Living the Real

Why you need more waste in your life (and why I've wasted this past month with no episodes).

• Matt Boettger • Episode 27

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It has been a challenging month, to say the least, and waste has been on my mind non-stop. Join me as I discuss my new relationship with "waste" and the challenges that come with it!

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Matt Boettger:

I'm going to throw a word out there to you right now. And I want you to think about what first comes to mind when you hear this word ready waste, what comes to mind? It's negative, right? It's what am I wasting my life? What are the things that are wasting my resources, whatever it may be, and it's causing a problem, I need to get rid of my waste so I can be more successful and more loving, more engaging all of these things. And I want to let you know that's absolutely right. And I think we have narrowed our focus a little too much that if we really want to bring the greatest value to our life, into our business, we've got to think a little bit broader in the lens of waste. Yes. We've got to shore up and reduce our waste. We've got to be leaner in our approach to life and business, but. We've got to increase our waste. If we want to be memorable. If we want to create a moment in someone's life, whether that's in a relationship or a transaction or some value, or you provide as a business, you've got to increase a particular part of your waste. You really want to be impactful in your life. Now it's been forever since I've done an episode. It's not because I haven't wanted to. It's because this war has been ruminating in some way in my mind, because something significant happened in my life just over a month ago that put everything on pause. You know what that is? I got laid off and it was hard and it was sudden, and it was unexpected. And the temptation to want to fall into emotional chaos feeling out of control was definitely. And I want to share what I've learned so far in this process and how waste is something I'm constantly fighting with. Not so much waste in sense of trying to get rid of waste. My problem now is actually adding the right waste back in because I'm afraid. And when you get fearful, You're not willing to actually add the right waste in because that's what it sounds like. It's not valuable, but in the end, the waste that I need would have dividends if I just commit to it. So today's episode is all about waste, where we can shore up, reduce our waste, but also more importantly, how you might. Can actually increase your waste. You can have a more successful and impactful relationship and business. Let's get going. Are you living the most real life possible? I ask myself this question all the time. Most of the time, the answer is, I just don't know. But sometimes the answer is definitely not. This is why I have this podcast. I'm Matt Bacher and welcome to the show. Two small things. If you get a chance, please leave a review on apple podcasts and also check out my website, live in the real.com where I offer lots of resources and how to live the most real life possible. Now on with this. Okay. So when we think of waste today, we're always thinking about how we can reduce it, how we can get rid of it, to manage our life more efficiently. And that's going to be a key word for today because this is a problem in every part of our life. And that is thinking who lens of one thing. And one thing only is how I can be more efficient with my time with my things and also with my friends. And that's the problem. What's the result from this quest for efficiency, reducing waste, it's increased responsibility, increased communications. We would have more concerns and we have to approach things with more caution. How is this? Because when we reduce this friction, we reduce our waste and we shore up our life to be more efficient. We allow for more things to come into our life and we just are juggling the madness of constantly. That's not where we want to be in our life. So in a pause for a moment to ask you, where is your waste? Where's my waste. It may be in a context of time, right? That you're scrolling on your doom, scrolling on social media, or just binge watching Netflix or Hulu. And that's really a clear cut idea that if you're really supposed to be working right now and you're watching Washington, yeah. That's a waste of time, but there are other more nuanced approaches by which we waste time about our emotion. How we're feeling. This was really hard for me when I was laid off back in the second week of may and took this like small sabbatical to reevaluate here. We're going to go, well, I should pursue next. There was a lot of emotion and that emotion competed with my productivity, my effectivity, to be able to do things, to move things forward. And of course there's that time, but what you just need to have that emotion and feel it and own it and be hurt, but then you've got to move forward and allow them. Emotion to be able to allow to come in your mind, but also allow to travel out without grasping onto it or the thoughts, man, I can't tell you how many thoughts I had when I was first laid off about, do I even have the gumption? Do I even have the strength to be able to do what I want to do now? Because as you maybe know, I had been juggling a full-time job and being an entrepreneur on the side and now I have to make a decision. Do I find another full-time job to replace that old full-time job? Or do I double down and say, no, this is where I want to be in my life. And I know it's a risky, but I'm going to go down that route. And could you imagine there were thoughts of imposter syndrome that I was having? No, no, no. The safe, the safety net is going back to a full-time job. There's benefits, there's security and you're absolutely right there is. But for me and my family, the risk is warranted to be able to jump off, make this. To be a full-time entrepreneur. And for me, I was playing it safe. To be honest, I living a full time job and doing the side hustle. It was a safe and easy thing to do. And I remember somebody told me the story of, he had written a book about how a general broadened his troops onto a beach and had all the ships burnt and said, look, you can't go home. So either. Or you die, but you're not going back home. And for me, my ship was burned because I didn't make the decision for me. And so now this is an opportunity for me to be able to, re-educate my thoughts to say, this is what I've always wanted to do this leap. Now the transition is scary and it's going to be hard. Our next three months we'll have a lot of unknowns, but I need to keep my nose to the grind. And in the spirit of finding Nemo, just keep going. And and if I have to have these thoughts, these ruminations, giving them a small amount time to happen, put on a timer and move forward because I don't have time to waste in those particular areas. How much of our energy is allocated to things that may or may not actually be true. And I don't want to be caught into that feeling emotions that are actually disproportion to my reality, having thoughts that are actually not right. They're just based out of fear. And not out of the confidence that I can have. I have what I have to build to move forward in a way to provide yes, financial means for my family, but the lifestyle of my family to be maybe more mobile, someday, to be able to go out and travel more, to live in a different state in a free way. So that's powerful to then shift my thoughts from pessimism to opportunity from preservation to promotion. I can't, this is not a time for me to try to go into this like little shell of preservation. This is my time to thrive. And I know some of you listening may be in a similar situation. Maybe you just graduated college and you're being put out into the ocean, the sea, or you just lost your job as well. Or you dropped out of college or you failed out of college or a broken relationship, what you thought was going to go forever and it's ended. And now what, and you have that opportunity to think, okay, is this an opportunity? Or is this just a threat to my life? And I wanna encourage you to think of things as an opportunity and get rid of those things in your life is going to keep you in a place where you don't want to be six months from now and get rid of that way. Now it's about the idea of efficiency and efficiency is this concept of being time focused. But in my mind, we'd look at waste. There are three dimensions of this to look at it. And he's like a peeling back, an onion, whether as a personal professional and then as the first one is efficiency and that's time-based how do I maximize my time in my life and my job and my work, my profession, my home life, whatever I be, how do I make things simpler, easier? And I get more done in less time. And this is the common way by which we think of wasting time. But then there's effectiveness, efficiency and effectiveness. This is not time focused, but result focused. This allows for the bigger questions in our life and our business about what is the outcome that we're ultimately trying to strive after? Is it just a sale, a transaction? Well then, uh, efficiency might be the easiest way of doing it, but at the deeper than it, than that, are you trying to bring about trust? Becoming having a group of super fans, deeper connections. Now this is affecting the, so I tell many of my clients and my friends in where I can oftentimes fail at when it comes to waste, be careful to be efficient with things, but be effective with people, whether personally or professionally, because we can smell it a mile away. We know this personally, when we feel like we're being treated as a means to an end as an efficient. But effectiveness is about trying to achieve the proper result for that person. And that person may be happiness or trust or safety. And that's, we want to bring about in that position. Now I know in the context of business, I can feel that right away when I call a business or an organization, a merchant, and I right away am greeted by a series of robotic teleprompters that have 5,000 menus before you can actually talk to a person. Right. Their business in some sense, or at least in one area is thriving off efficiency. When it comes to customer interactions, efficiency is their number one priority. And then there's other places I've called. Now. This might be a weird obscure group, but Omni group. It's a software company basis. Seattle. I use them all the time. You call them. There are no menu prompts. You're immediately greeted by a live real human being who wants to help you right away with your problems. What am I thinking of another one? I think of Zappos. I remember her hearing about back in the day, Zappos really was about values their customer. It was not just about the transaction, but about building. And the record to be online, right with customer service is 10 hours and 51 minutes. And I guarantee you, it wasn't about the nuances of the shoe they wanted. It was about dealing with somebody's personal life. It didn't have a friend to talk to and that Zappos customer service agent stayed with him for 10 hours and 51 minutes dealing with life. And this is something they're shunned with the Zappos criticized and demote them for that. Now they promote them and celebrate them. Wow. That's working out of effectiveness. Now you're seeing the context of wastes shift on its head because there's a bottom line number that is a total utter waste to spend 10 hours and 51 minutes that may or may not have resulted in a pair of shoe sales, but that did result in 10 hours at 51 minutes of an hourly rate being paid by Zappos to employee, what a waste. But see, now you're seeing the new one. That we've got to shore up. Our fences and efficiency was things, but maybe when it comes to effectiveness and my third one part of waste efficiency, effectiveness, and then enjoyment or experience that's an into itself. And these three things, we look out of the context of waste and our personal professional life and see where do we need to shore up our fences, reduce our waste in our life. So that we can be more effective, create better experiences, reallocate that waste to something profound. I would read in a book one time that the highest Colleen of love is to waste time with another. When I read that, it gave me this really strong kind of negative reaction initially. And over time I realized, yes, that is actually the context of love professionally and personally. Because when you actually waste time with another, what does that mean? It means simply that you get no value out of it, the experience. So this idea I've been wanting to sit with someone because they like to do something that you don't like to do, but yet you do it because you love them, but you do it enthusiastically, not begrudgingly. Wow. That's love because you know, it makes them happy. That is the idea of the right allocation of waste. There's this great hotel I read in a book. I think it's called the power of moments. I'll put it in the show notes about this magic castle hotel in LA. And if you've been there before, if you have I haven't and if you go on the magic castle hotel website in LA, you look at the pictures and he looks sub-par and looks like an average hotel, nothing big. But it gets five stars, thousands and thousands of thousands of five star ratings. Why? Because of one thing, they have something that stands out above every other hotel is a hotel Popsicle hotline by a pool that who was, is catering to kids and kids dominate decisions when it comes to travel and they pick up that phone, any kid, and they can immediately be greeted by a white glove. Employee with a silver tray of popsicles, free of charge, endless amounts. Anytime you pick up that phone, what a waste, the man, the waist provides dividends. And I want to encourage you professionally and personally to think about this idea of weight. And don't just think about trying to reduce the waste. I want you yes. To reduce the waste. Think of it through the lens of efficiency, effectiveness, and enjoyment, experience those three things, but then reallocate that waste to something profound. Create a moment in someone's life, whether personally or professionally that builds trust. What is your hotel Popsicle line? What is that thing? That is a waste of time of resources, but makes a deeper connection with someone in your life and your business effectiveness may increase waste before a greater impact. And that's what we want in our life and our business. We want impact. We want people to come back over and over and over, and I can think of tons of. Examples of businesses in my life who have earned my trust because of the waste in their life. Now, Amazon has grown it's enormous, but the fact that they were the first on the scene to provide basically free shipping with prime subscription and having two days having a bag in your door was unheard of and free returns. It's so simple to earn my trust that, and you know what I'm going to shop with them. There is a place called REI that I go to. I went to often back in the, here in Colorado that I would only shop for my outdoor gear. Because if you became a member, you could return things. Literally two years later with mud all over them, the tread gone and saying, Hey, they didn't work. And they return or out without even asking about it and giving you a new pair of shoes. That is incurring waste for my lawyer. And that's incredible insight shop with them because I trust them because they trust me by doing that right now, granted people are going to abuse the system, but just that gesture tells me they trust me enough to allow me that option. Trinity is going to return things two years later, knowing or trust. And I won't abuse it because they trust me, then I shop with them. So it encouraged. Right now pursue efficiency with things and effectivity with people as a business, you've got incorporate intentional waste handwritten letters, a simple thing. I saw a few years ago, I was driving into work and to Boulder one time, and I saw utility vehicle parked on the side of the road, dealing with some kind of service of a house. And instead of putting a little red cones around the. The gentlemen put huge stuffed lions around his van, memorable what a waste. We'll never forget that moment in that company ever again, because of what that happened. Just, it created a moment for me by which just created indelible seal in my mind of who that company is. And it brought about a sense of enjoyment. The third one for me to counter, which inclined me to want to use them. If they're in my area. Because there's something symbolic about what they did that shows to me, it's not just about the transaction. It's about the experience. And if you, as a business can make that gesture towards someone, you've got them hooked. If you can show that you are also about the experience for the client, for the customer and making their experience exceptional, I'm coming back over and over and over again. So what is your white glove Popsicle? What is your stuffed Elian so that you encounter and bring about a deeper experience and trust loyalty to the people around you? So I hope this has helped. What is that wasting to shore up? And what is that wasting it introduced to you? To your friends, to your business, what does that waste? You need to add in your own life and your own business. It might be as simple as just sitting with someone and allowing them to talk endlessly about something you just don't care about. In fact, it frustrates you. In fact, you don't even believe what they're saying. And you sit with them and you listen with them and you empathize with them and you connect with them and you stay away from providing your own judgements. You just sit there and quote, waste that opportunity. And the purpose is simply to connect, have a wonderful week, and I will see you guys next week. Take care. Bye-bye thank you for listening to this episode of living the real. If you want to check out more information, go to living the real.com and sign up for my newsletter. If you want to support this podcast, you do that at patrion.com/ltr as well as one time. Payments at Venmo and PayPal in the show notes. See you all next episode. Take care. Bye-bye.