292: The Powerfully Pregnant Pause

Tanya Dalton: I was operating at a pace of

go, go, go, go, go.

I work fast, I work hard, I get things done quickly It felt very much my natural pace.

then all of sudden we take these things off my plate and I’m like, whoa, hold on.

I don’t have enough in my day.

I think we all move, work, produce at a pace that’s maybe not naturally ours. When we are children, our parents are like,

come on, come on, come on,

you’re moving too slow. Stop dawdling! Or they go: slow down. You’re moving too fast!

John Dalton: We start moving faster than what we naturally would move at or slower than what we wanna move when you have two things on your priority list, You feel guilty before you even start.

Your brain just automatically goes to this place that, well,

If I have extra time then, then I’m wasting time. And you start looking for things to fill it with.

took us a long time to figure out, why are we doing that?

Do we have to fill every moment of every day

it seems like a simple question, but it really

was difficult.

Tanya Dalton: Hello, hello everyone and welcome to the Intentional Advantage Podcast. I’m your host, Tanya Dalton. This is episode 292. 292. We are so close to 300, which is a huge milestone, but actually not the biggest milestone I wanna talk about today because today I have been alive. 17,921 days. That seems a little crazy that I know that fact, right?

But I know that because next week, a week from today, the day that this goes live, a week from today on June 27th, I will have been alive 17,928 days, and on day 8,694 of my life, I had my very first date with John Dalton. That’s kind of crazy.

So that means that one week from today, if you’re listening to this, the day it goes live, one week from today will be my exact halfway point. Exactly. One half of my life will have been before John. And one half of my life will be after John, and after that Tuesday, June 27th, more than half of my life will have been with him.

I think that is a crazy milestone. It’s also kind of weird because apparently nobody else looks up these kinds of numbers. I’ve been trying to figure out what to even call this milestone, but I haven’t found anybody else who, who celebrates this. But I wanted to know when my halfway point was. Because there’s been so much of my life that’s happened since him.

There was a lot that happened before him, but I think about all the iterations of me, the different Tanyas I’ve been, just in the time he and I have been together. It’s kind of crazy and kind of nuts. So I wanted to do something special today for the show to celebrate. I don’t know, my golden anniversary.

I don’t know what you call this day, my halfway point with John Dalton. So I knew I wanted to have him on the show. His episodes are always very popular. You guys love listening to John’s episodes. I wanted to have him on the show because I felt like it was important for us to talk about how we have evolved, how we’ve changed.

That’s certainly a theme that’s been underlying a lot of what we’ve talked about throughout this season. We talk about it in a lot of our seasons for sure. But it’s something that I think is really important for you to see, to understand that it’s not just you who feels like, oh my gosh, I don’t know what I’m doing, or, wow, I’m in a totally different position or place than I thought I would be.

I’m right there next to you feeling exactly that same way. So I have him on today’s show, we’re gonna be talking about mindfulness. We’re gonna be talking about, funny enough, mindful eating and how that ties in to the whole idea of purposeful productivity. We’re gonna be talking about, well, actually, we’re gonna be talking about something with the very first time on here, which may be a surprise to some of you.

You might think of it as a big announcement, so I’m not even gonna give it away. All right, let’s go ahead. Let’s get started with today’s show.

There’s a spiritual art to work and life. I’m not talking about sitting in silence on a mountaintop or chanting mantras for hours a day, but finding meaning in your work in everyday life can increase your productivity, boost your happiness, and yes, make you feel so much better about your days. I’m Tanya Dalton, a bestselling author, motivational speaker, seven figure entrepreneur.

Oh yeah, wife and mom. So I get it. I understand the stress of daily life, but as a productivity expert, I’m here to help you choose the extraordinary life. This season, we will be exploring work, parenting, personal growth and more. Because when you choose to be intentional, every day can be filled with meaning.

Let’s create the world we want our daughters to live in. This is the Intentional Advantage.

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Tanya Dalton: okay. I’m just gonna go ahead and say how weird it is right now that you are downstairs and I am upstairs and we’re recording this,

John Dalton: I’m literally right below you.

Tanya Dalton: You’re exactly below me. So it’s just funny because I wanted to do it this way. So we still have the video, but I was just talking about in the introduction about how amazing you are and Oh, I like how you’re nodding your head like, yep.

Well, of course.

John Dalton: I’m not gonna disagree.

Tanya Dalton: Well, good for you. I like that you’re receiving that’s, that’s a good thing for you. That’s a new thing. but I was just talking about the fact that we are, well, for me, it’s not your halfway point, but it is my halfway point. I’m at this very interesting place where half my life has literally been without you, and half my life is with you.

And a week from today when this episode goes live. Will be exactly that halfway point for me. And after that most of my life will have been with you. And I think that’s nuts. I think that is so crazy.

John Dalton: it’s totally bizarre.

Tanya Dalton: what? That we’re still together or that,

John Dalton: No, not but it just,

Tanya Dalton: episode, I was thinking we were gonna record.

John Dalton: you think I’d like Jason and I’m gonna serve you papers while you’re on camera.

Tanya Dalton: Oh my God. we are the type that totally celebrates the quirky, the weird kind of celebrations and the little milestones. because when I figured it out, you were like, did you seriously go figure out how far, how many days you’ve been alive? And I was like, yeah, I totally did.

Cuz I knew it was coming.

John Dalton: Yeah. It’s not something I’ve ever heard of before, ever heard of anyone else doing, but it totally makes sense.

it is so weird. Yeah. That. It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago.

[00:06:46] The Secret to My Strong Marriage

Tanya Dalton: No, it doesn’t.

But the thing is, is in some ways it feels like it’s been forever and in other ways it feels like it was yesterday. if I think about all the things that we have done, all the moments we’ve had, all the milestones, all the heartbreak and the loss, and the failure and the celebrations, all of it has been so much

John Dalton: it has been a lot. I mean, when you think about all the different things that we’ve done or places we’ve gone or things with the kids, moving, that short timeline that seems like we just met yesterday, all of a sudden it’s like, oh my God, we’ve done a lot in the last almost 25 years, if you can believe it.

Tanya Dalton: That’s what I think is crazy because I’m only 26, so the math like doesn’t work.

John Dalton: Yeah, so we, our first date was when we were infants.

Tanya Dalton: Apparently But no, I, I think this is a thing too, is we’ve, we’ve been together for about 25 years and a lot of people realize that we are, we are together all day, every day. Like, I like to tell people when they’re like, oh, you, you work with your husband?

I’m like, yep. So John, for those of you who don’t know, John started working for me in 2009 and we are together. 28 hours a day, we’re

John Dalton: That’s true.

the only reason we’re apart right now is because we’re recording this and we’re in two separate rooms.

Tanya Dalton: that is so true. That’s totally true. That’s the only reason why we’re apart right now at this very moment. cause it really does, it works for us and we love that. People think it’s crazy that we work together. I like to say that we’ve been together 25 years, but it’s more like 75 because we spend so much time together and we have been through a lot.

But I think what’s important, cuz people often ask me because we, we do, we have so much fun together and we love each other. I love you John more today than I did when I said yes to marrying you and it is. Well you’re welcome. I’m only saying that cause I’m on camera. No. No, but it’s true. And I, I think it’s because, we’ve been through so many different things and you and I are not the same people.

And I think that’s the thing that happens a lot of times is that people lose sight of who they married because they’re not staying connected. And I know that when I first told you about this milestone that we are hitting with me being at this, we don’t even know what to call it cuz nobody else apparently celebrates this

John Dalton: Yeah, it’s not really, it is only our thing. It’s not a thing.

Tanya Dalton: a thing. You can Google it, but I haven’t found anything. but the thing that I was thinking about was just how big of shifts we’ve made and how we’ve done that together. And I feel like this season of the podcast, and if we’re being honest, most seasons of the podcast,

[00:09:31] The Evolution of Who You Married

Tanya Dalton: we explore this concept and this idea of evolution, of growth, of changing and shifting.

And I think so often people fight it, but I think about all the different iterations of you I’ve been with. So

John Dalton: I’ve been with the same man for 25 years, but you’re not the same man.No, not at all. I mean, just the, the difference in where we are compared to the plans that we had when we first got together, Me, being an ad advertising executive, you were a teacher, and then when we had kids, after I went to business school, you thought you were gonna be a stay-at-home mom and, I was gonna be the, the corporate guy, that went off to work, did some business trips, just kind of that

middle class family and that, that, that is not us. And that, I don’t think long term, obviously that would not have worked for us. but I think the key all along is not that we just spend so much time together, but that we have so many conversations together. We communicate so well.

Tanya Dalton: Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think that’s the thing that I’m always surprised at how people don’t talk as much as we do because. talk all, all the time. Like even after you get off a call, I’m like, Hey, what’d you talk about? What’s going on with your projects that don’t involve me or what I do? I’m, I ask a lot of questions.

You asked me a lot of questions, and

[00:10:51] The Path in Marriage is Never Straight

Tanya Dalton: you touched on this idea, I think a few minutes ago with this, this concept or this idea of, we signed up for this track or this path of, okay, I’m a teacher, then I got pregnant with Jack while you were getting your MBA and I thought I was gonna be a stay-at-home mom and you were gonna go do the corporate track.

And here we are. How many days later? What is it? 8,694 days later. Never would’ve guessed I would be here

John Dalton: No, not in million years.

Tanya Dalton: not in a million years, if you had said to me, when I quit teaching that you’re gonna be doing these things, I would’ve said,

I’m sorry you have the wrong person.

Because it has been a twisty, bendy, contorted, sometimes moving backwards, sometimes moving forward type of road.

But I’m so grateful for it. I’m so happy for it because I think it has totally shifted both of us in the best possible way. And we do. We’re so far off that original track that we thought we were gonna be on. It’s not even funny.

John Dalton: 100%. And I think this is obviously the track we were supposed to be on, but if when I was in business school and somebody told us that one of us was gonna write a business book, that would be named as one of the top business books by Fortune Magazine. I mean, in 2003, I would’ve said, well, I guess that’s gonna be me because.

You’re, you’re not a business person, right? And then here we are years later where, I work for you. we went through two different companies. It’s like, it’s crazy that journey, like some of it doesn’t even make sense, but, that’s where we are and I think we’re much happier because of it.

We didn’t try to fit into any kind of roles.

We just evolved.

Tanya Dalton: we didn’t fit into any type of roles. I think that’s the thing. It’s like the small boxes and we tried for a bit to cram ourselves in those boxes and it wasn’t fitting, it wasn’t working when we were trying to play to like, oh, this is what you’re supposed to do and this is how this path works.

We totally fought it and pushed against it.

[00:12:50] Selling inkWELL Press

Tanya Dalton: And we have done, we’ve done so much between the kids and the businesses and just recently I feel like we have had this big evolution, this big growth period since we sold inkWELL Press, which is something I haven’t talked about. I was realizing the other day, we have not talked about the fact that I sold my company Inkwell Press because I’m still very involved in it.

But that has been a big shift for me and changing who I look at myself as and how I identify myself, and I think it has for you as well, right?

John Dalton: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, set aside just the, the reduction in duties, right? That, that goes along with, with selling that company, no longer being as involved in production and all of those types of things has really freed us up to. do different things. Kind of think about what kind of a lifestyle we really want.

I am very happy that we’re still involved with inkWELL Press. I mean, it’s kind of like one of our kids, right? That we sent off to college in some ways. so it’s, it’s fun to see it keep growing and be involved with it. But, we’re in an entirely different place now, and I think it’s just another new chapter for us in trying to figure out, okay, what’s next?

Tanya Dalton: I think that’s the thing is that shift has been so fascinating because it is, it’s like we sent our kid to college. So for those of you who don’t know the behind the scenes of selling inkWELL Press, we have sold it to Blue Sky, who was our partner for many, many years, who has been an incredible partner.

And I think that was a thing for us, is we wanted it to feel like we were sending our kid to college. We sent Jack to college, we raised him, we nurtured him, we took care of him, and my goal was for him to spread his wings and fly and soar and go off to college. We’ve talked about that on the show. that’s always been my goal with my company as well, was I nurtured it.

I loved it. I wanted to do all these things, but it got to a certain point where I wasn’t prepared to take it to the next level. Blue Sky did great job of getting us into stores, making our products more accessible, having the bandwidth and the ability to create more products so that more people can use it.

And I knew that that wasn’t something that we were going to be able to do or that really, that I even wanted to do. Which is hard for those of you who are business owners, you understand how difficult that that was. For those of you who aren’t, I would say when you start a company, when you’re a founder, that company is like another child to you.

It’s your loudest, most obnoxious child. It throws the most tantrums the most expensive,

John Dalton: exactly.

Tanya Dalton: it’s your child and the idea of. Letting go of that child can be really scary and daunting, which is why we really wanted to make sure that we were handing her off the company, handing her off to the best possible hands who we knew was gonna take her to the next level.

Just like Jack going off to college, just like we’re raising Kay to go off and become an adult Same thing here.

And I think it’s been so amazing because we are still so directly involved. I’m still meeting with the team over at Blue Sky. We gather together, there’s a whole team of incredible women and John,

John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Yep. It’s, it’s always been that way. So why would it change now? Right.

Tanya Dalton: Right. We have this incredible group of women though, who are taking the reins and really taking her to the next levels. And I’m still so involved with what the designs look like and how it ties in with the productivity. And even with the new iterations, which I’m not sure I can talk about, but we do have new versions coming out.

I’ve been directly involved. I’ve been meeting with some of our most amazing clients and customers who’ve been, with us for years talking to them about what kinds of things they wanna see with the, the new iterations.

[00:16:49] My Identity Crisis

Tanya Dalton: And so it’s just been, it’s been amazing to be able to do, but it’s also been scary because so much of my identity, so much of who I am, is tied up in that title of c e o.

And then it became this question of

What now? Who am I? What am I doing?

And that was like a little bit of a crisis of identity.

What is this going to look like?

John Dalton: There was a little bit of a, I don’t know, a post sale hangover, if you want to call it that, where we just kind of had to figure it out, and we weren’t commuting to an office anymore. that was maybe easier than it would’ve been pre covid, but it was still an adjustment, right?

That we weren’t going into the office every day. There was a lot of responsibilities that weren’t ours anymore. and it was one of those things where we were just trying to like, okay, what’s next? and I totally agree with you. Blue Skies are just an amazing partner and they still are a partner, so it’s fun to see that company continue to thrive and, and fly.

You know, we, we let the bird out of the nest and it’s, it’s continued on, on its journey and we get to watch it and be a part of it, and that’s great.

Tanya Dalton: We had 17 products on a beautiful display in Staples in the fall. We, you and I couldn’t have done that with what had.

John Dalton: Mm-hmm.

Tanya Dalton: So that’s, that’s what’s incredible is taking something as far as you wanna take it, and then handing the baton to somebody who’s gonna take it to the next round.\

[00:18:10] The Need for Re-pacing

Tanya Dalton: Ah, it’s, it’s pretty amazing. But it did create this little bit of instability personally for who am I and what does my day look like? And I’ve been talking throughout, throughout this season and probably throughout the last season, about this idea of repacing that I went through, are obviously next to me throughout, where, and, and people are like, what does that mean again? Something you can’t Google, cuz I come up with these, these ideas or concepts, but I,

I feel like I was operating at a pace of go, go, go, go, go. And we were moving along and doing things and I work fast, I work well, I work hard, I get things done fairly quickly and I love that pace. It felt very much my natural pace.

And then all of sudden we take these things off my plate and I’m like, whoa, hold on. I don’t have enough in my day or I don’t have enough going on. So a lot of what we talk about here about, taking a lot of things off your plate, it is unsettling. And I started to realize that I think we all move, work, produce at a pace that’s maybe not naturally ours. I When we are children, we are sped up. Our parents are like, come on, come on, come on, catch up, catch up, catch up. Right? You’re moving too slow. Stop dawdling or they go: slow down. You’re moving too fast. And they start shifting and changing our pacing.

We start moving faster than what we naturally would move at or slower than what we wanna move at. And I’m not saying this is bad cuz it’s our parents’ fault. It’s just this is how society works. But we start working at this pace and then when you have the bandwidth, like we had this beautiful open space of, okay, now what we don’t have a whole lot on our plates.

What does this look like? I began to question that. Is that really my pace, which was unsettling, right? big swaths of time

or writing down my priority list and there’s like two things on there.

John Dalton: Yeah.

Tanya Dalton: whoa. Talk about really coming to that realization that so much of my value has come from the doing, the striving, the trying from what we do.

And I really began to realize and noticing this and the world around me, so many of us pin our value. We equate our worthiness to how much doing happens in our day. Did I do enough? I think that word enough comes up again and again. So many times with the women that I talk with, I, how do I know if I’ve done enough?

How do I know if good enough? And it’s so hard when you, when you’re not even working at your own pace.

John Dalton: It was an adjustment for both of us. But even for me, who I don’t naturally work at your pace, as we’ve, we’ve had lots of conversations about this, but it was a pace adjustment for me too, and I think it was, like you said, when you have two things on your priority list, You, you feel guilty before you even start.

Like, what? I have all this extra time, and your brain just automatically goes to this place that, well,

If I have extra time then, then I’m wasting time.

And you start looking for things to fill it with. And it took us a long time to figure out, like, why, why are we doing that? Do we have to fill every moment of every day or can we just enjoy some of that time?

And I mean, it seems like a simple question, but it, it really, it was difficult. It was difficult to adjust to that and feel good about. reading a book or taking a nap or something like that, that is actually a very productive activity when you get down to it. but we had been in this loop, of, this whole cycle, especially since we sold a dated product, right?

Everything had to happen at a very specific time, and we, we didn’t have those kinds of parameters, those barriers, and those deadlines anymore. so it, it was an adjustment for sure.

Tanya Dalton: It definitely took some shifting for us and I think what’s funny is I’m the author of The Joy of Missing Out. I’m a big advocate for finding and missing out, but then suddenly you feel like, wow, I’m, there’s a lot, you start to really embody that. The idea of embodying it is really difficult at times, and I’m a person who’s never overfilled my plate because I was so mindful of it.

I mean, I like to say that I eat what I cook. I don’t just talk about productivity. I don’t just talk about the things on the show. I actually

John Dalton: Right. Mm-hmm.

Tanya Dalton: But when it is like a splash of cold water, a giant shift like that, it really can disarm you. It can make you feel a little bit unsettled. And I that’s, it was such a great realization for me.

I know to really dive into, do I like these big paces? this, do I like these big spaces in my day? Do I feel, and and you’re right, like taking a nap in the afternoon,

[00:23:02] The Optimal Nap Time Length

Tanya Dalton: I’ve, I’ve been an advocate for taking naps for a very, very long time. For you who don’t know, I call them 26ers because

a 26 minute nap is the optimal time for a nap.

NASA has tested it relentlessly with its astronauts, and 26 minutes is this ideal nap time, even if you’re not sleeping, just resting your body, closing your eyes, and just relaxing. But when we had, an opportunity to, okay, every afternoon, we could take a little nap time.

Wow. It really is. It’s a little bit shocking and it, and it feels wrong, like maybe we’re something that we’re supposed to be doing, and there we have the red flag word of should,

John Dalton: Yep.

Tanya Dalton: be doing more.

I shouldn’t be taking a nap. Anytime we use that word should automatic red flag, that for me is my sign that I have to stop and I need to ask that question. Hold on. Is this true? Is this a true story or is this something that I’m telling myself? Because I’m looking around what everybody else is doing and do I do what everybody else is doing?

Quick answer. No, I don’t. what I wanna do.

John Dalton: Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, that’s the thing that it was unsettling, but really. Now looking back on it after some time, it really was such a gift for us to be able to take a step back from that pace and figure out what really is our natural rhythms. And that’s something that you talk about too.

but we were going at such a speed that I think we’d lost sight of that a little bit. and that gave us the opportunity to find ourselves again, and not feel guilty. About things like the 26ers, and for those of you keeping track of the Tanyaisms in this episode, I think that’s the third one, the things that just you created.

Tanya Dalton: my kids when they were, were younger, I’d always say, I’m going for a 26 er. They knew. They knew it was a nap.

John Dalton: And for somebody else, it may sound like a basketball team or something. That doesn’t make any sense, but it’s great. It works.

[00:25:02] The 4 Questions for Reflecttion

Tanya Dalton: You speak my language. You know me. You know me. But I think that’s the thing. It is, it allowed us that space to really step back. And it’s funny, I just talked about this in the last episode with Dr. Una,

how we’re talking about that idea of reflection, giving yourself the bandwidth, giving yourself the space to step back I.

Very intentionally take four times a year where I block it off on my calendar and I step back and I say, okay, who am I? Am I showing up how I want to be? Do I like where I am? Do I like where I’m going? And if I need to make any adjustments, that’s when I do it. And I had this beautiful, bigger time span of stepping back to say, okay.

What next? What do I really want to do and lean into, which has been of course doing more speaking and I just had that Oxford talk that came out, which has been the culmination, first of all, of me really getting clear on what I wanna do is this next evolution of myself, but also all of that repacing, all of that questioning of time management I was doing.

[00:26:09] Time Management Doesn’t Work

Tanya Dalton: During the pandemic with the sale of the business, with me doing all this repacing, all of that turned into these lessons that turned into my 10 minute Oxford talk, people are apparently really resonating with, which has been. That’s been crazy. It’s been amazing. In the first

we had like 60,000 views.

My Forbes article that I wrote where I talked about a lot of the same things, it went viral. My entrepreneur article was named an editor’s pick, and so it’s obviously resonating and I feel like this is the next thing is really getting people to question the time management to question how we’re working.

And that’s part of why I want to go in and speak to a lot of these businesses and corporations about the 40 hour weeks and changing the relationship with time that the leadership has because then it trickles down to everyone else.

Cuz that’s, what I’m here for. I’m here for an impact Right. And being able to, to really step into that has been really powerful.

John Dalton: Yeah. Watching the Oxford talk and the whole process of you writing that, which you didn’t have a lot of time, it kind of came up pretty quickly, but it was a lot of fun, trying to figure out how to take that message, and fit it into 10 minutes, right? but it has made a big impact on a lot of people already.

I mean, I think you were just talking with someone today who was telling you that she’s already made some changes within her company and things like that, which makes us so happy, that, that it is making an impact because like, like you say, in that Oxford talk, it’s based on a very, very old model, almost

a hundred years old at this point. And so many other things have changed. why shouldn’t we change this? There’s gotta be a better way that makes people feel more productive and less burnt out. and I think it’s time for us to figure out what that means. and I think your Oxford Talk was a fabulous first step, and it makes me so happy to hear people already trying to make steps to implement those things.

Tanya Dalton: I think that’s what I’m most excited about is I have heard from people I, I’ve totally shifted how I’m managing my team. I’ve totally changed how I’m doing business. I’m looking at the KPIs. I’m looking at all of those things and focusing on quality. It’s funny because I had a call. I guess it was earlier this week with a woman that I’m really good friends with who runs her own company, and she was like, I love the message.

I saw one of your highlights that you posted on LinkedIn and I wanted to like it, and then I was like, oh. Maybe I, maybe I can’t like this. Maybe I can’t say it’s okay, because I have a team member who doesn’t really pull their weight and so I’m, I’m having to tell them they have to sit in their seat for 40 hours a week, so maybe I shouldn’t like it.

And I was like, oh, that’s a perfect reason why you do need it, because that person sitting 40 hours a week in that chair. We want that person sitting fewer hours doing the quality work, and if they’re not doing the quality of work, they shouldn’t be in the chair at all, quite

John Dalton: Exactly. Yeah. And I think that’s part of it too, is, whatever that next system is or iteration of the workforce, it’s, it’s not a one size fits all model that Henry Ford came up with, to run his production line. I mean, businesses are running in so many different ways. They do so many different things, we shouldn’t.

Hold everybody to the exact same standard and put the same barriers on around everyone. It doesn’t make sense. And then for some people, they need more barriers than others, and that makes them more effective, and that’s totally okay. so there’s a, there’s a lot to it. It’s not an easy thing to tackle, but, I think if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s time to figure out how to tackle it.

Tanya Dalton: Well, I think it goes back to this idea of the purposeful productivity, which is the whole foundation of everything that I teach and talk about is the, the purposeful part of productivity. Making it really intentional, making sure that it’s really mindful and that we are not just doing things that we think we are supposed to be doing because this is how it’s just been done.

And quite frankly, this is not how it’s always been done. It’s only been done this way since the Industrial Revolution, since factories came on the scene for hundreds of thousands of years previously, we didn’t work this way at all. So it is, it’s questioning things and it’s funny. So in that conversation with that CEO I was talking to her about, I equate it to mindful eating.

[00:30:49] How to Eat Mindfully

Tanya Dalton: Right. You and I had a period our lives not that long ago where we were not very happy with how we were looking. There’s a picture me, and for those of you watching the video, I’m gonna go ahead and share it

I was very unhappy with how I looked.

I was probably about 35, 40 pounds heavier than what I am now.

I thought I was doing all the right things. I was like, well, I don’t know what’s happening. We had a conversation with our best friends, Curt and Erika, and they introduced us to this whole concept of mindful eating. I am not kidding you.

you know what I’m gonna, for those of you watching the video, I’m gonna post this, picture these pictures on, on the video, because you’ll see here, this is a picture of me in the fall of 2017, and then you’re gonna see a picture of me in December of 2017, and you’re gonna say, how is that the same person?

Because I am so much more fit just like three months later. It’s crazy started getting really intentional and mindful with how I was eating. I think time is such an abstract concept, right? think that’s why of the struggles that I have, this is why I’m always in my books, having the diagrams, or I like to have the analogies because it is so abstract.

And to me this is the same thing. So you can see a physical manifestation of the intentionality with how I transformed how I look physically. And it’s the same thing with time. We began to realize, wait, we were just eating our food. We weren’t really paying attention to what we were eating and we weren’t eating mindfully.

John Dalton: you talked about the picture of you.I mean, there’s certainly pictures of me that, I mean, frankly are unrecognizable from a few years ago. And,

Tanya Dalton: I put those in the video? Do I

John Dalton: yeah, no, that’s totally fine.

Tanya Dalton: Okay,

John Dalton: not ashamed.

Tanya Dalton: em in So those of you who are

John Dalton: might wanna go check out the video because I’m not kidding. I, you are more unrecognizable than me.

Yeah, it was a, it was, it was a little bit rough, but, the, the mindful eating thing is, very interesting and it’s very much what we were talking about before with repacing and paying attention to your own rhythms.

And it’s exactly the same thing. we were just eating our food. Like you said, we weren’t paying attention to, are we even hungry? Does this taste good? I mean, we just had been trained to eat when we were supposed to eat, and that’s all we ever thought about, and it obviously wasn’t working very well for us.

Tanya Dalton: It was very clearly not working for us. And it’s funny I, I just had this little light bulb based off what you just said there. We were eating based off the clock. It was time-focused versus quality focused, task focused, which is exactly what we’re talking about with why time management doesn’t work.

It was okay, it’s noon, it’s time to eat. Didn’t matter if my body was hungry, didn’t matter what my body really needed, it was time to eat. Okay, now it’s evening time. We eat dinner at this time, so therefore we have to have dinner right now. And so wasn’t paying attention to, again, the natural rhythms of how our body works.

[00:33:51] An Excercise to Help You Start Eating Mindfully

Tanya Dalton: So let me, let me share with you the exercise that I think totally shifted my thinking with the mindful eating, which then shifted and was a domino for time and everything else. So I wanna encourage you to do this exercise so you can listen to it now, but then come back to this point. I’ll timestamp it in my timestamp so that you can come back and listen to this again and do the exercise.

I want you to do is get a piece of chocolate. Not like just any piece of chocolate. Get a good piece of chocolate. Like don’t get Hershey’s. We don’t eat Hershey’s in my house. There’s way much wax in that chocolate. Get a good one. I’m a Cadbury’s kind of girl, so get a piece of chocolate. Maybe it’s Godiva, something nice.

Doesn’t have to be big. A little square. You want two of them. Exactly the same size. I want you to take that first square of chocolate.

I want you to pop it in your mouth, eat it just like normal. Go ahead and do that now, and I want you just to say, okay, all right. Ate the piece of chocolate. Register how it tasted. Okay, we good to go. Now I want you to take that second piece of chocolate, which is the same size as the first piece. I want you to break it in half.

And then I want you to break it in half again. So now you have one quarter of the size of the first one. And this time I want you to take that piece of chocolate and I want you to smell it. I want you to smell it. I want you to sniff it. I want you to take in the aroma of the chocolate, and then I want you to open your mouth and I want you to place it on your tongue, and I want you to allow it to melt on your tongue.

And then I want you to move the chocolate around in your mouth. Move it to the sides, to your cheeks, to underneath your tongue as you’re chewing it. Take your time, allowing it to melt. Maybe doing a little bit of chewing, but moving it around in your mouth. And now I want you to think about how did that second piece of chocolate taste, it was smaller, but I bet it was tastier, and I bet you feel so much more satisfied.

So here’s the thing. We as babies learn how to eat outta one side of our mouth. So we’re not really experiencing the food as a whole, but we’re also not savoring, we’re not allowing the flavors to linger in our mouth so that the crave center of our brain, which there’s a part of our brain that’s like, Ooh, I want this.

This sounds good. I’m hungry for this. Right? That crave center of our brain doesn’t get satisfied. Because we do chew, chew, swallow, chew, chew, swallow, and we’re just mindlessly eating. But if each bite you take, you savor it, you allow it to linger, it’s so much better

John Dalton: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It’s,

Tanya Dalton: far less to satisfy you far less.

John Dalton: It, it’s so crazy how that works. And I mean, and you can try it with different things, like, normally, like, let’s say you eat peanuts or almonds, right? Normally you throw four or five in your mouth at a time and chew ’em, but do the same thing with just one peanut. move it around in your mouth.

You can taste it so much more. And I think we’ve just been neglecting that. Crave part of our brain because you don’t just eat with your mouth and your stomach, you eat with your brain too, and you have to give it the time to satisfy that craving, or the craving doesn’t go away, which is why you eat four handfuls of peanuts instead of just one.

that was a very eye-opening exercise for me and it’s, the eating version of Stop and Smell the Roses. you are actually appreciating. and enjoying every little bite. It makes a big difference in how much you eat. And it was, that, that was a, a huge shift for us.

[00:37:29] Mindful Eatin Led to Mindfuul Living

Tanya Dalton: All of a sudden we were eating far less, so much less because we were so much more satisfied, and actually our stomachs were full. We had plenty to eat. Your stomachs only this big, same as our day is only 24 hours, So let’s go back to those words we just mentioned when it came to talking about the chocolate with the savoring and the lingering and the enjoyment.

Isn’t that what we want out of our day? Isn’t that exactly what we’re all looking for allowing ourselves to just be in the moment to soak it all in with all of our senses.

So with the food we just talked about, we’re smelling it, we’re tasting it. We’re taking it all in. And it’s the same thing in our daily life.

When we stop and we choose to move a little bit slower, when we’re more intentional, when we soak into the. To the present, it means we’re engaging all five of our senses. What do What do I taste? What do I hear? What do I feel? What do I see? All of those things. It allows it to savor and linger.

Savoring and lingering are like two of my very favorite words, and I feel like this idea, this concept of mindful eating was such a gateway for me to mindful living once I realized this is how good food can be, it was like, Oh, how good can my day be? How good can my life be? But it is stepping back and choosing how you want it to work and not just doing what everybody else does.

I had a feeling we were gonna talk about this, so I was gonna show, I brought this up. This is one of my favorite chocolates to eat. This is a Sanders dark chocolate sea salt. Caramel. And I love this. In my past life, this would’ve been one bite. Now, Nine bites. I eat this in nine bites, and you can see for those of you who are listening, this is like, it’s like one inch by one inch chocolate.

it on the screen for those of you watching the, the video. But I take small bites and it’s the caramel is melting and I, when I finish it, I feel like I’ve had a whole big candy bar and it feels incredible. And that same analogy works for our lives.

John Dalton: Yep. Totally.

Tanya Dalton: to, to really be present, when we choose to, to let go of the parameters of we have to be in our seats at certain times and those, and we lean into what’s most important, that’s what we get too.

The savoring, the lingering.

John Dalton: one of the things that. I thought of when we were going through that process. when you go to like a really nice restaurant, And they give you a little, a moose bouche or you get that little tiny plate and they bring it over and they, they present it to you like it’s the greatest thing in the world.

And they describe every ingredient. And so they’re just priming you to do exactly what we’ve just been talking about. Like you wanna be able to taste the sea salt that’s on top and the whatever the fresh oregano is and whatever it happens to be, and so you eat it slower because you’re trying to, experience it the way that it was presented to you, and that alone makes it taste better.

Which by the way, is why those restaurants do that. Not that the food’s not good, but they want you to think it’s really good. But you can do that yourself at home. And like you said, that’s, that’s what we should be doing with everything in our day, whether that’s the time we spend with each other the time we spend outside or.

The time we spend relaxing out on the patio, whatever it is we’re doing,try to be present, and look around, see what you can hear, see, smell, and, and really appreciate that moment for what it is.

Tanya Dalton: I think we all wanna be more present. I think the difficulty is we feel like we’re caught up at a pace isn’t ours.

So I want to encourage everyone today to really think about how can I, how can I focus in on what’s most important and be fully present? I love what you were talking about there. The, the being on the, on the back deck.

We light a fire a lot at night, John and I, and we read books or we just sit out there and visit and we listen to the birds. Makes me sound like old people when I say listen to the birds But we do

John Dalton: huh. We do.

Tanya Dalton: We do, or, or sitting down and really. Talking during your dinner instead of shoveling it in and, and trying to get through with dinner as quickly as you can to get the kids, to the next thing.

How can we slow down and really take it in?

John Dalton: Mm-hmm.

Tanya Dalton: of beauty in our everyday lives.

It’s slowing down and seeing it in the cracks and the crevices of every day. It’s when we slow down and we immerse ourselves and we allow ourselves to be fully present, that’s when we go deeper. Deeper in our relationships, deeper in our, our quality of life, deeper in our satisfaction and our happiness for what we have in our world, deeper in our gratitude.

And I think it’s really powerful and it is not hard to do. I like to say what I teach is not rocket science. It is all incredibly easy and simple to do. The hardest part is making the decision that you’re gonna do it. It’s taking that time to be intentional, and so that’s, that’s really what I wanted everyone to get outta today’s show is just being alongside of me as I’ve been on this amazing, crazy journey with John.

Over the last 8,000, what are we, at 8,694 days and I have been together. It’s been an incredible journey. We have, both of us have been different people at different times as we’ve made our twists and turns in life, but we were always present and I think that’s that’s what helped, has helped us get through all of this, all the hardship, all the amazing things, all the difficult things.

I’m I’m so grateful, John, that we have. Had those days together and we have so many more to

John Dalton: yeah. Well, thank you. I mean, they’ve been 8,694 wonderful days for me too, and I, I can’t imagine sharing them with anyone else. So thanks for having me. And I, I think this is, such a great message and I, I hope, a lot of your listeners really take it to heart.

Tanya Dalton: Me too, me too.

All right. I hope you enjoy today’s show. It’s always fun to have John on the show because I feel like he knows me so well. Clearly after 8,694 days, I sure would hope he knows me. But if you are listening to this episode, I wanna encourage you to go onto my YouTube channel because I’m gonna make sure to include those pictures of me from 2017, those pictures of John. I think you’re gonna be surprised at what you see, because I love that we dove into this whole idea and this concept.

I do really feel like mindfulness, it’s such an abstract concept.

It’s hard to grasp, but when we talk about it in terms of how it affected me physically, I think maybe that’ll make a difference. Because ultimately that’s my whole goal of what I do here. As you heard John say earlier in today’s show, where I am today is not at all where I anticipated being, having a podcast, having having two books out on purpose and the joy of missing out.

Being able to speak on stages and meeting with companies and corporations and doing keynotes. All of that was not part of the plan. When I met him all those 8,694 days ago, I had a very different idea of where I was gonna go, but I really do believe it’s the twists and the turns of life. It’s when we get off the path.

So often we are on that super highway of life going 80 miles an hour. Even though the speed limit’s 65 we’re racing just as fast as we can to get things done. We don’t stop to even look out the window and realize, wow, there’s a beautiful view. Or wow, there’s a whole different part of the world I didn’t even know was there.

Sometimes it’s not till we’re on a detour. When we stop and we say, oh, where am I? What happened? Do I like where I am, do I like where I’m going? That we realize

This is really where I was meant to be all along.

That’s the story of my life, and it’s, to be honest with you, the story of most people’s lives.

I think many of us are in a point or a place in our life that we never anticipated being, and there might even be things in our life that we long ago prayed for, that are now in our life that we now feel frustrated or irritated by. I’ve been there where it’s like, Ooh, I want this so badly. I’m gonna pray for it.

I’m gonna, I’m gonna do everything I can to make it happen. And then it does happen, and you’re like, wait, is this really what I wanted? I think life is a series of just shifting and changing and letting go and evolving and growing and allowing yourself to do that. I hope that today’s show has given you a little bit of insight in what that growth has looked like for me.

Being alongside John for half of my life, which I still can’t get over. Very excited about this milestone, but it’s, it feels big. It feels big, but it feels like me. And I think that’s the main thing is, you’ve heard me say this before, but so often we worry about being on the right path, doing the right things, making the right choices.

It’s always been your path all along. Where you are right now is exactly where you are meant to be. So I want you to take some time today to reflect back on, do I like where I am? Am I happy with where I’m going? And if you need a little bit of inspiration, I want to encourage you to go and listen to that Oxford talk that we talked about in today’s show.

My Oxford talk time management is killing your productivity. As I mentioned in the first two weeks at over 60,000 views, so it’s resonating with people and I want it to resonate with you. I wanna hear what you think about it. You can go to TanyaDalton.com/oxford to give that a watch. It’s 10 minutes and I promise you it’s 10 minutes.

That’s gonna shift how you look at time. So that’s a pretty valuable 10 minutes right there. . Oh, and make sure to go get some chocolate. I want you to do that exercise that we talked about during the episode. I’ll make sure to timestamp it. I’ll put it in my show notes. You can always go to tanya dalton.com/podcast.

All the show notes are there. I’ll timestamp it so you can come back. And I want you to do that exercise. Two pieces of chocolate, same size, just bite size. I wanna see if that shifts the way that you look at food. And I want you to think about not just in terms of food, but also your time and your life and how you wanna spend it.

All right? I hope you really enjoy that exercise. All right. I’m gonna sign off for today, but

here’s what I want you to walk away from today’s show, knowing. It is a lot of times the little tiny milestones like what I’m celebrating here today with the halfway point with John in my life. It’s the little things. It’s the big things. It’s the in between things.

It’s taking time to truly find enjoyment and being present. I think that is honestly the secret to my marriage it’s why after 23 years , we are so happy. It is about being present, being there with all five senses, not just for your spouse or significant other, not just for your kids or your friends, but being there for you. You know, John’s been here for half my life, but I’ve been here the whole time.

I wanna encourage you. To really take some time to be present today, gift yourself just a few minutes just to maybe sit outside, enjoy your piece of chocolate with that exercise, ,

because when you’re present, when you’re engaged, when you’re really finding meaning, In your every days, that’s when you know you’ve got the intentional advantage.

Ready to take action on what we talked about on today’s episode. The easiest way to get started is my free take five challenge, five minutes a day for five days. That’s it. And yet it will boost your productivity and double your happiness. I can promise you thousands have taken the challenge. Go to Tanya dalton.com/take five to join or click the link in the episode notes.

And don’t forget to follow the intentional advantage on your podcast player so you don’t miss an episode.

**The Intentional Advantage is the best productivity podcast for women leaders. The transcript for this episode was auto-generated, so please excuse any typos, misspellings and grammar mistakes.

 

Tanya Dalton is considered a top woman motivational speaker by companies and organizations. Her productivity keynote talks cover topics like balance and finding meaning in your work. To book Tanya to speak go to TanyaDalton.com/speaking