Creating a Habit Stack – Small Business Show 229

The Small Business Show Episode 229 for Wednesday, June 26, 2019 folks and welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co the show, well, where we've been bringing you the business every week. Or is that giving you the business?

It's giving you the business. Right.

I think that's even better. Spot sponsors for this episode include linode@linode.com sps and a new sponsor for us, clear@clearme.com business a different URL, but you're going to want to go there. We'll talk about why in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire.

I'm Dave Hamilton and out on the west coast, I'm Shannon Jean. How you doing, man?

Yeah, good. Yeah, good. Lots going on and that's a good thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's jump right in it since we were both so busy today. But quick, quick note, if you're visiting the WE website, we're doing some website redesign. So you may see some, something may look odd once in a while, but rest assured we're getting it taken care of.

Yeah. But let us know like if you see something odd or see something that you like or don't like. Let us know. Feedbackusinessshow co we would love to hear from you because, you know, we make this for you. We, we know all the information that's up there. We don't need the website. So it truly is for all of you.

So, yeah, that's cool. And along the same lines, I posted a poll today in the small business support at BusinessShow Co Facebook. It'll get you over there, you know, and we're interested in learning more about what you want to hear on the show. Do you want to hear more practical business advice? You want more motivational tips, more guests? There's a few other options listed there too, and you can create your own topic to vote on if you want. So Please go to BusinessShow Co Facebook to share your feedback. Yeah, love to hear. Love to hear from you. Yeah. So today on the show, I've been reading a lot and we've been talking about motivation and our inner judge. We had some, you know, a good episode a few weeks ago about your subconscious and I want to kind of round that up this week and talk about habits and this idea. You know, we, we talk about Scott Adams talent stack concept about, you know, bringing together your talents and not, not having to be great at one thing but be good at a lot of different things to be successful. And we, we discussed that in terms of a revenue stack as well, before on the show. And today, I'd like to talk about developing a habit stack and see if we can get some useful information about that. Sound good?

Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah, I have. I actually already have a comment to make. And Scott does say that you don't need to be an expert. You just need to be good at lots of different things so that you can, like, get the job done. I would say even more important than being good at it is being willing to do it because.

Oh, that's really good.

Right. Because if you wait until. If you say, oh, I can't do that because I'm not good enough at that skill, then it doesn't get done unless you. Unless you outsource or, you know, delegate or something like that. But if you're not in a position where you can do that, either you don't have the people or you can't afford the people, or the people are busy doing other things. Sometimes it just takes a willingness to do it knowing that you're not good at it. Like, that's sometimes the hardest and best thing that you can do.

So, yeah, no, I like it. And be willing to do it badly.

Willing to do it badly. That's it. Because you can think about it. You know, how good are you as an editor? Let me ask that question, right? You know, if somebody writes something and it's awful, can you read that and fix it? Yes. Okay. Now, I would ask the same group of people, all of you, are you a good writer? And some people say, oh, no, I need somebody else to do the writing. Yeah, if you're a good editor, you can be a good writer. Just write something terrible and then become an editor and you're good to go. And the same is true for lots of other things. But, you know, writing is a great example because there's so many things for our businesses that we need to write. You know, we just talked about the webpage, you know, an about page or this or that. Well, I don't know how to write this stuff, so I won't do it. No, no, no. Bad habit. I don't know how to write this stuff. So I'm going to do it, and then I'm going to look at it objectively and know that, you know, here's the thing. If you think you're really good at something, you won't look as critically at what you've done as if, you know you're terrible at it. And in the end, it might be better off to Know you're terrible.

Yeah. At least to have that. The concept of you could be terrible.

Right. You could be. You might be bad at this even if you've been good at it every other time, like looking really, truly evaluating your work. But you just do the work. It.

Yep.

It's way easier than you think it is.

And I think, like, for me, you know, you mentioned that comment about writing and content creation is. Is an important, really important part about success in a small business. I don't care what you're, what kind of content you're creating, you're going to be doing a lot of writing. And one of the things that I'm always super critical of and that held me back for a long time was like my grammar and being worried about, oh, run on sentences and this and all this kind of stuff. But there are tons of tools out there that'll solve that problem for you. You know, I rely on Grammarly every single day and, you know, putting content in there and it's not only is it finding the mistakes that I make, but it's teaching me not to make them again. And I love it. And I mean, I just use the free version and I pump thousands of words through that thing, you know, over and over again. So definitely.

Yeah, I love it.

I love it.

I got to check out Grammarly. I'm a. I'm a crazy grammar person.

I know.

Oh, that's right.

Well, and those of us that are not. Are intimidated by, you know, because. Wow. I don't want to put this because somebody's going to point something out. So when I do it. And the great thing about Grammarly is they have plugins for everything, you know, Chrome, all the browsers you can. They don't have it for Office on the Mac, but they do on Windows, but, you know, everything else. And they have their own standalone app on the Mac that you can just. I cut and paste in it because I don't like to create in it.

Sure.

And they give you. They gamify it. So every week you get an email saying, hey, you're writing more words than 78% of other users or you use more different kinds of words. I mean, they've done a great job. I really like it.

See, this is a classic example, though, because I. In my own mind, and I think it's not an incorrect assessment to make. I'm pretty good with grammar and I would agree. But because of that, I never think to use. I'm too good to use a tool like Grammarly. What a terrible mistake. To, for me to make. Like, what would be the worst thing about me taking something I've written and putting it into Grammarly the worst thing?

Two seconds.

It's right. I just wasted two seconds. And Grammarly had no, you know, no.

Suggest or reaffirm how good you're in. And I'm often surprised, like, oh, you know, I'm actually not as bad as that. But certain things that I create, I have now gone back and I look at even some of the blog posts because I, I post the episodes on the, on the website after we record. Yeah, yeah. You know, and I find, I find stuff there all the time. Like, oh, that's been up there. Nobody said anything, you know, but, but Grammarly, we'll tell you. So lots of tools out there to, to get you and help you develop better habits of, you know, writing or whatever it is.

I, I will share. I know we're on a tangent here.

That's okay.

I will share one more habit. Yep. In terms of grammar, when you write something before you send it, especially if it's something long, read it aloud. Just emails, say it out loud. Because if you can't read it with normal cadence and pacing, and if you're out of breath, it's because it's not written well and that can. Yeah. So just read it out loud. It's so simple.

Yeah. Especially emails because we're all in a rush. You're going to fire off this quick email and you'd be amazed just reading it over once, how many errors you will, you will find, you know, and, and making, making that, making those corrections. So speaking of habits, you know, habits are, we're big fans of the system approach to being successful here, meaning not focusing on, you know, a big goal that's hanging way out there that if you don't meet, you know, you're a failure. But rather developing systems, small systems, tasks and things you can do every single day that will get you towards the goal. Like, rather than having a goal of I'm going to the gym every day, it's, hey, I want to be healthy. And this is one of the parts of the system for me to get healthy. And you can start that by just putting your gym clothes on. And then maybe the next step is, hey, I drove to the gym, I didn't get there. I got in, I had a protein shake. And the next time I was, I worked out or whatever. So there's lots. It's breaking everything down into little pieces. And I think habits are a big part of achieving those larger Goals and shifting the focus away from your own willpower and trying to motivate yourself to just small steps that can lead you down the path to your ultimate goal of world domination that we're all headed towards. Right?

That's right. When you get. That's an okay goal to have because when you get there, you don't need any more momentum.

That's it, You've made it. Yep.

You're finished. Yeah, that's right.

And I think habits, you know, they drive your decision making and they drive so much outcome in our lives. You know, I recently read a quote and it said that habits are the underlying driving force of either success or failure, greatness or mediocrity. Right. And the more I think about it, the more it is, I really believe it is. It's those small habits. And using that, that stack metaphor, you know, let's talk about how we can create positive habits and then bury negative ones down low or in the stack. And when I talk about this stuff, it's not just for us. You can use these tactics and these strategies to help yourself as well as your employees, you know, contractors, whatever. Habits like this impact your entire organization. You know, think about like customer service issues, how do they get resolved? People are falling back on the habits that you've developed over time and that they've developed on how to handle. You know, surely there are good and bad habits involved that you can work on and do it. So let's go and talk about how we get into these habits a little bit.

Okay. Yeah, I like this because you're right. A good habit, you're fine. And neither one of them takes any thought once it's happening. Right? A good habit, it's just happening. A bad habit.

Yeah, and that's, and that's a good point. It's, it's being actively aware of the habit is probably 90% of the solution to improve on positive habits and then to lessen negative habits is being actively aware of what's going on. And we fall into the habits for the reward that they give us. Right. Positive habits, like interacting with people, you kind of, you know, you build your self esteem. It gives you a good, you know, back and forth with people. You feel better about yourself. If you create a to do list or a to did list and then you look at it and you have all these checkboxes of things you did. You feel good. I've accomplished something. You know, we talked about going to the gym. That makes you feel better. You're getting healthy. You know, for me, waking up early is a big deal because I've always been a night monkey and not an early morning person, but now I'm like, hey, I'm up at, you know, six every day and I get these certain things done and I start the day much more productive. Negative habits, like checking social media too many times, you know, for that dopamine hit for those comments and likes that stuff. I think that's a big distraction during the day. Having a drink or smoke when you get home, when you get stressed out and kind of disconnecting. That may not be, you know, certainly in excess as a negative. One thing that I really, I like.

That idea be, you know, I mean, we're talking about self awareness here in a, in a, in a, in a grand scheme, but specifically about our habits. And watch what you do when you're stressed. Like that's a big deal. That's a great one to really pay attention to because it might just be, you know, a minute of deep breathing is all you need to get through whatever that. I mean, sometimes there's different levels of stress. I get this. Right. You know, and, and sometimes like, if it gets really bad, you, you need to go and talk to somebody about it and that's okay too. Right. But being aware of what's happening and how you react to stress and other things too, but stress in general, but just how you react. Like when an email comes in, do you stop everything and do you go and answer it or at least read it and is that the smartest thing to do? I turned off all notification for my emails. I have no idea when emails come in. And once an hour I go and look at my email.

It's great. That's a great habit.

Yeah.

Because I love that.

Because, and, but I find like, for me, I'm definitely, you know, add, adhd, whatever you want to call it. Like, you know, I was, I'm too old to have been diagnosed when I was a kid, but that they definitely would have. And I find that playing music while I'm doing work keeps me from getting from, from, you know, finding those distractions. That's great stuff done. But I mean, it took a long time for me to figure that out. It's like, oh, right. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can get stuff done. I just need to do this and then it's no problem at all.

So, yeah, I think that's a great way to do it. A couple more quick negatives and one of them that I really have a problem with. And we've all fallen into this trap is that it's the way we talk about other people. Whether you think of it as gossip or criticism, and especially when things that downplay other people's success or achievements in a petty way that just makes us feel better about ourselves. If you can overcome that and never do it and only talk positive about people, you're going to be more successful in every single thing you do in your life. Totally. Because there's a great book called the Four Agreements, and I don't remember all four of them. I know I'm bad, but one of them that really stuck with me is one of the agreements is called be impeccable with your word. Never talk like that. Never anything. You know, there is no da, da, da, da. But, you know, just don't say anything after the word but. Right. And always be positive. Especially really, you know, with this online world we live in, you know, and comments and that kind of thing. Man. And. And you know, Dave, you're. You're really good at it. You. I. I rarely. I don't even. I'm almost gonna say never. I've heard you talk.

Not. It's not never. Yeah, but I'm just saying perfect at this.

Right? None of us are. But. But in general, when you talk, we're always trying to recognize the good part of people, and that is a huge habit. If you can't do that, you need to work on it. We're going to talk about that next.

Yeah, but I want to take. You're totally right. It. I try to be good at it, especially on social media where once you say something, it is permanent. Even if you delete it, it's still permanent. Either somebody archived it or somebody saw it and archived it in their brain like the damage is done and it can really be a bad. And plus, I find from even like, forget about everybody else. For me alone, if I'm spending my energy focusing on what somebody else is doing wrong or badly or what generally, of course, it's me, you know, projecting something and it's like, I'm not as good at that. And so I'm gonna say they're bad. But even if. If I just stop doing that and instead focus on what other people do positively, I'm now driven to do better. I don't need to put them down to justify where I am here. If I point at that guy and say, oh, he's doing a great thing, that drive. I'm a competitive person and that. That competitiveness can go either way. I can say I can badmouth somebody or I can Good mouth, somebody. And good mouthing actually leads me to lift up my game instead of justifying that my game is good enough. Right. And. Yeah, yeah.

And what you'll find is when you talk that way, you will kind of automagically start surrounding yourself with other people that talk that way. And that kind of communication really will. Will lift you up and help you be successful. And I would really encourage you not, not that we're making the whole show about that, this one habit, but within your own organization, if you hear that kind of talk, man, you got to turn it and really make it positive. Say, look, because it doesn't work. It doesn't. It, you know, it never works. It's that one of the. There's a phrase, you know, revenge is like drinking poison and thinking, you know, your enemy is gonna die, you know, or something like that. I. I don't. I didn't phrase it right, but you get the idea.

Yeah.

It just doesn't work. It.

It.

It makes you. Because in the back of your mind, you know, that's not good. And you're talking about it and it's.

It.

It'll eat you up and it's not a good thing, so you gotta let it go.

And, and it's just a bad way to think is really. You just want to. You want to rid yourself of those thoughts. So the one way to do that is to not. Not voice them when they happen. Right?

It's. It's. It's loser think.

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Yeah, that's great. So, you know, we're talking about creating this habit habit stack that pushes the positive habits to the top and buries the negative ones. So, you know, let's talk a little about how we do that. And one of the best ways to do it is to increase the positive rewards that you're giving yourself for habits that you want to keep, or new habits that you start. And the first step is being more self aware. Write it down, add it to your lists of habits as you create this system of what you're trying to achieve. Be more productive, be happier, whatever it is. Write down these habits that help you do that and really be aware of it.

It.

And when you, you know, knock one of those out when you're like, hey, I did that today. I went to the gym, I got up early, I had a protein shake. Whatever the habit is you're trying to do, recognize when you did it and give yourself a big reward. Because mentally that reward is going to hit whether it's, you know, I mean, I love to read. So it's like, hey, if I could get 15 minutes where no one is, you know, asking me a question or whatever and I can just sit and read and enjoy that, that's a huge reward for me, you know, so recognize what it is. Whether it's relaxing, whether it's going to a movie, whatever it is. Set a reward system in place for those habits that you want to promote to the top of your habit list and do it over and over, over and over again.

Yeah, that's how it becomes a habit. That's right.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so we also, we want to bury those negative habits, you know, and one of the first thing to do is change your routine, look at your day and think about things that happen during the day that you are not happy with. Like for me, you know, after I sold Tech Restore a couple years ago and I, you know, our building is gone here and they moved it a company cross country. I'm working at home now. I have a studio up behind my house and that's my office. But. And in the beginning I love the freedom of, hey, I don't have to, I don't have to get up so early and do these kind of things. But after a while I felt that, you know, I'm not as productive because I'm getting start too late of a start. You know, I do a lot of stuff on the East Coast.

You're not accountable to any of you. Yeah, you don't have employees that you have to go and like check in with. So.

Yeah, yeah, they used to get me into the office. I got to be in there, you know, I want to be in there first or I want to be there, you know, early. So for me it was like, okay, the routine I've got to change. I have to start getting up at, you know, at 6:00am and that may be sound like nothing for the rest of you successful people out there, but for me it's a big deal because I'd rather stay up until one in the morning and work at night. But it's, you know, it had served its purpose when I was younger, but not so much now. And so changing that routine and the next thing to try is replacing the habit to get the same reward. You know, if you, if you want to relax or, you know, you're like, well, I could have a beer, a glass of wine, you know, something like that. Well, maybe something else would help you relax. Maybe going for a walk Maybe reading, maybe meditating for a few minutes, you know, maybe listening to the small business show. You never know. And so try to get the same reward by changing up the habit that you're doing.

I want to point out a habit that you. All the secrets that you ever need are delivered to you every week by Mr. Shannon Jean right here.

I don't know about that.

Well, the one that.

Well, I'm here anyway.

Yeah, you're here. See what I mean? The one that I think is the easiest way to ensure you have time to run your business and start your business and all of this, but it's the hardest one for so many of us to do is one that Shannon gives us. Maybe he doesn't deliver it every week, but most weeks and certainly, you know, many times a year, he tells us, great, you want to start a business, Cool. You watch TV at night. Great. Stop watching TV at night. And you. You instantly now have several hours a day where you can start your new business. I just made more time for you. Most of us. Most of us ignore that.

Don't cancel your Netflix.

Cancel. Oh, yeah, There you go. Yeah. My kids would kill me. Of course those are kids.

Let your kids watch it, but take it off your phone, your iPad, whatever. Don't do it.

Yep.

Don't do it.

Yep.

You can instantly carve out hours a day. Most people by, you know, eliminating media used to just be tv, but now everybody.

It's more than that.

Yes, but. But think about what you do. And if. And if you don't want to do it, that's fine. Or you're already successful in that. Maybe that is your reward that you want. Now, one of my former partners was like, hey, I really like to disconnect at night. I want to watch tv. You know, don't. Don't call me, text me, or email me at 10pm Right. Which I've been known to do, of course. And I'm like, okay, no problem. No problem. He's like, that's my reward. So if you really want an hour on Netflix, maybe you say, okay, whenever I achieve this habit that I'm trying to set in place, I'll get an hour or half an hour, whatever it is.

Whatever it is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But kill your TV was really a good statement back in the 60s or whenever that. That first came out.

So, yeah, and. And you're totally right about it, but it's. It's just not an easy thing for most people. Most people don't want to do that. It's what it comes down to.

Yeah, so. So like I said, the twist on it is maybe you don't have to eliminate it, but maybe that is your carrot. Maybe that is. I love to disconnect. I want to sit on the couch or whatever it is and then just use it in a different manner. That's the answer.

My problem is even if I'm sitting on the couch watching tv, it's rare that I don't grab my laptop. And like, last night, you and I were going over some stuff on the website. It was like there was some show on, but it was like, oh, this is way more interesting to me because I can be engaged on this. I'm not just tuned out. Yeah, yeah, well.

And I'm a bit of a workaholic, and I love working, and I defined a big part of my life by that work. So one of the tricks that I had done for myself is with that laptop is I would only work as long as my battery lasted, and for many, many years it worked great. But as technology got better, it just, you know, I could still say that, but I. You could work for, you know, six or eight hours now, but, yeah, you can work for.

Yeah, exactly. Six or eight hours, easy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So the. The other thing is, you know, looking at bad habits is to remove the temptation to change the way things work. And like, for me, I'm a beer guy. You know, we've talked about it on the show here. I love drinking beer, but I don't really drink beer during the week because I get tired and this kind of thing. And I just. It's not a good habit that I want to be into.

Right.

And so I have a kegerator at my house that has set up for two different kinds of beer, which I love. And it's great on the weekend and my friends over that kind of thing. But that kegerator is up on the hillside next to my studio out on the deck, and it has a cover. So for me to go get a beer, I have to leave my house, walk up the couple of flights of stairs in my, you know, garden there next to the pool, and go up there. And it keeps me from coming up and getting a beer. And. And on the weekend, it's great because I enjoy walking up here and looking around, and I can, you know, so it's good. So tricks like that, whether it's. I'm a huge sweets guy and I eat too many sweets, so it's like, hey, put the cookies in the back of the cabinet. So every time you Open the cabinet. You don't see that first thing, right? Whatever it is, whatever it is, trick yourself into changing those bad habits. You'll be better served. And again, you want to work on one habit at a time. It's not this whole thing that's overwhelming and you guys are probably way ahead of me anyway, but small steps toward victory while actively rewarding yourself. That is really important. And keeping a list and being just focused on it. Do it over and over. And then don't freak out if you miss a day, it's okay, just come back. Okay, well, I didn't hit that today, but tomorrow and the next day, just think about it as part of your system here. You're not going for perfection. You're just trying to develop it over time. And go back and listen. We've done a couple of shows recently. The one I mentioned earlier about your inner judge and kind of programming yourself, that's right along in this theme that we've been on lately. And then the other one we talked about last year, I think it was in August. We'll have a link in the show. Notes is all about persistence and how persistence is just another big key to success and also helping you to build these habits. So if you do it for 30 days, 60 days, whatever it is, you'll do it over and over.

Yeah. And I've talked about it before on the show here, where I will tell my team or whatever, hey, there's something new I want to try. Let's try it for two weeks.

That is unbelievably great advice. And I've done that on my kids. Everything.

It works, I do it on myself. I give myself permission. Like, I'm just gonna do this for two weeks. And I know I'm tricking myself. Like, I'm fully aware of it, but giving my. Just like Scott Adams with his. He can. He doesn't have to go to the gym, but he does have to put his gym clothes on. And of course, once he does that, then it's like, well, I might as well get in the car and drive to the gym, you know, But I, I can bail out at any time. And. And that two week trial thing, I know that I'm giving myself permission to fail. And because I'm a human, I will fail.

Really a good piece of advice.

Yeah. And so that two week thing or whatever it is. But I find for those types of things, two weeks is the right amount because you get over that resistance that you have to change. That's a huge part of it. Right? We're humans. We are change resistant beings at our core. So, okay, it's just two weeks. So, okay, fine, I can fight through this. But, but by the end of week one, usually that's enough. But sometimes it takes two weeks. Usually by the end of week one, it's a new habit. Like I'm not, I don't have to put any energy into thinking about doing it. It just happens.

Well, your comment that it gives you permission to fail, I love that because I always, I hate failing. I mean, I do it all the time. But what I don't like about it is I don't like that aspect of my story when I'm telling people, like what I do and this and that and, and it keeps me from talking about new things because I'm parenting. Like, oh, I'm starting this new thing. Da da. Because I don't want to say that all the time because I think it sounds flaky. So I always talk about what I've done and I think that's a more solid story. But this way you can say, oh, I'm experimenting with this new thing. I'm going to see how it works after a couple weeks. It's just a great way to bring in new things and shake things up and change your routine.

And you don't even have to tell other people about it. You can just have this two week commitment to yourself too. That's the beauty of it is you really can. I mean, there's probably something unhealthy about being secretive about changing your habits. It's probably better to be upfront about it, but I am like you in this regard. I do not want to tell people until, until I've succeeded at changing my habit, then I'm all about it. But yeah, of course, yeah, it's easy, right?

Yeah, yeah, you got it. Well, folks, you know, we really appreciate you listening. Dave and I love helping you each week talking about your small business, whether you're just getting started or you know, you've had them. We would really appreciate if you can help out the small business show by leaving us a review on the Apple podcast directory. So just go to businessshow co review and that'll take you right there. A couple more clicks and you can leave us a review. But we really appreciate it and thanks for your support.

Absolutely. Yeah. Those reviews help far more than you might, might realize. So it does. It makes a big difference. Even just one review. Yours makes a huge difference. So please, yeah, we'd love it if you go do that. All right. Man. Well, I don't have anything else.

I'm done.

That's it.

Done for the day.

Done for the day. Yeah. Same. That's right. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you again, folks. Thanks, Shannon.

This is a.

This is.

Thank you, Dave. This is.

Yeah. Habits. It's good. See you next week. Living that charmed life.