You Grow Faster When You Stop Overthinking And Start Moving

We reflect on a week of real-world lessons that sharpen how we work, lead, and grow, from tracking progress to setting firm boundaries. We also challenge the idea of “working hard” by focusing on standards, service, and the uncomfortable experiments that actually move the needle. 
• measuring and monitoring to spot progress we overlook 
• reflecting like a high achiever without losing momentum 
• using tight time constraints to create urgency and better questions 
• setting stern boundaries while staying supportive 
• in-person versus virtual dynamics and why culture carries standards 
• choosing four impactful hours over performative busy work 
• balancing action versus planning based on the size of the decision 
• sending simple follow-ups that deliver high-level service 
• running after action reviews to decide what to change next 
• leaning into beginner discomfort as the fastest growth path 
If you want to dive a little bit deeper with me, you can book a time on the call. You can message me on Instagram, JordanF Edwards. Let me know, guys, what you thought of this. Did you like it? Did you not? Is it something I should do more of?

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Transcript

Welcome And New Format

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey, it's Jordan Edwards here, and we're with the Clocked In Podcast. And what we're going to be discussing this day is what I learned over the past week. As I go through business and entrepreneurship, it's a journey. It's a journey. And one of the hardest parts for us is realizing when it's time to do action and when it's time to do planning. So throughout this week, I had a couple different iterations that occurred, and I would love to share the learnings with you. And I kind of want to try a new episode format and see if this is something that you guys like or don't like. So right now I'm 339 episodes in, which is compelling, but at the same time, it's been six years. You know what I mean? That's a little bit of more than one episode a week. And one of the things I realized, my first initial takeaway was realizing that when we don't measure and monitor, so when I say that, measuring and monitoring is how you can tell if something's improving or not. And in the world we're in, we manage our health, our sleep, our business, our bank accounts, our income, our social media followers. There are so many things to track that it becomes kind of a lot. And it can become challenging to really manage everything you're doing. And the first big takeaway I had was that I started to look into my podcast and started to see how it was doing versus previous years. So this year, and this is recording on July 31st. So basically seven months into the year. And to me, that was a fascinating thing because I didn't even realize it. It felt like I was doing the same inputs, same, same iteration, same consistency, and it just became

Measure Progress You Missed

SPEAKER_00 3:04

my standard. I didn't think that I was suddenly doing so much more or it was being received better. And that that was an interesting iteration for me because how many times in our life do we not see the progress that we're truly making? And when I do my coaching group a lot of the time, what ends up happening is most of the time high achievers are constantly looking forward and we forget to reflect back on the journey that we've had and how much we've gained and how much growth we've actually had throughout that time. The second big takeaway I had this week was I actually had a guest speaker in my Monday night group, Jeff Abraham, and he runs a $20 million business at 69 years old. And I found that very impressive that he's the CEO, he's active, he's created it for his lifestyle. So he still hangs out with his granddaughter a lot, and he has a lot of amazing things happening. And what ended up happening was he had a massive day, like very, very big day. Two awesome opportunities came his way, and he basically told me, Hey, Jordan, I know I have this commitment with you. I only have a shorter period of time than the hour that we were allotted. And he goes, I got 15 to 20 minutes. So he hops on. He's like, I have 15 to 20 minutes and we'll we'll get this thing going. So what ended up happening is because of that, it caused urgency around my group.

Time Boundaries Create Urgency

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Everyone that was on the call was like, What? How are we gonna get this done in this amount of time? So what I did was I adjusted it on the fly. And we just went to an open QA format and everyone got to ask questions. Now, because the questions were so compelling, Jeff's an amazing guy. He ended up staying for about 45 to 50 minutes, which gave me a lot of insight to realize that when you have a strong frame of I only have this much time to work with someone, then people take your time a lot more seriously. Meaning that when you're coaching people, working with clients, working with these people, friends on the call, hey, I got four minutes. What do we got? It'll get people to the point a lot quicker. So when you put constraints on your time and when you value your own time, people are gonna become so much more appreciative of that. Because if you just came on, was like, I'm having an amazing day, but I really only have 45 minutes, everyone's like, I lost 15 minutes. Instead, he goes even with a smaller constraint, and then and we break that so it exceeds everyone's expectations. And I want you to start thinking about that. How does that show up in your life? How do these pauses or moments where you have a strong enough frame of, I'm working today, I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing, and your friend calls you and you answer right away because that's what you think a good friend does. A good friend's gonna support you on the business journey. So you need to be able to set those boundaries and set those parameters so that you're able to do the things that you want to do. And when you go through that, a big challenge for a lot of us is really being stern with our boundaries because we feel like we're pushing people away and we don't feel like we're actually helping them. And I just it made me realize it's important. It's really, really important to set the stern boundaries. What's the expectation? What are we gonna do? Obviously, you can loosen it up towards the end, but you want people to understand what's the purpose of what we're doing here and how's the objective and how are we looking to accomplish this? Which leads me into my third lesson of the week. Which is I actually gave a presentation in person to an insurance group, and it was interesting because most of my stuff is fully remote, fully not in person, fully remote. And what happened was when you're in person, you can relate so much deeper with people. I'm not saying that virtual is bad, I'm just saying that there's a place for both, I think. And if you can make it an in-person, it can be very valuable. I do think there's also a ton of value in virtual as well. Because what ends up happening is in the in-person, the people start to feed off each other positively or negatively. So you're constantly pulling people back in, where when it's virtual, you don't feel that because everyone's on their own solitude and they're doing their own thing, focusing on what

In-Person Energy And Culture Standards

SPEAKER_00 7:46

the goal is and what you're trying to achieve. So it was interesting for me because I haven't done an in-person in a little bit. So it was it was an eye-opening experience. And then the other big thing I took away from that was that when you have a strong culture, that culture kind of carries and people start to understand the standard that you're trying to set. So when you have a high standard for yourself and what you do, people are gonna respect that and they're gonna want to be around that. So I think it's very, very important for you, no matter what you do in person or virtual, hold that high standard. Hold that standard that you're looking to see in the world, even if it's just you by yourself and you do it with your clients. You know what I mean? Like one of the things I do is if someone's a minute late, I'm calling you. Like it's just it is what it is. We had a call, what's going on? Are you okay? Is everyone okay? And I just think it's important to really understand that because the more we communicate with others and the more we are able to be transparent about what's going on, where things are at, then it's not so much of a hiding thing, but it's more of this is what we agreed upon. And I want us to hold us to that standard. Otherwise, we're gonna have we're gonna have to make adjustments. And that's okay too. That's okay as well. But I just, it was really interesting going through this in person because it landed differently for some of them. For some of them, I had to pull them back on because they started to realize how much how fast they deviate, how fast they fall off. And if someone's not driving the conversation, driving what you're doing, we're not moving forward. And that brings me to this point of in your work and the things you do, I'd rather you do four impactful hours than working, working, quote unquote, for those that are watching, 20 hours a day because you're just not working. If you're actually doing impactful revenue generating activities for 20 hours a day, fantastic. But most of us are not. Meaning that I'd rather you give your dedicated time to that because that will make the big difference for you, opposed to this other side of it where we sit there and we go, I work so hard. Meanwhile, you had a 45-minute conversation with a coworker or you went to lunch for two hours. Like people don't really understand what work looks like some of the time. And I think that can be really challenging for us. The fourth big takeaway I had this week was I actually set up each day where I had one in-person activity. It was a coffee presentation, I had a podcast in person, I had a workout class in person, and I realized that that adds an element of connecting with others. That adds another element. And one of the things I did was go on a podcast. And when I got there, it was quite interesting because you start to connect with others and get to see them. But the conversation we had was pretty fascinating because we were talking about what does it take to actually be successful? What does it take to really execute on your goals, even when others are tearing you down? And you start to realize that that overthinking that a lot of us have, that challenge where we're like, I don't know if I'm good enough. I don't know if I should be here. Am I in the right place? Am I spending my time doing the right thing? A lot of that evaporates

Action Versus Planning That Wins

SPEAKER_00 11:17

when you commit. And what I mean by that is there's an action time and there's a planning time. So I'll ask the audience this. When you think about your action versus planning, how much time are you, if you only had 100%, would you spend 50% in action, 50% in planning? Would you spend 75% in action, 25% planning? And the thing is, when people are lower down on the totem pole or in production roles, or they're in roles where they uh it might not be a real relational business, sometimes it's a little bit more transactional. You have to have a high level of action. Problem is a lot of us are in a high level of planning because to get to where we were in life, we had to make these plans and these decisions. So what it comes down to is realizing what's a big decision, plan a little bit more there. What's a small thing, and that's an action. Like trying to get a new client, that's a small thing, that's an action, immediate action will get you to where you need to go. Because when we overthink this kind of stuff, what ends up happening is that we don't actually get the people that we want because we took too long. We took too long, and that happens all the time where we're just not servicing people at a very high level. And I think when we service at a very high level, it really does make a big difference. And for the first coffee meeting I had on Monday, the guy I was meeting with texted me the day before, still on, everyone excited? Great. And then after the meeting, he communicated where he was like, really appreciated the conversation, looking to see what we can do next. And that got me thinking that that's something I've dropped off on. And this week I've applied that hard with every person I met with in person or virtual. I tried to make an effort to text them and just say, hey, really appreciated the conversation. This was a big takeaway for me, or great seeing you, looking forward to the next time. And what I realized is that is such a minor thing, but it's a very high level of service. Like 99% of people are not doing that because they think they're too busy and they don't value that. So when you go through that, I think there needs to be a lot of space for that. Space for, hey, let's let's solidify what this was. How do we think about that relationship and how do we foster that a little bit better? The fifth thing that was a big takeaway for me was realizing that I'm constantly learning. I've had the best coaching career, coaching business this past year. It's it's gone up, which has been amazing. And one of the things I did not really I've shied away from a little bit is marketing. Like obviously, I post a lot of content, but it's not super intentional. And I actually end up getting a marketing guy. I got someone to help me in marketing. And that was interesting for me because there was a lot of deep questions that I didn't really think that much into because I was so busy in the action stage. Like right now, I have to allocate more time to planning. I actually have my action days and then I have planning days where I leave it a little bit more open, a little bit more free to figure out what I need to do. And I think that's really, really important that when you feel like you're stagnating a little bit, or you feel like things are slowing down or you have

High-Service Follow-Ups That Stand Out

SPEAKER_00 14:47

more time, where do we allocate that new time to? What's the next challenge? What's the next hurdle we're gonna overcome? So when you're going through your business and you're taking these evaluations, maybe on a monthly cadence, maybe on a weekly cadence, maybe on a six-month timeframe, you got to evaluate what's working, what's not, and what we should do next time. And that's the after action review. I do that with all my coaching clients, but it was really important for me to see that for myself. Like, what's going well? What can be what do I need to work on? And what am I gonna take away for next time? And so that was a thing for me where I leaped in a little bit. It was a leap of faith. And it's that point of trusting yourself that you're gonna figure it out. Because in reality, we are gonna figure it out always, no matter what. Like, no one, there's very few people who are like, back's against the wall. Do I ever talk to them? And they're like, I'm homeless now. It never happens. Most of the time, they're like, I figured it out. My back was against the wall, I took care of it, and I did what I had to do to be successful and accomplish the things I wanted to. And the final one I'll leave you with was a workout class I did in, it was an entrepreneur group, and I did the workout class. And what ended up happening was so interesting. It was a group, and what we ended up doing was more of a hit format, like high-intensity training. And it was exercises that I wasn't the most familiar with because most of the time I train weightlifting, or I'll do Muay Thai, or I'll go on a run. And this was so different for me, and I was struggling, like really, really struggling. And it was really hard for me to the point where the trainer came up to me and he goes, dude, are you all right? Like you might need electrolytes, like they'll pick you up a little bit. And I just realized in that moment, as I'm feeling like this is so hard because it was kind of outside, kind of inside, and where I'm at, it's very the temperature can be pretty hot. And the thing

Beginner Discomfort And Quantum Leaps

SPEAKER_00 16:53

I realized was I was a beginner there, and as a beginner, you actually have the most growth, and that's when it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable when you don't feel familiar. So, me hopping into the marketing space a little bit more felt a little unfamiliar going through this person's process. Me jumping into this workout that wasn't something I normally do, a little bit uncomfortable, and it's a new process. And that's what I would encourage you to do. Find something uncomfortable that you've been holding back and you know that would be your next quantum leap forward, that you by doing this, it would push your business, push your career, push your relationship to the next level. Because I think too many of us get comfortable and we stay in that comfort and we concern ourselves with we're not concerned with food, shelter, clothing anymore. We have enough money, we feel successful, but we don't push ourselves. And I think that push is what you need sometimes. And when you think about it, should I do this, should I not do this? Think about something that you're like, I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm gonna try my best. That's when you know it's the right thing. When you're like starting to overthink, that's when you take the action and that's when you move through. Because if you don't take action on that, you're not gonna grow. And that's what needs to happen. Growth is at the moment when you're like, I'm ready to try something new. And that in business, there's so many experiments we have to do, constantly experimenting, trying new things. This, even this format of, hey, what did I do this week? What did I learn? What are the learnings that I'm gonna share with the audience? New format. Usually I have a very organized, I'm gonna talk about this topic. This is just me having a reflection on the week, going, what went well? What did I learn from that? And what could the audience maybe apply to this? And I just think we don't experiment enough because we're embarrassed. We don't want to be look stupid or silly or dumb. And I think none of that's true. Because in 90 years, no one's gonna, no one's gonna remember you if you don't do something drastic, if you don't do something that moves the needle. So in your life, I want it to be a meaningful one. I want it to be one of purpose, I want it to be one of excitement so that you can see what's really possible. Because you can do whatever you want in this life. And if we're not, if we're too scared to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, then we're not able to create, and I'm not talking about bad uncomfortable, I'm talking about uncomfortable, like, I don't know if I can do that. That's a little scary. Can I do this? And I found that when I do that, I have the most growth. So I would highly, highly recommend that you consider this because it's going to take you to the next level. So I hope you really enjoyed this. If you want to dive a little bit deeper with me, you can book a time on the call. You can message me on Instagram, JordanF Edwards. I look forward to talking with you soon. And let me know, guys, what you thought of this. Did you like it? Did you not? Is it something I should do more of? Let me know because I'm always experimenting. And I wish you a happy, happy Tuesday. And I hope you start experimenting too.