The Hidden Trap of Time Debt—And How to Break Free

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Are you stuck in the endless cycle of busyness? In this episode, we tackle a problem every business owner faces. Time Debt. My guest, Eric Beck shares powerful strategies to reclaim your time. Focus on what truly matters and break free from the stress of constant overwhelm. Discover how to align your actions with your vision and build systems that not only work for you, but give you back your freedom. If you're ready to escape the time trap, this episode is for you. It's fantastic having you on the show. I know that some of our guests wait a bit of time because we do book guests out quite early. So it's great to have you. Thanks for coming on board. Looking forward to unpacking this topic around time debt. But before we do, mate, how about you take just a few minutes to share a bit of your background, what you've been up to, and what's brought you to where you are today, buddy. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah, man. So I'll just start with probably a really personal note. You know, we all get dealt a hand of cards one way or another. Life gives us a hand of cards to play. And one of the characteristics of the hand that I got dealt is that my father actually passed away. He was killed in a fire when my mom was pregnant with me. So I started life off in a fairly chaotic environment. You know, he was a firefighter, he took a buddy shift. This was back in the 70s, so I'm dating myself and you know, it didn't, it didn't work out for him and three other guys. And when you look at things like that, you kind of start off with this sense of that's a mountain you got to climb. And just to be honest and transparent with everyone, I really used that for quite a while as an excuse. You know, poor old me, you know, I always need someone's help. I. I can't do something on my own, I don't have a dad, all that kind of stuff. And, and the reality is, is that somewhere in my late teens, that play just didn't work anymore. And I really kind of got to my first major crisis in terms of who am I and who am I going to be and what is this going to be about? And I really kind of struggle with that. I was in music at the time. I wound up touring for a while and played in some great places here in the States, The Lincoln center in New York City, the Hollywood Bowl, a bunch of know big venues like that. And I found it really about age 22 or so, I kind of climbed to the top of that ladder. And in the field that, that I was in as a trumpet player and again, kind of hit that crisis moment of like, well, that's kind of great, but what are you really here to do? What are you on the planet to do? And as I went through kind of a dark night of the soul, you know, feeling really alone, feeling kind of confused, what came to me was I really love the circumstances that you can create for people to really achieve. And I had done that in music, I had a few years later done that in the martial arts and studied karate, became a tournament fighter and eventually a nationally ranked coach and a referee. And I was in the US army here. So as I looked at all of those circumstances, it was like, these are training machines that take you from not much skill through a high pressure skill acquisition, know, sort of journey. And I looked at that and I thought, that's it's all the same thing. It, it's different modalities, but it's really the same thing. The last area I got into then was teaching, which was again, a humiliating time for me because I had always thought, arrogantly, I'll confess, those who can't do, teach. And I had such a terrible attitude about that. I'm like, that's the last thing I want to do. I was in London at the time and someone asked me to teach about something and I thought, well, okay, I guess I'll do this. Don't tell anyone. I did. And the funniest thing, man, I loved it. I lit up like a Christmas tree. It was like, I'm finally home. And it was, it was humble pie. But at the same time it was like, okay, I guess I needed to go through this journey to get to this point. I wound up, I'll skip a big portion of the story, but wound up in California with two little kids and a wife at home and trying to make ends meet. And you really can't do that as a teacher here in the States. It's not a great pay situation. So I opened up the newspaper back in the 90s and I found this company called Emif. And they wanted to hire someone to help them with their business curriculum. And I didn't know anything about business, but I knew a lot about curriculum and curriculum design. And so I applied and got the job. And within a short amount of time, I became their director of training for all of their business coaches. And I got so excited about teaching business owners who said, look, I've got a dream, I've got something in my heart. I had an entrepreneurial seizure and Michael Gerber, who founded the company, wrote a book called the Emif, which he would tell you was a total flop. And then somebody at one of the major publishers here in the States, HarperCollins, found out about this book and they did a rewrite and it was called the E. Myth Revisited. And I think still today it is in the top three entrepreneur books on Amazon.com I knew none of that. I didn't. I'd never heard of it, you know, but when I got into it, I thought, wow, these people are having that entrepreneurial seizure and saying, you know what? I think I could do this on my own. I think I could start my own business. And they go out and do that, and they leave one job and they get 12 jobs, and that one job is 40 hours a week. And those 12 jobs are 24, seven. And they're buried and they're overwhelmed, but they still have that spark. They still have that fire. Usually within a year or so, it is gone and they're buried by their business and in what we call time debt. And so as I was trying to help these folks not just learn, but create a different system, a different way of working, part of what I started to see was no one has time to even learn the new way because they're so buried in what they're doing. And so the very first thing that we have to accomplish is getting them incrementally out of time debt so they can work on the business instead of just working in the business. And that was 24 years ago. We've had about a thousand businesses come through our doors in that time. And of course, the team has grown and, you know, there's been a lot of development and learning, but really it still is back, back to the basics, which is that entrepreneurial hope of doing something better, even an entrepreneurial, you know, hope, someone who is inside a business, but they want to innovate, they want to grow things. We got to master this time thing because if that single item doesn't get fixed, it doesn't really matter what you know, because it'll never get implemented. So that's the not so short version. [00:06:47] Speaker A: Well, mate, it's quite a. It's quite a story. And there's. There's so much there to unpack. And I think. I'm afraid that if I tried to unpack it all, we'd leave no time for our main topic. But I get that given that, that story about your father and, you know, it sounds like, like all of us can be. But you had some challenges there. A Bit of an upstart, but, you know, a young upstart. It's quite a journey, isn't going from this sort of young upstart teenager to all of these things you mentioned and. And what you've achieved. Like, what. What was that? I've got to ask, like, what was that pivotal moment? Tell us a bit more about that moment because that's. Yeah. That set you on the. On the fire. Fire journey, isn't it? [00:07:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it did. Well, so it would. I'm thinking that the year would have been 1994 as the year I think it was. And we had just performed at the Lincoln center the guy who is guest conducting. And this will be for the music geeks out there. You can go down this list. He kissed his cufflinks before we went out on stage. And his name is Asia Way. He was the conductor emeritus of the Minneapolis Symphony at the time, and he was guest conducting us. And I could go on about what an incredible human he was. We had two hours of music that we had memorized for the show. He came in that week, really a couple of days before the performance and rehearsed with us once, and he had his big thick binder of music that he was working through with us. And he came back the next day with no music stand. And he said in his accent, you memorize. I memorize. Now, he memorized in a night what we had been working on for 10 months. That's the caliber of person we're talking about. Right. So he goes out on the stage, kisses his cufflinks, we do the show again, dating myself. Madonna was in attendance. The tennis star Martina Navratilova was at that show. You know, those sorts of. So we're just so nervous and petrified. But it went great. And we went up to him afterwards, and I said to him, I said, excuse me, sir, but I saw you do something and I just have to ask you, why did you kiss your cufflinks? And he said, well, they were given to me by my mentor, Leonard Bernstein. And again, for the music geeks, probably the most preeminent American composer in the 1900s, West Side Story would be one everyone knows. But he said, but they were given to Leonard Bernstein by Arturo Toscanini, who was the famous Italian conductor of the NBC Radio Orchestra back in the 20s and 30s, you know, considered to be one of the greatest conductors to ever stand in front of orchestra, but they were given to him by Leopold Stokowski. Now, probably nobody knows who that is, but if, you know, Bugs Bunny, not the recent Bugs Bunny, but the Warner Brothers Bugs bunny from the 70s and 80s. There is an episode where he is a conductor and he's making this tenor sing longer and longer and longer while the Hollywood bowl crumbles around him. If you go on YouTube and you find that episode when he's walking up to the podium, everyone is whispering, leopold, Leopold, Leopold. That's the Leopold Stokowski. So this guy is in that lineage. And then here I am being conducted and taught by him. When the show was over and all this settled down, I remember walking out onto the street in New York City there and, and actually feeling so let down and what a terrible feeling to have. Like, are you kidding? This is the best of the best, the pinnacle. What is going on? And it was that moment where I was like, if I'm in this situation and something's not right, you know, again, no thing you could point to but that feeling on the inside and it was, Eric, this is not about you becoming a performer. This is about you helping other people perform. That's why you're on the planet. And so luckily I was able to get to a very high level of performance early to find out that's not it. That's not where I'm supposed to go. And while it was a crisis, and I'll admit I probably was legit depressed, you know, for nine months or so, as I worked my way out of it, it became right. It's not about you. It's about finding the circumstances in which you can help people achieve. Which eventually led to my work today, which is helping business owners. [00:11:12] Speaker A: In the hybrid working world. I've seen too many business owners and their businesses suffer because of poor performing employees leading to below average results. If you want to improve your employees performance to deliver consistent results for your business, you have to master one on one meetings. The doors to our master one on one meetings training program are opening soon. I'll teach you how to improve employee performance and deliver consistent results using one on one meetings. To be one of the first people notified when the doors open, go to leader by design. Don't wait. Sign up now. Does founders fire name have some linkage to your father and the firefighting? [00:11:58] Speaker B: That's a great question. It probably does. Subconsciously. I have his fire helmet in my office that was recovered from that night. And I think at a deep level there's something about fire for all of us that is so primal and so important. Obviously it, it provides life and safety and you know, even though wildfires and you know, fires that are out of Control, obviously, like with my dad, cost people their lives. I do feel like there's something about us returning to our roots and, and the symbology of the fire inside of us, the spark inside of us that is about believing. A term I use quite a bit is wage slavery. I do think the modern economy is not designed for us to flourish. It's not designed for us to really reach our creative maximum. It is designed for us to get in debt and stay in debt and to be in this system of a debt driven, consumption oriented economy that while it has tons of upsides and if you compare it to other times in history, it would be no comparison. This is the greatest thing ever. But while it might be great compared to what we did, I don't think it's great compared to what we can do. And so for me it is about how can we match this idea of being in an economy where we need to trade goods and services for money, we need to make a profit, but that profit has got to be more than just dollars in the bank account. It's got to be feeding that fire inside of me. And so, yeah, it's definitely a connection there in terms of what it is to be human, what it is to really be on mission and not just kind of stuck in the cubicle, so to speak. So, and I certainly look at my dad, I'm 25 years older than he was when he died, you know, and you just, you just look at that and you go, okay, wow, he never made it. I'm 53, he never made it to his 50s, he barely got into his 30s. And so I look at that and I go, but something made him run into a burning building. And, and I feel like that operationalizing that kind of a virtue or that kind of courage isn't bravado, it's knowing in that moment I have to do this, this is what I got to do. And that's what I feel like is really so important. [00:14:19] Speaker A: Yeah, he must have been some man made. It's the ultimate leadership, isn't it? Putting others before self. So the other thing that I guess strikes me is that, and again, you know, I'd read quite a bit about some of these achievements you'd sort of put down. And what is it? If music was sort of that starting point, let's say, like, what is it about music that helped you through these things? You know, that the martial arts and the armed forces and then the business and you know, it's fair to say you're a fairly high achiever. Music must have been some part in that? [00:14:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think so. I think because music has so much heart, you know, I again, I went through a journey with music itself. You know, at first I remember thinking, this is the most exciting, the coolest thing. Whether it was Van Halen or it was Miles Davis or it was, you know, the whole gamut. I loved pretty much every kind of music because there was something just so compelling about it. You know, it communicates passion, it communicates a story, it communicates emotion. And I think that for me, the reason why music was so important is because. And I use this example of my clients. If you play the song Happy birthday Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you if you play all the right notes or if you sing, which I didn't do very well, but if you sing all the right notes, but you sing them in the wrong order, it's not the same song. In the martial arts, if you block too soon, you get hit. If you block too late, you get hit. In the military, in business, I see that, that idea of sequence and the idea of timing being so important. And so to me, it was my template for learning. You know, I've heard there was a guy named David Epstein who wrote, I think he wrote a book called the Sports Gene. I think I'm pretty sure that's accurate. But I found out about him in a documentary and I think it's called Pursuit of Excellence or Pursuit of Greatness. And in that he is quoted about this idea of rage to mastery. And he was like, people who really achieve in their life at some point early on get this all consuming desire to master one thing. And it doesn't matter if they stay with it, but they need to do that in one area. And for me, for whatever reason, it was music. And I just wanted. I remember being maybe 12 or 13 and hearing a famous trumpet player, Dizzy Gillespie, play this particular jazz song called A Night in Tunisia. And it's very difficult. It's very high, the notes, the register is very high. It's very aggressive. And I remember thinking, if I could ever learn to do that, like, that would just like, that's impossible. It's like watching Michael Jordan dunk the basketball or some sports person do something awesome. And so for whatever reason, it took hold. And from age 13, when I started playing trumpet, up till about age 25 when I got out of the professional world, it was exactly that, like rage to mastery. And I feel like having pushed into that, it set me up for getting my black belt and karate or being an infantry air assault or being in business or some of these other areas where it's like, I had a sense of what it takes to get to not being a master. That's not the right way to say it, but a degree of mastery, you know, not perfection, but. But I've really honed my craft, and even with my kids, that's what I've told them. I said, look, it doesn't really matter where you start, but wherever you do start, you need to get your black belt. And if you get your black belt in that, you can go to the other areas. But if you get halfway in this thing and you get a green belt and you go to that thing and get a green belt and you go to that thing, you're going to wake up and be 40 or 45 years old and have the crisis. Then don't do the midlife crisis. Do the early crisis. You know, choose your hard choose, choose it now. Get there. Even if it's something that's not the thing. And I feel like when you do that, it sets people up for success. So for me, it was just that first launching pad and it captured my heart. And I just got so lucky to have some of those instructors like Asia Way and other folks that kind of helped me get to that really high level so I could discover it wasn't for me, but the process I could take with me into the other areas and eventually land at home for this season of life. [00:18:48] Speaker A: Great mentors. But also, you've had that. That fire in your belly to reach a level of mastery, haven't you? So, yeah, I guess that discipline, that structure. I love what you're saying and the insight around that and how that applies really, really well in business. Now, really important question. Do you play Nirvana on the trumpet? [00:19:07] Speaker B: I can, if. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. [00:19:11] Speaker A: You can play bloody anything on the trumpet, can't you? [00:19:13] Speaker B: Pretty much. I mean, from Star wars to, you know, some pop song to whatever. Of course, at the holidays here, they're all like, throwing the holiday tunes, and I'm like, look, I'll do Frank Sinatra's version. Snow is snowing, you know, wind is blowing. You know, I tend to want to head towards the jazz side of world, but, yeah, pretty much anything. [00:19:31] Speaker A: And I. [00:19:31] Speaker B: And I love all of it. Like I said, I don't think there's bad music. You know, there may be things people don't like or whatever, and that's understandable from style, but I feel like if someone has put their heart into something, you can hear it in there, even if it doesn't make you tap your foot or you don't love it. So, yeah, yeah. [00:19:49] Speaker A: Music definitely has that thing about it, doesn't it? If you're, you know, is there anybody that doesn't like music? Like, there's always just. It gets you in some shape or form. [00:19:57] Speaker B: That's a great question. I've had people say that they're terrible at music and that they couldn't carry a tune in a bucket or they can't sing. But I always want to push back on that. And I want to say, let me ask you this. If I called you on the phone and tried to imitate your dad or your. Some person, you know, that's a man maybe my age, let's say, is there any chance that you would think I was him? And they're like, no, no, no. I know my dad's voice and I would know it's not you. And I'm like, then you can sing because you're recognizing the tone and the pitch of that person's voice and their cadence. That is music. You just don't think of it as music. But your ears work fine. So if you. If you wanted to, we could definitely get you from point A to point B. And again, you know, some people are like, hey, it's just not my thing. But, you know, like you said, I do think most people at some level love the rhythm or they love the melody. And even if it's just a memory, just remembering that song from, you know, when you were 10 years old or there's a memory associated. It's an important part of culture. [00:20:57] Speaker A: You've definitely just raised my belief in myself around music because I'm often telling my family, it's not that I can't sing, I just haven't found the right song for my voice. [00:21:08] Speaker B: You get there, you'll get there, you'll get there. [00:21:12] Speaker A: Believe me. Your level of mastery, I'll need that, plus a lot more, I reckon. Anyway, anyway, it is. I did play the guitar for seven years as a younger fellow and really enjoyed and stuff, but then sort of other sports took over and those sorts of things. So you can only do so much, can't you? [00:21:29] Speaker B: That's right. That's right. [00:21:31] Speaker A: Timed it. Let's go into this, into this topic. Really important topic for all of us, particularly as business owners. But you mentioned entrepreneurs earlier. We can all get stuck in this. So tell us a bit about time. Different and if at all, how is it different to just being busy? [00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. So the way that I define time debt is Actually what I would call a limiting belief or in some way like a worldview problem. And it would go like this. I have more to do than time to do it. I think everyone on the planet has said that. Everybody thinks that I have said that for sure, but actually that's not true because I only ever have now and I only ever have as many breaths as I'm going to take until I fall over dead. So it can't be possible that there's more to do than time to do it. There's only time to do whatever I can do, you know, at this particular moment. And so for me, when I look at that, I say to someone now, you say that you're behind. You say you have so much to do and you're overwhelmed, you're in time debt, like financial debt, you know, been charging it on the credit card. Let's think about that for a second. How many of those things on your list have been on your list, let's say for a month? And people will say, well, probably like, you know, quite a few. And I would say to them, hey, if you go look at that list today, is it possible that some of those things no longer need to be done? And I think that's when people go, oh, that's true. I had my list of a hundred things and really now three months later, 20 of them I never got to. And it's actually okay, so part of it is that we're self assigning things beyond what actually needs to be done because we're thinking it would be nice if it were done. And the problem of course then is a decision problem. Okay, so time debt then its most basic definition is thinking that you have more to do than time to do it. And that's generally because I'm trying to accomplish more things that appeal to or appeal to. Right. Where would be attract or connect to different visions. For example, I want to launch my business, but I also don't want to work more than five hours a day. Those are two different visions. Now when those visions collide, I will start assigning myself things. And again, it's not conscious, but in the habit of how I'm thinking, I will start assigning myself things. Not understanding that these two views, these two visions really are in conflict. So the first thing we have to do is to get to one vision. And so if it's in the context of a business, the way that we teach this is to say, I want you to tell me about your perfect customer experience story from the time they would hear about you, your business, your service, your product through to happy customer. We call it kind of going from prospect to purchaser to promoter. You know, tell me that journey and let's just talk about it. Like we're having a cup of coffee and let's just talk about it. And they just light up and they tell you this awesome story. And then I say, okay, in terms of the time you spend on your business, if anything you're choosing to do doesn't make part of that story come true, you can no longer choose to do it. And it's like, oh, see, I thought I needed to be effective or efficient or it's a good idea or maybe. And all those maybes add up to time depth, right? It's a lack of focus on what I'm really here to do. So when I have that story, I have my map and I can always do the map check. And the first question is, hey, here's this new thing, I don't know, click funnels or this thing or that thing or some whatever, right? Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. Well, wait a minute, wait a minute. Where in your story does this make that perfect moment come true for your customer? And if it's like, well, I don't really know, but it could, then it's a no. Then it's a no. Now, I use the example of the lottery. I'm not sure what the equivalent would be where you guys are, but I'm assuming there's some something that's similar in the states. Of course, we look at the math, the math of that, right? And it's like you're more likely to get struck by lightning three times on the same day than you are to actually win the lottery. So we call it over here, it's a tax for people who are bad at math. Okay. Now what happens when people do win the lottery? Typically they get divorced at a huge increased rate. They commit suicide at a huge increased rate. They don't have any of the money in five years. It basically just destroys their life. And the reason is because they have not pre spent the money. And if you go back to this regular person, let's just say that they're making three or four thousand dollars a month. That's their income. Okay? Okay. They're used to that. And they know what their rent is and they know what their food is, and they kind of have a budget, even if it's not written down. So they're used to this money comes in, this money goes out when you give them 100 or 1,000 or 10,000 times that much money, they don't have it pre spent and therefore it destroys them. The same is true with time. If we don't pre spend time, we will get into time debt. What does that look like running off of a calendar all the time? Kind of. Actually it kind of does. And the way to think about it is this. If I say in a given five days, this is what I'm going to do in some big blocks, I am likely then to spend that time in that direction. It might not be perfect, but if I say, look, every morning at 7, I'm going to run for a half an hour and then I'm going to get cleaned up. So by 8 o'clock I'm at work. And you lay out a general plan that ties back to your vision, right, Your vision for that, for your company. Now I've got the vision connected to action. And so now I don't kind of have a choice at 7:00 I'm just following orders. It's like, well, at 7:00 my planner says go for a 30 minute run. Yeah, what kind of run? Do I need to break any records or. No, you literally put on your tennis shoes and start moving. It doesn't matter if it's great or if it's terrible, just do it. And when it's 30 minutes and it's ding, the timer goes off, you're done. And what we teach people is to start actually living in these blocks of time. And then I don't have any time debt. And of course people say, well now wait a minute, you're talking about scheduling your whole life. And I'm saying in a block sort of way, kind of. Yeah, like, well, but wait a minute, I want free time. I want to be able to do whatever I want to do. And again, I'm going to push back on that. I'm going to say that's not true. If you really look at it, what you want is a high quality experience. You don't want infinite choice. We all know about decision fatigue and this is why when we first started doing this with our clients back in the early 2000s, it changed their life. Their work days got so efficient. It was so helpful. And we can talk about some of the intricacies of that. But the funny thing is that they said their weekends were a disaster. Like what happens on Saturday? Well, you know, I've just got like the whole day, you know, and I might mow the yard or I might do this errand or I might Watch ball game or I might do this. And I'm like, what's the experience like? It's like chaos. Me and my wife were fighting. The kids are upset. Just. And I'm like, why? It's because you haven't made the choices, and now you're making the choice in the moment. And that sets you up for so much controversy. It's so much easier for, you know, if you're navigating for your car to say, at this intersection, turn right. Instead of like, we could turn right. I mean, maybe you'll turn right. You could go a couple more streets. That decision fatigue is legit, especially in our day and age with so many choices. And so what we found is that by limiting those choices or pre deciding, we take away so much stress. And that is how you eliminate time debt. So the actual technique, I'm going to give it to everybody right now. The actual technique is this. Get out your to do list, like and find it wherever it is and add everything you can think to it. So anything that's in your head, get it on paper. That is the first step. And it might, I think the biggest one I've seen had 80, 80 items of active things I need to do. Okay, second step, just estimate how much time it would take to do any of those things. Just one hour, two hours, don't know, four hours, three days. Go through and estimate clock time and calendar time for each thing. This will take an hour. It's hard to do and it's emotional. You look at that list, you feel the time debt. Okay? The last and final step is take your list, get your calendar, start making appointments. This might stretch out a month or two, but at that very moment, when that last thing is crossed off and it's five weeks from now, Thursday at 2pm for an hour to get your dentist appointment, you're now at that very moment free again, like you were when you were a kid. You're out of time debt. That's why summer lasted so long, right? That's why those moments as kids were bliss. Because I only had right now. I had no worry about the future. So it's not about responsibility. What it is about being in time debt. And when I have pre spent the time, I'm free now, of course the question is, how do I stay free? And we could talk about if you want to, but that's the basics of time debt. [00:30:57] Speaker A: In all of that said, and we certainly will get into how do we stay there. But because there must be quite a bit of mindset work I'm assuming that you have to do because again, what I'm hearing and have you ever heard of a tool called the Harada method? [00:31:17] Speaker B: No, no, no, not that I know of. [00:31:19] Speaker A: Came out of Japan and a guy coached me on it many, many years ago and I use it on and off and I use bits and pieces of it today. But it's literally, in my view it was very complex. But back down to connecting exactly what you're saying, connect things that you need to do with sort of vision or whether it's customer journey or whatever you're trying to not just picking up things randomly, but the mindset shift needed for that. So I guess the question for you is what sort of mindset shift do you need to encourage and work with business owners? Because some of the stuff is it's simple to do, but it's hard to do. Right. I think is the point. Tell us a bit about that mindset side of what's needed to break this barrier and be able to do this successfully. [00:32:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's going to be pretty simple, which is to chase two rabbits is to catch none. It really is aim small, miss small, micro goals. You know, just try to focus on that smallest next step instead of the maybe it kind of always in, maybe this, maybe that. You know, I don't want to say no to anything. And then you're never really saying yes to anything. So some of it is unlearning what our technology has taught us because we have access to thousands of choices of everything all the time. I mean, again, I'll go back to my day and age in the 1980s. I had to mow yards for three months and save up money to buy a $9 album. And I got 10 songs right now. Today, for $9 a month, I can have a billion songs. We just don't, I think, fully appreciate what that's done to our decision making and what's done to our mental health in a way. So I think that focus muscle is weak and we've got to strengthen it. And it comes back to that. Look, if I'm going to go for two things at the same time, I'm going to get neither of them. [00:33:13] Speaker A: I hear you. And again, it makes a lot of sense. I guess I'm just hearing business owners in my ear and maybe it's me not being able to convince them well enough. And I do a lot of strategy days with business owners and their teams and always talking about, you know, it's not what we say yes to, it's actually what we Say no to what we leave on the carpet and where we need to focus on. And sometimes we do customer journeys depending on what we're, what we're looking at. But there's, there's always that. I feel like I'm a broken record in that you've got to keep reminding people, like, you know, why are we taking on too much? Even week to week, what are we going to achieve in this next seven days? Oh, I'm going to achieve. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Do you think you're biting off a bit too much? Like, how is that linking to the strategy and where we're going? Like, it just seems to be an evolving cycle. [00:33:57] Speaker B: It is, it is. So what I say is that you want to take one extra step there when they say these are my outcomes or my deliverables this week, that it has to get put in time. So let's say by the end of the week, we want a new customer survey. Awesome. But if we didn't spend the time, we're in time to it right away. So how much time do we think it will take to build a new customer survey? Mm, let's say three hours. Great. We need to put that in the calendar tomorrow for an hour, the next day for two hours. And now we can get to the end of that week and see not did we get the outcome, but how far off were we on estimating the time? Because that's now we did a workout. Like I talk about this all the time. We want to train, not try. Right. So if I don't have a measurable, I'm not really training. I'm not lifting the weights, I'm not doing the push ups. Right. I'm not actually doing the work yet. So I'm going to estimate the three hours and guess what? We got it done in an hour half. Awesome. That's great. Sometimes it might be like, wow, we're at three hours and I'm not even a quarter of the way through. The more we repeat that exercise, the more accurate we'll get at estimating time for things. And again, some things will recognize I'm just not the guy to do that. It takes me three hours to do what it takes somebody else 20 minutes to do. So I'm going to outsource that or automate that in some way. And again, for the entrepreneur, we start saying no more, even to the category that doesn't fit my skill set. So if I go dive into it, it's going to be wildly inefficient. But it starts with here's my goals. I'm going to put the work that gets those goals into time, and then I'm going to follow that plan. A question that I get all the time, though, and you may be thinking, this one is, well, okay, in the middle of my plan, you're like, eric, what world are you living in? I'm going to get interrupted. I'm going to get asked to do something else by a customer or a colleague or someone. And here is where it really comes down to this word decide. The root of the word decide side is in homicide, suicide, pesticide, Something is dying. Something has got to to die. Decide means the alternatives have to be eliminated. And we are very shaky on that in this modern age because we're always maybe, yeah, I don't want to say no to anything, but if I don't say no to this so I can give a full yes, then my vision is at risk. And that's where I would come back to the entrepreneur and say, how committed are you to that vision? Because you're gonna have to make sacrifices. You can't just keep doing it the old way. One of my favorite phrases is if what you were doing was gonna work, it already would have. So you're gonna have to change. And my recommendation is that any goal you have has to go into, literally into. Don't just put it into a project management tool. It has to go in your calendar. So you pre spent the time. And as you do that, you will dig your way out of time debt, I promise, and you will start achieving at a level that's just not just as efficient, but it feels great. Like the emotion of it is like, this is awesome. And we can get back to a little bit more of how I think we're kind of designed to do things. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Just if you're again, a business owner listener. Because it certainly resonate that in my own sort of journey as well. But how do you. How do you encourage people to take those first steps and to I guess, build that muscle to decide. [00:37:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I don't want to do an ad for founders fire. But one of the things that we start off by doing is an assessment of their leadership skills, and that is understanding those 12 areas of business. Navigation, you know, sales, marketing, finance, leadership, all that. And we want to understand what do you know about this area then secondly, do you have systems that support you? And that's not necessarily software that can just be workflow. And then finally, are those scalable? Because that now is going to create a roadmap for business Development. So we know in this month working on your business, these are the six or seven outcomes we're committing to grow because we want to work on the business, but we have to work in the business. I heard this funny joke. It was a heart surgeon, I think, that drove his fancy high end Porsche into the mechanic and said, hey, I need you to help me. Something's going wrong with the engine. And as the mechanic is working on it, he says, you know, you and me, we really do the same thing. We just work on engines. You know, I don't get though why you get paid so much more than I do. And the heart surgeon says, well, I have to work on the engine while it's running. That's the entrepreneur too. We have to work on the business while it's running. And that's so hard. So the first step is just to say, look, a half an hour, maybe an hour once a week is time to come up out of the weeds and work on your machine. And then you're going to dive right back into craziness. And next week we'll do another hour. In a month or so it might be a half an hour a day is on the business, and in a year it might be half your week is working on the business. We use the analogy of the captain and the ship. You're now in the captain's chair most of your time. When we start off with people, they're never in the captain's chair. You know, they're down in the galley pulling the oars and swabbing the deck. And you know, in all the details and the thing that's missing is that the captain is not in the captain's chair. There's no one leading, there's just everyone doing. And we're all kind of in a three ring circus, you know, with our hair on fire. And so ultimately it's about setting aside that time to be strategic and it's incremental. Just like any skill acquisition, you're not going to play the high C on your trumpet the first time. You're going to sound terrible, like an elephant. Great, let's sound like an elephant for a little while. Then we'll start to get a little bit ahead and a little bit ahead until we get there. So again, it's not about knowledge acquisition, it's about skill acquisition. And that's a different way of thinking because we've been sold for the last 30 years or so. Knowledge is power. That's kind of true. The real truth to me is that leverage is what I need, I don't just need bigger muscles because if my elbow is dislocated, I don't have a loss of strength. I have a loss of leverage. The lever is broken. And that's what I think is troubling so many of us today is we don't have the leverage to implement what we know. And that comes back to how we're using our time and a very simple, like you said, but not easy decision making process. Ultimately though, they have to want the change. That's right. Yeah. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's not just. Yeah, Eric, sounds good. Yeah, let's do it. Like you've got to. What, what sort of. Because what, what do you see in your line of work with the, the levels of commitment? You know, how do you sniff out the. Those that are really committed and those that are just. Okay, they're. They're dipping the toe in the water, let's say, and that's about it. [00:41:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, we've tried a lot of ways and failed. So I'll just put that up front. You know, this is hard and figuring out how to do this is not an easy thing. What we've settled on though is small group. That's the real key. We do seven entrepreneurs with two or three coaches at the same time in the same meeting. And there's something very powerful about the group dynamic of. I know I'm going to get on that call this week and my six other peers, we all worked on our pricing strategy and we're all going to show it this week. There's something about the group dynamic that's helpful. There's also something about the idea that we don't want to spend a lot of time talking about pushups. We want to do pushups. So what we found is our coaching session can't be teaching. It needs to be a little bit of teaching, but mostly practicing. So we do 10 or 15 minutes of the core system. We're going to work on the core idea, but then we spend an hour in one on one breakouts actually building your pricing strategy or actually working on your hiring process. Like we're not talking about it. You're building yours or you're refining yours right there on the call. And then finally that last part is going to be show and tell, you know. So Brandon, let's see yours. Eric, let's see yours. Let's go around the room. And that learning is so powerful. Once the momentum is there, it's way easier to keep the momentum, you know, just like getting a rocket off the Pad. But you're right. In that first month, it's tough. And I think without a team, without a group, it's maybe a little bit tough to get going, but it's hard no matter what. But again, the things we really value, they are kind of hard, but they're worth it. [00:43:18] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. There is something about. There's something about group accountability, but I think there's another level of group accountability with people that are not in the same team. Like, you really don't want to be that person that's not done their homework, do you? [00:43:33] Speaker B: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. [00:43:37] Speaker A: Now, again, at risk of sort of going into the shiny and stuff like that, and I don't mean this question from that aspect, because we talked about taking things and deciding, but what are some strategies or some tools that you've seen work for business owners and helping them make this decision easier and to get this structure and these systems in place easier? [00:44:00] Speaker B: Yeah. Usually most folks know they're not at potential, so they already have some frustration. You know, this business is great, but it's really weighing on me. And so we'll ask a question to highlight that if you didn't communicate with anyone in your business for 24 hours, like, at all, what would happen? And then let's go to two days, let's go to one week, let's go to one month. And we actually make them write this out and kind of putting them in touch with how that feels and saying, would you like that to be different? Helps them again, kind of get the belief that it can be different. And, you know, I had a client a few years ago say, hey, we were gone to Paris for an entire month in the middle of our busy season, and our small business ran better than it ever did. And I'm not talking about a huge company that had like 15 employees, you know, and they actually had said while we were in Paris, would you call the office and check in with our team? A couple of times. And what I did, they were like, we like it when they're gone. It's easier when they're not here, you know, because the whole goal is to empower the team without just giving them chaos. So again, part of it is, let's go back to the outcome. What would it feel like to not have to be in touch with the business, you know, 24 7? Because I feel like if you can connect with people on the feeling level, the behavior will follow. If you say you got to do push ups, yeah, that's just like, yeah, I know I should. It's like, you got to quit smoking or don't drink so much or whatever the thing is. Right? Yeah, I know. But if you say, what would it feel like to be able to pick up your 10 year old and run across the yard with them and not feel like you're going to have a heart attack, like, how fun would that be? Or fill in the blank. But it's got to be something about what would it feel like to do this thing, to have this situation be true? And as you really help them feel it, like legit feel starts to change the behavior in a way that seems a little spooky, to be honest with you, because if you just try to logic them into it and reason them into it, they'll agree with you and they know you're right, but it won't change the behavior. So I feel like we got to go through the heart first. I love this phrase, the mind justifies what the heart has chosen. And if we can get the heart choice to be made, will it fix everything like a silver bullet? No, but it's way easier. And again, we don't have to get to perfect, we just have to get to progress where we're getting some momentum and then we can build on the momentum. Just like the bicycle, you know, if that thing's rolling, keeping it rolling is way easier. So that's why I tell everybody in that first month, you're going to hate us, you're going to hate founders fire, you're going to hate this process. But just hang tight because once you feel that momentum, it's just like with a diet, you know, nothing changed on day one. It was just miserable. I hate my life. And it's like, I realize that, but if you just take this short little window and you look at some micro goals that are too small to fail, I promise you, you'll see the momentum and you'll start to see the change. And does everybody do that? No, they don't. And that's okay. That's got to be okay. You know, other people have other priorities or other things that are going on in our life that are not going to allow this to be a big victory right now. And that's a good time to hit pause, take care of those other things, come back to it. But for most folks, they're ready and they're ready for a change and they're willing to dive in there. And then we think with the structure and the team and the systems that we have, we're giving them a good Shot of seeing those results. [00:47:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear you mate. I do say to a lot of people and jokingly, but I've never had a client come to me for help or support because their business is running famously. That would be fantastic, wouldn't it? You can sort of just move from there, but there's always some shit happening, you know, something's broken. Some people issue related, there's, there's always problems that you, they need you to bring in your silver bullet and just solve everything. [00:48:12] Speaker B: Yeah, here's a mentality fix I'll just mention because the way you said that reminded me we will say this. There are no problems in business. There are only broken or missing systems. That's a good worldview change because then I see every problem as oh, there's just no system over there or no. Or there is one, but it's broken. If I start building systems pretty soon the problems get very, very small and very infrequent. They don't go to zero, but they get pretty darn small. [00:48:46] Speaker A: You're speaking my language. I've got a background in sort of business improvement and some of the lean Six Sigma stuff. So data driven problem solving and systems and structure, I love that. Now I've worked hard and this is my focus at the moment. I ran a founding members program just late last year and I've got another launch happening soon but trying to systemize my whole one on one meetings process where there's weekly performance, monthly development and quarterly strategic growth type stuff. But again it's the discipline and the simplicity around that that I think people find like as leaders, as business owners then I don't know if they're sort of always looking for that next bigger thing or it's got to be harder than that because that's what you hear. Things are so hard and it should be harder or is it just they want it to be harder because they feel like if they can over do that they're sort of feeling greater and more satisfied and stuff again. Can you speak to that? It's almost like society says leadership and running a business is hard. So things shouldn't be simple. And you know, the simple things don't work. [00:49:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true. I think there's an attraction towards overcomplication and over effort. You know there's that phrase anything worth doing is worth overdoing. And that's kind of funny, but I don't really agree with it. And the reason, because we wind up being slaves, you know, we're slaving all the time and I Just think that's anathema to our being, to what we're supposed to be. Like, you know, we're not supposed to be slaves. We're not supposed to be cogs in the wheel. And so I would say, you know, to help challenge that worldview, I would say, okay, if you want it to be hard, let's dig into that a little bit. What's behind your need for it to be hard? And I bet that if we dig in there enough, we'll start to see that it's what we call a hidden decision driver. There's some belief that's telling you it needs to be hard, but the evidence doesn't support it, you know, because you can find someone else where you're like, wow, they succeeded and they have a life and their family still loves them and they're a nice person. You know, they're not this SOB that's screwing everybody in this miserable Grinch kind of life. You know, it's like, right? It is possible. And I would just tell people, if you go back to when you're a kid and you. And you have, like, a hero, and you think about why that person was a hero to you, real or imagined cartoon person, it could be someone in a movie. Write down the characteristics of that person. And then maybe you could think later in life, maybe in your teenage years, same question. Who is a hero? A teacher, parent, uncle, brother? Somebody where you're like, man, there's something about them that is so great. If you look at the list of characteristics of those two folks, right? That is you. That is who you have it in yourself to be. And when you start aligning with those characteristics, is this making me more fill in one of the blanks of those characteristics? When I do this, am I more this or am I going away from this? That's what we call internal and external alignment. And it starts changing the sense of, I gotta suffer. It's gotta be hard, you know, it's gotta be this huge accomplishment. That's probably a fair amount of ego, frankly, and a lack of recognition that a stallion is not a camel. We don't want to use a Ferrari like a dump truck, but when you don't know who you are, you're going to abuse yourself. I use this phrase, anytime we don't know the purpose of a thing, we're going to abuse it. If I give a caveman my cell phone, there's zero chance he won't abuse it. Because he's a bad guy. No, because he doesn't know the purpose of it. So again, if we can start to align with those desires that are really in our heart, especially from childhood, and that we do that exercise of the two heroes, you know, tell me those attributes. Because you weren't told to like that person. You just did, you know, and it's like, then that means that that's kind of hardwired down in there for you. And the question is, is your work? Is your job? Is the way you're using time bringing those characteristics out of you or bringing you away from those characteristics, that alignment or misalignment. Back to the dislocated elbow analogy I gave earlier, that's why people are like, it's just gotta be hard because you just gotta trade five days of one thing for two days of another. That's just life. It's just hard. I just want to say, well, how's it working? And if it's not working, great, maybe we should look at changing. [00:53:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean ultimately it comes down to choice, doesn't it? And the underpinning of that self awareness and self reflection side. But I guess also in my head it takes courage because you referred to financial debt as an analogy earlier in relating to time debt. But financial debt is not being in financial debt or extreme debt is actually uncool in today's society. So it takes courage to not be through. [00:54:00] Speaker B: Get you a low credit score. [00:54:02] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean fundamentally, do you actually need a credit score if you're not going to, you know, live on credit? Thank you. Thank you. [00:54:09] Speaker B: That's right. [00:54:10] Speaker A: And I guess timed. It's the same thing, mate, isn't it? Like it does. You're going against the grain of what society and you know, this busyness badge and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, it's. I don't know if you want to say that, but how much of that comes into. Maybe you can lead that courage into a turnaround story that you'd like to share with us because I'm sure you've got many. But the courage that people need to just make that choice, make that decision, be a little bit more self aware, but more self reflection and actually live the life that they have a choice to live. [00:54:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that's exactly right. And I love the way you say that busyness badge. It is like a badge of honor. And we just want to show look how hard I'm working. And I've just asked folks to consider your kids or your loved ones, look in their eyes and ask them, do you want me to be more busy? Am I a great dad or husband or friend when I'm super busy, is that me at my best? Listen to what they tell you. Listen to what they tell you, because they're going to tell you. No, that's not it. I will give you kind of a cool story. One of our clients, his first name is Tim, worked in the insurance world, a small insurance agency that he worked for. And we went through part of this exercise that we've talked about today about time debt. We call the blocks of time anchor activities. It's not every second of your day, but it is most of the day. And so we built a perfect week. And I said, tim, in a given five day window, how much time on sales, how much time for customers? And he's like, I don't know, I don't know. How could I know? Every work is there, every week is different. And I said, okay, let's just do this. Let's just do something we think is reasonable. And so we laid it out, you know, about this much time on this topic, about this much open time, about this much time for that. So I said, all right, coming Monday, your job is just to follow the plan. If it's blood or smoke, obviously you got to handle it. So, you know, use your good judgment. But if it is not literally blood or smoke, follow the plan. I called him on Tuesday. I let Monday go and didn't hear anything. I called him on Tuesday and I said, hey, Tim, it's Eric. You know, how was it? And he said, Yesterday at 4pm when my schedule said I was done with work, I felt like a third grader who just got out for summer vacation. Like I wanted to throw my papers up in the air and run from the school bus back to my house. I felt literally free because I knew the whole rest of the week was planned out and whatever didn't get done today, there was allotted time already for it to get done. And I felt this weight come off of me. That's really the benefit and the blessing of actually doing what we call authorized work. You're following orders, and in this case it's your own orders. But your, your allegiances to that vision that, that perfect customer experience and how your work is going to allow you to be the hero in that story. And at 4 o'clock, when it says you're done, don't break the rule that, that's, that's my. It's like a script in your, in a play or in a movie. That's your line, you know, at this moment in the movie, you turn to the left. And it's like, follow it. Just like it was here in the States. You know, American football. Hike, hike. And you're the wide receiver. You do this exact pattern, this exact route. You, you, we don't want you to make it up. Stop improvising and just follow the plan. And the feeling of like, I don't have all those decisions anymore. I can just run straight for five steps and turn right and the football is right there. It hits me in the chest and we score a touchdown. Even if you don't score the touchdown, you don't second guess it because you're like, I'm following something else. That's like a higher authority instead of me just thinking it up on the spot. One quick analogy. I know we're running short on time, but one quick analogy from karate. When you're fighting, action is always faster than reaction. If I already know four moves in a row and the other guy is going to just respond and make it up, I'm instantly faster, even if my technique doesn't score because they're responding to me. And after one or two moves, they're so far behind the curve, their hard drive starting to melt. And I'm already going into my next move and I'm going to score. And it's the same thing. I don't want to make it up as I go. No world champion, no master musician is making it up as they go along. They are doing things they've rehearsed a thousand times, and that's why it seems so effortless. And frankly, that's why they seem in general to be loving what they're doing, because the decisions have already been made and they're free to just be in the moment. I know it sounds like I'm preaching, but in a way, I kind of am. There's a level of freedom, I think, that we've two, three, 400 years ago, maybe 4,000 years ago, we lost, and maybe we never fully had it. It dies at the end of childhood. But I do think there's a way of existing and creating value and making money and all that great stuff that doesn't abandon really our true essence, which is to be free, to be useful, to do that meaningful work, to have that founder's fire lit up and blazing. And I know that's maybe naive in a certain sense, but I think it's worth going for because I've seen people like Tim do it. Over a thousand business owners we've worked with, and it does set people free. And it's not easy but it works. Yeah. [01:00:01] Speaker A: Look, I 100% agree with you. Again, I've lived it at various stages in my life, more disciplined than others. But going back to the Rada method is. It's so freeing in the process of sort of knowing where you're at and even just again, knowing that you've got a certain amount of things to do or making a decision on some things that you need to do to align with where you're going and just blocking the time in your calendar to make those things happen. I do struggle with a bit at the moment, or certainly recently. I work from home a lot now and on site with clients at various times, but myself and my wife are also foster carers. So unfortunately, my office here, where the studio is, doesn't have a door on it, so there's kids at times running in and out and whatever. And back to your point, I actually need to be better at making decisions because I often I make a decision of like, oh, I can play for a minute now, because again, we love playing with the kids, so. And then I'm burning the candle at both ends, doing some stuff at night and whatever. But again, that's my own challenges. Look, I'm really conscious of time. I'm not 100% sure of how long we've been going because my system span, it's dummy, halfway through, as we know. But I just want you to touch on the team aspect to this because a lot of business owners that are leading small teams, large teams, whatever, but there must be a team aspect to this to helping on the, you know, the time debt side and tell us how that operates, how that works for business owners and their team, what they need to do. [01:01:17] Speaker B: That's a great question. On my clock, we're right at about an hour, so like an hour and one minute. [01:01:22] Speaker A: Thank you, mate. I still feel bad because we're talking about time debt and I've put us in time debt. [01:01:27] Speaker B: Not at all, so. But your question's a great question. Let's start with the personal. I will tell clients to tell their family things are going to be different. I'm sorry, the way I've operated hasn't given us what I want to give us. And so there's going to be some structure that. That maybe is a little bit different. Here's a good example. If we're going to do family time, you know, from five to seven, then that's what we're going to do. And it's going to be my goal to literally be there at 5, but also at 7, we're going to be done no matter what. And that might not feel great, but I think in a little bit it will feel good. It's also the case that if you call me and it's not blood or smoke, I'm not going to answer. So when my office door is closed, I'm going to be really focused and it's closed for a reason. And if it's blood or smoke, you come on in, you got to interrupt me. But if it's not that, then I'm going to ask you, don't do that. Now, part of what I want to say to folks then is to say you're creating some accountability by telling people what you're going to do. And probably they're thinking, well, let's see how this goes. You know, they're like, we'll see. You know, I think letting the team know, family first. You know, I'm going to be a little more structured than I've been before because I want to be with you when I'm with you. I mean, what's it like to be, you know, sharing with your, the love of your life how you feel about them? And they're looking at their phone texting while you're doing that. Right? We know right away, like, obviously that's low quality attention. You want to say, look, I don't want to have fractured attention anymore. And I know I have had that. And when you're talking to me, I'm thinking about something else. And I'm really going to work to be different in that. That's bold. It takes courage. You are taking a risk. You know, at work it's the same thing, but a little simpler. It is going to be that, hey, I'm going to be running off of a schedule in a way I haven't been before. And I'm going to expect all of us to be moving in that direction. We're going to do this as a team. Some of our work is reactive and it has to be, but they can still be the beginning of the day and the end of the day. That is the same every day because that anchors us to a strategy. Some of our work can be very systematic and there's very little distraction. That would be pretty easy. But I want all of us to avoid this overwhelm, overwork, lack of recognition of spinning plates. The neuroscientists tell us that we cannot multitask. What we can do is called switching. And our brains are amazing and we can switch at light speed between lots of different things. And Every time we do, our cortisol goes up, our stress goes up, our blood pressure goes up and our IQ goes down. It's literally like being high to be distracted. And the examples that I've seen are you're gonna have a simple 30 minute math test where you basically just do arithmetic that's not too hard, but you probably need a pencil to do it. Right. So 25 times 74, somebody can do that in their mind. I can't, but it's stuff like that. Right. But then they had one group that just did the questions for 20 minutes and they looked at their accuracy. They had another group do it, but every four minutes they were asked a trivia question. What's the capital of this state? What year did this happen in? When did Columbus discover America? Just random, pretty easy trivia questions. And the difference was an IQ drop of more than 15 points. It meant that an average intelligence of 100 was 85. That special needs category by just distracting them. And so it starts off by apologizing and saying, I do not want us working at a lower level because we're just addicted to being distracted. So we're going to take ownership of that, we're going to apologize for that and we're going to kind of slowly move the team in a different direction and watch their happiness go up, their effectiveness, their efficiency, their everything gets better. Because it's like, right, I can be focused. And then again, now it is. How do we maintain that? Right, but, but let's get there first and then we can worry about the maintaining. Let's don't naysay about but you don't understand the world. You don't understand my customers. Actually, I do understand your customers. And I promise you that if you tell them, no, we're not available 247 and here's why. Because when we talk to you, it's going to get solved in five minutes. Or would you rather us be open 24 7? And it's going to take you six phone calls to get that thing resolved. What's it like when you call the big company? We know what it's like. You're not getting focused attention and you're going to have to do their job for them. So while it is a little bit ambitious, I think it's worth it and it's doable. [01:06:37] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, again, what I love about that, and I'm very much on that page, is that if a leader or business owner is going to make a change, be open and upfront about that. Because actually then the part of that group accountability can come in like, hey, it opens the door and please, look, I'm trying to be better at how I'm prioritizing my time and doing certain tasks and these things are going to happen. This is what I'm trying and I need you guys to help me with this. If you see me running around like a blue ass fly again, then hey, pull me up. And I'm giving you that permission to do those sort of things. So I think that's pretty helpful, isn't it? I think the other thing. And again, look, we haven't got time to go into this and maybe it's probably not our area speciality, but what, what I found over time too is back to the mindset side that when business owners are making those decisions to be 247 or just let me take that call at 8pm in the evening or whatever because it's customer X, it's more based on a scarcity mindset versus that abundance mindset. I think that's drive some of those poor behaviors and poor decisions which has the ball and chain at them every day for 247 in their business. So mate, look, the information you've shared today, the practicality of the information is sensational. This is not theoretical stuff like you've said and been honest. It's simple to do, but it's hard to implement. It takes discipline, it takes commitment, and ultimately it really takes people finding. And FoundersFi helps with this. Helping people find, what is that burning desire as to why they want to change, like linking into their value set and what's really going to help them get through those tough times where they might stuff it up every now and again, but you get back on the horse, you drive it, you go forward and you keep working hard. So our last question we always end with all of our guests is what's one thing that's helped you build a culture of leadership? [01:08:27] Speaker B: Wow, that's a great question. It's never really done, of course, right. But I feel like probably the top virtue is courage. I want to always be helping people be courageous because I feel like if you're courageous, it operationalizes all the other virtues, you know, just courage to be like, hey, it feels bad. I don't know that I want to do it, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it anyway. Just that, that moment of decision where it's like, hey, I'm gonna act as opposed to not act. And maybe that comes from, you know, full circle here back to my dad and how I grew up. You Know, with that example of courage, I feel like without courage, honesty doesn't work. Hard work doesn't work. Like all those great virtues that we all know about, they don't go anywhere. Because if I'm trapped in fear like you said, that ball and chain, that scarcity mentality, then it's like nothing's ever going to really move forward. I'm always hesitant, I'm always waiting. I use the example of standing on a dock, maybe at a lake and I'm like waiting to jump in until there's an Eric shaped hole in the lake. There's no room for me. But the act of acting, the moment of action creates the hole for me. 20 million gallons of water will and untold trillions of atoms will rearrange themselves only if I act and if I take that action, it creates the space for me. It's not any kind of a woo woo, law of attraction sort of thing like just think it, it'll come true, but it is. You know, famous army general here in the States, George S. Patton, he said a good plan violently executed today is better than a good, the perfect plan next week. Good with full commitment, great. We can steer a ship that's moving, one that's just sitting, we can't steer it. So I think that courage to take action is probably the key. [01:10:36] Speaker A: Love it mate. Again you mentioned your dad but someone we haven't mentioned. I guess your dad had the courage to do what he did and he lost his life. You didn't even get a chance to know your dad but your mum to attack life and have the courage and she's obviously a very special person and had showed lots of courage in life to raise a person like you and what you've achieved. So mate, well done to you, well done to your mum, well done to your dad. And I really appreciate your openness and your vulnerability on the conversation today and sharing what you've shared for all business owners to learn from. Mate, this is something they can just take with them through their life and hopefully they have the courage to take some action and implement. Thanks for being a fantastic guest on the cultural leadership. [01:11:13] Speaker B: I hope so. Hey, thank you Brandon. Thanks for having me. [01:11:16] Speaker A: It's been a pleasure, buddy. These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Eric. My first key takeaway. Confident leaders master their time instead of being controlled by it. They eliminate time debt by prioritizing tasks that directly contribute to their goals and purpose, ensuring their time is spent intentionally. By focusing on actions that align with their vision, they create clarity avoid, overwhelm and reclaim control over their schedule. My second key takeaway Confident leaders focus on quality, not busyness. They recognise that being busy doesn't equal being productive and prioritise meaningful work over constant activity. By choosing quality over quantity, they make space for deeper focus, better results and a greater sense of fulfillment in their leadership. My third key takeaway Confident leaders rely on systems, not willpower. They understand that willpower is limited, so they create scalable systems and routines that allow them to stay consistent and effective. With the right processes in place, they can eliminate decision fatigue, free up mental energy and empower their teams to thrive without constant oversight. So, in summary, my three key takeaways were Confident leaders master their time instead of being controlled by it Confident leaders focus on quality, not busyness and confident leaders rely on systems, not willpower. You can let me know your key takeaways on YouTube or at theculturalleadership.com thanks for joining me. And again, remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.