Ep.041: Signal vs. Noise

Feeling busy but not effective is a leadership problem, not a motivation problem. In this episode, we break down a practical framework for cutting through noise and focusing on the work that actually drives results. We cover the four-box focus model, the discipline of saying no, and the One Thing habit that helps leaders protect strategy from constant interruptions.

We talk honestly about modern distractions like notifications, walk-ups, and unclear project requests, then walk through simple process changes that reduce friction. You’ll learn how to standardize intake, set clear timelines, and require better inputs so your team can execute well the first time. We also dig into the 80/20 principle with real leadership examples and explain why delegation and empowerment are essential if you want to scale without burning out.

The conversation closes with a shift from 2x to 10x thinking. More hours rarely produce better outcomes. Real growth comes from subtraction. We discuss eliminating low-value work, consolidating tools, protecting margin, and building systems that respect both client expectations and personal life. This episode connects focus, systems, leadership, and culture into a clear path forward for sustainable business growth.

Transcript

Studio Reset And Winter Jitters

SPEAKER_00 0:14

Hi Veggie Brady, welcome back in. We are back in the studio again. Back in the studio. Still dialing it in. So still trying to get figure this out. This is this is new filming this way. Filming in person. But um last episode I felt really it felt really good. Yeah. Is it just me or did our YouTube stats go way up? I'm only hitting hopes though. We did have to change things around a little bit. Um I felt like you couldn't see Brady as much where he was sitting. I think the word you used this morning was always short.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

And it was very offensive.

Framing Signal Versus Noise

SPEAKER_00 0:45

I wasn't going to say it on the podcast where everybody would hear it, but I did say that. I did say you were a little shorter, so but I felt like it's sooner. So um but man, we're uh we're we're gearing up for some potential winter weather as we're filming this. Oh yeah. Um I know for us that's always big as Surpro. We're already, you know, preparing, making sure we're good to go, but winter's here. We'll see. We're in Alabama. So they anything can happen, 70 or Z Z. I told somebody the other, I told somebody this morning we were talking about at the gym, and my buddy and I was like, I've seen pod, I've seen like videos on Facebook where people are like, death is coming. People are going to die. Like people are like ambulances are not going to be able to get there. And I'm like, I feel like they say that every single time. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's probably AI driven too. Yes. Yes, probably every time. So um we'll get jumped in. Uh, we're excited. This is one of uh Brady Your topics that we're talking about today. Uh, signal versus noise. Yep. Um, that's a great topic. So jump in a little bit and kind of explain like where this came from, you know, what you know what what we're gonna be talking about today, and we'll get ready to dive in.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

Yeah, so uh I think start out with a question to you leaders that are out there. And you know, we're in a new year, you know, the beginning of January, and kind of reflecting on last year or even even years past. Um but really the question is do you feel tired every day? Do you feel frustrated? Every day?

SPEAKER_02 2:13

You feel we're two for two exhausted every day.

Overwhelm, Atlas Syndrome, And Jobs

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Okay, and so I I don't know that this is like a silver bullet, you know, by any means. Um, but I think this is a good concept and really heard about this last year and and did some research on it. But everybody knows who Steve Jobs is, I I would think. And if you don't, you know, he was the the CEO of Apple uh for many, many years, and um, you know, he was at Apple and then he left and then he came back. He got fired. He got fired, that's right. Yeah. Um, but when he came back, really he put these principles into place, and we're gonna kind of chat through them uh today. But you know, I know sometimes as as leaders we get overwhelmed by a lot of stuff, you know. And why do we get overwhelmed is because we feel like and and I remember somebody telling me this one time is a leader, you know, if you if you remember the the guy, Atlas, you know, he's got the the world on his shoulders. A lot of times we feel like that, and it's because we feel like that we have to do everything, we have to make every decision. And uh and so this is what Steve Jobs was really good at is he knew what decisions need to be made and and basically what to say yes to and what to say no to. Um and so really we're gonna kind of kind of look at this, but it we also we live in a world that is we're just bombarded. Yeah like every day. We got emails and text messages. Now, I I don't personally do like the whole Snapchat and all that and stuff, but you know, there's just so many different platforms that we we do have noise as a leader that's already there, but then sometimes we create our own noise.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

It's funny you even mentioned Steve Jobs because so much of my noise comes from my phone. That comes from there. And I try to be good about it. That is interesting. I I try to be good about notifications. Um, you know, during the past 21 days, what one thing we've done is when we got home, I put my phone in the in the bedroom. Uh and I have important things like if, you know, if if one of y'all texts, I have y'all on a certain list, if Pastor Jeremy or Pastor Noah does, so I'll see it on my watch, but I'm not seeing everything else that comes through. And so I've tried this past year too to really like as I get notifications to my phone, I've gone in and tried to hit the option button and be like, do I need to really receive this all the time? Like, do I need that like because I so much of my noise comes from that. We're just you're always connected to someone or every it feels like somebody can always get a hold of you when they need to.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Funny story, we were Bible study um Monday night, and I mean we were in the middle of like this serious conversation, and it was deep. Like we were we were tackling some pretty deep stuff, and all of a sudden you hear da-da-da-da-da-da. And the ESPM's going off. So Who got fired? Yeah. Um probably Indiana, who was winning the national championship. So really really the the you know, the question for us as a leader, and this is what I want you guys to think about, and we want to talk around this, is beginning at the beginning of every year, and we might have talked about this last episode, I can't remember, but we only have this year 52 weeks.

SPEAKER_00 5:20

No, okay.

Notifications, Boundaries, And Digital Noise

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Now, as of the recording of this episode, I think we're you know like 48 weeks left, 47 weeks left, right? So you as a leader, really the anchoring question is when you look back at every week and you look back at that week, do you feel like you got something accomplished or not? You know, I was in, we've talked a lot about C12 on the podcast, and uh a couple of meetings ago, we were talking about the this concept of the the 52 weeks. We we actually broke it down like how many weeks we have left like in our life. And if you if you do that, if you do that math, and I think like the average age of a man is like 79 years old. So you know uh I'm I think I'm gonna outlive that, but we'll see, unless the Lord comes back. But um the way these are going these days, he's coming back soon. He's coming back soon. Uh but I mean to think about the weeks you have left, but there was I forget who it was, but uh him and his wife they had a routine. They had this this uh jar of marbles in there for you, and every single week they are two jars of marbles, so one was full and one was had some other ones in there, but they would take a marble out and they would put it in the other jar, and that signified like here's another week that's gone, I'm putting it in this jar, and let's reflect on like what what did we actually do this week? Yeah. So that that's kind of the question of do you ever get down to the end of the week? I know I get like this all the time, like, what in the world happened this week? Like, I I just I don't know. So uh so going back to Steve Jobs, he was really good at this, and when he when he came back, Benji, you mentioned he got fired. Uh when he came back to Apple because they were they were struggling, then he put some really simple concepts into place. And he knew we I think we've talked about the Pareto principle on here before. Oh yeah, but the the 8020. Uh we've talked about uh 10x is easier than 2x. You know, we've there's a a two-episode podcast on that that we've done. But Steve Jobs was really good at this, and and what he did was he he put this this grid up here, uh up there of like four items. And I don't know how many products they had at the time, but they might have had like 20 or 30. And he said, guys, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna make it real simple, and we're gonna choose four. Like, what are the what are the four things that we're gonna focus on this, you know, during this season, this year, and that's it. Like everything else is noise. And then what he would do is he would take the next six, like every 16 hours and say, What's the one thing that I can do that I'm only I'm gonna focus on to make sure I get that done? So let's talk about that for a minute. I mean, that's that's difficult as a leader to filter out all the noise that's out there and try to focus on the one thing that's really gonna move the needle. And Benji, you you and I we talk about this all the time. It's like when everything's important, nothing is. Nothing's important. And we've there's a lot of good ideas, but are they the right idea for right now?

SPEAKER_02 8:29

Yeah, put them on a wish list and you know, focus on the ones you can accomplish, and that's really all you can do. Um, sometimes as leaders, you know, we have these four things you're talking about, and then you look up and you start whiteboarding the four things and you go, oh man, I need to add number, you know, to accomplish that one. I got to do this and I got to do this versus trying to plan it out. Um, we like to charter things, you know, around here to try to say, okay, we're gonna do it this way, we're gonna focus on this for next week, and then after we get that one accomplished, we're gonna move to the next thing that affects so it it can kind of become a revolving, you know, system over time, but um it it can become noise. And you know, there are some things that you what can we do to make it simpler, right? The signal you use the analogy in our strategic plausible about the heartbeat. You know, sometimes the heartbeat, it it just click, click, click, click, click, and then all of a sudden you get stressed and it's like click, click, click, it start, you know, so that becomes noise, and you you realize something's wrong and you look up and you know what happened. So to your point, um you got to try to stay on track. And if you can stay on track, whether it's week to week, quarter to quarter, you know, year to year, you gotta have an end result to accomplish what you want to accomplish because it's not gonna fix itself overnight. Yeah.

52 Weeks, Marbles, And Weekly Wins

SPEAKER_00 9:41

Yeah. No, the same things for us because we we're where we are, it's so easy to walk into an office or ask somebody to do something. Even like yesterday, we had a bunch of stuff going on, and I had a goal, and I didn't meet it, but I was like, I'm gonna get this guide done today so we can get it digitalized, we can have it ready to go. And man, it was like, hey, I need this email sent out. Hey, I need help with this, hey, I need I need this going on. And we've talked so much this year about how do we move from mom and pop to corporate because those walk-in and office settings, it's that noise you're talking about, but that's not a corporate, that doesn't feel corporate, that doesn't feel big. And we've got to get our team to follow the processes, submit projects, get them in on time, get us the right detail so we're not having to come back to you to be like, all right, you submitted that you need this graphic or you need this video or you need this on the website, but you all you said was da-da-da. And I was like, so now we've created more time that if we had spent time in the beginning doing it the correct way, yeah, and and giving that information, then we get what we need and kind of move on. And it's not, I think sometimes people get lost in the weeds in that that it they feel like people are being short or they're being rude or they're like being off-putting, but it's not that. It's give me what I need now so I don't have to bother you. Like, hey, you got a marriage night coming up, or hey, you've got, you know, we need to have this uh project done so we can create this marketing campaign for our clients. But if you give me all that information from the beginning, all right, good, I'll deliver. Yeah, yeah, and that's it. Yeah, if you don't give me that information and you don't do those things, that's where I feel like you get more into those noise. Um, and that's kind of what I'm I'm assuming you guys deal with, but I feel like y'all have done really well with the past few years, really like like we don't get to you, Brady, unless we need unless it's like, hey, you have you put it on my schedule? And it's not you being like, hey, I don't have time for you. It's I've got 50 other people asking to have time for it. So get on my schedule and then we can look at it so that way you can make sure you're getting the things that you're done.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

So I think yeah, I think that's a good point, Adam, because there are many things that we can do. You know, even you as a leader, you have skills and abilities. So and this is the tough part. Like, yes, I can do that, but should I? Yeah. You know, it's not about uh I have the ability to do that, but but should I? So, you know, I I think it goes back to what we said before, Benji, you know, when when everything is important, nothing is, and as leaders, we have to have that focus to to because there's only thing like from a leadership perspective, there's only things that we can do. Yeah, yeah. Like there's only and and uh I know delegation gets gets used a lot, and but it is a good tool because you are in the position that you're in because you are the only person that can do certain things. So if somebody else can do it, then um then then let them and and and also empower them to do it. So let's kind of let's kind of break down this this 80-20 rule. A lot of leaders know it, but they don't necessarily follow it. And so, you know, we're gonna talk through like why um like why do we get I think it's a trap. So why do why do we get into that trap? And I think it goes back to what we talked about at the beginning, is because we feel like we're the only ones that can fix that problem. Yeah, you know. I know I find myself falling into that trap sometimes. It's like, well, here's a decision that needs to be made, here's a conversation that needs to be had. Hey, if I need to have that conver, and I'm like, no, I I I can have that conversation. I have every right to have that conversation because I'm the leader, but I shouldn't.

Jobs’ Four-Box Focus And One Thing

SPEAKER_00 13:23

You're so used to doing it yourself that it's like a muscle reflux. It is, yeah, and you're like, I'll do it. And I do the same thing now, and I I do the same thing at the church. You know, we'll we'll have something of like, I'll just do it. And it's like, and it's just like you said, but all right, I need to take a step back for a second and say, no, you need to do it because you're empowering someone, yeah, and then only not only doing that by allowing someone to grow inside your company allows them to give more output. And you're realizing, like, all right, this is something that I can I can take off my plate. Yeah, so now I can focus. That's one of the things that I I really want us to look at is okay, we have all these little things we do every week, folding bulletins or you know, like printing things or doing that. Like, all right, hold on. We've created all these avenues for people to get communication, to do all this stuff. Why do we spend time every week on these things? And then the bigger projects, the things that matter, that put butts in the seats, you know. I mean, we don't get to focus on those because I'm too, we're too busy doing them. So we've got to find a way to dial in those little pieces. So that way, like you said, I want to hone in and signal in on the things that are important and that really drive for you guys revenue. What pulls in things for us? It's what brings people in, what gets people in the church. So there's whatever your business model is, what can you remove from your plate? Yeah that's gonna allow you to focus on what where growth is. Because that's what I'm assuming anybody in business is what they want. They want growth, they want more revenue, they want a better margin, they want more bottom line. Like, how do you do that?

SPEAKER_02 14:56

Well, it allows it allows the leader to focus on the business and not be necessarily in it. Yeah, you know, that's the whole 80-20 concept as a leader. You know, you you've got to figure out what those key things are that every that you need to do, but everybody else can do. There has to be vision, there's gotta be strategy, uh, and then there's gotta be outcomes to accomplish those strategies. So uh you you have you have to do that as a leader, you know, and to your point, empower your people and not block out the noise because there's always gonna be some kind of noise, but but we got to limit the amount of noise that we have.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah, and I think the the biggest thing that we're trying to create is margin. I mean, think about think about your life, think about your work. Um and just we as a society, we are so busy. Yeah, it's just uh there's always something going on, and sometimes we feel like we have to say yes to, you know. What I what I'm trying to do is I'm figuring I'm trying to figure out this year what to say no to.

SPEAKER_04 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

You know, because we we can't have the margin, and that's even a biblical principle. You know, if you if you look in the in the New Testament and you look at the even the life of Jesus, he he retreated. He's he he was very adamant about Sabbath, and uh, and that's something I'm still learning is is how do I do that and do that well just because there's so many things that are going on. I don't I will say I don't have time, but you know, we make I always say also that we you make time for the things that are important, yeah. So if it's not important, you're not gonna make time for it. But um, so let's talk, let's let's look at this 10x versus 2x principle just real quick. We did a full episode, full two-part episode, I think last year, sometime, last season. But uh what is this whole 2x versus 10x? And it does go to margin, but 2x is like I'm gonna work on the incremental improvements, you know, the the small things. Yeah, I'm gonna, man, you know what? If I just put in, if I wake up an hour earlier, I can get more done. If I just stay at the at the office an hour later, I can get more done. I don't know that more effort is gonna give you the outcome that you're looking for.

Process Discipline Beats Walk-In Requests

SPEAKER_00 17:01

Well, yeah, you're tiring yourself out more. So now you're like, when you do get home or you do have those down moments, you're like, man, I spent more time doing this now. I don't want to do anything else.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

So I I think you have to, you know, you have to to um you have to honor your time and respect your time. So that's what 2x thinking is more, more, more, more, more. Where 10x is what do I need to say no to? What do I need to subtract, you know, so that I can have clear focus on, like you said, Benji earlier, you've got that four grid, and there's other things that pop, yeah. Oh, you know, it's kind of like that shiny object syndrome that we talked about. It's oh that could be good too, but I don't know. Let me let's let's stay focused in on we were just talking about something the other day, and it's like, oh that would be a really good idea. Yeah, yeah. But if we if we focused on that, then we're gonna lose focus on what we've already decided that we're gonna do as a part of our strategic plan. Yeah. And uh and so the example here is, you know, and there's all kinds of a job uh examples going back to Steve Jobs, but you know, when he didn't like Apple didn't invent the MP3 player, did they? But they made it better. And because he was so focused on what they wanted to do, he not only invented what was it the when they did the announcement is like a thousand songs in your pocket.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

It wasn't oh, it's got the best hard drive and got the best memory, you know, all this stuff. He goes, simple. Simple, a thousand songs in your pocket, and then off of that, he already had the vision to create an ecosystem of Apple Music and all these subscription models and all those things. And so I mean I miss the iPod though. You could just oh yeah, you just hang around, you know. But that's but that's what made him so good is everybody else was focused, every other company was focused on noise. Yeah he said, We're gonna, we're gonna, we didn't invent it, but we're gonna make it so much better, and we're gonna create a system. And I mean, other than you Spotify users or you know, YouTube music, most people I think probably have some type of Apple Music.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Not only did he eliminate things like CDs and MP3s and all that, the guy single-handedly made yeah, and simultaneously he he like he got rid of things like Blackberries and all this other stuff. So it's like he took a big swing. I mean, and he not he went at several different industries and said, you know what, all y'all are trying to create all this extra noise or things for people to carry in your pockets. Let me give you one thing. Let me give you one thing. And then the man went and cut the cord on that stuff, so you're not having cords. I mean, you're talking about an ecosystem. I understand why Apple is more expensive. I understand these things because you're paying for something that's working really well, and you're paying for something that works together. Like I love the fact that I can, especially for me as a creative, when I work on something here, I can send it to my phone at the same quality by airdropping it. I don't have or drop it up into my photos and it automatically works together. And so it creates this. Apple doesn't do that, or I'm sorry, Apple does that, but like Microsoft to me, what I've worked, I I don't feel like it's that way. Android isn't that way. So that's one of the reasons why I'm here because he's created a way to get rid of the noise and carry extra things and have all this stuff in your pockets.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

That's fair. It's it's it's amazing. You go back to thinking about noise, you know, getting rid of all these other things. True story, we actually went probably in uh November of 25, we went and bought a V Ch VHS player from a guy. Sixty dollars. Sixty dollars, sixty dollars, and we played, we actually watched Home Alone right after Thanksgiving on VHS, and the kids were like, What is this? Well, how in the world did you guys watch this stuff to your point? See if you know wasn't in 4K, wasn't it?

Delegate, Empower, And Avoid The Trap

SPEAKER_00 20:49

I have a whole box of DVDs at home that I told Emily the other day. I'm like, like you have a hard time getting rid of them because I have stuff that I've collected. Like just don't know. But I mean, I've got like Lord of the Rings extended version. I remember going to Best Buy and buying that stuff, and now I'm like, Hey, we bought a record player not to go too. We did too, just to just to go back to the vinyls.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

So do I get rid of noise. Yeah, the vinyls do have noise, contrary to popular belief.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

But yeah, we that man, that's just I mean, those are the all types of things that that you see. And um Vision. It's about vision and creating, you know, as you're talking about the 10x, creating systems and having things in place. One of the things that I've really tried to do myself is obviously I have a full-time job at the church. I have my my media, my creative media business on the side. And one of the things I talked about with Emily is I said, I can't, I can't be caught up in the weeds. If I go do stuff on Friday when the girls are in school and she's at work, that's fine. Like I can go get that done. The problem is some of those things that I do, I've got to turn around and deliver back to the client that like that at least in a certain time, or I got to work on it night. So now I've moved away from doing things when I'm just it's just me, to now I'm cutting into that margin of family time. So one of the things I've done this year, especially with things like real estate photography. I've had to increase my price a little bit, but what I've done is I've had to deliver something back to a customer, say, hey, I will get this to you within 48 hours. From the moment we leave, clock starts, 48 hours, I give it to you. Well, I've I've got someone that does a good job that edits those photos for me. So now instead of me doing that, I pay them to do it. My cost is covered. I'm still making a you know about a 70, 80% profit off of that job. And now they are doing that and delivering it back to me. And most times I can meet a client within 24 hours. So that's always been my goal. My personal goal is 24. I tell a client, I'll get this to you in 48 hours. I mean, obviously, what I'd love to get to is if I can give build a team enough, hey, same day. I would like to meet you don't see that in it in the real estate market. It typically takes, you know, a couple days to get things back. So if I can, if somebody's okay with paying 350, you know, 400 for that, they may be like, man, I'm paying all this, but man, I get these back. I get this on the market, and then I'm getting it sold and I'm making money. So it's finding now all your clients know how much profit you make. Well, I didn't say that's what I was doing, but I'm just throw, I'm throwing a number out there. I'm just saying. So, but you know, those are some things you're looking at. How do I create these systems? So what I've tried to do is like, all right, now videos and things, obviously I'm gonna do myself because I have a look, I have a a way people hire me for how to do it. But stuff like photos, to me, I know how I found someone that that when I deliver to a client, they're like, hey, these look great. I love these. They don't know any different and they see it, but I've created a system where now let me go get it done, yeah, but I can now get somebody else, and now that time is back. I can work on another project, I can work on something else.

Creating Margin And Practicing Sabbath

SPEAKER_01 23:41

Yeah, it's it you what you're focused on is the highest and best use of your time. Yeah, yeah. Like if somebody that's what we were going to before, saying before is if somebody else can do it, yeah, you know, but if you're the only one, it's your product, it's your brand, it's your look, yeah. You know, it's like this is Adam West Media, right? Plug for Adam West Media. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Uh but that but that's but that's your product. Somebody else can do some of the other stuff, some of that noise. It's still got to be done. Yeah. It doesn't mean it's and listen, I I hope you guys don't hear what we're saying. You know, we we talk about this in our leadership meeting, but noise doesn't mean it's bad. Yeah, right. You know, because what could be noise for us might be signal for somebody else. Yes. You know, but that but we have to focus on you know what ours is. So as we kind of land the plane, I think this is probably gonna be a two-part. 100% two-party. Okay. So we'll come back next time and we'll talk through some practical uh steps. But uh, I just want to leave you guys with this and then Benji will wrap us up. But you know, we don't going back to 10x versus 2x, you don't 10x by focusing on the 80%. You 10x by focusing on the 20%. And that that goes a long way in any different circle, any different organization. Doesn't matter who you are. It's gonna be fun because next time we're gonna talk about some examples of what that may look like uh if you're a serve pro leader, which which we are. We may go into some fun examples about that. We even got some fun examples about some uh church leadership. So that'll be I'm ready for that one. That'll be Adam's I'll I'm ready for that one. And then we'll go we'll go for some generic and like leadership, you know, stuff too. But uh it should be a fun second second part.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

That'll be good. That was it, it was a good topic. I mean, I think I think it's very timely too. We're still in the beginning of the year. Yeah, you have time to say, like you said, I mean, yeah, I think you're almost now 11 months. I mean, at this point, I mean, even when this episode comes out, you I mean, you actually you only have 11 months. So you've already lost, you've already lost one month in 2026. So you got 11 more. So what are you gonna do with the last 11? That's right.

10x By Subtraction, Not More Hours

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Yeah, yeah. Well, as always, look, if you're listening to us on any of your favorite uh, you know, platforms, whether it's Apple's Podcast or Spotify or whatever, check us out on YouTube. You know, there's great, these tools are designed. Uh, we've got shorts and small clip videos and reels and stuff. You make it show your team out there. Uh, this is what this is designed for to help make leaders better. And the reason we do it is because we know the Lord is on our side and can help us through any situation. Um, so again, you can find us on any social platform. Go to higheruppodcast.com. You can subscribe anywhere there. Check us out on YouTube. And if you're watching on YouTube, thank you so much. But as always, go out and choose to live a higher up life. We'll see you next time.