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Lessons - 15 Minutes to Greave (Scott) · Success Story with Scott Clary

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In this lessons episode, I'm talking about what happens when something goes wrong in the
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middle of your day and you've still got eight hours of work ahead of you.
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Most people let that one bad moment bleed into everything that comes after it.
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I'm going to walk you through the science behind why that happens.
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The rule that I built to stop it and how I went from letting a bad call at 10 AM
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ruined my whole day to being back to normal by 10-15.
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Today I want to talk about something that has quietly changed more about my daily life
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than almost any productivity hack or morning routine or optimization that I've ever tried.
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And it's not complicated, it's not some system.
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It is a rule that I made for myself about how long I'm allowed to feel bad about something
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before I move on. I call this the 15-minute rule.
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And I think most people are losing their entire days, sometimes entire weeks,
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sometimes more than that, to a problem that 15 minutes could solve.
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Let me tell you what I mean. 10-07 on a Tuesday.
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I'm sitting in my car in the driveway after a call that just went completely sideways.
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It was supposed to be a deal of been working on for a while.
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It all fell apart over something super stupid, super avoidable.
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I was mad, like my face was hot, chest was tight.
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I'm running this conversation back in my head, you know, sort of rewriting my lines
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and I'm getting angry at things that I should have said and I didn't.
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You know that feeling where you're having the argument against the argument,
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like where you're alone, and you're suddenly the most articulate version of yourself
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saying all the perfect things to someone who isn't there.
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So that's where I was. I was sitting in a parked car, like jaw clenched,
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winning a fight that was already over.
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Anyways, I had a podcast recording at 10.30, so about, you know, like, 20, 20 minutes.
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Now, the old version of myself, that recording would have been a disaster.
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And I don't mean I would have been like visibly upset or unprofessional.
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It's way more subtle than that, right?
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I would have carried the heat from that bad call into the interview.
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I would have been distracted probably for the first 10 minutes.
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I would have asked worse questions.
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I would have missed threads that I should have pulled on.
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The guests would have given me something interesting and I would have been too stuck
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on my own, had to notice it.
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And then that mediocre interview energy would have carried into the next thing on my calendar.
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And then the next thing.
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And then by dinner, I'd be pissed off, I'd be short with someone,
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and I'd say the wrong thing to the wrong person that had absolutely nothing to do with them.
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And one moment at 10.07 in the morning would have shaped my entire day in a very negative way.
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And I know this version of myself because I lived in it for years.
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So one bad hour would ruin 15 good ones.
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A very tense email before lunch would color everything that came after.
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A piece of critical feedback would send me into the spiral for the rest of the week.
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And the whole time I tell myself I was processing or I was sitting with it,
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like there was something productive happening,
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but I wasn't processing anything.
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I was marinating.
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I was replaying the same moment over and over.
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And handing the worst version of myself to every person and every task that came next.
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I actually remember a very specific stretch early when I started the podcast,
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where I lost a sponsor deal that I really wanted.
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And it wasn't just that I lost it.
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It was that I felt like I'd been strung along.
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It was like weeks of calls back and forth.
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And then when someone else and told me over like a two-cented email and I was serious,
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and it was not for an hour, but it was for days.
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Like I was I was short with my team.
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I was distracted in interviews.
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I was not a fun person to be around.
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And then I went back and I listened to some of the episodes that I recorded that weekend.
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They were worse, not terrible, but they were like flat.
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You can hear that I wasn't all the way there.
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So one deal, one email, and it cost me a full week of output,
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not because the event was devastating.
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I just refused to put it down.
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So on that Tuesday, going back to present day story in the driveway,
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I did something that I've been practicing.
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I gave myself 15 minutes to feel it, not to fix it,
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not to figure out what went wrong,
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not to draft the follow-up email, just to be mad.
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Like hands on the steering wheel, windows up,
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letting the frustration run its course
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without trying to talk myself out of it or push it down.
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And that's a very important distinction.
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I wasn't suppressing it.
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I wasn't pretending the call didn't happen.
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I was letting myself be fully mad, full permission
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to feel exactly what I was feeling.
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But with a boundary around it, 15 minutes,
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that's the deal you're making with yourself.
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And at 10.22, I get out of the car,
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I walked inside, poured a glass of water,
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sat down on my desk by 10.30, when the recording started,
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I was in it, fully present.
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Good questions, good energy.
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The interview went well.
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The guest said obviously no idea
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at 20 minutes earlier or 23 minutes earlier,
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rather I've been sitting in a parked car
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losing my mind and an argument with myself.
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But this is where it gets really interesting
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because there's some science behind why this works.
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And when I first read about it, kind of blew my mind.
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So there's a neuronatomist named Jill Bolt Taylor.
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So she's a brain scientist from Harvard
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who had a massive stroke at 37 years old
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and spent eight years recovering from it.
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And because she's literally a brain researcher,
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she was able to study her own recovery
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in a way that most people can't.
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So she understood what was happening to her brain
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while it was happening, which is incredible and beautiful,
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but also probably horrifying for her at the time.
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So one of the things that she discovered
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is that when something triggers an emotional response,
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your brain floods your body with chemicals.
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So adrenaline, cortisol, the whole fight or flight response.
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So your heart rate spikes, your muscles tense,
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your thinking narrows, it is a full body takeover.
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But here's the part that changed how I think about this.
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The entire chemical process from trigger to flush
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takes about 90 seconds, it's at 90 seconds.
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So after 90 seconds, the chemicals that flooded your body
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have cleared your bloodstream.
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So the emotion, like the real physical version of it is over.
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So if you're still angry 10 minutes later,
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if you are still frustrated an hour later,
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if you are still replaying the conversation at dinner,
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that's not the event that's doing that to you anymore.
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That's your thoughts about the event doing it.
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So you're kick starting the same reaction all over again,
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the same biological reaction by replaying what happened.
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And each replay sends a fresh wave
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of the same chemicals through your system.
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So you are redosing yourself on your own stress hormones
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every time you run it back in your head.
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Think about that for a second.
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So the actual physical experience of anger
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or frustration or fear has a shelf life
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shorter than a TV commercial.
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90 seconds, everything you feel after that
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is a story you're telling yourself.
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And the story is what keeps the feeling alive for hours
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and sometimes days.
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And when I first read this,
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I could not stop thinking about all the days
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that I've lost in my life all the time.
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Not to bad events,
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but to my response to bad events.
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See, the original event cost me an hour maybe less.
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Well, it actually cost you less than 90 seconds,
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but carrying it,
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carrying it costs me the rest of the day.
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Sometimes the rest of the week
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because I'm giving my worst self to situations
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that deserve my best.
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So now my 15 minute rule is generous
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by that 90 second standard.
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And that's on purpose
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because I found that 90 seconds is enough for the chemistry
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but not enough for the processing.
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So I need a few minutes to let the feeling actually land
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to acknowledge that it happened
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to decide whether there's something I need to do about it
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later like send an email or have a follow up conversation
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because action will solve a lot of things as well.
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But 15 minutes, it gives me the room.
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It's long enough to actually feel it
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and short enough that it doesn't bleed into what comes next.
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And I want to be clear about something here
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because I think this is where people get it wrong.
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This is not about stuffing your feelings down.
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It is not about pretending you're fine when you're not.
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I have tried that for years, it does not work.
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What happens when you suppress stuff
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is it leaks outside of it.
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So you're not angry about the bad colony
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more you're just irritable for the rest of the day
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and you can't figure out why.
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Or you blow up at something small three days later
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because you never actually let yourself feel the big thing.
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The 15 minute rule is the opposite of suppression.
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It is giving yourself full permission to feel
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whatever you're feeling, but with a time limit
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so it doesn't take over the day.
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So feel it, sit in it, let it be real.
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And then at minute 15, let the next hour be a new hour.
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I've spoken to a lot of high performing people on my podcast
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and just friends that have built incredible things.
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They all have some version of this ability.
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And it's not that they're calmer than everyone else.
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That's the misconception.
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They feel things just as intensely as you do and I do,
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they just reset faster.
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Something goes wrong at nine and by nine 15
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they're in the next meeting with clean energy.
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They grieve the bad moment.
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They take whatever lesson there is to take
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and they move forward before it has a chance
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to ruin the rest of their day.
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I've spoken to many founders about this,
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a good friend, a woman who built this old two companies
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before she was 40.
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Incredibly sharp, incredibly composed.
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And I asked her what separated her from founders
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she'd watched flame out over the years.
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And her answer kind of surprised me.
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It wasn't vision, it wasn't like work ethic.
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She said it was the ability to grieve fast
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and move forward clean.
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And she used this analogy that I still think about.
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She said she treats her emotional resets
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the way a pitcher treats a bad inning.
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So you gave up three runs, it happened.
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You can't unthrow those pitches,
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but you got six more ratings to play.
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And if you carry the third inning into the fourth,
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now you've lost two innings instead of one.
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The best pictures in baseball
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aren't the ones who never give up runs.
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They're the ones who give up three runs
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and then throw six shut out innings like nothing happened.
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Because to them, the next inning is a clean slate always.
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Which is why actually sports psychology
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as a major thing for performance, business psychology,
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understanding how your thoughts affect you.
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It doesn't just play out in a arena
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or in a stadium or on a court.
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It totally affects how you perform
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and everything in your life.
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So you got to grieve fast.
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That phrase, it stuck with me.
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Let yourself feel it without suppressing it
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or pretending that it didn't happen
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but don't let it ruin and run your day.
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Then let the next hour be its own hour.
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And look, I'm not perfect at this.
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There are tons of days where something hits me
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and 15 minutes isn't enough
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where I carry it longer than I should,
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where I'm short with somebody who doesn't deserve it
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because I'm still stuck on something from three hours ago.
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It still happens, but the difference between now
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and a few years ago is massive
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because it used to be my default, right?
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My default was a bad morning meant a bad day.
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That's just how things work.
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And now when it happens, I catch it.
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I recognize that I'm past my 15 minutes
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and I'm choosing to keep replaying something
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that's already over.
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That awareness is powerful.
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That awareness alone, just seeing it clearly
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understanding what's happening usually breaks the loop.
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Because once you've realized
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that you're the one keeping the feeling alive,
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it's a lot harder to pretend that you're a victim of it.
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Now, I want to tell you what 15 minutes
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actually looks like in practice
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because I think people picture like meditation
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or breathing exercise or something structured.
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It's not that.
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It can be ugly, like sometimes it's just sitting
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in the car doing nothing.
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It could be pacing around the office.
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It could be texting the front and venting for five minutes.
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The only rule is that I don't try to fix anything
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during those 15 minutes
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and I don't take it out on anyone.
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I just let the feeling be there
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without doing anything about it yet.
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The fixing happens later once you've cooled down.
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Once I can actually think clearly about it
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because nothing good ever comes from me
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trying to solve a problem while I'm still heated
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and angry, like every angry email I've ever sent,
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I've regretted every sharp thing
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that I've ever said to someone I care about
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it happened because I tried to act
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while I was still in the feeling
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instead of giving the feeling it's 15 minutes first.
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The other thing I've noticed is that
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when you practice this consistently,
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you actually start to feel things more clearly, not less
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because you're not afraid of the emotion anymore.
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You know it has an expiration date.
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You know it's gonna get its moment
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and then you're going to move on.
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So you can actually sit in it fully
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instead of doing that thing where you're half feeling it
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and half fighting it at the same time,
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which is what most people do for not just like an hour
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but for sometimes weeks and months.
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This is why these feelings keep hanging around
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and it doesn't just apply to big stuff.
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It's not just about bad calls and tough conversations
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or getting fired or broken up like big things.
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It's about the small friction that builds up over the day.
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You hit traffic on the way to the meeting,
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you're five minutes late, now you're annoyed
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and that annoyance follows you into the room.
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Someone cancels on you last minute
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and it throws off your afternoon
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and you let that frustration color the next two hours
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of your life where a client sends a passive aggressive email,
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you read it four times, you get a little anger each time
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and now your whole creative block
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for the afternoon is shot, right?
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These are not big events,
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but they eat your day in exactly the same way
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if you let them and most people do let them
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because they don't realize they have a choice.
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They think the feeling from the last hour is mandatory
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that they owe it something that they need to honor it
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by carrying it forward and you don't.
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Your chemistry lasted 90 seconds.
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Everything after that is a choice that you're making
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about how to spend the hours you have left.
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And a more personal like G and myself talk about this
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at home all the time.
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One of the things that we have agreed on
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is that when one of us comes in hot about something
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the other person gets to name it.
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So not in the confrontational way,
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just in a simple like is this about me
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or is this about something else?
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And almost always the answer is it's about something else
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and this doesn't really happen often
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but just hearing that question out loud
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is usually enough to snap the other person out of it.
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To realize that you've been carrying energy
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from the last room into this one
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and the person in front of you doesn't deserve that.
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So here's what I want to leave you with.
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You have more resets available to you than you think.
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Every hour is a chance to start over.
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You don't have to wait until tomorrow morning
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for a clean slate, you have,
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you can have one at 2 p.m. on a Wednesday if you decide to, right?
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So if you're a bad call at 10,
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you have until 10, 15 to feel it.
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After that you walk into the next thing like the day
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just started because in every way that matters, it did.
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You can just put the bad stuff down whenever you decide to.