98. Quit Procrastinating

Hey. Hey. Welcome back to Friday bullpen sessions. My name is Andy Neary, and this is episode 98. Today I am chatting with you about procrastination, the art of procrastination, or should we say the curse of procrastination. Why you need to make speed a part of your game. In fact, you'll learn what the Kansas City Chiefs know about football that you need to incorporate in your business and your life. Why do I want to share this topic today? Well, because for a long, long time, my friends, I. I made procrastination my friend. You see, it's so easy to push things off, right? You have this feeling that if you just procrastinate long enough, that difficult conversation, that difficult task, that problem that might be sitting in front of your face right now will just go away, right? You won't have to have those conversations or do those activities. The problem is the longer you procrastinate, you quickly realize what nothing has changed. And now the problem, the discussion, that activity is becoming more urgent. The problem has become bigger, and now you just feel the pressure. So that's why I want to talk to you about procrastination today. And. And you know, again, when I think about my life and how I have used procrastination as what I thought was my friend, but it's really more my enemy. And the curse is when I think about the tough conversations that have. I have had to have in my past or even my. My present with, you know, with Amy and colleagues and some clients.

It'S so easy to push those tough conversations off, right? To procrastinate in having that difficult dialogue. You know, I think about as a health insurance advisor, when I had a client who had a problem arise, it was a billing issue. It was, you know, a very.

Big problem that was going to lead to a very difficult conversation where we, the agency that I worked for, had to admit our guilt or I had to admit my guilt that I had screwed something up. You know, it was so easy to put that activity, that task of calling that client right on your to do list for today, and then you just get going with today. You feel good. You don't have to really deal with that right now, nor do you want to deal with it because, hey, you're having a great day. And if I just push that call, that difficult call, I got to make my client off long enough, maybe the problem just go away. So what do you do, right? You. You put the task on tomorrow's list, and then tomorrow shows up, you show up at the office, you get going, you get some momentum going, maybe there's another fire you have to put out. Then you have to go to a prospect meeting and all of a sudden around 3, 4 o' clock in the afternoon, you look at that to do list again and crap, I've got to make that call to that client because we screwed something up. I've got to let them know what happened. I'll just wait till tomorrow. And on and on and on this goes. And before you know it, a week, two weeks go by and you still haven't made that call to the client to have that difficult conversation to talk about the billing problem, the screw up, whatever it is. And I can specifically tell you about specific moments in my past where honestly, if I go back long enough, 10, 12 years, I think I lost an account or two because of that, because I waited, I hesitated, I didn't want to have the difficult conversation. Before I knew it, it was now a full blown 5 alarm problem. And again, that pertains to whether it's a task, an activity, a conversation you have to have. Procrastination is not our friend. It is absolutely our enemy. I know there's people out there who will say, well at times maybe procrastination could be your ally. I agree there's very few times out there that maybe you could use procrastination to your advantage. But those are few and far between. 9.8 times out of 10, procrastination is going to be your enemy. And here's why we do it. When I sit down, I look at why people procrastinate. Now I share this. On the heels of starting opening the broker Branding Academy which just launched this week, we've had a great start to the academy.

Trying to fill seats for the Broker Branding Academy required me to have dozens of phone calls with potential academy enrollees. Right. And when you have these kind of phone calls, what I call application calls to see if they're a fit for the academy and the academy is a fit for them. A lot of procrastination comes up. I hear a lot of advisors talk about, well, let me look into it. I don't know if I have the time right now. Oh Andy, I'm going to. If I don't do it this time around, I promise, I know I'm going to jump in your next one. And again, it is so easy in the moment to use that procrastination as an ally. It feels good. Because here's the deal, you didn't really tell the person. No, you still have somehow conned yourself into believing you're going to do it later. And so it feels good. Push it off. I'll go back to what I've been doing. That's, you know, I'll go back to what is comfortable. And now I don't have to worry about that. That's. That's often what I have to deal with when I am making these application calls with academy enrollees is trying to get them off that procrastination wheel, trying to get them to realize procrastination is not your ally, it is actually your enemy. And so here's a question. If you're finding yourself right now using procrastination as your. Again, the enemy. That's your. The enemy that you're sleeping with is if you don't handle this conversation, this problem, this activity today, and you push it off till tomorrow, you push it off till next week, or you push it off till one month or three months from now, the question I want you to ask yourself is, what's going to change? What's going to change between now and even 24 hours from now that is going to make handling that conversation, that activity, so different?

The answer every single time is nothing. In fact, the only thing that could change between now and tomorrow or now next week or now next month is that problem. That activity is going to be a bigger problem. You're going to have more pressure on yourself to get that activity done or have that conversation with somebody. And, you know, my advice to you is use speed to your advantage. You know, I talked about this at the beginning of the podcast. What do the Kansas City Chiefs know about speed that they have used as a competitive advantage? And, and, you know, think about.

The world of sports. This is. You might be wondering, Andy, what the hell are you saying? Or where are you going with this speed procrastination? You know, in the world of sports, whether it's baseball, football, basketball, hockey, I don't care what sport it is. There's so many tools, so many skills you can coach, right? You can train people. In baseball, it's how to field better, how to hit better, how to bunt, how to. How to have better mechanics on the pitcher's mound. In football, right, it's catching the ball, throwing the ball.

Moving side to side, laterally. All that stuff can be taught. But there is one thing in sports you can't teach, and that's speed. And so when I think about the Kansas City Chiefs, for example, here, they've now gone to the super bowl, two years in A row we just saw that no one can appear to beat Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. Even the Kansas City Chiefs, who appear to be unstoppable at some points this season. One thing the Kansas City Chiefs have understood about the game of football is speed's deadly. And it's something you can't coach. And it's definitely something hard for your competition to defend. So if you look at the Chiefs offense, for example.

Their skill positions are filled with guys with ridiculous speed. And I don't have all names, but you think about, you know, you've got Tyreek, Hill, Watkins.

Hardman, all those receivers they have, even their tight end Kelsey's fast. The running backs are fast. They have realized that if you just go draft speed, you could teach a lot of the other skills. Catching the ball, running, holding onto the ball so you're not fumbling. But you can't teach speed. Why? Because speed kills. Yes, there is that phrase. In fact, when I think about my childhood, I think there was like a Vince Coleman poster out there. For the St. Louis Cardinal fans out there, the baseball diehards from the 80s, there was a picture of Vince Coleman, a poster, I may have even had it, where he's stealing second base and it talks about speed kills. And you remember back in the day in the, in the world of baseball in the 80s 70s and 80s, guys were swiping 100, 120 bases a year. Guys like Ricky Henderson, Vince Coleman. The game of baseball has changed so much where the steal is not as important as it used to be. But I mean, again, what I'm talking about here, guys, is speed. Speed is the opposite of procrastination. So if you find yourself right now procrastinating, there are activities, calls, conversations you know, you need to be having with your loved ones.

Your prospects, your clients, yourself.

Quit procrastinating. Nothing is going to change in 24 hours. Nothing is going to be different in a week or a month or six months. The only thing that will change is that problem you're avoiding is going to be bigger. It's going to be a five alarm fire. That conversation that you're supposed to have with your significant other or a colleague or a client, it's going to be too late.

Your significant other might be, hey, I'm done, I'm fed up. Your client might be, I'm done, I'm fed up. And take it from somebody who has used procrastination.

Far too often as what he perceived as an ally, when it really is a curse. So my lasting advice for you today, this wasn't a long episode is think speed, avoid procrastination. Just get it done. Whether it comes, whether it's that big activity, those calls you have to make to your prospects, those emails you have to send out to your prospects, that tough conversation you have to have with your client because a billing mistake occurred or your agency may have screwed up, your company may have screwed up. Heck, you may have screwed up on something. That difficult conversation you're supposed to have today with your loved one, your spouse, your child, don't wait. Go through the pain right now. Yes, in the moment it may suck. But I promise, when you're done with that conversation, you're done making that call, you're done getting that activity done, it will feel like an 800 pound gorilla off your back. That clarity, the conf that will come, that it's now in your rear view mirror, you can't replace that. And here's what it does. When you apply speed, are things going to be perfect? Hell no. But when you apply speed to your business and your life, you create unbelievable amounts of momentum. And that momentum becomes unstoppable. Just like watching the Chiefs play on some Sundays. Just like watching Vince Coleman 25, 30 years ago, rounding the bases. You can't stop speed when they're in. When they're in full momentum and they are in full speed, full sprint, there is no stopping them. And that same application, that same idea applies to you. So if there's one piece of advice I'm going to give you today on this beautiful Friday, it's use speed to your advantage. Don't hesitate, don't procrastinate. If you need to make that call, make it today. Make it right now. Hell hang. Hit pause on this podcast and go make it right now. If you need to have that conversation, that tough one with your spouse, because you, you're in the doghouse right now, go have it tonight.

But whatever you do, don't procrastinate. Don't avoid problems, only become bigger conversations, only get tougher activities, only bring more pressure and more stress when you avoid them. So do yourself, do your sanity, do your anxiety, your stress a favor and just get after it right now. Your business, your life, your loved ones, your clients are going to thank you for it. So that's my advice today, guys. Love speed, hate procrastination, just get after it. Get in full sprint. It might be messy, it might not be perfect, but I promise you're going to look back one month, three months from now, and you're going to be pretty damn happy by all the momentum you created. So go make it happen. Because you know what happens when clarity and confidence collide. Massive action happens. Go make it happen today.