Surviving the Side Hustle

Balancing Productivity and Personal Growth: Rob's Take on Mastering Time Management and Building Your Brand

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 50

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Unlock the secrets to professional growth and time management in this episode featuring the dynamic Guelory Brutus-Smith as he takes the interviewer’s seat. Guelory challenges me with questions that peel back the layers of my journey, motivations, and the influential role of competitive coaches and friends. Expect to gain actionable insights on prioritizing revenue-generating tasks and balancing personal relationships, why celebrating milestones like Jeffrey Seitz’s incredible weight loss and career achievements is crucial, and how to stay relentlessly focused on your goals.

Are you struggling to maximize productivity or manage your time effectively? This episode has you covered with practical strategies that will revolutionize your approach. From the benefits of journaling as a mindfulness tool to leveraging Google Calendar for reducing decision fatigue, we offer tips that will help you free up time for what truly matters. Hear about the Pomodoro Technique for breaking tasks into manageable chunks and how delegating to virtual assistants can be a game-changer in your entrepreneurial journey. This insightful conversation underscores the importance of self-care and personal growth in achieving peak performance.

We also tackle the essential principles of looking good, feeling good, and doing great things by setting routines, schedules, and surrounding yourself with positive influences. Discover how to develop a balanced life, set deadlines, and reassess your progress to hit your goals. Guelory Brutus-Smith shares his expertise on building a personal brand and creating compelling content, emphasizing the power of crafting your own narrative. Tune in for a wealth of knowledge aimed at amplifying your impact and enjoying a well-rounded, fulfilling life.

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Speaker 1:

What's going on, guys? So we just dropped episode 50 last week and figured this would be a great opportunity to flip the script. So today we have previous podcast guest of mine, guillory Brutus-Smith, and he's coming on today. He's going to actually interview me for a couple of different questions, so let's kind of dive into it. What do you got for me?

Speaker 2:

That's right, without further ado. Man, I'm excited to be here. Thanks again for making this happen. You know we got a lot of things going on. You've got a lot of things going on.

Speaker 2:

And I figured it'd be great to really kind of kick it off from the beginning right, just to give us a little bit more about you, what you're doing, your journey and some of the transformation you went through. And so one of the biggest things is, I know you somebody who has been highly motivated and has really kept us going and stay motivated. Was there any particular influence by someone that has helped you stay motivated as well from the very beginning?

Speaker 1:

And if so can you share a quote with us by that individual?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't think of any one particular individual. I would have to chop it up to a collection of individuals starting all the way back from my friends in high school being very competitive in sports and my coaches, coach Caswell, coach McFarland and Coach Rellier just very, very motivating individuals, and through sports that kind of helped instill my motivation to kind of be competitive and keep pushing, motivation to kind of be competitive and keep pushing. And I think that competitive aspect transferred over into business and into my professional life too, because I'm constantly looking to level up and push myself in as many different ways as possible Getting new clients, doing new events, connecting with more people pretty much any way possible. I'm looking to kind of level up, and having great friends and people to surround myself with who are also pushing themselves motivates me. So yourself, brandon, our friend Dylan, andre, graham, gio so many people, so many individuals helping each other kind of push the bar to the next level. So I would say it's a team effort all around.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, that's amazing. I love that. So, that being said, you know, obviously we have a lot of great friends, great people that influencing us to really help us elevate. So how do you prioritize your tasks and habits? Because I know you have a structured calendar, so tell us a little bit. How do you prioritize?

Speaker 1:

So, um, prioritization, uh, I, I, I mean, I still struggle with it. There's always things that kind of pop up and and pop into my schedule and it's difficult kind of figuring out which ones to go with first. Um, but a mentor of mine told me, to make sure you make the money moves first, so the tasks that are going to either directly bring in money or quickest bringing money. You should be allocating the time to that. So that's just kind of how I kind of prioritize my day with different things, clients and events and things like that.

Speaker 1:

But it's important too, because there are a lot of things that don't necessarily bring in money right off the bat. So then you have to kind of figure out the priorities that way. Um, and then even for a personal life too, right, uh, don't there's like making sure that I have time for victoria, for family, for friends. That's not like professionally um related. So, because you still got to live your life, you still got to be human too. You can work as many hours as you want, but there's no point in living life if all you're doing is working.

Speaker 2:

So that's right. That's right, you know. It's interesting that you said that one thing is what your mentor should in terms of prioritization having to focus on what helps with regards to where the money moves, but in the midst of that, still recognizing making time for family and friends. So you know, I know you've been able to do so many different great things, and especially with the people you've been helping in your journey. Share with us a little bit of a story of someone that has either gone through your program uh, you know, a success story of somebody that has been able to find some of these transformations in their lives, as much as you've been able to yeah, um, right off the top of my head, first person was huge congratulations to him.

Speaker 1:

This past weekend just just crossed over his goal of losing 20 pounds. He's been working super hard to expand his social network and he's stronger than ever, consistent in the gym, applying for application after application, working towards his dream job while working two jobs at the same time. Our buddy Jeffrey Seitz I got to give a shout out to Jeffrey, let's go, let's go, Jeffrey.

Speaker 2:

That's amazing. That's amazing. So you know that goes up and go through the next question, because it's a lot of these things we also in the midst of it don't always feel like we can't celebrate them because of how many things we try to accomplish. So how do you tend to celebrate wins like that, or personal wins of yourselves, when you see either your clients accomplish these things and then you yourself also accomplishing other things as well? How do you celebrate wins in your life.

Speaker 1:

How do you celebrate wins in real life? Well, before I dive into the celebration of the wins, I think there needs to be a little bit of an emphasis on the awareness of the process, because it's pretty easy to just lose focus on how many training sessions you've done or how many meals, or how many fast food meals where you kind of push to get home and make your own thing, or even staying up late to get your work done that you said you're trying to do. It's easy to just brush it off and look to the next one. So without that awareness, it's hard to really celebrate those wins. So for me it's constantly checking in and making sure that me myself, I'm doing the things that I said I was going to do, the commitments to push myself forward.

Speaker 1:

And then from there I am a better leader, I'm a better mentor, a better coach to others because of that consistency and that resiliency. So when things don't go the right way, I can still get things done that need to get done, and that's pretty much what discipline is. So keeping the discipline, having that awareness that opens up for the success, and then when you have that success, you got to just enjoy it, like that's different for everybody. So for me that's getting together, signed the way out, doing the spartan races or whatever it might be. I like to have teamwork. I like to have people around me, so when I'm celebrating my wins, I can also share and celebrate other people's success at the same time.

Speaker 2:

I love that you say that, especially going back to the awareness, because a lot of us sometimes miss what that means, and I know you tend to emphasize how much of it is so important before we can get to even celebrate what we've achieved, and you know it makes me think reverse to mindfulness and our well-being overall, and I think a lot of people miss, you know, the significance that requires them to be able to be mindful of the things that they do. So, as far as like, I know you talk a lot about, or you've shared as well with regards to meditation and things like that through some of the workshops I've taken a part of, can you share with us a little bit, as far as, like, when it comes to the awareness, what are some things that people can do to help them become more mindful in regards to what they're focusing on?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think meditation is great because it helps with that awareness. It allows you to spend a couple minutes just directing your attention inward, checking in on how you're doing, how your body is slowing down your thoughts, really just clearing your mind so you can kind of focus and move forward. So that's been a great tool for me over the years. But I gotta admit I haven't had that much time to focus on meditation recently. Um, and another way, another tool or strategy, however you might want to approach the term, is just journal and just making sure that you're kind of paying attention and doing that stuff.

Speaker 1:

Um, and journaling doesn't have to be like a diary type of thing. It can be like checking in, looking at your commitments, what are the things that you're doing, checking your scoreboard or even just like writing a text message to yourself how's your day go, what are you planning for tomorrow, what are you excited about tomorrow? People get caught up on the negativity of what's going on and then they lose track of all the greatness that was going around. And I don't want to bring it back to the whole uh thing I was just talking about with the awareness, but the journaling, the mindfulness that really slows down all the different variables around you so you can compress and pay attention to one thing at a time and it helps a lot just reducing things I love that.

Speaker 2:

I love that I was already writing things down too. As you're speaking, I'm I've never really done that last part like writing a text message to myself. I love journ. I'm tired to go on hikes to journal that would be. Usually my way of finding mindfulness is through hiking and then find and figure out ways to really think through some of the accomplishments of whatever it may be, but some of the day-to-day stuff and the simple activity like texting, which we all do, I feel like most people don't realize how that can be used as a tool also helping them, and so you know there's a lot of things that we can really dive into. But because I feel as if you have such a great perspective on this and I'd love for you to share a little bit more as far as your ability to really maximize your productivity and overall time management, yes, we touched on some things earlier, but I feel as if, overall, when it comes to productivity, there's so many different things that we don't always think of that people may miss.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm a huge fan of using schedules. Shout out to Google calendars, that's what I use for keeping my life together and organized, but it gives you that visual representation, I guess, of your day to day, so you can start to plan forward. Representation, I guess, of your day to day, so you can start to plan forward. But because, if you're living your life as in a reaction, all the time, like you're going to oh do I want to go to the gym, or should I go to this event, or should I do this, should I do that? Like? You leave room for negotiation, and then you have to rely on willpower, and things become a little more difficult to follow. But when it's in a schedule and it's already planned, it's like almost like an appointment I feel like I can't miss, and then I at least can block out certain times, and then I can know all right, this time is specifically dedicated for this. Now, the next part of that, though, is I try to block out 30 minutes to an hour for different projects that I'm working on, but there are plenty of times where I just don't want to work on that project at that time, so I try to follow the pomodoro technique, where you just set a timer for they say like 20 minutes and then 10 minutes to rest and do your own thing. But if you're struggling even for that long, then just knock it down to doing five minutes and then give yourself five minutes for five minutes, five minutes break. You just want to get the wheels rolling because you're going to build momentum and then you'll find yourself kind of checking in and going longer and longer with the time itself. There are plenty of times where I've gone over my 20 minute period just a minute or so and then I really pump the brakes so I can reset and get things going.

Speaker 1:

And the final thing, um, where I'm at a stage now where I just have too many things that I need to be doing during the day. So hiring help, whether it's a coach or a virtual assistant or somebody off of Fiverr, somebody that can do certain things, so that you can free up more time for the things that you want to be doing. You spend too much time doing these other things and then it becomes more of a drag because you look at your calendar, you know that you're going to try to do it for like five to 10 minutes and then when you're doing it, it's eating away at other times where you can be productive. So if there's things that you can offload to somebody else or ask for help on how to optimize things, that's what you got to do. So those are the three things that are scheduling it, cutting it into smaller pieces and then delegating out if you're moving on to big things.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that and it's so interesting because I feel as if it brings it back to really the personal growth, recognizing the stage of the personal growth that you're in, especially as an entrepreneur, as a business owner and someone who focuses on personal growth strategies. Right At this stage for you, you've been able to identify different things that work and those that didn't, and so you know most people. I feel as if they don't always get a good grasp on some of the things that people, uh, may share, that they feel as if, well, I probably should do this as well, but then you got to figure out what works for you, and these are some of the things that work for you, uh, and I love that.

Speaker 2:

And so you know one of the other things like, especially going to what the podcast is all about as far as, like, maybe, helping entrepreneurs and the other business owners really grabs, uh, for someone who really cares about self care as well, because I know, like I said to you earlier, I was like dude I can recognize you from a mile away just by that first haircut you got. So you know if it's things like you know self-care routines that you may have implemented, or hiring help, asking people for help. Where you can free up some time for yourself, can you share some of those practices that you've been able to apply that really help you now, especially in this stage of your life and your business?

Speaker 1:

In terms of self-care, yeah, so, yeah, I mean going back to the haircut. There's been plenty of times where I've given myself haircuts with a buzzer and just kind of rip it and run with it and let it go. But now I look at it as a time to also connect with other people in the barbershop. It's an opportunity for me to kind of take a step back and kind of like the meditation where I can reduce some of the variables at play. I can just spend a little bit of time with myself, downtime, and just kind of relax.

Speaker 1:

And between that and making sure that you're just taking care of yourself in whichever way is possible, so you can be diving into the nutrition even for that, making sure that you're eating well as often as well as you can, and being intentional with it, so that when opportunities for you to kind of celebrate and do things that you want to do, you can enjoy some of those things like cake or pizza with friends and things like that. Um, and that's just double fold there, because you've taken care of your body by eating well, well with intention, for as much as you can on times when you're by yourself. So then when you're with others it's not as guilty of a thing. You're not battling yourself like, oh, I can't have this, I can't have that, but you can, because now you're rewarding yourself, and that's another form of self-care to me is making sure that you're enjoying the things that you enjoy doing.

Speaker 2:

Right, right, I love that. I love that and I think that's so important because most of us that are trying to figure out a work life balance Right, juggling between either the nine to five and running a business after, or just strictly grinding and trying to figure out things in which we want to do, and so you know, I kind of want to focus on a few different things in terms of being able to really help us in Utah's space and the nutrition and the fitness and overall growth. You know these three main umbrellas. I know you have a pillar that represents the core values of your brand, but then also the core values of TAPS and where you are as a person. So if you could share a little bit more as far as expanding on those core values and what makes you unique in the space to be able to manage everything else that you're doing, what are some of the core values that really help you to balance everything out?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, me personally, my core values are having fun, having friends around and creating good fortune. So, yeah, like, like, just like that, making sure that you're challenging yourself, you're doing things that you really want to, and and that's um, having people around you and doing great things, and that's where everything kind of send for my business. So, look good, feel good and do great things. And under looking good, what do you got to do to look good? You got to challenge yourself in the gym, in books, you got to challenge yourself in business, pushing yourself, and that's so appropriate for fun because you can.

Speaker 1:

You can play the game, and if it's too difficult, then you're going to burn out and crash, and if it's too easy, you're going to lose interest and give up, find something else to give. It's like. It's like playing video games with the cheat codes. It's boring after a while and if you set it on too high of a difficulty, then you lose interest as well. And it's kind of like creating diamonds. You need the pressure, which is the challenge, but you also need the heat to kind of step things up, and in business and in life, you need that to look good so you can shine like a diamond. That's right.

Speaker 1:

Um, and then also feeling good. That comes into with taking care of yourself, making sure that you're optimizing every aspect of your life that you can or want to optimize so work and different things like that and that comes down to creating rules and routines that make your life easier, your life and everybody else's lives easier scheduling and all those kinds of things. And then the last part, doing great things. You really need to have good people around you and you need to genuinely be a good person. So showing up, doing things, contributing back in whatever way that possible whether it's holding a door open for somebody or donating as much money as you can to a charity Right. So wrapping those together, and that's pretty much all you need to kind of push yourself forward you yourself, your business, all of that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love it. I love it. So, to wrap it up a little bit more and to also give the audience an opportunity to not only just get to know you, but to leave them with a message that I know you really want to share with the world, you know if we're having this conversation five years, ten years from now, so two things First, where would Rob be in five years from now and what is the message that Rob wants to leave people and give people to really help them on their journey, especially those as business owners and entrepreneurs?

Speaker 1:

Okay. So first question of where do I see myself in five years? And events and connecting with a lot of people and making a bigger impact, obviously making more money and having more fun and everything else too. But I think I'm already living the best life that I possibly can. I enjoy every day. I look forward to connecting with all my clients and helping them solve problems, and I've got a wonderful girlfriend. I live in a great place, as healthy as I can be, and I just feel like everything is perfect here. So I don't want too much to change. I just want everything to kind of grow and scale up. So I don't know if I danced around your question a little bit.

Speaker 2:

I loved it. No, I wanted you to share more with what that amplification would look like and I think you touched a little bit on that as far as the impact and overall growth that you would like to see. And so, I guess, to tie it back in in terms of the message, especially for some people that are trying to grow themselves and trying to have more impact, and trying to grow themselves and trying to have more impact and trying to elevate themselves on their own journey. So, like you know, I'd love to hear what that would be like as far as that message that you want people to feel they can resonate with.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, To be honest, the best message I can give you is to just create a game plan and just follow it. Set a deadline, follow through with it, try your best, keep score on how you did with it and then just reassess and move on, Whether the game plan was the right one and you saw massive success, or the game plan was less than ideal and you and you went a little bit backwards. At least you know not to do that. So then, getting around more people, you can game plan with other individuals and then you can find what's going to help you move forward.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love that. Well, rob, thank you for taking the time and really sharing with us more behind the scenes and some of the things that you got going on. You know any specific things that you are excited about. That's coming up in the short term on things that maybe the audience have yet to hear about or anything, any other details you want to share with us.

Speaker 1:

Just a couple of different events coming up soon Help, working with Art of Coaching, so that's going to be huge down in New Jersey in August. There's a speaker school that is happening in October and that's going to be out in Arizona, so those are going to be really fun things going on. So if people are interested on leadership, conflict resolution, one-on-one communication or one-to-many communication with speaker school, any of those kind of things, just basically improving yourself, just reaching out to me, share the details and would love to see you there. Then also for myself, there's more episodes of podcasts coming out. It's going to be more workshops for myself and TAPS and some of my other coaching I got going on and hopefully some more events too.

Speaker 1:

I'm thinking about doing a spartan race here or there. I mean, get some guys together. Our buddy, john mendes, was potentially talking about doing one of those um and then just kind of bringing everything together. Birthday challenge coming up I set it for the new year and what I wanted to do, but I haven't really been deciding if that's where it's going to end up going. But I do got to start training for it. I'm not going to catch myself sleeping in the end this year, that's right.

Speaker 2:

That's right. Last year, you had a big challenge, man, and you really challenged yourself with that one. Well, this has been wonderful, rob, Thank you again for taking the time and sharing everything with us. We're excited for what's to come and I can't wait for more, of course, man, thank you.

Speaker 1:

And also hit up Guillory Brutus, build your own narrative, helping me with a lot of things, and he can help you with a lot of things too, specifically with the branding and content creation and so much more. So make sure you touch, touch base with my buddy over here.

Speaker 2:

And what's your social? Yeah, uh, thank you, man. I appreciate that. It's build your own narrative. Um, just how it is, literally, and as well as gilery, uh, g-u-e-l-o-r-y. So anybody want to connect with me? I'd love to connect with you and add value love that.

Speaker 1:

How'd you get just the first name I know, right I? Don't know I was lucky. All right guys. Peace out Peace.

Speaker 2:

That was perfect. 20 minutes on the clock.