More Confidence = More Freedom with Denise Gosnell

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're going to learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about an interesting form of confidence. And you might not even really think of this as confidence. Maybe you think of social confidence or being able to talk to people or connect with others, but, you know, confidence goes way beyond our social abilities and social confidence. And I love highlighting different types of confidence, whether it is confidence in dating and relationships, confidence in our physical health. You guys have heard me talk a lot about that in this show, as well as confidence in our work, confidence in our career, confidence in our career trajectory, the sense that we can accelerate, we can grow, we can start to steer our lives more and more. And I see this all the time with people that are in my longer, you know, year long or more coaching programs where at first it's like I just want to feel comfortable around people. I just want to be able to make better eye contact and feel more solid in myself. But soon what starts to happen is people say, wait a minute, you know, I've been in this place in my career for a long time and I'm afraid to speak up or I'm afraid to take bold action or I'm afraid to make a change. And that is one of the beautiful benefits of confidence is a growing experience of freedom to start to steer your life more and more. And one area that's so important for all of us is in your work. Whether you work for another company, your careers in that front, or you run your own business or you want to run your own business. And I'm excited to have a guest today who is an expert in helping people in their careers and in running their own businesses and particularly becoming more of a master of your own choice and time, how you allocate time and how much of the way that we use time is actually not because they make me or I have to do it. That's where I was operating from before I met her. In a lot of ways still, but to actually come from a place of choosing your life, so you're going to learn a ton. I've actually had the privilege of working with Denise as one of her private clients and helping me learn how to, as she puts it, run my business rather than having my business run me. So let me share a little about Denise and then we're going to welcome her in. So Denise Gosnell is a speaker, author, attorney, strategist, and seven figure entrepreneur. She owns three different companies, including one of her companies, which is called the Vacation Effect, which is a coaching and training company. And she focuses on helping busy entrepreneurs learn some unconventional ways to become hyper efficient and take more time off so they can grow their business even faster and have a lot more fun. And she believes that American business culture, which we talk a lot about in this episode, which is grind, grind, go faster, go faster. She believes that's wrong. And she teaches entrepreneurs and achievers how to grow faster by subtracting, not by adding more from their to do list. So, so many things we're going to get into in this interview. So glad to have you here. Welcome to the show, Denise.

Thank you so much for having me, Aziz. It's great to be here.

Yeah, I'm excited. This is a long time coming. And as I mentioned a little bit more in the intro, my work with you has profoundly affected my life. And so anytime I'm learning and growing actively from someone, I think if there's a way that my audience can as well, I think that's an absolute win, win, win. So let's start by just unpacking this term Vacation Effect. Because when I heard that, I was kind of like, I don't know about that, but what sold me was freedom, you know, Cause you're a big proponent of how you can free your life up in so many ways. But I didn't, you know, the vacation effect was a new thing that I hadn't heard before. So maybe you can share a little more about that vacation effect, what that means and how that relates to freedom.

Yeah, so the Vacation Effect is a term that I actually came up with. And, you know, it's a registered trademark of mine because it came out of me having two big realizations. So it actually has a double meaning. And the first meaning is that I believe that every human being, entrepreneur or not, you know, regardless of your where you are, you're at in your life, I believe every human being has the right to have so much joy in their life that life feels like a Perpetual vacation. And so that's one part of what I mean when I say the vacation effect is just having a life that keeps getting better and better. Now, that doesn't mean you don't have ups and downs, you know, along the way. Life happens. We've all been through those ups and downs. Right. But it just. Life should always be a new, a better version than what it was before. And then the other side to that is the big realization that I had as an entrepreneur, and that was that, you know, how. Well, actually, this applies when you. When I had jobs working for corporate America, that. I don't know if you've noticed this before, and, you know, you and I have talked about this before that how right before you get ready to go on vacation, you're like this powerhouse machine of getting stuff done, and you get like a month's worth of work done in the two days before you leave. I'm sure you've experienced that before, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And it's like. So I really, I've analyzed what's happening when that actually happens. It's like, why is it that right before we go on vacation, we get so, so much done right before we leave? And so that's another meaning for. It's that forced hyper efficiency. It's like, you know, you're not going to be available, so you force yourself to focus on what really matters, get it done quickly, and eliminate all the crap that probably shouldn't have been on your list anyway. And that's a term that I call forced hyper efficiency. Like you're forcing yourself with circumstances to make yourself more efficient. So that's another part of what I mean by the vacation effect. It's that forced hyper efficiency that you get right before you go on vacation that allows you to then make that a way of life. And by making that a way of life, you can live life like a perpetual vacation. So it's a tricky double meaning to it. I hope that makes sense.

Yeah. And I mean, it has like a productivity side to it and a lifestyle side to it.

Exactly. And I totally made it up from my own life experiences because I wanted more freedom as an entrepreneur and I wanted to live a life that felt like a perpetual vacation. And hence the vacation effect was born.

Yeah. So let's start with that one because I'm sure people listen like, wait a minute. Perpetual vacation? Like, when I think vacation, I think, you know, it depends on where someone is in their. In their life and who's involved in their life. Maybe for them it's like, you know, Marguerite is on a beach with my sweetheart or maybe someone else. It's, you know, go take my kids somewhere. But they sort of see themselves away from work and sort of away from all the troubles and the worries and the stress. And so maybe you could unpack that a little bit. Like, what is a life that's like a perpetual vacation look like and feel like.

Yeah. So one of the things that I realized is, I realized it after I lost everything in a fire, that what really matters is how we live our lives today. Like so many of us say, someday maybe when I have more money, I'll do this thing. You know, I'll travel more. Someday when I have more time, I'll volunteer at more charities. Like we all have those things. And I call them the someday maybes. And what I realized after my fire is that someday is not a day of the week. Like, if. Are we really ever going to get around to those things if we don't make time for ourselves, you know, right here, right now to do it, if it's really important, it's time to kill the someday maybe. You know, when I say kill the someday maybe, I mean make it where it's not a someday maybe anymore. Either bring it into now and make it actually happen or quit kidding yourself and actually delete it from your list and quit telling yourself that. And now people might be saying, well, that's great, Denise, but I don't have the money to travel on that thing. I've been saying forever, but there's some version of that you could do today. I challenge anybody to present me with something that they couldn't do, some version of it today to where it's no longer a someday maybe. So there's a lot to unpack there. But that's. Any questions about that or comments about that so far?

Yeah, I mean, what's standing out is people might think this is about work, this discussion. And yes, it definitely relates to work or if you run your own business to that. And though it's really about living your life fully and I think you're highlighting something that's extremely prevalent, which is we as humans can. Can push living off or what we really want to do off, or the opportunities we want to pursue or the actions we want to take or anything, we can push it off and we use this very man. It's this tricky self deception of someday, someday I'm going to do that. Maybe I'm going to do that. And it sort of feels like we're in this. Well, I'm deciding on it, or I'm thinking on it, or I'm waiting for the right time, as if it's a very methodical or well thought out plan. And it's not. We're just living in a bit of a. Afraid to really step up, I think. And that's what I've seen in some of the work that we've done together, because I've done coaching with you for a while now, and that's often the case for me. In fact, one of the someday maybes I had, well, there's the structure of time in my business. We'll talk about that in a minute. But just from a purely activity perspective, I remember I had this, you know, you said, what would you do with more free time? What do you really want to do with your time? And I came up with this list of someday maybes. And one of them was, I want to go on a, you know, road trip with my family. And I didn't have. We didn't have one scheduled. You know, it was like, oh, yeah, someday we'll do that road trip. And it was like, why? What are we doing? Let's like schedule that. I was like, oh, but I'm away from work for 10 days. Like, I don't know about that. And then when you schedule the someday maybe, even if it was months out or something now, you're confronted with the fears that are underneath or the guilt or whatever it is. And I think that's what's so powerful about your work, is it has people take their someday maybes off of that future fantasy shelf and really pull them into the now or some version of them into the now or the soon scheduled, and then really act on your life rather than having it reside in this future fantasy.

Exactly. And you articulated so beautifully what it means to me to live your life like a perpetual vacation. You shouldn't wait until you go on vacation or until you're in retirement to do those things you keep telling yourself you've always wanted to do. There's a version of them you can do today, right here, right now. And everyone can live the vacation effect lifestyle. By the definition of what I mean by it. It doesn't mean you don't work and it doesn't mean you don't have challenges. But I believe you should be doing something every single week that you might normally only do on vacation or in retirement. Like for you, you did the family vacation, you do the rock climbing with your boys, the guitar that you started doing, and then you found that you didn't like it the way you thought you might, but you found this new version that you did like. You would have not known that had you not tried it, right?

Yes. And I think that's, you're highlighting some of these very, you know, these small things that might not seem that significant, I think are because when we look at the quality of our life, it can come down to a lot of things, but primarily we look at, it's our emotion, it's our attitude, it's our perspective and then it's also our life circumstances. But really our outlook matters more because we can have great life circumstances and feel in a crummy mood or everything looks bad or I don't like this. What really matters is what we're experiencing day to day. And a large part of that is our emotion and our perspective. And a large part of that is, well, what is your day focused on? What do you get to do? And so if someone's day feels like it's all pre planned for them, decided by somebody else, external structure imposed upon you, it's probably for most people going to be hard to feel good in that. Whereas if you start to say, what do I really want to do? What do I enjoy? And you face whatever's in the way of deciding that stuff can unlock. So for example, one thing, working with eu Denise, it was like, what would I do? And I was getting into going to this bouldering gym and now consistently I go one day a week in the afternoons during the workday horror. And then one day, I don't know, we'll go with my boys and they usually, they join me for at least one of those, but sometimes two of those. And it is, it's delightful. And so if you got like, oh, you know, on Tuesday afternoon I'm going rock climbing, it just, it changes the whole experience. And if someone's listening to this and like, oh, I can't take off Tuesday afternoon. Well, what about Tuesday evening? You know, whatever it is in your schedule, I'm going to challenge everyone listening to say, like, what are those someday maybes, those things that one day you're going to do? How can you move that forward? In fact, maybe you could share a little bit more about that. Denise, how do you help people with that process? Because I know for me there was a lot of emotion underneath fear and guilt that I wasn't even confronting directly until I started to work with you.

Yeah, it's actually a huge issue in our business society that we as a, especially in North America, we've been brainwashed by society into thinking that you have to work all the time and that you're somehow lazy if you take too much vacation or if you take time off at 2 o' clock in the afternoon to, you know, go with your son or, you know, go rock climbing or whatever the case is. And of course, you know, when you're an employee, that's not always as easy. But I can share, if you'd like, some ways that I even negotiated those kinds of things as an employee. But the bottom line is that our culture is so focused on like work, work, work. I call it the grind mentality that we've been conditioned as a society to feel guilty for doing things like that. And it is a big problem to help entre entrepreneurs and people that work for corporate America and other jobs to unwind from. Because it is so deep. And I didn't realize it until I was faced with losing everything in my own fire, that that was when I realized what was really happening. And I'm just so blessed that I actually learned that the hard way that I'm on a mission to help other people. Wake up to this fact and ask yourself this big question. And it is, if you can get as much done in three days as you used to in five, or in four days or five days as you used to in six or seven, should you feel guilty about that? No, I think you should be celebrated. Right. If you can get more done with less time, I think the focus should be in our society with our companies and with our employers on results, not hours expended. Especially with the day of technology that we're in today and automation and ideas and transmission of ideas and communication. Like why are we still focused on working 8, 60 to 80 hours a week or expecting our employees to do that for us? It's just crazy. But we don't realize how deep rooted in our society it is.

Yeah, I think that's a really key point. Right. It's not necessarily a matter of practicality or we have to do this to function. It's really a cultural thing. It's a perceptual thing. And I think like any cultural norm or rule, if we don't follow it, we can feel scared or guilty or bad. And I think that's what's driving a lot of that. And so with the, that, that internal pressure, I think, what do you think's going on there? Maybe you could share a little more about your experience, because it sounds like you were living that. And then was it truly the fire that like kind of was this Huge wake up call. Maybe you could share a little more about that or was it, was it kind of a sea change that was already happening and you. And you woke up during the fire experience or afterwards? Can you share more about what the experience was and how the process for seeing differently came for you?

Yeah. So what the start of it all was, it started with the fire, but then there was more I had to unpack after that to really get to the bottom of this problem. But as the fireman that knocked on my door, we didn't know we were on fire. And they knocked on my door on June 20, 2011. We're coming up on the 10 year anniversary as of the date that we're recording this. And they knocked on my door and said, what do you want us to retrieve in the next five minutes before your house is destroyed by fire and water? Because water destroys as much of the house as the first of all.

That is, that is a crazy. I've heard you tell this story before, but this is this, that's just a crazy moment. Like, so how are they there? Your house is on fire. You don't, you don't know it. And they get there first. How did that happen?

Yeah, my neighbor called 911 because we were struck by lightning and they thought they were struck by lightning and they heard the boom. So our phones were dead. We weren't able to call 91 1, but so the neighbor calls the fire department, pulls up my house, there's flames coming from my house and they knock on our door. But can you imagine having that question asked? Not only did I not know I was on fire, but it's like, what do you want us to retrieve? And this was my dream house. Aziz. It was like a home, a Rama award winning house, best of show, you know, had the dance FL and the multiple stall bathroom in the basement and beautiful murals all over the walls, artwork. You know, it's a, you know, it's a gorgeous dream house. Like 7,000 square foot house. It was like, you know, the millionaire dream home. You know what I mean? It was like what I'd ever wanted and everything I'd ever wanted in my life. Yet when it was burning, I stood there and I reflected on how I had answered their question. And if you'd like, I'm happy to share quickly how I had answered their question of what I wanted them to retrieve.

I would love to hear that. And before we do that, I want to ask one other question. So you're in this dream home. Rewind. A month before this Moment with the fireman on the doorstep, you know, or two months before that. Somewhere in that range, you're in the dream home. Are you. How are you experiencing life? Are you fulfilled? Are you engaged? Are you frustrated? Are you depressed? Are you excited? What is your overall experience of life in this dream home?

So at that time, I had two different companies. My law firm and then my husband. I have a real estate company. And at that moment, I was incredibly frustrated with my law firm. Like, I'm a happy person. Like, I have a happy disposition. But deep down, I wasn't happy with my career. I was making a ton of money doing work I absolutely hated. So that's the short answer.

Yeah. And I think that's so powerful to highlight. Right. Because the glamour in our culture and the subconscious message that we all receive is like, dream home equals happiness. Dream home. You know, money equals awesome. And, you know, it's just highlighting something so powerful there, which is. It's really more about how we live our lives and how we show up and also what really matters, which kind of brings us back to that moment. So they say, you know, what do you want us to grab in the next five minutes? Which is basically saying, what really matters to you? And what did you say?

Yeah, so I answered them. Things that were all sentimental, like my daughter's stuffed animal bunny. She was five at the time. My wedding photos that I only had, like, on the piano in frames, not digitally, because that was so long ago, 25 years ago at that time. And so it was all sentimental stuff. And what was so interesting to me was what I didn't have them retrieve. I didn't have them retrieve the jewelry and the artwork that I got in Italy and all the expensive fancy stuff, because at the end of the day, that stuff is just stuff. It can be replaced. It's not what defines us. Yeah, I like it, but I don't have to have it. It doesn't define what's in my heart. It doesn't define the people that really matter to me and the memories that really matter to me. And that's what I had them retrieve because that was what was priceless. The people and the memories.

Yeah, I think that's powerful. And we can think that the purpose is to work a lot or to grow wealth. And it's sort of this accumulation mindset. The more I accumulate, the better I will be, the better I'll feel. And I think there's something much more meaningful and profound, which is these relationships, the connections that matter. So you had this experience very Dramatic. So did your house completely burn down.

Or do they say that? No, basically, about 20% of it was destroyed by fire, and the other 80% was destroyed by water. So we had to find.

We saved your house from the fire. That's the good news. The bad news is we destroyed it with water.

Yeah, that's what happens during a fire. That's why you only want to call the fire department if you're ready for a loss, if you're ready for it to all go down in water. It's interesting. I learned that.

Yeah, I didn't know that we even.

Had a fire at our new house with furnace caught fire, and my husband and I put it out ourselves. We did not call the fire department because we're like, we don't want to ruin much stuff. We'll put it out ourselves. Like, didn't go very far. But I'm not telling people not to call the fire department just as a legal disclaimer, but if you just have a little basket that's on fire, put it out yourself. Unless it's, like, spreading. You know what I mean?

That's right. That's right. Well, it's same kind of thing, you know, if you got a small, small thing going on, maybe you can handle it without getting the police involved. And, you know, these things escalate when we get the help. And. And it makes me wonder about, huh. I don't know if we even have any fire extinguishers in our house. So it makes me think about these things. But, okay, so then you have this, you know, loss of this home that you spend so many years accumulating all the things inside of it. And then tell us about that shift of perspective, that transformation of how you maybe were approaching your life after that.

Yeah. So as I stood in my neighbor's garage watching them for eight hours put out the fire. It's raining, and the firemen are putting the fire out. I literally said to myself, how can I make this the greatest thing to ever happen to me? And I basically gave myself that pact that I will find a way to make this the greatest thing to ever happen to me. And I also stood there looping over how I had answered the question, like, feeling guilty about, or really not feeling guilty, but realizing that I had worked all those years to pay for all that stuff that I didn't care about when it was burning, but also realizing and reconciling internally that it's also okay to want a nice life for your family. They're not at odds with each other. But they were with me in the past. I felt like you had to choose either time with your family or money, but you couldn't have both. And that day, I vowed to myself that I'd figure out how to have both. But if I ever had to choose again, I would never choose time over money. I would not pick money first like I had in the past. But that day, I was like, okay, I'm going to figure out how I can have both. All the free time I want and also enough money to have a comfortable living for my family, but only doing things that I actually enjoy no longer doing work I don't enjoy. So it's kind of. There was a lot buried there, so I didn't immediately have it all figured out. I just had made the deal with myself that I was going to. And no matter what, even if I had to just take a huge pay cut and never have that kind of income again, I was prepared to do that because that's what really mattered at the end of the day is our family and our memories. But that's what led me down this path of figuring out how to have both. And that's how I stumbled onto the vacation effect. Yes, I actually did a little. I went to a meditation retreat that led me to where it was all born.

Wow. I want to highlight one thing in there, which is you're standing in your neighbor's garage watching them put out the fire and destroy the house. And in that moment, your resolve to say, how can I make this the greatest thing that ever happened to me? That's standing out to me because that is an atypical, extraordinary response to an adversity or to a loss. That's something that some people will never get to, or maybe they'll get to that after, you know, a long time, sometimes, you know, months or years of soul searching and resisting. And so to me, that's like. It's like instant surrender to something bigger and then finding a. You know, finding your. Your will to create. Is that something you'd been cultivating for a long time before then, or. Or how did. How did that come about, would you say?

Yeah, I've always been a very positive person where I always find the silver lining. Like, there's always a silver lining if you just look for it. So that's one of those that has just kind of always come naturally to me in my sunny disposition. But I've actually cultivated it even more since then. Once I realized that, how transformative that was to my life to ask that question, how can I make this the greatest thing to ever happen to me. That question is the second most powerful question I've ever been asked in my life. The first most powerful question was the one the fireman asked me on what it was I wanted them to retrieve for me, because it made me realize what really mattered to me. People and memories and not stuff. The second most powerful question, though, is then, how can I make this crappy incident the greatest thing to ever happen to me? And now I use that all the time. Whenever something really bad happens that I'm not happy about, you know, whether it's, you know, pandemic or, you know, a family member dying or whatever the case is, it's like, how can I make this be something different than it is right now? And what does that criteria look like? And I even have a worksheet that I work with my clients on, on that I had shared with you as well, the Transform Friction into Freedom exercise. And it has you lay out the criteria for what was it that happened and what would it take? What five or ten things would it take to make this something that would no longer become a crappy, crappy thing? If these things happened, it could become one of the best things to ever happen to me. It doesn't take away from the pain. It just transforms the pain into something else. Transforming friction into freedom.

Yes. I love that there's so much to learn in that story. So let's look at one of the things that you teach is that it's possible to reclaim time and become more efficient. And so this idea of grind, grind, grind, that's not a necessity. There's a smarter way, and you guide people to do that, which is what led me to work with you. And one of the early things that you had me do was to choose. Well, you suggested two days in a week, and you said to take two days and don't work in your business on those two days and condense your work week down to three days. And it was funny because I hired you as a coach to help me with that. And then, of course, it's like, what? Impossible? So I believe I talked you down to one day, and I said, okay, I can't do two days, but I can do one day. And, you know, because there's. There's so many things I'm doing. I'm working with clients, and I'm sure this is everyone listening who's busy in their professional life has that same story, right? I got this and I got that. I'm doing this and that and that. Are you crazy? It's not even enough. There's not even enough time in five days or six days or however much someone's working. And I'm sure you see that all the time. And yet your claim was like, well, you need to. You need to set it up as an experiment, and you need to run it for a certain period of time and that the other way doesn't come first. You set the fence, the parameters to work within, and you'll find a way. And I'd love for you to share more about that process, how you see that with me and others that you've worked with and why you do it that way.

Yeah. So I'll bring us back full circle, if that's okay. And I was talking about how after the fire, I decided that I was going have the schedule I've always wanted, but also the income I've always wanted. So I was still several years after the fire trying to figure it out. I would always, if I took off more time, my income would suffer. If I, you know, worked more, I'd have more income, but then I wouldn't have time with my family. So I, you know, that was not going to work for me. So I went to this meditation retreat, and we were supposed to come with one question in our mind that we wanted answered. And the question I went with was, how can I have the dream schedule that I've always wanted without sacrificing my income? That was the question that I posed. How can I have my someday maybe? I used to say, someday, maybe I'll only work Monday, Wednesdays, Fridays, and I'll have Tuesdays and Thursdays off. That was the dream. That was my big someday maybe. So this meditation retreat, it was like God whispering in my ear when I asked that question, laying out on the grass this chilly day in Boulder, Colorado. And it's like God saying, denise, all you have to do is decide and make today what you want tomorrow to be. That was what I heard in my ear. And I'm like, okay, well, I don't know if God's telling me that my higher self or angels or where that's coming from, but you know what? I'm willing to try it. I'm terrified to make it my new schedule. Like you said, three days a week. When I suggested that to you, you're like, heck, no, I can't do that. But let's, you know, let's figure out what we can do. So what I've learned is that that moment I decided to do a time experiment, and I'm like, you know what? I. It won't kill me for 30 days to try out this dream schedule and see what happens. So what I did. And I have my own company, so I could do this more easily than if I worked for someone else. But you can still do it even if you work for someone else in a different way, which I can talk about if we have time. But I. So I set the schedule. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for 30 days. I had to rearrange some meetings and, you know, push anything that was on Tuesday or Thursday to a different day, because the goal was to wake up on those days and say, what do I want to do today that'll bring me joy? Like on those Tuesdays and Thursdays? That's freedom days have nothing planned, nothing scheduled, you know, and just see what made me happy. But you know what was interesting, Aziz? What happened to me at first was I was. It was difficult. Like. Like you said this. I realized how deep this American grind is that I was talking about at the beginning of our chat. It was like I felt guilty. I'm like, well, wait a minute. I should be working right now. And so I was feeling guilty on my freedom days, but I was starting to enjoy the time that I hadn't taken in years. Since I was a kid, I hadn't taken that kind of time to just ask myself, what do I want to do today that'll make me happy? What do I want to play? What do I want to do today? You know, not work related. And so that part was really great. But then the guilt. Oh, the guilt was crushing. And then I'm like, wait a minute. This is interesting. I need to start turning that voice down because is it really true that if I can get. As if I can figure out how to get as much done in three days, is there really anything for me to feel guilty about? And I started debunking the lie that we've been taught. It's like, no. If I can figure out how to get as much done, there is nothing to feel guilty about. So I started focusing on that. I'm like, okay. So I stuck with it for week two, week three, week four, and long story short, I ended up getting better and better every week to where I realized where I was wasting time. I started delegating more to my team. I started getting out of their way. I said no more often to things I really didn't want to take on anyway, that I used to say yes to that we all know we don't want to do it, but we say yes anyway, and then we regret it. And I just started forcing myself to be a lot more productive. And it ended up. It worked. After the end of 30 days, I decided to do another 30 day experiment. And. And after that, I extended it another 30 days. And before I knew it, it became a way of life. But the key was I gave myself permission to experiment without having all the answers. And that was key. And that was also key in getting you to do it, was just giving yourself permission to experiment and not making you commit to it for the rest of your life. And as you may recall, I got you to commit to two days. One day in the business. Like, the day we're now recording this podcast on is one of your freedom days in the business where you do your creative days and what you love in your business and then your Friday free time with yourself and your family. I got you to commit to the two days, but you're like, but I'll do. Only do it. You know, I suggested, well, how about the compromise of doing one in the business and one on yourself? And you're like, okay, I can justify that. Not like we have to justify anything, but we do, right?

Sure. There's all these, like, unspoken, unacknowledged stories and fears and pressures that get rooted out by that really simple behavior. It's like, okay, set the stakes in the ground, claim that schedule, implement for a month, and then see what happens. And then you get to kind of root out all the stuff underneath. And for me, definitely the top layer was just pure fear. Like, if I'm not constantly moving the ball down the court, death and ruin is around the corner. Some sort of survival energy, right? You know, that's in the background. So there was that layer. And then I was like, okay, I'm willing to, you know, let's test that out, right? Because I knew it was irrational on some level, so I was willing to test that. Then I got it into kind of some of the next layers of guilt, right? This guilt of, okay, I need to have to be working? And the guilt wasn't just purely like a. Some sort of puritan work ethic. It was more like fairness. Like, oh, is it, you know, is it easier for me than for my wife if I'm more of a leisure time, you know, she's with the kids and doing this and that. Maybe my day is too easy. So this is guilt that started to sort of bubble up. But, man, like anything like, you know, we talk about on the show a lot. Yeah, fear comes up when you're gonna put yourself out there, take a bold action. But the solution is not to avoid that action. The solution is to do what scares you until fear has no power to stop you. Because like anything else, a bold action, you know, when you start to run that experiment, it. For me, it changed a lot in the business because I was like, I had to be different in many ways and run things differently. And one thing that it really opened up for me and you sent me a book which I've only listened to the first chapter of. And yet the title alone has been so powerful that I've been consistently applying it, which is who, not how. And you know, you mentioned the delegation to a team. And I feel like through my work with you, it starts. It's like, okay, if this is my time frame, it can't be me doing all this stuff. It needs to be a we, it needs to be a team. And I'd known that for a while, but this forced me. It just really put the choice really clearly. It's like, okay, I can keep doing it all myself, or not all. I had help already at that point. But more than I need to, I could keep doing more than I need to myself, or I can enforce this schedule. And then I don't want to scale things down because I have a big mission and I really feel called to reach and inspire and connect and support a lot of people in the world. So I don't want to sacrifice that. So the other option is get other people involved. And I think that's a huge component. So maybe you could share more about that. Because people have a fear of getting others involved and support and finding people.

Yeah, well, and what you just said there is so powerful about having the confidence to experiment. Because I know you're a world renowned expert on confidence. It's like, really, after I lost everything in my fire, I realized I can do anything. I can survive being homeless. I mean, I had insurance money, but I still was physically homeless. So, you know, it's like I learned what that was like. And it's like, I can do anything now. It was freeing. So once you know that no matter what happens, you're gonna be okay. Like, even if we all lost it all today, we're in, you know, especially in North America and, you know, other than in third world countries where that might not be the case, you know, the majority of the world's population would be okay, even if the worst thing you could imagine would happen. And once you really let that set in, you know that you have the confidence, you can have the confidence to experiment with these things and keep making your life even better. And so you know, people can start by just giving yourself permission to experiment with a new way and know that it's okay. You don't have to commit to it for the rest of your life, but have the confidence to know that it's okay to do this experiment. It's okay to ask my boss for better work hours because I want to have time for my family. For example, when I was an engineer for EDS and Microsoft, I had negotiated a reduced work schedule with eds, which is now owned by Hewlett Packard hp. And I was a great engineer. They were lucky to have me. And I negotiated a four day workweek. I did four 10 hour days. And I wanted time for. At that point I was in law school. But I negotiated it because I was valuable to them and I focused on how valuable I was and how lucky they were to have me. I did it in a non cocky way, but in a confident way. Right. There's a fine line between the two. You do it politely, professionally, but with confidence. And you can negotiate work from home schedules, you can negotiate all kinds of schedules even if you work for someone else. And if you're an entrepreneur, the only thing standing in your way is your own head and your own willingness to try it. But at the same time, it does run deep on the brainwashing and the, the learning to turn down the guilt. And that's what's so helpful, to have someone else to brainstorm with and hold you accountable. Like what Aziz and I did for each other in this example. So I don't know if I answered the question you were asking, but that was the. Where I took that.

Well, no, and it's so important because I've seen that a lot with clients when we are focusing on confidence at work, career confidence. And there's. We will. Well, we can do this in all relationships, intimate personal friendships, family, and of course all the relationships at work, whether it's with the colleagues, with the supervisors, with employees. We can kind of default or settle. We can regress to a certain way of being with people that creates confining circumstances and we blame it on the other people. And so often I've seen this again and again is if you have the confidence to claim what you want and then go skillfully ask for it, you can get so much more than what you've settled for. I see this again and again and again and again. And the first problem is that people do not even ask themselves these questions that you're putting forward Denise, like, what do I really want? What is my ultimate schedule? And people are like, well, what's the point of asking for it because I'm not going to get it anyway? You know, they just sort of defeatist, kind of learned helplessness. But no, like, force the question, what do I really want? What do I want the time for? What do I? And framing it that way was so powerful for me because it's like saying I want more money or I want more time is kind of a vague, pointless thing. Because it's like, well, for what? Because otherwise, then it's just this insatiable hunger for more. But it's like, well, what do I want the time for? What do I want the money for? And as soon as you start to focus on that, you get way better answers. And so I encourage people listening, whether you run your own business or you work for someone else, like, what is my ultimate schedule? What do I really want? And then, great, now it's that next step that you're describing, which definitely comes from a place of confidence, which is knowing your value, owning the value you bring to a company, and then from that place saying, hey, because people are scared to ask, right? They're like, oh God, they're gonna get mad at me and fire me for asking. It's like, wait a minute. Really own what you bring. And then, you know, even if you don't get everything you ask for, you can definitely negotiate a lot in this day and age and really start to open up. I mean, heck, things really changed, you know, last year with COVID and everything. But I'm imagining that being able to negotiate depending on the field and the job and the career for a lot of people, being able to negotiate at least a part of partly from home schedule, when things are more back in person is going to be a much more doable thing now, given that this. So just small little things like that can be claimed no matter what your circumstances are. I love how you show that to us. And you've done that yourself, so you're leading the way.

Yeah. And it's so interesting too, and the way that you do that. Every job I ever worked before I became an entrepreneur, that's exactly what I was doing instinctively. I got partners at companies and executives at companies to give me stuff they'd never given anyone else. And here I am this young 20 something, young 30 something before I became an entrepreneur, getting them to give me things no one else had gotten. And it was because of the way I framed it. I'VE just always had this ability to learn what mattered to my employer at the time. And the focus on, if I can deliver you that thing that my job, you know, like, that you would be thrilled with me. If I did X, then I want Y in return. So that's how I got the schedule I wanted. That's how I got, you know, the autonomy that I wanted, you know, the ability to all kinds of things, whatever I wanted in any particular job I was ever in. You focus on giving them this result that if they. If you get them that result, they will be thrilled to let you have that outcome that you want. Like, for example, if you're a salesperson and you say, you know, if I get you X million in sales this quarter, then I want to be able to work remotely. You know, what do you think they're going to say no to? That you just made X sale, you know, X million in sales, and you're saying, I only want to do it three days a week and I want to do it from this location, Blah, blah, blah, blah, done. But you're saying, look, when I get you X, will you give me Y? You're delivering in advance. They don't have to commit until you've delivered. That was the key to me getting everything I wanted when I worked for somebody else. Now when I became an entrepreneur, it was me having to take that approach with myself and say. Or take the approach with myself and say, how can I design my business around my life instead of my life around my business? So I start with, like, what you were talking about a minute ago. What are those someday maybes that I've got? What have I always wanted to do? What schedule do I really want if money is no object? And then how can I build a business around that? And then the forced hyper efficiency can kick in if you actually give that schedule a try for 30 days because it'll force you to realize where you're wasting time, all the places you need to delegate, et cetera, et cetera. And it's like this nice loop that the schedule makes you love the schedule even more because you're finally doing those things you've loved and always wanted to do, where your life starts to feel like a vacation. But then you also have that forced hyper efficiency that kicks in, which makes you want to keep the schedule because you really like it, but it incentivizes you and forces you to be super productive and get stuff done. So it's that interesting loop of what the vacation effect really stands for that I hope makes More sense now.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think there's just so much, so much there. And in a minute we'll kind of point people to some ways they might be able to learn about these things in more depth. But can you share just a little bit more about the forced hyper efficiency? Is it simply just someone reducing their work week? Let's say someone is not ready to quite do that yet. Can they implement forced hyper efficiency and how might they do that in their lives or in their work?

Yeah, so there are a lot of ways you can implement forced hyper efficiency. For example, one way is by using a timer. So I set a timer on different tasks when I sit down at the computer, where to keep myself on track, I might say. Let's say I think the task is going to take 30 minutes. I might set a timer for 15 minutes on purpose for half the time that I think the task is going to take, because psychologically that timer is ticking right there next to me. And it makes me start thinking about how could I get this done in 15 minutes instead of 30? And as I'm sitting there, and then when the timer goes off, I only reset it for maybe another five minutes in that example. And then almost every time I end up completing that task by the time the second timer goes off. And again, that second timer is still less time than what you originally thought the task was going to take. So I literally just hacked my way into getting the task done earlier than what I thought it was going to take by using that technique of setting the timer for half and then only incrementally giving yourself a little bit more. It's just this mind trick and there's a million of those that I have that I teach my clients how to implement. But that's just one simple example of how you can hack your way through your week and literally get so much done faster than you ever thought possible.

Yeah, that's really fun. I know. I definitely use a number of the things that you describe. And I think that what's standing out to me, just to kind of broaden 30,000 foot view here is like all these things that unlock when we are willing to kind of put ourselves in circumstances where they must unlock. And that's the secret, right? Because if it's sort of a intellectual idea like, oh, possibly I could do this faster or possibly I could do more things with my free time, it's so different than like bringing it to the forefront saying, okay, what do I really want to do with my time? Okay, I'm going to create this. What's the ultimate schedule? Okay, I'm going to start to implement that. Oh, gosh. Now what you do is you solve the challenges, whether they're internal emotional challenges or external challenges that arise step by step. And I've seen that. A powerful shift that I noticed in our work together, which was way beyond what I thought. You know, I was like, okay, I'm, you know, more free time. Great, you know, because I was, I was organizing my life around the business versus the other way around. And that's been amazing. You know, last man summer was the most time I'd ever taken off. And there's an extended road trip, but a lot of it was just, you know. Yeah, every Friday, every Friday I'm doing my own thing or hanging out with my kids. Lots of camping, three day camping trips. Fantastic. And I. The coolest thing is like, oh, I've unlocked the. That's going to happen again this summer because I know that I like it. So that's really cool. But even on a. What's even more beautiful to see is over a longer period of time, maybe the last six, eight months, there's been this shift in how I run the business from me doing a lot of stuff to bringing in other people to do more things. And what's cool about that is it comes first from what you said, which is time and money. Like, I'm not willing if it comes between the two, I'm going to choose time with those that I love over making more money. And initially in the business, bringing in other people reduces money initially, but I was willing to do that. I was like, even if it never pays off in terms of growing the business, it's still worth it because, man, now I freed up even more time. And time is not just. Just do nothing. Time is like, what do you do with the time? So now in the workplace, in my job, in my work, I get to do stuff that I love way more. And the stuff that I don't like as much as now, other people taking it over more and more, which is really exciting. And it also sets the stage for something bigger because in that book you sent me, who not how Dan Sullivan talks about the really big stuff you want to create, the ambitious goals, they're going to all involve other people. And so I think that a lot of these changes that I've seen over the last six, eight months only could come about because of some of these forced experiments and the containers. And otherwise it would just be a someday, maybe, someday, maybe I'll hire other people someday Maybe I'll bring other people in. And now it's like, whoop, it's already happening. So that's been really cool to see.

Yeah, I mean, you should be so proud of yourself for being willing to embrace the uncertainty of is this even going to work or not? And giving your yourself permission to just try it and be like, you know what, you had the confidence to know that it was going to be okay even if the experiment failed. And it didn't fail because you were willing to make, you know, make the adjustments that you needed in order to make that reduced schedule a permanent way of your life. But even if it did fail, you still learned, you would have still learned something from it. And so just giving people permission, giving themselves permission to do that is, I think, you know, one of the key points of our whole talk here today. And I can't imagine ever going back to my old, old way of life where I worked seven days a week and never had time for what really mattered. I just, it's just, it's so wonderful having, having new habits and having a new way of life and living what I call the vacation effect lifestyle. That's what, that's what it really means, just having joy every week in your life. And forced hyper efficiency is the greatest way to make that happen. You know, another example real quick of forced hyper efficiency is if you keep procrastinating on something that you owe to somebody else. Schedule a call with them to review the deliverables. Guess what? If you have a call with them scheduled to review the deliverables, do you think you're going to get the thing done before you jump on the call with them? Heck yeah, you are. That's another example of forced hyper efficiency. I do that with clients all the time. If there's a project that's been stalling, I'll schedule a call with them to review it. Because guess what? The act of having that on the calendar gets the deliverable done. So you can review it with them. I know that's a silly example, but it's all these different ways of, you know, making, making our schedule the way we want it to be and then figuring out all the other things we have to put in place, the delegation, the systems and the procedures, the automation, all the different things we have to do in order to make it permanent. I call that grow by subtraction automatically and permanently. How to basically get more done with less time and to make it automatic and permanent. Grow by subtraction automatically and permanently.

I love it. So much good stuff. And I know you have a ton of different tools and techniques and worksheets. And if someone is intrigued and wants to go further to understand how this works, how they can apply it in their own business, their own lives, what would be the best place for people to get started to learn more from you?

Yeah. So the best place for them to go would be on my website, vacationeffect.com. that's vacationeffect f-f ect.com and I work primarily with busy entrepreneurs. Sometimes I do work with professionals like executives as well, of other corporations. But even if you're not a busy entrepreneur or a CEO of another someone else's company, I still have some articles and things on my website that talks about some of these principles. So other people could benefit as well. But got a lot of free resources, podcast episodes, free reports, ways that I work with clients, all those kinds of things they can find on vacationeffect.com fantastic.

Well, thank you so much, Denise, for sharing, and I definitely encourage people listening to learn more from her resources. I've worked with with you, Denise, directly, and it's been powerful in my life. So I'm glad we had a chance to have this conversation and share some of those gems with people here. And thank you so much for being with us today.

Thank you so much. I had a blast in chatting with you today.

That brings us to the end of the episode, but not quite. There's one thing we got to do, right? That's right. We got to take what we're learning here and turn it into action. Time for action. Action. Action. You know, when it comes to interviews, one of my favorite things to do is leave the action step fairly open. So if there's something that inspired you, something that spoke to you, something that, you know, poked you, either in an excited kind of way or in a frustrated way, maybe you felt stuck or something agitated you, that's all beautiful fuel for future action. So my question for you is, what action are you going to take after listening to this interview? If you just listen to this interview and it's intellectually interesting, that's fun. That's entertainment. But if you decide, you know what, here's what I'm going to do based upon what I just heard today. Now, it's turning into change in your life, to transformation, to growth, that's where it gets very exciting. So maybe there's something you want to look at. Maybe it's a broad thing like, hey, where do I want to steer my career? Hey, where can I free up more time? Hey, where can I be more hyper efficient? Hey, what kind of stakes do I want to plant in the ground? Maybe I'm going to say, hey, I'm going to be unavailable at X time and stake that in the ground. Even if you're not leaving your workplace, like maybe, hey, this afternoon, whatever, Monday afternoons, I'm going to be focused on X at my workplace. It's going to further things, it's going to help me grow, and I'm not going to be just responding to everyone's texts and emails and messages during that time. So even just within your workplace, claiming your deep work block and when you're going to focus on specific things, there's so many potential action steps. I'm going to leave the specifics to you. But the key thing I'm going to request is that you pick one right now. Whatever comes to your mind, that's the good one. And then do that beautiful, fantastic work. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again. May have the courage to be who you are, to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com it.