How to Say No Without Losing Momentum with Ginny Priem

Kathi: Hi everyone. I am here with Ginny Priem, and we are going to talk about success, speaking, podcasting and all that good stuff. So welcome to the show.

Ginny: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Kathi: So tell the guests a little bit about your background. I already did a little bit of a warmup for you, but tell us your story, Ginny.

Ginny: Oh my gosh. Sometimes I joke and I'm like, "So it was 10:11 a.m. on a Tuesday. I was born." No, but I'll start a little more recent than that. So I spent over two decades in corporate America leading teams doing education, training and development, and almost two decades of that was spent in the medical aesthetics industry. I was traveling all the time for work and for fun. I love experiences and seeing new places and cultures, which is really exciting for me. And then I was introduced to this guy and I was not interested in dating him, because I just told you how good my life was. Why mess with a good thing? But also because he had two kids. And eventually my walls crumbled. I fell in love with him. Met those kids and fell in love two more times. So everything's good. I have this instant family. They move in here to my house, part time, because they go back and forth between here and their mom's, and their mom is amazing. And I'm doing school pickup and drop-off, and I'm doing the laundry, and making sure the house is clean and the lawn is mowed, and paying the bills and the mortgage, and doing the grocery shopping and the cooking. Meanwhile I'm traveling and doing my job and keeping a rigid workout routine and keeping up with my friends and all of this. I got to the point where I was just completely over-functioning.

I got to the point where I was just completely over-functioning.

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Ginny: And one day I was coming home from a work trip, and a friend wanted to urgently meet for cocktails at 10:00 p.m. when I landed on a Tuesday night. Urgently. And so all day I'm going, what is going on with her? What is wrong? Is everything going to be okay? And how do I show up and be a good, supportive friend? And I get to the restaurant and reach across the table and touch her arm, and I'm like, "I've been so worried about you all day." And she said, "This isn't about me. It's about him." And she displays this arrangement of evidence about the man that was at home in my bed. And immediately the detective wall forms in my mind, and I'm mapping out all the dates, the names and the locations, and everything was true, and then some. So he was a complete monster and fraud in every way. Yes, of course, there was cheating, and people are like, "How many women?" I'm like, "I don't know, hundreds." I have literally lost track of the women that have reached out to me. He pretends like he's a chiropractor and performs medical adjustments and treatments on people, and he has harmed people. He's a financial fraud. Every single way you can imagine. So I had to get him out. And then eventually I wrote a book about it. That was my first book, You're My Favorite. And that completely changed the trajectory of my life. I published that while I was still in corporate with my big fancy corporate job. And one day I just had this moment where I was like, this is my last corporate job. And behind the scenes I started building everything. I spent my nights and weekends with a business coach, getting my master certified coaching certifications. I published my book. I hired a speaking coach, started my podcast, and started building all the pillars of my business. So it was really an unexpected turn of events that sent me down this path of the work that I do today. So hopefully that wasn't longer an answer than what you were bargaining for, Kathi, but here we are.

Kathi: No, it's very interesting. And it's interesting because I just interviewed someone the other day who'd been dating a double-married guy. He was married to her and someone else. So, two lives. I don't know what it is about these men. I'm glad to know that the ex-wife is kind and good, but I'm surprised she didn't clue you in to anything.

Ginny: Well, here's the thing. He tried to keep us apart. She and I have talked about that often. We're very close, and I'm still very close with the kids. So we actually call ourselves a modern family. We do vacations together, spend holidays, birthdays. We do everything. We see each other all the time. We're very involved in each other's lives. But we've talked about it, because with people like him that are narcissists, sociopaths, manipulative, when I was in the relationship and he's doing the love bombing and I think I'm in this fairy tale romance, all she would look like, and what he would position her as, is the crazy ex-wife that's obsessed with him and is just upset because she wants him. And that actually happened when a couple of the women that were dating him reached out to me and I explained everything. Someone actually sent his most recent girlfriend a copy of the book, and they pinned it on me and said it was me, and I was just crazy, and yada yada. So you just get painted as the crazy ex. So it wouldn't have done any good. He did try to keep us apart. And she and I have talked about that. She's like, "Would you have believed it?" And I'm like, "I don't know." Probably not.

Kathi: Probably not, because you're getting love bombed and all that stuff, as you said. So, wow. Okay. So that lit a fire under you and you decided you're going to be your own boss. I think when you said, "This is my last corporate job," it's because you wanted to take control. You wanted to take control of your life and be the captain of your ship and do whatever the heck you wanted to do.

Ginny: Yeah, that's probably part of it. I think really my motivation behind it was helping people. I had paused on writing the first book for about a year and a half, and when I circled back to it, I actually had somebody tell me, your purpose in this life is to help people heal and share their stories, and you need to finish this project in order to be able to do that. I see you on stages all over the world, helping connect people. So I think for me it wasn't really a self-motivated thing. Yes, I did need to get back control of my life and myself and trust myself again. All of those things needed to happen as part of it. But really I think my driving motivation was to help people, because I wish that I had had the tools that I have now, that I've developed and that I share with people, back then, before I was in this over-functioning place where my body was screaming at me. I had precancerous skin lesions removed at the peak of everything. My hair all broke off and fell out, and I got shingles on my face in my 30s.

Kathi: That's stress.

Ginny: Yeah, that is not normal, when your nervous system is basically attacking your own body. So that's really the place that it was coming from for me.

Kathi: Wow, what a story. So talk to me now about how you help clients, or actually, give me a story about one of your favorite clients.

Ginny: Oh my gosh. I just came off of a little ten-day mini speaking tour. Speaking is the main thing that I do, and it's my favorite way to connect with people. Yes, the keynote part is fun, connecting with them and getting the energy and the engagement in the audience, but it's the connections and the conversations that happen after. And this past weekend I just had the best group of people in the room, and the way that they engaged and then came up and talked to me about their stories, or what they've been through, or the questions that they had about the story. So that's my favorite way to help people and work with people, the speaking component. And then just hearing how Unsubscribe, which is my intellectual property, and I think we'll get to that a little bit, is the filter that I'm helping people reclaim time, energy and boundaries at work and in life with. It's about why letting go is the secret to getting ahead. And the most rewarding part for me is, sure, I have the ways that I've applied it to my own life, or the ways that I imagined people would apply it in their own lives, but when I get to hear back the vast ways that people are applying it in their own lives, oh my gosh, it is so rewarding.

Kathi: Now I know why we're talking together, because my whole thing is learn how to let go with grace and ease. And when you let go, you can embrace change. And letting go is unsubscribing. I have my little magic wand, and I say, I give you permission to say no. Just say no to that. You don't have to say yes to every single thing.

Ginny: Yeah. I love it.

Kathi: And I'm with you as far as speaking. Talking to the people afterwards and seeing what hit home, how they could relate and what they're going through, is motivation to keep on keeping on.

Ginny: Absolutely.

Kathi: So now you have your company, you have your coaching. Let's talk about Unsubscribe. I told you what I do as far as the letting go, and we're parallel universes here. Why did you start your podcast along with speaking?

Ginny: When I was developing my business, my coach was basically like, these are the four pillars. So my podcast used to be called Drinking With Gin, a play on words, and we would just have conversations over a drink of any kind. It wasn't always alcohol. And then when I developed the idea of Unsubscribe, I did a whole rebrand and changed the podcast to Unsubscribe with Ginny Priem. I got an IP trademark attorney and was able to trademark my concept. And it's built around four pillars, because I think sometimes people are like, "Oh, just let it go," and it's this flippant attitude. That's not what Unsubscribe is. It's not about just walking away from everything or from responsibilities, or burning everything to the ground, which is why I developed four pillars that make up the foundation and make up this filter. So you have a neat little box to put everything in. And it's fluid. It's not just, oop, this goes here, and then you wash your hands of it. It's really designed for accountability, to be action-oriented, so that you are taking ownership and, to use your word, taking back control of your own life and your decisions. I think right now the problem is that so many people are feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. They feel like they've got too many priorities. Everything is urgent, and if everything is urgent, nothing can actually be important.

Everything is urgent, and if everything is urgent, nothing can actually be important.

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Kathi: Right.

Ginny: So what we don't do is as important as what we do. So the four pillars of Unsubscribe are block, mute, swap and manage.

Kathi: What was the third one?

Ginny: Block, mute, swap and manage.

Kathi: And manage. Oh, let's dig into those a little bit.

Ginny: Okay. So block is, what I like to say, where things go to die. That is where we are completely removing something. And that can't be everything. Sometimes I'm like, well, what do you want to unsubscribe from? And people will be like, taxes. And I'm like, okay, let's be realistic here. Maybe taxes go in the manage pillar, where it's like, okay, it's overwhelming for me, so maybe I need to hire an accountant or a CPA. Or if you have a business partner, maybe you can manage it, or maybe you swap who's going to take it each year. So you can literally apply this to just about everything. So block is where things go to die. Sometimes we do need to block something or someone from our life. For me, we'll use my ex as an example: complete block. And when I say that, I mean completely removing it from your orbit, from your energy. No sneaking on their social media to see what they're up to, or having your best friend creep on their social media to see what they're up to and report back to you. This is something that you need to completely remove from your life. So that can mean a lot of things for a lot of people. I've had some people say, you know what, I unsubscribed from alcohol, and it was a big thing that changed my life. Or I needed to unsubscribe from this job and never look back. Did you work in corporate at one point?

Kathi: For a fleeting second.

Ginny: Okay. So maybe you block corporate and you are self-employed. So it can apply at work and in life in a lot of different ways. And then mute is for things that we take a temporary break from, something that can maybe be postponed or delayed, that's just causing some friction. I do like to use the example, and I don't know why I feel like I'm talking about alcohol so much, but it's such a relatable example, of Dry January. Everyone knows the concept, whether you participate or not. You take a break for 31 days. So you take that mute, and then at the end, what I would encourage you to do is reflect. How did that make you feel? Do you want to continue the mute? Do you want to block it and never consume alcohol again? Do you want to go to swap and maybe swap it for a mocktail, mocktails for however many days a week? Or manage your consumption and say, I'm only going to drink on the weekends, or whatever that looks like. Mute at work can look like this: I'm working on this project, I'm super frustrated, I'm stuck. And instead of just continuing to push through and get mediocre results, maybe you get up and walk away. Take a mute, take a break from it. I call it taking an emotional lap. And then sometimes when you come back to it, you can have a little more clarity.

Kathi: That always helps. Definitely walking away and walking around.

Ginny: Yep.

Kathi: Percolate on it. Don't do it. Percolate.

Ginny: I have not heard that word in a while. I love it. Percolate on it. And then swap is exchanging outdated systems and beliefs. In my new book, one of my favorite spreads in the whole book is in the swap chapter. I give all these different ideas of things that we can swap, especially as women and high performers. I think we can get stuck in these all-or-nothing mentalities, like, well, if I can't work out for an hour, I might as well not do it at all. But could you swap a 60-minute workout for 20 or 10? Sometimes that's better than nothing. Or if you can't run, can you swap it for a walk? And I think sometimes we tell ourselves these things that aren't even true. We compare ourselves to people online on social media. Can we swap comparison for inspiration? Can we swap judgment for compassion? Can we swap that negative thought that we tell ourselves in our head for something a little bit kinder? There are so many ways.

Can we swap comparison for inspiration? Can we swap judgment for compassion?

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Ginny: This is a great example of what you asked earlier, a client or an experience that made me really happy or excited or was really fulfilling. I was in a keynote, and we were in the workshop part, and these women at the table all worked in HR. They're like, "Oh, Ginny, we want to tell you our swap. We're so excited. We have been doing payroll manually for 700 employees, and we finally get to swap it for an automated payroll system. We are so excited to unsubscribe from manual payroll." And I never would have dreamed of that, because that's not an area of work that I've ever done. And we talked about it, and they were like, "No, do you understand what this is going to do for us? Because we get to unsubscribe from doing payroll manually, we actually get to free up our time and energy to focus on the human part of human resources." And that was a really cool shared experience that people shared with me.

Kathi: That's fantastic. I work with a lot of HR departments, and I feel bad for them, because they're pulled in so many different directions and there are so many regulations. I can't believe that that company was actually still doing manual payroll. That's wild. So yay for them. That's fantastic. Now they can actually deal with the humans.

Ginny: Well, and then they came to me because they're like, "We see how Unsubscribe helps teams, leaders and organizations make better, faster decisions and prioritize better." If you are less distracted, you have clearer priorities. You're more productive and effective. "And now we're increasing productivity by using this simple filter. We've got this common language." And so they reached out and were like, "We want to bring you into our organization to bring the Unsubscribe message in," which is really cool. Because a lot of times HR leaders are the ones that are doing the learning and development and seeing how they want to pour into their teams and organizations.

Kathi: Absolutely. They're the kicker and the impetus oftentimes.

Ginny: For sure. Okay. So step four, manage. That is for the things that do need attention, that we can't just get rid of. Maybe it is in your personal life. Maybe it's a relationship, or maybe it is a toxic relationship with a coworker. I've been there. I think a lot of people have. And so maybe you can't completely unsubscribe. And when it gets to this point, I like to always note that Unsubscribe is never about controlling anybody else or their behaviors. It's only about how you show up and interact. So if you need to manage a relationship, maybe you manage that by the frequency you see that person or interact with them, and the way that you interact with them. I actually had a coworker once who was extremely toxic, and I eliminated any outside-business-hours communication, and I moved everything to writing. And if she wanted to have a one-on-one meeting, I would always make sure someone else was there, because things would get twisted or changed or manipulated. So you can manage the type of interaction and then also the duration. If you're seeing them for 60 minutes, does every meeting need to be 60 minutes?

It is never about controlling anybody else or their behaviors. It's only about how you show up and interact.

Kathi: Oh, yeah.

Ginny: And I think sometimes in organizations things are done the way they are because it's the way they've always been done, not because it's effective. So Unsubscribe challenges that. Less is more, as long as you're doing less with intention. So it challenges some of the outdated systems, like whoever gets to work the earliest and stays the longest gets the promotion and gets the salary increase, and then rinse and repeat. That's what's causing people to burn out. So this flips everything on its head and allows people to implement strategic thinking to find better ways to do things in today's modern world.

Less is more, as long as you're doing less with intention.

Kathi: Yeah, I think it's super smart. I remember I was working with a marketing department, and all they had was meetings. They had meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings. Those poor ladies couldn't do anything but have meetings, so they couldn't actually do their job. So when I worked with them, I said, "Okay, we're going to have no-meeting Wednesdays. Not a single meeting on Wednesday, so you can actually get projects done." And the productivity soared. It's an idea of swapping, moving, changing the point of reference. And in corporations it's sludgy to get things to move. But once they see how good it is… I love it. And I love the fact that you were hired to come into the company and make even deeper changes. I think that's fantastic.

Ginny: Yeah, I love it. That's great. I feel like I would put your idea in mute. So we're going to mute Wednesdays from meetings, and give people that break from those meetings. And I always say, don't forget about the meeting for the meeting, the pre-meeting for the meeting. Oh my gosh, I remember that from my corporate days. In one of my companies we had a 9:07 a.m. meeting every Monday, and it was the same round robin every week. It wasn't actually productive. And then everybody would get on their phones, call each other, email each other, text each other after, talking about what a waste of time it was, only to then waste more time.

Kathi: Right. Groundhog Day over and over and over. And they do it because it's been drilled into them. You have to have a Monday morning meeting. Well, I always say, if you have to show up to a meeting at a corporation, show up with your agenda. Make sure that you get your agenda covered. In other words, if you want to finally talk to Danny, who you only see at the Monday morning meeting, make sure you grab Danny on the way out and get done what you need to get done from that meeting. Otherwise, it's just a waste of time. That's why I was in corporate for a hot second. You lasted longer than I did.

Ginny: Well, I thought that was the only way, but I think we have to have the courage to do things differently now.

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I just love the four pillars that you've developed. So when you come off of a big success and you're like, "Woo, this is fantastic," how do you celebrate? What's your modus operandi?

Ginny: Oh, you're going to love this, Kathi. Stare at a wall.

Kathi: I can see that. I can see that.

Ginny: I am a deep introvert, and while I love connecting with people, it really drains me. What's weird is, a couple of weeks ago when I did a keynote, I left feeling really energized. It was very bizarre. All the rest of the day I was just on fire. But part of what I do as a speaker: a lot of speakers just roll in, they show up, they do their talk, and they leave. I do not do that. The last two weekends that I spoke, it was a half day on Friday and a half day on Saturday, and I was the closing keynote for both events. I was there Friday morning. I had meals with the attendees. I sat with them. I listened to the other speakers, watched what was resonating, watched where I could go deeper. I truly customize it to my audience. I had dinner with them. I did their evening activity with them. I got to know people, so that when I was in front of the room, I wasn't talking at them. I was talking with them. And it felt really personal. And because I feel like I have to be on the whole time, if I'm in an elevator or walking around the resort or the hotel, I might run into somebody that's in the conference. It's not that I'm pretending to be somebody different, but I do want to be on. I'm doing a job. It is my job, and I take my job very seriously. I want to do a great job for my audience and for my client. So after two days of that, I'm pretty tired. So on Saturday I came home and I just vegged on the couch. I always joke that I'm a little old lady. I was born a little old lady at heart. I watch Wheel of Fortune five days a week whenever it's on, so my people know: do not call Ginny between 6:30 and 7. She is busy. I love to read books. As an author and as a reader, I love to read and learn stories and improve myself. And on Saturday after that keynote, I worked on a puzzle. I love puzzles. So that's what I did. I literally just need to decompress.

When I was in front of the room, I wasn't talking at them. I was talking with them.

Kathi: Well, it's amazing that you consider yourself an introvert, and yet you spend a lot of time at the conferences meeting the people. I do the same exact thing, because I want to know how I can fine-tune it to say what they want to hear. Before going on stage I always say, please, please give me the words to say what they need to hear. It's not just the speech. And I think that doing that is very helpful. But that's surprising, as an introvert, that you spend so much time hanging out with the people. Good for you.

Ginny: That's why. It's not that I'm not outgoing or that I don't enjoy people. Introversion is just that you need time alone to recharge. That's all.

Kathi: If you could look back… So did you start corporate right out of college?

Ginny: I was working full-time before I graduated college.

Kathi: Okay. Yeah, I did know that. So if you could look back and tell your 18-year-old self some advice, what would you give her?

Ginny: That's a loaded question for me. Trust yourself. Don't be what other people think you should be. Be who you know you should be.

Kathi: Yeah. Be you. And that's hard when we're 18. It's hard at any age, but especially at that age. It's good, sage advice. So how can people connect with you if they're resonating with this podcast? How should they find you? Should they go to your website, GinnyPriem.com?

Ginny: That's probably the easiest, and everything is linked there, all my socials. And look, I'm boring and I need things to be easy. So all of my stuff is just my name: my Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all of it. So my website, GinnyPriem.com, is probably the easiest.

Kathi: Okay. And why don't you spell that for the audience, in case they're listening and not watching?

Ginny: Yeah, it's G-I-N-N-Y P-R-I-E-M.

Kathi: You got it, Ginny Priem. This has been fantastic. Is there anything that you wanted to discuss that we haven't spoken about yet?

Ginny: No, that was great. The new book is out, and that is also linked on my website. So, Unsubscribe: Why Letting Go Is the Secret to Getting Ahead. It's designed specifically with you in mind, as an entrepreneur, as a woman, as a high performer. There are little workbook sections at the end of each chapter. So hopefully this gave you a little inspiration today, and then you can actually pick up the book and do the implementation.

Kathi: Awesome. We will absolutely put the link below. Make sure to order a copy of that book. We all need to learn how to let go. Isn't that the truth? So many things gather up in our lives and scatter our lives and make us disorganized and scattered and cluttered. Let it go, and let it go with Ginny's advice. So thank you so much, you guys. Thanks for tuning in. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, leave a comment, leave anything that you want as far as comments and ratings, and give us a good rating. I would love and appreciate your support with the podcast, and especially for Ginny. So thank you, Ginny, for spending the time with me.

Ginny: Thank you.

Kathi: Yeah, absolutely. Until next week, you guys. We will see you then.