Hi everybody it’s Richard Milligan and I welcome you to another episode of recruiting conversations, I’ve been gone for the last couple of weeks and so, I’m behind on a couple of podcasts and we’re gonna catch up this week, that’s our commitment. So if you if you subscribe and you start getting alerts over and over and over again throughout this particular week, well it’s because we are we said we would do two every week through through all of 2019, and right now we are be kind of cut behind a couple episodes I’ve been on a world tour and well I say a world tour hasn’t really been a world tour that makes it sound like it’s bigger than it was, but I’ve been on a coast-to-coast tour. And I’ve had a number of speaking events over the past couple of weeks. So I’ve been juggling coaching clients, I’ve been speaking at these venues and I’m glad to be back in my normal seat, because rhythm and routine is something that I welcome because I just get more done. Yeah, like I think, you would probably agree with this, like I just get more done when I’m in my day-to-day rhythm. so I’m in my day-to-day routines, and so there’s just momentum to be had in that. So I’m back! I’m back, and I’m glad to be back because I got a lot of momentum this morning, you know a lot of things to do. but part of this that I want to share actually has to do with some of the rhythm and the routine specific to your time and my time. Now this is one of the big three, I called the big three, there’s really three big components inside recruiting that I’ve been able to identify recruiting leaders really struggle with.
The first part that I have identified as vision, and you know if when I go back and I look at 2018 I coached one-on-one 138 different people last year, in addition to all of the other things that I’m doing speaking, strategizing, executive level, you know closed-door sessions, I mean all the things that I do. I one-on-one a hundred and thirty eight people that came through my coaching system a 12-week system and one of the things that became clear to me, was that vision is something that everyone struggles coming to. Out of the hundred thirty-eight people that I met with. I had one maybe one and a half one would the other one would be a stretch but we’ll say two total that had an idea on clarity on their vision. So this is something that I back in 2014, change got very clear on it unequivocally changed the amount of wins that I had inside recruiting simply because I started giving people a lot of clarity and so vision is part of the big three.
The other one is system the you know there’s a great quote that um that came out of a book “Atomic Habits” and it says that we never rise the level of our goals we will only fall to the level of our systems. And so, as I went through last year and just said, who showed up that actually had a recruiting system it was zero out of a hundred and thirty people actually had a recruiting system. Well if we never rise to the level of our goals and fought a level of our systems, then how I mean the 138 that came in my coaching are the best of the best these are people are pulling out their checkbook and writing a sizeable check to actually get coached in the area of recruiting. These are the one-percenters and they don’t have systems right and so it makes sense why no one’s really winning big time in the land of recruiting because we don’t have a system. So the system part is one of the big three but the one I want to talk about is one I haven’t mentioned yet and it’s time. Look this is we’re all busy right we’re all busy but you the recruiting leader I have a lot of empathy for you, have more empathy for you than I probably do anybody else, simply because I spent 15 years in your role, as you, and I understand what the day-to-day looks like and it’s nuts it is just truly crazy. Rotating door is what you experienced all day long, your phone rings non-stop, your text messaging is always going off, your email piles up like crazy. There’s a lot of pressure associated with just trying to keep your inbox clean. So a lot of things coming at you and the timepiece gets away from us and it’s an evidence of flow, right? because there are certain seasons as a recruiting leader that you go through. So you’ve got to come back to this again and again and so that’s why I want to talk about. So I’ve got a process that I’ve taken myself through here over the last six or seven years that’s really worked well for me, and it’s actually it’s actually helped me glean an extra ten to 20 hours per week simply by going through this process. Now let me just I’ll put a disclaimer in here maybe I’m worse than others in this particular area based off my personality. I tend to be a yes person so if someone says can you I typically say “yes” that’s just I’m a bit of a pleaser, you know on a Myers-Briggs personality profile I’m an ENFP. On a DISC profile, I’m a high I, which means that you know I’m pretty extroverted, and so as an extrovert, I’m also extremely relational, I enjoy building relationships, I actually get energy from building relationships from being out there, and so it’s probably easier for me to lose my time than it is for others of you that have maybe some different personality types. But regardless, time is something that we all have to continually evaluate it’s the one commodity that was just not replaceable. Right? Like I can get more money but I can never get more time, right? I can yeah after even if I spend money, I can replenish and then make different better decisions with my next money right? But with my time, tomorrow comes but tomorrow also goes. I never get tomorrow back, I never get a do-over on that. So this is one area that you got to get really serious because if you can truly multiply your time by ensuring that where you’re investing it, that’s me it’s a wise investment, then you can grow exponentially more than anybody else that just doesn’t do that. let me walk you through the process that I’ve gone through. So here’s what I do at the beginning of each year I sit down and I review my vision, so you’ve got to be clear here first it’s one of the big three and I always start with vision because if you don’t have a vision and we’re going to talk about this week in another podcast, why clarity is so important in this particular arena. But let’s just leave this here, we’ve got to be clear here first okay? and the reason why we’ve got to be clear here first with the vision is that I want my time to be in alignment with my vision. Now and I would dare say that most times we’re just investing our time, where there’s the most noise, where there’s the where we see the largest need, when we’re not strategic with our time, right? if we looked at our time in terms of a stock market type investment, I think we would begin making different decisions around what we did with our time, right? like if I insert my time here can I get a better return on that a better investment in terms of like you know the amount of time I’m spending versus what it’s going to return for me. We would never treat our time like we treat our money in terms of investing. Well let me say that again, make sure that I’m clear I’ll next I’m not sure that statement actually was clear, if we looked at our time as money, we would invest it differently. We would treat it like a money investment, right? which is that we would evaluate it a lot more, before we begin to insert and just really open the door to how much time we’re going to invest into a project, into a person, right? Into anything so we’ve got to start with clarity in our vision first I want my time to be in alignment with my vision. Now let me tell you how I’ve done this, so each year now I start out my year by doing it audit of my time. Now, pause anytime that I begin to feel overextended I go through the same process. So while I at the beginning of every year, any season that I go through or I feel myself being stretched and the things that are important to me my family, that’s a priority to me, my relationship with Christ, that’s a priority over that, to me. Where I see myself diminishing in those areas okay? then I need, I go and I do an audit in my time. Like where am investing my time? Now look the truth is that there are seasons in life there are seasons in life where I’ve had to sit down with my wife, I’ve sit down with my kids, and I’ve had to say in the next 90 days this is what’s going on, this is what dad’s working on and you all are still important, right? But this next 90 days requires more of me in this particular area which is gonna pull me away from this. But I will be back, as normal in the next 90 days. So I sit down with my family and I have that conversation. I do that because I feel the tension at times, where I’m investing more of my time away from the things that are more most important to me. Okay? So while I do this at the beginning of the year I also do it in seasons and seasons come and go. But what I do is this I lay out my schedule, okay? Now I work from a digital calendar, so it’s on my iPhone. It’s on actually it’s on my desktop, my laptop, computer, whichever one I’m using. But then I go one step beyond that, and I write every at the beginning of every day I write my time into a daily planner now I use Brendon Burchard’s High Performance Planner, I highly recommend that, it’s a great format. I’m not all going to that maybe another time, but I that’s what I do I take my digital calendars and I put them down on paper every single day, and then when I put them on paper it’s very clear to see, what time I have available for the rest of the day, and I insert my larger projects into those empty time slots. Okay? So it’s really easy for me to go back and to see where am I spending my time because I that’s how I operate. So if you’re not operating like that, I would encourage you to start with this, take a couple of weeks and lay your weekly schedule out on paper. Now for me because it’s already laid on paper I can open up my planner and I can go back through and I can see where I’m allotting my time. And then what I do is I put it into buckets. I want to be able to see right how much of is going into specific areas of my business, so it’s not just business, family, and you know my walk with Christ, it’s actually the specifics inside some of those. So as an example today I look at my planner, like someone that I’ve got I’m gonna invest some time into is my 11-year old Gavin, and so you know I can go back and I can look and see specifically to him, to each child to my wife, to everything else where I am truly compiling and investing time. So, as I lay that out I’ll lay that out I now can actually see like where am I actually investing the most amount of my time. So I can look at in terms of hours I can look at look at in terms of percentages.
Four years ago I looked at this calendar and I went through this process and I gotta be honest at the time I was extremely stretched not that I’m not stretched today, and I think that for the most part I’m coming to a conclusion that this is going to be life. Right? I’ve got four kids I have a wife, I have two dogs believe it or not dogs actually do stretch you they do weird things and you’ve got to spend time with them too, and so I’ve got two dogs, I’ve got a growing business, I’m also an entrepreneur, in other areas as well the requires investments on my time. I actually have a personal board of advisers that I meet with every single week for a couple of hours, I’m in and on and on and on. So you know as we mature and as we grow in life some of these the natural progression is that we actually we’re more roles and have more responsibilities and so that’s a requirement of me and so it stretches me, and so I’m stretched but four years ago, I was more I was stretched more, than I’d ever been stretched. I sat down at the beginning of the year went through this process where am I investing my time like what’s my vision, like what’s what are my priorities, and I realized the time that I was investing about ten to twelve hours per week into something else that had nothing to do that was, that wasn’t in alignment with my vision. Now, I will say that that investment of time was being invested in something that was good, it was being invested into a nonprofit organization that was very near and dear to my heart, and it had a large impact on me, and had a large impact on my family. But as I looked at the things that I’d really did felt like I’ve been called to go accomplish, that no longer fit into what my vision was, what my priorities were, and so I did make a tough decision was which was the step in and no longer be a “yes” guy but become a “no guy” and that was one of many decisions that I made at the beginning of that year to actually say “no” and so I started picking up the phone and saying I made a commitment to this I can no longer do this, and you know walk through the process of how I transition out or how I hand this off or you know I had a lot of tough conversations. But in doing that, four years ago I actually acquired about 20 hours per week more, no joke. So I went from being really really really stretched, to actually being able to move the needle on the vision, that I had for myself for my family and for my business in that year. Yeah and I’m convinced that if I would have walked out that current calendar that current process that I had in place and it kept investing my time there that I wouldn’t have even come close to accomplishing the things that I’d set out as my vision. Okay? so clarity in your vision, an audit of your time, I’ve kind of described that for you, and the truth is this is that when daily action is in alignment with your vision that’s how you create long-term success. Let me say that again “when your daily action is in alignment with your vision that’s how you create long-term success” so a great plan for you we’re at the end of January you’re kind of probably in a rhythm and a routine right now for 2019. Go on at your time and determine if you’re investing it in the right place the wisest places and then you’re gonna ask yourself the question, is it in alignment with my vision for this year? and if I don’t have a vision, I’m not clear right on my vision, if I haven’t established goals they’re gonna help me accomplish that vision, I’m gonna get start there, I’m gonna get really clear there first, and then I’m gonna ask myself the question am I acting in alignment? am I investing my time in alignment with my vision? Okay? Great to be back that’s the end of this podcast, great to be back exciting to actually bring you some more content as we get into this later in the week, and so until I talk to you again next time here on recruiting conversations remember be patient, recruiting takes time, use your time wisely, and have fun recruiting, like look this should be fun, like people like there’s something about recruiting that people have lost interest in because they believe that it’s hard like let’s see it lets pick create some fresh energy around this like recruiting is actually fun think about this like you are actually building relationships, you’re building relationships, and whether people decide to come align with you or not you’re building relationships and you’re planting seeds, right? That you will have a harvest on hopefully sometime in the future and I can’t think of anything more fun than planting seeds that you will one day have a harvest on. I mean just the idea of that have fun recruiting this week and I look forward to seeing you again here next time on recruiting conversations.
