Ep 146 - Make It Count: Offense Over Overwhelm

Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to a fantastic, actionable Wednesday where we just give shit away for free here on Electricpreneurs Secrets, of course, for an episode 146, if you can believe that, joe, I'm making it count Offense over overwhelm. This is the Electricians podcast, where a couple of master electricians with business addictions come here and try to tell you some shit about how to run your business, run your sales and how do we say it. Oh yeah, that's right, master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium level service. Guys, we're not giving up on you, not just yet. We've got another couple of days this week to join you again, but today is exceptionally valuable because we're literally giving this value piece away and we're going to talk through it a bit because it's so important. But I don't want to jump right in yet. Just in the pre-show on our Facebook group, electricpreneurs Secrets, we were chatting with some of the guys who joined us there. Hello again, thank you guys. We love you. And we were talking about the founder. Again, this has come up a couple of times. If you haven't seen the McDonald's show Ray Kroc, the founder it's an incredible, incredible show. I've actually watched it twice. Joe's putting it on his list of things to watch. Here's something that goes against what our friend Dan Antonelli said. Really, yes, there's a big, incredible finish at the end of this show. I'm going to give you guys a bit of a spoiler, if that's okay. There's still time to shut me down. There's still time to shut me down. If you guys need Can I spoil this thing, go for it Just a little bit, okay. So, basically, what happens is Ray Kroc performs actually a hostile takeover. The real geniuses behind McDonald's were a couple of brothers who did get slided. In the end they got slided, I mean like heavily shafted actually. But Ray made this thing, as you said, a real estate tycoon and at the end he wrote these brothers a million dollar check each. And the one brother who was really the business process management guy he was the nerd that created this exceptional kitchen routine that was so efficient to crank out cheeseburgers in 30 seconds. And they're at the urinal beside each other. And the brother says to Ray you know, there's just a lot of stuff going on. There's just one thing I can't figure out. You had the recipe, you had the whole formula. Why not just go start your own burger shack? Why take us down? And Ray Kroc said this. No one was coming to Kroc's burgers, it was McDonald's. It was always the golden arches and it was always that American name McDonald's, where families come to eat and rest and share. That's the hard work and American name. So he credits a lot of it back to the last name of the guys who started it.

That's pretty freaking amazing.

Right. So sometimes when you got the right name, hey man, maybe you should put that on your branding. Hey, I'm not going to argue with Ray Kroc. I'll tell you that the guy at this point as what is it? In the end of the show, they say like $400 million a day in burger revenue.

Did you imagine having that kind of revenue feeds $100 million today.

Of the world's population, daily McDonald's Remarkable yeah.

Big time.

Remarkable. Okay, here's what Ray did really good too. Tie this into today's concept Success loves speed. He got into franchising with these guys and moved so quickly. It became an incredible feat that no one understood how fast it moved or even how. But I mean, this thing caught on fire and kept going, and if you're going to operate at speeds like that in your business, as some of you who are with us do, right then you got to know a thing or two about time management, joe, I would agree. Been talking about it all week. So what would be wrong of us to go into this offense over overwhelm today?

And I love when you use that particular close, because now it's never going to be wrong, press to get into it. And one thing I was actually going to say is there's a particular fact that's burning in the back of my mind about McDonald's that I want to share. Is it okay if I just touch on one thing?

Hit it.

Did you know that the actual McDonald's arch, the physical M signal, is actually psychologically proven to want to attract people to come into it, based on our desires as infants.

Wow, so we're like tied to it.

Yeah, so like literally. So the actual shape is the position of if you were a baby looking down at your mother's bosom. That is what you would see, and there's an instinctal issue where we have to look at that and it almost inates comfort. So they've gone so far into that to where they can physically now almost inception us to be like, yes, this looks good, comfortable place that I should go to. Yeah, cool, is that the level of detail they put into these things?

It's awesome that you picked up on that, because even in the show they talk about that. Where he's driving across the country to the original McDonald's location and every town they're showing him noticing there's crosses on the church and pillars on the courthouse those are the big monuments in every town. And so when he's trying to nail down this franchise opportunity, he says that to the McDonald's brothers like crosses, pillars, crosses, pillars, crosses, pillars, golden arches, golden arches. He's like nothing else is up there, it ought to be us, and so that apparently it works. That's exactly what happened and this just turned into a McDonald's episode. But gosh, I took so much from that show, man, I can't recommend that enough if you guys haven't watched it. You learn a lot about business from this thing. A remarkable, remarkable learning movie. All right, let me ask you this time as a currency Time as a currency. Joe, if we looked at time as a currency just 24 coins I'm holding up the the two fingers. Maybe I'll add four to four backwards 24 coins a day. What does that mean to you? What are we talking about here? What's this concept?

Realistically when we talk about the coins. This is actually the easiest way that has ever been broken down is that your life is Equating to the hours that you physically live, not just the hours that you're awake. The actual hours of your daily existence can be broken down to 24 segments. Now imagine that you need to take these coins and you get to choose where you allocate an hour of your time. The funny thing is is, as business owners, a lot of us don't assume sleep or personal investment is something that we need to put coins into. But if you think about it, if you put all 24 hours of your day into your business, your personal health, your relationships, what makes you you often ends up suffering. So for me, my first thought is to say if we're focused on health, family, business, mm-hmm, I'm trying to insert my coins in that order 100% yeah.

And to piggyback onto that, then this health jar is a bit confusing for people.

Too much so.

I don't mean like put a coin in. We're going to the gym today. What about your eating time? What about your resting time? What about your reading time? And to really back this up a step further, it's something we call the the six basic human needs. I've talked about this before, but let's touch on them again. There's certainty, certainty that tomorrow is another day that requires some health, doesn't it? Yeah the next one is, ironically, variety. We also need a changing environment and a lot of us get that from our workplace and some of us it drives us crazy Not having that. But even what about your health, growth and diversity, right, who you're becoming, the variety that you're learning from what your family is growing into? Okay, so that's the first couple, certainty, variety. But then there's significance, contribution, connection, growth, both both mentally and physically, right? All of these add up to everything we need from life. These are our pillars. Without it, our supercomputers, this thing we're harboring up in the skull that tends to do some damage sometimes, maybe for some of us and overwhelm more damage than good. That thing is craving those six items. That's what it takes is a healthy balance in between those to actually not just survive but thrive. Please jump in.

I wanted to touch on that because I'm sure that some people who are listening to that last statement you make started nodding, and inside I was nodding with you too. Because the thing is, is that this little Meatbag that we have on our brain? It's just a ball of jelly, but it causes us so much anxiety and stress when we're in overwhelm, mm-hmm. And the thing that I want to say is that if you're the person in background listening to this and saying like, yeah, I'm often in more overwhelm than not, this thing, I hate it. It's constantly causing problems I want you to know that by focusing on the health, doing the exact same thing we're telling you to do, it allows you to step out of that overwhelm and look at it almost in a third-person perspective, almost as if you're your own consultant. When you're in the fire and you're not rested and you're just going job to job, not eating to not eating, it can feel impossible. But when you're able to take the time and say I'm choosing where these coins are being allocated to, you'll find that that silence buys you mental equity, and that mental equity you can then further invest back into yourself, into your business, at a much higher and more successful rate.

Yeah, I want to give you a bit of a bit of a metaphor and a bit of a visual here. Everyone listening and for yourself, joe, imagine I mean just imagine, the power of your mind for a minute, your brain like the complex Environment that we live in, our office here in Australia. Look at all these buildings behind us that our fellow people have built. Mm-hmm, right, we're smart, we're an incredible A race of beings. This is remarkable, man. Now imagine in Western civilization like we live in next with us. Hello, nick, brothers, thanks for joining. Imagine we put all of this potential and we put it and lock it in the cab of the biggest Traco excavator you can imagine. And Now imagine you're on the pavement with this thing. You're actually in a in like a townhome complex, you're in an urban center and you're in this big hoe and every movement has to be critically perfect Because otherwise we're gonna do damage. Mm-hmm right, mistakes happen. Now imagine maybe it's your kids or your teenagers or someone lazy around you, maybe it's someone on your staff that really doesn't feel like they're doing all their stuff. Imagine they're in this excavator in their life. They've got this supercomputer and they're not quite engaging with it, they're not quite training to be better with it, they're not quite doing things that are impactful in building. So what happens? You?

Well, fortunately there's a lot of things I could think of and you think about if you had someone untrained behind an excavator just going ruckus through town. It requires the most slight adjustments, like if you've ever been in an excavator and you're trying to learn how to operate it. I remember the hardest part was just making the most basic adjustments. It always came down like boom, just hitting the ground, jerking up going back down. So we need that own training and time to better perform with the machinery of our lives.

Exactly, and if you got bored in this machine and you're truly trapped in it. That's what it's like when we don't occupy our minds and be intentional with our time. Now imagine, on the other side it's you, business owner, putting all your coins in the business jar, putting all your coins into some jar, intentionally trying to fit everything over right, like you can feel this right. But you're still in this big excavator and now time's not on your side. Now what happens?

I mean, I think about it. Okay. Anyone who's ever been a new parent knows what I'm talking about here when we say when we don't sleep we go crazy. But even before that craziness happens, you'll see that your performance and everything you do slowly starts to drop. So it's difficult operating an excavator, right, but imagine operating it with two hours of sleep. Imagine operating it when you had a bender the following night or when you're stressed about what you have to do next week, or your family or your significant others complaining, or your kids have something. And now your brain isn't focused on this three ton piece of machinery, it's focused on everything outside of it. And you try to do it on autopilot and without the training you just cause more damage 100%.

When you're mad, you start wrecking shit. I mean we're taking using this machine, that we have all the levers, all these extra controls, our ability to even multitask which is overrated, by the way right All these things that can work for us also are proven to be working against us If we don't mind the controls, if we're not a consistent operator, which seems to be the hardest thing to do in life is just be consistent. That's why you know, no exception, our listeners, the people that haven't found us yet but just look around you, how many people know exactly the course, from A to B, and can't do it.

It's unfortunately too true for a lot of people. It's like you can give someone a map, like I'm certain we could give someone an entire process from beginning to end, without telling them anything about it, but just say go, run the play. The problem is is that you'd be too overwhelming for anyone to do, let alone if you're not rested, eating healthy, like just think about your food as well. I mean, you talked about McDonald's earlier, but imagine that's all you ate and that's all the. That's the fuel you're putting into the engine. Even that would be a problem.

We got to touch on that because let's do the coin in the jar, man. When you eat McDonald's, is it because it's good quality food and you know that that's what your body needs, or is it because we're trying to put another coin in the jar for business? I mean because we haven't made time to make ourselves or procure even a better, healthier meal, because that's what McDonald's was founded on is saving you time, getting you some cheap burgers in your belly so you can move on with your busy American life.

You know, the thing is is I've been that guy before. I've taken a McDouble and put a McChicken in between it, Like we've all been that guy. Sorry, you've what. Oh, it's called the Mcgang bang, it's literally a. It's literally you take a McDouble and you open it up, and you put a McChicken inside the McDouble and you close it down. It's like a brick of a sandwich. But that wasn't the point.

The point I was trying to say is Disclamer, I'm going to go ahead and say that is ill-advised. We're not recommending anyone do that. Of course not Of course not.

The point is I'm saying I've been that guy getting off the new construction site saying I've just worked 17 hours, I need to go to sleep because I have to be up at six to get back to this site and therefore I'm going to eat some quick, cheap food. It's 3,000 calories for $2. That can't possibly be good for you, and it wasn't. I know I didn't operate at my best, but what do you do? If I were to go home and grill chicken and make salads and create wraps and delicious food? I'd operate better, but then I'd have to work less and so many of us find ourselves in that place.

It just doesn't seem to work with our time 100% man and, as a dad, I know so many dads listen to us, so many young families, and we're always looking for the best ways to help and influence our children to be not just like us but better than us, so they don't feel these pains of the overwhelm. I think I had this conversation with one of our clients the other day. One of my biggest fears is that my girls grow up and they have a value deficit, a self-worth deficit. I never want them to experience that. I want them to know their worth and know the value of time and what they're able to do in that time when they focus and put in tape behind it. That's like the most important thing because, honestly, if your kids know that, then why would they ever go to drugs? Why would they ever go to alcohol? Why would they ever get into inappropriate situations? If they knew their worth, Wouldn't their partner have to equal up to that match that? You know what I mean. That's the security of life. What are your thoughts on that?

I'm right on the same page and in fact I'm a girl dad. I've got two little girls and my thing is I want to be such a dad where they see how much I love their mother and how active I want to be with them and how important I feel that they are to the society that we live in and that that's going to set the bar of who they want to be with. It's like the goal is no scrubs for my girls. They are going to end up with someone who is worthy of them.

I love that.

It's also a TLC song. That it is.

I love you picked up the reference Scrubs, I don't know. Anyway, we're not going to sing to you guys again. Probably will, actually. Yeah, we're probably going to sing to you at some point. But if that's the ultimate importance, how valuable could it be to have 24 plastic coins in your house with three jars, and to teach your children even this concept that every time we spend an hour we're putting the coin somewhere, no matter Like their jars might be different. It might be play and sleep and family time, sure Right Doesn't matter. This exercise is so important because, going back to where we started here with the health and the sleep, if you really take 24 coins and imagine three jars again, health family business. For us, right in health, it's our priority, which means we're going to make a decision immediately how much sleep do I need? To be well rested and effective, consistently, in a sustainable format. Is there anything more important than that decision? Joe?

More than sleep. I mean, I'm speaking through the lens of a dad. No, there's nothing better Sleep is the first priority.

And this is the number one place that people generally try to rob from.

They really do, and sometimes we're just as guilty. I mean, how many times do we say you know what? I want to deliver something extra to our team. I'm going to clock in. After we've clocked that, let's get it done. Let's push a little bit further. I mean, every business owner has done that. Yeah, what I found from personal experience was by shifting from business, because originally, if you don't mind me saying, I started off with the business mentality and it almost drove me into the ground where all I was doing was business. But I found that when I started getting healthier and focusing on the family more, I actually became better at my job. Because and this is the main quote you cannot give away what you don't have. If you don't have health, if you don't have mental equity, if you don't have a sense of balance and inner peace, how could you possibly communicate that to others? What you are is communicated both verbally and nonverbally, and if there's any kind of inconsistency in what you're showing versus what you're saying, your client will pick up on that and they will say no. So you have to be the person that you're claiming you are 100%.

Yep, that's really good, Really good. So to me the magic number of sleep is about seven hours. No I can do seven hours consistently. What's your number? How many coins do you need, joe oh?

So this is a problem, do you?

want or need. Okay, what are you getting?

All right, there's a difference. So I get anywhere between Seven and five. Like I said, that's that's where I get and unfortunately it's because I do have sleep troubles. What I need is at least eight. My body has been told through all the sleep studies I need eight hours and I'm actively committing to finding a way to make that happen right.

Yeah, for sure it's tough with with young kids. We all know that pain too right, it can throw us off track. But what you'll find is by going through this and just like yesterday where we said, hey time, block your wife in your family time and first, if you do the 24 coin exercise and truly put your health right. Okay, so we got sleep. We know we want physical growth. We know we want mental growth. Mm-hmm guys, that doesn't need to be two hours. Even that could be one hour.

Mm-hmm.

In fact, it could be one hour at the gym while listening to something Go ahead that literally was on top of my mind.

So I get up every morning at 5 am On the dot thanks my new shock watch, which shocks me and jolts me a week but the first thing that I'm doing is listening to audiobooks, responding to messages, and I'm on the treadmill or I'm, if I'm, it's like if I'm physically lifting that I'm only listening to audiobooks. So you can take that self development time and physical development time and by saying this is the first thing you're going to do, I literally cannot proceed with my day until this is done.

Yeah, definitely. And the value is simple we're growing your person, your character. As Jim Rowan say, it's the cultivation of an unshakable character. That's what you're aiming for, because that means that your confidence is up. It means that you're able to contribute at a higher level, it means your significance is rising. And that doesn't have to mean in a big community. You don't need to be a celebrity to even feel that. That could be just at home with your family. That could be in your circle of friends. It could be in your, your local trade group, your local networking group, your church. It could be in any of those places where your Contribution rises and you get to feel more joy as a person and bring home more joy in in reflection of that. And so let's talk about how that impacts your workplace quick. Mm-hmm right lead, better what we do, serving at the highest level. The whole concept is this simple guys, we're trying to slow that schedule down. Honestly, I want to filled with joyful, impactful clients, people that we're actually going to serve, that are going to enjoy our service, and that that's also why the 80% conversion it's trying to nix and qualify people out so that all of our best people fill the schedule. Please jump in, joe. Thank you.

I want to also say that and you inspired me to say it it's not just showing our clients who we are. The business is a reflection of who we are. Right, you've considered. You've compared it to a mirror, which I think is a beautiful analogy. But imagine getting into the office tired because you didn't sleep all the night before, or because you pushed yourself too hard and you haven't been sleeping and you haven't really been taking care of yourself. You're not clean, shaven, you're not working out. What do your employees see If you're the benchmark of what they have? Have any of you ever wondered? I don't know how to get them to care. I don't know how to get them to do things. I don't know how to get them to have pride in what they do. What does their parents look like? What is their parent showing them? What is acceptable to you becomes acceptable to them. So if you want to lead, then fucking lead, and that means leading by yourself first 100%.

Yeah, it's so powerful, right, and we say this like you can't push a string across table and expect it to fall in perfect line Across that table, but you can pull it in perfect line. We've seen this happen with one of our clients who even interviewed them and talked about how the the staff just was not forming and looking strong, in a sense of like wanting to grow. They weren't bringing their paperwork forward, they weren't Lying lined up to become foreman or take their careers to the next level. And yet in just a few months of training and Reestablishing that vision for that owner and reestablishing that proud, motivating, influential leadership, all of a sudden it was like, hey, we're signing up for the next level of our apprenticeships. Hey, we're going to get our journeyman certificates. Hey, I do want to run jobs. And in her client had said to me right on the call, he was like I don't even know what happened. It's not like I said something, but it's what you do, it's what you show, that you're doing. And that's really what makes this week so special in talking around how to make account and time management and this offense over overwhelm is if you'll display that level of leadership right, paying attention to what we said yesterday. Your actions speak so loud. I can't hear what you're saying If you won't say it, but do it and be it. Imagine what's possible for your team, imagine what's possible for your culture. Imagine having a bunch of spry chickens ready to rock right that are following your lead and being intentional with their time. And if that's not sexy, then imagine what that means at your client's house, because when I have someone in my home to service us, I want them to be alert, I want them to be friendly. I don't want to see people in ill health or overworked. I want them to be at their best too, so that our relationship can be at our best. Does that make sense, joe?

It really really does, and it's really one of those things that I just keep coming back to it, where I'm amazed when you are the thing that you want to be and that you want to have leading, it's almost like being a good parent. Right, you don't have to tell them anything, but you have to show them everything. I'd rather see someone who shows them and is like I don't even know what I said. I didn't say anything, yeah, but you were about what you said. You were about what you believed and you were consistent with it, and now we know the model to follow.

Definitely, man. Definitely you know what guys. I hope this gives you a strong visual for what that is. I hope at times it challenged your way of thinking. I hope at times it gave you a sense of calm and belonging and understanding what's possible here, because it is Don't get me wrong Overwhelm happens to all of us. Hell, I have already said I was overwhelmed earlier today. It happens, but the reason we call it offense over overwhelm is recognizing the threat and taking action to get through that and work past it. And there's only a few ways to do that, guys. We're going to continue this week, on tomorrow, honestly, because we're running out of time. But with that it leads us right into the law of open cycles, joe, and actually taking action against these vampires of livelihood, the things that are taking and sucking our energy, and the ways to actually deal with that. That's not fair.

I'm so excited to get into that because I really feel like that is going to have a huge positive impact in people who listen to us.

Action items today, then, to close this out, yeah, you want me to start.

I mean, yeah, I'll take either one, I'm okay with every one.

Okay, I'm going to start with the action. Then Really visualize, or even actualize the coins and the jars. You could write it on paper and cut it out. It sounds like kindergarten crafts maybe, but literally you could draw it on a notepad and do tallies, start being accountable for where you're putting your coins and start implementing with intention to put these coins in the right place, in the right order. I think we've got everything we needed from this podcast to be able to enact that. What do you think? Joe? I would agree with you there. All right, all start, all start.

Now the all start. Action, I think, is a two-part section. The reason being is that you cannot do an action without the very least making your first step. The first step, I truly believe, is putting your hand up and getting this action piece. Literally, we're giving it away. I literally have it in my hands. I'm trying to put it in yours. All you have to do is just put a hand up and say I want it. That's the bare minimum step and the all-star step, because, as Jim Rohn said, you don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great, and I'm literally trying to give these techniques away, if you can do that. The second part, now that you physically have it, is can you read it with the intention of implementing? Not reading and saying can I do it? But simply reading and saying is this something I can consider implementing? Because when you go into something with the mentality of, oh, I'm going to do this 100% and it's a brand new concept, it can feel overwhelming. So the first thing is, instead of saying I'm going to go gung-ho, it's simply saying I am going to unobjectively look at this and simply say I'm going to observe it, I'm going to do the best I can with it and I'm going to take action where I see I can. Any action you take will only lead you further down to where you want to be 100%, man.

If you guys want to get that action piece, make it count the offense over overwhelm. You can either come to our Facebook group and throw a hand up in there. It's on a few different posts. If we're already friends on Facebook, you can see it there. And, of course, you can always go to our website at serviceloupelectricalcom. Guys, and leave us a note there. You can contact us, talk with us there the whole night. So this has been another episode of Electricpreneur Secrets, the Electricians podcast. I'm Clay Neumeier, this is Joseph Lucani, and we're just a couple of master electricians with business addictions looking to help you master sales, simplify pricing and deliver premium-level electrical service. We'll see you again tomorrow. Cheers, thanks.