Investing in Self: Lisa Yancey (EP.13)
Last Updated
March 27, 2020
We're exploring different perspectives and approaches to personal and professional development and growth in our "Investing in Self" mini-series. This episode features entrepreneurial strategist Lisa Yancey.
Guest: Lisa Yancey
Co-Hosts: Tim Cynova & Lauren Ruffin
Guest
LISA YANCEY is the President of Yancey Consulting, LLC, advising a spectrum of practitioners, nonprofit organizations, philanthropists, and philanthropic institutions committed to dismantling inequities, enriching disinvested communities, building leadership, and amplifying diverse perspectives. She has worked with, facilitated, and provided pro bono services to over 100 organization or grantmaking institutions in the past 18 years. A lifelong entrepreneur, Lisa’s concurrent ventures include co-founding The We’s Match and SorsaMED, a biologics company dedicated to developing therapeutic solutions for chronic pain management using medicinal cannabinoids.
Transcript
Tim Cynova:
Hi, I'm Tim Cynova and welcome to Work. Shouldn't. Suck, a podcast about well that. On this episode investing in self personal and professional development and growth. Lauren and I have been conducting interviews on this topic with a number of fascinating people and we'll be sprinkling them into the mix with our upcoming episodes over the next several weeks. To start off this mini series of sorts, a few weeks ago, Lauren and I had the privilege to sit down with entrepreneur consultant, multiple business owner, dancer, choreographer, law school, graduate, and so much more awesomeness, Lisa Yancey. We covered a lot of ground in our conversation including why self care isn't selfish, discipline and mastery, approaching our life as the dash between two dates. What exactly were Lisa and Lauren doing in Mexico and why Choice Hotels will likely never sponsor our podcast. So without further ado, Lisa, welcome to the podcast.
Lisa Yancey:
Thank you. I'm glad to be here, Tim.
Tim Cynova:
So let's just start out with, tell us about yourself and your professional journey.
Lisa Yancey:
When I think about when someone asks me to tell me about myself, I'm like, which parts of myself are we talking about? Self. Let's see. I am the eldest of seven. I am the eldest of seven and a single child from the South. Atlanta, Georgia, specifically lived and now 20 years in New York. So I may be official New Yorker, Boston before that. I would say if you want to say what's the self of Lisa Yancey? I was a dancer and choreographer with a law degree and an entrepreneur who thinks about business. So I'm a creative, I live in creativity both in work and practice and I guess body.
Tim Cynova:
What did the young Lisa want to be when she grew up?
Lisa Yancey:
So a young Lisa wanted to be a dancer. She wants to be Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson combined actually. And she totally was in front of the television doing all the videos because we could not afford to be going no dance class. So dance class was television and learning the choreography there. I can't tell you how many times I tried to not fall from a chair falling over. Thank you Paula Abdul for that and Janet Jackson for that and pleasure principle. But a young leaser saw herself as a combination of Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul.
Tim Cynova:
And that leads to a law degree and New York and what you're doing now. So what was that journey like?
Lisa Yancey:
I tell people all the time that what got me through law school was dance and it was the discipline that comes from consuming lots of content and translating that in the body and the endurance of knowing what you can and cannot do and how to really strengthen your body that was transferable to strengthen your mind and absorbing a lot of content in law school. And so I actually went to law school because undergrad ended and I didn't know what I was going to do with myself and I was like, "Wait, I'm supposed to know, right now? I think, Oh, I need more time." Eh, sure. Law school. That sounds like an interesting fallback plan.
Lisa Yancey:
But I danced the whole time while I was in law school. I was in two dance company. I auditioned for Lion King. I got a call back, but it was in the middle of the second year. So I was like, "Oh, do I leave law school or dance?" It's been my journey into life, develop the art of dance, which is a creative practice in my practice and my life now is... I'm an entrepreneur. I have three businesses, one establish that's been around for now 19 years as a consulting practice and launching to other enterprises, one dedicated to black women entrepreneurs. Another is really looking at the medicinal cannabis industry.
Tim Cynova:
Lauren, you also have a law degree and imagine similar discipline from your days playing basketball.
Lauren Ruffin:
It's Lisa used the word discipline and there are words you don't hear very much anymore. And discipline is one of them and people have described me as being disciplined as a person, so that piqued my interest. I also went to law school because I didn't have anything else to do.
Lisa Yancey:
So anyone who's listening and you don't have anything else to do go to law school.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. I mean that was a three year break.
Lisa Yancey:
Yes.
Lauren Ruffin:
And almost 20 years later, I have friends who've known me for that long, who met me while I was in law school and did not know I was in law, school because I was doing so many other things. So law school was really on the back burner of my life. Discipline and mastery are words that you don't hear very often anymore. And I spend a lot of time thinking about how do you master something using your discipline, to sit down and learn as adults, we don't do that very often to do something over and over and over and over again until you get it perfect. And so often we're encouraged not to be perfect, don't let perfect get in the way of good or whatever that saying is.
Lisa Yancey:
But my dance teacher would have been like, "What? You've got to get it perfect."
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. You're going to do this, right?
Lisa Yancey:
That's right.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. No. So, and that's pretty old school. I don't hear that too often anymore.
Tim Cynova:
You both are involved in multiple businesses and are also always in your own way further developing yourself. Lisa, you're one of the most hardcore as it relates to protecting your time and your growth. It's like work hard, play hard, and Lauren, every time I talk to you, you've read another article about something in obscure of thing. I'm curious, let's start with Lisa. Lisa, how do you approach your personal and professional growth?
Lisa Yancey:
I think first I understand that they're not separate. It's just the I and the I am. It's not the I personal and the I professional and the I. It's just I. I'm really grateful for understanding that when I show up in my full self, no matter what I'm doing, it's just me in that cell and so how I protect it. I think one of the greatest lessons I learned was the ability to say no and understanding that I don't have to do anything. I don't have do anything I don't want to do, but that's a big deal. As a black woman coming from the South. From my experience, I want to be clear about that framing because I don't represent all black women.
Lisa Yancey:
Although I absolutely love and my work is dedicated to black women and I'm so grateful for the black women who have really been instrumental to my growth and my understanding of life. But we are all different. We are not one. But this notion of how we are groomed to show up and show out, show up and continue to deliver and prove and deliver. And when I learned that I need to show up for myself and that self care isn't selfish and sometimes it's okay to be preserving of self. In fact more times than not, in order to do anything you need to preserve yourself. And I think that giving yourself permission to one, say no and two, prioritize you was a big key moment to open up the doors in rethinking what's possible.
Tim Cynova:
What does your self care plan approach look like?
Lisa Yancey:
Ooh, my self care certainly lives first and fitness and that's probably because I was a dancer and choreographer and I am one of those humans who can't imagine not taking care of myself physically and love it because it is an outlet and it's a part of who I am and my disposition. But another piece of my self care is travel. I travel passionately, I work very hard, but I love to travel. I love to experience different spaces and places and I'm grateful that I've created a practice where my work can happen in multiple places.
Lisa Yancey:
And the wonderful team that I've developed who work with me, appreciate it and understand that their work can happen in multiple places and we're not restricted to conventional standards or four walls and that, so that's one of the ways I travel for sure. Fitness and meditation. I believe in manifestation and being intentional and speaking into existence and my mother would say about what you want.
Lauren Ruffin:
My answer is going to pale in comparison if you're looking at me.
Tim Cynova:
I'm looking at you.
Lauren Ruffin:
Like, I suppose to-
Tim Cynova:
For instance, I'm looking at you now.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, Tim is looking at me. Self care. So I was raised by a black man surrounded by some badass black women who did not have men to rely on them. And so no has always been a complete sentence for me, but I didn't have to learn that. I didn't notice it until I was in my thirties that actually is a skill that people don't... It's not natural and people have a very visceral reaction when you tell them no. Like just no, no explanation, no with a smile, no with high five, nope.
Lisa Yancey:
It's awesome.
Lauren Ruffin:
And then walk away. People have a very strong reaction to that. So that self care, that being said, I really do like saying yes to things and that's my tragic flaw. Good ideas, I can say no to, but there are a lot of great ideas that I get seduced by. And so I say yes to a lot of stuff. I love learning. So if I hadn't sort of decided to go to law school, I would've gotten a PhD. My father talked me out of it, but now I have the sort of... I'm actually been in one place for seven weeks for the first time in the last couple of years. And I am taking two classes, one at a community college. It's a film tech class and the other in Afrofuturism because why not at UNM and what joy?
Lauren Ruffin:
It's like I have a class every day of the week and I just love it. I'm just learning. It gives you time to think. I've always loved to write and Tim, you'll know this intimately. I have for the last four or five years, had a really hard time finishing anything I start writing because I have to stretch that muscle. I haven't had to do it in a while. And so having the structure around writing exercises in a class where I can talk about it and think about it and have other perspectives and that sort of dialogue and interaction, I think it's going to be a really important part of professional growth.
Lauren Ruffin:
And it wouldn't have been possible if I had a job that required me to be there from 9:00 to 5:00 every day at a desk. So in terms of sort of professional growth and thinking about how we structure our lives with strategy so that you can... That growth doesn't just happen. You have to be really intentional about creating the life that you need to be able to do it. I know that's just a lot of privilege for me to say that, but it doesn't just happen and I do admire. I was telling Lisa earlier today that I admire that she works out when she travels. I've lost 20 pounds while I'm at home.
Lisa Yancey:
Yay.
Lauren Ruffin:
I will put it back on while I'm traveling. That's my next life goal is now that I'm sort of back in shape. I'll never be like I was because I played basketball up until I was almost 35. I played four nights a week. That you're not getting back at almost 40 but the level of discipline it takes be able to work out while you're traveling in different time zones where you don't have a routine. You might not know the equipment. That's my block, but you have to be intentional about it and I think that's the part that I'm still learning and that I didn't know five years ago that I know now.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah. Lisa, when I think about you, I think about discipline and then same way that Lauren was speaking about, you are an incredibly busy, high-performing person who travels a lot and does all these different things. You still make time for people to help them. You still make time to exercise. You still make time for self care and you have three businesses and how do you keep that up? Because I feel like if I just could do it maybe two days in a row, then maybe I can start some kind of theme. You mentioned dance as sort of maybe grounding in it, but oftentimes over our life that sort of falls by the wayside.
Lauren Ruffin:
But is that discipline or going back to Lisa's last answer about the I?
Lisa Yancey:
Yeah.
Lauren Ruffin:
Is it the I?
Tim Cynova:
If only Lisa were here to answer this question.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah it's working. Somebody go get Lisa. Can we find her or is she... Let's ask Lisa if it's the I. Is the I the secret?
Tim Cynova:
Get her on the phone.
Lisa Yancey:
First of all, anyone who's listening. I love these two so much, so much. Oh my God. I know you love them too because you've been listening to them.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, both of them, both of [inaudible 00:12:28]. And now they love you too. That's the beautiful thing about our listeners is that they are expansive hearts.
Lisa Yancey:
For good reason. It's interesting to hear it. I'm like, I was going to say Holy shit. Can I say that?
Tim Cynova:
[inaudible 00:12:41] but you can say it.
Lauren Ruffin:
You can say lot of things on this show.
Lisa Yancey:
To listen to Tim to listen to you to describe it. It's different than hearing it like you do all these things then and I guess I don't know any black women who don't do a lot of things. Let me first say that. I was actually in a meeting with Lauren a while ago and we were in a meeting and they were talking about these multiple projects and people were doing this and Oh, you do that and that and that, and I think I actually made the comment, I was like, "I'm sorry, I just don't know any black women who don't do multiple things." So this is just part of the course. This is part of course, like for wall street, they call it diversification.
Lisa Yancey:
For us it's just part of diversifying the multiple passions and desires and things that we love and not feeling limited to fitting in anyone's box because quite frankly, we actually design for many of culture and we designed many boxes and so we don't have to feel confined to them. I think that I do it because some parts of me can't. I cannot. I love Lauren and then there's again, I said I love Lauren and some of the specific things that I really appreciate and connect with Lauren around is the art of learning and the joy of learning, the problem solving and ideation to convert something into something new from an idea.
Lisa Yancey:
The understanding that you don't have to be confined by what others think should be standard to not fall into a standardized thinking and have that liberated, I will say liberated over privileged freedom around that and so I don't know. I mean sometimes I hear from folks like, you don't do much, girl, you need so much. And then sometimes I don't get enough sleep. I will say that there've been plenty of times where I'm like, you need more sleep, or my doctor's like, you need more sleep, so there is a cost to it.
Lauren Ruffin:
Do you know how to sleep?
Lisa Yancey:
I do.
Lauren Ruffin:
Okay. I don't know how to sleep.
Lisa Yancey:
You don't know?
Lauren Ruffin:
No.
Lisa Yancey:
I haven't gotten really in it.
Lauren Ruffin:
Were you always good at it or.
Lisa Yancey:
No? Absolutely not. I had to set an intention. I had to set an intention getting sleep. I had to set an intention of eating regularly throughout the day when in work mode and so those things can be like, "Oh yeah, I forgot to eat or Oh four hours of sleep." You mean that's not normal or five hours of sleep, not norm.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. I'm happy if I get six, but it's usually not a straight six. It's a real messy six if I get there.
Lisa Yancey:
I've been doing great at setting seven.
Lauren Ruffin:
Really?
Lisa Yancey:
Yeah. I mean fell in the past three days, but typically pretty great at setting seven.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking about work and it's probably in the last six months that I realized there are people who don't think work is the purpose of life and I don't mean work like work with the big W, they'll all caps WORK. Angry work, but I actually, I don't know how to not do something that is progressive in furtherance of change or I guess I didn't know it was an option and it was funny my... Something happened the other day at home and Cassidy who's 12, my stepdaughter said something like, "Oh, I was just lazy." And I was like, "Hold on. Where did that word come from?" Lazy. I didn't know that word was, I still could never imagine that was that we have to do some real reframing of yourself and who you're going to be. Laziness is actually not an option.
Lauren Ruffin:
I do wonder about... I don't wonder. I know my father, so I know where that came from, but he started working he was five and I started working outside the home when I was 12, so I wonder now two things. One, I'm grateful for work ethic and having the ability to have to work all the time to put different tasks on and to be able to constantly iterate and I worry about the longterm impact of being like my father as he's in his '70s and he loves his job. He's a principal. Here's the whole thing is like, I'm going to die behind my desk. He loves his job and he's still high performing turnaround school. Think he got the fifth or sixth sort of highest most gains in Philadelphia last year, but is that healthy? That's my sort of back and forth in my head about work and how we work.
Lisa Yancey:
The healthy is, I feel like on the one hand is relative to the individual and then I'm sure there are doctors like actually no, there are some basics that you need, but there's something about doing the things that give you joy that gives you purpose and where you feel like my mother says this thing and I'll share it with your listeners. She was like, "Ultimately your life is the dash." And you're like, "Well, what do you mean?" She's like, "When you die, there's your birth date and then there's your end date, but everything else is your dash and if you are doing dash work, like if you want, what's your dash..."
Lisa Yancey:
And that's particularly meaningful for me right now given what happened with Kobe Bryant, for some reason I was telling Lauren earlier that it triggered me in a way of... I don't even know why, but I can imagine. What's my story? What will be my story because there's no question of, there are two dates. There's no avoiding of those two dates, you can't get around it, but what you can inform is your dash and so to hear your father about your father doing work that may be part of his meaningful work. That will be that thing that people talk about, that change lives is a part of his dash and that's what we have control over.
Tim Cynova:
Yeah, that's really powerful. Death always comes up in our podcast episode.
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, we really, it’s inescapable” isn't it?
Tim Cynova:
Even outside of the Grieving While Working episode, but I think it's related. I think being present in what you're doing and trying to find purpose, I think there's clarity and realizing that there is an end date and I think that also certainly informs my work and just what I want to learn. The stack of books that I want to read is just growing and every time I see people that I know read or are reading books, every time I run into you too, it's like I'm reading more articles and I'm more books and there's more stuff I want to learn and then figure out how that connects to my life and my work. And so it keeps driving you forward and then you also have to figure out, I can't just keep going like this because I'm going to burn myself out and I'm not going to have time to think and process.
Lisa Yancey:
Then you travel.
Tim Cynova:
Then travel, with all of them [crosstalk 00:19:00]. Backpack full of books. I love that, what your mom said, and I think it sort of speaks to the journey and being intentional around what we want that journey to be like and being intentional about work. We spend a lot of time doing it and we spend a lot of time doing the things and if that's our colleague Paul Olivia always says, "If it doesn't bring you joy, then I mean, why are you doing it?"
Lisa Yancey:
Yeah. Just say now.
Tim Cynova:
And I get that. There are other things that you might have to do because of that, but at least being intentional and like, I'm doing this because of that. Tell me about what you two did in Mexico because it sounds really cool.
Lauren Ruffin:
That was such a... What were you two doing? I was like, "Oh, no."
Tim Cynova:
I said it with the headphones. It's coming out-
Lauren Ruffin:
That was really intense.
Tim Cynova:
It's here.
Lauren Ruffin:
I think you should keep that in, but it was very intense. I felt under the spotlight. I felt persecuted and prosecuted.
Tim Cynova:
That sounded...
Lisa Yancey:
Yeah. Lauren, what were we doing in Mexico?
Lauren Ruffin:
Oh, Tim, what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico. Nope. Most certainly things happen that we want to disseminate to the listeners of this podcast. Lisa, you want to go first?
Lisa Yancey:
No, you go first. I'd love to hear your perspective about Mexico.
Lauren Ruffin:
So I'll start with the... I mean, we did the things that I love to do most with smart women, with smart black women in particular. We dreamed, we did a lot of dreaming. So Lisa touched on sort of the We's, which is an entrepreneurial group, cohort of women, black women, building businesses across a whole bunch of sectors that are all so intertwined and yet so desperate. And we talk about a model for what look like we work to sustain organizations like that at scale. And how do we feed each other? How do we feed and nourish each other? So that's the business stuff. The beginning of the business stuff. Beautiful house. Lisa has fantastic taste. I also am a bougie traveler. So you learn things about where people have you staying. And Lisa and I have the same sort of aesthetic.
Lisa Yancey:
Awesome. Good to hear.
Lauren Ruffin:
You'll never catch me on a... If I die in a Best Western, you'll know?
Lisa Yancey:
Oh, what?
Lauren Ruffin:
Yeah, exactly.
Tim Cynova:
We're losing sponsors left and right here Lauren.
Lauren Ruffin:
If die in a best Choice Hotels, nope. Not sponsoring this podcast. Absolutely not. Anyway, so beautiful location. Mexico's amazing. The food was great. I mean all the things that you want that you need to be generative in a group space, but time together, clear agenda, clear expectations. I mean it's Lisa, it was like Lisa in a nutshell.
Lisa Yancey:
It was interesting. So just to give some context, some business partners and I are starting a company called the We's Match and the We's Match and people were like what? It's like the idea of we, because we are one of we and our intention is to build an online and offline platform that supports black women entrepreneurs being able to net $1 million minimum in their business enterprise and have year over year growth. And so our anchors have been scale wealth and wellness.
Lisa Yancey:
And so we've integrated into the business model and are integrating into the business model. This notion that we don't center it the business, we sent her the woman and we believe our theory of change is that when you send her the person, her business will thrive. And when her business thrive, the community thrives. But it's really, I have always been about how do we build around the individuals and shift this notion of unicorns and this exceptionalism that let's just find the one business that hit the right moment and completely take from that moment and then trash it and get to the next thing.
Lisa Yancey:
We actually want to build and support thriving black women entrepreneurs because we know that their ideas, their products, their services makes the world better. And so we have had the opportunity over the past year in 2019, to work with five projects and one of the projects, it also includes the medicinal cannabis project that I mentioned earlier that we were talking as one of the core projects, but it's across industries, high-performing industries, brilliant entrepreneur, founders across the board from culture to AR, VR, construction, retail, medicinal cannabis and arts.
Lisa Yancey:
And so we had been in conversation with these brilliant women closely and as part of the exchange is if you share with us your core needs because your core needs will help us understand what our business model is. We didn't want to say, here's our business model, apply it. We really want to say what's the need and could we be useful? And so at the end of the year, we came together in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico and was intentional about the full experience of both bringing everyone there and creating a space where they understood that we see them and we see an honor their value and that there's a value in the assets that we bring when we can be in a space that we feel cared for and open and free and not overly expect it to give, give, give, give, give to exhaustion and then sleep.
Lisa Yancey:
And so it was just amazing, and I'm so grateful to be in the company of amazing thought leaders and entrepreneurs like Lauren and others who have been helpful in us thinking about our model moving forward. And so the Louisa match will launch in 2020, and a lot of that has to do with what we learned from those conversations in those spaces and the relationships that we developed in those spaces. And the understanding that the assets that we hold within our community is so great that we don't have to outsource everything, that there's a lot of assets and resources that live within and you compliment that with shifting and creating an ecosystem that's dedicated to the values of black women entrepreneurs thriving.
Tim Cynova:
You've been a successful entrepreneur for nearly 20 years. You are one of the people that I have had the ability to work with who puts their finger exactly on the thing that you're talking about. You might talk for three hours and you're like, "This is the one thing," and you like that is the one thing we should have just said that up front. As you start this new enterprise in this project, what learning, what do you have to do differently yourself as you approach this that you otherwise haven't had to do in part of your work today?
Lisa Yancey:
So my consulting practice has been around for since 2001, so this is the 19th year internal Oh my God. The thing that's different with both the We's Match and Source Summit, but the with the We's Match, what I would do differently in it and what we are doing differently is, first is in partnership. I think that we often start things as solopreneurs and one of the key takeaways that we got from these brilliant women in San Miguel is that if we solve for anything we have to solve for capacity and that not just identify where the capacity gaps are and not just make suggestions around what you should do, but actually do the work with the entrepreneur to solve for it and solve for it in a way that's sustainable. And that's one of the things that we will be doing differently is moving and advancing and taking the learnings from.
Lisa Yancey:
It's the market really. I mean they're great and awesome and I love them, but they're also extensions of the marketplace and letting the marketplace inform how we think about business, but actually advancing and moving forward on that thing faster and knowing that now that I have 20 years in this as an entrepreneur in one way, it don't have to be perfect. It's perfect. Is it placebo? Is it illusion? Just do the thing and know that part of doing the thing, it's learning and that the investments actually you should have learning that happens from it and that if something goes a different way than you expect it, it's not failure. It's part of the learning. It's part of the learning investment as opposed to any kind of shame that I've learned that and that I'm going to carry that understanding with my partners into these ventures. And that's a huge difference than trying to get it alright, know it alright, figure it all out in advance before we advance, before we start, before we implement, so that's a big difference. Lauren what would you say?
Lauren Ruffin:
I'm thinking, because you touched on capacity building in the marketplace. We recently had an incident where someone in a meeting brought up the pipeline problem and without going too much into that hilarious debacle. Funny debacle. I am curious on your thoughts about what is a non-existent pipeline problem in many ways. Because you talk capacity building, which is a little broader. What you're really talking about is how do we connect black talent with black entrepreneurs? Because I mean if you were just in the world listening, you would think that there is no black talent out there. So I'm just really, I mean it's a little bit of a tongue in cheek question, but still it'll be fun to hear your answer.
Lisa Yancey:
So if you are a listener, that's one of the listeners is like, "I want to do more. I just can't find them or they don't exist." We do exist. Really we do. It's not a lack of a talent issue is not that the pool is scarce, there's an abundance, it's just that you're not looking in the right place. You're disconnected to where the core source of ideas are. And perhaps that's because we've been structured to believe that A + B equals C. We haven't been liberated enough to know that a doesn't necessarily won't get to that C but let me think of A square times P squared plus two over here and Oh my God, it's just to my left.
Lisa Yancey:
And so I think that this idea of capacity building capacity and I want to hold one of the things that I think is a part of our unique value propositions that we hold. Also, emotional capacity and wellness capacity and wellbeing capacity in addition to the team and talent and people, but really holding mind, space and heart space into our equation of ensuring that the black woman entrepreneurs who will engage on our platform can succeed. I think about capacity and notions of pipelining and sourcing really in the sense of perhaps you just need to shift the kaleidoscope to the left or to the right and not be so pigeonholed in one direction. And if what you're yielding looking at that one direction isn't what you want, then do something different because you'll get different results.
Tim Cynova:
Well. Lisa, what are your closing thoughts today on investing in self personal and professional development? Thanks. But you want might not have talked about yet that you're like, this is actually really important. People need to really pay attention to this. Think about this.
Lisa Yancey:
I think that if I were to give some closing thoughts around investing in self, I would say imagine the individual who you give the highest regard. When you think about them, they excite you and you're like, "Oh my God, they are amazing," and then put yourself in that place and know that you are deserving of any space, time, investments that you are deserving of that. I think that one of the smartest things I did as an adult, and I'll close with this piece, because I walked away and learned a lot, was in 2014. I made a decision that I wanted to go away to think about what I wanted to do before I entered my 40th season, and I don't come from a trust fund.
Lisa Yancey:
I did not have a silver spoon. I work hard every day. There is no one else doing that. And so this idea of saying I want to go away, and I went to go away from six months and I live in New York. And so there's a cost of living in New York and then it costs of going away to a place. And the place that I wanted to go away to was a place that was French speaking, no political unrest, not on the beach because I needed to focus to be intentional and I wanted to make sure I was in a space where it forced me to manage otherness and the otherness that was not just being other as a black woman, but just a different kind of otherness. And how do I navigate that space while I create a space to imagine what I wanted this decade to be.
Lisa Yancey:
And so I ended up in Aix-en-Provence, it was 30 minutes away from the beach, not quite in Marseille. I could not be in Paris, although it was one of my favorite cities ever because I would've been distracted. And the intention set to get there, to create space for myself, to pause, to sleep for two months, to really sleep from working hard, to even be able to afford to be there and then open up and say, "Well, what do I want?" Just to ask myself, "What do I want? What do I really want? What difference? What's my dash? Really? What do I want my dash to be?" At the end of the day, it connects to... And that's why I started by saying the personal and professional aren't separate because my personal self dries the professional self and the desires around learning and thinking and being intentional.
Lisa Yancey:
My future self wants to be a person who makes a difference in the communities I care about. A meaningful difference that when I'm long gone, someone remembers that this was important for their life. I want to do something is meaningful for people other than that, and I needed to create space. And so I think that one of the greatest investments that one could make is creating space for yourself to pause and breathe and imagine, and listen and then do the other stuff. But you're worthy and everything that touches you, will benefit from you creating space for yourself.
Tim Cynova:
Lisa, it's always amazing to spend time with you.
Lisa Yancey:
Thank you.
Tim Cynova:
Thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Lisa Yancey:
You're welcome. Thank you for having me. Thank you, Lauren. It's always great to be in the room with the two of you. I really mean that.
Tim Cynova:
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