Tidy Up and Tune In: Inner Circle Q&A on Decluttering and Active Listening

#287 - Can clutter in your mind and space really hold you back from reaching your full potential? Join us for an enlightening episode of Organized Chaos as my husband, Marc, and I uncover the profound impact of a tidy environment on mental and physical productivity. I'll be sharing my best-kept secrets for maintaining an organized workspace, streamlining your daily tasks, and keeping essential items within easy reach. Meanwhile, Marc provides a deep dive into the unique challenges that clutter presents and offers proactive strategies to conquer potential distractions. Together, we paint a clear picture of how an organized life can lead to better focus, efficiency, and overall well-being.

Ready to transform your relationships and communication skills? In the latter half of our conversation, we delve into the art of active listening and authentic communication. We discuss the transformative power of truly hearing others out and breaking away from the habitual 'fix-it mode.' I'll share personal anecdotes and practical techniques like pattern interrupts to foster deeper connections with loved ones and clients. We also reflect on our personal growth journeys in parenting and marriage, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and celebrating progress. Finally, discover how the Modern Leadership Inner Circle can provide tailored support for achieving success in various facets of life, from business to family connections. Tune in for an episode packed with insights to help you cultivate a balanced and fulfilling lifestyle.

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Transcript

Teresa 0:09

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. All right, everyone, welcome back to another episode of Organized Chaos. I have a little bit of a different episode today. I actually have my husband here. Mark, say hello.

Teresa 0:49

Hello Mark because we're answering questions. So, if you guys don't know, we actually have a YouTube channel called Modern Leadership and we co-host that channel and we talk to family-driven entrepreneurs and it revolves a lot around family, health and business and how we can actually really work or have those work in synergy. So we do get questions from our members. So we have a membership in Modern Leadership called the Inner Circle and they will ask us questions every now and then and we answer them, sometimes on YouTube. However, we wanted to bring a couple of those questions over to Organized Chaos because we have many audience members who can relate to both of our channels here. So, anyway, we're going to answer some questions here and I wanted to start off with one that really is something that has helped me a lot, both mentally and physically, and this question is what tips do you have for decluttering both the physical space that you have and your mind to improve focus and efficiency?

Teresa 2:23

Now, I think that your environment is really important in setting up the space for productivity, efficiency and just getting you to feel more clarity and feel less overwhelmed, because our physical surroundings really kind of play into some of the mindset tricks that we sometimes can get into. So the way that I like to do it is I like to keep kind of like a place that's not just like clutter free, because sometimes we will have clutter. However, I try not to keep it that way and I try to keep things in their place Because it does a couple of things. One, when you see your environment is chaotic or messy or cluttered, that can affect your mindset, for one, it will distract you. You'll always be thinking about I have to pick this up or this doesn't go here and I have to, and you start collecting it, maybe like on your stairs or someplace where you feel like you need to put it away, and that like eats into your like space to really think about things and have clarity for your business or just for things that you want to do.

Teresa 3:46

So having a clear space or having a space that things are orderly and you can actually find things then you don't have to go scrambling and trying to find things that you really need. Like you know, having your laptop or your desktop and having the things that you're going to need on a day-to-day basis when you're working your business, like having them at arm's reach, is really a great way to keep the space decluttered, but also help you focus on the things that you really need to do, because having things all over the place and just feels messy and chaotic, that's what we're trying to reduce. So that's my answer to the question. I don't know, mark, if you have anything.

Marc 4:28

Can I just say yes, and then we move?

Teresa 4:31

on.

Marc 4:32

I absolutely do. I absolutely do. Yeah, when I think about, like, the whole idea of like decluttering probably also because I have OCD this is also like an even more important subject to kind of talk about. But one of the things that come up for me is why it's so easy to be distracted with everything that we have going on, right. So you see a pile of laundry or you see something that's not clean, or you see dishes on the counter or you see, I kind of tend to see how easily it is that I can get distracted and that just puts me off track. It makes me not be able to necessarily finish what I started. But also when you're switching between tasks like that and you're thinking about all the things you have to do after you're working or all the things when you're with family that you have to do in your business, it creates like this and you're not intentional, right, like you always talk about on this, this podcast, and really everything that we do has a lot to do with that intentionality, right, and it's very easy to get off track nowadays because we're full of distractions. I mean marketing things in front of us, all the things we have to do, all the different hats we have to wear. It's very easy to go down that path and I can only imagine what it's like for a mom to be able to go down that path and seeing all those kind of things on top of all the things that you're doing in business and, you know, trying to keep me alive and all that good stuff. So when I think about that, I think about, like, how each one of us is wired a little differently.

Marc 6:06

Some of the things that I have learned about myself. It is seeing what causes me to be distracted and then doing whatever I can to solve that problem in advance. So if I'm like, let's say, we're doing our lives, which we do from YouTube, we do downstairs, right, and I can see while I'm there that there's some dishes that the kids left out, I literally it's like hard for me to focus because I'm like, okay, I need to do that as soon as we get done. And I find that that if I can solve that problem in advance, for example, like doing those dishes, putting them out of way or just even moving to a different room to record the videos Now I have more intention and I can be focused on the thing. And there's two reasons why. Number one is because I can get done the thing faster that way. But number two is I'm all in and it's always my best work when I'm all in and when I'm not distracted.

Marc 6:55

So and how I got there is not a just you know. All of a sudden, one day everything fell into alignment. It was like I was taking the cues of when I would get off track and I would ask myself how can I make sure I don't get off track next time? And then it was this process of being able to go back and reverse engineer what I was doing to make it so that I wasn't so distracted and that I was present in no matter what situation I was in. So obviously we have different rooms for different things that we do. When it comes to watching TV and doing our work in business and doing our live streams, like, being able to do that, like you said, kind of having separate spaces really does help, but so does solving those problems in advance.

Teresa 7:31

Does that make sense? Yeah, it does, and I mean it's. It's really about, like, when I think about it, you have, like these dedicated spaces for other areas of your life, right? So we have our bedroom and, like that space is specifically for sleeping. Like in our situation, we have to have our our workspace there too, because we just don't have a lot of space.

Teresa 7:56

But if you think about it, like, if you have a dedicated space in an environment that is specifically for that task, whether it's work, whether it's for, you know, taking care of yourself, all of that stuff plays into how focused and how productive you're going to be, because that space is just for that. And I think that it also goes to you know whatever you're doing on the computer, like with tabs and things like that, like if you have it set so that you know your habits. So if you have it where you get distracted with all of the tabs open, then there's ways to mitigate that to have less tabs open and to be more focused, or to have timers. So there's many different ways to do this, you know, to have your physical space be that environment that is conducive to having focus and being productive. It just depends on, like, how you operate right.

Marc 8:50

Yeah, yeah, and can I? Can I hit on that real quick, because what you just talked about was a little bit more of the mental piece, the mental aspect of the game. So I was talking to one of our clients and and I know Teresa kind of talked about this, about our inner circle, and we really want to show you some of the things you guys are missing, because when we can dive into these questions and help personalize it for you, it really is a game changer. So so there was somebody who reached out to me and was like Mark, like um, I'm following this person. I really love what they do. They're so powerful, they're so influential, like I want to be like them, but every time they come across my newsfeed, I feel less than I feel like I'm not doing enough, I feel like maybe I got to do what she's doing.

Marc 9:30

And one of the things that I learned early on and I make sure I remind my clients about this all the time is we're all different and if we find that there's something that distracts us or puts us into that negative mindset, we can do one of two things. Okay, a lot of coaches out there are like, hey, let's reframe it, let's think about it differently. Let's change the way that you have that relationship with her. So when you see her pop up, you're excited and motivated rather than being uninspired and like you're not good enough. But here's what I have to say, here's the performance part of me and the human part of me, and that is like, if you have to do that for every single person you see on social media, you're not going to win the game. You're going to lose it because you're not setting yourself up for success. So, yes, we can have that fight, but what happens when we're fighting between that and we're fighting between, um, uh, the kids need to be picked up. How do I need to get through? Like I need to. I need to send this invite message, I need to put together this email, I need to do this.

Marc 10:23

And now we have all of these other fights that we're trying to reframe and we just have too many irons in the fire and instead we need to ask ourselves is that really worth fighting right now? And if it is, go all in. I want you to fight it. But if it's not, how about you like hide or unfollow, or like get the, not to see that person coming up for right now and revisit that three or six months down the road Maybe, when you don't have a million things that are going on and and like, when you have these kinds of like conversations and you get to see you know what, I'm not a bad person if I don't, if I unfollow her or if I don't lean into her and her program and what she's doing.

Marc 11:04

It's just now is not the right time to do that, because I want to use my time and my energy to be a producer, not a consumer. It's the difference between being a leader and a follower. And when you can actually lean in and say you know what? This is not the time for me to fight that fight. I have all of these other fights that I have to fight right now instead. Then you can start to eliminate some of that noise. And so when you unfollow that person, when you don't look at their stuff, you would be amazed at how much more stuff you get done because you're not being distracted and you're solving the problem in advance, rather than thinking you're a bad person because you unfollowed this person. If they're your friend or they're whatever right, it's all about doing it in a way that helps serve you and your greater good, while in the end not like having to reframe that every single time you see her come up. Does that make sense?

Improving Active Listening Skills

Teresa 11:50

Yeah, I love that, I love that. Okay, let's move on to another question, and I think you have one in mind?

Marc 11:58

I don't, but I'm going to pick one right now.

Marc 11:59

Okay, so let's talk about the whole active listening.

Marc 12:02

So we had a Zoom call for Inner Circle and one of the things that they asked us about we're going to actually take a full dive into this whole idea of what's called active listening.

Marc 12:11

But one of the things they were talking about was when they're having conversations with their significant other, with their kids. A lot of times they get into fix-it mode and, instead of like listening to what the other person's saying, they hear a little bit in the beginning and then they start processing what they're gonna say, how they're gonna stay it, the three tips, the three problems, the three ways they can solve this, and then they start going into this fix-it mode and we do that a lot in business too where instead of actually getting to hear where the person is and getting to the root of their problems which is what we teach inside of our Life and Performance Training Academy instead of doing that, we kind of like hear the first thing and then we go, oh, so they need to do this and this and this and this, and we get into the you know, we call it coaching the action line.

Teresa 12:51

And then everything else that's come after that. It's like we don't even hear it.

Marc 12:54

We don't even pretend like it exists, because that's what our brain does. It's like oh, this is it. Let me lean into that, Right. So so, when we think about this whole idea of active listening, like I said, we're going to put together an entire training for inner circle to be able to show them how to do this. Yes, For their, for their clients, but honestly, what I believe is even more important is for your family. Um, but I'm curious, like, what your thoughts are about. Like how do you get yourself to actively listen and not kind of like shut out the rest and just wait for them to stop so you can respond and instead be fully present so you can hear it all and really get them to feel like you know you're listening, you're actually giving them your time and your attention. How do you do that?

Teresa 13:35

Yeah, and I think this has been a process for me, because I didn't realize I was trying to go into fix it mode. Right, there was a lot of mentoring involved at the beginning, because that's what I thought was helpful for people. They wanted to hear my tips, they wanted me to tell them what it is that they needed to do. But as a coach, that's not what we do. We listen, and active listening is, you know, that that's what it is right. You have to be active and be present in what they are telling you and I think for me it's whatever they tell me at the beginning. I have to. It's something that I process, right, because when you're listening you're processing this information. But, like Mark said, it's not about holding on to that particular thing that has caught your attention and then start trying to find the solution for that. It's still about continuing to listen, because at the beginning people will give you surface level stuff and then once they start talking and they keep going, then that's when like the really juicy stuff starts to happen and they start to say, like the really, like important stuff, and then you know, as the conversation is going, then you can kind of see like the bigger picture, because you have been listening and you know whatever happened at the beginning. Yeah, maybe it is relevant, but it turns into something else at the end.

Teresa 15:00

So so for me it's about okay, whatever they start with, I can hear it, I can start processing it. However, as they keep talking, I really have to find, like the nuggets in there and kind of like find the patterns and things like that, to really identify how I can help them or if I need to ask more questions, because it's not always about, hey, they're going to tell me what's going on and I have to find the solution to their problem. It's like, no, this is an ongoing process and I need more information sometimes. So it's not about hey, I just need to have something prepared for them, because I've been processing this as they're talking. It's no like, what more information do I need? What is a question that I can ask? Or we can get a little bit deeper into it.

Marc 15:49

I love it. I love it and for anybody who is in our Life Coach certification, you know that Teresa is a master coach, so she's always going to start with the stories that she tells herself to make sure that she can regain the focus while she's having that conversation, right. So what she just planted right now is she planted a seed of a different belief about. In the beginning you get surface level, but later on is when you get the real deep stuff. So what you're able to do is, when you believe what she just said, you will get yourself to shift the focus, to paying attention for the entire thing. Right. One of the things that comes for me so that is a story is what Teresa talked about, but the tactics part of it is something that we're going to what I'm going to teach inside of the Inner Circle call, and that has to do with what's called a pattern interrupt and what a pattern interrupt is. It's something that's not just important in this space but also in other spaces. When you find yourself reacting, when you get angry, when you just like immediately, without thinking, do that thing, say that thing, and you know you have to apologize later. There's a process that we teach that's called a pattern interrupt, which is how you interrupt your normal behavior so that you can create a different behavior in and of itself, and that's a process that we're actually going to have to take people through. It's not something we can necessarily do in like five or 10 minutes on a podcast, but when you have that skill of being able to pattern interrupt, now it's just a matter of you know getting the other person to see.

Marc 17:09

Number one, that this is important to you to be able to be an active listener, listen to what they're saying from the beginning to the end, and getting them to um or to asking them if they can help provide you feedback in the process, right? So one of these things, one of the one of the best ways to like have a conversation about this, is like hey, listen, I know I don't do a good job of listening to you and I love you so much. I want to listen to you and every word you say, but as soon as you start talking and start sharing things, this is on me. I start going into what can I do to help her or help you, help him, or whatever, and I know that's not the best way. So I'm in the process of learning a different tool to be able to make sure that I'm fully present here, because that's what you deserve.

Marc 17:51

You deserve a fully present husband. But I would love to get some feedback if I do go into fix it mode, if I do go into, and I'm not just asking you questions. So if that happens, can you please call me out on it, because I want to get better for you right and for the kids. And when you have this conversation, not only is it a connection moment, but it also will help you to hold you accountable to being present. Does that make sense?

Improving Relationships Through Authentic Communication

Teresa 18:14

Yeah, you know, I was just thinking. You know how many marriages can be improved with just that one thing that you just said?

Marc 18:21

Mm-hmm.

Teresa 18:22

About how you can say, like, how can I be fully present and not just go into fix-it mode? And I know it's like sometimes we tend to think that like the you know, in a like it's like the, the, the male, um, in the relationship will be more of the fix it type person.

Marc 18:44

yeah, we want to go into fix it mode, um, but sometimes it could be the female but, um, I don't know, just like that one tip can be like a game changer in a relationship yeah, yeah, and as you kind of like say, that one of the things that we always, um ask our to do, whether they're trying to improve their relationship, improve their sales and business, improve, like their health and fitness is to call out the elephant in the room, because when you pretend like it's not there, when you pretend like I don't, like, this is going to mean that I'm going to have to tell my wife or my kids that I suck and I failed and I'm, I'm, you know, not as good. And and the actual opposite is true, because usually, a lot of times, people are afraid to have those conversations and to say those things, but afterwards, like when you feel how connected you are, it is a true game changer. Um, I remember the first time this idea was put, um was told to me it was about six years ago, when I first joined the Dad Edge, and one of the things they were talking about is like do you tell your kids that you're learning how to become a better father and your wife that you're learning to become a better husband, right? And so they're like why don't you use that as a connection moment, right? So when the kids are like hey, dad, can we play. Can we do this? And I'm like, hey, it's Friday, it's time for my daddy class and my husbanding class and it just gives you an opportunity of going. You know what?

Marc 20:10

I went to the police academy and I spent 997 hours learning how to be a police officer and then they put me out on the street and I still didn't know what I was doing. So I had a training officer for a year to be able to show me that, and in relationships they don't teach you anything. When you get a kid, they don't teach you anything. It's like, oh hey, here's the kid, oh hey, here's your wife or your husband and you don't have any teaching and training.

Marc 20:32

So I decided I'm going to change that and I'm going to take my relationships and being a parent and being a husband just as important as learning how to grow my business, learning how to be on Facebook, learning how to be a police officer, and think about the connection moments that you get when you're real and authentic that way. And, like you said, you'd be surprised what happens when the conversations change around. This right, I mean, I've seen not only marriages repaired but businesses thrive because you have the relationship piece under control. Now you don't have to worry about it anymore. Like you work through the things that you might not think are holding you back because they're not directly related to business, but they 100% could be holding you back right, and it's all about that. Calling out the elephant in the room.

Teresa 21:17

Yeah, and there's a level of self-awareness and ownership that's involved in this, because you're saying, okay, I need to grow in this area. I'm I'm going to find the resources to be able to do that, and I'm also going to tell the you know my family that that I'm going to be working on this, that I'm a work in progress, right? So lots of you know looking in the mirror and realizing that you know it's okay where you presently are, but you want to be in a better place and you're going to learn how to get there 100%.

Teresa 21:52

Yeah, okay, I think I think we covered a couple of really good questions, but we do this a lot in our Modern Leadership channel within the Inner Circle. So, mark, if someone's interested in finding out more about that, where can they go?

Marc 22:11

Yeah, so if you pop open YouTube and you go to Modern Leadership, you're going to see a bunch of videos with me and Teresa. So what we typically do is we have videos that we release on Monday, which are shorter videos, that we answer some of the questions that people give us inside of the inner circle, just like how we did here on the podcast. And then on Saturdays, every other Saturday, we have a deeper dive into a very specific topic that people are wanting to learn. In those three areas, we have three pillars, and that is creating a business like a super successful business that you love, connecting deeper with your family and getting into the best shape of your life, and so we hit up one of those three areas every other Saturday.

Marc 22:45

Now how the Inner Circle comes into play is every other Saturday. So in between those Saturday workshops that we have live on YouTube, we have very specific content that we teach, where we take a deeper dive into more of the how of putting all this stuff together. We actually just got off that Zoom call and on the Zoom call we actually find out what people are personally struggling with in the inner circle, and then we take the skills which, when we think about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that we've spent on our business, on our skills, the books we've read, and we take as much as we can and we bring it into a training that's personalized for people so they can learn that skill in an hour, which, in turn, sometimes taken us years to be able to learn, like the people in there see results extremely fast because, number one, they're willing to jump into something like that and willing to ask those questions, but also because we want to do whatever we can to really serve the members of the inner circle. Now another program might sound like it's thousands of dollars and maybe at some point we will change that to be thousands of dollars, but it's $10 a month right now. We're trying to keep it as affordable as possible.

Marc 23:47

So, as many people as possible whether you're an entrepreneur or not, whether you're a business owner or not, whether you're currently have a family or you're starting a family we want to make sure that everybody has the resources they need to be able to dive into the topic similar to what we talked about today, and that's really what our channel is all about. If you're looking to learn about, you know what it's like to be a part of the inner circle. If you go to Modern Leadership on YouTube, you can click on the Join button on our channel and it'll bring up a quick video to describe what it is and what's included. But even if you decide not to be a part of the membership, joining us every other Saturday, where we have a live stream for everyone on YouTube it's on Saturday mornings is a game changer and you can find out the next workshop that we have coming up. You can find out by going to Modern Leadership on YouTube.

Teresa 24:33

Yeah, so definitely go and check out the resources that we have for you there, and thank you so much for tuning in and listening to us kind of rambling on and on about a couple of questions, but we really did want to just come on here and share some of this information with you. So I hope you all have an amazing rest of your day and I'll see you next week.

Marc 24:59

Bye everybody.