S1 EP32: MEGAN SUMRELL

Ya'll start your planning! Megan Sumrell is a former wedding cake maker, dog treat baker, corporate executive turned consultant, coach and entrepreneur.  She and Nicoa talk about  who she is and how she learned to juggle #allthethings while still maintaining your own sense of self and purpose. As the CEO and Founder of The Pink Bee, she took her 20+ year career in systems and processes and applied it to all things time management, organization and productivity. You're gonna love her!

PURCHASE YOUR PLAN A PALOOZA TICKETS HERE:  https://www.megansumrell.com/a/2147613331/bM4FcJQ7

If you are exhausted from #allthethings and want to gain control over your calendar again, I want to help YOU! CHECK OUT ALL OF HER THINGS: Including the TOP Program and TOP Planner, a program and the ONE NOTEBOOK planner that teaches her proprietary planning and productivity system and processes.

You CAN Kick overwhelm to the curb! Megan ALSO has a training available that is 100% free and you really owe it to yourself to check it out! https://www.megansumrell.com/a/2147524017/bM4FcJQ7

JUST REMEMBER the 3 P's: Presence, Proactive, & Purpose

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Transcript

Nicoa Coach: 0:01

Grab your coffee and join me Nicoa For a caffeinated conversation about life. I'll be talking to people who have chosen to walk their own paths and just like me, are creating a life by design. I hope it will give you the inspiration you need to do exactly the same. Hey, Megan Sumrell it's Nicoa How are you? I'm doing so good. I've been looking forward to this. Guys. Welcome to Coffee with Nicoa. Megan Sumrell is a long lost colleague and friend from where was it? finfish miles. It may have been there. Yeah, we because you and I have a mutual connection down in your neck of the woods. And so how we connected down there? I think that may have been it, but it's hard to remember. I guess. So because I was in Raleigh for over a decade. And I was trying to think back was your beehive business. So you, you know it tech, you know, corporate exec, similar to me converted to being an entrepreneur. But was the beehive business you started without like a system. And we went to like an RM app for Women in Network Marketing and direct sales. Okay, I remember. Yeah. But then you've evolved. So we're going to talk about that transformation in your life by design today. But just a little bit more background, everybody, you know, Megan, corporate exec, turned entrepreneur, mom, wife, podcast hosts, all about work life harmony. And she is the CEO and founder of the pink bee, which is so awesome. I love that name. You'll have to tell us how you got that. She also created some really cool products, everybody. You gotta look these up top program with a top planner. And she has an event coming up in October. And hopefully you'll be able to get your tickets in time. Plan a palooza, this is what third third time you've done. I know Atlanta palooza. Yep. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm excited because not only is Megan gonna give us some tips about planning and how to create our life by design in a more intentional, systematic way. But I want her to talk to us about how she created her life by design and her internal dialogue around that. So let's jump in and I don't know Megan, shall we start with you or time management Tammy? I don't know.

Unknown: 2:24

How you

MEGAN SUMRELL: 2:24

? Yeah. Yeah, time management Tammy is a fun little character I use on my social to help dispel some of the old school antiquated time management and productivity practices that people sadly continue to try and use to no avail. So you know, she may make an appearance here. And so shape or form Well, I figured I watched her I was stalking Megan this morning. And I watched some of her episodes. And I figured this is how Tammy time management Tammy came about, someone gave you that wig. Here's where it's funny the the actual birth of time management Tammy, I was doing a. So I have an amazing social media manager. And so she always sends me this stuff of what she needs me to do. And then she does fabulous stuff with it. So I opened up our tool that we use to run the business and she had a specific kind of outline of a video she wanted me to do kind of mimicking another real she saw that was pretty funny of just me talking about all the things that are that are that women are told that we should do to be productive to kind of make fun of the fact that we have 20 Different things coming out as they are all different. None of them work together. And that one reel did so well. That she's like, we need to turn that into like a whole persona. She's like, Are you up for it? I mean, she knows me well enough. And like, I'll do anything. I don't take myself too seriously. So she's like, would you even like get a wig or something? Absolutely, absolutely. So I think I found it for $7 on Amazon. Oh, it's perfect. And then our community got to vote on the name of her.

Nicoa Coach: 4:03

Oh, that was so fun. I love that. Well, why don't you? We'll have to we'll have to talk to her a little more later. But why don't you take us back to telling us, you know, kind of, I always say what's your origin story, but I really don't want you to go there. I want you to tell us who is Megan? And you know, where are you from? Like, how were you raised? Do you have siblings? Like what makes up Megan SunRail?

MEGAN SUMRELL: 4:27

Well, you know, I think it's always it's being added to every day. Right? And that's what I love about how you talk about life by design. It's not a destination. It's just a journey. And thankfully I was raised so my my dad was a Marine for over 30 years. I have two older sisters. So we moved around a lot and it was a different military back then where there wasn't like with my dad was gone. If he was stationed like overseas, we didn't get to go with him, nor did we get to stay on base. So Thankfully, the military has changed a lot. So we had a little bit of an unconventional upbringing. But two parents who constantly instilled on my sisters and I, that we can be whatever we want. We were not put in a here's what young girls do. Kind of a world. There's a great story. I love to share something my dad had said, because people always make assumptions of the hero. My dad was a Marine and Oh, must have been this. Now he's like the best girl dad ever. We

Nicoa Coach: 5:32

thought that I thought, Oh, no wonder like, that's the regimen. That's the product, you know, the process management perspective?

MEGAN SUMRELL: 5:39

Yeah. No, not at all. I was actually born in Beirut, Lebanon, of all places, we were stationed there. And apparently, On the flight back, my oldest sister would have been around six or so. And she was taken with the flight attendants. Just love you know, all dressed in the skirts. And so when they got off the plane, apparently she looked at my dad, and she's like, I want to be that when I grow up. And you know, why don't you just be the pilot instead. So love it. I love it. That was I feel like that's just a good way to illustrate just the environment that I grew up in. And so I always appreciated the fact that anytime I always had, I flipped it around from a lot of different things that I like to do and I was an incredible credibly disorganized individual, a world class procrastinator and a borderline champion hoarder.

Nicoa Coach: 6:39

Well, that's a surprise. Okay, okay.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 6:42

Yeah. And I, I people don't believe me when I say this. So I actually had my mom on my podcast once and the listeners sent in questions to ask her so she was able to share with everyone like no, the Megan you see today and what I teach today, when I tell people this is a learnable skill. I'm talking from experience because I did not start out living the kind of organized life that I live today. So I went to college at women marry and got a degree in operations research, which is applied mathematics, and kind of landed into a job right out of school in software. Although I didn't even know that's what it was. Because this was mainframe computer days. I actually, we actually still had one system I worked for Bell South. Oh, yeah. For those youngsters out there who don't know what anything about landlines, I worked for Bell South, on mainframe computers. And they hired me originally to teach me how to be a coder. And in COBOL, so like the way old school tech here, and it turns out, I wasn't awful software developer, like really bad. And because I would overthink and obsess about everything. So the punishment for being a bad software developer was they sent you over to the testing team. And it was like a total Briar rabbit moment. Because basically, I didn't even know this was a career path that I spend my days trying to break everybody else's stuff. And then try and problem solve, why it broke and how to fix it. And I was like, This is awesome. So that launched me into then my 20 plus year journey into the quality assurance, quality control, software testing, automated test infrastructure. And it ties so closely in with process improvement, continuous improvement. I went heavy into Lean Six Sigma and the whole Agile community. But it all just happened because I was a really crappy mainframe developer.

Nicoa Coach: 8:56

You know, I love that and, and usually, it's the break or the mistake, right? That they say that turns into your ultimate passion or skill that you can apply. And I love that you've been through the Six Sigma world, I come from the corporate world and was although human resources, I was a green belt, you know, I even apply that thought process to my coaching work. I do energy leadership, and I call it the six sigma of self awareness or the Agile of self awareness, mainly because it creates a common language. And at some point, when you began to gain those skills, how did you recognize that though, because I applied them in my own life, too. And I can't even stand at a I went to a Dunkin Donuts once and I placed an order. And I watched the guy. He walked over there and over there and over there, and he walked back over there and he walked over there and I was like, oh my god, this is the worst process.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 9:53

Yeah, it was terrible. See it once you know it,

Nicoa Coach: 9:56

you can't you cannot unsee it once you know it, and it's fun. like learning how to read. So I'm sure that's the same for the skills that you teach. But at what point did you recognize? Wait a minute? How can I can apply this to my life? Because you're a mom, I think one of your conversion story might be about motherhood. Tell me

MEGAN SUMRELL: 10:15

more. And I mean, so I had always had a desire to be an entrepreneur. And it's fun. I never get to, you know, everyone wants to just jump right into the time management stuff. And so over the course, I got married later in life, so I got myself into all sorts of interesting things. So I took a deep dive into cake decorating classes in the evenings and actually had a little wedding cake business on the side in my 20s. But then I discovered I didn't like the stress that came with that, because it's not like you make two cakes. So right, so you're driving to a wedding? Like, what if what if I get accident, you know, so I dabbled in that I used to teach classes in my house on cardmaking, and actually sold homemade cards in some local shops in the area. I had a short stint trying to start a business on organic homemade dog treats about 2025 years ago. I've done I dipped my toe in a lot of things, and nothing really stuck in so I finally settled on the fact that I thought, You know what, I'm going to get this feeling of being an entrepreneur of my last many years, kind of five, six years in my corporate career, I did a lot of consulting work and going into organizations to basically pull apart how they got there, how they started with their software, and how they got it out the door to make it better, faster, cheaper. And I loved my work and just thought, well, I guess this is how I'll get that feel of entrepreneurship. And we ended up ended up meeting my husband, and we started a family. And the company I was working for at that time was incredibly family friendly. I was actually the first employee to even use maternity benefits. Oh, wow. Because it was the aviation space. So there was myself and two other women that work there. And all the rest were men. So I remember going I was like, Well, what are the benefits? Like we're not sure if I could figure it out. But they allowed they gave me a lot of flexibility. I worked from home. And so after she was born, I was like, Well, can I go down to like 3035 hours a week? They said, Sure. And I was you know, from the outside looking in, like, you know, quote, living the dream, right? I was I everything was getting done. I was managing career, I was managing motherhood. And on paper, it looked super awesome. And I was so busy being busy. I didn't even know it wasn't awesome. Every day was a race against the task list. Right? Yeah, wake up, get it done. Check it off, go to bed, rinse, repeat. And I had one day when my daughter's about two and a half or so. And I've done everything right so that I could leave work early. And we could go spend the afternoon at the park. And we're standing at the park and she's on the swings her Fave and I was pushing her and the mom next to me because in South people chat Yup. Right. I just want to be quiet at some point in the conversation. She just innocently said, so. What do you do for fun? Hmm. And I had to pause. And I was like, I don't have an answer. Yeah. And I was so floored that I didn't even realize I'd gotten to a point in my life where I couldn't answer the question, what do I do for fun? And it's not to say that I didn't enjoy being at the park with my I mean, we had enjoyable. It's not like I woke up and was miserable every day. But something for me. Like what because I used to be the woman that did all those things. I took the classes I baked cakes. I did this I did that I joined running clubs, I joined cooking clubs, I did all these things. None of them in my life anymore.

Nicoa Coach: 14:01

Yeah. How did it make you feel when she asked you that you realize you didn't have an answer? What did that feel like in your body? Like were you

MEGAN SUMRELL: 14:09

don't it's funny. It's, I don't remember how I responded to her. And I don't remember the rest of that afternoon. But what I remember was the evening and just as soon as I got my daughter into bed, I went into my closet. And I remember like it was that ugly, gut wrenching, grieving sob. And I sat in that closet for probably a half an hour that night just and looking back on it now realizing I was grieving for the loss of myself. Yeah. And I and I didn't even know I had lost her. Right. And yeah, that was when I was like, this isn't something has to change. Good for you. And so I laid in bed, like what am I gonna do about this? And at that time I had started I had Just started in, in a network marketing company of all things. And I thought, well, maybe this might be a way out, then I was like, No, all that's doing is adding more stuff to my plate like that, that alone, it can't be a solution. And then the irony of my life hit me was like, Megan, this is what you do for a living. You go into chaotic, overwhelming situations, and you create harmony out of chaos. So why don't you take yourself on as a client, awesome. Treat your own life the way you would a software team that you go in and meet. And so that's ultimately what I did. I threw away the planner I've been using for over 20 years, the systems I've been using, because I went through all of those trainings, all the traditional time management and productivity trainings. Plus, you know, I've been into all the Lean Six Sigma, I was a Certified Scrum practitioner at the time, all stuff. So I was like, let's apply this to your own life and everything you're juggling. And so I started a whole new way of organizing all my information of how I plan, manage and structure my time. And within months, friends and family started noticing they're like, have you gone to a new gym? Like, are you losing weight? I was like, No, I'm, I'm happy. I'm doing this for me.

Nicoa Coach: 16:23

And did you figure out the really the things for you, though, that was there a cost that you had not really that you'd been avoiding, like the cost of not fostering my own self care and avoidance?

MEGAN SUMRELL: 16:38

It was just never even we're so busy being busy. Like I said, I didn't even notice. Yeah, I wasn't doing things for myself anymore. It was just like, oh, this is coming in let me handle that this is coming in. Let me handle that this is coming in. Right. And so okay. Rather, I never took the time to do the leaning of the sigma, right to the point of saying, Do I need to do this? Well, can I let go? Why am I saying yes to all of these things? Why am I allowing all of these things to get onto my plate? Why am I acting like everything is urgent? And completely missing? The ever important part of realistically looking at how much time do we have in a day? How much crap Am I trying to shove into it? I was a math major, I should be able to run the numbers to go it's not possible, right? You get 37 hours of stuff done when you're only awake for maybe 18. Right, right. And so a lot of it for me was taking initially taking that step back and saying, No wonder I feel this way. Look at everything I'm doing. This is there's got to be kind of a two pronged approach. One is what am I going to get rid of? And then the second is, how can I manage what I'm doing more efficiently? So that I have and prioritize the time for me so that I can answer the question, what do I do for fun? So I mean, I literally whiteboards sticky notes, I mean, I ran a little mini Kaizen on my days and my weeks, the whole nine yards to kind of come up with leaning into that not to use word lean. That's okay, minimizing the amount of tools that I was using to organize all the stuff that I had going on. Going back to paper, instead of everything being digitally where that made sense. And really fine tuning my prioritization of all the things competing for my time, and then getting really comfortable with saying no,

Nicoa Coach: 19:43

absolutely. I always say no, is a complete sentence. Yes, yes.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 19:49

And if you're in the south, and that feels uncomfortable, you can say, I'm sorry, I can't that will work as well. I prefer

Nicoa Coach: 19:56

actually to say, thank you so much for inviting me, but I'm not going to be available for that period. No, and you don't have a

MEGAN SUMRELL: 20:05

reason why. Yeah, so explanation. Yeah. Well, you really

Nicoa Coach: 20:08

are talking about becoming stepping way back from life and becoming that observer and questioning everything. Because if you're upset or stressed, and you don't even know why, you know, you're talking about Busy, busy, you know, people were busy as a badge. So it's a cultural implication as well. How's it going? Oh, it's crazy. I've just got so much to do. I mean, blah, blah, blah. It's unfortunate, but I think we have to recognize that we can take control of our own experience, irrelevant of all of the things and we have to remember we're the one that made the list anyway.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 20:44

Exactly. We allowed stuff to get put on our plate, right. There's very Little, when you look at what you're doing every day, there's very little you really have to do. That's true have to. We have to nourish ourselves care for ourselves, right? keep ourselves alive. Everything else after that is a choice. Exactly. And

Nicoa Coach: 21:04

there is zero power at half two people are usually like, oh, I should or I need to or I want to when you get to want to, you're about 50% power. But am I at choice becomes the question. Well, let's, let's dig into an example. So, I want to talk about women in particular, who have culturally historically been responsible for household duties as well as holiday duties. And I am a woman of six with six children three and three, with my recent remarriage. And Christmas. I'm gonna let you coach me you can invoice me later. Christmas has become this thing where about probably about 10 years ago, honestly, I began to get burnout on the holiday for us. And I didn't know how to stop and both my first husband and my current husband have both said to me, Well, why don't you just dial it back a little bit? Why don't you just you know how to dial it back. I said, What the hell does that mean? Help me and other women recognize it? Because because really the issue here is, what are you making it mean? Right, yeah, each behavior each item on the to do list whether it's holiday related, family related motherhood related. Let's talk about that.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 22:25

Yeah, and I love that you brought up holidays because I actually do. We're gonna be talking about it a lot in the planet Palooza event as well. I, I have a lot of tips and strategies to help women specifically with the end of Year holidays, because I'm on a mission to say, guess what your role is not to provide an amazing holiday for everyone else at the sacrifice of yourself. And it really hit home for me, it was maybe let's see my daughter's 13 now, so I think it was around when she was around five ish. i It's somewhere in that year, I can remember it was December 26. We celebrate Christmas. And I always get up early. And I tipped it. You know, it's downstairs and I was sitting on the couch. And it was like holiday hangover, right? Still all the stuff down there was my cup of coffee. And I can remember just sitting there and fighting back tears and going this was supposed to be this joyous thing. And I'm just, I'm exhausted. I didn't enjoy the everyone else had a great time. And I'm just done. Like I almost wanted to take the decorations down right then in there. So I was like, Yeah, I'm just done with this. And that was the year I'm like, Never again, never again. So the first thing that I encourage people to do is not in the moment, you can't do it during the holidays, right? Because you're too amped up and on candy canes and hot chocolate. But now's a perfect time to take a step back and say, what is important for me in the holiday season? What traditions matter to me, what are those moments, I thought I would enjoy that I'm not right. Like for me, I love baking holiday cookies, that that was something I loved. But then it became something I began to hate because it was one more thing, right? So maybe you have a tradition of gingerbread house decorating that you want to enjoy. But it feels stressful. Holiday shopping, is that something you like to do or not like you have the right to sit down and say, here is what matters to me for the holidays. And here are the moments I want to enjoy. And even in doing that step, I realized there were things I've been doing, because that I carried them over from my childhood. But I'm like, I'm doing this because we always did it. But it doesn't like why I don't Yes anymore. So first, we want to trim the list of the things that maybe you're doing out of habit that you don't need to be doing anymore, or whatnot. Now once you have the list of the things that you enjoy, our goal is to say how do we reduce the stress and not have it all jammed into this really, really stressful time. So one of the things that we love to do is I call it Christmas in July, because again, I love the baking, but not when there's 12 things to bake in an eight day period. It's not fun anymore. So every year we do it in Christmas, we'll do it again or do it in July. We'll do it again. In the fall. I pick a random day. And we put on Christmas music. And we actually bake some of the stuff for the holidays, but only the things that freeze really well. Good idea. A couple of weeks ago my daughter and I had Christmas in July we spent all day with Christmas music blaring when it's wet. 87 degrees out and let's face it, how many more days did I want to go? With neighborhood pool, I'm different, right? And so we spent all day baking Christmas sugar cookies that are now tucked away in the freezer, because these ones freeze beautifully. And we'll be able to pull them out in December. And then so we actually start doing a lot of the baking ahead of time, so that when December comes and there are those things that are in the moment, maybe you make gingerbread houses or something, it's not one more thing, right? Enjoy that, because you're not doing eight other days of it. And then with the holiday shopping, we always my husband, I make the list of these are the people that we choose to get gifts for. He has his name next to the people that he is responsible for. And guess what? Here's another tip. Delegating versus transferring of ownership is not the same thing. So here's what I mean by that. Because a lot of women will say, Oh, yeah, well, I told my husband to go, you know, he's got to get the gifts for these eight people. But she still has it on her list. And she's checking it. Have you gotten the cousins presents? Have

Nicoa Coach: 26:54

she still carry

MEGAN SUMRELL: 26:55

it? Yeah, yeah. So she hasn't transferred ownership. She's project managing it and checking in, that doesn't relieve any stress. And the only thing it usually adds annoyance, because they're waiting to the last minute you're seeing it happen, and you can't stop watching. So as soon as his name goes next to those, if they don't get presents, they don't get presents not my responsibility anymore.

Nicoa Coach: 27:20

Well, let's pause there. Because think about those women who are hearing you say that, and they're thinking, but I'm so attached to his sister getting a gift. And not they're making like a reflection of them or something. Right. So that's the work right there. It's, I mean, these are phenomenal tips. And I love

MEGAN SUMRELL: 27:40

the tell our family members, guys, jaw for these gifts. So

Nicoa Coach: 27:47

that's good. I like that. Because that's critical. Because like heads up, guess what we did this year, I'm in charge of my family, and he's in charge of his, I hope y'all get some

MEGAN SUMRELL: 27:58

man, you know, it doesn't mean that sometimes I won't be out and see something. Sure, oh, my gosh, this is perfect. But then it's Oh, it wasn't one more thing I had to do. It just happened. And then for me, the way I like to handle it is whatever, you know, let's see, maybe I've got 12 people I'm responsible for? Well, I usually start in July or August. So I'll say and I want all my shopping done by December 1. So all that means for me is if I get two or three gifts a month starting in July, I'm done by December 1.

Nicoa Coach: 28:29

Oh yeah, I always purchase gifts throughout the year. But this year has been a little different for us because we are empty nesters in two weeks, we will officially be empty nesters. So six kids out in the world doing their thing. Three in college, three grown with jobs. And that all just happen by the way. But I even said to my husband the other day I was like we need to decide what we're going to do at Christmas. Because it's time because I would be shopping now I would be prepping I'm usually finished by December 1. So I can at least sit in front of the tree. I just want to sit, I just want to sit. I just want to sit. But I think ultimately what we're debating here is you know, back to the comment of choice. So ladies and gentlemen, you can still do the same things you've always done, if that's really what you want. But you got to get to a space of I am choosing to do this, you cannot have one foot in and one foot out one foot of resentment and one foot out of freedom, you just can't. So I was thinking about what you talked about when you were you know, kicking this like your podcast off. You were talking about that depressed and resentful version of you that then transformed into this energized and joyful you. These tips and tactics are great, but what was that internal dialogue that helped you release that catabolic energy and move into this space of it's okay to be happy and do things differently.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 30:05

I just I can remember. So clearly, I was on a call and a woman I didn't know was doing kind of lightning seat coaching. And I remember she said this sentence to me. And I had to like leave the call because it caught me so off guard. And she just said, Megan, you are worthy of support. And then she paused and she said everybody is worthy of support. But for me it was I needed to hear that. And I don't mean this to sound braggy or whatever, but I can handle a lot. I'm a pretty capable person. And because I Can it made me I never felt like I could ask for help. Or say no, or, or let anything go. Because look at me I can, I can stay up later I can, you know, I can do the things. And so it was having to get comfortable with, with asking for help, for receiving help, and for saying just because I can doesn't mean I will. And to. And that might mean that I make other people unhappy or uncomfortable with my response. But learning to realize that is not my responsibility. And I'm still a work in progress. I've come a long way. But it is still something I actively and that's part of my planning process. Every week I teach drills, I go back and look at what did not what was not good last week, what caused resentment, whatever, and then I have to dig into what am I doing about that in the future. And so that's fine. Like, for me, it is a constant process, because our lives change seasons change all of that. But it is a daily reminder that I go through for myself that I am worthy of support. And sometimes support means me just doing things for me.

Nicoa Coach: 32:22

Absolutely. And you talk about the the concept of harmony and creating that harmony. And I think the word flow, you know, sometimes I'm in it, sometimes I'm not. And what am I going to make that mean?

Jennifer Gardner: 32:36

We hope you're enjoying listening to this episode of Coffee with Nicola. Make sure to subscribe so that you never miss an episode and follow Coffee with Nicoa on Instagram to find inspiring content that will help you begin creating your life by design.

Nicoa Coach: 32:50

Is there an example that you can share that you feel comfortable sharing a personal example where you really proud of yourself for making that choice that prioritized you?

MEGAN SUMRELL: 33:01

Yeah, so it's funny, the community of women that I have the pleasure of being able to teach kind of nudged me into this a little bit. So one of the exercises we go through in the piano Palooza event is just kind of like, okay, time is no issue, money is no issue, like, what are the things that you have always wanted to do? Like, if you could do anything? How would you spend your time. And one of the things that has come up on my list for years was I've always wanted to learn how to play the cello. I was a music minor in school. So I'm a pianist, I played in the marching band. But I'd never learned a true string boat instrument. And I always wanted to learn the cello. And last year, the second annual it came out. And I'm always sharing my examples as we're going through the live event. And so when we call me out there, like that was on your list last year to like when you go to the cello. And I was like, Yeah, you're right, you know, and like, I remember ending the event. I was like, Why? Why haven't I like at least gone through and say, Is there a teacher in there, like at least go learn what this might involve. And so I'm happy to say that in the middle of December last year, I started chipping lessons. And that on the surface, that doesn't sound like a big deal. But here's what it meant. And here's why I was avoiding it and not prioritizing me. It's a financial investment, one to rent a cello ain't cheap, and lessons aren't cheap. It also meant that not only once a week, do I go and make that commitment to show up at my lesson. But every single day means that I'm prioritizing me by practicing, not not being present for my family not working, not whatever it is. And so what seemed like oh, just go take it. I'm like, No, this is a this is a large time commitment. And it's going to impact everybody that I live with when I go no, I'm stepping away for 40 minutes to go practice my cello. And it is like the happiest time of my day. And it means that guess what I'm working 30 less minutes of I already worked very little. But now that carved into that time as well. Because I'm like, No, I'd rather spend work time doing that because I don't want to carve into my family time. And so, and I actually it will have passed by the time this airs, but this week, she's having a recital first.

Nicoa Coach: 35:28

Oh, you and all the 12 year olds. I am

MEGAN SUMRELL: 35:35

50 So like I'm gonna be this 50 year old woman Hanging out with teenagers who will play circles around me. Yeah. Oh

Nicoa Coach: 35:42

my God, just writing a book once. So proud of you. So so proud of you and welcome to the fifth tes club darlin is the best I have. So far. Yeah, I'm four years in and I couldn't be happier. That's beautiful. I have a client that actually wants to buy guitar. I hope she's listening. Because it's

MEGAN SUMRELL: 36:03

been. I mean, because even some people were like, Why, like, what's your endgame? It's not like, I'm gonna go become a professional musician. I'm like, because now when someone goes, Megan, what do you do for fun? Guess what's on the list? I'm learning the cello. Right? Boom.

Nicoa Coach: 36:18

I love that. Oh, my gosh, that's a beautiful example. Thank you for sharing that. How do you help your clients though? You know, get past what they're making it mean and getting giving themselves permission, what, what is it like to partner with you and give people a little taste of that if they were to hire you,

MEGAN SUMRELL: 36:38

I work very different. Because of again, the life, the life by design that I have done, I actually don't do one on one work anymore. When I was first starting my business. I did. And so people are used to hearing about that. And for me, it became it was a very hard journey for me to step back from that, because I love the impact that I can make one on one when I am working with somebody and teaching them my whole time management framework. But I am also a Empath and an introvert. And so I found that the one on one work would leave me with nothing left to give my family or myself at the end of the day. And so that's when I really had to say, okay, how can and I can't reach as many people, right. So I made the decision, it was about two years ago to stop doing any one on one and create a program that is available all the time. So any plus, then event, people could only join at certain times, and all of that. So my signature program is the Top program top stands for time management, organization and productivity. And it is it's me teaching but it's all self paced. So people when you when you invest in the program, you have it for the rest of your life. And you get to go through it at the pace that works for you. You can come back and rewatch something if you need to do a touch up on a specific thing. And then once a month, I have a live call that anybody who's ever invested in the program is welcome to come and ask their questions. And what's been great with that approach is we've I've now been able to serve women that we know of in 15 countries. So there may be more that I'm not even aware of. And it's really cool to see that someone might pop back in 18 months after going through the program, because they've had a life change and going, Hey, I want to run this by you. I'm looking at, you know, redoing my prioritization technique with this new part of life. I've got a question. So and then all the other women on the call get to get the benefit of hearing me answer all those questions. Yes, and the community of women has just been we have women who are in their late 20s, launching into a career and really struggling to figure out how to maybe they're in a caregiving role or whatever, I have women who are full time at home, I have women that are with kids in career. And recently we have we know of two women in their 80s, who are like, I'm in my second stage and just getting started, I want to make the most of my life.

Nicoa Coach: 39:20

Absolutely, it's so

MEGAN SUMRELL: 39:21

cool to have this wide range of women that are all because when it comes down to it that what makes my whole approach to time management. So different is it is a repeatable system and framework. You bring your unique inputs, meaning what is everything that you have going on in your life, and that's going to be different than mine. But we can use the same framework. And then what we create on the back end, which is our actual plans are going to be uniquely ours. But the system will work for you, no matter what stage of life when you enter something new. And so I'm always telling me, it's kind of like you're getting that fundamental set of tools that once it becomes second nature and muscle memory to you. That's what allows you to pivot to accommodate change, to have all these things happen that you can respond and kind of recover come from quickly. Because you've got this this system that just becomes muscle memory for how we organize our information and then translate it into our plan for the week or them

Nicoa Coach: 40:33

I like it and so you know time management to me. What would you want time management Tammy to to tell everybody? This is not ABCDEFG This is a system that's different.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 40:46

Yeah, I mean, a good example is I get so frustrated when I see this. Like, let's say you want to go clean out your closet, right? You walk into your closet one day, you're like it is a hot mess, you can go out and look on Pinterest or YouTube or something and find someone that will walk you through how to take everything out how to edit your stuff, how to put it all back in. But then what they don't do is tell you, and here's what you do every day to maintain it. So then what happens six months from now you open up your closet, and you're like, oh my god, it's a disaster in here. And so so many people are teaching a one time like, get you organized here, but they are failing to teach you how to maintain it, how to accommodate change with it. So that it you're not back at square one. And I will tell you one of the the things that people are still teaching in most time management and productivity classes that just makes me cringe is the whole wake up, do your brain dump and identify your top three, and then magically just focus on those. Were everything else until those are done. Like every time I hear that I die a little on the inside.

Nicoa Coach: 42:03

I'm not kidding it. I mean, I really, I've had to evolve over time, which is what you're doing to you're evolving into a space of what would make it most simple and easy for me to sustain my current life by design. But you're going to change, you know, I want to give people permission, like you talked about permission to ask for help, but also permission to not do anything on a certain day. Like you don't have to do it once

MEGAN SUMRELL: 42:30

it's like a day like I know I have this week on Friday by design is the day work. Guess what? There's nothing that I would call a priority or living in the urgent matrix going down on Friday. I've planned for it that way. Oh, yeah, it's gonna happen is a bunch of those number twos, those little annoying things that would never fall on my top three. But then when the hell are you getting them done? I have designed today on Friday, where it's going to be super efficient for me to just knock out a bunch of those in a stress free, calm way. And nothing like I would waste probably three hours in the morning stressing over which one of these things belongs on my top three? None.

Nicoa Coach: 43:16

Right? None of them. Right? Yeah. And you get to choose and go with the flow of that day in a manner that says, Oh, great. I got it done. Or, Oh, right. I'll do it tomorrow. I mean, I know that that sounds anti organized. But once you can give yourself permission to just be we're human beings, not human doings. Yeah, it sounds like the top system would really give you the, the organization and the approach and a process that just gives you kind of that permission. It sounds like

MEGAN SUMRELL: 43:49

100%. And so when I am because yes, I do this when I am binging and getting caught up on one of my favorite shows. I'm doing it guilt free guilt. Oh, yeah. Because I know like my definition of productivity is getting the most important things done in a non stressful way. So when I can sit back and go, the most important things got done in a non stressful way I am winning. And therefore I am going to go all in on relaxing or practicing my cello or I've recently picked back up crocheting, or, you know, walking with my dog or whatever it may be without the stress and anxiety of when is that going to get done? When does that get what am I forgetting? I'm not forgetting anything. It's in my plan. I've structured my plan, so that I can see clearly when the important things are getting done. So that when I am choosing not to do them, I am all in on not being externally productive looking. Right?

Nicoa Coach: 44:50

Absolutely. Because all in is simply presence. You're all in moment to moment. And if you have a system, then you can set it down. You don't have to carry it all day long. And not carrying does not mean not carrying. Oh, that's good. Yeah, I think that's the I really hit that a few months back. I was like, just because you're not carrying your child's you know, school prep today for three hours doesn't mean you don't care about it. Yep. And your system. I can come back to it when when I need to come back to it. Do I need to be thinking about my kid right now? Do I meet? No. I remember once leaving for a big trip. And the driver was backing out of the driveway. I was getting picked up for an air airplane trip. And he's backing out and I'm in the back in my with my Blackberry. That's how old I remember

MEGAN SUMRELL: 45:43

mine. Yeah, I'm already

Nicoa Coach: 45:45

like in the BlackBerry like it's 5am Or when Natalie, I guess but my, my three year old is at the window of the front door by the front door, screaming like she's at the window is screaming because mommy's leaving, and it was pretty intense. But I already dealt with that. And I was already in the car and the driver goes, as he's back now. Oh my god, that must be so hard for you. And I went, what? And he's like your daughter, and I went, Oh, she's fine. I cannot carry her all day long. And mothers out there, get a system and look up, Megan. Because at the end of the day, you deserve to be present with whatever you're committed to in that moment, whether it's binge watching, you know, eating chips, and dip my favorite thing or, you know, doing a project plan for your company. So,

MEGAN SUMRELL: 46:40

and that's where I lean into that term of work life harmony. For me, it's the three P's of harmony are being fully present. So whatever you're in on, you're in there. You are purposeful. Meaning, can you answer the question? What do I do for fun? And you are proactive. And the proactive part is really on the fundamentals of how I teach weekly planning, when you wake up every day. Brain dumping you're today your to do list right and circling your top three, your reactive, you are already in fight or flight mode, because you're like, Okay, this today, how am I getting it done. And whether you realize it or not, you are bringing a level of stress and anxiety, the cortisone levels go up in your brain. And you are reacting all day to the things coming at you. When you learn how to create a plan the right way. One that accommodates change that allows for uncertainty, etc. You now get to start your day going, here's my plan for the day. And I know how to pivot if I need to. That's proactive, right? And that is a much calming and a sustainable way to live as opposed to oh, crap. Like, Gentlemen, start your engines, which is how I live for so long. Here's everything for today. Let's go. And so when we can have be present proactive and purposeful, that's what that's what gives us that life that's full of harmony.

Nicoa Coach: 48:12

I always say you can't, you can't design it, if you can't define it, right? And so being able to be proactive got to get out ahead of this life that you think you are craving. And by the way, everybody, if you design it, and you don't like it, you could pivot right? You could change it

MEGAN SUMRELL: 48:31

enough wedding cakes anymore.

Nicoa Coach: 48:33

No, you're not. And I'm so proud of you. Well, I want us to put a bow on our beautiful conversation. Any words, last minute words of wisdom? You know, what's your life by design? Tip for someone just starting out?

MEGAN SUMRELL: 48:50

Well, I would honestly want to say to them what that amazing woman said to me, which is you listeners are worthy of support. And I don't know how you could live a true life of your design without a support system. And be open to all the interesting ways that that support may come at you. Because I think we all think it means we have to outsource something, or find a way to get everything that we're currently doing somehow done by someone else or done faster. No, it might mean what you're releasing, to create space for something else. It might mean swapping something with a neighbor, it might mean transferring of ownership of some things off of your plate to someone else, right. And always, if someone says something to you, that doesn't sit well. There's a reason challenge it. I am building a business right now. The business that I adore, that goes against every conventional mainstream way of scaling a business. And it's freakin awesome. Because it's how I'm designing it without I work less and less every year, our profit margin increases more and more every year. And it's all bootstrapped. And I'm really proud of that. Because I've had to intentionally say no to things that are so normal and mainstream of what you do when you're growing a business. So yeah, if it doesn't feel good, sit in that for a while.

Nicoa Coach: 50:42

Absolutely sit with it. And I'm so proud of you. You really are knocking it out of the park and I love your affair. Lia program, I'll be putting the link in the bottom of the show notes. That's a beautiful way to make some, some streams of income while you're sleeping. I'm just really excited for you, you have a beautiful energy and presence and, and you do have a life by design worth sharing. And you are helping everybody who's a part of your community create their lives by design more efficiently, effectively with the three P's. So we'll put that in the notes as well. What's coming up next, anything you want to tell people to pay attention to? Anything your market? Yes, so

MEGAN SUMRELL: 51:20

I we've touched on it a little bit. I only do it once a year. Again, I've so much. It's very rare for people to get live time with me. So whenever it's happening, I'm like, you don't want to miss it. So it is our planet Palooza event, the annual planning planner palooza. It's happening for three days in October, the 24th 25th 26th, it's an opportunity for you to join me live, it's not all day, it's four hours each day. So that way you can plan it into your schedule. Best part is you also get access to the recordings, life happens. So if you miss part of it, don't worry, you'll be able to go back and do it. And this is the only time in place that I teach my proprietary longer term and you will planning strategy. So at the end of the three days, you will walk away with your unique, appropriately defined, I call it our 30,000 foot view for 2024. That's going to accommodate all parts of your life, whether it's work, whether it's home, whether it's your dreams and desires, etc. And you're going to have that in place, you're going to know how to use it over the course of the year, how to pivot if you need to, because we don't know what's laying ahead of us, right. And this sets you up so that at the end of 2024, it's not going to be one of those years where you look back and you're like had another year went by and I didn't do the things or have the fun or whatever it is. So it's an it's an awesome event. And you get again me for three days, all the recordings, and you get the digital version of the annual planning workbook itself, which is over 100 pages that you'll be then able to use all year long. So come check it out. It's a lot oh

Nicoa Coach: 53:04

my gosh, perfect. And you also have a podcast, just like me.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 53:10

work life harmony. So everything that we've talked about here today, and typically it's really short 10 to 15 minutes each week, sharing a specific time management strategy that you can implement that day

Nicoa Coach: 53:24

will find ways to make sure that we send them to Megan sunrail.com. So thank you for being such a beautiful guest and sharing your story. And cheers.

MEGAN SUMRELL: 53:37

Cheers.

Nicoa Coach: 53:39

Love you Megan.

Jennifer Gardner: 53:43

Thanks for joining us for a caffeinated conversation. Subscribe to Coffee with Nicola for more stories from people living a life by design. You can also find inspiration on Instagram. Just follow Coffee with Nicoa and check out our website Coffee with nicoa.com and that's Nicoa N I COA we look forward to talking with you soon. And enjoy your coffee between now and then

Unknown: 54:16

guys