Managing Your Performance In Life & Work

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional.

Tony: Where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

John: To change your experience of life and work with every episode. So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go.

Tony: Let’s go.

John: Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. On this episode, we’re going to be talking about managing your performance, not just at work, but in life. So how do you check in with yourself? What are some of the things that get in the way with managing your performance and knowing where you stand so you can know where to grow? So we’ll be talking about all different things around that and some things to notice in your life. And, you know, first I want to talk about knowing where you stand and Knowing where you stand doesn’t have to just be statistics, right? It can also be about how you feel. It can also be about how you’re looking at your life currently, your mindset, but it takes time to be with yourself and take stock of what’s happening in your life. And now there’s different ways to do that. One easy way can be journaling. It can be just taking time for yourself that Tony will talk about a little bit more later in the episode. But right now, Not just a performance review, like when you think about sitting down with your boss at work, which is necessary to also know where you stand. It’s more of a taking stock of what’s happened, taking stock of where you’re at, and then taking your next plan of action. So what are you going to do from there?

Tony: Yeah, John, I love how you laid that in. And even journaling is super important. I know that my wife, Crystal, she journals like every day. She’s so consistent with journaling. I’m always impressed at how she takes stock of herself that way and kind of resets before the day gets started. And I never picked up journaling like that, but I have seen someone do it day in, day out. You know, one thing I say is I definitely use my iPhone to help me as an accountability partner so that I can always take notes. I write down things that I want to do, goals I have. I also track my day-to-day performance depending on what I’m trying to accomplish. You know, another thing, too, I say is you can use your reminders, of course, things like that, but voice notes also help. voice notes of where you are, maybe even blogging a bit. Sometimes I just will journal a little bit in my phone about a particular moment or how I’m feeling, just to kind of get that off my mind a little bit. But what I’d say mostly when it comes to your performance and measuring your performance You kind of got to start with having a growth mindset, or at least wanting to have a growth mindset, even if you don’t have one already. Because measuring your performance, you know, one of the things of the growth mindset that the book talked about, and we already talked about this on a few episodes ago, but I would call it having an athlete’s mentality. When you have an athlete’s mentality, if you notice, athletes are always constantly monitoring their physical performance. They know how fast they’re running, they know how much calories they’re intaking, they know what time they’re waking up so they can get to practice. Most people, if you are listening to this, and you are a former athlete or a current athlete, you know you probably have practice super early in the morning, first thing in the morning. It’s just kind of a natural thing that happens. The reason behind it is the science. You know, getting up early in the morning is the best thing to do when you are trying to increase your performance because it’s your best energy. Your best energy is right there anywhere between, I don’t know, probably 5 to 10 or 11 a.m. That’s your most productive time of the day. So, you know, even monitoring what time you wake up in the morning. I know at least for me, I used to write down a lot of things I used to do. I don’t do that as much. I kind of have a one-year-old that takes up most of my life. So I happily attend to him more, but I do know what time I wake up in the morning. I track that every day. And for me, that just helps me with knowing my stats in a way. So knowing what time I woke up in the morning will kind of tell me how productive I was. But again, I say like having an athlete’s mentality, tracking your own data, tracking your own performance, even if it seems like how many drinks you may have had in a month. And, you know, that may seem a little extreme, but if you’re saying I’m trying to cut back, but you’re not really tracking yourself to see how many drinks you’ve even had, how do you know your performance? So take that in, consider it for yourself. But I say have an athlete’s mentality, just like they know their batting average, their free throw percentage. Like, know your own free throw percentage when it comes to the things you’re trying to accomplish.

John: So… Man, you said, you mentioned two things that I want to expand on a little bit more that have been a part of my personal performance review for a while now. and one that’s relatively new. One is sleep. I have my Fitbit that I wear to bed every day that tracks my heart rate variability, the variability in my blood oxygen levels. If that’s at a high variation or low variation, it tracks deep sleep, REM sleep, light sleep, and looking at those stats every day based on maybe what I ate that day, what time I went to bed, what the weather was like. I get to see all these different factors. just to be more knowledgeable about what sets me up for a great night’s sleep. And if there’s one thing that I’ve noticed in this life that there is no replacement for is a wonderful night’s sleep. And I, I cherish the nights that I get, you know, a full, even like seven hours of sleep solid with some good deep sleep in there. And if I drop in quickly, that’s another thing I look at is like how quickly from laying down to falling asleep. Did I do a good job of winding down before bed? So that’s one that I track a lot electronically and just kind of look in that Fitbit app and check it out. So I can link to the wearable that I use in the show notes for you guys to check out if you’re interested. But I’d highly recommend just keeping some stats on your sleep. And second thing. So it’s coming up on, I think this, actually this weekend will be one month without one sip of alcohol. And this is, and not that, you know, not that it was binge drinking all the time or something like that. It was, you know, a few drinks here and there, you know, maybe a little fog in the morning, you know, every once in a while, but I completely cut it out for the past, three weeks or so coming up on a month. And I think that has actually had the most profound impact on my sleep that I’ve ever, anything I’ve ever done to upgrade my sleep. Like forget melatonin, phosphatidylserine, it’s like PS150 or PS300 I used, different teas, different routines, meditating before bed. No, cutting out any booze, like zero, Wow, I’ve been falling asleep quick, staying asleep. And I’ve noticed that when I get less sleep, it’s deeper. I feel more rested with less sleep. And I think that this was a really good reset, just taking the time off. But it’s so woven into our social fabric And I’m a very social human, right? I mean, we’re all somewhat social, but notice that you go anywhere, right? You celebrate anything. It’s such a part of our culture, right? So I’ve been trying to make sure that I stay engaged in that. And it’s like, what is my relationship with, socializing without alcohol. It was an interesting experience over this month and I’m still, I don’t really have a plan to go back at this point. I think it’s helped change my relationship with it and even my sleep. But one thing to get back to really the topic at hand is, I have a full year in view dry erase calendar. So I check, I look at what are the things that I want to work on throughout the year. And I set that at the beginning of the year. And any time that I do, I take an incremental step towards that goal. I put a slash mark for that color on that day. So then once you start the streak, you just don’t want to break the streak. It’s been the most life-changing practice that I’ve incorporated in my life. I mean, since my senior year of college, I’ve been doing this every single year. And everything that I put on that calendar has manifested in my life, period, because of consistency and being able to see my stats on the wall every day. And I did that with the drinks, like days with no drinks. There was another little mark on that just to see like, wow, okay, it’s been, I’m coming up on a month. How do I feel? And then one of the things that is really important that I think I need a little bit more time on is spending the time to really sit down and reflect on days that I’ve missed something, on goals that have slipped past the timeline. Taking the time to look back at, OK, what could I have done differently? What could I learn from that? And really taking that time to reflect. Because I feel that when I sit down and take the time to reflect, I’m not doing that with the intention of reflecting and evaluating. That’s typically my meditative time, where I’m taking time to just be. I think that I’m due for a good session of reviewing that board, of taking stock of things, and looking back to see what worked and what could have been a little different.

Tony: You know, that’s the beauty of coaching, too, is that when you have a coach, you can talk to them about your performance that you want to achieve. And then you have that honest mirror to say, OK, you said you want to do this, but you’re telling me that you’re doing that. So how can we come together and find a resolution that actually is going to work and be sustainable? I love what you said about finding your balance basically, and when you think about your, looking at your performance and you’re looking at what you’re not able to accomplish and reflecting. I was going to ask you, do you think that that happens best in community, or is that an isolated act that people should do, or what works for you?

John: You bringing up coaching is… Wow, that is by far, in my opinion, the best place to unpack something like that, just because we’re trained to ask certain questions and listen for the things that you’re not saying, and how what you’re saying could have possibly influenced the way that that goal played out, the way that that’s played out in your life. Now that I’m reflecting on it, I’ve been working with my coaches mostly on planning for going forward. When I talk about the business, when I talk about the podcast, when I talk about my life or relationships, it’s more about what am I doing and what do I want to do differently. It’s very present and future focus, which we do spend most of the coaching relationship time there. And I think this is a really good reminder for me in this conversation right now to take a look at my goals, to take a look at things, to take a look at the past. with my coach to really to incorporate those learnings into the present and the future. And I think we do that as, you know, biweekly, just for a little bit. But I think it would be good for me to dedicate a full session to kind of reviewing and seeing what works. And I think that would help my coach learn even more about my situation, about me, and I think it would make the relationship even more effective and engaging. So thank you for bringing that up. I’m going to do that.

Tony: Yeah, no, no problem. You know, and a part of, like, measuring your performance is, you know, being honest and being critical even about yourself so that you can become better, you know. As you were talking, it made me think about something that I’ve been working on too, which is we always have goals and we always have like these big things we want to accomplish, but we pile more on to our plate. And I’m definitely raising my hand on that one. I definitely have a full plate, but I love it, right? I love the full plate. I love the entree, the salad, the appetizer, dessert, the drink, the water. I got it all on my plate, all at one time. How do I eat all this, right? When you really start to unpack your why, you’ll see why you operate the way you do. Whether that’s why you have all this stuff on your plate at once, or why you only have a salad, or why you only have a glass of water in your life. When you’re thinking about your performance, you gotta also think about your why, and then you have to be critical about yourself too. And one thing for me I’ve been reflecting on, and I probably say, This has been in the last 12 hours so it’s very fresh. Yesterday specifically I had a huge day and I accomplished a lot of different things at once and then I started to sit and I started to realize why I was operating the way that I was operating. I looked back even years before now and I said, okay, this is part of where I’ve been trying to get to. So now I reflect on my performance and my no-nonsense mentality sometimes. I have or my super ultra disciplined focus that I’ve had over the years and I’m letting up on that a lot in this season because I’m literally where I’ve been wanting to be. And so, you know, I say all that to say that when you are going through your performance and you’re measuring and you’re being critical and you’re being honest with yourself, don’t beat yourself up so much But reflect more, like when you get to a certain point, like checkpoints, you pause, you check, and you look back, and you look forward, and you see if you’re where you want to be. You look at that calendar, you look at your whiteboard, your dry erase calendar, whatever you may have, and monitor where you are. It’s kind of like an athlete who says, I want to win a championship one day or even I want to get drafted, you know, whatever your goal may be. And once you accomplish that, it’s easy to pile on the next. Like if you win a championship, I’m sure it’s easy to say, I want to, I want the next one, but take some time in your off season and like really just enjoy where you are. Enjoy the moment, but be critical too, if you’re not where you want to be so you can get there. And one of the things I would say when it comes to measuring your performance too is when you have an opportunity to maybe attend a seminar or hear a speaker, listen to what they’re saying with a critical lens to yourself. A lot of times I’ve been in situations where people criticize or they’re critiquing the speaker. But instead of critiquing the speaker, use what the content of what they’re saying to be critical of yourself. You know, we had a speaker a couple days ago or two speakers talking about mental health in the workplace and the intersection of mental health and diversity. And the whole time I was just listening with a complete open mind. hearing the different diagnosis that they were giving, hearing the different, and I wasn’t assessing other people. I was doing it for myself, just listening to see how I can become better, even if I’m not necessarily diagnosed with any mental health disorder, but mostly just trying to make sure that I’m aligned with who I want to be and making sure that my relationships are intact so that I can be the best person I can be. So, you know, that’s part of the growth mindset. That’s part of that critical, honest reflection. And it’s funny that you bring up reflection and wanting to do that more with your coaches so that you can get to where you want to be. So I just want to commend you for that in this moment. And also, I did not do this, but round of applause for your 30 Days, man. Congratulations.

John: Thanks, man. Thanks. I appreciate that. It’s been a really nice reset. I’m excited for this new relationship with socializing, with alcohol as I move forward. So really, really excited about that. And I wanted to touch on a couple of things that you said. I love how you’re going into listening to others, like listening with that critical ear to how is this content going to incorporate into my life? How is it going to relate to the things that I’m trying to accomplish? And I think Moving, continuing to move on the track of getting feedback from others, there is a very, very critical and reliable source of information going to people that will give you feedback honestly. And there are different people in our lives. There are honest mirrors, and there are supportive mirrors. And a supportive mirror is going to tell you what you want to hear. They want to tell you about anything great that they can find in your performance to make you feel good because likely they love you, right? Those people in your life and that’s that has a place. That definitely has a place. And when we’re thinking about managing performance, having those honest mirrors in your life can be really critical for finding blind spots. And that’s one, your coach is a fantastic resource for that, and it can be your boss, it can be your co-worker, it can be a designated accountability partner on your team, it can be your wife, your husband, it can be a friend. And this is someone that the relationship is strong enough and grounded enough that you can give honest feedback, right? And there are some things that get in the way of that. It can be a difficult conversation to hear something about yourself that is good information and at the same time can trigger something inside, can trigger something to where we stop listening. That is, if there’s one thing to learn for feedback conversation is knowing the things that take you out of listening. And there’s a great book for that, Thanks for the Feedback, by Doug and Sheila Heen. And there’s a few different feedback conversations that you can have with folks, you can have with your man at work or at home. And one type of feedback that I’ll touch on after I name the few is, so there’s coaching, there’s evaluation, and then there’s acknowledgment. And I think that’s acknowledgment is one that gets a little misconstrued or gets a little, I need to do this, especially in the workplace, is I need to acknowledge them. Let me just do this real quick. Hey, great job. I challenge everyone listening to this is to get really specific with how you acknowledge people. What specifically did they do a good job on? What did you see? When you acknowledge someone in a specific way for something that they did for you, for the team, something that you have observed in their growth, It is far and above more effective in that way for acknowledgement. So I wanted to just hammer that home. Be specific with your acknowledgements. coaching and evaluation, like this is kind of when the triggers come up. And when you’re giving coaching feedback on how to do something better, in someone’s eyes, you can be evaluating them, right? Because if you are coaching me on something or giving me advice about something, that means I am doing it wrong in the base case. That can be a way that can bring up certain triggers, can bring up certain things to take you out of listening. So getting a little bit more specific into the triggers, there are three that they talk about in the book. And I’ll do my best to wrap them up for you guys in a way that you can take immediately into your understanding and take a look at in your self-reflection of which one comes up for you in certain relationships. First is truth triggers. So you get a piece of feedback about something that you’re doing, something that you could do more of, something that you could do less of, something that you could change. And you just straight up think that’s wrong. That’s just false. What you’re saying, what you’re saying, you observed about me that I could do differently is false. And then boom, you’re done listening. You’re done listening. You’re checked out. You’re ready to move on to the next conversation. You’re like, okay, okay, great. You’re dismissive. But what I encourage you to do in that situation is look for what’s right in what they’re saying. So when you sit down to prepare yourself for a feedback conversation, for a review, it’s, I’m going to find anything that’s right about what they’re saying that I can incorporate today. and ask clarifying questions. Tell me a little bit more about what you mean specifically. When you say, I could have been more assertive in that meeting, that can look like so many different things, and you actually can’t take anything from that feedback and implement it. So then it’s, Can you tell me a little bit more about what assertive looks like in your eyes? What would I have done in that meeting if I were more assertive? What would that be? Then that encourages the feedback giver to give you the data because they’re just giving you a label there, more assertive. It’s just the label. What’s the data behind them? You can find that a lot in the workplace. feedback conversations that are kind of being forced as part of the agenda, as part of the culture, sometimes they can be given in quick labels. So it’s up to you, the receiver, to be able to ask the right questions to find what’s right behind there. The second one is relationship triggers. So the relationship trigger is more, who are you to be saying this to me? Or, hey, I thought you loved me. I thought you thought I was great. Where’s this coming from? And then it’s like, the feedback is out the window. You’re not even listening. And maybe that’s starting the conversation with a softer entry. Maybe that’s understanding that we save everything for a meeting we have once a month. My partner and I, we sit down once a month. We ask this list of questions to reflect on our month together. And that’s when we get feedback. And we listen with an open heart, tell each other we love each other before we get in, and we go through the feedback. So we can learn and grow as a couple. It can be being specific about the situation just so everyone’s prepared. So everyone’s prepared that you know you’re coming into it with an open heart and with the right reasons. The last one that we touched on a lot in our growth mindset episode is identity triggers. Because this is the thing that really takes people out of listening more than any of the other two, is when a piece of feedback or a review goes in conflict with the way that we know ourselves to be. I’ll say that again. When a piece of feedback or review goes against what we know ourself to be. So it’s, you know, imagine that you consider yourself, right, Tony, like, you know, I consider you a great speaker. I consider you a very thoughtful and to the point, you know, long winded at times, you know, we get on our, we get on our talks, you know, I feel you on that. If someone gave you the feedback that went against that and said, you could have made that probably half as many words as you used, you could have been a little louder at this point because no one could really hear you. Then your identity, if it’s so rooted in being a great speaker and being great with communication, it goes against that, and then you’re like, well, I don’t even know who I am anymore. And that’s like, if you’re fixed in that, if you have the fixed mindset, then that is where that comes up, where your identity can be thrown way off course by a piece of feedback. And from a growth mindset mentality, it’s like, OK, well, tell me a little bit more about that. You know that you’ve been working on your communication and your speaking, and you know that this is going to only bring you to the next level.

Tony: Mm-hmm.

John: So what comes up for you Tony as I go through like those three triggers? What what have you noticed if ever in your life? I’m coming up man.

Tony: I think that what you’re saying is extremely valuable when I heard you talk about the the triggers and the identity ones specifically, you know, when you are doing the work internally and even externally in your personal life, using some of the tactics that we’re talking about to measure your performance, to keep your performance high, You can or you should listen to feedback with the lens that it’s only going to make you better. And that’s why John talked about the fixed mindset, because if you only receive feedback and say apply it to your life in a way that says where you have like a rejection mindset where I’m rejecting that, I don’t believe that about myself. I don’t think that’s true. Who are they to judge me? Are you talking to your spouse and you’re like, can you believe that this is what they said about me at work? You know, A growth mindset will take in that feedback and apply it and compile that onto what you already are working on. And so for me, when I hear you say the feedback pieces, I ask the professionals out there who are listening, I say, what are you going to do with the feedback and the information that you received? Right? What are you going to do to make yourself better based on what you heard? Not tear yourself down, because if I’m being honest, and I’m pretty sure there’s others out there that feel me on this, we are usually our worst critic. There’s usually nothing that anybody else can tell us about ourselves that we don’t already know. They may just say it in a different way. And so when you think about that with a growth mindset in the regards of receiving feedback, those triggers are things where you’re like, yeah, I already knew that about myself, or that’s not the first time I’ve heard that, but I’m working on it. So that’s how you can internalize the feedback, take the feedback, receive it, and just add it to your mountain of performance. Like for me, I was reading an article the other day on my phone, and my wife Crystal, she comes up and she’s like, You know, she sees the title and she gets all like freaked out because the title is how to be less of a cynic. And she’s like, you’re not a cynic. Why are you reading that? Why do you think you’re cynical? What’s going on? Are you OK? And I’m like, no, no, I’m fine. I’m reading this to get better. Like there’s things in this article that I could apply. I’m not reading the article to change who I am. You’re right, I’m probably not a cynic, but maybe reading out of these 11 things, maybe two of them I can say, I could do better here. So that when I’m in public spaces, I’m not seen as a cynic. Maybe I seen cynic behavior in someone else and I want to make sure that I’m not like that or I’m making sure that I’m not being called out on being like that. That’s just one example of getting ahead of some of the triggers that you may receive from people. But with the identity trigger, that’s the biggest one I was reflecting on. which is how we root ourselves in ourselves instead of rooting ourselves in what other people say about us. It’s already hard enough with social media and you compare your life to other people. I think that’s one of the worst things about social media is the comparison trap that you can get in because when you see someone else, you don’t know if it’s real. You also don’t know what they’re doing or what they’ve done to to live the life that we see. You don’t know if they’ve really been working extremely hard and you should respect that, or is there some skepticism there? But who cares, right? You should be so rooted in yourself that when you get feedback, or even when you see something online, that should not shake your identity. You should be a tree Not a branch where everything the wind blows to you just breaks you. No, you want to be a tree with roots and that comes from doing deep work. That comes from sometimes breaking away from relationships or people that may not allow you to grow in that area. And then that’s the beauty of community is that along the journey of life, you will find people that you can connect to like that and you can grow deep roots together. You know, they’re their tree, you’re your tree, but the roots are deep and you’re both trying to grow. And so, you know, when you think about your performance, don’t forget about community. Don’t forget about people who are also trying to grow so that you can grow together. You know, last thing I say is a plant. I’m talking about a green plant. actually grows better when you talk to it, when you touch it, when you, of course, water it, but it’s also the contact that helps it too. So be careful of who you’re contacting in that way and try to grow in community where people are wanting the same things you want.

John: Yes. So good. Continuing with the tree analogy is like in the forest, all of those trees, the network under the ground is far more complex than what you see above. Even when you’re in a community of deeply rooted trees and you’re just starting, You are already more supported linking up underground with their already deepened roots. It’s like finding yourself a mentor in this space, finding the community that you want to be around that is growth supportive. is absolutely critical for accelerating your growth if you’re just starting out. And to keep deepening, it’s like surrounding yourself with people that are interested in that process, that do want to keep deepening their roots and getting more in tune with who they are. So I think that’s a great, great place to leave our listeners and to say that your community will support the direction that you want to go. and also choosing the direction that you want to go, you will begin to find a community that supports the direction you want to go. That may be a process. It may start a lonely process, but then you’ll get those deep connections even if it’s just a few.

Tony: Exactly. I’ll pick up. There’s a reason why you don’t see trees on the beach. Right? Community. You see a lot of sand, but you don’t see trees. And then it’s like you said, a forest. When you go, when you see a forest, you don’t, you see all types of trees, right? Or all sizes, but they’re usually all big.

John: because they’re growing together. So good, man. And when you see one kind of just like, you know, in a random park in the middle of the place, it’s, you know, grows kind of slow. It’s it’s not sharing nutrients and support with its neighbors. So I agree, man. I love this analogy. So, guys, We’ll leave you with that. Find your supportive community. You are all a supported community here with us at The Present Professional. And we’re so happy. honored to be able to support you in your journey and would love to support you in other ways as well. So you can find ways to interact with us in the show notes. And if you’re interested in a coaching relationship, if you’re interested in something for your team, your group, you can find all that information in the show notes. And thank you guys so much for listening. If you’d please rate us, review us, we’d really appreciate that. And you can find us anywhere you get your podcasts and find more at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com. Thank you guys so much for listening and have a great one.