Hold Your Wellbeing Sacred with Lisa Druxman

Did you notice that FIVE of the letters in the word MOTHER is "other." It's no wonder moms put everyone else first.

In this workshop, you will learn:

How to be SELF-ish and role model self care for your children
How to hold your own well-being sacred
How to give yourself permission to give your own needs a vote each day
How to identify your legacy
How to identify your values
Lisa Druxman is the author of "The Empowered Mama" a practical and interactive workbook full of simple, powerful tools to help moms reconnect with themselves.

Moms often try to juggle the roles of wife, mother, and homemaker while also being professional, competent women. Many moms feel like they can't take time to replenish their bodies and minds, despite their many roles. There's just not enough time in the day, and it seems selfish to take time when families and work still demand more.

Join us for this workshop with Lisa Druxman for some tools and learning on how to hold your own well being sacred.

Joya is currently enrolling members for international (Europe) and domestic (NYC) strategy days. She also leads a year-long intensive mastermind of C-Suite level women, which is accepting applications for 2024.

https://www.joyadass.com/
info@joyadass.com

Transcript

Joya: 0:00

I get to reach a larger audience that way folks. Welcome it is six o'clock. I want to introduce you today to Lisa Druxman, who is the founder of a company called,"Fit for Mom". She's also written a book called,"The Empowered Mama" the how to guide to empower moms to live their best lives. Lisa, welcome.

Lisa: 0:18

Thank you so much for having me so great to connect with you.

Joya: 0:22

You were saying just before we got on here, that you're a sharer. And one of the things that I really want you to share with everyone here is that how can we be role modeling self care, not only for other women, but for our children? Because I know that I come from a generation where we never ever ever put our own self care first. So that's an exercise in utility at times. So I actually would love for you to tell your story. You were a mom, you knew that you want to do take care of your children. You also want it to work. How did your company get started? Yeah, it

Lisa: 0:54

was one of those crazy aha ideas. It didn't take a business plan. It didn't take a focus group. I had been a fitness professional for a decade at that time. So for 30 years. And I was a new mom and I had so many questions about mothers. And I figured it as a fitness professional, I can help moms get back in shape, but they can help me with all the things that I needed to know about nursing and sleeping. I knew nothing about motherhood, which is so funny since now I can live and breathe it both at home and work. And so I created this class called stroller strides, which is a stroller based workout where moms get a total body workout. But really it's funny, they come for the fitness, but they stay for the community. And apparently I wasn't the only one looking for that because it took off. And here we are 21 years later and we are a nationwide franchise with almost 300 franchisees and 2000 classes around the country. And not even just stroller strides. We now offer fitness for every stage of motherhood. So that is, I think the fastest I've ever told my story.

Joya: 1:54

Amazing. And you did it in record time. Lisa, I run a leadership platform for. And it's funny because I have different buckets of women that come together and meet every week for mastermind calls. And yet, regardless of whether they're in finance or in interior design, or they are running a hair salon, they complain about the same things, which is time management productivity. How do I build a personal brand and self care? So I'm all about the tactical. I would love to get into some of the tactical things that you're going to be offering in this workshop today. So how can you be selfish and role model self care for your kids?

Lisa: 2:33

Well, I ask you and I ask all of your listeners and viewers, do you want your kids to take care of themselves the way you take care of yourself? Do you want exercise like you do? Do you want them to eat like you do? Do you want them to meditate or not meditate like you do? And I've met thousands of women across the country. And the answer is always, no, I want them to exercise more. I want them to take better care of themselves. And I really had this epiphany for myself because I was struggling and overwhelmed too, that I want to live the way I want my kids to one day live, and that is one of the best gifts I could ever give myself. And one of the best gifts I can ever give my kids.

Joya: 3:16

When you really think about the actual execution of that, it's like, all right, I've put in six to seven aside, I'm going to work out today. And then all of a sudden there's some crisis and the workout goes out the window. How do you still prioritize yourself when mom's the one that's supposed to fix that it all?

Lisa: 3:35

Yeah. For years I wrote this column for entrepreneur magazine for mom entrepreneurs. And every single month they say, we need another life balance. We need another life balance. And like we've written about it so many times, but it's because the answers never seem to work. And so I really realized, okay, what does that mean? That you need life balance? It's the things that you're not getting in, whether it's the exercise or some self care, but also joy. Like you're not getting joy in, right? Like these are the things that are falling off. And so for myself, I reverse engineered my own life. I put my own line in the sand and said, this is my life to design however I want it to be. I am in a situation that I'm in because I have allowed it to be so I'm in control of my time. And so what I did was I reverse engineered it so that my minimum effective dose of self care went in first. Whereas maybe a perfect amount of exercise for me, might've been an hour, I would say, knew it as long as I get 20 minutes in I'm good. Or for me, meditation is very important to me. So if I get 10 minutes in a day, I'm good. Or how many hours of sleep do you need? And so it's different for everybody. And so I first put that on my schedule and then started to figure out, okay, what goes in next? My strategy is focusing on what are the three most important areas of your life, and then everything else needs to maybe not be as important. And so we build our schedule, we build our strategy for living around those most important things.

Joya: 5:05

And how does one, if someone's looking at all the things that they do as an entrepreneur, I'm probably doing this exercise right now. How do you drill down on what's most important? How do you drill down on the 20% that's probably generating the most revenue?

Lisa: 5:18

Yeah. So I think of it this way. Here's my formula for myself that works. I start with my values. I then create the vision. I then create the strategy and then I put it in a schedule. So the reason why, so my business took off and yet remember I started the business so I could be a mom first and foremost, I didn't expect to start a nationwide business. I was in total overwhelm. I was not living in alignment with my values because my values are my kids, my family, my health, I wasn't taking care of any of that. So I think in order to figure out what's most important to you, it really comes back to getting into alignment with what are your true values. And there's a million, if you just Google values, there's like a million lists. And start with just picking five. All right. And go out of all of them. Yes. They're all important to me, but what are the five top values? And then I would say if you were to pick one, to be a tattoo on your wrist, it's so funny that I use this as an example, cause I have no tattoos, but if you were to pick one, that is your compass, what value would be. And the thing is, if you look at that top value are those top five. You start to look at your calendar and say, Is this how I'm spending my time? Is this what I'm doing? I think time is always the answer. And so I am very, very purposeful and holding my time sacred.

Joya: 6:40

And that will tell us nicely into the next question I was going to ask you, is that how do you attach that level of sacred to your wellbeing? So many of us are sick. So many of us are succumbing to all kinds of ailments and things. So how do we really put it back up on the alter there? And I want to remind everybody, so please put your questions here in the chat. As I'm talking with Lisa about how to really cut down on the overwhelm and make sure you're putting yourself care first as a woman and as a business owner?

Lisa: 7:07

Yeah. So I think as women forgive me for saying this, I think we tend to be martyrs. Like we're so busy taking care of everyone else that we forget to take care of ourselves. And then that's just basically a formula that we are going to be living in overwhelmed in a state that doesn't feel good. And so you are probably as a businesswoman really, really good at holding your commitments with others. Right? If you tell me you're going to be on this call at five o'clock, you were going to hold that commitment. You need to treat yourself like that same commitment you hold it sacred. And that means saying no to lots of other things. I say no, every single day, to things that I would love to do or that I would love to help someone or it'd be a great opportunity. But every time you say yes to something. You're saying no to something else because your time was already filled. Right? You're already busy from morning till you go to bed. So what are you saying no to, by bringing on that? Yes. So for instance, let's just use this as an example. Three o'clock my time was at six o'clock your time by saying yes to this interview? What are you saying no to? Maybe it's making dinner for your family? And that's okay sometimes, but if you keep saying no to the things that are important to you, things aren't going to work out. So I love that saying if it's not a hell yeah, it's a no. So I think a lot of holding your time sacred is really starting to say yes to the things that are most important, but getting in the practice of a kind of a polite, no. And so I'd love to help you. I'd love to go to coffee with you. I can't tell you how many friends that I'd love to see, and it's not a but, and I'm really protecting my time. Right?

Joya: 8:53

And that was going to be my next question, because I think where a lot of women get stuck or stymied is in having the scripts to gracefully say no, because let's face it up until what, 30, 40 years ago, likeability was our superpower. And now we're moving into positions of power where CEO or managing director or senior counsel. So we do need to say no to stuff because work is demanding of us, but what are the scripts that people can tuck away in their back pocket to use to say no?

Lisa: 9:21

Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have said that were martyrs, maybe I should've said we're people pleasers. Like, we want to please everybody. Right? And we want to take care of everybody. I think that the scripts change on who it is. If you're speaking to a friend, if you're speaking to someone, every single day I get someone who kindly emails me and says, Lisa, can we go for coffee? I'd love to run an idea by you. And so I have a template that is a copy and paste response. I can personalize it that says, thank you so much for the invite. I'm flattered that you love my opinion, and I need to protect my time. So unfortunately, I don't have time for this. I give them some resources. So if it's a work thing, give them some chances are, you're an expert in a certain area. People come to you for certain things. Okay. So give them some resources that they can check out. Your podcast, a website, a book that you like. So copy and paste that so that you're not saying, Hey, I can't help you, but here's some things that you can do on your own. And one of the things that I say in that template is I hope that me holding my boundaries is, I don't know if I say the exact words, but here's the concept of it, is modeling for you what I hope that you will do as well.

Joya: 10:32

I love that you don't see. I've seen it on people's out of pocket or out of office auto responders. A previous speaker, like yourself said that he was taking a much needed break and then cut and paste an article on how taking downtime is the new form of social justice. And I was like, wow.

Lisa: 10:52

I had so the last couple of summers I will, since the pandemic, I should say, so last summer and this summer I've been taking a three week European vacation with my family and I did something on my out of office that I couldn't believe the response I got. My out of office was,"thank you for your email. I'm practicing what I preach and I'm unplugging and your email will be deleted. I am not going to come back to reading a thousand emails. So if it's important, here's other people you can contact, or if it's important to you resend it after this date." And I set every single email to auto archive because how stressful is it to come back from vacation and have to be reading emails the whole time?

Joya: 11:35

And what was the response to that before we move on to the next point?

Lisa: 11:38

Well, I didn't get any email responses because when I spoke to people and they were like, that is mindblowing. Most people would say, I wish my company would allow me to do that. I certainly would allow any of my team members to do the same. Most people are like, that's what we need to do more. There was nobody who was frustrated. There was no one who was angry. And I came home from three weeks to having no emails.

Joya: 12:00

And all of your Zen went right out the door. I want to remind everyone to please put your questions in the chat function. I will ask them to Lisa, as we finished our conversation. I want to talk about permission because permission is something that I seek from my business coach. And I see how a lot of women are seeking permission from other people to just do basic things like self care. Where does permission fit in the landscape of saying no?

Lisa: 12:30

I believe that if you really tap into what you truly need, giving yourself permission is also going to be a gift to whoever it is you're serving, whether it is, if you're a leader and it's your team members, whether it's your spouse or your family. Give yourself permission because you can't pour from an empty cup. Right? And we all know that we hear that. We see it on Pinterest all the time, but I mean it, so giving yourself permission is I know what I need to do so I can be my best leader. I give myself permission regularly to take breaks. I can't even begin to tell you how life-changing that is. And if I would have thought of that years ago, I would've said I don't have time to take breaks. There's the inbox is never ending the to do's are never ending. But by taking breaks, I'm purposeful about my breaks throughout the day. I find more joy in the day. I get the clarity that I need and I have more energy. I don't know about you, but I would normally start like hitting a wall at three, four o'clock like, I couldn't even make, I was like done fry. I redesigned my day. I redesigned my week. I feel so much better. I look forward to each day. I don't just live for weekends anymore, which I feel like too many of us do. We live for weekend. We get, thank God it's Friday or live for vacation, but I've designed my week to go actually look forward to each day, like different days have different themes. So Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays for my schedule, our big meeting days and all the meetings done Tuesdays, I don't take any meetings. It is my deep work day and Fridays I keep totally clear for dreaming. For creative work because the kind of work that it takes to create a podcast script or to write a blog is very different brain energy than it takes for a meeting. And so I look forward to the nuances of each day. When you

Joya: 14:19

sit down to design it, I sit down to design my week on Sundays. How do you make sure that the work gets done? You've got franchises, you've got products. You've got a book. You've got a business. How do you make sure that the important stuffAa gets identified B gets done and C still gives you joy?

Lisa: 14:38

Yeah. So first of all, you're never going to get it all done ever. So just let go of that. One of the things that really works for me and works for my team because we worked so closely together. I've been labeled an idea monkey, so I have more ideas than we're ever going to be able to get done. And so it can be very overwhelming for. When you have that many ideas. So we have, I have one single list. One list for all the ideas, one list for all the issues, one list for all the opportunities. I regularly ranked those lists so we can keep resorting them as far as what are the things that actually are urgent? What are the things that are going to have the highest ROI return on investment? And I don't mean money. Like our energy, our resources, and then we figure out what can we get done in the next 90 days? Like I have add, I get very easily overwhelmed. So it's like blinders on 90 day sprint, what can we get done? We've been doing this for two decades, so after two decades, I'd say we're pretty good at this now of knowing what our resources are and what we can get done. I have one list that's called the big list for the things that like, it's not going to happen this year, but maybe someday one day. Give it a place because you don't want things running around in your brain that causes stress, give it a place, give it a home. And then annually go through that big list and say, is this the year? This year going to happen. But I have many things on my list that may never happen or might not happen for years.

Joya: 16:04

Lisa I'm hosting a dinner tomorrow night in Boston. One of the, yeah, I would love to have you there. I did have an event in San Diego a couple years ago. I have to do that again. One of the questions or the challenges that one of the attendees is putting to the table is what would you say are the top three systems that you need as a successful business owner?

Lisa: 16:27

Wow. Like software kind of systems?

Joya: 16:30

Hiring systems, marketing systems, get to know your number systems. I made my own list as part of the answer. But when you think about the systems that you've put in place to run a business, which of those are high on your list? Yeah.

Lisa: 16:46

That's a great question. And not one that I necessarily have an articulate answer for. One system that we have, and I don't know is the system for SOP is for standard operating procedures because one of the things that happens right. You create a system for something and then somebody retires or quite servers. And then like that, that the legacy is gone right then the system is, and the training is gone. So we really work on making sure that there's SOP for everything that we do. So you're never losing that legacy. And so, I mean, honestly we just keep it all in Google folders for each department has their own SOP, because I want to be able to jump into anybody's department and do their job if they win the lottery right. Being a franchise, so I think that part of that mentality is because we're the franchisor. We want to make sure that we're creating systems that are repeatable by anybody, not just by me. We don't want to keep all the knowledge. So I'd say one thing is just creating SOP is to make sure everybody could do it. The other things that we do. I mean, it's a software system, but like our favorite software system, one of them is Trello. We love Trello, all the goals and all the things we have boards upon boards. And I think that as a really good system. And then, the other thing that we use that, we didn't make up, is called a scorecard. So again, we talk about having these goals for each quarter, you reverse engineer them, what are the things that need to happen? And then every single week we check in on a scorecard because what are the metrics that need to happen to know if we are getting there and we green, yellow, or red them, and if it's red and then we're, what's the block, what's the obstacle so we can get through it. One of the systems that we have been using the last couple years that I really, really like is called EOS, which is the entrepreneurial operating system. And, it's kinda like thinking about I phone works iOS, right? Like it doesn't really matter what system you use as long as you use one. So there's other systems out there as well. We like EOS and having a structure and a shared language with your team members where all meetings are run the same way. Things are kept. Goals are accounted for the same way. I think that that kind of consistency has really helped.

Joya: 19:04

All right. I want to pivot back to our conversation about moms and being business owners. How do you identify your legacy? I gave some of my members a task to write an obituary. And of course the first reaction is, oh my God, that sounds so, so dark. And I'm like it is, but there's a reason for this. You're thinking about what people are going to be saying about you at your funeral, because they are going to talk about you, but what do you want to be known for at that moment? And if that is very different than the way you're living your life, now there's an opportunity to course correct. So how do you identify your legacy? Is it that exercise?

Lisa: 19:39

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. I don't see that as morbid. I see that as a compass, because if at the end of your life, if you're picturing it, you're not living the way you'd want to be remembered, then something can change and you're getting a second chance by thinking about it. So I love that that is a question that you asked. I'm 51 years old. And I think about that I'm 51 years old. I've had the company for 21 years. I'm thinking about my legacy a lot. And it's funny because everybody's always asking, are you going to sell, are you going to retire? I'm not thinking of any of that. All I'm thinking about is how do I make sure that for mom lives on beyond myself? I really believe in the power of moms. I believe so much the programs we've created are life-changing. Yes, they physically help women change their bodies. But more than that, it helps them find their identity again and helps them find the community and the village that they need. And as proud as I am of the success we've had. I also think I have not done a good enough job because there are still millions of moms who don't have access to fit for mom. And so my job to create a legacy is to make sure that every mom has access to our classes. And that is, I don't know how I'm going to do that, but you've mapped it for me. That is the goal. I want all women to find their fit and motherhood. I believe in it.

Joya: 21:00

This is a marketing and branding question, but how do you continue to find those new audiences? How do you continue to get in front of new moms?

Lisa: 21:07

There's always new moms coming, right? It's a market that is, it's a short market as far as new moms. Right? I don't get to necessarily keep them for a lifetime, but there's always new moms. And so new moms are most likely to look for something. A way to connect. I have two things that, that work to our favor. One is that new moms are very often looking to take better care of their bodies, not even just for the aesthetic of it, but because they want to be healthy for their family. And two, new moms they look for community. It doesn't matter what city or community that you're in. You're looking to connect with other moms. And I realized when I started fit for mom 21 years ago, there was no Facebook. There was no social media. I couldn't do interviews like this with you. And so it truly was word of mouth. And so to create something that is unique enough and special enough that people will want to talk about. That is how you keep getting new clients. So even though, yes, we depend a lot on social media and all kinds of on demand, workouts and all kinds of things now. It's still word of mom a hundred percent as far as our biggest way to get new clients.

Joya: 22:16

And how do you plant the seeds so that moms are talking about you to other moms?

Lisa: 22:21

Again, I think that some of it is just. And creating a unique and special environment. There's a million fitness businesses out there. There's hyper-competition right. But there's not that many businesses where the client feels seen, feels appreciated, feels recognized, feels challenged to grow and transform. And if you feel that way, You're going to talk about it. You're going to show your transformation, both physical and emotional and spiritual on social. You're going to tag a friend because you're going to want to share it with them. So those are the things that we talk about. We've always said our classes are not just sets and reps. Again, I've been in the fitness industry for a long time. We literally have a secret sauce. A process that we teach our instructors to make sure that those connections are being made mom to mom connections, your connection with the instructor, your connection to self, all of that is baked in a very purposeful in our process.

Joya: 23:16

So it's really playing on the emotional. Pulling on the emotional leavers. And I think that that's an often looked over fact when people are saying to me or anybody else, how do I get in front of new audiences?

Lisa: 23:28

Yeah, you nailed it. I double down on exactly what you said, because it's our tendency to want to promote our product. So our product is water, computer, or car. Like I want to promote the product. Don't promote the product, promote the solution you have to a problem. That emotional tie. That's how you get new audience.

Joya: 23:54

You talked about values. If someone is struggling, a mom is struggling to find out what her values are. How do you get her to kickstart that process? Cause I think that's probably one of the most powerful tools that we're sharing in this interview.

Lisa: 24:07

Thanks. I, again, I think it can be as simple as doing a Google search. Look up a value list and just go through that and start circling the ones that are meaningful to you. Not the ones necessarily you aspire to, not the ones that you want to be known for, but what are the ones that truly are in your heart important to you? And you start to narrow it down. And for me, it's always about reverse engineering it. What would a life look like if it was led by love or kindness or respect, or honor, whatever value it is that. Don't just pick a word. What does that look like? What is the action that takes place to know if you're in alignment with that value? And I would say if you're still feeling lost, I don't know what I value, pay attention when you're searching social at what are the things that resonate with you? What are the things that you're like liking and connecting with? What are the things that get you fired up about and get you angry about. All of those things are absolutely indicators of the things that you value.

Joya: 25:09

I was at a mastermind in Atlanta. And I remember doing this exercise for the first time. And the most important piece of doing that exercise is who are you when you strip away work? Because everything comes back to work when you're picking your values. But when I stripped away work, it was adventure and beauty travel and showing up like this every day is important to me. And so I think about it that way every day, when I sit down to look at my day and what. I usually write it at night before I go to bed. And if I don't have some element of planning travel in my day for a trip that might not be happening for nine months, but at least I'm planning something towards it. I know it just lights me up.

Lisa: 25:47

I love that. And I love it. You're talking about just joy and I think that that. When we touched on it a little bit earlier, but I think that's missing in self care. If you want to call it self care, like people think, well, okay, I need to make time for myself. So I need to exercise or I need to eat my vegetables or I need to sleep. Forget that. I mean, don't forget it. Pay attention to it. What do you want to do to bring you joy each day? A little thing. So for me, my feet have to hit dirt every day. So I take my dogs for a walk and I hit a trail. I gotta hit dirt. I gotta be in nature because that is a value for me. Working in my garden for just a few minutes a day, brings me joy. And just how powerful life can be when you're starting to feed the joy into your daily life.

Joya: 26:33

I don't know if you follow Esther Hicks, but she always talks about the fact that we have to be in alignment and our vibration has to be in alignment with feeling good. And that's how we magnetize all the things that we want to us.

Lisa: 26:45

I love that.

Joya: 26:46

Lisa, anything that I should've asked you that I haven't asked you yet? As we're closing?

Lisa: 26:51

It's easy to say, what are we going to add to our lives? But the challenge is that you're already fallen. So we talked about that. You need to say no to things. I think you, sometimes we need to get ourselves a little bit of a reality check. Because when I also ask what TV series are you binge-watching most of us have one. When you take a look at your phone and it's telling you how much time you're spending on it. It's a choice and don't get me wrong. I will tell you the show is I love to binge-watch, but I like have a time in a space for it and I'm making sure I'm getting those things done that really fill my life done first. One of the most powerful things I did last year was I took Facebook and Instagram off my phone. And that was really hard to do, especially because social media is such a big part of our business, but I said, know what? I can check it on my computer once a day. It has given me so much more space. Now I practice Italian every day. Figure out what are the things that you need to prove? What do the things that you need to take out in order to create space for the things that you really love.

Joya: 27:53

Lisa, it's been a pleasure speaking to you today. We're speaking to entrepreneur and author Lisa Druxman in this workshop for mothers. She's the author of the empowered mama. Lisa, if anyone wants to get in touch with you or leverage any of the products that you have, what do they need?

Lisa: 28:07

I certainly appreciate that. Well, if you want to check out any of our fit for mom classes, go to fit4mom.com. It's fit with the number 4 mom.com. And certainly if you want to check out my book or anything else, you can go to Lisadruxman.com. I have a podcast called the empowered mama. So if you're looking to reclaim your time and your health and yourself, go check that out. And just go design a life you love to live.

Joya: 28:29

I love it. I love that. You love to share that. Thank you so much.

Lisa: 28:33

Thank you.