Episode 34 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So where are you going to be present? I’m at home, right? Let’s pack up the work box for now. Let’s put it on a shelf and physically see yourself picking up that box, putting it on the shelf, taking out the home one. Put that down on the floor and go right, this is the box that I’m focused on.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Hi everyone. Rob Kropp here and welcome back to another episode of the Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How’s things?
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Good to be back, Rob? Yeah, really good. Weather’s warming up, which is very nice. And I suppose the grass is growing at a rate that’s probably a bit quicker than you’d like.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I love this time of year I’ve already fertilised my lawn and it’s just great. You love it. I do.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
You do. Have you got those big boots that you stomp on the ground and air rate and do all that stuff with?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
I do.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
I knew it.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Very cool. Soon as spring hits, I get my liquid fertiliser down and then yeah, just recently got in and put a bit of other fertiliser in. So yeah, the grass is going to start greening up now nicely, which is going to be good.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Very good. I like it. I know we’ve got a few people that listen that have right into their lawns that are clients, so it’ll be interesting to see their take on what you’ve managed to come up with this year.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
You should see my dad’s lawn. He lives in Elliot heads the coast of Bundaberg and he has got the greenest grass, he’s got his cylinder mower, he’s got his stripes going. Just he loves it. He mows it a couple of times a week. He loves it.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Love it. Alright, shout out to everyone who’s looking after their lawns at the moment.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
It’s good to see it’s lawn season. I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Alright, what are we doing?
(01:43):
I’m looking forward to today’s topic and yeah, it’s one of those things that I know a lot of business people face is creating that separation from work and life and family life. And so I know that today it’s going to be super topical for sure. And I think it’s because the reality is is that one of the biggest challenges that we do face as business and businessmen is the ability to balance business, family life, the demands of business, the demands of family, wanting to be a great businessman, wanting to be a great family man, have a social life, be healthy and fit, have time for your friends and family. It’s just a big juggling act and it’s just one of those things that a lot of business people struggle to find that balance, don’t they?
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah. I think they find themselves in that position of I should be doing something else. No matter what I’m doing, I just can’t get it right. Or I’m constantly feeling like no matter where I am, I shouldn’t be here, I should be in another position, another time with other people, whatever it might be. And I think whether you employ 10, 20, 30s and 30 employees, it doesn’t really matter on that business front either. The demands that you face as a business owner are almost constant. They’re never ending, they’re relentless. So I think that’s really a big challenge for how do we navigate that? So I’m looking forward to this conversation today.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
A lot of people find themselves on what we call the hamster wheel where they’re just feeling trapped, working crazy hours, not making the profits that they deserve. They’re confused about what to do next and they’re disconnected from the very reason of why they got into business in the first place, which is their family and having some sense of freedom in terms of time and energy and money. And this is so common for so many guys in the trades and construction space, they, they’re just going round and round and round in circles and they dunno how to get off that hamster wheel unfortunately.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And trying to find out feeling like how do you be present with people you love when you’ve got other things going on? There’s still a world out there outside of wherever you are. So how do you navigate that and what do you do?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah. So I know that there’s going to be super topical and I know that I’m really looking forward to the feedback for those of you who are listening and today, what we are going to do is give you the tools and the techniques that you need to be able to compartmentalise business and family and life so that you not only show up as a great businessman and as a great leader, but how do you then show up as a great husband, a great father, a great family man, and a great bloke that your family and friends absolutely deserve. So it’s the ability to balance it all and show up as the best version of yourself is what we’re going to be talking about today.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Yeah, I love it. And before we get into that first strategy, maybe just explain what you mean by compartmentalise. We use that word a lot in coaching when we’ve got clients that seem confused or overwhelmed. What do you take that to mean and how do you explain it to clients?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
It’s going back to that word should that you said before and so many people are not where they are. And what I mean by that is, is that when they’re at work, they’re thinking about other things and when they’re with their family instead of being present with their family, they’re there in body but they’re not there in mind. And because they’re somewhere else, they’re thinking about what’s going on in business or I haven’t responded to that email or I haven’t responded to that text or this customer’s waiting for this or shit, I haven’t scheduled the boys tomorrow or whatever it is. And so a lot of people are not truly present and are where they are. They’re physically there but mentally vacant. And so compartmentalise to me means the ability to carve out and compartmentalise your time and your energy and focus to be where you really are in that moment, not somewhere that you want to be either in the past or in the future for where you think you should be. And so your ability to learn that skill to compartmentalise is something that you’ve got to practise and develop over time is the better you get at it. That’s how you become truly present in the moment and be where you actually are.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Yeah, I like it. I think also it’s worth saying before we get into it, we’re going to focus on obviously that moment where you go from work to home or that work and personal sort of scenario today. But compartmentalising can happen at different times even through a day. I know there’s times where we’ve had to coach clients on compartmentalising where they may be facing different challenges in their business. There’s the challenge of how am I going to make a finance repayment up the shed, but how do I stop thinking about that and how do I get on with what I need to, which is either getting a job done or still doing business development work. Compartmentalising would mean in that scenario that you’re able to leave a problem where it needs to be present and get done what you need to. So I think there’s a big productivity sort of play with that too with this skill. So it’s definitely one worth learning and I suppose if you want to learn more about that, please let us know and we’ll dive into that a bit deeper.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
I would say that one of the biggest things that I hear when I speak to business owners before they get into coaching that they feel guilty for not being truly present with their family. And it’s a common thing where I speak to business guys all the time and they’re like, I’m like, mate, what’s the biggest challenge that you face right now? And it’s like, yeah, I’m not making the money I want at times, time’s the issue, all those surface level things and the more you dig around it, it’s like I’m not giving my family the time that they deserve and they’re not getting the best version of me. I’m stressed and tired and worn out and I’m just not truly present with ’em on there, but I’m just not present. And yeah, it’s a common thing that when you get right, it completely changes the dynamics on the family front because they get the best version of you and you actually get to enjoy your family, which is what it’s all about in the end of the day.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, it’s very difficult to hear clients talk about their feelings about family being a stressor for them rather than something that they really enjoy. So it’s a really good point you raised. Should we dive right in with our first topic?
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Absolutely. Let’s do it.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
Alright, let’s jump in. So the first topic or strategy we want to cover off is a concept. I’m really excited to bring this out and talk about this today. It’s called Leave your Boots at the door. And what we’re really talking about here is a mindset, a mental device. I’ll come back to that in a moment, but really when you think about it, the demands of business are either going to hold you back or the stress and urgency is going to mean that you can’t let go. And what I mean by that is you’re going to be held back from ever sort of walking through that door from work to family and making that transition because there’s so much going on so you can’t let go or the urgency means that you’re going to bring it home with you anyway. You bring it through the door with you and you trapes all that stress and worry and urgency with you as soon as you walk in the door. So really what we’re talking about now, it’s a bit like mud on dirty boots, whatever you like. And I’m talking very visual, very imagery and metaphor here, but it’s true. I mean you need to have this idea of how do I make that separation and walking through that door is a really good way to think about it.
Speaker 2 (09:18):
Yeah, business comes with a lot of responsibility but it comes with a lot of stress and a lot of that stress can come in the forms of financial stress looming deadlines. You might be having lack of pipeline or sales, you’ve got to have difficult conversation with customers, team members that can get all up in your head around just worrying and stressing. And I think that’s what we talk around with the demands. It’s not necessarily when you’re on the tools, it’s the physical demands and the time demands on you. But I think the thing that causes the stress and the urgency you were talking a bit about before is more the mental side of things where we are vacant in the mind because we’re stressing and worrying about all the things that have either gone wrong, could go wrong or could go wrong now or into the future. That’s what we talk a bit about, the stress and isn’t it? So it’s the mental stress more than anything.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Absolutely. And without this sort of breaker that I’m going to talk about now, this mantra of leave your boots at the door, your mind’s going to just continually be relentless. It’s just going to keep churning the gears on the problems, on the stresses, on the urgency, on the stuff you feel you should be doing. That constant conversation in your head without having that circuit breaker to be able to break that pattern of thought, you’re going to really struggle to turn it off or make the transition from one phase of your life into another. So what we recommend and it’s worked with great success, is having this mantra of leave your boots at the door and it conjures up those images. Like I said, don’t put your muddy boots through the house, make sure you leave your boots at the door as a practise. It’s a habit. It’s either physical and it’s real, but it’s not meant to be a literal leave your boots at the door. Maybe it is, but in the main sense it’s mentally leave your boots at the door. Hey, let that thought go. You’ve got to be able to do that before you can make the break unless you do, your thoughts can run wild, you’ll mind race on those problems like I just talked about.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
When it does run wild, what then happens when your mind is running wild as you do walk through the door?
Speaker 1 (11:30):
I think it just gets louder and it compounds because now you’ve got this thought that you’ve been chewing on this problem. How am I going to get this guy to pay up? How am I going to get this job over the line that revisit we’ve had to do because someone’s stuffed up on site. All of those things are in your head already and you’ve already got this attitude of I’m going home, it’s time to be a dad, it’s time to be a husband, a partner, whatever it is. And I think the minute you don’t make that jump and you don’t have this circuit breaker, the next layer of thought that comes in is, Hey, I’m at home and I’m still not doing what I should. And your brain goes, well what should I be doing? And then on top of the problems you’re already chewing on, you’re now having a mouthful of disappointment or regret or pressure about what you should be doing at home that you’re not already doing. So it just sends a compound. It doesn’t get any smaller, it doesn’t go away, it just piles on one thing on top of the other.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Especially when for those of those business guys who have got young families as well and they go home into witching hour, it’s just another layer of stress that gets added to the situation.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
It is. And all you want to do is say, I can’t deal with this right now, but you’ve got no choice and your brain’s not going to let you stop thinking about it. The situation that’s presenting itself when you walk through that door is not going to change either. It is what it is. So no amount of wishing it was something else or you were somewhere else is going to help solve it.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
And this is a big reason why a lot of business guys, especially in the trade space then turn to escape in terms of alcohol or working late into the night because A, they’ve had very stressful days and they just don’t want to go home to the stress of witching hour. Or sometimes they go home and they just plunk themselves on the couch, turn on the telly and sink a few beers just to numb the pressure from the day. And that’s where the family doesn’t get the best version of them because the guy coming home from work, he is not feeling the best version within himself anyway. And that’s where it just compounds, doesn’t it?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Yeah. You’ve got to create that little bit of separation, you’ve got to have that mental break, the ability to switch gears and it’s very hard to do when the momentum and all that noise you’ve just talked about is running away from you. So having the mantra of leave your boots at the door is just a great little reminder. You can say it, it’s a bit different. It’s like what does that mean? Oh yeah, that’s right. I’m switching now. So learn that phrase, bring it into your mind and start repeating it whenever you need to or you want to create that separation. And again, yes, it’s great for when you’re coming home or you’re going from that work to home transition, but you can do that at the same time. Like we said, compartmentalising and learning to do this starts and one of the best devices you can use is a little mantra to remind you. So even during the day, you’re going to go from one meeting to the next, a client meeting to an ops meeting, whatever it might be, you can remind yourself, Hey, leave your boots at the door. That means, hey, let that go. It’s time to be present and square up again to where I’m going right now
Speaker 2 (14:33):
To check yourself moment, isn’t it?
Speaker 1 (14:34):
It really is. Yeah, it’s check in, just check where you are right now. And it’s so easy to do, but having that little statement of leave your boots at the door is a great starting point I suppose. Then that leads us to, alright, so I say that is that magic? Is that something I can do it? Is it going to solve all my problems? Obviously it’s not, but this is where I think Rob, we spend the rest of this episode talking through two scenarios and the two that I was thinking of was in the scenario that you’re working from home, so you haven’t got a premises to go to, so you’re still working out of the kitchen table or a spare bedroom or something like that, and what can you do then to make this switch? So what are some actual tactics you can employ? And then after that, let’s come back to then if you are working from an office or a factory or whatever it is you’re working from outside of the home. So how about we start with working from home to begin with?
Speaker 2 (15:27):
Sounds good because the reality is when you run a smaller business, there is no physical work life separation and you have to create that. You have create that mental separation because there is no physical separation get. When we’re working with clients, when they generally hit that million dollar plus mark, this is a big lever that we pull to be able to physically create that separation. And so if you are still sub $1 million, you’ve got to work hard on this scenario to be able to create it, but just know that the moment you generally hit the million dollars plus and the reason why a million is because you’ve got a few ground crew, you’ve got materials hanging around, you’re getting ready to put an admin person on and all those types of things and you’ve got the profitability to be able to reinvest back into an overhead that is an office space. So that’s why we talk around this structure. But for those who are working from home, Dan, what’s one of the best strategies that you’ve seen to be able to help someone leave their boots at the door when they do work from home?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Yeah, I’m going to talk about a thing I like to teach guys to help with this. Leave your boots at the door is also the idea of creating mental shelves and I’ll talk through what that means at the moment. I think the other challenge though with this working from home situation still is that just as leave your boots at the door helps you create separation, nothing will bring you back sooner than a phone ringing that chime, that ringtone goes off, bang, I’m back into that mode in a heartbeat. So that’s almost like the antithesis of what we’ve been talking about and we’ll probably let’s touch on the phone one later, but let me come back to mental shelves. First of all, in terms of mental shelving, what I’m talking about here is again, the ability to take on board one thing at a time. We all think that there’s this idea of multitasking and I think it’s almost done with, I know I haven’t thought about it this way for a long time, but multitasking is a myth, right?
(17:27):
It doesn’t exist. You can only ever do one thing at a time and no matter how much is going on in your world, you can only still deal with one of those things. Now you might be mind racing and cycling like we talked about, but the ability to be able to compartmentalise and keep track of one thing at a time is about all you can do anyway. So what happens in a real scenario is you could come in that witching hour like you talked about and you walk in and you’ve got the problems of business in your mind. Oh, shit’s breaking loose at home, it’s dinner time, it’s cooked, this, help with that, do all this sort of stuff that you’ve got to do. That part of your life takes over. And if you like the idea of mental shelves is that you’ve got all the boxes in your world now on the floor and they’re being tipped upside down.
(18:12):
So you’ve got this washing machine of noise in your head about what you should do, what needs to be done, and it’s overwhelming. The idea about mental shelving is having a picture in your mind, and as long as you’re not driving really think about this, I want you to think and visualise a set of shelves and on those shelves are different boxes with different parts of your world, different parts of what you are dealing with in work and different parts of what you’re dealing with at home and making sure you can clearly see that because again, this little mental exercise of building mental shelves means that what you do is you pack up what’s on the floor that you are not working on right now or not going to occupy your space. So where are you going to be present? I’m at home, right? Let’s pack up the work box for now. Let’s put it on a shelf and physically see yourself picking up that box, putting it on the shelf, taking out the home one, put that down on the floor and go, right, this is the box that I’m focused on. And the ability to switch between those boxes and get good at doing this is a really good way to get clear on changing gears and going from work to home and a few other things there.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
So what I’m hearing is it’s your ability to create that mental picture of seeing your life in different compartments like we were speaking about before, and it’s your ability to compartmentalise them, pack up work mentally and physically, put that in the shelf and flick the switch and now go, right now I’m turning on husband and dad, Rob kind of thing. It’s your ability to mentally and physically pack up, pack up that shelf by the sounds of it.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, absolutely. And that use of your mind to do this, that’s the secret in itself. The more clear that you can be about it and have that practise and that motion in your mind of packing up a box, reaching up and putting it on the shelf, pulling down another one, what that’s doing is creating a mental break. It’s like a fire break if you like. This all goes to this point, but then it stops because now my mind can’t think about that because I’m telling it to go and do this mental exercise of doing my mental shelves. So really it is that simple. And the beauty is not in the complexity of the thought or the visualisation, it’s just in the practise of breaking the pattern in your own mind using a visual metaphor. That’s really all we’re doing in coaching speak.
Speaker 2 (20:34):
To take that further with the visual metaphor. The physical metaphor can be cleaning your desk, turning off your laptop, closing the door behind you. So it’s taking the mental aspect that you were talking about before and also combining it with the physical. And if you get all of them working together, that’s what it almost creates closure on the day to be able to go, I’m done, boom. Pull the door behind you and you are done and dusted and then you take a deep breath, right? Let’s go for it kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
There’s no promise it’s going to be easy or what you’re going to walk through. We can’t do anything about that, but absolutely we can prepare and we can develop that muscle to be able to do this. And even just doing it once or even a little bit is going to create a different outcome in terms of what it would’ve been had you just barreled through the day as you might’ve been already. The other one I want to come back to, Rob, is the phone one. I think that’s important because again, as much as we can create the breaks and use the mental devices that we’ve talked about so far, there’s other things that exist in this world that will bring us straight back and close that divide. And the phone’s one of ’em isn’t it?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
It is phones. Phones a really big one and because if you carry your phone out there into family world, it’s text messages, it’s social media pinging, it’s a phone call that you might get that you carry all that work with you and even if your phones in your pocket, it’s going to be the distraction of that going on. And there’s nothing worse than spending time with your family and you read an email or a message that you shouldn’t and it’s like, oh, I regret that and now I’m back into it could be a good email and then boom, you’re thinking about what’s coming up or it could be a bad one and it’s like, oh man, I wish I didn’t read that because now is a problem. Come through your mind’s back into solving that problem or there’s been some issue that’s gone on, it just takes you back there.
(22:41):
And so I think this is a big thing that I know our clients work super hard on and I know it’s something that I try and work hard on as well, where for me is put the phone on, face down on my desk and go out there when it’s family time and the times I don’t do it and I put it on the kitchen table and it’s either whether it’s facing down or facing up, there’s that temptation there to look at it. And there’s the times I don’t do it, I just know that I’m not truly present with family time because I know my bloody device, which is an addictive behaviour, takes hold and takes grip. And so I think the phone is a big thing. Learning to be able to create separation from your devices, especially now that we’re so connected in today’s world, is a big part of creating that separation at the door.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
It is. And being able to have a strategy around that I think is absolutely critical. I’ve seen that with a couple of clients in particular that come to mind with this and even just hearing you talk about that, I remember a study that was done, it was probably a couple of years ago now, but they actually looked at that even if your phone was switched off, face down on the table, whatever it was that was proven to still take your attention, there was still an element of your attention and focus. I dunno how they measured that, but there was an element of focus and presence that was missing even just the fact that it was in sight. So it’s not enough to sort of do that, turn it over, especially if it’s something that for you, the phone’s, what you do your business on, it’s where the calls come in, it’s what the money is, the phone rings, we’re making money, those sort of attitudes.
(24:21):
But you’ve got to really temper that if you’re trying to get this right and do this separation that we’re talking about today. So let me come back to a couple of clients if that’s all right. But Caleb and Danny were two guys that I remember had this challenge in particular and they’re running their business, they’ve got a lot of jobs on the go, a lot of guys that they’re running and a lot of demand on them coming through the phone. They’re also struggling with being able to create that separation or build that presence when they did get home. So that was a real big one for them. So obviously it was like, well, I’ve got to spend less time on my phone is what we hear. Yeah, I’m a really changed to this thing, but that’s fine to have that awareness, but what can you do about it? So I think for me, when we talk about this and what the strategy would be, if this is something that you are interested in tackling, we’re going to borrow a bit from James Clear and Atomic Habits here, but there’s two laws that he spoke about that are in particular, it’s probably four or five that are in this, how to change a habit. But the two that I really want to hone in on today’s episode is first of all, make it invisible.
(25:24):
The idea if you can reduce your exposure, remove the cues of having the phone, you can’t see it. If you remove it from that environment automatically, you’re going to get a huge jump in your ability to maintain the break that you’ve built to go from one phase to the other.
Speaker 2 (25:40):
It’s so true when you say that because I know when it’s out on the kitchen table, you walk past it and you just tap your phone, you tap it and the amount of times you tap your phone as you walk past it. But the times that I’ve got it in my office and I’ll walk out and it’s not there, either it’s in the bedroom or in my office, it’s out of sight, out of mind. And t?hat’s what you’re talking about isn’t it
Speaker 1 (26:00):
It is out of sight, out of mind. Absolutely. It’s not there. I can’t think about it. And over time, other stuff takes over. Hopefully it’s for you, it’s playing with the girls or getting into some of your other habits and things that you love to do. If you can do that, all of a sudden I’m not thinking about it, I can’t see it. So that reminder’s not there. And if it’s invisible and I turn off the ringer or whatever it is, I can’t hear it either. So that’s that first law of breaking that habit would be to make it invisible or as invisible as possible.
(26:27):
What’s the second one?
(26:29):
Second one is make it difficult. Sometimes it’s not enough to make it invisible. Sometimes we’ll go, I’ll leave it in the drawer in the kitchen, but hey, if you’re in the kitchen and that’s your living space, it’s still easy to get to, right? It’s not hard to go, I’ll go and grab it. But if you really follow through on making it difficult and you increase, now I’m talking physically the number of steps between you and your device. You think about it, the kids have had their bath, they’ve gone to bed, whatever it is in your world, and you’ve put your phone away where you can’t see it, but it’s down the other end of the hallway and you plunk yourself on the couch for the night. Maybe for you Rob a nice glass of red, can you really be asked getting up to go out and walk up the hallway to go and grab your phone when you know don’t need it, you haven’t thought about it, you can’t see it.
(27:13):
It just makes it that one step harder to go and do it. You probably we’re using people’s laziness to say, well, you’re not going to do it so you’re less likely to go up and get it if it’s further away. So increase the distance as far as you can and make it difficult. Put it in another drawer, put it in a box in a drawer, make those steps, increase the number of steps between you and the phone and you’ll see that your susceptibility, your sensitivity to that ring, that sort of tapping it, as you said, as you walk past, it disappears pretty quickly. And Caleb and Danny did that great.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Yeah, especially Caleb who had his office underneath the house, was a big thing for him because it was that in that environment where he left his boots at the door as he walked up the stairs to go to home. But then he worked really hard with his devices then mentally left it at the door to walk upstairs and then removed the temptation of the devices so that when he was in through the door with his family time, he wasn’t then getting dragged back into the temptation of work when it was messages, phone calls and all those types of things. Yeah, great examples. I love it.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, absolutely. So those are probably the two I think that we can think of there. Mental shelving if you’re working from home, really helpful. And then also that just remembering those two laws make it invisible and make it difficult. I think they’re really great starting points to get this right.
Speaker 2 (28:38):
Awesome.
Speaker 1 (28:39):
So Rob, I know we work from home virtual, we coach from home, we work from home, you run the business from home. What’s your take on this and maybe share a couple of strategies if you’ve got them, how you’ve related, you talked about the phone and the tapping. What’s some of the stuff you do to create your separation either mentally or physically?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
This is one that I have to work really hard on. I love working from home because during the day in between calls and working on the business and everything, and Ben’s at an awesome age, he’s one, so he’s always home at the moment. So I get to duck out and play peekaboo and play all the fun games with him while he is there. But the downside of it just all meshes together and we’ve got a young family, so Ben’s one, Maddie’s three, Grace is five and it’s hectic from 4:30 till seven o’clock. Like most families witching time around dinner, bath and bed. It’s just a crazy time of the night and something that I have to really work hard on what I do at the moment, coming out of winter, I can’t wait for winter to be finished, but I hold onto winter. This year I held onto it because we renovated a house and put a fireplace in and I love having the fire and we put on a fire every single night.
(30:04):
We chewed through that much wood, but my way of creating the separation was I’d walk out the door, clean my desk, put my laptop on sleep, I’d walk out the door and I’d, I’d yell to Grace and Maddie, come on, girls we’re building a fire. And we’d run out, grab our kindling, I would light it up, the girls would put the timber on and that would take us 15 minutes to get the fire cranking and off we go. But that 15 minutes was my separation. It was just that. It was that breather between work and family time at nighttime and that was just enough to be able to go Right now I’m ready to crack on. And then it was finishing dinner, it was bath time, it was books and milks and beds and all those types of things. But that one little thing was a game changer during summer.
(30:57):
For me it’s whizzing out and water in the front yard or water in the backyard or pulling a few weeds in the back garden kind of thing. It’s just that little 10 minutes where Jacq and I have probably never spoken around it, but I think she just knows that that’s just my little thing where I leave work at the office door, have a quick breather and bang, then I’m into the family time and that’s my way of creating that little separation between the two, which I’ve found worked for me. So that’s what works for me for you listening. You’ve got to find what works for you rather than just walking straight out into the chaos that is family life sometimes.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, I love it. So true, so true. Excellent. Alright, well let’s go into our second scenario. Like we said, we sort of talked through working from home. We’re now going to talk about if you’re working from a factory or an office, that office can be a physical office, it could be your mobile office, IE the car and you’re doing all your stuff in there. But let’s talk about that now and before we do, I just want to make sure that the Leave your Boots mantra applies to equally to home or office and as does those mental shelves. But I think there’s a couple of little different strategies or an extra strategy we can throw in there for people that are working out of a factory or an office.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Yeah, it definitely does apply because you look at the watch and you’re like, oh shit, it’s time to go home. And then you’re on your way home, you’re making phone calls and all those types of things and then you just park up and you’re straight through the door and off you go. And so the principles still apply just because your office is in a warehouse, there’s no different to an office being at home. And so you’ve got to create that separation before you physically walk through the front door.
(32:48):
What we’ve seen clients do really well with this is have place markers or triggers. They’ve got a place marker or a trigger. And a great example of this was Aaron. He picked a switch off tree, which was a place marker on his way home. And the moment that he passed this switch off tree, that was his signal to himself to be able to go switch off work, businessman Aaron, switch on husband and Father Aaron. And it was that place marker that he hit was the flick of the switch, the bang. Now I’ve left all my problems behind and I won’t think about won’t about business until I drive past this tree in the morning. And so for him, that tree was a great place marker as a real milestone for him to be able to drive past before he went got home in the evening.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Yeah, I love that one. I love the place Marker one. I used to have that driving, I remember when, it’s been a long time now come to think of it, but having a place marker of a roundabout where we live and it was getting past the, we’re sort of on city fringe and all that sort of stuff, a little bit past that. But as soon as I got to that sort of last roundabout and was almost like you’re into the countryside, I felt that that reduction in the stress and the tension, but that became a place marker for me. It was like literally, alright, you’re now pretty much at home. This is it. Leave it all behind from here. It just makes such a difference and it works so effectively.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah. What about a trigger? What’s an example of a trigger that a client’s done well?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I think for me, I’d go with Ben. Ben, his ability to use a trigger. And by trigger what we mean is something that you pull the trigger on it, right? It’s a trigger, it’s an action that you can take to send you into that mode. Not a lot unlike what we talked about with levy boots at the door, but his one is musical meditation in the car before he walks through the front door. So his trigger is to turn on a certain song, a certain piece of music, and then he’ll use that as his trigger to start doing a mental unwind, which for him is meditation.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah, that’s a great one because you kind of sitting in the car, you’re in the driveway and off you go. You have a few deep breaths, have a bit of a breather, you say goodbye to the day, the working day, and you park it, have a bit of mindfulness in there, whether through meditation or music and off you go then you’re straight in. But it’s that the ability for the mind to unwind just briefly before you do it. For me that was the fire or the watering. It was just the ability for the mind to take 10 or 15 minutes just to unwind, relax, and prepare for what’s coming. And that was a great example of what Ben did. He does a great job on that, doesn’t he?
Speaker 1 (35:49):
Yeah. And what we’re really talking about here is those sort of rituals, right? It’s the ability to have something that’s repeatable, that’s easy that you can do. So Rob, we’ve spent a lot of time on obviously how to do this and what the benefits are. Do you want to just touch base quickly on what the risk of not doing this stuff is?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
The risk is that your family don’t get the husband and father the best version of that husband and father they deserve. And that’s the problem is that this is where so many families become disconnected and why you are feeling disconnected from your family. You might be physically with them but you’re not mentally and emotionally with them because you’re so worried about business and work and customers and cashflow and all the problems that business does face. You’re so consumed by that that it disconnects you from the very reason of why you got into business in the first place. And then what happens is the stress from business. We often take our stresses out on the people that matter to us most. And it’s not that our kids are playing up or being naughty or whatever it is, but they cop the brunt of grumpy and stressed dad. That’s what happens when we don’t do this. And I think it’s unfortunate that families caught the brunt of a stressful businessman who hasn’t learned the ability to compartmentalise business and life.
Speaker 1 (37:29):
And we’re talking about moments in time here, right? These are that one day where I did that. But you compound that over years, you start to, the lasting impacts and memories that kids have around this in particular and what they then associate to being their relationship with their dad that can change greatly based on this.
Speaker 2 (37:49):
Correct. And they say that kids’ beliefs and values and their identity and who they are and how they view the world is formed definitely by the time they’re six and still well and truly up until they’re about 10. And so if you are listening here today and you’ve got a young family, you’ve got to consider the impact that you might be having on your kids and due to the way that you are showing up as a husband and as a father and the way that they see you interact with them and they’re like, Hey dad, can we do this? No, I don’t have time. Hey dad, can we do that? No, we don’t have time for that. Or Hang on a second, I’ve got to take this call. We get that business is demanding and stressful, but what impact is that really having on your family when you don’t have time? You’re always on the phone, you’re always checking emails, you’re saying you can’t be there at certain things that has lasting memories on vulnerable little minds, which are our kids.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Yeah, it really does. And I think it’s a really good point to raise there because some of this stuff seems like it’s so, I suppose lightweight, maybe a little bit even woo-hoo. And really is that what I need to be doing? Well for the reasons you just outlined, the answers probably. Yeah, it is. And if that’s not a good enough reason, then I don’t know what is going to be. So it is a simple thing to get your head around, but it’s such an impactful skill to learn.
Speaker 2 (39:26):
It is. And it’s a big reason of why Pravar exists. Actually. It’s Pravar, the word means breathe life back into the family. It’s who we are and why we do what we do. Because when I was growing up, we didn’t have smart phones by the way, but my dad worked his ring out, he was a tradie and he worked his absolute ring out and I never saw him. I didn’t see him when I was growing up. And that had a huge impact on me as a young fella. And it took its toll. My parents got split, my parents split, they got divorced. I was 10 and my sister was 12 and and it was really just, a lot of it was due to my dad just not being around. He wasn’t present, he was just constantly working and working and working. He thought, I’ve just got to keep making more money and provide for the family. That’s what he thought being a good husband and a good family man was. But it’s so more than, there’s so much more to it than that.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
It is. And that’s why such a simple concept of leave your boots at the door can be so powerful. If he could have remembered that, who knows what might’ve been different. If that one little simple ten second, not even to say it takes probably a second, but if that could have become part of his practise, what would’ve changed?
Speaker 2 (40:45):
Correct. I didn’t see my dad growing up a lot and all I wanted as a young fellow was his time with dad. And of course it goes back to that saying, and we’ll probably do a whole episode on it, but it’s love to a child is not s spelled LOVE, it’s spelled TIME. And your kids just want you. They want you to be around them and when you’re with them, they just want you to be there, be there with them, emotionally supportive, physically there, mentally there, present. And you can’t do that when you’re carrying all the stresses of business through the world. I love it.
(41:27):
We’ve got a client who lives in Castlemaine, his name is Adrian, and he is got a young fella, and I love the videos that Adrian puts up into our mastermind group where every time Adrian pulls up at home, he’s videoed a few times, his young fellows there waiting often in his high vis and he’s like, dad, dad, great to see you. And he’s there ushering in Adrian into his car spot. And when Adrian doesn’t wait for him to be there, he cracks it and he’s got to drive out and do it again. But that’s just a real special moment that I see when clients are really living and breathing this process that they’re home, they’re good family men, and they have amazing relationships with their wife and their kids because they’ve learned how to be present with their family rather than just be that stressed, grumpy, old businessman that hasn’t had the ability to compartmentalise.
Speaker 1 (42:23):
For sure. No, I love it. I think we are going to have to leave it there because there is a whole nother episode there that I’m already keen to talk about. But definitely let’s come back to that. I think it’ll be really good. Shall we jump into today’s takeaways?
Speaker 2 (42:36):
Let’s do it.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
What do you got?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
Number one for me is we just got to accept, like we’ve spoken about a few times, that the demands of business are absolutely going to be present. They’re always going to be there. So it’s your ability to create rituals, habits so that you’ve got the ability to compartmentalise business and life so that they empower each other, not bleed and destroy.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, I like it. I think for me, creating separation can sometimes seem hard, if not impossible, but making the changes or understanding the tactics you can use to make those changes aren’t difficult. Something as simple as reminding yourself to leave your boots at the door can be enough to create that gap that you’ve been looking for.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Finally, for me is your family deserved the best version of you in terms of time and being present and it’s in your hands on how you decide to show up.
Speaker 1 (43:33):
I love it. Good episode. I think so. There’s plenty of value in there. We’ve seen so many changes based on those tactics alone in terms of people’s trajectory, in their ability to create the home life that they want. So hopefully if you’ve listened and it’s helped you, make sure you do give us a shout out. You do share this with someone, you do help those ripples get out there because we know from the feedback we’re getting that people are sharing the podcast and people are giving us some really good feedback in terms of what it means to them and the changes they can make in their world. So if you know someone like that, please do share it. And yeah, I think that’s an important thing, Rob.
Speaker 2 (44:10):
Absolutely. And if you know that your family aren’t getting the best version of you, and if you are feeling a little bit trapped, confused, and disconnected from the very reason of why you got into business, which is your family and you want to make some change, you’re committed to actually making some change going forward. Book in a call strategy session.com au or follow the links in the show notes, get a time booked in. Let’s talk a bit about where you’re at and where you’re trying to go, and let’s make some actual change in your business and life so you can have the ability to run an amazing business and have an amazing family life at the same time.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
Love it.
Speaker 2 (44:46):
See you all next week. Looking forward to coming back to you with another cracker of an episode. Thanks heaps.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Catch you soon.