My Guest:
Brandon Smith: The Hot Sauce Principle
With a catchy book title like that, how could I call the show anything else? The author, Brandon Smith, shares his wisdom and advice on applying hot sauce in your career and at home. He also reveals how to protect yourself from getting burned. It’s all based on his many years of coaching and consulting with CEOs, leadership teams and boards.
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Transcript for 521_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20210118.mp3
Tony. Really glad to be with you today and on your show. [00:02:24.53] spk_0:
Thank you. And it’s a pleasure to have you. And you’ve got all these media credentials fast company, CNN, Fox News. You realize, though, that those have all led you to this moment on non profit [00:02:37.03] spk_1:
moment? All this is the pinnacle. This is all those things got me here today and I’m excited about it. [00:03:04.44] spk_0:
Exactly. This is your you’re zenith your pique your day normal. Uh huh. It’s non profit radio. It’s of your of your exposure. Thio Media is here on non profit radio. So welcome, Thio. The best moment so far. All right, So obvious question. What’s the hot sauce? What’s the hot sauce principal? Lead us into this and then we’ll talk about how folks can employ it to help themselves and their families even. [00:04:03.44] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m gonna go back in time a little bit. I’m gonna go back five years or so And what was striking me and all the clients I was working with, folks. The non profit space for profit space. It could be university schools, public sector. It could be a big companies, small companies. It didn’t matter. What was true was 22 things. Time was everyone’s most precious resource. It wasn’t money. It was time, and everything felt urgent all the time. And in that world, it was causing us all to operate more like firefighters. And I’m sure your listeners can relate to that experience. And so what hit me was it was like hot sauce. Everyday urgency by itself is like hot sauce and a little bit of hot sauce. I love hot sauce. Frankly, um, you put a little bit on on something that’s bland and adds a little focus, a little flavor, and as interest it gets you concentrating on it. But if everything that comes in on our plates that comes out of the kitchen is covered in hot sauce, the appetizer, the salad, the entree, the brownie, the ice tea, we’re gonna be overwhelmed and curl up in a ball. And that was what so many of the folks that I was working with were experiencing was this feeling of burnout. And so the book really came from that idea of how do we manage the right amount of hot sauce in life, both when we’re leading others or and or when others are kind of guiding us? How do we manage that flow of hot sauce? So it’s it’s adding more interest in focus and not just burning us out. And so that was the impetus for the book, tony. And that’s really the the whole idea behind the concept. [00:04:51.44] spk_0:
Okay, I want to thank you very much for being a guest. Uh, we’re wrapped up. Wait a minute. You told [00:04:58.26] spk_1:
me that interview I’ve ever done in the history of interviews. Tony, [00:05:27.14] spk_0:
we’re having fun, So yes, you talk about uncontrolled urgency, that’s what we’re. That’s what we’re we’re victim of. We’re trying to avoid creating this uncontrolled urgency in our in our lives and our teams. Right? A ZX, you say. Too much hot sauce. It’s no good. It ruins its its ruins. Its impact. It’s not. It’s not interesting and flavorful anymore. Overwhelming and burning and hurting us. [00:05:50.24] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly that’s exactly right. So it’s It’s both a byproduct of people stress and anxiety. Right? So, you know, if I’m putting pressure on you to get something done right away, and then you might put that pressure on somebody else that they’re on your team, right? You kind of push it down so it can complement stress. And anxiety can also come just from a simple lack of prioritization. You’re feeling like we’ve got to do everything. Everything is important. [00:05:57.64] spk_0:
Yes. We’re gonna get to the importance of proposition. Yes. And you tell these you you you unravel the mysteries of urgency and the hot sauce through lots of lots of stories opening with Kate, who is, uh, listen, you’ve got to get the book because you gotta hear you got a little stories of Kate and Kate and her boss, uh, the it improves. It ends very nicely, but, uh, it’s a it’s a tough. Especially that opening scene with Kate 5 30 in the morning. Um, that’s rough. It’s It’s hard to read, you know? It makes [00:06:27.93] spk_1:
good. Used to be hard to read. It’s supposed to hurt. Yeah, [00:06:31.09] spk_0:
makes your heart race while, uh, while you’re reading about this one dimensional story. Alright, Um, but we can master this. We can master the urgency we can. We can apply the hot sauce sprinkled appropriately and be of great benefit to ourselves. Our careers, even our families [00:06:49.77] spk_1:
absolutely sure can. Okay, that’s what that’s what the books all about, how to get a master, [00:07:11.34] spk_0:
it. That’s where we are. Um, you talk about good bit about trust and and vulnerability. Expand on that a little bit. And maybe we’ll even say a little more about I love vulnerability. I think vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness. To be vulnerable is to be strong. I think not. Not cowardly and weak, but you roll that into trust. Yeah, and and so explain. Explain where you’re coming from with trust and vulnerability and credibility [00:08:01.24] spk_1:
in the in the book. I talk about my trust formula and and And the reason why I talk about it is because if we’re going to create urgency and others, yeah, urgency is a stated discomfort. So you’re intentionally making other folks uncomfortable. You’re taking folks, they’re comfortable and you’re making them uncomfortable on purpose. And that’s advanced leadership stuff. Sometimes we have to do that with our teams. Sometimes we have to do that with our kids. That’s just part of the nature of kind of leading others. Um, and in that moment they’re gonna ask themselves, Do I trust this person enough to allow them to make me feel this way? Which is why trust comes in and it’s so important. We got to start with a foundation of trust. So now I already went back in time. Five years. I’m going back in time a little over 10 years now. So about 10 years ago, I was [00:08:07.48] spk_0:
teaching have a sound effect for time travel that I used once years ago on this show. Maybe I’ll maybe I’ll insert a little [00:08:13.61] spk_1:
need to bring it back would be perfect right now. Time travel music. So So a little over 10 years ago, I was teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in their business school. I [00:08:22.63] spk_0:
see you’re Emory University diploma on your wall. [00:08:55.74] spk_1:
It’s behind me up. So and I was teaching MBA students and, you know, MBA students typically think in terms of numbers. And I was trying to think of How do you take a concept like trust and make it mathematical? And I ended up coming up with this trust formula. And it’s in the book, and the trust formula is authenticity plus vulnerability in parentheses. Okay, so you got to kind of think about kind of basic math principles, authenticity, plus vulnerability in parentheses and some of that multiplied times. Credibility gets us trust and the reason why I did it that way. Originally, I did it a straight up addition formula authenticity, plus vulnerability plus credibility. But in that version, you could have zero credibility and come out with positive trust. And that’s not how trust work [00:09:07.76] spk_0:
that case. All three are equal, right? [00:10:32.64] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s how it works. And so the reason why I had to put the multiplier in there is because whenever you multiply anything by zero. What do you get? You get 00 Credibility, zero trust. And the same is true on the other side. If authenticity and vulnerability go to zero, you got zero trust. So what we’re saying is you gotta show up is credible, you know, which means you’re reliable, predictable. We could talk more about that. But, you know, you deliver on your expectations, you do what you say you’re gonna dio um, but you also gonna show up as a real human being, which is the authenticity and vulnerability side. You know, you’ll be transparent about your thinking and your motives. That’s authenticity. But vulnerability. You gotta be okay to ask for help, Okay? To say, I don’t have all the answers, okay, to say I was wrong. You were right. Okay. To share a little more about your own personal story and journey with other people. That’s that’s That’s how we build trust. And the good news is you don’t have to be perfect on all those, but you just can’t go to zero. You go to zero and you got problems. So it’s a good reminder for us when we’re sitting in that leader seat and by the way, leader. When I talk about leader, it doesn’t have to be by title. We could be leading appear, leading a donor leading, Ah, volunteer, whether we have a title or not, Um, we’re leading others if we’re trying to influence them. And this is this is how we need to build trust. So then we could be effective in those roles. And part of what makes a non profit space so challenging is sometimes there isn’t really clear role clarity. Sometimes there’s a lot of informal leadership that occurs in that world. And so, you know, making sure we’ve got enough in the trust bank account to be able to do what we need to do effectively is really important. So that gets a little bit of high level overview of the formula. I’m happy to riff in any direction you’d like to go. [00:12:00.14] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times You wanna be in outlets like that? CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy Turn two has the relationships with these types of media outlets so that when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy they call Turn to turn two calls you because you’re their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Now back to the hot sauce principle. I I want to talk about using urgency appropriately to help yourself. So not Thio. Help you manage your own work life, maybe even your career. Certainly. If you’re doing this well, you’ll be promoted into leadership. You know, maybe you’re leading one person or something. But but mawr on the individual basis, you know, so using it and then protecting yourself from hot sauce at work. Also from protecting yourself from too much urgency. So that those sort of direction Then we’ll talk about the family. You have some good stories about your three kids. E hope their good. What? Pardon me, but [00:12:06.24] spk_1:
I hope their good usually involves the making fun of dad, which is fun. [00:12:20.64] spk_0:
Exactly. Right? Is there a little private stories? Yes, they’re private laughs. Um, so you talk about eso in with the individual? You talked about having a compelling Why, Yeah, What’s that about? [00:13:57.04] spk_1:
So I think when we talk about for us one of the ways we can create urgency for ourselves At least in our career is have that compelling line that that sense of purpose. Why do we do what we dio and have that to kind of guide our decisions as we choose career opportunities and choose passed forward when we don’t have that sense of why that sense of purpose as we’re making career decisions we tend to default to shiny, shiny could be a shiny title or shiny brand or shiny paycheck? There’s nothing wrong with shiny, but that’s not what we want. The end all be all to be because, like most things that are shiny, the shine wears off pretty fast, and then we’re looking for a new shiny. So when the more we can use purposes were making career decisions that why the better? So that’s a good long term strategy. Now, going back to your comment around how to be urgency in our professional development and careers, a long term strategy would be a y. A short term strategy is, um, set deadlines and create some kind of accountability system. So I will tell you, tony, I’m really proud of this book that you’ve got a chance to read, and we’re talking about here today It took me about four years to write the darn thing, and the first three years was because I was trying to make it a priority. But there was always something that got pushed up higher. So I finally said to myself One day I said, Look, Brandon, this isn’t gonna happen unless you get some help And I went out and I hired a book coach. Her name’s Cathy Feedback, and Kathy has been wonderful because she created urgency for me. She would say, Brandon, you have two weeks Monday at 9 a.m. In two weeks. You owe me Chapter seven and all of a sudden I had a deadline. [00:13:58.63] spk_0:
You know, you don’t want to show up empty handed. [00:14:01.17] spk_1:
Also, it was like it was like I was back in college. I’m sliding the term paper underneath the door at 4 59 right? Um, and so it reminded me of of the of those days, and it gave me deadlines. And you can’t have urgency without deadlines. [00:14:16.64] spk_0:
You say there were two types of urgency your type one and type two that you can use to your benefit those out [00:15:02.94] spk_1:
eso these air particularly effective when you’re trying to create urgency with others, but they could be good with you to, um there’s two kinds worst case scenario and opportunity scenario. So worst case scenarios, like, you know, if I don’t change, you know, I’m going to die or something horrible is gonna happen to me. Yeah, on then. In the best case scenario is, I’ve got this great window of opportunity. And if I hurry now, I can make it in the window. But if I don’t hurry, the window is gonna close, and I’ll miss that opportunity. Maybe that’s a promotion or getting yourself up for promotion or some other opportunity like that. Worst case scenario. A good example of that in, um Anyway, uh is every year when I get close to my annual physical, my kids always know and they give me a hard time. Because about six weeks before my annual physical, I start really working out hard. I start really watching my diet because I’m [00:15:13.40] spk_0:
trying to bring to the doctors. You have to bring down your heart rate, you [00:15:17.13] spk_1:
know? Yeah, I do. All the [00:15:18.23] spk_0:
things you started, your iron level is good. [00:15:21.75] spk_1:
All the things. So then when I get in there? I want the doctor to say, Wow, you look really great. And then I could leave there and immediately go grab, you know, some french fries on the white home. Uh, but that that’s a great example of kind of urgency. That deadline creates urgency for me, right? And then I and then I don’t want to show bad. It’s kind of a little bit of fear factor. So then I I am motivates me. Thio get going. [00:15:42.10] spk_0:
But the only way to keep yourself healthy throughout the years to have, like, eight doctor, eight physical e carry each one carries you six weeks. That success, you know, [00:15:52.12] spk_1:
that would be good. I I could do that. Uh, but but that’s why people use things like accountability partners, accountability partners are, you know, essentially a form of kind of urgency. It’s like, Oh, my gosh, I got a call. I got a call with tony today. At one o’clock, I better make sure I’m ready. So it kind of sets me up for that. You know, you, accountability, partner is another great way you can. You could do that And that you can use that with anything you could be [00:16:17.56] spk_0:
both with. You prepared for this call? Of course I prepared for this, Uh, prepared. I couldn’t tell. I’ve [00:16:21.59] spk_1:
even got a bottle of hot sauce right here. You can see if I’m holding about a bottle [00:16:49.74] spk_0:
of Macallan. Ease Tabasco alright? Yeah, of course I know you’re prepared. Yes. Well, this is all you know. You know this stuff? You’ve been working on it for four years. It’s the combination. This is the day Newman, of your four years. Congratulations. I should have said Congratulations on the book. Thank you. Thank you. Now. So you say in the book this book, you gotta get the book. Um, you can. So you can use these two types together. They don’t. They don’t have to be isolation. You can use them in tandem to motivate yourself. [00:17:42.64] spk_1:
Absolutely. Absolutely. You can. So you know the way that you could do it is you could think about, like, change your disruption is a great way to look at it through both lenses. So, naturally, when change happens, we’re like, Oh, gosh, I hate this. Like, what’s it gonna cost me? You say, Say were part of an organization that’s undergoing a lot of change for lots of reasons. It could be that we’re searching for new funding. Resource is, it could be that we’ve merged with another organization. There could be a lot of reasons why we’re part of change. Well, naturally, the first thing we’re gonna say is Oh, my gosh, I could come out a loser in this. This could be bad for me. So that could be a motivation for me to make sure I’m really working extra hard and positioning myself. But it could also be a kn opportunity. Could be like, Wow. But this is also gonna open up new roles, new opportunities, and And my boss is gonna get promoted. And if I really show, I could do her job, maybe they’ll promote me into that job and then all of a sudden might become a director or whatever the role happens to be. So, you know, change of the great, um, event that occurs to us that we could both look at it from a motivator from you making sure that we’re surviving, but also that we could be thriving and opening up new doors. [00:18:07.14] spk_0:
So your perspective is important whether you view this fearfully or as a challenge and an opportunity. [00:18:45.34] spk_1:
Yeah, and I could be even more concrete. So in 2020 that great year that we love so much change that’s all changed. And so much of my work up to that point was in person, like when I would work with non profit teams, they would ask me to come on site or if I would be speaking engagements and asked me to come on site. Well, naturally, all that went away. But then all of a sudden, people begin to get more comfortable and learn how to do things virtually. And then that created new opportunity. Well, how can I serve the audiences? I want to serve in a different way. So it’s every every change brings opportunity. It’s just looking at it through that way and then and then creating some kind of urgency around it to keep us moving. [00:19:02.94] spk_0:
The one thing I want to quote, I don’t quote often, but just this one little sentence I loved create productive action, not unproductive anxiety, and that that kind of subsumes all the things you’ve been saying in the past several minutes, you know, look at it productively and and opportunistically and I use I don’t use that pejoratively. It all used as as opportunity and not to be unproductive and cause you fear and anxiety. [00:20:27.74] spk_1:
Right? Right, So So let’s talk a little about about that, too, if it’s OK, because urgency urgency is also anxiety. So what I’m prescribing here today is to intentionally put anxiety into the system. E. I wanna be clear, because that’s super, not what people would be thinking right now. They would be thinking, Well, I don’t like anxiety, Brandon, why are you making me ADM? Or but it’s it’s intentionally using it because anxiety in the right doses urgency in the right doses stimulates action. You’ve ever woken up until the night thinking about work. Well, one of the healthier ways to deal with it is to grab a pad of paper and write down the stuff you’re thinking about. So get out of your head or to just get up and start doing work. It stimulates action, so we want to use it so it stimulates us into moving forward. What we don’t want to do is just sit and let it spin in our head and paralyzes. That’s the unproductive anxiety is when we feel paralyzed. We’re not moving because that energy is not going anywhere. It’s just sitting in our head and and one of the ways the healthy ways we eliminate anxiety is either through activity and action, whether that’s doing work or exercise or those kinds of things. Or it could be through meditation and calming our mind. E I could say I was great at the second one. I’m probably not as good at the second orders. I wish I was a little better the first, um, but those air, that’s how we get anxiety to kind of release is either through meditation and prayer or coming our mind or by actually taken action. So this is a way for us to take action and use it productively. [00:21:53.44] spk_0:
And if you’re not being productive at it, then Thio deal with you’re not dealing with it productively. Then you’re talking about releasing your releasing cortisol into your bloodstream and cortisol and adrenaline. These things negative, harmful, um, hormones, cortisol. You know it. Tze that that’s that feeling, that of warmth that you warmth and anxiety you get when you’re waking up at three in the morning thinking about work, and all of a sudden, you know, you get like, this hot flash. These hormones are bad for you. So do something productive. Meditation. Get up and work. Just your notes down like you’re saying. You know everything. I’m just I’m just repeating your wisdom. You know, I’m just like a bulletin board here. You post something on my forehead and then you could read it back or hear it back. That’s all. That’s all you’re talking to. A podcasting bulletin board S o U. All right, let’s move to protecting yourself. When folks were pouring too much hot sauce on you at work, there’s too much urgency. And one of the things you mentioned is prioritization. And you’ve got other tips. You got other ideas strategies to. But let’s start with the one you already mentioned prioritization. How does that help protect you? [00:23:26.74] spk_1:
Yes. So what prioritization allows us to do is eso when we’re talking about prioritization apartment is us prioritizing our own events, our own activities. But more importantly, where this becomes an issue is when our leader or boss shows up and says, Oh, I want you to know no stop doing what you’re doing. I want you to work on this new thing and they keep changing the priorities or they make everything a priority. Then that’s going to create a tremendous amount of anxiety for us. Um, it’s interesting piece of research. About three or four years ago, they asked the question of what’s the worst kind of boss to work for, and I have a clinical therapy background. I thought they were going to come back with the yelling and screaming, angry boss that pounds their fists on the table. That was not number one micromanager. Wasn’t number one ghosting boss wasn’t number one. Number one was the highly unpredictable boss, the one that you never knew what you were going to get on a given day, because that creates a lot of unfocused anxiety. Uh, and so we sometimes get that experience. We have bosses constantly changing priorities or constantly adding a new thing to the plate. So where this is really important is sitting down with your boss and forcing her him to prioritize, basically saying to them, I love all the ideas you’re giving me. What? Or maybe the top three I need to focus on this week and and doing that is proactively and preemptively as you can on then constantly kind of keeping them in the loop on the things you’re working on, um, so that you could be focused so that you could move down a path and you’re not allowing them to add more hot sauce to your plate. [00:23:54.34] spk_0:
At several spots in the book, you give actual language that you can use in an email or in a conversation, you know, acknowledging that there’s a lot of priority and urgency or there’s a lot of urgency and that that it’s important for our success. But for for me to be successful or for our team to be successful, we need Thio prioritized. But you you’re more eloquent. So that’s why you gotta get the book, you know? Yeah, you want the eloquent version, you gotta get [00:24:14.17] spk_1:
the book and you have several statements you can actually use. Yeah, it’s all there for in the in the simple way to do The simple reason why we’re doing that is because if everything is a priority or everything is urgent, we’re just gonna be spinning every day whenever actually gonna make any progress on anything really doesn’t want that, and we don’t want that. So you know, if we could help manage her him a little bit and force them to prioritize it, allow everybody to win Well, actually make progress on dhe. That’ll be more fulfilling for all of us. [00:24:26.94] spk_0:
The ghosting boss. You mentioned that just as an aside, but I don’t know that one. What’s the [00:24:55.34] spk_1:
ghosting boss? It’s so it’s a It’s a common term. When you can’t find a boss, you can’t find a leader. They ghost you. So you know, you’re you’re like, Where are they? Can’t find him like I need this decision made. Well, I thought they were Well, I don’t know where they are on That’s, That’s, um, It isn’t one of the patterns of of less than healthy bosses that I’ve uncovered in my career. The boss you could never find. We need to make a decision. It’s [00:26:48.74] spk_0:
time for Tony’s Take two. Our nation is counting on you. You are among the institutions that the country needs toe have hold the folks who are supporting you, who love you. They don’t want to see you probably even hesitate, let alone end. You’re among the institutions. It’s not only law enforcement and the media and the judiciary and the military. You’re an institution of the United States and the folks who know you and love you. They want your work to continue. You need to continue it. Americans are counting on you, so please keep doing your critical work. Keep your head down. It’s I you know, we all know what we’re going through, but there are folks who are counting on you, and I don’t even just mean that’s annoying. Next time I’ll put my phone on airplane mode like I’m supposed to when I’m recording, and I don’t even just mean the people who you’re serving, if that’s your work and if you’re serving people, I mean your communities. Whoever they are, however they’re comprised. They’re counting on you. You are an institution of the United States. We need you to keep up doing your work. Keep standing for your values. We’re counting on you, and non profit radio is behind you. I’m behind you. That is Tony’s. Take two. Let us return to the hot sauce principle with author Brandon Smith. You can lower the heat as a as a way of managing managing hot sauce and urgency at work. What’s there, [00:27:11.34] spk_1:
Lauren? The heat is another way of saying kind of prioritization. Like what? What is the most urgent here, or when do you need a pie? So you know, if something’s high heat, they’re going to say I need this by tomorrow, or I need this by yesterday. It’s like ghost ghost pepper heat. Okay, if if if you [00:27:15.59] spk_0:
ghost peppers I gather are very hot peppers. Peppers tell a story about ah, video. You watched about hot pepper eating contest. You mentioned Ghost Peppers last. So they must be the most extreme. [00:27:27.95] spk_1:
They are one of the most. I I think there’s, like, a grim Reaper Heat one in like a North Carolina Reaper. That’s ah really really, really bad. Yeah. So scale. Yeah. Yeah. How you measure the hotness of those peppers, [00:27:41.59] spk_0:
e It goes into the tens of thousands. Doesn’t [00:27:44.48] spk_1:
Oh, yeah goes into Yes. Yeah. It could be further than I can handle, tony. That’s all I can tell you. [00:27:51.02] spk_0:
Are you hot pepper eater? I [00:27:52.33] spk_1:
love I love hot sauce And hot. [00:27:53.55] spk_0:
Not just that hot dog. Do you eat the peppers. Do you use the [00:27:55.85] spk_1:
radio? But But I will tell you while I love them, I will. Um I just start dripping and sweat almost immediately. Well, [00:28:02.81] spk_0:
the Grim Reaper scares the hell out of me that I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t even touch anything. [00:28:07.44] spk_1:
Called. Probably called the thing. I would want to try a [00:28:09.68] spk_0:
food food called the Grim Reaper. [00:29:32.44] spk_1:
Yeah, something I want to try. Um, okay, I think I think the idea of eso it was interesting. I was getting ready to do a talk right before Kobe hit. And I was supposed to be doing going to Vegas. And I was talking to all these auto auto shop owners, 15,000 auto shop owners, and I was going to talk on urgency. These are small business owners and they run their run mechanic shops, take your car to get it fixed. And one of them told me the story is I was going to prepare, and I was interviewing some of them. He said, You gotta watch out for the hero trap. He said, you know, when you jump in and you’re rescuing all the time, um, that’s another way that we perpetuate urgency because we’re always rescuing each other. That’s a real common were kind of relational orientation, we sometimes holding the non profit space because we’re such close teams that sometimes we could end up rescuing each other. It can perpetuate a lot of urgency on Then. He also added, He said, You also have to be real careful. You don’t over promise when you don’t need Thio And you gave the example. He said, You know, you might have a customer come in And, uh Mr and Mrs Jones and they come in and they’ve got a problem with the car and you promised to get him to the car by the end of the day. Um, and all of a sudden, by making that promise, you made it urgent. Well, they never said they needed it by the end of the day. Maybe they’re going out of town for the weekend, and they’re not going to need it till next Tuesday. But you didn’t ask him that. You just promised by the end of the day, all of a sudden creating urgency that didn’t need to be there. So hero traps and making promises that we don’t need to make our always that we inadvertently create more urgency in our life that we probably [00:29:42.34] spk_0:
need to We could just say no. [00:29:44.14] spk_1:
Oh, yes, you could. Yes, you could. Uh, that’s a really, really hard thing to Dio. [00:29:50.74] spk_0:
You have it in the book. [00:30:27.04] spk_1:
I know it’s really, really hard thing to Dio, and I will tell you it’s hard for all of us in general. But you can’t be strategic whether you’re talking about your own career or you’re talking about your organization. If you can’t say no and I and I will say working with in the non profit space, its’s one of the more challenging things because no often means we’re shutting down a program or service or some kind of way. We’re helping others, and that’s really hard. We love to start up a new one, but that often means we got to prove something that it’s so hard because it’s like a baby to us and, you know, and that’s doing something in the world that is meaningful to us. But learning how to say no is really important, a ZX. We try, navigate the urgency and and sending boundaries. So in another way, we could say this is all about setting healthy boundaries in life [00:30:41.64] spk_0:
boundaries. Yes, let’s talk about boundaries and the importance of enforcing them. [00:30:48.64] spk_1:
Yeah, so it’s one. So I think you may. You hidden on something really important just by the way you said it. It’s one thing to say what your boundaries are. It’s another thing to actually uphold them. [00:30:54.74] spk_0:
I got that idea from you. [00:32:53.14] spk_1:
Tell you, tony, it’s hard for me to I’ll give you Ah, great example. I know for my life. My rhythm that works best is when I do all my work, which is typically a lot of coaching, a lot of like cons, therapy sessions. A lot of that. We’re working with teams intensely doing that between 94 every day because it’s pretty emotionally draining work. And then I used the time before nine to do administrative stuff in the time after four to do administrative stuff. Well, they’re caught a point towards the end of last year where I was having a lot of demands on my calendar, so I told my wonderful assistant Nancy, I said Nancy, let’s go ahead and open up 88 to 9. Let’s open up 4 to 5. So she did. And she did a wonderful job of booking me down to the minute. I mean, I was I was just, like, 30 minute calls back to back to back to back to back, back, No room for lunch. I mean, I was just going all the way through and about two weeks of that, I realized I was burned out. I stretched too far, and it was causing me to have ah, lot of anxiety and just stress in my life. So I went back to Nancy and said, All right, Nancy, we gotta go back to 94 because this is not working for me. Well, the next time she scheduled a meeting at four o’clock, I had a choice. In that moment, I could have just accepted it and said, Well, Nancy is looking out for the best. My interest And there was no other place. I’ll just take it or I could say no, I set the boundary. I gotta I gotta push back on that. Yeah, and there’s a part of me that said, You know, I could just I’ll just do it. It’s not gonna be a big deal. One time just one time. But if I do that one time now, I just told her that’s really not a firm line. So I had I had to send an email and copy Nancy and said, I’m sorry, Nancy. This time is not gonna work. It’s after four o’clock. She was your apologized profusely. But that’s that’s important to us in life. When people, you know get when we send a boundary, we’ve got to make sure we hold it. If we tell our boss we’re not gonna be available after seven o’clock at night because we spend time having dinner and putting our kids to bed. Well, we gotta stick to that way. Whatever boundaries we set, we gotta we gotta hold. [00:32:59.44] spk_0:
We’re gonna get to the family. But let’s let’s turn it over to Brandon. What? What would you like to talk about? Hot sauce. Principal related. That I haven’t asked you yet. We’ll get to the family. But what would you like to talk about? [00:33:20.84] spk_1:
You know, I think when we were talking about this show today, part of the angry, willing to take with professional growth and development, how to help people kind of grow in their careers and and really become amazing kind of rock stars in [00:33:35.58] spk_0:
there and and thank you for reinforcing for listeners that we do talk in advance. This show is prepared. It doesn’t just come together slapdash. That’s prepared because there’s none of the stuff With the lackluster host was a mere bulletin board, you know, they may think that’s just you know, you and I talked like 20 minutes ago, and here you are, but does not like that. It’s not like so thank you for reinforcing, for validating unsolicited. Thank you. Thank you very [00:34:42.64] spk_1:
much. Of course. So I wanna it ties in what we’ve been talking about a little bit about even managing urgency. One of the best things you can dio that will help not only set boundaries, manage your time, but also, um, please your leader that you’re supporting is to be really, really clear up front on expectations. If you can clarify expectations, not only your expectations, but your bosses expectations you can prevent 50% of all work related people dysfunction. So imagine that 50% of all people related dysfunction at work goes away. Yeah, managing expectations by clarifying expectations on dhe When we don’t do that, we allow people to guess, and inevitably they’ll guess wrong and someone gets upset. So if you’ve ever had a family member get upset Thanksgiving, it was probably because somebody didn’t clarify expectations with her [00:34:46.17] spk_0:
him. Guess, Guess to your disadvantage. [00:35:25.24] spk_1:
Yeah, they came in thinking one thing. It didn’t meet their expectations. They threw a big temper tantrum, and all of sudden, Thanksgiving wasn’t quite so happy. Well, the same thing is true work. So one of the simplest, um, activities. But the most important is make sure you’re regularly clarifying expectations with your leader. And when you do that, you also are forcing them to manage their urgency because you’re not allowing them to just operate like they’re suffering from a d. D. Every day because you’re forcing them to set priorities. You’re forcing them to tell you what matters. Um, and then you allows you a way to kind of follow up with them s Oh, that’s so I would say that’s a really important thing we haven’t talked about yet. That is a great career strategy. [00:35:49.74] spk_0:
Okay, cool. Cool. Um, so how about we talk a little about family and home okay. Using this, uh, sprinkling some hot sauce. Appropriately. You like thio prayer? You get sort of a 90 10 rule. Talk about prioritizing the 90% of the 10% at home. [00:38:00.72] spk_1:
Yeah. So for lots of reasons that we probably don’t have time to go into today, Um, what has happened in, particularly if we’ve got kiddos growing up right now is that everything seems to be urgent all the time. They’re travel sports team makes acts as if that’s the most highest priority. Their teachers act like everything that they’re doing in that class is their highest priority. There’s a lot of pressure on kids demands and our demands. His parents, um and and then, of course, there’s all those volunteer activities that are coming our way. And as everyone on this call knows also well, Andi, all too well that it’s the people who are the volunteers that got asked. The Vulcan volunteered the most, right. The person who’s volunteering three or four places is being asked to volunteer for five places, get things done, tap on the people that get things done, and we keep tapping on them, right? And so all those were demands So I want you to imagine, like, a hub and spoke. You’re in the middle, and all these things are spokes coming into you. Okay? And if we don’t prioritize, they’re all gonna feel equal. Travel Baseball is gonna feel just as equal as replacing the air conditioner. Our house, it’s broken. It’s all gonna feel equal. And so we need to create that rather than have been spoke. Um, circles we need, like, a bull’s eye. We need the circle of the stuff. That’s 10% attend the focus of our time, that is our family is that stuff that we don’t ever want to compromise. And and that’s however you define it. That might be time having dinner every night with your family, Or might be time on on Sundays where you connect with relatives or whatever happens to be or or time where you exercise. It’s time you never want to compromise on using that old analogy. If you put the big rocks in first pit those big rocks in first there are smaller rocks and then our sand last. So putting those in first and then you allow the other things toe other things to come in when we when we’re not intentional, we we become reactive and we allow other people’s urgency to become our problem. And so then we re re we react just because we’re essentially playing tennis with things that come our way. You know, we want out of our court. So we hit back in the other court. But we’ve got to make sure we’re attention about putting the important stuff in. First. [00:38:05.62] spk_0:
The family health. Your partner? Exactly. Exactly. So. [00:38:37.12] spk_1:
I mean, there’s no there’s no right or wrong answer to that. But those are the categories you already listed. Some really important categories are our relationship with our significant other our family, our health, Um, rest rest is really important. Making sure you’re getting enough sleep. Doctors used to say seven hours was the target. Now they’ve moved it up to eight. They want all of us having at least eight hours of sleep that’s going to be protected, Um, a time down time for us to wind down just those things that are important to our rhythm and pace of life. So we always show up at our best. [00:38:55.72] spk_0:
You got some other ideas, like delegating in the family or delegating in the home? Um, outsourcing. Yeah, you got some other ideas, you say No, you could say no at home, too. [00:39:25.22] spk_1:
You could say no at home. Out. So you mentioned outsourcing for folks that don’t know what that means. Outsourcing is a fancy way of saying, What’s the stuff that happened? I do during the week or on the weekends that I’d really rather use that time doing something else. And I can pay someone to do that for me. So maybe that’s mowing your lawn. Or maybe that’s your dry cleaning. Or maybe once a month, you have somebody come in and do a good once over into your apartment or your house. Um, it’s just finding those activities that you would rather not spend your free time on. Andi. There’s more higher and best use of your time until you find folks that could maybe support you in that so you could be using your time the way you really want. [00:40:40.41] spk_0:
Thio Time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. That drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor. Simplified. Get their free demo For listeners, there’s also a free month. It’s all on the listener landing page at tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time for the hot sauce principle. Now I’m the guy who does not have Children, but you could, UH, it seems, if you did have those those child units you could delegate absolutely could absolutely could. That’s the reason for raising them. Thio. Manual labor age you have. If you are smart, you’re doing that. You can see why I don’t have Children because e economic units, [00:41:57.61] spk_1:
I I will tell you, and it’s just like with delegating at work, right, because what happens is we delegated work. We see ourselves, you know, it’s so much easier if I just do it myself because the first couple times this person does it, it’s gonna be slow. It’s not gonna be good. But if you go and invest that time, then pretty soon they’re doing it without you in my house. What that has taken the form of tony is laundry. So I’ve got my oldest. She’s now Ah, freshman in college and I’ve got two boys and teenagers. They all do their own laundry. Okay, there were many, many, many a casualty in the process. Tony the girls Lulu lemon workout pants got shrunk down to doll size on more than one occasion. Lots of lots of casualties. But now everybody knows everybody knows how to do laundry. They know how to do their own laundry and they even know how to do other people’s laundry. So my boys know if it’s girls workout pants, we’re not gonna dry those. We’re gonna hang them and they hang them and they’re doing all the laundry. Well, I’m not and and so absolutely. But there is. I want to acknowledge the fact that there’s, Ah, there’s there’s just like anything delegation. There’s a learning curve that [00:42:07.10] spk_0:
happens, right? You sounded make it sound pretty good. Maybe I should have had Children after all. E, think of the time I [00:42:11.22] spk_1:
started about. It’s not a banking, although they end up with once they get to become teenagers, they end up with very creative nicknames for you. [00:42:24.40] spk_0:
Oh, nice. Yeah. You see, that’s the But I wouldn’t be able to handle the, uh, mom and dad are stupid stage after everything I’ve done for you for the past 15. 16 years. Now, you could You think I’m ignorant and embarrassing? I wouldn’t be able to. My ego couldn’t handle it. [00:42:33.38] spk_1:
It gets more creative than that. So you’re you’re seeing me. Your listeners aren’t seeing me. But what my kids like to call me now is they said one of my many nicknames is off brand Obi Wan Kenobi. [00:42:43.70] spk_0:
All right. You’re all white. Your beard in your hair. Always [00:42:46.10] spk_1:
all white looking. So I kind of look like Alec Guinness from the original New Hope Star Wars A little bit. Yeah, they say, but I’m off brand like I’m like the cheapo versions. I’m like the dollar general version of Obi Wan Kenobi. OK, Cie creative created insults, [00:43:10.90] spk_0:
creative, insulting. Yeah, Yeah, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. Um and so All right, you can Let’s let’s just round up this family. This home family discussion with how you could turn up the hot sauce. Turn up the urgency a little bit to your to your benefit at home. [00:44:02.99] spk_1:
Yeah, so turning up the urgency is necessary as your raising any kind of fully formed adult is trying to get them to realize, Um, sometimes they’re too comfortable. And most parents probably had the experience where you you walk into your kid’s room and you told them two or three times that they need to clean their room and you go in and they’re laying on the bed and the room is filthy and they’re watching some show on their phone. They’re too comfortable. So we use urgency to create a healthy state of discomfort. So you say I want your room clean. You have two hours to get a clean. If you don’t have a clean, that phone is mine for a week. That’s a form of urgency. Yeah, we’re setting a deadline. We’re ramping up the hot sauce, and we’re giving kind of a worst case scenario. If they don’t do it, [00:44:16.49] spk_0:
what about with spouse or partner? Can we can we go there is that you don’t mention you. Don’t mention that the book. But you got me thinking about it now because well, you [00:44:22.61] spk_1:
can. You can You can. You wanna be real careful on that. [00:44:25.50] spk_0:
Yeah, let’s talk about it. Sounds like fun. [00:45:35.79] spk_1:
Sounds like Fine. Uh, this is playing with fire. So the easier one with the spouse and partner is opportunity scenario Thio. You create some kind of reward system like, Hey, honey, let’s do like, a workout challenge and let’s see what if we could hit this goal in six months? And if we do, let’s reward ourselves with a trip to Hawaii. So that’s a form of opportunity scenario. Like, can we work out together, support each other, create pressure with some measurable goals with a reward at the end? Yeah, Zed, that’s happy stuff Now, when you might want to use hot sauce on. The worst case scenario is when you’ve been asking your significant other to do certain things, um, that you feel like are reasonable. And then, uh, this is now the fifth or six or seven times, and then you create some kind of a deadline with a punishment system like you know if if you don’t make this change, you know, then I’m not going to do these things for you anymore on this side. Yeah. So, um and then you have to stick to it to show them that you’re serious. So this is this is one where so when we do worst case scenario urgency with a spouse, we’ve got to be ready to really, really play some, uh, some some tough hot sauce games. [00:45:51.29] spk_0:
So hardball and then stick to it, as you say. All right. All right. Um, something you alluded to. And you said, Well, you’re not sure we’ll have time for it. But this is non profit radio. We don’t We don’t skimp on our listeners. Um, you spent a good amount of time, Uh, took off a few things that that got us here. How did how did we end up with this master of this uncontrolled urgency? How do we all get here? [00:46:12.98] spk_1:
There’s a lot of reasons for it. Probably the the number one reason to just start with the first one on the obvious one. And I’m holding up for you to see it. But our phones thing [00:46:23.79] spk_0:
that you threatened to take away from your child for you [00:48:24.37] spk_1:
threaten to take away from your child what this did. While we love the fact that we can communicate with anybody at any time, anyone else can communicate with us anywhere at any time. So all our natural boundaries of work disappeared as soon as this became part of our life, cause it used to be one day, not too long ago that when you left work, you left work. All the things you did at work were at work. All the filing cabinets, the computers, all the resource is were there. When you went home, you couldn’t work. Now we can work anywhere, anytime. And in many ways Kobe is kind of reinforce that even more so because we’ve had to learn how to do that. So now we go back. Employers know God’s tony can work anywhere, anytime. So therefore, I can call him anytime, anywhere. So our phones broke down natural boundaries. So what’s that? What’s happened is now we all have to set our own boundaries. We have to do that as employers and leaders. We also have to do that with our own leaders on dhe Co workers, um, creating kind of the rules of the game that we’re gonna work for us. So that’s probably the most important. The number one reason, um, the other. There’s many others, but I would say if we even go back to 2000 and 8, 2009, when we had that kind of economic recession, Um, it created a lot of force, a lot of organizations to go very lean, and so they operated with a lot less headcount. It was almost like a fear of adding on too much headcount, cause I don’t wanna have to go through the process of letting people go again. And so it created more work than than a normal full time employees can dio on dhe. That’s I don’t think there’s been one non profit that I’ve worked with. It hasn’t had that as an issue where they said, you know, there’s there’s I’m not working 30 hour weeks or 40 hour weeks and working 60 hour weeks working long hours. There’s more work than anyone of us can do. We don’t have enough people. And so that’s another factor that just created Mawr urgency, because you could never feel like you’re getting ahead like going using an old Seinfeld reference. At one point there was Newman, who was the postal worker, and he said, He said, The mail, it just keeps coming and coming and coming and and and that’s kind of what it’s like a work. It’s like we could never quite get ahead. So, on top of never being able to get ahead and not have enough resource is, you know, there’s no natural boundaries. We could work anywhere, anytime. That’s just that’s created an environment of hot sauce being put on us every day. [00:48:56.57] spk_0:
Hello, Newman. There used to say, Um, cool, you’re in. You’re in Atlanta, right? I am. I’m in Atlanta at Emory University. Uh, is that where you teach? Also, Yeah, [00:49:03.59] spk_1:
I I still teach their adjunct when I’m not out and about in the world working with other folks. I’m still I still there with the business school there in both their executive MBA and their executive education arms. So, yeah, [00:49:32.07] spk_0:
what’s it like to be in in Atlanta? What’s it been like the past month leading up to the January What? What was the January 3rd, 4th, 5th? Something like that election highly unpleasant. What was it like? Yeah, share. Well, why was it unpleasant? [00:50:02.30] spk_1:
Imagine every other commercial being the worst political ad you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Um, that was what was happening on every radio station in every TV station. And the extremism on both sides for for the candidates was just ridiculous. I mean, after watching these commercials, you would say, Well, why are even these people not in jail? It was just just the worst kind of dragging a made up [00:50:03.41] spk_0:
stuff for them are so bad, they [00:50:30.46] spk_1:
and all extreme statements and all my doctor kind of videos and and and none of it, you know, you almost not not only want to throw the candidates in jail if you believe that stuff, but you definitely wanna throw the producers of the commercials in jail because of the way they just butcher any real information. So it was just a lot of really unpleasant angry noise, hard to just keep a positive attitude when there was that much negativity. So that was definitely not a talking about emotion and energy. Um, not a pleasant time. Thio kind of be consuming any kind of media that had any access to political campaigns, which is pretty much all of it [00:50:44.04] spk_0:
amping people up, you know, the, you know, getting to talk about urgency. You know, getting people whipped up into a frenzy over how bad all the other the other candidates are. The other candidate is, I guess, in [00:51:07.16] spk_1:
the Yeah and extreme polarization Extreme polarization s. So then? So then people scratch their heads and wonder why It seems like everybody is so polarized. G How did that happen? Yeah, right. Eso eso I’m glad it’s over. It’s finally quiet. [00:51:18.16] spk_0:
Yeah, Should quiet that right. Alright, Brandon Smith, you’re terrific. Thank you, [00:51:21.37] spk_1:
tony. Thanks for having me on. I really [00:51:56.06] spk_0:
need another conversation today. Genuine pleasure. I did too. Thank you. Thank you very much. The book is the hot sauce principle. How to live and lead in a world where everything is urgent all of the time I got my copy. My, uh, decimated Copy I when I when I get a copy of a book, I the first thing I do is break the spine so that I can open it up and it won’t close on me as I’m reading. I just I like that. And then I could make my notes on the page with out on the right hand page without the left side collapsing on it. So I So I’ve beat up your book. But that’s because I was reading it. It’s [00:51:56.62] spk_1:
to be beat up. I’m glad you did [00:51:58.04] spk_0:
it. I did. All right, Brandon, Thank you again. The folks just just get the book. And, Brandon, thank you so much for sharing, [00:52:06.05] spk_1:
tony. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show. Keep up all the great work. [00:52:55.95] spk_0:
Oh, thank you very much. And you, you as well. Next week, peer to peer fundraising in 2021 with David Hezekiel. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant a free month. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that information. Scotty, be with me. next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
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[00:02:19.14] spk_0:
hello and welcome to 20 martignetti non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95%. I’m your aptly named host of your favorite abdominal podcast. Oh, I’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the effects of vibrio Sys, which is what I should have suffered last week when I missed a pronounced it Mr When I Mr pronounced it vibe Bro Sis, if you infected me with the idea that you missed this week’s show so you know that you’re stuck with a lackluster host, You know, you know this, it’s this is not even news to the most casual listener the hot sauce principle with a catchy book title like that, How could I call the show anything else? The author Brandon Smith shares his wisdom and advice on applying hot sauce in your career and at home. He also reveals how to protect yourself from getting burned. It’s all based on his many years of coaching and consulting with CEO’s leadership teams and boards. Antonis, take two our nation is counting on you were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot CEO and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant for a free demo and a free month. It’s my pleasure to welcome Brandon Smith. He’s the workplace therapist, expert in leadership, communication and cure. Cure of workplace dysfunction. He’s been featured in The Wall Street Journal, fast company, CNN, fox news dot com, NPR, Forbes and many other outlets. His book is The Hot Sauce Principle. How Toe Live and Lead In a world where everything is urgent all of the time and that’s what brings him to non profit radio. He’s at the workplace therapist dot com and at the w P Therapist. What a pleasure. Welcome, Brandon Smith.
Tony. Really glad to be with you today and on your show. [00:02:24.53] spk_0:
Thank you. And it’s a pleasure to have you. And you’ve got all these media credentials fast company, CNN, Fox News. You realize, though, that those have all led you to this moment on non profit [00:02:37.03] spk_1:
moment? All this is the pinnacle. This is all those things got me here today and I’m excited about it. [00:03:04.44] spk_0:
Exactly. This is your you’re zenith your pique your day normal. Uh huh. It’s non profit radio. It’s of your of your exposure. Thio Media is here on non profit radio. So welcome, Thio. The best moment so far. All right, So obvious question. What’s the hot sauce? What’s the hot sauce principal? Lead us into this and then we’ll talk about how folks can employ it to help themselves and their families even. [00:04:03.44] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. So I’m gonna go back in time a little bit. I’m gonna go back five years or so And what was striking me and all the clients I was working with, folks. The non profit space for profit space. It could be university schools, public sector. It could be a big companies, small companies. It didn’t matter. What was true was 22 things. Time was everyone’s most precious resource. It wasn’t money. It was time, and everything felt urgent all the time. And in that world, it was causing us all to operate more like firefighters. And I’m sure your listeners can relate to that experience. And so what hit me was it was like hot sauce. Everyday urgency by itself is like hot sauce and a little bit of hot sauce. I love hot sauce. Frankly, um, you put a little bit on on something that’s bland and adds a little focus, a little flavor, and as interest it gets you concentrating on it. But if everything that comes in on our plates that comes out of the kitchen is covered in hot sauce, the appetizer, the salad, the entree, the brownie, the ice tea, we’re gonna be overwhelmed and curl up in a ball. And that was what so many of the folks that I was working with were experiencing was this feeling of burnout. And so the book really came from that idea of how do we manage the right amount of hot sauce in life, both when we’re leading others or and or when others are kind of guiding us? How do we manage that flow of hot sauce? So it’s it’s adding more interest in focus and not just burning us out. And so that was the impetus for the book, tony. And that’s really the the whole idea behind the concept. [00:04:51.44] spk_0:
Okay, I want to thank you very much for being a guest. Uh, we’re wrapped up. Wait a minute. You told [00:04:58.26] spk_1:
me that interview I’ve ever done in the history of interviews. Tony, [00:05:27.14] spk_0:
we’re having fun, So yes, you talk about uncontrolled urgency, that’s what we’re. That’s what we’re we’re victim of. We’re trying to avoid creating this uncontrolled urgency in our in our lives and our teams. Right? A ZX, you say. Too much hot sauce. It’s no good. It ruins its its ruins. Its impact. It’s not. It’s not interesting and flavorful anymore. Overwhelming and burning and hurting us. [00:05:50.24] spk_1:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s exactly that’s exactly right. So it’s It’s both a byproduct of people stress and anxiety. Right? So, you know, if I’m putting pressure on you to get something done right away, and then you might put that pressure on somebody else that they’re on your team, right? You kind of push it down so it can complement stress. And anxiety can also come just from a simple lack of prioritization. You’re feeling like we’ve got to do everything. Everything is important. [00:05:57.64] spk_0:
Yes. We’re gonna get to the importance of proposition. Yes. And you tell these you you you unravel the mysteries of urgency and the hot sauce through lots of lots of stories opening with Kate, who is, uh, listen, you’ve got to get the book because you gotta hear you got a little stories of Kate and Kate and her boss, uh, the it improves. It ends very nicely, but, uh, it’s a it’s a tough. Especially that opening scene with Kate 5 30 in the morning. Um, that’s rough. It’s It’s hard to read, you know? It makes [00:06:27.93] spk_1:
good. Used to be hard to read. It’s supposed to hurt. Yeah, [00:06:31.09] spk_0:
makes your heart race while, uh, while you’re reading about this one dimensional story. Alright, Um, but we can master this. We can master the urgency we can. We can apply the hot sauce sprinkled appropriately and be of great benefit to ourselves. Our careers, even our families [00:06:49.77] spk_1:
absolutely sure can. Okay, that’s what that’s what the books all about, how to get a master, [00:07:11.34] spk_0:
it. That’s where we are. Um, you talk about good bit about trust and and vulnerability. Expand on that a little bit. And maybe we’ll even say a little more about I love vulnerability. I think vulnerability is a sign of strength, not weakness. To be vulnerable is to be strong. I think not. Not cowardly and weak, but you roll that into trust. Yeah, and and so explain. Explain where you’re coming from with trust and vulnerability and credibility [00:08:01.24] spk_1:
in the in the book. I talk about my trust formula and and And the reason why I talk about it is because if we’re going to create urgency and others, yeah, urgency is a stated discomfort. So you’re intentionally making other folks uncomfortable. You’re taking folks, they’re comfortable and you’re making them uncomfortable on purpose. And that’s advanced leadership stuff. Sometimes we have to do that with our teams. Sometimes we have to do that with our kids. That’s just part of the nature of kind of leading others. Um, and in that moment they’re gonna ask themselves, Do I trust this person enough to allow them to make me feel this way? Which is why trust comes in and it’s so important. We got to start with a foundation of trust. So now I already went back in time. Five years. I’m going back in time a little over 10 years now. So about 10 years ago, I was [00:08:07.48] spk_0:
teaching have a sound effect for time travel that I used once years ago on this show. Maybe I’ll maybe I’ll insert a little [00:08:13.61] spk_1:
need to bring it back would be perfect right now. Time travel music. So So a little over 10 years ago, I was teaching at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, in their business school. I [00:08:22.63] spk_0:
see you’re Emory University diploma on your wall. [00:08:55.74] spk_1:
It’s behind me up. So and I was teaching MBA students and, you know, MBA students typically think in terms of numbers. And I was trying to think of How do you take a concept like trust and make it mathematical? And I ended up coming up with this trust formula. And it’s in the book, and the trust formula is authenticity plus vulnerability in parentheses. Okay, so you got to kind of think about kind of basic math principles, authenticity, plus vulnerability in parentheses and some of that multiplied times. Credibility gets us trust and the reason why I did it that way. Originally, I did it a straight up addition formula authenticity, plus vulnerability plus credibility. But in that version, you could have zero credibility and come out with positive trust. And that’s not how trust work [00:09:07.76] spk_0:
that case. All three are equal, right? [00:10:32.64] spk_1:
Yeah, it’s how it works. And so the reason why I had to put the multiplier in there is because whenever you multiply anything by zero. What do you get? You get 00 Credibility, zero trust. And the same is true on the other side. If authenticity and vulnerability go to zero, you got zero trust. So what we’re saying is you gotta show up is credible, you know, which means you’re reliable, predictable. We could talk more about that. But, you know, you deliver on your expectations, you do what you say you’re gonna dio um, but you also gonna show up as a real human being, which is the authenticity and vulnerability side. You know, you’ll be transparent about your thinking and your motives. That’s authenticity. But vulnerability. You gotta be okay to ask for help, Okay? To say, I don’t have all the answers, okay, to say I was wrong. You were right. Okay. To share a little more about your own personal story and journey with other people. That’s that’s That’s how we build trust. And the good news is you don’t have to be perfect on all those, but you just can’t go to zero. You go to zero and you got problems. So it’s a good reminder for us when we’re sitting in that leader seat and by the way, leader. When I talk about leader, it doesn’t have to be by title. We could be leading appear, leading a donor leading, Ah, volunteer, whether we have a title or not, Um, we’re leading others if we’re trying to influence them. And this is this is how we need to build trust. So then we could be effective in those roles. And part of what makes a non profit space so challenging is sometimes there isn’t really clear role clarity. Sometimes there’s a lot of informal leadership that occurs in that world. And so, you know, making sure we’ve got enough in the trust bank account to be able to do what we need to do effectively is really important. So that gets a little bit of high level overview of the formula. I’m happy to riff in any direction you’d like to go. [00:12:00.14] spk_0:
It’s time for a break. Turn to communications. The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times You wanna be in outlets like that? CBS Market Watch, The Chronicle of Philanthropy Turn two has the relationships with these types of media outlets so that when they’re looking for experts on charitable giving, non profit trends or philanthropy they call Turn to turn two calls you because you’re their client. Turn hyphen two dot ceo. Now back to the hot sauce principle. I I want to talk about using urgency appropriately to help yourself. So not Thio. Help you manage your own work life, maybe even your career. Certainly. If you’re doing this well, you’ll be promoted into leadership. You know, maybe you’re leading one person or something. But but mawr on the individual basis, you know, so using it and then protecting yourself from hot sauce at work. Also from protecting yourself from too much urgency. So that those sort of direction Then we’ll talk about the family. You have some good stories about your three kids. E hope their good. What? Pardon me, but [00:12:06.24] spk_1:
I hope their good usually involves the making fun of dad, which is fun. [00:12:20.64] spk_0:
Exactly. Right? Is there a little private stories? Yes, they’re private laughs. Um, so you talk about eso in with the individual? You talked about having a compelling Why, Yeah, What’s that about? [00:13:57.04] spk_1:
So I think when we talk about for us one of the ways we can create urgency for ourselves At least in our career is have that compelling line that that sense of purpose. Why do we do what we dio and have that to kind of guide our decisions as we choose career opportunities and choose passed forward when we don’t have that sense of why that sense of purpose as we’re making career decisions we tend to default to shiny, shiny could be a shiny title or shiny brand or shiny paycheck? There’s nothing wrong with shiny, but that’s not what we want. The end all be all to be because, like most things that are shiny, the shine wears off pretty fast, and then we’re looking for a new shiny. So when the more we can use purposes were making career decisions that why the better? So that’s a good long term strategy. Now, going back to your comment around how to be urgency in our professional development and careers, a long term strategy would be a y. A short term strategy is, um, set deadlines and create some kind of accountability system. So I will tell you, tony, I’m really proud of this book that you’ve got a chance to read, and we’re talking about here today It took me about four years to write the darn thing, and the first three years was because I was trying to make it a priority. But there was always something that got pushed up higher. So I finally said to myself One day I said, Look, Brandon, this isn’t gonna happen unless you get some help And I went out and I hired a book coach. Her name’s Cathy Feedback, and Kathy has been wonderful because she created urgency for me. She would say, Brandon, you have two weeks Monday at 9 a.m. In two weeks. You owe me Chapter seven and all of a sudden I had a deadline. [00:13:58.63] spk_0:
You know, you don’t want to show up empty handed. [00:14:01.17] spk_1:
Also, it was like it was like I was back in college. I’m sliding the term paper underneath the door at 4 59 right? Um, and so it reminded me of of the of those days, and it gave me deadlines. And you can’t have urgency without deadlines. [00:14:16.64] spk_0:
You say there were two types of urgency your type one and type two that you can use to your benefit those out [00:15:02.94] spk_1:
eso these air particularly effective when you’re trying to create urgency with others, but they could be good with you to, um there’s two kinds worst case scenario and opportunity scenario. So worst case scenarios, like, you know, if I don’t change, you know, I’m going to die or something horrible is gonna happen to me. Yeah, on then. In the best case scenario is, I’ve got this great window of opportunity. And if I hurry now, I can make it in the window. But if I don’t hurry, the window is gonna close, and I’ll miss that opportunity. Maybe that’s a promotion or getting yourself up for promotion or some other opportunity like that. Worst case scenario. A good example of that in, um Anyway, uh is every year when I get close to my annual physical, my kids always know and they give me a hard time. Because about six weeks before my annual physical, I start really working out hard. I start really watching my diet because I’m [00:15:13.40] spk_0:
trying to bring to the doctors. You have to bring down your heart rate, you [00:15:17.13] spk_1:
know? Yeah, I do. All the [00:15:18.23] spk_0:
things you started, your iron level is good. [00:15:21.75] spk_1:
All the things. So then when I get in there? I want the doctor to say, Wow, you look really great. And then I could leave there and immediately go grab, you know, some french fries on the white home. Uh, but that that’s a great example of kind of urgency. That deadline creates urgency for me, right? And then I and then I don’t want to show bad. It’s kind of a little bit of fear factor. So then I I am motivates me. Thio get going. [00:15:42.10] spk_0:
But the only way to keep yourself healthy throughout the years to have, like, eight doctor, eight physical e carry each one carries you six weeks. That success, you know, [00:15:52.12] spk_1:
that would be good. I I could do that. Uh, but but that’s why people use things like accountability partners, accountability partners are, you know, essentially a form of kind of urgency. It’s like, Oh, my gosh, I got a call. I got a call with tony today. At one o’clock, I better make sure I’m ready. So it kind of sets me up for that. You know, you, accountability, partner is another great way you can. You could do that And that you can use that with anything you could be [00:16:17.56] spk_0:
both with. You prepared for this call? Of course I prepared for this, Uh, prepared. I couldn’t tell. I’ve [00:16:21.59] spk_1:
even got a bottle of hot sauce right here. You can see if I’m holding about a bottle [00:16:49.74] spk_0:
of Macallan. Ease Tabasco alright? Yeah, of course I know you’re prepared. Yes. Well, this is all you know. You know this stuff? You’ve been working on it for four years. It’s the combination. This is the day Newman, of your four years. Congratulations. I should have said Congratulations on the book. Thank you. Thank you. Now. So you say in the book this book, you gotta get the book. Um, you can. So you can use these two types together. They don’t. They don’t have to be isolation. You can use them in tandem to motivate yourself. [00:17:42.64] spk_1:
Absolutely. Absolutely. You can. So you know the way that you could do it is you could think about, like, change your disruption is a great way to look at it through both lenses. So, naturally, when change happens, we’re like, Oh, gosh, I hate this. Like, what’s it gonna cost me? You say, Say were part of an organization that’s undergoing a lot of change for lots of reasons. It could be that we’re searching for new funding. Resource is, it could be that we’ve merged with another organization. There could be a lot of reasons why we’re part of change. Well, naturally, the first thing we’re gonna say is Oh, my gosh, I could come out a loser in this. This could be bad for me. So that could be a motivation for me to make sure I’m really working extra hard and positioning myself. But it could also be a kn opportunity. Could be like, Wow. But this is also gonna open up new roles, new opportunities, and And my boss is gonna get promoted. And if I really show, I could do her job, maybe they’ll promote me into that job and then all of a sudden might become a director or whatever the role happens to be. So, you know, change of the great, um, event that occurs to us that we could both look at it from a motivator from you making sure that we’re surviving, but also that we could be thriving and opening up new doors. [00:18:07.14] spk_0:
So your perspective is important whether you view this fearfully or as a challenge and an opportunity. [00:18:45.34] spk_1:
Yeah, and I could be even more concrete. So in 2020 that great year that we love so much change that’s all changed. And so much of my work up to that point was in person, like when I would work with non profit teams, they would ask me to come on site or if I would be speaking engagements and asked me to come on site. Well, naturally, all that went away. But then all of a sudden, people begin to get more comfortable and learn how to do things virtually. And then that created new opportunity. Well, how can I serve the audiences? I want to serve in a different way. So it’s every every change brings opportunity. It’s just looking at it through that way and then and then creating some kind of urgency around it to keep us moving. [00:19:02.94] spk_0:
The one thing I want to quote, I don’t quote often, but just this one little sentence I loved create productive action, not unproductive anxiety, and that that kind of subsumes all the things you’ve been saying in the past several minutes, you know, look at it productively and and opportunistically and I use I don’t use that pejoratively. It all used as as opportunity and not to be unproductive and cause you fear and anxiety. [00:20:27.74] spk_1:
Right? Right, So So let’s talk a little about about that, too, if it’s OK, because urgency urgency is also anxiety. So what I’m prescribing here today is to intentionally put anxiety into the system. E. I wanna be clear, because that’s super, not what people would be thinking right now. They would be thinking, Well, I don’t like anxiety, Brandon, why are you making me ADM? Or but it’s it’s intentionally using it because anxiety in the right doses urgency in the right doses stimulates action. You’ve ever woken up until the night thinking about work. Well, one of the healthier ways to deal with it is to grab a pad of paper and write down the stuff you’re thinking about. So get out of your head or to just get up and start doing work. It stimulates action, so we want to use it so it stimulates us into moving forward. What we don’t want to do is just sit and let it spin in our head and paralyzes. That’s the unproductive anxiety is when we feel paralyzed. We’re not moving because that energy is not going anywhere. It’s just sitting in our head and and one of the ways the healthy ways we eliminate anxiety is either through activity and action, whether that’s doing work or exercise or those kinds of things. Or it could be through meditation and calming our mind. E I could say I was great at the second one. I’m probably not as good at the second orders. I wish I was a little better the first, um, but those air, that’s how we get anxiety to kind of release is either through meditation and prayer or coming our mind or by actually taken action. So this is a way for us to take action and use it productively. [00:21:53.44] spk_0:
And if you’re not being productive at it, then Thio deal with you’re not dealing with it productively. Then you’re talking about releasing your releasing cortisol into your bloodstream and cortisol and adrenaline. These things negative, harmful, um, hormones, cortisol. You know it. Tze that that’s that feeling, that of warmth that you warmth and anxiety you get when you’re waking up at three in the morning thinking about work, and all of a sudden, you know, you get like, this hot flash. These hormones are bad for you. So do something productive. Meditation. Get up and work. Just your notes down like you’re saying. You know everything. I’m just I’m just repeating your wisdom. You know, I’m just like a bulletin board here. You post something on my forehead and then you could read it back or hear it back. That’s all. That’s all you’re talking to. A podcasting bulletin board S o U. All right, let’s move to protecting yourself. When folks were pouring too much hot sauce on you at work, there’s too much urgency. And one of the things you mentioned is prioritization. And you’ve got other tips. You got other ideas strategies to. But let’s start with the one you already mentioned prioritization. How does that help protect you? [00:23:26.74] spk_1:
Yes. So what prioritization allows us to do is eso when we’re talking about prioritization apartment is us prioritizing our own events, our own activities. But more importantly, where this becomes an issue is when our leader or boss shows up and says, Oh, I want you to know no stop doing what you’re doing. I want you to work on this new thing and they keep changing the priorities or they make everything a priority. Then that’s going to create a tremendous amount of anxiety for us. Um, it’s interesting piece of research. About three or four years ago, they asked the question of what’s the worst kind of boss to work for, and I have a clinical therapy background. I thought they were going to come back with the yelling and screaming, angry boss that pounds their fists on the table. That was not number one micromanager. Wasn’t number one ghosting boss wasn’t number one. Number one was the highly unpredictable boss, the one that you never knew what you were going to get on a given day, because that creates a lot of unfocused anxiety. Uh, and so we sometimes get that experience. We have bosses constantly changing priorities or constantly adding a new thing to the plate. So where this is really important is sitting down with your boss and forcing her him to prioritize, basically saying to them, I love all the ideas you’re giving me. What? Or maybe the top three I need to focus on this week and and doing that is proactively and preemptively as you can on then constantly kind of keeping them in the loop on the things you’re working on, um, so that you could be focused so that you could move down a path and you’re not allowing them to add more hot sauce to your plate. [00:23:54.34] spk_0:
At several spots in the book, you give actual language that you can use in an email or in a conversation, you know, acknowledging that there’s a lot of priority and urgency or there’s a lot of urgency and that that it’s important for our success. But for for me to be successful or for our team to be successful, we need Thio prioritized. But you you’re more eloquent. So that’s why you gotta get the book, you know? Yeah, you want the eloquent version, you gotta get [00:24:14.17] spk_1:
the book and you have several statements you can actually use. Yeah, it’s all there for in the in the simple way to do The simple reason why we’re doing that is because if everything is a priority or everything is urgent, we’re just gonna be spinning every day whenever actually gonna make any progress on anything really doesn’t want that, and we don’t want that. So you know, if we could help manage her him a little bit and force them to prioritize it, allow everybody to win Well, actually make progress on dhe. That’ll be more fulfilling for all of us. [00:24:26.94] spk_0:
The ghosting boss. You mentioned that just as an aside, but I don’t know that one. What’s the [00:24:55.34] spk_1:
ghosting boss? It’s so it’s a It’s a common term. When you can’t find a boss, you can’t find a leader. They ghost you. So you know, you’re you’re like, Where are they? Can’t find him like I need this decision made. Well, I thought they were Well, I don’t know where they are on That’s, That’s, um, It isn’t one of the patterns of of less than healthy bosses that I’ve uncovered in my career. The boss you could never find. We need to make a decision. It’s [00:26:48.74] spk_0:
time for Tony’s Take two. Our nation is counting on you. You are among the institutions that the country needs toe have hold the folks who are supporting you, who love you. They don’t want to see you probably even hesitate, let alone end. You’re among the institutions. It’s not only law enforcement and the media and the judiciary and the military. You’re an institution of the United States and the folks who know you and love you. They want your work to continue. You need to continue it. Americans are counting on you, so please keep doing your critical work. Keep your head down. It’s I you know, we all know what we’re going through, but there are folks who are counting on you, and I don’t even just mean that’s annoying. Next time I’ll put my phone on airplane mode like I’m supposed to when I’m recording, and I don’t even just mean the people who you’re serving, if that’s your work and if you’re serving people, I mean your communities. Whoever they are, however they’re comprised. They’re counting on you. You are an institution of the United States. We need you to keep up doing your work. Keep standing for your values. We’re counting on you, and non profit radio is behind you. I’m behind you. That is Tony’s. Take two. Let us return to the hot sauce principle with author Brandon Smith. You can lower the heat as a as a way of managing managing hot sauce and urgency at work. What’s there, [00:27:11.34] spk_1:
Lauren? The heat is another way of saying kind of prioritization. Like what? What is the most urgent here, or when do you need a pie? So you know, if something’s high heat, they’re going to say I need this by tomorrow, or I need this by yesterday. It’s like ghost ghost pepper heat. Okay, if if if you [00:27:15.59] spk_0:
ghost peppers I gather are very hot peppers. Peppers tell a story about ah, video. You watched about hot pepper eating contest. You mentioned Ghost Peppers last. So they must be the most extreme. [00:27:27.95] spk_1:
They are one of the most. I I think there’s, like, a grim Reaper Heat one in like a North Carolina Reaper. That’s ah really really, really bad. Yeah. So scale. Yeah. Yeah. How you measure the hotness of those peppers, [00:27:41.59] spk_0:
e It goes into the tens of thousands. Doesn’t [00:27:44.48] spk_1:
Oh, yeah goes into Yes. Yeah. It could be further than I can handle, tony. That’s all I can tell you. [00:27:51.02] spk_0:
Are you hot pepper eater? I [00:27:52.33] spk_1:
love I love hot sauce And hot. [00:27:53.55] spk_0:
Not just that hot dog. Do you eat the peppers. Do you use the [00:27:55.85] spk_1:
radio? But But I will tell you while I love them, I will. Um I just start dripping and sweat almost immediately. Well, [00:28:02.81] spk_0:
the Grim Reaper scares the hell out of me that I wouldn’t. I just wouldn’t even touch anything. [00:28:07.44] spk_1:
Called. Probably called the thing. I would want to try a [00:28:09.68] spk_0:
food food called the Grim Reaper. [00:29:32.44] spk_1:
Yeah, something I want to try. Um, okay, I think I think the idea of eso it was interesting. I was getting ready to do a talk right before Kobe hit. And I was supposed to be doing going to Vegas. And I was talking to all these auto auto shop owners, 15,000 auto shop owners, and I was going to talk on urgency. These are small business owners and they run their run mechanic shops, take your car to get it fixed. And one of them told me the story is I was going to prepare, and I was interviewing some of them. He said, You gotta watch out for the hero trap. He said, you know, when you jump in and you’re rescuing all the time, um, that’s another way that we perpetuate urgency because we’re always rescuing each other. That’s a real common were kind of relational orientation, we sometimes holding the non profit space because we’re such close teams that sometimes we could end up rescuing each other. It can perpetuate a lot of urgency on Then. He also added, He said, You also have to be real careful. You don’t over promise when you don’t need Thio And you gave the example. He said, You know, you might have a customer come in And, uh Mr and Mrs Jones and they come in and they’ve got a problem with the car and you promised to get him to the car by the end of the day. Um, and all of a sudden, by making that promise, you made it urgent. Well, they never said they needed it by the end of the day. Maybe they’re going out of town for the weekend, and they’re not going to need it till next Tuesday. But you didn’t ask him that. You just promised by the end of the day, all of a sudden creating urgency that didn’t need to be there. So hero traps and making promises that we don’t need to make our always that we inadvertently create more urgency in our life that we probably [00:29:42.34] spk_0:
need to We could just say no. [00:29:44.14] spk_1:
Oh, yes, you could. Yes, you could. Uh, that’s a really, really hard thing to Dio. [00:29:50.74] spk_0:
You have it in the book. [00:30:27.04] spk_1:
I know it’s really, really hard thing to Dio, and I will tell you it’s hard for all of us in general. But you can’t be strategic whether you’re talking about your own career or you’re talking about your organization. If you can’t say no and I and I will say working with in the non profit space, its’s one of the more challenging things because no often means we’re shutting down a program or service or some kind of way. We’re helping others, and that’s really hard. We love to start up a new one, but that often means we got to prove something that it’s so hard because it’s like a baby to us and, you know, and that’s doing something in the world that is meaningful to us. But learning how to say no is really important, a ZX. We try, navigate the urgency and and sending boundaries. So in another way, we could say this is all about setting healthy boundaries in life [00:30:41.64] spk_0:
boundaries. Yes, let’s talk about boundaries and the importance of enforcing them. [00:30:48.64] spk_1:
Yeah, so it’s one. So I think you may. You hidden on something really important just by the way you said it. It’s one thing to say what your boundaries are. It’s another thing to actually uphold them. [00:30:54.74] spk_0:
I got that idea from you. [00:32:53.14] spk_1:
Tell you, tony, it’s hard for me to I’ll give you Ah, great example. I know for my life. My rhythm that works best is when I do all my work, which is typically a lot of coaching, a lot of like cons, therapy sessions. A lot of that. We’re working with teams intensely doing that between 94 every day because it’s pretty emotionally draining work. And then I used the time before nine to do administrative stuff in the time after four to do administrative stuff. Well, they’re caught a point towards the end of last year where I was having a lot of demands on my calendar, so I told my wonderful assistant Nancy, I said Nancy, let’s go ahead and open up 88 to 9. Let’s open up 4 to 5. So she did. And she did a wonderful job of booking me down to the minute. I mean, I was I was just, like, 30 minute calls back to back to back to back to back, back, No room for lunch. I mean, I was just going all the way through and about two weeks of that, I realized I was burned out. I stretched too far, and it was causing me to have ah, lot of anxiety and just stress in my life. So I went back to Nancy and said, All right, Nancy, we gotta go back to 94 because this is not working for me. Well, the next time she scheduled a meeting at four o’clock, I had a choice. In that moment, I could have just accepted it and said, Well, Nancy is looking out for the best. My interest And there was no other place. I’ll just take it or I could say no, I set the boundary. I gotta I gotta push back on that. Yeah, and there’s a part of me that said, You know, I could just I’ll just do it. It’s not gonna be a big deal. One time just one time. But if I do that one time now, I just told her that’s really not a firm line. So I had I had to send an email and copy Nancy and said, I’m sorry, Nancy. This time is not gonna work. It’s after four o’clock. She was your apologized profusely. But that’s that’s important to us in life. When people, you know get when we send a boundary, we’ve got to make sure we hold it. If we tell our boss we’re not gonna be available after seven o’clock at night because we spend time having dinner and putting our kids to bed. Well, we gotta stick to that way. Whatever boundaries we set, we gotta we gotta hold. [00:32:59.44] spk_0:
We’re gonna get to the family. But let’s let’s turn it over to Brandon. What? What would you like to talk about? Hot sauce. Principal related. That I haven’t asked you yet. We’ll get to the family. But what would you like to talk about? [00:33:20.84] spk_1:
You know, I think when we were talking about this show today, part of the angry, willing to take with professional growth and development, how to help people kind of grow in their careers and and really become amazing kind of rock stars in [00:33:35.58] spk_0:
there and and thank you for reinforcing for listeners that we do talk in advance. This show is prepared. It doesn’t just come together slapdash. That’s prepared because there’s none of the stuff With the lackluster host was a mere bulletin board, you know, they may think that’s just you know, you and I talked like 20 minutes ago, and here you are, but does not like that. It’s not like so thank you for reinforcing, for validating unsolicited. Thank you. Thank you very [00:34:42.64] spk_1:
much. Of course. So I wanna it ties in what we’ve been talking about a little bit about even managing urgency. One of the best things you can dio that will help not only set boundaries, manage your time, but also, um, please your leader that you’re supporting is to be really, really clear up front on expectations. If you can clarify expectations, not only your expectations, but your bosses expectations you can prevent 50% of all work related people dysfunction. So imagine that 50% of all people related dysfunction at work goes away. Yeah, managing expectations by clarifying expectations on dhe When we don’t do that, we allow people to guess, and inevitably they’ll guess wrong and someone gets upset. So if you’ve ever had a family member get upset Thanksgiving, it was probably because somebody didn’t clarify expectations with her [00:34:46.17] spk_0:
him. Guess, Guess to your disadvantage. [00:35:25.24] spk_1:
Yeah, they came in thinking one thing. It didn’t meet their expectations. They threw a big temper tantrum, and all of sudden, Thanksgiving wasn’t quite so happy. Well, the same thing is true work. So one of the simplest, um, activities. But the most important is make sure you’re regularly clarifying expectations with your leader. And when you do that, you also are forcing them to manage their urgency because you’re not allowing them to just operate like they’re suffering from a d. D. Every day because you’re forcing them to set priorities. You’re forcing them to tell you what matters. Um, and then you allows you a way to kind of follow up with them s Oh, that’s so I would say that’s a really important thing we haven’t talked about yet. That is a great career strategy. [00:35:49.74] spk_0:
Okay, cool. Cool. Um, so how about we talk a little about family and home okay. Using this, uh, sprinkling some hot sauce. Appropriately. You like thio prayer? You get sort of a 90 10 rule. Talk about prioritizing the 90% of the 10% at home. [00:38:00.72] spk_1:
Yeah. So for lots of reasons that we probably don’t have time to go into today, Um, what has happened in, particularly if we’ve got kiddos growing up right now is that everything seems to be urgent all the time. They’re travel sports team makes acts as if that’s the most highest priority. Their teachers act like everything that they’re doing in that class is their highest priority. There’s a lot of pressure on kids demands and our demands. His parents, um and and then, of course, there’s all those volunteer activities that are coming our way. And as everyone on this call knows also well, Andi, all too well that it’s the people who are the volunteers that got asked. The Vulcan volunteered the most, right. The person who’s volunteering three or four places is being asked to volunteer for five places, get things done, tap on the people that get things done, and we keep tapping on them, right? And so all those were demands So I want you to imagine, like, a hub and spoke. You’re in the middle, and all these things are spokes coming into you. Okay? And if we don’t prioritize, they’re all gonna feel equal. Travel Baseball is gonna feel just as equal as replacing the air conditioner. Our house, it’s broken. It’s all gonna feel equal. And so we need to create that rather than have been spoke. Um, circles we need, like, a bull’s eye. We need the circle of the stuff. That’s 10% attend the focus of our time, that is our family is that stuff that we don’t ever want to compromise. And and that’s however you define it. That might be time having dinner every night with your family, Or might be time on on Sundays where you connect with relatives or whatever happens to be or or time where you exercise. It’s time you never want to compromise on using that old analogy. If you put the big rocks in first pit those big rocks in first there are smaller rocks and then our sand last. So putting those in first and then you allow the other things toe other things to come in when we when we’re not intentional, we we become reactive and we allow other people’s urgency to become our problem. And so then we re re we react just because we’re essentially playing tennis with things that come our way. You know, we want out of our court. So we hit back in the other court. But we’ve got to make sure we’re attention about putting the important stuff in. First. [00:38:05.62] spk_0:
The family health. Your partner? Exactly. Exactly. So. [00:38:37.12] spk_1:
I mean, there’s no there’s no right or wrong answer to that. But those are the categories you already listed. Some really important categories are our relationship with our significant other our family, our health, Um, rest rest is really important. Making sure you’re getting enough sleep. Doctors used to say seven hours was the target. Now they’ve moved it up to eight. They want all of us having at least eight hours of sleep that’s going to be protected, Um, a time down time for us to wind down just those things that are important to our rhythm and pace of life. So we always show up at our best. [00:38:55.72] spk_0:
You got some other ideas, like delegating in the family or delegating in the home? Um, outsourcing. Yeah, you got some other ideas, you say No, you could say no at home, too. [00:39:25.22] spk_1:
You could say no at home. Out. So you mentioned outsourcing for folks that don’t know what that means. Outsourcing is a fancy way of saying, What’s the stuff that happened? I do during the week or on the weekends that I’d really rather use that time doing something else. And I can pay someone to do that for me. So maybe that’s mowing your lawn. Or maybe that’s your dry cleaning. Or maybe once a month, you have somebody come in and do a good once over into your apartment or your house. Um, it’s just finding those activities that you would rather not spend your free time on. Andi. There’s more higher and best use of your time until you find folks that could maybe support you in that so you could be using your time the way you really want. [00:40:40.41] spk_0:
Thio Time for our last break. Quote. There’s nothing as simple as dot drives. Our executive team meets once per week to sit down and go through our dot drives pipelines. It’s fun to watch them have a healthy dialogue and to see them get excited about their numbers rising toward their goals. That drives has allowed us to take those key relationships and bring them to a deeper level. End quote. That’s Wendy Adams, director of donor engagement at Patrick Henry. Family Service is prospect to donor. Simplified. Get their free demo For listeners, there’s also a free month. It’s all on the listener landing page at tony dot Emma slash dot We’ve got but loads more time for the hot sauce principle. Now I’m the guy who does not have Children, but you could, UH, it seems, if you did have those those child units you could delegate absolutely could absolutely could. That’s the reason for raising them. Thio. Manual labor age you have. If you are smart, you’re doing that. You can see why I don’t have Children because e economic units, [00:41:57.61] spk_1:
I I will tell you, and it’s just like with delegating at work, right, because what happens is we delegated work. We see ourselves, you know, it’s so much easier if I just do it myself because the first couple times this person does it, it’s gonna be slow. It’s not gonna be good. But if you go and invest that time, then pretty soon they’re doing it without you in my house. What that has taken the form of tony is laundry. So I’ve got my oldest. She’s now Ah, freshman in college and I’ve got two boys and teenagers. They all do their own laundry. Okay, there were many, many, many a casualty in the process. Tony the girls Lulu lemon workout pants got shrunk down to doll size on more than one occasion. Lots of lots of casualties. But now everybody knows everybody knows how to do laundry. They know how to do their own laundry and they even know how to do other people’s laundry. So my boys know if it’s girls workout pants, we’re not gonna dry those. We’re gonna hang them and they hang them and they’re doing all the laundry. Well, I’m not and and so absolutely. But there is. I want to acknowledge the fact that there’s, Ah, there’s there’s just like anything delegation. There’s a learning curve that [00:42:07.10] spk_0:
happens, right? You sounded make it sound pretty good. Maybe I should have had Children after all. E, think of the time I [00:42:11.22] spk_1:
started about. It’s not a banking, although they end up with once they get to become teenagers, they end up with very creative nicknames for you. [00:42:24.40] spk_0:
Oh, nice. Yeah. You see, that’s the But I wouldn’t be able to handle the, uh, mom and dad are stupid stage after everything I’ve done for you for the past 15. 16 years. Now, you could You think I’m ignorant and embarrassing? I wouldn’t be able to. My ego couldn’t handle it. [00:42:33.38] spk_1:
It gets more creative than that. So you’re you’re seeing me. Your listeners aren’t seeing me. But what my kids like to call me now is they said one of my many nicknames is off brand Obi Wan Kenobi. [00:42:43.70] spk_0:
All right. You’re all white. Your beard in your hair. Always [00:42:46.10] spk_1:
all white looking. So I kind of look like Alec Guinness from the original New Hope Star Wars A little bit. Yeah, they say, but I’m off brand like I’m like the cheapo versions. I’m like the dollar general version of Obi Wan Kenobi. OK, Cie creative created insults, [00:43:10.90] spk_0:
creative, insulting. Yeah, Yeah, I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. Um and so All right, you can Let’s let’s just round up this family. This home family discussion with how you could turn up the hot sauce. Turn up the urgency a little bit to your to your benefit at home. [00:44:02.99] spk_1:
Yeah, so turning up the urgency is necessary as your raising any kind of fully formed adult is trying to get them to realize, Um, sometimes they’re too comfortable. And most parents probably had the experience where you you walk into your kid’s room and you told them two or three times that they need to clean their room and you go in and they’re laying on the bed and the room is filthy and they’re watching some show on their phone. They’re too comfortable. So we use urgency to create a healthy state of discomfort. So you say I want your room clean. You have two hours to get a clean. If you don’t have a clean, that phone is mine for a week. That’s a form of urgency. Yeah, we’re setting a deadline. We’re ramping up the hot sauce, and we’re giving kind of a worst case scenario. If they don’t do it, [00:44:16.49] spk_0:
what about with spouse or partner? Can we can we go there is that you don’t mention you. Don’t mention that the book. But you got me thinking about it now because well, you [00:44:22.61] spk_1:
can. You can You can. You wanna be real careful on that. [00:44:25.50] spk_0:
Yeah, let’s talk about it. Sounds like fun. [00:45:35.79] spk_1:
Sounds like Fine. Uh, this is playing with fire. So the easier one with the spouse and partner is opportunity scenario Thio. You create some kind of reward system like, Hey, honey, let’s do like, a workout challenge and let’s see what if we could hit this goal in six months? And if we do, let’s reward ourselves with a trip to Hawaii. So that’s a form of opportunity scenario. Like, can we work out together, support each other, create pressure with some measurable goals with a reward at the end? Yeah, Zed, that’s happy stuff Now, when you might want to use hot sauce on. The worst case scenario is when you’ve been asking your significant other to do certain things, um, that you feel like are reasonable. And then, uh, this is now the fifth or six or seven times, and then you create some kind of a deadline with a punishment system like you know if if you don’t make this change, you know, then I’m not going to do these things for you anymore on this side. Yeah. So, um and then you have to stick to it to show them that you’re serious. So this is this is one where so when we do worst case scenario urgency with a spouse, we’ve got to be ready to really, really play some, uh, some some tough hot sauce games. [00:45:51.29] spk_0:
So hardball and then stick to it, as you say. All right. All right. Um, something you alluded to. And you said, Well, you’re not sure we’ll have time for it. But this is non profit radio. We don’t We don’t skimp on our listeners. Um, you spent a good amount of time, Uh, took off a few things that that got us here. How did how did we end up with this master of this uncontrolled urgency? How do we all get here? [00:46:12.98] spk_1:
There’s a lot of reasons for it. Probably the the number one reason to just start with the first one on the obvious one. And I’m holding up for you to see it. But our phones thing [00:46:23.79] spk_0:
that you threatened to take away from your child for you [00:48:24.37] spk_1:
threaten to take away from your child what this did. While we love the fact that we can communicate with anybody at any time, anyone else can communicate with us anywhere at any time. So all our natural boundaries of work disappeared as soon as this became part of our life, cause it used to be one day, not too long ago that when you left work, you left work. All the things you did at work were at work. All the filing cabinets, the computers, all the resource is were there. When you went home, you couldn’t work. Now we can work anywhere, anytime. And in many ways Kobe is kind of reinforce that even more so because we’ve had to learn how to do that. So now we go back. Employers know God’s tony can work anywhere, anytime. So therefore, I can call him anytime, anywhere. So our phones broke down natural boundaries. So what’s that? What’s happened is now we all have to set our own boundaries. We have to do that as employers and leaders. We also have to do that with our own leaders on dhe Co workers, um, creating kind of the rules of the game that we’re gonna work for us. So that’s probably the most important. The number one reason, um, the other. There’s many others, but I would say if we even go back to 2000 and 8, 2009, when we had that kind of economic recession, Um, it created a lot of force, a lot of organizations to go very lean, and so they operated with a lot less headcount. It was almost like a fear of adding on too much headcount, cause I don’t wanna have to go through the process of letting people go again. And so it created more work than than a normal full time employees can dio on dhe. That’s I don’t think there’s been one non profit that I’ve worked with. It hasn’t had that as an issue where they said, you know, there’s there’s I’m not working 30 hour weeks or 40 hour weeks and working 60 hour weeks working long hours. There’s more work than anyone of us can do. We don’t have enough people. And so that’s another factor that just created Mawr urgency, because you could never feel like you’re getting ahead like going using an old Seinfeld reference. At one point there was Newman, who was the postal worker, and he said, He said, The mail, it just keeps coming and coming and coming and and and that’s kind of what it’s like a work. It’s like we could never quite get ahead. So, on top of never being able to get ahead and not have enough resource is, you know, there’s no natural boundaries. We could work anywhere, anytime. That’s just that’s created an environment of hot sauce being put on us every day. [00:48:56.57] spk_0:
Hello, Newman. There used to say, Um, cool, you’re in. You’re in Atlanta, right? I am. I’m in Atlanta at Emory University. Uh, is that where you teach? Also, Yeah, [00:49:03.59] spk_1:
I I still teach their adjunct when I’m not out and about in the world working with other folks. I’m still I still there with the business school there in both their executive MBA and their executive education arms. So, yeah, [00:49:32.07] spk_0:
what’s it like to be in in Atlanta? What’s it been like the past month leading up to the January What? What was the January 3rd, 4th, 5th? Something like that election highly unpleasant. What was it like? Yeah, share. Well, why was it unpleasant? [00:50:02.30] spk_1:
Imagine every other commercial being the worst political ad you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Um, that was what was happening on every radio station in every TV station. And the extremism on both sides for for the candidates was just ridiculous. I mean, after watching these commercials, you would say, Well, why are even these people not in jail? It was just just the worst kind of dragging a made up [00:50:03.41] spk_0:
stuff for them are so bad, they [00:50:30.46] spk_1:
and all extreme statements and all my doctor kind of videos and and and none of it, you know, you almost not not only want to throw the candidates in jail if you believe that stuff, but you definitely wanna throw the producers of the commercials in jail because of the way they just butcher any real information. So it was just a lot of really unpleasant angry noise, hard to just keep a positive attitude when there was that much negativity. So that was definitely not a talking about emotion and energy. Um, not a pleasant time. Thio kind of be consuming any kind of media that had any access to political campaigns, which is pretty much all of it [00:50:44.04] spk_0:
amping people up, you know, the, you know, getting to talk about urgency. You know, getting people whipped up into a frenzy over how bad all the other the other candidates are. The other candidate is, I guess, in [00:51:07.16] spk_1:
the Yeah and extreme polarization Extreme polarization s. So then? So then people scratch their heads and wonder why It seems like everybody is so polarized. G How did that happen? Yeah, right. Eso eso I’m glad it’s over. It’s finally quiet. [00:51:18.16] spk_0:
Yeah, Should quiet that right. Alright, Brandon Smith, you’re terrific. Thank you, [00:51:21.37] spk_1:
tony. Thanks for having me on. I really [00:51:56.06] spk_0:
need another conversation today. Genuine pleasure. I did too. Thank you. Thank you very much. The book is the hot sauce principle. How to live and lead in a world where everything is urgent all of the time I got my copy. My, uh, decimated Copy I when I when I get a copy of a book, I the first thing I do is break the spine so that I can open it up and it won’t close on me as I’m reading. I just I like that. And then I could make my notes on the page with out on the right hand page without the left side collapsing on it. So I So I’ve beat up your book. But that’s because I was reading it. It’s [00:51:56.62] spk_1:
to be beat up. I’m glad you did [00:51:58.04] spk_0:
it. I did. All right, Brandon, Thank you again. The folks just just get the book. And, Brandon, thank you so much for sharing, [00:52:06.05] spk_1:
tony. My pleasure. Thanks for having me on the show. Keep up all the great work. [00:52:55.95] spk_0:
Oh, thank you very much. And you, you as well. Next week, peer to peer fundraising in 2021 with David Hezekiel. If you missed any part of this week’s show, I beseech you find it at tony-martignetti dot com were sponsored by turn to communications, PR and content for nonprofits. Your story is their mission. Turn hyphen two dot ceo and by dot drives Prospect to donor. Simplified tony-dot-M.A.-slash-Pursuant a free month. Our creative producer is Claire Meyerhoff Shows social Media is by Susan Chavez. Mark Silverman is our web guy. And this music is by Scott Stein. Thank you for that information. Scotty, be with me. next week for non profit radio big non profit ideas for the other 95% go out and be great.
