Good morning, good afternoon and good evening everybody.
And welcome to today's episode of the Never Peak Project
podcast.
I'm your host, Coach Ranger, coming at you live
from the $2 million studio.
And in today's episode, we're going
to be going over the importance of setting boundaries
when it comes to you and your business.
This is especially applicable for people
that are solo printers or in a very small team of individuals,
whether it is a nonprofit, a business,
or just a passion project in general.
So I'm going to be going over two major categories of advice.
And then I'm going to kind of rapid fire a few other suggestions
and things to keep in mind at the very end of the episode.
So go ahead, sit back, relax, scrap, whatever beverage
you want.
And let's dive in to the importance of setting boundaries
when it comes to you, your time, and your energy
with life and business.
In today's episode, we're going to be going over boundaries
in business, how to protect your time, energy, and effort
as a solo printer.
Whether you're just starting out or been in the game
for a few years, setting clear boundaries
is essential for avoiding burnout and creating
a sustainable business.
We're going to cover the importance of having a mission
and vision statement, how that bleeds into the daily activities
of your life.
And that's going to be covered a little bit more
in depth in the Lily Pads and Leaps section.
And then the last portion we're going to be going into in depth
on is the importance of having a metaphor or vision board.
Then again, like I mentioned earlier,
I'm going to rapid fire a few other suggestions or topics,
some tactics that you can use in your life and business
to set boundaries.
So why are we even talking about boundaries?
And why is that important for you as a solo printer?
The reason that we're talking about boundaries today
is because since you are your own boss,
since you're the only one that is doing the work that
needs to be done, really the biggest challenge
you're going to face as a solo printer
is not having a built-in structure.
It's not having someone to tell you what to do
or having systems and processes in place in order to really
guide and focus your energy on a day-to-day basis.
You are the one that has to make all those decisions
for yourself.
And something that I bring up pretty regularly
is the idea that there are an infinite amount of possibilities
but an extremely finite amount of resources, time, and energy
that you can put into your business or whatever endeavor
that you're going into.
So it's very easy to feel overwhelmed or stressed out
or just really burnout about what it
is that you're going to do next or what you're
doing on the day-to-day basis.
Without boundaries, it's extremely
easy to fall into these three major pitfalls.
Working all hours of the day with no separation
between life and business, saying yes to everything,
leaving no time for the actual work that needs to be done,
and of course, losing sight of what actually matters
for your business and the overall direction
that you want to go with your organization.
Boundaries and budgeting are very similar.
Typically, when people think of boundaries
to think of this big, arduous thing, that requires them
to kind of be a jerk and say no to a lot of things,
thus reducing the amount of possibilities and opportunities
they have presented to them.
It's the same thing kind of with a budget.
People see budgets as these very limiting things
that prevent them from spending money
or almost punish them for wanting certain things in life.
But I think it's the exact opposite,
just like if you look at a budget as more so of a way
to give yourself permission to spend,
as opposed to restricting your spending,
setting boundaries isn't so much about restriction
as it is about protection.
Your having boundaries doesn't stop you from doing things.
It allows you to really focus on the things
that truly matter to you and what you want to create
out of your business and vision for your life.
Boundaries really help you stay focused on your mission,
prioritize effectively, and prevent burnout.
So when it comes to setting boundaries
in your life and business, the biggest thing
that you want to focus on is the overall mission
and vision that you have for the organization.
That is going to be the thing that really helps you make sure
that all of the smaller decisions you make on a daily basis
are actually effective in getting you to where you want to go.
And if you listen to a few episodes of the podcast,
you'll know the importance that I see for having a vision
and mission in your life is.
When I was doing my walk across the country,
I had a very clear mission statement on what it is
that I wanted to get out of the walk.
It helped me figure out which side projects to work on,
which detours to take, when to take an extra rest day,
when to really focus in on various aspects
that allowed me to really just create more for myself
within those bounds.
Now I've had some people say that my mission statement
was kind of limiting in what I was allowing myself to do.
But in actuality, by having that mission statement,
which was to highlight, learn from,
and work with people in the US
that are making a difference in their communities,
really allowed me to focus in and go deeper
on the things that really matter,
which are the people that are doing great things
in the world and really making a difference.
So when really thinking about our vision
and mission statement, remember that your vision is your why.
What is your overall purpose and reason for being
in business to begin with?
Is it to really just make the world a better place?
Create a world where there are no homeless animals,
where there's no hungry children.
What is the overall purpose and ideal situation
that you wanna create from being in your business?
And when it comes down to your mission statement,
that's more so the what.
That's the what are we specifically here to do.
So for example, when it comes to businesses
like Tony's Chocolate Only,
which is a ethical chocolate company,
their big vision is a world in which the cacao industry
is not reliant on child or slave labor.
And what they're doing in order to get there,
their mission is to provide high quality chocolate
while also making people aware of the issues
in the cacao industry.
So that's their overall vision,
which is a world without slave and child labor.
But what they're doing to contribute to that
is by selling chocolate that is ethically sourced
where they pay their cow farmers more,
where they're constantly bringing awareness to that aspect.
Just like with my business,
the overall vision essentially is a world
where change makers feel empowered and in action
towards making the world a better place.
And my specific mission is to help entrepreneurs
and nonprofit leaders overcome self-limiting beliefs
in their life that are preventing them
from making the change that they wanna see in the world.
See how it's a little bit different
where that vision and mission very much complement
one another, but the vision is that higher level thing
and that mission is a little bit lower brass tacks?
That's really what you wanna go for.
Now, that's great and all,
but what are the really important things
about having a mission or vision statement?
How does that relate to boundaries?
That is the initial bubble that you're gonna put around
every other opportunity that comes across,
anything that comes across your plate
that may or may not actually work towards
that vision or mission that you want to focus on.
If I am walking across the country and my mission
is to highlight, learn from and work with people in the US
that are making a difference in their communities,
say that five times fast,
I'm not gonna necessarily focus on hitting
every single national park that comes in my way.
Now, if my mission was to appreciate
and understand the natural beauty
of the North American continent,
my mission might be a little bit different.
I might wanna focus more so on the state and national parks
that I come across and focus in on that,
but that wasn't what my focus for the walk was.
Just like in my business,
I could be focusing on specifically budgeting
and money mindset for entrepreneurs.
While that might be a small part of the business,
that's not necessarily what I wanna focus on.
It might more so be around the limiting beliefs
and sabotaging voice people have around money.
So it's really just that focus that allows you to stay
within the bounds of what your organization is
and what you really want to see from it.
My cat is underneath me.
So that is really the importance of being clear
on your mission and vision statement.
Now, I've had a few episodes where I talk about
the importance of mission and vision
and I do do workshops about helping entrepreneurs,
nonprofit leaders be clear on their mission and vision.
Go ahead and check the description
or check my website for any upcoming webinars
or workshops that we might be doing
to help you with your mission and vision statement.
But if there's nothing else
and you want more one-on-one individualized support,
feel free to send me an email or a text message.
I'll put my phone number down in the description as well.
Just shoot me a text and we can set up
a one and a half hour long clarity session
for your mission and vision.
I'd be more than happy to help you out
so that you feel clear and empowered towards creating
the life you want with your business.
And to continue on with that idea,
that higher level, that mission and vision stuff,
like that higher level thinking, that's great and all.
But if you're not taking legitimate steps
towards making it a reality,
it doesn't really matter a whole lot, right?
What is it that a vision without action
isn't worth more than the brain cells those thoughts occupy,
but vision and action can change the world.
So once you have that overall vision
and that idea of what you want to create,
it's really down to doing the work
that needs to be done in order to make it happen.
So the next thing I wanna talk about
is the importance of frogs in your life.
Hell is that mean?
When it comes to really breaking down your overall goals,
the way I kinda see it is all of us are frogs
and we're trying to get from one side of a pond to the other.
Now your starting point, starting point,
or point A is where you are now.
Point B is where you are when your mission
or your vision are actualized.
And that water in between is what you need to get through
in order to get across to the other side.
Now there might be waterfalls and sharks
and all these other things like issues in the water,
but if you were a frog trying to get
from one side of the pond to the other,
you wouldn't necessarily try to make
one giant leap at once.
Just like when I was walking across the country,
my goal wasn't to make it over in a day
or a couple days or weeks, it was months,
it was gonna be a several month long journey.
So when it comes to your business,
what you need to do is figure out
how you're gonna get from one side to the other
without trying to do it all in one day or even one year.
And what I came up with for the walk
is called the lily pad method.
And what you do is you figure out
where you are exactly now on point A,
the first side of the pond,
and then point B is the side of the pond
that you're trying to get to.
And you have to look at it a certain way.
You have to look at it in the way
that there are small lily pads strung across the pond.
Some might be going straight across,
in my case if I was walking east to west
through the United States.
So some of it might be directly west.
Sometimes I need to go a little bit north
or I need to go a little bit south.
Or sometimes I need to even backtrack a little bit
in order to actually go forward.
You need to figure out what those lily pads
are going to look like for you.
In my case, the easiest example is I started
in Myrtle Beach, that was the starting point.
The next point I needed to get to
was Columbia, South Carolina.
I needed to get from Myrtle Beach to Columbia.
That was the first lily pad.
But you're not always going to be able to jump
from one lily pad to the other perfectly.
There is that space in between each pad
where you need to swim.
You need to do the smaller steps in order to get there.
Breaking this down on the entrepreneurial level,
an example of that could be,
let's say you want to make $100,000 in a year.
There's various lily pads you're going to need to hit
in order to get there.
You're going to need to figure out what your offer is.
You're going to need to figure out
how many people you need to meet,
whether you're doing a product or a service.
You need to figure out marketing.
You need to know how to do meta ads.
You need to do all of these different things.
But if you don't specifically say the things
you need to learn, you're never going to learn them.
So to kind of slow down a little bit,
let's say that in order to
give, let's say, 10 presentations
in front of your target audience,
you need to meet 100 people
that may be connected to different organizations
to give that presentation to.
So let's say that one lily pad is give 10 presentations.
Now you need to figure out what that space
between where you are and getting to that point
actually looks like.
And that's what I call the swimming.
For example, that swimming might be,
I need to go to two or three networking events a week.
I need to have five to 10, one to ones a week
with people in my B&I group or my other networking group.
I need to find people that are presidents
or event planners for these different organizations.
It's really just about figuring out
what those smaller goals are on the overall horizon
and then breaking those smaller goals down
into even smaller goals.
And that is where something like the power list
comes into play, which is something that I adopted
from Andy Frisella and the Live Hard program
is figure out what those smaller goals are
that are on the path for you to get to the overall goal
and then really break them down
into daily tasks that you can do.
And when I say your powerless tasks,
I don't mean a basic to-do list.
These are tasks that will actually move you
towards where you want to go.
They're the highest leverage,
the most important tasks that you need to take
on a daily basis.
So to really just wrap that up,
I think that the most important thing
when it comes to action is being clear
on what your overall mission and vision is.
And then being clear on the smaller tasks that you need to do,
really just keep chunking it down to go from the overall,
you know, three to five years out vision,
the one or two year mission,
all the way down to the one to six month
Lily Pats that you need to take,
then understand the daily swimming and tasks
that you need to do in order to get to that overall goal.
The next thing that I want to recommend to people to do
in terms of setting boundaries in your life and business
is to create a metaphor board.
Now, this is very similar to a vision board
where you put up your various goals
and you understand, you know,
what you want from the year, et cetera, et cetera.
And while I do think that those are valuable,
personally for me, what has been a little bit more useful
and valuable is something that I call the metaphor board.
Now, a metaphor board is a picture,
it's very similar to a vision board,
where there are nine different photos
of various things that I want to remember on a daily basis.
I usually have it up in one of the tabs on my computer
that I can easily reference,
but each photo represents something different
when it comes to my life and my business.
For example, there is a picture in the top left corner
of a woman in a red dress.
Now, if you listen to Alex Ramosy's content,
you might have heard of the concept
of the woman in the red dress.
And what that means is it's just about avoiding distractions
on a daily basis.
In the movie, The Matrix, when Neo and,
oh gosh, the camera, the other guy's name, Morbius,
they are training, Morbius is explaining something to Neo
and a woman in a red dress walks by
and Neo turns to look at her.
And then Morbius says, hey, are you paying attention?
Were you listening to me or were you looking at her?
And then Neo turns back around and it's the agent,
the bad guy, pointing a gun in its face.
And that's just reminding me constantly
to be careful of what I'm putting my attention on.
Is the thing that I am focusing on at the moment
really moving me forward in my life?
A huge example of this for myself right now
is the school platform.
In my earlier episodes of the Never Peak Project,
I mentioned a lot about joining my school community.
I was putting a lot of time and effort into that,
but it really wasn't moving the dial forward.
I was spending one to three hours a day on the platform,
trying to learn how to do ads or change my offer
or make posts or interact, but that wasn't moving me forward.
And I've learned that something more important
to put my time into is the podcast, is content creation.
By doing those things, it's keeping me more top of mind
to people in my network.
Instead of focusing on a platform that hasn't gotten me
anything in several months of using it,
and it's costing me money every month,
it's more important to kind of foster the relationships
and spend time doing one-to-ones or other activities
that actually move the dial forward.
Let's see a few other examples.
Another one is the red die.
It's another thing Alex from Mozi talks about,
but it's the concept of the multi-sided die,
that in your life you are given a die.
Now a bunch of the sides are red, but only one side is green.
Now your goal is to roll the dice as many times
as you possibly can.
Every time you get a green, a red side turns green.
Your goal is to eventually get the entire die to be green,
but you have no idea how many sides you have.
You could have 20 sides, you could have 200.
And that kind of just talks a little bit about the idea
of different privileges or leg ups
that each of us have in our life.
I probably have a smaller die than somebody else
that was born in a different zip code,
or maybe I have more than somebody else.
And it's really just about reminding yourself
that every time you roll the dice and it comes up red,
all you have to do is pick it up and try again.
If an ad I run doesn't work, great, learn from it,
see what I can do better, pick up that die and roll again.
If I go to a networking meeting and I strike out
and somebody says no to my offer of coaching,
fantastic, I got to pick up the die and roll again.
That game only stops if I choose not to roll again.
So it's just a kind of reminder
that this is a game that we're playing,
that it's really just about the reps
that we're putting in on a daily basis,
and not so much as a end all be all.
If the dice comes up red and I lose,
that doesn't mean that I myself am a loser
or that I have lost the game.
It just means that I need to pick it up and try again.
And after time and time and time again,
I will have more greens than reds
and it'll be a little bit easier,
but a reminder that no matter how many greens I have,
there are gonna be times that it comes up red.
So I could go through all nine of these
and maybe I'll do another podcast episode
where I go over all of the images on my metaphor board
or I'll make a post about it on Instagram.
But that's just a general idea,
is that reminding yourself of these different concepts
that are important to you.
And I'm a big picture guy,
so that might be something good for me,
but maybe it might be something like
an affirmation board for you.
Just something to remind yourself that as things come up,
it's helping you pick and choose
how to make decisions a little bit faster.
And that's really what the metaphor board is for,
is to make decision making faster.
Instead of getting caught up that,
oh, I screwed this up, I lost this thing,
it's just reminding myself, okay,
I gotta pick up the die and roll again.
I'm getting distracted by something else,
that's the woman in the red dress,
I need to ignore it, I need to move on.
So that really wraps up the two-ish,
three major things I wanted to focus on today
when it comes to making decisions in your daily life
as an entrepreneur and business leader,
is being very clear on your overall mission and vision.
That's gonna help you block out a ton of noise
in your day-to-day life.
The next step is taking that
and putting it into smaller, lidley pads,
understanding where you wanna go overall,
and then focusing on two or three major things at a time,
if not less, that will get you towards where you wanna go,
and then breaking those two or three major tasks down
into smaller, lidley steps in order to get there.
That will help you stay extremely focused
on where you wanna go.
The next thing is being clear
on the different ways to protect that time,
and I suggest that metaphor board,
because it allows you to make faster decisions
on a day-to-day basis.
Am I being distracted right now?
Am I being focused on what I wanna be focused on?
Am I letting this loss really dive deeper on me
that it needs to be?
Is there something that I'm missing here?
That is what the metaphor board focuses on.
And in terms of a few other ideas,
these are things that I jotted down,
that I went to chat GBT and a few other articles on,
that I wanted to share with you guys as well.
So there is also the idea of time blocking
and energy management.
You can just kinda set yourself 90-minute tasks.
I kinda call giving myself a pot of coffee
and four hours method where you have this big task,
you just need to get it done, lock the doors,
put your headphones on with or without music,
give yourself some coffee,
and just focus on this one task.
Don't stop until it is done.
And it is Parkinson's Law.
Work expands so as to fill the time
available for its completion.
If you give a task less time than you think
it's going to take, ideally, you will get it done.
If you wanna give yourself four hours to do a task,
you'll probably get it done right around three and a half
hours.
But if you only give yourself two hours
and you really focus in on it
and you do everything you can to make that happen,
you will get it done much faster.
So it's kinda just about utilizing that part
or that, got what I just call it, Parkinson's Law,
is utilizing Parkinson's Law to make these bigger tasks
into shorter periods.
Another thing is saying no with confidence
and without extra story.
Sometimes people think that when they say no to someone,
they are being a jerk or they are being this or that,
or that they're gonna take it this way.
Sometimes you just need to say no and that's okay.
Kind of referring back to a previous episode we did
and comma, that's okay.
Setting communication boundaries.
Sometimes you need to have specific office hours
for when you're gonna be contacting
and reaching out to employees, if you have any,
people on your team, virtual assistants, et cetera,
or clients.
Being clear, hey, I respond to emails.
You don't have to have to make this necessary public,
but just in yourself, I only respond to emails
between eight to 10 a.m. and five to seven p.m.
I take my last client at eight in the afternoon.
I take my first one no earlier than seven a.m.
It just makes it very clear on when you yourself
are gonna be doing certain tasks
that may take a lot of time.
And it's easier for you to just not be,
so I need to respond to this email right now.
Or I need to do this thing specifically
at this exact moment.
What is it?
Their urgency is not your emergency.
Ooh, automation is another really good one.
Finding ways to cut down time.
I have seen some other entrepreneurs or podcasters
even say that they don't wanna use AI technology
to make their podcast process easier or more streamlined.
They think that it might take away some of the touch points
or the authenticity of it.
But personally, I do think that by having automation,
especially for smaller things like captions or clips,
would save you a ton of time to really focus
on the higher leveraged tasks that you need to do.
And instead of paying somebody, you know,
15, 20 bucks an hour to cut up clips of your podcast,
paying 15, 20 bucks a month to have an AI service do it,
can just save you a ton of time
and allow you to focus on those higher leveraged tasks.
And really, those are the main things that I would focus on
in terms of setting boundaries,
is being clear on exactly where you're going,
what you're doing on a day-to-day basis,
to non-negotiable tasks that need to get done,
having ways to make decisions a little bit easier,
and then being clear on the importance of your time,
setting time aside for specific tasks,
being able to tune out the world
and focus on a specific thing for however long you need
in order to get it done.
As well as being able to automate or delegate tasks
as the need arises.
So I know this episode wasn't necessarily
about how to communicate your boundaries to people
or set them in terms of communicating them
with the outside world,
it's more so about being extremely clear
on what you are trying to do,
so that you can protect your time, your energy,
and your effort so that your business
can have the best chance it has to get where you want it to go.
If you have any questions, comments, emotional outbursts,
please let me know, I am more than happy
to kind of add to the dialogue or communication
around this topic.
This is something that is becoming extremely important
for me and my business as I do more
and I take on more commitments in my life,
so I wanna know how it works for you.
And as always, if you are needing some extra help
in your business in terms of accountability,
setting boundaries, or creating a clear vision or mission,
please reach out to me,
I'd love to work with you no matter what industry you're in
or what it is that you're trying to create in the world.
Really, the people that I wanna work with
is the people that want to make a difference in the world.
I want to help people create the life
that they've always dreamed of.
So if you'd like to explore what a coaching relationship
would look like with me and how that would look for you,
please send me an email at rangeratwithinrangecoaching.com.
We can set up a free initial strategy session
to help you identify the major points
that you'd like to focus on in your life,
business, or career,
and see if a longer-term coaching program
would be beneficial for you.
As always, thank you so much for your time,
attention, and energy.
I really appreciate it.
And if you think that this episode is valuable,
please feel free to share it with somebody in your network
that could benefit from understanding the importance
of setting boundaries and being clear
on what you want to create out of your business.
As my constant reminder,
remember that the best is yet to come
as long as you are willing to make the decision
to never settle, never quit, and never peak.
I'll see you guys in the next episode.