16: Getting Out of Bed & Finding Relevance

Welcome: 00:00

Thank you for tuning in to Leaders Lift episode 16. I'm Greg Cunningham and I'm excited that you decided to tune in for this episode.

Intro

Have you given any thought to retirement? For those of you early in your careers that might not even be something that you can even imagine. For those of us that are closer to retirement than we are to our first job, you do start thinking. I'm not talking about trying to plan for financial retirement. I'm talking about thinking about what you will do when you don't have a clock to punch, team to manage, deadlines to meet, commute, etc..

I have often dreamed of just chasing the grandkids, spending all my time camping (and hopefully biking), sitting my a lake with a fishing pole and a good book or just being able to wake up and not have a list of things that need to get done that exceeds my time or ability. Those are nice dreams but I don't think that will ever be a good thing for me.

As I've learned more and more about myself, and as I have gone through a couple of layoffs, I've realized that I don't do well with downtime. That got me looking back and thinking about times when I have taken 10 days or two weeks off just to take time off with no real plans. Or most week between Christmas and New Years when I would take time off just because everyone else was off. It even got me thinking about weekends before I was self-employed and how my Saturdays would go when I didn't have a chores list or specific plans.

Then I expanded my thinking to the times when I have just tried to dial it back for an evening or just doing an easy day. I also thought about how much effort I had to put in to learn to relax when I was out to dinner with my wife.

When we were living in Houston, we set Friday nights aside for date night. Some Fridays we went to the Temple and then others we went out to eat. A lot of the time we did both. I remember when we first started doing it how busy the restaurants we would go to were. It was not uncommon to have a 45 minute wait for a table and this was pre-pandemic and pre get your name on the waiting list. I used to get super frustrated at the waste of my time and we would always look for the least busy restaurant.

But at one point, I realized that it wasn't really a waste of time. That actually gave my wife and I time to talk about what was going on in life and just take a breath. Something neither of us got to do much at all during the week. Once I got that in my head, we would just pick a place to eat and unless it was a crazy long wait, we just put our names down and waited.

To tie back into the retirement question - I have found myself asking how I will make my time once I retire relevant. That's what I want to talk about today. Let's talk about what that means, how it can make a difference in our lives and even a bit about how to find it. And this won't be just for retirement but it's something that can make a difference every day.

Pre-Roll

Before we get started, I just want to say thanks to those that have followed or subscribed to the podcast. Also for those that are connected with me on LinkedIn or follow the show on Instagram or YouTube. Did you say YouTube? Why yes I did. I've started posting the episodes to my youtube channel. You can find the link in the show notes. I don't claim to be a video expert and I don't have time to make the production look like a giant budget program but I've gotten feedback that folks like to just throw it on a tv in the background while doing different things. With the video, I can also add in slides so if you are a more visual learn, you can see those as well.

Also a reminder to share the show or give it a review or rating wherever you listen. That's a great way to help others on that platform find the show. If you haven't shared it, I'm sure you can find at least one person in your circle that could beneift, maybe from this episode or one of the previous ones. Just hit that share button and send.

Story Time: 04:13

After I got laid of in December of 2019, I started a consulting business. It was going ok, but I could tell that it had the potential to fizzle out a bit. About that time, I was approached with an unexpected offer to explore joining a product teams. I had zero product experience so that was kind of a surprise. But I had previously worked with this team so I thought it was at least worth exploring.

As we went through the process, I was actually kind of nervous about being a product manager. I know that at least one person on the interview panel was a hard pass on me joining the team. That didn't help me feel warm and fuzzy or that I could be successful. But the VP doing the hiring had an ace up his sleeve, he helped me see how my skills were relevant to the job - he helped me see how I could make a difference and it wasn't just some accidental or haphazard thing that he did..

As we got close to the end of the process, he was very deliberate in pointing out exactly what he was looking for me to do. Yes I would need to learn about product management. Yes I would need to do more influence leadership than I had been doing recently. And yes I would need to adapt to a whole bunch of other things. But he went into detail about how my experience in the mortgage industry would help them to build the tool. He shared how no one on his team know closing packages or processes like I did and that not only would I be able to lead the development of this specific feature but I would be expected to help them dive deeper into the mortgage industry as well.

Beyond that, he also did the things that made me realize that I was the person they wanted not just someone with similar experience. So I felt that my skills were relevant but I also felt that I was relevant as an individual. That made a huge difference and it made it easy for me to decide to join the team.

This is just one example of how figuring out the relevance can turn a situation completely around.

Little Lift Recommendation: 06:26

I want to remind everyone that I have a new podcast out. It's all about getting the most out of life (my big theme right now) through our tech. My good friend Jason and I spent several years working together supporting tech for a major corporation. We learned a ton. Most of all we learned just how passionate we are about tech and helping others use it. We also find ourselves in the sometimes unenviably position of being the family/friends/neighbors/etc. IT support person. We have been talking about launching this podcast for a long time (think years) and finally made it happen. The podcast is called Gadgets for Families. Search for it wherever you are listening to this one. I'll also have links in the show notes.

Last week was our launch week and we dropped multiple episodes. We covered phone security, remote work gear, what our current tech looks like and our tech origin stories. We would both love for you to give it a listen and to let us know what you think about it. I'm sure you will find something in it that will help you get more out of life AND things that will help you with your leadership and personal development.

Defining Relevance: 07:36

Let's start off by defining relevance. I don't want to use the typical dictionary definition. To me relevance is about having a meaningful purpose, or two or three or many many more. Most people when they thinking about a purpose like to go really big. That's fine. We definitely should have one or more big purposes in life that we are working towards. But beyond these big, sometimes overarching or life defining kinds of relevance, we also have medium size and even small purposes and we will talk about those a bit more as the episode goes on.

Now some of you may be thinking that this sounds an awful lot like goals. The kinds of goals you may be setting in life or during performance review cycles or something similar. Let's think about that for just a minute. We set goals all the time whether we set them formally and write them down or just have them in our minds. Today was my day to go for a walk. As I got started, I set a goal to improve my pace on this walk I do two or three times a week. So that was my goal. But in my mind that's not what I mean by relevance or meaningful purpose. It's not just a goal. Relevance goes deeper than that. So was my walk relevant? Actually yes but we need to dig just a bit. Why do I walk? I walk to dial it back for a bit, to get in some exercise and to hopefully maintain if not lose some weight. I also walk because it's a chance to get out of my house (important when you work from home) and to either listen to a podcast or some music. Did you find the relevance in that?

For me my walk had relevance because it's purpose was to improve my mental and physical health and to give me an opportunity to learn (podcast) or relax (music) while I was doing it. Now my walk has meaning. That's how it is relevant.

Does that make sense? If it doesn't now, it will before we are done today.

What Kinds of Meaningful Purposes Should We Have

I used some examples of types of relevance so we could define it. But let's dive just a bit more into what kinds of relevance or meaningful purposes we should look for or have in our lives.

First, we need to finding meaning or relevance in our lives. Think about the kind of person you want to be or what you want to leave behind when you move on from this life. Do you want to be remembered as a great spouse, parent, leader, business person, individual of great faith, etc. Those are the kinds of things that help us find relevance and meaning in our life in general.

Medium Sized

Once you have an idea of how you want your life to be relevant, then you can start looking to find meaning and relevance down a level from that. Relevance in situations, relationships and things you do that help you achieve or pursue those larger purposes. These are the kinds of things that are a means to an end vs. being a final destination in and of themselves.

Think about getting an education or training so you can excel in your career and can provide for a family or dating so you can understand better who you would like to spend your life with or working on your own personal development so you can become the kind of person or leader you want to be. Another good examples is something we have talked about extensively over the course of this podcast which is the relevance that can come out of having your own personal or leadership development plan. Having a plan like this can help give relevance to assignments, tasks, learning opportunities, studies, etc. These help us move from to do lists to something more meaningful.

After these first two types of relevance we now get into things that maybe get a bit harder to find relevance in. These are the things that need to be done, whether we want to or enjoy them. Daily routines, small assignments, tasks, etc. Think balancing the check book, approving time cards, shopping for groceries, etc. While the first two types we talked about can get very deep and complicated, these ones are much simpler and I'm not advocating that you spend hours seeking to find deep meaning and purpose in going out for bread and milk. But when it comes to motivation and prioritization it's good to have an idea of the meaning behind some of these things, even if it's simple. Grocery shopping is an easy example. If I don't go grocery shopping, even though I really don't enjoy it (especially with prices the way they are today), then I'm going to end up eating out and that means I'll blow my monthly budget and I won't eat as healthy. So the relevance in grocery shopping gets a little deeper meaning when you think about staying within your budget and health goals.

I'd also suggest that you think about finding relevance in interactions each day, especially when I comes to key relationships. It may not seem like sending a text to check on a friend is a big deal but it might be very relevant to them (who knows what kind of day they are having) and a simple 2 minute action on your part can build and strengthen relationships and that is very relevant.

As a last type of relevance, I want to talk about professions, careers or whatever we do to provide for ourselves and our families. I have had multiple times during my career when I felt like what I was doing didn't make a difference, that it didn't have relevance. During those times, I had to dig pretty deep to understand why I kept trying to push through. Once I remember bringing several copies of family pictures to my office and putting them directly behind my computer monitor so that I could see my family and remind myself that the real reason I worked in general was so that they could have the kind of lives I wanted them to have. That was and still is to a certain extent the core relevance in why I work today.

Mid-Roll

Before I talk more about relevance and share a bit about where I am with relevance in my life today, I want to remind you to check out my show notes. If you are in Apple's Podcast app, they are called episode notes and can be found by scrolling down underneath the podcast cover art. If you are in overcast (my recommendation from last week), swipe the art to the left to see the shownotes. If you are listening on the web on our podcast site, just click on the button that says read show notes. There you will find key takeaways, timestamps you can jump to as well as links to all kinds of resources. On our podcast site, the links don't show as underlined so you just need to mouse over things like the items under resources. Then the links will show for you to click on.

I always put links to things we talk about as well as my main website, social media accounts and ways that you can support the show such as a Patreon membership or dropping a tip through Venmo. Check out those notes when you get a chance.

levance When it's Not Obvious: 14:41

Before I try tying all of this together by sharing some current examples of how I'm trying to find meaning in my life and career, lets cover just a couple of other topics. First, how do we find relevance when it isn't obvious or we just can't figure it out. This is not something I find myself having to do all the time, but when I need it, I really need it. That's most often when I'm getting discouraged and having a hard time pushing forward or when I have finished up a major project and am not sure what to do next or when things just don't seem to be going well. I also need this when I'm running out of steam but can't really dial it back the way that I need to.

My first suggestion here is that you get really good at digging into the why's behind things when you need to. Like in the grocery store example above, you had to dig just a bit to understand why you should grocery shop instead of sitting on the coach.

As another example, let's say you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and just have zero desire to tackle the days challenges (doesn't matter if you imagine going to work or dealing with the craziness of a family or anything else). This happens to all of us at certain times. If that's the thought that pops into your head before you throw back the covers you are at a crossroads.

You can start down that negative pathway and entertain thoughts like, I don't have anything important to do today or no one will miss me if I call in sick or the kids can fend for themselves, or, or, or. From my experience, if you let yourself get too far down that path, it gets hard to turn around. Even if you get yourself out of bad, those thoughts can stick with you and you could just have a "bad" day all day long.

The other choice you have is to recognize what is going on and simply ask yourself what you can do today that will make a difference to someone or in some situation in your life. Sometimes it will be something simple that comes to mind. Other times it could be something super important. And if you draw a blank, then you need to dig a little deeper. Start by thinking about the most important situation or relationship in your life at that moment. Is there something you will do today that will improve them. You might think of the paper your daughter has due that she asked if you would review, or you may remember that one colleague that has been asking for your help on an assignment or you may think of something that you can do that day to dial back (taking a walk because the sun is finally out after a long cold winter). One or more thoughts like that can help you get out of the negative thought cycle and find some relevance, small or big in your day.

I may have already shared this story so apologies if you have heard it, but when I was managing the call center, the 1st and 3rd of the month were just rough days. Call volume shot through the roof and we never had enough staff to manage them. That meant our staff got burned out, customers were frustrated and it was just an overall tough day.

At one point, some of the agents were complaining about the customers that called in every third of the month to check on their deposit. They would question why they had to call in or something similar and I knew that if they kept it up, it was going to just make things worse.

I had to sit down and talk them through why those folks were calling in every month. The folks calling in were the ones that were wanting to make sure that their Social Security deposits were in the bank. Now our staff were mostly young kids that had no idea what that meant so we had to explain to them that most of those calling in only got that one deposit a month. That it wasn't just money in the bank, but that it was another month of living for them. They could buy groceries, pay rent, etc. We had to help our stuff find the real reason that they needed to answer that phone call.

I'd like to say that after that there were zero complaints but we know that’s not the case. But things did get better. Or at least the staff had a better understanding of the real reason we needed them to answer calls on those key days of the month.

Helping Others Find Relevance

That's a good example of something we all as leaders need to know how to do, and that's how to help others find relevance in what they are doing or even in their lives. If I think about one of the best reasons to be a leader and to do all the things leaders should be doing (development plans, 1x1s, team building, family vacations, family councils, date nights with spouses, 1x1 time with kids, etc.) that would be to help others look for and find relevance in their lives. That could be on a daily basis or much much more.

The whole purpose of this podcast is for me to pass on what I have learned about helping others get the most out of life. Step number one in that should be helping each other to find those higher purposes and then work down through all the other levels as well. I have spent basically 15 episodes give or take talking about the tools that I use to help others (and myself) do this. Getting to know ourselves better (motives, personality styles), building trust, building relationships working on our own development plans, learning how to dial it back, overcoming fear. These are all tools that you can use to help others find the meaning in what they are doing.

A Couple of Other Techniques

Now, there are a couple of other things I have learned to do to help me find relevance. This applies more to the lower level relevant things instead of the big ones. First, I've had to learn to trick my brain just a bit. It's kind of the same thing as digging into why it's important to go grocery shopping. I have to do this almost every time that I know I need to dial it back just a bit. I'm not talking about the times where I have a family vacation planned. While that is a form of dialing it back, my brain sees the relevance in those pretty easy. What I'm talking about here are the times when I know I need to take a break for an hour or two or when I need to take a Saturday and defrag. I mentioned right at the beginning that I don't do well with downtime. When I think about my retirement plans, it gives me a headache because I know I'm going to need relevance when I retire.

Right now on these smaller dialing it back scenarios, I have to find ways to trick my brain into thinking there is relevance in doing nothing. Now, you and I both know that sometimes we need to just rest. That sometimes we need a Saturday that's not filled with ball games, family commitments, yard work and house chores. Logically that makes sense - until I get up on that Saturday morning when I know I should not be trying to tackle that massive list. So what do I do? I have to fill my to do list with dialing it back things. I need to have a book to read, a game to play, a show to catch up on or have my hammock ready for a nap. I have to trick my brain into thinking those are the absolute most important things for me to do that day. I can't think of them as ways to relax or dial it back because if I do, my brain will de-prioritize them and I'll just feel guilty for not tackling the things I think are most important.

I don't know if that makes sense but it's something I have to do.

The other thing I have to do, and it's probably another method of tricking my brain, is tie unrelated things into one of my primary motivators and that is the need to solve problems.

When we go camping, I know I'm going to have downtime. That's fine. But one of the ways that I trick my brain into being ok with it is to turn simple things into problems to solve. Packing the trailer becomes a problem to solve. Setting up camp is another problem. Planning which rides on which days in another problem. I've found that if I can identify the right amount of these types of problems, I can overcome this need for relevance and dial it back at the same time.

I think this is the same reason that when we have family bbqs, I'm the one standing at the grill. Now that I think about it, the same thing went for company picnics, church socials and anything similar. I go crazy if I'm just there to eat and socialize. But if I can be the one cooking and making sure everyone gets enough to eat, that's a problem that I can actively solve. On a side note, that also takes the pressure off of me having to mingle and do small talk with everyone. The introvert side of me gets energy from standing over the grill alone and I get just enough people interaction to not come across as aloof or anything like that.

What Happens When We Find It: 23:32

So why do we need relevance. I don't know if you have picked up on it, but relevance really becomes the driving force behind us being motivated to do or become. My son is this way for school and most other things. If he doesn't seen the meaning behind something then he will either skip out on it entirely or give it just the minimal amount of effort. High school classes have been like this for him. Most of his classes he just doesn't understand why he has to take them so it was a struggle to get him out the door. But in some of his classes he either built a relationship with the teacher, or the topic was interesting or he could see how it was a means to an end. So in those the relevance was meaningful relationships, feeding his curiosity or helped him move down a path. I've also mentioned how much he plays soccer. He is the goalie so he is not the one running miles every single game. His nemesis in training is cardio, specifically running. He hates it and since he plays the one position that doesn't have to run a lot in the games, he has a hard time understanding why it's relevant. Make sense?

The other thing that relevance does is help us to align our lives around our larger purposes. This is the point of a personal or leadership development plan but the best plans won't do any good if we can't find the meaning behind each piece of the plan. When we start by figuring out why we want our lives to matter and then work our way down to why I need to get out of bed today and align those as much as possible, life can really take on new meaning.

les - Rolling It All Together: 25:07

I want to wrap up today's episode with just a few examples from where I'm at in life right now, both with the podcast and my overall business as well as my personal life. If you have heard enough stories or personal examples for today, feel free to jump to the end, but it's always easier for me to double check to see if I'm making sense by tying it to my own personal experience.

Just some quick reminders - I was laid off in September of last year and instead of going for another corporate job, I decided to ramp my business back up. That's been a big change because I'm really in charge of my own time and I don’t have a boss (don't tell my wife I said that) telling me what to do, when to do it and setting my direction and goals.

While there are plenty of problems I could be solving right now (I'll get to a few of them in a minute), I also decided that I needed to take some of this team to work on things outside of work and career. My own personal study, which is relevant because it is helping me become more of the person I want to be, has consumed a much larger portion of my time. That's not always easy because I think of what I could be getting done with the business during that same time or even that I could sign off earlier in the day (it's 7:28pm as I'm writing this episode). But everytime I think about that, I have to go back to why my personal daily study is relevant and remind myself that it will have a greater impact on the kind of person I become than anything I could do professionally during that same time.

I also have my grandkids living with me right now. I've got the dual role of grandpa and dad because their dad is not here with them. I won't go too deep into this as I'm working on a blog post about it. But I have had to work through why me being an active part of their life is so relevant. Finding that relevance has helped me set aside work at times so that we can just play. Or to try and help more with some of the household stuff because my wife is crazy busy with those three little ones. All of that takes time away from building my business, but is way more relevant. But it didn't come easy and after a year, I think I have a better balance on it. It took deliberate effort.

The other thing I have had to work on from a personal standpoint is around problem solving. I love to solve problems but what I had to work through in my mind was to realize that me helping others learn how to solve problems was way more relevant and meaningful than me just solving the problem. Simple example: my son is getting ready to go to college and his shower was draining very slow. I went in and starting pulling the drain plug out and then digging in to see what was making it drain slow. When he saw what I was doing he asked if he could finish it up. That reminded me that I was solving the problem instead of helping him learn how to do it. That resulted in me talking him through how to take a part a sink drain and then he finished cleaning out the shower drain and put it back together. Great learning experience for him and he can do it in his own apartment now.

But that's not easy for me. I liked being known as the problem solver but that’s just not relevant. It doesn't really matter if I know how to clean a drain when he is off to school. But it is relevant if I have taught him how to do it.

Let me share just one business example with you as well. While I would love to say that this podcast has gone viral in the last few months, it hasn't. There are a lot of days when I look at how much time I have spent putting an episode together and then look at the downloads and wonder if it was really worth it. The problem is that if I go down that path, I'm actually solving the wrong equation.

What I have started doing is looking at everything I'm putting into these episodes and finding the relevance that goes beyond downloads or memberships. Here are a few of the things I have found. This has helped me get my leadership toolkit documented. Like a lot of you, I have tons of tools and techniques I can use in various leadership situations but I never had them documented. This is helping me do that.

Another benefit is all the stories that I'm remembering. I've shared a lot of them in episodes but that is only a small portion. I have started documenting those stories as well. For me that has been an amazing creative process and I hope to do something super special with them (more on that in the future).

I've also been learning as I put together the show. Just learning how podcasting works was huge, but I've also been learning about marketing, improving my writing and story telling skills. There really hasn't been a day that has gone by where I haven't learned something new. I can't say that for all of my professional experiences.

There have also been lots of problems to solve. Some are tangible problems and others are more theoretical or creative. That means I haven't been just sitting around idle.

And then maybe the last piece of relevance is that I feel like my professional and personal lives are more aligned to make a difference in the world and with others. If I hadn't done this, I probably would have taken the first decent corporate leadership job I found. That would have been fine and I could have worked with a team and used all the things we are talking about. But I think about it this way.

If I can make this work in the long term, then I'll have the ability to influence more indivdiuals than I would have in a corporate position. Not only that but I'll be able to focus on my personal relevance of being a better husband, father and grandfather. And, maybe not quite as important but still big, I'll be able to do the kinds of fun things I want to do. Work while I'm camping, do the tech podcast I've just started, travel with my family a bit more. All of those things give meaning to what I'm trying to do, even if it's going to take a long time to get there.

Wrap Up: 30:50

I hope this was useful for you. I've been thinking about relevance as a topic for a few weeks now and this just seemed like the right time to dive into it. For takeaways, I would encourage you to really dive deep on the highest level of meaning or relevance in your life. What really gives your life meaning. Then work your way down. Get good at finding relevance in even the routine day to day things. While that may not change the nature of the thing, I still hate grocery shopping would rather eat out every meal, it will help change your perspective and give you additional motivation to continue moving forward and getting more out of life.

Post Roll

Don't forget to check out all of the great resources in the show notes. There is a link there to provide feedback on the show. I'd love to know what you think, hear your suggestions for future topics or even get questions that I could try and answer on a future episode.

Until next episode, look for the relevance in what you are doing, especially if you can see how you make a difference in the life of someone else by lifting them.