Managing Your Time Through the Lens of Energy with Molly Fletcher: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. podcast network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Hustle and Flowchart. Today, we're pulling a classic episode from the archives, and we'll be breaking down how to manage your time through the lens of energy. To drop these value bombs, I brought Molly Fletcher into EO Fire Studios. Molly is a CEO and business author, hailed as the female Jerry Maguire. She built a successful career as one of the first female sports agents. Molly represented hundreds of sports' biggest names, and today she's a top motivational speaker in today's value bombs, Fire Nation.

0:37If you don't know why you do what you do, then it will be difficult to wake up and grind it every single day. Look at your life and calendar through the lens of energy, then adjust it in such a way that you manage it to ensure you have energy and life for the things that matter most and oh, so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Molly and our sponsors. The Next Wave, your chief AI officer, hosted by Matt Wolfe and Nathan Lands, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Matt and Nathan are leading AI creators in your guiding light in the AI and technology frontier.

1:11AI technology is transforming the way we do business and the media landscape is fragmented. The Next Wave strives to be the leading podcast on AI technology and how you can apply it to growing your business. Listen to The Next Wave wherever you get your podcasts. Molly, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with? Love this starting question, John, and what a treat to be on. Certainly honored and humbled to be with you. So, you know, I think one of the things is that I think people think that success and fulfillment, that it's a choice of one or the other.

1:52That we can either be really, really successful, and if we go and become really successful, then guess what? we're probably not going to be able to be fulfilled, whether it's personally, professionally. Whereas if we chase fulfillment, right, then gosh, I mean, you're probably not going to, you know, make any money, make a really big impact. And so it's this false choice at some level that there isn't both, that you put your ladder up against the success wall or the fulfillment wall and you run hard. And I believe without question that you can have both and that it is important in life to pursue both.

2:28I think it's more important than ever. In fact, I think at some level, COVID has taught all of us that there is a lot of things in life maybe that we've overlooked that we could have been enjoying and leaning into and that we haven't. And so success and fulfillment aren't two separate bifurcated choices. We can have both. Well, I love that sentiment. And Fire Nation, we're actually gonna be spending the rest of the episode proving that reality to you? Because we're talking about managing your time through the lens of energy. And one thing I wanna just jump into, Molly, is balance. Because that is a controversial word these days.

3:07I mean, especially for entrepreneurs, which of course make up my audience, Fire Nation. So how can the listeners today adjust their schedules when they have the goal of balancing their priorities? Yeah, it's a great question. To me, balance is a byproduct of clarity. And when we get really clear in life on what matters most to us, what we truly value most mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, then we can then back into decisions of what we say yes to and no to based on what we've previously gotten clear on. So for example, we have an Energize Leader program that we deliver all over the globe.

3:44And sometimes I'll have participants say, gosh, I mean, yeah, my kids, they matter to me a ton. I mean, being at my son's ballgames, that matters. Being at my daughter's volleyball games, that matters. Being home for dinner matters. Being present with my family and my spouse, my partner, it matters. And then they have this aha moment where they say, wow, but I play golf all weekend. I go hunting every weekend. I am on my cell phone when I walk in the door. Gosh, I got a gap. And so to me, it starts with clarity. And then having at some level the discipline, right, to say, okay, if this is in fact what matters most to me, how do I ensure that my behaviors, my energy, where I am putting my energy is aligning to that?

4:32So it starts with clarity. And then it takes discipline, obviously. I mean, it's hard to say no. It's no fun to say no. But the message that I often have learned to tell myself in those moments is when I'm saying no to that 7.30 cocktail with a potential client. I'm saying yes to having dinner with our three daughters because I'm the only person that can be their mom. Now, it doesn't mean that that's always perfect and it doesn't mean I nail it every time. I certainly don't at all. But what I do try to do is that if I've got to give some time away on the back end of a day, potentially, then I'm going to somehow find a way to get it back on the front end or on another day that week.

5:08There's a couple of things I want to double down on here, Fire Nation. I mean, number one, ask yourself the question, do you have the discipline to align your energy with your goals? Because if the answer is no, then you better keep listening because that's what we'll be talking about here today. And then when you say yes to something, Fire Nation, like say that Molly has said yes to those drinks, she's actually not just saying no to having dinner with her daughters. She's saying no to everything else she otherwise could potentially be doing during that time. So one yes isn't just one yes. It's actually a potential hundred to thousands to millions of no's of other opportunities that could exist.

5:46So be very, very careful with your yeses because man, that is again, just blocking yourself off from any potential future things that could have been in that place. So, Hey, I'm saying you want to attack the world. You want to take action. You want to make the most of opportunities need to say yes to a lot of great things, but just be intentional, be disciplined, and be thoughtful about these things. And I want to talk about another word that you're really into, Molly, which is fulfillment. So how important is fulfillment in our lives? And how can we find more in meaningful work that we're doing, and even more so with these fewer distractions?

6:24And we live in a world, don't we, John, where there's just an enormous amount of distractions. Everywhere. And what we hear from our clients, right, is that the demand on them is exceeding their capacity. And over time, that's not sustainable. I mean, it's just not sustainable. And so what I believe is there's a really big difference between fulfillment and achievement. And I saw this firsthand as a sports agent for 20 years is that, man, does it feel good to host a trophy over your head when you win a golf tournament, right? It's pretty fun to go into the Hall of Fame, right? That's special. get Cy Young's All-Star Games, win championships, win national championships.

7:01It's amazing. But at the end of the day, it's fleeting, right? And so fulfillment to me is things that bring us joy over a long period of time. And generally, fulfillment is about others, right? I mean, achievement can be about ourselves, potentially even our teams. But fulfillment is something that is deeper than that, right? It's not as fleeting. You know, if you ask anyone in the world, I mean, when they've gotten to that spot, right, of number one in the world in tennis or golf. It's incredible, and it feels great, but they still feel this sense of, huh, man, I thought it would feel different.

7:37I thought it would feel maybe better, and I thought, gosh, I thought this would just feel like this pinnacle, this place that I've worked so hard for so long to get, and now I'm here, and huh, it's not as rewarding as I thought it would be. And, you know, so what do we do about that, right? Like I am all for getting after it in life, right? I am all for going for it. I'm all for goals. I'm all for hitting those marks. But I think we've got to know why we do it. And often it means we have to align the things that we do, where we put our energy in and turn our time, with our purpose, with our real why, with what it is that we believed we are called to do every single day.

8:19and then ensure that we're making decisions and filtering our lives through that purpose statement. I always find it interesting in life, right? Like businesses, companies, they all have mission statements, right? I mean, they all have values and core purpose and, you know, they have things that they then make decisions against. It makes sense. I mean, it's almost as if it's this thing that you put on your website, it's on your wall when you walk into an office. I mean, it's everywhere. But why don't people? I mean, companies use these mission statements and these core values as a guiding light of what to say yes to and what to say no to, what companies to acquire, what to take a pass on, who to hire, who to take a pass on.

8:57Big decisions. Why don't we as people also have these kinds of purpose statements that then become a filter by which we help, that helps us say, yes, I'm going to lean into that opportunity, that challenge, that, and no. and and and and that to me is what ensures that we have our ladder leaning up against the wall you know one of the things I always try to encourage people to ask themselves is what are you chasing or what are you chasing I had I had coffee with a friend of mine recently and she said Molly you know I just I got this promotion it's unbelievable she said I it's a big job I'm so excited I said wow that's cool did you get a raise she goes no no they're you know they're kind of hitting me up with that eight months in because of the fiscal year and all this.

9:40And I was like, okay, cool. You good with that? And she was like, ah, it's kind of frustrating. But, and I said, well, how are you doing? And she said, I'm exhausted. I said, really? What do you mean? And she said, I'm just, I mean, I've gained weight. I'm tired. My relationship with my daughter's kind of jammed up. My husband and I aren't aligned. And I said, well, so what are you chasing? And literally she looks across the table at me and she says, what are you talking about? I go, that's what I mean. Like, I mean, is it the money? I mean, You want another house? You want a fancy car? Like, what is this all for?

10:12It sounds like your relationship with your husband is kind of jammed up and your daughter and you aren't kind of locked in. I said, what's it all for? She goes, what the hell kind of question is that? We're friends. And I said, I love you. And I'm just asking you, what are you chasing? And still to this day, right? She said, Mila, I'm trying to get clear on it. I'm working on that. I got it. And to me, what I believe at the core we are all chasing is to ensure that we're aligning our energy with our purpose. And generally, that purpose is something that fills up other people. It's often not about us.

10:48It's about the people that we wake up and serve, lead, solve for, support each and every day. Aligning our energy with our purpose. I love that phrase in Fire Nation. Think about that. Give it some thoughts because it's going to be interesting to see what you come back with when you think about those words. And I also love the phrase, Molly, when you said, what brings you joy over a long period of time? Like that is more like what fulfillment can be. What brings you joy over a long period of time? And, you know, it's kind of a little side note because you a little bit inspired me with your story, with your friends, is I'm watching obviously the Olympics right now and, you know, I'm watching some of the Peacock and NBC highlights and they have this show called Golden, which is like following these gymnasts, you know, these 14, 16, 19, 21 year old gymnasts as they're on their like way to hopefully Olympic glory.

11:41And one thing that I'm noticing, you know, now, like as a 41 year old, like looking back and thinking, thinking like, what was I thinking like when I was a teenager? I mean, I was thinking a lot of different things that I'm thinking now, but every single one of them is like, man, my body hurts. I'm in pain. I feel sick. I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm just doing this every day. My parents are going into massive debt. I'm getting yelled at. My confidence is shattered. All these things. I'm just like, oh my, these are the lives that they're living. And every one of them at the end says, but it'll all be worth it when I win the gold.

12:14And the problem with that is, you know, multifold, most of them are not going to win the gold. And we just saw actually the U.S. gymnast did not win the gold as they were hoping to do. And the other thing is, even if they do, when they do going forward, does that make that whole journey of pain, of misery, of despair that they're just being very verbal about, does that make it worth it? Because I love this Dale Carnegie quote, and I'm curious if you resonate with it too, Molly, which is success and happiness, and I guess you'd also say fulfillment. So success, happiness, and fulfillment is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal.

12:53It's not getting to the finish line. It's not getting to the mountaintop. It is gradually realizing throughout the journey, not just any ideal, but a worthy ideal for you. Does that speak to you, Molly? It does resonate with me because I had Dominique Dawes on my podcast. It was amazing. I mean, here's a woman that, you know, three-time Olympic gold medalist, one of the first African American women to win a gold. And I said, you know, what are you most grateful for? And this answer was interesting to me. I mean, she said, the pain. I said, really? And she said, yeah, I mean, the pain of all of it was so painful.

13:26All of the physical, mental, emotional, all the pain that it took to do what she did. She said, but I'm so grateful for it. What a mental shift that is. I mean, that's incredibly powerful. But yes, I mean, I had the opportunity to have a front row seat to peak performers for 20 years. And what I saw over and over again is that if you don't know why you do what you do, then it makes it difficult to wake up and grind it every single day and and and to me the why which is often tied to the fulfillment that you're in fact chasing is integral to the ability to withstand the speed bumps the challenges the hiccups that will inevitably come with anything that we all try to do in life that's hard and you know hard things are okay and we can do hard things and we need to know how to do hard things.

14:21But knowing why we're doing them is key to the ability to continue to pursue it. Distractions, energy audits, so much more coming up Fire Nation when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Being a small business owner comes with a lot of challenges, especially now. It seems like everyone is working with smaller budgets, shorter timelines, and sky-high expectations, and that can make growing a business feel pretty painful. Thankfully, HubSpot can help. HubSpot just announced dozens of major product updates that'll make impossible growth feel impossibly easy, like Breeze, a suite of new AI-powered tools that deliver personalized insights to level up your work, plus AI agents designed to automate your work for you.

15:05Sounds pretty great, right? And Breeze Intelligence, which gives you the richest, most comprehensive picture of your prospects and customers, allowing you to serve them at a whole new level. Add to all this re-imagined marketing and content hubs with new ways to create breakthrough content, updated features to generate better leads, and support to help up-level your marketing and revenue forecast. And you've got HubSpot's all-on-one customer platform. Get ready for growth without the growing pains. Visit HubSpot.com slash Spotlight to see all the updates. All right, Molly, we're back. And we talked about this a little bit in the first part of the interview, which was distractions.

15:42I want to dive deeper into it now because they are literally, not figuratively, literally everywhere. I mean, everyone and everything is screaming at the top of their lungs for your attention. So why is it so important to eliminate distractions in our work and personal lives? Absolutely. I mean, they're coming at everybody from every direction. It's constant. It's 24-7, right? I mean, I think that, and there's a couple ways to think about it. I think there are, you know, external distractions, things like multitasking. And I am a multitasking sort of recovery addict. You know, I mean, I used to think, oh, man, I got this, right?

16:18Like, I can go to the grocery store and knock out a conference call and just kind of chime in when I can. I can, you know, I can send an email and talk on the phone at the same time. I can listen to my daughter tell me about her school day while I respond to it. And the truth is, we can't. Human beings are not wired for that. And I challenged one of my coaches once. I said, this whole multitasking thing, right? Like, I don't know. I don't buy it, right? Like, I get a lot done. I grind it. I get it out. I mean, I can do this. And she goes, okay, cool. She said, Molly, do me a favor. I said, okay, cool.

16:48She said, take out a three by five card. She said, do me a favor. She said, you have young children. I said, yeah. She said, you drive them to school. I said, yeah. She said, okay, cool. Just do me a favor. Verbally recite to me the directions to your children. School, just verbally, just walk me through it, just verbally, right? You come out of the driveway, you take a, I said, okay, cool. And he goes, and then simultaneously, what I want you to do is on a three by five card, I want you to write the alphabet. So write the alphabet and then look at me and tell me how to get to your kid's school.

17:15You do this every day, several times a day. I said, right. He goes, all right, go. I got to D and, and like to the first turn, that was it. And I was like, this is unbelievable. I mean, these are two incredibly rudimentary thinking things, right? And I can't even do it. And so it was proof to me that this doesn't work. And what I have found moving forward in life is that when I have a day by which I'm very intentional about not multitasking, by the end of the day, my energy is higher. I feel better. I have more energy. When I have a day where I haven't been as intentional and as disciplined about multitasking, I'm more drained, I'm more exhausted.

17:58And by the way, generally, the data is staggering. You end up having to go back and do it twice because you didn't do it right the first time. So there's external distractions like multitasking. I can't encourage people enough to try to stay focused and do deep work. And I had Cal Newport on my podcast who talks about that, wrote a book called Deep Work and the power of it and the importance of it. And then we have internal distractions, right? Like our private voice. I mean, we all have that sort of that guy or gal on our shoulder that's like, I don't know. Maybe you're not really ready for that, right?

18:31Like maybe you're not good enough, smart enough, fit enough, you know, sharp enough. Maybe you shouldn't be doing that. And that private voice, if it's not a voice of an amazing coach, you know, think of the best coach you've ever had, the most encouraging person in your life, that's the voice we have to have inside of ourselves too. And that in turn can be a significant distraction. If the voice inside of us is not lifting us up and taking us where we want to go, we have to say, okay, what is the voice? What is that private voice and that story that I'm telling myself that isn't taking me where I want to go?

19:07And then what would be a better one? So I would just challenge your listeners to say, what are the two, three, five, 10 stories that potentially you're telling yourself that aren't taking you where you're going to go and what then rewrite it? What then would be a story that you could tell yourself that would allow you to go where in fact you want to go? A lot of deep thinkers here, Fire Nation. This is probably going to be one of you have to go back a few times and be like, let me just hit pause. Let me just think. Let me just take another 25 steps on this walk or this jog that I'm on and just think about some of these words that Molly is sharing because this is your life.

19:45And there's a phrase that you have, Molly, which is energy audits. What is an energy audit and how the heck could we conduct one? You know, we talked about at the beginning how important it is to get clear, have that clarity around where our energy is going. And so what I would challenge your listeners to do, right, is pull back and say, what are the things in your life that give you energy, right? Like you see them on your calendar and you just get pumped. You know, you see that morning walk with your spouse or your dog or you see the workout or you see the meeting or the one-on-one and you, you know, and you get excited.

20:19You see that and you get psyched. Write those down. And then what are the things that drain you? Like you see them on your calendar and you're like, you've got to be joking me, right? Like, why am I in this meeting? Why did I say yes to this? Why am I going to this cocktail party? Why am I having dinner with these people? Why did I say yes to this? And you just, it's like you see it and the blood rushes out of your body. You just, you don't want to do it. And then, you know, there's things in our lives, right, that are naturally sort of energy neutral, right? They don't really get us going. They don't really drain us.

20:48They're just sort of there, right? Maybe walking around the house, picking up chores, emptying the dishwasher. I mean, there's certain things in our lives that cleaning out your inbox that they're not getting you going. They're not draining you. Write them all down. Just write down the energizers. We call them green. Is there the things that give you energy? Write down the things that drain your energy. And then what I would challenge people to do is go out 30 days and be intentional about protecting the things in your life that give you energy. Whatever those things are, make sure that you protect that time.

21:19I had a conversation with a leader yesterday and we said, look, let's go out 30 days. What are the things that give you energy, protect that. You know, we know in life as human beings, we aren't wired for one Zoom call after another all day long. It's just not sustainable over a long period of time. Protect that. Maybe you have to manage up, manage down as leaders. How can you grab 15-minute breaks in between just to step outside, to, you know, play your favorite song, to meditate, to pray something? But we aren't wired for eight hours a day, boom, boom, boom, back to back to back. We've got to create mini breaks, micro breaks, and then we've got to create big breaks.

21:55And then look at all the things that drain you and say, you know, could I give this away? Could I have said no to this? Could I have said, you know, could I have delegated this? Could I have made this less time, right? I mean, we all have things in our lives that we potentially have to do per se for our jobs or our lives, but we don't love them. But how can we get more efficient with them? And how can we potentially manage our energy better around those things? So what I can't encourage people enough to do is look at your life and your calendar through the lens of energy and then adjust your calendar in such a way that you manage it to ensure that you have the energy in your life for the things that matter most.

22:37I'll give you a quick example. Matt Kuchar is a PG tour player of mine. And, you know, we would sit down every, at the beginning of every season, at the end of sort of in December, we would sit down and we would look out at the following year and we'd say, all right, look, you know, when's the U.S. Open Masters? You know, when are the big tournaments that we know he needs to be in and that we want to be in and that we know that we may be the golf courses that we play well at? When are those? And so we would back into his schedule based on when he needed to make sure he performed at his best. And what that meant is that we would say no to some tournaments, right?

23:11We would go two weeks on, one week off, then we're set up, rested, ready for the Masters. So we, though, in life as business people, often we get meeting invites and we just click accept. And then we sort of figure it out later. Like, what is that meeting? I don't know. But so-and-so sent it to him. I trust him. I like him. So I'm just going to accept it. And then we get to that actual day, that moment, that meeting, and we think, why am I here? I don't need to be here. So what I found is executives and people in general, we just accept all these meetings. And then maybe we get to that four o 'clock, big one-on-one pitch with a prospect and we're drained because we've gone back to back all day.

23:50We haven't positioned ourselves for what is our own masters, right? What is our U.S. Open where we need to, in fact, ensure we peak. And so what I saw the best athletes in the world do is they manage their life through the lens of energy, not time. And then I got into the business world, sort of quote unquote, more of the business world 10 years ago. And I thought, this is so interesting. Like business people manage their lives through the lens of their calendar only, not necessarily through the lens of energy. And so how can we take some of that mindset that athletes have, the best athletes have, and shift that, lift that up and apply it to business people so that they too can perform at their best in the moments that matter most?

24:29Just kind of continue the theme we've been talking about with the Olympics and gymnasts. I mean, somebody who obviously did not do quite an effective energy audit was Simone Biles. I mean, she was there ready to perform, but then boom, she just lost it mentally and energy-wise and all that thing. And she had to step back. And this is something that, you know, think of the tens of tens of thousands of hours that she's literally prepared for that exact moment that then everything just kind of went poof. So these energy audits, very interesting, something to think about for obvious reasons. And Molly, you dropped a ton of value bombs.