What To Say Now: Episode # 12
Productivity, Fulfillment, Purpose, and Conversations

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Dan Stewart (00:13): Hey everybody. It's me, Dan Stewart, founder of Happy Grasshopper and your host for episode number 12 of What To Say Now. So our Facebook group, What To Say Now, was created as a place where we can have conversations that matter and where we can invite you to get your conversational questions answered. So, today I'm really delighted to introduce to you, Angela Kristen Taylor. Say, "Hi everybody," Ange.

Angela Kristen Taylor (00:38): Hey everybody.

Dan Stewart (00:40): Awesome. So we're going to have a really cool chat today, no pressure. Is that cool, can we do that?

Angela Kristen Taylor (00:45): Yeah, that's totally great. I'm good.

Dan Stewart (00:48): All right. So here's the thing, I believe that conversation is the path that leads us to everything we want to achieve in life. This is a core foundational belief that I have based on the life that I've got to lead, where I started in a disadvantaged place. And I've been really fortunate to build a life I'm proud of and I truly love. And I know for a fact that that would not be possible without the people in my life. So I want to thank you for being one of those people and for joining me today.

Angela Kristen Taylor (01:23): Well, thank you so much, Dan. I appreciate that. I'm so glad to be here and I'm honored to be one of those people that you include in that, thank you.

Dan Stewart (01:31): Oh gosh, well, you're welcome. And for those people watching who may not have met you before, let me go ahead and say a few words. Because you're the founder of productivesouls.org and I think you have one of the coolest missions that I'm aware of.

Angela Kristen Taylor (01:46): Thank you.

Dan Stewart (01:48): So for our audience, which is largely made up of real estate professionals, they're super familiar with the dynamic of productivity coaching. There's a whole massive industry that essentially consists of hiring another person to hound your ass until you use do the stuff you need to do. Right?

Angela Kristen Taylor (02:09): Yep.

Dan Stewart (02:11): I think one thing we have in common is that if you're always going to depend on an external force to get you to do what you need to do, you're really not free. You're not fulfilled, you're not living a life of purpose. So today, we're going to have the hard conversation, which is the conversation that we have to have with ourselves. So let me set the stage here. It is the middle of August in 2020, which is by far the weirdest year that I've yet experienced.

Angela Kristen Taylor (02:43): Very weird.

Dan Stewart (02:44): We're all doing stuff we don't normally do. Many of us are isolated, we're not seeing people. I've had offices for almost two decades and I now work from home. So that's weird, I'm used to people around. I'm used to managing by walking around, it's bizarre to be alone this much. So I know that I'm not the only person who's feeling a little bit lonely. And I know that with all the craziness in the news, with the pandemic, with election cycles, with everything under the sun, we live in an anxiety prone environment. And many people like our friend, Nick Baldwin from Lab Coat Agents, are posting publicly about some of the issues and the struggles that they're facing with their own internal conversations, their own mental health. So let's have a chat about that. What would you say to that person who's looking at their to do list, they know what they need to do, they're just not doing it. How do you make an impact for that person?

Angela Kristen Taylor (03:52): You really have to understand first, where that is coming from. And when we're thinking about everything that we have to do, there's a certain amount of overwhelm that can come from that, especially when there's a lot of disorganized, disconnected chaos in that to do list. And a lot of us are feeling that even more now than we were before because of everything you just mentioned. Because people are displaced, they're in their homes when they weren't before, they don't have that team environment around them or not in the same way. And a lot of people who relied on face to face connections to be able to build a referral based business even, are having to rethink what that looks like. So there's a lot of overwhelm that can come, especially now looking at a to do list.

Angela Kristen Taylor (04:51): But then there's the piece that has always remained true, and that is that your productivity is rooted in emotion. And how you feel here is how you perform out in the world. And so a lot of times the feeling of, "I've got all these things to do. I know I need to make this happen, but I'm not doing it." Comes from something else, something that goes much farther back in their lives that is creating an emotional block. Of saying, "I don't want to show up in this way because I know in the past, when I tried to speak or use my voice, or show up in any way, this, this and this happened. And they were all negative experiences, I don't want to feel that anymore, therefore, I'm not going to put myself out there anymore."

Dan Stewart (05:44): So putting this in... I'm trying to enter the personal experience realm here because that's how I process things. So at various stages in my life, I've worked, worked, worked, worked, worked. I get to a point and then I plateau. And I stay there for a bit, that becomes my thermostat. If I get up above it, I adjust it. If I'm down below it, I got to work harder to get to where I need to be. But it sounds like if I'm going to completely reset that, if my performance level is here and I want it to be here, it's not adding more tasks. It's not adding more coaching, necessarily. It's doing the work internally that produces that internal motivation to keep me on target for bigger things.

Angela Kristen Taylor (06:30): Absolutely.

Dan Stewart (06:30): Did I get that the right way?

Angela Kristen Taylor (06:32): Yeah, absolutely. What I call what I do is integrative productivity coaching. And the reason that I define it as integrative is because like I said, productivity is rooted in emotion, but so is everything else. So how I eat is going to be based on how I feel. Whether or not I exercise, based on how I feel. How I sleep at night, based on how I feel. How I engage with other people or choose not to engage with them is going to be based on how I feel. Everything is rooted in emotion.

Angela Kristen Taylor (07:08): So what happens is that if you have emotions that are in any way negative, any way sad, depressed, anxious, fearful, whatever. Then that's going to effect how we eat. That's going to affect our energy. That's going to affect how we sleep at night. That's going to affect how we feel, which is going to affect our relationships, how we interact with others. And it's definitely going to affect how we show up in our business, 100%. So if you want to fix what's going wrong in your business or you want to take a plateau and say, "I want to take it up here." Then you've got to fix all those other things that are affecting your ability to get here.

Dan Stewart (07:50): Well, so it sounds like you need a process to do that. Those things have to be highly variable, I would imagine.

Angela Kristen Taylor (07:57): Absolutely.

Dan Stewart (07:58): My issues will be mine, they may not be other people's issues. So how do you figure that out?

Angela Kristen Taylor (08:03): Well I found, for instance my process, is when people first want to schedule time with me, I have a form right in my calendar thing, built into it. So that I have questions that I specifically ask them that relate to their childhood, and their current life and relationships. And their eating habits that tell me right there what I need to dive into to get the biggest impact for them just in that quick phone call. And so it does relate oftentimes to the childhood that they experienced and what has stemmed off in their life, their experiences since then.

Dan Stewart (08:48): I'm making a connection here that I want you to either confirm or tell me I'm way off base, because-

Angela Kristen Taylor (08:54): Definitely, okay.

Dan Stewart (08:54): Maybe some of the people that are watching this, I have started things in the past and it went well for a time. And then I abandoned those things. Sometimes it's a diet, sometimes it's a personal productivity thing. "I will post fresh video this time every single day." Or whatever it is, you set that goal for yourself and then the moment you fail to meet it, it's like the whole thing comes tumbling down. When you work with a client and you identify that kind of a pattern there, how is it that you're able to get them to rewrite that code? So as they're starting this new process, it doesn't just stop again after a short time?

Angela Kristen Taylor (09:38): Well really, the source of starting something and stopping it is going to be one of two things. You're either you start something and you realize, "This isn't taking me in the direction that I want to go." So you stop and it's a conscious, intentional stop. Or it's, "I want to get somewhere, but it's too hard. And therefore, I'm not going to continue to do these things." And we talk ourselves out of it a little bit where it's like, "No, I don't want to exercise today, I'll do it tomorrow." And then tomorrow you totally forgot because it wasn't your day. And it just keeps going until you realize, "God, it's been a month and I haven't done anything. I got to get back on the wagon." It's usually one of those two things that'll happen that throws us off. But we've got to understand where it's coming from in the first place.

Angela Kristen Taylor (10:29): So if we want to start something, what's the motivation behind why we want to start it? So where are we trying to get to? Are we trying to, like if we're on a diet and exercise plan, just to use your example. Are we trying to lose weight? Are we trying to get into shape, and for what reason? You have to understand what your motivation is. And oftentimes, people's motivation is rooted in fear and it's not rooted in anything else. Somebody may say, "Well, I want to lose weight." Why do you want to lose weight? Not necessarily to be healthy. It's because they don't like the way their clothes fit, or they think that somebody is going to see them and judge them callously because of how they think they look. Not because of how they actually look, but because of how they think that they look. And so it's just really more of a fear of rejection than anything else.

Dan Stewart (11:24): Interesting. So if you're that person like me... Hey, I'll confess up here. I do this yo-yo thing where about once every 14, 15 months I get on the scale and I'm like, "What happened?" I gained back either 20 or 30 pounds, that's my number. And so how do I fix that?

Angela Kristen Taylor (11:47): How do you fix that part?

Dan Stewart (11:48): Yeah, how do I fix that?

Angela Kristen Taylor (11:50): So let's look at it. Why do you feel like you keep gaining 20 to 30 pounds? What's happening? What's the cycle you're going through?

Dan Stewart (12:02): The... I'm not sure. Maybe part of it is I get a little bored. I've been doing the keto thing and you end up eating the same thing so consistently. I want more variety. I love to cook, I might make something for my family that I want to enjoy. So it's pretty easy to shed the weight on keto and it's easy to maintain once I get to that range where I'm comfortable. Where I slip is a cheat day turns into two cheat days, turns into a cheat week, turns into, "Oh, my pants are tight."

Angela Kristen Taylor (12:48): So it sounds like you're hungry for variety and freedom of choice of what you're eating, that you're not getting with keto. So it works for a while, but eventually it becomes restrictive to you and then you're unable to maintain it out of, not from that you just don't have the willpower. It's just a, "I don't want to do this anymore."

Dan Stewart (13:08): Yeah, yeah. That's a good point.

Angela Kristen Taylor (13:09): So then that becomes, if you want to lose weight and maintain it, then you have to create a different set of rules for yourself that allow you to keep variety in your diet. And keep enjoyment in the eating process because that's what I'm hearing from you. Is that, "I want to enjoy my food and enjoy what I'm cooking. And enjoy what I'm doing and sharing food with others. And that's something that makes me happy. And therefore, my desire to lose weight is conflicted with my desire to eat and share food."

Dan Stewart (13:46): Interesting, interesting. So there's a couple of things I'm noticing that I want to point out to the audience. One, you're using language of empowerment, "I chose to stop doing that." So it's not about me beating myself up for failing to maintain a diet or to maintain weight, it's a conscious choice. You were on a path and then you chose a different path. You get a different outcome on a different path. So I like that because so many of us become entrepreneurs, so many of us work in real estate because we want to take control. We want to have some freedom in our lives. We want to be able to know that at the end of the day, at the end of our lives, that we were enough. That we had what it took when it was time to be measured. So that's really interesting. I always enjoy chatting with you because-

Angela Kristen Taylor (14:39): Oh, thank you.

Dan Stewart (14:39): I never know exactly where we're going to take the conversation, but it's always fascinating to me.

Angela Kristen Taylor (14:45): Thank you, I appreciate that.

Dan Stewart (14:47): You're welcome. So for those of you in What To Say Now that are watching this right now, I would highly recommend that you take a peek at Angela Kristen Taylor's website. It's productivesouls.org, did I get that right?

Angela Kristen Taylor (15:01): Yeah.

Dan Stewart (15:01): I think I did. Yep, okay. Perfect. I know that you've got some great content on your blog as well, people should read that. And I don't know if you have room to take any clients right now or not, but again, for people who are watching, this is a good egg here. You should definitely get to know this person. So for what that's worth, I'll pass that along. Now, those of you who may be watching on YouTube, please go ahead and click like, click subscribe. This is a new effort, this is only the 12th episode and I'm really, really proud of the conversations that we've been able to bring to people. And I'm looking forward to bringing many more.

Dan Stewart (15:42): So every Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 PM Eastern, you can join us live on Facebook, live on YouTube. And of course, please go to facebook.com/groups/whattosaynow, if you're not already a member. That's where myself and my team of copywriters hang out to help you solve your communication issues with your past clients, your sphere. And of course those leads that you're working hard to convert in your database. So, Ange, it's time. Can you believe we exhausted that so quickly?

Angela Kristen Taylor (16:16): Very fast. And thank you Dan, so much. I appreciate you and I love our conversations. They're always good.

Dan Stewart (16:26): We should talk more often because I'm like 15 pounds down now from [crosstalk 00:16:31] comfortable. I don't want to go back the other way but I do love the variety of my food, so I'll be thinking about that.

Angela Kristen Taylor (16:39): Awesome.

Dan Stewart (16:40): All right. Well have a great day, it was so good to see you.

Angela Kristen Taylor (16:43): You too, take care.

Dan Stewart (16:44): Bye everybody.

Angela Kristen Taylor (16:56): Bye-bye.