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KF #1. Ensures Accountability Archives - Page 4 of 4 - How to be Awesome at Your Job

Apr 16
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287: Establishing Motivation, Intention, and Boundaries Like a Boss with Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon

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Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon say: "Do the work is what happens between the wanting and the having."

Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon of Being Boss talk setting intentions and the importance of boundaries.

You’ll Learn:

  1. The benefits of creating monthly intentions
  2. How to set boundaries – and stick to them
  3. How to have healthy dialogue with your boss

About and Kathleen and Emily

Kathleen Shannon and Emily Thompson, self-proclaimed “business besties” and hosts of the top-ranked podcast “Being Boss,” know what it takes to launch a business, do the work, and be boss in work and life. Both successful independent business owners, Emily and Kathleen started the podcast in January of 2015 to talk shop and share their combined expertise with other creative entrepreneurs.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Emily Thompson & Kathleen Shannon Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Kathleen and Emily, thanks so much for joining us here at the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Kathleen Shannon
Pete, we are so excited to be here.

Emily Thompson
For sure. We are ready to tell people how to be awesome at their job.

Pete Mockaitis
Beautiful. Well, you’ve been doing it for a while and you do it in style with fun. Your branding – well, that’s what you do. It’s so awesome with regard to the colors and the photography. It says boss through and through.

Kathleen Shannon
Our brand board was like Lisa Frank, me, The Craft, like that witchie ‘90s movie, basically.

Pete Mockaitis
When you say it that way, it kind of makes me look at the purple smoke in a different way.

Kathleen Shannon
Do you see it in a whole new way? Like, there’s going to be a unicorn flying through, and a Tarot reader, and a crystal ball.

Pete Mockaitis
That is funny.

Kathleen Shannon
They might make it rain.

Emily Thompson
Definitely make it rain.

Pete Mockaitis
Nice double meaning there.

Kathleen Shannon
Exactly.

Pete Mockaitis
I much appreciate it.

Kathleen Shannon
I’m glad that you got that.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, cool. Obviously I’ve got to get into so much good stuff. I learned, Kathleen, you shared that you like to work in complete silence. What’s the story here?

Kathleen Shannon
I know, so you asked me one thing that people might not know about me and as Emily knows and as our listeners at Being Boss know, I’m kind of an open book. I’m probably talking about things I shouldn’t be talking about. But the thing I think that people don’t know about me is that I work in complete silence. I definitely give off this vibe that I’m this crazy, cool, creative. At least, that’s a vibe I hope I’m giving off.

But I find myself working in complete silence because whenever it comes down to getting focused and doing the work, I find myself even listening to ambient music, tuning it out, so it becomes this extra distraction that my brain is having to work around in order to do the work. I think it’s just maybe the one thing that people don’t know about me is it is dead quiet. You can hear a pin drop whenever I’m working.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing. How do you enforce quiet around you? Isn’t noise just going to happen? I shopped around at length to find a sound-blocking door. I totally resonate with this. What are your tricks?

Kathleen Shannon
Well, so I do work from home. My kiddo is in full-time daycare. My husband is at his day job. I am completely alone during the day at my home office. This is part of the reason why I decided to work from home and not go to a co-working space.

I do have an agency. I live outside of Detroit and I have an agency located in Oklahoma City where all of my partners and employees work. I did build out in that space two little office spaces with doors and sound proofing for podcasting and that sort of thing. But I have a spray bottle to keep my cats away from me and that’s about it. That’s how I enforce it.

It’s just like in the decisions I’ve made along the way, I suppose. At some point every creative does kind of have to decide, like, “Oh, am I lonely being all by myself at my house or should I go to a co-working space, should I go to a coffee shop?”

I certainly have the tools. I used to work in an open office space before I started working for myself, so I can go to a coffee shop and tune things out, but I get so focused then that it’s almost like silence, where you would have to get eye-contact with me to make sure that I’m listening to you, like I’m that focused on my work.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear that. When my wife comes in sometimes I’ve got the headphones and the noise cancelling on and maybe even ear plugs underneath the headphones straight up.

Kathleen Shannon
You’re not messing around.

Pete Mockaitis
I’ll like be startled, like, “Oh, there you are.” I’m resonating. Thank you. Tell me, Emily, how do you find yourself in the work groove?

Emily Thompson
I’m pretty similar where I used to listen to music. The first time Kathleen told me that she worked in complete silence, I was shocked, like, similar where I felt she was probably just like dancing around her office listening to Beyoncé all day, every single day.

Whenever she told me she worked in complete silence, I was super shocked because I, at that point, liked to listen to music while I worked but I found myself as, I’ve guess grown in my entrepreneurial endeavors where I’m responsible for all things, this sincere need to get super focused. I can only do that when it’s pretty quiet.

Now, I do home school my child. Actually, hear her in the kitchen right now banging forks and plates around. I’m trying not to get too terribly annoyed at. So I do have to drown out a whole lot of noise, but I’ve kind of gotten used to it. But otherwise, like pretty quiet. I’m not listening to music.

Here’s a funny tidbit though. I used to develop websites. That’s what I did as I began growing my online career. I do code best when I’m watching TV.

Pete Mockaitis
Intriguing.

Kathleen Shannon
I was about to say that too, Emily. I feel like our jobs have changed, where you used to be coding, I used to be doing a lot more graphic design and busting out that Bezier pen tool, any designers listening know what that is, and this kind of redundant work where you can listen to music or watch TV.
That’s my favorite, are days whenever I have to do some design and I’ll sit down in front of Keeping Up with the Kardashians and just knock some stuff out.

Kathleen Shannon
Now we do so much writing that I feel like it requires a different kind of focus where it’s harder to drown out those outside noises and it’s harder to get that focus with background noise happening.

Pete Mockaitis
Understood. Yeah. Well, thank you for setting the stage here and could you maybe continue that. But first, I want to make sure – I first learned about your show from one of our mutual listeners. It’s Beth in Baltimore. Can we just talk about how great she is?

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah. Beth, high five.

Emily Thompson
Thanks for spreading the Being Boss love for sure.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Shout out accomplished. Tell us, what’s Being Boss all about?

Kathleen Shannon
Being Boss started as two business besties, that would be me and Emily. We were really craving that connection and conversation, so, as we mentioned, we’re working alone out of our homes, sometimes in complete silence. That can get kind of lonely.

So we became creative peers and colleagues whenever we were hiring each other for the work that we were doing. Beyond that, we started to connect on a more friend level. We would hop on a video call and really talk shop.

After a year or two of over Skype talking about what was working, what wasn’t working, our conversations were getting deeper. We were talking about real numbers, like sharing money, which is kind of taboo.

We were sharing our biggest secrets as far as business secrets, the kind of stuff that people like to keep to themselves. We were sharing insights as to how we were juggling work and life and time management and growing families while growing careers.

Emily was even there when I was like, “Okay, I’m thinking about starting a family. How am I going to make this work?” She’s like, “Okay, you need to automate. You need to get some systems in place and you’ve got to put that kid in daycare.” Well, that’s not entirely true because Emily homeschools, but I definitely had to do the daycare. Anyway, all this to say, we were having these conversations.

One day Emily sent me an email saying, “Hey, you know those business bestie conversations we’re having, we need to hit publish on them. We need to start a podcast. Other creatives are craving this kind of conversation and probably feel just as alone as we did and we could be their work buddies.”

Our podcast, Being Boss, it really did catch on pretty quickly and we became the go-to podcast for other creatives and aspiring entrepreneurs who wanted to hear some insights and real talk about what it takes to do the work. ‘Do the work’  has essentially become our mantra because we all know making a living doing what you love isn’t always easy and it takes hard work. That’s the conversation that we have been having for the past three years.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s awesome. But I’ve seen several Facebook ads that tell me if I just follow this bulletproof system I can make millions of dollars online easily working from home.

Emily Thompson
Yeah, yeah and how has that worked out for you?

Pete Mockaitis
That’s like all the ads I get on Facebook. I guess like some of the wrong things that get me targeted for that.

Emily Thompson
Yeah. There are so many people in the online space or not even in the online space, who have laid out these blueprints or plans or mapped out success in a way that if you follow them, X, Y, Z, you’ll get the thing that you want.

Kathleen and I, we’ve done some of those probably back in the day, like here’s how you build a six-figure launch or whatever it is. We quickly realized that that’s not how the world works. It only took us a time or two to realize that’s not how things go down.

That’s really what a lot of those beginning conversations were, were here’s the thing that I tried. Here’s what worked and didn’t work. You do it, find out what works for you, and then let’s share back and forth.

We realized that everyone’s success is defined differently and therefore the path to your success is always going to be different from someone else’s. That’s really been the core of what Being Boss is, is define success on your terms and then take the steps that you have to take to get there. It won’t look like anyone else’s journey; it will look like your journey and that’s what makes it all the more special.

Those blueprints and things, they may work for three or four people, which is great for those people, but buying into those things is a mistake when what you really need to do is define success on your own and make it do the way you need to make it do.

Pete Mockaitis
Well said.

Kathleen Shannon
One of the things I always think about are working actors, like those actors that have tons of jobs but you never see them as the lead role, but they’re probably living a pretty nice life. I kind of think of us as that as well. We are working creatives who are in it with you. We’re not those million dollar overnight successes, but we’re going to show you that you don’t have to be a million-dollar overnight success to do the work and do what you love.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, I love that. That reminds me of the documentary, maybe you’ve seen it. It was pretty engaging. It’s called That Guy … Who Was in That Thing. It’s all about those actors.

Kathleen Shannon
I love that.

Pete Mockaitis
Interviewee after interviewee are like, “I kind of recognize that guy.”

Kathleen Shannon
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
“He was in that thing.” He sort of talks about the struggle. I love how you talked about defining success on your own terms as opposed to sort of just knee-jerk reacting to, “Hey, quit your job. Leave the rat race,” because for the most part, my listeners enjoy their jobs most of the time or are actively trying to find a switch and are finding some fulfillment and fun and flourishing – oh, alliteration – in the world of being employed at a place as opposed to being the sort of the owner CEO.

But, nonetheless, you talk about boss in many ways as a mindset in your upcoming book, Being Boss. Could you unpack that a little bit?

Emily Thompson
Absolutely. I mean for us it all starts with mindset, with the sort of foundational belief that you can do whatever you want. You have the right and ability to define things the way you want them to be and then you have the ability to go make it happen for yourself.

If you don’t believe those things, it’s not going to happen for you. It’s really important to get into that right frame of mind in order to tackle all the challenges that come at you, whether that’s creating your career or building your life and doing those in a way that you find fulfilling.

It’s being confident. It’s seeking out motivation and inspiration. It’s committing to setting and working towards really big ass goals or maybe not really big goals if you’re not a super big goal kind of person.

We also believe that a lot of it comes into trusting yourself, trusting that you’re going to make the right decision and that you’re going to be able to show up and do the work and get the thing. It all starts with that foundational mindset that you can do what it is that you want to do as long as you show up and do it.

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, whenever I think about the boss mindset and all of the people that we’ve interviewed and even in our early conversations with each other, it’s this idea of self-reliance, trusting that you’re not going to have all the answers, but that you can absolutely figure it out.

Emily talked about trusting that you can make the right decision, but I’m going to take it even a step further and trusting that no matter what decision you make, right or wrong, trusting that it’s going to get you where you need to go. That definitely is that primary foundation that we always start with is mindset. Part of that is really understanding your values as well.

This can be applied for people who are working for themselves or working in the context of an organization or a company where they are an employee. It’s really understanding what you value and bringing intentions and action to those values so that you are living them out not only in your life but in your work.

Pete Mockaitis
I am loving that. As you say values, you’re firing off some connections for me, thinking back to my Coaches Training Institute training back in the day. How would you define a value and can you give us a couple of examples of what a value is and what’s not a value, like you said that is a value, but that doesn’t quite sound like a value?

Emily Thompson
Sure. I mean values are sort of the foundational beliefs that you sort of build your own characters. For me, I value freedom where whatever I am going out into my work or even my life, like that’s something I’m consistently seeking, it’s something that I value seeing in other people. Wherever those opportunities are presented to me, those are more intriguing than the ones that aren’t.

For me, something that I value is freedom. Everyone has values, whether you value kindness or assertiveness. Kathleen, feel free to jump in with any additional one.

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, so one of my biggest values is authenticity. I know that’s a word that’s being really used a lot lately, but I can’t think of a better word for it. It’s one that resonates with me.

This is another thing whenever it comes to values is choose words that resonate with you on that kind of cellular level because there are a lot of words that mean the same things and so once you start to unpack your value, really explore all the words that are similar to that value or synonyms with that value.

Mine is authenticity and that is really, whoever I unpack that a little bit, it’s being who you are 100% of the time. And as I’ve gotten a little bit older and hopefully wiser, I realize that being who you are 100% of the time takes a lot of self-awareness and it takes a lot of questioning and curiosity. I would also say being who you are 100% of the time and seeking out who that is.

For me, anything I create – I use my values as a guidepost for making those hard decisions. I think that decision making is one of the hardest things whenever it comes to being your own boss or even making tough decisions about if you’re working a day job, whether or not to leave or to switch careers or to switch companies.

For me, I run every single decision I have to make through the question is this going to help my listeners, readers, whoever is consuming or engaging with me in any way be who they are 100%. If the answer is no, I’m not going to do it. If the answer is yes, alright, let’s go. For me and Emily too, we both use values as a way to really set boundaries in our business and to really draw that line between what we’re willing to do and what we aren’t willing to do.

Pete Mockaitis
I think that’s so good. That point about thinking about what resonates at the cellular level and thinking through some synonyms. Because I might say integrity. I’d think we’d all agree, yes, that’s important. Integrity is good. But for me, if I think about synonyms, I think about count-on-able, which is a little weird way to articulate it.

Kathleen Shannon
Nice word.

Pete Mockaitis
But it resonates more. I want to be someone that can be counted upon as opposed to, “Oh boy, that flake.” You know?

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, totally.

Pete Mockaitis
It just resonates more and I think it’s powerful in terms of making them all the more real as opposed to I guess – and exciting as opposed to just sort of obligatory, like, “Yes, I should do that because that’s a value,” as opposed to, “Oh, this is how I roll, so I’m fired up about it.”

Kathleen Shannon
Oh yeah. It should absolutely be something that you’re fired up about. This is a monthly practice for us, if not daily. But every month Emily and I set intentions. Sometimes we do use the word value and intention interchangeably, but the way that we like to think about it is that intentions help you bring actions to your values.

We’ll set intentions every month. I think what was mine last month was to rally. Another word for that could have been reliable, like I want to be really reliable this month, but I really wanted to rally and bring enthusiasm. For me it had this whole other kind of energy beyond reliability that really resonated with me.

We like to also do this on a monthly basis to explore new values and to really test some out and see what sticks and see where we can work on our own character by bringing in more of these intentions into kind of a practice in our personal lives and in our business.

Pete Mockaitis
Those intentions, that is powerful and one of our best episodes was How to Have a Good Day with Caroline Web. It’s so powerful. When you set an intention, all sorts of things go off in your brain in terms of what opportunities you notice and the decisions you choose to make in each of those opportunities. It’s a little thing, but it really has profound cascading ripples that go down when you’re living life.

Emily Thompson
Absolutely. I think the most I ever sort of got out of intentions or I guess the time that I realized they were probably so powerful, several years after – Kathleen and I sort of had this intention practice for a couple of years now. We share them with each other. We hold each other accountable. We’re always cracking jokes about having adopted the other one’s intention or whatever it may be.

I was listening to the Making Oprah podcast. One of the episodes of that podcast was when Oprah decided to start adopting an intention practice. She made her entire team at Oprah do it. Everything they did had to be based on some sort of intention. There had to be a good reason for doing everything that they did and how much of her sort of life and success she has placed on this adoption of an intention setting practice.

I was like, “Well, if Oprah can do it and be Oprah, then this has to be super powerful. It gave me a whole other level of appreciation for this practice that Kathleen and I have sort of kind of accidently fell into but we definitely see how profound and life changing and business- and career-changing it can be.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. I love it. I’d like to get maybe a little bit even more sort of tactical into the day-in, day-out in terms of if someone is in a job, what are some of your top tips for being more boss like or some top boundaries that might make great sense to set right away?

Kathleen Shannon
Oh, I’ve got one.

Emily Thompson
Yes, ma’am.

Kathleen Shannon
I do. I do. This is to stop checking your email in the evenings and on weekends.

Pete Mockaitis
There it is.

Emily Thompson
Yeah.

Kathleen Shannon
That’s it. It’s funny because whenever we were writing our book and running the first draft by our publisher, our editor said, “Hey, what about emails? How do you pry yourself away from your email?” This is something that Emily and I do not have a problem with. We are not slaves to our email. I think it is because of some of those early foundational boundaries that we set in place. It’s just kind of a non-issue. We forgot that some people might even have an issue with that.

We really thought it out and I think that this applies to anything though, anything that is capturing your attention that you don’t want to be giving. I think that email is a huge one.

Really tactical, turning off the alerts on your phone for email. It is not a text message. Don’t open your computer. You don’t have to check your email. I think that this can be hard too because a lot of it is setting those boundaries with your coworkers and that can be really tricky.

But one of my favorite mantras is ‘it’s only as weird as you make it,’ right? If you can be strong enough to set this boundary and just say, “No, it’s actually more weird to check your email in the evenings and weekends,” then you can just own it. That’s a big part of being boss is just owning who you are and owning that time.

Another thing that I do and I’ve been doing this since I’ve had a … is scheduling time for myself on my calendar and literally putting in a meeting on my Google calendar and pretending as if it’s the most important meeting of the day because so often we treat our deadlines and our client meetings with more importance than our meetings.

For me I’m scheduling every day my daily workout. I’ve been doing this since I’ve had a day job. I have a kid and I can still squeeze it in.

One of the things that Emily and I are constantly talking about is your to-do list will fill up with as much time as you give it, so I just give it a little bit less time and I prioritize myself and I find that I’m more productive whenever I do that. I would say scheduling time for yourself on your calendar is another really great boundary that you can literally see that boundary.

Then also looking at your calendar can help you see what you value and if what you value and where your intentions are aren’t being reflected in your schedule, it’s time to update something.

Pete Mockaitis
I like that. Emily, more.

Emily Thompson
Sure.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m demanding.

Emily Thompson
Right. We have this little exercise that we have people do occasionally, I even think it’s in the book, where we tell people to write their own sort of employee handbook for themselves.

If you are an employee, you have an employee handbook, but it probably – actually, I think number one is actually read your employee handbook if you haven’t already, if you’re not super familiar with it, to really see where the lines are already drawn because those boundaries are so important.

If you have a boss who’s overstepping those boundaries or if you have a coworker who is trying to nudge you into showing up too early or staying too late, too often or whatever it may be, knowing what the employee handbook already says, can be super helpful for helping you draw those boundaries.

But I also like the exercise of creating your own employee handbook, like what is not outlined in that employee handbook that you need to outline for yourself and whether that is stretch your communication boundaries or making sure you’re giving yourself an extra 15-minute moment in the afternoon to regroup so that you can really give the rest of your day the best you’ve got.

Defining some extra rules for yourself so that you can really show up and do the best work that you can do.

Pete Mockaitis
I love this. I’m just sort of imagining how it can play out in practice in terms of with the email if there’s resistance like, “No, I can’t.” I think you can just have some candid honest conversations, like, “Hey, I’m trying to unplug and be more present to my family, so I’d really appreciate it if something super urgent that you’d give me a call or text message if it’s in the evening time,” and there you go. It’s kind of hard to override that.

Kathleen Shannon
You know what? Unless you’re a doctor, unless you are saving lives, then at that point you’re also on call and getting paid for that. There is no emergency. Emily used to deal with this a lot with launching websites. People act like that is a life or death situation and it just isn’t. Maybe this is some tough love here.

Pete Mockaitis
I love it. Keep it coming.

Kathleen Shannon
I don’t want anyone texting me either or calling me. I don’t even want them to have my phone number.

Emily Thompson
Yeah, yeah. I think it’s looking at the points in your work where there is pain and trying to define your way out of that pain. If you are getting text messages from your boss and you don’t want text messages from your boss, tell your boss to stop texting you or whatever it may be, maybe it’s a coworker or whatever the case may be.

Those boundaries are super important. They keep you really good at your work and not resentful of the relationships that you have at work.

I also want to point out here that people will only take your boundaries as seriously as you do. If you say, “I won’t be emailing on the weekends anymore,” but you’re sliding out emails on the weekend, then no one’s going to respect those boundaries. You have to hold those to the highest standards as you set them and people will follow suit.

I’ve had people ask me before, “Your employees or the people you collaborate with, do they have issues with your email policies?” Because Kathleen and I are not emailing outside of regular 9 to 5 business hours and people would assume that the people we work with struggle with that or have issue with it.

What we’ve actually found is that people respect us more and they definitely respect those boundaries because we know what we need to do to get the job done and that does not mean responding to an email at 9 PM. We’ll be there at 9 AM to respond and you’ll get us fresh and ready to go. We’ll have really great relationships in the life outside of work as well. It really only holistically makes the entirety of our efforts better by putting those boundaries in place.

Kathleen Shannon
Okay, I want to mention that Emily has been her own boss like forever and I do come from an agency world where I did have a boss. If any of your listeners are like, “Oh my gosh, there’s no way I can tell my boss like, ‘Sorry, I’m not responding,’” because I know that that can be tricky. I think for me the hardest thing is what you don’t say.

You can respond to the text or to the email on Monday morning at 8 AM or whatever your working hours are. That’s a more subtle clue as to here are the times you can expect me to respond.

Then I also think that being really fully present and working your ass off while you’re at work and really staying focused means that you’re going to get more done in that time and you’re going to be more present for your co-workers and your boss and whoever else during that time, that they’ll start to see like, “Oh, maybe this actually works, this whole work/life being intentional in all the places kind of thing.”

Pete Mockaitis
I appreciate that you brought that into real experience if folks are having some resistance to this notion. I think I can think of a person, Kelsey, who told me just that. I was like, “Oh, you’re consulting, is that really draining you?” She’s like, “You know what? I just kind of told people how I work best and it works.” It was almost like, “Whoa, you can do that?”

I’d love it if you could maybe bring in some additional experiences from maybe your listeners or those you’ve interacted with who are in jobs who have had kind of a case study or a success with this.

Kathleen Shannon
We talk to a lot of entrepreneurs. But one thing I was going to say as Emily was sharing earlier with writing your own employee handbook, one of the things I have found to be really helpful in my own business is creating my own policies and saying things like, “Hey, it’s not my policy.” I’m just going to keep using email as an example since we’re there, but this could apply to a lot of things.

Like, “Hey, it’s not my policy to work for free,” or, “It’s not my policy to email on the weekends.” I wonder if there’s a way that if you are working a day job, like really think about your own policies and even using that verbiage to go with your boundaries might be really helpful for you.

I am married to a guy who has a day job. It’s been stretching him recently and it’s been kind of tricky navigating because you want to please the people that you work with, you want to be a good employee, you want to show that you’re enthusiastic and that you’re in it and that you’re a team member, but you also have to show them that you are a responsible parent or you’re a responsible husband and you’ve got more obligations or even if you don’t have kids or a wife or any of that, you do have a life outside of work.

I think that a good thing whenever it comes to that that you can do is kind of blend – like instead of this work/life balance and separation, is blend a little bit of it, so maybe even sharing with your coworkers what you’re doing outside of work and really just setting the stage and saying, “Hey, I’m going to go pick up my kid,” or, “I’m going to go hiking on the weekend.” I think whenever you can do that, it can help them get a sense of who you are outside of work and make them respect that time even more.

Pete Mockaitis
Absolutely. I’ve noticed that often, other professionals will have sort of a respect or awe or admiration for, “Well, good for you. I’d really like to do that myself.”

Sometimes if it’s kind of heavy, what you’re dealing with, like, “Hey, you know what? My mom is sick so it is really important to me to be able to spend some extra time because we don’t know how much time we have,” or there’s a hospital or even with the hiking example. It’s like, “I find that I am so much more brilliantly refreshed and creative at work if I’m able to do this,” so everybody wins if this works out.

Kathleen Shannon
Right. I want to point out here that the key here is communication. It’s talking about what it is that you’re doing and how it is that it helps you be better at your job.

I can’t speak a lot to having conversations with people who have day jobs, but I do know that as a boss of people who I’m providing their day job, we talk about those kinds of things all the time. I do prompt a lot of it because I do understand how that makes for a much healthier work environment for all of us, but they also bring those sorts of things to be.

I’m super cognizant of the fact that there are ways in which people are more efficient and more effective and those are the sorts of things that I want to nurture.

I recently had one of our employees, who’s actually a contractor, come to us recently and say, “I think that I would be more effective if I were to focus at being boss on Monday, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and leaving Thursdays and Fridays open for other endeavors that I’m working on.” I was like, “Great. That’s absolutely fantastic. We can adjust some things to make sure that we’re only relying on you on those three days,” and it wasn’t an issue.

It was clear communication. If she had stopped showing up on Thursday and Friday or was only half putting in the work on any of the days, that would have had a negative effect on what it is that we’re trying to build together. But it’s just that direct and clear concise communication that is appreciated and effective and allows us all to move forward and creates an organization where we’re all working better for it.

I think very often, even in large organizations, people think that their efforts don’t affect everyone or that their hike on the weekend isn’t going to make anyone’s job better but their own, but the truth is that it affects everything. You’re a part of a larger system and the more you can really give to that part whether it’s your communication or your undivided attention or your best self because you took that hike, the better off everyone is going to be for it.

Pete Mockaitis
I love this stuff. Thank you. To shift gears, I know you’ve got some great wisdom in the realm of confidence and dealing with fraudy feelings. What are some of your pro tips there?

Kathleen Shannon
Oh, I’ve got one. I love it whenever I need to cultivate confidence or overcome what we call fraudy feelings, which is kind of imposter syndrome, is to throw a dinner party. For me this is kind of calling on my inner mentors. I pretend as if I’m hosting a dinner party with these people who can give me boss advice and really guide me in this super mentored way into where I need to be going.

If my dinner party includes Beyoncé, Neil deGrasse Tyson, maybe Bill Nye the Science Guy. I’ve got a couple of scientists there. It may be a comedian like Dave Chappelle. I’ve got a few guests at my dinner party. You might be thinking like, “Wow, Kathleen is super connected,” and I’m not. I’m not.

This dinner party exists only in my head, but it really does help me cultivate this confidence of what kind of advice would Beyoncé give me if I feel like I’m struggling with having a hard conversation with a business partner. It’s really fun to kind of almost play it like an ad-lib game or have unexpected people give you unexpected advice to the problems that you’re trying to solve, like how would Neil deGrasse Tyson, how would he help advise me in solving this design problem.

It can really lead to some creativity and innovation. Whenever you’re feeling creative and curious and innovative, there is no room for feeling bad or feeling sorry for yourself or having fraudy feelings. At that point, you’re energized and excited just to make the thing. That’s how I like to do it.

Emily Thompson
Love that, Kathleen, your fake dinner parties. I like to be a little more practical I think. I always look at
proof.

One of the things that Kathleen say to each other and ourselves consistently is ‘I can do hard things.’ We know this because we’ve done it. We can look at the past, at what it is that we’ve built. I imagine anyone listening to this, you’ve done something hard in your life at least once or you probably wouldn’t be listening to this podcast on that cool device that you have in your hand or in your pocket or wherever it may be.

You can do hard things. If I ever need to bolster my confidence and get something done that I maybe haven’t done before or it seems a little daunting or I’m trying to tell myself that I’m not going to be able to accomplish it, I always look back at all the things that I have done.

If I can’t do it for myself, I call up a friend or pour a glass of wine and go talk to my partner, David, and we’ll go over some of the things that I’ve done, whatever I need to do to remind myself that this is just one more hard step on a very long path and journey of hard steps. It’s not quite as fun as Dave Chappelle and Beyoncé, but I find it just as useful.

Kathleen Shannon
Well, Emily, one of the things that you’ve always done that’s really inspired me is to approach everything as an experiment and to know that you can test and change. I think whenever you approach a project as an experiment rather than like, “Oh my gosh, this is my livelihood and I need to make some money,” you’re open to failure because aren’t scientists looking to fail. Aren’t they looking to prove themselves wrong?

I think that that’s what we’re trying to do as well is really see what works and what doesn’t through the lens of an experiment, like this is a thing that we are trying. Yes, our livelihood does depend on it, but whenever we can get curious and be open to failing, we succeed nine times out of ten.

Pete Mockaitis
That is powerful. I love that notion ‘I can do hard things’ feels like a much more tangible and specific belief to cultivate as opposed to what you might call self-esteem or self-confidence.

This brings me back. Boy, when I was a freshman in college I remember, I just kept getting rejected from stuff. I wanted to join all these clubs and they wouldn’t have me. I was like, “What the heck? I was such a rock star in high school. This is bogus.” It really did kind of bring me down in terms of what you’d call self-confidence.

So I made a big old notebook with bullet after bullet of cool things that I’ve accomplished. If you sort of look at those evidence points for not just, “I’m great,” but, “I can do hard things,” I think that’s really galvanizing and resonating.

Emily Thompson
Yeah, it’s important. It’s so easy to start beating yourself up and forget that you’ve gotten here because you did cool things or you did something and the next thing is just the next thing that you have to overcome. It’s just an easy, simple tactic for getting you there.

Kathleen Shannon
One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is that it’s not supposed to be easy. No good story doesn’t come without some challenges. We’re on a hero’s journey and that means we’re going to be falling on our faces sometimes and that’s okay. We’re supposed to.

Pete Mockaitis
This is so good. Tell me, is there anything else you want to make sure to mention before we shift gears and hear, rapid-fire, your favorite things?

Emily Thompson
My favorite quote, it’s not even inspiring, it’s one of those things that drives me a lot. It’s really funny, I also have to share the story that surrounds it. The quote is ‘Look for what’s different.”

It came from a teacher that I had once. I think about this all the time. It was in reference to looking for four-leaf clovers of all things. We’re like out in the school yard, looking at clovers, and she told us to look for what’s different because it’s the four-leaf clover that’s different from the three-leaf clovers.

I think about that all the time. I absolutely know that little mindset nugget, that little just quote that seems so simple, is one of the things that’s definitely brought me to where I am, where it’s not the 14-step blueprint that’s going to make me 18 figures or anything like that. It is the thing that’s different that will take you down the path to what it is that you’re supposed to do.

The quote that I’m always thinking of is Dear Ms. Thompson, because we did share a last name too and that’s just a whole other level of magic there, this idea of you should be looking for what’s different, not at what’s the same.

Kathleen Shannon
Is that how you find so many four-leaf clovers? Is that your secret?

Emily Thompson
Yes, it is. That is my secret. I also just shared the secret to how it is that I find four-leaf clovers more easily than anyone I’ve ever met.
Kathleen Shannon
Wow, I love it. Mine is – I’m going to butcher his name, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and it is “Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it.”

Pete Mockaitis
And it rhymes. Thank you. How about a favorite book?

Emily Thompson
Daring Greatly by Brene Brown. This one changed my life and we’re often asked what business books we recommend and this isn’t a specific business book, but it is one that will teach you the power of vulnerability and resilience and it has changed my life.

Kathleen Shannon
Mine is just Harry Potter, all of them.

Pete Mockaitis
Lovely, thank you. Could you share a particular nugget that really seems to connect and resonate with your audience? You hear them quoting it back to your often.

Kathleen Shannon
Do the work. It’s so funny whenever we were writing our book, we were asking our audience, “Is there anything that we have said that really stands out for you?” All of them said, “You’re constantly just telling us to do the work.”

That means to get into that mindset, to get into your habits and routines, and to establish those boundaries and to lean on your wolf pack, and your tribe, and your community, and to really be who you are 100% of the time in work and life and that takes a lot of work, but you can do it, so do the work.

Emily Thompson
I agree with that one, except I think I’ll expand because one of things that I feel like comes back to me often, I feel like there’s been some Instagram graphics made out in the world where at one point I said, “Do the work is what happens between the wanting and the having,” so a nice little definition there for it’s all the work that happens between wanting something and actually having it.

Pete Mockaitis
If folks want to learn more or get in touch where would you point them?

Emily Thompson
BeingBoss.club.

Kathleen Shannon
I was going to say, www.BeingBoss.club.

Emily Thompson
Good job. Good job Kathleen.

Kathleen Shannon
We’ve had our listeners get stressed out about the way I say www.

Pete Mockaitis
I was thinking that. I noticed that myself. I’m like interesting choice.

Kathleen Shannon
Yeah, yeah right. We have an interesting URL, so I like to include the www for context. But yeah, that’s where you will find us.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue forth to those seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Emily Thompson
I do, and Kathleen, I look forward to hearing what you have to say about this one. One of my very favorite ones and I think this is especially for people who have jobs because I think there are a whole other set of rules, it applies to both, but job people. I think I challenge people to say no three times this week.

Kathleen Shannon
That one makes me start to sweat a little bit.

Emily Thompson
I know it does. I know it does.

Kathleen Shannon
I have a hard time with it.

Emily Thompson
I think it’s a good one.

Kathleen Shannon
Mine is going to be make space for what you want, whether that is on your calendar or whatever that looks like for you, make space for what you want. I would say on your calendar and schedule it and make it happen.

Pete Mockaitis
Mm-hm. Well, Emily, Kathleen, this has been such a treat. Thank you for sharing the good stuff. I hope that your book is a smash success and you keep on being boss and flourishing in all you’re doing.

Kathleen Shannon
Thanks for having us, Pete, this was so much fun.

Emily Thompson
Yes.

Mar 23
0

277: Keys to Exceptional Goal Achievement with (100% Bucket List Completer!) Danny Dover

By | Podcasts | 4 Comments

 

Danny Dover says: "If you want to be a person who lives an extraordinary life, then... take action that is extraordinary."

Fascinating achiever Danny Dover shares how we can unlock similar achievements in our own careers and lives.

You’ll Learn:

  1. How and why to set binary goals with zero wiggle room
  2. How to eliminate distractions, ruthlessly yet tactfully
  3. Approaches to rediscover your motivation

About Danny

In 2010, Danny Dover assigned a deadline of May 25, 2017, to his life. He was tired of hearing about other people’s exciting lives and decided to jump-start his own by taking steps to actually live as if the end was in sight. He tattooed his deadline on his butt and made the sole purpose of his life to complete his Life List (a list of more than 150 life goals). While pursuing his list, he inadvertently became a minimalist in order to gain the necessary focus to create a more meaningful life. This seemingly small change in mindset (which he later detailed in the book The Minimalist Mindset) dramatically changed his life for the better.

As of 2017, Dover has completed his entire Life List (which included living alone in the wilderness for a month, traveling to nearly 100 countries, mountain climbing in Antarctica, becoming a best-selling author, etc.)

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Danny Dover Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Danny, thanks so much for joining us here on the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast.

Danny Dover
I am so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, boy. Well, I think we’ll have a great chat here so I’m excited as well. First of all, I’d love to hear about the tattoo on your butt. What is the scoop here?

Danny Dover
This comes up more often than I had imagined before I got this, or when I got this. Okay, so if you rewind about 10 years of my life, I was in a really, really, really rough spot. I was dealing with depression among other things, and I realized, very frankly, that I had really no choice but to find a better life for myself or perhaps a better way to word it now, say building a better life for myself.

I knew I was a procrastinator. I knew that with depression I had very, very little motivation, so I decided that I need to make this thing very real, something very permanent, and something very important to me, meaningful. And so I got a tattoo with what I imagined, at the time, would be the deadline for my life, so this was May 25, 2017, and, again, I got this done about 10 years ago.

And very, very slowly I got started on rebuilding my life a little bit, on making some strides and, as I’m sure we’ll talk about, on working on a list of 150 goals that I have for myself before that deadline.

Pete Mockaitis
So deadline for your life, you mean, to do all the items on your list prior to that date?

Danny Dover
That’s correct. Now, you got to remember, I was in a real dire side of my life and so I was taking this very morbid direction and a very serious direction. But in hindsight, I can look back and say…

Pete Mockaitis
Hind? Ho, ho, ho, zing.

Danny Dover
Hiny-sight. That was exactly what I needed then, so it did the job. I came up with this idea that it seemed like a good idea to follow this general advice of, “Live as if the end is in sight.” But, of course, none of us know when that time is going to be. And so I said, “Well, what if I just picked a time…” or a date in this case, “…and have that be my trajectory,” and kind of draw a line in the sand or a tattoo on my butt, if you will.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, that’s cool. And so, then, you had a healthy list of 150 life goals. Can you give us an example of a couple of them that were the most challenging and transformational?

Danny Dover
Sure. And I should give a little context on where this list came from. When I was in this little part of my life, I asked people around me what were some of the favorite stories from their lives, and some of these were accomplishments, some of these were people they’ve met, some of these were relationships they had. And I took their stories that they told me and made those the items on this life list.

So some of the odder ones, the more challenging ones, well, first, just this wasn’t specifically a bucket list then, but it was inherent to the list. I had to come up with ways of paying for this. And perhaps even more difficult, or at least equally difficult, I had to figure out, “How am I going to create a lifestyle where I can do these things as far as time goes?”

Because if you’re going to make money, that means you’re selling your time to somebody else, usually. And so I need to find a nice balance there where I could do these things. So let me give you some examples here.

So, visit every continent. These were more specific, but go to roughly about 100 different countries, get multiple patents, complete many, many meaningful tasks a year, and each of these had smart goals associated with them, so each of them were very specific, but in this list they’re not. Run a marathon, do astronaut training, go to the Olympics, Super Bowl World Series, create a profitable business, live in the wilderness alone for a month, so on and so forth, 150.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s so good. Now I want to touch base on what you mentioned there with smart goals. So, that’s kind of how actually I got my start in speaking as I was presenting at this conference called HOBY, Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership, which I still do. It’s a lot of fun, very sort motivated, fun, high school sophomores assembling and having a transformational sort of a weekend experience.

And so I do talk about smart goals because I was a goal-setting enthusiast. Some people are a little down on smart goals, saying, “That’s actually not the optimal way to establish goals given our psychological understanding given dah, dah, dah.” But, hey, you’re a living proof, you had 150 of these and you knocked them all out, and all of them had a smart goal associated with it. Can you unpack, first, the acronym, and second why you think this is a good way to go?

Danny Dover
Well, perhaps, surprisingly I agree with some of the research that you just referenced.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Danny Dover
I don’t think that smart goals are necessarily the best way to do it for everybody, but I think the general concept, which I’ll talk about in just a second, seems like a better path than what I was doing before – smart goals.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Danny Dover
So, before it was smart goals, my goals were very broad and it wasn’t clear if I completed them or not, and there’s lots of wiggle room. With a smart goal, I don’t even know if I know the acronym off the top of my head, but I think it’s specific, measurable, actionable, I don’t know what the R is.

Pete Mockaitis
Realistic?

Danny Dover
Realistic, thank you. And timely or time-based. And I don’t care so much about getting the specifics and nailing it down, but what I care about is making a goal that fulfills these general accomplishments. It is binary decision, “Have I completed this or have I not completed this?” And there was absolutely no wiggle room. It is either a yes or it’s no. There’s no, “Well, maybe,” or, “Yes, but…” that doesn’t exist.

So what I’m really going for is a binary thing, and the tool that I used for that is smart goals but I’m not really religiuos about obsessing about making sure I hit each of those letters. As long as it’s binary I’m happy.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. And so I’d love it if you could maybe give us an example of how you binarialized – we’re inventing a word, Danny.

Danny Dover
Sure. I think you did. I guess you get credit for that.

Pete Mockaitis
It’s a joint creation. You made binary. Some accomplishments or goals are tricky when it comes to sort of like an emotional thing or about some happiness or like a relationship thing in terms of if you want to have a good or better relationship with a spouse or a great friend. So could you give us an example of maybe something that started fuzzy and how you made it smart or binary?

Danny Dover
Yeah. So let’s take chess, which actually ended up in the hindsight, hiny-sight, if you will.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes.

Danny Dover
Ended up being one of my least favorite items I did on there. But, originally, when I wrote it down it was not a very good goal as far as being smart. It was, “Learn to play chess well,” I think is what I wrote.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Danny Dover
And in order to do that, and in order to make this binary, you need to add more attributes to it. So what I first did was researched, okay, “How is chess set up? How is it measured? What does the Bell curve look like?”

Pete Mockaitis
Those ranking are insane, bro.

Danny Dover
They are insane. Oh, yeah, some people… there’s a problem actually with this. I’ll go into it as kind of an aside. So in order to look at distribution of a chess players, you look at places like chess.com, or this was what I chose. But people who spend all their time playing chess for fun tend to be very good at chess, and so the Bell curve has shifted than what it would be for the average human being. So it’s actually made the challenge quite hard.

So there’s multiple chess ranking systems, there is, I believe, is Elo is how you pronounce it, and Glicko-2, too. So I chose Glicko-2, it looked like, for my research, that that was going to make more sense for my goals. I found what the center of Bell of curve was, I wanted to be slightly above average which would be well because I was taking into account this bias that the people who were on chess.com playing this were the ones who play chess all the time are like quite good, and so I wanted to beat the average.

And I believe the number was 1550 on the Glicko-2 is what I had to beat. I’d have to look at my notes but I believe that was it. So I played chess until I was able to beat 1550 on the Glicko-2, if I’m getting my numbers correct.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow.

Danny Dover
It was terrible.

Pete Mockaitis
I mean, I was going to say that. I think that would take a long time based on my progress in the game of chess.

Danny Dover
Yeah, so chess is really interesting. I love it as an analogy, and I love it as a concept for explaining strategy. But what I found, for my personal taste, is that the way to get good at chess, which is just rote memorization, is trying to understand lots and lots of different permutations and memorizing that is just not a fun endeavor for me, not to say that it can’t be great for other people. Clearly, a lot of people get a lot of joy from it, but not for me.

What I thought I was going into was a game where you would get broad strategy, but what I found, to master it, at least my understanding from the teachers and mentors I worked with, it was more about memorization and then general rules based off of trends that you start to see. And that wasn’t the direction I wanted to go.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, maybe that’s why I didn’t get that far. It’s like I learned the lesson.

Danny Dover
And maybe that’s why I didn’t get farther. I mean, any subject that we take in this kind of very quantitative way is going to be, there’s going to be lots of side cases.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And so I’m intrigued there, so then that’s the idea, is you’re shooting for, it needs to be binary such that there is no wiggle room. I know that I have to achieve it by this date or I have not.

Danny Dover
Correct. So it was 1550 on Glicko-2 by a specific date. I had the overall deadline on May 25, 2017, but when I went through each goal on this list, each of this list items, I signed a sub-date so a deadline that I gave myself earlier, so.

Pete Mockaitis
Wow. That’s so cool. Now, I think that others would suggest, I guess, the smart goals doubters would say, you know, “Hey, you need to be kind to yourself and not sort of put yourself in a position where the results or the performance is somewhat beyond your control. And you got to focus in on what you can do, your actions and the process.” What’s your response to that kind of vibe?

Danny Dover
It’s complicated. So half of me says, “That’s right. You should be kind to yourself,” and that not enough people are kind to their self in a meaningful way and for long periods of time. And I think you can cause a lot of damage by not being kind to yourself.

The other part of me says that, “If you want to be a person who lives an extraordinary life, then you’re going to have to take action that is extraordinary,” just by definition. And so I was a person who had given myself this big goal, this entire life list, and I said that I’m going to make this the meaning of my life, that’s why I was so serious with the tattoo, and so that is going to require extraordinary steps.

So, now, is that the right thing for every single person to do? No, but I think this general idea of trying to create some meaning or importantly, or worded better, choosing a meaning for your life, I think that is a really good idea and I think that does apply to everyone. Now the difference will be in the meaning that you choose and the execution you choose to pursue.

Pete Mockaitis
And I’m curious to get a sense for, you said you made that the purpose of your life and it’s like sort of decided this is very important. And then you stuck with it. Like are there any sort of master keys that others who have fallen off the wagon for their goals can do there?

Danny Dover
Maybe. I hope that by discussing this topic, some other people will be able to skip some steps that I took, that ended up not being useful. So I spent a lot of time at the beginning of this journey, or really let’s say when I got about a third of the way through, because at the beginning I was doing nothing. I had no motivation. I barely get out of bed.

But as I slowly progressed, very slowly, I started doing more research on happiness, and how do you measure that, and what do you look at. And there were studies I read about measuring the different brain chemicals, which we can go to as an aside. I think they’re all kind of crazy. There’s different ones like measuring facial expressions and wrinkle depth to see how much you smiled, that kind of stuff.

And there’s all these kind of studies I read and there’s lots of other ways people went about it from like how do you act or you’re perceived by people or how you perceive other people, to kind of more psychological perspective. At the end of the day, I realized it just doesn’t matter. We don’t know. We really don’t know what we’re talking about when we’re talking about measuring happiness or quantifying happiness because it means different things to different people in different contexts.

So what I realized is that if I’m going to battle these very, very, very big problems in life, these big questions of, “Why am I here? What is the meaning of life?” I’m not going to find a binary answer. I’m not going to find something that’s like specific and measurable. I’m not going to find a smart answer to this.

Instead, what I’m going to find is that we don’t know. It just so happens that we’re here on this floating rock. You might as well just choose a purpose, just make your own decision, and what you’re going to find meaning, or what I found meaning from, as a result of that decision, is just pursuing it. Waking up every day and having a mission, even if it’s not the mission that was granted you by some extra like spiritual being.

Even if you have that choice, you made that choice, then you can find your own meaning in that, and that’s what happened to me. I think you can do that in lots of different ways. It doesn’t have to be a life list. But, for me, the key was just choosing something and fully committing myself to that decision. That’s what really made a big difference in my life.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing and I guess I’m wondering. You didn’t waiver and decide, “You know what, actually there is another mission that’s going to be the thing,” and sort of back and forth, teeter-totter, wobble. It’s like, “Nope, this is the thing,” and it stuck. Any sense for what made it stick?

Danny Dover
Well, first, the push for me to make this big decision was just I didn’t really have any other choice. I mean, nothing was working in my life so I needed to make a bold change or I was going to be stuck or even worse. So I had a large reason to push me to do this.

And then the second part of it was, well, I had created this tattoo that I had told some people about and then I eventually kind of writing about this kind of a year later, maybe a little longer, and so I had public peer pressure in a positive way. So positive peer pressure and people reading this and asking me, “How is it going?”

And so put this out here and I had these feedback loops in place that kind kept pushing me forward. So were there days that I waivered? Sure. There absolutely were, but I had chosen this mission and it was very clear what needed to be done and it was a matter of trying to figure out how to do it.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Cool. Thank you. Well, so then, I’m curious now, in order to do that it takes some discipline associated with prioritization and saying no to alternative things. What are some of your best practices there?

Danny Dover
Well, okay, this is a big topic. I’m glad we’re going into it. So let’s talk about, in order to answer this, let’s try to talk about high achievers. So we’ll choose one aspect of high achievers, and I want to be clear, there’s lots of different ways you can achieve things, but one aspect of that would be people who have a lot of money, so let’s say billionaires, right?

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Danny Dover
And billionaires are unique not because – well, they are unique because they have a lot of money, but that’s not the part I care about. What they’re unique in is they have a lot of power. So I think there’s a lot of evidence that these people, in many cases, really are able to change the world. It seems like they are modern-day superheroes who are the people who have this much power. So billionaires being one example of that.

Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld has a funny quote on this, he said, “When men are growing up and reading about Batman, Spiderman, Superman, they see these not as fantasies. They see them as options.” And I always really identified with that. I always thought that was funny.

So if you look back like last year, there was something like Forbes, I think, I’m quoting this from. There’s 2,043 billionaires on the planet in 2017, and that number rises roughly every year by 200, it depends on how the stock market does. So we have 2,000 plus billionaires who are with us right now, and none of them are Batman. This pisses me off. What the heck is going on here?

Pete Mockaitis
That we know about.

Danny Dover
That’s true. Maybe Batman would be smarter and just not actually show us. So we do have heroes who are billionaires. We have Bill Gates who professionally, I dislike him. But from what his impact on the world with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is actually amazing. He’s probably the prime example of someone who’s saving the world.

We have someone like Elon Musk who’s trying to save the world by leaving it, or at least getting humans off of it. So we do have these people who are like superheroes in our modern world so it’s exciting and it’s interesting.

So what I did, trying to understand this stuff, was start to study them. So lots of autobiographies and biographies, and really, I like those kinds of book in particular because they’re based in the real world and they’re people who have the same limits as all of us, meaning time, but they’re still able to achieve things.

And what I noticed was that, yes, there are definitely specific factors that applied to each of them specifically within the context of how they grew up and all that. But, generally speaking, what all these people who I have read books about, had in common is they had luck which I define as opportunity times preparation. You don’t really get to control opportunity per se but you certainly can control preparation, so it’s the multiplying the two where you really get luck.

And then habits, which is, this is part of my long answer in answering your original question here. Habits, I think, are what superheroes and billionaires and other people who are successful in other ways are different than the rest of us. So I started looking very seriously into that, and there’s a whole bunch of books on the topic, and they’re fine.

But what I’ve started to realize and what I really ingrained in myself is that it’s habits, not ideas, that are the programming language of human beings. And so I took this and I very seriously studied this concept. So I studied artificial intelligence, trying to mine this a little bit, trying to understand what breakthroughs are being made there, and can I apply this to myself.

And I found one that I thought applied quite well. It’s this idea of recursive self-improvement. So this is stolen from the field of AI, but I try to apply it with habits. Recursion, if you’re not aware, if you don’t have a development background, is a method that calls itself. And so you can be very, very powerful in a very, very small instruction base, or very, very small amount of code.

So in a human’s life it seems like this would be a habit that calls itself. So a habit that improves on itself. The most straightforward example of this would be something like speedreading. If you can speedread, and you really could keep your retention high, then you would be better at self-improvement because you’d be able to input more information into yourself, and then you’d get better at everything essentially if you’re reading the right stuff.

So in this way it would be recursive in that it would be a habit that was making you better at self-improvement, so improving that self-improvement.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, so sort of like a loop of sorts.

Danny Dover
It’s a very specific kind of loop.

Pete Mockaitis
So you’re saying, if this is fair, you tell me, that it gets real powerful when – like the speedreading example – is that you are improving your ability to improve yourself and, thusly, there’s kind of a, I’m thinking like compound interest here.

Danny Dover
Yes.

Pete Mockaitis
But there’s like a growing effect when you’re growing the thing that does growing.

Danny Dover
Exactly right. So like a billionaire is going to know the advantage of compound interest, right? That’s probably how they became a billionaire, at least in many, many cases. And so I wanted to apply this concept of compounding interest to people, to humans, so take away from finance entirely. And I realized that there’s certain habits, these ones I’m calling recursive self-improvement habits, that get more powerful as you develop them and they make other parts of your life better.

So speedreading is one kind of example although there are some problems here. The other ones that I’ve seen that I think are more beneficial are diet and exercise and, say, personal finance, friends, your network, your family, and things like focus. If you can get better at those core, I think other people, there’s like a Venn diagram here with what I’m calling recursive self-improvement habits, and other people call it like keystone habits.

Pete Mockaitis
Yes. Okay.

Danny Dover
So there are these ones that if you can get really good at these then it makes everything else much, much better. And so I doubled down on this concept. So you would ask me, “Well, how do I measure these things. How do I prioritize things? And how do I persevere with these things?” Well, this is exactly how I prioritize things.

I take what I believe to be these recursive self-improvement habits and I draw what’s called the goal-map. This is cool. I’ve actually never talked about this publicly before so this is something I’ve actually been doing for years.

So what I do is I outline what are the most important skills that I want to be working on in my life and then every quarter map the projects that I am doing to those, and I realized that if my projects are not aligning with these specific habits then I’m not going in the direction that I want. So let’s do a concrete example of this.

For me, these are diet, exercise, personal finance, family and friends. There also could be something like, if you go through traditional like definitions I’ve read of job satisfaction, it would be something like autonomy or competence, relatedness, maybe creativity impact. I think these broad categories and then I map all my projects to them.

And if you have job, well, so anybody who has a job is going to have to do some projects that don’t align with these, but you can know you’re doing the right direction, you can know you’re pointing the right way if most of the projects you’re or most of the hours that you’re spending are building up these kind of recursive self-improvement habits. These ones are going to get better over time and superpower you, like they give you these superpowers.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. That’s cool. That’s exciting. I’d love to dig deep into one of them. Let’s talk about focus because I think that’s highly applicable for professionals who have a lot of things coming at them from a lot of places. So how would you recommend starting to grow your capacity to focus such that it’s recursive and building on itself in becoming all the more awesome?

Danny Dover
Well, the most recent book I wrote, it’s called The Minimalist Mindset. It’s entirely about just focus. Focus is a very, very big topic. And funny enough, I think it’s one that doesn’t get enough attention even though we’re in a world where it’s very hard to focus and like there’s more need for focus than ever.

The way to become focused is to figure out what it is that you want to be focused on first, so prioritizing as we just covered. I use this tool called the Go Web but you can use any kind of prioritization system that you want and that works for you, and then being ruthless about eliminating distractions or anything that is not serving you.

So if you want to have extraordinary results, again, you have to really be persistent about being ruthless of eliminating any avenues you might have for failure. So this could be as simple as a clean desk. I mean, that’s the kind of advice I hear on like every podcast including yours. Your last guest, I think, spoke a lot about this and did a nice job on it.

But it’s also making sure you don’t have too many things on your plate, too many responsibilities. It’s about saying no and then consistently doing it which is hard. This reminds of a Steve Martin quote, “Perseverance is great substitute for talent.” I think that is a great way of looking at it. If you can just persistently say no to things that are not important and have an eye and understanding of what is important in your life then you’re setting yourself up on a very, very good path for potential success by however you want to measure that.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’d love to hear a few more things              that are great to eliminate, you know, one is clutter from a desk, another is many, many commitments. Are there sort of particular commitments or distractors that are particularly pernicious?

Danny Dover
Yeah, so this book I wrote called The Minimalist Mindset is a book about minimalism. And minimalism is usually applied to things, so this would be like having less clothes so that you don’t have to spend your creative energy picking out clothes in the morning, right? And that’s how minimalism is usually looked at, which is I think a good idea.

But I think the real beauty of minimalism is it applies to everything. So this could apply to your friendships, this could apply to your email, this can apply to your car, it can apply to anything you want. So I want to go give you an example that’s not the common one. So I’m going to avoid email just because that comes up in lots of podcasts episodes. Inbox Zero is a great way to do it. I’m looking at a tool called SaneBox. There’s a Cliff Notes version of how I got my email under control.

But let’s try to do something like priorities because that ends being the hardest one from a professional perspective. Let’s kind of dive into that a little bit. So what’s happening with a job, from my understanding, is that what you’re trying to do is trade time for money. And in doing so, if you’re working for somebody else, which almost all of us are, be it a client, be it a boss, then you are helping them achieve their dream rather than you necessarily achieving your dream. And you have to do this to start this when you don’t have a lot of leverage professionally because you need money and you need to pay your bills.

But I think it becomes very tempting to continue to prioritize all the things that your boss or your clients are prioritizing so that you can get more and more money so you can upgrade your lifestyle, so you can kind of go down this path. And, again, that works for everybody. But, for me, as a minimalist, I eventually got to a point where I had enough career capital, enough leverage where I could say, “You know what, I’m doing okay and I’d rather focus on these other things that I’ve already established as important in my life.” So, in my case, my life list.

So I was able to take these things that I had a focus on and then realizing kind of take a step back and be like, “Well, whose dream do I really want to accomplish here? Is it help my millionaire boss get more money? Or is it that I want to have more flexibility and freedom in my life, and in my family and friends’ lives?” And so I kind of took a turn there and started to persist in those directions, making things work that way. And that kind of is a rabbit hole as well.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Well, I’d love to hear, as you’re being ruthless, as you’re saying no to things, any pro tips on how to do that in the kindest or best way possible?

Danny Dover
Yeah, this is a very hard thing, and I want to make sure that that part is clear, that saying no, I think people gloss over how difficult that is, but a lot of times it’s saying no to like your significant other or saying no to someone who has a lot of professional leverage over you, that’s very difficult.

The only ways I found to do this is to create scripts so that’s as easy for you and reflexive for you as possible. If you’re very clear on what the direction you do want to go in, it gives you this motivation to do these uncomfortable things of saying no to people you may really legitimately care about.

So for professional, I’ll do an email script, so I’ve written up a very polite way of saying no that says basically the idea is that, “Currently I have too much responsibilities on my plate. I want to make sure I give everyone my all with those. I’m happy to meet with you or I’m happy to work on your project…” whatever the context is, “…but it has to be after I finish my current obligations. I don’t like being this busy, and so I’m taking active steps to make sure that’s not the case going forward”

So I have a written out email that already says this. I’ve massaged all the wording so that this is crystal clear and that’s what I’ll send. And it’s just for me, it’s two keystrokes. I run a Mac and you can just build this. It’s built into the operating system to do shortcuts with texts. So I think I just typed in, “Nob,” so nob I think is the word and it does that on my email, and then I hit send. And then I go on the next thing.

If it’s a significant other, it’s a lot harder. It’s working with your family and your friends so they can understand what it is you’re up against and what it is you’re trying to achieve so they can understand why you’re prioritizing things you are rather than just saying no. It’s giving them a fuller understanding of the why you’re saying no and let them know that the no is a temporary no so you can pursue this other thing so that you can make everybody’s life – so this would be your friends, family – make everybody’s life a little bit better.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Very nice. So, let’s see, I had all these things I want to hear from you, and I think we’ve covered a good bit. When it comes to habits, you’ve focused in on here’s something that’s worth developing as a habit and we’ve said no to a lot of other things in order to make that happen and to dig deep because it is recursive and has great cool accumulative effects.

What are your perspectives on getting that habit to really stick in terms of, “I am embarking upon this. I want this to be a habit in my life”? What do I do to ensure that I can make that happen and not fall off the wagon?

Danny Dover
Well, the first thing I do is I put it out there into the world that I’m working towards this habit. So be it weight loss or be it exercise or be it Inbox Zero or whatever it is. Put it out in the world so that you have this positive peer pressure working for you. You could also word this as working against you. But it works in your favor because people are going to check in on this.

From then, I make sure that I have plans for your bad days because there’s nothing I found that I can do to eliminate bad days or days when you don’t have motivation. And so I pre-plan some simple alternatives to make sure I do my full prep.

So if this is exercising, this would be saying, okay, if you’re having a bad day, or today you’re traveling or it’s going to be really hard for you to do a run, for example, then what I’m going to do is I’m going to have this exercise, put into notes on my phone so I know exactly what it is. I’m already have looked at what all the positions are so that I know this, so there’s nothing to stop me there, and then I’m just going to do it in the clothes that I’m wearing. So this wouldn’t be a run, this would be something like a series of like jumping jacks and pushups and sit-ups that kind of thing, where you don’t need equipment.

So I pre-plan for bad days and I make it crystal clear on what I’m going to do on days where I don’t have the option of doing what I’m supposed to be doing. So that example was with exercise. You could also do this with, say, email or you could do this with kind of any other area in my life as I pre-plan for them.

And the last one here is rekindling what it is that inspired me to start this to begin with. So this is almost always YouTube videos for me. So what I’ve realized is that I can get into to, say, Day 20 of doing a new habit, be it exercise or be it, right now, I’m learning to base guitar. And what I found is that like Day 1 and 2 are easy basic, like kind of easy because you have a lot of motivation. Day 3 is always really hard because your motivation is a little bit low, and you don’t really have that willpower as strongly as you did the first two days.

And so what I found is that I go on Day 3 or Day 4, I’ll go re-watch that initial spark that made me be inspire to do this job to begin with. So, again, I said this is usually YouTube videos, sometime this will be a conversation with a friend or whatnot. But then I’ll do that again like 10 days later so that works out to Day 13 or Day 14.

And then any other times I stumble past that point where I’m not going to make it to a true ingrained habit, usually depending on the research or who you’re reading, is like Day 22 or Day 30. I make sure that I get those re-boost of the original inspiration source, multiple times at point when it’s particular important.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s intriguing that you can often pinpoint the original inspiration source. I’m curious, are there particular YouTube channels that you’re watching. Where are you going to pack such a punch?

[00:33:03]

Danny Dover
We’ll come back to that a little bit. So it’s important to note that sometimes watching this same video over and over again is not going to quite do it. Although there are some videos which I’m happy to share with you on the show notes, that really every time I watch them really get me going again. But it’s more like I’ll find a particular, with the base guitar I’ll find a particular artist. I really like Flea, and re-watch some new stuff that he’s done or stuff that I haven’t seen is really a better way of saying that.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So understood. So the source of inspiration there. Now if you want to create habits of focus, for example, and you are seeking a source of inspiration, I’m wondering if a video would, what video would do it, it’s like, “Check out that guy,” not looking at his face, but it seems to be I’m fired up. What would it be?

Danny Dover
Well, in that case it could be that video is not the best way to do it. I’m certainly open to that. But if I was trying to do focus, I might look at something that someone has accomplished as a result of their focus and focusing on that. So that could be a great business person or a great sports star and their highlight reel, something along those lines, or spending some time with someone who I really admire who does a great job with their family and to see how it is they’re focusing on their children and just watch that again. I mean, maybe that’d be an offline example that is better applied here.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s cool. That’s cool. And then I’m almost seeing, in my mind’s eye, I’m picturing just sort of like a pulled quote and a graphic of the person’s face, and them sort of articulating that sort of decision or philosophy whether it’s entrepreneur or someone that you’re looking up to, like they have attributed their success to a thing.

Danny Dover
I’m reading the book Black Swan right now and it seems to be at this point in the book that the major thesis is saying that some things that happen to us are very random, and very often humans do not take randomness enough and do account when they’re looking at back at their college life.

So one of the key examples, I don’t remember if it’s from this book or from something else that I read, Steve Jobs looking back at his life, and he does the famous commencement speech which is a great YouTube video. I bet you more than half of your listeners have watched that. But what he’s failing to do is understand a lot of the other things that happened in his life that he didn’t have any control over, any responsibility over but also helps him enable these.

So, yes, he’s certainly used some habits to make these things occur, but it also just so happen that he was born during a time when computers weren’t even possible to develop, and there’s also ripe given the marketplace for it. Those are the things that he didn’t have any control over. So these ae kind of the exceptions that break the rule, and I think humans overly attribute their own amazingness to their past accomplishments.

So I’m trying now, I’m reading this book. I’m trying to apply that to my life as much as possible. You can do things that open up opportunity for you but you’re not going to be able to control those opportunities and how they play out. You’re only going to be able to prepare yourself for the potential for an opportunity.

Pete Mockaitis
I hear you. You know, it’s not sort of “if this then that” kind of direct line of “because Steve Jobs did not check his email” I don’t know “early in the morning, then if I don’t do that I, too, will achieve his results.” But, nonetheless, it seems like that theme associated with identifying the patterns that you want to model or the spark of inspiration that is compelling for you will push you, even if, hey, even if we’re deceiving ourselves a smidgeon along the way to get there.

Danny Dover
Yeah, I mean, I’d be this role of randomness is a very positive thing in my life so if you want to say that like the habits that you’re doing and the opportunities you’re trying to present for yourself or you just throwing spaghetti on the wall, then by all means throw more spaghetti but just acknowledge that even if…there is going to be a degree of randomness to this.

And I find this is a nice thing because if I fail at something and it seems like I was doing everything right, it makes me realize, “Hey, you know what, the world is actually much more complex than I understand. There are other things that play here. It doesn’t mean that I’m a failure because I fail at this particular thing. It just means it didn’t happen this time.” So I see this, the role of randomness, as a very positive thing.

Pete Mockaitis
Very good. Okay. Cool. Well, Danny, tell me, anything else you want to cover before we shift gears and hear about some of your favorite things?

Danny Dover
I do. I want to talk about mistakes that I’ve seen lots of my friends make professionally, and then I think they can be very valuable if people were able to get better at it.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Danny Dover
So the most common professional mistake that I’m seeing with friends and family members and other people like clients that I have is that they’re not showing the right kind of value to the right people. A lot of people that I work with or have worked with in the past try to demonstrate their value by putting in lots and lots of hours.

And while in some, like especially the taxing emotions for most of my time has been that can show value – it doesn’t necessarily show the value to the right people, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re getting the right things done.

So what I’ve tried to do instead is really hyper focus and work these people to make sure that they’re demonstrating the right kind of value, so understand what their goals are from their boss which, actually I found is they can just ask their boss and that enlightens people a lot. They work on something, and I’ve done this many times, I’d work on a project for six months, nine months, and while my boss thought that it was interesting or good, I didn’t realize that it was not the thing that was most important to them or that it would solve their bigger hanging problem.

And just by having that simple coffee conversation with them, asking them what their biggest problems they run into, now I can understand what the right value is. And then showing this to the right person. So it’s easy to show value to your boss because they’re checking on you and they’re making sure you’re providing value for the business.

But what turns up to be more important is to show value many times to your boss’ boss because they’re going to be ones who are going to be – information about you is going to be new because they don’t see you every day, and they’re probably the ones who can make decisions that are going to impact you in a way that you’re able to leapfrog in your career as opposed to just move up incrementally.

So what I’ve been doing with that is sending out, and I have an email script for this, but a polite way of trying to have a very casual coffee with your boss’ boss, if that applies, or just with the head of the company, the CEO or whatnot, and just trying to understand their problems and then demonstrating that you have some value without stepping toe on the toes of anyone who you’re directly working for and just saying, “Hey, I’m here to help. I’m interested in what is you see as good employees. I’m interested to see where you think the company is going. I’m interested to see what your priorities are with everything just so that I can be on the same page with you and help eliminate kind of silos that kind of stuff.”

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. Thank you. All right. Well, now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Danny Dover
Yeah, I’m a big fan of quotes so I have lots of them, but the one that has been resonating with me lately is one that my bartending instructor gave me years ago at a bartending school, he said, “Everything that we are is revealed by how we play.” That really struck me because I think a lot of people spend a lot of time, myself included, overthinking things. I do this probably worse than anybody. But when your shields are down, it’s when you’re actively playing that I think your true essence really shows itself. And I’ve been trying to remind myself of that more and more.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Danny Dover
Favorite book. Hands down it’s The Alchemist. It’s the only book I re-read every year. The Alchemist is really a beautiful wonderful story.

Pete Mockaitis
And how about a favorite tool, something that helps you be awesome at your job?

Danny Dover
Gap tape. So gap tape is very much like duct tape but it doesn’t leave residue and it doesn’t melt in high temperatures. Of course, if you put it on the sun it would but generally speaking it doesn’t.

Pete Mockaitis
So this is for like your studio setup?

Danny Dover
Yeah, I mean, but I travel with this so there’s been lots of times when – you can use tape for anything, right? But this’ll be that I’m fixing some clothes. This will be patching a tent. This will be earplugs. I probably shouldn’t have done that but I have. I mean, gaff tape is just solves all kinds of problems that know has such an expansive way of solving problems. So, yeah, gaff tape, you can buy it on Amazon or anywhere.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, cool. Thank you. And how about a favorite habit? Of all these we’ve discussed, is there on you think is evermore key for you?

Danny Dover
Boy, I mean, I don’t have a specific habit but I would say a general good direction going is to read more autobiographies. So if you want to make that into a smart goal it would be read, say, 15 autobiographies by December 31, 2018.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And is there a particular nugget you share that seems to really connect and resonate with folks who hear them repeat it back to you?

Danny Dover
Yes. Okay, so this has to do with the human eyeball. This is something that comes back to me, and I haven’t heard people say it to me verbatim, but I’ve heard them express this same idea so I like it. So if you look at the human eyeball from an evolutionary standpoint, how we got it to where it is now, there’s at least one interesting thing about it, but I’m sure there’s many.

The typical men’s eyeball compared to the typical women, I want to make it clear that, of course, there’s going to be some variations here so I’m making a very big jump here by just saying that men versus women. But it’s more complicated than that but I’m going to.

So men’s, if you look at their eyeballs, it’s developed in a way where the visual perspective is relatively laser focus when compared to a typical female eyeball for humans, whereas women’s are very, very broadly focused. And so it’s unclear exactly what’s the reason for this but the best guess that I’ve heard from an evolutionary standpoint is that men developed narrow visual focus for hunting.

It’s very important to know exactly where the animal is and have that laser focus, whereas women’s evolutionary spent a lot of time taking care of children, and children are running around all over the place, and there’s lots of things going on at the same time so having a broader focus would be something helpful there.

And I like this from a humor perspective because it explains perfectly well why man checks out a woman, it’s very obvious. But when a woman checks out a man it’s not quite as obvious. But where I actually find value in this is that this is a really beautiful vivid picture of understanding alternative perspectives.

It’s very easy to get caught in your head where you believe that everybody lives in the same world as you. But with this example, it’s not that only do people think differently from you, which is kind of obvious, but it’s also a bit, in this example, half the population is going to see the world differently than you, and they’re going to experience the world differently from you because visual, your eye, is such an important sense for how you experience the world.

So I really like this idea of understanding how just that small subtle change can really make a vastly different world from different people’s point of views.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s cool. Thank you. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Danny Dover
Go to LifeListed.com in the About page there, so lifelisted.com/about. It’s got all the contact information, much more information about my story.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. And do you have a final challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Danny Dover
Sure. If you’re interested in learning more about focus and an alternative way of trying to develop that in your life, check out my latest book The Minimalist Mindset. You can find it any bookstore or on Amazon.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. Cool. Well, Danny, thanks so much for chatting here, and I wish you luck with the subsequent goals that you are establishing for yourself, and it seems like you’ve got a heck of a track record so it’d be cool to see what unfolds here.

Danny Dover
Well, thank you, and thanks to all the listeners for spending time with us today. We both really very much appreciate it.

Feb 09
0

260: Tools for Sticking with Your Biggest Goals with Dean Lindsay

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Dean Lindsay says: "The biggest challenge that we have to goal achievement is not goal setting; it's goal commitment."

Dean Lindsay shows how to achieve “PHAT” (Pretty, Hot And Tempting) goals by committing to them, strengthening reasons, and building true conviction.

You’ll Learn:

  1. Why it’s better to have real commitment rather than a good plan
  2. What it mean to be truly convicted of a goal’s value
  3. Dean’s six P’s of Progress

About Dean 

Dean Lindsay is hailed as an ‘Outstanding Thought Leader on Building Priceless Business Relationships’ by Sales and Marketing Executives International as well as a ‘Sales-and-Networking Guru’ by the Dallas Business Journal. His books, How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals, THE PROGRESS CHALLENGE: Working & Winning in a World of Change, and CRACKING THE NETWORKING CODE: 4 Steps to Priceless Business Relationships have sold over 100,000 copies worldwide and have been translated into Chinese, Hindi, Polish, Korean, Spanish and Greek.

Items Mentioned in this Show:

Dean Lindsay Interview Transcript

Pete Mockaitis
Dean, thanks so much for joining us here on the How To Be Awesome At Your Job podcast.

Dean Lindsay
Rock and roll. Thanks for having me, Pete.

Pete Mockaitis
We just discussed rock and roll and all of its implications. And so, well, I want to hear about you rocking and rolling, first of all. And how is it you ended up getting a role in the movie Twister? What’s the backstory? And how did that go for you?

Dean Lindsay
You know what’s funny? No one has ever asked me that.

Pete Mockaitis
That’s what we aspire to as podcasters. It’s awesome.

Dean Lindsay
That’s right. there’s actually not only about it, about being in it, but Bill Paxton had actually a great deal to do as a catalyst. I was in that for Big PHAT Goals being created. Yes, so Twister is a long, long time ago. So, back in the ‘90s, ’97 when Twister was, I was in an acting endeavor trying to become an actor, had a little bit of success in Walker, Texas Ranger in a couple of movies of the week.

Pete Mockaitis
Is that Chuck Norris? Oh, nice.

Dean Lindsay
Huh? Yeah, yeah, that’s right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Pete Mockaitis
Is it true the legends?

Dean Lindsay
He’s a cool kid. Yeah, that was a real fun experience. But the movie was being shot in Oklahoma, and I live in Texas, and they decided to have a casting possibility for Texas actors, and me and a buddy of mine drove up to Oklahoma City to audition, and I got the part. It was a really, really great experience. I was one of the bad guys driving the black vans, so I was there the entire time.

What I was going to say about Bill Paxton, two things. I write about Bill Paxton in my first book Cracking the Networking CODE because Bill Paxton was an amazing leader, an amazing happy gregarious man. And I wrote about him in Cracking the Networking CODE as just somebody who you just wanted to be around that guy. He was always there to help, he was always there to lift everybody up.

When we were making Twister the director of photography and the director had a falling out to the degree where the director of photography quit. And when he quit he took a third of the crew with him, and so we didn’t know if they were going to finish the movie, and a lot of the big stars actually went home. They went back to California or they went to New York City.

Bill Paxton did not. He stayed in Ponca City, Oklahoma at the Holiday Inn and he rallied the troops, and he would be out there playing touch football during the day, and he’d be leading conversations, and to evening, encouraging everybody to, “Stay, stay, stay. We’re going to get this movie made. We’re going to get this movie made.” And, sure enough, it did. It happened.

And then, in reference to Big PHAT Goals, I was working on Big PHAT Goals, How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals, off and on for about a year and a half and I had a cover design, and it was kind of slowly moving into existence. But on February 26 of 2017 Bill Paxton died. And when he died it was on my daughter’s birthday.

When he died and she came in and told me, I was like, “Man, Bill Paxton, a man who so full of life, who has no health scare, nothing that I had heard about or whatever, is just gone and it’s just over.” It just spurred me into action, and said, “You don’t get to throw or something that you’re going to do later down the road.” And so, I moved Big PHAT up to the very top of my list and got it out into the world.

Pete Mockaitis
Well, that’s inspiring. Thank you. And a good reminder. Not easy to forget. Well, now tell us, what is this book How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals all about? And why is it so important to you to have the world have this?

Dean Lindsay
That’s a great question, Pete. You know, there are a lot of goal books out there, and this book really is a companion book to any goal-setting book, to any goal-planning book, to your daily planner, to whatever that you have, and this is not to compete with smart goals or anything like that. The biggest challenge that we have to goal achievement is not goal setting; it’s goal commitment.

Big PHAT Goals is about goal commitment. Especially at the beginning of the year, we set these big, lofty goals that we get tingles about, “Whoa,” you’re telling people about, “What we’re going to do…” and then we don’t forget that we’re going to do them. What happens is we don’t stay connected to why, so that goal is big enough but it’s not phat enough, and that’s the phat in the Big PHAT Goal’s acronym is how we must remind ourselves and continually strengthen the reasons behind the action.

Shakespeare said, “Strong reasons make strong actions.” Not just reasons; strong reasons. And that goes also with the competition of what you choose to do with your time as well. If you’re not pursuing your goals, you’re still pursuing something, and you’re pursuing something for a reason. And if you’re pursuing something other than your goals that means that those other things weighed heavier or phatter in your mind at that moment.

Not at the end of the day when you later hit on the pillow, and you think, “Oh, what I should’ve done,” or not in the beginning of the day when you’re rolling out your lofty plans and what you’re going to do that day; but in the nanosecond. Commitment is a moment-by-moment decision. And you can say you’re committed to something, but it’s not about saying it; it’s about consistently doing actions that you believe are going to take closer to your goals.

Big phat goals, How to Achieve Big PHAT Goals is a goal commitment program because if you stay committed to your goals, I guarantee you, you will get a lot closer to achieving them than if you have all the plans in the world. It’s not a plan you need; it’s commitment.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, you keep saying phat, and so in text form, for the listener, you spell that out P-H-A-T. And I don’t remember what the movie trailer was but I feel like, when I was a kid, I heard repeatedly there’s a movie where a guy said that some woman was phat, and she was alarmed, like, “What?” And he said, “P-H-A-T, pretty hot and tempting.” And she said, “Oh, okay.”

Dean Lindsay
Good job.

Pete Mockaitis
What movie was that? I couldn’t find it.

Dean Lindsay
That was Money Talks, and it’s Chris Tucker.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Now, we know.

Dean Lindsay
Yeah, Chris Tucker, 1997. He was supposedly the first person to say it, and you’re also the very first person to ever to have that even that much information. No one else.

Pete Mockaitis
You see, Dean, I do my research.

Dean Lindsay
Yeah, way to be a kid in the ‘90s. Yes, so that basically, I had the program. Back in 2001 I wrote How to Achieve Big Fat Goals, F-A-T, and FAT was all about making your goal heavy in your mind. So, the premise was basically this aim. But then, when I found out what phat stood for, that it stands for pretty, hot and tempting, I said, “Wow, that’s exactly the same point I’m making.”

When we choose to pursue some other goal other than our goals, at that moment is prettier, hotter and more tempting to us. Now, you can say it’s not but it is at that moment. Then we go deeper into how we make something pretty, hot and tempting, I know by concept of progress versus chance, but that’s basically it. Yeah, it’s kind of cool to change the letters but if that was all I was doing in this book, was just doing a little spelling, have a little spelling fun with the word phat, I’d be really embarrassed.

This book is all about that. The whole concept of this book, the way to armor up, the way to compete and go to combat, really, with all the marketing of how you could, would, should choose to invest your time is to remember. You see is you got to remember you got to make your goals phatter. Yes, that’s a cool thing to do, right?

The only problem that we have, Pete, is that we don’t have like one great thing to do and a whole bunch of crappy things to do. We have a bunch of good things, there’s so much good choices, right? There’s so much good choices and there’s the one, of all the things that you could do that would move you closer to your goals, and they’re going to be phat.

The other options are going to be phat. I’m not saying they’re not phat. We need to be realistic, they are phat. Netflix is not making un-phat shows to watch. Every show is designed to be phat, right? Binge watching Orange is the New Black, you can’t say that is a bad use of your time, right? You can say it’s not your choice use of your time, but thousands of people do it. But is that going to move you closer to your big phat goals?

So, that’s what I’m trying to say here in this book, is people lots of times who went out to setting a goal and then trying to get a plan, but what they really need is commitment. Because when you implement a plan you’re going to run up against roadblocks and difficulties and challenges and guess your plan was not very good. And so, now, you got to have to fall back on that commitment to pull back together and try again.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. I’m sold. Let’s talk about it. How do you amp up the commitment, I’d say, up front and then in the moment when you’re tempted with the Netflix program or whatever it may be?

Dean Lindsay
Everything. Anything. It could be anything.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah.

Dean Lindsay
Well, I love a quote from Pat Benatar, “With the power of commitment there is no sacrifice.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay.

Dean Lindsay
With the power of commitment. No, I’m sorry, not the power of commitment; with the power of conviction. Sorry, I knew I said it all too simply. With the power of conviction there is no sacrifice. With the power of conviction there is no sacrifice. Now, to be convicted, that means you know your New Year’s resolution or the goal you set that is, of everything you could choose to do, that is it. You are convicted.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay, let’s wait here. You know. What is it that you know?

Dean Lindsay
That the goal you have for your life is the best choice of all the other things you could choose to do with your time.

Pete Mockaitis
All right. I love it. Now, we’re getting somewhere. Now, this is a high bar that most goals don’t reach.

Dean Lindsay
They can reach but that just means we have to dig into the why. We have to continually say and think of all the different benefits that’s how you get the power of the conviction. I love this phrase from Pat Benatar because you just don’t get conviction. How do you get conviction? It’s about the pain of actually digging into it.

And in the book I lay out what I call the six P’s of progress, and it’s really kind of the big psychology. I studied Dr. Viktor Frankl’s work, local therapy, and that’s kind of what spurred me to create the six P’s of progress because local therapy is all about meaning therapy and how we derive meaning. And so, I looked at Dr. Viktor Frankl’s concept of meaning, and I kind of took it into the business acumen and tried to kind of chew on it for a while, and I came up with what I call the six P’s of progress.

And that is that everything we do, when I say we, I mean the big huge collectively; everybody listening to this, everybody who’s working, sleeping, whatever. Everybody. Everything. Everything we do, consciously or subconsciously we do because we believe the perceived consequences of those actions are that we will fill the unique right mixture of pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance, and power.

And what that means, Pete, is that whatever goal, and let me say it this way, if somebody gives you an idea of something you could do, choose to do it with your time, listen to the way they say it because they’re going to say something, “It’ll be good for you, you’ll enjoy it, it’ll be fun.” Well, that goes right back to the six P’s of progress. It’ll bring you pleasure.

Now, I’m not saying it won’t bring pleasure. It probably will bring you pleasure. But is it bringing you more pleasure than you staying on task of what you were doing? There’s short-term pleasure and there’s long-term pleasure. But all marketing comes down to the six P’s of progress: pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance and power.

And there are many, many people and professional organizations and associations, and commercials, everything, trying to get you to adapt a goal, trying to get you to pursue their goals.

Pete Mockaitis
Like, I kind of buy that product because that’s going to make me money, it’s going to be a lot of fun, it’s going to attract a phat lady or gentleman into life in or around you.

Dean Lindsay
Right. Right. Right. And so, if you’re going to pursue your goal then your goal has to be phatter.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Dean Lindsay
Or you’re going to be more susceptible to those other things. So, what I encourage people in my workshops or in the book to do is to actually go through, and don’t just – I call it goal-crafting – don’t just craft a goal but actually go through a few exercises of, “How will this goal bring me pleasure? How will this goal bring me peace of mind? How accomplishing this goal…?” You see what I’m saying? So, that when somebody else has other choices of what you could choose to do with your time, or even you, you have weighed your goal down so much that, yes, those other things are still good, just not as good.

Pete, let me tell you something you might not have heard before. You nor I can do or have it all.

Pete Mockaitis
Right.

Dean Lindsay
We cannot.

Pete Mockaitis
I’m convinced. Well, indeed, I think Paula Pant says it well in terms of you can’t afford anything, you can’t afford everything, and I’m right with it when it comes to opportunity costs and that.

Dean Lindsay
Same thing.

Pete Mockaitis
And so, then, I’m really connecting with your sentence there that you are convicted when you know the goal you’ve selected is the top best use of your time. And I think that is absolutely true, and I’ve been there before, and so, you gave us a bit of a framework for the six P’s. And so, then, how do we go about doing the hard thinking, the soul searching, the questioning, the exploration, the decision making to arrive at that place of conviction? So, the six P’s is a handy framework, but I guess I’m thinking, again, there’s a billion potential uses of your time. So, how do we zero in on the one thing?

Dean Lindsay
That’s a great question. I’m not sure, are you asking about the one goal or the one action?

Pete Mockaitis
Well, I’m thinking about the one goal. Or there are multiple goals, you tell me. You know, in your framework, are you thinking about use this for one, two, three, four, five goals or priorities of your life? Or how are you envisioning the load of phat goals a life can handle?

Dean Lindsay
Yeah. You know, I kind of purposely stayed away from that aspect because it works on any level, whatever goal you want to have, if it’s a big goal as far as, I mean, it could be as simple as choosing to eat healthy, you know. Or it could be as much as trying to get a master’s degree but the same workings go into it as far as continually selling yourself on the benefits of that goal.

I did not write Big PHAT Goals to have any kind of sway over anybody on what they should do except to say that if you want to control your mind and your choices, control your why, control your understanding of, and be a lot more realistic about other people’s perceived benefits for the actions they want you to take, “Come out with us tonight. Come out.”

“You know, I plan on getting to bed early,” because you’re going to get up and go run, or you’re going to get up and do some research for your sales call the next day, right? And so, there’s pros and cons to every activity so I don’t necessarily think that this book should guide you to a direction in life. It’s a book to help you stay committed to that direction.

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. So, you’re saying that what I’m really pressing on is not what you have created. Yours is more about maintaining commitment as opposed to arriving at an optimal upfront decision.

Dean Lindsay
I do have some stuff in the book, yeah, I guess you could definitely say that. I wouldn’t know, I mean, I don’t know how you could even start in the book like that. I mean, then you go open a Pandora’s box of everything people could do and that includes the Peace Corps. What are you going to do? I say I don’t know your deck of cards. I don’t know the influence you’ve gotten from other people.

The only exercise I do in the book to help kind of spur this kind of conversation because it’s a framework that then people can go back and use over and over and over again. I do have an exercise in the book that has you kind of vison board the next 15 years of your life, everything you want to have accomplished and done, and big stuff and little stuff, and the food you want to have eaten, and people you want to have met, and bands you want to have seen in concerts, and learning to play a guitar, and you run through everything you want to have accomplished in 15 years.

And then that exercise takes a couple of deep kind of turns to where you do start to see some certain things bubble to the top as far as the ones that are the biggest ones that you kind of going after. But, even then, it’s a very general thing. In some of the workshops, when I do in small groups or webinars, we’ll go through the classic wheel of life type thing where you’re looking at your life and spiritual and financial and family and health and all those things. You kind of get a gauge of where things are but that’s also, and as it should be, very subjective.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And so, I think that you’ve surfaced up one or two kind of tools where it comes to imagining up the course of 15 years, what really are the long-term dream that this thing is connected to, thinking about the extent to which there is alignment within some goals versus others. I know we’re both fans of Jay Papasan with The ONE Thing. That’s one thing that would make everything else easier or unnecessary. I think it’s an awesome question and book there.

So, yeah, so thanks for playing ball as I really put you on the spot here, but I think that that is some of the really hard work upfront in terms of arriving there. But you got me really fired up and inspired about how when you arrive at that point of conviction, you know the goal you’ve selected is the top best use of your time. I think you really are unstoppable.

And so, you’re saying then, once you got that in play you keep it fresh by making it phatter, digging into the six P’s. And any other pro tips for renewing and refreshing that commitment as the temptations arise?

Dean Lindsay
Yeah, one of the things that people talk about writing down goals, and I really believe in writing a goal but also it’s also how you write the goal. I don’t encourage people to write a goal just as kind of a reminder of the goal but actually write it in such a way that it becomes a self-fulfilling affirmation. You know what I’m saying? What you do want, not what you don’t want. Not using future tense. Making sure that you’re saying things in such a way that it actually gives your mind momentum, that you’re crafting it so it propels you into action.

Pete Mockaitis
Cool. All right. Well, any final thoughts before we shift gears and talk about some of your favorite things?

Dean Lindsay
Well, I really like what you were throwing out there, Pete. I thank you for shaking it up because you’re right, you’re touching on something that there’s so much competition of, you know, you said it earlier, of options. We have so many options and that can get incredibly overwhelming, and that’s the reason we need to do the deep work to decide, well, what we’re supposed to be doing.

Pete Mockaitis
Certainly. Yeah, cool. Well, now, can you share with us a favorite quote, something you find inspiring?

Dean Lindsay
Very cool. Well, I told you that one. That was the one that I definitely… the quote from Pat Benatar. But my other favorite quote, I’m pulling it up right now, it comes from my man Dr. Viktor Frankl. The one that I like a lot is that, “Between stimulus and response, there’s a space, and it is in that space that we have the power to choose our response.”

Pete Mockaitis
Okay. Thank you. And how about a favorite book?

Dean Lindsay
Man’s Search for Meaning.

Pete Mockaitis
Yeah, that’s good. And a favorite tool?

Dean Lindsay
Yeah, I was wondering what that meant.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, sure. Yeah. That means sort of like it’s an app or piece of software or something that you use frequently that helps you be awesome at your job? Some people say a hammer, a measuring tape, or Google Docs, whatever it may be.

Dean Lindsay
What do I use a bunch? I use Canva. Have you ever used Canva?

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I’ve heard a little bit. Explain.

Dean Lindsay
Canva is a great tool for making JPEGs and putting quotes and making social media posts then brochures and LinkedIn headlines. It’s a great tool for making JPEGs.

Pete Mockaitis
Right. And do you have a favorite habit?

Dean Lindsay
Do I have a favorite habit? Yeah, ones that I’m proud of? You know what, I do. I do actually, Pete. About two and a half years ago, my walking shoes or running shoes are right at the back door right now. I walk every morning. Talk about a five-mile loop.

Pete Mockaitis
Oh, wow.

Dean Lindsay
I recommend it. I don’t even put headphones and I just kind of greet the day and be in the open and taking a lot of deep breaths, so that’s definitely a habit I’m very happy about.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. And is there a particular nugget you share in your speeches or writing that really seems to connect and resonate with folks, they retweet it, they quote it back to you? What would that be?

Dean Lindsay
It’s a two-word phrase.

Pete Mockaitis
All right.

Dean Lindsay
Be progress. People must view you as – for them to want to be in a relationship with you – they need to view you as the unique right mixture of pleasure, peace of mind, profit, prestige, pain avoidance, and power, the six P’s of progress. You must be progress.

Pete Mockaitis
Excellent. Thank you. And if folks want to learn more or get in touch, where would you point them?

Dean Lindsay
DeanLindsay.com, D-E-A-N-L-I-N-D-S-A-Y.com.

Pete Mockaitis
And do you have a favorite challenge or call to action you’d issue to folks seeking to be awesome at their jobs?

Dean Lindsay
Compliment somebody. Thank them, compliment them, tell them they did good.

Pete Mockaitis
Awesome. Well, Dean, thank you so much for sharing your expertise and wisdom and time. You have planted a tantalizing question deep inside me; how does one know the goal you’ve selected is the top best use of your time. And you’ve give us a great starting point there. I have a feeling I’ll be chewing on this for years to come. So, much, much appreciated, and good luck in all you’re up to with Big PHAT Goals, and more.

Dean Lindsay
Thank you, Pete.