Recruiting Leaders on Thanksgiving – Restoration Day

everybody it’s Richard Milligan here with recruiting conversations welcome back to their podcast I’m actually in a pretty cool location today I figured out how to take the podcast on the road that’s the and the road is not like our OAD it’s ro de because I figured out how to get a road microphone and I just simply picked up a mobile interview kit is what it’s called and now I can take this podcast on the road until this one I’ve actually been in my studio doing this directly from my Yeti mic but today I figured out how to travel and do it so how’s that I have recently had a couple of coaches that I’ve been working with one of those coaches is actually a writing coach and if you ever want to see with that the the impact of that you can always check out the articles that I write on about a bi-weekly basis I put those on LinkedIn and you can check those out there work with a writing coach but also working with a podcast coach and as part of that a challenge for me is to actually take this on the road so that I’m able to actually do more of these podcasts so if you’ve ever thought about doing podcast one of the things that I would recommend is picking up the road mobile interview kit and if you need more information on that you can google it that’s that the largest search engine engine in the world but this is easy work one of the things that we’re looking at doing is actually beginning to interview successful recruiting leaders and that will probably require us to do some mobile interviews with them at events and on site wherever they are and so we’re practicing for that so there you go if you’re listening to this now it’s the week of Thanksgiving so I’m traveling and one of the things that me and my wife have determined over the last couple of years is that we want to take some major holidays with while our kids are young and actually go glean some experiences you know Thanksgiving for us has been traditionally a mega mega holiday with lots of family and one of things that we’ve noticed is that as our family the family around us has grown up fewer your people are there to show up for the more traditional Thanksgiving venue so we decided this year we’re not doing a traditional Thanksgiving we’re actually going to travel and so I’ve got a view of the ocean right now we’re going to do at Thanksgiving a Thanksgiving meal that was actually bought and and delivered to us while we actually enjoy our toes in the sand in view of the ocean and so it’s non-traditional this year for Thanksgiving non-traditional for Christmas as well so I’m looking forward to that an experience over tradition and I think a lack of an experience can actually become tradition right so that’s what we’re shooting for today I want to talk to you about something that is on my mind because of the time of year and because of the holiday season and it’s something that impacts every recruiting leader and it’s this you know I find that we come towards the end of the year and and a lot of times we look forward to you know Thanksgiving Christmas New Year’s it’s a time for us to a lot of times step away from the business for a week maybe two weeks and actually get some time with our family or to get some time by ourselves and the key word that jumps out at me is the word restoration one of my words one of the things that I do each year is I take John Gordon’s book one word and I apply it to my life and I have like the last seven years I think three years ago my word for that year was the word restoration I found that I was lacking joy in what I was doing I found that I all felt like I was always pressing and pushing to get to whatever that next finish line was and I was honestly mentally and physically fatigued and so I came into that year and said what’s one thing I need to focus on and one of the things that surface was I mean you’re really on the edge of burnout and so the word restoration became a word that I really held on to for an entire year I read some some cool books I took some things and practice those in my life got to a place where I felt like I was restored and in that season one of the things that jumped out at me as I pursued intentionally books and seminars and people of influence that had ideas on this was this idea that restoration is really critical for us to operate at peak performance I’m more aware of that today as I as I coach and I work with recruiting leaders this position that if you’re listening to this and you’re in it I honestly believe and you’ve heard me say this from time to time on this podcast that it’s the most difficult job in any industry this person’s leading a team meaning that they typically we’re anywhere from a dozen to maybe as many as 20 different hats meaning that these are roles and responsibilities that you play I think if someone asked you to create a checklist for everything that you did and they wanted to hire out those things they’d probably have to hire three to five people to do what you do to fulfill those checklist so I know that this position is a position that is susceptible to burnout this is a position that can struggle because so much is required of them and if you can agree with me that restoration is critical to operate at peak performance then as we look at this time of year one of the things that’s very very top of mind that’s something that comes up again and again in my coaching is how are we going to maximize this season understanding that even in this season where a lot of people will take a week or two away there’s more requirements of you than ever I think as I look at how many Christmas parties people go to the expectations of having tradition around Thanksgiving where maybe you’re responsible for hosting or you’re responsible for traveling you know Christmas can be exhausting you know the idea of we’ve got four children the idea of of collecting presents being thoughtful and the gifts you’re going to give being aware that you’re probably traveling to at least two if not more parts of your family and and so this can be a time where just all of that and then redoing budget redoing a budgeting process setting goals with your team for the upcoming year doing everything you need to do inside your business inside your team and also while focusing on recruiting because by the way in most industries most recruits most of the producers the top producers in an industry data shows they transition in q4 in fourth quarter and so we got to be hyper focused on recruiting in this season and so man if I start to just speak some of these things into existence one of the things that I know is that restoration something that we only will come to through intentionality so I’m going to give you a couple ideas these are very top of mind for me because look I’m stepped away for a week myself with my family and these are things that I’m evaluating and asking myself am I going to use this time to actually get re-energized to get to a place where I would say I do have restoration now I’m excited to go back and to do things at a higher level with more passion that I’ve done in the past and so I want to give you a handful of things that you need to consider as you’re looking at the next 45 to 60 days one of the things that that I know is that when I go to take there’s been seasons in my career when I went to take a break when I went to get away I was I felt as though I couldn’t completely unplug and so I remember this was 2010 I think it was I went on my longest vacation I’ve ever taken in my career now it happened that a July 4th that year fell on like a Thursday and so I took that Thursday so that Thursday Friday course Saturday and Sunday but and the following week entirely away and out of the office I think all said it was close to ten eleven days that I was gonna be gone when I would I included the weekends and so it was the first time I’d ever taken that much time away from my business I had worked extremely hard to get my business to a place where I could actually step away from it had what I felt like was the right support the right team in place I set the right expectations walking out the door but I never planned to actually completely unplug it was going to be a partial unplug and that from time to time I was gonna be checking my email it’s gonna be watching my text messages I was going to be touching base with my operations manager my team lead to make sure that everything was running smoothly and if they needed me I was gonna be there to plug in what I remember for him that was I we rented a cabin in the woods and so we get to the cabin and when I get to the cabin I started kind of walking around the cabin to check and see if I’ve got cell service I realized that I have nothing not even from time to time one bar I had nothing so as we unpack I get back out into the car kind of dry start driving away from the cabin to see how closed cell services ends up cell service was about three to five miles away I don’t remember exactly but it was a good distance away wasn’t something I could just walk outside and stand on the front porch and get a signal and a part of me began to get hyperventilate might be a good word to use it was I was really freaked out by the fact that I was going to be unavailable at this place for a week and a half and I had planned to be at some some level plugged in so I remember I drove back to town I had a conversation with the key people on my team to say hey I’m not going to be available at all you know until we go to town and buy groceries or go to town and you know eat out or whatever I’m gonna be completely unavailable to talk and it was one of the best things that happened to me in my career because as I got into round day three or day four of that trip I began to find a new me settle in and that new me was not only more plugged into what was going on with my family but that new me really began to feel what it was like to actually receive rejuvenation to receive this idea of complete restoration and I almost felt like my heartbeat begin to slow down my mind began to see things that I hadn’t in a while the creativity that I thought was being maximized began to actually elevate in that environment where I had completely unplugged so I’m aware as an individual just in my career going back to some moments like that where there’s some things that are necessary for us to actually operate at our best and again I bring I mentioned this earlier operate at peak performance I remember here’s a story from in my late 20s early 30s a good friend of mine was a plant safety manager at a large manufacturing plant it was General Motors and Shawn as a plant safety manager was responsible for overseeing the safety of the entire plant the manufacturing line and everything around that I will go see Shawn from time to time because the plant that he was the safety manager at was actually in my community and I would go see him from time to time when the plant was actually up and fully functioning and I remember this one time that I went to visit him when the plant was actually completely shut down so the time to time the plant would actually shut down they would send everybody home while paying them and they would take that time to actually improve the operations of the of the manufacturing line so they would actually were actually looking to create efficiencies around everything from going faster to being more safe and one of the things I remember asked Shawn was what is it costing you to have this plant shut down because you’re not producing anything and you’re paying the manufacturing line workers to actually do nothing at home what’s the cost of that do you know one thing that Shawn said to me is remain with me for a long time which is that we actually gain efficiencies because we’re improving this the manufacturing line that when they come back we not only make up the money that we’ve spent sending them home but we actually have gains significant gains because we’ve actually improved the manufacturing line I think that it makes a perfect example a perfect analogy for what it’s like when we as recruiting leaders completely unplug because in that their creative juices are returned our ability to come to a place where we are fully rested where we’re able to fully engage those things only come from us being able to not partially unplug but to fully implode and I think there’s some components to that around getting to a place where we’re fully restored Daniel pink wrote a book called win and that book the subtitle of it was the scientific secrets of perfect timing and one of things that he talks about in that book if you haven’t read any of Daniel Pink’s books I would highly recommend he’s got a number of books out there the ones that I have rather been phenomenal reads but in this book one of the things that talks about is getting to a place of rest getting to a place of restoration and he brought up really four major things in that book that were he found scientifically were true about these most restorative brakes here’s what they were first and foremost he said they were social rather than solo think about that so many times I think when I need to unplug it needs to be me I mean just immediately in in my past seasons I would think getting restored met find it going someplace by myself maybe grabbing a favorite Netflix show and then binging on that Netflix show for a weekend why did absolutely nothing and I thought that I was doing myself a favor by doing that actually what he talks about in the book says that’s actually not true everything that I did in that actually is the opposite of getting to a place of being rested and restored social is a key part oh we’ve been we’ve been created to actually walk in community and so where we actually do things with our family where we do things with our friends with our communities right that actually helps helps us get to a place of restoration another point he made in the book was that being outside not inside is most effective to getting to this place as well think about that being outside versus being inside like the example I just gave you of binging on a TV show for the weekend like that’s actually counterintuitive right being outside here’s another one we we need to be moving instead of being stationary will you be moving instead of being stationary and the last part he said which is a little different I said unplugged one of the things he said was that fully detached rather than semi detached you know in my own verbage I think plugged in or unplugged but you have to be fully detached a lot of times were partially detached we’re still available on a phone call we’re still available via email from time to time right and so take these things over this these next 45 to 60 days and really evaluate the time that you’re going to spend away from your office am I going to do am I going to be social am I going to spend time outside am I going to be moving and am I going to be fully unplugged and I think that as recruiting leaders if we’re going to become our best we must lean into restoration and that will only come from intentionality it won’t happen on accident because there’s so much that’s required of you in your position that people will pull you in unless you fully extract yourself yeah I’ll leave you with this I came across a great quote by David Barrett who was a CEO of Expensify he said this and it really jumped out I mean I think it relates to this in a big way says you can’t follow your way to the lead I’ll say it again you can’t follow your way to the lead if you want to truly lead in your industry if you really want to lead your team you’re going to have to think differently and counterintuitive to what the larger industry or the larger market says is the way it should be done and what I would dare say is that as a whole most recruiting leaders never fully unplug and because of that they never become their best so as you enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday I hope that has brought some value to you one of the things I love it if you’re finding value from my podcast is I would love it if you would actually leave a review one of the things that actually helps other people find this is by having positive reviews we have in the category that we’re in in on iTunes over the last couple of months we’ve regularly broken the top 100 for this podcast so I thank you because that means that you’re sharing this with other people inside your organization or other cohorts of yours in the industry and so one of the things that you could do if you have found value in this I would thank you and be thankful with Thanksgiving here if you would actually leave a positive review and how it’s impacting you and the other thing that you could do is actually subscribe you may be hitting this on from time to time in some other way there’s a lot so there’s lots of places that you may found this Spotify as a place google play iTunes our website recruiting conversations is another place where people listen to it but if you whatever platform you’re on if you actually subscribe to this that will help us as well and so I thank you for that and one of the things that I’m hopeful for you over the Thanksgiving holiday that you have a chance to walk out some gratitude with those that are close to you those who who have brought value to you I want to say thanks for the people here even this week that have shot me an email saying that I’ve brought value to them this year in some way shape or form one of the things I’m thankful for is to have a tribe of people like you that are checking out this podcast that are promoting this podcast one of the things that we’ve as an organization have grown to love is the fact that we’re actually able to leave a larger impact on several industries through delivering this content here in recruiting conversations so have a great Thanksgiving everybody we’ll be back again next week with another cool idea around this a conversation that was had recently with someone that’s in a recruiting role and so we look forward to bringing it to you then and until then have a great week everyone.

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