As a business owner, it’s difficult to do the right work AND guide your company toward its next big initiative.
With Red Direction Business Base Camp, learn how to implement and handle processes to meet your business’s specific needs and better understand your market.
Starting the conversation:
The dedication to asking the right questions, the hard questions, is the path to discerning the right opportunity, right now. It also includes a clear beginning and knowing what the end looks like. Endings provide a way to pause, assess, and make the next set of actions to reach your long-term goals.
You will hear about successes and failures, lessons about time management, filtering questions to assess an opportunity, and what elements are necessary to consistently show up. Jess Dewell talks with Paul Casey, Coach and Author at Growing Forward Services, about the impact of reflection on achieving massive growth.
Intentionally adding value is a commitment. Give yourself the same commitment that you give your clients and team. Paul Casey, Coach and Author at Growing Forward Services, shares that with constrained time, we must know the strengths of each individual as well as the entire team. You need to show up the way you want to and for what is best in each situation. The discipline necessary comes with navigating each day.
Host: Jess Dewell
Guests: Paul D. Casey
What You Will Hear:
The power of commitment and how well we do with our commitments to others compared to ourselves.
The big-three daily goals and your relationship with time management.
The relationship between success in health, relationship, and business.
Overcome fear with action. It’s your mindset.
‘Supposed Tos’ have a gravitational pull, know how you want to show up.
Your filters for knowing what to pursue right now to reach your goals.
Get better at asking difficult questions about yourself, your team, and your company.
Make discerned decisions using a Personal Retreat or Present Retreat™.
Additionally, for the Fast Track Your Business Today Uncut conversation:
Intentionally model your expectations by holding yourself accountable.
Prepare to be creative, to dig deep, and accept what answers show up to the difficult questions being asked.
Celebrate more! The importance of celebrating wins regularly and often!
When the big breakthroughs happen.
Lean into how you use time and your learning style to increase your success.
It is BOLD to dedicate time to quickly identify the real opportunities right now.
Get started and make a difference in your business with a Growth Framework Reset.
Resources:
- Gretchen Rubin’s 4 Tendencies To Improve Our Lives
- 19 Creativity Boosts by esteemed guest Paul Casey
Transcript
ANNOUNCER 00:03
Welcome. This is the Bold Business Podcast. Your business has many directions it can travel. The one true direction of your company creates the journey for you to move toward a new, exciting level. We call this the Red Direction. In today’s program, we delve into one idea. The idea will support you as you work on ever-present situations, including how to stay competitive in a changing market, how to break through the business plateau, and how to anticipate the changing expectations of your stakeholders. Jess Dewell is your guide. Jess brings you a 20-year track record of business excellence, where strategy and operations overlap. Your Path comes from consistently working from the special place. Your unique True North. Now, here’s Jess.
Jess Dewell 00:52
Hello, and welcome. Welcome to the Bold Business Podcast live. And today, we’re going to talk about adding more value as an individual as well as from that place of strategy. How do we ensure we’re adding value to the strategic execution of what we have planned? And knowing that it doesn’t always turn out quite that way? And here’s the thing, there are a lot of different ways that you might hear about how do we do that? How do we create that impact. And I’m actually really excited because Paul Casey, who has visited the Bold Business Podcast before is back with me today to talk about this. Before I introduce him to you, I did want to make sure that you know that this podcast while we live stream is available on all of the listening platforms that you may be using and prefer to use. So go to Red direction.com, snag that Apple link that Google link that Spotify link that I Heart Radio Link, and whichever one you have, they’re all there. That way, you can see this content, and actually you won’t see it, you’ll just hear it when you are in your regular podcast listening mode, because we’ll just keep populating the shows like this one directly there for you. All right, don’t forget that part of this is also the Fast Track Your Business program. It’s for people like you who are anchoring into what is the true north that you have? And how is that true north actually in relationship to the goals that you have in your business right now, the leadership that you are bringing to your company into your team. More information about that can also be found at Red direction.com. Okay, I can’t wait any longer, I gotta get you introduced to Paul. So we can get him up here and on-air with me. Paul’s originally from Chicago, and he has been a professional speaker and coach for over 24 years. Okay, I have to say that as a leading authority and leadership and personal growth, specifically around time management. He’s somebody who keeps me in line once in a while because I was telling him in the greenroom, linear time and Jessica Dewell are really only sometimes friends. And the thing is, when we can get our calendars back fine, and we can have this good relationship with them, we can have more sanity. And I do speak from experience there, even if it is brief moments in time. It’s about the practice of it. It’s about the practice of it. And he is a master trainer, and US ACC certified coach with the international coaching Federation, and a member of the National Speakers Association. So I want to welcome Paul, the sole proprietor and CEO of growing forward services.
Paul D. Casey 03:52
Yay. So happy to be here. Just love your podcast, love you.
Jess Dewell 03:58
And what’s really cool is I think for the first time ever, we’re in the same state. Yeah, we do this, even though we’re not in the same city of the same state. We’re there. And we’ve actually both been on the road a little bit, which is nice as well. And I know part of what we’re going to be talking about today, right, this concept of where can we add more value, it comes down to what it comes down to the way that we show up for ourselves first, and our relationship to what we’ve committed to doing.
Paul D. Casey 04:31
Indeed, and the commitments we make to ourself are so powerful.
Jess Dewell 04:36
Oh, I’m telling you well, so well, why don’t we just start right there then, in your experience and in the training that you do, and in the leading of your company that you do? Tell me, you know, what makes it powerful for you these commitments?
Paul D. Casey 04:57
You know, I think oftentimes we make commitment To other people, and most of us not only want to be liked, but we want to come through for people, we want to be known as dependable Integris people that what we say we’re going to do. And so we meet all those external commitments to the other people, but then we make commitments to ourselves, or we don’t want to make commitments to ourselves, because we know we’re not going to keep them. And so we don’t either verbalize them or we don’t honor those. We don’t respect ourselves as much as we respect other people. And yet, it starts with us. So there’s this dichotomy, I think, at battle within us.
Jess Dewell 05:34
You know, I’m thinking this concept of self-respect and time commitment. I learned this over and over again, and the most recent time I have learned it was about two years ago, when I realized that my concept of where to add value, and where I was actually adding value, were very different. And that needed a review, and it needed to be able to be brought together. And I know one of the and to your point, it was about the commitment to self. It was one of those things where well, what we needed to do as a company, what I wanted to do, as an individual leading the strategy of this company, came out and was manifested in being in meetings all of the time in going through and being there for everybody else so much that I wasn’t there for the work that I needed to be doing. And when that really set in, I have a really tiny baby step model I use, and I’m like, Oh, look, I’m not getting any work done. Let me go back to what I did before, which is, the easiest thing for me to do is to have just three things I’ve got to get done in a day because then doesn’t matter about the meetings, it doesn’t matter about the obstacles, it doesn’t matter about being available. I just know that if I’ve done these three things, small or big, that I can feel accomplished.
Paul D. Casey 07:10
Yes, I’m a firm believer in the Big Three for the day. And you know, what’s interesting about this concept of expectations on ourselves and others. A free resource is the four tendencies by Gretchen Rubin. I don’t know if you’ve done that assessment. It’s a it’s an easy one to take. And there’s four types of people. There’s the rebel who doesn’t want any expectations on themselves or others. There’s the questioner, that is, you know, they don’t want any expectations from other people. It’s all about themselves. There’s the obliger, which I think is what we’re talking about here, which is we meet others expectations, but not our own. And then there’s the upholder that does both, they honor commitments with themselves and honor commitments with others. And that’s the one I strive to be, but I meet a lot of obligers. And I can dip into that once in a while.
Jess Dewell 07:59
What’s your primary when you’re thinking so you meet us? Your same thing?
Paul D. Casey 08:04
It is the upholder? Yeah. Because I really want to model that for my clients. Right. So if I keep blowing myself off, and my goals, whether those are wellness or relationship goals, or business, you know, goals, then I’m really not a good model for those that I’m trying to help coach.
Jess Dewell 08:21
Yeah, I get that. And that’s actually one of you know, and in addition to the big three, and that’s where one of the things that I am dedicated to is my present retreat, my weekly, quarterly, by annually annual cadence of interacting with the strategy at a different level versus just talking about it. And so even if I don’t get the big three, I do, do that. Because you know what, I will totally claim it’s a beautiful day here in Seattle, and it’s not raining, so we’re playing hooky Me, myself.
Paul D. Casey 08:56
And I think those rare moments there in Seattle.
Jess Dewell 09:02
You do you do, and we have actually had a pretty rainy spring so far. And in fact, I would prefer to be wearing a sweater instead of short sleeves, but I’m pretending I’m willing it into existence, that we’re gonna have some nice weather, which is coming our way this weekend. It’ll be just in time, as well. But you know, I think that’s, I think that’s an interesting thing of, well, whatever. When we know what our cadence is, and we understand what the priority is that we can make a lot of change, and we can understand our relationship to that commitment. And you were talking about those four types. And we’ll put a link to that. So that everybody can go if they haven’t done this before, that they can go and get their type and see what they could be doing differently, to make change in this concept of time management and our commitment to ourselves. So when how How about this then, so when? Now I’m thinking about well, you know, that’s this we’re talking about when the rubber meets the road right? All. And in this concept of the rubber meeting the road, we’re talking about how we show up in that or don’t show up in that or have interesting patterns around it. So being human, how quickly have you and what, you know, how do you show up in relationship to? Oh, I’m not quite as the role model as I would like to be. Right?
Paul D. Casey 10:28
Right. Yeah. We’re being vulnerable and transparent. Right. So yeah, one area is in my niche, my eating habits, right. So I’m, I am at the highest weight I’m at right now and not feeling good about that. Because I’m not modeling what I want. I’m, I’m more inspired by my clients who are losing weight than I am. So it’s like, or there’s sort of this little bit of a tenacity that’s starting to come out and be like, alright, this is the week, we’re gonna make this happen. Because I really do want to be that Rome, I want to be human and realize I make mistakes. And I, I fumbled the ball, here and there, but I also don’t ever want to live my life on intentionally. And that is one area where I’m just drifting.
Jess Dewell 11:13
Okay, and well, I totally get that. I totally get that. And I can completely relate, have you ever because I see this, okay. So when we’re working with companies and leadership teams, and I’m in a room with a group and looking for dynamic, and then I go, and I’m working with one on one with somebody, it’s interesting to see where something and by the way I struggle with way too. And so it’s interesting to see when things aren’t the dinette how the dynamic is affected, by the way we’re showing up in the rest of our life or not showing up in the rest of our life. And so now I’m going to ask it come in, by the way, you know, me, everything can be vetoed, and just take a right turn. And we’ll just go that way. Right, you know, you know how this works. So my question would be is when you see that in your, in your personal life, right, this, this concept of weight, and this, this role that you want to have, and you’re motivated by others in this case? Is there a companion? Issue, if you will, or Outlook or mindset in the business?
Paul D. Casey 12:25
I would have to say yes because everything is related. We’re all people. And so whenever life is always affecting the other areas of our life. So yes, the answer would be yes to that. And that means that I am potentially Well, I know that I’m not at my all in 100%. With, with my mindset, if there’s this one area of my life, that I’m just sort of letting slide and not being intentional, even though that’s my declaration to the world is I live life intentionally. So there’s a, there’s a tension there.
Jess Dewell 13:01
Does the live life intentionally actually give you actually give you what you need to start overcoming some of that?
Paul D. Casey 13:09
Yes, absolutely. Because you overcome stagnation, complacency, fear with action. And that whole proactivity and intentionality is the best way to live life, in my opinion, because it’s so empowering, you stand in your power, and you take action on that, and you don’t just let life happen to you. You don’t ever have any victimhood when you live that way.
Jess Dewell 13:36
You know, I get that. And in fact, I have this two-word mantra right now, which might sometimes have other words wrapped in there, but it’s in the order matters. And so now I’m going to ask you about this too. So for me, the phrase that I have been waking up to and going to bed to is light-hearted and confident. Hmm, isn’t that interesting? And I was saying it the other way. And it’s really hard to do it the to do it the other way. And I was like, well, maybe that means it’s not quite right. So I flipped it around. And I was like light-hearted and confident. And that was an interesting dynamic with which I found in myself to be able to show up and say, Hey, this is, this is what it is yet. What can we, you know, what can I do about it? My goal is to not have anything ever be too serious, and I’m really good at getting serious real fast.
Paul D. Casey 14:33
That’s a great blend. And I think it was Brendon Burchard. He talked about like it is a great activity in a retreat, a personal retreat to think about how do I want to show up with others and then after listing those three words, to post those or like you said say them aloud every day and, and it just helps you live it when you’re saying it out loud and then as as the next person shows up in front of you like I want to come across us as this so that I can serve this person.
Jess Dewell 15:03
Well, yeah. Oh, yeah. And what’s interesting is there’s that supposed to hear the supposed to in mind, right light-hearted and confident is that I’m supposed to be a certain way because of my past success because of what others think of me. And one of the things if we’re talking really truly about vulnerability, is that it’s, it seems like and the experience I have is sometimes people underestimate me for whatever reason. And I do believe after working with this for a little while, that the confidence was my competence in general was being amplified or reinforced, and it didn’t need to be. And that the people who were going to be that way think that way, feel like that way interact with that way, weren’t really the right people at the right time, weren’t really going to be helping make the right decision at the right time, making the choice to add or change or shift or in some cases, big pivot something within a company, a client, whatever, whatever that realm might be with which we’re looking at our personal relationships, our personal health, things like that.
Paul D. Casey 16:21
Yeah, and I get that whole supposed to thing. It’s all it’s almost like there’s a gravitational pull towards supposed to lose. If you realized that you’ve made by what you were just describing, you feel it too. But it comes I think, from comparing to others in the industry, or, like I said, when you’re in a room with powerful people, or other clients, especially when I’m in this learning mode, I want that I want to seek to learn from other people all times. It’s one speaker coined it obsessive comparison disorder, a different kind of OCD.
Jess Dewell 16:56
I like it.
Paul D. Casey 16:58
I mean, it just happened to me this last week, we were rewritten before we came on. And I went to this mastermind group in San Diego. And I really was the least smart person in the room. I mean, they I was the newcomer. So my inner introvert kicked in big time. And I was like, Okay, I’m gonna be the last to speak, always. And these two days, because I need to read the room and learn from these very influential, impressive people. And inside after day one, I was just like, wow, I have so much to learn. I have I have so many more levels to get to that all these folks have figured out, and I haven’t. But in reality, it’s their version of success strategies. I, I had to just really wrestle with myself the next morning and say, I need to be me. I need to be a leader move with what’s working, what’s being drawn to me and potentially use their success strategies, if it’s in line with my style and my brand.
Jess Dewell 17:59
A big if, how do you know? How do you know it’s in line?
Paul D. Casey 18:06
Yes. That’s a great question. And we could go there, if you want to go there.
Jess Dewell 18:13
Let’s do it. And let’s do it. Because I actually have been doing some work in this area, too. I mean, hey, yeah.
Paul D. Casey 18:20
Yeah, I mean, how do you know, what idea to pursue and what to do either backburner or just sort of weed out and say, my brain don’t want to give any more credence to that, because it’s going to just put me in the weeds. So I think we have to have filters. When we make critical decisions in our businesses we need, we need a set of filters that are true to us. They may not be your filter, but they’re my filter, and I can modify some questions. And I need to run these opportunities, these strategies through my filter to see if it’s like we’re gonna move forward, or that’s gonna be a cul de sac is not gonna go anywhere.
Jess Dewell 18:57
That’s interesting. I have, I have three bins. I have a now and I, I’m very tactile. So as I take notes, and I do all of these things, I throw ideas that don’t fit into the moment yet that are always coming onto sticky notes. And I put them in a bin. And I look at them afterwards. It could be a now it could be a later. Or it could be like you said a cul de sac. And I’m like, Well, that’s the recycle bin. So really, there’s only two on my desk and one under it. So I can still get the idea out but it won’t take up any other time. And then in my you know, in my cadence of going in and looking at everything. What I do is I look at the now every week, and I look at the occasional quarterly and sometimes they switch around but they help set the priorities with which we’re working based off of what happened. What’s happening right now. Are we on track? Do we need to make a change, amplify whatever it is for what’s happening next. And, and then I put them all away. Because sometimes even in that now, Ben, they found a good two days ago or set six days ago. Yet, when you actually sit down and look at the strategy and look at what’s happening in the for this quarter and 36 months from now, it may not be the right fit right now. And so that’s actually a really important piece of being able to look out into the future a little bit. So and that’s actually one of my filters, does this align to where we are going in the next 36 months? So it’s a farther look out. And if there’s an immediate opportunity, great, but if it doesn’t fit, that it’s either gonna go on the shelf, or it’s gotta go in the bin? Because if it’s, if it’s a cool thing, it might not be the right thing.
Paul D. Casey 20:45
Yes, so true. So I have an idea file to Yeah, drop that I dropped things in, because you’re like me, we just have ideas a million a minute. And we’ve got to put them somewhere, so that we can evaluate them and I to evaluate them at personal retreats? Because I don’t have time in the flow of work to be able to look at those. Can I share a few of my filters? Well, I love that. Yeah, sure. Some filters? Yeah. So it doesn’t match my core values and my strengths. You know, that would be a filter? Does it make the most money short-term or long-term? And, you know, sometimes it might may want a short-term infusion of revenue. And other times, it might be like the long the long game? Does it help the maximum amount of people? It might be another one? Does this get me closer to my desired future? So I’ve outlined you know, like my ideal day and you know, five-year tenure plan? Is it energizing to think about this. And to do this, that would be a filter, as opposed to giving me sort of a churn in my stomach. And also, in alignment with one of the one that you shared is what might this lead to significant growth this year? Like what I have my actual time to start this in the next 45 days? Yeah.
Jess Dewell 22:08
That’s cool. That’s that those are good questions. I really liked those. I know one of the so one of the things that we’ve done, right is, we’re good at creating content over here, right direction, and I happen to be a big generator of that. And we so we ended up with this catalog of a ton of trainings, a ton of speaking opportunities, a ton of keynotes, workshops, you name it, all of these different things. And I was looking at all of this because we’re rebranding one thing. We’re actually rebranding our unstuck quick right now. Because where we are in the world, and what is needed and the types of companies that we are serving is shifting a little bit. And we’re changing unstuck, quick to business Basecamp. So that’s coming out in the next 30 or 60 days, something like that. And what I found though, as we were going through this rebrand was all this other stuff. And I’m like, wow, I knew we created a lot of stuff. But I didn’t realize how much stuff we had. So I took all of the courses and all of the things that actually are masterclass style, and they went into Fast Track Your Business, everything else went in the bin. That was over 40% of what we were focused on what we would say, yes, we would talk to you about is gone. Wow. Isn’t that crazy? Yeah, think about. And by the way, I didn’t go into this thinking, we’re gonna make a big change about all of this. I was thinking about a rebrand of this one thing, which led to the next thing which led to the next thing. And inadvertently, actually, our questions must be similar, because I’m like, in the long term, we need way too many people and way too many conversations, to make sure that everybody knows that all of this exists. So since we’re limited, why are we doing that? We as Brent, you know, as rainbowy and unicorny, as we want to be to be able to have that ultimate magic. We don’t have that ultimate magic. So I was like, I guess I have a hard conference. I have a hard conversation to have with myself. I gotta go talk to the CEO of Red Direction.
Paul D. Casey 24:31
Calm content creator.
Jess Dewell 24:32
Right, exactly. And so I’m like, Alright, all right. And that’s actually it’s so important to think about things like that, though, because if I thought it was gonna be something else, by the way, the things that we chose, definitely related to money generated conversations generated, closed deals, but it also went with Well, as we’ve evolved over time Time, do those still fit? They’re great. They feel good. I’ve created them. It’s something we do. But then what now what? How what into the future. So letting all of that go actually lightened the load, if you will, a lot because there’s much less to think about. You don’t have to mark it as much. You can have much more detailed conversations, you can ask better questions in the moment to really help somebody solve their problem. And to your point of what will help the most people well, in our case, what will help the most people as being able to tell them that we can help them. Right. And by the way, this is also a cycle that we go through every so often is, oh, we’ve collected all of this stuff, it’s time to let things go. I’m a big believer in ends of things.
Paul D. Casey 25:54
Yes. Yeah, there’s actually a book called necessary endings by Henry Cloud, I would recommend it. Because we all, we all have strategies that need to end sometimes there’s relationships, yes, that are there toxic that need to end. Other just, just ways of thinking that need to end and that’s why I love the title, the book their necessary endings, we have to, we have to prune some things in order to get to growth.
Announcer 26:22
It’s time to take a brief break from our show. Fast Track Your Business will improve your business results. This high-value program is an unbeatable value, to make it easy for you to act now. With your subscription, you have access to Ask Jess Your Business Questions, and exclusive resources on key leadership topics. Subscribe now, visit Fast Track Your Business today.com And know that you are moving forward in the right direction. And now let’s return to the Bold Business Podcast.
Jess Dewell 26:51
One of the books that I’ve been reading lately is called right here, I don’t get the name, right. Competing against luck. And it’s by Clay Christiansen who passed away. Not in the near past, but not in the far past either. So he is a contemporary. He is a contemporary person. And it’s talking about innovation, this whole book, this whole book competing against luck, luck is talking about innovation and that we have to let go of what these preconceived notions are of these paths and patterns that we’ve always done things and be able to ask a different question be able to change the lens. And we were in the work that we’re doing. Usually, it’s a twisting of the kaleidoscope so you can see all the same pieces. But what new pattern might they bring out?
Paul D. Casey 27:43
Hashtag twisting the kaleidoscope.
Jess Dewell 27:46
I like you like that. Now we just need bumper stickers. That actually when you say like that twisting the kaleidoscope sounds like it could be a band, it could. So what is um, you know, we’re both learners, right? And we’re lifelong learners. And it sounds like you’ve actually gone into a mode of instead of just being a regular all-the-time learner, you’re intentionally like drinking from a firehose of learning. Yes. What was that? What was the reason behind that? What made you decide to amplify that piece?
Paul D. Casey 28:23
Yeah, when you say regular learner, you probably know I read like 52 books a year, I try to read a book a week. Plus, I’m listening to podcasts while I’m exercising, plus, you know, seven trade magazines plus, yeah, plus, plus, plus. So that’s my ongoing learning, but I find that’s like my baseline. But it was like, I need some people to ask me difficult questions to push me to the next level. And as a solopreneur, I’m alone, I’m in my own mind a lot. And there’s not a lot of people speaking into my life and business. So I knew I needed to go from a high-level mastermind group, so that it would push me to that next level. So that was the motivator behind that.
Jess Dewell 29:07
And do you have a necessary ending anytime for this to go back to just your baseline?
Paul D. Casey 29:13
Hmm, you know, I still have to reflect. I mean, this was just recently. So
Jess Dewell 29:18
I know, you and I, when we talked earlier this year, you had told me that this was an on-tap for you and how that was gonna go. So. Uh-huh. And I think that that’s a really fair point that I want to call out. We may not know the ending going in some time, though, in that first little bit, we might find milestones we might find other things. We do need to have some concept of an ending to do that checking in, because I know I’m curious about what The Book says. Because one of the things I always say is, well, we can’t get better. We can’t assess We can’t leave behind. We can’t let go of the things that we don’t need anymore and carry forward the thing So we do need to get to our next unless we end.
Paul D. Casey 30:04
Yes. Right? It’s either. I think the book fair, I remember it’s been a while since I read it, but it’s like, if it’s already dead, let it go. Right? It’s like that. That’s the old western saying that says when you find you’re on a dead horse dismount right. So that’s one, then if it’s dying, that would be a second reason why you would need to prune or let go. I can’t remember the third one was it maybe it’s like you’re forecasting that it’s not going anywhere, but there were three clouds or three things, you know, where when you need to prune or let go. But letting go is so hard because we’ve invested time and invested money and emotions into it. So it’s really hard.
Jess Dewell 30:44
It is hard. And it’s a little different than other things in life, right? Like, I’m, I’m thinking about kids, Now, anybody with a child knows that that child is going to eventually go, and there will be an empty nest left behind, right, there’s this whole thing and a lot of self-help books around that. I am not pleased, I’m on that path with an 11-year-old, but you know, it is what it is. And I’m like, Okay, so that’s gonna come. And we don’t think about it in relationship either. But we relationships, whether they’re work or personal, actually do need to have some concept of a goal that could have an end so that that growth together, can happen. So that together would be between people together could be between us and our business. It could be between us and our leadership team. It could be between us and our children, it could be between us and our parents, us and our neighbors. And I think about all of that. And you know, we’ve got those we were talking about the bins, we were talking about how, how we have different things happening and how we process all of the ideas that are coming our way. And I want to spend a little bit of time in that area. Before I do that, I’d like to remind everybody, you’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast, I’m your host Jess Dewell. And you can find this podcast to be distributed not only live on LinkedIn, and YouTube, but on your preferred listening platform and podcast app. So go to Red direction.com To get this podcast delivered directly to your device almost every single week on Thursdays. Now, the other thing I do want to remind you about is that the Fast Track Your Business program is also something that we’re working with and talking about peer to peer on an individual basis. These conversations are uncut and available to you, as part of the Fast Track Your Business program. Red direction.com will tell you more. All right, so I want to come back to which ideas worth pursuing. How do we know. And in the first part of our program, we did hear Paul sharing some questions that he uses to identify that, personally, business-wise, revenue-wise, and resource-wise. And so when we think about that, I know one, one of the things that we have done and that we’re finding is that, regardless of whatever a true north is, something that can happen is that we might need to go east for a while. And if we don’t know our true north, how do we go east? And if we don’t know our true north, how do we go south or west or any of the other directions outside of the cardinal directions? And that is a big piece of setting priorities of being able to make decisions. And so I actually heard that in the questions that Paul was sharing a little bit earlier. What I think we do want to make sure to do is understand what our learning is. So in the concept of our learnings, right? We were talking about endings, it’s so important if we don’t have an end, we don’t really have a reason to reflect. And if we don’t have a reason to reflect, we can increase the, the creep in of complacency. And so having a cadence to be able to work with that having a cadence to be able to avoid complacency, stay innovative, understand what’s going on. Right we need to know which idea is worth pursuing. So in that, I want to know from you Paul, what are other than those questions when it comes down to go this or this, this or this? Can you ever get to this or this or do you always have like a whole basket of apples if you will, to choose from it
Paul D. Casey 35:00
I think for idea of people, there’s always a whole basket. It’s sort of the course of being an idea person. There’s Yeah, always so many shiny objects to at least consider and maybe move it around on that. But, yeah, the discernment of trying to figure out which ones to put on the backburner? I’m trying to get better at this last couple years. I’ve just put so I have goals and plans, a document that I use for my annual review my Quarterly Review, monthly review, which we can get into if you’d like, but, you know, there’s a move things to I just call it backburner. And that’s where all the ideas are. And I do look at them every month and see, is there anything that needs to move into my to do list for the month to actually explore do a little research, you know, maybe talk to so my outsourcing team to see is could this become a reality? Should we play with this idea or not? But otherwise, I just need to be disciplined moving things to the backburner that I know, can’t be done, or else my brain just tries to store it. And like, I’ve got to do something with this, I’ve got to do something with this and I don’t.
Jess Dewell 36:10
Right. Oh, I’m the same way. I know, this happens at Red Direction, because I get told all the time at home, you’re still thinking about that? Can I like solve that for you? So you can take that out of your brain? Yes. Like, well, here’s what’s gonna happen, here’s what’s gonna happen for that. And so to your point about being able to be asked the hard questions, that to me, it sounds like a simple question. But it’s actually a hard question, right? And so we need to know what our own hard questions are. Because you have a mastermind group, right? People have you people have me, I have the, you know, I am part of groups that helped me learn and grow as well. And so regardless of all of them, I think the responsibility still is on each of us to ask ourselves the hard questions, so we can better show up to understand what somebody else’s hard questions might be of us. And they might be the simple ones.
Paul D. Casey 37:10
Indeed, we have to, you’ve got to carve out that time to, to play with those ideas, concepts, or to discard them, so that we can be a model again, to our clients. And by wrestling with some stuff. I’ve been able to be transparent with my clients and saying, I personally have wrestled with this. And I either went with it, or I discard it, or these are the questions I asked myself, might any of these be something that you’d like me to ask you? And of course, they’re like, Yes. Bring it on. Because there a very few people in life, like you mentioned, that ask us the hard questions. We have to submit to that feedback.
Jess Dewell 37:49
Yeah. Now, when it comes to that, you know, I call it a resurrection. We call it the, the present retreat. And that’s what I do. And that’s what I encourage clients to do you call it a personal retreat, and that’s your version, will you tell us what is involved in your personal retreat?
Paul D. Casey 38:07
Absolutely. So I do the, the annual retreat, so I’ll go from macro to micro so that macro would be the annual retreat, usually the last couple days of the calendar year. So two full days, usually in a beautiful place, you know, just when it’s just me, being able to do that I go through then the narrative of the year writing down all the wins, type all those up the winds of the year, there are several questions, you know, like the biggest game-changers of the year, the disappointments of the year, the hugest wins of the year, things that didn’t get around to, I’ve got, you know, five or six bullets there, that then help influence the goal setting for the year ahead. So that’s the annual two days, I’ve added quarterly in the last year and a half where I get a hotel room. Just here in my own town, I get a hotel room, and I spent half a day, doing the last 90 days wins again in a narrative which makes the end of the year easier now, do that narrative of the winds and the challenges and goals set for the next time my wife then joins me for dinner. We spend the night in a hotel. And so it just becomes sort of a win-win for both marriage and goal setting. Then the monthly retreats usually the last day of the month. I’d love to get it during the weekday, but right now it’s on a Saturday for a few hours. And that’s where I go through my vision for the year. My thematic goal for the year that sort of the theme that I want to pursue for this year, anything that pops up during those reflections. I then turn them into action items and put them right into my calendar and make an appointment with myself to keep the ball moving on all of the goals. Well again, those are relationship wellness, or business goals. So those are the three sets of reviews that forced me to To make sure I’m being intentional, and all those categories of my life
Jess Dewell 40:05
That is, it’s really incredibly powerful. Because you’re right, every area of life is impacted by, I’m going to call it a ritual, it’s more than a routine, it might start out as a routine is we’re building a habit. And then there’s something about it that creates a space with which if we don’t get it, we start craving it a little bit like, for some of us, it’s exercise. For some of us, it’s meditation. For some of us, it’s the beach, right? Whatever that is, if we don’t get enough of it, we start to really recognize it’s been missing. And I can appreciate that immensely. The biggest thing I must say is that it’s all in linear time. Because as creative as I am, and as awesome as it is to be able to content, make and share and put ideas together, it takes time. And so one of the things that I know I’m learning is that as different levels of success are reached, the way that time is interacted with has had to change for me. So in my personal flow, I actually have always had a love-hate relationship with a calendar, because it’s so many days, it’s all of these things, all of these people want a piece of my time and my day, and I’m trying to give it to them. And then we get back to that conversation at the beginning about calendars and types, right. And I have to remember that, for me, it takes a while to get into the mode that I need to be in. And the work that we’re doing for clients and the work to create content, for me actually have a similar flow, it’s probably why I lean into it and as a strength, some small app, so for me, it’s take a small action to get enough momentum to go get creative. And that could be to help look at a solution differently for a client that could be to prepare for a strategic risk treat with a company that could be to understand what the hard questions are, and how do you have the conversation with somebody who knows they need to have a hard questions asked, and yet may not be receptive quite yet. All of those things take time. And I’m not sure about you. It’s the activities of reading, listening to podcasts, being out taking a walk, being in nature, in the fresh air. Get for me, it’s getting on a yoga mat. Also, all of a sudden, all of these things start coming together. And some things might be for three months in the future. Some things might be for tomorrow, and you can’t control when they show up. What is this linear time thing?
Paul D. Casey 42:58
I know what you’re, what you’re referring to here as the preparation to be creative, right? I’m gonna Galleon Twyla Tharp so that it’s like we creatives need to prepare to be creative. Yes. So we need to put ourselves in spaces. And I’ve got a one-pager and happy to give your listeners that like 19 ways to nurture your creativity. Like it’s, it’s like, just a menu of things. And for each of us, it’s different for someone might be visiting toy stores just to go like, wow, that is so creative. And then that stimulates my brain to go a direction with my business, even though it’s nothing to do with the toy itself. Or the commercial. You’re just watching on TV. But then there’s like the exercise or going on a walk or doing a brain dump. Or there’s just so many ways to set yourself up to be creative, but it will not happen in the daily flow of linear life.
Jess Dewell 43:46
Never. And so that thing called Kid drop off at school dinner time. Oh, wait, I was supposed to eat lunch today. Oh, there went there came in went the time for me to be at yoga. Oh, okay. Now I know. And, and so I don’t I have a small trick that I don’t know why I didn’t learn this before. But on my phone, I have reminders that are reminders, I have timers that will go off 10 minutes before every event. And I make sure that I have 20 minutes between every single appointment on the calendar. Because hello I need to get a drink of water. I am human. So there’s also bathroom involved at some point in time, right and being able to go stand outside if I can’t take an actual walk. But being able to then go cool, I just finished all of these things. I have a block of time. What can I do here and then knowing that I am in that block of time if I get into a flow of any kind, knowing that I don’t have to worry about time because I will have an external stimulator. My Thank you past self just to keep me on track. As these things happen. It’s not easy, and I don’t know if I’m And even, you know, 65% successful, but it has helped, I have improved.
Paul D. Casey 45:08
And I have learned that too in the virtual world, you know, during COVID, where I just like, Oh, I’m home all day, I could just bang out even more clients, right and one after the other end, in zoom, start the next one ends, you know, begin and begin and begin. And I went, Wow, by the end of the day, I’m just fried. And I needed to put in that 15-minute cushion and walk around the house, put in a load of laundry, or do some dishes or just eat a snack, check-in with my wife and my puppy, you know, that kind of stuff. But if I didn’t have that, it became a grind. And that’s not what my clients were paying for it. Right? They, they wanted all of me and I needed that break.
Jess Dewell 45:48
Right. I totally hear you. And you know, what’s interesting is that you’ve now mentioned your wife twice. So I don’t know about you, but my life partner, my husband, Ryan is very much a big part of the person that asked me the hard questions, the one that goes, what else is on your brain that you’re not letting go of? Things like that. And so how long have you been married?
Paul D. Casey 46:14
13 years. Monday.
Jess Dewell 46:16
Congratulations. So right around the corner. That’s fantastic. That’s great. That’s awesome. And what kind of dog and how old is your puppy?
Paul D. Casey 46:24
Oh, he’s the cutest dog ever lhasa apso named gizmo Don’t feed him after midnight. Devlin’s reference for some of you. But yeah, so 910 months old now. And just as we’re empty nesters you mentioned empty-nester is coming for you someday, we just last year became empty nesters. So we got to the cute dog.
Jess Dewell 46:48
I’m telling you, I don’t know I like the idea of a cute dog. Our cute dog turned out to not like children. So we have a beautiful relationship that gets to be navigated. Sometimes play sometimes cuddle and lots of love from both child and dog. I think it happens. But you know, and that’s okay. Everything happens in time. And when we’re in it, it feels like forever. And if we know what the end is as sad as an empty nester will be for me, I get that that’s coming. So the same is true for a goal when I have reached a goal. Do I take the time to pause and reflect and go wow, I did that or am I already on to the next thing without any reflection because you know becoming an empty nester is actually succeeding at a goal. So that’s that. So whatever part of life, losing five pounds, exercising more committing whatever it is commitments that are the most important that the rest of linear time, like settles around, are the things that we when we lose sight of we hurt the most accidentally, ourselves and secondarily, everybody around us who needs us to communicate to be there to be on to, to problem solve, remove obstacles, look at things differently.
Paul D. Casey 48:14
Yeah, and a common theme. And most of my clients that I coach is the inability to stop and celebrate. Right? They are if they’re a driver or an achiever, they are on to the next thing. They’ve all they’ve used those words, right, I’m on to the next thing. And they don’t take time. So I forced them in our coaching sessions to celebrate the wins before we move on to the struggle, right? And then they’re just like, oh, man, it’s been man, that was like, two, two weeks ago. I don’t know what it’s worth to them. Because they know that now they’re used to it. They’re like, I knew you’re gonna ask you this. So I’m I drive over here, you know, I am ready with her wins. And I love that because and then someone will go like have didn’t have any wins. I’m like, come up. All right, let me just really talk back with you what we talked about last time, like, Oh, I did that? Oh, I did that. And oh, I did that. And then they feel much better. Because it’s like, well, I guess I had a lot of wins in the last two weeks.
Jess Dewell 49:05
Right. And I think that that becomes real important, not only in the daily, but to be able to then take that out to those quarterly annual three-year five-year goals. One of the things that I know we do in our strategic intensives is that we have quarterly goals, and then we have longer-term goals. Sometimes they’re 12. Sometimes they’re 36. Sometimes they’re 60 months out, and based off of what those quarterly goals are, and the success of them will impact where somebody is on that path. And what we forget is as we’re going for these quarterly goals, I mean, 90 days is actually a long time. So I’m glad you’re doing this every two weeks with people because the more we can see it day to day, Paul, the more we can actually recognize it. In the bigger picture. It’s harder to look back and go wow Two years ago, I just thought about selling my company. And now I am, wow, two years ago, I thought I wanted to double my revenue. And boy, I’ve more than done that in the last two years. How crazy and amazing is that? And coming from those bigger goals that actually move a business forward and execute that strategy, and then being able to go, so here are the actions that I’ve taken, or here where those obstacles are, actually give us the opportunity to go. Are these actually the right goals right now? Or can we take something else on? What can we push and actually being able to see that in a pattern and a path so that the overall ending actually happens in its timeframe, even though the day-to-day might look a little crazy or non-existent in terms of a path forward? Might just be you know, I know, for me, sometimes I feel like I’ve got a path around a lot. But I still get to those bigger goals at some point.
Paul D. Casey 50:56
Yeah, and then that can happen without the time to think dream plan and reflect.
Jess Dewell 51:01
That’s right. We are so we are two birds of a feather when it comes to the think dream plan. And reflect I have to tell you that. Now in your, in your reflection and thinking and dreaming, is it truly in solitude? Or do you like, go do you go? You say you go when you do the bigger ones, right, quarterly or, or you’re off-site somewhere? And annually, you’re off-site somewhere? What about these weekly ones? Do you sit at your desk? Do you go outside at a picnic table? What do you do for though?
Paul D. Casey 51:32
Well, the best ones are done in true solitude and away from my desk. So there’s a local co-working space in town that I have a membership to, and especially if it’s a Saturday, there’s nobody there. So that is ideal location, because it’s still sort of business environment. But it’s that there’s nobody there. So and that’s when I do my best reflection is in complete solitude. That’s where I think breakthroughs happen is in that complete solitude. If I tried to do it at my desk here in my office, or on a trip where my wife and puppy are there as well. There’s just too many ways to get drawn into the distractions, or even just, just household chores, right? So oh, that doesn’t work as well. I’ll take it over nothing. Because it’s so vital to my success. But yeah, so I’ll do the best.
Jess Dewell 52:22
I wish I could do that. I, what I have. And this is actually I’m asking that question because I need to learn from you on this, Paul. I will like you, I have ideas coming out all the time. So maybe unlike you, and I’ll only speak for myself, I’m always distracted. I am truly the it’s not necessarily a shiny object. But if I’m trying to avoid something really is interesting. I think I was one of those kids that got put in timeout, and then played with the dust bunnies on the floor. So let’s just be real about that. And knowing that and leaning into the 44-year-old version of me today and knowing that it’s going to still stick with me into the future. That concept of one of the things I do is I actually try and journal before I start one on one of these things. So I usually have a candle that will help because an external source of energy and I like fire and I happened to be a fire, fiery Aries. I mean, so I’m like, Well, I don’t necessarily do anything with any of that. But we might as well lean into that anything that can help. And I pull it I draw I write, I find something of inspiration to, to start that train of, here’s the box with which in we’re working and the timeframe we have. And by the way, in this case, it’s we it’s me, myself and I we and then I get into it and see what comes out. And it’s really interesting, whether I draw a picture whether I trace something, whether I color, whether I journal, that setup of specifically for me to get to solitude is a candle and paper and a pen and the equivalent of coloring tunes in what needs to happen. So as I go through my bins, as I look at the results of the reports that we that I have generated that I’m using that that I’m evaluating where we’re at and do we need to change based off of available resources, vacation income, right. How are we doing in sales versus what we’re actually what, what we had planned so that we could do the things that we wanted and make those minor adjustments week to week.
Paul D. Casey 54:35
Yeah, and I love how you’re using probably it’s probably your learning style that you’re tapping into it sounds a little kinesthetic Berry. Here’s my candle, you know? Yeah, do that. But the coloring, you know, you’re moving your hand. You’re doing something creative. Some of you may be audio learners. Some of you might be visual learners. You need the whiteboards and the big charts and You know, or getting a piece of butcher paper and spreading it along a conference table and just marking stuff up, but do, do whatever is within your learning style. Don’t force it. Right, whatever is gonna get you in the zone.
Jess Dewell 55:13
Oh goes back to let go of the supposed TOS as the leader of this business as the torchbearer of our vision as the person who made the commitment for all of us in the first place. Let go of the shirt and just do the doing. Yeah. Yeah. So talk to me about what makes it bold. What makes it bold to be able to do this personal retreat, this present retreat, and dedicate that dedication of time to get to the real opportunities.
Paul D. Casey 55:42
Yeah, I don’t I don’t feel bold when I’m chasing the shiny objects. I don’t know about you. Some temporary dopamine while I’m doing it, but I realized if there’s zero return on that time investment, that’s not good. I equate boldness with intentionality if you haven’t picked that up from me already. So when I’m resolute with the use of my time that feels bolt, so the quicker I can screen an opportunity for its potential for positively impacting a large number of people and to build revenue at the same time, the quicker I can get to work on making that happen, and pilot it to see if it’s results-producing or to move on to something else.
Jess Dewell 56:24
And that’s the last word of our show. So everybody who’s here thanks for being here. And guess what? Scott’s gonna take us off the air you know where to find us red direction.com
ANNOUNCER 56:37
The Bold Business Podcast is brought to you by Red Direction. Jess Dewelll dug into one idea in this program. Her goal is to ignite your creativity and spark different thinking with the presented material. How you apply this to your current priorities is up to you. Just dual can bring the missing voice back into your company with you. Jess will solidify your company’s True North your unique red direction, provided you’re ready to work with Jess email her at radio at Red direction.com Special thanks to the Scott treatment for technical production.