266 Scaling Your Dreams Without Sacrificing Yourself with Eleanor Beaton
Do you have big dreams and ambitious goals, but feel unsure about how to "balance" it all without sacrificing your personal life? In this episode, I chat with Eleanor Beaton, CEO of Safi Media, a trailblazing leader on a mission to double the number of women entrepreneurs who sustainably scale past $1 million by 2030. Wow! This conversation is full of wisdom for any woman striving for success while nurturing the important aspects of her life, which is exactly what we are all about here at The Pink Bee. You won’t want to miss Eleanor’s insights on how to thrive without hustle and grind.
In this episode, we cover:
- The importance of creating space to be present for both business and family
- How women can grow by learning to let go and delegate
- Why “sustainability” is key to long-term entrepreneurial success
- Eleanor's strategies for harmonizing professional ambition with personal priorities
- The power of honoring your word and staying in integrity with yourself
Connect with Eleanor:
www.safimedia.co
www.safimedia.co/podcast
www.instagram.com/eleanorbeaton
www.linkedin.com/in/eleanorbeaton
Mentioned in the episode:
Apply for a VIP Day with me!
www.megansumrell.com/vip
Listen to the episode here!
Or watch the episode here!
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
[00:00:00] Intro: I am so excited for you to meet Eleanor today. Our conversation is one that I really think any woman that has big dreams, has plans of success, desires, goals, et cetera, really needs to take heart and listen to this.
[00:00:19] Megan: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Work Life Harmony. I'm fangirling a little bit this morning with our guest, Eleanor. We were just reflecting before we started on how our paths have sort of been crossing, but not really for a long time. And then now here we are and the internet and the world is, is a fascinating thing.
[00:00:44] Megan: So Eleanor, welcome to the show. Before we kind of dive into our conversation, I would love for you to share with our listeners all about what you do both personally, what does your life look like personally, and then who you serve as the head of Safi media, because I learn from you all the time.
[00:01:02] Eleanor: Thank you so much for, for that and for this opportunity.
[00:01:05] Eleanor: So I am Eleanor. I'm a wife of 22 years to Leon, to my husband, Leon and going strong. I'm a mom to two boys, Noah and Tobias. And so they are one just graduated high school. He is a high performance athlete, potentially on his way to represent Canada, which is very exciting. We have our younger son is just starting out high school.
[00:01:29] Eleanor: He's a musician and a football player. So I am extremely busy, like at this stage of life, really being present and trying to have as much time and space as possible for my kids to be present to them and their needs. And professionally, I am the CEO of Safi Media. We are a training and education company and we have this little mission, this little vision, just tiny double, just tiny to double the number of women entrepreneurs who sustainably scale past a million by 2030 say that again, cause that's a
[00:02:03] Megan: really cool mission
[00:02:05] Eleanor: to double the number of women entrepreneurs who sustainably scale past a million in annual revenue by 2030.
[00:02:14] Eleanor: And the word that you say
[00:02:16] Megan: sustainably is why I love that.
[00:02:20] Eleanor: Yes. It's so different
[00:02:22] Megan: than hustle, grind, hustle, grind,
[00:02:23] Eleanor: go, go, go,
[00:02:24] Megan: and
[00:02:24] Eleanor: collapse, right? I mean, I think that's why I'm so drawn to your work, because I think that for a long time, I thought if I was going to have. All the time that I want to have to take care of myself to fit in all the things that I would really have to sacrifice my ambition and sacrifice my financial goals and I think there's a new generation of women business owners who are starting to really model to each other.
[00:02:51] Eleanor: You know, and co create a way of creating personal and professional success that nurture each other. So yeah, that's why I think I I think we're drawn to each other's work because it feels like it's a different different sides of the same coin.
[00:03:05] Megan: Yeah. And the same underlying really core principles of what our life deserves to look and feel like with whatever our definition of success.
[00:03:18] Megan: Right. And I love that, you know, you're kind of sharing as your kids are a little on the older side. I think there's a misbelief. I know I had it when my daughter was a toddler thinking like, okay, this is the crazy time, right? It will get easier. I'll have more free time when they get older. The fact is it just shifts.
[00:03:33] Megan: Right? It was very physical for so long. Now it's the time, it's the space, it's the events, it's the conversations, it's the, you know, if there's a free weekend, wanting to figure out what can we do as a family to enjoy that time together, because I see it's going to be over soon. So it's the same demands on your time.
[00:03:52] Megan: It's just the, how it's, you know, Being filled. Yeah. You know, really totally.
[00:03:58] Eleanor: Yeah. Like I remember when they were little. I mean, there's an aspect to parenting very small kids. And I say this with just a huge amount of love to our small kids, but it's tedious. First, you have to help them wash their hands and then you have to put them in the high chair and then you have to make sure you, you know, it's just like step after step after step.
[00:04:17] Eleanor: And then That goes away. But what you get is this real need for plus presence. There's like this observation to, you know, I just have boys, but they get quieter. So you have to pay more attention to what's going on in their lives. And, and how might I be able to be present to that. And I've certainly noticed I've needed more white space to be a good mom, the kind of mom that I want to be to them as they've gotten older.
[00:04:43] Megan: That's fascinating. And, you know, I, so my daughter is the same age as your youngest she's, you know, into high school now. And I remember leading up to this stage of life, you know, all the, all the social media stuff out there about the, like, the kind of the negative teenage girls, right? Like the, Oh, it's going to be doom and gloom and this and that, like, I'm loving this stage.
[00:05:04] Megan: Our conversations are fascinating. How we spend time looks very different, but I don't think I could be enjoying it if I had constant stress and anxiety and feeling pulled between work and home and work and home. I don't think, because to your point, it requires a lot of active listening. I think on my end to kind of feel what's going on to then know where, like where we're navigating this conversation or this drive home or that kind of thing that I don't think I'd have that or, or be enjoying it if there was all the added demands of hustle and grind on top of it.
[00:05:41] Eleanor: Well, you know, this is a larger conversation, but one of the things that I've been really waking up to is the degree to which I misunderstood just how much better your life gets. So I remember as a young woman in my twenties, I was like, Oh, this must be, I am in my prime. I thought, and then in my thirties, right again, I thought I was in my prime.
[00:06:05] Eleanor: And now I'm like, Oh, sister girl, you didn't even know, you know? So it's like, as you start to get older, when you, as you, the tools are in front of us, you know, and we'll talk about that, but the tools are in front of us. And as we start to use them, when we combine the right tools to be able to give ourselves the space to actually enjoy what we've created as women, for me, you know, I'm 46 for, for women in our forties, I think it's and fifties.
[00:06:34] Eleanor: Right. And forties and fifties, right? It's like you just are at this different phase of your life where things get way better. Yeah. You know, and, and to have the time and space to be able to enjoy the life you've created. It's, it's incredibly meaningful. It's a very rich time of life I'm experiencing.
[00:06:53] Megan: Oh, I agree with that a hundred percent. And so it's, this is probably not what our listeners are expecting to hear because it certainly shocked me when I discovered that Eleanor had enrolled in my top program because as a fellow business owner who learns from you on the regular and, you know, outside looking in, I'm like, this is, this is a woman that has figured out.
[00:07:19] Megan: How she is creating harmony in her life with running this incredibly successful business. They're in the moment with all of her kids. And so to see that you had become a student in the top program, I had that kind of gulp moment, like, okay, Megan, will I hear feedback from her? So I'm curious to know initially, even why, what was it that prompted you to join the program as someone that, you know, you figured, you figured your time out quite a bit.
[00:07:49] Megan: Yeah, 100%.
[00:07:51] Eleanor: So, so in full transparency, I was, and I'll explain this term in a second, I was funnel hacking. So I was funnel hacking. Megan, I had heard Megan on Ellen Yin's podcast, Cubicle to CEO. And I really respect Ellen. I love that show. And Megan was talking about her Pink Bee app. So you're talking about your Pink Bee app.
[00:08:10] Eleanor: I was like, Oh, this is fascinating. And so I went and I downloaded the app and I was not thinking that I necessarily needed support with time management, but I was, as I started, you know, taking some of the free courses on, I was using my marketing lens. I was like, this is, she's very smart. Like I just heard the smarts, you know, and I was very drawn to that.
[00:08:30] Eleanor: I was like, okay, I'm going to check this out because I actually don't funnel hack a lot. I'm like, I don't care. So funnel hacking is when you go and you check out someone's marketing to see what they're doing. Yeah. So I go and I, I sign up for the Pinkby app and I start doing some of the free tools.
[00:08:44] Eleanor: There was like the one notebook challenge I think was on there and things like that. Right. Yep. And I was like, Oh, Make your morning routine. I think that may have been another one. That was in there for a while. Yeah. Yeah. It was. So this was in May, like late April, May of this year, and I found it very valuable.
[00:09:00] Eleanor: So I was like, I'm totally going to do this time management course and the top program and time management organization productivity. And I just I was really enjoying it. You see, because the place that I was at in my business, and I, I'm still here, and I think this is ongoing process, which is, is where you realize as a leader that the number one bottleneck to your growth, Is no longer simply systems.
[00:09:29] Eleanor: It's not like I have the team. I have the systems. I know what my market position is My offer sell But I have this big vision, you know, and it's I want to be At the un I want to be You know, doing deals with Melinda Gates and Pivotal Ventures to get our entrepreneurial education programming out into the hands of women entrepreneurs globally to help them make a difference.
[00:09:53] Eleanor: Like it's a really big vision. And to do that, I need to fire myself from things that I'm doing in my business. I have to let go like women grow by letting go. So my challenge was that I. My skill set was being able to see the vision and understand the big chess pieces I need to move to get there and the self awareness to see, well, a certain amount of self awareness to see where I'm in my own way.
[00:10:19] Eleanor: I definitely trust others to tell me, you know, but there was a piece, there was this next level, which is what is the bridge between what my day to day activities are, And how I actually start to make room to move these big puzzle pieces. And I'll be honest, I had not found a really effective time management, like time, how, how I could bring all that down to what my week looks like and how I plan my week.
[00:10:49] Eleanor: And so as I started doing the top program, I was like, and going through the material, I was like, this is a really Excellent systematic approach. I really liked, I talk about it all the time. I've talked about the podcast. I tell people constantly, I'm like, this is really good stuff. You know, it's a very excellent system that you have.
[00:11:05] Eleanor: So that's what was going on for me. It was, how do I find the bridge to connect the places that I know I need to be bringing this bigger vision with how I actually plan what I do on a Tuesday.
[00:11:18] Megan: That's so interesting because it is, and I've shared this before as well, and you've probably experienced it and events or whatnot you've been to.
[00:11:25] Megan: There's a lot of, there's a lot of people out there that are excellent at drawing out what is your goal? What is your passion? And helping to even kind of chunk it down, right? You, that phrase, you know, how do you eat the elephant one bite at a time? And they're really good at laying this out. But then where the failure point hits is, Yeah, but, but what about my life?
[00:11:46] Megan: Like what, what about the reality of I've got school drop up at this time and a soccer game over here and a sick kid over here and I got to go to the vet. Like there's this massive disconnect of I get so passionate and excited about this thing, but then what does that mean I'm doing next week when realistically without it completely disrupting my life?
[00:12:06] Megan: And that's where, that's what I am passionate about. Helping women with these big dreams and goals get into place is like, no, here's really realistically, pragmatically, how we're going to build this into your calendar, along with everything else that you have going on. Yeah.
[00:12:22] Eleanor: Well, you know, it's, it's, this concept of letting go to grow.
[00:12:28] Eleanor: We have to do that. And this was interesting. I can remember doing interviews years ago when I was, I was interviewing for an executive assistant role and an EA is massively important, you know, to a leader. You need a good, You need a great person helping you. It's, it's a very misunderstood, undervalued position.
[00:12:46] Eleanor: I'm like, hundred percent, yes. I'm no, they have to be able to keep pace with a high pace person. Anyway, she was very interesting and she had been in EA speaking of the un, she'd been in the EA to like people in the UN and stuff. It was, she was just so fascinating and, and this is what she said to me, she was like.
[00:13:03] Eleanor: So I asked her, because she'd been an EA to men and women, and I was like, I'm just curious, given what I do, have you noticed any differences? And she's, she thought about it and she said, you know, I definitely have experienced that men had a much easier time letting go and delegating than the women did.
[00:13:20] Eleanor: And I really took that to heart. And I was like, I mean, I definitely saw myself in that. But there's a caveat. And I think the caveat shows up in why I think your planning system is really strong. It's because often when we look at time management, people are like, yes, audit your time. And then go make a list, you know, and it's like, what are the things you want to accomplish?
[00:13:41] Eleanor: It was very output focused. Yeah. But what for many women we have, we, the way that we do things, it's much more holistic and we have to take into account and value and honor the inputs, you know, to create an output, which is a schedule, you know, that you're willing to adhere to. So I think there's like some real nuances.
[00:14:06] Eleanor: around, you know, taking, making space to value. You know, your time. So for instance, since the top program, one of the things that I do is, you know, I much earlier in the process of planning out my week, I put in my personal stuff. So like I, yeah, it's not what the
[00:14:25] Megan: leftovers, right? No,
[00:14:26] Eleanor: it's not like I'm trying to, I'm trying to squat 200 pounds.
[00:14:30] Eleanor: Okay. Barbell back squats, 200 pounds. I'm up to 170. I need 200 pounds. We're getting, we're going to get there, Megan. But that takes time and dedication. You know what I mean? It takes a lot of time and dedication. Same with the nutrition to do that. And you can't go, well, I'll just take six weeks off and pick back up.
[00:14:45] Eleanor: Cause then you're going to be, you know, starting back over again. Yeah. So that gets, you know, that gets put in very high up in the process, which, and then I feel like I can relax because I feel like I have a system I can trust so that I can let it go.
[00:15:01] Megan: So good. What would you say your biggest shift has been with your relationship with your calendar and your time?
[00:15:11] Eleanor: The biggest shift for me by far has been cutting what I commit to. So, you know, as I was going through the process, I was noticing, cause you know, you have like these weekly check ins. Hey, did you have to pivot? And invariably, my answer was yes. There, there were these four things or three things that I didn't do, you know, how did you respond to that pivot?
[00:15:34] Eleanor: I just didn't do them. They're there on my list. And I realized, you know, creating the space. that I need to do the things I need to do is really key. So I think what I saw was how much I can actually do and being much more on it in terms of accurately estimating what I can get done. And, and the reason that that's important is because now when I don't get something done, I know it's probably because I didn't bring in enough focus, or I just, you know, I did.
[00:16:06] Eleanor: I just kind of screwed off for that hour there. We're human. Yeah. Right? And so now I will actually make myself do it. Because I'm like, no, no, no, this was you had a reasonable amount of time. We're not going to clutter up next week with some really important stuff that you really did commit to. So I think there's this piece in here about integrity, you know, and honoring our word.
[00:16:28] Eleanor: And it takes a little bit of time to figure out what can I actually honor and what's too much. So I think that's been the biggest thing just really, you know, cutting back on the things that I'm committing to. And it, to me, that is important because it allows you as a leader, whether it's in your family, in your community, in your church, in your business, it allows you to be a woman who is in a state of total integrity.
[00:16:53] Eleanor: Like what you say is what you think is what you do. And that alignment creates so much power, like so much personal power and agency.
[00:17:03] Megan: Have you felt, because I think for me a big One of the reasons why I tend to honor what I plan to do is because I have time prioritized in my calendar for myself, for truly just me, for family, for all of that, that when I see, okay, this is what we're working on this morning and it's not something I love.
[00:17:24] Megan: I mean, I don't know any business owner that loves every single thing that they do, right? But we do them. I am, I'm going to honor it because I can see if I. Don't. And I'd have to squeeze it to later. That's cutting in on my time on me, right? And because I have all that time for fulfillment outside of work, it makes those, it makes my relationship with honoring my plan.
[00:17:51] Megan: easier because I'm not piling on 15 things I don't like doing, right? It's just like, Megan, it's just the one thing, like, come on. Yeah. You know, I have to talk to myself through it sometimes. Like, let's just, let's just sit down and knock it out so that then look at this gorgeous afternoon that you have where you get to relax and do something fun or, you know, whatever it is that we're doing.
[00:18:11] Megan: And I think people, I hear people say, well, the busier I am, the more crammed I am, the less I procrastinate. And I kind of want to say that, but. But really, I think that you can avoid procrastinating as well if you have things and time in your life, white space, stuff that you enjoy, I think it allows us to honor and be in integrity with what we said we're going to do a little bit easier as well.
[00:18:37] Eleanor: And there's this aspect, you know, to for many of us, and I think some of the folks who are listening may be able to relate to it. There's certainly been so many times in my life where I have come under the habit of valuing myself by what I do by the output. You know what I mean by what I'm able to produce.
[00:18:57] Eleanor: And that's basically like workaholism.
[00:19:01] Megan: Your worthiness is directly equivalent to your output.
[00:19:04] Eleanor: Right. And and one of the things that I'm really seeing is you can't just replace that. You can't just go from that to, To knowing exactly, you know, to having hobbies, to having, you know, it's, it, that's a very difficult, you don't just go from a jammed calendar to a joy calendar.
[00:19:22] Eleanor: It doesn't work like that. There's this liminal space, you know, where you have to gradually open up space and give yourself time to be bored and give yourself time to, for sort of this period of discovery. That I think for so many women who are conditioned to value ourselves based on what we output that period that that open space is so key to uncovering who am I and what do I want?
[00:19:47] Eleanor: And you know, who we are changes like who I am today is so different than who I was at 26 years old. There's certain things that are very much in common, but I'm also entering a new phase of life and to be able to have Time to ask myself, who am I now? What do I want? What do I wanna create with my time and space?
[00:20:07] Eleanor: That has just been such a gift, you know, to, to be intentional about time to create that open space.
[00:20:13] Megan: And I love that you brought that up. I was just having a conversation with a client today and she was sharing that, like her big focus for 2025, she's like, I think it's gonna take me all year, is to rediscover.
[00:20:28] Megan: Now that I'm learning how to have white space. What am I going to do with it? Because it's been so long since she's had it, right? And it, it pains me that unfortunately, I think this is really a problem we have here in our country especially for women that, you know, We get, you know, a point in life where suddenly we have free time.
[00:20:50] Megan: And it's been so long that we've lost ourself because our calendar is full of being in service to the roles that we play and the never ending task list. And so I love that you brought that up because I think people do need to realize when they're making this shift, it's not like you're going to go all of a sudden in one week, you're going to have all this free time and you're going to be having fun and you're going to be fulfilled and all that.
[00:21:12] Megan: There's going to be a journey you're going to need to go through to figure out how do, what do I want? That to look like, and it's going to evolve all the time. Mine's always shifting and changing through seasons and ages and stages and all of that.
[00:21:25] Eleanor: And I also think, I also think you kind of have to watch out for what you do when you start to get nervous because you have space.
[00:21:33] Eleanor: So, you know, as you start to create space nature abhors a vacuum, right? And so what that space does is it allows women to ask ourselves, why, what do we really want? Like, what does success look like for me? What pride, what are my interests, what are things that maybe I love to do as a little girl that I'm not doing right now, that I've been too busy to do?
[00:21:54] Eleanor: And all of that is new and scary. It's scary to exist in that space of, I don't know. You know, or you're right, or you're stepping from one identity where your time really was and I really feel for myself as a younger as a younger mom to younger kids. I literally did not have time. And it would be sometimes it would be hard listening to older people be like, There's so much more space now.
[00:22:17] Eleanor: I'd be like, there's not for me, like literally. And that's okay. I haven't peed by myself
[00:22:22] Megan: in a few years, so don't tell me. Right?
[00:22:24] Eleanor: Like it, it will pass. This too shall pass. You know what I mean? And then you'll miss how cute they used to be. But I do think, you know, one of the things that I've noticed is every time you get to a new phase, sometimes you can get drawn back into Or how, you know, to where you used to be.
[00:22:39] Eleanor: So whether it's filling up your schedule stuff that really you don't need to be doing anymore or all of that, I've learned to watch myself, you know, or going and making trouble, you know, or identifying creating problems that didn't creating problems that didn't need. Yeah, exactly.
[00:22:55] Megan: Oh, so good. Now I would love for you to share a little bit, cause one of your zones of genius that has been really beneficial To me.
[00:23:05] Megan: And so I want to share this with our listeners because if you are struggling with this, I want to encourage you to go lean into Eleanor here. You know, I am a very mathematically oriented brain, which is why my, my top program is a very step by step You know, systematic approach, very how based right here is how we are going to take all this chaos and build in the harmony.
[00:23:28] Megan: I also think I'm, I'm pretty good at prioritization. I teach some systems for that, but you introduced me to a, a whole other level of it that I didn't know I was missing, which is really on, on leveling up my prioritization in terms of what. What is truly the most important, right? I can go through quick exercises, you know, from a business owner.
[00:23:56] Megan: Is it revenue generating? Does it help with customer support? Right? And it's easy to do that, but there's, there's a deeper level to this. And I was introduced to it through one of your podcast episodes where you were talking about that 10, that was at your 10, 000 hour task. Yes. Would you share a little bit about that?
[00:24:15] Megan: Because I think it's very, it was very mind blowing to me and it's made a, I, my whole approach to prioritization now is very different.
[00:24:22] Eleanor: Yeah. So it's this idea that a you know, when you look at the activities that you do in your business, and so I'm going to talk about business owners, but I bet you could, you know, Yeah.
[00:24:34] Eleanor: Cool. Well, you can kind of extrapolate what we're talking about here to other things that you do. I've applied it to some of my
[00:24:40] Megan: personal goals like that have nothing to do with it. And it's, yeah, different.
[00:24:45] Eleanor: Yeah. Yeah, totally. So it's this idea of the 10, 000 hour. So we all have 24 hours in a day and we may have, we may decide there's, I have four hours where I am.
[00:24:55] Eleanor: I'm actually going to be producing something over the course of the day. So how do you decide what needs to happen in those four hours? If you really want to maximize the amount of money that you're making from the time that you're spending. And so as I, so over the years we've worked with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs and we actually collect a ton of data points about them.
[00:25:16] Eleanor: So what they're doing, how, you know, some of the, like their habits, just a bunch of data that we've used to start to analyze, what are they working on? That produces the most economic value that would be very hard to delegate. And so there's certain things we, we call them the 10 K the 10 K hour, super high value task list.
[00:25:36] Eleanor: And so these are tasks that an entrepreneur can do. And when you do this, you're actually creating massive leverage. So the idea is that. You, your time becomes more valuable as you start to move and impact more people and create maximum value for the maximum amount of people in that hour. So an example would be public speaking.
[00:25:58] Eleanor: So if you are able to speak like I am right now, where, where, and you have been on my show where we are using this 30 minutes. To not simply speak to each other, but actually through our platforms to be able to speak to thousands or tens of thousands of people. That is an hour that is potentially worth 10, 000 or more to a person's company.
[00:26:23] Eleanor: So that would be one example, selling to groups of people. Would be another example where you can sell to one person at a time, but when you sell to groups of people at a time, you are, you know, really creating maximum leverage. Other things can be things like deciding on your competitive moat. So again, super nerdy for entrepreneurs, but.
[00:26:43] Eleanor: Competition is exhausting and a lot of small business owners get stuck in the sea of competing and it's like you're just competing to get your head above the water a little bit. Nobody wants to do that. What you really want to do is understand how can I define my market position so I'm in the top 5% Of this specific thing and once I figure out how that is, how can I build a competitive moat?
[00:27:08] Eleanor: So I'm untouchable spending your time on that kind of thing. Example, we have one client who she has a very strong niche. And her competitive moat is that she partners with all of the professional associations and nonprofit associations in that niche to become their sort of vendor of choice, which makes her that she gets their seal of approval.
[00:27:31] Eleanor: So her just spending 15 minutes reaching out to a new partner like that is massively
[00:27:38] Megan: valuable. So these are, you wouldn't think that by just saying that someone would be like, Oh, delegate that that's a low value task, right? But you're, you bring in such a different. Lens to that. 'cause I know sometimes I, I had fallen in the trap of, you know, I take, I take customer support very seriously.
[00:27:56] Megan: When someone invests in the program, like now they're in my, they're in my inner circle. Yeah. But you know, you are never going to please. Everybody all the time, right? And being sucked into a potentially negative situation that could take up over the course of a week, three hours of your time to try and change one person's mind who isn't going to have their mind changed.
[00:28:24] Megan: I could have layered that as a top priority item because it falls under the bucket of customer support and satisfaction, which is really important to me. But if I layer on that lens of Is this impacting the masses? Is this really providing what I really want with a customer experience, which is the community support, all of that?
[00:28:45] Megan: And the answer is no. All right. Maybe that is not best handled by me. And so I just want to thank you for really putting that. Kind of additional layer of, of variant thoughtfulness and intentionality. And, you know, I was saying how it even applies to personal stuff. I've, I've shared with a lot of my listeners, you know, I embarked on trying to learn how to play the cello a couple of years ago.
[00:29:09] Megan: That's my latest hobby. And I practice, but I mean, I don't like scales. I didn't like scales when I played piano. I don't like the scales when I'm doing the cello. So it's one of those things where it's like, yeah, I'll do that for like, okay, here's my 10 second scale and I'm going to practice. But I put that lens on it and realized 10 minutes on that scale actually provides for far more value with the pace at which my playing is improving than the piece that I was working on.
[00:29:42] Megan: And so, I don't know, you've, you've made me look at pretty much everything I'm spending my time on very differently by layering that in. So I want to thank you for that.
[00:29:51] Eleanor: Well, it's like, how do you, how do I unlock mastery? Cause the interesting thing about the difference between an amateur and a master is that an amateur looks like they're rushing.
[00:30:00] Eleanor: They look frantic and a master. Did you watch me practicing my skills a year ago? But you know, so, so I live in Nova Scotia, Canada, where we have Natalie McMaster, who's one of the world's best fiddler play fiddlers. And she says, if she goes a day without playing her scales, She feels it in her fingers. So it's, you know what I mean?
[00:30:20] Eleanor: It's really, it's identifying what are those inputs that create the biggest output. And they're not always obvious, you know, and I think taking the time to understand and pinpoint what they are really allows us to figure out what do we put in our precious time that we've set aside, you know, what goes in there.
[00:30:39] Eleanor: And I think being so strategic about what goes in there is, you know, it, it unlocks next level performance for, for women.
[00:30:47] Megan: A hundred percent. I heard you say something, I think, is that maybe passing on a reel or something or a podcast episode. I really landed with me and I see it with a lot of the women that I work with as well, which is that people often underestimate how much they can get done in a year, but overestimate it.
[00:31:11] Megan: How much they can get done. And I think you said a month in that example and I hadn't ever heard it phrased that way, but I think you 100 percent nailed it. And this is why understanding that longer, how to do longer term strategic planning that year long planning while also knowing how to do the more tactical weekly, monthly planning.
[00:31:35] Megan: You've got to have. All of those pieces together or you will likely be in that position where you have totally underestimated what you could have gotten done in the year and you're looking back make wishing you'd made other choices or you're stuck in that place of constantly being overbooked and over scheduled and carrying tasks over week to week.
[00:31:55] Megan: And so I just think the way you phrased that is exactly why. mastering all these levels of planning is so incredibly important.
[00:32:04] Eleanor: Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, it's this idea too that the key to the key to excellence, it's, it's a process. It's always a process. And it's like with anything, you know, mastery of anything, you know, we, we will talk with our clients about how do you scale a business?
[00:32:21] Eleanor: Well, with anything, usually you're doing it one initiative at a time and you always, you install an initiative, you get consistent with it, then you worry about the quality and then you make it bigger, you know? And so, and that takes time. And a lot of times what happens is people, they just want to install something and have it be awesome immediately.
[00:32:39] Eleanor: And I'm like, that, well, that sounds great. This is not amateur hour. I know like. This is not amateur hour. Come on now. Come on. Get serious. That's where my like inner fierceness comes out.
[00:32:51] Megan: Well, anybody listening that is an entrepreneur and is an entrepreneur that has a desire to be one of your hopefully new statistics about women, business owners, and the success that they can have.
[00:33:06] Megan: Where is the best place for people to connect with you?
[00:33:10] Eleanor: Yeah. The best place is I'm going to give two best places. So in place number one is my podcast. It's called woman owned phenomenal episode, right? But it's a fantastic episode with Megan. So it's woman owned the growth podcast for women entrepreneurs to go check that out.
[00:33:26] Eleanor: And I am very active on Instagram. So come and say hi let me know that you connected with me on Megan's show at Eleanor Beaton.
[00:33:34] Megan: And we'll have both of those links in the show note. I am an, I do not miss a week of, of your podcast. I learn from it every single week. So truly I cannot it is an honor to have you here just sharing your expertise.
[00:33:48] Megan: But it also, I feel like it puts a little feather in my cap to be able to have someone at your caliber in terms of, you know, You, you already have such a great relationship with your calendar and time to openly come here and share that. Yeah. You, you leveled up a great program and that means a lot.
[00:34:07] Eleanor: So it really is excellent.
[00:34:08] Eleanor: I think everybody should take it. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:34:11] Megan: Well, I mean, I think so, but right for saying that and no problem, everyone come come join me in stalking Eleanor on Instagram. I always do. You will, you will learn. You will laugh. It's fantastic. But thank you again for being here today and sharing your time.
[00:34:25] Megan: It means so much.
