113 - Positively Productive with Guest Lisa Zawrotny / Celebrating Creative Minds

AUDIO TRANSCRIPT:  Copy may vary slightly from recording. 


Linda Leverman: Hi, everybody! It's Lindy here, and I am absolutely delighted to be back in the podcast chair today. It's a little bit rainy here on beautiful Vancouver Island today. So of course, that's a great day to be inside doing a podcast and chatting with somebody who lives 4,703 kilometers away from me.

Linda Leverman: Yeah, it's pretty cool. Actually, this morning. I'm going to be chatting with Lisa Zaawrotny. And she's a productivity accountability coach. She's the founder of Positively Productive Systems. She's a host of Positively Living Podcast yeah, another podcaster. I love chatting with other Podcasters, and she also helps multitasking creatives. I need her help, and she helps caregivers reduce overwhelm boost productivity well, without burning out and and without sacrificing what they love.

Linda Leverman: Okay, that sounds pretty interesting. And also when she's not sharing how to simplify and stress less, you'll find her hanging out with her husband and her kiddos, traveling, watching movies, acting like a rock star. Woo! Hoo! Hiding from the world with a nice coffee and a good book, probably trapped under a cat. Hmm! That sounds interesting. So let's get started and let's give a big, hearty welcome to Lisa. Hi, Lisa! How's it going this morning.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Hi, Lindy, I am delighted to be chatting with you, and I always laugh when I hear my intro red, and I do keep it real. These are all the things that I will likely be doing at any given point.

Linda Leverman: I love it.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: That ice, coffee, part.


Linda Leverman: You are a busy lady. You have a lot on the go.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: I do a lot of things that I love. I like to call it passionate. And that's a lot of what we're talking about today. Really right is a distinction between being busy and and finding space for your passions. And I know you are so creative, too. It's it's a big part of what I do, and I love doing that because I love my fellow creatives.

Linda Leverman: Oh, I love it so. You're very creative yourself as well. And I think creative comes in so many different forms, right? Like it creative. I mean, I, when you ask me, what's a creative? Well, right away, my first thought is somebody who's artistic, somebody who's an artisan. Can you think of other things that might be creative.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Absolutely. I mean, art is is very like obvious. But authors right.


Lisa...  Write and create, and poets as you are.


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Linda Leverman: Yeah.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Musicians and singers as I am, and then also just kind of like on a sideline, and someone that I work with a lot. And I happen to be one. I consider multi-passionate, which it's often a multi-passionate creative is the term.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Those are people who, again, it comes back to that word passion, have a lot of interests and and juggle a lot of different things. And and I think essentially the creatives are the innovators right, because you could also have an inventor. I love using Da Vinci as an example, and he's also an example of polymath or multi-passionate or multi-potential. There's a lot of different words for it.
But those those scanners, you know, people who like a lot of different things and and innovate and create. It's not always creating art specifically right. It's about what we're creating for the world and from our hearts and our souls.

Linda Leverman: And I like that. When you say from your heart and your soul, I totally get that even with my podcast quite often, when I've done a solo, podcast it's it's not unusual for me to just get out and go " I need to record today."  And it's 6 am. In the morning, and I've been awake for an hour, and laying in bed  thinking.

 Oh, it's raining outside! And this reminded me of this, and this reminded me of that, and I think I need to write about, maybe I need to do a pump. I need to podcast. And do to do, to do, to do, to do get my little cup of coffee in the hand, grab the microphone, turn on the computer and blah blah blah blah blah. And now I'm recording. And it wasn't planned at all. And, like you say, a lot of it comes from the heart, and that's what happens to me. It just comes from the heart.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: The other thing that you describe that I love is all the connections that we make. And you're absolutely right, Podcasters, absolute creatives and making those connections. I do that as a coach. So even if I weren't doing other things like music, I would still consider myself rather creative because I innovate a lot with my clients, and it's that same thing where you like. Think of one thing, and then it makes you think of another, and you're like, oh, and you you connect the dots, and that's so important. You do that beautifully on this show. I love listening to your  reflections on life. And it's it's that kind of thing where you you start to see the commonalities and how things connect and how they overlap and understand that. Okay, there's just  things are so much more connected than we realize.

Linda Leverman: Thank you so much. I actually really appreciate that. And and I actually think you're a very similar personality to me. I picked up on that the first time I saw your post up.  Wow! This is kind of like looking in the mirror, only she's got long blonde hair, and she lives 4,000 kilometers away. But there's a lot of things about you that I found were similarities as well,  and I think with creatives, creatives understand creatives, but also being a creative, can be a challenge. And I know you help people with that. And I was sitting here this morning thinking, oh, my goodness, I could have used Lisa a few times, because what happens, especially to somebody like me is sometimes that little creative wheel starts going. And I'm like, okay, I need to podcast. About this. But oh, I need to write. And I love to write. I've been working on a book of short stories and anytime. I've written a short story for it. It's happened after I've been somewhere. Something's happened. I've been by the ocean. The waves went by. There's a certain smell in the air, and suddenly it brought back a memory. I'm like, Oh. That's a short story. I got to go write it. And meanwhile I go home and I've got laundry piled up. I got dishes in the sink. I've got a lawn that needs mowing, and I can't expect my partner to do it all, and I'm like, bear with me for a minute. I need to go write. 


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Got it in me. It's gotta come out.


Linda Leverman: Yeah. And so you must deal with that. A lot in coaching creatives. I would think.

Absolutely. And so there's so many different ways that we can go with this. But allow me to first say that I think one of the most important things for creatives as creatives, since we both are, is to honor that need and to not push it down, which I think society in general. Oh, wait! You've got your structure. You have your time management like that phrase kind of drives me nuts, I'm like, can we talk about energy management priority management, you know, and and and self management, that's that's the bigger part of it. Yes, we have a certain amount of time. And we wanna do things with it. But you just described so many different aspects of how we work like sometimes you just know the right time to do something. Sometimes you have things you have to get done. So how do you figure out when? Well, that's prioritizing? There's so many different aspects to this. But first and foremost, I just want to say,  if you feel that pull, if you feel like, Yeah, I'm a creative, too honor that because it is so important for your heart and your soul, for your mental well-being and because doing these things that we love, you know, getting that story out, that idea, capturing the thing, you know, innovating, whatever it is that we do is actually really amazing for our energy. And so I would ask you do you find that when you do honor those moments when you go back to do the more mundane tasks do you show up differently when you.

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Linda Leverman: Absolutely. Absolutely. I go back and I've got a renewed energy. I'm more focused and definitely more focused is something I can say, because if I'm sitting there with this burning itch to write a story, and it's begging in the back of my mind. I can't focus on the housework and the things I need to get done in the chores. I just can't focus on it, and sometimes I'm sitting there and I'm going okay. I've got a pile of papers on my desk. I need to do this. I need to do this paperwork. But I got to get a podcast out first, and then, when the podcast is out. I sit down. And I am so focused on that paperwork and I can get it out of the way. But if I didn't get that podcast out because it's burning at me that I need to do it. I'll probably have a hard time focusing on that paperwork, and and I could never figure out why I'm like that. Why is it that my brain suddenly releases this energy after I've got that creative moment out? And now I can focus on the tasks at hand. And I I think, back to what you were just saying about your energy management. Time blocking. I have a hard time with if somebody says to me, Okay, you know, you wanna write. So you need to write from 10 Am. Till 12 noon every day, and then you can do the afternoon this and this doesn't work for me. I've tried it. I've tried to time block and say, this is my time for this and this I can time block and say, I allow myself time from 9 A. M. To 3 PM. Every day. This is my time, where, whatever it is I need to do, I can get done, but I can't specify what I'm going to do in that time, because it depends on  my creative urge.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Exactly, and some people are a bit more rebellious than others that does go along with creatives. It's not always consistently so. But to your point. You have this thing that you need to get out. I think it is an energy flow, and then it's energy management. And I that's what I I want everyone to make that connection to is that when you manage your energy prop energy properly, that's easy for me to say,  Can then do the tasks that you need to do. You show up differently, and I bet you anything that those tasks that you do when you are more focused when you are more energized, will then be done like with better quality and probably faster.

Linda Leverman: I agree.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Right? So because when we are distracted and we're, we're just not focused. That's when you tend to make more mistakes. That's when you tend to slog through something. So yeah, I mean the first tip, which doesn't sound like a tip, because I know our society isn't used to. It is to lean into the things that you love. Now, that doesn't mean you get to skip adulting, I mean, some days I'm like 0 out of 5 would not recommend. I don't like adulting.

Linda Leverman: (Giggles)

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: But sometimes we have to. So yeah, with my clients, we'll work on alternative options. So sometimes we can do the thing that you talked about. If you have a flexibility, you could go do that podcast or write out that story, you know. Get out that first draft or whatever, and then do the other things fabulous. You're priming your productivity and you're going for it. If, however, you have specific deadlines, or you have an appointment, you need to get to. And you're finding yourself distracted by something that you want to create. You're thinking about it. There are other ways that you can capture that information, taking notes, having an outline having a specific system where you can safely place that creative concept or energy and hold it there until you're able to get back to it.  To your point about time blocking,  actually, I do something. It's a name that I made up. I call it flex blocking, and it's probably very similar to what you do intuitively, which is to say. You are going to know during the day, outside of other appointments, that you cannot change what other time you have to do the things that you want to do and need to do. : And then it's a matter of figuring out what works for you.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Going back to energy, you may find that early morning is a time when you are feeling most creative. Okay, yeah, I got that sense for you. Yeah, yeah, that is you. So doing. That means lean into that. That's not the time of day to be folding laundry and doing things that may not even be the time of day to exercise. Let's say it. It may be the time where you need to be journaling and writing and reflecting, and then  maybe exercise, and then do laundry so you can kind of figure out. It goes back to the word flow right? We always talk about a flow state. It's your most productive getting in the flow. You talk about that. That's how we become most productive and get it all done. But again, if if there are times when we're like. But also I kind of have to do that thing. There are ways to tweak it where you can say, all right. I'll take 10 min, and I'll write down the outline and the thoughts that I just had about that story that I'm so inspired to do, and then I'll return to that. So there's ways.

Linda Leverman: Absolutely. And I'm I'm actually getting a lot of tips here that I'm thinking I need to start making some notes while you're talking here because there's definitely things there. And you know, when you do talk about how there are things that you mandatorily have to do, and I know it just about killed me. About 2 weeks ago I had a bunch of paperwork I had to do for year end for my little business, just getting some stuff off to the accountant,  and I had to do it. It's like, okay, this is just reality. We all have responsibilities and life. My responsibility is to have the right paperwork sent into the account, so I needed to sit down and spend some time and make sure all my, you know t's were crossed, and my eyes were dotted. You know all that stuff. Make sure everything was just right, and it was like, darn, I want to be doing this. Darn! I want to be doing that. But I'm lik, darn, I got to stop and say, Okay, this is it.  I guess I'll have to call it time blocking for that day, or just setting aside time and going. Okay, this is it, this is reality. This is life. You can't skirt all your responsibilities. You still have to do the nitty gritty. It's like paying your bills for your house. You sometimes have to say, Okay, doesn't matter what else I want to be doing. I got to sit down and pay the hydro bill. Got to pay the cable bill whatever. Sometimes you just have to  to adult like you were saying  that darned adult thing.

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Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Ya

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Linda Leverman: Just kind of comes along.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: I could get rid of that, you know.

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Linda Leverman: Yeah.  I'll tell you how I get rid of it as I just. I act a little bit immature from time to time and it gets rid of that problem.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive:  That's probably why we are are definitely two peas in a pod.

Linda Leverman: Oh, gosh, yeah, you got ahead.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Yeah.

Linda Leverman: And like you talk about being a rock star, I'm going. So do you air band.

Linda Leverman: Do you like? Sit there with a microphone singing in the kitchen, or.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Actually, I'm in a band with my husband and my oldest son.

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Linda Leverman: Oh, that's even better.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: This son. So I I do.

Linda Leverman: Oh!

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: I am a singer and a musician. So we actually. But yeah, I totally.

Linda Leverman: Do you have videos for that.

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Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Actually, there's a there's, we have a Facebook page for.

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Linda Leverman: I'm gonna have to get a link on that. I want to see that that is so cool. So you definitely speak from experience on the musical, creative side.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Yeah, I.
e: A big musician for a long time, and. As well, and we have given that love to our children. We actually have.


Linda Leverman: I love it.

 My eldest is a musician as well as a good artist, and my youngest is an incredible artist, but also a fantastic musician. So.

Linda Leverman: Wow!

Linda Leverman: Creatives! It runs in your family. Creative runs in the family.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: It does as well as neuro divergence. By the way, so that's another. That's another tip. You you'll find that divergent thinkers, I think, tend to lean toward the creativity. But going back to your description of that like adulting moment, you're like, I guess I have to time block this. After all I would say call it priority blocking, and there's a couple things that you can do to make it a little bit better. One is you take a shorter amount of time to prime your productivity with something that you really love. I had a client  who he's an artist, any musician. So he create an incredible cartoons, and you know, plays guitar and sings. And I was like10 min of one of those things : before you start the thing you got ta do right can lift your spirits and make you really happy. And then you can also use that as a reward. So you set like a sprinting time like, or or maybe a flow time, 90 min usually suggest that either doing shorter sprints or 90 min, because our brains can only focus for so long, and you'll know your own brain when you're like tapping out. And you're like, I just read that same paragraph
3 times. Nope, that's not working.

Linda Leverman: Yeah.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: When you get to that point, then you give yourself another break and another treat the things that you love to do. And also, if there's something you have to do that doesn't take the same amount of focus that requires silence you can  play your favorite music, or, you know, like you could fold laundry and clean your house and  listen to music or to comedy, or, you know, just something fun that you really enjoy. I love rewatching things. Rewatching shows, you know, especially comedy shows and things like that, because you know what to expect. And then it just sort of,  I don't know it. It just it energizes you differently. So there's a lot of ways that we can  stay creative even when we have to do the thing.

Linda Leverman: Absolutely. And and it's interesting when you say you like to go back to comedy or things like that, you know what it is for me. I like to put on old music. By old,  I'm talking about what I grew up on. I'm almost 58 years old, and I go. You know what? When I was a kid. Okay, you remember the old Ktel records?

Lisa
Lisa: Yes.


Linda Leverman: and I will put on old ktel music, you know, Snoopy in the Red Baron, and you know, and all that kind of, the old songs. You know this diamond ring, all these old songs. I'll pick up all the old songs from the sixties and seventies, and I crank music from sixties and seventies, and it energizes me. It's always been that way. Years ago I was still able to run. I can't now, because I have a bad back. But when I was running I would always put on old music, crank the music when I'd go for a run would always do that.

Linda Leverman: and even now I find if I'm exercising at home, I do exercise at home. I have an exercise bike in a rower and stuff. Crank the old tunes. If I need to do housework, crank the old tunes, and it's like if I'm gonna get stuff done. Crank the old tunes, cause that's what's gonna get me going but it it isn't what gets me writing. It's usually a life experience, something that just triggers a memory, and it just suddenly makes me think about something the same with stories, and I'm thinking with you as a musician, do you song write as well?

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: I used to dabble in it a little. I watch my son do that now, and it's really quite incredible. I probably create more in terms of writing. And it was funny is that I  I like to write, but I've always tended to edit,  and becoming a Podcaster helped me actually write more because I like to script and lay out my solo episodes specifically, but also like the setups, for you know, and and researching my guests and things, and being in that position where I can talk it out, has actually helped me write it out better. So.

Linda Leverman: Wow! That's interesting. And and it's funny, because now I'm  thinking "she's doing things the way I do", because up until probably about a month ago I did all my recordings with no script, just winging it straight shooting from the hip when I'm yakking, and it's only recently, only honestly, because of podcasts and some platforms wanting transcripts that I thought maybe I better start writing some of this out ahead. But I'll still find myself looking at it. And then I start blah blah blah blah blah, and I start going off on my own because it's more I want to talk about what I'm talking about. But I.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: M Hmm.


Linda Leverman: Find it is helpful to do that.

Linda Leverman: So yeah, definitely, organization does help along the way. And I'm you know, I was thinking about something you mentioned, and you've been through a lot in your lifetime having to juggle a lot and maybe I'll let you talk a little bit about before I go into it. As to what happened, you had a family situation that you really learned how to juggle, being creative and  being an adult at the same time.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Yeah, it was a combination. And I actually refer to it a lot of times as sort of my origin story for being the kind of coach that I am. Now, you know the lessons learned. We are so ingrained, right? We have it in us. We're taught to just go, go, go, and I did that. But there was a time in my life that that became survival mode for me. I had both of my children. I was actually pregnant with my first moved my mom in with us, and she had Alzheimer's, and I cared for her while I had my first baby, then pregnant again and my second baby. So at 1 point I was caring for my mom, and I had an infant and a toddler.

Linda Leverman: Hmm! 

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: You talk about? Right? Yeah, just having a time where it's absolute survival mode you're just trying to get by. You learn hard how good enough is just freaking fantastic. Thank you.  I'm really.
 I don't know if : okay, I think when you're in an impossible situation and you get through it, you did a great job, so I have to learn to say I did a great job.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: And in truth, if I look back and I say, would you do anything differently, Lisa. The only thing that I learned that I would do differently is take care of myself better because everything else I just I did the best I could with what I had in the moment. So that's why I am a self care advocate. That's why I'm a caregiver advocate. Everyone thinks about the person being cared for. And I'm over here going. Okay. You are the one doing the caring. How are you doing? These are the lessons that I learned. And I took those lessons, understanding that there's so much that we do. That's just excess. Why are we even doing that? Because someone told us to we don't need. That's why I'm into decluttering whole life, decluttering, simplifying our lives. There's so much that we can let go of that we do not need.  And there's so much that we do need that we don't prioritize. And so I'm just trying to help us restore the balance.


Linda Leverman: Wow! That's very powerful what you just said, and the decluttering part as well, because the more you have, the more you have going on. The more you have in general life, clutter possessions, clutter everything. It just causes more stress. And some. It's a really fine line between knowing. Okay? I mean on the material thing. That's pretty easy. You get rid of stuff. The more you have, the more you got to look after, the more it costs to maintain it. Simplify is easier. That's easy. But what happens when your life  becomes overload like you say you're the sandwich generation. At that point you're carrying for an aging parent who knows Alzheimer's. You have young children,  and I know a lot of people will say the caregiver has to be looked after, because if you're not in good shape. How do you look after other people? And that guilt word that goes in there. I went through a similar thing. I I had a parent in the family who had Alzheimer's as well, and I was maybe at a different point in my life. My kids were a little bit older, but I was still juggling, trying to work full time, trying to juggle, having one child who was in mid elementary school years, and had another child who was in a very competitive sport, training 20 hours a  week, going to competitions, and trying to find that balance of  how do I help that parent who needs help, how do I keep working so I can pay for my mortgage. How do I be a parent who's there and take my kids to the sporting events. Cook dinner on time. Look like you know. I've got it together when everybody comes home around the table at night and help with homework. Do all those things. And how do I do all this, and not abandon that parent who has loved me unconditionally from day one. It is such a challenge. And that is definitely where you learn to prioritize and juggle. And I like how you talk about looking after yourself, and something that I learned during that time, and I learned it from a social worker in a care facility was., I was often beating myself up inside, saying, I'm not doing good enough, No matter what I do, I feel like I'm not there enough for my children. I feel like I'm not there enough for my parent, who has this I felt like, no matter what, I was never doing enough, and the social worker said to me one day, Guilt is a 4 letter word,  and I thought oh! And she said, "you can't guilt yourself out when you can't do it all because you physically and mentally cannot do it all. You can only do the best that you can do."

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: That's right, and it pulls you in in so many different directions and and serves no purpose. It's a lot like worry lets you potentially suffer twice. It's like it's not going to help right. And with the guilt, I mean. Oh, I...one of the things I've I've often asked, and I really like this as a as a question is simply, if you're asking the question, am I doing enough? You have the answer you are. If I'm asking the question, am IA good enough caregiver? Am I good enough, Mom?  It means you are by the sheer fact that you're asking the fact that yo had the heart to be like. I want to serve these people I love and to your point when we have parents, and we can give back to them, which is so rare. That is special. That's why I did what I did, but I've also come to learn that I probably did in some places more than I had to. And that's my goal now as a coach, and just simply as a friend and someone who's been through it is to say, let's ask the questions of  what they really need to be happy and content.  What you need to be happy and content, and how to find those different pieces. Kids are resilient. Families do well when you communicate and work together, there are things that we feel like we need to do, especially as moms and and caregivers like the you know the dinner on the table every weeknight that maybe we don't need to do. One of the things that I teach, and I, coach, is this idea of understanding people's love languages, and what really lights them up. and when you show up with that in mind, there are a lot of things that you think you need to do for someone you care about that you don't. It's wasted energy on your part, and when we get down to the basics. Sometimes they just like, I just want you to spend time with me. So then they don't care that you ordered a pizza instead, you know what I mean. It's like.

Linda Leverman: Yeah, it's.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Finding ways like that, to figure out really what matters to you and to those you love, and then focusing on that and allowing the rest to go.

Linda Leverman: I love that. I love that you said that, and you know I look at myself, and I'm I'm not a gourmet cook. I never have been. I'm like a meat and potatoes and chicken and rice kind of cook.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: I'll show up for that.

Linda Leverman: Yeah, it's all right. And I remember one time feeling really bad when I talk about busy lifestyles and things that had happened, thinking, oh, we ate a lot of chicken and rice. My kids were growing up because good old Shake and 
Bake was easy to do. Throw it in. It's somewhat nutritious. We're having chicken. I can get some vegetables going. And I remember for years thinking, Oh, gosh! You know, my kids never really had a creative cook, I mean, I always had a healthy meal on the table, but it was never creative. And now I look at my daughter, who's raising 2 busy preschoolers, and I go to her house to visit up in the Yukon a couple of weeks ago, and guess what they're having? Chicken and rice!

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: There you go!

Linda Leverman: Yeah, so I guess.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: It was a.

Linda Leverman: Okay.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: I I described before, when I when I was getting into it, was like I was almost about to say, Well, you know, I guess I did. Okay, or whatever I get it, I get in that trap as well. But then I realize you're in an impossible situation. So right there, if you're in that impossible situation. the thing you need the most is grace and compassion, and self-compassion is critically important. So you put meals on the table for your children. You kept everyone safe, and probably content and doing things that they love. That's incredible. So make sure that you, you celebrate that even when it feels like it was imperfect, and you would have done things differently.  Celebrate what you did.

Linda Leverman: I love that, and I love how you say that. And at the end of the day, if you were to ask me, what do I remember about my mom? Linda Leverman: It was the smaller moments that really mattered. And that's usually what my podcast. Is all about. I always say, sometimes it's the smaller things in life that really matter, and I don't think I ever sat down and said my mom cooked this or my mom cooked that. What I remember about my mom is her hopping on her bicycle with us when we were kids. My mom never had a driver's license. She raised 4 girls all on her own. She used to hop on that old coaster bike,  and she'd take all of us swimming. This was living in the North, and we'd all get on our bikes and follow my mom in tandem. We'd all go down to the pool, and she never swim. She never learned how to swim, but she'd take us to that pool. She'd sit on the side of the pool. She'd always go in the water with us, and again she'd get us out biking. We had a hill behind our house. She'd go hiking with us, but she led by example, leading a healthy lifestyle and doing things together, and it didn't matte  whether we had steak on the table, whether we had canned beans in a bowl which we had sometimes, you know, or whatever it was that we would have from a can. I mean, she cooked lots of really good things for us, but there were nights when you're working full time with 4 kids at home. Sometimes you come home and you open the can. You put bread on the table, and that's dinner tonight guys cause that's what I can mentally do today. And it didn't matter to me what was on the table. My best memories are sitting around that table with my mom and my 4 sisters. Those are priceless memories. I you just can't replace that. That's the best.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: So true, so true. And when we think about that, and we think about how we feel about others that way, then we can take heart that others will feel that way about us, and give ourselves some grace.

Linda Leverman: Absolutely. So. You know I'm I'm interested here. And thinking, gee, I wished I'd had you as a coach for a lot of this time, because, you know, one more thing I just have to touch base on because it caught my attention. You're talking about worry.
 How worry ends up causing. How did you word that you said? Worry makes you live it twice? Something like that.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Yeah, it. It makes you suffer twice, right? You know. And it's so. There's that unnecessary energy drain, because it's not going to help the outcome. It's not going to affect the outcome.

Linda Leverman: Yeah, and that is something I could use your coaching on, because I am a worrier. I think I come by it honestly a little bit, and I probably do waste time sometimes worrying about things. I'll I'll worry about something. And then the next day I'll go. Why did I worry about that. I mean, that was just ridiculous. That was nothing to be worried about. But in that moment you find that you know you get a little bit worried. I mean, even as a creative. I'll take doing markets. I've never been a vendor at Vendor market.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Okay.

Linda Leverman: Whatever. And this past year, I decided I'd like to get some product out. I I'll just show it here on the screen I make have to do this. Of course I make these little books at home, you know. So this is like the home maintenance log. But oh, the wine! Tasting journal wine tasting log. But I do this stuff and thought I get out to some of the markets and show some of the local people what I've got going. I got a little website and stuff. And the first night before the market I was so stressed, what happens if I get there? And what happens if my little square machine doesn't work? What happens if nobody likes my stuff? What happens if this, what happens if that? And then you know what happens if my tent blows away? My tent's not gonna blow away. We got 25 pound weights on either corner. It is windy here on the island sometimes, and I'm meeting all the standards for the vendor markets. I've got weights. My tent is not going to blow away and then the next day I go I set up, and all that worry ahead of time was, why was I worried? I had a great time. It was fun, but I probably wasted a good night's sleep. Worrying about something. Didn't need to worry about.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: And it's very natural it can come from so many reasons. And I definitely work on this with clients. So there are some things that you can do sometimes. It's experience, you know, things that you can feel more confident by having that this is where help with organization and planning come into place right.
 Because when you're organized you have your ducks in a row, you have your lists. Your checklists are brilliant, I mean. Listen, hospitals do it all the time. It's not cause they don't know what they're doing. It's because they don't wanna have to use that energy to be like, what do I have to do next. No, it's right there on a checklist or a procedure, right? So there's lots of different techniques that you can use. And then some of it is simply
 practicing the idea that it's like, well, it's either going to go well or it isn't. And if it doesn't go well, what would that mean? You know, you're sort of like playing through sometimes where you can play through the the worst case scenarios, and it's like, well, if this doesn't work, then I write down people's information, or I, you know there's there's backups to be had, or I call my friend, who's really good with Tech. You know the tent blows away. (both giggle)  Then? You know a bunch of people. I'll give a free journal to the first.

Linda Leverman: Okay. Laughter. 


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Capture the intent and bring it back. You know you start to play with ideas. You laugh about it. And yeah, there's lots of. : But we all go through this. You're absolutely right. And and learning again, it's learning to let go of what doesn't serve us and make space for what does, and worry doesn't serve us, and a good night's sleep certainly does.


Linda Leverman: Oh, exactly! I love that. I absolutely love that. And on the organized part I ended up creating a vendor planner. After that that has a checklist in the front.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Here you go! Perfect.

Linda Leverman: In there and then I ended up selling it to a lot of the vendors at the market. Say, I love that vendor, Planner because I thought I need this to be organized, and I had the whole list on there everything that you would need to set up. But you know what size of table, what you would need, what kind of materials? Making sure you didn't forget your power pack, you know, in case your square dies, all these little things. And the funny part is, this is a hobby business for me, and I go...so why did I even worry about that? You know that's just silly, you know that I even worried about it. Now I just kind of laugh, and I just go with the flow. And whatever you know, whatever happens, happens, you meet all these other vendors. Half of them are my age group, and they're all out just out there because they want to see people, and have a bit of fun, too, and that's what it's all about.  But it sounds like you could be so helpful to so many people, whether it's, you know, working through staying organized, you know, with a hobby, or whether it's somebody that's struggling with their actual day to day work life. And it sounds like that's something that you do as well that you do that every day.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Yeah. And I I feel honored that I get to, you know, be a coach to others, to to be a podcaster and and share. You know these ideas  freely, and to help others, and to celebrate having done it for a while. Now it's in multiple years that I've done this,  and then also that I get to be there for my kids. And you know, schedule my day in a way where I get to go, pick them up from school and bring them home because you get all the good gossip then. 

Linda Leverman: Oh, it's.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Point that out so best conversations are in the car.

Linda Leverman: Yeah.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: And yeah, and I don't always love the fact that they seem to want dinner every night. But but we have all learned to work through it. Where it's like meal. Planning is a group effort and sometimes meal planning is there's the fridge Godspeed.

Linda Leverman: Oh, good for you! (laughter)

Linda Leverman: I like that. I I that's a sign I gotta make now.


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Right? They're super easy.

Linda Leverman: Godspeed. I love that. Oh, that was so good! And I love how you look at life! I I absolutely love it so. If anybody wanted to reach out. Perhaps they wanted to hire you for coaching or anything. How can they find you? What's your website?


Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: You can go to positivelyproductive.com, or you're listening to an amazing podcast right now, hop on over to Positively Living. And you can find lots of ways to connect with me there, and if you like to hang out on Instagram and just have fun and be ridiculous and laugh. You know, and look at life this way, and maybe even catch some of the music that we talked about, and and me singing that would be positively underscore. Lisa, I love playing over there, cause it. It's we're not having fun. What's the point?

Linda Leverman: I love it. That is great. Well, I'll definitely be checking out positively underscore Lisa as well, too. That's on Instagram, and I'll put a couple of your links in my show notes as well today, so that people can find you as well. And I can't thank you enough for coming on the show today. This is so cool to be talking to somebody all the way over in New York.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: And southern Ontario.

Linda Leverman: There you go!

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: We call Southern Canada. Yeah, that's and.

Linda Leverman: Amazing. That's amazing. And yeah, and I'm here on Vancouver Island, in Western Canada. So we are a little bit ways away. But it's pretty cool to be able.

Lisa Zawrotny - Positively Productive: Yeah.

Linda Leverman: Chat with you, and I can't thank you enough for coming on the show, and as we wrap up I'm just gonna end with my line that I always use when I end a podcast I'd like to thank you so much for coming on the show today. I'd like to thank everybody who's taken the time to tune in and listen today. Please do check the show notes again. Whether you're watching this on video or listening to it by audio. I will have links in the show notes.  And yeah, if you enjoyed the episode, please do be sure to hit like, do share it on your social media. If you've enjoyed it, we always appreciate that as Podcasters. When we prepare a big meal, it's nice to have someone at the table when you prepare a podcast. It's nice if somebody shares it so others can enjoy it as well.

Linda Leverman: And that's it. I'm running out of air. Imagine that Windy Lindy's coming to an end. But thanks again, everybody for listening, and remember what I always say as we head out. Smiles come in all languages and in all colors. Alright! Have a great day, everybody

Linda Leverman: bye.