Let's delve into the challenges of managing time, priorities, and personal growth in an increasingly complex world. We'll explore the common mindset of scarcity, the pitfalls of prioritizing urgent tasks over important ones, and the benefits of adopting a proactive approach in various aspects of life. Learn about the importance of recognizing and overcoming competing commitments that can hinder progress and keep individuals trapped in a cycle of urgency and stress. Gain valuable insights on breaking free from reactive patterns and making intentional choices to invest in what truly matters for long-term success and fulfillment.
In this episode, Steve and Jason discuss:
- The Mindset of Not Having Enough
- Escaping the Trap of Urgency
- Overcoming Procrastination: Proactive vs. Reactive Approaches
- The Danger of Neglecting Important Tasks
- Uncovering the Competing Commitment to Comfort
Key Takeaways:
- Prioritizing important tasks over urgent ones to break the cycle of constant urgency
- Understanding the significance of being proactive in various aspects of life can help avoid higher costs and adverse consequences
- Discover how small, proactive steps can lead to significant benefits over time through the compounding effect
- Recognizing and confronting the competing commitments between achieving goals and seeking comfort
- Grasping how the urgency wheel traps people in reactive patterns due to conflicting priorities
“If we don't deal with things now or proactively, we will end up dealing with them reactively. Typically, handling issues reactively costs more, takes more time, hurts more, is more dramatic, and is less convenient than addressing them proactively.”
- Jason Abell
Connect with Jason and Steve:
- LinkedIn: Jason or Steve
- Website Rewire, Inc.: Transformed Thinking
- Email: grow@rewireinc.com
Listen to the podcast here:
Steve and Jason- Proactive vs Reactive
Hello, LinkedIn Live World and hello, Insight Interview world. This is your host, Jason Abell and your other host, Steve Scanlon. Steve, we're on video. We're on podcasting. We're audio video. We're live across the universe right now. Hello. Hi.
Like when you say Insight Interview worlds and LinkedIn Live, it's like worlds are colliding, man.
I know.
We're colliding in worlds.
I know, I know, I know. Hello, everybody. Good to be with everybody. We've got a topic that, Steve, we observe our coaches and our clients, and then you and I have our own coaching sessions where we observe clients and there's certain themes, certain topics that continually come up. Today's one of those topics.
It’s so topical.
Yet, it's one that's been around since the since the beginning of time. This whole thing about not having enough time. But man, I don't know, between what we do in with brain work, mindset work, you know, the neurobiological work, and just all the work that's been done on time and time blocking and not having enough time and people that have more time than they ever needed. I mean, it's just a topic that has come up for the ages, but it's also come up recently. And so, we're like, Yep, let's hit it. So here we are. We're hitting it.
I have a pretty cool story about it. And here's what's funny, Jason, before I tell that story, I have a story before the story.
Is it gonna take a lot of time, though?
One of our coaches who actually went back to the academic world, Dr. Edie Raphael, taught a class one time for us about this particular topic. And I've actually used that so much in the last few years, because she had done some research where she basically started this class by asking a question about being a giver. And what she specifically meant was, like money. Do you donate to charities? Do you give to your church? Do you give to your PTA board? Do you give to the zoo? I don't know. Are you a giver? And she quoted some research that was really interesting about, and there's been a lot of research on it. You can imagine if you're in the 501C3 world, this is very, you know, this is of interest to people. And there's some really big organizations that care about how many people give, how do they give and whatever, blah, blah, blah. And what Edie was saying was, there's a lot of people out there that have a mindset to philanthropic things, and say, yeah, I'll give, but I need to get a little more. I need to get myself into a place financially, before I give. And so what she was quoting was the research based on, and I'm gonna misquote it and so forgive me, I'm sure I could go find it from her. But how many people said that they would wait to give, and then what they were waiting for us to get more money. And then how many people actually ended up giving if that was their mindset? And so, what the research pointed out is, if you're the person that says, yeah, I wouldn’t mind given to the Cancer Society or whatever, but you won't do it until you have more the research suggests you won't do it. Period.
Period. Yeah.
Why am I saying that? Because she goes, then there was research that suggested that that same concept applied to time. If you walk around, going, I don't have the time, I don't have the time, I don't have the time, just like I don't have enough resources, there was the It's really cool thing that she found it was like whether it's physical resources or intangible resources like time, if you don't think you have enough, you don't.
Yeah, yeah.
And so, that just causes me, you know, before we get into maybe some other more tangible stuff, like what kind of awareness could we have around that, right? I mean, myself, how I feel like oh, I don't have time to do that. Like, Oh, really? What an interesting thing to say. And come on, dude, let's be honest. Yes, we're coaches. And we were we say that.
Oh, sure. We're in the same trap. There is an SNL skit Saturday Night Live, just last Saturday. I just recommend you go on YouTube and go look at it. It is when they're doing the Weekend Update, and the woman that they're interviewing is, she's the woman at work, that's always too busy. And it's this thing where she's just busy doing everything, but she's not really doing anything. And we get caught up in that whether it's more money or time.
Well, I love your reference to that, because the only reason humor exists is because there's some touched to the real world.
That's right.
Saturday Night Live would only write a skit like that. Because if it had nothing to do with reality, they wouldn't be funny.
Wouldn't be funny, right?
So yeah, I am gonna go watch that.
Yeah, it's good. You'll like it. And if you're watching this right now or listening to us, it's clean, it's funny, and it will bring a smile to your face, especially under this umbrella that we're talking about right now. But speaking of stories, you have a story.
Yeah, yeah. I just had a client, like anytime you and I can tell like live stuff that's happening in our work and that's what causes us to create these, you know, these themes and to come on to LinkedIn and to have podcasts around this stuff. I had a leader who, lo and behold, you know, didn't have enough time, but ultimately ended up making a list because I think the question that came out of our coaching was something and we do this, we try to keep people in a toward state. And the question was, well, you know, and I, again, forgive me, I'm not exactly sure how I did it, but let's wave a magic wand. And you know, you referenced Dr. Seuss earlier. Okay. We live in a Dr. Seuss world that's not confined by a clock. You're not confined by time. Let's just pretend for one second, you weren't confined by all these time constraints. What would you do?
Right.
Right? I was trying to get to this idea of what is it you do? And we ended up having a really meaningful dialogue around this concept of, this goes back to an age old thing with Stephen Covey. Right? Stephen Covey. You know, I think his greatest book before he passed away. I know he sold Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, and that was his flagship thing. I heard him interviewed one time and he said First things First was a better book, but he recognized that it wasn't a commercially successful book as s seven habits was. But in in first things first, he had that quadrant of the important urgent, not important, not urgent quadrant. What had happened to this leader was they had the stuff that they would do if they had time. And those things fell under the category of important.
Yep.
Right? So, no judgment. We were in coaching, right? I was going, okay, these are the things in you a list was made. And I was like, okay, well, then this kind of comes back to our immunity to change model. What are you doing instead of that list? Let's just be honest. If I could get into your calendar and look together, what are you doing? And truly, you know, Stephen Covey would be just loving this loan, and behold, this person's day was filled with what they would perceive to be urgent stuff. I got to do this, I got to do this, I got to do this. And what we had created, we co-created this idea together. I kind of let them create it. If those of you listening to this thing, if you let it, urgency will rule you.
For sure. The tyranny of the urgent, right?
"It'll rule you. I don't care what industry you're in. These days, if you're a leader, that urgency can rule you. So, when we say we don't have enough time, I just want to suggest that one of the things that comes out of that, is the commitment that we can make, or the recognition that what we're not getting to are often these important things that don't, you know, if you don't improve a policy, if you don't sit down and write some things, you know, what's going to happen? Nothing. That's the problem, right? Like, but if I don't do this thing, that's what makes it urgent."
So next thing you know, we have this perception of all these things we're doing is urgent. Now, here's what's ironic. If as a leader, you don't intentionally make time for important stuff, this is the giant irony. You're actually building urgency for yourself.
Yes.
And that wheel on the bus goes round and round. So, it was just a recognition of this through our coaching process, like, I could feel this person have some aha, right? But it felt like a trap.
Yep.
Because it wasn't like because what we said, they were like, oh, now all of a sudden I'm gonna go get to important stuff. But there was some awareness around what was important. And the fact that they constantly gave into urgency.
Yeah.
Then we ended up doing some things where we identified if they completed a couple of important things, how might that help with that sense of urgency?
Sure, sure.
And it was just, overall, it was just a really, really cool dialogue, to watch this person walk away in sort of room a renewed sense of what it meant to be trapped in urgency. And if you don't do some of the important things, that trap will stay a trap forever, you know? And then we get phones and stuff. And, you know, let me show you my calendar, because I can prove to you how busy I am and stuff, and really all it is, not all, but it was just a real sense of like, my life was just replete with urgency.
And I've got to imagine, I know as you tell that story, I myself, my first thought is you telling the story is, I have got clients like that, too. And I was like, oh, no, I have that problem from time to time, also. And I guess as you listen to that story, I think you, the listener, I don't know, maybe you identify the same way like, yeah, I have that. I have that issue, too. And I just think that maybe you, this is in your ears right now, if you're watching us live, or you watch a recording of this later, maybe that's a sign that you could make some changes in this arena. And if that's the case, then yeah, we're going to talk about some of those. And the story that you gave, I think is great. The awareness is really the first part, and I think going back to my SNL skit example, the woman in the in the skit, she's not aware of the issue. And the thing that you did with your client, what I heard is, well, let's first hold up here, and let's really analyze that. Let's, let's gain some awareness around that first. Now we can actually start to do something about it.
This topic alone is so weird to bring to this, because it's so embedded in, which is, again, why SNL would probably do a skit, it's so embedded in the culture, that there are people that they like us, they don't even see it anymore.
Yeah, yeah.
It's so embedded in the culture, that this this urgency trap, that it's hard to even see anymore, because it seems so kind of baked into the fabric, you know? But the reason this came up with a client is a eventually, some stuff can break.
Well, and this is, this is what you're starting to get to the edges of is really what I wanted to dissect during our time today, because that just doesn't happen with time. It also happens with a topic that you brought up earlier - finances, the big one, it also happens with your health, it also happens with your relationships, like there's just a lot of things where if not dealt with, and that's why we called part of the title of this was proactive versus reactive, if not dealt with now or if not dealt with proactively, we just will we will deal with those things reactively and typically reactively is going to cost more, take more time, hurt more, be more dramatic, be less convenient, you know, than anything else. And so that's something that I really wanted to dive into during our discussion.
You know, but it might go down a road. I don't know. I’ve got a road that it could go down. I'm a little worried about the road to be honest with you.
Do tell.
Well, we could sit there and point out proactive and reactive and those are cool words and maybe we could walk away and we're like you know what listeners? Be proactive.
No we need that's why use the word dissect. We got it we got to do better than that. We owe ourselves in our in our listeners more than that.
I heard something lately and it might be a little bit of a surprise to people. If you think about proactive and reactive stuff, and maybe you're sitting there going, yeah, that happens to Jason, that happens to Steve, that happens to me. Like in our health, I love how you pointed that out, and it wasn't just one area. Like, there's another word that you didn't use when it comes to like health or relationship stuff. I got a word. Let's throw it out there. Let's talk about it. The word is procrastination. That's just a different way to express this proactive reactive thing, right?
Sure, sure.
When I'm proactive, I'm not procrastinating. Right? I just assumed that what we mean by proactivity is like, we see something we know what needs to be done. We get it done, you know, as proactive as a person, as opposed to be sure.
Yeah, sure.
So, the question I have, if that's part of this problem, why? I mean, and you can tell anyone, you know, you should be proactive and not reactive. Is there a soul on the planet that would disagree with that? Like, really? I hadn't thought of that.
Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's why I wanted to dive into it, right? Like, some of the mechanics, some of the thinking some of the things that get in the way and what to do about it.
Yeah, I'd like to hear it. I've got some what to do about it. But you start. You go. Like, as you think about this topic, we are coaches. We're not necessarily advice givers, but when we're on a podcast and LinkedIn Live…
Yeah. I mean, first of all, doing what we're doing right now and just talking about it, that brings us to the awareness piece. The work that you did with your client. So, I have observed over and over again, with myself and with my clients and just as I observe kind of how the world works, when you're feeding your brain, and your ears and your tongue, with certain information, you tend to take on that information. So, us talking about this is a really good step. Just the fact that we're showing up and talking about it. This is something that is just near and dear to me. I mean, in 1993, I wrote a book called Start Now. Not start tomorrow, or start some time, but start now. And even then, I just observed young adults at the time, and that book is mostly about money, but when you do things a little bit at a time, proactively, it's easier and never too late to start now. And the benefits, the rewards, the compounding effect, whether you're talking about money or relationships, or anything is just bigger. But it all starts with just the awareness piece. What we're doing right now.
Let me ask you a different question. Because again, I think people listening to this are gonna go Yeah, I get that that makes total sense. Why don't we start now? What's your thoughts around why don't we do that? I know that's a little negative and we'd like to keep people in a toward state and blah, blah, blah, and that's fine, but it might be healthy if you're talking about awareness that we have awareness around why we don't do that.
Yeah. It's easier. We like to default to what's easiest, or what feels easiest right now. And you take health for instance. Do you know what? If I don't drink enough water today, I don't know that anything's gonna happen today with that, and so it's just easier not to pay attention to the water that I'm drinking. So, it's just easy. But over time, well done. For those of you listening, Steve just took a sip of his water or tea, I don't know what you're drinking. But anyways, whiskey? What's in there? We really are becoming the same person with the same thought at the same time. Now, my brain needs to get re centered here. So, to answer your question, why don't we? I think oftentimes, it's easier, it's more comfortable not to because putting effort in filling up my water bottle five times a day, or putting effort into making sure my project is getting done a little bit at a time as opposed to all the night before, it just today, it just feels easier. And you started to talk about something that the creep thing that happens like things seep in creep in, and maybe you're not noticing that that's happening, but then all of a sudden, you are, and now it's an emergency, and now it's urgent. And now you're in that the wheels on the bus go round and round, because you're there, right?
"If you don't do important stuff long enough, some of the stuff that you were gonna do that is important, has an impact on the other stuff. And then when you don't achieve something or something breaks as a result of that, guess what? You get to do create another urgency. That is the wheel on the bus."
But my question for you, I almost want to invite you into a roleplay. Be my client for a second. Let's roleplay.
Let's do it.
You're my client. And you give me this thing about urgent important and we're talking time, I think he knows that being proactive would be good. So, I don't know that I need to teach him that. He has heard that concept- he tells me about the urgency. What I just heard you say is it's just easier. Proactivity is harder. Okay, but you're the one that wants to dissect this, right? So, you are saying is urgency is easier? Is that what you're saying?
No, no, the question that I was answering was, why aren’t we proactive?
But is urgency easier than importance?
No.
Yes, because you've habituated it.
Yeah. fair. That's fair.
So, this trap of urgency and the reactivity, like how long you've been doing that? Right? So, for a coach to come in and go, hey, productivity would be better and important urgent, give you a quadrants and models and talk about Stephen Covey. Great. There's something that we might not be looking at as clearly with this
So, dissect that. I mean, go there.
But I wanted to have you come with me. So, hang on. So, let's agree whether that feels easy. That might not be even the right word. But let's agree that, frankly, staying put in my habitual pattern of urgency is easier than all of a sudden putting two hours on my calendar to do important stuff and put it like that.
Yep.
It's easier. Would you say it's easier?
Yes.
So, when you do that easy thing, repeatedly, I want to ask you a question. Now you're role playing. You're my guy. What are you committed to? What's your commitment when you do that easy thing? What are you actually committed to?
I mean, you're getting me into like, I don't know, into the corner. But you're asking the tougher questions. I guess I'm committing to being urgent. Again, living in the urgent again.
Okay. What else could you be committed to? I liked that. That was good.
Being comfortable.
Aha. Right. Didn't we just agree that as a result of the brain habituating something, and we've been doing this over and over? Maybe you've been doing this since high school for all I know.
Sure.
It's easy to stay in that pattern. So, is it possible that you're committed to your own comfort?
Sure.
You are committed to the easier thing, right?
I think. I mean I'm role playing here. But yeah, I think I am, as your client, in this scenario. And I think to some degree, we all are.
Right. You don't have to deflect that. You can be the client. So to me a really cool revelation for myself, for you, for my client, and whatever for me was what neuroscience and you know, I say that like, it's Mr. Neuroscience in the corner, like people have studied. This is called a competing commitment.
Yeah. Yeah.
What we don't realize and this I loved what you said, awareness. How about this for an awareness? Your proactive and reactive aren’t in competition. Proactive and your commitment to your own comfort, that's the competition.
That's the competition. Yeah, the competing commitment.
I'm actually so committed to my own comfort, that if I'm being honest, I actually don't do that important thing, because I'm too committed to my own comfort. Now, that might not sound fun, and I can’t say that's everybody's thing. Now we're digging in the right place.
Yep. Yep. Yeah, those are hard things.
I'm gonna give you another tool. You know, I'm gonna get everybody's tools you on proactive and reactive. And sometimes we work on these things in ourselves. And we're not digging in the right place.
Yeah, the tool won't work if you're committed to your own comfort. And you may not even say, I'm just committed to my own comfort and ease, but your actions are saying that.
Yeah, and so when our clients can go, that is what it is, that's the beginning of naming it and taming it, because then together, we don't have to go down six months of us both trying to come up with some killer tool, and figuring out how to have red time and green time and white time and off time and on time and all these names for stuff. I can’t tell you how many clients have learned how to color an Excel spreadsheet. Meanwhile, they're not dealing with the right competing commitment. What are you actually committed to? You're not NOT going to the gym because you don't think it'll help. You don't need any more knowledge about that. Sometimes I don't go to the gym. Here's why. The couch feels better than the gym.
Yep.
And that's the competing commitment and when I can rely is that it's the beginning of facing something head on anyway.
Sure, no, I'm looking at some of the comments that we're getting rolling in here. And Craig Davis says, I feel like the urgency is gripping and it breeds more urgency. So, it's like this wheel and you remain in it. So it's like that thing. But this awareness that we're talking about, asking the tough questions and going, hmm, maybe I am more committed to my comfort and ease that I am actually getting the thing done. Ooh, that stings a little. But at the same time, there's awareness. Now we can start to dig into it more and maybe do something a little bit different about it.
Yeah, if you're in sales, and you know, you should make more calls or get into social or get into your database, or you know, whatever it is, you might ask the same question.
Yeah.
Right? You're not NOT making those calls because of time. I might even suggest you're not making because you don't understand proactive and reactive. I don't think you're not making them because you don't know your big “why”. Not to put down Simon Sinek. I love his stuff. And it's great.
Sure.
This isn't the “why”. What you might be committed to is your own sense of self protection.
Yeah.
What if somebody rejects me, then what will I feel like? I'm not saying I know what that is. But actually coming up with what you're actually competing with, can help you really begin to dig in the right place of being genuinely proactive, and it will never be easy. Dude, we got to admit that, right?
Sure.
Like, we don't have prescriptions that are easy for people.
Well, I know we only have got two minutes left here. But I would say that the ease that you feel of maybe not doing the thing because you're competing commitment, I'm sorry, competing commitment, is, you know, the thing that you want to get done versus the ease that you want to feel, most of the time, when you end up reactive, and then the urgency, the tyranny of the urgency, the wheels on the bus thing, it will be less easy than dealing with it systematically proactively, however you want to call that, right? I mean, that's finances, that's health, right?
Well, to Craig Davis's point, I agree with that. But you want to hear something funny? It will be less easy, because you're gonna suffer some of the consequences of not getting the thing, but if you get trapped back in the urgent wheel. At least its comfortable.
Yeah, that's what you know. Well, golly, Steve, really good discussion. On that note, I guess a couple things in closing. One, look, we only scratched the surface of this topic, right? There's a QR code that's up there. If you're listening to this, watching this listening to this, get a hold of us at grow at Rewire nc.com. There's a QR code that's up on the screen for those of you that are watching us, that'll take you right to us, we can talk about it more. We've got tools on our website that can help with these types of things, and we would certainly be happy to help you, and I feel like we need to do another podcast episode that digs deeper into this but, and on that note, we will end the live, we will end this episode of The Insight Interviews. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next time. Peace.
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