193. Accelerate Dating by Hacking Your Time with Vikki Louise Yaffe

Today, I am joined by a very special guest, Vikki Louise Yaffe, a feminist time coach. 

If you have ever wondered how to redefine your relationship with time, not just in your day-to-day activities, but also in managing your relationships, you'll find this episode insightful as Vikki shares an intriguing perspective on time management and its impact on our lives. We delve deep into how to handle the challenge of accelerated decision-making in relationships, a concept that seeks to break free from the fear of failure and welcomes the potential for growth.

Vikki shares her personal story of dating without boundaries, an experiment that highlights the delicate balance between vulnerability and self-preservation. Join us in this enlightening conversation, whether you're trying to navigate a relationship, wrestling with time management, or simply interested in a fresh perspective.

Featured on the Show: Vikki Louise Yaffe

Vikki is a Time & Productivity expert and the host of the Hack Your Time podcast. She calls herself a reformed hustler and used to work 80 hours weeks, doing all things. Now Vikki works 15 hours, achieves more, earns more, and helps other people do the same through her signature program, Time Hackers.

In Time Hackers, busy overachievers learn to achieve more in less time, with ease. Time Hackers accelerate into their future by doing less today.

Want to become a Time Hacker? https://www.vikkilouise.com/time-hackers 

Schedule coaching with a Time Hacker Coach: https://bit.ly/timehackercoaching 

Apply to Become a Timer Hacker Coach (next round opens Oct 2023): https://www.vikkilouise.com/bathc 

Listening at a later date? Get on Vikki's list for program announcements: https://www.vikkilouise.com/guide 

• Vikki's Website 
• Vikki’s Podcast
• Vikki’s Instagram
• Vikki’s Facebook
• Vikki’s LinkedIn

Bending Time & Space Podcast Conversation with Vikki Louise and Sade Curry

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Transcript

Sade Curry: 0:29

Hello everyone, welcome back to the dating after divorce podcast. I'm your host, Sade Curry. I have a very special guest. I know I say that about a lot of my guests. But Vikki is so special to my heart, so she is a time coach, a feminist time coach specifically. And not just that but Vikki is my friend, my coach colleague, and she is my own time coach. So I have coached with Vicky. It's probably about to write about two years now on how I see time, how I use time, how I approach productivity. Quote unquote. I'm holding up quotes on productivity because we have a lot of thoughts about what that word means and she's really helped me not be in this hustle mode in life, not just in my business but also just in life wanting things to happen with impatience, like all of those thoughts that we tend to carry about the things we want to achieve. Vicky's been really pivotal in helping me relax and rest and take time out and enjoy the present. So, Vikki, welcome to the podcast. It is such a pleasure to have you.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 1:40

Thank you, thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here and to delve on like a topic that I don't speak about often, so thank you for this opportunity.

Sade Curry: 1:49

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. So I do want to caveat right at the beginning that Vikki is not divorced, so we will talk about her dating journey, but it's not a dating after a divorce journey. Vikki, please tell the listeners kind of a little bit about yourself, who you are and what you do.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 2:08

Yes, so I'm a feminist time coach, focusing on how we use our time, not time management and how we optimize our time, how we rest, how we switch off, how we partner with time, instead of traditionally what we've been taught to do, which is really work against time compete with time. There's not enough time, time is the enemy. And, yeah, I work with clients, you know, through Time Hackers, as you know, so people can join my lifelong coaching program. I also train coaches as Time Hacker coaches and now I also work with companies, so we'll go into companies. We'll help individuals and teams and entire businesses support their employees around their time problems.

Sade Curry: 2:53

Amazing, and you've been doing this for years now, but before that happened before that, yeah, this is such a funny story.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 3:05

So I'm not been divorced, but I do have an ex that I was with for like seven years and then I went from that to being single for basically a decade not quite a decade, I'm exaggerating, but I've not done the maths in my head and it's on that side. It's felt like a decade. And so then when I did get into a relationship which we'll talk about afterwards how that happened but when I did, I was suddenly hit with like, oh, relationships aren't the answer to like happiness, like my whole life becomes a movie. It's kind of like, oh, then you settle back into real life. And I actually struggled in that relationship.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 3:40

So I decided, as I was coaching at the time and I just taken, like this is 2016, I just took like 10 free coaching clients from all over the world, and then after them, I was like, oh, I'm going to be a relationship coach because this would totally help people in their relationships, and then very fast realized like I didn't need to become a relationship coach. I needed to hire a relationship coach just because I think, you know, I just never been in an adult relationship and I completely overlooked that we moved in together after like two minutes. There were just so many things that, looking back, I'm like, obviously I needed support and I probably, like so many of your listeners, came from the mindset of like but I'm an independent, you know, ambitious, powerful woman and I can do this all myself. And not only can I do it myself, I'm going to do it for everyone else and very fast. But the put the brakes on that which was best for everyone.

Sade Curry: 4:38

Yeah, yeah, but do you feel like because I say this often that, like, compared to business and work and getting a job and career, there is almost no education on relationships in the world, even though it's just as significant, maybe more so significant than our careers?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 4:58

Well, I completely agree with you. Not only is there no education, is no normalized like idea of of that being education around it, so even though there is probably more resources. Even this podcast and working with you, there's more access to information and resources on this and ever before we still so many others think like we shouldn't need it because it's not been normalized to invest in this area.

Sade Curry: 5:23

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a. I think that's a problem that's kind of put on women. That's like a burden that's placed on women. You're supposed to be in a relationship, you're supposed to know how, you're supposed to just come out of the womb knowing what a healthy relationship looks like, even if you don't see it in your environment, and then you're supposed to just get into one, and if you don't, there's something wrong with you.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 5:45

Yes, absolutely. And the other thing that you said you know I will. I will be honest. I do find being in a relationship amazing a lot of the time, and challenging as well, and that in the moments where it's challenging, like I would give up like my career, my business, like every everything else in my life, because it is super important to me so it's not even just equally important to my work, it is more important is a part of my life that I personally value very highly.

Sade Curry: 6:16

Yeah, yeah, we're social creatures. We were created more so for relationships, I think, than what are all relationships, than we are for this work and hustle and you know, grind that gets gets kind of out put on us All right. Well, thanks for like just telling us a little bit about yourself. Let's see, should we talk time first or dating first? I want to talk time first. Okay, personally I that's what I want to talk to you about. What is like. I just really want to know your thoughts. You tell you say, like our relationship with time is not time management. Like could you tell us a little bit more about that?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 7:00

Yeah, I think I. I compare the time management industry and it is an industry to like the diet industry, where there's like a thousand plans and if any of them really works, there wouldn't be any other plans. Everyone would just do that one. But what I see people doing is jumping from like I'm going to wake up in an hour earlier, so I'm going to buy a new planner, so I'm going to color code my calendar to whatever I'm going to plan on a Sunday. Like we're like constantly thinking the perfect plan, the perfect time management tool, is going to allow us to get ahead, create breathing space and feel on top of our to do lists and priorities. And it's literally not working. Much like with that industry. We're creating more inefficiencies, more stress. Managing time is literally another thing to manage when we're already super busy. So that's why I tend to teach everything against time management and listen. If you're listening and something works for you, like your calendar works for you, writing a to do this works for you, that I am so pro you doing what works for you. This is really for those of you that are like I should be able to plan, I should be able to follow my calendar, I should be able to know on a Monday what Thursdays are gonna look like. Like what if you shouldn't, and, unfortunately, what.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 8:10

One of the things that the time management industry has created is this kind of playing game with time where there's not enough time. You know there's too much to do. Time is a problem. Time needs to be fixed, and the interesting thing is time is fixed like time is. Literally we know how many hours there are going to be in a day. We know how many days are going to be in a week, like it's a known variable. So it's us and our relationship to time has to change. Like for everyone listening, even imagine dating time. If you were dating time right now, how would you describe that relationship? Is it like loving and nourishing and two way and like open and communicative? Or is it like blame me and judging and avoidant? Like really think about that, because shifting your relationship with time will have a way bigger impact than any new planner that you buy.

Sade Curry: 9:02

Yeah, yeah. Like if we're constantly telling time well, you're not giving me enough, you're not enough, you're not doing enough. There needs to be more of you. Like you just slipped away, you're never around when I need you. That's not going to be healthy. So what do you do about that? Like, what is the? What is the shift from all of those thoughts which I have, those thoughts you know? All right, I'm going to plan this week and I'm going to try this and I'm going to try that, and I'm a I don't know, I'm a Virgo, so there's something about to do lists that make me happy. Even when I don't need them, I make them. Everything is in a list. What is our relationship with time? How can we think about time differently so that we can create that relationship?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 11:01

Yeah, I mean, really what I would say to anyone is think about someone that you have a good relationship with this could be a friend, a neighbor, a sibling, a pet, like it really doesn't matter and think about how you describe them, like, oh, they're always there when I need them. There's plenty of them. Like our relationships are really our thoughts about someone else. So the best place to start would be mining your existing positive relationships or thoughts. And the other thing that I would encourage, I mean you know my time hacker process, right? So there's so like there's so many different things that we could touch on here, because there's probably like 30 or 40 different tools.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 11:37

But the other one that I will mention is radical responsibility. We accidentally, as a society, give time too much credit and too much responsibility, and what this looks like is saying like time heals all wounds, or right time, right place and this. These are just saying that we've kept saying, but what they do is they make us less powerful, like if time heals all wounds and we're not responsible, like I even think about, for your nation, for the people listening. If like time, what is what's the saying about? Heartache in time?

Sade Curry: 12:13

Oh, the time heals I've heard time heals all wounds, yeah.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 12:16

Yeah, yeah, I think it's like around that.

Sade Curry: 12:18

It's very if you just wait a certain amount. Oh, I'll give you one that I was actually told I was in this like divorce program very early and someone said, well, in order to heal, I was told not to not date for one year, for every three years that you were married in order to be truly healed. And I was like so I was married. By the time my divorce was inked it was 20 years. I was like so you're telling me six years, like there's something wrong with that. I don't think that's right. Yeah.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 12:47

Yeah, it's funny, it's like over allotation to time. And so what do we do then? That we remain powerless to do anything. We just have to sit there and let time pass. But, as I always say, time passes, but time is passive, and that's why two people you know can be at the same length of time in that host divorce journey and living completely different lives. And that shows us that we are powerful. We are more powerful than time, and when we take that responsibility and we take that credit, we become the change makers.

Sade Curry: 13:20

Oh, I love that, that is so, that's so good. Like, instead of saying time is the driving factor for our goals and the things we want, seeing that we have a driving factor. Yeah, I think when we see that things change. Because, when you look at, because I think, I think about it in terms of like, when I talk to my kids, I have two kids in college and I talked to them about that Okay, four years, and there's some of this passive like, if I just go to school and do this classes for four years, then this will happen and thankfully for both of my college kids, they don't have that mindset because we've talked about it.

Sade Curry: 13:57

I'm like no, no, this is like a see your colleges as a container to create whatever you want and you know they. So they go out and they look for opportunities to do fun things adventure, travel abroad like they've just like packed things that they love and then they've deep prioritized things that they don't want to. If there's like a class they need to pass, they like don't try to get an A. They eventually do get an A or B in it, but they don't try to get an A in it because they know there's this other thing and that means a lot more to them. I love that idea of that. We are the driver, so like let's talk. Let's apply that to dating where people get told well, it takes time, you have to go on 100 first dates. You know you have to.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 14:47

I will say I think there's a difference between being willing to go on 100 first dates and having to, and that, for me, is the difference.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 14:54

right, it's like we don't know how many days it will take, like nobody can tell you how many days it will take. That's like that's not something that we can say, like it's not because we don't know who you're going to meet on date three, yeah, but the willingness to go on the 100 days, I think that's the difference, like the commitment to the result that you want and the willingness to explore, to fail to have bad dates that become funny stories, hopefully, and that's that's the difference, I think.

Sade Curry: 15:26

Yeah, I tell my clients to just choose their own number. Yeah, I'm like. I tell them, I'm like lean inside yourself, into your own intuition or your own heart. I want you to know about yourself and your. And then you give me a number. Wow, go and make sure those 30 dates or 20 dates or whatever a really good date, so that you're in this higher level of dating versus this lower, lower level of dating.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 15:50

And that's like 20 or 30 opportunities to learning it clear about what you want, what you don't want, what like how you want to be, what you do, how you don't want to be, how you want to show up, like all of these things. So I love that. Just go and get the dates and take all the juicy learnings.

Sade Curry: 16:05

Yeah, yeah, I wanted to ask you about decisions, because that's a big one. With dating as well, I'm always like insisting and pushing my clients to make decisions, because sometimes they will be in limbo. There's like, well, there's this guy and we've gone on three dates, but I don't know, and they can stay in that I don't know, for three months, six months, even a year.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 16:29

Yeah.

Sade Curry: 16:30

What do you teach about decisions?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 16:33

Yeah, well, I think it's interesting. Like, before we do anything, we have to decide about it. So a lot of us have a narrative that we're just not good decision makers. And everyone listening I just want you to just even think about the number of decisions you've made today, from what you wear to what you're eating, to listening to this podcast, to where you are sitting or walking or who you spoke to last, whatever it is Like. We are all expert decision makers and I just want everyone listening to know that you make decisions. So you have that skill already.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 17:02

And but the beautiful thing for our brain, which evolved at a different time and evolved at a time to avoid failure and all of that good stuff, is it knows that if you don't make a decision, you can't fail. If you don't make a decision, you can't make the wrong choice. And so often we're so afraid of being wrong, because wrong throughout our evolution used to mean like picking the wrong berry and ended up being poisonous, like we're talking about really deadly things. So our brains about the strategy of indecision to keep us alive. But that doesn't work with dating. Like it might seem super intense at times, but dating is not deadly. Like it's not a poisonous berry. That's not what we're talking about here, and I think there's just this widely accepted culture and norms around decision making that it's almost not just justified but celebrated, and it's like, oh, it's very thoughtful to give decisions more time. Here's what I'm gonna be very honest with you all about. If you are someone who gives decisions months about dating, our brain's natural state is to avoid new things, to stay quiet, to stay safe, to keep doing what we've always done, to stay in the cave, and the more time you give a decision, the more time the primitive part of your brain has to talk you out of doing the scary things. So we think that more time is better when it comes to a decision, but more time is more time for that fear part of your brain to talk you out of the decision that you like instinctively felt when you first heard it.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 18:37

And so I would encourage everyone listening. I mean, I have a process called accelerated decision making just like list out the dating decisions that you have right now and make them, and make them on purpose, knowing that some of them will be wrong and I say wrong and inverted commas because I don't really think anything is ever wrong, it's always just a stepping stone that allow yourself to do that, because our fear of being wrong and not being right 100% of the time is like walking in what's it called that mud that you get sunk? Oh, quicksand. It's like walking in quicksand and it's like we're stuck in a quicksand and it's like the dating life you want is right there. But you've chosen the puzzle with quicksand on purpose, like you wanna get out of there as fast as possible. Like, really, really.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 19:26

I would say, whatever you are not deciding, you are actually deciding If you're deciding to not be in a relationship with someone for three months or message them for three months, you're not in indecision and you've decided to not message them, you've decided to not be in a relationship with them and when you own that and you're like, if I'm not deciding to be with them and deciding to not be with them, that can, like propel you into honest decision making.

Sade Curry: 19:51

Yeah, oh, I love that word honest decision making. But we're being honest with ourselves about what we're doing. The way I walk my clients through that is I would be like, okay, there are only three buckets where this man can go. Most of my clients are women who are dating men. I'm like he's a very yes or no, or maybe. All right, let's start there, put him in one bucket, like they have to put him in one of the buckets. Okay, the yes and the no buckets are easy. If he's a yes, all right, let's go. If he's a no, tell him no. If he's a maybe, then my next question is what do you need to know to then put him in a yes or no? So then they're making a decision about making the decision yes, like well, I don't know his financial status, so I don't know anything about his family. And so when they now know, okay, I don't know these things, then it's like okay, well then go on date number four and ask those questions.

Sade Curry: 20:49

Yes, so simple and it's really just pushing the brain to come out of that like quicksand, like you said, and going to the next step so that you can move forward. Yes, yeah, amazing, amazing. When you talk about like so we have time acceleration, we have decisions, and then you also talk about defining success I don't know if I'm saying it right Like can you talk a little bit about that? Like, how can we define that in a way that is nourishing and good for us, versus what we've been conditioned to do?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 21:23

Yes. So one of the things that my clients do is move away from, like, the perfect planning and towards, you know, creating success on a weekly basis. But the issue is and I even was brought into a board meeting the other day and a training and they, you know I had in this like six hour meeting or eight hour meeting, whatever they had I asked them like how you define the success of this meeting and it was like, oh, we've not even thought about that because we're so busy in there to do this. So, for everyone listening, I want you to think about how you would define success this week and I want you to make it measurable. Now, sometimes that means maybe like going on three dates, and sometimes that means moving my confidence around dating from a five out of 10 to a six out of 10, that you can create measurement tools to support you.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 22:13

But the reason why we want to do this is because it creates filters for our brain. So we spoke about decision making a minute ago and we spoke about right before that how many decisions we're making every day. The easiest way to create priorities is to create the definitions of success and then set what we are doing or not doing based off of that. So, for example, if you're defining success as finding a long-term relationship or as going on three dates this week, and then it gets to Thursday and you've not spoken with anyone and you've not set updates, what you're doing for yourself is creating data and that data is saying, oh, like, I set this definition of success and I've not done anything about it why? And then we get to use that and through coaching with Chade also, my program, like, we use that as, like, the underlying reason is the root cause of why we are misusing our time and that's what we want to solve for.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 23:06

So, defining success really the other actually I'm going to just jump on this, because this is another big mistake I see people do when I speak about defining success is your success definition shouldn't be it to do this and it shouldn't have more than three things on it, the reason being and I also encourage you to create easy success right, like it could be my success this week is going to be to be on a podcast interview already, knowing that I had this lined up, because then I get to create the rest of the week from success.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 23:36

So you might say, my success definition for the week is to talk to one new person on the phone and that might seem like oh, that's small and your brain and how? We've been taught that I don't need the big things worth celebrating, which means we spend 99% of our lives not celebrating. So we want to instead create small, fast success early on. Then we get to live out the rest of our week from a position of success instead of chasing success, and that's a very different mindset. To come to things from it actually around dating for sure creates such a release of pressure and ability to be present. So that's what I would say about that that's so powerful?

Sade Curry: 24:18

because I do notice that a lot of my clients their definition of success is if you were to ask them what's your definition of success this week, it would be at the end of this week I am in an exclusive relationship with the man I'm going to marry, even though I haven't gotten a date in three months. Yes, yeah, of course, think about that much pressure, yes, to say, oh, no success. Nothing between where I am now and being in a relationship is successful. But you know, and we have challenges in my program where we're like, okay, 10 dates in 30 days. And when we map out the chart or whatever, it's like okay, we had 10 phone calls or we had we swipe, even swiping right on 10 people accounts as something to celebrate. Having one phone call accounts as something to celebrate going on one day, getting this like we have breaking it all down into a little bit and everything is, you know, or even just completing one of the worksheets on visualization or whatever of your relationship can count as success. It's not just when you're in the relationship.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 25:23

Right, otherwise we spend this is one of the big mistakes around goals generally. That has a spending most of our time in failure. And I love that you break it down because, yeah, I call it success hacking through celebrations and I just think, all the reasons to celebrate all the time. It's like you're fueling your brain with like positivity and not just like, oh, the sun is out today, but like you're driving that positivity. And if we, you know, leave our brain to its own devices and its negativity bias, we're never going to be doing enough, we're going to be really far away from what we want, we're going to be doing it all wrong and everyone else has it figured out except us. So we have to balance that seesaw with like, oh, this is what I'm doing, well, this is what I'm celebrating. This, you know, this was fun or whatever it might be.

Sade Curry: 26:07

Yeah, amazing. I love that. I mean, this is this. This stuff is like life changing, because I remember going through all of these modules and then the other modules that you have in time hackers and applying it to my business and the work that I was doing, and it was the feelings like it was really transformational, just in the way I felt about what I was doing and how I saw success in my business. So so good, all right. So now we want to hear your juicy story. I thought how you dated and how you met your husband.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 26:42

Yes, I mean it's funny, because I remember being in the position where I was dating for a certain period of time and I was like, oh, I'm going to be married to a husband. And this is when I lived in London and I remember being on a few dates and looking across and like not even listening to them because I was too busy in my own head thinking if they were going to be my husband or not. I was like, oh you, a lot of my friends are married before me. We're married before I was still single, had kids when I was still single, and so I really put the pressure on myself Like I should be where they are. And then you know, and then I quit my. I did an Eat Pray level, whatever you might want to call it. I had a job, I left my flat where I was living, I moved to a different country, I started my coaching businesses in 2016 and I had a friend getting married overseas and I went to their wedding and I booked just an Airbnb for the month. I was like I don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I just know that I'm like miserable there in all the areas. So, and then, a week in it was actually my birthday.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 27:40

I was in a club and I met this guy and he was completely inappropriate. He was like younger than me, he was living at his parents, his mums, and he was going to go live back in Australia. He was just there for the summer and I was like this is never going to be anything serious. Now the one thing I will say is, as soon as I saw him across the dance floor because all my friends had like gone off I remember thinking like he looks harmless and at the time it felt super insignificant. But now I think it's super significant because what it tells me is I immediately felt safer on him. How wild, is that so wild?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 28:19

But then, really, we both carried on dating each other for that month because we were like this is never going to be anything serious. We removed all of our barriers and boundaries and we just had fun. It was just about enjoying each other. And we joked like within two weeks I was at his mum's house meeting all the family. Like we did everything that you aren't supposed to do. 10 days I posted a picture of us on social media, like you know. Sunday, sunday with this guy. Like I did everything, the gurus that are telling you that you need three times as many years to get over, like they would all be like horrified at what we both did. I even think I argued with him once about like him going out to see his friends when we've been like hanging out for a week like really uncool stuff.

Sade Curry: 29:03

But I love that because it really when, like when I tell my clients, okay, you can't marry a guy you just met, the reason is because they didn't. They don't necessarily have what you had in that moment, so in that moment you were dating him and doing all of these quote unquote rushed things from a place of. I don't need this relationship to end at the altar.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 29:28

Yes, oh, I was like this is not healthy, and they got the answer for sure.

Sade Curry: 29:31

Yes, and that's what made all the difference is so that if it had, if something had gone wrong, if you had seen a big, giant red flag at any moment, you would not have had any trouble being like oh yeah, well, I knew this wasn't going anywhere anyway.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 29:45

Yes, and I mean I left to go to the US. So after six weeks I think, I extended a week or two and then I was like, okay, I actually have to go. And then I was in the US and I went to a cousin's wedding and everyone it was in Houston Everyone was married Like, and I was like, but only single one. I was like this is so triggering. But it actually led me to call him and be like hey, I miss you.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 30:09

Instead of like playing it cool or being like well, it's over. I was willing to be vulnerable and I was willing to fall flat on my face and even as some of my close friends or family were like this is ridiculous, this is obviously not going to work out, you have to let it go. I just remember thinking like I don't know what it is, but I know it's special and I'm totally willing for it to not work out, for me to get to experience these feelings. And again, I accidentally put so many barriers up so that no one even had a chance of coming close to me.

Sade Curry: 30:41

Yeah, yeah. And that those barriers. When I'm talking to my clients, a lot of times they put up the barriers from the fear of failure. Yeah, even though you really want this relationship, you're so afraid of not having it that you put the it's like this really tangled web where it's like, yeah, but the barriers are keeping you from having what you want. Like I'll talk to a client and they'll be like, well, I don't want to go on a date with anyone who isn't exactly what I want. I'm like, yeah, but it's going to take time. You've got to like go on like three dates to know if they're exactly what you want. Or you know little things like that that you know little things like that that you know. Show that openness to just I'm just gonna date, I'm just gonna date two or three guys. I'm just gonna be there because I'm gonna keep myself safe. And I think that's what I hear you. You had the ability to keep yourself safe in that relationship.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 31:29

Yes, absolutely yeah, so how?

Sade Curry: 31:32

did it. What happened?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 31:33

next, yeah, so I went to the US for a few months and then I was actually, I think I was in Vegas when a guy started hitting on me and I was like, oh, like I don't know what to say because I'm kind of talking with someone but I actually don't know if I'll ever see him again. And I spoke with him and we decided to become boyfriend and girlfriend, not knowing when we'd see each other again. And then he his grandma lived in England. So he flew to England, straight to London, straight to see me.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 32:01

We hung out with some friends and then he went back and I was obviously like, not working at the time, I was backing with my parents, I was building my coaching business and I was like, what am I doing? I'm just gonna go be with him. So we met on my birthday, on July 15th, and on like early December by early December I'd flown out, we moved in together to his mom's and then a month later we moved out into a little studio and that was when I decided there'd be a relationship coach. I was like this is hard.

Sade Curry: 32:30

So how long have you been married now?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 32:33

So we got married. A few years later, we got married. We've been married four years now. Congratulations.

Sade Curry: 32:39

Yeah, not just married, but you have a baby now.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 32:43

I know, and it also changes things. I do think, like I think a few things that I did. I did invest in relationship coaching the first year of our relationship and I do think that that was such an amazing gift to our relationship and I think so many people are like, oh, I don't need coaching until we've married for 10 years or on the brink of divorce. And I think it was such like a gift that I gave myself as an him to like make that investment Because, as you said, like I didn't know how to be in an adult relationship, I didn't know how to be in a relationship and be living with someone like yeah, I still don't know.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 33:26

I'm just kidding.

Sade Curry: 33:28

So true, like and because, even if you have seen a lot of healthy relationships, there's something unique. I tell my clients I'm like, listen, there's you, and then there's this person who is a universal unto themselves, and then there's this energy that you both create between you and it's not something you haven't experienced before. So actually, the last part of my program is learning to be with this person that you've chosen. So the beginning part is dating and then the middle part is choosing and evaluating and all those things. Then, when you've chosen someone, you're in a brand new container, yes, and if you've been divorced, like I was, you've been in a whole lot of shitty containers before.

Sade Curry: 34:09

So the being in this new, healthy, loving container actually requires a little bit of letting go of some of the old thoughts that don't come up when you're dating. Right, or sometimes they do, but sometimes they don't Like, oh suspicious. I remember, like on my third date or fourth date with my husband and he was telling me how the car he brought to our first date was his mom's car and not his car, and I was like that's a red flag, big giant red flag, narcissistic on board Right, because I was referencing the other relationships I've been in where status symbols were used to manipulate and people were lying.

Sade Curry: 34:48

And he was just like trying to impress me, right? So there really is. When you are in a new relationship, there is work to be done and there's work to be done ongoing, so, like, that was that work that I had to do. And then there's the work I do now being remarried and blending a family. Yeah, right, like there's always work. There's always work whether you do it with a coach or you do it on your own. But I think, understanding that, not just that it's work because I also don't like that word work when it comes to relationships, because that's used in abusive relationships to sort of keep women in there like, oh, you got to work at it, right, this work doesn't feel like a hostage situation. Yeah, this work feels like growth and it feels productive and it feels like you're releasing things and you're changing your thoughts and you're becoming a better version of yourself as you do it.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 35:40

Yes, yes, I also want to share. I'm just laughing. I've probably been on like a thousand dates in my life.

Sade Curry: 35:45

Oh my gosh, Tell like from what age to what age.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 35:50

I mean probably from like 14 until now. No, I've only been with my husband until you know 2016. So 20 years or whatever. And part of it was like I think I also saw dating, especially when I lived. You know, when I lived in New York, I lived in new places. I really saw it. I really valued either relationship instead of the outcome, right Like and also the experience instead of the outcome, like.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 36:17

To me, the measure of a successful date wasn't simply we're going to get married, but it is like am I going to have an interesting conversation? Am I going to learn something new? We're going to share an experience, even if I'm just going to learn something new about myself. And I think that meant dating for a long time was really fun. I do think along the way maybe there were like not like heartbreak, because I wasn't necessarily a long term relationship, but there were like trust broken or like expectations not met and a lot of pain and like loneliness and all of that stuff as well. But I do think, like now I'm so grateful.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 36:52

I think my people, skills evolved, my confidence evolved, my willingness. You know, like the, the like colors in my life. You know it's just full of like life and colors and experience, because I was just willing to date and put myself out there, and particularly, I think, with online dating as it is now and it's so easy to to actually hide and it feels like protecting ourselves. But actually any decision made from fear perpetuates that fear and any decision made from trust perpetuates that trust. And I would say to anyone listening like it's not about for me and get, it wasn't about me trusting him.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 37:39

I was never in such a clean place of trusting myself and because I trusted myself, he wasn't the only guy that I dated that summer. Like before him, like you know, I've been on like a few dates or whatever, and there was one guy that my friend had to get on the phone and tell him to stop calling. Like it wasn't I was right, I was in the right place, I was trusting myself to navigate and if it wouldn't have been good, I just knew for sure. Even when we said goodbye, I was like, oh, I'm going to meet someone, like it just was so obvious.

Sade Curry: 38:09

Yeah, and I want to point out that going on so many dates, you build some skills. It's just the nature of practice. Yeah, learned how to book up, quote unquote book a date, show up, show up in a way that kept you safe, interact. Talk to men yes, like for many women who have been married for a long time, our lives tend to revolve around our children. So the skill of just talking to a guy, yes, sometimes we lose that. If you even had it before, if you got married really young, you might not even have that. You might have been hanging out with your little friends. You picked one guy, you married the guy, you hung out with other couples or the parents of your kids, friends, and then now you're out here and you might not have the skill of just hanging out with guys as humans.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 39:00

So it can feel so daunting and it requires so much of us, instead of like just starting and starting with like a 30 minute going on a walk or 30 minutes. I'm sure you have all processes for people, but, like it's, we're not asking or suggesting that you go from like zero to 100 in terms of like going on a weekend away or whatever. With so many people. It feels daunting. What that probably tells us is like there is a skill to be built here.

Sade Curry: 39:29

Yeah, yeah, 100%. And you know it's one of one of the things I really want to advocate for is just education. Like we need to tell our little girls and our teenagers and this is along with your 20 something years of education that you're planning on getting kind of need read some books, get a coach, get some practice in this area so that it doesn't feel so intimidating, it doesn't feel so scary, you can trust yourself to have the knowledge and the skills that you need to be successful here.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 39:59

I even think about it. With time it's like kind of the opposite. With time I were given like one very rigid education and then no one tells us it can look any different at any point ever. So we ended up making decisions as though we're still school children when we're out.

Sade Curry: 40:15

Yes, so many things I mean we I feel like we could go in there just so many things that need to be corrected in our thinking around this. But in the interest of time, I'm just going to ask you, you know, is there any advice, anything we haven't touched on that you feel like. You know, I really feel like women who are dating in 2023 need to know this.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 40:37

Listen, we are at a time where you have so much information that touch of your fingertips, and so does everyone else, and I would just be very honest with yourself about like if what you are doing is productive to what you want to create or not, because I think there's a lot I see this in my classes a lot of busy work, a lot of busy connections but are you actually committed to like like?

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 40:58

I say like, if there's one step on the process that you're not doing, like maybe is going on that day, or making that phone call, or going on the second date, whatever it is for you, think about doing it, not because that person is the right person, but because you're willing to build a skill of that phase that keeps blocking you. And just allow yourself to be bad at something in order to be good at it. We're all bad at things, I promise you. There are people that are like and we've been sure there are people that are like Vicky, yeah, but she's like really bad with the time, she's really disorganized like. That's how I was. So just allow yourself to evolve and change and just learn skills.

Sade Curry: 41:33

Yeah, 100%. I wrote on my, on my, my list, my to do list today. You know, not my to do list for today, but kind of like my to do list for like the rest of the year. I was like bookkeeping. I was like I really want to put my hands around it, like I'm, yeah, have a bookkeeper and everything, but like there's some parts of it that I want to be able to understand. It's a skill. I'm like, okay, I want to be able to read a balance sheet. I want to be able to do these things in my business and not just have other people interpret it for me. They just skills, like we're always going to be learning. So I think that's a skill and building on it probably for the rest of our lives, yeah, absolutely yeah. Vikki, thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. Let's talk about what you have going on in your time programs right now.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 42:16

Yeah, so I mean, as you know, there's time hackers, which you're a part of, so anyone can join and it's like lifetime access, community modules, programs, group coaching, one on one coaching the full shebang. A one stop shop for all of your time needed to take you from busy and overwhelmed and pressure to spacious and ahead and present. And that's like my flagship program. But also, for the first time, we are allowing people to book sessions and packets of six with a one to one time hacker coach. These are like 20 minutes laser focused sessions really amazing.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 42:50

If you've got a specific project that you keep putting off, that you want done, or a project that you're putting off that you're not moving how you want it to, or dreams that you keep pushing aside, or tax season is here or whatever it is that you're like right now, I just need some support around my time. I feel like I'm drowning. That's where to start there. And also we are going into companies. So if you work at a company, firstly they may sponsor you and time hackers and in particular, the time hackers once one coaching, so you can always email us and we'll send you information to help you get support from a team leader or HR or anything like that. Then talk to us. We can come and help your people.

Sade Curry: 43:27

Amazing, amazing, and we're going to have links to all of this in the show notes as well as the link to my podcast episode on Vikki's podcast and your podcast is called Hack Your time and after I worked with Vikki probably for about six months to a year and I just saw some amazing results in my life and in my business, Vikki invited me to come on her podcast to just talk about the results I got. So the link to that podcast episode will be on there as well and I encourage you to just follow. Her podcast actually talks about a lot about fear and our fear of, like, taking on the big things that we want, taking on our goals and time, how to have our time and all of that. So all of those links will be in the show notes. There is no human, I think, who could not use your work.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 44:14

Yeah, let's send it to everyone else.

Sade Curry: 44:18

Seriously, yeah, yeah, Vikki, I really want to thank you so much for coming on. I want to acknowledge your impact on my life and my relationship with time, thank you. I just want to thank you for sharing so generously with the listeners today.

Vikki Louise Yaffe: 44:32

Thank you so much for having me. This is such a treat.

Sade Curry: 44:35

Absolutely All right listeners. We want to thank you for your time and attention today and we will see you next time.