Hey , hey , mamas , Welcome back to Conquering Chaos A Mom's Guide to Self-Care and Sanity . I'm your host , Sydney Crow , and today we have Mandy Cheniel , from Southern California . She is the founder and CEO of Cheniel Consulting Incorporated . Sorry , a little tongue-tied there . Her rise to leadership came early , when she was recruited to join the executive team at Zip Recruiter as an employee number 19 . Her time at Zip Recruiter as an employee number 19 . Her time at Zip Recruiter led to early retirement , which has allowed her to take her passion for leadership and mentorship to the next level .
Speaker 1In her debut book , Faith Over Fear how to Adopt a Success Mindset , Mandy offers a one-on-one style reading experience , providing practical and actionable tips for achieving success in every area of life . One of the final lessons in the book is the power of lifting others up , which she embodies in her commitment to donating 10% of her net proceeds from the book to various nonprofit organizations . Welcome , Mandy . Thank you so much for having me . I appreciate it . I'm excited to kick this call off . You and I were just chatting prior to the call and I feel like you have such an amazing outlook just given your circumstances , given the ability to retire very early . Why don't you fill the listeners in on who you are and what you're all about .
Speaker 2Sure , absolutely so . As you said , I , I , my career grew very quickly very early and you know , as as parents , we , we know that kids experience some pain during growth spurts , and it is very similar when you go through the kind of growth spurt that my career went through . It was a wild ride , best experience of my life at ZipRecruiter , and it was not without its moments of fear and doubt and lack of self-confidence because things were moving so fast and I was such a newbie when it came to leadership and being an executive . But really , at the end of the day , what that all taught me was that really anybody can do anything .
Speaker 2It all comes down to your mindset , and that's something we talk about in our house with our kids quite a bit , because it's so easy to get caught up in the day to day . We all have our routines , especially if you have kids . You know one day bleeds into the next and you've got your schedule and suddenly you're like it's Friday , what ? Let's do this all over again , and now we have sports and all of the things . But if you're not taking the time to slow down , pause , to breathe , to think and really focus on your mindset and your thoughts , it can just become overwhelming . You can just get into the cycle of things , and a lot of times that breeds unhappiness or negative self-talk or just feeling like something's missing .
Speaker 2And I think that key is having those moments where we reset our mindset and we think about what means fulfillment to me , what is my purpose and what I'm doing today . And it's hard , don't get me wrong . I'm not saying it's just so easy . It takes time and the more you are consciously aware of your thoughts it can be scary at first , but the more you realize you have the power to control the energy you go into things with . So I was very blessed to have mentors throughout my career who would tell me to like slow down , slow your roll . Let's think about this for a minute . You're doing a great job when I had self-doubt and I eventually realized I was experiencing imposter syndrome and that helped me a lot . So my goal with writing this book is to try to bring that to everybody . It doesn't matter if it's about your job or parenting or relationships or your health . It it all ties together and the same concepts of resilience and mindset really play a huge role in the success that you have in anything that you do .
Speaker 1Yeah , a hundred percent . And it's so important and I think a lot of people , especially when you have a lot of success off the like in the beginning of our career , that imposter syndrome can can creep in , right . You have like , like in life , business can be kind of up and down and when you go through those those downturns it can be like , oh well , maybe this is it and maybe it's like maybe that was just like a one hit wonder type thing , and you start to have that little like ego voice start creeping in and that's not there to serve you in those moments . So why don't you tell the listeners what your top three tips around mindset are in terms of overcoming that imposter syndrome ?
Speaker 2Absolutely , I think the first thing is find time . Whatever works for you , find time to dedicate to what I call think time . So , whether you are working full time or working full time in the home because that is a full-time job as well Whatever your situation is , whether you're in an office , a home office or in the home , do you use a calendar ? Put it on your calendar . It is so powerful to dedicate that time where you know you're not doing drop-off or pickup or meetings or whatever may be part of your day , and you dedicate time to think . And this throws a lot of people off . You know , in my business career this was something I had . Everyone who reported to me who was really struggling to find what was next and kind of figure things out . I would say block an hour off on your calendar . Let's start with at least once a week , but eventually I'd like you to do it every day . And they're like what are you talking about ? An hour a day where I do nothing ? And I'm like , yes , we are not laborers , that wasn't the business that we were in , we are thought workers . So you're actually doing the company and yourself a disservice by not dedicating time to just think . Let your brain process , no direction at all . Sit and think . You will be amazed by the connections that are made and the things that come up and you realize , oh , I wouldn't have come to that idea or that next step if I hadn't taken the time to pause . So that's one thing is making sure you're giving yourself and your brain . There's so much going on around us . If we don't take that time , our brain's just going like crazy and it doesn't have time to settle and to process what's happening and what we can learn from it . And it doesn't have time to settle into , process what's happening and what we can learn from it . That's the next thing is looking at every experience you go through as an opportunity for growth , an opportunity to learn . And that's really what a growth mindset is all about . Right , you kind of referenced it earlier .
Speaker 2A fixed mindset is I encounter this challenge . Maybe it's a downturn , or maybe it's a challenge with my child's behavior or something going on in the home . Whatever it may be , we all encounter challenges and it doesn't go great . And a fixed mindset would go oh well , I'm just not capable of excelling in that area or I can't move past that roadblock . It doesn't serve you right . A growth mindset is one that takes that power back in situations like that and says , okay , this is something I need to learn from . How can I learn to tackle this obstacle the next time it happens ? What could I have done differently ? What skills do I need to attain in order to succeed ? The next time this comes around and it flips the switch , it really changes your mentality from things are happening to me or not having faith in yourself to .
Speaker 2I have the power and I'm going to overcome this . That's a powerful position to be in and everyone has the ability to do that .
Speaker 1Yeah , and that's the ability to do that . Yeah , and then that mentality right .
Speaker 2Exactly . And lastly , I would say one of the most important themes , of course , in my book , as you can assume by the title , is just have faith in yourself . We all go through periods of doubt and in fact I was just talking to a friend this morning and I was telling her I'm like it's really interesting how , after writing this book , so much of that stuff bubbles back up because I'm reopening all of those things and experiences I've been through and I have a tendency to be critical of myself . And so if I doubt , I'm like what are you doing ? You have to be living faith . You have such strong faith , what are you doing ?
Speaker 2And I realized doubt is actually a blessing because if you didn't encounter anything that challenged your faith or your belief in yourself or anything outside of yourself , you wouldn't have as many opportunities to appreciate it and to reaffirm it . So as we go through life and whatever experiences come our way , instead of harping on ourselves , I'm talking to myself here as well . When we have those moments of doubt be like thank you so much , what a blessing . Thank you for the reminder that I do actually have this wonderful , huge amount of faith in myself and all of these things outside of myself and that was a great reminder . I needed that today . You know it's just flipping
it . You have control over adjusting those scenarios and how you look at it , and it can make the difference between having a terrible , no good , horrible day to having a wonderful , purposeful day you know A hundred percent and it is .
Speaker 1I mean , we are in control of ourselves . We can't control the things that are going on around us , the people that are going around us . We can only control ourselves . And so if you have these things where you're , you know , riding those highs and lows and those roller coasters of emotions , you have to learn how to rein that in and put that spin on it so that you don't get stuck in that victim mentality , because it is .
Speaker 1It can be very easy to get stuck there , right , we , we , we have these picture perfect windows on social media . Now . There's a billion different opinions at our fingertips . With the internet , like you can google anything and get you know a hundred different responses as to like how you should tackle this or what the right course of action is , and it can be really . You know a hundred different responses as to like how you should tackle this or what the right course of action is , and it can be , really , you know , overwhelming and confusing . And so then you kind of get stuck in this like fight or flight situation , and when you can lean into your faith instead and just know that the power is within you , then you will find yourself not stuck there .
Speaker 2Absolutely , and as parents too . I always say this to any woman I've ever mentored who is thinking about kids or has children . A lot of times , unfortunately , we seem to be wired and maybe it's a societal thing . We probably won't tackle that today , but we seem to be wired to be more willing to do things for other people than for ourselves . Right , we put ourselves on the back burner . So I always tell women who are kind of in that mentality they fall into those patterns , which I've been .
Speaker 2One of them is , if you're finding it difficult to dedicate this time and these efforts because you need it , think about doing it for your children .
Speaker 2Or , you know , as a leader , think about doing it for your employees . Or you know , if they don't have children or whatever , because the two are very intertwined . But if we , you know all of the things you mentioned about social media and how it gives us this comparison syndrome and it's very different than reality our kids are growing up in that world way more than we did , and you can limit them from social media Eventually . I mean , even if they don't have access to it , they're going to hear about it from friends , they're going to see it on friends and devices . It's inevitable , right ? So if we want them to have the power to control their thoughts and their reactions to things and really step into the power of what they can do and how they want to live life , we have to do it first . So that that , I think , is another little mindset hack , right ? If you're struggling to do things for yourself as a parent , do it for your kids until you realize that you really need to do it for yourself and there's value in that .
Speaker 1Yeah Well , and I think that kind of nodes to like Simon Sinek's , the Power of why ? Right ? Because even if we don't have that same faith or belief in ourselves or our willingness to show up , like you were saying , for ourselves , I would say 99% of moms are willing to do way more for their kids than they ever will for themselves . And , like you said , we're constantly putting ourselves on the back burner and I love that . This , like I've done quite a few episodes where we've talked about that and you know , self-care is being a necessity and there's a reason why they tell you to put your oxygen mask on first when the plane is going down , and you know there's all of these sayings and phrases that society leans into . But it's , how do we overcome that ? How do we actually step into that power and make the time for ourselves ? And a lot of women need to start with , like I'll do it for my kids with like I'll do it for my kids .
Speaker 2Yep , it really is . And there's another trick that I use and I think the Navy SEALs actually invented it or coined the term micro tasks so incredibly powerful . It's actually how I wrote my book in less than a year . I learned it through the 75 hard program by Andy Frazella and cause . At first there were certain . I did the whole live hard year and at first there were certain tasks that you know 10 minutes of guided visualization a day , which was not something I was used to at the time . I'm like 10 minutes , what is that going to do for me ? And I very quickly realized how powerful it was . And so I I really leaned into it and I did some research on micro tasks and I was like this is a game changer .
Speaker 2So when I did retire from working full time for someone else and started writing , my book took me a bit to figure out where I was going to write , what my writing process looked like and what was going to work for me , because at that point I could not work in my office . I'd like nothing would happen . I was so used to working in my office and I was like this is not working for me . And so eventually I just said , okay , 15 minutes a day working on the book , whether it's research , writing , thinking , whatever , it's open 15 minutes a day . And so that was the micro task I assigned to myself , and the beauty of it is you number one , it's such a small amount of time , you can't come up with an excuse not to do it . And , number two , you wind up getting so into it . You spend significantly more time more often than not .
Speaker 2So the progress that you're making snowballs so , and you know , there were days , certainly , where wasn't feeling great , didn't really feel like doing it or didn't think I had any ideas . So I'd spend the 15 minutes and then I was done . But I could check that off . And what happens is you check something like that off of your list , whether it's digital or on paper , and you release dopamine , serotonin and oxytocin and those all the happy brain chemicals , the reward system in your brain that encourages you and says like , hey , let's keep doing that . That felt really good and it builds that discipline and those good habits . So same thing applies . You can use it for anything . You know . Anytime I feel like I'm in a slump , I'll create a little micro task for myself and I'm like ah , I feel so good , I got that done . I'm doing this consistently , that feels great .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I find that like for me , I need that , so like I've started doing like a digital habit tracker . For example , I've always drank an okay amount of water , but I never really like tracked it , and so now I have like a little automated checkbox that I can like check off how many bottles of water I have every day and it , you're right , like it feels good because you're you feel accomplished with what you're doing , and it can be as small a task as drinking water to as large a task as writing the chapters of your book or beyond that , right . So why don't we dive into a little bit more about your book ? Why don't you tell the listeners what it's all about ?
Speaker 2Yeah , absolutely , it's really about . I broke it up into kind of a flow that you can go through . If you're in a place of life where you're trying to figure out what is a purposeful goal that I can set for myself , how do I go about fulfilling it and not giving up or feeling defeated along the way ? So I walk through what I call the keys to success and we start at the very top with let's first identify your purpose . Because , at the end of the day , if you have a goal without the backing of purpose , when something comes along fear , doubt , some sort of obstacle , a failure , what have you you're less likely to push through it if there's not a very strong purpose that you can tie to other people . So I I encourage people to look for the ripple effect . Who will be impacted outside of myself If I accomplish this goal ? What good can I do through accomplishing this goal ? And if it's health related , your kids , your family , inspiring other people around you , things like that . So really looking at that bigger picture and establishing that first . Because , again , at the end of the day , if we're chasing after goals that don't have deep seated meaning for us , that don't generate fulfillment , it's going to be a lot harder to push through when , when it gets tough , and inevitably it will get tough . So I walk through various stages of outlining goals and how to map them out . How to start small . Let's do this without stress . This is the main purpose . Let's eliminate stress from the process , let's take it slow so we don't burn ourselves out , and let's do something meaningful and fulfilling .
I do talk a lot about leadership in the book as well .
Speaker 2So , from a perspective of whether you work in a business of some sort , understanding the different leadership styles that you might be encountering , how to work with them , how to leverage the pros and cons of each of the styles , but also realizing that , no matter what your position is , you are a leader . Everyone in life has the opportunity to be a leader , especially as parents . We are leaders . So really identifying what is my leadership style , what are the pros and cons of it , how can I kind of borrow from other styles and be the best leader that I can be ? Because I think that's an important part of the process of achieving any goal and really achieving fulfillment in life . So I tell a lot of stories about failures that I've made , slip ups , little funny anecdotes , things along the way and some inspiring quotes and stories from from others that I find inspiring . But the whole goal is really a message of you can do anything you set your mind to , and let's walk through the easiest way to do it without stressing yourself out .
Speaker 1I think that's so important because there is a ton of personal development books out there , but I feel like a lot of them are geared more towards like a masculine style , energy , and when you talked about like it was almost like hitting the easy button and not having extra stress , like that's a mom's like holy grail , right there , right , we all want an easier path . We want we don't want stress , we want to be able to show up as our best selves and be the leaders that our kids need us to be , but also , like a lot of times , our plates feel really , really full . So when you go to take on , like I'm ready for the next level , I want to , you know , improve on myself and improve on my leadership skills . A lot of these books I find are like very male , masculine , dominated and almost in an overwhelming state . I'm like , yeah , ok , I could do that , but like I might do end up in burnout if I keep going at that pace .
Speaker 2Right , you tend to have one of two reactions to those types of books , right . Either like fires you up , and then I used to consistently run too hard , too fast at things and then burn out and I'm like I'm sick of doing that , I don't want to do that anymore or it kind of totally turns you off . You're like , well , my whole life isn't going to be about this one thing . I'm juggling a family and children and I have these big responsibilities that this has to fit into , and so that's kind of why I wanted to connect all the dots that I've learned along the way many times , through failing at them several times , until I learned the lesson . My readers don't have to do the same thing , but we've all been there . But you're right , it's . It's really about finding a way to move forward without making it feel like another heavy burden , feeling like you're in flow and it fits in with the rest of your life .
Speaker 1I love that . How would you say that writing this book helped your ?
Speaker 2parenting . Oh , I mean number one . Given the ages of my kids , they've been very interested in it and wanting to understand more of the book and each have their own signed copy , cause especially my middle child , he's like you're going to be famous mom , I need it signed . So I'm like , okay , thank you . So we've , we've had lots of conversations about it , but also , at the same time , it really cemented a lot of these things that I've learned , and you know again , my name is on this , this advice is out there . I have to practice what I preach . So having more of those conversations with my kids has been a result of writing the book and one of the things that I kind of came up with pretty recently .
Speaker 2Actually , you know , you've got kids that you drive to and from school and , depending on their ages , you get them home from school , you're in the car and you ask them how their day was and you get nothing out of them . And so what I ? I flipped the switch on them and at first I was fully expecting eye rolls and I was surprised . I didn't really get them , even from my high schooler . And so I'll ask them what , if anything , made you feel happy today ? What , if anything made you feel sad , mad , we'll just go through a bunch of different emotions and it is wild how much more information I get out of them and you can like almost hear the wheels turning in their brain of them processing how something made them feel , and so that that is a beautiful result of this Cause .
Speaker 2The more I've tapped into all of the mindset stuff that I've been working on . I'm trying to instill that in my kids and I always tell them I'm like look , if you can learn like even half of this stuff that I've been working on . I'm trying to instill that in my kids and I always tell them I'm like , look , if you can learn like even half of this stuff that I'm trying to teach you right now , you're miles ahead of a lot of adults that I've worked with who are leaders of companies who don't understand this yet . No harm , no foul . They didn't learn it then Our kids are having the blessing of learning a lot of these social , emotional stuff in school today , but we have to really bolster that at home as well . So there's a tip if that helps any parents who get nothing on their car ride home , which I used to it's really fun to see how they process and what emotions they tie to different events in their day .
Speaker 1Oh , I love that . I'm definitely going to try it this week . If you could give one last piece of advice out there to the moms listening , or the parents or anybody that's out there listening , what would you say that piece of advice would be ?
Speaker 2I would say stop being so hard on yourself . As parents , leaders , just people in general , especially women , we tend to be incredibly critical of ourselves and , at the end of the day , every parent , leader person in life is going to realize at some point in time they could have done something better or they missed . You know they . They miss it here or there . All is not lost . You can always pick things up and improve on things .
That doesn't have to come from a place of negativity or criticism or being down on yourself . It's about again taking that power and going okay , that didn't go well or that wasn't the way I really wanted that to turn out , so what can I do better ? What can I learn ? How can I make this better in the future ? That can come from a positive place and still acknowledge the need for growth . So that that would be the biggest message . Stop being so hard on yourself .
Speaker 1I love that and such an important message as moms to teach our kids that right . I mean it can be their worst critics , just as we are , and teaching them that resilience piece is so important . So thank you so much for being here today . Mandy , we will have a link for your book in the show notes , so if you guys want to get a copy of faith over fear , then that will be available to you guys . And thank you guys for tuning in to today's episode where we help you conquer the chaos one day at a time .