Focused - 67: Staying Motivated with Laura McClellan

Episode Date: February 19, 2019

On this episode, Laura McClellan, The Productive Woman, joins to talk about her perfectly scheduled day (and what happens when that goes wrong), habits, mastermind groups, and staying motivated.

Welcome to Focused, a productivity podcast about more than just cranking widgets. I'm David Sparks, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hi, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? Doing great. I can't believe it's already February. I mean, kind of crazy. I know. Although it doesn't feel like February where I am. As we're recording this, we just got out of the polar vortex. It was negative 55 Fahrenheit here last week. Negative 55. I once had a listener write me saying that she would, I had mailed her something. She says, I can't go get my mail because I'm afraid my eyelashes will freeze and break off again. And it was the again part that just freaked me out.

Yeah. I never thought weather would be an impediment to focus, but turns out it is. Yeah. Well, we have a guest today. Welcome to the show, Laura McClellan. Hi, guys. Happy to be here. I'm so happy to have you. Now, Laura was on Mac Power Users two or three months ago. We talked a lot about tech on that show. But Laura, in addition to being a practicing attorney, is also the host of the Productive Woman podcast. And we just hit it off immediately. And she has so much to say, and especially on this topic of focus.

So if you listen to her on Mac Power Users, I strongly recommend you stick around. Today, we're going to be focusing on kind of the productivity angle of what Laura does and not so much the technology. But we're really pleased that you were willing to come on the show. Thank you, Laura.

Well, it was an honor to be asked. I had such a good time talking with you and Katie on Mac Power Users. And so I've been a fan of this show before it was focused. There you go. Well, I feel like, Laura, and I did say this earlier, is I feel like you're a comrade of mine because you are practicing law and doing all the things that come with that, you know, dealing with the emergencies and the unexpected surprises from clients. But at the same time, you're building your media empire. And it's really hard to balance those two things. And you do it remarkably well, at least from the outside. It seems like you do.

Well, I try to make it look like I am doing so. You know, it's a challenge, as you well know. Law practice, I've said for years, the challenge isn't the number of hours it takes, it's that you can't always control when those hours come. Clients need what they need when they need it. Yeah, it's like being a fireman. You just never know when the bell's going to ring. Exactly. And so you just have to be able to pick things up and put them down and then come back to them and fit stuff into it all. Yeah, and I guess that is where I'd like to start today, talking about that.

I mean, when you've got this media thing you do, I mean, the Productive Woman is a big podcast. You've got a big community around it. But you've also got this bell that rings for your client needs. How do you deal with that when you think you have your day planned and suddenly something happens? Well, like everybody, I probably yell a little bit first and then I get down to business. I try to not leave things till the very last minute, whether it's on the podcast side or personal side or the law practice. I try to kind of plan ahead and leave some wiggle room so that when those crises occur, that a client needs something

right now on a day that I was going to do something else. Hopefully the something else isn't something that's so time sensitive that I'm going to be in a bind if I drop it to turn to what the client needs. So question about that, because it seems like that is the type of thing that sounds good in theory. And everybody who was listening to this would say, yeah, totally. You should have some margin so that you have some give when stuff hits the fan. But how do you then recover from that? Or are there certain rules or guidelines that you set up so that you always have that? Or how do you practically carve out the time to keep moving things forward so that it doesn't all pile up at the end? I guess kind of my experience, my own tendency is that I would procrastinate on those things and say, I should start on this, but

it's not due right now and I've done it last minute before. So how do you fight that? Well, I fight it not always successfully. I don't want to pretend that I get it right all the time and that I don't ever have those days where I'm going to be staying up till all hours trying to get something done because that does happen. But I don't like it when that happens. And so the part of me that really doesn't like those last minute crises disciplines the other part of me that likes to sit and watch Netflix and YouTube. And so part of it is looking at just what are the big things and

at least trying to be ahead on those. And for me, the big things include episodes of the podcast and all the steps that I have to do to get that put out. And then also the client stuff. I'm fortunate in that I don't have young kids at home right now. I say fortunate. It's kind of sad. My kids are all grown and gone. home right now. I say fortunate. It's kind of sad. My kids are all grown and gone. And so it's just my husband and me in the house. I work from home, my law practice and my productive woman stuff. And so I have somewhat more control over all of that. So I just have to, I've learned from bitter experience what happens if I put off, you know, say getting a podcast episode recorded until the very last minute. I just can't do that anymore. And so that pushes me to get it done. There are

other things that sort of can fall through the cracks and end up, you know, waiting until almost too late. But they're usually for me smaller, smaller things like the grocery shopping or things like that. As somebody who, like you, does both a day job and a night job, it's interesting to me, both of us have gravitated towards podcasts and media that are not on a news cycle. None of the shows I make need to be timely. And we're recording this show two weeks before it publishes, and that's okay. And I think with the types of interruptions we face, I'm not sure it'd be possible to do like a news type show. Yeah, I don't think I could.

I've got a follow-up question to that because you mentioned that your kids are no longer at home. I've mentioned to my wife, we have five kids, the oldest is 11. And I asked her, you have any questions for the productive woman? And she said, she wants to know if you have any tips for balancing being productive with being intentional with your kids while they're young. So you kind of talked about now, you don't have to balance spending time with your kids versus recording a podcast because they're not there. But any advice for thinking back, you know, what would you say to a 22-year-old you who was going through this before? Yeah. Oh, you know, I've thought about that so much because we have five kids as well.

And I homeschooled them for several years and tried to do some other things during that period of time. I wasn't podcasting then, but I did have other things. I don't know if it's advice so much as if I could talk to my younger self, I would say what I heard from every older mom at the time and disregarded. And that is the time the kids are small and taking up a lot of your time and your energy and attention is really very short and it's over faster than you would expect it to be. When you're losing sleep at night because you've got a baby up in

the middle of the night, or you've got a lot of little kids who need your time and your attention, you think it's going to last forever. And I've had this conversation with our daughter who has four little girls of her own, and it just goes by so quickly. And if I could go back and do it over again, I might change the way I did some things back then. But I did, we did always try to prioritize family time during that. So we didn't have our kids, you know, signed up for every extracurricular activity in the world. A lot of what we did, we did together. And I don't have any regrets about any of that. I didn't go to law school till my kids were older. So I did things kind of backwards, which maybe slowed me down in my career a little bit. But I don't regret that for a minute. I don't know if this really answers

your question, but that's what I think about when I think about, you know, now versus then. Yeah, well, I think one thing specifically from what you said that stands out to me is that you didn't sign your kids up for all the extracurriculars. So essentially, you were saying no to some things so that you could say yes to other things. And I think maybe that advice is more relevant today than at any time in human history, because there's so many things that are demanding our attention. So I think that's great advice. That's so true. And yeah, we said no to a lot of things, but not just for our kids, for ourselves as well. There were different things I could have done that I chose not to

for seasons of time. I really learned the lesson that there's a difference between not now and never. And I tried to be pretty intentional about what was for this season and what could wait. I like that. So saying no isn't fatal or final. It's just not right now. fatal or final. It's just not right now. Right. Yeah, absolutely. And that's true, whether you're talking about parenting or anything else that we do. Time and energy and attention are all finite resources. We can't do everything all at once. And so we have to choose. So you think you need a little focus? Maybe just a little bit. So you think you need a little focus? Maybe just a little bit.

It's hard. I agree. And I know when our kids were younger, we had friends that spent all their time driving their kids around, but very little time with their kids, if that makes any sense. Yeah. Yeah. And that I was just having a conversation with a friend of mine just yesterday, actually, about that very thing. And her the way her weekend was that she was just running herself ragged because her kids had so many activities. And she she asked me the question that you did, Mike. You know, what what should I do or, you know, what, what should I do? Or, you know, what, how would you handle this? And I, I'm never going to tell somebody how they ought to do it, but I can tell you what we did. We always made sure that at least two or three nights a week, we were all home. And, you know, that was more important to me than all that other stuff that we could have been doing for that season. And there's a lot of things that I didn't do then that I can do now. And so. I like the distinction you made, though, where you said you weren't just saying no to the things for the kids, you were saying no to things

for yourself, too. And I imagine that that probably continues on even after they leave home. Do you have any examples recently of things that you've had to say no to and any tips for maintaining your focus on the things that really are important to you, like the podcast you mentioned earlier? Oh my goodness, that it, you know, it is so hard. And David, you said that just a minute ago. It is hard to say no to things, to opportunities and things. An example that the one, I guess, that came to mind is I was an officer in a committee for the Dallas Bar Association. And I had to let that go because I couldn't give it the time or the energy or the attention that it deserved and still do the other things that I really needed to do

and knew were the priority for that season. So that's an example of one thing that I walked away from that I enjoyed doing. It was a really important committee for the bar, and I was sad to let it go, but I knew that it was the time I needed to do that. I think that's a real turning point for people. First realizing the muscle exists to say no, and then exercising it for the first time. I just really think that's something that everybody needs to work on if they're going to make something that they truly love. Yeah, definitely. I heard somebody say one time, good is the enemy of the best.

Yeah, yeah, that's absolutely true. And I think the hardest thing for me about being productive in the sense that I define the word being productive is saying no to good things. You know, choosing from all the very, the many good things that I could be doing with my time and getting down to work on the best thing, finding what is that best thing for me right now. I don't like saying no. I don't like disappointing people. I suffer from FOMO just like everybody else. What if that thing I say no to is like the best thing ever? It's hard for all of us, I think. Yeah, definitely. So with that in mind, was there a process that you kind of struggled through when you said no to the officer position?

Or was it just kind of like you realized that this was the right decision to make and so you were able to make it right away? I don't ever make decisions like that easily. So, no, it wasn't something – it was something I thought about quite a bit. And I thought about, you know, the amount of time that it needed from me in order to do a good job of it. I thought about the other things that I'm doing and where I felt like I was really going to have the most impact. And like I said, the committee was, it was the peer assistance committee. So it's the committee kind of tasked with helping attorneys,

you know, who are dealing with crisis and things like that. And I've felt really strongly about the importance of that work. But in order to do that, well, other things would have had to suffer. And right now, for me, the priorities are, you know, my family, which mostly is my husband and me right now, although we see our kids pretty regularly. My law practice, because that's an income we need to have, and the things around the productive woman. And I felt like I ultimately was going to have more of an impact, a stronger impact, a better impact by focusing on those three areas of my life and letting this other thing go. Man, I love that. That's a great clarifying question is where can I have the most impact? Yeah. Because to me, and people who've listened to the podcast know when I talk about productivity, this is relevant to what I was just describing. To me, productivity isn't about getting more stuff done. It's about getting the right stuff done.

But when I define a productive person, I'm talking about a person who has ordered her life or his life in such a way as to maximize her positive impact on the world around her. And whether that is the world within the four walls of where she lives or where she works or, you know, as president of the United States, whatever it is, being truly productive requires us to order our life in a way to allow us to maximize that impact. At least that's what I believe. Man, you just went straight to the heart of it there, Laura. I love that.

Yeah. And I guess that's the question that we all ask ourselves is, how do you stray off that path? Because it's just so easy as you're going through the day. You may wake up with the idea. You were talking earlier about, we were talking about emergencies and like I've been journaling more. And one of the insights I have from journaling is on the days where I do have an emergency quite often from a client or something unexpected, I am never as focused and I'm never as productive, even though I handle

the emergencies in comparison to a day where those things don't show up and I'm able to kind of have a plan and stick to it. Yeah, and I'm a planner anyway. Yeah, so when you deal with the emergencies from the client and you've got the idea of your focus, what's the best way to handle that? What do you mean in terms of dealing with taking care of the client need or getting back to whatever the... That was a bad question. I mean, what I mean is, you know, like you say, you're a planner, but sometimes the plans fall apart. What do you do then? Well, you take a deep breath and you deal with what's in front of you at the moment. And then when you can, you go back to the plan. At least

that's what I try to do. I have, you know, kind of my short list of things that I've planned to get accomplished in any given day. And if a crisis comes, you know, I use crisis in kind of a broad term. It's not like necessarily life-threatening, but if something comes up that pulls me off of that plan, I do what I need to. I do the necessary. I try to pay attention to it. And then when I've dealt with it, then I look back at my list and say, where was I? And try to get back into it. And that's not easy for me. I don't do well with lots of interruptions, which makes my profession, my day job, a challenge for me, because I get interrupted all the time. It's hard for me to, and I know the science behind it,

you know how our brains work, but it's very difficult for me to get back on task when I've been interrupted. So I have to be very intentional about it. Yeah, the process, it sounds like, is simple, but it's not easy. Like I know myself personally, if my day got derailed because somebody asked something for me, I would typically spend like the first hour and a half being mad that they asked me, then finally deal with it and then go back to what I was supposed to be doing and waste all this time just being emotional about it, just telling on myself. Yeah, that's a pretty easy and common trap, I think. Yeah, it really is. And I think maybe if it makes anybody listening feel better to know that

everybody feels that way. We all waste some amount of time being irate because I had a plan and you interrupted my plan. And learning to manage our minds and sort of shake that off and just get down to work and get it taken care of is a lifelong challenge, I think, at least for me. Yeah, it's the second arrow story. Have you guys heard that one? Have not. I don't. It's a Buddhist story, and I'm going to screw it up, so please, Buddhists, don't write me. But when you get hit by—Buddha told a story where if you got hit by an arrow, that really hurts, right?

And usually the first arrow is shot by somebody else. But the problem isn't the first arrow. It's the second and the third and it's the fourth arrows that you shoot at yourself. And anytime there's a problem, it's not necessarily the problem that hangs you up. It's your reaction to the problem. Yeah. Yeah, that's good. That's so true.

I mean, that's true in almost any area. I really believe that most of the things we suffer from are made worse by how we think about them. And it's taken me to this stage of my life to realize that most of what I'm feeling I have created for myself just by the way I think about the things going on around me. And learning to manage that process, that thinking, manage my own mind so that I don't let what happens around me just completely derail me. This episode of Focused is brought to you by FreshBooks, online invoicing made easy. Go to focused.com and let them know you heard about it here on the Focused podcast to get a free 30-day trial. Everyone likes to save time, but

it's especially important when you are a free agent. Our friends at FreshBooks can save you up to 192 hours with their super simple cloud accounting software for free agents. By simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online, FreshBooks has drastically reduced the time it takes for over 10 million people to deal with their paperwork. Working with clients in 2019, you just need to send them an online digital invoice. Licking stamps and sending out mail, nobody does that anymore, and FreshBooks makes it super easy. They even have a new notification center that's like your personal assistant. You'll always know what's changed in your business

since you last log in and what needs to be dealt with pronto. Also, with FreshBooks, when you email a client an invoice, FreshBooks can show you whether they've seen it, which puts an end to the guessing games. The only way to survive

as a free agent or a freelancer is to consistently get paid. And why reinvent the wheel? FreshBooks has over 10 million people that they've worked with. They know how this works. They can take care of it for you. If you're listening to this

and not using FreshBooks yet, now's the time to try. FreshBooks is offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for listeners of this show. No credit card is required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash focused and enter focused in the how did you hear about us section. We thank FreshBooks for their support of the show

and all of RelayFM. Laura, you did recently a show on habits and we did it as well. I think all of us got excited by the Cleary book. And so tell us a little, how's that going for you? and um uh so tell us a little how's that going for you you know that again is an a lifelong process i really it's it's i think the reason that the the the cleary book the the one you just mentioned atomic habits and you guys talked about it on your show at a time when i was reading it and thinking about it as well um i think it it resonated so much because the older I get and the more I try to craft a life that means something, the more I see how our habits have such a huge impact on what our life is like, as he talks about in that book. And, and so, you know, there are certain habits that I'm trying to develop. And the episode I think you're talking about is one where I threw out some ideas

for habits to consider putting into practice for this coming year for my listeners and some that I'm thinking about. And it's, it's, it's a process. You do it one habit at a time. And it's helping me to be more productive in all the senses, I think, to really be intentional and aware of the habits that I have and intentional about creating better habits that get me the results that I want. Yeah, that's a great book. And one thing that I thought was really important and kind of speaking to the point that you just made, Laura, about how this is a lifelong process. And James shares that there's this misconception that it takes 21 days to create a habit.

And the actual number can be as high as like 300 days, even if you did it every single day. There's a lot of different variables that factor into it. And I'm curious, because you said you've got some habits that you're trying to establish. Is there one in particular that's been extremely difficult for you? Well, yeah. One in particular, I guess I would say, is writing every day. I really, I'm trying to work on a proposal for a book, and I've been asked to

submit the proposal to a couple different agents. And it's a book I want to write, but surprisingly, if you want to write a proposal or a book or a blog post or anything else, you have to actually sit in a chair and put words on the page. And that, I know it's crazy. I would really love it if there was like a USB port in my head that I could just download when I'm thinking onto the page, but it doesn't work that way. And I, you know, the whole concept of resistance that, you know, creatives have to deal with, I struggle with that so much in really establishing and maintaining a regular habit of writing. I'm struggling with the same thing. That's my big habit I'm trying to create right now, too, is the daily writing habit.

have it have you guys tried um like dictation have you thought about that because i think for some people there's a difference between talking it out loud and writing it down and you know the technology's out there i mean it's not as good as it used to be because because dragon's leaving the mac but the um but you could push a button and just start talking and even though that's a draft that's going to need a lot of work, it is getting words on the page. Yeah. Mike, have you ever, have you tried doing that? I've dabbled with it occasionally, but it doesn't motivate me like the sound of my clicky keyboard does. I keep thinking about that, David. And actually, I'm in a mastermind group with some other writers, and they've suggested that as we've talked through kind of what the resistance is on my part.

The funny thing is, I wanted to blog. I started a blog years and years ago, and I never could get regular about putting out blog posts. And then I started this podcast and I outline my episodes and I have put out an episode every week for four and a half years. And so that makes me think that, David, you're probably onto something, at least for me, that maybe sitting down and just talking it would be a place to start. Well, I mean, just listening to your show, you're very extemporaneous and you're very smart. And I do feel like if you just picked up a tape recorder and started talking into it,

you could get some good material out of it. And, you know, putting the technology aside, there are services you could send that digital file to and somebody else would type it for you. And for me, that is an issue. Honestly, I do think if I just start talking, I get the lousy first draft. The word I don't use is lousy, but I get the lousy first draft out. And honestly, after that is done, it's a lot easier for me to get work done on it. It's just that first step of getting text in quite often, which hangs me up. Yeah. I think that's true of any habit or anything you want to accomplish. Getting started is, I don't know, I'll make up a statistic, 85% of the job, just getting started. Sounds right to me. Yeah. Yeah. It may be higher than that, but that's the number I'm going to go

with. And whether it's trying to write a book or trying to, you know, work out and get fit or anything, you draft a contract, any of those kinds of things, getting started is the hardest part. And if you can find the way in, once you've gotten started, it's going to be easier. I'm talking to myself now because I'm thinking, you know, maybe David, you've given me the way into this project. I'm supposed to go to a writing conference in April, and I've told myself I can't go unless I have the proposal done because both of those agents are going to be there. Recently, and one of the reasons I said it is because recently I have struggled with getting a habit going of journaling. I think it helps me when I do it,

but for some reason I get to the end of the day and typing out a journal entry or even handwriting with a fancy pen, sometimes it's hard for me to get the energy for that. But an application I use day one, which is a journaling app, recently added a feature where you can just press a button and talk.

And then it transcribes that for you and puts it in and suddenly the journaling habit is working you know and that's all it took for me was to find that kind of entryway yeah well there you go anyway it a lot of folks um are talking about habits lately i misspoke his name it. It's James Clear, not James Cleary. But boy, that's an excellent book. We already did a show on it, so we don't probably need to get too hung up on it. James, if you're listening to this, contact us. We'd love to have you on the show. Yeah, absolutely. He should definitely be on your show because my guests, I only have guests about once a month and they're all women, but I'd love to hear him talk to you guys. once a month and they're all women, but I'd love to hear him talk to you guys. So.

Yeah. He's just got some great ideas and there's so many gems in that book. And I, I'm, I'm glad to hear that it's working for you or at least on the top of your mind. Yes. This episode of focused is brought to you in part by our friends over at hover. Buying a domain name is the first step to building your online identity. And with Hover, you can find the domain that shows the world who you are and what you're passionate about. Nothing is more annoying than getting everything set for your business or your side hustle and then going to get the domain only to find out that somebody else already has it. So when I had the idea for the video course that I'm building, Faith-Based Productivity, the first thing that I did is I went over to Hover

to make sure that I could get the domain name I wanted. A few great things about Hover and a couple of the reasons why I chose Hover when registering my domain are that there's no upsells and a clean user interface that you can use when you go to register your domain. And there's free Whois privacy so the bad guys don to register your domain. And there's free Whois privacy so

the bad guys don't get your information. And honestly, who doesn't need a domain name these days? It feels like everyone has one. So it's important that yours really stands out. And fortunately with Hover, there are over 400 domain name extensions that you can choose from, which can really help you brand yourself online. One really cool option is the.me extension. I use this on my personal site, MikeSchmitz.me, because it's a great way to showcase something like a portfolio of the work that you do. And you can show everyone who you are and what you're good at. So if you have a great personal website ready for launch, go grab the.me extension. And if you're new to Hover, get an additional 10% off any domain extensions for your

first year by going to hover.com slash focused to check out the deals. It's time to get your portfolio website up and running. Tell the world who you are and what you do. Go to hover.com slash focus. That's focused with one S. Thank you to Hover for their support of this show and all of RelayFM. So Laura, you made a comment about a mastermind group that you were a part of, and I think maybe we should unpack that a little bit. Personally, I'm involved with the mastermind group locally as well. In fact, we're meeting as soon as we're done recording this episode. But for people who have no idea what a Mastermind group is, do you want to talk a little bit about your experience, why you got connected with it, and what sort of benefit it gives you?

Sure. I mean, there's a lot of history behind where the term came from that's probably not that interesting but the idea for me a mastermind is a small group of like-minded people who are providing each other with support and accountability and ideas and it can be you know around any number of things i first got involved in a mastermind group through listening to Natalie Ekdahl's Biz Chicks podcast. And she hosted mastermind groups and does business-related coaching. And I worked with her a little bit, got involved in a group that she did, that she facilitated, that was female podcasters. And it was really a worthwhile and almost transformative experience to be a part of that group where we would meet once a week. We did it via video conference because the women in that group were literally all over the world. And since then, I was later then invited to be a part of a mastermind group

of writers, which is the one I mentioned. And we also meet via video conference. We use Zoom. We meet every other week and take turns being in what some most masterminders call being in the hot seat, where one person is the focus at each meeting and brings a question or a challenge or an obstacle they're dealing with in this case in our writing or creative work. And the group brainstorms solutions and then holds you accountable to take the actions that you say you're going to take. And so masterminds can either be facilitated by someone or they can kind of form organically around shared interests. I actually facilitate masterminds for small groups of my listeners just around making

a life that matters. And it's been really something to see the relationships formed and the progress that's made when you have someone who's a going to hold you accountable to take action and be going to brainstorm solutions for you and provide that moral support when you're feeling discouraged or or overwhelmed so there's i think i'm a big fan of groups like that yeah unfortunately, unfortunately, mine, I think, doesn't meet as often as we'd like because there's a handful of people who are pretty busy and travel a lot and just can't make it work every week. We meet about every month.

But I would love to do it every week because exactly what you said, that's what I've seen in my own experience being involved with this mastermind group is that you can come in there and you can be just totally upset, overwhelmed, whatever, about a situation that you happen to be facing. And you get an outside perspective and somebody can see your blind spot and say, hey, well, this is why this is happening. You should do this instead. And then you're like, oh, duh, why didn't I think of that? And it can just bring total clarity in an instant when you get somebody else that can see that sort of stuff. That's really valuable. Yeah, getting somebody else's perspective, somebody who's not emotionally involved in

the situation can make a huge, huge difference. And I can't tell you the number of times in mastermind groups I've been a part of and the ones I've facilitated when at the beginning of each meeting, we go around and say, okay, last week you said this is a goal or whatever our last meeting was. You said this is a goal. How'd you do? How many times the answer's been, I did it just before this meeting because I didn't want to have to tell you guys I didn't do it. And that all by itself pays for the, so to speak, pays for the mastermind, the time you've invested in it. Yeah, that positive peer pressure, that's another really valuable aspect of it. As we're talking about this, it would be great to see, because we've got the focus forums,

David, it'd be great to see focus listeners get connected and set up their own mastermind groups. I mean, you've basically talked about all the tools you need. You just need people who have a growth mindset. I know when you, I think it was either the last episode of The Productive Woman or maybe the NPU episode, you talked about you were reading the Carol Dweck book, Mindset. That was a big thing I got from that book was just the growth mindset. It's not an echo chamber, but you have to be involved with people who are looking to better themselves and they're looking to grow and they're not just accepting things the way that they are, you know, and then if you get a video based tool like, like zoom or even Skype where you can connect regularly, uh, and then just iron sharpens iron, you know, get around those people

and let them speak into your life. You contribute as well and offer insights that you see about the people's situations. situations, that would be really cool to see, I think, the focus listeners get involved in something like that. Yeah. I point them over to you, but you're the productive woman. I've never done one of those groups, but every person I know that does swears by it, I've never talked to a single person that went through that and said, oh, man, it was a waste of time.

Yeah. Yeah. And it really, these groups can form around any kind of shared interest or shared objectives. Or, you know, in my case, it's the ones that I facilitate are women who listen to the show and they all have something they want to accomplish and, you know, but have been stuck on, have not been making the progress they want to. I've seen, you know, groups formed around all sorts of things. David, you'd probably love it if you did it and be pretty amazed by the results of it. Now, what was your experience with the online versus the in-person? Because to me, a big advantage would be that I don't have to put pants on and get in a car.

Yeah, all the mastermind groups that I've been involved in, both the ones that I've participated in every other week for about an hour, hour and 20 minutes each time. They actually came out here to my farm last week and we had a two-day kind of in-person meeting and it was great, kind of a little mini retreat. And, but yeah, I like the idea that I can do it in my yoga pants and, and not have to go anywhere. I know a friend of the show, Sean Blanc, has done that before as well, where he'll have basically a mastermind retreat with several other people and they'll go to this big log cabin in Colorado, you know, spend a couple of days together. And that, that is,

that's a little bit different, in my opinion. You can go deeper, obviously, in settings like that, where if you've got a handful of people, like five people, for example, and you're going to be overnight somewhere, and now you're not limited to 20 minutes on the hot seat, which the hot seat, maybe that's something worth unpacking, too, because that's something that you hear about it. And initially, at least my experience was you're really nervous and you don't want to do it. But then after you do it, you get so much clarity from the feedback that you get that you just can't wait to do it again. Yeah. And that's been my experience as well. The nice thing about groups like this is you get a benefit, whether you're the person in the hot seat or not, whether you're the person that everybody's focusing on and brainstorming

solutions for, or it's somebody else hearing the questions other people ask and the feedback that other people give on their issues. Almost always there's something that you can take away from that and apply to your own situation. So it's, it's a great use of time, regardless of whether you're the person that everybody's kind of focused on at any given time.

And I think it'd be important that it's a group of people that are basically coming from a place of love with this stuff, you know? Yeah. And just listening to it, I think another benefit would be just the idea that maybe you have some people at your back, not necessarily that they're doing work for you, but they're, you know, they're, they're on your team, and they're thinking about ways to help you out. And that's, when you work for yourself, that's actually a challenge. Yeah, there are a few places so vulnerable as the hot seat, but ultimately, you get out of the mastermind what you put into it. So if you go in there, and you're reserved and guarded,

not sharing the specifics of your situation, if you go in there and you're reserved and guarded and not sharing the specifics of your situation because you're uncomfortable, until you do overcome that emotional barrier, it's going to be severely limiting what you get out of the mastermind. And so what we'll do, I think this is something we should pursue. So we're definitely going to start a thread in the forum on this found over at talk.mechpowerages.com. But let's say somebody doesn't want to go to the forum to get started. What's another way for people to get started on a mastermind group? Well, I've seen people, you know, if you want to have an in-person kind of thing, just think among the people that you know who maybe is like-minded and interested in growing,

whether it's around a particular topic or a particular profession or something like that. And invite a small group of people, three to five people to start meeting periodically. of a particular community on Facebook and you see conversations and comments from certain people in those communities that, you know, that resonate with you, consider reaching out to them. I'm trying to think where else, Mike, how did you get into the group that you're part of? Well, there were a handful of people in the area who I knew were growth minded like me and, and I considered friends and floated the idea of the mastermind by them and they loved it. Uh, they had more connections than me. So they actually invited some people who I would have been too scared to ask,

which is maybe a separate point worth calling out here, is that we tend to think less of our own accomplishments compared to other people. And so I was kind of surprised when I got plugged into it. Now I'm looking up to all these people and they're saying, hey, I really like this thing that you did. And I'm like, wow, really? So don't think too small, I guess, when you're trying to identify the people that you would want to plug into your mastermind. But we just found people who wanted to try out the 12-week year framework. We had all read the book and we liked the idea.

We're having trouble making it stick for ourselves. And so we recognize the accountability aspect of the mastermind might be the thing that helped this stick. And it's helped a lot. Like I said, it would help more if we were able to meet a little bit more regularly. But it's still cool to get there and allow these people to speak into my life. Sometimes I kind of have to pinch myself and like, wow, like, I'm pretty honored, hashtag blessed, you know, to be at the table with these people. You know, as you were talking about it, I was thinking, you know, I think one of the reasons why I've always been resistant to the idea is with a legal background, as soon as you become a lawyer, you immediately get invited to all these networking things, you know. And they're just the worst.

I mean, you know, there's the guy who shakes your hand, but he's got his business card inside his handshake, you know? And every time I go to one of those things, I come out of there and I just want to take a shower. It's just terrible. And I remember once I went to one and a guy handed me, he went to my LinkedIn page, which I never go to. I don't even know how it exists, but he found everybody that has like connected with me on LinkedIn. And he highlighted all the people on my list that he thought I should introduce him to. And that was his move, right? Wow. And so then I walked out of there and I got to the first trash can I could find. And I just literally just threw it in the trash can.

And I turned around, the guy was standing at the door just looking at me. He looks so sad. But anyway, so I have this like negative thing with these like networking groups. But this isn't like that, really. This is something completely different. This is the exact opposite. I mean, I would argue that that's not really networking what that guy was doing. Because networking, a lot of people do it wrong where they do have that approach of how can you help me? But if you, I would argue the right way to do it is how can I help you look to give, not to get. And if you approach a mastermind with that intention, then it's going to be one of the most rewarding experiences ever. If you go into it thinking that you're going to

sell a bunch of copies of something, you're going to be pretty disappointed pretty quickly. you're going to sell a bunch of copies of something. You're going to be pretty disappointed pretty quickly. No, it's, yeah, you're, he's, Mike, you're exactly right. It's completely the opposite of that. That's been my experience as well, that it, it's not about networking. It's about mutual support and providing different perspectives and holding each other accountable to actually take action and accomplish some, some goal. And, you know, for the, the masterminds that I facilitate,

I have only three rules and they are commitment, candor, and confidentiality. You got to be there for the meetings and they're only, you know, 12 weeks long, 12, 12 week sessions. You got to be candid. You got to be willing to open up and be honest, which Mike, you were talking about that you won't get anything out of it if you don't. And the confidentiality makes the candor possible. And any kind of mastermind group, probably whether they've articulated those guidelines or not, that's part of the concept. You don't talk to anybody else about what you've heard in a mastermind meeting. And it's a place where you can be vulnerable and open, share what you're struggling with,

and get perspective and ideas and encouragement from other like-minded people. So it couldn't be more different from that kind of networking. And I've been there too, David. So, man. So we've talked a little bit about how you put these masterminds together. And what's been the takeaway? I guess this is a question both of you,

since you've both been active in them. How does it change the way you think about, you know, your priorities and your productivity and your focus? I think it's hard to generalize. There's been a couple specific things. And I'll share one of them. A couple of years ago, I was really all in with Toastmasters and was doing all my speeches. And I guess you could say climbing the ranks, you know, getting the competent communicator. I was doing these contests and I made it to the district finals for the humorous speech contest, which is where I am all of Wisconsin and the upper Michigan where an

upper Michigan where I lost to a professional comedian. So I'm like, yeah, this is great. I'm going to keep rolling with this. But then the inspirational speech contest came around in the fall, which should be right in my sweet spot, you know, and because of some politics and things that were outside of my control, I didn't even make it past the club level. And I could have gotten upset about the protocol wasn't followed, yada, yada, yada. I just wrote it off. And really the thing that I got from the mastermind group was one of my mentors there is like, you put all your eggs in this Toastmasters basket. You can't do that. Toastmasters is great. You've grown a lot from it, but you got to look for other opportunities to continue to grow.

And so that was a really valuable insight that I got from it. Yeah. Sometimes it does help to have somebody on the outside, doesn't it? Yep. And afterwards you, you look at it and you're like, oh, of course, like I should, I should have never put myself in this position, but you know, better late than never. Yeah. How about you, Laura? Yeah. One of the things that I've taken taken away from masterminding is, and this maybe is a little, you know, wishy-washy-er than what Mike shared, but just learning that I'm not alone. And that's, I've heard that over and over from people who are in various masterminds, that hearing that other people struggle with similar things to the things that I'm struggling

with and hearing their solutions and their approach to it is encouraging. It makes me feel more like, okay, no, I can pick myself up. I've had this little failure here or didn't accomplish this thing that I wanted to, but that doesn't mean there's something wrong with me. I guess that's the point. And that gives me the courage or the whatever to sort of pick myself up and try again and go after it again and not give up just because I didn't make it, you know, accomplish whatever it was the first time. But finding different ways to come at something and just hearing other people's stories has been really valuable to me. Yeah, I completely agree with that. And I want to call out because it's not necessarily a mastermind. There's no two-way communication going on here.

But the principle is still the same, I think, that Jim Rohn once said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.ohn once said, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And for me, one of the things that really was transformative when I was starting my own productivity journey was listening to podcasts. Because if you listen to the right podcast, it's basically like you have a seat at the table. Yes, you can't contribute. But if you listen to people who are going to be encouraging you with a growth mindset to become a better version of yourself, that can have an impact. So I was looking for that sort of stuff. And I just had that in my ear whenever I was driving, whenever I was at the gym,

whenever I was home doing chores. That's kind of like a miniature version of the thing that you were talking about, Laura, that you're getting from the masterminds, in my opinion. Yeah, I would agree. information, that kind of encouragement and positive thinking really is helpful in getting yourself identifying the things that you need to be focusing on and then staying the course, staying focused on the right things. You know, you guys have inspired me, so I'm going to start looking into this. I'm not sure how exactly I'm going to do it. I think I'm going to be bending Mike's ear off Mike at some point. But I think this is something

I could definitely use and maybe make a contribution to as well. So we'll put something in the forums if you guys are interested in this out of the show. I'm not sure that'll be the one I do or not, but we're going to dive on this deeper. I'm sure we'll come back to it

in a future episode as well. This episode of Focused is brought to you by Squarespace. Make your next move with Squarespace. Enter offer code FOCUSED at checkout to get 10% off your first purchase. Squarespace is the service that lets you easily create a website for your next big idea with a unique domain, award-winning templates, and more. So maybe you're getting ready to create a blog or a portfolio or an online store or anything on the internet. Make it yourself with Squarespace. There's something to be said for owning your own corner of the internet, and Squarespace makes it super easy. There's nothing to install, no patches to worry about,

no upgrades needed. You don't have to worry about any of that stuff. Squarespace has got it covered. They have award-winning 24-7 customer support if you need any help. They let you quickly and easily grab a unique domain name. And all of those award-winning templates are beautifully designed for you

to show off your great ideas. I use Squarespace to run my website, both my legal practice and Max Barkey. But probably more importantly, I recommend it to people all the time. Every time a friend of mine wants to start something important that involves the internet, I talk them out of going on to one of these social media platforms.

I feel like you need to own it. And with Squarespace, it makes it so easy. I like to help my friends out. So I have them over. We spend about an hour helping them get set up with Squarespace. A lot of times, these are not nerdy people that listen to podcasts like Focused. Instead, they're just kind of normal folks that don't really know how the internet works. It doesn't matter.

Because with Squarespace, with just a little bit of training, anybody can make a beautiful website. And the best part is I don't have to help them out going forward. They're completely self-reliant. Squarespace plans start at just $12 a month, but you can start with a trial with no credit card required

by going to squarespace.com slash focused. When you decide to sign up, use the offer code focused to get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain and to show your support for Focused. Once again, that's squarespace.com slash focused and the code Focused to get 10% off your first purchase. We thank Squarespace for their support. Squarespace, make your next move, make your next website. So Laura, as we're recording this, I listened to a recent episode where you talked about

and you shared several strategies for maintaining motivation. And there's some really great stuff in that episode. But the question occurred to me, where do you find yourself struggling with motivation? And what do you do personally to help maintain it? Oh man, that's such a great question. I think where I struggle is when I feel like I'm kind of not doing a good job of something. I don't like to do anything badly. And so, you know, one of the biggest sources of resistance in me is if I don't think I can do something well, I will put off doing it, you know, case in point, this book proposal that

we were talking about earlier. And so I have to, I can get really kind of wrapped up in my own mind and not so positive self-talk very easily. And one of the ways that I motivate myself when I find myself kind of getting discouraged and avoiding doing something that I actually want to do but am afraid to do is to make time every day to read something that inspires me or encourages me. There's a podcast that I listen to when I've sort of gotten, you know, when I've gotten mind management issues. She's a coach, I guess, a life coach, but she has a woman named Brooke Castillo has done a lot of podcast episodes about managing your mind. And that is a place that I go to for motivation for just to get me kind of fired up again and to get back into the game. So things I read, things I listen to, and the people I hang

out with. You made a comment about the podcast that you listen to, and I want to call it out. I forget exactly how you phrased it, but basically it was about the battle being in your mind. And I think that's a really important point. And while I like the whole topic of motivation a lot more than something like willpower, because willpower, a lot of people will read about it, and it's kind of defined as like this finite resource. And you kind of use it as an excuse because you get to the end of your day and you don't do what you wanted to do. And you just say, I ran out of willpower. But it occurred to me as a parent, for example, if one of my kids is in danger, it doesn't matter how much willpower I have.

I instantly have the motivation to fix the situation. And so I think there's a lot of things that you can do and the levers are going to be different for everybody. But there's things that you can do to manufacture that motivation. And one of the most powerful ones, I think, is to control what is going into your brain. Because it's kind of like mind food, you know, garbage in, garbage out. And then at the end of the day, you didn't do anything worthwhile. Yeah, that's absolutely true.

And I can see the results in my own life if I'm making time as part of my, it's normally part of my morning routine to read something inspirational, both, you know, usually a chapter from a book and then maybe some scriptures or something like that, but something that kind of gets my mind, to use a term, focused on what matters and what's good and what's positive. I've said for years that it's because of my legal training. My husband says I was always this way, that I can easily see what's wrong, whether in myself or in a situation, I can easily see the downside. I have to be very intentional about thinking in a positive way. And seeing what's wrong is not really very motivating. Finding solutions and finding something to be grateful for, finding the positive in a situation, for me at least, is much more motivating. So when we're talking about how to get motivated to take

action, how to get motivated to keep pursuing your goals or whatever, how to get motivated to get out of bed in the morning, to me, it's all about managing my thoughts. And that starts with managing what I'm feeding into my brain. So you mentioned, Laura, that you made reference to your morning routine and a couple of things that you do there. And I know we don't need to get into all the specifics because you walked through it in a lot of detail in the NPU episode. But have you noticed any changes

to your morning routine recently? Or are there things that you have modified? Does it get stale after a while and you have to do something to inject some life to create that motivation into your morning routine? I don't know if it gets stale. It can be less impactful if I'm doing it just as a matter of rote. If it's just a habit and if I'm not being intentional and mindful about which, which book I choose, you know, I can, I can sort of refresh it a little bit by, um, just changing where I sit to do some of these things. Cause my normal morning routine is I sit in a chair,

I have some guest chairs in my office, kind of armchairs, and that's where I'll read. I actually start with a few minutes of meditation using the Headspace app, and then I'll read a couple of different things, and then I'll do my morning pages. I can refresh it and kind of refresh the interest, I guess, and the intentionality of it by simply going and sitting somewhere else in the house to do some of these things. It's funny how a change of scenery can do that for you, but it's absolutely true. Yeah. And if the weather permits, going and sitting outside on the deck is great. David, you live in California where you can do that like 360 days out of the year, I think. It's crazy.

I've set up a nice thing in the backyard. I've got a little sofa back there, and I go back there and work all the time. I get tons of work done. Yeah. In Texas, we have to sort of fit that in between either the 100-plus degree, 98% humidity days, and then the few icy cold days that we have here. But when I can get outside, I try to do that. It's something that's come out throughout the show that is just an observation for me, I guess, is how much of this stuff is about creating a way to feed on itself. We talked about habits

and getting started on things. And we've talked about how like in the morning, you do some inspirational things to kind of keep yourself motivated and find ways to keep that momentum going. You know, at what point did you kind of pick up on those moves? Because I think that's something that for a lot of people, that's a great way to get started. It's just a few steps every day. Well, I'm trying to think about how to, I've always been kind of interested in productivity related things. And so I do a lot of reading and I have since I was a kid. And I think it's just been in the last few years, maybe because of, as I'm thinking about it out loud, maybe because of the podcast and having to, you know, continually come up with

worthwhile content for the podcast has me reaching out into other areas, reading other books and, and learning new things that I think, you know, I'll run across something and I'll think I could incorporate that into my routine, or I could make that a part of what I'm doing. And so I've learned a lot simply because of the research that I do to prepare for the podcast. So again, I don't know if that answers your question, but it's been in the last few years and certain books that I've read that have really gotten me thinking about being more intentional instead of just sort of wandering through life doing whatever the next thing might happen to be. So I'm definitely a bookworm. And I'm curious, do you have a couple,

we won't put a number on it, but what are some of the most impactful books that you've read? Oh, well, I mean, to narrow it to the productivity field, because there are so many books that I've read, my husband will tell you, because he's had to move them cross-country many times. I would say, yeah, and every home we've ever lived in, he's had to build bookcases to store my library. my library. Essentialism is probably one of the most impactful books for me. That one and The One Thing, both of them kind of are around that theme of kind of narrowing your focus. You know, again, realizing that instead of trying to do everything, finding what's really going to make an impact, what's that one thing or that most important thing to be focusing your attention on at any given time? Those are a couple of the ones that come to mind. I'm looking at my bookshelf and trying to think. I have to say Atomic Habits ranks right up there with those two.

And I just read that in January. I agree wholeheartedly with all of those recommendations. Another one that's really good is Courtney Carver's book, Soulful Simplicity. That one really had a big impact on me. It is interesting, though. I mean, I think for all three of us, because we talk and write about this stuff, sometimes things come across the table

that initially you may be hesitant to try. And as a listener out there, you're probably going to be hesitant to try some things we talk about on the show. But you don't know until you try. And I found that a lot of times trying things that sound a little cockamamie to me makes sense.

Like the journaling I've come back to a few times in this episode, but that's something that in the last year that I've seriously attempted and it took a little while, but now I'm seriously seeing benefits from it. And it self-validates in the sense by trying it. And I think that maybe that's something we all need to do is be just a little willing to explore and try things. Yeah, I agree. One last question from me, Laura. So put yourself in the shoes of somebody who is listening to this podcast, and maybe this is their introduction to the whole concept of productivity. And right now they are just feeling completely overwhelmed by everything

that they have to do. What is one thing that you would tell them? What piece of advice, the single piece of advice that you would give them for starting to regain some focus? If I could only tell a person one thing, it would be to develop the habit of writing everything down. And you can use an app if you want to. You can open a Word document on your computer. You can just take a notepad and a pencil or pen, but simply write everything down. Don't try to... we kid ourselves thinking,

oh, I'll remember that I need to pick up the dry cleaning or, oh, I'll remember I need to call that person back or I'll remember that, you know, I need to talk with my spouse about the paint color for the living room. But every, every little thing like that, that we're trying to remember and hold in our heads is, is taking some increment of our energy and our attention that is diverting it from what really matters. And it's exhausting to try to hold all that stuff in our head. getting a better handle on their days and their weeks in their life could do no better than to simply get a notebook and start writing down everything you think you want to remember, the things you need to do, the appointments you need to make, the things you need to buy, the ideas you want to consider, just everything, getting in the habit of doing that,

getting it out of your head and onto paper somewhere. That's some great advice. And gang, you should go check out Laura's podcast. Laura, where can people find you? Oh, the easiest way would be to go to the website. It's theproductivewoman.com. There is, you'll find the show notes and things, but there's a contact page where you can send me a little message. And there's links where you can find me on social media.

So that's kind of the hub where everything is. And I love hearing from people. So send me an email or friend me on Facebook. Well, it's really great what you're doing over there. And you have walked the walk because you continue to put out a quality podcast and, and you're doing all this other stuff on the side. So I think that calls qualifies you as a focused person.

It certainly qualifies me as a person who tries to be focused. And I get a lot of, a lot of good ideas from you guys on this show. So I appreciate what you're doing as well. All right. So we are the Focus Podcast. You can find us over at relay.fm slash focused. I am David Sparks.

You can find me over at maxsparky.com. Where should people go to find you, Mike? You can find me at mikeschmitz.me or at bobbleheadjoe on Twitter. All right. And we'll see you all in a few weeks.