284: James Williams — The Business of You

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Oh so one of my self care routines is dance and music. I usually start dancing and singing in the shower in the morning. I think a lot of people sing in the shower. I don't know if everybody dances. It could be dangerous though because it can get slippery in there. The question that we have for you for today is what are you doing? How are you taking care of yourself? How are you managing yourself as a business? Is it healthy? Is it working well? That's our topic for today. Hey everybody. I'm Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach, host of the Scaling Up Business podcast. We bring our show to you every week. Tips, ideas, tricks, interviews with folks like our guests today. Everything to do with the world of Scaling Up. You'll find all that and more. Free copy of the Scaling a book all that@scalingcoach.com. All right. I'm joined today by James Williams so he'll say more about it. But James is a former TV dude who's now a high performance coach and he's got some stories to share about the people that he's worked with and the things that get in the way of really having great high performance. James, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much, Bill. It's a pleasure to be here. Great music.

The royalty free music for our theme show. You know, at some point we'll update it, but I'm not bored with it yet.

So I'm just glad I don't have to be in an elevator to hear great music like this.

Yes, we should play the Girl from Ipanema sometime. That's like the ultimate elevator music. All right, so where are you today?

That sounds like I'm in Austin, Texas. Exactly as you can tell by my accent. Right?

Of course. That's what I was thinking. First off, sounds like a guy from Texas to me. So before we get into this, like, what it is that gets in the way of people's performance and how they're sort of how their self gets off and that. Talk to us a little bit about how you came to work in this, your background, that kind of thing.

Yeah. So, I mean, growing up, I was always fascinated by people. I was always a very optimistic kid. I never understood why people were pessimistic about anything. And growing up I was into fitness, I was into health, but as a really, just as a casual hobby, as you said. I worked Intelligent for 12 years in production and live TV was surrounded by a lot of high performers and a lot of what we call high performing potentials. People who had something special but didn't really know how to elevate it. And so that was interesting to me. But it wasn't until I met my wife, I'll give her the credit, that really sparked me changing careers, making me realize that I was very extrinsically motivated in that career. I think a lot of people that are in some kind of corporate job can resonate with the idea of being very extrinsically motivated to be rewarded for how other people want you to do things. When I really found out what was interesting to me, which is people, happiness, performance, you know, possibility. I call myself a possibilitarian.

I met my wife, who grew up very militarian.

Possibilitarian. Coin owned right now trademark own it right. My wife came from a very entrepreneurial background, so she thought much bigger than I did, naturally. And when I met her, she was like what I call a frustrated genius. Had all these, all this drive to do something. She found the coaching industry, wanted to build a business. And she, in some ways was my client because before I even became a coach, I helped her with this business. She started working all hours of the day, had a goal, was very passionate, very dedicated, and at the time was young enough to get away with not looking after herself. But you could see where this was going, right? The fatigue was setting in, the frustration was setting in. And it was around that time I started reading about high performance through Brendan Burchard and various other Tim Ferriss, various other people that were into health and performance. And I thought to myself, you know, there's a gap here. I'm seeing it where I work. I'm seeing it with my wife. I'm seeing it with a lot of people who passionately want to achieve something and are totally unconsciously incompetent in the way that they are performing. They don't know that that the way they're living their lives is inefficient and they're making it hard for themselves. So I thought, well, maybe I can train. Maybe I can learn about all this stuff and be part of the solution to support people in not only being able to perform a high level, but being able to go for what it is that they actually want, not what they think they can have.

I like it.

So a year to the day that I left my corporate job, exactly a year to the day I certified as high performance coach. I started working in my wife's company, working with female entrepreneurs, and then from that moment on, working with business owners and CEOs and people. I guess the avatar would be people who are passionately driven to achieve something big, something that is outside of their current scope of possibility, and in doing so, thriving in the business of them to be able to perform at levels way higher than they ever thought were possible.

You know, it's a really useful thing just right there, that notion of reaching for something beyond. Before we used to have as one of our company values in a prior company, reach beyond your grasp. And this idea of not just playing in your comfort zone, of being a little bit outside of that. And I noticed, like, for years my fitness really was. Was in a bad way. And yet I had a gym and a private trainer and all kinds of things like that. And it's because all I was trying to do really was not die before my kids were grown. That was a pretty uninspiring goal. And when I changed the context for all of it and I was reaching for something cooler, I came up with something a little bolder. Then I actually got interested. I started training about 12, 13 hours a week for. Not recently.

So that. That concept is actually. That's called subjective insertion. When you're in the struggle and you can conceive of what the benefit's going to be for you going through a struggle, that's called subjective insertion. And that produces actual chemical messages to the brain, which you can get addicted to. And. And that is the secret sauce to motivating yourself to do something that's hard in pursuit of greatness.

Yeah, for me, I just saw there was a quality that I really wanted, a way of living that I wanted. I wanted to be active and alive and be inspired by each moment and that kind of thing. And in that context, then I realized that I needed something bigger and I declared my mountaintop. In that case, it was running my first triathlon. And. And I didn't actually know what that was at the time, I'm like, it just sounded less boring than a marathon. Less of a slog later. I ran a marathon a few. But anyway, at the time, it just sounded big enough and bold enough to be interesting. And then I started to deal with like, oh, I don't know how to properly swim and that kind of thing. So.

Well, you know, if it's not messy, it's not progress, right. It's sometimes you gotta. You gotta make. You gotta take the step first before you, you know, before you have the courage. Sometimes you just got to go for it and then you figure it out as you go. And that's. That's business a lot of the time as well, isn't it?

It really is. So then you started coaching. Now you're. How long ago was this?

So this was. So I. I got certified in 2016, I guess you could say I started coaching in 2015. Officially certified as a high performance coach in 2016. And, you know, it started off slow. It started off, you know, we had some programs and I would work with, you know, know, female entrepreneurs in fairly early stages of their careers. And then throughout the years, you know, I added to those modalities of performance through. Through more certifications, through the High Performance Academy. And also just personal study. I mean, everything from biology, physiology, psychology, spirituality, anything that impacts this thing, you know, your mind and your body in optimization. Because also when we're talking to people, everyone hears things in a different way. And so I love to be able to communicate in a way that a person or a team of people will hear me. Because as a communicator, it's my responsibility to figure out what language they're speaking. So whether they want to hear it from a spiritual perspective or biological perspective, you know, I love all of it. And ultimately, the goal of any coach is to be able to sell the idea that it's possible for you to be able to achieve more. Right. And so that's all in the language.

So you moved and you started adding more and expanding that work and adding more and more people. Let's share a few of the stories that you had. You talked about, I don't know, one in particular, a business owner with some relationship and personal stuff. Maybe share that.

I had a client who ran a sales team, and initially he came to me because there were some challenges with stepping away from that role so he could start another business.

Right.

And trusting that the team and the people leading that team could do a good job. But like anything, when you dig a little deeper, there was actually more going on in the personal life. There were some unhealthy health habits. Even though he worked out a lot and was in good shape, There were some unhealthy habits. There were some addictions to stimulants in terms of too much caffeine, smoking, all these things. He wasn't making time for personal relationships. There wasn't a lot of time to really feel fulfilled. And it was all stress about the work. And like a lot of driven people, a lot of his time was spent in the future thinking about, what do I need to do next? How am I going to do that thing next? And all the time in the present, he's got a son. He's got this real desire for a personal relationship, but isn't making the time to have that relationship for himself because he's like, well, I need to be a father, and I have to figure out how to step away from this role. And like the fly flying against the window pane trying to get out, even though the window next door to it's open, he's trying the same thing over and over again and getting the same results. Like, the first thing. The first thing I love that opening conversation with any client is discovery time. It's like, let's dive in. Because what I know to be true now is that, and I think I mentioned this phrasing earlier, is there's a lot of unconscious incompetency in people that spend a lot of time outside of the present moment. They're unaware of where their opportunities lie, where they're not performing. And there's also an element of unconscious competency, like what's why. Why have they been successful and what has helped them get there. So the reason we call this podcast the business of you is because, like, in a business, if someone hired me to go into a business and audit that business, they'd be. I'd be looking at, okay, so what are the, you know, how the SOPs working? Are they effective and efficient in a human being? That's habits. Where are we bleeding profit and where are we making money in a human being? That's energy. And so I go in there and I want to know all the information. I'm not assuming that it's just about work and just about his team. So we're looking at time studies. How are you spending your days? What are you doing when you first get up in the morning? What are you giving your brain as soon as you wake up? And what are you doing the last few hours before bed? And then I gathered information around, okay, there's actually very little time spent in the present moment, very little time cultivating what it is that you want. It's about, okay, I've got to do something for my son as a father, and I've got to figure out this team the whole time. And this is why. This is a great, great question that I like to normally ask, which is why it is selfish to put other people first. And this is one of the first things that I teach my clients. Why is selfish to put other people first? And it's because when this client figured out that he could cultivate the time to start his morning off, only focusing on what he needed, right? He'd been asleep for eight hours, wasn't moving, was dehydrated, his brain was in a slower state. First thing he was doing is picking up his phone and reading his emails. And suddenly now other people's agendas are being thrown at that poor brain that's been one moment ago was asleep. Okay, so that's immediately start the brain off all stressed. Then he's literally only thinking about the future and he's going into work. He's not trusting his team to solve problems. So he's micromanaging, which means they're never really going to go all in and be inspired to do a better job because they know that deep down inside he's kind of their micromanaging is going to and he's going to do the job for them. And so when we started to talk about trust and how his level of trust about himself is totally related to how much trust he has in his team and his ability to say, hey, guys, I trust that I've communicated exactly what I think needs to be done, and I'm going to leave you to it. And if it fails, it's on you. And then we can figure out why and we'll fix it, but it's all on you. He could then cultivate more time. He mastered his morning routine. So he was having now extra time in the mornings to slowly wake up his brain, to hydrate, to be present with himself and actually then start to think, well, what do I want outside of my work? Because I want a personal relationship. And how is that relevant to how it's going to fuel me so when I go to work, I'm a happier guy, I'm a fueled guy, and now, because I've put myself first, my team are going to get a better leader, my son is going to get a more engaged father, and now I have time to pursue a relationship. And you know what Happened was he. He didn't have to really have to pursue. He was noticing things more and then the relationship came to him.

Yeah, no, no, no. I, I'm glad you put a little bow in that story. We got the wholeness of it, but I just began to notice a couple things. One of the first things I was reminded of is like years ago.

We.

Hired a former client customer to be a consultant for a little while to work with our company and help us work on some things. And in the process of that, somewhat inadvertently, we got some feedback and we learned about ourselves that we were really good at some things that we didn't realize we were good at, that we were maybe best or near the best in the industry in some areas. And it was really, really surprising. And I think a lot of times we're good at things we don't realize we're good at. Like, my wife will say things to me from. Or she has pointed some things out for me that seem just natural and obvious to me. And she's like, yeah, you do that naturally. And obviously. But that's not normal for everyone else. No, other people don't normally just think about how to organize and create a workshop or an experience or a thing, an off site for a team and just like rattle it off and it's all just there. They agonize over it and get feedback on it and you just like lay it out and it's all gonna work and like how to design a curriculum and that kind of thing. And I never had thought about that. Like, oh, it's just like through the variety of lessons in life and that kind of thing. Like, oh, there's something I do. So there's that, that's the first part is who are you really? And I think until you talk to you don't necessarily notice it. And then there's the other thing around, looking around and noticing the things that you've been ignoring in your obsession with something that I heard there. And I can remember a couple weeks ago, our adult son was over and it's always nice to see him and he, he doesn't live too far away. Was over. And. And he and I were both in our laptops in the same room, like looking down, you know, on some work thing, obsessed with whatever, right. And I don't see that often. He's 24 and. And then in the background this song comes on. Father and Son Snow Cat Stevens song. And I like, I start to crumble because I hear it, I recognize it. And then I close my laptop now he didn't notice this. My wife did in the other room. And I said, hey, Jack, let's go talk or whatever. And so we actually went off and connected for a few minutes and talked about stuff or whatever. But it was like this subtle reminder that changed my perspective or view of myself and the whole situation around me. Before then, I was just doing my thing, he was doing his thing, my wife was in the other room doing her thing. We were all like doing our things. Then this little cue said, oh, look up, look around.

Wow, that's powerful stuff, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. Isn't it amazing how, you know, I'm actually reading an interesting book right now and, you know, it's talking a lot about the impermanence of things. You know, nothing's forever. And when we really realize what that means, you know, I think one of the phrases says, imagine. Imagine what your life and your son's life is going to be like in 300 years. You're like, oh, wait a minute, we won't be here. And today, when you think about today is the 6th of October 2021. There will never be a 6th of October 2021 ever again. And so when you really think about that and you think about how precious those relationships are and those moments are, it really makes you realize how much of what we're spending our time thinking about or doing isn't necessarily there. Isn't necessarily Roi, you know, is it really the most important thing that we're focusing on right now? You know, it's a. It really shows the power of gratitude. I mean, I could even see the emotion in your face telling that story. Like, you know, I'm not very good.

At hiding that sort of thing.

That's a one, that's, that's a wonderful thing. That's a strength.

I think that's a power.

That's a superpower. It's such a beautiful reminder to everyone listening because, you know, we all get caught up in the rat race and none of us are perfect. We're human beings. Right. But those little reminders are very, very powerful. And I think that's a great thing to bring up on this podcast because it's very easy to take for granted things that truly are special moments. Because you don't know if the last two years has been anything as a teacher. You don't know what's around the corner.

I have a regular appointment in my calendar towards the end of the day that just says grateful. It's a 15 minute duration appointment. So every day. And I used to have it Twice a day, but now it's just once a day. And. And that's a reminder to just look around, notice something, maybe acknowledge something, maybe express it, or maybe just be grateful without necessarily an expression of anything. But it has me be grateful on a regular, consistent basis. And I've been tempted to throw away because it's become such a routine. But then it starts to show up in other places too. Like, I'll just be sitting at dinner later or something like that, and I'll notice something's very pleasing, and then I'll just kind of stop and I'll take the rest of the scene in. Like, I'll notice the lighting or the setting or the music or the smells or, you know, other kinds of things like that. And I'll look across at my wife or the family or that kind of thing and just like, try to let time slow down for a minute, you know, and. And then breathe it in and like that. First two appointments, then later just one. And that start of that kind of thing just, like, alters it. So it'll show up now, like in the morning having coffee and looking out my window, or I have a beautiful view from the bed and be like, oh, my God, what a blessing this moment is.

You know, it's so powerful. I mean, so I believe. Little interesting concept that I use for that same thing is I truly believe that one of the superpowers of gratitude is like stacking this shelf. If you think about maybe the past habitual library we have in our mind that remembers. And gratitude is such a great way of stacking the amount of gratitude we have. So that when things feel hard, when we're going through something that's hard, we have more stacked that's easier to remind us of. Oh, wait a minute. You know, this situation isn't permanent. I've got all of this. I'm grateful. And gratitude is. Gratitude is a high performance tool. It really is. Like, there are a lot of studies that show that the grateful people, optimistic people, have more energy, are higher performers, and tend to be more successful. There's not an accident.

Yeah.

And we can all cultivate that.

Yeah. The other story you shared in getting ready for this was a woman who was coming up against some limitations. Share that one with the listeners.

So I've been blessed to work with a lot of amazing female business owners, visionaries, ladies that grew up with the story that once you have kids, you. You don't get to have the big dream and the big goal.

Right.

And that was my wife's mission, was to really inspire women to live a life better their dreams. Whether you've got children or not, that's not a limitation. In fact, some of the most inspiring people I've ever worked with are mums. Because mums are great multitaskers because they have been put in a situation where they have to. Right, well, parents in general, not just mums, dads as well. And this particular lady, this is earlier on, right at the beginning of wanting to start a business. And not only was she a mum with two kids, but she was in a town and an environment that didn't champion thinking outside of what your current surroundings were saying was possible. And she was treated like she was being selfish and ungrateful for what she had and putting her family at risk by wanting to invest in herself and do something big. And I remember making the mistake early on in those days to try and speak to the husbands, right? To try and support them in supporting their wives, which uninvited, not a good idea, right? Unless they choose to come. That wasn't a good idea. It was a rookie error at the time. But what was really inspiring about that journey was first off like the same story, really digging into what lies was she believing about the world and possibility, right? The stories that are made up by human beings about what people are capable of. And also this interesting concept of money mindset, which is what my wife teaches, which is this relationship with money, this idea that we can only do with what we have in the bank, right? If it's not in the bank, it doesn't exist for us. And not thinking about this idea of investment rather than spending. So again, if you think about the business of you to scale any business, we need to invest in that business, time, money, energy, and to have the confidence to invest big. Because the bigger the investment, the more opportunity for growth if things are done right. To have the confidence to invest, you know, we have to. I had to inspire her to actually tap into what do you actually desire, right? Forget about what you think is possible, what lifestyle, what actually feels exciting to you. And I'm not even talking about what the business is or what you want to make and put in the bank. How do you want to live? And this gave her one of the most crucial elements of high performance, which is clarity, because it got her to figure out exactly what she wanted her life to be, which allowed her to mile mark a plan not only for extrinsically what she wanted her life to be, but who she got to be when she was there, right? So I would ask Her. Okay, so when you're living that life, what qualities does that woman have in that life? To give me some adjectives. And she would say, well, she's courageous, she's. She's inspiring, she's engaged, she's compassionate, you know, she's dedicated, she's. And she gave me all these adjectives and I said, great. Okay, now I want you to tell me where in your life up until now have you demonstrated these adjectives? And then she told me stories. She was like, well, you know, this thing happened, you know, that took a lot of courage for me. Well, me having this call with you and signing up to this program took a lot of courage because everyone else thought I was selfish for doing it.

Right.

She told me how she'd already displayed all of these adjectives in her life. So I was like, well, you're already this woman. But we just need her showing up more often. So one of the most powerful things you can do is show someone that they are actually already capable of being the person that they want to become. Yeah, it's just, we just need to be more effective there. Like the business of you needs to be more efficient showing up that way. And then as a high performance coach, we're just strategizing then from a, From a health perspective, from a physiological perspective, a psychological perspective, a spiritual perspective, what can we be doing every day to show up like that woman more often? And that's how it starts. It's, you know, it's really painting possibility. And there's a lot of strategy that goes into that, which I'm more than happy to share some if you'd like, but I'll stop talking for a sec so you can jump in.

Well, so I love thinking about who you want to be from, not constrained by the current circumstances. Right. Because so much of our planning for our business, our business leaders, a lot of planning for our business, we work on having people create a vision and pick a bhag, a big hairy, audacious goal and think about that and, and then start to think about how they accomplish that over time. But so true is also in our personal lives is not thinking about, okay, well, I only have this much money, how am I ever going to get to that point? Or I only have this much time, or these certain, like all that kind of thing. Thinking from here out, it feels really difficult. Picking a mountaintop that's appealing to us and imagining the climber, you know, both at the ascent and in the journey is a very different kind of a mindset. Right. Who do you want to be, and what's that like? And picking those qualities or ways of being, I think are really, really essential. Because when we reflect back on that, then we start to see, oh, yeah, I'm being really indecisive lately. And it's not that I'm like, if you cut me open, you wouldn't find indecisive, but you might find that there's a whole bunch of things. And that's one of the ways that I have been and could be, but I've also been times when I was that. And I loved what you said there. Like, that person has that quality. So how do we just cultivate more of that? And in part, just by being intentional. Right. Actually, it just goes to show how.

Much we forget what we've already done. Like, there was a point when we were born, all we could do was poop and cry. And look at us now, right? And this is where. Why kids grow so fast because they're curious. You ask a kid, what do you want to do when you grow up? They don't go, oh, well, based on my current ability, I want to, you know, roll around on the floor and play with toys. They say, I want to be an astronaut or I want to be a firefighter. They say things that they don't even. They can't even do right now because they're willing to dream. And then as adults, that gets made wrong. You know, society's like, oh, no, don't dream that big, because that's even get.

Shut down, like, hard. My grandfather on my dad's side loved sailing, and he'd always loved sailing. And he taught my dad to love sailing. And then my dad lived on a boat for a while and gave me a boat when I was a kid. And like, sailing was a big. Is a big part of my life. My grandfather really loved sailing. Hardly ever went sailing. Daydreamed about a particular boat that was entirely affordable for him, a particular focus of that. And he was really obsessed with dying a millionaire, and he never made that much money. And there were some times where he lost a great deal as well. So he did die a millionaire, just barely. But he didn't even allow himself to dream about what kind of sailing and what or even to talk about it. Like, do you want to sail around the world or do you want. Want to just sail the tropical waters? Do you want to explore the Mediterranean? Do you want to race? Like, what kind of thing? What would really light you up? And it all was suppressed. I mean, there were a lot of Things that made him really cool. But around this one area of passion and longing that he had, he had a few moments where he sailed, including with my dad.

That's great. It just shows you, doesn't it?

He died in his 90s without ever having that sailboat.

Well, he passed a very important message onto you. That's what that was his purpose. He may not have known it, but that, you know, he's just passed a huge message onto you.

Yeah, there's plenty between the both of them. Right. And all the other people that inform our lives. But I think thinking about that, like, what do you really, really want? Because you're right. You ask a kid what they want to be. What did I want to be at 5? I want to be an astronaut. That's what I wanted to be. And for a long time I wanted to be an astronaut. Right. And then we sort of stuff that shit down and pretend that that isn't what we want. And then some billionaire or three billionaires come along and launch various versions of people into space and we're like, oh, wait a minute, maybe that, that was a possibility, right? Yeah.

Yeah, that's beautiful, man. Yeah. And it, yeah, it did a dream. I mean, I. That was one of the first things I did when I left my career and went on this journey of constant self development. I mean, this is what we're doing, right? It's constant work on ourselves so we can lead even better was to reconnect with that young child. And the way I did that is that when I was a kid, I used to wear, I'm right handed and I used to wear my watch on my right wrist. And everyone told me, no, no, if you're right handed, you need to wear your watch on your left wrist. And as a child I was like, shut up, I want to wear my right wrist. Okay. I was kind of defiant then. I was a teenager and of course, you know what happens when you're a teenager now. I broke my right wrist and I had to put my watch on my left wrist. And when my wrist healed, I decided to leave it there because I conformed. I was like, well, everyone said I'm men of wear on my left. I'm going to leave it. So one of the first things I did when I left my, my 9 to 5 job, or my 9 to 5 my job and start this journey. And I reconnected with that young kid. As I took my watch off, I put it back on my right wrist because I was like, I've got to start listening to that younger me again, because he dared to dream. He didn't worry about what. How to do it. He's like, this is what I want, and I'm just going to go for it and figure out as I go. Because now I know for sure that passion towards something is what gives you the clarity and the courage and the energy and the productivity and the influence to make things happen. So it's a constant reminder now because it's beautiful, Bill, you know, to reclaim.

What you wanted, what matters to you, and what feels right. Yeah. I had a teacher a few years ago who invited us all to do everything different for a while. And so move your watch to the other side to just experience that sleep on the other side of the bed. If you run or walk or that kind of thing, go in reverse or take a new route, just change everything up and notice what you notice. So I did it for a while, and it was very unsettling. Like, all the things from sleeping on the wrong side of the bed, wearing my watch on my right wrist, and all that for a little while and. But it did have me see things differently. A few of the things I kept. Like, I noticed that the run seemed really different running the other direction. So then I started alternating my run, and I noticed that it seemed less repetitive to run the same route, like a smaller loop than a bigger loop. And that was convenient some ways. Like, I'd run one way and then I'd turn around, run back the other way, and like, completely different from the other side of the path. Or it's funny how some of those things. But it has you re. Examine your life. What did I do and what did I decide to do at different points in my life? Right.

Well, it goes back to what you said earlier about comfort. You know, nothing grows in comfort. Like, think about every single living molecule on this earth. Everything grows and becomes better or bigger through adaptation, through challenge. So it makes sense, then, that anything that we as human do, human beings, choose to do, that's challenging, especially if it's in pursuit of something that we desire, we're going to grow. So if you choose to remain comfortable, that's fine. But then if you hear yourself complaining that there's not enough of something or you want more, then you've got a choice to make. Either own the fact that you've chosen to be comfortable, you know, and stop complaining or get uncomfortable. Right. Yeah, that's the real thing. Like, people, there's this kind of feeling of privilege, like, I deserve to be comfortable and have everything I've ever desired. And that's not the way the world ever worked, even from before we existed. Yeah.

You know, though, I don't think it's an either or thing. Like, you know, you can get out there and do something really uncomfortable and really, you know, stressful and like with intention and you can go, you know, take a massive run or do some other difficult thing and then you can go back and watch TV for a little bit. Like you can do take a nap or you know, that kind of thing. Like you can. It's not an either or kind of a reality. I think that.

No, of course it's not. Like I'm not saying line, you know, walk around on with nails in your shoes all day long because it's uncomfortable. I'm just saying that in the key areas of our life, if there's that everyone has something that if they're honest, they're putting up with.

Yeah.

They want more of. Right. They want to be fitter or they want to be healthier or they want a career that's more rewarding, whatever that may mean. And the answer to that is is a find out truly what it is you desire and what the first steps are. Like you said with the mountain, I don't need to figure out, you know, how to get to the top in one stride. I just need to figure out what's that first route. And can I get excited by being a little bit uncomfortable? Because when we're challenged as human beings, when we're challenged physiologically, the body gives you something more. It's like, okay, go time. He's testing me right now. I'm going to give him a bit more adrenaline. I'm going to give him a bit more gumption and we're going to try and figure something out. And that through reward is that's life, that's living. That's what takes us out of that feeling of frustration and boredom and kind.

Of, I think it's a great segue to the other story you shared with us about noticing in your life. You talked about a Utah business owner that spent some time looking at how he actually spent his time. Share that with our listeners.

Yes, this is a really amazing guy, a beautiful family, had run multiple businesses in his life, was very much a visionary. And when I say visionary, someone who is just all about creating the thing and is not too worried about how yet. And he had a big business goal. Remember when we first started working together, he just started this business and as soon as he bit that piece of pie off, everyone around him Telling him that you shouldn't do it, it's just too big. It couldn't be done. As soon as he bit that big pie, he freaked out a little bit and was like, oh, my goodness, can I do this? And then he realized, well, I've also not been paying attention to my kids as much as I could, or my wife as much as I could. I've been so involved in this idea, I realized that I want to pay more attention to them. But now I've just bitten off this big piece of pie and I want to achieve it. So I'm feeling bad about myself and I don't know if I can achieve this thing. And I'm in my early 60s and can I physically do this? So there was all these emotions, all these feelings. So we talked about what that goal was, and this was a classic business of you. It's like, okay, you want to feel that physically you have what it takes to put the work in to achieve this business goal, which means hiring the right people, creating the great pitches to get investors, all of the things that create passion and energy into achieving a goal, whilst also being more connected to your family, being a better husband, and feeling energized by both of those things and having time for both of those things. And this was a real. This was a real idea of concept. Because it's interesting, when you work with someone who you know has been there, done it, been very successful, a lot of habitual behavior becomes so set in stone that again, it leads to a lot of unconscious incompetencies, A lot of, well, I don't know. I've been doing something for so long, I don't. I can't literally comprehend how things will be different. So we had to reverse engineer massively. And I think the most rewarding part of it was, and it was very, very simple. It was because he was like a lot of visionaries I work with, they're actually not great planners. They're great just firefighters, just enter the woods without a map kind of scenario, rather than draw the map and then into the woods. It's like, I want to get there quicker, so I'll figure out the problems when I hit them. Which is, you know, can be a useful strategy. But if you're in that situation and you already. Your bandwidth is up against the edge, maybe we need to take a step back and actually do some planning so that, you know, when you're putting out energy into something, you're only going to do it once because you've thought about it. It's going to be excellent and there's less chance of it failing. And that strategy applied to, well, let's cultivate this plan and put in the calendar time with the kids rather than hoping that I'll have time on that Saturday. If we get time, it's intentionality. So example with your story with your son. If it was like, I'm seeing my son today, we both have a bit of work on our computer, but we're going to put in the calendar one hour to sit and talk to each other so that it's not just in case. And by simply putting things on his calendar and we put everything. It was like, what I'm going to do for the first 30 to 40 minutes after getting up. When am I going to see my kids? Even if it's for 20 minutes, those 20 minutes are going to be like this. They're going to be engaged, present, so.

They feel each other.

And it was the same when applied to his work. It was, okay, let's put everything, let's not assume anything. Let's clearly mark out when I'm going to have conversations with the team, when we're going to have that meeting, what's expected. And with more intentionality. He was having to spend less time on, on the work, less time on the family and enough time for everything. Because when he was, when he was taking action, it was more intentional and therefore the quality was better.

Ultimately, I hear a couple of things in that. I hear one sort of thinking about and designing all the parts of your life and I hear like purposely doing each of the things that we're doing and actually being in it right in the moment versus multitasking or, or doing something half assed there and so bringing like power to all parts, having them work together.

Thought, yeah, it's amazing to me how many people actually don't have a, like a plan for their day. They have the to do list, which you know is the same to do list that's going to be there for the whole year. And it's like, well, I'm just going to knock up as much as I can. And there's a challenge with that and that is that you haven't thought about how much time it's actually going to take to complete one of these tasks. It could take three hours, it could take half an hour. So therefore you never get rewarded with I'm satisfied that I've got done what I promised I was going to get done today. Yes, you could have been really productive but you wouldn't know it because there's still a million things on the to do list. And feeling satisfied at the end of the day is very important because it means that you will stop when you said you're going to stop. Which means now your hat changed to work guy, to husband or father guy comes on. And now you can have an evening routine that's going to set you up to a great night's sleep, which is going to set you up to perform better the next day. So having a cap on what you're.

Going to do each day, crucial, you know. So when we're teaching people productivity. But even in all the other things, one of the things I like to remind people is that no matter how effective or productive you are, and no matter how long and successful your life is, at the end of it, right at the very end of your life, there'll be things that you should have got done. And I suppose I'm reminded that my father in law passed away a little over a month ago and I was with him when he passed and I spent a lot of time with him the last couple days. And he passed in the most beautiful way possible at the age of 92, surrounded by friends in the middle of a lively conversation. And then he just passed like peacefully, like, oh, slumped over. But here's the thing to get about this. There's all kinds of shit he should have got done, parts of things around the house he should have fixed up or that kind of thing. Like maybe he was going to get to it sometime when he felt a little stronger, and then one day it was over, right? And we should all live like that to 92, surrounded by friends and passing peacefully. And some of us will, and others of us will get hit by a bus or we'll contract a horrible disease or any number of things like that. So whether it's short or long or whatever you don't have, and there's always going to be things.

My inbox will never be empty for very long.

So if you get that, then maybe you could relax the f out about all the things that you're not getting done because they're never all getting done. So there is definitely about choosing things and about saying, that's enough for today, like you said, right? Like, okay, I'm done with today. There's things I should have got done or could get done or things I could get to tomorrow. But now I'm going to go be a great dad, lover, friend, whatever I'm going to go be for the rest of the evening.

Yeah, totally. It's never about the what and always about the why. For me, in terms of doing anything, it's never the what, always the why. And that actually helps you prioritize. I think, you know, what, why is it important for me to do this thing today? It might be really tangible, like, well, I've got a meeting tomorrow and they want a presentation or, well, I need to do this thing before I do that thing, because otherwise that other thing won't matter. But ultimately it does. It comes down to intentionality and go back to gratitude. Being grateful that today is a day that you'll never get back. And how are you going to celebrate that with the things in your life that you really, really love? People, places.

You know, the other appointment I have at the end of every day is to wrap up and plan. And so in that wrap up, like the gratitude, I just notice everything that got done in the day, everything that didn't get done. I move things forward that, you know, for whatever reason, didn't get done. And so there's always kind of a review and plan and like assessing and adjusting and that kind of thing. But it leaves me very settled then to go into between that and the gratitude. When I really shut down and say, okay, I'm done for the day. I'm really able to largely be present. And of course I'm human. There'll be something like, oh, I forgot that, and then I need to write it down. But the other thing that you said, I think that was really genius in there is everything takes time. And you have a to do list, but you don't know when and how long those things are going to take. Not all of you, but some of you will have that. And unless you say, like, oh, you've got a to do list to prepare an agenda for an upcoming meeting, but you haven't thought that's actually going to take me at least half an hour. And so I blocked in half an hour Tuesday at 3pm to do that. If you don't create some moments to get things done, then who knows if they're going to get down, if you'll have enough time because you haven't really planned out your time. And time is the one thing that we have precious little love and can't ever get back.

Time is like, it's, you know, it's always. It's always top of the challenge list for clients. It's time.

Yeah.

How do I get more of it? How do I make more of it? I don't have enough of it. And it all comes back down for Me, it all comes back down to responsibility, personal responsibility. You got the same 24 hours everyone else does. Yes. You may have more responsibilities if you're a parent than a single person at the end of the day. I've worked with enough people that have got kids, single mothers. Lot of reasons to have excuses that make time. And if you think about that word, productivity, it means to produce, not to be busy. It's not like I'm rewarding myself because I've had an 18 hour day because I've been busy. It's, you know, success isn't about how many hours you make, it's how many hours you work. It's about what you do during those hours. Comes back down to clarity again.

I mean, Mick Jagger saying, time is on my side, right? And I don't think most of us live or think that way most of the time.

He's proven it as well, right? He's touring around America right now.

Did you ever think any of them would die? I don't know. I pretty much thought that they would be touring long after I'm in there.

We've lost one of them, God bless his soul. But they're incredible, right? And it just shows you what an amazing attitude that's all. Attitude, those guys, it's just here, they've got an amazing attitude and they love with passion what they do. And when the mind is passionate about what it's doing, it gives you more fuel for the engine. It just does.

All right, well, let's wrap up some things and tell folks where to go to. So we'll put your URL, your web address up there on the screen in just a second. But you gotta start by being aware, thinking about where you are, being present, looking at your life and yourself in the moment. And then think about. You had this word a few times, unconsciously incompetent of this phrase, right? Looking and seeing where you're not performing and telling the truth about that. Right? Like when I was thinking about how unfit I was, and yet I had a gym and a trainer and all those kinds of things. It was a funny insight, right, to be really honest about that, and then realizing I was just trying not to die and that that really wasn't enough. And then you also talked about wrapping up the day, finishing up the day, thinking about what tomorrow is, reflecting on the day and planning for the next day. And then I also heard in there, like, recharging, like, taking care of yourself through the day, making sure that you've got enough energy and presence for each moment. And aren't running out of gas. Did I miss anything there?

I mean, you wrapped it up. I mean, I think it is. It's all about awareness. And crucially, this unconscious incompetence thing takes courage to look at where you're not performing. And this isn't self harm, this isn't beating yourself up. This is why I use the word opportunity rather than problem. You don't have any problems, but you may have a ton of opportunities and that's exciting. Your life as it is can be better if you're willing to admit, oh, I've not been showing up here. I could be doing better here. That's great. I have that information. Wonderful. What's the first small step I can take to feel better? To do better?

James Williams the growth edge James williamsthegrowthedge.com Check him out there. I want to give a big shout out to Vern Harnish, my mentor and creator of the Scaling Up Framework and the original Rockefeller habits. Also to Lucy Summers who's producing our show, getting our guests ready and scheduled and everything out the door. And to the folks at podfly Productions, Alby Burge who gets our audio all edited on Kudina who writes up the show notes and Tim McGowan who proofreads everything. And that team gets it all out the door for us every week. Want to let everyone know if you love the show, if you dug it, share it with somebody else, pass it along like it, subscribe to it and you'll get them all the time. Every week we put out a couple shows. So all that and more@scalingcoach.com if you want to send us a note, give us any feedback you'll write to info scalingcoach.com that's an email for feedback for us. Infocalingcoach.com and I just want to thank everyone for listening for watching. We'll talk to you again next time. Keep scaling up. Bye bye.

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