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VoiceAmerica 0:04
One problem facing people at many levels of business is how to make time for a work life and a personal life. Do you find that one seems to keep getting in the way of the other? This is the work life balance with Rick Morris. Even if you're not involved in the business world, you'll have a lot to gain by tuning into today's show. Now, here's your host, Rick Morris.
Rick A. Morris 0:26
And welcome everybody to another Friday edition of the work life balance. We're back live we were off last week for the July 4 holiday but hopefully you enjoyed the replay. And we're back live with you today. We've got a great guest today is a USA Today best selling author and publisher at wannabe press. He's written comic books like Katrina hates the dead Ichabod Jones Monster Hunter, and pixie dust along with more than a dozen novels, including his Gods first Chronicles. He also has a very entertaining newsletter which you can join it will actually give you the link but the link into our show notes but it's Russell nulty dot com slash mail and that space spelled no h e l t y for naughty and you can get a few of his books for free there lives in Los Angeles with his wife and dogs. Let's bring him on to the show. Russell, how you doing, brother? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Thanks for having me, man. It just joining the show and lending some of this productivity talk to us. So I'm a project manager by trade, my job is to help companies become more efficient. So in reading kind of the description that we wanted to talk about, in one of the big things you were talking about is productivity and work life balance. Let's start with saying you've got three businesses. You said you've written 19 novels, hosted a podcast with over 175 episodes and you do that all within an eight hour day. What are what are some of the businesses that you that you run?
Russell Nohelty 1:43
Right, so I run a publishing company you talked about one of the press. I own a Verizon dealership that does b2b work, and I am a as well as a training academy called the complete creative marketing agency that is part of the complete creative and then I am myself an author, I write four books a year, at least usually it's more like six or eight books a year, one year was 18 bucks a year as the well as I was going from show to show for many years. So I would spend about 20 or 20 weeks on the road. And I still able to do most of my work within that eight hour day, and really most of the work that I needed to get done within five hours.
Rick A. Morris 2:25
And so when you the books that you're writing, they're more fiction novels, or
Russell Nohelty 2:29
Yeah, I've written two nonfiction novels, the how to build your creative career, and then how to become a successful author, as well as little over 400 blog posts on my website, that complete creative, but most of what I do is fiction work and most of that within fantasy and most of that within mythological fantasy and fairy tales.
Rick A. Morris 2:52
So when we start to talk about, you know, productivity, I think time is the great equalizer. The one thing everybody has the same The same 24 hours in a day. It's how we utilize and how we prioritize those hours, you know, each day that really can drive somebody from being successful or unsuccessful. So what is one of the biggest things that people get wrong about productivity,
Russell Nohelty 3:14
that doing more things means that you are going to be moving closer and closer to your goal. So the absolute biggest mistake that people make is saying that they're busy, which means they're productive 99.9% of the time, that is inaccurate, you can do more with I can do more with one hour a day than most people can with 12
Rick A. Morris 3:38
and says that the old adage, activity doesn't equal achievement.
Russell Nohelty 3:41
Absolutely. I mean, the problem is that when you're doing all sorts of stuff, maybe I should step back for a second and tell you a story about my own success as a creator. So I started working full time as a creator in 2015 after I left my job in June, And I did not expect to leave my job in June. So I was working really, really, really hard. I was doing conventions. I was doing appearances. I was like basically, burning the candle at both ends working 18 hours a day, and I was getting nowhere fast. And so November came, and suddenly all of the companies that I worked for shut down conventions don't really happen in December. Kickstarter doesn't happen in December, which are my two biggest drivers. businesses tend to not switch to Verizon in December. They they're like kind of like off for six weeks. I also work in movies and TV, they're off of that time. So kind of everything came to a screeching halt at once. And I thought it was horrible. I thought it was like the worst thing that could possibly happen. But not having the ability to do work made me realize How unproductive I was. And I started looking back at the last five months of my life and being like, wow, I was doing a lot of stuff that did not actually move me forward, I was promoting a lot of books that weren't actually making a good return for me, I was going to a lot of conventions that weren't doing or giving me a good return. I was just, I was doing so many things that felt productive, but were actually quite unproductive,
Rick A. Morris 5:31
and good.
Russell Nohelty 5:32
And so being able to cut all those things out, just like and free focus on the few things that really worked and double down on that made me so much more productive to follow.
Rick A. Morris 5:44
So there's a parallel with what's going on right now in terms of COVID and the shutdowns and, you know, I think it's a great time for a lot of people to start to recognize the distractions that they do allow in their life. I mean, you've especially if you've got, you know, children and parents and there's ballgames and There's all these after school activities that you're shuttling back and forth to. And all of these distractions kind of went away. Right? And people are now kind of forced to be, you can only look at Facebook for so long before you you start to go, Wait a minute, I've got to get up and get something done. So what how do you take that personal inventory and start to decide what is the more productive? Do you have a formula that you use for that or
Russell Nohelty 6:21
I wouldn't say a formula, but I definitely have a process that I use. So productivity is sort of Do you know the one thing by Gary Keller and Ts, okay, so I live by the one thing kind of not the whole book, but just the concept of like, there's one guiding light at the top of this, of this pyramid of where I'm trying to get to, and it is the 20 foot Domino. So he uses the word the big Domino in the book and a lot of the training so if you don't know the big if you go on YouTube and you look up, like 10 foot Domino falling over, you will see this video of A 10 foot Domino followed by a five foot Domino followed by a two foot Domino. And all the way back to this. It's like a tiny, tiny one inch Domino, and they tip it over, and the one inch Domino tips over the two inch and four inch and eight inch. And eventually this one inch Domino pushes over this 10 foot massive Domino. And in the same way, that's how I think of being productive. So, so there's a guiding light at the top, which is that one big Domino, and then underneath it, there is all of these little things that you have to do to push that boulder over and to push the one inch, one inch Domino, and then the two inch Domino and the three inch Domino and each of these stages sort of form a pyramid underneath each other. So there's tons of these little things that have to tip over for you to be able to move to the to two inch stage and then the four inch stage and the eight inch stage and each stage gets progressively harder and harder and harder and harder. And maybe you don't even know everything that needs to happen for each stage. But you have to This sort of way to say this is the big Guiding Light. And these are all of the pieces underneath it. And so step one is really taking inventory of what you want that one Domino to be. Now, it doesn't have to be success in your career, it could be losing weight, could be running a marathon, running a marathon is a really good one, like giving it as an example, because we all can imagine all of the things that have to do with each stage, right? If you have a marathon, you've got to probably run a half marathon. And then you've got to run like a five K. And then you've got to run maybe a 10 k in there. And then you've got to like be able to run a mile, you've got to be able to run around your block. But before any of that can happen. You have to buy shoes, you have to buy like good shoes, you have to train your knees and you have to like probably do some strength training help you have to just get back to the gym and like you have to like run just step on a treadmill one time and you've got to maybe walk for some time before then and you've got to get time to run. Or maybe you have to change your whole daily schedule to like, be able to get up at 5am instead of 8am. There are all these things that go into running a marathon. And the nice thing about planning out all of these little steps is you can celebrate each step along the way. Every single time you hit one of these goals, it's not just this one thing, it's all these other littler dominoes as well. So step one is kind of figuring out what this one thing is. Step two is spending the next week taking inventory of every single thing that you do. And then when you have that, you want to do two things. You want to rank it on a one to five scale of what I've how of how important it is right now to your life. So for instance, if you're if you have a baby, breastfeeding is pretty important right now or like making sure that kid that kid like has food is real immortal. right now. But then you also want to say how important it is to your goal at the end of the day. And you're going to find some things that like, Look, feeding your kid may not be as important to running a marathon. But it's really important to just being alive. So there's going to be things that are fives and things that are ones like that, then then it's going to be things that are fives and fives. But there's going to be a lot of things that are unimportant to your life now, and unimportant to your goal. And knowing all of those things are how you start to become more productive because those things that are like, this is really not important. And this is not important to my goal are going to be the first things that you have to jettison.
Rick A. Morris 10:46
So I love the big Domino illustration. But when you when you lost your job in June and you said you weren't expecting that. Did you know what the big Domino was then?
Russell Nohelty 10:57
For me that big Domino became making this clear. Company work so I never have to have another job again.
Rick A. Morris 11:04
You You knew that at that point when when. So you already had want to be started. Right and you lost your job in June.
Russell Nohelty 11:12
Yeah, I was about 18 months before I thought it would actually get to the place where I could do it successfully. Interestingly, it took me about 18 months later, almost to the day,
Rick A. Morris 11:22
I had had my breakthrough time, but I did have that big Domino before I left, but I was not ready to leave when I left. Sure sure the timing gap you're always like, if I have X amount in the bank, I'm ready to go and those types of things. But fortunately, the same same thing for me is I was running a company was president of a company they actually just unexpectedly went bankrupt the the numbers that I had the numbers he had, were not the same. So you spending money out of the backside and literally left on a Friday opened up my own consulting shop on a Monday. Sometimes I feel like you need that push in order to really kind of double down and get focused so help What would you advice would you give to people then who don't know what the big Domino is yet? Or is playing that same timing gap? They're they're dabbling here dabbling, they're saying that they want to leave this job or have their own thing, but not quite getting there yet. Do you have advice for them?
Russell Nohelty 12:16
Yes. So most of I think most of us are better than most consultants give us credit for them credit for at knowing the pain point, like knowing like what they want to do, and knowing like where they're struggling. And so I think they need to lean into that. My first, my first thing I tell them is they need to take a day off just the need to take a day to really think about what that Domino is like, what they think is possible, and what they really, really, really want. And really envision it and think about actually having it and what it would mean to them to have it and then spend the next week as we talked about getting really specific on to the What things are really driving them forward to that goal now, and what lights them up, which of the things that they really, really are putting fives on are the things that light them up, and then turning them towards that and not telling them to leave their job just like try and do a little bit more of that every single day and see how you feel doing.
Rick A. Morris 13:24
And so one big piece of advice I give in that same scenario is it's not always, when you ask people what they want, the first thing they do is list all the things they don't want to do is make sure that we're focusing on what you want to do not. I don't want to have to worry about bills. I don't want to work at this job anymore. I don't want to answer to it. But okay, those are the things you don't want. What is it that you want in order to be able to focus on that? So we're going to take a break right here, we'll come back we're meeting with Russell nulty and talking about productivity and you're listening to the work life balance requires
VoiceAmerica 14:00
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency and project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software? In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that software. r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment. Visit r squared consulting.com. Today
from the boardroom to you, voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at r Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 15:46
And we're back on this Friday edition of the work life balance we're visiting with Russell nulty and Russell is a Oh do you own it? Do you don't want to be presser do? I do? Yeah. So we were just talking before the break about identifying that one. thing we talked about Domino's. But you said during the Domino's though that we've got to identify all these little things and figure out what we need to tip over. Do you have advice in how do you get started in that activity?
Russell Nohelty 16:11
Sure. So it's, it's quite hard to know all of the little things that you do and all of the little pieces that you do. So I like to break it up into three sections. So I'm going to take work for instance, like we can, you can, there's analogs and home, but like I'm going to what's the easiest to think of this is like in work. So I like to think of admin tasks that you do what work as being worth $5. So when I say $5, I mean, you could outsource it to a place in another country or even in America. And this could be done by very many people entry level work. Or you could get an intern to like do your data entry, all of these things. These are the things that are the biggest ones. weigh the biggest part of weighing down your productivity. Because you're doing these tasks, they tend to take a long time and be kind of mindless, and you don't usually mind doing them. So you just continue to do them. But it's important to note that like, anybody can do these tasks in order to be more productive. And in order to like, even if you just want to move to the next level of your career in your, in your company, you need to get out of doing these tasks as quickly as humanly possible because they are actually not valuable to you, they may be very valuable to the company. You know, doing data spreadsheets and X, Y and Z other things are very important for a company to function, but they are not important for you specifically to do. Does that make sense? Right, absolutely. Okay, so the next part of this is $50 tasks. The $50 task is you as a technician in your company in your zone of genius. So for me that's writing that might be it It might be doing plumbing, it might be a whole, a whole host of other things, but it is you, whatever your job is, it's like you being the technician and really being able to like, show your experience. And then there's $500 counts, then technically 5005 50,500 thousand $5 million an hour tasks, they goes way up. But the three that are really the most important 550 and $500 $500 an hour cast are the strategic things that you're doing to leap forward in your industry. So this might be strategic partnerships that you're making. This might be initiatives that you're launching new projects that you're that you're putting together, things that you're like, like products that you found that you're going to start that you're going to start working on. All sorts of things that are not technician level pieces, they're sort of strategic partnership pieces that are actually going to move you to the next level. Because the thing is generally technician parts of, of the world. They're not marketing, there's no marketing behind them, it's just you doing the work. So this is sort of the marketing and strategic planning, and things that are going to pull you to be known by more people to be a powerhouse in your industry to be a thought leader in the industry to be to be put on conferences to be put in, to be put on on panels, to be able to go on podcasts to be able to, like, increase the reach of what the kind of people that you that, that you go, that that you that you're reaching out to. And it's important to note that you can do this on a on a on a country level. You can do this on a state level. You can do this on a city level. You can do this even in your neighborhood level like these can be done by local shops. This can be done by people that work at any level of this. It's just the strategic partners. This is the part that you really want to get to because this is how you get to The next level of your career because more people are going to know you like you trust you, and then work with you and allows you that technician work more till I would charge more for that technician work, and maybe even get you out of the technician work and you can hire someone out for that other work. But those are how I sort of think about those tasks are, these are the ones that I can outsource easily. These are the ones I'm known for. These are how I've been, these are how I'm positioning myself and my company to move to the next level.
Rick A. Morris 20:33
And so then once you've got those identified, how do you build a plan of attack to execute him?
Russell Nohelty 20:38
Alright, so it's really important that so you have the list now of things that are really important, like the five level tasks that you're doing now and how important they are to your goal. So you have ones and ones. Obviously there's going to be twos and threes and fours as well. But we're just going to take the extremes. There's going to be things that are really Important now, and really important to and and really important to you moving forward. Those are the ones who keep doing easily just keep those are the ones that are the better the things that like go on your list of tasks I'm going to accomplish, then there are ones and ones, those are the ones who literally can pretty much stop doing and nobody would notice. Those are the really heartbreaking ones because you're going to find a lot of stuff in that list, which is stuff you are saddled with that do not matter. And they are things that you either have to go to your boss if you have a boss or you have to just literally cut out it's not even worth outsourcing them because like you're not going to get any return on it. Then they're going to be ones that are one one importance now and five importance later. So and then flipped five importance now and one importance later. So five importance now and one importance later are one You want to outsource? Because they're unimportant for you to do, like they are important now, but you're, but you're not getting a good return on them. And the ones that are ones now and fives later, are the ones you want to start doing more of as well. So anything that's a five, on on the on the on where you rank where it's where you're going in your career are important to keep going. They're important to do, it's really where they fall right now. So one between one and five, and whether you actually hire someone to outsource them, which is there, whether they're a one to five in the future for where you're going. So it makes sense.
Rick A. Morris 22:42
It does. But how do I then build a plan of attack? Even if I identified those, I've got the five that 50 to 500 I know what the fives and fives are. Do you have advice around how I structure my day or go after those
Russell Nohelty 22:56
shores? So So let's say you've cut off everything out. And now you're looking at your week and being like, how do i do i do I plan to do these tasks, these like these these like really important tasks and make sure I have time for them. So all of us have times in our day where we are more productive than others. And I think if you push anybody, they would tell you for mine, it's 922922 is the time that I am absolutely the most productive more than any other time. I can do work at other times. But that five hour block is when I do the absolute best work that I that I can do in the shortest amount of time. Do you have a time like that wreck your day?
Rick A. Morris 23:39
Actually, yeah, and Dan pink. I was trying to pull up the title of the book, I watched Dan, do a presentation and event we call live delete. But he actually pulled together it's called win. But there's a study based on how you go to sleep and when you wake up and whether you're a night owl or alive. And when everybody has a peak time than a trough, and then recovery, and so depending on your kind of sleep schedule, your peak time is either should be creative, or your in your, your recovery should be more administrative activities. So he said when when people schedule meetings, they never really take into account where they are in that. So you know, nine to two is productive. So if it's going to be creative meeting or strategy meeting, boom, that's going to be nine to two, this is a meeting about a new timecard system or you know, something, something that you need to be there, but you don't need to be all there, then that's two to five. Right? So a great book about that.
Russell Nohelty 24:40
Yeah. And so you made the perfect I actually don't do any meetings from nine to like today is a is a specific difference. Because it's a it's a promotion day. So a couple of tips is I have multiple different kinds of day. So I have a launch day, I have a writing I have a promotion day. And I have a couple of other kinds of days and like so, at the beginning of a week, I look out and I say, okay, Friday, I have two podcast interviews. So that's going to be a promotion day. Let me see if I can get three or four more podcasts that day to really make that date, like, like worth it to spend as a promotion day. And then I have days that I know I'm launching a product and like, that's a launch day, I'm not going to get any writing done on launch day. So I had to like that that is this specific day, and I have now blocked those off. And then most of the other days are writing days. And how a writing day works is from nine to two I'm writing I have to get 1000 words done every single hour, so I get 5000 words done. If I get more than if I finish that in three hours, I get two hours to just do get a break. If I I can keep going if I want but I'm only required to get 5000 words done in those days, I'm required to get 5000 words done. So if that means has to go from nine to five, then it has to go from nine to five that day green time, which is what this is. The first time and most important time is the productive time. I am relentless at guarding my productive time. I do not take meetings. I do not answer emails, I don't do anything. But really I write during that time. And I know that the most productive time in my day is nine to two and so I know that if I can just sit down for five hours every day from nine to two I will get x done. Then I wake up at six and from six to nine is administrative time. I answer emails sometimes again on calls. I do a lot of the you know when you have to do a podcast and they want you to come in beforehand and like do a little like 15 minute interview beforehand. I could do those during that those timeframes and add between set five and seven. I also do that. You mentioned the law, my law firm comes from doing about two and five. And so I take a nap or I go on a walk or I work out or I do something in that breed, I do something in that time to like re energize me so that from five to seven, I can get the administrative work done. Now, between nine and two green time, green time can invade the administrative time, which is ad which is yellow time. And it can invade read time. So read time is time I'm not doing anything productive when it relates to work. Yellow time can invade, read time, right time can invade nothing. And that's how I schedule my day, every single day, depending on what the major task is. And because I can do that very effectively, I end up being quite productive.
Rick A. Morris 27:50
Outstanding, so we're going to take a break right there and come back when we come back though I want to get into I find that every entrepreneurs journey has speed bumps. So I'd love to feel You're out what were some of those things that you had to overcome? In order to continue your entrepreneurial path? We're going to do that right after the break. You're listening to Rick A. Morris and the work life balance.
VoiceAmerica 28:14
Are you frustrated with the overall productivity of your project management processes? Do you lack consistency in project delivery? Our squared consulting provides end to end services to assist companies of all sizes and realizing and improving the value of project management. Whether you want to build a project management office, train project managers, or learn how to bring the oversight and governance to your project processes. r squared has tailored best practices to help you in all areas of project management, visit r squared consulting.com are you getting the most out of your project management software. In many cases, it is not the software that is failing, but the implementation limitations or processes surrounding the use of that service. where r squared can analyze your current use and help improve your return on investment. r squared can also suggest the best software for your organization and goals and assist in the selection implementation and training. Allow r squared to ensure that you are getting the value of your investment, visit r squared consulting.com today. When it comes to business, you'll find the experts here voice America business network.
You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance
Rick A. Morris 30:01
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon meeting with Russell nullities, the owner of want to be press. And so right before we went to break, Russell, we were talking about your time zones essentially of green time, yellow time, red time. How did you discover those times were good for you?
Russell Nohelty 30:19
Well, you know, I used to work in sales. My last jobs before I started entrepreneurship were sales and sales management roles. And I found, you know, from working with hundreds of salesmen, that if they hit certain numbers across a long enough period of time, you could predict their sales down to like, a few hundred dollars. If they made 100. For instance, if they made 100 calls a day, for a month, and really like three months at the beginning, you got to like ramp this up because what you do today is of eight weeks from now, which is a really good thing to remember.
What you do today is predictive of eight weeks from now. This is one of the hardest parts of productivity and the hardest parts of success is. You don't see like, when you're having a bad month. It is not what you're doing now. It's what you did two months ago, when you're having a great month now. It's what you're doing two months ago. And so this all builds up. And the hardest part of sales is that when you're having a great month, when a salesman is having a great month, what did they do? They didn't take take the foot off the gas. Yep. What and then two months later, they have a terrible month. And then what do they do? They accelerate, they call call, call call call. And two months later, they have a great month. And it is, I mean, I've seen this hundreds of times and me and the bosses that I've always had have like, are like don't understand why you can't just have if you just go consistently but less like if you just go 45 every day instead of 60 and then to your Get way further, just by being like the tortoise. Now you can't be as slow as the tortoise, you have to do a minimal amount of work. So we were like, okay, 100 calls a day, which sounds like a lot, but that's over an eight hour day, like 15 calls an hour. Most of those calls are hang ups or, or not really good calls. So you have, like, pretty much 30 minutes of every hour that you're on the phone, and 30 minutes that you can do admin work or, or like place orders or whatever you had to do. And that's usually, if you've got a few over eight hours can be on the phone for three hours of that day, or maybe over four hours, even better. You then would have a killer month in two months, every single time that that ever happened, unless there was like a really big problem with how they were talking. But even then just being on the phone for like a couple of months, consistently. Almost all of them would like have great pitches. They were just Be consistent, they'd be ready to go. And they weren't working that hard. They weren't working nearly as hard as the people who were like struggling and then succeeding and struggling and then succeeding. And they probably they didn't never had like a $50,000 month. But they all were making more money than the people that were not doing like anything for a couple of months and then killing it for one month. And so, and it was like, from you get you get into the morning and you get sort of your coffee ready, and by like, 9am, you're ready to make your first phone call. And just like, you hit it 20 calls an hour for three hours, four hours, and then you take a break for lunch, you come back and you do it again. And every single time that that happened, I wouldn't make a lot of money. And every time that didn't happen, I would make no money. And so I was it was drilled into me that if you do if you if you can do enough and enough work every day, when that's different From every industry but if you can do enough for every day over a long enough period of time your career started sort of looks like a bell curve. And then you can predict that like, you will have x success and the reason is because if you make 100 calls your first three might go well and your last 97 Miko horrible, or your firt last three of my go well in your first 97 Miko horrible, or you might be able to like you may get like one every 20 calls that is going great and every hundred calls is different. But in order to predict how much you were going to make and how many clients you're going to have, you had to make a minimum amount of calls. And every time someone made 60 calls or 50 calls or 10 calls an hour. We were like I can't do anything with you. I cannot do I cannot work with you because I don't know what is happening. I have to have enough data to be able to put into a system to be able to get a random distribution bell curve, so that I I can predict what's going wrong and where you're going wrong. But if you're not doing enough work, I have no basis of data. And so from there, that's when I moved into what I'm doing now. And, and and I can tell I don't do the most amount of work any day, but I do enough work that I can be happy with it, and that I can end the day relaxed with enough spoons to carry over to the next day. This was another thing that I found is those people who were working really hard, they would burn out that month or like two weeks like they would they would be stealing like energy from the next day, they'd be drinking cups of coffee and then they said they would work really hard that close that big deal and then they would sleep for two weeks. And they then then they would be like out of the zone and it would take them two weeks to get back into the zone and then like it would take them two more weeks to get to get like back onto the onto the ramp and so I realized I am a person that has several disorders that are chronic autoimmune disorders. And so I realized that like in order to be able to play with the big boys, I had to find a way to work that would not deplete all of my energy every day. And so by not depleting my energy any single day, and always leaving with something left in the tank, and then working to rebuild that tank. I always the next day, or maybe 90% of the time, the next day had plenty of energy to get through that to the end of that day because I was never pushing myself, but I was always getting way more done than a person who was on that cycle of like, boom, bust.
Rick A. Morris 36:49
So have you ever taken a disc profile?
Russell Nohelty 36:52
I have not.
Rick A. Morris 36:53
Okay. But you're you're so I hear that and i think that's that's fantastic. But when we start talking about I get into this conversation often when I'm dealing with productivity in organizations, a metric like hundred calls a day. So if you only get 60 or 70, and it's not always necessarily the the it's not necessarily a predictor of a poor month, right? Because it's also quality. But what we ended up doing there, what I end up seeing is people so focused on making 100 calls a day that they're not focusing on the call itself. Does that make sense? Absolutely. So how do you how do you get metrics like that, where you can say, this is a good barometer of success, but isn't the only barometer How do you coach people in that in that scenario?
Russell Nohelty 37:36
So you're saying people that like had a lot of calls, but they're not having success still
Rick A. Morris 37:41
now? Or it's it's the fact that the only thing they're worried about is making 100 calls? Right? It's about all about hitting the metric not necessarily accomplishing the job.
Russell Nohelty 37:51
So there's a great, there's a great parable. Have you heard the parable, the balls like that, there's a there's a there's a Teacher and he assigns half of his class to make as many balls as possible. That's how they get an A, the more balls they make, the better their grades gonna be. And then he, he tells the other half of the class that all they have to do is make one perfect ball. And they spend all of their month making one bowl. And what he found at the end of the month was the people that were tasked with making many bowls, a ton of balls, they ended up with way better balls. And they're that then the person that only made one bowl. And so for me, how we would train it was we couldn't, we needed you to get to the hundred calls. Like, it didn't matter to me if you had good calls at the beginning. What mattered to me is that you had the reps, and once you have the reps, you can move to the next level. And you can make better work, but it's really hard to it's very easy to train someone who does the work to be a better salesperson because now you're listening to their calls and you're like, are you need to do this or like you need to do that you literally can just sit on the phone with them and be like, you're doing the work. Now, let's make you better. It's very hard to get someone who's an amazing salesperson, but doesn't make enough calls to be successful. And so for us, it was about and for me, it's really about like, hey, if you suck at like writing a book, or like you suck at like doing the job, like, let's get you to a place that you can do the reps. And once you can do the reps, you're going to naturally get better on the phone, and then I can help you get better faster. But what I can't do is train you. I don't want to train you to be a great salesperson with like all of these sales sheets, because we would have read all the scripts like you know, you work in sales with people like we all have, like the scripts, but the thing that makes a great salesman is being on the phone and being able to move the conversation before the conversation needs to be moved. That you can be like I've heard this before, and I know how to preach Pre handle this objection. And so yeah, for us, it was a lot more about getting people on the phone. And then once we were on the phone, we could listen to them. And then be like, you see, like that is the call like, like this is when you say that, and then they go, Whoa. And eventually, eventually they tended to break through.
Rick A. Morris 40:19
Yeah, and so we do things. Similar when we're training salespeople, if the fear is getting a know that I want them to get 100 nose, right, that's, that's one of my standard tactics, because in the hundred nose, they're going to learn the objection. So the rep is about understanding and overcoming what's not on the script versus actually doing this.
Russell Nohelty 40:38
Now, there is something that they do like, there are cheaters and cheaters are like that, they will they will get a list of like 500 fake numbers or like numbers that they know are like don't work. And they'll just be like, Oh, my numbers are down for the day. I'm just going to call all of these numbers so it shows up on my sheet that I called them, but like it's not helpful and for those People, it's very easy because you can see it's like a seven second call seven second call seven second call for like four hours. And they only have like an hour and a half on the phone even though they made 100 calls. So yes, you do have those people who game the system. And those people usually wash themselves out. Because if they didn't wash themselves out, they learned very quickly that like, because I would just give them a new sheet every day and be like now all I want you to do is call these numbers and they'd be like, oh, but I haven't listened. I'm like, here's a new list. You call these numbers and suddenly like it would break them out of their spell. But there are some cheaters and you do have to just kind of flush them out at some point. Some people just don't want to do the work.
Rick A. Morris 41:42
I totally agree with that. But it comes back to quality of work to right activity versus achievement. So we're going to take our final break right here. We'll be right back with Russell Knowlton. And when we come back, we'll get to your overcoming story. And then I always ask the question of what's some of the best advice you've ever received. So we'll do that on the backside of this break it listen to the work more on the work life balance.
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You are tuned in to the work life balance to reach Rick A. Morris or his guest today, we'd love to have you call into the program at 1-866-472-5790. Again, that's 1-866-472-5790 if you'd rather send an email Rick can be reached at our Morris at r squared consulting.com. Now back to the work life balance.
Rick A. Morris 43:53
And we're back to the work life balance on this Friday afternoon. Just quick shout out to to everyone that continues to text questions. And check in with us on social media as we're doing the show, I'm always watching. I appreciate it. We always try to get all those questions in. So coming back, Russell, one of the big things, one of my favorite quotes to john Maxwell says is, it took him 25 years to become an overnight success, if you, you know, he's written hundreds of leadership books, he's sold millions of millions of copies. But if you see like it, you know, it was I think it was five years between book one and book two. And it really was around book 15 or 16, that he actually started his that's when he came up with developing the leader within you, and that's when things took off. So every entrepreneur that's really successful had to overcome a tremendous amount of failure. What's one of those failures or bumps that you really felt you had to overcome in order to be successful at want to be?
Russell Nohelty 44:47
Yeah, so I, I failed three companies before I was 20. Before I was 30. I mean, I say fail because they didn't quite go bankrupt because like they didn't make any money. So Like it's not like money to lose like lose that like they were negative money but like it's not like I went in I went when BK or like I did anything official they just like absolutely failed like look, you fail one company that could be a fluke fail two companies maybe that's like your partner's fail three companies and like it's a huge problem like it's a huge problem I mean like one failure is a huge problem but like when you fail three it's a really a you problem so I really had to look at myself and be like, okay, like what is the common theme besides just me and ended up being that like, I thought like every other creative I've ever met that like if I made work, it was just going to be so good that people would come. I have no sales experience. I had no marketing experience. I mean, you talk to me now where I can like rattle off all of these sales things and like do Facebook ads and all this stuff and I was when I was 29 I thought my I thought I rode on on air. And that's happened a couple of other times in my career, but I, you know, I, I really, I believe that in your 20s, you should be able to stick around and do whatever you want, as long as you're not hurting yourself hurting someone else, and you can make some money. Like, you're not like going into like, massive debt to do it, even though I did that also. But once you hit 30, you kind of gotta like, get your act together, and like, you know, start doing something that, you know, makes makes your money. And unfortunate when I was 30, though, if that made real money that I could do that someone hired me for his sales, because like they will, everyone's always looking for a salesman and like experiences kind of irrelevant, especially at entry level sales positions. So I, I sort of ate Crow and I did not really want to do sales, but I knew that the only way that I could get to the place that I wanted to do was to figure out how to sell the work that I had put out and how to make better products and how to like sell those products. So I worked at Aflac. If you know anything about Aflac they'll hire anyone. I worked at a card guy selling ads to car dealerships. Finally I worked at a sprint reseller. And like in all that time I like was getting marginally better. But it wasn't until I worked at that sprint reseller that like something finally clicked, like, I finally clicked after months upon months upon months, and one of the reasons we talked about like, not being so held up on sales at the beginning was like, I stunk the first few months, like I, like was barely making a sale. Like I would like be doing everything I could and like I was just like, I was hustling and hustling and hustling and hustling. But it just was not coming together. And I was so freaked out by like these sales numbers that I would often do the thing that you said and just like call a bunch of people to be like I at least I got my, my number my quarter because like I gotta, I gotta like hit these sales numbers. And, you know, eventually after like, like, I was on like probation for three months, and then I think But just barely skated past there. And then like, I just barely made it through my quota the next couple of months. And then like six months into it, something finally clicked and suddenly all like made sense. You know? I don't know, if you like football, but like football, and, you know, they talked about game speed, right? And like, a college, a college quarterback coming in and like, and like getting sacked a bunch of because they've never seen anything as fast as the NFL before. And then like, if you if you if you if you make it to the next level, like they say the game slows down, right? And like, suddenly I was six months in and like the game slowed down and I suddenly could hear what they were going to say before they even said it and I suddenly could redirect the conversations. I could suddenly just all of the things that my bosses were telling me just, like, started to work in ways that they didn't work before they just like It Wasn't I was saying I felt like the same words but they were suddenly like landing because of the order that I was saying them in. And it was suddenly the dominoes were in the right order. And so, yeah, I would say that if it was like one of the big that was the biggest hump I've ever come over was to sort of be able to eat Crow and say, I love creativity. And if I want to run a creative business, I have to know how to say these sales and marketing, because they say, like, what are the two things you have to know to be successful? You got to know the thing that you know, and you got to know marketing.
Rick A. Morris 49:29
Yeah, in fact, I've got several books on the market. And I remember that when I put my first proposal together, it's you know, you just think, Wow, once I write this, it's gonna fly off the shelves. It's amazing. But it doesn't work that way. And as a matter of fact, the proposals more about what are you going to do to hustle and market and sell the book than more? So what the books about right I mean, they really want to know that you're going to be somebody who's invested is going to push is going to get the word out and not expect them to do all the work. It's a it's a partnership. So what's up But the best advice you've ever received that
Russell Nohelty 50:03
best advice I ever received.
So I was listening to James Wedmore podcast, I think it was James Wedmore. I keep attributing it to him. So I sure hope it was him. And he was at the end of the year. As you know, as I mentioned, I kicked all of December off. So I listen to a lot of podcasts, take a lot of courses, like, I just kind of like, do whatever, I wake up whenever I want and do whatever thing I want that day. And it's like wonderful. And I'm very blessed to have that ability to do that. Although probably I'm not going to do it this year, because like, I just had three months off. And he said, Where do you want to be in 10 years? And he's like, think about it really hard for like, the next two minutes or something. And then he said, what would it take to get there in one year, and that changed my life, because that's how I've lived every year since then. There is, how do I do 10 years of work in one year? How do I do? How do I get to the next level in X amount of time? And like what is the minimum amount of between that and the minimum amount of information that I need to make a good decision? That could be like 100 podcast episodes, it could be being a guest on 100 shows could be, you know, being doing 100 shows of like, just like at conventions, whatever it is, like, what is the minimum amount of stuff that I need in order to make a good decision? And then how can I get there in a month instead of a year? How can I get there in a year instead of 10 years, and I've used that to leap past so many humans who started at the same level as I did. And then the the other piece of advice that I got very early on was that when you're starting, it looks like everybody is going to be competition to you. It looks like there's no way they're just off flood everybody out there. But as you finish a book, or you move down the path, you move down the path further and further and further, you start looking back and you notice that nobody's there, like what happened to all the people. You know, one in every two people wants to write a book, but one and only 100 people writes a book, and then one and only 1000 people writes like two books, and then 1 billion people writes like, 10 books and, and so you start looking back, and separating yourself from the pack, and all of those, and then those people who were in competition with you at the beginning, suddenly they become your peers, because you realize that it's not about competition, it's about it's about cooperation. And then all of those people who are crazy enough to do the thing that you did and get to the place you are like your companions, they're like people who resonate on the same level of crazy as you and so but yeah, looking. I cannot tell you how many People that I was in high school with, that, like wanted to be some creative human that wanted to do something creative, and to look back at, like, kind of maybe two or three people actually got there. And the same thing out of college No, so many people wanted to like become writers become directors or become somebody and I don't know, like, I'm not saying I know my entire college class, but like, it's a very few amount of people who've gotten to the level that I am. And so knowing that you're where you are, is, is is is at the beginning is daunting. But the more you could do to separate yourself, the less competition you'll have and the more of a place you'll have in the world that you want to inhabit.
Rick A. Morris 53:47
Well Russell we appreciate you being on the show. And you can find Russell at Russell Knowlton calm and then that is no h lty.com. They can find also want to be press
Russell Nohelty 53:57
is want to be pressed and for complete creative.com as well, I will just say it is two s's in two L's that second l trips. A lot of people
Rick A. Morris 54:06
for Russell. Absolutely. But we appreciate you being on and we'd love to have you back.
Russell Nohelty 54:11
I'd love to come back.
Rick A. Morris 54:12
Outstanding. So next week gang we're gonna have Shawn wolf on Sean is the founder of biz talks, which is a live conference that hosts several speakers who speak in front of hundreds of young business professionals. We're excited to have Sean on the show. As always, you can find me on Twitter at Rick A., Morris, Facebook, LinkedIn, anything else that you'd like to find us on. And we always enjoy and appreciate the fact that you guys are out there. keep giving us the feedback. We love you for it. And we will be here live next Friday right here on the work life balance. You've been listening to Rick Morris.
VoiceAmerica 54:43
Thank you for joining us this week. The work life balance with Rick Morris can be heard live every Friday at 2pm pacific time and 5pm eastern time on The Voice America business channel. Now that the weekend is here. It's time to rethink your priorities and enjoy it. We'll see you on Our next show
