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Stop What You Are Doing Now: How To Achieve More By Doing Less · Create The Best Me

• 0:00
  Have you ever been so busy you didn't realize you were eating cat food for dinner?
• 0:07
  Yes, really.
• 0:08
  If you've ever found yourself scarfing down snacks in a haze, only to discover your life is running on autopilot, today's episode is definitely for you.
• 0:19
  Today I am sitting down with Peggy Sullivan, a woman who not only survived the ultimate whoops dinner, but turned that moment and a few other wake up calls into a bestselling book and brand new approach to living.
• 0:36
  Peggy's helped everyone from Google to busy parents break free from the chaos and start achieving more by actually doing less.
• 0:46
  If you are tired of measuring your worth by your to-do list or curious about how happiness can be as simple as savoring a piece of chocolate or slipping into your favorite fuzzy slippers, you're in the right place.
• 1:03
  We're about to unpack the real truth behind busyness, and I promise by the end of this episode, you'll see your daily grind in a whole new light.
• 1:14
  Ready to find out what happens when you step off the busy treadmill.
• 1:18
  Let's dive in.
• 1:22
  Peggy Sullivan, welcome to Create the Best Me.
• 1:26
  This is an honor a privilege because I'm a big fan.
• 1:31
  Thank you and I am super excited to be here.
• 1:34
  Hey, who doesn't struggle with time poverty?
• 1:38
  Exactly, and that is why I'm a big fan.
• 1:41
  Because the topic that we are going to be talking about today is something that, I have struggled with all my life.
• 1:50
  I feel like my life has two gears.
• 1:52
  It's either go, go, go with your head down, or it's, don't do anything at all.
• 1:59
  Yeah, I mean, our hustle society, let's, let's face it, our hustle society tells us that busyness, it's good.
• 2:06
  It's a status symbol.
• 2:07
  It's a sign of importance.
• 2:09
  And so that's how we're raised.
• 2:11
  That's how we're brought up.
• 2:12
  I had an immigrant as a father.
• 2:15
  And he works super hard to climb the ladder and become successful and prove himself.
• 2:21
  So, you know, it's easy to become busy.
• 2:25
  It most certainly is.
• 2:27
  So, Peggy, I know that I'm a big fan, but can you tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who you are and what you do?
• 2:36
  Yeah.
• 2:38
  My name is Peggy and I am a busyness addict, in recovery.
• 2:43
  Cause for me there's always been too much to do and too little time to do it.
• 2:49
  And I had a big wake up call and it really woke me up to the fact that busyness doesn't equate to success.
• 2:58
  And that busyness also puts us into this mindless haze where we're really paying a big price tag.
• 3:06
  And the story I wanna share with you, um, one night I came home from work and it was a long day.
• 3:13
  It was a 10 hour day, and I scoured my cabinets for anything I could find to eat.
• 3:19
  And I landed on a bag of stale pistachio nuts, the only edible thing that I could find, and I scarfed them down and I felt this like pulling on my leg, and I looked down and it was my cat Dazzle, and he was like, mommy, feed me.
• 3:36
  I haven't eaten in 10 hours either.
• 3:38
  So I threw some kibbles into a dish and I fell asleep on the couch, I was pooped.
• 3:44
  And I woke up a couple of hours later to this horrible noise and I look up and it's my cat again, but this time he's throwing up pistachio nuts.
• 3:55
  So I look down and I see remnants of cat food in my hand.
• 4:01
  I was in such a mindless haze, I just ate cat food for dinner.
• 4:06
  And the ironic part is I remember thinking to myself, these nuts are salty, they're stale.
• 4:14
  I better get to the store and get some new ones.
• 4:17
  But I just kept on chomping.
• 4:21
  Oh my gosh.
• 4:22
  That's living on autopilot.
• 4:24
  Just not paying attention and just grabbing, grabbing whatever.
• 4:30
  And no matter how smart we are or you know how good we are at what we do, we're not living in the presence.
• 4:40
  Yeah, I mean, we get to be in a mindless haze and it really takes away from our quality of life, our ability to have sustainable relationships, our power as a leader and, and our power to get things done because we don't always focus on what matters.
• 4:58
  That's very true.
• 4:59
  So, Peggy, I heard, I think I heard in doing the research about you, um, that you've made yourself into an instant success doing what you do best.
• 5:13
  And that, your wake up call was that you had a heart attack, is that right?
• 5:19
  Yeah, I had lots of wake up calls.
• 5:21
  I mean, the cat food call made me realize that I was in a mindless haze.
• 5:27
  My husband, after 18 years of marriage, walked out, said, you know, Peggy, you're not spending enough time with me, all you're doing is working.
• 5:35
  So that happened and then six months later I was stressed out about that.
• 5:41
  And I had a stress related heart attack.
• 5:44
  And they always say bad things come in threes.
• 5:48
  And I lost out on the job opportunity that I had been promised and working for for so many years because I was off of work because of the heart attack.
• 6:00
  So, I'd say all of those combined made me realize busy isn't better.
• 6:05
  You don't achieve more.
• 6:09
  Really the best way to achieve more is by focus and intention and doing less.
• 6:15
  And so I got curious as to how am I gonna do that with self preservation.
• 6:20
  I wanted to figure out how to lead a better life for myself, cause my life was falling apart.
• 6:26
  And as I was starting to do that, people were coming to me saying, oh my God, you've changed.
• 6:31
  You're so productive, you're happy, you're healthier, what's going on?
• 6:35
  And I started to teach my practice to companies and large and small organizations, and I refined it.
• 6:45
  And before you knew it, I had a process that gives people about five to seven hours back in their work week, which, hey, who doesn't want that?
• 6:57
  Exactly.
• 6:58
  And what is the magic pill?
• 7:00
  What is that secret little wand that helps us achieve more by doing less?
• 7:07
  It's a three step process and it's all about micro steps.
• 7:12
  I think when we try to take on big, horrific change, it's too hard.
• 7:17
  And when we look at micro steps and we start to feel some relief from those micro steps and things get easier, it conditions us to do it as a habit.
• 7:28
  So my busy busting framework has three steps.
• 7:32
  The first step is subtraction, which is about subtraction, low value transaction, so you have the time for what's really important.
• 7:41
  And let's face it, we all get caught in busy traps.
• 7:45
  You know, maybe you're one for social media is a distraction, or you've got mails a distraction or, or maybe somebody's knocking on your door and you have an interruption and you pay interruption tax or, or maybe you go down the email rabbit hole.
• 8:01
  I mean, there's a whole list.
• 8:03
  I actually, research and there are 21 low-value activities that distract from our ability to be healthy, happy, and productive.
• 8:14
  And so I developed a tool that tests for those and lets people see clearly in black and white where they should eliminate low value activities.
• 8:24
  So that's step one, is, subtraction, eliminating the unimportant stuff so you have time and energy for the important stuff.
• 8:34
  And step two, I wrote my first book about the superpowers of happiness and the neuroscience of it.
• 8:41
  I had just lost my mother through brain cancer and pancreatic cancer, and I can remember her being so sad and so miserable and so withdrawn.
• 8:54
  And then one day I walked in and she was happy and she said, I realized happiness is my responsibility.
• 9:02
  I own my happiness, nobody else.
• 9:04
  And so that kind of stewed around in my head for a couple years, like, what does that mean?
• 9:11
  I got really curious about the neuroscience of happiness, and as it turns out, we tend to think that happiness is a destination, a place, I'm gonna be happy when I get the promotion, when I get the new job, you know, when I get pregnant, whatever it may be.
• 9:29
  But happiness is really the micro moments we create for ourselves.
• 9:34
  And I call them happiness rituals.
• 9:37
  And what I've come to discover is when we're happy, our brain lights up like a Christmas tree.
• 9:44
  So what happens is we have more focus, more energy, more resiliency, we're more charismatic, we fight off chronic disease.
• 9:54
  There are so many things that happen when we're happy.
• 9:57
  So I teach people about happiness, rituals, and how happiness doesn't have to be this destination, but it can be as simple as eating a piece of dark chocolate in the middle of the morning.
• 10:12
  I do that every morning, I pop it in my mouth.
• 10:15
  I smell it.
• 10:15
  I close my eyes.
• 10:16
  I taste it mmm so good.
• 10:20
  And it's like I push the reset button after two or three minutes of just eating a silly little piece of chocolate.
• 10:26
  And I've got lots of little things like that that I do that just gets me involved with my senses, quiets my mind, and I'm able to be fresh and energized.
• 10:39
  And then the third step in the busy busting framework is what I call values vibing.
• 10:46
  And today everything's moving so fast, you talked about it earlier about how quickly life moves today.
• 10:54
  And how hard it is not to be distracted; so I came up with a system that I call values vibing.
• 11:01
  And it's a way to filter your yes or your no decisions based on what's valuable to you and what's important to you.
• 11:10
  And people agree with that concept, but whenever I would go to groups and ask them, "What are your values?" Even Google, this is really funny.
• 11:19
  I went to Google and I asked the group, How important are your values?
• 11:24
  Everybody raised their hand.
• 11:25
  They're so important.
• 11:27
  And I'm like, okay, well take a minute and write down what your top values are.
• 11:33
  And they write down trust and honesty and hard work.
• 11:38
  And then all of a sudden I see them Googling for values: what are the key leading values?
• 11:44
  They're looking at their neighbors.
• 11:46
  And it made me understand that, what we say our values are; values is just, uh obtuse thing to think about.
• 11:54
  It's big.
• 11:55
  It's scary.
• 11:56
  It's, it's, you want it to sound good.
• 11:58
  So I did research and I researched 12,000 people to find out what values give us quality of life and make us feel like our cup is full at the end of the day.
• 12:10
  And what I learned is that they fall into these categories.
• 12:14
  There's energy management.
• 12:17
  There was growth.
• 12:18
  My dad always used to say, going a day without learning something new is a lost opportunity.
• 12:25
  You know, when we grow, when we learn, we get resilience and we know that we can do hard things.
• 12:31
  And then there's human connection and I'm talking about connecting like this, you know, not emails and texts and all that other stuff.
• 12:41
  Cause human connection really helps work environments and teams and even family, friends.
• 12:48
  It just, you need to do this to build your relationship.
• 12:52
  And then the last one is authenticity.
• 12:55
  And, that one, well, it speaks for itself; when I think of authenticity, I think about we, not me.
• 13:03
  And realizing that we are better together.
• 13:07
  And that if we take everybody around us who thinks differently and accept their authenticity and use their vantage points to develop something that's a blended better together.
• 13:22
  Like we've just gotta stop being so judgemental and disregarding people's thoughts.
• 13:28
  Or, feeling like we're all so different and start to really know that solutions, the best solutions come from multiple people working together on them.
• 13:39
  Exactly.
• 13:40
  So, that's step three of the busy busting framework.
• 13:43
  Well, you know, I think we missed step two, cause you talked about step one was eliminating the distracting, um, tasks Step two was mojo making, which was happiness rituals.
• 13:54
  Um, where I said, happiness isn't a destination, you know, it's these tiny micro moments we make for ourselves.
• 14:02
  Okay, yeah.
• 14:04
  And I think that when it comes to like step two, I think that a lot of times people tend to think they can buy happiness.
• 14:12
  That it's something that you're gonna reach it, once, once I get here or I can buy it.
• 14:17
  But when I think about happiness, I think about it more of internal.
• 14:22
  You know, what lights me up?
• 14:24
  What motivates me?
• 14:25
  What, what inspires me?
• 14:28
  And how can I spread that happiness to someone else?
• 14:33
  Yeah, so true.
• 14:34
  I mean, and, it doesn't have to be big things, these small little things.
• 14:39
  I wake up every morning, I have a pair of very old, bright pink, fuzzy slippers.
• 14:45
  I slip them on and I put on my favorite dance song, and for three minutes I'll just be silly.
• 14:54
  But I get energy from it and it makes me happy.
• 14:58
  And you know, my husband's always like, there you go again, having a dance party of one.
• 15:04
  But when we understand these little things that we can do that can really light us up and, and for everybody, they're different.
• 15:11
  It really is a game changer in your quality of life and your ability to doing it with focus and being able to reset.
• 15:20
  And, really get into and be present to what's going on.
• 15:26
  And I wanna go back to, when you said you were at Google and people were trying to write down their values and they were trying to make it all, you know, make it sound elegant or make it sound important.
• 15:41
  And you said that some of 'em were even researching, you know, how to define their value.
• 15:46
  And I look at value as, you know, what motivates me, what, what makes me want to do more of whatever it is that I'm trying to do.
• 15:57
  Yeah, I mean the challenge with values for me was; how to develop values that everybody could relate to.
• 16:06
  Suggest values to people that I knew thousands and thousands of other people had, and it gave them quality of life and sort of what are the containers that they fit in.
• 16:18
  And these four containers are very, very universal.
• 16:23
  I mean, we all need to manage our mood, our energy, our exercise, our diet.
• 16:28
  I mean, we know this.
• 16:30
  And we all know we need to grow and growing is what keeps us young and keeps our minds fertile.
• 16:37
  And we know that we need to connect with other human beings.
• 16:41
  And we also know about authenticity, but we don't tend to think about those as core values.
• 16:46
  But when you start to think about them as core values.
• 16:50
  And then you say, well, is this thing that I'm thinking about doing, does it really help me advance one of my core values?
• 16:58
  And if the answer is no; then why are you doing it?
• 17:02
  You know, it makes no sense.
• 17:04
  It's not adding value to your life.
• 17:06
  And for me, this values vibing was game changing because I don't do anything that doesn't align with my values.
• 17:15
  And I've saved a lot of time and heartache and, and drama in my life.
• 17:22
  I used to say yes to everything.
• 17:23
  I'm a nice person.
• 17:25
  I like saying yes, but I don't do that anymore.
• 17:29
  So, you said that you missed out on this promotion that you had been working so hard for.
• 17:36
  And then you realized that a shift had to take place within you.
• 17:41
  Did you find that when you were doing this shift, that you were doing less but achieving more?
• 17:49
  That's why my name of my book is "How to Achieve Less by Doing More." It didn't happen overnight.
• 17:56
  I tested a lot of different processes with a lot of people to get this strange combination of the busy busting framework that does work.
• 18:09
  But it really makes sense when you think about it, you know, eliminating the things that are important so you have more time and you can focus.
• 18:17
  You know, creating more happiness in your life and, and setting the bar a little bit lower so you can be happier more often and take advantage of the superpowers of happiness.
• 18:29
  And, you know, the connecting part like, I love connecting with people.
• 18:34
  It makes me feel good.
• 18:35
  So those values are, to me, a game changer because they really make you feel good.
• 18:43
  They fill your cup, and whether you're career oriented, family oriented, you know, whatever your passions are, they work for everybody.
• 18:53
  Mm. When you started this, do less, achieve more?
• 18:59
  Did it balance your life to where you found that you had more of a personal life, but you were also being more energetic or more productive in the work field?
• 19:10
  You were putting out greater results, but you were also putting out greater results at home?
• 19:15
  Yeah, I mean for me it's all about intention, right?
• 19:19
  And, what's important to me.
• 19:21
  I have an amazing marriage.
• 19:24
  My husband and I we love each other dearly, but I'm probably one of the most singles married person.
• 19:31
  He has my back when I need him, but we're very independent and that works for me and it works for him.
• 19:38
  And I'm very close with my son and my friends.
• 19:41
  And I love my yoga studio and my yogis.
• 19:46
  And I do cold plunging and there's a group of people that do that.
• 19:50
  So, you know, for me it was a journey to find these things that physically, emotionally, mentally, really fill me up.
• 20:00
  And I hard coat them in my schedule.
• 20:03
  You know, people look at me and say, well, why can't I meet with you Monday morning from nine to eleven?
• 20:09
  Well, I'm like, well, I'm gonna go to yoga and I'm gonna go cold plunge and I'm gonna sit in the sauna.
• 20:16
  And you know what, when I do that, I am ready to go.
• 20:19
  I am like so juiced up, so creative.
• 20:24
  Hmm.
• 20:25
  Tell me about a person that you worked with that was the prime example of who you were before.
• 20:34
  And how you got them to change or see the importance of doing less and achieving more.
• 20:45
  Well, busyness is an addiction and we really didn't talk about this yet, so let's, let's talk about the elephant in the room.
• 20:53
  You know, when we think about addiction, we tend to think about alcohol or drugs.
• 20:58
  But addiction is really anything that keeps us from doing things we normally should be doing, wanna be doing, need to be doing.
• 21:06
  Because it's like this, this compulsion, you just gotta scratch and a mosquito bite.
• 21:11
  And busyness is an addiction.
• 21:14
  And the American Psychiatric Association says an addiction is anything that keeps you away from what you should and need to be doing.
• 21:24
  And so when I realized that my busyness was an addiction, I realized that I needed something very intentional to help me out with that.
• 21:35
  And, it's natural to subtract low value, interactions, but we don't think about it and we don't know what they are and we're into these habits.
• 21:45
  You know, I used to look at email most of the morning because I'd go to bed and my email would be totally empty and I'd wake up in the morning and I'd have 75 emails.
• 21:57
  And so I did so many things that worked around cleaning my email box out even though many of it was low value transactions.
• 22:07
  I went to meetings that I didn't get value or I didn't give value.
• 22:12
  So, eliminating those things, it just frees up time to spend on things that are more intentional and I tend to time block them out because they're very important to me.
• 22:27
  And so, you know, they're hard coded into my calendar, so I always have time to recharge, refresh, and when I'm focused, I achieve more.
• 22:37
  I sit down and I get more done.
• 22:40
  Um-hum Yeah.
• 22:43
  And so how does one break the cycle of busyness?
• 22:49
  Because it's just like, if we're not busy, then, I dunno, some people might say that I have no value.
• 22:56
  Well, we need to stop equating busyness with productivity and happiness and health.
• 23:02
  Because the data shows that when we're busy our health deteriorates, our focus deteriorates and so does our productivity.
• 23:12
  I mean, you think about it multitasking; we all think that's a great way to get work done.
• 23:18
  But actually when you multitask, it takes you two and a half times as long, two and a half times cause you're not focused.
• 23:26
  But also your work is riddled in mistakes.
• 23:31
  On average, people who multitask have three to four times as many mistakes in their work.
• 23:38
  So you're into this redo.
• 23:41
  When I talk often about, a friend of mine, Lucy Lou, who one day her mother, who used to watch her nine month, she couldn't come in.
• 23:50
  She had the flu.
• 23:51
  And Lucy thought ah, just multitask my way through the day.
• 23:55
  No problem, baby on knee.
• 23:57
  Take a cute picture of this and this wonderful life is good.
• 24:02
  I can do it all.
• 24:03
  And it took her longer to get through her day because her daughter needed her an eight month child needs attention.
• 24:11
  But, her surprise came when she went back to work the next day and she realized that she had sent out a whole series of invoices that were for $11,000 and the price list in the standard price was eleven hundred.
• 24:29
  So she ended up that one little mistake went out to 57 customers, and it took her days to retrieve it, to calm them down, you know, to work around.
• 24:42
  And had she been focused, she knows that the task there and the thing that she was billing for was $1,100.
• 24:50
  Why, she billed eleven thousand, she wasn't focused, she was distracted.
• 24:55
  And so it's really important to be present and focus on one thing at a time.
• 25:01
  You know, and I will say that that is something that I learned the hard way.
• 25:05
  I used to say, oh, well, you know what, I'm just special.
• 25:08
  I can multitask and I never make mistakes.
• 25:11
  I'm just good at it.
• 25:12
  I can nail it.
• 25:13
  Because you know, I have adult ADHD.
• 25:16
  And so I thought I can do it.
• 25:17
  But one day I did discover, that this multitask little game that I had been playing for many, many years was dragging me down instead of making me more productive.
• 25:29
  And so now I learned that no one task at a time focus on that one thing, no matter how good you think you are at doing all this other stuff, one thing.
• 25:38
  And, and I did find that I accomplished more if I just did the one thing and then bunny hop to the next thing.
• 25:46
  I, I put together this busyness report and I kind of take a look at what happens when we're busy and what are the price tags that we pay.
• 25:58
  And the statistics behind it.
• 26:00
  And so I'll mention a couple of those because once you hear these statistics, it's like self-sabotage, being busy.
• 26:08
  It's, it's like you're ruining your life.
• 26:11
  Seventy five percent of human beings in the world don't have time for proper self-care.
• 26:17
  That means eating meals.
• 26:19
  Getting a good night's sleep.
• 26:21
  Going and get your teeth cleaned.
• 26:23
  Going and getting a physician appointment, whatever it is.
• 26:26
  Seventy five percent, that's mind blowing.
• 26:30
  Uh, sixty three percent, over schedule their day.
• 26:34
  So they actually have no time to do their day-to-day work until after five.
• 26:41
  And it, the list just goes on and on.
• 26:44
  You know, meetings, people that go to meetings, eighty three percent of people indulge in meetings, and only thirty percent of them are productive.
• 26:54
  So you do the math.
• 26:55
  How many hours are you spending in meetings that you think you need to be there?
• 27:00
  You wanna be there, you wanna support a colleague, but in reality, you're not giving value and you're not getting value, and so, it just doesn't make sense to continue that type of behavior.
• 27:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:14
  That's very true.
• 27:15
  So you have a brand new book that is coming out.
• 27:20
  What can people expect to learn in reading your new book?
• 27:25
  Yeah, it's, um, my book is "Beyond Busyness: How to Achieve More With Less." And what you can learn; well, first of all, when I write I like to have fun and I like people to laugh, and I like people to learn through storytelling.
• 27:41
  So my book, I interviewed hundreds of people and have so many examples of busyness.
• 27:49
  And what busyness led to.
• 27:51
  And so I use a lot of examples to explain things so people can really comprehend.
• 27:58
  So the book kind of walks through about, you know, the price tag we pay for busyness that we really don't realize.
• 28:07
  And why busyness is an addiction.
• 28:09
  But then it quickly gets into what the solution looks like, the three step busy busting process, and there are exercises and and stories and little fill in the blanks that help you walk away with these micro steps.
• 28:24
  Tiny little things where if you just do one of these tiny little things, you'll feel some relief.
• 28:31
  And then you kind of wanna do more.
• 28:32
  And I purposely wrote my book so that people wouldn't have to read it all at once.
• 28:38
  They could read a chapter, get something out of it, go back to it when they're ready for the next chapter.
• 28:44
  And so, it's a Amazon bestseller, in terms of workplace health and overall quality of life.
• 28:53
  So I'm excited to share it with everybody.
• 28:57
  Great, so they can purchase that book actively right now on Amazon?
• 29:00
  Actively right now.
• 29:02
  I published it at the end of January, and like I said, it already hit the bestseller list, so that was kind of fun.
• 29:10
  But it's available on Amazon, " Beyond Busyness: How to Achieve More by Doing Less." It sounds like a great book.
• 29:18
  Do you recommend that people, when they are working through each different chapter, that they perhaps have a journal and maybe take some time to reflect what they, what they learned, what was the aha moment that they went through, through each chapter.
• 29:31
  That's actually part of the book, quite honestly.
• 29:34
  I mean, I think a journal is a great idea.
• 29:37
  And I've got a workbook, that I don't promote a lot.
• 29:40
  I let people get the workbook when I speak, so then they can practice it.
• 29:46
  And sometimes I'll give them a book as well too.
• 29:49
  So we learn by doing.
• 29:51
  But for me, the biggest, most important things was to make this journey fun, to make sure that people felt relief and that they saw progress immediately with micro steps.
• 30:09
  So Peggy, based on the conversation that we have had here today, what are three things or what are three steps that you would want the listener or viewer to hold close to their heart and remember, and we're talking to that person who is suffering of busyness addiction.
• 30:28
  Yeah, I think really to understand the truth about busyness, I did my first TEDx on this subject and it got millions of views because everybody in the world is over the top busy.
• 30:41
  And so busy isn't better would be the first thing I want people to learn.
• 30:46
  If you look at the stats, you look at the data and you really spend some time, you'll learn that you're not healthier, you're not more productive, and you're not happier when you're busy.
• 30:58
  While we like being busy, it's not sustainable and you need to be busy on the right things.
• 31:05
  Intentionally busy for me is fine.
• 31:08
  But when you've got low value activities smacked in there and things that don't add value, you know, then you're not intentionally busy.
• 31:16
  So to transform this idea of intentional busyness, um, to me is really the idea.
• 31:25
  Because I think people love being active and being busy, but it's with intention that makes a big difference.
• 31:32
  And the second thing is that micro steps.
• 31:36
  You just take tiny little micro steps, you're gonna feel better.
• 31:41
  And you take them one at a time and they're not huge time consuming things and they're things that make you feel great.
• 31:49
  So like, why wouldn't you do that?
• 31:52
  And it brings you in touch with what is uniquely important to you, because it's a very personalized process.
• 32:00
  What you subtract, it's gonna be very different from what, what I subtracted.
• 32:05
  So it's all about, what you need to do to get more quality in your life and to become more productive, healthy, and happier, and how you just get rid of all the stuff that just isn't contributing.
• 32:22
  Great advice.
• 32:23
  So if people wanted to work with you one-on-one, how did they do that?
• 32:28
  They can go to my website, peggy sullivan speaker.com.
• 32:32
  I do a lot of consulting, with people and I also work a lot with groups and team leaders and leadership teams because they find, that when they adopt these processes and teach 'em to their employees, their departmental metrics go up.
• 32:50
  And so it's really the process is very bottom line oriented, and so I do a lot of organizational speaking and workshops and consulting as well.
• 33:01
  Great.
• 33:03
  Peggy, thank you so much for coming on the show.
• 33:05
  I will include links to everything in our show notes so that people can learn more about you, purchase your awesome book, and start to achieve more, or get more done by doing less.
• 33:19
  Yeah, it's truly is life changing.
• 33:22
  I can't tell you how my happiness has skyrocketed.
• 33:26
  And also my sense of purpose and that I'm working on the right things.
• 33:30
  It's just an amazing journey to get to this sweet spot.
• 33:35
  And, you know, I am a busyness addict in recovery, so I redo my steps all the time.
• 33:42
  I know when I'm kind of leaning away and not following them.
• 33:46
  I'll fall back into them and get back into alignment.
• 33:50
  And it's always an ongoing challenge cause, life has stuff that happens that put us into a stressful situation or things we need to address.
• 34:01
  But that's exactly when you use the busy busting process to help you process it, go through with it.
• 34:08
  And I think there's one other thing, one other tip and trick that I wish I shared, and that's got a lot to do with stress.
• 34:16
  Because a lot of the people that I work with, they're trying to figure out how to manage stress in an easy, simple way.
• 34:25
  And what I teach them is that, you know, stress really falls into two categories; it's a micro stress.
• 34:34
  So it's a small thing that isn't gonna be important a month from now, but is a huge irritation.
• 34:41
  You break a tooth, you're caught in traffic.
• 34:44
  You know the grocery store is closed, whatever it is.
• 34:48
  Somebody hits the back of your car, but it's fixable.
• 34:51
  But we spend all this energy stressing about it.
• 34:54
  And then there are the macro stresses, the really big deal things.
• 34:59
  And I think we don't give ourselves enough time to process a macro stress.
• 35:06
  Right now, my sister is terminally ill and I kept on wanting to fix her and get her, get help, but she's terminally ill.
• 35:16
  That's not gonna happen.
• 35:18
  So I needed to process that and accept that and figure out how I could add value to the situation based on the reality of the situation.
• 35:29
  And so I think sometimes managing stress is as easy as, is it a micro stress or is it a macro stress?
• 35:38
  And if it's a micro stress, don't bother using your resources on it because it's not gonna be important a month from now.
• 35:47
  I am so sorry to hear about your sister.
• 35:49
  And, and you were so right that, stress is something that we all need to learn how to manage.
• 35:58
  Or know what do we stress about and what should we not stress about and just enjoy the moment.
• 36:06
  Yeah, exactly.
• 36:07
  And if you can right from the get go say, Ugh, I'm stressed.
• 36:11
  Is this a micro or macro?
• 36:14
  And quite honestly, I think it's about sixty percent of stress are micro stressors that build.
• 36:20
  So if you can get rid of those and not let them build, then you've got really a great, way to navigate stressful situations.
• 36:30
  Yeah, and when I'm stressed out, I do exactly what you just said.
• 36:32
  I just say, Ugh, I'm stressed, and I don't know what it is, but I get so much relief when I say that.
• 36:39
  It's just I don't know if it's just like letting it out into the world, you know, get it out out of here and out there.
• 36:46
  It's just, I'm like, okay, you got this.
• 36:51
  Yeah, I mean stress is, a reaction that we have control over.
• 36:55
  Stress is self-sabotage.
• 36:57
  And in too many cases, it's our own doing.
• 37:01
  We make a situation worse by stressing over, especially the ones that we can't control.
• 37:07
  So when we learn to roll with it, that's not a big deal, then life gets a whole bunch easier.
• 37:13
  It does.
• 37:14
  The whole world just gets a little clearer.
• 37:17
  Yeah.
• 37:18
  Well, Peggy, like I said, I will link all of your information in the show notes.
• 37:22
  Thank you so much for coming on the show and helping us understand busyness and how to achieve more by doing less.
• 37:32
  Well, thank you for having me.
• 37:33
  It's been a lovely last hour, half an hour.
• 37:38
  Whatever it was, the time went by so quickly and that shows it was meaningful conversation.
• 37:44
  Yes.
• 37:45
  Thank you.
• 37:45
  Peggy, thank you so much for sharing your story and your busy busting secrets with us today.
• 37:53
  From eating cat food to mindless haze to helping us reclaim our energy.
• 37:58
  You've shown that living with intention, not just action, really does change everything.
• 38:05
  So if you've ever felt like life is a blur of to-dos and you're barely remembering dinner.
• 38:13
  You are not alone.
• 38:14
  And remember, you are not stuck.
• 38:17
  Remember, busyness isn't a badge of honor, it's a habit and you can break it one micro step at a time.
• 38:26
  If you want to dive deeper with Peggy, grab her book "Beyond Busyness: How to Achieve More by Doing Less," or find out how she can help your team or event, just head on over to createthebestme.com/ep132.
• 38:45
  I'll make sure to post the links in the show notes below.
• 38:49
  And don't forget to come back next week for another amazing episode made just for you.
• 38:56
  Until then, keep dreaming big.
• 38:58
  Take care of yourself one micro step at a time.
• 39:03
  And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself.
• 39:10
  Thank you for watching.
• 39:12
  Catch you next week.
• 39:13
  Bye for now.