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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to It's a Good Life, the podcast for entrepreneurs where it's all about growing yourself and your business. Here's your host, founder of America's largest business coaching company, Brian Buffini. Well, the top of the morning to you, and it's great to be with you all today. Rarely in the last few years have I had the privilege of actually sitting in a seminar. I'm normally traveling around, speaking at events, and it's hard for me to get to an event. But this year, Beverly and I made the trek to Chicago to the Global Leadership Summit, and we heard a lady speak on stage, and my wife elbowed me in those ribs that every man knows. When you get the rib shot, you better take action. And she said, this gal is perfect for us. So we have pursued Juliet Font, and she is a brilliant woman. She's a speaker, author, productivity expert, and we're going to dive into her book A Minute to Think, which, by the way, I have just started, and I'm like, I may be the poster child for this book right now. So I was doing this for all of you so I could do a good interview. And it turns out this book is all about how to reclaim your creativity, conquer busyness, and do your best work. And, Juliet, I'm in need of all of those things. Welcome to the show. I'm so delighted to have you here today.
- [01:22]
B
Thank you. Thank you. What a delight to be with you.
- [01:25]
A
So I got the rib shot because my wife recognized not only for myself, but the people we run with and then the company we lead that everybody's addicted to busyness. And somewhere along the line in American culture, busyness became the badge of honor. In fact, we announce it when we meet one another. I'm up to my eyeballs. I've caught myself. Here's how many hours I worked last week. It's a badge of honor. And that's what's happened in our society. So let's talk about this and actually how we need to probably think about this differently.
- [01:56]
B
Yes. And I think for your community, maybe more than anyone, to see the threat of what busyness brings. I mean, I've spoken for Caldwell, Sotheby's NAR ReMax. I know your world. And I will say, I hope I don't start off on a wrong foot saying anything negative about the community. But I have never been involved with a as frenzied a community as the real estate community and this kind of spastic action that they throw themselves into with the most beautiful intentions and so dedicated and really wanting to build. Even the. I think the lending community's kind of picked up the similar cadence. And so that nervous system agitation is counter to everything that they want. They want those deep, rich, confident relationships and nobody trusts that spastic energy. So it's this really interesting cycle where I think for your community, more than many, it's a threat. It really is a threat. Masking as a path to victory. And that's what's so tricky about it.
- [03:02]
A
Well, if you think about it, you know, the realm of the real estate agent, mortgage broker, looks like this. When you do transactions, the companies that support the transactions, the escrow companies, the banks, the title companies, it's 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, which is great. The problem is generating customers happens evenings and weekends. So the problem is by nature we're available. And agents used to promote themselves, by the way, on their business card. 7:24. And you know, we've been combating that for years. In fact, the number one reason why people will typically come and join in our coaching program is they say, I want to get organized. And the reason is this spastic energy. They feel overwhelmed. And there's this natural predilection of the business. Evenings, weekends generate the customer. Monday to Friday, close the deals. Yet here's what I'm going to share with you. We did an exhaustive study of people in the real estate space, and 37% of their day was spent doing errands. Talking to the customer was 3%. So it ends up enveloping into a whole dynamic of what we think, how we perceive the energy we think we're expending. But ultimately a huge lack of prioritization. You know, you share a story in your book about the connection between oxygen and fire and how it relates to productivity, and I just feel like it's.
- [04:27]
B
Yes, let's do that one.
- [04:28]
A
Yeah, it's right up the alley of where our audience is.
- [04:31]
B
Yeah, and I heard about that time study and I want to talk more about it later. But the, I mean, the basic philosophy, the metaphor that we found everything that we do in is this idea of oxygen to feed the fire. So I grew up in Manhattan, which means nobody ever taught me how to build a fire. But there, you know, I know how to hail a cab in the rain. That's my superpower. Right. I don't know. But I, you know, I had outdoorsy boyfriends along the way, and they taught me you have to have layers. You should have a little pine needles, good wood, maybe some super fire starter. And the one critical rule is that Your fire will never ever ignite if there isn't space in between the combustibles and that oxygen to feed the spark is the only thing you can't skip. And so everyone in your audience, every realtor, lender, every other entrepreneur listening, they wake up in the morning with this little spark, the contribution, the dream, the North Star. And then it is avalanched upon by a pile of low value touch points all day long and they're choked by their own aspiration and they don't ever ignite. And so that that space we call white space. I know many of you have heard the term white space. Fun fact about me, I've been talking about it so long. I happen to hold the trademark on the term white space from 20, 20 years ago.
- [05:50]
A
Really?
- [05:51]
B
Yes. And it just means time without assignment. It's that open, fluid, flexible time that used to be in between things and used to give us recalibration and focus and energy and now it's just completely co opted by busyness and, and digital touches. So we have to get it back critical.
- [06:09]
A
And look, I mean there's been so much work on this. I did work with Tony Schwartz for years on the powerful engagement, all these things.
- [06:15]
B
Yes, yes.
- [06:16]
A
And there's a piece of this pie which we know it yet. I find myself not just filling the space and you know, I got a lot going on. I, my husband, I have six kids, I've got five grandkids, I've got, you know, 200 plus employees and 25,000 members and a partridge and a pear tree like everybody else. What I find though is that when thinking about this lighting the fire, I throw damp stuff in there, you know, and what happens is I end up great.
- [06:43]
B
I love it. I've never said that before.
- [06:45]
A
Yeah, throw damp stuff in there and I, I love my little apple feedback when it shows me how many hours I was scrolling and I'm like, I don't sit around scrolling, what are they talking about? Yet that phone is attached to me all the time. And what it does and what I will say, how it affects me. The title of this book was genius, which is a minute to think. You know, Ken Blanchard and I are friends for 30 plus years.
- [07:10]
B
You know the best man. Love him.
- [07:12]
A
Yes, sweetheart. Live right here locally. Lives still here, lives here locally. And you know, the one minute manager minute sounds achievable. Think we are not thinking. We are reacting all day long.
- [07:24]
B
Absolutely.
- [07:25]
A
And then we're reacting and booking and overwhelming. And then we fill it with the damp stuff. And the damp stuff Is the, the amount of hours scrolling, the constant, you know, like I'm doing research. So I do my big bold predictions show every year. Well, I've got to do all this research and I've got the team doing research and so on, so forth. So as I'm doing my research, they come finding me. You know, they're, they're pursuing me and it's like, oh, what is that? What is this? What is that? And the next thing I look back and 30 minutes have gone by and I haven't taken a minute to think correct. And right now I need it.
- [07:58]
B
And the hardest thing in my work is going into some giant big shot who's built a colossal empire like you and proposing that anything could actually be better or different. But what's true is that we have no idea if you could build seven empires if you had a moment to actually just look out of a window and cook the next iteration of your vision. We have no idea. Right. And you know, so that, that sense of it is for everyone. But if do start dialing down into the population, there's a lot of people in much more pain than I would guess you're in. Because every single day is a chaotic, fearful, reactive flow. And they, you know, I think it may be the one place where I would playfully be concerned with your advice that you always give about. I know you have a rags to riches story about working hard and people who came to this country, all the things you talk about. I think it's possible that some people just take that advice and their translation is to just keep in motion, keep doing, doing, doing, doing. Without that critical lens of intentionality to say, what am I doing? Which is my favorite question. I have a practice all day long. I will stop and say what am I doing? And I just stop for a second and I'll see if the thing that I am actually doing is of value to my dreams. And, and a lot of times you catch yourself and it's not.
- [09:27]
A
You know, it's interesting because we put on over 2,500 events in our history. So I'm, I'm a believer in this to the degree of goal setting and writing. A big devotee of Mihaly Csikszek Mihaly on flow. So I'm performing in people through goal writing and we'll play the soft classical baroque style music and, and they write the, write the goals and it's great. But I'll tell you about an experience that happened by accident and it was 2006 and I had like our leadership Conference that you're going to be speaking at next year, which we're so fired up about. And we had about a thousand people there. And in the mornings we were doing these workouts. And of course I had on staff trainers. And they were like one guy was, you know, he was the big muscle bound guy and his wife was the yoga teacher. And they're like, and I want to do this, and I want to do this. So we're on this beach in Bermuda. The sand is pink, the water is turquoise green, and these rocks in the water, spectacular. He has people facing away from it towards his stage where he's going to do this kind of old school workout. So I get there and I was talking to people that I performed. They were all whipped. So I turned to his wife and I said, can we do this? I'm not going to tell you how to do your workout. Can we do this? To start off, can we do three minutes? Spin the people around on their towels, have them face the water and just have them breathe for three minutes because they're so wiped out. I'm telling you, that was almost 20 years ago. And I have more comments on those three minutes than almost anything I've done in 2,500 seminars.
- [10:50]
B
There you go. Because they're craving it. They are dying for it. I'll tell you. I'm on Hyatt's wellbeing advisory board and we work with meeting planners who work with Hyatt. And you cannot get these meeting planners to put any white space into a conference. So you have to be chowing down a power bar while attempting to pee while going to the panel. You know, there's no, you are not allowed to have a second. And it's this content gluttony where we only think there's value when some more piece of content is being shoved in our heads.
- [11:22]
A
Oh, that's so good. That's a great phrase. You have a chapter in the book which is, this is touchy stuff here, but I really think we gotta go there. Hallucinated urgency, it's tough because, I mean, I really think it's an elephant under the carpet. I think it's part of that. I brag about how busy I am. And then also there's this. We're creating this sense of urgency that isn't there sometimes. I'd love you to speak about it because it's a tough one for us all to acknowledge that it's happening.
- [11:51]
B
Yes, it is very tough, especially in your world and the competition of it. And I will Admit to saying, I might not be completely current on the topic of purchased leads in the real estate community, but I remember sitting at a REMAX event with people asking questions during the Q and A of should I get up at 1 o' clock in the morning to be the first person to respond to a purchase lead. So it is, you know, your world again, unique, different, necessary of special, empathy. Hallucinated urgency is simply urgency that is not related to any tactical reality, but just comes from other places, comes from that out of control, reactive cadence, comes from our own anxiety being funneled into what seems like a workflow. And it is completely pervasive. But there are ways of looking at chunking urgency to be more logical. So what we teach people is there are actually three kinds of urgency and if you can learn how to spot them, you'll win. So the first one is not time sensitive. And that's the one that nobody ever notices in the world of business at all that there are some things that are actually not time sensitive. Then there are things that are tactically time sensitive. So that is speed to result is actually helping my business. But then there's this gigantic catch. All of things that are emotionally time sensitive. And that's the muddy one that's masquerading as tactically time sensitive. It's when you feel anxiety, worry, fear, control, competition, looking over your shoulder and so you're moving fast without purpose. And it just creates again that nervous system addled quality that is counter to what a realtor wants to be. And I'll tell you, I only bought one house in my entire life. I interviewed three realtors and one of them was just a little bit more calm and patient and present and there for me. And I didn't care about all the other stuff. And that's the woman that I worked with. But you can't fake it. And I will say, I think I find this so funny is realtors think they can fake it. They think that they can be completely in an anxiety attack. And then the minute the client comes on zoom, they go, hello, how are you? And they think that you can override it and it's just not maskable. I don't think, you know, that's so.
- [14:03]
A
Tough and so true. And I think the big thing here is rather than, okay, how do I deal with that? How do I mask that better? How do I work around it? It's like, view it as a red light on your dashboard. You know, it's time to change the oil. The bottom line is this is the way to Live. It's the way to live. And if you don't have white space in your business, you don't have white space in your life. You know, people go on vacation and then need to rest. I can't tell you the number of people who've worked for me who come back and they've taken a big, long vacation. They go, man, I'm tired. Yeah, like, was that the purpose?
- [14:35]
B
That's because they did 11 cities in Europe in seven days. Right, right, exactly.
- [14:39]
A
No, we're big on it. We have. And we have a couple of things we do, which is we have these good life Fridays where we tell people, take a Friday, chill.
- [14:47]
B
I love it.
- [14:47]
A
We also shut down Irish style over the Christmas holidays. We take 10 days, two weeks. And their peers are, you know, family members are off a day or two days or whatever. And just, you know, it takes that time. It takes that time. And you have to have, like. I just think the busyness eliminates the humanity. The busyness eliminates the creativity. And the busyness, I believe, takes away the ability to be able to do it for the long haul. You know, fortunes are made in compounding. Businesses are made with compounding. We live in this world today, and if you're burning out all the time, there's no way you can compound because you're like, I'm trying to work until I get to this place, once I get here. So you have this principle called the strategic pause. And by the way, I just love how you are a master of your content, by the way, just as a comprehend to you.
- [15:39]
B
Thank you. Thank you.
- [15:40]
A
It's so in you, it's so part of you. You have this brilliant kind of scientific part to you, but you have this great way to communicate it. What is this strategic pause and how can we implement that?
- [15:50]
B
Yes, and I loved that you used the word how because I think it's about time to shift to how, because you said people should have white space. They would love it. They have no idea how they could have it. And so I love that we're starting to get tactical. So taking a strategic pause or adding what we call a wedge is the purposeful act of inserting a little bit of open time into the day. The most popular way to do this is when you have a lot of meetings. If you add 5, 10, or 15 minute pauses, you oxygenate and open that up. But the wedge can be when you first sit down at your desk for a minute or two before you dive in. It can be in between finishing one project and picking up the next it can be when something difficult happens or you get a rejection instead of rolling through that emotion as if it weren't true, giving it a second to filter through you so then you can continue your day. And when we begin to take these wedges, we realize that white space is not some lengthy executive activity that is irrelevant. If it's under 20 minutes, we can take 30 seconds, 10 seconds, 5 seconds, and begin to make a little bit of space come into the day that changes everything about how we show up to people. And that's all we need to do is that beginning. Then we can get strategic. And I have kind of two roads diverged in a wood of individual tips and team tips. But I think your audience probably more individual stuff is both and is good.
- [17:17]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [17:18]
B
The next thing that I would say is if you've got some wedges oxygenating your day, then you want to start every day with a paper anchor. And I have one right here that is just a little piece of paper that sits by your computer. And on it you write the three or four things that are the most important thing that you do that day. Now why paper? It's very important that we don't enter digital to do lists to check these priorities because we get sucked into the world of digital. And I could go on and on, but just giving a few strategies. Take a wedge, write your anchor, then let the anchor cement you into these activities of the day. These are the types of things that make people feel like it's real and possible.
- [17:59]
A
So we're in the middle of a big transition as a company. We're refocusing and rededicating ourselves back to the fundamentals. We had a massive run up, massive speed, trying to keep up with the market. And over time we kind of drifted away from some of the fundamentals. So on one hand we're rededicating ourselves back to the fundamentals, and then the other hand, keeping up with the demands of today. And it's tough. So I walked into one of my leaders offices the other day and she is a soldier. She is so wants to die, achieve. And she just wants it so bad, you know, but she was, I could tell, you know, you lift up the eyelids like the cartoon. I just said, full.
- [18:35]
B
Yeah, right, right, right.
- [18:36]
A
And I said to her, let me ask, I said, how many initiatives are you working on? She goes, 23. And I said, oh my gosh, there's not a Nobel prize winner in the world that can work on 23 initiatives. I said, what are the three that matter? The most right now to the company. I wrote them up on the board and I wrote them up on her whiteboard. Number one, number two, number three. I said, how are we doing on number one? She goes, great. How are we doing on number two? Great. How are we doing on number three? Killing it. And I said, just so you know, I don't want you to think that the others are not important to me at all, but just so you know, the well being of our organization and your responsibility to it. Great, Good. Great. I know it's not how it feels, but I said, I want you to keep this up on your board. And every time you walk in here, these are the three big things we're working on. Here was a gal, she's walking into my office every day, feel like she's failing. She's first in, last out, and she just, she wants to be of such value. And she's a mom and she's got kids and the whole thing, I'm like, you're killing it. You're doing great. We'll get to the others as we get to it. But I think that whole priority management and then realizing that, you know, my best is good enough and then I'm gonna leave some space.
- [19:52]
B
And if you saw GLS this year, you know that my focus at that particular speech was what we call strategic reduction. And this is the sense that prioritization is different than what we call reduction. Prioritization is to take your 23 things and put them in the right order. Reduction is to have a session with that young lady where at the end of it there's only 16. And that is a very, very, very different surrender for leaders. We all want all the stuff, we all want to do every single project and plan, but we need to learn the gear of taking things out as well. And that is so challenging. You know, you got Realtors. If you're not a good writer, why are you blogging? You know, if you, you know, why are we just doing every single thing as opposed to figuring out where our, our strengths are? And I, you know, in your industry also, you remind me of the. I think I showed this at gls. When we work with military, which we love so much, we have a board called the can't Control board. And we make them put a physical board up and every single time their brain goes to all the things they can't control. This week it's the shutdown and the military, they put it on the CANT Control board. Now that does a couple things. It compartmentalizes these Areas of ambiguity that are outside of their control so they can return to the things that are in their control and put action and energy toward them. And they also give a repository so they can check back and see if they can influence these things for you guys, the markets, the rates that there is so much that you can't control. I would love every realtor to have a little mini can't control board in their office to just offload those distracting rationalizations because we have plenty of energy at that point to then focus on the things we can control.
- [21:35]
A
Again, you talk about the military. There's so much they can't control. They can't control what another country does can't control. If the government's going to shut down. You know what we have is people who are waiting. We have an entire industry who's waiting for market conditions to go back to where they were. And the market conditions we had between 2021 and 2023 are never coming back again in a hundred years. It was an artificially stimulated government affected market. Prices went up 54%. We had free money, we had almost below 2% interest rates. We had 27 offers on every property. So you put a property on the market in your local community, it sold that weekend and the realtor sorted through 27 offers. And what's happened is people built their budgets, their lifestyle and their time schedules around an artificial stimulant. And the best way I could describe it, it's like building your budget on the fact that you're going to win the lottery every single year. And so now what's happened is we have people. The number one. This would be interesting for you to hear. The number one emotion that defines our industry right now is apathy. I talked to brokers and leaders in the industry and they said, people, they're just, I can't get them to do anything. I can't get them to show up, I can't get them to take training, I can't get them motivated and inspired. And apathy to me is the source of that is hope. And the real deal is just come into the realization of what happened is all the things they can't control dictated their life and they're waiting for those things to change.
- [23:04]
B
Yeah. So they're in passive position right now, which is so problematic.
- [23:08]
A
Exactly.
- [23:09]
B
So there's a phrase, I think it might come from the 12 step process, world awareness, acceptance and action. And they could be aware that the market conditions may never come back and they hurl themselves into action to try to circumnavigate that reality. But that acceptance piece is the emotional unlock to sit back and have whatever it is for them. The grieving experience that I missed it or I loved it and it's never coming back. Or I think that is a function of white spaces to become emotionally current with what's true in your world and really take it in. If that's what's true, you have to accept it before you can be nimble in the way that you respond to it. And maybe that's a piece that they haven't given themselves the liberty to do.
- [23:54]
A
That's brilliant. That's absolutely brilliant. Let me ask you, what are some of the things you do for white space? What do you do with your white space?
- [24:00]
B
So I'm definitely a wedge lady. I don't always do long stretches. I'm real good at taking five and 10 minutes. So I work in an in home office. If I have five, I walk out and I sometimes see my kids who only go to school three days a week in our unique world. I will try to get outside. I have a wonderful goal of someone said 58 minutes a day outside is the magic unlock. And it's so hard, if you've ever tried, it's hard to get 20 minutes a day outside. If I'm really, really in a good space, I will do something like go and arrange flowers or work on my sign language or do something a little bit more creative. But usually it's just those sips and then I have longer chunks when I go on retreat. So I'm a retreat lady. I wrote my book on ret. I go on retreat every January. I'll go this year and I'll sit. My ritual is I build a fire. I put away everything except for a legal pad and a pen and I set a one hour timer where I dream the next year. And I sit in front of that burning fire with my toes in front of the fire. And I won't let myself do anything other than sit there for an hour. And that's my deepest white space commitment. And then in between there, it's always interlaced. For me, white space is also abstention. It is walking through the airport without a podcast. It is sitting, you know, when the plane takes off without a book. And it's just choosing to abstain from fillers of entertainment at a lot of different places in the day.
- [25:26]
A
That's brilliant. You know, we have a beautiful setting here for our building and it's surrounded by these green hills. And one of the things we have is walking groups. They get out and you'll see it all day long. Around Bavini company We have, you know, San Diego, we got perfect weather and people, they walk around and we have these two buildings in this campus here. And it probably takes, I don't know, eight minutes to walk around at one time. They take like a couple laps and they pop back in. And it's amazing.
- [25:51]
B
It's so important for the body, for the brain, for creativity.
- [25:54]
A
It's not natural for me. So here's what happens. I have a guy who works with me, David Lally. And we'll be in very intense meetings. I'm doing this and doing this and doing this and doing this. And I'm a perpetual person, as you could imagine.
- [26:05]
B
Right, Right.
- [26:05]
A
Let's walk. And I always. I love it, but I go do it. We'll end up doing it a couple times around. And it's amazing how the meaning frees up. It's amazing how it changes. It just does change. And it's just human beings are just meant for this.
- [26:20]
B
Yes, I love the perpetual person. I wrote that down. And I will tell you also a metaphor that I play with a lot. It helps people understand where the next level is, which is lever on, lever off. So imagine a big giant cartoon lever being pulled up and down. People think the answer to burnout or lack of white space is to pull the lever of work off. That is the Wellness Friday. The go for a walk, the weekend, the vacation. That's when it's all the way off. But then they acquiesce to a kind of mania the second the lever goes back on, the nature of the work is nuts. Is nuts. Right? And so then the next lever, the next level of it is to work on. Okay, now we're getting a little lever off time. We're getting some Vacation Fridays walks. Great. Now let's examine what it feels like to work when we are working. And is there a way for that to have a little bit of a different sanity and humanity to it so that we are more alive and focused during that time? And that's a whole other set of how tools. But managing meetings, making communication better, being reductive on quantity, being choiceful about what am I doing, what am I doing? That all affects the lever on time, which is different than the lever off time.
- [27:36]
A
I never thought I would learn how to be more calm from someone from Manhattan. I'm gonna say that you are one of a kind, girl. You know, one of the things that. Again, a little tactical piece. But I thought it was cool. In the book, you talk about the thieves of time. It'd be great to share those out, because I think when you declare things and people are aware, like, that's a thief. It just changes things. I'd love to have you expand on that concept.
- [28:00]
B
You bet. The thieves came out of our research when we actually studied busyness, and we found that there were 28 different things that made people busy, but they basically boiled down to four categories. Now, what surprised us was that every category was actually just an asset, a good thing that was overgrowing. And we found that these four things. Drive, excellence, information, and activity, became thieves. Yeah. So here we go.
- [28:28]
A
That's really rich. Yeah.
- [28:30]
B
Drive turns into overdrive in the age of overload. Excellence. Great thing. My favorite turns into perfectionism. Information turns into information overload. And that beautiful activity that we talked about earlier turns into frenzy. And so what happens is they're very high dopamine, shallow, constant activities. They're born from these thieves, and they lure us into this feeling that we're getting a lot done, but we don't move a needle on anything, and that's the pernicious quality. So when we do, we have a developmental assessment, like kind of like a disc or a Myers Briggs. It shows where different people have different dominance. I, example, am an excellence person. I did our business cards four times because the teal wasn't right. And that's just what I'm gonna do. But I can do the recreational version of my thief, where I'm just giving myself pleasure from being in that groove, or I can do the tactical version of my thief, where it is out facing toward the world and making my business better. And it is a mindful exercise to figure out which you are doing. And so for everyone, for every thief drive, people have 23 projects. And that's great, except for their people are burning out or turning over. And so there is a balance there. And we have a lot of content in the book. Some questions that are maybe a little bit long for verbal format, but ways to defeat the thieves.
- [29:56]
A
People are always asking for a book coming into Christmas. Right. They want to buy a book. And I just think, like, this is, like, the perfect Christmas book. I would get this for Thanksgiving, and I'd read it through the holidays. It's a minute to think. And the book makes you think. I will say this. I interview hundreds of authors. We've had great people on. And again, we're so thrilled and honored to have you at an upcoming leadership conference. Your actual expertise of the subject Matter is remarkable. And you're a practitioner of it, obviously, then you have a company that's helping organizations, big organizations implement it. So you kind of bring all of that from the concept into a practitioner personally and then institutionally and organizationally. So it's a minute to think it's absolutely brilliant. Well, Juliet, you're a master at bringing out the best in people. And we've been doing that for about 30 years. And one of the things we started doing this year was we formulated this free business consultation, basically a synopsis of everything we've learned about coaching somebody. So to help people have a breakthrough. And so we've created this process where we help people get clear on their vision, help them discover kind of what's holding them back, see what's working for others in their local market, in their industry, and then laying out some next steps with them so they can take the next step and also create maybe a little white space for themselves like you're talking about. And for those of you who are listening in today, if you'd like to get one of these free business consultations, no strings attached, no questions asked, just go to It's a good life dot com. That's all one word. It's a good life dot com and the BC stands for Business Consultation. We know it'll be the best 30 minutes you spend in your business this year. So we'd love to help you do it. Great time of year to do it. Get clear on your vision, get clear on your business. We'd love to help you as we finish today. If you're giving people, here's a couple of quick tips on how to get a little white space, how to get that minute to think. If you were talking to your best friend and she girl, I'm blown up. You know what I mean? What would be your top tips to leave people with today?
- [32:02]
B
All right, I have a lot of them. Because the way you get to be the expert you described is you start as the sickest rat in the experiment. And that is always me. And so I have a million of those kind of tips. So good. So the first thing is just first start interval checking your emails. That means you pick when you're going to check and you only check at those times. It's difficult. But three days, three times a day, five times a day, top of every hour, what have you next is called the yellow list. Instead of peppering each other on your team and all the people that you work with, with your constant thoughts as they come, don't text them don't email them, just jot them down on what we call a yellow list and compartmentalize them so that when you go to each other you can bucket those needs instead of interrupting everyone and also teaching people to interrupt you back all the time. And then I'll give you one more. Since we talked about vacation, one of my favorite things is called a re entry day. This means that the day that you book the tickets, you block an entire day full of re entry activities so that you can be disconnected during the vacation. And you don't have have to worry about the avalanche of email because they'll all be back now. Realtors, different story, but it's very useful for a lot of folks.
- [33:11]
A
Brilliant. Brilliant. We've had all kinds of folks on here and I do little rapid fire questions. I love that phrase. I'm the sickest rat in the experiment. My team is going to send me copies of this interview and ask me did I really read the book? Okay.
- [33:25]
B
Yes.
- [33:26]
A
So what's the single best piece of advice you've ever been given?
- [33:29]
B
When something goes wrong at work, don't ask myself how it makes me feel. Ask me myself, how is it good for my business?
- [33:37]
A
Where'd you get that from?
- [33:38]
B
I don't remember. It was so many years ago in a live seminar.
- [33:43]
A
So good. That's so good. What's the one talent or gift you wish you possess that you currently don't?
- [33:49]
B
Really? Singing. I mean like really, really, really Rock star singing.
- [33:53]
A
Yes, that's the one, right?
- [33:54]
B
Yeah, I can sing, but not like that.
- [33:56]
A
Yeah, that's good. What's a book that's been most instrumental in your life?
- [34:00]
B
Oh my gosh, the book. That's a terrible question.
- [34:04]
A
It is. It's brutal.
- [34:06]
B
Oh, I'm freezing up. It's so hard. The book. I'm not going to answer the book. I'll give you a recent book that's been great for me. 10x is easier than 2x. I never read it and it's just a fantastic unlock for any entrepreneur.
- [34:18]
A
That's brilliant. Good stuff. Yeah. It's an unfair question. That's why I ask it. What's the one movie? Every time it's on, you stop to catch a piece of it at least.
- [34:26]
B
What's the Little Miss Sunshine?
- [34:28]
A
Yeah, of course it is. I knew it was in there. I knew it was in there.
- [34:32]
B
I could tell. You know, we could talk for a whole podcast about how few happy, joyous movies you can go see these days. I think the anxiety of the world is showing up in the Movies. And I just want Little Miss Sunshine all day, every day.
- [34:48]
A
That's great. Last but not least, what does the good life mean to Juliet?
- [34:52]
B
Fundt space and time to do what I want, go slow, be with my kids.
- [34:57]
A
It's a good life. It's a good life. Well, you're an absolute joy, and you've been Little Miss Sunshine on a tough topic today, but it's desperately needed. I feel it. You know, candidly, it's been a breath of fresh air for myself today. I believe it will be for the hundreds of thousands of people who are tuning in. The book is a minute to think. I have it here. I've just bought a bunch of copies for the leaders in the company I've been part of, you know, this remodel that people have been doing great, but now it's time for a little bit of white space, some wedges, and some good techniques to get us going. So I thank you for that. So thankful to have you. So excited and honored to have you at our leadership conference. Our audience is going to be blown away by it. As my wife and I was, and as always, all you've done today is prove, like every other time, that my wife Beverly is always right.
- [35:43]
B
There you go. I can't wait to meet her. I hope she's coming to the leadership summit.
- [35:47]
A
She is. Well, I'm going to finish today's broadcast with another woman who was always right. My mom just would have celebrated her 95th birthday. She just passed away this year. And every podcast Juliet we finished with her little Irish blessing. So I'm gonna bless you today and bless our whole audience with her phrase as I say goodbye. So may the roads rise up to meet you, and may the wind always be at your back. May the rain fall soft upon your fields and the sunshine warm upon your face. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand. We'll see you next time, Sam.