Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I basically ended up having a lot of clients have that huge success around them, but yet they find that something is a bit missing. The people that thrive the most are the ones that are very clear with their vision. What this strong vision allows them to do is to also set boundaries and to have clear non negotiables. The world is full of opportunities. But then there is also saying yes too much, we lose ourselves into the process. That no becomes an empowering. It's actually an act of power.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Hey there billionaire. Yep, I'm talking to you. If you expect to live another 31 years, you're already a billionaire. Not in money, but in the real measure of wealth, time. That's because 31 years is roughly a billion seconds. But most of us waste time in ways we'd never waste money. The currency of time billionaires is micro moments. The 90 second 15 minute gaps hidden between the structured parts of your day. This podcast is about reclaiming them with quick research backed ideas to help you feel more creative, productive and alive. Welcome to Time Billionaires. Let's make your next micro moment count.
This is a two part episode. If you want to check out the first part, listen to the previous episode of Time Billionaires. And to your point about what we're taught, skills versus brain wiring. I mean evolution favors the systems and the genes and not necessarily the individual. And so we as individuals within this system, I think, have to really ask what is driving and fulfilling and motivating us because it won't be the same as the aggregate by literal brain chemistry, but then also any number of variants in our perspective and worldviews. And you do a lot of talking about coaching ambitious people through what you call the messy middle of their modern careers. Can you explain what that is and then how you've seen people thrive through them?
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Sure.
Well, I basically ended up having a lot of clients that have that huge success around them. They are in senior leadership positions, but yet they find that something is a bit missing. And maybe they're unclear on what's missing for them, whether again, it's at the professional level or at more at the personal level. And I have loved to unpack all of that with them and I noticed that again, spotting the patterns, the people that thrive the most are the ones that are very clear with their vision. They have a strong sense of who they are, who, who they are, what they want, why they want it.
And.
And again, it's their whole self. It's not just oh, I want that job title or I want to work in that industry like the people who are the most successful, in my own opinion, and probably my own definition of success is they're really whole. They bring their whole self into this equation, equation. And they're really clear on the vision, a strong vision for themselves. And I think these really ground them.
And what this strong vision allows them to do is to also set boundaries and to have clear non negotiables, which then translates into saying a bunch of no's to many people and quite frequently, quite often.
And I think this happens because actually the world is full of opportunities.
Great things do happen, actually to us if we're open to them.
But then there is also the, you know, the flip side of saying yes, too much to too many things that we lose ourselves into the process of why are we even doing what we're doing just because something, you know, landed on our laps.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: I've heard the advice to just say, I promised myself I would or wouldn't blank. I promised myself I would limit out my nights out to once a week. I promised myself that I wouldn't be rushing to school pickup, which I think is great. But what if you want a lot of things? What if you want a fulfilling, meaningful career and calm, slow present moments with your family and great social connections and enough exercise and time to read and these things feel like they're at odds?
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, and this podcast is called Times Billionaires. So I think a bit, the answer is a bit in there.
There is also this great exercise that I do with most of my clients, which is, it sounds so simple, but it works each and every time, which is planning out your own week and color coding the time that you spend with your kids, if that's something you want to do, time you're investing on yourself and time that you invest at work, for example, as three just examples.
And then start having a look at, oh, wow, there is so much red that could be standing for work.
Is that okay for me or not?
And usually I notice again this pattern where majority of my clients actually don't have enough of themselves into the first version that they put in, in planning their own week. So we go back to it thinking, okay, and now how are we making this better? How are we putting a bit more of yourself? And I think that normally then we land on convers around, well, I might need to delegate a bit more or I just need to delegate Friday afternoon, because Friday afternoon I'm taking a walk or I'm going to the gym, or I'm just reading or I'm just not available for My own family.
And the same is valid also for work.
Again, setting your own boundaries. If you want a slow down chilled dinner, then maybe finishing up at 5:30 is better than finishing up at 7pm and rushing to dinner. I'm not saying that any of these is easy at all. And those are challenges that I've struggled with myself for a long time. And this is why then I thought I really want to help other people because I'm clearly not alone.
I think it is possible, but it's possible. When we ask for help, we tap into our own network. We're creative with the resources that we have.
And again, we are really intentional. We're not just asking for generic help. We might be asking for a solution for three hours on Friday afternoon. And we're going to be really intentional on how we're going to use that time.
And I think there's. Normally this has, has been great help for me personally as a working mother, but also I see it happening and I see this creating big shifts in people's lives when I work with them through this.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I can imagine.
And one of the ways I came to the concept of time billionaires was by reading about the concept of time confetti, this idea that Brigid Schulte coined in her book Overwhelmed, that she had 11 minutes here, et cetera. And it's hard to minimize time confetti, especially with kids. Sometimes your life and days are time confetti. So reclaiming those more intentionally. You can do 10 pushups in 90 seconds. And even if you don't have time to go to the gym that day. So just being mindful of where that time is lost and sort of feels fragmented. But it really can be if you have just a list of three things that you plan to do that next week. I have a list running in my mind. When I have just two minutes, what am I going to do? I'll write down one thing I'm grateful for and do 10 pushups and that's it. So over time then that could be a hundred pushups a day and lots of great gratitude journaling, even if I don't sit down and reflect.
So if you have five minutes between tasks, what's your favorite thing to do with that time?
[00:08:30] Speaker A: You know that nobody has ever asked me this question and so this one is really getting me thinking, but my answer is nothing.
So if I've got just five minutes in between tasks, I try to stay put and practice stillness.
And what I normally do and something that can actually also help others is to either Stare outside the window or to fix my eyes onto a neutral point and just stay there and observe what thoughts are coming up.
And this has been a great help, especially as a business owner, as a mother, where to your point, time is so fragmented and we always have so many things to do and get through.
I noticed that actually not taking on more, but doing a bit less and taking a small step back really helps me being more creative, more resourceful.
I've noticed that to the point of your push ups, I do the same with thinking and observing my own thoughts and trying to come up with new ideas.
The fact that I do it every day and sometimes multiple times a day then allows me to join the dots more quickly and then turning just thoughts into ideas and turning those thoughts into creative ideas for my own business. And I think ultimately it makes me a better decision maker because I've done the inner work that is required to be able to make decisions more like faster or to come up with better ideas for my business.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: No, I think you're so right. And the simplicity is key to your point, to the staring out the window. It may not feel like you're doing much, but it's actually really good for your eyes and good for your focus. And this is ridiculous, but I went through this whole months long saga that ended with an MRI scan of my brain because I was having such chronic horrible pressure behind my right eye. I was interrupting my driving, I couldn't really read and I thought, oh no, is this a tumor behind my eye or something? And it turned out to literally be eye strain because I stared at my computer for 16 hours a day. And as ridiculous as that sounds, just staring out that 20, 20, 20 every minutes, stare 20ft away for 20 seconds.
That was the solve. And so these little things, the sitting with your breath that just looking actually has compounding benefits that saves you time that you don't realize. And to your point, by the time you have two minutes to decide what you want to do with them, it's too late because you spend two minutes deciding if you just have a list of things that are doing nothing, looking out the window, doing 10 pushups, that's it. Scrolling the photos on your phone instead of social media. It doesn't have to be an elaborate list, just something you go back to that you know is energizing as opposed to draining, like scanning your emails or your social media for those five minutes. That's going to add way more cognitive load and context shifting than doing nothing.
[00:11:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And actually it's so Right. It's.
I said it, do nothing. And it sounds like I'm chilling, but actually I'm working. It's a very productive time, just with a different notion of being productive, which is not accomplishing a task, it's not completing a task, but it's being. It's keeping myself sane. And so at that point becomes highly productive time.
And you were talking about the brain at the beginning of our, you know, chat, and the eyes actually capture so many inputs and actually fixing our eyes in onto something and keeping our eyes there then have hugely positive and calming effect on our own brain. And so cortisol goes down and et cetera, et cetera. And this is scientifically proven as well.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: It is, you're right. Yeah. It helps their proprioception too. My aunt sent me this photo.
She was waiting for a train in Japan and just stood on one foot, stretched her other foot behind her and fixed her eyes on one thing. So to your point, the practice of fixing her eyes on something made her better able to just stretch and stand still, which helps with her sense of place and balance, et cetera. We can just sit and scroll waiting for a train, or we can stand on one foot, then the other with our eyes fixed on something to make that balance better. Yep. And it's the same time, but it feels very different to our brain.
Yeah.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: And I. And I think as well, you know, bringing this thought into the conversation we were having before about, you know, having kids, I think is also using our time differently, like in sort of habit stacking for parents. So this is something that I noticed when my daughter was very little, that I felt that pressure to be such a good mom and to be there doing what she wanted to do.
And everything started shifting when I thought, you know, I'm here too, and you know what, I don't want to do another puzzle, but I would really love painting, so why don't we do that?
And that completely changed my. The way I started, you know, measuring or considering judging our time together as also time that was for me as well as a mother to be fulfilled as opposed to be there and just trying to do whatever she wanted to do to make her happy.
And that I think changed so much. So she started also embracing our own family habits or values just by doing what? Also we enjoy doing it. So it's not really better for her.
[00:14:37] Speaker B: Right. I mean, kids aren't going to thrive if the world has been curated to them. They have to realize that there's a bigger world around them. Yeah, I got that advice too that she doesn't. My baby doesn't know what the world looks like until we show her. And so if it's suddenly baby centric, she doesn't know. So I stick her in her bouncer and unload the dishwasher during wake windows. It doesn't have to be playtime, playtime, book time, book time. And then I do the chores while she's sleeping. No, when she's awake she loves watching me unload the dishes and thinks that the sounds are funny. And so yeah, everyone fits into that system better. To your point of just bringing it all in the way that feels natural and fulfilling.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's so much easier when you look back and you saw the mistakes that you have made and you can kind of have a second chance to fix it.
But yeah, we should also be quite kind to ourselves if we don't get it right first time around.
[00:15:32] Speaker B: It's true. Yeah, that's one of the reasons compassion is one of my core values. I mean self compassion too. Thank you Carlotta. I have loved this conversation. Is there anything else you wanted to share or express that I didn't give you a chance to?
[00:15:46] Speaker A: No. I think, I think is just really encouraging people to do that inner work and to explore what they really want and need for themselves and give them courage to go for it. There's nobody else that can do that work for us. And I think it's so important to be really happy and thriving in our lives. I think makes the difference.
[00:16:17] Speaker B: And I would say too, to people who feel time strapped, this can happen while you're driving or waiting in a waiting room. You don't have to have set dedicated time sitting at your desk when that feels like it could be productive time. It can be the wasted time while you're commuting.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And set boundaries then.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: But yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for spending this micro moment with me. If you found it valuable, share it with a fellow time billionaire and give us a rating to help others discover the power of micro moments. For more ways to reclaim your time, check out timebillionaires.org and follow me. Rebecca Shadix on LinkedIn. See you next time.
