Why Agency Owners Dread Mondays (And How To Change It)

If Monday feels more like survival than opportunity, this conversation will help you identify what's really causing the frustration and give you practical ways to build an agency you're excited to lead every single week. 

Shane and Tonya discuss the habits that create unnecessary stress, how procrastination fuels overwhelm, why systems matter more than working harder, and simple mindset shifts that can transform the way you approach your business.

Learn more at IntegraPartnerNetwork.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is IA Forward, your playbook for success as an independent insurance agent. Now, here to help you knock it out of the ballpark are your hosts, Jane Tatum, Mike Basil, and Tanya Leed. Welcome to IA Forward.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Today's topic is 100% totally shame. And that is how to love Mondays as a business owner.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I do love Mondays. I don't know why. They've always been uh it's always been a thing. It's you know, I don't know. It's uh I love my family, I love my weekends. I used to love my ball playing and ball coaching weekends, but there's something maybe like uh refreshing or start over oriented with Monday that I've always maybe enjoyed, right? It's like you know, like you lose a ball game and you've got another ball game the next day, and you're like, okay, we lost that game, but I get to start over tomorrow. So that's just kind of the way I've always interpreted Mondays.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Now, is that something that you got from your dad or Mr. Rex, or did he feel like most people about Mondays?

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Uh yeah, I don't know. Uh, we never actually talked about that. I I don't know that he would have been a Monday fan necessarily because he was a big hunting, fishing, fishing guy. Um, and he would have enjoyed, you know, he would have enjoyed fishing or hunting over the weekends, depending on what season it was. And for me, I think it's it's one of those things that I've enjoyed my work for so long. I've enjoyed what I do that I just don't dread Monday. Like I guess a lot of people dread it in a traditional sense. And I I genuinely think that's sad. Like I hate that for people. Like I I don't want them. Certainly, if they work for our organization, I don't want that. Um, I just in general don't want that for people. And um, maybe that's just one of those things that I just decided to take up. And uh my dad's saying was, have you sold anything today? That was his way of kind of nudging you, like, have you sold anything today? Um, you know, I'm my my saying has kind of been, you know, only five more days till Monday, right? I mean, you know, that'll that that that gets people to at least crack a smile, even though it might be a little bit of a sarcastic smile. Um, it's just kind of become one of those things to help people get past this natural I hate Mondays.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Right. So I want to ask our listeners to think about when was the last time that you woke up on Monday and got excited to work? Or when was the last time you walked into your agency on a Monday and your team was excited to get to work, right? And most agency owners didn't start their own business because they wanted more meetings and more emails and problems. They started because they wanted freedom, right? And people that hate Mondays, I really and truly believe it's because somewhere along the way, they built themselves another job instead of building a business.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, I I think that's probably pretty fair. And they it wasn't intentional, right? Like you you start out when you're when you're gonna start an independent agency, you start out with all these ideas and goals, and you know, this is what I want to be, and I'm after this freedom. And you don't intentionally create this thing that you dread. Like you don't you don't want that. Nobody sets out to do that. And I I think a lot of that comes from they feel stuck, like they can't do anything about it. The reality of it is that you can do something about it. Like that's the beauty of the fact that you're now a business owner, that you started this thing. And if you started this thing that you don't like, you end up in a place that you don't like. There is absolutely a way to move from the place you don't like to the place that you do like. Um and, you know, it probably has to do with the book of business you've built, um, the makeup of that book of business, the clientele of that book of business. And there might be some painful processes to go through, but you can absolutely change your dynamic, which will change your people if you have employees. Um, because more than likely, if you're miserable and you dread Monday, your employees also dread Monday. Um that that's just the nature of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:27

And I don't even know it's that we really dread Monday. I don't I don't think that Monday's the problem. I mean, I I think it's what Monday represents, right? And and they tend to expose all of the things that we've been avoiding, right? So maybe we need to make decisions we don't want to make, or we ignored emails on Friday afternoon to leave early to go out on the boat or play golf. Um, there's some kind of technology problem or difficult conversations we have to make, phone calls that we don't want to make. And all of a sudden, Monday is like an accountability that shims up all at once.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, I the procrastination, I would call some of that procrastination. And um, and so you know, the reality of it is is that learning to do the things that you don't want to do is a really good way to do that, right? Like understand, like I went through this, I'm a procrastinator, right? Um people wouldn't necessarily think that naturally listening to me, but I am I can be a really bad procrastinator on the things that I really don't want to do. You're a salesperson. I'm a salesperson, right? And so that's just the way it is. And so, you know, even though I've run an organization and, you know, hopefully have matured and developed through that process, and I'm better today, one of the things was learning to do the things that I didn't want to do first, um, and learning to be disciplined around that. Uh, yet just yesterday I had a um I had to go to a funeral and um I was in the funeral, and I'm getting phone calls on my Office phone app because I didn't change the status on it like I probably should have. And I'm getting phone calls on that app during the funeral, and I know who it is. Um, it's it's a client, um, it's one of our retail clients, and uh it's a it's a uh a good friend. And um they're calling me, and I know that when they call me, there's usually a problem. Okay, they've bypassed their account manager, they've bypassed the account manager's manager, they've come straight to me uh within our hierarchy because they they know they can. And so I've known them for a long time. And I was like, uh, man, I do not want to call this person back today. I'm in a funeral uh from a high school classmate. I it's not a fun afternoon. This is not what I want to do, is talk to these people. And I forced myself to call them back uh when I got back to the office. It was four o'clock. I called them back. They literally had a very simple question for me and were in the best spirits, and it was not a frustrated phone call that it typically would be. You know, they generally only reach out if they're frustrated about something. And I think a lot of agency owners find themselves in that spot. They're one of those clients that if we weren't in a small community, probably wouldn't necessarily want them as a client, but we're in a small community. They're people that knew my dad, knew my have known my family. And so you take care of those customers, right? But they're not fun customers. And I called them back anyway. We had a very pleasant five-minute conversation, it wasn't drawn out, it was simple. I hung up the phone and I'm like, I am so glad I called them back. Like, thank goodness I called those people back. And it it was just like I didn't procrastinate, and I was literally like giving myself a pat on the back mentally. In in my mind, I'm like, you did good today. You called those people back, you did what you tell other people to do. And um, I it was just yeah, I think that's what happens to us, yeah. You we're in the insurance business. Insurance can lead to some negative conversations, and that doesn't mean that we have to personally lead ourselves down that road to that level of having though that kind of dread around conversation.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

So much of the hatred of Monday comes from the Sunday scaries, right? And people start dreading and stressing over Monday before Monday even arrives. And it's like Sunday afternoon, it starts, and you can't relax, and you start checking your email, which turns into you becoming a little bit short with your family or your spouse, and then you start thinking about work all evening instead of enjoying the rest of the weekend. You have trouble sleeping, and all of those Sunday issues robbed you of you know a quarter of your weekend, and so you have stressed about all the things you have to do on Monday, and it's just you know, it it's caused you to ruin your Sunday. So, what can you do to actually make your weekend feel like a weekend?

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Well, unfortunately, I'm probably the wrong person to ask this question. Um, because the lesson, the the the place that I have gotten to in life that that I have wrestled with from time to time, gone back and forth on, um is I think it's just the business ownership thing that I have leaned into more over the last five years than maybe I did in the first 25 years of my of my life. Um I I I have worked, you know, outside of quote office hours since day one. I have always done that. And I think as a business owner, um we there's a whole lot of talk about work-life balance. We've talked about it, you know, through the years on this podcast. Um I think that you're I think Tanya's word of the year this year's rhythm. Is that right? Rhythm. That is correct. I think work work-life rhythm today is a better topic than work-life balance is um for business owners. Okay, now there are people in this world that are what I would call non-executive employees who kind of get to work office hours, go home, and hang it up, right? And then there are leadership-level people inside organizations that uh obviously think about things longer than the average employee. And then there are business owners. And business owners think about things a lot. I think about things a lot. Working is thinking. And what I lean into instead of worrying about it and have moved to, because I used to worry about it. I used to I used to let it let it ruin my weekends, is I just, you know, I just find 10 minutes, right? I just find little short periods. I grab my mole skin, which contains all of my thoughts, and I write it down. I get it out of my head, I put it down in a note, um, a note that I can come back and visit Monday morning, uh, Sunday night, whenever things are calmer. Uh, if it's a busy weekend, if I'm in the middle of something, what back when kids were busy, uh if that was the thing, this is what I would do. I would, I would just break off and I would document it. And I find that when we keep it in our brains and we don't we don't somehow have an outlet, like your outlet might be a voice memo to yourself, right? Might be doing a voice memo on your phone. Um, I figured out that I could do a voice memo on my Apple Watch. That was cool. Like, you know, do it on, I was I didn't have my phone. I just, you know, lifted my hand up and I figured it out. And I did voice memos sometimes when I didn't have my mole skin. Something to get it out of my brain, something to get it documented down became something that relieved me, right? It took, it took the the million things running through your mind, the thing that causes you to worry, the thing that causes you to dread Monday, and it just gave it an outlet, right? And um, I don't know if it was the physical action of it or if it was literally like, oh, okay, I'm not gonna lose that thought. I wrote it down, I gave myself a voice memo back way before, you know, really cool technology like uh Apple Watches and smartphones. Um a lot of people, a lot of the older generation would leave themselves voicemails, right? Uh I'm sure a lot of people on this call have done that to if you're if you're around my age, right? Um, you know, where you call your office line and you know left yourself a voicemail for Monday morning, right? Um, so you don't want to forget. And so I I that's my outlet um is to not avoid the work but lean into it because as business owners, as agency owners, it's not gonna stop. Like your brain's not gonna stop. And um, if it does stop, and like there's a really good chance that you might be struggling as an agency owner because most agency owners are just there's a there's a hamster wheel going in that brain 900 miles an hour all the time.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Part of the challenge with that though is everything feels urgent sometimes. And so you're in this mindset of I've got to solve every problem and I have to answer every question, and and you're carrying too much, right? And that's what happens when your agency is fully dependent on you in your brain instead of taking time to create the systems that you need. And this is one of those places that even if you're a solo premier, you have to create those systems because everything can't be urgent. One of the books that Shane had us read, I guess it was two years ago, was Essentialism and focusing on that one thing. And and my husband and I talk about this a lot, and this is actually a book that sends you in the car together. But I think that's part of that Monday challenge is if everything is urgent, if everything is important, then you're going into the week with just too much on your plate.

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah. If everything's important, nothing's important, right? Um, that's I've heard people say that before. And I that that system creation is also part of getting it out of your brain. You got to get it documented, you got to get it out. We we've talked about that. We know that there were there's lots of stats and consultants talking about look, you can't teach other people how to help you and do this if you don't get it out of your brain, right? And that is one of our biggest problems as as agency owners, is is not being able to prioritize, not being able to uh change that that that reactionary process um that creates that everything is urgent mindset. Uh I think that's that's something that I feel like is I've gotten better at. Um, you know, it's a natural thing for if you're a worrier, um, you know, raise your hand. I'm a worrier, right? Now a lot of a lot of people are worriers. What if this? What if that? Um I uh I'm married to a non-worrier. Um also uh a struggle for worriers is to be married to a non-worrier. Um, you know, like how come you're not freaking out about this? Um, you know, it's one of the things that my lovely bride has has always said that I love, absolutely love. And I think as business owners, we we should we should use this in our agencies. We should, we should train our our minds to move down this path. And that is to not create create our worry. That's you know, that's her statement to me. Like, hey, you're creating your worry, settle down. Um, hey, don't create your worry. That's her little, that's all she has to say. Like, you know, because I may be going through as a risk manager, as an insurance agency owner, as a worrier. Um, you know, you put all of those combinations together and you end up in this place where you just run through all these what if scenarios constantly. Well, what if this? Well, what if that? Well, what if this? And then you go through all that, and before you know it, you've created this false world that does not exist. And um I remember what's really funny. Um, I I uh uh it's well documented on our podcast that my youngest daughter played Division I softball for the University of Kansas. She's graduated now, and now we're into a new phase. And we went for a run, um, walk run uh the other day together. And uh we're we're trying to she's trying to convince me to run a half marathon. And so we're talking about getting in shape for that and train, and she's looking for something to, you know, keep her competitive spirits alive. And I think it's wonderful. Um, and you know, we we we were talking about just this this whole concept of uh of creating worry and creating like all these things that don't exist, right? They just they don't exist. And I told her, like, I would rather be the motivator, I don't really want to be the motivatee. And that was kind of the thing that was going on, and she was having to motivate me on this run. Like, dad, don't stop, like you can't stop, don't stop. And I'm like, I'm dying, I've gotta stop. And she's like, You're not dying, you you know, and so it was really a reverse role situation that was kind of comical. And um, and so you know, I I'm really good at telling people and motivating people to do what they need to do. And um, one of those classic, you know, don't create your worry, even though I'm the worrier, uh, was with a a long-term, long time employee years ago. And um uh this this employee worried about everything, right? But she was a risk manager, like she wrote large commercial accounts, like it's really easy to get worked up about things, like what might happen. Like, that is the business we're in, is mitigating risk. Like we're in that business, and so to me, that is a amplified situation as an insurance agency owner that also is in the risk management business, mitigating risk for our clients. We create scenarios in our head all the time, and um Um, it's something that's not necessarily healthy for us. Uh, and so we have to think about that. And I lean back on my wife's statement of don't create your worry. We have to do a little bit less of that when it comes to our business, and then we can end up in a better um loving Monday scenario like I do today.

SPEAKER_02 22:24

You know, my my dad was the quintessential worrier. Like it was it was worry at a level that if you put Shane and I together, like it wouldn't even touch it, right? And so that was something I had to learn very early on was that dad worried enough for me. And if I tried to take that on as well, the problems would just exacerbate. And so worry is not as big a deal as some other things are because I'm Shane is going to be shocked when I say this, but you know, I I I tend to take on too much and I will overload myself. And I mean, Shane had no idea until I just said that that that was something that I did, right? But one of the biggest things that works for me is not starting Monday with email, which goes against everything that's in our technologically advanced world. And what really made me able to do this is to realize that email is everyone else's agenda. And when you're able to start that first hour on your priorities and the things that you can do to make your agency better, to make your team better, to make yourself better, to really prepare for the week or to better prepare for a situation that you're working on, when you're not starting the entire week with everybody else's agenda, it's amazing how you're able to protect your best thinking and you're able to protect your time for the rest of the week.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah, I think the other thing about email, since you brought up email that we can pick on is email is to me not a conversation tool. And we've allowed it in a society, in a especially in our workplaces. Um, like I've been on a little, Tanya knows, I've been on a little bit of a kick for the last few months to get out of email as soon as you sense that we're you're in a conversation, right? Um externally, this is difficult because if you're dealing with an insurance carrier, an underwriter, if you're dealing with a client, you don't have a choice. Email is that tool, right? Um, but it might be that you need to pick up the phone. Now, the some of the millennials, the the younger millennials and the Gen Zs absolutely roll in their eyes when I said that, if they're listening, um, because they don't tend to love to pick up the phone. Like that's just not their first thought. Whereas as an Xer, I'm more inclined to want to pick up the phone, right? I'm more inclined to say, hey, let's have a conversation about this. Um, internally, if you have a team of more than maybe even if you just have one person, um you may not be in the same place, right? There's a lot of remote work that goes on, obviously, these days. Uh, I'm a big believer of getting out of email if you're having a conversation. And at a minimum, get into a teams chat if that's your tool, right? Some communication tool. Uh, we use Teams because we're Office 365. And so I've encouraged my folks internally uh to quickly move email conversations out of email and into a Teams chat. Uh I I I don't mind, you know, looking at email first thing in the morning or or when I get to the office, maybe not first thing in the morning, but I don't mind that. But I generally try to stay on top of my email and do a you know a better job than I used to do. That's that's a that's a learned effort, by the way. If you're a if you're an email hoarder, okay, maybe a term that I'm thinking about. If you if you leave stuff in your inbox out there, um probably better to to come up with a better system than because a big old clogged email inbox to me, even if they're red, is problematic, right? And um it's just something that's gonna weigh you down. It's almost like a ball and chain to me. Like if my inbox is like super full, it generally hovers between I would say 15 to 40 uh in my email inbox at any time. I obviously know people that have hundreds or thousands of emails in their inbox. Um and you know, I can't operate that way, like I just can't. Um but one of the biggest time-sucking things and dreads and things that'll cause us to procrastinate is having an email conversation that should really be had on the phone or in a Teams type chat. You know, something that's more reactive. Because one person, to Tanya's point, other person's agenda, one person is having a conversation, the other person is doing a project, and then the person that's having the conversation isn't hearing back from the person that's doing the project, and then you have friction. Well, so-and-so hasn't responded to me. Well, haven't heard from them. You know, you go down through that deal, it's like, well, are you having a conversation? Or did what are we doing here? Right. And so I try to envision email as like literally sending a letter. I know that really ages me, but it's like, okay, would I would I send a letter for this? Okay, that's an email. If I wouldn't send a letter for this, I should probably be on Teams. I should probably pick up the phone. I should probably have a conversation. Um, and so whole nother topic of a podcast, by the way, is managing email and you know, learning what's a conversation versus the proper use of email, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:58

As a leader, whether you have a large team, a small team, or or even a solopreneur, you're going to take, you're going to lead with the cues for the week, right? And if you arrive at the office on Mondays, frantic, stressed, overwhelmed, negative, you're going to be that way the rest of the week. And if you have a team, they're going to be that way, right? And one of the things that that Shane is fantastic at is when he walks in the office, um, and I've had this experience when I when I go and visit the home office there in Huntington, but like he's optimistic, he's calm, he's intentional. He he goes and he like gets his coffee and he does his thing and he smiles at people and he's and he's pleasant and and he's prepared. And as a member of his team, I noticed that. And that's contagious, right? And that's that's one of the places that he is truly a fantastic leader for the people around him. And that's one of those signs of of great success, is that when you're able to walk through that door on Monday morning and you're not saying and you're not encouraging your people in this way of saying, like, how do I survive today? Or, you know, it's like, okay, let's have a great week, let's do this.

SPEAKER_01 30:32

Yeah. I we I think we don't have a choice as as business people, as leaders, uh, certainly as as owners. Um I'm the belief, there's some people that don't believe this. There's some people that would be like, you know, especially on a social media argument, which I'm not gonna engage in, but they would want to argue about this. And that is, I don't believe we have a choice but to show up with with a certain level of positivity. Like it's your culture. Like, if if you're gonna show up, you know, it doesn't mean you had a great weekend or you had a great night or you got enough sleep or you have a headache or whatever, right? There's whatever the reason is, you have this duty or sense of responsibility as the leader, the owner of the business um to show up consistently, right? To be of the right mindset. And um you don't you don't just get to say, you know what, I can't do it today, right? Like that's not what you signed up for. Now, if that I'm not saying you can't take a day off. I'm not saying you can't take a vacation. Um, you do need to do that. You need to recharge. I'm not saying that at all. But take the day off. Like just say, hey, I'm not gonna make it today. Don't show up and take it out on everybody else. That you're mad that you had to show up, right? That you, which is kind of back to regretting, you know, why are you dreading Monday, right? Like what wait a minute. This is your business. This is yours, right? Um, you you you created this thing. If you don't like what you created, then let's change what you create, right? Um it doesn't mean that something's bad or something's wrong with the fact that you created a business. Like it's not the fact that you are now a business owner that has made you this way. Something else is has happened, right? You've done it wrong, and that's okay. I did it wrong early too, right? And then I changed what it looked like. I changed it a couple of times because I couldn't, I didn't get it right even the second time. And so I kept tweaking rather than saying forget it. Um, and so I'm I'm of that mindset, and I believe it's our responsibility to get up every day, especially on Monday, uh, unless you're taking a vacation. And and be that that example, be the example, do the right thing. I think showing up is 90% of it. Um, but you need to show up right. You don't need to show up grouchy to that point. And uh, you know, we have this, I have a saying at the end of this podcast attitude to choice. Like we we have the choice to choose how we're gonna show up. And that is a controllable. Like nobody, nobody controls that. No matter what's going wrong in your world that day, how you show up with your attitude is a choice.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

I'm gonna leave us today with this quote from Bob Feller. Every day is a new opportunity. You can build on yesterday's success or put its failures behind and start over again.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

And attitude is still a choice, so make a great one. Bye, y'all.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

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