The FractionX Podcast
Leadership is Hard. We're here to help.
The FractionX Podcast
Are you running your business or is your business running you?
Most of us don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall the level of our habits.
There's a similar parallel in your business.
You don't rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems. Today Matt and Drew talk about how to return to your why and build your systems to drive results, rather than the results driving you.
All right, matt, so it's still the beginning of the year, right? Oh yeah, yeah, we're getting into February here. What is what has January been like for you? And the reason why I ask you this is because I've seen so many different memes and different people like can we just start the year over in February? Oh yeah, january for so many people is a tough. It's a tough month. Why do you think that is what's your January like? That's a good question.
Speaker 1:I'm curious what yours is too, but for me I feel like the month never got started. So in Nashville, locally, we had a pretty big like weather event eight or nine inches of snow which, in middle Tennessee, like it, shuts the city down. So, for you know, eight days the kids are out of school, which means you're not working the way you want to work, right, and people actually stopped working too.
Speaker 2:It's weird, like everyone just like they don't want to work, they don't want to go in, they don't want to do anything, our city just kind of stops.
Speaker 1:Yeah, on pause completely. And so I was out of town the first week of January traveling for a golf tournament and then, um, you win no Middle of the pack, just like normal, you know. And then you know you get a groove, you get four or five days under your belt and then the snow happens and then, yeah, I just felt like the month never really got started. So, um, yeah, like eating goals and some some health goals, like they're they're going, it just didn't feel like the fresh start that everybody wants.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:So here's what about you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here's my take on it.
Speaker 2:Well, for me personally, very similar to what you just said, but I'm such a, I'm such a hopeful, I'm such a dreamer, I'm such, I love the turn of the year and I've got like, and I'm just thinking about what's to come and really quickly, I realize that the turn of the calendar, the turn of the year, is not the thing that makes a difference in the outcomes that I want to have in my life from my business or you know those other things. So here's my like, you know, unscientific, you know reasoning for January. I think a lot of people start with January thinking it's a new year, it's a new me, I'm going to do things different Plans, goals setting all that kind of stuff. And they realize that there's and I think this is what we're going to talk about a little bit today there's some systems or some behaviors, some values, some different things in their life that hasn't changed Right, and so there's a frustration around why am I not seeing different results? Yeah, and by the time you get to February, you're just so defeated.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, You're like man, I'm right back in the grind, like we're already in the second month of the year and I'm not feeling that much different. No, this is a blanket. It's not for everybody. Like, hopefully some people are still crushing their health goals and different things like that, but chances are, if they are crushing it, it's because they've gone back and they've changed some systematic things about how they show up every day.
Speaker 2:Right, I'd love for you to talk about that a little bit, because one thing I've seen in your leadership let's just be honest here this is a place where you have thrived a lot more than I have when it comes to systems and what I was thinking for our entrepreneurs and our business leaders out there is Does it feel like you're running your business or is your business running you? And for those listening, they know exactly what I'm talking about Like there's times where you feel like, hey, I am proactively growing this business, I'm leading. And then there's times where it's like I just feel like I'm barely in my head above the water, I'm behind on everything. Am I serving my clients? Well, am I? You know, are we doing? Are we doing the right things?
Speaker 2:You know, and that is exhausting when you're in that place, like my business, is running me and there's a shelf life on that you can't do that forever you will burn out that way, and so I love for you to just talk a little bit, because you know not to flatter you, but this is an area where I've seen you do well in. You're good with systems.
Speaker 1:I just showcase it.
Speaker 2:well it doesn't actually happen. Yeah, so, and I've noticed that in your life you're proactive. You're proactive in your personal health, you're proactive in your goal setting and your businesses and your real estate, all the different things you got going. You know you like to be and maybe this is there's a shadow side of being in control, of course, but you like to be in control. So help us. Help us, as business leaders, know where do we start if we feel like our business is running out.
Speaker 1:And, like you said, the beginning of the year is great because people are aspirational. Like man, I'm going to do all these things different this year new year, new me and the unfortunate truth and sometimes truth is just difficult to stomach is that you don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall back to the level of your habits. Right, yeah, and I think the organizational parallel is you don't, you don't rise to the level of the values on the wall, you default to the systems you have in place to manage those behaviors. Okay, and I think that sounds all complicated and complex.
Speaker 1:I think, it's just that writing down goals and ever know, or on a your notes app or whatever it is, it's just different than saying, no, I'm going to create a habit that says, well, my alarm clock goes off, this is the next thing I do, and then this is the next thing I do. You know, this is, this is almost. I hate. This is like terrible. Admitting this, but this is true. The first three weeks of the year I didn't go to the gym. I worked out at the house, and it's not for the reasons that you might think I didn't go, because I knew if I could just wait three weeks, the gym would go back to normal. Yeah, so I'm pretty consistent in there.
Speaker 2:Newbies in there, that's right.
Speaker 1:In your way. Yeah, and you know, at at about six to six thirty, when I get there most mornings, it's the same like 20 people, year round, same 20 people. And then for three weeks at the beginning of the year, it's you can't get on a machine because everything's like busy.
Speaker 1:Every, every weight's taken. It's like, ok, I'm just going to work out of the house for three weeks and then they're all going to fall off and I'll go back and it'll be the same 20 people that are there every single time I was wondering why I didn't see you there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that what it was? That's right, I'm already. I'm already going. I don't know if there anymore.
Speaker 1:And so that's just like. That's such a unfortunate picture of you. Don't rise to the level of your goals, you default to the level of your habits. And listen, I get it, life gets in the way. Yeah, kids, health fine, and everything can mess up those things.
Speaker 1:But I think where I want to encourage leaders you talked about like is your business or you driving your business, or is your business driving you, like who's who's really in the driver's seat, is how do you, how do you manage what you allow, what you normalize in your organization. And what I mean by that is you can say, say, say it's an organization that's like man, I'm really passionate about being on time, like we have meetings on time, meet with clients on time, we start our day on time because that showcases we value other people. And say you know you've got a good employee who shows up late to a meeting and maybe they had a good reason for it Car trouble or something like that, traffic, whatever and you know you allow it to slip once because it's like that's a good person. They don't usually make those types of mistakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then everybody in the room realizes, oh, you know what, no one died because so-and-so was five minutes late. Maybe it's not as much of a value, it doesn't matter as much as we thought it did, right? So what you, you know, you allow once, sometimes shows up again and again and again. And then what you allow becomes normalized in the organization. And if you're not careful in leadership, what becomes normalized in a negative way becomes something that is metastasized and become a cancer in the organization. And so where I've seen this show up is time is a scarce resource, especially as an employee, if you're like okay, I don't, I've got so many things I'm about to do list, I've got to get this done, this done and this done, and I don't have time to do it. So something on your list usually gets the short end of the stick. It doesn't get your full effort, it doesn't get your full attention, and so you, you kind of cheat, like you find a way to like you get it done, but it may not have had the excellence you really wanted.
Speaker 2:I'm sure cut it a little bit. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And then you know, say next month, that same situation pops up and like, well, you know what, last month I was able to shortcut it. What if I just do that again? And don't get me wrong, there could be an upside to short cutting. I'm not saying it's all bad, but what happens is what you allowed once a short cut, you know, for a product or a conversation or a meeting or something like that, becomes something that now is easier to normalize. And then, once you normalize those bad behaviors in the organization, they can become cancerous. Now you're so far away from the values that you started with that it's a problem in the organization. And so I think what's difficult is you have to manage those things as a leader, and it's not just in the organization, it's in you, right, it's in me.
Speaker 1:That's good so it's like where, where have I gotten away from what I said? I wanted to start this business with and for what was important to me when I got going, that I allowed once to slip, then I allowed it twice or three times to slip, and now that's normal to take that shortcut, and now it's a problem.
Speaker 2:Well, and now you're shortcutting everything. Right, and this is you're like. You're preaching directly to me on this.
Speaker 2:This is my Achilles heel is, you know, the shortcuts are great in that you know to get something done quickly. Whatever the problem is if you are only doing shortcuts, that is, that is the roadmap to your business running you. You not running your business Because, you know, in in my business I've got a lot of. There's a lot of like front end relationship stuff, and then there's a lot of back end management stuff. It's really easy for me to slip into.
Speaker 2:Well, let me just handle this real quick and not actually create a system for it, because I'm moving so fast and I got other things going on, but what ends up happening is everything starts stacking up and then you're just like my gosh, I've got so much on my plate and I'm pretty short, kind of everything, as opposed to sitting down creating a system. And if I'm just defending our entrepreneurs out there that are like me, that are like so you know there's people listening that are like man, I'm so future focused, I'm so like you know, and whether that's anxiety or leadership or whatever it is, whatever you want to call it, we're in the future.
Speaker 2:So much it is so difficult for us who are wired this way to slow down long enough to be present so that we can say, hey, what can I do now? That might take extra time. That's going to save me exponentially down the road and it's exactly what you're just talking about. It's going back to the systems. You know the old adage of systems that create behaviors, okay, those behaviors that create outcomes. So it's like, if you have a certain outcome, even if it's not like a physical outcome, but it's like man I'm, I'm carrying a lot of pressure, I'm carrying a lot of stress, I'm carrying a lot of it's exactly what you just said, I think, if you go all the way back to the beginning and this is something I have to do a lot and I'll actually do it today just because I feel a little bit off kilter in my business. So even this conversation is encouraging me to go back to.
Speaker 2:Why did I start my business, Like all the way back to the very beginning, before it ever like? Why did I want to do this? Why did I think this was a good idea. Who was I wanting to serve? And then also like selfishly, what did I want for me and my family when I started this? Like, what was some of our values? Which I think is the next thing your why is going to lead to your values, which is a lot of entrepreneurs start businesses or they're leading in businesses. They want some financial freedom, they want more autonomy. They don't want to work a nine to five, they want to. You know, whatever it might be, they want to have unlimited growth potential. There's just a lot of values. That why, okay, I started this business. Here are the things I value in those values.
Speaker 2:If you create systems around those values, now this is where I dropped the ball, because I love the aspirational. I love. This is what I value. I want more margin, I want more time to, I want to spend time with my kids, I want to be able to pick my kids up from school and go to basketball, Like these are all things that I value.
Speaker 2:But if I don't create systems and even when I say systems, I mean even my process of decision making right, If I'm not aggressive in saying no to things that don't fit in the why in the values, pretty soon I'll find myself not being able to pick my son up from school, or whatever it might be. That's a behavior. I can't do that now because I didn't create a system that attached to my value, that allowed me to have the behavior to get the outcome eventually right. And you can apply that to everything. You apply that to the profit, to revenue. If you go all the way back to the why, that leads the values, it leads to systems, it leads to behaviors that ultimately lead to outcomes. If the business is running you somewhere in that chain, there's a link broken.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you know we're going to keep this a little bit shorter today If you're a business leader who feels like man, my business is running me right now. I'm so far away from why I started this. Yeah, I've allowed so many things that have become normal, that have become cancerous, in my leadership, in my organization. I've got to do something different. Yeah, my, like, I love leadership books. I love to read you know, nonfiction but I'm a nerd too, I'll just admit it. Like I read Lord of the Rings the first book in January, I'm going to start the second one soon.
Speaker 2:And every great movies. You know that they do right, they're faster, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's right. Um, every great narrative has the hero's journey, right, yeah? And so often the culmination of the story is when the hero comes home, and there's a reason that resonates in story after story after story is because there's part of us that has to return home, and I think a business leader who feels like man, my business is running me right now has to go. What's home? How do I get home? And I think a good question is like where was the season of my business or my leadership where I felt like man, I'm thriving right now? What were the inputs? What were you doing personally? Were you reading leadership books? Were you listening to podcasts? Was it the time you spent with your family? Like, what was it about?
Speaker 2:that season? What time are you getting up in the morning? Yeah, all the habits.
Speaker 1:What systems did you have in place that helped that be a thriving season of your business? Yeah, and of course you know things take us off mission, take us off course. But I think a good question to start is like what does it look like to go back? Like what is that season that feels like going home is for me?
Speaker 2:I love that and I think what you're saying, you're permissioning us so a lot of times, at least for me, when I hear go back, that feels like I'm losing ground, and I think there is a way, a really smart way, to go back to discover the foundational elements that you had when you started your business or your company or got into the profession. Even if you're not an entrepreneur, you're not leading your business, but you got into your field for a certain reason. I think it's really healthy to pause and to go back and to explore those things so that you can kind of audit and rebuild. But, matt, thanks, this is honestly. This episode was for me today. This is good, this is good. So I'm like I'm taking notes and I need to apply this directly to my business and I know a lot of a lot of people out there will too. So thanks, man, you got it.