The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 12: Your Time Is Worth More Than You Think: Breaking Free From Busyness Culture
We explore the crucial difference between busyness and true productivity, examining how purpose, planning, and self-awareness create meaningful results rather than just activity.
• Purpose must ground all productivity efforts or we risk just being busy
• Goals should span different life categories (longevity, fatherhood, spiritual, professional, personal) rather than just work
• Planning is essential – you don't know if you're distracted unless you've actually planned something else for that time
• Business owners often try to do everything themselves instead of focusing on their unique strengths
• Ego and identity get tied to productivity methods, making it difficult to adopt more efficient approaches
• Learning and creating space are forms of productivity that yield exponential returns
• Finding mentors and putting yourself in rooms where you're the "dumbest person" accelerates growth
• As we mature through different decades of life, our relationship with productivity evolves from grinding to strategic thinking
• True productivity requires identifying opportunity costs and valuing your time appropriately
• Balance between purpose, identity, and ego determines our relationship with productivity
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Welcome to the Daily Edge where we bring you the latest insights, opinions and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business and beyond. Let's go. Welcome back to the Daily Edge here with my brothers. This is episode 12. Man, I can't believe we've already got up to 12 episodes Today. It's going to be interesting. We spend a lot of our time thinking about productivity, probably both personally and professionally. You know, am I getting things done? We're all juggling tons of stuff. We got families, we have spouses, we have businesses, we have hobbies, and I know sometimes I get this feeling of like am I doing enough or am I being productive? I think there's a balance here between what am I doing is actually productive and what is it just busy. And so I'd like to ask you guys a question when you think about productivity in your lives, how do you approach that? Is it productivity? And you could go personal, you could go business, but how do you try to fit everything in and do it in a manner where you feel like you're actually accomplishing something?
Speaker 2:For me it has to be, first of all, it has to be grounded in purpose. So that's something that I look for. Like you just said and we've discussed this a little bit we are in this era of productivity where I think it's kind of tapering down a little, but I would say maybe it hit its peak right pre-pandemic or maybe right post, where it was like I sleep three hours a day and I wake up at 4 am and I cold plunge there are memes out there, right, with the guys that you know wake up at 4 am, cold plunge, work out, read six books, you know, have breakfast with my kids, like they're seemingly checking every box you could potentially check in a day, and I think again, it becomes a meme of itself. So for me it boils back to something Todd talks a lot about, which is goals. And then is there a purpose in what I'm doing and driving towards that? And it gets difficult for me because I think we can get tied up into and we'll talk about that a little later we can get our identity tied up into the amount of things that we're doing, and if we're not doing enough, you know, we start to feel less confident in ourselves. So for me, I guess, like I would say, it starts grounding it in purpose and then from that point forward, I don't know, I always looked for optimization and efficiency, and you in that grows over time.
Speaker 2:You know I think younger you're looking for. In my experience, I was looking for efficiency and tactical execution. You know I think younger you're looking for. In my experience I was looking for efficiency and tactical execution. You know so in the IT world we talked about in a prior episode, I spent a large portion of my career in IT.
Speaker 2:How can I make this specific task easier? How can I automate this through this singular task, through efforts of my own, and then that grows into, I think, when you get towards the middle or end of your career, how can I bring the right people in that have the skill sets necessary to deliver optimal results? Because I think you see people and I'll let Todd answer in a second but I think you see people who get to a point where they never graduate from how can I automate this task? They just try to bring on more and more and more and more and try to, instead of stepping back and understanding that there are people who think about these niche areas of your business all day, every day, and have very refined skill sets as it relates to those, and at some point, if you're going to rise in business, you have to step back from your original approach that gave you satisfaction and validation and step into utilizing the assets or resources you have available to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think a lot of what you said there is spot on. I mean grounded in purpose, is to me the most important. So for me, each year this won't be a surprise I have goals and I've actually, over the last half a decade or so, I've refined those into about seven categories. So one's longevity, one is fatherhood, one is spiritual, one is professional, one's personal development, mental kind of wellbeing, and then kind of mission type stuff which is pseudo-professional. And so my, as I've really thought about this, I've kind of started with the end in mind of what are the things, what are the pillars in my life that I'm going to feel. If these are in order, I'm going to be in a good place, and so, grounded in purpose, that's kind of where I start. And then, within each of those categories, each year I've got different things that are going to promote what I'm trying to accomplish in each of those. And so for longevity, for example, this year there's the Spartan race, there is the FOMO, there's running Boston, there's a couple other fitness things. Some of them are naturally going to happen and some of them are going to take more intentionality Within fatherhood. That's where there's like the quarterly trips and maintaining and sending Noah his quotes of the day, and there are different things within each of these categories. I want to look, I want to have a set of goals where at the end of the year I say, if I accomplish these things, it's going to be a fantastic year in that particular category and that. So that's what I strive for and for me.
Speaker 1:I've struggled at different times with the anxiety of am I doing enough? Like, what am I not doing? What am I not getting to? And the only time that I really find I can consistently, without a doubt, find peace of mind is through planning and knowing that I have taken the time to identify the things that I would most value in my life and then taking the time to break those down. So each one of those goals obviously breaks down. One of them, for the fatherhood, is the cooking, the four meals, right? So then that breaks down from this annual goal of cooking four meals to cooking one meal a quarter, to then picking which meal you're going to put, scheduling what weekend or day you're going to do that and then actually executing on it. So each of those sections to me then drives monthly, weekly and even daily activities. That gives me the peace of mind that I'm putting my time in a place that's got high return on investment.
Speaker 1:Just to be honest, listening to you list out seven things and all that just makes me anxious to think about, like, how do you like that's a? It just seems like a lot. It seems like a lot of planning, a lot of work, a lot of focus Is that? My guess is is, most people aren't wired like you, but are there easy ways of entry into you know something like that, or do you find that there's cause? That seems a little overwhelming, to be honest, yeah, I've certainly built up to this over the last decade.
Speaker 1:I first started setting goals, probably. I mean I've unofficially set them and started writing them down, probably in 26, 15, 16. So I've been at it for close to 10 years. Um, and when I started I just picked 10 things that I thought or five things Actually I don't even know it was 10, because 10 was kind of our family For me the five things that if I accomplished these this year it'd be a fantastic year. And I think what's important about this is, again, it grounds everything in purpose, so it's not just like what's the flavor of the day or what's the flavor of the week, but the week. But I am taking intentional time over multiple days and you generally the discernment process over multiple weeks to identify the things, stepping back out of the emotion of a given day or a given short period of time and saying, if I accomplish these five things, it's going to be a fantastic year, like I will be really, really happy with that, centering around that and then devoting my resources, because that's, I think, the challenge with today. Every day, every day you wake up, there's a new set of things that have to get done and are super urgent, and I think it's super easy to get lost in that and get really distracted.
Speaker 1:And I heard a really good quote. I was listening to a book called indistractable, which I would recommend, especially in today's day and age, and one of the things he was saying is you don't know if you're distracted unless you're actually planning. You actually have something else planned to do during that time period, like you're either getting traction or there's distraction, but you don't know unless you've planned. So if you're just kind of from, let's just say, 5 to 8 pm in the evening which a lot of that is just discretionary time we're just kind of hanging around and whatever, and we're like scrolling on our phones, like it's like you know we don't have that. There's no like feeling in us like oh gosh, I shouldn't be on my phone, I need to be doing this because there's nothing else to be planned to be doing, right? It's like I think generally we know, yeah, we should be sitting and doing stuff with our kids or you know, there's kind of like, yeah, I'd like to be doing that. But if from five to 6 PM was no phone time, and that was the time where you were spending, you were eating dinner, let's just say five to 6 PM is dinner with the family at the dinner table. Or five to 6 PM is quality one-on-one time with a kid or two, and that could be one day a week. Then if you're on your phone, you know I'm distracted, I'm not doing what I, and so it was an interesting perspective. Now, even at this point, I'm not down to planning my days out to the hours, right, because I think there is important to have some space in there. So when I say productivity, recovery is a category for me and space is a category, so like blocking out time for space is also part of the equation. It's not necessarily cram as many things in as you possibly can, but I would say this is task management and task management and making sure you're working on the highest value things beats time management all day.
Speaker 1:You know, one of the one of the things in life that I love is uncertainty and variety. How would you say, is that important to you and how do you still keep a flavor of that in your life? If it is, yeah, I think, going back to the Tony Robbins days, I think that's a human need. A natural human need is uncertainty and variety, and I think we get hit with uncertainty and variety every day. Right, you go into the office and there's different things that pop up. I think there is a balance of being able to. I mean, I guess for me that uncertainty and variety comes in a variety of different ways, at least as how I perceive it. I think the temptation and the challenge I've had in my life is not chasing that uncertainty and variety, the new email that comes in and like, whew, let's go over to the email and chasing all of the exciting things, because the peak of excitement is the second you get hit with it. Right, and so my challenge personally is I love to chase the shiny objects and I have to turn my email off or I will chase emails all day.
Speaker 1:And you want to talk about unproductive spending all day sending dozens of emails? They did a study I was just listening to as part of this book that 50% of emails, basically at the end of the day, have zero value, and so I think that's the trap in today's society. So I think we're talking about busyness, which is largely, I think in a lot of cases, unproductive. Then you've got, maybe, true productivity. Those are just some preliminary thoughts. So Todd's talking about busyness and productivity kind of being two different animals there. How do you, do you see a difference in that? Um, how would you process that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I see it. I see a difference. I think I spoke about it in the last podcast. Um, I can expound on that a little bit more so yeah, and.
Speaker 2:I think I want to pose this question to you guys because of where you guys sit professionally. But I think, from a professional perspective, there is a certain expectation of busyness, Especially if you're in and I do work remote, right, so I'm not in an office, but I've been in an office for 30 years, you know, or 20 years at times in an office. For 30 years, you know, or 20 years at times. If you constantly see someone engaged in something you believe to be different than work, you begin to question their ethic and or their aim. Maybe it's their aim, I don't know. So, you know, we see this, this. I see this in organizations I've been in where we'll have a call, and if you look at it objectively, from the outside, it's essentially everybody trying to prove their worth, which I would imagine a large portion of the 50 percent of emails that you're referring to is trying to do exactly that. Right, I need to make sure everybody knows I mean and honestly, that's a skillset, especially people who have, who have made it to a certain point in their career they can smoke and mirrors you all day long, as long as you're not in their physical space. Um, you know. So it's very interesting to me. Um, you know, I think there's there's an obvious definition for productivity versus busyness.
Speaker 2:Productivity, in my opinion, is the way I look at that is that you're driving towards a vision and you're you're um, contributing towards a greater good or a greater goal. I think a lot of times, busyness is just there's nothing there, it's checking the box. So, um, you know, I would align it with well, no, I guess I'll kind of I'll kind of stop there and then I'll I'll rewind and kind of pose that question to you guys. You know, if, if the goal is to get those that you're involved with professionally to be productive, you know, if you're in a situation like I was in with my last boss at Microsoft, where I was getting and, yes, I could have done more to be more proactive once I kind of completed my tasks at hand but what would be the best way to manage somebody to? You know what I mean Alleviate that busy busyness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you've got a the, the pressures on the manager or the leadership to articulate the outcomes they're expecting. So, and I think that is where a lot of times the ball gets dropped. Now, for us, there are two ways that we approach that. One is through quarterly goals. So there are strategic things that we're trying to accomplish and we make it very obvious what those particular things are for a defined time period. Hey, here are the four strategic type things we need to knock out in the next three months. Make sure you block out time on your schedule or whatever it happens to be, to accomplish those.
Speaker 1:Secondly, it's understanding what elements of the day-to-day role, what success looks like. So, for example, in a finance department, communication is going to be very important and people's perception of the communication or the reliability are getting sent and they're not getting replied to for three or four days, or they just fall into a black hole. Or there's a project and there's no communication on the progress and people are left wondering. So in a lot of cases, depending on who your customer and who your client is, you have to implement measures to help provide insight and feedback to that individual if they're meeting those expectations or not. So if those measures are put in place effectively, then I think it's a lot easier and you can manage to outcomes instead of managing to effort.
Speaker 1:Because that's what I hear you saying a little bit is like there's an expected level of busyness, meaning if someone's just off, kind of talking to someone else in their office for two or three hours a day, generally that's problematic. If a manager is doing a good enough job articulating the expected outcomes and that individual is meeting all those expected outcomes and they're find a way to do it in five to six hours a day, more power to them. Like that's great, like, for my perspective, awesome. Now, that may not be your person that's spending the other two to three hours a day learning and growing and developing to be able to take on the next role, you know, and that's okay. But I think the the difference in issue there is the ability to truly be able to manage to outcomes is to be able to clearly articulate those expectations, and that's easier said than done what do you?
Speaker 1:what do you think like? I think back to to dad and his, and it was more about being there at eight and staying until five, even if, hypothetically, someone was there, you know, playing card games for two hours on their computer, right? So I wonder how many businesses now can focus on outcomes versus, you know, actual effort or being in the office or activity. And I think one of the things where we were really challenged, I would say we were kind of doing a good job at that until COVID happened. Right, and COVID happened and all of a sudden it wasn't safe to be in the office with your colleagues and everyone had to work from home, and so it forced us to have to start looking at different measurements to be able to get the outputs that we wanted. So we've been pushed that way in the type of business we're in. I don't know how other businesses approach that, but it's something that I know a lot of people had to deal with over COVID because it just forced you down that hole.
Speaker 2:You know it would be really interesting to continue to unpack this. If you look historically, busyness in its everything, I guess the further you go back. Right, sorry, what's the other word? It's escaping me. Busyness and what.
Speaker 1:Productivity.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you go back as far as you can go back, productivity was everything you did, right? If you're talking about being, you know, hunter, gatherer, everything you did was productive and as we've gone on, less and less of productivity is required to survive. You know, we've mentioned AI a number of times in conversations outside of the podcast, but as we continue to progress forward, it's going to. It's going to be interesting because I think it poses a cultural challenge. For instance, um environment like yours, where you're in a physical workspace, if your coworkers in the same role perceive that someone's not doing as much as they are, that creates tension and I wonder what drives, and I'd be interested in your perspective.
Speaker 2:So I was in the service industry. We've talked about this for about a decade and in certain circumstances, we would work in locations where, from a tipping perspective, there were two different approaches. One was you kept your tips and one was tip pooling, and it was different types of individuals preferred different. So right, so like certain individuals didn't want anything to do with anybody else, a lot of times that was because they felt like they were the most capable and that other people were going to be dragging them down.
Speaker 2:And I'm sure on the other side of things, there were some of those lower hanging employees or bartenders that wanted tip pulling because they didn't want to do anything and they wanted to live off their fruits. And then I'm sure there are also those in the middle who are kind of amicable to the entire situations and they have a whole situation and maybe they have an entirely different perspective which is sharing the broader vision of whatever they're working towards as a group. So it's interesting because as we move further and further forward, more and more of this busy work is going to be taken off of our plates, and I think you're going to find more and more situations where so-and-so did get it done in four hours. Maybe they're utilizing their, their tools, you know, a little bit more efficiently, and everybody else is staring at them like, well, how come you come? So I'd be interested to hear your perspective on that.
Speaker 1:It's fascinating because there is a comparison element that you have to account for. You said a couple of different things in there that I thought were really interesting. It's if tools and things become available to allow us to be more productive, it's going to allow us to be more leisurely or maybe shortened, and I was listening to a podcast and Mark Zuckerberg was on it. He said something like someone was concerned like what are people going to do in the future, and he said well, you know, I don't know how many years ago, but almost everyone used to be a farmer. Like 80% of people were farmers, and now it's like less than 10%. Yet we're still feeding the country and yet people are still finding other things to do. So it would be a repurposing, I think, to one of your points that there's going to be stuff for people to do. But I know there's other countries that have adopted four-day work weeks and different schedules and I don't know. It's funny because I think America and the US in general were so gung-ho on more, more, more, more, more. But there have been time and time again people step in and show models that that's not always the case. Chick-fil-a they make more money on six days a week than I think McDonald's does on seven. They have I don't know, it's like 16 or 18 items on their menu versus like 40. So like they found ways to do it. And same with Hobby Lobby's only open six days a week. There's ways to be productive.
Speaker 1:I think it is challenging, especially for the older generation, who isn't used to that type of environment, to figure out a way to compensate people fairly, to not judge, to create a culture that also doesn't allow that. To like you're getting your stuff done, you're hitting good metrics, your clients are are happy and everything's working, then you're you're doing a good job, and so that is a different, it is a different mindset. Um, and sometimes it's not fair or it feels not fair. Comparison is the thief of joy. Yeah, that's a good one. Yeah, I mean, it's 100% correct. And I think you're either going to have two. I think we've even seen two types of people. You're going to have half the people that take those extra four hours and try to find something truly productive to do with it, and you're going to have half the people take that four hours. And when I say truly productive hours, and when I say truly productive, that could mean putting space in the schedule to create balance or whatever, and then I think you'll see another portion of the population that's going to look to be entertained.
Speaker 1:I think one of the interesting dynamics here I heard this the other day is like, again, I'm a little more purpose oriented, but I find a lot of my joy through impact and through being able and versus. I think others not right or wrong feel joy through being entertained. Right, it's like this is enjoyment, kind of scrolling or, and so I think that disposition again, not right or wrong will drive what someone does with that extra time. Again, maybe they'll have impact or maybe they'll use it like me, I'm in a place right now with everything on my plate. If I had an extra hour, I would create space Like I am. I've got, I am trying to accomplish too many outcomes at one point in time and I would love to be able to balance that out a little bit. And I would love to be able to balance that out a little bit. But again, I think how we orient and how we perceive fun and joyful will drive what we do at that time.
Speaker 1:I'd like to pick on you a little bit. Yeah, please, because you're operating in different roles in different companies some CEO, some COO, some operations how do you not get stuck in the weeds and how do you navigate those situations to where you're not spending all your time just? And I mean they're smaller companies too, so you're kind of a catch-all in a lot of instances. Yeah, it's through planning. It's through planning when you're an individual contributor in a startup and you don't have the resources yet to bring on the people to delegate to Planning. It's through planning when you're an individual contributor in a startup and you don't have the resources yet to bring on the people to delegate to or to give to help carry things forward. When you have to be an individual contributor, that's the most vulnerable place to get caught in the trap of busyness.
Speaker 1:And so it's through planning where I have identified okay for Eternize, these five things need to happen in the next three months period, end of story. And I realized that if I'm not working on one of those five things, it may not be super important. Now, stuff changes, right, it evolves, and so you've got to adapt your plan and timelines change and things, so you have to keep it fresh. But to simplify it, that's how I make sure I do my best and I could do a better job, honestly, planning and making sure a lot of my time is focused on that because I can you know, neurologically I'm wired to chase those shiny objects. It's a lot of fun Get those dopamine hits and it's good, but I think it's for me it's through planning that I avoid that, otherwise I'll just follow. I'll follow the shiny object.
Speaker 2:So maybe we unpack the other approach, maybe you could talk about it a little bit. I mean, I think I do the least planning out of anybody sitting here, probably by a fair long shot. When we talked, talked, you know when todd was kind of going through his and you said it kind of brought you anxiety, him breaking down these goals and this cascade down of kind of informing you know a year's worth of tactical execution. You know you're, similarly, although at different roles, in different levels, in different businesses, boards of directors, ceos, et cetera, et cetera. How do you approach it?
Speaker 1:I want to talk. I want to. I will answer that question. There's a couple of things I've learned what I'm what, what I feel like I'm good at, and I've narrowed that scope very, very small and that's really all I'm good at. And I've narrowed that scope very, very small and that's really all I'm willing to do. So that skill set and it took me a long time to get there, to where I could focus on these things that IMG. And then I bought other companies and the second one that I bought I was trying to be an operator at a lower level that a contributor, and trying to dive in and it was.
Speaker 1:I wasn't being as effective overall as a person. I wasn't. I wasn't effective. I was dropping in and drop it out and I wasn't able to get things done in the manner and I realized that I cannot. I know the role that I can play and I know the role that I can play and I know the role that I can play hard and I can play well and I can get an A and 100% and I need to stay in my lane. So every business that I'm involved in, I play this role and it's just the way that I know I can be most effective If I try to go back to a different role. It messes everything up for me and so what does that mean so when role it messes everything up for me, and so what does that mean? So when you say it messes everything up, like dive into that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So let's just say I get pulled into. Well, just the other day I'm on vacation and someone that I used to write insurance for calls me and drags me back into a situation and a coverage and the claim he's going through and, just you know, takes an hour and I don't have any idea. I don't do any insurance anymore, I don't write any policies. But he's taken me and and I'm. I love the relationship, I love the gentleman and so I took the call and it was nice to talk to him. But now my head is now stuck there. Like when I get stuck in the day-to-day stuff. It really affects my ability to dream and plan and build strategy. When I'm and granted, the other part of my job is putting out fires, like I'm doing operational high level, you know we have this happen, this happen, I'm tapping in, but when I have all that other noise up here, it kind of just takes my, it takes me on a roller coaster mentally and it's hard for me to kind of go through it. The other thing that I've learned that I want to go back to is I believe and I'd love your guys' opinion that each decade we kind of graduate into certain things, or can.
Speaker 1:I was listening to Mr Beast talk on Diary of a CEO podcast. It was really really good. But what I noticed in his podcast he's in his late twenties. He's all about the grind, putting in the hours, putting it out. In my twenties I was about the grind and maybe the twenties is about the grind. You've got more energy and testosterone and it's like I'm going to work eight hours a week and I'm going to get after it and maybe that's okay at that point in time.
Speaker 1:I'm not exactly sure what it is in your 30s and what it is in your 40s, but as we get older we get more strategic and we realize and I think you said it earlier is that if we can find out what we're really good at, we need to find people that can help supplement and do some of those things in order to allow you to be as effective as possible within those roles. That, to me, I think is key is you have to hit a point where you have the resources to bring the other people in to help do those things, because if you have someone let's just say you you start a business by yourself and you're made up your mind that you're not going to do the individual contributor work. If you don't hire someone to come and do the details, that business is going to fail miserably, right, naturally. So you went through the grind, you were able to bring some people in and, even through my journey at IMG, got to a point where I was able to bring some people in and even through my journey at IMG, got to a point where I was able to bring some people in to help with.
Speaker 1:And I think that's a huge, huge part of it is getting to a point where you have the resources or the insight, depending on the size of your organization. You've got the insight to move up into where you're contributing at a strategic level. But I think a lot of this, especially when it comes to releasing like when I look at Eternize it's at a point where I don't have the financial resources to bring on someone full-time to do the day-to-day. It's just not a reality Now. Hopefully at some point it will be, but I can't. If that's a project that I want to see succeed, I don't have the, I don't have the luxury of saying hey, I'm only going to play at this level. It's if I don't play at this level, this business doesn't get off the ground, so I think that to me is a challenging aspect.
Speaker 2:Well, what I?
Speaker 1:would tell you from what I've learned is, if that's the case, I wouldn't do it personally, like I'm not, like when you've got to a point to where you know what you're good at and where you're executing and where, and you can, they always say like there's, oh, you can chase, you know? I think you talked about the three gold balls, or you know you want to juggle the seven? Yeah, if you choose to pick the seven, that's okay, but realizing the other, the three gold ones, are going to suffer too, correct? So what I've learned is like I will not go back into any role that takes me back to that spot, cause it will, like you said, go a little deeper. That impacts everything, because now my mind just gets taken in a lot of different ways and I think you have to be able to focus.
Speaker 1:I wanted to ask TJ one thing, cause I do think one of the things that TJ is really good at that I am not as good at when it comes to planning, I think one of the things that I have admired and Warren Buffett is good at this and Bill Gates is good at this they spend half their day learning, reading, learning, developing themselves, so they can be more and more productive, like you talked about that person who will just want to continue to do that process over and over and over again and not take the time to automate it or take the time to be more efficient.
Speaker 1:Or take the time to automate it or take the time to be more efficient or take the time to learn so they can provide the insight and get to the vision in half the time. How do you? You consume an insane amount, insane amount of content. How do you find the time, because you've got a lot going on, to continue to prioritize learning? That really has a delayed gratification right. Like anytime you're listening to a podcast, there's nothing that you're able to necessarily do better that day or more efficient that day. It's this compilation over listening to books and podcasts and insights over weeks, months and years before you actually probably see the fruits of it. In many cases that like talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 2:It's taken a lot of reprogramming internally for me personally because I was, and especially, surrounded by hyper productive people. Um, you know, another person who's wired similar to you is caleb very, very methodical, very, you know, like planned out, and I remember when he first came, we were working together at one of my prior places of employment, at tcc, and he had a spreadsheet that he would fill out on a daily basis with these certain KPIs that he was measuring. And I am completely counter to that. But being surrounded by people and growing up, when we grew up, when we were young, you know a lot of the people we knew, a lot of our relatives worked in factories and productivity was key. Like, if you're on an assembly line and you aren't doing your job, the car doesn't get made or whatever it is they're working on. So it's ingrained in you, um, that you need to do certain things that are going to curate the results that you want for me. So you know I had to step back and realize one thing you'll you'll realize, whenever you ask me something about like a market, like like a demographic, like what are my thoughts? I'm pretty quick to have a very definitive answer for you, and that is because I realized over time that consuming these different perspectives and all of this different information from all of these different types of people you know, I listened to a podcast the other day with the and probably and again, we live in Indiana, so if we're talking political and you guys have already listened to our political podcast but there's we're more right, center, right, and so that's kind of what we were exposed to throughout our lives and I got, and I listened to the farthest left streamer you could possibly listen to and I actually found value in it because you know so.
Speaker 2:So what I've done is I've kind of reprogrammed myself to find value and purpose in those, exploring those ideas, and that really helped me in my role professionally and as a father and as a friend and whatever, to help provide perspectives that you might miss out on. And I tried not to go too far down a particular rabbit hole. So like I found myself the other day looking for a new book, and I'm like man, I don't want to listen to another self-help book, because I don't want to go so far down that rabbit hole that my entire perspective on life is self-help and I'm going and talking to everybody about how they need to do cold plunges every morning for whatever reason. So that's kind of, and I just have, for whatever reason, an insatiable curiosity, and maybe that goes back to me wanting to please people. I want to have a real firm understanding and grasp on any possible perspective out there.
Speaker 2:That's one thing I find myself doing professionally is constantly thinking about the nuance and the potential way. Like, if we execute this way, how is this going to land with this person? How could it offend them in a way? Are they going to enjoy this experience more? I'm constantly doing that and seeing how other people are executing in. You know my space professionally, I'll buy products to look at the way the packaging is constructed and then try to think about okay, you've heard these different perspectives from these different product reviewers. In this particular niche of the mobile accessory space, which is where I work, you've heard all of their perspectives. How would that personality react to getting this? And so it all kind of compiles. But it took a long time to be like look, it's okay to consume this review when a new product comes out, even though it's watching a YouTube video essentially. So that was. That was a big thing for me was making sure I was comfortable with finding value and things like that that other other people may see as a form of entertainment or as something leisurely.
Speaker 1:How do you prioritize what to listen to and how do you fit that in? Do you have any sort of expectations of consuming a certain amount of content or certain types of subjects? How do you manage that? Or is it just like whenever you're not doing something else, you've got something on?
Speaker 2:It's not whenever I try to keep it balanced. I think we all, whether we pay attention to it or not. Obviously we love to be in echo chambers, but I think, um and this is, as it relates to anything, your perspective, whether it's religion or politics, or technology or whatever we all want people to see things through the same lens that we do, and so for me, I have this and I just pay attention to it. It's like listening to your body when you're injured, when I feel like gosh, this is a little bit much. You know, I've been down on this side of it. Let me look at something to balance it out. Or, you know, if I have a question, you know I sent you guys a video the other day on parenting and that's a constant question in my life. Am I doing this right?
Speaker 2:You know my wife has been back and forth on whether she wants to continue to work full-time or not, and so you know, okay, I'm really curious about the impact that that could. You know? There's the obvious impacts. Like you said, your wife's able to focus on in a prior podcast your wife's able to focus on in a prior podcast. Your wife's able to focus on making sure that she's cooking healthy for your family. That's an obvious impact.
Speaker 2:But what are some of the other nuanced impacts that I might not be thinking of that may come into play? And then, once I've got that digested and implemented or understood within my own life, then I can listen for, whether it's general social conversation with people that are close to me within my sphere or other creators out there or other content providers out there that maybe have some of those similar struggles. So and again this goes back to my key thing is the other piece of the puzzle is I want to be a resource, like again we go back to making people happy, but I like it when somebody calls me and is like hey, I'm dealing with this injury. So what are some of the things that I can do? So I do prioritize a lot of things as it relates to what I'm going through in the immediate or my curiosities. I strain my calf, like I've talked about in prior episodes a couple of weeks ago, and so I've been going really, really deep, because when one of my friends strains their calf, I want to have more knowledge and just surface level on how they can potentially help resolve that. So that's kind of how I prioritize, but I don't, and I probably should have a little more space, like you talked about.
Speaker 2:I don't have a lot of time where I'm not listening to something. I was listening to and this is going to seem strange. I was listening to a podcast on the way up there A good friend of mine. He's a runner and he's one of the few black endurance marathoners in the United States. It was really cool to hear from his perspective what his experience has been like in the endurance community and kind of what his goals are, and then that gives me again a broader understanding of just society as a whole well.
Speaker 1:Well, I have a couple of things. How do you view learning as productive? Like, how do you like take because learning, or maybe it's space, how do you guys look at that? My tendency has been like man if I'm not doing something that I find productive, and I think that stems from my 20s and where I am now, I have a really hard time. You said you did a two-day retreat where you didn't talk. You said it was one of the most impactful things in your life. So help me impact how you guys assign value to that, versus feel like I'm just wasting time.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, for me it's not easy. Our body would tell us otherwise. Right, the dopamine would tell us, like, go for the shiny object, go for the thing, do the thing. And so I think for me it starts with awareness there that my body and my mind is going to be telling me one thing and that may not necessarily be true Like, essentially not trusting my feelings is where it starts From a learning perspective.
Speaker 1:I think that just comes with experience. There's so many times I can't tell you how many times there's just something that turns just this like dose of novelty, even if it's like 10, 15, 20 minutes a day when someone says something that I hadn't thought about before or plants an idea. I'm just listening to someone kind of describe some sort of position or concept. It just turns my brain on and gets me thinking about things in such a heightened way. My level and my ability to strategically think after and this is a short-term impact of learning even within that day when a lot of this is delayed. Short-term impact of learning even within that day when a lot of this is delayed gratification right, it's like you've got to learn the concepts and we haven't talked about it much yet. But AI is one of them. I spent a lot of time in there learning just because I know if we can figure this out at the end of the road there, I think the returns are exponential.
Speaker 1:Right, it's like a logarithmic return curve, right, I think a lot of us one of the mistakes I think we all make is assuming everything's linear right. The amount of effort I put in is going to be proportionate to the amount of return I get. But if you look at the logarithmic curve, where it's, you know it's flat and then it starts to peak, it builds. Actually, I don't know if I'm getting the logarithmic or the exponential curve but you know what I'm talking about where you don't see a lot of gains for a long time and then all of a sudden boom. So I think experiencing that on a couple of occasions is probably going to be your best source of motivation for appreciating that when you read a book, and it completely right, I think it's just you never know when that light bulb is going to go off and it's going to allow you to make a decision or make a change or make a shift, that that blazes a completely new trail and puts you on a completely different trajectory. So some of that, I think, is just experiencing it in terms of space.
Speaker 1:For me, I just find that as highly, highly productive. I mean, I have been in places where I have run so hard that I can barely think my way out of a paper bag, and it's just like I can. You know, even on a daily basis, when you look at your afternoons right around one, two, three o'clock in the afternoon I don't plan to do my strategic thinking then, because I am very faded by that point. My prime is like anywhere from eight or nine in the morning to like noon. That's where I can do my prime thinking. And so I have found this again within a day and just in general, having that space.
Speaker 1:You know, you go on a vacation and you come back and you're just so fresh and you can feel that different perspective. You're just so fresh and you can feel that different perspective. You're just much more level-headed, there's so much more clarity. And so I've just come back from so many of those and I've experienced enough to know that, even though I don't notice it it's hard to notice it at two o'clock on a day that like, oh, I'm not, you know myself, cause you're still able to answer emails and you're still able to talk, and it's not like you're some shell of yourself, a different person. But it's usually when you get out of that space that you're like, oh my gosh, I didn't even realize where I was. I mean, you guys said this a couple episodes ago. Someone said something about the fact that you didn't know how hard you were going and that you were actually in that spot until you got out of it and realized, like whoa. So I mean, for me, that's my commentary on the two.
Speaker 2:You know, for I mean for me it the, the effort put in upfront from a learning perspective, makes execution on the back end quicker. And I think we've done. You know, and I've been guilty of this and I maybe I still am you see the guy or the woman in their fifties or sixties in a particular role and you're like, oh, poor them, they should have been retired by now. Or, you know, they don't look as as, as vibrant as the 35 year old and they look like that. We, I think, really do a disservice to experience and because I think a lot of times, especially when information wasn't as readily available and you didn't have the opportunity to Continually enrich yourself, people got stuck in their ways and kind of were viewed maybe more as a curmudgeon and kind of. You know old school and wouldn't change for the future. I think that's not as prevalent now. But boy, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2:There are some instances where I have been in my early 30s just in the fray and I've gone to somebody who I maybe looked at like that and 20 seconds later, after one comment, and it could be the most obvious solution to the problem, but I just couldn't figure it out because I was so buried in the tactical execution.
Speaker 2:You know there's so much value in that experience, whether it be a learned experience, where you've consumed something else somebody else has put forth, or a lived experience which you know, I mean goodness talk about.
Speaker 2:I mean, that is childhood. Your parents spend their entire young life telling you this is how it's going to be, and you spend your entire young life telling them no, and then it ends up being that way. You know, and kudos to you If you're one of the few that actually listen to mentors, which I guess in that same breath, because I see learning through some of these mediums as a digital mentorship, if you will. I know that both of you have benefited greatly from different mentors over time and I think again, a lot of times people look at that as a weakness, like, oh, you had help, you didn't do it on your own, or whatnot. So that's my answer to your question, but I'd like to continue the conversation and move forward and talk about mentorship and the value that you've found in people that have spent a lot of time thinking about your particular situation or something similar to it.
Speaker 1:This is a great question. I believe everyone should have a mentor. I have a I'll call it a life coach that I meet with once a month to just help me gain different perspectives on my life, to get me out of the weeds. We all get wrapped around the axle to ask me questions that align with the goals that I want to hit. So that's, that's part one.
Speaker 1:I spent the last decade when I went into buying this business in 2015,. I knew nothing about owning a business, I remember, so I found this the first thing I did. You know, we got the financing set up and I was I like to say I was I was dumb enough enough to try because I didn't know any better. I didn't. Yeah, let's just hope it works out. Let's just risk everything. And I went to this first meeting. I found this group consulting group, and I remember someone in my group my smaller group showing me how to look at the financials, like how to even run reports to see how we're doing. I just kind of had this just naive, and I spent the last 10 years putting myself in rooms where I was the dumbest person, which took a ton of humility, because I just you go in and you're presented a situation and you're just there to learn and consume knowledge, and so I would say, from finding association and groups where you can join if you're an electrician and you can join an electrician group across the country and you don't geographically compete where you can talk about best practices and what people are doing, and it may be what are you doing in marketing and how are you handling your finance. Or we're part of a group now that has 170 agencies nationwide and we get to be in a room with 10 of them and we don't geographically compete, but someone's trying different stuff in marketing, someone's trying different stuff in sales, some people are using AI, some people are using bots and we're able to learn so much faster, and so we constantly are trying to put ourselves in those rooms to learn and to grow professionally by seeing what other people did, because a lot of times you don't have to reinvent the wheel. There's not too many really new ideas. It's people trying different things, and every time we go to one of those meetings, we come back with one, two or three good ideas that we think we can apply in our own context.
Speaker 1:I would say, personally I've been a big fan of Tony Robbins from a motivational, inspirational, of helping me break through some of those barriers. I think for me there was a lot of fear fear of being judged, fear of looking a certain way, fear of taking certain risks and I spent a ton of time at his events really building confidence and believing in myself, really building confidence and believing in myself. And I think before you can lead people, you have to believe in yourself and you have to carry yourself in a way to where you can convince other people to come alongside you. And so I had a lot of self-doubt early on as an individual and I think that's something that I still struggle with wanting to be accepted, appreciated, and there's still times where that comes out and I get really insecure.
Speaker 1:But I would say, if you can join a group or find a mentor or what you talk about, like listening to reading books and consuming data, we can take someone's entire life study and read it in eight hours, or we can like the amount of information you can take in is just unbelievable and we can do that all the time. So when we're listening to these things like that's how I get inspired of like we have several different companies that all can take different ideas and I hear something and like immediately I can apply it and be like, wow, I wonder if this would work here, and so we can go and apply it. So I think mentorship is super important, personally and professionally, I think putting yourself in rooms with other like-minded people that have the same goals in mind you know growth and culture, and there's all different parts of a business is super important. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. Are you going to?
Speaker 2:Well, I was just was just gonna say do you think there's a point in time where it kind of crystallizes? Because I think that, like we talk about tactical execution and doing busy work and um or being productive just for the sake of being productive, do you think there there comes a point in time where it kind of crystallizes, because I think to do some of the things you're talking about, your ego has to subside 100.
Speaker 1:I was just gonna say that's, I was going to go with it. If you have the humility to be willing to learn, you can accelerate the learning curve exponentially. And I mean, I think that's the thing. And I think, over time, I would say, if you looked at the human ego while I think that's very prevalent in the US in particular I would say if you looked at that in proportion to age, I think there's at least a period in the first part of your life where the 20s you feel like you've got all your answers, and even maybe your late teens you've got all the answers, you've got it figured out. It's fun to reinvent the wheel. No one's going to tell you how to do it.
Speaker 1:And then you do hit this point, this inflection point of like okay, I remember that at Liberty Mutual, like when I was there, everything anyone did was dumb. Like we had all these shared services and all these resources of people doing basically everything for us, from, you know, structuring, performance reviews to bonus plans, and I just always, always, would pick those things apart. Here's how I would do it, here's how I would do it, here's how I would do this. And I wasn't necessarily vocal about it, but in my mind it was like if I was solving this problem, I could have solved this problem a whole lot better. And, like, I just lived in that headspace of like and then you hit this point of like. Part of this was a realization after having to try and do all of those things at once at IMG, when I realized like, okay, yeah, if I could focus on just this problem and only this problem for an extended period of time, sure, I could solve it better. But, like, I've got to be conscious of my capacity and to have the humility enough to accept and learn from things others experience that they've had. Because the other thing is, I've gotten more real-world experience trying to develop those solutions myself.
Speaker 1:Amidst everything else, you start to get an appreciation for all of the complexities.
Speaker 1:It is very, very, very easy to pick things apart and find holes in certain things, because there are pros and cons to everything. But I do think there's a point where the ego tails off a little bit and your disposition is certainly much better to being able to consume whether it's digital content in person or otherwise, and learn from other people's experiences, journeys and mistakes. The other thing I would just add real quickly I thought was really interesting. I read a study one time that the knowledge density in books is like the highest by some crazy multiplying factor, like if you look at articles and I'm not sure like this was kind of before, I think a lot of people were consuming YouTube videos and things in bulk. But the amount of like boiling down that they do in books and like the amount of knowledge that is embedded and that's why a lot of your Elon Musk's and Bill Gates and Buffett's are like huge book junkies because of the knowledge density for the hour and the time that you actually put in the return, is very, very high.
Speaker 2:Well, you're not only consuming the life's work, but you're also following the train of thought too while you're doing that. So you're consuming it with context. But I think that ego statement kind of maybe goes back to what you were saying earlier about the decades. You know you have this ego about you in your 20s. You know I feel like this is an interesting thing because, you know, maybe this is me feeling vulnerable, but like I think that at times you know, especially through the Instagram filterization of life, that you see people that have gotten to certain spots in life and you think that there is a particular path and it's that they traveled to get there. And I think you know it's really interesting I'd have to call out so much of where you land in life is timing in specific. You know I struggle with this a lot and I'll just kind of call this out here.
Speaker 2:When I started in my 20s my own business, it was very similar. You know everything. Everybody's doing this wrong. I can do this way better and I will just outwork everybody. You know I'll stay up 20 hours a day or 18 hours a day, and was able to do that for the year that I remained employed at my regular job, um, but I'll just outwork everybody and and we'll build this business from scratch and we'll get it to this particular point. Well, unfortunately for me, I didn't have the requisite skillset available to see it any further than I did and it failed, um. And then, as the ego subsided more and more and as it became more about recognizing what others were good at I mean, I had people walk out from that first business because I was just so sure I was right and if they were going to challenge me, then I remember, uh, one of my favorite people to work with. She was amazing.
Speaker 2:Like surviving um operationally and from a project management perspective in nightlife is not easy to do because there's so much distraction and there's so much, it's just nightlife it can get ugly and we got into it and I was like, well, if you think you're right, just leave. Leave your cell phone on my desk. And I was for sure she wasn't gonna. And I came home and she was gone and my ego wouldn't let me there.
Speaker 2:And what I struggle with now is that I wish um, you know when, when you get to a point in life where then other people are involved because I don't I have a pretty high risk tolerance. If tomorrow I was single, I would be taking considerably more risks, more risks than I do now. And so I struggle a lot. And this may be a little off topic, but I personally struggle a lot with what. What could have been, if you know, I had that skill set at that point in time, or, you know, if I didn't have the responsibility I have I've gained as my ego has subsided, as I've kind of gotten older. It's very interesting to me. I don't know, I just felt like I needed to kind of put that out there.
Speaker 1:It reminds me of the phrase they say the youth is wasted on the young.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's an element of that that. If you could take the wisdom and or? I think what's interesting about what you said is there's a level of, there's a level of responsibility that confines us professionally once we hit that age too, it's a fair question. The one thing I would say is the grass is always greener on the other side, sure, and when you look at regrets or wishes to be in a certain place, I want to point out that it won't translate to being any happier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I mean, I think that it's been nice to have MTC come to be and I think that that is to, uh, for me personally, very fulfilling.
Speaker 2:So, um, you know, but but I I call that out because in in my consumption of, of information and of perspectives, there is a narrative out there where you have people who believe that, and I will say that a lot of them are just doing it for the visibility of it all. They may not even be real, but the flaunting of excess and the I make $40,000 a day type of people and the I have I've built 20 successful businesses. I just want our listeners to know that you see a lot of people out there that are, that are doing that, that are doing that, that are putting that forward, and that you know, um, what I'm saying is that at times it's made me feel insignificant, sure, um, although stepping back and reframing, there's no reason to feel insignificant in that regard, because you know you're not a lot of success in certain areas of life, whether that is professional or whatever. It's timing to a point.
Speaker 1:there's only so much you can affect and luck and yeah, there's just a lot and why things work out and some don't. But I want to give a little bit of a um, of a shout out, but I want to focus a little bit on business owners. I work with several and the number one thing that I would say is in common with every single one is they're trying to do it all and they don't have a handle on their finances and they refuse to get help, and so the one thing that I have I have done in my life that is correct is I've surrounded myself with good people. Now you can argue it's a resource thing at some point in time, but there's a lot of it. It's not. You can outsource your finance right Like if you don't know your financials. It's the number one reason why businesses fail small businesses. Every single person that I've talked to does not have complete transparency on their financials to be able to dive in and to make better business decisions, and so that's number one.
Speaker 1:Being able to find the right people to bring in play, to be able to help you and to be able to find a mentor or a coach is super, super important Because, again, you can get somebody's. I've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in a decade of my life to learn everything that I've learned. If you could find someone similar that's been down the path that you want to go I don't care whether it's a business or sports or whatever they're going to give you an invaluable amount of knowledge and it's going to shorten the gap right, because if you want to get here to here and you could find a way to jump to here, that's basically what a coach is right. Some of it's physical, some of it's mental and psychological, some of it's spiritual. But business owners today are trying to do way too much and they feel like they have to be good at everything. And the ego part about this is I've got to be good at everything. If I ask for help, it's showing that I have a weakness and that I'm not good enough. And then there's all these lies that play out in your head, and the truth is that when you continue to do it all and I tried to do it for a period of time you're going to flounder, and I will also tell you, taking all your profitability to go hire the right person is exactly what I did a couple of different times in my life because I knew I needed that to get to the next level.
Speaker 1:If you ever want to scale a business I think you said this early on get to the next level. If you ever want to scale a business I think you said this early on you can't keep doing more tasks. You can't go from like, oh, I want to grow my business, I do. You know, I'm going to work 20 hours more and we're going to grow 20 more percent and then I'm going to work 30 hours more. It's not possible. The exponential part of that is leverage, and you get leverage by getting other people around you that have complimentary skill sets that are going to allow you to focus and grow.
Speaker 1:To me, the hidden key here is opportunity cost. What I think people do a really poor job of professionally and including myself, and I'm just saying people, as in human, innate humans is we do a really poor job of identifying the opportunity cost of us spending time in certain places of our lives. We asked a question in one of the very early episodes if you could spend money on anything, what would it be? And in my opinion, just reflecting back on it, the right answer is time. Like, if you can buy time, that's a really really, really good way to spend money for a business owner as well. As because, to your point and some of the things, something you've talked about is a business owner is in business because they're probably very, very good at one particular thing and they're getting by on all the others because they're really really, really good at that thing and they don't realize that if they could take, instead of spending 10 hours on that thing, if they could spend 30 hours on that particular thing, the potential revenue gain or growth or whatever and that's obviously in a business context, but the potential of fulfillment personally is exponential. But they're spending those other 20 hours doing all these other things and it's not that those other things aren't bad to do, but nobody has visibility to the opportunity cost.
Speaker 1:The opportunity cost being, if I'm spending my time here, what am I not able to do? That's maybe costing me even more money or preventing me from growing this much. And I think that's a really hard thing to do in life is to step back and say, and to me, where I've had visibility and I've had enlightened moments on that, it's been when I'm planning. It's like why am I doing this? Why am I spending time on that? And again some of it comes back to resources. But once you make that identification, I'll give you an example. Some of it is like lawn care, right Like now we got someone who's very affordable and there's not a lot to do there and, you know, I realized that I'm in a maybe a fortunate position to be able to outsource that. But I will say I think a lot of people really undervalue their time. You think about the time that someone spends manicuring their lawn or you know, between weeding and mowing and that sort of thing, and you think about what you could do with that time, whether it's spending time with your family or whether it's maybe generating revenue in some other fashion. I think a lot of people underestimate what they could do with time that's being spent elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Another point I want to add. I agree with that. I would say when you own a business and say you're somewhat successful, starting other businesses is not a good idea, it's a very bad idea. It's a very bad idea. So it's like, oh well, I've had a little success because you're getting you go from zero to 30 in a business and you're doing good, but getting from 30 to a hundred is a lot harder and you're like, oh, I want to go do this thing and try to take this and just do this little part. It's not a good idea. You shouldn't until you've reached to a time where you've gotten to an owner role, where you're truly at a spot where you can do owner level things.
Speaker 1:I don't think it's bad owning multiple businesses, but if you are the individual contributor to a lot of different businesses, that's not a good thing and you're going to splint your time out and you're going to say, oh, I'm going to spend a day here, a day here, a day here. It's impossible to build culture. Focus on one thing, and I think you can achieve much more. So unpack that a little bit, cause I could see where someone listening this might say that's contradictory. Well, guys, you're saying, like, really focus on one thing you're good at and you know, if you could spend 10 hours doing just that across three different businesses, then that's better than spending 30 hours at one business and 20 hours of that's doing stuff that you're not very good at you're just getting by at. So unpack that a little more. Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at.
Speaker 1:So, strategy, finance, culture those are things that I enjoy. Those are things I'm passionate about. Those are not operational things I have to do every single day. Those are the three pillars that I focus on in every company I'm in and I will say those are more like owner level responsibilities. So if you have the other people around you, then I think that's fine, but if you're one of the two or three contributors and you're just doing that portion, then I don't think you're going to be successful.
Speaker 1:I think you have to have teams around you and there's got to be a person responsible that's there every day to help build culture, that's a grown adult that you know is trying to help, you know, run, run the company, because the company isn't going to run itself. You need leadership there and if you're not able to be, you can't be an effective leader. In my opinion, if you're let's say, you're a company under five employees and you're trying to run three different companies and I'm assuming these companies don't intertwine I'm not talking about having a real estate company that owns the property, like those that don't I mean three separate operating companies with three separate employee groups it's very, very hard. You could be successful and get outcomes, but it's going to be. It's going to require a lot more effort. Sure, absolutely. Let me, if you guys don't have anything, I kind of want to ask a little bit of a different productivity from a different lens and kind of shift us a little bit, unless you had anything to add on that.
Speaker 2:I was just going to kind of. You know one thing I, you know, I remember in my twenties I had a buddy who was into some of the the great philosophers and I always thought it was so ridiculous. Um, you know, as I've gotten older, I've spent more and more time exploring philosophy and and that uh, particular area of knowledge. And, and you know, I wonder, as a society, especially in America, if there, as things get more, you know, as things like AI become more prevalent and more of this work is being accomplished by computers, I wonder if there's going to be a shift in value as it relates to some of the things you were talking about, because I think a lot of people, especially younger people, who are obsessed with achieving things and doing these tactical things and this isn't talking smack about younger people I still fall into this same habit.
Speaker 2:I don't think people give a lot of credence to the word strategy because it's so overused, or to culture or to. Now we know, having been in bad cultures, um, how just detrimental that could be. I mean, that can cut a business. You know what did they say? Culture?
Speaker 1:eats strategy for breakfast.
Speaker 2:So, like those things are extremely important and we I'm sure we've all come across people like I referenced earlier that you know, know in a moment of brevity have given us a sentence that has changed our perspective on business. You know forever an aging trajectory where you start to value that skill set and you start to appreciate that skill set instead of looking at it like a cop out. Oh yeah, he's the owner, he's just a culture guy, he doesn't do anything, he sits at home all day. Um, you know, you guys, you guys kind of know where I'm going with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a point in time when you get there as an owner um, whether or not it's perceived is a whole different game, right yeah, I could probably talk more to that yeah, I think you've got employees that are going to perceive anything that's not task oriented as a as a waste and they're not going to value that, naturally.
Speaker 1:In fact, we've had a lot of people who really struggled to move up in an organization because they had their own identity tied to and when they got to this next level, where there wasn't a bunch of tasks to do, they felt like they weren't doing anything. So I think that perception exists, but I would agree with you and I think a hundred percent that's the case Things that AI is not good at doing will continue to be more and more valuable over time. I mean relationships and sentiment and emotion and culture, and some of those things that can't be plugged in or reasoned out by an AI model, at least at this point in time, may get there eventually, I think will continue to be exponentially valuable.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what I had. What was your next?
Speaker 1:Well, I was just going to shift this a little bit, for I mean, we talked about a lot in terms of business, but we haven't talked much in terms of productivity and fitness, and that's a.
Speaker 1:It's a really interesting thing because you've got these people that run hundreds of miles you know, 120 miles a week and then you've got people who are running 40 miles a week or 20 miles a week and you've got people that are running 20 to 40 miles a week and getting really impressive outcomes these day and age, that are running what I'll say and training very precisely and getting these gains in a very efficient manner, and nothing against the people who are running long distance mileage is, I think, when you look at the correlations and the trends of the fastest, like there's still a very high correlation with the very high mileage and high volume things. But I just wanted to pick your guy's brain on that a little bit. On the fitness side, it's like how do you look at that? Has that changed for you over time in terms of trying to be more efficient and productive?
Speaker 2:Dramatically Things are and this goes back to what you just mentioned in terms of identity being tied up in things. You know, I think that people, especially those that don't seek out a fitness mentor, they'll find what's readily available to them, they'll adopt it, they'll see gains from that and that will be their way, and they get tied up. And then people start to look at them through that lens, whether it's positive or not. You know, I've seen people there's a particular runner that was very successful early on in his ultra career and had broke some, or come close to breaking some records at the 100-mile distance and things weren't working for him. Well, his original approach was or their original approach was high mileage and they had failed at a race and bombed. And they came back a couple weeks later and they're like okay, time to double it, which would have been like 180 or 210 miles a week.
Speaker 2:And I've seen other people do that recently. You know, put in 100 plus mile weeks and get a I have context, I've been doing this long enough get a relatively mediocre result. You know, like mid threes, uh, marathon time, which is great, but if you're running 140 miles a week, it's not so great. Um, what I think, and so they get tied up in that and they continue that pursuit and they only it's like a square peg in a round hole Like, oh, I'm just gonna just more, more, more, more, more. It around whole, like I'm just going to just more, more, more, more more. If you're able to unpair yourself from that. There are so many unique ways now to optimize your productivity and fitness. I was just forced into one that I've talked about on prior podcasts. With heat training. I've been a 50 to 60 mile week person and, like most people you know, even 70. At times I saw a fairly direct correlation to improvement in time as that went up, but at the same time I was also being more intentional. Um, with my efforts, and I think when you get to be a master especially you've been running long enough your body will force you into productivity. You can't. You know, if you're the guy that doesn't understand pacing and everything is hard, that'll work until you're about 35. And then you'll just, you just won't stop breaking.
Speaker 2:So you know, parker Valby, who is one of the most, if not the most successful female NCAA athlete ever, is a big trailblazer in this regard. She runs twice a week and she has the NCAA 10,000 meter and 5,000 meter records. You know what she does. She was a swimmer but she spends the majority of her time on the arc trainer. And you know we talked about me getting threshold level efforts in on heat training. I can get my heart rate up to where I need to get it up to, but I'm not destroying my legs going out and doing a 10 miler um at six, 30 pace. Instead, I'm hiking at 15 minute mile pace in heat on a treadmill, saving the majority of my, and that's what she's doing. She's on the arc trainer. She's not, you know, tiring out her tendons and muscles and ligaments. She's, but she's hammering from an endurance perspective and building mitochondria and so you know, but it's hard, right, because you can imagine her. She sees all these other women around her running 60, 70, 80 miles a week and it's like, oh, but she was kind of forced into it because she had injury problems earlier on in her career. So there's so many ways. You know the Kenyans, there's some of the most successful runners out there and one of the things that people will, um, you know, talk about with them is that when it comes to their easy mileage, it is extremely easy, because if they're going to be running 110 miles a week, okay, but I have to optimize within that 110 miles. So, my, you know I'll go out and run a marathon at 440 pace, but my easy runs are 745 minute miles. Could you imagine like anybody running a regular marathon? That's like running 12 minute miles is your slow pace. So you know, I think from a fitness perspective there's so many ways to do it, but you really have to cut yourself away from, um, the identity that you've developed with the initial training approach that you put into play and just explore lactate, explore heat training, explore altitude training, if you have that available to you, explore.
Speaker 2:You know, I was just talking to you guys about the podcast I was listening to on the way up here, um, with with, uh, robert jackson talking about, you know, being a black runner in the endurance community, and one of the things he talked about was and this, this motivated me because I'm sitting five and a half weeks out from a major race and still injured and he said, you know, he faced the same problem. He had knee issues and then he had some other connective chain issues that were causing him problems and he ran, I think, his marathon PR off four weeks of training because when he was hurt he spent a boatload of time on the elliptical, just cranked up hammering. You never hear about that in the running and endurance community. It's just run, run, run, run, run through it, run through it. So I know that's a lot there, but there are so many different ways to be productive and there are so many different avenues to take for your specific situation. And then again, like you said, like we talked about initially and this is what I'll end my statement on is is purpose.
Speaker 2:You know, I came up here this morning and I was like and this, I think, crystallizes it I woke up and I had a 7 am dentist appointment and I'm like, okay, maybe I can get home from this at like 7.15 and then do my workout and then come up here or do my hike or whatever, come here with these guys, record the podcast, whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, it's 70 something in Indiana today and my son has been wanting to ride his bike but it has had a flat tire since last fall because you don't ride bikes in Indiana in the winter and like, well, I could fix the tire so that he has it when he gets home from school to ride or I could do my workout. I fixed the tire. You know what I mean. And that's more important to me that he gets out in these moments and explores and develops a love for that kind of stuff than me getting a workout in. So it's realizing. You know what, if I get home at 7 o'clock tonight and I can't do my hike, oh well, maybe I'll throw it in Sunday, when I normally would take a day off and my foot hurts a little bit anyways. Yes, I know I'm justifying, but my point is, um, don't push yourself to the point of mental detriment as well. So that's another piece of of keeping it optimal.
Speaker 1:I have nothing to add to that. Yeah, I mean I it's a great point and I I think the only thing I would add in closing is just what you said, or, inefficiency and productivity can be defined in different ways. It could be minimizing the time that you're having to spend out there. It could be minimizing the mileage that you're having to spend out there. That, I think, translates you mentioned it in terms of fitness, but I think it translates more broadly.
Speaker 1:It's very easy for us to get married to do the things the way that we've done them and the way that we initially did them, because they're working, at least in terms of our definition of success. But I think if you really take the time and energy to look for a more efficient way to do something, there's a way to do it. Now you got to be careful you don't swing the pendulum too far and you just pack your day with all these things. But I think you hear the. If the Pope can find the time to work out, if the president can find the time to work out, we can find the time to work out. It's just a matter of prioritizing your day, finding ways maybe, that you can do some things more efficiently If you, if you really dig in 99 times out of a hundred, there's a more efficient way to do it and get 80% of the results with respect to the purpose that you initially engaged in that activity in.
Speaker 2:And that purpose may be. You know, it's such an interesting confluence of purpose, identity and ego, like there's all of those things. I look at different people that execute in a specific way. You know, I'll give you an example. Corey's one of my best friends and he comes and helps us produce races.
Speaker 2:Corey has the affinity to take things as far as humanly possible when it comes to something that he's interested in, and a lot of people will look at that and criticize him.
Speaker 2:But his purpose, something that gives him that he's very passionate about, is seeing how far he can take it, and a lot of times that's resulted in injuries.
Speaker 2:But because his purpose is that and because that's what he's passionate about, and ultimately him going to the depths that others won't go because maybe they have other goals in mind, is totally okay.
Speaker 2:People will criticize him oh, he's always hurt or he's always this, or he's taking this too far or he's doing too much here. Well, before you judge him, you've got to understand what his purpose is and why he's doing it and then how that benefits other people. And so, understanding that, and then I'm sure for him there's an element of ego where he wants to be the one that takes it that far. And then there's some of the identity tied up in there. So it's like figuring out that balance and how that all kind of works together to get the result you're looking for, because there's going to be pulls, I think, from all three sides and you have to give, I think you have to recognize that all of that is there, right. There is going to be some of it. You're not going to avoid getting a little tied up in it, you're not going to avoid having a little bit of ego in it and you obviously have to give credence to purpose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you nailed it. Identity was probably the biggest one for me. I think probably each person has struggles with one of those more than another. For me, I found my identity in the role that I was in. When you own a business, I was tying a lot of who I was to the business. The business performed well I felt good. The business grew I felt good. The business did bad. I felt bad. When I could performed well, I felt good. The business grew I felt good. The business did bad. I felt bad. When I could solve problems, I felt good. When problems were too great, I felt bad. There's just a lot of emotion in that.
Speaker 1:As you talk about that with fitness, identity and becoming this one person or doing this one thing, I think it's really important to find a way. If you've gone down that path and say if I didn't own this business, how would I feel? Would I have purpose? Would I have direction? Would I be able to? Is this the one thing that's keeping me going? What would I do and that could be applied to physical fitness If I wasn't a 248 marathoner, if I didn't have this running community? Would I have purpose? And I'm not saying you should get rid of those things. But I think they're great conversations to have, cause if you get tied to anything too closely, it's not going to be healthy. Um, and so those are my thoughts on that.
Speaker 2:I think that's a that's a good stop yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, uh, thank you guys for tuning into episode 12. Um, this has been fun. We went down a lot of rabbit holes on productivity and busyness and identity and ego. I think we talked about a lot of really good stuff and hopefully you guys found some value in it and we will see you next time.