Higher Up Podcast
A podcast that aims to empower individuals in various aspects of their lives, including business, church, school, and personal growth. The goal is to inspire listeners to make a positive impact on those around them, helping them reach their full potential and strive towards greatness. The show features practical tips, real-life stories, and insightful conversations with experts in their fields, all geared toward lifting others up and creating a world where everyone can thrive.
The hosts, Benji and Brady Wilson, are accomplished entrepreneurs in the business world. Their mission is to empower listeners in every aspect of their lives, from business to personal growth. They seek to inspire others to make a positive impact on the world by sharing their own life experiences and having conversations with other successful guests. Together, they explore living a Higher Up life!
Higher Up Podcast
Ep.032: Quarterly Rhythms (Part One)
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Are you leading your business or just reacting to problems as they arise? In this episode, we explore the power of quarterly rhythms, a system that helps leaders stay focused, avoid burnout, and build sustainable momentum.
We discuss why rhythms matter, how seasons in life and business provide a model to follow, and the practical steps to align your team around clear priorities. You’ll learn how quarterly planning and intentional pauses create space for focus, accountability, and long-term growth.
If you’ve ever felt stuck in constant reaction mode, this episode will show you how to lead with clarity, set the right priorities, and establish rhythms that keep your business moving forward.
Podcast Milestones and Updates
Speaker 1all right, well, boys, welcome in. We're back. Episode 32, season 3, episode 7 it's a lot of numbers episode seven.
Speaker 2It's a lot of numbers, too many. Wait what you said. Season two, three, three episode episode seven.
Speaker 1But technically this is our 32nd total episode, benji benji, before we started recording benji was like we're like episode 15. I'm like, yeah, we're. No, we're moving that way we.
Speaker 3It seems like we're only on 15, but we've got a lot going out there.
Speaker 1So hey, it is, it is we're doing. Well, I mean, we're killing it. Just so you guys know, we clipped the 9,000 download mark. We are less than 900 downloads away from the big 10,000.
Speaker 3That's awesome. Downloads away from the big 10,000. That's awesome. And just I know we've had a lot of new listeners that have come on to listen to the show. We've had a lot of people watching on YouTube. We're out there on all the channels. So thank you so much for just tuning in and thank you for your feedback. We've had some people comment in. Just thank you so much for listening to us and whatever we can do to help you and your business.
Speaker 1That's what we're here for listening to us and whatever we can do to help you and your business. That's what we're here for. Yeah, hey and Brady, just so you know. Yeah, episode 15 almost has double the amount of listens as the episode right behind it. That is our top listen to episode. It's the abundancy over scarcity.
Speaker 3All right, that's why we hired Brady to be on the show with us.
Speaker 2Yes, so, the next one is When's that paycheck coming, because I've not seen anything yet.
Speaker 3Brady, we started monetizing a long time ago, and that goes into Adam's bank account.
Speaker 1Oh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 2I don't know about that one. We're here for Adam.
Speaker 1I don't know about that one. It's supposed to be. Giving us a discount on our Buzzsprout is apparently what it's supposed to be.
Speaker 3Yeah, listeners. By the way, that is 100%, joe. We do not monetize this, no, we don't, but look if there's anybody listening.
Speaker 1Starbucks, chick-fil-a, any of that stuff I'll eat a sandwich while we're recording. Whatever you, need.
Speaker 3If you pay us to eat a sandwich, we will record it and show it on our show so you can know that we did.
Speaker 2I will say this, though, on a serious note. I mean not that you guys weren't being serious, but in addition to the podcast, follow us on LinkedIn too. I know each of us are posting out stuff from time to time, and there's some good stuff on there too that may go into a little bit more expanded version of some of the things that we're talking about on here, so if you're a reader instead of a listener, then that might can give you some different insight into some certain things.
Speaker 1Yeah for sure, yes, yeah, we do. We keep that going. We stay consistent. Last week was a crazy week. We have five nights of prayer. I was sharing with Benji. That was the first time I've ever been a part of that at our church and it was a different experience. A good experience, yeah for sure. Much different than anything I've ever—I've never actually done that consistently five days in a row, like a 10-something, like that. I've never gone to a 21 days of prayer service or anything like that. So it was a long week, but it was a good week. That's awesome, yeah, well. So I'm excited.
Speaker 1Jumping in today this is a topic, brady, that you were sharing with us and not to be confused with work-life and work and then life balance. But what we're looking at is looking to find that rhythm. You told me. You said hey, adam, that's the key word we're looking at today is finding that quarterly rhythm in your life that you're doing. So talk a little bit, jump into that. You were sharing some things, some awesome insights to what this is. I think this is a perfect episode for anyone that might feel like they're out, I can tell you, last week that's where I felt like we were working eight to eight every day, five days a week. It's been busy. This entire month of August has been busy, so I'm excited to kind of dive in and hear what y'all have to say, to figure out how do I get back into that, because for me I feel like I'm off right now.
Speaker 2So yeah, Well, hey, you know what, Adam? We will do this episode just for you, buddy. Hopefully this will help you out. So, yeah, I think the thing that we're talking through you know we had I think it was a couple episodes ago. We were talking about halftime and really halfway through the year you're in the locker room, those types of things. This is in the same vein as that, but more of how do we get into a rhythm in life and in business. We'll probably talk primarily more about business, because that's kind of the world that we live in, but these principles can live in your normal life too.
Speaker 2I think it's one of my favorite quotes and I've probably said this on here I sound like a broken record sometimes, but Zig Ziglar said if you aim at nothing, you hit it every time. When we're talking about goals or targets or certain things, I think this is in that same sphere as well is, if you just look out into your life or into your business and man we've talked about here on the show that I'm a I'm a huge planner. I love organization, I love task lists, I love all those, anything that goes along with it. I'm the type of guy that I if if there's something not on my task list, but I do the, I do the task. I will go back and add it to the task list and check it off. You know, I'm that type of person, brady. I will say this, though, that uh, I'm that type of person, brady.
Speaker 3I will say this, though, that I think the older we get, the shorter the year seems to get.
Speaker 1Well, yeah that's very true. Like man I heard Emily the other day I can't believe Addie's a year from going into like sixth grade. Oh yeah, and I'm just, I want it. I want that time back. Yeah, yeah, yeah for sure.
Speaker 2So we're talking about rhythm. It's. You know, Benji and I are are very musical, you know, we're both worship leaders at our church and so this is this kind of resonates with us to some degree, because when you, when you have a song that is out of rhythm, just think about like you're listening to something. You're listening to a song, there's words that are being sung, but there's no beat. Yeah, there's no rhythm to it. Something just seems off, right, Because there's no structure. There's no, you know, it's just the rhythm.
Speaker 2So when we're talking about rhythm, we're really talking about in business, you know. So things feel off. Adam, you said that things kind of feel off or chaotic right now. So how can we step into a rhythm to help us get back into what we're trying to accomplish? So when we think about a rhythm, like a quarterly type rhythm is, you've probably got like a strategic planning session that you've done sometime in, like Q4, right. So you're setting priorities for the year, but then each quarter is going back and we'll get in dive in some of the details, but each quarter, uh, you're reevaluating what those priorities were and are they still on track. So Q1, you're looking back, or how are we doing Q2 is really that halftime, but that's when we get into a rhythm of every single quarter or every single month, or every single week, whatever that looks like.
Speaker 2So when we get out of rhythm, what we start to see and I see a lot of this in leaders and in business and even personal is what are some of the symptoms that happen when we get out of rhythm? Those symptoms are we start to drift, Okay, which means we have unclear priorities. You know, maybe we're chasing distractions instead of chasing what. What it is that we should be working on. This next one I see a lot is burnout. So when you don't have clear direction, when you don't have a clear target, then burnout is a very real thing and that's when you want to reset.
Speaker 2But then, when you also get out of rhythm, then we talk about being proactive versus reactive. Reactivity is a symptom of not being in rhythm, and so when we get out of rhythm, these are the symptoms. I don't know if we've ever talked about Stephen Covey on the show before, but I love what he says. He says that you know, the key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, okay, but to schedule your priorities. So think about that a minute. Why don't y'all just give me some reaction to that? The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities, and you know go ahead.
Speaker 3Benji and I was going to say for me, I think it goes back to what we were talking about with the reactive versus proactive approach. You know a lot of leaders we've seen this Brady in the line of business that we're in Other franchisees we have friends that are running other businesses. They're always saying, man, I can't figure out how to get to that place or how do I get to that goal, and they're always behind the eight ball versus trying to be out in front of the eight ball. And that goes to what you just said. You know how do we schedule? We have to have a cadence. We owe it to ourselves to have a calendar, have a task list so that we can plan properly and always be looking ahead Doesn't mean you can't be. You're going to have to be reactive. Sometimes, let's be honest, things come our way, mostly proactive in our approach. Then our priorities are not what's. You know. We're always trying to schedule those priorities versus trying to react to how we can figure what those priorities should be.
Symptoms of Being Out of Rhythm
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it goes back to where is my energy best delivered for today.
Speaker 2Yeah.
Speaker 1And I think that's finding those. That's what I love about. That is okay. I have so many hours in a day. What are the things that I need to prioritize, that need to get my energy right? Like, what do I need to work on now? That's something we're working through as well. Like we're moving from a mom and pop church to a corporate church church to a corporate church. You know, like, hey, pastor Jeremy said yesterday, you got to stop just knocking on doors. You got to stop knocking on doors. We've got to send people messages, go through a system, because people have other priorities and you don't realize even something.
Speaker 1You may need help with something for five, 10, 15 minutes. Like, hey, can you help me with that? How are you changing your verbiage right? So, when you go to someone, hey, can you help me with that? How are you changing your verbiage right? So, when you go to someone, hey, do you have the capacity for this? Can you help me with this right now? And then be okay with it and be like I don't, I don't have the capacity, I can't help you with it right now.
Speaker 1But that is something we talked about too. It's not just on the ASCII, it's on the ask to be okay with those things I have to prioritize. Hey, I don't have the energy for this right now. I know it could probably take 10 minutes, but man, I'm in the middle of something right now. If I stop I'm going to lose momentum. So I think that's something that's important for anyone. Right now. Is one be okay to say no and figure out where do I really need to put my energy is best suited today. Is this something I can do tomorrow? Is this something I can do later in the day? Is this something where we can schedule to sit down together?
Speaker 3Yeah, Where's that energy going? And, Brady, this just triggered a point too, because this is this is great about scheduling priorities. I'm mentoring a gentleman at the office and we were talking about you know how do you actually run your schedule? And the way he runs his schedule is whatever happens through the day, he just reacts to it. And that he told me that. He said I want to get better, I want to, and so what we figured out was in our line of work.
Speaker 3You know, there are, there are people out there that may be listening, that are a Pepsi drivers. They got to go drop off Pepsis to this store and that store and that they're just restock Right In our line of business is the same concept. We go see a number of centers of influence throughout the day and then what he was doing is he's waiting till the end of the day to remember who he talked to, what he talked about and documenting that accordingly. And I said what if you could just take 30 seconds when you finish a stop, 30 seconds and document that visit? What we've just done is picked you up an extra 45 minutes a day because you're being proactive, You're not being reactive. That's a real life situation scheduling your priorities, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's so good. And, adam, when you were saying about, you know, saying no to stuff, you know the reality is when you say yes to something, that means you're saying no to something else, absolutely, you know, so that's good. You were also talking about, uh, there's only 24 hours in a day. I remember talking to somebody I won't name any names but they're like no, I get 25 hours in a day and I'm like okay, how do you do that? He said well, I drink five five-hour energy drinks every day.
Speaker 1I'm like His heart's going to explode.
Speaker 2I don't think that's the key. Hope he doesn't hit coffee with it. Well, yeah, so kind of getting back to rhythm is, let's look at it from a biblical standpoint. Okay, god actually made this a part of his design and he doesn't call it a quarters, he calls it seasons. And you know we were kind of talking about this pre-show. But you've got winter, spring, summer and fall, and so why didn't God just, you know, create the earth? And then we've got one season, you know that kind earth, and then we've got one one season. You know that that kind of rules them all. So I think he wanted us to be in somewhat of a rhythm of, okay, let's. So.
Speaker 2For me, the way I think about it is okay, yeah, we've got priorities for the year, but my first sprint, you know I've I've never run a marathon. I know, I know Sarah has been you, but and maybe she does this, but you're looking at milestones along the way If I can just get to that point, then I know where I'm at, and then, beyond that, I got to the next point. So that's why I think about the year Okay, let's get to Q1. Let's get to the end of Q1, and then let's reset, and then let's get to the end of Q2. So now I've got shorter milestones or shorter targets, and that's what this is. And really, this is not a.
Speaker 2When we talk about rhythm, we're not saying it's like a productivity hack. Okay, the kids say life hack. This is not a life hack, all right, but it's really an alignment. What we're trying to do is align ourself with the way that God has designed us to work, you know, because work is good. That's what we were created to do is to worship and to work. And so when we think about seasons and rhythms, that's what we're looking at from a biblical perspective.
Speaker 3You know, if you think about that too, I mean that's, that's really good, you think about that, it really makes sense to stay to keep if you keep yourself in rhythm. It's just like you said earlier. I got a buddy of mine who has a um, a pacemaker in his heart and you can hear. You can hear that thing beating sometimes and man, it is so loud Like if he's to your point, if he's singing on stage, he has to hold his mic a certain way because you can actually hear the beating of that pacemaker and sometimes that thing gets out of rhythm and you're like what he goes, what just happened? So that that's so good that if we challenge ourselves to stay in rhythm, I believe we can be a lot more productive. We can get more things done. We stay aligned with what God designed in the different seasons in life and different seasons that are in front of us and such that's good.
Speaker 1Well, and I'm about to drop a new segment on y'all. It's going to be called Adam, so but I'm thinking please come up with a graphic for that and like so and I'm asking this as a young entrepreneur myself we've been very busy this year.
Speaker 1Uh, the media company that I do. I've had a lot of requests and it's good. It's good for business, it's good for me. Uh, obviously I have days where I work with you guys, I work with other clients, but what I'm trying to find out you're talking about resting and biblical, obviously, we're called to rest.
Biblical Perspective on Seasons and Rest
Speaker 1It's tough for me because my rest day is a work day and so now what I say is the church gives us that, so we're off Friday and Saturdays. But where I feel like I struggle with is because I get requests and I hate saying no, and my wife works, our daughters are in school, so why not go do something? That's where I'm trying to figure out. How do I learn to balance that, cause it's tough. So, like I don't take Fridays off either, I'm at some Fridays I'm working with you guys on projects. We have um other Fridays I'll go work with other clients or do video projects, anything.
Speaker 1I feel like sometimes and I don't know if anybody else is listening or any other entrepreneurs that's where I struggle with is where do I find my rest? Because for me, I'm working basically Saturday through Friday and we have I'm sorry Sunday through Friday. Saturday is like a family day. So, yes, sometimes we rest, sometimes we're busy. That's where I'm struggling with, as someone that's trying to find that rhythm is being okay with taking a Friday off, because I feel like if I'm off on Friday, I'm leaving money on the table.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's what I'm doing. All right, I got, we are going completely like derailing right here, but this, that is really good, adam, because I can promise you what Brady just talked about, with rhythm and staying in alignment to be productive Um, it's. It's what God has designed us to do. So I would challenge other business owners and leaders to think about exactly what you just said. There are times that and Brady will tell you this too there are many Sunday afternoons after church, after we've led worship, we've been up since early in the morning. It's not a quote work day, but Sunday afternoon we are. We are diving into projects that he and I have as owners. There are Saturday mornings that we hop on the computer. Yeah, we take time to watch a football game or a basketball game or whatever. We spend time with the kids. Don't get me wrong, but there are some times, as an entrepreneur and a business leader, if you want to stay ahead, that's our planning time. A lot of that time is our planning time and we go through that. We go through seasons as well.
Speaker 3I believe that some entrepreneurs that don't do exactly what you're talking about yeah, they're going to get burnout. They're going to have you have to take time for yourself At the same time. It depends on how fast our dad taught us this a long time ago. How fast do you want to get ahead in life? Do you want to retire when you're 70? Or do you want to retire when you're 60? You know, and he wasn't telling us to work 500 hours a week. That wasn't what he was saying. He was saying prioritize what you need to prioritize, including your own off time. That's a priority, yeah.
Speaker 2Yeah, I would. I would say, um, this is. This is somewhat of a struggle for me, you know, because when we talk about so like and we've talked about C12 a lot and C12, we talk about rest and retreat. You know, there's really two different definitions for rest and retreat. But when we look at it from a biblical perspective, you know, god worked in Genesis. He worked six days and then he rested, so he really set up what's called the Sabbath and honestly, that's something I've been contemplating for a while is what does true Sabbath look like?
Speaker 2And I got a friend of mine that what he does is so Saturday afternoon, 12 o'clock PM to 12 PM, the next day is Sabbath, and so he'll, you know he'll lock down the phone, or you know it's not. That doesn't mean he's not, he's not reading the Bible for 24 hours, that's not. Or he's praying for 24 hours. It's just that he's turning off distractions and he's contemplating spending, you know, quality time with family or whatnot. I know some people that do. Like in the old Jewish tradition is something called Shabbat, so during Sabbath they have a dinner, so things like that. But I think it's important and, adam, so, going back to your question, what I've tried to do and this is something I need to get better at is what does true Sabbath look like? But when it comes time to spending time with the Lord, or you know what we Christians call devotion time, you know that can be a mini Sabbath. So you're, you know, 30 minutes to an hour and turning off the distractions, to an hour and turning off the distractions, but again, it's something that you're building into a rhythm, because what we're trying to get to is kind of a cycle. What is the rhythm? And it's a cycle of effort, it's a cycle of pause, it's a cycle of reflection and it's a cycle of growth. So what Benji was talking about a cycle of growth, but you got to have all four of those to really get into it kind of goes into something else.
Speaker 2As far as Stephen Covey we talked about him earlier, but I would highly encourage you guys there's a great book out there called the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I've read it. A lot of our team has read it and gone through it. Brady, I've actually read that one. Boom, virtual fist pump, right there, pow, you know. But what he talks about is a lot of times what we get stuck in is in the urgency. So he's got these four quadrants. We get stuck in the urgency instead of the important, and one of my mentors you know he's real strong on Brady. What is the highest and best use of your time?
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2You know, because you can do a lot of stuff, you have the ability to do a lot of stuff, but your position, what is the highest and best use of that time? You know, so that when we start, we start, when we look at and talk about rhythms and I love that the cycles of effort pause, renewal, growth. I mean sometimes I'm going so hard that I'm like, whew, man, okay, man, I got to take an afternoon off, I don't want to look at anything and just kind of, and a lot of times what you know, I know Melissa and my wife will do is sometimes we'll just that's, that's. At night, we're just like let's just veg and you know, just kind of sit and watch a show or you know something like that.
Speaker 2But you got to have times of, of, of, of rest. You do have to work in some rest in there too. So rest, you do have to work in some rest in there too. So, um, you know, as leaders, we have a a big responsibility to make sure that we give our teams the best of us. Yeah, and so the way, the way that we give the best of us is we. We can't constantly be pouring out, but we have to be poured into as well, and part of that part of that pouring into is that that rest and routine and what that looks like, that's really good so.
Speaker 3Adam any other thoughts you got on that? Adam didn't realize he was. He was walking us right into our next subject.
Speaker 1Yeah Well, I know you're talking about biblical and that's what, because that's something I'm trying to, and I say that because I get told all the time at the office, like Adam, take a Friday off, take a Friday off. It's just tough and it's like, because it's like it's really a lot of the stuff that you guys have talked to us is like how are we going to change our family tree? How are we going to do these things? And that's something Emily and I looked at when we even decided to begin. I never in a million years had a plan to be an entrepreneur. But here I am, this is what I'm doing. But we always said is the juice worth the squeeze? Worth the?
Speaker 2squeeze yeah.
Speaker 1So if I get offered a potential job, if it doesn't pay for my time. So for me as a video producer, my goal is always I want to make and y'all may think it feels like a lot I say between 75 and 100% profit. What I'm trying to do is make that money back because I'm counting in everything I'm doing, my gear, all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1So I'm looking at those things and trying to do that. And if it doesn't fit into that quadrant, is it worth the time to do it? Because then also on the backside, I and this is just my heart God's given me a skill, god's given me a craft. I believe there's times that I should share that. And so I have people that will reach out. They'll say, hey, can you do this and that?
Speaker 1And if I know something about them, or if they've done a lot, I may say, hey, you know what. You've served the church, you do this. Let me serve you. I'm not going to charge you for this. Let me do something. I'll come take some photos, and so I try to do this. So that's why I was asking that, because I'm trying to figure out where is my energy best, because I think you're talking about rhythm, brady. That's where my rhythm's getting off. I need to look at those things, yeah, because if it's getting thrown off with the business side, it's going to throw off in family life. It's going to throw it off in my full-time job. It's going to throw off everywhere.
Speaker 2So let's maybe kind of get some practical stuff.
Speaker 1And I don't know this. Guys, you tell me what you think. Maybe this is another two part episode. There's a lot of stuff. It definitely is. This is good it is, but you know, I think this is very. This is one of those things that I mean you guys are struggling with it. It's something I struggle with. I think it's something anybody, even non-business owners where is my time and how do I, how do I find that and get into the rhythm? I think it's a.
Speaker 2So let's start with this On this one, let's talk about what a quarterly rhythm looks like in business and then, when we come back next week, we'll talk about what it looks like in personal life and family and then we'll wrap it up. So, in business, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but it all starts with the strategic plan. So that's typically I know a lot of organizations will do a strategic plan either at the end of Q4. We typically try to do it like in November, you know, right before Thanksgiving, and that gives us December to really iron it out and make sure that it's good and get ready for the next year. I know some people don't do a strategic plan until Q1 of the following year. Whatever your rhythm is is fine as long as I think it's important. So think about this the strategic plan is the destination. So we're setting a course, we're setting a destination, and then what our quarterly rhythms will do for us is they help us to course correct. So when we get to the end of Q1, here was the plan that we outlined hey, how's that plan going? Is there any adjustments? Is there any things that we need to change up? So that's where it begins. So again, setting the strategic direction, and then listen the goal of the strategic plan, and we have a whole episode, adam, I don't even know what episode number that was, but you can go back and listen.
Speaker 2Strategic planning Maybe we'll put in the show notes, but the goal is not to come up with like 100 different objectives. What we try to do is for each of our leaders we come away with two. So we start with five and then we work that five in strategic planning. The leaders come, they present five to the group and then what we we walk away with is is two for each leader and we have, I think, 20, so we'll our 10 leaders. So we'll come up with 20 objectives, but for their department, for their division, there's only two things that they're really focused on, because really, if you have more than two per division, more than two per leader, too many goals, it really dilutes focus and we want to stay focused on what we're trying to do. So it drives alignment with the team. And then what we're going to do is we're going to review that every quarter.
Speaker 2There's a book by Patrick Lencioni called Death by Meeting. It's really good. I love the way that he writes books because he tells like a fable or a story and then in that story, like 75% of the book is fiction. He's writing a story about what he's trying to to to talk about, and then the last 25 is okay, here's the stuff. So it's a really good book and it kind of outlines some of this stuff, but every quarter you're going off-site. Take your team off-site somewhere, don't do it in the office, there's too many distractions. You know, if you can go somewhere, uh, you know fun. Or you know, like I'm not adam, I'm not making fun of you, but you know he would, he would like something that's very you know in nature, or something that's creative. You know something that's get sparks, the, the creative juices.
Speaker 1You know, bougie to some bougie, but I might be might be I need to be outside, because every job I've had put me in a closet. Oh, there you go.
Speaker 2Well, there you go, there you go. I need some windows, but get your team away from the office in that way that you can have some really good discussions about what worked. So we're kind of reviewing what worked and did we miss the mark on anything? We had a goal. We should be 25% of the way of the goal to hit it. Are we 25% there? And if we need to adjust course, we readjust course. But it's also a time that we can take those objectives and say, okay, maybe we weren't as focused on these objectives as we should have been. So let's recommit. All right team, let's recommit. These are the things that we talked about. These are the most important things that we need to focus on. So let's recommit as a team and let's go into the next quarter with what are we doing? So what would you guys have to say about that?
Speaker 3I will say this I remember when our team first did this, it was very reactive, which we talked about earlier in the show, but what it's turned into is it's turned into our folks being more proactive. Not that we're 100% of the way there, just so you leaders and business folks are listening. But again, in your day-to-day life there are going to be times that you have to be reactive, but most of the time we should be proactive, which sets the plan, sets the course, uh, and gives everybody a clear objective of what we're going to work towards. And that's, that's the key focus.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it's good to have that's something we're doing this year. We're actually working through it now. We do a different our year we're actually working through it. Now. We do a different our year. Our quarters are offset so we don't stick to a true calendar year, and so we're working through that strategic plan now. We actually just had ours went through, you know, pastor Jeremy shared.
Speaker 1Hey, our word for this year is intentionality. We need to have this. Everything has to have intention behind it toward the greater goal, and so what our goal is as a team is Sundays first, wednesdays second, and then everything else is behind that ministries, other things. That's how we position. How we're intentional is like hey, our focus needs to be Sundays first, then Wednesdays, because we do discipleship on Wednesdays. We have all those things, and then the ministries that fall behind men's, women's, small groups, kids, all that stuff. And so we're doing that now and then evaluating those things.
Team Alignment and Accountability
Speaker 1We actually, for us, as our creative team, we evaluate weekly so that's something for us that works well is every week is different. We have issues each week, whether it's audio, whether it's visual, whether it's anything. So every Monday we evaluate these things and try to figure out where things are. We have what's called the Monday morning document. So every morning our job is to go in and fill out. You know good, bad things that happened this week and I like.
Speaker 1For me, I said this is high priority, mid priority and low priority. So I split out the different things I'm working on that. Hey, if something happens and I don't get to it this week, it can. It can be pushed back. Or hey, these have got to get done this week. I can't let anything stand in my way. So and we do that to figure out exactly what you're talking about At what point do we need to shift focus? You know, hey, I don't have the capacity to this. Where's something I can help you with? You know, hey, I can't do it. So that's the other side too. Is that teamwork side? What can I do to help facilitate the projects you're working on that need to get done?
Speaker 2Well, and what these objectives and this quarterly rhythm does, is it really? Um, it supports accountability and it supports alignment. Okay, so, team alignment um, everybody probably knows who Steve jobs is. You know the guy that was at Apple and developed all these things that you probably have in your pocket right now or your computer. You know, just, excellence was at the, at the top, and they, they, really, they really did this. Um, you know cause what? What he, what he was really big on. Maybe this is another uh episode, but he said what I try to focus on. I think he had like a 16 hour window, but he said there's a lot of noise that's out there. He said I try to focus on the signal. I'm focused in on what is the highest and best use of my time. What things should I be focused on? So he had something he said. He said deciding what not to do is just as important as deciding what to do.
Speaker 1That's good.
Speaker 2Yeah, and so what these rhythms do for us is, with alignment and accountability is you may work with somebody and Benji and I are like this too. You know we'll say, oh, we got this new shiny thing we want to do. You know, here's this new, I've got this new idea, I got this new thing, you know. And what it does is it creates alignment with the team that says, okay, well, hang on, guys, we can do that, like you are the leaders and we will follow what you're wanting to do. But you also said last week that these were our priorities and this is what we're doing. So if you want us to do this new thing, then we need to make a decision as a team to take this old thing off. Oh, no, no, no, no, that's not Okay, I got you. Let's put that on a grass catcher list. It sounded really good in the moment, but let's put that to the back burner.
Speaker 2We need to stay focused on what we're doing, and there's all kinds of systems that are out there that can help you guys. I mean I'm thinking of, if you guys are familiar with EOS, eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System. They have what's called the quarterly rocks and that leads up to your annual objectives. There's another system out there called 40X I think that was actually by Stephen Covey, but they're basically the same, with lead and lag measures and KPIs and KPMs and objectives and targets, all these things that there are systems that are out there that you don't really have to go create something that you can just if you'd like like me, I'd sometimes, yeah, I do like to create, but other times I'm like hey, if there's already a proven system out there, let me, let me, let me follow that and what this will do is just keeps us again in alignment with there's always going to be something urgent that's out there, but this keeps us aligned to what are we really focused on?
Speaker 3Yeah that's good stuff.
Speaker 3I will tell you guys that we've got more to come with this episode. This is the first one. Obviously, we're going to be shifting to the next one is going to wrap these, this whole segment up, but we just want to say again thank you guys, so much for tuning in to us. We appreciate you listening, appreciate your feedback. You can catch us on all social platforms at higher up podcast and always you can go to our website, higher up podcastcom. You can subscribe to any channel you'd like YouTube, apple, spotify, whatever you enjoy doing. We want to say thank you again for listening and, as always, go out and choose to live a higher up life. See you next time.
