When I found out Elizabeth Grace Saunders, the founder and CEO of Real Life E®, was going to be a featured speaker on Young Female Entrepreneurs I started thinking of all the questions I could ask this time coach expert. I have been reading Elizabeth’s articles and blogs for a couple of years and deeply admire her passion for what she does and the niche she’s created as a time coach. She’s an incredible resource for ladies and gents alike looking to streamline their lives to find more time for the things they love. Her passion for her work is very clear in her responses (make sure you check out how she structures her morning).
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Why you should know Elizabeth:
I’m the founder of Real Life E Time Coaching & Training, which empowers individuals around the world to accomplish more with peace and confidence. I LOVE what I do and most of all the transformation I see in people’s lives. I’m currently writing a book that will be published by McGraw Hill in spring 2013. It’s a huge writing project compared to my usual blog post and newsletter work, but it’s extremely exciting to think about the ability to make a larger positive impact on how people invest their time.
What are your big dreams in life?
Professionally, my dreams are to help create a world full of peaceful, confident and accomplished people. I foresee doing this through continuing with coaching, writing a best-selling book, and developing a training program that organizations can implement to help with employee productivity, work-life balance, and retention.
Personally, one of my big dreams is to visit all the continents. I’ve already traveled to five of them so I’m getting pretty close.
When will you feel like you’ve succeeded?
I feel like I’m already living the dream. It just keeps getting bigger and better.
Define wellness:
For me, wellness is when I’m living a life aligned with my values of love, peace, beauty, laughter, and adventure.
How do you take care of you?
I follow a regular sleep schedule where I go to bed around 11 p.m. and get up around 6 a.m. In the morning, I take time for reading my Bible and praying before starting my day. I usually eat small meals and try to exercise about five times a week. Socially, I make sure to have the proper allocation of time between: alone time (catching up on life, thinking, praying, walking), one-on-one time (dates with my boyfriend, coffee with my friends, conversations with my family members), group time (networking events, church, family gatherings), and play time (salsa dancing, travel, large social events).
How do you structure your day?
I give a full description of my morning planning routine here, but in short, I typically limit my hours to between 40-45 per week and keep the nights and weekends free. I start work around 8:30 a.m. and wrap up work around 5:30 p.m. I try to keep all personal activities from phone calls with friends to exercising outside of those hours.
Give us a sense of your environment.
Overall, my office area is neat. While I’m working, I typically end up with some papers spread out over my desk area. But by the end of the day, I try to have everything filed away or at least put into one pile.
Tell us about your perfect day – start to finish.
I would start the day as I always do–alone with a quiet house to think, pray and ponder life. The mornings are some of my favorite times and I savor my morning coffee and breakfast. Then I would go on a walk either through a lovely arboretum or forest preserve before having one of my Saturday morning chats with my dad. Then I would meet up with my boyfriend and do something fun like going to a baseball game or an art fair. For dinner, we would have some of our friends join us for a meal abounding with fabulous food and hearty laughter and then probably close the evening with more conversation or watching a movie.
Who would leave you star-struck?
I deeply admire people like Stephen Covey and David Allen who have made a huge impact in the area of helping people manage their time in alignment with their priorities. I would be DELIGHTED to meet both of them.
A quote that best describes your outlook on life:
“Quieting down is a mind-set, not a set of circumstances. There are plenty of people with relatively few actual emergencies to deal with, who are freaked out and stressed almost all of the time. There are others who deal with extraordinarily stressful things, but who are able to take most of it in stride.”-Day by Day Calendar
Share a secret with us!
Cereal is one of my favorite food groups. But I’m more or less incapable of eating just one type of cereal at a time. I love to layer cereals like Wheaties, Cheerios, and Chex, to create the maximum flavor and texture extravaganza.
Images courtesy of Elizabeth Grace Saunders