Cindy (00:00):
As you're growing your decisions hold a lot more weight. So making sure that you are reflecting, I feel like that's so important. People
Tim (00:08):
Don't learn by experience, they learn by reflected experience. And when you just reflect upon stuff, sometimes the clarity's actually pretty simple
Cindy (00:15):
Right there. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>.
Tim (00:16):
I am telling you this is like if you have a massive, huge boat, that massive, huge boat is steered by a very small rudder. That little reflection is like the rudder on this massive boat that can shift the entire trajectory of your life and your business in such a positive way. Welcome
Cindy (00:34):
To the Takeover with Tim and Cindy, where we show you how to dominate every area of life and business. Let's get winning.
Cindy (00:44):
Welcome back to the Takeover with Tim and Cindy. In today's episode, we are going to walk through five weekly reflection questions for busy entrepreneurs. Here's the thing. As entrepreneurs, sometimes we get so busy doing, executing. We feel like we have to work, work, work, grind, grind, grind. And we take very little time to stop and pause and reflect. And I know for you and I, Tim, as we started to grow and the business started to do better and better, we would sometimes find ourselves so busy doing and not taking enough time to like realign, re-strategize. And just take some time to think, because as you're growing right, your decisions hold a lot more weight. Yeah. Moves that you make in the company, things that you execute on or strategize on, hold a lot more weight as you are growing. So making sure that your mindset is in a good place to make decisions, that you are reflecting, that you are recentering and realigning. I feel like that's so important and we wanna talk more about that today. It's
Tim (01:48):
Everything, your energy, your physiology. Yeah. It changes when you go from just producing to working with producers. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. If we look at, you know, Jeff Bezos, how many hundreds of thousands of employees, I have no idea exactly how many employees he has, but one hour of his time impacts the entire company. Yeah. So that one decision that Jeff makes at Amazon has such a ripple effect. Great leaders need to be in a position to make decisions really well. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And what happens is, if we get busy, busy, busy entrepreneurs and we just, we just keep throwing stuff that gets us to a certain point in our business and gets us a certain momentum. But once we're in a position where our decisions, our activities have a high leverage, both positive and negative. Yeah. It is so very important that we are starting to change the way that we look at what our roles are. And I know for us, mm-Hmm, <affirmative>. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, when we started making that shift that we realized we actually need more time to recover. We need, need more time to reflect. We need to make sure that the decisions we do make were on top. Our sleep is good. Yes. All those points. And those shifts not only made life more pleasant, but they also started producing a much better outcome. For sure.
Cindy (03:07):
Yes. Absolutely. And think about it, as entrepreneurs, we wear so many different hats. There's so many things that we could be doing, right? Yes. That we can get pulled in a million different directions. So I think even just taking that time to reflect allows you to focus on the most important things, right? Yes. 'cause as you mentioned, your time is so valuable. If there's a million things you should be working on, what are those actual things that are gonna drive the business forward versus just being busy and feeling like you're making progress or feeling like you're doing the right things, but actually not awesome. So what we're gonna go through today, ladies and Jens, are five questions that as the business owner, as the entrepreneur, that you can ask yourself on a weekly or monthly basis. Take time to reflect. This could be a one hour block that you put on your calendar.
Cindy (03:55):
Maybe you go to a coffee shop or you just get out of your usual environment. Take a beat, take a moment. You can write these out. You could journal. This is always great. You could type it on your computer, but it is gonna make such a big impact when you can pause and answer these five questions that we're gonna give you. Not only is it gonna give you so much clarity, it's gonna allow you to recenter, refocus, and make sure that you are putting your time and your focus on your highest leverage activities that are both gonna move you closer to your vision and your goals as an entrepreneur. But make sure that everybody around you is aligned as well. 'cause If you're not aligned, trust me, your team is not aligned. So let's go through these five questions. Tim. The first one is, am I on track for my vision and goals right now? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Tim (04:45):
Yeah. I think what's really important about this is first you have to have that defined what is the mission? What is the goal? Mm. Right? Because if it's, I want more, then that question is like, well, did I get more? Did I, did I get less? Did I
Cindy (04:58):
Get a dollar more? Did I get
Tim (04:59):
A hundred more? Exactly. Whereas, you know, so for instance, when we set our revenue targets, we set low, medium, high. And then I created a leap <laugh>
Cindy (05:11):
Leap
Tim (05:11):
Goal because I'm always in the mindset of we still want to have that big leap goal, but we also have the, the practical, what's a low, mid high based off of our past numbers. And so we have a very clear define what are the targets, what are the activities that have to get there? And so what's really important about this question is, did I hit it? Did I hit the mid, the low, the high? If so, what were the activities that contributed to that so that we can repeat that? What was the team doing? What was the strategy? What were the good things that contributed to that so that I can repeat those things again. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And then if I did not hit it, it was like, what kept me from hitting that? What could I have done? What are the activities and actions I could have done?
Tim (05:50):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> this charge to create an awareness of what behaviors produce, what outcomes. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And as you start doing this as a leader, you're gonna start getting your teammates to do this. And the more behavioral awareness that you start to create around what activities, what actions produce great outcomes, and what activities are not producing the outcomes. And allows the team to be much more clear on what it looks like to win. Yeah. 'cause Remember, everybody wants to win. And as leaders, what is our job? It is to make it clear and easy. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> for our teammate to win. Not that it's always easy, but we need that clear. Here's what it looks like if you wanna win. And that's what allows us to do this, is have the clear targets and the clear indicators of why we hit it or why we didn't. Mm-Hmm.
Cindy (06:36):
<Affirmative>. Yeah. What I like about this question too, as we're reflecting from a leader's perspective, like reflecting on it on my own Yeah. Is I can refocus on am I doing the activities that I need to be doing to get to my vision If I am not on track for the goal, so say I'm mid month and I'm doing this reflection, and I know I have a target to hit by the end of the month, I can realign. Like, okay, maybe I'm not doing the activities, we're not on track to hitting this goal. Yep. How can I adjust the actions that I'm taking to make sure that I hit the goal? Right. 'cause there's one thing to reflect once the month is done, and look back, like, did we hit it or not? It's another thing to reflect midway through the month. Yes. Are we on track? Are we aligned? Are we moving in the direction that yes, we're gonna hit the goal if we're out of alignment and we're not gonna hit the goal? How can I adjust right now half time to make sure that I hit the goal by the end of the month, the quarter, et cetera. Yeah. So what I love about this reflection question is it gives me an opportunity to realign if I'm not on track. Mm.
Tim (07:36):
I love that. And the game is not won in the first half, right? Mm-Hmm. It's, it's in the second half. And so reflecting, I love that. It just made me think of when you get a reflect it, it allows you to recalibrate and readjust. And again, it creates that behavioral awareness. Okay, so what was I lacking or what was I not doing? Or what wildcards happened that made me be lower than I need to be? And now what activities, what strategies, what things do I need to execute on to hit the goal fire?
Cindy (08:01):
Yes.
Tim (08:01):
Absolutely. And this is so practical and it, when you do this, when you ask this question Cindy, I know you and I have, have had many times where it became very clear to us when you're in the middle of the whirlwind, sometimes it can get foggy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> it can get like, wow, I don't know. I'm sure. And when you just reflect upon stuff, sometimes the clarity's actually pretty simple. It's
Cindy (08:24):
Right there. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, it's right there. Just say, it's about taking a moment to actually look back and reflect. Right. The second question is, am I working on the most important things?
Tim (08:35):
Maybe I'm the only one, but I think a lot of people listening can relate to what I'm about to say. And that is oftentimes, especially if we get a feeling of overwhelm, we default to the things that we're comfortable with doing or that we like doing the most. For me, this sounds silly, but it's like playing around with Google ads or like tweaking parts of the funnel when I don't even need to be in there. Our team can turn on the Google ads, they can turn 'em off, they can adjust them, our team can adjust the funnel. But that's like, for me, is something that I'll do if I, I'm feeling overwhelmed. And what's super important about this is to ask that question and, and you actually should be doing this on a daily, regular basis as well as, you know, on a weekly, monthly.
Tim (09:16):
But am I doing the most important thing is the activity that I'm doing right now in this moment, the highest leverage thing. And that could be, for instance, instead of me messing with the funnel and tweaking the funnel, I could create a clear task like, Hey, here's what I need the team to do. Let me create that and get to the next thing. So it might take me a little bit of time when my temptation is to jump in and kind of get in the weeds. This could be one of those things where I get that done and then I go focus on the most important thing, which sometimes is not the thing that I want to do. Yes,
Cindy (09:45):
Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I think what's so important with this question is when you are feeling overwhelmed, I think you mentioned this, it's helpful to recenter on, are you working on the most important things? Because I think often overwhelm comes from you're doing so many different things all at once, and you're trying to balance it all, but some of the things you probably don't even need to be doing. Mm. So I think just coming to the realization of, am I working on the most important things, like things that need to be done right now that are gonna move the needle on the goals, I should be focused on that. And you can eliminate everything else. And that will give you also the clarity of mind and ensure that you are not getting into the state of overwhelm just by being busy. Subscribing is the easiest way to support the podcast. Plus you'll never miss an episode, hit that subscribe button on iTunes, Spotify, Google, or wherever you're listening so that you don't miss a beat.
Tim (10:44):
This is a process, and that's why it's called reflection. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, people don't learn by experience, they learn by reflected experience, the experience you're reflecting on. So this allows you to constantly reflect, am I doing the right thing? And then you can say yes or no. And then if you decide like, no, I'm not doing the right thing, but I still wanna do it anyways, at least <laugh>, you know, at least you know, like, yeah, I'm, I'm doing the wrong thing. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
Cindy (11:03):
Third question, Tim, is what is complicated right now that I need to simplify? This
Tim (11:09):
Could be applied to really anything. I'm just gonna give an example of our, like our sales process. So we had revamped our sales pitch recently, and after listening to a couple hundred sales calls and working with the team and coaching the team, you start to get to know with every single part of the pitch that said, what objections are gonna come up or what infusions are gonna come up, and simplifying the pitch based off of data, based off of cutting everything that shouldn't be there. And pre handling every objection that we know we possibly get. We were able to not only cut the sales pitch time into about 60% of the time, so it was cut down drastically. So we were able to get through it a lot faster, a lot less time and energy for the sales rep to get through it. But we also increased conversions because we made it simple.
Tim (11:55):
That's so good. More clear and pre handled all of the objections. So I'm gonna think any process that you're doing, Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, it's like, if this is taking five steps, how do we do it in three? Yes. What is the ultimate goal that I want from this task, from this project? And what are the steps that I could eliminate that I could combine? Or how could I just make this whole thing more simple? And sometimes that is even you know, if it is just a complex stuff like some of the tech stuff on the backend with, you know, domains and blah, blah, blah, that's has nothing to do with strategy. Sometimes that can just be, Hey, let's find outsource teams. And it could be a part that we actually just delegate that out so that we're not bogging down the team with complexity.
Cindy (12:35):
That's good. Yeah. So I think it's on a personal level, right? You as the leader, what are areas that maybe you're working on that are really complex that you can simplify, but you can also reflect on that from a team perspective, right? Mm-Hmm. If you know that your team is like taking hours to do this one thing and it's like bogging down the team and it's just, there's so much complexity to it, this is a great time to reflect on how can you simplify certain processes either internally or thinking about how can you outsource or delegate that love that perspective, especially
Tim (13:04):
Of a complex thing is a variable project variable, meaning sometimes you have to do it and sometimes you don't have to do it. And if it is complex and it can bog you or the team down and it's variable, you're gonna find yourself having, if you're not careful, there's gonna be times where you're just super overwhelmed with this one project and then the team gets stressed or you get stressed and then there's times when you don't have it. And so if you do have something that's highly variable and meaning the increments that you have to do it, or when you have to do it, if we take on extra clients, this becomes a big arduous project. That can definitely be something that I highly suggest. Finding a team that you can possibly outsource that to so that your team is not having these big ups and downs with complexity of, of work from week to week.
Cindy (13:43):
Love that. Awesome. Question number four, what's great that I want to do more of, like what's going really well that I want to do or even have more of. I really like this question because sometimes we can get so focused on what do I need to fix? Where am I out of alignment? What needs to be realigned? Mm-Hmm. But it's also equally as important to focus on and write down what is actually going well. Yes. And then reflecting on like, why is that going well, right? So that you can repeat those successful actions. Mm-Hmm. So this is an opportunity, everyone to think about what's going great in your life, in your business, and why is it going so great so that you can repeat some of those successful actions and maybe it's in alignment with something new that you implemented. Yeah. Right. So, so for example, if you do this on a weekly cadence, maybe you reflected and you implemented something and now it's going really well, you can reflect on that win and write that down. Oh, it's because I took this step that this is going really well now.
Tim (14:43):
Yeah. And what's so important about this is the fact of we will mostly remember and we get the most emotion charge from the things that are difficult or challenging or not going well. And a lot of times if we're not really intentional about what is going great, what is going well, we can have most of our focus on what's not going well. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. And we know from just the reticular activating system, the filter in your brain, if you're not intentional about focusing on what's going well, your brain is gonna look for all the reasons why things are actually going bad. So what this does is it actually puts you in a good state, allows you to be happier, it allows you to be healthier, but it also is starting to program your reticular activating system. It's just a part in your brain that goes, what should we pay attention to?
Tim (15:34):
And if you're only focused on negative things, your brain goes, great, let's look at all the negative things, all the reasons, things that go wrong. But if you start doing what is going good, what is going well, where are my wins? You start telling your brain, Hey, focus on all the great things and the positive things, and look for new opportunities for things that can go well and go great. That's good. You start programming just yourself, your own subconscious to start looking for the great things which actually creates momentum. So you're gonna start looking for opportunities, start looking for new ideas, you're gonna start having more creativity. And so this is such a practical thing that you and I do every single day. Yes. Every day. And what is that at the end of the day? What is that that we go over? What
Cindy (16:11):
Are three wins that we had today?
Tim (16:13):
Oftentimes we do a lot more than three wins, don't we? We do <laugh>, we do. But at first it can, it can feel like, do I have three wins I had today? As you get in the habit of what are three wins I had today and what are, what are wins I'm expecting tomorrow? What are great things? And we started realizing, the more we did that as a habit, the more we were able to actually find, I mean, literally we did a one hour walk together where we just talked about things that we were thankful for and wins we had, and we got done with that walk, and we still had things that we could say we were thankful. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Whereas before, when we first started doing this practice, it was like, I don't know what were wins today. Yeah. I can't think of them. Yeah. And so, such a powerful concept is to focus on the things you're grateful for. Focus on the things that are going well. Because when you start doing that, you actually start I don't wanna be too woo woo, but you start creating that in your life. You start creating more great things. Absolutely. You start creating more happiness. You start creating more effortlessness to your work. And yeah. Just, it makes life a lot funner too.
Cindy (17:16):
Absolutely.
Tim (17:17):
Business is fricking hard enough. It's hard.
Cindy (17:18):
Yes. It's hard enough for sure. Awesome. That takes us to our last question. This is my favorite question. I know it's yours too. So this is what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it, everything else will be easier or unnecessary? Love this question.
Tim (17:36):
I, I love this question because we literally just did this and we found one thing that would literally make the entire company more profitable, easier, more effortless. Yes. It would remove complexity. And it was because what we did is we went in our separate rooms, or same room, different computers, and Cindy laid out on a, on a Google doc, all of the things that she's doing, all the, the activities, all the manager, all the projects, all the people she's overseeing. I did the same thing. Of course, Cindy's list was a little bit bigger than mine, <laugh>, but you know, whatever, you know, it was, hers was bigger than mine. They were both pretty, pretty dang big though. We had a lot of stuff going on, and we went through each one and we started going, what can we cut? What can we delegate?
Tim (18:20):
But we ultimately, by the end of that conversation, we found one thing on my list of priorities that if I put that thing as first, and we may fix that one problem in the company, that not only would it make my job and the role that I have significantly easier, it would make the entire operations team Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> client success, everything significantly easier and better. So we literally through that exercise of what are all the things we're doing and what's the one thing that if we did it would make everything else easier? Or what is it? Irrelevant.
Cindy (18:54):
Irrelevant. Yeah. Unnecessary, irrelevant,
Tim (18:57):
Unnecessary. And we literally found that, and for, for us, it was a light bulb, but when you're in the thick of thin things, you kind of go, I don't know, I've got these million things to do and I gotta do. Yeah. And stepping. It's hard to see back and asking that question. You might not find it at first. It, we, we sat there for a little while. We were moving stuff around. Then it came to us when we realized, oh, if we made this one a little one move, it makes everything better. And it's such a powerful, I mean, that was so recent for us. Yes. And I think that was literally, wow. We're, and we're making that shift right now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that shift, I promise you will make us a lot more, not just top line revenue, it'll make us a lot more profit. It'll make just the overall entire company significantly better because of that one sit down. We had that one reflection we had and that one idea we had on what's, what's that one thing that we can shift?
Cindy (19:47):
Yeah. We wouldn't have come to that if we didn't take a step outside of the business and take the time to reflect. Wow. And I like to call this your unlocking move. What's that unlocking move? What's the one move you can take that's gonna unlock everything else, make everything else easier? Either unnecessary. So you may not even have to be doing the 10 things on your list if you do this one thing. Mm. So you'll get into the habit as to mentioned. You may not figure it out like the first time you do this, but as you start to practice it, your brain's gonna come up with ideas on what that one unlocking move is. It's powerful,
Tim (20:19):
Man. I think even doing this episode, I'm getting I'm getting excited. I'm starting to reflect on how powerful reflecting has been for us. Yes. And I just think about all of the times where we've met on Saturday mornings after the week, and we've reflected on the week what went good. Well, you know, where do we need help? All those different pieces, all these questions. It has made such a powerful impact. And I think just reflecting on the reflecting, I'm just reminded how powerful this is. Mm-Hmm. And I, and I do wanna give it to you because you're the one who's really introduced this to me. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm a grinder man. I'll work. I just work. What do you mean reflect, like, let me just work. So if anybody's listening to this and like, ah, yeah, maybe I am telling you this is like if you have a massive, huge boat, that massive, huge boat is steered by a very small rudder.
Tim (21:07):
Mm. And this is one of those rudders that can steer this big ship, this this big dream vision mission you have. That little reflection is like the rudder on this massive cruise ship boat that can shift the entire trajectory of, of your life and your business in such a positive way. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. This was amazing. If you're listening on audio, make sure to follow the show. And if you like this episode and thought it was awesome, give it a five star. Why not <laugh>? Again, this is Tim and Cindy with the takeover. And remember, domination is not a destination. It is a way of life. Stay winning.