’t as passionate about, I felt like I was here to make a bigger impact. He was like, “What do you want to do?” And I’m like, “I don’t know, I have no idea.” Right? What if there is nothing else out there? And so it was taking the time to step back and say, “What am I really passionate about?” When I did that, I realized I’m passionate about helping women. I love working with women. I love teaching, I used to be a teacher, once a teacher, always a teacher, so I knew I wanted to have podcasts and books and things like that. But then I also really love productivity. Because truly when I understood what it meant to be truly productive, that’s what flipped the switch on everything. That’s when not only did I have a thriving business, but I had a thriving personal life, I was (Lesley: Yeah) able to have both, and I was watching so many other women struggle with it. So that’s why I decided to start Ink Well Press.

Lesley Logan
Okay, okay, this is really cool. So, a couple highlights. One, you had to take a step away to like act because you like when you’re in it. And I think that’s when the it’s almost like, I wish it was another word for burnout, because I felt it was different kinds of levels, and styles of that. But like when you’re so in it, and you’re like, “I don’t really like who I am in this.” Right now, you can’t go I feel like when people that’s when people are trying to figure what that is, it’s like you actually can’t while you’re doing that, you have to take the step out, you got to go for the walk, you got to take the break, you got to leave it all, because otherwise, you’re trying to fix a problem while you’re in a problem.

Tanya Dalton
You have to get off the bike to fix the bike, you can’t stay on like and fix the flat tire and fixed, right? Like you have to get off of the bike and give yourself that space. The people don’t feel like they can give themselves that. But if you don’t, you’re staying on a broken bike. (Lesley: Yeah) Right. (Lesley: Yeah) And you’re just doing the same things over and over again. So it’s not a matter of that being a luxury of giving yourself that time. It’s a necessity, we need to do that for ourselves from time to time.

Lesley Logan
I know and but everyone thinks is a luxury, they think if they they will look at your business ago, it must be nice for her. (Tanya: Oh yeah) I really, (Tanya: It must be nice.) I fucking hate that. I had a I had a woman who wrote a book about talking about mental health in the workplace. And she said, if someone at work is going, oh, it must be nice that you could go on a run on your lunch break. You have to say, it is great that I can do that. And I wish that you could take time for yourself too. Like you have to like literally highlight that they’re what they’re resenting that they’re not doing, and how can we help people do that? So and yes, I that’s a great analogy for my visual listeners, like can’t fix the bike while you’re on it. But but don’t you find that some people are just so afraid of what that bike could go with was fixed? Like I think people’s fear of where the bike could go when it’s fixed is what keeps them on the broken bike.

Tanya Dalton
We get really overwhelmed by the idea of what if, right? Oh, I won’t know what I’m doing. And so sometimes, there’s a lot of times there’s two issues, either you don’t have a vision, and you don’t know what that looks like, which is okay. That’s one of the things I really dive into in my last book, like, how do you figure that out? Or the vision vision is so big, it’s daunting, and it’s scary, like, who am I to do these things, right? And the truth is, it’s like, it’s like the idea of where you are now. And the where the place you want to go is far apart. Like there’s this giant chasm like the Grand Canyon between them, right? And where you are now it feels impossible to get to that place you want to get to. And you think, oh gosh, I’ve got to like build a jetpack to zoom across that giant chasm, right. And we’ll spend years like trying to figure out how we’re going to do that over perfecting all of that trying to build a jetpack, when in truth, if we put one foot in front of the other tiny little itty bitty steps, one after the next we would make it down the walls of the Grand Canyon, cross the Grand Canyon, and you can go back up the other side in one day, (Lesley: Yeah) you can’t do that in the Grand Canyon. Right? So along those steps, each one of those steps, we’re learning things, we’re evolving, we’re growing, we’re changing. We have I like to say we have a backpack on our back. And we’re gathering together the experience, the traumas, the failures, the lessons, all of those things in our backpack. So when we get to that bright, beautiful future, we have everything we need. We’ve been gathering along the way. It’s messy in that backpack … don’t even lie. But we’ve been gathering all along. So don’t get caught up in the big vision, get caught up in today. Right? That’s what I want you to do is get caught up in today and investing in today with that beautiful future looks like.

Lesley Logan
Oh my God, I love that so much. I love that you … We tend to take messy action like that’s like just like taking them because I do say perfect is boring all the time. But I have to remind myself that is because it just it just is no one’s to hear how perfect your backpack is packed. They don’t (Tanya: No, so boring.) like they just want to share how the journey was.

Tanya Dalton
Nobody wants to talk to you at the party if you have all your shit together, right? Let’s be honest. Because then they just walk away. They’re like, “Well, I’m the worst.” Right. (Lesley: Yeah) And here’s the truth, we love the story of the underdog, we love watching movies, where someone’s had it hard or they’ve gone through this thing, and then they overcome it. And yet we don’t see the value in our own stories, we don’t see that we’re the underdog sometimes. And we have this beautiful arc in our story as well, when we come out the other side, and it’s just as beautiful as seeing it in the movies. (Lesley: Yeah) Because we get to live it. It’s just it’s hard in the messy middle, it is difficult. And it feels frustrating, because we just want rainbows and unicorns, right. And that’s not how the world works.

Lesley Logan
I know all of us with … born in Lisa Frank era, we just want rainbows and unicorns, but my parents couldn’t afford that. So I have to, I have to, just the plain, just the plain folders. But you said the messy middle and that’s something. I haven’t actually finished that book, whose name is escaping me. But it’s on like my like, end table by the couch. And whenever I like I’m in it. I’m like, “Oh, we’re just in the middle of right now.” We’re just in the middle. And luckily, when you’re in the middle, it goes up and down. And up and down a week where we have an upcoming, there’s an upcoming. (Tanya: Yeah. Always an upcoming. Yeah.)

Tanya Dalton
I think this is why honestly to when we get to when we get to a point and this happens for everybody where it feels like there’s no upcoming like, it’s just I’m in these trenches. And it’s terrible. And it’s hard. Going back and doing a little exercise of mapping out your own life map. And you look at the highs and the lows of your life. And you map it out like a graph, you will see highs and lows, and then highs and then lows. Our life is a cycle of these highs and lows, it’s not going to constantly be high. It’s not constantly going to be low. But when you do that for yourself, you can really start to see, Oh, I did recover from that. Gosh, I remember in that moment how it felt like I was never going to get out of that. And yet somehow I did. And here’s a high that came after that. Right? So (Lesley: Yeah) really looking, looking at what I call your breadcrumbs. See where you’ve been. It’s, it’s like when you’re on a hike, right? And you get to a point on a hike where you’re like, I can’t I can’t go any further. Like, my legs are tired, I’m tired. And then you stop. And you look back at where you’ve been. And you think, “Oh my gosh, look how far I’ve come.” And then suddenly you get that second wind and you think to yourself, I can keep going. I can do this. We have to do that in life, just like we have to on a hike or anything else we have to stop. And this again is a stepping back, right? Getting off the bike, taking a look and saying, “Wow, I have come so far. I can keep doing this.” That’s where a lot of that self motivation comes from that self trust.

Lesley Logan
I love… Yes. And I we talk a lot in my in my group where I coach people, it’s like, it’s Fuck Yeah Friday on Fridays, it’s you can make it any other day. But on Fridays at nine minimum, you must celebrate what you did do. Because if you don’t you don’t have the breadcrumbs of proof that you’ve had a high at any point in this week. At any point, you know, (Tanya: That’s true.) and it really does give you sometimes that breath at the top of a hill were like, “Oh, oh, look what I didn’t do something. I guess I hit the bottom. But I did do something this week.”

Tanya Dalton
Yeah. Yeah. In my business, we do what I call a high five Fridays. And so my customer happiness team. They gather together the like the nice comments, or the you know, emails and the notes that we’ve gotten, and we send that office wide, everybody in the office gets it as a chance to celebrate on Friday. It’s the last email that you look at on Friday. It gives you a nice high going into the weekend. Because truly, we forget the good that we’ve done. We discount it all we do is think about all the things that didn’t go right.

Lesley Logan
That’s cool. That’s also more appropriate for work. high five Friday, my team was willing to produce this if you want to change the fuck yeah, Friday to high five Friday. But you know …

Tanya Dalton
Fuck Yeah Friday is nice. I like the alliteration and the and the words. So …

Lesley Logan
I know, I know. So we have we use a couple we have a project managed we use and then we actually most people that engage with our company different ways it’s in Slack. And so we have a girl who does our Amazon for our flashcards, because, again, how do we do everything we don’t someone else who’s an expert at Amazon does Amazon. So she really only can see one channel, technically, but we let everybody in on the wins. And she said to my husband, she’s like, you know, I’m in a lot of people Slack groups and your company is the only one that I actually go and look at the company’s wins because you have them and you share them and everyone’s celebrating all these things. And it’s like, she actually enjoys participating in our product because of our culture of celebrating. And you know, I do it there I do it in my groups because it’s it can be so hard if you’re listening like oh, it’s so it’s so hard to do that for yourself. But if you can like the literally make it part of the routine of your job, that becomes a little bit easier to do that and as a because we don’t do anything differently, kind of on the same person. So if I start to do that as a habit at work work, then it becomes really easy during the week to go, “Oh, look what I did there like, Oh, I’m gonna celebrate that right now.”

Tanya Dalton
Well, I think this is the thing too. I think if we really think about it, and what celebration means a celebration usually is bringing others in, right? So even if we’re celebrating ourselves, we get that high and we feel really good. Don’t you think that bleeds into the other areas of your life? If you’re feeling really good, because you’ve celebrated yourself, aren’t you a better mom to your kids, I know I am. I’m much more patient, I’m much more calm, right? There’s less of the mom, I don’t want to be, I’m the better I’m a better wife, I’m a better daughter to my parents, I’m better in every way shape and form because I’ve taken care of myself. And that in in the scientific terms is actually called the halo effect. When we do things that are good for ourselves. The people around us also get the benefits, whether it’s eating healthy, or taking care of our body or celebrating our wins, that ends up creating this beautiful domino effect where the others around us start doing that as well. You know, we hear about where the average of the five people we hang around, people are hanging around you, bring that average up by celebrating yourself, by thinking about all the good that you’ve done, that allows everybody else around you to rise up as well.

Lesley Logan
Oh, I love when science backs up like. And … (Tanya: I know. Me too.) self development. I love it. So I wonder … Okay, I love that. You mentioned that about the halo effect. And also you brought it back to being a mom, I think that’s so important because I don’t have kids. So I understand that when when I say a lot of things are like, well, it must be easy for you and have kids, I have three four legged children and they are demanding.

Tanya Dalton
We always say it must be nice for other people, because there’s some asterik that makes them a special snowflake. Must be nice for you because you don’t have kids. Must be nice for you because your business is successful. Must be nice for you. Right? We all have a ‘must be nice for you.’ (Lesley: Yeah) Let’s stop making, let’s stop pretending like it’s always an exception when something is going well, right? (Lesley: Yeah.) … Yeah.

Lesley Logan
Yeah. Thank you. And to all of you listening, let’s wait, you can all start that we can actually make that a thing. We can, it can be trending. I wonder when you if you can remember back in 2008, when you started your business, and you’re like, I’m going to, I’m going to make enough to like take over my husband’s income. So you can come into this business. How did that work with like setting up boundaries and still being able to be there? Was there, was that easy? Was it, was there adjustments you had to make? What did you have? Is there anything like hard conversation to say with people? How that look?

Tanya Dalton
Let’s be honest, if I said it was really easy to set boundaries, somebody to go, must be nice. (Lesley and Tanya laughs) It was not easy. Setting boundaries is not easy. But it’s so important. For me, it was really about really differentiating between my hours of business and my hours of availability. That was one of the first things that I did that I think most business owners, especially if you’re working out of your home, they don’t do. We think I’m working. So therefore I must be on. Right. Hours of business, or when you’re working on your business. That could be at 11 o’clock at night, if you’re a night owl, it could be four in the morning, if you’re an early riser, could be you know, during your kids nap, hours of availability is when you’re available for customers or clients or responding. Right. Really setting those boundaries early, I think and communicating them is so vastly important. Because the problem is, you’re working at 11 o’clock at night, because you know, you haven’t been able to work because the kids have been up and doing all these things, right. And so you’re answering client emails at 11 o’clock at night, because that’s when it works for you. Well, I would say go ahead and you can schedule those. Every email program has a way to schedule your email system that later scheduling during your hours of availability. What happens is you send out an email 11 o’clock at night, and a couple days later client reaches out at 10:45 happens to be a night that you actually got to bed early, and then they’re irritated. You have not responded right away, right. But you have set that boundary that I’m here at 11 o’clock at night working. So really be intentional about when you’re working, and you’re available. And when you’re working and you’re unavailable. So for me, especially when I was first starting out so I had you know two small kids, husband was traveling, all of those things. I would sit down on Sundays and I would say, “Here’s the hours I’m working this week.” And I would make that decision and I would create those containers of time. Now, those first couple of years of business, my biggest days of working were on Mother’s Day out and preschool days. Right. The other days of the week were not heavy workdays it was like, for a while it was just Tuesday, Thursday. And then we moved to like Monday, Wednesday, Friday kind of a thing. So I knew that on those days where I was giving myself those work containers I was focusing in on work, right? But I also knew that I wanted to communicate to my customers and my clients. And I think you do this in every avenue in your email footer, in your contracts. If you’re a person who does contracts, like you’re an event planner or you know, something like that. In your voicemail, all of those places I would put, here’s the hours I’m available, so they clearly knew when I would be responding to emails and I set up my phone using Google voice so that it had a very different ringtone. So it would come to me and it would have a different ringtone. I could set the business hours, so it didn’t ring after business. (Lesley: Yeah.) I also taught my kids what that ringtone sounded like. And they knew what to do when we heard that ringtone, I had a little chart on the wall, I used to be a teacher , keep in mind, I had a little chart on the wall with pictures, they would hear that ringtone and they would run over and they would pick an activity off of there. And they would go do that. So they weren’t bothering me during my phone call. Now, they didn’t do that naturally. I mean, I didn’t have like trained chimpanzees for children. We practiced it, right? (Lesley: Yeah) We wouldn’t I would pretend like the phone ring, I put on the ringtone, I’d be like, “Okay, what do we do? What do we do?” And they would run over and we would we’d make into this big game. And we would practice it. Just like as a teacher, we would practice for the fire drill. That’s why they line up nice and quietly, even though they’re like, you know 3 years old, you’re able to do that because you practice it. So I set those boundaries with my kids, I set those boundaries with my clients and my customers, I set those boundaries with myself. And that was hugely freeing. It really was.

Lesley Logan
Okay. There’s, y’all I hope you wrote down those different things. Brad and I talk about all the time, we’re like, with our people, we coach, like your clients don’t need to have your personal phone number, Google voice, it’s free. (Tanya: No) We use it too. (Tanya: Oh my gosh.) It’s so great.

Tanya Dalton
First time you get a phone call on Saturday morning at like seven o’clock, that’s when you’re like, “Okay, this is not working.”

Lesley Logan
And what I love though, is that for people who have a debt obliger tendency where they need a little bit more accountability by you putting in your hours availability, in your voicemail, in your email and any of these places. It actually holds you accountable to that so that you can’t bleed out by being a people pleaser or by by not having that account, because you put it in place that makes it really easy. And you set the stage I think you’re correct boundaries are so hard. And sometimes you don’t know you need a boundary until it’s been crossed. And you’re like, “Oh, okay, I don’t like that. So I’m going to create a boundary there.” But … (Tanya: Now I know.) Now I know. Noted. But like, if we don’t, you know, if we don’t put them in place, and actually put things in place to keep them there. Then we just become resentful of people. And they don’t know why we’re mad at them. They don’t know why we’re being crossed. Like they don’t they they’re not mind readers.

Tanya Dalton
We get so irritated. Right? Can you believe that client called, but hey, we didn’t correct them. We didn’t we didn’t tell them this is when our boundaries, you know, were. I like to there’s a in the joy of missing out, I give this example. And it’s an old example that has been around for a long time. But I think it’s so poignant and helpful for people to understand why we need boundaries. If you were to imagine a school that’s next to a busy road, there’s no fence, the teachers are going to let the kids go out for recess, but they’re gonna say like, stay close, right, because we don’t want to run out to the road. So the kids have to play close to the school and where the teachers can keep an eye on them. But if there is a school next to a busy road, and they put up a fence, same school, put up a fence around it, the kids can go to all the corners of the field, they can go play kickball over here and play hide and go seek over there. And they can take advantage of the full field. And that’s what boundaries do. It allows us to have this container that we can explore and we can play. And we can really enjoy ourselves fully. Because we have that container, because we have that boundary. And then we can go inside and do the next thing. Right. And that’s what I love about boundaries is when we have them in place, when we have good healthy boundaries. It feels so good. It really does.

Lesley Logan
And you just said it like in that example, because I’m picking up this picture in it. It’s like, there isn’t someone who’s like, going, no one is like, “Oh, am I too far?” So you’ve got some people who (Tanya: No) don’t even go they don’t even leave the school because they don’t really know the boundary is. And then they’re not engaging and they’re not playing. They’re not resting. So that’s going to affect them. And their next thing, you got some people who are like toeing the line.

Tanya Dalton
Right. Toeing the line next to the busy road. (Tanya: Yeah) … right.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, we’re just like driving the teacher crazy. And so and then it’s so the no one really knows how to play and no one’s actually fully expressing themselves. And I love that because a boundary allows people to fully express themselves within those containers. And it allows you the person who has the boundary to also do that, that’s so good. You’re, It’s clear you’re a teacher. So, okay, um, you work with your husband, me as well, I actually don’t sit across from him, I left the office and made a new office and I was like you talk on the phone to much. But um, for people who are listening, you know, and then and I know, working with your husband can be a little bit different than if you have a business partner that you’re not married to. But what were what were some of the things that you had to kind of you out you to how to negotiate so that you could work together and then also live life together because it can be so (Tanya: Yeah) easy for that boundary to be crossed.

Tanya Dalton
It really can. Well, I think this is true in any if you have a relation. Let’s be honest. Anybody who’s your business partner you’re going to have a relationship with and it’s not going to be just a light and easy relationship. You’re going to know each other’s personal crap. You’re going to know what’s going on behind the scenes. You’re gonna know all those things. We got this question so much, we actually did a podcast episode the two of us together talking about it, I think, honestly. And so at this point, John and I have been married 22 years, I think the secret to a happy marriage, whether that marriage is husband and wife or business partners, or you know what I mean, friends who (Lesley: Yeah) are business partners, it’s, it’s another form of marriage, it really is. The biggest secret is communication. And really understanding who the other person is, and respecting that, knowing who they are, and knowing that they’re different than you and still respecting that, and clearly having that communication. So there are times where I, first of all, I love what I do, like, it makes me so happy. I could talk about it all day long. And John will look at me sometimes and he’ll be like, “Honey, no, we are not talking about work right now. I can, I cannot think about it.” And I have to first of all respect that he doesn’t want to talk about it. And that’s okay. And he has to respect me enough to communicate it to me, I don’t want to do this. So he’s setting a boundary there. I think also really being very clear about what our responsibilities are. I think, especially as people are starting off their businesses, they don’t really think about kind of the roles and responsibilities of each person and each job. So really clearly delineating, like, this is your wheelhouse, you’re the manager of these things. I call them drivers and doers. Right. Doers are the people who are like doing the things. And the drivers are the ones who are managing some tasks. He’s the driver, and I’m just one of the doers. Other things, I’m the driver, and he maybe is a doer or somebody else on the team is a doer. So knowing who’s in charge of the different areas, that also helps, because that alleviates any stepping of toes, right? Because (Lesley: Yeah) that can really easily happen.

Lesley Logan
Well, and that’s like I love that you pointed out because everything anytime you’re in a relationship with some where there’s a some sort of project that you’re married with kids and a household, or you are doing business together. And thank you for bringing that up. Because I have a lot of people want to partner up. I’m like, have you actually like, thought about what that means to be married to that person for a long time? Did you date long enough? Like just make sure cause (Tanya: Yeah) everything is messy. (Tanya: We are now in bed together.) Yeah (Tanya: That’s how it works.) But I think um, so I love that. And also it is that communication king is so key, but also knowing the roles. And recently not, it’s actually been many years now. But because I started all the companies, I was like, automatic CEO, and it was so weird, (Tanya: Right) honestly, you know, like, what does that what does that even mean? Like, and I was trying to be the CEO, and I hated it. Because what are CEOs do lots of meetings, they’re on a lot of meetings, and they’re managing a lot of doers to use your example. And so we met with this woman. She, she, she was on the podcast early on, and she was like, having us do this little triangle. Like, where do you like to live on this triangle of like, the ideas person like creativity, or the entrepreneur or the opposite person, and I was like, ideas, and I can be an entrepreneur, like, naturally, right? (Tanya: Right) And, and my husband, who was doing ops, he was like, the COO. He’s like, I’m the operations like entrepreneur side, and I’m like, “Oh, my God, we get to switch roles.” So you’re just gonna switch roles. So now I am the Chief Visionary Officer, I get to do all the ideas. He gets to do that. And once you know, whose roles what, it really does make life easier. And that goes in your household with like, who’s in charge of what around here versus like, maybe even with your girlfriends, like and you want to do a vacation together, knowing who is in charge of what there, it just makes it easier. No one feels like are they doing it? And there’s a lack of communication around something that’s not clear.

Tanya Dalton
So essentially, what we’re saying is boundaries. (Lesley: Yeah.) Right. That’s, essentially, that’s what the roles or responsibilities do is it tells us our boundaries of where we’re playing and where we don’t play. (Lesley: Yeah) Right. And I love that because truly, we all have strengths, and we all weaknesses, we can stop pretending like we don’t have weaknesses, because we all have them, right? Let’s play to the strengths. Let’s play to the weaknesses. If you don’t want to be doing the operation side of things, stop doing it, right, bring in the right person to do those things. Shift roles, it doesn’t mean anything’s wrong with you, because you don’t want to be the CEO. And in my family with John and I, he’s like, “No, you are totally the CEO.” I love being he’s the marketing guy, like, marketing likes do the finance. And so it’s like, fabulous, right? He’s like, I have no desire for that. So there’s not this like push and pull or play for for power, because we both know our lanes, and we stay in them. Right. (Lesley: Yeah) And that makes it all so much easier. And I think you’re right. I think this holds true. I mean, you kind of touched on this idea of like, even at home to this matters. I like to tell people your home is a business. A lot of times we think about productivity like in our workspaces, your home is a nonprofit, you know, you’re not doing something for profit. A lot of times what you’re doing is you’re you’re exuding your values or you’re instilling them in your children. And the profit of what you’re creating is what you put out into the world, in your personal life. So running a lot of your home tasks just like you would if you were a business, like, we have meetings for my team at work. But we also have meetings for my team at home. We have team meetings with our kids, where we plan out and we talk about what’s happening for the week. One of the things I like to say is, we can bring home the bacon, we can fry it up in a pan, but if the kitchen is burning down around us, it does us no good. We need a good happy, stable home life that feels amazing. So when we go to work, we can dive fully 100% into our work, and we want work to run well. So then we go home, we can dive fully 100% into our relationships with other people, our relationship with ourselves, and really enjoy the things outside of who we are during work hours.

Lesley Logan
Yeah, oh my gosh, I could keep talking to you because I really love everything you’re saying. And I like there’s a lot of like, just things that are very similar in our work lives and everything. And I just thank you for having an honest conversation about all the different ways boundaries really, truly make life so much easier. And allow us to do more things on this on this planet, because everyone listening here has something that they bring to this world and the people around them. And if they don’t have boundaries, and they can’t do that, we’re gonna take a quick break and find out where people can find you, follow you listen to your podcast.

Alright, Tanya, where you mentioned the beginning, but just in case someone missed it, what’s the name of your podcast? Where can people buy your books and work more with you?

Tanya Dalton
Yeah, so the name of my podcast is The Intentional Advantage. So you can as soon as this is over, you can do a search for my name Tanya Dalton, or The intentional Advantage right here where you’re listening to this and give that a follow. I think we’re on like episode 270 something at this point. So there’s a whole library you can pull from there. As well as new ones coming out all the time. My books are available anywhere books are sold, The Joy of Missing Out is my first book and then On Purpose: The Busy Woman’s Guide to an Extraordinary Life of Meaning and Success. Where you can find links to those my podcast here about me speaking all the different things that I do at my website, which is tanyadalton.com. So t a n y a d a l t o n.com.

Lesley Logan
Amazing. We will put all those links in the show notes, everyone. Okay, before I let you go, BE IT action items. So bold, executable, intrinsic or targeted steps people can take to be until they see it. What do you have for us?

Tanya Dalton
Yeah, so I would say first of all, we have a lot of talk about boundaries. So if you have boundaries in place, maybe doing a quick check on those. How am I doing with those? Do I like what they are? Am I communicating them? And if you’re not, maybe step back and figure out where can I start communicating these, right? Start doing that. And then if you’re if you haven’t set boundaries, this is a great opportunity to do that. I would give yourself you only need maybe 10 15 minutes to really do it. So I would challenge you to do that today. And here’s the truth. If we can’t gift ourself 15 minutes today, who we gifting it to, right? What do we what are we giving our time away to. Really think about who it is you want to be? I want to encourage you to really think bigger than today. When you set your boundaries for today, it’s going to bear so much fruit in the future because it’s going to free up your space and your time. And your your mind honestly, because it allows you to play and explore just like those kids on the playground.

Lesley Logan
That is, I mean that is an essential step for everyone to take. And that’s something you can even maybe set in place as like a thing you do quarterly or maybe you do it around your New Year’s time. Like it’s not a resolution. It’s like just like a retrospection on how did things go with my boundaries? (Tanya: Yeah) And so I want to take for the next year so I can have all these things. Tanya, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing all of your wisdom and your and your words with us. I’m so grateful. Everyone, how are you going to use these tips in your life? Make sure you tag Tanya Dalton and tag to @be_it_pod. Share this to a friend maybe if you’re struggling with boundaries, share it with all of your friends who struggle boundaries, and you guys can together support each other in those ways. I’m so grateful for all of you and until next time, Be It Till You See It.

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Lesley Logan
That’s all I’ve got for this episode of the Be It Till You See It podcast. One thing that would help both myself and future listeners is for you to rate this show and leave a review. And, follow or subscribe for free wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, make sure to introduce yourself over on IG at the @be_it_pod on Instagram. I would love to know more about you. Share this episode with whoever you think needs to hear it. Help us help others to BE IT TILL YOU SEE IT. Have an awesome day!

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Lesley Logan
‘Be It Till You See It’ is a production of ‘As The Crows Fly Media’.

Brad Crowell
It’s written, produced, filmed and recorded by your host, Lesley Logan and me, Brad Crowell. Our Associate Producer is Amanda Frattarelli.

Lesley Logan
Kevin Perez at Disenyo handles all of our audio editing.

Brad Crowell
Our theme music is by Ali at APEX Production Music. And our branding by designer and artist, Gianfranco Cioffi.

Lesley Logan
Special thanks to our designer Jaira Mandal for creating all of our visuals (which you can’t see because this is a podcast) and our digital producer, Jay Pedroso for editing all video each week so you can.

Brad Crowell
And to Angelina Herico for transcribing each of our episodes so you can find them on our website. And, finally to Meridith Crowell for keeping us all on point and on time.