Living Your Values And Scaling Social Good With Sheryle Gillihan

Sheryle Gillihan:

I am so excited to be here Jennifer.

Jennifer Bourn:

Now, I want to talk more about how you use technology as a force for good to bridge cultural gaps. But first, you work with your husband. I co-owned my agency with my husband for over 10 years, and I know it can be challenging — and no matter how much you want to turn it off at five o’clock, that’s not always what happens.

And sometimes who’s the boss isn’t always clear.

So, I need to know more. I’m always curious how other people work with their spouses and make all of those kinds of things work. How do you do it?

Sheryle Gillihan:

So I tell people if we had only been married like a year or two, there’s no way this would work. But we’ve been married for over 20 years. In 20 years, you figure out how to communicate, how to deal with challenges, how to deal with roadblocks, how to deal with each other’s personality issues, you know, and what to expect.

I mean, sometimes with employees, even, and team members, you don’t understand their personality fully and then there’s a conflict there and it’s hard to overcome that if you haven’t been with them for a long time.

But I think working with my spouse has had the value of the fact that we can get over those things very, very quickly because we’ve been married for so long. So in a way, it’s actually been really beneficial.

I think if I had other partners that I wasn’t married to, like external partners, I would have a lot more problems with that because I’m very nice, and I acquiesce, and I am like, “Oh, well, I haven’t been doing this very long. I’ve only been a business owner since 2018. You’ve been a business owner before, or for a very long time, you probably know better than me.”

I think that I would do that more if I didn’t know the person very well or even if I did know them very well and I didn’t have the same kind of relationship with them. He can challenge me when I am acquiescing and I am saying just “Whatever, let’s just be done with this conversation.”

He’s like, “Don’t just do that. like, how do you really feel?” And, he’ll challenge me in those instances.

Jennifer Bourn:

There’s something to be said for that frank honesty. You have to honor relationships with external people a little bit differently than with your spouse, who can call you on your BS or call you when you’re playing small. Because sometimes we get in our own way and there’s something to be said for having somebody on your team, especially a partner or a spouse that is also your greatest cheerleader.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Right. And someone who really knows my values. So he will question sometimes like, “What’s the root of that? Are you making an emotional decision right now? Like, what’s the reason for this?” And so we can really talk through things at a deeper level.

I’m a member of Entrepreneurs Organization, and they have this thing called the 5% Michael and I have both been through the forum training and there will be sometimes where we’ll sit down for a conversation and I’ll just, I’ll say something.

Kind of surface level. and he recognizes, and he knows me well enough to be able to say, “If I’m really being honest, if I were in your forum, I’d say, you’re not sharing your 5%.”

Jennifer Bourn:

It’s a little bit of a double-edged sword. It’s good, then you’re like, “Ugh! Okay, you’re right.”

Sheryle Gillihan:

Exactly. So, I mean, we bring different things to the table as well. We don’t have the same skill sets. We don’t have the same approaches.

He is very operational. I’m very dreamy and I’m very optimistic. That’s just, that’s the only word I can use. Everything is rosy and perfect and it’s going to turn out fine. I am building the planes while I’m flying them. He’s creating the plans and the blueprints — he’s the engineer of the family. So we bring different things to the table and I think that’s valuable as well.

Jennifer Bourn:

It’s interesting — across several conversations I’ve had, there’s been this notion of having someone in the relationship that’s the expander and the big vision dreamer and somebody that’s the contractor that’s like, “How are we gonna do that, and what are the logistics, and what are all the details? Let’s talk more about this.”

And that balance of the expansion and the contraction, and the push and the pull, really ends up pushing you to the best possible spot.

Sheryle Gillihan:

That is why it doesn’t turn off at five o’clock, like, when the workday is over. We’re constantly talking about it because it’s our business and it’s our family and it’s everything to us right now. You know? It’s the season of life that we’re in, that we’re trying to grow this business. And so it’s all the time and it’s trying to find the harmony of, like, understanding when the other person doesn’t want to deal with that right now.

Jennifer Bourn:

Yeah, because that’s a little bit touchy.

I know Brian and I have gone back and forth at different times of our lives when one is having more stress than the other. Or you’ll want to talk through something that you’re working on and it’s after five and I’m like, “I cannot hear one more thing about this today. I have to be done. We have to talk about it tomorrow.” Right? “Now, I’m at my limit. I want to hear what you have to say. I want to be there to support you. I am all-in tomorrow. Or I’m all-in in an hour.”

Sheryle Gillihan:

Absolutely.

Jennifer Bourn:

Now, you are empty nesters now. You mentioned this stage of life is a little bit different. You moved in 2020, a move that you say has changed your life. Tell me about this move and the effect that it’s had.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Yeah. For a long time, we were a military family, you know, I was in the military and then Michael was in the military. We were moving around and we had no control over where we were gonna live, what location we were going to be in, you know, how long we were going to be there. And so when I moved back to Fort Worth, Texas to be closer to family and his last deployment, the expectation was that we were going to go to his next duty station, wherever that was.

Well, he had been away from our daughters more than he had been at home after that deployment. And so he decided to get out. So Fort Worth was where all of our family was and so it was just natural that we came here — and there was a lot of job opportunities here for him because it’s a big aviation hub and that was the field that he was in.

Well, turns out when he got out, they laid off like 20,000 people at Bell Helicopter.

Jennifer Bourn:

Oh my goodness.

Sheryle Gillihan:

The market that existed for him just, like, disappeared instantly. And so, I think that from that point on, we were just trying to figure out, “Okay, what are we going to do to have the kind of life that we want for our children?” And so we both made it work. We found jobs that satisfied us. And we chose a home because of the school district. Like, every decision that we made when our kids were younger was for our kids.

Jennifer Bourn:

Oh, same. I remember looking at… “Nope, we want to live here because of the good schools and we want to be in this neighborhood because we can walk to the school.” And all of the things centered around the convenience of having little kids.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Yes, exactly. And we were in that home for 12 years because it was for the kids and we really enjoyed being in that location for that reason. However, as our daughter was getting to be a senior in high school, we thought, “Well, what’s next for us?” Because we don’t need to have a big, you know, four bedroom home with an extra media room. We don’t need to have sleepover space anymore.

Jennifer Bourn:

We’re having the same conversations.

Sheryle Gillihan:

We don’t need to have the great schools. We don’t need to have all of these things. We don’t need to be walking distance from the library.

And so we said, “Well, what is important to us? We’ve been married over 20 years. You know, we’ve had kids for the majority of that — a good portion of our lives, we’ve had kids in our lives And what do we enjoy? What do we want to do? Where do we want to be? And how do we want to enjoy our time together?”

We spend so much time at home that we wanted to find a place that really suited our needs, and so, we created a checklist of the things that we wanted. We found this home in the midst of 2020. It was a crazy time to move but we ended up buying a place with some property. I think that maybe a lot of people did this during the pandemic — just wanted to get out of the city.

Jennifer Bourn:

We tried so hard.

My husband grew up on property and he’d always wanted to go back. And in 2020, our neighbors got a ping pong table and it’s on the other side of my office wall — and it is so horrible. We tried moving.

We wanted to move to property but so many people were flooding out of the cities in 2020, realizing we’re all stuck at home in these tiny houses. The market skyrocketed in our area so fast we got priced out of the market by people from the Bay Area who were selling multiple houses. Multi-generational families selling multiple Bay Area houses, pooling all their money, and buying all the big pieces of property.

But so many people I know did the exact same thing that year.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Yeah, it’s been the best move.

For one, we were looking at how do we get closer to our families? So, his father is aging, my mother is aging, and we wanted to make sure that we could get to them quickly — and we were so far away from them.

So for us, you know, during the big freeze of 20/21 — the big Texas freeze — it was so good to be really close to our families. His father lost power for three days and we were close enough that he could get them and bring them to our house. Um, and we were close enough to my mom to help her when water went out and things like that.

And so being close to family became really important to us. You know, understanding that we needed a place with amenities.

So I had a client that, has been a good friend of mine for a really long time, and she’s older than I am and she said, “Sheryle, when your kids are out of the house, the thing that you need to recognize when you buy a place is that you want them to come home — not to live but to have fun and to want to bring their children there. So you have to buy a home with amenities.”

And so we were thinking about how do we make this a place that they want to come back to? I. I hope that they want to visit me. But I want it to be a place where they can like feel relaxed and feel like it’s a vacation and feel like they can do something different here than they can do anywhere else.

So that’s what we were looking for.

Jennifer Bourn:

What a great notion of looking for that family homestead — that home base they can come back and have a unique experience and have that special time with family and have that space to be able to do that.

Now, you’ve picked up different hobbies and skills since moving as well. You have got chickens, you’re growing crops. Tell me about some of these hobbies.

Because when you work in digital, and so much of your life is spent behind a computer or your job centers around you sitting behind a computer, having those non-digital hobbies and things to go and do become such moments of peace. There’s less distraction and you really can just let your mind wander.

I want to hear about these new hobbies of yours.

Sheryle Gillihan:

All right. So, I have so many. It’s wonderful. And you’re right, I mean, the soil therapy is really good for me. You know, getting my hands dirty and in the soil has been wonderful. I’ve learned so much.

I had a black thumb. I mean, I used to say, “I can’t grow anything. I kill everything that I buy from the store.” But I think it’s because I just didn’t do the research. I didn’t spend the time investigating what I needed to know. I just assumed so that if I bought something at the store, and I watered it once a week that it was going to be fine.

You know, I didn’t know how to tell if I was overwatering or under watering or if it had enough light or what it needed. Quite frankly, it was probably just, I didn’t care. The plant just looked pretty and I wanted to have a plant and keep it alive.

But since moving to this property, there are so many native plants here and there are so many fruiting plants here, that I’ve started to investigate each plant and what it needs. And I have gone down the rabbit hole so deep.

Like, the other day I was measuring, like, soil pH. I was like, “Oh, this needs a little bit more of this.” Um, I was looking at one of my trees and I was like, “Okay. The symptoms show that I’m either under watering or overwatering. How the heck do I know what to do if it’s either one?” And then I was reading something else and it was like, if the leaves are this color, you probably need more phosphorus. And then I’m Googling, like, what has phosphorus in it?

Jennifer Bourn:

Yeah, where do I go buy this?

Sheryle Gillihan:

“Oh, bat guano. Okay. I have some back guano in the greenhouse. Let me just sprinkle some of that on.” So I did that the other day and then I looked outside and I was like, “Oh my gosh, it looks so much better.” Like, within a few days I was like, “That did the trick. Okay.” Then now I’m just watching it.

But every single day I’m learning something new and it’s fascinating. You know, I’m a lifelong learner and usually, the things I’m learning are like how to design marketing campaigns, how to upgrade this on my website, how to add this plugin — it’s all very digital.

But learning about nature, learning about our trees, learning, you know, conservation and agriculture has just been a lot of fun. And it’s one of those things that I feel like is a lifelong skill that if I can pass this on to my family or pass this on to my friends or others, you know, it’s something that we need.

You know, if the world comes to an end, um, which we thought was going to happen in 2020, these are skills that are actually practical skills that I feel like, why don’t they teach this in school? I feel like I need a masterclass. So, I did take the Ron Finley Masterclass in gardening.

And so that’s been a lot of fun just to go down that rabbit hole and really learn. And when I’m having a bad day at work, there is nothing more therapeutic than going and like looking at my trees and trimming trees and kind of doing the bonsai experience but like on real giant Oak trees,

Jennifer Bourn:

There is something to be said for a project where you can see your progress right there in front of you. Brian and I were just talking about this, driving home from Chico the other day. I have always watched him do construction and taken pictures, but we’re so under the gun with time, I’m doing demo, I’m doing drywall, I’m doing caulking, I’m doing all of this stuff that I have never done before, and I’m figuring out why he likes it so much.

There is this deep sense of satisfaction when you look at a job done and it doesn’t take months and it doesn’t take all this technology. You’re like, “With my hands, I made this progress today.” It’s the same — pruning trees and gardening and working in the yard and all of those things — it’s immediate progress. Right? You see the impact of your work right away.

And I love that you mentioned passing some of this knowledge down to your kids and really looking at creating that legacy. It’s one of the reasons why all of our vacations have centered around nature and national parks and getting away from crowds. There’s so much peace when you’re out in nature, but teaching them about all of these things — you can’t become a good steward of the world around you if you don’t understand the world around you.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Exactly. And I think we were making some of those shifts, like as a company, we were trying to understand how can we be more environmentally sustainable? And I think that just bled into my personal life — as I was learning more about it, as I was engaging with these different organizations.

And once we bought this property, I recognized that there was just so much opportunity to be more active in my involvement and advocacy of that. And it doesn’t need to be just this passive thing where I’m looking at carbon offsets or carbon credits or projects that I can support with our company dollars. It can be something that I can actively take part in and, like, with my own hands, make a difference.

So that’s been really wonderful to just recognize that I have the capacity to do that and it didn’t take too much. I don’t know it all but I’m just learning something new every single day and it is incredibly forgiving because we have been messing up the world for hundreds of years — thousands of years. And so just one step forward every single day and learning something new, it makes a difference. And so I love that part.

Although, I will say technology is still very much a part even of the things that we’re doing on our homestead. Like, we got a solar-powered digital chicken door that opens and closes at the right times during the day. That’s been a godsend — not having to deal with the chickens when they want me to deal with them. Just having the ability to manage that in an automated way with technology has been really wonderful.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that — and the congruency between you walking your talk in your personal life and your professional life, right? Seeing the alignment there of “I’m talking about these things in my business and we’re saying that we care about these things,” and now you’re showing up in your personal life completely aligned with that.

And I think that’s the perfect segue to talk a little bit more about Cause Labs where you help organizations scale impact towards equality, education, and access. So, tell us a little bit about Cause Labs and your company mission.

Sheryle Gillihan:

So as a web agency, it seems like, everything we do is green because we’re going digital. We’re not using paper anymore, it’s online, it’s all green. Um, and we are recognizing that there is such a carbon footprint to the energy that’s used to process all of this data, process all of this information, the servers that are housing all of it.

So on the environmental impact side of things, we’ve really been taking a look at that footprint and understanding that ourselves. We know that not everybody cares about that just yet, and not everybody’s looking at that, but we can make the difference behind the scenes automatically.

So the way we operate is one way that clients working with us can make an impact. But the main thing that we market and talk about is the impacts that they’re scaling within their own organization. So a lot of the partners that we work with are nonprofits or social enterprises, public benefit corporations, or corporations that have some sort of purpose model or program that is to deliver impact and purpose within the community.

And so the digital programs and platforms that we build are more than just a website. A lot of times, you know, the website’s there just to deliver to your content but when you’re at the points of “Well, how do I engage my community? How do I create the best membership platform? How do I create the best learning management system platform? How do I deliver this on brand and in a way that can scale with my organization?”

One of our partners is a partner in Kenya and we built a learning management system for them on WordPress in 2019. And good on them for thinking ahead. They didn’t know the pandemic was going to happen but we launched in summer of 2019, and by 2020, everything was shutting down for in-person classes. And so they had had all their courses already ported online but they recognized in that time, how much more they can do.

Like, it wasn’t limited just to what they were able to do in person with, you know, a handful of staff. Now, they can asynchronously work with all of these students and they can post the courses up there, and it’s not dependent on the number of staff that they have. It’s just dependent on loading those courses that can be a little bit more evergreen. They’re now scaling to a hundred different locations in Africa.

Jennifer Bourn:

Wow.

Sheryle Gillihan:

And so this is what we’re talking about, where we’re saying scaling impact. It’s not like, get to a hundred locations immediately. They didn’t even have it in their plan to get to a hundred different locations but it was more of the exponential capability of when you do go digital and understanding it just takes one step forward, and then another step forward, and then another step forward. And then over time, you’ve got this system that is just able to serve so many people.

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s amazing.

And you have won some awards for your work and the role that you’ve played: Real Leaders and Great Women of Texas. But at the same time, you shared that you’ve also had a little bit of a hard time reconciling some of that public success and the accolades that come with that with some of the realities of day-to-day business operations.

What has that been like? I know the pandemic was really challenging for a lot of agencies. I’d love to hear your story.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Yeah, the pandemic was really challenging. We had some turnover with staff, we had some challenges with contractors, we just had challenges with anxiety and issues. I mean, it was beyond what we can control with company culture because the world was upside down and, whatever was happening in our personal lives was definitely affecting, you know, how we were showing up.

It was affecting us as leaders, and it was affecting our team as team members, and it was affecting the way that we were interacting with each other. And on top of that, we worked with the nonprofit sector and a lot of their funding was just frozen during the pandemic and really dedicated towards crisis — you know, who is in crisis and like, which programs are in crisis.

And, digital programming wasn’t necessarily considered a way to alleviate that unless it was something that was off the shelf and very easy. Whereas we really take a strategic approach, and it’s a little bit at a time and it’s not just a one-and-done.

We’re really looking at what’s the long-term impact and so our programming and what we deliver for our services takes a little bit longer than just download zoom and turn on the meeting and let’s get going. And so we were certainly affected by what was happening in the pandemic.

And then in 2021, we did have to do a layoff — at the end of the year. 2022 we made those layoffs — but we had made the decisions towards the end of 2021. So after the holidays and when we got back in 2022, I had to make just that really hard decision and had those really hard conversations with our team members. And it’s hard for those that we’re letting go, it’s hard for us, it’s hard for those that are staying. It’s just heart-wrenching to go through that experience for anybody that’s in that.

And then a few, weeks after we did those layoffs, I got the email about the Great Women of Texas award, and when I got it and I might, again, I cried. I cried because I didn’t feel like a great woman with what I just had to do.

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s so hard.

Sheryle Gillihan:

And I think as a business owner there are these challenges that we go through and the question is, “How do we take care of the people but how do we also take care of the business?” If we don’t take care of the business, we can’t continue to take care of people.

Um, and so we have to make some of those hard decisions and maybe that is what great leaders do. But when I got that award, it felt like I was needing to fill shoes that I couldn’t wear. You know, when you say, like, “How do you fill somebody else’s shoes?” They had like, given me these shoes that I felt like I couldn’t fit into and they’re my own shoes. But I just felt like I could not fit into them. It felt too big for me.

And to reconcile that, I do a lot of meditation, I do a lot of prayer, and I do a lot of just introspective thinking and time with myself. And recognizing that none of these awards come because of me.

It takes a village and I know that’s a common statement but it really does.

And there are a lot of women who prepared the way for me. And there are a lot of men. And Michael being one of my biggest supporters, kind of prepared that path for me in that way for me, and has always supported me. And it takes all of these people working together — it takes both my current team members, my past team members, even my past team members maybe that I didn’t even get along with. It takes all of them and all of the challenges and all of the achievements. It takes everything just comprised of all the things that have ever happened. That’s what leads up to that moment.

And as a woman of faith, you know, I feel very led and called to the things that I’m doing. And so, as I was thinking on this particular award and how I was feeling about it, I was like, “Well, if this is where I’ve been called to be, and this is what I’ve been called to do, and if these are the people that have supported me, who am I to say that their work wasn’t great?”

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s such a great way to look at it.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Because even though my name is on the award, there are so many people that make me the woman that I am.

Jennifer Bourn:

I really love that twist of looking at the collective support that has helped you get to where you are today, that has made you who you are, that’s played a role in that journey.

I mean, imposter syndrome is something that people toss around all the time “Oh my gosh they’re going to feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, or somehow it’s gonna come out that I actually am a complete fraud and I have no idea how to do anything that I’m working on.”

But there’s this deeper level of feeling when it’s two things happening so close together that feel so at odds. Having to lay off staff and then getting an award, even though that award doesn’t have anything to do with that. Just the timing, the complete extremes of those things — it can be really difficult to take a positive outlook on that and find that truth moving forward.

And you’ve focused on strengthening relationships, on partnerships, on groups of other women in business. You mentioned that you’re a part of Entrepreneurs Organization.

Tell me a little bit about the support system that you have in place.

Sheryle Gillihan:

So Entrepreneurs Organization is definitely one of the things that I have around me that’s been invaluable since I became a business owner. I’ve been part of that organization for three years now and it’s been really wonderful to have my forum and that support. I feel like I have this global community that I can tap on now because of that.

But then, I also have other organizations or associations that I’ve been affiliated with and associated with that have been a good support from the mindset of always learning and seeing how I can use business as a force for good.

You know, the B Corp community and B-Lab have been really great for that, as well as the UN Global Compact. I get a lot of resources from that but also the community is very transparent and open and willing to share with one another the different things that they’re doing. So again, from a business standpoint, really being an impact-driven business I learn a lot and gain a lot from that community.

I’ve been a part of Opportunity Collaboration for over a decade now, and that is uh, it’s a group, but it’s a conference that’s focused on poverty alleviation and bringing world leaders together. and I don’t even know how I got involved, but I’m so grateful for that community and everything that I’ve learned.

And so I think being parts of these different groups that align with my personal values has been really fantastic for me from a business perspective.

I think that the WordPress community has been a huge support and the different business owners that I’ve met through that. In fact, just before I became CEO of CauseLabs, I met you for the first time at a conference called CaboPress.

I was supposed to be the plus one at that conference, you know, sitting on the beach, drinking my margaritas. I was not supposed to be involved in any of the talks. I wasn’t going. I wasn’t interested. No. But the day before I left for that conference, the founder and former owner of CauseLabs asked me if I wanted to be the CEO, if I would take the role, and I was like, “I’m going to Mexico. See you later.”

I had no real interest in being the CEO. I didn’t know what that meant. I was like, “Oh my gosh. Okay, let me think about it.”

Jennifer Bourn:

What a great place to think about it.

Sheryle Gillihan:

The ability to go to that WordPress conference — where every single person was a business owner, CEO leader in their field — I got to ask so many questions. I got to understand what I didn’t know. And it was like a crash course in owning a business or leading a business.

And I came back. I said, sure, we’ll give it a try. Worst case scenario, we’ll go bankrupt and we’ll all lose our jobs. But, you know, we’re gonna go bankrupt and all lose our jobs if I say no also. So let me say yes and see what we can do with this.

And look at us today. I bought the company from him. We’re doing great, and yeah, it all started at that conference. And just being curious and asking questions and leaning into people who were willing to share their experiences.

Jennifer Bourn:

That is amazing. What a great place to be able to contemplate that. And what serendipity to have it be a conference full of owners of agencies — to be able to talk through some of those things and ask those questions.

I think that it’s the perfect segue into this quote you shared. You said “If your plane is crashing, book knowledge is only going to help you pilot so much. The rest is instinct feeling, experience, and magic. All pilots go through the same training, but some pilots are better than others because of their experience.”

I think one thing that really stands out to me is that you’ve invested in building a breadth of experience that really shows how much you care about what you do and continually learning and growing and exploring what is around you.

How has really investing in your own personal growth and these unique experiences shaped your trajectory?

Sheryle Gillihan:

I mean, I think I mentioned earlier, I’m a lifelong learner and it’s just exciting for me to learn new things. Um, sometimes that’s to my detriment because then I’ll get bored with it and move on to the next thing. But I can’t imagine being anywhere different than I am right now.

And it was nowhere in my plan.

Like, I never planned on being a CEO. I never planned on owning a business. I never planned on growing my own crops. I never planned on having tickets. Like, none of these things were in my plan. But investing in learning new things and investing in myself and really taking the time to understand, like, what do I need and what do I want? And what do I want for my future? I think that has led me to learning and growing and investing in myself — in the things that have led me to where I am today.

And I think that it’s been transformational and I’m happy with where I am today. I’m a better person today than I was 10 years ago and 10 years before that.

Jennifer Bourn:

That’s fantastic.

Now, I do have a couple of questions for you, as we wrap up our conversation here, first, what can’t live without tool do you wish that you had discovered earlier?

Sheryle Gillihan:

This is gonna be a crazy answer but talking about just investing in ourselves and constantly learning, I think that audiobooks and audio learning and the quick learning — I have them all. I have Read It For Me. I have Blinkist. I have Audible. I have Libby and do the audiobooks through my library on that.

Like, anything that allows me to do like the audio learning has been really… I can’t live without that these days.

I am definitely of the camp of I love a physical book and I love reading so much and that probably just stems from like how I grew up and how I process information. But I just find that I don’t have the time for that anymore. and I should say I’m not making the time for that anymore and so it’s been really great to just do the audio learning.

Jennifer Bourn:

There is something so magical about cracking the spine of a brand new book, and curling up in a cozy spot or in the sun or your couch or wherever, and just turning the pages and reading. It is my most favorite thing. But it is really hard to find that time in the day when so many other priorities compete with that.

Do you find that audio learning gives you more ability to work that in when you’re doing things like, are you listening to audio while you’re gardening or while you’re walking or while you’re doing things,

Sheryle Gillihan:

No, I’m a really bad multitasker.

So, when I am focused on something, I usually focus on that — and especially when I’m gardening, that is my time of peace.

Jennifer Bourn:

Okay. I’m really glad you said you didn’t do it while you were gardening.

Sheryle Gillihan:

It’s my time of peace and it’s very therapeutic for me and I love my plants and I just pay attention to each one. So, no I don’t do it then.

But when I do, when I am driving to an event for example, or I have a few minutes before a meeting and I’m prepping for something and I just wanna look something up — I’m a big bookmark user. So, I do have things bookmarked that I will go back to and just listen because sometimes it’s helpful and valuable to have some of those snippets of knowledge.

And again, it’s kind of like this mentorship community of people who are transparent and willing to share. Right? Sometimes I just need to hear other people’s experiences and what they went through. For a lot of things, it’s the business books that I have that I lean on for that. But there’s actually some fiction books where I’m like, it’s really changed my perspective on things and given me a new way of approaching some of the decisions that I make and so that’s been really fascinating too.

Jennifer Bourn:

Nice. Now, sometimes our days don’t go according to plan. How do you make sure you stay in a positive head space? Or when things do pull you off track, how do you get back on track?

Sheryle Gillihan:

I don’t know what you’re talking about. Everything is always going to plan!

I live by my calendar.

And how do I get back into the positive head space? I did mention I’m a very optimistic person. I think I live in that head space all the time anyway more so than most people. And I think that’s just been trained over time. It may be personality but I think part of it is also the way that we’ve positioned things as we were growing up in our neural pathways in our brain.

I went to a session with a, I think he’s a Hindu priest, and he was talking about focus and awareness and recognizing that our response to a situation is all dependent on the neural pathways in our brain. Like, some of us are natural response is anger, and some of us, our natural response is optimism.

Um, and I think I am kind of in that camp of it’s all gonna be fine, we’ll figure it out. And I think that’s just my natural response to things. There are times when I definitely go down the rabbit hole of fear, anger, anxiousness, shame, and like all those feelings that we all feel. But I think that I am quicker to kind of shift my awareness back to the other perspective, which is optimism.

Um, so it is all about perspective. Every situation that we have is the perspective that we have on it and we can respond in kind.

Jennifer Bourn:

I love that reminder. It’s that idea that you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it.

I go straight to that, “Grrrrrr!” Right? That like, fierce anger. And I’ve got to get up and stop my feet and be my whining two-year-old and get it out and call a friend or vent to Brian. And then I can come back and say, “Okay, I can’t control this. I have to let it go. Let’s keep going.”

So I admire people like you who keep that optimism all the time.

For people who might be considering a life change — you’ve gone through a couple. You accepted the role of CEO and changed your career in a way you weren’t even expecting, you’ve gone through the transition of becoming an empty nester, made a big move that has really changed your personal life.

For people who might be in a similar situation that are contemplating some kind of big transition, what advice would you give them?

Sheryle Gillihan:

Well, that’s a really good question.

I mean, I think the first thing, it really depends on the change and it depends on, who is impacted by that change also. Because some of the things that we are making changes about affect more than just ourselves. For example, our big move was a family conversation. That was a family change so that wasn’t something that I could do on my own.

Knowing that I want a change and being open to having that conversation and opening the door for that is one thing. For the changes that I had to make that were just for myself, I think it took time to really understand what season of life I’m in. I was just giving, not necessarily advice, but motivation to a family member and telling her that, we all go through these different seasons of life and what they require of us, you know, can be intense.

• Some moments of our life, require us to focus more on our family.
• Some require us to focus more on ourselves.
• Some require us to focus more on our business.

I think it’s an awareness and understanding of what season of life are you in? Um, and how do you find harmony between the things that you need to balance?

I mean, there is no work-life balance, it just doesn’t exist. And so it’s kind of a funny question, you know, what does work-life balance mean to you? The reality is that it always feels unbalanced.

And I think that part of it is, for me at least — I don’t wanna speak for anybody else — I should upon myself a lot. Like, I try not to do it to other people but I do on myself. Like, I should be doing this and I should be doing that and I should have done better on this. And I try to recognize when I am doing that and recognize where I need to really be putting my focus because of where I am in my life.

Jennifer Bourn:

I think that’s such a great perspective to have on really looking at the season of life and what it needs from you. I also love the reminder that work-life balance is a myth.

Sheryle Gillihan:

It’s such a myth.

Jennifer Bourn:

I have always equated it as a teeter-totter or a seesaw, with work on one side and family on the other. And as long as it’s always moving, and one doesn’t have priority for too long — sometimes family comes first, sometimes business comes first — everything seems to be okay.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Yeah. I saw a talk with you Usain Bolt and he said, “When I’m in training season, I’m in training season. And if that means I have to miss a family’s birthday party, then I have to miss because I am in training and I’m not gonna be training forever, but this is the season that I’m in.”

Jennifer Bourn:

It’s such an important reminder.

Now, for people who want to connect with you, to stay in touch, where can they learn more about you? Where can they learn more about Cause Labs?

Sheryle Gillihan:

So Causelabs.com and then I can be found at Sherylegillihan.com. But also I’m on all the socials. Um, mostly use Instagram and I’m just @sheryle, which I think is really cool that I got my first name only. It’s kind of like Madonna. Like, who gets their first name anymore? Nobody. I’m keeping that handle forever. But also CauseLabs on all the socials: @CauseLabs.

Jennifer Bourn:

Fantastic. Well, Sheryle, thank you so much for joining me and sharing your journey of seeking satisfaction.

Sheryle Gillihan:

Thank you so much, Jennifer. This was a lot of fun.

Jennifer Bourn:

If you enjoyed this episode of Seeking Satisfaction, subscribe for new show updates at Jenniferbourn.com/seeking-satisfaction, and hey, please leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform.

If you would like to hear more from Sheryle and discover her process for how she found her forever home, which is rooted in core business project management principles and spreadsheets, check out the Seeking Satisfaction Extra Minutes Membership.

Members receive Extra Minutes from podcast guests, like Sheryle that provide valuable training to help you do business better. You can find details about the Extra Minutes Membership and Sheryle’s bonus training in the show notes.

Until next time, may you live inspired, embrace imperfection, seek satisfaction, and have a fabulous day.

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