 My name is Lenny Gale. My story is that I used to be in client services. I was a CPA consultant. I traveled the country. I did built financial models. So I did a little bit of what we all do today. So the coding and the design of reports and the marketing of my work. I left that in a really unhealthy lifestyle to start a health and wellness blog. I'm not here to talk about that but I am here to talk about something I'm really passionate about and that's life and performance and energy and productivity. Because that's something that we all struggle with every day and it's something that if we get better at and put in a little bit of effort we can find an amazing impact on our life. And so with that are you guys ready to get to work? Yes. Okay. Our work. Our work. So we talked about our work and we have designers. We have developers. We have marketers. We have support. We have people that are still looking for kind of what it is. But for the most part each of us is doing what we want to be doing. We're passionate about it. We're not working a nine to five. We're not stuck in a cube. We're not really working for the men and some of us might be. But this is an amazing opportunity to be doing what we love but this opportunity comes with a lot of responsibility. So let me ask any of you raise your hand if you work in a small team. Small team. You and a couple other people. So probably about half of us. So in our small teams there are so many things that we have to deal with that we're responsible for. We're on our project management tools Basecamp and Asana and Trello. We're doing client meetings. We're on our email. We're managing our inbox and our agendas. That's just, that's as a part of a small team, right? And then there's more and we'll get to those. Raise your hand if you work by yourself. If you are a solo practitioner, a solopreneur. So that's like a quarter of us and I don't know where the other quarter went. But yeah, so that's, and I'm with you guys. Now, we do all the things that the people in the small teams do plus everything else. So we're responsible for bookkeeping and we're responsible for our own web administration and our own social media marketing. We do it all. And so with these responsibilities, the list never ends, right? All these things that we're responsible for are constantly asking for our attention. And I made this list. They're small for a reason. We're not supposed to really be able to, there's so many. Status meetings, kickoff meetings, this, that, the other thing, people, the list never ends. Yeah, you can take a picture of that cluttered mess, great. And it never ends. Yeah, and I couldn't think of, like, that was the last one I couldn't think of in other things. I was just like, oh, I'll just say it never ends. The list, people, all these things, the things that are constantly in our brains asking for our attention, I call them knockers. Not those kind of knockers. Knockers, right? These are the things that are constantly knocking at our head and our brain asking for our attention, needing our focus and our decision-making ability. Knockers, okay? So think with me. What are the things that are knocking the loudest for you? Is it your agenda? Is it your email box, your inbox? Is it a particular client that's knocking the loudest? So let's sit on that. Let's hold that thought, right, about the knockers. And... Let's... Yeah, they're gonna wish they were in here. All right, let's have some fun, okay? Hold the knocker's thought. So I'm gonna ask a question. How many of you like elephants? Raise your hand if you like elephants. How can you not? They're amazing. They're so smart. They're beautiful creatures. Okay, great. We all kind of like elephants. So I'm gonna have two people come help me out. So Dell and Jack come up and share the stage. Give Dell and Jack a round of applause. All right, so Jack, I want you to stand here. And Dell, I want you to stand to my left. So here's what we're gonna do. We're talking about elephants. So I'm gonna ask Jack, who just took his glasses off. He's like, prepared for something crazy. He does not know what's about to happen. I think he's ready. He's ready. Okay, so Jack, here's what's gonna happen. I want you to pretend you're an elephant. Okay? But... Here's the scene. You are an elephant that's... You're outside in this beautiful oasis. And you are with your friends, your other elephant friends. And you're about to go for a swim in this beautiful latrine. Okay? Like a pond or something. What's a latrine? Like a bathroom? I studied accounting. I don't know. All right, so you're gonna go swimming in a beautiful stream of water. Okay? You're an elephant. Ready? Go. Yeah! He's happy. Let's hear it. Come on, more. Yes, that's a happy elephant. Look how happy he is, okay? He's gonna go play with his friends in some of the water. It's beautiful outside. Great. Now, let's now pretend you're still an elephant. But let's pretend that you are now chained by the ankle. I know it's really sad and a terrible thing. And you haven't seen your friends for like a week. And you haven't eaten for three days. Okay? Go. He's a sad elephant. What kind of... Yeah, give him a round of applause. Not much noise. Yeah, he's quiet. He's kind of just like a little sad. Okay, great. Sometimes they get really aggressive, but sad works too. Okay. Del. You, your job, you are the rider of this elephant. Okay? So, I'm gonna ask you, so you have two jobs. The first job is to ride the elephant. What do you have to say about that? He's not happy. Not cool, right? You want a happy elephant. Why? Because your second job is to make decisions. Excuse me, you guide the elephant. You're the rider. You guide him and you show him the way. You make decisions on where to go. Perfect. Now, these two, the elephant and the rider, people, this is your brain. Okay? So, we're gonna talk about that. But first, let's give Del and Jack a big round of applause. Okay. So, the elephant and the rider. Okay, one thing. This idea of the elephant and the rider being your brain, this is not something that I came up with originally. It's from a book. It's called Switch. It's fantastic. It's all over my website. I highly recommend it. Switch. Okay. So, the elephant and the rider, it's in your brain. Let's talk about them individually. Over here, the elephant. In the future, he's big. He's strong. And he's very primal. That's why we call him the emotional elephant. He likes to do things that are primal. Eat, sleep, and hang out with friends and family. Okay? But the elephant and the elephant needs guidance. But with the right guidance, because the elephant is so strong and so emotional, with the right guidance, the elephant can do some really special things. So that's the emotional elephant. And then over here is the rational rider. That's the other part of your brain. This little guy is small and he's sort of weak, but he's smart. He makes decisions. He's the one that decided, oh, I'm going to go to this talk in this room. He's the one that decided what to wear today. Every single decision that you make, that's the rider making that decision. So, job one is to make decisions and job two for the rider is to ride the elephant. Those are two big jobs. Making every decision that you make and controlling this big primal force that can show you the way we've given the right guidance. Okay? The rider and the elephant. That's your brain. Emotional elephant and rational rider. We'll let that sink in. Okay? Now, I want to tell you my story. So I used to be in client services like a lot of us. I did CPA consulting. I traveled the country. I built these financial models. They weren't WordPress models, they were documents and ideas. So, I would do the coding to put numbers in to get numbers out. I would do the design of these reports to get these beautiful reports off to the CFO. And then I would do the marketing to market my work to potential new clients and whatever. I was really good at my job. My clients loved me. I would get up in the morning and check my email immediately. I would fix all of their problems and I would take phone calls in the middle of the night. Anything that they needed, I would do immediately. They loved me. I was good. My clients loved me. But people, I didn't love myself. Look at this guy. Yeah. It's kind of like a mugshot. Yeah. One of the sessions earlier said to turn your shoulders so it doesn't look like a mugshot in the images. Yeah. So, I was overworked. I was over-stressed. I was burnt out. And all I did was work. And so I got into this cycle. Really. I would go to sleep, work, eat, drink, go to bed. And the second I woke up, I would work again. And so here's what happened. It was like a downward spiral. And my work kept getting worse. My performance decreased. My energy decreased. My productivity decreased. So what's a guy to do? I left. I just skipped out. I had some PTO days and I went overseas. I didn't take client meetings. I didn't check my agenda. I wasn't looking at my inbox. It was great. But come on. This is not a solution to the problem. To dealing with the knockers. Right? You can't just leave. We have responsibilities. We have work. So what is? What's a solution? Okay, we're almost there. And we're going to get to the solution. But first, I have a question. We're going to talk about a thing. Teeth brushing. Can I ask you a question? First of all, let me ask everyone a question. How many of you brush your teeth this morning? Everyone, right? I hope so. Me, it was kind of a fun night last night. Okay. Now I'm going to ask you a question. How did you brush your teeth this morning? I'm sorry, what's your name? Jess. So I switched to my right hand and wasn't focusing at all. And I'm like, what am I doing? Okay, so she kind of was multitasking but how did you do it? What was your method? So I started with this side of the breath that I usually do. I usually use my right hand. It just didn't work. I also remember it was a long one. So I switched to the other side. And I was like, oh yeah, I always go left side of the breath. That's what you typically do. The automated method. Like the autopilot version. So that's what I think most of us do. When we're brushing our teeth, it's automatic. I'm sorry, it's automated. You just do it. You're like four or five years old and you just do it. Automated. The second question, Jess, how did you decide to brush your teeth this morning? Right, she didn't decide. It just started happening. So that's the element making it automatic. It was just automatic. She just brushed her teeth. Okay, last question. I promise. Why did you brush your teeth this morning? You're right. She's a civilized, a hygienic human being in a part of society, right? That's her value. That's Jess's value. Thank you, Jess. So that's a ritual, people. Brushing your teeth is a ritual. And the keys to rituals like brushing your teeth is these three things. They're automated. You don't have to think about doing them. You don't know how to brush your teeth. It just happens. You've gone through the process before. You know the best way to do it. It just happens. You don't think about it. The second thing is it's automatic. You don't have to decide if you should brush your teeth. Why should I brush my teeth? It's automatic. And the third is that it's based on strongly held values, these rituals. You brush your teeth because you're an elephant. Now, think back to when we were talking about the elephant and the rider. Who benefits from these rituals? The elephant or the rider? I heard both. So I heard elephant and rider and that's kind of both, right? So for the elephant, elephant loves brushing his teeth, right? It feels good. And he's going to have problems probably with good breath, right? That's why the elephant likes it. Primal. And then the rider, why does the rider like these rituals? A ritual like brushing his teeth. He doesn't have to decide how to do it and doesn't have to decide if and when. It just happens. Rituals. These rituals, people. These rituals are the key to our success. Our brain benefits from these rituals. But our brain only benefits from these rituals if we can do them in peace. You hear that? It's the knockers. The knockers are coming in trying to disturb our rituals. So what do we tell the knockers? Do not disturb. So when we're doing these rituals, like brushing our teeth, we tell the knockers do not disturb. So for example, at breakfast, or in the morning when you're having breakfast, you're not on your phone checking your agenda. Or at lunch, when you're going outside to get fresh air, you're not on social media. Or when you're at dinner with your person, you're not taking a phone call. So here's the key though. Is that you have to have the confidence to say to the knockers, to these responsibilities that we have, do not disturb. And know that they might kind of keep coming trying to disturb you. But with persistence, they'll slowly fade away. So think about someone knocking at your door and there's a do not disturb sign. They might still knock. But if they see the sign enough times, they're going to get the point and they're going to fade away. So you have to have the confidence to be persistent in telling the knockers do not disturb. Why? So what are the benefits? First of all, oops. Ah. Going so good. What are the benefits? It's energizing. These rituals are so energizing. Why? This is specifically with the writer. You're not making decisions. You have a limited capacity in your brain to make decisions and to control that emotional elephant in your brain. So if you're doing less work, it's energizing. These rituals people, they're motivating. When you come on vacation, when you come back from vacation, you're like, oh, I want to do work. I'm ready to get back at it. It's motivating. And the third one, this is so cool. It will enhance your productivity. People, when we do these rituals and we're more energized, we are less likely to make mistakes in our complex tasks, like development, like design, like everything that we do in our job. That's going to make us more productive. So when do we do these rituals? Before work, during work, after work. Guys, before work, every morning, I make breakfast. And I'm not, this is the first thing I do. I make breakfast religiously. I don't decide if I'm going to make breakfast. I don't decide what I'm going to make for breakfast. I just make breakfast. I make this omelet. It's amazing. And I'm not doing social media or my agenda I get outside and I go have some fresh air. It doesn't matter if we're working from home remotely, if we're working in an office. But this is something that we can do during the work day. Just go get some fresh air. This is my dog. She's not having the best time ever, but she's outside, she's breathing the fresh air, getting some sun. And then after work, people, and go hang with your family and your friends. These are my friends. I have a lot of dog friends, okay? But, the decision's been made and my computer's closed. So here's the challenge, people. Start to address the knockers. But start small. Get up in the morning and do 15 pushups. Or make breakfast. Or go for a walk with your person. But people, don't check your agenda before. Don't check your email before. And don't check your social media before. Because that stuff's all going to be there. When you get back and you've gone through your rituals in peace. It's worth it. It's worth it. So, I like to do this towards the end of this talk. I like to give advice to my former self. This guy that was overworked over stress. And the first piece of advice is this. Former self, there's no such thing as a client emergency. If there's an emergency, they can just call 911. Alright? There's no such thing as a client emergency. Thing two, hard work, self, is like a drug. It's addicting. And you get paid to do it. But nobody likes a drug addict. So, come on man. Put it down. And then the last thing, this is sort of advice to everyone here is love your life and love yourself. And don't be afraid to say do not disturb. Thanks. Questions? No? I don't blame you. I wouldn't have questions either. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. So caffeine, like coffee. That's part of my breakfast. Yeah, that's part of my routine. Coffee and an omelet and yeah. I do like, I have like a whole routine. I actually do like yoga and meditation and stuff. But I don't tell people to do that right away. The key is to start slow and try and get the day started off on the right foot. Yeah. What do you think about like chunking up your time to say like for this hour I'm going to check out Walk the Dog or like for this hour. That's the key is like if you're going to take time for yourself going for a walk in the middle of the day that's putting that on your agenda and that's stuff that you cannot be disturbed from doing. And so you get kind of both benefits of you've told yourself that that's time for you and you also told anyone who has access to your calendar that's time for you and that's blocked off and it's no different than having a meeting where you can't be where you know you're not taking email or calls. That is a great trick to accomplish this type of thing is just put it on your agenda. Yeah, every day is through the clock no matter what I'm doing. I stop. Yeah, and like even if you don't want to like you're in the midst of something amazing or you're grinding through some problem and you feel like you're just stuck there and I can keep pushing through but just forcing yourself to close the computer I have a reminder that goes off at 5.45 every day Fee Lucy, it's my dog that means the day is done shut it down, pick it up later maybe, but okay, fine so yeah, great it's great What else? Yeah, back there Yeah, that's a great question The tipping point was I was like 40 pounds bigger than I am now and I just I needed to find something that was meaningful to me in life besides being good at my job and going overseas kind of opened my eyes to what life can be when you're not sort of like what's that? Yeah, yeah when you're not in control being controlled by someone completely having that freedom for a few weeks while I was away, opened my eyes and also like looking in the mirror and I was like whoa, holy crap that's not cool Yeah, good question, yeah Hi Natalie How do you when you are on your grind and you're doing your work I think that line that went into addiction is so maybe you can start crank, crank, crank I don't tend to just go and I don't want to stop and I like to joke the same way when I'm with a child I'm good at it so I give myself whatever I want and we all play all work How do you keep your work time from giving it to over the top until you start slipping back into like do you have the track in in terms of your schedule? Yeah, so how do you set your boundaries How do you avoid the trap of overworking yourself without limitation How do you set boundaries and a lot of times it's arbitrary my six o'clock deadline to one of my workday ends it's arbitrary it's reasonable time when things start outside of work dinners, softball games so it's sort of arbitrary and you have to just set it and be confident that you will be able to fit in more and get more done in the time that you give yourself then if you don't have that deadline your quick time is over Yeah, really it's like it's shut the laptop and like stretch and then just go like done it's tough, it took me a long time to get there though, it's baby steps Natalie, good question So you just avoid any emergencies after six o'clock you just don't answer them? Yeah, and the key, so the question is do you just avoid emergencies at six o'clock not answer calls after six and the answer is yeah and if the expectation is set with clients that's the expectation and they they can get an answer from you at eight in the morning but when you have clients that expect you to always be there they're gonna keep pushing the envelope but what I think people want is that clients actually respect you more value you more when you set those boundaries and you're gonna make more money doing that because you're gonna be more valuable they're gonna recommend you more it's counterintuitive but it's kinda like cats, cats are kinda like a little coy, I'm not saying to be coy but like being a little less available and a little selfish if the expectation is set is okay and it's gonna benefit everyone okay, I don't know about that I don't have children thank you you can tell oh right, yeah you say the limit but as soon as you give in they keep calling you're gonna keep giving in and eventually you are so Kathy I think is your name she's saying to set the limits with the child and then once they know the expectations and the boundaries so I have a little bit of experience with children I was a camp counselor and one of the things that we were taught is to set the rules early and because you can always loosen them up so after lunch there would be a time it was quiet time basically it was like one hour after lunch where everyone just it's just quiet and every counselor naps like you're exhausted you wanna sleep but if you don't say okay this hour is silent time you're never gonna get to sleep so that example it's important on day one with your children they're kinda like clients children and clients they're the same thing basically set expectations this is how we do things around here and if you're not cool with that see you later people push the envelope people push the envelope absolutely question yeah I'm actually kind of out of game list cause I'm not sure exactly what it was but thank you anyway I'm 19 now and I kinda like in that mindset where I do a passion project and I can pump all the time I don't sleep well so 19 hours a day so he's saying 19 hours a day you're 19 and he's 19 and he works 19 hours a day so hopefully it's not every year you live you add an hour but I get that so as you're early as you are at the infant stages of your career you wanna work more because you have the energy you have the time you don't have the obligations like family and like kids and like other things and that's fine so your boundaries 6pm until the next day maybe it's 6pm until 10pm and then you can turn it back on at 10pm and that's fine so kind of sliding those boundaries to what fits for you but as long as there are boundaries you're gonna find people a profound change in your life these boundaries do not serve, yeah what are the boundaries that you have what made the change and how easy was it to maintain your relationships okay so that's a really good question uh I yes new clients I took they knew the deal and uh I was happier, they were happier seriously it may have been because I was better at what I was doing I was more confident yes I did and I saw the benefit of setting those boundaries with clients yeah what would happen is I would I would just say there were sort of big projects so I would just say I need a new client you know it's like being in a bad relationship seriously you got if someone's gonna walk all over you that's never changing and this is not meant to turn into a relationship advice but like don't let people walk all over you and then once they do, goodbye cause that's not gonna change I wouldn't say my clients walk all over me but I've been flexible I've always been a night person so I've had a niche in that I could do things after all the people people work better at different times the key is to be able to have time for yourself and to be able to do these rituals that allow for enhanced productivity energy performance I shouldn't feel bad when I come don't call me before noon but you can call me after 8 p.m yes absolutely that's terrific what about for me I've got so many of the numbers from different areas I remember work 2 and I was like what do you think about making lists or just bring dumps or just to get it out often times I'll forget and half of the people are like oh my gosh I was supposed to get this time yesterday or it's just so many different things so I love to hear about your system for keeping yeah what kind of systems do you think less to you so I'm not perfect in this I struggle with this type of stuff too I have two types of checklists I have a long term projects and I have a short term almost daily stuff that I have to cross off do you have a time like every morning do you just sit down and make lists or your checklists is that part of this funny so here's what I do I have that list of big projects that I want to accomplish I have blog projects I have house projects I have family projects and then every day when I start my day I open up my journal and I write here's the date I'm grateful for these three things just arbitrary that makes me feel good and then I say here's my plan and I have one big thing so that's like I have a blog post write it or figure out how to make this recipe or like whatever and then after that one big thing I have I limit myself to like five or so little annoying things and that's it and I try to cross them off because I found that if I had more than one big thing I didn't either so you want to I found that it takes a lot of discipline to get yourself outside of the get the urgent stuff done mode and so okay okay so how much time do we have? we have ten minutes I mean so I've recently just read this thing guys feel free we're getting into the good here read important and urgent you heard about this? yeah so in quadrant one it's like important and urgent quadrant two is important not urgent three is urgent not important and four is neither okay quadrant four is where I love to go it's just like goofing around on youtube like that magic shtick like I'll like magic videos it's like it's weird I'll just get lost in youtube videos but you don't want to be there you also don't want to be in the third quadrant even though like sometimes you just have like that's how we survive in our jobs and that in the third quadrant is urgent but not important that's like updating this blog post or responding to this comment or you know dealing with this issue like oh you know someone's going to hate me if I don't be fine if I don't all the just urgent stuff my understanding is you want to spend your time in that quadrant two not urgent important so that's like for me like this talk that's one of those quadrant two things like this talk probably took me like a month to come up with a concept and like sketch it out and like just put it all together into practice like that's the stuff that's not urgent but that's like career changing that's stuff you can really be proud of and go talk to people about that'll change your life so I'm rambling at this point but I think yeah that's absolutely that's the Dwight Eisenhower or Dwight Eisenhower thing yeah so I don't know if that answers your question so it helps it helps me every day to make a list oh one more thing at the end of the day if I'm really doing good with my productivity yeah like at the end of the day I make my list if I'm like really hitting it hard and like doing it great the last thing on my agenda for the day is to make the plan for tomorrow and then my tomorrow is awesome so I'm not perfect at this stuff like I love procrastinating but like I kind of know how to do it yeah that would be my tip end of the day make yourself an agenda for the next day last thing you do, shut your computer after all that rambling that's my recommendation that's great do you have a question back? do you have a question? what's that? we're talking usually a lot of people ask but on a team level let's say all of us are on a team level right how do you force others to influence encourage lead by example so the question is how do you get your team members to get a grip on their life be more to help themselves so that they can be more productive in their work and my answer is to lead by example so if you tell your team alright from 6 to 8 I'm out like I'm offline maybe they'll do it too lead by example that's what I try and do anyone else? alright this is fun guys thanks thanks