Latest / Cleaning Business Life / CBL EP 166 Time Is the True Currency (And How You’re Already Spending It)

Transcript

CBL EP 166 Time Is the True Currency (And How You’re Already Spending It) · Cleaning Business Life

• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Cleaning Business Life.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Shannon Leanne Miller.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And when we say we on the show, it's because this is a shared space.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jamie and I may be behind the mic, but the conversation really includes you, all of you, the thousands of you.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: I am so eternally grateful.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's just been awesome to be in this position.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Today we're talking about something that we all say we want more of, but very few people actually protect, and that is your time.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Money comes and goes.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Time only moves in one direction.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Unless, of course, they find the fountain of youth.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: If they have, they have yet to admit it to us.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the way you spend time tells the truth about what you really value, how you lead, and where your business is really headed.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we often budget for money, but we rarely budget for time.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's the first thing that a lot of people get more of than yourself.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Your calendar doesn't lie, it shows your real priorities.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have time, usually, is code for this isn't important enough yet.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Many business owners give their best hours to everyone but themselves.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're always and often the last ones to have your needs met, let alone time-wise or not.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Your calendar is a receipt.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: It shows exactly what you paid for with your life.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you started to charge people for your time, what would that number be?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be 100?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be 200?
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be 500?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Would it be a thousand?
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you really start to think about the concept, we're we're like domestic engineers, right?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I had to stay home with my littles the first time, many moons ago, and and I had a lapse in my employment.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: I used to just tell everyone I was a domestic engineer.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, yes, I was a domestic engineer, but I actually ran a small business, and that was my family.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of that stuff I never really got paid monetarily, but sometimes I got paid with time and sometimes I didn't.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just something to think about so that you can figure out how much your time is worth because it only moves forward, it never works, moves backwards.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and money can be replaced.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It ebbs and flows.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: You crash and burn, crash and burn, succeed, crash and burn, sell a business, crash and burn.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you don't crash and burn as many times as I have.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And most people don't run out of money first, even though I have seen that happen.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: They run out of capacity.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: The capacity to get there, to get yourself to the end.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: I just listened to someone who I will not name who just completed 968 episodes over a decade of podcasts.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: Her goal was actually to get to a thousand, and then she's like, I just don't have it in me.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, This isn't my priority anymore.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Her kit she has two kids, both who are under seven, and it's still up there, but it was amazing to me because I was like, Yeah, she said a thousand.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, yeah, I want a thousand.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, I don't know if a thousand is beneficial for for me or for you.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're on what are we on?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Episode 165, 66, 167.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just something to think about.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you don't want to run out of capacity because then you won't make it to the end, and then you'll have to gracefully bow out because you're on to other projects or you're doing other things.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and burnout really, it really isn't about effort, it's about misallocated time.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've burned yourself out, and I've I've been there, I've worked seven, eighteen, twenty, seven days in a row without a day off, you just get to the end and someone asks for something really small, and you just don't have the capacity.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: You just don't have it to give to them.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you if you haven't gotten sick from you know not resting your body and all that other stuff.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason why I got burned out is because I misallocated my time.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: I said yes to every single person when I shouldn't have.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: Every crisis was a big ordeal.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was the one who paid the price, not the homeowner, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then freedom isn't accidental, it's built through intentional time decisions.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're wanting to get, you're like, how do I get that Shannon?
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: How do I become an absentee owner?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do I, you know, go from them, from me to them, or to just them?
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a transition that happens, but it's intentional.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: You're intentionally scheduling Fridays off, or you're intentionally scheduling Fridays for quality checks, or whatever, or you're intentionally scheduling time to do tea with your BFF on Fridays, or you're out in the woods like I am on many Fridays, especially when spring comes, because that's my thing.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I just love being out in nature.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I just cannot help myself.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But those are intentional time decisions.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: I chose to do that for others.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: It might be that you go and you get a massage or a mani petty or you have the oil change in your car, or you go to the library and you secretly check out a mystery that you've wanted to read, or you hang out in the bookstore and you just smell all the paper.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: That's something I like too, right?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So these are things that you can be intentional about with your decisions.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're going to your local score or better business bureau or whoever's offering free resources.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe they always fall on a Friday.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're doing that on Fridays.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're writing your first book.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it is, it's intentional.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Intentional time decisions for you and what works in your business today.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean that two years down the road it'll still work.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you have two days of intentional time off.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you've worked it out, so you're totally an absentee owner and they only have to check in and look at the reports.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends, right?
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're underpricing, it forces you to sell more time just to survive.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just something to think about.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're still charging by the hour and it's not an hourly job because it's not a specialty job, because there are still some jobs out there like that, it's forcing you to sell more time.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So if you normally, if you could clean 800 to 1,000 square feet an hour, you know that you could bank out a 2,000 square foot home and roughly two and two and a half hours.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're charging by the hour or you're undercharging, it forces you to sell more time.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: So because you're you're trying to add to the bill, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: So instead of taking two and a half hours of cleaning a house or two hours, you're now going to want to work eight hours in that house so that you can at least make 200 bucks if you're charging$25 an hour.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm using this analogy because it's math and we know that I cannot add when I'm talking.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's just my thing.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I have to whip out my phone calculator and figure out what it is because I just, my brain just turns off.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's some sort of psychological thing.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one day I'll go to therapy for it.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe I won't.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then overworking is often a pricing problem in disguise.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I am guilty of working 30 days in a row when I first started my business because I said yes to everything and I was only charging a small amount.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I quickly realized I had to work many hours to get the amount of money I wanted to bring in.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Hence the reason why I learned to bid flat rate.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And then there is the hidden cost of just one more thing.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: How many of us have been on a job where scope creep has become like the biggest thing since butter on bread?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you take this?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can you take this area rug or this runner in this hallway and can you take it outside and give it a quick shake for me?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that big of a deal.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: It should only take you five minutes.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: How many times has someone said it's only a broom sweep?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that dirty, right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that first shake of that carpet because you didn't vacuum it first, kicks back all that dirt on your face.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And as you guys all know, I wear glasses, it sticks on my face.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm all hot and sweaty.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually ingested it in my mouth.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm running around going, and Mrs.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Smith is going, oh ha ha ha ha! I guess there was more dirt in there than I imagined, right?
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you're just like, fuck, as you're shaking it, or you're or you're you've put it over the railing and you're beating it with a broom because she doesn't have a carpet banger.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably not the right word for it, but that's what I remember.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little flat device with a handle, and you hit the carpet while it's sitting on the closed line.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: You can do it on the railing as well if you don't hit it too hard and break the carpet whacker.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: But these are all things that cause pricing problems, right?
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the one more thing becomes instead of a five-minute thing, it becomes a 30-minute thing.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next job, Mrs.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Smith wants you to empty out her china cabinet.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's just one more thing.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: It should only take you five minutes.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then the next time, can you rearrange my pantry?
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or the next time, can you put all of these groceries away?
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: They've been sitting here for two weeks and I just don't have any of me to do it.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's a lot of guilt, right?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: So can you do it?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Can you not do it?
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have something to do?
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: What oh, I have an hour before I pick up the kids.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I can do it this time, right?
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it becomes the invisible tax of interruptions and quick decisions.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And then once you say yes the first time, it sets a precedence for them to ask you another time or every single time.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then it becomes reactive time versus intentional time.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: So Mrs.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Smith asked you to do the carpet, you shook it out, you dragged it across, you realized you didn't get all the dirt across.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: The hallway is now covered in dirt from where the carpet was sitting, and there's a runner that goes underneath to make sure that doesn't slick on the floor, and you don't want her falling on and breaking a hip, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So then it becomes this whole dynamic, an extra layer.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: So and it becomes reactive instead of intentional.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you just had said, I'm happy to do this for you, I can add it on your bill, it wouldn't have been a hidden cost.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: It just would have been an add on to her bill.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then she would have said, Oh, you're not gonna do it for free.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna say, No, it's gonna take like a half hour, even though they say it only takes five minutes.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then she's either gonna go, yay or nay, right?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the the the busy versus productive, right?
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's just one more thing.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super duper busy.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I got 57 things to do, and some days my days do feel like that.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've got laundry, I've got sheet changes, I've got bedrooms to clean up, I've got laundry to put away, I've got, you know, paperwork to file to get over to the bookkeeper or the accountant, or I got stuff to get over to the VA.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's all of these like busyness things that have to get done.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's sometimes it's the conceptualization of getting it from my brain onto paper or delegating it vocally, and you that's why I leave a lot of voice messages with people because then I'll have to type.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's one less thing for me to do.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you don't want to be busier, and it doesn't always equate as being productive.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: You want to pick key things you are great at in your business and focus on those quick those key things.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I love to sell.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love, love, love, love, love when I get someone on the phone and I close a really big deal.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: When I hang up the phone, you guys can't see this, but I will be doing the pee-pee football dance.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm like, whoa, I just scored four grand, right?
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: You've already slid that credit card through, you've already taken a 50% deposit, you've already got the contract signed.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: It is a done fucking deal, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So you're just you don't see that part of what goes on behind the scenes.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the non-emotional transaction, which happens on your website, and they buy whatever package you have.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have packages on your website, please go to my website and um, we're getting ready to change those.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: But there are some scale-down packages that are offered at a discount in case someone wants to buy in the middle of the night.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I've not had a lot of sales because it's new for me, but I love closing sales.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's if I was to hand that off to somebody, it would be the last thing I hand it off to someone to do.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people, a lot of cleaning companies have salespeople, full-time salespeople, either remote or in person.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: It just depends on where they are in their business.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then over-availability trains people to devalue your time.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is you're available all the time.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just available.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm available all of the time.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: How many times have you mentored somebody and then they message you at 10 o'clock at night, and then when you don't respond back, they get upset?
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or it can happen on the other side of the spectrum.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: They can have a client who calls and leaves you this gut-wrenching shouting message at 11:15 at night because your cleaning tech did not put the 72 pillows back the correct way on the bed.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So that's being overavailable.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Don't pick up the phone after a certain point in your day.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you're that busy and you are, you know, 24-7 cleaning company, your answering service would answer it.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: But by all means, don't put yourself in that position so that people can overstep.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then you have to think about this as well.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing out of habit and not intention?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes, and what I mean by that, sometimes you can, like if you're out cleaning the house, you know that cleaning Mrs.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Smith's house, so you have to start on the left side of the house because it actually makes it faster for you than starting on the right side.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in this particular case, Mrs.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Smith has her nephew who is in that master shower that is a four-sided glass shower partition with the actual five shower heads that squirts out a hundred gallons of water a minute.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're on the right side of the house cleaning, doing your thing, and all you can think about is oh my god, that bathroom's gonna be a total mess.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna like not squeegee, he's gonna do all these things.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what you're doing out of habit instead of intention.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to switch it up every once in a while, and we become comfortable.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many of us?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't, I'm not cleaning anymore, but how many of us have cleaned the the house the same way for years, right?
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: You don't want anybody to mess with you, you don't want another person there, you just want to go and do your thing and leave, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's an example of what doing something at a habit instead of intention, where if you had said no, I'm really sorry, I'm gonna start here, or maybe the nephew could have been gone at breakfast when you got there, and then the whole shower thing wouldn't have come up.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: You could have just addressed it when you came the the next time.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then leaders protect time so that others can operate clearly.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I cannot say this enough.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: No one comes to work for you and says, you know, Shannon, I really enjoy trial by fire.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: Can you just give me every screwed-up shift you got with the most difficult clients you have, with a vehicle that's broken or not broken, and the this the cleaning kit that's missing half of the supplies?
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Can you can you do that for me?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: No one says it, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Leaders delegate those responsibilities to others so that that cleaning tech doesn't have an issue and is able to have a smooth running shift.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And and systems are time multipliers, right?
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: When you have systems in place and protocols in place, it keeps all those boundaries in line.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: There's no scribbling outside the lines, and then those become time multipliers.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: If a cleaning tech goes into the house and they start at a house and it you give them an extra half hour of allocated of time and you're paying them by the hour because they're W 2, eventually they're not gonna be able to clean that three-hour house in two and a half or two and a quarter.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them might actually be able to narrow it down to two hours flat.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: You decide whether you're gonna pay them for the three hours still, or you're gonna adjust that time accordingly and fill them in with another house.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's that whole expectation of how far does this go?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: But having the systems in place definitely is a time multiplier.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Saying no is not selfish, it's strategic.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Practice in the mirror, no, no.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's like telling your children, no, no, no, no, no.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: So saying no is not selfish, it's strategic.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: When you over-obligate yourself to do things, going to in-person networking events, going to someone in person to do a bid, chatting it up with Mrs.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Smith at the grocery store, whatever it is that you're doing, the kids' soccer games, the all of the things of life, when you start to say no, it makes you take a step back and you realize how important your time is because time is actually the real currency.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if everything is urgent, I have to get this done.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have 57 things I have to get done today.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I have to, I have to, I have to.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is important.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: It just becomes a laundry list that you have to or that you're required to do on Tuesdays, right?
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: So you can cherry pick what you want to do versus what you don't want to do, and you can figure out what is important versus what is actually urgent.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot of things about this time currency that I'm really appreciative.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Growing publicly is not comfortable.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: If I've ever given any of you guys the wrong advice, I apologize from the deepest alcoves of my heart.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my intention to give out the wrong information.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a pretty transparent person.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if I make mistakes, sometimes I'll you know retract what I say, or I made a mistake, or I got this wrong.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: But growing publicly also means that I'm I'm letting people see my thinking.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just like when you grow publicly, you're letting people see your thinking before it's perfect.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I always say that if I could walk on water, I'd be doing other things.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: It means refining ideas out loud.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it means saying, I got that wrong and coming back better.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: I got this wrong.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't the right way to do it.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um we we've all had the conversation about toilet bowl cleaner, how toilet bowl cleaner should not be used on anything other than toilet.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: I watched a video the other day.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: Someone put toilet bowl cleaner on grout that had black grout in it, and it because it's an acid, it pulled up all of the coloring out of the grout, and it's smeared all over the tile floor.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh my, and she's not using gloves, and then it wasn't ventilated.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I could just go on and on and on.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it means just I got it wrong.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: That person should have came out and said, Oh my god, this was a total mess up.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't have done it.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't recommend doing this.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what TikTok's for, right?
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how real learning happens is by making mistakes.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: My 10-year-old, I don't know if you guys caught this post, asked me what my biggest mistakes were.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: What was the biggest mistake you've ever made, mom?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I just laugh and snicker at them all.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not telling her.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want her to come up with a concept of what is right and what is wrong.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: My my 12-year-old mind is way different than my mind in my 50s, right?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a different element.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: My frontal lobe is fully developed.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not as impulsive as I used to be.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do things with my partner in crime who I grew up with, Willow Reach is still, well, she's the only person that can attest to all my true crimes.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: She's with me on most of them, and some of them she wasn't.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I I've made a lot of mistakes.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am far from perfect, and I don't expect to be perfect.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, just admitting that I got it wrong, it's just part of the process.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: I've made a lot of mistakes.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, I can go on and on and on.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: But then that's how I come up with all these great stories, right?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's something we all want to say out loud, and I want to thank you for allowing us to grow publicly because not everybody gets to be put in this position of growing publicly.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've been given grace, whether I've made a mistake or not.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: And most of what we talk here didn't come from theory, it came from our offices, our hearts, and real life experiences we were actively living through.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you gave us the space to think out loud, to refine ideas, to evolve.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because of that, we've become better teachers.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that makes me excited because I can see the industry starting to move in the direction it's it needs to go, right?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's an unspoken agreement here, and we show up honest and prepared, and we show up willing to think and conceptualize and rethink and conceptualize.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then sometimes we scrap the idea entirely, and other times I'm like, this is brilliant, right?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and together we respect the time it takes to do this well as well, right?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's awesome that you guys tune in and that you're here.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Time is how trust is built, attention is a form of respect.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: And as we head into 2026, we want you to know how much it means that you chose to spend your time here twice a week in 2026.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: 104 episodes is the goal.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: In a world that constantly pulls your attention, that choice matters.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Your time isn't passive, it's an investment, and we don't take it lightly.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here are some practical takeaways.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Audit one week of your time, no judgment, just data.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: Identify one thing to eliminate, automate, or delegate.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I no longer search for missing items in my home.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: My littles are big enough to be responsible for keeping track of their missing items.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: Raising prices or setting boundaries where time leakage is obvious.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I mentioned scope creep.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Protect one non-negotiable time block each week.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: So whether that's you go to the park on Fridays, whether you meet your friend for lunch on Fridays, whether you do home checks or you're training someone to do home checks for you, protect one negotiable time block each week.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: I usually like to keep it consistent, and it's usually the same day.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: So in 2026, it's Fridays.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows what 2027 will bring?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And time really is the true currency, and one of the most valuable ways you can spend it by being here.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: If these conversations have helped you think differently about your business, your boundaries, or your leadership, you'll find all of my books, I believe there's seven of them right now, on Amazon under Shannon Lee Ann Miller.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: They're an extension of this work, clear, practical, and rooted in real life.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: As we move further into 2026, I want to say thank you for showing up twice a week.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: Your time matters, we see it, we respect it, and we're grateful you choose to spend it here.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: I'll see you in the next episode.