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Join host Chantell Preston, a seasoned professional with over two decades of experience in healthcare operations, project management, and consulting, as she shares invaluable insights and lessons learned from navigating the complexities of career advancement and personal satisfaction.
Through candid conversations and expert advice, "Get Real, Get Results" serves as your go-to resource for achieving harmony between work and life without sacrificing well-being.
Learn more at: https://chantellpreston.com
Don't put so much pressure on yourself to have it all right now. There may be situations where work is really heavy this week. You gotta do a ton of stuff at work. Maybe your personal side's gonna have to sacrifice a little bit here and there. You can have it all, but you just probably can't have it all at the same time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Welcome to Get Real, Get Results. I'm your host, Chantell Preston. I've got over 2 decades of experience in healthcare operations, project management and consulting. And I've navigated the dance of career advancement and personal satisfaction firsthand. Get Real, Get Results is your go to resource for navigating the complexities of a modern day success success without sacrificing your well-being. So buckle up and get ready to challenge the status quo, shatter limiting beliefs, and embark on a transformative journey toward a more authentic, balanced, and fulfilling life. This is Get Real, Get Results, and I'm honored to have you join me.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Good morning, everybody. My name is Chantell Preston. I'm here today to talk to you a little bit about life.
CHANTELL PRESTON:You know, I'm really passionate about helping people create their own destinies, being their own advocates, getting real with their life so they can live their best life. So thanks for joining us. You're gonna see a lot of, topics kinda threaded throughout my podcast just because there's really important topics to review and to look at. But first of all, let's start with my journey. You know, interesting journey at 18, who knows what we're gonna be in life.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Right? I wanted to be a teacher. I couldn't wait. I wanted to educate the community and educate the youth of tomorrow. However, my father made a great comment to me.
CHANTELL PRESTON:He said, you're gonna do what? I'm spending all this money for what? And he said, if you're not business, you're not shit in this world. And so it really changed my trajectory. Even though I was a little distraught at the time, I said, okay.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'll go business. We'll see where this goes. Looking back now, thank God I did. However, I do enjoy still giving back to the communities. You know, out of college, I really got amazing opportunity to join the health care industry.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Not necessarily about what you know. It's about who you know and what you do with those opportunities. When I started with this company, I knew nothing about health care. I knew nothing about managing people. I knew nothing about anything, frankly, But I got in there and I wanted to learn everything I possibly could.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I took on the mindset that if I didn't know how the company operated in all aspects, how was I gonna go out and be successful within that organization? So that's what I did. I got a great opportunity to have some mentors, some female mentors, some male mentors. It's fascinating how when people really, realize that you wanna learn, they're willing to teach you. So I got those great opportunities, went out on my own at the age of 27.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I had clients that said, why are you working for these big companies? Go out on your own. We'll keep you busy. And sure enough, they did. But I got to a certain point of, you know, what's next, being a consultant forever, or should I do something more?
CHANTELL PRESTON:At that point, I found someone that I wanted to be a business partner with. His skills were totally different than mine. His strengths were my weaknesses. My weaknesses were his strengths. I thought this is gonna be a perfect relationship.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We continue to develop health care facilities throughout the US, but we also had an opportunity to start a company called Mentis Neurorehabilitation, and we were a rehab for traumatic brain injury patients. I have to tell you, we knew nothing about brain injury, but we thought we had a couple dimes to rub together. It sounded exciting. It was a niche market, and we realized that there was such a huge need. We decided, let's take the leap.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Let's take the risk. Ignorance is bliss when you're young. I have to say that. I'm not really sure we knew what we were getting ourselves into, but we decided, hey. We've both been impacted in certain aspects with brain injury.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And so let's try. Let's go down this path. The first thing we did was we got together the best, most amazing folks within that field, and we built a company. Fortunate enough, 7 years later, we took that company from not knowing what what brain injury was to exiting the private equity in 2015. That process within itself was an amazing experience.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Very eye opening. I'll tell you that. I was fairly young. I was pretty much the only female in the room always. And it just really opened my eyes up to not everyone has the same opportunities that I've had, especially women.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And so I thought once we went through that process, I wanted to get out there and really help as many women as I could live their best lives, both personally and professionally. I had been so engrossed in my career that I gave up a lot for my personal life. I didn't have a child until I was 37, and that was really at my my old business partner's, you know, encouragement of, hey. If you're gonna have a child, you might wanna do it. You know, you're not getting any younger.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And I thought, oh, no. I'm good. I'm good. You know, I'm good. I've got our business and that was enough.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Well, thank God I listened to him and went forward with that path. So really my goal with these podcasts are really to try to help everyone realize that, a, you're not alone. We all deal with the same trials and tribulations, but also maybe giving you some of my experience in regards to how I dealt with those trials and tribulations and see if, you know, we can make an impact for each other and build our own tribe of how can we support each other. So as you listen in, I'll have different topics, ones that I think are really important. I'm gonna kinda throw out some of the lies that we were told when we were younger as how we had to act and how we had to behave and, you know, what's really the reality of those things.
CHANTELL PRESTON:So as you listen in, you'll see things that, they'll say, hey. That's me. I didn't realize, but, hey. That that happens to me as well. I just encourage you to listen with an open mind.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'm not the most warm and fuzzy individual for anyone that knows me personally knows that. However, I'll tell you like it is. I'm very transparent and I'm very authentic. I think the only way that we're gonna learn from each other is really being vulnerable and being authentic and telling our stories and some of the things that we've had to go through. Vulnerable and being authentic and telling our stories and some of the things that we've had to go through.
CHANTELL PRESTON:So hope you listen in. The first thing we're gonna talk about today is you can have it all. You know, we always learned as kids, you can have it all. You can have it all. You know, we always learned as kids you can have it all.
CHANTELL PRESTON:If you haven't heard it yet, that's complete and utter bullshit. You can't have it all, at least not at the same time. I used to think I wanted it all. I want everything. I want the perfect personal life.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I want the perfect career. You know, I wanna continue to learn on a daily basis. And then I realize, oh my gosh. There's only so much time in the day. What do I wanna have it all in right now?
CHANTELL PRESTON:And where am I in my position of my life and in my career that I can focus the time and attention to achieve what I wanted before I went on to something else? I think we all you know, we make every, you know, every January, I make my goals for the year. Okay. I wanna do this. I wanna do that.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And it's fascinating to me because the bigger the goals, the less achievable that they are in my world. I'll tell you that. Because then I start looking at my I get so overwhelmed that I'm like, oh my gosh. I can't do this, so I give up and I go do something else. You know?
CHANTELL PRESTON:So I really wanna talk about how do we break those things down? How do we come up with real realistic goals that we can achieve? Let's get real with ourselves. Let's get real with our time. You know, I've learned, unfortunately, the hard way recently, you know, the one thing you never get back is time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And so we'll talk a little bit more about that. How do we allocate our time to be able to achieve those things? Being your own advocate. I'm amazed with the women I talked to of how many high powered women still have impostor syndrome. Still say, oh, I I mean, this is okay.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I I don't feel like I deserve this. If you're not advocating for yourself, nobody else is gonna advocate for you. So what do you want? How do I get it? You know, get real with our our goals.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Get real with our plan. Get real with our time. So we're gonna talk through some of those things. You know, I went through a lot in my life in regards to, as I mentioned earlier, ignorance is bliss when you're young. I didn't know what I was doing.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I didn't know the risks that were involved. All I knew is that I believed in myself. I believe that anything that I did, I was gonna be successful because I was gonna work that hard to make sure that that happened. And so, again, understanding our own value is so important. You know, we talk a lot about self esteem, confidence, you know, selfishness.
CHANTELL PRESTON:All these words that we hear and we talk about, we wanna break those down. There's a lot of things that we look at in life and say, hey. I don't deserve this because of x, y, and z, or I don't have time because I've gotta give all my energy to everyone else and I've gotta worry about everybody else's feelings. I I encourage you to really take a look at that. Not everything in life is gonna be perfect at once, and I think if we're trying to obtain that, we're just gonna fail.
CHANTELL PRESTON:So what what do you wanna be right now? Look at your circumstances. Look at you know, I look at the age of my kids a lot. You know? I may want certain things, but is it the right time in my career?
CHANTELL PRESTON:I kinda gave up everything to have my career. And I have to tell you, looking back now, I wish I would have put more attention on my personal relationships than I did on my career. Because at the end of the day, now in my life, I find those so much more valuable than all the successes I've had around my businesses. So, again, how do we look at things? How do we interpret things?
CHANTELL PRESTON:You know, my entrepreneurial journey was, you know, it seemed like it was such an easy path. We made a lot of bad mistakes. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, and I tried to use those mistakes as learning opportunities. You know, people say, oh my gosh. You've had this great success.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Congratulations. I wanna be just like you. And I asked them and I said, you know, they're like, you've you're successful at everything. No. I'm not.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We just never talk about our failures. I wanna talk about some of my failures with you. I want you to understand that it's okay to fail. And what do you do with those failures? I've learned more from my failures that I have my successes.
CHANTELL PRESTON:In regards to having it all, I believed as a child that I could have it all. I thought there was this great imagination of this life I was gonna live, of having the perfect relationships, the perfect job, have the perfect kids. I mean, that's what we grow up believing that we want, and that's what we're gonna have. I believe that. I spent a lot of years trying to attain that, which caused me a lot of hap unhappiness.
CHANTELL PRESTON:It caused me a lot of guilt. It caused me a lot of angst and anxiety because I always when something was going really, really well, something else in my life was not. And I don't know if it was me trying to kick up chaos because that's what I was used to living in as a child, but it seemed like I was always trying to chase a rabbit that wasn't there, and that's having it all. So I wanna make sure that as you're listening to this, you don't go down that same path that I went down as spending years years trying to achieve those things that aren't obtainable. The ultimate goal is happiness.
CHANTELL PRESTON:But what is happiness? I love certain things about my life, and there's always areas of opportunity. I think as we get older, we continue to grow, and we'll talk a little bit more about dumb versus smart growth later, but, you know, we continue to realize that not everything has to be perfect at the same time. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm a business owner.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'm a mom. I'm a softball coach. I'm a dance studio owner. I'm I'm all of those things. Right?
CHANTELL PRESTON:And I'm trying to figure out how to make it all happen. And so by saying I can have it all and trying to obtain this ultimate goal of this fictitious picture in my head that I was taught as a child just creates a lot of anxiety and a lot of angst for me and sadness because it's like, I can't get it. I can't get it. So I finally, at one point, had to just had an epiphany of letting it go and saying, hey. You know what?
CHANTELL PRESTON:It's not always gonna be perfect, but I've got it all over here right now. And I'm gonna hold on, and I'm going to enjoy the small victories and the small successes because I know that at some point that other side's going to work its way out. And that may be where I find my positive energy and my happiness and my joy. So, again, I just wanna encourage you. Be careful of the things that we were taught as kids because I think that we live in a very different world now.
CHANTELL PRESTON:When we were kids, you know, a lot of us lived very different lifestyles in our families. Now we've got, you know, I've got a career. I've got, you know, kids. I've got, you know, trying to be the PTO parent. I've I'm trying to do it all.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And so we gotta learn to give ourselves some self compassion and let go of that guilt and just figure out, hey. You know what? Some days, that's okay. We're gonna have bad days, and we're gonna have good days. Balance, you know, I don't even like to call it balance anymore.
CHANTELL PRESTON:What I call it is work life integration. That's what it is. How can I integrate my work and my personal life and still be able to maintain and be positive in both, but yet achieve some of the goals that I've set? That goes back to setting realistic goals. My goal yesterday was I just need to make it to the grocery store to make sure that we have stuff to have dinner for the rest of the week.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Now it sounds so stupid, but that's a great goal to have. You know, everybody's like, oh, that's a stupid goal. But is it? You know? I mean, we've got 5,000 things coming at us at one time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:What do I need right now to make my life easier or with the life of my family easier? Breaking those things down, and I'm not saying to minimize our, you know, our career objectives or our parenting objectives. It's just really being able to take some of the pressure off us of achieving these huge goals. And what do we need now where we are in our lives and start living in the present. Those small goals will reach you to that larger goal, I guarantee.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I mean, that's what it's done for me, and I'm hoping that that can do for you as well. So, you know, I'll tell you some of the stories about not being integrated. As I mentioned earlier in my life, I was all work. I was 247. I felt like if I was going to achieve my work objectives, my goals, I was gonna be on call 247 all the time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Well, I hate to admit it, but this went on for probably 18 years. You know, I never took a trip over 2 days because I was scared to death to be away from the office. I didn't have children until I was 37. And, again, that was because my business partner said, hey. Clock's ticking.
CHANTELL PRESTON:You might wanna do it. I gave up a lot of my personal relationships with people that meant the world to me. My best friend, I didn't go to her wedding. Why? Because I was too busy at work.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Well, we've been friends since we were 12. You know? And sometimes you're in the mix and you don't realize how your actions really impact those people that are most important to you. I didn't spend a lot of time with my family, my parents. Unfortunately, my mother just unexpectedly passed away 2 months ago.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Thank god I realized 10 years ago that she and my my relationships with them were more important than anything that was going on in my job. And I made time for her because I expected her to live another 20 years. Unfortunately, she didn't. And so those last 10 years were so invaluable for me and for her and for my family as a whole. And I don't want anyone to be in the position of saying, oh gosh.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I wished I would have. So, again, just little nuggets that I'm hoping you can take from some of my experiences that will help you live a healthier life. If we would been having this conversation 15 years ago, it wouldn't be the same conversation because I'd say no, no, no, work 247. That's all you wanna do in life. You know, that's the most important.
CHANTELL PRESTON:That that's how you look at your success in life is by how much money you make. What is your title? Do you own a business? You know, those were the the key performance indicators that we use for our lives. Now I feel like it's such a different world, and I look at my purpose.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I look at my relationships. I look at my my trust people have in me. I mean, I look at the things not only in my personal but in my professional lives, you know, and how I've really evolved as a leader too. And a lot of those things that I've deployed in my personal life, I've done the same thing in my professional life. And trust me, you can talk to some of the people that knew me.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Some of the folks here in my own office have been with me for 15 plus years. They'll tell you how that change has happened over the last 15 years and how I'm so much more different now than I was 15 years ago. And some of that we'll get into a little bit further and when we talk more about the leadership aspect. But some of my stories, I love to tell. So let me tell you the story about my best friend's wedding.
CHANTELL PRESTON:My best friend and I, Jen, we've been friends since we were 12. I had moved to Houston after my parents got divorced. My mother got remarried. I entered into a junior high at 8th grade, which, as we all know, can be some of the most challenging times of your life. I met some great folks and I met my best friend, Jen.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We had been through everything together. As some of you know that those friends that you grew up with, they know everything about you, the good, the bad, the ugly. We kind of floated away during college because she went to TCU. I went to A and M, but always kept in touch. After we got out of college, you know, I started my career.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And as I mentioned, I was all about my career. I want to work 247. I was on call. Back in the days, we had pagers, paid people would page you constantly. It was awesome.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I loved every day of it. But what I sacrificed was my relationships with some of my friends. I'd see them here and there. Periodically, I would disappear for a year. I wouldn't talk to anyone.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Obviously, your friends become some of the folks that you work with, but those are different than your friends that you have that you grow up with in every aspect. So my friend my best friend's getting married and and, you know, at that point, I'm like, okay. I'm gonna be there. I ended up not going. Something came up with work.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I chose not to go. I thought, oh, she won't mind it. Not a big deal. I didn't realize how devastating that was. You know?
CHANTELL PRESTON:Here I was her best friend. I didn't attend her wedding. You know, it was a pretty significant, blow to her and to me. It really impacted both of us for years. One day, she finally sat me down and said, hey.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Look. If we're gonna continue to be friends, we need to be real friends. And that means you can't disappear. You know, we need to be there for each other. Well, I have to tell you, Jen's still my ride or die.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I I think as we get older, we start to realize what's important. And I realized that my my relationship with Jen was super important, and I wanted to be there and I wanted to be for those occasions. She was there when my daughter was born. We try to do as much as we can together. Now our kids are growing up together.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And so, again, you know, we all make choices in life about what's important. Most of this shit just doesn't matter. But what does matter at the end of the days is how you feel as a person, how you value yourself, how you put yourself first, but also what brings you positive energy in every aspect. And those personal relationships go a long way compared to, am I gonna either go to the attend this meeting or not attend this meeting? Had a great situation happen a couple weeks ago.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Was talking with a a peer that was really struggling about whether she should go and attend her daughter's championship basketball game. She had flown to Houston for some meetings. You know, she's like, I don't know if I should do it. And I said, look. I hear you, and I've been there, but I guarantee no one's gonna remember you missing that meeting, but your daughter will always remember that you attended that game.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Believe it or not, she text me the next day and she said, oh my gosh. You're not gonna believe this. I went. And I said, how'd it go? She goes, it was absolutely amazing.
CHANTELL PRESTON:She's like, thank you so much. You know, sometimes we just need permission. We feel guilty. So we need someone to say, hey. It's okay.
CHANTELL PRESTON:It's okay to go ahead and take that time. It's okay to go to your kid's game. Nobody's gonna look at you different. And if they do, maybe that's not the right place to be. You know, in today's world, it's very different than it was 10, 15 years ago.
CHANTELL PRESTON:As a leader, I try to look at flexibility for my staff. What's the best environment that I can provide to them so they can live their best life, which in turn is both personally and professionally that can help them achieve their goals, but also help the company or the organization achieve our goals. And I have to tell you, I have seen significant increase in performance, in revenues, in successes because of that mindset. Sometimes you've gotta advocate for yourself and be your own cheerleader and say, hey. These are the things that I need to do to live my best life.
CHANTELL PRESTON:If you're positive in that aspect, it usually flows over to the professional as well. So let's talk about one of the lies that we're led to believe. And that is if we take time for ourselves, we're not gonna advance in our careers. If we choose to go to that practice or take that vacation or go to my kid's game, We're shown as we're lazy. We're not committed to the company.
CHANTELL PRESTON:That's a lie. I think we tell ourselves that to make ourselves believe that what we're doing is the right thing to do, which is not the case. Most employers, leaders look at staff or look at employees and say, hey. How can you be your best self and working in that realm? So if there's something that you wanna do for your family that makes you a better person, we realize it's gonna make you a better person at work.
CHANTELL PRESTON:It's gonna make you happier. It's gonna make you more productive. The lie of, hey. If you don't show up, if you're not on call 247, you can't go on a vacation unless you take your phone. Look.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We all need an opportunity to do just kind of relax, to kinda clear our minds. At the end of the day, it makes us better in every aspect. That's just like parenting. I'll just say this. You know, a lot of people think I'm selfish.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'm not selfish when it comes to parenting. I love my kids. However, there are some days that I'm coming home and I'm got 9,000,000 things going through my head, and I just need 5 minutes to sit in my car and just kind of decompress before I walk in the house, you know, for a couple different reasons. Number 1, it helps me kinda process everything that's happened that day, so I don't take it out on everybody in my house. Secondarily, when I get out of that car, I know I'm a better person because I've taken a few minutes to decompress.
CHANTELL PRESTON:A lot of us do that on the way home from work, you know. Hey. How do I decompress on the way home? Do I call a friend and just chitchat? Do I listen to music, sing on the loud you know, as loud as I possibly can?
CHANTELL PRESTON:Whatever that task is for you, take a few moments for yourself. It's okay. It makes us better in the long run. I know that when I walk in the house after a crazy day, that sometimes everybody in my path gets gets the wrath of it. Right?
CHANTELL PRESTON:But I know that if I can sit there and go, okay. Let's think through this. Let's just take a few breaths, you know, process that. I can walk in. And then when I see my kids and they're so happy to see me, I'm happy to see them.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And I'm not worried about what happened at the office because at the end of the day, they don't understand that. They want me and my attention. So we talk about guilt all the time. Well, okay. I worry about the quality of time I'm spending with my kids, not the quantity of time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I can be there all the time. That's great. But if I'm not present with them, am I really there? Is that is that is that good enough for them? It's not because they recognize that.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Look. I grew up with my my oldest. She's 13 now. When she was younger, 5, 6 years old, she would tell me all the time, mommy, put your phone down. Mommy, put your phone down.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And to me, I'm like, oh, no. No. I'm really busy. I'm really important. I've got to handle this at 7:30 at night while we're in the middle of dinner because that's how important I am.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Right? I wasn't that important. There was no need. But I guarantee you, my daughter will tell you all about it now because she remembers it. Right?
CHANTELL PRESTON:But nobody else remembers that I answered that email or made that phone call right then and there that it was so critical that the the, you know, the place was burning down. Nobody cares. But, again, that relationship and I had to learn that with my daughter of, hey. When I'm with her, I've gotta put the phone down. My best friend says the same thing.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We'll talk about Jen again. You know, Jen drives her nuts. We'll be in places. Jen, you know, Her life is very different than mine. I have a high powered career.
CHANTELL PRESTON:You know? I'm really important. Well, in her mind, wait a minute. Am I not that important? And I had to realize that what I was doing is showing the people that I loved and cared about the most that they were the most important thing to me.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Learn from some of my mistakes. We think we're that important, but we're really not. And I'm not saying, hey. Look. You should turn your phone off at 5 o'clock when you walk through the door.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Like, that's not realistic. We all know that. But what I am saying is try to be this present in those times. You know, I try really hard to put boundaries around things. I'm not the best at it.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'm gonna tell you I can sit here and preach all day long and I'll be lying to tell you that I'm expert at boundaries because I'm not, but I try really hard to be present and to really focus on certain things at certain times when I know that it matters the most. It's just about really making choices as to how do I wanna be my best self at work, my best self at home, my best self for me. You know? We spend so much time trying to be everything to everyone. What about us?
CHANTELL PRESTON:How can I find a balance for me? I I guess until I got much older, I didn't realize how important it was for me to have time for myself. I thought that, okay, well, if I'm hanging out with my kids and doing, you know, going to practice or watching their games or doing whatever, that was my time. But that wasn't my time. That was my time with them.
CHANTELL PRESTON:So I figured, okay. Well, I'm in the office. Nobody's around, so that's my time. Right? There's nobody here.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Nobody's talking to me. But I'm in the middle of doing emails and trying to catch up, always running that rat race. I realized that really wasn't my time. 2 years ago, I started something that changed my life. I started taking an hour every morning for myself.
CHANTELL PRESTON:It was my meeting time, just me. And I put it on my calendar and I said, this is my time. I I don't break meetings with other people. I definitely don't break meetings with clients. I don't break meetings with family.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Why am I continuing to reschedule my meetings with me? So I made that a priority for myself. And in that one hour, I would go walk. I would just go walk. I'd walk 4 to 6 miles.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'd go walk. I'd listen to podcasts. I would listen to books. I'd listen to music some days. I would talk to my friends on the phone that I hadn't talked to in forever, but it was my time, and it gave me the opportunity to really balance myself.
CHANTELL PRESTON:If I had that time of my day and everybody's gonna say, oh, I don't have an hour. I don't have 30 minutes. I can barely get through the day. I hear you. Same way.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I mean, minute I wake up, it's kid, kid, kid, kid, kid, drop off. Work work work work work. Pick kid up. Go back. You know?
CHANTELL PRESTON:I get it. But how important are you? You know? And I had to realize that I was just as valuable and important as everyone else around me. And so that's one of the things that I did that really helped me balance myself.
CHANTELL PRESTON:For a time, I was doing it every single day. I've got a little off of it. I'm trying to get back into it, but I see my mental state where it really helps me, grounds me, and makes me a better person across all aspects of my life. So I know you're saying, hey. This all sounds great, Chantelle, but I'm listening to this podcast.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I'm doing 5,000 things right now. I'm driving down the freeway trying to pick up my kids, doing a work call. How am I gonna do it all? How am I gonna come up with this balance, this work life integration that you're referencing? Great question.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I don't have all the answers, but I'll give you some of the tips that I've used in the past that have been successful for me. One of the things like we talked about is really getting real with your goals. We have a tendency to to make these huge goals in regards to, I'm gonna be successful and rich. Okay. Great.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Don't we all wanna be that? Right? But how are we gonna get there? I always say, you know, make a small goal. Be very specific in what you wanna and maybe maybe do 2 or 3.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Don't do a ton. Do 3 goals. You know? I think the other thing is we have a list of 15 goals, you know, personal, professional, all aspects. Three things.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Three things that you wanna do. And, again, be specific. But then you also say, well, how am I supposed to fit this in? Again, I'm doing 18,000 things right now. Look at your time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We all do things in life that we don't wanna do. We all say yes to things, and we're gonna have a whole another episode on why do we think we always have to say yes to everything. Look at your calendar for the next week. Pick 1 or 2 things and say, I don't really need to be doing this. Why am I doing this?
CHANTELL PRESTON:And reschedule. Cancel it. Why? Because maybe you could take that hour, and it could be better utilized by working on some of the things that you wanna work on and then coming up with a plan. And that's really about going back to your time.
CHANTELL PRESTON:So, again, everything's intertwined to a certain degree, but you have to be committed to doing it. Look. We try to eat the whole elephant at one time. It never works. Small victories take us and lead us to the path that we wanna live on.
CHANTELL PRESTON:And so, again, I just encourage you, just take a few minutes, and it doesn't have to be long, elaborate, don't write a thesis, write down 2 or 3 bullet points. These are some of the things that I'd really like to do, you know, carve out 5 minutes for myself every day to just read the newspaper, something like that. And then look at your time. Make a meeting with yourself. Hold yourself to that meeting.
CHANTELL PRESTON:Why is everybody else more important than you? You should be the most important person in your life. I just encourage you to look at that and see if that helps you reach your ultimate goals. You can have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time. So what I would encourage you to do is don't put so much pressure on yourself to have it all right now.
CHANTELL PRESTON:There may be situations where, you know, work is really heavy this week. You gotta do a ton of stuff at work. So maybe your personal side's gonna have to sacrifice a little bit here and there, but maybe next week is different. How do you get that work life integration? It's not gonna always ebb and flow.
CHANTELL PRESTON:It's not always gonna be 5050. You know? And that's okay. Because like we said, you can have it all, but you just probably can't have it all at the same time. Look at that over the next couple weeks and say, okay, that's right.
CHANTELL PRESTON:You know, work is really heavy this week, so I'm gonna take a little bit extra time next week to focus on x y z. You can have it all, but stop believing the lie that you can have it all right now. You can have it all at once because that doesn't exist. Thanks so much for listening today. I'm super excited about taking this journey with you guys.
CHANTELL PRESTON:I been wanting and so passionate about doing this for such a long time. I'm excited to share it with you guys. I know we've got a lot of amazing episodes coming up and stay with us and we'll see you soon. Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Get Real, Get Results. Now get off your ass, get out there, and enjoy the life that you wanna live.
CHANTELL PRESTON:We're here if you need guidance. And until next time, do your best, enjoy the small victories, and stay unstoppable. And don't forget to visit chantelle preston.com for coaching or keynote booking information. And remember, you have to get real to get results.