5 Tips to Master Your Time and Be More Present with Brad Telepo

Danielle Cobo  0:05  
The dream job with Danielle Cobo podcast is designed to empower women to turn life's biggest challenges into their greatest strength. To address the confidence gap and why women often struggle with visibility. Guests, I talk about how to find your voice, create your seat at the table, and how to be an amazing ally to other women in the workplace. I am a career coach, keynote speaker, corporate trainer, military spouse, and mom to young twin boys. I have experienced as a fortune 500 company leader who guided a team to number one in the nation, having a thriving career and a balanced life is within every woman's reach. And the time is now. 

Hey, everyone, welcome to another episode of dream job with Danielle Cobo. I am your host Danielle Cobo, and today's guest is Brad Telepo. He served as a chief operating officer in residence with his clients with the strategic strength and financial tooling and productivity and efficiency coaching for entrepreneurs, buiness owners and teams, Brad started his first online retail company at the age of 22 years young. While working in construction from bringing on his first hire at 28, Brad reaches reached the top 200 in sales in the music supply and instrument industry within three years, and set industry productivity records among the top 200. He then acquired a failing retail company in 2004. and turned it around mitigating two companies for further efficiencies and economics of scale. All of all the while Brad also partnered with an internet marketing company specializing in maximizing ROI from cost per click. So why is this important to you? And why is he on this episode today? He is the master when it comes to increasing team mentality and emotional bandwidth cost savings and scalability. Really what we're going to be talking about today is how to master your time. So thank you so much for joining today, Brad.

Brad Telepo  2:14  
Yeah, thanks for having me, Danielle.

Danielle Cobo  2:17  
So let's just kind of talk a little bit about some of these struggles with time, because I'm sure a lot of our listeners can relate to this. You're either in kind of one or three areas. A lot of the listeners are sales reps. And so when they're in sales, often what they're doing is they get up in the morning, get the kids ready, then get ready, and they're out and they're meeting with clients all day. And what happens is, is you're on the road, the road warrior, so they're on the road, they're meeting with clients, they're getting text messages from clients, they're getting emails and phone calls. And there are so many different avenues that these customers are taking to contact these reps. But oftentimes, they're in meetings, and so then what happens is, then they get home, and by the time that they're done cooking dinner and all that, then they're getting caught up on emails at night or text messages at night. Then there's the other type of person that's listening, who they're in a management position. And I can relate to some of these struggles where I covered five states as a manager. And so I was either on a plane or I was driving and I'd be driving for four hours, obviously trying not to be on my phone and text messaging while I was driving, not safe. So I would be on the road all the time. And then I would be in the car with a team member and wanting to be very cognizant that our time is limited, and so I didn't want to be on my phone a lot. But then what would happen is then I get to my hotel room, and I'd be up on emails all night. And now as a business owner, this is becoming a little bit I used to be very good about mastering my email and time and productivity. But with each change in your career, and each evolution in your career, things change. So now I've got, I'm trying to manage Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, I've got messages coming from me from all three platforms, emails coming from me, text messages, and also some my other communication platforms that I use right now. On average, I get about 100 messages a day between LinkedIn and just email, just alone from that. And so these are kind of some of the struggles which I'm sure you deal with all the time. So I'm so excited to have you on as a guest and really talk about how we can be masters of time.

Brad Telepo  4:43  
Yeah, I appreciate that. So underneath that is really what do we own? Like, do emails own us? Or do we own it? Do our inboxes own us or do we own them? And one thing you spoke into whether if you are in a job, or you're a manager, or you're an owner, as time and technology has gone on, or your desire to grow, the number of communication mediums that you have to deal with, as well as the amount of information coming down those mediums, it's only getting worse. We're no longer in the days of like the rotary phone, and the one conversation to be like, cool, I can handle that pipeline. And what I see is underneath this is when I hear words like anxiety, overwhelmed, it's information overwhelm. And we can only handle so much upstairs with this limited brain that we got, like, but how do we get it out? So Danielle, what you spoke into is, if you're with your clients, or if you're with your kid, or if you're with your job, how can you will also be more present and focused with fat in the meantime?

Danielle Cobo  6:00  
That would be something I'd love to know more about. Because, like you said, as you are scaling your business or as you are growing, whether you're working for an organization or not, there's just so much information that is coming to us at any given time. And especially as the past couple of years, there's been a lot of change. And anytime that there's change going on, there's even additional information that's coming out to you because things are constantly adapting through that change. And one of the struggles is, and I and I hate this is when my mind is not present. It's either I'm at work, and I'm, you know, thinking about wanting to be with my kids, or I'm with my kids, and I'm thinking about work, it's just these thoughts are in my mind. So funny. I'm working with a coach right now on a speaking coach, and we're working on my TEDx. And she's like, You are a creative factory. She's like, the thoughts that just flow through your head all the time. And I said, Yes, which is great, but at the same time, it can get very challenging to be focused sometimes, because there's so much thought going through the head.

Brad Telepo  7:09  
So what's underneath all of that overwhelm that anxiety, that lack of presence? Danielle, you're just speaking into your creative machine, right? And the worst thing we can do is be managing our life in our head, whether if it's our calendar, our projects, and tasks like all of that, and the more we're managing in our heads, the more or less actually present, and creative we can be. Our like, logical mind is only meant to hold so much. So when we get it out, literally start getting out all the goop, then all of a sudden, creativity happens, and focus can happen. So a lot of the fundamentals of this, whether it's email, or managing your job, or being the manager with it all it is, number one rule is you got to be out of the head, you got to be out of the head. And a lot of people are looking for the latest tech, you know, what am I using for Gmail? Is it outlook? Is it? Is it Gmail? What do I need to use for projects and tasks? Is it Asana is it Trello? People are looking for that all the time, but the solution isn't technological, It's behavioral. So you spoken to Danielle, which is like, how do we create the time with it? And if you don't have the routines, the behaviors that are telling you what to do and how often do you keep it all together, then things are just falling through the cracks. Because Danielle is probably like, oh my gosh, I gotta get to my emails at home. I need to check in this person tomorrow. Oh, my gosh, I forgot about this client. How do I check on this person to do to so we're managing so much, right? You have all this going on, and you got all these inflows hitting you hitting you and you're just like, stop. How do I get a grip on actually what's, what's going on? And it gets crazy.

Danielle Cobo  9:08  
It does get crazy. I mean, the amount of stuff that you're trying to remember I'm thinking at any given time, okay, kind of follow up with people on LinkedIn. Gotta finish up with the email. Oh, and I got follow up with that client. And oh, yes, my kids have this week. My kids have had dress up every single day this week. So I'm thinking like, okay, so what am I going to do their costume for tomorrow? Yeah, and it's information overload and that's what creates it anxiety and overwhelm, and then that takes in a motional, physical kind of just inks on our bodies. So yeah, what are some steps that you recommend that we can take to master our time?

Brad Telepo  9:50  
Got it. So if you're open to it, I can focus on all the crazy inbound message communications that we have coming at us. So once again, either you you own them, or they own you. So the first step that I do with everyone is turn off, like what can we stop doing that's not serving us. Turn off all those notifications on your phone, and your computer, except phone and text. You can go back to turning them on. But what do you think happens Danielle? Like if we're here right now? Or if you're with your colleague, or your with your kid? What's happening? If you're getting pinged, and these notifications going off, how is that happening? How is that helping your flow? Or lack thereof? Yeah, it's like having five to 10 kids around you being like, check out this, Hey, look at my costume. Can we go here and do this? And it's just fracturing, our focus, causes a lot more stress, causes a lot more, creates a lot more time in order to get things done and what it is. So the first thing is you got to stop those notifications. But the reasons why we have those notifications going on, is we don't trust that we actually have it all covered, we're worried we're going to forget something. So that's what we have going on. So that next phase is this is the number one rule is being out of the head. Then if you don't want to forget something, then you can take two minutes right now to brainstorm on what are all of your inflows? And the game that I like to play with people is take two minutes to brainstorm on them all. And 100% of time, 100% of people do not have their full list. People might be missing paper mail, they're missing social media notifications, they're forgetting about their text or WhatsApp. Next thing you know they're on their LinkedIn, we probably have 15 to 25 and especially, how driven your audience is, think about that. You cannot tell me back right now, from your head. Tell me all the inflows you gotta manage. You can't?

Danielle Cobo  12:09  
No, I probably can't. Because there's there's a lot. Yeah, definitely a lot.

Brad Telepo  12:13  
Yeah. And so how hard is it trying to remember. So if that fundamental rule is being out of the head, if you take two minutes to write them down, all of a sudden, what happens is, you have this leak proof bucket, you're no longer worried about if things are going to fall through the cracks. You can trust that they're actually there, and when you're ready. If you want to own it, you're ready to flip on that switch, you know which ones to go to. And you can actually get from them. Like, does that make sense?

Danielle Cobo  12:46  
So what I'm hearing you say, cause this is like, right now, what I'm hearing you say is I'm going to write a list of all the different areas that I've got information coming to me. So if I have one checklist, and it's like, each morning, I've got 30 minutes set aside, I'm going to check my email, my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my Instagram, my text messages, my telegram, my whatsapp, all these different inflows of information I'm coming, but I have a checklist to go, Okay, I'm gonna go do and then once I go through them, I'm like, Ah, that's all done. I don't have to think about oh, wait, did I check this? Did I check that I just go down my checklist?

Brad Telepo  13:27  
Yeah. And that's what that feeling is. It's the feeling of being current, that nothing's falling through the cracks. So a lot of this is how do you create a leak proof system so that you're not thinking about it. So if I was to look at like my browser right now, like I just clicked on my inboxes folder, just like, you know, Voxer my Asana, my work email, personal email, my Discord, my whatsapp, LinkedIn, that the inbox slack, Slack slack duo, but I have to have those. And a good power tip, Danielle, then once you write those down, just circle the ones that really matter. Like, which is probably only five to 10% of those. And when that's part of your morning routine, that way, you're only checking things that matter in the morning, because the worst thing I think a bad habit is checking emails first thing in the morning that don't matter. If you ever heard of Brendan Broussard? Yeah, so his quote is an inbox is nothing but a convenient, organized structure for other people's agenda for your life. So what happens when you go to read that thing and think about that thing when you've already declared what you want to do in your morning?

Danielle Cobo  14:45  
We'll be right back to today's episode. Women are constantly feeling rushed and exhausted. With the focus on doing women have trouble focusing without guilt while at work. While at home they deal with lingering work on their mind. The reason Old is negative self talk, and a lack of connection in all areas of their life. In 2019, my husband served a year deployment. Our twins were two years old, and I lead a team for a fortune 500 company with 60% overnight travel. I've experienced firsthand, being a working mom trying to balance it all. And that year was among one of my most productive years, I learned the tools to be present at work, and most importantly, with my kids, through keynote, speaking corporate workshops, and one on one coaching. I work with women all over the world on how to exchange feelings of burnout, and guilt to create a balanced and abundant life. I invite you to go to my website, Danielle Cobo, that COBO, Daniellecobo.com and schedule your free Career Discovery call with me today. Now back to today's episode. 

Yeah, one of the things I always try to be very mindful of is to not check my email for the first hour of my morning my first hour of my morning is me time. It is I get on my peloton. I typically will like listen to a podcast or watch a TEDx because it's just my daily boost of inspiration, drinking my ketones, and then it's like getting some time with the kids getting ready. But I really try not to try not to check my email in the morning, because immediately started thinking of like, oh, yeah, I gotta do this. Oh, yeah, I got to do this, and it just creates an overwhelming feeling.

Brad Telepo  16:33  
Yeah, it's like a Checklist Manifesto, Danielle, because you have your morning routine, like, I firmly believe that, like what matters most in life, it's like health. So how do you create more time, not only for you in the morning to set yourself up, but also more time for the kids, more time to be working on your clients, or with your people, rather than it running you? So? Yeah.

Danielle Cobo  17:00  
So what are some other steps in addition? So what I'm hearing, first step would be the checklist. Write down all the different areas that information is coming to you kind of prioritize what you're going to start with turn the notifications off, what are some other tips that you have for our listeners? 

Brad Telepo  17:15  
Yeah, perfect. So I'm just gonna go through my head. So it's like being out of the head into a simple tool. So I don't care if it's digital or a piece of paper, you can reference that inflows list like that, right. So now, what's happened to best practice agreements, on what's the best way to handle it. So I set it up for the second half of the day to review my inflows. I do have my priority ones so that my morning, I can actually move forward things that are most valuable. Otherwise, I'm just going to get squirreled out, I'm just another human being, I'm going to lose focus and things are going to happen. So that best practice is to have it in the second half of the day, and maybe at close. The next one is batching, meaning do the entire list to zero. Because what do you think the difference is, if you're trying to do them all sporadically throughout the day? I'm trying to get caught up here, here, here, here and there. What do you think the difference is in time and mental energy, then? 

Danielle Cobo  18:13  
Exhausting. 

Brad Telepo  18:14  
Yeah. It's very exhausting. extremely exhausting. So it's like it's control. You want to own it, and then when you want to do a flip on that switch and open up your world to your email and your inflows, you can be like, great I got it, and then you can turn off the switch and go back. The final step with it is what is the behaviors and the routines to keep this together. So I have a notification just for the middle of the day and the end of the day to actually go do them. Because a healthy system will tell you what to do and how often, you can move it around. It doesn't always have to happen at 12. But by having that calendar set up, you now have a system that tells you what to do. Click the calendar, you got all your inflows, and next thing you know you're going to handle them. But you can say no, Danielle, like, you can say no, I don't want to review your right now. No, later. No, I don't have the time. No, I'd rather be with my kids. So you get to be an ownership of actually when you're handling stuff. Does that make sense?

Danielle Cobo  19:18  
Yes. And what I like to take is take it a step further, there's two things that are resonating with me that what you're saying right now is one of them is set time and create time on your calendar to do it. It's one thing to have a to do list I know a lot of us will have sticky notes all over have Sticky, sticky notes everywhere or we've got like this piece of paper we're writing our to do lists unless you were setting time on your calendar to do this. So one of the features I loved about outlook is if I got an email and it's Richard Branson said, if it takes less than five minutes, respond to it right away, do it right away if it takes more than five minutes and put it on your calendar and schedule time to do it. So one of the reasons why I loved outlook is I can drag the email and I can put it on my calendar. And I love how you also talk about setting boundaries because it's a matter of saying, when somebody reaches out to you, let's say late at night, sometimes I get people reach out late at night, and they're saying, Oh, can you talk right now? Or I have this question. Yeah, I'm happy to answer that question. Let's set up some time tomorrow. So I'm always leading with Yes, while also creating boundaries, and being very intentional about my family time.

Brad Telepo  20:34  
Yeah. And that's what this is about is how can you not only have the time for family time, and for you time. Time, and relationships, and the most important, and more importantly, when you're with them, that you can actually be with them. To truly be with them in that moment, and trust, when you're ready to go back to whatever it is, like, we all get slammed, we all get overwhelmed. Like yesterday was an intense day for me, I had a couple hours training a team, and it was admin day. And it was too much computer by the end of the day. And I was like talking to my partner, I'm like I'm tapped. And I had to go back to my own system. I'm like, everything off, everything off, everything on pause, turn off the lights, how do I get back to a healthy place, so that I can be my most energetic?

Danielle Cobo  21:24  
And that's great advice, too. Sometimes, if you're feeling that overwhelm and anxiety, take a pause, and identify what's creating this anxiety, what's creating this overwhelm feeling? And a lot of times, what I'll do is I'll be like, okay, stop, let me really look at my calendar here. And what does it make? Is there things that I can move on my calendar that maybe aren't a priority at right now at this time? Because I have, I have big ideas on what I'm creating in my business. And so does it make sense to try it all? Do it right now? Or can I prioritize things and say, Okay, well, I'm first going to focus my time and energy on this, and then I'm going to move to that, where can I move things around? Or also, where can I be more efficient with in my calendar. So I know personally, I like to have one admin day a week that one day, I just get in the flow of admin, or there's one day that if I'm going to be doing podcast recordings, I'm going to do it, I try to do it all in one day, because that's my flow. Or even this morning, my husband and I were he was like, Why did you block out an entire day to do creating online modules? And I said, because that's when I'm in my flow state. That's the time where once I do want, I just get in the flow of another of another versus trying to compartmentalize it sporadically throughout the week. That's harder for me, I'd like to kind of be in tension with the tasks that are doing in similar tasks.

Brad Telepo  22:54  
Yeah, in what you're doing there was like you're saying condensing it. And you're talking about flow? Like, it's hard to get going. We're all like these motorcycles. They haven't been started in the wintertime, almost like every morning. What do I got to do to get going, so when you're in that flow, you don't want to be interrupted, you want to be clear? I think the biggest thing is, like when we're really feeling it, just take a giant step back, pull out a piece of paper and be like, what am I really up to right now, and what's that one thing to move it forward? But to support you in locking in your emails and inflows, if you put a recurring event into your account, let's say it's every day, at 12pm, you can move it a great system is flexible. But at least it's now locked in there for you to say, I'm gonna go review my notes and inflows. So at least it's there. And now your calendar is set up to where you can start moving it around. And the beautiful thing is, is that permission to say no. And it's about working with your time and energy and what's there. But if you're using your head to try to remember what you need to go do, once again, you're dead. Yeah, you're dead. And more than 80% of people are managing more than 80% of the world's in their head, or fatality, it's just scattered. So I hope that supports with like, okay, stop the interruptions. Get a clear list. Here's the best practices and lock into routine to go do that so that you remember. And when you go to engage with it, you can just do it much faster, and then move on to what matters.

Danielle Cobo  24:33  
Well, I'm really excited to implement some of these things immediately today. Some of the things that I'm hearing you say is I'm going to write that list of all the different areas that I'm getting information that are sent to me and create that checklist. I just go one by one by one. So I'm not having said that I'm not getting exhausted trying to think of all the different areas getting it like you said getting it out of your head. And then from there, then turn In the notifications off to that was another one that really resonated turning the notifications off. And it's interesting too, there's some studies that show on average, we spend about six hours on an electronic device, and we check our phone 200 times per day. And I would imagine a lot of that has to do with notifications. If you're always getting notifications, you're constantly checking your phone, I actually, I've always been a big advocate of turning notifications off. So it's one of the things I do.

Brad Telepo  25:30  
My one of the executives, I'm coaching in Iowa, she actually has the tracking mechanism on her phone, or they can see how much time how many time Yeah, and she said, once she solved this, like within a day, more than 60% of the frequency that she went to go check her phone, and into things that weren't her focus for the day went down. It was immediate. So it's like, time shift in energy shifts. Yeah, that's there. So two power tips. If you're open to like hearing them, it's in there super quick. So everyone has a browser, and normally I use Chrome. If you take the time, the two minutes to add all of those inflows into your browser folder on the top, you can right click them and be like opening a new window or opening new tabs. How does that support? Next thing you know, imagine all of your digital inbox is coming across the front of your computer screen, you're like, dun, dun, dun dun, getting through it all. The second one, which a lot of people love is set up the folder on your phone as well. Because sometimes it's nice when you're at the coffee shop, or all of a sudden you have the space in the meetings to say, Okay, I'm going to turn on my inflows, I'm going to engage with the ones that I see that are important. Does that make sense? So those two power tips will support you in getting through them much faster, whether you're at your computer, or your phone.

Danielle Cobo  27:02  
So many valuable nuggets and what you've just shared in today's episode, and I know our listeners are going to be excited to implement, I know I'm going to be excited to implement some of these. So I'm excited to hear and if you guys, if there's something that's resonating with you, and you're listening to this podcast, direct message us we want to hear what or something that you've implemented, and and to share with us how it has helped you and serve you in mastering your time. So send it to me, and then also Brad, where can people find you?

Brad Telepo  27:32  
Yeah, and also any questions any way we can add value or support that's there. So on LinkedIn, Brad Telepo TELEPO, that's probably the best way with this podcast, my emails, [email protected]. Right now I'm moving the website, so that's the best way. And if you want to Danielle, I set up a discount code for any programs that they might have for like 70% off, just under your last name, I'll make sure to get that together. But like the email mastery I'm going to work with you on it'll take 30 minutes. And this is about a massive return on investments with your time I'm talking immediate. If you spend an hour with the right person, once, you should get that hour back every single month, the rest of your life, if not weekly, every single week. So there's I know that we can spend some time together and how can I save you one to two hours per week, but more importantly, presence, creativity, peace of mind.

Danielle Cobo  28:36  
So listeners, what would it look like if you were more present with your significant other, with your kids, with your family with your friends? What would that look like for you? And how would you feel if you were able to move past that overwhelm, and really be intentional with your time, be present, and also be highly effective? Because when you are driven like like you said, most of my listeners are very driven people. And so one of the challenges is like you are very driven, but sometimes we can get that overwhelmed feeling. So how would you feel if you were extremely efficient with your time you had better balance in your life? And you were present in the people that you're with? What would that look like for you guys? And I invite you all go ahead include in the show notes. The link to Brad's LinkedIn profile, his website, that generous code that you offer for our listeners as well, to take his course I'm excited to take it, and so I invite you guys to take it as well.

Brad Telepo  29:42  
Yeah, anything I can do to keep adding value. So thank you, Danielle.

Danielle Cobo  29:45  
Thank you. Well, thank you so much for joining today. And for those of you that are listening, you know that there's someone out there that is probably struggling a little bit with time management who wants to be more present in their life, so I invite you to share this episode with them. At the end of the day, we want to work to live not live to work. So thank you so much for joining and create an intentional day. 

Thank you for tuning in to today's episode. To receive your free career accelerator and Crusher, quota workbooks with actionable steps on how to accelerate your career. Go to Danielle cobo.com. To learn more about my services, including keynote speaking, corporate workshops and one on one coaching, I invite you to go to my website, Danielle cobo.com and schedule a call with me. And one last favor to ask. The best compliment is a review. Please take a quick minute to share on iTunes or Spotify why you enjoy tuning into the dream job within your Kobo podcast. Thanks for tuning in and create an intentional day