Procrastination and A Business Brain for Kids

Business Brain, episode 474 for Casual Friday, August 11, 2023. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take an idea, maybe two ideas, and we analyze them, we crunch them, we dissect them, such that we are in the process of doing that, training our business brains together so that we can each keep living our charmed lives. Sponsors for this episode include Zinch, where you can go. And they will waive their $250 application fee for you as a Business Brain listener when you sign up at Financing that Works Dot com. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. Happy Friday, man.

Happy Friday. Yeah, it's always. Well, it's always Friday on Friday, isn't it? Yeah. Hey, so last episode, kind of the second half of Wednesday's episode, we were talking about this. Avoid it all costless, and the idea of focus and really, you know, being ruthless about staying on those five things on your list. I have a related question for you. This could be okay, the series that lasts us for the rest of the year, I'm sure. But we'll. We'll. We'll take five or seven minutes here on it and both talk about this. How do you manage procrastination?

Oh, dude, you can flip it around. How does procrastination manage you?

Well, there's that. Right. Maybe that's the right place to start, is figuring out, you know, how does it get its hooks into you? Like, what are the. What are the signs that you are procrastinating? Because awareness is. Is a big part of it.

Right. I'll tell you how I do it. And I don't proclaim that this is the right way, but it is.

We're all different. Yeah.

Yeah. It works for me. And part of that is I have. It's funny how you just focus thing. I do have good focus, but I have a lot of stuff going on.

Yes.

And so I do find I procrastinate just like everybody else, maybe even more. But what I find is if I have a number of projects in the works, if I start procrastinating on one, I often just roll into another thing, like, oh, you know, I don't want, like today. Okay. I gotta, you know, get these podcasts posted and get them all scheduled and everything else that we record. Do I need to do that all immediately? Or, you know, do I push it off and then I roll into another project? I've got to, you know, work on this thing and real estate stuff. So for me, having a bunch of different things going on, I still procrastinate, but I do feel that I'm still productive even if I do procrastinate. Does that make sense?

It totally does. I. I am ex. But I don't want to say I'm exactly the same way, but I'm exactly the same way. Right? Like, I have lots going on. I can always occupy my time by being productive with something. But to me, that still allows me to procrastinate other things. Right. And so, yeah, what I try to do is look at all right when. What am I. What am I choosing not to do? A K A, what am I avoiding? And the best. I noticed this yesterday. I was in. Yeah, I was in the flotation tank in the afternoon. It was a weird. Like, I was in a weird mindset for the float. I wasn't actually relaxed or anything. I was. I had a lot going on. It was. I. I thought about canceling the float, and then I realized I was too late to do it. I'm like, ah, screw it.

I'll just go. I can't. I can't do the float. Just so you know.

Okay.

I guess I get seasick after.

Really? Great.

Oh, brutal.

Yeah, just laying in the tank gets you seasick?

No, no, laying in the tank was great. I loved it.

Okay.

But when I got out, I was like, wow, this is so relaxed. I'm gonna book another one. And. Yeah, me wait. And everything I get. And on the way home, I started feeling kind of. Whoa. That's kind of strange. By the time I got to my house, I had to sit down on the couch and, like, not move with my feet down because my whole spatial awareness was messed up. And I felt like. I felt like I was on a boat and that I was seasick. Seasick for probably an hour and a half, 90 minutes or so, to the point where I don't think I can do the tank anymore anyway. I don't want to. I don't want to.

It's just interesting. Well, so I was in the tank and I. I was more, like, alert than I usually am in the tank. Usually. I'm. My goal is to, like, not think about. Like to let my thoughts sort of pass and not interact with them. That was not going to work for me yesterday. So I was just engaging with my thoughts. It's like, well, I'll just take what I have. You know, this is how my head is today. And it's fine. You know, I, I'm, I'm. I detached from everything. No one is interrupting me, so I'm just going to enjoy the time to think. And a few things popped into my head where it was like, oh, yeah, I really need to do that. Why am I like, I. And I know I've been avoiding that. I have plenty of other work to do. I can check off my list that I was super productive without doing these three things, but man, like, those things need to move the business forward. And I often find that it's the. I will procrastinate the working on the business stuff for being productive with the working in the business stuff. And I think it's. There's the fear of the unknown. Right? Working, working in the business is things I know that need to get done. I know how to do them generally. And, you know, I can like, solve those little problems and have lots of little wins. The working on the business, I could work on, on some way of expanding the business or pushing it forward for, you know, weeks or even months. And then in the end it was like, oh, actually that was, that didn't work out. Like, you know, it didn't work. So I think there's. It. Not always, but, but that happens. That's just how it, that's how that kind of, that's what that is. And so I, I. There's definitely fear of something. You know, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of success, which I think to. They're actually the same thing. Fear of success and fear of failure sort of feel like the same thing to me. So it's definitely being like making myself aware of, okay, wait, what didn't I do today? And maybe, maybe that's a practice I need to adopt. Not every day, but perhaps once a week. Looking and saying, okay, all that. Here are all the things I did this week. What are the things that I kicked, what cans did I kick down the road? And let's look, let's look myself in the eye about those cans and, and ask the question why? And often like yesterday in the tank was like, that was really stupid that I'm not sending that one guy this email that could change the, the nature of, of, you know, this one project we're doing dramatically. It's like, why am I not doing that? Well, because it could change the nature of this product project dramatically. It's like I'm afraid of change. Okay, great, fine. That's just a human thing. No problem. I'll send him the email. I know it's the Smart move. But those things happen automatically. Right. For me. And so I have to, I have to really be intentional about looking at it. And I, I think that that self.

Awareness is, is really important. I agree.

Yeah.

I, I like to mix short term and long term projects together because I find that on longer term projects I, I do, I can fall into this procrastination mode totally. If I have. Yeah. So if I have a. Like I've, I've shipped products my whole life, every day. And so even now that I'm, you know, not running a, you know, multiple businesses anymore that ship out stuff all over the world and thousands of orders, yada yada yada, even I still have one business that stuff ships every day. And it, I can stop. Okay. I got to make sure I get these shipments out. And even though it's, it's not about the amount of money that it makes, but it's just kind of this action thing.

Yes.

Makes me feel better. And then I go, okay, I'm done with this. I gotta, now I have to get back to my computer. I gotta work on this project. I gotta write another chapter in the book. I've got to do this, I gotta answer these emails. Stuff that's kind of squishy, if you will.

Yes, yes.

Takes. Yeah. So that, that, that mix of short and long term, it really helps me manage my procrastination.

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Yeah, I've been thinking about this because I, I got a long discussion about education and on Twitter and stuff and go back and forth about like public schools, government schools, private, this kind of stuff. And I started thinking a lot of I, my kids are older now, in their 20s, and much of what I see, how they react to things, their attitude, their optimism, I think much of it is based on their experience with us as business owners and using our business brains. So I thought we should talk about some of the ways I, you know, I think that we've helped tune their own brains using our business background and stuff. I think it, you know, might be helpful for people out there that have kids all along the age, you know, age range from little kids to adults.

I think there's. There's a lot of this. I mean, there's some intentional teaching. Right. That we as parents can do. But I think even. I don't want to say more valuable than that, but more common than that, and therefore more valuable simply because it happens more often is the. What I call the osmosis or the dinner table learning where your kids just hear you ranting about something or they, you know, you wind up talking about scenario would be it a problem or whatever, and you're just sharing your thoughts about it. And I first noticed this with my daughter when she was in middle school. We weren't really using our business brains. We were using our drummer brains. She was playing drums in the school band, and we would talk about.

How.

She approached things, and we wouldn't spend hours about it. It would be like four minutes here, 30 seconds there. Right? And she became very quickly the best drummer in this band. And it was a band of 110 kids. Like, she really had to learn how to drive this band and all this stuff. Yeah. And she did. And she, like, the. The band director was like, oh, this is so great, you know, and he said, it's so great that she's got you to teach her. I'm like, well, I mean, I. I've showed her some of the things I'm like, but she's learned, you know, that your band in your room. He's like, no, no. And. And he pointed out to me, he's like, think about what you're talking about at the dinner table. I'm like, oh, well, just talk about, like, oh, I noticed this thing that you did, and maybe try doing it this way, and then we move on, you know, but that those are the things that makes a huge difference. And I agree. And it's happened with business brains, too. In fact, I was talking to my daughter the other day, and she said, oh, guess what? You know, I was in this scenario. She's got this thing she's working out. It's a whole big fiasco. And she's like, I used the two tokens concept on them. She's like, I just freaked out. That, like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this is never going to work out. This is terrible. And they're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's not there. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. I'm like, oh, yes, yes, it's really good.

And. And they do get by Osmosis and you, you're leading by example. And one of the things you can do, I think that for your kids is managing your time. If your kids feel like they're second place to your business, that's they're going to keep that with them for a long time. If you're late all the time, if you don't get home for dinner, and I've been there, you know, you think, oh, I gotta just, I gotta stay another hour, I gotta get these things done. No, you don't. You can go back to work. Especially if they're little.

Especially if they're little.

Yeah, yeah. You know, get. When they go to bed, go back to work. You know, my wife and I started the entire business, you know, that way.

And so that's how we started deals on the web. I think we both were doing the same thing. We were both working after our kids went to bed.

Yeah. Ten to midnight, man, prime hours right.

There for me, it's like 11 to 2 in the morning, but still, you know, perfect.

Yeah, but, and as they get older, your kids aren't going to want to be around you during those times, so you get some more time. So opens it up. Yeah, yeah. Understanding that they're watching you. And then one of the things I always loved is talking, just like you said, talking about solving problems, issues that come up. A lot of people have this philosophy, you know, don't bring your business home, don't talk about it. But you don't want to come home and bitch and moan and complain about everything. But it's great to talk about how we fixed this problem, how this issue came up and did something about that. It's really great for your kids to talk about those things at the dinner table.

I, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, absolutely.

I think it's good we call it car talk here because we, you know, we travel a lot in the car. We wind up having these long discussions and I loved it. You know, it was really, it's really good. Yeah. The other thing I would say is employ your kids, put your kids to work in your business. You know, once they can do anything, get them involved. They, you know, they love it. You know, I've got photos of my kids in huge, you know, pallet sized boxes full of iPhones, sorting them by color and this kind of stuff, very simple stuff. But yeah, yeah, you know, they, they feel like they're contributing because they are.

Right.

You can pay them, you can pay them some cash, but you can also pay a lot into their future investment Accounts, you know, start a Roth 401k for them. Sure, Roth IRA. And just having them there like we picked up our kids after school and if they didn't have sports or before they got really into sports, you know, we, we'd bring them back and have them do stuff at the office, putting stickers on stuff, you know, I mean I could just tell you story. Once my daughter got old enough, my general manager, his kid came into and they tested DVD players for weeks. Yeah, we were buying, you know, consumer electronics. I think that's a real good thing to do. And one of the last things I, I would say there's a book we talked about a lot here on the show called the Slight Edge. The concept is, you know, you really only have to be like a few percentage points better to find success and to build wealth. And there's a, there's a Slight Edge for Teens book where kids talk about how they've implemented this Slight edge concept that I really like. And you know, you get an audiobook if your kid doesn't, you know, look to sit down in front of and read for long form stuff. But we'll put a link in the show notes. But everybody should read the Slight Edge and your kids should get exposed to it too.

Yeah, we have mentioned that before. I've never, I've never read it so maybe I need to change that.

So it's a really good book. Yeah, it's very basic but it just shows you step after step after step and example after example how if you.

Just do a little bit, a little bit more.

Yeah, yeah. It's not ground shaking, you know, earth shattering effort that's going to build you success. Most likely it's going to be this showing up every day, being on time, being early, you know, how do I help? I mean all these kinds of things like we talk about. But it's a great book and this one for teens is great because it's mostly just examples of other kids, how they've implemented the process. Check it out. Ah, I like and share your stuff. What do you do with your kids? You know, do you bring them to work? Do you talk about stuff at home? Is one of the pros and cons of it. You know, feedback at BusinessBrain Show. Tell us what you are out there, ask your questions, we'll feature it on the show. You could win a MacBook.

Absolutely. Yeah. Win a MacBook, send an email to feedback@businessbrain show. That's how it starts and then we go from there. Thanks so much for listening. Thanks so much for sharing the show with your friends who need to learn, want to learn and keep living that charmed life. We'll see you next week.