Combat Shiny Object Syndrome with David Wood

Hey hey, Kathryn here! I’m so glad you’re tuning in. If you’re new to the show, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. If you’ve been around for a bit, you know I’m all about keeping it real with you. Showing you all the sides of entrepreneurship (& life). I mean it’s all connected, right? 

I shared one of my favorite Brene Brown quotes,  if you’re not in the arena getting your ass-kicked, I don’t want your feedback. Well, I want you to see me as your friend in the arena equally getting my ass-kicked but inspiring you to keep going because I get it. I’m living it too.

And that the perspectives I share on the show are real life, in the arena types of perspectives, like the one I’m going to share with you today.

But before I do, I’m celebrating the amazing live training we held on February 6th. Missed it no worries…because there is a replay available until February 11. Not sure what the heck I’m talking about…I held another free private training showing thought leaders, changemakers, coaches, and consultants how to create killer messaging in their business that not only sounds like them but sets them apart as a leading authority in their industry.

The training is money…and if there is anything a business owner should invest in, it’s their ability to articulate what they do in a unique and compelling way.

If you’re in business, you’re in the business of words! Words are what connect us and without connection, you’ll have a hard time selling let alone creating the change you want to see happen in the world.

So, if you want to catch the replay, grab the link in the show notes. 

Now let’s dive into the good stuff for today. David Wood is joining us to share how to combat the shiny object syndrome. Quoting him, he says the mind is like a monkey on crack. He’s a former consulting actuary to Fortune 100 companies. He built the world’s largest coaching business, becoming #1 on Google for life coaching and coaching thousands of hours in 12 countries around the globe.

As well as helping others, David is no stranger to overcoming challenges himself, having survived a full collapse of his paraglider and a fractured spine, witnessing the death of his sister at age seven, anxiety and depression, and a national Gong Show! 

He coaches high-performing business owners to double revenue, and their time off by focusing on less and being 30% more courageous in their business or career.

So without further adieu let’s welcome David to the show.

PRE-RECORDED INTRO:

00:00

Hey, hey, hey, I am super stoked to have David Wood on today to chat about really finding focus in business. You know how to come overcome that shiny object syndrome, which I know a lot of my listeners are going to really resonate with. So without further ado, I'm just going to turn it right over to you, David to share with our listeners, who you are what you do what you're about.

01:40

Thank you. Yeah, I'll share that. And also, I'm feeling inspired to go in a certain direction in this podcast. And we'll we'll see what happens. But you know, firstly about the topic, you know, shiny object syndrome and focus. What that really means to me is we have the ability as humans to create our future. We have that power. And yet 90% 95% of our actions in a given day, are unconscious. And we're just in patterns, we're in our own little matrix, we can pop out of that matrix and create what we want. So that's what I'm excited about. To talk today. That's what folks about to me, what do you care I think I'm an unusual coach, I started left brained, that was my life, I grew up had a tragedy as a kid. So my little sister die when I was seven years old, and apparently shut down all my emotions. I didn't know that that's what happened. I found out later in life. Now the silver lining is I got really good at systems, numbers, business money, I got paid to go to university, I got a job on Park Avenue at the age of 24. Consulting to Sony Music, and for the next time they were my clients. Amazing. So I had that. But then I discovered when someone said, why don't you go to this personal growth program. And even though they smiled way too much, and they all wore name tags, I decided I is can't be real, but I'm going to get in and get out. Or Famous last words they showed me. I knew nothing about intimacy. I knew nothing about emotional vulnerability, or true authenticity and self expression. And therefore leadership because you need all of those things for influence and leadership. I didn't know anything about that stuff. So the last 20 something years of my life have been catching up and sitting with gurus and navel gazing and doing things that are make your hair call and finding out what is it to really truly live. So now, I think I'm unusual in my coaching and that I do coach business owners because I love business and More money's better than less money. So I help people double revenue. But I say to people, if that's all you want, you should go and find somebody else. Because there's lots of people that can just help you with money. I want you to love your life. So yes, we'll work on the business. But then let's look at how you showing up in the world. What are you creating? And is it something that will be fulfilling in your life? So on your deathbed, you say I gave it everything?

04:31

Yeah, so beautiful that you're bringing that whole other side into it. So I I want to I mean, there's so much there that I want to dive into with you. But like how do people truly live that authentic? life or the life that they absolutely love? Because I know I talked to lots of business owners that are doing really well let's say in business, but they're like I just have lost the love for what I do. Like how Yeah, yeah,

04:56

it's it's tricky because I think the human experience variances. We've been stomped on so much as we grow up, and you went for something and it didn't work. I was when I was five years old. I was in a school play. And the teacher kept wanting me to make a bigger and bigger and bigger. I had this one line. Yeah. And my line was, oh, I trapdoor. And we perform the play in front of the whole school. And I was in the lowest year. So I was like this little tiny kid. And every day after that, for what seemed the rest of my life, kids that I never even met would stop me in the playground and go, oh, a trap door. And I thought they were making fun of me, maybe they weren't, but it really had an impact. So the brain will actually hide things from us. It will hide things that we really want, it will hide. I'm scanning for examples. I like to use current real examples from my life and tell on myself, you know, I signed up to a gym three months ago, and the woman who signed me up was was lovely. And we had this great conversation. And for three months, I've been thinking, I'd like to ask her out. Yeah. But then the mind comes in and says, she's paid to be nice to everybody. And it might be she might feel really awkward and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And finally, two days ago, I went into the gym, and I thought I'm unwilling to continue to hold back. Yeah, she can say no, but I'm unwilling to hold back. So I finally went up and said that I said, I'm unwilling to hold back. I've been wanting to ask you out on a date. And you can take as long as you'd like to create a polite, no, you can tell me you're not allowed to date members. That's an easy out. Or you can say yes, as you said, Yes. And another example comes to mind is for years and years, I've been keeping this secret little dream, and I'm a coach, my whole job is self expression. But in my mind was just keeping in the background, I'd love to act one day, you know, that, that I was traumatized by that play experience at the age of five, but I've always wanted to, like be in a movie. And what if I gave it a good one to two years, like solid years in Los Angeles and found out what could happen. And finally I, I started to speak it. Yeah, and this is one of the practicals for if you want to go from something that you'd really love to create, but maybe it's a bit scary, and bring it into time and space. Speaking, it is a good start, hey, Facebook, this is something I've been thinking about, or really know how it's gonna look yet or telling your friends or even better working with a coach. Maybe you're in a men's group, woman's group, I finally started to speak it. And then a friend heard me and said, I did that once I went to LA really tell me about it. And then she called me the next week and said, I'm going to audition for a play. Do you want to come? And part of me is like, hell no, I haven't even done an acting lesson yet. I'm not gonna do that. But another part of me is, this is what it sounds like when the universe knocks. Yeah, this is what it looks like. So you have no choice, you're going to this audition. And well, one thing led to another and I got an email saying we'd like to cast you in the lead. And so I played Dracula, a man in a local production, and I couldn't, I would have bet money 10 to one odds against that I would get Dracula because I didn't. I'm like, I don't know how to do Dracula. And I got paid for that, as well. So that was my first professional paying gig. And now I call myself a working professional actor. In fact, you're the first to hear this amazing. I just booked another gig 10 minutes ago, they this guy reached out to me and said, I was the editor on one of the short films you did, and I loved what you did. And I think you'd be good for the lead. And they spent an hour auditioning me yesterday. And I knew that auditioning a lot of people and he said we want to offer it to you. And I said I assume this is unpaid, and I'm fine. He said no, this is a paying gig. I'm like, what? Brilliant. So this will be number four for me in terms of payment. And I do that just as a way to keep score that I'm moving the ball further down the field. That was probably a long answer to any possible question you may have you may have offered.

09:34

It's all good. But I want to build off that a little bit because you talked about the universe knocking, right? Speaking things into existence and having that universe sort of show you opportunity whether you take it or you don't take it. Do you find that most people ignore when the universe knocks like they they have this desire they might start speak? Yes. Yeah, yeah, but they don't

09:57

even know that. Thank you very much. To me where I was going on that whole tangent, it was about the mind will hide these things from us. The mind might be like, oh, like before it even gets to conscious thought, although you wouldn't be any good at that. And that'd be too hard. So we're not even going to look. Yeah, I've got one client just reached out to me said, Look, I'm interviewing a number of coaches. I said, Fine. And he came back. He said, Yes, let's do it. He's tired of chasing money. Now money is great. More money is better than than less money, but he's tired of having that. run the show. And, you know, he's already making a bunch of money. And one question that I offer to every listener, how much is enough? Yeah. How much is enough in your savings account? How much income is enough for you to really live an amazing life. And I suggest that buying an island in the Bahamas is not what's required for an amazing life. So him, he's like, I'm tired of that, what? What would fulfill me and so now we're looking at that he might want to create a program to help the formerly incarcerated, he might like, who knows, but the mind will hide this stuff from us. I've wanted to sing for for 20 years. And every five or 10 years old, I'll go and get a singing teacher and do maybe three to six months, and then I'll drop it and go back. But it's like, what is the big question? What would it take for us to discover what we truly want? What would that take? And I now I've want to answer that I'm rattling. Yeah. So you, you can listen to podcasts and listen to Katherine. That's one way you might be like, Oh, yes, this is what I want to do. You might journal, you might ask your friends, you might go and do the landmark Forum, which is one of the best courses I've ever discovered. And I've seen all my family and my clients say, and my friends changes people's lives in like, three days, you might do that. You might hire a coach, work with someone say, alright, help me discover how I'm going to craft the next five to 10 years so that I'm really thrilled with my life. Or take a piece of paper at the end of this podcast, or pause it now. We're not now because I'm going to tell you how to do. And you could just pause the recording. And you could say, if I was fearless, and I'm not asking you to be fearless, it's just an if question the magic if if I was fearless, what would I do? And you can have a circle on the page where you're right in that circle, what you would do career wise or business wise, it might be reaching out to a celebrity to ask them to endorse your product or write the foreword to your book, it might be calling 10 people and inviting them to work with you. I don't know what it's gonna be might be a pivot. For me an edgy thing right now in my life is cool. I just took a breath feeling into it is

13:09

continuing to audition for things knowing that I'm only probably going to get one and 100 of those, right? That's edgy. I'm looking at moving to LA may one. And that's that's scary for me to move away from my friends and go to a new city and get a little apartment instead of a big house. Like what's where's your edge? That's one way you can do it have another circle on a page for relationships. If I was fearless? Who would you ask out? What would you ask for in the bedroom? If you're in a relationship? What would you say to your kids if you are going to be purely revealed? Yeah. So that's a that's a really great exercise to start to discover what your dreams look like, in with my clients, they they fill in a self coaching form every week before our session, because I want them to coach themselves before I enter the field. So like if I didn't exist? And they answer these questions, and one of the questions I answer is, if I was the dream bigger this week, what would that look like? Yeah, another question is if I was fearless this week, what might I do? Now? That's the first step. And it's a big step to discover that. The next part is how are you going to actually move forward in something that might be edgy, and new and scary and you may not all know all the steps yet. And that's where sometimes those dreams can scurry back under cover. Yeah, and and they might need some. I've got the metaphor of a fire announcing a picture of like you blow on the coals. Yeah. And you need to fan it. So I went and hired a singing teacher and I don't want to go to singing lesson today. But I've committed to it. So I'm going to get out in the snow and I'm going to dry Like the Singing Lesson, that's one of the reasons I think coaching, you know, I got my singing coach, I've got my acting coach, some a while back when I was like, Alright, I want to learn how to date better, I got a dating coach, if you want your business to be better get a Business College, a coach can help bring that out. And it's a committed structure. So that each week, you need to be asking questions that you may not have been asking before. And then life expands.

15:28

Yeah. And you talk, you know, it's so true, again, is having having that support having those different coaches in your corner, you talked about self coaching. And I know that some times when we hire coaches, we're like, almost like leaning on that coach to give us the answers. And so I love the idea of like you getting them to assess first before they come in to work with you, weekly, basically, right? So that they can coach themselves. Yes, I do to people like well, how does that really help them?

16:00

It's like coaching on steroids. See, if I, before I use this form, I used to do our sessions. Because the first half hour we're kind of digging around I, I don't know what you're proud of this week, I don't know, if you did what you said you're going to do. I don't know what actions would be really smart for you for the next week. I don't know what you're grateful for. And I love I love I think gratitude, so important. So we start with celebrating what's good. And then we look at what's next. And I don't know what would make the biggest difference to your life this week. I might know from our intro session, what the themes are and what your sabotage is, and the things that we're looking out for. And we might have set our goals. But this week, I don't know what's most important. And so the first half hour was kind of like digging around and just waiting and finding and then we kind of get into the real coaching. And I realized, let's let's be way more efficient about this. Plus, I don't want people leaning on me and relying on me like David's giving me the answers. Sometimes that's appropriate. But better is answered these questions for yourself and just do your best, then I read that. And I come to the session. And I've already I've already got five things that I think could be useful in order of priority for our 30 minutes, and we just go right into where it makes the biggest difference. And I think there's just so much more value comes out of it versus Oh, I don't know, I don't know what I want this week, it's so important to generate. Yeah, we started this conversation about focus and creating your life. We have that ability, we have the neocortex in the brain, we don't always use it, it's too easy to just, you know, I make my cup of tea the same way every day and the same cup with the same lid, brush the brush for teeth the same way. I'm drinking the same drink. I'm calling the same friend at four o'clock, I'm doing the same thing with my dog. That's for creatures of habit. We're in our own little matrix. Yeah. And a great question is how do I pop out of that? How do I keep popping out of my mage? And I'm talking about the movie? The matrix is almost everyone seen that? How do I pop out or take the red pill, or the blue pill or whatever it is, and pop out? I just did a medicine journey on New Year's Eve, which, you know, in, in spiritual circles is usually code for I took something that's illegal. I won't speak to that. But I we took a medicine and, and went deep and it was uncomfortable at times. And it was wonderful at times. And then a few days after it were kind of shaky, and it's shaken things up out of those patents. So that now I'm looking at all sorts of new behaviors. Oh, when I feel like isolating and having a beer and watching TV, what if I call a friend instead of doing that? What if I jump in the car and go to five minutes my friend's house and say what's, what's up what's going on and creating new pathways in the brain? Yeah, this this morning, I woke up really tired. And I looked at my schedule. Unlike three coaching sessions, I got two podcast interviews. I got a singing lesson, a squash game, and then a date and then a date with a friend and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh my god. Yeah. And I'm thinking I just want to load up with Adderall to get through the day and I thought no, because of New Year's Eve. Let's create new patterns and new pathways. You can move slower. Yeah, you can cancel things if you need to, you can take a steam shower and take little, you know, little meditations in between some of these sessions. I might do some my sessions on audio instead of zoom. It's, then I can I can have my eyes closed while I'm listening and focusing and it's, it's actually it takes less energy, then yeah. Then then video. So new pathways that I get excited about that as a coach, what are the new pathways you want to create? We're in 2022. Now, so it's a great time to ask yourself. Here are three quick is a game we played New Year's Eve? Yeah, while we're under the influence of medicine, and I'm offering it to listeners, because I think it's such a great game. It's three questions. Yeah. What are you proud of? It's called proud not proud. What are you proud of in 2021? Second question is what do you not proud of? Yeah, in 2021? Because I think it's so important to not just go for the shiny stuff.

20:58

Let's go for all of you. Yes, proud, not proud. And then in 2022, what one word or phrase Do you want to bring in the presence more? And my, my phrase, I had to come up with three, I couldn't come up with one. But my first one was a proving of myself and my choices exactly as I am. Yeah. Before I change anything, to a proof of everything. That's, that's number one. And then on top of that, is being with life. And for me not taking out a role and being willing to move slower and cancel things, if that's what's wanted. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I'm talking about. Because I like, for so much of my life, I want to override that. I want to override and change my state. And so Oh, coffee, let's do that. Or TV that let's do that, or video games or, you know, or a couple of beers or really calmed down my nervous system. I'm always drawn towards those state changes. And there are other ways to change your state.

22:13

Yeah. Like the coping the coping? Do you feel like? I mean, I think a lot of I would say people there, we have a burnout epidemic, right. And people are burnt out. And I know you say there's like the shiny object syndrome epidemic where we're chasing all of the things do you feel like? Like most people, what why do you say it's an epidemic?

22:34

Yeah, I love this. So let's talk about that. So we've already talked about a little bit about how to discover, yeah, what you want to create. And then we've talked about how the mind might want to hide that and how do you nurture and blow on those coals and actually move yourself forward. And I'll add one more thing about that before we address this shiny object syndrome. Structure, huge fan of structure. So might be a vision board on the wall might be a regular coaching session, to make sure that you are constantly moving forward. I'm in an acting class, and I've got practices now to make sure I keep moving forward and singing and acting. But then, let's suppose you've discovered what you want, and you're very excited about the next year or five years or 10 years. And let's suppose you've set up structures. Like coaching, or co working with people or joining gyms or whatever the structures are so important, because you don't want to rely on willpower. Yeah, willpower is very fickle.

23:45

I was gonna say, why do we not want to rely on willpower is very fickle.

23:49

Like it leaves you and you burn it up. I've got a certain amount of willpower now. And by three o'clock, I'm going to have wait lists. And then you're relying on every single day, I'm going to have the motivation to go, oh, yeah, I'm going to keep working on that project, that new business, or I'm going to keep working on singing or acting or coaching or whatever it is, or exercise or self care or my relationship with my kids or with my partner, you're aligning that every single day you're going to just find that initial motivation that that that said, let's go in this direction. That's crazy. Yeah, there'll be days or weeks or months where you don't feel like it's so the structure. Friend of mine, Jason Gore's a great coach and he calls it forcing mechanisms great I got a forcing mechanism today to get out to go to my singing class because I don't want to cancel on my teacher again. Yeah, that'll get me out. I'll be doing exercises in the car. And the thing is, I'll probably feel good doing it but but but today, my brain saying no, just hide away just get under the covers. So that's where structures gonna beat willpower all the time. But here's what is what happens with the brain. The human mind is like a monkey on crack.

25:11

Yeah, you I saw that quote of yours. And I was like, I want to dive into that, too.

25:15

Yeah, I lay down yesterday for 20 minutes. And I said, I were going to breathe, let's count to 50. I think I was 10 minutes in. And I gotten to four. Because the brain was just it just wants to take over Eckhart Tolle, he says, We're possessed by the mind. And we don't know it because we look around everyone else's, too. So it just seems normal. So the minds like it's just off and running. And then I'm like, Okay, we're only did four breaths, five, six, I might have gotten to seven, and then it was off off again. And there's nothing wrong with that. But it's good to know it. Yeah, we just want to know that so then we can compensate for it. So the game that I have my clients play, and that i i play to is you set your course, you say, all right, 12 months, the end of 12 months, this is what I want to celebrate. So for me, I want to be the lead in a major motion film, a major film. It's one example. I probably want to relocate to LA. And I'll have my book launched and have an impact on the world, things like that. Right? So I know, these are some things that I want to see. Yeah. And then how do you stay on track when life was gonna pull you off, and you've got all your habits and you've got your judgments? And you got whatever? And one way is like, well, let's bring it back. Let's layer it. So I have my clients do the 12 week version of that. What are what will we be celebrating? What are some milestones that we can say rockin it out? I want to call my friends and say this is so good. So we do that. But that's still too far out. 12 weeks, like how do you? How does your day to day relate to that? It? It's too pie in the sky? Yeah. So one way is like, okay, each week, I will choose what to care about. Every I used to. I used to have a rule by one o'clock Mountain Time on Friday, I had to have my weekly plan written out. And it could be just seven, seven things that I'm going to do. That's it doesn't have to be complex, and it could take five minutes. But if I didn't have the plan written down, by one o'clock mountain time, I had to pay $5 to someone that I don't like. And a lot of my thing. Yeah, a lot of my clients have played this game, it really gets your attention, just five bucks. And so now you at least have a plan. Yeah, the week, every single week, you've got a plan to say this is what matters. Now the game. This is where it gets very interesting and tricky. The game is can you do that? Can you do the things on the list? And not do things that are not on the list? And it's initially for some of my clients. It's near impossible. Yeah, like, oh, I started but then I got into email and it was three o'clock in the afternoon. And I hadn't done one thing on the list. It's like, right. Okay, so now, welcome to the game. Yeah, what could you do differently? Okay, well, maybe I don't check email until say one o'clock. There you go. Okay, great. So you're going to actually work on what matters to you. And then you'll let your agenda be hijacked by other people later on. Turning off notifications is another way to play the game. And doing sprints is so rewarding. Yesterday, I wrote down, I did the morning pages. You can do the morning pages if you're interested in that. And out of it. I got what I want to do that day. And then I mapped that onto the Pomodoro method, which you can also Google if you're interested in Pomodoro method and sprints. I mapped it and I just read all right, well, that'll be one Pomodoro, which is 25 minutes. Yeah, this one will be two pomodoros this one's going to be four. And then I realized I can't fit that in. Okay, Let's wind it back. I think that I'll do a quick job on that. That'll be two Pomodoro. And I was very excited to see I've got a very focused day. Now when you do this, you realize you can't add extra things in like checking email, and responding to texts and responding to requests people have. So I started saying to my co author, I can do that tomorrow. Today's already allocated.

29:48

Brilliant. You know,

29:50

I'm glad you said that because as those words came out of my mouth, that's life changing. That's game changing. Yeah, I can do that. Tomorrow. I've allocated To time tomorrow, today's already allocated, or it doesn't fit into what I have for this week, because I've already got my weekly plan I didn't carve out time. Can we handle that next week, and I will, I will actually put it into my schedule. Yeah, most of us don't do this, we don't handle our own schedule. And therefore, when things pop in to our field, we're just like, oh, just respond to that. It's fun. It generates adrenaline. And dopamine from, oh, I got to do that, I got to handle that. But at the end of the week, we didn't move at a rapid pace towards the thing that we said mattered most. Yeah. And Catherine, the cost of that is peace. We feel stressed in our body, because part of us knows what we really want. And yet, day after day, after day, we're working at about 20% of our productivity, we're getting stuff done. But I don't call it productive, because we're not getting the stuff that we said mattered most done. And that's the game, if you start playing that game, I honestly believe your life will change for the better in two ways. One, you may actually get the things that matter to you, but to the feeling of being in integrity, the feeling of knowing that today, I cranked out the stuff that I said mattered most. And I said no to the things that were going to take me off track feels amazing. And I want everyone to have that feeling.

31:41

Yeah, that that one, that integrity piece, and then also finding the courage or the strength to be able to say sorry, I can't do that to the right, or that's not I operate very much in the left brain for most of my life. And so and I've in the last five years have really started to shift away go similar to you and getting into more like the intimacy, self discovery, like what do I actually want setting really strong boundaries, saying no, right. And it is a lot more peaceful to just be like, I'm going after the thing I want here. And this is just a distraction, or something that's going to pull my attention away. And it's not going to move me closer to the things that I want. But people change that habit like how do they how do they actually change their habits and patterns?

32:30

Well, one, one thing you can do is actually set goals. Yeah, that's the beginning. Because if you don't have goals, you can't know if you're going off track or not. And I'm biased towards coaching. I think that's a great way to do it. But I've just told, see, the thing is, I give the information. Yeah. Putting the information into practice is hard for most humans. Now, if you can take what I've said and do it great. Don't do that. Set your 12 month goals, set your 12 week goals every single week, set your action plan. And then each day, set your action plan and then you play the game. Can I do the plan? Yeah. It's easier to have a structure and a forcing mechanism like a coach. So so my clients need to fill in their form. And if they don't fill in the form, I say what happened. And let's do it now. And so every single week, they're creating their action plan. It's built in. Yeah, it's built in. So they don't need willpower to do it. But something else came to mind. Or your when you start to play the game. So you write down and you map out your day and say, right, this will take this many minutes. And this is this many minutes. And so you do mini micro sprints, you start to see where the mind will take you off. So you're like, Okay, I set a 25 minute goal of I will draft my bio for my website. And then the alarm goes off, which is a part of the game that I play. The alarm goes off. Did I get it done? No, I didn't get it done. What happened? Well, I just spent 10 minutes on email. I was checking my my voicemail or I I got up made a cup of tea when it wasn't actually break time. It's like whoa, I first discovered this when I did something called a do it day with my friend Steve a Robbins. And he's like the productivity guy. And he'd have this day where at the top of the hour, we'd be on Zoom. And we'd say this is what I'm going to do in the next hour. And then an hour we'd come back to zoom and he'd say I'd everybody last hour. Did you get it done? Next hour. What are you going to do? And I get to like 50 minutes in that hour and I'd be nowhere and I'd be like now I've got to tell someone if I got it done or not. And that's what had me realize that the mind is like a monkey on crack, and then I'm just shooting off. So I started to learn discipline, I started to learn. Okay, I'm going to get this done, because I want to be able to say at the top of the hour, yes, I nailed it. Yeah. And so the awareness is a huge part of it. When might when I start working with clients, they don't just grok this straightaway, and their life changes overnight. No, they start playing the game. And then next week, I'm like, wait, you fall off the horse. Okay, what are you going to tweak this week, and they start to build practices. So now, I really don't think it's too much to say, you can get twice as much done of what matters in half the time you're currently spending totally. Which is, which is a four times a 400% increase in productivity. It's not, it's not a lot to ask. It's just building the awareness, and moving towards what matters most, which is the simplest way I can explain coaching, you're going to move towards what matters most at a faster pace than you.

36:06

And when you in terms of like, like focusing on things each week, do you feel like there's a certain level like, over planning, for instance, like say we're, we have like 10 things on a lift, like, instead of maybe three, I don't know, I started to set like three goals that I can achieve in the week, because I just felt like if I tried to do more than that, then I was over scattering myself or trying to fit cram too much into my schedule. So now I do like three primary goals that are like going towards that bigger goal that I want.

36:43

Yes, I think the mind led too much. I had one client say, alright, I've set my goals for 12 months, I have 20. Is that too many? I said, yeah. That's too many. So what, what we did is we, I think she chose three life goals, three business goals, and put the rest in a drawer. Now that that took something because she was attached to all of them. And she the mind is like, No, I want it all. And there's this story about Steve Jobs talking with a marketing person, and they were creating an ad for a product. And he said, we have to, we have to promote these five benefits. These are five things that distinguish us from everyone else. And the marketing person took five balls of paper, scrunched him up, and threw them at him and said, catch, and he dropped them all. And he's like, Okay, well, we'll focus on one benefit on the ad. So, so she had to let go of some of these goals, which was great, because emotionally, she's reorienting towards what matters, and letting go of things. Now, she didn't have to delete them to put them in a drawer. Another great game is, once you've achieved certain milestones, here are these goals that matter. You can pull out these other goals as a reward from the drawer and say, Now, I get to work on this because I've achieved this. I think that's a responsible, practical way to handle that issue. So when you create your task list for the day, I wrote all these things down yesterday. And when I wrote down, because I'm a fan of the Pomodoro method, which is like one Pomodoro is 25 minutes. So I write one p two p three p four P. When you do that, it forces you to realize, Wait, I can't, I can't actually get all that done. Now, that was a wonderful realization to get at 9am instead of 3pm. So I can't get all that done. Yeah. So what really matters? And what could I switch into bonus category and I actually wrote bonus next to some of the stuff and put brackets next to them and see this, this isn't really on today's list, which is great, because I never got to it. Yeah. So So that's one way that you can just get really real with what is doable. Now, even then, even once you've done that, you've probably underestimated because things will pop up that you didn't realize, and maybe this was harder to do and and sometimes you will go off off track no matter how hard you prepared for it. And so I rarely get everything done in a day. And that's fine. I am like, Alright, we're gonna roll this over in tomorrow. You might even carve time tomorrow for stuff that you know that you probably did not get done today. But then you can have a really fun, exciting list for tomorrow. It's like alright, now I know. I like waking up knowing what I want to do. Yeah, that's a motivational tip. Instead of waking up and like ah, what you know, I just don't know what the today's about. It's nice to wake up knowing. So I what I can If you like I can offer two ways to work out what you want to do in a day.

40:03

Yeah, that would be awesome. Because I know that a lot of people, a couple things you had said there was, you know, some things take longer. And I hear this so often from my clients is like, that thing took way longer than I thought it was going to take, right? And then they feel really shitty because they're out of integrity because they've missed some other deadline, or they've missed some other thing, right? And so yeah, we can help. And the other one is, I think is like that waking up going. Okay, I don't really know what I should be focusing on. So I say it becomes like Groundhog Day, because then it's like, you go through the day not getting really anything done. And then the next day happens, and it just keeps repeating. So where are there? Two things.

40:42

So. So the brains trying to keep track of three things right now. So one thing, which is ironic, since we're talking about simplifying and focusing. So, yeah, it takes longer than you think. I want to touch on that before I mentioned the two things for sure. So it takes longer than you think. So two ways to handle that is by doing this planning in the beginning of the day, and mapping out how long each thing is going to take and realizing all right. So you realize ahead of time. Oh, how you know, oh, I actually have to be quite diligent with that. I have to be disciplined with that. And because I was like, Okay, I'm gonna do two hours for acting auditions. I'm going to create these videos and upload them. And and then I was like, I don't have time today. Can I get those auditions done in an hour? All right, let's see game on. So I'm gonna have to move quickly. And and do faster auditions and not Not, not do three takes, I'll do one take, right. So you realize up front, I have to be more lazy. The second part is, if you've set 25 minutes to do something, or an hour to do something, use that as a forcing mechanism as if your boss was hovering over you. So it's like, alright, instead of doing the two hour draft of my bio, I'm gonna do the one hour draft. And then that's it. It's done. So that's another benefit of playing this game. Is that you? Because if you have no container, yeah, you might just take the whole day I took the whole day on my bio. Whereas if you're actually going to be discipline, you say, I've got 25 minutes for the bio, then you do a damn 25 minutes off to your bio. Yeah. So that's one of the reasons I think this game is so cool as you create forcing mechanisms and containers, artificial constraints. Yeah, very, very powerful and great for corporations as well to do this. Now, how do you work out what you're going to do in a day, so a couple of different ways. One way that I like and I've done and my clients have done is, at the end of your day, could be four o'clock, five o'clock, like whenever you end of your workday is an alarm goes off and says Alright, it's time, you're going to pick your two needle movers for tomorrow.

43:10

You could also do it just before you go to bed, if you'd like. And by needle movers, I mean, what's gonna move the needle in your life in business? If there's a, like a speedometer? What's gonna or an applause meter? What's gonna move the needle? And another way of asking it is, if I was only allowed to do two things tomorrow, if I only got to do two things, what would they be? And ideally, you'll look at your seven day plan, like a seven day plan and say, What am I going to choose to care about tomorrow, and then put those on a couple of post it notes, put them on your computer screen, your desk, or next to your bed or wherever you want. And then the game is when you wake up. You do those two things before you do anything else. And then when I say that you can, you can do your morning routine, you can stretch you can get your coffee, you can let the dog out to pay whatever it is, by ideally before you even check messages, which is going to load your brain up with a whole bunch of crap. Yeah. Do your two needle movers. So that's one method. Another method which I'm really loving, and I did it this morning, and I did it yesterday morning is called the morning pages. Yeah. And the morning pages generally is for creativity. And it's a very simple exercise you so I have the notepad by my bed. Yeah, wake up. I've got water already by my bed. And even before I pee if I can. I'll get that notepad over and I'll fill out two full pages, maybe even three stream of consciousness writing. Yeah. And it's meant for creativity, but I use it as a motivational hack and to work out what I want to do that day. So the only real rule is you your pin can't stop moving. Which is interesting, because so you can't stop and think. So you're writing. Okay, morning pages, what do I want to write today? Blah, blah, blah, I don't really know what to write on my shoulders is sore and stiff. Maybe I'll, I'll get in a massage chair later today. Well, what do I want to do today? Oh, Kira said something to me last night. It's just stream of consciousness. But as I'm going through, and as something comes out that I think, oh, I want to handle that. I'll circle it. And I just keep writing. And then at the end, I've got two or three pages. And I've got a bunch of circles. And then I'll go on map those circles onto what actually want to take care of. So I, I wish I had my notepad next to me. So I could, you know, but it may be something that I need to handle from my body. Or there's, there's an audition, I never got back to, or you have always wanted to create a YouTube channel with that guy. And I never even asked him, okay, I might just ping him. And I'll write it down. And maybe all those things won't make it into today's list. Because I might have other I'm staying focused on other priorities. Or it might be like, you know, in 15 minutes, I could get some of those things out to the universe. Yeah, I agree. I reached out yesterday, there's a guy who's a big gamer is a video gamer. And he's got this YouTube channel, and he's famous in that sphere. And I got a bit of a crush on him. And I just, I just like, I just like him. And I want to I want to know Him. And so I zipped out, you know, zipped out a message saying you want to be on my podcast, and he sent me back a lovely note, you just send out sometimes it is. And it's so this is almost the opposite of what I've talked about, right? Because what I've talked about how to be disciplined and focused and whatever. But sometimes these little sparks come up, and they'll come up in the morning pages, and then I'll zip out, Hey, would you be interested in in that? Or, Hey, do you want to have a movie night next week? Or, hey, whatever. So

47:06

there are ways I think that we can have balance, and you might have a time when just new things, you get 30 minutes, you can do anything new, or any new idea, pop it out to people, and then the rest of the day might be alright, I'm going to stay I'm going to chop wood, carry water. Try. That's what I want for people is that you've got your time, I think we've got a CEO inside us. Yeah, with executive function. And we've got a worker that can chop wood carry water, where we get messed up. I just went over this this week with a client where we get messed up was we try and combine the two at the same time. We wake up and the CEOs coming in trying to plan and the worker is like, but what about this? And then when you start work, and it's time to chop wood carry water CEO comes back in and like is this the right thing? Maybe we should be doing this now? No. Either in the morning with the morning pages. That's when you put your SEO hat on, and you and you work and you work out your schedule. Yeah. Or the day before you choose your two needle movers whichever one you want to do. And then when you wake up, and it's time to start work, chop wood, carry water? Don't second guess. Yeah, just allow yourself to be carried. And to do those things that you've already said. And then at the end of the day, celebrate. And then if there's a tweak to make or a course correction, at the end of the day, that's when the CEO comes back in and does the planning for tomorrow. It's like a boss planning out your week or your day for you and saying this is your schedule. Yeah, you just relax and do it. But you have to do that. Usually for yourself.

48:46

Totally. And I love that you brought in the creativity side of things and allowing some of that creativity come through you doing it through mourning pages, but just allowing some of those like hits or sparks right. To really come through and having that balance because I do think structure. Yes, we do need structure in our day. But I also think we also need that creativity or space within our business to at least allow us to be creative in whatever we're doing. So yeah,

49:14

yeah. Yeah, that's good. I hadn't hadn't thought about that. Before. It seems obvious now. But I hadn't thought about how Thomas Leonard is, is sometimes considered the father of modern coaching. He popularized coaching and was an idol for me. Yeah. And when he died, I just I wailed for like hours is like, it's like the planet. It's like I've lost something. And he, he would say, sometimes he would just go purely on this second approach. He would just wake up and navigate by curiosity. That's how he did his day, and that's valid, too. It's absolutely valid if you want to do that. what feels right, what feels good? And then you just go by that. And particularly if you've got money handled, yeah, then you have the privilege of being able to do that. Yeah. So that's good. And I often do days like that. But then I get lost. If I do too much of that I get lost. And then I'll gravitate back into video games, or TV, or, or whatever. And I'm not motivated. Yes. So I really do love this structure of the morning pages and working out what matters, I need to know I'm moving forward, moving the ball further down the field, in areas that matter. That's integrity for me. And then, yes, we have a little extra time, I'll zip this off. And zip this often. Like just this has got nothing to do with my plan for today. But I just I've been wanting for a month to post a couple of clips of me playing Dracula in the play on Facebook, and I haven't done it yet. And now I'm thinking, You know what, maybe when you and I hang up this call, it's time to finally get that out to the world and post Dracula. That's got nothing to do with my plan for the day. But I do have a little extra space in the day. So I could I could make room for that. Yeah. Given that I know, the major things are being handled. So so you get a little bit of balance?

51:25

Yeah, for sure. Well, it's been such a pleasure chatting with you and you sharing all of your brilliant wisdom with us today. I know our audience is going to absolutely love this. And I always love wrapping up these podcast episodes with asking what is your definition of success?

51:49

Feeling happy as often as possible, I would consider that success. Regardless of what you've created, or what you have in your life, if you can feel happening. And for you, that might mean you got to be of service in the world or you your kids around you or, or maybe you are creating something huge or what I don't know that that's secondary. When we did a visioning process one year, we said what do we want this year? And someone said, No, let's start with how we want to feel. Because most of what we do is driven by we want to feel better. Yeah. So let's so one thing you can do at the end of 22, is ask yourself, what? How do I want to feel? Most consistently? And then what should be in my life? To feel like that? That's a really smart way to do it. So there's my, my

52:49

success. Yeah, that's so beautiful. The other things are secondary, that deep feeling of whatever that feeling is happiness, peace, joy.

52:58

If you feel on that, then the show sure that the rest of Yeah, you've what you've already won. Yeah. And, and we often think, Oh, if I create this and do this, and whatever, then I will feel happy. Well, yeah, maybe. Maybe. So let's try that out. And I think it was Byron, Katie would say we could cut out the middleman. Yeah. And sometimes just you can generate happiness. I'm really interested in this. I can't speak to it yet. Because I'm still haven't learned exactly how to do it. But I'm interested in this changing state and just generating joy, and generating happiness. And having that be, I mean, one thing I do is I go on podcasts and talk about life that inspires me and has me feel lit up and happy. So that's an example of working backwards. I want to feel happy. What does it training, speaking coaching? Okay, I need more that in my life. How do I do that? I'll do these actions. Yeah, just kind of summarized how to how to create a better life in about 30 seconds.

54:07

Totally. Yeah. And it is it's cutting out that middleman. How can we create joy or happiness right now without thinking we need the thing to bring that happiness to us? Yes, that might bring you happiness. But oftentimes, we get to that point where we're we achieved something big, and it's like, okay, well now, where do I need to go? You know, is that Chase right? chasing happiness, so to speak? So, yeah. So where can people find you if they want to connect with you?

54:33

Yeah, thank you. If you want to connect with me, you can listen to my podcast, extraordinary focus with David Wood. I have a mailing list. I send a couple of videos every week. And I'll give you I'll give you a link where you can do all three of these things. And the third thing is if if you think coaching could help you move towards much more fulfilling goals and faster and you're interested in that request. session with me. I don't charge for these initial sessions. It's how I find the right people to work with. And I will ask you probing questions before we even get on the call, you will, you will be thinking about your life and what really matters before we speak. That's kind of the point. Yeah. And you can do all three of these things at my focus gift.com There's also a download I created for a little cheat sheet on how to focus. So you get this gift basket of goodies at my focus gift.com And I think that coaching session, I think I'm calling it a double your revenue audit, because a lot of people who come to me want to double their income. So I just call it what they what they want to hear. But it's really about your life. But if you when you get there, and you see all this is a double your revenue audit, that's, that's setting up a call with me to see if coaching is something that it even makes sense for you right now.

55:56

Awesome, awesome. And we'll definitely link that up in the show notes for anyone that is interested. Again. Yeah, it's been such a pleasure connecting with you and chatting with you. And yeah,

56:06

thanks. Glad to meet you. And I'm feeling much happier about my day after talking about life. So thanks for that.

OUTRO:

Now on Episode #38 – We are heading back to solo episodes next week, and I’m getting a little candid with you. There has been a topic on my mind for a long time and that’s the notion that there is more to life than making more money. In the business and marketing space, we’re bombarded with messages of how to make more money, how to build a 6, 7, and 8 figure business. We put so much pressure on making money that business becomes so serious. So if money isn’t your soul-level desire and you’re wanting to know how to loosen the grip a bit and lean more into your soul’s desires be sure to tune into next week’s episode.