🧠Weekly MindSweep No. 179 | Mind Your Business | Discernment
June 2025
06/02/2025 - Week 178: Curated Conversation: Discernment
*06/09/2025 - Week 179: Mind Your Business: Discernment
06/16/2025 - Week 180: Manage Your Mind: Discernment
06/23/2025 - No Curated Conversation, Weekly MindSweep, or Mindful Connections.
06/30/2025 - Week 181: What’s On My Mind: Discernment
Let’s sweep the brain…
🎬 Rather watch or listen instead of read? Now you can!
👉 Click here to Listen
In the MindSweep this week:
Curated Conversation with curated GIF’s & puns (for your entertainment).
Jamie’s Second Brain Corner: Links to references. Need a map? I’ve got you!
What’s I’m Reading - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Collaborations with Terri Hamilton (Thursday) & Shannon Giordano and the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce
My face đź’ś and a link to schedule your free consultation.
The Hidden Cost of Saying Yes Too Fast
I once said yes to a collaboration during a grocery run.
I was in aisle seven, holding a bag of frozen tater tots, and my phone buzzed with a text from a colleague:
"Hey! Quick question, are you free for a collab next month?"
My mouth said yes before my brain even clocked the ask.
Flash forward three weeks: I was knee-deep in a poorly scoped mess that didn't align with my goals, my bandwidth, or my actual interest. And guess what? I bought the wrong brand of tater tots!
That moment wasn't just a scheduling error but a discernment malfunction. And it cost me more than time.
It cost me trust in myself, energy for my real priorities, and progress on the parts of my business that actually move the needle.
Let’s sweep the brain…
🎬 Rather watch or listen instead of read? Now you can!
👉 Click here to Listen
🧠The Neuroscience of Overcommitment
When we default to "yes" without discernment, our brain shifts from vision mode to survival mode. We invite:
Decision fatigue: Your prefrontal cortex—the part responsible for planning and strategy, gets worn down with every unnecessary yes.
Stress overload: Your amygdala kicks in to manage overwhelm, pulling you into reactive, short-term thinking, i.e., fight/flight/freeze responses.
Reduced creativity: Chronic overwhelm limits access to the brain's default mode network, where imagination and introspection live.
Focus fragmentation: Without mental margin, working memory suffers, making tasks feel harder and slower.
This is why you feel fried, forgetful, and frustrated when your "YES" wasn't truly yours.
The real cost of saying "Yes" without discernment is delaying your own goals while helping someone else meet theirs. You're teaching your brain not to trust your internal signals. You build resentment in relationships that started from a misaligned yes, and you slow trade intention for inertia. [1]
One bad yes rarely breaks a business. But a dozen unchecked yeses? That's a strategy leak.
🧠The Hidden Cost to Your Business
Let's be honest: a spontaneous "yes" might feel generous, exciting, or collaborative in the moment. But over time, saying yes without discernment becomes a slow leak in your business strategy.
Draining your time, energy, attention, and resources without ever making a splash.
When you say yes without discernment, your business pays the price:
You Delay Revenue-Generating Projects: Busy doesn't always mean profitable. A misaligned yes often steals time from offers or systems that would actually grow your income. When you fill your calendar with low-return obligations, your highest-value work—the stuff that actually grows your business—gets shoved to the margins. The workshop you were going to launch? What was that email funnel you were going to finish? Or how about that new offer that needs your creative brain? Gone! Buried under tasks that are technically helpful but not strategically aligned. Discernment is how you protect your money-makers from your people-pleasing.
You Create Brand Confusion: Audience trust erodes when your actions don't align with your mission. Clarity builds authority; overcommitment muddies it. When you say yes to opportunities that aren't aligned with your mission, your audience feels it. You dilute your message, you lose clarity, and your brand starts to feel like a cluttered junk drawer instead of a well-organized toolbox. If you're wondering why your audience isn't engaging, it might be because they don't know what you stand for or what to expect from you. Inconsistent action leads to inconsistent perception.
You Miss Strategic Opportunities: A cluttered calendar can't make room for the right heck yeah! Your future self may need that time back, and it's already spent. Every calendar block filled with a rushed yes is a future no to something better. When the aligned podcast interview, dream client, or ideal partnership finally comes along, your capacity is already spent. Discernment isn't just about saying no. It's about creating white space for your heck yeah to have room to land. Discernment buys you time for better doors to open.
You Build an Unsustainable Business Model: Too many unfiltered yeses will shape your business in ways you didn't intend. Suddenly, you're offering services you never wanted to specialize in, at prices you didn't mean to set, for clients who weren't your ideal match. Over time, this leads to resentment, burnout, and a business that looks good on paper but feels completely misaligned behind the scenes. Discernment protects your future business from your present moment of "I guess I could…"
You Undervalue and Under-Earn The most significant hidden cost of all? Revenue. Every time you say yes to unpaid labor, "quick favors," underpriced work, or emotionally draining commitments, you reduce your capacity to earn. And it's not just about time; it's about attention, emotional bandwidth, and creative energy. A calendar stuffed with "shoulds" leaves no room to refine your offers, serve your clients, or scale your systems. A distracted brain can't write high-converting copy. An exhausted heart can't sell from a place of confidence.
Discernment reinforces your voice, your vision, and your value.
🧠Practice This Week
Before agreeing to anything new, ask:
What's the hidden cost of this yes?
If I say yes, what will I have to say no to?
Am I the right person, or just the available one?
Will this move my business forward or just keep it moving?
Am I choosing this from alignment, or am I avoiding discomfort?
Let silence be part of your strategy. Take 24 hours if you need it. Good opportunities survive the pause.
That spontaneous “yes” in the freezer aisle? It wasn’t just a funny moment with tater tots, it was a mirror. A crispy, golden symbol of what happens when we commit too quickly. Because let’s be real:
I went in for comfort food and came out with a calendar crisis.
When we say yes without discernment, we’re not just agreeing to an opportunity, we're agreeing to delay our goals, dilute our brand, and detour our revenue. Discernment isn’t about being cold or closed off.
It’s about being clear on what feeds your business and what just fills your plate.
Every yes is a trade. And when we trade our time, energy, and attention without checking the receipt, the cost shows up in missed income, scattered strategy, and a business that no longer feels like ours.
You’re not just the available one. You’re the visionary. The strategist. The CEO of your creative business.
Say yes like your business depends on it, because it does. Let’s stop selling out our big-picture vision for bite-sized obligations.
Your preferred tater tot brand and your business deserve better.
My questions for you this week :
Are you currently committed to something that feels off?
What would it feel like to only say yes when you mean it?
Reply and share with me!
✨ Ready to Lead with Discernment Instead of Just Availability?
Are you done trading your big-picture vision for bite-sized obligations? Is your calendar full but your business feels flat? Are your ready for a strategy that honors your capacity, creativity, and revenue goals?
đź’ś I'm here for that.
As a business consultant for creative entrepreneurs, I help you build a business that works for your brain, your bandwidth, and your bold ideas.
Through collaborative consulting, clear systems, and a neuroscience-informed approach, we’ll quiet the noise, filter the fluff, and create space for what’s actually aligned.
Let’s make sure your yeses serve your mission, not just someone else’s moment.
Your next best yes? Working with someone who sees your brilliance and your bottlenecks.
Learn more about my MindSweep Mapping Process, designed to turn mental clutter into strategic clarity.
Are you a like-hearted entrepreneur ready for support? Let's connect.
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Jamie’s Second Brain Corner:
[1] Did you miss our month on Relationships?
[X] Did someone say MindSweep MAP?! Learn more about my Personalized MindSweep Mapping Process
MONDAY: 8 am - Curated Conversation - Zoom
Changing the world, one Monday Morning at a time. Learn more + Sign Up for a Monday morning reminder!
What I’m reading
Demon Copperhead
Author: Barbara Kingsolver
Set in the mountains of southern Appalachia, Demon Copperhead is the story of a boy born to a teenaged single mother in a single-wide trailer, with no assets beyond his dead father’s good looks and copper-colored hair, a caustic wit, and a fierce talent for survival.
Relayed in his own unsparing voice, Demon braves the modern perils of foster care, child labor, derelict schools, athletic success, addiction, disastrous loves, and crushing losses. Through all of it, he reckons with his own invisibility in a popular culture where even the superheroes have abandoned rural people in favor of cities.
Many generations ago, Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield from his experience as a survivor of institutional poverty and its damages to children in his society.
Those problems have yet to be solved in ours. Dickens is not a prerequisite for readers of this novel, but he provided its inspiration. In transposing a Victorian epic novel to the contemporary American South, Barbara Kingsolver enlists Dickens’ anger and compassion, and above all, his faith in the transformative powers of a good story.
Demon Copperhead speaks for a new generation of lost boys, and all those born into beautiful, cursed places they can’t imagine leaving behind.
Find it where you browse for books.
Collaborations!
Join us NEXT Friday, June 6th, at the MetroWest Chamber of Commerce for this two-hour interactive business community experience.
We'll discuss ways to cultivate business through Sales, Marketing, and Communication methods that support relationship building, showing up authentically, and connecting deeper with colleagues and the people you serve.
9-11 am - Open discussion, community support, brainstorming ideas
Join me in meeting business owners in our community. You'll leave with new tools to help you make connections and build your business!
Note: because of the 4th of July holiday we’ll meet the 2nd Friday!
Free; Registration is required: REGISTRATION.
Mindful Connections
Connecting like-hearted entrepreneurs to build relationships, offering support, understanding their passions, and sharing their names in rooms of opportunity.
Join us Thursdays, 12-1 pm EST.
12:00 - Take 5—a guided meditation with Terri Hamilton of Positively Terri to ground your week with peace and focus.
12:05-1 pm Round-table Share
Who you are
The gifts you bring to the world
Who you serve
The answer to a Curated question to spark conversation.
FYI: We will NOT meet Thursday, 06/26/2025
If you found this on the web, sign up to join us!
In other news…
Feeling #FOMO about Curated Conversations? Join us!
