CAREY NIEUWHOF: The Essential Art of Self-Leadership

25:30And you're like, yeah, way to go. But you don't feel it. And that numbness, that idea, that position of feeling numb most days is a big warning sign. And those are some signs of burnout that people should pay attention to. This is so helpful because when we're talking about the double win, you're not getting the double win if you're burnout. Like those are mutually exclusive places, you know? And I think having the ability to have some diagnostic criteria for that, that our listeners and even us, you know, that we, that we're able to go, oh yeah, that's what's going on? You know, maybe it's not as acute as the full-blown version, but you know, the last several years in North America have been pretty intense, you know, all over the world actually with COVID, you know, but I think there's a lot of stressors and a lot of contributors to that.

26:21I'm curious to know, Carrie, what do you think drives that mid-grade burnout? Like what's upstream from the numbness, from the apathy? What's upstream that's causing that? I have a quote that hangs on the wall just outside my office. It's from Socrates, and it's the unexamined life is not worth living. And I think that is upstream from it. Life happens to us, and you guys are both so great at helping people see the issues under the issues. So you're helping leaders examine their life, and that's what I want to do with my life as well. But when you don't, you get caught up in the torrent. And I think one of the reasons it's gotten worse, like burnout was a term that was actually created in the 1970s as a label that they could put on what was happening to doctors.

27:12When doctors go through their residency, it's brutal. You're working 18, 20 hour days, you get no sleep, you're sleeping in a broom closet, and then you're back on shift again. And these doctors were not functioning at normal levels, like at very suboptimal levels after their residency or internship. And they diagnosed the term burnout. And then it became a professional term, lawyers burnout, accountants burnout, engineers burnout. Then it became a life term where retired people are burning out. All of us are burning out. Toddlers are burning out and everybody's burning out, right? So it's creeped a little bit over the the last 50 years appropriately.

27:52So what's changed upstream? The amount of relationships that we have to manage on a daily basis. Robin Dunbar, the British psychologist, wrote a great book called How Many Friends Can One Person Have? And he makes a very compelling argument that for millennia, we lived in small communities of 200 people. So if you think about your place in Franklin, imagine it was 200 people. You go to the butcher, you go to the baker, you know the blacksmith, you know the cobbler because you need new shoes. And that's a reasonable span of care. If you look at how armies were designed right back to the way the Romans did their armies, it was never a group of more than 200 people because 200 people became unmanageable.

28:38So you look at it, we moved to cities, we become very dense in our populations, and then our phones arrive and suddenly we have 500 followers, 50 ,000 followers, 5 ,000 friends, and our brains break. We're not designed for that. I'm old enough in the 90s to remember when I had one inbox and sometimes on my first iteration of email, you'd get five emails in a day and that was a big day. I counted it up a few years ago. The glory days. Exactly. I now have 17 inboxes between all of the social media apps and different email addresses. I have 17 inboxes. How do you keep up with that? And the answer is you don't.

29:22You weren't designed to. So upstream is we're not taking time to examine what's going on around us. Upstream is we're literally overwhelmed. We already talked about the news cycle and social media. We're inundated with too many relationships and we're overwhelmed, overworked, and overcommitted. And so I think that leads to a general breakdown in human functioning, at least human thriving. And so what we need to do is take that apart bit by bit and try to figure it out. And I've got some practical things that have really helped over the years and I've been able to help leaders with, but I think that is a small list of what is upstream.

30:01There's more. Yeah, I'd love to know what some of those things are. I would too, especially around saying no, because one of the challenges I have as a recovering people pleaser is that my default is to say yes. If somebody needs help, I wanna be there to help them. And yet, you know, I've had to get almost calloused, you know, in a sense, because I realized that saying yes to something, I'm saying no to something else implicitly. I have like 21 immediate family members in Franklin where we live. Right. This is what happens when you have five kids and they have five kids. Yeah. It's like exponential math.

30:37Should have done the math a long time ago, Michael. Yeah, that's right. It's too late. And then I have friends maybe that don't have any kids or their kids don't live here. And they kind of understand why we can't get together more. And I'm in kind of that sandwich generation where both my parents are 90 years old. They're still alive, but they're requiring a lot. It's tough. But I think there are times when I feel really guilty about saying no. And I have to kind of psych myself up. But what are some of your practical tips for that kind of thing? Yeah, we, for thousands of years, operated in these small communities that were inherently relational.

31:11And we are not made for the world as it is right now. And you can see that Jonathan Haidt's work on the anxious generation, what's happening to Gen Z and Gen Alpha is very ground shaking. So what do you do about it? Well, back to Dunbar, he talks about prioritizing your relationships. And I find this very helpful. And he says, basically, we all have the capacity for three to five deep friendships. Now, most people, because they're so overwhelmed by the hundreds, thousands of people, or even people running a company, it's like, I deal with people all day. Okay. I don't want to deal with people in my off life.

31:48I have 500 employees. I don't want to deal with people when I'm at home. And as a result, there's nobody in that three to five close relationships. Like friendship is dying. People are lonely. And that is a problem because you were designed for close, intimate relationship. That has a spiritual component, physical component, an emotional, a relational component. It is essential to thriving as a human being. A lot of people, and when I talk to Henry Cloud about this, Henry Cloud is, and your dog doesn't count and your wife doesn't count. Because it's like, well, I have my dog and I have my wife.

32:23It's like, no, your wife's a different. Who are those three to five? And I have been working on that very intensely over the last five years because after 25 years of ministry with thousands of people, I realized I was in danger of not having three to five really close personal relationships. These are people with, I've heard it phrased, refrigerator rights, people who can just show up to your house unannounced, walk in, put your head down on your counter and open the refrigerator and start taking stuff like a teenager. Do you have anyone in that category. I love that. You need three to five. That's it.

32:58If you have three, you're relationally rich. If you have five, fantastic, but you can't have more than that. Then he says there's like seven to 15 that you know pretty well. You'll see them at summer barbecues. You'll see them at Christmas. You'll see them maybe once a month you're texting or connecting with them. That's great. Then there is maybe the 150 people that you would send. if you send Christmas cards, you send Christmas cards to you, catch up with them in a Facebook group. You see them at some family reunion or work function. They're friends and colleagues. Another very helpful framing, the difference between real friends and deal friends.

33:35Yeah. I love that distinction. I got a buddy, Rob. He's a pediatrician. He's great. I was helping him pull his boat out last weekend. We were at their place. We went for dinner. He sent me a book proposal he's working on. So there's one way I might be marginally useful in his life, but we're basically essentially useless to each other because I can't use him to grow my podcast or to architect my next course that I'm going to do. And I'm certainly not helping him in his medical practice. I promise you that. I've got nothing to contribute there, but we're great friends. And you need three to five of those.

34:08So to your point, Michael, those three to five should have instant access to you. Those are the people you get back to right away. Those are the people that's unlimited. And you can figure out what to do with your family. But then, you know, there are other people that you've got to start prioritizing. And I'm thinking a lot these days in terms of saying no. So that's a big framing because I really think the unexamined life is not worth living. So I try to think these things through to first principles. And then let's get to the practical application. Categorical decisions are your best friends.

34:42So when I came out on the other side of burnout, I realized there are really three zones in any day. There's a green zone, a red zone, and a yellow zone. Green zone, you got three to five of those hours where you're at your best. You're feeling amazing. You're excited if you're working on a new article you're writing. The words are flowing. You're in flow. It's great. For morning people, I know you guys are morning people. That happens in the morning, right? You love it. It's great. But then there's a red zone. For me, it's four to six in the afternoon where I basically turn into a zombie. I have three brain cells left.

35:17I'm functionally useless and I need a nap or caffeine or all of the above. Most of us have that if you're morning person after lunch or before dinner or sometime in the afternoon. Night owls would have their green zone in the evening or later in the day. And maybe their red zone is first thing in the morning when they wake up for two hours, they can't function. That's fine. And then yellow is everything in between. Yellow is very productive. It's just not your best. So what I realized in terms of categorical decisions, when I broke my day down into that, it's like, so what am I? At the time I was a preacher.

35:50It's like, if that sermon isn't done, we're all in big trouble and it better be good. So I had to write that in my green zone because what would happen is I would book breakfast meetings in my green zone and you'd meet at the restaurant at 7am and it goes till 8.30, not 8, like you said it would. And then you stop by a drive-through and grab a coffee. You walk into the office. People are chatting with you. It's nine o 'clock before you sit down and look at your screen. And then you have five texts and 17 emails. And you're like, okay. And next thing you know, it's lunch. I just burned through the best hours of my day.

36:25So one of the categorical decisions I made is no more breakfast meetings. Now there are rare exceptions. I'm meeting with a guy. I made the same decision. Diagnosed with one decision. So if you're like, can you meet for breakfast? Unless I'm in a very atypical week, the answer is no, I can't, but I can do coffee at two o 'clock or I can do coffee at four o 'clock. Or what do you want to do? You want to go for a walk later in the day? I'll do that. So that's an example of a categorical decision. Another one would be the type of event you're doing. We're all speakers here, right? So basically I do leadership events.

36:58I'm a preacher, but I don't preach on weekends because there are leaders in the crowd, but I'm basically preaching to people. I would rather speak to 100 leaders than 1 ,000 people. So right off the bat, my team and I know if I get a speaking request to speak to people, not leaders, it's probably going to be a no. And then there are particular, I'll drill down even more. So you pre-establish criteria that say this is probably a yes or probably a no. Another decision I made as a pastor, because as your church grows, your weekends and evenings disappear because people are getting married and people die and you have to do weddings and funerals.

37:33So I just decided, and it's very counterintuitive. A lot of these decisions are going to be counterintuitive because nobody else is doing them. I don't do weddings anymore. I just don't do weddings. And that was a hard message for a lot of people. Now, do I make exceptions? Yeah. If you've been my assistant for 10 years and you're getting married, I'll probably do your wedding. If you're related to me, I'll do your wedding. That's what I'll do. If you're part of the inner circle here at the church, like an elder or a key staff member, I'll do your funeral. Beyond that, the answer is probably no.

38:05And we have lots of people who can serve you and lots of people who can do weddings. And that rule has held up for over a decade. I do about one wedding a year and one funeral a year. That's it. Do you explain that to your congregation so that they understand what the rules of engagement are and so that they don't get upset when they see you doing a wedding. Yeah. You know, so that they understand the rubric that's kind of behind that. Exactly. I think you have to. And we explain to our elders and to our team, Hey, moving forward, I'm not going to be doing weddings and here's why. And then when people would inquire, if you have the privilege, a lot of people listening to this would of having an assistant, if you have a good one, and I've been blessed with some great ones, they probably have the gift of empathy and And Kerry would love to do your weddings.

38:50However, his policy is that he only does it for staff or for close families. So I'm really sorry about that. And he's sorry about that. But here are five people who we recommend for weddings who can perform your wedding. Or here are five people who can do the funeral. I love that. They would be excellent at it. And they're honestly, they're better at it than Kerry is. So you're going to love them. And most people, there's a few people that are going to be upset that I didn't do it. But in most cases, I'm the only pastor they know. And so it's like, you'll do. And if we give them five other options, 98 % of the time, they're pretty good with that.

39:27And if not, I can have a personal conversation and say, look, I would love to do your wedding. It's just, I think you can understand that then all my weekends are gone and my time with my family is gone. And I really want to prioritize that in this season. I love that.

39:47Okay. So I want to play a little game. What is the hardest thing for you to say no to right now that really makes a negative impact on your personal margin? You know, not just something that like is a one-off, but like the thing that is sabotaging your margin. Cause I know you're struggling with this right now. And I would like to get Carrie's input and coaching for you on that. Cause I think even though you're a coach, even though you teach this stuff, it is so hard to do this for yourself. And sometimes the outside input can be really helpful. So this is an intervention. Oh, wow. There we go.

40:21The end of the double win podcast. You're seeing it live right now. Let me see. I think there's probably a couple different categories. One is it's really hard to say no to my team when they asked me to do certain things, particularly around promotion, you know, because I feel like, just to be honest, It's related to revenue. And so that if I don't do it, we're going to get a lesser result than we would like. Is there something in particular that you're thinking of? Well, first of all, I hate social media. Yeah. So thankfully, I'm not doing that anymore. And I think everybody's just giving up on me.

41:01So that's good. We both completely stink at social media. Like, just fire us. I can get really great at it for 30 days and then I flame out. Yeah. I would think the biggest thing is people that are, they're more than acquaintances, Carrie, but they're not my best friends. But like, I got a text message from a guy yesterday and he said, Hey, I got a time sensitive matter that I really need your counsel on. Like somebody from church, somebody from your neighborhood, somebody that you're not, you can't just blow off and they're going to go away forever. You're going to see them on Sunday. You're going to see them on your walk.

41:31That's right. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Dr. Carrie, tell us. No, let's start with filming the ads you don't want to film. I can totally empathize with that. Because I look at my Asana, we use Asana, and there are things in there that I'm like, I don't really want to do that. And I literally had this conversation with my team last week. And I was doing a lot of, hey, redo this article and shoot this video on XYZ. And my problem is, if my heart isn't in it, everybody can tell. and having started this company from scratch, it was whatever idea I thought. I'm very bought into my ideas. I don't know about you.

42:11I'm very bought into my ideas. I am not quite as bought into sometimes other people's ideas, but as you say, if you don't raise revenue, it's like last one out, turn off the lights. It's not going to happen. So we had a really good conversation and we did a trade-off. It's like, you can say whatever you want. You don't have to follow the script. just do the CTA here. And I'm like, okay, that made that more interesting to me. Because there is like, if you're doing too much, sure, you can be like, well, what happens if we cut this from five of these a month to two of these a month? Because I think I've got the appetite for two, but not five.

42:48And what if I can make the script that it sounded more like me? And then we had a really interesting conversation because I realized I am writing less now. Like, The good news is the company and our operations is beautiful and automated. The bad news is I've written less than I normally would write since like 40 years ago. I was writing papers in university. I was writing papers in high school. And now I'm hardly writing anymore. And I'm at my best when I'm writing. So I negotiated with my team. And I said, I'll do your work, but let me write stuff. And they're like, well, where are we going to publish it?

43:19I'm like, I don't care. Just put it out on the internet and don't index it. I need to write because if I write, I know what I think. So we negotiated that so that, because you're right, Michael, if your job becomes not fun for you, you're not going to want to do it. Is that fair? That's right. That's the key for a lot of us who are leaders is we get out of the fun stage, as Les McEwen would call it. And then we're like, we're into predictable success, but we don't like the structure in the systems. And so I think it's a constant negotiation. As to your friend who texted you yesterday, let's drill down on that a little bit more.

43:54Did you follow up? Did you have the conversation? I did. I said, well, as a matter of fact, I'm available now. Why don't you just call me? Excellent. And he did. And then 45 minutes later. Right. Was it an emergency? No. 90 % of emergencies are non-emergencies. Somebody texts me and says, when I was a pastor, my marriage is falling apart. I need to see you today. It's like, wait, you had a perfectly good marriage at 6 a.m. and suddenly it just fell apart and now it's one o 'clock and you need to see me today. I finally saw through the smoke screen because what that meant, and I mean, you guys know this, you teach this stuff, right?

44:29What happens then? When your kids were young, in particular, when the girls were young, Michael, you're like, all right, sorry, girls, can't be at your game tonight. Sorry, can't be home for supper, Gail. I got to go. I got to fix this couple's marriage. Meanwhile, your own is like, not doing well. So I discovered that 95 % of it wasn't an emergency. Then I would say to someone like that, hey, I'm really sorry you're going through something right now, your answer to deal with it right now is a great one. And I'll come back to that. The other thing you can say is I can talk about it tomorrow at three o 'clock or Friday at 10 a.m.

45:01Which one works best for you? So all of a sudden you schedule it for a time that is convenient to you because messages are always sent at the convenience of the sender, right? If I email you, it was a convenient time for me to email you. I have no idea whether it was a convenient time for you to receive that email. The second thing you could do is you can pick up the phone and say, I got time to talk right now. And then when he picks up, you can say, perfect timing, man. I got 10 minutes. What's on your mind? Yeah. Just throw in a time marker. And that can really help because they're going to give you less of the backstory and more of the presenting issue.

45:41The other thing, which is fine, is you just say, I am so slammed this week. I'm sorry, I don't have time for it. If it's church related, I'll see you Sunday. You want to catch five minutes in the lobby? Yeah. That's a good idea. I have started to deal with church stuff like that because I'm there already. Yeah. And I just hate seeing a cluttered calendar. And I think the reason I took that call last night is that if I were to schedule it, it'd be one more thing on my calendar that I would dread, where it's just like, I'm going to eat the frog now and be done with it. What if you want to though not do this?

46:13I want to be available to my family and my closest friends for the 911 calls, but I don't want to get together with somebody to pick my brain. I don't want to get together with somebody who has a marriage that's struggling. Like, that's just not where I feel called. Like, there are other avenues for that. How do you categorically say no to that? You know, you can do that. So there's two approaches you can take. One means you lose a lot of friends overnight, and you just draw a line. Yes, great. Right. People pleaser and Mike is going to be like, oh, but you're just like, yeah, I'm not able to take that call.

46:48I'm so sorry. The other thing you can do is you can redirect people and say, you know what? I'm taking fewer of those calls these days. Maybe you can try pastor X or person Y. Then that's another way. I'm actually losing friends. Try Megan. I'm not the best person. Megan never answers her phone. It's so weird. Yeah. The third is to gradually decelerate. Let's say it came in by email. This happened to be a phone call. Often the people who are most desperate will send you a long email, often without any spaces and some of it in all caps. The best answer, if it requires a response, they don't all require a response, but if it's someone you know, is to answer a long email with a short response.

47:31And what happens over time, it's a bit of a dance, is they realize, oh, Michael's not going to give me the seven-page trope I was hoping for. He's going to give me quick advice. Maybe he's not the best person to advise me, or maybe I should look elsewhere, or maybe this wasn't such a big situation. So the people who are more relationally intelligent will pick up on that. and the good ones will dance with you. It's like, you know what? That was too much for you. I'm sorry. I kind of, they'll get it after a while. The others will just give up because it's like I didn't get what I wanted. The other thing, Michael, you mentioned this a couple of times and I'm with you.

48:13I hate a cluttered calendar. All of us have a particular meeting tolerance. So I'm going to give you mine. This is descriptive, not prescriptive. If I have fewer than 10 meetings And a meeting includes a haircut, which I got yesterday. I had to redefine this a few times. Thank you. Thank you. But whether it's like I got to get my tires changed or I got to get a haircut or I have to see the dentist, that counts as a meeting. You're like, wait, that's not work related. No, but it impacts my mood. It's like I got too much to do. And my biggest value is when I'm spending about 60 % to 70 % of my week working on new content, solving problems, thinking time.

48:53Me too. That's when I'm at my best. So basically, I've trained my team to know if I have more than 15 appointments in a week, my calendar is full. So when you look at my calendar, those can be 15 minute meetings. They can be hour long meetings. But if there's more than 15, that week is booked. It's done. So they go in, they count it up and go, I'm sorry, Carrie hasn't got any time available next week, but we can book you in December, blah, blah, blah. So I don't know what your number would be, but this is where self-awareness becomes such a great thing. You can look back over your calendar over the last two months and go, oh, that was such a stressful week.

49:35I was flying here and then I was there and then I had these meetings and I had to take that call from the airport and then I did the webinar from a hotel room and then that was a bad week. But then there are other weeks that you're like, that was an amazing week. And then you'll start to see the number. This is gold. Experiment. And then for me, if it's less than 10, I'm bored. And I start to self-destruct. And I need a little bit of pressure. Like, I better get this done because I have a meeting at one o 'clock. I need a little bit of pressure. So your number could be different. But that has been so helpful.

50:07That's hugely helpful. I feel like on my writing days, so I write on Wednesdays, I have a weekly newsletter that I write. I adjust my morning ritual. I always go for a walk though, because that is like my thinking time. And I find that I have really good ideas on my walk. And I'm usually like writing things down or dictating things into my notes app. So that's helpful for me. I think in a perfect world, I would start working at like seven in the morning and I'd be done even earlier than I am. I just move my whole day up and then I'd be done at like one o 'clock or something and then have a couple hours before the kids came home.

50:39The problem is seven o 'clock in our house is everybody's getting out the door to school. We're checking folders. We're finding football equipment. You know, we're making lunches. And so I don't feel like in this season of my life, unless I literally exited the building, that that would be very, very realistic. So, but I do think that's how I'm wired. And I think in a future stage of life, that might be something that I try to accommodate because I love that time. Megan, you said something, a few things I want to just underscore Because Michael and I are at the same stage of life where our kids are grown and launched and not need.

51:15You know what I mean? We're very fortunate that way. Nobody needs you to make breakfast for them anymore. Exactly. You can come over and make breakfast for Megan's kids, Michael. That's what you can do. That's right. That's how I'm going to get my 7 a.m. time. But you talked about walking before writing. There is brain science behind that that shows that there is a very strong connection between creativity and walking. I think it was Nietzsche or someone, maybe it was Soren Kierkegaard, who said there is no thinking without walking. And I think that's true. Second thing, adjust your expectations according to the season of life.

51:50I could not have the morning routine expanded to an hour plus when my kids were young and they were at home, but my kids aren't young and they're not at home. So now I have the luxury of time, which actually, you know, the ability to do anything is also permission to do nothing. So you have to be careful about that because you can just lose the discipline that the immediacy creates. And then the third thing you said that's really important, I think, is Wednesday is my writing day. If you decide that every day is your writing day, you are probably not going to be as productive if you know I've got one bullet to fire here and it's Wednesday.

52:26There's wisdom to that. Constraints actually increase productivity. And the constraint of picking a day, for whatever reason Wednesday works in your calendar. And I've been thinking every day is a writing day. And you reminded me that no, if I decide that Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday are writing days, I will take those days more seriously. So constraints are a good thing. Really, really great principles there. Yeah, it really helps me because I know that my team is waiting on that newsletter. And I know like this week, we have a retreat that we're leading tomorrow and Saturday. Actually, we rarely do anything on the weekends.

52:59But in this case, we are. And if I didn't get it done yesterday. So today's Thursday when we're recording this, there's going to be no newsletter. So it's like, I've got a deliverable at the end of the day and I've got to go pick up my daughter from school the end, you know, and that is really helpful because I guarantee you, I could take three days to write that otherwise. Okay. I cannot believe that we are out of time and we have to ask our three questions because I feel like we could just keep going. We could have intervention after intervention. This has been fun, man. It's been great. It's been so fun.

53:28Okay. So Carrie, we have three questions that we ask all of our guests about the double win, winning at work and succeeding at life. So it's kind of like a lightning round. Are you game to play with us? I'll be brief. Okay. So the first one is, what is your biggest obstacle in this season of your life to getting the double win for yourself? Probably the lack of time constraints that an empty nest creates. You need to create false constraints. You said, I have to pick up my daughter at three. that I remember that season. That was good because I had to get it done. And I talked to a mutual friend, I won't name him, but when his youngest daughter left home, I'm like, how you doing?

54:12And he leads a huge church in the South. And he goes, I've never worked more hours in my life. And this is a guy who wrote a book about balancing work and life that sold a bajillion copies. and I find myself in that same thing. Permission to do anything is permission to do nothing. And so it's that self-constraint of making sure that I get my work done so it doesn't leak into the weekend. It doesn't leak into date night. And having the lack of constraints makes that just as challenging as having constraints. That's so interesting. I can't even quite conceive of that idea, but I'm excited to struggle with it.

54:50Sorry to tease you. I get it. I struggle with that too. Yeah. Okay. Second question. How do you personally know when you've got the double win? What are the indicators? My marriage, a hundred percent, my marriage. Because if I struggle, I'm probably going to be quote successful professionally. It's gone well for the last 30 years and our company's in a really good season. Your PNL and your numbers tell you an awful lot about whether you're hitting to win, but it's the non-tangibles. It's the closeness. It's the connection that I feel with my wife. So if my marriage and those key three to five relationships are not going well, and she'll tell me.

55:30I mean, we've had seasons in our marriage. So I really look at the quality, not just the quantity of time. Hey, we had a date night. Hey, we did this. Hey, we went on a vacation. You can tick all the boxes, but still be miles apart. So it's that intimacy. It's that closeness. It's that delight in each other that tells me I'm winning at home. And I remind myself all the time, if you're winning at work and losing at home, you're losing. So I agree with your premise. Amen to that. Amen. Yeah. All right. Last question. What is one ritual or routine that maybe we haven't talked about that helps you do what you do?

56:05That's a great question. So here's one that really helps me with my energy during the day. I talked about green, yellow, and red zone very briefly, but I learned this from Larry Osborne maybe five years ago. I no longer set an alarm. I was the 4.30 in the morning, here goes the alarm up, you know, ready to go. And what I found is that I was tired a lot during the day. And so unless I have a flight to catch or a really critical early morning meeting, 350 out of 365 days, I don't set an alarm. And what that does, it allows my body to tell me when I'm ready to wake up. And that has been a real gift to the point where if we watch a movie at night or a TV show, I'm not falling asleep during the TV show at nine o 'clock anymore.

56:51If we're doing a longer drive, two hours or more, I'm not pulling over going, honey, you drive. I'm dead here. So that has really made a difference. And I think when applied with the other disciplines means I'm capable of producing my highest quality work. I do the same thing in prioritizing sleep. Like today, I normally get up at five, but today I slept till 6.30. Oh, wow. Part of it was I wasn't feeling great yesterday and I got a bad night's sleep and I prioritize sleep over everything. Yeah. Carrie, thank you so much. This has been so rich and everything I'd hoped. So thank you for spending this time with us and sharing your heart and your thinking and your hacks and your tips and your advice.

57:31Well, it's been a joy for me. I appreciate and respect both of you so much and love the work that you're doing helping leaders. So it's been a privilege to be with you.

57:49Okay, that was a really fun interview. And I can't believe it went as long as it did. And honestly, we had to force ourselves to cut it off. We did, because I feel like we were rapidly approaching it being like an all-day coaching session, which, as it turns out, was just what we needed. You kind of turned the tables on me. I did. Which I appreciate. Yeah. Because Carrie's one of those people that I respect and admire, and I really value his coaching. Yeah. And I thought that was a good exchange. Well, I learned so much from that. I mean, I really was asking on your behalf, because I knew this was something you were struggling with.

58:22But I learned so much. You know, just first of all, to me, the best part was him talking about how to categorically eliminate something from your calendar that's a problem. I think that it gave me a lot of courage because I think sometimes we think about these things that we want to eliminate from our life and we get to the part where our brain says, but there's no way that could ever be possible without, you know, fill in the blank, something terrible happening. And we stop. And in reality, there might be a novel way of thinking about it that we just haven't thought yet that would avoid that.

58:56And I feel like that's what he gave us. And then the idea of how many meetings you can tolerate. Oh my gosh. I think I'm very similar to him in that. Me too. I don't think I really can do more than 10 or so meetings. And literally when I was in the big corporate world, I was probably having 30 to 35 meetings a week. Basically all day long, every single day. That's exactly right. Yeah. And sadly, I'm kind of back to that. Yeah. And it's self-inflicted. All the worst stuff is, isn't it? Yeah. Andy Stanley says something about he was present at the scene of every one of his bad decisions. Yeah, exactly.

59:29There was one person who was always there. But I've done the category thing before. Like I said no to brainstorming sessions, for example, because that's usually a request for free consulting. And it's usually from somebody, like a classic one for me would be somebody from church who just wants a little advice, and they respect my leadership and my experience. And how do I say no to that? But I've got to say no to it. But here's the thing. You stop at the point of, but how do I say no to that? We've all done it. We've all had those moments where in our thinking, we just stop at, but how would that ever be possible?

1:00:02And we don't answer the question. Really what we're saying is it wouldn't ever be possible. And so we're not even engaging our brain in the problem solving. That's where somebody outside of us like Carrie can be so helpful. Well, it's so true. And like, uh, I get requests for a lot of podcast interviews and I'm not taking them right now. Yeah. And it's because I'm trying to focus on my writing. Right. And so I just explain that to people. I just say, look, sorry, but I'm not taking any podcast requests right now. If you want to check back with us next year, but right now I'm really trying to, trying to focus on my writing.

1:00:31I just felt that there were so many things that I learned out of this interview and it's just a good reminder of the value of wisdom. You know, I think Kerry has been a good student of his life and of the people that he's guided, whether as a leadership coach or in a pastoral capacity. And there's just a lot there, you know, about how leadership works and how life works. I loved going back to the beginning of the conversation we had when he was talking about self-leadership is the biggest thing that we're never taught. And you and I talk about that a lot, you know, that whether it's people that are just not self-aware and, you know, they're presumptuous in some way or they have bigger problems that they're unaware of or not disciplined.

1:01:12You know, they're demanding a level of performance from their team that they're not even holding themselves accountable for. That was a good reminder. I also enjoyed our conversation about burnout because I think as an Enneagram 3, it's difficult for me to be in touch with my feelings. Yeah. because I tend to just buckle down and muscle through. Yep. And as you know, yesterday I took the day off because I wasn't feeling well yesterday morning. And I think just a lot of too much work kind of had led to the place where I was just crashing and burning. Yeah. And it's hard for me to give myself permission to stop.

1:01:46Yeah. And that was one of the best things I did. Yeah. And then all of a sudden you realize if you have to clear your calendar, of course you can. Right. I mean, we're not like saving lives here. I mean, some of you may be saving lives, but we're not. We're not saving lives. Nobody's on our table. And I'll tell you what, I'm on the other end of it and somebody cancels a meeting. You're like thrilled. I'm doing the happy dance. Right, this is like the best thing that could, like we do the best thing, you know, at our dinner table. What was your best thing today? What are you most grateful for? Listen, if I got a canceled meeting, that's probably on the list.

1:02:10Oh man. Yeah. Well guys, we hope you enjoyed this episode of The Double Win. I think Carrie's the bomb. And I really want to encourage you to take a look at the show notes, go to some of the resources that we've listed, but you could really help the show by reviewing it and rating it. So do that wherever you listen to this podcast. It really helped us get the word out and get more focus on the podcast so we can get this message of the double win out there. Absolutely. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you next week.