306. The Juggler: The Gravity of Keeping Everything Airborne

Episode Transcript

[00:00:00] Joel: There is no better avatar for the juggler than Elastigirl from The Incredibles. Literally stretched in 100 directions, catching things before they fall, holding the entire family together, she is the juggler in action. And if you can relate, you probably need a break

[00:00:26] Welcome to Focus on This, the most productive podcast on the internet. I’m Joel Miller.

[00:00:32] Marissa: And I’m Marisa Hyatt.

[00:00:34] Joel: And this is where we remind you of something you already know. It’s not about getting more things done, it’s about getting the right things done.

[00:00:41] Marissa: Both at work and in life. And today, we’re talking about our third work style type, which is the juggler.

[00:00:50] And in case you missed it, we, a few weeks back, did an intro episode to the work style. Your work style is our brand-new free assessment. It’s essentially how you tend to show up at work. So there are five types, and today we’re going to zoom in on just one of those. The giver, the one everyone depends on.

[00:01:15] The achiever, the one who never stops moving, and this we talked about last week, and this is arguably kind of our company’s work style. Then we have the juggler, which is the one we are double-clicking on today. This is the one carrying it all alone. Then we have the optimizer, the one who needs it done right.

[00:01:39] And lastly, the improviser, the one who probably has 121 tabs open on their browser as we speak.

[00:01:49] Joel: All right, so- If you do identify with Elastigirl, you might well be the Juggler, but there are some telltale signs, some things that would cue you and everyone you know into identifying you as a Juggler. The first one of those is that your to-do list really only ever tends to get longer.

[00:02:13] The demands from life come from every direction, and they just never stop coming.

[00:02:18] Marissa: Yeah. I feel like this really is a telltale, and I will say, this is my work style. Okay. So I know, I know the Juggler intimately because I am one. This is also, Joel, your wife’s work style.

[00:02:32] Joel: Yep.

[00:02:32] Marissa: Megan.

[00:02:32] Joel: This is absolutely Megan, to a T.

[00:02:34] Yeah,

[00:02:35] Marissa: to a T. And as we start to go through these clues, you’re probably gonna start to think, even if you aren’t a Juggler, about all the Jugglers that you know. Right. And if that’s the case, want to encourage you to share this episode with them, and you can also take the work style assessment yourself at fullfocus.co/ws for free.

[00:02:57] It takes about five minutes, but you’ll be able to know for sure whether this is you. Now, one of the telltale signs of being a Juggler is that you’re always at the ready. You’re used to putting out one fire after the next, and you live on edge. You’re just constantly scanning for what’s the next thing I gotta be thinking about and dealing with, and you’re constantly scanning your environment for the next thing.

[00:03:23] Joel: I am the opposite of a Juggler. I know the things that I think need to be done, and I literally don’t think beyond what I think needs to be done. Yeah. Like, I’m not even aware, whereas Megan is, like, scanning the horizon for new things that need to be done at all times, like threat scanning- Yeah

[00:03:43] everything. And as a result, she’s got a million things on her list, and they all arguably need to be done. Like, there’s nothing- Yeah … you, I couldn’t, I couldn’t disagree with any of it. I just happen to be oblivious to most of it.

[00:03:54] Marissa: Well, that’s definitely not true for the Juggler. I think part of the fear of the Juggler is what am I missing?

[00:04:02] Joel: Right.

[00:04:02] Marissa: And so they’re constantly looking for that next thing, and they’re always just at the ready to jump in. They’re also the bootstrap poster child And I, I know this very well, which is that you’ve always counted on yourself. You’re kind of in that mode of like nobody’s coming to save you. Right. And so you’re just used to making it happen yourself, and the problem is now everyone else is counting on you, too.

[00:04:28] Joel: Right.

[00:04:29] Marissa: Right? So it’s compounded beyond just your self-reliance to now other people rely on you. You’re often seen as, like, the responsible one.

[00:04:38] Joel: Every one of these work styles has some difficulty in one way or another with rest. Like last week we talked about the achiever, and there the difficulty with rest is, is internal.

[00:04:50] Marissa: Mm-hmm.

[00:04:50] Joel: But with the juggler, it’s external. Like rest feels structurally impossible. Right. You just, there are too many things that would fall to the ground if you stop juggling them, and as a result- Yeah … you can’t take a break.

[00:05:03] Marissa: I see the juggler, and I don’t know what this says about our family, but in a lot of my sisters- Mm-hmm

[00:05:08] where they’re constantly just moving from the next. And I think about one of my sisters in particular who is a mother of five. She has multiple businesses that she runs. She’s constantly helping others and doing, you know, a ton of things for all the people, and she’s just a work horse. Yeah. Somehow, it’s like she’s able to keep all of those plates spinning, and you kind of don’t really understand how she does it, but she does it.

[00:05:38] And one of the telltale signs of this work style is that you’re often the queen or the king of pivoting.

[00:05:46] Crissy: Right.

[00:05:47] Marissa: So life is constantly happening, and it’s happening fast, and you are so incredibly good at adjusting so that you can keep up. You’re constantly able to pivot and make changes and adjust and adapt to whatever is being presented to you.

[00:06:06] Joel: Right.

[00:06:07] Marissa: I don’t know any other work style that has kind of this superpower.

[00:06:10] Joel: Well, that superpower, we can call it capability, and it’s like every other work style. It has… It’s a double-edged sword. There’s an upside, and there’s a downside. When I think about capability, that makes jugglers exceptional in the workplace in several ways, but it also can lead them to become exhausted in certain ways.

[00:06:31] So let’s work through each of those.

[00:06:33] Marissa: Yeah, so you probably carry more at once than most people will carry at any given time or that they could even track.

[00:06:42] Joel: Right. They don’t even h- know how to make notes that long.

[00:06:44] Marissa: Yeah, so, like, literally think about this idea of a juggler. They’ve got, you know, all these balls in the air that they’re, you know, juggling, and it’s like they kind of somewhat make it look effortless.

[00:06:57] Right. And all the people around them are like, “I don’t, I don’t know how you can do as much as you do.” They’re just in awe. Of the capability of this work style.

[00:07:10] Joel: Well, it is awe-inspiring for sure. Like, I look at anybody with this tendency, my wife, the sister you just mentioned, it’s kind of astonishing. And- Mm-hmm

[00:07:21] like, you sit back and you’re like, “Holy cow.” You can imagine how without this person in your organization or in your family or whatever, like, your organization wouldn’t work anymore, your family wouldn’t work anymore because the juggler is just handling so very much.

[00:07:37] Marissa: The load is massive that they’re carrying, but they’re really, really good at it.

[00:07:42] Yeah. They also triage fast and adapt without drama.

[00:07:47] Joel: Right, ’cause that’s just the way the world is, right? Yeah. It’s constantly changing. The demands are constantly changing. It’s not like when the details change, it’s a crisis.

[00:07:55] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:07:55] Joel: Like, otherwise, their whole life would be a crisis, but it’s not. They’re like, “Okay,

[00:07:58] Marissa: great.”

[00:07:58] They

[00:07:58] Joel: just, they just keep juggling.

[00:07:59] Marissa: On to the next thing. They’re not worried about it.

[00:08:02] Joel: Right.

[00:08:02] Marissa: They almost expect it. They’re used to life throwing them all kinds of different things.

[00:08:08] Joel: Yeah.

[00:08:08] Marissa: And so they’re really good at this kind of adaptability. And when we think about this in the workplace, this is like if you’re working on a project and you go to, let’s say, launch whatever the project is, and it doesn’t go according to plan, they’re the first one to jump in and say, “Okay, here’s what we need to do.”

[00:08:27] Right? Yeah. “Here’s the pivot we need to make.” And so this is the person that you really want on those projects, or if you are the juggler, like, this is where you can exercise your capability, is in those moments where a lot of other work styles would kind of, um, freeze or flounder. You can really rise to the occasion with a lot of confidence, a lot of authority, and be able to help people in that adaptation of whatever it is that happened.

[00:08:55] Joel: And that ends up meaning that reputationally you gain just the credit from everyone else on the team, but you’re probably the most resourceful person in the room. You’re not gonna get slowed down by a setback. You’re gonna have a response immediately.

[00:09:09] Marissa: Well, and I think, uh, one of the things that my parents have always said to me is, “You’re so responsible.”

[00:09:17] Mm-hmm. “We can always count on you. We know that if we give you something, you’re gonna do it with excellence and you’re gonna get it done. We never have to question that.” Like, this is the person that you hand something to when you don’t wanna have to be checking in. Right. “Did that get done? Did that, you know, cross the finish line?

[00:09:35] Was it done to the degree I wanna, I wanted it to get done to?” This is the person that you can hand it to and kind of forget about it because you know when you pass the ball, they’ve got it.

[00:09:45] Joel: Which is awesome, right? Which is awesome. I mean, it’s, it’s like every one of these, every one of these work styles has one great big streak of awesome running right down the middle of it.

[00:09:55] You are like the giver. You’re the kind of person that’s great to know in a crisis because- Yeah … your life is crisis management, and you’re really good at it. So what’s one more crisis? Like, you’ve already got 19 going, so it’s like not a problem. I’ve

[00:10:09] Marissa: been training for this my whole life, right? Um, but the double-edged sword part about this is that that capability which makes you so exceptional, which is why all of your colleagues love you, your family depends on you, all of those things, is also what makes you incredibly exhausted.

[00:10:27] Joel: Yeah.

[00:10:28] Marissa: So you probably hold a belief that you can and you must handle it all, and- That belief is incredibly crippling.

[00:10:39] Joel: In a way, it’s like what happens with the achiever, where you are so good at delivering that you don’t know when you’re past your ability to deliver. Right. And then it just kind of falls apart.

[00:10:51] Marissa: Well, because of that, you’re continuously reevaluating and adapting, and that is incredibly cognitively exhausting. We talked about this. Yeah. You’re just constantly scanning for things and trying to pivot and change and adjust and adapt, and that’s exhausting. If you’ve ever woken up in the middle of the night and you’re just already full launched into a whole thought process about- Right

[00:11:20] a solution for something in your life, or if you feel like at the end of the night you have a really hard time shutting off, like your brain is just kind of constantly always churning, there’s a good chance you might be a juggler.

[00:11:36] Joel: You already mentioned the load. This is the, the mental load part of it.

[00:11:40] Right. And when I hear Megan talk about this, this is actually I think the part that is the most draining or the most difficult is this mental load part. I’m really good at frankly not thinking about stuff.

[00:11:52] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:11:52] Joel: She is not. She thinks- No … about everything. And- All the

[00:11:55] Marissa: time …

[00:11:56] Joel: all the time. And that’s just, like you said, it’s cognitively exhausting.

[00:11:59] It’s mentally demanding, such that it’s not even like you feel physically depleted. It’s like your whole soul feels completely drained down to the socks. Right. And that’s just a rough place to be.

[00:12:12] Marissa: Being a juggler myself, like my one wish is that I could just turn it off.

[00:12:17] Joel: Right.

[00:12:18] Marissa: Because it feels like it never stops, and I can’t turn it off.

[00:12:21] Like, it’s just always there. Right. There’s always a list of things in my mind of things I need to get done, or things that I’m potentially dropping the ball on, or things I’m scared of dropping the ball on, or things I’m anticipating coming down the line, and that just doesn’t stop, and it’s really exhausting.

[00:12:39] Really exhausting.

[00:12:40] Joel: You know, you keep pulling off the impossible. Like, you just keep doing it, which means that you’ll keep on going and doing- Right … you know, all the time.

[00:12:48] Marissa: You just keep putting yourself back into the cycle, which is really difficult.

[00:12:54] Joel: Yeah.

[00:13:07] Marissa: The one thing that is, is really true is that we run on deadlines and commitments. That’s really important for us, right? Is that, like, we have a clear idea of, like, what’s important, what I gotta get done, make it happen. But the problem is there’s really nothing left. Right. It’s just we’re going until we literally crash, and it’s very problematic.

[00:13:31] Joel: As we’ve said with the giver before and the achiever before, there’s a compounding cost to this pattern in the juggler’s life. You’ve built a life where everything relies on you, so the rest that you need, the desires that you have, it all just keeps getting perpetually deferred.

[00:13:50] Marissa: And it’s really true.

[00:13:51] Like, there’s always something else that’s more pressing, more urgent, more important, and we just keep pushing out those things, and we all have these, right? But it’s like we just keep pushing it out, and we also are really reluctant, I would say, to accept help. It’s like, “No, I am highly capable. I can do it.”

[00:14:12] Right.

[00:14:12] Joel: Right? That’s back to the double-edged sword.

[00:14:14] Marissa: Yeah, and so we keep actually going at this alone. We feel alone. We feel frustrated about that, but we continually feel that. Yeah. We keep doing it, and we keep making it work. We’re… I would say, like, the one thing that is very true for jugglers is we’re really, really good at white-knuckling our lives.

[00:14:35] Joel: But the problem is that over time, you know, you end up, that belief like it all… It’s all on me, and in many ways, it is all on you. Like- Right … that’s not unreasonable to believe, but it leaves you feeling chronically exhausted. You’re isolated and lonely and maybe even fearful.

[00:14:53] Marissa: I think that this really rings true for me as a juggler of, you know, that feeling of like nobody’s coming to save me.

[00:15:01] I’ve gotta figure it out myself. This happened this week. I, um, had a whole slew of car issues that came out of nowhere.

[00:15:09] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:15:10] Marissa: And so all of a sudden, I find myself in a position where I can’t drive my car, and I’ve gotta go find a new car. It feels very overwhelming. It’s all of a sudden. It’s urgent.

[00:15:21] There’s all these things, and I’m just like, “Yeah, I’ll figure it out.” I’m not going to other people and asking for help and all of that. It’s like, no, I expect that this is a decision that I have to solve myself. So you’re constantly feeling that sense of loneliness, which is somewhat self-induced, you know, if I’m honest.

[00:15:43] This also, over time, leads to a life that is reduced to a series of trials that we’re constantly surviving-

[00:15:51] Monica: Mm-hmm …

[00:15:52] Marissa: rather than this experience that we get to actually enjoy. We’re kind of perpetually in survival mode as jugglers. Yeah. And it’s what makes us great. It’s why we’re able to adapt and do all those things, and it’s really not a great experience- Right

[00:16:10] if you don’t actually check it because you’re not able to kind of savor life and enjoy it because you’re constantly scanning for what’s the next thing I need to be prepared to deal with.

[00:16:20] Joel: If you know, by the way, anyone who is a juggler, and undoubtedly you do, they’re gonna be some of the most capable people in your world.

[00:16:29] If you know a juggler, make sure you send them this episode. We’ve said this each one of these so far, but being validated for who you are and what your experience is is very assuring, and it’s comforting to know that you’re seen and known. And I’d love it if the juggler in your life got to be validated for th- what they bring to the world, and also the struggles that they have.

[00:16:54] Marissa: Well, and on that note, we wanna give all of you jugglers, myself included A key strategy for your growth, something that can help you become a better juggler in terms of living into those strengths and also helping to relieve some of that sense of exhaustion that you’re probably walking around with constantly.

[00:17:18] Ultimately, what this looks like is invest in receiving help.

[00:17:22] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:17:23] Marissa: This is like if I had to take all of my therapy sessions and like put them into a nice little package, it would be like invest in receiving help because this is really, really challenging for a juggler. But handing things off or getting, you know, help is, it’s gonna require some type of in- investment for us, and this is like jugglers really don’t like this because a lot of what we do is about speed.

[00:17:50] Right. Right? We’re just like trying to get more done, trying to get to the next thing, and usually when you have help, you have to invest your time or a level of communication, right? You have to explain things. Uh, you have to have clarity, and most of all, you have to have trust, which is really difficult.

[00:18:09] Joel: Well, because nobody’s gonna handle it the way you handle it.

[00:18:12] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:18:12] Joel: The other side of this is, and I hear this when I talk with Megan about these things, the help that you need may not just be the logistical stuff. It may be the cognitive stuff on the front end that enables you to do the planning or whatever else so that you’re not even having to think about certain things.

[00:18:29] So-

[00:18:30] Marissa: Right …

[00:18:31] Joel: in a relationship, for instance, in a work situation, having other people responsible for the mental load of the work is almost just as res- as- just as needed as- Yeah … the actual like logistical stuff of going and doing X, Y, or Z.

[00:18:47] Marissa: Yeah. One of the things that I feel like if you’re within a work context, if you’re a juggler, you may have heard from your boss if they’re coaching you of like, “I think you’re taking on too much”- Mm-hmm

[00:19:03] or, “I don’t think this is actually yours to worry about.” Right? I can’t tell you how many times that Megan has brought that to my attention or past bosses of like, “You don’t need to actually carry this level of responsibility.” And it’s often really self-induced because we’re super high capacity. We’re super capable, right?

[00:19:22] Like, we can take on more. It’s all we do. It’s our kind of, um, default mode is to do that. And so what we want to do, kind of our growth edge, is to slow down long enough to actually equip someone else to help- Right … or to step in.

[00:19:40] Joel: But that’s costly and risky, right?

[00:19:43] Marissa: It is, and it’s difficult for us to even fathom the idea that somebody else could handle this and do it well or to the degree in which or to the speed in which we are used to doing those things.

[00:19:54] And urgency is constantly coming in and saying to us as jugglers, “You don’t have time for this.”

[00:19:59] Joel: Right. “

[00:20:00] Marissa: So just do it yourself.”

[00:20:01] Joel: So that’s where you have to, like when you notice yourself saying that, you have to stop and reassess.

[00:20:06] Marissa: It’s a really important strategy for your long-term health to invest in receiving help and making sure that the help that you’re getting, you know, is to the standard in which you would like it and, and that requires a level of investment.

[00:20:20] Yeah. Um, so, you know, one of our best strategies for becoming a little less indispensable is allowing other people to step in.

[00:20:32] Joel: If any of this resonates with you, and I guarantee you it’s resonating with some of you-

[00:20:37] Marissa: Yeah …

[00:20:37] Joel: take the assessment. Just go to fullfocus.co/ws. It’s totally free. fullfocus.co/ws and see if in fact you are a juggler or whatever else you might be.

[00:20:50] Marissa: And fun little preview with that is you will get your primary work style, and then your, you’ll get your secondary. And so you’ll know maybe your, your primary is not a juggler, but it might be your secondary. If you, if some of this is res- resonating with you, we encourage you to take that and share this with your colleagues and see who on your team is also a juggler.

[00:21:11] Joel: And let’s go ahead and hear from some jugglers right now just to see what, what does this sound like from their own lips?

[00:21:27] Claudia: I’m Claudia Volkman. I own my own business, Creative Editorial Solutions, and I work with entrepreneurs, authors, speakers, and other coaches, so I juggle a lot.

[00:21:40] Marissa: Yeah, you juggle a lot. So okay, so you are The Juggler, which we have in common. After you read your report of your work style, what felt eye-opening about discovering that you were a juggler?

[00:21:52] Claudia: Like, from the first paragraph, like the first sentence, you produce a significant amount, more than most people in your life would believe if you laid it all out, and I’ve often thought that. Like- Hmm … it’s a good thing people don’t really know how many projects I have, or- Yeah … how many clients. And you’ve been doing it consistently, often for years.

[00:22:11] It’s, like, so true. I loved that it said, you know, I don’t feel like I have a choice because-

[00:22:16] Marissa: Yeah …

[00:22:17] Claudia: I’m successful, but I’m at the age when a lot of people are retired, but I’m not retired. Yeah. And in fact, I have a 10-year plan to keep going, so I feel like I have to keep going.

[00:22:29] Marissa: We all have 168 hours in a given week.

[00:22:33] How are you balancing- All of that now.

[00:22:37] Claudia: I’m really pretty good at working during the day. Uh, I’m at my desk by 8:00 or 9:00, and then I almost always stop at 5:00 and do my little-

[00:22:50] Marissa: Right …

[00:22:50] Claudia: workday shutdown ritual. And I don’t work in the evenings, and I don’t take, like, client calls or anything on the weekend.

[00:22:58] So I do take time off on the weekend, but I also squeeze work in there, too.

[00:23:03] Marissa: Is there a cost to being a juggler or kind of a downside that you’ve been able to identify?

[00:23:09] Claudia: Yeah, I do think it is spreading myself too thin- Mm … and trying to feel like I have to do it all myself, and not being as proactive about finding others that can maybe work with me.

[00:23:22] One thing I do think was surprising was when it said when you ask for help, it’s not always helpful because it’s just so much easier to just-

[00:23:30] Marissa: Right …

[00:23:30] Claudia: do it yourself.

[00:23:32] Marissa: Yep. Yep. I think for me, similarly, sometimes it doesn’t even occur to me to ask for help.

[00:23:38] Claudia: Right.

[00:23:39] Marissa: Now, knowing what you know about your work style now, how would you, kind of knowing yourself and all your tendencies, how would you actually coach yourself going forward?

[00:23:51] Claudia: Oh, that’s a great question. Um, because I’ve been in the Double Win coaching program and gone through the Maps profile-

[00:23:59] Marissa: Yeah …

[00:23:59] Claudia: you know, that really showed me some areas of my business that I should be reorganizing and re-evaluating. So definitely I want to continue to pursue ways that I can, instead of always only coaching one-on-one clients, to do s- a group program, and how to structure that.

[00:24:19] And just really, I think, always just doing that weekly preview is huge for me. Mm-hmm. Because then I’m always like- Looking at where I am with my projects. You know, just realizing that I also need to have a life, and so not- And I am, like I said, I am good, and I hate doing, like, any, like, Zoom calls or anything at night.

[00:24:41] Marissa: Right.

[00:24:42] Claudia: But one thing in that report said, you know, at the end of the day, you really don’t have energy for anything else except to maybe- Yeah … watch Netflix or something. I went- Yeah … “Yeah, that’s me.”

[00:24:52] Marissa: Yeah. Yeah. Now, as you think about all the jugglers who are listening to this, um, or maybe the potential jugglers who are trying to figure out, “Am I a juggler?

[00:25:02] Am I not a juggler?” What advice or wisdom would you give to them?

[00:25:07] Claudia: Obviously, that whole area of, of learning to rest, because y- you just are gonna burn out. You know, it’s not sustainable to just be a juggler, an achiever, like, going full force all the time. I’ve used the Full Focus Planner for years, you know, I think since it pretty much first came out, and that really keeps me on track, too.

[00:25:29] I do think that it helps. The, the weekly preview and deciding quarterly goals and then weekly big three, daily big three. And the resources within the Double Win coaching program- Yeah … and what you provide on the web- on the, um, podcast, too. But the coaching- Yeah … program has been exceptionally helpful to really help me to see myself more clearly- Mm

[00:25:54] and then to find a path through.

[00:26:00] Joel: You said your results were uncannily accurate. Tell me more.

[00:26:05] Monica: Well, they were just spot on. Like, I was talking to my husband about it afterwards, and he just laughed the whole time ’cause he thought it was really funny. And I, and I said, “I feel like I went to one of those soothsayers and I told them a few things and then they were able to somehow read what I said and give me my whole life story.”

[00:26:22] You know how the, you know, like a… I haven’t actually done that, but I imagine, you know, like when people can tell you, they look at your palm and they’re like, “Oh, tell me about your life a little bit.” You tell them one thing and they’re able to extrapolate. But I’m like, how is this extrapolating so- Yeah

[00:26:34] accurately to the point where, like, phrases that my family uses were being told in there. So that was very interesting. Also disturbing.

[00:26:44] Joel: There’s some, there’s some significant juju involved in the calculation of the test.

[00:26:49] Monica: I was really curious because I was like, so does everybody get the same result? You know, ’cause it was just so, um…

[00:26:54] It was funny how accurate it was. I actually sent it to my son and said, “Can you take this and tell me if you get the same results ’cause it feels bizarre.” And so that’s why I was excited to talk to you about it. And, um, well, I am a juggler. I always have way too much stuff going on. I have the long list at the end of the day is a better way of organizing than having a long list at the beginning of the day, which is just left over from the previous day anyway.

[00:27:15] But, um, you know, a lot of the stuff is very accurate. The, the solutions I’m not sure, or how to resolve it I’m not even sure that if that’s your type, you get to resolve it in a way.

[00:27:24] Joel: Do you ever feel resentment related to this dynamic that you have at work?

[00:27:30] Monica: So I have been in my business for 30 years, and most of the people that I work closely with I’ve worked with for 20- Mm-hmm

[00:27:36] ish years. So I don’t, I love them, and so resentment wouldn’t necessarily be the right word. It’s more maybe some frustration at, like, there are all these things that we can do, and if you just follow through on these three things I asked you to start on and… Or I think maybe they feel more resentment than I do, in fact.

[00:27:53] Like, well, you’re really good at starting a project, but a week later you forget, and then why should we bother if you’re not reminding us? And that’s where the resentment kinda happens.

[00:28:02] Joel: Do you think that- The struggle in finishing projects goes back to the idea that there’s always a new thing hitting you, and so, uh, you’re distracted from the thing that you started?

[00:28:15] Monica: Absolutely. Absolutely. The– it’s the idea of, like, it’s trying to constantly circle back, so that’s the skill that I’m trying to work on personally. It’s like you have all these things you’re working on, they’re all relatively important or not. It-it’s, it’s, it’s a flat… it becomes like a flat landscape on some- Sure

[00:28:32] level. It’s just a bunch of stuff. And so you have to circle back to the things, like we have, uh, yeah, I was just doing it now this morning. I was like, “Oh, I forgot to, like, if I circle back to this, then I can keep reminding people to keep working on this problem or this issue, this, this structural issue, and eventually we’ll resolve it,” ’cause my, in, in my business I believe it’s like repetition is really helpful, and eventually it becomes habit if we, if we do it enough.

[00:28:58] And it, and it has worked in certain things. Yeah. So I’ve seen that. But yeah, so I do, I do circle back to the thing if I can remember, but it might not be soon enough.

[00:29:09] Joel: What would happen to your schedule, to that dynamic if you were to dial in on not the flat landscape, but instead highlighting the things that had high-higher ROI?

[00:29:23] Monica: Having been doing this for a while, yeah, I’ve tried this, and, and I think it, it helps for a little bit of time until something happens that then takes me away from that. Yeah. So for example, there was a period of time when I was like, I love working in a library. I’m in New York City. We have, like, the most beautiful library in my memory of, like, at the, um, in Midtown.

[00:29:43] I go into the Rose Room, and long tables, and it’s quiet. It has that library sound, everything. And I’ll go work there, you know, twice a week on the recipe book or on one, or on a project, and it’ll be fine, and then suddenly something will happen and my schedule will have to change because there’s, uh, you know, we…

[00:30:04] whatever, whatever it is. And it’s al- and it’s been 20 years of something happening, and it’s important enough to keep the business going. Yeah. So… And then, and then eventually that thing will go away and I’ll be like, “Where was I? Oh my God, I was working on this recipe book that was so important to me.

[00:30:18] Should I go back to that or what should I do now? What do I do in a way?” So that’s, that’s kinda how it is.

[00:30:23] Joel: Any final thoughts on the assessment or what it meant to you? I’d love to hear.

[00:30:28] Monica: Well, it obviously worked ’cause the type– it definitely described a type of person that I am.

[00:30:33] Joel: Yeah.

[00:30:33] Monica: But we’re also, I guess the other part of it that I’m always questioning is we’re multiple people- Oh,

[00:30:37] Joel: true

[00:30:38] Monica: at different times. And so this is why I’m right now, and perhaps if I am in a different state of mind or at a different place in my season of whatever we’re doing in work or life or whatever, it would be different.

[00:30:55] Crissy: I am a single mom. My son just turned 18 and is leaving the nest. But I have been juggling single parenthood, caring for a disabled parent, and managing a career and a household, um, solo since 2019. And before that, you know, juggling marriage and family and everything else for the previous 20 years. So there’s a lot of balls in the air all the time, and a lot of heavy responsibilities both at work and also through church.

[00:31:22] I’m very active and engaged in my faith group and take on a lot there as well in helping to minister and care for, you know, sisters in our community, and neighbors, and friends. So I’m juggling many roles and wearing many different hats at all times.

[00:31:36] Marissa: So you’re fully embodying what it means to be a juggler at all times.

[00:31:41] When you read your report of being a juggler, was there anything in that that surprised you or kind of felt eye-opening about identifying as a juggler?

[00:31:53] Crissy: Something that really surprised me was the quick pivot, because I’ve seen that happen again and again, that I don’t get too attached to any one plan because they have to flex all the time.

[00:32:03] And- Yeah … I was actually recently joking with a friend. We were on a, a trip, and everything was going wrong, and I was contingency planning constantly. There, there was… there’s never any rest in that moment- Wow … because I need to juggle the logistics of where we’re at, where we’re going, how we’re going to get there, and now we’re gonna throw these balls into it.

[00:32:19] How are we gonna make it work? But the ability to abandon a plan fast, I never thought of that as an asset or a strength, so that really surprised me that it was… Yeah … it wasn’t a liability. It was a strength. But it also contributes to the constant stress because my brain is always thinking of- Yeah … a plan B, C, and D in case plan A falls apart.

[00:32:37] Marissa: So I’m curious to know, how does your kind of downside of being a juggler, um, show up for you on a day-to-day basis?

[00:32:46] Crissy: The downside is my son will tell me something that’s happening, and I’ll immediately give him three scenarios. “You can do this, this, and this.” And I think that I need to- Mm … He’s not asking for a solution.

[00:32:56] He’s just asking for his mom to be there and show up for him, and I think that’s been harder for me to do, is to turn it off and just slow down and be present without trying to fix, solve- Yeah … juggle it, move it, make it all better. Um,

[00:33:12] Marissa: yeah.

[00:33:13] Crissy: And also makes it hard to just slow down and be with people sometimes, because I’ll be thinking about solutions to other problems when I need to be fully present and engaged with the people that I’m with.

[00:33:23] And that’s a hard thing to do- Yeah … is to completely stop and turn it off and be where I’m at.

[00:33:27] Marissa: I think, um, what you’re essentially saying is being present without coming to the table with some kind of solution, just, like, purely listening and being with whoever it is and whatever they’re processing feels like a challenge.

[00:33:42] Is that true?

[00:33:42] Crissy: Absolutely.

[00:33:44] Marissa: Where do you think for yourself, like, if you can trace back through your life, do you feel like you can identify where that pattern showed up for you?

[00:33:51] Crissy: Oh, I don’t know if I… I haven’t, haven’t given this one any thought. This is a deep question for a quick answer.

[00:33:56] Marissa: Yeah.

[00:33:57] Crissy: Um, but I would guess it has something to do with being a middle child and trying to keep everybody else around you happy all the time.

[00:34:02] And so being- Mm … accommodating and quick to look for a solution to end sibling tension. So that may have been a root.

[00:34:11] Marissa: Have you been told in your life that you’re really reliable?

[00:34:14] Crissy: Yes. Reliable, responsible, dependable, the go-to to get things done. I’ve often heard that cliche that if you want something done, give it to a busy woman, because they’ll find a way to do it, and I’m like, “Yeah, that’s me.”

[00:34:27] Marissa: Is there any final thoughts that you would give to all the jugglers out there?

[00:34:31] Crissy: Practice self-love, that balls are gonna get dropped, and it’s really easy to let that self-talk turn negative fast. Because I think that I’ve been able to juggle so much for so long, that having a human moment feels like an absolute failure instead of a human moment.

[00:34:49] Monica: Mm.

[00:34:50] Crissy: And that setting down balls doesn’t decrease my worth at all. It just means I’m going to put more worth into things that matter most to me and to moving the goals that I’ve stated are important.

[00:35:10] Marissa: Well, that really resonated with me. I think I can see myself in a lot of them and, and the jugglers that I know, I can see and hear all those phrases, all the things that they shared. Mm-hmm. That really rings true for us jugglers. Um, so hopefully if you’re a juggler, that helped you to feel more seen and just more validated in who you are.

[00:35:34] You’re not alone in being a juggler, so there’s a lot of us, a lot of us out here.

[00:35:39] Joel: So far we’ve closed all of these episodes looking at priorities, which we’re defining as what’s uniquely yours to do, that drives results, and matters right now. So like the fit, it’s all you, the ROI is there, and it’s relevant in the moment.

[00:35:57] For a juggler, to know their priorities is really one of the key things for stepping out of survival mode, and asking for help is part of that, right? Maybe it’s not actually yours to do. Maybe somebody else could do it. So even exercising that kind of growth strategy requires to rethink what’s really yours to do.

[00:36:15] Marissa: Well, this allows us to determine what we can kind of set down.

[00:36:19] Joel: Mm-hmm.

[00:36:19] Marissa: Right? What we can let drop. Not everything is created equally, not everything needs to be done right now, and not everything needs to be done by us. And so when we clarify our priorities, we can really help involve other people so we don’t feel that sense of aloneness- Right

[00:36:38] that we’re so used to feeling constantly of, “It’s just me, it’s all up to me.” This really, when we have clarity on our priorities, and the key there is like what is mine to do, right? What am I uniquely wired to do that drives tho- those results and that matters now? And the rest I can either hand to somebody else or just not worry about-

[00:36:59] Joel: Right

[00:36:59] Marissa: right now. And so that pressure eases up, and we need that because we’re constantly feeling that sense of pressure.

[00:37:09] Joel: If you want to get a better sense of how to relieve that pressure, the work style assessment will help you do that. So again, it’s free. You’re gonna wanna take this. Just go to fullfocus.co/ws.

[00:37:20] Like Marissa said, you’re gonna get a full report. It’s like everything we’ve talked about on this episode, but about 50 times deeper.

[00:37:27] Claudia: Yeah.

[00:37:28] Joel: So it’s totally worth your time. It only takes a few minutes, and it will like turn 100 light bulbs on in your head about how you’re working, what isn’t working, and how to do better, how to do different.

[00:37:44] Thanks for joining us for Focus on This.

[00:37:46] Marissa: This is the most productive podcast on the internet, so please share it with your friends, all the jugglers that you know or you think you know, and be sure to subscribe wherever you listen or at focusonthispodcast.com.

[00:37:59] Joel: We’ll be here next week, where we’re going to talk about our next work style, which is the optimizer.

[00:38:07] Marissa: Ooh, can’t wait. Well, until then, stay focused.