September 16, 2024 • 10 mins
There are Two Opposing Forces in Life and in Business we are faced with every morning before we even get out of bed; the Tyranny of the Urgent and the Priority of the Important. The Tyranny of the Urgent is like a three-year old, relentlessly pulling on us, demanding our attention, yelling at us to find clients, make the chairs, pay bills, hire people, do financials - it's all relentless and in our face. And it causes use to focus on present-day problems so that every year feels like Groundhog Year - just like last year.
And yet sitting quietly in the corner of our office, the Priority of the Important whispers, "Hey, I know you're really busy right now, but when you get a moment to talk, I can help you solve the Tyranny of the Urgent...permanently. Let's talk some time.
Check our special offer for the Making Money is Killing Your Business: https://bit.ly/m/3to5Club
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome back to the Get Off The Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs, where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
Is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Hi, this is Chuck Blakeman.
Today I want to talk to you about
the tyranny of the urgent.
This is something I had to figure out
for my own business, as is everything I'm
going to share with you.
I found myself running really hard, doing lots
(00:46):
of stuff, feeling very productive and seeming to
be in the same place.
I don't know if you've experienced the same
thing.
Have you ever looked at the pile of
to-dos, you know, the financials, the customer
list and how you're feeling about it all,
and had what we call the blinding flash
of the obvious or BFO, thanks Art Radke
for that, that this month looks pretty much
(01:07):
like the same month last year.
January 1 looks like January 1 of a
year ago, July 1, it just kind of
looks the same.
As much as you planned and hoped for
something different, like the movie Groundhog Day, it's
feeling like Groundhog Year, an unwelcome deja vu.
In 2007, after years of struggling with this
myself, a BFO finally emerged that held the
(01:29):
answer to this question for me, and now
for thousands of others who have had the
same BFO.
As I was trying to figure this out,
I realized that there are two opposing forces
that come at us every day, in business
and probably in life.
See if you agree, every day when we
wake up, before we even open our eyes,
we're faced with two opposing forces, the tyranny
of the urgent and the priority of the
(01:52):
important.
The urgent things come flying at us all
day, trying to force us to react, fight
and defend, you know, like phones, texts, emails,
customer requests, and people lining up outside your
office like you're the DMV, it never ends.
We run from one urgent task to another,
or worse yet, attempt to manage many urgent
(02:12):
tasks at once, gleefully, and according to neuroscience,
mistakenly, calling ourselves multitaskers.
The urgent things are tyrannical, they want to
rule over us, they demand to, they come
and find us, like young unruly kids, they
scream, yell, poke, and prod relentlessly for our
attention.
We don't have to find the urgent things,
they always come and find us and demand
(02:35):
our attention, and we become reactive.
Over time, we resign ourselves, you know, to
the idea that this must be normal, simply
because our business taught us to live this
way, so we complied and became reactive.
And besides, again, all my business owner friends,
they seem to be living reactively too.
Welcome to the business treadmill, let's get the
(02:55):
heck off this thing.
So we learn quickly in business, everybody, every
one of us learns very early on that
the business game is about getting things done,
and fast.
Making sales, responding to customers, or ordering materials,
making the chairs, delivering the chairs, collecting checks,
responding to team members, and paying our urgent
(03:16):
monthly bills.
And it works, we got through the first
month and we paid all our bills, well,
the next month comes around with all its
urgency, and so we just naturally repeat this
quote unquote successful reactive cycle.
Doing this one month at a time, day
after day, month after month, year after year,
it's easy to see how after a year
(03:36):
or two or ten, we could end up
right where we started, still making sales to
pay bills, but never really getting the freedom
in our business that we had dreamed of
when we started.
You and I, and most of the business
owners around us have been conditioned to just
keep changing business diapers for decades, never expecting
(03:56):
our business to grow up and function even
a little bit without us.
You might even be thinking about selling your
business and being free from this tyranny, but
there is a way to get freedom in
our business, not from it.
Don't sell until you've walked through this podcast
with us.
The solution for me was figuring out the
difference between the urgent and the important, and
that BFO that came in around that.
(04:18):
So I'm sitting in my desk one day
wringing my hands over all the tyranny of
the urgent, and all the things happening, and
sitting over in the corner of my office
was the priority of the important.
The priority of the important will never come
find you.
You have to go find it.
You have to be proactive.
And it was just whispering to me, you
know, I know you're really busy, don't want
(04:39):
to butt in, but when you've got a
moment, I might actually be able to help
you solve some of that tyranny permanently.
Over time, I learned that we solve the
urgent by focusing on the important, and by
viewing one-off problems as chronic obstacles.
We'll get to that later.
We need to stop solving one-off problems
and do the chronic obstacle solving, because solving
(05:01):
one-off problems is making money myself, and
chronic obstacle solving is building a business that
makes money.
For years, every time we hired someone, we
would scramble to figure out, you know, how
to get them on board with all the
complexities that come with that.
And we usually found out a lot of
what we hadn't done by running into it.
It was always a tyrannical, distracting, time-consuming
(05:24):
struggle.
We didn't know who was doing what, we
were all trying to help.
Then one day, we stopped, and we did
something important that had never been urgent.
We built an onboarding map, everything we needed
to know and to do to bring someone
on successfully and easily, and then somebody volunteered
to own the map, and now onboarding almost
(05:47):
seems to happen on its own.
The problem, which was reinventing the hiring wheel
every time, was gone, because we focused on
the underlying obstacle, building a process to help
us onboard somebody and have somebody own that
process.
Now, the solution to the urgent isn't always
a process, it could be a myriad of
other things.
I'm just giving you this one as an
(06:08):
example.
For years, the onboarding process wasn't urgent, it
was just important.
Kind of a sad thing to say, yeah,
it's not urgent, it's just important.
Important things are almost never urgent, which results
in remaining hostages to the urgent because we
never solve the important.
Think of all the wheels we're constantly reinventing
and the amount of time and energy we
could invest in actually moving our business forward
(06:31):
if we weren't doing these urgent things over
and over again.
Groundhog year would be a thing of the
past, one solved obstacle at a time.
So let's look at how to solve an
obstacle.
How to permanently solve the urgent is by
not solving the urgent.
The process for solving the obstacle is simple,
it's just not convenient because it's not urgent.
(06:52):
We got to stop to solve the obstacles.
Turn all your problems into obstacles and solve
the obstacles, not the problems.
Why?
It's real simple.
A problem won't reoccur.
An obstacle is overcome.
It's put to bed permanently, and as a
result of putting the obstacle to bed, the
related problem is gone too, permanently.
(07:13):
So let's look at the simple, powerful difference.
Let's approach something like it's a problem.
So we'll use our onboarding thing.
Hey, the problem is somebody quit.
Ah, it's a bummer, but we got to
do something.
So what's the solution?
Well, we need to hire someone to replace
them, and I can't tell you how many
times we did that.
Ouch.
Welcome to the rehiring treadmill.
(07:34):
That problem will continue and maybe even increase.
Let's turn that problem into an obstacle with
one simple, powerful, enduring, important business question.
Why?
Why is the most important, least asked question
in business?
We'll have a podcast on that, but you
use why to turn problems into obstacles.
(07:55):
So let's readdress this problem and let's turn
it into an obstacle, okay?
So it's no longer a problem.
Well, it's still a problem.
We'll call it a problem to begin with.
What's the problem?
Somebody quit.
Okay.
Well, how do we make that into an
obstacle?
The question, why?
Why did they quit?
All right, we've just moved from problem to
obstacle, and we're going to look into why
they quit.
We're going to talk to them, talk to
(08:17):
people around them, going to find out, was
the pay too low?
Was the training not good?
Was the onboarding chaos?
Did they not like the person they were
working with or for?
Was the ad confusing and represented something?
Let's find out why they quit.
Sometimes you can't do anything about it, but
you would be surprised more often than not.
It is an obstacle, because obstacles are things
you can fix.
(08:38):
So we turned it into an obstacle.
Somebody quit, and we asked why, and we
found the solution was not to rehire someone.
That's part of this.
That's kind of the big duh, but the
solution is to fix the obstacle, whatever it
was.
If the pay was 50 cents or $5
too low, then change that.
If the training was not good, create an
onboarding map, figure it out, fix the obstacle
(08:58):
permanently.
And we did that by creating an onboarding
map, and then we hired somebody.
The likelihood of that problem reoccurring as much
is very low now, because we took the
time to do the important thing that could
never break through the ranting noises of all
the urgency of having to hire somebody.
If you want to get off the treadmill,
(09:18):
stop.
And if you want to permanently solve problems,
stop reacting to those problems and start creating
solutions to obstacles.
Gradually your business will grow up like mine
did, and the tyranny of the urgent will
give way to freedom in your business, not
from it.
And Groundhog Year will be a thing of
the past, hallelujah, and you can actually enjoy
(09:41):
your business.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
Off the Treadmill podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the 3
to 5 Club, the Crankset Group, or to
(10:01):
book Chuck as a business advisor, speaker, or
workshop leader, you can contact us at grow,
G-R-O-W, at cranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
Welcome back to the Get Off The Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs, where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
Is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Hi, this is Chuck Blakeman.
Today I want to talk to you about
the tyranny of the urgent.
This is something I had to figure out
for my own business, as is everything I'm
going to share with you.
I found myself running really hard, doing lots
(00:46):
of stuff, feeling very productive and seeming to
be in the same place.
I don't know if you've experienced the same
thing.
Have you ever looked at the pile of
to-dos, you know, the financials, the customer
list and how you're feeling about it all,
and had what we call the blinding flash
of the obvious or BFO, thanks Art Radke
for that, that this month looks pretty much
(01:07):
like the same month last year.
January 1 looks like January 1 of a
year ago, July 1, it just kind of
looks the same.
As much as you planned and hoped for
something different, like the movie Groundhog Day, it's
feeling like Groundhog Year, an unwelcome deja vu.
In 2007, after years of struggling with this
myself, a BFO finally emerged that held the
(01:29):
answer to this question for me, and now
for thousands of others who have had the
same BFO.
As I was trying to figure this out,
I realized that there are two opposing forces
that come at us every day, in business
and probably in life.
See if you agree, every day when we
wake up, before we even open our eyes,
we're faced with two opposing forces, the tyranny
of the urgent and the priority of the
(01:52):
important.
The urgent things come flying at us all
day, trying to force us to react, fight
and defend, you know, like phones, texts, emails,
customer requests, and people lining up outside your
office like you're the DMV, it never ends.
We run from one urgent task to another,
or worse yet, attempt to manage many urgent
(02:12):
tasks at once, gleefully, and according to neuroscience,
mistakenly, calling ourselves multitaskers.
The urgent things are tyrannical, they want to
rule over us, they demand to, they come
and find us, like young unruly kids, they
scream, yell, poke, and prod relentlessly for our
attention.
We don't have to find the urgent things,
they always come and find us and demand
(02:35):
our attention, and we become reactive.
Over time, we resign ourselves, you know, to
the idea that this must be normal, simply
because our business taught us to live this
way, so we complied and became reactive.
And besides, again, all my business owner friends,
they seem to be living reactively too.
Welcome to the business treadmill, let's get the
(02:55):
heck off this thing.
So we learn quickly in business, everybody, every
one of us learns very early on that
the business game is about getting things done,
and fast.
Making sales, responding to customers, or ordering materials,
making the chairs, delivering the chairs, collecting checks,
responding to team members, and paying our urgent
(03:16):
monthly bills.
And it works, we got through the first
month and we paid all our bills, well,
the next month comes around with all its
urgency, and so we just naturally repeat this
quote unquote successful reactive cycle.
Doing this one month at a time, day
after day, month after month, year after year,
it's easy to see how after a year
(03:36):
or two or ten, we could end up
right where we started, still making sales to
pay bills, but never really getting the freedom
in our business that we had dreamed of
when we started.
You and I, and most of the business
owners around us have been conditioned to just
keep changing business diapers for decades, never expecting
(03:56):
our business to grow up and function even
a little bit without us.
You might even be thinking about selling your
business and being free from this tyranny, but
there is a way to get freedom in
our business, not from it.
Don't sell until you've walked through this podcast
with us.
The solution for me was figuring out the
difference between the urgent and the important, and
that BFO that came in around that.
(04:18):
So I'm sitting in my desk one day
wringing my hands over all the tyranny of
the urgent, and all the things happening, and
sitting over in the corner of my office
was the priority of the important.
The priority of the important will never come
find you.
You have to go find it.
You have to be proactive.
And it was just whispering to me, you
know, I know you're really busy, don't want
(04:39):
to butt in, but when you've got a
moment, I might actually be able to help
you solve some of that tyranny permanently.
Over time, I learned that we solve the
urgent by focusing on the important, and by
viewing one-off problems as chronic obstacles.
We'll get to that later.
We need to stop solving one-off problems
and do the chronic obstacle solving, because solving
(05:01):
one-off problems is making money myself, and
chronic obstacle solving is building a business that
makes money.
For years, every time we hired someone, we
would scramble to figure out, you know, how
to get them on board with all the
complexities that come with that.
And we usually found out a lot of
what we hadn't done by running into it.
It was always a tyrannical, distracting, time-consuming
(05:24):
struggle.
We didn't know who was doing what, we
were all trying to help.
Then one day, we stopped, and we did
something important that had never been urgent.
We built an onboarding map, everything we needed
to know and to do to bring someone
on successfully and easily, and then somebody volunteered
to own the map, and now onboarding almost
(05:47):
seems to happen on its own.
The problem, which was reinventing the hiring wheel
every time, was gone, because we focused on
the underlying obstacle, building a process to help
us onboard somebody and have somebody own that
process.
Now, the solution to the urgent isn't always
a process, it could be a myriad of
other things.
I'm just giving you this one as an
(06:08):
example.
For years, the onboarding process wasn't urgent, it
was just important.
Kind of a sad thing to say, yeah,
it's not urgent, it's just important.
Important things are almost never urgent, which results
in remaining hostages to the urgent because we
never solve the important.
Think of all the wheels we're constantly reinventing
and the amount of time and energy we
could invest in actually moving our business forward
(06:31):
if we weren't doing these urgent things over
and over again.
Groundhog year would be a thing of the
past, one solved obstacle at a time.
So let's look at how to solve an
obstacle.
How to permanently solve the urgent is by
not solving the urgent.
The process for solving the obstacle is simple,
it's just not convenient because it's not urgent.
(06:52):
We got to stop to solve the obstacles.
Turn all your problems into obstacles and solve
the obstacles, not the problems.
Why?
It's real simple.
A problem won't reoccur.
An obstacle is overcome.
It's put to bed permanently, and as a
result of putting the obstacle to bed, the
related problem is gone too, permanently.
(07:13):
So let's look at the simple, powerful difference.
Let's approach something like it's a problem.
So we'll use our onboarding thing.
Hey, the problem is somebody quit.
Ah, it's a bummer, but we got to
do something.
So what's the solution?
Well, we need to hire someone to replace
them, and I can't tell you how many
times we did that.
Ouch.
Welcome to the rehiring treadmill.
(07:34):
That problem will continue and maybe even increase.
Let's turn that problem into an obstacle with
one simple, powerful, enduring, important business question.
Why?
Why is the most important, least asked question
in business?
We'll have a podcast on that, but you
use why to turn problems into obstacles.
(07:55):
So let's readdress this problem and let's turn
it into an obstacle, okay?
So it's no longer a problem.
Well, it's still a problem.
We'll call it a problem to begin with.
What's the problem?
Somebody quit.
Okay.
Well, how do we make that into an
obstacle?
The question, why?
Why did they quit?
All right, we've just moved from problem to
obstacle, and we're going to look into why
they quit.
We're going to talk to them, talk to
(08:17):
people around them, going to find out, was
the pay too low?
Was the training not good?
Was the onboarding chaos?
Did they not like the person they were
working with or for?
Was the ad confusing and represented something?
Let's find out why they quit.
Sometimes you can't do anything about it, but
you would be surprised more often than not.
It is an obstacle, because obstacles are things
you can fix.
(08:38):
So we turned it into an obstacle.
Somebody quit, and we asked why, and we
found the solution was not to rehire someone.
That's part of this.
That's kind of the big duh, but the
solution is to fix the obstacle, whatever it
was.
If the pay was 50 cents or $5
too low, then change that.
If the training was not good, create an
onboarding map, figure it out, fix the obstacle
(08:58):
permanently.
And we did that by creating an onboarding
map, and then we hired somebody.
The likelihood of that problem reoccurring as much
is very low now, because we took the
time to do the important thing that could
never break through the ranting noises of all
the urgency of having to hire somebody.
If you want to get off the treadmill,
(09:18):
stop.
And if you want to permanently solve problems,
stop reacting to those problems and start creating
solutions to obstacles.
Gradually your business will grow up like mine
did, and the tyranny of the urgent will
give way to freedom in your business, not
from it.
And Groundhog Year will be a thing of
the past, hallelujah, and you can actually enjoy
(09:41):
your business.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
Off the Treadmill podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the 3
to 5 Club, the Crankset Group, or to
(10:01):
book Chuck as a business advisor, speaker, or
workshop leader, you can contact us at grow,
G-R-O-W, at cranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
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