We Are Doing Too Much

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What's up, y'all? This is James. I'm here with my man, my partner, uh JC, and we just realized we're doing too much. Oh my God. That's where we're going today.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hi, my name's JC. I'm doing too much. I'm doing too much. Oh my gosh. That's too funny, man. Yeah, maybe we owe our listeners an apology. We we have always just wanted to be super practical and like palatable. Yeah. Uh and to use alliteration whenever possible. Absolutely. And I just feeling like, wow, we are giving you more content when you don't need more content. You need a roadmap. That's what has helped us the most. So uh we are sorry, y'all. We sorry guys. Accountability. Accountability. Here we go. Keep it simple, stupid. Yeah. All right. So we are uh clarity threshold part two. Here's where we're going today. Whiteboard clarity is easy, but Monday morning is where vision goes to die. We have all been there. So we talked about that inbox leadership. If your inbox is winning and you feel like you're running someone else's race, or you don't even know what race you're running, you don't necessarily need more strategy. You need to protect your focus. But to protect that focus, we have to first establish it. So last week we said clarity is a courageous choice. This week we're talking about how, yeah, how to pick a direction, alignment, what we're calling the foundation and the flight path.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is so practical today because we we kind of showed up and we're like, yo, we we've got to scale some of this down, right? People are like, scale up. It's like, let's scale down to make sure we're we're more effective. And one of the things that this happened to us most recently, you know, we started uh, you know, launching the business, trying to make sure that we're able to serve as many people as possible. And our thought was let's do a grand opening. Let's do a grand opening. We launched a podcast,

Why The Grand Opening Failed

SPEAKER_00 1:58

we we got some clients, let's do a grand opening. And I'm like, yeah, this is a great idea. And then it's like, boy, who is this grand opening for? Uh is it, is it, is it for friends and family? Like, because we haven't really, I was kind of thrown off. It's like we haven't even defined who our customer is yet or who are we've gotten a few clients, but as we've been working with our clients, we've gotten more clear on the clients we actually want to serve. Because there were some clients where I'm like, I'll never work with them again. Yeah.

unknown 2:26

Right.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

And there were some folks that are like, oh, I really enjoy doing work with them. Right. And so I think that we had this grand idea of this grand opening that really kind of went from sizzle to fizzle, where it was just like, yeah, this this probably isn't the best time, and it's probably not as clear as we want it to be. How how are you feeling about some?

SPEAKER_01 2:52

No, so real, man. The the grand opening uh sounded really good, yeah. But what gave us the pause, um, and man, circumstance can be a blessing sometimes, yeah, is my back injury. And we were feeling the pressure of our time being constrained. Yeah, and then it became clear we started asking questions. Like, we don't even we're gonna have a grand opening, we don't even know who we're gonna invite. Who's gonna be there? But also when we were thinking about sort of the foundation in the flight path that we set, one of those anchors was we want to get in front of real people. So it sounded like it made sense, right? But then we started realizing, wait, but we're not event planners. No, like that's not where we're in this for. No, not that that can't maybe be a part of it one day, but being like, oh wow, and so it's here it is, we're on a Zoom call, I'm laying in bed because you know, I can't I can't stand up for more than 10 minutes at a time or even sit. Um, that's why I got this super cool lumbar support going. And uh I'm like, yo, and I was kind of afraid to tell you because I we were both excited about it, and I thought I was like, well, maybe he's more excited about it. Yeah, and I was like, hey man, do you think it's still a good idea?

SPEAKER_00 4:06

It's like no. And that what was crazy though is that when we both came to know, it was actually for alliteration, right? When we both came to the no, then we went to grow. It was like uh it was when we got to that no, it opened some doors for us to say, we've got some time back now. Oh, we don't even have to think about this anymore. We can actually get super focused on our outreach strategy, we can get super focused on actually just working a little bit more with these clients. Like we didn't have to think through all of the grand openings. Not to tell not to say it won't happen, but it's to say that right now probably wasn't the best time.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Right. And I feel like we've had even more traction since making that decision. Here's here's just something for you guys listening. Uh, if you make a decision and then afterwards you go, wow, that felt really good. Then you know you were trying to do too much. I think what's so interesting about this, because we really want to get into this today. Like, how do you establish that foundation and flight path? How do you pick that direction and get alignment? It's like we had done that. Yeah, we did that in the whiteboard room. That was part of the strategy. We sat on it, we talked about it, we even discussed it with some other people. Like it was all part of the process. Uh, but because we had some other filters in place on that foundation and flight path, we were able to say, this one idea we came up with, while it sounded really good, it's actually not gonna serve us or the people we want to serve best right now.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, yeah. That was really good. That's so good. I I think that you we we've been learning a lesson, you know, startup journey, uh, what it's needed in any journey you're on, any team, any leader, what you need more. We talked about it last episode, but you don't need certainty, you do need clarity, and that's how you're going to move the needle. So, JC, I know we had um kind of laid out some things and we scaled down even before we showed up for this episode. We're like, hey, let's scale down and give people exactly what next steps are. So let's go there.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yo, you know what though? I just got to give us a little credit. Last episode, we said to people pick your 10 highest priorities in your life, five to ten, whatever, let's say 10, and then scale that down to three. And so that's about a two-thirds reduction. Come on, man. And we had three different topics that we wanted to get into today. And we did a two-thirds reduction. We did it. So here we are. We did it, man. All right, you guys know we are big fans of uh Patrick Lancioni and the table group. Um, big shout out to them. Uh, they we've just been students of their stuff. We're students of all sorts of different leaders. We're always trying to learn and think uh, yeah, leaders are readers, and we're trying to grow. One of the things that

Six Questions That Create Clarity

SPEAKER_01 6:47

we've adopted for our own business and have walked clients through that has seemed to be really fruitful are these uh six critical clarity questions. So these six questions that essentially become the foundation and the flight path. Uh, and they answer who am I, who are we, and where are we going? So you could do these personally, you could do them with a team. Uh, I think in the in the team sense, um, you're really gonna get a bunch of fruit for the for the organization. So here's here's here's what they are. Question number one is why do we exist? Yep. And this is all about core purpose. We're talking about like ideal aspirational. Uh, why do we exist, James?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, we exist for to to make just the world better. Like, I actually want to change the world of the people who are changing the world.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Right. Change the world of world changers. Yeah. We exist to help leaders thrive to restore the world. That's it. Um, then we get to uh how do we behave? Question two. Question two is about core values, and we talked a little bit about values last episode. We're not talking about like some poster that has a bunch of generic things on it, but actually these differentiating values. Think about these as behavioral values. Uh, what is the culture going to look like? Um, for us, we have uh generosity, uh faithfulness, and radical candor. Candor. Those are those are our core values, which is different than uh like permission to play values or aspirational values, but we will we will get into that.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

What's the next one? The next one is what do we do? I love this one, right? This is the the straightforward, it's unsexy, it's the one-sentence description of the organizational, like our actual work. And and for us, we've kind of we've had to drill it down just a few more times. Even that thing of getting in front of real people, keeping it simple for the everyday leader. Like, but we've had to get into what do we do? And I and I love that because I think it's just it's practical because you you can have a bunch of things that you do, but what's the that's what the issue was for me, right? When we were looking at the grand opening, I'm like, wait, so what's the what though? Like, what are we what are we even doing here? Right. So yeah, I think that that helped us answer that question, having that statement.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Yeah, it's good. I think for us, the one line is uh leadership development and organizational health solutions. Yep, it's just simple. That's what we do. Are we event planners? No, we're not. If that fits into that, sure. So then that brings us to question four, and this is where like rubber really starts meeting the road, where we get to how will we succeed? Yeah, how will we succeed is really a question about strategy. Um, what are the filters, what are the strategic anchors that we are gonna have that you want to have in your company? And uh we'll talk about kind of how you get there in a second, but Patrick Lention and the table group say three is about that magic number. Um, if we have too many filters, we'll never do anything. If we don't have enough filters, we'll just do everything. So that's strategy, how we succeed.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Yeah, yeah. So another one I love. Uh I remember when we were trying to figure that out too, just sitting in this whiteboard session. The next question is what is most important right now? Like, not not 10 years from now, not five years from now, but what's most important right now? I think that that's just a powerful question, not just for organizations, but just for your life. Like, what's most important right now? What's the rallying cry? So it's the single thematic goal that takes priority over other things during a specific season. So now I know, okay, we can't do this, I can't do this, I won't do this, I won't do that, because this is what's most important right now.

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Right. So good. And that question for us has become sort of the central piece of how do you cross the clarity threshold? We talk about clarity of direction and actually making an impact that crossing that threshold requires what's most important right now. Yeah, not later necessarily. I love it. And then the last one is super simple. Who does what? This is just simple about roles and responsibilities. Uh, you'd be so surprised you get a team in a room and say, Hey, what what do you do? Everyone write it down on a piece of paper, and then we'll share after. Yeah. And man, those answers have some discrepancies in them. Like, oh, I thought you did. Oh, I didn't know you also did that. The assumptions get you. Um, so that is who who does what?

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Yeah. Um I had a question for you, man. Yeah. We were thinking through this. As we've done just some work together, uh, what's been the hardest question for you to answer? That's great. In the context of crossing the threshold. Yeah, yeah. Hmm.

The Two Hardest Questions

SPEAKER_00 11:26

And just for context, y'all, for us, crossing the threshold, startup company, uh, leadership development, organizational health. And we've been doing this type of work for years, but we are now saying, hey, we're gonna combine our efforts and figure out how to change the world together. Uh, so what's been the the question though?

SPEAKER_01 11:45

That's really good. I think for me, it's like the one that's kind of simple. Uh, but because of our work is so nebulous and the the kind of um the experience that we bring, I think is robust and seeing where we can add value. Is that question, what do we do? Because, oh, are we, you know, James, you spoke all over the world. I have a fair amount of experience doing keynote talks myself. Like, are we keynote speakers? We're like, that could be a part of it, but that's not really it. Like, okay, and then oh wow, we both have a ton of uh experience coaching. Yeah. Like, okay, so are we coaches? I don't know if we want just like a coaching clientele. Like, we want to coach people, but we don't just want to be coaching, like, oh man.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Life coaches or vocational coaches, or are we, yeah, executive coaches?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Like, do we only coach founders? Do we only coach corporate? Like, uh, okay, and so just kind of getting there, like, what do we do? Workshops, yeah. And so just trying to figure out like, okay, what is it that we offer? Yeah, and I think the what do we do also gets to the who do we serve, which is getting clearer and clearer for us. And we'd be lying to you if we said, like, oh, we got it totally nailed down. No, but we're starting to see some lanes um where we can add just not value, but the most value. Yeah, what about what about for you, mate? Is that is that resonate?

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I think you I probably you probably hit it. Like, it's it's always for me as the wanderer, right? The inventor, it's always one, why do we exist? And I think we've covered that, but I think it is what do we do? It is the the question I'm asking is what do we do? I would I would probably say the secondary question for us is um we're never short on strategy, never short on what's important. Um, I think the other thing is not only what do we do, but who does what, right? So coming into a space where both of us are able to operate in our own lane. Like we both said, right, I don't need you. You know what I'm saying? Like I really don't need you, but I actually I want to do this with you. Like we're choosing to do this with each other, which is which is really awesome. And so with that has come us trying to figure out what are your roles and responsibilities and what are you good at that I'm not good at? What am I assuming that you're doing or you're assuming that I'm doing that may or may not be happening? Or is you know, so I think that that's been the the big question that's been really fun for us to, as we get clearer on those, we learn, oh, this is how we're moving. You you brought up something a while back is that clarity comes as you go. And I think that's what's been helpful in having these filters, uh, these questions is that we've gotten clearer as we've gone.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Yeah. So that's kind of high level. Like, uh, what's the point? This isn't just some exercise, like, oh, let's just get in a whiteboard and answer these questions because it makes us feel good to talk about ourselves. It's like we literally, when we meet, we will go through each of the answers to these questions. And I'm not gonna lie, like, depending on your personality, you might be like, please don't make me do that. However, uh, we have so many things competing for our time and demands. Um, and we could become so opportunistic where it's sort of like um, oh, that looks good, that looks fun. Let's go down there. I'm like, what are you doing in Florida? This is crazy. Like, why are you down there? Like that you don't we don't even do that, like you know, so that not that's not a real example, yo.

SPEAKER_00 14:55

No, no, it could be you don't listen, bro. There is last night I saw there was like, oh, uh several hundred dollar, several hundred thousand dollar grant. And I was like, Oh, we could do this due by April 30th. Okay, this is not happening. Right. Because I was like, let me hit JC up. I know he can do this, he can do that, and I can do this. But it's like, no, what do we do? And then it was what's in what's most important right now?

SPEAKER_01 15:19

Right, right now, yeah. It can't be done. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

No, these are helpful, man.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

So if you when you come up with these, and we're gonna walk through kind of how to come up with them, uh, you want to keep them front and center and to look at them repeatedly. Um people talk about it, takes seven, eight times for someone to even remember something that you said of repeating that. And with all the things competing at our demands, all the exciting, shiny objects, especially you know, the way our world is today. Um, if we are really gonna keep the course, we need to keep these things front and center. Um, and that isn't like a fail-safe, however, it is an awesome way to establish a foundation and a flight path. All right, so here's what I was thinking, because I think this would give our listeners the most value. Go for it, man. I think we go through the first three real quickly, and then we spend a lot of time on question four and five. Okay, let's do it. Uh, just to get just to get practical. So, this first question, why do we exist?

How To Find Purpose And Values

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Um it's very simple how you come up with this. One, you probably need the founder in the room. So, depending on what's going on, uh, you can do this personally, like, why do I exist? And you can ask these questions. It's like what energizes you, but you want to ask, well, oftentimes say, why do we exist? Let's say, let's say you are a construction company and you say, We exist to build decks. So, here's how you get to the actual why you exist. You would say, This is James's like bread and butter. You would say, Why?

SPEAKER_00 16:39

Five whys, man. Come on. Yeah, five why. What's five whys? Yeah, so uh, I can't remember the guy's name, um, but it was this the researcher that determined that if you ask five whys, um, you'll actually get to the heart of things. So the reality is that you know the quality of your life, the quality of your business is determined by the quality of your questions. And if you can lean in to that why, oh, oh, this is what happened. Why? Did we exist to do this? Why? I loved it.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

That's so good. Wow. Hmm. I feel like I just went through that. We're working with an interior design firm, and it was like, uh, why do you exist? Well, we make people's homes beautiful. Why? Well, we like bringing joy to people. But why do you do that? Well, I knew I had to make money and work, and so I wanted to do something and have a passion, but you have a team too, like, why? Yep. And it can't after these five whys, it came out to be like, oh, uh, we want to use our passion and gifts um when we work to bring joy to people. That's it. Like, well, that sounds so up here. It's like, no, but now that you know that, you're not gonna do things against that, right? Sometimes people's whys they end up getting to, well, we wanna we want to change a community.

unknown 17:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

Some people say we want to change an industry. Yeah, some people say we exist for the customers to serve them. Some people say no, we exist for the employees. There was like an asphalt company. It's like, why? The why ended up being we we want people to be able to have jobs where they can pay their bills and work at a place that they enjoy. Yeah, yeah. Well, why asphalt? That was just that was just that was the main that was the vehicle. That was just the vehicle. Yep. So oftentimes we take question one and question three at the same time. Question one, why do we exist? That's good. Question three, what do we do? Because in our efforts to answer question one, why do we exist? We always end up saying, like, what do we do? Like, why do you exist? Well, we do asphalt. Why? Right. Well, now we know what you do, right? Right, right. Right. So to kind of get there. So I think that's that's real simple for for question three. Okay. Question two, how do we behave? This is about core values. So quick differentiation. Uh, core values are things that are core to the business, to the organization, to you as a leader, uh, that are almost like inherent. It isn't that these have to be like uh they never have to be stoked or cultivated, um, but they are natural, they come easily. The way we get to this kind of core value question, uh, if you are already a pre-established team, is you would say something like, Okay, who are our who are our best personnel? Let's put them up on the put them up on the board. And then we would say, Okay, uh, what do they have in common behaviorally? Yeah. What kind of person are they? What do they do? Not like, oh, they all have PhDs. Like, so what though? Like you could have invited anybody with that. Why these people? Why are they the best people? Yep. Um, and then and then we kind of get into that. So we're talking about three to four uh core behaviors. Verbs create culture, right? So, like, how do we actually behave? Which is a little different than strategy. So we could dig into that more, and that's probably another episode. But I just kind of want to get us through these first three. That's good. Um, and then this is where the rubber really meets the road. So we did why do we exist? Yep, how do we behave, and what do we do? Great.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

Now I'm switching gears to strategy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

So strategy is how will we succeed? Here's how you come up with your strategy. You need to I everybody has a strategy, they just need to name it, right? And so it was so funny, James. I remember you and I. I'm I'm thinking about this. We're we're trying

Strategy Filters Using The Amoeba

SPEAKER_01 20:16

to kind of come up with our own strategy, and I thought I could shortchange it. So I was like, Oh yeah, exactly. Siri's letting us know. Siri's like, I didn't get it. We didn't get it either, Siri. That's why I was like, Man, we don't have to do this exercise, it doesn't even really matter. And you were like, No, we do have to do it because we are no different, like we still need to do this. So it's called the amoeba. Yeah, put up on a whiteboard everything that you do in the business, in the company, or on the team. Yeah, everything that you do, everything from um let's say, let's say you're like a a sports apparel store. Okay. Talk about your marketing. What do you do for marketing? Uh, we don't really pay for any marketing. We do all word of mouth and we do these campaigns. Great. Okay, who do you hire? Okay. Uh, do you have uniforms? Do you not have uniforms? You do. Okay. How do you price stuff? Uh, how do you keep the shop and set it up and clean? How do you what kind of merchandise do you just put it all up on the board? You end up with this giant amoeba and this this super messy process. Yep. From there, you start to look for patterns. Those patterns are gonna bring you to these strategic anchors or what we would call our filters. Yeah. So here, here are our three filters. Our three filters are this uh we want to get in front of real people. Yep, we want to invest in broader digital means. That keyword there is invest. We don't spend all our time, energy, we just put little inputs there. And then three, we want to keep it simple for the everyday leader. And so when we're coming up with language or even podcast episodes, you know, James and I like to think, you know, that we're Harvard professors, and so we'd be coming up with these big words, and then we always go, wait a second. What does that even make? To keep it simple. Simple. How James, how has it been for you, like living into those strategies? What are the challenges?

unknown 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Just yeah, riff on that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

I think I think it's been it has been clarifying, right? Again, my my natural tendency is I'm a wanderer, right? Wanderer. And the danger is if I don't have a container or a filter, I become a wanderer. And that's dangerous, right? It's dangerous for our team. It's dangerous for my life. It's that I'm gonna try this opportunity. I'm gonna try this opportunity. And so it lets us know that no, let's just keep it simple, right? These filters, let's get in front of real people. So I could spend all of my time in the lab creating. Oh, what about this? What about this? And what about that? And what about and that would be great for me in terms of it'll feel good. But we had this real conversation. It's like, if we're creating all this content, but there's nobody there to actually view or digest the content, what was it for? Right. You know, so I think that that's really what it's it's given me this freedom uh in my working style to have a container to say, oh, I got a framework, and in that framework, I got freedom. I can do this, I can do that. I don't have to do this, I can't do this, but I can do this. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Yeah, I feel like it was these filters that ultimately let us say no to the grand opening. Absolutely. Which I felt was the best case. And this even this happened for us the other day. We were thinking about um okay, do we want both of us to go and speak to this government body? We had this opportunity to present, to try and add some value, do a work in genius workshop with them. And James was like, Oh, we get in front of real people. Okay, well, we had already predecided that, so now we're not in this like space. It was a very easy decision. Right. That's the strategy. That's so good, man. And strategy takes courage because it requires that we say no to other things. That's good. Um, and so I think that's really cool. There's there's sort of um different ways to look at strategy, but ultimately it's like we're always gonna be one of three things. We're gonna be in product leadership, we're gonna come out with the best product, the best content. We're gonna be in operational excellence, um, which means like we're the fastest, the quickest, and probably the cheapest. And then three, customer intimacy. Are we really customer facing and we come up with these whole solutions? Um, it's Michael Porter. That's his competitive strategy book, which is really good. It's good, man. Depending on where you are in the business lifecycle, that might make sense or not make sense for you. But you do want to think like we can't be all things to all people. We need to have good enough products, we need good enough operations, we need good enough customer interactions. But where are we gonna double down? Uh, what's our strategy gonna be? That's good, man.

SPEAKER_00 24:41

Yeah. So then we go to this rallying cry, man. Lean us in a little bit more of what's most important right now.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Yeah, this is my favorite because I think this gives the most immediate impact and and we like things to happen quick. Um, like you were saying,

The Rallying Cry For This Season

SPEAKER_01 24:56

it's a rallying cry. And so, how do we get everyone moving in the same direction? Yeah, it's really simple. Uh, we start with, okay, what is the number one thing over the next three to nine months that would move the mission forward the most? Another way to ask that would be like, okay, if we were gonna claim nine months from now that we were successful, what's the one thing that we would have needed to accomplish? This isn't necessarily like the ongoing things, like, yeah, you always need to uh tailor the pipeline, revenue, expenses. I mean, all these things. One of those things might be a focus, but it's this qualitative like, what's the rally and cry? So, what was our first rally and cry that we that we start with?

SPEAKER_00 25:34

Dude, I'm we were just trying to launch the business.

SPEAKER_01 25:36

Launch the business. Let's launch. It's like launch the business. Okay. So we came up with this, launch the business. And there's always a verb, right? Because it's action. So like launch, uh, establish, build. Um uh that's all that's coming to my head. But you can imagine, like, that's the rally and cry, um, what whatever it might be. Re-engage, maybe it's a market segment for you, whatever it is. So, okay, we have this launch the business. Imagine a big box, and at the top of this whiteboard is launch the business, boom. And then we got this little tree of these four to six little boxes underneath it. These are defining objectives. We call these the big buckets. Okay, what are the four to six things that we would need to accomplish in order for that to be true? That we launched the business. And so we came up with okay, uh, it was funny. The grand opening was on there, it was on there.

SPEAKER_00 26:28

That was wow.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

But revenue, like those were big things. Like, how are we gonna make money? Right. For us, it was like, okay, we got to establish structure and systems. Yep. We need to create our offerings. Yep. Okay, great. We need to, we we thought we want we need to launch the podcast that was on there. We thought we needed the grand opening, which we didn't really need. Um, and we also thought that we needed uh we had on there originally like uh learn about uh like uh some of the business finance and stuff like that. That's what it the representation we put it up there. It was great. Okay, now we have a plan, we're gonna try and execute it, and then we realized a couple of those things. We don't really need those things. We could, you know, we could totally we could drop them off. Yep. Um and we learned as we went. And we learned and we learned as we went. Oftentimes when we're trying to come up with this rally and cry, the first couple things we come up with are actually defining objectives. It's like, and you have to ask ourselves, is that the main thing we want to accomplish, or is that a just a piece of the puzzle? And then after you have the defining objectives, we would say, Okay, if we do all these things, will the business be launched? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Like, yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Okay, yes, yes, it will.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

We got some.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Who does what is pretty simple.

SPEAKER_00 27:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Just needs to have the conversation, like we talked about. I really, I really do like when um when people write down on a piece of paper and then you're like, oh, okay. Yeah. You were talking about what what was the phrase that you used? It was um the cost of being too polite.

Roles Boundaries And The Close

SPEAKER_01 27:55

Oh, gosh.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

Speaking, speaking to that a little bit. Oh man. So it's the cost of being too polite of really saying it's really saying yes to everything, right? So sometimes as leaders, you could be high capacity leader or used to maybe you're going from one environment to the next environment and you're so used to being polite and wanting people to like you. I know that's my issue. Sure. Wanting people to like you that you say yes to everything and you assume that every opportunity is your opportunity, but not really realizing the cost of that. And so now I'll talk about it like, man, I've got five or six email boxes. I'm like having to manage because I said yes, right? Or I I've got to do this event, and because I said yes. And now we're talking like, hey, we actually now have become each other's filter. So I can actually allow you to be a buffer for me, and I don't have to be polite. I'm like, let me talk to my business partner. And yeah, you say the same thing. It's like, let me talk my and we can do that. And now I don't have to wear the the I don't have to wear the weird, like, oh, I'm being rude or I'm being a jerk. And some of it is not being rude, it's just being setting some boundaries. And what it is, it's allowed me to be clearer. Um, and because we are clear on like, here's where we're going, here's what we want, I don't actually look at these things as impositions or being impolite. I actually actually offer it as kindness. Like, hey, because I really value you, I'm not gonna be able to give my best work to this environment. I'm not gonna be able to give my best time to this. I won't be able to give my best to you, so I'm gonna have to say no.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

No, I love that. And if you're listening and you're like, well, I don't have a business partner. One, if you establish these clear critical clarity questions, you have something to go back to. Yeah, but find someone in your life that you can say, hey, and guess what? I'll get back to you is always a fine one answer. Right. I totally like that a lot. Yeah, man. All right, so real quick, six critical clarity questions. Why do we exist? How do we behave? What do we do? How will we succeed? What's most important right now? Who does what? You can check these out in the show notes. Uh again, big shout out to The Advantage by Patrick Lancioni. He walks, uh, he'll walk you through those and even go more in depth than we did. We just want to give you a primer. But as always, we want to give you one quick win, one quick thing you can do. So, what do you got for us today, James?

SPEAKER_00 30:13

Man, I would say the one quick win is actually schedule time to do this. Like that's the I I think that that feels so remedial, but it is schedule time to actually look up the uh these six critical questions and begin answering them. That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Yeah, I think my closing thought would be this uh slow down to speed up and to just get some sanity back. Okay, man.

SPEAKER_00 30:39

That's good, y'all. Cool. Hey, we would love for you to stay in touch with us. Uh, we would love to keep connecting with you. So like, share, review, subscribe, all those things, and also download the threshold starter guide at ctleadership.com. We created a resource for you and your team to actually get the most results out of you and your people. So go ahead and download that. It's free for you. We'd love to connect soon.