Planning your life as a leader (not just your business) with Michael Reddy

Michael Reddy joins me to discuss the idea that leaders often don’t spend enough time planning for their own health, wealth, purpose and relationships. What are the ‘buckets’ to a successful life as a leader in business and how to plan to enjoy them to the fullest?

Here’s a glance at what you’ll learn from our discussion in this episode:

• A glimpse of some of the areas of your life you may be overlooking
• Your business is there to serve you, not for you to serve it
• Your business health is tied to your personal health as the leader
• The people you surround yourself with are vitally important, and things have changed since the pandemic.
• The power of a personal life plan will help you succeed in business too!

The best way to reach out to Michael is by email at michael@redvestcorp.com

If you’re ready to transform your entrepreneurial frustrations into freedoms by cutting through the chaos and using frameworks that help you run an even better business and enjoy an even better life, simply go to:   www.Mohr.Coach

Take the free assessment on the top right-hand side of my website and we’ll set up a time to chat!

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Transcript

Michael Reddy  00:00

When I really honed it down, and I've a history with Outward Bound, and Outward Bound wilderness schools and other things for youth at risk, and one of the things in those organizations that we do is take people out in the wilderness, take them out camping when they never been there before, and put them into new challenges. One of the rules when you go camping is you always leave a campsite better than you found it. And my purpose comes from my campsite mentality. And that I always want to leave every person at every place better than I found it. And if I live my life like that, it will be a good wife.

Pete Mohr  00:40

Hey, it's Pete, and welcome to another edition of the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. It's the series designed to provide the tips and tools that will help you cut through the chaos and create the clarity that will transform your business in life as a leader. And today, I had the opportunity to speak again with Michael Reddy. And Michael has been on before a couple times. And he just always has so much wisdom, working with entrepreneurs for many, many years and coaching them through all sorts of different things. And some really good conversation today, around your life as a leader and what it means how to keep healthy, and the importance of health, the power of a personal life plan, some of that sort of stuff that's really catering to you as the entrepreneur or leader of your business more so than your business itself in this particular podcast. Love what we're going to talk about here. We'll dig right into it right now with Michael ready. Hey, Michael, it's great to see you here again today.

Michael Reddy  01:42

Yeah, it's my pleasure. Yo, I enjoyed our first couple of conversations. And I'm really looking forward to this one, because you always asked me questions where I sort of got to go, huh? I wonder what the answer this is gonna be. So

Pete Mohr  01:54

yeah, and you're live from your garage today. Lots of stuff going on in the house.

Michael Reddy  01:58

My Renaud team is replacing my kitchen.

Pete Mohr  02:01

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate you jumping on here. And I know that with rentos and stuff, it can be a little bit hectic, but really appreciate the time you're going to spend today. And this topic today, we're just seeing so much going on with all of COVID. And everybody's busy leading their teams and leading so much change and all this stuff. And what I wanted to kind of roll around today were the buckets of life that entrepreneurs have to deal with. And, you know, what are the areas in your life as a leader and entrepreneur that you may have been neglecting? And one of the ones that you've been working on and how to navigate through those as we kind of hopefully come back to a little bit more normalcy?

Michael Reddy  02:37

Yeah, that's a great question. I use a five key buckets, and each one has subcategories. My first one right off the bat is my physical health, you know, taking care of the body. And my second one is mental health. What am I doing to be mentally sharp mentally with it? The next one is financial, in terms of how are my finances, you know, in the business, personally, and I split those out, because I think often sometimes entrepreneurs mush them together, and I actually split them. And another one is relationships. Who are you hanging out with? Are they supporting the future you want to have? Or are they dragging you down? Do they give you energy or take energy? The fifth one is purpose. Are you doing things that you think are important?

Pete Mohr  03:23

Yeah, I love those. And I have a set two that's very similar in alignment with that. And, you know, so many interesting things. And I like how you started it off with health. One of the quotes that we were just chatting about, that I've liked. And I've heard Joe polish, say a few times along the way to not sure who came up with it, but the person who has their health has 1000 dreams, and the person who doesn't has but one.

Michael Reddy  03:46

Yeah, you know, that's so true. And I think we've all seen people that may be fairly successful, have a lot of wealth that they've accumulated, but they haven't accumulated a lot of health along the way. Yeah, and if you're in your 60s, and in crummy shape, it's really hard to get into shape, it's way easier to be in shape in your 40s and 50s. When you notice things are maybe declining. And now keep it going. Most people I know that are wealthy, but not healthy, will trade all of their wealth. You know, as long as they still have a roof over their head and food on their table, they would trade all the extra to be healthy again.

Pete Mohr  04:19

It's amazing, right? And health can deteriorate so quickly, in certain things, whether it be cancer or any of these other different things that are taking us these days. And you know, you look back and you say, well, should I have put my 12 hours in at work? Or should I have taken care of my health so that I could live longer, right,

Michael Reddy  04:34

you know, work, particularly for entrepreneurs, you have to remember that the business is there to serve you not the other way around. Love that. And I think we've all been in in times I have where I sort of gotten up and going. This is turned around that I'm serving the business. It's demanding what I do versus me making the choices or what I'm doing. And all along I think during your life, you've got to make choices of how much time am I going to be working And what time am I going to be doing for me and what time for my family and what time for my friends have what for you, however you define it is balance. And it's not that the business determines how much it takes and you work with what's left, is I determine how much the business takes and then I work with what

Pete Mohr  05:17

that's left and put it into the buckets, you know, when you set up those dues, do them once a year? Or do you kind of lay out your plans for a quarter? Or how do you set those up for yourself so that you're you're actually hitting some of these things that you want to hit?

Michael Reddy  05:28

I sit in and sort of have what I call my lifetime? Like what what is the almost like the end game in those categories? And it's not that specific, right. It's more general ideas, like for, you know, my mental health, you know, I want to be sharp and bright and engaging, right up until you know, the end. Yeah, that's not very measurable, right. So I then looked through some three year goals, some one year and then I go by quarter by quarter, and I'll look at them. When I set my week up. What I'm going to be doing this week, I'll look at those five categories and make sure I've got something happening in those. So you review them pretty much every week. Yeah, and I don't change them. I started using this system 19 years ago. Yeah, when I first made them, some of them are very different than now than they were then. So it's not like it's a life sentence that you make them in. They're cast in stone forever. Which is why I think some people don't do it, because they think then they're stuck with them. Yeah, you make them and if they don't serve you any more than change it up, but always have something you're moving towards.

Pete Mohr  06:40

Yeah, like that. always moving ahead and chunking it down into those from the life goals down into the three year to the one year to the quarter to the week allows you to make those life goals happen as you work it back up. I mean, if you've been doing it for 19 years, I'm sure a lot of those things have been realized.

Michael Reddy  06:55

Yeah, a lot have. And for me, it's just always be in motion towards those things. Yeah, let's say one of the ones with my wife, Rhonda and I as we want to go on a really nice trip to Africa. So you go, Okay, I wonder graph? Well, it doesn't quite work now with COVID. And financially, it's a big hit and a number of other things. And you don't do anything? Well, I may have for the quarter, what I'm going to do is I want to research these three countries in Africa. Or I'm just going to make a phone call to my buddy in New York that runs the best African tours. And so I'm just gonna call him and start to touch base and just have a conversation. As long as you're doing something towards it. You feel like you're always making motion as opposed to I'm not doing anything at all.

Pete Mohr  07:38

Yeah, building that momentum. Right. Yeah. You know, on on those other buckets. We've talked a little bit about physical health and mental health. And then relationships. I mean, lots have changed, we've been cooped up, we haven't been able to see people we've been, you know, there's relationships have changed over the last little while. And what sort of does that bucket look like for you?

Michael Reddy  07:57

Oh, you're right, the relationship has changed a lot. I've actually reached out to some people, and had zoom conversations, when in fact, I probably wouldn't have seen them. Like I've got a buddy in Vancouver, we would normally touch base when I was out there he was in here, which means we only touch base maybe every four years or something. Well, well, now I'm sort of zooming with him, I got another buddy in Australia. And so that part of the relationships actually got a little bit better, because instead of waiting for us to be in the same geographic location, yeah, we connected through zoom, close friends that live around me that I would normally see. haven't really seen them. Other than will modify what we do instead of getting together for dinner or something. We get together outside and have a snowshoe hike, or now we go for a paddle, or whatever it is. And so we'll talk at a distance and as COVID is getting better, and everybody's getting vaccinated. We're starting to get closer again.

Pete Mohr  08:53

Yeah, no, I like that, too. And then your mission purpose, one that you had, what? How do you manage that one,

Michael Reddy  09:00

that one is taken me I'm going to talk about sort of simply, but it has taken me a long time to figure it out simply. So it was one of those words of like, a lot of hard work to figure out the one thing I'm going to be doing but when I really honed it down, and I've a history with Outward Bound, and Outward Bound wilderness schools and other things for youth at risk. And one of the things in those organizations that we do is take people out in the wilderness, take them out camping when they never been there before and put them into new challenges. One of the rules when you go camping is you always leave a campsite better than you found it. And my purpose comes from my campsite mentality. And that I always want to leave every person and every place better than I found. And if I live my life like that, it'll be a good life.

Pete Mohr  09:53

I love that. And that's a lesson I learned in scouting When I was a boy scout and it same sort of thing. When you go to camping in scouts, it's like you leave the campsite proper. Right? And I think that's a wise lesson, Michael, I love that one.

Michael Reddy  10:07

So then below that, I've got all the ways that I do that. But ultimately, that's my why that's why I'm walking around on the planet. Do I always do that? No. But if I aspire to it, I can always see, okay, I'm making progress in that I'm doing it more than I used to whatever. And when I don't do it, it's blatantly obvious to me that I just fell off my own wagon,

Pete Mohr  10:31

when I look at the structure that, you know, we both use with a few different buckets, or whatever the case is. But having the structure allows things to come alive, I think. And if you don't sort of think about this stuff, and write this stuff down, and potentially even put it in your calendar, depending on what the action items are, then things just go on, and they just kind of happen. And it's not that things that happen are bad. But a lot of times you kind of get through a year or month or whatever. And you're like what did it what just happened here, like nothing really moved ahead, and we're talking about that momentum, and that moving ahead, the clarity of knowing those things, brings you the confidence to actually move ahead with them?

Michael Reddy  11:09

Well, it does and your point of looking at them, you know, like every week, I'll sit down when I plan my week, and I'll look at purpose. Okay, campsite, mentality mindset. Yeah, what am I going to do this week about that. And it may be what I'm going to reach out to this person or I'm going to go give support to this person, or I'm going to do this for my wife rando, whatever it might be. But it's in the front of my brain. So I look at and I go, Okay, this is something I could do about that this week, as opposed to, as you say, one day's the next. Yeah. What's that, quote from Shakespeare tomorrow, and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps audience pay pays. No, I don't wanna live like that. No, I don't either. I'm more like, Yo, I want to be a brilliant torch and have it burned brightly before passing it on to future generations.

Pete Mohr  11:55

That's a great way to wrap up our conversation here today. And just really enjoy talking about this kind of stuff. And what I'd like to do is, if you can let everybody know how they could get ahold of you and what you do with all of your coaching, just take a few moments and let us know here.

Michael Reddy  12:10

Sure why coach a very select few business entrepreneurs, they've got to have their own business and, and be successful and be up to big stuff to help them realize that normally around the buckets that I talked about, about health and finance and the whole bit, and we really focus on the business, yep. But when you're an entrepreneur, you're you're linked to your business, right? So true. can't work with one and not the other. And the way to get me easiest is to email me. And it's Michael@redvestcorp.com. Right on.

Pete Mohr  12:45

That's excellent. And I'll include it in the show notes and everything to his worry, Michael. Yeah. So thanks so much for spending some time with me here on the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast and look forward to a chat in the near future.

Michael Reddy  12:56

My pleasure, thanks for asking some good soul searching questions.

Pete Mohr  12:59

All right. We'll talk soon. Okay. Well, there was lots there for Mike already today, all sorts of great stuff about being a better leader. And when you're a better leader, when you take care of yourself, you're taking care of your business. At the same time, I love some of the stuff around the idea that your business is there to serve you, not you there to serve your business. And we're creating businesses as entrepreneurs, so that they serve what we want out of life. I thought that was a really big takeaway from Michael today, the importance of your health, and your business health is tied to your personal health. And that's why we develop the power of a personal life plan. And that's why we develop that personal life plan so that we know as a leader, what we want out of the whole thing, so that we can then go after it with our businesses, and use all the resources within it in order to drive what we want out of our lives. So many times as leaders of entrepreneurial businesses, our lives and our business are tied together. And that's the whole thing. We want to create these lives that we want out of our business. And that's why we became leaders in the first place. So we can't lose track of that sort of stuff. Your business is there to serve you, not you to serve it so that I thought was really good today. So thanks so much for spending some time here with us today. If you liked it, invite your friends, tell them to listen and subscribe to the podcast. Click the little belt and let everybody know about the simplifying entrepreneurship podcast. For more information on my coaching and leader programs, visit www.Mohr.Coach or you can email me directly at Pete@Mohr.Coach and until next time, make it a great day.

14:54

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