The Real Reason Your ADHD Mindset Won't Change (Mick Hawes)

You've read the books. You've tried to think your way into a better mindset. But the changes never seem to stick.

In this episode, Mick Hawes shares why he believes that's because mindset isn't something you change directly. Drawing on more than 35 years coaching business owners in high-complexity industries like custom home building, he explains why your mindset is the result of the systems, environment, habits, language, and other external influences shaping your daily life.

Skye and Mick explore why changing your environment often works better than relying on motivation, how to make decisions based on principle instead of emotion, and the practical daily ritual Mick uses to build momentum without waiting to "feel like it."

What We Cover

• Why trying to change your thinking directly often doesn't work
• How your environment affects focus and decision-making
• Why making decisions on principle beats making them on emotion
• Purpose statements vs. job descriptions for building better teams
• Mick's four-step Personal Success Ritual
• The "Dream Catcher" exercise for breaking self-imposed limitations
• Why your input ultimately determines your output

Connect With Mick Hawes

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheToolShedPodcast
Website https://www.thesiteshed.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

There are so many challenges in and around managing a team. One of which, and probably the most important one, is the leaders' ability to let go and trust. They become that bottleneck.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's episode of the ADHD Skills Lab podcast. Today, I am so excited to have Mick Hayes with us. Mick is a performance coach with more than 35 years of experience in business. He has spent most of his life in and around the building industry and now focuses exclusively on custom home builders through a builders business black belt. Bit of a tongue twister there. Mick helped owners eliminate the frustration and stress that often comes with money, time, and staff issues by providing systems, tools, and strategies designed specifically for the challenges of construction businesses. And his work centers on helping businesses move away from reactive day-to-day operations and build more predictable, profitable companies. Or as you said before, you try to. Before we get started, if you're a business owner making over 100K in a service business and you know that your ADHD is stopping you from getting the results that you want, then it might be time to build an operational layer. We do it for you, for your ADHD brain. We find people, install people, get operators set up. Just click the link down below to do a free business build-out with me to see if you're a fit and we'll get started. So it's really great to have you on, Meg. We're going to be getting into the nitty-gritty, the inside baseball, which we always love to do, into how to run a business at this level. And I think custom home building is probably one of the most, you know, if you think about complexity of a service business, it doesn't get much more complex than that. That's pretty high up.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah. A builder needs to be a babysitter, a psychologist, um, a cat herder.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

A part-time government official.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Uh yeah, and yeah, needs to know every or a lawyer. It's just yeah, it it takes a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Yeah, 100%. And because this is a you know, specifically a podcast for uh ADHD business owners, and I know that you have quite a few people that you've recognized as maybe struggling with ADHD symptoms, um, who run custom home builds, and I also know as well. This is an interesting space for somebody to get into when organization and executive functioning is not their strong suit.

SPEAKER_01 2:35

Yeah, it's it's been been a little bit interesting learning about all of this, initially thinking that like the answer to everybody's problems is structure and framework, but learning through that that process. I I still believe that, you know, it's it's structure and frameworks, but not that there isn't a one size fits all, and it's important to sort of test things and and find out what works for certain people, and you know, that's how we succeed. I think Tony Robbins says good judgment is a product of bad judgment. So we've just got to try things. I still think that there's an element of discipline involved. I mean, we just spent four days with our with all of our members face to face, which was which was a whole lot of fun. And and one of the big topics of conversation, I guess, in training was one of the things we've got to learn to do is make decisions based on principle over feelings. And, you know, I suspect that that that has its limitations when you're dealing with something like ADHD. But in in in a lot of cases, I think that if we learn by rehearsing, practicing, to make decisions based on principle, it becomes easier. And if we allow ourselves to make decisions based on how we feel, I don't feel like it, I feel like doing this, you get really good at that. And then it's very difficult to make you know decisions based on principle.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Yeah, 100%. And you know, it's interesting you should say that because I think it's a there's a growing conversation as well with ADHD around emotional dysregulation these days. So more and more we're seeing ADHD is not just an executive functioning struggle, but also more of an emotional dysregulation. Sort of for the same reasons, neurologically speaking. But what that means is there's more of a conversation of oh, being quite quick to get distracted or get overwhelmed. This can also be an emotional thing. And we don't always want to admit how emotional we can be and how emotional decision making can be because we're adults now.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

All of our decisions are emotional, I think. So that's why, you know, environment structure, frameworks, all of that sort of stuff is is super important. A hundred years ago, when I first started learning about time management, one of the very first things that we were taught in this thing was just setting up your environment. And this is you know, this is back in the day when you had a 286 or a 386 computer. I don't know whether you even know what I'm talking about, Sky, but it was like is it connected to the internet? No, but uh you know, back in those days and telephone on your desk and and that sort of stuff, and just being able to set up your environment so it had little to no auditory or visual distractions was was incredibly powerful to be able to allow you to concentrate. And you have a look at most people's work environment, and there's there's just a whole lot of stuff around them, just in case, you know, just in case I need that. And even just that in the old days with the phone that you used to pick up and talk with a cord on it, I noticed just moving that out of my peripheral vision on the desk over to a, you know, another part of the desk. So it was it was behind my peripheral vision, had a profound effect on my ability to concentrate and not interrupt my thought process with, oh, I remember I've got to call Sky. Like the phone will prompt you to I've got to call this.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

It's funny you should say that because yeah, we do talk a little bit about what is the right level of stimulation for somebody. And it's you know, I think especially now with ad, you know, when we think about leads and getting leads and advertising and that kind of things, you know, I mean social media, even Facebook ads, you know, you could spend hours just looking at the data, and there really is a real push to make you spend hours doing that.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Yeah, I guess that that also comes back to how you're structuring your day and being able to identify really what is most important. Which isn't as easy as it seems. Like there's a lot of belief around that that there are many things that are equally as important as each other. And I think it's it's it's profoundly beneficial to to educate yourself to understand that there are no two things that are equally important. Because if you've got to do both of those things, which one do I do first? And so that there is always something that makes something even more important. One of the things we talk about a lot is just the use of the word priorities and priority. And it seems that the word priorities wasn't really in the vernacular up until the 80s, where everyone started to talk about multitasking and so on and so forth. And we talk a lot in our group about challenging ourselves to use the word priority, not priorities, because there might be you might have multiple things that you want to get done today, but what is my priority? And I'm gonna set up my environment and reduce the distractions and interruptions to work on that priority. And then when it's done, I'll ask myself now, what is my priority? And if you're using the word priorities, it it tends to sort of take away the power of focusing on this one thing. And I don't, if you ever read the book, The One Thing, it's it's profoundly powerful in that book. What I've found by doing that is if you look at your whole day or a week or a month, however long you want to measure, the focus on one thing, changing your environment, switching off your phone, doing getting rid of the distractions and being able to concentrate on it, and then move to the next thing and do the same thing with little little breaks in between, little rewards for having done that in between. The productivity of a person like that compared to a person who believes that they can multitask is chalk and cheese. And the feeling of being in control is is also powerful.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, well, I definitely think the multitasking, you know, where the reward comes in is different when you have ADHD versus not. But I think for the multitasking, like monotasking is what they call it now. And I I love that monotasking on like the game-changing task for today as much as possible. And actually, that kind of reminds me, you know, when we talk about monotasking, we talk about business, the biggest real way you can do that is because you have a team who are focusing on the other tasks. So, what advice do you generally give to somebody who is? And as I'm sure you know, many people come to you going, I have a team and they're terrible and I'm firing them all, or Who hired them? Yeah, who was that?

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Well, that's just another challenge, particularly in the in the building industry, because most builders come from a carpentry background and and and become a builder, and then there just isn't any leadership communication skills, team skills anywhere. You really do have to learn on the job and and you have to go and invest in some sort of education, whether it be coaching, mentoring, courses, what have you, to learn that sort of stuff. It's not taught anywhere unless you go and get it. Like there are so many challenges in and around managing a team, one of which, and probably the most important one, is the leaders' ability to let go and trust. They become that bottleneck.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

I call it trust and transparency. I feel like you need both to really lock in. You need you need the trust, but you also need the transparency to know if they did the thing that you trusted them to do. So, how do you deal with because there's a lot of resistance I find that when we're working with clients, you know, and hiring people and training them up, this is the area where the people get most stuck. They're like two weeks in, they'll be like, Oh, I'm not sure about that one. And it's because they'll do something, you know, they'll drop a ball or something won't meet expectations that maybe were too high or they need more training. This is a real mindset conversation, I find a lot when it comes to people who are in service businesses like this.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

Expectation and the ability to communicate, I think, is at the heart of it. And there's there's many other things that we can talk about around that. But one of the things that I encourage people to do is when you've put somebody in charge of a role, let's say they're a salesperson, they could be a receptionist, they could be an account manager or whatever their role is, is is to create a purpose statement. In my mind, a purpose statement is very different to a job description. I find that a job description is like you end up getting the person from the neck down because a job descriptionist guy, your role is to do this, to do that, to do the other. And like if they're really organized, they will have procedures around it and measurement, you know, KPIs around it to make sure you are doing what is asked. And that's kind of where it sits. But my issue with it is that in my mind, I'm just getting you to do what I want you to do, how I want you to do it, when I want you to do it. And so I'm cutting you off at the neck. If I have a purpose statement, I go, Sky, come here. I want to share with you what your purpose is. And so the purpose is very outcome-based. And if you already have procedures and systems, I suggest that you go, here is your purpose, here is the outcome that we're we're trying to accomplish here. And here is our current systems and process that we've got. But but part of your purpose is to experience those systems and processes and step back from them and go, what's working, what's not working, how can we make it better, how can we improve it and contribute to the improvement of those systems and processes, rather than just blindly following what we came up with 100 years ago and haven't thought about improving it since. And there are so, like over my experience, I've seen so many complete wastes of people's times and effort because they haven't got the people who are performing the process to be involved in the refinement of the process. It's just, it was started, you know. I used to sell life insurance back in another life back in the early 90s, and we were told to fill out this particular form. I can't even remember what it was for, but but the agency manager every Friday used to go, make sure you fill out your form because he was getting pressured from somebody else to make sure we all filled out this form. I'd gone to this time management session a number of times, and they started to talk about questioning things, just like following what happens if you don't do things so you could make up, make a decision as to whether this actually was important or not. So I started to question it and I went to the agency manager, you know, and he probably thought, who's this upstart? And said, What do you do with those forms that you ask us to do every week? Because it was a big pain in the butt and everyone kept forgetting to do it, and it was a source of frustration for him and everyone else. And he said, Oh, well, I I give collate them and I give them to this person over here. So I went over to that person. I said, What do you do with those forms we're asked to do every week? So I send them up to this person upstairs. And I went up to that person and said, What do you use them for? He said, I just I put them in a shelf here. I collate them all here. It's a bit of a simplified version of what actually happened, but you get the point. And what had happened is they'd gone from this paper-based version that they used to do years and years ago to a computer-based version, and all of the information was on, but no one ever thought to stop collecting the paper-based versions, and they just went and sat on a shelf and no one ever looked at.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Yeah, at some point someone said, Well, it's probably a good idea to have both of them. And that was like the last conversation there they had.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

I couldn't find anyone who could tell me what happened with them and why they would be worthwhile because everything was kept digitally and backed up and like the there was no redundancy needed. It was crazy, but but that happens all the time. We've got to just because we've been doing it for a long time doesn't mean it's the the thing that we should continue to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

So if we think about this, if we think about your team and we're saying, hey, like you trust them, work with them, when would you say is the moment where you go, okay, I don't think this person is working. This is the wrong seat on the bus. Like, when should a person who's starting to look at a team and not necessarily in the day-to-day anymore, so they don't have like that, I was neck shoulder to shoulder with them, so I know. How do they start to identify those people?

SPEAKER_01 15:31

It comes back to the purpose statement, the procedures, and the measurement about that, and and ensuring that the person has a really clear understanding of what the purpose is, what the key KPIs are, and has the the skills and the training and access to the resources to be able to do what you're expecting them to do. And and you've got to give people a chance. Like there's a limit to it. But I I always recall this. It was a client years and years ago, a building designer, and we were talking about this at a mastermind, and he said one of our guys just he just wasn't performing. And so we had a meeting, and Darren, the guy's name was the boss, he he, the owner of the business, very caring and very supportive, spoke to the guy and said, Look, here's the KPI, here's the line that you've you've got to get to with performance, and you and you're just consistently not getting there. What have we missed? What do we need to give you? How do we support you to get there? So, really trying hard. And the guy said, Well, you know, I need this training and this bit of software or whatever it might have been. And and so he was given the resources, and Darren said, Let's let's meet in another month. And so they met in another month, and he's still not there. And we talked about it again. You've had this, you've had that training, you've got access to these resources now, you're still not getting there. There's got to be something we've missed. What have we missed? Oh, well, maybe I need this, da da blah, blah, blah, blah. And got all of that information, was given the improvements, given the access, given the training, get together another month. The third time they get together, he's still not achieving the KPIs that he clearly understood. And all Darren, I had to laugh, all Darren asked him, he, because he was still curious, but said, if you were me, if you were sitting on this side of the desk and we had given you everything that you'd asked for and given you the time to learn it and and get comfortable with it and get up to speed, and you still weren't up to speed, if you were in my seat, what would you do? And the guy said, I'd probably sack me. And Darren said, Let's do that. And so he let the guy go, but the guy was totally there was no bad blood. It was just like I'm I wasn't able to fulfill that position. I would have liked to. I was given every chance I couldn't, and it was very amicable. And so, you know, the long-winded answer to your question is that you you've got to make sure that everyone understands what the performance measurement is, has the skills, has the training, has access to the resources to be able to do it, and also maybe that you're not expecting too much of them. So you might be expecting them to perform here, but you're also getting them to do this over here as well, and they just don't have the bandwidth to do it all.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Yeah, no, I love that. I think that's a great story because it is, and I think a lot of times, you know, I'm sure you've had this too. People will start bringing other relationships maybe into this relationship, and so they'll start hyping themselves up. They probably suck. Oh, they said this thing, they gave me this look, and they'll start to like have a fight with this person. And you sort of can step back and be like, it doesn't have to be a fight. They they could just genuinely not be the right fit for this, they'll probably do great somewhere else. Like that doesn't have to be sometimes it is, but it doesn't always mean that they're like they don't like you, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 18:54

But they could be in defense mode as well. Like we talk a lot about the eye message, which is something I learned 30 odd years ago at this time management seminar that I used to attend every month for a year and a bit. Dr. Charles Hobbs, I think, was the creator of the program, and he just used to call it the iMessage, meaning I own the problem. And so you you go to somebody and say, Sky, I I've got a problem. I was just wondering if you might be able to help me sort this out. And as soon as you say that, the majority of the people go, sure, lean into it. What do you need? And I go, Well, I just noticed the last two weeks, about 80% of the time you've been late. And the problem that that's causing is this. It puts everybody out here, I've got to deal with this, that, and the other. And what I need you to help me to do is understand what's going on with you. Like, is there something that we need to help you with? Fundamentally, the turning up late things off the table for negotiation. That that can't happen anymore. But, you know, if if there's something that we don't understand, that something's going on in your personal life or the way that our systems and processes or expectations are set up that's causing this, you know, if you can let us know about it, maybe we can we can get around it. And if you're owning the problem and asking them for help and asking them for their perspective to teach you what's going on in their world and their mind that that might be causing this, you generally end up in a really great outcome. And it could even be that I didn't realize I was meant to be there at that time. My understanding was I could start whenever I wanted to, as long as I did my hour. Like it could be something as simple as that. It's just a misunderstanding of expectations.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yeah, and you might as well figure it out because I tell you one thing, hiring a new person is going to be a lot more work than having that conversation.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

The cost of losing somebody is massive. The cost of bringing somebody on is incredible. It's something that really impacted me from a leadership perspective a little while ago. I just happened to be scrolling around on YouTube, and you know, I'm a big fan of people like Simon Sinek, and one of his videos came up, and it was a dedication to a guy called Bob Chapman, who was a friend of his that he'd met through his work. And so they played this interview that he had with Bob Chapman some years ago. And Bob Chapman had a very, very successful business. Before he even met Simon Sinek, he did engage Simon and you know it went to a whole nother level. But they were unpacking the paradigm about or Bob's paradigm about his team. And before he had this epiphany, he looked after people extremely well, and and people were happy. So it wasn't as if there was a problem that needed to be fixed, but he had this epiphany that I look at my team members as their position. So that person's an account manager, that person's a machinist, that person's, you know, a receptionist or whatever the case may be. And he had this complete paradigm shift one day that he realized that every single person in his business he was responsible for and saw them as somebody else's presence. Precious child. I'm the custodian of I'm being charged with looking after somebody else's precious child. I mean, we've got our first grandson, and he comes and we look after him two days a week here. And the responsibility is high. It's not as if you just let him run around and all of that sort of stuff. You know, you've you you you you take a two-year-old interest for happening. I know, but it's uh funnily enough, it's your own children, you have a different approach to your own children than a grandchild or somebody else's child. And and there was just that subtle paradigm shift that Bob had that really impacted me greatly. And and if you're looking through that lens, and instead of seeing them as labor or workers or people that you're paying to do a certain thing, what if you saw them as somebody else's precious child? Would your conversations be different? Would your communications and expectations be different? Would your reactions to their mistakes be different?

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah, it's an interesting balance, I think. You know, I have I see people who don't do that at all and they don't see people as, you know, like you said, they see them as labor, you know. But then on the other side, I sometimes I have clients where they are so invested that they will burn their whole business to the ground to make sure that these people are happy and then they won't take care of the whole team. So it's it's a it's a balance, and I think developing that balance is part of the part of the developing, you know, the mindset of being a leader, which is really what you're trying to do.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

If you're doing it for the right reasons, I think you can be firm. You know, we I I had a conversation with our members just the this week. Um, so we had our in-person event last week. We're all, you know, together for four days up on the on the Gold Coast. And this has been bugging me for a little while, and I just decided to do something about it. And when we're on our Zoom calls, you know, people will be in driving cars or working in the background or taking phone calls, or you can see that they're working on a computer, and and the whole idea of the conversation is is it's a round table contribution, question, answer, everyone helping everyone type meeting. That's what it is. We have a couple a week. And I just said to them, we're not doing this anymore. You know, and they're paying me, and this was the thing, you know, they pay me a monthly fee to be part of this, and I'm telling them this is this is now how you have to behave. But I'm telling them that from the perspective that if they behave the way that I'm asking them to behave, they will get so much more out of these interactions and get so much more return for their investment. You know, it was a difficult conversation to have because some people just didn't get it. They thought they could multitask, they thought they could drive while participating on a Zoom conversation, or they thought they could be laying tiles in the background while they're on a Zoom conversation, or texting and phoning and all of that sort of stuff. And I just, you know, banged the desk and said, no more. Like if you want to behave that way, watch the replay. Because it's obviously not important enough to engage in the live conversation. All you want to do is hear the information. So watch the replay and don't distract everybody else who's here to contribute.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

I feel like so many coaches want to say that, but they can't because they don't have enough clients. So you clearly do not have that problem.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

No, it's it it was really interesting that just this last week or so, we we've got another group called Purpose Hub. So when you start with us, you start in a place called Blue Blueprint, and then you can graduate to Blueprint next level. And you know, if you still like us at the through that, you know, you you might get an invitation to come into Black Belt. That's our full, you know, main program. But then there are people in Black Belt who have kind of got their business and their life to a point where they're not really involved day to day, so they've got a fair degree of free time and they don't have any financial issues anymore, you know? And so we created this other group called Purpose Hub, where we talk about purpose and giving back and contributing and so on and so forth. And we're we're we're talking about what our purpose is and discovering what our purpose is and so forth, and is it really your purpose and what have you? And we we were sort of came to the conclusion that that if the thing that you think is your purpose isn't your very first thought when you wake up, first thing of a day, and you don't put a huge degree of time, effort, and energy into it every day, it's it's probably not your purpose. And one of the things I'm doing at the moment is I'm writing a new book called Go Deep, not wide. It's a whole all about the principles of stopping people chasing after bright, shiny objects and and going deep, deep, deep into the things that are really going to move the needle, which is boring and difficult, but it's the shortest distance between where you are and where you want to end up. And one of the guys in Purpose Hub challenged me and and said, This new thing that you're building and creating and what have you, would you be prepared to give everything up to move that forward? And I said, Yes. And he said, even losing black belt, and I said, yes, because I really, really felt that. I really believe in these principles. And I said, Yeah, I would be. But the thing is, I don't need to because the principles that I'm working on with this and building these frameworks will help the people in this group immensely. So it's like very, very synergistic. If you're a coach, you need to be prepared to hold people to account, tell them the right thing, hold them, hold their feet to the fire, because they're coming to you to improve their life. And if they're doing things that isn't improving their lives, you know, they're they're making it easier for themselves. It becomes comfortable. No one grows in comfort. They want all of these things, but they want to stay in their comfort zone and get it.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

And I think that's true for a lot of a lot of people working in a lot of leadership spaces. I wanted to ask you on that note, like, what do you think are the biggest mindset issues? People who are trying to get to that space. So people, let's say people who are in black belt, you don't have to call anyone out specifically. And they want to get and they want to get to that space where they do not have any money concerns and they're just thinking about their purpose and all of that kind of stuff. What are the biggest mindset blocks that you think are stopping people from getting to that point?

SPEAKER_01 28:33

I believe the answer is firstly understanding what mindset is, but then having a process on a daily basis. I call it a personal success ritual. Having that on a daily basis that you are prepared to, committed to performing every day, 365 until you die.

SPEAKER_00 28:55

So, like what would that be?

SPEAKER_01 28:56

Could be many things, but the the process that we take our guys through is basically a four-step process. The first step is gain some external motivation. You know, so it could be watching a video on YouTube, or you can get a pep talk app or or whatever. And I I'm not a huge fan of external motivation at all, if that's what you're relying on all of the time. But this is just to start the process. So you watch something, listen to something that just sort of gets the blood pumping a little bit and gets you in a space where you're going, oh yeah, you know, there's a little bit of that going. And each step of the personal success ritual is not a valuable on its own, it's there to ensure the next step becomes more effective. So the next step after getting some external motivation is doing a thing I call a dream catcher, where you just get a pen and paper, you set yourself a timer for a minute, two minutes, and you've got to challenge yourself to write down anything that would be absolutely off the charts awesome to have, to become, to experience, to create, to build. As long as, and this is the rule, there is no limit to time, talent, or money. So I'm effectively asking people to write down what would be awesome, but impossible. And the reason that we do that is that as you grow up, you start to gather limitations. As you get older and older, the limitations become bigger, they become your world, your truth. And when you get to the next step, which is goal setting in a very specific way, most of those goals don't get done because they're just not interesting. They're not they're not passionate about it because that Q3, Q4, like, oh, and and the reason for that is is because the limitations are winning. You could come up with an idea of some awesome thing, but then you go, well, that would never happen. I'm not tall enough, or whatever it might be. And so you do this dream catcher, which is just an exercise you do every single day, seven days a week, and it slowly chips away at your limitations. And I remember some time ago I was working for Tennis Australia, and I was at they sent me to Tennis New South Wales for a week, and I had to put on a quick session for the coaches, the parents, and the kids. And there were two different age groups of kids because it was raining outside. So they said, Oh, mix here, he'll do something. So I had to do something on the spot, and I'm going, what can I do that's going to engage people from seven years old to 65 years old? Shouldn't be too hard. And so I started talking about the dream catcher, and I thought, well, let's just do it. So we got pens and paper, and I set a timer for two minutes, and I said to everyone, when the pen, when the timer goes, your pen has to hit, and you just have to write, and you can't let your pen off the page until the timer finishes. And you've got to do that. You've got to write down awesome stuff that you'd love to have, become experienced, build, but no limits. You've got to go past limits of time, talent, and money. Go. I'm sitting there watching what's going on. And the the adults couldn't get the pen down on the paper. That that you could see that they'd come up with an idea, and as they're putting their pen to paper, they'd go shake their head and and and they'd kill the idea before it ran down their arm through the pen onto the paper. And I thought, well, there it is. And then I started to look at the elder group of kids. So there were two different groups of kids. There was like the 11 to 15-year-olds, and they were the like the elite kids in the state. And then there was this other thing, smaller group called the Milo kids, and they were the like seven to ten. And I'm looking at the elite kids and fully expecting them to be writing like crazy, and they're doing exactly the same thing as the adults. They couldn't get the pen to paper, and they're just judging their thoughts over and over and over. And then you go and have a look at the Milo squad, and these kids are going off their head. They're going, Can I have more paper? You know, I want to pull for me, I want to pull for my mate, and all of this. And it's like, there's the lesson right there. It takes no time at all before the possibility is knocked out of us. We take on these limitations and we start to believe them. And then when we start to believe them, we look around for proof that they're real and we and we delete any evidence to the contrary, so we get controlled by these limitations. So that's step two is to chip away at them. Step three is spending time with your goals. With the I've got a very specific goal template that really gets your nervous system on side, and you explore the reasons as to why you need to accomplish this and how it'll be when you do accomplish it. So you get your nervous system on side and it increases your desire to do it. And then the fourth step is setting up your day. So with a thing called a prioritized daily action list, again, it's a five-step protocol that is really quick but ensures that the most important things get done in a day rather than the most things or the things that you felt like doing.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah. Yeah. Well with you on that one.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

So that's that's the personal success ritual, and that would be the the answer to the question. Like, do that.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

And I love that because you kind of answer the question in a in a way that I think is is not what we people would expect, but is kind of what I've seen to be true, which is you answer the question not with a think really hard and then try and subtract five and not think of the blue elephant at the same time, you know, like doing that kind of thing in your head, which is often what people think about. It's a you're telling your body, you're doing an action, and then your mind is kind of coming along for the ride in that way, because that it is sometimes, especially when you know, if AD is she, sometimes it is the monkey mind, it is the one that sort of like needs to be dragged behind the action and the intention and the consistency of that and building that.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

The other question that you asked was about mindset, and hopefully this this will be helpful for people as well, because through the process of of writing this this book, which I've now starting again for the third time, I've got a a coach that's helping me write the book. And it's been an awesome experience. And through that, the questioning that I get from the coach about some of the principles and ideas that I'm talking about and writing about, we got to the point where he basically said, This is all about mindset. Like you've got to position yourself as a mindset coach, et cetera, et cetera. And then he he he wrote mindset on a page and said, What is that? And I couldn't answer the question. I stammered and stumbled all over it. And it was like the the very first time I was asked the question time, what is it? I couldn't answer that question either. Like back in the time management days, the the guy running the show, he would said, It's a bizarre concept. If someone says, What is the time, you know how to answer the question. But if you change the syntax of the words and you go, time, what is it? You can't ask you can't answer the question. You come up with all these abstract, weird responses. And and I had the same experience when I was asked about mindset. And here I am being a mindset coach and learning about it for 30 odd years and what have you. And as I'm explaining it, it became clear to me that mindset, the way that most people think about mindset is that it is how you think. So if you've got to work on your mindset, you need to change how you think. And that's not true at all. Mindset is the result of at least 10 external elements. And when you understand what those 10 external elements are, and you go through the process of identifying where you are with that external element and identifying a way to improve that external element and do it, it influences your mindset. So your mindset is the result of these external elements. And the beauty of that is if you sit there and trying to improve your mindset and trying to improve your thinking, how do you do that? Like, no wonder it doesn't work. You sit and go, what am I trying to do?

SPEAKER_00 37:14

You're like in the X-Men, you're like trying to move things with your mind. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

I'm moving it with my mind. But if you go, well, what are your let's say you're working on your relationship with money, if that's the central question, if that's the problem you're trying to work on, and they go, Well, you you need a better money mindset. You need to improve your mindset around. Well, how do you do that? What are your rituals around money? So, what are your little automatic behaviors and responses about money? Let's let's look at that and then figure out a way to improve that. What's the language that you use around money? So, well, let's unpack that and we go, well, obviously, you know, though the the way that you're using those words are creating a barrier and causing pessimism and lack and all that sort of stuff. So, what if we change the language? What if we changed how you're viewing your experience, your past experience? That's an influence. Like how you see your past experience. What are your beliefs around it? You know, so there are these 10, at least 10 things that you can look at and go, how are you currently operating in that element and how can you improve it? And then you get very specific actions that you can take to stop doing something and start doing something else in its place. And when you do that, and you don't need to do it with all 10, because there's normally two or three that are really influential depending on what you're working on. And so you put all your effort and energy into those, and you'll find that as a result, your mindset will shift. And once your mindset shifts, your choices, it affects your beliefs, it affects your perspective, perception, all that. So it's it's a little bit deep, but it at least it's a structure and a framework rather than sitting there trying to change your mindset.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

I've listened, I have talked to a lot of people about this, and I have to say, this is one of the most practical conversations with mindset that I've had. It's this idea, like you said, of like setting, it's almost like setting your mind. We need to turn it around. We need to like set up set up our mind. And I I want to talk to you about this for ages, but I do have to ask you a couple of questions before we head off. The same questions we like to ask everyone. So I'm gonna ask you. So, my first question for you then is what is the thing in your professional life that you're the most proud of?

SPEAKER_01 39:33

That's pretty easy, and that's the the the community that we've created. I'm proud of them, you know. I I feel privileged to be part of it. They're the musicians that are making the music, they're the ones that are putting in the effort and and creating the results. I'm just the conductor, and you know, sometimes I have to tell them to sit down and shut up, but you know, uh they're doing they're doing the work and they are just the best people. Like, particularly now, like we've been doing it for a long time, and it took me a while to figure out who are the right people to be in this community, but there is not one person that I would be unhappy to sit with for a day or two days or three. Like, I just love spending time with them, and particularly face to face, like we just did a week last week, and it's so much fun. Did a lot of work, but it's so much fun. So, my my community is the thing that I would say I'm most proud of.

SPEAKER_00 40:26

And on the other side, what is your what has been your biggest professional failure or embarrassment and how did you handle that?

SPEAKER_01 40:33

I again I I would I don't feel embarrassed about it. I I feel that I have learned through doing things wrong, you know, and and I guess the mistake that I made was allowing people into the community and sort of turning a blind eye to they're not quite the right fit. So you're looking at, you know, and it's just ego driving you. Look, look, look how big the group is, look how many people I'm attracting, all of that sort of stuff. And it wasn't good for the group, it wasn't good for the people that I allowed in that I shouldn't have. It caused significant problems, and yet that has turned into the biggest, most valuable lesson for the community and and the curriculum that I've created, the focus, the direction of the coaching program. It was the one of the best things that ever happened. But it didn't feel like it at the time, like it was really dark.

SPEAKER_00 41:28

Yeah, I can imagine. Yeah, we learn most from our failures, but uh it's a dark night of the soul sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah. There's that old saying, you know, is is it happening for you or is it happening to you? And at the time, it felt like it was happening to you, you know.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

It takes very pointedly.

unknown 41:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

It takes a lot of effort to genuinely believe that it's happening for you. And you generally only get that through hindsight anyway. Like you just got to keep going and you'll you'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 41:57

And then what, you know, if we think about phrases, things you like to say to other people, to yourself, that kind of motivates you or helps you, what what would one of those be?

SPEAKER_01 42:09

The fundamental one that got me started 35 years ago, I think, may have been from Zig Ziggler. And it was as simple as this: that your input determines your output. And I think that I have been trying to live that, definitely trying to teach it for for the last 35, 36 years. And to me, it really is the answer to anything, which is kind of like that whole 10 elements around the mindset thing. That's all that really is. If you look at all of the 10 elements, they're just input, you know, and it affects your mindset. If you're working on that all the time, it infects your automatic thought processes, your attitudes, which is what runs us every day. It determines pretty much our whole day before we even got up. And so we try to change our actions, but it's too hard. And so it nothing sticks. But if you just go back to the foundation of what do you put, what's it what are you putting into your mind every day, every day, every day. And that starts to influence your thought processes, which influences your action and behavior, which gives you the outcome. But your input determines your output, would be something to put on a t-shirt.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Amazing. I love it. Well, Mick, it's been so great to chat with you. And, you know, thanks for having me on your podcast twice. And thanks for your advice when I started doing fractional COO work. Some of the things you said at the time, I still think about it. In fact, I was on a walk today and I said, Yeah, and I had Mick, um I have a Mick on, and he gave me this piece of advice, and I've really changed the game. So, you know, I've really appreciated it.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

So if people want that, tell people where they can find you.com dot iu, all through uh LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube.