Your Petite Practice with Dr. Christiane Schroeder

Your calendar is full, your desk is crowded, and somehow the business still feels stuck. We sit down with Dr. Christiana Schroeder, professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at Cal Poly and author of the upcoming book “Petite Practice,” to unpack a deceptively simple idea: small, consistent steps work best when they begin with a pause.

We get practical about what that pause looks like for business owners and entrepreneurs. Christiana walks us through a sticky-note brain dump, how to sort work by what actually moves the needle, and why “delete, delegate, or direct” can unlock real focus. We also talk about decluttering your workspace to reduce task switching, protect willpower, and create an environment that supports deep work instead of constant distraction.

Then we go deeper with values and identity. Christiana shares her “tombstone test” for clarifying what you want to be remembered for, plus simple systems that help you maintain momentum: an accountability partner, a Weekly Wins review, and “Margin Monday,” a no-meetings day that becomes a creative playground for strategy, learning, writing, and growth. We wrap with a sharp sales takeaway that improves every pitch: listen first, speak second.

If you want better productivity, clearer priorities, and a more sustainable way to grow your business, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review. What’s one task you will delete this week?

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Transcript

Opening Chat And California Life

SPEAKER_00 0:01

And we'll just we'll just have a conversation, Christiana. Um I'm open to most anything. But where are you located?

SPEAKER_03 0:12

So uh I I'm a full-time professor at Cal Poly, San Los Obispo, and San Luis Obispo is a beautiful place, right between Los Angeles and San Francisco in California. So it's not directly at the coast, right? So we we're not at the ocean, but within 10 minutes driving distance. We are in water. So the great thing about San Los Obispo is there's mountains, there's water, but then of course, um lots of produce. It's called the salad bowl of the United States. It's beautiful, yes. Strawberries and lots of produce. Yes, I every day I eat strawberries, Morris.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Well, I'd love to send you something after this is all over with. What's your mailing address?

SPEAKER_03 1:03

Oh, um, should I say it on the recording too? Okay, I can put it in the chat.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

If if you could tell me, I can write it down and that'll be easier for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

1209. Uh-huh. Vista del lago. So my house is at a lake. Vista del lago. In San Luis Obispo, that's three words. And I'm writing it anyway in the chat. De Lago. San Luis Obispo, California 93405.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

93405. Thank you. Excellent. I and we're just gonna have a conversation. Um what in anything in particular that's gonna make this a really good use of your time, Christiana?

SPEAKER_03 1:49

So I'm currently working on my uh what is that fourth book? Uh fifth book, fifth book, right? So um that one is going to be my most special book that's coming out on August 16th, which is exactly one year after I presented my TIDEX talk. And yeah, really teaching about how small steps can lead to big impact. It's called my petite practice book. I can share a mock-up here in a little while with you. Right now, I just created the mock-up in chat GBT just to see what it comes up with. Um, but then again, um, in general, uh, my whole book is all personal stories that basically are answering the question that I get asked all the time, which is like, how did you get where you are? Tell us a little bit about all these small little successes, and then I use them as teachable moments. I'm a big storyteller, Morris, and I think there is so much um that we can learn from each other if we just think about how what I overcame and how my life changed, I can share that with somebody else. And maybe there is a teachable moment in there for them to experience the same, right?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Excellent. That gives us more than enough to do 20 or 30 minutes worth of a podcast for sure. Awesome. Excellent. All right, so uh we'll get started here and we'll get going. Let me get a little uh room tone and then we'll start this show. Dr. Christiana Schroeder is our guest today on the Commission Code. Dr. Schroeder is a professor of marketing and entrepreneurship at Cal Poly, and she's an author. And my word, I tell you what, this lady has done just about everything under the shining sun, and I can't wait to have you meet her. So, Christiana, thank you very much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03 3:53

Thank you so much, Morris, for having me. And then, of course, audience, I love that he used the word sun because yes, I do live in sunny California. So, no matter where you are, I hope that this conversation is going to bring a little bit of brightness into your day right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Outstanding. We can use some, that's for sure. It's been

Meet Christiana And Her New Book

SPEAKER_00 4:12

been raining a lot here in Texas, which is an unusual kind of a thing, anyhow. Christiana, tell us a little bit about your newest book. I know that you've written several. Tell us about your your upcoming book because I think that that topic is going to be a great conversation.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

Yeah, so I'm currently working and loving to work. I have to say that I really enjoy writing. My newest book is called uh Petite Practice. It's tying in with my TEDx talk that I presented last year on August 16th, 2025. So it will come out on August 16th, 2026. Right. And um petite practice is a small step. Petite means small in French, in practice, is essentially just trying something maybe for the first time. And that's why you make it small because you're not familiar with it, but you keep it up on a consistent basis. So the promise of the book really is that you take these small, steady steps to a life that will be bringing out the unique you. And I call it a life that holds because you feel like your life is full. Like sometimes we think about like my cup is full and my heart is full, and that's really what the promise of the book is that your life is going to be full.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Oh, outstanding. Let's talk about that as it as it pertains to business owners, especially, you know, those of us that are out here. Golly, there's so many who have been working at it and we're working ourselves very, very hard. We're doing all the work, but yet the business is kind of maybe plateaued. How can we take some small steps and in what direction should we take them, do you think?

SPEAKER_03 5:59

That's a brilliant question. Think about everything that you have going on on a day-to-day basis, and maybe even write it down on sticky notes. And then you could use, I'm sitting in front of this whiteboard right now here, right? So you could use a whiteboard or um maybe just an empty table with all your sticky notes on the side, and then start organizing a little bit. Like what really moves the needle? Like, which of these tasks are really the ones that I do on a day-to-day basis, but they're just kind of like mundane, they are there, but at the end of the day, they're not really changing

Small Steps That Move Revenue

SPEAKER_03 6:42

how consumers show up or what consumers perceive of me. So there's of course always answering emails, but if there's emails from consumers, that's important. So that kind of brain dumping is so important for every business owner. And if you think what I just told you about a petite practice, the difference between a petite practice and say you might have initially maybe thought, oh, is that like atomic habits, like small habits? It's quite tremendous. Atomic habits are systems. We need systems, we need habits, we need things that we do that are bringing our business forward. But a petite practice is that important pause where you're writing everything on the sticky notes, and then you're starting to get a feeling, oh my gosh, many of these things that I'm doing, I might actually either way get rid of them, right? Delete, or maybe I can delegate, or maybe I can direct them and do them a little bit differently, right? So maybe I can use AI, or maybe I can merge them with another task. And then there is the other ones that now that you created a cleaner slate with all your sticky notes, you can say, all right, these are my high urgency, high priority tasks right here. And I want to dedicate, that's my last D, more time to it. I really want to feel, oh my gosh, I feel I'm so spread thin that the really important needle-moving tasks are not getting what they really deserve. So this, I mean, then people call it the Eisenhower matrix, right? You can put like low priority, low urgency to high priority, high urgency. But it's so important in a business, and that's what sets a petite practice apart from a very like routine-driven atomic habits because you're pausing and you're assessing, like, hold on, what's really going on? And we need to do this all the time because we change. You might have loved doing some things, and all of a sudden you're like, I don't like doing that anymore. Well, then don't do it because people can tell, right? So business owners frequently they just do same old, same old, and then all of a sudden you're like, I don't think this is good. What am I doing? Right? Yeah. So that's a big question.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Totally. Yeah, totally. I love it. And Eisenhower matrix. I learned that from the Stephen Covey book, Seven Habits of Highly Affected People, but I had never heard it called the Eisenhower. That's neat because I love Eisenhower. He's also the one who said plans are useless, but the planning process was essential. So yeah, thank you. I learned something already today. That's great. But I love the concept. I I'm I'm teaching that in the the clarity principle that I that I use when I teach folks, you know, you got to stop and really think about what you want, why you want it, and how you're gonna get there. But then a personal operating system where you stop and you look at everything you're doing and decide what really is important and what is not. And that's what it says, like petite practice allows you to do. That's a wonderful thing. I I absolutely love that because I think there's so much stuff that we can find some other way to accomplish. And what's the result of doing all that, Christiana? What do you see happen when when people actually do that?

SPEAKER_03 10:04

So let's say you are our business owner, and let's just say like your desk is like this. The you know, it's like the accumulation of everything. Like there's papers, um, you know, there's like notebooks, there's like, you know, it's just like this this haven of clutter, right? And all of a sudden, you did what I just talked about, you took everything, and you really reassessed. Do I really need this? Do I really need that? So you really decluttered. What it gives you is like ultra sharp focus. I mean, you can actually go to your desk without pushing down a bunch of papers. And you can go to your desk and actually feel zen, right? This moment of

Declutter To Get Sharp Focus

SPEAKER_03 10:47

flow where you're like sitting down, you're working on one task, and you're not like, oh, now that I'm looking over here, I'm looking up this to-do list here. No, no, no, you're working on one task for 20 to 30 minutes, and it will require willpower. This is not something that you're like, no, I can do this. No, most people can't. They get so sidetracked in switching tasks, and the task switching is really what drains the mental power. And it's not, I'm really going to emphasize this right now, Morris. It's not just the task switching of having browser browser tabs open, because I have browser tabs open too, but I don't switch between them. It's the task switching because your work environment, your external environment is so cluttered and so like you're not honoring that you're doing important work, like you were you're feeling like you're you're getting crammed in somewhere and you're not even deserving a clean desk. That's how I look at this. It's really like you're opening your fridge and you're looking at a bunch of like rotten and shriveled food, right? You always want to feel like it's like, oh my gosh, I can't wait to sit at this desk because it just screams creativity to me, right? Many people don't think how important that is, but it's tremendously important.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Oh, it is. It is very, very important. And the lack of distractions is just as important. And because so many of us, so many of us have ADHD and we think we think that, oh man, I can multitask. Well, that's the biggest myth there ever was, in my opinion. You can't do more than one thing at a time. The human brain won't let you do that. You got to focus. And focus is that key skill in running any business. But it being able to declutter and then focus on what you need to focus on sounds to me like what this allows you to do. And that's so very, very critical. I had had a lady that worked for me in New York, Christiana, and I'll tell you this quick story. I swear for 20 years I worked with this lady, and you couldn't see the top of her desk. It was covered with piles and piles of paper. She turned on her computer, and the entire computer screen was nothing but shortcuts. The whole screen was shortcuts. I swear I couldn't get her to do anything. We even had a consultant come in from outside. You know, the consultant with the briefcase stays overnight, it's always the expert. Had him come in and sit down with her and clean up her entire desk and her computer and the whole nine yards. Within two weeks, it was right back where she started. Yeah. And every time you talk about it, oh no, no, no, this is the way I organize, I can find everything. And just doesn't work, does it?

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Yeah, you're actually bringing up a really good point. So there is in petite practice, right? There's this moment of pause. And I think because I have a PhD in economics, right? It's it's really difficult to understand what am I actually thinking about when I pause, right? I mean, like, I'm okay the way that I am. I don't even need to assess anything in my life, I don't need to declutter. But this is really important that you, and I do this with my students that are only 20 years old, right? You transport yourself to the end of your life. And I call it like the tombstone,

The Tombstone Test For Values

SPEAKER_03 14:23

the tombstone example. Like you think, all right, what are people going to say about me at the very end of my life? And what do I want that they say about me when I'm not in a room? And declutter or no declutter, your own systems or not your own systems, you need to think the clutter really muddles your values because it's all buried under all these things, and they're not important. To really like think, okay, for me, values are integrity, honesty, and something, you need to declutter all the rest so you can really make those three values shine. And if your desk looks like, you know, very messy, it's the same thing in your life. Like, you need to think all the declutter also makes you unique in a way that people will remember you, and that tombstone will say something very, very special that no other person on the whole graveyard would have on their tombstone. So that's the value of decluttering, that you're making yourself be so invaluable that people will immediately say, Oh my gosh, yes, I remember that person always did this and this and this. And that's the value of decluttering. And my students all of a sudden get it, right? Like at the beginning, it's a lot of words and it's a lot of, you know, like feeling like I can't really share who I am because I'm feeling I'm becoming too vulnerable. But then I'm telling them, no, no, no. You always need to transport yourself into like whatever, the end of your life. All these material things don't matter as much as it's really the emotional piece that you're leaving, your footprint in the world. And nobody's footprint or fingerprint is the same. So, what is yours, right? And even in your business, what is yours? And that's the the value of decluttering that you can have your systems all day long, but frequently the muddle is the the mess, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Isn't that the truth? Yeah, and that's uh I I feel so clean, I guess. It's like just like getting out of the shower. Yeah, shower and feeling really good about how clean you are. Same thing when you stop and pause and declutter. I think from what I'm hearing so far, the key is the pause. The key is making that decision to stop and pause and really look at things. Is am I getting close?

SPEAKER_03 16:53

Exactly. The pause is the the moment because you do two things. A, you decide what worked, and if it did work, do more of that. And if you feel what didn't work, well, you can get rid of it, right? Um, yeah, I mean, I it's a little bit of like a um like a tree, right? It is decision tree. Yes, no, right. And um, the most important thing about the pause is that if you feel something

The Pause That Builds Momentum

SPEAKER_03 17:25

worked, it's also this aha moment, like, oh my gosh, that's great that I figured this out. And then you can praise yourself for it, like celebrate those small achievements. So the pause is a moment to assess, but to also get motivation from the things that work for the future things to come. So, like, think like you're halfway through a river, right? And you're using these little rocks to transport you through the river. There's no bridge. You look back, that's the pause, and you're like, huh. Looks like the stones that had a little bit more of a square shape were the ones that were easier for me to step on instead of those route ones that are kind of wobbly when I step on it. You don't want the wobbly ones. Okay, no more wobbly ones. So you turn back, you grab a square one, you put it in front of you, and you're like, that's it. That's it. Now I can actually move faster instead of slipping down, falling in the water, and having this huge mess. I grab the square one. And that's how it is. The pause is really like figuring out how can I be more efficient moving forward? You you want to take the pause and you want to assess what works and then celebrate that little, like, oh my gosh, high five moment. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

So the the problem that I run into when I do this is it works great for a while, and then I slip back. And I how do you how do you maintain the the growth and the improvement that you've gotten from the pause? How do you maintain that, Christiana?

SPEAKER_03 18:55

It will always change. Change is the only consistent really there. So let's say you figured out something that works really well, and then all of a sudden you're like, no, it doesn't work anymore, right? Like you you figured out something. What helps me is to have an accountability partner or business partner or mentor or family member, dog, whatever, neighbor, person in coffee shop, and you just tell them about

Accountability To Keep Improving

SPEAKER_03 19:26

it. Like, huh, here I was, right? Tried this thing, and all of a sudden it didn't work anymore, right? That's really important because A, it talks you through it, but B, you would be surprised um what other people share with you. They're like, oh my gosh, I had a similar thing happen to me the other day. And then what I ended up doing, and all of a sudden you're like, oh my gosh, I'm not alone in this. It's, I think sometimes just the connection and the fact that you feel, oh yeah, I am constantly spinning my wheels and I have to change, it's like never-ending. The great thing is when you exchange it, it's a feeling that you have a growth mindset and that every time when you're sharing it, that you're learning something. And that every time when somebody exchanges it back to you, that you're getting like another little connection note in your brain. That's really, really important. That you don't stay in your isolation and you just tinker around, but yet you're actually getting that feedback.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

So I so how often do you stop and pause?

SPEAKER_03 20:34

I do it weekly, I call it weekly wins. Actually, Morris, over the weekend I designed a little app. I designed an app that I call the weekly wins. And it has questions. Put your win here. Is it business? Is it personal? Then a slider. How did I feel about this week? Between one and ten. Some weeks are just crappy. That's all right. Give it a one. I mean, it can be, I mean, not every week has to be great, right? And then it also says, um, what's a quote that I would take away from this week? And what made this week special? And whom can I thank for this week? Gratitude is so important. And it's good at the end of the week to think about this.

Weekly Wins And Gratitude Ritual

SPEAKER_03 21:17

Like, whom who made my way to special? Who is my daughter? I should tell her thank you for this, right? And and and all these little things. So I do it weekly. I don't, I know a lot of people say, like, I do my daily gratitude at the end of the day. I started doing this more, and I filled like notebooks and motebooks with like daily scribble at the end of the day. And it this we just talked about this. It didn't work for me. I was not a daily person. I'm more like a weekly person. I like the Sunday. I call it Serenity Sunday. I look back and then I look forward.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

Oh, I think that's critical. I really do. Uh Darren Hardy has a whole thing about that, and I love it. I absolutely love Sunday, Sunday afternoon planning. It's it's the Way I do it and the way I teach it. It just um yeah, I love it. It makes so much sense to have a plan for every day of the week so that at the end of Tuesday, I don't have to sit back and say, gee, what am I gonna do tomorrow? I have a plan. And if I need to tweak that plan, if I need to make some minor changes, I can. It's a lot easier than sitting down with a blank piece of paper, wouldn't you agree?

SPEAKER_03 22:23

In fact, my weekdays are like little characters, you know, like there's these superpower or superhero shows, and each of my weekdays is like a little superhero, and I kind of pair them with each other, right? So I have like my Tuesday and my Thursdays, they're similar in terms of the theme what I do on those days. I do a lot of teaching and coaching on those days, and my Wednesday, my Friday have similar themes on those days. I don't do um as much um big group coaching, I do more like one-on-one coaching. And then my Monday, Morris, the Monday. I call it my margin Monday. The margin Monday, no meetings at all. The Monday, I'm basically really going to play around with things and I'm going to try them. This is like my creative playground. So important. Since ever I created Margin Monday, my business has just totally taken off. Because otherwise, when am I ever going to memorize my TEDx speak? My TEDx speech. It's not something I do like in a 20-minute thing here, right? It takes a little while. When am I even going to apply to TEDx stages? Or when am I going to write my podcast outline because of a podcast? Maybe ideas for my book or thinking

Margin Monday And Weekly Planning

SPEAKER_03 23:41

about a book cover or going for a walk or reading a book. I mean, like your margin Monday is what you need on the margin. On the other days, you're basically just following, you know, your schedule and whatever you lined out on the Sunday. But my Margin Monday, no meetings at all. I'm like really strict about it.

SPEAKER_00 24:00

Yep. That's good. That's outstanding. That is absolutely outstanding. Pardon me. The um the hard part is sticking to that. It's it's gee, there's this one client that really only can meet me on Monday. Therefore, I'm gonna break my my commitment here and I'm gonna meet with them on Monday. And it just kind of begins to erode from there, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_03 24:24

It does. The one thing is you can slip maybe once per month. You just establish yourself like little slip days. That's okay. But you just can't say, well, no, I did this, now I'm gonna do that, because then your margin Monday is becoming minimal Monday. It's not work anymore.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Isn't that the truth? That's for sure. That's for sure.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

You need it. Um, and what's important too is that you kind of start looking forward to it. You're like, I'm like, gosh, there's my margin Monday, right? And it's it's good because if you think about the Pareto principle, right? A lot of things in your business, like 80% in your business, might come from 20% of the time that you dedicate to it. And for me, that's happening on my margin Monday. 20% of my week, the Monday, I get so much output on that day. That's it. Margin Monday.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

I love it. I absolutely love it. That's fantastic. Christian, you also deal with sales and you teach some sales courses and stuff. Two two questions for you, and we'll wrap this up. Number one, before I forget, August 16th, where do we find your book?

SPEAKER_03 25:36

Find my book on Amazon.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

And that's where all of my other books are. In fact, I call it the Petite Practice Collection. So you can all find my books on Amazon. They could be delivered wherever you are in the world. They can be delivered straight to your house. And then, of course, what's important as well is that that book also comes with a workbook option. So you can read the book, and then I'm a firm believer in different learning styles. So you can interact with the knowledge then in your workbook and really

Book Details And Where To Buy

SPEAKER_03 26:13

write down yourself, your takeaways, answer journaling prompts, and really feel you're growing and you're establishing your own petite practice system for yourself.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Excellent. Excellent. All right. Well, we'll go to Amazon and find it. Is there anything that anybody buys nowadays that's not on Amazon? I don't know. I don't. It's it's like in the fresh food, that's about it.

SPEAKER_03 26:37

Yeah, I mean, I think what when I chose my retailer, right, there's always the option that I buy a bunch of books and then sell them from my house. But then remember, audience, what we just talked about. We just talked about the clutter. And my books, and I love that you said fresh. I update them. I go back in and I update them, right? They stay fresh. And because I don't print them in mass, they basically get printed on demand. There is an ability of a quick turnaround, but there's an ability to update them as well. And then I also have them on other retailers as well, um, at Barnes and Noble, etc. So if you go in, you can find them there too. But Amazon and you know the main distribution system has worked really well and has even like some my first book was a bestseller immediately on Amazon, has worked so well that people in other countries bought it. There's a funny story, Morris. So my book became a bestseller, and my husband was looking at the sales data, and he said, Oh my gosh, people in Europe are buying your book. How did you translate it to all these languages? And I said to my husband, I think they all know English. That's the thing. It seems that they all have Amazon, as you just mentioned, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

That's amazing. Absolutely incredible. To wrap us up, help us. What's the one thing that you would give to anybody who's out there in the world of professional sales? What's one thing you might share with us to kind of help us uh improve our sales skills real quickly?

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Yeah. I think when you present a sales pitch, that you need to respect somebody else's time. You need to listen and then speak. I think that frequently that is reversed, that people just speak and then eventually they listen what the customer really needs and realize that they waste a lot of the

Sales Skill That Beats Pitching

SPEAKER_03 28:42

time. I think we don't do enough listening. We think we do, but we actually really don't. And that is my my biggest, my biggest recommendation to your audience. Listen not just with your ears, but also with your eyes, with your whole body. Listen to a person, really focus on them and really try to soak up what they need. And then when you present your sales pitch, it's going to be completely different.

SPEAKER_00 29:09

I I love teaching people sales, and the whole premise is that our job as a professional salesperson is to help other people get what they want. But first we got to make sure we understand whatever it is that they do want. And you do that by listening. That's why God gave us two ears and one mouth. Uh, and you know, it works much better that way. Christiana, thank you so much for being on the code with us today.

SPEAKER_03 29:36

Thank you. I had a wonderful time. Audience, can't wait to connect and of course put that calendar out for 18th, um, 16th of August, and um check out my book soon.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Outstanding. Thanks again. Have a wonderful day.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Thank you.