S23EP08: How to Take A Summer Away From Coaching

Welcome to One Insight. My name is Rich Litvin. I grew up in London and I now live in LA. And this is a podcast for extraordinary top performers and their coaches. You see, I've coached some of the most successful and talented people on the planet. I can see what most people cannot see, and I dare to say what most people wouldn't dare to say.

And what I know about success is that on the other side of it, it can be incredibly lonely. You can feel more of an imposter the more successful you become. And when you're the most interesting person in the room, you're actually in the wrong room. Clients who are more successful, more intelligent and wealthier than you need your support more than they know and more than you can imagine. I coach around insight.

Life looks one way. Something happens, and the world looks different, and your entire world changes. It can happen in And this podcast is called One Insight because a single insight can change everything. I'm going to call this episode How to Take a Summer Away from Coaching. Imagine that. Imagine you could take an entire month. How about two? How about three months away from coaching? What about at the end of the year? What if you could take the whole of December off, maybe some of January?

Does that sound too far fetched? Does it sound exciting? Can you imagine? Can you not imagine? That's one of the things we talk about today. I had a great conversation with Tasha and Jeff. We covered all sorts of different aspects around business, but that was the most fun thing for me because I remember a moment about

10, 15 years ago, saying to my coach, I'd love to do what you do and take the summer off. Just one month off would be amazing to me. And I can't imagine doing that for a few years. And he said, why don't you do it this year? And you hear as you listen to this conversation, how I thought that was crazy. And within two weeks, I got that set up. Now it's the first year I took an entire month off. I've been doing it ever since. And this summer I'm about to take two months off. Enjoy.

Hi Tasha. Hi Jeff. Hey, well we just got to hang out at the Rich Litvin Intensive, the R L I. We were supposed to record this podcast two months ago and then I broke my finger. And I have been in some pain and then some discomfort and now constant movement of my hand to try and bring the the motion back into my into my finger. It it's really had me reflect on this as a metaphor for life and business.

Where are those tiny, tiny things that you don't pay attention to that if you're not paying attention to could have a big impact on your life or business down the road? Anything uh come to mind, Tasha, as I say that to you? Because it's interesting distinction, right? Yeah, it is. I mean, I actually...

Did the same with my toe, finally got it fixed after years of of of of little agony that back in the day they're like, you know, with fingers and stuff they can break it, but they're not guaranteeing it's gonna get any better. So technology got to where we think we can make it better, but the recovery rich. Oh my gosh, they tell you it's gonna be long and painful, but I don't think you have a brain set for what long and painful feels like. So I feel for you. More to your question, I think.

Little things. One thing's from like if we had met two months ago before I'd gone to the virtual and before I'd gone to the intensive, my questions were so different. And now I noticed the little things. I want to just bring that more to light. Like I pay attention to all the little details. I pay attention to every word. I'm very, very present. So I think for me the reverse has happened where I I just

I didn't even notice the little details. And now that I am noticing them, what a big impact they have on everything. Mm. That's a great catch. That is real power in coaching, paying attention to details. I'll sometimes even notice something on the wall behind a client on a Zoom call and comment on it and it will bring a new level of conversation. That's a great one.

How about you, Jeff? Like where does that metaphor of paying attention to the tiny things or tiny things that could make a big impact or difference play out for you? Yeah, I think I was a really big detailed oriented guy through much of my career. And I have found that the details made me really good. at executing big teams, big programs, but it didn't make me quite as good. In relationship.

So right now I'm trying to take a step back from some of those things. And now I'm finding that by not ad addressing certain detail items. Sooner rather than later, now they're becoming bigger problems than had I addressed them at at at the beginning. So in in myself trying to recreate myself using the metaphor from Santa Monica when I came out and spent some time with you in January.

Um, trying to find that harmony b between being and doing is something that I'm I'm really trying to lean into right now. That's a that's a good distinction. Yeah, you're you're the man of strategy. You had to be in the military, in leadership. Strategy is key. And there's a place when you get beyond strategy and and it's who you're being that counts as much as and sometimes even more than what you're doing. So and there's no magic formula for the being side of things, it's living into it.

Yeah. So let me ask each of you a question. Tasha, I'll start with you and we'll play and then Jeff I'll come to you. Tasha, what are you up to and how can I help? Well, as you can see from my lovely background, I I am moving. I'm got moving boxes behind me. So I

I'll be moving in less than a week now. And I get in my new location not until June eighteenth. So I'm trying to travel, be a nomad for that little time. And then my wife and I are expecting our first child at the end of October. So I have two major events going on and since the incentive I've worked with Shannon and I have worked with Sarah and I booked a session with Amy because I want to bring the best me um to this new world that my child will be coming into.

And I'm trying to pace myself from all the excitement of the intensive, but what I can realistically accomplish. And having 100 powerful questions or conversations is great. Insight from Tracy was to do a research project. I like to mix my philosophy of sports teams and management with my philosophy of corporations. And I do believe you can run the same. And I think you need to look at your talent in a corporation the same way you look at your athletic talent and treat them very much the same.

So in Santa Fe, I fine-tuned my ideas and now I'm having wonderful, great conversations with athletes. an executive talented and I'm trying to work into more of having C-suite level at both the sports professional level and a corporation level to test my theories, but basically do a research project. over the next little while while I get ready for a baby. So that is what's going on. Woo that's a lot.

I think I think when they talk about events that cause big stress in life, life changing events, having a child is one of them and moving as another. Now, I remember when Monique and I moved from mid-city LA to Santa Monica where we live. And I was talking about it a few months later with a friend and Monique was there and I said, You know, I set an intention.

that moving was not going to be stressful for me. I was going to be relaxed and effortless. I didn't wanted to buy into the fact that they say it's going to be one of these stressful events. So I said, set that as an intention, and it was. It was relaxed and effortless.

Anna Monique was there and she chimed in and she said, Well, it was relaxed and effortless from you for you. That's because I was doing a a bunch of the work. And I said in reply, but that's because you didn't set the attention. It'll be relaxed and effortless for you. I really do believe in living a created life. Now, I'm also a dad with two kids. So I've been through a lot of those experiences, and you can't really prepare yourself.

for what's coming. Uh with a move more so because we've moved beforehand. With kids, especially first one, it it it's uh it you don't quite know what's gonna come next.

So I want to check in. Do you have space on your calendar just for you? Because if you're trying to build your business and move and be ready for a child at the same time, that is a lot to put on your plate. Yeah, I think it was when you were on stage and I I'm gonna forget his name now and you were talking to him and then it was basically, you know

Look at your life, look at your calendar. And I have done the same. I've tried to to plan the most bougiest move where somebody is moving us and my wife and I are taking a a week and a half trip. You know, but just being a nomad will be what it is. But yes, Rich, I I think that's where before when you said slow down to speed up and I was the first to ev even acknowledge anywhere and even in the room there that I had come down to an eight and was patting myself on a back from a ten.

And then I reassessed what a five look like and I now am consciously aware that I have no idea what a one or zero even looks like. And I'm gonna need to do some more work to even conceive what that's like. So My new philosophy is is can I take that time? Can I slow down? Can I

Can I and I don't Amy and I were trying to come up with a word, but it's not a void. But when I shut off this other person, who is this other person? Like so I wanna doing really good at turning off stuff, but who am I turning on? And they're

I don't like the word void, but we we haven't come up with a new word yet. But it's just like I need this new person to sort of turn on or create this person or find this person or do the work to discover that person. And that's what I'm focusing on right now for me during this this time period. Let me see if I can help you with that, because I don't think it's a void and it's not even a new person. You know, most of us fill our lives with busy work because

It's complex to be in relationships. It's complex to run a business. It's complex to do a lot of stuff in life. But it keeps our minds occupied and the stress of the complexity of being still and not doing very much or being playful. We don't have to do that. We're done with that. We're no longer kids. Let's go and do this. But I think there's something around being childlike rather than being childish that might help you.

You know, I often like to ask the question of my clients, what did you love to do when you were about seven years old? What was that for you, if you think about it? build I we had three acres of redwards. I was building forts. I had the best, you know, BMX bike. I was riding all over the place. Soon as I got home, threw my books in and ran out the door, you know, to be outside and go have fun. So I'd look at where can I bring some of that Tasha back?

You you talk about being a nomad and it seems like there's some kind of edge on there for you. What if that could mean that you get to be in the Redwoods or their equivalent? or be on a bike again or build something. And that might be a now it might not be a four, it might be a jigsaw puzzle. It doesn't matter what it is, but bring back that childlike Tasha. Cause she's still there and she hasn't had space for a long time.

Yeah, you're as you were talking, I was like, Oh my god, I love jigsaw puzzles. Even that word was just like, yeah, you know, and I I think that's a It's it's embracing her. Yeah, literally because the void wasn't sitting well. It's like something wasn't missing. I'm not missing something. I don't feel like anything's missing, but I I haven't just let myself play for a long time and just

Just enjoy the drive or just enjoy the redwoods or just enjoy where we're going versus just getting to the destination. Like enjoy the the process, you know, and slow it down and stay longer for coffee and you know, be more flexible in the plans. I I inside me, I'm just like, oh yeah, I just want to play. You know, this let's just go play, you know.

I'd use another distinction for you. You talked about, you know, what it's like to be on a you know a scale of zero to ten, where ten is working all the time, no space, complete busy work. And you've begun to feel what it might be like to get towards a five, but what is a zero or one? I would take that pressure off.

Uh people like the three of us, we're probably never gonna get to a zero or one. That's not gonna be how it's just not how we're wired, right? We like to do stuff in the world. We like to be accomplished and to accomplish things and make stuff happen. But create moments in your life. There's a book by Marcus Buckingham called, I think it's called A Strongest Life for Women, something like that. It was a book for women who he did the research. He used to work for Gallup. And he asked.

Mothers and children, the same question. He asked the mothers this question. You know, do you think you're spending enough time with your kid? And asked the kids, do you think your mom's spending enough time with you? And all the mothers said, I'm not spending enough time with my kid. And all the kids said, She's spending more than enough time with me. What the kids wanted was quality time, not Quantity of time.

So I think about that distinction too, partly as motherhood is on its way, but partly as you're looking at what am I doing with my life. quality moments of working and quality moments of play. Because otherwise what we're doing is we're working and then we think we're playing, but we're watching TV and we're checking our phone for emails. We're going for a walk with a friend and we're checking our texts. We never really fully switch off.

to be at work or at play. What if when you were at work you were fully at work, even if it's just for one hour? And when you were at play, you were fully at play, even if it was just for one hour. And then you didn't worry about what happened in the rest of the time.

Yeah, I like that. I do 20 minute focus blocks. I do really good at those and work and you know, I put my twenty minutes on, I got my timer, I shut off everything else and I I do the work and I I focus. I'm hyper desensitive on that end of it, but I've never tried to do it in my personal life, you know, like

I I tend to walk without my phone or distractions at any way. But yeah, no, I I see your point. Like and I really like the pressure left the second you said, you know, you probably don't even know what a one or a zero was. I I was seeing that as being dead. I was like, I don't even know what you do at a one or a zero. I was like I think I'm dead at that point. So I appreciate the pressure leaving because I'm like, it's rich. I can't slow down that much. I don't even think I'm possible for me to

go that slow. So so that was a that was a huge relief. All of a sudden like, oh Rich said I could let it go. I'm I'm letting it go, you know? So no, I get that. I I think quit quit the quantity of it and go more for the quality, you know, like We're here together and and be really present and be

I think present what I'm finding here is I'm I need to be present with myself. I'm always like, am I present with this person? Am I present with this other person? And am I present there? But am I really just taking a moment to be present with me? And I don't think I do that at all.

In in the West we're not very good at that. I i eastern traditions have much more of a meditative t tradition. They're able to to do that. We're we're just not necessarily wired that way or not taught that way, trained that way. So I take off the pressure. For me, it's not jigsaw puzzles I've discovered. They bore me, is Lego. I love building Lego with my kids. It's really fun for me. But I'm imagining you, your timer that you set for 20 minutes of work.

What if it was 20 minutes of play, 20 minutes for a jigsaw puzzle, 20 minutes for a hike? And you losed your timer for 20 minutes of presence with play and presence with work. I like that.

I'll pause there. Let me come to you, Jeff. Um I imagine you've got some insights from that, Jeff, because I know we're wired the same way. Yeah, we are. I and I I'm sitting here actually, Tasha, it's a pleasure to see you again. And to just to think that that we got paired on this this discussion together because this is the space that I've been working in since January.

And I have dialed it back so much that I am spending a lot of time into that creative childhood space. I think you saw earlier I shared that I busted out my trumpet. I've been dancing. A lot of members of 4PC have been encouraged me to do some of those things. So I'm thankful for that. And at the same time I did an executive discovery session Friday a week ago. The challenge that I'm having now is that pendulum because I haven't done this.

And finding out where that that balance is from continuing to create clients. But also taking that time for me and I don't wanna get rigid in that twenty minute focus sprint. I just wanna kinda go with flow but also not get so content in one area or the other because I know I can. So let me take it out of the abstract, Jeff, where it is right now and say, turn it into a question for me. What's the question you have in this moment? I think I'm... The question is what what?

What ways might I find Harmony in being and doing. I think that's a really powerful and interesting question. And here's the thing, as a coach, my job is to help my clients find better questions to live into, not to answer their questions.

That sounds like a really cool question for you personally to live into. So over here, oh, I haven't got an answer. Keep checking in with me. Tell me in a in a month's time, what have you got? Tell me in three months' time, where'd you get with that one? That feels really good. Here's what comes to me when I hear the word harmony. I think of a friend of mine who has he he is building his business to be seasonal. He's realized we are living creatures.

But we live life like it's on all the time. And nature doesn't work that way. You can't keep planting the same field forever. It it you wouldn't get any more crops after a two or three years. They'd use up all the nutrients in the field. So how can you build your life to be seasonal? He takes time off in the winter. He starts to rebuild no, what does he do? He plants this yeah, he plants his seeds in the When do you plant seeds? Is it the spring or the fall? Yeah, the spring I think you've Yeah.

Okay, okay. But you get it. I I I I I realize I'm not a farmer or a gardener, so the metaphor falls flat on me. But what I get about what he's doing is he knows here's time to plant the seeds. Yeah. This is time to harvest the seeds.

Here's times to let things be fallow and lie and do nothing. You don't put a plant in the ground or seeds in the ground and dig it up a week later. Has it grown yet? Has it grown yet? Yeah. You water it, you give it nutrients, and then you see what happens over time. And when I hear the word harmony, that's what I think of, these natural cycles that we all have as living, breathing creatures and being out in nature. Yeah.

Yes, Anne, agreed. I fall into now my old self being in the head, that guilt. stepping back, you know? And and that's that is the next area of being edgy and leaning into and holding myself accountable. To take that time. I I I I quoted myself a couple of weeks ago that I am the hardest person for me to connect with. Yeah. That's what that's what Tasha said just now, right? Like how do I get present with myself? It's the same, it's the same thing. Here's what I've got for you.

Not taking to not taking time away from the business is a selfish act. Not taking time away from the business is a selfish act. Tasha, I'll tell you why I'm saying that to Jeff. Because I know what a caring man this man is. And sometimes I like to use the word selfish as a hot button when I'm working with someone who's really caring, because they think I can't take time away from my clients, from my business. I've got to keep doing this. And so I'm reframing that as that's actually very selfish.

There's there's working in your business, there's working on your business, and there's working on yourself. All entrepreneurs had know how to work in their business. Some of the successful ones learn how to work on their business. Let me take time out. What's the bigger picture? What's the thirty thousand foot view? Where do I wanna be in three years time, five years time? But then work it on yourself, which includes the conversation Tasha and I just had around play and presence and timeout.

So that's your challenge, Jeff. Don't get too immersed in working in the business. There's not time to work on the business. Don't get too immersed in working on the business. There's not time to work on you, which includes rest and play. Yeah.

Rich, to that point, when you take three to four months off, do you literally not meet with clients or anybody? You literally are off. Ah, that's great. So I've learned to do that differently over time. In two thousand and seven or eight, I said to my coach, I love that you take the summer off. He took August off. And I said, I want to do that in a couple of years' time. He said, Why don't you do it this year?

I thought that's ridiculous. I can't do it this year. And then I went away and I thought, oh well, I could reach out to all of my clients and say, Hey, I'm planning to take the summer off. I'm gonna be traveling.

If you want to keep our calls that we've got scheduled, I'll just we'll use, I think it was Skype back then. We'll use Skype and I'll coach you. But if you want to take a month off, add a month on at the end, that means you get to have the summer off and end up working with me for a month longer. And every single one of them went, that would be amazing. So that quickly I went to having a summer off.

Now I'm about to leave in exactly a month's time. I leave for five weeks in England. I come back. I that's with Monique and the kids. I come back and I go off to Hawaii for a week with my men's group. I come back and we've rented an RV and we're driving with my family and Teo's family from LA up to San Francisco for about a week or ten days. And then we come back and then we're gonna be exhausted.

Now, what I've learned in that time, because I'm going to be taking two months off, is a couple of things. Number one, I now do a a handful of things during my time away. Because what used to happen is the more time I took off, felt great, but I would come back and oh my God, I'd hit the ground running and it would be non-stop.

So I've got a couple of calls with clients while I'm away. Now I've made sure it's not while I'm in the R V or in Hawaii, but I'll be in England where I have Wi Fi and and so I do a couple of calls. To create some momentum with some of my clients who want to have some time during the summer. I've also learned to put a buffer in.

So I used to come back from back in a day it was a month away and I day one, coaching clients, meeting in my team, doing things. I now plan two to three days where I have nothing on my calendar before I begin work. Because sometimes after especially if you have kids, going away with kids for a a holiday, you come back and you need a holiday. So I've learned that I need time. And and when I left the event we were at together.

I had three days. Day one was a travel day. Day two and day three, there was nothing on my calendar, just time for me. So I've learned to do those things now to create that that to give me the the the summer off that I like, but also create that spaciousness so I'm not full on the moment I'm back in the game. How how'd that answer your question?

Yeah, I did. No, because I have I'm trying to s schedule clients for longer. I I do three months, but some want to go six months and then I like the seasonal idea, but I also want that time off as well. So I just didn't know like Well build build it in. I have this.

You build it in. So here here I'm doing it right now. I'm launching a program. I've launched a program called the Hundred K Club. It's for coaches who want to have their first hundred K year or their first hundred K client. And we've built it. I think we start in September and go till February. But I don't work in December or for the one one or two weeks in January. And we've built that into the program. And from day one I'll be talking to them about the fact that I'm not the kind of coach

who is there every single day for you to call and speak to. Because that's going to actually disempower you. As time goes on when I work with you, you're going to get access to me less and less because you'll need me less and less. I'm trying to model for you. You've already got this.

And I'm telling them from the moment we begin and they'll get the agenda as soon as they sign up. They know that December there are no calls. And I'm going to say for two reasons. One, I want to model for you that you should also, if you can, take December off. And if you can't, I'm showing you that one day you'll be able to.

And so I'm modeling that for them. So you can tell your clients, hey, we've got a six month engagement, but just so you know, I don't work in December. And then you have choice. You might say, so six months would go a month beyond December, because we won't have any coaching in that month. Or you can say here's a six month here's something I'm doing this year for the first time ever.

I'm I'm uh Jeff, I haven't announced this yes. I'm gonna announce this tomorrow in four PC, but it'll be l it'll this episode will come out by the time four PC know. So I'm gonna tell four PC that they have my WhatsApp and I'm gonna be doing uh office hours. They can text me anytime with any question in I think the middle of July to the middle of August.

I'll answer it when I can. So we're going on a canal boat trip in London. If I don't have Wi-Fi, I won't get to it. If I get to it but I'm at a family event, I'll check it later. But they can answer me any question anytime for that month so they know, oh, he's got our back. So I'm always being creative with the ideas and you can play in all sorts of ways.

And that's not gonna resonate like knowing you have this what's up, you just let it go. You're just like, I'll look at it. When I look at it, it's there. It I don't think about it. You liter literally let it go out of your cognitive mind. Well, two things. One, I've done this with clients for years now. So I know that it's something I can do. And two, I work with really talented driven people.

They're not urgency based people. No one is texting me with a panic like, oh my God, Rich, what do I do about this thing tomorrow at 9 a.m.? Mine was more coming into like forty, you know, you have you're opening the floodgates. Mine would be more the stress of coming into like having eighty people ask you a question, I guess. So

Well, that's training your people. You know, there are first of all there's there's 30 people in four PC. Second of all, I I train them. I'm teaching them a what it means. Like years ago I had a client who was texting me almost every day for the first three or four weeks of our working together.

And then we we got on a call together and I said, hey, look, I noticed you text me more than most people I know. What's going on with that? Where what's this lack of confidence coming from? And then I gave him a challenge. Okay, so you can keep texting me as much as you like. But for the next four weeks, you have to answer your own question before you ask me your question. So before I'll answer your question. So ask any questions you like. You have to answer it yourself first.

And what happened over the next four weeks is he answered every single question first and most of the time he got the answer he needed. Didn't he need so so you can train your people over time in what to do. No one. Have you got what you needed from this call? Coming into the call, I thought we'd have a different discussion, but it is one that I needed.

And you answered when that question popped in my mind, I knew how you were gonna answer it. Because I have to answer it myself. So it's it's confirmation. I'm probably doing the right thing. And I just need to keep on keep on doing those things in order to find where that that harmony is for me at a particular situation. Yeah, I I I think it's one that you'll be able to answer over time. Yeah.

'Cause it's a new way of being. So you haven't got a model for it. Do you remember the metaphor I gave at the intensive? I said e every October for about three years. One of my team members noticed this, I hadn't. She said, Every October you hire a business consultant, a business expert, and you fire them a month later. And I went, Oh my God, I I do, don't I? And I realize what happens every October or November, I get

I'm either excited because we've had a great year, but now I'm wondering, oh my God, how am I going to replicate that next year or do even better? Or we haven't had a great year and I'm wondering how am I going to hit my numbers by December? So I hire an expert. The thing is. The metaphor is I'm climbing this beautiful mountain and in front of me i there's the peak, but there's pristine white snow ahead of me, which means no one's ever climbed my mountain, because it's my mountain.

So hiring an expert on climbing mountains is useful at some point, but it gets to a moment where it's your mountain. There's only one way to find out, it's to make mistakes, to screw up, to try things out, to fall down, to pick yourself up. You'll be an expert on client. Most of human history. dot com