Episode 12: Your Time Is Worth More Than You Think: Breaking Free From Busyness Culture

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Welcome to the Daily Edge where we bring you the
latest insights, opinions andthought-provoking conversations
to give you that competitiveedge in life, business and
beyond.
Let's go.
Welcome back to the Daily Edgehere with my brothers.
This is episode 12.
Man, I can't believe we'vealready got up to 12 episodes

(00:27):
Today.
It's going to be interesting.
We spend a lot of our timethinking about productivity,
probably both personally andprofessionally.
You know, am I getting thingsdone?
We're all juggling tons ofstuff.
We got families, we havespouses, we have businesses, we
have hobbies, and I knowsometimes I get this feeling of

(00:51):
like am I doing enough or am Ibeing productive?
I think there's a balance herebetween what am I doing is
actually productive and what isit just busy.
And so I'd like to ask you guysa question when you think about
productivity in your lives, howdo you approach that?
Is it productivity?
And you could go personal, youcould go business, but how do

(01:12):
you try to fit everything in anddo it in a manner where you
feel like you're actuallyaccomplishing something?

Speaker 2 (01:19):
For me it has to be, first of all, it has to be
grounded in purpose.
So that's something that I lookfor.
Like you just said and we'vediscussed this a little bit we
are in this era of productivitywhere I think it's kind of
tapering down a little, but Iwould say maybe it hit its peak

(01:39):
right pre-pandemic or mayberight post, where it was like I
sleep three hours a day and Iwake up at 4 am and I cold
plunge there are memes out there, right, with the guys that you
know wake up at 4 am, coldplunge, work out, read six books
, you know, have breakfast withmy kids, like they're seemingly
checking every box you couldpotentially check in a day, and

(02:00):
I think again, it becomes a memeof itself.
So for me it boils back tosomething Todd talks a lot about
, which is goals.
And then is there a purpose inwhat I'm doing and driving
towards that?
And it gets difficult for mebecause I think we can get tied
up into and we'll talk aboutthat a little later we can get
our identity tied up into theamount of things that we're

(02:22):
doing, and if we're not doingenough, you know, we start to
feel less confident in ourselves.
So for me, I guess, like Iwould say, it starts grounding
it in purpose and then from thatpoint forward, I don't know, I
always looked for optimizationand efficiency, and you in that
grows over time.
You know I think younger you'relooking for.

(02:42):
In my experience, I was lookingfor efficiency and tactical
execution.
You know I think younger you'relooking for.
In my experience I was lookingfor efficiency and tactical
execution.
You know so in the IT world wetalked about in a prior episode,
I spent a large portion of mycareer in IT.
How can I make this specifictask easier?
How can I automate this throughthis singular task, through
efforts of my own, and then thatgrows into, I think, when you

(03:04):
get towards the middle or end ofyour career, how can I bring
the right people in that havethe skill sets necessary to
deliver optimal results?
Because I think you see peopleand I'll let Todd answer in a
second but I think you seepeople who get to a point where

(03:24):
they never graduate from how canI automate this task?
They just try to bring on moreand more and more and more and
try to, instead of stepping backand understanding that there
are people who think about theseniche areas of your business
all day, every day, and havevery refined skill sets as it
relates to those, and at somepoint, if you're going to rise
in business, you have to stepback from your original approach

(03:48):
that gave you satisfaction andvalidation and step into
utilizing the assets orresources you have available to
you.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Yeah, I think a lot of what you said there is spot
on.
I mean grounded in purpose, isto me the most important.
So for me, each year this won'tbe a surprise I have goals and
I've actually, over the lasthalf a decade or so, I've
refined those into about sevencategories.
So one's longevity, one isfatherhood, one is spiritual,

(04:19):
one is professional, one'spersonal development, mental
kind of wellbeing, and then kindof mission type stuff which is
pseudo-professional.
And so my, as I've reallythought about this, I've kind of
started with the end in mind ofwhat are the things, what are

(04:40):
the pillars in my life that I'mgoing to feel.
If these are in order, I'mgoing to be in a good place, and
so, grounded in purpose, that'skind of where I start.
And then, within each of thosecategories, each year I've got
different things that are goingto promote what I'm trying to
accomplish in each of those.
And so for longevity, forexample, this year there's the

(05:04):
Spartan race, there is the FOMO,there's running Boston, there's
a couple other fitness things.
Some of them are naturallygoing to happen and some of them
are going to take moreintentionality Within fatherhood
.
That's where there's like thequarterly trips and maintaining
and sending Noah his quotes ofthe day, and there are different

(05:26):
things within each of thesecategories.
I want to look, I want to havea set of goals where at the end
of the year I say, if Iaccomplish these things, it's
going to be a fantastic year inthat particular category and
that.
So that's what I strive for andfor me.
I've struggled at differenttimes with the anxiety of am I
doing enough?
Like, what am I not doing?
What am I not getting to?

(05:47):
And the only time that I reallyfind I can consistently,
without a doubt, find peace ofmind is through planning and
knowing that I have taken thetime to identify the things that
I would most value in my lifeand then taking the time to
break those down.
So each one of those goalsobviously breaks down.

(06:09):
One of them, for the fatherhood, is the cooking, the four meals
, right?
So then that breaks down fromthis annual goal of cooking four
meals to cooking one meal aquarter, to then picking which
meal you're going to put,scheduling what weekend or day
you're going to do that and thenactually executing on it.
So each of those sections to methen drives monthly, weekly and

(06:33):
even daily activities.
That gives me the peace of mindthat I'm putting my time in a
place that's got high return oninvestment.
Just to be honest, listening toyou list out seven things and
all that just makes me anxiousto think about, like, how do you
like that's a?
It just seems like a lot.

(06:53):
It seems like a lot of planning, a lot of work, a lot of focus
Is that?
My guess is is, most peoplearen't wired like you, but are
there easy ways of entry intoyou know something like that, or
do you find that there's cause?
That seems a littleoverwhelming, to be honest, yeah
, I've certainly built up tothis over the last decade.
I first started setting goals,probably.

(07:14):
I mean I've unofficially setthem and started writing them
down, probably in 26, 15, 16.
So I've been at it for close to10 years.
Um, and when I started I justpicked 10 things that I thought
or five things Actually I don'teven know it was 10, because 10
was kind of our family For methe five things that if I
accomplished these this yearit'd be a fantastic year.
And I think what's importantabout this is, again, it grounds

(07:36):
everything in purpose, so it'snot just like what's the flavor
of the day or what's the flavorof the week, but the week.
But I am taking intentionaltime over multiple days and you
generally the discernmentprocess over multiple weeks to
identify the things, steppingback out of the emotion of a
given day or a given shortperiod of time and saying, if I
accomplish these five things,it's going to be a fantastic
year, like I will be really,really happy with that,

(07:58):
centering around that and thendevoting my resources, because
that's, I think, the challengewith today.
Every day, every day you wakeup, there's a new set of things
that have to get done and aresuper urgent, and I think it's
super easy to get lost in thatand get really distracted.
And I heard a really good quote.
I was listening to a bookcalled indistractable, which I
would recommend, especially intoday's day and age, and one of

(08:20):
the things he was saying is youdon't know if you're distracted
unless you're actually planning.
You actually have somethingelse planned to do during that
time period, like you're eithergetting traction or there's
distraction, but you don't knowunless you've planned.
So if you're just kind of from,let's just say, 5 to 8 pm in

(08:43):
the evening which a lot of thatis just discretionary time we're
just kind of hanging around andwhatever, and we're like
scrolling on our phones, likeit's like you know we don't have
that.
There's no like feeling in uslike oh gosh, I shouldn't be on
my phone, I need to be doingthis because there's nothing
else to be planned to be doing,right?
It's like I think generally weknow, yeah, we should be sitting

(09:05):
and doing stuff with our kidsor you know, there's kind of
like, yeah, I'd like to be doingthat.
But if from five to 6 PM was nophone time, and that was the
time where you were spending,you were eating dinner, let's
just say five to 6 PM is dinnerwith the family at the dinner
table.
Or five to 6 PM is qualityone-on-one time with a kid or
two, and that could be one day aweek.

(09:27):
Then if you're on your phone,you know I'm distracted, I'm not
doing what I, and so it was aninteresting perspective.
Now, even at this point, I'mnot down to planning my days out
to the hours, right, because Ithink there is important to have
some space in there.
So when I say productivity,recovery is a category for me

(09:47):
and space is a category, so likeblocking out time for space is
also part of the equation.
It's not necessarily cram asmany things in as you possibly
can, but I would say this istask management and task
management and making sureyou're working on the highest
value things beats timemanagement all day.

(10:11):
You know, one of the one of thethings in life that I love is
uncertainty and variety.
How would you say, is thatimportant to you and how do you
still keep a flavor of that inyour life?
If it is, yeah, I think, goingback to the Tony Robbins days, I
think that's a human need.
A natural human need isuncertainty and variety, and I

(10:32):
think we get hit withuncertainty and variety every
day.
Right, you go into the officeand there's different things
that pop up.
I think there is a balance ofbeing able to.
I mean, I guess for me thatuncertainty and variety comes in
a variety of different ways, atleast as how I perceive it.

(10:52):
I think the temptation and thechallenge I've had in my life is
not chasing that uncertaintyand variety, the new email that
comes in and like, whew, let'sgo over to the email and chasing
all of the exciting things,because the peak of excitement
is the second you get hit withit.
Right, and so my challengepersonally is I love to chase

(11:17):
the shiny objects and I have toturn my email off or I will
chase emails all day.
And you want to talk aboutunproductive spending all day
sending dozens of emails?
They did a study I was justlistening to as part of this
book that 50% of emails,basically at the end of the day,

(11:37):
have zero value, and so I thinkthat's the trap in today's
society.
So I think we're talking aboutbusyness, which is largely, I
think in a lot of cases,unproductive.
Then you've got, maybe, trueproductivity.
Those are just some preliminarythoughts.
So Todd's talking aboutbusyness and productivity kind

(12:03):
of being two different animalsthere.
How do you, do you see adifference in that?
Um, how would you process that?

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, I see it.
I see a difference.
I think I spoke about it in thelast podcast.
Um, I can expound on that alittle bit more so yeah, and.
I think I want to pose thisquestion to you guys because of
where you guys sitprofessionally.
But I think, from aprofessional perspective, there
is a certain expectation ofbusyness, Especially if you're

(12:36):
in and I do work remote, right,so I'm not in an office, but
I've been in an office for 30years, you know, or 20 years at
times in an office.
For 30 years, you know, or 20years at times.
If you constantly see someoneengaged in something you believe
to be different than work, youbegin to question their ethic

(12:56):
and or their aim.
Maybe it's their aim, I don'tknow.
So, you know, we see this, this.
I see this in organizationsI've been in where we'll have a
call, and if you look at itobjectively, from the outside,
it's essentially everybodytrying to prove their worth,
which I would imagine a largeportion of the 50 percent of

(13:19):
emails that you're referring tois trying to do exactly that.
Right, I need to make sureeverybody knows I mean and
honestly, that's a skillset,especially people who have, who
have made it to a certain pointin their career they can smoke
and mirrors you all day long, aslong as you're not in their
physical space.
Um, you know.
So it's very interesting to me.

(13:39):
Um, you know, I think there'sthere's an obvious definition
for productivity versus busyness.
Productivity, in my opinion, isthe way I look at that is that
you're driving towards a visionand you're you're um,
contributing towards a greatergood or a greater goal.

(13:59):
I think a lot of times,busyness is just there's nothing
there, it's checking the box.
So, um, you know, I would alignit with well, no, I guess I'll
kind of I'll kind of stop thereand then I'll I'll rewind and
kind of pose that question toyou guys.
You know, if, if the goal is toget those that you're involved

(14:23):
with professionally to beproductive, you know, if you're
in a situation like I was inwith my last boss at Microsoft,
where I was getting and, yes, Icould have done more to be more
proactive once I kind ofcompleted my tasks at hand but
what would be the best way tomanage somebody to?
You know what I mean Alleviatethat busy busyness.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
Yeah, I think you've got a the, the pressures on the
manager or the leadership toarticulate the outcomes they're
expecting.
So, and I think that is where alot of times the ball gets
dropped.
Now, for us, there are two waysthat we approach that.
One is through quarterly goals.
So there are strategic thingsthat we're trying to accomplish
and we make it very obvious whatthose particular things are for

(15:09):
a defined time period.
Hey, here are the fourstrategic type things we need to
knock out in the next threemonths.
Make sure you block out time onyour schedule or whatever it
happens to be, to accomplishthose.
Secondly, it's understandingwhat elements of the day-to-day
role, what success looks like.
So, for example, in a financedepartment, communication is

(15:33):
going to be very important andpeople's perception of the
communication or the reliabilityare getting sent and they're
not getting replied to for threeor four days, or they just fall
into a black hole.
Or there's a project andthere's no communication on the
progress and people are leftwondering.
So in a lot of cases, dependingon who your customer and who

(15:55):
your client is, you have toimplement measures to help
provide insight and feedback tothat individual if they're
meeting those expectations ornot.
So if those measures are put inplace effectively, then I think
it's a lot easier and you canmanage to outcomes instead of

(16:15):
managing to effort.
Because that's what I hear yousaying a little bit is like
there's an expected level ofbusyness, meaning if someone's
just off, kind of talking tosomeone else in their office for
two or three hours a day,generally that's problematic.
If a manager is doing a goodenough job articulating the
expected outcomes and thatindividual is meeting all those
expected outcomes and they'refind a way to do it in five to
six hours a day, more power tothem.

(16:35):
Like that's great, like, for myperspective, awesome.
Now, that may not be yourperson that's spending the other
two to three hours a daylearning and growing and
developing to be able to take onthe next role, you know, and
that's okay.
But I think the the differencein issue there is the ability to
truly be able to manage tooutcomes is to be able to
clearly articulate thoseexpectations, and that's easier

(16:57):
said than done what do you?
what do you think like?
I think back to to dad and his,and it was more about being
there at eight and staying untilfive, even if, hypothetically,
someone was there, you know,playing card games for two hours
on their computer, right?
So I wonder how many businessesnow can focus on outcomes

(17:21):
versus, you know, actual effortor being in the office or
activity.
And I think one of the thingswhere we were really challenged,
I would say we were kind ofdoing a good job at that until
COVID happened.
Right, and COVID happened andall of a sudden it wasn't safe
to be in the office with yourcolleagues and everyone had to
work from home, and so it forcedus to have to start looking at
different measurements to beable to get the outputs that we

(17:45):
wanted.
So we've been pushed that wayin the type of business we're in
.
I don't know how otherbusinesses approach that, but
it's something that I know a lotof people had to deal with over
COVID because it just forcedyou down that hole.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
You know it would be really interesting to continue
to unpack this.
If you look historically,busyness in its everything, I
guess the further you go back.
Right, sorry, what's the otherword?
It's escaping me.
Busyness and what.

Speaker 1 (18:15):
Productivity.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah, if you go back as far as you can go back,
productivity was everything youdid, right?
If you're talking about being,you know, hunter, gatherer,
everything you did wasproductive and as we've gone on,
less and less of productivityis required to survive.
You know, we've mentioned AI anumber of times in conversations

(18:36):
outside of the podcast, but aswe continue to progress forward,
it's going to.
It's going to be interestingbecause I think it poses a
cultural challenge.
For instance, um environmentlike yours, where you're in a
physical workspace, if yourcoworkers in the same role
perceive that someone's notdoing as much as they are, that
creates tension and I wonderwhat drives, and I'd be

(19:00):
interested in your perspective.
So I was in the service industry.
We've talked about this forabout a decade and in certain
circumstances, we would work inlocations where, from a tipping
perspective, there were twodifferent approaches.
One was you kept your tips andone was tip pooling, and it was
different types of individualspreferred different.

(19:22):
So right, so like certainindividuals didn't want anything
to do with anybody else, a lotof times that was because they
felt like they were the mostcapable and that other people
were going to be dragging themdown.
And I'm sure on the other sideof things, there were some of
those lower hanging employees orbartenders that wanted tip

(19:43):
pulling because they didn't wantto do anything and they wanted
to live off their fruits.
And then I'm sure there arealso those in the middle who are
kind of amicable to the entiresituations and they have a whole
situation and maybe they havean entirely different
perspective which is sharing thebroader vision of whatever
they're working towards as agroup.
So it's interesting because aswe move further and further

(20:06):
forward, more and more of thisbusy work is going to be taken
off of our plates, and I thinkyou're going to find more and
more situations where so-and-sodid get it done in four hours.
Maybe they're utilizing their,their tools, you know, a little
bit more efficiently, andeverybody else is staring at
them like, well, how come youcome?
So I'd be interested to hearyour perspective on that.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
It's fascinating because there is a comparison
element that you have to accountfor.
You said a couple of differentthings in there that I thought
were really interesting.
It's if tools and things becomeavailable to allow us to be
more productive, it's going toallow us to be more leisurely or
maybe shortened, and I waslistening to a podcast and Mark

(20:47):
Zuckerberg was on it.
He said something like someonewas concerned like what are
people going to do in the future, and he said well, you know, I
don't know how many years ago,but almost everyone used to be a
farmer.
Like 80% of people were farmers, and now it's like less than
10%.
Yet we're still feeding thecountry and yet people are still
finding other things to do.
So it would be a repurposing, Ithink, to one of your points

(21:09):
that there's going to be stufffor people to do.
But I know there's othercountries that have adopted
four-day work weeks anddifferent schedules and I don't
know.
It's funny because I thinkAmerica and the US in general
were so gung-ho on more, more,more, more, more.
But there have been time andtime again people step in and

(21:30):
show models that that's notalways the case.
Chick-fil-a they make moremoney on six days a week than I
think McDonald's does on seven.
They have I don't know, it'slike 16 or 18 items on their
menu versus like 40.
So like they found ways to doit.
And same with Hobby Lobby'sonly open six days a week.
There's ways to be productive.

(21:50):
I think it is challenging,especially for the older
generation, who isn't used tothat type of environment, to
figure out a way to compensatepeople fairly, to not judge, to
create a culture that alsodoesn't allow that.
To like you're getting yourstuff done, you're hitting good
metrics, your clients are arehappy and everything's working,

(22:10):
then you're you're doing a goodjob, and so that is a different,
it is a different mindset.
Um, and sometimes it's not fairor it feels not fair.
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Yeah, that's a good one.
Yeah, I mean, it's 100% correct.
And I think you're either goingto have two.
I think we've even seen twotypes of people.

(22:32):
You're going to have half thepeople that take those extra
four hours and try to findsomething truly productive to do
with it, and you're going tohave half the people take that
four hours.
And when I say truly productivehours, and when I say truly
productive, that could meanputting space in the schedule to
create balance or whatever, andthen I think you'll see another
portion of the populationthat's going to look to be

(22:53):
entertained.
I think one of the interestingdynamics here I heard this the
other day is like, again, I'm alittle more purpose oriented,
but I find a lot of my joythrough impact and through being
able and versus.
I think others not right orwrong feel joy through being
entertained.
Right, it's like this isenjoyment, kind of scrolling or,

(23:16):
and so I think that dispositionagain, not right or wrong will
drive what someone does withthat extra time.
Again, maybe they'll haveimpact or maybe they'll use it
like me, I'm in a place rightnow with everything on my plate.
If I had an extra hour, I wouldcreate space Like I am.
I've got, I am trying toaccomplish too many outcomes at

(23:39):
one point in time and I wouldlove to be able to balance that
out a little bit.
And I would love to be able tobalance that out a little bit.
But again, I think how weorient and how we perceive fun
and joyful will drive what we doat that time.
I'd like to pick on you a littlebit.
Yeah, please, because you'reoperating in different roles in
different companies some CEO,some COO, some operations how do

(24:05):
you not get stuck in the weedsand how do you navigate those
situations to where you're notspending all your time just?
And I mean they're smallercompanies too, so you're kind of
a catch-all in a lot ofinstances.
Yeah, it's through planning.
It's through planning whenyou're an individual contributor
in a startup and you don't havethe resources yet to bring on

(24:26):
the people to delegate toPlanning.
It's through planning whenyou're an individual contributor
in a startup and you don't havethe resources yet to bring on
the people to delegate to or togive to help carry things
forward.
When you have to be anindividual contributor, that's
the most vulnerable place to getcaught in the trap of busyness.
And so it's through planningwhere I have identified okay for
Eternize, these five thingsneed to happen in the next three

(24:51):
months period, end of story.
And I realized that if I'm notworking on one of those five
things, it may not be superimportant.
Now, stuff changes, right, itevolves, and so you've got to
adapt your plan and timelineschange and things, so you have
to keep it fresh.
But to simplify it, that's howI make sure I do my best and I

(25:12):
could do a better job, honestly,planning and making sure a lot
of my time is focused on thatbecause I can you know,
neurologically I'm wired tochase those shiny objects.
It's a lot of fun Get thosedopamine hits and it's good, but
I think it's for me it'sthrough planning that I avoid
that, otherwise I'll just follow.
I'll follow the shiny object.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
So maybe we unpack the other approach, maybe you
could talk about it a little bit.
I mean, I think I do the leastplanning out of anybody sitting
here, probably by a fair longshot.
When we talked, talked, youknow when todd was kind of going
through his and you said itkind of brought you anxiety, him
breaking down these goals andthis cascade down of kind of
informing you know a year'sworth of tactical execution.

(25:56):
You know you're, similarly,although at different roles, in
different levels, in differentbusinesses, boards of directors,
ceos, et cetera, et cetera.
How do you approach it?

Speaker 1 (26:13):
I want to talk.
I want to.
I will answer that question.
There's a couple of things I'velearned what I'm what, what I
feel like I'm good at, and I'venarrowed that scope very, very
small and that's really all I'mgood at.
And I've narrowed that scopevery, very small and that's
really all I'm willing to do.
So that skill set and it tookme a long time to get there, to

(26:33):
where I could focus on thesethings that IMG.
And then I bought othercompanies and the second one
that I bought I was trying to bean operator at a lower level
that a contributor, and tryingto dive in and it was.
I wasn't being as effectiveoverall as a person.

(26:54):
I wasn't.
I wasn't effective.
I was dropping in and drop itout and I wasn't able to get
things done in the manner and Irealized that I cannot.
I know the role that I can playand I know the role that I can
play and I know the role that Ican play hard and I can play
well and I can get an A and 100%and I need to stay in my lane.
So every business that I'minvolved in, I play this role

(27:16):
and it's just the way that Iknow I can be most effective If
I try to go back to a differentrole.
It messes everything up for meand so what does that mean so
when role it messes everythingup for me, and so what does that
mean?
So when you say it messeseverything up, like dive into
that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (27:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
So let's just say I get pulled into.
Well, just the other day I'm onvacation and someone that I
used to write insurance forcalls me and drags me back into
a situation and a coverage andthe claim he's going through and
, just you know, takes an hourand I don't have any idea.
I don't do any insuranceanymore, I don't write any

(27:52):
policies.
But he's taken me and and I'm.
I love the relationship, I lovethe gentleman and so I took the
call and it was nice to talk tohim.
But now my head is now stuckthere.
Like when I get stuck in theday-to-day stuff.
It really affects my ability todream and plan and build
strategy.
When I'm and granted, the otherpart of my job is putting out
fires, like I'm doingoperational high level, you know

(28:15):
we have this happen, thishappen, I'm tapping in, but when
I have all that other noise uphere, it kind of just takes my,
it takes me on a roller coastermentally and it's hard for me to
kind of go through it.
The other thing that I'velearned that I want to go back
to is I believe and I'd loveyour guys' opinion that each
decade we kind of graduate intocertain things, or can.

(28:36):
I was listening to Mr Beast talkon Diary of a CEO podcast.
It was really really good.
But what I noticed in hispodcast he's in his late
twenties.
He's all about the grind,putting in the hours, putting it
out.
In my twenties I was about thegrind and maybe the twenties is
about the grind.
You've got more energy andtestosterone and it's like I'm
going to work eight hours a weekand I'm going to get after it

(29:00):
and maybe that's okay at thatpoint in time.
I'm not exactly sure what it isin your 30s and what it is in
your 40s, but as we get older weget more strategic and we
realize and I think you said itearlier is that if we can find
out what we're really good at,we need to find people that can
help supplement and do some ofthose things in order to allow

(29:21):
you to be as effective aspossible within those roles.
That, to me, I think is key isyou have to hit a point where
you have the resources to bringthe other people in to help do
those things, because if youhave someone let's just say you
you start a business by yourselfand you're made up your mind

(29:45):
that you're not going to do theindividual contributor work.
If you don't hire someone tocome and do the details, that
business is going to failmiserably, right, naturally.
So you went through the grind,you were able to bring some
people in and, even through myjourney at IMG, got to a point
where I was able to bring somepeople in and even through my

(30:06):
journey at IMG, got to a pointwhere I was able to bring some
people in to help with.
And I think that's a huge, hugepart of it is getting to a point
where you have the resources orthe insight, depending on the
size of your organization.
You've got the insight to moveup into where you're
contributing at a strategiclevel.
But I think a lot of this,especially when it comes to

(30:26):
releasing like when I look atEternize it's at a point where I
don't have the financialresources to bring on someone
full-time to do the day-to-day.
It's just not a reality Now.
Hopefully at some point it willbe, but I can't.
If that's a project that I wantto see succeed, I don't have
the, I don't have the luxury ofsaying hey, I'm only going to

(30:47):
play at this level.
It's if I don't play at thislevel, this business doesn't get
off the ground, so I think thatto me is a challenging aspect.

Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, what I?

Speaker 1 (30:56):
would tell you from what I've learned is, if that's
the case, I wouldn't do itpersonally, like I'm not, like
when you've got to a point towhere you know what you're good
at and where you're executingand where, and you can, they
always say like there's, oh, youcan chase, you know?
I think you talked about thethree gold balls, or you know
you want to juggle the seven?
Yeah, if you choose to pick theseven, that's okay, but

(31:16):
realizing the other, the threegold ones, are going to suffer
too, correct?
So what I've learned is like Iwill not go back into any role
that takes me back to that spot,cause it will, like you said,
go a little deeper.
That impacts everything,because now my mind just gets
taken in a lot of different waysand I think you have to be able
to focus.
I wanted to ask TJ one thing,cause I do think one of the
things that TJ is really good atthat I am not as good at when

(31:40):
it comes to planning, I thinkone of the things that I have
admired and Warren Buffett isgood at this and Bill Gates is
good at this they spend halftheir day learning, reading,
learning, developing themselves,so they can be more and more
productive, like you talkedabout that person who will just
want to continue to do thatprocess over and over and over
again and not take the time toautomate it or take the time to

(32:01):
be more efficient.
Or take the time to automate itor take the time to be more
efficient or take the time tolearn so they can provide the
insight and get to the vision inhalf the time.
How do you?
You consume an insane amount,insane amount of content.
How do you find the time,because you've got a lot going
on, to continue to prioritizelearning?
That really has a delayedgratification right.

(32:22):
Like anytime you're listeningto a podcast, there's nothing
that you're able to necessarilydo better that day or more
efficient that day.
It's this compilation overlistening to books and podcasts
and insights over weeks, monthsand years before you actually
probably see the fruits of it.
In many cases that like talkabout that a little bit.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
It's taken a lot of reprogramming internally for me
personally because I was, andespecially, surrounded by hyper
productive people.
Um, you know, another personwho's wired similar to you is
caleb very, very methodical,very, you know, like planned out
, and I remember when he firstcame, we were working together
at one of my prior places ofemployment, at tcc, and he had a

(33:03):
spreadsheet that he would fillout on a daily basis with these
certain KPIs that he wasmeasuring.
And I am completely counter tothat.
But being surrounded by peopleand growing up, when we grew up,
when we were young, you know alot of the people we knew, a lot
of our relatives worked infactories and productivity was
key.
Like, if you're on an assemblyline and you aren't doing your

(33:23):
job, the car doesn't get made orwhatever it is they're working
on.
So it's ingrained in you, um,that you need to do certain
things that are going to curatethe results that you want for me
.
So you know I had to step backand realize one thing you'll

(33:44):
you'll realize, whenever you askme something about like a
market, like like a demographic,like what are my thoughts?
I'm pretty quick to have a verydefinitive answer for you, and
that is because I realized overtime that consuming these
different perspectives and allof this different information
from all of these differenttypes of people you know, I

(34:06):
listened to a podcast the otherday with the and probably and
again, we live in Indiana, so ifwe're talking political and you
guys have already listened toour political podcast but
there's we're more right, center, right, and so that's kind of
what we were exposed tothroughout our lives and I got,
and I listened to the farthestleft streamer you could possibly

(34:29):
listen to and I actually foundvalue in it because you know so.
So what I've done is I've kindof reprogrammed myself to find
value and purpose in those,exploring those ideas, and that
really helped me in my roleprofessionally and as a father
and as a friend and whatever, tohelp provide perspectives that

(34:53):
you might miss out on.
And I tried not to go too fardown a particular rabbit hole.
So like I found myself theother day looking for a new book
, and I'm like man, I don't wantto listen to another self-help
book, because I don't want to goso far down that rabbit hole
that my entire perspective onlife is self-help and I'm going
and talking to everybody abouthow they need to do cold plunges

(35:14):
every morning for whateverreason.
So that's kind of, and I justhave, for whatever reason, an
insatiable curiosity, and maybethat goes back to me wanting to
please people.
I want to have a real firmunderstanding and grasp on any
possible perspective out there.
That's one thing I find myselfdoing professionally is
constantly thinking about thenuance and the potential way.

(35:40):
Like, if we execute this way,how is this going to land with
this person?
How could it offend them in away?
Are they going to enjoy thisexperience more?
I'm constantly doing that andseeing how other people are
executing in.
You know my spaceprofessionally, I'll buy
products to look at the way thepackaging is constructed and

(36:00):
then try to think about okay,you've heard these different
perspectives from thesedifferent product reviewers.
In this particular niche of themobile accessory space, which
is where I work, you've heardall of their perspectives.
How would that personalityreact to getting this?
And so it all kind of compiles.
But it took a long time to belike look, it's okay to consume

(36:22):
this review when a new productcomes out, even though it's
watching a YouTube videoessentially.
So that was.
That was a big thing for me wasmaking sure I was comfortable
with finding value and thingslike that that other other
people may see as a form ofentertainment or as something
leisurely.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
How do you prioritize what to listen to and how do
you fit that in?
Do you have any sort ofexpectations of consuming a
certain amount of content orcertain types of subjects?
How do you manage that?
Or is it just like wheneveryou're not doing something else,
you've got something on?

Speaker 2 (36:54):
It's not whenever I try to keep it balanced.
I think we all, whether we payattention to it or not.
Obviously we love to be in echochambers, but I think, um and
this is, as it relates toanything, your perspective,
whether it's religion orpolitics, or technology or
whatever we all want people tosee things through the same lens
that we do, and so for me, Ihave this and I just pay

(37:17):
attention to it.
It's like listening to yourbody when you're injured, when I
feel like gosh, this is alittle bit much.
You know, I've been down onthis side of it.
Let me look at something tobalance it out.
Or, you know, if I have aquestion, you know I sent you
guys a video the other day onparenting and that's a constant
question in my life.
Am I doing this right?

(37:41):
You know my wife has been backand forth on whether she wants
to continue to work full-time ornot, and so you know, okay, I'm
really curious about the impactthat that could.
You know?
There's the obvious impacts.
Like you said, your wife's ableto focus on in a prior podcast
your wife's able to focus on ina prior podcast.
Your wife's able to focus onmaking sure that she's cooking
healthy for your family.
That's an obvious impact.
But what are some of the othernuanced impacts that I might not

(38:02):
be thinking of that may comeinto play?
And then, once I've got thatdigested and implemented or
understood within my own life,then I can listen for, whether
it's general social conversationwith people that are close to
me within my sphere or othercreators out there or other

(38:23):
content providers out there thatmaybe have some of those
similar struggles.
So and again this goes back tomy key thing is the other piece
of the puzzle is I want to be aresource, like again we go back
to making people happy, but Ilike it when somebody calls me
and is like hey, I'm dealingwith this injury.
So what are some of the thingsthat I can do?

(38:46):
So I do prioritize a lot ofthings as it relates to what I'm
going through in the immediateor my curiosities.
I strain my calf, like I'vetalked about in prior episodes a
couple of weeks ago, and soI've been going really, really
deep, because when one of myfriends strains their calf, I
want to have more knowledge andjust surface level on how they
can potentially help resolvethat.

(39:06):
So that's kind of how Iprioritize, but I don't, and I
probably should have a littlemore space, like you talked
about.
I don't have a lot of time whereI'm not listening to something.
I was listening to and this isgoing to seem strange.
I was listening to a podcast onthe way up there A good friend
of mine.
He's a runner and he's one ofthe few black endurance

(39:29):
marathoners in the United States.
It was really cool to hear fromhis perspective what his
experience has been like in theendurance community and kind of
what his goals are, and thenthat gives me again a broader
understanding of just society asa whole well.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
Well, I have a couple of things.
How do you view learning asproductive?
Like, how do you like takebecause learning, or maybe it's
space, how do you guys look atthat?
My tendency has been like manif I'm not doing something that

(40:07):
I find productive, and I thinkthat stems from my 20s and where
I am now, I have a really hardtime.
You said you did a two-dayretreat where you didn't talk.
You said it was one of the mostimpactful things in your life.
So help me impact how you guysassign value to that, versus
feel like I'm just wasting time.

(40:28):
Well, I mean, for me it's noteasy.
Our body would tell usotherwise.
Right, the dopamine would tellus, like, go for the shiny
object, go for the thing, do thething.
And so I think for me it startswith awareness there that my
body and my mind is going to betelling me one thing and that
may not necessarily be true Like, essentially not trusting my

(40:52):
feelings is where it starts Froma learning perspective.
I think that just comes withexperience.
There's so many times I can'ttell you how many times there's
just something that turns justthis like dose of novelty, even
if it's like 10, 15, 20 minutesa day when someone says

(41:12):
something that I hadn't thoughtabout before or plants an idea.
I'm just listening to someonekind of describe some sort of
position or concept.
It just turns my brain on andgets me thinking about things in
such a heightened way.
My level and my ability tostrategically think after and

(41:32):
this is a short-term impact oflearning even within that day
when a lot of this is delayed.
Short-term impact of learningeven within that day when a lot
of this is delayed gratificationright, it's like you've got to
learn the concepts and wehaven't talked about it much yet
.
But AI is one of them.
I spent a lot of time in therelearning just because I know if
we can figure this out at theend of the road there, I think

(41:53):
the returns are exponential.
Right, it's like a logarithmicreturn curve, right, I think a
lot of us one of the mistakes Ithink we all make is assuming
everything's linear right.
The amount of effort I put inis going to be proportionate to
the amount of return I get.
But if you look at thelogarithmic curve, where it's,
you know it's flat and then itstarts to peak, it builds.

(42:15):
Actually, I don't know if I'mgetting the logarithmic or the
exponential curve but you knowwhat I'm talking about where you
don't see a lot of gains for along time and then all of a
sudden boom.
So I think experiencing that ona couple of occasions is
probably going to be your bestsource of motivation for
appreciating that when you reada book, and it completely right,

(42:36):
I think it's just you neverknow when that light bulb is
going to go off and it's goingto allow you to make a decision
or make a change or make a shift, that that blazes a completely
new trail and puts you on acompletely different trajectory.
So some of that, I think, isjust experiencing it in terms of
space.
For me, I just find that ashighly, highly productive.

(42:56):
I mean, I have been in placeswhere I have run so hard that I
can barely think my way out of apaper bag, and it's just like I
can.
You know, even on a daily basis, when you look at your
afternoons right around one, two, three o'clock in the afternoon
I don't plan to do my strategicthinking then, because I am
very faded by that point.
My prime is like anywhere fromeight or nine in the morning to

(43:20):
like noon.
That's where I can do my primethinking.
And so I have found this againwithin a day and just in general
, having that space.
You know, you go on a vacationand you come back and you're
just so fresh and you can feelthat different perspective.
You're just so fresh and youcan feel that different
perspective.
You're just much morelevel-headed, there's so much
more clarity.

(43:41):
And so I've just come back fromso many of those and I've
experienced enough to know that,even though I don't notice it
it's hard to notice it at twoo'clock on a day that like, oh,
I'm not, you know myself, causeyou're still able to answer
emails and you're still able totalk, and it's not like you're
some shell of yourself, adifferent person.

(44:01):
But it's usually when you getout of that space that you're
like, oh my gosh, I didn't evenrealize where I was.
I mean, you guys said this acouple episodes ago.
Someone said something aboutthe fact that you didn't know
how hard you were going and thatyou were actually in that spot
until you got out of it andrealized, like whoa.
So I mean, for me, that's mycommentary on the two.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
You know, for I mean for me it the, the effort put in
upfront from a learningperspective, makes execution on
the back end quicker.
And I think we've done.
You know, and I've been guiltyof this and I maybe I still am
you see the guy or the woman intheir fifties or sixties in a
particular role and you're like,oh, poor them, they should have
been retired by now.
Or, you know, they don't lookas as, as vibrant as the 35 year

(44:45):
old and they look like that.
We, I think, really do adisservice to experience and
because I think a lot of times,especially when information
wasn't as readily available andyou didn't have the opportunity
to Continually enrich yourself,people got stuck in their ways

(45:09):
and kind of were viewed maybemore as a curmudgeon and kind of
.
You know old school andwouldn't change for the future.
I think that's not as prevalentnow.
But boy, I'll tell you what.
There are some instances where Ihave been in my early 30s just
in the fray and I've gone tosomebody who I maybe looked at
like that and 20 seconds later,after one comment, and it could

(45:32):
be the most obvious solution tothe problem, but I just couldn't
figure it out because I was soburied in the tactical execution
.
You know there's so much valuein that experience, whether it
be a learned experience, whereyou've consumed something else

(45:54):
somebody else has put forth, ora lived experience which you
know, I mean goodness talk about.
I mean, that is childhood.
Your parents spend their entireyoung life telling you this is
how it's going to be, and youspend your entire young life
telling them no, and then itends up being that way.
You know, and kudos to you Ifyou're one of the few that

(46:15):
actually listen to mentors,which I guess in that same
breath, because I see learningthrough some of these mediums as
a digital mentorship, if youwill.
I know that both of you havebenefited greatly from different
mentors over time and I thinkagain, a lot of times people
look at that as a weakness, like, oh, you had help, you didn't

(46:38):
do it on your own, or whatnot.
So that's my answer to yourquestion, but I'd like to
continue the conversation andmove forward and talk about
mentorship and the value thatyou've found in people that have
spent a lot of time thinkingabout your particular situation
or something similar to it.

Speaker 1 (46:56):
This is a great question.
I believe everyone should havea mentor.
I have a I'll call it a lifecoach that I meet with once a
month to just help me gaindifferent perspectives on my
life, to get me out of the weeds.
We all get wrapped around theaxle to ask me questions that
align with the goals that I wantto hit.

(47:17):
So that's, that's part one.
I spent the last decade when Iwent into buying this business
in 2015,.
I knew nothing about owning abusiness, I remember, so I found
this the first thing I did.
You know, we got the financingset up and I was I like to say I
was I was dumb enough enough totry because I didn't know any
better.
I didn't.
Yeah, let's just hope it worksout.

(47:39):
Let's just risk everything.
And I went to this firstmeeting.
I found this group consultinggroup, and I remember someone in
my group my smaller groupshowing me how to look at the
financials, like how to even runreports to see how we're doing.
I just kind of had this justnaive, and I spent the last 10
years putting myself in roomswhere I was the dumbest person,

(48:00):
which took a ton of humility,because I just you go in and
you're presented a situation andyou're just there to learn and
consume knowledge, and so Iwould say, from finding
association and groups where youcan join if you're an
electrician and you can join anelectrician group across the
country and you don'tgeographically compete where you

(48:22):
can talk about best practicesand what people are doing, and
it may be what are you doing inmarketing and how are you
handling your finance.
Or we're part of a group nowthat has 170 agencies nationwide
and we get to be in a room with10 of them and we don't
geographically compete, butsomeone's trying different stuff
in marketing, someone's tryingdifferent stuff in sales, some

(48:43):
people are using AI, some peopleare using bots and we're able
to learn so much faster, and sowe constantly are trying to put
ourselves in those rooms tolearn and to grow professionally
by seeing what other people did, because a lot of times you
don't have to reinvent the wheel.
There's not too many really newideas.
It's people trying differentthings, and every time we go to

(49:04):
one of those meetings, we comeback with one, two or three good
ideas that we think we canapply in our own context.
I would say, personally I'vebeen a big fan of Tony Robbins
from a motivational,inspirational, of helping me
break through some of thosebarriers.
I think for me there was a lotof fear fear of being judged,

(49:24):
fear of looking a certain way,fear of taking certain risks and
I spent a ton of time at hisevents really building
confidence and believing inmyself, really building
confidence and believing inmyself.
And I think before you can leadpeople, you have to believe in
yourself and you have to carryyourself in a way to where you
can convince other people tocome alongside you.
And so I had a lot ofself-doubt early on as an

(49:49):
individual and I think that'ssomething that I still struggle
with wanting to be accepted,appreciated, and there's still
times where that comes out and Iget really insecure.
But I would say, if you can joina group or find a mentor or
what you talk about, likelistening to reading books and
consuming data, we can takesomeone's entire life study and

(50:13):
read it in eight hours, or wecan like the amount of
information you can take in isjust unbelievable and we can do
that all the time.
So when we're listening tothese things like that's how I
get inspired of like we haveseveral different companies that
all can take different ideasand I hear something and like
immediately I can apply it andbe like, wow, I wonder if this

(50:33):
would work here, and so we cango and apply it.
So I think mentorship is superimportant, personally and
professionally, I think puttingyourself in rooms with other
like-minded people that have thesame goals in mind you know
growth and culture, and there'sall different parts of a
business is super important.
Yeah, I couldn't agree more.
Are you going to?

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Well, I was just was just gonna say do you think
there's a point in time where itkind of crystallizes?
Because I think that, like wetalk about tactical execution
and doing busy work and um orbeing productive just for the
sake of being productive, do youthink there there comes a point
in time where it kind ofcrystallizes, because I think to
do some of the things you'retalking about, your ego has to
subside 100.

Speaker 1 (51:13):
I was just gonna say that's, I was going to go with
it.
If you have the humility to bewilling to learn, you can
accelerate the learning curveexponentially.
And I mean, I think that's thething.
And I think, over time, I wouldsay, if you looked at the human
ego while I think that's veryprevalent in the US in
particular I would say if youlooked at that in proportion to

(51:34):
age, I think there's at least aperiod in the first part of your
life where the 20s you feellike you've got all your answers
, and even maybe your late teensyou've got all the answers,
you've got it figured out.
It's fun to reinvent the wheel.
No one's going to tell you howto do it.
And then you do hit this point,this inflection point of like

(51:55):
okay, I remember that at LibertyMutual, like when I was there,
everything anyone did was dumb.
Like we had all these sharedservices and all these resources
of people doing basicallyeverything for us, from, you
know, structuring, performancereviews to bonus plans, and I
just always, always, would pickthose things apart.

(52:16):
Here's how I would do it,here's how I would do it, here's
how I would do this.
And I wasn't necessarily vocalabout it, but in my mind it was
like if I was solving thisproblem, I could have solved
this problem a whole lot better.
And, like, I just lived in thatheadspace of like and then you
hit this point of like.
Part of this was a realizationafter having to try and do all
of those things at once at IMG,when I realized like, okay, yeah

(52:38):
, if I could focus on just thisproblem and only this problem
for an extended period of time,sure, I could solve it better.
But, like, I've got to beconscious of my capacity and to
have the humility enough toaccept and learn from things
others experience that they'vehad.
Because the other thing is,I've gotten more real-world
experience trying to developthose solutions myself.

(52:59):
Amidst everything else, youstart to get an appreciation for
all of the complexities.
It is very, very, very easy topick things apart and find holes
in certain things, becausethere are pros and cons to
everything.
But I do think there's a pointwhere the ego tails off a little
bit and your disposition iscertainly much better to being
able to consume whether it'sdigital content in person or

(53:22):
otherwise, and learn from otherpeople's experiences, journeys
and mistakes.
The other thing I would justadd real quickly I thought was
really interesting.
I read a study one time thatthe knowledge density in books
is like the highest by somecrazy multiplying factor, like
if you look at articles and I'mnot sure like this was kind of
before, I think a lot of peoplewere consuming YouTube videos

(53:46):
and things in bulk.
But the amount of like boilingdown that they do in books and
like the amount of knowledgethat is embedded and that's why
a lot of your Elon Musk's andBill Gates and Buffett's are
like huge book junkies becauseof the knowledge density for the
hour and the time that youactually put in the return, is

(54:07):
very, very high.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Well, you're not only consuming the life's work, but
you're also following the trainof thought too while you're
doing that.
So you're consuming it withcontext.
But I think that ego statementkind of maybe goes back to what
you were saying earlier aboutthe decades.
You know you have this egoabout you in your 20s.
You know I feel like this is aninteresting thing because, you
know, maybe this is me feelingvulnerable, but like I think

(54:30):
that at times you know,especially through the Instagram
filterization of life, that yousee people that have gotten to
certain spots in life and youthink that there is a particular
path and it's that theytraveled to get there.
And I think you know it'sreally interesting I'd have to

(54:56):
call out so much of where youland in life is timing in
specific.
You know I struggle with this alot and I'll just kind of call
this out here.
When I started in my 20s my ownbusiness, it was very similar.
You know everything.
Everybody's doing this wrong.
I can do this way better and Iwill just outwork everybody.

(55:17):
You know I'll stay up 20 hoursa day or 18 hours a day, and was
able to do that for the yearthat I remained employed at my
regular job, um, but I'll justoutwork everybody and and we'll
build this business from scratchand we'll get it to this
particular point.
Well, unfortunately for me, Ididn't have the requisite
skillset available to see it anyfurther than I did and it

(55:38):
failed, um.
And then, as the ego subsidedmore and more and as it became
more about recognizing whatothers were good at I mean, I
had people walk out from thatfirst business because I was
just so sure I was right and ifthey were going to challenge me,
then I remember, uh, one of myfavorite people to work with.

(56:02):
She was amazing.
Like surviving um operationallyand from a project management
perspective in nightlife is noteasy to do because there's so
much distraction and there's somuch, it's just nightlife it can
get ugly and we got into it andI was like, well, if you think
you're right, just leave.
Leave your cell phone on mydesk.
And I was for sure she wasn'tgonna.

(56:23):
And I came home and she wasgone and my ego wouldn't let me
there.
And what I struggle with now isthat I wish um, you know when,
when you get to a point in lifewhere then other people are
involved because I don't I havea pretty high risk tolerance.
If tomorrow I was single, Iwould be taking considerably

(56:46):
more risks, more risks than I donow.
And so I struggle a lot.
And this may be a little offtopic, but I personally struggle
a lot with what.
What could have been, if youknow, I had that skill set at

(57:07):
that point in time, or, you know, if I didn't have the
responsibility I have I'vegained as my ego has subsided,
as I've kind of gotten older.
It's very interesting to me.
I don't know, I just felt likeI needed to kind of put that out
there.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
It reminds me of the phrase they say the youth is
wasted on the young.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
I mean, there's an element of that that.
If you could take the wisdomand or?
I think what's interestingabout what you said is there's a
level of, there's a level ofresponsibility that confines us
professionally once we hit thatage too, it's a fair question.
The one thing I would say isthe grass is always greener on

(57:47):
the other side, sure, and whenyou look at regrets or wishes to
be in a certain place, I wantto point out that it won't
translate to being any happier.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
Yeah, no, I mean, I think that it's been nice to
have MTC come to be and I thinkthat that is to, uh, for me
personally, very fulfilling.
So, um, you know, but but I Icall that out because in in my
consumption of, of informationand of perspectives, there is a
narrative out there where youhave people who believe that,

(58:21):
and I will say that a lot ofthem are just doing it for the
visibility of it all.
They may not even be real, butthe flaunting of excess and the
I make $40,000 a day type ofpeople and the I have I've built
20 successful businesses.
I just want our listeners toknow that you see a lot of
people out there that are, thatare doing that, that are doing

(58:41):
that, that are putting thatforward, and that you know, um,
what I'm saying is that at timesit's made me feel insignificant
, sure, um, although steppingback and reframing, there's no
reason to feel insignificant inthat regard, because you know
you're not a lot of success incertain areas of life, whether

(59:06):
that is professional or whatever.
It's timing to a point.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
there's only so much you can affect and luck and yeah
, there's just a lot and whythings work out and some don't.
But I want to give a little bitof a um, of a shout out, but I
want to focus a little bit onbusiness owners.
I work with several and thenumber one thing that I would
say is in common with everysingle one is they're trying to

(59:30):
do it all and they don't have ahandle on their finances and
they refuse to get help, and sothe one thing that I have I have
done in my life that is correctis I've surrounded myself with
good people.
Now you can argue it's aresource thing at some point in
time, but there's a lot of it.
It's not.
You can outsource your financeright Like if you don't know
your financials.
It's the number one reason whybusinesses fail small businesses

(59:53):
.
Every single person that I'vetalked to does not have complete
transparency on theirfinancials to be able to dive in
and to make better businessdecisions, and so that's number
one.
Being able to find the rightpeople to bring in play, to be
able to help you and to be ableto find a mentor or a coach is
super, super important Because,again, you can get somebody's.

(01:00:16):
I've spent hundreds ofthousands of dollars in a decade
of my life to learn everythingthat I've learned.
If you could find someonesimilar that's been down the
path that you want to go I don'tcare whether it's a business or
sports or whatever they'regoing to give you an invaluable
amount of knowledge and it'sgoing to shorten the gap right,
because if you want to get hereto here and you could find a way

(01:00:38):
to jump to here, that'sbasically what a coach is right.
Some of it's physical, some ofit's mental and psychological,
some of it's spiritual.
But business owners today aretrying to do way too much and
they feel like they have to begood at everything.
And the ego part about this isI've got to be good at
everything.
If I ask for help, it's showingthat I have a weakness and that

(01:00:58):
I'm not good enough.
And then there's all these liesthat play out in your head, and
the truth is that when youcontinue to do it all and I
tried to do it for a period oftime you're going to flounder,
and I will also tell you, takingall your profitability to go
hire the right person is exactlywhat I did a couple of
different times in my lifebecause I knew I needed that to

(01:01:19):
get to the next level.
If you ever want to scale abusiness I think you said this
early on get to the next level.
If you ever want to scale abusiness I think you said this
early on you can't keep doingmore tasks.
You can't go from like, oh, Iwant to grow my business, I do.
You know, I'm going to work 20hours more and we're going to
grow 20 more percent and thenI'm going to work 30 hours more.
It's not possible.
The exponential part of that isleverage, and you get leverage

(01:01:40):
by getting other people aroundyou that have complimentary
skill sets that are going toallow you to focus and grow.
To me, the hidden key here isopportunity cost.
What I think people do a reallypoor job of professionally and
including myself, and I'm justsaying people, as in human,
innate humans is we do a reallypoor job of identifying the

(01:02:00):
opportunity cost of us spendingtime in certain places of our
lives.
We asked a question in one ofthe very early episodes if you
could spend money on anything,what would it be?
And in my opinion, justreflecting back on it, the right
answer is time.
Like, if you can buy time,that's a really really, really
good way to spend money for abusiness owner as well.

(01:02:21):
As because, to your point andsome of the things, something
you've talked about is abusiness owner is in business
because they're probably very,very good at one particular
thing and they're getting by onall the others because they're
really really, really good atthat thing and they don't
realize that if they could take,instead of spending 10 hours on
that thing, if they could spend30 hours on that particular
thing, the potential revenuegain or growth or whatever and

(01:02:45):
that's obviously in a businesscontext, but the potential of
fulfillment personally isexponential.
But they're spending thoseother 20 hours doing all these
other things and it's not thatthose other things aren't bad to
do, but nobody has visibilityto the opportunity cost.
The opportunity cost being, ifI'm spending my time here, what
am I not able to do?
That's maybe costing me evenmore money or preventing me from

(01:03:09):
growing this much.
And I think that's a reallyhard thing to do in life is to
step back and say, and to me,where I've had visibility and
I've had enlightened moments onthat, it's been when I'm
planning.
It's like why am I doing this?
Why am I spending time on that?
And again some of it comes backto resources.
But once you make thatidentification, I'll give you an
example.

(01:03:29):
Some of it is like lawn care,right Like now we got someone
who's very affordable andthere's not a lot to do there
and, you know, I realized thatI'm in a maybe a fortunate
position to be able to outsourcethat.
But I will say I think a lot ofpeople really undervalue their

(01:03:50):
time.
You think about the time thatsomeone spends manicuring their
lawn or you know, betweenweeding and mowing and that sort
of thing, and you think aboutwhat you could do with that time
, whether it's spending timewith your family or whether it's
maybe generating revenue insome other fashion.
I think a lot of peopleunderestimate what they could do
with time that's being spentelsewhere.

(01:04:12):
Another point I want to add.
I agree with that.
I would say when you own abusiness and say you're somewhat
successful, starting otherbusinesses is not a good idea,
it's a very bad idea.
It's a very bad idea.
So it's like, oh well, I've hada little success because you're
getting you go from zero to 30in a business and you're doing

(01:04:33):
good, but getting from 30 to ahundred is a lot harder and
you're like, oh, I want to go dothis thing and try to take this
and just do this little part.
It's not a good idea.
You shouldn't until you'vereached to a time where you've
gotten to an owner role, whereyou're truly at a spot where you
can do owner level things.
I don't think it's bad owningmultiple businesses, but if you
are the individual contributorto a lot of different businesses

(01:04:57):
, that's not a good thing andyou're going to splint your time
out and you're going to say, oh, I'm going to spend a day here,
a day here, a day here.
It's impossible to buildculture.
Focus on one thing, and I thinkyou can achieve much more.
So unpack that a little bit,cause I could see where someone
listening this might say that'scontradictory.
Well, guys, you're saying, like, really focus on one thing
you're good at and you know, ifyou could spend 10 hours doing

(01:05:20):
just that across three differentbusinesses, then that's better
than spending 30 hours at onebusiness and 20 hours of that's
doing stuff that you're not verygood at you're just getting by
at.
So unpack that a little more.
Yeah, that's exactly where I'mat.
So, strategy, finance, culturethose are things that I enjoy.

(01:05:41):
Those are things I'm passionateabout.
Those are not operationalthings I have to do every single
day.
Those are the three pillarsthat I focus on in every company
I'm in and I will say those aremore like owner level
responsibilities.
So if you have the other peoplearound you, then I think that's
fine, but if you're one of thetwo or three contributors and
you're just doing that portion,then I don't think you're going

(01:06:04):
to be successful.
I think you have to have teamsaround you and there's got to be
a person responsible that'sthere every day to help build
culture, that's a grown adultthat you know is trying to help,
you know, run, run the company,because the company isn't going
to run itself.
You need leadership there andif you're not able to be, you
can't be an effective leader.
In my opinion, if you're let'ssay, you're a company under five

(01:06:27):
employees and you're trying torun three different companies
and I'm assuming these companiesdon't intertwine I'm not
talking about having a realestate company that owns the
property, like those that don'tI mean three separate operating
companies with three separateemployee groups it's very, very
hard.
You could be successful and getoutcomes, but it's going to be.

(01:06:48):
It's going to require a lotmore effort.
Sure, absolutely.
Let me, if you guys don't haveanything, I kind of want to ask
a little bit of a differentproductivity from a different
lens and kind of shift us alittle bit, unless you had
anything to add on that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
I was just going to kind of.
You know one thing I, you know,I remember in my twenties I had
a buddy who was into some ofthe the great philosophers and I
always thought it was soridiculous.
Um, you know, as I've gottenolder, I've spent more and more
time exploring philosophy andand that uh, particular area of
knowledge.
And, and you know, I wonder, asa society, especially in

(01:07:24):
America, if there, as things getmore, you know, as things like
AI become more prevalent andmore of this work is being
accomplished by computers, Iwonder if there's going to be a
shift in value as it relates tosome of the things you were
talking about, because I think alot of people, especially
younger people, who are obsessedwith achieving things and doing

(01:07:46):
these tactical things and thisisn't talking smack about
younger people I still fall intothis same habit.
I don't think people give a lotof credence to the word strategy
because it's so overused, or toculture or to.
Now we know, having been in badcultures, um, how just

(01:08:09):
detrimental that could be.
I mean, that can cut a business.
You know what did they say?
Culture?

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
eats strategy for breakfast.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
So, like those things are extremely important and we
I'm sure we've all come acrosspeople like I referenced earlier
that you know, know in a momentof brevity have given us a
sentence that has changed ourperspective on business.
You know forever an agingtrajectory where you start to

(01:08:48):
value that skill set and youstart to appreciate that skill
set instead of looking at itlike a cop out.
Oh yeah, he's the owner, he'sjust a culture guy, he doesn't
do anything, he sits at home allday.
Um, you know, you guys, youguys kind of know where I'm
going with that.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
Yeah, I think there's a point in time when you get
there as an owner um, whether ornot it's perceived is a whole
different game, right yeah, Icould probably talk more to that
yeah, I think you've gotemployees that are going to
perceive anything that's nottask oriented as a as a waste
and they're not going to valuethat, naturally.

(01:09:20):
In fact, we've had a lot ofpeople who really struggled to
move up in an organizationbecause they had their own
identity tied to and when theygot to this next level, where
there wasn't a bunch of tasks todo, they felt like they weren't
doing anything.
So I think that perceptionexists, but I would agree with
you and I think a hundredpercent that's the case Things
that AI is not good at doingwill continue to be more and

(01:09:42):
more valuable over time.
I mean relationships andsentiment and emotion and
culture, and some of thosethings that can't be plugged in
or reasoned out by an AI model,at least at this point in time,
may get there eventually, Ithink will continue to be
exponentially valuable.

Speaker 2 (01:10:00):
Well, that's what I had.
What was your next?

Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Well, I was just going to shift this a little bit
, for I mean, we talked about alot in terms of business, but we
haven't talked much in terms ofproductivity and fitness, and
that's a.
It's a really interesting thingbecause you've got these people
that run hundreds of miles youknow, 120 miles a week and then
you've got people who arerunning 40 miles a week or 20
miles a week and you've gotpeople that are running 20 to 40

(01:10:22):
miles a week and getting reallyimpressive outcomes these day
and age, that are running whatI'll say and training very
precisely and getting thesegains in a very efficient manner
, and nothing against the peoplewho are running long distance
mileage is, I think, when youlook at the correlations and the
trends of the fastest, likethere's still a very high
correlation with the very highmileage and high volume things.

(01:10:45):
But I just wanted to pick yourguy's brain on that a little bit
.
On the fitness side, it's likehow do you look at that?
Has that changed for you overtime in terms of trying to be
more efficient and productive?

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Dramatically Things are and this goes back to what
you just mentioned in terms ofidentity being tied up in things
.
You know, I think that people,especially those that don't seek
out a fitness mentor, they'llfind what's readily available to
them, they'll adopt it, they'llsee gains from that and that
will be their way, and they gettied up.

(01:11:18):
And then people start to lookat them through that lens,
whether it's positive or not.
You know, I've seen peoplethere's a particular runner that
was very successful early on inhis ultra career and had broke
some, or come close to breakingsome records at the 100-mile
distance and things weren'tworking for him.
Well, his original approach wasor their original approach was

(01:11:41):
high mileage and they had failedat a race and bombed.
And they came back a coupleweeks later and they're like
okay, time to double it, whichwould have been like 180 or 210
miles a week.
And I've seen other people dothat recently.
You know, put in 100 plus mileweeks and get a I have context,
I've been doing this long enoughget a relatively mediocre

(01:12:02):
result.
You know, like mid threes, uh,marathon time, which is great,
but if you're running 140 milesa week, it's not so great.
Um, what I think, and so theyget tied up in that and they
continue that pursuit and theyonly it's like a square peg in a
round hole Like, oh, I'm justgonna just more, more, more,
more, more.

(01:12:22):
It around whole, like I'm justgoing to just more, more, more,
more more.
If you're able to unpairyourself from that.
There are so many unique waysnow to optimize your
productivity and fitness.
I was just forced into one thatI've talked about on prior
podcasts.
With heat training.
I've been a 50 to 60 mile weekperson and, like most people you

(01:12:42):
know, even 70.
At times I saw a fairly directcorrelation to improvement in
time as that went up, but at thesame time I was also being more
intentional.
Um, with my efforts, and Ithink when you get to be a
master especially you've beenrunning long enough your body
will force you into productivity.
You can't.

(01:13:02):
You know, if you're the guythat doesn't understand pacing
and everything is hard, that'llwork until you're about 35.
And then you'll just, you justwon't stop breaking.
So you know, parker Valby, whois one of the most, if not the
most successful female NCAAathlete ever, is a big

(01:13:25):
trailblazer in this regard.
She runs twice a week and shehas the NCAA 10,000 meter and
5,000 meter records.
You know what she does.
She was a swimmer but shespends the majority of her time
on the arc trainer.
And you know we talked about megetting threshold level efforts

(01:13:47):
in on heat training.
I can get my heart rate up towhere I need to get it up to,
but I'm not destroying my legsgoing out and doing a 10 miler
um at six, 30 pace.
Instead, I'm hiking at 15minute mile pace in heat on a
treadmill, saving the majorityof my, and that's what she's
doing.
She's on the arc trainer.
She's not, you know, tiring outher tendons and muscles and

(01:14:10):
ligaments.
She's, but she's hammering froman endurance perspective and
building mitochondria and so youknow, but it's hard, right,
because you can imagine her.
She sees all these other womenaround her running 60, 70, 80
miles a week and it's like, oh,but she was kind of forced into
it because she had injuryproblems earlier on in her
career.
So there's so many ways.
You know the Kenyans, there'ssome of the most successful

(01:14:31):
runners out there and one of thethings that people will, um,
you know, talk about with themis that when it comes to their
easy mileage, it is extremelyeasy, because if they're going
to be running 110 miles a week,okay, but I have to optimize

(01:14:51):
within that 110 miles.
So, my, you know I'll go outand run a marathon at 440 pace,
but my easy runs are 745 minutemiles.
Could you imagine like anybodyrunning a regular marathon?
That's like running 12 minutemiles is your slow pace.
So you know, I think from afitness perspective there's so
many ways to do it, but youreally have to cut yourself away

(01:15:12):
from, um, the identity thatyou've developed with the
initial training approach thatyou put into play and just
explore lactate, explore heattraining, explore altitude
training, if you have thatavailable to you, explore.
You know, I was just talking toyou guys about the podcast I was
listening to on the way up here, um, with with, uh, robert
jackson talking about, you know,being a black runner in the

(01:15:34):
endurance community, and one ofthe things he talked about was
and this, this motivated mebecause I'm sitting five and a
half weeks out from a major raceand still injured and he said,
you know, he faced the sameproblem.
He had knee issues and then hehad some other connective chain
issues that were causing himproblems and he ran, I think,
his marathon PR off four weeksof training because when he was

(01:15:55):
hurt he spent a boatload of timeon the elliptical, just cranked
up hammering.
You never hear about that inthe running and endurance
community.
It's just run, run, run, run,run through it, run through it.
So I know that's a lot there,but there are so many different
ways to be productive and thereare so many different avenues to
take for your specificsituation.

(01:16:16):
And then again, like you said,like we talked about initially
and this is what I'll end mystatement on is is purpose.
You know, I came up here thismorning and I was like and this,
I think, crystallizes it I wokeup and I had a 7 am dentist
appointment and I'm like, okay,maybe I can get home from this
at like 7.15 and then do myworkout and then come up here or

(01:16:37):
do my hike or whatever, comehere with these guys, record the
podcast, whatever.
Well, it's 70 something inIndiana today and my son has
been wanting to ride his bikebut it has had a flat tire since
last fall because you don'tride bikes in Indiana in the
winter and like, well, I couldfix the tire so that he has it
when he gets home from school toride or I could do my workout.

(01:16:57):
I fixed the tire.
You know what I mean.
And that's more important to methat he gets out in these
moments and explores anddevelops a love for that kind of
stuff than me getting a workoutin.
So it's realizing.
You know what, if I get home at7 o'clock tonight and I can't
do my hike, oh well, maybe I'llthrow it in Sunday, when I

(01:17:19):
normally would take a day offand my foot hurts a little bit
anyways.
Yes, I know I'm justifying, butmy point is, um, don't push
yourself to the point of mentaldetriment as well.
So that's another piece of ofkeeping it optimal.

Speaker 1 (01:17:37):
I have nothing to add to that.
Yeah, I mean I it's a greatpoint and I I think the only
thing I would add in closing isjust what you said, or,
inefficiency and productivitycan be defined in different ways
.
It could be minimizing the timethat you're having to spend out
there.
It could be minimizing themileage that you're having to
spend out there.
That, I think, translates youmentioned it in terms of fitness

(01:18:04):
, but I think it translates morebroadly.
It's very easy for us to getmarried to do the things the way
that we've done them and theway that we initially did them,
because they're working, atleast in terms of our definition
of success.
But I think if you really takethe time and energy to look for
a more efficient way to dosomething, there's a way to do
it.
Now you got to be careful youdon't swing the pendulum too far
and you just pack your day withall these things.

(01:18:24):
But I think you hear the.
If the Pope can find the timeto work out, if the president
can find the time to work out,we can find the time to work out
.
It's just a matter ofprioritizing your day, finding
ways maybe, that you can do somethings more efficiently If you,
if you really dig in 99 timesout of a hundred, there's a more
efficient way to do it and get80% of the results with respect

(01:18:47):
to the purpose that youinitially engaged in that
activity in.

Speaker 2 (01:18:51):
And that purpose may be.
You know, it's such aninteresting confluence of
purpose, identity and ego, likethere's all of those things.
I look at different people thatexecute in a specific way.
You know, I'll give you anexample.
Corey's one of my best friendsand he comes and helps us

(01:19:12):
produce races.
Corey has the affinity to takethings as far as humanly
possible when it comes tosomething that he's interested
in, and a lot of people willlook at that and criticize him.
But his purpose, something thatgives him that he's very
passionate about, is seeing howfar he can take it, and a lot of
times that's resulted ininjuries.
But because his purpose is thatand because that's what he's

(01:19:33):
passionate about, and ultimatelyhim going to the depths that
others won't go because maybethey have other goals in mind,
is totally okay.
People will criticize him oh,he's always hurt or he's always
this, or he's taking this toofar or he's doing too much here.
Well, before you judge him,you've got to understand what

(01:19:53):
his purpose is and why he'sdoing it and then how that
benefits other people.
And so, understanding that, andthen I'm sure for him there's
an element of ego where he wantsto be the one that takes it
that far.
And then there's some of theidentity tied up in there.
So it's like figuring out thatbalance and how that all kind of
works together to get theresult you're looking for,

(01:20:13):
because there's going to bepulls, I think, from all three
sides and you have to give, Ithink you have to recognize that
all of that is there, right.
There is going to be some of it.
You're not going to avoidgetting a little tied up in it,
you're not going to avoid havinga little bit of ego in it and
you obviously have to givecredence to purpose.

Speaker 1 (01:20:34):
Yeah, I think you nailed it.
Identity was probably thebiggest one for me.
I think probably each personhas struggles with one of those
more than another.
For me, I found my identity inthe role that I was in.
When you own a business, I wastying a lot of who I was to the

(01:21:00):
business.
The business performed well Ifelt good.
The business grew I felt good.
The business did bad.
I felt bad.
When I could performed well, Ifelt good.
The business grew I felt good.
The business did bad.
I felt bad.
When I could solve problems, Ifelt good.
When problems were too great, Ifelt bad.
There's just a lot of emotionin that.
As you talk about that withfitness, identity and becoming
this one person or doing thisone thing, I think it's really
important to find a way.

(01:21:22):
If you've gone down that pathand say if I didn't own this
business, how would I feel?
Would I have purpose?
Would I have direction?
Would I be able to?
Is this the one thing that'skeeping me going?
What would I do and that couldbe applied to physical fitness
If I wasn't a 248 marathoner, ifI didn't have this running
community?

(01:21:42):
Would I have purpose?
And I'm not saying you shouldget rid of those things.
But I think they're greatconversations to have, cause if
you get tied to anything tooclosely, it's not going to be
healthy.
Um, and so those are mythoughts on that.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
I think that's a that's a good stop yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
Okay, well, uh, thank you guys for tuning into
episode 12.
Um, this has been fun.
We went down a lot of rabbitholes on productivity and
busyness and identity and ego.
I think we talked about a lotof really good stuff and
hopefully you guys found somevalue in it and we will see you
next time.

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