Conviction with SC Gutierrez

Dawn Baker speaks with SC Gutierrez about the highs and lows on her journey of building a financial firm with an ethical, transparent business model.

Sarah Catherine (SC) Gutierrez is the CEO of Aptus Financial. She holds an MPP from Harvard University, and Certified Financial Planner® and Chartered Retirement Plans Specialist designations. Her firm provides flat-fee financial planning services to early-career attending physicians and other young professionals. Aptus has helped more than 800 physicians DIY their finances by providing financial mentorship, personalized guidance, and simple, unbiased investment advice. In addition, her firm serves as fiduciary advisor to retirement plans and manages financial wellness and student loan advice programs for healthcare organizations and other companies, encompassing more than 30,000 employee participants. She is the author of But First, Save10: The One Simple Money Move That Will Change Your Life and writes a monthly financial column called Save Yourself for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

SC's book
SC's company website

Get in touch with Dawn: 

• On Instagram @practicebalance
• On the web practicebalance.com
• Buy the book Lean Out

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the lean out podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Don baker. Are you looking for a new approach to authentic and sustainable work-life balance? You've come to the right place. Listen as i interview amazing women professionals who've taken steps to lean out and find balance on their own terms Hello? Hello. Thanks for being here. Today. I am talking with a friend and an amazing money Wiz. Sarah Catherine Gutierrez. She goes by S C and she is the CEO of Aptus financial. She holds an MPP from Harvard university and she's a certified financial planner. And a chartered retirement plan specialist. Her firm provides flat fee financial planning services to early career attending physicians and other young professionals. She's also the author of a book, but first save 10, the one simple money move that will change your life. And she writes a monthly column called to save yourself for the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. In our conversation, we don't get into the nuts and bolts of finance. But instead we're focusing on S C's journey of leaning out in the financial planning industry to start her own firm. And all the changes in her work-life balance along the way. It's a super interesting story as told by her. And I know that you'll really enjoy it.

Dawnm 1:30

Welcome to the show. I'm happy you're here.

SC 1:33

Thank you for having me, Don. It's great to see you again.

Dawnm 1:36

You too. Now we know each other from speaking at various conferences and I have heard you talk a lot about financial planning and your philosophies there for physicians and young professionals. You have your own firm and you're an educator. I'd like you to describe what you do in your current work life situation and how it might be different from other people that are in your profession.

SC 2:07

I love that question. And I love talking about this topic because it is really important to me. So my job is I'm a CEO of a company and I love this company and I'm very passionate about this company and what this company does. But I am the CEO from nine in the morning until 3 p. m. when my kids get off the bus stop. They run home excited to see me or they stock home, grumpy about their day. But I am sitting in my little, folded chair in my garage, waiting for them to come home and to, uh, change roles. And I don't know what tomorrow's work life will be, but that was yesterday and the day before and in recent history, but that is what is. Extremely gratifying to me is that in this role that I have, I can bend reality to what I want. We talk a lot about work life balance. I think a lot about the trade off of time and money. And in this phase of life, time seems a lot more valuable than money to me with where I am in my house and my marriage and my kids. And I'm just so grateful that I do have a business that allows that kind of flexibility.

Dawnm 3:37

Yeah. Now tell me before we talk a little bit more about your business, how old are your kids and how many kids do you have?

SC 3:43

So I have three children and, they are, uh, just turned seven, almost about to turn nine and 11. And, it's, it's really fascinating. You know, I started my business at the same time that, uh, essentially got pregnant, and I remember there is I remember a time where I was interviewing for a client, and it was just a really tough time, like I didn't know if I was, if this business was going to work, and it was just me, and, one other person who was kind of helping me out administratively, and I was just desperate for clients, and there was this one moment where I took a client call, an interview, and I just basically willed my nine month old to stay asleep, and he didn't. And, I remember he was screaming and instead of saying to this person, like, I need to go help my kid, I kept interviewing and this woman was like, I think we should not continue this conversation right now. And I remember us getting off the phone and I was thinking, this is never, ever going to happen again. There is, there has got to be a better balance than this. And so this is like a promise that I made to my future self, and I feel like I'm living that future that I made that promise to now, my kids are older, you know, I can still have that, I think now.

Dawnm 5:07

Oh my gosh, that's so relatable. How did you evolve into, realizing that dream and that future self?

SC 5:18

Right. So, luckily I'm married to someone who was already doing this. I guess you could call him a stoic and Has always contemplated this value of time and taking time and having leisure and being present to the family. And so I was kind of late to that party, but he definitely got me understanding that that's okay. Uh, I just want to side note here. I wish I could quote it specifically, but. A friend sent me an Instagram screenshot because I'm not on social media. We can talk about that later. And in this screenshot, it was like one day women are going to realize that we can take leisure and feel zero guilt about it. And I thought, that's where I am right now. That is it. And so from point A to point B, definitely started with watching my husband being able to do that, make a good living. He owns two businesses himself. Um, and. Has, a great balance and then realizing, okay, I can say no to things. I can say no, literally just say no. I mean, people were asking me to speak all the time. I could say, look, unless you're going to pay me, I'm not going to speak. And then also being able to hire different functions that I knew I could turn over. And so this has been a multi year process of. Having a CFO that's incredible and a partner and then getting essentially a COO on another side of the business and then hiring an executive assistant and really having like a true management team in place and they're so good and so competent. That I can literally unleash things. So I'm not a micromanager. Luckily, I'm not a perfectionist. I think that goes really well with doing this and being able to truly buy back your time. But that's essentially what I did. And instead of filling that time, like I would in a previous life with, Oh, now I'm going to go volunteer. Now I'm going to go join the PTA. You know, like, I think we do that as women. It's like, Oh, we got our time back and now I'm just going to go spend it. A different way. It's like, no, I might actually go on a hike in the morning and then sit down and read a book that's been sitting there and kind of ease into my day rather than what I used to call my ice bucket challenge. Morning was every morning was an ice bucket challenge. Uh, so, yeah, it's been a serious process. These last, you know, 1213 years, this arrival point is better than I ever imagined. It could be.

Dawnm 7:54

So wonderful to hear. And it's really interesting to witness the evolution of your business. Can you describe a little bit about your firm and... how it is set apart from what other people are doing in the financial planning space. I

SC 8:12

Sure, I'd love to. I'm super proud of it. So, I started the firm back in, 2011, and what I was doing was creating a firm in response to essentially what I witnessed when I was working as a sell side stock analyst in 2007, from 2007 to 2011. So imagine... Becoming a stock analyst in 2007, knowing what was about to happen in 2008. Right. So, you know, when your job is to be right on making calls in the stock market and you couldn't be more wrong all the time, but more importantly, what was happening at that time that resonated more deeply with me was that I had previously lived in Phoenix, Arizona, and making a very low income. And I was getting approached and almost bought a house. From just these brokers that would just walk up and down the streets. And so making 23, 000 a year and contemplating buying a 250 or whatever it was, thousand dollar house. And I define my life by my dad basically saying, are you nuts? I don't know what is happening. You cannot buy that house. And I remember being kind of offended by it, but in retrospect, I had that independent, sane voice in my head saying, don't do this. So that is essentially what was happening in 2008, uh, and 2009 as a stock analyst. I'm watching stock market crash, but most importantly, I'm watching my friends lose their homes, like very smart people losing, literally having to walk away from the homes. And this is when I thought, wow, there's all these commercials out there for all these financial advisors, yet clearly no one was getting financial advice. And so I set out to start a company where people could just pay for advice by the hour. So if you're going to go buy a house, why don't you just pay someone to walk through the finances and be able to vet that? I wanted that to become a mainstream idea because at the time, and it still really is the case that really you have to have a good 500, 000 in assets, not in your 401k, but like outside it. To be able to have the right to talk to a financial advisor. So I'm doing marathon training. That's, that's kind of like, if I like wanted to get a marathon coach and the coach said, Hey, do the best you can, but I'll be there at mile 26, you know, cheering you on, that is what it's like to get your first 500, 500, 000. Like you need someone there from the first dollar, not from the 500 and thousand and 1, right? That is why I started this firm. So, uh, it was a slog. Imagine starting a firm where people are saying, wait, I don't understand. You want me to pay to write you a check when I can go to this person over here and take my 500, 000 and it's essentially free. So there was a, first of all, a perception that. If you, had the money that this was free advice because the money was just getting tapped on the back end. These advisors basically charge 1 percent of asset management fee, or it was even higher at the time, but then for people who needed the advice, there was not the the cultural practice of going and paying for financial advice. So it was much more difficult than I thought it would be. And I was really lucky at the time though, that a few young physicians just in training and out of training stumbled onto the business and realized, wow, I need advice now, and I can't find anyone who will talk to me because I've got 300, 000 in student loan debt. They're telling me to come back in 10 years, but I have all these major decisions to make on disability insurance, on how to invest, on what I should be doing with this 457 that's being offered. I don't even know what that is. And so I started working with physicians. Because it turned out there is a huge need for early career physicians, and it has taken off since. I'm very proud to say we've got a large team of financial planners. We're in different parts of the country. We are the largest flat fee, advice only firm in the country now, and it's now a thing. So, the industry is definitely moving, uh, very rapidly in our direction. It is now, common language to say flat fee, advice only. Language and, you know, it's people talk sometimes about their startup companies is having these like hockey sticks and I don't have a hockey stick. We just grew, but it's been steady growth. We've never gotten ahead of our skis. At times where we get surges and interest to work with our firm. We just run waiting lists and we wait until we can hire the best financial planners. So now it's a great business. We manage our recruitment more than we have to manage where we're going to get our next clients. It's been quite a ride and an extremely gratifying for when I think back to that time of taking that interview with the screaming baby, it has gone a long way from there. Dawn, a long way.

Dawnm 13:33

I knew what your philosophy was from hearing you speak, but it's so fun to hear how it started and where the need came from. And also you're linked to working with physicians because you have this other arm of your business that is Physician education speaking and you wrote a book tell me why you decided to incorporate that into your work life balance and what you do.

SC 14:00

Well, that's a great question. And I think I incorporated it a little too heavily. I mean, that period of time, writing the book, waking up at four in the morning, I was disciplined. I wrote for about a year and a half, every single morning at four in the morning for about an hour, hour and a half. Um, it was an extremely arduous process. My publisher, put us through like eight or nine rounds of edits. We had 12 people on the editing team. So it was an incredibly intense process. I'm not sure I would do it again. I am contemplating doing it again, but just knowing what we went through to get what I think is a great product out was very difficult. The speaking piece has always been part of the business. I started speaking very early on in the business. These same physicians invited me to, come to their residency program. And this is a funny story. There were a couple whole life sales people who were doing the rounds at our local, training hospital and, you know, they were super happy to give these free presentations

Dawnm 15:00

It's never free. None of it is ever free. Just like the financial planning thing with the assets under management. I just had to add that in.

SC 15:09

No, that's exactly right. And, I think enough physicians had been burned generationally that, around the time that I basically said, Hey, look, I'm trying to build. The first, like truly kind of transparent and ethical business model. It's not to say that people can't be ethical selling whole life insurance or, managing assets, but the business model itself is naturally conflicted in the case of selling whole life insurance. You know, if you're basically saying. Hey client, I'm going to give you advice on this product. If you buy the product, I'm going to make a lot of money. If you don't buy the product, I'm not going to make any money. Um, and it just so happens. I really think you ought to buy the product. Well, gosh. Is it advice? Managing assets is so if you look at the whole industry, I think probably 80 to 90 percent of the industry right now is that product sale. I mean, it's still dominates the world of financial planning of financial advice. It's wild. So, assets under management, because people don't really have assets like that, you know, that's only about 10%. It's, it's a lot better than selling products, but if you think about you're a physician and you've got a bunch of student loan debt, that person, if they advise you to aggressively pay off their student loan debt in lieu of building assets. They would be advising you against their own financial interest, so it's still financially conflicted. So you can have a very ethical, like passionate person, and yeah, they probably will from time to time help you make that decision that's against their own best interest. But why would you even have that as a condition in your financial planning arrangement? And so when I went to the hospital with these physicians. And kind of explained, look, you have got the Fox guarding the hen house here. Like this is not a good situation because these folks are coming in. Yes, they're doing it for free, but it's not free because if all of these folks go and buy these whole life policies, they're going to find themselves 10 years down the road, really wondering what they own and what it's going to do for them, you need more holistic advice. And so that's where I started teaching at our local. Hospital. They actually put me on faculty and Department of Surgery and it's blossomed since so you have spoken at Wake Forest and at Kaiser Permanente and and now they're paying me and I think that's appropriate. I don't think you should have financial education that is basically a commercial for your firm. So when I come and speak, we don't give a bio. We don't give my affiliation. It is literally, this is the expert financial advice that you give. There is none of the, well, I'm just going to confuse you just enough so that you realize how much you need a financial expert, so that you're kind of forced to hire me. We actually teach people in these sessions how to DIY their finances. So we're basically saying the opposite. We're saying we think all of you can and should manage your own money. And here is the playbook. Here are the spreadsheets you need. Here's everything that you need so that you can take this on your own.

Dawnm 18:19

I love it. And it is really truly the definition of leaning out because you're going against what everybody else in your industry is doing. And the

SC 18:29

love that term.

Dawnm 18:30

Yeah, I know. It's great. And, and the other thing about it is about what you described and your education arm of your business and how it got a little bit overwhelming. It really gets to the fact that your work life balance is, very cyclical and it comes and goes and you're in it for the long haul. So now it sounds like you're in a little bit more of a calm place where you can experience some. Stillness in your days, you've worked so hard to get to, the point where your business is, this vision of your future self. So tell me about how, you have stepped away from the do it all treadmill of achievement stuff, even just as an entrepreneur.

SC 19:24

So is that there any women listening to this? I think you can resonate with this. It's a very subtle thing. I'm going to say, but I bet people are going to be nodding. I think our gender lends ourselves to being perceived as helpers and people want us to help in lots of different ways. And they think they're the only people asking for help. And I found myself agreeing to things and I would always say, I'm never going to do this again. I'm going to, I'm going to do this speaking engagement because I know this person or, Oh, this person really needs this. I'm going to do this. And I found myself doing lots of free things that weren't going to move the business forward. They took time away from my family. People always say, don't worry about your email inbox. Really? Because if I don't worry about my email inbox, it'll be 200 emails at the end of today. And by Friday, it's going to be 600. So, so tell me why I don't need to worry about it, but at the same time, you want a response from an email. So what I realized is, is that every time I was doing these things and helping. My email inbox would grow and this is a serious serious problem. So, I work with my executive assistant and he and I have agreements. On my calendar we have this rhythm now and He is the one that basically screens everything that comes through and I have set aside one day a month for a four hour period of time Where anything I would classify as kind of helping can go into that period of time and that's it. So it might be scheduled out in January or February, but that's it. In addition, whenever I do speaking engagements, and these are paid engagements, and so I need to be there and I need to show up with the energy that people expect. He will block off the entire day before. And he blocks off the entire day after. So that is a three day commitment. And that is why it's really expensive for me to come and speak. Because I know what has to happen in order for me to do an entire day or several hours of speaking. And so before I would just wedge it in. Oh my gosh. If I had a speaking engagement from like. You know, 12 to 1 30. I mean, I might be booking appointments at nine that morning and three p. m. That afternoon. And then I'd be way too tired for my family. Like it just everything. The email inbox will get out of control. Like, like, literally, I was just chasing. I would just look at my calendar for the week and say, if I can only get through Friday, we should not be living that way. That is how I was living. Let's just get through Friday. No, no, no more, no more, no more. So these are the practices. There was a lot of trial and error to get to this point. And I would say like for women who are having, who might be listening to this and really want to lean out on this helper role, I think it has been wildly successful to have an executive assistant who can take on. with a very objective way to help evaluate what we say yes to, what we say no to, and the ones that we really feel like we need to say yes to, how to work them in.

Dawnm 22:48

that's great advice. And talk about how you decidedly do not use social media.

SC 22:57

Mark Zuckerberg is not getting my free work anymore. I'm sorry. I resign. I quit. I am not working for free for you anymore. I realized what a scam that was one day. And I can't remember what occurred to me, but I was just creating content and trying to do this influencer thing. I was literally giving free information. That was my personality, my information. I had a Facebook group with 6, 000 people in it. And I was just pumping free information. And then people were messaging me for expert advice. Meanwhile, we have paying customers at Aptis paying customers. No. Right around the time I quit social media was we started a business doing retirement plans and financial wellness and, public service loan forgiveness support, and it was really taking off and, it's extremely hard business to win, but when you win it, it is very, very good, you can reach so many people, and so at the time, I'm going to make up this number, let's say I had Patreon. com 5, 000 people, you know, that, that we're in all, all of our retirement plans and financial wellness programs. I consciously got off social media and by my calculation, when I was looking at my phone use and anybody can do this right now, it's sobering and realizing that three to four hours was going into Instagram and Facebook, I got that time back and we now have. Gosh, 35, 000 participants. We have consulted on 60 million in student loans. We have a full time student loan expert down in Austin. I wouldn't have ever dreamed when I got off social media that we would be able to grow a business to the point where I would have a full time person. That's all she does. That business is exhilarating. We're able to help so many people. If I had stayed on social media, we would not be making the impact that we're making. We're able to help normal people like that make 60, 000 a year at these hospitals, right? Like helping them pay down credit card debt, helping them save 10 percent of their retirement plans. It is the most gratifying work. And I literally shake in fear at the thought that had I stayed. Active trying to impact people's lives on social media. We would not have this business as it stands today.

Dawnm 25:43

How do people hear about it? What do you do to get people to find out about it if you're not using social media?

SC 25:51

Well, it turns out if you buy back four hours of your day, it's pretty easy to pick up the phone and call, people in your network who know the CEO of a hospital there are so many other things to do. I read a column in our paper. I mean, it is wild when you buy back that much time in your day, what you can accomplish.

Dawnm 26:12

Oh, these are goals. I love it so much.

SC 26:15

Bye bye, Mr. Zuckerberg.

Dawnm 26:17

Yeah. Well, I'm headed that way, not quite there yet, but I love your philosophy.

SC 26:23

can I also say, uh, so I was listening to that podcast with Kara Swisher and this is terrible. Where's my brain? Uh, gentlemen, she does it with, anyway, he got off X or Twitter, I guess is what it's called. It's called X. And. Uh, he described the pure, like, joy he felt in that first week of not being on it, and he had this perception that he would feel like he was missing out on the conversations. And he said, when you don't even know what you're missing out on, and you realize that life goes on, even if you're not part of that, like, specific, non real life, it's not real, is basically what he was saying. Incredible joy he felt by missing out on the toxicity that was going through there was incredible. Now I've not ever really, I've dabbled in Twitter. I know I understand intellectually what he's talking about. I don't think Instagram has that kind of toxicity, but Facebook can, and I mean, there were days where one bad conversation could derail an entire day and then you realize, wow, that is not even real. That was a manufactured argument with people I don't even know. Like, it is really crazy when you step out of it and you realize life goes on in the real world. Isn't that crazy?

Dawnm 27:55

Yes. Absolutely. And I mean, you're getting at navigating some of these things like FOMO or just really it's uncertainty. It's like, how am I going to manage? If I'm not doing what other people are doing. So what's your advice to people for how you navigate those periods of uncertainty, and I'd like you to talk about the financial aspect too. Like if there were any issues when you started your business

SC 28:22

oh, God. So, my insecurity was largely from my own imposter syndrome. I have really terrible imposter syndrome. Um, I've talked a lot about it. I got my graduate degree from the Harvard Kennedy School. And I talk about... I was small the whole time. I never raised my hand in classes. I was constantly sure that they had made a mistake in admissions. And like, if I spoke out, people would realize how, not intellectual I was. Not that they wouldn't kick me out, but I just didn't want to be outed. Like it's, it was deeply shameful. So imposter syndrome is something I have dealt with. Starting my business was actually remarkably wonderful for someone who has imposter syndrome because I didn't have to answer to anyone or, or prove myself to anyone or make sales goals to anyone. I could just privately fail. I thought that was actually wonderful for like my own insecurity. But, the one thing that helped me Going through my business, it was very clear to me that. It was not financially working when I realized we had 2, 300 in daycare payments for my three children who are all under five. And I wasn't even bringing home 500 a month. This was incredibly difficult. But what I had going for me that I recommend for anybody starting a venture is I had a very significant nest egg that I had built just cash. And it gave me the confidence to be able to continue. So it's not just for me, it wasn't just about is this company successful, but I also felt very insecure about being a drain on our family's finances. And even though my husband was like, no, stay at it, keep going. I mean, this is year five. We're still not making money. You're six. It's still not making money. And he's like, just. Stick to it. You know, I was like, well, should I manage money? You know, you just have these questions of like, maybe I should bail. This model will never work. Like flat fee is just not it. But being able to have that pile of cash, we lived way below our means, not just. I mean, we didn't have joint means, but like my husband was a chemical engineer. We lived way below his means we were still saving. I was managing our budget so that we could make it work. And I think it was that combination of. I really never wanted to compromise ever on the ethics of the business. Like we're either doing this or I'm just not going to, you know, I'll close the business. Like this is we're never going to change. And then. It, you know, this is these early years where it was really, you know, touch and go. And then also having this commitment to living below one income, I think was the only reason that we got it to the point where it was like, wow, this might actually work. And then I was very lucky to be joined by, actually it was my former boss at the investment bank that I worked for. He joined me and he became our CFO. And that really is when we kind of took off. But yeah, I mean. Gosh, Don, I mean, like, I probably should have closed the business. Like, who keeps a business going that is just not working for so many years, right?

Dawnm 31:45

You had a vision of what you felt was the right way to, do what. A financial planner or what a financial educator should be doing. I think it was really that guiding light of the ethics, like you said, in the philosophy of what the business model should be, and it's beautiful. And then what validation for having someone that worked with you at your previous job, come and join you. That's just icing on the cake.

SC 32:13

It's incredible. I look at it now and Even as hard as those days were, I would say that my best day working in that role, you know, as a W two employee, just good job, but just tough. My best day was never as good as my worst day, even as tough as those finances were, there's nothing to describe like trying to build something, you know, I just really wanted to move the financial industry in a very ethical, transparent, positive direction. And so it was just so exhilarating to be part of that. And then. To be meeting these people also building flat fee companies, like in Atlanta and Mississippi and, in Minnesota, like, and in Salt Lake City, these people are all we were all kind of sharing notes, comparing notes and. And helping each other out, like it really was an exhilarating period of time at the same time that it was also extremely difficult and challenging when we didn't have a clear picture of whether this thing was going to work.

Dawnm 33:23

Yeah, I love it.

SC 33:25

I love this lean out. I mean, you're just you could not hit me at a better time to be discussing this and I just really hope people are listening to you. I really do. This is. This is important.

Dawnm 33:38

Thank you so much. SC, do you have any last advice for people? Anything you wished you knew when you were on the treadmill of achievement, in that job that wasn't as good as your worst day in your current business? Um, anything to people that might be feeling overwhelmed or, stuck or burned out?

SC 33:58

Yeah, I just think that when I look back on things, I wish I had just cut myself some slack, and I, age 43 now, I know I can have a day where I feel like laying in bed all day, and I do, because I know that next week I'm going to have a day where I feel motivated and I can take 20 things off my to do list. I just wish I could go back to my 25 year old self and my 35 year old self and say, please don't feel guilt and judgment for these cycles. And then I also think there are gen so there I think there are cycles through our week that we have to just Enter with non judgment and not saying, oh, you're lazy or look at you killing it. Just being able to just be with wherever you are, but I also think that there are longer life cycles. And yes, I did have a period of my life that I would not change my yes, the yes to everything. Yes, yes, yes, lean in. Yes, yes, yes. downshift. And it's extremely important to be able to, to do that. And I am in a downshift time and I cannot describe the joy and the peace that comes from having this balance that I never had before. So I'm just really grateful that you're spreading this message, Dawn. I'm, I don't think people are talking about it enough. I think that especially as women, we feel like we're just in one life cycle, which is go, go, go. That's it. Like it's just say yes to everything. You should always be scaling your business, like all these things that we tell ourselves. Um, and yes, I want my business to keep growing. I, I want us to be one of the biggest financial firms out there, but not at all costs. So I do appreciate your message. I'm trying to live it and I hope we can spread it a lot more.

Dawnm 35:53

Me too. Thank you so much. This has been just a pleasure, and tell us the name of your company and the website, and then I'll make sure to link it in the show notes.

SC 36:04

Excellent. So it's Aptis Financial, a a P as in Paul, T as in Tom, u, S as in Sam. So it's uh, aptis financial.com.

Dawnm 36:14

Great. Essie, thank you, and I look forward to seeing you again in person very soon.

SC 36:20

Likewise, Don. Thank you so much.

36:24

As you've heard SC is very protective of her time. And so I'm honored that she agreed to come on my podcast. I. Feel grateful that she was willing to put me into her four hours a month of helping She has such inspiring conviction and it comes out every time she speaks. Here are my takeaways from our conversation. Number one. Protect your time with fierce boundaries. Over the years, S C has learned the art of letting go of the helper role by saying no to working for free. And this includes giving her time to social media. She has found other ways to place boundaries, too, including hiring a ruthless executive assistant who screens her calendar and all of her emails. Even if you don't have your own EA and I know I don't have one, you can learn from SES application of bright line rules. For how she spends her time. Number two. Learn the art of self-compassion. S C suffered from imposter syndrome on the treadmill of achievement for so long, but she's now able to let go and allow herself to pull back. And rest when needed. We all need to treat ourselves the way that we treat patients, clients, family, or friends. Number three. Let your conviction guide you. And bolster you through all of the times of uncertainty. S C talked about the early stages of her business and how at times she thought her unique model was just not going to take off in the financial industry, but she kept on going because she knew that her vision of an ethical financial advice business was greatly needed for young professionals. And she was ruthless and what she did in order to keep the business afloat, including living on less than one income in her family. My question to you today is not just one. Is there something you see at work or just living day to day life that really gets you excited. Whether it fires you up or it angers you, or it pulls at your heartstrings, what is that thing? And the second question is. How does it inform the way you design your life or the way that you want to design your life? Thanks for listening to the lean out podcast. If you find these conversations inspiring and useful, please forward them to a friend and also leave a review on iTunes or Spotify so that other people can find them easier. If you want to get in touch with me, you can find me at my website, practice balanced.com, where you can subscribe to my newsletter and get updates regularly about new podcast episodes, blog posts, speaking, engagements, and coaching services. You can also support my work by buying my book, lean out a professional woman's guide to finding authentic work-life balance for yourself, a friend, family member, or coworker. Have a great day and we'll see you next time