EntreLeadership - Managing Your Time and Energy with Carey Nieuwhof

Episode Date: October 4, 2021

Twenty-four hours—we all get 24 hours in every single day. And every day, everyone gets to control three things: how they spend their time, where they focus their energy, and their priorities. During this episode of The EntreLeadership Podcast, we sit down with leadership Carey Nieuwhof to discuss his new book, At Your Best. Carey encourages you to take control of your time and focus on what you do best. Then George Kamel sits down with Ramsey Personality Dr. John Delony to discuss how you can take a vacation that you don’t have to recover from.   The EntreLeadership Podcast Carey Nieuwhof's website At Your Best by Carey Nieuwhof Learn more about EntreLeadership's 5 Stages of Business. The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast Take Back Your Time by Christy Wright Ramsey Solutions' website The Dr. John Delony Show Download the EntreLeadership Time-Tracker. Schedule a call with Tim, our producer.   Learn more about the offers from our EntreLeadership Partners: BELAY  |  Gravy  |  Hite Digital | NetSuite   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sharp Tank's Lori Grenier once joked that entrepreneurs are the people who work 80 hours a week to avoid working 40. Of course you're willing to work hard. I mean, this is your dream we're talking about. But what happens when that entrepreneurial dream turns into a time-sucking nightmare? From the Ramsey Network, this is the Entree Leadership Podcast, where we help business leaders grow themselves, their teams, and their profits. I'm your host, George Camel, and today's episode is all about time management, which connects to our business driver of personal. Our first guest is Carrie Newhoff. He's a best-selling leadership author and speaker, and his latest book is At Your Best,

How to Get Time, Energy, and Priorities Working in Your Favor. He writes one of today's most influential leadership blogs, and his online content is accessed by leaders over 1.5 million times a month. I sat down with Carrie to talk about how small business owners can focus their time and leverage their energy. In our second conversation, I talk with Ramsey Personality, Dr. John Deloney, about how to do vacation well as a business owner. So stick around for that.

Up first, my conversation with Carrie around running a business you don't want to escape from. Carrie, thanks so much for coming on today. How are you? Oh, I'm fantastic. And George, I am so excited to be with you. We've known each other a long time, and it's just exciting to see where things have taken you.

I've been a long time listener to the show and absolutely loved it even a little more as you took over as hope. I really appreciate that. Miss seeing your face, but glad to connect here virtually. and are so pumped for your new book at your best, how to get time, energy, and priorities working in your favor.

That feels like a pipe dream, Kerry, to a lot of business owners listening. They're like, well, yeah, sure, that's not real life. That's nice that Carrie wrote the book on this, but that's not a reality. But here's what's crazy is you're saying it is, and you actually lived it out, because I heard you took a month-long sabbatical recently.

Is that right? I did, yeah, it took a month off this past summer, and it was incredible. I actually, I think there's three, levels of businesses. Level one is nothing runs without you. And anybody who's ever started anything or lead something really small, it's the mom and pop shop syndrome where you're sort of the CEO, but you're also the chief bottle washer and the stock person and all of the above. And basically, if you're not in the store, the store doesn't run. Lots of great mom and pop operations across the world.

And there's also a lot of small businesses that really run that way. And the problem with that is you can never take time off. And I have lived that way. I'm a not-for-profit leader, so I led a small organization that way. And then I started my own company a few years ago doing what I do now. And that's the way it was for a little while. It was like if I didn't check in for an hour on email, but that's level one, and that's how the vast majority of business are. Level two is things run without you. You can take a week off. You can go away for the weekend. You can take a month off. But the third level, which is so hard to get to, and we got there with the church that I led for many years, I hope to get there with my company is things grow without you. Can you disappear and actually see the business grow?

So I think we're right now in my company, which is about six years old, between level two and three. And when you get to that second level, then you can actually take time off and enjoy it and not be checking your phone and not cheating and doing email. So we got there in probably year five of the company, and I was really excited to see that. I love that. Yeah, we've got our five stages of business here at Entree leadership, and it's very similar, where we want to see a business grow without the leader having to be there 24-7, where they disappear. And Dave Ramsey's going, wait, the profits are growing without me. What's happening here? It's a good problem to have, right? Right, exactly. And that's the key to your team, too, right? Like, I have a small team,

so I don't think it's a massive. It's just, you know, I run a communications company, so I write books and I speak and populate the internet with podcasts, et cetera. So there's eight of us. But the really key is, if I'm hanging on to all the chips, if I'm the chief officer of everything, if I'm like, no, you can't make that decision without me, that actually stunts the leadership not only in my company, but on my team. They never really become the leaders. I have a friend, she's an author and speaker as well. Her name's Danielle Strickland.

And she's starting things all the time. And I said to Danielle, I'm like, you've got like five organizations on the go. And they're making a difference around the world. And I asked her, how do you do it? And she said, it's easy. If you want to develop leaders, just leave. It's amazing who shows up in the middle. Now, that's a little bit of an extreme strategy.

But there's wisdom to it. From what I follow, being a listener, a long-time listener, the Entree Leadership podcast, that's exactly what you guys are doing with Dave's legacy. It's like, can Ramsey run one day without Dave? And it can run without him, but will it grow? And I think the answer has to be yes. That certainly seems to be what you're all working toward right now.

And I think that's possible for any company, any organization, any solopreneur who wants to make it happen, you can make it happen. Yeah. And our first stage of business is that treadmill operator, which is your level one, where you're saying, man, I can't take a day off, I'm doing everything. And, you know, we're in the legacy building stage. We're looking at succession plan and going, how do we hand this off to the next generation of leadership and do that really well?

So I love that we're talking about this because no matter what stage you're on, we've got to figure out how to do it at a sustainable pace. And your book really walks through some tactical strategies. this isn't theoretical feel-good stuff. This is actually helpful stuff. And like I mentioned, with your month-long sabbatical, a lot of leaders are going, I want to be like Kerry. How do I take a month off and everything not fall off the rails?

So let's get into it. It all starts with stress, right? Everyone's feeling the stress of especially the last 18 months as they've been figuring out the new normal. And you cover a lot of this in your podcast and in your blogs. But what are the warning signs that you're living a life that you want to escape from? Yeah, so let me not paint too rosy a picture. I learned everything the hard way. So I spent a decade in leadership at level one or the treadmill stage where nothing ran without me. I really, even on my days off, I was always cheating. I was always dipping in. At that time, I was running a church. So it was the

lead pastor of a church. And the church was growing, right? And so I had a really stupid formula, which is more people and more growth equals more hours. And the problem with that is it doesn't scale. So a decade into my time as a pastor, I burned out. And our church wasn't, it was large, but it wasn't the largest in the world. But like I just ran out of energy. I ran out of time. What I learned about stress is that if you don't declare a finish line, your body will. And my body just said, that's it.

We can't do this anymore. You can't be working 18 hours a day, seven days a week. And I knew I could see the lid of where we were going. We were under 1,000 people in attendance, which was bigger than anything I'd ever been a part of. but my formula was really bad. And so I used my time unstrategically. It was very unfocused. I didn't really think about my energy levels other than I was tired all the time.

So I'm always exhausted. And then my priorities kept getting hijacked by other people. People would knock on my door. And I mean, at that time, we're still involved in our church. But like, I was the lead pastor. And if you're like, Carrie, I need you to do this. What am I supposed to tell you? Am I supposed to tell you, no?

Am I supposed to say, I'm not going to. to do your wedding or I'm not available to counsel you. So it really was a system that broke. And I know a lot of our people are in the workspace, but if you've got clients calling you all day and all night, you know, every time you look at Facebook, some client found you on Facebook and there's a message for you there. Then you open up Instagram. Someone found you on Instagram. There's a message for you there. And then you've got 17 texts that are unread and your email inbox. It's like exhausting. And so that led me to burnout. And my burnout, almost took me out of leadership. I was around 40 when I hit it 15 years ago. And I thought I wasn't

going to make it back. By the grace of God, I did. I got healthy. And I spent three to five years with a lot of coaching, read books, downloaded new apps, tried to figure this out. It's like, I can't go back to the way my life was before. Because if I do, you know, I survive this time. But what if I don't make it next time? What if it's just because there are people who burn out and they never make it back. And so that's when I started to rethink time, energy, and priorities. And I discovered a new way to approach all three. And my productivity soared. It went through the roof. And to the point where about five years ago, the number one question people were asking me is, Carrie, how do you get it all done? And I didn't really think about it a lot. It's like,

well, I got this new system and it works. And then over the last few years, I've, you know, had the privilege of teaching thousands of leaders this approach. And what it results in is anywhere from three hours a day to three hours a week of newfound productivity. In my case, it was three hours a day. So you multiply that out. That's somewhere between 150 and over a thousand hours of newly reclaimed time a year. And so if you approach things differently, it doesn't mean you quit your job. It doesn't mean you move to a desert island and live all alone. It doesn't mean that, you know, the fire movement, financial independence retire early. If you want to do that, that's great. I'm talking about people who are like running the mom and pop shop, people who are, they've got three staff, five staff, or 50 staff, or you're in middle management, I think it's possible. I know it's possible.

Well, I follow you on Instagram and so you have a very balanced life and it's impressive. I mean, you're out there on the boat, you're working on the lawn, you're doing all kinds of things in joining time with family. I don't see you as a workaholic. But I think a lot of the business owners out there, they're in that stage where they're pulling those 60, 70, 80 hour, weeks and they're going, is this a season or is this just my life? I mean, it feels like workaholism is rewarded in our society, right? It is. And I am a workaholic by nature. I come from a long line of entrepreneurs and my parents were immigrants. They worked really hard. So I grew up seeing what the hustle was. And I actually love my work. Like, I love what I get to do. I love that we're doing this interview. I love being able to be a podcaster myself to write books. Like, it's exciting. And when you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work, right? So that's a challenge. And workaholism is the most rewarded addiction, I think, in America, because if you're an alcoholic, you're probably going to lose

your job and maybe get fired, right? If you're a workaholic, they'll give you a raise and a promotion. So then all of a sudden, you're like, well, I made more money this year, so I guess I'll keep working, right? But your body can't handle that. And so what I've discovered, and this is the weirdest part, is when I burned out, our church was about 800 in attendance, and maybe there were 1,500 who called our church home. On the other side, we grew to over 1,000, probably 3 to 4,000 who called our church home. These days, with what I do,

our content gets accessed over a million and a half times a month. So you think about that. Like, look at the inbox that my assistant deals with every day. We get thousands of emails a week. We hear from people on all channels. And so ironically, I'm leading exponentially more but I'm doing it in less time. And that was the twist in time energy and priorities.

And it's not just a problem for people who lead large organizations. 70% of people in their 20s and 30s say that they have suffered some burnout symptoms in the last year. And there was a Deloitte study that was just released in, I think, mid-2020. So a year and a half into the pandemic, 82% of executives go home feeling a moment. emotionally and physically exhausted every day. And that's just life. And as you say, right, is this just a busy season? It's like seasons have beginnings and they have endings. If your season has no ending, it is not a season. It's your life. And so I had to declare a finish line to the craziness. And that's what I'd love to help people do. Well, as we wrap this section on

stress, you talk about this idea in the book of a stress spiral. And it feels like a spiral because it feels like you're never going to get out. So how do you get out of this kind of spiral? Yeah. So the stress spiral, I would say you talk to a lot of people and we can all get into it from time to time. You're overwhelmed, you're overworked, and you're overcommitted. You said yes too many times at work in your life. So even when you're off the clock, it's like, well, we got soccer and we got music lessons and then we got to go see our friends and then we're going to be out at the lake and then we're doing this. So you're just exhausted all the time. And usually those are the symptoms. The problem is your time is unfocused. You don't really think about your energy so you're not leveraging

it and your priorities continually get hijacked by other people. And that's how I lived prior to burning out. And then on the other side, I thought, okay, you got three primary assets every single day, time, energy and priorities. That's what everybody gets. Students get that. Entrepreneurs get it. Business people get it. People at the bottom of the org chart. Get time, energy and priorities. So how do you get them working for you, not against you? You start to focus your time, and we can go deep on that one if you want to. You start to leverage your energy instead of fighting your energy, cooperate with it. And then you can realize your priorities when you figure out how to let other people stop hijacking them. So that is something I've come to call the thrive cycle. So you have the stress spiral. You're going down. Thrive cycle is like, I've got focus time. I'm leveraging my energy. I'm realizing my priorities. that's helping me to live in a way today that will help me thrive tomorrow. And the secret at the heart of it all is to do what you're best at when you're at your best. What are you best at? When are you at your best?

Let's focus on those three to five peak hours every day that you and I seem to get. And let's do what you're best at in that window. And when you start to make those changes, that's where you see exponential results. Or I've seen exponential results. And so of the leaders, I've had the privilege of training. That's so good. Well, let's dive into it, starting with the idea of folks. focusing your time. That seems to be the one. We've got to get that under control before we can

attack the other pieces here. And, you know, the most productive people on Earth, they get the same amount of time, right? Beyonce has 24 hours. I've got 24 hours. What am I not doing right? Why am I not Beyonce, Carrie? So what are the habits of those people who handle the time the best? Well, the first, and this sounds small, but it was really big in my life, because I would always say things when I was burning out in the stress spiral. It would be like, well, George, I just don't have time for that. I don't have time. I don't have time to go to the gym. I don't have time to answer that person's question. I don't have time to start a new project. I don't have time to write a book. I don't have time to launch a podcast. I don't have time for any of that.

And then I had that realization that, oh my goodness, Carrie, you've got the same amount of time as any other human being on planet Earth. And that was really sobering and initially really depressing because I'm like, I see these like hyper-effective people and they don't get any more time. Like if I got promoted to the CEO of a Fortune 50 company, nobody says, here's an eighth day. Here's like 26 hours in a day, right? You got to figure it out. So I thought, I'm going to be a disaster. So I made this little switch that I would encourage everyone listening to try it.

All right, just try this. This is super easy. Stop saying you don't have the time. Just banish that from your vocabulary because you do. Stop saying things. Listen to your language. Do an audit? Do you ever find yourself saying, I didn't get a chance.

to do it. Well, you did get a chance to do it. You just didn't do it. Other things like, oh yeah, I couldn't get to it. Actually, you could have gotten to it. And when I made myself be honest with myself, I stopped saying, I don't have the time to do it. And I started admitting I didn't make it. So think about your mom, who's been waiting for that phone call for so long, George. And you're like, I'm too busy today. It's a personal attack, personal attack, George. Right. Your mom's waiting for a phone call. and you're like, oh, I don't have time to call her today. I don't have time. Well, when a month goes by and you still haven't called your mom,

and we've all been guilty of that in seasons, it's like, oh, yeah, I didn't make the time to call my mom. What does that mean? And so I find getting honest about your vocabulary is really, really important. And the other thing that's really challenging, I do have a very balanced life, and Christy Wright has a great new book on that,

which is so helpful. But I like to also think of my time in terms of passion. So there are only so many things that you can decide to do, right? Like I can decide to go out for dinner with these people. I can decide to take on a new client. I can decide to write a book. But wherever you are, be there fully. And so what I've tried to do is think about my life in terms of passion.

If I'm going to go to work, I want to throw myself into my work for those eight hours, 10 hours, six hours, whatever that day looks like. But if I'm going to go out on the boat, I don't want to be checking my phone. and doing work and being half present with my family. So I want to, whatever I allow into my life, whatever I allow into my calendar, I want to do it with passion. And I found that to be so helpful. So don't lie to yourself. Stop, you know, pretending you don't have the time because you do. You have the time to work out. And as I've trained leaders, it's amazing. In the first chapter of the book, I have some success stories. And I think about this guy named John who said, you know what,

I stopped making excuses and I went to the gym and I started eating clean. it takes a little bit longer than just popping up candy bar every time you're hungry, but he lost 70 pounds. And there was a mom of a newborn who said, I wanted to launch a podcast, and I did. Now, she's got a newborn. I don't know how she did that, but she did it because they stopped making excuses. They implemented these strategies we're talking about, and they started to realize their dreams. Wow, that's powerful.

To get to the point where you admit, I didn't make the time. And it puts the responsibility back on you, which guess what, is leadership. right, where you have to take personal responsibility and go, well, if everything's just happening to me and I don't have the time, well, that's out of my control. But to own that is such a powerful place to be where you're in the driver's seat again. So let's talk about balance first passion here. What is the difference between someone who's balanced and someone who is passionate? Well, balance can be a really good thing again and appreciate what Christy has to say about that. But often if you hear it, you've got to be a student of how people talk about balance. Often balance seems like a return. retreat. It seems like, okay, I'm going to do less work. I'm going to do less. I'm going to do less of everything. And I'm like, well, I kind of want my life to be about an advance. I don't want to be in

retreat. So when I think about John Wesley is reported to have said, you know the internet with quotes, but he's reported to have said, light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles to watch you burn. And I think there's something really true. Passion changes the world. Balance people rarely do. And so what I want to see is when I'm at work, when I'm in this, I'm not distracted. I'm not checking my phone. I'm not thinking about what I have to do this afternoon. I want to be locked in on this conversation. Do you know how many times, you know, the real difference between what I see is a high-capacity

leader and an average leader is with a truly high-performing leader, they have all the time in the world for you. They are totally focused in on you. They're not checking their phone. I've been with other leaders who literally have interviewed me, and they're like answering text while I'm answering a question. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So I want to be fully present. And of course, the quality of your work increases when you do that. So if you're going to write, focus on writing. If you're really going to nurture this relationship with a customer, go there, listen to the customer. All distractions aside, be fully engaged, give them your full attention. And honestly, if you're going to take a nap,

enjoy it, man. Don't feel guilty. Like, go lie on the couch and sleep for 25 minutes. Have a nap. Get up feeling refreshed. If you're having a day off with your family at the beach, be at the beach. And if you want to get eight hours of sleep at night, enjoy it, man. Like, go and be passionate. And what I found I used to do was I was skimming over everything. Now, on the things I allow on my calendar, I want to do a deep dive. And maybe you've got too many clients. Wouldn't it be better? Instead of having 100 clients, if you had 50 great ones that didn't complain as much, that, you know, you could service a little bit better. And maybe, you know, there's a landscaper that I work with.

And he's been helping us at our house for a few years. And I remember he had a problem a couple of years ago. And he was saying, yeah, these clients, you know, they never want to pay me and everything. And then they're always complaining because I didn't do it quite right. And I said, why don't you just fire some of your clients? So now he has a handful of clients. And they tend to pay a little bit better. they don't complain, and like, things have gotten better.

And now he can throw himself into the work a lot better. So sometimes less is more. I love that. And when it comes to time, you got to go, well, do I have the energy, even if I have the time? And so the second part that you focus on is this idea of leveraging your energy. And you talk about how we all have a gifting. So how do we determine what that is and how does that connect to energy? Yeah.

So when you think about managing your energy, because there's a million time management books out there, and they're great, and there's time management apps. But the problem with time management alone is you're managing a fixed commodity, those 24 hours in the day. And you can become more efficient, but eventually you hit a wall. And I was actually, when I burned out, I was pretty good at time management, but I still hit a wall. And that's why I started to think about energy management. So the key to energy management is you have 24 equal hours in a day, but not all hours feel equal or produce equally. So I don't know.

Are you a morning person, George? Like what would you say? No. No? I'm a midday person. Morning and night, I'm no good. Okay. You are like most people in the world, believe it or not.

There's some morning people. I'm a morning person, but you're a midday. So what would your peak hours be, would you say? I would say probably 10 to 2. 10 to 2. Okay, so you're right there in the middle of the day, which is awesome. And what researchers show us is, and this is pretty well established now with brain research and numerous experts would agree, most of us have three to five truly productive hours in a day.

That's about it. And if you've ever tried to work on a really long project or do some deep work, as Cal Newport would say, you know you can't write for like 12 hours. You can't if there's a deadline, you've got a gun to your head, sure. But other than that, you're not going to produce good work. Hour 12 is not producing what hour two produced. And so you have three to five hours in a day. So that gets us into managing your energy. Your energy will wow. and wane over the course of the day. I call your peak hours your green zone. And then we all have, you already hinted at it. You're dead first thing in the morning and late at night. Like it's over. Yeah. For you, is that it? Yeah. For me, it's four to six in the afternoon. I call that the red zone.

All right. That's when you need extra caffeine or a run around the block or something to even stay awake and stay engaged. And then everything else in between is your yellow zone. Which brings us into into gifting. So gifting, best definition I heard is from Andy Stanley. It's like, what seems effortless to you that is difficult for other people? So I'll give you an example. I always wanted to be a musician. I can't play music. I see a musician on stage and you're in Nashville. I mean, they're singing and they're playing an instrument at the same time and then memorize the lyrics. And I'm like, how do you do that? Because I pick up a guitar and I can barely get my hand on the fret, right? Like, I'm like, I do not know how that works.

I don't get it. It's so complicated. And to them, it's like, it's easy. On the other hand, I'm a communicator. You put me on a stage and take my notes away, and I can talk for 45 minutes and do an okay job. And people go, how do you do that? It's like, I don't know.

It's easy. When I was in law, I was in court, right? I loved it. That was fun. That was sport for me. And other people just hated it. So what is your unique area of gifting? It could be you are the best with your clients.

You know, a lot of people are, they're just great salespeople and they start their own business. Or for other people, it might be, I can solve problems. Like, you show me, you know, what's wrong with your lawn? And I can diagnose it in a second. And then I'll get some other people to come in and make it perfect. Or you're a web designer and you just create beautiful, beautiful product. I don't know what it is. But you're like, I don't, I can't code.

And you're like, it's not that hard. So what is your gifting? And then that will cue you into what are you best? that. And so the problem most of us have, so let's pick communication, because that's what I do. I write books, I speak, that kind of stuff for a living. I can wing it, George. Like, I'll be honest with you, you can't really wing a book at 60,000 words. But if you ask me to write an article, I can wing it, man. I can probably put something together in an hour. What happens in the course of a day is you have your green zone, you use it indiscriminately, you've already wasted your best hours,

now you have your most important work. You have to solve that problem that no one else can solve. You've got to write the report for the next quarter. You've got to get your P&L accurate. You've got to write a talk. You've got to, you know, I'm working on a project with Forbes right now. So that's going to require my best energy. And what will happen is your phone rings, customer knocks on your door. Hey, hey, I got a problem. You got some employees coming down the hall going, hey, George, can I have some of your time right now? And you're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, just a minute. They always want five minutes. It's never five minutes. And then you're like, okay, I got this big project to do. And your green zone's gone.

Your best hours are gone. And then what you do is you often get to your red zone the end of the day for me. And I'm like, I still haven't touched that talk. And then you kind of whip something together. You're half brain dead. And you know what? Because it's in your gifting, it's okay. It might even be good.

But I call that cheating your gift because when you do that, you cheat your gift because you use it but you never develop it. And the best experts in the world would tell you if you really want to become world class at something, you need to do it when you're at your best. And you also need to do it to a point where you're not rushed. Like writing a book is one thing. But then I've got to do some more research. And then I've got to really think about an idea.

And often maybe I'll go for a walk or something. And then the penny drops. And if you can spend your most cherished hours, those three to five hours a day, undistracted, working on your biggest tasks, what is most important to your organization, your business. Do that in your top three to five hours a day. Do what you're best at. Work in your gifting. Gifting that has impact and moves the needle on your mission. That's where you start to see exponential yields and increases in productivity. Man, that is gold. That is super tactical. And it reminds me of Ken Coleman's sweet spot, right? Where he talks about your talent, your passion, your mission. That's your sweet spot.

And this is kind of a microcosm of that when you're talking about the green zone being your gifting, your passion, your impact. And using that time during the day when you know you're at your best, let's do the most important work that's going to be easy for you that you can really crush. And that's going to make you feel way more productive than trying to live in these red zone areas going, all right, I've got to get it all done. And you're reading my mail, and I'm sure you're reading a lot of listeners mail, just in that scenario of, oh, let me just get five minutes of your time, you get to the end of the day, you still have 25 to dos and you have no brain power to do it. Well, and you know who pays the price for that, right? You do. Your family does. If you're a parent, your kids do. Because now you haven't accomplished your most important thing. You've got that huge strategy session tomorrow. You've got the biggest problem you didn't solve at the office. So you bring your laptop, your phone home, and you're at dinner, but you're not really present because you're thinking about it because it's not done. When I was a preacher, it was the weekend message. It's like if you're not done your weekend message, what are you thinking about? Your weekend message. That's when you're watching Disney Plus with your 8. year old and you quietly are creaking your laptop open to try to work on that project. And, you know, everybody loses. But if you get that big thing, like, you know, leaders, I would just encourage, ask yourself, what is that thing you must do to move your mission forward? Have you got time

in your green zone to do it? Because if you got that done today by 11 o'clock, you're present when you're home. You're not worried about the guy who knocks on your door at three o'clock and says, hey, can I have five minutes of your time? Because all you're doing is clearing out your inbox at point or respond to you a few inquiries, your most important work is done. And then when you're home, you're home. When you're off, you're off. So as I move that to my green zone, that's why I can go boating. That's why I can barbecue, a big green egg, right? That's why I can do a brisket. It's like, okay, I can do that now because I got my big stuff moved when I was at my best. And that's where I saw the big turnaround. And we've had the privilege of training a lot of leaders

in this, and they're seeing similar results. I love that. Well, with a few minutes we have left, I want to cover this last section of realizing your priorities. Because your time and your energy, you can't leave priorities out. And you mentioned some of this already about, you know, it's not all about business, but there's other aspects of life as well. So what do you think about this myth that our time is primarily controlled by other people? Because you're saying you can be in the driver's seat. You can be. So by default, your time is controlled by other people. That's just, you know, every time somebody texts you, emails you, messages you, knocks on your door, ask you for something, what they're doing is they're putting their priorities on your schedule.

And the other truth is that nobody will ever ask you to accomplish your most important priorities. They're only ever going to ask you to accomplish theirs. It's funny how that works. So if I ask you for something, yeah. I'm not asking you, George, have you got Entree leadership episode whatever, whatever, ready to go? I'm saying, hey, George, can you help me with this project, right? That's my priorities on yours.

that's what we do to other people. So how do you stop that from happening? Well, you can stop that happening in a couple of different ways. Number one, in your green zone, I would suggest protect it, as though your life dependent on it. What that means is all notifications off on your devices, including whatever device is sitting beside you, not just the one you're working on, so that you can be undistracted. If you're in cubicle world, put a little traffic cone up there, a little note on your cubicle that says, hey, talk to me after 11 a.m. or after 2,000, p.m. or whatever, but you should get some undistracted time so you can focus. There's brain research that shows that a single interruption can take you up to 25 minutes to recover from. So one knock at the

door, you're working on a really good idea. You're like, okay, I'm in the flow. This is awesome. Someone knocks on the door, about 25 minutes before you can fully refocus. And, you know, we've all been in the place where you've got a really good idea. Someone interrupts you. You come back to it. And it's like, Now, what was that again? And sometimes you don't get it back. You don't remember. So try to be as distraction-free as possible. The other thing I would say is you've got to limit what you say yes to. And so you've got to master the art of saying no, which is really hard to do. That is probably what I struggle with the most. When I was writing the book, I thought priorities would be good to have something on priorities. It's the largest section of the book. Because if you don't get this right,

all the theory in the world, your green zone, yellow zone, red zone, you know, I have the time to it all goes out the window because other people destroyed your productivity. So you've got to master the art of saying no. And I think you can do that nicely. I am Canadian. So you know, you want to say, George, I would love to help you. Thank you so much for asking. However, in light of my current commitments, I'm not able to help.

Really appreciate you. Hope we can do something else in the future, sincerely carry. Right? Something like that. And the other thing I would encourage in priorities is there's a very good chance. that you are spending your time with all the wrong people and not spending nearly enough time with the right people. Because what most of us do by default, again,

this is gravity is pushing you there. This is nobody's fault. It's just the way the world is, is you're going to spend all of your people time with your low performers, your angriest customers, the staff member who's always late, the salesperson who can't seem to close a deal. And, you know, you're calling them into your office.

All right, Carrie, we've got to talk again. you miss last quarter's objectives. What do we need to do? You were late for the meeting. We need you to be on time. And then what happens next week? They're still not hitting their goals. They're late again.

This time their car broke down or cat died or something. They got some excuse. And these are what John Townsend calls people with flat learning curves. And through all your time invested, like if you're starting to see return on those, awesome. But then you won't have to meet with them anymore because now they're always on time. Most of us spend a lot of time with the chronic

under performers, the chronic complainers. And you need to draw some boundaries there because you leave that meeting drained. They leave the meeting, no better help, and your mission has suffered in the meantime. On the other hand, your top producers, they never ask for your time. You ever notice that?

Like your best employees, they're never like, can we go grab lunch? They're just out killing it. So what you should do is you should flip it and say, hey, top salesperson, hey, top performer, hey, market. marketing division leader up and comer, let's have lunch. And they'll be really excited to have lunch with you. And how do you feel after those meetings? Great. Fantastic. Fantastic. And

they're probably going to work even harder. And you're going to learn from them and they're going to learn from you and your mission moves forward. And so those are ways to think about realizing your priorities. You've got to cut your losses. One last tip on like saying no. This is from Greg McEwen. He basically says on a scale of one to 10, if it's not a nine, it's a zero. And that's so convicting to me because every day still, I'm having to decide what city am I going to fly to? What invitations am I going to accept? And our lives get filled up with a whole lot of six, sevens and eights. And if you can just say, if it's not a nine, it's a zero, I think you'll see some huge results. Wow. That's big. That's a mic drop right there. So ending this section on

priorities, you mentioned the famous Pareto principle in your book where 20% of our actions drive 80% of our results, but you also talk about how you can spend 80% of your time on the things that produce 80% of the results. Is that physically possible? I think it is. Yeah, what I would do is ask yourself the question

when you are at your best, when your organization is succeeding, what are you doing? Now, that's going to vary, depending on the size of your company, the field that you're in, but what are you doing? So I know in this company,

when I'm writing well, When the vision is crystal clear, when my team is aligned, and we have the resources that we need to do what we're called to do, things go great. When I get in the weeds, when I get into the minutia, when I start to micromanage, when I get off of those things, it doesn't go as well. And if I'm cheating on those things, if I'm not doing those four critical things in my green zone, we take a hit. It's 3% growth, not 15% growth. when I get off my mission. So that goes back to what you talked about, like Ken Coleman calls it the sweet spot,

but it's your gifting, your passion, and your impact. So what things, when you do them in your job, really move the needle, move all those things into the green zone, and then what you'll start to see. Because again, if you get those done, let's say for me, I'm sort of out of my green zone by 11 a.m. If I got all the big stuff moved by 11 a.m.,

I can't quite take the rest of the day off, but I feel like I can. Then I can do my email. Then I can answer people's questions. Then I can find out what's going on. But I got the big stuff done and I'm not carrying that home with me and I'm not carrying the burden home with me. And so I think that's the Pareto principle really applied like what produces 80% of the results. Spend your green zone doing that. And you're off to the races. I love it. Well, as we wrap here, there are a lot of business owners like you mentioned earlier. they're the chief everything officer, and they started their business

because they were passionate about the thing, but now they're inundated by everything it takes to run the business, and they feel scattered and overwhelmed. So what is the most important thing you would tell that small business owner to do today, to build that life they don't want to escape from,

to start to get time, energy, priorities working in their favor? What is the most important thing you can do today to build a life you no longer want to escape from? What is that thing? You know, because my guess is, as you've listened to this conversation, you probably have the, oh, yeah, it's the report I got to get done.

Oh, yeah, I got to overhaul the whole financial system. Oh, I've got to build a budget. I know we talked about a budget. I got to build a budget. I got to sit down with my top clients and I've got to nurture them more directly. I have to be crystal clear about the vision and I'm not. And that's probably going to take a day off-site thinking about that. Do that. Because that, David Allen, who wrote getting things done, He talks about all of those unresolved things forming open loops in our brain. And that's what's keeping you up at night. That's what is making you feel not very good about where you are in your company. So figure out your green zone.

You probably figured that out already. And then spend tomorrow working on that big problem. Put all the distractions away. Cancel your appointments, whatever you need to do. Just spend three to five hours working away at that and see how you feel. And then do it again the next day. and the next day. And you'll be less burned out because you're going to accomplish more in less time. And then, you know, long term, I would say, where do you see this all going? Because if you're in treadmill,

like, is that how you want to spend the next 20 years? Is that how you want to spend the next 30 years? Is this your idea of a great life? It wasn't my idea of a great life. And you can't do everything, but you can do some really meaningful things. And so I would just encourage you to focus on that really big thing you need to get done. dedicate some hours to it and then do it again the next day and the next day. And you'll start to notice a big difference. I hope right away. Carrie, I love your heart for leaders, for business owners. You are not just a communicator and thought leader, but you're a practitioner. You're actually living out this stuff. You're a great example of a true entree leader. And so I'm so pumped for the book at your best that's coming out. And I'm just excited for you to continue to help people through your

podcast, you're writing, you're speaking, all the things. I was encouraged by today's message. And I know that many, many listeners out there are as well. So thanks so much. It's such a privilege. It is a longtime listener, first time caller. So, George, thank you so much for having me. And what a thrill. Really believe in you. And it's just been a joy to see how you are continuing to develop as a leader. And yeah, we're all in this together. And you know what? There is a better way. And let's figure it out together. I love it. Thanks so much, Carrie. Good to see you. Thanks, George. Big thanks to Carrie for a great conversation. Make sure to check out his latest book at your best how to get time, energy, and priorities working in your favor. It's available now

wherever great books are sold. So now that we know how to best use our time on, it's time to learn how we can best use our time off. We'll have a conversation with Dr. John Deloney about that right after this. In our second conversation, I talk with Dr. John Deloney. He's a Ramsey personality and a former crisis response counselor. And we talk about how to spot the warning signs that you're doing vacation wrong. John, thanks for coming back on the podcast. Thanks for having me, man. So I want to talk to you about how to do time off the right way.

Because a lot of leaders out there, I think they finally can get a day off or they get a vacation, and they're still not truly unplugging. Maybe they don't know how to rest. Maybe they're still tied to their email. And they don't know how to really do time off to where they go back to work and they're actually recharge and rested. I know this is something you're really passionate about. So give us some tips.

How do you spot the warning signs that you're doing vacation wrong? That's a good question. So I think backing out, we have this obsession. And it's kind of an unstated obsession, but man, it pervades everything, George. And it's this obsession to, quote, unquote, get to the place where we can do nothing. We work our whole lives so we can retire so we can, quote, unquote, do nothing. We can't wait to get home and get the kids in bed so that we can do nothing, right? We have this race to do nothing.

And if you look at any of the data, it says that the moment you do nothing, everything falls apart. Your body falls apart. Your mind falls apart. It's not fun to do nothing, right? So I think when you're thinking about getting away, I think it's always good to step back and say, what am I getting away from? And more importantly, what am I going towards? Right. So if this idea of I'm going to get away so I can just not do that, that's a miserable life, right?

There is sometimes, like, I need to get a break from work so that. that I can get some sleep I can recover so what I always want people to look at what are you going towards right so then when you get to vacation normally it's this a this perfunctory like this thing we have to do we have to go to a beach or go to a lake or go to a whatever and it has to be away from not towards so when folks are going on vacation what we do in my house is what do we want to accomplish with this vacation and it sounds so obnoxious to sit down with your wife but I tell you what dude it is a mission statement for your vacation it's so lame I No, we vacationed for the first time this year with another couple, and we sat down because I'm kind of an annoying guy.

I'm an introvert, and I play an extrovert in my day job, but at home, I'm, people come to my house and think there's going to be like a disco ball, and it's like, party. Yeah, and they're so disappointed because I'm super lame. I just want to read a book and everybody be quiet. Let's just be chill. It's like a library. Yes. So we all, we met and everybody went on the table. It's like, what do you want from this vacation?

What do you want? What do you want? And we all planned it out. That way there was nobody heartbroken, nobody was weirded out. And so how do you know if you're doing vacation wrong with some signs? A, you don't have a plan as to why you're doing vacation. By day two, you're already miserable. Like, you're already miserable.

You're already frustrated. You're snapping at people. You're letting your schedule override the goal, which is to, like, relax. What is the point, right? And then you get back home and you're more tired than before you left, right? So I think all the, like, I don't know, answering your question, I feel like I'm just rambling. I'm just obsessed right now. I just noticed it a few months ago, and I've become, I just started seeing it everywhere. Everybody's so obsessed with doing

nothing. And then they turn vacation into another job. They turn into another chore. They spend money they don't have. They go to places that don't even really like anymore. They go places with different expectations, and then they drag their kids along, or they do this crap for their kids that they don't even want to do. The whole thing is dumb. Stop and say, what do you actually need in this season what do we need together what is the thing that's going to get us there and if it's not the beach great if it's um i don't know i'm just going to i don't know camping or what i don't know what the thing is but what's going to get you what you actually need and that means you have to decide what you actually need so it starts with a lot of intentionality and not just going i just need a break let me just

let me just let my brain shut down it's not about just doing that and carrie talked about in our first interview this idea of building a life you don't have to escape from yes we're not running away from this thing, hoping that it's going to cure you to go away for a week because it's not. And that's the same thing we do when I'm talking with addicts, right? Build a life that you don't have to drink to escape from or to whatever to escape from that you don't have to scroll through the internet. Create a world that is more exciting than a stupid digital box, right? Very similar with vacation. And I'll own up to it, John. There's been weekends where I just, it was a tough week at work and I go home and I just want to do nothing. Where I go, my wife's like, hey, what if we went on a

hike, no, I just want to sit here. I'm just going to scroll on my phone aimlessly until my brain turns to mush, right? So how do you actually unplug? What are the right ways to do this to where we don't go and do nothing and then show back up to that same life? I don't know there's a right or wrong. I don't like looking at the world through that lens very often. Occasionally you have to, but I like looking more towards what's going to make me well and what's going to make me less well, right? And so I know the research tells me, my own experience tells me, that getting home and doing nothing and scrolling is going to be bad for me. And occasionally, I make that choice.

What I like to say is I don't ever fall off the wagon. Sometimes I will park the wagon and I will get off and roll around in the mud and then get back on. I do that with my diet. I do that with sometimes my wife's out of town the other night. I literally had the thought, I'm going to go to bed like I normally do my whole routine. And then I thought, no, I'm not. I'm not. I'm just going to be an idiot.

And I did, I slept like four. It was a disaster. It was so dumb. I almost needed to get that out of my system for some stupid reason to move on about my day. But I think it's sitting down and asking yourself, what actually makes me feel better on the back end, right? A good hike, yard work, not your forte, right? We know that. Sure.

Hugging my small little dog until my heart burst. That's exactly right. What is it? Is it going to look at cars? Is it going, it can be any number of things, but it's being intentional about it. And then for me, the gap is a buddy of mine, he's a professor, Dr. Sikarowski, says, the hardest run of the day is a runner. The hardest run of the day is from the couch to the front door.

If I can just get to that door, then I can get out and do the rest of my workout. Similar here. Like, can I just put my phone down and get to the car so we can go to the things that are going to keep me well. Or get out the back door, get to the park or whatever. So this looks different based on your life and what you actually enjoy doing. So for me, a hike may not be the thing I need, where it may be the very thing you need. need. For me, it may be going to a, you know, a comedy show with some friends. So let's talk about this idea. Hold on a second. I do think there's an excuse there and I think it's important to point out

that I don't like hiking. I'm looking directly. Not hiking, but I do think we got to move our bodies. We've got to get vitamin D. We've got to exercise. And I don't care who you are or what you're about. There is some basic physiology that those things help. Now, my hike might be way more aggressive than somebody's walked down the street, but movement is important. And, Yes, I love comedy, do. We should go to more comedy shows together. I'm in. So, yeah, you talk about this a lot on your show, but sleep and physical activity.

I mean, you go to any doctor in America, and regardless of their opinion, they're going to say those are two of the most important things for our bodies. Doctors don't ask that question enough. Actually, they just say, let's fix the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah, instead of saying how much he's sleeping or what you eat. But yes. So regardless, your time off needs to include those two things. If that's what you need in this season, right? sometimes I've been cooped up inside writing my reports for work and dealing with HR issues and

and and and I need to get outside and just go no I need to go hiking I need to go canoeing I need to go do outdoor activity I always recommend if you're going on vacation for rest and relaxation yeah build in time for sleep building time for getting off the screens and stuff like that I love it so there's two kinds of time off one is with other people friends family and one is by yourself and I imagine most people aren't really focusing on the second part. And our leader, Jeremy Breeland, who leads the personalities, he recently did this retreat by himself and his wife encouraged it and said, hey, you need to just go away two or three days on your own for a weekend. What is the importance of doing things on your own? Because a lot of people out there may be extrovert and they go,

oh my gosh, if I'm not alone in a room for more than four hours, I'm going to go crazy, John. Is it important to just be alone with yourself? Yeah, I think one of the great curses of our time is We have boredom has a role to play in our psychological health and our spiritual health especially. And boredom does getting away from all the other voices and noises and just re-centering yourself. And that sounds all like, let's do yoga and put on tight pants and stretch weird. But there's something about getting away and listening to yourself and saying, how are we doing? How am I doing? How's John doing?

There's some neat research that's out recently about when you talk to yourself in the eye language, it actually activates different brain pathways than talking to John from a third party, right? So sitting back and saying, how's John doing? Is he taking care of himself? Is he being the husband that he wants to be, the dad he wants to be? And that way you can actually look and listen to yourself. We don't do that enough, man. And so I do that on a daily basis.

That's an important part of my morning and my evening routines. And I have to have routines. I'm a guy that's super hard charging, that's prone to anything. anxiety. And so I've got to have some routines in my day that include me checking in with myself. How are we doing? Are we being the person that we said we were going to be? And then what do I need to do to fill those gaps in? But yeah, having some extended meditation time or some extended retreat time by yourself, dude, if everyone do that once every four, five, six months, we have a whole different world, man. Yeah, that's super important. And like you said, it doesn't

have to be this weekend away. That might be hard for some people out there. I mean, I still encourage them to find time, make time to do that. But if they can't, you can build that into your morning routine like you're saying, which is awesome. I would love to see everybody listening to this. Plan once a month to take yourself to dinner by yourself. Go to a movie by yourself. And you say, I'm not doing that. That's so lame.

Just do it. Even if you just go and watch some cheesy movie, whatever, just go spend some time by yourself. Learn how to breathe. And if you feel yourself getting really anxious, that means you've got stuff you need to deal with. And then with time with friends and family, this one can be tough because if you're a business owner or a leader,

it might be hard to get time off. And when there is time off, it's with the kids. and you're taking them to Disney or you're going to the beach, and there's always just chaos around you. And you may not feel like, man, that was a vacation for me, wasn't it? Right. How do you actually recharge while with family? Are there certain things that you've done where you go,

man, I actually really enjoyed that time with the kids instead of feeling like a big chore? There's two things. I think it's important to split out here. One, I've heard this said before. I don't remember who said it, but I loved it. When you go out of town with your family, that's a trip. When you go out of town with this, your spouse or yourself, that's vacation, right?

I think you can combine it, but I think it goes back to what we talked about earlier, intentionality. And we as a society have gotten so obsessed with what our vacations are supposed to look like versus what we actually need, as we talked about earlier. So sitting back and saying, my kids can have an awesome vacation that doesn't include Disneyland, right? For me, like, let's just go sit in the woods for a couple of weeks. My kids may need to see what Disneyland's like, and I need to lean into that some. So some of that is just sitting down with my wife, with the kids, and saying, what does life look like for us right now? What do we actually need? And then going back to what I think is the greatest parenting advice of all the books, grad classes, all that I ever took was from Jack Black, the actor, right?

And it was this years ago, but he's talking about the best parenting advice he ever came up with was, don't try to make a happy kid happier. Meaning, it's something along the lines if he saw his kid like playing with a stick and a wheel in the mud. And he thought, not my kid. and three hours later the kid ended up all sugared up with a bunch of plastic toys and crap everywhere. And it was, I took a totally happy kid playing in the mud having a blast. Instead of me just joining him, sitting down in the mud and us having fun, I thought I could buy and sugar and excite and pop rocks and fireworks him,

my kid to a better day. That's not how kids work, man. Kids just love presents. They love tactile stuff. And they love just having fun, right? And so we don't always need big fancy flights and dreams and skis and stuff. That stuff's cool and awesome. But man, don't mortgage your soul for it.

Don't come back less rested than before you went, right? Sometimes kids just need you. We did a vacation this summer. It cost a couple hundred bucks. We went and spent several days in a K-O-A. Dude, it was a tiny room for me and my... It's like a little bitty cabin. Me and my wife, an 11-year-old and a 5-year-old.

It was a lot of humans in a little space. It was magic. but we planned it, we were intentional about it. And now, is that for everybody? No. Is that for me? No. But it was awesome. Now I'm all about the K-O-A's, dude. So I think it's seasonal.

It goes back to just being intentional. I could talk all day about it. It's about being intentional and don't over-prescribe your kids' life. Let them have fun. My kids ended up dirty, messy, catching fish, let them be. So don't overthink it. You don't need to overspend. It's about connecting and engaging.

That's right. I love that. So I was talking to Kerry Newhoff, and he took a month-long sabbatical. over the summer. And a lot of leaders are going, well, that's a pipe dream, man, a month long, just a month off with nothing going on. I can't even take a day off. So what would you say to the small business owner as we wrap who says, John, I don't have time. I don't have time. I can't find time to take time off. There are some leaders who's, especially for the last couple of years,

whose businesses have legitimately exploded or that are legitimately teetering on the edge. And my heart's with those folks. I would say 95% of the time, and that's a stat I made up just for this podcast, right? Most of the time, business owners, business leaders have an overinflated sense of their own importance. And they have an underdeveloped set of systems that allow them to do the work on themselves and their families and the business that will help this thing stay stable and grow. And so it comes down to a choice. If you literally can't get away for two weeks, It's because you haven't set up the systems in place. You don't have people that you can trust.

If you can't get away for a week, that's a choice, man. That's a decision. If you can't take Fridays off every month just to get back. That's a choice. That is a choice. That's a choice. And so what I challenge people to do is to redo their calendars and say, I am taking this time off, period.

Inflexible, I will never move this. What has to happen to make this thing happen? And you can figure it out. You can figure it out. There are people in seasons that can't do that, and I get that. Right now, like, finishing up a book, podcasts, all this stuff. Now's not the time for me to take a month off. There will be on the back end, right?

Yeah, that's good. Well, John, I appreciate your wisdom on this stuff and your heart for helping leaders become well and take this time off that they desperately need so that they can be there for their communities, for their team members, for their families, and show up every day. So I appreciate you. You got it, man. Thanks so much to Dr. John Deloney for helping us figure out how to do vacation the right way. And as Carrie talked about in today's episode, you've got to know where your time is going so you can focus on the right tasks.

And our team here at Entree Leadership has put together a great resource for this called the Time Tracker Worksheet. You can print out a copy and fill it out to get a picture of however you're spending your time and what needs to be delegated. To get this free guide, text Time Audit to 334444. Again, text Time Audit, all one word, no spaces, to 33444 or click the link in the show notes. Enjoyed today's episode of the show. If you did, leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss the next one. And if you're a small business owner

with two to 200 team members, we want to know what you think of the show, what you like, what you don't like, and what we could do better. You can give us your feedback by clicking the link in the show notes to schedule a call with Tim, our producer. If you want to keep up with us on social media,

you can follow us at Entree Leadership. This episode was produced by Tim Hull, edited by Jacob Harrison and Bob Borquez, and mixed and mastered by Will Rudder. I'm your host, George Cam. And on behalf of the entire Entree leadership team, thanks for listening. Until next time, keep learning and keep leading. If you enjoy this podcast, you should check out other great podcasts from the Ramsey Network,

like Borrowed Future. Not so fun fact, America has a $1.6 trillion student loan crisis, and it's out of control. I'm George Camel, host of the Borrowed Future podcast, where we uncover the underbelly of the student loan industry and show you what you can do about it. It'll inspire you to see that it is possible to avoid student loans and graduate college debt-free. Listen to borrowed future wherever you listen to podcasts.