How to Improve Family Dynamics – Todd Williams

Miriam: [00:00:00] All right, friends. This is so much fun for me because I have someone that I knew, like I’m embarrassed to say, almost four decades ago. We got reconnected about a month ago. So Todd Williams and I went to high school. We were in a choir together. We just had such a fun working relationship. He was an officer. I was an officer. So many hours spent together there. And then we reconnected. I found out you’re a business owner and you’re working on a new venture and a podcast, and I was like, oh my word. I wanna interview you.

So welcome Todd. Why don’t we start with that And then you and I were talking before I hit record on just the miracles of what has changed in the last three and a half decades.

No cell phones, no internet, no podcasts. Remember when it was only radio and there was like nothing you wanted to listen to? [00:01:00] Yeah.

Todd: All of that radio. And here we are, radio and about three. Three or four TV channels that you had to get up off the couch to, to turn to. That’s right. Cuz your dad said, Hey, turn it to Channel five.

[00:01:15] Intro to Todd

Miriam: Exactly right. That’s exactly, exactly. Anyway, welcome Todd. This is just so much fun. Tell me a little bit, I wanna hear what you’re doing now, but if you don’t mind, for my own curiosity, you graduated with me in 1985. What happened with you professionally? From from here to there? There to here.

Todd: Well, first of all, Miriam, it is just a pleasure to, to be here.

I, I I’ve, over the years, I’ve, we obviously lost track. We didn’t have social media. We couldn’t, we couldn’t just keep track of everybody like like everybody does now. And it’s just a, just a pleasure to be on with you and talk with you and get to get to re reacquaint. So and the fact that you, you have the same passions of podcasts and business is even more exciting.

Todd’s Background

So so I gradu Yeah, we graduated. I I, [00:02:00] I, I left, I went to B Y U had a, had a girlfriend I served an l LDS mission in, in Pennsylvania, we got married shortly after I returned home. We spent spent a couple of years in, in Salt Lake.

But then most of our, most of my professional career has actually been in Phoenix, I started my love of technology. I worked at I B M and was a director of sales in selling system X servers, really kind of before the software boom.

This was all hardware and love my time with I B M, but I was more fascinated with technology and where technology was taking us.

 Early on in our marriage, I bought a computer. And, and and it was, this was, you know, this was, this was late eighties, and so it was, you know, it was the I b m, you know, the I B m computers that were, that were just starting to take off.

Apple or Macintosh was kind of starting, but love the idea of where technology was gonna take the world. 2008 [00:03:00] we moved back to Utah and live in Utah County, and I started working in a company called Omniture. They’re a web analytics company that eventually sold to a, to Adobe in a, in a two, almost nearly 2 billion acquisition.

And I was part of that, part of that acquisition with Adobe and worked with Adobe for a couple of years. Most of my, most of my roles, Miriam, have been post sales. It was all around client acquisition, client growth client expansion product expansion.

Trustworthy Avenues

And I’ve, I’ve, I led teams over the last 10 years in. Six different continents managed 350 million in revenue and just, just loving the technology space. And now we’re, now we’re seeing a very tectonic shift into podcasts. And that’s really where the world is turning. It’s in, in this, in this, what I call credibility marketing space.

And people are becoming, are needing [00:04:00] an avenue to, to trust, to trust news. They don’t, they don’t trust news anymore. They don’t trust what businesses say about themselves. They, they they, they want to hear from the subject- matter- expert themselves. So I applaud you for what you’re doing here on this podcast.

Miriam: Oh, well, thank you. I can’t think of anybody better in sales than you because you’ve always been just such a people person. You’ve always been just really warm and approachable, and I, I can see you would be very good at that.

[00:04:27] What is Family Paramount?

Miriam: Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about. Your new venture, and then I’m gonna ask a whole bunch of questions.

That’s what you were doing on the outside of you, but a whole bunch of things were happening on the inside of you that allowed you to develop into that next step. Nobody has a 350 million venture that they’re navigating. , you know, without having some skillsets being developed along the way. So tell me what you’re doing now.

Okay. we’ll just go from there.

Todd: You bet. So let me, let me kind of tell you what we’re doing with [00:05:00] Family Paramount. I’m, I’m really excited about about what that is. It’s, it’s, it’s pre-revenue, but it’s a way to give back. And to help really what’s happening in family dynamics across the globe.

So I’ve, I’ve got two daughter, well I’ve got six children, Cheryl and I have six children. The two oldest are twins. They’re are identical twin girls. The first, the first one kind of went into marriage and family therapy Right from the beginning. She started working in, in, in boys’ homes. And and, and kind of rehabilitation centers or, or halfway, you know, halfway houses that get kids out of the jails, but into a, a setting where they can really thrive.

Meanwhile, her twin sister, identical twin sister went into specifically in elementary education. And so that, that she was teaching fourth grade and what was happening, Miriam was that her name was Britney, so it’s Tiffany is the, is the first one that I mentioned. Britney is the second one. [00:06:00] And she was noticing that as she taught these children, there was, there was gaps as the foundation of the family really was struggling.

Family Dynamics

 The struggles of the fa family dynamics that were unfortunately be set in upon so many of our, our children these days. And when I, when I say family dynamics, I’m gonna, I’m gonna include all of the distractions, you know, the social media.

The, the news, the world events, the, the, the separation of families and, and divorce and all of those things, that all of us, all of us are, are, are are recipients of, in some fashion.

So my twin daughters got together and started talking about how do we solve this, right?

How do we, how do we solve this? So Britney decided to go back, get her, go back, get her master’s degree in marriage and family therapy as well, but specializing in play therapy and specifically in adolescent and child therapy. So we have the [00:07:00] dynamics of these twin girls who are master. Master therapists really in, in, and that’s master is my, is my definition, I think, but in a way that can help children and families become better.

Growing Together

Because what was happening is, as Britney would, Britney would, would have therapy sessions. She noticed that most of the time the parents needed the therapy sessions as well.

Yeah, yeah. You’re probably, you’ve probably seen that in your therapy, se your therapy practice. Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. for. . And so my, my wife got her master’s degree in, in family living and family life from B Y U and and ultimately in chi, early childhood education.

And so the three of them got together and said, Hey, we, we, we want to. Have this psychoeducational site where we can give podcasts and video blogs and information to, to help the masses on [00:08:00] learning, building, and really understanding fa, what is family dynamics and what are, what are the right family dynamics that we should be creating from children and as they grow to adolescent. To teenagers and even within a couple and couple couple couple relationship strategies.

So we’re in the process of building that out. We’ve got a fa we’ve got a website that’ll go on go live probably by the first of the year called family paramount.com, where we, we literally are lit trying to help families learn and understand and better their family dynamic.

[00:08:36] Monetization

Miriam: Wow. I love it. And it’s super needed. I mean, we just are seeing for more reasons than we can even discuss here, the. , the families are struggling. It is a hard time to have young children and how fun that your entire family can engage on this as a, you know, as a unit. It’s something that you can, you know, work on at [00:09:00] the same time as, you know, do normal family things.

So, yeah. You said it’s pre-revenue. Let me ask kind of your long-term goals with this, because sometimes people create pet projects. That never, they never intend to monetize them. They just, that’s their act of service to the world. Other times, their act of service to the world is monetized, and there’s no right or wrong in that, but you do have to have a little bit of a clear vision, what your intention is as you go into that.

Todd: Yeah. So right now, I, I kind of look at it as the create, grow. Monetize, right? Yeah. So right now we’re gonna create, and we’re going to, we’ve, we’ve written, well, I, I’m, I’m kind of the backend technology brains behind it. But they’ve written quite a few articles and blogs that we will be post at launch.

We’ve got some, we’ve got a, a pre-launch trailer that we’re, that we’re, we’ve recorded, we’ve recorded one episode of a fa of a family Paramount blog podcast. [00:10:00] And our long-term strategy really is to just help families. So that’s, that’s what we’re going into it for. We’re not, we’re not, we’re understanding that, that this is not a, a multimillion dollar venture.

Goal of Monetization

But what was, what was heartbreaking to me is when I heard that Britney and Tiffany had a six month waiting list, and it takes six months to get into them and there’s simple basic practices that they should be learning. The people should be learning now about how to love, how to, how to trust, in a, in a normal, healthy family relationship.

So we’re gonna create and we’re gonna create all of the necessary articles around all of the dynamics of child adolescent play therapy of a of, of, of, of teenage, teenage reactions, appropriate child play, appropriate teenage, teenage practices. And then ultimately family. So, we’ll, it’ll, it’ll grow. I’m, it’ll grow [00:11:00] into a monetization events seminars, courses obviously podcasts and, and video blogs.

but we want to help. We want to help families. Yeah. Create a better family dynamic.

Miriam: I mean, that is pretty evident. Just hearing your enthusiasm for it. Your face is lit up when you talk about it. It’s really an important thing and I appreciate kind of your long horizon on that. Something that I find interesting, many people I don’t know, as someone who is a therapist and also a coach, I have this predilection toward one-on-one type things, and to think that that is maybe the best or the most efficient. But also as I’ve continued in my own development, I’ve done quite a few kinds of business classes and self-development classes that have a video component and then a group component.

And honestly, you can grow equally as well through that, and it’s much more [00:12:00] scalable.

Having Someone There

Part of the reason that your daughters have a six week wait or a six, I couldn’t remember if you said six week or six month, but many therapists are just booked out the wazo and part of that is insurances and you know, this, that, or the other, but it really boils down to a lot of people are struggling and there are more, there’s more demand than there are therapists to be able to do that.

It’s just, it’s common where you are. It’s common where I am and what I hear you creating is a space where people can come and you don’t have to like, rely on Google and go here for one article and there for one article and whatever. You can go to a centralized space that over time you’re going to develop, you know authority, material authority and people will trust you.

And then you have, you know, this landing place where people can come and grow and hopefully there’ll be some community aspects [00:13:00] to it where they can meet each other and help each other.

Something that I think is also just a problem that you’re solving when you have difficulty in families, they’re habits that are, I’m gonna use the word maladaptive habits and generally, The people you know have the same habits you have.

And so, you know, if you listen to self-development gurus and influencers, they’ll say that, you know, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with for good or bad. And it’s very difficult if someone wants to change the five that they’re around. They don’t know anybody like that.

And so what I hear you doing is you’re providing an opportunity for people to hear from people who have different habits, maybe.

[00:13:51] Generation to Generation

Todd: It’s a great way of saying it. I I, I, I hadn’t thought about that, but you’re right. It’s, that’s absolutely the case, especially, especially when you have dynamics in a [00:14:00] dysfunctional family that goes from generation to generation.

They don’t necessarily know what they don’t know. And Of course, and so, you know, the basic, the basic fundamental things that, that I think you and I grew, grew up with in, in, in a, in a, in a way that is, Love and, and devotion and trust and, and all of those things that, that I think I, I, I took for granted growing up is, is a way that is a way that we can, we can teach people, right?

Which is ultimately what a therapist does is, is give another approach. You know, have you thought about this?

And I remember. My my daughter telling me a story about she, she came home a couple of days ago and or home, she just came to our house a couple of days ago and she said, you know, I, I really feel like I helped this couple come up with some, some different ways to, to function within their, within their family.

And I said, well, what, what was it? And she kind of laughed and she said, well, I told them that they should use paper plates. [00:15:00] and and there was this big family argument, dynamic problem that was all around dishes in the sink and, and scattered dishes around the couch and all of these things. And, and my daughter, my daughter who’s the therapist, said, you know, Jane and John Doe- just use paper plates.

The Simple Solution

And and the, the couple came back the next day and they said, you know, that was such a simple solution, but we hadn’t thought about it, and we needed you to tell us about that.

And so, you know, it, it’s so simple. It’s such an easy thing. But if you’re stuck in the hole, you, you just can’t see outside the hole for so many reason.

Miriam: Often the simple solution is the most elegant solution and sometimes it takes someone on the outside of you to just ask a question, right? That makes you think, oh, well yeah, why didn’t I think of that?

For sure. [00:16:00] So I’m gonna bounce out of the therapy space and more into the coaching space because I wanna hear as you went through, you know, you’re in midlife probably at the apex of professional career. And as you went from this to that and the various steps, what skillsets did you learn that are helping you architect this new project?

Todd: You know, I’ve, I’ve looked at my life over the last 20 years in, in retrospect often, right, because I I’ve gone into technology and then I went into customer success, and then maybe I went into, I went into marketing I went into sales. I, I, I started growing different aspects of my career, working with difficult executives, working with good executives, working with difficult employees, working with good employees trying to figure out ad campaigns and ad insertion campaigns and, and, and different types of, of podcast solutions and [00:17:00] how that all works.

Culmination of Success and Failures

And, The things that I’m doing now, I’ve kind of come, come to the conclusion that the things that I’m doing now would’ve been virtually impossible to do 10 years ago. Not because the technology’s different, not be because the world is different, but because I’m different and my knowledge set is different.

And so all of the failures, and yes, I’ve had many, all of the failures and all of the successes have culminated and continue to culminate into a, a, an avenue of success where I can thrive. And if I wouldn’t have had those difficult, difficult situations terrible successes future fail, you know of past failures, all of those things.

I, I wouldn’t have been able to accomplish things that I’m trying to accomplish now.

So it’s, it’s interesting your perspective as you get older because [00:18:00] you, you see the, you see the failures that you’ve, you’ve done, you’ve done, you see the, the successes that you seen in others or even in yourself. You see the, the failures potentially.

In your children or the, maybe not failures, let’s say, let’s call them learning experiences. You know, the, the learning experiences that your children are, are having and it just, it’s good, you know, the, the, the, the fact that, that I’ve got a, a, a, a, this, a son at, at, at the school. That is maybe, maybe frustrated.

He’s in a senior year at B Y U and he’s, he’s frustrated with everything that’s coming at him, and, and I just kind of smile and say, keep going. You’re doing it’s okay. You’re, it’s okay. You’re, you’re doing good. You know, over the years, I’ve this is maybe a good thing to add. ‘

[00:18:53] Todd’s Mission

Todd: Over the years I’ve I’ve written a personal mission.

and, and that that mission statement has, has [00:19:00] kind of adapted and moved and changed and, and but for the most part it stayed. It has stayed pretty, pretty consistent. And it’s a simple statement. It’s, it’s four kind of four for tactics.

It’s, it’s, be happy, be better, find good. and move forward.

I try to be better every day. I try to be a better person, better, a better, better husband, a better father, a better son. I don’t always succeed, but I try every day find good. I want to, I want to look for the good in life. Look for the good in things. Look for the good in people.

Trust that that they. Have the best intentions at at heart, and then also just get up every morning and put your pants on and move forward.

You know, I think for me that is, that’s been how I’ve tried. To [00:20:00] live my life and, and learn, keep learning every single day and, and hopefully when, when this mortality ends, thinking, okay, I’m, I’ve, I’ve accomplished what I’ve wanted to accomplish in my life.

Miriam: Yeah, you’ve lived a good life. Todd. What I appreciate about what you just shared is that two of those things were mindsets and two of those things were actions or behaviors, and where I think so many people get stuck.

Either they’re, they’re doing activities that aren’t maybe evaluated. They’re habitual, they’re not really thought through, and a lot of people, I think, have prisons in their mind and their mind circle on negativity, or they get caught up in outrage, or they just aren’t really pushing into that space of the best version of themselves.

Mindset and Behavior

Yeah, and you really have to have both. I mean, you can’t have a productive mindset without it turning into behavior that’s, [00:21:00] that’s really just impossible. And you’re kind of deluding yourself if you’re like, oh yeah, my, everything in my head is just going great. Well, it, it has to show up in your actions because that’s just how we’re wired as people.

And I appreciate the thoughtfulness that you have taken throughout your I’m gonna use the word adult life

cause you, yeah. Cause you, you, you knew me in my, in my adolescent life. , . Well, even in your adolescent life, you were fun. Everybody loved you, and you got stuff done and you were very networky and connecting even then.

But it, it was in a young way, you know?

And how cool I was talking to somebody the other day. They were asking me about my career, and I said, I’ve always done the same thing. I have always listened and helped people with their roadblock, whatever it is, and helped them reach their next level of themselves.

And in high school it was listening to [00:22:00] people talk about their boyfriends. And in college it was something different. And then in my first career, it was mentorship, and my next career it was therapy. In my current career, it’s professional coaching. It’s the same skillset set, right? Yeah. Listen, Be present, ask a question that will move a person.

Time Stands Still

I love, I love that. I told my husband when I came home from this reunion where I saw you met reacquainted with you. Yep. And I took my hands, you know, a foot apart and I said, here was high school. Here is now. And in some weird way, we pulled those two spaces together as though 35 years. Hadn’t happened, and yet it clearly has happened in our, our depth and our, well, in my case, my breath.

We won’t talk about that, but , I said, yes, Cheryl and I felt the same way. It’s interesting how you can reacquaint with someone after so many years [00:23:00] and. , it’s like nothing ever happened. It’s like time stood still, right?

Sure. For sure. It’s one of the mysteries of the universe, the both, and where we all clearly have changed and also our inner core. Soulish, humanity is still the same.

[00:23:19] Skill Sets and Failures

Miriam: So I wanna bounce back to the, when you were talking about these skill sets and the, the successes and the failures over the last three and a half decades, can you get specific, because I think specificity really helps people.

Here’s where I thought X or I did x. Big mistake. And this is what I learned in the context of that.

Because we’re all on this path to you know, reach our next version of ourselves. And what is obvious to one person is a revelation to the other.

Todd: So two experiences that have really changed my, [00:24:00] my look on people, my look on businesses.

 I was talking to my mom this was quite a few years ago, probably, probably 20 years ago, and she said, Todd, remember that people look out a window.

And see a different view. So what that did, Miriam, is it allowed me to take in people’s views and understand people’s view. Very, very differently over the years because their view out, their picture out of their kitchen window is just different than mine.

It’s not wrong, it’s just different.

So there was a quote by, by Zig Ziegler, who’s, he said, you don’t build a business, you build people. And then the people build the business. And as I’ve, as I’ve built, let’s see, I’ve started 1, 2, 3, 3 different businesses. I’ve tried to, and then been an executive member of the leadership team [00:25:00] of, you know, three or four others.

People First, Then Customers

But as I’ve tried to go into that, I’ve tried to focus on the people.

People first, then customers, then the business, and, and, and there’s, you know, there’s a lot of people that will say, no, no, no, you gotta focus on the customers. No, no, no. You gotta focus on the revenue. No, no. You gotta my view, my picture Window , right?

My, my, my view. Is focus on the people first, focus on the employees. Give back to the employees. Let the employees know that they are the most important people and customers come second, in my view, if, if I always do that and have employees that trust me

they will ultimately follow you into building a successful business.

There’s another, there’s another quote by Muhammad Gandhi that I, I try to follow. It’s be the change in the world that you want to see. You probably are familiar with that. And and I’ve tried [00:26:00] to be the change, right?

Be the positive influence, be the good, be the positive, be the, be the one that, that, that stands out.

Miriam: Yeah, I appreciate that. I have que two questions that are taking me in opposite directions and I’m not sure which one to ask first, but I think I’m going to ask when when you have failed, as someone who is a basically positive person, what’s the message you hear inside yourself and how did you approach that failure?

[00:26:34] Approaching Failure

Todd: So this is a great question. I don’t fail well. You know, I, I don’t, I don’t fail well and I have, I have failed countless times. I go back to the mantra of be better, move forward, be happy. You know, life, life is hard and life is hard for all of us. And the only way really to get through this life is to lock arms. Connect with people who love you, connect people. [00:27:00] Connect with people you don’t know and that you need to know and move forward.

Miriam: Yeah. Boy, that is really well said. I know that something that has helped me when I’m in a quote unquote failure space, and I don’t know who said this, I never lose. I only win or learn. Yeah. And I think, ugh, if I can just internalize that, and I do most of the time, but something that you’ve mentioned that I think is profound and really important.

You said link arms and connect. When you’re in that space that you feel like you failed, you need someone else. N not necessarily a book or a you know, pla a, a phrase. You need a human, a live human to look in your eyes and say, I love you anyway. Mm-hmm. , and it doesn’t matter to me. I’m, it matters to me in that this has made you sad, but it doesn’t make me think any less of you this “failure”. You know, we need real [00:28:00] humans to give us hugs and to say, I love you anyway, and you’re worth so much more to me than this activity. Whatever it, whatever it is.

Connections

 As people are losing their employment, their sense of self just takes such a hit does and a lot of times it isn’t actually about them. Nope. It’s about all these other factors yeah. . So I love that.

Todd: There was, there was an experience that I had actually when I was in Phoenix, I, I had lost my job. It was a layoff. We had, we had merged with another company and duplication of efforts and it’s ultimately what brought me, brought me to Utah, right?

So, Which was actually a really good thing, right? But at the time, I didn’t think it was a good thing, thought it was either my fault or what could I have done different or what could I have. And I remember I got a phone call. It’s back when we called each other instead of texted each other, I got a phone call.

I got a phone call from a, from a friend that said, Hey, I, I want to, I want to. I want to, are you available [00:29:00] for lunch on Tuesday? Let’s go to lunch and let’s talk about who I can connect you with. And and I’ve, I’ve since thought about that over the years, and I’ve tried to emulate that in my own life now.

Whenever I hear of someone that’s, you know, needs some connecting, I, I really try to reach out and say, Hey, I’ve got a lot of connections on LinkedIn. Who do I know? Who do you need to know? And how do we connect? But for me personally, that was such a, a wake up moment because he, number one, he didn’t have to do that.

The Human Response

He was busy, but he took the time to call me and say, Todd, you’re important to me. Your future’s important to me. How can I help? It’s the. It’s the, the, the human response that I needed to get myself, you know, off the couch or out of the bed or whatever and move forward. Yeah. You know? Yeah. The human response, what I appreciate about what

Miriam: you just shared is that there is the [00:30:00] aspect of actual help.

Did connect you with people via LinkedIn or whatever. Yeah. But what probably helped you even more, at least initially, is he asked, how can I help? And I’m always talking with my kids and saying, just ask me how you can help. Nine times out of 10 I’ll say, I’ve got this. I don’t. I we’re good. I just wanna know you’re in this with me.

And that’s what this gentleman did for you is he got in it with you. That’s wonderful. I love that. , what a beautiful what a beautiful story. You’ve had some good people in your life, for sure. Yeah.

[00:30:36] Habits, Actions, and Thoughts

Miriam: Okay, so can I ask you a coachy question? Sure. You bet. All right, so you’re starting this new venture. You have been involved in several, like very large.

Successful ventures, you’ve done two or three companies of your own. If you are standing in this point and you can see two directions, there are certain things [00:31:00] that you could do that would expedite this new venture, and there are other things that you could do that would just slow it down. Just habits, actions, thoughts.

Paint me a picture of if you were standing in that point and you were like, okay, if I do this, this, and this it’s gonna speed this sucker up, and if I do this, this, and this, whether it’s between your ears or actual, you know, things, you’ve, you’ve been around the block a couple times with these business ventures and you know, what will, you know, light the rocket underneath it and what will pour water on it?

Mm-hmm. . Tell me, tell me what those things are.

Todd: Let me, let me start with the success, the, the things that I, I know drive success. Okay. And this is, these are Miriam. These, these are some things that, that I’ve thought about.

Recipe for Success

Success to me is, is so personal because what I believe [00:32:00] is success or what you believe is success could be totally different things.

Most of the time it’s not financial. Or maybe shouldn’t even be financial. Right? Right. But but the, the kind of, the kind of the recipe is, is great marketing, great product. I have a list here. Great product, great marketing, engaging sales. Equals success. Mm-hmm. . So if you have a great product and you have great marketing and you have engaging sales, those three things together is is successful.

What’s interesting about that and what I want to kind of talk about is. It’s not just a good product, it’s a stellar product. You have to have a stellar product. You have to have, you know, great marketing, not just, not just mediocre marketing. You have to have great marketing. You have to have engaging sales, not just salespeople, but you [00:33:00] have to have engaging sales.

If when you have all three of those, you have a recipe of success.

Evaluation

I’ve always hired Miriam. I’ve always hired for personality. I can, I can teach, I can teach people. Right. Yeah. But always it’s tough. It’s tough to teach personality. Yeah. So when I interview, if you ever interview with me in the future, anyone out there, I’m looking for personality because I can teach them how to sell or how to market, or how to produce, or how to engage.

But I can’t, I can’t change their personality.

Miriam: So then you asked, then you asked what are the things that just roadblock Yeah. Hang on a second. Cause I wanna go ahead, comment on this. Yep. I heard you say food, water, oxygen, . If you’re missing any one of those three, this thing is gonna die. And it’s, it’s, and it’s good food.

It’s good luck, good for good air. Right? It’s, yes, exactly. It has to be evaluated and lack of [00:34:00] evaluation, whether it’s in your business or your personal life, it’s choosing mediocrity. Yeah. So I, I love that. I love that you have this written down. It’s like right in front of you.

Todd: I’m going, oh my gosh. That’s, this is what’s, what’s interesting and, and is it’s, it’s at the top of my Evernote. Huh And whenever I open up Evernote, which is my daily, it’s, you know, that’s, that’s where it is, you know?

Miriam: Yeah, yeah. Well, you’re just getting your brain thinking and thinking and thinking always on that.

That’s part of your D N A now.

So, yeah, let’s move on to the roadblocks.

[00:34:34] Roadblocks

Todd: So there is, there really is Miriam only one roadblock. Mm. And that is, that is between your ears. Yeah. It’s, it’s your, your ability to believe, you know, it’s your, it’s your ability to hope.

It’s your ability to believe, it’s your belief. It’s your ability to move. It’s your, your ability to, to, to put past the negative thoughts and create.

My grandmother, many, many, many years ago, while [00:35:00] I was, you know, in my early teens told, told her family a statement that said, in periods of calmness in your life, there is no growth.

Mm-hmm. . And, and so sometimes those periods of calmness are. Oh, time to breathe, right? Yeah. Yeah. They’re, it’s, it’s, they’re good. Catch your breath, . Okay. It’s good. And, and we, and we, and we look at those times and we say, we say, okay, I can, I’m, I’m finally out of trial, or I’m, I’m finally out of struggle. But you have to realize that in those periods of time, there is no growth.

 In high school, which we thought was so hard that, that we now realize were not hard. You know, college where, where we thought that was so hard, which it wasn’t very hard. Right. totally. You know, all of those things have helped us become who we are, but it was through the trials and struggles.[00:36:00]

that we did that.

Anyone can be Anything

So, you know, going back to the, the, the things that will stop a business or stop thriving is when we, we, we have an opportunity and we say we can’t do it.

Yeah. Right. So that’s, for me, it’s, anybody can be anything, you know, anybody can be anything. We just have to have enough willpower and determination and, and and enough days.

Sometimes it takes a lot of days.

Miriam: Enough days. And I would also say enough support, enough support, enough flow to mm-hmm. , all of that to, you know, to be able to get there.

[00:36:37] Shedrick Wildlife Fund

Todd: Oh Todd, this has been so fun. I appreciate you just immensely. So we had mentioned, I had mentioned to you before we started that as a thank you, we do a donation to a charity of your choosing in your name, and you had chosen the Sheldrick Wildlife Fund.

We’re going to adopt a baby girl Elephant in your name, and you’ll get monthly [00:37:00] updates and you can see how she’s being taken care of and will eventually be released in the wild.

We’re all about leaving things better here in conversation and in action, and this has been a great, just a great interview.

Thank you so much. Oh, Miriam, it’s absolutely been my pleasure. It’s been, it’s great to talk, it’s been great to reminisce about the old days and about some of the things that that’s gone wrong and, and good things in, in your life and my life. So it’s been my pleasure to be with you. Good. Very good.

End Credits

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts, or wherever podcasts are found.

Full audio episode found here.

Transcripts of all episodes can be found here.

All LeaveBetter Podcast episodes can be found here.

Music by Tom Sherlock.

If you are curious to know more, please contact me!

As someone who has been a therapist for over a decade and has been coaching people for over three decades, I am uniquely qualified to address your concerns.

S 

Envision Your Future – Elisabeth Galperin

[00:00:00] Hey, friends, today it is my pleasure to interview Elizabeth Galperin. She is the owner of Peak Production Coaching. Not only is she a speaker and a coach, but she’s a sought after trainer. She’s passionate about helping professionals perform at their peak and reach their potential. She sounds like someone like me.

[00:00:18] That’s what I do too. And so we’re already friends. We spent time talking beforehand and it’s like we have some things in common.

[00:00:25] So Elizabeth, something you said, ~ we often get stuck in our own stories and limiting beliefs, especially those around disorganization and overwhelm.

[00:00:35] So welcome and let’s start there.

[00:00:38] Elisabeth: Okay. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to have this conversation with you.

[00:00:43] Miriam: Great. Why don’t you give me a little bit of an idea of what you mean by limiting belief, and then let’s talk about some ways to counteract those, or at least address them.

[00:00:56] Limiting Belief

[00:00:56] Elisabeth: Okay, fantastic. So when I meet with brand new people that I’m telling, you know what I do, or in my very first couple of sessions with a client, the I, you know, it very quickly turns to, what’s not been working right, and why am I feeling overwhelmed, or why am I feeling disorganized? Why am I, you know, worried about growing my business?

[00:01:20] And what I hear from clients, and I mean, It’s varied, but quite often, uh, it has the, the preface of I’ve always been, or I’ve never been, so, you know, I’ve always been so terrible managing my time or I’ve always been, you know, in my family I was always the kid who could never pay attention.  I hear very early on in the relationship with, with individuals part of that identity.

[00:01:52] And you and I know, and, and even they know we can all change. Doesn’t matter how old we are, right? But oftentimes we sit in that old identity and it creates a limitation that we may or may not be aware of.

[00:02:07] And so in my work with clients, you know, one of the very first things that we talk about is, well, that’s maybe who you.

Change

[00:02:16] Have been or who you identified with, but who is it that you want to be and want to become and to, to kind of dispel the belief that, um, that’s unachievable. I think the. Not everyone is familiar with that term of limiting belief, right? But it’s old identity, new identity, and part of my role is to help bridge that gap and also give my clients the confidence that they can bridge that gap, whether they’ve been, you know, we’ve been around for 20 years, or 40 years, or 60 years, right?

[00:02:52] We can always change.

[00:02:54] Miriam: Sure. I, I agree with you on just how this plays out in people’s lives, and I think that, one of the things. I don’t hear talked about much with limiting beliefs is as you’re going through that identity transformation, the other person struggles to accept that new identity.

[00:03:14] Before we had gotten on, and we’re talking about this, I asked you about your name and did you wanna be called Liz or Beth or Elizabeth? And you said, I used to be called Beth, but I want to be called Elizabeth. And that is such a small little way of saying, but. Big in its ramifications. This is who I was.

Identity Shift

[00:03:33] This is who I am now, and I bet you anything, you had a ton of people who struggled to make that switch and they called you the old thing until they switched to the new thing.

[00:03:44] Yes. Yes. Can you talk a little bit about how you see that for your clients as they’re trying to make this identity shift and change and the other people are kind of trying to put them back in that other space?

[00:03:57] Not, not in a mean way it’s just habit.

[00:04:00] Communication

[00:04:00] Elisabeth: Yeah. Right. And it’s comfortable, right? Yes. I mean, you know, most humans do like things to stay the same, and particularly the way we view a loved one, a family member, a partner, a business partner. So you’re right. You know. I, I talk a lot with my clients about the importance of communication.

[00:04:21] Clearly as a coach and and a client, we have to be doing a lot of communication. But I also make sure that we figure out who, who is in your sphere that we need to talk to about the changes you’re making and how those individuals can support you, um, and how can you support them. So my background is actually, The field of communication.

[00:04:44] I was a speech language therapist in my first career, and you know, the, the more I get into, I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been in my, my own business now for 15 years. But I continue to see how communication with others is such an important factor when it comes to changing our own habits, adopting new strategies, trying to, you know, run your business differently.

Communication Systems

[00:05:06] Putting systems in place. There’s always some element of who are we communicating to about it? How are we communicating with them, and how does our change impact those around us? So I mean, it’s you’re, you’re hitting the nail on the head in terms of any time that we’re changing something small or big , we have to not just think about how do we want to respond?

[00:05:33] And behave differently, but how are we going to need to support the people around us or ask for the support of people around us so that we can make that change and, and have the support and the acceptance of it.

[00:05:46] Miriam: Sure. Can you give an example, or I should say, are you willing to give an example from your own life where you had a limiting belief?

[00:05:55] I assume there was this process of, you didn’t know it was there then you knew it was there, but you didn’t do anything about it. Then you started to do something about it, but it probably went poorly and then you accomplished it. Give me an idea, like with a practical, you know, boots on the ground example.

[00:06:14] Public Speaking

[00:06:14] Elisabeth: Okay, so I’ve got a great one for you. So I used to be, I won’t quite say deathly afraid, but the idea of public speaking. Was something that sounded miserable to me. I was the student in college that avoided taking a public speaking class. It’s interesting as I. You know, as I went through and started my first profession, I was, I was an educator and a teacher, but it was more about being with kids.

[00:06:44] And it was in a smaller, it was in a smaller setting and smaller role, but the idea of getting up in front of a group of peers or professionals, was something that terrified me. So in the first five years or so of my career, my identity and limiting belief was, I’m afraid of public speaking and I’m terrible at.

[00:07:04] So that was anytime someone would ask, Hey, do you want to be our spokesperson? Hey, do you wanna get up and, you know, lead this discussion? My limiting belief was, oh no, I’m terrible at that. Oh no, I’m afraid of that. Well, when I, when I was in, I. Used to work in the public schools and I took a position at a private practice being a speech language therapist, and part of my role there was representing the practice and helping to build our clientele.

People Pleasing

[00:07:34] So I had to start wearing a sales hat and that required me to start talking to groups of educators and parents. I was extremely uncomfortable doing so, but I also didn’t wanna tell my boss no. Cause I’m a people pleaser by nature. So even though I had this belief that I’m terrible at speaking in front of an audience and you know, I, my face would get all red and I’d get sweaty and, you know, all the terrible things that you experience.

[00:08:05] But I, I had to get comfortable being uncomfortable and. You know, after, I don’t know, let’s say five or six times, I started getting feedback that you did a great job up there. We loved your presentation, and so it took other people’s perspective for me to start to think, well, maybe I’m actually not a terrible speaker, public speaker.

[00:08:27] I still am not comfortable, but I’m at least getting feedback from other people that maybe I’m not terrible, maybe I am somewhat good at this. And just through the practice of. Being uncomfortable and pushing through it anyways, helped me turn the, the, the tide. And now if you ask me what’s one of my favorite things that I do in my business, it’s when I get to speak in front of a room full of people and do a workshop or a training.

Energized by People

[00:08:52] So complete 180. But you know, that’s over a span of, of several years and it really re it. Being willing to step into it and know that I could get to the other side of it if I practiced and if I, took the feedback from other people and, and allowed that to be the message versus my own internal message of, you’re not good at this

[00:09:16] Yeah. So that, that’s a significant one.

[00:09:18] Miriam: Yeah, no, I can totally tell, and I can tell by the way you’re talking about it, that when you get to be in front of people now, it energizes you and it does. I wonder how many of our listeners have these hidden genius spaces within them that they are. Unaware of, or they are like on the other side of the coin thinking I’m no good at that, or I can’t do that.

[00:09:42] I was talking about limiting beliefs on a podcast earlier today that where I was being interviewed and we were, we were just discussing about how the space in your brain is feeding you- it’s almost like a ticker tape just feeding you this, these messages constantly and so many people do not know.

[00:10:03] Just because it goes through your brain doesn’t mean it’s true.

Tips on Changing Mindset

[00:10:07] Elisabeth: Right, right. You may have a choice to believe to, to have the thought and choose to continue with that thought or to change the thought.

[00:10:18] I certainly learned that, you know, through throughout, particularly becoming a, a business owner.

[00:10:24] An entrepreneur. But you’re right. Just because the thought exists doesn’t mean that we have to believe it or allow it to, to hang around.

[00:10:32] Miriam: Right. What would you say if you were giving some practical tips on people changing their thoughts because everybody says, oh, you know, you need to change your thinking or your mindset.

[00:10:44] Feels sometimes a little abstract.

[00:10:47] What would you say are some concrete ways to stop that thinking in your head?.

[00:10:54] Journaling Your Thoughts

[00:10:54] Elisabeth: I do firmly believe in just the act of journaling and writing and taking a thought and making it concrete on paper.

[00:11:02] I really love I am statements so. In, in my previous example, I am a competent and, um, I’m a competent speaker, you know, and just writing it and, and feeling into it and thinking about what does it feel like to be a competent speaker? So kind of putting yourself into the new identity and, and thinking about what would it feel like and where would that lead me to and who.

[00:11:27] Speak to and just kind of letting the, letting the vision play out.

[00:11:31] But getting it from just the thought that’s floating in your head and this non-tangible, to an actual statement that you’ve written on paper, that you’ve turned into something a little bit more solid.

[00:11:42] Spending just time with your thoughts and, and doing the journaling and imagining what it feels like to be that version of yourself.

[00:11:50] I also think that asking other people for feedback and getting, you know, like I was saying earlier, we have a perception of ourselves that is very different than, or at least somewhat different than what other people perceive of us. So being willing to say to a friend or a colleague, um, Hey, how would you describe, if you had to use three words to describe my speaking skills, what would they be?

Future You

[00:12:14] And just allow yourself to see how other people are viewing you and, and receiving you.

[00:12:20] I think that’s a very powerful, it’s vulnerable, right? But it’s very powerful.

[00:12:26] And then it’s taking little small steps that, you know, how can you put into action.

[00:12:33] Ben Hardy, Dr. Ben Hardy is an expert that I follow, and he, he wrote a whole book about, it’s called Be Your Future Self Now, I believe. What I’ve learned from him is, you know, go ahead and make a decision today. Assuming you are that future vision of yourself or, you know, having that different belief about yourself.

[00:12:53] And the more you act as your, that future version of you, the, the sooner you become that version. So it’s like, are there some small steps you could take that, that will encourage you to act upon? That new belief or that new identity, and then it starts to get a lot more comfortable, much more quickly.

[00:13:14] Miriam: Yeah. I really appreciate those thoughts. I often say, you know, where you look is where you go and I don’t know. I definitely see that when I drive, I have to be careful not to look too, too far. Look at the scenery. Oh, all of a sudden I’m across the line, you know? But where, where you look is where you’re gonna go.

[00:13:33] Internal Confidence

[00:13:33] Miriam: And if you are constantly looking at, I suck at this, I’m terrible, I’m this, I’m that. I’m not as good as them, you know? It’s amazing. Me this, this goes across a, um, spectrum from, you know, I mean, both you and I address people who are trying to reach their next level, who are trying to be successful.

[00:13:53] It’s amazing to me that these principles hold true whether you are below the poverty line or a multi-millionaire. Where you look is where you’re gonna go and what you tell yourself super, super matters.

[00:14:07] When you are trying to improve and reach that next level of you, there’s all sorts of spaces of pushback, whether it’s from the internal spaces in you or the people outside of you. And one of the things that I hear people express, they all, whether you’re, you know, regardless of any gender, it kind of comes out a little bit differently depending on where you stand.

[00:14:33] But the, the similar motif is, Uh, I, I don’t do well with criticism. You know, they’re, they’re going along and then someone says something critical and then it kind of sucks the wind out of their sail. And so, how would you work on this idea? I mean, that is a form of limiting beliefs when someone else is critical and then you somehow take that in.

[00:14:58] Receiving Criticism

[00:14:58] Miriam: What kind of input would you say to people who are on the receiving end of criticism?

[00:15:04] Elisabeth: A couple of things come to mind for me. One is, we don’t know what’s going on inside someone else’s, you know, world and mind. Oftentimes if there is criticism, uh, we only see it on the surface.

[00:15:18] We see what words they’ve used. We don’t know, you know, if they’ve had a terrible day, if they just, you know, receive terrible news. We have to remember that their words carry, some weight and meaning that we can’t see. Having a little bit of thick skin and recognizing that the words that someone uses has, I would venture to say more to do with them than it does to you, especially when it is a criticism.

[00:15:44] Right.

[00:15:45] I think also allow yourself to be curious and instead of if we do receive criticism instead of shutting down or, wanting to kind of hide away.

[00:15:57] Step towards it and be curious and maybe ask some, ask a follow up question or, um, explore, you know, where that, where that comment is coming from instead of shrinking away from it. Again, that’s not easy to do. It takes courage and it’s uncomfortable, but I also think that when we take. An extra minute or when we ask an extra question, that is when we can often uncover, oh, this is what’s going on.

Be Curious

[00:16:27] That comment really did not have to do with me and, and my performance today. It really had to do with what happened at home for that individual, or, you know, what? They’re going through. So be curious. Allow yourself to explore someone’s comment versus internalize and project what it could mean.

[00:16:47] And then I think that, you know, at the end of the day, If you can lay your head on the pillow and you can feel good. I gave my best effort. I did what I did the best I could for my boss or, , I gave my client the best, of me today and, and maybe they didn’t feel fulfilled by it, but if you can check with yourself and say, despite the criticism or the feedback,

[00:17:14] the best I could. I know I gave, you know, my whole self. That’s, that’s all we can do. What more can you ask of yourself and what more can other people ask of you?

[00:17:25] Measure of Success

[00:17:25] Miriam: I used to tell people, well, I still tell people this when we’re talking about boundaries, the, the measure of success is not whether or not the other person is happy. Like nobody’s ever happy when you give them a boundary. And so many people will try and set a boundary and then the other person gets upset and then they’ll say, oh, well I failed.

[00:17:45] And it’s like, no, the, the measure of whether or not that was a successful activity, were you clear? Did you speak with respect to the other person, and did you make it about you, not them? And so then regardless of the other person’s response, they can say, okay, I did my best. I did those three things.

[00:18:07] And what I hear you saying is, when you’re in the face of criticism, the question is not, is everyone happy with me all the time? The question is, did I do my best? Yeah. And that’s powerful. Yeah.

[00:18:23] Elisabeth: Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. We, we are, we have the most command over our own thoughts, our own actions, our own beliefs.

[00:18:33] We don’t have the control as much as we want over other people’s thoughts and beliefs.

[00:18:39] Check in with yourself, um, and if you’re, if you’re content with what you contributed and, and how you showed up, that is a great way to, to measure, yourself.

[00:18:50] Miriam: Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you said earlier you have to kind of develop a thick skin and I’m kind of curious. I think some people are naturally more sensitive than others, like neurologically, neuro, physically. But I also think some people are acculturated, like they kind of, I don’t know.

[00:19:08] Be Proactive

[00:19:08] Miriam: It, it’s, it served them to be more sensitive in a younger space in life. If someone wanted to go about developing a thicker skin, how would you counsel them or coach them?

[00:19:23] Elisabeth: Wow. That is a great question. Well, I, I mean, I really think it, it is a, it leans in a little bit more to what we were just talking about, um, what are the measures? And, and so I talk a lot in my work and with my clients about being proactive.

[00:19:43] And so if I’m going into a meeting, Where I, let’s say we’re discussing a project and we’re gonna make some decisions. It’s important to go into those conversations in our meetings, knowing what’s the objective.

[00:19:59] So if the objective is I wanna be right, and I go into that meeting and there are people there that don’t agree with me, then I’m gonna come out feeling disappointed and hurt. Like I wasn’t productive or didn’t accomplish something.

[00:20:12] But if I go into a meeting or conversation, knowing the objective is for us to be able to move forward or to be able to compromise, or to figure out what’s best for this individual, then. Whether it’s my idea that gets chosen or my idea get. You know, some holes poked in it, and we, we end up going a different direction than I thought was correct.

Goals

[00:20:36] Then I get to leave that meeting saying, Hey, we hit, we reached the objective. And so there’s no reason for me to feel like I wasn’t listened to or that my idea wasn’t best, because that wasn’t the, that wasn’t the purpose. So I think as long as you, if you can enter. A meeting, a conversation, a project, and you know, what is that?

[00:20:58] What is that ultimate goal I’m trying to reach or that we’re trying to reach? Then it helps us to, it’s not that it’s gonna completely take away emotions and feelings. But I think it helps us to manage emotions and feelings because we can see the bigger picture, we can see the, the actual goal. And if we met it or we got close to it, then I can, I can take it less personally.

[00:21:25] There are going to be some circumstances where you just feel bad, right? But I do think that that helps in a lot of ways, knowing and thinking ahead of time, what is it that we’re trying to achieve? And really, Is there an opportunity for me to learn here?

Failure vs. Success

[00:21:42] Right. That’s another, you know, I don’t know if we’ll talk about this, but the idea of failure versus success. And I fully believe in, in the fact that there is no such thing as failure as long as we learned something . And so if you can, maybe you got feedback that you didn’t want, or maybe you were, you know, again, your idea was turned down.

[00:22:03] But if I learned something, Then I don’t need to feel bad. I actually can now see how that was a growth opportunity.

[00:22:11] Again, it’s largely just it’s mindset, right? And it’s, it’s, it’s thinking a couple of steps ahead. But I think those are some ways to not take things so personally and, and see the opportunities even in the moments where there could be some conflict or there could be some disagreement.

[00:22:31] Don’t Take Things Personally

[00:22:31] Miriam: I appreciate that. That feels like emotional chess, in a good way. Like not in a manipulative way, but you’re thinking three or four moves ahead. What is it that I am wanting to accomplish in this meeting or this action ? And in what ways am I trying to grow and. Stretch, all of this makes sense with constructive criticism.

[00:22:49] It doesn’t make as much sense with like the trollish kind of criticism. And I do think when people get a certain level of success, their heads are above the crowd. And I think people can be extraordinarily mean. And that’s where your earlier advice about. , don’t take this personally. This isn’t about you.

[00:23:10] This is about them. I,

[00:23:12] I heard one, um, podcaster say, this isn’t evidence that I am big enough that I’m getting noticed. Woo-hoo. Yes. Which I thought was an amazing reframe. I’m like, okay. There you go. Yes.

[00:23:26] Elisabeth: Yes, I, I have a, a friend who said something similar. She said, uh, if you ever find that you have haters, it means you have arrived

[00:23:35] Yeah. And it’s that same idea that, you know, we’re never going to please everyone, then we’re never gonna have everyone that agrees with us. And, if your voice is being heard, that’s an accomplishment and it’s going to come. What comes along with that? Some of the folks that are gonna disagree and they’re gonna be loud and, you know, they, they may try to shine a negative light, but it means that you’re, you’re being heard.

[00:24:00] And that’s, again, that’s the ultimate goal, right?

[00:24:04] Think Big

[00:24:04] Miriam: Absolutely. Okay. there are lots of concepts that are integral to your practice, but. Always, if someone is growing, they’re chewing on something new too. So what concept or idea are you currently chewing on that might be a little bit on your growth edge?

[00:24:22] Elisabeth: Oh wow. let’s see. Well I am definitely, as I referred earlier, I’m definitely working on the strengthening that belief behind, Spending more time thinking about my future self. As, as a business owner, you can, I should use I statements here. It’s very easy for me to. Have blinders on in terms of what do I need to do today, tomorrow, this week.

[00:24:55] And, to not always carve out time to allow myself to think big. And I’m, I’m a very realistic thinker and kind of conservative when I set goals for myself. so something that I’m really working on now is allowing myself to think big and envision my future, beyond what. You know, might, even beyond what I might think I desire and, and to play with that.

The Big Picture

[00:25:24] And to the hardest part for me with that is just giving myself time to, to sit with those thoughts. I’m, I love to be in action. I love to be checking things off the list. And so I will frequently shortchange myself on having. Think time, creative time, and so that’s something that I’m learning that I need to give myself time.

[00:25:50] Create the big picture and to have the vision so that I can get there quicker and, and really get clear on who my, who my future self is. I’m very happy with who I am right now. And it’s easy to say, well, I’m good. I’m in a good spot. But I also know that in order for me to impact more people and to leave a legacy and to, you know, build this business to a level that, can really, Have, have immeasurable impact that I have to think big.

[00:26:20] I have to think bigger. And so that’s something that I would say is a, is a personal expansion right now that I’m working on.

[00:26:28] Envision the Future

[00:26:28] Miriam: Yeah. I appreciate you sharing that. That wasn’t necessarily something we talked about beforehand, so I appreciate you just being willing to go there. I think that so many people look at their life today, and if you said, look back 10 years at how much you’ve grown, they would say, oh my gosh.

[00:26:47] And if you ask them to envision 10 years from now, They kind of see themselves, but just a little older or more wrinkly. But it’s like, yeah, well the growth you had in the last 10 years could be the growth that you have in the future 10 years. Right? And I do think that that is a mind blowing concept for most people.

[00:27:07] Um, yeah. Throughout, like the early parts of our life we’re given this roadmap. You know, you go through K through 12 and then you might go to the university and then you might go to a graduate program. Or you might develop, you know, and there’s a certain point where the plan ends. It reminds me on, Like the, the Lord of the Rings movies where they had that map and certain parts of the map were all detailed out.

[00:27:31] Like, here’s the Shire and here’s the mountains and here’s whatever. And then there’s these big sections in between that is like the unknown, you know?

[00:27:39] Right, right. And that’s what we’re talking about is the, is the unknown.

[00:27:45] Elisabeth: Yes. And I think, you know, I do also think that, I’m not sure where this messaging comes from.

Be intentional

[00:27:53] I haven’t really thought about this, but we do kind of have that messaging of, well, it’s the unknown. Nobody knows you can’t write your future. I mean, I think there are a lot of ways where we are told, we’ll just have to see what the future holds. But I’m a firm believer.

[00:28:10] Again, this is definitely a, a shift in my mindset over, you know, the last several years, but we actually have a lot more control over who our future self is, if we become intentional about it, if we spend time creating it and envisioning it. So I, I do think that we can. Easily get by, by saying, well, I don’t know.

[00:28:31] It’s unchartered territory. We’ll just have to see. I’m just gonna keep working hard. I’m just gonna keep, you know, doing my best. But we can do more than that.

[00:28:39]  We can be more specific and we can fill in the map for ourselves. It, it may not go exactly as planned, right? Most likely it’s not gonna go as planned, but better to have a plan and, and experience some detours than just have a map of the unknown and see where, where life leads you.

Mindset shift

[00:28:59] Miriam: Yeah. I was thinking as you were talking how I wish that we had been taught these sort of things in school. You know, nobody knew when you and I were in school, nobody knew that Google was gonna come out and that we didn’t need to memorize all those facts cuz we’d have Wikipedia. I really wish that we had been taught how to shift our mindset. Because the vast majority of people, and I I find this to actually be tragic, is they reach the edge of the unknown territory on the map of their life and they stop.

[00:29:28] They stop and they say, well, I guess this is what life is. I guess this is, you know, and it does not have to be that way. But I understand why they stop, because it’s scary to venture out into something that you don’t know where it’s gonna lead. And, uh, this is where I think having mentors, having coaches is really helpful because sometimes they’ve been there before, or at the very least they can say, Hey, I’m in this with you.

[00:29:55] Reward Yourself

[00:29:55] Miriam: What, what, if any, have you made a purchase of a hundred dollars or less that you felt like, um, whoa, I’m so glad I made that purchase, and why?

[00:30:06] Elisabeth: I am getting into the mindset of gifts for the season when I think about purchasing something for myself, um, that has made an impact, I would have to say, Spending, spending money on myself is actually something that I have struggled with. I often try to, you know, make, make the penny stretch the penny, and if I don’t need it, I could use that money for my kids or, you know, for the house.

[00:30:37] Just a couple of days ago, um, I allowed myself to buy a pair of earrings and a necklace. Just because , and again, as insignificant as that may sound on the surface, I talked my clients a lot about it. How, I mean it really, if, if you study the brain, having reward is actually a really significant, part of learning and, and change, behavior change.

[00:31:04] Learning that it’s okay to reward myself and to buy something that I like simply because, I’m worthy of it. I think buying a necklace and, and a pair of earrings the other day, just because I could, um, and I was thinking of, of me and not someone else. That’s a, that’s a shift for me.

[00:31:28] It’s representative of the fact that I’m worthy. I can buy myself things and not have to feel guilty or feel like I’m taking away from someone else.

[00:31:37] And not even just how it made me feel, but, the, the purpose of it or the reason behind it was I don’t have to have a reason. Right. .

[00:31:46] You Are Worth It

[00:31:46] Miriam: Right. Uh, I appreciate you sharing that. Yeah. What I hear you saying is that it was symbolic of “you are worth it” and therefore, , it didn’t matter if they were expensive or not, or it was the act of doing it and saying, I am worth it.

[00:32:01] And I, I love that. That’s such a nice way to end this, conversation with just really everybody realizing they’re worth it. Maybe they could come up with a small, something that they could do to represent that. Whether you feel it or not is immaterial. Take an action that says I’m worth it. And sometimes the feelings follow the action.

[00:32:24] Where to Find Elisabeth

[00:32:24] Miriam: So, Elizabeth, how about if you share how people can find you and then we’ll wrap this up.

[00:32:31] Elisabeth: Okay, thank you. The best place to find me is my website, it’s peakproductivitycoaching.com. And I’m also very active on LinkedIn. I really find that to be a valuable platform, my name is Elizabeth.

[00:32:48] Spelled with an S Galperin and I try to share lots of valuable information, inspirational and motivational information, so that’s a great place to find me over on LinkedIn.

[00:32:59] Miriam: Awesome, thank you. Elizabeth and I had mentioned earlier that we would like to make a donation in your name. You chose The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, they rescue orphaned elephants after their moms have been somehow killed, whether by poaching or drought or human animal conflict.

[00:33:17] And you’re, you chose a little boy elephant. So we will, adopt him in your name and you’ll get, you’ll get updates on him through the year. Thank you so much. Just for your time. We’ll put all of this in the show notes. What a pleasure. What a great conversation.

[00:33:33] Elisabeth: Yeah. I appreciate it and thanks for having me and I hope, I hope our message today, reaches some people in the way, in the way that it needs to.

[00:33:42] Miriam: me too.

End Credits

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Be a Productive Leader – Scott Fulton

miriam: [00:00:00] Hey friends, today we have a special guest, was it last week that we met? I did your podcast the Rebel Diaries podcast. And then now we’re switching we’re gonna get to hear about your digital business, and we’re going to get to hear about the works you do with teams. Anyway, I just am really happy to have you from the uk. Welcome, Scott.

scott: Hi, Miriam. It’s great to be here.

Thanks for.

Absolutely. Okay, so why don’t you talk a little bit about, just in brief and then we’ll get more into it, but the two sides to your business.

[00:00:34] Digital Programs for the Police Force

Okay. So the first side is the digital aspect, so that’s. That came from my background. I spent 20 years in a police force in the UK called Dave and Somerset Police, and I headed up the digital team there and we built loads of great products, I would say great, of course.

But you know, lots of innovative products and solutions for the public. Things like reporting crime online some operational systems, covid solutions, all that kind of stuff. And it was. A real [00:01:00] eye-opener for me in terms of how I can offer value to people. And I left the police force and decided I wanted to go alone and help other police forces and other organizations.

So with a couple of my Ex members, I’ve set that up and the company’s called digital Rebels. And yeah, we’re focusing on building websites, bespoke solutions, so unique products and, and services for solving problems for people’s customers fundamentally. So that’s one. And then the other side is more around team high performance and coaching and teaching leadership skills.

That really helped me during my time in the police dealing with demand overload. Cuz you know, it’s an operational organization. There’s always a crisis, there’s always more work that you could ever do. And I found a way. To be able to manage that in a really effective way. And we’ll probably get onto that later about how, how we kind of did that.

Diminish the Chaos

But, but something I’m really passionate about is helping people who are struggling in what I call corporate chaos, where they’re overloaded, they’re going to [00:02:00] wasted time in pointless meetings. They can’t say no to people cuz they don’t want to, you know, let them down and they just perpetuate this problem of, of frankly chaos and they get stressed out.

So yeah, those are the, those are the two aspects

excellent. Well, and you cleared up something for me even as you were talking about your businesses because I knew that you had worked for the police force, but I wasn’t sure in what capacity.

So why don’t we start with, I’m very interested in this notion of teams and the reason I think that teams are so important, if you’re a business owner and you have a team of people, if they’re not getting along, your revenue is just in the toilet.

Or if, if they’re not getting along, somebody’s quitting because they can’t stand this other person and blah, blah. And you know, your company culture really struggles.

The Problem You Face

If you’re part of a team, like if you work in a corporate situation and you have a terrible person on your team, or you just know that life, life could be better That it’s, it’s [00:03:00] a real problem.

And I feel like honestly, every parent who has children, they, you have a team right there. And I think that any of the things that you’re gonna talk about would apply to every single one of those scenarios. So talk to me a little bit about teams and where you feel like you can help them.

scott: So, yeah, and, and if it probably help if I just start by saying a bit about where I went wrong in my career and how I how I was doing it wrong, so, so when I started, I won’t give you the full life history cuz we haven’t got time and your listeners will be very bored.

[00:03:33] Management vs Leadership

scott: But, but essentially when I, I got my first management job and I specifically say management rather than leadership. I made so many mistakes, and this feels like a confession, a cringe, but you know, I felt I had to have all the answers.

I felt that I needed to make sure my team were working hard and like pace the room and all this stuff that is just awful to think about now. But I was young and foolish and in my defense, , and, and that, that looking back, that [00:04:00] drove the wrong behavior in the team. You know, there was a lack of trust. They didn’t feel safe.

And they worked, but they clearly didn’t enjoy. And thankfully I, I learned hopefully quite rapidly to become more of a. And actually for me that’s more about creating a safe environment for the team. So safe for them to say, Scott, that’s a really stupid idea. and me as a leader, being humble to say I don’t have all the answers.

And I found myself in the latter part of my career in the police actually openly saying my team are much smarter than me. I’ve employed smart people with skills I don’t have, my job is not to tell them how to do their job. My job is. Given the environment to be safe and high performing, give them the problems that need solving, but then frankly get outta their way until they need me.

Safe To Challenge

And that for me is, has proved really, really powerful in terms of creating high performing teams. There’s lots of other factors, but for me that main one is safety for them to, you know, challenge me. To ask [00:05:00] for clarity but also to make mistakes and learn. And certainly in the space we were working in, in digital, it’s very easy to fall into a trap of making assumptions.

Oh yeah, if we build this product and we put this on the website, then the customers will love it. And you make those decisions in the boardroom or the office, but. The reality is, until you get something in people’s hands, you don’t really know what they’re gonna do with it.

So you have to be willing to learn from your mistakes.

And I always cite the example of, of Elon Musk, who obviously is quite controversial character, but he was doing all the work, you know, trying to land the SpaceX rockets so they could be reused. , every time they blew up, he didn’t sack the team. They used that data to say, right, what went wrong? How can we do better next time?

And for me, that’s really important as a mindset to say, you know, we need to test and learn, test or fail. And it’s safe for the team to do that. Does that make sense?

[00:05:51] Leading and Teaching

miriam: Oh, yes. I appreciate what you’re saying. Tremendously. I, I think I wanna bounce in and say, You know, okay. The [00:06:00] space where you did it wrong, you know that was a failure of someone above you who didn’t teach you.

And I think that we can graciously say, okay, you did it wrong, but also nobody led the way. And you’re taking that space and saying, well, I’m not gonna let that happen with anybody, from now on, and I’m sure that you are teaching, what does it mean to manage well?

So when you talk about creating safety, this is something that’s super important in our workplaces right now and in our homes.

How do you create a place, a space where someone can disagree with you and it doesn’t feel disrespectful on either end?

Yeah, I mean, I, I don’t know if it, I mean, it’s something that just organically happened over time with me. If I look back, I don’t think there was a sudden switch where I think it takes the leader.

I mean, it is, it’s gotta be start with the leader to, to be able to say, I don’t have all the answers. And to openly admit [00:07:00] that to their team. So that takes, I think, courage on the leader’s behalf and you know, the leader needs to feel safe doing that. But I think some people are hired wired to see that as a weakness.

Golden Rule

And I think it’s, it’s about. Setting that example up front with the team, so they go, oh, actually I feel safe to ask or to challenge or to question, and it’s gotta be in a respectful way. But I think, you know, there’s a phrase I, I learned on a training course a few years ago that really stuck with me. You, you’ve probably heard the phrase treat people how you want to be treated.

Actually there’s a better way and it’s treat people how they want to be treated. Yes. Because different people want to be treated in different ways. They have different needs, they have different levels of confidence, they have different things going on at home. You know, there’s all those dynamics at play in the work environment.

And quite often it’s the quiet ones that might have the best ideas. So I think a good leader also makes space for those quieter individuals and makes sure that everybody has a [00:08:00] say. And you know, so I could ramble on. But yeah, those are, those are my key. Kind of thoughts around that.

miriam: Yeah. I really appreciate that.

When you were talking about this, this space of humility and having courage, it makes me think that the leader has to have a, a good sense of self-esteem. Like they have to be okay in their own skin and their worth isn’t going to be based on the other person’s performance or the other person’s, you know, perfection or whatever.

How would a leader get there?

[00:08:34] Don’t Control, Lead

scott: So I think a lot of the problem is still, there’s quite a lot of what I’d call industrial aged thinking in, in some organizations and management. Because you know, if you go back to the industrial age, and I’m not a great history, so I may get some this wrong, but essentially, you know, the whole factory mindset where work was predictable, you had production lines, everyone knew what their role was.

They knew that they had a performance target if I deliver five widgets every hour or whatever it is, and the [00:09:00] management structure was clear and the boss called the shots and said, work harder, work faster. We live in a very different world now in the corporate world where work is is quite untangible, it’s quite difficult to put your finger on it.

People have very specialist skills, rolls, overlap. You get those kind of tensions and politics and things like that, and. If you’ve got a manager who’s still stuck in that industrial age mindset, they’re trying to control people in a way that’s just not realistic and it drives the wrong behavior, and that’s when you know people, I always say focus on outcomes rather than outputs, but you know, the traditional way of thinking is about volume of work and.

Less Talk, More Action

You just say, my developers, you know they, they come in and they type on keyboards a lot. Now, some development leaders will think if their developers aren’t working all day at the keyboard, they’re not achieving. But actually, I would say to my team, if you spend most of the day talking about the [00:10:00] problem, And a tiny part of the day doing the actual coding.

That’s fine with me cuz that’s just, the conversations are important. It’s the problem solving, it’s the teamwork. It’s not about volume of things. You type on your computer.

And I think the same applies to, you know, people in other jobs. You know, there’s this whole present presenteeism that I know people are struggling with in remote work.

You know, if I’m not, and I’ve felt this, when we started remote work during Covid, it was like, oh, the green dot, I need to be at my screen if I, you know, go for a, go to the toilet or go to get a. Someone, Scott’s not online. You know, we weren’t like that in the corporate when we were in the office. You’d go for a walk to between meetings. You’d get some fresh air and have a chat with someone, you know. But yeah, I might be going off a tangent here, but ,

[00:10:43] Nature of Work

miriam: no, I, I don’t think it’s a tangent. I think it actually is a really important question about the nature of work, which really matters whether you have a business or you’re, you know, part of an employment space, which is pretty much everybody who listens to my podcast.[00:11:00]

I, it, this, this notion of the industrialized work. I don’t know if you know of or follow Seth Godin, but he would talk about that. Yeah. He had his manifesto on education, and I think I probably read that five or six years ago. And it had never occurred to me that at least in the, , the education system is very much toward, you’ve got that main leader, here are all the rules.

Everybody make your widgets the same way, and it is.

It is not developing people for what our current work situation is, and all of those kind of jobs are being done by robots now, or mostly, or, you know, transitioning toward that space.

And so the question becomes, You know,

You have an inherent risk when you trust a team the way you are because there are the slackers who aren’t doing work and who are distracted and who are just. Taking advantage of the company. And there are the people who, if you [00:12:00] just gave them kind of the direction you wanna go, they would work their hearts out for you.

How do you talk to leaders about that kind of dichotomy between their team members?

scott: So one of the things that I learned, and again, a lesson I learned kind of midway through my career was, We, I did have one of those team members and I’ve obviously, you gotta be very careful, . But yeah, we had a team.

Individuals Impact the Team

So, so, so the, the nature of a lot of, again, I’m talking about developers, but the, there’s this kind right

here and we’re just gonna say for the sake of this, hypothetically speaking, yes,

of course. This Hypothe example developers, a lot of them like to just put headphones on and just do their. Whereas we know that to be more effective, you’ve get multiple brains solving a problem.

So we’d encourage people to sit together at the computer to work together on things. Now, we had one individual that, hypothetically, one individual might decide that they don’t wanna be part of, that they just wanna work on their own. And that caused tension. [00:13:00] The quality of their work wasn’t great. It created bugs in the software.

It was, you know, and I, I let it go too long.. Unaddressed because I wanted to be liked and you know, still quite early on as a leader and I thought, oh, I don’t wanna have this difficult conversation with this person. In the end I did cuz it got really bad and but I let, my regret is I let that fester too long and it actually, they then decided to leave the organization, thankfully, the day they left.

The, the atmosphere in the room changed and I hadn’t realized that. To me it was a massive lesson about how much one individual could impact a an entire team. Yeah. And yeah, so there’s a big regret. I didn’t address that sooner. So, so I encourage, and it’s hard in some organizations to get rid of those bad eggs.

[00:13:44] Be Brave and Act

scott: I don’t wanna sound harsh, but you know, some people just are lazy and or don’t want to work and just want to coast and hide behind others. So I think that’s, again, I’d encourage leaders to be brave and, and actually have those tough conversations. But I get that they are [00:14:00] very much dependent on how much the organization can support them.

So certainly the police, my experience. In the police. Being a public sector organization, sometimes it’s quite hard to get rid of, you know, difficult people. It’s, you can’t just, in the private sector, you just go, right, don’t come in tomorrow. , . But it’s not, it’s, it’s not so easy in the public sector. You’ve gotta go through rules and regulations and they can sue you for, you know, unfair dismissal.

And it’s just a minefield that I think sometimes organizations are afraid to even go into. So what happens is, I’m gonna be really harsh, but this, it’s like a cancer in the organization then that just sits there, spreads and is not dealt with. So I think it’s really serious. If you’ve got some really bad behavior, it just needs to be dealt with because more people suffer as a result.

So, yeah, long answer I think encourage the leaders to actually just be brave and, and try and deal with those problems.

Learn from Mistakes

miriam: Right. How do leaders learn that kind of brave? because you’re right, it is difficult and [00:15:00] honestly, even in the private sector, depending on which state you’re in here, you have to document things up the wazoo so that you know it’s, you know, all taken care of so you can’t be sued and all of that.

Mm-hmm. , how do leaders learn how to be brave?

scott: Good question. I think, well, certainly the life experience for me helped. I. Being open and reflecting and learning from your mistakes, I think is a good way. Obviously you can do lots of reading and listen to great podcasts like this and, you know, get inspiration from others.

So, you know, try and find what good leadership looks like. There’s loads of things out there, you know, YouTube, it is, et cetera. But, but I think nothing beats life experience, but you have to have the self-awareness to, to say where you went wrong and what you would do differently next time. Take that time out.

To just do a bit of a personal retrospective and say, you know, what did I learn? Could I have handled that any differently? What would I do differently next time? I [00:16:00] think that that self-reflection is gonna be key.

[00:16:02] Coaching to Grow

miriam: Yeah, I would agree. I also think, I mean, you and I are both in forms of coaching. It really helps to have somebody outside of you saying, okay, what is it you need to do?

I am here standing next to you. I’m cheering you on. I know you can do it for these reasons.

Okay. Now that you’ve done it, let’s talk about it. Where did you, you know, Excel, what would you have done differently if you had a do-over you? It’s, you just can’t under. The power of having someone in your corner like that.

miriam: Mm-hmm. . Okay. You have a motto on your website, do less but deliver more. What does that mean?

So there’s extra bits to that, but yeah. So it’s do less of what doesn’t matter and do more of what does. So for me, this is, this is kind of key and it’s become, that’s why I came up with that. I think everything revolves around this.

So it’s all about accepting that there’s always more work that you can never [00:17:00] do. There will always be more work that you can never do. So all you can do is prioritize and. Unfortunately, in some organizations, the bosses say, well, everything’s a priority. And if you look up the definition of priority in the dictionary, that’s not possible.

If you can only have one priority by definition, but you know everything’s a priority or can you just squeeze this in as well? And that’s when you know, people get overloaded and stressed out, and it’s not good for the organization or the customer.

So what I help people focus on is, is. We can’t do everything.

[00:17:31] Prioritizing

miriam: Okay? We need to get visibility of work to be able to understand how to prioritize. So don’t leave work stuck in your inbox or on post-it notes, or leave your desk or on whiteboards. It has to be in a, in a single place where you can then look at it and make judgements on what’s the most important thing you should be working on next, but also keeping on top of that and continually reviewing.

And there’s loads of other aspects to that, but the, but the key thing is do less of time wasting. Do more [00:18:00] of value.

Two Types of Work

miriam: There’s a guy called Cal Newport. He’s got a couple of books. One is called A World Without Email, and he talks about two different types of work in there, which I blatantly stole from my training because I, it was really powerful.

And there’s basically two types of work. One is work execution. So that’s doing the actual work that delivers the value. So that’s what you’re employed to. And then this workflow, which is everything else. So that’s talking about work, that’s having meetings, it’s having email conversations, it’s having project plan.

And unfortunately for a lot of organizations, they spend most of and staff, they spend most of the time in workflow mode talking about work rather than actually doing it. And he says meetings and emails are talking about work, not doing it. So what I do is help teams say, actually we’re gonna do less, is do less of the workflow stuff.

You wanna optimize that and do more of the work execution time. And that’s where I managed to get my team within the police. I’ve managed to protect them so much. Probably 90% of their time was work [00:19:00] execution, and that was pretty rare in the organization.

Most of the other old parts of the organization were stuck in emails and meetings and and so on.

Determine the Key Activity

So yeah, those two things are really fundamental for me is actually do less of. Wasting stuff and do more of what matters. And there’s all sorts of benefits. One, it’s good for the customer and the organization.

It’s a no-brainer, but it’s also good for the individual. Mm-hmm. . So they come into work and feel that they did something of value that day, rather than go in with great intentions, get totally lost in the inbox, and meetings the day finishes and they go, I didn’t actually achieve anything I intended to do.

It’s just been a waste of my time. And over time, that wears people out. So, yeah, I think it’s, you know, give people the space and the ability to do what they’re employed to do. Yeah, it sounds so obvious, but it’s quite rare from, in my experience, ,

it is extraordinarily rare. I have practiced maybe the last year or two writing down.

What is the key activity I need to do today that will move my business forward? Because I recognize exactly what you’re talking about. [00:20:00] You can spend all day in your email inbox, and I have seen even in myself, you know, you get rid of this one, get rid of this one. Oh, I don’t actually know what to do with this one.

Hmm. I’ll skip it and I’ll come back and you do that with four or five, 15 or 20, and pretty soon you just have done nothing but really shuffle stuff around and meetings are just the bane of all of that. I, I really wish that in school. Instead of some of the stuff that we all had to memorize that we can now Google.

[00:20:32] Facilitating Meetings Well

miriam: I wish they had taught, people, taught all of us how to facilitate a meeting elegantly, you know, where you, I mean, meetings can actually get some stuff done, but so much of the time they’re just a huge time suck.

I appreciate what you’re saying about a person coming into work and in effect, just for lack of a better word, shoveling crap from this pile to this pile and then from [00:21:00] this pile to this pile, and they, they don’t end up feeling like, Was the oxygen I breathed today worth the activity I did, you know?

Yeah. That’s a very hopeless space. Yeah. And if you’re an employer, it feels crazy- making because you have people there and you’re paying salaries and you’re like, where is the product?

scott: There’s so much inefficiency and then, oh, we, we need more staff. So then you end up hiring more staff. So I think the stat in Cal’s book is, Three.

I think the average worker, kind of corporate worker spends three days a month in pointless meetings. Yeah, that’s crazy. Just thinking of how much time, how much more productive the organization would be. And again, and then we just pick up on, I always catch myself when I say productive because you can be productive and deliver no value.

Doing the Right Thing

So actually it’s don’t just obsess about productivity. You need to know if you’re doing the right thing. And that’s, again, thinking about outcome. [00:22:00] Is this what the customer needs? Can I get evidence? This is what the customer needs, rather than just, I’m doing it because the bosses said to do it in a board meeting.

They thought that would be a good idea. Let’s just do that. And then you waste hours, months, and hundreds of thousands of dollars for something that was an ego driven project rather than something based on what customers actually need. I’ll get off on a tangent there. That really annoys me, so I don’t wanna get good.

Don’t get me started on that.

[00:22:27] Have Other Passions

miriam: We could get each other off on tangents. I am sure. Okay. On your website too, you had something that it sounded like you did in your spare time. I was totally un unaware of this, and it looks like it involves cars.

scott: So to it’s, yeah, so it’s a hobby. It has been for a long time. It’s a little bit sad, but there’s a, so that’s two, especially a Spanish car manufacturer or two companies cuz they split into two separate brands and they make quite sporty cars. And I got into them when I got my first ever [00:23:00] car.

I had one I’m probably on. 14th Seat, well, copra now. And yeah, there’s basically an online community that I joined a long time ago. It’s been running for 20 years now. And probably about 15 years ago I took over running it and yeah, we got about 50,000 members and online forum, social media, people discuss it, their cars, it’s really geeky.

There are women as well as men. It’s not just men. And The best bit is I get to go on car launches in Spain, all expenses paid, and write reviews and drive cars around racetracks. So it’s a, it’s a fun hobby to have. Yeah.

That’s pretty awesome. What have you learned as you have been kind of navigating, like running this forum?

How much time and effort it takes is one . So. Mm-hmm. , luckily we’ve got, I’ve got quite a few volunteers who help me, who are just passionate again as a hobby. So they’ll, one of, one of them takes care of the Instagram and we’re quite good on that.

Engage People

Sometimes I can’t go to car launches, so [00:24:00] one of them’s gotta take one for the team and fly out to a nice hotel.

And unfortunately you don’t get to see much of Spain. You’re literally whiting in a hotel into a car and then back up, which I’ve done it in one day before. Sometimes it’s like, you know, you go to Spain and then you’re coming in over again. I was like, I was in Spain at lunchtime today, even though, you know, dunno how good people’s geography are from UK to Spain, but it’s a bit of a.

miriam: It’s probably about a three hour flight, I think. Yeah. And what I’ve learned is just, you know, how to build communities, how to engage people a bit more. And, and the key thing is, if you know this, the community kind of looks after itself because it’s something people are passionate about or they put time into, they help each other, you know, someone’s got a problem.

There’s always someone up there to say, oh, I solve this in this way. People have put like online guides and videos together to help each other out. So I’ve just learned about, you know, how if people are passionate about something, Willing to put in the effort and not get paid for it, which is, you know, Doesn’t have, it’s pretty, doesn’t be

scott: about money.

It’s pretty cool. Yeah. It doesn’t have to all be about money. And so it really brings up an important point [00:25:00] about I mean I, we haven’t really talked about the digital part of your income stream, which I know is significant. And I think for the sake of time we’re just gonna say you also have this other income stream.

[00:25:12] Why Just One Thing?

miriam: And I think that a lot of times people are caught in. Set of, I have to do one thing. What is the one thing I’m gonna do that’s gonna support my lifestyle? And whether they’re an entrepreneur and they’re building their business or they are working for someone else, either way, I think it takes a little bit of stretching your brain to.

Say, well, why does it have to be one thing? Why can’t it be more things? And after you have one or two things, then I just love that you have this hobby that also probably takes a fair amount of time and energy, but it brings you joy. I mean, like you had a big smile on your face when you’re talking about it, and it sounds like you meet people maybe that are different than in your other, you know, work activities.

[00:26:00] So what would you say to people. Pursuing a hobby and or the, the time management of you know, everything that work and family takes and then this other thing.

scott: Yeah. So it is a bit of a juggling act to be honest. I didn’t, I kind of fell into the, splitting my business into two kind of came about by accident.

I, I was just gonna focus on the digital, but I gave a presentation at a police conference about my journey. Three police force representatives came up and said, you have to come and help us if you did this in your police force. So then I, my training was born from that, but yeah, again, it’s back to that priority question and, and, and trying to say actually, where’s, where’s the best place of, for me to put my effort?

Get Help From Others

But it’s also being open to getting help from others. So I’m, I’m in that kind of entrepreneur trap where I’ve gotta do it all. But then I haven’t really, cuz there’s online ways you can get help. So I’ve just hired a virtual assistant to help me out. Nice. I’ve got some ex team members who are helping me cuz they’re, you know, they want to help and they [00:27:00] can see the benefit in the business and if it grows then they’ll be part of that.

So, yeah, don’t, just, don’t try and do it alone, but also make sure you take space for downtime cuz there’s a danger to just keep working and burn yourself out. So as, as long as you’re in a place where you can just do enough each day and move the needle a bit. You’ll be all right. But yeah, the danger is I’m a terrible procrastinator, so, you know, I, I’ve fall into that trap.

Sometimes it’s easier to do the, oh look, a shiny distraction I can go and deal with and not do the hard thing. So it’s, it is having discipline as well.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Can I ask you a coachy question since I’m a coach? You can. Okay. What. What was the space that kept you from getting the va, the virtual assistant.

And how do you imagine this pushing your, your business forward?

[00:27:55] Delegation and Perfectionism

scott: So why did I only do it recently? Is that what I asking? Yes, yes. I [00:28:00] felt I didn’t have enough work, I think was part of it. But there was also probably a bit of perfectionism going on, if I’m being honest. Saying like, oh, you know what, if they do it differently to me.

But then I reminded myself that’s how I was for 20 years in the police. I, I, you know, I gave the team, I put myself at the bottom of the org chart and said, you know, you are the skilled people, so, I needed to remember what I did and say, why don’t I outsource this stuff to somebody who can do it better than me?

And is actually excited by the stuff that I’m not excited about . So I think that’s how I just came to that realization rapidly.

miriam: We’re about a month in and she’s like, you haven’t done this. I’m chasing you on this. So actually it’s quite good that she’s holding me to account, so I’m quite enjoying that cuz Yeah. Otherwise I’d probably just meander, I’ll put it off, I’ll do it tomorrow.

So yeah, she’s helping giving me some of that discipline.

Sense of  Relief

I just love that you did this. If I understand right, most advice for businesses is that your number two hire is either a salesperson [00:29:00] or an assistant, depending on what your business is.

And it seems like most of the time, Entrepreneurs, like you said, just feel like they can do it all themselves and this moment when they hire an assistant, and sometimes it takes a couple to find the right one, but when you find the right person, oh, this thing like lifts off your shoulders and it’s like, why didn’t I do this? Sooner.

What do you feel like your next level of business or personal development is?

So the business side, so the digital stuff has taken a lot longer than I would’ve liked but I’m very close to getting the first product out with.

[00:29:37] Where to Next?

miriam: So I think the next phase is Get that off the ground for, for the digital for the for the training side. I’m, I need to move the upper level. I need to get more awareness of my training, and hopefully this podcast will help. I’ve been speaking at conferences, but again, not enough. I need to get out there more.

And I probably need to do a bit more, setting myself online, do some more videos and, and sharing and that kind of stuff on LinkedIn and YouTube. So I, I need to just do a [00:30:00] bit more of business development is, is where my, my weakness is, and I need to get better at that.

It might not be weaknesses, it might be just like there’s only so much of you and only 24 hours in a day. You know? Yeah. There’s just a limit to when it can all be done and yeah. . Some people have, you know, large budgets and they hire a bunch of people and they get stuff cranked out pretty quickly. Other people do it a little bit more organically and that’s all good.

Sheldrick Wildlife Fund

Well, Scott, this has been just a blast. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation and I just enjoy you as a human being.

And I’m hoping that we’ll have an opportunity maybe in six months or a year to do round two. I think it would be fun to kind of catch up and see, see where you’re go, what you’re doing, and how your business is progressing.

I had mentioned before we started that we like to gift you with a donation in your name and you had chosen the Sheldrick Wildlife Fund.

We’re going to be adopting a little baby girl elephant [00:31:00] in your name , this is an elephant whose mom has been poached and they will take care of it for 15 years or so and reintegrate it into the wild.

We’re looking for ways on this podcast to do good.

Every possible direction by exposing you to that charity, by helping out the charity, by exposing our listeners to your good information.

Anyway, so why don’t we end with you just sharing how people can find you and find your podcast, and then we’ll be done.

[00:31:29] Where to Find Scott

miriam: Cool. So yeah, you can, my website is scott fulton.co.uk.

My company is Digital Rebels, so search for that and it should come up.

And the podcast is called Rebel Diaries and I interview guests like Miriam and others focused on how to do better and achieve more at work. I’m also on LinkedIn and yeah, various social media sites. But yeah, if you search for me, I’d generally come up.

Thanks, Miriam.

scott: I will, I’ll put the links in and it’ll all be good and we’ll look forward to another conversation in the near distant [00:32:00] future.

Thanks again, Scott.

End Credits

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

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