The following transcript is provided by YouTube. Mistakes are present. To hear the podcast episode, click HERE.
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[Music]
hello scale it up nation trace blackmore
here your host
for the industrial water treatment
industry’s
favorite podcast scaling up h2o
i want to welcome you to the show i’m
always so excited when i hear
more and more people find that we
industrial water treaters have a podcast
of our very own but you know what i also
hear from so many other people
that they’re not in the industry but
they enjoy listening to this show
because we have so
many topics on that allow
people to become better that allow
people to think a little bit differently
than they did before they started
playing
the episode folks i think this is one
of those episodes so
stay tuned you are going to love
my guest good friend of mine i want to
introduce him
in a second but i want to let you know
about a couple of things that are going
on
in the industry the water environment
federation continues to put on
conferences virtually that just
cover a wide array of items
that you may be involved in in
industrial water treatment
so if you go to our show notes page
we have got a list of all of those and
folks you’ve heard me say
on so many shows when you put yourself
out there into the environment where
you’re
forced to learn something new
that’s where you’re going to start
pushing yourself that’s where
you’re going to make yourself better and
the simple fact is
the brutal truth is we don’t know
what we don’t know when we
physically put ourselves into situations
that
might even be uncomfortable they allow
us to grow
they allow us to gain more knowledge and
the best part is they allow
us to act differently because of the
knowledge that we
acquire now speaking of knowledge
our friend james mcdonald has been doing
a
great job of giving us just a little
challenge
each and every week making sure
that every week we’re trying something
new so at the end of the year
we’ve done 52 new things so here is
james with another installment
of james’s challenge
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow as an industrial
water treatment professional
drop by drop is
convert 300 milligrams per liter nitrite
expressed as no2
to nitrite expressed as nano2
the same chemical test can be expressed
differently
if you don’t take the time to pay
attention to this little detail
your calculations control ranges
treatment levels
and feed rates run the risk of being too
high or low which can lead to corrosion
scale wasted chemical and so forth
make sure you pay attention to how test
units are expressed
and know how to convert between them be
sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scalingup h2o this is james
mcdonald and i look forward to seeing
what you share
so when are you going to do this
challenge
i’ve really enjoyed watching the social
media posts of people
either posting about their challenges or
even taking a picture and posting those
if you want to do that and i sure hope
you do because it gives me so much
enjoyment but i really think what it
does
is it inspires the entire scaling
up nation to take part in this and
we can see how each of us are
carrying out the challenges that james
gives
us each and every week and that’s
probably going to inspire us to do
even more so please post those that’s
hashtag
jc20 and hashtag scalinguph2o
nation my guest today is a friend of
mine you’re going to hear
all about that but i guarantee
you are going to learn so much from
today’s
podcast here he is please welcome
danny bauer of better leaders better
schools
[Music]
my lab partner today is danny bauer of
better leaders
better schools and and a great friend of
mine danny how
are you today i’m honored to be here
trace so uh thanks for inviting me and a
warm hello to scaling up nation uh
glad to be here well we are glad to have
you here and
and danny i don’t mind telling you i get
people all the time
that are impressed with all the things
that i’m able to do
during the day but when i compare myself
to you oh my gosh i cannot hold a candle
so
i am super excited to learn all the tips
and secrets how i can become
personally more productive i think the
scaling up nation will too but totally
selfishly
i’m looking for me today how how do i
get better so
i’m just joking we’re all going to learn
together but uh i i want the scaling up
nation to appreciate you as much as
i appreciate you and i don’t think i’ll
do a good job if i do that introduction
do you mind telling the nation a little
bit about yourself
yeah sure thanks thanks trace i call
myself a chief ruckus maker you know and
seth godin is a mentor of mine and and
he says go make a ruckus and
that’s that’s uh something i’ve been
doing ever since i’ve been learning
from him and so when i think of making a
ruckus i think of just being
out of the box you know leader making
change happen in my spaces and
i come from an education background you
know former
classroom teacher building principal
central office administrator
and now i uh coach school leaders
full-time and that’s that’s
probably 85 of my work and then 15 i
work with some
high-level you know individual leaders
either working through just leadership
stuff
or business you know culture vision
that kind of good type of thing so
that’s what i do
and uh i’ve been living around the world
for a few years so
uh a very rewarding experience that
helped me understand
that there’s not one way of doing
anything and it helped me question
just always question and really see life
as an experiment right to test
things um before i have to trust it you
know and just to learn from those
experiments
and even if it was a failure that’s a
win because you get better right
so uh that that global experience really
opened up my horizons i’m back home in
upstate new york and uh yeah so that
that brings us to today
yeah before new york you were in
scotland scotland the netherlands uh
belgium so
all over the place yeah and it was it
was really
you know i don’t have many regrets i
didn’t study abroad in college i should
have i really think i should have
uh unfortunately my wife is a super
talented researcher
right and she just wanted to explore
uh doing some research and working for
university overseas
and at that time i was still in the
school to be true trace so i said you
know what
let me see if if what i’m doing with the
podcast and starting to work with some
leaders uh
if that could turn into the full-time
gig give me a year
and if i don’t if i don’t make it happen
then
there’s international schools there’s
schools back home you know they’re
always going to need
principals and teachers so i know i
could fall back on that
but what if it works right and and some
i want scaling up nation even just to
get from that story
is you know i realize that i’m the
bottleneck and and i create an
artificial ceiling on so many
opportunities
and so how can you bust through that
upper limit challenge you know
uh and again running life like it’s an
experiment
and just trying to learn from it all
because what what if it succeeds
you know not what if it fails but what
if it succeeds and
things keep going well for me right i’m
sure i’m going to
and i have i’ve experienced failures
running my business but
um overall it’s like that graph you want
to see
up and to the right and so i’m just
going to keep riding this wave for as
long as i can
i love that what if it succeeds i
remember a cartoon somebody shared with
me once and it was the coyote
finally caught the roadrunner and the
caption said
now what do i do he’s been he’s been
working so hard right
he finally caught that guy now what yeah
it’s like oh man
so and one thing too i talked to leaders
and maybe scaling up nation can relate
you know
you set these uh incredible goals and
the way i think about it’s like this
hill and you’re running up the hill
to get to this flag which is the goal
and you get there and then you’re like
now what
and i think the mistake that most
leaders
make is that they just start running up
another hill towards another goal
right and not to i’m not trying to say
don’t set
big goals for yourself and do the hard
work of achieving them
what i’m saying is when you get there
pause
celebrate reflect you know what happened
in that moment uh and really enjoy the
fruits of your labor
right before off to the races again so
that’s something i want to share with
scaling up nation as well
well something you just recently shared
with me and i don’t know how i didn’t
know this but you’re writing a
book on mastermind so you have a goal to
finish
a book on that topic and that’s
something that’s near and dear to me and
that’s how you and i met we’re in the
same mastermind group we are we’re a
part of iron sharpens iron
i’m working on that book and i’ll tell
you what so
consistency is key to successful
business uh
offering value understanding who who
your
ideal client is and giving them exactly
you know
what they’re saying they they want and
then uh from there you can give them
what you think they also need to but you
got to get your foot in the door
and anyways i’ve just been out there
shipping
a show consistently showing up to the
masterminds i run
working with clients one on one and
helping them you know achieve what they
didn’t think was possible
and about a year ago i think
it was just an uncanny experience couple
big professional highlights
literally every publisher in the
education space approached me to do a
book
you know it’s like what like that’s
pretty wild because i have one that’s
out but it was self-published i wanted
to move fast i want to get it out there
and i just wanted to see what the
experience was and now again
connecting the dots back to life as an
experiment i want to see what it’s like
working with a publisher
right what doors might open what i might
learn about the process
how it will make me a better writer
communicator
etc and so i’ve been enjoying that and
so of all the all the publishers i
started putting out some
uh you know projects and and you know
pitches of of what they might
like as a book uh and not all of them
were accepted some of them were starting
to go through the process
but one publisher specifically said hey
we want to do
a book on your work in school leadership
through this uh idea of a mastermind and
i said okay that’s that’s number one i
gotta elevate that to the top of all the
book lists you know book projects
and so i started writing yeah writing a
book on that um
and i’ve created uh you know i’ve
identified the process right
um and i call it the abcs of powerful
professional development
and in my view when you have an
experience that is
grounded in authenticity belonging
in a challenging environment that leads
to life and leadership transformation
right so the book just unpacks all those
components you know
and talks about how to incorporate them
in sort of training in
gathering experiences to help leaders
level up
and it’s been a lot of fun well let me
get some self-help because one of the
issues that that i always have
and you’re a great guy to ask this
question to is
is i’ve experienced for years how
wonderful
being a member of a mastermind is
it’s hard for me to take my experience
and translate that to potential members
of
my mastermind the rising tide mastermind
do you have that issue
how do you overcome that let me try to
reflect back to you so in terms of like
the issue of
communicating to to school leaders i
want to support through the mastermind
and expressing the value of it is that
is that what you’re saying correct you
you you and i are members of iron
sharpens iron we know the value of it
uh we’ve worked some pretty big issues
together
and and we’ve had that experience we can
we can visualize that in our mind’s eye
but when we’re speaking with somebody
trying to explain
exactly what a mastermind is and and
really why they need to join
i always feel i fall short on that
description
yeah well you know it’s hard to describe
it’s one of those things like you get it
once you experience it you know it’s
like riding a bike you know you look at
the bike and you see that
it falls down it just has the two wheels
but you see you know
you know as a kid right all your friends
might be already on one and they’re
making it work
and then you hop on and what happens
most people don’t start riding right
away they do fall too right
but then at some point it clicks and it
works right because again
you it’s not that you had to trust that
the bike would work
it’s that you had to test test it right
and learn from your failures and
and make sure that experience would work
for you and steve chandler’s
awesome coach he taught me that idea
which i just shared with uh scaling up
nation but
you know i think i think so people have
to experience it
and i want to challenge members of
scaling up nation if you
have been testing the waters you know
you got a toe
in the in the water and you’re thinking
about it dive in i mean what’s
what’s the worst thing that could happen
right uh if it’s a terrible experience
which it won’t be you’re gonna learn
something
from that experience even if it’s just
about yourself
but again like we were talking about in
here uh
what if it what if it really works what
might be able to be accomplished within
your personal life or professional
so that’s one part the challenge of just
test it out
but secondly you know i think what i’ve
found most effective in in growing the
mastermind and
i’m a very transparent guy so there’s
i think there’s there’s 60 leaders
in four cohorts you know there’s 15 per
group
and then i have a group for um business
folks in education we call them
entrepreneurs
right now there’s five in that group so
65 total in five groups
and by sharing their stories
their wins their transformation
then people seem to to get it you know a
little bit more
um and and so it’s like at first i used
to think this
now i think this right that’s showing
the arc of transformation
or i can share with scaling up nation
when i joined iron sharpens iron
uh i had a podcast an idea and it was
just starting off
and now because of the support you know
i had to execute i had to do the work
but getting the diverse perspective and
point of view and challenges because it
could be
you know when you’re on the hot seat
like the heat gets turned up and you
hear stuff
um that’s hard to hear at times right
but if you can find the gold and the
truth in there and then
execute on it you’ll see results so
anyways
fast forward a handful of years later
millions of downloads on the podcast
right it’s the number one
show for leaders in education
the mastermind’s full my thinking’s
bigger i used to want to go from 60
school leaders to 120 right and you guys
challenged me to think bigger and so
then i started dreaming about 600 and
then i started dreaming that you know
really
the goal is 1200 and so we’re on that
path
right uh but i never would even dream
that big without the challenge and the
support of the group
you know and i don’t i doubt would i
have gotten the same results in terms of
a million downloads
all the lives changed and that kind of
thing as well you know so
i mean there’s there’s countless
examples of that and the fact you know
i’m doing it full time too right like
uh it’s not a side gig it’s not a hustle
or a hobby
this is my profession right this is how
i serve and it pays the bills and i have
a great life
so that is a direct result of being in a
mastermind
daddy you keep bringing up better
leaders better schools as you
should but if the scaling up nation is
not familiar with that can you let us
know what that is
yeah it’s just that’s that’s the
business right
yeah how i support school leaders so
anyways that’s
the podcast the blog i’ve been doing
work there since 2015.
my tagline is like everybody wins when a
leader gets better everybody wins when
you get better
and again you know i have that
background in education and so
i never want to be fully out of
education so i do enjoy supporting
business leaders and high level leaders
but i’ll never fully exit education just
because
you know i i think it has so much hope
and potential and it
you know it develops communities so
anyways that’s that’s why
i always focus there as well i love your
core values do you mind sharing those
with us
oh man we have uh a number of those and
so
you know what i’d love to talk about
like because i i have stuff
like uh lead like madiba who’s nelson
mandela or
take the leap or rule number six and
what i want to talk about in terms of
core values
is that integrity honesty
i don’t know authenticity this kind of
stuff like
in some respects we all expect that from
a business
and not only that it’s not remarkable
right so again going back to seth godin
he wrote a book called purple cow
well that that in a title sounds
interesting right
and the the idea there is that you’re
driving through some rural area a lot of
farmland
you’re going to see cows at some point
right and they’re going to have
black and white spots or brown and white
spots you you
most likely are not going to see a
purple cow if you saw one
trace you would tell everybody right
without a doubt
yeah it’s remarkable like what is a
purple cow
doing there you know and so when it
comes to core values
i want them to be what i call sticky
core values
so if it’s uh take the leap or
lead like mediva or rule number six
right out of the gate you probably don’t
really know what’s going on there
right and what i hope to do is to engage
you in some curiosity
almost create an open loop like what
does that mean
and then you can tell a story behind one
of those core values and through
uh telling that story you know it
becomes a memorable
experience and i think it just connects
at a much higher level
you know with with your company with the
clients you serve
with your marketing all this kind of
stuff if that’s resonating with you
but something you know even more
important to me than sticky core values
is this idea of a personal philosophy
and that is like a
five to ten word phrase i don’t remember
if you were in the actual um
meeting with iron sharpens iron when i
walked us through that process
but i learned it from dr michael gervais
and coach pete carroll the seahawks and
essentially a
personal philosophy is a 5 to 10 word
phrase
that you could recite on command and
it’s going to serve you
especially when the times are tough
right because
trace i’m sure you can attest to this
leadership is actually
easy when things are going well because
everything’s running smoothly but that’s
not the case for most days
stuff’s going to happen challenges are
going to arise
and in that moment do you have a north
star
that’s going to help you be pulled
through that challenging time
victor franco the author of man’s search
for meaning
says man is pushed by his drives but
pulled by his values right
so and i think a personal philosophy
could be substituted there
so anyways mine is uh four or five words
long uh be an intentional catalyst
right that’s what i want to be that’s my
personal philosophy because what i
realized
joining you here on the podcast talking
to scaling up nation
i am going to be a catalyst right that
could be for good or for bad like uncle
bun
said in spider-man right you have great
power comes great responsibility
and i just realized when i’m in rooms
and in spaces my
energy absolutely changes the room for
better or worse
and i’ve seen it both ways and i always
leave
frustrated and ashamed when i’ve screwed
up that energy you know
and i can i can see how i impacted it
that way so when i meditate and think
about and recite be an intentional
catalyst
as a part of my morning routine uh that
serves me well
and when i don’t have enough buffer time
in my schedule
or somebody says something that’s
triggering for me
usually around politics or race i have
to remember and rely on that be an
intentional catalyst
because how do i want to impact this
space in this time
now the nice thing is it does bubble up
it’s like a gentle nudge a reminder
that doesn’t mean i always act on it
there’s times where i totally ignore it
and i turn into the worst version of
myself i’m working at
letting that guide my actions the
majority of the time so i find it very
useful
well thanks for sharing that i also
agree that having i called a personal
mission statement
right and mine is to end each day
knowing it was better than the last
and and i know if i just do one one
percent better
and of course we know from the book
atomic habits that one percent
uh course correction leaving from lax
going to new york won’t put you in new
york where is it going to put you
yeah you might end up i think it was in
dc as house yeah
just off one percent so you think if i
don’t have time to improve today
or i’m focusing on all of these bad
things that have transpired
today but there was that one thing that
i did a little bit better
than yesterday and that what allows me
to say you know what i can
put a check mark on the day and move on
with the next one
yeah yeah and speaking of atomic habits
just the other thing that i remember
from james’s work
as well the author is that uh if you get
one percent better every single day he
did the math
you end up being at the end of the year
37 x times better right
so you know just think about that i’ve
considered
starting something called the 37 club
right and
just you know uh scaling up nation don’t
steal the idea but
anyways if you take action right and
just get a little bit better like you’re
talking about every single day and you
end the year
37 times better like that’s worth it
that’s a that’s a really sound
investment well let’s talk about
productivity i started off the podcast
with
i i am just so impressed with
uh how productive you are how focused
you are
uh when when you’re a person danny when
you say
i’m going to do this 100 it’s gonna get
done
and not everybody can say that i want to
talk about productivity
and what are some of the tools that you
use
that some of the rest of us can start
using yeah well you know i think you
invited me onto the show too
uh you saw an article i wrote on on
medium
and i was playing around with this idea
of five questions you can ask to be more
productive
and it’s it’s not my original idea this
one comes from rory vaden
and it comes from a book that i love
actually i was exposed to this so here’s
another plug for the mastermind is that
we read procrastinating purpose and iron
sharpens iron
in 2015 and then i brought that book to
my group
right and they write it and they benefit
from it and it’s still paying dividends
today
so in procrastinate on purpose like what
a title isn’t that great
he shares this um this graphic called
the focus funnel
and i’m gonna diverge just for a second
it’s a process
right and just like sticky core values
they are memorable when they’re
constructed uh elegantly
i hope the abc is a powerful
professional development
in the space of education becomes
remarkable
as well because you know education abc’s
i could see that working
but the focus funnel i’ve had that
memorized for six years
and i haven’t invented it so that’s the
point of designing an elegant process
being able to communicate it
is because it really just connects with
people you know when you create that
so anyways the focus funnel is basically
like you get a task that comes across
your
desk your inbox it’s part of your goals
or whatever
and it’s just five questions it’s a
filtering system
whether you should do the task or not
and
most people probably get a task and they
think do i do it or not right and that’s
about as far as they go
well the focus funnel the first question
is is can i eliminate the task
right and for many leaders like even
when i’m coaching one-on-one right
like questions that seem so elementary
what would you do if this were easy
right
or what’s the next smallest step towards
this very large goal that you have
that normally gets the momentum you need
you know but we sometimes
miss these very obvious questions so you
have a task
do you have to do it you can eliminate
it like many many tasks
you can just not do right they don’t
produce value
they might be busy work whatever and so
anyways
can i eliminate it after that in the
focus funnel
is uh can you automate it right and so
an example of that is
is maybe you use a app for a long time i
use for scheduling called calendly you
know
and that just lets people pick times and
sends them an email
i use convertkit when i’m i’m sending
emails to my
community you know and so this is uh one
way to be
more efficient and productive at scale
and so those are a couple examples of
automation
in my personal life we have a roomba
right my wife loves it so
i love the roomba too bam you know
program it hit the button
it’s cleaning for you you don’t have to
clean oh
trace this changes my life yeah and you
just got a dog that robe is coming in
handy
it is and you know what’s funny like on
episode 200 of the
the show better leaders better schools
podcast i had my wife interview me
and just because this was kind of fun so
you might steal this scaling up nation
might like it
it was just for the the ruckus maker
audience to hear
uh what it’s like maybe living with me
you know because they have this sense of
like what danny bauer is like
so who is this guy at home and it was so
funny
since we’re talking about cleaning my
wife tells tells
everyone like tens of thousands of
people she says when you clean danny
it’s like you’re just pushing dirt
around ouch
you know that’s why i have to invest in
tools like a roomba because i’m
evidently not a very good cleaner
so eliminate can i eliminate it can i
automate it after that
is can i delegate it and uh people get
delegation wrong quite a bit
they they think it’s just like hey i’m
handing this
off to somebody else getting it off my
plate is
the phrase often used and that’s kind of
like abdication like you’re just like
okay i’m not doing this anymore
that’s a recipe for disaster so to
delegate
effectively make sure that there’s a lot
of training
maybe some sort of process document
regular
check-in times to provide feedback on
the quality of a task
so eliminate automate delegate and at
this point
now is where you decide do i need to do
this or not right
and so can you procrastinate just like
elimination
it’s perfectly okay to punt something
down the road because
it just might not be a priority right so
if you procrastinate on
it you put it back to the top of the
filter and then eventually you work the
steps again
eliminate automate delegate right
and what i’ve found is on tasks i
procrastinate
you know a couple times on i realized
you know what the real
answer i can eliminate it you know
that’s what i found
and so and and finally the last question
if you can’t procrastinate you have to
concentrate
right so that’s that’s how the focus
funnel works yeah it’s a great concept
i i’m amazed at myself and other people
i talk with that
the fact that we can eliminate a task
never comes into our minds
we have to remind ourselves that that’s
an actual option
and you can go you know like the five
lies uh people talk about asking too and
so i’m reading a book called the goal
have you ever read this book
yes yes i recognized the cover i have
done that yeah
so it looks like a liar who uh gold rot
and i might be pronouncing his name
wrong but
this is um it says six million copies
sold it’s like one of those
like business books everybody should
read and again i’m coaching uh
these these entrepreneurs in education
and none of them are you know in a
manufacturing sort of factory model
plant and so the connection might be
hard
to to understand but it’s about
efficiencies and this other kind of
stuff but the one idea that i took away
and that’s my approach to getting better
too is you know if i do an experience
what’s at least one idea i can take away
from it and take action on that’s gonna
help me improve
and that you know connect the dots to
the one percent better that’s how you
get that 37 times better at the end of
the year
so from the goal it’s testing the
assumptions the reason the factory
wasn’t
efficient and profitable they were
operating
on the wrong assumption of how factories
should work
right and so again with a task we just
assume
that it needs to be done especially if
somebody who’s uh
maybe you’re collaborating with or
whatever has some kind of clout
or maybe they’re even above you within
your organization
but if you start digging in why are we
doing this task what’s it for these are
questions that go and ask
who’s it for what’s it for and you
really start you know identifying
what’s the point of this if you get very
candid you probably might not even have
to do it you know
so one of the keys to my productivity is
just getting clearer to clear
what matters and what doesn’t and i just
i tend to ignore the stuff that doesn’t
matter
and i just learned to be okay with that
danny on the episode that i shared with
the nation
the first of this year i shared how
i plan the tasks that i’m going to do so
we’ve now decided on all the things that
i was going to do
today and i went through how i
prioritized them so if i just get one or
two done i feel really good about it
what’s your process with that
i use a system called objectives and key
results
and actually i mean honestly i’ve put
together a number of
models so there’s this focus funnel
there’s the get things done
there’s the 12-week year which i know
you’re a proponent of love the 12-week
year
yeah yeah and so i think skilling up
nation another book you can look at
measure what matters john doe and he’s
talking about objectives and key results
so i’m very clear on what my
vision is for the next three years and i
have a process i teach on that
and then i break down those three-year
goals
into sort of like quarterly benchmarks
right so i have five objectives that i’m
working on
and then the key results uh underneath
there
and essentially what’s going to be at
the top of the priority list are
only the tasks related to those goals
right so that’s what gets 85 percent of
my
attention you know and then 10 percent
of my time is
showing up in running masterminds doing
coaching sessions and that kind of stuff
and then five percent more the
administrative and other requests
you know for my time so the way i
prioritize it
is it’s a simple question is this
related to one of my objectives or not
and if it’s not that boom drops way down
way down the list
if it even makes the list and then the
other thing that i do to hold myself
accountable
and this is a 12-week year practice is
that i score myself
right so i score myself each day
only on the tasks related to my biggest
objectives and if i completed them or
not right
so i don’t score the tasks that need to
get done just to keep the lights on for
the business but again those tasks
related to
to my biggest goals and that’s simple
you know if there’s three tasks for a
day four tests for a day
what’s that score out of three or four
and i i
keep counting that and what i’ve learned
12 week years says 85 percent but i
actually have learned if i
if i execute at above 80 percent
then i’m good i i get a lot more done
than i think was ever possible
and so that’s my benchmark and so uh
also
don’t get bogged down in the day right
warren buffett
he’s not looking and charlie munger you
know they’re not
they’re not looking every single day at
the stock prices going up and down
because that would lead to like
stress anxiety and heart attack you know
like it’s just you can’t control it
but if you zoom out and look at a longer
you know period of time a quarter
a year or whatever then you can know if
if you’re really trusting the process or
not so
what i’m trying to say is that i don’t
throw a pity party or beat myself up
if i have a low performing day but
if at the end of the week and certainly
at the end of the quarter
uh if i’m under 80 percent which rarely
happens then i need to get
uh very honest with myself so i try to
keep
focused on the big picture even though
i’m measuring the micro
that’s a great way to look at that one
of the concepts in 12-week year is time
blocking
yeah well let’s share with the nation
what time blocking is
and how do you use it oh man this is
another episode let’s see
we’re just going to be to be continued
yeah
in certain you know just yeah simple
terms time blocking is just working
in batches of time with a singular focus
you can’t multitask if you think you can
you’re full of baloney
the research shows that it’s impossible
even some researchers i think it was
it was maybe stanford it was a west
coast university
they had an assumption like oh man kids
that grew up with technology they can
certainly
multitask at a very high level and what
they found is like nope it makes them
dumb like it literally makes them
dumber they they looked at their ability
to
perform like certain tasks and the
multitaskers perform
the worst so don’t do that so a
time blocking is working for a batch of
time on a singular focus
luckily since i do what i do right i’m
my own boss
i have a deep work block time um every
day
but an easy small step would be at least
one deep work block time per week for 90
minutes
if you get up to three hours that’s
great and what you’ll find is that you
know
gifting yourself that deep work time
you’re gonna get so much more done
right throughout throughout a week but
you can batch anything it could be
so i have specific times when i check
email one’s right after
lunch and one’s at the end of the day
because if you have it open all the time
i’m sorry you’re just not going to save
the world you’re not going to run the
best business
or whatever if you’re always in your
inbox responding to what whatever
activity is in there
danny i want to stop you because i think
that is the best piece of advice that
has ever been given
on the scaling up h2o podcast so many
people
cannot have any sort of deep thought
or any any any continuous thought
because pling
something comes up in their inbox and
immediately they’re over in that rabbit
hole that is
awesome advice well and you made the
noise too
so scaling up nation if you have your
notifications on
turn them off like literally when you’re
done with this podcast
i challenge you to do a couple things
turn off notifications
i keep my phone on silent period i have
an apple watch so if the phone rings i
can see who’s calling and
decide if i want to answer or not but
there’s zero notifications on my phone
the phone is always on silent there’s no
notifications on my computer
because all this stuff is just garbage
it’s literally designed
to take your focus away from whatever
you know important stuff you’re doing
to be either in email or on a social
media app or whatever
because they profit they profit from the
advertisements that are on there
and they have neuroscientists a team of
them
a cadre of neuroscientists who are
paid to keep you on these platforms and
so
if you think you have the mental i know
i don’t have the mental strength to say
no
so i turn it off right if you know
you’re going to be tempted by whatever
then it only is reasonable to not put
yourself in the position to be tempted
so notifications off phone
computer and if you want to go like
black belt level
take it off your phone well let’s play
devil’s advocate with that for
a second because i know there’s somebody
out there that’s saying wait a second a
client’s trying to get a hold of me
i must get back with them yeah and i’m
so important well i mean you got an
executive assistant right so i bet a lot
of people in scaling up nation
have a team right so if you have a team
then you could rely on them that could
be a part of their job function to look
for the emergencies
but what i realized too right let’s put
it in the frame that i know uh
operating a school safety of our kids is
the number one priority right you’re
there to educate them but of course they
have to be
safe and sometimes bad things happen at
school
well if there’s a real emergency they’re
going to call you
they’re going to call you or text you
right and again you know i have my apple
watch and so i’d see those things
but if it’s a major major emergency and
they’re only trying to reach you through
email i mean come on
that’s a great point that’s a really
good point yeah they’re gonna find a way
to get a hold of you
and i think it’s just a it’s also an
activity of ego like
it feels good to know that that that
there’s activity going on
that people want you and need your help
and have questions
and to be completely honest and
challenging this scaling up nation
scrolling through email inbox and social
media
it’s just a distraction from the harder
more emotional labor
that’s going to provide greater value
for your business and clients period
so focus on that stuff versus the
frantic activity
that you’re not going to remember right
10 years from now
versus like the amazing stuff that you
built you know so
what are you trying to do that’s all i’m
saying that’s just fantastic
advice i can’t wait to ask this next
question
everything else has been just incredible
i’m curious
what’s the one thing you want to get
across today
the one thing that i want to get across
scaling up nation
i stole this idea from rich litvin and
he says you know
i help powerful people remember how
powerful they are
right and and so i just want everybody
listening
to understand how much incredible
impact and influence your work
and your leadership you know has on your
community your clients your family
and like my personal philosophy just
understand
how you impact that energy in that
environment because people are counting
on you
i love that you know when you say that i
think of the wake that you leave and you
refer to that when we first started this
show
danny i have to tell you you have left
an amazing wake
behind you on this podcast and i think
this is the one of the most
inspiring podcasts that i’ve ever had
the pleasure of hosting an interview on
and i can’t wait to try some of the
things that you’ve shared with us today
but i’m not quite done with you yet i’ve
got some lightning round questions so
it really can go either way from this
point
okay sounds good all right so your first
question
you have the ability to go back in time
and talk with your
former self as an education
leader what advice would you give
yourself
do i get to pick how far back i’m going
uh your first day
my first day school leader what advice
i don’t know how to explain this um
really well but basically you just have
to investigate like take people at the
word but but investigate too you know um
i remember getting burnt when a staff
member said she was
talking on behalf of the entire staff
and so i i pivoted and i changed
something in the school culture
and basically the majority of school
revolted because they loved what we were
doing
and i was like dang it i i believe this
leader you know she was a respected
member of the faculty but man that that
messed me up
and uh that was embarrassing so i would
say you know just
listen but then investigate you know all
right
good advice i normally ask this question
on my guests what are the last few books
that they’ve read
but you are an incredible reader and and
you’re one of those people
that can take a book and and digest it
and give
people handles to actually go out there
and do something with what you’ve read
so
my question that i’m going to change
just for you
is what are the top books i don’t know
maybe the top three top five that you
think
everybody needs to read viktor frankl
the man search for meaning
i already quoted him today amazing
that he could have survived
the holocaust and concentration camps
and and he have an incredible
outlook yeah just the way he approached
life despite the most challenging times
and how can i ever
throw a pity party for myself right so
it’s just so impactful there
the art of possibility by ben xander and
rosamund stonezander
that’s basically 12 practices that will
help you be a success in life and
leadership
you know earlier i talked about sticky
core values rule number six
i i took it from that book and they have
stuff like uh
given a um i mean there’s 12 different
practices
read that one if you’re an audiobook
listener
listen to it because uh ben zander is a
conductor or he was for the boston
philharmonic
orchestra and so they they put some
classical music in between sort of
bookmarks or chapters you know and so it
just it has a nice feel
and and both of them read the book too
uh
and they’re just great storytellers and
so and then the third so i said um
man search for meaning the art of
possibility
and and the third one that i absolutely
love
you know seth godin’s um this is
marketing is really great
and it to me it kind of summarizes a lot
of what he’s been saying
over the years and i just find that that
book so inspirational
it gets into so much like of course
there’s marketing stuff but
it’s really about empathy and
storytelling
and understanding that community you
serve
so you can give them your best so those
three would be a great place to start
when hollywood writes the script about
danny sunshine bauer
who do they get to play you man i’m
hoping like
i don’t know i’ll go with uh george
clooney i i like him
that’ll be fine my last question you now
have the ability to speak with anybody
throughout history who to be with
and why anybody in history
i would speak to my biological father
and i never had the opportunity to talk
to him
and so talk to him as his dad and son so
i’d like to do that
danny this has been just an awesome
interview i’ve i’ve learned a lot
it’s been a true pleasure having you on
the show and you and i get to course see
each other
every tuesday evening but for the
scaling up nation that they just
can’t get enough of danny bauer how can
they find more of you
yeah better leaders better schools.com
uh there’s the podcast you’ll see that
one
daniel better leadersbetterschools.com
is my email
and basically on all social media
linkedin is daniel bauer but on twitter
instagram it’s at alien earbud which is
an anagram for my name daniel bauer so
you take the letters mix
them up and you get alien earbud which i
think is a kind of like a funny picture
of an alien you know with his airpods in
there
so anyways yeah get ahold of me that way
and if i could serve your organization
talk about leadership productivity
culture vision that kind of stuff sticky
core values
yeah hit me up but i’d love to come in
speak or coach train
workshop whatever however i could serve
oh thank you for coming
on scaling up h2o trace thanks for
having me skinning up nation be well
[Music]
nation i told you at the top of the show
that this was one
of those shows where you were going to
learn something
whether you were an industrial water
treater or not
you came away from listening to that
interview
with i bet half a dozen things that you
can try right now i know i wrote down a
bunch of books that i am going to make
sure that i add to my
reading list you know one of the books
that he mentioned
was the goal it’s a fable type book a
process of an ongoing
improvement and that book was given to
me
by our good friends at aqua phoenix i
went up and visited
aquaphoenix before they moved to their
new facility
and it’s even more impressive to see
them now in their new facility
but i was so impressed with all of
the little things that they put into
place
that allowed their team to communicate
effortlessly with each other
that would solve a problem that they
were able to identify
and then totally take it out of the
equation
so that wasn’t a problem again
it was just an amazing tribute
to how a team could come together and
work in an efficient manner while making
sure
that they were friendly they were
enjoying each other’s company
i just truly was amazed and i asked so
many questions about how they got
to that point and i took a lot of notes
too
and one of the gifts that they sent me i
go up to visit them
and they send me a gift for dropping by
again great guys at aqua phoenix
they sent me the gift that book it’s
called the goal
and they said that was one of the first
things that they read to
put things into perspective and
as danny mentioned how many times
do you look at a problem and you
solve what you think the problem
is danny and i were speaking earlier
before we started recording
and he mentioned a book to me called
dream manager
and there was a case study in that book
where people of a janitorial company
weren’t showing up for work
and of course the owners are thinking
well the people
are lazy well folks that wasn’t it at
all the issue was they didn’t have
transportation to get there
so when they started putting resources
around
solving that problem and i think what
they did was they actually started
purchasing
buses they had so
much buy-in they had a team
that was so high-performing and it was
because
they examined the issue and not just
looked at what was
on the surface so the next time
you have an issue and trust me it’s not
going to be long
we all have plenty of issues the next
time you’re trying to solve a systemic
issue don’t just start to solve it
spend more time trying to figure out
exactly what
that issue is and what the root cause
of that issue is that ensures
that all the work you’re doing to solve
it is going towards
the right issue and when you solve the
right issue
you’ve really solved it once and for all
nation what do you think about danny
having
an anagram of his name as his email
address
alien earbud uh that’s a real visual i
definitely agree with him there so i was
curious i went to
anagrammer.com you can go there too
you can type your name in and it will
give you
as many anagrams as you want to tell it
to give you
so after going to the site and typing in
trace blackmore here you go drumroll
please
[Music]
rockable mercat i don’t know maybe i’ll
introduce myself
next week on the show as rockable mercat
i don’t know if that’s a good enough
visual as uh as danny had but that might
be something
fun to try i tell you what i picked up
so
much that i cannot wait to start doing
from today’s podcast
and i hope you do too i hope that you
get
something at least one thing each and
every week that you can do
that makes you just that one percent
better or inspires you to do
something to become that one percent
better maybe we can become part of
danny’s 37 club
if we do that so nation lots of
references today
lots of books lots of things to try i
know
most of us are driving around don’t
worry
we’ve got you covered keep your hands at
10 and 2
because we have got everything on our
show notes page
simply go to scalinguph2o.com
and you will see every book that danny
mentioned today now if you have a
show idea since you’re already on the
website
go ahead and click over to show ideas
and let us know
what that is i’ll make sure i will take
your idea
i will turn it into a brand new show
just like i’m going to do next week
when you join me on friday until then
have a great week folks
[Music]
folks you’ve heard me talk about the
rising tide mastermind
and the success that all the people that
are members of the rising tide
mastermind
are enjoying but i know you’re wondering
what are the reasons that
people join so here is michelle farmery
to tell you
why she joined why did i join the rising
time mastermind
that one is simple i feel like i always
have a million things going on in my
life
always constantly juggling this thing or
that thing you know at work i often say
that i wear 16 different hats you know
i’m wearing one hat taken up and
putting another one on and so i
sit there and i often times feel
overwhelmed i feel like even when i
accomplish something i still feel like a
hamster in a wheel
just constantly going and not
appreciating the
the accomplishments that i have and so i
joined
the the rising side mastermind because i
thought it would be a good way of
taking a new approach and a new
direction with how i
aim to achieve my goals and how i can
better utilize my time
to accomplish more and feel successful
both in a business and professional
setting
michelle thank you so much for sharing
with the scaling up nation
why you joined the rising tide
mastermind and what you
get out of the rising tide mastermind
folks let’s face it we all wear so many
hats
being a water treater is not an easy job
but when you can talk with other water
treaters
about issues you’re having both in
business
and in personal you are able to get to
the next
level faster one of the things that we
do in the rising tide mastermind is
we urge each other to take the next step
and then we hold each other accountable
to make sure we’re doing the right
things
in order to get there go to scaling up
h2o.com forward slash
mastermind to find out more about the
rising tide
mastermind and to see if this is a group
that’s right for you
i urge you to find a group of peers
that will make sure you are taking the
right steps
to get to the next level
you