Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Are you feeling like life's treadmill? Has you sprinting towards burnout? Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Unstoppable Grit Podcast with Danielle Cobo, where we dig deep into the principles of resilience, mental fortitude, and the raw power of human will. I'm your host, Danielle Cobo, and I'm thrilled to have you join us today.
We are delving into the topics that are often ignored, yet are integral to achieving not just success, but a well-rounded, fulfilling life. Discover how to master your physical and mental wellbeing, seize control of your time, and live your best life. Whatever your ambition might be. We unravel the secrets to time management, the power of saying no and much more.
Today's guest is Dr. Yasmine Mumby, a sustainable leadership advisor with a doctorate in education leadership from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She's the founder of the Easeful Leadership Framework. She works with leaders looking to reclaim their time, lead with ease, and thrive in any environment.
Danielle Cobo: Yasmine, I am excited to have you on the podcast. I was introduced to you by somebody. I checked out your website. I saw and read your story and instantly tears, tears of empathy. I. Hope and inspiration just came, and I'm so excited for you to share your story. You have had a highly successful career in education and from the outside I would assume that everybody would think that you had your life put together.
This woman has got it, and yet behind the curtain there was little bit more going on. Love for our listeners to hear your story.
Yasmene Mumby: first and foremost, thank you very much for extending the opportunity to join you, and to speak about insights and what I've learned coming out of, that experience and I'll let y'all into it.
so look, I first and foremost, I come to this. I was a seventh and eighth grade social studies teacher in Baltimore City where I grew up in and around. and then I moved into community organizing to support education funding and then I ended up traveling the country and supporting other schools.
To engage community to, increase parent engagement and support also with funding for schools and curriculum. And, I ended up, I was just on this fast track. I was in law school at night, then also got my doctorate and I hit a wall and I hit a wall physically in a way that I. Mentally wasn't ready for, but my body physically was saying, you have to slow down.
and what happened was I literally lost my vision in my left eye, and was in a situation where doctors weren't sure if it was going to come back. We still don't know the origin of it. I was on my way to, being blind. at that time I was seeking support accommodations for this disability that no one could see, but yet I couldn't see.
So the dynamics of you look fine. It's like, I can't look. And just the facade that you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation around like, people just thought I had it all together. Everything was fine. And that actually contributed to why internally my body forced me to stop. Because externally I wouldn't slow down.
yeah. So just dive right in there again. Yeah. If you don't mind. I. now I, really concern myself with how I pace. not just my time and my actions, but what I choose to be part of, because that in itself was, depleting and exhausting for me. And that led to other things showing up in my body.
Tumors, my uterus and my chest and having to get surgery and just promising myself while I was recovering that I would never push myself to the brink of this moment that I was experiencing when I was healing because we weren't sure if I was gonna be able to come back and have the quality of life that I took for granted prior to.
Danielle Cobo: So you were. Teaching middle school like that in itself. Middle school, I don't know about you, but middle school to me was one of the toughest years of my upbringing, of my childhood, and. Such a, critical time in kids' life, but you're teaching during the day. You are going to school at night and you're this stunningly gorgeous woman who's successful and well educated and looks like they've got everything put together, which you probably, I'm assuming maybe at you thought you did too.
Yes. But your body was speaking and it was showing you something different that it was time to stop. Do you think that there was any signs before that, that your body was showing you?
Yasmene Mumby: Oh, yeah. definitely the internalized pressure. I was, living through, had shown up in myself since I was, In middle school.
Actually, that's probably why I became a middle school teacher because I wanted to go back and create a different experience and environment for other middle schoolers. 'cause it's a tough time. And in middle school I really started pushing myself in school, because I saw that that was an opportunity to, Eventually be set up for success, high school and college and that whole track that a lot of kids find themselves overwhelmed by being on.
and so that showed up like early, middle school with anxiety and that, pressure, turned into, Me finding an outlet through doing more things, which probably wasn't helpful. Like if I'm just busier, then I don't have that, I'm not feeling. Overwhelmed or the acute anxiety until like, I take a moment and then it all comes flashing and, towards me.
And that in itself is a form of numbing. And I continued that pattern well into my, late twenties. And so, that's like overt. Decade long experience of pushing myself beyond, beyond, beyond, since I was in middle school. And it just caught up with me. and I realized that I just couldn't continue on life that way.
If I wanted to create more life and become a mother and also make space for a partner. the pace I was going wasn't creating the vitality to even, Create a life that I, wanted to continue and be part of outside of, like work.
Danielle Cobo: So it sounds like a lot of your upbringing and the desire to be a certain way or perceived a certain way was somehow showing up in the actions that you were taking and creating this life that you wanted, but sometimes.
What we want sometimes isn't always what's best for us. If we continue to put our foot on the metal and keep going and going. I'm a big car person, so any analogies with cars you'll often hear, so when you found yourself in this situation, Whereyour body is physically, I would say, shutting down on itself.
You've got organs that are developing tumors, you'veyour eyesight is starting to go away. Is your body shutting down itself? what steps did you take to recover and get to where you're at today? Mm-hmm.
Yasmene Mumby: it worked for me methodically, take myself, through a series of practices and processes to first uncover why, why was I driving myself
just to the brink of beyond exhaustion, I had to reevaluate how I was spending my time and was I taking time away from practices that could be. Regenerating and supportive, like yoga and breath work and, just taking walks outside and taking a moment and nourishing myself with nutrient-dense foods.
choosing friendships and
Danielle Cobo: relationships that
Yasmene Mumby: were sustaining instead of depleting. I had to look at what I was doing For the most of my time. So looking at the, course of work that I was part of, like was that imbalance, taking away from time I could spend with family that would also be generating, I had to look at my entire scope of living from, really hour to hour that methodical and, interrogate why.
Understand what the value proposition was for me. Like why was I engaging in this and what wasn't in my favor. and then make some really tough decisions. So part of that was me choosing to, relocate. It's funny, I, tell people, you at that point in my life, I thought, look, it's either I'm gonna go, move to New Mexico and write books.
Or I'm gonna move to Massachusetts and, pursue this wild dream of, going to Harvard, which probably won't ever happen to me. That's what I was telling myself, and whichever one wins is where I'm gonna go in my life trajectory. And I ended up getting accepted into Harvard,
Danielle Cobo: which is a accomplishment.
Thank you. But I still believe that you've got a book. That book is on the horizon for you. You're right. Oh, thank you. Yes, totally.
Yasmene Mumby: I'm a writer by heart. leaving home meant that I had to rearrange my entire life. 'cause I could no longer stay rooted in the practices that I had been accustomed to so that I needed something that would jolt me out of the default.
And it was one of those two options. and so. No matter what happened, I would have to be jolted out of my
Danielle Cobo: default. Ooh. I like that. Jolted out of the default. ' cause so often we think of these situations, these challenges as obstacles that we face as the, why is this happening to me? And we can spiral down and it's, unless we take action steps.
As you say, to jolt us out of a situation, out of the habits that are creating the lifestyle and that we're, or the situation that we're currently in. We think about one of the advice you give to somebody who is an addict is to remove the people that are of your friends that are addicts as well.
If we are in a situation where we're creating burnout within ourselves, we've gotta remove ourself from that situation that is creating the burnout. And what I'm hearing you say is, is jolt ourselves. Out of that situation, change the location, change your environment, change your friends, change the habits.
Because if we don't change something, we're going just to continue to go down the same pattern we've been before. What advice would you, 'cause you've taken this. Life changing experience. The situation where your body was shutting down. you've recovered, you're healthy, you're building this successful business.
I wanna share with our, listeners, what advice would you give to them if they're in a situation where they're hitting burnout and they need to, they're like, okay, get this. I'm hearing this jolt. I need to jolt myself. What steps would you recommend that they take, in their life?
Yeah,
Yasmene Mumby: the first step is, and when I work with. Other folks who want to jolt out of their default and move away from burnout towards energy, sustaining, thriving, practices in their life, in and outside of work. I look at time with them. So let's look at how you're spending your time, hour to hour no judgment.
You are witnessing where you have. Placed emphasis in your life at certain hours of the day onto paper. You're just witnessing. So I walk folks through a time energy alignment analysis because we want to see how you're focusing your time, how that correlates to your energy levels, and is that in alignment with what you thought was of importance and essential for you.
To be part of throughout the course of the day. Because in the beginning, a lot of folks don't even realize they're misaligned in that and, they are deeply influenced by other people.
Danielle Cobo: Look at time, that's very much so on the time and sometimes it's influenced by other people. It's interesting you say time too because. In 2019, and I've shared this with my listeners before, but in 2019, my husband was deployed for a year. I was leading a team for a Fortune 500 company with overnight travel every single week.
And my twin boys were two years old at the time. Wow. And a lot of times people would, Say, we know you're busy. We, you know, you're busy. Or they would make assumptions on what I can or could not do based off my circumstance. It was always make me so frustrated. 'cause it's like I'm the person that manages my time.
Nobody else I'm in control of my time and what decisions I make to choose on to whether I say yes to something or say no to something. And if there's anything that I've learned through that situation, is to be highly effective with my time. Because when I was in medical sales prior to having kids, I remember thinking, how could anybody do this job with kids?
Mm-hmm. And what I've learned from that experience is, You just get really good at being productive and short increments of time. So what I'm able to accomplish now in four hours would've taken me eight hours probably before kids because I just wasn't as focused and intentional with my time. And that's what I'm hearing with you when you're saying witness your time.
Is it being, are you intentional with your time? Are you taking ownership of your time? Are the activities because you wanna do them or because you think you should be doing them for somebody else?
100%.
Yasmene Mumby: It's funny, I just had my first baby. He is seven months and I'm with you. I remember wondering, how do people do this with. Children, and now I'm early in my process, so,give me grace. I'm early in my journey in mothering now I'm like, oh, I get it. And I'm even more discerning about my time because
Danielle Cobo: I wanna be with my baby.
Absolutely. I used to answer my phone at all times during the day, and now I am intentional you know, if somebody says, Hey, do you have time to talk tonight? Love to have a conversation and touch base. Can we connect tomorrow morning? Because typically between five and seven 30, a, that's my time with my kids.
And B, you're not gonna get a very, Fluid conversation 'cause you're gonna be interrupted a lot by me trying to juggle dinner and bedtime routine and bath and packing lunches. It's, a lot during a short amount of time. So, yeah, it's, being very intentional. And time and time. What else would you say about, Going through challenges in life and developing grit and resilience towards your long-term goals.
'cause you've definitely got resilience and you've taken this situation and you've got the grit to still keep going and, creating this new life for yourself. what other advice would you leave with our listeners?
Yasmene Mumby: Yeah. I didn't do it alone and I,support you if you're listening.
Really intently to this part of our conversation, to not feel like you have to do it alone. And that means I had a wonderful leadership coach. I had. invested in therapy to support myself as well emotionally. I also had a beautiful community of people who cared for me, and that all took intentional time to build.
Also to create the time to devote myself fully to this process instead of just, another thing off my checklist. so that meant I said no a lot. And so that's the second thing I would leave you with as you're listening. No is a complete sentence and it is very much so okay to use it. And I wasn't saying no prior
Danielle Cobo: to.
So if there's one underlining theme that I'm hearing from you is intention. Be intentional about what you want. Be intentional about the people that you surround yourself and the community that you're involved in. Be intentional about how you spend your time. Be intentional about what you say yes to and what you say no to.
And being intentional is what helps you develop the grit to develop the resilience to thrive. It is about intention, and I also heard too is being intentional about the resources that you're investing in yourself to support you through those difficult times. You got it. That's,
Yasmene Mumby: I mean, that's the beginning of it.
Danielle Cobo: I'm sure we could have many more conversations, but if there's one takeaway for our listeners, it's to be intentional. Well, where can my listeners find you? Oh, great. So
I
Yasmene Mumby: love writing and I write, monthly on my, email list. If you wanna join it, you'll be able to support yourself with the latest insights and tips and invitations to workshops and trainings.
So go to my website@www.yasminemumby.com, Y A S m E N e M U M B y.com. And if you're like, Cool. But I like also wanna know what you're doing as a, person. Not just see your words. I'm on Instagram, Y A s m E N E, Yasmeen.
Danielle Cobo: I'll be sure to include those links into the show notes as well. So all you have to do is open up this episode, go to the show notes and the links will be included in there.
Well,thank you so much for joining the podcast, unstoppable Grit. Your message is very powerful to be intentional and really appreciate it. And for our listeners out there, be unstoppable. Thank you.