Get Clarity in Your Business - Work Life Balance Tips 2021 | Lisa Danforth
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hi and welcome to the life switch show i'm adam kawalec i'm your host which i hopefully am every single week and we are talking to a beautiful guest today a a wonderful person i've gotten to know i'm super grateful to be connected um her name is lisa danforth and we are going to be talking about having having clarity in your business and how important that is in terms of making a switch if that's you know in life or business but clarity being so important now before we begin if you're watching on youtube don't forget to like and and subscribe and hit that notification bell that way if you're on youtube you will be notified every time we go live or put out anything else plus if you're on facebook you don't want to forget to like my facebook page adam kowalik business mindset coach here we go all right as i promised my beautiful guest today is lisa danforth and she's a speaker business strategist and a leadership a vision coach that over the course of 28 years has run and operated five businesses so she's uh i would say a serial entrepreneur and she's got a bachelor's degree in business with a minor in economics and she's also certified by the coaches training institution which i have to say is a quite an impressive uh place to be certified lisa is helping business owners and leaders develop a saner approach to success and i am going to come back to that one because i love how she phrases that and she's also hosting a weekly in uh linkedin live where she talks all things business and i had the honor to be part of uh that show just a while back so that's another thing to really check out when it comes to lisa and that happens on linkedin okay it's it's time for a big welcome to this week's amazing guest lisa danforth hey lisa hey adam thanks so much for having me i'm super excited for this conversation well you know the pleasure is is is all mine uh i am excited about this for several reasons a you know you're an amazing person uh what i've gotten to know about you is just amazing b um we're we're colleagues in the field of coaching and helping business entrepreneurs and all of that and anytime and every time i get to have conversations about that and and i'm going to say see we're going to talk about clarity clarity happens to be one of the best things uh i love talking about and i i think it's like a superpower if you're an entrepreneur so i you know if you can't tell i'm super excited to be here today with you i am thrilled to be talking about clarity that's something that i could talk about for days and days so i can't wait to jump in and just sort of start teasing this out and see how when we're we have clarity when we're living with intention it's amazing what we can create with in less time and less effort there you go now before we kind of dive into this i just want to say for anyone who is joining on youtube uh you know make yourselves known where in the world are you joining uh it's always nice to know and if you're on facebook the same goes for you just pop into the comments and just leave you know hi from sweden or tenerife or wherever you are and we might even have people joining from um the states uh where you know lisa you are and and people might have gotten notified that you're joining the show also if you have any questions you can pop that into the comments section that way we can uh pull that in and either me or lisa can can then answer those questions all right uh so lisa i i'm curious i mean i know a little bit about you uh some of my followers might not know uh everything about you would you like to share a little bit about your your own background as much or as little as you feel uh necessary sure like you said i am a serial entrepreneur um at the ripe old age of eight i knew i wanted to be a business owner which was just crazy that i actually and the school that i wanted to go to and all of that uh when i had i've had five um businesses first one was that i would excuse me first one was when i was in college and it was a professional housekeeping company so i could work around my schedule i moved to vermont several years later started a children's wear company called bottom buddies sold that to one of my home stores after eight years and then had a catering business for 14 years and then in 2008 when the economy went down i'm sure a bunch of people can remember that i actually started a second catering company called hot betty barbecue to sort of accommodate the lower cost events that people were requesting at that point and then i got into coaching i tried doing both catering and coaching at the same time but that was a little too much and i have been doing coaching i think since 2015 full time and just so so happy to be able to use all of my experience and be able to impact people's lives that's amazing that's amazing and i love the diversity uh of of the businesses what an amazing journey i know there's no real theme that goes on no not really that's a poll from all of those when i'm coaching my clients and i think that that almost makes it uh you know very typical a serial entrepreneur right an entrepreneur almost by definition is a person who sees opportunities right so it's not so much about i love doing this and i'm gonna do this well there's nothing wrong with that but but that doesn't necessarily it doesn't necessarily revolves around being an entrepreneur that can just be a passion you have or a hobby you have a real entrepreneur i think is is having that you know skill to identify identify opportunities which sounds like you've been able to do i have and my thing is always and this is what i work on with my clients as well is if something excites you explore it it doesn't matter that you've got a business going on right now you can do the research and see if it's something that you want to go down and explore a little bit more even if you don't go too far down and start the business you're going to learn something you're going to be more creative and you get to bring that to the business that you're in now so so many entrepreneurs are i like to call it multi-passionate i get a lot of i have shiny object syndrome there's so many things i want to do in my business but it's really multi-passionate and i think instead of avoiding and saying i need to focus on this one thing it's actually helpful for us just to explore things the ideas that come to us and integrate them if they fit and let them go if they don't hmm i like that that's a very compassionate uh gentle approach almost i saw we had some people joining from sweden christina is here sarah from from london it's it's nice to have you guys here i've got a couple of regulars they they tend to uh make sure to catch the show i'm super grateful for that so i just wanted to you know do a shout out for them um thanks for joining us this is going to be a great conversation and you know if you have any questions to to you know for lisa or for me uh just you know you know where to to put those questions precisely so it's funny how you said at the ripe age of eight you knew you wanted to you know be an entrepreneur what you what you wanted to do talk about clarity right that i mean the the topic of today's clarity and at the age of eight you had this clarity almost i mean where did that come from how is that even possible you know i'm not a 100 positive where it come came from my uncle was going to a business school and i admired him and i was like wow i want to do that so i did go to the same business school but i knew that i wanted to be an entrepreneur that i didn't want to work for anyone else i think i've always been slightly independent so it just it's it unfolded i um like i said when i was in college it was what can i do that i can make decent money work around my schedule and and be able to to have a sustainable life so i it wasn't necessarily the most fun thing to be cleaning houses and whatnot but it really served me during during that time and and again that's that's what i'm liking about your message is again you saw the opportunity and you know i'm gonna bore everybody about this but again you got clear on you know the opportunities here you said what can i create that can work around my schedule that will still bring in a decent enough enemy income so that i can support myself i mean that is getting clear on what you need what you want and then going out and creating it versus i'm just gonna try something i'm just going to do this i'm going to do that just throw something up against the wall yeah i mean there's nothing wrong in it it's just from what i'm hearing it sounds like you had a deliberate clear mindset around it when we pause and that's something that that's a word i talk about often i mean all the time when we pause we can gain clarity and then we can move forward intentionally how do we create the life that we want to live if we're not sure what that looks like so we need to cast that someday vision out there whether it's you know a year from now here's what i want to be doing or if it's if it's a long-term goal that's 10 or 20 years or for those young folks out there 30 40 years but really casting that vision out how do you know what actions you need to take how do you know what the priorities are that you need to act in order and priority of if you don't know what it is that you're moving towards and this is where i see whether it's an entrepreneur career stay-at-home parent having that clarity of what we want and being intentional allows us to create success fulfillment that we want not what other people want need or expect but it allows us to align our mindset and our actions with where we want to go i i think that is that is the key really right to create that clarity because as you say it then allows you to actually start achieving what it is that you want out of life and it you know it reminds me of this and this is something i often refer to but you know from alice in wonderland when she first meets the the cat the the cat in the tree and she's going like she's at a crossroads or uh intersection and she's just like oh sorry do do you know which road i should take and the cat says well it depends on where you're going well it doesn't matter and the cat says well in that case it doesn't matter which road you take either because it's almost like that if you don't know where you're going any road will get you there or not uh it kind of reminded me of that as well it's so true right so we have to have some intention and i i you probably have experienced this in your coaching at some point as well is it is hard for people to slow down it's not easy it's very simple but it's not easy and this is where we get tripped up to slow down and gain clarity and ask those questions where am i going what do i want to do who do i want to be and who do i need to be to help get me there just it's questions it's it's all questions and it's pausing it's thinking time if we don't schedule thinking time we're going to be reactionary to everything around us instead of creating an intentional life life that's a good point by default oh yeah that's that's exactly it i often talk about the autopilot you know how you know if you're not bringing the awareness uh or disengaging the autopilot things will just happen i mean there's a fun fact i don't know how much of a fact it is but it's said that we basically all our thinking is 90 recycled thinking from yesterday it's crazy right i it basically means that your your life will only have about a ten percent uh change uh if if only 10 are new thoughts so i mean when you when i think about that it just scares me uh and and this is i have to say this is one of the reasons why mindfulness meditation and slowing things down for me became such an important thing to become aware and start introducing new thinking versus being on the autopilot or as you said the default uh thinking or living that's amazing it's so true and it's i mean it's it's that mindset component i will say one of my core values my number one core value i have three and i put them in order of priority the number one core value is growth so for me in order to to be that person that i want to be and live into it i need to be looking at where are the growth opportunities where's the knowledge where's the learning where's the education and the teaching component to whatever it is that i'm doing so that i can think outside of the box i can think outside of that ten percent so that i can be more expansive within my life and help other people be more expansive as well that's amazing i love how you you're so clear again clear we should we should have like a counter somewhere exactly uh you're so clear on on again your core values and not just knowing your top three you actually know the the order of those top three that's that's beautiful that's amazing that's important we need the clarity whether it's with our our goals whether it's with our relationships whether it's with our health so that we can act in order of priority everything doesn't matter equally yet we go through our days playing whack-a-mole thinking that you know every email is more important than either our family or or that picking up the phone and having a sales call those things that are going to drive the growth of your business and your personal development yeah such a truth so you started you know talking about this coming from a place where you said something you often talk about is making a pause or taking a pause can can you talk to that a little bit like how do you actually go about creating a pause in in your life and or in your business with intention and clarity yeah there we go the clients that i work with because they're so busy there's some overwhelm they're very successful but they're at that point in their life where they have achieved much of the success that they wanted but they're lacking that fulfillment they're lacking the joy the intention so honestly i have them schedule moments thinking time i call it t2 put thinking time on your calendar don't go big go small at first if you haven't created any space for yourself to pause and to think and just to have a cup of tea and stare out at the you know at the world then don't schedule two hours at a time you've got to schedule 10 or 15 minutes build the muscle build the habit so that you can start creating that space to be thinking about what it is that you want and what it is that you don't want what what am i consistently doing that's working what am i inconsistently doing that's working what am i doing consistently that's not working asking those questions i just had a client go and and she hiked up to the top of the mountain and she was asking herself where am i going who am i bringing with me so the key to having that thinking time is to actually have a question to be pondering one to three questions always have a journal if you can so you can just get it out of your head get it on onto paper but have a question i've when i was originally asking people my clients to put thinking time in their calendar i didn't make sure that they had a question that they were pondering and then they would their mind would just rattle off on their to-do list i've got to pick up the kids so to be intentional and have that clarity is is going to help you create the answer get to the answer faster that's a good point as well i mean those are really practical tips and and really powerful ones so for anyone who's listening i'm sure you know take notes on this or at least replay this a couple of times um it it it's such an important detail that you mentioned with going into one of those experiences having the question identified or at least narrowing down kind of where you're wanting to go because again the way i have this concept that i'm working often around is that the questions you have determines the quality of your life uh because basically and and anyone can you know go into yourself and just reflect most of the time and we're going back to this 90 percent of recycled thinking most of the time we're not asking questions we're just you know assuming we're uh um what's the english word for that we're uh com getting to coming to conclusions uh right we're kind of just like statements and what i'm talking about here is god i had such a horrible day today there is no question in there there's just an exclamation mark right it's just a big statement or she's so this and that and again no question but if you can start introducing questions your mind's gonna start looking for those answers so just to strengthen what you just said or highlight what you said you move into one of those periods where you're pausing and slowing things down and you have a little bit of a clarity around where do you want to direct your mind the answers are gonna find you almost uh at least that's my experience yeah i think we often approach a situation a relationship whatever it is in front of us through the lens through which we see and experience life which is our history it is so because it's it's just so we don't think we don't realize that we can take that lens off and look at something from a different perspective be curious about things so we go through life judging not even knowing that we're judging because it's just the way that we've been taught it's just like we weren't i was taught english i you know uh the religion was was given to me it's not something that i necessarily chose my name was chosen for me so when we can pause and be curious about those things is it so i think is it i always get this mixed up byron katie or katie byron i can never remember but is it is it so or is it just our judgment our lens through which we're experiencing the situation and when we can pause and be curious and tease it apart we can really chip away at the mindset component that keeps us from being the person that we want to be in creating the success that we want to experience whatever success is for you not what other people want right yeah yeah that's a good good point as well on that topic um you have this saying and whenever i receive an email from you it says to your success i like that and and then you have this saying in your business and around your messaging you know to have a saner approach to success you know once and for all can you tell me i love it and i'd love to know more what does that mean uh it honestly it means we are over committing ourselves and under committing to our goals our priorities and our most important relationships that's not a sane way to live our lives we need to get clear on the life we want to live and the business or career that will sustain that life not consume it when we're focused and these are my ideal clients right so they're focused on that end result just getting to that goal and then it's well it's not what i expected it's not what i want even though i'm making the money and i have my clients right so really getting clear on what is fulfillment for me what is what does success look like for me who do i want to surround myself with what are the conversations that i want to be having so that we can then again back out of that and be intentional in what it is that we're building and how we're showing up in these relationships and look through a different lens is the issue that's going on this relationship me do i need to pivot and often that's exactly what needs to happen whether it's personal or professional when we change the other person has space to step forward and change as well true how and i might know this this answer already but i need to ask it how much does um you know core values play you know in in in determining your version of success or uh you know fulfillment and and all of that because you're very clear on your core values it plays into it as much as you allow it to to be honest with you but the thing is is when i am at a crossroads when my client is really struggling with you know do i do this doing this or even the behavior that they need to implement a new behavior when we can connect it back to is this in alignment with your core values your vision your clarity is where you're heading your core values are your compass that help get you there so we can come back and say you know this is a really tough choice and this is an amazing opportunity but it's not in alignment with my values so it's going to be half a degree a degree off from where i want to be going and in a year or three years you're way off course so when we can pause there's that word again pause and really look at is this choice in front of me whether it's watching cat videos on facebook or a new opportunity or new program is it in alignment with my core value of who i am at the core and we can make those difficult choices in the moment a little more easily not easy but a little more easily yeah no i love that i and i like how you you basically named it the compass and that's that's you know i call it the inner compass and it is that it just helps you navigate uh and again if well you know sometimes when i do the core value work with with myself with clients it's the the look on my face or their faces when we realize that oh well that explains why i'm not not very satisfied or that explains why that decision didn't sit well with me yeah because all of a sudden when you're realizing you know often what ends up happening in my case is we get super clear on maybe top five top eight something like that and we do a ranking thing as well and then i like to add you know on a scale from one to ten how aligned do you feel right now and when they go four three one then you know something's off the the the the compact needs to be calibrated because no wonder that you're not feeling connected to your life or your purpose or what it is that you're after and uh i i think it's such an important starting point when you start navigating i agree with you a hundred and ten percent i will jump in as well and say not always easy to it's it is not easy to determine our values we want to be this and this and this and this and we can actually if when we first start out kind of whip ourselves with our values this is who i need to be this is who i should be and we start shooting all over ourselves all the time we need to stop that and look at okay this this is who i am at the core is this truly an alignment not necessarily who i want to be we also i found with a lot of entrepreneurs we have contradicting values right so freedom and flexibility are a core value but hard work and accomplishments are also so then there's this conflict and we beat ourselves up over them so we need to look at is it accomplishment and what does that mean describe it gain clarity on what that means is it freedom what does freedom give you so when you're working on your core values really pause and make sure that they're not contradicting each other because they will beat you up and you just you're constantly circling you're always making choices that aren't fully in alignment and just and just pause is this who i think i should be i was just on boarding a new client on monday and she had three values who they were specifically what she thought she needed to be which whipped her honestly in all of her actions because there were all the components that she didn't appreciate about herself so she needed these and these are her core values and we backed out and we're working on creating a different list that she can live by that will make her feel good rather than less than such an important distinction uh because exactly that when you start doing that what can end up happening is that you're just simply putting a wish list together of who you would like to be or who you think you should be um rather than who you actually are or you know what what's been part of of of the making of you um and and i think i've read this somewhere it's either on your website or it's on linkedin but you wrote a perfect article on core values right yes i did a while ago yeah i mean exactly it's it's a it's a great guide i think it's a it's a beautiful guide to getting clarity on on your core values so i kind of just wanted to put it out there that like you know connect with lisa find it on linkedin or go to your website and i know we're going to be displaying your website at one point through this conversation uh but they can can they access the the article on your website as well or yes they can yeah so if you go to i think it's resources and it probably has vlog or something like something like that because there's there's a lot of videos on there as well or if you go to my linkedin and click on articles my linkedin profile that's great it's got a list of values and there we go yeah great no it's perfect yeah it's that's how it you know when you work with professionals this is it's amazing now i i honestly because i think it's a beautiful guide to getting clear on core values and i think it's important we even have a uh ravi jane uh he's is watching the show as well and he commented uh he's loving the conversation today and i'm just assuming that um you know he's referring to hopefully what we're talking about and especially around core values and and being around um you know the importance of um the intuition or the guidance from within and i yeah i was just as you're talking was i was thinking the core values really help us with switching the life switch show when we know when it's time for us to pivot we can lean into our values whether it's pivoting a job pivoting a relationship or just pivoting in the moment that's perfect so what you're saying is kind of like you know if you're in touch with your core values they can guide you they can they can support you in signaling uh making themselves known in terms of it's time for a switch or if you're making a switch they can inform a path forward is that kind of like would you like to add something no it's it's really just pausing and connecting is this an alignment with my values do when i was a caterer for 14 years very successful catering company i just knew at one point it wasn't in alignment with where i wanted to go and i was able to lean into even though i wasn't as clear on my core values this this is no longer serving me at the level that i wanted to be to need it to serve me and that's when i want launched full-time into coaching but knowing what i wanted and knowing intuitively allowing my gut to you know and research and whatnot as well not just the gut it allowed me to lean into and be like okay this is what i'm doing i just i know that it's right because it is it when i think about it it brings me joy and it also brings me clarity here are the things that i need to do here are the things that i want to do and start going down that path there we go so um i'm thinking around this and maybe you've kind of already answered it i'm not sure how how would anyone go about to start defining or redefining fulfillment or possibly even success is yeah that's a big question i i know i'm just gonna be quiet and have you ponder that yeah exactly yeah we've got plenty of time five hours at least so go it's pausing i mean it is creating space it is unhooking from um our need to fit in unhooking from what others think it is truly pausing and saying what is important to me have you ever heard of a palliative care nurse called brawny ware oh yeah the five biggest regrets of the dying people oh it's such a powerful one please share that yeah so the five top regress the dying number one this is a woman who spent the last days hours and minutes with people she was take caring for them in the last moments of their life she started seeing a thread because she would of course be conversing with them and they would be talking when when we have nothing to lose it is amazing what comes out what clarity even joy comes out the number one the top regret of the time i wished i had lived a life true to myself and not what others had expected of me number two for all of you out there i wished i hadn't worked so hard pause gain clarity on what a truly fulfilling intentional life looks like to you what do you want to experience what are the feelings you want to experience what are the relationships you want to experience and start making actions and movement towards those but you aren't able to do it until you're clear at least directionally focused good points that's good i mean because yeah i like that you just said that because you know i don't know if anyone's who's watching the show right now might feel anxious all of a sudden like oh i'm not clear i don't know what i want and what i should do and and i get it that can be scary and and what you just said is well direction-wise like you know know if you're you kind of want to figure out north or south east or west and that's it just kind of like you said in the very very beginning with entrepreneurs like you know follow the curiosity like if there is something pulling you towards a a direction you know follow that and then and see where that takes you um it's not you don't have to obsess i think you don't have to obsess about like being able to visualize the flavors and the smells of the destination it can be helpful but if it's not available to you that's also fine um you kind of want to figure out the direction and and start moving in that direction because it you know the first step you take is going to reward you with you know feedback data because you took one step it's kind of like now you see more and if you see more new possibilities open up uh new decisions can be made so that is a good point as well don't don't be too obsessive about needing to have laser focus or laser clarity although that can be useful the point is direction yeah it is progress over there we go when we get stuck in perfection it gets in the way so we want to just focus on progress and that opens up possibility perfection gets in the way of possibility so to take that back into that fulfillment piece when we're pausing and thinking what what does when i the last time that i was absolutely excited and elated or just thrilled to do something you know and i lost all track of time what was i doing and being curious that way i actually recommend people almost everyone has a cell phone these days and you can take the little notes section on your cell phone and start recording things whether you're your audible audio you know you're speaking into the phone or if you're typing to start taking things out of your mind and putting them down so that you can refer back to them when you are scheduling that thinking time when you have time to ponder you can look back and say oh look at this there seems to be this golden thread that's weaving the tapestry of my life i'm going to explore that yeah yeah that's that's exactly it and it because again so many people i've met and and this was definitely my case in the past that when i didn't know it and everybody was saying like you need to have a purpose in life you need to know what why you're here and you need to know your big why all those things it kind of freaked me out a bit because i didn't know right i'm wrong i'm bad i must not be smart enough i don't know what my purpose is maybe i don't have precisely and in some ways i i think that at least again this was was my experience forcing the purpose forcing the why started blocking the creativity the possibility so it's almost like the harder i try to get it the it's like the pursuit of happiness right you you can't just pursue happiness well there are studies saying that people who pursue happiness are less happy uh so the trick then is to be happy but that is such a hard thing to do but what they're saying is actually if you're pursuing you're kind of consciously acknowledging that you're not there yet exactly right so what you want to do is to be to slow things down uh and and enjoy the moments and that's when happiness finds you almost so on that note that's kind of like how i discovered my purpose by slowing things down not over overthinking it overworking it but allowing it to well kind of what you said following the curiosity and allowing it almost to find me in a way inviting it in yeah we're so busy our head is down we're playing whack-a-mole we lose our perspective and our vision of the future that we want and the thing is is that our vision for the future impacts the future that we experience oh yeah wow so we have to slow down and create the space and invite invite those thoughts to come in and if we our brain is always busy going through you know your to-do list all these different things that you need to do you don't have the space to just ponder and again our vision of the future our images our thoughts of the future impact the future that we experience i love that that is beautifully said i'm just going to say the whole house was just vibrating i don't know what happened that might show up on on the recording yeah yeah the whole thing like i do not know what they were doing well i i i'm fine i i'm in a safe space uh if it happens again i am going to mute myself but now it's okay um on that topic this is such a brilliant uh uh uh topic i think and we actually got a question from sarah sarah jones here about you know oh now it's starting again but i think this is addressed to you lisa so if you could talk to this a bit and you know share whatever knowledge or experience you might have let me see if i can read it and i'm for anyone who's listening how to start getting clarity if we feel we have to always go 100 speed to survive excellent question sarah not everything matters equally we have to pause and look at what is really important to me in this moment what's really important for me to do when we feel like everything is important guess what happens nothing is we we always overestimate what we can do in a short period of time and underestimate what we can do in a longer period of time so what we need to do is map out everything that is your 100 priority that you've got to be on and you've just got to be going brain dump it sarah and then i'm going to ask you to go through that list so you're going to take your to-do list and you're going to create what's called a success list and for any of you have heard of the pareto principle the 80 20 rule where it says 80 of our results basically come from 20 of our activities go through your list with each item that's 100 that you've got to be focusing on and say is this an 80 a 20 percenter that's going to drive 80 of my results if no move to the next one ask is this a 20 percenter that's going to drive 80 of the results that i want this is where clarity comes in right go through your list and create your success list so you're going to minimize i'm not saying that the thing the other things that are on the list are not important but what you're going to do with those is you're going to take them and you're going to put them in a parking lot so that when your shorter pareto list your success list is there and up and running you can start pulling in these other things but everything does not matter equally that's a lie of productivity we achieve less in more time when we do that so when you've got your list and you've got the 20 i'm going to ask you to prioritize that list what is the number one thing that's going to drive your results if you can only do one that would make everything else easier which one would that be great put a number one next to that go through your list should you earn the right to focus on a second priority what would that be and the thing is it's not about focusing on only one thing it's about focusing on one thing at a time and putting a time block on your calendar to focus solely on that and saying no to the distractions for that short period of time so go pausing creating your to-do brain dump it create your your pareto principle is that 20 set the other one the rest of that list in a parking lot you can keep going back to it when you've earned the right and you've gone through that those top ones that are going to drive the life that you want to live that is a great advice uh sarah jones who asked the question uh obviously says you know great advice thank you lisa that was such a direct and powerful advice uh an amazing thing that you you did that brilliantly that's super super powerful it reminded me of something and i i i'm sure that i've shared this before for anyone who's listening uh have you read the book uh the essentialist by greg and i just got his new book yesterday me too yeah it's uh oh yeah oh it's so exciting i i'm it's on my reading list is it effortless yeah yes exactly yeah it's gonna be amazing to read that one um and in in the essentialist book and from my perspective this is the understated uh insight from that book because i think it's just mentioned briefly in a chapter where he talks about three truths of an essentialist meaning saying basically number one there's always a choice number two only few things matter number three you can do anything not everything and i think you know just if you just think about that for a while you sit with that and and the way i often do is after we've stated these i kind of reverse engineer it basically saying okay so if you can do anything not every uh if you can do anything not everything what's the one thing or the things you want to do well let's go back few things matter so let's get clear on what matters and once you know what matters you use your choice your your focus your attention your clarity and you start working towards those things 100 and you mentioned the one thing there's a book called the one thing gary keller and jay papasan wrote the book and i just went through certification for the one thing so that is a lot of the material that i just talked about is taking your to-do list changing it over to a success list prioritizing that list not everything matters equally yet we go into life pretending like it does yeah precisely and it's almost i i'm not sure that i caught that but did you say it's a productivity lie to get everything done yes the number one lie of productivity is that everything matters equally and the number two my productivity is multitasking 1.4 of our day due to multitasking checking instagram going off and doing different things that's that's 28 of our day that's 1.4 days per week it's crazy so if we can narrow our focus gain clarity on what are our priorities we gain back essentially 28 of our day 28 of our week 28 of our year that's massive yeah it is it is check out the the one thing book as well that that is a phenomenal book i literally purchased it three days ago my coach recommended it so i was like i'm getting i'm taking it i read a book a week basically so i i'm fortunate enough to be able to go through a couple of books so it's on my reading list and yeah i think for anyone who's watching you know check those out like we already said the essentialist i think is a brilliant one uh we've got the uh the one thing there's another one when are we talking about you know slowing down pausing getting clarity those things are really really helpful and again i i haven't read one thing yet um but the essentialist is is a mindset and a strategy book so it works on both levels kind of and i like it because he also talks about and gives you tools on how to um as an employee if you've got your list of priorities and your boss comes to you and says hey you need to do this you get to say okay so here's the list that you gave me here's the priorities where where do you see this falling in order of priority and what do you want me to take off my list so that i can focus on this thing that you're asking me to focus on so you're empowering them and also showing them it can't be done right so it empowers us to say here are all the things that you want me to do where does this fall in order of priority it empowers us and it empowers everyone on our team that is such a great example uh years ago when i was working for ikea i i burnt out and and the reason was simply because i was just working too much i was too ambitious and i simply didn't listen to the fact that you know my manager actually told me adam you are going to burn out unless you slow down and i was like no i'm a machine i don't and plus i was like 25 you know i couldn't die so it was easy yeah definitely um but i really had the the best manager in the whole world uh she she used to be a submarine officer uh so super calm super strong woman um like she was half my height but she was the biggest person i i knew i think an amazing person and i did burn out i i did crash and um and and she she kind of nurtured me back because it was there was a journey involved and one of the things i learned from that was exactly how you described it and this was way before i even you know got exposed to the book or the the idea of essentialism but what i used to do was i took a blank piece of paper and i just wrote in no particular order i just write everything i i imagined i had on my table and this is in in a work environment so it was my responsibilities it could be anything it could be a project i'm working on it could be reporting on a certain kpi it could be this meeting emails everything everything i in my mind thought i needed to get done and i just randomly mind mapped them kind of uh yeah we've got a comment i need to start seeing myself as a boss and employee yeah for sure and uh started just mind mapping these different things out then i'd take that big big piece of paper and circle the three top um projects or items that i found okay these are the most important things but i wasn't done there i took that piece of paper and i walked into my manager's office and i said please help me prioritize here's everything that i think is on my table here are the three things that i find or identify as the most important what do you see would you like me to think you know in a different way you know would you add something that was such a powerful conversation to have because she always brought so much clarity so she would say adam this one you don't have to care about take this off you're absolutely right focus on those three no actually i'd like you to focus on this one because what i learned from burning out was you're not allowed alone like ask for help now being an entrepreneur it's different but it is still the same i mean the rule still applies meaning if you have a coach if you have a mentor use that do the same you can do the exact same exercise and say this is what i've identified what do you see that i'm not seeing right you can take that to your coach you can take that to your mentor if if you don't have access to them there's communities uh you're probably part of a an amazing facebook group you can do a similar thing there or someone who you've got trust for you can ask them hey here's something that i've been working on this is i'm feeling overwhelmed around this what are you seeing i'm not seeing either way it's to know that we're not alone and sometimes we just need to get help around prioritizing because if we try to do everything ourselves it just ends up you know kind of like what sarah was saying everything goes in in 100 speed uh it's just too much and what i love about what you just said is it starts with pausing it starts with gaining clarity and then being intentional yeah it's we make things so difficult it's very very simple it's not always easy which is where we really trip ourselves up good point i i think you know based on the topic of today this is a great place for us to kind of say wow fantastic because i have one last question for you uh which is the the you know the kind of the typical question i often ask at the end of a conversation like this and before i ask it i'd like to you know ask you where can people connect with you because obviously people are going to be raving about you because this has been a powerful conversation so where would you like people to reach out or connect with you they can email me at lisa lisadanforth.com they can check out my website which is lisa danforth.com and my social profile of choice is
linkedin which is lisa danforth i like to keep things easy can you tell i agree i agree and and and let me just say that again like uh lisa's presence on linkedin is just absolutely wonderful first of all the value and the content you're putting out and the lives the weekly lives that you do are just massive um but also as an inspiration for anyone who is in the sphere of business and entrepreneurship the way you handle linkedin i think it's just a a great role model or example so um very kind check that out um and also let me say you have free resources on your website and one of them being something about time right yes i have two free resources that you can download one of them is master time management mastery and the other one is communicating powerfully without apology fantastic and i mean especially i just had to say that because we we ended up talking a little bit about strategies around time management and slowing things down so i thought you know there's probably going to be massive value inside of of that guide so yeah and then on my website there's also all of my linkedin lives or at least my va is starting to load a little bit more so they should be on by the end of the week all of them so that's going to sort of scroll through and see ours our interview yeah that's right yeah fantastic well thank you lisa and and to the final question okay so you say that you have the mic to the world everybody's able to listen to you you have this once in a lifetime moment where you can share one important message what would you like people to listen to or hear oh that is such a big one adam i'm going to go back to what i said just a few minutes ago honestly pause there's a great quote by victor frankl who is a holocaust survivor and he said between stimulus and response there is a space in that space is our power to choose our response and in our response lies our growth and our freedom i'm a huge believer in that if we want that growth and that freedom we do get to choose but we need to create that space and pause so that we can gain clarity on the direction that's in alignment with the person that we are the business owner that we are that we are the parent the spouse the partner that we are and then be intentional start each day with intention so pause gain clarity gain intention and move into the day that's it fantastic thank you very much lisa for sharing that and that is such a beautiful quote from victor frankl and you know he's he's he's got a few really really wise uh things out there you know his book man's search for meaning is is just uh fantastic thank you so much lisa for for sharing that thank you for coming on the show today um it was an absolute pleasure thank you i am so grateful and thank you to everyone in the audience whether you're live or on replay i greatly appreciate you showing up and joining in on the conversation thanks adam thank you again it was wonderful uh lisa i'm sure that we are we're going to stay in touch uh this is probably not the last time i get to have the honor to have you on we'll see what happens in the future but thank you very much for joining today and i i i'll catch you soon yeah you're welcome and thank you bye wow okay i'm just going to take a little bit of a breather here uh i i thought that was wonderful uh such a a value packed episode i think i hope you enjoyed this as much as i did i i honestly think it was super powerful around the conversations around time management clarity core values uh knowing where you're going all of those things i i think it was just a massive conversation to have and i'm super grateful for lisa coming on to to do this and if you enjoyed this make sure to check her out uh the resources you saw that during the video uh just go there and connect with lisa so thanks for tuning in today uh if you're watching on youtube don't forget to like subscribe and click that notification bell that way you get notified every time we go live and put stuff out there which we very often do and also if you're on facebook don't forget to like my facebook page adam kowalek business mindset coach see you next week same time same place you
2021-05-08 03:52