Work Smarter, Live More | RR249

Janice Porter: 00:00:00

Hello, everybody, and welcome to this week's

Janice Porter: 00:00:02

episode of relationships rule. I am interviewing today a

Janice Porter: 00:00:07

wonderful woman that I actually interviewed in the first year of

Janice Porter: 00:00:10

my podcast, which seems like many, many moons ago, it because

Janice Porter: 00:00:14

it is now it's over three years, and I'm pretty excited about it.

Janice Porter: 00:00:18

And it's always good to revisit with people who have made

Janice Porter: 00:00:23

changes grown in their businesses as well as things

Janice Porter: 00:00:27

that have happened for me. So my guest today is MJ shells be

Janice Porter: 00:00:31

welcome to the show, first of all,

Nj Shelby: 00:00:33

thank you. It's great to be here.

Janice Porter: 00:00:36

Thank you. And NJ is a productivity powerhouse. As

Janice Porter: 00:00:41

a wife and mother who once worked in an intense corporate

Janice Porter: 00:00:44

environment, and J experienced firsthand the damaging effects

Janice Porter: 00:00:49

of long hours and stress. She developed an autoimmune disease

Janice Porter: 00:00:53

and was forced to start working smarter, not harder. Now she

Janice Porter: 00:00:57

takes what she's learned and helps other helps business

Janice Porter: 00:01:00

owners and professionals gain control of their time, eliminate

Janice Porter: 00:01:04

distractions, and focus on what really matters. So they can

Janice Porter: 00:01:08

achieve a new level of success while working fewer hours. And

Janice Porter: 00:01:13

honestly, I need some of that, I'll tell you, because

Janice Porter: 00:01:18

sometimes, sometimes it's okay to just say, enough is enough

Janice Porter: 00:01:23

and walk away for the day. But sometimes, things hang over your

Janice Porter: 00:01:28

head, and it's like, Oh, my goodness, I didn't get it all

Janice Porter: 00:01:32

done today. And it's frustrating. And being a

Janice Porter: 00:01:35

solopreneur pretty much. That happens a lot. And I'm sure you

Janice Porter: 00:01:40

hear that kind of complaint often. So first of all, let's

Janice Porter: 00:01:43

back up and and come back to that. But I want to know what

Janice Porter: 00:01:49

happened to you. And how long ago was this? And and what did

Janice Porter: 00:01:53

that like? That changed a lot for you?

Nj Shelby: 00:01:57

It did, because I was a workaholic. I mean that I

Nj Shelby: 00:02:03

worked 24 hours straight, literally no exaggeration. I was

Nj Shelby: 00:02:08

so caught up into you know, the BS story of this is important.

Nj Shelby: 00:02:16

You know, I've got to do it. If I don't do it, it won't get

Nj Shelby: 00:02:20

done. Right. You know, all that kind of thing.

Janice Porter: 00:02:22

Were you climbing the corporate ladder? Yes, I

Nj Shelby: 00:02:25

was climbing the corporate ladder. And, you know,

Nj Shelby: 00:02:28

a couple of things happened. My, my dad died, I got a note that

Nj Shelby: 00:02:35

my son left on the table. You know, Mom, how come I barely

Nj Shelby: 00:02:39

ever see you anymore, you know, and being and then being

Nj Shelby: 00:02:43

diagnosed with an autoimmune disease, which when when I got

Nj Shelby: 00:02:47

the diagnosis, they thought it was lung cancer. And through the

Nj Shelby: 00:02:51

weekend, you know, that's what I was dealing with. And then I got

Nj Shelby: 00:02:54

the biopsy on Monday. And it was like, the good news is you don't

Nj Shelby: 00:02:57

have cancer. The bad news is you have an autoimmune disease. And

Nj Shelby: 00:03:02

so it really kind of woke me up to what was really important in

Nj Shelby: 00:03:08

life. And I can see now that I didn't have too much to do,

Nj Shelby: 00:03:16

right, I could have gotten it all done in less hours, I had a

Nj Shelby: 00:03:19

focus problem. I wasn't I wasn't honoring my biology, you know, I

Nj Shelby: 00:03:26

wasn't sleeping wasn't eating right. Well, you know, wasn't

Nj Shelby: 00:03:28

doing those things. I wasn't honoring the biology of how the

Nj Shelby: 00:03:36

brain works, right? We are hardwired for distraction. If

Nj Shelby: 00:03:40

you imagine 1000s of years ago, you're collecting berries to

Nj Shelby: 00:03:44

feed the family and you hear a rustling off in the bushes,

Nj Shelby: 00:03:48

right, your alert system is going to go on guard because

Nj Shelby: 00:03:51

it's probably something that's going to eat you. And so you had

Nj Shelby: 00:03:55

to just be distracted by things like that. And so we still have

Nj Shelby: 00:04:00

the same hard wiring. And today, it's you know, some software

Nj Shelby: 00:04:06

company trying to get you to look at their screen, so that

Nj Shelby: 00:04:09

they can make more money. But our biological systems don't

Nj Shelby: 00:04:12

know the difference. And so, you know, we have to put in place

Nj Shelby: 00:04:17

those kinds of things. And I didn't realize that back at the

Nj Shelby: 00:04:19

time, you know, back in the day. And so the result was I was

Nj Shelby: 00:04:24

working way too many hours and just burnt myself out to the

Nj Shelby: 00:04:28

point that I got the autoimmune disease,

Janice Porter: 00:04:31

and a son who was crying for help and needed

Janice Porter: 00:04:33

Exactly, yeah. And thanks for sharing that. I I think though,

Janice Porter: 00:04:39

that if that had happened today, do you think that you might have

Janice Porter: 00:04:43

had maybe more of a nervous breakdown around it too or

Janice Porter: 00:04:46

something because there's so much today so much information

Janice Porter: 00:04:49

overload that back then, you know, you I don't think it was

Janice Porter: 00:04:54

as I mean, it was definitely bad because it got you ill but you

Janice Porter: 00:04:58

know what I'm saying right there. Right.

Nj Shelby: 00:04:59

Well Well, it's interesting you say that because

Nj Shelby: 00:05:02

one of the things that I didn't mention that, you know, one of

Nj Shelby: 00:05:05

the triggering points is, I was driving to my doctor's office

Nj Shelby: 00:05:10

for some appointment. And I had been there, like six or seven

Nj Shelby: 00:05:15

times, and I couldn't remember how to get there. Now, this

Nj Shelby: 00:05:19

isn't like, Oh, give me like a minute to figure it out. This is

Nj Shelby: 00:05:24

10 or 15 minutes later, I still couldn't remember I had to call

Nj Shelby: 00:05:29

my coworker who I carpooled with some times, and ask him how to

Nj Shelby: 00:05:34

get there. And my doctor was very alarmed when I told him

Nj Shelby: 00:05:39

what happened. And just with this, you know, and he was like,

Nj Shelby: 00:05:42

one of these jolly, you know, good, you know, doctors who were

Nj Shelby: 00:05:47

always smiling and laughing, and he had this just look on his

Nj Shelby: 00:05:49

face of just total seriousness, and he said, You have to

Nj Shelby: 00:05:54

immediately decrease your stress level. And so I hate to think

Nj Shelby: 00:06:00

what today that would be like, exactly,

Janice Porter: 00:06:03

yeah, oh, my goodness. Well, one of the

Janice Porter: 00:06:06

things that will so now go fast forwarding to today, and what I

Janice Porter: 00:06:12

just said about, you know, just feeling at the end of the day,

Janice Porter: 00:06:16

that it's never going to end, I just have always got more and

Janice Porter: 00:06:19

more things to do. What What's your comment to me around that?

Nj Shelby: 00:06:24

Yeah. So see, a lot of that, though, is an illusion.

Nj Shelby: 00:06:28

Yeah. And all these companies are, have gotten so good at

Nj Shelby: 00:06:35

persuasive marketing, like, back in the day, you had a couple of

Nj Shelby: 00:06:39

companies who were good at that, and you get these, you know,

Nj Shelby: 00:06:43

letters in the mail, that you would open up and be like, Whoa,

Nj Shelby: 00:06:46

and they'd suck you in? Yes, companies didn't know how to do

Nj Shelby: 00:06:50

that kind of marketing today, you know, millions and millions

Nj Shelby: 00:06:54

of companies do and they end up in your inbox. And so they're

Nj Shelby: 00:06:59

convincing you that you have to do all of the things. And it's a

Nj Shelby: 00:07:03

lie. Like, we were talking before you hit record, you know,

Nj Shelby: 00:07:08

as solopreneurs, there's all of these things that you can do to

Nj Shelby: 00:07:11

market your business. There's, you know, LinkedIn, and Facebook

Nj Shelby: 00:07:14

and Instagram and YouTube and podcasts and, you know, right,

Nj Shelby: 00:07:20

exactly. And every person who sells how to do that, they're

Nj Shelby: 00:07:26

sending you emails, convincing you that business can't grow

Nj Shelby: 00:07:30

without without that. And the reality is, you don't, you only

Nj Shelby: 00:07:36

need to do one consistently. And then once you master that you

Nj Shelby: 00:07:40

have the bandwidth, and it's all systematized, you can add

Nj Shelby: 00:07:42

another one. But we get sucked into believing that we have to

Nj Shelby: 00:07:47

do it all.

Janice Porter: 00:07:48

It's true. It's really true. And it's funny,

Janice Porter: 00:07:51

because when I'm training my clients around LinkedIn,

Janice Porter: 00:07:56

sometimes on a first conversation, I'll hear them

Janice Porter: 00:07:59

say, Well, I gotta get all my all my social media organized, I

Janice Porter: 00:08:03

got to do my LinkedIn, and my Facebook and my Instagram, like,

Janice Porter: 00:08:06

Wait, stop, I do. What do you do now? None of it will pick one.

Janice Porter: 00:08:10

Let's start there, right? Even if it's not LinkedIn, I don't

Janice Porter: 00:08:13

care you do, what feels right, and where your audience is,

Janice Porter: 00:08:17

right? Because we I know it, I'm good when I'm telling other

Janice Porter: 00:08:20

people, but I get caught in that trap, as well. And it's. So that

Janice Porter: 00:08:26

brings me to actually so slowing down in different ways and

Janice Porter: 00:08:30

accepting what maybe, I have decided is important for me.

Janice Porter: 00:08:40

It's, I don't feel it's about convincing other people. It's

Janice Porter: 00:08:43

about finding people who are like minded, and like that, that

Janice Porter: 00:08:48

platform or that's where their audience is, and so I can help

Janice Porter: 00:08:51

them. But one of the things that in my notes here from you,

Janice Porter: 00:08:55

actually, is a comment about talk, let's talk about how even

Janice Porter: 00:09:03

when, you know, it's essential to put in time to build

Janice Porter: 00:09:07

relationships. It's difficult to find that time. So one of my

Janice Porter: 00:09:13

things on LinkedIn is, I feel that that tool is underutilized

Janice Porter: 00:09:20

in terms of creating and building relationships, because

Janice Porter: 00:09:24

it's a goldmine. And I have said time and time again on my

Janice Porter: 00:09:29

podcast. Here's a guest, guess what? I met them on LinkedIn.

Janice Porter: 00:09:33

Here's another guest, guess what? I met them on LinkedIn.

Janice Porter: 00:09:37

And so for me, I'm doing what very few people are doing is

Janice Porter: 00:09:40

building those relationships. So that's what I like to do.

Janice Porter: 00:09:43

Therefore, I find time to do it. Yes,

Nj Shelby: 00:09:46

yes, exactly. And I think that today, we have all of

Nj Shelby: 00:09:55

these things, fracturing our attention and focus Right, yeah,

Nj Shelby: 00:10:01

you know, there's so many things that you could be spending your

Nj Shelby: 00:10:05

time and so many things that are distracting you. And so what

Nj Shelby: 00:10:08

happens is, your brain starts spinning, right? And going from,

Nj Shelby: 00:10:14

you know, you go to work on one thing and you're like, oh, you

Nj Shelby: 00:10:17

know, I almost forgot I have to do this. And oh, I have to

Nj Shelby: 00:10:20

remote reply to that email. I'm guilty of that, right. And when

Nj Shelby: 00:10:23

you're in that state of mind, unless you are like you and an

Nj Shelby: 00:10:29

expert at using it, your brain is going to shut down, your

Nj Shelby: 00:10:34

brain can't like, oh, let's do something new that we don't know

Nj Shelby: 00:10:38

what to do. It's just going to keep saying, Okay, we're going

Nj Shelby: 00:10:41

to do that later. We're going to do that later. Because it's

Nj Shelby: 00:10:45

looking for what is urgent, and you know, the crisis to solve,

Nj Shelby: 00:10:50

but it's deluding you as to what is really urgent and important.

Nj Shelby: 00:10:55

And so it'll be responding to a test a text message that you

Nj Shelby: 00:10:59

don't need to respond to or something. And so really, the

Nj Shelby: 00:11:03

first step is to get your mind to settle down and stop

Nj Shelby: 00:11:08

spinning. And to do that, you have to get out of your head,

Nj Shelby: 00:11:13

all of the things that you have to do. And a lot of the mistake,

Nj Shelby: 00:11:18

the mistake that I see a lot of people make is they just make

Nj Shelby: 00:11:21

one long list. And that's a great starting point. But that's

Nj Shelby: 00:11:24

overwhelming, like, and you can start with a mind dump. But if

Nj Shelby: 00:11:29

you leave it there, you're more overwhelmed, because you have

Nj Shelby: 00:11:33

this long list. Okay, so, you know, then you have to go

Nj Shelby: 00:11:37

through it. And you know, what can I what is really not

Nj Shelby: 00:11:40

important that I can cross off, somebody tried to convince me,

Nj Shelby: 00:11:43

here's what I need to do, you know, I have to work on

Nj Shelby: 00:11:46

Instagram, no, no, I've committed, I'm only going to

Nj Shelby: 00:11:49

work one one platform at a time LinkedIn it is so I can cross

Nj Shelby: 00:11:53

off the Instagram for right now. And then look at you know, what

Nj Shelby: 00:11:58

can wait until, you know, next month, what can wait till next

Nj Shelby: 00:12:02

week, and then take those things off of that, you know, kind of

Nj Shelby: 00:12:07

like I normally like indicate, like, you know, M for next

Nj Shelby: 00:12:10

month, you know, W for next week, until you really get down

Nj Shelby: 00:12:14

to this limited number that Oh, my God, these are urgent have to

Nj Shelby: 00:12:17

be done today, take another sheet of paper, and then just

Nj Shelby: 00:12:21

today and just write those things down. So they got those

Nj Shelby: 00:12:24

other things out of mind. And when you do that, then your

Nj Shelby: 00:12:28

brain can kind of settle down, and it's not spinning

Nj Shelby: 00:12:32

constantly, because it doesn't know where to start what to work

Nj Shelby: 00:12:35

on. Because your brain doesn't know timewise it can't tell the

Nj Shelby: 00:12:39

difference between, you know, an urgent thing that needs to be

Nj Shelby: 00:12:42

done today. And an important thing that needs to be done in a

Nj Shelby: 00:12:45

week, and just smashes it all together and tries to do them

Nj Shelby: 00:12:48

all now.

Janice Porter: 00:12:50

Yeah, I was having this conversation

Janice Porter: 00:12:51

yesterday with a friend of mine who does some tech back and

Janice Porter: 00:12:55

stuff for me. And I was saying that even with, you know, just

Janice Porter: 00:13:00

looking at the three parts of my business, when it comes to just

Janice Porter: 00:13:03

my podcast, I listed all these things that have to be done

Janice Porter: 00:13:07

every week. And I don't want to be doing them. But they're

Janice Porter: 00:13:09

taking up time that I am doing them. So, but But I I have this

Janice Porter: 00:13:18

push me pull you thing around. If I don't do them? I'm not.

Janice Porter: 00:13:24

Maybe it's not having not found the right person. I don't know.

Janice Porter: 00:13:28

But I don't feel the trust of having someone else do these

Janice Porter: 00:13:32

things. To my level of satisfaction. Right?

Nj Shelby: 00:13:37

Right. And that's a common thing, I think that we go

Nj Shelby: 00:13:40

through is that we, you know, we're afraid that people are

Nj Shelby: 00:13:45

going to make us look bad. And I used to have that. Now, it's so

Nj Shelby: 00:13:49

funny that, you know, I won't eat sometimes. You know, I've

Nj Shelby: 00:13:52

had like my husband who is amazing with word sometimes he's

Nj Shelby: 00:13:56

written emails for me, I don't even read them. I'm just like,

Nj Shelby: 00:13:59

Okay, send it out. Like if I like, I just have to let it go.

Nj Shelby: 00:14:06

Like I just don't even worry about that stuff anymore.

Janice Porter: 00:14:10

But you have to train yourself to do that. I

Nj Shelby: 00:14:13

did. I actually it's this kind of weird little thing

Nj Shelby: 00:14:19

that we store emotions in our body. And that, you know, the

Nj Shelby: 00:14:26

way that we're made is that you know the neurons fire they

Nj Shelby: 00:14:29

release neuro peptides and were made to feel it and just feel it

Nj Shelby: 00:14:35

fully and let it go right. When we're young things happen to us

Nj Shelby: 00:14:42

that are very, you know, traumatic, you know, someone on

Nj Shelby: 00:14:46

the playground bullying you or you know your sibling laughing

Nj Shelby: 00:14:51

and you whatever it is right that but for us as kids, it's

Nj Shelby: 00:14:54

traumatic and we don't feel the emotions fully. We are just kind

Nj Shelby: 00:15:00

of push them down. And what it does is it kind of creates this

Nj Shelby: 00:15:04

connection chip from the neuron firing to the neuro peptides

Nj Shelby: 00:15:08

being released. And so unconsciously, we don't even

Nj Shelby: 00:15:12

realize it, we have these feelings that kind of come up.

Nj Shelby: 00:15:16

And then our unconscious mind is like, Oh, I don't want to feel

Nj Shelby: 00:15:20

that. So therefore, I'm going to change behavior in order to

Nj Shelby: 00:15:23

avoid that. So let's say something happened, when you

Nj Shelby: 00:15:27

were in, you know, third grade, and you stood up to do a

Nj Shelby: 00:15:30

presentation in class, and somebody made a joke, and

Nj Shelby: 00:15:34

everybody laughed, right? You don't want to look stupid. So

Nj Shelby: 00:15:37

therefore, when you think about outsourcing and having someone

Nj Shelby: 00:15:41

else do something, unconsciously, you're not even

Nj Shelby: 00:15:44

aware. It triggers, you know, the neurons fire these neuro

Nj Shelby: 00:15:48

peptides are released. And there's a subtle feeling in the

Nj Shelby: 00:15:51

body, that your unconscious mind is like, Yep, let's divert her

Nj Shelby: 00:15:55

attention away from that. So basically, I, you know, had to

Nj Shelby: 00:16:00

go through and release all of that, so that there wasn't that

Nj Shelby: 00:16:04

connection. You know, it's kind of like Pavlov's dog. Right?

Nj Shelby: 00:16:07

Yeah. Where, you know, by flooding the neurons so that it,

Nj Shelby: 00:16:13

it breaks that connection, and then it's just gone. So did you

Nj Shelby: 00:16:18

do that yourself?

Janice Porter: 00:16:19

Yeah. Oh, wow. Okay, so that takes some

Janice Porter: 00:16:22

dedication and work to, to do that, for

Nj Shelby: 00:16:25

sure. I love personal development work. I love to

Nj Shelby: 00:16:29

grow. So it's kind of for me, that's my fun. My husband makes

Nj Shelby: 00:16:32

fun of me. You know, to him. It's like pulling teeth. Yeah.

Janice Porter: 00:16:36

Like, yeah, we have the same the same issue

Janice Porter: 00:16:39

there. So I saw something that you had responded to, or someone

Janice Porter: 00:16:43

was talking about? What were they talking about? Just a

Janice Porter: 00:16:47

second. They were talking about? Oh, about unsubscribing to

Janice Porter: 00:16:54

different emails. And and you said it's easy to hit delete,

Janice Porter: 00:16:58

without realizing all those emails, eat away at your

Janice Porter: 00:17:01

decision bandwidth. This is me, okay. Like, if you knew how many

Janice Porter: 00:17:05

emails were in my inbox, he would die. By midday, many

Janice Porter: 00:17:09

people are in decision fatigue and end up putting off important

Janice Porter: 00:17:13

decisions. When we unsubscribe, we're blocking out future

Janice Porter: 00:17:16

decisions from eating away our focus and our ability to make

Janice Porter: 00:17:20

decisions. That was your comment, and I love that. But

Janice Porter: 00:17:25

excuse me, it takes time to go and do all that. unsubscribing

Janice Porter: 00:17:30

actually,

Nj Shelby: 00:17:31

it doesn't. Okay, talk to me, there is a program

Nj Shelby: 00:17:35

on Maelstrom m a i l s t r o m. And I can't. It's some nominal

Nj Shelby: 00:17:46

fee. You know, it used to be, you know, like, 499, I think it

Nj Shelby: 00:17:50

might be up to 899 a month, but you don't need more than one

Nj Shelby: 00:17:54

month, right. And what it does is it loads your inbox, and you

Nj Shelby: 00:17:58

can like bulk unsubscribe. And I've had clients who've had like

Nj Shelby: 00:18:05

4000 emails in their inbox and clear them out, including

Nj Shelby: 00:18:11

unsubscribing in and our

Janice Porter: 00:18:14

about 37,000. Okay,

Nj Shelby: 00:18:17

so you know, but think about it, if you've got

Nj Shelby: 00:18:22

1000 emails from a person, it doesn't take any longer to

Nj Shelby: 00:18:26

unsubscribe and delete using Maelstrom benefits 100 from that

Nj Shelby: 00:18:30

person. So, you know, so it's just a matter of how long

Nj Shelby: 00:18:34

you've, you know, it's not like you've got 10 emails from, you

Nj Shelby: 00:18:38

know, 3700 people, you got, you know, probably 50 Different

Nj Shelby: 00:18:44

people who are sending you hundreds of emails.

Janice Porter: 00:18:47

I know. It's unbelievable. Anyway, so. So

Janice Porter: 00:18:52

more and more today, people aren't able to focus, right, we

Janice Porter: 00:18:56

say that we have to grab someone's attention in the first

Janice Porter: 00:19:02

few seconds, or it's never going to happen, right? It's even less

Janice Porter: 00:19:05

than seven seconds anymore. Right? So. So what's your advice

Janice Porter: 00:19:11

to people? Do we worry about that when we're marketing? Or do

Janice Porter: 00:19:16

we just do what makes us feel more Zim?

Nj Shelby: 00:19:21

I feel like it's a combination. I don't feel like

Nj Shelby: 00:19:25

you need to use a marketing strategy that's in alignment

Nj Shelby: 00:19:29

with you. If you like doing video, do video if you like

Nj Shelby: 00:19:32

writing, do writing. You have to do what's in alignment. And I

Nj Shelby: 00:19:38

think we have to not be boring. You know, like we have to be

Nj Shelby: 00:19:45

kind of strategic about what we're saying and make sure that

Nj Shelby: 00:19:50

we're taking our point of view so that it's about us that we're

Nj Shelby: 00:19:54

not just, you know, putting out more and more content that's the

Nj Shelby: 00:19:58

same as what everybody else also saying, but we need a unique

Nj Shelby: 00:20:02

point of view that we're putting out there. You know, and we need

Nj Shelby: 00:20:07

to be a little bit strategic about putting it out in a way

Nj Shelby: 00:20:10

that might capture people's attention, but don't waste their

Nj Shelby: 00:20:13

time saying stuff that they already know. Okay, so that's a

Nj Shelby: 00:20:17

really interesting point. Because for me, and this is

Nj Shelby: 00:20:21

where I'm trying to develop better right now is

Janice Porter: 00:20:25

it's about it's about telling stories, from your

Janice Porter: 00:20:33

perspective, so people get a glimpse of you, as well as it's

Janice Porter: 00:20:39

more interesting. You know, they say they want facts, tell

Janice Porter: 00:20:43

stories, sell facts, tell stories, sell,

Nj Shelby: 00:20:46

or hard wired for stories, right? Yeah.

Janice Porter: 00:20:50

And and so in doing that in a better way, in

Janice Porter: 00:20:55

telling a story about an experience that you've had

Janice Porter: 00:20:57

around whatever it is that you're talking about, you're

Janice Porter: 00:21:00

building relationship with people without realizing it,

Janice Porter: 00:21:04

right? Yes,

Nj Shelby: 00:21:05

yes. And people read those. It's funny. We're all so

Nj Shelby: 00:21:08

busy, we don't have time to read things. But when someone is

Nj Shelby: 00:21:15

telling a story, you slow down your scroll, and you actually

Nj Shelby: 00:21:21

don't read it. So yeah,

Janice Porter: 00:21:23

I've noticed that in like my newsletter, when I do

Janice Porter: 00:21:27

my introduction, and, you know, I had, well, I was forced to

Janice Porter: 00:21:31

slow down because I sprained my ankle two weeks ago tomorrow.

Janice Porter: 00:21:35

And, and I said this in my newsletter, and it was amazing

Janice Porter: 00:21:40

how many people reached out and said, oh, sorry, speedy

Janice Porter: 00:21:43

recovery, do your exercises, all that stuff. So then your your,

Janice Porter: 00:21:47

and they were people I didn't expect. Right, right. So that's

Janice Porter: 00:21:51

when you think, Oh, I do have people out there that are

Janice Porter: 00:21:54

reading my newsletter. Thank you, you know, appreciate that.

Janice Porter: 00:21:57

And those are relationships that they're going on that are

Janice Porter: 00:22:00

building without you realizing it. Yes, yeah, I like that. I

Janice Porter: 00:22:04

like that a lot. You say that. It's so much easier now to reach

Janice Porter: 00:22:13

people and to start new connections and relationships,

Janice Porter: 00:22:17

but if not managed, it can steal our time. And leave us

Janice Porter: 00:22:20

disconnected. Tell me what you mean by that?

Nj Shelby: 00:22:23

Well, I think that social media, it's so easy to

Nj Shelby: 00:22:31

spend time during the scroll, you know, and not really

Nj Shelby: 00:22:36

connecting, zoning out. And so it's easier to connect to people

Nj Shelby: 00:22:43

like I have a friend in Florida, who I graduated high school

Nj Shelby: 00:22:47

with. And the only way we connect is, you know, stay in

Nj Shelby: 00:22:52

touch is through social media. But yet, when my husband and I

Nj Shelby: 00:22:57

go to Florida to visit his parents, I drive an hour, and we

Nj Shelby: 00:23:01

go spend a couple of hours and I visit with her. But if I didn't

Nj Shelby: 00:23:04

have social media as a as a way to stay connected, I wouldn't. I

Nj Shelby: 00:23:12

would never, you know, have that are awkward, right? It would be,

Nj Shelby: 00:23:16

I just, I wouldn't reach out to her I wouldn't, you know, and so

Nj Shelby: 00:23:20

I feel like it gives us an opportunity. And it gives us a

Nj Shelby: 00:23:24

way in I mean, you hear all these stories of people who have

Nj Shelby: 00:23:30

been able to connect with, you know, CEOs or you know, somebody

Nj Shelby: 00:23:35

through responding to a post that they made on LinkedIn or

Nj Shelby: 00:23:39

something I saw on LinkedIn that Richard Branson had posted

Nj Shelby: 00:23:50

something about dyslexia, and somebody commented, and he

Nj Shelby: 00:23:53

commented back, like, how many people could say that they had a

Nj Shelby: 00:23:57

correspondence with Richard Branson. So social media gives

Nj Shelby: 00:24:02

us all these opportunities, but you have to be on guard and put

Nj Shelby: 00:24:06

it into you have to have rules. And you know, kind of like,

Nj Shelby: 00:24:11

remember when you were learning to bowl as a kid and they put

Nj Shelby: 00:24:14

the little gutters, things, the guards in the gutters to keep

Nj Shelby: 00:24:18

you from the gutter balls, like, we need guardrails in place like

Nj Shelby: 00:24:23

that. Otherwise, it can totally steal your attention. And have

Nj Shelby: 00:24:28

you disconnected and you're just you're just in that zombie mode

Nj Shelby: 00:24:32

where you're just scrolling and not really connecting.

Janice Porter: 00:24:35

Yeah, and and today, I suppose that's what

Janice Porter: 00:24:37

keeps people going 24/7 as well, you know? Yeah, it's, it can be

Janice Porter: 00:24:44

it can be educational, and it can be really interesting, but

Janice Porter: 00:24:47

it can also suck your time like you cannot yeah, there's it's

Janice Porter: 00:24:51

impossible

Nj Shelby: 00:24:52

to keep up. I mean, you and I are about the same

Nj Shelby: 00:24:56

age. You remember, you know back when you know when you and I or

Nj Shelby: 00:25:00

joining the workforce, business owners executives. They had, you

Nj Shelby: 00:25:07

know, a telephone, they had a day planner, and they had a

Nj Shelby: 00:25:11

secretary who open their mail and then put stuff in their

Nj Shelby: 00:25:15

inbox. Yeah, really the important stuff. And you

Nj Shelby: 00:25:18

contrast that to today, where nobody's opening your mail. And

Nj Shelby: 00:25:26

and you have these, this gateway of all of this stuff to come at

Nj Shelby: 00:25:31

you. Yeah. And there's just absolutely no way to have enough

Nj Shelby: 00:25:35

time to do it all. So we have to know like, what are our

Nj Shelby: 00:25:37

priorities and say, okay, LinkedIn is the marketing, you

Nj Shelby: 00:25:43

know, method that I'm going to use for the next year. And

Nj Shelby: 00:25:47

that's it. And either unsubscribe or automatically

Nj Shelby: 00:25:51

filter anything that is these other things away, so that

Nj Shelby: 00:25:56

you're not even having it come into your awareness?

Janice Porter: 00:25:59

Yeah, so that's hard to do for people who are

Janice Porter: 00:26:02

curious people like me, right? See,

Nj Shelby: 00:26:05

that's just it. Yeah, you are curious. And because

Nj Shelby: 00:26:09

you're curious, and the fact that these people are so good at

Nj Shelby: 00:26:13

grabbing your attention, if it hits your inbox, you're gonna

Nj Shelby: 00:26:17

want to read it. Yeah. And the reality is, you don't have the

Nj Shelby: 00:26:21

time to read it all. So you will either let who's the best person

Nj Shelby: 00:26:25

at making headlines or writing headlines for their email to get

Nj Shelby: 00:26:29

your attention? Or you let it be what's important to you to get

Nj Shelby: 00:26:34

your attention? You have to decide?

Janice Porter: 00:26:38

Yes. And then, as I also mentioned, before we went

Janice Porter: 00:26:42

on air, I had, between a two hours between my interview this

Janice Porter: 00:26:48

morning and this interview, oh, I had one more call before this

Janice Porter: 00:26:50

one that I was going to run out, actually, and get some Christmas

Janice Porter: 00:26:54

stuff I still had to get. But my daughter texted me and said,

Janice Porter: 00:26:58

What are you busy? Do you need help? Or, you know, whatever. I

Janice Porter: 00:27:04

said, I'm actually available between 11. And one, because I

Janice Porter: 00:27:08

gave up that time if she needed me. And sure enough, off, you

Janice Porter: 00:27:11

know, my granddaughter stayed with me for an hour and a half

Janice Porter: 00:27:14

while she went to do what she needed to do. And then they left

Janice Porter: 00:27:17

because she respected that my time was needed elsewhere. But I

Janice Porter: 00:27:21

did drop everything. Yeah, because that was

Nj Shelby: 00:27:24

more important. Exactly. And see, here's the

Nj Shelby: 00:27:27

thing. Not everybody can even do that. No, I was just gonna say

Nj Shelby: 00:27:33

that. Yeah, but the more clarity we have, and the more order that

Nj Shelby: 00:27:38

we have, that we can do that, you know, like, I had to do a

Nj Shelby: 00:27:44

call this morning, with my husband's cardiologist a virtual

Nj Shelby: 00:27:48

call that I mean, I didn't know until yesterday that it was

Nj Shelby: 00:27:52

going to be and it was easy to just put that in there. You

Nj Shelby: 00:27:56

know, because I have enough control and enough, you know,

Nj Shelby: 00:28:02

knowledge of what's important and waiting out and, and knowing

Nj Shelby: 00:28:08

like, I mean, my brain gets overwhelmed just like everybody

Nj Shelby: 00:28:11

else is, but I know, it's not reality. It's not that I have

Nj Shelby: 00:28:18

too much to do. It's that my brain is not was not built for

Nj Shelby: 00:28:25

modern society. And so I just have to go through these steps

Nj Shelby: 00:28:30

to calm it down and get things into perspective. Plug, my focus

Nj Shelby: 00:28:34

leaks up. And then everything settles down, and I can focus.

Nj Shelby: 00:28:39

Well, sometimes I feel that by doing what I did earlier today,

Nj Shelby: 00:28:44

I'm going to suffer for it later. Because I have to get

Nj Shelby: 00:28:47

that piece done that I didn't get done. Right. But yeah, it is

Nj Shelby: 00:28:51

what it is. So how do you, you know?

Janice Porter: 00:28:54

So how do you manage it all? Just how to Yes.

Janice Porter: 00:28:57

And

Nj Shelby: 00:28:57

here's the thing, it's not about managing it. All

Nj Shelby: 00:29:01

right, you're never going to get it all done. But one of the

Nj Shelby: 00:29:04

things, the secrets that I think is critical is knowing what is

Nj Shelby: 00:29:11

most important as at the end of your day, you need to be very

Nj Shelby: 00:29:16

clear on what is the most important things that you have

Nj Shelby: 00:29:20

to do tomorrow, and then have focused time in the morning,

Nj Shelby: 00:29:25

that that's what you get done. First thing in the morning

Nj Shelby: 00:29:28

before you get on your computer before you look at your phone

Nj Shelby: 00:29:32

before you do anything. You put time into that critical time.

Nj Shelby: 00:29:36

And then no matter what happens in your day, you're golden,

Nj Shelby: 00:29:40

because you got those critical things done.

Janice Porter: 00:29:43

And they and you're referring that they might

Janice Porter: 00:29:45

be work related or they might not be

Nj Shelby: 00:29:48

right. Yeah, okay. Okay. Yeah, that's great. It's

Nj Shelby: 00:29:51

you know, and I generally have clients have buckets of time of,

Nj Shelby: 00:29:57

you know, focus time in the morning. That's like your Deep

Nj Shelby: 00:30:00

Work. And then in the afternoon, it's, you know, more one client

Nj Shelby: 00:30:05

likes to call them quick tasks, right? That it's not things that

Nj Shelby: 00:30:09

require, like that deep focus. And then you have those a bucket

Nj Shelby: 00:30:14

of time in the afternoon, where your mind isn't as fresh and

Nj Shelby: 00:30:19

they don't take as long don't require the same amount of

Nj Shelby: 00:30:21

focus, so that when you get interrupted, it doesn't really

Nj Shelby: 00:30:25

derail something. But if you're working on something that

Nj Shelby: 00:30:29

requires deep focus, and you're interrupted, Oh, forget it kind

Nj Shelby: 00:30:33

of wasted that time. Yes, I agree, pulls you out. And then

Nj Shelby: 00:30:37

you know, it takes you 15 minutes to get back in it. You

Nj Shelby: 00:30:40

were quoting earlier?

Janice Porter: 00:30:44

What I recall to be Stephen Covey's seven habits

Janice Porter: 00:30:48

that the grid that he uses about important and urgent and

Janice Porter: 00:30:52

important and all of that, do you do? Is that part of what you

Janice Porter: 00:30:56

do and how you teach?

Nj Shelby: 00:30:58

Yeah, I, I mean, I followed Stephen Covey back in

Nj Shelby: 00:31:02

the day, and it's also referred to as the Eisenhower matrix,

Nj Shelby: 00:31:06

some people right, you're right. Yeah, that way. I've never heard

Nj Shelby: 00:31:10

that. But until Yeah, I think he, I think he took took that

Nj Shelby: 00:31:15

and then just, you know, for his business on it. But I, I don't

Nj Shelby: 00:31:20

actually do it that way anymore. Because I find that it's about,

Nj Shelby: 00:31:30

you know, understanding what is important to me, right? And, and

Nj Shelby: 00:31:36

then from there, minimizing the number of active projects that

Nj Shelby: 00:31:41

I'm working on. And, and so that means putting stuff on the

Nj Shelby: 00:31:47

backburner and snowing like these are coming up, because

Nj Shelby: 00:31:50

what we tend to do is spread ourselves really thin. And we do

Nj Shelby: 00:31:54

a little bit of this, a little bit of this, a little bit of

Nj Shelby: 00:31:56

this a little bit of but nothing can get done, because we're

Nj Shelby: 00:31:59

spreading our time and focus out amongst so many different

Nj Shelby: 00:32:03

projects. And then we're overwhelmed, because we've got

Nj Shelby: 00:32:06

too many things that we're trying to juggle all at once.

Nj Shelby: 00:32:09

Yeah, sure, I found that if instead, instead of doing

Nj Shelby: 00:32:13

things, you know, all at the same time trying to get things

Nj Shelby: 00:32:16

done, if instead, you limit it to like four to seven, depending

Nj Shelby: 00:32:20

upon the complexity, and that includes work in personal Yeah,

Nj Shelby: 00:32:23

right, all at one time, and then you wait until you get something

Nj Shelby: 00:32:27

done. And then you can move something over, or maybe

Nj Shelby: 00:32:30

something in your active project, it's in a waiting

Nj Shelby: 00:32:33

period. So then you can move it off, like you submitted a

Nj Shelby: 00:32:37

proposal for or for a job, and you're waiting to hear back. So

Nj Shelby: 00:32:42

now that can go into the waiting bucket. But doing that it tends

Nj Shelby: 00:32:47

to settle things down. So in the mornings, it's usually focused

Nj Shelby: 00:32:50

on those projects, and then all the like, the little

Nj Shelby: 00:32:54

administrative things and that kind of thing. That's more in

Nj Shelby: 00:32:57

the afternoon.

Janice Porter: 00:33:00

So let's in wrapping up, let's talk about

Janice Porter: 00:33:04

just give me three top things, then that one should be aware of

Janice Porter: 00:33:09

to be able to focus more, and get rid of those focus leaks.

Nj Shelby: 00:33:17

Doing the stop your head from spinning, I think that

Nj Shelby: 00:33:21

is step one. Step two, doing your morning routine such that

Nj Shelby: 00:33:29

you have focused time in the morning. And I think that having

Nj Shelby: 00:33:36

routines, as opposed to just all of these tasks that you can, it

Nj Shelby: 00:33:42

can be so overwhelming to think of, you know, a million tasks

Nj Shelby: 00:33:46

when some of them can be kind of rolled up into a routine that's

Nj Shelby: 00:33:50

scheduled for once a week. And I think another thing is we lose a

Nj Shelby: 00:33:56

lot of time spinning because we're procrastinating because

Nj Shelby: 00:34:00

we're not exactly sure what to do. Like we might have an item

Nj Shelby: 00:34:05

on our list to you know, connect with Lisa, what what does that

Nj Shelby: 00:34:08

mean? You know, that's not actionable, but instead

Nj Shelby: 00:34:12

something like you know, send a LinkedIn message to Lisa or, you

Nj Shelby: 00:34:16

know, send a card to Lisa or something. Yeah, but having it

Nj Shelby: 00:34:21

be you know, a verb that is something that you're going to

Nj Shelby: 00:34:23

do that's very clear.

Janice Porter: 00:34:25

And do you make lists?

Nj Shelby: 00:34:28

I do. I do make lists. I have to I have an idea

Nj Shelby: 00:34:32

generator. People who have worked closely with me, then

Nj Shelby: 00:34:37

they laugh and make fun of me because I mean, it's an idea

Nj Shelby: 00:34:41

minute, and so I have to get them out of my head. And so that

Nj Shelby: 00:34:46

I'm not thinking about them, but the reality is there's not

Nj Shelby: 00:34:50

enough time or people to get them all done. And so then I

Nj Shelby: 00:34:53

have to really be ruthless and going through them. And okay,

Nj Shelby: 00:34:57

this just isn't realistic. This isn't on brand this, you know,

Nj Shelby: 00:35:02

and just get rid of them. So and then I do I, I have a pad that I

Nj Shelby: 00:35:08

have that has a list down the right hand side, and then it's

Nj Shelby: 00:35:12

like a grid paper for notes during the day. And so I'll take

Nj Shelby: 00:35:16

from my lists, and then say, Okay, here's what I need to get

Nj Shelby: 00:35:20

done today, um, handwrite it out. And then I've got a place

Nj Shelby: 00:35:23

to write notes during the day. Awesome.

Janice Porter: 00:35:26

I'm at the point at the end of this year now

Janice Porter: 00:35:28

where I have to re organize my office again, because that will

Janice Porter: 00:35:32

make me feel like I can have a fresh start in the year. I know,

Janice Porter: 00:35:36

it's just one of those things. This is delightful. I could ask

Janice Porter: 00:35:40

you a million questions. How can people find you? And what are

Janice Porter: 00:35:44

you working on that? They might be that my audience might be

Janice Porter: 00:35:47

interested in people like me, right? So you do this? Is it a

Janice Porter: 00:35:52

morning webinar? What is it that I

Nj Shelby: 00:35:55

saw? Yeah, so I've got a workshop coming up two

Nj Shelby: 00:36:00

dates in in January, I'm not sure when this will air, but

Nj Shelby: 00:36:05

there's one January 5, and one January 19, that are all about

Nj Shelby: 00:36:10

getting your setting your morning up to be able to focus.

Nj Shelby: 00:36:15

And so we'll be dealing with the being able to not look at your

Nj Shelby: 00:36:22

phone first thing in the morning. So we'll do some of

Nj Shelby: 00:36:24

that processing those stored emotions that we talked about,

Nj Shelby: 00:36:28

to make it easy to ignore your phone in the morning. And so all

Nj Shelby: 00:36:32

the things so it's, it's an all day workshop, but it's not. It's

Nj Shelby: 00:36:36

like we'll take breaks for you to work and get done what's

Nj Shelby: 00:36:39

critical, so that you feel like at the end of the day, you've

Nj Shelby: 00:36:42

had your most productive day other ever. So my website is and

Nj Shelby: 00:36:47

j shows b.com. And there's something on the homepage to

Nj Shelby: 00:36:52

link to that. And also, when I was talking about the first step

Nj Shelby: 00:36:57

of being able to focus is to get your head to stop spinning. If

Nj Shelby: 00:37:01

you go to n j shells b.com/overwhelm There is a video

Nj Shelby: 00:37:06

that will step you through a process to be able to get your

Nj Shelby: 00:37:09

brain to

Janice Porter: 00:37:11

focus. Yes. Okay, so if this doesn't Aaron time,

Janice Porter: 00:37:16

remind me send me something and I'll post on LinkedIn about your

Janice Porter: 00:37:20

workshop because it sounds like something I should probably do.

Janice Porter: 00:37:24

And I love the idea. So thank you so much for being here

Janice Porter: 00:37:28

today. I think we overstayed our welcome. I seem to be doing that

Janice Porter: 00:37:32

a lot lately. fascinated with my guests, but it's my show. So

Janice Porter: 00:37:36

there you go. I just hope that I have people listened. So there

Janice Porter: 00:37:39

you go. Thank you again for being here and for your

Janice Porter: 00:37:43

brilliance because it does make people think like me think about

Janice Porter: 00:37:47

what's important and what isn't. Well, thank

Nj Shelby: 00:37:50

you for having me. As always, it's a pleasure talking

Nj Shelby: 00:37:53

with you. You're very welcome.

Janice Porter: 00:37:55

And remember, thank you for listening to my

Janice Porter: 00:37:57

audience and remember to stay connected and be remembered