103: How you can be organized and focused with work and your personal life
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How you can create more balance in being organized and focused with work as well as your personal life.
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1:02 — Now that you've had a bit of help with getting organized so you can focus from episode 2 of season 1 of the Simplify & Multiply show, it's now time to work on the personal side as well. When we look at work-life balance, as cliché as it is, it is critical for solopreneurs. Why? Because everything hinges on your ability to perform and preform with quality and quantity. That's not just work—that's health, education, growth, friendships, it's family time, its enjoyment and leisure—all of the things that make life well-rounded. When you're doing your solopreneur work, what you're going to find is that it's a little bit more of a challenge because, I don’t know about you, but I am constantly thinking about my business, thinking about ways I can grow it, I can do more things, I can help my clients more, I think about opportunities where I can actually expand certain products and services or do different things where I'm actually bringing more value or even simplifying my own products so it's easier on me. So with my mind constantly churning, it really takes me a little bit of time to actually disengage with that.
2:25 — Now, for a lot of other people who are not solopreneurs, when they've got the the job where they basically show up and punch a clock—not to minimize the J-O-B people—I really want to distinguish the mental stress that comes with having your own business versus working for someone. So it's a little easier and I'm only relating to my own personal experience and what people have shared with me who have had jobs and are now doing solopreneur work, whether it's a side hustle or there's a full time thing, and they definitely notice a difference as did I from when I basically would show up at my job and do my work, not that I didn’t care, but I literally, when I left that that building or when I came home from work, unless there was something that was bothering me about my job, like something was done wrong or a manager didn't give me the proper acknowledgement for a project that I wanted, you know that mental stuff that you get all wrapped around the axle about, otherwise I’d come home and I'd be like, hey, what can I do creatively at home or what can I work on it was almost like I always had this undercurrent of things that I did for myself that were so much more enjoyable than my J-O-B and when you are a solopreneur, that job is your life and it is your business and it's something that you're passionate about, especially if it's something that is creative or really brings out your natural gifts and abilities.
4:00 — And when that's going on, everything else can kind of take a backseat to it. Your family can take a backseat, your relationships, your friends, your spouse can take a backseat and so a solopreneur has got to work extra hard to create that intentional balance in their life so they have good things going on on all fronts that it's not just I'm so stressed out about my job you know my—here I am using the word job when really it’s a solopreneur, it’s not a job: it’s life. And things are going on I've got all these things I need to juggle and do, and I’m excited about a lot of things, and on another I've got a lot to do and get as far as delivering results for my clients so there's a lot of things going on and depending on where you're at in your business, you could be dealing with not enough work. You could be dealing with too much work where you need to actually start building a small team or outsource some of your work so you can actually get it done and delivered on time and everything in between. When you're working in an environment like that it impacts all areas of your life I know it it did for me for it for many years. When I used to leave with my job and come home and have that kind of like disengagement I don't really do that in for a lot of solopreneurs including myself working from home makes your work everywhere.
5:27 — It's easy to when you're at home like maybe a Saturday or Sunday when normally you wouldn't be working, and I say you know maybe I’ll sit down at the computer and get a little bit of a jump start on this one project for a client, it’s very tempting to do that. And I find myself working on weekends quite a bit, partially because a lot of times I don't have plans you know like is my boyfriend's out of town or whatever and I've got like a nice weekend I can get caught up on some work I take advantage of it and I let myself do that but there are other times where it's just I just want to get head and I just want to catch up, cuz I really enjoy what I do.
6:06 — I want really kind of set the stage for what it's like being a solopreneur and when we have our business front and center 24/7 we sometimes can't forget about the other aspects of our life that are so important and it is important to have this kind of balance because a lot of us the reason we went into business for ourselves was to create more work-life balance. I can't tell you how many people I've spoken to that said they want to spend more time with their kids. So if they're sitting in traffic commuting to their job or if they're stuck at the office working on a project late they don't get to have time with their children because they're dealing with the J-O-B responsibility. One of the things that does come so wonderfully with being solopreneur is that freedom you get freedom to not only run the business the way you want also how you can manage your time. And it's a double-edged sword because solopreneurs can get caught up in either too much work or not enough focus on work so their pipeline dries up. Bringing in the right amount of time for the work you're doing as a solo and then also giving yourself time to do the things that really also bring joy and texture and variety into your life I'm going to go through a couple of things that I do that really helped me create that balance and hopefully that's something that can inspire you and then at the end I'm going to have an actionable that will help you really kind of step back and look at your activity that you're doing to evaluate how much balance you do have and find areas and gaps that you can actually close or change so you have more balanced and just have more overall happiness which is really what it's all about.
7:57 — The first thing in the research that I did in coming up with this podcast was about the work-life balance. I found time and time again the comments around scheduling and working less and I thought that was kind of fascinating. The first thing I came across was this Forbes article that talked about and study working less actually increases productivity now you can take that literally go to the extreme of like the Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Work Week, but the way I kind of look at that is the way I execute things, because as you know, I'm a creative, so I spend a lot of my time not just coaching clients and doing strategies for marketing and building their business, but I also actually sit at the computer and I copy write and I build websites and I do all kinds of things. I work closely with my team to help get all of this content done and the design done and I love it. But here's the thing. I am such a perfectionist and I take such pride in the work that I do the quality of it then I will actually spend much more time than I need to perfecting something, when really I should just do my first draft get it out the door get it in front of the client and then work it from there.
9:12 — I've learned to do that now. And here's the thing I realized about perfectionism and you know the way I used to work. I realize that I have got so much experience and so much talent and capability that I need to trust that more. So that first draft that comes out actually is a really strong draft. And because I've been working in this business or this industry for so many decades literally I mean for 30 plus years I've been doing this type of work. I have got to remind myself that I've really done a lot of things and I'm really good at what I do. I don't want to sound arrogant or like I'm bragging, but I want you to also do the same thing the work that you do. If you are a solopreneur if you came out of corporate and started your own business and you've got 10 20 maybe 30 experience behind you, trust that that experience actually is all you need to get that job done and to make that work actually really powerful the first time you get it out. So this is really important stuff to understand when you're looking at working less.
10:25 — When I took a look at what I was doing, I was really blowing out, spending way too much time on things when I knew that I could just bang it out, get a first draft out and get it done. Since I've been doing that it's so much better because I can spend the time that I need to—the more thoughtful time the more quiet I'm just reflecting and researching and listening to clients and taking that and trusting my intuition to actually birth a beautiful strategy or creative piece for them so it really works for their business. And since I've been doing that, not only has my work improved, but I have been actually more productive. So when you look at working less and increasing your productivity look at it from that perspective. What can you do to actually just shorten the span of time that it takes for you to actually produce something? And this might not work for everything. There are some things that we do need to spend time with. We don't want to have that thing we don't want to do things that are not of quality and not what our clients actually expect from us, because there's enough people out there that are doing that kind of work and we don't want to be that, right? We want to be the quality expert that provides the solutions that really drive results.
11:45 —It's also okay to take what you've gotten and produce something and really just be okay with it. You just have to be okay with it. And I think that was the hardest thing for me as a recovering perfectionist—to get over it, like be okay with it. You created something awesome. Trust in your lifelong experience. Now the next thing that I discovered that's along the same lines in my research that people say about creating balance is scheduling everything. And I talked a little bit about this in the last podcast where I talked about organization and focus and when you block out time you're not only more organized and able to focus and dedicate set amounts of time to work another activities. If you know in advance that you've got these things going on, it actually calms you in the present moment. It allows you to be more present. How many times do you worry about, oh geeze, I gotta work on this project tomorrow, I gotta call this guy back, you know, all of these little things are just percolating around in your brain and they're causing stress. Because they're distractions mentally and they keep you from being focused in the moment. So when you use a planner or a calendar whether it's on the computer or whether it’s a physical planner, like I use my Franklin Planner religiously and schedule everything out and that way you know exactly what you're going to be working on and you don't have to worry about stuff. You know you're going to get it done. Don't just make a list of things, actually schedule it out.
13:26 — If you have a task that you need to do, like you need to the coffee maker needs to have it cleaned with the the descaler, or whatever, which takes a half an hour. Well, block out and half an hour and actually go and descale your coffee maker. When you schedule things you are much more open to see where their opportunities to do some of the things that you just can't get to. This is what's great about scheduling thing create a list but then take that list and put it actually against your calendar. If you want to do something you can set aside time for it. Now, will you have to do this every single day moving forward? Maybe not. Maybe it's a way that you can actually approach it from the standpoint of adjusting behavior a little bit. If you are constantly finding yourself feeling overwhelmed, feeling like you're not getting the things done that you need to get done or that you want to get done, like little household chores or doing things that you just keep putting off like Oh I gotta go to Home Depot and pick up that blah blah thing or whatever, just make sure that you actually schedule it because it'll get free your brain from all of that stress of worrying of trying to mentally remind yourself not to forget things and it just makes things so much easier.
14:54 — When you're looking at balance, one of the things that I often struggled with was asking for help. And sometimes you deal with things in life that you need actually that ranges a whole spectrum whether it's literally asking for help when you’re reaching out to a spouse or a best friend for consoling or just the opportunity to maybe vent a little, and say you know I’m dealing with this situation you know what would you do? And things like that and then there's the other side which is more business focus where you need help with your workload so if you are super, super busy and you're just not getting stuff done because you're a solopreneur so you're kind of doing it all, right? What can you look at delegating or outsourcing. Do you need to hire someone part-time? Do you need to get a virtual assistant to help you with planning your travel if you travel a lot to service your clients. These are some of the things that you can do regarding asking for help. Now in this last episode, episode 2 of season 1, I talked about delegating, eliminating, things like that actually give yourself more organization so you can focus. This is one of those things where when you ask for help it actually allows you to give yourself permission where someone else could actually take some of that off your plate.
16:23 — Last year I actually had to ask for help, and it was hard for me but I was so fortunate that I have my boyfriend, Doug, to be there for me and support me when I need pretty much anything. I was having some health issues ended up having heart surgery last year. Well, when you're a solopreneur everything falls on your shoulders, so if you have to be out of commission whether it's for a day or a week or even longer that can totally impact your business in a bad way and you need to make sure that you got the right people in place or very understanding clients that you can take time away from your business and focus on what needs to be dealt with. In my situation I was having heart issues. It was genetic arrhythmia that I was having and I actually ended up having to go and have surgery and I had surgery I was in the hospital for three days and my boyfriend literally took care of me. He came and stayed with me in the hospital he took care of me before and after he would take me to and from the hospital, to doctors appointments, and he helped me recover after I was discharged. If I didn't have that help, I don't know what I would have done. Having the mental outlook where it's like sometimes you got to rely on people to help you along and I've always been a very independent person so that's been an area that has been a struggle for me that I'm not naturally one to go and say please help me, and that's true for a lot of people.
17:55 — If you actually have a good support structure around you whether it's people on your team in your business or whether it's you got a really strong family structure, spouse, kids, parents, whatever, siblings, friends that help you when you need help do not hesitate to ask for it when you really need it. Understand that people want help you if they love you they want to help you they want to be there for you they want to support you and they want to make sure that everything that you need is taken care of but you have to ask.
19:30 — Well, the next one is one of my favorite topics and that's laughter and fun. And you know we all love to have a good belly laugh, right? And it does wonders for our stress level and our body chemistry—it changes our body chemistry. Laughter does and our overall psyche is so improved when we allow ourselves to laugh, to have fun to not take things so seriously, and I will be the first one to raise my hand say I have a very strong habit of taking things way too seriously, because as I was saying before how I was such a perfectionist, I really wanted everything to be great, to have all my clients to be super happy and all this stuff. I was constantly really just so taking everything so seriously. And I'm like oh my God. Stop. It's just a brochure, you know, it's like, yes, a typo of went out. I can remember my friend Drew back when I worked at Marriott and he was so funny. He was talking about this brochure project they were working on and he said oh my God, they were getting so lathered up about this one brochure and there was really nothing wrong with it, it was just they were going back and forth over some silly thing and he's like people! It’s just a brochure! And ever since then, it sticks in my head, whenever I catch myself getting a little too wrapped around the axle about something or getting to series about something, I remember, it's just a brochure.
20:57 — I remember that story and it always makes me laugh. And it's so important to have laughter and fun in what you do. I'm telling you what. People with J-O-Bs often don't laugh as much as people in their own business. And I believe that that's directly correlated to the fact that we get to work on projects that are fun, that involve our talents, our natural abilities our passions, and when you get to work on things that are your passion. And you know, for me, like I get so excited when I get to work on a new book or when I get to create a really sexy website or I come up with a strategy with some branding that just like makes that client go oh my God this is so awesome! I can't believe what you came up with this is fabulous for that stuff. And when you get to do the things that you love to do and you feel that much more fulfillment and satisfaction from your work, it's much easier to have levity and have laughter and fun in your everyday activity. So remind yourself to find opportunities to give yourself a laugh. Whether it's texting a funny animated gif to a friend to brighten their day or hitting up YouTube for some outtakes of a comedy you love, whatever it is, do something that's going to make you laugh or just make you have some fun.
22:24 — A lot of times I'll go out and hang out with a friend that's like super fun. I have this one friend, her name’s Sheryl, and she and I met yours ago when we both worked at the Orlando Sentinel newspaper it and we hit it off from day one if they used to call us the giggle girls because every time we hung out together, we'd have something that we were laughing about and it was usually something really dumb, like the way a picture was or what somebody said and we just thought it was just so funny and we made it funny or something of a bird was doing in a tree. Animals were always the source of a lot of laughter. I remember this one time we were out having a beer together, this wasn't too long ago, I grabbed my camera and we had our glasses and I got the camera and I put it to do a selfie of both of us and I held my glass up in front of my face and she did the same thing and I took a picture and it was the funniest picture the way the light was reflecting in the glasses and our expressions. (see here, inset) and it was just one of those priceless moments.
23:22 — We laughed about that for a good 20 minutes straight and I mean everybody at the bar was looking at us going what is wrong with those people? And to this day when I send her that picture just to make her day, we both laugh it’s hilarious. So get a friend that's fun and just when you're having a day that's like you know you just need a break call that friend have a fun conversation take them out for a drink shopping with them whatever it is that you do that's fun and enjoyable and get out there and laugh and believe me it will just lighten your burden, it'll make you feel so much better and I'll add that much more enjoyment to the day you're having and the week you're having.
24:05 — Now the next one that I do on a religious basis is appreciation. Now, you may call it gratitude, whatever floats your boat, I like to use the word appreciation because I feel it's a more pure sense of the energy I'm trying to capture. And you can appreciate anything. And that's what I like about the difference between appreciation and gratitude. So if you're walking down the street and you see like one of those giant bumblebees just working his way around the flower, you can stop and have a moment of appreciation of witnessing that, of seeing the beauty of that in the natural essence of what is happening in that moment. And gratitude is more overcoming something so you may not notice everyday mundane things and had a sense of appreciation for them when you focus on gratitude as opposed to appreciation, so that's just my little nuance around that. Regardless, whether you're doing gratitude or whether you doing appreciation, it has a beautiful, healing property to your energy, to your attitude and your mindset. And I have a section in my Franklin planner, every morning I'll get up whenever and I'll just sit and I'll write about all the things I appreciate. If I can't think of anything, I make stuff up. I appreciate that I actually got up this morning, that my heart is still beating, that I had a successful heart surgery and I'm good now, I'm able to do the things that I want to do in my life. I appreciate that I had a hot shower and I had soap, you see what I’m saying? You can always find things to appreciate about your life about the people in your life, about the fact that you get to have your own business and do what you love to do every single day.
25:55 — I mean, there are so many people out there that are miserable in their jobs or in their relationships or in their house, whatever it is, they're miserable and all they ever do is complain and here we are having the opportunity any of us all of us have the opportunity to stop and shift and appreciate what we do have, and appreciate the fact that were on a journey, that life is continually unfolding and allowing us to expand and grow and learn and experience and it's just one big hot beautiful mess. And that's what I love about appreciation, so if there's any way that you can incorporate some form of appreciation or gratitude exercise into your day. When you're doing these gratitude appreciation exercises whether you were just writing or whether you're recording something or whether you're just thinking about it, the best way to do it that I found is not to do it in order to bring something about, like if I spend all this time during all these gratitude lists, I'll make more money, or I'll attract you know the perfect mate or whatever. The thing is that you want to do it pure appreciation and pure gratitude is really just to acknowledge what it is wonderful and what you love in your life and just leave it at that. Don't make it a mechanism actually draw something into your experience. Let it be what it is because the benefit will be much greater.
27:26 — Another thing that I like to do, especially on days when I'm really kind of feeling kind of cranky and a little complainy and you know kind of get up on the wrong side of the bed kind of a day, is I will do something good for a stranger or I'll do something good for a friend. And not in order to achieve any outcome or a pat on the back or a thank you or oh my God that was so awesome, I will just do it because I need to realize that I am in such a great place and I have so many wonderful things in my life and there are other people that are really struggling. Here I am complaining about something that's really stupid, and there are other people that are dealing with things that are much heavier and much worse . I know I had tough times in my life, too, so I know what it's like, and when you can do something good for a friend or even just a charity near and dear to your heart it really has a benefit for you because it makes you adjust your perspective and just see that it's not all about you. It's about the world and about everything that we're all experiencing together. I would like to add that in there it's like just see an opportunity we can do something good. It doesn't need to be anything major I mean you know just like helping a senior citizen with their groceries in their car or pushing a cart back this may be rolling around in the parking lot so it doesn't ding a vehicle. Little things like that and make that just part of your day-to-day living that you're out there doing these little good deeds and it just makes you feel good all over and that's that's one thing that I like to do.
29:05 — Another thing that I see people doing when they are, especially with solopreneurs, because a lot of us we don't have that that interaction with others to give us feedback on things, and so a lot of times we get a little hard on ourselves. Like for example if you know your business is kind of slumped off and you're not getting a lot of new clients or new orders and you are starting to worry about your business, like oh crap you know what's going to happen? It's very easy to get down on yourself and say, Oh, you know, I suck, I’m not good enough, you know that whole diatribe that goes on your head which is from childhood conditioning. Well, that’s not going to do any good. So what you need to do is give yourself a break and reward yourself for building the business that you’ve built. For doing the work that you've been doing. For working hard and delivering real value and real results to your clients. These are really important things to continually acknowledge yourself for when you're a solopreneur. Not enough of that happens. And I just want to remind all of my solopreneurs out there to do more of this, because when I work with a lot of my clients, I love giving encouragement. I love building them up. I love you know just having a conversation with them that helps their confidence, that helps them see that they're pretty amazing and they are doing really good, and that everything is going to work out. I love having those conversations because I feel their change and their shift. I hear their happiness return to their voice and I feel better because I'm actually acknowledging them and appreciating them for who they are and how they're showing up for me. But then you also need to do that for yourself, like give yourself a pep talk, okay? And I’ll just leave it at that because it’s something that’s very personal to you and it's something that you need to work on in order to give yourself that personal like reflective feedback that can be really beneficial.
31:10 — Now to tag on the end of that, get perspective. Perspective is really, really important. So when you're looking at things you appreciate, doing something good, you know giving yourself a break, rewarding yourself, that all helps perspective. But you also have to understand that there are so many other people out there that are doing similar work to you from the standpoint of running their own business you know what business of one where they're taking their talent their capability and they're producing something that drives real value for their clients and customers those are things that we're all dealing with. This perspective allows you to see the impact that you're having. I want you to really take a moment to look back over all of the past deals that you’ve had, all the past projects that you worked on, all of the clients lives that you've changed, the positive impact that you've had. And that perspective is how I want you to look at your life moving forward because what you've accomplished has created the you of today. And every day that follows is going to be a different you and more evolved you, a smarter you, a more patient you. And all of those things are super important. When we get caught up looking at oh my God I got to get this thing done and I got this goal over here I set for myself and then I got to take care of this over here with my family, when you're looking at balance and creating balance in your life whether it's just in your work or if it's everything in your life, having that perspective is so important. And when you look at the impact that you had not only just in your business that also in your family, with your friends, in your community, the things that you're doing that really allow others to benefit to grow to be with you and share everything that you're going through is a beautiful perspective to have. It creates like a really super nice balance in your life, so give yourself that opportunity to look back and get perspective on what you've accomplished where you're going it's a wonderful, wonderful journey.
Your Actionable for this Episode is:
“1) List the things you do each week.
2) Associate time blocks with each item.
3) Grade each activity with a smiling face or a frowning face.
4) Wherever you have a frowning face, change it to a smile by delegating, change your attitude about it, or eliminating it altogether.
5) Take one or two items each week and do that adjustment.”
33:27 — Okay, so in the beginning I said I was going to have an actionable for you and I love doing actionables because it really kind of brings all this home otherwise it's just me pontificating over here and we don't want that. We actually have some practical tactical things that we can do to improve our life and improve the way our business is going as a solopreneur. So the action of all I have for you is to make a list of all the things you do in a week ranging from let's say household chores to family time to getting together with friend, your health, your well-being to the things you do in your business from prospecting to marketing to serving your clients. Associate time blocks with it so you can see where your balanced. So for example of your spending like on Mondays from like 9 to 11 you're on LinkedIn and you're reaching out to potential clients and from 11 to 1 you're doing some research for an article and you grab lunch, you know things like that. Block out that time so you can see visually where your balanced or where your imbalanced. Then what I want you to do is I want you to grade each activity with a smiley face or a frowny face. Kind of like the Wong Baker faces pain rating scale, (see inset), but it's basically the Wong-Baker faces pain rating scale is something that was developed for children to communicate their pain levels so when they're in the hospital or whatever they could just point one of the little faces that are on the spectrum. Put one of these little bit bases are frowny faces next to each activity. I want you to write them based on the enjoyment that you get out of each activity.
35:23 — Now these are things that when I see enjoyment, there may be something that's mundane or whatever, you can still extract enjoyment from something okay? Once you're done take a look at the faces wherever you have a frowny face for example, how can you change that to a smile? For example if you're like take my example of descaling my coffee maker. That's something that yeah I only do it maybe once every three months or so but it's something I really don't like to do because unlike you know why do I have to descale this thing? What's wrong with the water? What is it that I can do differently about that I can think right now? Coffee and it's the best one I treated myself to a couple holidays ago and I love it part of taking care of this piece of equipment is I have to descale it it's just the nature of the park water where I live I could take a total different tact with it I could do all out like a brief appreciation I can just sit down and write about all the things that I enjoy around the experience of making my own coffee, from the money I save to just the the enjoyment of smelling it as it's brewing, getting to actually take care of myself that way had that lovely morning ritual where I get to enjoy this beautiful, I get to pick out all the fancy coffee beans online and pick the ones I like, so you can see how I can kind of shift that frowny face, which makes it like a chore that you dread, what that red lights blinking and blinking and you keep ignoring it because you don't want to do it and then you can turn that into a smile, and it doesn’t even need to be a smile, it can be you know maybe just a small smile but anything that can improve it from a frowny face so you can actually get more enjoyment and actually look forward to doing it.
37:26 — Another thing that you can look at doing its what can you do to delegate. So if you got a frowny face on something that you're doing that you just don't want to do any more for example every now and again, I'll get a client who out of the blue says, Terry I need you to do that, because they know I'm a creative and I'm basically their chief marketing officer that’s outsourced, they’re like Terry I need you to whip out this little blah blah graphic or something it’s like one of those nit-noid side jobs that's so annoying and it distracts me off of like a larger project that I'm working on and for me to find time to sit down and do like a 45-minute design or something or maybe longer it kind of irks me. So sometimes those little like interruptions I call them will get a frowny face and they happen sporadically and it’s always at the wrong time, so for me, delegating I could delegate that to my designer team and have them do it for me and I can stay focused on where I bring the greatest value. Another way you can change a frowny face into a smiley face is shifting your attitude about it. Now the example I gave about descaling my coffee maker is a great example. I shifted in my attitude by doing those couple of things with appreciation and just knowing that I really appreciate having that nice coffee maker and ability to make my own coffee. And then finally, it's like well maybe can you eliminate it so if you had a thing that you're doing that you really don't need to do maybe you can just eliminate it. And then not only does it go away from your calendar but the frowny face goes along with it.
Terry Pappy
39:00 — So it's another thing that you can look at these are the examples I gave in the last episode around organizing so you can have more focus. Now take one or two items each week and do that adjustment. Take that either shift your attitude, delegate it, eliminated it, whatever it is to actually shift that frowny face into a smiley face or eliminate it altogether, just do one or two a week and it's a form of retraining your brain and that's why you don't want to tackle all of them in the same time. And it may seem analytical, but it's actually the most powerful way to create more balance and see where the imbalances exist. So if you seem like a lot of frowny faces on work-related stuff, that's where you need to really take a serious look at your business and either delegate things or change what you're doing, your products, you're offerings, so you're doing more of what you love to do. So for example if you have bookkeeping or you have Jason have two clients to get them to pay or doing RFPs or whatever it is that's more of an administrative thing that's not really using your best talent, get somebody to do that for you. Train somebody on your team actually take that off your plate and then those frowny faces go away, not only do you have more time on your calendar but you get more smiley faces because you're doing more of what you love. See how that works? It’s just something that I just came up with where you associate what you're doing with those smiley faces, the Wong Baker faces pain rating scale, because it doesn't have to be a physical pain, like you hurt your arm and you got a physical pain so you got a frowny face, there are things that we do every day in life that actually will merit pain and we want to avoid pain as much as possible. Pain shows us what our preferences are so it has a purpose we can't fully eliminated from life because it is just part of what makes life magical because it allows us to show our evolution and improvement. positive tool for growth is where most of the power is going to lie, and it's completely up to you.