Top tips from Nat Milne.

1. To really know as a business owner, what your priorities are, and business and life. 

I think, is to really know as a business owner, what your priorities are, and business and life. So I was very clear that my priorities were twofold. One was to run a business that was profitable, and working for my life and family, and two was to be President, my family. And so all of the decisions that I’ve made around business have had to support a dual priority. And if your priority is business, only go for it. But know that it’s going to have an impact on other areas of your life. So I think it’s just really important when you own a business, to make sure you’re clear on what your life priorities are, as well as your work ones

2. Have a methodology for how you support your priority.

The second is have a methodology for how you support your priority. So obviously, one one is actually managed at like this Beeminder program, I think as a methodology for supporting your priorities. And for me, that’s looked like having really clear categories of importance of things in my life and making sure in business and and in life, and making sure that I work to those.

3. Gather the right people around you so that your business can enable your life.

Outsource where you need to gather the right people around you. And I feel really lucky that I was kind of forced into that situation in my business, because I was going to have the baby. But it really has meant that I have always gone, where my gaps are both in both in a capability. This is both from a capability perspective and a time perspective. So it’s not just as a business owner, often we are multi skilled. So it’s it’s not just are you not capable? It’s also do you have the time? Or do you want to spend the time doing that? Or could you spend that elsewhere? If you outsource this place, I think, gather the right people around you so that your business can enable your life. And I have this lovely line that I’ve always said I work to live not live to work. And I think that’s really helped my enjoyment of life while running a business.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

work, business, life, people, email, program, day, priorities, inbox, bit, business owner, hours, stress, helped, headspace, minutes, part, feel, methodology, grow

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Welcome to another episode of Better Business Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs lead their ideal lives by creating better businesses. I’m a certified as implementer and FBI accredited family business adviser and a business owner myself with several business interests. And I work with established business owners and their leadership teams to help them live their ideal entrepreneurial life using Eos, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, my guests come on the show to share with you their experiences in their business, the highs and the Lowe’s, and what they have learned from that experience. And they’re often also experts in their own field.

Nat Milne  00:46

One of the things that the program teaches is that stresses are a real and even a good part of life. But one of the things that’s really shifted, I think, in the modern workforce is that rather than having a stressful moment, which can actually kind of promote pace of work, and you can get some things done, and having the time to come down from that, then it goes stressful moment, after a stressful moment after a stressful moment. And even people’s responses to things that aren’t that stressful can feel stressful if you’re operating at this kind of levels.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:23

So today, I have got a beautiful guest who has gone from being overwhelmed in one business, to actually now running two businesses without the overwhelm, I’m going to show you how she got to that. She runs a people place with a whole team of HR professionals, as well as a new business that they’re just launching, called be minded. And she’s bringing the minded from Sweden to New Zealand. So today she’s going to share with you how she has gone on that journey and what she has learned through that process. Please welcome Matt mill, the co founder and Managing Partner of be minded net book of the show. Thank you for having me. Absolute pleasure. So we’ve been having a bit of a chat outside before you came in, you’ve got a very interesting story cuz you’ve been quite deliberate in the way that you built your businesses. But you did get to a point where you are feeling very overwhelmed by everything. Tell a little bit about what happened. Cool,

Nat Milne  02:10

thank you for having me again. And I started the people place on a whim, I was on my own, I had decided to go out on my own and didn’t really have a huge amount of goals for business. And I signed my first client on a Friday. So that was an exciting thing had decided to you know, launch my own business, and signed a 14 month contract with a business where I was going to be in and out of that organization, helping them implement this receiver performance review framework. So I there was a Friday, and on the Monday I found out I was pregnant with my first child. So what that means for me is that I had signed a contract that I could no longer deliver. And my first meeting was with my my first sorry, my first project meeting with this client, I had to sit down and say thank you so much for you know, giving, taking the punt on me and signing up to this contract. And I’m going to be having a baby in eight months time and I’m not going to be able to deliver it. And this client looked at me and he said net, What a delightful distraction, there’s more or less than business carry on, we’ll figure it out. So that for me was the start of owning the people place I had this client who I felt like I had mapped around, you can imagine that veto right to kind of go thanks so much. I’m so sorry. And he had this incredibly gracious response towards me starting a family. And, and I think why that’s significant is from the very first day I watched the people play. So the first day we were kind of in operation, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to be everything to this business. And it meant that I knew that if we were going to make anything of this, I either needed to get the right skill around me. Or essentially, I was going to need to shut down in eight months. And that’ll be that. So I did, I did hire in my first year, I actually brought on an HR business partner who so it was a lot more senior than I had ever been. And also came with salary expectations that were in line with her level of experience. And but I think what yeah, why it’s a powerful part of my story is that I essentially was growing a family while I’ve also been growing a business. And those two things have had to coexist in a real in a way that kind of works for family works for the business. And yes, a week grow reasonably steadily. In our first few years, we grew purely through word of mouth, which was a really encouraging way to grow. You know, we didn’t have any marketing budget or any marketing spend. And really it was our clients hearing about the services that we were offering and that helped us grow and think COVID hatch so I think by the time COVID hit, we would have had maybe I’m gonna say five or six staff. So yeah, we had we had grown reasonably significantly for me working part time, but it certainly wasn’t, you know, a conglomerate. I’m in through COVID ish. I might just back up a little bit. One of the other things is because of what I was doing in life, just having babies and I always worked part time And I think kind of naturally gathered other people who were working part time. And not all of them were working part time because they were parents, but they had different interests in life. So I think this really kind of fundamental value and the people place that we were all people were highly skilled in what we did, but actually had other things going on in our lives that we wanted to be able to be president or contribute to whatever it may be. So, and for several of us, that was parenting others hadn’t had and have music interests. So as people we work part time because they play music part time, and but I think this whole idea that I it’s a business to work, it has to work for life, as well as business has been a really fundamental part of our story. So first of all, a little bit the people place grew to, we were 13 staff this time last year, and I was very, very, very, very stressed. And I think, if you would ask me, I never would have told you that I never would have said I’m really stressed. But I think how that was out working was I was struggling to make decisions. So I was really indecisive and the business and I was kind of touching the same piece of work several times before progressing it. And that had no impact on the business. Because ideally, you have a leader who was able to make decisions and push things forward. And you know, Delegate well, and I think I think I felt a little bit like the wheels have fallen off and how I was managing and, and we you know, we had got through COVID I don’t want to say unscathed, I certainly wouldn’t be Stiva years, but you know, we were okay during COVID. And I was just stressed not sleeping well. Tyria, then perhaps I’d like to match your all these indicators that actually just I wasn’t well. And I so over, it was the kind of summer before the one we just had to meet through a friend sorry, my husband’s cousin’s friend was over from Sweden. And we went for a lovely long walk together. So we kind of meet up at the family batch and went to this lovely long walk together around tafur annuity reserve. And so we’re talking about what we do in life. And I was telling her about your business and 13 staff and some of the challenges we were having and some of the things I was navigating. And she said to me, Oh, I run a stress free productivity consultancy out of Sweden. And I think we should talk about doing this to get your given where you’re at and what I do, I think we should talk about doing this together. And I looked at and I said, Anna, I have a business that’s struggling to small children, and sometimes they don’t even make it to the shower. There’s no world that I have capacity for anything else. And probably deep deep down. I thought, you know, she’s really common shell, but I would stress free productivity. Yeah, right. I mean, pick one or the other. And anyway, she kind of were her and I kept talking for several months, she went back to Sweden, and we kept talking for several months. And I’m gonna say around April last year, she said, Nick, why don’t I take you and your husband through the program. And you know, that will help us help you determine whether or not this is something that you want to consider doing in New Zealand pain. So over a series of weeks, she took us through this program. And at the end of it, within two months, I had completely changed the people place around going from a business that actually had an eight month period of operating at a loss. So I completely change that around made structural decisions that actually supported our growth and felt completely in control of my working life. versus kind of spinning out in not sleeping that well and feeling like I was holding 65,000 things in my head. And so at the end of that I see through it, oh, my goodness, I know we have to do this yet, you know, I will not be the only business owner struggling with my kind of my own productivity, but also the productivity of my team. So that’s kind of one piece of it, and also the stress levels that we carry when we are not highly productive. And so it was a very real change in my life having done it. But I think on a really practical level, I have been doing this role as Managing Director of the people place and I’m going to say about 25 hours a week now that that was kind of those hours at the office working. Also there was probably another 1520 Possibly plus of headspace that it was taking, you know, again, at the end of having done this Beeminder program was Anna, I managed to get that role down to 15 hours a week with my head clear when I wasn’t at work so much so that I then said to her, yes. You know, I went from going No way I don’t even make it to the shower some days to absolutely I’ve got time to do this. Let’s do this. So that was I mean, you can imagine wildly powerful for both how I work and how I live. And yeah, so that’s a little bit of my, my story.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  09:42

I’m really keen to hear because you said that your husband also did the course. Yes. So your husband, his name is Josh said what is Josh’s work? What does he do?

Nat Milne  09:50

Yeah, so he is a design and innovation manager so he works for himself and the construction industry. So design and innovation and construction. And yes, he and I did it together and I think it’s a is a good thing for you to touch on, because we had quite different experiences, but both really positive so, and for me, I would describe the course as completely life changing. And absolutely, you know, to help me turn my business around, made my head a whole lot clearer when I was at home, I enjoyed my time with my children more I slipped it, you know, I think it really hit this quite profound, life changing experience. I also recognize I was ripe for the picking, you know, I think I was probably, if you look at the perfect candidate, you know, the perfect candidate for doing the program, Josh was probably starting from a better point, you know, he, he wouldn’t describe himself as particularly, certainly wasn’t teary on most days, you know, he started beat up. But what he found is he went into his workplace much clearer and what he needed to do on any given day, with the clarity comes deep focus, so able to get his work done more quickly. So yeah, so he was sorry, he said that, again, he is much clearer on what he needs to do on any given day, therefore able to get himself into deep focus, and therefore being able to get the results he needed to keep pace with lower stress. But again, I think, I don’t think it had the same, I will say emotional impact on him. But my take on that is going, you know, if he’s baseline and I am completely life changing, any result between here and here is going to be awesome, in that Josh works for himself, but one of his biggest clients, or his biggest client books, Beeminder, to work with them, having seen the results, that that kind of the change in the way Josh has worked. So I think they were different experiences. I think that is relevant, because there will be a whole range of people, there are already a whole range of people books to go through this. And that well, yeah, I think kind of anywhere in that spectrum of more focus, getting your work done more quickly and clear on what you need to do on any given day, to change my life and no sleep eight love, and now run two businesses instead of just one and in the same amount of hours and enjoy my life more, you know, it’s kind of Yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  11:56

excellent. And so I’m just gonna go back a little bit to because you said that the symptoms, if you like, of being a little bit overwhelmed, you weren’t working. So really, really, really long hours, but you weren’t able to be making the right decision, as you felt somehow overwhelmed. Tell me a bit more about, you know, how do you recognize those symptoms, because I think sometimes we can all be busy. And then we kind of got it, it’s normal to work 40 5060 hours wherever you want it in a business. And that’s not normal. Because I do believe that your capacity to make good decisions actually goes down. When you’re tired, we’re not sleeping well, when you actually think that there must be a law of diminishing return. Once you work over a certain number of hours, you’re not actually performing at your best. So what were the real symptoms?

Nat Milne  12:36

Yeah, I’ve learned a little bit about that, and doing and now learning the Beeminder program. And as there’s so much around what’s happening in your prefrontal cortex when you are stressed. So literally, stress has an impact on the brain and it shuts down your ability for creative problem solving, and empathy. You know, there’s a whole lot of things that actually the small but important part of your brain holes that actually stress just completely ruins basically. Yes, I think going back to kind of what are the symptoms? You’re absolutely right, it for me, it wasn’t a number of hours worked, and it never has been. So I’ve been really clear on the My priorities, which are job, you know, I have a business that I really care about, and I have a family that I want to be present in. But I think what, what creeped and was all of the work, which is the kind of trying to problem solve while I’m with my children. So I think of an example, I have a six year old, and I would often find myself at home not at work. I’m picturing one particular scenario where I was getting a glass of water from the fridge. And you know, there’s nothing for her to suggest that I’m busy. She came to try and say something to me. And I honestly wanted to say to her shots, you know, standing there pour myself a glass of water, but trying to solve a problem that ideally, I’m solving a work context. And I want to tell my six year old daughter the shots, you know, that’s, that’s, that is a key indicator that I’m working when I’m not at work. So I think I’m yet to your point. It’s for me, it wasn’t about hours spent at the office. But it was about not being able to shut down or not being able to actually get the things done I needed to do in my short hours. Because I wasn’t particularly planned about it. I wasn’t clear on what my priorities were and in terms of work stuff, not on the kind of family work piece, but on actually what do I need to do to push my business forward? So one of the things I really learned through the program was was getting explicitly clear on what’s on my agenda, and making sure that I am both look forward and look back on any given week going given that I know I need to do this, this and this in the next 714 days. Have I scheduled enough time to do it? Does that include the problem solving time to get to actually execute the work and so being much clearer on what work I have to do, where I’m actually trying to go? And then being able to execute it has really helped. And I think I think the key thing, it’s helped us for me to feel completely in control rather than responsive to the things that are coming at me. I now I’ll feel like I’m on the front front foot. And I determined what I work on eager, but get it sorry, on any given day, based on what I have determined the priorities for my week, day, month, whatever it may be. So it actually has yet changed the way that I work.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  15:13

Well, isn’t it amazing, isn’t it because I think that we just get onto almost like a hamster wheel where like the way that we do things this way we do things, and we can’t even see what is not really working. And I think for me, it kind of represented itself when I was in my business doing. It was the not being asleep, because I will have a capacity to do a huge amount of work, I think probably more than most people I know. And I blame my ADHD for that. But it was the waking up at sort of two or 3am in the morning, and suddenly thinking through things and, and just not being able to clear my mind. And therefore you wouldn’t get back to sleep, you didn’t have a good night’s sleep, but then it becomes a self perpetuating kind of you know, you’re tired and you can’t do things. So it obviously represents off in different ways. But it is that Yeah, can I tell

Nat Milne  15:55

You about this is a small part of the program. But I think there’s a very specific way that we address that particular issue, which is that we get participants to do an hour of a weekly review. And within that weekly review, and the first two minutes are spent completely in silence. So you literally sit at your desk, total silence laptop down, you know, taking a minute, and then you set a timer again for seven minutes. And we call it this peer on your head. And in the end, you literally just writing tasks of all the things that pop in to your mind that you haven’t found a way to get done yet. And, and what I found is the first time I did the at the end of seven minutes happens, I felt like I was you know, I couldn’t even I was nowhere near finish was now I’ve been doing this for a year. And I’m pretty committed to what I do almost every week. But what happens as an I now get through my things and maybe two or three minutes. But the program suggests that you sit down for the seven minutes no matter what, because what emerges. And this is what I found what emerges when you think you’ve got everything out of your head and minutes 456 Other things that wake you up in the morning because they’re a little bit deeper. And when you you know when you’re just powering through the you know, call this person do this work on this project, whatever it may be, you’re not going to think of, I actually need to implement a strategy for solving that problem. It’s not in that quiet part of your mind. And so by giving yourself a little bit more space, and what we see is those things that used to wake me up at 2am, or whatever it may be, I mean, my issue was, I fall asleep quickly. So be so exhausted, but it might be 1015 that I’m boom, you know, I’m back, I’m just back on and thinking and that part of the programming a smaller piece, but it’s actually really helped clear the deeper parts of my thinking that used to wake me up in the middle of the night.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  17:38

So I feel you divert like I got past it too. And we we recommend something similar with an EOS. And it’s called a clarity break. And and the way that we describe it is that if you imagine if a glass of water was in sand in the bottom, if you’re always on the go, then the water is always cloudy. It’s only when you actually completely stop that the sand gets a chance to settle. And suddenly they have clarity. But yeah, it takes discipline and it takes and I think that it’s like with everything in life. I mean, I have a personal trainer for the gym, because I know that I know what I should do. I know how I should eat. I know what exercise I need to do. But without somebody actually kind of giving me some frameworks for that and holding me accountable doesn’t happen. So I’m guessing that’s when the be minded thing is right. It’s like we all know what we do need to do. But do we actually do it? Yeah. And

Nat Milne  18:15

it is a commitment, right? It’s not like you get turned on methodology for working and then can carry on the way that you were and you’re going to see any change. You’re absolutely right. It’s a commitment and good on you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:27

There’s no magic silver bullet in anything in life. No, absolutely. There’s a little bit like what was the guy who was Remington who said he liked the the like the razor so much he bought the business? I mean, that’s what’s really happened with you, isn’t it? You’ve kind of you went you did this? Yep. And then fell in love with it. So. So tell me a little bit about some of the the outcomes in terms of what you’ve seen with yourself and with Josh, in terms of what you’ve seen change since during the work?

Nat Milne  18:50

Yeah, perfect. Um, so that kind of the big obvious one is the dramatic reducing hours for me. So a role that had I’ve been working in a different way could have been taking me 15 hours a week was taking me 25 and 25. And I was stressed. So to be able to take a job that and literally just create time in my week has been really, really powerful. So that’s a very practical, I’ve just been able to reduce it. So what that looks like for me is being able to start a new business now for we deliver this training in workplaces. So if you if a workplace book SAS and we’re able to reduce someone’s working hours by 10 hours a week, they’re not going to then be off 10 hours a week looking to start another business for them, it’s gonna be going great if I can get this amount done in this amount of time. What else can Am I able to do? What are the outcomes for the business? Am I able to produce and New Zealand is a big productivity issue. And so we are so excited about working with businesses to either kind of get rid of what I call the faff around roles, you know, things that people are spending time on there or not getting them towards the results that the business is actually looking for from them and if we can do that while reducing stress, what for when? And so yes, for me, it was very, very real time. I’m capturing, but I recognize because I worked for myself, it looks like one thing people in businesses, it’s going to look like a different thing. And, and lower stress. I mean, we all want lower stress, right? You know, that’s just something that I feel like everyone is looking for. But it doesn’t just happen. And I think one of the things that the program teaches is that stresses are a real and even a good part of life. But one of the things that’s really shifted, I think, in the modern workforce is that rather than having a stressful moment, which can actually kind of promote pace of work, and you can get some things done, and having the time to come down from that, then it goes stressful moment, after a stressful moment, after a stressful moment. And even people’s responses to things that aren’t that stressful can feel stressful, if you’re operating at this kind of level. So an example might be, if you’ve had what I would say a genuinely stressful day, you know, something’s happened that has really made that meant that you’ve needed to be on at a pace of 120 miles an hour, whatever it may be, if you get an email, there is a tiny little problem, tiny little problem, it’s going to feel like you suddenly have this whole new fire to fight. If you’ve got that email, perhaps the next morning after a good sleep, or if you would hit the chance to actually just come down from the stay stressed, you’re gonna go up, that’s not too big of a deal, I just need to do ABCD and E or A and B to solve that. And so you can imagine, kind of honestly, in the modern workforce, when people are getting hundreds of emails a day, it’s really hard for the tired mind to triage that kind of vote that volume of email and know which one to treat, like a sign of that needs to be dealt with immediately. versus actually, I’m going to be better to deal with it in the morning. Or actually, that one doesn’t need any attention for a week because I’m actually busy focused on the things that are producing the results I need to for business.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  21:42

And you talked about when we were outside of that when before we came into the podcast room, you actually kind of said that. You talked about your email inbox, and you know how stressful it was, and how that had changed your whole approach. Because I’m like, I was laughing with you saying no, no, my inbox is absolutely chock a block full at the moment. And I I’ve become reasonably self aware that I know when I start to really type on the keyboard, that’s the time I should go, stop. Let’s put this aside for a while. Maybe Maybe type everything, get it all out. So you feel like you’re on top of it, but then put it away somewhere and review it before you send it because otherwise you can find yourself sending an email that is in a triggered state, which means a person receives it will also get triggered. And before you know it, you’re into this, which is awful. Yeah. But it’s but it’s not always easy to pick that up. And so you’ve got some methodologies that can actually teach you how to look at those messages and decide what is important.

Nat Milne  22:31

Yeah, we do. So I now operate with a zero email inbox. So what that looks like for me as I normally do it, maybe two or three times a day, I’m in my inbox, but I actually now work out of my task list rather than my inbox. So when I get to work, the start of the day, the first thing I’m doing is not clearing my emails. And the reason for that is I’ve predetermined my priorities for the day. And those are the things that I focus on. And I think I’m Anna, the Swedish founder hit this lovely example of how we don’t stand at our leisure boxes and wait for mail to respond to yet that’s often how we work, you know, we add our emails and you know, we might be working on the thing, that’s the most important. If we’re organized in a new email pops up and off, we go to that one, always that one and put it in your next minute, you know, you’ve done 10 others before being actually focused on the things that you have predetermined your priorities. And so first thing is I don’t work out of my inbox anymore, it does mean I can be slower to respond. But most of the things that come into my inbox don’t need an immediate response at all. And in fact, the quality of the response typically is better if I’ve waited. So the first thing is like, yeah, don’t operate out of it. And then as part of that weekly review, I was mentioning, it shall go back a little bit. So every day rather than actioning. Every email as it comes in or even from bottom up, I am triaging and categorizing at what pace that email needs to be addressed. So I’ll kind of general rule is if it takes less than two minutes, we do it on this, you know, on the spot, when you’re in your inbox, it just happens. And if it needs any more thought than that, that gets put into one of the categories of of this, I can talk to you about this a little bit later, but kind of high to low importance, basically. And then it gets responded to in its rightful place when you’ve got the right time to actually engage in the response. So now I get to the end of the day, and I don’t have emails in my inbox. I’m just so much more in control of when I’m going to do certain things. And lots of people have said to me, gosh, it sounds like sounds like a lot of work, just administrative administrative Lee. But I think the thing that I’ve found is that, yes, there are some extra steps but it saves me so much time and so much headspace time, you know, that I’m so committed. Now. You know, it just it’s just part of how you operate takes more time than it takes those that go significantly more time than what it takes to administer. Yeah, okay.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:50

Yeah. So that’s one of the tools some little bit more about what else you’ve learned from it. And also, I guess I want to just bring it up as well because I’m sure people listening kind of go. Oh, yeah, but you know, you’re only working part time. So you’re not the same as us. We work full time or your husband went through the same program. And so, yeah. So tell us a bit about what he took from that and how he is he’s also implemented a zero inbox.

Nat Milne  25:11

Yeah, he does, he does possibly think about what Josh and I actually walked past on the other day, because we both at times work from home. And I do to the right of his screen, he had this kind of pre Owens, which is your the things that you need to get done today. And it’s pretty much of his rap as well, and actually felt so thrilled for him. You know, I, I knew anecdotally he was using it, but it was so cool to see an action going, he’s sitting there at his desk, he knows exactly what the things that he needs to work on. And he probably has on any given day, slightly more complex tasks than what I’m doing. So in my managing director role, miners lots about enabling delegating, you’re actually enabling people to get their work done, whereas He’s probably in more of an operationally problem solving kind of role. So I think that, um, he feels like now he’s got the time to think and plan, because he’s scheduled it, versus trying to fit that in, and like 65 different people coming at him, you know, he now will switch off more at work, they switch off, I mean, switch off the outside world more, and to be able to focus and you know, he might do a trick or two or three hour chunk of work versus a two or three hour chunk of work that actually only has an hour’s output, because he said, you know, interruption interruption interruption interruption. But I think both of those that both of our kind of examples are on a on a very individual impact delivery, you know, we both have our kind of own individual experiences, whereas we’re the program is delivered as in businesses, where you get the team together, or a chunk of the business to get that. And you’re creating kind of common ground rules for how you’re going to work, how you’re going to respect each other’s deep focus time, your email, communication culture, you know, what goes into an email, who gets CCD into it? how clear it is to read your meeting culture, you know, how useful your meetings or not? And are they a good use of time? So, yeah, I think we’ve had these quite, almost different experiences doing it in our context versus what the program delivers in workplaces. Which looks a little bit different.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  27:10

And that’s great, though, because I think it’s, it’s really good to have a common set of rules, a common way of working a common language you can actually talk to, and have everybody understand. And I think the whole email thing is fascinating, isn’t it? Because I mean, we, we often see people who see everybody into an email, it’s like why, yeah, and that’s why we have hundreds of emails in our inbox, we don’t need that kind of level of communication.

Nat Milne  27:31

I’ve seen mindful who have put an automated rule in the inbox to have all emails that they CC down to go straight into another file, and they check that once a day, once a week, whatever, it’s kind of the appropriate amount of time, because if it’s only a CC, it’s essentially an FYI. Right? So you might take a moment to go, I might just glance through my FIA eyes, rather than leading all of those who have the same level of priority and your day headspace, then the people who actually need to get in contact with you to reach li for something. So there’s, there’s different ways of managing it.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:01

So in terms of the program itself, I mean, what sort of commitment is that from a leadership team perspective.

Nat Milne  28:06

So there’s two main pieces to it, which is one is a full day workshop that we do together, and then four to six weeks later, a half day workshop, the only commitment prior to that is we do a preparatory study with you. So there’s a kind of an anonymous survey that goes out. And that basically just gives us an indication of what we’re coming into. So all of the participants would do that. And then the person who’s booked the workshop so so far, that’s typically kind of managing Jesse your that that level as spends an hour with us giving us a heads up on who’s going to be in the room, what they’re expecting, whether or not the book desk because they’re mostly worried about productivity and the team, are they mostly worried about stress? You know, we do we need to kind of put the emphasis in the workshop. And then the business itself provides a year of support following the program. So the idea is that you leave day one with the methodology ready to implement, you brought your lecture into the workshop, and we worked in your tech stack, we work with you on your real life work. And then the four to six weeks later, when we get together again, it’s looking at and we do rego over some of the material, because every the everybody forgets something. So we really go over some of it and kind of what’s working, what’s not, what have you found in your teams that’s implementing it, what are you not getting to? And then we’re available for support for the year that follows that yeah,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  29:24

We call it space learning in the US, I think it’s really important that you actually have to take something away, you need to use it and need to come back and then go right, and I call it second see like you kind of go out there and see what works, what doesn’t work, what needs to be adjusted, which is absolutely fantastic. It sounds very complimentary to the kind of work that I do. I think the biggest challenges so we we work on the business, we go, hey, you know, what are our rocks, what our focus for the quarter, but then what happens generally is people will come back in and they’ve been too busy, and they haven’t made the time and so we try and help them with that. But it’s hard because, you know, we’re always caught up in sort of fighting fires and we need to get out of that fighting fire mentality,

Nat Milne  29:56

Especially because I genuinely believe that some of the things that we try Using the spa as art, you know, so I think that when people say they’re too busy, and and I mean, I think possibly what you’ve said to me is you’re always working with leadership teams. Whereas this program probably gets delivered, yes. Ideally starts with the leadership team, but then trickles down the business. So what we see is this leadership layer often going by people are saying they’re too busy, but I’m going too busy doing. And so this helps to solve some of that, you know, going actually, well, now, you get to be involved in helping set the priorities, which pits your organization, does this investment methodology helps them actually get it done? You know, so I think you’re right, I think it’s more complimentary than I pips. Really.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  30:39

Yeah. No, it’s fantastic. Okay, cool. Hey, um, we could probably talk all day. But I’d love to always give some really practical pragmatic tips for the listeners, right? Because we want them to listen and go, Wow, that’s inspiring. But what can I actually do? So what are your kind of three top tips that we could share with the listeners?

Nat Milne  30:52

Oh, so I am. The first one, I think, is to really know as a business owner, what your priorities are, and business and life. So I was very clear that my priorities were twofold. One was to run a business that was profitable, and working for my life and family, and two was to be President, my family. And so all of the decisions that I’ve made around business have had to support a dual priority. And if your priority is business, only go for it. But know that it’s going to have an impact on other areas of your life. So I think it’s just really important when you own a business, to make sure you’re clear on what your life priorities are, as well as your work ones.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:30

And I think I always use the example of the cat from Alice in Wonderland, right? If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. So that clarity in your entire life and how your business supports, I think, is really important. And I know often as business owners, we go into a business and the business kind of grows. So this be this monster that we don’t feel like we have any control over. But we actually have to continue to review that and go, is it supporting what I want to do? Do I have time to pursue other passions? Business is not everything Life is too short, there’s other things want to be doing?

Nat Milne  31:56

I completely agree, completely agreed. The second is have a methodology for how you support your priority. So obviously, one one is actually managed at like this Beeminder program, I think as a methodology for supporting your priorities. And for me, that’s looked like having really clear categories of importance of things in my life and making sure in business and and in life, and making sure that I work to those. So whatever the methodology is that you find, have one and I guess it’s exactly what you’ve just said, with the cliche cat, right? Going any road, but

Debra Chantry-Taylor  32:28

What so what what is the line. So it’s like, if you don’t know where you’re going anywhere, any road will get you there.

Nat Milne  32:33

Whereas I would say at know where you’re going and the path, the path that actually gets you the route. And the food is, don’t think that you can be everything to your business, you know, outsource where you need to gather the right people around you. And I feel really lucky that I was kind of forced into that situation in my business, because I was going to have the baby. But it really has meant that I have always gone, where my gaps are both in both in a capability. This is both from a capability perspective and a time perspective. So it’s not just as a business owner, often we are multi skilled. So it’s it’s not just are you not capable? It’s also do you have the time? Or do you want to spend the time doing that? Or could you spend that elsewhere? If you outsource this place, I think, gather the right people around you so that your business can enable your life. And I have this lovely line that I’ve always said I work to live not live to work. And I think that’s really helped my enjoyment of life while running a business. And I think that again.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  33:35

That’s really, really true. I mean, even if your business has kind of grown significantly, you should always be looking at and going, where do I add the most value? And what do I love doing. Because if you’re not loving what you’re doing, you’re going to find it really hard to go to work every day anyway, it will definitely make life harder for you. But also, there’s certain things that you will add more value to it. So I mean, I can do all kinds of stuff. You can do all kinds of stuff. All of us as business owners have had to do everything in the beginning. But at the end of the day, we shouldn’t be doing some of that stuff. So yeah, I think you’ve done a great job of building people around, you can actually do that, and then that enables a better life. Thank you. Yes. And that’s part of the reason why I wanted to get on the show. Because I think I think that it’s very, you know, the way that you’ve chosen to run the business and the way that you’re choosing to bring this program to New Zealand is really about making sure that people do need the best possible holistic life because it like businesses, not everything. I love business. I could probably spend 24/7 hours working if I wanted to. But there was other things that I also love. And I think sometimes we can lose sight of that because the business becomes overwhelming. Yeah. I look, it’s been wonderful to have you on the show. lovely to have you come along. If people want to find a bit more about what you’re doing, where could they actually find that information. Beeminder dot codeine seed. Perfect. We’ll make sure that is actually in the show notes as well. But thanks. It’s been wonderful to meet you are such a pleasure.

Nat Milne  34:43

Thank you.

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Debra Chantry-Taylor 

Certified EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner

#betterbusinessbetterlife #entrepreneur #leadership #eosimplementer #professionaleosimplementer #entrepreneurialbusinesscoach

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