EntreLeadership - #181: Chris Baréz-Brown—Escaping a Life on Autopilot

Episode Date: January 9, 2017

It’s been estimated that more than 80% of our time awake is spent on autopilot, leading to a life of missed moments and even less enjoyment at home and at work. This week’s guest, Chris Baréz-Brown, is on a mission to help us escape that routine. The inspirational speaker, author and business beatnik joins us to share his tips on how to feel more conscious, joyful and inspired, and how to avoid missing what matters most. entreleadership.com/podcast Goal Tracker Tool Infusionsoft's 2017 Strategy Kit EntreLeadership Summit Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

helping business leaders grow themselves, their team, and their profits. This is the Entree Leadership Podcast. Now, here is your host, Ken Coleman. We are broadcasting from the Music City, and this is the podcast of Leaders by Leaders for Leaders. Thank you for joining the conversation. Here's what's coming to you. Our guest is Chris Beres Brown. It's got a book called Wake Up, Escaping a Life on Autopilot.

We take your questions and are Ask the Coach session with Coach John Falcons. And InfusionSoft has got an amazing planning resource for you for 2017 because it's not too late to plan and plan well. Really excited to have you with us. If you're new to the podcast, let me just say welcome aboard. The podcast is growing and we're thankful to all of you who listen and subscribe. Quick reminder, we'd love for you to subscribe on iTunes. We'd love for you to give us a rating. That all helps around the digital water cooler, if you will.

so please do that for us. So an interesting topic with Chris Barras Brown. You know, many times people ask me, how do you choose guests? And I think this is important as we start the year off, especially for those of you who may be new to us or kicking the tires. We did a survey in 2016,

and we had nearly 2,500 respondents, which is a phenomenal sample. And we asked you a lot of things about this podcast. But what we were primarily concerned about is what content do you want to hear? Very clearly, you told us you want leadership topics, you want personal development, personal growth topics, you want team and culture topics. And then, you know, there were several topics, but those were the overwhelming top three. So we start there. You know, what can we bring you in those large buckets that scratch those itches?

And this book came across our desk, and Eric the producer and I talked about it. I love the title, wake up with an exclamation point. I think that book would have had me right there. Simply put, because I've talked about this on this podcast before, but when I wrote my book one question, I did some research around this idea of curiosity and continual learning. Because that was really the heart of why I did what I did, and that's why I do what I do. I love asking questions. I like learning.

And we found some research from the University of Michigan that basically said, and I want you to really dive into this, that by the time the average American reaches the eighth grade, they're asking two to three questions a day. A day. Now, just for a moment, even if you're not a parent, parents get this, but if you're not a parent, I want you to just think back to the last time you were around a toddler, or when you were a toddler.

And the fact of the matter is, is that you're always asking questions. Every minute of every day, of every week, of every month, of every year, it's this insatiable desire to find out why. Why this? Why that? What is this? And it's not because kids are trying to prolong conversation with you and get your attention. They genuinely want to get to the bottom of it. They are these learning sponges. And so back to the research with the idea that the average American is asking two to three questions a day by the time they reach the eighth grade. My goodness, what's going on? Well, life is happening.

It's not as much wonder. That's W-O-N-D-E-R, not wandering, but wonder. Where's your sense of wonder? That's what's so beautiful about little kids. Everything is kind of wonderful to them, right? In the true sense of the word, what is this? How does this work? What is this about?

What do I do with this? And the title of Chris's book, Wake Up, Escaping a Life on Autopilot. We talk a lot about creativity, which is so important for individuals and companies. But the fact is, is he talks about this in the conversation that this idea of autopilot is a fog. You know, I've joked about this when I give talks to companies, and it always gets a chuckle. There's a reason why I think zombie shows are so popular, Eric, the producer. You ever wonder? Like zombie movies, there's a couple different zombie shows.

Why are zombie shows so popular? And my little sarcastic response is because so many people are wandering through life with a lack of wonder. they wander like zombies you know kind of this glazed eye look they're in a fog as Chris calls it and they just kind of wander around slowly and the wonder

is gone so their challenge in this conversation and in the book wake up is really how to escape a life on autopilot folks I'm going to tell you something in this second week of January this is important

How many of you are on autopilot? How many of you just went through the process of setting some goals or set some resolutions? And quite frankly, they're autopilot goals. You know you can do that, right? You can set goals and set resolutions, and those are autopilot reactions. I think this is important. So if those of you are listening know someone or you're in this fog, and this is not to make you feel guilty.

But this is the challenge you. Now is the time. Right now. this podcast, this conversation. Wake up. The world needs you. The people you lead need you. Your customers need you.

Wake up. Here's our conversation with Chris, Beres Brown. Well, Chris, it's a pleasure to have you with us all the way from the United Kingdom. And this is always fascinated to me with technology. I mean, maybe I'm just a seven-year-old. But you're on the other side of the world, practically. And so paint the picture. Where are you at right now?

Well, I'm actually in my home office. I'm right by the sea in a place called Lime Regis, and the mist has rolled in, and I can't see the end of my garden, let alone the ocean. Oh, my goodness. By the ocean, much better than me being in the studio, but we will press on regardless. Hey, so when I saw this book wake up, it was fascinating to me. I mean, a clear call to action right on the cover. And I don't generally like the old, hey, summarize the book questions. but I do want to ask why this book, what about this book and everything that's contained

therein decided for you, hey, this is what I've got to write. This is what I want to be pushing out. Well, you know, I've spent many years now helping big businesses get better at creative leadership so that they can think more differently, more dynamically about the future. And what I've realized over the time is you can't really be a good creative leader unless you're a conscious leader. And so many of my clients, they wake up, in the morning, they probably check their mail in bed, they carry on doing so as they brush their teeth, and the next time they are conscious and aware of who they are and what's going on in their world is actually when they're back in bed in the evening, because life is just going so fast,

they're just on a train. And it just struck me that actually it was very, very difficult for me to get these guys to be really good at creativity, unless I got them to be more conscious, more alive and more awake. I love this, because there's such a personal element to leadership that rarely, we don't talk about it, right? You might hear buzzwords and topics like balance and all this kind of stuff. But if you look at the first part of your book, I mean, this is, a lot of this is just, here's some personal things you need to be doing, as you just said, to kind of make sure that your conscience. So I want you to walk through that with us, the importance of making sure that we're taking care of ourselves as leaders, mentally, emotionally, all that stuff, physically, so that we can

give our best of the people we're leading. Sure. So my belief is leadership is how you show up. We all know leaders who, when they enter the room, the very hope disappears. And we also know leaders who can turn a disaster into a party. And it's all about their energy and who they are. So I've been fascinated by this for at least a decade and watching people and what made the difference between, you know, the twinkly-eyed superstars and the ones that drag people down. And a lot of it came down to the way that they thought about things, the way that they were aware of the opportunities around them, the way they read themselves, the room and the context in which they worked. And I started to kind of study this a little bit. And I realized that actually so much of

our life is actually dominated by habitual thinking and habitual behaviors that I figured there must be way to break out of that. So there are sections of the book. And there's a couple chapters that I'm just going to kind of throw at you. And I want you to lock in this idea of noticing what you notice is a chapter title. Then there's get lost at lunchtime. Sure. What are you taking us through there? What are you challenging the reader through those chapters? Well, well, quite simplistically, if I I kind of, if I kind of go back a step, the reason that we're doing these exercises is quite simple. We've all driven a long distance at a car. We've got to the destination and we can't remember large chunks of the journey.

And the reason being is that our conscious thinking takes up loads of energy. In fact, it's a V8 gas guzzling machine. So we want to conserve energy where we can so the subconscious takes over. Now, our subconscious is more like a Tesla, right? It's very, very efficient. And it becomes efficient quite simply by saying, have I seen something like, this before. Because if I have, I don't assume today is like that experience and I'm going to take over and therefore I don't need to think too hard, which is why when we get in the car,

our subconscious goes, hey, I've seen this before. I can take over, conscious brain, you relax. That's something we're very aware of when we drive a car. The issue is that that happens every single day of our lives in work with our loved ones when we're living our lives. So these exercises are very, very simple things that are designed just to prime us to get off of autopilot and become more. conscious. So the one about noticing what you notice is all about basically priming our selective attention to look at things more readily around us and actually notice when we react to things, when we see something that could be of interest. And therefore, we tune in a little bit more

to our emotions, a little bit more to our state. And then what we tend to find is we'll spot more things more readily. And therefore, break off for autopilot more often and be more conscious. One of the things I want to talk to you about is one of the chapters of the book, Slow Down. I think when we hear this, entrepreneurs, achievers, people that are listening to this conversation, some have figured it out, but I think a whole lot more have not figured it out. And so we get it. We've heard a lot of people talk about slow down and the importance of it. I want to focus on getting your answer on how do we slow down.

How do we do this? Some people are like, I don't even know if that's possible, given my life. No, absolutely. Well, look, I mean, I think one of the biggest problems that we find in business and as leaders is that actually being busy is a bit of a drug, truth be told. We like the fact that our time is highly demanded. We like the fact that we're stretched. It gives us a buzz and a rush. It keeps adrenaline pumping around our bodies. And actually, we get a bit of a kick from it. And actually, there is a time and a place for doing that because if you're working through a to-do list and it's

the right to-do list, there's nothing wrong with a bit of, you know, hard energy and a bit of activity. The problem is if you live like that the whole time, it's very hard for you to really be conscious of the context in which you're working. I think what we need to be able to do is lead is to stand back and say, what's needed here, which is my favorite question for a leader. And it's impossible to do that when you're running at 100 miles and out. Personally, what I would do is I would have times of day to change gears. So one of my favorite exercises is actually in the book is to spend the first 10 minutes outside every day without anything digital in my hands. so I can just sit quietly, connect with myself and where I'm at, and actually think about

big questions like, what's the one thing I need to achieve today? Because actually, if you get clear on the one thing that you need to achieve, there's going to be a game changer and you do nothing until that's achieved, then at least when you start getting caught up in the busyness, it's been a useful day. But if you don't structure those times in, the day will take over for you. I'm absolutely certain of that. That's such a great challenge. and I think you're spot on that we get a rush out of busyness, but I think there's also something else. And I want you to comment on it.

I think busyness has become a status symbol, right? When you run into people he haven't seen in a month or two or you're at a Christmas party, hey, what's going on? Oh, I'm so busy. Right? Like, we're so proud of that, aren't we? Yeah, we are.

And it's almost a default thing to say because it's become so much a part of our identity. So, yeah, you don't get many people at a party going, you know what? I'm just on top of stuff. I'm hanging out with a family more and kicking back. It's true. Don't hear it. Or you don't hear it. Hey, here's one. You don't ever hear anybody go, well, you know, I spent my first 10 minutes outside today and then I decided that I just needed to spend three more hours thinking. So I didn't do anything but think for the first half of the day. Like, that's never said. No. No, it's true. And there is a bit, I think, that's just a habitual pattern we've got into. There is a bit about the fact that, you know, when we're working in an

organization, we feel guilty unless we're working hard and being productive, because actually working hard and being productive, we think is what we're being paid for. And the truth is, if we were to just step back a little bit, slow down, look after ourselves, the work that we're doing would be so much better than the stuff that we just get swept along with. So I agree. I think we've really got kind of stuck in that pattern, and we have to do very deliberate things to break out of it. All right. This is kind of tied into this topic. That's why I want to go here real quick. And just looking for some things that you've done or that you've studied that has worked because there's a chapter on steal back time. And I think if we're talking about this idea here of busyness and fighting

busyness, how do we steal back time? And again, you know, get the phrase, what are some practical ways for people who are kind of like, oh, I'm a little bit, I've got some trepidation about stealing time back? I kind of think, you know, if you're a leader and you can't manage time, which is a finite resource, then you're really going to have a few problems when it comes to managing people, right? So time has to work for you. And what I often find in organizations is all sorts of craziness going on. People not having management over their own diaries, which I think is just something that is fraught with danger. I like the fact that people can see diaries, but you have to be able to control what goes in there. Otherwise, how on earth can you prioritize what you're doing? And a lot of time,

you know, people don't even manage that, the most simple things. So I think creating time where you can step back and steal it back and say, actually, do I need to go to that meeting? Am I the best person to be there? Is there somebody else that can do what I can do? If it's an information-only meeting, hey, how else can I get the information? Just challenge because what tends to happen is you get to the cycle of just saying yes a lot of the time. And basically you say yes until your diary is full and then it has to be the week after you say yes to. But it just keeps rolling.

And actually, I think by saying no a lot more and pushing back and making it. sure that actually your unique talents are used for the right stuff is the way that you make sure you have the impact that is suitable for you. I want to talk about a phenomenon here that it's kind of interesting. They're a great swath of leaders who are probably winning in multiple areas of their life, but they're not winning physically. And you have a chapter on listen to your body. And it strikes me that athletes, professional athletes, you pick the sport or college athletes who are in scholarship and are going hard at it, they take care of their body so much because it is a tool, obviously, on the athletic field.

Yeah. But our bodies are almost as equally important in business as well, even though we're not striving on an athletic field, our bodies really do matter. And I think this is a big blind spot for a lot of leaders. It really is. Unfortunately, we see it almost as a vehicle, you know, that just gets us around. And obviously, for us to be energetically brilliant, we need to look after ourself. physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually.

And actually, I tend to find that a lot of the clients that I work with have blind spots on pretty much all four of those. But the physical one definitely gets a kicking, as we would say. So, you know, I mean, how often do people skip lunch because they're just working flat out? Their bodies are craving nutrition, but they don't listen. They just keep going. How often do we not get enough sleep? You know, how often do we drive ourselves with caffeine and sugar and stimulants?

just to keep going because actually we get into this kind of survival mode where actually it's just, hey, get me to the meeting, keep me functioning, as opposed to saying, well, look, this body that I've got, this is my long-term asset. If I look after it well, I can keep doing brilliant work for the whole of my life, but the way I'm going, it's going to have detrimental effects to the way that I show up quite soon. And we see it all the time. I love the idea of being a corporate athlete of looking after, you know, your physicality so that actually it will impact everything that you do because we know our physical energy impacts our mental energy, our emotional energy, and of course our spiritual energy. All right.

Again, I'm just, I'm cherry picking some of the chapters, folks. Sure. Because we're driving to, we're going to start talking about creativity and leadership. We're getting there people. But this is so important. There are so many practical chapters in this book. Let's talk about digital detox. And let me put myself on the spot here, Chris.

Yeah. I am not a guy that spends hours on social media. I just kind of look at Twitter a lot during the day. I glance at it. It's like a news feed for me. Outside of that, just not that active. So I'm slightly cynical. Happy to be the guinea pig here about this idea of digital detox.

I read about it. I talk about it. Maybe it's a big thing for people who are really obsessed with digital and social media. But is that a real thing? And then how do we do it? And am I, if I have a blind spot, pick on me a little bit here. I think, you know, the world of digital is everything, including social, but for a lot of people, it's email and it's text on a very simple form.

And what we tend to find is that we have our little devices with us. And they often interrupt our day and our focus. And it might just be an email pinging into your inbox. It doesn't have to be a big distraction of, you know, something that's going on Facebook with all your friends having a feed or whatever it may be. It's the constant kind of ting, ting, something's going on. I get it. So it's not blocks of time as much as it is.

It's just always there. Absolutely. And they've done some studies into this. And basically, you know, people believe that actually what they're doing is they're multitasking when, you know, they're looking at different feeds and they're seeing emails coming in and they're trying to write a paper at the same time and a phone call comes in. And the truth is we do not multitask. What we do is we microtask.

So we do each one of those things for a very short amount of time to a very short depth. and therefore we don't give our full attention or focus to it. And what they've suggested in the research is that we're starting to process in a very different way to how we used to because of this. In fact, we're processing in a more shallow way. Now, ultimately, a bit of shallow is not bad, but if you really want to do great thinking, especially if you want to do great creative thinking, you need depth and you need focus. And therefore, you need to manage those digital disruptions. Now, what I'm not saying is that we should turn back time because we're more connected, we're more.

more informed, we've got more insight now than ever before. It's just that the technology is starting to intrude on our life, and we just need to learn how to manage it better. All right, my favorite chapter without question is giggles and guffaws. I'm a geek about alliteration first, but I think this is a great concept and a great challenge. Unpack that for us. Yeah, it's really simple. What tends to happen in business, and we see this time and time again, is people take it way too seriously. You know, they start to think actually, the only way really to get ahead is to be very serious and very professional and get the job done. And I just think that's a travesty. A third of our days on this planet are working days. If we are not

loving them and having fun with it, it's a terrible waste of life. So I think if you want to get, you know, more conscious and more playful and feel more alive and more awake, have a bit more fun with it, you know? Put time in your diary where you're doing some stuff that is purely there for enjoyment, to connect with other people in a fun way. And I think it's much easier then to get out of that trap of autopilot and feel a little bit more alive. Yeah, I agree. And I just got to add to that, Chris, that's why I teage up on that. I think you've got to laugh hard if you're working hard. Because it is a, we know this. It's a physiological benefit. I mean, it's a chemical thing. The whole nine yards. It really is, it's so important to really laugh hard as much as you can.

I agree. I agree. It's so good for us. It helps us de-stress. It helps us manage, you know, there's adrenaline and cortisol levels. And quite frankly, isn't it what life's supposed to be about, right? Yes. All right. So I just cherry-pick several different chapters, folks, to kind of give you a sense of what Chris is doing here. And wake up is a fantastic challenge to us all.

And one of the big themes is this idea of being creative and innovative in leadership. And again, Chris, I bring this up all the time whenever we talk about this is there's a lot of people out there who don't consider themselves creative. They're not labeled creatives by other people, but the fact is they are creative and they need to be creative. And a lot of this thing is just kind of waking your brain up so that you can be creative. And I want you to talk about that, the conditions. So we kind of get ourselves there. But then let's take this from the personal to the professional space. Obviously, we need to wake ourselves up.

How do we create an environment, a culture, if you will, that just kind of naturally, organically breeds. creativity. Well, for me, the most important thing to do, and I work with lots of big businesses around the world doing this, is you've got to encourage people to be themselves. So one of the problems is, I think, with organizations, and this is all to do with organizational psychology, is when we join, we're all fresh and shiny and great, and before long, we start to socialize the norms, we start to emulate the people around us, and we often lose touch with who we are. And when we start to do that and we start to kind of put on this mask, we're not ourselves. We're not self-expressing the way we should do.

We're not feeling things the way that we should do. We're not bringing our own unique and amazing strengths to play. And as soon as you do that, you start to lose touch with your own innate creativity. And I can tell you a quick story to illustrate this. We had a workshop in my house this summer. We had somebody here from one of the biggest companies in the world. And they were one of the researchers, an insight person. And they told this story on the last day.

We had five days together. On the last day, her name was Stacey. And she said, you know, when I joined the organization that I'm part of 12 years ago as a graduate trainee, when I joined, I was really fresh and naive and excited about the future. And I remember in my second week going on an insight immersion with all the marketing department to go and learn how people used our products in real life. And she's based in Durban. So she went to a township where people with less resources were using their products. to cook and clean, et cetera. And she said it was quite a humbling experience, right?

Because you get to see people that aren't as fortunate as ourselves. And it was quite emotive. And she went back to the big air-conditioned bus at the end of the day with the VPs and the presidents. And as she was going to the bus, she heard a noise coming from a disused tire by the side of the road. So she went to investigate. And she went and looked inside and she found three abandoned puppies. Now, Stacey knew she could not save them all, but she could save one. So she picked it up and took it on the bus where she was immediately ridiculed.

Now, all these VPs and presidents were going, oh, come on, Stacey, you're going to have to firm up. You know, you can't be so emotional. You've got to be more professional if you're going to get ahead in this business. And what she realized that she'd done over those 12 years is do exactly that. She'd started to become what she thought they wanted her to be. So she was professional. She was less emotional.

And actually, in short, she said she had stopped picking up puppies. Now, I think if you want people to be creative, you've got to encourage them to pick up puppies. You've got to get them to go with their passions, their desires, what it is about them that makes them unique and different. You know, all the freakiness should be celebrated because we're all a little bit different, right? And if you can do that and you celebrate it, then I think creativity naturally comes. You know, that's a powerful challenge. And, you know, there is this truth that we kind of get in packs and we kind of adapt and become what everybody wants to be. But let's also talk about an almost sad reality, Chris, that many leaders are hiring people who already walk in the door being somebody they're really not.

And what I mean by that is, is, you know, they've maybe been told by a parent or somebody influential in their life early on that this is what you're supposed to be and this is how you're supposed to kind of comport yourself. And we're dealing with that as well. As leaders, we have to be perceptive enough to realize that and try to break through that malaise, yes? No, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think our life's work is to get back to who we were born as. You know, we take on these layers of belief and need and identity. And, you know, a lot of them just aren't true. So I totally agree, you know, we all need help with that.

But if we set up an environment as leaders where people can experiment, where they can challenge, where they can feel great about being who they are, where they could do the word that they love and that they're great at, and actually they feel supported in doing that, that is where the great work comes. And I know that it's easy to say and it's harder to do. There is a challenge behind that. But ultimately, I can teach people hundreds of creative techniques. I can put in innovation processes.

I can do all sorts of stuff that's about driving great, interesting insight. But if you don't have people that can really feel stuff and are happy to say what comes to their head, it doesn't matter how good your creative techniques are. You come up with average. So ultimately, it's about releasing the people. you get that bit right, everything's amazing. Yeah. Oh, that's good. Okay, let's go practical. Let's say we've got some leaders who, you know, they've awoken their people and they've established that first step that you just

challenged us with. Your guy that wrote a book called Wake Up, you're the creative leadership expert, you're an innovation guy. Give us, we've got a lot of people listen right now who are in meetings all the time. Could be early morning, could be in the afternoon after their bellies are full, and their meetings just lack a little bit of pizzazz, enough energy and passion to maybe really drive some great results. Give us some tips or some ideas that you know work that can start a creative meeting, a meeting where you've got to create something, you've got to come up with something, you've got to innovate or at least start the process. How do you start it well and get everybody firing so that that room is all on the same level? Yeah, great, great question.

So interestingly, I've been working with a very large company recently who found that this particular tip has had a profound impact on the way they work their business. And it's quite simply this. It's to do a proper setup. And I know it sounds bizarre, but so many people are so busy, they go into the room, they just start working. They don't have long enough and they just dive into the content. And forget that we're all people coming in, you know, with our own unique personalities, with different energy states, with our own perception of what's going on. And actually, therefore, we need to get into that room together and get aligned about what we're doing. So a setup basically consists of four things.

Number one, what is the context? Let's get absolutely clear on why we're here and what it is that we're going to change as a result of it. So context is key. And so often I see people in meetings and they've got no idea why they're there. Okay, so that's the first thing. Second thing is choose an environment that is appropriate for that meeting. If you are doing a creative session, do not do it in a room with a load of tables and computers. because all that's saying to your brain is it's time to be logical and rational.

If you want people to be creative, give them space, give them light. If you can get them outside, get them moving around and get them having some fun, right? So that's the second thing. Get the environment right. The third thing is behaviors. If you are not explicit about the behaviors that you want from people, they will bring the ones they were just using, which is probably the one they've been using for the last 10 or 20 years. Now, our creative session needs different behaviors to a finance meeting.

So be explicit about it and help people have some fun, relax and be positive, is the third. And then the fourth one is get the energy right. If you want people to be properly engaged in the word that you do, get them out of their seats, get them physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually energized so that actually they give you a bit more of their genius. And you have to do that like every 20 minutes. You cannot do it once and then carry on for the whole meeting because time will take its toll on people.

You have to keep jiggling their energy and keep jiggling their state. So setup is absolutely key. Wow. Now, folks, I'm going to run through that again, but you do yourself a service to rewind that. In order to get a great environment and hopefully get great results out of a creative or innovative brainstorming type meeting, you've got to set it up right. And Chris just laid it out there context, the right environment, be clear on the behaviors you want for that meeting, and then create physical energy.

And I thought this was a great point. I don't want you to miss it, folks. He said every 20 minutes, if you can, just reset that. That's really huge. Chris, let's talk about this. for a second. I want to stay on this. It's very practical. We got people listening in. They go, well, we don't have a great room for this in our building. Give them some ideas. What do they do? Really simple. Go somewhere else. All right. There it is, folks. And he's right on.

But here's the thing. Here's the thing with that. You have to be super intentional. You can't just slap the meeting on the calendar. You've got to actually put a little more effort in these meetings. That's for sure. I mean, there is no perfect room, to be honest. And actually, if you design a perfect creative room, as so many of my clients have, you know, within a month, everyone's bored of it, quite frankly. That's exactly right. The stimulus becomes old, right? So the best thing to do is use this amazing world in which we live and there is amazing stimulus all around us all the time. Get out there, you know, soak it up. And if in doubt, one of my favorite creative techniques, which we have now exported to the likes of Coca-Cola and Nike and Unilever and all these people,

and they love it, is a walking, talking creative technique where you just go out in a pair, one of you rants about the issue that you're having ideas on as the other one just listens. And if you rant for seven and a half minutes flat out really, really fast, eventually you run out of conscious story and you start to say stuff that comes from your subconscious. Now, when you're talking, it might be rubbish, it might not be true, you know, it might not be smart at all. It doesn't matter. Every now and again, you'll say something interesting and you'll notice that because

you have a physical reaction. Those are the things you write down. And I can guarantee if you do that, you will get a better perspective really fast. you will get some insight. And a lot of you will find you get ideas more readily than sitting in any room with a flip chart having a brainstorm. So go for a walk. All right. So go with somebody who can record the thoughts alongside of you because it's a rant. It's just dump your brain until you're done. Exactly. And all they need to note down is three or four things that you say in that seven and a half minutes that could be interesting. You don't need to know why they're interesting. You just know they said something that created a reaction in you or in them. Are we strict on the seven and a half minutes? Do you know, a lot of people say, why seven and a half minutes?

It does sound very scientific, but what we tend to find is 10 minutes. People tend to run out of energy. So that's a bit too far. If you do three, four minutes, you often don't run out of conscious story. So we know that with seven and a half minutes, if you push it hard enough, most people have enough time using their subconscious and therefore making more stuff up. So seven and a half minutes seems to be the sweet spot. But I encourage the listeners to just experiment and see what works for them.

I'm going to tell you something right now. I'm making a note, I'm telling Eric the producer right now that I'm going to do this. He and I are going to go on some walks, and I cannot wait to rant for seven and a half minutes. I'm curious about this, though. I'm a former talk show host, radio host, and so I mean, that's all I did for hours a day. Is there something about that first three, four, five minutes where that's superfluous and then somehow it comes out? Or do you also get some great stuff early on? I imagine it's not exclusive to later in the seven and a half minutes, correct?

It's not exclusive, but what tends to happen is with any project you're working on, you have a conscious story in your brain. And obviously, your conscious brain is anywhere between, you know, five and maybe 10% of your overall processing. So whilst you're telling that story, you're only accessing a small fraction of your genius. So it tends to take a little while just to get through that. And then I kind of liken it to taking a cork out of a champagne bottle. If you speak fast enough, eventually it goes pop, and then the subconscious bubbles up, as it would in champagne.

And every now and again, it's a bubble that's interesting. Every now and again, it's no use whatsoever. But it does often take a little time to get the call count. I am beside myself right now. I am so excited. Chris, I've just named it. This is going to be in the name of my process. I'm going to throw it out there. Tell me if you like it. You can be honest. And the listeners, you come over there, but I'm going to call it, it's time for me to bubble over. What do you think? Oh, there we go. I'm having it.

I've been calling it, talk it out, but you're doing much better than me. I think so. I've got to tell you. I'm a little proud of myself right now. And equally as excited to try it. I think this is fantastic, Chris. I got to tell you, I'm absolutely out of my mind excited. Eric, we're going to call it bubbling over.

It's time for me to bubble over, and we know what that means from now on. So there it is, folks. Come up with your own phrase. I think this is, so you're saying you've done this with, you mentioned Coca-Cola, other big-time companies. These people are doing this. regularly and they're getting results. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, um, wow, I'm going to tell you. I'm excited. It's a fantastic way to start processing on any brief. We use it when we're cracking something that's difficult. We're using it when we have, you know, a client that can't quite articulate,

you know, what their brief is. It's a fantastic way to get things moving. And I mean, I wrote about this in my first book back in 2006, and it is still a staple of the work that we do because it's so human, it's so natural. No planning, no preparation, off you go. Let me ask you, this, is it always one to one or do you do it in small groups? Well, we have adapted it slightly. We had a team actually in Coca-Cola who, what they did was they used it in a team meeting. So if something came up in the team meeting that they wanted to get, you know, a bit of a fresh perspective on, what they'd do is they'd give one person in the team two minutes to have a rant. And as soon as they'd done their two minutes, they'd hand it to the person next to them who would then carry on the rant. So

it was like a relay. And the way they described it was that, you know, when they did it, they never really got further than halfway through the team because actually they'd nailed it by that point. So you can adapt it. The important principle is you talk very, very fast and it's one person at a time with everyone else just listening positively. Wow, Chris, so good. I got to let you go, but before I do, I want you to just, if you could, from your head and your heart or both, I just want you to challenge our listeners out there. I think there's some people out there that need to wake up and they know they're walking around like zombies that are in a fog. And if you could sit down with them one-on-one, what would you say to them to challenge them to truly wake up?

The biggest problem with autopilot, I think, is that obviously when you're in it, you will not pop out because by definition you are in that fog. So you need to find structures in your life to jire yourself out of it. And I've got a few that I use that I'm particularly useful. A very simple thing to do is just take your watch and put it on the other wrist. And every time you look for your watch and go, ah, darn, it's on the other one. nail a really deep breath, straighten your spine and smile. And as you do that, you will find that the breathing gives more oxygen to your brain.

It starts to get the conscious brain to come back into balance with the subconscious, and you will get a moment of clarity by doing so. And actually, if you don't wear a watch, just draw a smiley face on your hand. It's enough just to do a pattern interrupt for a little while to get aware again. So that's a very simple thing to do. The stuff that I have been most blown away by, because we've basically been. been experimenting with the last year with a team of bloggers who have tried a different exercise every week to see what worked and what didn't. The stuff that I've really been blown away by

is the stuff that's involved connecting more deeply with other people on this planet. So very simple exercises. One is just find somebody in your life every day and tell them what it is that you love about them. It's had a profound impact. And the reason being is by doing so, you spark your selective attention to spot more positivity around you. So therefore, you see it more and you're more aware of it, which is good for our overall well-being, but also it forms a deeper connection with people. I personally love those sorts of exercises. We also found that helping a stranger had a big impact on people. And the insight behind this was that most people didn't help strangers because they were worried about what the stranger might think. And once you've helped somebody and they've been

appreciative, you can't stop doing it. So I personally, love all the stuff that's about connect humanity. One of the things that we've found from these exercises over the year is that we've had a lot of bloggers who've had all sorts of challenges, some of which have been mental health issues around self-esteem, anxiety, depression, and they have all moved significantly on the scale by just trying out different exercises every week. So my encouragement would be just try this stuff out, see what works for you. There's no right or wrong. Some will really impact you positively. Others might just pass you by. we're all different. The important things have a play.

Well, Chris, I got to tell you, I love the book. Wake Up, folks, is the name of the book. And real quick, this idea of getting out of autopilot, so huge, just book will challenge you to downshift, and then obviously times are going to shift into fifth gear, all that good stuff. It's really phenomenal read. And you've got an app that I think is very practical, and our folks will be interested in. Would you tell us real quick about the app? Yeah, so again, simple insight is that, you know, books are great and people engage with them. But if you really want people to be supported every single day, you need an app that brings it to life and make sure that it's part of their everyday kind of communication. So the app works very simply.

What you do is when you feel alive during the day, you just capture that moment and you log down what that moment did for you, what impacts it's had. After a while, the app starts to learn what you like. So it might say, hey, Ken's a guy who seems to be most awake early in the morning and outside. I know other people that like that, and these are the other things they like, so it then gives you content that is appropriate to you. And over time, you obviously get followers and you can comment and you get likes so that you can actually impact other people's consciousness and help them wake up. So the whole idea is it's a big community thing. It's for positive people, a positive platform, and hopefully it will help them live it every day for a little bit longer than just the book. Love it. Good stuff.

Well, I got to go because I got to schedule my first bubble over session. Well, you have fun with that, Ken. I got to tell you, I'm so grateful to you, man, not for just sharing of your valuable time and wisdom with our audience, but for inspiring me. Good stuff. We appreciate you, Chris. Hey, well, look, thanks for having me on.

You take care and keep bubbling up. Big thanks to Chris Barris Brown for being with us. If you'd like to learn more about what he's up to, he's a very unique and creative individual. I really like this guy, beresbrown.com. That's beres-brown.com. B-A-R-E-Z.

Z-Brown.com. Hey, I told you at the top of the podcast that I was excited about in Fusion Soft, our longtime partner here, we use their products, and they love this podcast, they love you, they want to help people like you. Thus, that's why they help us power this thing. They've got a strategic planning kit for 2017. So how's your planning? Remember, we've been helping with our goals and our resources.

This, again, fits beautifully into this. This is two great resources. They'll help each other help you. So what are you thinking? About 2017, how are you playing? Now that you've got your goals, how do you plan to meet those goals? That's what I'm talking about. That's why these resources work hand in hand.

So this infusion itself planning kit gives you five very practical steps to create a strategy. Number one is you have to identify the purpose of your business. You have to analyze. Number two is analyze results for continuous improvement. Three, understand how strategy guides planning. Four, establish a meeting rhythm for success. That may be worth the entire tool right there. So many people do meetings wrong.

It ends up being this time sucker and resource sucker. That's kind of funny. Time suckers and resource suckers. You like, yeah, yeah. See, zombie. That zombie theme's coming back, Eric. Anyway, number five, involve and motivate your team. So this is a free PDF.

You get it at infusionsoft.com slash 2017 planning kit. infusionsoft.com slash 2017 planning kit. If you can't focus long enough to remember that, which that would be me, very simple stuff. You know we've got everything in every podcast that we tell you about that you need to win. It's always at ontraryleadership.com slash podcast. Just go to that podcast button, if you will, at the top of ontraryleadership.com. Go to this episode and we have a link for you to download that. And I'm telling you something you need this planning kit.

This is, I check this out. This is great. This is a no-brainer. And if you're new, or sometimes you might check out on these details, you shouldn't because this is free stuff. It's not free garbage and chotchkes. This is free stuff that will help you win. So check it out, entreleadership.com slash podcast. The link to the Infusion Soft Planning Kit is in this episode.

Show notes. That's episode 1.8-1. Here he is, folks. Coach John Falcons back in the studio early in. the year. I like that. Good to have you back, sir. Happy New Year's. Thanks for having me, Ken. Great to be here. All right, so here we go. This is how this works, folks. If you're new to the podcast, we get our head coach from our All Access program, John Falcons, in here to answer some of your questions, because this is what he and the other coaches do, which make our All Access program so unique and so valuable.

So our question is from Kristen, and John, I got to tell you, we're not easing you in to the new year. You're going to start with the whole question. I think this is a tough one. So Kristen writes in, how do you handle things when your team does not achieve the goal? Ouch. What say you, sir? Just give everybody a participation trophy. No, that's not true. No, he's joking, folks.

We hate participation trophies. We hate participation trophies. Well, I mean, what are you trying to do? You're just trying to baby people? I mean, I understand. You've got to have some kind of response, right? So it's a good question. But I just want to make sure that we're being honest that we are fostering a culture of keeping score, right?

Because you've got to know if you're winning. or if you're not quite measuring up to what you were hoping to do. And so, you know, I think a really good thing to do with a team that doesn't hit a goal, you know, significantly misses the goal, right, is kind of do a post-op on that and figure out why we didn't hit the goal, figure out what we need to improve, figure out what worked, what maybe didn't work, maybe what was, you know, not as clear as it needed to be, and get that kind of perspective on what happened, make sure that we don't attack the people involved.

We focus on the process and how we can change the process and improve the process. And then we reload and go again. Yeah, I love that. Folks, what he's telling you there is you got to filter the failure. We had Craig Groshell on earlier in 2016. He talked about this idea of failure is not necessarily bad thing because we get to look at it. That's right. What you just described there is a great process for filtering it, learning from it.

It's not the end of the world. Right. It's all how you, the leader. Let me ask a follow-up question on behalf of our audience. Sure. The leader. When there is a corporate failure, right, or a team. So the team fails.

We all fail. What's important for the leader's posture? Yeah. What's important is that the leader makes it really clear that it's their fault. Because there are no bad teams. There's only bad leaders. And so, you know, regardless of what happened, the leader's posture should be take all the blame, give all the credit. And so, you know, they need to focus on what they could have done to make things more

clear what they could have done to better resource the team and what they can do to just be honest about hey we just didn't think it was going to be this hard or whatever it was but you've got to as the leader shine the light on how you could have done things different lift your team up and go again you never want to you know you never want to blame the team regardless of what happened kin because then everybody's looking over their shoulder right think about it i know you're into sports what what happens at that post game interview with the head coach when he just sits up there and rats out the whole team. Yeah, it's very uncomfortable. First of all, it's uncomfortable for everybody watching.

It's an awkward situation, and the team hates it. Right. You know, the team sitting there going, whoa, you know, are we in this together or not? Right. Right. I think the trust automatically gets questioned. Yep. It leads to dissension. I mean, it's a bad thing.

Right. And everybody on the team knows the guy that through the interception or fumbled. The coach doesn't have to point that out, right? Yeah. All that happens when the coach blames the team is is everybody is now look over the shoulder when they're going to get stabbed in the back. That's what they're worried about. Instead of going out on the field and doing the best they can. Exact same situation with the team in an organization. The leader has got to take the blame,

talk about what we're going to do next time, focus on a process, and move forward. And see, the converse to your sports analogy is when the leader does what you're suggesting. Right. Trust is built. Absolutely. Not destroyed. The team or the team members who had some very personal involvement in the failure feel safe. They feel protected. And they go, hey, we're a unit. We failed as a unit. We win as a union. And so there's really good stuff there. Well, you know, and in the sports world, we have the luxury of, you know, an end zone, a hoop, a home run, whatever it is, to be able to very easily keep score.

And teams need to be doing that in the business world. That's why goal setting is so important. You know, we use a goal tracker around here where we set the goals and then we track day in and day out what our progress is on that by, you know, utilizing. this tool to see if we're actually making progress. That's what I'm saying, Ken, when I'm talking about a culture of keeping score, because if you don't do this, because you're worried about failure, and maybe we're getting that a little bit from our listener here that's asking this question, it is better to set the goal, come up short, and grow through the process,

and have those goals, and visualize those goals, and let the whole team see those than to not and wonder if you're winning or, you know, if you're losing, just going along without that certainty. I love that. That's good stuff. I'm glad you brought up the goal tracker. The bottom line is if you're not keeping score, you're losing, because trust me, everybody else is. That's right. Only losers don't keep score. Let's just be honest. They don't want to feel bad. Winners are keeping score. They've got a scoreboard everywhere. They got their eye on it all the time. And so since Coach Falcons mentioned it, hey, this is our tool this month. We've been telling you about it.

It's very simple. This is a goal tracker tool, and this is what our team uses. So we're not pitching you something that we just think, oh, I, I'm. I think our audience might like this. This is what we use. It is a scoreboard. Everybody can be a part of it. And I think this is an important process when you have some failures to reassess. Go back to that goal list.

What do right? What we do wrong? You know, what's missing? All those type of things. And you can get this tool by simply texting the phrase, goals, 2017. All together. Goals, 2017. You text it to 33444.

That's 33444. or, of course, Eric the producer and our amazing team has the link to it. If you like to download it, you can go to Entreeleadership.com slash podcast. Go to this episode. It's in the show notes, and you can get it that way. And, John, I got to tell you, we love Christian's question, but just from a personal note, I just want you to add something to this. This goal tracker tool, how does it help you and your team?

Because I talk about this, and you're leading a team of coaches in our All Access program, dedicated to helping these people who are listening, and thousands more who are in All Access. How do you use it? Just practical. Well, the beauty of Entree leadership is, is the answer to that question is the answer that I just gave to our listener, because Entre leadership is our playbook. So how do we use it? We set goals.

We track our progress, week in and week out, month in and month out over the course of the year. And when we fall short, we do exactly what I just talked about. We sit down as a team and say, guys, we're crushing it this month. This is what really worked. Let's double down on that. Let's do that again. Or we're coming up short over here, and we need to figure out.

Why? We need to correct that and then we need to go again. So it's exactly what I just described is what we do with our team. And folks, they do it with entrepreneurs, leaders like you all across the country that are winning big because of their involvement in All Access. We talk about it from time to time. I'm going to tell you as we get started in this year, you need to kick the tires on all access. Call our team. Go to Entreeleadership.com. Talk to them. Find out about it. Listen, here's the deal. Dave Ramsey and I talk about this on the stage at every Entree leadership event. There is zero risk. for getting involved in all access. What do I mean by that? Simply put, we don't make you sign a contract.

Why? Because if you're not getting something out of it, it's because you're not giving your all, and we'll let you go. But if you give your all, you're going to win. I'm telling you. So, entreeleadership.com, phone number, email, get on the line with somebody,

talk to somebody, what does all access look like? How does it work? What's the community part? All the different things, John Falcons, and his team of coaches are going to work with you. Great stuff there. So do check that out. And again, one more time,

to get the gold tracker tool, which, by the way, was one of our most popular resources in 2016. It will be in 2017 because it works. Text the phrase goals, 2017 to 3-3-444-3-4-4. Or again, go to Entreeleadership.com slash podcast. Go to this episode and download the link there. So, hey, John, good to have you back with us, Coach.

Always fun to have you in studio. Thanks, Ken. Kristen, thank you for the question. And folks, if you like to send your question in, very simple, email it to podcast at Entreeleadership.com. Hey folks, one big announcement on our Primo event. It's our Andre Leadership Summit, 2017, coming to you on May 21 through 24 in sunny Orlando, Florida. Going to be awesome at the stunning JW, Marriott, Orlando. And our speakers, we've been telling you about this. If you've not heard about it, Robert Hershevik from Shark Tank fame, Simon Seneca, who really needs no introduction to this audience, leadership guru speaker.

And then, of course, really the dean of leadership speakers, I believe, is John. Nancy Maxwell, my former boss, fun to hang out with him. Pat Lynchioni, who has been at all of our summit events coming back again, and then we've got the legendary coach Dr. Lou Holtz. He's not an actual doctor, but I like calling him that from his football doctor. And our very own Dave Ramsey, Chris Hogan and Christy Wright, going to be great. I'll be there as well. Can't wait to see you, Entreleadership.com slash summit.

Entreeleadership.com slash summit. That's where you go to get all the details you might need and register. We'd love to see you there. It is the best leadership event in America. I believe that's going to be great fun. We'd love to see you there. And, of course, always mention the Entry Leadership podcast to our sales advisors. They're going to give you a special offer to save you money.

Don't forget to take advantage of that. And one more time, I want to thank Chris Barris Brown for the interview. Wake up, people! You didn't see that coming, did you? But you need to wake up and stay awake. Heaven, sakes. All right, on behalf of Eric the producer, entire Entree leadership team.

Thank you so very much for listening. We mean it. We appreciate you. We'll talk with you again very soon.