The Empowering Art of Saying No

This episode reflects the transformative power of saying no and establishing boundaries in both personal and professional spheres. We discuss entrepreneurship, the significance of collaboration, decision-making strategies, and highlight the nonprofit Do The Right Thing of Coconut Creek, emphasizing community engagement.

Lisa Meade Romero

• Tel: +1 954-326-2309
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-meade-romero/
• Website: LisaMeadeRomero.com
• Email: lisameaderomero@gmail.com

• Exploring the entrepreneurial journey and feelings of isolation 
• The pivotal role of collaboration in fostering creativity 
• Various categories of decision-making for efficiency 
• Setting boundaries for personal empowerment 
• Highlighting nonprofit contributions to community kindness 
• Sharing book recommendations and their personal impacts

Join us as we support Do The Right Thing Of Coconut Creek this month!

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Chapters

• 0:03 Empowering Entrepreneurship and Giving Back
• 9:05 Current Reads and Recommendations
• 22:11 Streaming Platforms and Subscription Options

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the wild, stories from the heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion as we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Lisa Meade Romero: 0:35

Yeah, maybe it comes from like you know me, being told a lot what I am right and now being like nobody's telling me anymore. I'm just going to do what I want to do.

Lisa Meade Romero: 0:47

But the world of entrepreneurship is unique because in a traditional workplace you are kind of told when you're starting working right, when your workday starts, when it ends, what your tasks are to do. Along the way, there's somebody that's innately built in right as your manager, as your, as your team leader, as whatever. Who's supposed to be that mentor, who's supposed to be that coach along the way? But as an entrepreneur, you're building that team yourself and the entrepreneurs that are most successful are the ones that are most successful, are the ones that build a team, the ones that try and do it all on their own, are the ones that probably have the most frustration and the slowest going, because it's kind of like you're in a room by yourself and it's really hard to come up with unique ideas when they're all coming out of your head right. But it's easier to come up with better ideas when you're constantly collaborating with somebody, even if they're not in the same industry or space that you are in.

Tanya Scotece: 1:48

Yeah, yeah, lisa. What is the next? Do you have any? Is there like aspirations, visions, goals, whatever word you want to use for, you know, the next 10, 15 years? Where do we see? What are we going to? What can we expect?

Lisa Meade Romero: 2:03

I guess expect the unexpected always for me, but my husband will be retiring this year too. So we are planning and I am doing now a lot more traveling than I ever did before, which is great. But I am on this journey really just to spread the mission of what I believe in the fact that the choice that you hold really designs the life that you want to lead and empowering people. So I'm coming up with a few workshops or keynote speeches that I want to, I guess, get out there and I'm just trying to. I'm really like designing that this year.

Lisa Meade Romero: 2:43

But the three topics I'm most focused on is the word no learning how to wield it appropriately. The art of decision making how to get through decisions faster, because they fall into one of four categories Just do it now, delay it for later, delegate it to somebody who can do the task or just delete it from the list. It doesn't need to be done. And then time management mastery how boundaries give you freedom. Yeah, but we all wear many hats. As I say, like I navigate the many hats that we wear, and we all wear many hats, especially women. We like to take them all on and we forget to take them off at times. So empowering people to take a hat off and to set those boundaries gives us the space. I always say that like, people like.

Lisa Meade Romero: 3:37

And then this came about because a lot of the administrative sports staff at the police department would often say to me like, how do you do that? And I was kind of confused. I'm like, what do you mean Like, how do I do what they're like? You just say no. I was like, yeah, I just say no, they're like. But what excuse do you give them? I'm like, what do you mean they're like? When somebody asks you like hey, hey, tanya, do you want to go, you know, to the movies on Friday, you just say oh, no, thank you. But like, why do you tell them you can't go? I'm like, why do we have to qualify?

Lisa Meade Romero: 4:10

our life to other people Like what? What is that? You know? Like I've set certain boundaries. Like people know, for me Friday night is date night. Do not ask me to do something on Friday night. If you give me like advance, I'm like oh, I'll ask my husband if we can move date night to Saturday, but that is my boundary, that I've made for my relationship so that we will always have time for each other. So when you have those boundaries, things become easy. Like it becomes easy to say no. But when you're constantly moving the boundaries, you don't know where you are and nobody else knows where you are. So how do you expect them to respect your decisions when you constantly change them?

Tanya Scotece: 4:48

Yeah, that's a great point. Great point, Lisa.

Shireen Botha: 4:53

Yeah, I think I could learn that. To be honest, that's definitely. I need to learn a little bit more of how to say no. I can be a little bit of a people pleaser. I'm working on it.

Lisa Meade Romero: 5:05

Well, when you say no to the things you should say no to, you can say yes to the things you should say yes to.

Shireen Botha: 5:10

Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it's in progress For everybody, for everybody, absolutely so, lisa, we've come to the part of the podcast where we talk about our nonprofit, which is the most exciting part for me. So the nonprofit listeners for this month is Do the Right Thing of Coconut Creek. We're going to put the link in the show notes for you. But, lisa, please could you tell us a little bit about them and how we can support them? Very important, but most of all, what do they do for the community? That's you know.

Lisa Meade Romero: 5:47

That's so important, so let us know awesome, so do the right thing of coconut creek is a charity focused on recognizing students doing the right thing, whether it be anti-bullying, helping find a lost kid, alerting staff to potential problems, even, maybe, when they hear about the fires or different natural disasters, just starting up nonprofits themselves and gathering things amongst their students. So it's really about celebrating kids doing the right thing. They also have every month a teacher of the month who also gives an exemplary view to the students on how to do the right thing of what they've done. So it is local here, hyper local to our Coconut Creek community and, in addition to students getting recognized, they get certificates from their state representatives, which is awesome. When they apply to school. I, for my business, we donate products for little goodie bags for them and the teachers.

Lisa Meade Romero: 6:52

A lot of other local businesses donate not only monetarily, because there will be scholarships given out every year to some of these recipients. So even if you want to do the right thing award when you were in second grade, when you become a senior, you're eligible to apply for the scholarship for that year, which is awesome, and it is just been. We always say it's like the best 30 minutes of your month because you get to hear uplifting stories. So I believe not only is it great to recognize students, but it's great to remind the community that these things happen out there and to be on the watch for them. So you can nominate a student or teacher themselves to get that recognition, because we don't focus enough on the good deeds that are done out there.

Lisa Meade Romero: 7:39

So I believe it brings a little bit of joy to the community and everybody who gets a chance to watch it. So you can definitely go to the website. There is a donate button there. If you'd like to donate financially, it will help not only with the scholarship fund so they're able to give more scholarships to more students, but it also helps the operating costs and it will help for their ceremonies that they do. And if you're a local business and you want to be able to donate goods as well, there's a contact form there that you'll be able to help with.

Tanya Scotece: 8:10

What's the qualifying? Does everyone have to live in Coconut Creek?

Lisa Meade Romero: 8:17

You don't have to live in Coconut Creek. It's for the students in Coconut Creek, so your school will be in Coconut Creek. So we do have students from the surrounding neighborhoods, but it is through the school system of Coconut Creek.

Shireen Botha: 8:28

Very cool, All right we'll check that out, definitely. So, listeners, you can be anywhere in the world and contribute. You know, donate to this lovely organization. You know, do the right thing for Coconut Creek. We're going to have the link in the show notes. Please take the time to go to the website and make a difference. It takes a few minutes to click that button, but it will do wonders in a child's life. So, wherever we can make a difference, listeners, let's do it.

Shireen Botha: 9:05

All right, ladies, that has been amazing so far. We've had such a great episode and we've come to a more light hearted point of the podcast, so I'd like to just ask a question to you, ladies what is the book that you're reading right now? To you, ladies, what is the book that you're reading right now and what is it about? What is the book that you're currently reading right now and share with us and the listeners? What is it about? Um, I am needing some inspiration on some other books that I want to move on to after I've finished this book that I'm on right now, so that's why I'm I thought this will be a great topic to chat about. So, lisa, why don't you start us off and let us know?

Lisa Meade Romero: 9:55

okay, so I'm not going to tell you just some of the trashy novels that I read, just because no, please.

Lisa Meade Romero: 10:00

I want to know so I will tell you, okay, a total side note I'll share with the actual book that I just finished reading. So there's this, this kind of like sci-fi series called girl in the box, and there's like 40 something books in this, in this series I think it's the girl in the box and it's it is about, you know, uh, some humans have superhuman abilities and this. You know the whole thing um how they're fighting, you know the crime and all. All it's just it's they're easy reads and it's nonsense and it just keeps you entertained, you know. But I like when there's box series or series that go on that long, because I'm like and another one and another one.

Lisa Meade Romero: 10:43

I'm like a voracious reader like I'll read a box set in like go on that long because I'm like, and another one, and another one. I'm like a voracious reader, like I'll read a box set in like two days, um, but the, the book that I'm going to share with you that I think you guys would really love is um from Joelle Malm, and it's called Keep it Light. So Joelle Malm, m-a-l-m, and the book is called Keep it light, and I read this book and I felt like validated. I was like, yes, I feel like I'm on this path already. So you know, like something just aligns with you. He leads these adventures with different groups of people as a like personal growth, and one of the things he talks about is when he goes on these expeditions. He gives people a packing list and inevitably everybody overpacks Right, and so on the first day he's like taking stuff out of people's backpack and and and. People are like stressed out about it, crying, you know, like a hairdryer, like, oh, you're camping, like you're not going to need a hairdryer.

Lisa Meade Romero: 11:49

But you know, I mean all these things that people put such emotional attachment to and he goes inevitably three days in. They're thanking me because I've kept their load light. I've kept their load light.

Tanya Scotece: 12:14

So it's about like taking on what you really should take on, and learning to disperse your load to others or things that you shouldn't be carrying. Yeah, keep it light from Joel now. Love it. Okay, tanya, what about yourself? So I'm actually I have two books for school. So, for the listeners out there, I do oversee the mortuary program at Miami Dade College.

Tanya Scotece: 12:25

So two books that I've been honing in, I'm going to show them to you. One is the Ethics, communication and Leadership, and it's for funeral service leaders of tomorrow. So basically it's ethics, good practices. It's by Ralph Clicker, dr Ralph Clicker, and it's just a great book about, you know, applying those fundamental skills whether we have them or we need to acquire them and to be an effective leader within the funeral profession, which is one of the, you know, I would say, a very noble, reverent position, especially here in the States, because we are dealing with very sensitive topics, the way people pass away the financial picture. So this is a great book. This is right on my bedside and the other book that I'm also reading currently, another funeral book is the Fundamentals of Funeral Directing and it's building a professional cornerstone and it's by Fritch and Altieri, and I really liked this one again because it's again it's a fundamental book for our new directors and it's one of our newer books that we've added just last semester, so it's just a great. I would just say kind of. It's a book I mean anybody could read it and you can apply the fundamentals to whatever profession you're looking to do.

Tanya Scotece: 13:47

And, as many of the listeners know, if you've listened to me for any amount of time, my all-time favorite book that I usually always travel with is the Body Keeps the Score, and that is a great book for anyone that has gone through, endured, sustained any type of trauma emotional abuse, physical, physical abuse or sexual abuse. Great, great book. They use it in a lot of retreats, um, as far as reclaiming our power and also identifying physical ailments or symptoms that may be lodged in the body, so through techniques of release, um, so, for example, if people are familiar with the chakras and you have correlating symptoms for example, lower back aches, stomach aches, headaches, anything of those natures that correspond with the chakras talks about tips and techniques to release the emotional trauma. So great, it's like my go-to book. But these two are the newer books that we are just kind of getting a heads up on for for next semester.

Shireen Botha: 14:47

Oh my gosh, ladies, I don't even want to share my book anymore. You've put me to shame. Oh, go ahead, go ahead. What are you reading? First of all, excuse me, as I'm busy fiddling with my lights, my camera started blurring out, so you saw me doing all sorts of funny things. If you're watching on youtube, that's probably what you see. You saw a pen go flying while tanya was talking about her book, because I get so obviously too excited, but anyway, so now I feel done. No, oh, okay, here we go, I'm doing it. So right now I'm reading the book. It's called on Onyx Storm and the author is Rebecca Yeros. It's Onyx Storm. It's book number three, and she's just said recently she's like to escape um, and so this is a little bit of dragons and dragon riders and um griffins and and action and fighting and war going on between um, these evil magical creatures, and so a lot of magic as well, um, and a romance and a little bit of, you know, good stuff there.

Lisa Meade Romero: 16:16

There's some steamy parts.

Shireen Botha: 16:18

There's some good, hot, steamy parts as well. Absolutely love it. Super exciting. And I read the first two last year and the third one hadn't come out yet, so it's just been released. So she's only released the third one, so there's another two coming, so I'm so excited. So, if you want to, if you're talking about just relaxing and escaping and fantasy, well, please read it. It's fantastic, she's great, she's really good. Can you repeat it, shireen? What's the book? Yes, it's. Onyx Storm is the name of the third book and the author is Rebecca Yaros. Rebecca Yaros and the first book, I think, was Iron Flame, and I can't remember. The second book was something similar about a flame, but it's if you, if you look up the third one, onyx Storm, you'll see the other two is there as well. Do they stand alone or do you have to read them sequentially? You have to read the whole thing. It's a story from beginning to end, beginning to end. Okay, you have to start with book one to understand the whole backstory.

Lisa Meade Romero: 17:30

Starts in the middle of a series with a book.

Tanya Scotece: 17:34

You know what. So this is actually for a friend of mine. Shereen knows you know what. So this is actually for a friend of mine. Shereen knows. Shereen and I have like completely opposite tastes. So this book is not for me, but it's going to be for my friend Colleen. I'm going to inspire her with this series. So I just had to know sequentially, just for your knowledge, lisa, I have not seen any of the Harry Potters and my friend Colleen and Shereenen these people are like Harry Potter fanatics, including my own daughter. But the Hobbit, the fantasy Dungeons and Dragons not my vibe at all. But I'm willing to share the knowledge, so I'm gonna pass it on.

Shireen Botha: 18:10

I love it. That's why we we work so well as friends, because we're so opposite, and I love our conversations. Yeah, I love it. So please go in and start the series from the beginning. It's book number three you got. It's very exciting.

Shireen Botha: 18:28

But, on a more serious note, since you ladies did talk about some really nice, heartfelt ones, I and this is another gift from Tanya, she gave this book to me and it's a book that I have almost read four times and it's had sticky notes in, and because every time I read it over again there's something else that stands out that's amazing, and it's this one, and I'm showing it to you on video, but for the listeners, it's create a Life you Love from Stephanie Mae Wilson. Create a Life you Love from Stephanie Mae Wilson. It's an absolutely amazing book for women of all ages, whatever stage in life you're in. She nails it on the head. She really does In every aspect. She really gets it and I really encourage you to take some time out and get this book. And it's a keeper, you know. It can go on to your bookshelf in the library. So, oh my gosh, ladies, that could have another whole podcast we could have done. Yeah, let's do it again.

Lisa Meade Romero: 19:34

Let's start over. Let's just start over.

Shireen Botha: 19:38

So yeah, listeners, that brings us to the end of this amazing series. We really appreciate your support and listening to us, but if any of the listeners are listening and they really found a connection with either of us and they really want to reach out, Lisa, where can they find you?

Lisa Meade Romero: 19:57

They can find me at lisamedromerocom, you can find me on linkedin and you can also find me on instagram with the handle lifewlisa, and I have some makeup tips in there and just some thoughts to make you feel good.

Shireen Botha: 20:16

That's awesome and Tanya.

Tanya Scotece: 20:19

So I live on LinkedIn, as most of our listeners know. I don't have a TV and I've only seen I think I counted 10 movies in my entire life, including childhood, so I spent a lot of time on LinkedIn. It's my own station, as I like to refer to it. I also am the director of the mortuary program at Miami Dade College. I serve also as an expert witness for funeral home and cemetery wrongdoings. And my third blessed work is senior placement, where I match people with communities, for example, with dementia, memory care, alzheimer's, things of that nature. We are a free placement agency. We get paid by the, directly by the community, if we make a match, and my areas that I cover are the east and west coasts of Florida, so LinkedIn is where people can find me. Tanya Scotisi, reach out, would be happy to connect for a one-to-one, anything I can do to support your journey or even career change. So feel free to reach out. And how about you, shireen?

Shireen Botha: 21:18

Thank you, tanya. So yes, Shireen Buerta, you can find me on all the socials. If you want to follow my journey in my little house on wheels in Africa, it's Be Wild 1985. But more importantly, you know Friends from Wild Places. We just had an amazing series with a man named Charles who took his entire family and let go of everything where they were living and went for a trip around the world and he wrote a book. He's a very interesting man.

Shireen Botha: 21:51

If you want to go and take a listen to those to that series, please do. And if you want to go and go a little deeper with us and want to check out the extra content, please go and subscribe to friendsfromwildplaces. buzzsprout. com. That's friendsfromwildplaces. buzzsprout. com. We are on all the streaming platforms, so you'll see all the podcast episodes there, but those that are locked, those are the subscription platforms. So you'll see all the the podcast episodes there, but those that are locked, those are the subscription ones, so you can click on them and it'll take you to our subscription page from that direction as well. We're on YouTube, friends from wild places, If you want to see our funny faces as well as listen to us. But thanks again, guys. We really appreciate your support and remember you got this and stay wild. Bye guys bye-bye.

Voiceover: 22:42

You've been listening to friends from wild places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.