On today's episode of gathering the Kings. And then once they understand that five steps, they can apply it in every area of their lives, and it simple enough that they can use it. One of my clients said, oh, he said, I've used your 5 step process and the family sat down and we planned our family vacation. Yeah. As you were going through it, I'm thinking this is how you plan for a quarter. This is how you plan for a year. This is how you plan for your next business.
This is very tactical items here. What's up, everybody? I'm Chaz Wolfe, gathering the king's podcast. Got a extremely special guest here with me today. A queen of all nature's Barbara Himpill. Welcome to the King stage, Barbara. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you for having me, Jess. You know, it's it's a pleasure, honestly. And you've got it was funny because we we started this conversation just a few minutes ago with your seasoned experience.
We were talking about a little bit of your your history. You've been doing entrepreneurship for a long time and with a lot of success and so much impact, really. And so I really do feel like I I'm having the queen, like the queen. I've had a lot of queens on the king stage here, but I really do feel like we've got something special here, and I'm excited for the conversation. Tell us what kind of endeavors that you're a part of now, Barbara? Well, my passion is clearing the world of clutter.
And clutter comes in many forms, and it's been around for a long time, actually. I was writing my book less cluttermore life and doing some re shirts and discovered that in Samuel, there's a story of Samuel looking for Saul to crown him king and he can't find him. And in the King James version of Bible, it says Lowe. He is hidden beneath this stuff. And I felt fell off my Chaz laughing because I thought stuff was kind of a new word.
I didn't expect to find it there, but we are Wolfe full of of stuff. And That's right. My business has been based on 4 words. Clouder is postponed decisions. I love that. I'd I just I even as I was refreshing myself before this podcast, I always read, you know, notes and stuff from our intro calls, you know, ahead of time, but I was refreshing. And I saw that again. I was like, oh, so good. Say it to us again. Clatter is postponed decisions. I learned that. As entrepreneurs.
Like, I'm thinking about my desk right now. Well It's not that it's not that I'm a procrastinator. Like, a lot of business owners are movers and shakers. They're task oriented. Like, get it done. Right? Right. But the list gets so long that I just keep pushing that stuff down, which then becomes Clutters. Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, but the interesting thing is that And, basically, what I did was founded the whole industry that deals with clutter.
It started because my first husband and I lived in India, we adopted 3 orphan children from India, and they were 2, 3, and 4. We moved back to New York City. My husband worked for a nonprofit and didn't make enough money to pay for living expenses in New York. And so I needed to bring in income, but I wanted my children to be 1st, especially I had one with special needs. So I really wanted them to be 1st. So I decided I needed to work for myself.
I needed to find a problem in the world that I could solve that people would pay me for. Yeah. And I grew up on a farm in Nebraska, so I followed my daddy around. I was pretty handy. So I was gonna do a we lived in a high rise in Upper West Side, and I was gonna repair faucets and lamps and things, but in New York, you have to be in the union to do that. It's like, okay. I can't do that. It's right. I sat on the playground, and I would just listened to people talking.
And I heard people talking about clutter, about disorganization, about managing their time and, you know, we haven't eaten off the table in a month because it's Wolfe full of paper. Or should we file another extension, our income tax because I couldn't find the receipts or I'm fighting with my kids about the clutter in their room or my husband dumps this clutter on the kitchen counter, and I can't cook at night. And I thought, They didn't grow up with my mom and dad.
Now I'm not a naturally organized person. I've been diagnosed with ADHD. I'm a musician by training. I was creating music. I love to start things. I don't like to finish them. I like the big picture, and I don't like the details. But I was blessed to grow up in a family where we did things in a systemized way. Which is different from organized. You know, it's like there's old saying a place for everything and everything in its place. That's half right.
There has to be a place for everything, but in most people's lives, everything's not always gonna be in its place. The problem is not with clutter. The problem is when you don't know what to do with and we are a culture that is bombarded with clutter. And it's actually reached to crisis point at this point. Yeah. Because my generation saved things for our children, our grandchildren, who now want nothing to do with it. Yeah. And that brings up the whole issue of what does that say about my life?
Does that say that what I valued isn't important? So it's a very complex thing. 45 years ago, I ran a $7 ad in a New York City newspaper that said disorganized. I organized closets files, kitchens. You name it. Carl Barker Hempel. I got 3 crank calls from guys trying to pick me up. Wow. It's like, you know Hey. The entrepreneur. I guess you gotta respect the hustle. Well, the entrepreneurial start is, you know, at that point, you know, after 3 falls, you could have given up, but I A 100%.
Yeah. But I got a call from a fifty five year old woman who'd suddenly widowed and her husband was an attorney and he'd left piles of paper everywhere. And so I went in to help her. She didn't have a daughter. Didn't have a trot didn't have children, so probably in some ways I did what a daughter would have done. I charged $10 an hour and lived in a horror that someone was gonna ask me what made me think I was worth $10 an hour.
And when I walked and saw the piles of paper, I thought, oh my gosh. Chaz have I done? You know about that? Okay. I'm just gonna do what I know to do. And so I sorted things.
I'll talk to the attorney about this and the stock broker about this and the accountant about this and And that led me to realize that the mow well, then Chaz I started doing do other kinds of things as well, but I learned very quickly that paper was the most difficult thing to organize, and that it was because it's not what the paper itself, it's what it represents. It represents our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our intentions, all of that sort of thing.
And then when we moved into the digital age, a lot of people said, oh, well, I don't have to worry about paper now because I'm I'm gonna go digital. But we still have the issue of decision making with Dental. So now we have a bigger faster hidden mess. That's right. But then I've that we pay for in storage on Google. Oh, and I'm a school board dropbox. Absolutely. Absolutely. Wolfe, and and we spend enormous amounts of times looking for it because we have so many plat forms.
And when you're talking about companies where there's mergers and acquisitions and when you're when now when you're working with hybrid workspaces and people are working at home and they're working in the office part of the time. And so some of the information is on the server one place, and then in some place, it's someplace else. It's an enormous, you know, it's an enormous problem.
But then I began to realize that the real issue about decision making, about clutter, had to do with fear and emotion. So I wrote a book came out first in 1988. There's a story about that too. The book was called Taming the paper tiger, and it was Okay. A book about every piece of paper that came into the American household because the questions that people asked me was how long do you keep?
And in those days, it was bank statements because we used to get our canceled checks wrapped up in our bank statements, and we kept them. I mean, you go into people's houses and they were under the bed and in the attic and the garage. Literally And then they'd have the real estate papers from the houses they bought and sold, and they'd have their medical records, and they'd have their tax records and stuff. And people began to ask me, How long do you heed bank statements, whatever?
I didn't know the answer. I thought they must look on this subject, so I went to the library and much to my amazement, there was not a user friendly book about how long you kept things. So I wrote a book called Tammy The Paper Tiger was published by a major publishing company. It was excerpt in reader's digest worldwide, which is incredibly exciting. Except that the publishing company declared bankruptcy the month it was in Chaz month that it was in reader's digest.
So decades later, people would tell me stories. Somebody in Paris said, I saw the article, and I tried to find the book, and I couldn't. So the book, you know, didn't exist. And I had to buy my own manuscript, but because it was Wow. Property. Yeah. And this was way before the days of self publishing. There were those all those publishing companies that help you self publish. So but I did myself. I went to a printer in Baltimore, Maryland. I got the book printed. I got an ISBN number.
And I self published the book. And the way I did that was there was a a office supply company called Viking Office Supply. And on the front of the catalog, it said, if you spend a $100, we'll send you a clock. And I thought, you know, my book talks about the kinds of things that this company sells. So this is back before voice mail and all those kinds of things. So I called his office at 7 o'clock in the morning. I tried several days, but I finally got Erwin Helford on the phone.
And I said, you know, I've I've written this book, and it's about the products you sell. And I think if you bought my book as a premium instead of a clock, You'd sell more office supplies. Well, they bought 27,000 copies. Wow. And I didn't have 27,000 copies, but I this order from there went to the bank, borrowed the money, and then, ultimately, purchased them. And then quickly learned that I didn't really wanna be in the publishing business Chaz was a whole different business.
So I went to my distributor and I said, who else are you distributing for that you think? Might be interested in this book, and they gave me the name of Kiplinger, and Kiplinger was a well known name, respected name at that point. So I called them and said, I'm looking for a publisher for my book. And at first, they said, oh, no. All of our books are written by our own employees. But then they called me back and said, no. We wanna publish it.
So it became Kippling or staining the paper tiger, which gave me the credibility, you know, that I wouldn't have had otherwise. So I moved in to doing focusing primarily on on paper and created a company called Paper or Institute, which then became productive environment Institute. And that's the company that I founded, productive environment institute, which is helping people create a productive environment where everyone can accomplish their work and enjoy their lives.
And we focus on paper digital and time management and systems and just helping people have the information they need when they need it. Research shows that in a company for every 5 employees you hire, only 4 are doing what they pay to do because the fifth one is looking for something in order to do what they're paid to do. And so what we're help is help people figure out you know, what they could do. So that's what that company does. What I personally do is something called vision accelerator.
Which is I god has given me an ability to talk with someone and very quickly see a vision for them that they don't see for themselves. Something I'm looking at their experiences, their talent, their passion, and, you know, I created this industry nobody had heard about it. And in fact, in 1979, I went to the small business administration, and we had moved to Washington, DC by that time. And I went there to ask them to help me start this business, and they locked me out of the room.
And they said, this is not a business. No one pays for organizing closets, cupboards, and kitchens. Well, now I think it's an $8,000,000,000 industry or something. It didn't exist. There was no association. I was one of the founders of the National Association, and they just had their conference this year, and they were, like, over, I think, two and a half thousand people attended it. So now having is a big industry.
And I believe that many people have in them the ability to make a really big impact in the world, but they often don't see it for themselves. And so I like to encourage them. I like to talk about them. And, that's that's one of the things that I most enjoy doing. I love that. Well, so first off, you just, to the tenacity of that story. I just this whole time, I'm it's paper. It's organization.
It's all the the practicals, but I'm thinking, man, how how many things have she has she overcome and just the short story And I think that's you probably have a whole bunch more that you could share, but just to share, coming up with something brand new and and overcoming all these little things, is is really inspiring. On top of that, you you spearheaded something. I do wanna hear a little bit more. My my first deep question usually on the podcast is about someone's why.
And you kinda gave us a little bit, like, your history, and you gave us, like, where organization came from and why that was practical for you. But then you you kinda dripped for a second there on creating vision. And being able to see things even for other people that maybe they don't even see yet for themselves. Tell us more about that because that seems to be maybe more of, like, maybe, like, your purpose or, like, your deep seated, like, this is what I'm created for.
If I'm right on that, expound for us because I wanna know why you feel that way and how that has come to life for you. Well, you actually hit the nail on the head. My license plate says Hope full. And when people ask me why, I say because I'm a fool for Jesus and hope HOP stands for help others pursue entrepreneurship, which I've been doing for 40 years and love to help other people do as well.
The interesting thing is I grew up in a family where we went to church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, every Wednesday night, and my grandfather used to say, god talked to him. God told me this. God told me that. And I You know, I I wanted that too, you know, but I didn't I just didn't get that. And we used to have revival meetings every spring and every fall. And I would go to the altar and I'd kneel and sobbed my heart out. Please, god, talk to me like you did to my grandfather.
And I just it didn't happen. Well, then I married someone who was actually in ministry school thinking if I can't be close to god, maybe maybe being married to him will help. And and he divorced me. So then it's like, okay. Well, I guess that's not it. Oh, and then I went to a one room country school, with 9 grades, and I was bowling for 9 years. So Wow. Have any friends and So I just there was a lot of despair in my life. I tried to commit suicide at age eleven.
I was in when I was forty years old, I was in a mental health little for depression. Lots and lots of, deep sadness and hopelessness. Yeah. And one time, one of my business coaches asked me the question that you asked me, and I said, I want to give other people hope. And she said, that's the what? It's not the why. Yeah. And as I dug through it, I realized it's because I spent the majority of my life feeling hopeless. Yeah. And I never want anybody else to have to experience what I did.
And I figured out how to do it And the ultimate way that I figured out was that I found that god did talk to me, just not the same way he talked to my granddad. That's right. Chaz and in the beginning, I was afraid when I would go out with clients. I never mentioned Jesus' name because I was so afraid I would offend somebody And now I'm just the opposite of it. It's like, I don't go preach it on this corner, but I want to behave in such a way when people ask me You know, why don't you retire?
I mean, you're seventy six years old. Why don't you retire? Is it because it's not in my jeans to do that. My mother was 82 and working full time because she wanted to Chaz an as an administrator to to a bank. A bank owner. So that's where part of the systems came that I learned in. Oh, I'm sure. So I my why is to to help other people realize that you should never give up. Never, never, never give up. And that god created every one of us for a very unique purpose that no one else can do.
And I have a certification program productive environment institute, we have a certification program for people to become certified productive environment specialists. So once they join the program, then the thing Chaz the temptation is to, oh, well, this works for everybody. You know, personal life, business life. Well, as an entrepreneur, you know, that's not the way to have a business. You can't be all things to all people. That's right.
So one of the thing discussions I always have with them is what were you doing when you were ten, eleven, and twelve years old? Because the answer to that question is very important. It's a a hint as to what god created you to do before the world said, oh, you can't make a living doing that. Right. Yeah. And there's always some kind of a a connect about, you know, what it is.
For example, I lived in the Second Floor of Attendant Farmhouse, and my only private space was a small Closet and in it, my daddy had built me, a chest of drawers, and my mother worked at a jewelry store, and she used to bring home the boxes that were bent. Because they thought Chaz they couldn't use it. And so I would organize them in this chest to maximize my space. That was one thing I did. And I remember that in my My aunt, they were missionaries in Africa.
When they come home in furlough, I'd go in their house, and I would organize everything for them and their five kids. And I was an all pair in college, and and when I babysat for people, people love for me to babysit because I always organized their house when they came home Right. Chaz organized whatever. Well, I've always done that, but Often when I would ask people what they did, they'd say, oh, I don't know. And I'd say, go ask your parents or ask your siblings or ask your friends.
Well, I asked my mother, and she said, oh, don't you remember? You used to call the family into grandma's parlor, and you would preach to us. And I thought, Isn't that funny? I was preaching, and now I'm preaching, organizing, and ultimately preaching Jesus because When we have clutter that we can't get rid of, it is because of emotional pain. Yeah. So I learned Chaz. I holding on to it. Yeah. Well, I was autographing books at Barnes And Noble.
And I made the comment that whenever I have a client who can't let go of things, if I ask enough questions, I will find out that they've experienced a severe emotional loss in their life. When I was done, this young man came up to me and he said my apartment is full of papers. I haven't had anybody in it for months. And he said, I come home from work at night, and I say, okay. Tonight is a night. I'm gonna clean this up. And he said, I pick up the papers and I become physically paralyzed.
He said, are you telling me that I have a deal with the grief of losing my mother at age six before I can clean up my papers. And I said, well, I'm not a mental health professional, so I can't answer that. But what I can tell you from my experience is that if you find someone you trust, most likely not a family member, but that that person can help you decide what you want and need to keep. Not what somebody else thinks or no shoulds about. What is it that matters to you?
You will solve your paper problem. And in my experience, it will also help deal with the other grief. That's right. Wolfe, I was giving speeches. I was speaking at a university with, I don't know, probably 700 women And a woman walked up and she said, you just saved my marriage. I said, wow. That's pretty dramatic. What do you mean? She said, I came to this conference the intention of telling my husband to whom I've been married for 13 years that I was leaving because of his clutter.
She said, I have allergies, and I can't clean it. And then she stopped, and there was tears running down her face. And she said, I never realized until I heard you Chaz it wasn't that he wouldn't let go, but that he couldn't. His mother died when he was 7. And I said, may I make a suggestion? She said, of course, I said, Go home and say something to the effect of I never understood before how important all this is to you. Let's figure out how you can keep it, and we can still live together.
And I stayed in touch with them for about 8 months afterwards, and the change was amazing because what happens is God has a sense of humor in most families. One person is a keeper, and one person is a thrower away. That's just the way it works. And the more you say to someone else, you don't need this, the more they hang on. It's just Yeah. Just the way it is. Exactly. And he once he felt heard, then it was like, oh, we can take a picture of that collection.
I don't need that anymore, and it really did make a make a change. So my book, Les Clutter Moore Life, says that physical and digital plotter is symptom of emotional and spiritual clutter. An emotional clutter are are is the stuff in our brain that says I'm too old to do this. I'm too fat to do this. I'm too dumb to do this. It's too late to do this. This would never work. That's the that's the head trash.
That keeps off nerve from from reaching the levels that they're capable of reaching and from not reaching the vision. And If you have a vision, Robert says with a without a vision that people perish, well, without a vision, entrepreneurship will perish. You really, as an entrepreneur, have to have a very clear vision of what you want.
And when you do, Then it's easy to figure out what's clutter because you can ask a simple question, and Chaz question is, does this, whatever this is, whether it's physical or digital or an idea in your head, does this help me accomplish my work or enjoy my life? And if it doesn't, by definition, it's clutter and you can't afford it. Yeah. Don't do it. On the other hand, there are people. I just had somebody a client say to me the other day, I don't I don't know what my patient is.
What do you do if you don't have a patient? Yeah. Well, you start by clearing the clutter because there is nobody that isn't able if someone gets them to focus to say, okay. Let's look at this, this physical thing, this piece of paper, this digital thing, this idea in your head, Is this really something you want to pursue? And if the answer no. You get rid of it. And then it's like peeling the layers of an onion. You say, oh, okay. I don't want this. I don't want this. I don't want this.
I don't want this. And it reveals itself. What happens is you then reveal what that vision is. And that's what's so incredibly exciting because when you hear about the vision, then you you know what to do. And you can always ask the question. You know, it's a lot of people have there's been so much myth information about organization and clutter. People often will say, what what should I do? And there aren't any shoulds. It's what will you do?
Because if you're why, I mean, organizing in and of itself has no value. In fact, there are some people who spend all of their time organizing that there's entrepreneurs that do that. Entrepreneurs that they pick one thing and they do it for a little Wolfe, and then it doesn't they do something else and it doesn't work and they do something else, they never stick with it long enough to really succeed. But if the vision is clear enough, then you can just keep moving forward and you will be Right.
Successful. Yeah. The the moments in not only my life, but I see a lot of entrepreneurs in our mastermind group and or just friends that I have. And the the connection that you're making between vision and clutter is actually I mean, I it's profound.
You've made it profound for years, but it's becoming profound to me and what I already understand because I tell the story of when I was 16 17 working at Foot Locker, and I was an absolute hustler, and I would be helping there'd be 4 or 5 of us in the store, helping people with shoes, but all of the clients were being helped by me.
And there, you know, three or four people would be standing at the the desk watching me help everybody in the store And it was because I was hustling around and moving around and helping everybody all at the same time. But the later part of the story is that eventually what happens is that I'm I'm helping so many people and These shoes don't work for you, so I set them on the back counter. In those shirts, when we're checking out, you decide not to go with them.
You went with these, and so I throw the ones you didn't want on the back counter. And then these shoes from that guy go on the back counter because he went with these 2 parents instead of this pair or whatever. Right? So eventually, the back counter is so full. And I remember this vividly where I'm just like, everybody stop. Everybody stop. Nobody move. You take this section. You take this section. You take this section.
I'm gonna take this back to the back, clear off the back counter, and then it's like, Now we can move again. And I've used that in many different scenarios in my life to explain certain things, but what you just said makes perfect sense because in that moment, I had been so busy doing great things, helping all of the customers. But I'd been busy being busy or busy doing the day to day with no vision. That's when clutter rose up.
And in order to then operate forward, again, I had to clear the back counter or clear the clutter. So that I could recreate vision. And I see this in entrepreneur's life, and I want you to speak to this here in a second. I'm setting you up here. I want you so I I see an entrepreneur's life now, especially in in the early stages in the early years. Call it, you know, before a 1,000,000 or maybe even before 3,000,000, where there's just a big mess.
And there's just like a lot going on, and maybe it's you. Maybe it's you plus a team of 5 or 10 or maybe even 15. And there's just a lot of moving pieces and a lot going on and a lot of decisions. And a lot of work to be done and a lot of busyness. How does that entrepreneur right there that I just described which is me all those years ago, helping all those people and crushing it, doing a good job, making good money, and helping clients, and you feel good about yourself.
But you're in this, like, tornado of busyness, which creates the clutter because you really have no vision. So, like, ah, what do I do? Hey, Kings and Queens. Jazz Wolf. I wanna talk to you about something that's super important to me. We put a lot of time and effort. We, meaning myself and my team, into this podcast, into the content that goes out every single day. And if you have been getting any sort of value or insight from this, we want it to be able to reach other business owners too.
So we would love if you would like, comment, share, leave a review, post, share again all of the things on social media, on all the different platforms, or even on the podcast mediums of Apple and spotify. We would love to be able to get our content into more hands, more entrepreneurs so they can grow their business as quick as possible. Together, we are building a community of like minded entrepreneurs who are committed to growing their businesses to new heights. So let's do this.
Let's help each other. Let's help each other grow. Wolfe you've raised a couple of things. One is remember I said early on a place for everything and everything in this place is half right. So that's a perfect example. What what you're describing is normal. I mean, that wasn't you know, that's just kinda the way things happened, but because everything had a place, It was easy to recover. You know, we have four questions that we ask about what is organized. Number 1 is, does it work?
Number 2 is do you like it? Because as an entrepreneur, you have to like it. If you don't like it, you're not gonna be able to sustain it. 3rd is, does it work for the other people it impacts? So when you're in a company, you have to make sure that you take into consideration the other people that you're affecting as well. And then the fourth one is, can you recover quickly? Because messes are going to happen. That's normal. And so then the question becomes, how long does it take to clean it up?
And so, for example, I often joke about it. If you came into my office on a Thursday, You might look around and say, and they pay you money for organizing because my office on Thursday looks pretty messy. Because my control date is Friday. And Friday, everything has to be put back in its own place, and it has to take me less than 30 minutes. It takes me more than 30 minutes, then it's like, okay. There's a red flag. There's something wrong here or something I need to do. So that's one thing.
The other thing is entrepreneurs are blessing in our curse as ideas. Yeah. And many entrepreneurs are class a starting things and then not finishing him. So we always have to go back to saying what really matters here. And I'm I I'm a woman of questions. I'm always asking people questions. And one of the questions Chaz I asked is if you left this earth tonight, what regret would you have? And the answer that question is a form of clutter. Interesting. Explain.
Well, so it might be something everything that goes wrong in your life, personally. And professionally affects your entrepreneurship. Right? I mean, if you so I asked myself that question a few Weeks ago, months ago now, I guess. And it was then I had come in a strange relationship with one of my daughters. Just hadn't worked out really well. And so I decided that was a regret I Chaz, and I was gonna do something about it.
I did, and she just came and visited me, and we had a couple of wonderful days Things like that do affect your entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur is living. Their business is reflecting their life. And when there's something in the life that isn't quite right, it affects the business as well. So that's one thing. In terms of the you're you mentioned, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, you're starting all these things and you're going all of these things.
I think you have to clear the clutter from a business. You have to look at the numbers, you know, which of these things so many times with an entrepreneur, we have a good idea, and we don't wanna let it go. But it isn't proving to really work. The numbers don't show that it's working, so you can't change what you don't measure. So measuring all those things you're doing and how much they're bringing to the business is really important.
So I think what we're talking about illustrates something that I feel extremely passionate about, and that is then an entrepreneur cannot separate your personal life from your business life. That's right. And not only do I agree with you, but it's it's a topic. It's a hot topic. In fact, actually, I don't know if the camera can see here, but I've got my gathering, the king's family mastermind shirt on here today, and we just got back the well, this is a new program that we've developed.
And we just got back from a cruise to Bermuda where I'm really leaning hard. Not only have I been leaning hard in my own life for a couple of years now, several years. But trying to then help other entrepreneurs do the same. Actually, one of my questions here for you today, so we'll just jump right to it is around this. And so Basically, my thought is that balance doesn't exist. Right? So for entrepreneurs specifically, it's not this or that.
Like, what you just said, it they actually mirror or reflect each other in some form or fashion, and so it's, like, actually both. And and oftentimes, at the same time, everything that you've described about your success, and I know that I would describe about mine Chaz obsession. And I've been obsessed about my business. And I've been obsessed about my teams and my people and growth. Right? That's what's made us successful.
So how have you been obsessed with your family at the same time as all the other cool stuff that you've been doing? Well, Keep in mind that I started the business because I wanted to put my family first. I mean, that's the whole reason. And In the program that we have to certify people, most of them are women who are mothers. One of the things that we do uniquely is they're 1000 of organizing consultants out there, but we do our work virtually, which is wonderful.
We have clients all over the world that we've never seen for, which has turned out to have, a win in a lot of ways in that we can provide the services less expensively because we don't have fly there. And, also, there's a whole lot of clients that don't want us to see their mess. They're embarrassed. I mean, I'm, you know, I'm a successful person and whatever, and I don't I just don't want you to see the mess.
And the interesting thing is we found that they actually learn more because we learn kin aesthetically So when we go in and actually help someone organize, we end up doing some of the things that they should do for themselves. That they need to do. Yeah? Because so it's, you know, it's come out to be a a win win in that respect. I've been very blessed. My husband is is my second husband, married, 30 7 almost 37 years now. And when we he's a retired army colonel, and he and I are very opposite.
He's a very private, not a social person at all. He's very good at making money, which has been a big, huge blessing for me. And he said when we got married, my job is to block and so you can fly. And I that's just been a blessing. And what people interview to be one of our specialists One of the questions I'll ask is how does your family feel about this? Yeah. Absolutely. How it's I it's really, really difficult to be an entrepreneur if your family doesn't support it.
And that often just means you need to do a better job of explaining why it's advantageous to them and, Right. That sort of thing. I remember Dan Sullivan.
I was in the strategic coach program for many years, and Dan Sullivan used to have what he called the entrepreneurial time system where he would you'd block out time where you'd have focus time, free time, and buffer time, and focus time was when you were working on that project hours and hours, but you would tell your kids that on sessions of today, it was gonna be free time. And then we're gonna do such and such and such and such.
And that meant that the kids would tolerate your ignoring them for a Wolfe. But she just had to be absolutely sure that you honored it. And that's true. I mean, it really Well, it's an agreement. Right? Like, I think there's entrepreneurs out there right now who are struggling with the I'm all in on my business, but then when I come home, it's a little bit of a storm. Whether it be with wife and kids or husband and kids is because there's expectations.
We just haven't sat down and talked about it, so there is no agreement. Have. And in that case, what you just described about Dan is that, wait. Let's sit down. Let's talk about it. Let's communicate so both sides understand and then let's make an agreement. That's a win win. You mentioned this earlier about win wins, but it's this huge, and we talked about this on the family mastermind as well because we did we did marriage work. Inside of in some of our sessions.
It's like, look, if there is not a win win, if I wanted to be a scenario where I'm agreeing with my wife to do something, But I but I don't believe that it's a win win. Even though I've made the agreement, I will break it because I don't believe that it serves me. And so even inside of the communication, that's what Dan did. And that example you just gave is that he made it you've gotta give up something here, which was the win for him because he could focus.
But then over here, you get something, and that's when he steps away and then does what they like. And so it Chaz to be a win win. Otherwise, it's not a not a an actionable agreement, I guess. What would you say about that? Oh, absolutely. Communication is everything. In fact, there's a a new book that just Sam Warren of a friend of mine, and she's just released a new book that I love is called Talking On Eggs. Grub because communication is everything. Right? I mean, it really is.
And whenever there's an issue when we're when it's in a company with whether it's with our employees or our vendors or colleagues or when it's in our family, when it isn't working, the only thing that Wolfe solve it really is clear communication. And if we don't communicate clearly, it's only gonna come back to bite us at some point. I mean, if not if you're upset about something and you don't communicate it, it's gonna come back to bite you. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting.
Actually, there was one comment since we're talking about clear communication, there was one comment that led to a whole discussion on on the family mastermind, which was you know, basically just the difference in how a man or a woman or the mask, you know, a female or a feminine clearly communicate and and how one is very bullet pointed and direct, and one is very flowy and storytelling. And and both are clear or at least they believe that they're being clear, but received very differently.
Yes. And so this was a great conversation, but I assume that you've seen this in business and or even in organization because if I have you coming in, not only are you another person and we have to communicate and we're coming into an agreement, But in addition to that, now there's a whole another layer of personalities and then a whole another layer of, you know, masculine, feminine, or, you know, whatever the scenario is. Would would has this played into some of the work that you've done?
Well, I think it always goes back to vision. So when I work with the client, one of the first questions I always ask is what has to happen? For you to be to you for you to feel happy about this exercise. Yeah. Like, again, you can't change what you don't measure. So we wanna start by saying, let's look at where things are now, and then let's look at where things where you want them to be. And then we're clear about whether we're getting there.
And then checking in in between times to say, you know, how are you feeling about this? And I'm very much One of the questions that I'm always asking people is what is the next action? I'm not into long. I'm not somebody who does 5 year plans because they never succeeded for me because I just didn't plan that far ahead. I mean, something some new idea or some new insight came up. And I always felt like I was as long as I'm moving forward, that's the main the main thing.
And if I'm living my purpose, if I'm helping other people accomplish their work and enjoy their lives, and empowering them to do the same. So like when you used the example in the shoe store, when you had the team stop, and put everything away, you were illustrating how you help other people to see what to do. You were teaching them. You were leading them. And we it's so easy to blame other people, you know, oftentimes.
Fact, one of the questions that always comes up about clutter is what do you do if the problem is your boss or your colleague or your spouse? And I have a very personal experience to that when I married my husband. I just my first husband was an absolute neat neck, much more so than I was, which is a huge blessing because I'm not absolutely needing. So he picked up after me. That was wonderful.
Well, my husband, as I mentioned, was a retired colonel, and I guess he had privates around because I quickly learned that he didn't pick up after himself. And I thought, oh my gosh. This is gonna be the death of my business. I mean, if I can't keep my own household organized, and then I thought, wait a minute. He's not my client, you know, and I've always said I'm not in the business of trying to convince anybody to do it. I'm looking for people who say, where have you been all my life?
Because Right. People often overestimate how difficult this is to solve. People are so shocked. I can't tell you the numbers at times. Chaz I will meet somebody decades later, and they will remind me saying, we were going down the elevator, and you made such a comment, this comment had changed my life. I mean, it's like just turning the way. Well, I write I I I thought I don't know what I mean. His clutter Chaz dragged me crazy. So I learned 2 things. One was there's zones in our house.
And if you come into our house, it's really easy to see whose zone is it. Who's, you know, and that's it kinda works. But the other one is that if I'm frustrated by his stuff, there's always something of my own that I can fix. And when I go work on it, it takes that anger away. And I I've told that to people all the time and One of the issues that's really big in our culture right now are there are so many adults who are caregivers for their parents.
Yeah. And that's a a very, very big challenge on many levels. And one of the things that comes up often is clutter. In fact, I had a client recently. The the son had been a client of mine in business. And we have something that we call a finding system, which is a way we organize a unique way that we organize information. And he was familiar with Chaz. And he called me and he said his mother who was ninety two years old was in a nursing home, and she was complaining about her paper.
And he saying, you know, can we fix it? And we ended up coming up with a way way to do it, and that made me realize how many people Chaz that. I mean, he was trying to force her to do it, and that wasn't going to work. And I cannot tell you how many copies of my books I have not sold.
Because somebody Wolfe come up and say, I'm gonna buy this for my spouse or I'm gonna buy this for my mother or something Chaz it not only are you not gonna solve the problem, you're gonna it worse because if they don't want it, then, you know, you're just gonna make it worse. So organize your own stuff first. And often when I work with families, There'll be one family member, and that family member will want to go do the others.
I said, no. No. We're doing yours first, and we're not talking about it. You know, we're we're not telling other people what we're doing. We're just we're just doing it because we that's the way you do about roll out. I remember when we were first married, five teenagers and 4 of them were drivers. And the question always lets somebody say, where's my car keys? Where's my car keys? And one day I bought a magnetic rack for the refrigerator.
And I said, if I find car keys, they will go on the magnetic rack. Don't ask me where the keys are. If I know where they are for the hour. Well, to this day, at least 2 of the kids have magnetic racks in the kitchen, which would That's right. He's on a That's right. And I I often tell the parents or the adults who are caregivers, were come and say, I'm telling my mom, she has to throw this stuff away. She Chaz I said, you're making it worse. You're hurting her Just let her go.
And then if I get a chance to talk to the Elmerud person, I will say to them, because often they'll say to me, I just can't. It's too much emotion. And I just can't let it go. I said the best gift you can give your child is to say, I'm sorry. I've left you with this mess, but whatever you do with it is fine. Yeah. That's pretty valuable. Because my father was a farmer and on the farm, you always had junk piles, you know, because you repaired things by go pulling things.
And after he died, my brother said to me, every time I try to clean up the junk piles, you know, I feel like I'm dishonoring daddy because daddy wouldn't have done that. And I think that's when you in less cluttermore life, I have one of the things that stop you, you know, from doing it. And one of the biggest one is wanting to be responsible. This was expensive or this was given to me by somebody I love or I will forget this. And our over responsibility actually becomes irresponsibility.
That's right. We need to be responsible for what we're responsible for but we're not responsible for what everybody else does. And so my passion with vision accelerator is to help people figure out. What is it that you can control? Organization is about controlling the things you can control so you can cope with the things you can't.
So vision accelerator is saying what's important to me, what really matters to me, and what is the clutter that is preventing that from happening, And then how can we put systems in place? We use the acronym systems of saving you space time, energy, and money. Because every time we are something that needs to be done repeatedly, you need a system. So for example, I just tell people, you know, at tax time, they get really stressed because they can't they don't have system for doing taxes.
They kinda do a different thing. Well, just when you're doing this year's taxes is the time to put a system in place for next year because now you know, oh, I wish I had done this or I needed this. And so then sheer's gonna be a whole lot easier. To go back to your question about in businesses, it's about systems, right, when entrepreneurs have all these different things going on. And they often don't have systems.
I remember when one of my coaches early on when I started the organizing business, and I was sitting in a coaching class, and the coach said, okay. How do you do what you do? What kind of question is that? I don't know. I just I just do it. And he said, you know, everybody has a way that they do some And until you quantify that way, you can't replicate it. And out of that came a 5 step process that we use at core of everything we do, which is 1, state your vision.
So if you solve this problem, whatever the problem is, Whether it's clearing the clutter off the kitchen counter or improving the relationship with your spouse. It's what's the vision if we were successful at accomplishing this, What would it look like? What would it feel like? What would you be able to do that you can't do? 2nd is identify your obstacles. What have you tried in the past that didn't work?
What are you afraid of, what's preventing you from doing it, what's what's keeping you stuck. And then the third one is to commit your resources. How much time are you willing to commit to this? How much money are you willing to commit to this? Who will help you? Inevitably, there's somebody on your team or in your family who's more skilled at this than you are, somebody in your mastermind group. So what what are the reasons?
And then we get to step 4, which is my daddy used to say where the rubber meets the road, and step 4 is design and execute your plan. In order to reach this vision overcoming these obstacles with these resources, Here's the plane. This is what we're going to do. Right. And then step 5 is the one that's where most people fall down, which is the staying your success. How many plans work perfectly the first time? Not very many. So you have to go back and going forward in those simplified steps.
And if you notice, the core word in there is your. The reason that I'm so passionate about what I do is because it's helping people do what they wanna do and be what they will and be what god created them to do and to make a difference in the world and leave a legacy. So it's it's state your vision identify your obstacles commit your resources designed to execute your plan and sustain your success. And going forward, when I worked with a client, we identified that at the very beginning.
And then once they understand that five steps, they can apply it in every area of their lives, and it's simple enough that they can use it. One of my clients said, Oh, he said I've used your 5 step process and the family sat down and we planned our family vacation. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as you were going through it, I'm thinking, well, This is how you this is how you plan for a quarter. This is how you plan for a year. This is how you plan for your your next business.
I mean, this is very, very tactical items here. Yeah. It's very specific and it's something that you can actually measure and and everybody can understand. You can communicate it to anybody. So I love the simplicity. I'm all about simplicity, and that's the simplest way to do it, I think. Barbara, you're giving us really, really good stuff here today. I I want to bring us to close with one last question.
And super curious to hear your answer because you've got probably the most years to reflect on doing this. If you had a chance and I and I'd be curious to hear what age goes in your mind. If you had a chance to go back and whisper to the younger Barbara, What would you say? There's no question that what I would say is surround yourself with people who are more successful than you are.
The thing that has Cat me from accomplishing even more is that for many years, I felt like the Nebraska farm girl. And when I was around people who were wealthy and successful, or I was afraid to be around there because it's like, oh, they They wouldn't wanna have anything to do with me. They wouldn't talk to me. But what I now know as a successful person is that when you've accomplished a success, There's nothing that you want to do more than empower other people to be successful.
I mean, it's like you can only make so much money. And and your money, we're not gonna take it with us anyway. It's just, you know, it it's all temporal. But the reason I'm so passionate about people leaving a legacy is What is it? One of the things I do is I help people write books because writing books Chaz, 1, it built my brand, And the other thing is it's kept me every time I reinvented myself, which I did many times, I'd write another book. And so But books are legacies.
When you die, that book lives on with you. So That's right. Surround yourself with people. Don't be afraid to surround yourself with people that are more successful than you because that's who you Wolfe become. I love the nuance there. Many entrepreneurs have heard, you know, surround yourself with successful people. You know, Chaz some of your net worth is who you spend the most time with.
We've heard those things and those things are very important, but the nuance that you just gave there of don't be afraid to surround yourself. And I think that that's where a lot of a lot of our listeners fall into this category, which is me, which is you. It's just this down to earth regular person. And it's why transferring courage is so important to me because It is important that the listener hears you and says, well, Barbara can do it. I can do it. Or if Chaz can do it.
I can do it because there isn't necessarily anything special about the person who's been successful, there's been some certain things that they've done in order and maybe repeatedly or persistently throughout the years. However, they themselves aren't any different than than the listener, which you just gave a great picture of, even though you're still the farm girl from Nebraska, you're worthy of putting yourself in situations Chaz would bring different types of relationships.
And and I love the the farm community or the Nebraska community or the down to earth community or the contracting community or the single mom community because that's what I was raised in. All of those, what we maybe consider Chaz, like, oh, that's, like, almost like my weakness. It's like, no, actually, that just makes you down to earth, makes you real, makes you genuine.
And so embracing those things, like, what Barbara's talking about, but then realizing that you do need to be around different thinkers. Chaz combo, I just think that you just did a just an excellent job there. Barbara, how can we find you because if we wanna hire you to to bring in your level of decluttering thinking and and money or a paper and and digital, Organizing, but but also too, just maybe your books and or how do we find you personally? Where where are you located these days?
Well, the easiest way to do it is just to go to my website, which is barbarhempill.com. And if you go there, There is on there. I have I wanna offer I'm so honored to be on your show, and I love this idea about transfer and courage. I think it's really important. And I have something called a 90 minute vision accelerator session, and you can see it on the website. And if you put in BH VIP, which stands for Barbara Hemfill VIP, if you're on this call, you're a VIP to me.
If you put and you get a discount on what it is. And it's a 90 minute session. Love it. Chaz we talk about whatever You wanna talk about as it relates to your visit, whether it's cluttering your life, whether it's your entrepreneurial journey, whether it's you think you wanna be an entrepreneur or you're not sure.
I don't care what it is, but my experience is that with 76 years of life and 46 years as an entrepreneur, There's virtually nothing that you can talk about that you're struggling with Chaz I haven't struggled with myself, or I don't know somebody who can help you, and I love to help people accomplish their work and enjoy their lives and be all that god intended them to be. So all you do is just go to barbarhempel.com.
Go to vision accelerator and then put in that BH VIP as the discount code we can have a 90 minute conversation. Love it. I love it. Bringing hope. Right? Bringing hope? Yep. Transferring courage. I think that we have set out for our king and queenly tasks here today. I think that we've done it actually quite well. You are Just wonderful. And I appreciate you being here and giving up yourself and your experience.
I honestly, I felt like I was sitting around a campfire listening to the great stories of times before. And the cool part is is that you're living proof that it can be done Chaz you don't have to be super organized to be, you know, clutter free or, you know, how to set the systems. Like, you've just given so much information here today. Thank you so much. Blessings, Barbara, on you, your family, all the things that you're touching, all the other people you're bringing hope to.
Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, Charles. It was a joy. Thank you for listening to gathering the Kings today. I hope that you were able to pull out a few nuggets to go apply into your business right away. More importantly, though, I hope that you're realizing that it takes more to be successful than just being by yourself doing it all on your own. Carrying the weight all by yourself.
What I have realized, not only in my own journey from multiple businesses and multiple different industries and now interviewing over 2 or 300 other very successful 7, 8, and 9 figure business owners is that it's tough to do it alone. And so gathering the Kings exists to bring together successful entrepreneurs. In fact, we are putting together 1000 Kings specifically who are grateful, but not done.
We're intentionally assembling kings who fight tooth and nail for their business, family, communities, and here's what we believe Chaz in the pursuit of excellence in those areas, that it ignites within us the responsibility to govern power and forge a lasting legacy. So if that relates and and resonates with you and you know that you need people around you, sharp qualified other very successful business owners. I want you to go to gatheringthekings.com.
I want you to take a look at what we're doing and see if it makes sense for you to be part of our pursuit to 1000 kings. Talk soon.