Productivity - not a fun word for most people. Well, what if there was a way to quickly figure out what matters most, focus in on that, let go of everything else, then go from idea to done? To become a productivity Jedi. That is what we're talking about in today's powerful conversation with Start Finishing (https://amzn.to/2MRYpgA) author, and founder of Productive Flourishing (https://www.productiveflourishing.com/), Charlie Gilkey. We dive into Charlie's specific ideas around why so much of our effort to be productive fails, and how to rewire our brains and schedules and actions for finishing and finally feel good about what we're accomplishing. Along the way, we explore how Gilkey's highly-unique background as a philosopher, military logistics officer, productivity strategist and consultant to creative professionals, founders and fast-growth entrepreneurial teams has shaped his powerful lens of going from idea to done.
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
The two questions that I tend to hear all the time are: how do you figure out what to focus on on any given time? Had he choose the thing to devote? You know all of your super precious
Waking hours to that is really the right thing. The thing that makes you come alive, the thing that is your best work.
And then once you make that choice. Do you actually do it? How do you go from starting to moving through the entire process to not
in the bar to not burning out to taking that thing in your head,
the thing that you really care about. Doing and instead of consistently
sort of starting something and then not knowing how to get all the way through it and not knowing how to get it through that final place, words
then you feel amazing, you just kind of war,
wait. So how do you go past that point and get it completely finished? This
is why I am so excited to share today's gas. Charlie guilty is seen old friend of mine. We have been
working together, collaborating together playing together for more than a decade now, and he
his mind go to resource when I'm trying to figure out how to make things happen, how to go from idea to project to actually finished
and he has a new book out now called start finishing how to go from idea to done
this distills all of charlie's, incredible wizard.
His models? Who frameworks is templates, his very practice
real world tools
I will show you everything from how to figure out what-
focusing on how to choose among all the different things are interested in how to find that that process
that is truly worthy of your time, effort and love? How do you do
and walk through the steps of making it happen of actually
starting finishing and then finishing finishing
making it real making it done. Superpower for commerce
we talk a bit about how charlie got to this
place where he stood the gru of getting things to a place where there actually finished and
we dive into some really serve critical ideas, strategies and touch points. You will be supplied.
Eyes the hearse a whole bunch of stuff that I learn every time I talked to charlot and some really
or for wisdom, points and strategies cannot wait to share this with you? I'm Jonathan fields- and this is good life project
the
how does a I even work where it is creativity come from?
It's the secret to living longer, ted radio, our explores the biggest questions with some of the world's greatest thinkers. They will
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so the ten percent happier podcast has one guiding philosophy. Happiness is still that you can.
It's a! Why not embrace it. It's hosted by dan Harris a journalist who had a panic attack on national television and then set out on this journey of transformation and he's now on a quest to help others also achieve peace and happiness, and every week Dan talked to top scientists meditation teachers. Even the odd celebrity in wide ranging conversations that explore topics like productivity, anxiety and psychedelics and relationships. The interviews cover everyone from brene brown to sara burrell us to sam Harris and more. I love learning from his questions and experiences, an incredible guess. Think of listening to ten percent happier as a workout for your mind, find ten percent happier wherever you listen to podcasts. It's always kind of interesting. For me, when I sit down in the studio with somebody who.
is not only a friend but I actually know really really well and who who who, who we have actually been co, conspirators in business and life and all sorts of different things, and that, as we say,
here today. You, it is the eve of you launching a fantastic new book called start finishing
can dive into a whole bunch, but I won't take a step back in time, because what I ve learned over the years to is that when I get to sit down with an old man,
there are also gaps because, as happens with friends
kind of just hit the ground rolling, with whatever topics you're interested in your current life and very often you don't actually know a ton about what got them to that place life so we're going to feel a little bit of those gaps. So when we first met it was with ten years ago, we ought, in years of your issue
I have two thousand and nine south. By southwest. I went to see you at c give your book talk of career renegade at the time re. What were you doing in austin texas for like what was your intention at south by southwest
yeah, you know in two thousand nine self by south west was just one of those mecca for created
the time we didn't have a lot of other conferences, and so this was deep enough.
Into my work of productive flourishing that I just wanted to meet a lot of people, and I just knew that there are these people that I've been reading and looking up to. Those like this is my chances say
I and how much dave inspired me
and so that was my main intention for that's up. I southwest just meet all these people and put a physical face to it.
It'll avatar, and so the price
a connection. There are the primary pointless connection at that point yeah. I remember
meeting you tell me this actually matters with your recollection. We were at
this house and south austin. I have no idea how how I got
Whose house it was what we are actually doing there, but I remember certainly bumping into you- and I say this
His brain works in a way that my brain absolutely does not work, and I need to understand this and go deeper by now like. What's behind all this, when I learned really quickly, is that you're, this kind of weird blend of philosophy
And unshakeable com,
and also operating and execution bridge
since you thinkin systems and processes and frameworks in the way that my brain dozen operate
and I know that not long before the time that I met you, you actually spend a chunk of time in the military. I'm curious does do these parts of you start to really do become
Super developed there are or were they showing up earlier life too? I think they were
going up earlier in my life and they were just cultivated to away in the military experience, and so
prior to joining the,
not area was in boy scouts, animate, I'm
you go scout,
and I always was in this place of
never having the resources that are needed to do what I wanted to do and always have
the figure out like ok, I want to go there, but I don't
have what I need to get there so
how do I leverage did in the right.
Or figure that out
and so there's always been that way of working backwards in that way that just
was really really amplified
as an army, logistics officer cause. That's the point like you got get stuff here. You gotta get stuff there and you have limited and limited
resources to do that, and you know that
part of my life, especially being deployed fur
operation. Iraqi freedom is the best and worst time in my life has her. It was the best time because an
it really required
in your full self and ways and stretching and growth anyway,
that are unimaginable for most people. You know not.
The combat aspect of things, but the being away
family being in a new environment. Being twenty four and being responsible for forty six people.
And twenty vehicles and then later on, being the battalion plans officer, which is the guy
right all the plans and make sure ever
he's getting where they need to go and again, that's that's an incredible responsibility at that age, and there was. It was unrelenting
in the sense of every day, it was just a growth opportune and every day, and
You didn't have a chance to need and have a chest naval gaze or figure it out,
that's what a meadow wage had to do it and so
is the best time because of that sum, the friendships that are formed and doing
that is the worst time because it pull me
My life. Before that I was pursuing my phd in philosophy, I was agreed
student, those around I was going, and so it
Produce this major break in my life and again been
from my family for year? All the things that you know come with me:
deployed, point soldiers, I really terrible and really great. At the same time- and I just came,
could change the person and
changed in a way such that those frameworks that way of thinking about the world. The sis
The systemic way of thinking about the world doesn't leave you
and sound like. You know how
into a store and start thinking. Just how is this will operating in what could go better n
they move, this desk six feet to the left. What without open
and a small things and big things, and I can't turn it off how much of it
Do you think I mean because search engine
like when it went well. I've talked to people who are all by systems process efficiency, logistics in the past
and again, my brain doesn't work that way so fascinated by people whose brains do work. That way, usually that's been developed in the
rina of money,
yeah so the endgame is. How do we optimize efficiency? How do we get more stuff done more effectively because at the end of the day, we're trying to grow a company or business and enterprise an organization
a nonprofit whatever it is, but you you develop those chops.
The arena for you. The cauldron was life and death, very different stakes, very different stakes and.
There is a degree of intensity that comes with that, because if you make a mistake, people may not go home or they might like all my life.
And so you take it seriously in a different way in that sense of continuous improvement in
the military and context not again maximizing profit.
its maximizing the efficiency of your troops.
Accomplish the mission, but more important in that bringing everybody home
because no one wants to write that letter to families and no one wants to be that person that made a mistake and that mistake cost,
and there are so many things that happen income.
that in a military that are beyond your control, and so
so yeah it ticket in and so even now,
they are not nearly as high there still that drive to smooth things out to make things more streamlined and
really do the best with what we ve got the way I see it now is whether my company or some
companies that I'm consulting with these are people's lives.
we shall we spend so much of our life at work and when
look at the amount of waste that happens at work.
And more important than that, when you look at them out of heartbreak, that happens at work because people are not utilised well being
as leadership is not focusing them
what matters most people are not being appreciate
what to do. It just breaks my heart
to see how much heartbreak happens at work in it breaks my
to see how many people spent decades of their life,
doing something because at the store
they told themselves about how that need to be in this world and
looking back and saying, is that it
all this time I put in and
I have still not fundamentally happy. I still
have not done the things.
That I know I could have been doing.
and while you may have in us
rising your bank account or not,
since a meaning fulfilment that is lacking, and I think that's really heartbreaking
Have this one short life that we know of and life is really
go on ass. The other thing that you learn from being in the military
The point is that a quarter of a second or a quarter of an inch can make the difference between
someone going home and some are not
when you go home healthy between you go home not being able to walk and so
in its sometimes really it's just a matter of luck.
right, so we don't recognize how lucky we are every day to be able to do
the things that we do. Sometimes it just moving and walking right that we take for granted
and so to spin decades of your life,
opportunity that you have in front of you not doing it
so far you up and not making your unique contribution is really heartbreaking. Yeah,
its entry into two to have the x rays at you,
Had we had so much on your shoulders in early may twenties and awaken, and then
home and awaken to the fact that ok, you saw this when you are deployed- and I come home,
a new sort of see a similar point
but in a different context, a much broader context that for most people, would last the vast majority of
we're waking years- and it was was that the reason I mean is one of my curiosities at he has been. You were you're pursuing your phd in philosophy before you go, you end up being deployed and you develop this
fierce expertise and operational capability when you're, actually in the military. And then when you come back home instead of immediately diving back into the academic path, which I know that you have a fierce desire to learn like you're somebody who loves to devour knowledge and you and you did that to a certain extent. But the next move for you was to actually turn around and effectively start a company
of service to other people. It is this all partly what what was behind you launching this endeavour, which makes him back them, was called productive, flourishing.
Oh yeah, it's really interesting, because I came back and two weeks after being redeployed. I was back in class back on my life
right back doing my thing. I figured all that out and said over the
I said that I was gonna lie back in not missing a step and getting back to it and I'm glad
that, at the same time that there is a reason why people need space from things like this right
because about a year later, I realized that the
I could excel as a philosopher. It wasn't
the way that I wanted to spend the rest of my life in the academic echo chamber talking to each other about all sorts of abstract things, because I was like we are the p
All this should be in the world. Solving problems like there are real,
going on right now and it felt like such a waste of potential spill felt like such a waste of people's lives and are not trying to do.
dismiss academic philosophy or anything like that. I just knew for me that there is more
life than that in and being in those classrooms, and
When I was studying a lotta was an ethics sociable, article four
and especially economic development.
because what I understood
saw when I was overseas? Was
we're in the middle of this war,
by ideology, ology unquote,
the same time, we're in the middle of this vast country
asked between their lives of people in the middle east and the economic livelihood
and the lives of people in the first work, and if we didn't addressed that gap
we're always gonna be in this situation were always going,
the situation, so I started studying a lot of that and asserted.
to my life is like, if I'm really about thriving, if I'm right
about helping people live them.
of this one life we have. Where can I do that, but can be the best place for me to do that in the night
best available option for me was the start, predict a flourishing start teaching people that, in I kind of came to that after us-
to protect a flourishing. Has what and my met my
in pain, when I started productive flourishing was I was this creative,
dear bomber and had a bunch
ideas and a bunch of knowledge and a bunch of stuff that had to get out of me, and I found there really frustrating
Contrast between my ability
as a logistics officer to move battalions of equipment and do joint force military logistics coordination
at the same time, struggle with getting a five thousand word essay done. What's that about?
right. How can I do this
Do that what can apply from this world of getting stuff doing this really excellent leaven? I dunno,
say this, but the other thing I have recently learned about myself recognised is that
I served with e hundred first airborne division right that wasn't the parent unit that I was attached to it.
It is one of the armies like elite forces, so it's not just
that I learned logistics in a military deploy com
x, I learned it under the hundred. A first and excellence was just the way everything was done. Everything was done and I would say that was my first real
professional experience in adult again, I was twenty four and
I brain that was just the standard rate
and so, when I got out and didn't notice that standard, as I was like what's what's this gap here, but
get back a little bit I started
productive, flourishing cause. I had this problem and I was reading all the literature and
trying to synthesize synthesize it and translated as like mullah from already doing that in a fundamentally
A teacher in trainer,
it was like. I'm already doing this for myself. Why don't I share it with the rest of the world because blogs, where thing than in a different way than they are now in
it started in? It started with very terrible names and very terrible nations, because my first attempt was teaching academics how to get stuff done and live a bigger and bigger bolder life.
And what cod on was a lot of the creatives and entrepreneurs found my work and loved it like this
really interesting. I didn't anticipate this
so I started writing more for creative and more for entrepreneurs, and, but it came,
this point, whereas, like you know, there's a fork in the road,
I have in these careers that I have, because I was simultaneously that still
the army still, you know, and I got three quarter time position with the army. I was still present.
Each day, and now I had a business alliance and reach that point that set goat and caused the dip,
Where I realized, I was not gonna, be excellent and all three of those,
I was going to be mediocre at best and be struggling and juggling, and I didn't want that for myself and
I was really picking which of these most advances the
nay contribution that I have and allows me to live the forest life possible and it was with predict a flourishing, and so it wasn't. You know a lot of people start their businesses, because
either hate their jobs. Are there in a soul, crush and managerial environment? It wasn't that for me as much
That was what the best way for me to do, what I'm out to do and
continues to evolve and there may be some point in which there is another you get back in action.
Your whatever, but it's always that sort of evolving question for me. What's the best way to do
The thing that I'm here to do yeah is that a regular prop free, like do you, wake up once a week or once a day and sort of ask some variation of that question
to come for me and seasons actually and so summer? Is my stupefaction and depression cycle
So, every summer I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I don't really want to do much of anything, I much less motivated singing how many other people listening to us go through something similar. Yes, the seasonal thing for me a liar and a lot of times into every summer about in life,
I start ramping up into fall. Am I
being up in a way that is really pulling the best of what possible. For me now or in my playing last year, script
and what do I want this next year? Look like so, and there are the very powerful prompt that I got an under meditation a few years ago. Some about forty now
turned forty in january and an about it.
I was thirty seven, I was sitting there meditating one morning and this this prompt came to me. It was like,
What are you doing today to set up the sea
of your life, that will be your forties, like that.
and of your life, and I was this is really what first off, whereas this coming from the second
How do I want that season of my life to be different than this season of my life, and I got some answers. I didn't like bad
so it comes for me every year, but it s common sort of instantaneous like what are you doing now, Charlie.
And are you stuck in last year's frame? Are you
keep your eyes open to the possibilities that have been created or that you ve, created over the last year.
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About me from that one is that you, wherever that prompt came from, and I have seen that reflected.
in the way that you move into your decisions for years now and you have theirs
really interesting, unique ability to think out ahead to night.
stuff in short termism, but where they should go back to that in a little further, because you know you are also not a fan of thinking too far away
I said this in a really interesting tension there that I want to. I want to talk about it, but what it? What the other thing the jumped out of me is see mentioned. Summers relate the season, first, a profession and depression for you, and, but so people can see your face when you're talking
not that, but you weren't bond about it you're kind of smiling almost like manifestly. Will this
almost it was kind of interesting slash like good. For me to recognise and acknowledge,
just now this just the way I am, and I dont every
in the summer. It's not like. This is a thing I have to battle. You know if I accept that this is kind of a a thing that I just notice in the pattern of my life. Then it allows you to sort of make peace with it and then build around it
stand absolutely and thanks for saying that, because if we were talking a decade ago
I may have been much. I may have felt much different about my son, recycle
because you're not supposed to feel that when you're spot to bob line all those things if we make herself but one,
Traps we fall into. Is that we think of ourselves like robots and we don't necessarily cognizant a lot and make that a conscious thought that we think
that we should have a constant or
sort of regular amount of output irregular out of the way that we feel and which not, that
organic beings that respond to temperature.
an environment and seasons, and things like that in so being at peace, with the fact that I'm a creature of this planet and in a sense
to the seasons? Has given me a lot of peace and compassion for us up? It is also from a strategic perspective. I know.
Where to put projects and we're not to put products right in
during the summer,
is where I can't usually
juggle seventeen different projects right,
better having one project that I can work on two to four
was the day when I'm done and done and be at peace with that.
opposed to my winter cycle, which is, I call my supernova cycle where I can do a lot,
I can work
Long hours and is just sort of a natural natural thing for me
and so that's where I put that type of work, usually right. This year's different because of the book on coming up in sub heading
I've had more head trash around what
supposed to be doing right now and women
energy years
and most days, the even more
same part of myself wins said. You know what
like no matter. What are you thinking?
going to do you think you're supposed to do your own
x amount so that exports, why the plus, why does it just eight
will the beach herself up, where you're not going to do it? So how are you
going to adjust your plans to do acts and how are you gonna make peace with a fact of axes which again
in many ways it's been a
they re experience and because it's a day
aid after it's like where I started? I wasn't
But to do everything that I wanted to do how my
They do it, except for my approach.
season and my life is different than that is my life-
because in that, in my life, it would do more and do better in this. It's
except where you are and leverage what you can do to the best way possible and learn to let the rest go there. Do you feel, like
serve annual cycling is gives you worked with, so many people now found urge greater professional
some large organisations, so you have an interesting data. Salvaging ones do feel like this cycling that you feel
one on this sorta like annualized basis, is
Unusual. All you need to you, or do you think pre much everybody goes through about we just, I think pretty much everybody goes through.
And where your energy may lie, may be you
to you, but
Everyone has these absent flows and organizations have absent flows, and
That's where inattentive leaders and managers get stuck in not stuck, they carry a lot of power
for themselves and their teams, because you're not recognising that wait. A second, my team.
natural, energetic state is here. I want them to be twice that
how do I crack the whip? How do I mode
them. How do I gotta go to empower them to
to where I want them to be, as opposed to how do
shift my expectations and my priorities to be clear on what they can do
about the time. So am I
like everybody, has it I think, most of the time we
slow down enough
to really get I'd like we. You know
slow down a little bit and like I just need to drink more caffeine. I just need to I need to alter
I am through other practices, as opposed to saying, where am I
what matters now there it's so action
said, might my senses been I've experienced some temporary major burn out over the last few years, a different moments and an eye it has and take me where he longer to own that then it should have, because I
I would like to think of myself as somebody who served could perform an extreme level for an extended period of time and in its brought me to my knees. You know, and
and I had on the fact that no I actually cycle as well and which would
an interesting for me to note
Also, is that my nobody performs at the peak of-
game on a sustained basis doesn't happen, athletics, it doesn't happen in music, it doesn't happen and business, it doesn't happen in relationships at life in its just like we were wire,
these are go through this alec sign wave, and I think one of the big learning, partly from you has been
you know so you describe it as when you hit winter, your supernova window, where you just fiercely productive in creative in generative,
but if, during yourself, like you're downtime are slower time, you force yourself too, to be as close to that supernova
mode as you can be, then, when you actually hit that natural window you, then you don't have the juice left to actually perform at that level.
keep learning, becomes even more frustrating. It's like this compound the fact that that really create a negative spiral.
Absolutely does, and I thank them all
the more you hone. Your cycles, like that, like I realized at this point, that during that period where among supernova, I am going to
create enough work and problems and
turn it is in that period that mean,
team can work on for the rest of the year right, like I, don't have to create at that level for the rest of the year. For us to do it,
fact. If I did, I would burn not only myself out, but my team up right because it would just be
such an influx of new power.
Jackson, new energy and new opportunities and new things you know I'd. My team has a code.
Of all the sort of hashtags in shorthand language that we use and one is brace for impact,
right and this when I've been on a trip or have been hanging out with friends and I
monday morning and others preface it with grace for impact re because
I didn't know what my team is going to get on that day. I think I'm gonna need to start yeah. We can do that too yeah, and so I do, but you can't
spectre team, to do that at that level at all times, or else you end up in that scaling trap that so many businesses get into two where there
team is constantly out of breath and constantly just trying to do
their best work from the bottom of the emotional and cognitive barrel, because I've been worn out for so long, and so I look at it from
longer, because if you choose
is your best work features that thing that you most want to. Do you want to do that for the lot for the long haul right you talk about many decades.
How do you do that over that amount of time sustainably? And how do you do
so that you don't go through these.
not cycles to worry. Eventually you throw out the baby with the bathwater.
Like I'm so burn out. I can't do this is not for me. Well, it's not that it's not, for you is
way that you're doing it is not for you now. I think. That's that's simple
and because it for me, the burnout income, because I was doing a whole bunch of stuff. They didn't want to be doing.
I just wasn't doing it the way that was healthy or intelligent here I she loved a lot of what I was doing
I just had to require that the way that I approached it so as you
as we citizens dear today, you been of agnes about a decade into productive flourish.
Developing a tremendous body, work frameworks, process systems working with korea from people, and you have a book out concert finishing so my curiosity with this.
is, why did you feel the need to write this? There there's no lack of books on the market about like getting stuff done about productivity. It's a big category!
ray, and I also know about you that you don't do things just because you can like there's. There's gotta be a reason
what what did you see was missing that made? You say this
someday. You need to do because writing a book takes a lot of time and energy
and take you away from a lot of other things
So what, in your mind, knowing the way your brain works justifies using? This has to happen so part of,
is strategically there is a book shaped hole in my business. I have this book because if you go to productive flourishing right now and before the book is out, you can
get the cohesive journey,
the cohesive material, a coherent material on all the stuff that having
waiting for the last decade?
and so in india. Being this sort, a gap in that
people would want to really
are doing more of their best work and its hours of clicking around
productive, flourishing trying to figure out what it is, as opposed to a systemic or systematic approach to it,
that's one! But more importantly than that, I think it's more of what the heart of my work. That makes me
Can you to write about productivity
and it's really interesting cos
nothing in others it around. Two thousand fourteen, I wrote a post called foundations are meant to be built on not flown over and what I
found with so many of my
if and executives, and things like that would love to talk about the big ideas will love to talk about. The big strategy will have to talk about all that stuff, except for when you,
where the real constraint in there
no one is where the real constraint in their opportunities that was was the fact that they couldn t x
on ideas they already had right and we
wanted to fly over sort of this scheduling
in time management and project management, and you know alliance building, sort of fly over all of that and to talk about the big ideas, but those big ideas were happening, and so
It came from the sense of frustration in a lot of ways with some of my set of some of my set of clients and peers. It's like no! No, no, no, no we're not skipping
over this peace, because it will trip you up at some point, so that was sort of
facing that set of people, but when I looked down the scanty, the productivity literature- and
personal development literature. I think there
wasn't the hybrid. I wanted to see that took
the real reasons why we do and don't do things and made it
with the real ways we can get stuff down. There is always the divorce between deeper
innovation and deeper systems and deep
processes for getting stuff done, and so we
it up in the sort of bipolar, later turned bipolar place where you end up with really good montrose for how to get stuff done.
Doesn't actually help you once you start getting into
a thrashing of the project to want it, doesn't help you want. You started,
or you have a bunch of solutions that dont
all the real reasons you don't get stuff done
so for me. I needed to created for that reason so that I can say like ok. This book does both at least to the best of my ability, right and
looking at some of the other book ideas and other things that want to write about its goal
to come back to get
down, because I'm new europe,
italian in the sense of we become by doing
so? No matter what you want to do in the world are what you want to be in the world: theirs,
doing that you have to do to become at and whether it being egg
parent, whether its being a great member of your community, whether its being a great pill of europe
search. It doesn't matter whether that is all that being hasn't doing attached to it and enough
Thus, I think, are over committed to the beings
two things and we we try to be all of the things and we don't fully understand how much
when we ve also committed ourselves to doing until
we look around in there just a field of drop balls and
can promises and regrets, and so.
Interestingly, one of why I find it interesting is that one of the pillars of my sort of principles of a productivity has actually self compassion, and I wanted to write the book
For multiple reasons, but one of them is so that
People can see what's going on in their world and
their stand that they're not uniquely defective that are not.
Constitutionally wired never be able to get their shit together that are not faded to struggle there, just making more promises with their mouth that their hands can't cash right the promising themselves.
set up expectations for themselves that then there's no way possible for them to actually live up
everything that they ve said, they're going to do and be so woman.
pull down and say you know what there are fewer things that were going to focus on a commit to
but we're gonna do those well we're gonna finish them. Then we start to see the sense of satisfaction.
We start to see that sense of happiness and then we started through
in our careers, because we begin
those creatives that you can trust when they
hey they're, going to do something they're going to do it when they
set out to achieve a certain goal, they're going to do it and there's a rare breed of creative z, and we have a bad sort of wrath of being all talk,
a lot of talk and not so much followed her, but it turns out
time and time again. I've seen this with people that I've interviewed on my part cast all research that it and all my clients, like the name it
his followed her right in
increase your ability to finish the things that matter most
you know, you knock out those three projects of the year
that really really matter and you let the rest go. There has
like this compound interest effect on your career, that you just don't get
when you're half finishing seventeen things, there completely agree,
I feel like there's also
When you shift those gears, you know, and you actually
you learn all the steps in the processing and and the way to actually focusing
the smaller number things and actually go from idea to completing it.
When you start finishing, and you do that repeatedly its I feel like
once you do that. You go through that psycho a handful of times. It's almost like your identity begins to shift as well. So you you, you start to identify
as a person, with a lot of great ideas who rarely ever gets them dawn. But you start to identify as the person whose accomplishing who is like, who is it, who is doing the big things and you identify as somebody who is actually
pleading and putting good things out into the world and in that shift in identity, creates this sort of like spiralling effective. You see men also
Absolutely absolutely because at a certain point you develop this theory of yourself and when you're not finishing a lot of times the theory of yourself
that you're not a finisher, let you you know you can get it done or that you know you
or commit you. You have all this head trash about who you are and then that's what
reject out in the world that what you see you develop a confirmation by us about that. Once you do start finishing
I think what you realize is the word can't from most, for all intents and
this doesn't exist in here in europe
Psychology are in your language. It's your choice,
to do certain things are reducing do others? Could you ve done many great things are ready and that shift from-
Can I do it or that sounds like a good
two like. No, I can do a lot of things, but what matters most now
had such an identity shift and
I've seen it in the way people's people carry themselves and posture
seen people I've seen it in the way that people mistake
they start losing weight right
I've seen it in the way where all of a sudden money start following their way, there's all the
the outer changes that happen from that inner identity shift, because I think you narcotic
eight of constipation and then create a constipation is just as well
sounds like you've taken all of these ideas. You've taken all of this inspiration. You watch all the ted talks. You read all the books. You've listened to all the podcast and at a certain point you get full but you're not pushed
through you're, not doing anything with it and you become toxic and you
am to that point to where, like there's this resentment of a new idea or a new thing coming in, because you know that you're not going to be able to do it, cause you've got everything else going on and
humans, we do one of two things we either create or we destroy and there's a certain point when you're in
constipation and you're, not shipping.
What matters most to you that you start destroy
the things around you, you start.
Drawing the relationships and through your resentment,
frustration and you being the martyr and you finding ways to in
it yourselves in other people's lives and projects,
the story of resources, you're going shopping benches or you'll go eat a bunch or you'll. Do whatever thing that you have and or use
destroying yourself through the ways that you
lorries that you tie yourself.
Through all the ways you find evidence about, why you can't,
something and why you're, uniquely effective and why failures of the past mean that fat and you're gonna have a failure tomorrow. So I think we dont fully recognise the call
of not doing our best work in that way like we think it's something we can get to bed,
I want to put it more on dis.
An essential way
find your happiness both long term, but also in that presents because there's that shift win this week, you made a dent in your best work this week,
you got something done verses being that to do list ninja. You know where you put
Eighty two things on your left. You can come out at the end of the week. You look back here like, but really like I didn't do the thing, I'm no good,
sir to doing the thing- and everybody has a thing, that's that
the thing that I notice? Like I'm talk about best workin? It's got a few unique factors to it
that work, that your soul most yearns to do and everybody's got a project they put in
a physical drawer in a mental drawer in a virtual drawer that are going to get to it some point when
You know some day when the time is right or when their boss is less of a but whole or when their kids are in college or whatever we ve always punted, that to some day,
some later day. Everybody has that, but there's a sense of deep satisfaction when you quit the bullshit.
when you quit their quota goat, researching when you quit
all the conversations about doing the work, and you actually do the work and it
pricing, how simple it is to actually do it, and yet we don't.
yeah, it's interesting tooth. Is there
you hear a lot and sir self help pop psychology dislike
You can do anything maybe for hardly
when you're listening to you speak like that's what he sang. I can do anything, but in fact it's like you're, saying the exact opposite.
and displacement as a real thing and displacement is just the idea
choosing to do. One thing means that there's a near
did things you ve chosen not to do right, and so we too,
Conflate you can do anything with. You can do everything right,
and while I might say you can do anything, I would
also say what are you going to choose not to do so that you can do that thing? What are you really going to commit in your life to be able to do that thing? There are some things that you know. I'm five foot ten
I'm never going to be a world champion basketball player right, there's just
possible, especially given that, on fourteen I dont, like got basque mother like going against me with that right,
not gonna say I can be you know Lebron James. You can't do that.
Within the realm of creative space. There
There's lots of
to maneuver and grow and become whatever you want to be, and it's gonna come at a cost of all.
all the things you have to choose, not to do and choose to do to get there, and so,
a lot about displacement in the sense of I want people to really understand that we have.
one precious life and I've been talking for law,
time about what I call project world and product world.
the idea that when we look at our lives, it's kind of carved up into three to five year, chunks of a project, capital, p project, both personally and professionally right, and so on top
First we go through these phases of relationships. We go through this phases of growth,
if your eighteen, if your kid, you know you go through that
pre, teenaged age. Then you go through that teenage stage. Then you go through that. You know
leaving your parents house, which could be college, could be whatever, but there's sort of three to five year chunks to define your life
relationships a lot of time.
like getting married. There's three to five year cycle
we can go through that time and time again in your career,
same thing: you take a job you're in
for three to five years and you move onto another job, and so life is
we split up into these shocks
one of the reasons- people I think it's dark and
decide not to do. The best work is because they think they're making
a non reversible lifelong choice like if I do this thing,
have to make this one choice and then further,
my days. I'm gonna be doing that thing. You know that the grace about
the world is, win lose or draw in three to five:
you're gonna be moving on to something else right it you not making that
sit that that lifelong sort, a decision and we
Are you really focusing your time? Energy and attention on for this next three to five years, as I was doing
search for the book. I stumbled upon a inside from Stuart brand via given kelly.
I am ferris ferriss in one of it's: either driver mentors or tools of islands, and
Stewart idea was any significant,
project takes at least five years to see through any real significant project takes five years to see through
I did. What I do know that ok, so most of us live to be. Eighty five is reasonable
make sure when you look at
spans united states. So take your age said nurse a tractor
from eighty five and if, by five that's the amount of significant progress,
you have left in your life. Does what
when your schedule next week reflect what you want to be on that list and if not
You gonna make that change, because if you don't make the change what you're gonna
It is all of these years all these projects that you didn't get too, because you chose to do some
else in your life.
I know especially in productivity in person. Development are so much emphasis
on the choices we make a lot of times that are divorced from the actual context of our lives. Right.
Stand that some of us have different degree
a privilege that allows us to choose in different ways right if you're,
If you get more money, you have a broader range of choices that you may be able to make than if you're a single mom is working to job. To put food on the table,
and what I would say answer in scenarios like that. Is that be honest about those.
Already, is that you have right if your priority is to
Make sure your kids have a good life or death,
you do. The best you can. That is a project
and so in my language a project is anything that requires time, energy and attention, not just economic work
and the reason I talk about it. That way is because have, after thousands of conversations with people what they teach
think is that we have this mental switched. It goes off,
it's like a new day equals,
sixteen hours of open space of things to do, and so I should be able to feel that with all this, but every new
a starts with twelve hours
routines and habits and stuff you gotta do before even like wake up, there's not much work to do
but because we have so cleanly made the division between economic work and life, we
meeting the county economic work,
and then we wonder why we're not getting things done nearly
much because that's actually a small percentage of her life right, we're not psycho you're, not spending. The time you get you say is really important with your family or you're, not spending the time to exercise on a regular base,
this or creed helpful,
good or deny relationships here, because those are the things room
Think war, algae, scaled down. The margins
yeah I'll just get it done in the margins. I was talking to somebody I think Angela be fine with be talking so I'll I'll say it was Angela because it
in fact anton where we are talking about her fitness go
and how she wanted to work out, and I was like also now. A pause here
was also a coach, I'm a coach and when you have a partnership where you're both coaches, it can be quite precarious right,
This conversation, sometimes you not wanting to be coach by your partner
I bet it was on display, not the probably substitute, sometimes you're, very much hall, pretty much all the time. So it's always a precarious conversation, and this is also my body of work which makes it even worse right. So she's like oh no, I know what's coming on this one and so she's
talking about going to work
asses and things like that, and I was like so how you scheduling that. How are you doing that and she's like well, you know sorta, look at my schedule and then I try to find a class that fits my schedule.
And I was like honey. Like we honor small, we on our own business, you could find the classes they work for you first and get those,
scheduled to three weeks in advance and then builder work around that right, builder, echo
worker on that,
of course she knew it in a certain way, but it requires prioritizing herself in a certain way, and so, when you dig
two or three levels under why we make sorted decisions like that.
When I was really getting at, and she knew was Angela.
You need to see your worth
in your value, and you need to see that this particular gall that you have is more important than the economic work that your prioritizing
And until we are willing to claim our
wardens and claim that things like that matter on the personal psycho, don't get personal side where you're going to default to prioritizing actually prioritizing economic war
and then what happens in the moment in the year or over the course of a lifetime is. It is action
this person will start the truly does matter to us. They gets taken.
the sunday, maybe land and then
Look back if you like, but I never went on those trips.
I never ran the marathon
I never built a guitar. I never did the things because I never could justify it economically,
did put it in my scared onto I'm doing that, and I think
when we start looking at everything is a project
cars time, energy and attention, and looking at the fact that what is fundamental to our thriving is often not economically
relevant. Then we could say yes, economic work is really important and it's just a portion of my life. It is not my life.
all these other things are important. Oh, yes, I am making this choice to make
money or to do less work there, because this two weeks of
in time with my kid or my aging parent, or this new puppy or fixing my back
yard or whatever it is, is actually,
the call to living the good life
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your ability to then make the decision but then actually make it happen.
is also getting. Sometimes. I guess I would.
All it brutally honest about the ban with that you actually have available to accomplish any of these things, and my experience has been that I lie to myself about that, and everyone who I've ever worked with lies
cells about that as well, you your approach to you, ve, a process which basically really helps you get very honest about it very quickly and then reorient the projects, a personal projects there, the career projects there all these different it.
In a way that at reflects what you truly have available. This approach were linked by framing and as as as
georgia as analyzing like? What are your available blocks? Walk me through this concept of blocks, because I found that
just extraordinarily powerful and also I opening when I actually did you
understood? Ok, so I have these four different have to box and when I start to map out my life as well,
this explains so much to me about Why- I'm not
certain things and why I am during certain things and why
might be able to work in order to achieve good
much more satisfying overall balance thanks for that, so I'm a few things about
like planning. First right, one of the traps that we fall into is that we actually think that we have any centre estimating time
how long something takes them, we're terrible added consistent
you're terrible at it. So we can't tell the difference between something that's going to take seventy five minutes and ninety minutes right and just, but we make up a lot of stuff,
and so we end up just try,
again to treat ourselves like
but like we had that degree of consistency and we don't answer,
won't you let go of that idea and we go and sort of a black planning is much more intuitive. So there are four types of blocks and I encourage people to think through so one as it focused block
which is that block of time where you do the high
level work, that you can do, whether that creative work, whether that strategic work is usually sallow time, I've just
you get whatever inside out of you in
x or ninety two hundred twenty minutes long right, and why that long? Because that's about the time that it
due to really dig into getting something done. Do all the chancellor
do all the transitions do that thing in start to exit in.
about the time that matches our bioterrorism.
as well. We go through circadian rhythms about every two hours. Our body will recycle re. That's when you need,
go to the bathroom grisha body goes to these
actual to our cycles. Gaff about two hours
I realize I've just read that citizens, the third time
a third time still not entirely sure what it says and soda
Further that and what I do need a second. Sometimes people confuse it. No, that's not two hours of you sitting there typing! That's that in time
lack of time where you do all the coffee getting and you do the bathroom, but you don't switch to another project or use which need on switch to another to rights of those
focused blocks, and the second is you're social blocks, and these are the
at the time that you are interacting with another human right, and so
The meeting
if you're in a service provision, it could be that that's a time that you're working with clients things like that those off
Can it be about ninety minutes, two hundred twenty, even though our ninety two hundred one minute,
even though we like to tell ourselves it's gonna be sixty minutes and we stack ourselves from for meeting to meeting so wise,
I need two hundred twenty minutes, because when you look at the amount of time that it takes you to really trends
shit into prep, mentally and emotionally for a meeting,
and down cycle
and then the reality is most of the time you will you meet with other people where there is work that needs to happen now,
generated from that. Whether needs and emails on so forthright
and so we don't give us of nearly enough time for this
and then we end up in task that, because we we don't have it
as for that in the schedule which leads me to admit blocks which are thirty,
thirty minutes to an hour long. Were you
the email and phone calls, and it is that all that stuff and get it done in your in that mode right, I'm getting it done
in the last one? Is your recovery box, and you know
mostly on this one, Jonathan I'd, I used to know
talk about recovery box, because its own that self
that's a recovery blocks what they sound like there. When you do the self care, the air, the bits did, you know are used,
yourself like your human, so they could,
meditation it could be sleeping it can be eating, it could be exercise, it could be water,
It is an ill she retired and take care of yourself, and I didn't talk about them. A lot except for unnoticed in my work
many times where to download clients- and I am one of those
for that. I don't
the heavy emotional difference between helping some
figure out what they're scared only to look like verse,
is figuring out what the business model of their or their team composition. It all worked me and solid, equally enjoyable, and so,
If we look at captain account Amy, like so where's lunch like what
and you look at you- know, six meeting stack back and like where are you eating and like? Oh well, I just
fitted in, except for
I also remember the conversation that I have with them about them, not eating lunch as like you're, not actually fitting sent her it, whereas excess,
as where's all of these things and so
I made. I became more.
adamant about people thinking about their recovery blocks and making sure that there are no schedule.
Otherwise work or
or things slide into those blocks- and you
get it done, and it becomes one of the things but
mentally I'm what I want people to focus on when it comes to their best work projects are when it comes to like doing that,
That they must want to do is focused box because we have,
far fewer of those than most people, think.
and that is what drives your projects and if you don't have enough focus blocks
You're, not gonna, get the momentum that you want.
and if you have none what you're gonna
of doing is committing to ideas did,
what have room on your schedule to do
and so there just things happen.
bout like what I will tell me
paypal is. If you can't find three focused box for project every week, you won't
actually make any momentum on that project. It'll continue to be one of those things that you're like oh I'll, do it next week or I do it next week or I do it next week and you'll continue to punt it and it's not
There's nothing wrong with you issues. There is not enough
in your schedule and you're trying to do. You know what we learn.
about black planning
school. If you had those little shaped shore sworder things really gotta put the train
when the triangle hole in
goal in the circle hall, but unfortunately
what we do when we actually look at our work, if we teach
the cram the square into the circle whole rightly cheap, crack keep trying to cram are focused time. Are focused work
into the in betweens of meetings and social media and emails.
And we wonder why we are getting to work as a really does take. You know ninety minutes to two hours to dig into that make significant progress and exit from that
and a lot of times I've I've noticed that, because the way people stack their days
They're not even allow in themselves the chance to get into doing the work because they know they don't have enough time to
into it and get out of it. So, what's the point, matters will jump to facebook
are you might as well? You know see whatever deals on amazon that you didn't need today, but you're gonna find out anyway, is right.
So changing that into saying
Do our reorient my schedule to put my focus blocks, did
in the times in my day, were most likely to be creative and focused and high energy
in a world of difference in you were just playing with time here right, we're not we haven't you
the amount of available time with his changed, how we use that,
I'm in ways that are better at git,
you to where you must want to be yeah, so I mean it's a combination of one owning the fact that the focus blocks like the the work that we need to do in this focus box is invariably going to take we're just going for farther and farther and farther behind than beating the
how far up and then becoming you just on the fact that in this is gonna take way longer than I. I think. Yes, even
was smart, I'm accomplished all the yadda yadda yadda, and still it's going to take more than I think it's going to take. So let me set aside the time so that actually feel like I can. I can get real work that matters done. The other thing I took from that is that if you can't find at least three of those blocks per week on a regular basis
to do that for for a project, then it's probably really good idea to say no to it, because the only thing that you're going to be building into your your weaken your life is frustration rather than momentum, absolutely and
here's where displacement comes back in right, saying no to that new project. What you have to get real about is, you are priorities,
something in your life already, and so
rather than saying no, I can't write as I don't have time. The real
true story is now,
I am choosing not to do that project because I'm choosing to do these other things, and that can be a point of frustration for a lot of people right, because I don't like
that that's actually what's going on, but I think that,
is the wedge in your life there.
Allows you to start saying: ok, I'm! If I want to do differently, I need to choose differently right and the other thing then about focused
that are really important is its ninety two hundred twenty minutes when we
look at how much time or wanting to be overlooked
much time, whereon distracting sites,
how much time were shopping when we look at how much time we're doing
that are either wasteful or
if we really had to counter pose those activities versus the work or most call to do it's no brainer right to do the work so
not like you have to
dramatically change your life, it's just
you have to start dealing time
things that are either wasteful or dont nourish you as much,
and so this is, you know three fewer netflix benches right, and this is
to less than you know two times have you not going out to eat because has really time intensive when you think about it right, there are ways: do
steel back this time and
You know whether we want to tell the john gresham story where europe must have his novels two hours in the morning before he went to work like there's some
stories where we have stolen that time and put it to things are
but who take a longer large breaks and work on them
Ex during or longer launch breaks- and you know, there's somebody
ways to maneuver and the other thing,
want to remain folks? Is that will release wander away?
right. We will really like a full day. That's what we hope for like out. It's one a four day week and then
to do the thing, except for one that full weak happens
what I've seen across countless clients in countless conversations is one that
when your body tries to claw back all the recovery that it hasn't been getting, so you end up sleeping a lot in and vegging out, because it's like, oh, I can do it now
actually have space? My schedule and the
second thing that will happen is that you will start thinking
How am I going to spend this whole day working on something
burn your body out instead of saying,
a whole day. I would want to be thinking. Ok, what are the three focused box for the day? What are the three significant chunks
the project that you can do in three and in those three as and be super clear about what that needs to be so that you don't get in ot. At the end,
that for day and you like, I just clicking all day,
no further along, which creates.
Story in this head trash,
this pattern to where you start resenting doing that, because you look at every time you ve done that in the past and either
like the whole day or you click the whole.
okay and you haven't gotten what you wanted out of it, and that makes a lotta sense, and I have experienced that personally. As I'm sure, a lot of people have the other thing that I think it it makes sense that,
rustic touch. Answer like a walworth serve in this one is the idea of time of day. I have for two reasons right one. I have found that my brain works in different ways at different times of the day. If you asked me to be hyper, creative and a hyper productive at four o'clock, it's going to be a completely different experience than if you asked me to do it early in the morning or even late at night, and so when you think about
just how many of these four different blocks to have in my life realistically and then how many of the focus box to have been able to get the stuff that really matters dawn. The other thing I found super how fine or your big advocate for is understanding when, in your day, does it make sense actually build. These inch
get up is it can make out? I had been so surprise. It may be profound difference what time of day I actually do this
absolutely in and that experience is not unusual right.
there are roughly speaking, three different kroner types,
That we all fall into an that's that early morning, sometimes called larks
that is the euro,
our, which we normally call people who have later sessions, and then
there's this emu. The third damping calls call third bird
call them. Emu is right. There are people who are
the on fire in the afternoon. Neither in the morning nor in the evening like the afternoon, is sweet spot and again, and
Finally, we will live in this industrial
I'm reductionist society that makes that puts us on this, like first shit,
nine to five schedule and that's when you have to do all your work and even when we go solo, we adopt that mindset right at nine to five is when you work, but really, if you're alone,
the reality is about seven.
Two may be one o clock- is your pixel right outside?
that you're going to be doing lower level where you're going to be burnt out, you're, going to be tired, so and so forth, and even if you get an evening session on top of that, like working,
Afternoon- is not going to be your thing when we start talking about focused blocks, and you
invert after every krona type in makes so
A huge difference, end.
The reality is that I want to be more stark about this if you try
To do your deepest work in an off peak cycle,
it's going to be a road or frustration, does you're not going to do it or you're going to do
And you're gonna wake up and look at what you done and be really frustrated about how bad it is and how much time you wasted in doing it right,
and so I can use
displacement is our friend here. It's really helpful to think if I dont I'm on the morning person myself right
if I don't do it in the morning, it's not going to happen
not going to happen. So
choosing to do all the other things. Besides that in
morning means it. I've also chosen not to do this thing in that choice.
Sort of recognition is really powerful when it comes to how we focus
and how we set ourselves up versus the for success, and again I want people.
to really be thinking. Yes, you can talk about taking every day and you know it
morning person doing it from seventy two in doing all that. Yes, it
We can do it, but I also want to say, like
maybe she's Monday wednesday in friday in the morning that you steal one block
Every one of us like the world can live.
You for two hours, I promise you write the world. Can
Do whatever is going to do for that amount of time for you to focus on your work and what matters to you?
and that's where we start talking about boundaries.
because a lot of times we dont said the boundary that we need for that and so whether to scheduling upper, whether it whatever it is,
we know we work better in the morning and yet we still take morning meetings. Why
right, because your client either a customary needs. It turns out time and time again that we have
are more ability to choose our schedule even in a corporate environment right, then we really assert
and so we end up in these periods to where we are.
In the meeting right dear and our pig zone.
and no at a certain point that the work is not going to get done. And yet we still try to take it home with us and get it done. It just makes such a
since I am so hard that its people were to do. One thing I would say you know, take the time to figure out when you're at your peak.
an experiment with putting some focused box in there and stealing two hours at a time. How would you recommend that people, let you do that like? What's that is our simple process to figure out what time of day that zone
yes, so we have some tools on a website that never helps people track this. But what I learned is a really great tool
really great way of backing into this think about how you would operate on a vacation when you ve, already rested at ten
to give you an idea of when you would naturally do different types of things right, because you don't have the external constraint of other people schedules and other people's priorities right, so
if it can be momentary, journaling, where you look at every aryan say how do I feel on a scale of one to ten and I
it over emma, not creative,
would be another way that you can do it one of experience with this one,
what, then, is most people already know?
I really do know, and they
having allowed themselves to make their schedules match their kroner type, they keep trying to make their opponents
met who match their schedules and it doesnt work right and then you anyone
being a person who either never finishes stuff or your finishing a list that the does
and then you start
and then you go into that cycle of then you're like I am the type of person who doesn't finish it and that labels you as an identity of that person and you the thing that also stood out to me
from what you were just sharing as this idea of so many of us, I think, feel constrained
feel we can actually choose that in our work and in our lives, because you know
so apparent, and I know that for many years
there's a certain time where, where I am hyper, generative in creative and productive would be a tie were at. You want to be really present for my family, so I have. I have made a choice: to give up a certain amount
of that, because one of the things it matters to me most in the world is being there. The people that I love most dearly but
It's it's actually. What are really over the years is its more complex than that. It's more nuanced than that, because when I do that every day, I feel great about the fact that I'm,
now from my family, but then slowly over time, would start to build up a certain
recognition that I'm not coming close to doing my best work professionally
and there's a certain amount of that flows through to my mode of being all day every day, and then, when I think I am now I'm here now
present. For my family, I matching a little bit frustrating pissed off when I'm with my family, because I'm not actually doing this
off that fills me up and nurses me. On the contrary-
inside of things and what I think
I'm doing in the name of being present from my family is act
not only hurting my ability do. My best work in the world, but it's also hurting my ability to be fully present and loving and open when I'm with my family- and I realize over time that I really do
did you this balance, where sometimes it actually makes sense for me to see you know what one of the best things that I can do for my family is to actually take these two hours.
And going do incredible work because then, when I come back for the other
Well, no time that with them, I get going to really
it to be in IC, my my my state of mind: must it be
be very, very different and that's a much higher quality of time with them. But that's not an easy thing to come to you.
Yeah. I'm so glad. I'm so glad you put that out as the
example, and also that you were honest about their frustrate, their frustration and resentment. That comes with that right, because I think there is not enough
based, especially for parents who are creative folks to being that tension and britain new feels at you feel shame
running that actual. You know, because you you'd, like I shouldn't feel that way. So
I used to call it mom guilt right
because I noticed tat so many of my client and students who are moms. They have the huge sense of guilt about claim
that boundary and going to the coffee shop her two hours.
right and leaving leaving their kids behind, but more
Certainly, then, that guilt is the guilt, they feel the shame they feel about being frustrated and resentful about
that choice and what's not happening and
story that they start telling themselves, as I am not able to do. I'm not able to do my work because of my kids
right and so they start pushing their channel
isn't struggles on our kids when they realize it's really about their choices, and so
in that scenario, I agree with you. One hundred per cent in the sense of the simple choice is to be present all be omnipresent right. The cost of that
choice? Is it in the end? You never really present right
and there is that, since the filming completion-
satisfaction that happens when you carve away that two hours,
carve away that morning and must be
If you got a teenager, the mornings are a great time to steal, anyways cause it's not like. They want to interact with you in the morning. Anyways right in the
back in your whole in a way- and you can be extraordinarily present
extraordinarily generous with your time extraordinarily focused
because you don't have all the wheels. Turning in the back your mind about like the way
You're gonna have to be calibre
your schedule or your project or what choices you are going to have to make because you didn't get it done, and you know it
you feel about the fact that you didn't get it done in so
Think too many of us approach our relationships with our emotional, creative mental,
spiritual wells empty in the name of being present but how're, we showing
in those in those moments in is that the type of present you would want to. I would much rather have personally I
much rather have an hour or thirty
negative angelos, really clear, focused time.
Where she feels like she's got everything that she's needed outside of our relationship,
Minute that then four hours of sir
that quarter time, where she's trying to do everything else in trying to be with me in trying to do things like none and unlike I can wait right, go do
thing and come back, and I
to be that way. With with her and with my
and an incentive like if I'm not in that place. I'm gonna go
like I'm, really not in that place. Right now
I'd, rather, unless it's a really
Momentous occasion like someone graduating or someone leaving for then- and you just have that period of time. I'd rather us find
and where
were lined energetically were aligned and interests,
and we're aligned and sort of our general life satisfaction at hang out and be truly truly present, then, to be projecting that frustrate
or that tension into their at intervals.
because it's gotta go somewhere and I think it's yet the difference between just being present
and bringing your most fully actual lies
aware and available self too,
that moment of being present,
I'm using to do. We all have complex liars. We all had people outside of quote were:
You know who play various roles in our lives and who we want to be, therefore, and at the same time,
when we are not doing work that in some way allows us to actual lies at deeper part of ourselves. It flows through to everything else and that's why you like, when I think about the work that you ve been doing with it, but this bookstore finishing it's it's it's on the surface is about yes, they here's a really cool methodology to start finishing the the work that you're doing in the world
But bigger picture, it's actually a methodology to allow you to do the work that matters most and most effectively, so that you can then spend the greatest amount of time being present and engaged in all the
if the parts of your life that matter most to me, it is, I guess it comes started, kind of comes full circle, because in the beginning I asked you like why this book and you're like well, it's kind of part productivity book, but it's also kind of part near like self improvement book
Is that ripple effect? I think so, and I would want to save him
it more nuanced way. What I want people to really get into
is the work of their lives right.
so that we see that there and and work is not a four letter word for me in the sense of it's something we want to get away from. We want to minimize and so forth. Is this really sacred stuff that we get to do only a parent
compare their child and the way that they're going to do it
it only certain people can be leaders in their communities in the way that they're going to do it only a particular creative,
create in the way that she creates
whatever. That is. I want people to see that this life work can be prioritized. I won't go
First, they should be priorities because people have had their own priorities, but it can be prioritized and that for many people, that's were deep satisfaction deploring com,
from an so? Yes, it's a book that will help you do your economic work, I'm
This exciting excited about the fact that it's a book there
I hope you do the work of your life.
Make sure that what you need to do the big
The type of person that most wanta be is only
Schedule is on your project deck and has the
group of people around you supporting that goal dislike what you were doing.
The other economic work that matters to you right that this is a good place for us to come full circle as well so hand out in the studio today, in the context of this container of the good life prodded. If I offer the phrase to live a good life, what comes up.
do what matters most right and I'm gonna focus on the doing right. I won't say: stop talking and start doing better
I'll say like if you know that you ve been doing a lot of talking in a lot of,
I d aiding, but
we're doing a lot of making or doing or leading her whatever. Your thing is:
And understand that the gap between the good life you want to live and work
you are, is probably bridged, based
types of doing that. You have to start doing. Thank you. Thank you.
The thank you so much for listening, and thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who helped make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes and while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what shall I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at spark, a type dotcom. That's s, p, a r K, e t, Y p e dot com or just click; the link,
in the show notes and, of course, if you haven't already done so be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app. So you never miss an episode and then share share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode, that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation, because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold, see you next time,
the.
Transcript generated on 2023-06-26.