Maggie
Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Marriage Life Coach Podcast. Today is a very special day. I know I say that on every episode, but today is also a very special day. I have Vikki Louise here, she is the queen of time hacking. We’re gonna talk about what time hacking is. Just so you know, she is my friend, she is my colleague, she’s my client in the Marriage MBA program (the very first round of it). She’s an early adopter, because that’s one of the things that time hackers do. Right?
We’ll talk about that in a minute. And I’m gonna read you her official bio, but then I really want her to introduce herself because she’s done some amazing things in her life and her career that I just want to share with you. And then we’re gonna talk about being married and time hacking your marriage and all kinds of fun stuff. It’s gonna be an amazing episode.
So Vikki is a reformed hustler termed “time hacker.” She Coaches clients to achieve more in 50% of the time with ease. So she literally spends her life thinking about how we can get things done in a way that’s better, more nourishing to our minds, our souls, our bodies, our spirit, and not wasting time (we’ll talk about wasting time in a minute). She is redefining what the workweek looks like and creating a time revolution.
And I really wanted to have her on the show, because one of the things that I see is detrimental in marriages, is when we are so over scheduled and so overbooked and trying to squeeze the last drop out of every last minute, that then we don’t schedule time for ourselves, for our partners, for our relationship. And I just feel like Vikki is such a wise soul when it comes to thinking about time in ways that I’m sure I’ve never even thought of. I’m looking forward to everything she has to say. I hope you’re taking notes.
I’m going to say it again: she’s defining what the work week looks like and creating a time revolution. So if you’ve been hungering to feel better in your work week or hungering to not feel overwhelmed and over scheduled all the time, this episode is going to help you so much.
Okay. She has lived in four countries in the last two years. And today she is recording from France. Thank you, France. Avene – where Vikki calls home right now. She is the host of the F*ck Anxiety Podcast, F*ck Anxiety and Get Shit Done Podcast. And this is officially the first time I have ever sworn on my podcast, but that’s how it goes. Welcome, Vikki.
Vikki Louise
That was the only question I had for Maggie. When we started recording, I said is it okay if we swear? We got the clear.
Maggie
Here we are. So tell us, we know you’re the queen of time hacking, but tell us a little bit about what that looks like and what you do. I think it will be so valuable and so important.
Vikki Louise
Yeah, really, it’s breaking down all the rules that we have that are ingrained into us from school where we move based on every year. That’s how you progress, based on time, to careers and corporate structures where we progress based on time, and to the ideas that we have around a 40 hour work week or time equals results, time equals money, all of this stuff.
Really, when we speak about hacking time, we’re speaking about getting more done in less time, but also accelerating into our future, which is exactly, I think, what’s so perfect about having me on this podcast, because not only was it your first round of the Marriage MBA, but I’d been married for a little over a year when I invested in this program. I think that is such a profound example of time hacking.
Maggie
Yeah, that’s so good. Which by the way, you just reminded me, Vicky is the Godmother of the Marriage MBA program because she named it. I had made a list of like, literally 63 names. And we’re, at the time we were in a Business Mastermind together. And I had posted several of my names as options and my colleagues were like mmm, that doesn’t make my heart sing, right? And there was a Podcast Episode called Marriage MBA that had just come out while we were having this conversation and Vikki’s like, I don’t know why you’re wasting your time. This is the name. And this is the name so thank you, Vikki.
Vikki Louise
Yes, it’s such a great name. I saw the podcast episode. I was like, I want that. And then it worked.
Maggie
And then it worked and here you are. Okay, so when it comes to time hacking, today we’re going to talk about time hacking your marriage. But also, there’s so much that goes into that, because when you time hack at work, you time hack everything else, right? And some people might hear this and say time hacking, I’m all in. And some people might hear this and say time hacking…what is that? So, for that person who really, maybe has never heard this, this train of thought before? What is important to understand about time hacking?
Vikki Louise
Yeah, first thing I would say most people probably haven’t heard it, because I kind of made it up to the point where one of my clients at the time was like, you have to create a Wikipedia page. Yes, but no. But yes.
So simply put, it really is, you know, we are taught how to use our time, not how to optimize it. Whenever we are hacking something we are, you know, figuring out a new route to do something, we are figuring out a better way to use something or to achieve something. And that’s really how I define time hacking is: how do we optimize our use of time?
Maggie
I love it because my husband is in IT and so he does all kinds of security things. And one of the things that they do in IT, they call it a penetration test, and they get ethical hackers to sort of knock on the electronic doors of their systems and then see, can they get through or not get through?
So when we think about time hacking or time hacking your marriage, it’s like, what is the door that we haven’t knocked on that will take us exactly where we want to go? Maybe so much faster, right? Maybe we just opened the door and now we’re there, as opposed to walking the long way around the building. Right?
Vikki Louise
Yeah, exactly.
Maggie
And one of the terms that I use a lot, and now I’m going to really think about it like time hacking, I never made this connection until now, is research tells us that most couples when they struggle, they’ve been struggling on an average of six years before they get help. And I say when people join Marriage MBA is: you’ll make more progress in six months than you have in the last six years. So that’s really, now I know, it’s time hacking.
Vikki Louise
That’s exactly what it is. And also, I love how your husband works in IT and you know more about that as well. The idea with hacking, and I think you would agree with me here is, you know, you’re not gonna join the Marriage MBA, and Maggie’s gonna tell you how to do everything.
You’re not gonna join Time Hackers, I’m going to tell you how to plan your week, it really is putting you in the expert seat of your relationship, of your life. Like that’s been one of my big takeaways, being in the Marriage MBA has been really like we can all come with different relationships and different things that we want to work on and different goals. And it doesn’t matter because we’re using the tools, we’re hacking our relationships with your guidance and mastery and tools and the support of the community.
Maggie
I love that so much. So when I think about it, and everything in computers, marriage, time, whatever we want to apply it to is like, there are certain levers that when we pull them, will yield certain results. But maybe there’s 100 of them. And I don’t know which combination of levers is best for you. And you don’t know which combination of levers is best for the Time Hackers that are in your program.
But you know what the levers are. And I’m like, these are the ones. Which one do you like, right? And that’s really my thought about even everything on the podcast is like I talked about things every week, and there might be one podcast episode that you go out, and you just do that one thing. And that changes your relationship forever.
It’s like, but I’m going to give you all the different things to choose from. And then you’re going to experiment and play with which ones are really resonant for you. So that’s, I think such a great way to think about that. So you mentioned that you joined in your first year of marriage. What prompted you to say I want to do this, like, what was the thought leading that?
Vikki Louise
So a few things. Firstly, when I met you, I literally remember meeting you in person, and you were so warm and welcoming. And I think there was just like immediate trust and safety, which was lovely. And I think you give that over your podcast as well.
And the second thing at that same week, in our Mastermind in person, I sat at a table with five or six pairs that were all speaking about their amazing second marriages. And I was like, “Oh my god, like I want my second marriage already.”
One of them became a client of mine and she jokes, “So we’re gonna make your first marriage as good as the second one.” Like, I don’t think I’d ever found myself in that room having those kind of conversations and I think it was the first switch in my head of like, okay, we are evolving. I haven’t done marriage before. I teach failing my way to success. I don’t really want to do that here.
What if I was committed to this working out into my future, with, you know, with him or not really in the end, but right now it really feels like with him, you know? If I’m committed to give everything, then what would I do? And I mean, I love groups and communities. So I think that was really such a pulling for me as well. And it was just kind of like it was probably in the back of my head, hankering.
And then one day, the coin just flipped of like, oh, I’m just gonna do this. And in fact, I remember exactly the thought it was — I invest a lot in my business. And my relationship is as important if not more than my business, really my personal relationships. And I just really wanted to give that gift to myself. And I don’t know if you remember, but I went to apply twice.
And the questions were, at the time, speaking about like, a problem and I felt like it wasn’t really related. But I came back to it and sent you a message and said, “I think I want to do this, do you think it’s for me if this is my situation?” And we spoke about it, and it was great. So I think it was a combination of committing to my future, literally time hacking and being like, I’m not gonna wait.
You know, you’ve Coached me on something and you said, it’s so great we’re Coaching on this now, because it might not feel like a big thing now, but five years of that same thing, it compounds. So I feel like I am literally time hacking my marriage by being in this program. And really, it’s a priority for me. I just know it is. It’s one of the most important things, if not the most important thing in my life, is the people I’m with. And I don’t think we’re taught to invest in that.
Maggie
That’s one of the things that I really think is so important to have a podcast like this to have conversations like this is just to be like, hey, investing in the middle of your marriage is more important, not just equally as, but we invest in the beginning with like weddings and honeymoons. Some people have to invest in the end when it’s a divorce, right? We invest in these things and these bookends, but do we invest in the middle? I want to make us a culture that says, “Yes, Yes, we do.” We do it all the time, in big ways in little ways, right?
Vikki Louise
Yeah, I was literally thinking about this recently, like how we are taught to spend, like the beauty industry, I decided to stop wearing makeup. I told my husband this morning, the beauty industry is like $100 billion industry that makes me feel ugly when I’m not wearing makeup. And as like the opposite, like nourishes me, and makes me feel better. Like I always get a return.
That’s what I found with being in your program is like even just making the investment. It’s something I speak about when I’m selling my program, but I really experienced it with yours as well, making the investment and then the first week I had something happen where I had the “don’t be vulnerable in the group situation.”
And because I made the investment, I was like, I’m gonna be vulnerable, I’m gonna get, you know, the help that I’ve, that I’ve come here for. And it was so amazing to have. And so great to be so thankful for Vikki a few weeks earlier that had made the decision and made the investment. That meant I had the support at that time.
Maggie
I love that so much. One of the things that we talked about on the very first call, and I’m sure you talk about this, too, is get what you came for. Whatever it is, you’re here for, like I’m here to help you have it, but I can’t make you have it, I can only help you, you have to decide, right? It’s so powerful.
And I love something — I love so many things that you said — the beauty industry, I’m going to be thinking about that for a while after our call, right? About the industries in our lives where we feel worse when we don’t have the thing. Whereas we could have just have our whole lives without the thing and that would be fine. And then the industry is in our lives where we always feel better from having the thing. Such a great distinction. I’m just, I know I’m going to just sit with that for a bit.
But something that you said was the questionnaire changed. And I want to say thank you because it changed because of you. So thank you, my Godmother for the program. And what happened was and what I want to talk about in the podcast, too, is a lot of times people come to me when they’re struggling like there is genuinely a big thing with a capital B wrong that they want help with and then they come to me for help.
But what I find even more happening more and more often now is we have the big things and then we have the big pile of little things. And it’s just a big pile of little things. But they can be equally as disturbing, as equally as needing of attention, and time and compassion and working through.
And so some clients come to me and they really want to go from like I don’t even know how this is gonna go to better. And some people are like you where they have good and they want to go to great. And I love that you you mentioned your own experience of that and it really helped me see — it’s like no, if you want to make your marriage better, however you want that to look like in this program, we’re for sure gonna do that. Wherever you start doesn’t matter, right?
Vikki Louise
Yeah and for me it’s like I came into the program, I’m like very loved up with my partner. Like I’ve been single for a while. I was very loved up. I was like almost a little bit obsessed and he puts up with it, but actually that’s not the kind of relationship I want going forward and I think it’s interesting for people listening that like, you can really like…
I think it’s that other end of the spectrum where we think, “Oh like if I really love them then it’s fine,” but no, because then I was having other things show up that we were able to resolve together. So wherever you are, if you are listening to this podcast, chances are there’s something that you feel like could be better and I would really encourage anyone that’s listening and thinking that, to chat with Maggie.
Maggie
Yes, okay. Tell me, you said one of your favorite things already but tell me a couple of your favorite either “aha moments” or concepts or anything that was like, “Oh and now I’m going to have this just in my back pocket for forever.”
Vikki Louise
For me it’s all about separating my identity as a partner and my identity as a person and removing the judgment that I had around myself. And then the “big aha” — the first one that will always, gave me the value of the program within a week, was not realizing the layer of judgment that I was putting on my partner based off of my past.
So like he had to change because of the changes I had made. I was like, if you were in a partnership he gets to do what he wants and I get to do what I want. And you know, it doesn’t mean anything about him as a person. It doesn’t mean I’m better because I’m not doing it and you know, really, at that point in time it was super strong. And that really was a big taken for me.
Maggie
That’s so huge because you mentioned you’ve been married about a year. And imagine, and it has happened, and I’m sure people listening to the podcast right now, they’ve been married 10 or 15 years, and it’s like where do I end and my wifedom begins, right?
And really it can get very sticky and even in small ways. So I’m going to give you a really small example, but I remember years ago I wanted to buy a painting for the house and it just has peace on it, it says peace, it’s very pretty.
And as an independent career woman I make all kinds of decisions, you know. At that time I was managed a multi $100,000 budget in my department. I can’t buy a $50 painting without saying, “Hey, what do you think?” Right? And I had this moment where I was like, hold on, I like the painting, I’m just gonna buy it.
If he’s not in love with it, I’ll put it somewhere where he doesn’t have to look at it all the time, right? But it’s that: where do I end and we begin, is something that just even having the conversation and talking about it and thinking about it will help you get more clear. So I love that that’s one of the things that resonated for you.
Vikki Louise
And the last one that I’ll mention because I could go on and on. It was also the work around the stress cycle and really just understanding to like not react in that moment, but we can like hug. We can do tha. Or I can go to another room or he can go to another room. Like he’s allowed to be in the stress cycle and I don’t have to pull him out of it.
Maggie
Yes.
Vikki Louise
I don’t have to be there for it and I don’t have to rescue him out of it. And there’s nothing wrong. And typically what happens is he recovers really fast and then understands himself and we just saved this whole reaction. It’s just a way smoother experience, way more loving and I would say that’s another big thing that’s come out of it: is me removing myself when I don’t want to do something or be somewhere or whatever it is.
Without any agenda, without any like “he should know,” it’s like I’m so at peace. It happened the other night. I did it because I don’t always want to watch TV in the evenings and then he came in the bedroom and was like, “What are you doing? I miss you.” And I was like, “You’re doing what you want and I’m doing what I want.” Which is a completely different place to our relationship was five months ago where I would watch things that I didn’t want to watch, get secretly pissed off about his drinking, like all these things.
Maggie
All the little things. Yeah, so what makes that possible? Like saying yes or saying no. It sounds so simple. Like somebody is going to listen to the podcast, and is gonna be like, “I know how to say yes and I know how to say no, Maggie, come on now.” But it’s saying yes, or saying no, when the yes is real, when the no is real, when there’s no added guilt or shame around it either for myself or for the other person.
I think that, that’s something we will only ever scratch the surface of in a context like today, but I think it’s something that’s planting a seed in someone’s mind for whom the act of saying yes or no could be life changing, like it was for you, like it has been for me. Like it really is life changing in so many parts of life. So, but if you can think back or think now to some of the thoughts you have, or some of the feelings you have around: it’s safe to say no, like, what would be that thought for you?
Vikki Louise
So it’s really like he gets to do what he wants, and I get to do what I want. And it sounds super basic like you say, but I think of Julia Roberts and Runaway Bride where she doesn’t even know how she likes her eggs.
Maggie
Yes. Oh, that’s so good.
Vikki Louise
Yeah. So it’s like, we think like it’s super easy to say yes or no, but not if you don’t pause or not pause should I say, and really thought, “What do I want? What don’t I want?” Like, we just fell into this routine, it’s been quarantined. We’re here in France, away from family and friends, and all of that stuff of like, of watching things in the evenings for a while before I was like, I actually don’t want to watch things every evening.
But you do and that’s okay for both of us to then do different things. And especially, and we’ve spoken about this, like, spending a lot of time together, because I don’t have any other community here in person. And so it’s been, it’s honestly been the best, the best investment.
But you know, it’s really being willing to explore what you like and what you don’t like. And there may be times where I’m like, oh, I think I don’t want to do this together. And then one day, I do want to do it together. And I don’t have to follow the rule of like I said, I’m not gonna watch TV on a Monday. It’s like, this month, he has been away quite a lot of the weekends recently. Like this Monday, I want to watch TV and chill with you. That’s what I want to do. This is like, and it’s that self trust, right?
Maggie
I love that so much — self trust. So a couple of things I want to mention: we will link to the episode on Self Trust, because I think that’s something we’re always building that muscle. And I think it’s Episode Two I did on Power Questions. And one of my favorite power questions, which is just the question that returns you to your own power. That’s just what a power question is.
And one of my favorites is: what am I making this mean? Or with a partner: what do you mean by that, right? And if we’re in a relationship where we’ve always said yes, or even if we’ve always said no, and suddenly we start doing the opposite, our partners can have all kinds of meanings that they associate with our behavior.
And for us to say, “Listen, I’m learning to do things in a new way. And it might be a little messy, and it may feel a little awkward. I just want you to know, I don’t want to watch TV today. But that doesn’t mean I love you any less.” Just to be clear, I’m going to say it with words, I just don’t want to watch TV.
Because what so many of us do, and I’ve done this in the past as well, is we take I don’t want to watch TV. And then we mean, he doesn’t care or she doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter, I don’t matter. And it’s just I don’t want to watch TV. It has nothing to do with how much you matter. And I’m pointing that out to everyone because somebody’s gonna listen to this episode, and go out and say I don’t want to do this thing.
And then their partner’s gonna freak the freak out and be like, “Don’t you love me anymore?” Right? So listen to the whole thing. And remember this part, which is if you start doing something new, you also want to help your partner. They may receive it however they receive it, we’re obviously not responsible for that. But you can share with them, “Hey, I’m doing something different,” so that they don’t make up a story. If they want to believe an alternate story, that’s on them, but you can tell them what’s actually happening. Right?
So one of the things I wanted to talk about this time hacking your marriage through the lens of you have these three principles. You know, I’m all about three principles. And this podcast it’s perspective, partnership and pleasure. Like if you have those three things, perspective, partnership and pleasure, you can have a thriving marriage, you can’t have a thriving marriage without it.
And I know you have three things that are part of time hacking. They’re like the principles of time hacking. So I want you to walk us through what those three things are. And then we’ll just sort of discover together what that looks like or how we would apply that to marriage because I think the way your brain processes and thinks about time is unlike I’ve ever seen another brain processing or thinking about time.
I just think, you know, Vikki, when you guys look at the podcast, and if you see her picture, she’s just this young, amazing, vibrant person, but she is literally that person that, 10 years from now, you will still be like: oh, yes, thank you Vikki Louise time hacking. Right?
Like all over the world kind of thing. It’s already all over the world but you know what I mean. Like we get to have this blessing of knowing her at this moment when not everyone on earth knows about time hacking but remember this day. Remember this day, that’s all I’m saying. Okay, so tell me the three principles and then we’ll dig in.
Vikki Louise
Yeah so I’m going to start with the three mistaken principles. What we think we create success and our results which are time, something being hard (like if it’s hard work creates success, or hard work is the difference between smarts and success). We think time, hard work, and knowledge smarts. You know knowledge is power — that’s the saying.
But we now live in the information age and thanks to technology, you have access to so much knowledge that there’s definitely diminishing returns if it’s way sooner than we think it is. We don’t farm the land so we’re not doing hard. You know, I think that was quite an overused word — hard and hustle — and things don’t take time anymore. Like even as recording this podcast it’s gonna be listened to by 1000s of people. Like think about what you used to have to do 30 years ago to reach 1000s of people with me in France and you in Miami. So those are the outdated principles as I see it.
Maggie
Okay let’s pause on those and let’s talk about those a little bit and then we’ll go to the time hacking principles. Because when you said time and you said about how this podcast is gonna go all over the world. And by the way, I’m so grateful we have listeners literally all over the world. Amazing, on every continent.
And I had a thought: I’m 47 as we record this and I grew up reading. I mean, “grew up” — in my 20s, I was reading Wayne Dyer. He was a very well known – he’s since passed away – but very well known author in the self development space and I remember him telling the story that he would have a pile of his books in his car and he would drive around the country knocking on doors with a book. And so imagine now you and I — you’re in France and we record this thing. I’m not driving around knocking on doors saying, “Listen to this, it’s gonna be so good,” right?
So literally some of the technology that we have today has just removed the barrier to so many things, not everything, but so many things, right? And I know one of my favorite quotes is probably one of your favorite quotes, too, I’m guessing. I think it’s from Abraham and they say, “Things don’t take time, they take alignment.” And I think about oh it doesn’t take time, it takes being the person who can have that thing. It takes thinking about what would my life be with that thing or without that thing, right?
That’s what we want to break down alignment a little bit. What is alignment? It’s like being aligned in congruence with this thing is mine, then what does that look like? And one that I hear a lot is, “time heals all wounds,” and as a Marriage Coach I want to say: time does not in fact heal all wounds.
Because I’ve had people come to me years after a triggering event has occurred — a breach of trust, something has happened, and lots of time passed. And it’s what you do during that time, how you think, how you feel, the decisions you make, that helps you heal a wound — not just the passage of time alone. So there’s a place for time. Time is also a factor. We still live in a material world where we have dates and times for things, but it is that the defining factor. So time.
Okay, hard work — it’s an interesting one. I get a kick out of when people say, “But marriage is so hard, right?” And it’s like wait, but what part of it is hard, right? Is it feeling a feeling? Is it having a conversation? Is it making a decision? Notice that those things in and of themselves are relatively simple. Now, it can feel hard, but it doesn’t always have to be hard.
Like there’s this idea that oh we have to work hard at it, right? So right you’ve been in the group. The group is very simple. Like some of the things we see about ourselves feel hard on some days, right? For all of us, that happens. But it’s not actually quote unquote “hard.” Vikki is nodding, just so you all know.
And then knowledge. This one reminded me of the diet industry, right? If knowledge was all we needed everyone would weigh whatever they wanted to weigh. Whatever that is for you, right? If knowledge was all we needed, we would all have rockets. And we’d all be visiting the moon for the weekends, right? Like if we just needed knowledge…
Vikki Louise
Yeah, we would all access it now. Right? We have, like any 13 year old with a smartphone has more information at the touch of their hand than the President of the U.S. had before 1995.
Maggie
Oh, that’s amazing. Okay. I’m gonna say that again. Any teenager with a smartphone has more knowledge in the palm of their hands than the President of the United States in 1995 had
Vikki Louise
Yeah, more information.
Maggie
Yeah. That’s amazing to think about for a sec. Yeah, so knowledge alone. Again, it’s like time alone or work alone or knowledge alone are not the answer. There is a component of what we’re gonna do, in anything we do that we’ll have some time and we’ll have some work. And it’ll have some knowledge. But the over reliance on these things is just a recipe for disaster, would you agree?
Vikki Louise
Right. Like if you keep increasing those three things that come to the point where you do not increase, you know, the quality of your relationships, or any output that you want to create.
Maggie
Yeah, so one of the things I teach my Coaching clients, and I always mentioned this, my very first Coach taught it to me, her name is Christine Kane. And it’s this Asian Proverb, which is: to know and not do is to not know. So we know a lot of things. We know what might make a relationship healthy, we know what might feel better, we know it, and then we don’t do it.
So even having the knowledge we know, but we don’t do — that means we really don’t know. And so sometimes it’s like, you’ll come to a podcast episode, you’ll come to do the class with me, whatever it is that you do, and you’ll go, “I already know this.” Okay, but what’s in between you and doing it? That’s why we’re all here. Right? Okay, so those are the three mistakes. Tell us now, what do you call them the principles? What are they called?
Vikki Louise
They’re like just the three, I call it the success equation. It’s like how to achieve success in any area is focusing on three things. So these are the inputs where you can keep increasing. So it’s kind of like you’ve been fueling your diesel car with gas. And now we’re going to fuel it with diesel.
So the first thing is how you are managing your brain and that voice in your head. Your brain is a tool for you. It’s not the boss, right? Just because it speaks doesn’t mean it’s the controller. It’s kind of like, you guys can’t see me, but I’m moving my hands a lot as I’m speaking.
Because my hands are my tool, even though I can have a spasm, or something unintentionally without me wanting it to move, it’s just that I don’t make that mean, I’ve not got control of my hand. So we want to manage our brain as a tool for us. That’s the first part.
Maggie
I love it.
Vikki Louise
The second one is how we make decisions. So I call it making decisions like a ninja. So like quick decisions, and quick implementation. The idea being, when we are in undecided territory, we are not getting any smarter. The moment we make a decision, we can take a step forward. And then we can decide, oh, we shouldn’t have gone right, we’re going to go left, but you learn by doing way quicker.
So we want to be making fast decisions and implementing on them quickly.
And the third is how we face fear and failure. Really, the reason… fear is the reason why we don’t do most things. So when we learn to be friends with fear or to expect fear, or to understand fear, and even fuel ourselves with fear, it means that we can experience the human experience of fear, which is basically a survival skill we evolved to have fear, it was really useful.
But we can continue going with whatever hormones might be in our body at that point in time. And failure is not only you know, of course, when we evolved, failure meant death. You know, can’t find adequate shelter – failed – ate the wrong berries.
And now failure is the way to learn, especially in this world that’s moving so quickly because of technology. If I’m waiting to figure something out by reading all the books on it, by the time I’ve done all of that, it’s already moved forward. So failure is not only okay, it’s the learning ground, especially, you know, in entrepreneurship. And for me, probably also even in relationships.
Maggie
Yeah, yeah, we’re absolutely going to talk about that. Okay, listen, I’m picking up what you’re throwing down. So here’s what came to me, as I told you all, I was gonna take notes. I’ve been taking notes while Vikki’s been talking.
So the three mistakes and then the success equation that replaces those mistakes. Instead of time management, we go to mind management. We make the transition from time management to mind management.
And then when our mind is managed, things get produced/executed quickly, which we’re going to talk about next. But just from a managed mind, we started off with a better idea. We started off from the beginning, from a better place because we’re managing our mind.
Vikki Louise
Yes, even you know, to bring it back to the example we spoke about, “time heals all wounds.” It’s not time, it’s a shift in your mind. That’s what’s happening.
Maggie
That’s what’s actually healing the wound so to speak. Okay, so time management, no, mind management, yes. Love it. Okay.
So for hard work. It’s quick decisions and quick implementation. So it’s the decision. And I would say it’s quick decision, but it’s also quick, thoughtful decision. So Vikki focuses on time hacking, which talks about speed a lot. But speed from a place of a managed mind is very different than speed from an unmanaged mind. So it’s quick, thoughtful decisions is my perception — tell us.
Vikki Louise
Yeah, yeah. Which is perfect. Because the other word that I’ll use for hard is hustle. Which can also be very quick. It’s just very quick and hustle.
Maggie
Yeah.
Vikki Louise
The difference with the decision making — how I teach it, you know, really optimal decision making is decisions through a filter of kindness and growth.
Maggie
Yes. Oh that’s so good. Yeah, kindness and growth.
Vikki Louise
Yeah, kindness and growth, I call them. What we tend to do is dictate decisions, like: I’m going to get 20 things done today. Yeah, you know, completely unrealistic. And we want to filter that out through a filter of kindness and growth, right?
Maggie
Oh, that’s so good. So quick decisions filtered through kindness and growth produce much better results, than whether slow or fast, doesn’t matter. The decision that’s only filtered through, I’m gonna outwork you, right? Or I’m gonna outwork this, right? There are things we cannot outwork.
Vikki Louise
Yes. And I should add, because I see what you’re saying, I don’t want people to take away from this that they have to be making lots of quick decisions with things. 80% of the quick decisions, if not 90% is to not do something or to delay something or to delegate. Like, it’s not about deciding to do all the things it’s really about deciding to do less and do that really well. So I think that’s important for people listening.
Maggie
Yeah, that’s one of the things I talk about, too, and we talk about in the program, and on the podcast, which is: so many amazing women come to me already overwhelmed and tired, and they’re like, “am I gonna have to do one more thing?”
It’s like, actually, you do one more thing that then removes 10 things from your plate, because we stopped doing the things that aren’t working. And we focus on the things that do and then you move so much faster. So I think it’s a very similar parallel. Yeah.
Vikki Louise
That’s it. That’s time hacking. That’s what we’re talking about. Like, this is it. You do less, you do what counts — you end up achieving more with more time off.
Maggie
Yeah, yeah, exactly. So okay. So continuing on. Oh, before we continue from that, I wrote down undecided. I want you to tell us a little bit, and I’ll tell you a little bit, because I see it as relationship ambivalence.
Should I be here? Should I not be here? Whether it’s for the overall relationship or whether it’s for a particular issue in the relationship. Should we do this? Should we not do this, right? And it comes up in a variety of ways, especially in a long term marriage.
And ambivalence is not wrong or bad. I want to tell everyone, because we’ve all felt ambivalent at times. However, it is not the most useful place to make decisions from, right? So you mentioned the reason quick implementation is so important is that nothing gets done when you’re undecided. Could you speak to that a little bit from your perspective on the time hacking side?
Vikki Louise
Yeah, one of the things I teach my time hackers is indecision doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing. You are always in a decision. And because what our brain will do is it will tell us like I’m just undecided. And what that means is, we’re not going to do anything and our brain loves not doing anything and not changing anything.
So as long as we are undecided, we get what we are doing is we are actually choosing to stay in whatever it is we’re speaking about. And even reframing it that way, immediately puts us in responsibility, because ultimately, if we’re undecided we’re not responsible, whereas it’s like you are consciously choosing to yell at your partner about his drinking every day, if you are consciously choosing to sleep until noon, I’ll wake up at six or whatever it is, like just owning that that’s a conscious choice and taking that responsibility, immediately makes it less attractive.
I think a lot of it as a court and me, you know, I was the queen of this. This is why I do this work. You know, really like I’ll even tell you and I decided to be a Coach. I wasn’t sure I was still working in finance and I spoke with a friend’s sibling/brother, whatever, and he said, “What are you going to do?”
And I said, “I just know I want to help people. I’m going to be like a therapist, or a counselor, or a Life Coach. I don’t know what, but I’m just having calls with people like you that are in the field and I’m going to do all my research and I’ve got three months of like work notice and then I’m going to figure it out.
And he said, “What if you just decided now?” And I was like well you know like everything I’ve been taught was to gather all the information, which is to give time to this decision and make it right. And I was like ha? Like it kind of blew my mind. I chose Coaching at the time. And that’s really what it is that I would have allowed myself to sit in indecision or undecided land for months waiting to feel comfortable about the decision.
Whereas, you know, I’ve also had examples in my life where I’ve chosen something like even going back to finance and then quickly learned it wasn’t where I wanted to stay. So when we are undecided, the way I see it is, we’re not getting any smarter. We think we are, but we’re not. Because once we start to make decisions we get access to different information that allows us to…yeah.
Maggie
I love it so much and I love what your friends/whoever person said of: what if you decided right now? Okay for everyone listening, there’s something on your mind that you haven’t decided. So right here, right now, what if you decided right now what feels delicious and delightful? What feels a little scary but it’s okay that it’s scary, right? It might feel a little scary but that’s all right. What if you decided right now? That’s so good.
Okay then knowledge. So you said the mistake we make is thinking more knowledge will solve the problem, but really more knowledge will not solve the problem and almost anything, we can insert any problem here, right?
Sometimes a little bit of knowledge will solve a problem. Like if I need to know how to measure something or whatever and I go get a ruler and now I’ve measured it, I get a little bit of knowledge with something. For many, many things more knowledge will not actually solve the problem so how we face fear and failure is really what helps us overcome whatever it is that we’re trying to do, right?
Vikki Louise
Right and that’s it. We want more information because we think the information is going to make us feel better, but it actually fuels more fear. It’s kind of like deciding to go live on Facebook — we either click live and you do it.
And I did this — my first one I messed up the words and it looked like everything that went wrong could go wrong. It was perfect for what I teach but… or I could have read 17 articles and every time I would have read another article it would have made me think that I was doing it wrong and wrong and wrong and wrong and it would have given me more evidence that there’s a right way and a wrong way.
And as long as there’s a wrong way we’re fueling fear and our fear of failure and we’re making it more difficult to get started.
Maggie
So I think we will link to this in a Self Trust Episode, but I’m gonna mention it now. That this concept of that, there’s a right way and a wrong way is really an element or principle of white supremacy culture which is a cultural narrative.
So to be clear: there’s one right way and everything else is the wrong way. It’s like the ocean that we swim in, which to that point that you made earlier is like, in school that’s what we’re taught. You get a good grade, this is the right way. You pass the test. Not passing the test is the wrong way, but when you graduate from school you go into life, it really isn’t that.
Those are not the things — we’re not passing quizzes, right? When we’re washing dishes with our partners or when we’re making plans for what house we’re gonna buy or whatever our big dream is, right? There are an infinite amount of potential right ways and an infinite amount of things that will help you learn and grow. So is it inherently wrong? Probably not.
Now I always say caveat because a lot of my listeners and I am too — I’m very logical sometimes my husband says that I remind him of Spock on Star Trek. He’s like, “That’s so Spockish of you,” right? So with something like brain surgery there’s a right way and the wrong way, right? There are certain things in life absolutely, for sure, there is a right way and a wrong way to like cut someone open and do something to their brain.
But most of us, for most of our lives, even brain surgeons, when they come back home, we are all in this you know multiple shades of the rainbow of what it could be that is better or worse or better for my growth or whatever, right?
So how we face fear and failure it’s so interesting because in relationships — this has happened to me with my husband as well — sometimes I’m afraid to bring something up and I teach this for a living and I’m like, “Oh how interesting. I’m afraid right now.”
And how I face that fear is often to walk through it, right? And do the thing and sometimes it takes me a while but it’s not because the passage of time is the thing it’s because what am I thinking and feeling that will help me comfort that fear, hold that fear, allow that fear, and then move through that fear?
Vikki Louise
Right and really that like they all tie in together because that willingness to have your own back through failure. If you make failure mean that you’re a bad person or that you’re not good enough and you’re going to avoid failure. You start making failure mean that you are right on track and that you’re one step closer you can start celebrating fails which ends fueling you towards creating the relationship that you want towards creating any goal that you want.
Maggie
And we’re gonna link to another episode called Rejection Sensitivity because I want to mention that here in relationship, what feels like a failure is, very often, when we disagree about anything. So one of the partners or sometimes both of the partners will take a disagreement and make it equal rejection and that exacerbates the feel of failure because it’s not safe to disagree.
If we disagree something bad has happened. First is, we can agree and still love each other. We can disagree and still be a team. We can disagree and do different things like watch a different show on Thursday night or whatever, and we still can come back to each other as our partners in life.
And just knowing that distinction, it’s like: we can disagree and it’s okay and it doesn’t mean you have failed and it’s like we’re holding that it’s okay to fail on one side and we’re also holding like so many things we define as failure aren’t actually failure either, so let’s like let’s address both of those sides.
Vikki Louise
Yeah I also want to share when we got started dating, like I remember having arguments or disagreements and they accelerated us so much closer to each other. We basically moved in from day one, which was interesting but it definitely exposed a lot.
I’d never lived with a partner before, I moved to a foreign country to be with him, we lived in a studio apartment and like, you know, I didn’t have a job, like all these things and it was very high intensity. But I remember coming out of every argument and having more love for him and feeling like I get to love him and he’s human, or he loves me even though I’m human.
And I found it very weird for him to always be there, for example, and see me vulnerable and all of those things, but because of that, because of those fails and those disagreements and everything… I mean that ultimately, to me, is what a successful relationship is. It’s not two people that always get along, it’s two people that get to love each other and be human.
Maggie
They get to love each other and be human. 100%. And arguments are something that we can use as fuel to bring you closer or something that you can use as a way to disconnect and it’s literally like the argument itself is like: how do we want to use this argument, right? And that’s really important. Is there anything else you want to add before we start wrapping up for today?
Vikki Louise
I would just say the big thing that I think changed the course of my life and our relationship in all the ways is stopping making decisions for right now and really making decisions for your future self. Like my future self is my best friend. I’ve got her back. I’m showing up for her every day and every week and that’s what drove me to make the decision to invest in this program and that’s what I would say to anyone listening.
You might be experiencing some undecided-ness around this or some fear around it or any of those things for right now, but when you think about where you want to be one year from now, are you glad that you joined the Marriage MBA Program? Because I know for me it’s changed the whole course of my relationship in so many wonderful ways so I appreciate you, Maggie.
Maggie
I appreciate you, Vikki. I love you so much. Okay so I randomly pick a question from the Questions for Couples Journal to wrap up the episodes whenever I have a guest, and because the universe has a sense of humor this is the question: think of a favorite TV show you and your partner like to watch together. What makes watching it together fun?
Vikki Louise
That’s so good. Okay I’m gonna tell you a funny story. So Game of Thrones — it’s like this big thing and like I don’t like watching TV series and I swear I didn’t consciously notice it, but we have a dormer outside of our rented apartment and there’s a Game of Thrones doormat, so it must have gotten into my head subconsciously and quarantine and COVID and being in France and all of these things.
I thought, you know what? We’re watching a lot of movies, let’s just watch a series. Let’s watch Game of Thrones and so we started watching it and I spoke to some friends and I was like, “Oh we’re watching a series” and they’re like, “What is it?” And I was like, “Game of Thrones?” And they start laughing, like, “We know what Game of Thrones is. The way you’re saying it is like this weird little show…”
Maggie
Like this obscure, little show.
Vikki Louise
So we watched Game of Thrones. So we did it and yeah, like it was nice to have something to… You know, what was nice about it was so many decisions were made ahead of time, basically. Instead of deciding on a movie all the time.
Maggie
Right? That was my gosh I love that you mentioned that deciding it ahead of time. So I am that person that spends half an hour just picking the movie, right? I have done that and I am sure I will do it again.
I love that it’s like, oh when we have a show to watch, we just decided and then even that is time hacking right? That’s so good.
So how can people find you? I know everyone listening to this episode is gonna be like, “I need this woman in my life.” What are the best ways to be in touch with you?
Vikki Louise
So you can connect with me on Instagram @vikkilouise___ and then go to my website vickilouise.com and you can search the podcast F*ck Anxiety and then it will come up.
Maggie
I love that I said the word and I never swear, and you’re like “F asterisk Anxiety,” but that is how it’s written for everyone.
Vikki Louise
That’s how it’s written — F*ck Anxiety and Get Shit Done — spelt the polite way.
Maggie
It’s just like I’m the non-swearing one in the family, but let’s just go ahead and swear. So fun. Okay. Thank you everyone for listening. We’re gonna be back next week with more ways to make your marriage better so everyone just go follow Vikki and get some time hacking going on. Bye.