Knowledge, hacks, and ideas to level up your personal practical productivity skills.
My Personal Year In Review & How I Do It
In this episode, Brian shares his “year in review” for 2022, the process he uses to create the review, a template so you can try your own, and the steps he follows to automate the reminders to check back in throughout the year(s) to see if you’re still on track.
The Video
The Audio/Podcast
Episode Details
In this episode, Brian shares his “year in review” for 2022, the process he uses to create the review, a template so you can try your own, and the steps he follows to automate the reminders to check back in throughout the year(s) to see if you’re still on track.
The Evolution Of My Year-In-Review
Right up front, I admit that I poopoo’d this year-in-review practice for years. In my early career I heard about people doing this “year in review” thing. My thinking back then was “If YOU want to waste all that time reflecting on your year that’s fine, but I’m killing it at work right now so I’m going to keep killing it. I know what I’m doing, no need to reflect.” Looking back, I WAS WRONG.
Looking back now, I think I was wrong for 2 reasons.
1) I was missing that there is a lot of power in making sure you’re headed toward my goals.
I now think there’s real power in stepping back and looking at where you’re headed. In the day to day, I would often get so focused on driving metrics, completing tasks, and working toward goals, that I often lost sight of the big picture, I “couldn’t see the forest for the trees”. This reflection has really helped me to both appreciate just HOW MUCH I’ve accomplished AND reach some important realizations on whether I was really happy with the direction I was headed.
2) I was completely missing the reflection and course correction in my personal life.
Most of the reflection I did was entirely focused on my professional life. Performance reviews at work really facilitate this process. Your “annual performance review” is the time when you can and should do this professionally, and discuss it with your boss since they may have good ideas and further direction you can incorporate. The problem though is that I never gave myself my own personal performance review. My personal life was just “happening” to me, like I was a passenger on that train, not driving it. I missed doing a “performance review” of sorts for my personal life.
Coming around to it took years
For more than a decade of my early career, I never even considered doing my own “year in review”. Then from around 2012 to 2019, my steadfast opposition to the practice slowly started to soften. Each year, the people in the productivity space which I followed and looked up to would talk in their blog posts and podcasts about their “year in review” they’d completed and the realizations they’d had. Over the course of 7 years, hearing these messages each year was enough to slowly shift my thinking from a “this is dumb” idea to a “hmmm, I wonder what would happen if I tried it” idea. Finally, in 2019 I did my first one of these for myself and I can honestly say, I was wrong, I love this practice of reflecting on my personal “year in review”. I also feel like I leveled up my personal life significantly!
I think the power is in differentiating your “personal” from your “professional” Year-In-review.
My year-in-review I’m going to share is entirely my “personal” year-in-review. In all my work now teaching life balance and practical productivity, people often lose sight of the “life” part of their “work-life balance”. I think there’s real power that comes from doing this for yourself, for you as a person, separate from you as a professional.
What about my hobbies, & side hustles that produce income?
For me, I have a primary job/career that is my primary source of income, but I also have several side hustles. Some of you may probably identify with that. Those side hustles are included in my personal year-in-review, the main job is not. Here’s where I draw the line - if my hobby or side hustle includes an annual performance review, then I do my reflecting for that one during that review. It’s alright if I touch on some of these or mention them in my personal year-in-review, but it shouldn’t be the focus here. Your personal review is on your life and your personal pursuits.
The Structure Of My Year-In-Review
I keep this pretty simple, I try to capture the “highs”, the “lows”, revisiting what I said before, and then what I’m going to do now. Laid out, the sections look like this, and I have a template you can use for this later:
HIGHLIGHTS
Accomplishments & Things That Brought Me Joy
There were trips!
Relationships
Last year, I said I was going to do some things this year. How’d I do on those?
Other FRUSTRATIONS, disappointments, and things that made me sad this year:
The CHANGES and NEW GOALS for YYYY
Here’s My 2022 Year-In-Review
HIGHLIGHTS for 2022:
Accomplishments & Things That Brought Me Joy
Lived a true snowbird life by spending the winter in Florida for 9 weeks from late December to late February: Panama City Beach-2 weeks, Downtown Tampa-2 weeks, St. Pete-2 weeks, Clearwater-2 weeks, St. Augustine-1 week.
In April Nikki and I started working with a nutrition coach. We have been counting macros for the rest of the year; I’m down 7-ish lbs from my high and I’m a notch or two tighter in the belts.
This was my fourth year volunteering with the Wammies, we were finally back “in person” too and had a big red carpet event at the Capital Turnaround at the end of March. Big event, Big success!
TEDxTalk Success! 60+ Initial calls with people, and 50+ practice runs, the live event in June, plus a 5 month wait for the video to go live in November, but I finally did it! Woo!
New Car for Nikki AND for myself! Finally driving a vehicle I can tow a boat with!
I was out on the boat 29 times!
Got to play drums again with Fellowcraft twice! Reunion baby! Played a wedding, and a private show in someone’s front yard for Halloween.
Joined the “Big Brother Big Sister” organization as a volunteer Big Bro, was connected with my Little Bro and hung out with him about twice a month; 14 times in total!
Launched the Productivity Gladiator Podcast. 7 episodes completed this year! Averaging about one per month. LOVE the cool conversations I’ve had and the really cool people I’ve gotten to meet, and I feel like I’m really delivering value with each episode.
Switched from a beard to a go-tee, and NO ONE has noticed or said anything, so I’m taking that as a good sign. Reinforces that my cheeks don’t grow hair thick enough to make it worth doing the full beard, so now have a “cleaner” look without all that sparse cheek hair. Sticking with this for now.
Started working with a coach for Productivity Gladiator and this has really helped me focus and start making targeted progress. I feel more focused than ever on what I’m doing there.
We were able to find renters to live in our condo while we’re down in FL this winter! Woo!
I was going to have to step back from volunteering with the Wammies, but they countered and offered me a contract to keep working on it. I LOVE the Wammies, love the team I’m working with, and love supporting an organization like the Musicianship, which does so much good for the community in DC!
Wedding Venue Contract signed, date locked in, we’re off to a good start here!
There were trips!
Florida snowbird this winter for 2.5 months
New York City
Whiting, New Jersey
Atlanta, GA
Pennsylvania 4x - Philly & Blandon several times
VA Beach 2x
North Carolina 3x - Charlotte, Saluda (near Asheville) & Oak Island
Maryland 3x - Baltimore, Kent Narrows, & Ocean City
Relationships
I’m engaged! I proposed, and Nikki said YES! I’m a lucky man with this one. Gonna be an amazing wedding!
I so treasure my relationship with the “dinner party group” as we have come to call ourselves. It’s a close group of adult friends, and that’s not easy to do in today’s day and age. We text each other directly, this isn’t just a social media connection.
6 official “dinner parties” with our dinner party group, though countless other hangouts that go way beyond dinner parties
Florida friends! I was able to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in years in Florida, making the time we spent in Florida during the winter so much more fun!
Made some amazing new adult friends that have “stuck” this year. This seems to be hard in general as adults, but it’s happening, and these are some amazing people!
Last year, I said I was going to do some things this year. How’d I do on those?
I SAID: Snowbird life continues: We’re headed down to FL for over 2 months to start the year. Last year we did a 3 week trip to FL during the winter and loved it. Since 100% remote work is still a possibility for both of us, we’re going again for longer this year. Ultimately, we think we want to be regulars going down to Tampa in the colder months, so this year we’re going to be checking it out, hopping around between different parts to scope it out while we’re there.
Success here! Decided that St Pete will be our move going forward!
I SAID: Boat Life: Still a member of the boat club, but the restrictions as a club member are annoying (ex: no evenings, no sunsets, I must book weekend reservations weeks in advance, there are no overnights available without booking at least a month in advance, etc). We’re ready to take the plunge and get a boat of our own. This will mean when my car lease is up this summer, we’ll be getting a truck or SUV that can tow a boat, then we’ll be trying to get the boat. *fingers crossed”
Success! Traded my car in for a truck that can tow a boat, and found the boat I want to buy, working on this up to the very last day of the year, anticipate getting the boat by February at the latest.
I SAID: Weight Loss: It’s time to work with a nutrition coach. I feel like I recognize the things I need to change, but I also think there’s so much more I can and should learn in this area. I’ve got the gym part covered, but I have got to get the “diet” right, which means it’s time to “go back to school” on that. Most of it will just be better discipline on my part. I recognize this. That said, I want to work with a few different coaches/sources. I call it “learning by committee” and the older I get, the more I’d rather learn from “a committee” of different people with different perspectives. I think that leverages the knowledge to bring me to an even better place, rather than just learning one way from one coach.
Moderate progress here! Found a nutrition coach! Working with him has been great. I’m down about 7lbs from where I was, though I’m certainly hoping to be down more than that. Hoping this next year will bring even better results
I SAID: I’d like to do more volunteering with a youth organization such as the Boys and Girls club, or Demolay. I want to give back to the next generation.
Success! I joined the Big Brother Big Sister organization, and am a big brother. My little brother, Shiloh, and I have hung out a couple of times a month!
I SAID: I’d like some more “Uncle Brian” time. I want to make sure I play with the kids when I get together with the families I know. I’d like the kids to feel like they know me too, not just their parents. I want to be more intentional about changing that.
Meh, I give myself a “C” for this. I did hang out with the kids when I went to gatherings but didn’t do much of it, so I did better here, which is why I didn’t fail completely. I still just don’t feel like I did as much with the kids as I would like.
I SAID: For Productivity Gladiator, I’d like to book 2 events per month. I am looking forward to giving my TEDx Talk and actually already have 17 events on the calendar for 2022, so it’s looking good!
Success AND failure on this one.
“Success” in that I did more than 40 events this year where I was speaking on my work through Productivity Gladiator and prepping for my TEDx talk.
“Failure” in that almost all of these sessions weren’t paid, or business development with the idea of connect with clients which could lead to getting paid. I elevated the brand, but definitely need to spend some more time on this one.Take trips, go see people, and reconnect with people I’ve lost touch with because of COVID.
Success! I definitely feel like I accomplished this one.
Other FRUSTRATIONS, disappointments, and things that made me sad this year:
The effects of diabetes were an issue in my eyes again this year. I’m finally on a treatment regimen that seems to be working. It’s just a bummer that my main choices to fight off the effects of diabetes on my vision are either a shot in each eye every 2 months, or a laser procedure which would be permanent change to my vision. Since the shots are working as prescribed gonna stick with them. Sigh….
I got an infection in my foot which was so strong that my body couldn’t fight it off on its own, ended up going to the ER to get IV antibiotics, and had to stop teaching workout classes for a couple weeks to recover. That was kinda scary to have 3 toes and part of my foot turn another color!
Hairline thinned out some more. Sigh, I mean, I knew this was coming. It’s only gonna get worse. Rogaine seems to be pointless, but somehow can’t give up Rogaine because the story in my head is that it will start receding faster than it already is?!?! Sigh….
My knees are starting to give me problems. Whenever I do lunges and squats, there’s a certain point in the range of motion where I feel a “twinge” and it’s uncomfortable. Not taking pain meds, but just an “ow, that’s uncomfortable feeling”. Been to the doctor and physical therapist on this, and it’s just not resolved. Gonna stick with it, but sadly I may be headed toward a shot in the knees in the future if it continues getting worse.
There was the loss of loved ones both close to me, family and friends, which is always hard to process. These situations really reinforced for me how precious this life is. Several times this year, I caught myself thinking about how I’m living my own life. Grateful for these year-in-review sessions because I feel like I’m absolutely on the right track, and don’t have any regrets. Still kinda scary to think about.
Haven’t lost as much weight as I was hoping. Metabolisms and dieting are a bummer! I thought I’d work with this nutrition coach and the lbs would just fly off, but sadly that didn’t happen. Also, I’ve always heard people talk about how it gets more difficult to lose weight as you get older, I feel some of that frustration. I’m down a few pounds and all my clothes fit better, so I’m grateful, but still a little frustrated.
The used car prices got me in a bad way this year. The beginning of the year, my car which I was going to trade in was worth $10K more than it was by the time my new vehicle came in and I went to trade it in. Grrrrrrrr…..timing is a b!%&$
The CHANGES and NEW GOALS for 2023
Get ON the weight loss! I want to get to 200 lbs by Feb 2024 (my wedding) so that means I need to get on it, that’s a rate of roughly 1.5 lbs per month-ish. Gotta be more precise this year with my nutrition and counting PFCs.
Become a boat guy! I’m almost there, the boat I want is within my grasp, just need to finish the deal and go pick it up, hoping by Feb 2023
Level up “Uncle Brian” a bit more. I want to make it a point to have conversations and take some time to hang out with the kids specifically when I visit friends with kids. I want the kids to feel like they know me too. Keep showing up as a good Big Brother for my Little.
2 big bucket list things this year. A trip on the world’s biggest cruise ship for my 40th birthday, and Alaskan cruise with the family!
I wanna work on being a better partner for Nikki, focusing on supporting her in the way she wants and needs. In our conversations I want to remember that it’s not my job to “fix it”, my main role is to listen & validate in our conversations.
I want to do 2 paid Productivity Gladiator engagements per month.
Upgrade Nikki and I’s living conditions to support full time remote work. We both work from home, and to facilitate that we really each need our own office with a door that closes, which means we really need 3 bedrooms. We have a 3 bedroom in place for the time we’re in Florida this year, but I want to figure out how we can have 3 bedrooms when we get back to DC in the spring, while still living in an area we’d like (and hopefully being close to the water because we’ll have a boat).
Now you try
I’ve created a template google doc which you can create your own copy from this link, or just view from this link. Use either of these to try this for yourself.
Instructions:
This should be done just for you personally for your personal life and passions which don’t already have an annual performance review. I recommend doing a completely separate review for those roles.
Look back through your photos, calendar and social media from this year
Fill in the sections below. Capture the highs and lows. Once you feel you’ve really captured the year, fill in the CHANGES AND NEW GOALS section at the end.
This is written in a conversational way so that if you want to copy/paste/share this on social media or with family/friends you can.
I’ve used the heading 1, 2, 3 to label the headings, so as this document grows, if you want to maintain the clickable table of contents you can.
Keep it going:
For the next year, copy/paste/duplicate the previous year above the last, then you’ll have them all together.
Check in with yourself each quarter to see how you’re doing with your intentions for the year! To make this easy, you can click the “share” button at the top of your google doc, and copy the link to this document for yourself to access. Then send an email to “every3months@followupthen.com” (this is a free email reminder service) with the subject “Am I on track for my year so far?” and put the link to this document in the body of the email. Each quarter, the email will hit your inbox. Click the link in the message and it will open right up! Read through it and course correct during the year.
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I teach overworked project managers how to level-up their life balance and pump up their practical productivity through my Productivity Gladiator training system. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Maggie Gough - Right & Wrong Metrics to Measure Life Balance & Wellness
In this episode, Maggie Gough, Chief Operating Officer of The Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) joins Brian to talk about the right and wrong metrics to measure life balance and wellness. Some good “truth bombs” in here like measure well being as a light inside yourself instead of a destination really shared some interesting perspectives which you may not have already heard.
The Video
The Audio/Podcast
The Episode Details
In this episode, Maggie Gough, Chief Operating Officer of The Wellness Council of America (WELCOA) joins Brian to talk about the right & wrong metrics to measure life balance & wellness.
Today’s Guest
MAGGIE GOUGH
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER OF WELLNESS COUNCIL OF AMERICA (WELCOA)
Maggie Gough, Chief Operating Officer of WELCOA recognizes the structure and depth of the corporate wellness industry and the needs of the professionals and employees they support. As the Chief Operating Officer of WELCOA, she ensures that members receive outstanding service and build sustaining connections as a whole community.
You can contact Maggie here.
RIGHT & WRONG METRICS TO MEASURE LIFE BALANCE & WELLNESS
For Employees
It's important to understand what's in your control and what's out of your control. When you focus on what you can control, your thoughts can empower you and can trigger positive productivity and you’ll feel like you’re moving in a positive direction. Give yourself the freedom to release the things that are outside of our control. This will drastically improve your well-being.
This simple shift in perspective is really helpful: Well Being is NOT a destination that you work towards and reach. Balance is not a destination that you work towards and reach. Well Being and Balance are a light inside yourself, and that light can be amplified or diminished by things both inside and out of your control. Focus on the things you can control that will help amplify your light.
Consider changing the way you view well-being as the things you do which allow you to be responsive and resilient in your work environment, not a list of tasks to do daily to be “perfect”
Self Care is time spent meeting your needs, NOT time spent becoming a better version of yourself. (Self Improvement would be the part about becoming a better version of yourself, and while that’s important, be sure not to lump self care and self improvement together, they’re 2 different things!)
Check in with yourself on your well-being
Am I spending my time in ways that care for my well-being?
Am I spending my time trying to perfect myself for others or for me?
Am I letting someone else decide how my time should be spent caring for myself?
For Front-Line Supervisors & Managers
Managers should NOT look at well-being and life balance as if this was an equation that we can manage.
Do not rate someone else’s life balance or well-being, only the employee can determine their own.
All organizations should be asking the question, in some manner, human to human, how can we better support your well-being?
A Bad Metric for workplace wellness is “participation”. Looking at “how many people got their flu shot.” or “how many people are using the gym benefit” or “how many people are getting 10,000 steps a day” does NOT serve the people in your organization.
Wellness should not be something your employees “need to do” for their job. If wellness means they need to “track this thing” or “report this number” and that’s part of their performance benefit.
Don't be afraid to ask people how to solve a problem together. Collaborate. As a manager, especially in life balance and well being, it’s not your job to “fix it”. A manager’s role is to actively listen, and assist with the individual’s problems that are inside of the organization’s scope and capabilities. Respect & honor the other problems you cannot assist with.
Maggie Gough
Good metric to use, Cantrell’s Wellness Ladder. Ask yourself and your employee, “If you are looking at a ladder, on 0-10 scale, where do you currently rate your wellness now? Why? Where do you hope to be in 3 years? Do they feel like they are headed up or down?
7-10 - Thriving — wellbeing that is strong, consistent, and progressing. These respondents have positive views of their present life situation (7+) and have positive views of the next five years (8+). They report significantly fewer health problems, fewer sick days, less worry, stress, sadness, anger, and more happiness, enjoyment, interest, and respect.
5-6 - Struggling — wellbeing that is moderate or inconsistent. These respondents have moderate views of their present life situation OR moderate OR negative views of their future. They are either struggling in the present, or expect to struggle in the future. They report more daily stress and worry about money than the “thriving” respondents, and more than double the amount of sick days. They are more likely to smoke, and are less likely to eat healthy.
0-4 - Suffering — wellbeing that is at high risk. These respondents have poor ratings of their current life situation (4 and below) AND negative views of the next five years (4 and below). They are more likely to report lacking the basics of food and shelter, more likely to have physical pain, a lot of stress, worry, sadness, and anger. They have less access to health insurance and care, and more than double the disease burden, in comparison to “thriving” respondents.
Using an individual’s biometrics to determine their well-being can trigger disordered or unhealthy habits, thus creating toxic narratives between weight and health. The answer is not a simple formula like: “your resting heart rate is elevated, you should drink less coffee.”
As a manager, if you’re feeling burnt out of yourself, hearing somebody else needs is really hard. The more that you can remain in a state of curiosity and asking someone to tell you more, the better it will be in order to hear feedback and more thoroughly understand how you can help. If you need to take a vacation or take a step back, that’s okay too, you have to be in a place in your life where you can show up for yourself AND others.
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I teach overworked project managers how to level-up their life balance and pump up their practical productivity through my Productivity Gladiator training system. If what you’ve seen here intrigues you, reach out, let’s chat! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Episode Transcript
00:00
I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. On this show, we talk about life balance and personal productivity. It's about leveling up the person as a whole with topics that help both at work and at home. In this episode, I want to dig into what are the right and wrong metrics to measure life balance and wellness. With me on the show today is Maggie Gough. She is the Chief Operations Officer of WellCoA, which is the Wellness Council of America. So Maggie, thanks so much for joining us on the show today.
00:35
I'm delighted to be here. Can you say a little bit about, for those that aren't familiar with Wellcoa, talk about Wellcoa. So Wellcoa is actually a nonprofit that was founded with a pretty simple idea, which is that we spend the majority of our time at work. And what if the workplace could be a place that amplifies our well-being and not just a place where we go to do a job and get paid and leave at the end of the day. And so it started really as an idea.
01:04
that was really closely associated with the insurance world at that time, it was in the 1980s, and it has grown substantially in its scope and breadth. But you know at work parties when people say, what do you do? If I say workplace wellness, people immediately get an image of their mind of a pedometer with this goal of 10,000 steps. And so what I'll say is, but not in the way that you're thinking about it.
01:31
We do workplace wellness as a nonprofit that sets the best practice and ethical standards for the industry. And what that means is that rather than looking at employees who are unhealthy and trying to fix them, we are looking at the organization and the ways that the organization needs to develop so that it can better serve those employees in their time in that company. Interesting.
01:57
And I think that kind of speaks to my next question, which was just how, how is Wocco a different from the other people that are in the wellness space right now? That seems pretty clear. What else would you say makes you guys a little different from the others? I think certainly the aspect of looking at the organization and instead of, I mean, we're certainly looking at the ways in which an organization can purchase vendor partners to serve the employee, a suite of resources that they need to support.
02:27
those individuals. But what also makes us unique is that we are vendor agnostic. And so there's no way in which we are tied to other groups that might be selling products to a business. And so we are truly there to support the professionals of this industry and the organizations themselves. So are you guys
02:49
providing packages of templates then or blueprints or is it actual introductions to all the different vendors or to what extent do you go in with the organization? All of the above plus some. So what we have is a platform that has a model for which an organization can follow to develop itself. And then each of, we call that our seven benchmarks model that takes an organization through each of the benchmarks. So things like...
03:16
You need committed and aligned leaders. You need cross-functional support for your wellbeing initiatives for your employees. You need to know what people actually need. So you need the right data before you just go, oh, we'll go buy that and it's one size fits all. And now we've checked the box, it's done. It's like, if employees say that they're stressed, don't just go buy a stress app solution because what if the cause of their stress is
03:44
your managers need better training on how to communicate. So make sure you have meaningful data, make sure that you're treating this like any other business imperative and you have an operating plan. That's benchmark four, create an operating plan. Benchmark five is choose the right vendor and we can help you do that. We have a tool called Welcoa Select and it's the only search engine of its kind in the industry to allow you to search for your needs for a workplace wellness vendor.
04:12
And then benchmark six is looking at your policies and procedure environment. And then benchmark seven is celebrating and iterating and communicating what you've done. And so there's the model from there. We have an analytical tool called checklist, which will evaluate how well an organization is doing within those seven benchmarks and then provide you feedback on that.
04:36
So I always say we've been asking employees to take a health risk assessment for decades. This is the health risk assessment for the employer and how well they're doing and what things they need to be doing to better serve their population. And each of those benchmarks has its own toolkit and then we have trainings online as well. So it's an entire platform that basically makes it easier for someone who is either
05:06
workplace well-being or someone who is doing well-being internally for an organization. That can be either a workplace wellness professional or someone in HR, sometimes the CFO, sometimes the COO. The wide landscape of people who have their hands in this responsibility can all utilize that platform. I love the... I feel like in our world right now, there's three kinds of ways you can help folks with stuff like this. There's the...
05:33
do it yourself version where it's like, look, here's the template, go do it yourself. Or then there's the do it with you and then the do it for you model. And it sounds like you guys are down in the do it with you, do it for you end of the spectrum. And that's, I know that has to be really helpful for organizations that engage with you. So this is cool. Thanks for, and thanks for chatting with me about this. Let's talk about metrics. Cause that's the part that I'm really interested in, which is, you know, and so for this.
05:57
My context or my target audience for this podcast is really the employees and then the frontline supervisors and middle managers that are working above those teams. So for us, it's not as much about the organization as a whole, but about the people. What can you do in those roles for yourself? You're not stuck waiting for the organization to change. So from that lens, let's talk about the metrics that you've seen. And so what are some of the common metrics that people might be seeing around there?
06:26
workplaces for workplace wellness. And what are the good ones and the right ones and the wrong ones? Okay, so bad metrics for workplace wellness are participation. And for a long time it was like, how many people can we get to do this thing? And that's a bad metric. But when you're talking about for the individual employee or even the supervisor, I wanna kind of, I wanna back up a little bit because I think that we need to level set on.
06:52
what a balanced life is. And I'm going to share a little bit of background story here. So I have been in workplace wellness my entire career. I started as a dietitian. I wanted to help people understand really complex ideas about nutrition so that they could take good care of themselves. And that was, I started my career in workplace wellness found me. And I went in trying to support people in the workplace to be healthy. And about
07:20
A decade into my career, my marriage was a mess. I was suffering from postpartum anxiety that had gone undiagnosed because we screened for postpartum depression, but not postpartum anxiety. I was way outside of my career well-being. I was working for an organization that really did not align with my values. I had these three things that were my whole life, motherhood, marriage, and work, massive portions of my life.
07:50
that were all out of whack and I was not okay and I had a total breakdown in the way that we talk about those things, the way you can imagine them. And I had this epiphany that all the things that I had ever done to help people be healthier would not have helped me in that moment. And so I didn't need to walk 10,000 steps a day. I didn't need to eat more fruits and vegetables. I did not need to drink more water. And in reality, I needed to take all of that away.
08:20
because I didn't need any more pressure on myself. And so because I was out of alignment in my values with my employer, I decided I would start my own business. Because, you know, what should you do but start your own business if you're in the middle of a massive life crisis, right? Right. Yeah, just make even more change, Maggie. Just keep piling it on. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, this is like, this is bad balance. Don't do this. Okay. Got it. And so anyway, I...
08:48
But I kind of went back to my roots as a dietitian of starting to go back and talking to people about their health and wellbeing and became a student of my experiences in those conversations because it was like we're missing something here. We're really missing something. And here's what I tell people now. Wellbeing is not this destination that we work towards and reach. Balance is not a destination we work towards and reach. Wellbeing is a light.
09:18
that you hold inside of yourself. And they can be amplified or diminished by things inside and outside of your control. So in our conventional wisdom about wellbeing and balance, we do this thing where we say there's who I am today, and then there's who I'd like to be if I were better. And then we say, okay, what's missing from who I am today and who I think is a better version of myself, a more balanced, a healthier version of myself. And then we...
09:45
build the Excel spreadsheet of ways I will improve. And then we say, starting Monday, I will insert all of the things that I have to do to be better. And when we do that, we create this version of ourselves that has wellbeing and the version of ourselves that is who we are today, and we separate ourselves from our own wellbeing. So when we talk about our wellbeing is already with us and it can be amplified or diminished by things inside and outside of our control.
10:12
that changes the entire way that we might even serve somebody toward their well-being. Right? So what I need to not do for you, Brian, is to look at your biometrics and measure that data and say, okay, Brian, you have high cholesterol and pre-diabetes. And so based on that data, I'm going to create a spreadsheet for you of all the things that you need to do to achieve well-being with lower cholesterol.
10:39
and you're out of pre-diabetes risk, right? So when you said, what's some important data that we can look at is I would invite people to sit down and take some time to tune inward and ask themselves the question, what amplifies my wellbeing and what diminishes my wellbeing? If you're a manager, if you were to ask an employee, what are the things that you're doing in your role here that amplify your wellbeing? And what are the things...
11:07
that are occurring in this workplace that diminish your wellbeing. Because as an employer, what we can't do is fix people. We are not in control of people's individual behaviors. That's a very toxic relationship. But what we can do is understand barriers that are getting in the way of people taking good care of themselves, and we can start to remove those. So data, to your question of what are good ways, what's good data that I can look at?
11:36
to create better balance in my life is first understanding what nourishes my wellbeing and what diminishes my wellbeing. And you know what's interesting is as managers, I feel like oftentimes the conversation is about us and them, right? Well, this is us and this is what we do. And instead, I think as a manager, if you actually are looking at asking those questions you just asked to yourself, and then looking at it personally,
12:02
You'll probably find more than half of the stuff that your employees are experiencing too, because you're in the same environment. You're not, your work might be a little different and each person is different. Right. So wellbeing is different for each person. But that question, the question you said, which is what increases or what, what did you say it activates or diminishes? What was the amplifies or amplifies. There we go. So if it's amplifying or diminishing, that is a very simple, as I think about that question and like my day job and other things that I do.
12:31
It's very easy for me to isolate. Yep, that's a plus. That's a minus. This is a neutral. And that's an easy conversation to have. So that's a powerful one. I like that a lot. As the employee, if you don't have power over some of these things, what kind of advice do you give in those situations where you've got a list of detractors now? I mean, obviously the first step is talk to your manager, but what else do you say to folks? Well, I think it's really important to understand, again, what's in your control and what's out of your control.
13:01
And we love to look at wellbeing in balance as if this is some equation that we can manage. And if we're not in wellbeing, that somehow we haven't done enough. We have this like meritocracy type of narrative in our society. And you know, a pandemic is outside of my control and impacts my wellbeing. A sick child is outside of my control.
13:24
and impacts my wellbeing. And so what we can do first of all, is give ourselves a little bit of freedom to release the things that are outside of our control and identify, okay, here are some things that I can invest in. Like I can go for a hike daily and that increases that fills me, it amplifies my wellbeing. And then when I do encounter those things that are outside of my control, that are negatively impacting my wellbeing, maybe I have a little bit more resilience to handle those.
13:53
For the things that are inside our control, that are diminishing our wellbeing, like in the case of my marriage was a mess, well, that's inside my control. I can go get a therapist. We can go get a therapist, right? We can do some work. So even identifying the things that are diminishing your wellbeing and even separating them from what's inside my control and outside my control is really important because then now you have data that says, okay, I'm gonna release these things.
14:22
I'm not accountable to a pandemic. I'm not accountable to these things. But can I, or like in the case of a sick kid, you didn't cause that, but you can respond to it in a way that cares for yourself, right? So making sure that you've given yourself the time and space to be present to the needs of that child versus like, I'm trying to get all this work done and this kid keeps nagging me because they don't feel good, right? So it's a really delicate balance and it's complex.
14:52
But I think changing the way that we even view well-being as not a list of tasks to do daily that perfect us, but something that allows us just to be responsive to the life that is happening that we're a part of. And you said, you know, this is one of those things where anybody who's a manager is also a person who's working for a company. Like, it's one of my favorite things to say is, by the way, if you do this work, you are somebody who works for your company as well. And are you creating things?
15:22
that you would want to do that would be helpful to you. And that's another really great question to ask yourself. There are a lot of people who've put wellness into play that would not do it. I have known CEOs. This is true. Share some of these examples. Yeah, like what? Okay. I know a someone in the C-suite who has their stay-at-home spouse.
15:47
do their online wellness platform for them. They have outsourced to their stay at home spouse, the wellness platform. And so it's like, why do you even have it? And by the way, if you're somebody who doesn't have a stay at home spouse that you can outsource the management of this platform, what about them? Okay, here's another one. When you say that, I'm not familiar. So when you say wellness platform, if you outsource the wellness platform, does that mean they have to go take a quiz online or they have to answer a question every day? What is that?
16:15
Yeah, it's like setting up this platform so that it syncs with maybe your iPhone watch or whatever your fitness tracker is and then going on and logging your points. Remember when I said participation is a bad data set? Because companies are like, we paid for this thing and now we want you to use it. When people don't use it, then they put incentives in place.
16:43
The incentives are usually a reduced insurance cost. You want that, right? Then who's managing all of this? Who's submitting the flu shots that your kids got? Who's submitting the well visits that you went to? All of that has to be submitted and approved and managed. This C-level executive outsourced it to their stay-at-home spouse.
17:10
So they don't even know what the platform is like. Oh, that's wild. OK. Right. But then the expectation is that the employees do it all. And so, OK, here's another one. A friend of mine said, I get my kids a flu shot every year because I want to get my kids a flu shot. And I understand the importance of that. But it is not worth it to me to submit the form to get the points for the reduced insurance cost. And now we have a situation where
17:39
is playing a role in our corporate wellness programs. Because if you're somebody who can't afford to not do that, you are now having to do the work where someone else said, I'll give myself the time rather than the effort. God, it gets back to this is what my TED talk was on and what I'm very interested in the, you know, the value of your time is a helpful metric for, is it worth it for me to, is it, you know, when the age old question, is it worth your time? I mean, I have a calculator on my site that we do this. If you haven't done that, I certainly hope you'll
18:09
Check out on the productivity gladiator site, go find out for yourself what your time is worth. But I share that not because that's a specific number you need to know, but because it kind of gives the, it gives a number to exactly what you just said, which is, well, is it worth it for me to go upload? That how long is it gonna take me to get the form from the doctor, get it signed, upload it in the thing? Then they're gonna have to follow up, and then I have to follow up with them sometimes. Totally understand the, not even worth my time to mess with that. I will just.
18:37
take the free flu shot and not get the points because I don't care that much. Exactly. Absolutely. So when we think about how do we care for ourselves, is it jumping through hoops or is it really tuning inward to our own needs? And to your point about time, am I spending my time in ways that care for my wellbeing or am I spending my time trying to perfect myself to some version of...
19:06
healthy and balanced that someone created somewhere. Right. Are you some algorithm's answer to what's good for you? Or did you create this picture of what's good for you? And are you working toward it? That's wild. I think you looked like you had, you seemed like you had another story that you were going to share on that. That was the CEO outsourced the chief, the C-suite person? That is one of them, which I just, I mean, there's so much in that story alone around.
19:36
privilege on multiple fronts. I think in that case, what's so frustrating for me is that it wasn't worth that CEO's time and yet that CEO would demand that other people do that, his or her employees to do the same. I think that when we think about whether or not people are healthy or okay and what in balance and what does that look like, we don't get to decide that for other people.
20:05
If we want to be a healthy community, what that looks like is believing that everybody wants to live a healthy and thriving life. And if they're not, there are likely challenges and barriers in their way. It's not just that they don't understand that broccoli has a good fiber source, right? There's a lot going on. Our lives are complex and we need for someone else to not decide how our time should and should not be spent to care for ourselves. Got it.
20:33
So wellness programs that are a little less prescriptive of thou shall do this, thou shall get 10,000 steps. Different, interesting. Are there, now what we just went through is kind of very personal or what we just talked about, you know, you have the, is it good for me? Or is it an amp, does it amplify or does it detract from your wellness? Are there metrics that you've found that are kind of measurable? I mean, certainly like what is your blood pressure?
21:01
or these are certainly indicators that you shouldn't ignore per se, but have you found good metrics for people and managers to use that are good indicators? This is an open source tool. It has been validated, but it's Cantrell's Wellness Ladder, and it's really simple. The question is, if you are standing at a ladder and zero is the ground floor and 10 is the top.
21:30
rung, where would you rate yourself in your wellbeing on that ladder? The secondary question is where do you hope to be on that ladder in the next three years? They've actually validated this to say, I believe it's zero to three is someone in crisis and four to six is moderating wellbeing and seven and above is someone who's thriving.
22:00
When I had my own business, I used as a baseline tool when someone would come in to do work with us, we would ask them that question and then we would ask them that in six months and then in a year. Because you want, if someone's at a four and they want to see themselves at a seven, then what do they need to get there? Again, now it's not prescriptive, but then I can ask them, why did you rate yourself as a four? What are the things that are keeping you?
22:29
at a four? What are the things that you think would help you get to a seven? So that's a healthy tool, a good tool that we've used. Can you imagine how different a performance review conversation would go if part of that conversation involved asking that question and that little part of the conversation? I feel like most performance reviews in many organizations are just, here's an hour, let's find some time. It's really busy, but we got to cram this in because the deadlines
22:59
by this date. So here, find a time and then here's what I think, here's what you think. And having a separate, if you're having your check-in meetings, you know, on how they're doing, it sounds like that ladder tool would be a great sort of metaphor or a way to check in with people in more than just, hey, did you do your job? That'd be a powerful thing. Well, Coa provides some consulting for organizations in addition to the services, if that's something
23:29
use us for. And we work with one of the major cities in the United States and they decided that they wanted to have wellness as a part of their performance reviews, as a part of their performance growth. And one of the things we have to be really careful about with that is that the people giving those performance reviews understand psychological safety. Because a performance review is me, Maggie, the manager, reviewing you, Brian, your performance.
23:58
And in that dynamic, I have the authority. So if I all of a sudden start talking to you about your wellbeing, am I starting to tell you why you are and are not okay in your wellbeing? Or am I asking because I need to, you're giving me feedback now about how I can be better supportive. And so what we did, it is really great if an organization wants to weave wellness into performance conversations. But if you do that, please make sure
24:26
that your managers understand that they are not rating someone else's wellbeing, because that's not their business. That is employee determined. And that it is an area where they are receiving feedback about ways in which they could be better at supporting that person's wellbeing. So maybe your communication style is really stress inducing as a manager and you need to work on that and you need to develop some skills.
24:52
Maybe the company needs feedback about flexible time or the total paid days off or my ability to take my kid to the doctor when I need to do that and how difficult it is to log my hours or ask for the time off. I mean, any number of things, but I think any organization, all organizations should be asking in some manner and human to human, I would say is best, how can we better support your wellbeing?
25:20
What's nice about a performance time to do that is you can aggregate that data at scale. That would be powerful to be able to see by what the employees are saying by group or by division or being able to slice and dice that on the different parts of the organization. I can see that being some interesting data to look at as an organization. But more important than that, it's about the managers looking at how for the manager to have that conversation with their own people and find out that everybody's at the bottom of the ladder.
25:49
is more powerful than a manager going to some tool and finding out that everybody is at the bottom of their ladder. Like the conversation that goes with that is probably pretty powerful. And when we're talking about data, you know, when I, and we talk about things inside and outside of your control, if I'm a manager and I find out that you, Brian, have high cholesterol, I have zero control over what you're eating or how much you're exercising. But if I find out as a manager...
26:17
that regardless of your cholesterol, you're working over time and you are unable to get ahead so that you can go take care of yourself and get some exercise or meal plan or whatever the case may be, that's actually something as a manager I can support and solve for. So I think that in some ways to give businesses permission and leaders permission to support individuals in this way.
26:43
is better than asking them to solve for how many steps you're taking in a day or your blood pressure. Right. Do you have your ears? You've you've sprouted off those ones, the steps in a day or blood pressure just lists off the top of your head. What are some other bad ones that you've seen over the years? The like, oh gosh, that's a terrible metric. Hmm. I mean, I think that when I think that whenever we get into an individual's biometrics weight,
27:10
We have done, it's not even just that that's a bad metric. We have created in this industry really toxic narratives around weight and health. I'm most certain that we have triggered people's disordered eating through our program, so that's a bad one. Another way I think to look bad data is to look at anything that is just like how perfect you're being.
27:40
I like to say self-care is time spent meeting your needs, not time becoming a better version of yourself. Ooh, okay. Say that again, because I feel like that's a really good point. Self-care is time spent meeting your needs and is not perfecting or becoming a better version of yourself. So let me put it in very specific terms since you're like the time and productivity guy. Let's put it like this. Yes. If I have time on my calendar.
28:09
to take care of myself each day, an hour each day. Then, and I go in and before I get to that hour, let's say I decided I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna run every day during this time. When I get to that hour, if running is not what I need, then I am improving myself. I am not meeting my own needs. So in the pandemic, my husband and I were like, what do we need? We have three children.
28:37
We lived in a very small house, which was great because we lived more life and we cleaned and managed less. But in a pandemic with three children, it was very challenging. And what we each needed, we were like, we each need an hour a day to have no one call our name, to have no one need us. So we did the calendar math. We made that time juggling schedules. We did the matrix every week. And I did the thing where I was like, okay, I'm going to do yoga.
29:05
And then I was like, every day resented that time. And I was like, right, because like, some days I need to go for a walk. Some days I need to go for a run. Some days I need to do yoga. Some days I need to pet a dog. Sometime I might need to call my mom or a good friend. So there are a lot of different things that we need and it doesn't have to look the same all the time. So bad, bad data is what is the prescriptive model for health and am I meeting it? Yeah, that makes sense.
29:31
Sometimes you need part of the planning is planning for time for yourself, period, not time for yourself for a specific purpose. That's a huge thing. Okay. Here's more examples, more story style examples. So almost everyone when they come into a health coaching session will say, I know what to do. I'm just not doing it. And that's because we have spent the past decade educating the death out of people, like educating people to death about health and wellness. People know that eating fish...
30:00
the majority of people know that eating fish is better than red meat. Usually, if I'm teaching a class on general healthy eating, someone will raise their hand and say, but what if the fish is farm raised and what about the mercury levels in the ocean and how can it be organic fish if it's wild caught and I thought wild caught is better, right? We get into all of these things that we've been taught about how to be better and perfect ourselves, right? Then I go, are you even eating fish at all?
30:29
I'm like, so you don't need to worry about this. And so we can think about our wellbeing in a lot of ways and we can choose to serve it in whatever ways matter to us. So I will often have people come in and say, I know what to do, I'm just not doing it. And I'll say, okay, what are the things you think you need to do? And I had a woman who said, well, I probably need to sign up for a marathon and I probably need to eat only organic food. And she rattled off all of these things that we in...
30:59
commodified wellness have told her, I said, okay, what are the things that you like to do for your wellbeing? And she said, well, I live on a farm and so I love to hike and we grow our own food and I have a great marriage and so I love to spend time in the hot tub with my spouse. I was like, every single one of those things you just listed is good for your wellbeing. And yet this person felt like a failure because
31:25
somewhere we, we being society have given her the idea that it has to be all of these other things. So learning to show up in time and tune into yourself. Do you have time on your calendar once a day to tune into your own needs? I think Adam Grant recently posted on social media, what was a couple months ago, he posted that research says that two to four hours a day of downtime is healthy, but more than that can lead to languishing.
31:53
And I just thought two to four hours a day is bougie. Who has this amount of time? Right? What research group did they use to get that information? Because I'm pretty sure all the people I know don't have that amount of time on a survey. I mean, and I'm sure there are, but like I do not, and the majority of people I talk to who are in, you know, general working America do not have two to four hours a day of downtime. Yeah.
32:22
What I often challenge people to do as they start this journey is to just start with, here's some good data. Do you have 30 minutes a day to tune into yourself and even understand what it is that you need for your wellbeing? Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And that might even be like solving for something that is diminishing your wellbeing. If I have a lot of stress about taxes or bills, maybe what's best for my wellbeing is giving myself time to go pay those things and take care of them, for example.
32:51
It kind of inspired me with the thought is like, okay, all of this well-being and a lot of this is like you're looking at yourself and like what are the negatives and the positives and we're looking at that and there is this lens where Looking at it that way for a business or an organization or at work you have to choose It's like either well-being or productivity and prof stuff Can you share a little bit about your experience with that conversation and how?
33:17
It doesn't, you don't have to be on opposite sides. They can be part of the same team. Talk about that a little. Okay. I'm gonna say this and it's not gonna come as surprise to anybody. We have a mental health care and burnout crisis in America. Your ability to keep your employees and to remain in business is predicated on their wellbeing, full stop. You cannot separate these two. If I asked any business leader,
33:44
Is innovation imperative to your business success in the next 10, 20, 30 years? 100% of them would say yes. They understand that innovation, the ability to grow with the changing world is imperative to their success. Innovation is intangible. You're creating for something that doesn't exist yet, solving for a world you don't know yet. But we don't call innovation fluff, but many leaders
34:12
will say or feel like wellbeing is fluff. It is the antithesis to productivity, right? Or self-care is the, and it's simply not the case. Your employees' ability to tune in to and meet their own needs and your ability to create an environment that allows for that is imperative for your business success because we don't have the great resignation and quiet quitting for no reason.
34:42
That would be so would along those lines then if you're trying to sort of engineer a comeback or something in the well-being, you're an employee, you're a manager and your organization doesn't really do this well, what can you do? For me personally, I don't like the helpless feeling of it's all out of my control. Everybody's making decisions on my behalf and I'm just stuck. I don't really like, I don't subscribe to that necessarily. Just like you're.
35:10
examples earlier about, you know, the pandemic is outside of your control, but your marriage wasn't. And that kind of thing, like there are things that you can do. So what can't, what kind of advice do you give for what you can do to make strides in this department because you don't necessarily have control over your organization's culture? That's for sure. So what would you say for the employees and then for the manager? Okay. So if you're an employee and you continuously exist in an organization that does not meet
35:40
your needs or allow for your wellbeing. First, you can try to communicate those things. We're allergic to feedback, giving it. Why is that, right? Sometimes it's like pulling teeth. Feedback's not helpful. It is really helpful. Well, I think that for a long time, businesses have authority over us. We need to name that. That is true, and they always will. They get to decide whether we work there and whether we don't, and they get to decide.
36:09
whether our performance is good enough for them, right? So that is authority. And so we feel like we can't say, hey, I need more from you because then we're risking something of ourselves. And if you're in a position where you can't risk your job, that's a big deal, right? So I think that to be fair, part of our reason we're allergic to feedback is we have, businesses haven't always been like, hey, listen, we would really love to hear how things are going and it's safe for you to do that. So, but I also think that we have,
36:38
a society where we're just not good at being assertive about our needs. So, another specific example, in the middle of a pandemic, I was working to refinance my home and I emailed the loan officer a question and I got an auto reply that said, please be patient. We are adjusting to a new normal with children doing school from home and working full-time from home. I was like, this is amazing. Stating expectations and owning your needs.
37:06
And so I wrote back and I said, or sorry, she answered my question within 24 hours, apologized for the delay. And I said, there's no delay. You answered my question within 24 hours. And I'm really grateful. Thank you. And then I said something like, hang in there, mama. And she wrote back and said, I am in tears at your email. Thank you so much for your care. And then explained to me that she had a child who had special needs who could not read the screen. So she was reading every...
37:35
thing that was coming off of the screen while trying to work full time. And she had a kindergartener and anybody who's ever tried to do Zoom school with kindergartners knows it's not really a thing. And her spouse was out of town for work for three weeks. So, you know, this is, I often wondered what conversation she had with her manager when she set that boundary.
37:58
But there are a lot of ways that we can own some of those boundaries and state those boundaries. I mean, I think that's why we have quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is not disengagement, in my opinion. It's simply boundary setting. There is a point at which I'm going to turn off my computer for the day. I'm not quiet quitting. I'm done for the day. I worked hard and now I'll be done. Right? So I think for individual employees, the better that we get at naming our needs and asserting boundaries to meet those needs.
38:27
that's within our control. If you've done that and you continuously are met with more of the same, go find a new job. That's a thing that we can do. And when we say businesses will fail if they don't take good care of their employees, this is what we're talking about. If you are a manager and you're feeling burned out yourself, hearing somebody else's needs can be really hard. But the more that you can remain in a state of curiosity in learning and ask someone to tell you more, the better
38:56
it will be to be able to solve that problem together. So it's hard to get feedback when we're already burned out ourselves as leaders, but it's also okay if you're burned out as a leader to step down from that role and let someone else lead for a little bit if you're not in a position to do that. And it's also okay to just say, how do we solve this together? Because you don't have to solve it all as a manager. That's the, you read my mind, that was the point I was gonna make, which is like, look at these conversations.
39:26
it's often not your job to fix it. Like oftentimes as managers, you fix it. You're in fix it mode all day, but it's not your job to fix it. It's like, tell me more. And what do you think it would look like if this were better, a better situation? And what can we do together? And there are some instances where it is a grant that using our authority as managers to grant permissions for things. Yep, grant. And when they give you all those ideas, when you have that conversation and they offer all those ideas,
39:55
See if you can pick one or two of those ideas that you could help with. Because some of them you're gonna have to say, no, we know that. They want, oh, they only wanna work three days a week. Okay, well that's not gonna work as much as that would be awesome. So like, all right. You know, so but find the one if they need to leave two hours early so that they can go take a dance class on Wednesdays because that just fills their cup up or they go with their family to do it or something. And you know, check those boxes. Yes, that, absolutely. I love that point.
40:22
I was asked to consult once for a small company, it was a family-owned company, and they said, will you please come in and help us buy wellness? I said, okay, but first, can I just talk to your employees? It's a small enough company, I can just quickly listen. We did a quick survey. It was like five questions, and the feedback was, we work hard, we're really committed to this company. It's like a family.
40:46
But like, I want to be able to coach my son's soccer team. And I can't leave at the end of the day and manage all of that. And so I'm sacrificing a lot. So I gave the feedback to leadership, you don't need to go purchase anything. You need to create some flexible scheduling. This was before the pandemic. Right. And you need to create some flexible scheduling. And the CEO looked me right in the face and said, well, look, literally, we are old school and we're not going to do that. And I thought.
41:13
well, at least you know yourself and now your employees can decide whether or not they want to belong here because there was nothing unique that this organization did. Those people could go find jobs lots of places. And so, and then the irony of like going and spending money on something that your employees didn't ask for and then wanting some kind of return on investment out of that spend is nonsensical. So I think sometimes, I think sometimes the solutions are, are much simpler.
41:42
Being a good community and serving each other as human beings and being a little bit vulnerable in that is really what we need right now. And oftentimes there's a lot of lovers we could pull. Seriously. Well, I want to bring us to a close. And one of the last things I want to ask you is if we can just kind of talk about this personally a little bit. Like I love the story you shared in the very beginning about how...
42:06
your solution to all of the problems was to quit everything and start your own business or something. So can you share a little bit about like how life balance and wellness has gone for you and what this means to you personally? Yeah, I mean for me it's ongoing. Again, I'm never arriving and even the things I teach this for a living, I am an expert in this. I've been doing it for almost two decades now.
42:34
And I still make mistakes like take the time on my calendar and put a prerequisite on it, right? Because doing it in a new way is quite countercultural. There's lots of people who are going to sell me something to fix me. And so me being in a mindset of having to fix myself and be better is not surprising, but really giving myself some grace and saying, you know, my job in this moment is to be able
43:03
is to decide what I need. So I do have on my calendar a hike on right now based on the calendar matrix. And it can't just be the calendar, it has to be the calendar matrix because there's so much happening on that calendar with two working parents and three children that two days a week is all I get to have this time to myself. And I do have an activity on there, but there are days that I arrive to that time with that activity, which is hiking.
43:32
trail running and I will decide I don't have the mental or emotional capacity today to take on anything harder So I will just walk with some music, right? Like I will do I will meet my needs in that moment and I still as I'm walking will have these feelings like I Should be you know, and it's like no, this is actually fine. This is actually okay and You know, so for me it's the work is never done and that
43:59
One of my good friends recently said to me, a lot of us are walking around and we don't lead well-examined lives. And that just really hit me. And I thought, this is really what I'm trying to do is just pause enough myself to examine my own life and to understand what I need. And I'm gonna add one more thing because we've talked a lot about self-care and what's in your control. Sometimes what's missing is your community care. So that's, if I'm gonna talk about my journey from starting my own business to where I am now,
44:29
I would say that a big part of that growth also to be able to care for myself has been ensuring that I had the right community care, which means that my spouse and I have an equitable workload in terms of child rearing and household management. It means that I outsource certain things. It means that I have really healthy friendships. So I have this community care so that I can also.
44:57
meet my own needs when that time exists. I think there's power in that. I've been reflecting on that a lot with social media lately, and I feel like people, when they want their break or their mental break or whatever, they resort to social media. And the thing about social media is it's not as engaging. It doesn't mean nearly as much as a direct text message to somebody who means something to you or the communication back and forth that comes from actually engaging with someone on the phone or texting, direct, even if it's just texting.
45:26
with your girlfriend or with your friend or whatever. That means so much more than scrolling Instagram and spying on what other people are doing that's been polished for the internet and happens to look amazing and isn't real. Like, ah man, my day sucks. And text that to your girlfriend. That means that's a way better conversation. Oh God, so I like that. So, well. Well, I have a tip on that. Ooh, yeah. One, don't put social media on your phone because then it's harder to access. Preach, sister. Yes, take it off.
45:55
And two, when you have that moment where you're like, because we live in this world where we're like, operantly conditioned to like pick up our phone any downtime we have. When I am detoxing from social media, I have that all the time, I will scroll through my photos. And then I am reminded of how really truly beautiful my life is. Oh my gosh. Total side note here. The newest iOS, I just updated my phone.
46:22
and there is a button at the bottom of your photos called For You, and they have basically taken this thing and what they've done is that your phone now picks this trip you did or whatever, and it will say this time four years ago in the Bahamas or something. And then you hit play, and it is a slideshow of all of the photos from that set to music. Like the first time I saw it, I cried. I'm a dude, I admit on this talk that I cried.
46:50
When I saw like the fun time that I was having with my boys, I love that idea, Maggie. I love that a lot. Like, yes, look at photos instead of Instagram. Your own memories. Oh, yes. And then text that to the person you had the memory with. Yes! Oh, and on iPhone, you can, now I'm sorry, Android users. I know how to do this in iPhone. I don't know what it is on Android or the other ones, but man, there is a little share button and you share that little, it's like a 20 second video. I sent my family one.
47:19
I sent my friend what like, oh, so good. Yes, I love that. It's just since we're like giving the full detail about how to do this, you can select a music option at the bottom and you have to select a music option that's like free licensing rights because if it's a music option that anyway, I failed at this. I was like, why won't this let me send? And then it was like, you have to choose music that you own, silly. And then I had to change the music and then it would let me send. Got it. Yep.
47:46
I didn't even know that. That's good. That's a good tip. I hope there was music with the stuff that I sent. It let me send so I'm assuming so. Yeah. Yeah, it would not let you send with music that you don't own. Trust me. Kick me out several times. You can't do this. Stop trying. Got it. Oh, I love that. Well, so Maggie, Maggie, here's I want to bring us to a close. Here's what I love. I love that
48:10
I love that this is just a personal story for you and this whole WellCoA thing and wellness is not just your job, but also kind of your passion that it really comes through in your talking and the way that you shared and what you do and everything. So I love that you're a part of this organization that does this and it makes me feel really good about your organization and the stuff that you do with this. And I love the tips that you shared. So thank you for taking a few minutes and sharing it with us today.
48:37
Yes, it was my pleasure. It was a delightful conversation. And for those folks who want to engage or interact with WellCoO, what are the different ways that they can find out more? What should they do? So if you think that your organization needs to do some of this work, or you yourself would like more support to do this work as a manager or a leader, you can go purchase a license for this platform. And then you can have access to things like.
49:03
surveys to get better data for your employees or you can tune into an event that we have. We have one in April of 2023 with Kristin Hadid. For those of you who know her work, she wrote the book, Permission to Screw Up. She talks about how we can develop leaders for how do you get great feedback from your employees and how do you lead in a way that supports this kind of work. From the trainings to the resources, it's all really grab and go.
49:32
We don't need everyone to be experts in all of these areas, but what we do need is to make sure that you have the support to continue leading within whatever your role is in your organization. So you can purchase a license to Wellcoa and get access to all of that. Very cool. Well, I hope that you check it out in Wellcoa. I'll drop the links to this stuff in the notes for this episode, but I'm assuming is it Wellcoa.org or what is the?
50:01
If they're listening now. It is welcoa.org. Okay. Yeah, and people can email me directly. It's mgoth at welcoa.org. Got it. I'll reach out to Maggie directly. If you've had any of the stories she shared, you identify with, I'm sure she wouldn't mind a story like that in the middle of her workday. So don't be shy and actually do that. So, and for you tuning in, one specific request. Do you have a friend or colleague who identifies with today's topic?
50:30
because I feel like this one, I feel like oftentimes you listen to these podcasts or you listen to these episodes and it often just goes by, oh, that was really interesting or something. But if there is someone who popped into your head and you haven't already done it, I hope that you hit share and share some of Maggie's tips with them too and send this episode to them and Wokoa. So thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And if you're more of a reader or you like the short summary of things, I do that too.
50:57
So thanks for subscribing to the email list. These episodes will hit your inbox so you don't have to go looking for them. So I love sharing this productivity gladiator thing with you. So Maggie, thanks so much for joining us today. And that's a wrap.
Haysing Han - Productivity Should Create Capacity To Advance Your Life & Career
Haysing Han, founder of H. Manifest joins Brian to talk about the ways productivity should create capacity to advance your life & career. If you only give 110% to your tasks, without any capacity left to network, or meet with a mentor, then you’ll only ever get more tasks instead of advancement. The “mother hen” discussion around the office was really interesting in this episode!
In this episode, Haysing Han, founder of H. Manifest joins Brian to talk about the ways productivity should create capacity to advance your life & career. If you only give 110% to your tasks, without any capacity left to network, or meet with a mentor, then you’ll only ever get more tasks instead of advancement.
Today’s Guest
Haysing Han
Haysing Han
Founder of H.Manifest Inc.
Haysing Han is a certified high-performance coach with 25 years of corporate experience. She was also a research and analytics consultant for top two things in Canada and United Airlines in the US.
You can learn more about Haysing and book a free call with her here.
Life Balance and Personal Productivity To Create Promotion
For Employees
Most people rate themselves as really high on productivity because they complete their work. But if you are known to be an effective and productive person, does that just mean that you’re given more work? Or that you’re also leveling up?
Many people may not be able to tell the difference between you giving your 80% and your 110% at all of the tasks that are assigned to you. But if you work with a mentor and people who can help advance your career it may result in more meaningful work, not just more of the same work.
Clarity and alignment between the way you’re spending your time with the direction you want to go professionally in your career is big! Reflect for a moment, do you have that? If you showed your calendar to someone, would you be able to point to where you’re putting time and effort into your own advancement?
What do you really want?
Can you visualize it?
Can you dream about it?
Would that income do exactly what you want to do?
What are you going to do to make it more meaningful for you?
You have to be crystal clear about what you want to avoid having years go by and feeling the burnout or like you didn’t go anywhere.
For Front-Line Supervisors & Managers
A high performing manager doesn’t just focus on the tasks. They recognize the “long game” for each of the people under them, and help with the clarity and progress toward that.
In terms of leadership, how are you going to grow your team. Thinking you’re just going to keep everyone where they are, and avoid change, will not move you in a positive direction.
A manager’s role is often to help their team to think differently. Supporting the creation of a working life balance as a whole person, not just for the hours they are at work.
A manager’s role is to actively have the conversation about personal development objective. So then they actually feel like they have permission to set aside an hour or two hours every day to grow in a new skill set.
Most importantly, managers should take a look around, if your team has been the same faces for years, and you have motivated people who want to grow and advance, this is a problem, and you’re the main person who can help or hinder solving that.
Video
The Audio/Podcast
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made for employees to improve their productivity, improve their life balance, and live their best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. Thanks for checking out Productivity Gladiator! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Productivity Gladiator.
00:06
I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. On this show, we talk about life balance and personal productivity. It's about leveling up the person as a whole with the topics that help it both work and at home. In this episode, I want to dig into the idea that productivity should create capacity to advance your life and career, not create more work, but create more meaningful work and more life balance.
00:33
I think the show will be especially irrelevant for the ladies actually, because with me today on the show is Haysing Han. She's a certified high-performance coach and the founder of H-Manifest. Haysing, thanks so much for joining me on the show today. Tell folks a little bit about how you're kind of related to our topic today. So thanks for having me. As Brian said, I'm a certified high-performance coach and I like to brag a little bit here. So I'm one of the thousand premier.
01:01
certified high-performance coaches around the world. I have 25 years of corporate gig. I was research and analytics consultant for top two banks in Canada and the United Airlines in the US and I am very proud to have led many, many transformative projects, CEO mandated projects for banks. In terms of the topic, it's quite personal to me.
01:30
And then looking back, I have become a coach. I am helping high achievers in corporate and other fields. And often people become very obsessed with productivity and achieving things without really broader vision of where their career and life should go. So what ends up happening is you become really effective and really productive and what I call a lot of project queens and kings.
01:58
and it creates more and you end up being burned out and you kind of overlook important relationship you need to build. So I know that you are you have done a lot of amazing work giving people tips and tools and really focusing on how to increase productivity but I wanted to kind of take you up a notch and let's just take a look at what productivity should enable you.
02:27
to take your career and life to the next level. Ooh, that's powerful. I'm looking forward, we're gonna dive into that. I do wanna ask before we get started though, I'm curious, H-Manifest, where does that name come from? I was in love with Wayne Dyer for a while and he was my unofficial mentor. Okay. Yeah, I mean, he passed, but everything I did, I loved. So he talks about manifesting and how, like, you know, mindset and all that. So manifest is a company name that I really wanted to adopt, but...
02:55
Gosh, everybody loves that name. So the name wasn't available. So I said, I'm Heizing, so I just threw in H. H Manifest, I get it now. That's cool. Well, thanks Heizing. So this, you know, interesting in preparing for this episode, you had mentioned to me before we started that, well, let's dive into the topic. So first, employees. I like to talk to two audiences. There's the employees, and then there's the frontline supervisors and middle managers above those, right? And so let's start first.
03:25
for the employee. When it comes to our topic today about productivity should create capacity to advance your life and career, say more on what you meant with that when we talked about this. So the coaching I'm certified in, we talk about like six-related and complementary habits, behavioral things that people need to develop to become not only just good at what you do, but become really amazing at what you do without burnout.
03:54
and costing important relationships. And so there are six different things going on and productivity is one of the most important, one of the six habits. But I often find that working with my client, you could be really productive, especially people in corporate and government or any large organization. Most people rate themselves really high on productivity because they do amazing things and they're high or cheap. But...
04:23
You know, you and I both know that if you are known to be effective and productive person, they say give more important work to somebody who's productive. He or she, no matter how busy they are, will find the time to make it happen. So often what I'm trying to work with my new client is they want, they know what they don't want. They don't want to be busy. They don't want to continue to do what they don't want to do, but they don't know what they really want. So it's lacking clarity. Where do you want to go?
04:53
in your career, in your life, you know, six to 12 months, and most people say, this is what I don't want to do. And I said, that's a good start. But what do you really want? Can you visualize it? Can you dream about it? Can you tell me like income exactly what you want to do? And like, you have to be crystal clear about what you want. Otherwise, you can be really productive. Amazing. But the time you saved, what are you going to do to make it more meaningful for you? Because otherwise,
05:20
You end up working for a long time and you get burned out. And you know, when we were preparing for this, there's something really powerful you said to me, which is that the it's that not many people actually really know the difference between your 80 percent and your 110 percent. And so the reason that really stuck out to me is the concept of, OK, if I'm giving 100 percent, 110 percent at all of the tasks.
05:49
that are assigned to me and I don't keep anything left in the bank to do the networking, to find a mentor and work with a mentor to move my career ahead, then all you're left with is more work because the people who do the best work are rewarded with more work. And so if all that's happening is you're rewarded with more work and you don't keep any bandwidth left for yourself to evolve, to grow, that's the really powerful piece.
06:18
I mean, I flashback to things like what in the seven habits of highly effective people book, they call it sharpen the saw, right? That's we have to one of the seven habits is to sharpen the saw, which is about increasing your abilities or so professional development is important, but you are the only person who's going to look out for your professional develop truly. So it was really, when you said that to me, it was like one of those light bulb moments that I just, I felt like somebody smacked me upside the head. Man.
06:45
really true that like you can learn all these productivity hacks. And if you create, you know, an extra hour in your day, because you're that much more effective and you just spend that hour on more of the same that you've done for the rest of it. And you don't build on that. Oh, that was like huge. So thank you for that. Hey, so that was like, Ooh, man, that's really, that's a, it's, that's an awesome point. I like that a lot. Well, I appreciate it. It actually came from my own experience of not knowing what's good. Right. I think.
07:14
I come from large banking experience and with a lot of senior executives. And when you, I mean, you, you have a lot of audience. It's just project managers, amazing people who actually pull many different peoples of many different backgrounds to have to move forward the big project. And I said, but they talk about flawless execution. So when people hear things like that, especially you're asking me from employee perspective, flawless execution. Gosh, I got to do like.
07:44
I got to give above and beyond 110%, 100%. And in North American culture, it's like nothing ever ends. Everybody's given a smartphone, company provided, it's like you're supposed to be on seven. So I made these mistakes throughout my career and you, and often, even from our young age, you were rewarded for accomplishing something and doing something effectively, which is productivity.
08:12
So people just are conditioned to do more and more and more and more. And what I'm saying, this is great, but you have to kind of take a step back and say, what do you really want and why do you really want it? And based on like, if you look at where you are, what you really want, you're from now and you really have to take the time, schedule that timing calendar to think about it on a regular basis and, and know what the gap that you need to close.
08:42
And that's what, but then who is going to help you because nobody succeeds alone. So then what, you know, you said employee perspective, like whether it's your manager, your peer, somebody that you don't know. And we talked about strategic networking. Everybody is doing a really amazing job working with people they know within their group and their partners. That's internal day to day networking. But a lot of people don't know.
09:12
don't have time to think about who else I don't know I need to reach out in order to be truly effective. And then productivity is just an enabler for you to get there. So amazing work you're doing, but okay, let's take up take some pause. Why do you want to be productive? What are you going to do with it? What time saved? Right? So I'm also taking away it sounds like with with that time, if you're able to save an
09:41
Where is the hour on your calendar that you're going to do the strategic networking that you talked about that you're going to do, you're going to meet with a mentor or you're going to go learn a new skill that's the skill. You know how the people talk about, you have to get, you have to be doing the job or dress for the job you want or doing the job you want, or oftentimes, you know, when they put job descriptions together, they often don't say, you know, I want someone who in two years is probably going to be really good at this. Like they're looking.
10:09
for the skills that you have right now when they're interviewing you and for those opportunities. And so having those skills, where's the time in your calendar to plan your level up so that you're ready for that next level? And I want you to talk a little bit about, you mentioned specifically, why is this for women more than men? Or can you speak a little bit about that with how this comes up there? Or what have you noticed in your experience? This is not.
10:36
complaining section, session, or it does not, but this is reality. I'm trying to address something as, as is not worse than it is, but real talk in corporate setting, especially, especially like if you, as you move up the corporate ladder, women are promoted for their actual experience, having to do everything, even for the CEO, men are promoted for potential based on their potential. So if he did something.
11:04
quite related, but he's showing leadership quality. And if he checked the box, like two out of 10 box, and people see potential in him, and he gets his consider for his potential for the next role, whereas women, both leadership, as well as women, employees were applying for the job, we feel like we have to check like eight, nine, 10 out of 10 in order to even apply for the job. So I work primarily with
11:33
women in corporate. And I'm just saying, like I come up with this word and a lot of people got a kick out of it. Don't be a project queen. Do not be a project queen because what happens is you become known as invaluable, too valuable to lose in the minds of your boss and your leadership. And then you're not carving up.
11:54
time based on your increased productivity to increase your networking skills and close the gap in skill sets, whatever it might be, to get to the next role. So you just, you know, hamster wheel that's going, it's like, you're getting really good at this, but it's just like, you know, I don't want to say productivity ninja, it's kind of negative, but you become a project queen. You're a project queen and that also pigeonholes you to always be that product.
12:23
that project queen and not moving on to the next one. That brings up ideas that we've talked about on the show in the past or things like, you have to make yourself replaceable, right? Because if you're the project queen, then nobody else can do it. But if you have an SOP and like, who's gonna cover for you when you're on vacation? Or when you go take the two week training, the leadership training that you talk with your boss and you know this is your next level, who's gonna be able to take over for you when you go? And so you really, you have to make yourself replaceable so that you can.
12:53
go to the next job without being stuck where you're at, which is, that's such a powerful thing. Or the other thing, you know, it's helpful. Your manager, if you're the project queen, I feel like they assign you work all the time. Like that's, oh, well, we know that Hastings is going to do it. So let's send it to her. Like, oh, yes, you're, you're the go-to person for more work. The fun, the, the way you can flip the script with your manager is to ask them for mentors.
13:18
Hey, manager, obviously I look up to you and the way that you work, but then can your manager connect you to two or three recommended career managers or mentors, career mentors that they'd recommend? And that's really powerful because now you're using their recommendation to get connected to spend your work time, to get connected to other people who are gonna help you advance. And it makes them shift their perspective like,
13:48
developmental networking here, I'm helping them do that. And so it's almost like a flip script, like not just, oh, Hastings might go to add more work person, but now like, oh, who can I send Hastings to about that? And so I think that's a, that whole of the mentor recommendations and flipping that script that yes, you are, you are gonna spend time on your development. Hey boss, who should I talk to about that? And if you haven't had that discussion with your boss, please do that. Please ask your boss for a couple of mentors.
14:18
around the office. You're going to get all the credit for that, but it's going to help you, exactly what Heisink said, it's going to help you move to the next level, create that opportunity, or at least start networking. Your boss will have recommended that you network with these people and you're doing what your boss said and creating those opportunities, at least helping get it started. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, it's also, it's how you communicate with your manager as well, because one of my clients, she's been hired by her boss 15 years ago.
14:48
They haven't gone anywhere. They're in separate. Amazing. This is a classic case, both women. And my client wants to go somewhere and she's like, oh, my manager is not really helping me. She's not the kind of person who's mentoring or helping her direct reports with leadership skill set or something like that. They all keep their head down and do an amazing job. They're all project walking. I was mentioning a conversation I said.
15:15
I think it's, but then it's not, it's a little awkward. So I ended up saying things like, you start having conversation in terms of where you to be, but often women feel like if they express their desire for something new, even within the organization, they worry their boss is gonna think that they're not loyal. So people don't wanna talk about that. But this is the difference between men, and men seem to do this very well.
15:43
It's almost like you need to talk to your manager and other people, influencers within your organization that you're doing an amazing job, but you're always looking out for the what's next. It doesn't necessarily have to be advancement, but nobody can read your mind unless you express your desire. And the other thing that is also important. So forget about this guilty conscience that, oh, what if my boss thinks that I'm
16:11
not loyal, I'm looking for something else. It's how you talk about it. Because what they worry, if you're really valuable, they don't want to lose you because it's pain for them, right, to replace you. You're irreplaceable, and you're both guilty for knocking each other out. And I said, you know, if you think of, like think of the situation from her perspective, if you were her, how painful would that feel to lose somebody that you've known for 15 years?
16:40
Like, you know, you don't even have to worry about that portion of your portfolio because she's tried and true. So when you have discussion for something new, you really have to be compassionate about the potential pain the other person feels and how you're going to make sure that transition will be as smooth as possible, especially if you're looking for different opportunities within the organization. You really have to mention that to just put that.
17:08
doubt and uncertainty and discomfort out of the question. So yeah, it is, I do see that a lot in women. I think it's because we, you know, I don't know, it could be the motherly instinct. They wanna make sure that everything is taken care of. They wanna be responsible and dependable, but you are following everything that Brian has shared with you in the past. It's like...
17:33
How do you not work on things that doesn't matter to you? How do you remove distraction? How do you all these tips and tools? So say you save an hour a day, now your productivity has increased, what are you gonna do with it? Right, yeah, I feel like we've been kind of driving at that. What are you gonna do with it? So I guess, and you know what, to speak to the mother hens out there, I feel like you're describing a mother hen, that like you wanna keep your little, your group together, keep everybody happy,
18:03
That is, to be honest, it's a really wonderful quality. So we're saying that right now, calling you out, not in a bad way, but those people are some of my favorite people to work with. They're just wonderful. So I understand not wanting to lose them. So I almost want to challenge the mother hens of the group that are listening or whoever, if you're a mother hen listening, to can you invite someone in the group and you start training your own protege now?
18:30
And if that's your evolution is that you start training somebody who can take over for you so that when you go on vacation or you're looking at taking that training that takes you out for a week or something, you've already done that because your boss, what they're going to do is say, oh, I can't lose you because nobody else can do your job. So you almost have to show them that you can, but use that kind of mother hand, pull people in. And here's how the team, we're all covered for each other. And clearly, if you're that person, you already can do everybody else's job. That's how you got to be the
18:59
mother hand that you are. So make sure that others can do yours too. But from the perspective of then you get to go do bigger and better things. And, and I love that. Um, and Hastings, I want to, I want to shift gears now because we've been talking about employees and starting here. I want to speak to the managers too. So if you're a manager over some people, you've got people underneath you now. What can you do? What we just said is relative to you as a manager still for you personally.
19:29
You got to make sure that you're setting yourself up for the next level. If there's going to be a promotion, there has to be it. The people are going to avoid the pain of change, right? So if, if you are able to, you know, that things, someone could take your place. You've got that look, look at that perspective, but also looking up that personally. Look at me. I'm going on and on about this because I'm so excited about it. What I'm trying to say is you, we've talked about the employee. Now let's talk about the manager. If you've got people underneath you, how can you facilitate?
19:59
or what, Heizing, what would your recommendations be for managers to help create those opportunities for advancement with the people under them? If you have a mother hen that you love in your group, what tips do you have to make sure that you're taking care of them and their growth and what they're doing? Yeah, that's a good question. Let me address that. And then there was something else I was thinking about. I think, I think managers job is actually,
20:24
Team productivity and leadership, right? Those are the two things that are most important. I think you're talking about leadership perspective. How are you gonna grow your team instead of just keeping them, right? That's one strategy, but that's not really a great strategy. And you lose people who are ambitious and who are goals because obviously they're not gonna grow there. So for Matt, is it related to productivity? Well, just in general, so we talked about like our topic today really, we're getting back to
20:52
creating capacity to advance your life and career. So productivity should create that capacity to advance your life and career. So if you've got a team underneath you, what are there any specific tips or thoughts that you have for the manager in that role now to make sure that that happens for their team? I think manager's role is actually helping their team to think differently. Okay, so more on that. Say you have somebody who's really good.
21:21
And I personally dealt with this person in my previous role. Amazing. And I would say things like, you know, I see you in my view years from now. I'm trying to motivate that person to think differently, think bigger. And I would hear things like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want your job because you don't have time to eat lunch and take a break. And I'm good where I am. And so.
21:47
So then I felt like, okay, there are two things going here because I'm not a really good role model to show this person that you could aspire to be me and you should because you're good. And if you're interested and you don't have to have my life because your life is your life and you can create work and life balance. So part of it was like.
22:08
was creating an ideal state for this person to aspire for my role. So that's one thing. And the other thing is you really need to make it a priority. It has to be their objective, personal development objective. So then they actually feel like they have permission to set aside an hour or two hours every week.
22:29
to grow in new skill set or strategic networking or something. And it has to be ongoing discussion. Like, I don't know, most people meet with their direct reports on a weekly basis, at least bi-weekly basis. And if you don't bring it up, then all you talk about is project. And how would your direct reports be like, they have permission to do it. Even if they do it, they will not discuss it with you, which is not an ideal situation. Sure.
22:56
And I think managers have to believe that that is part of your, the most, the biggest part of your role as people manager is leadership and helping people grow. And if your team is intact and it doesn't change, it's the same group of people year in, year out. There's something not right about that. Yeah. Right? It's like you're not going people. I think, so a couple of specific things I'm thinking about right now. One is you talked about the regular meetings with the managers.
23:24
If you're a manager, one of the bullets on your regular bi-weekly meetings should be something about development. If it's a training that they said they were gonna take or a mentoring session, I connected you with the mentors, were you able to connect with them? Then you check back in so that one of the bullets that you talk about is not just projects, but it's actually something that is for the good of that person outside of their day-to-day job, right? So some kind of evolution or something. And if you're checking in on that,
23:54
that definitely helps them feel important and like you care that they're going somewhere. So checking in on those things, keep their personal development things or if you have a development plan with them or whatever your organization calls it in that development plan, if you know that there's one or two things that are the next most important things they need to do to evolve or to grow or to train or something, check in on those things. Most places have an online training that's free to take.
24:21
So it's not always a, oh, let me sign up for this week long conference that's not happening until next month. Like, no, that's fine, check back on that later, but find something that they can do right now and include that in the things that you're checking in, especially, and for the ladies, for the women that are working for you and the men, of course, this is true of all sexes, but immediately after what's hazing after what you were saying about.
24:45
You know, the the ladies kind of getting into that. I love the the mother hen metaphor is very easy for me to to think about because it's like, oh yeah, you know, they're just they're they're fine here. This is their home. This is their family. They've got that. And so if you're talking regularly in your biweekly meetings with, OK, what do you what do you what's outside of that? That really helps them. So that's my my first takeaway on that is that is is that make sure you're checking in with them on their next something outside.
25:14
And the second thing that came to mind as you were just chucking was, you know, you really should also have personal development meetings where you both share where you both want to go because everybody has aspirations for where they want to go. And, you know, you as a manager, if you want to get there, you kind of, it's one of those things where you put it out to the universe and it can finally happen. Like part of it is talking with your team about not.
25:40
If you've created a culture where you share that you have aspirations to get to the next level, or another role, or another something, and as soon as you say that, everybody thinks that the world's going to end and the wheels are going to come off the wagon and that everything's going to... That is not a good culture that you created. So by you opening up and sharing something outside the team or outside the next immediate direct promotion, whatever it is, or maybe it is that, but share where you want to go next.
26:08
because by you sharing that, they can share their next one. And it might not be in your team. They might not want your job. And please don't take that as any kind of insult. That's not a reflection of you necessarily. As everybody's path, you know, everybody gets what? It's a new job every five years or something, and people change companies, and they just went through the great resignation where people were changing and looking for other opportunities. And so people are always gonna change. So try that. I feel like the attitude is almost like that thing
26:39
You're trying to smother everything to keep it where it is. Like, no, don't go, don't move, don't, everything's fine, we're trying to keep it. No, don't change, don't change, don't change, don't change. If you do that, it's not gonna, everybody's stuck, and that doesn't work. People who are stuck wanna get out worse than ever, and they write even worse things about you in the reviews when they leave, if you try to keep them stuck. So I share that because when you're having those things, be, share what you're interested in, even if it's just to start the meeting.
27:08
take a minute or two and share, you know, here's where I'm trying to go. And then let's talk about where you're trying to go and how I can help you get there. And make sure that you're having that meeting more than once a year during the performance review period, right? Like that's the, oh goodness. If you can once a quarter during your bi-weekly meetings, spend 15, 30 minutes talking about.
27:30
how the evolution is going on, what have they been working on or something. If you can incorporate that into once every three to six months instead of once a year during performance reviews, it really creates an opportunity for everyone to feel safe, to want to move ahead and do more and think about those next steps. Cause some people just think about showing up and doing a good job. Yeah, I mean, I think you just hit the nail on the head because I was just about to say, because as a manager, you know,
27:59
If you take care of your people by helping them think differently and really, you know, stoke their ambition and as you said, Brian, just say, so this is what I do. I mean, if you're looking externally as well, you may not want to share that, but that's fine. You have your own discretion, but you're giving people permission constantly. Let's talk about this. People feel like they're taken care of and your manager really thinks about your.
28:28
growth, they're going to be productive because they feel like they feel about and you're watching them. And the whole great resignation started with COVID and these managers are so insecure. They feel like people and they're not doing the work. And there were questions that some people asked, some manager in the situations like, oh, I'm really concerned about not being able to have team meeting and things like that. And so the HR person was asking, does the work get done?
28:56
Yes. Did anybody miss that line? No. Well, then what is the issue? So I think we kind of have to rise above. If you, you know, as a manager, your job is leadership and team productivity. It's a team sport. You worry about team sport, not your individuals. But if you start really taking care of your team's growth and really help them think differently, the product, they will be productive without changing anything
29:26
they're thinking, okay, I'm doing a really good job here, but my manager's actually helping me think differently and she or he might even open doors for me within the organization. And you have to reward your people as taking those initiative as being resourceful, not being potentially not loyal. Yeah. So, Hazing, talk about this for you personally. How have you...
29:51
run it because I've got like I've got a funny story that I want to share about this exact almost this exact thing that we're talking about and being stuck and and creating capacity to go further. So but I want to I want to give you certainly want to give you kind of first nod at okay what does this mean for you personally? I mean clearly you're passionate about this we're we're talking about it you're like oh this would be a good topic hey Brian I'll come on your show and I'll talk about yeah let's talk about this so what does it mean for you personally? Oh it's based
30:21
Queen and it took me about four years to feel comfortable enough to share probably on LinkedIn and that probably got the most responses out of it. I actually had a complete meltdown. Not meltdown, like complete like working hard, being productive, known to do things and you know I come from Korea.
30:45
Asian back. So it's, it's, I was conditioned to believe that you work hard and you're loyal to your employee and you don't complain. You don't talk about your next aspiration and you just make your bosses look good and somebody's going to take notice. That's how, right? You do your job. You're amazing. Somebody's that casing is amazing. You go to places, right? So I had this aspiration to become an executive. I was on the cusp of things and I'm, you know, leading
31:14
CEO mandated multi-million, multi-year project transformation. And I was like, it's got to happen. It's got to happen. But I became productive. People give me more time. You mean it's got to happen, meaning your promotion, it's got to happen, but it never did? You know, that's when recognition happened, but promotion opportunities, things should happen, but nobody. And you need to schedule time to build networks of supporters. And so me personally, I had a group of supporters. And
31:42
and the organization went to major reorg and the leadership changed from CEO way down. You know how that goes. The leaders want to bring their own people, various to change the culture and stir things up in a good way. So I faced a situation where all my sponsors, mentors, supporters, influencers I had built over the years are leaving one after the other and I did not have time. I did not, I wasn't disciplined enough. I wasn't thinking about.
32:10
I didn't take the time to reflect on where I'm heading. I wasn't disciplined enough to carve out and schedule time in my calendar to think about strategic networking. If I am productive, my boss, boss's boss gave me more job and it got filled up. And then I got burnt out eventually, physically, emotionally, and I was fed up because I wasn't going anywhere. And then I felt super alone. Like I had nobody to turn to. And then it turned into like...
32:40
This situation is not going anywhere. So I had all three things that is perfect storm to create almost clinical level of depression. It's like you take it personally, you think it's permanent, it's never gonna change. And every time I wanna go somewhere internally and my boss might gently block my way to go somewhere because I'm too valuable. She's got all this knowledge in her head. We can't lose her. Yeah. And so...
33:09
I am really passionate about this. It's not just women, it's also men. And I'm just saying that who is responsible for not sharing your aspiration, who is not responsible for not replacing your network and thinking about things. It's not enough for you to be really amazing at what you do.
33:33
It is so crucial for you to become resourceful and resourcefulness come from that. And it's not always have to be, oh, do you want to be my mentor? That's not the way you go about building relationship. You build relationship one person at a time without anything, not expecting anything in return. But you show genuine interest and you talk to somebody with one clear ask at a time.
34:01
to gain a little more information or to be exposed to or get introduction to another person you could possibly speak with. And I'm passionate about being start with where you want to be, even though it's not, it's hard to do alone. Where do you want to be career wise in six months to 12 months timeframe? And why is this so important to you professionally? And what that's going to enable you?
34:30
personally for yourself and your loved because then you find ways to get there because your what and why are so clear everybody is resourceful when they're what and why are clear and Then you become productive because you got to get your day job done and you have to carve out time to Let people know what you you know, you know a nice way But it's gonna take some trial and error to be in that thing. It's it's practice, right?
35:00
But I'm passionate because I was that. I was a project. I did not know how to communicate. And so it's like, okay, now I'm a coach and I'm shaking people up. It's like, wake up because I see a lot of women even, you know, I was looking at my connection on LinkedIn and some people say, my team is grown, anybody know anybody, please help them apply. And I'm thinking,
35:27
The way people communicate and the way things come across, I'm actually compassionate because I see somebody down the track three to five years from now will hit the point that I hit. And as a coach, I am just gently nudging those people like, Hey, let's look at it from a different perspective. Have you thought about? Yeah. Gently nudge or violently nudge in some cases. Some people need a violent nudging and that's, yeah, you get a coach.
35:56
If you need to be violently nudged, some people need a kick in the pants. I mean, it's, it's very real. I, this is personal for me because I, what you said really resonated with me. You said the 80% and 110% and those numbers really stuck out because you said nobody's going to notice the difference between your 80% and your 110%. And for me, I absolutely hit this point where I had worked my way up the ladder and I had reached a certain level and I was ready to go on to the next level. And my boss was four years from retirement.
36:26
and really just wanted everything to stay the same so that they could retire. They didn't want anything to get hard. And if somebody quit or somebody left or somebody was gonna go, that would make their job harder. And they really just wanted to make it four more years. So I was stuck under them for four years. Well, or I would have been. But instead what happened is, I noticed exactly what you said, which is I backed off my productivity so that I did my job.
36:53
and my job was done and it was good. And I gave 80% to my job and that left 20%. And with that 20%, I went to the online training and I started taking online trainings on different things, how to Excel formulas and different personal skills that I could develop. But then the other bigger thing that I did was I started looking around at the other jobs that I might wanna have, and I volunteered to participate in their meetings.
37:19
Because I guess in my current work environment, my boss didn't immediately see and review my schedule or anything. It really was just here, here's all the work, all the tasks you have, right? You're a project queen. Are your projects being done? Then cool, they don't ask you about exactly how you spend every minute of every day. So I was given 80%. And then with that 20%, I actually went and joined weekly update meetings for the team that I thought I wanted to be on.
37:45
just because I was curious. And I saw him approach the manager. I asked him from a mentoring perspective, you know, evolving the career. And I'm really interested in what this team does. Do you think I could just join the meetings? And so I started attending their weekly meetings. And then one year later, a position came up in that team. And lo and behold, wow, I'm now really qualified for this because not only when I apply, do I at least have some knowledge on this. And I've been sitting in and I'm like, I have the skills, but then also they-
38:14
They know my face. I've been a part of the team for a year of weekly meetings, chiming in and sharing perspectives and participating. So I share that because for me, that was the way I was able to break out from under this boss who didn't want me to leave. I unfortunately, with that job, I had to quit and go get another or not quit, but I had to leave that job. I had to quit that job to get another job. And so for the managers out there, for the others, if you do that 80% thing and with that other 20%
38:42
you start trying other things, it's kind of amazing because you get to try getting involved in new jobs and little projects that are interesting. And that keeps, even if the 80% that you're doing is you're bored with it, it's just like, you're so over it. You've been doing the same thing over and over again. At least you've got this other 20% that's really interesting and fascinating. And in the end, the balance feels pretty good and it allows you to kind of experiment with other things. So you don't have to quit your job to start.
39:11
trying dabbling in some other things and like meet with other teams and go if you have that ability go do it. And then so for me that was just wonderful because it allowed me to break out of that plateau. So what you said with the 80% and 110% really resonated with look man give them 80 and then keep that 20 for yourself. Make sure that 20 is on evolving and I love I love that man. So yeah, I mean you just said something amazing like it's my word not yours, but you said I was just
39:39
And curiosity is what people lose as they spend 10 plus years in their career. They become really good at what they do, but you lose curiosity. And then other thing that I picked up on is that, hey, I want to volunteer, nothing in return. I just want to learn. And that speaks for humility. So you have curiosity and humility, and then you become...
40:03
So it's human nature. People like to work with people they know. And so when the opportunity comes, you're the natural choice. And you also talk about, I wanna mention two of the six core human needs. People want to be certain, right? So you get a job and you feel comfortable. Your boss who are retiring, but he or she was holding onto certain guy, I'm gonna retire, I don't want to do anymore. But people also need.
40:32
you know, novelty. So that's what you're seeking. And I'm like, okay, I got really good at what I do. And my 80% is probably the other 110%. And knowing that and give you permission, I don't have to feel guilty because mine 80% is 100%, 110%. I've done my job to create that productivity and capacity. Now I'm moving, I'm reaching out to people to just learn and being humble.
41:00
And I think it's a beautiful story. That's exactly the core message of our chat together today. Amazing story. When you talked about this topic, Hastings, it was like, oh, I totally, this resonates with me so much because I have absolutely lived this one. So thank you for bringing it. And so just to kind of wrap then, here's what I love. Hastings, I love that it's H-Manifest is the name because you are manifesting what you want. And for you, that's helping others to break through.
41:29
the glass ceiling that they're stuck under and the mother hens out there that are listening. I love that you're doing that and you're giving this thing a try. And I also really love the metaphor about 110%. People might not necessarily see the difference between your 80% and your 110% so that you have something left for yourself. And that was, ooh, that's so powerful. So I love that.
41:55
And you, when we were chatting before we started, hit the record button, you had talked about, you had some kind of bi-weekly educational series or share with folks if they wanna keep in touch with you, where do they find you and talk about this bi-weekly thing. Connect me with on LinkedIn. I would love to connect with anybody who wants to know more what I do. And I do bi-weekly, I just launched the bi-weekly series of the Secrets of the World's Most Successful People. Basically, I'm talking about the sixth core.
42:24
that I'm trying to help my clients. And I'm gently introducing one or two habits at a time, at a very high level. So you get to know what that is all about, and whether there is something that you can relate to. And anything that I have to share might help you move your career life aspirations. The other thing that I also would like, would love is anything that we talked about,
42:52
In the beginning, at first, nobody knows what to do. It's scary at first and it's okay, right? It's like learning how to ride a bicycle and how to drive. At first, it requires some discipline and some tips and somebody who's been there before help a little bit. So yeah, book on the 20 minute call with me and I call that brainstorm call. Anything you wanna talk about, something that you heard today or...
43:19
I hate my job. I don't know what to do next, but I love my company. Anything. I'm just joking, but anything that you're like, I just need somebody to listen to me deeply so I can reflect on what I want to do next. I see. Got it. Look away. That's awesome. Thanks, Hasing. And for you tuning in one specific request, if you could, if anything that we said today resonates,
43:48
with you from someone you know. If you have a friend who's a mother hen who's been stuck in their job for a little while or any of the ladies that you know that have been stuck on in the glass ceiling, would you share the link with this episode to them? Because I know Hastings and I will. And thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. And if you're more of a reader or you like the short summary of things, thanks for subscribing to the email list because these episodes will hit your inbox with the short summary so you don't have to go looking for them when they come out. So I love
44:17
sharing Productivity Gladiator with you. That's a wrap.
Workr Beeing - 49 Tips to Manage Stress In A Hectic Work Environment
Dr. Katina Sawyer and Dr. Patricia Grabarek of Workr Beeing join Brian to discuss tactics and tips to reduce stress in hectic work environments. We shared 49!
In this episode, with Patricia and Katina, cofounders of Workr Beeing and shared almost 50 tips to manage stress in a hectic work environment.
Today’s Guests
Dr. Patricia Grabarek
Dr. Katina Sawyer &
Dr. Patricia Grabarek
Co-Founders of Workr Beeing
Community: https://workrbeeing.memberful.com/join
Dr. Katina Sawyer
On the show we found out that Katina and Patricia are friends from grad school. They created Workr Beeing to talk about the science behind workplace wellness and work-life balance. They both have a Ph.D’s in industrial & organizational psychology so you can say they're “experts” in how people function and behave at work. They provide science backed resources and information to make better and more positive work environments. The funny part, it all started when they were several drinks in at a wedding!
Workr Beeing is different, according to Katina and Patricia, because they are “nerds about data”, and the science and research behind these trends. They summarize what exists in the scientific literature in, what they hope is, a fun and exciting way.
49 Tips & Tactics To Manage Stress In A Hectic Work Environment
For Employees
Be able to name your own signs of stress, and learn to recognize them sooner. When you're in the moment of feeling stressed, all other things start to sort of fade away and you get very hyper focused on the thing that's stressing you out. When you get stressed you feel a spike in your negative emotions so you become more anxious & you start to think more negatively than positively. When that happens you go into a fight or flight type mode. Your heart rate might spike. Your palms might start to get sweaty. You might start to have racing thoughts. If you can catch yourself earlier in the stress process, like when you’re at a 3 or 4 on a 1-10 scale, you can start to deescalate sooner. If it takes you until you get to be a 10 out of 10 before you notice, then it’s a much harder and longer trip to bring yourself back down to a 1. To deescalate you can try:
Breathing Exercises (app on your phone)
Body scans (mental exercise)
Mindfulness Exercises (Have an app ready and loaded with your favorite 2 min meditation)
Nature Meditations
Quick Guided Meditations
Remove yourself from the situation physically for a few minutes (take a quick walk)
Quick workout during the day (try to hit your max heart-rate, like the moment from “Rocky” where you’re completely out of breath, even if it’s just a quick sprint during a walk.)
Know your long term symptoms of stress, like chronic stress. For some people it’s chronic and persistent, you can’t isolate it to one stressful moment or event. What does that feel like in your body? Some activities that can help you cope and fill your cup back up are:
Mastery - Master a new skill or topic.
Work on a project, like a house project
Take lessons on learning another language
Try cooking a new dish in the kitchen
Do an activity where your brain is completely focused on the present moment. This causes it to leave behind the thing that’s stressing you out, and eases some of the stress from it. Something where you can focus ONLY on the present.
This is why vegging out, or TV, are NOT very effective for many people.
DO NOT scroll social media. Social Media is shown by research to NOT reduce stress
Hanging with friends who make you laugh
Remove notifications that will pull you back into stress. (Example: out with friends laughing and a work email notification goes off, you look at your phone, and you’re sucked RIGHT BACK INTO stress.).
Clarify your “disconnected” hours. For most people work is not 24/7/365. There are off times, be clear about those and eliminate or limit notifications that can get through to only true emergencies. Balance means you need to be “off” sometimes, not “on” all the time.
Journaling helps to get the stuff out of your head. Have you ever tried “writing morning pages”?
If ideas or stress are spinning before bed, write it down. Keep a paper/pen or device next to you in bed and if a thought is swirling and won’t let you relax, write it down. The act of writing it down will help your brain let it go, because your brain knows it written down and won’t be forgotten, so it doesn’t need to be “front of mind” anymore.
For Front-Line Supervisors & Managers
Now for front-line supervisors and managers, besides all the above recommendations, we added on these specifically for those who are managing others. What can you do for the people under you?
Individualization of your support is important.
Know the type of support that each person needs. If you know their personal stressors, they’re easier to accommodate. 3 examples:
If an employee has childcare issues, being aware of scheduling meetings (if possible) to not interfere with that.
If an employee has a health condition, be aware of that in your planning, and/or the support you offer them.
If your employees favorite extracurricular activity is after work on Wednesdays, then don’t schedule a meeting to conflict with that unless there truly is no other choice and it’s an emergency.
Understand that while their work-life and personal lives are separate, it’s still the same person, and one affects the other. Be open to the stressors in all forms. (Example: Don’t ignore the fact that they’re pregnant, ask for updates on how the pregnancy is going periodically, and if there’s anything you can do to support. Even if you can’t offer what they ask, decline nicely, it will still mean a lot that you asked.)
Role Modeling good practices yourself
If you say to disconnect on the weekend, but you send emails on the weekend, that can be a stressor. SCHEDULE SEND emails you’re sending to arrive Monday morning instead.
Don’t highlight and reward only the behaviors that are unhealthy workaholic behaviors. Examples:
“Judy get’s this award because she worked so hard that she had her baby at work.”
“Johnny is sending emails on nights and weekends, he really shows his dedication to the job”.
When you’re on vacation, unplug completely. If you check your emails, your staff will think they need to.
Share some of your life outside of work with your team. If you have hobbies, that makes it safe for your employees to have hobbies.
Set AND SHARE priorities. There’s always going to be plenty to do, so the constant addition of more urgent things, and an environment where everything is urgent and must be done right away, there’s no sense of prioritization, and people won’t know how to manage their own time and stress. In short, don’t be an “Everything is always on fire” boss!
Let employees have a say if you can. As the boss, you know you can ultimately decide, but it’s helpful to involve the employees when you can. Share the things that are coming and see who is interested in adding more.
Allow your employees to disagree with you. Let them tell you what can or cannot be done without the fear of getting fired the first time they do. Build psychological safety with your team.
Model that behavior up too. If your boss adds more to your team’s plate, go to your boss and ask for priorities, for the sake of your whole team.
Don’t be afraid to ask the question of your employees because you’re afraid of finding out “the bad news”. If that’s how you’re feeling as a supervisor, it’s probably even more important that you do. Ignoring the problem won’t make it go away.
Support your employees fitness, sleep, & diet.
If you’re buying lunch, buy a healthy lunch.
Talk about finding healthy meal items you’ve tried. Even if you’ve failed, such as trying a meal service that didn’t work, drawing attention to it may help others to pay attention to it too.
If you ask your employees about their sleep, it helps employees to notice and focus on it.
If you ask your employees about fitness, it may help them to start to think about it too.
Normalizing talking about something that happened outside of work. Remember what happens outside of work affects employees at work, so if there’s a challenging situation happening, it’s helpful for employees to feel safe to share that with you, their supervisor.
What about in the middle of an HR Action or Termination
Some managers are afraid to talk about stress with employees that are underperforming or that are under a potential HR action. What do you do there?
Depends on the type of personnel action:
If the employee is just not meeting deadlines, conversations with them about their wellbeing will not ultimately affect the outcome of the personnel action.
If they may not be right for the role, sometimes having these kinds of conversations will help the employee realize that this isn’t the right role for them, and they may select themselves out of this role, which is the best outcome for everyone involved.
Being interested in the person’s wellbeing will often deescalate and destress the situation, but that doesn’t need to affect or change the final action you are ultimately going to take. You can be kind, and be strong at the same time.
Managers often try to “fill in the gaps themselves” and come up with their guess or hypothesis about why someone is underperforming. All of that “guessing” doesn’t actually help, and often creates more stress. Often the best approach is to ask, “Hey what’s been going on with you lately?” or “How are you doing really?” or “I noticed XX happened, that’s not like you, what’s up?”
Video
There was a slight glitch in the video recording software which caused Patricia's audio to not quite align with her video. It's about a second off, almost like an echo. There was no easy fix for that and this was such a great interview on camera too, that I chose to share it anyway. Sorry about that!
The Audio/Podcast
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made for employees to improve their productivity, improve their life balance, and live their best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. Thanks for checking out Productivity Gladiator! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Productivity Gladiator.
00:06
I'm Brian Nelson Palmer and Productivity Gladiator is about life balance and personal productivity. In this episode, I want to share top tips to manage stress in a hectic work environment. And I have the opportunity to bring with me today on the show, I have Katina and Patricia, who are the co-founders of Worker Being, which is all about this same topic, work-life balance. So for those folks who aren't familiar with Worker Being, could you describe Worker Being and how you guys are kind of related to this whole?
00:35
stress in the workplace environment. Sure. So Katina and I are actually friends from grad school and we came together to build Worker Being to really talk about the science behind workplace wellness, work-life balance, burnout, all those good topics that we love to discuss. We both have our PhDs in industrial organizational psychology. So you can say we're experts in how people function at work and how they behave at work. And that's...
01:03
That's kind of angle that we're coming at it from with worker being. And really we want to make sure that people can take science backed resources and information to make better and positive work environments. Well, my initial thought is, wow, that's amazing. And at the same time, my thought is, and at what point did you decide that that was the path that you wanted to take? I'd imagine, you know, as six year olds, you didn't think, oh my gosh, worker being is my dream. At what point did the did the road shift that direction? What brought you there?
01:30
We definitely didn't think it when we were six, I don't think. But when we were several drinks in at a wedding, we decided that it would be a really good idea for us to bring our passion for workplace wellness from a research perspective into the hands of employees everywhere. And so I think that when we decided that this was a path we were going to pursue was really when we saw that there was a
01:55
problem in society that needed a research-based solution. Patricia was hearing from her clients and I was hearing from my students that there were really basic wellness-related problems at work that people were struggling to solve. We knew what some of those low-hanging fruit answers might be from the research and what we did in graduate school. We thought that we should probably share the wealth and help other people to learn more about that too. Yeah. By the way, where does the name come from?
02:24
Oh gosh, it was so hard to pick a name. We were tossing around all sorts of names. We had this whole activity where we picked a bunch of different words that are related to what we want to be discussing. And then just one day I randomly was like, well, if we're talking about workplace wellness, worker wellness, worker wellbeing, worker being, there we go. So kind of just playing with words until we got there. And then we thought we were cool, so we just dropped him two miles around. Like a tech startup.
02:54
That's awesome. So it wasn't totally a random name generator, but went with it. Inspiration from those places. That's cool. I like that. Now what makes you guys different from, there's a lot of organizations out there that do training and stress management and the topics that we're talking about today and what you guys do, what would you say makes you guys just a little different from?
03:18
the others that are out there in the space. Yeah, I think what makes us a little different is honestly that we're nerds about data. Like we, we love data. We're really interested in understanding what the science and research have to say about these trends. And so what we do is we summarize what exists in the scientific literature and what we hope is a fun and exciting way.
03:43
But really, I think our differentiator is that everything that we talk about is data driven in science-based. And I think that makes us a little bit different because you can always count on us to keep you up to date in terms of what the scientific cutting edge resources are that help people to understand how to support wellness at work. And we're also doing our own research. Yeah, that's true. I was just going to say, we're also doing our own research. Patricia, great. Mine's a thing to like because I was just going to ask, are you doing the research?
04:10
or reporting on the research or both it sounds like. Yeah, it's definitely both. So we're doing our own independent research, creating some really exciting new frameworks that we'll be coming out with soon, as well as taking what exists already in the literature and packaging it in a way that's not as boring as an academic journal. Yeah. Absolutely. And I've had a chance to go to their website. If you haven't checked it out sometime while you're listening or later on down the line, please do check out their resources and the...
04:39
They've got a lot for you on the website and the community that they have. So definitely check that out. But let's jump into our topic for today. We were going to talk about top tips to manage stress in a hectic work environment. And my little primer for the listeners is I I'm well, all of us on this episode are kind of big personal development nerds and stuff. And so I know when you listen to this stuff, oftentimes the the listening that you're doing is, oh, I've heard about that or I'm familiar with that or that kind of thing. And so my I totally have a little.
05:07
challenge for you guys that are listening, which is instead of just asking, you know, did I already know this or am I doing this well? Well, instead of asking, did I already know this? Ask my question for you is, are you doing this well or how could I be doing this even better? Because I love I'm, I'm excited. I've got a couple things I want to share and I can't wait to hear what you guys are going to share. So as we're going through this and I'm listening to it later, I'm going to be asking myself, okay, how could I be doing that better?
05:34
So just a little primer, but let's jump in. There's generally two audiences that I like to talk to in this show. One is about, is the employees that are doing the work and then the frontline managers, the frontline supervisors and the middle managers that are over those employees. So let's start with the employees themselves. What would you guys say off the bat? What are top tips to manage stress that come to mind for you guys?
05:56
I think to kind of kick things off, the first thing to manage stress is to be able to recognize the signs of stress. So there are physiological signs that actually accompany becoming stressed. When you're in the moment of feeling stressed, what happens is you get focused on the stressor. The stressor is whatever the thing is in your environment that's causing the stress. So perhaps your boss puts something on your desk that you need to work on and it needs to get done immediately and you know that you have other things on your plate.
06:25
and now this thing is stressing you out. Or maybe you get a phone call finding out some stressful news from home in the middle of the workday that you need to attend to immediately despite the fact that you have other things on your plate. When you get stressed, you feel a spike in your negative emotions, right? So you become more anxious and you start to think more negatively than positively.
06:48
And that hones your attention. It serves a pretty functional purpose to hone your attention on the thing that needs your attention, which is the thing that's threatening you and that you wanna get out of your way. But the problem with stressors and recognizing these stressors is that it pushes all of the other things that you have in your environment into the periphery. So other people that you might need to be attending to, you might not even notice that they're there, you might not pay attention to the fact that they're there.
07:14
And so all these things start to sort of fade away and you get very hyper focused on the thing that's stressing you out. And so as you start to recognize those signs in yourself that you can think about when you start to feel stressed and you can almost notice that everything that you used to notice in your environment kind of goes away and you become hyper aware of one thing, right? Like this email that's in front of you or this thing that just landed on your desk or the kid that's crying because they just got injured in the house, right? And you don't notice the other details of what's going on.
07:44
So when that happens, you go into like this fight or flight type mode. Your heart rate might spike, your palms might start to get sweaty, you might start to have racing thoughts. So the first thing really to do in terms of addressing your stress is to start to recognize what your stress signs are, or what actually is a symbol for you that you're starting to experience stress. Because if you can catch yourself earlier in the stress process, you can start to de-escalate sooner.
08:13
But if you wait until you get to be a 10 on a one to 10 scale, it's much harder to bring yourself back to a one than if you start recognizing those things at a three or a four. Yeah, catch it before it goes off the charts. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, and I think that there's... So what about you? So that's kind of like, so that's kind of in the beginning of the stress cycle. There's also this idea of chronic stress, right? Where you are now dealing with a lot of stressors that are piling up. So I do think, I completely agree with Katina that recognizing when you're in a stress cycle, especially an urgent one.
08:43
and working on coping mechanisms to get you down from that space. But then if you're dealing with chronic stress, which I'm assuming that a lot of you are probably thinking about that. I know on this call, I can tell you that I've got a lot of stressors in my life, not just one thing that's happening and it's been building over time. Then you need to approach it slightly differently, right? So there's the de-escalation for...
09:06
the stress that's happening in the moment. So thinking about breathing exercises, mindfulness, how to get yourself away, break that cycle, move yourself from the situation if possible, bring in somebody to help you, etc. But then if you're in a chronic stress cycle, thinking about what you can do to recover so that you start to fill your cup back up because stress is going to deplete your resources. It's going to make you tired. It's going to make you exhausted when you get to that chronic stress level. What can you do to refill your cup? And there are some...
09:33
key strategies in the research around how to do that. One thing that is a little counterintuitive that I always like to bring up is this idea of mastery. If you're dealing with a lot of stress at work and then you leave work, a lot of people want to just go and veg out on the couch, watch their favorite Netflix show, things like that. That can be helpful and relaxing too, but what will actually help refill your cup more would be to work on...
10:00
a new project, something different, not in your workspace necessarily, but build mastery and confidence in something else that you're doing. Learn a new skill. Maybe you're really excited about learning how to cook. Take some time and start practicing whatever dish you want to learn to cook. If you want to learn another language, do that some evenings, work on your Spanish skills, what have you. That kind of mastery, building mastery in other areas actually helps you feel better, helps you feel more...
10:26
confident, more competent, and actually can help you reduce stress over time better than pretty much any other technique. So sounds counterintuitive to then add more things to do, but it can be really helpful. It's a way to kind of divert that attention. And that makes sense from the chronic stress perspective. That seems like the good counterbalance, right? That kind of keeps you in check from the chronic perspective. Katina, I want to go back to what you said.
10:49
What are when you're in that moment and you're headed up to the 10 and you're you started at a one now you're at a three or a four you're like oh gosh you can see that you're you're getting that almost it's almost like that metaphor of like when you're when you're stressed it becomes that tunnel vision like all of the sudden. Yeah you can see is that one thing that's stressing you or whatever it is what what are tactics to turn that around specifically I mean you can't just leave and go take a Spanish lesson I mean you could but now like in the moment then what do you do.
11:18
Yeah. So the research shows and actually some independent research that I've conducted on mindfulness as well, shows pretty strongly that mindfulness is a big technique that can help you to take yourself from a five to a one or a seven to a three. And the good news about mindfulness is that you don't have to say like, I'm leaving work to take an hour long break to do a mindfulness training or whatever the case may be, right? Like you can actually do like two minutes of mindfulness and get an impact to get yourself out of the stressful space.
11:47
So a really quick hit of mindfulness through an app can actually help you to start to deescalate. And the reason for that is because mindfulness actually does the opposite of what being in a stressful situation does. Instead of catapulting you into this tunnel vision space, mindfulness provokes more positive emotions and the ability to take the perspective of others, which actually broadens your scope back out. So you're able to notice those things in your environment that you're drowning out.
12:13
and you're able to counter those negative stress emotions with more positive emotions. So it might not take you from, you know, all the way back to a place where you're like, this is great, this is the best day ever, but at least it helps to combat those rising negative emotions. So in the moment, practicing some mindfulness, having an app ready and loaded with your favorite two minute meditation so that when you get into that space, you can take a quick break, deescalate, and then re-approach your task with a new mindset.
12:42
Not only does it help you to approach the task in a more sustainable, healthy way, but you're also more likely to get the task done in a more innovative and complete way because you're not so honed in on trying to get rid of this thing. You actually allow yourself to think more broadly about possible solutions as well. When you say mindfulness now, some folks might have never even put their foot in the water of mindfulness necessarily. So...
13:07
I mean, is it just you talked about an app or is it really meditation and breathing or is there more to it or what are the kinds of things you're referring to? Yeah, there are multiple forms of mindfulness that you can engage in and they all kind of do the same thing, honestly. There's a body scan where you can draw attention to and try to keep your attention in the present moment by focusing on just how you're feeling in different parts of your body in the moment. That's supposed to just keep you instead of like...
13:33
being really worried about what's coming next or what happened a minute ago, you get just very focused on what's happening to me right now. And that can be a useful way of centering yourself. But there are others that are more like meditations where you're really just focusing on, you know, envisioning yourself walking through a trail. So there's like nature meditations. There's also breathing meditations where you're really just focusing on your breath.
13:58
Any of those actually do something quite similar in terms of taking your stress levels down. Got it. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Actually, it's funny that we're talking about this because this morning I was at work and had one of those really hectic mornings where stuff keeps piling on and then there was one particular project that I seemed to go off the rails and then I was really focused on what happened with that and I found one of the things I wanted to share that so I go work
14:28
And I'm a certified personal trainer and I teach group fitness classes. And so I have a decent amount of background with this. But one of the things I've noticed is oftentimes in the advice, they say you can leave and go take a walk or, you know, for your well-being, you do something active. And I totally want to yes. And that advice. Yes, you should totally go do something active and and go walk or go pedal a bike or go take a trip around the neighborhood or something like that to leave where you're at, because a lot of what you're focused on is going to be.
14:58
right where you are, so moving yourself will do that. And my yes and yes do that, and if it's possible, I don't know how your lunch breaks work, but one of the things for me that was really helpful today is getting all the way up to a max heart rate, or where you're breathing so heavily when you're exercising that you can't speak a full sentence altogether in one breath because you're breathing that.
15:21
heavily. It's I'm imagining that moment from like the Rocky movies or something. You've seen those where you got Rocky and he's running down and he's so frustrated. He's gonna do it. Oh my god, I'm training and then he hits he hits me and he's like, and he can't breathe and the heart rates maxed out or whatever. And that moment is one of those magical times to let the stressor go. So for me today, even when I started the workout, it was about
15:47
You know, I was still thinking about the project or whatever, and it was when in the workout that we got to that peak moment where I just I had nothing left. We are absolute max. Even if it's just a sprint at the end of your walk where you're breathless or something like that, that's my yes. And thing for that's, oh, so helpful with the stress to like, let it go. That's that, that was really helpful. So I wanted to make sure that I shared that one too. Any other ideas on like,
16:15
these topics for top things. I mean, this is, you got a lot going on. What else comes to mind for you guys? Well, I think to piggyback on all the mindfulness piece in the moment, when you go back to the chronic stress, it's also helpful there, right? If you're practicing continuously mindfulness, the activity that you mentioned, right? Some sort of physical activity, whatever that looks like for you. I think in your example, what you experienced, when you get to that point of breathlessness, you're no longer able to think about anything else, but the present moment, right? So you're kind of.
16:44
getting to a point of mindfulness because all you can think about is, how do I get my breath back? Thinking about your breath, thinking about relaxing your body, you're not thinking about what happened two hours ago or whatever. That mindfulness piece, practicing that, getting better at it over time is really impactful for wellbeing overall. I think there's also social connection. We haven't touched upon that, but we know that having good social support both at work and both at home or your personal life can be really helpful.
17:13
when you had a stressful day going out with your friends for cocktails or dinner or your spouse partner and being able to decompress and have that support system will really help you deescalate that stress as well. Being able to find time, I know that the buzzword of self-care comes with some problematic issues of retail culture and things like that. But when we talk about self-care, it's really about...
17:39
Taking time to do things that are gonna make you feel better and refill your cup so that you can start the next day feeling better, feeling replenished. And so if that means practicing mindfulness, doing some physical activity, hanging out with your friends, learning a new skill or practicing some sort of hobby that you like, all of those things are really gonna help bring back some resources so you can start on a better foot the next day. I just had a mind blown moment as you were talking there, Patricia, cause it was just, you talked about
18:09
That's where you can't think about anything else. All you're thinking about is that. And it really, it kind of struck home to me that, oh, it's that in the workouts or you talked about learning Spanish or doing something that another project or something in the one thing that all of those have in common is what are these things you can do where you for like, don't forget about, but you basically forget about whatever the stressor is to give you a break from that stress and help it that helps deescalate it a little bit. And so.
18:38
I just my light bulb moment was holy smokes. Yeah, because that friends can do that when you're hanging out with friends or the fitness or the learning a new project or something where you can completely immerse your brain in it. So what's interesting is what doesn't do that for me at least is watching a TV show or even listening to music that I love. I'm such a music person.
19:04
But man, even the music, it doesn't take away the thoughts in my head of whatever it is that's stressing me. So it's finding those things that truly let your brain let it go completely. You can always come back to it. It's not like it's going away, but going away completely from that thought and focusing entirely on something else. Friends, laughter, something like that. If you're going to like watch TV to de-stress, it had better be something pretty freaking awesome or something that.
19:29
will really suck you in so that you can truly let go. Because if it's only a 50-50, half TV, half thinking about the stressor, you don't get those. And maybe I completely, if that's completely wrong, tell me now, but that's just the funny, oh yeah, light bulb moment that I just had. No, I think that's right. And I also think to your point, there's one more thing that really helps with that, which is disconnecting. So imagine you're with your friends.
19:58
you're socializing or you finish that last sprint of your run or you get to a place where you're really feeling mindful and then your phone goes off and it's a work email and it's related to the project you were working on and then all of a sudden you get sucked right back to where you were. And so part of what's also helpful for managing stress is putting boundaries around the time periods within which you're more likely to be exposed to stressors.
20:26
So if work is a stressful, a source of stressors for you, you don't wanna be exposing yourself to those stressors right up to the minute that you're going to bed because then you're in that zone of being amped and focused on negative things and ruminating and thinking about what's going on during your day right as you're about to lay down for bed, right? And that keeps you up longer. Or you may just bring yourself right back to a seven on the stress level when you just lowered yourself down to a one.
20:54
And so the benefits are short-lived if you're just continuing to re-expose yourself to those stressors over and over again. So disconnecting is a really big thing that we talk about and it's really hard to do because we're always on in society today and work expects us to be on for many hours of the day more than used to be true 10, 15 years ago. And so I think that something that we talk about doing from a time perspective is giving yourself back some time.
21:24
by converting either dead time that you would spend on a device that can make those stressors interruptive. So like, if you're scrolling social media, that's not really something the research shows actually helps you to decrease your stress. It's also a time where you might be more likely to be interrupted by an email that could cause you stress. So instead of scrolling social media and being on your phone and being in this always available space, put it down and go do something else and don't look at it for a while.
21:53
That's a way of converting some dead time into time where you actually can use it to engage in some of the techniques that we're discussing. And you're also eliminating or making it less likely that the stressor that's introducing itself is going to just intrude on your time. That makes a lot of sense. I'm suddenly drawn back to the conversation we were having earlier about having, well, disconnecting completely.
22:19
Full thought here that I'm having is one of the things I talk about in productivity gladiator often is the ability to let things go or disconnect like you said and one of the things that just popped into my head as you were talking was oh when we talk about the ability to Oftentimes when you're laying in bed at night or there's something that's that's up here And you kind of have to get it out and some people talk about journaling Are you doing your pages and those kinds of things if that's the habits you have those are great, but especially keeping
22:48
a year, maybe if it's your phone or a notepad or something next to you at night, when you're laying in bed and you have those thoughts, if you write them down, it's almost like giving your brain permission to let it go because it's not forgotten. It's not like you're, you come up with that really brilliant idea right before bed and then your brain just thinks, Oh my God, I can't forget this. I need this tomorrow. I need this tomorrow. I need this tomorrow. And then you can't sleep. And then that kind of thing. So having it a place where you can write that idea down and that way
23:18
you can let it go, which allows you to kind of let it go and almost fall to sleep or that kind of thing. And that's, as you were describing that, I was thinking, oh yeah, that's where, that's exactly, what you're saying is exactly where feeding that, writing it down, having something to copy, get those thoughts out of your head so that you don't have to worry about remembering them that allows it to kind of smooth out a little bit. So let's, I wanna shift.
23:42
gears just a little bit. And now let's talk about frontline supervisors and middle managers and somebody in management now. And from obviously managers and everyone in that category, all of the stuff we just talked about applies to you personally, right? So this is all still true. You face the same things plus some, because not only do you have your own workload and stuff, but you've got a staff and their team and all of that. So that's a whole nother level. So there's certainly stress and hectic work environment for them.
24:11
My framing for this is, okay, now you're the supervisor and you have the staff. I wanted to ask you guys about, okay, what's the advice to supervisors for how you can support or be supportive for your staff and helping with this whole stressful, hectic work environment? I love talking about what managers and leaders can do because it's so important and employees can only do so much, right? They don't have control over the amount of work that they're getting pushed down on them.
24:40
or the environment that they're in. And so, you know, giving stress techniques to employees is great for them to be able to handle that in the moment, but long term, it's, you know, the environment isn't good. You need to get out really what it comes down to it, right? If your environment's really bad and stressful. So leaders are the ones, the managers, the supervisors, they're the ones that can have the biggest impact.
25:02
to make it so that people are all in a place that they can thrive and do well. And so if you're a supervisor, if you manage a team, one thing that we're finding, so Katina and I actually are doing a lot of research right now around how you can lead for wellness in the best possible way. And one thing that we're finding over and over again is that the individualization of your approach is super important. So getting to know your employees, getting to know your team, what-
25:30
is happening in their individual lives, what is the support that they need? It's going to vary so much from person to person. If I am someone that has three kids and daycare times ending at different times and having to do all these pickups, that might be a big stressor on me and working eight hours in a row. Maybe there's a way we can accommodate and fix things for that person.
25:52
but then somebody else may have no children and but to have some sort of health issue that they're coping with. Or, you know, there's always some individual circumstance situation that's happening in personal lives that influences your work. You're not a separate person, right? You're a whole person that has a work life and has a personal life. So being able to work with that as a supervisor and understand where people are coming from and provide flexibility and some autonomy to your employees can go a really long way to help them manage their stress in an effective way. Sounds true. Katina?
26:20
Yeah. And I think in addition to learning from your employees about what they need and then trying to be responsive to those needs is also role modeling good practices yourself. So, when people look to their manager, they're understanding what does it take to be successful in this company? And most people want to be successful at their jobs, right? They want to learn from the people around them, especially people who are in positions that their role models about what's acceptable here. What are the norms? What helps you get ahead, right?
26:50
And so if the manager's saying, hey, you know, you all make sure you disconnect during the weekends, don't send any emails, and we're not going to work on projects over the weekends. But then you're getting a bunch of emails from your boss over the weekend, you're feeling inclined to respond to those emails, right? You're feeling inclined to do work on those projects. And so you can't really say as the manager, well, you know, I'm just going to send it when I feel like sending it, but don't feel like you need to reply because people will feel like they need to reply.
27:19
So something that we suggest managers do if it is better for your well-being for example Like let's say you're coping with some family struggles and really truly the most convenient Best time for your work-life balance to have gotten that stuff for the project done was on Saturday morning Do the work schedule the emails for Monday morning. Don't put the pressure on people to have to respond back to you Yes
27:43
Schedule send is amazing. Yes, use it. Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Exactly. And like, you know, vacation time, we've heard some in our research too. If you're saying to everybody, hey, I'm going to be on vacation next week, but I'm available all week long if you want to reach me. It gives people the idea that when they go on vacation, they have to mimic that and say, well, I know I'm going to be out for a week, but hey, I'm available anytime you need me, boss.
28:10
And it starts a culture where now people aren't really actually on vacation because they're just working from a different place a little more sporadically than they do when they're on the clock. So I think with this boundary setting and also with talking about having a life, doing things outside of work, Patricia and I once interacted with a company and heard a story about a company that it was not while we were interacting with them, but they...
28:39
The boss was so excited to tell people that a woman had her baby in the office because she was so dedicated to her job that she actually had her baby in the office. This story got passed down by this boss as an indicator of, in this company, we really get our hands dirty and all hands on deck and we all do what we need to do to make it happen. What a terrible tone to set in a company for an expectation, right?
29:08
And she would tell it like someone had their baby in the office. And any other person that you talked to in the company was like, someone had their baby in this office. You know what I mean? It was a completely different tone. And so that's a very extreme example. But what kinds of stories or examples do you give of people who are successful? Do you talk about them as whole people? Or do you talk about people who are successful as like hard driving, they're always here, they're up early, they're working late? Like...
29:33
What are the exemplars or role models that you use of people who are successful in the company? Who are the people that you hold up as ideal employees? Because those employees are the people other people are going to look to, and that starts to shape your culture in a meaningful way. God, that's really true. You think about giving awards for the people who work the hardest. But if all you do is recognize the people who work the hardest and don't have good life balance and don't take care of themselves and don't, like Patricia said, have other hobbies or things or...
30:02
things that interest them or something don't disconnect and all they do is work, work, work, then you kind of create this self-fulfilling prophecy in a way. That's really true. I'm also reminded of the fact that you, well, supervisors should also absolutely keep things relative when it comes to priority. Everybody's had that boss where everything's a fire all the time. Like the next thing, whatever I'm telling you right now, it's that.
30:29
There's the it's like last in first out or first in last out or the kind of instructions where the whatever you say, if, if the kind of environment you've created as a supervisor is where whatever I tell you right now should become the first thing that you do, then you've created a stressful environment because inevitably there's 10 other things on that list. And if all you do is add to the top in the urgent department, that's tough. So if there's a relative thing where, and granted some people
30:58
aren't close enough to all of their employees where they're able to really get into the workload and know where this should fit or that kind of thing. But to talk about something in terms of the amount of time or the runway that comes with this thing and the expectation of how important it is, is really helpful context for people to keep the stress level down because they have that context of, okay, when, how does this fit into, I've got a list of 10 things already. All right, boss, here's number 11. Where does that fit in this, the scheme of it? And that's...
31:28
Yeah, that's super helpful too. Good ideas so far. What else you got swimming around up there? You guys are full of all these good ideas. I like it. Well, I was going to actually piggyback on what you just said at the prioritization. I think obviously prioritization is crucial and it kind of goes from the very top all the way down. Everyone needs to be on board with understanding what are priorities, what things might fall off based on workload, keeping workloads normal and appropriate. But like you're saying, if it...
31:56
manager doesn't know exactly what's on a person's plate at all times, make it so that employee is comfortable to come talk to you and say, hey, you just told me to do this. I have these six other things. Where would you put it? So then make it collaborative that the employee feels like they can have that conversation and understand that it's not like a bad thing to ask what can drop off based on workload. And allow your employees to come to you and say that, you know,
32:23
you don't think you can do all of these things. So let's be creative. Let's figure it out and practice that yourself, right? As the leader, come to your employees, say, I've got these five things on my plate and I need support with X because I don't think I can do them all myself, right? So if you're practicing that, going back to Katina's role modeling, they'll hopefully start talking to you as well. And then you can actually have really fruitful conversations around priorities so that you're not...
32:49
just adding, like you said, to that list, that never-ending list that just gets stressful and people don't know where to go and how to start. So I think that's really important. The other thing I think for leaders is giving, it's kind of related. It's kind of getting this idea of psychological safety where an employee should be able to push back. I don't see why this is important. Can you give me more context? I think the thing I'm working on now is going to impact.
33:16
company XYZ reasons and when it comes to priorities, but also really with anything when it comes to work and the way that you're working. So being able to have those really honest and safe conversations is really important for employees to feel like they can come and ask for time off for a family situation or shifting of schedules or what have you. So building psychological safety as a supervisor in your team is really important and the way to start is to be vulnerable yourself.
33:46
I want to yes and with you there. Yes, exactly that. And the role modeling or the sometimes you have to model that behavior up to if you're you are the middle manager and you've got the boss above you who's the everything's on fire all the time kind of boss, then you're going to need to go up to them and say, all right, I have three teams under me and you've given me the, you know, here's the five things that we're working on now. And you just gave two more.
34:15
where does that go in my list of things for all of these teams? And it's more of a big picture conversation, but it's that focus, right? Cause that you can't, it's that idea of fighting a battle on multiple fronts for all the military folks listening, or those, you're familiar with this metaphor where if you've got multiple fronts where you're battling, you're stretched more thin, but if you're able to help with the focus, what having that priority list does, whether it's up here at this level or down here where the troops are, or whatever it is,
34:45
having that focus on where am I battling? What's the number one front that I should be looking at and two and three? That is super helpful too. So sometimes it's modeling it up, not just down. That's gonna be good for managers. Kitsina, you looked like you wanted to get in here. No, I was just gonna say as well with the comments around having conversations with your employees and really.
35:10
understanding what those priorities are, not just from your own perspective, but comprehensive perspective and getting other feedback on what really is on fire. All of those things can be scary for managers to do, like opening up the door to say, I want us to talk more about our wellness or balance and I want to make sure I'm getting this right and I want to make sure I understand what your needs are. A lot of times people will say to us, like, if I ask the question, what if the answer is scary? Like, what if people are having lots of problems and I'm not doing a good job of this? And
35:40
I think the answer to that is you're living with the impact of whatever the answer to that question is anyway. Hearing the answer is the first step to actually addressing and gaining some control over that impact, but not knowing the answer doesn't mean you're not experiencing the problem. You're always experiencing the problem. Knowing the answer helps you to understand how to fix it. And especially if you're saying, I don't know if I'm going to like the answer to that question, then you probably already know the answer.
36:09
Right? You know you're not going to like it and you don't want to ask it because that seems scarier. But that's especially when you need to start having these conversations because the impact is there whether you understand why or not. And so let me ask for the managers on there that are one of the reasons you wouldn't want to ask that question because you don't want to know the answer is because you've got a problem employee that you're actually thinking you're going to need to part ways with. And so...
36:36
I could see there being some fear where you start having these conversations about, I'm really, you know, are you stressed or you're looking at that. And all of a sudden, because they're telling you these things, that becomes fodder for the lawsuit in the HR action where you weren't being a good boss and now you can't fire them or something like that. So I know I'm kind of putting you on the spot with that, but can you speak to that as far as what if they're telling you these things, but you need to take a personnel action on the or you're considering that? How does that play in? Can you talk about that? I think it's
37:05
depends a bit as to why you're taking this personnel action. Is it because they're not performing and they're not meeting deadlines, things like that? Or is there some glaring like they stole from the company issue, right? Obviously with that, there's no real reason to open the door and have those conversations. But if you're dealing with an employee that's not performing, that's maybe struggling in some ways, and you open up those conversations, you actually may find out that...
37:31
that employee has problems you can solve, and then you don't have to go through the process of parting ways with that employee. Or maybe you'll learn that there's a different role that's a better fit, because now they're starting to open up to you, telling you why they're struggling. Maybe they don't have the skillset that they thought they did, and if they feel comfortable and are able to trust you, then you can make that work. And you can have even honest conversations around, I've seen good leaders have conversations with people that are not good fits for roles or companies.
37:59
and they talk about it openly and they give people the space to select themselves out. And that's a much better result for everyone involved, right? Because as soon as you have to let someone go due to performance issues, then there's all sorts of rumor mills that start up within your teams because you can't say why, what this happened. And so that creates some instability and some lack of trust that's going on with the team that does remain. So it's actually better to
38:28
try to cope with it in an honest, transparent way and help either that person improve or find their path in the company or help them figure out how to get out in a successful, safe environment, that's gonna help the whole team overall. And you talked about performance issues and that kind of thing. I think even if you have an understanding of the stress and what that person's going through, that's not necessarily gonna change the parameters of the personal improvement plan, the PIP or whatever the...
38:56
The thing is that you're looking at for that person. They still are going to have certain deadlines. They're going to have to meet something like that. And ultimately being understanding, I think one thing. So randomly, I used to be the general manager of several furniture stores down in South Florida. And one of the interesting things that I remember from employees and customers is that you can be stern and enforce the rules or whatever it is and still be nice. You don't have to be.
39:23
mean, if you're going to let somebody go or take an action, it doesn't have to be because you're mean, you can be very understanding. And the only thing is you just have to stand your ground that this is the right decision. And here are all the reasons why I'm making that decision. And even if you found out some more information that helped you to help them or however, it made the conversation even more meaningful to them. But that doesn't change the action that you're going to take. And if they're going to be mad at you, they're going to be mad at you no matter.
39:51
whether you were nice and understanding about the stress or you weren't, that's not going to change the outcome. So you might as well embrace the person and kind of get to know some of that too, because that's not going to hold you back or handcuff you from the action that you want to take. I think. Yeah. I think that's a good point. And, and compassion goes a really long way.
40:10
Also, our brains are wired to fill in gaps. Let's say you're having a performance problem with someone who looks the same as or has the same name as or reminds you of a person you know from your past. You can start to fill in some details about, you know why I think this person's having a problem? Because I bet at home this is happening or I bet they're having a conflict with this person. We're not really actually that good at filling in blanks.
40:39
And so when you're trying to decide why someone's having a performance problem, you're operating on your own speculation. And a really good way to understand why someone's having a problem is to ask them what's going on, right? And to ask them in a compassionate way. So I think a lot of times when people are having performance issues, they're looked at negatively by others. And so they're approached in a different way. And if you approach it by starting off with some compassion, saying,
41:07
I know that it's your goal to do well, or I understand that everybody struggles sometimes to perform. My goal in this conversation to understand what we can do to get you to a place where you feel like you can do your best, right? Coming at it from the perspective of I'm going to assume that you want to do a good job. I'm going to assume that it's a barrier getting in your way and not you as a person that's incapable or bad or whatever. Coming at it from that kind of growth mindset, as opposed to a...
41:37
hey, you're a bad employee and unless at some point you stop being you, then I guess we're going to have a problem. The growth mindset helps you to approach the issue looking at it in a different way, right? And it puts them in a different mindset as well because now they see it as, okay, well, let me describe to you the problem and then there's a solution as opposed to I feel attacked as a person and you know what, I guess we're just not going to get past this because I'm always going to be me, right? So it puts them in a different...
42:05
mindset to use some compassionate understanding that it's a situational factor most likely and not that they're just not good. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, guys. So shifting gears off of the personnel actions then, that's kind of a negative. I don't want to end on that. That's not fun. I don't want to talk about stress as a reason to fire somebody. That is not how I saw this episode going. No. So I want to circle back then.
42:33
What are some of the things that the supervisors and managers can do to very much help them maintain the functioning of their team? So I know we've already talked about the mindfulness and the meditation and supporting that, even if it's having moments or taking a two minute break or even doing a mindfulness exercise with your employees in the beginning of your weekly updates or something like that. That certainly tracks with that. The other thoughts that came to mind for me would be like,
43:02
Well, you certainly have to support, please support their fitness, their sleep and their diet in terms of like if you're making, if you've got a stressed out team and you buy them pizza, that's really not going to help everybody in the long run. Pizza is good. It's kind of a reward, but at the same time, good health and good fitness and good that and.
43:27
having the opportunity to sleep and supporting sleep, supporting their mindfulness and meditation by asking them about it. Sometimes it's just having those conversations. Like, talk about what are your routines and being supportive. If they're gonna try something new, hey, I'm gonna try this new meal delivery service that will do, you know, the healthy meal. I'm gonna try, what, HelloFresh, or one of those names that's out there.
43:51
supportive, ask them how it went, how did it go and be interested in their eating, their sleeping and their fitness to see what that is. Because if it's important to you, it might be important to them. So that's just one example. Any other ideas come to mind for you guys on that? Well, you actually touched on something that is found in the literature. There's a study that we've talked about on our podcast at one point around sleep and...
44:16
When leaders ask employees about how they slept the night before or what sleep issues they're having, then employees started focusing on that behavior like, oh, I should probably pay attention to my sleep. It's not about you telling them what specific type of healthy behaviors they should have because obviously each person is unique, their own health circumstances, what have you, but to your point, supporting them, asking them about their sleep, asking them how they're feeling.
44:46
If they're sharing information around their fitness routine or what have you, and they're telling you these things, supporting them, showing signs of support, asking them about it, giving them the space to do those things, I think is really important because if you – yeah, like you're saying, if that person values it and then you're showing that you also value it, then they're going to continue to think that behavior is important. Yeah. And I think it goes back to that blanket solution piece. If you know people, then you understand what's important to them. You can help.
45:14
resonate with that and you can also make sure that you're helping create a circumstance where it's likely that they'll get that done. So if they say to you, look, my favorite thing in the world is to go to a dance class that takes place every Wednesday from six to seven and you know that about your team member, then don't ever schedule a call unless the world is on fire, right? From six to seven on Wednesday because...
45:42
you know that that's the time period that the employee really wants to hold sacred. If you see your employees holding stuff on their calendars, don't move it or block over it. If you know that there are things that are important to employees supporting it, normalizing talking about things that happen to people outside of work, and denormalizing the culture of overwork that plagues a lot of workplaces.
46:12
I used to work in a place where the person in charge used to say, I don't believe anybody in the world actually needs more than four hours of sleep. And that normalizes a conversation around no sleep is better. So that means that I'm learning. If I send the email at 4.45 a.m., I'm going to be the star employee. So it sets these tones, but you can set the tone the other way to say...
46:37
Wow, I'm feeling great this morning. I actually got nine hours of sleep last night as a supervisor. That lets other people know that if they slept a lot last night too, they can say that and not feel like you're going to think they're less productive because actually that person might be more productive the next day if they got a great night of sleep. So it's sort of flipping it around and saying, you're going to have a culture regardless. What culture do you want? Do you want a culture of overwork and sickness and people are not feeling their best? Or do you want a culture where people actually
47:06
are human beings and are able to show up and perform and be enthusiastic and energetic. And that starts with the people at the top. For sure. I just, I can see it as soon as you said that thing about sending emails at 445 or something, I immediately thought in my head, yeah, I'll send emails at 445 because I will schedule them to send at 445 and I'll be sleeping, but the emails will be going at that time because I am not going to be awake. The star pupil to the boss.
47:35
As long as the boss that wakes up at 4 a.m. is the only person on the email I approve. Oh my goodness. Absolutely. Yep. That award you've been wanting because you work too many hours. There it is. Schedule send, guys. Yes. Just schedule some emails to go at 9 p.m., some to go at 4 a.m. All night long. Oh, God. We're laughing about this because you should absolutely not do this. Please don't do this. Yes. That's just so... Anyway.
48:04
Well, guys, here's what I love. First, I love that some of the stuff you're referring to is backed by science. I love that angle that you guys take with worker beings. So please keep killing it at that. That is awesome. And referring back to the studies and such, I know for me personally, that's an area that I could be better in is a lot of the stuff I know from personal experience and from
48:29
working with people and teaching these workshops and hearing from people. And so a lot of mine is based on that. And so I think it's really awesome and powerful that you guys have also this whole research angle to what you're doing. So you've inspired me there. So thanks for, thanks for doing this. And thanks for the laughs in the chat today. I really appreciate it.
48:46
Thank you so much. We had a blast. This was super fun. And if they want to know about worker being and how to find you guys and to connect later, you talked about a community. Talk a little bit about how they can connect with you after this. Yeah, you can find us on our site, workerbeing.com. We've got all of our articles, podcast episodes, tons of resources for everyone. But we also do have this community, which you can find at workerbeing.com slash community. And basically we have a lot of perks for folks, but the biggest one is we have a Discord community.
49:15
where people can come and share ideas and ask questions. And we're in there all the time, giving feedback and asking questions from our community as well. And it's been a really fun place for us to kind of grow and get to know people. And that I think has been very valuable for us and for the folks in the community so far. That's awesome. And I will drop the links to the Discord and to the website and worker being has a very interesting spelling. So you'll see that in your episode notes as well.
49:44
It's not just exactly the way you think it would be spelled. It's spelled the cute way because they're clever with their wordplay and all that stuff. So thank you very much. Thank you for joining me today. And to you who tuned in, thanks for listening to the podcast. Thanks for watching the video on YouTube or subscribing via email. If you would rather get this emailed to you whenever it comes out in a format, you can read as well. But thanks for being a part of this whole productivity gladiator thing. I love this stuff and I love sharing it with you. That's a wrap.
Andrew Lawless - Your Workload Tripled, What Do You Do?
Your workload just tripled, what do you do? How do you handle it? We delivered more than 41 tips which you can apply right away!
I spoke with Andrew Lawless, a high performance coach, and the founder of The Consultant Profit System. Andrew coaches people to go from $100K to $1Mil a year. That’s a 10x increase in work. Clearly in those circumstances you need to change your processes during that much growth, and he had some great insights!
Your workload just tripled, what do you do? How do you handle it? We tackled more than 41 tips you can apply right away!
Perhaps someone on your team leaves for another job, or someone gets pulled for another project, or maybe a new initiative starts. All the sudden you find yourself with two to three times the work you had before. How does your life balance not take a hit?
Even a 10% increase in workload will warrant looking at some of these tactics. Often people pick up “a little more work” and do things like skip lunch or stay an hour late. It’s the approach of absorbing the extra and continuing to do the same thing you’ve always done, just more of it. Don’t! I urge you to use these tactics for all situations where workload increases over 10% to help maintain your sanity.
Today’s Guest
Andrew Lawless
High Performance Coach
Founder - The Consultant Profit System
Website: teamlawless.com
IG: @andrewlawlessdc
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/leadership-and-business-coach
On the show, I speak with Andrew Lawless, a high performance coach, and the founder of The Consultant Profit System. As I was thinking about this show topic, Andrew came to mind because Andrew coaches people to go from $100K to $1Mil a year. That’s a 10x increase in work. Clearly in those circumstances, “What got you here won’t get you there” and you need to change your processes during that much growth, so I thought he would have some great insights as well. I was right!
41 Tips & Tactics To Handle The Overwhelm
We started out looking at this through the lens of an employee. What can you do for yourself to handle a 3x increase in your workload? Here are some recommendations we shared.
For Employees
Most people do not have clarity in terms of what they absolutely have to do right now in order to move a project forward.
Andrew’s Personal Example: My wife and I built a house in Ireland, we’re reviewing the plans and had a two hour discussion about the kitchen. The problem was we didn't even have a building permit at the time, so if we had spent ten minutes on the building permit we would have made more progress than spending two hours discussing the kitchen.
Focus on “the one next thing”. Gary Keller wrote a book called “The One Thing” which is really helpful on this topic. For each project or effort you’ve now added to your plate, “what’s the one thing that I need to do next to move this effort forward”
Have the discipline to be focused on the work at hand, don’t let yourself get distracted by shiny objects.
Andrew’s Personal Example: I started doing research on the topic on YouTube but I ended up watching Bruce Springsteen videos for half an hour.
You can use tools to help with focus
Distraction Free Youtube - No recommended videos appear, just the ONE you’re watching.
Freedom - Blocks all distractions across all devices, currently one of the market leaders in this area.
Mark your calendar for “Focus Blocks” - 25 to 50 minute periods. They’ve sometimes called these “tomato” or “pomodoro” timers. These are windows of time for total focus with the brain breaks in between.
I use focus music during these times. I’m actually listening to it right now as I write this.
Search for and use ESM (electronic study music) playlists.
Avoid getting stuck in email. Batch process it at certain points during your day, but don’t get stuck in your inbox. Most job descriptions do not include statements like “respond to all emails within 1 hour”. Handling your email is a part of your job, but prioritize it accordingly.
A suggestion is to just have 2-4 time slots during the day for email, keep it closed at all other times.
'Email Inbox To 0' Hacks: Cut Email Down To Minutes-A-Day Through Batching And Notification Changes
'Email Inbox To 0' Hacks: 4d Approach To Processing Your Inbox
Email Management Hacks: Deep Dive On Snoozing Emails To Come Back Later
Email Management Hacks: 2 Email Rules To Cut Your Inbox Down By More Than Half
If you are not imperative to a meeting, ask for it to be recorded. Listen to the recording at 2x or even 3x speed. 60 minutes turns into just 20-30, and you can skip through the roll call and other less pertinent parts.
Collaborate with your boss on prioritization. You’ll want their agreement on which/what you should do first and what drops.
Remember, everything is not an emergency. If there’s no blood, and someone isn’t dying, it’s not a genuine emergency, so make sure you and everyone take a breath and keep perspective.
Start asking about deadlines. Are those dates “nice to have it by” dates or “need to have it by dates”. Don’t add stress working under the “nice to haves”.
Volunteer to write Guides and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on some of the work that you’re doing.
If your boss can get help, maybe a temp, maybe a part-time employee, they’re going to need to do the work, so having that SOP or instruction will mean they can get started right away with little training.
Self-Check Tactic from Andrew: “The first question I ask my clients is to open your calendar for me so I can look at it. If I cannot extract what exactly their priorities are by looking at their calendar, then there's a problem.”
For Front-Line Supervisors & Managers
Now for front-line supervisors and managers, besides all the above recommendations, we added on these specifically for those who are managing others.
Remove yourself from the production of the team underneath you. Your job is to work on improving the boat, not rowing it. You want to support and pitch in, but if you maintain some of the work AND have to be the manager, then you will not have time to help develop and improve the team. In the long run, this will keep you and your team stagnant instead of continuing to get better.
Andrew: “The number one reason that I'm seeing is that individual team members are assigned tasks that require them to work ‘against their grain’. For example, I am a “short cutter” so if you want me to find a shortcut to get things done, I'm your guy. If you want me to follow a procedure and be meticulous about it, I am not your guy. I will be your biggest nightmare or it will take me longer.”
Play to your team member’s strengths more than trying to develop their weaknesses.
Kolbe-a and Kolbe-B tests are a great resource (the best one in Andrew’s opinion) to find the overlap of skills and strengths between employees and managers and help with team dynamics.
Remember to manage the energy of your team. Most managers spend all their time policing and chasing after the low performers and the low energy portion of the team. Instead, support the high-performers and bring the same energy to them that they’re producing.
If it’s an internal promotion that brought you to your current management position, don’t bring your old job with you. Make sure you prioritize your transition of your roles. Sticking around doing your old job AND your new job at the same time isn’t going to do anyone any favors. Both jobs and both teams will ultimately suffer. That’s a lose-lose and isn’t sustainable. Make that as short as possible. Be clear on that with supervisors and management.
Immediately notice all the places where you’re the bottleneck in a project or process. What are all the places your team is “waiting on you”? Prioritize those as the first places to improve processes. Make sure you “get out of the way” of the work that needs to be done.
Don’t get stuck thinking you either need a new full-time employee or nothing. There are many in-between solutions that can work. Whatever the most low-level and redundant work is that your team is performing, have them write SOPs for that first, and ask for contract or temp support. You can even hire virtual support inexpensively for all work that’s not in person. For virtual temporary help, no hiring process is required. Virtual help can start right away, as long as the work you need them to do is clearly defined.
What about personally, not just work?
We also discussed what you need to remember for yourself personally, outside of work. When the volume of work picks up, what do you need to do?
You need to remember to defend your personal life. That means when you sign off, even if you stayed two hours later, you're off. Don’t go back and do more later. Engage with your kids, your family, your friends, and you’re still taking care of your health. You need to “turn off” and just “be you”.
Andrew shared an exercise that he says has saved marriages is to take a moment to mark your transitions throughout the day. In between each meeting, or before you walk in the door at the end of the day, take several slow deep breaths and then ask yourself “ how do i need to show up as the best [partner, parent, boss, etc] in the history of the universe.” Reflect for a moment, then proceed.
If things are so crazy that you’re buying lunch for everyone to work through, spend the money to buy a GOOD HEALTHY lunch. Don’t take “the easy way” and buy everyone pizza. Pizza or other heavy carbs will kill the productivity of your team. Order good nutritious stuff, with vegetables and proteins and good food
Fitness is going to be super important, all that stress gets released through fitness. Make it your JOB to get your 3 workouts in a week. Even if the only mental bandwidth you have is to just show up to fitness classes, or take an aggressive 30 minute walk, mark your calendar for those and make sure you go.
Sleep! Mark your bedtime on the calendar if you need to. You need your rest if you’re going to operate under these busy times at work.
Drink a lot of water. Dehydration shows itself as tiredness. Especially if you are over fifty.
The Eisenhower Matrix - If there’s too many tasks, for you or your team, visually organizing them on this matrix is really helpful to know where to target your effort. Here’s a Youtube video which helps explain the Eisenhower matrix and how to use it.
Andrew’s Offer
Andrew also offered all followers of the show free access to his “Influence Booster” and a free session to chat with him. I’d encourage you to check it out!
Download: Influence Booster Training and worksheet (Be instantly more influential with your client teams and project stakeholders): https://accelerate.teamlawless.com/the-influencebooster
Video
The Audio/Podcast
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made for employees to improve their productivity, improve their life balance, and live their best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. Thanks for checking out Productivity Gladiator! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Productivity Gladiator
00:06
Hey, I'm Brian Nelson Palmer. This productivity gladiator is about work-life balance and personal productivity. Today, I want to talk about what do you do when your workload triples? You may have experienced this maybe as an employee or a manager. Someone leaves for a job, another job or a job assignment, or maybe some new initiative starts, and all of a sudden you find yourself with two to three times the work you had before. So I want to talk about what you can do to help manage that overwhelm.
00:35
in the scheme of work-life balance. That's our topic for today. And with me on the show today is Andrew Lawless. He's a high-performance coach and the founder of the Consultant Profit System. The thing that connected, that I really thought about Andrew as I was thinking about the show topic, because one of Andrew's topics that I've learned over the years is he's really, he's about taking people from $100,000 a year to a million dollars a year. And it's that 10x the performance. And so,
01:05
I wanted to, I thought, man, Andrew would be the perfect guy to talk about this topic, because this is what it's about, is if you're going to go from 100,000 to a million, well, that's going to require double, triple, 10 times the workload too. So I thought, man, Andrew would be great for this. So with me is Andrew's on the show here with me today. Thanks for being here, Andrew. Hey, super. You know, thank you very much and thank you for that generous introduction. And it's my honor to be here. Absolutely. So let's talk about it. I want to kind of start with.
01:33
the lens of an employee, right? You've got an employee and you're going to work, you're doing your job and all of a sudden your workload doubles or even triples really. What do you do? Andrew, what comes to mind for you when that happens? What would you say? When that number one, I mean the reason why you feel that overwhelmed in general is because most people do not have clarity. Clarity in terms of what do we absolutely have to do right now?
02:03
in order to move a project forward versus what do we want to do or what is cool to be doing or where's our pet project, right? So, give an example with my wife and me when we bought a, we built a house in Ireland, right? So, once you get from the architect, you get the architecture blueprints and we looked at it and then eventually found the kitchen. And she and I had a...
02:28
really good conversation about like two hours or two hours, like what do you want the kitchen to look like? Yes. And which is meaningful, like where was the oven and the stove and this sink and the fridge and so on. The problem was we didn't even have a building permission at the time. Right. So if we only had spent 10 minutes on the building permission, we would have made more progress in that two hour conversation. So now look at your meetings, look at all the activities that you're doing.
02:56
And please hear what is it that I must do no matter what to move a project? Andrew, it's so funny you say that because one of the notes that I had to myself that I that I had for myself that I wanted to share is focusing on. I call it the one thing. And it seems kind of similar to what you're saying. There's actually a book. I think it's by Gary Keller called The One Thing. I read that book and the book is all about it's kind of like clarity, but is what is the one thing that I need to do next? So if you've got double or triple the amount of things you need to do, if you're clear on what is the one thing.
03:26
that you've got to do next on each of these projects or initiatives or whatever the workload that allows that focus right all right what is happening it's the one thing for this and the one thing in this one and the one thing in that one and say like i love it we're almost speaking the same language i call it the one thing you call it clarity perfect i love i like it cool yeah what else uh anything else comes to mind for for this well the first is the absolute clarity on what
03:56
to be focused and blend out every distraction, including shiny objects. Yes. And it's hard right now, especially when you work from home and you have kids around and now they're off school or you have ailing parents or you have other things going on. But most people get distracted by shiny objects. Okay. Right.
04:20
Yeah, so like, hey, I would like to do this or no, I did research. I started researching the topic on on YouTube. Yes. And then I found myself watching Springsteen videos for like half an hour. So, so that's to blend out all the distractions, including shiny objects. Uh, it's super important. Absolutely. There's some people talk about, they call it the, uh, like focus mode or something, or you can.
04:45
There's even, I know there's actually, I'll try to, I'll put a, I'll drop a link in the, in the episode for this, but I did a write-up on some of the, there's tools to like block out social media or I love it. YouTube, especially they have a browser extension that will eliminate all those recommended videos on the side so that you will search for something and you only watch that. And then there's no recommended videos to get lost in. Just exactly what you were saying. That's so funny. But the app is called Freedom that I'm using.
05:15
and you have no opportunity whatsoever to to to disable it. But it's but it's active or go online and go to YouTube or Facebook or Twitter or wherever you go. Absolutely. Cool clarity that. Yep, exactly. That focus time is good. And actually, you know, speaking to the focus time, one of the other things I wanted to share with folks was was about the it's called. Well, focus time, really, it has to do with they call it's focused.
05:44
for 25 minutes or 50 minutes at a time. Sometimes they call it a tomato timer. They have different names for this that I've heard, but the essential idea is that you focus in for a certain amount of time. So you lock in your calendar for 25 minutes or 50 minutes. And my favorite one is I have specific focus playlists that I put on too. So I close all the other windows, the phones closed. And then I also have, especially like at work, if there's big projects or something, your job is an email.
06:11
your job when they hired you, your job description wasn't to respond to email. It was to do something else or so having that focus time. I have specific playlists that are actually folk that are designed to help you focus. So there's no words. It's very much like a certain music or something that and the music changes after a certain amount of time, which goes with I'll share a link to this in the in the show notes for this, too, but it's awesome.
06:37
Yeah, I have that on Spotify. If you go on Spotify and look for ESM, electronic study music. ESM. Oh, I like that. ESM, electronic study music. Yeah, that's awesome. And you said the right thing. Email. If there's one, there are two productivity suckers, right? One is email. If you want to kill your productivity, just go to an email inbox. Right. Yes. Yep.
07:06
A, you find most of the emails in there, you are on somebody's CC list or BCC list, you don't even know why you're on it. You are on somebody's mailing list that is not relevant to what you have to do right now. All of that takes time and it drags you down. My suggestion for everyone is just have two slots, one in the morning, one in the late afternoon where you check emails.
07:36
Right. And if it's really important, they find you anyway. Right. Absolutely. That that's exactly how it works. Call you the drive by your house, right? They come to your office, whatever. They find you anyway. So stop email. Number two, meetings. So if every meeting that look at have you ever wondered why meetings take exactly an hour? Because that's how much time you give them. Right. There's no reason. Yeah. That's the whole reason for it.
08:04
And most meetings that we are in are either not relevant to us. Have you ever, like when you're in the corporate world, have you ever sat in a meeting and you realized, I have no need to contribute. Nothing to say, nothing to learn. What am I doing here? So leave. All you got to do is get up, take your stuff and say, we've got to be somewhere.
08:26
And you've got to be somewhere even if it's a bathroom. Exactly. You just leave. Oh, or tagging on. I love that we're like, yes. And in each other right now, like this is, oh yes. And one of my other favorite ones to do is, you know, there it's, it's funny. They say that you, they invite you to this meeting and you need to be in this meeting, but there are people who are out on vacation. And so oftentimes they will record the meeting. And if there is a recording and you're like,
08:53
you have two meetings that you need to be to, or maybe you don't, but you've got so much going on and they'll record that meeting. One of my favorite things to do is take that recording and then watch it. You can watch it or listen to it on two times or even three times speed because you know, they, they just sometimes in the meetings, they wish they could go faster or something like that. And so in this case, if you have two meetings the afternoon, you get the recording and then you play it on two times speed.
09:19
and you get all the information from an hour meeting in 30 minutes. Like that's one of my, oh my gosh, I love it when they record meetings because then, oh my gosh, if the meeting's being recorded, I can do something else. I can listen to it on two times speed or I can get one of those other projects that I need to do done and then tune into this in half the time, which, oh my God, that's my own little hack here that I love that one. We could just ask for minutes, right? Or if you actually have either for one portion of it, ask the meeting organizer.
09:48
if they can move that up so that you can be the first speaker when you're done. Exactly, yeah. If you kill meetings and if you kill emails, you already have one half a week back. That's gonna help you for sure. Yeah, one of the other, I was making notes for myself on, oh, what would I wanna share on this from a productivity gladiator perspective? A couple of things, one, if you got two times or three times the workload, you're gonna need to work with your boss.
10:18
on priorities because the answer, one of the, one of the things that I, I, I, that came to mind is, you know, if you get a 10% increase in work, like let's say you have 10 projects and now you've got 11, one of the things, especially with COVID or with virtual or whatever it is, like things that came up, people's habit is to tend to do the same thing they were doing and just do an extra hour.
10:43
because it's 10% more. So you don't change anything, you just add that little bit more to the top of all the stuff you were doing. And one of the lines that I hope people recognize is if the workload changes by more than 10%, oftentimes it's time to reshuffle, or it's time to change, or it's time to delegate something, or it's time, you might need to work some things around, because oftentimes businesses will look at it and they'll go, all right, well, they're just gonna keep loading until something breaks.
11:13
And so that's where I want to make sure that people recognize that like, hey, you need to prioritize the prioritization or pardon me, the prioritization on on this stuff is super important. So and that works with your boss. You're going to want your boss to delegate, because one of the other things that I can share is if if that happens, sometimes it's possible to write an SOP or something that you're doing. Some of the work that you're doing could be done by other people.
11:43
And so if you take the time to write an SOP document, maybe there's bandwidth to hire a temp or hire a person to come in. And when that person comes in, they're gonna need that SOP so that they can pick up. You're not gonna need to train them for days and days on something that's going on. And so that, but all of that will be collaboration with the boss and that piece. So make sure that you're prioritizing, right? That's a big one. 100% of that collaboration. I think what was very important that you said is that
12:12
We are all good and eager to pick up new work. We are not so good at letting go. Yes. So we pile on, we pile on, we will pile on. And then we wonder that we have too much to do. So when that happens, what you can always do is like go to your superior and say, boss or manager and say, you know what? Look, I have these tasks that I'm already doing. You're adding like these five to it.
12:41
I only have so many hours in a day, help me prioritize one here, right? So which ones are the, which one is the more, which are precious and which projects are expendable and let them make the decision, you know? That collaboration is such an important piece to it, right? And the other thing that I was thinking about is, oh my gosh, everything is not an emergency. If somebody's not bleeding,
13:09
where nobody's going to die, there's no life threatening situations. If there's 10 projects, then you have to make the decision on it's that prioritization and figuring out what happens if there's too much. And so that collaboration with your boss. Deadlines, deadlines are all arbitrary. There's very often no rhyme or reason, you know, why there is a deadline. Somebody made that up and most deadlines can be negotiated and, you know,
13:38
I would always ask, what is the reason for the deadline? And sometimes, let's say marketing campaign that you're managing, they don't need all of the material on the deadline, right? So they need some of them on the deadline, and then the majority of the other work can be staggered afterwards. But we just take a deadline for granted, even if there's consultants, yes, when clients come to us and say, hey, now we have a deadline.
14:08
Why is that? Tell me about that, right? There's there's some like I know in the government, there is one deadline that doesn't change and that's the end of the fiscal year that September 30th. That's it. Yes. The money runs out. Appropriations are done. Like I know that that one is true. However, on most other projects, there is an opportunity to change some of those deadlines or what? What is the reason behind the deadline? Is it just because the boss's boss said, Hey, I need this by this date or is there a, you know, that
14:35
The critical path for project managers is something, all right, is this a critical path? And then what is that critical path? Or if this is just, you know, Tari, you're exactly right. Deadlines are asked about those. So. I would say all of that can happen. And there are always legitimate reasons for stress. And sometimes we just got to grow all of our sleeves and go into military mode. So, you know, it's like there's no solution. We cannot delegate, we cannot dump it. You know, we have no other resources. We got to do it. And we may have even.
15:04
pull an all-nighter, which I'm not recommending, but then you do what you said earlier. What's the next step? Exactly. Yes, when you're military mode for me is like, let's go that one step, and then we'll see what's next and you get through it. But in most of the cases, I mean, just extreme cases, in most of the cases, for example, my clients, the first question I ask them when I start working with them, they say,
15:31
Open your calendar as either Google Calendar or online or written in a hard paper format. Guide me through your calendar. And if I cannot extract what exactly they're working on, what their priorities are, there's a problem. Yes. And that's true for most of us when we're starting out. Look at your calendar. If a third person cannot extract what's important to you right now, then you have a lot of stuff in there that can be...
16:00
that can be thrown out. And the other thing that I wanted to build up on that you said is the constant re-energizing, right? So what we're doing is we are waking up in the morning, go to the office, switch off the computer, right? And then we look at emails and energy fucked up, right? Then we sit in front of our monitors all day.
16:25
Every 50 minutes, get up, do some exercise, do some vinyasa, breathe, and get energy back into your body so that you're refreshed. Sleep eight hours a day. We know that if you haven't slept enough, your productivity the next day, you're basically going through the day half drunk and your productivity will decrease by 30%. You do yourself a disservice by saying, I've got to plow through here.
16:55
without taking a break. We're not at war, right? So we can take a break. So take every 10 minutes, take a break, walk around the block and drink a lot of water. Right here. Yeah, water. It's important. Yes. So true. And you and I, we both have type 1 diabetes. And as you know, when you have type 1 diabetes, you think about your blood sugar levels like every minute.
17:24
Right. So when other people say, Hey, let's go to this and go that we go like, Okay, I need to first I need to get my insulin and I get my blood sugar, I need to have sugar pills with me. And you know, I need to make sure that it's not that my insulin doesn't heat up and plan all of that. Yes. And still get things done this at the same pace and everybody else. So people like you and I, I'm not surprised that you are a productivity gladiator, because people like you and I, without that ability, we would not
17:54
be where we are right now because we are a little bit disadvantaged. It's thinking about those extra pieces, right? Those extra steps. You're exactly right. And the world doesn't stop just because you have something going on and vice versa. You know, I'd even flip that on its head and say that the work is not going to stop because you have something going on. So one of the things that's important, you know, one of I want to flip the script now. Andrew, let's talk about we were talking about employees, and I think we had a lot of really good.
18:23
nuggets that we shared there that employees can do offer to write that SOP, all those ideas that you had, those were good. I let's flip it now. Managers, if the workload now you're in charge of a team or a group or something and the workload for your group doubles or triples, what thoughts come to mind for you? Like, what do you share coaching and stuff with your clients? Now you've gone from 100 to 300 or 400 K. And what what thoughts?
18:53
come to mind? So there's a lot of reasons, there are a lot of reasons for burnout, right? So the number one reason that I'm seeing is that team, individual team members have been assigned tasks that requires them to work against their grade, right? So for example, I am a shortcutter, right? So if you want me, if you need to find a shortcut to get things done, I'm your guy, yes?
19:21
If you want me to follow procedure and be meticulous about it, I'm not the guy you want to work with. I would be your biggest nightmare. Or it will take me longer. I would struggle. I'm more mistake prone and it drains me out. So a lot of productivity issues derive from...
19:48
not understanding your team members' unique ability. That's what we call it. We all have a unique ability in how we work. So either the task that's been assigned is not working or the strength match between the manager and the employee is out of sync. I would highly recommend and I've made no money with that. There's an assessment called Call BA.
20:15
and the first thing I would do, I would go to colby.com, k-o-l-b-e.com, and have my team take, it costs like $55 per team members, have my team take a Colby A assessment, and then you can have, after that you can call Colby, and they will provide a Colby profile for you that will tell you exactly where the burnout in the team happens and which team members are.
20:44
at stake, there's an entire process there. And there's no better process than do that. If you want to invest in your team, that's the one exercise. I have rolled it out in Fortune 10 companies actually, entire vice presidencies that made like a huge difference in people. It's not that expensive. Yeah, Kolbe, K-O-L-B-E you said, right? Okay. I'll drop a link in the notes. And what it does is that...
21:11
There are three reasons why your team members are burning out and are not operating at the highest level that they could, because you drain them out with tasks. A, you give them tasks for which they do not have sufficient knowledge. Yeah, it's easy to fix. Yes. That's like one training and so on. But the second is that I hate the task. And third is, it's on a cognitive level. They, their natural talents, or the task requires them against to work against their grain.
21:41
And that's when they're not, when they're not, that's the, the best advice that I can give you. And most teams, when I work with them, they will tell me that the day they took the call BA index was the most liberating day in their life. Interesting. Okay. All right. Let's go put one out. Yeah. Number two, as a manager, there's, there's two things that you, that you're responsible for. A, you've got to co-create the work with your team.
22:10
Most managers, they try to figure it out themselves, and then they're dumping it over the team. But when the team co-creates, they own it with you. But yeah, and second is, and it's so often forgotten, your job outside of that, it's not measuring KPI, it's not measuring how many hours have somebody worked. That is not measuring output. It is managing the quality of the energy in your team.
22:39
that you need in order to perform. And if the energy is low, right? If the energy is low, you can do whatever you want, then the team is just not gonna perform. And most managers do not manage deliberately the energy of the teams. They let underperformers underperform, right? They spend most of their time with underperformers rather than with the overperformers. And the overperformers go there, huh?
23:09
I'm busting my butt here, but my boss is spending all of his time with these guys. Right? So managing your energy is so important. Learn how to manage your team. Infuse energy in your team that the team needs to perform. And everybody who does not contribute to the energy and is an energy sucker either needs to be called out or go if you have the ability. That makes a lot of sense.
23:38
Let them go. The energy. I love what you said there about energy, because that's you're right. There it oftentimes you find yourself dealing with the under performers or the your energy goes to trying to push along the slowest piece and making sure that you're giving the energy where the energy is coming from is different. That's a different paradigm. I like that a lot. I also.
24:05
I very much think, as I was thinking about this, I was like, okay, well, a couple of things that I would say, one for managers, you can't do it all. One of the things that I've seen managers tend to do, and this goes to that, even if the workload ups 10%, if a manager gets a new position, you get promoted inside the company, now you're taking on another role, you've stepped up and out of this one, but people will then still help out the other.
24:32
team or they were helping with this and you can't that's not. That's not healthy for you because now you're doing two jobs and it's just like we were talking about where all just do two jobs like people solution. If there's one extra project or you're taking on that as just, oh, well I'll work, you know, I'll work over my lunch break and I'll work, you know, a little bit, an extra at the end of the day. And at the end of the week, that's 10, 15 hours.
25:01
that you're doing, but the work's never going to end. So you looking at the idea is, all right, if the work was going to, if the work, instead of just one project, what if it was 10 projects? How would I treat this differently? And thinking about that will help keep your head on straight for like all the things we talked about before, but for managers, especially now you're managing to your team. Well, you've got to keep your team performing too. So delegation.
25:31
is key, empowering the people that you know that can do it. If you have a lot of single, uh, single bodies on the team. And when I say single bodies, what I'm driving at is if you have people where they're the only person who does that one thing, then you create situations where they have to be there. If they go on vacation, everything stops and that doesn't work. So you want to create delegation. It's that we talked about, I talked about outlining or SOPs earlier.
25:59
working with your team to have that outlined so that if someone wants to go on vacation, you gotta support your team and their vacations and their life, right? They wanna go do something that's important. So make sure that you're doing a good job of documenting the work and the processes and what needs to happen, where are we, so that you're not reliant on one person. It's not those single, the bottleneck.
26:27
avoid those bottlenecks if you can, and standardize the work so that, you know, get another person involved if you can. And I know sometimes that's not possible, but also as a manager, you've got to be going up, looking up above you going, we need resources. Like you can't, you, you as the manager are the one that's going to find the resources. And maybe if it's private sector or wherever you are, if you're in a for-profit or a nonprofit or something, you don't necessarily have to hire, you don't need a new full-time person.
26:57
Often times you go and you ask for that and they're just like, well, no, we can't afford to hire anybody right now. Well, if you have an SOP or some kind of standard operating procedure or some kind of document that here is the project that I need done and let me go hire a temp and I've done a good job, I need help with this part of all the work that we've got going on right now. And it's written down, so give me a temporary person. You gave me two to three times more work.
27:25
So when you give me resources, here's what I need them for. I need this for this person. I need this person to do this. And even if they're not permanent full-time employees, you can hire part-times, you can hire temps, you can hire virtual teams from other parts of the world. There are resources out there to help you if you can standardize that work and you know exactly what they need to do. Make sure you're delegating some of that stuff down and writing that down. There's power there. So look for those solutions, even if it's not another full-time employee. And...
27:54
And I would say, as any manager, especially when you get promoted or you have a new job, the first question that you ask yourself is, how can I make myself redundant? So true. Right? So that means you need to be focused on building a self-running team. And that means to empower them, that means that you infuse the energy into the team and you remove yourself as much as you can.
28:24
SPS and all of that is all good. But everybody who has children knows that children, let me say it, your team members are like your five-year-old children. And I mean that with respect, yes? Because if you have your children, never ever listen to you. They don't remember what you said, yes? But they always observe you.
28:52
Right. You can say, you can say, never ever touch, never ever put that part in here. And they see you do that all the time. You know, so they're like, OK, you know, so he does. Or they you tell your kids, if you don't, if you do that, here's the consequence. They never get the consequence. They learn nothing happens. They always they kids are so great. They observe your energy.
29:18
and they learn because they're also in a hypnotic learning states, right? So they observe and they learn by observing. Your team is the same. If you tell them don't work overtime and you work 14 hours every day, you know, there's a discrepancy and they see that. When you say, you know, when you as a boss want to manage by data and your team member comes to a meeting,
29:46
without the updated report and you still have a meeting, what are you telling the team? You're telling them, you know what, it's okay, you know, not to have your work prepared before you get up with me, you know? So I had one example with a PM of mine and she came from Ohio to DC, yes, to for, we had like a team meeting, we got all the team together with a party at night and so on, and I said, like, when you fly in from other areas, just...
30:13
you know, use their time for like a one-on-one meeting, right? And so she comes in and I said, okay, so they have to, we have, what do we call like a project prompter where they need to prepare everything in advance and so that we can quickly go quickly to the meeting. And I said, so where's your, where's your prompter? And she says, you know what, I was flying and so I didn't do it. So I'm like, okay, great. Then meeting over. She's like, what do you mean? Well, you know, the rules, you know,
30:41
We're not going to meet without the prompter. We said, but I flew all the way here. That's great that we can party tonight and everything, but we're not going to need now to waste all my time. And what do you think? She was upset. But what do you think the chances were that she came ever again to meeting without that cheat of the PR first? That's true. Yeah. Roll modeling is important when you man. And I would say that. And I just flashed back on I was in a meeting today earlier where somebody came in late.
31:10
and the person who started had started the meeting because they were five minutes late. And then they went back and repeated for that person, the five minutes again. Oh my God, please don't do that. It's their job to catch up. You're late. Oh, you need to get the most important information in the first five minutes of the meeting. Oh, goodness. So Andrew, talk about it for you personally now. Like, all right, outside of work, what...
31:34
It's because we're all human beings too. So we can certainly come up with all these tactics for while you're at work and the workload comes in. But what about for you as a person, when at work it doubles or triples and now you've got more going on, what about personally? What recommendations do you have? Like for example, one of the things that I have a note for myself on, if stuff kicks in, even if it doubles or triples, it is even more important for you to defend your personal time.
32:04
or you're, you are still a human being. You're still a dad. You're still a mom. You're still a family member. You're still, all of those things didn't go away. So you need to defend those. And when I say defend, that means when you sign off, even if you stayed two hours late, when you sign off, you're off, you're not going back and doing more. You're engaging with your kids and your family and your friends. You're still going out and doing that healthy stuff. So defending your.
32:30
life, your personal time outside of work, you've got to find a place to turn it off. Even if you worked a little more, make sure you turn it off and you turn it off completely so that you can just be a human and recharge so you can come back tomorrow and do some more. That's one of my thoughts. Any ideas? Yeah. Okay. So there are multiple aspects in there. One is like how to not bring the stress and the negative energy from a stressful work back home. Right?
33:00
And number one exercise that has actually saved marriages from amongst my clients is, so when you look at your day as a series of transitions, so when you leave the house, you get into the car, you drive to the work, you arrive at work, that's a transition. You go to your computer, you switch it on, that's a transition. You read your emails and then you go to the next meeting, that is a transition.
33:27
You're done with the next meeting, you go to the next meeting, that's a transition, and so on. So at one point, you leave work and you arrive at home, and you meet your family. That's a transition. And before every transition, so instead of scheduling an hour of everything, schedule 50 minutes, and then you have five minutes to recharge, and then...
33:55
you can make a mental reset. And the way that works is this. You just close your eyes and you relax and you think, release, release, release. And you feel like the tension in the brain, the forehead, that all melts away and the neck, release, release, release. That's all you gotta do, right, for a minute or two. And then...
34:25
at the end you just ask yourself one question which is how do I need to show up as the best husband and father or mother whatever you are a significant other in the history of the universe yeah right and um yeah well and I give you that not for my by my own life uh what's that two and a half years ago about two hundred years ago
34:52
We lived in Ireland, my wife and I, we have property there, and in Galway, which is the West Coast. It rains, it was the worst day, blustery, rainy day, and nobody goes out when it rains that much on a Monday night. But we had the opportunity to find a babysitter, one of our nieces was available for babysitting, and we said, let's go on a date. Yes. So we rushed on the date, we parked the car, we couldn't park it right in front of the restaurant, so we just
35:21
rushed around the building. And as we go and get into the restaurant, we were soaking wet from the rain. It was cold. It was soaked with cold rain. Soaking wet. We go into the restaurant. We were just one out of two couples. And the restaurant was cold. The server was slow. The wine was... It sucked. But before we left the house, I went through that exercise and I said, okay, so release, release, release, release. And then I said, how do I need to show up?
35:51
as the best husband in the history of the universe at that date, for that date. And when you go on a date, then it's always about the other person. Yes, it's never about you. And so all of it, all of the circumstances were less than perfect. It was just me and her. And I was like, totally tuned in. You know, what about you? And in old days, I would have.
36:17
called the waiter and said, the food is cold, the wine is less, bring it back to the chef. But I would have dragged my wife to another restaurant and so on. But none of that mattered. And we had the best date that we had in such a long time. And we were so glad that we did, because little did we know that would have been the last date we will have in the next two and a half years, because like a month later, we went into lockdown. Oh, yeah. Okay.
36:45
Every moment matters. You never know when you meet somebody for the last time. You never know when you have a chance to do this again. Yes. And every matter matters. So, set an attention. How do I show up as the best husband, best father, best friend, best son, best daughter, whatever, in the history of the universe when I go there? That's powerful.
37:14
That's also true for like sometimes you have problems at home. Yes. So when you enter the door, do you already know what the problems are? Most of the time. Yep. So set an attention. How will I as a father or mother, my father or husband, handle that situation as the best version of myself? And that setting that intention is that makes such a big difference. I like that a lot. How can I how do I need to show up?
37:42
Say release four times, big four deep breaths. How do I need to show up? That would only take 20 seconds, but man that would be powerful. Between meetings, but ooh that's a good one. Just take a break, release, release, release, okay. Here's my next encounter. I'm going, so yeah. So when I go out with friends, you go show up, you know, ask the question. Ah, Andrew I love it. I got.
38:08
The one of the other things that came to mind for me was defending your, your, your fitness, your sleep and what you eat. Right. One of the things that happens if the workload doubles or triples or something, some businesses will buy lunch for employees, but if the lunch is to get everybody pizza, you just killed it. So as the manager, you know, remember that you're getting something that good nutritious food, make sure you're ordering.
38:38
good stuff, you're going for vegetables and proteins and good, you know, what a good food, not just get them some pizza and make sure for you personally, managers and employees and everybody, your fitness is going to be super important. All that stress gets released. Fitness is a big thing. So even if you don't have time, some people are gym fanatics. They plan their own workouts. If you get into a bind where you're just busy fitness classes are even an option because all you have to do is show up.
39:07
the instructor plans the whole, I'm a fitness instructor. When I show up in a class and I teach one of my classes, I know what's happening, all you have to do is get there. And so when time is crunched, make sure you're working out, like do it like it's your job. Like you got three times a week, you gotta make it, do something, even if it's running around the block or whatever it is, set aside that time, put it on your calendar, plan it. Even if you have to do it with the kids because you don't have time because of the work, make sure that there's fitness, you're eating well.
39:36
and you're sleeping too. You gotta give yourself a bedtime because otherwise you just keep running and keep running. But if you eat, sleep and fitness, make sure don't lose track of those. So. I whole lot agree with that. I would add to it, drink a lot of water because dehydration shows itself as tiredness first. Fun fact. Yep, exactly. Yeah, dehydration shows up as.
40:04
as exhaustion. Absolutely. Especially over 50, by the way, when you're over 50, your body loses the ability to detect dehydration. Really? Okay. And so that's why in Europe, when it's so hot and people die, most of them die of dehydration. That's a fair point.
40:28
You know, it's so funny you're there and I just subconsciously without thinking, I took my hand over and I was going to grab, you're talking like this, and I was going to grab my water bottle and take a drink. Oh, dehydration. Oh, let me get some of that. I didn't even think about it. Like, oh, I caught myself. Oh, don't put that on camera. Anyway. And you know, like a movement is so important. And even if you're out of shape, I'm out of shape a little. I always used to be on top.
40:56
but with all everything that was going on. So I let that go a little and I feel that you get sluggish and so on. And we know that the moment people start moving their bodies, yeah, stands while you're working. Yes. But even just half our block walk around the block makes like such a significant difference in level of energy. It doesn't have to be an exercise. Just a brisk walk half an hour on the block.
41:22
or the neighborhood. So one last one for you, Andrew. What's the any resources that you would recommend if people want to go further into this rabbit hole or they're in the middle of a double or triple workload situation for themselves? Anything that you would recommend? Slow down. I would always slow down and review your priorities. Look at what is what you actually must do versus what is what is wanted. Yes.
41:50
Make sure that you're from the very beginning, put a built in to your point, the re-energizing, rejuvenating exercises and time, which means don't by the way, check your emails first thing in the morning, never ever. The more you're in the email inbox, the better. Exactly. Plan your day. That's what I would do. Yoga is great. Meditation is wonderful.
42:20
And I've always underestimated the... Yeah, there's the... Well, a couple of things that came to mind for me. If you haven't, I've got the book that I mentioned earlier called The One Thing by Gary Keller. I'll put the link to that in the app. If you wanna, that's a good read if you're in the middle of overwhelm or you got a lot going on, it helps with that focus. And then the other thing, of course, the Eisenhower matrix is something that a lot of people have talked about over time. You've got the important and urgent scale.
42:47
If you have that many tasks and you're feeling the overwhelm or it's tripled, doubled or tripled, then you've got to start making decisions. That's, it's sometimes helpful to get it on that matrix. And you can go on YouTube and look up Eisenhower Matrix. And there's people who will help you with that if you've never heard of that. But many people have heard of the Eisenhower Matrix. And I'll make sure that I also share in here, you know, we talked, you talked about the Colby assessments. I'll drop that link in the notes for this episode. Yeah.
43:14
That was my other thing. I have a Colby A, Colby B. And then you compare Colby B is how you perceive the work and Colby A is how you measure what your strengths are. And then you can have a boss as well. And it's not so expensive. It's a very good, very, very good investment. The other thing that I want you to know is you can always reframe issues, right? So when you're on the receiving end and your boss says, you know what, we, I,
43:44
and the boss wants you to take on a task and you don't want, you can always say, I agree with you, that is a very important task. Therefore, I suggest that we give it to somebody who can give the undivided attention. So there are ways to reframe things more elegantly. Or when you're the boss, because I can agree that you overworked, but the issue is not that you have
44:12
too much work, the real issue is prioritization. So why don't we set an hour aside and we prioritize your work? Right. So for that, like, if you want to know how to do those reframes, from a behavior science point of view, I'm offering everybody here influence, prompter influence
44:40
And there's a training, 10 minutes training, and you can reframe any issue that you have so that you can give back work, refuse work, or change the nature of work in any way, shape, or form. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, the influence booster. I'll include that in the link for the episode here too, so you guys can check that out. It'll be on the page as well with Andrew. So here's what I love. Andrew, thank you so much for being on the show. Here's what I love that you, I love that.
45:06
You are taking what it's interesting how your work with individuals and high performance coaching really applies to this topic area too. But I love that you really, it's a, it's a personal thing for you too. You're talking about some of the stories you shared were, you know, your the situation with your wife or your kids or so what we're talking about is not just about being the best of the best at work, but this stuff applies.
45:32
outside too. And so I love that you bring that dynamic because it's about the person. It's not just about the job. So thank you very much for joining me on the show today. And if they want to read more about you or they want to connect with you later, where would they, where's the best place to go? First of all, thank you very much for having me. I have allergies here right now because we have cedar wood everywhere here in the hexes right now.
45:57
But it was an absolute honor to be here. If you want to get in touch with me, very easy, go to meetandrewlawless.com. Meetandrewlawless.com. You will get access to my calendar right away. If you went there today, you would see that you probably will not have to go to next month in order to find an appointment. So don't wait for too long. But yeah, so go there and...
46:26
I'd be absolutely. And that's a pretty conversation. So I have thoroughly enjoyed talking to Andrew over the years, and we've kept in touch about these different things and productivity and diabetes and all the different things. But so I love chatting with him. So if that's something that you're interested in, please do look him up. And for everybody else, thank you so much for tuning in today. And we'll see you next time on Productivity Gladiator.
Paul McFadden - Support Work-Life Balance By Changing Workplace Culture As An Employee & Supervisor
In this episode Brian and Paul dive into life balance, looking at it through the lens of what you CAN control as an employee and as a supervisor, and setting outside the things that are out of your control like company culture and policies. Getting over that helpless feeling of “there’s nothing I can do”.
Paul McFadden is a high performance coach, a culture change expert, and the founder of Zero Point Leadership
Guest: Paul McFadden
Founder, Zero Point Leadership
website: www.zeropointleadership.com
IG: @neurosomatic_leader
LinkedIN: linkedin.com/in/pmcfadden
Overview
In this episode Brian and Paul dive into work-life balance, looking at it through the lens of what you CAN control as an employee and as a supervisor, and setting outside the things that are out of your control like company culture and policies. Getting over that helpless feeling of “there’s nothing I can do”. During the show, the following great knowledge nuggets came up:
For employees
What does work-life balance look like for you?
Are you clear on what your LIFE balance is? People aren’t often looking for Work-Life balance because they need help with prioritizing and enjoying “work” more, it’s normally because they feel like they’re missing the “life” part.
Have the “expectations” conversation with your direct boss. Get really clear on what the expectation is. Ask lots of questions. Discuss with supervisor over work hours expectations & response times to communications. Differentiate between expectations after hours and during work hours.
Sign off at the right time (the only person incentivized to look out for your life balance is you)
Schedule-send emails after hours (avoid the “they’ll respond even at midnight” reputation). YOU can send the email at midnight, but schedule-send it to arrive at 8am the next day.
If you have too much on your plate, collaborate with your boss on what truly is top priority. Make sure your priorities match your boss’s expectations.
Do you have accountability for yourself on whether you “remember” to schedule send emails or forget one of the above? Creating a “pause point” to follow this is important
For Managers
“Do as I say, not as I do” isn’t fair. Your behavior, your actions, will set expectations. You have to do what you say and say what you do, especially as it comes to work-life balance.
Schedule-send emails after hours. You work late, your email shouldn’t arrive late though. Even if you say don’t work late, if you send emails late it sets a precedent
Address every email with “Hi ____” because they’re a person. acknowledge them as a person first, before asking for something or telling them what you need. It just takes a couple words, a split second but it means a lot.
“The pain of not changing has to be greater than the pain of changing in order for us to change.” This builds up over time, so making sure that you take a break.
Supervisors have it even harder, you have to look out for your own work-life balance, AND consider your employees too. It’s harder, and more important than ever for you.
Take an interest in your employee’s lives outside of work. Make it a point to chat with them about things outside of work, at least 5 minutes every few weeks. It means so much to them.
Support your employees time off, and ask how it went when they return. Make sure that anyone with use-or-lose doesn’t have it because they feel like they can’t take the leave, make sure it’s their choice. Push them to take their time to do something for them too.
Have a channel in your Slack/Teams channel that’s NOT work related so people can just be funny, just be human. You as the supervisor should be stoking and feeding that channel too. Post about people’s bdays and funny stuff.
The WHY
Around the 36:30 time slot, Paul really dives into this one, you should listen to the full episode, and listen to Paul dive into some of the science. People who don’t have balance end up stressed. We create a toxic environment, and that builds up over time and that becomes “chronic”. “Chronic levels of stress”, “Chronic levels of anxiety” and more. 60% of our diseases come from our inability to handle stress. Without balance in your life, it builds up in your system and it causes adverse health effects.
Resources Discussed
Books:
When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, by Daniel Pink
Work Reimagined: Uncover Your Calling, by Richard Leider
Work Life Brilliance, by Denise Green
Workshops & Coaching:
Paul discussed his workshops and new coaching program he is launching through Zero Point Leadership
Brian discussed his Work-Life Balance Workshops.
Video
The Audio/Podcast
About The Creator/Host: I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made for employees to improve their productivity, improve their work-life balance, and live their best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. Thanks for checking out Productivity Gladiator! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.
Episode Transcript
00:00
Productivity Gladiator.
00:06
I'm Brian Nelson Palmer and I want to answer the question I hear most often from my work life balance workshops, which is what can you do as an employee and as a manager to help change your workplace culture to one that supports work life balance? Because it's this thing, oftentimes it's a helpless feeling sometimes with that because the policies are made and they're outside of your control. But there are things that you can do. And with me on the show today, I have Paul McFadden, who's the head of zero point leadership
00:35
And Paul, why don't you tell them just a little bit about you and Zero Point Leadership? Great. Thanks. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate that. So it's zero point leadership. I'm the CEO of Zero Point Leadership. And I basically work with high potential minority women leaders. I work with young executives and I work with business owners. I'm really trying to help them become better version of themselves. Right. And why am I doing that? Because that's going to help them have happier, healthier and more productive lives.
01:05
Because when you start thinking about when we were all growing up we went to school whether with the school or not trade school Whatever it was we all had dreams. We had kind of a spike we had this dream about what our life was going to look like Yeah, and some of us have found that doesn't look like that True story, right? Yeah, but you know But we all have that still that desire driving us to create that life that we've always wanted Right, and that means we have to do some things. We got to change ourselves
01:33
in order to make that happen. So it's really a shift in lifestyle. So it's not just a lease system, it's like shifting the entire lifestyle. So I help individuals shift, make that lifestyle shift so they can have what they want. Absolutely. So Paul and I were connected through a community organization that we both belonged to. And then I found out about Zero Point Leadership. And one of the things that he talks about is culture change. And that's what really drew him in. I'm like, all right, Paul, let's talk about this because this is something that could be it. So let's...
02:02
Let's focus it. The first thing I kind of want to ask you about, Paul, and I've got some ideas that I want to share with everybody too, but I, the big thing is focused on things you can control, right? There's the, there's that idea that there's things that are, you can control and things that are outside of your control. So things that are outside of the control that we're not really talking about today are, you know, policies or true culture of the entire organization is something that you don't have control over. But the feeling of helplessness, oftentimes there are things that you can do.
02:31
So I want to talk about employees and managers. So let's start with employees. Paul, what would you say for employees that are really, when it comes to work-life balance, what are things that you can do as an employee to make a difference? What comes to mind for you? Yeah, well, there's a couple of things. And I guess, as you were saying that, I was thinking about getting down to the roof. And so it's like, you sit there and think about, how do you define work-life balance? Like, what is it?
02:58
Because everybody's got this own version of what a work-life balance looks like. Like for me, I look at it as life balance because there is work and work is necessary in order for us to pay the bills, support our families, all the things that we feel like we need to do to make us feel successful and fulfilled. And then life is this experience that we live. Now, some of us allow our jobs to kind of overtake life and the job becomes life.
03:29
versus life being life and job is just something that you do to help you kind of feed into those pleasures and those things that you want to enjoy. So part of that really is, I mean, so I guess primarily first, it's a mindset around what balance looks like. And we certainly take cues from other people, we have certain belief systems and values, but we really got to get clear about what that looks like for us first. So that's the first thing I would say.
03:59
that comes to mind. But then secondly, once you have that clear vision of what it is, you have to align everything you do in your life to that. Right? Right. Yeah. We just say it out loud. It just got to align your life to these things, right? This is what I, this is what I envision balance looking like, and I'm gonna start doing that. But yeah, but then there's these other things that come in. Like you're used to working in a culture where you're on call 24 seven. You're used to, you know, responding to emails and voicemail whenever you get them.
04:29
what time of day it is. And if those things, and if we don't draw boundaries, personal boundaries around those things, those things we control, we control our boundaries. But it's how you articulate your boundary that becomes most important. Because you can have a boundary only work until 6 p.m. That's great, Brian, but when your boss calls you at 6.05, what are you gonna say?
04:52
That's a tough conversation. That's tough, right? Yeah. It's a tough conversation that you know how to articulate that in a way that the person on the other end of that line is going to be able to hear you and respect that boundary. So that takes some people navigation skills to be able to do that because it's not just saying talk to your boss or talk to your colleagues or talk to whatever that has to happen. But most people don't want to have that conversation because it typically causes conflict.
05:23
and we avoid conflict. Yep. So the answer is, I could say, well, the answer is to be conflict-avoidant. But that's different from person to person. We're all human beings. Yeah. So then how do you do that? So then you've got to learn how to navigate your own emotional responses. And you've got to be able to navigate how you have conversations. So those are the three things that popped in mind initially right off the top. Yeah.
05:50
For me, I was, first I like what you said about, it's kind of an internal thing too, because the interesting thing about work-life balance, like I teach a workshop called Work-Life Balance, Find and Plan Yours, where I step through with employees on, all right, let's find it. And managers, frontline managers, middle managers, that's that group, because it's not hopeless. But you also kind of have to have a plan. And I love what you said about finding that balance and articulating what it is for you, because it also is like,
06:19
People generally don't come for advice on work-life balance because they're hoping to work more. Generally, the part of this that comes into the conversation is it's the life part of work-life balance that they're missing. That's why we have this discussion. People are generally really good about put it going all in on just work all the time. So that's it. So for employees, I would actually say, first, the discussion you brought up about how do you have that conversation with your boss or what happens if they call you at 605?
06:48
And so one of the things is having that sort of expectations conversation with your boss is super important because your boss is gonna be your primary point, right? It's totally different if the boss's boss's boss calls you at 6.05, it doesn't matter what you and your boss said, but if the boss calls at 6.05 or having that discussion with the boss around the hours and response times on emails, that's super helpful. And for that one, as an employee, you don't have to go in with an agenda to that meeting.
07:17
You go in just asking the questions. You want to know what they're thinking, because it's really you syncing with your manager. So that discussion, that's a big one. And I think also, so my second point is signing off at the right time. If you work until six, oftentimes people will stay on and they'll work until six, 6.30, seven. Like my time is six, but I'll put in a little bit longer. And so then what happens is you start to let that bleed
07:47
that it's hard to roll that back sometimes. So standing up for yourself, the thing to remember is the only person incentivized for the life balance, the only person incentivized to look out for your life balance is you. Like your boss is incentivized to get the work done, and they want the work. But like, so the life balance, the only person looking out for you is you when it comes to that. So you have to stand up for yourself. The other one is schedule send.
08:16
your emails. And this is a good one. You were talking about six o'clock or 605 or they call it that time. One of the things is that people notice without even meaning to sometimes people notice what time your emails come in. And they assume that whenever you sent the email is when you're working until. So if you're going to work late, there's no reason if something comes to mind, you can't log on at midnight if you want to. But Outlook or Gmail, any of the email services you have have an ability to schedule send the email.
08:46
And so make sure you just hit that option. So you can send the email at midnight while you're thinking about it, but it will not get delivered until eight in the morning or whenever the start time is. And that will really help because that also affects people's perceptions of you and when you're actually working. So have at it whenever you want to, but remember to schedule, send those emails. And then, oh, and I wanted to, I have one more for you, Paul. I was thinking, and then I'm curious on if you had any ideas on what I would just shared,
09:15
If you have too much on your plate, the other reason people tend to be late is because there's so much they've got to do. And there's always going to be so much. So having that conversation with your boss also about, you know, you should have a touch point every once in a while with the boss about, here's all the things that I'm working on. And understanding the priorities. Because if you're going to stay late to work on something, it should be the important something. And if it's not important, then don't stay on just because. So having that.
09:45
priority check with the boss is also helpful, I think, for employees. So that was what came to mind for me. Did anything come up for you when I was talking there, Paul? Yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you for, yeah, because those are things that, those are practical things we can do, right? And that's the thing, we got to do things practically. And to kind of piggyback on what you were saying about these different things, the actions we can take, it's really having a personal accountability system in place to kind of check yourself.
10:14
Right? Because it is easy to say, I'm going to schedule, send all my email messages after hours. But are you really doing it? Right? Because sometimes we get caught up in the moment. Right? We just hit send. And so we don't really create a pause point for us to think about, I'm going to send this message right now. How's that going to impact the person that's going to receive it? And what's their perspective going to be? Because am I feeding into this culture?
10:42
with my own behaviors or am I trying to do things to not feed into it? And so being able to create a pause point is something that's going to be very necessary and required in thinking about applying all these practical strategies because only you, like you said, only you are the one that's contributing to this. It's only you. So how do you make sure you don't make the wrong decision, even though you've got a whole checklist of things you know you can't do? Because...
11:11
We're not talking about rocket science, right? We're not saying that, oh, you know, if you do these 10 things, you're gonna be productive. Those things are true, but how are you gonna take yourself? You know, and that's gonna be something that's gonna be necessary as well. Yeah, I think you're right. Well, so shift gears then. We were talking about that. The idea first was the employees, right? You're an employee under the boss, and what can you do? Let's shift gears now to the...
11:40
of frontline supervisors and mid-level managers who have, you might have a level or a couple of levels underneath you, and how do you affect that work-life balance culture just for your team specifically? What can you control? What comes to mind? Yeah, so as a leader, there's a lot, the sphere of influence is much larger, right? Because it's not just you, it's other people's
12:10
Right, so it is incumbent upon the leader to kind of recognize that and knowing that their behaviors, whether the employees say something or not, they're trying to, they're emulating their boss. Whether it's good or bad behaviors, that doesn't really matter. It's what the boss or the supervisor kind of tone that they're setting. And most of that, much of that tone is kind of unconscious or non-conscious below where it's not explicitly stated.
12:34
Right. But it's the actions, not the words. And if the words mismatch, we're going to follow the actions versus the words. You know, this is like, for example, if a leader tells you that I've been working with many leaders, you know, um, I have an open door policy. So if you have questions or comments or concerns about how things are going here and in, in the workplace, you can stop by my office at any time, but then you go by that person's office and the door is always closed. That's not an open door policy. True story.
13:02
were stated, and this happened to, I've worked in many environments where this was true, and I'm sure people can relate to that. The words were stated, but the actual behavior and the accessibility wasn't given. So was it an open door policy? No. It was just stated that way. And so, and that has an impact on how people will perform in collaborating in the workplace. And so if you're a leader and you don't have control over your own life balance,
13:32
How do you expect your employees, your staff, your teams to have control over their life balance? So you have to really emulate that yourself first. So as a leader, there's a lot of times as leaders we think, well, I just need to have my team or my people do this. Are you doing it? That's the first step, are you doing it? And if you're not, figure out how to get a good balance in your life and then that way you can then impart that on other people. Because again, people are gonna say,
14:00
do as I say, not as I do. And it's actually the opposite, do as I do, not as I say. Amen, right? It's that whole like put your, you're on the airplane and they're like, yeah, put your mask on before helping others. And that, I mean, that's the idea. Like you have to be living it too. People very much follow what you, you're exactly right. What you, they follow what you do, very much so too. Yeah. And it's biological. I mean, it's a biological thing. I mean, we're human beings. And so we're kind of wired that way. Yeah.
14:30
We have to have that understanding that, yes, people have to individualize. Yes, people make their own individual choices. That's true. But we have, we have the ability to influence what others do. Basically. Yep. And that's, so that's, that's important. As, as I was preparing to chat with you about this, I had like thoughts that came to mind and one of them that came up again for managers is also the same tip, which was, do you schedule send your emails?
14:59
and especially to your employees, right? Because you're allowed to work at midnight. I mean, these days with a lot of some of the remote work that's happening and people around, like you're not necessarily sitting in your office from nine to five and those are your work hours and when you leave your office, you're done. Now, you and your work are kind of coexisting in your life together at various times. And so respecting people's, if you send an email at 10 p.m.
15:29
on Friday, then are you expecting a response any time before Monday morning? And if you're not, then schedule send that email for Monday morning at 8am. So that and it doesn't and it's fine. You can you can work late. I'm one of those people that has to get stuff out of my head immediately when it happens. Like if it's something that's coming up for work, I got to get it out of here because you can't remember everything. So I just I send the email but schedule send the email so that it doesn't
15:58
come late, and especially for your employees, that's part of them, you were just saying do as I say, not as I do, or that, it they're going to very much look to you as do what you do, because you're supposed to be setting the example. So if you're sending emails at 10 o'clock on Friday, they're going to think, Oh, my God, this person works. I don't know if I'm going to jive with this person, because they work at 10 o'clock on Friday. So you know, so that's make sure you take advantage of that, because that's a that's a very easy thing that actually makes a big difference.
16:27
So that's, that came to mind immediately. And another one that, you know, idea for managers to, in your emails, address every email with, Hi, Paul, or Hi, Brian, or address the person. Very much in email culture, I mean, I have a day job where I very much work in a big organization, and I have supervisors. And so I very much, I can relate to this too. And I also have people underneath me and have worked in supervising. You know, it's that,
16:56
There's all these different levels, but one of the things is if you acknowledge them as a person in the beginning of every email, so you say, hi Paul, and then I need you to do this, this, this, and this, but you acknowledge them as a person first, not just as your colleague. That kind of speaks to some of that culture we were talking about. So that actually means a lot when you acknowledge the person before you asked or tell for something. So that's a funny one. And it's an important driver for all people.
17:25
So all human beings, there's really like five primary social needs that we have. And what you're talking about is this need for relatedness, which is really about the need for connection. And we all need it on different levels. It's how we've survived as a species for as long as we have. But even in the workplace, we still need to feel connected with the individuals that we're working with. We need to feel connected with the individuals who are leading us. We need to feel connected with ourselves. And we need to be able to trust that connection is there and it's genuine and that it's real, because that's how we build trust.
17:55
And so if we're not having that connection and someone's just kind of directing us, of course we're gonna respond in kind. And many times we're gonna respond to avoid some negative repercussions, we're out of fear. So I'm trying to protect myself and I'm wanna protect my job and I'm getting these messages or have these expectations placed on me, but either spoken or unspoken, typically they're unspoken, in order to react and respond in...
18:22
Of course I'm going to do that because I don't want to see what's going to happen if I don't. And that happens in a split second. We don't consciously even think about those things. It's just because once that has been established as a pattern, we will continue to follow through with it until we find a reason not to follow that. So it's like we won't change anything about ourselves unless the pain of not changing is greater than the pain associated with the change. So we won't change anything.
18:52
Yeah, because that's enough. That's a big point Right Let me say it again So the pain of not changing has to be greater than the pain of changing and if that is true Then we will change If the pain of changing is worse than the pain of not changing. Guess what? We're not going to change Yeah Wow, it's so true paul and all those
19:18
And I feel like what happens too is if you do this over, what we're talking about right now, schedule, sending emails, using high or whatever, what happens is it builds up and builds up over time. And so then people get to the point where they're like, I just got to quit my job. We're in the middle of the great resignation and that kind of stuff. And so you've got five years of them never saying your name in the beginning of an email and sending emails at crazy times and whatever, and then it builds up and it builds up and it builds up. And then finally you're like, man, rather than fixing any of this,
19:48
get out of here, I am done. Like then you burn out and those kinds of things. So that, and that's where you talked about the pain of change. Oftentimes, it's a buildup, right? That's not a sudden, that's not a knockout punch that just happens where the pain, I can't take another one of those I'm leaving. It's like a little more and a little more and a little more. And then that's where the pain is so much, right? That's exactly, that's exactly it. Because you know,
20:13
If you think about how we, and I'm gonna talk about it from the perspective of stress, because we talk about how we deal with stress, stressors in our environments, right? And so you go to work, if you have dealt with someone who is a workplace bully, or if you've dealt with someone who maybe is a little bit overly aggressive with you, and you kind of feel like there is a disconnect between your relationship. So there's conflict, right? Basically, it's called a conflict. There's conflict. Over time, that becomes chronic.
20:43
The little things, they start to nag at you, but as long as it happens day in and day out, it builds up and it builds up and it builds up. This is why burnout happens because we can't manage and navigate anymore, but it really is about our response to the stresses that we're dealing with day in and day out. If they make us feel great, it's fine, but if they make us feel bad, we probably got a problem if we don't do anything to shift that. So you're right. Having that burnout and that situation happen, we have to, like you said, the great resignation.
21:13
The individuals who are leaving are basically saying, you put me on pause for two years where I didn't have to deal with this situation anymore and I became aware of it. And I became very, very, I became aware of it consciously that this was the cause of these situations happening to me or the situation, maybe it impacted my health. Maybe I have anxiety, maybe I have this fear of avoidance of conversations. And I didn't have to experience that for two years. Then you tell me, I go back to the workplace and then...
21:42
Well, did you fix that situation? No. Okay, well, we fixed your physical safety. Yeah, we made sure everything was clean and we did this. We got protocols in place and guidelines. What about my psychological safety? Because at the end of the day, if we want to change the things we can control, right? So as a leader, you can impact someone else's perception of their psychological safety, just by how you address, how you approach and how you interact with an individual.
22:10
And so we have to change the way we interact with people that we want, particularly if you want to talk about culture change, but if we're just talking about work-life balance, we have a biological impact on other individuals. If we don't, like I said in the beginning, if we don't demonstrate it ourselves, or the people that we work with aren't going to see it. They're not gonna think it's attainable because we're not doing it. We're not emulating ourselves. And so our responsibility as leaders really is to manage and manage ourselves.
22:40
better. That's our primary responsibility. Manage ourselves better.
22:46
And I want to, I even want to tag in and appreciate frontline managers and mid-level managers, kind of like we're talking about now, you get it from both sides, right? Because you have your own work-life balance, which is a thing. And you're also dealing with directors and people above you and managers and chiefs and whoever, whatever titles they have, there's people above you that are coming down. So now you're getting it from above and below. So the balance is even, it's even more.
23:15
And so you very much the, you know, the stuff we talked about for employees applies to you because you still have your workload and then you have the stuff you have to take care of the people below you as well with that kind of stuff. And so it's, it's a lot. So I, as I, as you were talking, I was thinking about, okay, well, actually I had a couple other things that I wanted to share for the managers too. One of the things aside from doing everything that we talked about for the employees, also for you guys, the, for the middle managers, a couple other things to remember.
23:45
is to take an interest in your employees lives outside of work. Because part of it just has to do with, are they a person? If they're just, you know, the oftentimes the feeling of burnout comes, it's a, it's like you're just a cog in the wheel. They don't care about you. They just want to know, did you respond to my email? And that's it. But if you ask about how they're doing, how their kids are doing, do you know them at all or take an interest? Do you know their name? Do you, that kind of stuff that's, that can make a difference. So,
24:14
having that interest in that person and I gotta say it, but standing up for their time off and what happened in their time off, that's a big thing because part of it is if you're just looking to them on, Hey, what have you done for me at work lately? And that's it. That's where the light we talked about work life balance. Well, at work, there's only work and there's no life. And so then their perception, whether you meant it that way or not, their perception is my life.
24:42
doesn't matter to you at all. You don't, it's just work. All I am for you is work. And so over time, that's what we talked about, that buildup where it becomes so too painful to stay kind of thing. It's that buildup. So having those conversations about what, you know, what are you doing for vacation? Where are you gonna go? How was it? Tell me how the trip was, or and ask those specific questions. You know this stuff as managers, but like, you know, asking instead of just, how was it? Was it good?
25:12
Like ask them, what is the top two things that come to mind from that trip that are so memorable or something? And then they'll tell you a story. And man, like, you know, human beings are about stories. It's about the stories. So having having that connection with them where they shared those couple of things and then you, you know, remember that you take an interest in them. So remembering to support their time off because the time off is where they get the balance. That's we talked about building up and building up. They take that leave.
25:41
And then they come back and you're interested in what they did, where they went, even if it's a, it's like a four minute conversation. It's not a lot, but then you're interested in that kind of resets them down to here. So they don't want to run away and quit like I'm done. So that's just that it's that personal interest stand up for their time off and ask them about them, know them as a person too, not just as a cog in your wheel or a cog in the system. Yeah. And so here's, here's one of the things that
26:11
when I was when I was employed years ago when I was employed, you know, it takes me back to thinking about how I treated my the people that work with me. Right. So, you know, some practical things. And I think that sometimes we forget we can do these things. My one on ones were never about checking in on status of report of programs and projects and where we were this week with this thing. My one on one was a 15 minute check in about where are you with your life? How's the family doing?
26:39
What do you need? What kind of support do you need in order to kind of achieve your goals? You know, there was an authentic, genuine interest and curiosity in what was going on in our life. Like you said, you gotta make people are human beings and we gotta treat people as humans, right? There is a connection that needs to happen. We don't have trust if we don't connect. So we have to connect in order to build trust. So there's that rapport building, but it's like, as a leader, when do I do that? Try it in your one-on-ones.
27:08
It doesn't have to be in that you can do a stand-up meeting for 10 minutes and get status. You can build dashboards for status. You don't need that as an individual to do a report weekly on your face, you know, just so you can feel like you got control. Find other ways to do it. You can make people feel more comfortable in these processes if we just treat people like human beings versus, like you said, the cog in the wheel. So that's something that certainly stands out.
27:33
as a reason why you'd want to do it and how effective it is. Because I can tell you that when I was doing that, I was working for the DC government and I was working with an agency that was laying off approximately 500 people. Well, that 500 people translates to about 2,000 individuals who are going to be impacted because they had families. Right? They had families. And I'm having personal conversations with individuals.
28:04
And my attrition rate was about 1% when people knew they were going to lose their jobs in six months. Now, why is that? Because I treated them like human beings. And I gave them what they needed versus kind of let them be out there in limbo on kind of guessing what was going to happen with them. I mean, so what I'm talking about is really powerful if we just remember, think a step back and remember, we're dealing with a human. Yeah. And we got to be curious. And we got to have a little bit of compassion. And we got to treat them like human beings. All right. And so if we do those things.
28:33
So it's not like we have to make these huge shifts. Even as in the vision, we start thinking about how do I improve my work-life balance? Well, what do you do for fun? Maybe do that more intentionally. Maybe you like to see movies. Maybe you go to the movies twice a month or once a month. Maybe it's having date night with your significant other, whatever it is. Maybe it's having a night with your kids. Maybe it's all sitting down for dinner on Sunday night and having dinner together. Yeah, it gets harder as they become teenagers, but I mean, these things that we kind of, right?
29:03
to do, but that bring us joy. Those are things, little things we can do now, get back to doing, so that we feel like we have a little bit more balance than what we may believe we have. Because when we all we see is work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work, that's a song, right? You know? Um. Yeah, true. There's a lot of songs about work, Paul. Let's say we start down that keyword.
29:32
popped in my head like immediately, but yeah, we put so much emphasis on the word, like you said, we forget that it's not the vacation. It's not the vacation. It's not the long trip for two weeks. It really isn't. And sometimes it's not even the weekend getaway. Sometimes it's that Friday afternoon or that Monday afternoon or whatever, the Thursday afternoon or going to the soccer game or actually going, doing something where we're connecting back with nature, where we force ourselves to find the balance. So it's almost kind of like,
30:03
Don't forget that it's the small things that can bring us back to balance versus the large things because ultimately when you start looking at this thing statistically, I mean, there's been plenty of studies done on this. I mean, people are actually taking vacations every year. It had it. Oh, that's funny. Here's a mind blowing step. Paul, on that one right there, how many people have user lose leads? And if you're looking for a target audience.
30:28
to reach out to them and ask them about their life balance and what are they gonna do and what the people who have use or lose because they never took their vacation time, those would be a prime place to start looking at who these folks are, all they do is just work and so where's the life balance? And you're right, maybe that's just their MO and there are some people who just don't do vacations and they just like to, they like, they're very stuck at their normal thing, but...
30:58
taking an interest in their life and giving them a chance to take those vacations because you know, if they're if they're on the use or lose leave list because they're good, they've got too much vacation time. And if you as the director's director, if you're up a few levels from that team and you're looking down, you should definitely make sure that it's not because there's so much on their work plate that they feel like they can't take vacation. This is like red flags everywhere here and you can see it.
31:27
far in the distance. Paul, we just talked about how it builds up over time, right? You could see that one far in the distance. If this person's on the, that is your red flag six months to a year in advance on who, who are these folks that are struggling because if it's because they can't take lead or they feel like they can't, even if they could, that's, you know, that's kind of part of what you have to do as a manager. That's tough, but it's okay. It is tough because I mean, and I've heard as a manager when I was, like I said, when I was employed, I heard it all the time.
31:57
I mean, I heard it all the time. It's like, you know, I got so much on the plane. It's like, well, but you don't have to do it all today. Take the time. Um, right. So, you know, so I would make people take the time. You should lose it. Well, you got 30 days, go ahead, take a month. You know, we'll figure it out. Um, those things go a long way, you know, and obviously certainly yes, there are people who will take advantage of those situations and manipulate those situations, but that's very, very small percentage of people. I think as leaders, we get so hung up on the. But.
32:27
bad people could do with that versus the masses of good that generally speaking, most people would certainly appreciate and reciprocate that kindness in term with performance. So it's like, a little bit more kinder and people will perform better. Big time. Huge. Absolutely. And most of your workforce is going to be on the good department, right? And especially are the good people taking their vacation time?
32:55
but then still checking emails when they're supposed to be off. Like if you have an out of office, a message up, or you're not supposed to be there because you're on leave time, you're on vacation time, but then you still check in on things while you're off. That's part of it. Like, no, no, don't do it. Don't don't. And you as a supervisor can be going, wait, hold you kind of have to stand up for that person. Cause part of you as their supervisor, you're sort of setting the expectations of the organization in the biggest way.
33:25
It doesn't matter what the policy says or what the bosses bosses say. If you are coming to him and if you're expecting a response to an email on their day off, then huge red flags here like this. Whoa. So I that's yeah, you're right on. Absolutely. It goes back to your point that you said earlier, if we as leaders are taking the time to get to, we're taking time to get to know people. We're not nobody's saying you have to be best friends with your teams.
33:55
And I think a lot of times people here get to know your people and they think, well, I don't want to be friends with them. And it's like, well, nobody's saying you have to be friends with them. What we're saying is get to know your people because in those scenarios, then, you know, I know you're on vacation this week, Brian, and you were sent an email. Hey Brian, I thought you were on vacation. I don't need to see messages coming from you until you come back. I mean, as your boss, I could say that. Right. And it's almost like.
34:24
You're allowed to say that if you've built a rapport with this person. But if you haven't built a rapport with Brian and you say that to Brian, I see it. Brian, I've never talked to you before about your personal life. And suddenly you're on vacation. You send them answers. Hey, Brian, you know, you really don't have to respond back to emails, but I'm glad you did, but you really don't have to do that. Okay. Now that I told you, I'm glad you did. Guess what you're going to do the rest of time you're on vacation. Cause you don't know if I'm serious or not. You have no idea. Yep. Because you haven't had a conversation with me outside of
34:52
Responsibility is at work what I expect from you and how things are going on your projects. That's the only conversation I've had. Yep Right. So so we have to we have to do a better job We got to do a better job with and I think that I mean it really sounds you know as I'm talking and so, you know I think a lot of people here talking about a lot of the soft skills. Yeah, I am because You know again, we can give you a list of 20 things you can do. Here's
35:17
20 things employees can do, here's 20 things employers can do. You do all these things, remember to do those things, you're gonna be fine. There are courses that are taught on that. And you can find them anywhere. But then I'm gonna ask the question, why aren't you doing it? And the question is, the answer to that is simple. One, I don't know how to, because I'm not doing it myself. And because I already have my own way of operating, I have my own habits, I have my own belief systems, I have all these different things within myself.
35:47
that either I'm willing to change or not willing to change. And if I'm not doing it, you can't expect other people to do it. It doesn't work that way. It's like thinking about your children. If you're not being a kind person and then your children kind of see that and emulate that and they start being unkind, and you say, Johnny, why would you do that? Because I saw you do it, dad. Well, mom, I saw you do it. You know, just look at a two-year-old, you know, drops the F-bomb.
36:16
Or drops and drops another word, you know, where did that come from? Oh, I don't know. Yep. I didn't teach him that. You did teach him that. Absolutely. Gosh. Well, is there, so we talked about what we've talked a lot about the, what you can do and so I, the tag on question to that kind of Paul is I'm curious, can you talk a little bit more about the why from what you've seen, like why should you be?
36:42
tuning in. Of course, I mean, we kind of sprinkled through this topic while we were talking about what to do, but speak a little bit about why. Yeah, I think the why is really interesting because, you know, the why, and this is a lot of science, right? So I'm going to try to condense a lot of science into a few minutes in this response. Okay. And maybe point to some resources too, you know, maybe at the end of the day. Yeah. So what's happening is, so...
37:07
we don't have balance, right? And because we don't have balance, that has created, we will call it the stress response. But people really need to stop saying stress as such a generic term and kind of break that down. Stress means something. That means we are experiencing different emotional states that are taking energy away from us. They're making us feel bad. They're making us feel like we're in a toxic situation. We have conversations about toxic cultures all the time. It's the state that people feel when they're in their environment.
37:36
And so we are in and around toxicity, and we are actually perpetuating a cycle of toxicity within ourselves. So that emotional response over time, as we were talking about, builds up. So we can get to chronic levels of stress. People have heard this term before, chronic levels of stress, chronic levels of anxiety, chronic levels of depression, chronic levels of frustration, whatever the emotional state is that we're feeling, that's what we're experiencing.
38:05
But that has a physiological impact on ourselves, on our bodies as human beings, a significant physiological impact. You can go to the Institute of Stress, and they'll say that 75 to 90% of all primary care visits are rooted in our inability to manage our stress levels. Why aren't we able to manage our stress levels? Because we don't have balance in our lives.
38:28
If you go to the AMA, they will tell you that 60% of all diseases are rooted or an inability to manage the stress response. This is not new data. This is data from 2014 and a little bit before that. I mean, this is data. It's the same data. It's getting worse. And so it's almost kind of like, why is it important? Because if we get burned out and we're not careful, we can, that in turn, turns into chronic health
38:58
situations. And in some people, I mean, so you start thinking about, what are the big four? You got cancer, you got cardiovascular disease, I mean, you got high blood pressure, you got all these different diseases that are rooted in our inability to manage a stress response. And if we don't find balance and we find ourselves in those situations, that could be not only detrimental to our health, but that could actually be killing us. And when you start seeing people in your workplace
39:28
And at age where you don't expect these chronic diseases to happen, and yes, they work out, and they have a great diet, and they seem to be a pretty balanced person, but they fall dead of a stroke in the middle of the office, which I have seen happen in one of my employer's offices before doing it with an HR director, who everybody thought was perfectly healthy. Well, why did that happen? Because she wasn't able to find balance in her life. She worked 12-hour days.
39:57
She didn't do the things that she enjoyed. She didn't spend time with the people that she loved. She didn't have effective conversations with people. And because she didn't do those things, it built up in her system, and according to her physiology, her system couldn't handle it. And this happens to a lot of people. This happens to a lot of people. And we don't make the link about what's going on in their lives. And so it really, you know, and I hate to say it that way, but it's almost kind of like,
40:26
we have to get really focused on how much time we actually have here. I mean, everyone is born into this world and we got 29,200 days.
40:36
That's the average lifespan of a human being. Where are you right now is the question. And how much time do you have left? And then when you start thinking about how much time you got left, what are you gonna do with it? It's important because we can continue to work in the same conditions and have these situations happen. And then eventually retire. And then we have this much time left. Right. Yeah, and then how do we live life? But we don't know how to live life because we've never lived it.
41:06
right, because we got so focused on work. And so, in the second part of that is it ends up being regret. Because the last thing we wanted, I mean, and there's many studies on this, particularly when you start looking at the science around purpose and things of that nature. So a lot of people who come to the end of life and there's a lot of regrets, and I wish I had lived, I wish I had done this thing, I wish I had taken a risk on that and done that other thing. And they didn't do it.
41:35
And now it's not enough. There's no more time left. And time, we're not going to get back. There's no rewind button. We're not going to get it back. So, you know, I hate to kind of be poignant, you know, with this, this comment, but it's really like, yeah, we only have so much time. So how do we want to live our lives? Right. So that's why it's important. I can go to other reasons why for me, we have an impact on other people, you know, you know, it's so as a leader, we get people, we can,
42:04
our behavior can put people in this chronic state, and then we almost become responsible. It'd be irresponsible for us as leaders that once we know that we have an impact on other people, and that we do something that has an impact on them, negative, and we keep doing it, we have a personal responsibility to stop doing that thing. You know, a personal responsibility. We're responsible, and then what does that make us? Does that make us a good person or a bad person? I mean, these are things we have to start weighing out the morals of all this thing. So-
42:34
Yes, we're talking about small steps to do, but you know, it's, that's, that's the reality of it. And I want to tag onto what you're saying here with the why, because it's also, why is also creating habits, right? And if your habit that you have fallen into is working on nights and weekends, if going above and beyond extra, it's hard to change a habit. There's all kinds of research on that as well. And so if you fall into the habit,
43:04
of not a good work-life balance, then that is the thing that perpetually builds up and builds up like pressure in a container, you just it builds, it builds, and then you get to what we were talking about earlier with now I just, I got to quit because I got to let all this steam and this pressure go. Whereas if you build the habits around going exercising regularly, and like planning your week, planning your balance, right? Do you know that there's going to be balance? If you get into that habit, it keeps the pressure
43:34
down. It keeps all of that down and that takes into like you said the health consequences and all of that stuff. But it really starts with those habits. And so if you have habits around work of not the or habits around work life balance that don't support you with your life balance, then that it's it's easier to perpetuate the problems than it is to make the change. So if you heard one or two things that Paul and I have said so far that are helpful, that you could
44:03
if you could do one or two of these things and help change one habit or two habits over time that pays dividends over and over again. Absolutely. And it's good that you said that because it kind of goes back to the thing before. You gotta have a vision or an idea of what balance looks like. Because I think for most people, we didn't just decide to go to work and to jump into the situation where you didn't have balance. There was a time.
44:31
Well, it was early on or not where we felt like we had a little bit more balance. We were able to do the things we enjoyed doing. Plus, we were getting things done from a work perspective and we felt satisfied. And then maybe that situation changed because we got a promotion or this other thing happened or our perspective around the job shifted. And as that happened, we started letting go of the things that were most important to us. And so we have to find ways to get back to that. So you're talking about habits, right? And it habits.
45:00
or you create new habits with intention, right? So there's intention and there's attention. You can create new habits. And there's neuroplasticity. I mean, that's been heavily researched. So if we have intention and attention on new behaviors, those can become new habits. Now, a lot of people get caught up in the thousand times rule and that's not necessarily been proven to be accurate a hundred percent, but you know, but it's about the intention, the attention and attention.
45:29
attention and intention around what you want to do and what you want to see happen. That's a big, you know, play on. Yeah. But, you know, but it's small things. Like you said, exercise, meditation, right? Building time in your calendar for time off, whether it's 30 minutes or 15 minutes, do a reboot, do a reset, go take a walk, you know, get in nature, do something, like I said, these things aren't, and these things seem like they're not even work related. You don't know. They're not really there.
45:58
They're human related, right? If you want balance, you got to create your own balance. I mean, we all have the ability to do that, but we need to figure out what does balance mean to me? Does that mean I need to listen to more music? Does that mean I need to dance? Does that mean I need to go play basketball? Does that mean I need to work out, exercise? Do I need to go sit in silence for 20 minutes under a tree and take in the fresh air? I mean, what is it, you know, and do that thing.
46:28
So Paul, what does this mean for you personally? Is there a connection here for you personally on this whole topic of work-life balance? Yeah, this whole thing is, I mean, I got to a point, I can't even, there were several periods of time in my careers where I've experienced the burnout, but I would say it was actually the primary driver for me to kind of shift from being a C-suite executive in the IT world to doing what I do now.
46:56
which is really about coaching and training and kind of teaching people how to be better versions of themselves. I left what people would say was a pretty sweet deal, working in the IT world. Why? Because I got burned out. And the burnout was not necessarily around, people treating me inappropriately, but just kind of realizing that there was a general sense of not caring about people.
47:25
A general sense of not really having vision. There was a general sense of not being aligned to a purpose, or a means to like, this is why we're here. This is why we do what we do, because we're supporting this particular mission. And, but for me, it was mostly about the people. The people thing kind of stuck out to me the most, because like, if you don't take care of people, I don't care what kind of processes that you have, and I don't care what kind of systems that you have. People work the processes and the systems, and it's in balance right now. And people aren't just gonna do,
47:54
Dude, that's an outdated paradigm. That paradigm is over 100 years old now. It's much different now. And so if we lose sight of the people that are in these processes, then we've lost sight of why we're even doing what we're doing in the first place. I mean, so people were talking about how do we bounce back from this great resignation? Well, we gotta learn how to reconnect again. We've forgotten how to.
48:24
to establish rapport and build relationship. We've forgotten and it took two years. But here's the interesting thing. We weren't doing a great job of it beforehand. It's just that this kind of highlighted an aspect. It highlighted some of those things. Highlighted, highlighted all the comments. And on that topic, I heard two interesting things I've heard. One is if your team doesn't have a channel, if you have Teams or Slack or whatever the communication channels are.
48:50
you should have a channel that is not work related so that people can just be funny. Like if you don't have a channel for humor and jokes or something like not work related or somebody had a baby or somebody like the, the human part of things, since we aren't in the, in the workplace, you need to have a place to share those things. And so there should be a channel for that so that people can do that. And you as the supervisor should stoke and feed that channel.
49:19
And I mean, maybe that means you're posting happy birthday messages because you know from the HR file that it's somebody's birthday and they're not going to share it themselves because not everybody does. So you just go on and say happy birthday and you know what you can celebrate their 25th birthday no matter how old they're turning. Everybody can just always turn 25 at work. That's cool. You know, like make it that's cool. So have have those things. That's good. And I'm a why for me. One of the reasons I bring this up.
49:45
Why I wanted to do this episode was because this is one of the most common questions that comes up is it is a feeling of helplessness around work-life balance. And the reality is you are in the driver's seat for part of it. You are, you do have some control over your part. So it's, I wanted to make sure that we talked about what you can do because there's a lot of feelings of helplessness around work-life balance. So make sure that you're doing your part.
50:13
Is that why? And for me personally, it's also because I have been an employee and a manager and a senior manager and I've been through a lot of these situations and I've definitely noticed that there is a lot of feelings of helplessness and everybody kind of does this thing where they just you know Oh, it's them over there. Oh, it's this work policy. It's this thing and the reality is There were there was somebody doing your job before you did it and there's gonna be somebody doing your job after you did it
50:42
And so you got to figure out how to find that balance. And so the why for me, that's the point of why is like answering that question of, look, it's not total helplessness. You're right. There are things you can't control, but make sure you do the things that you can control. And if you do that, it's going to be better. Even if it's not great, it's going to be better. Absolutely. Do that stuff. Now, Paul, any, just kind of bringing it back to any.
51:08
Additional resources or things that you recommend on this topic for folks that are looking into this more Yeah, you know so, you know one of the things that came to mind for me was a couple books You know Daniel Pink is an author and he wrote a couple books It's really interesting because he talks about there's a book he wrote recently called. I want to say it's called when And it really talks about finding the times where you're kind of working at The time the time of day when you kind of work at your best like so these are times a day of like you might
51:38
You might carve out time for yourself to work because you're going to be really focused. You might carve out time for you to do some meaningless things, but necessary, like, you know, getting your account on read emails and that kind of stuff to respond to email messages. Or you might find there's here's a time where I need to be very really creative and I need to kind of focus on my creativity and or focus on my downtime because I'm not going to be as productive. That's a really great resource for people that are looking for how do I how do I even you know, because like you said, people feel helpless. Other things people
52:08
don't even know where to start. Right. Right. So that was this because I know where to start. I want to change this. I have no idea where I can begin. Right. So some business thinking about how you spend your time, right? You know, I think that, you know, there's a great book, it's called finding your purpose written by a man named Richard lighter. He's a he's a business coach. And he talks about finding your purpose. But there's another one about I have it back here. I want to say it's
52:37
reimagining work, right, which is really good. And it's about how do you find reasons why you do what you do so you can kind of connect with the job and mission and have it align with your own personal values. Because a lot of times people think I got to leave if I want to find fulfillment. No, you need to find a reason to stay. You need to find what is it about this thing that I do that I'm spending a lot of time with.
53:04
that I really enjoy and connect with that versus talking about all the things you hate about it. I mean, yes, sometimes people need to leave, but sometimes people just mismatch and they probably need to find something within where they are, but maybe just do something different. But you never get there if you don't even understand how it connects with what you're doing. Right? So, you know, reimagining work, that's another good one. Richard Leiter is the author for that one too. So those things kind of stand out for me is what's, you know, kind of helping.
53:33
Understand not even research behind it but like looking at some practical things we can implement in our lifestyles to kind of shift A little bit because we had to shift mindset Yeah, if you don't mind say we're gonna we're gonna continue doing the same thing we're doing and that's insanity Exactly same same thing and you know You were talking about books the one that I can share is there's a book called work life brilliance And it's by Denise green and I really appreciated her book because one of the things that people get
54:02
there's a feeling of overwhelm around work-life balance because it's just, it feels like it's so much. And you know that saying, a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, right? So if you're taking one or two steps, or you just, this month, I'm gonna do this, and you do that one thing, and that'll help turn the ship just a little bit, and then a little bit more. And so for some folks, it's the momentum of getting started is really helpful. And so in that book, she talks about a lot of very practical little things that you can do.
54:32
to make these shifts. So it's very practical advice on Do This, not just the thoughts. So I really appreciated that book. And of course, you know, for anybody listening, I'm Brian with Productivity Gladiator. I teach workshops on this. Paul with Zero Point Leadership. We also, Culture Change and Leadership and the stuff that he's doing. And actually, Paul, this is a good point. Why don't you talk about, you've got some new coaching sessions or things you're going to be, what's coming forward for you in the future?
54:58
Yeah, so I have a couple of different shifts that I'm making within my organization. So I'm putting together these, I will call them science-based immersion programs. Right? And so really it is a combination of some learning and group coaching to be able to not only get the information that we need to have in order to start making different decisions, but also, you know, creating accountability, self-accountability systems so that we can actually...
55:26
put some things into practice, right? Because the biggest thing is it's all about how do I make this practical? And I think the science is great. I mean, it's very informative, but, you know, how do I translate that into activities that I can take and steps I can take so I can start improving my habits? And I will even go as far as to be shifting our routines or actually creating rituals. And when I say rituals, it's about creating an intentional routine, right? That's a really-
55:53
an intentional routine because it has a means to an end. I'm doing this because I want to achieve this thing. Right? And so create those intentional routines or rituals so that you can start getting the results you like to get. So I'm putting together a self mastery journey, which is looking at how we optimize ourselves in multiple human domains such that we, one can be on the road to truly becoming a better version of ourselves.
56:21
And if we can do that and actually put some consistency behind that, we can change how we are. And that really is basically a mini evolution, if you will. So imagine it being you becoming human 2.0 because you are a different person than when you started. That means you've changed. That means you've evolved. Within the organizations, I'm looking at doing smaller micro learnings where organizations are really learning how to, and leaders are learning how to.
56:51
one, lead themselves better. Because part of our conversation is, if you're not even, if you're not emulating what a balance looks like, then it's hard for you to expect others to do it, right? You can't make others do it. So you gotta lead yourself first before you can actually lead others more effectively. And so I take them through this process of where they, one, learn how to better lead themselves so they can manage and navigate themselves better. But then how to then, looking at it from, you know, from a team perspective or looking at, you know, looking at people that they work with.
57:21
How do I help them see it? How do I manage them in the moment? And what are some of the strategies I can employ so that they can certainly do the same thing that I'm doing? Now, all this is really caveated around everybody needs to start at point A, right? Everybody needs to start at point A. It's self leadership. Doesn't matter if you are the manager, doesn't matter if you're the frontline worker. Self leadership is for everyone. So we have to start there. If you're leading others, then you start going down a more advanced track.
57:50
But again, these are macro learnings that are going to be done over 90 days where individuals are going to have the accountability systems put into place so that when they're actually taking action and implementing these steps, they have some way to kind of do a check in and kind of get that feedback loop they need so that they'll know if they're doing it right or if they need to make adjustments. And so those are two big things that are coming up in the next 30 to 60 days where we want to see some shifts happen. Well, that's cool. Well, Paul.
58:20
Thanks for coming in and doing this episode with me. I think here's what I love. I love that you've kind of taken this journey and leadership and culture change, and you seem to have gone way into the science and the study of the mechanisms of how. For me, I'm always fascinated with, tell me the little steps, tell me the little things, like that journey of a thousand steps. I mentioned, man, let me take 10 more this week and see if I can keep moving, and I like that part. But I love that.
58:47
you've gone through and you've really got some of that science in there. And I love some of the perspective that you're sharing from your time, you know, and I love that we both share from, I mean, we're sharing from not from a what we wish the dream state was, but we both have been there in the trenches on what it is and how it is now and what folks are facing. So I, so I, I really appreciate you joining me today for this, this episode. Thanks for coming in and chatting about this.
59:14
Absolutely, it's certainly been a pleasure to speak with you and certainly share this information with people in your audience Yeah, and so now folks that want to find out more about you or social media website. Where's the where's the best places for them to go? Um, well the website is www.zero point leadership. That's all spelled out zero point leadership It's all one word.com and my Instagram is at Neuro somatic underscore leader and I'll send those to you
59:43
Oh nice, I'll get those in the show notes too so that you can click in your episode and find those here as well Um, and of course i'm productivity gladiator. So feel free to subscribe So for those of you that are listening Thanks for the likes and the follows and the subscribes if you sign up for the email list I will send these things to you straight to your inbox So you don't have to go looking for them and you can catch these videos whenever they come out and each one of these episodes I'm capturing in a podcast or if you like video you can watch paul and I talk about this. This will be on youtube as well
01:00:12
So there'll be video too. And then also as a blog post, if you're more of a reader, you can certainly subscribe and get this reading, read through these things too.
Introducing The Show
What IS this show about? I want to share knowledge, hacks, and ideas on life balance & personal productivity. I also want to share more than just my perspective, talking to knowledgeable people in these areas
I used to write a blog, but some people prefer to listen, and some people prefer to watch. This show covers all those mediums. It’s taking the educational topics that would have become blog posts, and bringing them to life. not just writing a few hundred words. This show gives you a front-row seat to those conversations as well.
I’m Brian Nelson-Palmer
& this is Productivity Gladiator.
I want to share knowledge, hacks, and ideas on work-life balance and personal productivity. I also want to talk to knowledgeable people in those areas, to share more than just my perspective.
I used to write a blog, and I realized that not everyone prefers to read, myself included! Some people prefer to listen, and some people prefer to watch. This show is about taking the educational topics that would have become blog posts, and TALKING through the ideas, not just writing a few hundred words. Also, I love having conversations with experts in the field. This show gives you a front-row seat to those conversations as well.
The Video
The Audio/Podcast
The Concept - Learning By Committee
In the world of personal development, I love to learn from multiple perspectives. I call it “learning by committee”. What I mean by that is, I would rather leverage the knowledge from many different perspectives, and take the parts that resonate with me from each, rather than learning everything from just one person. That’s what I mean when I say “learning by committee”.
Here’s a story that happened to me recently which further demonstrates what I mean. I’ve become a boat guy recently as an adult. I’ve never had someone in my life to teach me about operating power boats and being a captain. In order to learn, I have been out for lessons with several commercial captains. The first one was a surly, opinionated old chap named Captain Bob. Captain Bob told me “You must always have paper charts and maps. The biggest mistake you can make is to rely on electronic devices for navigation.” See, what Captain Bob doesn’t know about me is that I went paperless in my personal life years ago. I’ve also gotten rid of all my physical books because I’ve streamlined my home life. The concept of keeping a book of navigation charts isn’t my style, but I saw his point.
My next outing was with Captain Frank, a middle-aged friendly guy who was a little more hip. He wore his captain hat crooked and had a heart of gold. Frank introduced me to Navionics, which is an online chart mapping app that is like GPS for you while you’re on the boat. THAT was more my style! I also discovered it was $50/year, which was kind of a bummer, because I don’t go out that often, and I’m spoiled by Google Maps which is free GPS when I’m in the car. Since I’m frequently on the same waterways, going to similar places, having to pay that much for the app when I often knew where I was going was kind of a bummer!
My third outing was with Captain Brady, a “by the book” kind of guy, who talks to you with an aura of expertise from 3 decades of experience as a captain. He used to work for NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He told me about NOAA’s role in navigation charts, and how part of their public service as a government agency is to provide depth and navigation charts for all of the US’s waterways. Their charts are free! Now we were talkin!
That night, after meeting with Captain Brady, I was at home and started searching NOAA’s resources. While researching online, I found an app called Sea-IQ. Sea-IQ is a maps and GPS app like Navionics, but it has a free version which lets you see the latest NOAA charts from your phone. That was my win! I now use Sea-IQ as my navigation app.
For me, I learned a little bit from each captain I met. I saw Captain Bob’s point, that electronics could leave you stranded, and if I’m ever going on a long open water overnight journey, I bring a backup map device. Captain Frank gave me hope with the idea of a GPS app. Capt Brady introduced me to NOAA charts. Google helped me find the NOAA charts on a free app. I feel I’m better because of all of their perspectives. I think of this as me “learning by committee.”
This is also how I approach learning about work-life balance and personal productivity, which I’ll be talking about on this show. It’s a voyage. I hope there will be many captains for you in your voyage. Take the best things you hear from all the captains you follow! I’d be honored to be a part of that journey, and I hope this show helps you to become better and better.
Where This Is Headed
On this show, I’m bringing you along on my conversations, and my voyage. I teach Work Life Balance and Personal Productivity to employees of businesses and organizations. I’m also a self-improvement nut. I started this show because I wanted a way to continue to add value to people I’ve worked with. I don’t know about you, but in my career, I’ve been to so many work training sessions where at the end the instructor puts their email or contact info up on the board and invites people to keep in touch. In most cases, I’ve walked out of those sessions and not given them a second thought. My hope is, by doing this show, I have something to offer, to continue to add value for the people I’ve met.
Thanks for checking this out. Thanks for subscribing, listening, and engaging if you want. And thanks for being a part of my voyage with Productivity Gladiator.
I’m Brian. At age 4, I was diagnosed with insulin dependent (type 1) diabetes and told that my life was going to be 10-20 years shorter than everyone else. As a kid I took time for granted, but now as an adult, time is the most precious thing that I have. I created Productivity Gladiator because I saw what a difference it made for employees to improve their productivity, improve their work-life balance, and live their best life right now, today, not wait until retirement. Thanks for checking out Productivity Gladiator! Time is the currency of your life, spend it wisely.