How to Deal with Overwhelm

We are stressed out. We get. We get taught to be stressed out. Our society is just stressed out. Everybody walks around stressed out. You know, as a business owner, it's like a badge of honor, you know? How are things going? Oh, man, it's crazy. Like, it's just so busy. I got. I got no time. I'm just working. You know, it's not profit and thrive. It's just, you know, go for. You know, be so focused and just go for the money and just go for the goals and go for the accolades. But you're not thriving in your life if you find yourself getting totally overwhelmed in any moment. Like, let's say you're just in between tasks, right? You move from one thing to the next thing. You're in your email, and you just feel that feeling come over you of like, oh, my, what should I do next? I don't even know. Like, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I gotta do this, I gotta do that. You're just, like, constantly stressed out and you feel burnt out. I'm trying to show you that there's a different way to go about it. Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome to the Moving Mastery Podcast. I'm Louis Massaro. I've got my main man Chris with me here today, and we are still in lockdown. We're at home. Chris is at home. I'm at home. We're kind of talking right here through zoom. What's happening, Chris?

Hey, how's it going? We're still doing it. We're still zooming.

We're still zooming. So those of you that maybe are just joining us or haven't seen, you know, the past several episodes or listened to the past several episodes, we've been kind of having a new format where Chris is bringing in questions from the audience. I don't know what these questions are, and he's dropping them, and we're rolling with it. So let's. Let's jump into it today. You feeling all right, Chris? You good today?

I'm feeling good. And I got a good question for you this week. I think you're gonna really like this one. It's. It come. It came in through our Facebook this time. This was a guy who had attended one of the previous seminars and had taken, you know, some. Some really great, valuable lessons from that seminar and has been having trouble sort of ironing out the details to some of the st taught. So I'm going to read you the question here. It says, I attended your Moving Mastery Summit seminar, and I was really Inspired by your talk on committing to mastery and not being a dabbler. So I've been committed to mastery, and I've been working on improving my business and not being a dabbler, but I'm getting overwhelmed with all the stuff that I want to implement, and I just feel like I'll never get it all done. Do you have any advice for me?

Yeah. All right. You're getting good at this. You're getting good at picking the ones. I like this one.

I like this one.

Yeah. So just to put that all in context, right? That. That. That was, you know, the discussion of mastery. Committing to mastery versus being a dabbler for those who weren't there, for those that didn't hear it, you know, essentially when you look at what you want to accomplish in your business and you look at what you want to accomplish in your life, you've got to be able to commit to mastery. And mastery is not, you know, you're perfect in everything that you do, right? Mastery is a. Is a journey, right? You'll never get to a place where you are a master, right? You're just. It's an evolution of you as a person, you as a business person. But committing to mastery is the surefire way to make sure that you succeed, right? Because what a lot of people will do is they'll be a dabbler, right? They will either get into a business without the clear intent of like, hey, I'm gonna make this thing work. Whatever I need to do, if other people are making it happen, I'm gonna make it happen. And, you know, they won't commit to implementing processes fully. They'll dabble with some stuff. You know, they'll watch a few YouTube videos or, you know, get it, look for a few quick hacks and implement those hacks. And then if they don't work, they're on to the next thing, right? They're kind of dabbling in different areas, maybe even dabbling in different businesses. And so the fact that he committed to mastery, I think pretty much you. You remember, I mean, everybody there was like, commit. They're committed. Because I was discussing what the road to mastery and what committing to that path really does for you as a person does for you with your business and just overall how it makes an impact on your life. So. And now he's overwhelmed right now. He's like, I've got too much to implement, and what do you say? I'm never. Feel like I'm never going to get it done.

Or he said, I've been Working on improving my business and not being a dabbler, but I'm getting overwhelmed with all the stuff I want to implement and I feel like I'll just, I'll just, I just feel like I'll never get it done.

Yeah. Overwhelm making notes.

Yeah.

Well, first thing is accept the fact that you'll never get it all done. Right. I mean, yeah. So I don't know when he says all, I don't know what he means. I'm sure there's more than just what he took away from the seminar. I'm sure there's, you know, other things he's looking to do in his business and improvements that he's looking to make. And accepting the fact that you'll never get it all done is one of the biggest things you can do to give yourself a break from just, you know, you know, constantly being on yourself. I need to do this, I should be doing that. I need to be doing this, I should be doing that. That stuff could just beat you down and that, you know, that was me for a long time, right. Until I finally realized like, my to do list keeps growing and my project looks, keeps growing faster than I could get the stuff done. And you know, a lot of times, especially with entrepreneurs, it's, it's your mind is always working, looking for that better way, right? There's got to be a better way. There's got to be a better way. And then when you look for it and you find that you're like, wow, there, there is a better way. But there's a lot of stuff here. And you know, coming to a three day seminar with us and you know, it's, it's a lot in three days. It's full immersion for three days. So you leave there with a lot of stuff. So where maybe before you didn't have all those thoughts and things you could do to improve, now you see them, your mind attaches to the outcome is like, yeah, I want that. I could see clearly what that's gonna bring to me and my business. And it wants to solve that as soon, as quick as possible. Right. It's like it wants to take it and implement it and just get it all done immediately. And you know, I guess that's, there's the gift and the curse of learning systems and learning from how people have done it before. Right. Whereas doing things the hard way with trial and error, you kind of like try something. It doesn't, I mean, it's, it's definitely more painful to do trial and error than to Go and get all the information that you need to apply and then just figure out how to prioritize it, how to implement it, how to accept the fact that you're just not going to get it all done.

I, you know, I see these people when they leave the seminar after day three, and they've just been, you know, given all of this information. Information. They've got their workbook that's, you know, 100 something pages and they're just so fired up and they're like going back to the office ready to, to just, you know, implement everything. But I could see how, you know, coming up with a way to sort of, what do you do? You come up with a process to kind of start implementing things, you know, in a systemized way. I mean, when you go back to the office after the seminar or when you have a great idea that you want to implement, what's the first step? Like, how do you go about making it happen?

You've got to have like, you know, like a little system for yourself on how you do it, right? But that's that system, the basis of that system needs to be the acceptance of you'll never get it all done. And the reason I say that is not because you're, you're not an achiever, right? Most people that we talk to are over overachievers, right? They're, they're putting in the extra hours, they're, they're doing the extra work. And you know, so it's not about like, you're never gonna get it all done because you're not capable of getting it all done. It's that that list is going to continue to grow, right? If you're creating constantly and you're thinking of new ways and your mind is focused on there's gotta be a better way. And you have a little system of like, okay, you know, you're, you're keeping track of it. You've got a notebook of all the ideas you want to implement. You've got, you know, a note in your phone. You've got a project management tool, you got a task list, what, wherever, you're keeping track of it. You've got this stuff. And as you evolve in business and as things unfold for you that you didn't see previously, you're going to get new ideas, right? You're going to have new strategies you want to implement. And so it's a matter of being able to not get overwhelmed with taking too much information in because you want to get all the information you can, right? You want to take it all in. And then you just need a process for, like, okay, how do I take this? And slowly start to implement it. And I just want to keep going back to the fact that you first have to relieve yourself of the pressure by just saying, like, look, I'm never going to get it all done. The reason you're never going to get it all done is not because, again, you can't do it all. It's because some of that stuff might become.

Unimportant as you continue to get one thing done after the other. Because you can only do one thing at a time.

I see.

You can only do one thing at a time effectively. Right. So, you know, if you've got a list of 20 things, 30 things that you want to do in your business, well, maybe you get the first five done, and then it changes the way you look at it. Right. It's. It's kind of. If you're climbing mountains and you don't know where you're going, you get to the top of 1.1peak, then you could see clearly what's kind of out in the. Out in front of you, and then you could decide, okay, well, where I thought I wanted to go, maybe there's a different path for me.

Yeah, so I see. So it evolves. Things can change as you're working your way through all of these things you want to implement.

It reminds me, I had a teacher once tell me that it's almost like when you're flying in a plane and you think you just get in the plane and go from point A to point B. But during the journey, there's all kinds of little microscopic course corrections that happen along the way to keep you on the. On the, you know, the flight plan. And if you didn't make those small little adjustments, you could end up being way off course by the time you get to the end.

Yeah, yeah, but that's absolutely right. And, and, but you have a destination. You know where your destination is, right? And so we talked about it a few episodes back, and don't just build a business, build a life. And if you haven't listened to that, go listen to that episode. Because, you know, all this stuff that he wants to do in his business should be based on where he wants to go in his life. Right? And so, you know, a lot of this, you know, overwhelmed. Like, there's a lot of information out there these days, right? There's. There's, you know, social media, there's podcasts, there's. There's people in your face constantly Sharing advice.

Yeah.

And you know, a lot of times it's, it, it contradicts somebody else. And you know, you're like, okay, there's this way to do it, but then there's that way to do it. Which way is the right way? Right. So then that gets in the mix too. It's not always what to do. Exactly. Because if you have the step by step and you just go and implement it, like, you know, they come to the seminar, they're in one of the courses, they just follow those steps, right? But what happens is you talk to other people, you hear what other companies are doing, right? You get, you know, somebody kind of says, hey, this works for us. We're doing this, we're doing that. And it makes you start to feel like, wow, I should be doing that or I should be doing this. And then it takes you off track of your flight path, right? Like where you were really headed. And before you know it, you keep doing these course corrections that you know are random, right? Like dabbler stuff, they're random. And you run out of fuel before you get to where you, where you need to go, right. And you get burnt out.

So are you saying that even though you know you're going to make some course corrections, do you need to have an exact plan? Like sometimes it's, it's, is it, is it okay to just kind of like have an idea and start working towards it, even though you may not know exactly, you know, what needs to happen to get there? I mean, kind of learn it.

You're never, you're never gonna know exact all the steps that need to happen. You know, you, you have to know where you're headed, right? Or at least an idea of where, where you want to go in your life and start taking the best next actions you can take, right?

Yeah.

And then, you know, have faith that the rest is going to unfold for you as you move forward. Right. Like as you're driving through the dark and the fog and your, your headlights can only let you see, you know, three, six feet ahead of you. You just got to know that, you know, as you continue to move forward, more and more will be revealed to you and you'll be able to see more of where you're going. So let's, let's talk about his, his, his big list that he feels like he's never going to get done.

Yeah.

Right. So.

Basically what you want to do is you want to take that, that list, right? Whatever it is, right. We've all got a list of things we want to do. Whether we sit down, you know, today and just write out a list or we have an ongoing list that we keep and start to look at, okay, what are. First of all, what are my goals? Like, where do I want to go in my life in the next 20 years, 10 years, five years, one year, right back at you. You look at one year, you say, okay, the next year, if my goal is to do X, whatever that might be, right? Maybe it's. My goal is to double my business. My goal is to take home $400,000 a year for myself. My goal is to open that second location, whatever it is, right? Whatever your big goal, that gets you fired up, that gets you motivated, and then start breaking that down into what's gonna make the biggest impact. And realize that first thing you need to do is, you know, let's back up a minute. Let's back up a little bit. So you want to. You want to make sure. By the way, guys, this is all, like, off the cuff, like some. This isn't some. A lesson that I had prepared. So I'm just. I realized I missed this step. We need to first fine tune the fundamentals, right? Fine tune the fundamentals. So in the moving business, there's five fundamentals that everything you do in your business falls under these five fundamentals. And they're lead generation, booking moves, servicing moves, customer service, or making your customers raving fans, and then accounting and reporting. Right?

Okay.

Everything falls in those. So it's like you've got all this. This new stuff you want to do first. Take that list. So let's say he's got a list from the seminar or whatever else, right? His ongoing list of things that he wants to improve. Okay, Grab everything that falls into those categories. Lead generation, booking moves, servicing moves.

Customer service and accounting, and categorize them in those, right? Get everything in there. That's all the fundamentals of your business that, that it needs to run daily. That stuff right there. If you spend time focusing on that alone, that's where you start increasing profits. That's where you start to have a smoother running business. That's where you start to have happier customers, better reviews, right? When you focus in on just the fundamentals and you allow yourself to block out the idea of expansion or business development or these other shiny objects that, you know, maybe somebody's like, I'm doing this, and I'm doing this thing, and I'm doing this new little hack, and you say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Before I venture off into all of this Am I taking care of my core business of the five fundamentals? Right. So again, he takes his list and puts it into those categories to see what fits there. Right? Cause your goal before you start growing, before you start expanding, before you start scaling, franchising, opening up additional locations, moving from local moves to long distance moves, your goal needs to be that your business can run without you. Mm, right.

Yeah.

Your business needs to run without you. That's why we talk so much about processes and systems and getting all that in place right now.

If I'm somebody who is, you know, like this guy, he has a list of things he wants to implement, and he's. He's really fired up about it. Like, won't that kind of.

Kill your enthusiasm a little bit if you're like, you know, you got a bunch of stuff you want to do, but you're like, okay, I got to slow down? Like, it seems like less exciting to me.

Yeah, no, I mean, yes, it is. It is, right? You know, it's like being forced to finish your vegetables as a kid before you're allowed to go get ice cream, right? You want the ice cream, but what's really good for you is to finish your vegetables first, right? So setting up the fundamentals is like eating your vegetables, forcing yourself to do it if you don't want to do it, so that you can feel good about then going and having the ice cream. And the reason that happens, Chris, is that, you know, we're not. We don't just. We think that we're all over the place, right? Like, we think like, I'm here, I'm there, I'm here, I'm there. But the reality is we've got different versions of ourself in our mind that are competing to take the lead, right? To take the steering wheel and lead us to where we need to go. So as a business owner, right, You've got your. The CEO, right? The CEO is making the big decisions, looking at P. Ls, strategizing, thinking about where, you know, where we need to go, where we need to take the business, what direction we want to head in. They're also constantly thinking of new ideas, right? New strategies. But then you need to step into the role of manager, right, in your mind and say, okay, how do I take all these ideas, organize them like, what we're talking about now? How do I take them, organize them in a way to where, you know, I don't have to slow down what my CEO self is saying and doing and wants to implement. I don't have to slow that stream of thoughts because you never want to slow the stream of thoughts of creativity. You've got ideas, great, keep them common, right? Keep them coming and put them somewhere. Keep a list of everything that's going. That's where he's at. He feels overwhelmed. He's got this big list, right? So then he needs to go in the manager mode, right? Put his manager hat on and say, okay, I've got this list now. What's going to get me to my goals? I can only do one thing at a time. How do I prioritize this and set it up so that I could be effective? And then from manager, now you go into doer, right? Now you actually have to do this stuff. And what happens is, you know, if you've ever felt like, you know, you started to do something and you started to talk about something and you just got yourself all wound up and didn't really get anything done, it's because each one of those versions of ourselves needs room to breathe. It needs room to do its own thing separately. And what happens when we get overwhelmed is that those three are typically competing. They're all, you know, this might sound crazy to some people, right? But you've got these like three different voices going on in your head, right? The CEO self is like, no, no, no, we need to be doing this right. People think because they're always changing their mind and they're flip flopping on things that there's something wrong with them. It's not that there is anything wrong with them. It's that they have to kind of separate out these three selves and say, look, the CEO is having this big vision. The manager is like, look, we need order, we need to structure this thing. We need to, you know, figure out what to do first, what to do second. And the doer is like, guys, let me just go start getting stuff done. You're over there yapping. I just want to do, I just want to take action. So what happens is somebody comes up with an idea, right? Then they'll spend brief amount of time managing it and figuring out like what the move is to set it up. But they want to jump right into doing. They want to jump right into doing and just getting stuff done. So, you know, a really important technique to start to learn is like how to allow yourself to know when the CEO version of you, the manager version of you, and the doer version of you is needed in that particular moment. Right now I'm the doer, right? Like I'm here, I'm Doing this with you. Yeah, Right. Where the CEO version that thought of, okay, let's set up the podcast. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to help people. This is how we're going to serve them, right? That was just a lot of conceptual stuff. Then I had to put on the manager hat and said, okay, how do we orchestrate this so that we could be streamlined, so that we can, you know, effectively get these episodes done? And it doesn't take us, you know, all kinds of time. And we set up the processes and the systems for how we do it, right? How we get everything over to the editors, how we get it out to everybody else, how we send out the emails, and then it's like. Then it's doer, right? Got to show up and just do it. That makes sense.

It makes it seem less overwhelming, which is, you know, this guy was having an issue with. With feeling overwhelmed. But when you break it down like that, it's.

It's.

It doesn't seem overwhelming at all. You just kind of have to. Are you, like, literally creating time for each one of these people to. To, you know, do their thing? Like, you give the creator some time to really visualize, and then you give the doer some time to get it done. And, like, how does that.

Yeah, I mean, you know, something that, you know, and a lot of people, like, when you think about routines and how you. How you structure things, a lot of people think that, you know, they'll hear somebody on a podcast or they'll hear, you know, me or somebody else talk about, this is my process for doing this, and this is my system for doing that. But sometimes your system and your process changes, and you need to try different stuff to see what works, right? So one way of doing it and one way that I've done for a long time is, you know, I'll have certain days where, you know, like, Friday is my CEO day, right? Like, Friday's all CEO stuff, right? Like, big picture, you know, reviewing numbers, strategy, vision, you know, overseeing. I'm not. I'm not doing. I'm not really managing, right? Then there's other days. Like, today is all. I mean, I'm doer. Like, we're recording, you know, we're recording some podcasts, we're doing some other videos, you know, and then there's other days where I'm manager, right? Like, I managers when I'm really, you know, just managing the team, right? Seeing what's going on, checking on progress, having our, you know, weekly Meetings, stuff like that. Managing. So, you know. Yes. I think you don't necessarily have to create a separate day for each one of these, although that's a really helpful place to be, because the way that you're. When you start to, like when you wake up, like when I wake up on Fridays and I know it's CE CEO day, I'm. I'm carrying myself a little bit differently that day.

Okay.

You know, I'm feeling a little bit different. I don't. I'm. I'm, you know, I'm feeling that. That CEO.

Vibe, if you will. Right. Whereas, you know, manager day, my mind's like, okay, let's look at everything that's got to get done. Let's figure out who's doing what. Let's. It's just a different mindset. And, you know, one of the things that. That really overwhelms people as, as well is when they shift gears. Right. So anytime you shift gears between one task you're doing and another task, it's hard enough to switch gears. Like, for example, if we ended this podcast and then I had to go put together, you know, a presentation or, you know, write some emails or something like that, that's a. That's a gear shift. Like, my mind is here, and this is like, you know, this is the type of thing I'm doing today. That's why, like, I want to shoot videos today. I want to be doing this all today because my. I could be in one gear all day. And so you don't have to do it all day, but you've got to be conscious of, okay, if I'm going to start off with a sales meeting in the morning where I'm getting my team fired up and I'm doing this and I'm doing that, and then after that, I have to go directly into reading some contracts or, you know, you have to be able to know how well you adapt and you adjust to that gear shift. So, you know, you might do half a day as CEO, and then in the afternoon, you go to manager, and then, you know, you have time blocked out on your calendar for the things you need to do and that you're. You're. You're being a doer. So it's, it's. The first step is really acknowledging when, when each one of those characters, if you will, right? You've got your CEO, you got your manager, you got your doer, who's required to show up right now, right? If you just take a look at your calendar for the next week, right? Or what you have going on, or each day, as you step into each new thing, who's needed? Is it the CEO, is it the manager? Or is it the doer that's needed in that moment? That, does that make sense?

That is cool. That's interesting that you could break down your, your list with, with maybe a different, you know, tag or a different label and then that's really cool. It's, it's a way to organize it.

I thought I was crazy at first and then like when I first started teaching this stuff, yeah, I was like. And people are like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that, that works. It works. I did it. It works. I was like, okay, good. Because I thought, I thought maybe I just had voices in my head and, and you know, so, yeah, try that. It definitely helps that that's what's, that's what's going on when you feel super overwhelmed is that each one of those voices has their own opinion about what should be done next for someone.

Like, I know there's people out there who kind of thrive on, you know, that, that the weight of, of having stuff to do and being overwhelmed, like, for somebody like that, how do you, what would you say to them to, to get them to kind of, you know, be able to separate it all out? Because some people, they like the chaos, you know.

Yeah. And that used to be me. You know, it used to be me. And it was like I, when I knew I had stuff to get done, right. I wasn't even thinking about like, which, you know, the three versions, right? It was just sad stuff to get done. I found myself and I, I realized it, you know, for the first step to making any change is, is first being aware and realizing what's happening, right? So like, you know, the best thing you could do as a business owner is start to learn how to just be self aware and, and, and look at yourself objectively and like, like, why, why am I doing that? Is that helpful? And so I used to wake up and it was like my whole, like from the time I woke up to the time I got to work, it was, I was just like winding myself up, right? Like, I feel like, I feel like I needed to wind myself up so that I could just charge through the day, you know, with energy and momentum and all of that. And that's how I learned to get stuff done. So it took a while to break that, that habit, right. Once I started to pay more attention to my well being and, you know, understanding the mind and how the mind works, I realized that that whole that whole time period, I was in what's called Fight or Flight, you know, which is a fear response from, you know, caveman days. Right. It's like, you know, when. When fear pops up, you're either ready for a fight or you're ready for flight. Like, you're ready to run. Yeah. Right. And that's. I've. That a lot of people are in that place, like, daily trying to get stuff done. And. And for me, it worked, right? It was like, hey, man, this is all right. I'm getting stuff done. I'm building the business. This is happening. So it became kind of a go to strategy without realizing it. It felt like that's what I needed to do in order to get stuff done. Because if I didn't wind myself up like that, I might just want to chill, you know, I might just want to relax. Right. So it's like I had this one side where it's like, all right, I get myself. I get myself going. Get myself. Almost like you're winding up a little toy soldier or something, right. And start marching forward. Yeah. And, you know, the other side of me was like, man, I just want to chill out. Let me go lay in the pool or something. Right. Like, I don't. So it felt like those were the two options. And so over time, being able to kind of realize that. That. That. That fight or flight state that I was in and get myself wound up to go tackle the day.

It was part of what wasn't allowing me to get to that next level. Right. It was part of what wasn't allowing me to step into, like, that moving CEO mindset we talked about in a few. A few episodes ago. Right. Because as much as it was helping me get things going and get things off the ground, and that next level needed to be. Needed me to be more at peace, more grounded and focused on, like, feeling good. Right. Making decisions from, like, a place of certainty and clarity as opposed to, you know, I. I need to be wound up or I'm not going to get stuff done. So I. It became like a balance.

Okay. Okay. So you. At some point, you became conscious of this, and you decided that, okay, I'm going to stop running around crazy with all of this, you know, chaos going on. Like, how. Like, when did I. I don't know where to go. First of all, when did you make that decision? And then, secondly, what. What do you think would have happened had you not made that realization?

Well, first of all, it's something that is not, you know, it's not like I Just flip the switch and it's on. I mean, I still, I still deal with it, right? I still, you know, you know, it's a natural response that, that I, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a habit that I learned and I got rewarded for it early on, right? So it was like there was that reward there. So it's still deeply ingrained. But I've, I've come to learn that if you, that I don't need that energy. I don't need that, like, oh, we gotta make this happen now, right? We gotta make this happen now. We gotta strike while the iron's hot now. Like, I don't need that energy to be effective. Matter of fact, it actually makes me not see opportunities and not be able to be on top of my business. So, you know, it came to me in that whole, I would say right around that, that Great Recession period was when, you know, I got my first coach and I started to really get into self development and started to learn how the mind worked. And I got so fascinated with like, wow, it's not about, you know, the outside world and that's the way it is. It's about how I'm perceiving the world and how I choose to operate within it. It was in that period. But it's something that I, I still struggle with, you know, and, you know, I have to remind myself, like, look, the most important thing is that you just, you feel good, right? Like, there's no. I, I used to feel that stress was just, you know, came with the territory, right? That it just came with the territory and that it helped fuel the growth. And to some extent it's true, but I just made a decision that, you know what, I don't want that type of growth. Like, I don't. If, if, you know, I know I could get much further if, if I just stayed in that mode all day, but I could probably drop dead too, along the way.

Oh, okay. So, so you, you, it's, you'll get results, you'll get to where you want.

To go, but it's not, but it's not profit and thrive, you know, it's not profit and thrive. It's just, you know, go for, you know, be so focused and just go for the money and just go for the goals and go for the accolades, but you're not thriving in your life. And to me, it felt like an evolution of like, look, I did that, okay? I made money doing that. Okay, well, now let me challenge myself to slow it down and Continue to build a business and continue to make money, but go slower while doing it. And, you know, listen, you got to, I mean, I, I, if I heard myself saying this 10 years ago, I don't know, you know, what, what I would, what I would say or agree 15 years ago, but you got to slow down a little bit and enjoy the process. Right. And, like, feel good on a daily basis. Right. Like, just having gone through being in that mode and reaching certain levels and get into those levels and be like, all right, is this it? It's like, you know what? Now I want to do it at a, at a different pace. So getting back to, you know, you know, feeling like you're never going to get it all done, like, I've accepted that I'm never going to get it all done. I've got great ideas, amazing ideas. Like, people, you know, and people will always give you ideas and be like, you know, if you share and I. Oh, you should be, you should be doing that. You should be doing that. But the reality is, if you go chase this and you go chase that and you go, you're going to get nowhere. Right. So does that make sense?

Yeah. I feel like for someone who's overwhelmed, this, this could be like, are they. If somebody's got this whirlwind happening, like, where do they start? Because after you've conditioned yourself to, to operate like that for so long, it's got to be tough to put the brakes on.

Yeah. Because what happens is, you know, the ego starts to fear that you're gonna lose all your edge. Right. That's what happens is, it's, like, super scared that you're just gonna lose your edge. Like, that was what happened to me. It was. That's what got me to where, you know, my first level of success. So to try to undo that is huge. So it just really starts with saying, you know what, what's the alternative? Right. Like, I used to, like, my way of slowing down used to be I'd get sick, Right. Like just a cold or whatever, and I'd almost be relieved to where I could just, like, chill out for a few days at home. And that was the only time, like, I would give myself time to slow down early on. Right.

It's a pretty good sign. You need to slow down when you're getting sick.

Yeah. So it was, you know, if that's you, if you're listening and you're just, like, constantly stressed out and you feel burnt out, I'm. I'm trying to show you that there's A different way to go about it. If you think about, you know, if you're, you think about gears, right? You're, you're, you're driving a stick shift, and let's say it's, you know, like 1 through 5 or 1 through 6, and you're always, you know, you always have it at five or you always have it at six, and you're just going, going, going, going.

What I've found is that for me to take it down from that five and bring it into like a three.

It actually unlocks.

More potential for me and what I see. And it's like that sweet spot of being able to still keep moving forward but enjoy the ride, right? Like, that sounds so cliche, but it's like that's. Listen, having done it, having made, you know, millions in the moving business and done it early on.

It'S really the way to go, you know, it's, it's, it's. And it's hard. It's a discipline, right? Because default. We are stressed out. We get. We get taught to be stressed out. Our society is just stressed out. Everybody walks around stressed out. You know, as a business owner, it's like a badge of honor, you know? How are things going? Oh, man, it's crazy. Like, it's just so busy. I got, I got no time. I'm just working. And it's, it, you know, we, we walk around like that's a badge of honor, right? And.

It'S not, you know, it's. It's. It's basically a early indication that you're gonna have a heart attack. Right.

Is that serious? So you're saying, you know, it's. You're not saying, don't be ambitious.

No, you got to be ambitious, but you just got to find your, you know, your way of settling in to a place where you could still drive forward. You know what I mean? You're not stopping and going, stopping and going, which was. Happened to me. Like, I would go so fast and then, like I would get, you know, catch a cold or something, and I'd have to stop for a few days and then go again. Where now it's just, you know, it's more like smooth and steady. And there's certain times. Imagine you're on the road, you're driving, and there's certain times where maybe you gotta, you know, gear up and accelerate to get past a situation.

Yeah.

But then settle back in. Right. There are things that come along that cause that to happen. I mean, you know, last summer we, you know, I had. I Had had a baby right, at my daughter last summer. And we had new. New course coming out, we had a new seminar coming up, and I had to put it in full gear to, like, get ahead of all that, to make sure that I had everything ready when it needed to be ready. But then my mind got so wound up that I had to, like, remind myself to downshift. Right? Because if not, what happens is you just get burnt out and then you. You're. You're not moving, You're. You're done, you pulled over to the side, your engine's smoking, and you're not going anywhere.

Yeah. Okay. How do you. How does somebody know if they are overwhelmed?

I mean, you feel it, right? You just feel like you. If you feel like you've got too much to do and you don't have enough time, that's. That's overwhelm, right? That's overwhelmed. Like, too much to do, not enough time. And that's the reality is, like, accept that there is not enough time. And the reason if you've got too many things you want to accomplish not enough time, it's because you have a creative mind. It's because your. Your mind, like, I've. I finally came to the realization that my mind is producing ideas at such a rapid pace that my physical body can't keep up with them. It's like. Like, you're not gonna win that race. You know what I mean? Let your mind go. Right? Don't shut down the stream of information. Let it go. Capture those ideas. You know, keep a list of all the ideas or all the things you need to do. We'll talk in a minute about how to organize it all, but. And how to start executing it.

But then just say, like, you know what? I'm come to terms with what I could really get accomplished, and I'm just gonna pick and choose the things that are gonna make the biggest impact. And some of them I may get to, and some of them I may never get to. Yeah, right. One of the things that I see that prevents people from succeeding to the levels that they try to. They want to get to is that they're chasing down too many things at once.

Okay? So is there a magic number, like a sweet spot?

So what. What I recommend is that you take every quarter of the year, okay? So every. I mean, you know, this. We. We work. We work with a group and we hold them accountable for all this stuff. But.

Every quarter of the year, you pick three big objectives per quarter. Okay? So there's four quarters in the year three big objectives, that's 12 things in a year, right? And some people look at that and be like, man, I could get hundreds of things done. And you do, you will naturally, right? If you first focus on your fundamentals, right? Lead generation, booking moves, servicing moves, making sure your customers are happy and accounting, that's your core business. If you're, if you're moving, most of our listeners are moving company owners. If that's your core business, make sure that's all on point. And there's going to be things that just have to get done as part of all that. Day to day, right? Day to day. So your, your focus is, hey, how could I set this up so I could go away for a year and this thing's going to run smooth without me? That's like the real test to know, do you have it fine tuned? Are your processes in place? If you feel confident to do that, once that's there, it's like, okay, all these big ideas that you have and you know, I'm all for growth, I'm all. You want to franchise hundreds of companies, great. You want to open a location in every city in the country, great. Like whatever you want to do, great. But you've got to be able to make sure you're in the right gear. And sometimes having the highest gear with the pedal all the way to the ground is not what's going to get you there. So pick three big objectives per quarter, okay. And focus on those. So that basically gives you three months to work on three big things. So every quarter before the quarter comes, sit down and just look at your. This is the simplest way to do it, right? We can get into more advanced strategy, but let's just talk about a simple way to get this done, which is look at your whole list and say, okay, this new quarter is coming up. What three things can I work on that will make the biggest impact right now for me? Achieving my, my ultimate goal of where I want to go, right? And so what are some, what are some big objectives? Big objectives could be an income objective or a revenue objective, right? Maybe you say, I want to get up to $200,000 a month in local move revenue. Or maybe one is I want to get our, you know, monthly storage recurring revenue to 35,000amonth, right? Like wherever you're at, you know, you might maybe, maybe for somebody it's like 6,000amonth. Whatever it might be. A big objective might be to hire a operations manager, right? A big objective could be to implement a new CRM. It could be to buy two new trucks.

Could be to implement a mover training program. Right? So things that, you know, if you could only work on three things outside of your fundamentals.

And, and, and your objectives might also fall into those fundamental categories too, right? But if you could pick three big things, what would they be? And then make sure every single week you're moving towards completing those. Right? And you've got three months to get all three of them done. And so what this does is it removes all the distraction. Distraction is one of the biggest killers to people achieving their goals, right. They think they need to be doing 10 million different things when in reality there's a handful of things that will make the biggest impact. You know, like when we, when I work with private clients, you know, they, they come with same kind of dilemma. I've got all this stuff I want to do and almost every single time the conversation comes, you know, if, if I'm, it's like, no, no, take all that off the table and let's just focus on this, this and this.

Even, even.

That's it.

Even if it's a golden opportunity that's lingering out there that if you don't act now, you might miss.

Yeah, but what is a golden opportunity? Right? Like there's, there's so much. It's like.

Very few people have the ability to really recognize a golden opportunity.

What's really happening is the mind wants something new. The mind wants to move on to what's next. The mind's bored with the fundamentals. Remember, the fundamentals are that plain plate of vegetables that you just have to keep eating, right? That big opportunities like that, you know, awesome butter cake with ice cream and you know, like the whole, right, the whole, the whole shebang there, like the whole big dessert.

And so yes, there are opportunities. But if you go chasing down opportunities, which most times are just shiny objects, right. They're just these things that, wow, look at that. And it's just luring you off course. That is the curse of a dabbler, that, right. Somebody that's committed to masteries, focused in on where they're going, they realize there's going to be a lot of distraction along the way. They realize there's going to be a lot of opportunity along the way. Right? But they're focused in on what's important. And they don't let, you know, this shiny object and that shiny object and this thing they saw on Facebook and that thing they heard somebody works for somebody else, like make them just go skirt and, and, and, and turn and Turn around and take a detour when they know the destination of where they're headed, right? And so, you know, if, if that thing comes along, if that opportunity comes along, right, you want to be able to put it on your list. And if it really, really is that golden opportunity, sure, you can then take one of your three big objectives and move it or take it off the list and replace it with this new one. Right? But if you find yourself, you got to look at your own track record, okay? Because there's a lot of geniuses out there. There's a lot of people with a lot of great ideas, and there's a lot of people that are able to spot those opportunities. But, but there's opportunity and then there's execution. So if your track record is like, hey, I just like, ooh, what's that new thing? And you're not really, like, getting ahead. I'm telling you, it's, it's easier to pass on some of these golden opportunities and just stay focused on those fundamentals in front of you and those three big objectives that you knew, you know, are moving you towards it. You know, it's. It's a shift from where your excitement used to come from was from these new things, right? This new opportunity where it takes a little while and you have to pass through this, this uncomfortable place of going from constantly looking at the new and the exciting and the shiny objects and going through this place of what seems like boredom because you're focused in on just the fundamentals. You're focusing on three big objectives for the next quarter, right? And your mind's like, your mind wants to basically do what, you know, Netflix and social media and all that stuff tries to get your mind to do. Next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, next thing, right? And that stuff's actually exercising your mind to, to want that more, Right? Right. And where you won't experience the satisfaction of the fine tuning the fundamentals, working on your three big objectives until you pass through this place of real uncertainty. Same thing if, like, you're used to just eating sugary foods and now all of a sudden you're like, no, focus in on just eating the vegetables. Like, it's gonna suck for a while until you finally start feeling how good you feel based on that. It's the same thing because you know when you're stuck on new, new, new, and now you move into, okay, like, nice and steady, get the fundamentals on point, fine tune this, tweak this, improve this. Let's take three big objectives. Let's do them and let's do them right. Let's follow all the way through. Let's not just hire that person. Let's hire that person and train that person and make sure they know exactly what they need to do. Right. Once you start doing things like that, then you'll feel the satisfaction because you'll see your business change and what you thought was not possible. The more money, the more time, the more freedom, the less stress. All that stuff that you're like, yeah, that's just, you'll start to feel it and then you go, oh, okay. That's why I'm focused on the fundamentals. That's why I choose to eat my vegetables over eating the ice cream.

Okay? So trust in that, that process, especially at first, it could be, it could be overwhelming to try to not be overwhelmed.

So.

Yeah. And then every court, every. Listen again, keep the ideas common.

Yeah.

Right. Shiny object comes. Great. Put it in its place on the list. Right.

Talk about how you organize that. You had mentioned something about, you know, you have a process for, for your ideas and what you do with them.

I mean, we, we teach a system in, in moving CEO business programs called oms, Strategic Execution System. It's, you know, it's those of, that are those of you that are in the program. You know what I'm saying? But it's, it's basically taking where you want to go, right. In your business, in your Life from a 20 year standpoint, and then breaking that down to your quarterly objectives, and then taking your quarterly objectives and breaking those down into your weekly action plan. Right. We give everybody in the program what's called the top three planner. Right. So it's like each week, these are your top three objectives that you're working on. What are you doing to move those things forward on top of your normal daily functions. Yeah, right. And so once you establish that. Right. The easiest. Let's keep it simple. The easiest way to do it is just, you know, have a list of everything you want to get done every, every three months, every quarter. Look at it and go, okay, I accomplished these last three things. What are the next? Right. A lot of people will try to plan out the whole year. What's the next? What's the next? What's the next? It's. Unless you have it like really strategically set up, it's easier to just pull up the list each quarter and go, okay, let me pick three more things that will make the biggest impact now. Right. And then you block time on your calendar for current objectives. Right. You Want to, you know, if you could, the more time on your calendar that you could work on current objectives, meaning you have a block. Like, you know, let's say you go and you're like, okay, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, from 10 to noon or 9 to noon, whatever time you could spare. You carve out that time and you just put current objectives. And in that time, you're just working on the current objectives. Right? This is the stuff that's, like, over and above those fundamentals that's taking you to that next level. So, you know, again, this is. It all starts to come together. When you've got your processes in place, when you've delegated to your people, when they know exactly what to do, that starts to free you up. When you free up, you now have more time that you can add blocks on your calendar says current objectives. Now your current objectives can be bigger, right? They could be bigger and more. More in depth because you have the time to actually execute them.

That's awesome. So let's recap. We've got, you know, if you're feeling overwhelmed, you got to introduce yourself to the three different people that are living in your. Your mind. The CEO, the manager, and the door. Do we give them names? Are they three distinct characters?

I mean, you could, you know, that'd be cool. Give them. Give them each a different name. No, just, you know, you've got the CEO, you've got the manager, and you've got the doer. Right? And it's just a matter of deciding who needs to show up in this moment. Yeah, right. And if you find yourself getting totally overwhelmed in any moment, like, let's say you're just in between tasks, right? You move from one thing to the next thing. You're in your email and you just feel that feeling come over you of like, oh, my, like, oh, what should I do next? I don't even know. Like, I got to do this, I got to do that. I got to do this. I do that. Take a step back, put the manager hat on and get yourself organized, because the doer is going to say, no, no, no, just pick that next thing and just do that. Pick that next thing and do that. Right? That's one voice that's going on. The CEO is going to be like, screw all this. We got more important stuff to do. We got big stuff that we need to be working on. This is like, this is not important. Why are we doing this? I should have somebody else doing this. Tell them both you don't. They're not needed right now. And let the manager show up and just get yourself organized for a few minutes. Right. 10, 15, 20 minutes. Right. And figure out what's, you know, what this, this could be at any moment during any day. Right. At any time. And you know, come up with your plan and then keep moving forward.

Okay. Okay. And then set your, your quarterly objectives.

Well, yeah. Also make sure that you are fine tuning your fundamentals. Right. Get. Get that going.

Okay.

Then set your quarterly objectives. Just pick three.

Yeah.

You know, just pick three. It's it, you know, so people will say, well, three is not a lot. Then pick bigger stuff, like big impact stuff.

That's good. That's good.

You know, like, like stuff that, like, if you spent all your extra time working on that and you pulled it off and you got those three big things done, you're really moving the needle. Not just like incrementally, like you're moving the needle.

Yeah. And then develop your own system for, for making the time to get those things done. Right.

Yeah. I mean, you know, if you're in moving CEO business program, by the way, if you're not, if you want to check that out, if you want to learn basically everything you need to do to take your moving company to the next level, just go to movingceo.com all the details are there. And that's inside of one of those programs that you get as part of the program. We teach the OMS Strategic Execution System. But essentially take your list every month. Pick what's the most, you know, what's going to make the biggest impact. Pick three of them and then have time blocked on your calendar where you're just working on that stuff. And then the next thing is just keep a list of everything else and be totally okay if it never gets done. I mean, I have a list in my project management tool that I used. It's called Someday maybe. Right. It's like the stuff that's, that's not on my current radar in the next year. The stuff that I'm like, this isn't going to happen in the next year. Which, which those will be in their own separate projects. It just gets thrown into a folder called Someday maybe. And it's like, you know, you could review that once in a while and pick some gems out of there. You know, it might be three years from now, and that amazing golden opportunity that you thought you had, now it's the time for it. Right. Timing's a big deal too. You know, people think they get a great idea, they need to act on it right away. That Used to be one of my things, too. Like, I used to take pride in that. That was a badge of honor, like, speed of implementation. Ooh, I just thought of it. Let me make it happen. But not at the expense of what you. Your fundamentals. Not at the expense of your current objectives. Right. So be okay knowing that everything has timing, and when ideas come to you, great. You don't have to act on them right away. And then be totally okay with the fact that you're never going to get it all done. Right. If I. If I was looking at my someday maybe list, if I was looking at all the. And I was trying to figure out when I'm going to do all of it, yeah, I'd be super stressed out. You know, I'd be super stressed out. And. And it's. It's just a matter of saying, okay, it'll, like, there's a time and there's a place, or maybe there's not a time and a place. And it's one of the things that happens as people start to capture their ideas and. Right. Because a lot of times people don't write down their stuff. Right. So, you know, when you start to write it down and when you start to keep a list and that list starts to build because you physically can't keep up with how fast your mind's going on ideas. Yeah. You could be overwhelmed. So you've got to be able to accept the fact that you will never get it all done. But as long as you're making good progress on the things that matter, it's okay that not every little item gets a check next to it.

There it is. That's the. The magical cure for overwhelm.

That's it. That's it. I think that pretty much covers it.

That's. That's really good. That's really.

Yeah.

Appreciate your input.

So, yeah, implement that stuff. Listen, guys, this, this. I know we talk a lot about.

You know, your mindset and, you know, how to approach your role as moving CEO and how to run your business, and that's because it is all one. Right? There's, you know, there's. You've got this whole podcast. Go through and listen. There's all. There's marketing, there's sales, there's customer service.

But this is the stuff that will really help you make that adjustment that you need to get yourself to that next level. So I hope you enjoy it. If so, leave me a review. Leave me a comment down below if you have any questions at all. That's where we're getting all these topics. We're getting these topics from people that are sending in questions. The easiest way to do that is send me a DM on Instagram. It's at Lewis Massaro on Instagram, at L O U I S M A S S A R O on Instagram. And until we see you next time, go out there every single day. Profit in your business and thrive in your life. We'll see you later. Be safe. Talk to you soon.