Sami Kinnison (00:23)
Welcome everyone to this week’s episode of the podcast. I’m one of your hosts, Sammy Kinnison. Today we’re going to talking about how we have the capacity to do so much. So when I introduce myself, do it a little bit different and just give you guys the more vast picture of what we do. So I am a communication coach, a business owner, an entrepreneur, a rental manager, a mom of three small kiddos, a spiritual practice guide.

Probably the best way to do it. Splunkna practitioner. that’s actually the word for it. I host TEDx events as a fun hobby, have a pretty dynamic social life and try to call myself a really good friend. And that’s me. Most of it at least. Angela, what about you?

Angela Belford (01:06)
My

name is Angela Belford. I’m also a podcast co-host. I own one business marketing agency with my husband. I co-own a second business called Be Freaking Awesome with my daughter, Sammy, where we also host the podcast. I am in process by the time this launches, I will be serving as president of the League of Women Voters for Arkansas, Vice President, League of Women Voters of Washington County. I am mom, friend, la la.

Travel enthusiast, author, speaker, friend. My favorite. Yeah.

Sami Kinnison (01:41)
I love it. Friend

is your favorite, not Lala.

Angela Belford (01:45)
No.

Sami Kinnison (01:46)
We’ll get into that later. You don’t have to answer right now on the public internet.

Angela Belford (01:48)
My goal is

that I I raise these babies to be my friends when they’re adults. So anyway.

Sami Kinnison (01:54)
There you go.

Angela Belford (01:55)
Yeah.

Sami Kinnison (01:56)
So you and I both had this experience where people will be like, my gosh, how do you do so much? When they start

Angela Belford (02:03)
I need to

Sami Kinnison (02:04)
to find out. And I like to tell people, well, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. If you think I’m busy, you should see my mom’s schedule. And I think that I also had this experience recently with a friend. It’s gonna sound like I don’t know, does not put me in the best light.

There are times where I have friends that I know that if I told them all of the things that I did, they would be overwhelmed hearing about it. And so I like hold back parts of myself, not from an intent to not be authentic, but from an intent to show up in a way that is is mindful of them and their capacity. And I recently had a friend who like sh I like all of a sudden I decided in my mind. I’m like, nope, you’re actually a good enough.

Close

enough friend, we have earned reached a level. I want to let you into all of my life and all of the things that I do. And so I just started like the next couple of conversations being, yeah, we have rental properties. yeah, we do this thing. yeah, I have this thing. And she’s like, my gosh, I feel like I’m learning so much about you all of a sudden. And I was like, Yes, that is actually because I consciously decided that you can handle it, that you can handle all of me. And it was

Angela Belford (03:16)
So that reminds me of Hitch and when he’s coaching the guy and says, You should be your real self. You don’t have to show your whole self to start with.

Sami Kinnison (03:25)
It’s true. And

Angela Belford (03:27)
It is true.

Sami Kinnison (03:28)
and because there are so many people who ask us like, my gosh, it’s just I’m stressed listening to your schedule. And I don’t know. So what do you think? How do you do so much? What’s your what’s your initial answer to that question?

Angela Belford (03:44)
Well, my first answer to most of it is like, you know, I have a staff, right? You know that I have like there’s ten people who like make all this stuff happen. There there are people there has been a person since about two thousand nine or ten, almost full almost the whole entire time, who I am an economic engine because somebody has had a full time job helping manage my schedule and my email. So that is that is a real thing. I actually hire help.

I hire somebody to clean my house. I don’t I think that’s one of the keys is that I am very privileged in that I had the opportunity and I will tell you for the hundred or $150 a month, I will forego some other things to get my house cleaned. Like that I will skip something else. I I don’t have a shoe fetish, I don’t get my nails done, but I get my house cleaned. So for me it was about choices, and I’ve had somebody clean my house.

I would say of my 32 years of marriage, probably 28 of them because I couldn’t handle it. I’m ADHD. So number one, I I am happy to hire

Sami Kinnison (04:54)
Source.

Angela Belford (04:55)
outsource. number two is that I there is a very sweet video on YouTube. We’ll put the link in the show notes where it talks about somebody has a a glass jar and they

fill it full of sand and then they try to stuff rocks in it and then they try to stuff and it won’t fit. And so personally, and then they show it again and they put big rocks in first and then they put medium sized rocks in and then they put small rocks and then they dump sand. The sand fills in the cracks and then they can still fill it with water. And so there was so much more capacity if you put the big rocks in first. So I think some of it is that I choose order of operation.

Sami Kinnison (05:37)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Belford (05:37)
And

and really prioritize certain big pieces of information and big things. Like I’ve I’ve been coaching some people recently that coaching and or just having dinner with some friends who wish they could travel more. And one of them, we went on a road trip, and I’m like, So how much you think it costs to travel like this? And so we did the math, we did the thing, and we broke it all down. And I’m like, So do you can are you telling me that with as much as you want to travel with your PTO?

Could you, are you in a position that you could put seventy-five dollars a away every paycheck? And I know their circumstances. And they were like, actually I really could. Like I could just make some different choices. And and so but they hadn’t. They hadn’t. And so they don’t put the big rocks in first. And I’m like, if it were me, I would go and I would pick the thing and I would buy my plane ticket and I would buy my Airbnb and then I would spend the rest of the time.

like saving up for that. And so I put those rocks in. Everybody knows that I’m not here in February. Like people get grumpy. I’m like, sorry. This is how I stay, awesome. So anyway, that’s the big that I would say b besides willing to outsource, the second is making sure that I put those big rocks in first. And then the third thing for me is I don’t

I don’t do a lot of things I don’t want to do. So

Sami Kinnison (07:07)
Mm.

Angela Belford (07:08)
if it doesn’t bring me joy, like I I don’t do it. And and I know that some people are like, that must be nice. I mean I clean out the litter box, like, because I my cats bring me joy. So that is a side bent side effect of having to do that. But I don’t have a huge list of things of like I’m required to do that perception or otherwise that I do. And so there are

people I know who have like family norms and family expectations and they have they have societal norms and expectations that do not bring them joy and they’re not willing to forgo them and I am not like that. Like if it didn’t bring me joy, probably not gonna do it. And so when you see my full schedule, it’s cause those things, most of them bring me joy. Or they pay me money.

Really a lot of money to give be able to Ford bench away.

Sami Kinnison (08:09)
So I think all three of these things are super critical. when we talk about outsourcing, we have an episode that talks about how, in theory, all of your problems can be solved with either money, time, or community. There are a lot of things in your life that if you don’t want to do it, or if you if it doesn’t bring you joy, how can you think about outsourcing it? Can you is there money, time, or community that can help you with this thing? I also

There are times where I will bundle tasks that I don’t like to do. So like I don’t love meal planning. I don’t I what I actually, it’s not that I don’t like meal planning. I really don’t like at 445 or between 445 and 6 o’clock somebody saying, So what are we gonna have for dinner? I’m like, ugh, I’m already out of all of my decision-making brain

Angela Belford (08:59)
Neil deciding. Yes.

Sami Kinnison (09:02)
capacity for the day. I don’t know. I have to go assess what’s in the cabinets, what’s in the fridge.

What’s available? What are my kids’ preferences today that differed from yesterday? That now suddenly they don’t like hot dogs. And I’m like, what do they mean you don’t like hot dogs? You loved hot dogs. All of those things. I don’t like doing that. And so picking a time on Sunday, we actually try to do it where we meal plan for about two weeks at a time. We look ahead so that we can just this is the decision. We pre-decided because we don’t like that feeling. That saves me time also.

In that I’m not burning energy and time every single day trying to figure out what I’m going to do. And so sometimes it’s outsourcing. For me, it’s there’s also batching, like the things I don’t really love. How can I batch? Sometimes the things I do love. We to get let you guys in on the magic, we record most of our podcasts. We’ll record like three or four of them in a single day. And then they will come out a couple of weeks later. And so that is something that we do because it’s easier than to make sure that we’ve got

45 minutes every single week to do a podcast recording, we can set aside three to four hours once or twice a month and we’re doing great. So I think batching number two for me is very similar to your I do the things that I want to do. When I feel busy and when I feel like there are a lot of things, my mentality helps with the capacity. And so when I am feeling like, there’s so many things on the schedule.

Like

that is hard to then want to go do all of those things. But when I’m like, my gosh, there’s so much I get to do, this is amazing. I get to go do these things. That approach is really, really nice. There are also times that I like my husband and I will coordinate and be like, okay, this weekend is going to be a very full weekend. We have, there’s a lot of things we want to do and a lot of good things.

We are going to say, you know, let rest and downtime take a back seat this weekend because we know that we have a lot, you know, there’s birthday parties, there’s a family gathering, there’s a community event, and we don’t want to say no to anything. So we’re gonna do it. We’re gonna make it all happen while knowing that we are paying a cost and we’re gonna be extra tired. And our kids might be extra tired. That’s fine with us. As opposed to then being annoyed that everybody’s tired. We’re like, no, we made this choice actively.

We accept that this is the result of that choice. And then there are some weeks where it’s like, hey, I don’t have enough in me. I know I really want to go to these things. We’re gonna have to say no to some things because I don’t have it in me to accept that consequence. So yes.

Angela Belford (11:49)
No, just a couple of nights ago I came home super grumpy and Barry saw what was on my calendar and he goes, good, you’ll have to go do something joyful and I was like, No. I know what’s on the plan, the agenda for that that event and I that does not feel joyful to me today. And I saw a different friend and I was like, I didn’t come because I was a grumpy and she’s like, You could have come if you were grumpy and I was like, I didn’t want to and she goes, That’s okay too And so

Sami Kinnison (12:15)
Right.

Angela Belford (12:16)
I love anyway, so sometimes even the things that bring us joy, you may get to a day where you’re like, Hmm, can’t I can’t today. I just I don’t I’m not gonna show up in the way I want to show up and that is okay to make a

Sami Kinnison (12:30)
Yeah.

Angela Belford (12:31)
different choice that moment.

Sami Kinnison (12:33)
For me, my third sort of point on how do I do so much is that I am really clear about my goals and what I want my life to be filled with. And so my husband and I often a lot of my life right now is very in particular built with us together. We just really have to be on the same team with three kids and growing a business and doing all of this. Not to say, Angela, that you and your husband, that you and dad don’t have to be as aligned, but I think that you

guys

probably need less strategic logistics in your season of

Angela Belford (13:07)
A hundred percent.

Sami Kinnison (13:07)
life as empty nesters than than we do with with three kiddos.

Angela Belford (13:11)
Yes.

Sami Kinnison (13:12)
and you you also probably remember or don’t remember maybe you blocked it out the time of life when you had three small kiddos and having to do more more game planning. We talk about what what are our goals for

our time and how do we want to be spending our time and so we think about like we want friend time that is important to us and so how many times a month do we want to invite friends over? How many times a year do we want to host a party? What are those kinds of what what are the kind of things that we want to add in to the soup of our life? And that looks like things get busy. We want to make sure that we take time to go visit Chris’s family in central Arkansas. That’s important to us.

So every other month we’re looking to see do we have a free weekend to go or not. and so I think that because we pre-decided, again, it’s kind of like meal planning, we decide near the beginning of the year these are the kinds of things that we want to fill into the month. And then, like big rocks, we place all of those things. And then some weeks we’re like, wow, this is gonna be a busier week. And then on the weeks where it’s slower and there’s a lot more margin, I we’re not as tempted to like fill everything in. We’re like, oof, we’re gonna take a nice slow week this week. And

and enjoy the downtime because we don’t have a lot of it and this will pass. So have this

Angela Belford (14:33)
Yeah,

it’s so it sounds like you c we could have made this whole twenty minute episode summed up with we’re really intentional. I think there’s also I think you have to recognize your what your comfort level is too, because I know that there are people who are introverts and they need a lot of quiet time. And I think that should be one of their big rocks if they can as much as you can, because

I kind of learned this whole idea of capacity. A friend of mine was like, I have learned that I have a giant dinner plate full of food. And I have other friends whose whose plate is a little bit more like a dessert plate. And if that dessert plate gets full, they get very stressed out and overwhelmed. But I have a giant dinner plate and it doesn’t

Sami Kinnison (15:24)
Mm-hmm.

Angela Belford (15:24)
stress me out and it doesn’t overwhelm me. I think sometimes it those of us that are systems-minded.

And so we think in process and we think in systems. I think that helps as well with our capacity to be able to do a lot of different things is because we have a system for it, we have a process, a mechanism for planning on the weekends, for planning at the beginning of the year, that sort of thing.

Sami Kinnison (15:47)
I think that makes sense. And I would also say that like when I think about the sand that I’m filling in onto my time, like I I still have that. I think I’ve read eight books this summer so far. Like May, June, July. I’m already eight books in. and that’s a that’s a lot of books for a very small amount of time with lots of kids and all the things. I also say like sitting by the pool and watching kids do summer things.

has given me a lot of time to read books.

Angela Belford (16:19)
Speaking of that, I don’t watch a lot of TV. I think that’s the

Sami Kinnison (16:22)
Mm.

Angela Belford (16:22)
other reason why I have capacity. I don’t spend a ton of time on social media. Like people are like, you’re all over everywhere. I’m like, no, I I post from time to time big things that I like to post. Oftentimes now I am posting for future me

Sami Kinnison (16:37)
Mm.

Angela Belford (16:37)
because I like the memories that pop up. So I’m less interested in posting for everyone else, unless I’m promoting like a book launch or whatever.

But like things when I pro post my my theater events or my different things, I’m usually posting for future me to remind myself of a really fun memory. And number two, is I don’t I don’t spend a lot of time watching TV. Like I l a little bit of British baking show to help me fall asleep, you know, at night, or maybe we’ll do a show now and again. but I think that helps me have a lot of capacity as well.

Sami Kinnison (17:12)
And I think it’s

interesting because sometimes people want to like make the conversation point with you and be like, So, have you seen this TV show? And you’re like, Nope, I haven’t.

Angela Belford (17:19)
I haven’t. Did you

read the newspaper? Did you see in the news? No, I didn’t. This is how I have capacity.

Sami Kinnison (17:24)
But do you wanna talk about this deep philosophical thing that I’ve been wrestling

with? Do you wanna talk about abandonment issues? Let’s do it.

Angela Belford (17:29)
Do you wanna talk about

cognitive dissonance? Yes. Yes I do.

Sami Kinnison (17:33)
I love it. I think that your point that you made about your time needs to be an intentional choice. And if you want to do more things, there are ways you can do more things. If you don’t want to do more things, don’t do more things. And really and truthfully, like if other people enjoy their time, stop judging them for how they’re spending their time. Now you’ve made the point before if somebody’s actively complaining about things and then they don’t do anything about it. That’s well, it’s kind of complicated.

Place

to be at if you don’t like what you’re doing and you’re not doing anything about it. But if you like what you’re doing, keep doing it. And for those of us who have busy calendars and feel really good about the things that we are doing, we’re not doing it because we have to or because we’re supposed to. We’re doing it because we want to. Let’s let live, you know? We’ll

great. Thank you everyone for listening. We’re so grateful for each and every one of you. And until next time, we hope you guys go be freaking awesome.