293 | The Hidden Costs of People Pleasing (and How to Stop Paying Them) with Michelle Gauthier

[INTERVIEW]

[00:00:35] Hilary Hendershott: Well, hello, Money Lover. I have today with me, Michelle Gauthier. She’s a professional life coach. She helps busy, overwhelmed women create a calmer and more intentional life. This feels like the journey I’ve been on for the past 18 months or so. She’s also the host of Overwhelmed Working Woman, a podcast that ranks in the top 2% globally. Love those top-rated podcasts. As a single mom of two adopted kids, Michelle understands firsthand the challenges of balancing work and family life. She was once an overwhelmed, busy working mom herself. She juggled a 20-year corporate career.

[00:01:10] Then she made the bold move to become a life coach in 2017. We’re going to talk about that. Since then, she has helped hundreds of women navigate their careers and home lives with greater ease. When she’s not coaching, Michelle can be found on the sidelines of her kids’ games, as so many of us moms will be, at her favorite HIIT bootcamp, which is actually interestingly how I met her, organizing anything she can, shopping online, or getting lost in a great self-improvement book. Wow, you still hit the self-improvement section? Welcome to Love, your Money^®, Michelle.

[00:01:42] Michelle Gauthier: Thank you very much. I do. I love the self-improvement section.

[00:01:46] Hilary Hendershott: I am super curious, what’s your last favorite book? And I’m hoping you don’t say Let Them.

[00:01:52] Michelle Gauthier: Oh my gosh, I definitely did read that one. My favorite recent one is called Do Less by Kate Northrup. That’s a great book.

[00:01:59] Hilary Hendershott: Okay, good. Two books– I feel like when she came out with the book, Let Them, I said to myself, “I bet I don’t have to read the book. I could just take the message from the title of the book.” And Do Less seems like that kind of book, too.

[00:02:10] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. It’s really good. It’s very specific to making your energy ebbs and flows that we have, especially as women, work for you when you own a business. So, that part was kind of cool. It was different. But, yeah, Do Less is pretty straightforward message. It’s a big part of my message in life.

[00:02:26] Hilary Hendershott: Do less of that stuff. Yeah. Okay, good.

[00:02:28] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Exactly.

[00:02:29] Hilary Hendershott: Alright. Well, let’s dig right in. Since you’re willing to talk about the time in your life when you found yourself getting a divorce and changing careers, and moving house, and all of those things at the same time, how did that massive life molt begin?

[00:02:45] Michelle Gauthier: Oh, my goodness. It was so much. I think the idea that I felt unhappy or dissatisfied in my life sort of kept coming up slowly for me, and I would be like, “It’s fine. I just need to work more. I just need to try harder at all these different things.” And eventually, I got to the point where I was like, “My life, had I created a vision board, say in college, of what I wanted my life to look like, it looked just like that.” I had a great career. I had these two kids that I had wanted so badly for so long, a husband, a really nice house, and kind of everything I thought I ever wanted, but it just didn’t feel good. And so, when I finally started listening to that–and I had to listen to it because I think our mind tries to tell us things, and when we ignore it, our body starts to tell us things.

[00:03:29] So, I was like having this lower back pain and just feeling anxious and all these things that I hadn’t previously had. So, when I started really looking into it, I thought, “There’s got to be something else.” I didn’t know what was wrong. So, I started looking into, what else can I do with my life. And I happened to cross a podcast episode where the guest was a life coach, and I thought, “Oh my gosh, that’s it. That’s what I want to do.” And I’ve worked with Martha Beck for my training. She’s written lots of great books. But I signed up to do her training within like a 24-hour period. And then I realized, “Okay. I just gave myself like another huge thing to do. I’m already overwhelmed and busy, and now I’m going to, on the side, train to be a life coach.”

[00:04:09] And I started doing that training, and I really loved it. But what I realized was I needed a life coach. I didn’t need to be a life coach just yet. And so, as I started going through that, I ended up getting separated from my husband, realizing that my job wasn’t fulfilling to me anymore–even though it was very fulfilling to my bank account and my lifestyle–it wasn’t fulfilling to me personally. And so, I started seeing clients kind of on the side and on my non-existent lunch hours that I had to like force in there. And eventually, all in the same month, I decided that I was going to separate from my husband and quit my job and go on my own.

[00:04:47] Hilary Hendershott: Whoa. Okay. So, wow, okay, that’s a lot. And super interesting that you overlapped the two. I also did that the last time I made a career change. I was a loan officer when I got into this business. Anyway, so I was earning money in both ways. Approximately, do you remember how much you were earning as a life coach when you quit your job?

[00:05:08] Michelle Gauthier: My first year in business, I made $12,000.

[00:05:12] Hilary Hendershott: Yeah. So, $1,000 a month. Okay. So, when you thought about getting separated and resigning from your highly compensated role, how did you think through the money? Did you give yourself an on-ramp? Did you have a set amount of time in which you knew you had to recapture, reproduce that income? How did that work?

[00:05:30] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. First of all, I was scared to death. And when I was getting divorced, my ex-husband and I, neither one pays the other one anything for alimony, and I knew that because we had made about the same. So, it was not the type of marriage where I was going to get divorced and have money still coming into me. So, I knew that I was not going to have any kind of income beyond child support because I have more custody of the kids. But I didn’t have that coming in. I had always been a religious saver and 401(k) contributor, which that’s great, but that doesn’t necessarily help you in that situation unless you want to take some of the money out. But when I knew I wanted to do something differently, I started putting my bonuses and other things just straight into a regular savings account.

[00:06:16] You’d probably would’ve advised me to invest it better than that, but I just was putting it in there so that I could give myself a little bit of runway. And then I honestly had to do a ton of work on my self-belief. What I ended up with in the end was just believing, “I invest in things, and I’m going to invest in myself, and I’m going to bet on me, and I’m just going to hope that this works.” And I had no previous experience with this type of career. It was a gut feeling that it was going to be the right thing for me, but also, I had 20 years of business knowledge. I had been running big things. And so, I thought even though it’s not directly relatable, the skills that I have developed over time have got to help me out.

[00:06:59] So, I’m saying that now from a place of knowing that it worked, but at the time it felt really scary, and there were days where I was thinking, “What have I done?” for sure.

[00:07:09] Hilary Hendershott: Yeah. To answer your question, if you’re going to use the money to live on, you don’t invest it. So, you did fine.

[00:07:14] Michelle Gauthier: Okay, good. Thank you. I was probably getting like 2% interest on it at most or something.

[00:07:20] Hilary Hendershott: No. You’ve got to have cash to live and pay your bills. Yeah, definitely.

[00:07:23] Michelle Gauthier: Okay, good. Thank you. I appreciate that.

[00:07:27] Hilary Hendershott: So, when you resigned from your corporate gig, did you just hit the ground running, like the next Monday, trying to build up your coaching business? Did you take any time off, anything like that?

[00:07:38] Michelle Gauthier: I took some time off because I was getting separated and divorced, and I was like a mess. So, I couldn’t just jump in and start this new business. I was trying to get my kids to the point where I felt like they were okay and that they knew everything was going to be okay. We were moving houses, sold two houses, and I bought this one, and I was renovating it to try to make it feel like this perfect vision of a house that I had at the time. So, a lot of times I would spend days just lying on my couch and watching Sex and the City reruns. So, some days I had the strength to do something for my business, but some days I just didn’t. So, I did the best I could at the beginning.

[00:08:21] Hilary Hendershott: So, how did your business ramp up then? How long was it until you felt like you could start? I mean, I can get it, right, like a crying divorcing woman isn’t necessarily the ideal life coach.

[00:08:35] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. On one hand, that’s true. And on the other hand, it’s like I’ve been there, so as I was pulling myself up by my own bootstraps, I can help people do the same thing. So, I had a couple early clients who I was working with, and I always did those sessions. And then I would spend some time trying to do like marketing. I think I’ve written a blog every week for like eight years or something. And so, that helped me get really clear on my own messaging and learn more about coaching. So, I honestly just took little steps every day towards having a business, and eventually I got more and more clients. Like, my second year in business, I still wasn’t like I was killing it. I made $36,000.

[00:09:18] So, on one hand, three times more than my first year. On the other hand, not nearly as much as I needed to actually live my life, but I found that the more pressure I put on myself, the less easy it was for me to get clients–when you’re in that desperation mode. And so, I just kept trying to focus on helping people and being of service to them and being the best coach I could be. I mean, as a business owner, you try all kinds of different marketing things. Some of them work, some of them don’t. And so, I just kept going and by the third year I was making steady money and since then have been like at a comparative to what I used to make.

[00:09:56] Hilary Hendershott: I’m happy for you. This is amazing. And by the way, going from 12 to 36, that’s like 200% growth. It’s actually really like incredible. Yeah.

[00:10:06] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah. Percentage-wise, it’s good, but when you go to pay the bills, it’s like, “Oh my goodness. Okay.” Like, for example, my son’s school costs more than that for a year. He was going to a school for kids with dyslexia and ADHD that was amazing, and the most important expense that I had. But just relatively speaking, it was like, “Oh my gosh. Okay.”

[00:10:25] Hilary Hendershott: So, anything you want to share from that experience financially? I mean, I’ve sort of asked you about the practical steps of it, but is there something you wish you wouldn’t have done? Conversely, is there something you wish you would’ve done sooner in your business? Anything like that?

[00:10:41] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah. I’ve learned so much about money as it relates to being a business owner. So, when you first asked me that question, I was thinking I did invest a lot in a business coach. I probably invested way more percentage-wise of my income than I should have. But then on the flip side, that really ended up helping me out on taxes. And so, I was able to convert some 401(k) funds and be able to make money on those, and so it worked out okay. I didn’t know that at all. My financial advisor and my accountant, and I all got on a call, and they figured it all out for me. So, I think the thing I wish I hadn’t done actually turned out to be okay.

[00:11:21] One thing I wish I had done was pay more attention to where I was spending and what I was doing because I just kept believing that I was going to get to what I was making before. And so, I sort of kept the same lifestyle and almost didn’t want to look at my balances, my bank accounts, and all those things. It was definitely a stressful money situation compared to what I came from, which was like I never worried about money ever. So, that was a new feeling for me.

[00:11:50] Hilary Hendershott: Life lessons, right?

[00:11:52] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:53] Hilary Hendershott: I know. When my clients come to me, we occasionally have clients who get divorced, and there’s just no way around it. When you go from sharing a household to paying for two households on the same income, or in your case, having that much less income, it can be painful.

[00:12:07] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, for sure. And I think I never want to talk in front of my kids in a way that makes it seem like money is scarce. But at the same time, I feel like they’ve learned some good lessons too. Like, when I’m using monthly budgeting and I’ll say, “Oh, you can check and see how much we have left for your fast food budget, if we want to stop at Chick-fil-A or whatever,” so they know that it’s not just whatever you want, you can have, and I think that is good for them. So, I brought them into it while still trying to be really cognizant about not making it a problem that they had to worry about.

[00:12:40] Hilary Hendershott: Oh, that’s great. I mean, that’s really the thing kids need to learn, is about trade-offs, right? You can have this or that, right?

[00:12:48] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, exactly.

[00:12:49] Hilary Hendershott: Not both.

[00:12:50] Michelle Gauthier: True. Yes.

[00:12:51] Hilary Hendershott: I mean, your personal budget is a zero-sum game. At the end of the day, it’s a finite amount of money, and so learning how to make choices based on what you want or prefer or value is great. And kudos to you for being aware of empowered versus disempowered, speaking about money, I’m sure that did them right.

[00:13:09] Michelle Gauthier: I hope so. You know, parenting, we’re just trying our best.

[00:13:13] Hilary Hendershott: I know, I know. That’s a different podcast.

[00:13:16] Michelle Gauthier: That’s right.

[00:13:18] Hilary Hendershott: So, did you always know that you were going to focus on overwhelmed working women?

[00:13:22] Michelle Gauthier: Sort of. I think that when I started talking to people about what a life coach does and how it had helped me, I just found myself drawn to basically how I used to feel. So, women who are type A and overachievers and have really been taught that their enough-ness comes from what they produce and how hard they work and all those things. And I just saw on the flip side of that, how much better you can feel in life. You can still even have that same stressful job, but you could feel a lot better about it. And so, that was just my sweet spot. When I see women like that just working so hard and trying so hard and being exhausted and putting themselves before everything else, I just have a special spot in my heart for them. Like, it doesn’t have to be like this.

[00:14:07] Hilary Hendershott: Right. I used to participate with a life coach-y sort of transformational. Anyway, it wasn’t a coach, but it was a series of seminars. Anyway, they used to say overwhelm is a story. It’s a narrative. It’s a word we give to an experience, right? How would you respond to that? What would you say overwhelm is, and have you met people who say they’re overwhelmed, who you don’t think are really overwhelmed?

[00:14:37] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, to the idea that overwhelm is a story, the way that I say it is overwhelm is a choice, and you’re making that choice every day with the habits and patterns and things that you have, including the way you’re thinking about it. So, to say overwhelm is a story in terms of it’s a story that you’re saying repeatedly in your thoughts, I agree with 100%. If it’s a story like stop telling that or your feelings aren’t true, I would disagree with that, but I think that people are overwhelmed if they say they’re overwhelmed. The difference between stress and overwhelm, stress is like, I have pressure. Maybe you’ve got to make a big presentation to a client or something, and that feels like stress, but you know you can do it.

[00:15:16] And overwhelm feels like you have 10 of those things all going at the same time, and you can’t even think straight to just get into a calm mind and be like, “This is the thing I need to work on first and second, and third.” So, I think when we’re in overwhelm, it’s just not a useful emotion except to tell us that something is going on.

[00:15:35] Hilary Hendershott: It’s a yellow flag.

[00:15:36] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, exactly. I really do believe that it is a choice that we’re making. It’s like we’re putting a vote for overwhelm every time we say yes to something that we don’t want to do, or we double-book ourselves on our calendars, or whatever the things we do that are creating that overwhelm.

[00:15:51] Hilary Hendershott: Let’s talk about a little sliver of that and something that is related to gender roles–this comes up every time I lead a women’s circle about wealth–it’s people pleasing. And this is something that women, I think, are plagued with. I think I have a type A or maybe an assertive personality, and people assume I don’t do it. I absolutely do do it. It just looks different when it comes from me maybe, right? It’s about not saying no to things that probably shouldn’t be on my calendar or apologizing when I have to tell someone who works for me, “Please don’t do it this way. Do it a different way,” right? But I fear being disliked, so people pleasing can come up in that way as well. What does people pleasing look like for the women you coach, and how can someone tell when they’re doing it?

[00:16:40] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, that’s a great question. And thank you, by the way, for being vulnerable. Sometimes I think people have the misperception that someone who is so powerful and assertive and all those kinds of things can’t also have people-pleasing tendencies. But I think women almost always do. We are kind of raised to do that. So, for the clients I work with, it looks exactly like what you said, where you don’t want to tell someone on your team something or someone asks you to do something extra like at maybe your daughter’s school and you really don’t have time to do it and you don’t want to do it, but you say yes anyway.

[00:17:13] So, I think the way I would define people pleasing is essentially saying yes when you want to say no or anytime you’re trying to control how someone else is thinking about you, because we think, “I’m a people pleaser because I’m nice,” but it’s not really nice. It’s really you’re trying to control how that person is feeling about you.

[00:17:37] Hilary Hendershott: Oh, my gosh, what a fascinating reframe. That is amazing. Yes, yes, yes. And I think the message got communicated to me because I was told so often that the way I was was the wrong way to be.

[00:17:53] Michelle Gauthier: Interesting.

[00:17:54] Hilary Hendershott: “You’re too much, too loud, too big, too strong,” like that. I mean, that message was just driven home probably from age 11 to 20 or something like that. So, different ways that gender role gets communicated.

[00:18:07] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah. And so, it was like, “Turn it down, be softer, be nicer,” air quotes.

[00:18:14] Hilary Hendershott: So, then if the object then is to not control how people think about you or what they think about you or how they feel about you, then do you feel, you, Michelle, are you free of that? Are you able to just be how you be, and as Mel Robbins would say, let them?

[00:18:32] Michelle Gauthier: Let them, yes. I would say for the most part, I can safely say that I do not spend time thinking about what other people are thinking about me like I used to. If I compare myself to myself, I definitely am much more likely now to be able to just not worry about it because the thing about trying to control the way that other people see you is it’s a farce. You have no control over how they’re thinking about you. So, one of my clients last week was saying, “Well, I’m afraid if I communicate this to my team member that she won’t like me.” And I was like, “Well, let’s think about if she already doesn’t like you.”

[00:19:08] Hilary Hendershott: I’m sorry.

[00:19:06] Michelle Gauthier: “Or maybe if you say this to her, she will still like you, or maybe no matter what you say, she’s always going to love you. You just don’t know. You can’t control it.” And so, since that’s out of your control, the only thing you control is yourself and the choices you make and the way that you deliver the message. Because I think if I say, “Well, I don’t give a crap what anybody thinks about me,” it sounds like I’m a person who just doesn’t care about people. And the opposite is true, but I think it’s much kinder to tell the truth and tell it kindly than try to control. I don’t want to say this message because they might think this about me.

[00:19:43] Hilary Hendershott: Right. Or to caveat it, apologize for it, hem and haw, backtrack like this. I struggle with that stuff. Alright. So, what are the costs of people pleasing? And I don’t know if this is top of mind for you, but I was thinking about there’s probably financial costs of people pleasing.

[00:20:01] Michelle Gauthier: For sure. Like, if you think about maybe your friend group is going on a pricey getaway, and when that was me making $12,000, do I really have the money to do that? No, but I want to go, and they want me to go, and I want to be part of the friend group, so I’m going to say yes, even though it should be a no. I’m sure it comes in that way. Or like someone in your family asks you for money and you have that money, but do you feel good about giving it to them, or do you say yes even though you want to say no? I think there’s lots of financial examples for sure, for where that can happen.

[00:20:37] Hilary Hendershott: How do you help your clients? I guess if your clients are coming to you and paying you for coaching, they’re probably already aware of the cost of people pleasing in their life. Is there a way that you work with your clients to really kind of–we spend a lot of time in our life numbing ourselves, avoiding the real cost of things, right? Any ways that you have your clients really, really get present to and feel and experience the cost in their lives of people pleasing emotionally and financially?

[00:21:05] Michelle Gauthier: Yes, for sure. I think you really have to… First of all, when people come to me, they feel like they’re overwhelmed, and they need to be better about how they manage their schedule. Maybe they need a new planner or some app to optimize the way that they’re spending their time. And it’s not that time management isn’t part of the solution, but it’s usually something much bigger than that, which is these patterns about feeling like you have to be able to do everything and that your value comes from what you do for work. So, they don’t come to me and say, “I’m a people pleaser”, usually, but we almost always get to that being a part of their life.

[00:21:41] So, when someone is a people pleaser and they find that they’re doing it, like at work, that example I just gave you of the person worrying that her team member was going to be mad at her, I give them a tool that they can use called The Love & Fit Test. It helps you decide whether to say yes or no. So, I was just talking about that pricey weekend getaway that my friends were going on. “Do I love the idea?” is the first question. Do I absolutely love this? For that one, I would definitely say, “Yes, I do love this,” and if I didn’t love it, then it’s easy. Then it’s a no. And then, “Does it fit?” doesn’t necessarily mean, “Does it fit on my calendar?” but does it fit into the type of life that I’m trying to create for myself?

[00:22:22] So, am I trying to create a life where I am going on all of these fun adventures, or am I trying to create a kind of life where I have financial security and I feel good about that? So, thinking about the kind of life you want to have and looking at each opportunity to say, “Do I love this idea? And does it fit into the type of life that I’m trying to create for myself?”

[00:22:44] Hilary Hendershott: Okay. Then you end up with a life where everything you’re doing fits with the life you’re creating, and you love it.

[00:22:49] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Or you know that you don’t want to do it, and you do it anyway, but you’re making the choice. So, for example, my daughter rides horses. She loves riding horses. And it’s fine. I’m neutral on it, whatever. But then…

[00:23:03] Hilary Hendershott: It’s expensive.

[00:23:04] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. That’s for sure. And she does these shows. And the shows are like all weekend long. When you do them, it’s the only thing you can do for the weekend. So, I don’t love the idea, and it doesn’t fit into the type of life I’m trying to create because I’m trying to create a life that is spacious and not overwhelming, but I am choosing and saying, “This doesn’t pass the Love & Fit Test for me and I’m going to do it anyway because I’m choosing to for my daughter versus me saying, “Oh, I have to go to this horse show because my daughter’s doing horse.” It’s like taking ownership and going from an empowered place of going against your Love & Fit Test. But for the most part, yes, you’re just creating decision by decision, a life that fits.

[00:23:45] Hilary Hendershott: Okay. So, I’m trying to think of an example of something financially. Let’s say you really love the idea of being a woman who can go on wine weekends with her friends. And it just so happens to be that your friends–and you love them–can’t afford what you can afford. And so, the request is there, or maybe you have a habit or a history of supplementing the trip, right? And if you don’t pay, they’re not going, or they’re going to go stay in a motel and sleep on two double-doubles, and you’re not willing to sleep four women to a room. Right? I made this up, okay?

[00:24:25] Michelle Gauthier: Were you reading my old journals?

[00:24:29] Hilary Hendershott: Oh, no. No, no, no. That would be weird. So, what if it’s really like, “Gosh, I want to do it, but I don’t want to do it, but if I don’t do it, I don’t have the life I want.” Is there a way to guide yourself through a really tough decision like that?

[00:24:46] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah. Okay. So, in this case, let’s go with the one where they’re staying in a motel with four beds or whatever.

[00:24:54] Hilary Hendershott: Four to a room? Yeah.

[00:24:55] Michelle Gauthier: Yes, four to a room. Do you love that idea? Let’s pretend this is you. Do you love that idea?

[00:25:00] Hilary Hendershott: No, I don’t love that idea. I want to be at the wineries with them. I don’t want to stay in the motel with three of them.

[00:25:06] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Okay, that’s perfect. So, you don’t love the idea of staying with them, but does it fit into the type of life you’re trying to create? Meaning going on these big adventures and could staying somewhere different than them be possible for you?

[00:25:20] Hilary Hendershott: Yes. And in my hypothetical scenario, this particular one is not my life. I share about my life a lot on this show. So, the answer then would be, I don’t have the budget, right? Like, I used to have the budget to pay for everyone to get a hotel room, and it’s just not in my plan this year. And so, I feel like I’m stuck between not having friends and not having money.

[00:25:39] Michelle Gauthier: And then I would say, is that really true? If you don’t go on this trip, will you not have friends?

[00:25:46] Hilary Hendershott: Well, they’d still be my friends. Maybe I need richer friends.

[00:25:51] Michelle Gauthier: That’s a whole different coaching session. But if you’re being true to yourself, I mean, it feels, I know this isn’t really you, but it feels like you would lean towards, “I want to spend my money in a way that I want to spend my money.” And I would encourage you to think about if paying for all of your friends is people pleasing. Are you trying to influence the way that they see you or that they’re happy with you for going on that trip? And if so, I would really question that.

[00:26:20] Hilary Hendershott: Maybe we can get creative, and we can sell some of last year’s wardrobe items to make money to pay for the hotel rooms. Right?

[00:26:28] Michelle Gauthier: Yes, absolutely. And I think it’s totally okay. Sometimes I go to these coaching masterminds and they’re usually like in these great hotels and they’re always in fun locations, unlike my business trips of the past, by the way. Being self-employed in this industry is great, but I will have my coaching friends sometimes say, “Do you want to share a hotel room?” I’m like, “Nope. I do not want to share a hotel room.” I am too old, too–I don’t know what, to share a hotel room. I just don’t want to do it anymore. So, if I couldn’t afford to have my own hotel room and stay on my own, then I’m not going to go. Like, that’s how big of a deal it is to me.

[00:27:04] Maybe to some people it’s just not that big of a deal. They’d rather just share a room and split the cost, and they’d have just as good of a time, but not me. And I know that about myself, like I need that alone time.

[00:27:14] Hilary Hendershott: Yeah. Last year I went to sort of like a bachelorette in wine country, and they put the gals two to a room, and I was going to be paired with a woman I probably didn’t know. And my daughter was just out of treatment, and I was like not in a place. And I said, “You know what? I’m coming, but I’m going to get my own hotel room.” And I did. I got a rental car, and I left every night and I came back every morning. And I just didn’t answer questions about it. There was like curiosity about where I was going and why, and I just said, “This is just where I’m staying,” and it worked for me.

[00:27:47] Michelle Gauthier: A plus. I give you an A plus because what you were doing was thinking, “What fits for me right now?” And maybe you just needed, I don’t know what was happening with your daughter, but maybe you just needed that time by yourself, and you needed to feel really comfortable and not have the stress of being with someone who you didn’t know, and you chose that for yourself. So, that is A-plus example of not people pleasing and doing what suits you.

[00:28:09] Hilary Hendershott: Yes, it worked for me, and I was proud of myself. Let’s talk about overwhelm in terms of managing all the things, right? So, everyone who’s listening probably has a myriad of things that they feel like they need to do and manage. Some of us are running businesses, some of us are running quarter-billion-dollar budgets at work. Some of us feel like we need to be the CEO of every detail at home. You’ve got the kids’ schedules and birthdays and anniversaries and holiday cooking, and all this. Do you have strategies for–The thing I find is that I get so overwhelmed that I’m always panicking to make sure I get things written down before I forget them, right?

[00:28:50] And now it’s so much that I have to have it written down in the right place, in the right way, when I know I’ll go back and check it at the right time, so as to not forget. Do you have strategies for offloading or systematizing the mental to-do list?

[00:29:03] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. So many. I have so many answers to that question. I’ll try to keep it short. I think the biggest thing is, before you even get to the to-do list, what your expectations are of yourself for one day, because sometimes we have this giant to-do list and it’s impossible to ever do it in one day, but our brain often, unconsciously, is saying, I’ve got to get all this done today, which creates the feeling of overwhelm and then you really can’t get anything done. So, I highly encourage having a list of everything on Earth that you need to do and then taking items off that and putting them on your actual, “Today my top three priorities are,” or whatever, taking some of them off that list and putting them on so you have a reasonable expectation for yourself.

[00:29:47] And then I use something called the Calendar Clean Out Method, which I do every Sunday, and I spend a good probably hour, maybe even an hour and a half, some weeks on Sunday, planning my whole week and doing this, and it pays back in spades because I don’t have to think of anything throughout the week. I know what I’m going to be doing, and of course, there’s some flexible time in there. But essentially what I recommend is to, I have a whole podcast episode on this, but I’m going to just summarize it quickly, is to take all of your to-dos for the week and look at those and compare them to what you already have on your calendar.

[00:30:23] So, Hilary, I assume you have specific meetings with clients sometimes, maybe with your marketing team or whoever, so you know when those times are taken. You know when you’re going to be with your family, maybe after four o’clock or five o’clock or whatever it is and then see how much space is left. Look at your to-dos for the week. Give a high-level estimate. Estimate high is what I always say, a high-level estimate that’s estimated high for how long it will take. And really look at: How much time do you have? Do it like a math problem. How many hours do you really have available? And how many hours of things do you have on your to-do list for this week?

[00:30:56] And I do this with all my clients. I just did it last week with a new client, and she had like 54 hours of things to do and five hours in which to do the things. So, when that happens, obviously, you’re like, “Okay, that math is so upside down times 10.” But if your brain is thinking, “Well, once again this week I didn’t get anything done,” but really you’ve gotten a ton of stuff done. You’re just overestimating what is even possible.

[00:31:20] Hilary Hendershott: You’re coming in under your own expectations, yeah, which are set too high.

[00:31:24] Michelle Gauthier: Yes, exactly. So, I think if you, especially for people who are really good at focusing on their finances and things, just look at the numbers. Just see how long it’s going to take and see how much space you have to fit it in there. And then that way you can at least make progress on the top things that are most important to you over the course of a week.

[00:31:43] Hilary Hendershott: What are your favorite ways to capture thoughts, ideas, new to-dos? When you’re out and about or not at your desk, what methods do you use?

[00:31:52] Michelle Gauthier: I have a real planner, like a paper planner that I really love, and the only purpose of that planner is for me to do that weekly planning that I’m talking about because everything else I keep digitally. My whole calendar is digital, but I write it on my planner because it helps me understand how my week is going to be laid out. So, I capture everything digitally. I do journaling in the morning, and I use like a digital notebook for that. And then I just go back and look at that and say, “Okay, what do I have on my to-do list from last week?” So, I’m always adding them to the same place, I guess, is the answer, so that they’re all in one spot.

[00:32:26] Hilary Hendershott: Lovely. You know, the WhatsApp app offers you a thread with yourself so you can talk to yourself.

[00:32:33] Michelle Gauthier: Oh, that’s good.

[00:32:34] Hilary Hendershott: I was using it for a while. I’m sure there’s some gold in there. What I have found is I never check back.

[00:32:40] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, that’s right. You don’t answer your own emails or texts.

[00:32:43] Hilary Hendershott: Right, right. There’s contacts in there, recipes. Yeah. So, that one didn’t work for me. Okay. For women who feel overwhelmed with–like they’re getting to a place in their corporate career that you were at. You know, I’m just like, “This is not satisfying for me,” or maybe their lifestyle doesn’t fit with what they love. What role do you see–or do you see money mindset playing in their ability to make that change, as you see in your client base?

[00:33:09] Michelle Gauthier: Oh, huge. Absolutely huge. I mean, several times a week, I have clients say, “Well, I wish I could just stop doing this, but now I have to, like I’m stuck with the golden handcuffs and I have to stay here and do this for the rest of my life, basically.” And I felt that too that we seem to live to the amount of money that we’re making at the time. I feel you could tell me otherwise, but it feels like most people just do that by default. I feel like it’s the rare person who lives under their means and saves. What do you think about that?

[00:33:40] Hilary Hendershott: Well, in my world, a lot of people live under their means, but certainly asking a woman to give up a quarter-million-dollar income and go to $12,000 a year, I mean, most people would choke at that. And I’m not saying that’s necessarily always the answer to the change that the woman I’m asking about needs to make. I guess I’m asking what precursor thoughts, mindsets, willingness, sense of conflict, what emotions are there about herself that allows her to take a leap into a life that is probably more fulfilling, but in the short-term, less remunerating.

[00:34:15] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, exactly. And I think in that, what we were just talking about that let’s make the assumption that that person is living a lifestyle based on the money that they’re making. The idea of making less money than that is really scary and seems impossible. And so, I feel like the difference between those two things has to come in the mindset and the small actions that you start taking. So, at the beginning, when you were asking me about my situation, if you were to say what was the biggest thing that got you to a successful business from that, it was just believing that I had the ability to make money. And when I was working on that money thought, I went through and I came up with all the evidence across my life of, “I am a person who makes money. I’m a woman who makes money.”

[00:35:00] And I thought, “If I can make this much money in a corporate job that I don’t even like anymore, what’s going to happen when I have something that I love and feel really passionate about?” So, I think there’s a lot of money thoughts that can drive you to just open up to the possibility. That still doesn’t mean you can go from $250 to $12,000 without changing your house or whatever, but you can do it somewhat. I have lots of clients who start a business on the side, and then they bring that business up, and then they could work part-time at their old one. You can figure out ways to transition, but I think the belief that it’s possible and the thoughts about money, like another thought that I think is, “money is always available.”

[00:35:38] That’s something that’s helpful to me, and money’s always coming to me in ways known and unknown. So, there are lots of thoughts that you can practice about money that will just help you open up the possibility.

[00:35:50] Hilary Hendershott: I like that. I sometimes think maybe not so much for myself anymore because my revenue streams are pretty solidified, but for people I talk to who are in this position, from my perspective, from the financial advisor perspective, I think there’s so much money all around you. All you have to figure out is how to get some of it in your bank account.

[00:36:09] Michelle Gauthier: Right, exactly.

[00:36:11] Hilary Hendershott: It’s everywhere.

[00:36:12] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. And you said this when I was interviewing you the other day, and I think it’s such an important point of like money is just an agreement. It’s not even really a thing. There’s not a physical thing to it. So, if it’s really just this conceptual idea, how can you just get it flowing in your direction?

[00:36:27] Hilary Hendershott: Right.

[00:36:28] Michelle Gauthier: I totally agree.

[00:36:29] Hilary Hendershott: So, what’s one small but powerful change a woman can make today that would start reclaiming her time, energy, or financial agency?

[00:36:39] Michelle Gauthier: So many things come to mind. Let me think of my best like one thing to…

[00:36:44] Hilary Hendershott: Okay. Well, if it’s so many, I don’t want to shortchange my listeners. Do you want to do like top five?

[00:36:50] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Okay. So, if the overwhelm is being caused because you feel like you’re doing so many things and none for yourself, a really quick one is just to look at your to-do list and cross one thing off, just, “I’m not doing it because this just doesn’t need to happen.” And that helps us sit with a discomfort that comes up when you say, “Okay. I’m just not going to do that thing,” because where our brain will be like, “Well, what if this happens and that happens and the other thing happens?” but just cross it off, sit with the discomfort, and then see how that feels when you don’t do it. That’s one thing for sure.

[00:37:22] Another thing you can do is just do absolutely anything for yourself. A lot of my clients, I don’t know if you see this with your clients too, Hilary, but a lot of my clients put themselves last, and especially when they’re moms, they don’t do anything for themselves at all. And people will say, “Well, I don’t have time to do like a spa day or to work out five days a week. Just go in your room and sit in a chair you like with a candle that you like and read 10 pages of a book. Like, just some little thing to remind you, “I’m still here. These are things I enjoy, and I really want to do these things.” So, I would say cross something off of your to-do list. Do one thing for yourself.

[00:37:59] And then when we feel overwhelmed, we forget about all the things in our life that are going right. So, focusing on what is, like a woman who’s doing a million things in a day, so many of those are probably in alignment. Like, she’s probably doing well by her team. She is making sure her family has food. She has good friends that she’s on a text chain with. So, I would say. flip your mindset to say, “I am actually doing a lot of things right in my life. There are some things I’d like to change. Maybe I’d like to spend more time on this and less time on that.” But remember all the things that you are already doing right.

[00:38:34] Hilary Hendershott: Thank you. I do want to ask you, I want to circle back. I’ve got this question that comes from the beginning of our conversation that’s about your money mindset, and then I have, of course, my signature question for you. It sounds to me like you were a strong– you said, “I was always a good saver.” You were maxing out that 401(k).

[00:38:53] Michelle Gauthier: Yes.

[00:38:53] Hilary Hendershott: Where did that come from? Where did you learn those lessons that actually took root in you? And how did that shape your confidence when you left corporate?

[00:39:01] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Oh my gosh. My parents. My parents were amazing at teaching us about money.

[00:39:07] Hilary Hendershott: Oh, how great.

[00:39:07] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. I tried to follow in their footsteps in that way and really teach my kids about money, but we got paid an allowance, and we got paid a good allowance, especially for being kids. And there were rules around it, so we could buy anything we wanted, but we had to have our half first. So, for example, if you wanted a new bike and it was $100, you could totally get that, but you had to have the $50 first in cash at this time. My kids don’t even understand what cash is. So, that really taught me a lot. And they did that right up until I bought my first house. Like, they paid half of the down payment on my first house, and that was the end of their going halves, but it really helped me learn how to save.

And then all the money that we made, this would probably be the opposite of what you’d recommend to someone now, but as a kid, a teenager with a job, we had to take 90% of it and put it in the bank, and then we could take 10% of it home as our spending money.

[00:40:01] Hilary Hendershott: 90?

[00:40:02] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah, 90. But it was a really good lesson in that I’m making this money, and this money isn’t for me to just go out and spend on McDonald’s or whatever was an important thing to spend our money on at the time. So, my parents just taught me a lot about saving, and then they taught me a lot about enjoying, like my family always went on a summer vacation. It wasn’t anything super fancy, but my dad would always say, “At the beginning of the year, the first thing you want to write on your calendar is the time when you’re not going to be working and plan your vacations.” So, the combination of it’s okay to enjoy life and this is how you manage and save money was the education that I needed for sure.

[00:40:40] Hilary Hendershott: Wow. Well, I don’t know where your parents are, but we’re sending them big virtual high fives.

[00:40:46] Michelle Gauthier:  Yes, yes.

[00:40:47] Hilary Hendershott: They’re rare, right? Not many people get that.

[00:40:50] Michelle Gauthier: I agree. I feel really lucky, and my dad now will match if the kids, any of the grandkids save $1,000, he will match the $1,000. And then he takes, like my daughter has an account with my financial advisor. She invests her $1,000. She gets to choose the stocks. She watches the stock market. She asked me what her dividends are. I mean, it’s great.

[00:41:12] Hilary Hendershott: Oh, cool. Oh my gosh.

[00:41:13] Michelle Gauthier: Yeah. So, I really got lucky.

[00:41:15] Hilary Hendershott: I feel like I should interview your dad on my show.

[00:41:17] Michelle Gauthier: You should.

[00:41:18] Hilary Hendershott: He seems like he did a great job.

[00:41:19] Michelle Gauthier: He always says he wants to write a book about how to help children learn about money. So, he would be a good guest.

[00:41:26] Hilary Hendershott: We’ll book it. Let’s have it. All right. So, finally, my last question for you, if your money were writing you a love note, what would it be thanking you or complimenting you for?

[00:41:36] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Oh my gosh, this is such a good question because what my brain immediately wanted to say was all the things that I’ve done wrong and the things that I shouldn’t have done with money. So, I love that you frame it where it has to be my money thanking me for something. So, this is what I thought. “Thank you for religiously saving me for all of those years and putting me to good use.” So, the good use that I have in mind is sending my son to that amazing school, creating amazing experiences last summer. As a single mom, I took my kids to Europe for three weeks, and we traveled around and had the best experience ever.

[00:42:12] I wanted to do it the year before, but I didn’t have the funds to do it, so I just kept saving. So, I got to do that with my kids. So, my money would say, “Thanks for putting me to some really cool use. And then thank you for creating a home with the money that you saved.” So, I love my house. It’s much smaller than the house that I had been living in before I got divorced. You wouldn’t look at it from the outside and be like, “Oh my gosh, that’s so impressive or amazing.” But when people come in and they say, “I just want to stay here. I love how it feels here.” My money would say, “Thanks for using me in that way.”

[00:42:46] Hilary Hendershott: Good for you. And smaller houses mean less vacuuming, so.

[00:42:50] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. Oh my gosh.

[00:42:52] Hilary Hendershott: Michelle, thank you so much for your time today. Will you share with my listeners where people can find you?

[00:42:56] Michelle Gauthier: Yes. So, my podcast is called Overwhelmed Working Woman. I drop an episode every Monday morning, which is the time that I used to feel the most overwhelmed with one concept, one little tip that you can take into your week to feel less overwhelmed. And then if you’re interested in working with me one-on-one, my website is MichelleGauthier.com.

[00:43:14] Hilary Hendershott: Lovely. Thank you for your time.

[00:43:16] Michelle Gauthier: Thank you.