The Importance of Recovery Time

Rob Brown  00:04

Take time between meetings, not just from a practical perspective, to do things like take notes and prep for the next one. But to just recover, get your breath. So you can be just as fresh and have delivered just as much quality to the first person you meet within the day as to the last person you meet within the day.

Phil Calandra 00:24

I think that’s exactly right. Because if you’re not operating at optimal performance or at your very, very best, then the quality of your work is going to suffer. It doesn’t have to be complex; all simple ways to get a break in there to refresh and then come back and then charge hard and do the best work you can for the people that are depending on you.

Rob Brown  00:49

You’re listening to the truest fan podcast. And now, here’s your host, Rob Brown. Welcome, welcome time again, for the truest fan podcast. I am Rob Brown. And I have with me my partner and co-host, Phil Calandra. We are the chief growth architects at the truest fan. And today, we want to talk about taking breaks. You know, when I talk to advisors, they put on the word grind. Like it’s a badge of honour, I’m really good at grinding. I grind all day long. But when I circle back quite often I talk to those advisors about the progress they’re making. It’s never as fast or as outstanding as they want it to be. And when we dig deeper, a lot of times what they’ll say is because I’m tired, I’m worn out. And if you grind, you’re going to get tired and worn out. You have to plan your time away from your business, whether during the day or during a year when you’re planning out the fun things you want to do. So that’s what Phil and I want to talk about today. Phil, what are your initial thoughts when you think about this idea of grinding and taking?

Phil Calandra 02:05

Yeah, it’s great to be with you again, Rob, you know, this one is a big topic, because you’re exactly right, you hear that badge of honour in different forms, you know, grinding and forgetting the word balance in your life and just go 110%. But I think the thing that separates the best of the best, the top producer, and the most fulfilled doing the best work is quality versus quantity. And when I hear the word grind, or if I see anyone in any pursuit that’s grinding it out, what inevitably happens is the quality of your output starts to deteriorate. And it happens at a different pace for everybody. Some people can use your word grind longer than others. But inevitably, what happens is you begin to tire you begin to deteriorate and the quality of your work. And this one hits home because of the quality of your work for your clients, and the quality of the work for your customer in any business, if the quality isn’t there, how are you going to make happy clients or happy customers? And if you don’t have happy clients or happy customers with quality, then how are you ever going to get more quantity in the form of what the thing that we talk about all the time, right referrals and introductions, so the quality of work is much more important than quantity of work,

Rob Brown  03:26

you can leverage quality a lot more easily than you can leverage quantity. In fact, I think you might even be to say that quantity isn’t leverageable because we all have a limited amount of time. And I also think something that’s really important to think about, as you were talking to Phil, we talked about that as it relates, you talked about that as you relate to clients. But it’s the same with the time that you end up having for your team and for your family. Because when you’re right grinding and going a million miles an hour, as much as you tell yourself, hey, I’m going to have that regular team meeting, you end up kind of blowing through it and trying to make everybody work 100 miles an hour and they can’t keep up the pace, right? Or you tell yourself I’m going to make sure that when at the end of the day, I get home on time to have dinner with my family every night but that’s easier to ignore. When you’re grinding and not thinking about I’ve got to stop what I’m doing and what takes my drive home for some time to unwind and switch gears so that when I get home, I can be fully present, you know, for my family. So that quantity, leveraging that quantity, I’m sorry, quality is really really important.

Phil Calandra 04:41

Yeah, and you know, people that have listened to us for a number of weeks now and those that know me to know that I correlate so much of my business and professional life with some other passions that I have which are endurance racing endurance, athletics, running, swimming, biking. With the completion of a number of Ironman in triathlons, it’d be no different if you were trying to prepare for a big race or a big event of any type, you can’t continuously work out at the highest, you know, intensity level without the body breaking down. So what do you do if you’re building a structured marathon plan, let’s say you have periodization, which we talked about, we correlate that to our 12-week sprints, the right periodization of your effort, and then also the downtime, the recovery, the massage, then you know, cut the workout short and go sit in the hot tub, because I’m 54 years old now, and I get sore. So building in those recovery pieces, is no different in our business life than it would be if you were an athlete, why do you think that the athlete goes into the ice bath after you know, their tough week on the practice field? It’s because they’re prepping for Saturday’s game at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville. You know, I correlate that to the University of Tennessee, right? But any, and could be the Cleveland Browns, right? Or if you’ve got upcoming, you know, baseball season, right? We’re excited because spring training is in full gear we’ll have an opening day soon enough. But you know, I wonder what Cal Ripken who, you know, leads all records in most consecutive games. You might know the number Rob, but he had to have done it. Yeah, he had to have done something to build in recovery. He didn’t break from the game. He played consecutively more than any player in the history of Major League Baseball. But I guarantee you that if we had him on the show, he’d be able to articulate clearly what were his recovery methods. What were his techniques, and his diet? What were the things that got him back into full form? And that’s what we’re saying in the context of this show good business people, and good advisors have techniques and processes for building in those breaks or tapers if you will,

Rob Brown  06:54

yeah, it’s both in how they look at their days, how they look at their quarters, their sprints, and how they look at their years. You know, great examples are, you know, I have clients, and I encourage them to do this, when we’re kind of mapping out what an ideal day looks like for them, to make sure that they don’t put their appointments with their clients back to back to back, right that you take time between meetings, not just from a practical perspective to do things like take notes and prep for the next one. But to just recover, get your breath. So you can be just as fresh and have delivered just as much quality to the first person within the day as you do to the last person that you meet within the day. That’s exactly right. I have other clients who really encourage them to take a midday break. I’m a big believer in taking a midday break, not working at your desk. But literally getting away from your desk getting away from your office, it could be you know, taking a 30-minute walk. It could be you know, reading, something is breaking, but something that truly takes you away and allows you to decompress and get ready for that next, that next activity to me, those breaks between meetings, those breaks in the middle of the day that drive home to get ready to be present from your family are just simple examples that we can all do every day to make sure that we don’t just grind it out and wear ourselves out and we keep our ourselves fresh, and we can be the purposeful person, each of the things that we want to do not just what we say that we want to be

Phil Calandra 08:43

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Phil Calandra 09:07

Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. Because if you’re not operating at optimal performance at your very very best then the quality of your work is going to suffer as I said, but I think that for me I never take meetings during the middle of the day you know you hear all the time it was like well you know a working lunch now I don’t ever work during lunch usually because I live by 1130 I’m starving anyway because I worked out in the morning or something but don’t work during lunch break that your own kind of personal time I off I have on the side of my desk here four or five books so eat your lunch and then read something that’s not pertinent to our industry. Maybe it’s something you know, a novel, something that you’ve been putting off maybe it’s something that you just want to get caught up in. But those are all it doesn’t have to be complex, all simple ways to get a break in there to refresh and then come back and then charge hard and do the best work you can for the people that are depending on you.

Rob Brown  10:04

Right. As you mentioned, Phil, you know on our last podcast we talked about the fact that we use Sprint with our clients as a way to help them organize their years around their activities or lead to their goals. And, we only recommend three sprints in a year, and each sprint is three months. So that’s only nine months of the year. The other three months are the breaks between the sprints. And those breaks are intentional, because we know sometimes you need time to finish off things that you started in a sprint, we know that you need time to start planning for your next sprint. So those are two great things you could do in your sprint by also having clients that that’s how they plan their vacations, they say in that month between sprints that’s when I’m going to take my week or my two weeks and have my vacation. So they’re planning their break. So another again, simple example of what we’re talking about the importance of this recovery time. And being intentional about it. And the folks that I work with who do this the best, when they begin planning their year, one of the very first things they put on the calendar, whether they’re thinking about their sprints or not are those times that they’re going to be away. Absolutely. And then they hold those as sacred. So they’re keeping that break time is something that is a real priority, and not something that happens because they work hard, they’re doing it because they know that it’s important to all of the things that they’re trying to do as they try to have greater impact and purpose in their businesses and in their lives at large.

Phil Calandra 11:41

Yeah, and I think for most people, if they are always grinding, or they’re pushing, pushing, pushing, they’re gonna lose clarity to I mean, we use the word purpose and impact quite frequently the truest fan, but having the clarity of purpose, and the clarity of how you make an impact will wane that the human body is just not made that way. I mean, we think you know, talking about athletic pursuits are, you know, things that we do with the human body, the human body can absorb great amounts of stress, and tremendous amounts of exercise and intense situations, you hear of extraordinary experiences that the human body and the person the human being can go through. But at some point in time, having the most quality, impact and purpose will break down. That’s just a natural fact of the human species. So I encourage everybody to take that seriously. And follow a process that builds the recovery in the breaks into it just like you would if you were preparing for a marathon, you wouldn’t run a marathon, the week before your scheduled marathon race, you would be in a taper mode, you would be bringing things back to equilibrium to do the best you can on race day, our businesses should be the same. Yeah,

Rob Brown  12:56

and I don’t want to end this on a downer. But I think it’s worth mentioning that oftentimes when I have this conversation with real high achievers who just thrive on the idea that they grind, they will sometimes cut back, and something will have happened to somebody that they know who is there close to that had that heart attack or that stroke. And they realized, gosh, I can’t get like that. They kind of emulate the life of somebody else that grinds hard the way that they do. And then they see that person that grinds kind of grind to a halt because they’ve had a physical problem. Or even worse, you have something happen to you physically as a result of going at it too hard. And that’s not when you want to start planning for taking breaks, I think it’s safe to say that. And Phil, I know you’ve had some health challenges even as good a job as you do taking care of yourself. That’s a lesson that’s best learned before you have a problem like that. It’s not something that you want to go through or see somebody go through. So taking that breaks, not taking that recovery time. Seriously planning it out, and making it a priority is just so so important. Yeah, I

Phil Calandra 14:22

think the priority is a great word, also perspective. And we could spend a whole couple of shows talking about life events. And you mentioned specifically an event that I went through a few years ago, and I’m happy to talk about it at a later point, but it’s life events that ultimately will shake your core and ultimately shape your core beliefs and it changes perspective. So to your point prior to getting to that state because you’ve been grinding and let’s stop using that word. We’re trying to get people not to do it. So let’s Stop talking about that. But we’re trying to focus on the quality of life, you know, operating at the optimal performance that comes from a position of perspective and priority. So yeah, we’ll put that on the list of things to talk about, because I have a lot of stories, as you know, and life events, successes and failures are what shape the destiny that we’re all going to achieve.

Rob Brown  15:24

Right, but we don’t have to touch the hot stove all the time. But we do. So if I’m listening to this podcast, and we’re thankful that you’re here probably think, well, what can I do right now, to try out this idea if you feel like maybe building some breaks into your routine is really important? Let me give you a simple suggestion for the next two weeks. Plan a midday break. Just put it on your calendar every single day, whether it’s you know, during your lunch hour, and it is your lunch hour or some period of time right before lunch, or right after lunch, where you just take a break from your work. During that time. Take a walk, read a book, say some prayers, and do whatever those things are that can help you relax and get refocused. And then after you’ve done that for a couple of weeks, look back and see if your life was any different. If you felt any different on a day-to-day basis, I can almost guarantee that you will. That’s a great suggestion. Awesome. So let’s bring this podcast to a close. Thank you everybody so much for listening in. Remember, we are rooting for your success because we are your truest fans. Thanks for tuning in. Take care.