EntreLeadership - How to Invest Your Time to Achieve Success with Jenna Kutcher

Episode Date: June 27, 2022

Join us as our host, George Kamel, talks to Jenna Kutcher. Jenna is an entrepreneur, a bestselling author and the host of The Goal Digger Podcast. She shares why continually taking on more work can be a pitfall for leaders and gives you a way to say no while being tactful and kind. She also provides a helpful practice she uses to transition out of a cycle of busyness and into investing her time in the right things. Later in the episode, George chats with Daniel Ramsey, the executive vice president of EntreLeadership. Daniel talks about how to create healthy boundaries between work and your personal life. He also covers what it’s like to create boundaries in a family business—especially one where Dave Ramsey is your direct leader and your dad. You’ll learn: •      The real reason people stay so busy •      If busy people are successful •      If you’re getting the right things done every day •      What to do if work is taking over your life Support our sponsors: •      BELAY: https://bit.ly/351P9AE •      Hite Digital: https://bit.ly/HiteDigital •      Kyro Digital: https://bit.ly/KyroDigital •      NetSuite: https://bit.ly/NetSuiteEntre •      Trainual: https://bit.ly/TrainualEntre Links mentioned in this episode: •      The EntreLeadership Podcast: https://bit.ly/TheEntreLeadershipPodcast •      Jenna Kutcher’s website: https://bit.ly/3OqTpLB •      The Goal Digger Podcast: https://apple.co/3mZgDNk •      How Are You, Really? by Jenna Kutcher: https://bit.ly/3OdyYC6 •      Our recent episode with Ed Mylett: https://apple.co/3tOpxB2 •      Download the EntreLeadership Time-Tracker Tool: https://bit.ly/3bjFhWs Learn more about EntreLeadership Events: •      EntreLeadership Summit: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipSummit •      EntreLeadership Master Series: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipMasterSeries   Learn more about EntreLeadership Coaching: •      Elite: https://bit.ly/3tI2fN8 •      Advisory Groups: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipAdvisoryGroups •      Executive Coaching: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipExecutiveCoaching •      Workshops: https://bit.ly/EntreLeadershipWorkshops Listen to all the Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download the Ramsey Network app: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's episode, the lie we believe about busyness, getting your priorities in order, and a life hack to help you say no. Then, how to create and maintain healthy boundaries between work and life. From the Ramsey Network, I'm George Camel, and this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders like you grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. Joining me today is Jenna Coocher. She's an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and host of the top-rated Goll Digger podcast. Jenna is going to share why continually taking on more can be a pitfall for leaders, how to say no in a tactful and kind way, and we'll end on a helpful practice she uses for getting out of a cycle of busyness

to start investing her time into the right things. Let's get to it. Here's our conversation. Jenna, it's so great to finally have you on the Entree Leadership Podcast. How are you? I'm so good. Thank you for having me. It's about time, right?

It is. And I was just perusing your Instagram, and I saw that you were next. named a 2022 woman of influence by Success Magazine. Does it get better than that? It's kind of crazy. Honestly, things like that are still shocking to me because I feel and I am just like a Midwest Minnesota mom who records a podcast in a closet most days. And so sometimes I'm like, wow, this is wild, but it's also such a beautiful reminder of

like anyone can be a person of influence. You don't need a name or a magazine or anything like that. And I think that's beautiful. That's an awesome reminder. Well, we're pumped to talk to you today about overcoming a huge lie for leaders out there. And that is that busyness and worth are directly correlated. And that's a big issue. And it's underneath the surface for a lot of leaders. They may not, you know, think about that in that way. They just go, well, I've got meetings. I'm doing things. I'm doing great. The business is great. And they start to go, if that goes away, well, that's my identity, too. How have you seen that play out? Oh my gosh. I see it play out in so many people's lives, but especially in my own. And I think that a lot of times we are going through identity crisis as we are evolving as human beings. There's this idea of titles and status and numbers and charts and even things like women of influence. Like all of those things are these beautiful ways that we kind of put our stake in the ground and say, I'm important and what I do matters. But a lot of times, where living lives that look good, but lives that don't feel good. And I think that's where this busyness really can take away from what really matters. And I also think that's why a lot of us

wear busyness as a badge of honor. It's like, you know, how are you? George, good, busy, you know, all the things. And you're like, oh, you think that means that you're successful. But some of the most successful people I've met, and I think when I feel most successful, it's when I feel peace when I'm not busy and when I'm working from a place that isn't urgent. And so it's really an interesting time, I think, in society as we're evaluating, you know, how are we moving forward? And what does that look like? Yeah. And, you know, Dave Ramsey's been teaching financial peace for so many years now. And now more than ever, people all over the world are going, I just want some peace in my life. There's so much anxiety. There's so much busyness. There's so much going on.

There's so much information you're inundated with. It's hard to find that piece. sometimes, especially as leaders. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to talk about your new book. How are you really? Love the title. It's our, as soon as I saw that, I was like, I need to read this book. Yes.

You say, you talk about the fact that you were addicted to always taking on more. Were you the type of person that equated more work to more worth? Oh, absolutely. So I'm a three on the enneagram. I'm an achiever through and through. And work is easy for me. Like I am a workhorse. I had my first job cleaning limousines. I drove a forklift and a paper mill. Like, I have always been a worker. And there's a line in my book where it talks about how I left the

corporate world to become an entrepreneur. And it was like, you know, I quit that side, but I didn't quit the game. You know, like the game of the ladder climb, the game of more, the game of higher and higher and hire. And it's really interesting to me because I feel like it's really easy for a lot of us to just go into autopilot. And that autopilot is to work harder, work more, wake up earlier, do more hustle. And we're at a really interesting place in society, specifically for women in business with the great resignation, so many women leaving the workforce. And I feel like we're almost promoting two different camps. And I'm going to explain why I don't subscribe to that notion. I feel like there are two camps right now out there in the world. And it's either hustle harder, do more,

wake up earlier, never sign off, I always say yes. And then there's the manifesters, the people that are like, if I just say something, it'll come into fruition. If I say this five times fast. And I live in the middle. I live where the woo meets the work. I live where you can have the vision. You can pray about it. You can cast the vision, but you got to get up and do something about it. And so it's really interesting because when we think about this whole philosophy around working harder, I think that's easy for a lot of people. I think rest is actually the harder thing for most of us. Oh, absolutely. It reminds me of the Dave Ramsey quote, pray like it all depends on God, work like it all depends on you. And that's exactly what that is,

is we're going to meet in the middle and go, we're going to work really hard and we're going to hope those efforts are blessed in the process creating that success. But we can't just wish for it and we can't just hustle out of our own volition either. It's got we've got to have a happy balance there. Amen. That's good. So why do you think it's such a pitfall for leaders out there that we can't find that balance? We can't fully rest. We always are just going, we're not doing enough. Where does that come from? So I remember when I had my first daughter, she's now three and a half. And I remember we had a really interesting journey in growing our family. It was a struggle. It was a struggle. It was something that I deeply desired and it wasn't happening. And when it finally happened,

I remember being like, did I lose my mojo? Like, did I lose my spunk? Because all I want to do is count the eyelashes on this little girl and like take a back seat. Like nothing else matters. Email doesn't matter. Social media doesn't matter. None of it matters. And I remember one of my mentors in business said to me, he goes, Jenna, you are a lifestyle entrepreneur through and through. You are not this achievement-based entrepreneur. You find content and it's not complacency. And that's a difference. And I remember when he told me this, I was like, oh, my gosh, my eyes are open. Like, I just want to work so that I can have the life. Like, I don't want to live to work. I want to work to, like, have the life that I want. And what I think is so interesting is so many of us are achievement-based,

but we keep setting these goals that aren't aligned with our version of success. It's society's version of success. And when we arrive and it doesn't feel like we thought it. it would, we think, oh, maybe I just need to go a little further. Maybe I need to make more. Maybe I need to do more. We keep pushing the finish line away from us, right? Have you ever done that, George, where you're like, can once I get here, I'll rest. Once I get here, I'll celebrate. And it's like we inch that finish line further and further away, almost resisting rest, peace, joy, celebration, all of these things. Because we just think, oh, the next step will be it, the next opportunity, the next milestone.

And so I think it's really easy for leaders to do this because we get so caught up in doing more, in being more, in making a greater impact because we care more. But a lot of times that's at the cost of our own joy and our own peace. Yeah, some great reminders in there. And that's hard for me, especially with financial goals. I'm a giant money nerd here at Ramsey. And so it's hard when you go, all right, we pay it off the debt.

We pay it off the house. What's next? upgrade the car. And at some point, you just have to go, we have enough. Just relax, man. Chill out. And it's hard because, you know, a lot of people listening to this, they're the achiever type. And so they want to check it off the list. They want to get the next medal. And so it's really hard to sit back and go, I have enough. I'm doing this out of a place that is healthy and not out of a place of I'm not enough. I'm not doing enough. Yeah. Yeah. Can I tell you a quick story about that because it just makes me think about a time in my life where we got on this bandwagon

of more and it wasn't more. So I remember when I was three years into my business, I left the corporate world, bought a camera from Craigslist, turned it into a photography business. Within three years, I was making six figures. And growing up in a family where my dad worked at a paper mill for 30 years, my mom was a teacher, making six figures was a massive deal, right? Like, it was the goal. And I remember when I hit that, I remember taking a shower that day and thinking, like, why are the angels not singing? Like, where are my like gold cellophane balloon celebrating that I hit this massive accomplishment? And I really checked in with myself. And I was like, how do I feel right now? And I was like, I feel so burnt out. Like, I'm exhausted. I'm not happy.

And what's fascinating and it's really aligned with what Dave teaches too is figuring out that place of enough, that safety and security that allows you to feel that peace in your life. And the next day, my husband got home from work and I was like, you know what? I was happier when I made $50,000 a year. I was happier when I had weekends and time with my family. How can we go back to that and live in a way that allows us to do that so that I can have my life back? Like, I can have time back. And what's actually crazy, George, is that when we made this decision, I said next year, I'm booking half the amount of work. I'm drawing a line in the sand. I ended up scared. scaling to a million dollar company that year because I finally had time to think about what do I

want to do and what am I called to do? And what do I want to try? And how do I want to build something that doesn't require me to keep pushing and keep moving and keep going? And I wasn't doing it to make more money. I was actually doing it to get my time back. But I think that time above everything else is our currency. And so it's like for entrepreneurs that are just pushing, pushing, pushing to make more, to do more, to pay off more, where do you draw that line to get back your time? because you might not make a different business or you might not start a side hustle or you might not, you know, invest in a certain way, but you might get that time back that gives you that freedom that you're really desiring above all the things.

Yeah. And that's where things like delegation and scaling are so important to go, I can't keep working 60 hours a week. I've got to let go of some things to get that time back. That's good. So do you think, you know, we don't want to lose momentum as leaders. And so we start to tell ourselves that this constant busyness is a required personality trait. It's just the price for, you know, the price to play to be successful.

But that's not true. We know that. Entree leadership, we teach that success is found when you focus on being effective with your time, like you mentioned, and not letting busyness just take over your calendar. So how has that played out in your life? You talked about your story of, you know, scaling this thing to 100,000 and then you went scaled to a million because you slowed down. Is that the key is to kind of slow down? Yeah. You know, it's interesting, George, is that there are so many times in my life where there's this, like, very clear defined before and after.

It's like when you meet someone special or you have this opportunity or you take a chance or you make a decision. And I feel like there are massive before and afters in my life every time I've been in pursuit of claiming back my time and recognizing its value. And what I mean by that is a lot of times leaders, you know, were the ones required to get the thing going, right? right? Like you start a business on a card table in a living room or you start a business with just a camera and you're figuring it out as you go and you're the one pushing everything forward. You're playing all the roles. You're doing all of the things. And there comes a time where you are trading your time for money. I think it's a necessary requirement for a lot of people to get an idea off the ground. But there's a tipping point where all of a sudden you will pay your money to get back

time, whether it's hiring help, getting Uber Eats, like whatever that looks like, there comes a tipping point where you're like, no, it is more worthy for me to spend my time in any other way, whether it's with my family or in the business, than to be earning. And for me, every time I've been in pursuit of claiming back my time, it's been this invitation for me to actually get quiet with myself and say, where do I feel like I need to go? What is no longer serving me? What doesn't feel good? Where do I feel called to move? into. And those are the spaces where I've had my best ideas. They're the spaces where my businesses have been born. They're the spaces where I have become like a human outside of a worker. And so even the

premise of my book, How Are You Really? Is this notion of like getting past the like, how are you good, busy, you know, everything to like, how am I really? And it's not just a question we ask one another, but a question we need to ask ourselves. And I feel like we are subscribing. to this busyness as a way to avoid asking that question, and we're avoiding the stillness that is required to hear the answer and then do something about it. Yeah, this comes back to that time management that you're talking about. And at Entree, we teach top priority. We call that your A1 for the day of getting to that.

What's the most important real thing that's going to serve me? And our time management course, we cover that. And it makes it clear what to say no to. And so sometimes the hardest part is not figuring out what to say. know to, it's learning how to say no, where you don't come across as a jerk. And so have you found any surefire ways to set those boundaries up without looking like, no, I'm not going to do that. Yes. That's a hard thing to do for a leader. It is. And especially like a Midwest woman who's like, yes, I want to do everything for everyone. So I'm going to give you and your listeners a template.

And I hope that you take this template and you use it in your life. So I, I, think often about boundaries and I have a three-year-old, we go bowling and you know when they put the bumpers up so that the ball stays going down. I need bumpers in my life where I will go in the gutter and boundaries are my bumpers to keep me aligned to keep me moving in the right direction without falling out of course. So we love bumper bowling because we feel really good at it. But I have had to learn how to put up bumpers in my life so that I can protect my best yeses. And I created this template. I have it on my phone. I have it in my email. I even use it in real life. And that's why I can recite it to you today because it has changed my entire life. It has changed everything. So when somebody gives me

an opportunity or an invitation, first, never answer in person. I always say, let me circle back. Let me look at my calendar. Because our initial reaction when we're with someone or when we're in the spirit, we're like, yes, of course. And then there's nothing worse than going back or feeling overcommitted. So I always just say, let me circle back. Let me check my schedule and I'll get back to you. The template is this. Hey, George, thank you so much for this incredible opportunity. I feel so valued that you thought of me with this. I'm going to decline and I want you to know that me saying no has nothing to do with you or your idea or your event. I'm saying no because in this season of my life, any yeses that I say take me away from living out my values,

which is being at home with my kids. I want you to know that I'll be cheering you on every step of the way, and I am absolutely certain our paths will cross in the future. I wish you nothing but the best, sincerely, Jenna. And what I think is key here is that when we say no, a lot of times people like George, you could be like, oh, she doesn't like me, or this is a terrible idea, or this is the worst opportunity ever. What was I possibly thinking?

But when we say, this has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me, it's like the gentle breakup. I mean, I haven't been on the dating scene in like 15 years, so I don't know how people break up these days. I'm guessing it's like a text message. I think it's ghosting now is the new thing. It's true. You just don't say anything. So this is a way to say like, thank you.

And my no has nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. And what I found is that when I clearly state what my values are, it's an invitation for the person who sent that to also check in with themselves and say, am I living into my values? Am I living into the things that I say matter to me or am I over-extending myself or stretching myself? It's been a beautiful tool and the responses that I get are amazing. And so that's been really, really helpful for me in terms of boundaries. That's incredible. Well, not everyone is as pleasant as you are. And so, you know, Dave Ramsey using that same script.

It may not sound the same. I think Dave might just... I can tailor it to him. I'm a pro-copywriter. I believe that. And as a people pleaser, that's really hard for me to do is to say, no, I'm like you. I go, oh, that sounds amazing, absolutely. And then I'm overwhelmed.

I'm resentful. And I think a lot of leaders experience this cycle where they go, why did I say yes to that? Now it's another thing on the plate. So it's so important to do that in a tactful way. Yes, amen. So as we wrap here, Jenna, give us one helpful practice you've found to get out of that cycle of busyness. If you have that self-awareness and you go, I think it's happening. My calendar is filled and I don't know what I did at the end of the day.

don't feel like I moved the needle at all. How do you know you're investing your time to the right things? What's a practice our leaders can take and implement? Yeah, so what I would recommend is to pull out a calendar, like your last month's calendar, whether it's on your phone or paper, physical. And I want for you to grab a couple different markers. If you're a parent, you've got a lot of crayolas laying around, grab something. And I want for you to kind of color code and do a life inventory, like a full sweep,

forensic look at what was your life filled with? What felt good? What did you dread? What were you overcommitted by? What were you excited about? And I think that a lot of times we just keep filling our calendars. I don't know about you, George, but sometimes I'll look at my calendar and be like, who booked this? And then I'm like, I did. Like, who did this to themselves? And so when you do a life inventory, it really helps for you to see where could there be bumpers or boundaries in place. What should you be saying more of yes is to. And where can you invite more play into your life? And I feel like for leaders, play feels so counterintuitive. It's something because we're so obsessed with output, play feels like a

waste of time. But there are so many studies done that show that people who play for the sake of playing for enjoying the art of play, whether it's playing with children, going on a bike ride, getting out in nature, whatever that looks like, they are more successful in the office, in their leadership positions, in their business, whatever that looks like. And if you've ever played with Plato as a kid and built the most epic snowman and then shoved it back into the canister at the end of it, you know that you have to enjoy the art of playing. And I feel like when we invite that into our life and we invite that into our calendars more, we start to remember that this is about enjoying the journey, not just aiming to

get to the destination. All of us leaders know that the destination is just a blip on the map. And the journey is our day in and day out. And I feel like if we want to enjoy our lives, we have to start looking at the way we're spending our days and treat time as our currency. That's so good. Yeah, that target is always moving and you go with you. So let's focus on the person who's moving first. Amen. Great reminders, Jenna. Thank you so much for all of your wisdom. Congrats on all of the success, literally, Success Magazine. Your new book, How Are You Really? Amazing Things Happening for you. And it's well deserved. Oh, thank you, George. And thank you. you for this podcast. I am a listener. So when I get to be a guest on the podcast I listen to,

it feels like a dream come true. So thank you for the work that you guys do. It's amazing and I'm so honored to be with you. Well, we're honored to have you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jenna. And congratulations on the new book. If you guys want to get a copy of it, how are you really? Just use the link in the show notes. Now, Jenna shared some of the leadership skills that you need to ditch busyness and achieve success. But what about balancing work and life? How do you intentionally pull that off? We'll have a conversation about that right after this. All right, coming up, we've got Daniel Ramsey,

our executive vice president of Entre leadership here at Ramsey Solutions. And he's going to share how to create healthy boundaries between work and life, along with some of the lessons he's learned. We'll also ask him what it's like to create boundaries in a family business, especially one where your direct leader and dad is Dave Ramsey. Here's our conversation. Daniel, welcome back to the podcast. Hey, good to be here.

here, George. So we're talking about boundaries between work and life and as a new dad. How old is your son now? He's 11 months. Does that change anything for your work-life boundaries? I mean, definitely. He's at such a fun age right now. And it definitely makes, it changes your priorities, right? Like, you want to be home. You want to engage. You're not trying to be at the office at 630. Absolutely not a goal. Absolutely not. And really our company culture, like Ramsey culture, has ingrained this in us where we don't have a culture of working past six o'clock. Now, granted, there's seasons, but in general, we don't have a culture of working crazy hours. We are really intentional with balancing our family and our work. And what that looks like is being home and being home in the weeknights. So weeknights for me having a kid, it's not so much that work was conflicting before. It was more of like, other. social things, other hobbies, other things outside of work. So now your hobbies are be a dad. Yeah.

Be a husband. A few others. But, yeah, I mean, really, like, I don't want to be doing much else. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, one of our core values at Ramsey is family. When you're at work, be at work. When you're at home, be at home. Be present for both of those things when you're doing them.

And that can be difficult. And it gets down into delegation and time management. And we teach this stuff inside of Entree Leadership Elite. But in reality, it's hard. to do. We can teach it all day long. So tell me a story about a time you realized you weren't doing a great job balancing work and life like you wanted to. So for me, like I mentioned earlier, like the hours has never been a huge issue. Like there are a lot of weeks where I put in, you know, a significant amount of hours. But I've always been home for dinner, you know. I've always woken up at the right

time. I wake up at 4.30 every morning. But the hours have not been the problem. For me, it's more of like when I come home actually being present, both like mentally, emotionally engaging. And so there's a lot of days or a lot of weeks or seasons where there's just a lot going on with the office. And I love it. It's fun. It's exciting. Sometimes it's really hard. Sometimes it's heavy. And carrying that home with me. And so that's been more the struggle for me personally is not so much being physically at home. It's actually being mentally and emotionally present with my family or with my friends or whatever I'm doing that weekend and just actually being there for real. So, I don't know, different seasons. A couple examples would be, you know, leading up to summit.

You know, we just had summit a few weeks ago. And it was incredible. It was so much fun. And I was just like, I had to like stop thinking about it because I was like, all right, things are going to take care of, you know, things are going to happen. And I'll work on that tomorrow. I need to be present. In times of transition, for me, I've always been a huge adrenaline rush. whenever I've changed roles or I've had a significant change within my team or the way we work, it's been really fun, but it's been consuming in a lot of ways, mentally, emotionally. And so I've had to be really intentional in those seasons, either to wave the flag to my family and be like, hey, guys, I am out of it, give me some grace, or really just kind of sucking it up and helping a transition.

We can talk about more of how I do that later. Well, it's a great call out that just because you're working 40 hours a week and you're at home for dinner, doesn't mean that you're present because mentally your brain's still spinning you're thinking about that meeting, that email, the meeting you have to have tomorrow that's going to be difficult. And, you know, my wife works here, you know Whitney.

And so that can be extra difficult when, you know, our family is ingrained in this place and it's no different for you. You're in a family business. Your dad is Dave Ramsey. That's got to be hard at the family dinner table on Sunday to not let work come up because you both also care very deeply.

You're passionate, and so naturally that's a part of the conversation. How do you set boundaries or do you in those situations? Gosh, you know, George, we have done a great job at this in recent years, but we haven't always done a good job at this. So we would often find ourselves venturing into talking about work way too much, especially in the summer. Our family spends a lot more time together in the summer, specifically around the lake. We grew up hanging out the lake, and that's just what we do in the summer. And so with my sisters and my dad, we love talking about work.

And our spouses are sick of hearing it sometimes. and my mom doesn't always want to hear about it. So we kind of have a rule where we really don't talk about work when we're not at work. Now, we break that occasionally. And sometimes something major is going on, and one of us will raise our hand and be like, hey, guys, can we talk about this crazy thing that's happening? And we talk about it, and it's fine. But that needs to be the exception, not the rule.

And so in general, when I, like, I want to have, like, right now, Dave is both my dad and my boss. And when I'm at work, I need to treat him, like, my boss and he treats me like a team member or leader is the really the word we use and I also like how sad would it be if I didn't have a relationship with my dad but I only treated him like my leader inside and outside of the office and so we have to be intentional about I have to have a dad too and so we have breakfast every week where father son we just hang out and talk about life and sometimes we venture into business stuff and that's okay that's natural but in general we spend time together

as father and son, and we also have a one-on-one throughout the week where we treat each other like leader and team member. Wow. So it's not just, hey, the only time I see this guy is in board meetings and it's all business, you're intentional about having both times of business and times where we're just father and son. That's important. A lot of listeners are in that space where they're in a family business grappling with how to set those boundaries. So that's helpful. So outside of the family business, you also need boundaries within your own team. I mean, you're leading the entire Entree leadership team. Do you guys have specific boundaries or rules that you set in place? Because you set the pace as the leader, and so does your leadership team of going,

hey, if I'm getting an email from Daniel at 9 p.m. at night, well, that's my cue that I need to be responding to emails at 9 p.m. at night. Yeah, I mean, honestly, that's exactly what I was going to say, is email is the best example of this. And you're right, I do set the pace as a leader. Or you leading your team, you set the pace, you set the tone, you set the expectations. You also set that with your clients too. If you're emailing clients or you're responding to clients, you're telling them that you're available when they need you. And while you want to super serve your clients, I have a rule for myself that I don't respond to clients or team members when I'm not at the office. And so unless it's an emergency, if it is an emergency, I deal with it. But usually it's not. Usually I feel like I could

answer them, but I don't. And I also try not to think about what I would say when I do want to answer them and I'm back in the office. So I try to not look at my email when I'm not in the office when I'm not at work. Because if I do respond to an email, then I am telling them that I'm available to them whenever they need me. And while that's a really important thing to do at the office during office hours, I want them to be, I want to be very available to my team when I'm here. But when I'm not here, they know they can reach me over my cell phone if it's an emergency, but otherwise I'm not going to respond. And when they, they send when i'm getting consistent emails after hours i'm going to call them out and be like hey hannah

why like why are you working in the evening so much you're called out hannah if you're listening like hey what's going on is there uh do we need to take something off your plate do we need to delegate something do i need to take something back from you and work on because you're clearly overloaded because you're having to work on the weekends now george there's always seasons where something really important is happening where everyone is agreed upon that, hey, we're going to put in the extra time and the extra effort. There's going to be some weekends. There's going to be some nights.

I'm going to come into the office at 5 a.m. Because I got to get something done. That happens occasionally. But that has to be the exception that can't be the rule. If that starts becoming normal and you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, that's when you know that it's a problem and it's actually crept into becoming normal. You can't let that stuff become normal because that's not how we're supposed to live. that's not how we're supposed to work. We're supposed to have those boundaries. We're supposed to have

a life outside of work. We're supposed to have relationships outside of work. And so, yeah, you as a leader setting the tone by not responding. And when people start violating that too much, you call them out for it. I think that's very important. And you have the responsibility as a leader to communicate those expectations and set those boundaries. And, you know, you've heard the quote, you teach people how to treat you. Well, you kind of teach people what those boundaries are. And when you don't respond, when they respond, when they try to email you after hours, they pretty quickly learned, like, I'm not going to get an answer from Daniel if I email him at 7 o'clock, so I'm just going to stop doing that. And eventually, people tend to fall in line and go, all right, he's shown me this boundary and he's stuck to it. Exactly. Can't break this guy. He's too good. it's amazing how much your team watches you

and the way you lead you model so many behaviors whether they consciously recognize it or subconsciously see it but it keeps in and they're going to reflect a lot of things you do and so you need to be really aware of both the good and bad things that you are emulating that you're modeling to your team and that email and after hours is a really simple one to get on top of yeah I remember Dave telling a story of you know because Dave he'll fire off an email at 9 p.m.

but he learned over time, you know what, there's a schedule feature. I can schedule this email to go out at 6 a.m. the next morning. And that was a powerful tool that he used to help create those boundaries. So the team didn't feel like, oh gosh, the CEO just emailed me. I've got to respond immediately. Yeah, so I've heard him say that, and I think that's a terrible example. I disagree with Dave on that. Yeah, there's a cool feature in your email where you can delay send.

But that's cheating. Like, that's him not having boundaries for himself, even though he is. Because he's thinking about work at 9 p.m. That's right, exactly. So he is doing a good job of not bothering the team, but he's letting himself be bothered. And I'm like, hey, Dave, relax. You know Dave's listening to this right now. He'll listen, yeah, for sure.

And there'll be a conversation about it. Probably. I think you guys need to be in the podcast. I don't. Sometimes I'll do delayed send if it makes sense. If, you know, there's situations that make sense. But in general, no, you should, if you're going to model something in your team, you should also do it by not sending those emails, even if they're cheap.

heated by delays. Yeah. Well, you know, Dave. He's always thinking, he just loves this place so much. He can't stop thinking about it. But Dave does do a great job on plugging, too. He's great about being at the lake house and being on the boat and hanging out with the

grandkids. If y'all know Dave at all, whether you've watched him or listened to his shows, I mean, you know that he goes hard in anything he does. And so it's hard for him to turn off. But really, what he's learned to do to balance is he turns on something else. That's the way he turns off work is he turns on being a grandfather. He turns on driving the boat at the lake. on the weekends and teaching people how to ski or whatever that may be, playing golf,

he's all in on what he's doing. And that's something that he's modeled really well that I really appreciate. And when I look at myself in my own life, I want to be more like him in the fact that I am fully in what I'm doing. Oh, yeah. So I do have a ton of respect for the way he lives his life. Yeah, mad respect. And he taught me had a water ski last summer.

That's right. And so if I can do it, anyone can. He's a great coach. And there's definitely a different mode when it's not Dave in the meeting mode. Dave at the Lake mode, you know, he's still the same Dave, but he knows what to turn off and on so that he can be present. Definitely. Definitely.

So as we wrap here, what's one small practice you would say, hey, if you're a leader, you're trying to get these boundaries in place between work and life, what would that one practice be to start doing? Man, beyond the email thing, for me, driving home is so important. For me, when I get in the car and I drive home, I'm intentional about. changing gears. Typically, especially if I'm like heated about something, if I'm upset, if I'm frustrated. Like I left work yesterday with a couple of things top of mind. And I was like, ah! And I had to intentionally change gears in the car. And so it takes me about 20 minutes

to get home. And I take that 20 minutes to either listen to music, listen to a podcast, or listen to an audio book or something. And I intentionally, before I get out of my car in my garage to get, walk in my house, I make the intentional decision that that part of my day is over. I'm closing that chapter. I need to leave those things where they were. And I need to walk into the house. And now it is the second part of my day. And so I went through a season where I was exhausted and I felt like I'd come home from work and I didn't have the energy or the time to give my family the attention they needed.

But I've decided now that, hey, the second part of my day begins when I enter the garage before I step in in my house on the way home. And so I intentionally make the decision that, hey, the second part of my day has begun. now I'm going to lean in and do what I need to do as a dad. And so yesterday, like I said, I had a lot of things top of mind. And part of me releasing that stuff was talking to my wife about it, was coming home. I vented about some of the things I was frustrated with, took a breath. She spoke into it, she encouraged. And then we moved on and we had a great night.

So sometimes it is venting and getting it off your chest. But you have to do that intentionally. You have to flip that switch. And once we were finished with that conversation, I was all in on hearing about her day and just being present and playing with my son. That's awesome. Yeah, I've heard Dr. John Deloney on this podcast talking about hosing off your boots before you get out of the car. Yeah, totally. You got to make sure that you left that aside. And when you walk in that door, you're not taking that energy to your family and putting that on them. So that's a great reminder there. And Ed Milette, a recent guest on the

podcast, talked about sectioning off your day into multiple days. And so your six-hour, eight-hour workday is one day. And then you kind of start the new day when you get home. and you go, all right, it's a new day. We're going to shift gears. And it's difficult to do, but it's a muscle that you can build, no matter who you are, to turn that off and be present. Yeah, exactly. Well said. Love the way you've modeled that with your team and continue to do that so that you can be present at work and crush it and be present at home and crush it there as well. So thank you so much for being on. Yeah, thanks for having me, George. Appreciate it. Big thanks to Daniel for being on with us. Grateful for the way he's leading the charge here at Entree leadership.

Now, as Jenna and Daniel talked about, busyness does not equal effectiveness. It can also cause you to cross those boundaries between work and life. So if you want to get out of the cycle, you've got to start working on the right things, and our team is here to help. We've put together the Entree Leadership Time Tracker. All you have to do is download it and fill it out for one week.

You'll then have a picture of where your time is actually going. You can then rank each activity so you know what you should stop spending your time on and what needs to be delegated. To download the Entree Leadership Time Tracker for free, just use the link in the show notes. If you enjoyed today's episode of the show, do us a quick favor and follow or subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. And if you're feeling extra generous, share this episode with your team, your friends, or on social media. All of that helps us impact more people and more leaders like you. Be sure to follow us at Entree Leadership wherever you hang out on social media.

This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison, and mixed and mastered by Will. rudder. I'm your host, George Camel, and on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading.