Transcript
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Welcome back to be to be growth. I'm Logan lyles with sweet fish media.
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I'm joined today, as usual,
in our behind the curtain series with
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my good buddy, founder and CEO
of Sweet Fish, James Carberry. James,
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how you doing today, man?
I'm fantastic, dude. We're going
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to be talking about something that is
recently really transformed our leadership team and how
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we set goals and how we get
things done around here. So it's a
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system that we call for by fours
and it's honestly been in large part to
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one of the cohosts of crafting culture, like Mozars, and one of my
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best friends something and I an idea
that he introduced. But it's been an
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interesting journey in a story of how
we kind of have moved from for disciplines
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of execution that didn't really work for
us. We try it out, okay,
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ours, and that really wasn't a
perfect fit for us either, and
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we've we've kind of turned it into
our own thing in conjunction with this for
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by four system that Blake is showed
me. And so, anyway, it's
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going to be a fun episode.
Yeah, absolutely, Man. So for
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folks, I know a lot of
guests on the show talk about using the
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Okur methodology for setting goals and tracking
progress on their marketing teams. For anybody
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listening to this, because you know, as you mentioned, we're kind of
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using the okay our methodology, tweaked
with this concept of for by four short
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term goals. Unpack okay ours just
real quick for some context for folks and
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then we'll talk a little bit about
kind of our journey into kind of what
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our goal setting methodology looks like now. Yeah, so okay ours stands for
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objectives and key results, and so
the idea is that for every person on
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your team they would have or for
every team, I think it is every
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team has a set of objectives and
every person on that team, and I
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could be botching this, this is
partly, partly why we moved away from
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it, because it's the methodology can
these methodologies can get confusing. But everyone
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on the team then has key results. Sometimes they roll up to the objective,
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sometimes they don't roll up to the
objective. It depends on kind of
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how people choose to roll them out. But at the beginning of this year
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we rolled out our annual objectives,
which are essentially our annual goals, and
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those just for example, ours are
create fire content, reinforce the rocket ship
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and go further faster. And for
those folks that are familiar with smart goals,
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you hear those and you go those
aren't real goals, like had,
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those aren't measurable, like they're not
specific. How do you know if you're
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going to achieve that goal? And
so what? That's really where key results
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come in in the okay, our
system. And so we set those high
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level objectives because they're meant to be
aspirational, they're meant to be memorable,
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and we set these, what four
and a half months ago, and I
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can still tell you what those three
annual goals are because of the way we
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named them. And you know Logan. I mean we sat around that room
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for probably two or three hours,
maybe even longer, coming up with these
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names, and it felt like a
waste of time, like what the hell
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are we doing? Why are we
why are we arguing over semantics on how
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to name these goals? But it's
because we wanted them to be sticky and
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we wanted these annual objectives to be
something that we remembered throughout the entire year,
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which is something we'd struggled with in
the past when trying to use,
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you know, goal setting, kind
of get it done type methodologies, like
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for disciplines of execution in the past. So so it worked, but for
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it to be effective you actually have
to set measurable, specific goals that sit
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underneath each of those objectives. So
we started down the pathway of okrs.
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I learned a lot about it and
ultimately we ended up morphing it into into
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our own thing. What was your
experience, or what has been your experience
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all going to with with Ok ours
and kind of share your perspective of the
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journey? Yeah, one of the
things that was interesting for me going from
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the four disciplines of execution or DX
model was that, you know, the
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the way that they approach your highest
level goals, which they call your wig,
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your wildly important goal, is more
in line with that smart or smarter
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if you listen to Michael Hyatt goal
setting methodology, and it's not that.
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You know, okay ours kind of
throws that out, but it has a
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layer above of thee that object active
that is more aspirational than it is kind
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of what is the result here?
And that's not that the okay our methodology
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doesn't have that. It has it
at the next level in the in the
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key results. So that took me
a little while to get my brain around
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because, you know, as you
said, I had that kind of that
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reaction of weight, these aren't these
aren't good goals. But so I got
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through that. And then the next
thing is I started to realize for anybody
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who who wants to hear more about
kind of wrestling through these words and that
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sort of stuff and is it important, I definitely recommend they check out a
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previous episode in this series, behind
the curtains, where we talked about crafting
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our mission and vision statement, which
we actually don't call mission and vision and
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there's reasons why. But that's previous
episode. Will Link to that in the
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show notes. But I think the
same thing that happened here. You know,
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we've talked about that in the past. We've talked about really nailing our
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three core values and when you spend
time on that language it does become stickier.
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We've found that, oh, you
know, when we use the rocket
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ship Emoji on slack, now we're
thinking about how are we reinforcing the rocket
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ship or how are we going further, faster and the stickiness of having those
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high level objectives. I do think
has given us that common language to remind
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each other where are we going,
what are we shooting for? To continue
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with the rocket analogy and also informs
our decision. Does this really help us
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do this? Does this help us
go further faster or not? And that
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common language I think, just reduces
some friction in those conversations. It does
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make these aspirations that you're trying to
shoot for more memorable and then you have
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that shared experience. I think it's
really a cultural benefit. The next step
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then, is you can't just say
hey, I have these aspirations and I
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don't know, maybe we'll get there, maybe we won't. You do have
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to have a methodology for figuring out, okay, what are the leading indicators
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that are going to help us go
there, and that's where, in the
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okay our methodology, key results come
in. We've tweaked that with this for
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by four methodology. So let's talk
about that, James, a little bit
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in how we went through that tweak
and how we're kind of implementing the shorter
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term for by four goal setting to
left to roll up to our big level
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objectives. Yeah, so I've got
our four by four board up that we're
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going to talk about a little bit, but I want to share just what
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are the key results or the the
specific goals that tie under these annual goals.
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So for our for our annual company
goals, like I said, they're
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create fire content, reinforce the rocket
ship and go further faster. So with
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in create fire content, are specific, are measurable. Goals have a lot
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to do with Seo and ranking our
written content on trying to trying to rank
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on the first page of Google,
because we know that if we can do
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that we can drive a lot of
we can drive a lot of traffic to
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our website and the subsequent results for
that are incredible. I mean you grow
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your email list, you grow audience, which is a big part of what
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we're doing as we transitioned into becoming
a media company. So our key results
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or specific goals for create fire content
or to rank for one hundred keywords in
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the first four spots on the first
page of Google, very specific, very
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measurable. Our second one is published
a hundred and twenty five articles by July
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onest that are optimized to rank for
a specific keyword. Twenty five blog post
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per month. So far we're right
on track to do that and this specific
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and measurable goal has made significant impact
on how like on how we've hired writing
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teams. We started an intern program
because of this. So this is actually
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changing the operation of the business and
as I have financial conversations with our finance
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team, this specific goal is driving
a lot of those conversations because we set
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this as a priority at the beginning
of the year, that this is something
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we said we wanted to do.
Now we actually have to put our money
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where our mouth is. Means we
have to we have to hire an extra
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full time rider or we have to
start an intern program so it's been a
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really fun exercise for me to say, Hey, what we said in January
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still holds true today, in April, which is not been the story for
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me for a long time. I
usually you know and very like what's what's
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hot now and one am I excited
about this second, and so to actually
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be able to stay consistent with something
that I'm excited about and document it and
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actually lead the business toward that direction
without a lot of waiver, that's a
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new muscle that I'm not used to
stretching, but it's been really cool having
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this framework to allow us to do
it. So that's the example under create
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fire content, reinforce rocket ship.
We have three specific goals and then go
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further faster, we have twelve specific
goals. So so we went in and
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thought, okay, what is it
actually going to look like for us to
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accomplish these things? These are the
twelve things that need to happen for us
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to do this. These are the
three things that need to happen for us
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to reinforce a rocket ship. These
are the two things that need to happen
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for us to feel like we've created
fire content. So now we translate that
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into this for by four system and
every month everyone on our leadership team looks
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and reviews what those annual goals are
and they choose for specific and measurable things
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that they're going to work on above
and beyond kind of the everyday duties of
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what they do day and a day
out for their regular job. They pick
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four strategic things that ultimately help us
get to our annual objectives, are annual
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goals, and those four things become
what really become their hit list for the
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next four weeks. Hence the name
four by four. So we found around
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here that doing quarterly goals is way
too long. Things Change Way too quickly
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and honestly, that was, I
think, why forty x didn't work for
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us. And it seems like the
way a lot of people do. Okay,
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as I know some people say,
you can do them monthly, but
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okay, they okay. Our system
was still just a little bit too complex
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and so we simplified it to where
it's you have four things that you're responsible
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for doing over the next four weeks. I review those every month to make
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sure that I feel like everybody is
on the same page and rowing in the
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same direction toward the goals that we
need to be rowing toward, and then
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I'll adjust or I'll work with that
particular person on the leadership team to say,
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Hey, what if we bounce this
one out for this four by four,
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because I think this is more of
a priority in the short term.
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And then we've got we've got it
all organized in Trello. So everybody has
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a list within Trello and there are
the card at the very top of each
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person's cellow lists as possible goals,
and in that card is where, throughout
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the month you're like, oh,
man, this would be a really good
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thing. For One am I four
by fours, and so you can dump
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all of your ideas into that possible
goals card, which was huge for me,
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because I'm the king of having two
a m ideas and I just want
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to go, go, go,
I just want to get it done.
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But now I can, I can
put these in that possible goals card and
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then when it comes to the beginning
of the month and it's time to set
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my new four by fours, I've
now got a bank of ideas to choose
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from, and so I pray through
that and ask God, like what God,
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what do you think we should be
focusing on this month? What do
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you think I should be focusing on
this month? And I've got a pool
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of ideas to work from and it
works like that with everybody on our leadership
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team now. And so now I
don't feel like if I have an idea
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and we don't execute right away,
that we're missing an opportunity or we're losing
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out. It's just it's not the
right time right now. And if you
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want people to get things done,
you have to let them focus, and
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that has been my Achilles heel for
really the last half decade and leading this
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business and this system has has allowed
me to get better at that in a
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really significant way. Yeah, absolutely, Man. I mean, for anybody
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else listening to this that is in
a fast growing company, you probably have
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leaders, maybe you yourself are,
you know, like you are, James,
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where you have a lot of ideas, you see a lot of opportunities,
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I mean, and that's part of
the reason I think we've continued to
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be able to tweak our service and
get ahead of of the curve. I
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mean, just because we were early
in podcasting doesn't mean that, hey,
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we're safe here and we're going to
continue to grow doing the things that we've
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always done. But, like you
said, too many ideas. I think
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it's a quote from forty x.
There always be a surplus of good ideas
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and not enough time to execute all
of them. What I like about what
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we've been doing here is it's combined
a few things. It's allowed us to
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do goal setting as a leadership team
individually, have a common language for that,
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have visibility into what everyone else is
working on and have a dumping ground
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for those ideas, those someday sort
of goals, those sorts of things,
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where we used to have a separate
treloboard that we called our backlog of projects,
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and that kind of got stay a
little bit after a while. I
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think it allowed us to put some
things there, but we didn't have a
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framework for prioritizing those. And this
language of, you know, four goals
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over four weeks, four by four, has really added some clarity and some
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simplicity. And when you're when you're
fast growing, fast moving in your pivoting,
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simplicity can just be like, you
know, a nice calm breeze or
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a little bit of sunshine that hopefully
folks are able to get a little bit
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these days right now, it can
be just a nice reprieve. So a
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couple of things I wanted to touch
on that we've done as as a leadership
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team now, you know, I
can remember, you know, almost two
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years ago we changed our leadership team. Calls that change. We really implemented
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some structured to them with some of
the things that Kim Scott mentions in radical
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candor, you know, having some
time to type out some updates and people
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to be able to read those so
you don't spend a lot of time just
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recapping and everyone else is listening.
That sort of stuff, but we started
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to realize we didn't really have a
structure for this. Is What I did
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and what it relates to our goals, so that we have that cadence of
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accountability and we also have that structure
to keep ourselves on track and again,
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focused. So we've actually, you
know, every week when we meet as
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a leadership team, we have a
Google doc where we have our weekly updates.
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We've got a spot for our wins
from the past week, which I
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think is a good thing. We
type those out, but we also talked
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about them because those are the things
that we kind of want to get on
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the same page and a connect emotionally
as a readership team as well. But
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we added a news section that things
that we need to talk about that roll
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up to those three objectives. And
then we also have our weekly commitments,
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so, you know, rotating through
our our group on a leadership team.
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WHO's going to keep track of those
so that there's a date and then there's
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who is the owner of that next
action item, just just good meeting practice
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in general, but as the way
that it rolls up to our objectives and
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our goals, I think has been
a structuring that agenda around our annual goals
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has been. It's been very helpful
for me because it's a subtle way to
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reinforce what those three goals are throughout
the year. So in before we used
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to have our our leadership team agenda
structured by person on the leadership team.
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So it's like, okay, now
it's looking to turn it's my turn outs.
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Bills turned outs as bills turned outs, Kelsey's turned outs, Ryans turn
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now it's structured around. Okay,
now we're going to talk about creating fire
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content. What things do we need
to talk about related to creating fire content?
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Hey, we we need to figure
out some sort of a system for,
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you know, a checklist on making
sure that producers know what fire content
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is and running all of our stuff
there. Okay, let's let's talk about
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this. Do we need an ad
hoc meeting? Is just going to take,
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you know, an hour or two
hours to plush this out and then
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we move on to reinforce the rocket
ship and then we move on to go
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further faster. And so by just
in that simple act of categorizing our leadership
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team meetings by our annual goals,
it subtly reinforces what those goals are for
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everyone on our leadership team. Absolutely. Man. Do you want to talk
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a little bit about the rollout of
this, because we've been talking about okay,
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we set these annual objectives, these
three high level aspirational goals in objectives
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and key results are the okay,
our methodology or pretty much really any goal
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setting framework. You have them at
the company level, you maybe have them
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at the team level, then you
have them at the individual level. We've
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talked a little bit about how we're
using this as a leadership team, how
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that rolls down to our our monthly
goals as individuals on the leadership team.
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We haven't talked about really the next
steps and that's because we've been very intentional
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about that as we've been working on
this process for the past couple of months.
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So talk a little bit about that, man, so so, being
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a fast growing team, we are
constantly rolling out new systems, new processes,
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new tools and it can be very
overwhelming for the folks that are having
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to actually put into practice all of
the things that we are wanting to make
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better in the business. And we've
got a couple folks on our leadership team,
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Ryan in particular, who is just
incredibly empathetic and understands very much so
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how important it is for people to
not feel overwhelmed and and for people to
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feel like they can actually like the
things that we're rolling out as a leadership
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team aren't just things that are going
to go away in two or three months.
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These are things that are actually going
to stick, and so this year
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we've been trying to do a much
better job of rolling out things ourselves.
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So in January we rolled out harvest
time tracking so that we can just know
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where all of the hours across our
team are going, what projects are they
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going into, and we rolled that
out as a leadership team first for I
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think three or four months before we
rolled that out to the rest of our
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team. We've done the same thing
with four by fours and we ultimately decided
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not to roll for four by fours
out to the rest of our team right
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now, just because a lot of
folks on our team are already at capacity.
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They're already doing kind of random projects
on top of their day to day
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work, and so to add four
more things to that list for them we
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just we didn't feel like now is
the right time to do that and it
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might not ever be the right time
to do that honestly. So we're going
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to keep for by fours at the
leadership level for right now. But one
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thing I want to talk about that
I think is a critical part of the
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success of this system is time blocking. This has been something that we've been
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talking about a lot internally, trying
to get everyone on our team thinking about
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time blocking. We had some folks
earlier this month that we're really getting overwhelmed
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and feeling like, man, I'm
getting I'm getting pulled in a lot of
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different directions. I don't know what
to prioritize, I don't know what to
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do. And so by going through
this this system that I actually learned from
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Kevin Cruz and like an early be
to be growth episode, everybody has to
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do lists, but the lying and
share of those to do list don't actually
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get done. It's until you get
that to do list into your calendar and
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you block a time, a specific
time in your calendar to do those tasks,
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that's when you're actually going to start
to see these things get done.
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So when we set our four by
fours is a leadership team, the first
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week of every month. Everyone on
our leadership team then goes and time blocks
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what those specific things are throughout the
month. So Logan for you, you
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know that you need to send a
certain number of books to our target accounts.
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So you might have two or three
one hour time blocks throughout the month,
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knowing that each of those time blocks
you're going to be sending five or
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ten books. I have a time
block to connect with twenty of our customers
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this month and so I've blocked two
hours next Wednesday to make sure that I
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can reach out and and try to
set up phone calls with twenty of our
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customers. So those types of things
actually make sure that the four by four
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that were our team is setting actually
get done. Yeah, absolutely, man,
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that that's been huge for me.
It takes a little bit of a
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shift. I mean the first thing
is, okay, you got to put
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that on your calendar. The next
thing is to treat it like a call,
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because at times it can be.
Those can be the easiest things to
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shift around. But as you do
that, even if you do, then
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you have to look at okay,
where do I have time to move this
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if I have to, and then
your you know that this is a monthly
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goal and so hold on, I've
only got eight or business days in the
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month. I can't necessarily move this
and just doing that right right at that
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time. That's another episode will have
to link to in the show notes,
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the one with with Kevin crews.
I know you brought that up with with
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the team the other days. You
were talking about kind of mapping out your
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ideal week. I know obviously you
listen to a lot of podcasts. You
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listen to a lot of books as
well. Any other resources that you want
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to share with folks that have been
key as you've been thinking about this and
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leading the team in shifting our goal
setting and our approach with this methodology?
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Man. Yeah, I think anything
Patricklyncioni puts out is worse a leader consuming.
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So the book the advantage absolutely changed
my life and at the table with
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Patricklyncioni, the podcast from Patrick Concioni
is phenomenal. And then Craig grow Shell's
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leadership podcast is also hugely transformational for
me, and that has been something where
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it feels like almost every episode I've
got some tangible nugget or take away that
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that we can try to implement.
And so much. Man Says. I'm
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just learning like the craft of leadership, because this crap is not easy here
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and and doing things intentionally and purposefully. I always prided myself on on being
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handsoff and building systems and process so
that I wouldn't have to be involved in
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the Daytoday, and so we've got
great customer facing team, we've got a
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great sales team, but I still
need to be connected with our customers,
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and so that's why one of my
four by fours this month is to connect
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with our customers directly and start having
conversations with customers, because because that's that's
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going to create a whole lot of
ideas. It in for me and that's
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the contribution I add to the team
is pushing US forward and constantly innovating and
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making us better so that we can
ultimately continue to grow. And so understanding
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those things about myself come from listening
to guys like Patrick Lencione and Greg grow
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show. Yeah, absolutely, Man. I so much appreciate the way that
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you lean into our one of our
three core values in never stop learning.
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You just lead the charge there.
Sometimes that can, you know, push
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you to have so many ideas that
we don't have time to implement them.
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But that's why we're talking about how
to deal with that, because a lot
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of founders and CEOS. That is
kind of a common if you're just listening
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to this, quote unquote. I'm
doing air quotes problem, but it is
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a good problem to have. To
very had to have a smart, forward
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thinking, creative founder, you know, like yourself, man, and so
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as part of what attracted me to
the team way, way back. So
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I really appreciate that. Will Link
to all of these resources in the show
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notes. Hopefully you guys find something
valuable there. It's definitely been I can
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feel a difference in how we're progressing
and how we're feeling about you know,
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because there's nothing more demotivating than just
setting goals and then kicking the can down
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the road for so long, because
then you start to feel the weight of
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that fail your quote unquote. I
don't know why I'm doing so many air
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quotes today, but it's just kind
of the way I feel and I think
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with as much as everyone is dealing
with, you might be seeing good and
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bad coming out of all of this
pandemic. You might be seeing more bad
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than good right now. Whatever the
case is, you know, you want
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to set yourself up for success and
not create more things that feel like a
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burden and so hopefully some of the
things that we've been learning and implementing here
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to make goal setting easier and lighter
and a little bit more fun and simple
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for our team or helpful for folks
out there. If you are listening to
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this and you're not yet connected with
James and I on Linkedin, please reach
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00:24:18.059 --> 00:24:22.339
out. We would love to connect
with you. We love chatting with and
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00:24:22.420 --> 00:24:26.250
connecting with listeners of the show.
James Carbury, see are the aary on
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00:24:26.410 --> 00:24:32.009
Linkedin. I'm logging Lyles Lylles,
as high spell my last name. Feel
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00:24:32.049 --> 00:24:34.049
free to reach out to us.
James, thank you so much for another
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00:24:34.089 --> 00:24:37.529
great chat and another great episode to
do together. Man, hope to do
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it a game. Man, I
hate it when podcasts incessantly ask their listeners
356
00:24:45.200 --> 00:24:48.880
for reviews, but I get why
they do it, because reviews are enormously
357
00:24:48.960 --> 00:24:52.359
helpful when you're trying to grow a
podcast audience. So here's what we decided
358
00:24:52.400 --> 00:24:55.150
to do. If you leave a
review for me to be growth in apple
359
00:24:55.230 --> 00:25:00.150
podcasts and email me a screenshot of
the review to James at Sweet Fish Mediacom,
360
00:25:00.470 --> 00:25:03.230
I'll send you assigned copy of my
new book content based networking. How
361
00:25:03.309 --> 00:25:07.460
to instantly connect with anyone you want
to know. We get a review,
362
00:25:07.500 --> 00:25:08.660
you get a free book. We
both win.