Time Flexing and Balanced Comparison

Business Brain, episode 460 for Friday, June 23, 2023. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain. Welcome back to Business Brain, where we tune our business brains together to help us ease each keep living that charmed life. Sponsors for this episode include notion.com businessbrain, where you can go and try notion projects for free, and checkr.com businessbrain, where you get 40 bucks off your first background check. We'll talk more about them in a minute. For now, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you?

I'm good. Yeah.

Happy Friday.

Happy Casual Friday, my friend.

Casual Friday.

Yes, yes.

Happy, happy. Good stuff.

Yes. I like Casual Friday. It's good.

Me too. Casually, I try to think or go ahead. Casually speaking.

I was going to say casually speaking. What's on your mind today?

Yeah, well, one of the things that just came to my mind is that I think one of the best things about being an entrepreneur, whether you're a solopreneur, whether you, you know, whatever you're doing, is oftentimes Friday and Monday can and maybe should feel like the same thing.

Oh, yeah. My Fridays, just because of my podcasting schedule, are usually a little different. My week sort of ramps into the end, but a lot of people get really excited about Fridays because it means they get to have the weekend. Fridays and Mondays don't feel the same to me. I look forward to Mondays. Those are my days where I get to be often my most productive. And I'm really excited about that. Like, I. I love Sunday night. I start, like, you know, champing at the bit a little bit. Like, oh, yeah, maybe I should look at my schedule for tomorrow or my task list or something. It's like, I do like, oh, yeah, I'll be able to get this done tomorrow. I'll be able to get this done. And. And that I. That was not an intentional thing that I did. It just worked out that way that I have Mondays where I generally don't have a lot of meetings. I'm now intentional about not booking a lot of meetings, but I don't have any recurring things scheduled on Mondays. And I love it. I really. What a great way to start the week, being excited about getting to work.

Absolutely.

There's so many people who are not excited about getting to work.

That's right. That's one of your superpowers.

It has become one of my superpowers. Yeah. I don't know what, like, for you, you said Fridays and Mondays can be the same thing. Describe that for us.

It's looking forward to both.

Okay.

And having the, having the power after many, many years of grinding things out, but having the flexible to, to flex your time. Right? That's like a flex. Yeah, flex my time. And then, you know, you can, you just can do whatever you want in that sense of. Well, I, I know I have to get this done, but I'm gonna go. Like, I. One of the things I really like to do, and it's kind of silly, but I enjoy going out for at 4 o' clock every day and taking my dogs and my wife and I, we go to the dog park and it's great. And on Fridays we do dog park happy hour and we have some people there and we have, you know, some food and maybe a beer or two. And it's great to be able to do it at 4 o'.

Clock.

That doesn't mean my day ends at 3:45 when I go, you know, jump in the truck to drive down the road. But we come back and then it's okay, it's about 5 o', clock, hey, let's meet up at 6:30 or 7 for dinner. And then oftentimes, even after that, it's like, hey, I've got another 45 minutes or so, I need to finish up projects. But you're in control of your time, your time flexing, showing your power of what you've been able to achieve. You know, whether you do it when you're 20 or whether you're, you know, in your mid-50s like I am. Took me a little longer, but I really value it. And I love that concept of, you know, Monday is awesome and we just, you know, you make the days perform the way you want them to.

I like that idea of, yeah, making the day. I like this. So are we then going to be considered guilty of flexing our ability to perform time flexing? All right, look, we know getting work done can feel impossible some days, especially if you're tracking tasks, writing docs, and setting goals in three different places. Right? You're all over the place. You're spending your time jumping from tool to tool. If this sounds like you, then listen up. Our sponsor, Notion, is an incredible tool that makes all of this so much easier and it helps us tune our business brains to make progress on our projects. And today I'm excited to share that they just launched Notion Projects, which includes new, powerful ways to manage projects and leverage the power of Notion's built in AI features too. Notion Projects combines project management with all your docs, your knowledge base and AI so you can stop jumping between tools and stop paying too much for them too. Notion allows you to do all of this in just one workspace. You've got brainstorming the drafting your launch plans, organizing sprints and keeping everyone on deadline. And it's super customizable. In Notion, you can view projects any which way. On top of that, Notion AI is there to help you automate all that tedious overhead like summarizing meeting notes or finding next steps. Do your most efficient work with Notion projects. You can try it for free today@notion.com businessbrain that's all lowercase letters. Notion.com businessbrain and when you use our link, you're supporting our show. So go right now to notion.com businessbrain and our thanks to Notion Projects for sponsoring this episode. Look, we talk all the time here on Business Brain about how one of the most stressful transitions you will ever make is from solopreneur to employer. You finally started making some money and now you're going to give it to someone else and somebody else is going to do some of the things that you used to do for your business. These are all good things. But. But it's stressful. There's all these variables to consider and are you getting the right person? This is why we are happy to have our sponsor Checkr here. They provide fast and fair background checks taking the stress out of hiring. With Checkr, you can access your online dashboard anytime to place an order, review results and make a decision. Checker makes it fast and easy to get comprehensive results. Plus, Checkr is commitment free with pay as you go pricing. I love this. Perfect for us small business owners, right? And Checkr's advanced tech and proprietary Data Network deliver 98% of nationwide criminal checks within one hour. And they have built in tools to help you stay compliant with the FCRA and local laws. So don't stress over the hiring process. Sign up for Checkr today. Right now, Checker is offering you, our listeners here at business brain, $40 off your first background check. Visit our special URL today and save that $40. Checker.com businessbrain that's the word check. Then the letter r.com businessbrain checkr.com businessbrain and our thanks to Checkr for sponsoring this episode. All right Shannon, what else is on your mind here on Casual Friday?

Yeah, yeah, that's. I have a lot to unload here, so. I've often said that comparison is the thief of joy. And how you shouldn't compare your competitors. Couldn't. Shouldn't compare yourself to other people. But. But I think I got it. I think I got it wrong.

Oh, and we've talked about this on the show. We've convinced ourselves that we're right about this.

Yeah.

But now we're going to convince ourselves we're wrong. I love it.

Yeah, there's a. I think there's a different way to look at it. And I've been developing this over time a little bit and been calling it balanced comparison because I just can't keep myself from comparing. I just can't do it.

It's human, man. It's normal.

I cannot practice what I preach. And so I thought, okay, how do I tune my brain? Change the framework here to make something. Make this a little bit more powerful. And I would say with balanced comparison, when you compare yourself to someone who you think is, quote, doing better or a business that's, you know, achieving more, I think you have to also turn around and compare yourself to the other side of things. And not in a bad way, like, oh, I'm better than this. I'm better. But to recognize what have I done that's gotten to me, where I am today. And because there's always going to be somebody wealthier, business that's bigger or doing something you want to do, but there's also a lot of people coming up behind you that haven't reached where you are, are yet. And it's important to recognize. And maybe, you know, part of that is, I know we're going to talk about mentors in an upcoming episode, but it could be that turning around and helping other people helps you manage that, that comparison. Because if all you compare yourself to is what's above you, who you think is doing better when you judge them from the outside, which is another mistake.

Yeah, you don't.

You don't know. Yeah, you don't know the inside story.

Right.

But that comparison is the thief of joy. And it can be a demotivator in the sense of I'm never going to catch up. I can't. You know, how come I haven't achieved what they are? How come I don't have a huge ad in a magazine or whatever you want to say, big ad.

I find the most valuable comparison. I certainly am guilty of those kinds of things. Like, you know, I try to suppress it as much as I can, but like you said, you fail at that sometimes, and it's okay. But where I. I find comparison can help is when I'm comparing Where I am versus where someone that is not that in my perspective in that moment. And it really is. All these comparisons have nothing to do with the other person. They're all about your perspective of where this person is. Right. You know?

Yes, that's right.

It's someone above you, someone below you. But when I realize that I'm comparing myself to someone that I currently perceive as, you know, less than me. And I don't mean as a person, but just, you know, it's not a negative thing, right? No, it's not a negative thing. It reminds me of, oh, wait a minute. Okay. I used to be there and look what I've achieved. It like builds me up and it's not pushing them down because I'm not telling them this. This is just happening in my head. And it's like, oh, yeah, right. You know, because I'm all. Because this balanced comparison is. Those comparisons help me balance out against. When I catch myself comparing to someone that I, again in the moment, in perceiving as being farther ahead than me, it's like, well, wait a minute, I'm way farther ahead than that person. But I used to be right there. So I know that I can be in that position because I've been there. And I work really hard to keep moving in the direction away from that. And so are they. Like, they're doing their thing too. Like, that's great. But it also means I can keep pushing forward and hit that ideal of whatever I perceive the person ahead of me to be. So, yeah, I like this idea because it is helpful and it shows you that you have done it. There's nothing more motivating than confidence, right? That's right.

It's almost like your TO did list.

It is like your to dead list. Yeah.

Yeah. If you don't know what that is, go up to Businessbrain show and search for TO T O D I D and you'll find it. But, you know, you. You get to look back a little bit and I. I've often heard people talking about, you should only compare yourself to yourself yesterday or whatever, a year ago or that kind of thing. I think that's helpful too. But I'm. I've. I've just started to remind myself when I'm. If I'm moving forward and I compare myself to something else, like you said that you think is better, stronger, you know, makes more money, whatever looks, you know, better website, yada, yada, yada. Look back as well and know that there are people trying to get where you are today. And a great way to overcome that is to, is to, you know, reach back and help those people and because it'll make you feel better as well. So it's, it's an interesting concept. Balance comparison. I'd love some feedback on it. Feedback. BusinessBrain Show Let me know what you think if I, if you think I'm just, you know, making this stuff up on the fly or you think it's.

Good, you've turned me around on this. I mean, it's, you've showed me that I've been doing it and I think we all do it. But the being aware of it and having this conversation, you know, five minutes of conversation is sometimes the most valuable, right? Because it's, it's just that that perception shift of, oh, wait a minute, like this is working out, huh? It's good. It's good. Again, like he said. Feedbackusinessbrain Show Come and let us know what you think about this. Share your thoughts about lots of different things. We're here. We're all tuning our business brains together. Checker.com businessbrain notion.com businessbrain keep living that charmed life. And hey, have a great weekend. We'll see you next week.

Hey, before you go, I have a quick suggestion for you about a previous episode of Business Brain. For this one, we go all the way back to 2016 for a discussion about some of our best interviews from that year. You'll find links to interviews with incredible business owners who have shared their successes and their failures with us. And these are people just like you that have powered through adversity to build their companies. This is episode 99 with links to eight of our favorite business owner interviews. There's some real gold here for you you to mind. You can search for the number 2016 at BusinessBrain show or check the show notes for a link to this episode.