Joel Miller:
It’s one month left on the clock, one month left to make it happen. Now, December is maybe one of the most overwhelming months in the calendar, especially for a business owner. Let’s be honest, you not only have all the year end stuff that’s on your plate, but you also have parties. You’ve got holidays, you’ve got all of those other commitments on your time, that when you stack it all up there’s like 45 days in the month of December. So, how are you going to get it all done? How are you going to deal with the inevitable feeling of overwhelm?
Hi, I’m Joel Miller. I’m the chief product officer here at Full Focus, and we’ve got four weeks to go. So, it is as the kids say, game time and that means you need a game plan. As business owners, with four weeks left to make it happen, with all the other commitments that are stacked up on the calendar between here and December 31st. I thought if there was one thing I could communicate to you today, it’s that there is a path out of the overwhelm. In order to get us there, I asked our CEO, Megan Hyatt Miller and our chief experience officer Erin Perry, to have a conversation about how to banish overwhelm quickly. And they’ve got five strategies to do that. And in order to amplify that practicality, Megan has taken it a step further. She invited two of her friends, also CEOs, to have a conversation about how they’re doing it in their business.
If you’ve been around the Full Focus brand really long at all, you know that we are all about winning at work and succeeding at life. And if there is one thing that can complicate that dynamic, it’s the feeling of overwhelm. When you feel overwhelmed at work it can bleed into your experience at home. And since this is the end of the year, and we’re talking about holidays, we’re talking about parties, we’re talking about winter break from school and all of the complexity that brings to it. One thing we know is that you can feel overwhelmed at home, which has a spillover effect at work. So, business owners really need to get clear on how they can address this in order to close out the year strong. I couldn’t think of really anybody better to have a conversation about this than our CEO, Megan Hyatt Miller and our Chief Experience Officer Erin Perry. Erin, in fact, was Megan’s chief of staff before taking the chief experience officer role. And what that means is that she’s had a lot of experience navigating these kinds of issues in our own business.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, I’m really excited to talk about overwhelm today, because this is one of those things that I don’t care who you are or how proficient you are, you’re probably feeling overwhelmed from time to time. But I’ve invited Erin Perry, our chief experience officer, to be with me today for a couple of reasons. First of all, she’s an executive, so she knows what it’s like to feel overwhelmed. She knows what it’s like to have more on her plate than she feels like she has time to do. But, prior to becoming an executive, she was my chief of staff. And so, she’s actually been through this process with me in the trenches many times. We could probably talk about this in our sleep, we’ve done it so much. But she’s our resident expert on helping to triage overwhelm. So Erin, I’m so glad you’re here with me today.

Erin Perry:
Thanks, Megan. I’m super excited to be here. Can’t wait to talk about this with you.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Well, first of all, do you ever feel overwhelmed?

Erin Perry:
Gosh, only every third day. I think there’s some normalizing to be done of just as you’ve said, everybody is overwhelmed and I know a lot of us … I’m a mom, I’ve got a child in high school, I’ve got one in elementary school. So, we’re managing functionally two only children. And I get the opportunity to come to work every day, and lead three incredible teams that make up my department. And we don’t take it slow here at Full Focus. So, when you put all that together, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
It really is, and I think you’ve just said something that’s really important. If you’re not overwhelmed at work, you might be overwhelmed in your personal life and vice versa. I mean, we’re all full orbed people. We’ve got a lot on our plates, and there are oftentimes more things on our to-do list than we could get done. And we’ve got all kinds of great strategies for that, that we talk about regularly here. But today specifically, we’re going to dig into five strategies to help you quickly banish overwhelm. So, I don’t know about you, but that gets me excited. And I actually went through this recently. I had a speaking engagement that my dad wasn’t able to fulfill, and I took that on his behalf, but it wasn’t a part of my schedule. Normally when I would be speaking, I’ve got a big runway and our teams are queued up for that. But, I had to figure out how to get ready for a really important speaking engagement with a full calendar otherwise.
And so, the strategies that we’re talking about today are exactly the ones that I went through to deal with that sense of overwhelm that I felt. And I’m proud to report that the speaking engagement went really well thanks to these strategies. And so, hopefully this will help to alleviate some of the overwhelm that you guys who are listening are feeling today. So, strategy number one is to triage your calendar. And Erin, you and I have sat together probably more times than I can count, and done this with my own calendar before I promoted you to your current executive role. And tell me a little bit about some of the things that you think about as you were helping to oversee the triage process for me. And I want to just contextualize this by saying as a part of that, you also led our team of executive assistants. So, there was some real practical overlap here.

Erin Perry:
Well, I think first and foremost, Megan, having that third party view is really important. Sometimes you don’t even see the things that are on your own calendar, because if it’s there, it feels important, everything, all the same level. So, having an outside point of view, whether that’s your EA, a chief of staff. Somebody else that can speak into and make recommendations to you about what can switch in your calendar, it takes the pressure off you to make so many decisions. So, the first thing you want to do is look at that, and look for what are the non-essential meetings that you want to have. So, that might be a networking lunch, that might be a lower level meeting where you were just going to ideate or pick somebody else’s brain.
It could be that you need to look at what new projects were you going to launch, and what can come off the calendar and just wait. And then, the other thing that I always appreciated about you is, you would look at it and say, “Hey, can we cancel my one-on-ones and just have somebody send a video instead updating me on the most critical things that I need?” And that often helped us to sort through what reports do you need to keep business going. And if there was anything urgent, it always gave you the ability to step in and attend another meeting if you had to. But, that filter of what are the things that only you can do as a leader? I think is really, really important.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Yeah, I think that’s true. And it helps to answer that question when you have someone who’s objective, who’s not you, who doesn’t feel the sense of maybe guilt that you feel about canceling meetings or those kinds of things. It’s really important to have that outside perspective. If you don’t have an executive assistant or a chief of staff, this is where you could pull in a spouse, you could pull in whoever’s your right hand person. You just need somebody else with their perspective to say, “Hey, of these probably, primarily external meetings, but non-essential meetings, what can you postpone?” And oftentimes these are things that other people have put on your calendar that they think are important, but the truth is they’re not necessarily the highest and best use of you. And they’re not essential to the business in the next, say, two to four weeks.
You’re looking at a fairly short time horizon when you’re thinking about triaging. And one of the rules that we have at Full Focus is that we don’t mind moving stuff around. We don’t want to be constantly rescheduling meetings with people. So, our rule of thumb is you can reschedule once, we don’t want to be moving things two and three and four times, otherwise you look flaky and people start to question your integrity. So, we don’t want that. But, you should feel free to postpone or completely eliminate things that are on your calendar that are just keeping you from other more important priorities in the short term. So, that’s strategy number one, to triage your calendar. That brings us to strategy number two, which is to renegotiate deadlines. And I really love this one, because I think this is one that’s difficult for business owners. I mean, we are achievers, we are people who like to take action, who like to get things done. And so, sometimes we don’t even think about the fact that the deadlines on our calendar could be renegotiated.
But, this happened with the speaking engagement that I was talking about at the beginning of the episode. Erin, you know there was a deadline to turn in this recorded speech, it was going to be simulcast to 1000s of people. And there was a deadline that the event host had given us. And given that this was a last minute change of plans, and I was stepping in to fulfill this engagement, I really needed more time. And we were able to go back to them and say, “Hey, under the circumstances, could we have until this date?” And it was four days later, which made all the difference for me, but it actually didn’t affect them negatively at all. And so, I think the key idea here is that it’s possible to renegotiate your deadlines without necessarily negatively impacting your clients or customers, as long as you communicate in advance. So Erin, talk about how you thought about this before maybe even done it for yourself.

Erin Perry:
Well, I think that posture of doing things in advance is really, really critical. So, you want to hit that sweet spot of you haven’t yet missed the deadline, and you want to just be able to go with a posture of, “Hey, I’m looking to see if this is a possibility?” I like it when people will put in place, “Here’s the new deadline.” And be really explicit about that, because that gets one more decision off your plate. You’re not having to then go to your calendar and go, “Okay, when would this be a good time?” So, if you could offload that thinking onto somebody else and say, “Hey, you come back to me with a date that you think is going to work, knowing all of the things you know.”
I think that’s really, really critical. And again, not telling someone, but taking the posture of asking someone if this is okay. Because, there are going to be times where dates cannot be flexible. And so, then you got to look for what’s the other deadline that I can renegotiate? And I think most of the time, people are really willing to help as long as you communicate. And I think that’s really a key in renegotiating deadlines as being as transparent as possible, as honest as possible, and getting ahead of it as soon as humanly possible to give yourself as much leeway.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that’s really important, because what you don’t want is to make your emergency or your overwhelm become someone else’s emergency or overwhelm. I mean, that, I think we all know would be not a good strategy with our clients. It’s also true if you work for somebody and you’re in a reporting relationship, you certainly don’t want to come with your hair on fire asking to renegotiate a deadline. You want to do it proactively. You want to present yourself in a way that you seem like you’re on top of it, and you’re under control. And this is just an example of you being responsible, and foreseeing an obstacle in the way. And really there are so many times when, if you went to a client and said, “Can I move this meeting that we have on Wednesday to next Monday or next Wednesday?” Sometimes that’s good news for them too. You have to be open to that may not be the case, but very often, it’s neutral or positive for them. Because, the truth is everybody has more to do than they feel like they have time for.
And so, you might actually be giving them a gift in disguise. So, hopefully that’ll help you be a little bit courageous in approaching the strategy of renegotiating deadlines. That leads us to strategy number three, which is to task others with the heavy lifting. So, if you’re feeling overwhelmed and you’ve cleared some space on your calendar, you’ve moved out some deadlines. Now it’s like, “Okay, there are still things that have to be done within this window. How am I going to think about that?” Well, one of the things that I think, Erin, you did so well for me in your chief of staff role, that my Executive Assistant Elizabeth does really well for me. Is to do research and information gathering on my behalf for decision making, I think that is huge. And then, if you could ask that person who you’ve identified to help you with this to come with recommendations, guys, Erin is the chief recommendation officer.
I mean, she just basically thinks in recommendations, which is huge. Because, it reduces the decision fatigue that you’re going to experience as a leader or business owner. And I think one of the things Erin, you did, which I would like you to talk about in a second. Is you did a great job of internalizing what you knew to be my criteria for good decisions, and you made sure that I had that information to make decisions with. And I think this is not something you’ve done a lot before, really thinking about how do you identify what are your criteria for making a good decision? What information are you going to need to make that decision? And jotting that down before you delegate this task. But Erin, how did you do that well, and how have you helped our executive assistants do that well?

Erin Perry:
Well, I think number one, the first thing that you hit on is understanding the expectations fully. So, if someone is delegating to you, “Hey, I want you to do the heavy lifting for me in all of this research,” you’ve got to know what they care about. And so, a lot of that naturally came because we were working so closely together. But a lot of that came because you were very explicit, Megan, in helping me understand what are the things that you care about and what are the things that you don’t, down to the point of writing it down. And I think that’s really important, because then I can come with better recommendations. I think the other thing that’s important is there are eight ways to solve any one given problem. And really you want to come with the best two or three options.
You’ve been great at modeling this all across our organization, Megan, but I think it really comes down to, usually people bring one or two options and it’s usually a combination, which we like to call the third way of thinking about something or getting something done. And so, those recommendations really help, because if you are in a place of overwhelm, you already are having a hard time making decisions. So, if you can offload that thinking again onto somebody else, you’re going to get a better, more high quality decision at the end. And a lot of times, a lot of our decisions have impact to our stakeholders. And so, you may as an executive or a leader have a really firmly formed opinion about something, but you could actually benefit from getting recommendations from lots of other people to make a more holistic decision that works for everyone.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that’s a great point, and it’s not something I actually thought of as I was preparing this content. But I think you’re absolutely right. I mean, I can think of many times where you brought me a recommendation that was obviously a great recommendation, but it’s not what I would’ve thought of if I had done the research myself. And so, I think you get that diversity of thinking in different perspectives, which is really helpful. But you hit on this idea of decision fatigue. And one of the things that happens even for really great decision makers when they get too many decisions to make, or their calendars are just too full or they become exhausted, is that the overwhelm sets in. And so, if you can remove yourself from the overwhelming part of making a decision, which is usually all the information gathering, the sorting through options, that’s where it just of feels like a lot.
And you can think of it, we’ve talked in the past about this idea of the 10-80-10 principle of delegation. Where the business owner, or the executive, or leader does the first 10%, which is really specking out what they’re looking for. So, that would be identifying the criteria for information that needed to be gathered in this case. Then, you delegate that middle part of the heavy lifting to someone else, and then they bring it to you back at the end with recommendations. And you’re the one to make the final call, either yes or no, or between two options or whatever. That can really help with the overwhelm, and I’ve seen that so many times myself. Erin, another thing that you’ve done well in this idea of tasking others with the heavy lifting, is the idea of sending someone else in your place for meetings. So, maybe you have more meetings than you can reasonably attend, or you just need time for preparing for something else. Talk about how you can send someone else in your place as a way of tasking others to do the heavy lifting.

Erin Perry:
Number one, if you’ve got an EA that’s an easy choice, because they can go in and gather a lot of the information. A lot of times the meetings that we have are not critical decision making meetings, and they’re more about information gathering or sharing in order to make the decision. Now, as an executive or a business owner, you want to get out of that even when you’re not in a season of overwhelm. You want to equip the people that work for you to make some of those decisions, because that allows you to work on the vision. But especially in a season of overwhelm, it’s really, really critical.
So, you can send a direct report, you can even send somebody who you wouldn’t ordinarily send, especially in low risk meetings. Where it becomes a development activity that you can actually coach them on the backside of and say, “Hey, here are my expectations and what information, and results, and outcomes I want you to bring back to me.” And then, you let them figure some of that out. And the more that you can expose them to, you build that trust and rapport and over time, they can take more, and more, and more important things off your plate. To where you get to be sitting in the seat purely of, what are the decisions that only I can make for the organization? And I think that’s a really powerful place in the day to day, but especially in a season of overwhelm.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I hope as we’re halfway through our list here, you’re starting to see how these strategies can really help to eliminate the overwhelm. So, so far we’ve talked about strategy number one, triage your calendar. Strategy number two, renegotiate deadlines. Strategy number three, task others with heavy lifting. And this is where it becomes a little counterintuitive, strategy number four, take a day or two off. So Erin, that feels like a hard right turn. Why when you’re overwhelmed, would you actually pull yourself out of work for a day or two? That seems like the opposite thing that you would want to do.

Erin Perry:
Totally and this is one of my favorite ones, Megan, because it is so unexpected. Sometimes when you’re in that season of overwhelm, it’s just made worse by the fact that you’re burnt out, you’re tired and it ultimately impacts your decision making. And so, if you’re in that season your brain literally needs rest to be at its best. So in those times, oftentimes I’ll encourage people, I’ll say, “Listen, you just need to take a day off. Take a long weekend on a Friday or a Monday, come back. And when you come back, as long as you can dedicate yourself to activities that allow you to refresh, you come back and there’s no real loss to your productivity. You probably would’ve lost the time anyway at some point, because your decision making isn’t as good as it would normally be with the rest.” And so, taking that time off helps you to come back fresh, rejuvenated, and ultimately your decisions are going to be of higher quality.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that’s so true, and this is one I have to wrestle myself with every time it comes up. Because just like everybody else, my tendency is just to double down. I have a lot of stamina, probably just need to push through this. But the problem when you try to push through things, like you’ve said, the quality of your decisions suffer and you actually become less productive. There’s a diminishing return situation that happens, where the more you push, the less productive you become. And everybody’s had that experience of, you need to write something, some communication or whatever. And it’s like you just can’t get the words out, and you keep staring at your blank page in Google Docs and nothing’s coming. And the best way to get around that is just to give your brain that rest that it needs, or really to use strategy number five, which is to get out of the office.
Again, this is counterintuitive, because most of us are hardwired to double down. But, when you’re feeling overwhelmed, one of the best things you can do is just get out of the office and work somewhere beautiful or inspiring. One of the things that I know you do a lot, Erin, you were doing this the other day, is you do walking meetings. And I think that’s a great way to just change your circumstances and your context, and get moving, which actually helps to give you better ideas. Because, you increase the blood flow to your brain and lots of great things happen around that. So, just talk about this for a second, what your experience has been with getting out of the office when you feel overwhelmed.

Erin Perry:
Well, I love getting out of the office. Number one, I find personally, it’s so true what you’ve said, when I am moving, my ideas start flowing, it just activates my problem solving in a different way. So, we have done walking meetings a bunch, Megan and they’re actually some of my favorite meetings that I’ve ever had with you. We’ve done a lot of important work during walking meetings, and I think part of that to what you spoke about, is it just gets your brain going in a different way and it gives you a creative boost that you might need. And so, a couple of things that we’ve done, we’ll take our phones with us and just speak into it and let the phones transcribe everything. Or another technique that I like to do is just call my EA, and put her on the phone, and let her take notes as I’m walking.
And then on the backside, I can spend five minutes organizing that stream of consciousness. And it allows me to tap into ideas that I wouldn’t ordinarily have thought of if I were just sitting in front of my computer at the office not moving. It really helps me to unlock that problem solving, and just thinking about things from a different perspective. I oftentimes will also take a direct report on a walk with me and we’ll problem solve, and somehow that change of scenery helps things to feel a little bit less like you’re firefighting, and more like you’re proactively getting ahead of the problem.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that’s true also in a direct report context. You’re not looking at each other face to face on Zoom, or across a table or whatever, which can actually be a great way to have difficult conversations. Because, it’s a little less confrontational and yet simultaneously more intimate, both of those things, which can be really helpful. So, I love this. I love a walking meeting. Sometimes I’ll take notes, pull up the notes app in my phone and I will create content while I’m walking. Just create an outline or something, which is pretty easy to do while you’re walking. Obviously if you’re a runner, this is probably not a good idea, be careful. But I love this. The other thing you can do here is you can change when you’re in the office, or what your schedule is for the day. So, you could take a break midday, you could start work later. You could work later in the evening, you could consider taking a mid-afternoon nap.
But the idea here is that you just change it up. Don’t stay in that rut that keeps producing the same feelings of overwhelm, whether you physically get out of your office, go somewhere beautiful, go on a walk. Or you just change your schedule and give yourself a more luxurious morning ritual, or some time for rest midday, or something like that. All these things can really help to shake up what has become this pervasive sense of overwhelm, and help to break you out of it. So, I’m just going to take a second to review here. Again, if you want to banish overwhelm quickly, the five strategies that we’ve talked about today are strategy number one, triage your calendar. Strategy number two, renegotiate your deadlines. Strategy number three, to task others with the heavy lifting. Strategy number four, take a day or two off. And lastly, strategy number five, get out of the office.

Joel Miller:
When I think about those five strategies, I think they’re really liberating. The idea that you can renegotiate your calendar, like triage this thing, this mess that you’ve got. That you can renegotiate deadlines, that they’re not fixed in stone. That you can actually figure out when things might be postponed, so you can stage your work a little bit more advantageously. That you can renegotiate workload, so that you can task other people with some of the heavy lifting so it’s not all on your shoulders. Also, you can renegotiate your schedule, you can take a few days off. That can be very empowering in a period where it feels like it’s just all hands on deck all the time, to get a breather, allows you to just reset.
So, when you come back, you’re feeling stronger. And then finally, you can renegotiate your workspace. There’s no reason you have to be in the office for this full stretch. If you find that it’s helpful to step away, do it, you’ll be more productive. And most importantly, you’ll mitigate that feeling of overwhelm. After the break, we’ll step outside of Full Focus for a moment, and have a conversation with two CEOs to find out how they are dealing with the year end time crunch in their organizations. One of the ways business leaders can stay resilient, especially in stressful periods, is to maintain and cultivate good relationships with their peers, with fellow business owners, with CEOs, with other executives.
I’m her husband, so this is a little biased. But, Megan’s done a really good job of this, and she has two friends in particular she thought would add something great to this conversation. Tricia Sciortino is the CEO of BELAY Solutions. They’re virtual staffing organization that can help you with virtual assistance, accounting services, websites and more. Shannon Litton is the CEO of Five by Five, a marketing and digital agency which serves change makers, and those who work where life change happens. Meg invited Tricia and Shannon to the show to talk about how leaders can help close the year well. There’s four weeks left like we were saying at the top of the show, and those four weeks are a gauntlet of obstacles and opportunities. Leaders have a special challenge not only in maintaining their own self care, but also helping their teams stay focused to execute on their goals before the clock runs out.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
So, I am delighted to have two of my dear friends here today, Shannon and Tricia, who are fellow CEOs. This is like our CEO Women’s group, which is so great. And we’re going to talk today about how do you lead effectively through the end of the year. It’s the final moments on the clock, and we’re all wondering this. So, I’m so excited to have you guys here, welcome.

Tricia Sciortino:
I’m excited, thanks for having me.

Shannon Litton:
Thank you.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Okay, well let’s dig right in. So, how do you guys think about finishing strong when there’s only a few weeks left on the clock for the year? Shannon, why don’t you go first?

Shannon Litton:
I mean, I think we just have to get real focused on what matters at this point. Because, we put all these great ambitious goals out at the beginning of the year, and we have a very short time for things to happen or not. And so for us, it’s all about what are the metrics? What are the things that we do that have the most impact in ROI on this year? We know for us it’s closing out projects, so we end up with this backlog of projects through the year. We know that there’s a certain time in the year if we can close a project, we can bill a project, we can get paid for a project in the year. And so, we actually have whiteboards in our office that have all of these projects, all these goals that we’re trying to close. Because, we know of all the things we can do, there’s a lot of things we can do. If as a team we get very focused on that one thing, it has a real impact on closing out the year well.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I love that. I think the focus piece is hugely important, and that’s the thing that tends to just go by the wayside this time of year.

Shannon Litton:
For sure.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
We’re in and out, and we’re on PTO, and all the things. It can be very [inaudible 00:30:42] with distractions, so I love that. Tricia, what about you?

Tricia Sciortino:
I mean, I think you teed it up in the question actually, when you talked about intentionality. We’ve been planning Q4 for a very long time. Q4 planning, and end of year planning for us starts in Q2. It sounds crazy that in the summer we’re already thinking about what the end of the year looks like, but we’ve been burned before. We’ve all been in that place where all of a sudden it’s December 28th and oops, there’s a lot of people on PTO, and there’s a lot of things that didn’t get done. So, I think pre planning, and that has a lot even to do with who’s on staff, who’s working what days, who’s taking PTO, to make sure you have the manpower really to end the year strong.
So, we walk through an exercise even with our team about sharing responsibility so that we have the right mans, and hands on staff the final weeks of the year. And then, the other thing I would say to that too, like you Shannon, we put out our BHAG, we’re halfway through November, end of November here. We’ve got 30 plus days left in the year, and we’re really putting out to teams what is the one big, hairy, audacious goal, the one big thing you have got to accomplish by December 31st? And getting those teams focused on that.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think what I’m getting from both of you is it’s really our job, whether you’re a business owner, or a CEO, or you’re leading a team, it’s our job to provide the focus that our team needs. We need to help provide that clarity, so that they know where to put their energy and attention. Because, we don’t really have time for confusion, or misunderstandings, or a lack of alignment. We’ve really got to be aligned if we’re going to execute in these last several days. Well, let’s talk a little bit about ourselves as business owners.
I was thinking about this earlier this week, that even if we’re not overworking, which I think is a temptation a lot of business owners and leaders struggle with. We always have a lot of pressure, and the pressure is never more intense than the last 30 or 45 days of the year. Because, if you’re on a fiscal calendar year, this is the make or break time. Your year is either going to hit, or exceed your expectations, or fall short. And so, how do you guys think about taking care of yourself and your own performance? Really optimizing that at a time of year that’s really busy, you’re both moms, both have families and businesses. I mean, there’s lots on your plate.

Tricia Sciortino:
I would say honestly, it’s sharing the load with your key executives inside the organization. So, if I view it as something that sits on my shoulders, it will be crushing, it will be hard and difficult. Especially as a mom and there’s a lot going on at the end of the year with the holidays, I want to be present with. So for me, it’s really about delegating well, and that means really sharing the responsibility of ending well with my key executives.
I mean, for me, that could be my chief revenue officer who I know is absolutely focused on bringing in the last dollars to the last minute of the last day, and selling that last contract. And kicking off that last client, I know that she truly is working that process so that I can have relief. So, that’s what I would say what gives me great relief at the end of the year, because I do also believe in taking the right amount of time away to be present through the holidays as well. And I do plan that, I do plan time off around the end of the year. Having the key people in place is what makes it all possible.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I love that. I’m just curious, because probably people listening want to know how much time are you going to take off?

Tricia Sciortino:
I usually take off multiple days the week of Christmas. I’ll take half days the week leading up to Christmas, and then I will take off the week between Christmas and New Years. I won’t even be here the last day of the year.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I love it.

Tricia Sciortino:
My team will end strong. They will end strong, I know it.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
That’s right, that’s awesome. Shannon, before you answer this question about your self care tips for managing your own performance and so forth through the end of the year, how much time are you going to take off around Christmas?

Shannon Litton:
Well, we close the week between Christmas and New Year. And we’re a different business model, I get everybody can’t do that. I actually resisted that. That’s something publishing music, other industries in Nashville have done that over the years and I really resisted that. I thought, “What a waste of a week, to tell everybody that we’re shutting down?” And the first year that we did it was actually 2020, we all know that was just such an exhausting year. That we told our team, “We’re working until the 23rd and then we don’t want to see you back here until January.” And it was so phenomenal for our team.
I actually think it not only solved that real rest time, because we all know if somebody’s working and we are off, we’re working, right? We’re there to be available. And so, just shutting everything down gave us all the time rest that we had never had before. It’s also for us, it’s the only week of the year that our clients really don’t want to hear from us. We found that out, that if we’re trying to work, we’re annoying people that are trying to take time off. It’s the only time of the year that we can do that. And I think the other real benefit for us is, we come back, the energy of this team the first week of January is the greatest that it is at any time in the year.
And I just think it’s because we’ve shut things down. And so, since 2020 we’ve done that every year. And I think just one other benefit is that we all have the same finish line for December. So, when we talk about how do we keep our team motivated? And how do we go … It’s hard whenever we all have these different stopping points. I’m working a little after the holidays or I’m taking off before, for the most part everybody’s working till the 23rd, because we know we’re off that next week. And so, we have this big finish line that we are collectively running this race to this finish line. And so, we also really get this burst of energy team wide in December, knowing that we’ve got a solid 10 days to shut down unlike any other time of the year.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I love that. And part of what I appreciate about both of you guys, and part of why I think we’ve become friends, is because we all share a common value around our culture. We really prioritize our culture, we’re not just satisfied to achieve our targets for the year. We also want to do that in a way that leaves something for next year, that really gives us what we need to start the year strong and enable people to have great holidays with their families. And so, I love how you’re talking about this, because it’s pretty holistic in the way you’re describing it, which I think resonates with the people who listen to this podcast. On my end of things, I will take the week of Christmas off and then I’ll also take several days around New Year’s off.
My anniversary is on January the third, so I’m going to take some time off to spend with Joel around that. And we’re excited about that. So, it sounds like we’re all in the same wavelength on that one. So Shannon, you mentioned keeping your team motivated. And I think that is one of the biggest challenges when there’s so many distractions of, kids out of school, not just for ourselves, but our team members. Kids are out of school, there’s shopping, there’s family coming into town, there’re plans to make. How do you guys inspire, and keep your team engaged in these last four to six weeks of the year? Shannon, why don’t you start?

Shannon Litton:
One of the things that we do, as you ask the question, I’m thinking this is a little counterintuitive, but we just make it a really fun month. If you ask any team member, they will say from Christmas or from Thanksgiving to Christmas is their favorite time at Five by Five. And it’s because we just do this really intentional time of, we do the five days of Christmas and every day you walk in and it’s something different. And we’re a hybrid schedule, so a couple of days we’re doing things over Slack that are fun. And so, it’s this tension of how do we do those things and not distract from work time? And we are real careful in how we do that. But at the same time, I think everybody just shows up really excited, because they know it is the most fun time of the year.
So, from decorating the office, to parties, to all the food that’s around, we just make it an incredibly fun time. We have people that won’t take extra time in December, because they don’t want to miss … Somebody just came in and said, “I accidentally scheduled something on the five days of Christmas, but I’m trying to change it because I want to be here.” And so, I think there’s something too in creating traditions that I think in culture, just like you create traditions in a family that you look forward to. We’ve really tried to do that, especially around the holidays here. And creating these traditions that make it fun, that you look forward to every year because what’s going to happen. And I think that it just makes people want to show up in a different way.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I love that, we have done something similar, although I’m really inspired by what you’ve just shared. Ours is not five days long, but we do our annual team meeting on the week of Christmas. The 21st this year is when we’ll do it, but we’re also going to have our annual gingerbread house decorating competition. And let me tell you what, here at Full Focus we have some very competitive people. There was a ton of trash talking yesterday in our team meeting, and people are already thinking about their designs. We do it by department. It is so much fun. And every year there’s just all the smack talking, and all the competition. And you’re right, traditions are just as important inside an organization as they are in a family. And I think if you can give your team something to look forward to in December, rather than maybe just feel dread or they’re counting down the days until they go on PTO. What a great plan, Shannon. I love that.

Shannon Litton:
We also do an annual gingerbread competition. So, someday we might have to put our winner up against your winner, and see who’s the ultimate winner.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Oh, I love that. That is so awesome. Yesterday my team came to me and they said, “We know that you’re going to judge this competition, but would you be okay if we let social media also judge it?” And I think they were implying that maybe I was biased in some way, so I don’t know.

Shannon Litton:
Sounds like it, that’s what they were saying.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
That’s what they were saying. Thanks for helping me read between lines. Okay, Tricia-

Tricia Sciortino:
Well, I feel left out, because we don’t do a gingerbread house competition now. I think we’re going to have to institute this tradition next year guys. Now, however, we are a virtual organization, so we’ll have to get a little crafty on how that’s going to go down. For us, similarly, our big thing for December is a Christmas party. We throw an epic Christmas party, it’s a formal plus one, bring your spouse. We get decked out in gowns, and there’re tuxedos and ties, and it’s just such a special time of year for us. We really view it as our little mini gala. That is a lot of fun, it’s like a giant wedding. We have a DJ or a band, and it’s super, super fun. So, everybody really looks forward to that time. Everyone’s celebrating, they’re motivated, they’re excited. And then, we integrate for us the virtual types of things that you can imagine on Zoom. So, we’ll have wearing ugly Christmas sweater on Zoom, staffing meetings and things like that. We do it our virtual way.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
You guys are amazing at doing really fun events in person for your team since they are virtual. I’m always inspired when you have your people come into town, and you’re dressed up in some crazy outfit. And there’s like some wild [inaudible 00:42:36], there’s dancing and coordinated dancing. I mean, it’s very impressive what they’re doing at BELAY. So, check out Tricia’s social media and you can see some of that, it’s awesome. Well, it’s not all fun though, because sometimes at the end of the year when we get to the end of the year, we realize that we have missed a goal.
And maybe it was a really important goal. I mean, not everything that we decide to do as leaders and business owners, works. Sometimes it takes longer, sometimes there was some unforeseen thing or whatever, and you have a real sense of disappointment that you have to contend with. And it would be bad enough if that was just with ourselves, which is its own force to reckon with, but also with our team. So, how do you guys process it as you evaluate the year, and maybe you missed a significant goal? How do you deal with it personally, and then how do you help your team process it so you don’t get stuck?

Shannon Litton:
I think for us Megan, it’s about owning that we missed the goal. It starts there. I think too often as leaders, I like to encourage my team, I’d love to focus on all the goals we did hit. I’d love to make everybody feel better, but sometimes we do just miss it. And so, I think it is as a team just saying, “Boy, we’ve really missed this one.” And then, doing the work to unpack why that happened and what was in our control that we should have done differently. And even owning sometimes things are just out of our control, sometimes we miss a goal and it’s not our fault. I think teams really appreciate the honesty of a leader that can say, “Hey, let’s just be honest. We’ve missed this, and let’s really dig into not pointing fingers. But how do we not do this again?” And I think the honesty of it helps us, but then also, the plan of how do we not be in this situation again is what gets us all past that, where we feel like there is hope on the other side of it.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Do you know what’s funny, Shannon? It’s counterintuitive, because you would think that it would be hard for people to hear that or maybe they would feel demoralized. But it sounds like your experience is similar to mine. When you go through that process and you identify, first of all you own it, but then you’re really clear on what we could have done differently. And the purpose is really learning, it’s not blaming. It’s actually very empowering, because now all of a sudden, instead of you’re the victim of the wind or whatever, there’s something you can do about it. And there’s something you can do in the future to avoid it. And I think that’s really far more empowering than the alternative of either denial, or blame shifting, or whatever.

Shannon Litton:
When you have great team members, they’re well aware of the goals, and where we’re missing the goals. And so, the team members that you want to keep, they know you’re not doing them any favors by pretending it didn’t happen. Because, they’re well aware, because they’ve been watching those goals probably more closely than you’ve been watching the goals. And so, by putting it out in the open, I think there’s almost even a relief to that. Because, there can be this pent up, what happens when we really have to face the fact that we didn’t hit this goal? And hopefully, we’re not just doing that once a year, we’re not to the end of the year and surprised we haven’t hit the goal. But I think when we have that conversation, I think it actually diffuses the situation, especially for your exceptional team members.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that is a great point. It’s counterintuitive, but that’s a lesson that was probably a hard one, I imagine on your part. Tricia, what about you?

Tricia Sciortino:
I agree everything that you’ve said, and the only thing I would add to that too is there’s something about “We” in all of that. So, when a goal is missed, it’s not that team missed that goal or that leader’s team missed that goal, we. So, we take the stance. I just had team meetings this past week, where we talked about we win organizationally together, so we’re one team and we’re winning or we’re losing together. And I tease and I will say, “If we’re going to lose, I’m with the best bunch of losers, let’s go guys.” We’ll win together and we’ll lose together. But to your point, Shannon, nobody’s surprised, because we’re paying attention to every marker all along the way. So, you might know now that you’re not hitting a goal at the end of the year, because you’re too far out and you can’t make up enough time. And I think being absolutely transparent all along the way, all year long about how things are tracking and trending, just relieves any feeling of shock, or awe, or disappointment When you get to the end of the year.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
What do you guys think are some of the pitfalls that you’ve encountered, and then how do you navigate around those? So Tricia, let’s start with you.

Tricia Sciortino:
I mean, the first one that I can think of is really just throwing the hands up in the … The give up moment. It’s December 15th, we’re not going to make it. “Oh, well, I’m just going to skate the rest of the month, because we didn’t make the goal.” So, really keeping people encouraged to achieving as much as they can to 98% of the goal, versus 90% of the goal in those final days. And I think keeping people’s eye on the prize as you get to those final days of the year is really important. Sometimes we put extra little incentives in at the end of the year to really keep people focused on getting as far as we can, and not falling into the trap of just completely giving up.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that is one of the biggest challenges that I’ve faced in the past too. You can get into all or nothing thinking, you had this big hairy audacious goal, and you know you’re not going to hit it. It’s mathematically impossible or whatever and so, you just settle instead of really playing full out. And I’m thinking of football games that I’ve watched in the last year, where you see a team that is absolutely down, it’s the fourth quarter and they could just give up, but they don’t. And every now and then they pull it out in ways that are completely surprising, but sometimes they just play full out until the end. And they get to walk away with something on the scoreboard that they can feel proud of, even though it’s not the win they wanted. And I think that’s what we want for our teams too. So that’s, been instructive to me. Shannon, what about you?

Shannon Litton:
I think one of the biggest tensions that I feel this time of year is, how much are we focusing on closing out this year and this year’s goals? And how much are we focused on next year? And I’m afraid I don’t have all the answers for that, but I will tell you, we’ve landed in this place where behind the scenes, leadership team, we’re definitely laying the path for next year what our goals are going to be. But generally, with the rest of our team, we’re very focused on this year until the first week of January. And so, we are trying to hit those goals till the end. But we’re also celebrating, I mean, this year we have a lot to celebrate. And so, we are going to celebrate the heck out of December all the way to the end.
And then, when we come back in January, like I’ve said, there’s this energy, we’ve taken a great break. And so, we start the first week of January with, “Welcome to the next year, here’s the plans for this year.” And so, then we all hit the ground doing that. So, I think it’s that tension of, “Whether we hit goals or not, I want to close this year out focused on all the things we’ve done.” And I think as a leader, when we’re always looking to what’s next, we’re living as executives, we’re living in quarters ahead. And so, to keep our mind with our team who’s really still in this year I think is important. And then, know when in the cycle of our business, we shift everybody to that next goal I think is important.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I think that’s a great point, and you really put words to something I was thinking about earlier this week. We had monthly team meeting where we were reviewing financial results from the prior month, which is a strange head space to be. Because, by the time the reconciliation happens, I mean, at the time of this recording, we’re in mid-November. We’re talking about October results, and then simultaneously later in the day I’m working on stuff for 2023, wrapping up a few loose ends to finalize our strategic plan. And it’s like I’m simultaneously in the past and the future, living in this eight or 10 week spread of time.
And I think you’re so right, Shannon. Our teams are in the present, our teams are focused on what’s happening right now. And I think one of the pitfalls can be that we get distracted by either the past or the future, and we lose our focus, and then they don’t have the leadership they need in the present. And I think it’s a real discipline, because it’s a lot to hold intention at the same time to be in the present also, it’s our third place to be so that we can guide our team to the end. So, it’s a great point.
My last question for you guys, is around mindset. We talk here at Full Focus a lot about how our thinking ultimately drives the results that we get. And if we’re focused on just execution without really thinking about our thinking, then we’re really fighting with one hand tied behind our back. So, how do you guys think about the mindset that you need to adopt, that you need to help your team adopt, to move into what’s next? Especially in this transition of what we’re doing now, and then we’re going into the New Year. Tricia?

Tricia Sciortino:
I mean, I think we talk a lot about everything being evolutionary, or iterative, or progressive. And so, the plan for us as an ever growing organization that is planning to be hyper growing as we have in the past. In the future, we’re always talking about progression of things. So, everything tomorrow will look slightly different and that’s actually the plan. So, you will have people on your team that don’t change. And so, those are the people you’re talking to a lot. You’re talking to them about the fact that not changing may mean we’re dying. So, we’re constantly talking about the evolution of our organization, how we’re going to be better tomorrow than we are today. And just really getting the team in the mindset of innovation and progress, even in their day to day. Now, incrementally what that might look like to them in their tactical day might be very minimal, but that we are constantly moving and steering mindsets in the direction of progressive change.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
I like that, because you’re normalizing it for the people who feel like it’s unsettling or maybe they’d prefer things not to change. I think contextualizing it, this is actually less risky than being static, even if that in the very short term feels better, it’s actually a riskier position long term. And I think that helps, because so often, those alarm bells just go off for people based on their personality, or history or whatever. And I think what you’re touching on is just the power that we have as executives and business owners to guide that. So, that we can frame the narrative so it’s supportive of what we’re trying to accomplish, especially as we head into the New Year. Shannon, what about you?

Shannon Litton:
I’m going to go a little more tactical. I love that, Tricia. I think for me, it is helping people to understand, I mean, the difference between December 31st and January 1st, it’s really just a clock that turns, right? And so, I do think sometimes we overestimate or overemphasize this end of year thing in our own heads, in our own brains, in our planning decks. And so, we’ve had to go back the last few years. We used to kill ourselves in December, because it felt like every single thing had to be done and tied up by the end of the month. And so, we’ve gone back and we’ve had to look and say, “What are the real end markers?” We really have to have this revenue collected by this date for it to count. But then, what are the things where we’ve created this urgency that’s not a real urgency and how do we fix that?
And I think that goes back into allowing people to be focused on what really matters. Every single thing doesn’t have to be done before we go on vacation in December. What are the things that do? For instance, we used to kill ourselves on the operations side, because all of our benefits would switch over as of January one. So, we’ve got new benefits rolling out, we’ve got enrollments, we’ve got all of the things. And we accidentally one year moved our health benefits enrollment to April 1st. There’s a whole lot of reasons that we did that, but we didn’t mean to do it. And I was couldn’t believe we were going to have an enrollment in April. And now we’ve come to realize that’s the best thing we ever could have done, is to move some of those things that have an end of year marker that don’t have to be done at the end of year. Move them to other times of the year that are not as busy and as urgent, so that we can focus on the important things at the end of the year.

Megan Hyatt Miller:
Gosh, what a great lesson. First of all, I’ve never thought of that and I’m making a mental note that I’m going to have a conversation with our team about that. I’m inspired. But, I think what you’re really talking about is focus and leverage. How can we focus on those things that are the most high leverage, and clear the path of all the stuff that would threaten those things? Because, just because it’s important doesn’t mean it’s important to be done right now. And I think that’s part of our jobs, is to look out with the holistic enterprise view, as my coach says. And determine what are the most important things that have to be done, and what can we just intentionally procrastinate on or postpone that won’t have any negative bearing on our businesses. So, I love that, it gives us a lot of freedom too.

Joel Miller:
What I love about these two conversations is that it really puts you, the business owner back in command. Instead of looking at these next four weeks like, “It’s just more than I can manage.” I’m looking at my calendar, I’m looking at the projects that still have to be closed out. All the other time commitments, and just feeling there’s just more than you can manage. You can renegotiate those things. And what’s more than being able to renegotiate those things, the ones that you choose to execute on between now and the end of the year. You can get your team fully on board to help pull in the same direction, and help you close out 2022 stronger than you went in, having achieved what you set out to do and possibly more. The main thing is to remember that you have the agency.
Those strategies that Megan and Erin were talking about, they’re all applicable, but they only work if you use them. And the same is true for the advice that Shannon and Tricia shared. Good ideas are worth less than air, unless you put them to work. And that’s a wrap for this episode of The Business Accelerator Podcast. If you’re a business owner, and you’re interested in learning more about our business accelerator coaching program, go to businessaccelerator.com. We help successful, but overwhelmed small business owners just like you, scale yourself and your business so you can win at work and succeed at life. It’s what we call the double win. And if you would like to experience that for yourself, even in the middle of crunch time, like the end of the year, go to businessaccelerator.com. That’s it, we’ll be back next week with more conversations to help accelerate your business.