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If you've ever worked with someone who creates chaos, plays the victim, and blames everyone else, then this podcast is for you.
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So here's your host, Adam Holbrook.
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I am your host, Adam Holbrook.
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The reason I created the Managing Difficult People podcast, I was noticing lots of leaders sabotaging themselves, not leading themselves well, and not leading their team well.
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And I said maybe I can create a place, a safe place where leaders and other people can listen in to my stories, my failures, my triumphs, my guest stories, and maybe they'll gain the listener, the awareness of what's holding them back in their own lives and have a pathway forward.
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I work with schools and organizations that want to change culture.
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Because here's the thing when we stop talking about changing culture and actually do something about it, that's when magic begins.
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People are excited to show up for work.
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They're excited to work hard.
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They love the people around them, they feel connected to them.
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And yes, the bottom line increases too.
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And I do this a variety of different ways as an executive coach.
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I do one-on-one coaching, individual coaching, I do workshops, book studies, personality assessments, dyspersonality assessments, and many, many more methods.
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Today's podcast is all about priorities because here's the thing: the greatest leadership mistake that I made, and the biggest mistake I'm seeing time and time again with the leaders that I work with on a consistent basis is they don't prioritize.
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They don't prioritize what they do and who they spend their time with.
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When I had my commercial office cleaning business, I was hungry to be a millionaire.
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I was working all the time, 90 to 110 hours, building this business.
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I had worked it up to around 14 employees.
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And my employees had zero loyalty to me.
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They would call out sick, not show up for work.
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And I said, why are they consistently taking advantage of me?
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And I was plugging holes all day long.
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And it made me miserable.
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I was spiraling out of control.
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I was wondering when I would be successful, how I would be successful.
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And I was chasing something that I didn't even know what I was chasing.
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And it all came to a head that Christmas Eve 2005.
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I thought about it all the time, taking my car, driving it off a cliff, and ending my life.
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That Christmas Eve 2005, I'm drunk, I'm in my car, I'm ready, I'm numb.
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That night, my dad calls me, and it was late.
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And he tells me he loves me.
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First of all, me and my dad were in some sort of fight.
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I don't know how long we were in a fight for.
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And he hadn't told me he loved me in years.
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And as many times as I replay that over and over again in my life, one thing I know for certain, God reached out to me that night through my dad's voice and saved my life.
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The next day was Christmas Day.
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After my 17-hour straight shift, I woke up to that 17-hour straight shift.
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I come home, I start researching how to sell a business.
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I decide I'm gonna post my business for sale on this website.
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It was called businessbroker.net.
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And within four months, my first business sold for$220,000, which was more money than I ever had in my entire 28 years in business.
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For the first time, I had a little bit of money in my life, but I was still that same bad leader.
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I didn't recognize how prioritizing my days, my time actually mattered.
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Then I started to read some books on leadership.
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I started to attend conferences on leadership.
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I became a student of leadership and I started my second business.
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I started Smart Water Solutions, which was a bottless water cooler company.
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My company eliminated the jugs that would go on top of the water cooler.
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We would run this little water line to the water cooler unit, and then it would plug into the back of the water cooler and it would go through a series of filters to completely purify the water and give offices an endless supply of pure drinking water, which saved companies lots of money and it was helping the environment.
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And with the concept of leadership, I was learning.
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I built a bigger business.
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And after owning it for 10 years, Culligan Water approaches me and said, We want to buy you.
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And I said no to them for three years.
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And finally I decide to sell it to them for seven figures in 2020.
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January 14th, 2020 was the exact date.
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And the biggest mistake I'm recognizing.
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So now I have everything that I need in life, but I'm recognizing I want to empower.
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The only reason I sold the company was I wanted to live a life of purpose.
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I wanted to be able to help other leaders that are struggling with the same things that I struggled with.
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That's my leadership story.
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And as I was reading John Maxwell's book, The 21 Laws of Leadership, he talks about it in one of his chapters, priorities.
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And in the chapter about priorities, he talks about the 80-20 rule.
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And if you've never heard the 80-20 rule, you gotta listen to this.
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The 80-20 rule says you get 80% of your results from 20% of activities.
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This blew my mind the first time I ever heard it.
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That means everything we're doing in life, we should be spending our time recognizing what works, not more work.
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With this business I'm doing right now, I was spending so much time on social media, building reels, building constant contact, hoping to be the next YouTuber where people are paying me to show up and speak.
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But I was spending so much time and I recognized I wasn't getting much results from it.
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And I started recognizing where I got my results from, and it was from being in contact with school leaders, being in contact with business owners, and offering my services to them.
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And that really changed it for me.
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Doing book studies, free book studies to principals.
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And I was spending my time doing all of the wrong things instead of taking a step back, breathing and saying, what works, not more work.
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And that's what I did with my commercial office cleaning business.
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I was spending my time doing in my business.
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I was in my business nonstop, constantly plugging holes, recognizing that I didn't think anybody could do the job nearly as good as me.
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And then when I read the 80-20 rule, it said if you can find somebody to do the job, even 80% of what you can do the job at, you should absolutely hand it off to them, delegate it.
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And if you're doing something and it's not bringing results and it's not required of you, you can just give it up.
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You don't have to do it.
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That to me was mind-blowing because I was spending all of my time in the business.
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When somebody would call and complain, I would run down there and fix the problem myself.
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And here's the thing what 8020 rule says too is it's not just what we spend our time with, it's who we spend our time with.
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Wow.
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I was spending my time with my lowest level employees.
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And this is what I'm seeing in all of the schools and companies that I work with.
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People are spending their time with their lowest level, I don't want to call it maybe lowest level, but it's the employees that need the most assistance because they're the ones that need the most work.
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But they're the ones that drain you, they're the ones that hold you back.
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The 80-20 rule says we should be spending our time with our top 20% of our team members, and we're gonna get 80% better results.
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That just blew my mind.
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The school principals that I'm working with on a consistent basis, they're spending their time with their lowest level teachers consistently because they're the ones that need the most classroom management work.
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They're the ones that can't deal with the parents, they're the ones that don't know how to manage their classroom, and they're good teachers, they just let them go because they know what they're doing, they're great.
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So one principal said to me, Well, what do you suggest?
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And I said, maybe come up with a mentoring program.
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Come up with a mentoring program for your high-level teachers where you can work with those high-level teachers and empower them to help their lower-level teachers.
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You're out of the picture because you have to grow the business, you have to grow the school.
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And if you're gonna work in your business, it's never gonna be that way.
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So come up with some sort of program.
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And with this one principal, it was a monthly checkup where they had to go through a series of questions and email me.
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But the teachers that needed the most work with the high-level teachers, they would meet up weekly and they would collaborate and always answer questions on classroom management, on ideas.
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And this changed everything because now you're not bogged down by all of the people that are consistently draining your energy.
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And for me, I was doing the same thing with my cleaning business.
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I was spending my time with my weakest team members because they were constantly calling out the, but at the same time, it was like I finally had good employees and I didn't want to like ruffle the feathers, so I just let it go.
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It just keeps on doing it.
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But if I actually worked those key people in my organization, I probably wouldn't have been suicidal because I just didn't know how to be a leader.
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I knew how to be a hard worker, but I didn't know how to be a leader.
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And one of the top things you need to do is learn how to prioritize.
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And it's just not about who you spend about your time with, but it's what we're spending our time with.
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As a leader, we need to be spending our time on the bigger picture.
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And a lot of times we get caught up in the day-to-day operations and we're never seeing the big picture.
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We're constantly working from one problem to another.
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And how are you ever gonna be able to put pro now processes and systems are so important, but processes and systems are more of a management thing as opposed to a leadership thing.
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But here's the thing is as a leader, you have to recognize what processes and systems you need.
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And you can put those in place.
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And I wasn't doing that as a leader, and as a leader of my cleaning business, I had processes and systems that were a logbook and I would do check-ins, but I wasn't truly empowering my good people.
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And empowering people is recognizing who your great people are and empower them because they're gonna show up better.
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They're excited that they got more responsibility, they're excited that they're gonna grow with the company, and they're gonna be excited to help grow with you.
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And here's the thing that really got me.
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And I write about this in my new book that's up and coming.
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It's called You're Not For Everyone is the name of the book.
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And the chapter name is about multitasking.
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Multitasking is a myth.
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And a lot of times we're going from one task to another task to another task to another task, thinking that we just gotta catch our breath.
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And then we finally catch our breath, we reach for a drink, we binge watch TV, we scroll on our phones.
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Not because we're weak, but because we're exhausted from being everywhere in the same time.
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But here's the thing: you can't do two things at the same time that require your attention effectively.
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What we're really talking about is task switching.
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And what a lot of leaders are doing is they're not prioritizing, they're going from one task to another task to another task, back and forth.
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And in that back and forth, you lose time, you lose energy, and you lose a little bit of your soul.
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Instead, I love to work in time blocks.
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Time blocks are dedicated, uninterrupted space where we can work on one task at a time.
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That's how the greatest leaders work.
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That's how I've written all three of my books.
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If I didn't work in time blocks, you wouldn't be reading my books.
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And here's the thing: time blocks are where you silence all your distractions, you let your key people know that you're not gonna be available until after the time block is up.
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And once the time block is up, you reward yourself.
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I like to make a cup of coffee, I love coffee.
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I like to walk the dog, I call my wife back, call that friend back.
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But if we honor every distraction that is coming at us, we're never gonna prioritize our lives.
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We're never gonna actually be moving our lives forward.
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We're gonna be constantly juggling from one activity to another.
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But you might be saying to me, Well, I can't just ignore my boss.
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I just can't ignore my wife.
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They'll fire me, they'll divorce me.
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And here's the thing is if you let your key people know that you're not gonna be available during that time block, there's a good chance that they're gonna honor it if they recognize the power of multitasking is a myth, the power of time blocks and a time of prioritizing one task at a time.
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And here's another kicker is with these priorities, you gotta recognize when your brain powers best.
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For me, in the morning is my key time for writing and thinking.
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So I go for my morning walk every single morning and I'm constantly working out ideas.
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It's usually like 5, 5:30 in the morning.
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I'm walking, working out my ideas, taking notes if I need to, practicing my speeches.
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Then after the kids leave for school, I'm writing because my brain is fresh.
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Now, a lot of times with our priorities, we spend all of that time doing the busy work, catching up on emails, doing useless, returning phone calls that can wait till later.
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Once your brain is drained, my brain is drained by one o'clock in the afternoon, and your timing may be different than mine.
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But once your timing is, your brain is drained, that's when I do the less important tasks, like returning that call, you know, writing bills.
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I don't want to use up my big time for that.
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Unless I'm teaching, unless I'm training, unless I'm coaching, I'm not gonna fill up that space.
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That space is very important to move my life forward.
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So let's recap.
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Multitasking is a myth.
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We can't do two things at the same time that require our attention.
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We have to recognize the 80-20 rule.
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80% of our results come from 20% of our activities.
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And this requires us to pause, reflect on what works, not more work.
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Because then you can recognize what I need to be doing more of and what I need to be do less of.
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Recognizing the 80-20 rule is for what we're doing, but also who we're spending our time with.
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And if we're gonna spend our time with, you've heard the expression, you are who you spend your time with.
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And if you spend your time with a bunch of people that are your lower level employee, it's gonna bog you down, it's gonna make you crazy.
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If you spend your time with successful people that are gonna make you better, or your team members that are growing with you, they're gonna grow with you.
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You're gonna grow with them.
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And you're only going to employ somebody that actually is the leader you are or lower.
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Now you may get lucky and you might be able to bring somebody on your leadership team that has qualities that are higher than yours.
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But unless you get with the program and start making yourself a better leader, they're eventually gonna leave.
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So you gotta always be making yourself better.
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And I've learned these mistakes the hard way.
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But prioritizing isn't just about what we're doing, but who we spend our time with and recognizing we need to work in time blocks and honor those time blocks, silence those distractions, and work toward making yourself better.
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Because when you show up as your best self and work toward your best self by prioritizing, by not multitasking or back and forth tax switching, you show up better for your people.
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You're not so exhausted, you're not so difficult anymore.
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I'm grateful that you're with me today on the Managing Difficult People Podcast.
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If you, your team, would like to change culture, you would like to see what the next steps are, go to www.managingdifficult people podcast.com and reach out to me.
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And my email is info at adam-holbrook.com.
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Till next time, God bless.
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Thank you for joining me.
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So that's it for today's episode of the Managing Difficult People Podcast.
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Head on over to Apple Podcasts or iTunes wherever you listen and subscribe to the show.
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One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance the grand prize drawing to win a$10,000 private VIP day with Adam Holbrook himself.
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Be sure to head on over to Managing Difficult People Podcast.com and pick up a free copy of Adam's gift.
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And join us on the next episode.
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If you've ever worked with someone who creates chaos, plays the victim, and blames everyone else, then this podcast is for you.
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So here's your host, Adam Holbrook.
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I am your host, Adam Holbrook.
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The reason I created the Managing Difficult People podcast, I was noticing lots of leaders sabotaging themselves, not leading themselves well, and not leading their team well.
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And I said maybe I can create a place, a safe place where leaders and other people can listen in to my stories, my failures, my triumphs, my guest stories, and maybe they'll gain the listener, the awareness of what's holding them back in their own lives and have a pathway forward.
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I work with schools and organizations that want to change culture.
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Because here's the thing when we stop talking about changing culture and actually do something about it, that's when magic begins.
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People are excited to show up for work.
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They're excited to work hard.
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They love the people around them, they feel connected to them.
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And yes, the bottom line increases too.
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And I do this a variety of different ways as an executive coach.
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I do one-on-one coaching, individual coaching, I do workshops, book studies, personality assessments, dyspersonality assessments, and many, many more methods.
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Today's podcast is all about priorities because here's the thing: the greatest leadership mistake that I made, and the biggest mistake I'm seeing time and time again with the leaders that I work with on a consistent basis is they don't prioritize.
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They don't prioritize what they do and who they spend their time with.
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When I had my commercial office cleaning business, I was hungry to be a millionaire.
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I was working all the time, 90 to 110 hours, building this business.
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I had worked it up to around 14 employees.
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And my employees had zero loyalty to me.
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They would call out sick, not show up for work.
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And I said, why are they consistently taking advantage of me?
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And I was plugging holes all day long.
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And it made me miserable.
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I was spiraling out of control.
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I was wondering when I would be successful, how I would be successful.
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And I was chasing something that I didn't even know what I was chasing.
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And it all came to a head that Christmas Eve 2005.
00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:58.080
I thought about it all the time, taking my car, driving it off a cliff, and ending my life.
00:02:58.879 --> 00:03:06.639
That Christmas Eve 2005, I'm drunk, I'm in my car, I'm ready, I'm numb.
00:03:09.120 --> 00:03:13.360
That night, my dad calls me, and it was late.
00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:16.479
And he tells me he loves me.
00:03:16.800 --> 00:03:19.360
First of all, me and my dad were in some sort of fight.
00:03:20.159 --> 00:03:22.639
I don't know how long we were in a fight for.
00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:27.280
And he hadn't told me he loved me in years.
00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:41.599
And as many times as I replay that over and over again in my life, one thing I know for certain, God reached out to me that night through my dad's voice and saved my life.
00:03:42.240 --> 00:03:44.560
The next day was Christmas Day.
00:03:44.719 --> 00:03:49.120
After my 17-hour straight shift, I woke up to that 17-hour straight shift.
00:03:49.199 --> 00:03:51.840
I come home, I start researching how to sell a business.
00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:55.520
I decide I'm gonna post my business for sale on this website.
00:03:55.680 --> 00:03:58.639
It was called businessbroker.net.
00:03:59.199 --> 00:04:12.560
And within four months, my first business sold for$220,000, which was more money than I ever had in my entire 28 years in business.
00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:19.199
For the first time, I had a little bit of money in my life, but I was still that same bad leader.
00:04:19.279 --> 00:04:24.800
I didn't recognize how prioritizing my days, my time actually mattered.
00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:28.639
Then I started to read some books on leadership.
00:04:28.879 --> 00:04:32.399
I started to attend conferences on leadership.
00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:36.720
I became a student of leadership and I started my second business.
00:04:37.199 --> 00:04:42.639
I started Smart Water Solutions, which was a bottless water cooler company.
00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:47.680
My company eliminated the jugs that would go on top of the water cooler.
00:04:47.839 --> 00:05:07.360
We would run this little water line to the water cooler unit, and then it would plug into the back of the water cooler and it would go through a series of filters to completely purify the water and give offices an endless supply of pure drinking water, which saved companies lots of money and it was helping the environment.
00:05:07.600 --> 00:05:11.439
And with the concept of leadership, I was learning.
00:05:11.600 --> 00:05:13.360
I built a bigger business.
00:05:13.519 --> 00:05:19.519
And after owning it for 10 years, Culligan Water approaches me and said, We want to buy you.
00:05:19.600 --> 00:05:21.680
And I said no to them for three years.
00:05:21.839 --> 00:05:28.399
And finally I decide to sell it to them for seven figures in 2020.
00:05:28.639 --> 00:05:32.399
January 14th, 2020 was the exact date.
00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:35.839
And the biggest mistake I'm recognizing.
00:05:35.920 --> 00:05:42.240
So now I have everything that I need in life, but I'm recognizing I want to empower.
00:05:42.319 --> 00:05:46.639
The only reason I sold the company was I wanted to live a life of purpose.
00:05:46.800 --> 00:05:53.040
I wanted to be able to help other leaders that are struggling with the same things that I struggled with.
00:05:53.199 --> 00:05:55.439
That's my leadership story.
00:05:56.160 --> 00:06:06.800
And as I was reading John Maxwell's book, The 21 Laws of Leadership, he talks about it in one of his chapters, priorities.
00:06:07.279 --> 00:06:11.439
And in the chapter about priorities, he talks about the 80-20 rule.
00:06:11.519 --> 00:06:15.600
And if you've never heard the 80-20 rule, you gotta listen to this.
00:06:15.920 --> 00:06:25.680
The 80-20 rule says you get 80% of your results from 20% of activities.
00:06:26.319 --> 00:06:30.639
This blew my mind the first time I ever heard it.
00:06:31.360 --> 00:06:39.199
That means everything we're doing in life, we should be spending our time recognizing what works, not more work.
00:06:39.360 --> 00:06:54.079
With this business I'm doing right now, I was spending so much time on social media, building reels, building constant contact, hoping to be the next YouTuber where people are paying me to show up and speak.
00:06:54.319 --> 00:06:58.560
But I was spending so much time and I recognized I wasn't getting much results from it.
00:06:58.720 --> 00:07:08.879
And I started recognizing where I got my results from, and it was from being in contact with school leaders, being in contact with business owners, and offering my services to them.
00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:10.240
And that really changed it for me.
00:07:10.399 --> 00:07:12.959
Doing book studies, free book studies to principals.
00:07:13.279 --> 00:07:22.480
And I was spending my time doing all of the wrong things instead of taking a step back, breathing and saying, what works, not more work.
00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:26.319
And that's what I did with my commercial office cleaning business.
00:07:26.639 --> 00:07:30.240
I was spending my time doing in my business.
00:07:30.319 --> 00:07:39.360
I was in my business nonstop, constantly plugging holes, recognizing that I didn't think anybody could do the job nearly as good as me.
00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:52.800
And then when I read the 80-20 rule, it said if you can find somebody to do the job, even 80% of what you can do the job at, you should absolutely hand it off to them, delegate it.
00:07:53.040 --> 00:07:58.959
And if you're doing something and it's not bringing results and it's not required of you, you can just give it up.
00:07:59.120 --> 00:08:00.800
You don't have to do it.
00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:05.839
That to me was mind-blowing because I was spending all of my time in the business.
00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:10.639
When somebody would call and complain, I would run down there and fix the problem myself.
00:08:10.800 --> 00:08:19.439
And here's the thing what 8020 rule says too is it's not just what we spend our time with, it's who we spend our time with.
00:08:20.720 --> 00:08:21.360
Wow.
00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:25.920
I was spending my time with my lowest level employees.
00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.920
And this is what I'm seeing in all of the schools and companies that I work with.
00:08:30.079 --> 00:08:40.080
People are spending their time with their lowest level, I don't want to call it maybe lowest level, but it's the employees that need the most assistance because they're the ones that need the most work.
00:08:40.720 --> 00:08:44.799
But they're the ones that drain you, they're the ones that hold you back.
00:08:45.600 --> 00:08:53.679
The 80-20 rule says we should be spending our time with our top 20% of our team members, and we're gonna get 80% better results.
00:08:53.919 --> 00:08:55.519
That just blew my mind.
00:08:55.679 --> 00:09:06.799
The school principals that I'm working with on a consistent basis, they're spending their time with their lowest level teachers consistently because they're the ones that need the most classroom management work.
00:09:06.879 --> 00:09:16.720
They're the ones that can't deal with the parents, they're the ones that don't know how to manage their classroom, and they're good teachers, they just let them go because they know what they're doing, they're great.
00:09:17.279 --> 00:09:19.919
So one principal said to me, Well, what do you suggest?
00:09:20.159 --> 00:09:23.120
And I said, maybe come up with a mentoring program.
00:09:23.519 --> 00:09:33.919
Come up with a mentoring program for your high-level teachers where you can work with those high-level teachers and empower them to help their lower-level teachers.
00:09:34.159 --> 00:09:37.840
You're out of the picture because you have to grow the business, you have to grow the school.
00:09:37.919 --> 00:09:40.559
And if you're gonna work in your business, it's never gonna be that way.
00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:42.240
So come up with some sort of program.
00:09:42.320 --> 00:09:49.279
And with this one principal, it was a monthly checkup where they had to go through a series of questions and email me.
00:09:49.440 --> 00:09:59.759
But the teachers that needed the most work with the high-level teachers, they would meet up weekly and they would collaborate and always answer questions on classroom management, on ideas.
00:09:59.919 --> 00:10:07.600
And this changed everything because now you're not bogged down by all of the people that are consistently draining your energy.
00:10:07.759 --> 00:10:10.879
And for me, I was doing the same thing with my cleaning business.
00:10:11.120 --> 00:10:23.919
I was spending my time with my weakest team members because they were constantly calling out the, but at the same time, it was like I finally had good employees and I didn't want to like ruffle the feathers, so I just let it go.
00:10:24.000 --> 00:10:25.120
It just keeps on doing it.
00:10:25.200 --> 00:10:34.080
But if I actually worked those key people in my organization, I probably wouldn't have been suicidal because I just didn't know how to be a leader.
00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:37.600
I knew how to be a hard worker, but I didn't know how to be a leader.
00:10:37.759 --> 00:10:41.360
And one of the top things you need to do is learn how to prioritize.
00:10:41.519 --> 00:10:47.200
And it's just not about who you spend about your time with, but it's what we're spending our time with.
00:10:47.360 --> 00:10:51.120
As a leader, we need to be spending our time on the bigger picture.
00:10:51.600 --> 00:10:58.399
And a lot of times we get caught up in the day-to-day operations and we're never seeing the big picture.
00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:01.200
We're constantly working from one problem to another.
00:11:01.360 --> 00:11:11.120
And how are you ever gonna be able to put pro now processes and systems are so important, but processes and systems are more of a management thing as opposed to a leadership thing.
00:11:11.279 --> 00:11:17.279
But here's the thing is as a leader, you have to recognize what processes and systems you need.
00:11:17.440 --> 00:11:18.879
And you can put those in place.
00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:31.120
And I wasn't doing that as a leader, and as a leader of my cleaning business, I had processes and systems that were a logbook and I would do check-ins, but I wasn't truly empowering my good people.
00:11:31.360 --> 00:11:37.279
And empowering people is recognizing who your great people are and empower them because they're gonna show up better.
00:11:37.360 --> 00:11:46.559
They're excited that they got more responsibility, they're excited that they're gonna grow with the company, and they're gonna be excited to help grow with you.
00:11:46.720 --> 00:11:49.039
And here's the thing that really got me.
00:11:49.519 --> 00:11:52.320
And I write about this in my new book that's up and coming.
00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:55.039
It's called You're Not For Everyone is the name of the book.
00:11:55.120 --> 00:11:57.360
And the chapter name is about multitasking.
00:11:57.519 --> 00:11:59.120
Multitasking is a myth.
00:11:59.279 --> 00:12:06.639
And a lot of times we're going from one task to another task to another task to another task, thinking that we just gotta catch our breath.
00:12:06.720 --> 00:12:12.720
And then we finally catch our breath, we reach for a drink, we binge watch TV, we scroll on our phones.
00:12:12.960 --> 00:12:19.519
Not because we're weak, but because we're exhausted from being everywhere in the same time.
00:12:20.159 --> 00:12:27.279
But here's the thing: you can't do two things at the same time that require your attention effectively.
00:12:27.600 --> 00:12:30.559
What we're really talking about is task switching.
00:12:30.960 --> 00:12:38.639
And what a lot of leaders are doing is they're not prioritizing, they're going from one task to another task to another task, back and forth.
00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:45.759
And in that back and forth, you lose time, you lose energy, and you lose a little bit of your soul.
00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:48.799
Instead, I love to work in time blocks.
00:12:49.039 --> 00:12:55.840
Time blocks are dedicated, uninterrupted space where we can work on one task at a time.
00:12:56.000 --> 00:12:58.399
That's how the greatest leaders work.
00:12:58.559 --> 00:13:00.799
That's how I've written all three of my books.
00:13:00.960 --> 00:13:04.879
If I didn't work in time blocks, you wouldn't be reading my books.
00:13:04.960 --> 00:13:16.960
And here's the thing: time blocks are where you silence all your distractions, you let your key people know that you're not gonna be available until after the time block is up.
00:13:17.600 --> 00:13:20.480
And once the time block is up, you reward yourself.
00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:23.200
I like to make a cup of coffee, I love coffee.
00:13:23.519 --> 00:13:28.879
I like to walk the dog, I call my wife back, call that friend back.
00:13:29.120 --> 00:13:35.120
But if we honor every distraction that is coming at us, we're never gonna prioritize our lives.
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.440
We're never gonna actually be moving our lives forward.
00:13:37.519 --> 00:13:41.919
We're gonna be constantly juggling from one activity to another.
00:13:42.240 --> 00:13:46.960
But you might be saying to me, Well, I can't just ignore my boss.
00:13:47.200 --> 00:13:49.120
I just can't ignore my wife.
00:13:49.279 --> 00:13:51.200
They'll fire me, they'll divorce me.
00:13:51.360 --> 00:14:07.600
And here's the thing is if you let your key people know that you're not gonna be available during that time block, there's a good chance that they're gonna honor it if they recognize the power of multitasking is a myth, the power of time blocks and a time of prioritizing one task at a time.
00:14:07.759 --> 00:14:16.240
And here's another kicker is with these priorities, you gotta recognize when your brain powers best.
00:14:16.639 --> 00:14:22.000
For me, in the morning is my key time for writing and thinking.
00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:27.600
So I go for my morning walk every single morning and I'm constantly working out ideas.
00:14:27.679 --> 00:14:29.759
It's usually like 5, 5:30 in the morning.
00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:34.399
I'm walking, working out my ideas, taking notes if I need to, practicing my speeches.
00:14:34.559 --> 00:14:39.919
Then after the kids leave for school, I'm writing because my brain is fresh.
00:14:40.080 --> 00:14:52.080
Now, a lot of times with our priorities, we spend all of that time doing the busy work, catching up on emails, doing useless, returning phone calls that can wait till later.
00:14:52.240 --> 00:14:57.759
Once your brain is drained, my brain is drained by one o'clock in the afternoon, and your timing may be different than mine.
00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:07.600
But once your timing is, your brain is drained, that's when I do the less important tasks, like returning that call, you know, writing bills.
00:15:07.759 --> 00:15:10.480
I don't want to use up my big time for that.
00:15:10.639 --> 00:15:15.919
Unless I'm teaching, unless I'm training, unless I'm coaching, I'm not gonna fill up that space.
00:15:16.000 --> 00:15:19.120
That space is very important to move my life forward.
00:15:19.600 --> 00:15:21.039
So let's recap.
00:15:21.440 --> 00:15:23.120
Multitasking is a myth.
00:15:23.279 --> 00:15:26.799
We can't do two things at the same time that require our attention.
00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:30.399
We have to recognize the 80-20 rule.
00:15:30.879 --> 00:15:36.159
80% of our results come from 20% of our activities.
00:15:36.399 --> 00:15:44.159
And this requires us to pause, reflect on what works, not more work.
00:15:44.879 --> 00:15:51.039
Because then you can recognize what I need to be doing more of and what I need to be do less of.
00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:57.279
Recognizing the 80-20 rule is for what we're doing, but also who we're spending our time with.
00:15:57.440 --> 00:16:02.480
And if we're gonna spend our time with, you've heard the expression, you are who you spend your time with.
00:16:02.559 --> 00:16:09.200
And if you spend your time with a bunch of people that are your lower level employee, it's gonna bog you down, it's gonna make you crazy.
00:16:09.360 --> 00:16:17.039
If you spend your time with successful people that are gonna make you better, or your team members that are growing with you, they're gonna grow with you.
00:16:17.200 --> 00:16:18.559
You're gonna grow with them.
00:16:18.799 --> 00:16:28.000
And you're only going to employ somebody that actually is the leader you are or lower.
00:16:28.240 --> 00:16:35.440
Now you may get lucky and you might be able to bring somebody on your leadership team that has qualities that are higher than yours.
00:16:35.600 --> 00:16:40.320
But unless you get with the program and start making yourself a better leader, they're eventually gonna leave.
00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:42.639
So you gotta always be making yourself better.
00:16:42.720 --> 00:16:45.120
And I've learned these mistakes the hard way.
00:16:45.600 --> 00:16:58.879
But prioritizing isn't just about what we're doing, but who we spend our time with and recognizing we need to work in time blocks and honor those time blocks, silence those distractions, and work toward making yourself better.
00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:10.400
Because when you show up as your best self and work toward your best self by prioritizing, by not multitasking or back and forth tax switching, you show up better for your people.
00:17:10.559 --> 00:17:14.079
You're not so exhausted, you're not so difficult anymore.
00:17:16.000 --> 00:17:20.319
I'm grateful that you're with me today on the Managing Difficult People Podcast.
00:17:20.559 --> 00:17:34.480
If you, your team, would like to change culture, you would like to see what the next steps are, go to www.managingdifficult people podcast.com and reach out to me.
00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:39.359
And my email is info at adam-holbrook.com.
00:17:39.759 --> 00:17:41.920
Till next time, God bless.
00:17:42.160 --> 00:17:44.000
Thank you for joining me.
00:17:47.119 --> 00:17:51.119
So that's it for today's episode of the Managing Difficult People Podcast.
00:17:51.359 --> 00:17:55.920
Head on over to Apple Podcasts or iTunes wherever you listen and subscribe to the show.
00:17:56.160 --> 00:18:09.920
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00:18:10.160 --> 00:18:16.880
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00:18:17.039 --> 00:18:19.680
And join us on the next episode.
