Tee Robins

Professional trainer and coach, Tee Robins, is debunking the outdated myth of working harder and faster to get the best results, with her aptly named business, HUSTLE and Hush. For us serial achievers who have grown up believing this to be true (and have been rewarded for it with promotions and career success), it can take a while to unwire this pattern of working.

But Tee's coaching sees her marry practical strategies and wisdom to help us understand how to strike the perfect balance between the HUSTLE and the hush, so that not only do our we thrive in business but most importantly, in life too.

What’s top of your gratitude list this week?
Gratitude to myself and my husband Tom, for believing in my inner voice that said “not this” a couple of years ago in response to the question “if you only had 5 years left, what would you do with your life?” and then actually doing something about it. It hasn’t always been easy, but the benefits of taking the leap continue to unfold for me (and for us) in so many ways.

Your business is called HUSTLE + hush, what’s your ideal balance between the two when it comes to our careers?
As a serial-achiever, HUSTLE has been a key word in my career vocabulary since my high school basketball coach drilled it into me as a means of working smart, hard and having fun. When I took the leap into launching my own business in 2017, I realised how key it was for me to not only have days where I was “on” HUSTLING hard but also days where I was allowing myself to hush more deeply as well. I really believe as humans we’re not machines that are made to be always on, rather we’re designed to pulse our energy.

I now regularly take stock and assess whether my week is set-up in a way that supports the right healthy ratio of HUSTLE activities (meeting potential new clients, delivering a workshop or talk or coaching) and hush activities (writing, reflecting, researching, getting inspired) and reap the benefits when I’m aligned and in balance. I need one to support the other; as a general rule, I need there to be at least one day of each in my week.

What are the challenges that Gen Y and Gen Z face compared to their counterparts? And how do you help your clients navigate these?
One of our challenges as Gen Y and Gen Z is the perception from others who may interpret our strong sense of what we deserve as entitlement; I hear this E word A LOT from senior stakeholders in companies and you see it come up frequently in the media, who love to bandy it around as a stereotype. I come from a place that believes we all have what we need within us already and the work I enjoy most is helping others to bring out the best in themselves. To that end, whether it’s in 1:1 coaching or group workshops I work on that other E word, empowerment. Yes, you are worthy of that thing you desire, so how are YOU going to go about bringing it in to fruition rather than waiting for someone else to bestow it upon you. I wrote about this in my blog post, Write Your Own Damn Development Plan.

What is one of your top strategies for helping millennial leaders unlock their best thinking?Often when we finish working together, a 1:1 client will express that initially they wanted me to give them the answers and tell them how to get from A to B. That’s not what my coaching work is about. I love the privilege of listening vs telling, of holding that space for someone, creating a container for 90 minutes once a fortnight (or so) for them to be heard, to be witnessed and to allow themselves to emerge and bring out the best in themselves.

You got this! If you knew the answer, what would it be?

What’s the best piece advice you've ever been given for looking after your wellbeing?
Self-care isn’t selfish.

When you’re feeling stressed, overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do to bring yourself back to balance?
If I’m feeling up against it and overwhelmed, I make a capture list of all the things to be done that are flying around in my head. I then create a new sheet of paper with headings that relate to the big picture areas/goals that are important to me. I then assign the tasks to the headings or put them in an “unassigned” pile and assess. Ideally, what I’m asking myself to do and what’s being asked of me, maps back against the areas/goals that matter, but if I find I’m over-run with things that don’t fit into any of the categories (usually this lack of alignment coincides with a feeling of overwhelm) then it’s time to reassess whether I’ve got the right things on my plate or the right goals that I’m working towards.

If you’re thinking, “what would my big headings be?”, then the HUSTLE + hush #recapandroadmap program is a good way to distil what your top priorities are for the year.

We are advocates of play and having fun to reduce stress and anxiety. What play do you inject into your life?
So many ways! I try to balance my play into HUSTLE and hush activities too; positive high yang energy (spending time with friends, travelling somewhere new, sailing, attending a gig) alongside positive low yin energy (gentle yoga, reading a novel, going to a film by myself, cuddling my cat) etc.

What’s one area you currently working on improving in your life?
My capacity to be comfortable with and embrace positive tension, duality and the co-existence of multiple perspectives alongside each other, rather than in competition, comparison or contrast or requiring there to be binary or black and white resolution. What if it could be this AND that, existing together?

If you could recommend just one habit or ritual to someone starting out on their health and wellbeing journey, what would it be?
For immediate space, if I feel myself in that fight or flight feeling, I place my two feet firmly on the ground, shut my eyes or lower my gaze, and take several long, deep belly breaths to reset and bring me back to centre to rest, digest and replenish.

Describe your perfect dream day, if there were no limitations……
I’m pretty close to living it out on a daily basis right now. I would just add to that mix, the ability to observe the tide coming in and out, bonus points if I could also observe the sun rising and setting. I love the notion that regardless of what we fill our days with, the tide continues to come in and out and the sun rises and set not just when we have our phone trained on it to capture a great sunset shot on holiday.

In the absence of this, for now, I currently have a print of Portcurno beach in Cornwall up on my desk that takes me back to the day I sat there on the dunes next to Tom and gave myself permission to dream big about what was next.

Any parting advice for how to welcome in healthy, happy, mindful living?
I shared this recently on Instagram and had a positive reaction, so I’ll share it here as well. If you are an avid social media user, treat your feeds in a way that brings you a regular dose of healthy, happy, mindful living when you choose to dip in to it by actively curating who has the privilege to show up on those squares for you. Given that John Rohn says we are the average of the 5 people we spend the most time with, why wouldn’t that same sentiment apply to the 5 people most likely to appear at the top of our feed when we log on to Instagram first thing in the morning before we kiss our partners…?

Follow @hustleandhush on Instagram for bursts of inspiration and insight or contact Tee via her website www.hustleandhush.com if you are interested in speaking with her about 1:1 coaching, creating a #recapandroadmap for yourself or signing up for a power-hour virtual workshop on emerging leadership focussed topics such as The Art of Receiving Feedback, The Art of Managing Up & Creating Space or The Art of Empowering Others & Letting Go.

Striking the perfect balance in business and in life