Getting Comfortable with Chaos

Business brain episode 612 for Wednesday, January 8th national snuggle a chicken day 2025. Where do they come up with these? You can have a holiday about anything.

Yeah, absolutely.

Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take some ideas, we dissect them, we inspect respect them, we use them to tune our business brains each and every time we get together. And here saying Happy New Year to everybody in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

Hey. And it's a new year out here in California too.

Turns out.

Turns out it goes across the whole world. Apparently. It's pretty wild. Yeah. That's amazing. If you didn't know that, it would be amazing.

If you didn't know that, that would be.

It would be really. Well, maybe a little, you know, a little kid or something like that. Two things about New Year's that I love is, is one of them that.

You love your, your, your landscaper who's running a well machine in the background there.

Yeah. Well, normally we don't record on Fridays, so I have him specifically scheduled on Friday. Not only so we can enjoy the, the, our outside garden on the weekend, which is nice. We usually entertain a weekend, whatever. But I don't have typically a recording to do.

Yeah.

And I actually. But this one, you know, we've, we're working, juggling schedules and everything else.

I just figured I'd acknowledge it since everybody's going to hear it anyway.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But two things that I love about New Year's. One is it we're coming up on the best time of the year to sell exercise equipment. And I always talk about the deals on exercise equipment on my X feed because you can buy liquidation exercise. So after the next few months of sales will be an amazing six months of deals on returns because people take them back.

Right.

And so if you can hold on to those things until the following January, that's called arbitrage.

And you can make that stuff.

That's arbitrage right there. The other thing I like is I do like New Year's resolutions. I think they're great. I think if you use them as a system, I think it's cool what, what some people do, I don't know, go to the gym, do whatever. One of the things I noticed, I think I might have talked about this on the show before. It might have been a five years, might be 10 years, I don't know. But one year I, I said, you know what I'm going to do this year? I'm, I'm gonna, I'M gonna give out more compliments.

Oh, okay. Yeah.

That's my thing. I'm gonna become the compliment guy.

Yep. Little.

And I gotta say, it dramatically changed my life because I believe that.

Yeah.

And I became in. I've always kind of given out compliments, but I came. Became more intentional about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I set reminders to compliment people. I always. And it could be something little, like one of my favorites. And they have to be authentic. Right. You can't BS Somebody. I'm not just, you know, trying to, you know, whatever. Blow smoke.

No, Shannon, you are always authentic. Yeah.

For better or worse.

Well, that was meant to be an inauthentic compliment. No, no.

Yes, yes. But like, I, I, when I notice somebody wearing a great color that makes, that brings out their eyes or their hair, whatever it is, I meant that's a great color on you.

Yes.

And I, I often comment it on that. I, you know, I often comment about positive vibes or your energy. Like, man, your energy was so great, you know, at this meeting. And, you know, the thing is with, especially with employees, you have to be careful what kind of compliments you give.

Yeah, totally.

Especially if it's, you know.

Yes, absolutely.

Things get taken wrong, out of context, whatever. So, like, I was talking to my daughter about it and she's like, oh, yeah, I always compliment shoes.

Yes.

Because people spend a lot of time thinking about their shoes. It's very innocuous comment. But it's been like, oh, those are cool shoes. I really like that. And I thought that that's, that's pretty interesting.

I, I, Yeah, I've watched and I'm going to sort of generalize about gender here because it's where I see this happen more frequently is my female friends. It's almost an integral part, a default part of the way they greet each other. It's, hey, it's good to see you. I love that pin. And they'll say, thanks so much. I love your earring. Any, but it's, it's, it's.

Maybe it's a dude thing. Maybe it's a guy thing that we don't do.

We don't do that. Yeah. Yeah. It. And I think, I think you're right. I don't know why it's a default for certainly my group of male friends, but even just men that I see in general don't do that by default. And there's no good reason. Like, it, like, obviously, obviously there's no good reason.

We need to do it more. Because I think, and I mentioned This. I think that men are criminally under complimented. Right. Because it's just not part of the thing. And I'll give you an example. I've. We. I go to the dog park every day, like 4 o', clock, and there's a bunch of people there, you know, group people. And there's an older guy, he's probably 80, maybe 81. And one day he came to the thing, to the park, and I noticed he'd gotten his haircut and it looked great. And I said, ron, I love your new haircut. And I just said, man, it makes you look 10 years younger. And he turned bright red, but like a teenager, you know? And I. And he smiled and I was just like, oh, man, I gotta do this more. So, you know, just. I always mentioned the guy's haircuts because I can tell.

Yes. I just totally can tell.

Yeah. I'm like, oh, you got a haircut today. It looks great. And it's just one of those simple things.

But you're right, that list of things like shoes, a haircut, you know, some accessory. Right. Because that's an obvious thing that someone spent time to think about.

Correct.

Where I find trouble, you know, Beware.

Yeah.

Is. It's like that shirt look looks great on you. No, that can be.

Can't do it.

That can go completely sideways.

Yeah, you're better, you're better off talking also about the way someone did something, especially if they worked for you. Like, hey, I love the way you handled that customer.

Yeah.

I love the term, that phrase you used when you were handling a return. Or I love the way you talk to your, your other employee about whatever. So, yeah. So an action is another great thing to compliment on there. But I would become the compliment guy. That. What, what happens is, you know, there's that saying if you, when you walk in the room, you have the ability to raise it or lower it, like raise the cheerfulness or whatever, or lower it and kind of lessen things. So if you walk in and drop a couple of compliments as you're walking around the room, it. It lifts everybody up. And I think it's something worth doing. I definitely have noticed a difference in my life. And yeah, give out more compliments, especially to the dudes that may not be getting any.

Yeah. Or anybody that's not getting, like. Yeah, yeah. But, yeah, give them to everybody. Yeah, yeah, I've noticed this. That it. And again, it's, you know, it's. Perhaps it speaks more to the circles I find myself in, but. Yeah, yeah.

And if you Want to start? A great place to start is at BusinessBrain show reviews because you could leave a compliment for us because this show is not free. It takes a ton of time for Dave and I to put it together to meet every week. We love doing it and we're going to do it forever. But the payment we would like to extract from you would be a quick review that would take you 23 seconds. BusinessBrain show review that start off the year with your first compliment to us.

Love it. Yep. Love it.

Cool.

Love it.

Awesome. You have an interesting topic that you want to talk about too.

You know, I think it might have to do with the time of day that we record this show because what I put on the calendar on our agenda here is the topic of being comfortable with chaos. And certainly by 4pm Eastern on a work ish day, for me, I've experienced some version of chaos. It's more likely to have happened by 4pm than it is at, say, 10am, right? And that's fine. But it also is just my life is. I put myself in scenarios where chaos is the norm. And this week, for example, I mean, yeah, we had the Wednesday holiday. Now I'm flying to CES on Saturday. On Monday, I had a band rehearsal for this Led Zeppelin tribute show that I'm playing right after I get back from Cesar and I about, well, even halfway through that, I realized I am underprepared for this. Not. I didn't go into the rehearsal thinking I was underprepared. I didn't realize the caliber of players that I was working with and the attention to detail that we as a collective were going to decide to give to this material. I'd never really gone nerdy about Led Zeppelin before. Okay, yeah, I'm aware of Led Zeppelin. I've played Led Zeppelin songs, but I've never gotten nerdy about it. And there's one guy in this group that, you know, lived and breathed Led Zeppelin while he was growing up and, and, and his enthusiasm was infectious about it. So it was great.

Like, it's a great way to look at it.

It made us all. I mean, it was like it was a wake up call, but it was, it was one that I was happy to give to us collectively. Right? It was like, oh, we got to do more. We had another rehearsal Thursday night, which meant I needed to put in some time in the middle there, but I needed to get ready for ces. I had this holiday. So on Wednesday I spent like four hours in the studio completely going down the rabbit hole of These songs and, like, really starting to, like, understand them at a deeper level. But that meant that I didn't spend the four hours on Wednesday doing all the prep for CES that I had carved out time to do.

Oh, yeah.

You know, because I figured the pre.

And the pregame is for the conference. Very important.

It's for this one.

It's.

It is everything. If I don't know what I'm doing by the time I start driving to the airport, you might as well not go. I shouldn't go, right? Yeah, exactly. And. And I, you know, I. I had maybe half of my prep done. I had my appointments booked and this, that, and the other. But then I needed to kind of spend some time and do that, so obviously I had to carve out the time to make that happen. And then I had this other rehearsal, you know, and so there's been a lot of things compressing my time, and the entire month of January is just going to be mayhem for me. I'm going. I had this week, and then I'm going to be at CES the week that this episode comes out. I'm free for a week after that. Then I'm going to LA to go to NAMM for. Which is a show for music, the music industry, for the other podcast I do for giggab. And then I'll come home from LA and Shannon. I get to be home for one full day before I leave on vacation with my wife to go to Mexico. The right school, the right logistical move would be to fly from L A to Mexico.

Yes, I would.

I need very different luggage with me.

That's true.

And so. And it's. I like the idea of starting vacation together with my wife. And I would agree that, like, I would agree it's fine. So as long as the weather looks like it's going to permit me to fly from L. A to Boston and. And then Boston to Mexico, that's what I'll do. If it looks like things are going to be mayhem, we get Lisa on a plane to Mexico, I fly from la, and we just deal with it when we get there. It'll be fine. But. But that's my January. I think I'm home for, like, you know, eight more days or something. Yeah. And. But there's chaos. But that's the thing is I. If, If I. I have to sit down and intentionally look at the calendar and say, okay, I have done this to myself. I'm choosing this. You know, this is. This happens all the time. This is not a surprise. And I And I will, I'll take some time and figure out, okay, here are the things I need to block out in my life so that I know that, like, for example, today I knew before we did this, I had to post produce two episodes of another podcast that I had done that I recorded before Christmas. But I had, I was like, oh, those are coming out in January. I'll, I'll do the production on those later. It's like, well, later is right now. Because if I don't do it before I leave, I'm not going to have the time when I get back in a, in a way. So it was like, okay, that's fine, no problem. I carved out the time and I just plow through and I do it. And it's that comfort with knowing that I am going to survive this chaos that I have created. And again, there's no, I'm not pointing fingers anywhere.

No, no, that's your choice.

It is my choice.

Yeah.

But I know that I can not just survive it, I can thrive through it. Because that's the point. If I'm going to two conferences and then a vacation and having all these things, there's no point in doing it if the goal is to survive it.

No, I think it actually energizes you.

It does energize me.

And it energizes me as well.

Yeah, it's.

And, but it, you have to know that it also can freak other people out.

Well, and I know, I also know that it can freak me out if I don't approach it with the right mindset.

Yeah, yeah. I, I've had like. So we, we just got back from Tahoe. We were up there for, right after Christmas through New Year's and same kind of thing. I, I, I stack up. It's just inevitable that I stack up all this stuff like, like you're talking about. I had to, only I had, I had to get up Tahoe, but I won an auction and bought a Polaris side by side, you know, little four wheel drive thing in, in Reno, which is about an hour, not terribly far, but trying to manage that and get up there. I also bought a new truck on Christmas Eve and so I deal with that. I had to try to pick up my trailer and then there was a snowstorm and I'm managing this. I'm juggling all kinds of coaching clients because it's a holiday, we're trying to fit things in. Then I have to drive over these mountains. I had to go do all this stuff, pick it up, drive it Back to Tahoe, enjoy my time with my family. And, you know, the funny thing is, the thing that stressed me out the most, that kept me up at night was just backing the trailer up into the driveway in the ice and the snow in Tahoe. That's what I kept thinking about. Luckily, like most things we stress about, it worked fine. No big deal. It was okay.

You know, it is funny the things that we wind up obsessing about.

Of course. Of course. And so then, you know, got back then spent a great few days. Then I had to drive that Polaris to our other property, the river house, to leave it there, because that's where I want to use it, yada, yada, yada, then get home. So we had this stacked up. Do this. But I. Not only do I like it, it energizes me, but I feel a greater sense of accomplishment after all these things.

Oh, for sure.

And maybe that's. Maybe that's it. Maybe for me, I do all this stuff intentionally. So I feel like, oh, I figured it out. It makes me feel better.

Yeah, I can tell the story. Like, I know that it. I mean, it's very much your ethos of, you know, decide the story that you want to tell. And that can be a huge, big picture thing that takes a decade, or it can be a thing that's like, oh, yeah, I'm going to talk about this crazy week that I had where, you know, the week before Christmas, I had two rehearsals and then I had two gigs up and down, and they all went great. And it was. I had to do one of them in a snowstorm, et cetera, et cetera. Right. Like, I could tell that story.

It's awesome.

And it's like, I did it, you know, and then that Saturday after, you know, all this craziness, I got home very late Friday night. I. I, like, I was content on Saturday because I had done the thing. I made it through. Yeah, same. I do it to myself. I will share though, that something. Gosh, I can't remember who said it to me, but once I heard somebody say that the right spouse is a force multiplier.

Shannon, it's me.

I know.

That's me, damn it.

I know. But that is so true in these scenarios, because I can tell you, like, there's been times where I have scheduled, either over. Scheduled myself or scheduled myself for mayhem like this at the wrong time and the support of my wife in the times where I do it the right way or at the right time. And sometimes I don't know if it's the right time, Shannon. But Versus the infrequent. But it happens. Occasions where it's like I don't quite have. She tolerates it, but it's. It's not supportive. And. And that the latter is far less frequent than the former. Right. So it's all good. But I am keenly aware that I have the right spouse for me. And then that same fuels me and allows me to do the crazy things that I do.

Yeah.

And most of it is for the family. That gig stuff, that's for the family too. That they sometimes don't think. So they. They wonder, you know, do you hate us? And that's why you do this. But when I have gone, you know, six, eight months without playing, they're the different person. Yeah. They're like, you need to. You need to get out. Like, I know.

Yeah. It's just like, you know, having to drive over the mountain to pick up the Polaris while your family is vacationing in Tahoe. And you. To do this, you get this.

You get the sideways look sometimes about that.

Yeah. Like, why are you doing this? You know, this kind of thing. So. Yeah. That is for sure. The right spouse is a force multiplier. And it's. It's, you know, you got to have the right teammate to make this stuff work. And sometimes I feel sorry for my wife. No doubt about it. Because, you know, it.

It.

Just because I'm comfortable with chaos, it. It doesn't mean she is. And she likes things regimented a certain way.

Yep.

And so I've gotten much better at my calendar and syncing up with her so she knows what's going on. Because stuff changes all the time. Our schedule. Like, normally we record Tuesdays or this or that we're hopping around and this. And so we've. We've trained each other to. Before we start dropping texts to each other or reaching out. Look at the calendar. Where's. Where's Renee at? What's her schedule today? Which. Shannon. Oh, Shannon's on the call for the next hour. So I. I know he won't be available or whatever. So that communication. And it blows my mind when I. And I have a lot of friends like this that don't have a family calendar, that don't share. I don't know how I would work.

I think we have. This is actually a good topic to talk about here. I know we're going to run a little longer than we normally do here, but we have four family calendars. Yep. We have one that we call family group, which is for an activity that all of us are participating in now.

Got it.

With, you know, the, The. The. The nest empty these days. It's rare that events go on that one. Right. For obvious reasons. But sure. Through when the kids were in high school and college. That made a lot of sense. Yeah. And then we have a family personal calendar, which is things that the family needs to know about, but only one person is doing.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yes.

Right. Like you got to know that I'm doing.

I'm not going to be there.

Correct. But you're not coming with me. This is just for you to know. And then. And then we have permutations of the family group calendar. We have one with my wife, my son and I, and one with my daughter, my wife and I. And, you know, that way we can kind of arrange things and it's all fine. But I can't.

Like you said, I couldn't imagine.

Dude.

And. And I use Calendly, which is.

Okay.

A service that allows other people to book your time.

Yep.

On your calendar. So that syncs up with. I have certain calendars that it checks first. So, you know, like. Okay. And I've run into trouble with that because all of a sudden something will pop up and I'll be like, what's this? You know, and so I've had. I've learned to put some pretty good rigid rules in place for. For other people to schedule my time.

Oh, yeah.

And you have to be really careful or you'll just, you know, you'll just burn your whole day.

But, oh, yeah, if you let people book your whole day. They will.

They will. That's right.

Of course. Because you. They don't know they can only see the one appointment they're putting on your calendar.

You got it. I used to have it wide open and leave it like, oh, every half hour, no problem. Until I was a few days in a row, I was just like, o, this is amazing. I can't. I can't. I can't do this. So definitely the great thing I love about Calendly is you can create different types of events and all these rules can interact together with. Okay, I'm only doing one free call per day, but I will do two paid calls a day. Whatever you want. You know, all these different rules, it's. It's great.

But that's pretty good.

Right, Calendar? Right Calendar. Right. Spouse embracing chaos and give more compliments. That's a good grab bag today for our first show of 2025.

Technically, not our first. It's the first one we've recorded since the new year.

Technically. 2nd yeah.

Yeah. Thanks for hanging out with us. Everybody. Please. Businessbrain show review. We would love that review from you. We request it even. We also request that you have a good couple of days and we'll see you on Friday. See ya on that Charmed Life.