Hey, what's up, Toby?
We have made it an entire, what, week?
Maybe week and a half into the new year, which is the perfect time to discuss which New Year's
resolutions you've already failed at.
What?
I know.
I'm feeling younger, smarter, and wealthier already.
But yeah, maybe this is something that is worth unpacking a little bit.
I used to always joke that my New Year's resolution was to not drink Diet Coke because I don't
drink Diet Coke.
I've been successful at that New Year's resolutions, maybe for a decade now.
Having a trusted go-to resolution that you can always win, super smart.
Super smart, Chris.
I'm going to be, my New Year's resolution is going to be disappointed in my weight.
I love it.
My goal was to be healthier this year, and if you haven't already heard my hacking, it
was a little bit beyond my control.
But before I could even formulate my health strategy, my young one passed something on.
Oh, geez.
I'm blaming her.
The truth is I was on a plane around the first, and so there's probably 200 of my not so close
friends that are equally responsible.
But that's funny.
Yeah, what's the deal?
Here we are, Chris.
We're comfortably into the middling of our life experiences, and yet I still entertain
these things and sometimes with no intentions of acting on them.
Why do you think that is?
Why don't we all take Diet Coke?
Because that would be easy.
Well, it would be very difficult for some people.
I've got some friends that, I mean, if you took Dr. Pepper away from them, I mean, you
would have to watch your back because life could get really scary.
I just think it's interesting, right?
It's the new year.
And so we want to, I think a lot of it comes down to just alleviating the stress of that
disappointment that life just brings you.
It reminds me a lot of meetings that I'm in.
The meeting is really about the alleviation of stress and not necessarily the actual output
or the measuring of output or the satisfaction of clients, which is interesting.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I've been there for a long time.
I just didn't do it because I didn't want to, like, my ego was too fragile or something
like that.
Like, realistically, if I'm to be completely honest, it's like, I just don't want to feel
failed.
I don't want to fail.
No, there's plenty of other things that I fail at every day that do I really need to
heap big things that are under highlighted and underlined as resolution.
Even as you say that, though, it makes me think what you were describing brought to
mind this idea of when we talk about features in a service offering, and are we trying to
address a customer's pains or gains?
Are we selling them aspirin or vitamins?
And I think, at least for my part, resolutions historically have been about aspirations loosely
held.
Sure.
And a resolution, you know, whether it's from civics class or just in general, like, there's
an intention of a formalized commitment, but the truth is, it doesn't mean that I've gotten
rid of any of my other bad process or bad habits.
If they're only on aspirin and I have so many other headaches, or excuse me, if they're
only on the vitamins rather than the aspirin side, then I'm never going to get to them
anyway.
So, aside from your diet coke, which I think is for anybody that's listening, that is the
one resolution that you can pick the thing you don't do and just get noisy about the
fact that you're not going to do it this year.
Yeah, like, I'm not eating squid this year.
Yeah.
You've already been poisoned.
It's just not happened.
It didn't happen last year.
I was successful.
Yeah.
I think I'm going to pick pickled herring and not.
I will likewise not be embracing pickled herring this year.
That's awesome.
I'm pretty resolved there.
That's funny.
I'm going to try something and, you know, I tend to be an early adopter.
I'm definitely a better starter than I might be a finisher.
I will own that.
Nice.
Don't what movement?
Yes, and I think what I want to attempt this year is to attempt to just practice things.
Say more about that.
I like where you're going here.
Yeah, I think, you know, we talked about it recently.
It went down to the Fiesta Bowl.
My alma mater lost, which was depressing, but it was fine.
I hung out with the buddies.
It was a good time.
But it's made me think a lot about what's seen on the field versus what these guys do
every day.
Yeah.
And we were talking, we were talking about one of the plays like they were like they
don't do this certain play, which makes the most sense in the world.
And so as a armchair quarterback, I'm sitting there thinking, well, I mean, obviously I
should know that they should do the play that I think they should do.
Yeah.
And then one of my buddies is like, he's like, hey, maybe he's not good at that play.
Like maybe the quarterback is not good at play action.
Yeah.
And I was like, that's interesting.
And so anyway, so, you know, go down to the game.
But what I want to work on this year is just different things that I want to practice.
Yeah.
And so little things like just putting down my daily wins, like what are my three daily
wins for the day and just writing them down and not in a like almost taking off the task
list from it.
Because if I don't do the tasks, then I failed.
But if I don't practice, then I'm kind of mad at myself.
Like I want to be good at my craft.
And I think the thing why, you know, the reason why I think this is applicable to process
debt is I think oftentimes knowledge work is so reactionary.
And we don't take that step back to say, you know, my boss messaged me and it's been, you
know, it's been an hour, but I've been doing focus work.
Like we feel guilty about that.
But really that focus work is probably the best work that you could be doing in that
time.
And it's not the, oh gosh, I got an email or I got a message in Slack or in Teams or
whatever.
Yeah.
And I think, I think just for me, it's just changing the name from a resolution to, I
just want to practice certain things.
And the other thing, the other thing is I want daily practices.
So that's like daily wins.
And then I want to do stuff like weekly, right?
So like one of my practices is you and I are practicing a podcast and we're doing terribly.
Did I not mention the big fan up in central Canada who's coming on strong?
We do have fans in central Canada.
I mean, it's growing our sphere of influence or the increased number of people that are
hitting send junk.
I don't know which yet, but they're finding us.
So thank you, my favorite Canadian up there.
Yes.
But yeah, I like where you're going though.
What are my dailies?
Is it weeklies?
Yeah.
What's my monthly, right?
So my monthly could be setting up what are your monthly wins or what are the monthly
things?
Because the thing that I realized about last year is that I did a better job of being intentional
to look at what I wanted to do over a quarter, a month and a week.
And those things actually got pulled in.
And so one of the things that I actually put down for last year, mid year is do a podcast.
Now, you know, luckily you were game.
You were like, yeah, let's do that.
That'd be a great idea.
So yeah, that's one of the things that I'm doing because it's also something that I have
control over, which is what, how can I, you know, can I do my daily and my weekly planning?
Chris I love that you call out the control element because so often.
We try to, we try to, we try to create agenda items or high priority initiatives around
things we don't control and resolutions are a big example.
So yeah, you're the person cooking and buying groceries for your household and controlling
what comes in the front door.
You can't really dictate around the diet, you know, you're, you're a passenger on that
wagon, you're not the driver.
And so this idea of things within your sphere of ownership and accountability are really
beautiful.
One of my favorite things.
And over the years I've been better or worse about it, but I like to, I like to recap a
week in a status report to my clients.
And I just say, Hey, here's a couple of the big things that happened this week.
Here's a couple of the big things that are coming because time and time again, I hear
frame from clients, they're like, I don't get worried about the minutia because every
week you affirm that you're in for me.
And I'm thinking that doesn't take me that long to write.
And the word, the word of it is they don't want to read the 600 page novel I could produce
every week.
That's funny.
He said, she said, but that's funny.
Totally within my control.
It helps me recount.
Did I touch on the things that I thought would be important this week?
But also it helps me center myself and say, okay, I know it's coming next week.
I don't need to sweat it this weekend or I need to absolutely sweat it this weekend.
You know, for sure.
So you know, I think another, another really good New Year's resolution is not to get wrapped
around the axle about stuff that you are so committed or die hard on that no one else
in your organization cares about.
Like, I think if everybody, you know, listening to the podcast are ones of tens of ones of
you listeners could simply, simply just step back and say, you know what, if my boss or
my peers don't think it's important, it just might not be that important yet.
Yeah.
Now you might, you might be seeing, you might be being like, you might see something and
be like, well, yeah, that's going to be a problem.
But we're also over index on like, you know, the sky is falling and the business is going
to go out of business next week.
And you're like, wait a sec.
Is it really?
Probably not.
Could it be like that for two or three or four years before like the pain really gets
too big?
Like that, that, that's a huge, that would be a huge like eight years resolution that,
that would really impact people because then you're trying to force something that's just
people don't want to force.
Right?
That's right.
Well, and the other difficulty that you, that you call attention to is that I may see a
problem, but it's only from my desk that it appears this large.
Yeah.
You know, as we've all been told images in this rear view mirror may be larger or smaller
than they appear.
Totally.
And so when we share it, if nobody else is leaning into it, then what we're probably
observing is something that collectively is viewed as low probability, low impact.
But from where we sit, it is the next big thing.
So over the holidays, uh, you know, I'd mentioned Libby and I were traveling and, um, I'm watching
this little toddler go up steps like toddlers do, you know, and they're so they're climbing.
But I said to Lib, I said, God, can you imagine trying to climb a series of steps where every
step is as high as your waist?
Right?
Oh yeah.
That kid, every step was a huge effort.
Pat him on the head.
Like, aren't you cute?
But if, if I was climbing up steps, I'd be like, hell yeah.
Where's the applause, man?
I just cleared my third step, but it's a perspective thing.
You know?
And so our vantage point plays a huge role in that.
So I love the idea that a perceived issue may not be an issue to others yet.
Which could also mean, you know, yet includes not my lifetime.
At which point it's not my circus, not my monkeys, you know?
Or yet as in I move on and it's not my problem.
I moved to a different apartment.
Like it could be any number of things.
And I really like, I mean, honestly, you, you kind of showed me the, you know, the follow
up with a, Hey, look, this is what I did last week.
This is what I plan to do this week.
That has been a game changer.
Like that, that has been huge.
Like that is, that is one of my processes.
I love it.
You know, send, send the boss a weekly status update of like, these are the things, these
are the things that are coming.
And it's been huge.
So well, the beauty too is you're inviting some feedback.
Yeah.
So if what I did last week didn't matter, wasn't on your radar and what I'm planning
to do next week is tackling stuff that you still don't give a shit about.
Oops.
PG 13 warning.
Yeah.
After the fact.
But if it's not stuff you care about next week, then manager, I've made that fully
visible.
I'm telling you that I'm going to focus on and, and I'm prepared to be held accountable
for 100%.
I'm inviting that Porsche correction.
So I'm delighted to hear that.
Yeah.
Well, I hope it doesn't improve your golf game so dramatically that you and I can no
longer play.
I know a little bit of breathing room and, and just kind of a sense that you've been
transparent about what's going on.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
Good.
Well, very cool.
I think we were done with this one.
I am very excited about 2025.
Me too.
You know, I think it's going to be a good one or not.
I guess we'll see.
You know what?
I'm, I'm going to think that 2025 should be at least fair to Midland and very optimistic
about that low bar.
Yeah.
I will make sure you don't drink any diet Coke or eat squid when we're in community
together.
So that's my commitment to you this year.
I love it.
I'll keep doing, I'll keep doing my status updates.
All right.
That sounds right.
I think we can live with those.
All right.
Thanks man.
See ya.
See ya in a lot ofiery in all of relationship.