Welcome to the Radiant Soul Sisters Podcast!
Episode #9
Today my guest is Sara Mayer, Founder & Chief Operations Officer, Sara Mayer Consulting
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If you want to read the transcript, check it out below:
Susan
Oh my goodness, I am so excited to have with us today, my friend and radiant soul sister Sara Mayer. I met Sara during COVID through the Know Women Networking Group and she believes you can crush your bold goals without having to work double time. And she shares her expertise on her Bold Crushers podcast. But you know what? That sounds like a true radiant soul sister to me. And I’ll just tell you, Sara and I have a connection with our love for our pups. You can find her precious pup Parker on Instagram at @ParkerTheBoxerPup and he is full of all kinds of fun and shenanigans with Sara. Sara, I am so glad to have you here today.
Sara
Oh, thank you for having me. I always love connecting with you. And even though we’ve never met in person.
Susan
Not yet. We were just talking a few minutes ago about powerhouse women out there and Phoenix, Arizona, and my heart is calling me to Phoenix. So I’m coming because I do know some amazing women in Phoenix and several of them have already been on the podcast and several more are scheduled to come up so you guys just have a great group of connections out there and I can’t wait to hug your neck when I get there Sara.
Sara
Can’t wait to meet you.
Susan
Thank you. I do have a question before we jump into today’s podcast here as I’m getting to know people or share guests on my podcast. I just like to know a little bit about your childhood or about who you are. So tell me what was your favorite one of your favorite childhood memories?
Sara
Great question, Susan. I, if you don’t know I’ve ridden horses my entire life. And one of my favorite childhood memories is actually playing horse show in the backyard with my non-horse friends. Even though I’m sure they thought I was crazy when I was telling them to put their knees different ways and run faster and halt and do all these things. But they definitely were good sports and you know, trotted around in circles.
Susan
Oh my goodness. So, that sounds like so much fun. I believe I did know you rode horses, but I really didn’t know that it went, you know how long you had been riding or all of that good stuff. So we live on a farm Sara, and at one time had up to nine horses.
Sara
Wow! I love it.
Susan
That’s crazy girl. But, um, we rode trail. So western trail riding, just lots of fun, a great family activity as what we did. So you know, Sara, I know you learned a lot of great lessons when you were riding horses. But I also know you’re an entrepreneur. You’re running this great podcast, you work with people in branding, and really building great businesses. What is the biggest lesson that you have learned about yourself as an entrepreneur?
Sara
Great question. I think the biggest lesson started off right away. I came from corporate America and I had always done consulting on the side. So people would call me and say, hey, you know, you did a great job at work. My husband needs this for his company. And that’s really how my business was started, was really a referral side business. And then during COVID, and I never left my job because I was highly compensated. So, it was hard to be liked oh bye you know. And I really love what I was doing. And then during COVID, the company that I was working for did a big layoff because everybody was doing those. And unfortunately, because I was not a revenue generating employee, I was one of the ones who was let go. So I like to say I was thrown into the deep end of the entrepreneur pool. Because I simply posted on LinkedIn, one post, and it was I’m looking for work. But in the meantime, if you have any projects that you need to accomplish, let me know. And I’ve been really busy ever since. And so I think one of the things that I learned right away is that I don’t like to be a sole entrepreneur. All of my positions. I have had large teams. I’ve been able to come out of meetings with a crazy idea and go right into another meeting. And by the time I came out of that meeting, my team was like, well, we can actually do this and this is how. Do you really want to move forward? And so I learned right away that I needed to build my future org chart for my business, because you can do anything for a certain amount of time. But I really needed to see the future of what my team would look like. And that was probably my biggest lesson learned.
Susan
What a great lesson to learn, you know, you hear you hear that old cliche, teamwork makes the dream work, right? Well, there’s a lot of truth into that cliche, right? That you, you can do a lot by yourself for a while. But that team, having those people behind you or beside you is what I like to think, you know, they’re not behind me. They’re beside me working together. So I do, I love that so much.
I didn’t realize that you had kind of gotten thrown into the deep end of your entrepreneurial world. You had been working on it, but really, it was like, Okay, now I’ve really got to do it. Right. So, so cool. COVID has many blessings. That’s what I like to say. We have to keep finding our blessings, right? And, you know, Sara, this is one of the reasons I know you are just a radiant soul sister and you shine, wow. Because you are working alongside these women or men, your team, and you’re inspiring them and encouraging them and leading them. And I also know that you believe in these big bold goals, right? And that you can do it without working double time. And that is so critical and what leads us to creating work life harmony. So have you learned any lessons there around work life harmony, or what’s your thoughts there?
Sara
Yeah, I think I have a well, I do have a long history in this and how the journey really started was I was working at a company. And one of my employers asked me to put together a training for people who were struggling in sales. And they’re like research the top people find out what they’re doing. And what I found was actually shocking. I sat with the top employees, about 20 of them for hours. And I could not believe they were our top employees. They were the least focused people on the planet. And I just, I just didn’t understand what was going on. And so I’m an operations person. So I asked my data team for a full workup. And they happened to be all men at the time, right. And I said, I want a full workup on all these guys, I want to know every time their fingers hit the keyboard, whenever they touch their phone, I want to know everything. And you can learn a lot about that. And what I found is that they actually were not our top performers. They were our top workers. They were always on. They worked Christmas, Easter, holidays, every holiday. They technically were scheduled seven to three, some of them and they taking leaves at midnight. And so what I really learned about that is that you can spend a lot of time at work and you can appear to be successful. But in reality, these guys didn’t have any work life harmony. They really were married to their work. And we also had some systemic issues at the organization that were feeding this, I like to say feeding the monster, because they were rewarding them for working harder. But we also were giving people leaves at midnight. Like you are on the clock, and we did have a team that worked at midnight, why weren’t they getting those leaves? And so I really thought about what would it be like if they, if our team only worked forty hours? And what would they need to do in order to accomplish the goals that we’ve set and are our goals actually achievable. And I went out and found the people who were only working forty hours. And what they were, were incredibly focused. They set goals for themselves daily. And what they were unapologetic about is at five o’clock if their time was up at five or three or whatever their time was, they walked out the door. And they knew that they had left everything on the table and there was nothing left undone. And so I learned a lot from that group. And when we actually aggregated the top performers hours down, they weren’t the top performers. They were bottom to middle performers. They just work more.
Susan
You know, I got cold chills when you said you all looked at the ones, you found the ones working forty hours and that they came, they put it all on the table, and they left, right. They had their boundaries, Sara. And you set another key thing, they had set their goals for the day. So probably I’m willing to bet the majority of them had their things to do the next morning already lined up, ready to go. And you know, setting those boundaries and those goals has been one of the hardest things for me. I would have come into your first category, because I would have had FOMO, right? Or I would have when I was in my 20s and 30s right? That’s where I would have been. Overworking, looking like I was so busy, because I might be working at ten o’clock at night. But truthfully, I just didn’t get it all done, because I wasn’t all focused, as focused as you said. And that’s where, you know, balance is just gone. But harmony isn’t there either, right. And I think you create harmony in your seasons of life. Sometimes you’re playing one instrument more or louder than the other, right. But I love that lesson, great lessons that you learned there. How old were you when you were doing this research? Or what? You know, just the time frame. Ten years ago, five years ago?
Sara
Yeah, about ten years ago. I was in my 30s.
Susan
Great, great lessons. So tell me from from those lessons. And just from what you’ve learned from high achievers, or from people who really are brilliant in their work or your high achievers. What do you do every day to let your radiant soul shine?
Sara
Oh, great question. I think one of the things that is really important to me every day is that I did learn a lot of lessons from those employees at the study at ease or whatever you call them. But they really set those goals out every day and every week. And I think about every week, what I realistically can accomplish. Like today, I’m recording a bunch of podcasts, I have one thing on my list to do. Now, at the beginning of the week, Monday when I’m super motivated. I’m like, oh, I’ll put ten things on my list for this week. That is not sustainable. And it also does not allow me to really shine because at the end of the week, if I said I was going to do ten or twenty five, or some of the people I work with think they’re going to do fifty things in a week, and have all these meetings and check their email and feed themselves and their children and all these other things. And then at the end of the week, they’re defeated. And so it’s really about setting myself up for success. But at the beginning of the week, I take a look at exactly what I truly can accomplish. And then every day I break that down into the things that I will do. And then really saying no to the things that I don’t have time for. I actually don’t say no anymore. This is a new thing because I felt bad about it. I say thank you for thinking of me. Do you know what would be really great for this? Let me connect you. And it feels so much better.
Susan
What! I love that, Sara, I absolutely love that. You know, going back to being a nurturer. You know, and FOMO, right, just not wanting to say no. That is a great way to say no, but also to give someone else the opportunity to shine right or the opportunity to step into their brilliance and not take away from your own. That is a writer downer and something to remember. I love that. Thank you for that golden nugget Sara. I appreciate it so much. I do have one question left for you. But before we get there, I know that you brought a gift or a little something for our listeners. So two things, share that gift and tell our listeners how to find you.
Sara
Yeah, so you can find me, I like to make everything very simple. You can find me on my website, SaraMayer.com. And I always like to offer a free goal consult. Because many times you have this big bold goal in your idea or idea out there and you’re like I want to do this but I don’t know how to get started. And what I find working with people is that many times I haven’t even written that goal down. Because they’re not truly in it. So my goal consult is really about helping people explore that goal and create that initial plan to get them started. And then of course, they can choose to continue working on that with me, or not, but I’d like to offer a free call. And I’ll provide Susan the link so you can schedule that.
Susan
Yeah, I’ll have that in the show notes. And I tell you, that is an amazing gift because Sara can help you break down that big bold goal. So you’re not working double time, and your light can shine in all the places you’d like for it to do. Sara, thank you so much. And if this episode has you thinking about how to put yourself first while living your life on purpose, and having work life harmony, be sure to connect with me on all my socials @SusanCrewsCo. You can also check out my website at SusanCrewsCo.com. And there you will find how to connect with me, have a conversation with me, or schedule me for any speaking engagements that you have coming up. Sara, I have one last question for you. I’ve learned a lot today and I’ve gotten some great golden nuggets. Looking back on all that you’ve shared. Oh my gosh, that writer downer is going to be there, right. But tell me what is one piece of advice or one suggestion that you would give that woman today about how to achieve work life harmony while crushing her big bold goal?
Sara
Yeah, the one piece of advice that I give everybody is to remember that someone else has probably done something very similar. And unless you’re inventing the light bulb, or something completely off the wall, but most of the time somebody has been in the path that you’re walking on. And really reaching out to that person to gain guidance is critical for you to be able to achieve your goals. When you try and achieve your goals in isolation. You will take smaller steps. When you do it in lockstep with somebody else or looking at somebody else’s journey, because they’ve figured it out and many women and men are willing to share their journey so you don’t make the same mistakes. But I will caution you on that is, make sure that when you are looking at somebody else’s journey, you’re looking at their chapter twenty five and you’re in chapter one. Or maybe you’re still writing the introduction. So don’t get stuck and say, well, they’re so far ahead, because they are because they started sooner. So just know that you can learn from them. But don’t get stuck because you’re comparing yourself to them.
Susan
I absolutely love that. And I have found throughout life, that people, most people who have already achieved something that I’m thinking about or want to learn about, are willing to share. They’re willing to share their successes and their failures. What works well, what you want to stay away from so thank you. Thank you for that awesome piece of advice. I appreciate it so much and I appreciate you being here today. If you have enjoyed this episode of The Radiant Soul Sisters, be sure and tune in next time when I will shine the light on another fabulous woman who is doing epic things while creating work life harmony. Till we meet again, I’m your host, Susan Crews. And be sure to go to my website SusanCrewsCo.com where you can find all of our episodes, resources, community and so much more.
