ELITE : SIX Think Tank meetings are discussed over ZOOM with our members every Friday at 9:30am.
Facilitated by DANNY : DE HEK meetings are recorded for our Podcast, we’ve been doing this since COVID-19 if you’re interested in joining in with us check out our Website.
Transcribed by Otter
Danny de Hek 0:06
We have a good crew with us today and thank you for coming along, we have a think tank topic called “Creating Lasting Business Habits”. And I think we’d all agree that it’s pretty easy to create a habit, but having one that sticks with you and becomes a business habit is probably one of the harder ones to adopt.
So we’re gonna break that meeting into four parts, we’re going to talk about people’s experiences of trying to create lasting habits, problems they face. And then we’re going to discuss some solutions. And hopefully at the end of the meeting, which will be in about 30 minutes, some takeaways, and then we’ll come up with next week’s topic. However, I’d just like to do a quick introduction of who’s in the room so our listeners can figure that out. And I’m going to start the top left of my screen, which I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve got Laughlin in this box. Yes. Who are you Laughlin?
Lachlan McNeill 1:03
I’m Laughlin surprisingly enough. I’m a recruiter, recruitment and careers. And there’s also quite a few other things as well. But I specialise in technical careers, which is engineers, architects, project managers and construction.
Danny de Hek 1:18
That sounds exciting. And Helen, who’s right next to me
Helen Oakes 1:21
I’m, I’m Helen I’m a photographer, and I mainly specialise in sports photography. Also do portraits and landscapes and I sell my art prints.
Danny de Hek 1:31
There you go and Paul
Paul Starling 1:35
I run Canterbury Computers out of Rangiora. We look at the home users and small businesses also a Microsoft Partner.
Danny de Hek 1:46
Microsoft, my favourite friends. Excellent. Shaun, why don’t you live and you’re not being? breakfast? Shawn?
Shaun Jin 1:56
Me? Oh, yeah. Oh, Sean from Quality Clean. Once stop service, property services improve. And we focused on pest controls. And then we also do healthy home checks recently.
Danny de Hek 2:16
I try to show you during, yeah, what do they call healthy home checks? Yeah, that’s pretty cool. We had somebody come and do as I say, David Clarkson.
David Clarkson 2:24
Hi I am David Clarkson? From dynamic communication. We’re in the communication business, we build more confident, more competent, more credible communicators. And so what we do is we teach people how to speak in public do business presentations, as well as thanks to my last career as a chartered accountant. We also do some training around business skills.
Danny de Hek 2:52
Brilliant! Chris.
Chris Cameron 2:54
Chris Cameron, founder and instructor, Shizoku Martial Arts Karate Club New Zealand’s Martial Arts School of the Year for 2021. And we help people live their best life really and, and develop and learn how to protect themselves and develop lifelong life skills.
Danny de Hek 3:21
Cool. How many members have you got at the moment? I’ll have to ask that right now in between introductions.
Chris Cameron 3:28
Yeah, it’s continuing to go up regularly. Yeah, so we’re well above 160. Now.
Danny de Hek 3:34
Brilliant. More than you started with an COVID was awesome. So well done. Dean, have you got your mic on?
Dean Wilson 3:43
Yeah, yep. You can hear me?
David Clarkson 3:45
Yep
Danny de Hek 3:46
Nop
Dean Wilson 3:47
Okay. Yes. Dean Wilson, why have two companies one Skilled Electrical, which is an electrical contracting company, which really wants to take the frustration out of engaging a Sparky or a tradesman for business owners in the general public a lot. And we also hear that renewable energy, primarily a solar company which specialises in commercial solar installations design.
Danny de Hek 4:20
Love the name of the company want is called?
Dean Wilson 4:23
Endless Energy. Yeah, yeah, really. It’s not, it’s not not quite Endless. It’s gonna burn out in a few billion years, but close enough.
Danny de Hek 4:34
It’s not your slogan underneath the logo. Okay, well done. So I’m Danny de Hek . I facilitate this meeting. I am I call myself a serial entrepreneur. I also have a business networking company called ELITE : SIX business networking. And we have two meetings each week, one face to face and one over zoom. And the purpose of this meeting is really to find a topic Break it down. And see we can come away with some insights that help us be better business people. Sorry, our first real thing is creating lasting habits. And we talk about people’s experiences and doing so. And I’m just wondering, has anyone got an experience about their habit idea that they’d like to share? First off?
Chris Cameron 5:28
We tell everyone, all the kids that it takes at least two weeks to develop a habit. You have to you have to commit to same thing, at the same time, every day for two weeks solid to be able to become any chance of becoming a long term habit. If you’re doing a short amount of time, it’s just not going to happen.
David Clarkson 5:55
Yeah, I know people say it’s 6-14 days, I’ve heard people say it’s more like about 30 days.
Chris Cameron 6:08
You’re looking at four to six weeks of regular. That’s why a lot of the boot camps and the gym, things are all tailored around that six to eight week, run of thing because it takes it takes like a proper set four to six weeks to really lock in that this has narrowed a life part of your life and you change your life around. But it takes two weeks for your mental to go, Oh, this is something I can actually do. And start to shift everything around to make sure that you always get it. That’s what we’re sending you.
Danny de Hek 6:42
And am I thinking it takes three days to break a habit? Have you heard that before,
Lachlan McNeill 6:50
But only three seconds to break a leg.
Danny de Hek 6:55
I’m just thinking about what we’ve been doing at the moment, we’ve been doing a lot of exercise. And when I was doing 15 kilometres a week, and I’ve pulled a muscle in my leg. And instantly my habit has an excuse to stop. And I’m feeling lethargic, but I’m trying to go biking and it’s just not the same. But if we look at our habits, that we have in Business sometime there are thinks that brake our habits, anyone had experiences that sort of thing happening?
David Clarkson 7:24
Yeah, for me one of the things as I can remember one of the habits that I got into for a while was at the end of every day I I sit down and write a list of the things I wanted to do next day. And and it was there was a bit was a great habit to get into. And but what happened was that I came under a bit of pressure at work, I was working some long hours. And so by the end of the day, I just felt tired. And I just claimed that I’ll do it in the morning, but of course you don’t know.
Helen Oakes 8:07
So I guess a good thing would be maybe even using a reminder on your phone to get yourself to do that habit as well. I get a reminder, I’m learning a bit of Japanese and I get a reminder on my phone to tell me to do my lesson. And even then I see it and I get too busy and I’m like oh I was meant to do my lesson and I forgot so yeah, it’s not failsafe
Chris Cameron 8:36
I always am it usually calendars what I tend to do a lot is if I want something put it in my calendar and so therefore that slots gone and can be used for anything else and online house house force you are found to make sure that you put that time and you work your day around it because it’s in your calendar it’s the you know it 930 you are doing this thing every day and it’s not going to give you something else put there because it’s a new calendar and it runs your life.
Danny de Hek 9:11
Using mine a lot more likely as well. My calendars literally yesterday I had only two things in it but I knew that I blocked out everything else and I’ve got it set up pretty good at the moment that when people book on me online that automatically takes me out of the you know, takes him in and out so no one else can double book does get the job done.
Dean Wilson 9:35
There is a good book. There’s a good book called on Atomic Habits. Yeah, yeah, there’s a good Youtube thing as well to deal with a guy.
Helen Oakes 9:47
Yeah, it’s um it’s really well worth a listen to.
Dean Wilson 9:53
I I see habits now I used to look at gold as my while it did to me now Gold’s sort of just a guide, but it’s actually your habits daily that determine your success. Really, it’s all based around what, what you habitually do day in, day out. that defines, that’s what I think long term success is built on. It’s just purely that whether it’s blocking out time to focus on something really important each day, or whether it’s getting up early and meditating or doing it or exercising that that, I think, is crucial.
Helen Oakes 10:36
Because a habit becomes like a discipline, doesn’t it? If you’re not disciplined, you’re not going to do it. So you’ve got to be disciplined to do that habit.
Danny de Hek 10:46
Often, when we do talk about habits, we actually talk about our failure, about keeping those habits. But obviously, we’re self employed. And we must have some good habits that we do in business or in life that help us maintain, because you have to be you have to have a routine, you kind of have to have a template for your day when you work for yourself. So what about some of the good habits that you guys actually have? That you’re proud of?
Dean Wilson 11:18
Even turning up at work on time, you know, we give rise to any I think we underestimate the number of good habits we already have in place.
Helen Oakes 11:29
Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 11:30
I mean, I certainly my experience is that there’s a lot of people saying, This is what works for me, but you sometimes you got to work out what works for you. And one of my best books I’ve read was a guy who was a, who was a pastor, or revenue or something in the UK, and he was the most disorganised person ever. And he said, why would you? If you’re looking for advice on on organisation, then the chances are you having problems with it? Why would you go to someone who’s naturally organised because you do see stuff on Instagram, whose people just looks like a show home for IKEA. And that’s a difference. So you could think of what works for you. But But certainly, and things for me, I one thing I’m proud of is I do write myself list at night before I start in the morning, and certainly helps my staff. And I have a very small list now. And I come to it when I sit at my desk that’s sitting in front of me that works works for me really well. Writing the night before.
Danny de Hek 12:28
We’ve still got a list of habits, not habits, we’ve got a whiteboard on the table, it’s a bit of glasses asleep. Yeah. And it’s had a glass, we use a pen and we write things, but I haven’t updated it for a week. I bring it out on Monday, like right, let’s get stuck into it. But you know, getting through that list, we have actually, that list has really helped us a lot because we actually have redone the list and we are moving through things. And we’ve actually got a lot done. Because I think sometimes you feel like you’re just getting nowhere when you’re working on big tasks.
Lachlan McNeill 12:59
I certainly do feel intuitive experiences, that quite often when you first start a habit is you do fall off the waggon relatively soon in the process. But just saying just because I’ve just fallen off that that habit waggon I can’t get back on it. And I certainly found that just you just take it as part of the process. Like you’re you’re doing it, you’re just fit fitness thing. Just because you stopped once doesn’t mean you’re no longer or rather.
Helen Oakes 13:27
I think if you can pair a habit with some type of reward system, then you’re more likely to keep the habit like for example, our running, although it’s not business running. The reason we’re loving the running so much is because we’re meeting a social group every time we go running. And then we have a coffee with them. And that’s what keeps us motivated.
Lachlan McNeill 13:49
Yeah.
Danny de Hek 13:51
The old example of a staircase, when you’re walking up a staircase and you trip on a stair, you don’t go all the way to the bottom and start walking up that staircase again. And I think in our mind being frictionless or whatever we are sometimes that’s what we do. We think of broken that now.
David Clarkson 14:10
Just going back to what Lachlan said, about sometimes you don’t feel the first time, you know a good example of that was I haven’t smoked now for I don’t know 38 years. But it took me three really concentrated if it’s to actually get to that point. I finally did get up and start another Habit ie the smoke breather.
Helen Oakes 14:41
Did you replace that smoking habit with something else then?
David Clarkson 14:45
No sugar at the same time and so mean able eat little bit more and my didn’t weight gain.
Helen Oakes 14:53
Yeah, good.
Danny de Hek 14:55
Yeah. Has anyone broken a bad habit that they might want to share? I mean, it’s a brilliant One example smoking. What I’m thinking was some bad habits. I saw this guy sitting in this cage and a packet of biscuits for breakfast yesterday. And I thought, I bet that’s a habit.
David Clarkson 15:17
I used to belong to use premade goals for themselves. And this particular guy loves potato chips. And he wishes he would have at least a packet of potato chips. He points to go on the dry and is accountable call for the week was on this whole week, I’m not going to eat any potato chips until we go. Oh, there’s
Danny de Hek 15:50
Another good thing though, because obviously, we have gone vegan. And then I used to eat chocolate and I could eat a whole packet of chocolate or whole cake or chocolate. And I can’t do that anymore. So when I go to the supermarket now I’m hunting around the supermarket trying to find some other habits to sit there and watch TV at night. Potato chips. Yeah, and I love potato chips.
Helen Oakes 16:12
Now. Yeah, you’re your body will not like potato chips. In the future.
Lachlan McNeill 16:17
I think potato chips are a bit like Coca Cola. Coca Cola is a diuretic. So by drinking it, that makes you pee more. So you want to drink more. And you’d still drink the water you drink coke in itself perpetuates potato chips. It’s really tight what take one 20 cent potato turning into about $5 by slicing it when load a bunch of salt on it. So you’re only really eating quite a small amount but you feel as though a lot but you never fill up so keep on eating.
Paul Starling 16:44
And the bags of not smaller over the years discussing
Lachlan McNeill 16:47
You’re buying air.
Danny de Hek 16:50
So what do I need to sit down and eat a bag of chips while watching TV?
Paul Starling 16:54
You don’t?
Chris Cameron 16:56
Because there’s a nice onion dip that they’re just sitting there on the coffee table.
Danny de Hek 17:06
Talking about creating lasting habit. Is it good for me just to not have a rule where I don’t buy any chips.
Lachlan McNeill 17:13
Yeah, In terms of food it work to me, generally speaking is hearing logical arguments, as a lot of people sort of very motivational, you know, to say yes, it’s great. You’ve made a goal. Yeah, yeah. It’s just probably not me. I’d like to hear in terms of my experiences, things that worked for me, as someone said, for example, losing weight, they said people have food on display at home, way X amount more by on average, people who face when it’s at a restaurant as the buffet. If they face the buffet, they on average at about 8% more. Yeah. And all these things add up. So for example, at home, I just had food, or he didn’t buy it, which is quite a bit easier. And so that.
Helen Oakes 18:00
Only way to start eating things like that is to not buy it.
Lachlan McNeill 18:05
Out of sight, because what happens, you know, it’s like, it’s reasonably put chocolate bars by the tail. You know?
Helen Oakes 18:10
Yeah, yeah. But even out of sight doesn’t wait for any he’ll find them
Lachlan McNeill 18:19
If they are down in the shop, you steal his shoes.
Helen Oakes 18:23
Yeah.
Danny de Hek 18:26
That is an interesting one. Because I mean, you know, even though I have got a habit of eating chips at the moment, I mean, I did manage to stop drinking for 12 months. So you know, and that was, it took a while I’ve done it twice. And also going Vegan has been a real big change of habits. Yeah, but I haven’t wavered on that. I think the only thing I’ve ever done, I think we ate something. I think we drink wine. And then we get ripped off the fact that they put
Helen Oakes 18:52
Traces of EEG, EEG. Yeah.
Paul Starling 18:56
Yeah, bining.
Helen Oakes 18:58
Yeah, we haven’t gone to the thing of not drinking that wine. That’s just yeah
Paul Starling 19:04
That’s silly!
Danny de Hek 19:07
Yeah. All right. So what some people so we’ve done a few experiences here. So what’s the problem? What problems we’ve probably discussed a few of them, but we haven’t put them in the boxes. What problems have we got? When creating lasting habits?
David Clarkson 19:21
Running out of time.
Helen Oakes 19:23
Finding time to do them? Yeah.
Chris Cameron 19:27
I think the big one, the big one for businesses as one of the biggest problems as businesses die, it’s been fine to spend the time on the business and marketing the business. They too busy doing business.
Danny de Hek 19:43
Yeah. Yeah, we’re doing a lot of content creation at the moment. And now the other 80% of that is marketing that content. Otherwise the whole lots waste of time, isn’t it?
Helen Oakes 19:55
What do you say Chris businesses. Don’t spend the time
Chris Cameron 20:00
Marketing, and on there business and doing
Dean Wilson 20:06
So that’s a habit, isn’t it? It’s a habit to work on your business or block out that time if you don’t block out time. You’re screwed, basically. Yeah, yeah.
Danny de Hek 20:16
Have you heard the example of the two jars and one’s full of golf balls and the other one’s half full of sand. And then you try and put the golf balls into the half full of sand jar, and they don’t fit. And you think there’s no way I can do that. But you take all the golf balls out, and you put them all back into the jar they came from. And then you get the the half jar full of sand and you tip it around the golf balls, and it all fits. And then I’ve seen this done on a YouTube video and the guy gets a beer and tips a beer into it as well. Just when you thought was full to the brim. Yeah, so it’s about getting your priorities right. And the golf balls are the things that we seem to avoid doing sometimes. Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 21:01
I quite like that one. Actually. No stones and sand. Yeah. And I like to beer because there’s always time for a bit more room for a beer. But until you’re not being held accountable, that’s a pretty good one as well. But also tried to bog down and soul developed systems yourself, honestly, it’s one of your problems is you think, Okay, this is gonna be easy. I can develop the system, and you try and do it. And, you know, just looking at what works for other people can, you know, can be useful, but I tend to try and solve yourself.
Helen Oakes 21:32
Yeah.
David Clarkson 21:34
Yeah, a lot of fun. We tend to blow it all spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel make them
Lachlan McNeill 21:40
Absolutely
Danny de Hek 21:42
Is it interruptions. Shifting priorities. And okay, we can come back to some other problems we have, maybe we should be focusing on some solutions.
Lachlan McNeill 21:55
Well, actually turns out problem can I go back to a little bit is that sometimes they they they sort of had excite, they resigned to the fact that they’re no good at something. I think I’m just no good at that. You know, so that I think that’s a problem.
Danny de Hek 22:13
Excuses
Helen Oakes 22:14
Would you say giving up too easy?
Lachlan McNeill 22:18
Sorry?
Helen Oakes 22:20
Would you say giving up too easy, or
Lachlan McNeill 22:22
Just resigning? So some people say, Oh, look, forget it. I’m just not the person. I’m just no good with finances. I’m just no good with that. And I’m just no good with this. And it’s almost a you know, that it’s impossible for me, but sometimes that you know, it’s as easy when you know how some things are really not that difficult. But people say I’m just no good at this. You know?
David Clarkson 22:44
Yeah, it’s defeating yourself before you squat. Absolutely. And I think that’s,
Chris Cameron 22:49
Yeah, well, it’s a fear of failure. Sorry. People don’t like to fail. So therefore, it’s easy. It’s not?
Helen Oakes 22:56
Yeah, yes. Don’t do it. Yeah.
Dean Wilson 23:03
Another problem. Sorry, Danny, I just another problem I see with habits is people over complicate them sometimes. So an example might be if you if you’re going to, you know, decide you’re going to get fit, the shagging around getting the right personal trainer in the gym, and the shoes, whereas you just got to turn up. And then you can figure that other stuff out. You know, the most important thing is to turn up. And the other thing is, is don’t be too hard on yourselves about how much you do have it. So even if you turned up and every day and did five minutes on the treadmill, you’re building that habit. So that’s another good, good way to go about it. It’s about that repetition and consistency is the key. It’s not so much, you know, the the output or whatever initially.
Helen Oakes 23:55
I mean, isn’t that Dean thats from the Atomic Habit book, isn’t it when he goes on about people that don’t want to go to the world, they can’t get to the gym, they can’t form that habit, so doesn’t need to tell them to. I mean, he tells them to actually wear the gym clothes to bed or something one time. And then this is leave your shoes in the car and get get dressed for the gym before you go to work. And then you have to go to the gym, and all of that.
Dean Wilson 24:21
Yeah, that’s quite a good book, because I think he’s got four sections, but one one of them is creating your environment. So it’s conducive with that habit you’re wanting to do well, there’s there’s one guy wanted a habit of getting up early. And he had a Twitter post set up to automatically post 605 in the morning, every morning. And it was a Twitter to go in all contexts to say I’m not out yet because I’m a lazy fat lazy bastard or something like that.
Yeah.
Chris Cameron 24:56
Is that the book by James clear?
Lachlan McNeill 24:58
Yep. Yeah
Danny de Hek 24:59
We got it. Hickok
Helen Oakes 25:00
Atomic Habits. I can’t remember who, who write it.
Chris Cameron 25:08
Let me use my credit. On Audible
Helen Oakes 25:10
Yeah, it is. Yeah, James Clear. I’ll put that in.
Lachlan McNeill 25:15
I’ll email it to you.
Chris Cameron 25:17
That’s alright I found it, I’m buying it NOW.
Lachlan McNeill 25:20
Yeah.
Helen Oakes 25:22
Yeah,
Danny de Hek 25:22
Good stuff. I love those books. Yeah, have we got them.
Helen Oakes 25:26
Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 25:28
Good solutions
Danny de Hek 25:32
Yeah. All right, guys. I like this is quite good. So we’ve got a couple of solutions. We can read a book before we start habits.
Lachlan McNeill 25:38
I certainly think yes, finding out the general shape of the thing at the beginning is important. You know, you look at lots of books. Some people say to me, either books amazing, but that different people to me. And don’t feel you have to fit with everyone else’s system.
Rob Woolley 25:55
I think everybody’s different to you Laughlin.
Paul Starling 26:01
They’re all saying
Lachlan McNeill 26:02
Exactly right
Danny de Hek 26:03
Two things, you need more volume in your mic and when you speak, make sure it’s something intelligent.
Rob Woolley 26:10
Pardon?
Danny de Hek 26:13
Look at you you big DJ Mic.
Rob Woolley 26:17
There are two schools of thought around habits. You’re either going to go away from a bad habit or toward a new good habit.
Danny de Hek 26:29
That’s it
Lachlan McNeill 26:31
Rob, what’s that bar in front of you here to pass the microphone that sort of covers you face, yeah. It’s like a really
Danny de Hek 26:44
Rob turned up late last week and we all picked on him last week. We love you, Rob.
Lachlan McNeill 26:48
There it is that’s better.
Rob Woolley 26:51
I’m the one who was eating the biscuits too, by the way.
Danny de Hek 26:56
He told me that story. I’m coming out of our face to face meeting. And I look in the window and there’s Rob on his phone with a packet of biscuits and one hand
Rob Woolley 27:06
chomping down, but he did. What was I doing with the other hand, Danny,
Danny de Hek 27:10
you’re on the phone, I hope.
Lachlan McNeill 27:11
More biscuits.
Danny de Hek 27:13
What? What type of biscuits were they? There were healthy ones because they had wheat in them.
Rob Woolley 27:17
It’s it’s right. They had vitamins chocolate on one side. And wheat and roughage on the other.
Danny de Hek 27:26
Good stuff, guys. All right, solution. So what’s some solution? What’s the stuff? I’ve, I think a good solution with cranioplasty inhibitors. When you find that habit, you tell everybody that you’re doing it as though when I first gave up drinking for the first time, I told everyone that I’ve stopped drinking for 12 months. And they go Why is that? and all that sort of stuff? And yeah, and it did make it a lot easier.
Paul Starling 27:47
Yeah. Gives you accountability. Yeah,
Helen Oakes 27:51
Yep, that’s right. Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 27:53
I totally I think useful is Be kind to yourself. So so if you do fall off, as I say this, sometimes people say I tried this, and it didn’t work. Yeah. What they mean is, you know, it’s like going to the gym or something you save in a gym, and three times a week, you forget on Friday, just get back on the horse, don’t say I’ve stopped I’ve failed. Just get on in don’t think about it too much.
Danny de Hek 28:18
I met a lady and I hadn’t seen her for a while and she’d lost 35 kgs. And she was a very tall lady as well. And I said, What did you do? And she said, I just walked around the block.
Lachlan McNeill 28:29
Well,
Danny de Hek 28:31
That’s what she did. And so I mean, she didn’t need any shoes need a pair of shoes. And she said, I walked around one once around the block and twice around the block. And then I got up to walk around the block three times. And you did it every day. Wow. And it that was enough for 35 kgs was amazing.
Lachlan McNeill 28:47
I know for mountain biking when I go along I’ve pretty much always telling Charlie. And you know, yeah, I mean, yeah, you know, Shane Cramp. He said to me that remember, fitness is a journey. I thought, pretty good attitude. Think two years out. You know, and it’s an enjoyable journey.
Danny de Hek 29:04
With that purpose as well. I’ve always had high cholesterol for when we’re talking about fitness. I’ve always had a purpose of doing everything, ways to get my police drove down. You know, so that’s Give me another reason as well. So maybe if you don’t have a real purpose for doing whatever habit you’re trying to change,
Helen Oakes 29:23
That’s why I’m doing fitness. Yeah, same thing.
Danny de Hek 29:27
If you bring this back to business habits, Dean
Dean Wilson 29:32
Sorry, just on that the error is a really compounding effect with habits because if you You know, I’ve I’ve been working out for the last year but it’s given me a lot of confidence to be able to stick to things you know what I mean? So when I embark on another habit, I’ve got that momentum, but I also get a like a verse I go and see a personal business coach once a month now. And he lost 30kg but he, he said to me that he lost 211 grammes per week, over three years to lose that. And, and all he did was a lot of little things and just slowly, you know, weaselled out, you know, sugar in his coffee and bit by bit. And he got there.
Lachlan McNeill 30:21
Yeah.
Helen Oakes 30:22
Just chipping away at it, I guess.
Lachlan McNeill 30:24
It’s like saving money. Yeah, you could put 80 bucks a week or something, it consistently without even knowing about it, you know, or 100 bucks a week. And suddenly, you put it away and you forget about it. And then then five years later, you’ve got a bit of a tidy sum.
Dean Wilson 30:40
Yeah, and we that’s, that’s where we fall down. Because we we try and go shut and bust and you know, and then we let ourselves down and then stop. So it’s just this little incremental tweaks and consistencies where what actually gets the results, assignments?
Chris Cameron 30:57
Yeah. And then it’s all those little things, as they stack on top of each other, like, we were just talking about courage this week with the kids and things and how things can be super scary sometimes. But actually, if you break it right down to small components, or little bits aren’t that scary. And if you can do them all the little bits, they actually add up to a big thing. So it’s looking at, right, that’s exactly what you’re saying, Dean is that a lot of the time, we look at this big thing, gosh, I’ve got to lose, I’m gonna lose 20 kgs are I’ve got a, I’ve got to make $10,000 in the next two months. But actually, if you break it down to make a while, I need to lose a kilogramme. The next two weeks, what can What do you do to get that? Well, it’s a simple change. And you just build that and that all compounds and compounds and compounds. And then suddenly, six months later, you look back and go, Oh, Jesus, I’ve actually achieved that without actually having to stand there and take on this massive mammoth task.
Lachlan McNeill 32:06
One of the challenges with social media is that things that are exciting, go viral. So you see a lot more of that sort of exciting stuff, someone who lost, you know, 93% of the body weight and just end up being a finger sitting on a table or something. But, but, but that makes that makes social media, but the fact is, all these habits are kind of boring, you know, boring in a good way. I mean, they’re not exciting. If Chris say to me, hey, I’ve lost, you know, 200 grammes this week, I’d say, you know, would be shit. But actually, it’s the fact is, if it’s every week, though, that’s pretty exciting. But it may not make the headlines.
Danny de Hek 32:44
That’s a really good point. Now, this might sound silly, but last year, I weighed 85 kgs. And then I went to Bangladesh and whatever India and the other place, and I come back, and I was 83. And I was only two kgs. So my, my goal was actually to maintain 82 kgs, and not the cap. And I have today I weighed myself once every morning, I was at 1.8. And I’ve only got blood at once, in the last six months. However, my point is that some of their habits, maintaining habits is also a habit. And that’s commendable as well. Because you know, and I said earlier, a lot of us have already got good habits that we’re using in our business right in our life, because we probably wouldn’t exist if we didn’t have them
Helen Oakes 33:30
around, we go to the gym, and neighbour. He’s a gym instructor, a personal trainer, and we go every Tuesday. And he said to us that he has worked out for 25 years. And I’m like, Whoa, because I’ve been to that. I mean, I’m sure we’ve all been to the German then we’ve done it for a few years, and we’ve lived and then we’ve maybe gone back, but he’s done it constantly for 25 years. I mean, it’s incredible.
Danny de Hek 33:58
Yeah, I remember Mike, Kevin, Jim has to lead by example. And I think if you see other business people doing the example. I mean, I know you’d quite well, Dean, and I know you when you say you do. But if you said something and you didn’t do it, you’d lose credibility pretty quick. But I have a lot more respect for Dean because I know Dean and he says he does. And it’s I think that’s a real commitment. Isn’t it real effort?
Dean Wilson 34:24
Yeah, I mean, I don’t always I mean, it’s not without struggle. You know what I mean? Yeah, you still gotta you gotta persevere. And I do fall live that often. But I get back up I guess. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 34:41
Cuz you got the stamina tanks as well. And I think that’s another thing. But just thinking of that trip that you did with your son and you hike for a living, living hours because I borrowed my GPS I can see this mammoth trick but you also gave inspired him to keep going. And I think that true leadership people will do that. All right solutions. Anyone else got any solutions? Can we use technology in any way? Yeah, I have what is it keeps notifying me of whether somebody liked something that doesn’t really matter in my life. And then I get the same notification telling me to get up and do some exercise. I get hammered by notifications that some of that technology doesn’t work for me.
Lachlan McNeill 35:23
I’m in recruitment. And of course, I’m often looking on LinkedIn and stuff like that. But it’s very easy to get down a rabbit hole, because you’re looking at people in the Dean sunet. What are they doing? Or what’s Danny up to? And next thing you down a rabbit hole, and then give them quite a quite even on Facebook, I’m doing the same thing. But I need to use LinkedIn for work. But I put a limited thing called focused, different spell, and eliminates my time on Facebook. And it comes up with lit and it’s quite cool. And after a while you cannot you got to go through this type of 403 letter thing to get back into it if you need to. Ah, that’s a good one. Yeah. Because I’m sorry.
Helen Oakes 36:02
I don’t know if I found it. But Android. on my phone, it says how long? I’ve had screen time. Yep. And that’s a really good one.
Lachlan McNeill 36:10
Yeah, I’ve got stay focused on my Android. And that’s pretty Yeah. Um, sometimes. I mean, like, I don’t do games on my phone, per se, but there’s one Scrabble game called Words with Friends. And so I actually uninstaller on Mondays. And I’m, like, a two year old, or like an eight year old. But you know, because it’s just the notifications come up. And I’ll just, I’ll just the worst word ever. Yeah, I’ll just have one biscuit. I’ll just play one little game. I’ll just look at that website. Just as is.
Helen Oakes 36:46
Yeah, Facebook is the worst. As soon as you get on Facebook, it just leads to everything else. It’s
Lachlan McNeill 36:54
in some box somewhere. And it says no right now, and it sounds really corny is sometimes when you find yourself going a rabbit hole saying no. What’s the right thing to do? And what do now you know, yeah, they just stopping yourself from the tracks. No, she physically sometimes say that to myself.
Helen Oakes 37:13
Yeah, no,
Lachlan McNeill 37:14
no, just stop the process. Don’t know. It’s don’t just just carry on or just look around the corner. Just do that. Like, no, stop was the right thing to do. What do we do now? And honestly, it sounds corny. No, I just say no. Right now. No. Right now. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 37:30
It’s visualising. verbalising.
Helen Oakes 37:33
Yeah, it’s good.
Danny de Hek 37:35
It’s good. All right, guys. Um, what about some takeaways from today? Where was 1025? I got about five minutes before we think definitely be.
Helen Oakes 37:44
Be account be held accountable. being held accountable? is a good one.
Danny de Hek 37:49
Yeah, I remember going to our meetings face to face and I said, Do everyone have I do this. But if I don’t do this, by next week, I’m gonna bite everyone here a cup of coffee. And that? No, it was just made sure I did it nicely. Anyone else got any habits that they want to make sure they get done by next week? You know, that sort of stuff really helped.
David Clarkson 38:11
To take away from everything that’s gone on today is that our skill sets and businesses in life are a bit like muscles. If we don’t continually get the exercise, then we lose the skills. And so that’s why our habits are so important.
Helen Oakes 38:34
Doing habits will you’ll loosen
David Clarkson 38:37
us up more? All those? Yep.
Danny de Hek 38:41
We’ve done pretty good. I think the listeners will have something good to listen to. And we’ve got a topic for next week with this one lead.
Lachlan McNeill 38:49
conjoin this one today?
Helen Oakes 38:51
Yeah, this is good. Yeah. So
Danny de Hek 38:52
just to reunify creating lasting habits. Are we all going away today thinking, right? I’m going to make a habit, heaven. And I am going to make sure I do it regularly. And what have we got in our toolkit now that we can use to do that? accountability. I’m not going to eat any more chips for a week. I will kiss Rob on the lips.
Rob Woolley 39:26
Imagine if we live today and we said that we are going to do X every day until next week. And next week. We started off by reporting back whether or not we had done x,
Danny de Hek 39:41
y or daily but I had no one in the room.
Lachlan McNeill 39:45
I’m gonna eat biscuits every day.
Rob Woolley 39:47
If, If, If
David Clarkson 39:50
No they’ll have an opportunity to report back. How’s that?
Rob Woolley 39:55
You see, you see if this was really about it. habits of habits were really important. Nobody would be after excuses right now of why not to do it next week.
Helen Oakes 40:10
Okay, I know I’ve got one or two, not next week on Friday.
Danny de Hek 40:14
Oh, I like that. I love that cost.
Lachlan McNeill 40:21
That’s very violent it you won’t be accountable because you won’t be there.
Danny de Hek 40:26
And we’ve got a few people envy for a while. So what we’re trying to do at the moment is trying to keep the he recorded meeting down to around about 30 minutes and spend the first half the meeting, having a general chitchat. And then when we go into our podcast, that does sound a lot more on target, next week’s theme,
Lachlan McNeill 40:45
next week’s theme.
Danny de Hek 40:47
So what do we like about this? We did talk about systems and tools. It’s
Rob Woolley 40:54
working out the main habit we should be employing?
Helen Oakes 40:59
Yeah, maybe picking a habit that we need to stick to Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 41:02
What about developing systems so that you get hit by a bus? how your business runs with that? Yeah,
Helen Oakes 41:07
Yeah.
Lachlan McNeill 41:11
You know, standard operating procedures and I absolutely pants in it. But also we all should be doing, and I don’t really, yeah, we’re that routines.
Danny de Hek 41:23
Is that the same as habits developing?
Lachlan McNeill 41:27
I think it is the same habits really.
Danny de Hek 41:30
Just thinking if you had a system in place, then you’d obviously have to employ that. You know, you are a template, a business template. Now who talked about that? A couple of weeks ago? That was really good.
Lachlan McNeill 41:42
I’ve got some…
David Clarkson 41:43
It was my suggestion Danny.
Danny de Hek 41:46
Sorry
David Clarkson 41:47
It’s my suggestion,
Danny de Hek 41:49
but didn’t like are you gonna take the ownership of it, then we’ll put Dave’s name around it and bring it. So you have a template for your day, I suddenly got that
Lachlan McNeill 41:58
I got a template for my daily checklist. But what But the trouble is, if for example, it wasn’t here. And let’s say my wife clear, says, Hey, on what needs to be done, she wouldn’t know where to look, I almost need to have a one lesson to take. This is where you get everything. This is how it happens. And I’ve done virtually none of that stuff. I’ve got zillion lists, but actually, managing that is, you know, knowing what to actually do would be impossible because they didn’t know where to find the lists.
Paul Starling 42:26
I’ll leave a challenge. Everybody is week. Yeah.
Danny de Hek 42:30
Yeah, that’s a big one. That was not right. I’m gonna make that knows me. I’ll try that knows what password so he’d be able to hack in and get access to everything. She couldn’t do it. So
Paul Starling 42:39
That is a good one Danny, cuz when Sally was ill, the one thing we did was Sally documented, every single system we use and the passwords because we didn’t have them documented anywhere. Now, if I did it, God knows what my son’s will do, because I haven’t kept it up to date. So there’s a challenge there for everyone just to think about your digital footprint. And what you need to document if you’re not around to keep the business going.
Lachlan McNeill 43:07
I like that.
Rob Woolley 43:08
That’s a good one. And then every month, right, you could review it as well. You’d like to see whether you can prove it.
David Clarkson 43:15
Do you want to make it succession planning, Danny?
Danny de Hek 43:19
Succession planning
Paul Starling 43:20
Succession planning, as part of part of succession planning, isn’t it?
David Clarkson 43:24
Yeah.
Danny de Hek 43:26
Succession planning.
David Clarkson 43:27
Yeah.
Dean Wilson 43:28
Can I, I suggest a good book another good book, guys. So I must be sound like a buddy. Systemology.
Paul Starling 43:38
He’s making words up
Lachlan McNeill 43:45
Is that from the book de knology books I’ve read.
Dean Wilson 43:50
You wouldn’t want to recommend that.
Danny de Hek 43:55
many books have you read then?
Dean Wilson 44:00
On an I like, Systemology. Yeah. I’ve probably listened to an audiobook every fortnight. I would say
Helen Oakes 44:08
it’s the author, dude. Do you know?
Dean Wilson 44:11
No, I don’t I don’t I google it. Yeah,
Danny de Hek 44:15
We’re doing this over the Systemology.
Helen Oakes 44:21
David…
Paul Starling 44:22
James David. James. Or small business systems? Yes. Same guy. Yeah.
Dean Wilson 44:29
Yeah.
Danny de Hek 44:30
Consistent training, meaning. All right. So can we do a bit of perhaps before we come in next week? Can we do a bit of thought on that? What is concession planning?
Lachlan McNeill 44:38
Succession Planning
Danny de Hek 44:43
So that’d be quite cool. All right, guys. Well, I’ve really enjoyed you come along. Really appreciate having you here today. I actually thought we wouldn’t get as many as we did. So thank you for your attendance. The other one is we did have an apology from Stefano Pietroiusti, who’s were the same. I don’t know if you guys all the kids are going back to school for thinking he was dropping the boy off. So we missed out him so the kids are back at school. So maybe now the entrepreneurs can play along and we’ll see you next week.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Transcribed by Otter
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