.png)
Business Blasphemy
Sarah Khan, Chief Ease Officer, is calling B.S. on the hustle-focused status quo of online entrepreneurship and getting real about what it takes to grow a business that doesn't become a statistic. In each episode, Sarah helps navigate the rampant B.S. that permeates business strategy, marketing, operations, and mindset that has business owners hustling and pivoting themselves into burnout. She cuts through the noise and gives you guidance on how to view the status quo with a more discerning eye. If you're ready for success without the B.S., buckle up for hard truths, fun rants, terrible puns and (more than) the occasional curse word.
Business Blasphemy
EP79: Exhausted but Ambitious: Balancing Success & Well-Being with Dr. Monique Flemings
Are you tired? Constantly feeling like you have to choose between personal fulfillment and professional success?
This week I sit down with the remarkable Dr. Monique Flemings, a trailblazer in entrepreneurship, healthcare, and ministry. Together, we dive deep into the real struggles women entrepreneurs face today—from societal pressures to the silent frustration that comes with trying to meet impossible standards. We dissect the performative nature of vulnerability, the necessity of self-awareness, and the crucial role that supportive circles play in identifying blind spots and encouraging growth.
Dr. Flemings also shares practical strategies to help you maintain your mental and physical health, such as daily digital detoxes, mindfulness practices, and the creation of an "unapologetic brag bag" to boost self-worth. We scrutinize societal norms that fuel the confidence gap, especially among women, and discuss how not to settle into complacency but instead push yourself to evolve continuously.
If you're looking for actionable insights to help you lead authentically, avoid burnout, and build a lasting legacy, this episode is a must-listen. Subscribe, rate, and share the podcast to join us on this empowering journey.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Monique Flemings is an exceptional figure, seamlessly blending her extensive expertise in leadership, entrepreneurship, healthcare, and ministry to empower and transform her clients. As the CEO of Monique Flemings Enterprises, she hosts retreats and training events specifically designed for women in mid-level leadership positions and the C-suite. Her leadership firm, Lead Up Leadership Consulting, offers proven strategies that help high-achieving women leaders and organizations succeed while prioritizing rest and relaxation, thus boosting their productivity.
Dr. Flemings' program, The Ambidextrous Woman®, encourages women to confidently embrace their multifaceted talents and lead with unapologetic authenticity. Alongside her entrepreneurial ventures, she continues to contribute to the field of physical therapy as the Director of Admissions at South College Atlanta, where she advocates for equity and works to reduce healthcare disparities. In June 2024, she took on the prestigious role of President of the National Association of Black Physical Therapists.
Beyond her professional achievements, Dr. Flemings cherishes her role as a mother to a special-gifted son, whose journey inspires her continuous growth and learning. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her supportive husband and son, finding balance and fulfillment in both her personal and professional life.
Connect with Dr. Monique:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-monique-flemings
- https://ScheduleWithDrMonique.as.me/
- Facebook https://www.monique.flemings.9
Connect with Sarah:
- Tired of being the "best kept secret"? Download the FREE Thought Leader's Playbook for 5 essential steps to to ignite your influence and get noticed! Get Your Playbook HERE
- Follow Sarah on Instagram (instagram.com/corporate.rehab)
- Learn how to work with her HERE (getcorporaterehab.com/services)
The Business Blasphemy Podcast is sponsored by Corporate Rehab® Strategic Consulting.
So that's why, when you ask a woman who are you, she begins to rattle off her accomplishments. Her achievements, because that is who she is. Her value is connected. So you're absolutely correct. If she asks for help, then that is a sign of weakness, that's a sign that she's inadequate, that's a sign that she cannot do the job, and we can't let anybody know that. I need help.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Business Blasphemyemy podcast, where we question the sacred truths of the online business space and the reverence with which they're held. I'm your host, sarah Khan speaker, strategic consultant and BS busting badass. Join me each week as we challenge the norms, trends and overall bullshit status quo of entrepreneurship to uncover what it really takes to build the business that you want to build in a way that honors you, your life and your vision for what's possible, and maybe piss off a few gurus along the way. So if you're ready to commit business blasphemy, let's do it. Hello, hello blasphemers, welcome back. I am very excited for today's guest.
Speaker 2:I met Dr Monique througha networking group and we have become fast friends because she's freaking awesome. Let me introduce her before we begin, and I want you to really pay attention to how freaking awesome she is, because I was reading her bio this morning and I was like hot damn, she's done a lot, and this is the reason I wanted to talk to her, because we're going to be talking about leadership today. We're going to be talking about women's leadership, self-leadership and all of those wonderful things, and I want you to hear why Dr Monique is the person to be talking about this with. So Dr Monique Flemings is an exceptional figure. That's not untrue, seamlessly blending her extensive expertise in leadership, entrepreneurship, healthcare and ministry to empower and transform her clients. As the CEO of Monique Flemings Enterprises, she hosts retreats and training events specifically designed for women in mid-level leadership positions and the C-suite. Her leadership firm, lead Up Leadership Consulting, offers proven strategies that help high-achieving women leaders and organizations succeed, while prioritizing rest and relaxation, thus boosting their productivity. We're going to be touching on a lot of that, so stay tuned for that.
Speaker 2:Dr Fleming's program the Ambidextrous Woman encourages women to confidently embrace their multifaceted talents and lead with unapologetic authenticity. Alongside her entrepreneurial ventures, she continues to contribute to the field of physical therapy as the Director of Admissions at South College Atlanta, where she advocates for equity and works to reduce healthcare disparities. In June of 2024, she took on the prestigious role of President of the National Association of Black Physical Therapists. In her church, purpose City Church in Aurora, illinois, dr Fleming serves asa director of small groups. She is also a prolific author, with get this, 23 books to her name, including the transformative Mastering Transition. Her work has earned her features in notable publications such as Women of Dignity Magazine, speakers Magazine and Brains Magazine. Beyond her professional achievements. Dr Flemings cherishes her role as a mother to her special gifted son, whose journey inspires her continuous growth and learning. She resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her supportive husband and son, finding balance and fulfillment in both her personal and professional life. Dr Monique, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Oh my goodness, Sarah, thank you so very much for such a warm, warm welcome. I'm so excited to be here with you and to be able to share with your listeners all about what we're going to talk about on today. So thank you again for having me.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's my absolute pleasure.
Speaker 2:So we met through a networking group and we just kind of, you know, let's have a coffee chat, and we started talking and we have so many insights and beliefs in common and I mean I don't even know where to start because there's so much that I'd love to talk to you about.
Speaker 2:One of the things that really inspired me to create this podcast as a whole was just a lot of the status quo nonsense that is, in the business space, in the online space, in entrepreneurship, and particularly where women entrepreneurs are concerned, there's a lot of pressure to conform, there's a lot of pressure to perform and there's just, I guess, a narrative that isn't always as helpful and supportive as we are made to believe it is. And when we first started talking, we started talking about the idea of just the exhaustion that we, as women, feel in general. So maybe let's start there, because I don't know about you, but I'm tired and I can't. I mean, it's been, we've been having conversations and I kind of understand a little bit more, but why are we all so tired? What is going on?
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, you're absolutely correct. I love the fact that when we met, we automatically click, like you said in this group, and have had some amazing conversations. But to your questions you said something earlier that we are almost forced to perform, and I think that is part of why we are so exhausted. Let me just say, first and foremost, you are not alone. You are not the only woman out there, and I think your listeners may need to hear that as well, because I believe that many of us are silently frustrated and we are keeping that to ourselves and we don't want to share that. We're actually tired and we don't want to share that. We're actually tired, we're frustrated, we are overwhelmed, but it doesn't sound sexy, does it? So no one says it. It doesn't sound like the ambitious woman that we are, so what we do is we keep quiet. Why are we so tired? I think there is a need for us to perform and to achieve at a level that is not authentic to who we are.
Speaker 2:And what is it about? Because I resonate with that and over the last few years there's been so much talk about authenticity and vulnerability and one of the things that has really bothered me is just how performative it's become. And it's ironic to me because when you talk about being authentic, you talk about being real in the online space and yet when we share, you know when we share that we're tired. When we're sharing that we're frustrated. When we're sharing that we don't want to do or we don't want to achieve what they tell us success is that somehow is not seen in the same light as the authentic challenges. You can't see it if you're listening on the Spotify's and the Apple podcasts, but I'm air quoting that Because, like you said, it's not sexy. So how do we find the, I guess, the validation within ourselves of not feeling pressured to continue to push when we are feeling that way.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, that's so good. You said it earlier. Okay, to be authentic or to walk in our authenticity means that we must be vulnerable. Okay, it goes hand in hand. So how do we find within ourselves just an awareness? And I think what I'm realizing is that many of us are not self-aware. And you look at that word and you think, oh, yes't, take time to keep looking at our self-awareness, because what works for you at a mid-level manager position or a mid-level leader position, no longer works for you when you're in the C-suite. So with every progression, I believe that you have to take that time to become self-aware. What's working for you, what doesn't work for you? What do you want in your space, in your circle? What no longer serves you? What doesn't work for you? What do you want in your space, in your circle? What no longer serves you? We don't do that as women. We just keep piling things on our plate. Yeah, we just keep pushing through.
Speaker 2:We do, yeah. So how, how do you? This is kind of a maybe a meta question, but like how do you become aware enough to know that your self-awareness is lacking?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so good. That's so good, that's a good question. I would say that's yummy right there. I think it really requires that you do have people in your circle and having someone to talk to that can say hey, what are you feeling about this, why are you feeling this way? And oftentimes those relationships just aren't there, whether it's a circle of women or you have an accountability buddy or, as my friend would say, accountability buddy I can't say it the way she says it, but that's her word. But being real with someone and finding someone that you can really disrobe yourself with, that is what's missing. If you're only talking to yourself all the time, then you don't have an opportunity for someone to really help. You see your blind spots.
Speaker 2:Okay. So now you've opened a can of worms that I really want to dig into. So you're talking about spaces and safe spaces. So there are a number of spaces that are opening up now that are purporting to be trauma-informed or trauma-aware or safe in that way, and there are a number that are legitimately wonderful and they're necessary. I'm starting also to see and this is what I was talking to my friend about this morning, I'm starting to see a lot of spaces where you are welcome to show up. It's safe for you to show up with your trauma, with your experiences, with your challenges and insights and the things that have harmed you, which is necessary. And there's also a very clear and almost aggressive aversion to okay, we acknowledge that you've been through this thing and it hurt you. But now what? There's a lack of safe spaces where you are also still pushed to be the next version of yourself. That's good. First of all, incredibly damaging when you're just in a safe space that allows you to sit in your excuses, correct?
Speaker 1:it's like a cradle it is. You want to be in a cradle, it's a safe place, but you don't want to stay in that place. So how do?
Speaker 2:you like? How do you kind of um? How do you call yourself on your own bullshit? How do you know when you are allowing yourself to be sabotaged by your safe spaces and staying in that stuckness?
Speaker 1:I love that. That's so good. I believe you have to really get in a place and you're right because you could be in a safe place or safe space where you are allowed to just fester in that and many people love that. It's a cocoon, it's safe, no one's challenging me, I can stay in my comfort zone. I believe that you have to get into an environment where you are being stretched and where you are uncomfortable.
Speaker 1:The key is our own personalities. Our own nature is not going to really say, oh, I want to be uncomfortable, I want to be in a place where I'm not the smartest person. But until you are in a place where you're not the smartest person in the room, people are talking over your head, you're being stretched and pulled. You're really not going to be able to really deal with your things that are causing you not to be authentic. But you're absolutely correct. It's much easier to sit in a safe place where everyone's like me, no one's pushing me, I'm in my comfort zone, but I will not grow. You will not grow. So you can stay there in your pity of excuses, but you will not grow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's really about whether you want that growth or not. It really is, and a lot of people are not quite ready to grow. They're just. They just want to be seen and heard and validated and that's it. That's as far as they want to go.
Speaker 2:And this comes up kind of because yesterday you and I met very briefly and we were talking about the lack of safe spaces, particularly for ambitious women, right, and I was talking about, you know, the crabs in the bucket and just the idea that you know, when a woman becomes, when you're an ambitious woman, you really success is something that is almost natural to you, right, because you keep pushing, sometimes at the at the expense of your, your wellness, which we'll, we'll get into.
Speaker 2:But a lot of the people around us are not as comfortable with that, and the more sort of ambitious and successful you become, there is this crab in the bucket mentality of like pulling you down. And so safe spaces, yeah, there's safe spaces where you are allowed to fester in your excuses, and then there's safe spaces where it's only safe so long as you are never better than everybody else, right, and it's funny because my friend and I were speaking this morning and she was expressing how she was coming out of spaces where she was starting to feel like whenever she had a win or a success that she wanted to share, she couldn't do that because she felt like she was bragging. I know you all are struggling, but look at me and that felt really uncomfortable for her. Why is there still such a lack of spaces that are safe in that way, when all of the rhetoric is around girl power and girl bossing and woman bossing and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah? Why the lip service?
Speaker 1:Why the lip service? You are just pushing the $1,000 question, or I should say the billion-dollar question, here today. You're absolutely correct. Why is that? I always go back to the same thing and it sounds kind of cliche, but it really goes back to the authenticity piece. Because, at the end of the day, can you really be vulnerable? Can you really be who you are in this circle?
Speaker 1:I define toxic relationships as any relationships that will not allow you to be your authentic self. If I have to be something different, perform a certain way, fit into your square peg, then this is a toxic relationship. But if my self-worth is in a place and I've been here, what I wanted to fit in? I wanted to have a tribe, I wanted to have a sister circle, but at the end of the day, I had to be something they were trying to create me to be, and that happens a lot. And so I had to stop and say okay, why am I really craving these relationships that are actually trying to reinvent me, recreate me? And I think for women we find these circles in their mean girl clubs, but they say that they're sister circle. But once you get in, they want you to conform, to be a certain thing to be a certain way. That's when you have to step back as a woman and say, okay, what's in me that keeps attracting myself? Why am I so attracted to these mean girl clubs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's usually some kind of wound from way back when. Right, it's the clickiness that we experienced in school that is just repeating itself. But how many women actually really?
Speaker 1:know who they are. Oh my goodness, that's the question too. Not what you do, but who are you, what do you like and what do you bring to the table? Because once you know who you are, who you are, not what you do, not the amount of money you make, not your educational degree, but who are you at your core, then you can really authentically connect with people in a real way. I think many people think they're authentic, but at the end of the day they're still plastic.
Speaker 2:Oh man, yeah, I mean, and that is so true. And it is that performance that then leads us full circle to the very beginning of why the hell are we all so tired?
Speaker 1:Exactly Because I am trying to compete with you, as opposed to looking at you as my fellow sister, my fellow collaborators, I can learn from you, I can support you. I do not have to look and say, okay, sarah's doing X, y, zi need to do it as well. I can't do everything Sarah's doing and I think we don't come to the table with that level of respect. We come to the table with that comparison and that's what drives us. Even though we say it doesn't, it really does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we are socialized right To, to feel in competition. Oh yes, all the time, all the time, no matter what. And it's, it's ridiculous, it's so insidious. I see it in my teenager. She's 15 and you know, everyone says, oh, you know, you're so girl power and what.
Speaker 2:I can't think of the words. But like I, I'm, I'm, you're a women empowerment, I'm an empowered woman and so my, my, my daughters are very lucky and I and I'm, I'm humbled and grateful when people say that. And yet, even with all of the motivation and the conversations that we have and and every time I try and redirect them away from the things that I struggled with as a youth, thinking, you know, you've got an empowered, enlightened mom, she's going to help you they're still struggling with the same things, the same social constructs that I struggled with 40 years ago. And it's heartbreaking and it's simultaneously infuriating because, for all of the supposed headway we have made as women, I feel like we haven't really made any at all on that micro level, the in-person relationships and the interpersonal interactions that we have, and I don't know what the you know what the cure for that is. Is it? Is it just like a massive lack of self-worth? Is it feeling that we don't have space to breathe Like what is going on in your experience, that we just haven't evolved past that.
Speaker 1:You know you're right when you stop and you look at the evolution of women. We have come a long way in many, many areas and many arenas, but you're right when you stop and look, it does feel like sometimes we've taken a couple of decades step backwards. Social media and particularly now, which is a wonderful thing but is truly impeding our young people. So your daughter has social media to deal with, which is something I know I didn't have to deal with in my time growing up. I did not have to deal with the level of pressure, the peer pressure, and there are just so many external forces for women to be beautiful, to be smart, to be thin, to be all these things that you know society wants us to do. So I think it.
Speaker 1:I think for us you know the older generation, especially myself I think it's important for us to show up comfortable in our own skin, but the problem is many of us are not comfortable in our own skin. Yes, because the only way your daughter is going to really feel comfortable is I need to show up comfortable in my generation and she sees that it is perfectly okay. But I'm still struggling in my generation. What she sees and what I give off is still that whole, you know, just feeling uncomfortable, not feeling confident, and unfortunately that's what a lot of our young ladies are seeing. And so they gravitate to what they see on social media which appears to be confident and beautiful and luxurious, which is really plastic, plastic, plastic which is really plastic, plastic, plastic Filtered plastic, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's insidious and it actually. It really makes me sad because I often say, like it's taken me 40 years. We've all heard the rhetoric of when you're in your 40s and your 50s you finally feel comfortable in your own skin, and I truly believe we're not actually comfortable in our own skin. We're just so tired of performing for so long that we let the mask drop a little bit from time to time. But I also really wonder why it takes us so long to get to this point, like why can we not have that, whatever level of comfort it is? Why can we not have it sooner?
Speaker 1:I agree, you know they call it the confidence gap. You know they say that, yes, women don't really come into their own, especially in business and industry, still in their 40s or 50s. The confidence gap, and what that really means is that, even though women are smarter and better leaders, you know, as far as transformation in their industries, they lack the confidence. And so you're right. You look and try to figure out okay, what is confidence? You try to reverse, engineer, just like you're saying, and say where does this start? It starts as a little girl who has to really fight to come into business or come into science or to come into the industry because, depending on her culture, depending on her background, society is telling her her worth is really connected to this man.
Speaker 1:And so, you know, we play Barbies, and Barbies, whole world was being cute and waiting for Ken. Oh yeah, you know, barbie just got a career, you know, in the last 10 years or so. But when I had Barbies, barbies her job was to look fabulous, have pretty hair, cute clothes and a snatched waistline that nobody could get, and to make tea parties and things of that nature, and so think about that. So if I'm a young girl which I was, and I didn't mind playing Barbies, but I wanted to play in the mud and I'd like science, and so there weren't many women in the science field.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I remember. I remember very clearly being told, you know, don't, don't act smart, because people won't like it. And you know being being told to dumb myself down so the boys wouldn't feel intimidated and the girls would like you, because nobody wants to be friends with a nerd, and blah, blah. And I was very much a nerd, I was a teacher's pet, I, you know, and it's something I look back now on and I wish I had embraced it more. Oh, yes, you know, I really really do, and it's. It's so interesting You're talking about Barbie's, because I grew up the same right Barbie was. She had a career, but it was still, you know, with Ken. Ken was always in the background and we've kind of swung in the other direction. Now with respect to I don't know if you've seen the Barbie movie, but you know Barbie can do it. It's Barbie and Ken, like they're separate now and Barbie's empowered and she can do the thing. And there are president Barbies and Supreme Court Barbies that's wonderful.
Speaker 2:I was like well, look at Barbie, she's come a long way, she has but I feel like it's also kind of we have these two very separate dynamics, right, or paradigms, I guess where you've got the Barbie can't be anybody without Ken and Barbie fully independent, completely, you know, bad-assing it herself, and there's no sort of in between. And I wonder how much of that? Because you know the whole feminist thing and blah, blah, blah, Because we talked about this yesterday and I underlined it because this was so important to me how does that swing of the pendulum impact the very, very necessary opportunities for collaboration for women, Like allowing ourselves to be supported and helped, yes, and don't have to do it alone.
Speaker 1:So you absolutely correct, because Barbie was stuck with Ken and now she's independent and so I have to have it all together. I have to do everything in my company, I have to run my business solo, because I am now the successful entrepreneur, successful businesswoman, successful leader. And you're right, we don't know how to ask for help, and then that leads to us feeling tired. It's a cycle. It is. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of strength. I am my strongest when I say, hey, can you help me with this? It's not a sign of weakness, but in our mind, in our brains, we really think if I ask for help, if I let someone know that I don't know how to do this, what are they going to think about me? I don't care anymore. I'm at that age. I don't care what they think about me, and what I understand is that I am smart because I surround myself with brilliant people and I let them be brilliant.
Speaker 2:And it's something that I was taught in the corporate space too right, Like the need to ask for help means that you are incapable of doing the job we hired you for, and so there is this internal need to like prove that you can do it all on your own and it's just. It's so destructive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have. You know, as ambitious women, many of us have tied our self-worth and we have tied our accomplishment to who we are. So that's why, when you ask a woman, you know who are you. She begins to rattle off her accomplishments her achievements, because that is who she is. Her value is connected. So you're absolutely correct If she asks for help, then that is a sign of weakness, that's a sign that she's inadequate, that's a sign that she cannot do the job and we can't let. We can't let anybody know that I need help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I need to ask you first of all, how do you support the?
Speaker 1:people that you work with, in the people in my business that come to see me, yes, in your business. Yeah, cause I work with people in many occasions.
Speaker 2:So thank you as an entrepreneur, as a business leader, how do you support your clients?
Speaker 1:So, yes, thank you. That's a wonderful question. So I support ambitious women. They usually come to me often when they are leading their high-performing teams and they're starting to feel burnout. But they don't want to say that they're feeling burnt out. They're starting to feel overwhelmed, and I support them and teach them how to incorporate daily rest routines so that they can lead from a place of rest and not only be able to be a leader that is well-balanced or a leader that has wellness there, but also model that for their team, because I believe that your team is just as healthy as you are. Okay, oh, that's so good, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So women usually come to me. They're like or they come to me they've just been promoted, you know, to a new position and they know they were already tired at the level that they were working at and now they promote it to another level with maybe more people and they're like I can't continue to do this. You know my home life, my physical body, my health. I need help, and so when they come to me, we do a whole consulting service with them and get them, you know, the tools that they need strategies to begin to implement daily rest routines to help them decrease stress, decrease their anxiety, increase their productivity and just really take charge of their lives and their leadership style.
Speaker 2:Can you give me an example of rest routines, or what does that look like?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah. So I'll share a few of my favorite ones, my personal ones. A couple of my favorite personal regimens or rest routines is a daily. I take time every day to do a daily detox digital detox, rather, digital detox. So a digital detox is intentional time pulled away from my cell phone, from my laptops, from my computers, anything online. I intentionally do it every day for like maybe 30 minutes to an hour and it is wonderful. It supports my brain health. It allows me to decompress my brain for that period of time. It's good for my eyes because you don't realize how much screen time you're doing when you're on the computer. I work on my computer all day, all night, and so just doing a quick digital detox is one of my favorite.
Speaker 1:It's like my number one, I would say. My number two is probably mindfulness, and I do my mindfulness with a cup of tea because I'm a tea drinker and I just take my cup of tea and I drink, and mindfulness is not necessarily taking deep breaths and all that. That's a whole different technique. But mindfulness is the intentionality of being present without judgment. It's very simple Get present in the moment and don't judge yourself. So my mind is not wandering off to all the stuff I didn't do yesterday. It's not wandering off to all the things I need to do today. I'm not thinking about oh my gosh, I missed that or I didn't do. It's 30 minutes, 40 minutes, 15 minutes. I like to bring it with my ginger tea and it's just me doing absolutely nothing on this tea and thinking this is a good cup of tea, this honey tastes good, just being present in the moment, because, as women, as ambitious women, our minds are going nonstop.
Speaker 1:I got to call this client. I got to follow up on this proposal. Oh, did I pay that bill? I got to pick up the kids. We are to call this client. I got to follow up on this proposal. Oh, did I pay that bill? I got to pick up the kids. We are always thinking about things. And then my last one is movement. You don't have to exercise, but you do have to move. Put your music on.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to tell you what I listen to, but I listen to a little bit of everything and I love to just dance, girl, for 15, 20 here, everybody's gone and I just do you know, I I didn't think about it, but what I used to do, particularly during a stressful period last year, I used to lock my office door and he's put headphones on and I would just blast music really loud and just dance for like five minutes and it was incredible how rejuvenated I felt afterwards. Yes, it doesn't take long. It doesn't take long. It doesn't take long and it's something that I think we you know the mindfulness, I will say that is something that I've always had a challenge with, and I think most women do just the constant stream of thoughts. Right the minute you sit down, everything you need to remember suddenly pops into your head. How would you suggest navigating that? Because I know a lot of my peers who've tried it haven't been able to turn the brain off and so give up.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, training the brain to relax is like training a muscle, just like when you go to the gym to exercise. You can train your brain to relax and so the whole practice of mindfulness, with the breathing and all of that. It says all you need is eight minutes a day for 21 days to begin to decrease your stress levels and to decrease your anxiety. Eight minutes, eight minutes. So I have a couple of tapes that I just have for people in my mindful leadership that they can grab. It's a free, like downloadable, like a podcast, and so it just walks them through. Eight minutes a day, that's all you need. Eight minutes of breathing, and you'll be surprised how that's able to regulate your body. It's practice. If you start doing it, your body will crave it, just like when you exercise.
Speaker 1:You first start exercising, it's horrible. When you first go to the gym or walking, you're like, oh, this sucks, why am I down here on this floor? Who's going to get me off the floor? And then, after a while, you keep doing it and it's like, oh, this isn't so bad, I can do whatever I'm doing. And so, getting back to the brain, the brain has to rest. So when clients come to me and they do say exactly what you said I can't turn my brain off. The first thing I do, really, is I ask them how many hours of sleep are they getting? Because sleep is a real weapon. And so when they tell me that they are not able to turn their brains off most of the time, they're not getting adequate sleep, they're not getting that seven to eight hours of sleep, of solid rest through the night. So that's the first thing In order to reset your brain, you have to give your brain time to rest. Sarah is a lost cause.
Speaker 2:I'm not even going to tell you oh, are you one of those four hour sleepers? I am, and this is a problem I've had since high school. I don't know if it's anxiety, I don't know if it's something else, but, like my, it doesn't matter what time I go to bed 11, 12, I will wake up at 5 am without an alarm. It's a superpower, but it's also one that keeps me perpetually exhausted. So I completely understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, Because the body needs. It's just the way the body is designed. Your brain needs that seven to eight hours a night, otherwise at the end of the week. That's why people crash on Saturdays and Sunday. They sleep all weekend because the body is trying to replenish itself.
Speaker 2:I wish I could sleep all weekend. My brain is awake at five on the weekend too.
Speaker 1:So we have to get you into some mindfulness where you're just doing eight minutes of quiet time, eight minutes of a day. That's all it needs for 21 days and you will begin to see the ability to really train your brain and your body to rest and decrease your stress, decrease your anxiety. And that's what it is. You're right, it's stress and anxiety. Some of us are just wired a little different. You know, tell people and I get it, because this is me, for me previously.
Speaker 1:My body responds to good news the same way it responds to bad news. So if I'm excited in a happy way, I could feel that. You know that, that fight or flight. If I'm nervous, I feel that fight or flight and I was like, oh my goodness, my body is responding the same way. That's what made me realize, okay, I need to really do something about this, because I'm always in a constant state of fight or flight, regardless if I'm happy or sad.
Speaker 1:So that's what I had to notice about my own self when I'm excited or I have good news or something's wonderful happening, I notice the same response. It's like a stress response, and I was like, okay, I need to get control over this, because I should have a different response when I'm happy. I need to get control over this, because I should have a different response when I'm happy. But if your body is in a constant fight or flight, if you have not really trained your brain how to rest, that may be what you experience as well, and I know that was my experience and I was able to really regulate and turn some things around and even teach my son, who's on the spectrum, how to regulate his emotions as well through some breathing. He's really good with it now.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm definitely gonna have to try that. I've written it down. We're going to try it for 21 days. We're going to do the eight minutes a day. We're going to see if it works and I'll report back to you.
Speaker 1:I want to hear it, I want to hear your report.
Speaker 2:All right, I would love to, and I ask everybody this but I would love to know what I lovingly call your villain origin story, how you came to entrepreneurship.
Speaker 1:Ooh, how did I come to entrepreneurship? I'm going to try to be really quick. I wrote a book called Mastering Transitions. This is when I got serious about my business, because before I had businesses and little side hustles and things of that nature, but Mastering Transitions was the book that really pushed me into being serious about my entrepreneurship and that book is the backdrop of my life just going through transitions. And I wrote the book and people started asking me to do coaching and teaching and training and that's really how I started. I stepped into coaching and I started group coaching. I started doing training around how to walk particularly women through transitions and organizations, how to transition, using the framework from my book. And that's what kind of walked me into really being serious about my business.
Speaker 1:Up until that point I really treated my business like a. Until that point I really treated my business like a side hustle, like a hobby. I wasn't really serious about it. But I think that's when I realized, girl, you got something here, let's get serious about it so you can help people. So that's how I started, kind of tripped into it, and it's been a great journey ever since. Oh, I love that.
Speaker 2:I love that, okay. So last question Of all the people that you work with in your business, what do you find is the most impactful? The smallest, most impactful piece of advice that you give on a regular basis? But it can't be the eight minutes of mindfulness, because we've already talked about that Like if someone wanted to take a step tomorrow to start changing the trajectory of how they're showing up.
Speaker 1:I do this activity that's called building your unapologetic brag bag. And so what I do is I ask women, just for the next few minutes. Take a piece of paper out and I want you to write down all of your accomplishments, all the things you've achieved. Just go for it, whether it is at your employment, your business, in the community, at your church, wherever, even in your family. What are you proud of? Maybe you are proud that you are a mom, maybe you work in the community, you have some great award at your job, you started a business. You sell cookies I don't care what it is and I just give them a timer, and usually the timer goes off in five minutes or so, and everything on that paper. Then you just stop and I want you to look at everything that you've already accomplished. Okay, so this is your, as we would say. This is kind of like your street credit. This is what you have done, what you have accomplished. I don't care how small it is or how big it is, and so I give this to women because I want them to understand that everything that they need is already on the inside of them and they've already accomplished it.
Speaker 1:So, trying to go back to school, to get a degree or a certification. It's not necessary. It's like buying a pair of earrings. If you want to go back and do it, it's fine. But it doesn't complete you, it only complements you. Think of it as a pair of earrings. It's just like oh, I like these earrings. I think I'm going to go get another certification, but it doesn't mean that I can't start my business until I get my certification. Oh, I think I'm going to go back and get a degree. I'd like it, but it doesn't mean I can't start or I can't go for that job because I don't have the credentials. But I think the biggest thing is showing women that what you've already brought to the table to the world is good enough now.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love that. I love that. Good enough now. Oh, I love that. I love that there are so many women who I mean you've heard the stat I'm sure of you know if there's a job, a man will go for it with 60% of the qualifications, whereas women will unless they feel like they have a hundred.
Speaker 1:That's the confidence gap. Yeah, and I work with women from all different backgrounds, all different educational levels and let me say this even with women who are heavily degreed, it doesn't make a difference. They will still show up with a lack of confidence. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 2:I'm feeling called out. My whole sort of MO growing up was I have to get as many degrees as possible because I have to work twice as hard as everyone else. I need to prove that I'm worthy of the seat at the table and you know, we're three degrees in, we've got probably a dozen certifications in different areas and I still will look at job postings and opportunities and go well, I can only do about two of those seven things with confidence Like 100%. I'm constantly second-guessing myself so I don't think it matters, like you said, how qualified, like how credentialed, you are. It does not, yeah, it doesn't have a direct correlation to your qualification or your capability?
Speaker 1:Yeah, for whatever reason we feel like, with all of our degrees, our credentials, our experience, we still don't have it. And you're absolutely correct. I was working with some women working on a couple of things, and the men were showing up and they were doing their thing and they were giving answers wrong or right and the women were almost silent because they didn't want a mistake. They did not want to appear that they were wrong, and I was like I'm watching and I shoot from the hip. I don't care, I don't have anything to lose. I think that's the thing I finally learned.
Speaker 1:People always ask what would you tell your younger self? Now that you're on this side, I would tell my younger self you don't have to be embarrassed. I was always worried about being embarrassed. So you don't speak up, you don't say anything. What if I say the wrong words? What if I don't have the right words? What if I say the wrong words, wrong? What if I don't enunciate them the correct way? Well, it's going to be, it's going to come out the way it's going to come out. Yeah, it's unapologetic, yeah, but I wouldn't say anything. But now I, if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If I'm right. I'm right. What's the difference? What's the difference? There's nothing this person can do to me. Yeah, that's where the confidence comes in.
Speaker 2:And I think that confidence needs to be instilled in women way earlier. I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite quotes if you're not making mistakes, you're not making decisions. I love that, oh, I love that it's on the wall for a reason, because it reminds me every day I love that.
Speaker 1:I'm going to have to snatch it off your wall and send it to me.
Speaker 2:I will. I'll take a picture and send it over to you. Dr Monique, where can people find you? What's the best place to get in touch with you? Because I think everyone needs to experience your incredible energy, so please share.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you. You can find me on LinkedIn. That's one of my favorite places to hang out there, LinkedIn. You can find me on Facebook as well, and then you can always go to my website, which is moniqueflemmingsnet. Find me there, but the best places to find me is probably going to be on LinkedIn and a little bit of Facebook and then go to my website. I would love to connect with you. I have all different types of products for you as leaders, you know consulting packages, things of that nature, and definitely for your corporation, for your organization, you know. Definitely consider bringing me in to help you build that company in a way that leans into rest.
Speaker 2:Yep, and that is such a necessary thing. We will have all of those links in the show notes. Dr Monique, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you. This has been such a great. I mean, there are so many more things that I wanted to cover, but we'll have to talk forever.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, we can talk forever. Thank you, sarah again for having me. It's been a pleasure and I just absolutely enjoy talking with you. It's so easy, breezy, talking to you. Oh, I love that Much fun. Yeah, we are such kindred spirits. So thank you for doing what you do and thank you for having me and your audience. They are so, so, so, so, so blessed to have you, and so keep doing what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much and on that note, my friends, as always, you can have success without the BS. I will talk to you next week. That's it for this week. Thanks for listening to the Business Blasphemy Podcast. We'll be back next week with a new episode, but in the meantime, help a sister out by subscribing and if you're feeling extra sassy rating this podcast and don't forget to share the podcast with others Head over to businessblasphemypodcastcom to connect with us and learn more. Thanks for listening and remember you can have success without the BS.