I am going to start with the numbers, because you know I love numbers. And then we’re going to introduce White Space.

38 meetings a week. Then 22. Then 11.
 Zero open space on my calendar. Then eight full hours of protected thinking time.
 Six direct reports. Then two.
 A salesperson on my team with a 68% close rate because I finally had time to coach her.

And then I slid back. Right now I am sitting at about three hours of open space.

That is why I am sharing all of this with you. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

It started when I hired a coach to look at my calendar. Her name is Joey Gourdji. She is a coach at Conversion Engineering and spent a decade helping grow a company from $5 million to $13 million and from 20 people to over 100. She looked at my calendar and told me we needed to cut at least 50% of it.

I threw my head back and laughed out loud.

And then it happened.

Watch the Full Episode here:

The Real Reason Your Calendar Is Running You

It is not poor planning. It is not laziness.

It is ambition. It is integrity.

You saw opportunities and you said yes. You made commitments and you followed through, because that is who you are. And before you knew it, every hour was spoken for and the things that matter most got pushed out completely.

Joey calls this the trap of good intentions. You are not doing too much because you are disorganized. You are doing too much because you care and because every yes seemed like the right decision at the time.

The problem is that a lot of what ends up crammed into our calendars is not actually the best use of our time anymore. We just have not stopped long enough to notice.

The lesson: A packed calendar is not a sign of success. It is a signal that something needs to be looked at. The first step is being willing to look.

Water, Food, and Mushroom Coffee

When Joey first started working with me, we tried an effort-impact matrix. We mapped everything out; urgent, important, high effort, low effort. It became completely overwhelming immediately.

So she tried something different. She connected it to something I was already focused on: nutrition.

She asked me: what are the things in your business that are like water? The things that, if you skipped them for even a few days, you would feel it right away?

For retail, I landed on three:

Those are water. Non-negotiable. Daily or weekly. Everything else depends on these.

Then there is food. The things that are proven to help your business, but not every single day. Buying new inventory. Bookkeeping. Some social media. Once a month keeps things humming along.

And then there is mushroom coffee. And yes, I was literally drinking it when we recorded this episode, I did not plan that. Mushroom coffee is not bad. It is just the category of things you are doing because you think they are helping, but you have not actually confirmed that they are. Trade shows. Certain meetings. The Chamber of Commerce. TikTok, if you are not genuinely using it yet.

Here is the problem. Most of us are so buried in mushroom coffee that we cannot find time for our food and water.

When I sat down to sort my own list, everything felt like water. Every single thing. I am not exaggerating. That is when I knew this was going to be hard.

The lesson: If everything feels essential, nothing is. You cannot prioritize until you are willing to sort. Start with water. Be ruthless. Everything else follows from there.

The Carrots You Have to Pull

I heard a pastor use this analogy once and it has never left me.

Carrot seeds are tiny. You make a little row in the dirt, sprinkle them in, cover them lightly, and wait. And when they come up, they come up everywhere, more than you can possibly keep. Here is the thing about carrots. They grow down. They need room. If you leave all of them, they crowd each other out and none of them grow to their full size.

So you have to pull perfectly good carrots to make room for the ones you have chosen to grow.

I did this as a kid and told my dad I could not do it. I felt too sad for the carrots I was pulling. And I see now, so clearly, that this is exactly what I was doing with my calendar. Refusing to pull anything. Wondering why nothing was growing the way it should.

Joey shared another version of this from one of her clients. You have ten soccer balls and ten kicks. If you spread your kicks across all ten balls, nothing makes it to the other side of the field. But if you put all ten kicks into one ball, it gets there.

That is focus. And it is the only thing that actually works.

The lesson: You cannot grow everything. Choosing what to keep means choosing what to let go. That is not failure. That is how healthy things grow.

Why This Is So Hard

I asked Joey this directly, because even knowing all of this, I still found it incredibly difficult.

Her answer was honest and it was kind.

The habits that got you here were good habits. The ambition, the drive, the I can do both mentality, those things brought you real success. And it is genuinely hard to look at something that worked and decide it no longer serves you.

I used to be what I called an “and not or” girl. Someone on my team would give me two options and I would say, I’m sorry, what did you say to me? We are doing both. Always. I wore that like a badge of honor.

And then my team member Cecilia said something I will never forget. She said: I am positive that even Taylor Swift and Beyonce have to decide what’s food and water for them.

She was right. Of course she was right.

The other thing I did not expect was how much I was self-sabotaging without even seeing it. I thought I had delegated. I thought I had let go. But I was still checking in. Still hovering. Joey said it simply: your values say no, but your actions say yes.

The lesson: What got you here will not get you there. You do not have to be wrong about your past to be ready to do things differently now. Applaud yourself for how far you have come and then be willing to change.

What White Space Actually Is

White space is not empty time. It is not sitting in a coffee shop feeling guilty. It is not uncommitted time.

White space is intentional. Joey describes three ways to use it:

Fill your own cup. When you are depleted, everyone around you feels it. This is the oxygen mask. You have to put it on first before you can help anyone else.

Explore what else is possible. How many opportunities have you missed because your answer was already no before you even heard the question? White space is what lets you say yes when something good shows up.

Work toward a goal that matters. The project that lives on the list but never gets time. This is where it finally happens.

And here is the shift that changes everything. When you have white space, you stop making decisions from scarcity. You get to choose. From a place of abundance. From a place of I can and then decide whether you want to.

The lesson: White space is not a luxury. It is the condition under which good decisions get made. Protect it like it is your most valuable inventory. Because it is.

If You Cannot Find Thinking Time, That Is Data

I laughed when Joey first suggested I protect thinking time on my calendar. I went home and told my husband about it like it was the most out-of-touch suggestion I had ever received. She has no idea, I told him.

But here is what I know now.

If you genuinely cannot carve out thinking time, if your calendar is so packed that there is no room to just think, that is not a scheduling problem. That is data. It is telling you something about the state of your business and the state of your mind.

And if you have done this work before and feel like you have slid back, I see you, because I am right there with you right now, Joey has something for that too. Getting back on track is a lot easier and quicker than doing this for the first time. You already know the way. You just have to choose to walk it again.

The lesson: You cannot think your way to a better business if you never have time to think. The inability to find that time is not a personal failing. It is a sign. And signs are there to be read.

Your Millie Moment

This work is not a one-time fix. It is a practice. But here is where to start:

Look at your calendar right now and find the thing that has been there the longest with the least return. That is your first piece of mushroom coffee. Name it.

Write down your water, the one to three things your business truly cannot function without. Just those. Nothing else goes on the list yet.

Block one hour this week with no agenda. No calls. No tasks. Just space. Notice what comes up. Notice what feels impossible about sitting still. That discomfort is information.

Ask yourself Joey’s question: are my actions showing what I actually believe is important? If the answer is no, that is where the work begins.

Come back to this. Reevaluate as you grow. What was water a year ago may be food today. What felt like mushroom coffee may become essential. This is not a one-time sort. It is an ongoing practice.

The framework works. Joey has seen it work with her clients again and again. I have lived it. The only thing standing between you and a calendar that actually reflects your values is the willingness to look at it honestly and the courage to start pulling some carrots.

Resources & Links

💚 Remember: This is Part One of a two-part conversation with Joey Gourdji of Conversion Engineering. Part Two goes deeper into effort and impact, boundaries, and a moment in my own journey I absolutely did not see coming. Don’t miss it.

If this resonated with you today, share it with another store owner who needs to hear it. The more of us leading from this place, the stronger we all become.

You cannot pour from empty. Protect your white space like your business depends on it. Because it does.