Episode 60: The 30 Minute Hour with Blaine Oelkers

[00:00:00] Kendra Corman: 

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Imperfect Marketing. I am here today with Blaine. He's America's only Chief Results Officer, and for a January launch of Imperfect Marketing, I felt results are what we should be keeping in mind. So I am super excited that he was able to join us today.

So thank you so much for joining. Just a little note on Blaine. He's always loved to help people get results, and he knows which habits bring success and results, how to create them instantly and stick with them for a lifetime. 

He's been a TEDx Speaker, a LinkedIn top connector, and he is a habit master with documented streak of 1,453 days in a row.

That's amazing!

[00:00:53] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yes. That's, and that's an old number. Today was day 1,732. 

[00:00:58] Kendra Corman: 

Wow. 

[00:00:59] Blaine Oelkers: 

But listen, Kendra, thank you for having me on, and thank you for putting this together. You know, I know it's not easy to edit and put it out there for the world, but you're putting it out there and you're helping people. 

I will go on to say that you're helping people not yet born. Someone will find these podcasts 20 years, 30 years from now. They're not even born. And it's gonna help them not only with their marketing, maybe with their mindset and with their results, because this is gonna be that New Year kickoff. So I'm looking forward to sharing what I know and helping people grow a little bit.

[00:01:28] Kendra Corman: 

Thank you. Yes. And we love actionable insights, which is what you are all about, from everything that I've read and listened to by you. So thank you.

So my big first question for you is, one, I think that you talk about a lot. Is it really possible to get an hour's worth of stuff done in just 30 minutes?

[00:01:49] Blaine Oelkers: 

You know, it is. We call it the 30 Minute Hour, and it is possible. And in 2009, I founded a company that is my favorite company that I'm, that's what I'm still doing today, called Selfluence.

And so Selfluence is the art and science of influencing yourself. Or also, I like to say it's the power you already have to influence yourself. 

And so all the things that we teach are things that everything you need is within reach. You're already doing it. And if you decide, if you make a conscious decision, you can master it. 

So we're gonna talk about the 30 minute hour. You already know how to have a 30 minute hour. You've had a bunch of them before. We are gonna remind your brain about it, and then you're never gonna be the same. 

But, I will say Kendra, it's like super powerful this framework. And it's so powerful, I have to make sure that it's used for good and not for evil. So what I'm gonna ask you is, let's say that you and I had four 30 minute hours in a row.

So basically we got four hours of stuff done, but in just two hours. Now that leaves us two extra guilt-free hours to do something for ourselves. 

So you got two guilt-free hours you know, what would you do?

For me, I like to connect with my kids. They're out of the nest, so I probably connect with my kids.

I'm in Phoenix, I like to go out hiking, so I probably take a, do a little hike. I like my Peloton bike, maybe take a Peloton ride. And then I also like to connect with old friends, like, especially like way back in college. 

So if I had a little me time, you know, guilt-free, that's what I would do.

What would you do with two hours of guilt-free time? 

[00:03:22] Kendra Corman: 

Two hours of guilt free time. Wow. Okay. 

So I would read, but possibly take a nap? 

[00:03:30] Blaine Oelkers: 

I like a nap. 

[00:03:31] Kendra Corman: 

I like a nap. Yeah. Or sleep in like, you know, the next day that would be good. Plan a vacation cuz I'm in Michigan, not in Phoenix. And it is cold here right now. In Jan or in, yeah, in January. So yeah, planning a vacation. 

The to-do list and the want to-do list is never ending. So some of the want to-do stuff would be awesome to be able to do. 

[00:03:55] Blaine Oelkers: 

Okay, well that's good. So I want, listeners, I want you to have some of that stuff because we're gonna teach you how to have a 30 minute hour and you're gonna start to have them.

But I want you to then fill some of that extra time with stuff that is good for you, that's good for your soul, right? 

The other thing, I studied people in just their last few weeks of life, you know, and looked for the lessons. And they all said, you know, I said, "well, what do you wish you had more of?" 

And they said, "well, I wish I had more memorable moments with the people that I love."

And when I, we asked deeper questions like, "who is that?" 

Well, it's family, but it's also friends and peers and people that they worked with for many, many years. They just wish they had more memorable moments with those people. 

And then the second thing they do say sometimes is that they wish they had more impact with what they had learned. Like, they wish they could have showed people, you know, the things they learned in their life you know, to help those people along the way during the road of life there. 

But, okay, so now, Let's get back to this. There is the most productive day of the year for people is this day that everybody has some people have it more than once, but there's a day where people get 3x to 10x more stuff done than their average day. Now that's 3x to 10x. We're only looking for 2x. This is gonna be easy. 

But there's this day where people are three to 10 times more productive than their ordinary day. So, Kendra, do you know which day that is? 

[00:05:17] Kendra Corman: 

No, I have no idea. 

[00:05:19] Blaine Oelkers: 

You have no idea. But now it's gonna be very self-evident.

People are gonna go, "oh yes, Blaine. I know that's it. It is for me." 

Okay, so when you think of the 30 minute hour, I want you to think of the day before vacation. So the day before vacation, people get three to 10 times more stuff done. If you think back now, the day's a little chaotic, right? 

But what I did is I studied that, cause I noticed that's my most productive day. So why don't I use some of that? What happens in that day, during my other days?

So I studied it myself and other people. And I created a little framework. It all comes down to I made a little acronym, P D F now. And when I say P D F, people can remember that cuz I say [00:06:00] like, "email me the P D F." Or, "print out the P D F."

And, and so P D F is an easy little acronym. And so what it stands for in day before Vacation Speak, it's, it stands for Plan, Delegate, Focus. And so people, on the day before vacation, they tend to plan more, delegate more, and focus more. 

So let me unpack each one of those so you can see how you can kind of create the 30 minute hours.

So the first one is planning. Now the day before vacation, people typically plan that day out the day before. So we call that N D P, next day planning. But the night before they're, planning their day and they're really scheduling their day, sometimes down to the minute, but at least down to the hour.

So right there, you could save a lot of time, get more stuff done, if you'll just lay out a pretty full robot. Now we know, Life is gonna take, life is gonna hit you, beat you up, and life is gonna come in and steal time and there's gonna be stuff you have to do, but if you start with a plan, you're gonna have a lot more productivity in that day.

[00:07:00] So planning a day is big. The other thing is you can have a 30 minute hour. The first hour of the day is. On the day before vacation, people typically get up 30 to 60 minutes earlier that day. 

Now, I'm not saying do that every day, but let's say, look, you say, "I wanna start tomorrow super productive."

Just get up 30 minutes earlier. They wake up earlier. They also have a very clear vision for the day, like day before vacation. You're like, this stuff has to get done.

And then you're real clear with what doesn't have to get done. The stuff you can defer or delegate to other people. 

The other thing that's interesting about the planning process on the day before vacation.

So Kendra, have you heard of the the the 80 20 rule? Have you heard of that? 

[00:07:38] Kendra Corman: 

Yes. 

[00:07:40] Blaine Oelkers: 

Okay. So do you believe in it? Do you believe it to be true? 

[00:07:42] Kendra Corman: 

I do. I do. I find it to be true on a regular basis. 

[00:07:45] Blaine Oelkers: 

Okay, so people say that, but it isn't until the day before vacation that they step in and they actually use it, right?

So, so if you look at, you know, the 80 20 rules, basically saying 20% of what you do produces 80% of your results, [00:08:00] right? 

So what happens is on the day before vacation, you really focus on that 20% that stuff that has to, that only you can move the needle on. And then you tend to oust the 80 you tend to delegate or defer.

So that leads us into the second one. So first one's planning second one's delegate. So what happens on the day before vacation? People think "who" before "due." 

So they think "who" before "due", they think, "who could do this before I go do this?"

Because they're not gonna be around to do it, right? So who's gonna feed the dog? Who's gonna do this and stuff while, while you're gone? Who's gonna watch the phone? 

So you know all that stuff. You delegate it out and you start to think "who" before "due", and you defer. 

And I started bringing that. I call it kind of a proactive procrastination. I bring that into my regular day. So at the top of the day, let's say I have a list of 10 things to do.

I know, like let's say I only have one hour to do stuff today, you know, and I've got, you know, eight hours of stuff. I say, if I only have one hour, what do I do? What's essential, what is that 20%? 

And then I [00:09:00] push all the other stuff to the next day. Now, typically my day ends early, so then I have time. I can start working on tomorrow if I want to.

But a lot of times I'll find high value activities to substitute in, and if I push the things out like people do on the day before vacation, they start pushing stuff out, it's defer and delegate. 

You know, I don't have enough time for that. Put it on the back burner. That'll have to wait till I get back.

And so much of life can wait. You might not think, other people might be screaming. Many, many things in life can wait. So look for that delegation, look for that deferment.

Now, where I personally get my most 30 minute hours is from focus. Right? If you think about your, you have this weird, fierce focus on the day before vacation.

Think about all the stuff you don't do. No idle chit-chat, no long responses. Shiny objects don't look that shiny when you don't have time cuz you're going on vacation. Right? 

You know, so you're, you have just so much more focus and ability to remove distractions. One of the most important things about your focus is do, do you like James [00:10:00] Bond movies?

Kendra, are you a James Bond movie fan? 

[00:10:02] Kendra Corman: 

Yes, my husband is a big James Bond fan. 

[00:10:06] Blaine Oelkers: 

Okay. So do you know the very first James Bond movie to ever come out? It was in 1963. Do you know which which one that was? 

[00:10:14] Kendra Corman: 

My gosh, he's gonna be so mad at me cause I do not off the top of my head . 

[00:10:19] Blaine Oelkers: 

Okay, so you kind of said it there because it was Dr. No. So it was Dr. No. 

And so what happens is on the day before vacation, you literally become Dr. No. So people say, blank, can you do this blank, can you do that? I'm like, no, no, no, no. 

Like I become Dr. No. And so that day before vacation, if you can bring that back in, you'll get more time in your day. By being like, by being Dr. No. 

And no is now my default response. No, I have to check with my wife. No, I have to check with my schedule, you know? No, I'm working on this big project. Having like a big personal project that you're working on allows you to more easily say no. Sometimes I say once you know, then you can know like k n o w.

Once you know, and that has the [00:11:00] word no right in the middle of it. Then, then you can say no. So you become Dr. No. 

The other thing about your focus on the day before vacation. People tend to stay on schedule more. So like, if I have a meeting at one and then I'm meeting at two, then I'm meeting at three. Like I stay on schedule on that day before vacation cuz I can't really deviate cause I've got so much to do. 

And the other thing that we use on the day before vacation was use timers a lot. Like, Hey, I've only got so many minutes to do this thing. And so I realized on the day before vacation, I'd say, okay, I only have 15 minutes to do my email.

I'm gonna get in and get out. And what I started doing is, I started using timers. Now I use timers during my regular day. If I'm gonna do internet research or I'm going to, you know check social media. 

I've gotta say, tell Siri, set a timer, 15 minutes, 30 minutes, whatever it is, but use timers to kind of get that, that time back.

And then the last part of the focus where I personally get my most 30 minute hours, comes from this fact that you become a tasking [00:12:00] master on the day before vacation. 

Now, there's three types of tasking, singletasking, multitasking, and batch tasking. 

Now, singletasking, this is where I actually get my most, is where there are things that only you can do and if you will, singly focus on that task and remove all distractions. The whole outside world, you will have 30 minute hours. 

For example, I can get an, I write a lot of articles. I can get an hour's worth of article writing done in 30 minutes if I will turn my phone off or maybe put it in an airplane mode. But, but I like to just turn it all the way off, turn on my computer, maybe even turn the wifi off so there's no way to get to me. 

But I'm focused in on just that one screen. My door's closed. The world is, the world can't touch me. And I can get an hour's worth of stuff done in just 30 minutes with total single focus. 

Now, sometimes in the beginning, Listeners, if you're trying this, you may have the monkey mind. Now the monkey mind, like you, you're trying to focus on writing the article and you're, "oh, I gotta do this, I gotta do this. I gotta get ready for Kendra's podcast, blah, blah, blah." 

All these [00:13:00] things. Now, when those voices come, just have a piece of paper there and just write 'em down very quickly. Don't capture them. Don't, don't, don't try to fight them. Take 'em out and put 'em on a piece of paper and then just go right back to what you're doing. 

And so over time I've been able to kind of like calm down the monkey mind. Actually, I'll do a little mind dump at the start of my single tasking time so that then I'm, you know, that I can, it does, it doesn't really stop me as much.

So, alright, so that's Singletasking. Now multitasking gets a bad rap sometimes but it's when you can do two things at the same time without sacrificing the quality of either one. So that's key. 

Like for example, I can have high quality driving while I'm listening to Kendra's podcast, right? I can do those two things with high quality at the same time.

I can exercise and I can listen to podcasts. I used to love family time, and I love my family, you know, and I loved exercise. So I taught the family to play tennis. We go out for 30 minutes to play tennis. I got 30 minutes of tennis, but 30 minutes of family time. So there again, that synergy [00:14:00] of the multitask.

But you, you have to be able to do those things, you know, both of high quality. And then the last one is batch tasking. Now batch tasking, which we, you just batch stuff together so you know, if you have three errands to run on the day before vacation, you, you don't run one, come home, run another. You go out, you batch 'em all together and you do 'em together.

If you batch phone calls, you'll get more done. If you batch your computer work you can even batch your interruptions. So, so let's say, for example, let's say you go into work, or wherever your work environment is. 

And you tell anybody that could reach you or interrupt you, you say, look, from nine to 11 I'm gonna be in singletasking mode. Do not come in here unless the building's on fire. Right? 

But at the, after those two hours of single focus mode, I'm gonna come out and I'll, we'll do 20 minutes of, you can ask me anything you were gonna ask me. 

So you kind of almost in an office hours scenario there. All those interruptions into one period, you know, one 20 minute you know, segment.

My wife and I, we used to text each [00:15:00] other all day long, and like as soon as I see the text and I'm interrupted, then we realize, wait a second, you can have a shared note on the iPhone. 

You can have the shared note that you don't, it doesn't ring ding or bing, but all the stuff's captured in there.

Then when we have dinner together or lunch together or whatever, then we look at that list and, you know, we'll say, "Hey, I put something on the list." 

So anyway, there's lots of ways to batch it. So when you think of the 30 minute hour, think, day before vacation mode, P D F, plan, delegate focus. And the overriding, the overarching thing that happens on the day before vacation is you release your inner perfectionist, right?

Done is better than perfect on the day before vacation. So bring back into your regular day. I have a little card here about the day before vacation, 30 minute hour. 

And sometimes people say, "well, where are you going on vacation?" 

Cause I'm like, "oh, I'm in day before vacation mode." 

I'm like, "I'm not going anywhere, I'm just getting a lot of stuff done today." 

Right. So does that make sense? 

[00:15:54] Kendra Corman: 

Oh my gosh, that makes perfect sense. 

So I love, I always say progress, not [00:16:00] perfection. So done is better than perfect all the time, right? 

And then I, yeah, things can wait and we have a tendency to have. I call it head trash, cause one of my sales coaches, when I started my business, used to talk about head trash all the time.

I had head trash around a lot of that stuff. I think a lot of us do. And until, you know, it's, you know, you put the pedal to the metal there, getting ready for vacation, your head trash gets in the way of a lot of that stuff. 

and so going day before vacation mode I think is, is really, really powerful. I also loved what you said about "no", and that is actually my word of 2023.

So my word of the year is no 

[00:16:45] Blaine Oelkers: 

Nice, I love that. 

[00:16:47] Kendra Corman: 

Because I do not use it very much at all. I'm always "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." 

And then I'm like, "oh no. Oh no. Oh no. How am I gonna get this all done?" 

And, [00:17:00] yeah, I'm embracing the word no. And 

[00:17:02] Blaine Oelkers: 

No is gonna help you avoid what we call the 90 minute hour. So the 90 minute hours where someone asks for an hour of your time and it takes 90 minutes, or they ask for 10 minutes and it takes 30.

Right? So you are, that is a powerful word. And I would say the biggest thing is that you preplan your no responses. Like, like something that feels appropriate and good for you. 

You know, like I can easily say on the personal side, "I need to check with my wife on that." And that just gives me enough gap to think, okay, do I really wanna do this or not?

You know? And then on the business side, for me, it's having a bigger thing. Like I'm saying no to the bigger, yes. 

You know, and sometimes people may can be put off by that, but you, you've gotta, you know, you've gotta kind of achieve the stuff that you're here for. Not kind of other people's stuff .

[00:17:46] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, no, I think that that's important. 

And I love timers. I use timers all the time. I do, anytime I have free time in my calendar, which I actually labeled as focus time I do Pomodoros. 

[00:17:59] Blaine Oelkers: Nice. 

[00:18:00] Kendra Corman: 

So 25 minutes focused, single tasking, whatever it happens to be. And then, I mean, even if it's email, it's like, all right, it's an email triage.

you know, 25 minutes and then I get a five minute break. And so I get that refresh and reset and I love it. I actually have a visual time timer that I use and actually have on my desk that I use to set my little Pomodoros and it really helps, you know, keep me focused, which I think is awesome. 

[00:18:28] Blaine Oelkers: 

You kind of train your brain over time.

Like, just like I was talking about the monkey mind. You train the monkey mind to be quiet, but you're also with the, with that method, you're kind of training your brain to be focused for those, you know, x number of minutes, which is super, super good. 

And there's a lot of new, new technologies. One I just started recently was using personal soundscapes. So there are, there are sounds of productivity. 

So there are, you know, there's one company called Endel, but they actually create a personal soundscape of these kind of notes of music. But it's a, [00:19:00] it's a combination of sounds that's designed for whatever you're doing.

Like if you're exercising, it's one kind of sound. But if you're trying to do focused work and it, if you give it permission, it knows the weather, the time of day, your heart rate. I've got a, an apple watch. Okay. It can look at all those factors and then feed me the sounds that, that make that you know the best.

So, so anyway, but, but again, once you train your brain, right you know, to do that stuff, it, it can become easier and easier. And the same thing with no, once you become Dr no, it, it it, it becomes easier and easier to say. 

[00:19:32] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah. Well, and I think it's important to have tools at your disposal that fit for how you do things.

[00:19:39] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah. 

[00:19:40] Kendra Corman: 

So, like, you know, if you know that you're not gonna be able to focus for 25 minutes and you're gonna get all shiny object syndrome which I suffer from, you know, knowing to write down the things that are distracting you so that you don't have to worry about it and it's not popping back in and you don't feel like you have to handle it right, then that's huge.[00:20:00] 

[00:20:00] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah. Yeah. And I you know, even if I'm, I just get a lot of ideas, right? So even if I'm driving, I'll just tell Siri to take a note, right? 

And so you don't even have to, you could be driving and you can capture that stuff. I call it mind capture, but I'm always capturing those ideas. Then I can kind of let 'em go and I feel, I don't know, sometimes I feel physically lighter after good mind dump.

you know where now, now mind dumps can get overwhelming. Like I, you do a mind dump and you a hundred things come out of your head. Right? The key there though is you've gotta process the list. 

So when everyone does a mind dump, I say leave about five minutes at the end where you just do a very quick process and whatever timeframe you're looking at, like I, let's say I do a weekly one.

So on Fridays I do this mind dump. Then I'm looking at the next week, and so if there's something I can do within five minutes or less, I put an N next to it for now. 

You know, and then if it's something I can delegate, it gets a little d If it's something I need to schedule to be done in the next week, I put an S next to it.

And then if it's something that, that is not, does not have to be done next week I put an L for [00:21:00] later or, or let go. And I, but you do that scan like very quickly, just a minute or two. 

But when you get done with it now, it's like I got some ends I can do, I can get some quick wins. Here are the S'S I have to schedule, and most of my list tends to be L's, which, you know, I'll revisit again another week.

[00:21:17] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah. And I really like, you know, again, when you're talking about the mind dump and the lists and the planning, you know, one of the things that, that you're doing is you're a little bit visualizing your day. 

And so you talked about, you know, the night before, the day before vacation, you know, you know what you have to get done and you're visualizing that.

I think, was it, was it Einstein or Edison? Somebody was saying that never go to bed without a request to your subconscious. 

[00:21:45] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah. 

[00:21:45] Kendra Corman: 

And I think that that's so powerful because if you know what you're going to do that next day, that can give you just so much more, I think, out of your day than [00:22:00] if it's not planned. I used to plan my day in the morning.

[00:22:04] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah. 

[00:22:05] Kendra Corman: 

Most of it didn't get done. I think I'm a little bit less realistic in the morning or something, but if I plan at night, I know what else is on my schedule, and I'm like, all right, that's not all getting done. Let's focus on what that is. 

My scan, my calendar's usually locked in the day before, so that night I can fill in when I have time to do other things.

[00:22:25] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah, I agree a hundred percent. I say never let a day end without planning the next one. And I tell people, if you don't do that planning, it's like, let's say you walk down the tarmac and you're getting on the plane and you look over in the cockpit, eh, there's no pilot in there. You're like, nah, it must be he or she must be in the restroom or something.

So you sit down and you know, and then the flight attendant comes by and you say, "hey, where's the pilot?" 

They say, "there is no pilot." 

I mean, how long are you gonna stay on the plane? There is no pilot and then the flight attend says, "well, I might try to fly it cuz there's no pilot." 

I mean, I'm out of there. Right? You know, and I, that's what you're doing. If you start your day and you, and you don't have a plan, [00:23:00] it's like getting on a plane. 

I'm like, don't get on that flight. There's no pilot. You don't know where you're going. You don't know what's gonna happen. And it's so important to, to kind of make that plan for the day.

And then when you wake up, you tend to get going a lot faster, like the day before vacation because you know what you're doing. Especially like that first 30 minutes. If that could all be pre-thought out, you know, then you're gonna have a much better day. And a lot of times I. I like people to, I, I say win early, win often, but I like a few wins, like in that first 30 minutes.

Sometimes people say, you know, make your bed or just, but some way that you get some wins and if they're personal, like for you personally, right? 

So, so I, I mean, we talked about habits and, and you know, I created this one habit where I wanted to read the Bible app, but I wanted to take a mind shower.

Like every morning I want to take this mind shower. You talk about head trash. I, I talk about hacking your head trash. 

But, you know, we wash our bodies every day, but I'm like, wait a second. I need to wash my mind out. There's so much social media news, family and friends who don't really mean it, but they don't know how I work from home, and what I do, and what's a Chief Results officer anyway? 

So all this [00:24:00] trash, I, I need to wash that and take it out every single day.

And, and so I about 21 second habits, how to create a habit in 21 seconds, not 21 days. And there's a couple different keys, but the, one of the first keys is habit. 

And so what I did is I thought, okay, look, what is the first thing I do every morning without fail? No willpower required. Yes, I open my smartphone.

Now sometimes the alarm is going off on my phone. But I look on my smartphone. And so what I did is I moved all the apps off the homepage and I just put the Bible app in Headspace, is this one app I'm using for the mind shower and, and so, and I said, I can't touch anything else on my phone until I do those two apps.

And that the, so the first part is habit linking to something you're already doing. But the second part is you have to surf some urge to get yourself to do it. So for me, like when I opened it up, my son lives in Denmark, you know, so I got text messages, I wanna see, I need to check email, what orders have come in, you know, I just want to know like what's happened while I was asleep.

And I have this big urge to do that, but I surf that [00:25:00] urge, the energy, the drive behind. To make sure that I do those other two apps, get my mind shower, do the Bible app, and so I've done that now, 1700 and something days in a row without missing. Because again, habit linking, you know, and urge surfing, those are, those are big.

I had a friend just recently an attorney client and she's like, "I'm not doing the plan. I'm not doing the next day planning." 

I said, "okay. And what do you do first thing in the morning? No willpower card?"

She goes, "I make a cup of coffee."

"Like, like, you really like coffee?" 

"I really love coffee." 

"Do you have one of those machines that like grinds the beans and all?"

"Yeah, I do." 

"Okay, here's what I want. You wake up, put, put a pad of paper and a pen by the coffee machine. And when you wake up, you're allowed to make the coffee, smell the coffee, but you can't take the first sip of the coffee till you start your plan for the day."

Right. And so now she had the habit linking.

She doesn't have to think about coffee. You know, she's gonna do it every day. And then, you know, she, the urge to want to drink it makes her at least start the list. Now she can drink her coffee while she makes the list if she wants. But now she's got that habit and it's, it's on kind of automatic pilot.[00:26:00] 

[00:26:00] Kendra Corman: 

Well, I think that's really powerful. You know, especially that habit linking piece. Cause if there's something that you're already doing and that you can tie it to, that just really makes it a lot easier. Right? 

[00:26:13] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah , you need like a little cue or a little, little something to remind you of it in the, in that moment of that item.

But, you know, my wife had to fill out this headache log. She used to have daily migraine headaches and then we realized, well wait a minute . You brush your teeth twice a day, dentists recommended two minutes. There's four minutes a day, just put the headache log under the toothbrush, right? So now as she brushes her teeth, she filled it out.

She went 90 days in a row without missing a day. 

So there's so many things. You wake up, you get dressed, maybe you go to work, you have breakfast. I mean, there's all these things that are naturally happening, you know, every single day that you can, you can have it link things. 

[00:26:48] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, I'm definitely gonna have to think about how to have it link things to, but yeah, like I live off my calendar.

If my calendar says that I need to be someplace, that's where I go. If my calendar says that, [00:27:00] you know, it's there's a friend of mine in one of my networking groups and he says, yeah, if anybody wants, including his wife to play a good joke on him, just put a meeting on his calendar. He'll be wherever the heck it says he is gonna be.

And I'm like, yes. I follow my calendar to a T. And so I've actually started to build in my startup ritual and my shutdown rituals into my calendar. And I treat them like a meeting. Now that's the trick, is treating them like a meeting, you know? And I can't leave the office at night until I've planned for the next day.

That's the key. 

And then one of the other things that I've tried in the past that I have not been a hundred percent successful with, but I'm planning to be successful with in 2023, is getting my email down to zero. At the end of the day, it's just taking that, taking that hour, and it's not a full hour because there's other things I do in that hour, like planning for the next day.

But you know, taking that time to triage the emails, making sure that I've seen and touched every email that came in, [00:28:00] because otherwise it's weighing on my mind. If I come in to, to the 200 emails that came in the day before. I have no idea what other people want, and they're like, did you see my email? No.

Like, that's not a good answer in a service business, right? 

[00:28:15] Blaine Oelkers: 

Right. Yeah, it's important. I think you know, it is important to keep winning too, even if you have to chunk down the, the thing, you know, like even if like you created another file, you know, in your email where you could quickly just, okay, that's not urgent.

You know, or, or the things that are urgent or important, you put them into a different file so that you could, instead of like skipping it, you say, oh gosh, I only have 20 minutes to do email. Not an hour. Just triage it, you know, and still get that passed through so you don't, you know, so you keep that commitment to yourself.

It's, people don't realize how those create the head trash too, like, People start an exercise program and they're like, I'm gonna work out 30 minutes a day, Blaine.

I'm like, oh, that's awesome. All right, let's check in next week. 

You know? And then they, you know, they only did it two or three days and they feel terrible.

And I said, look, let's take it down. [00:29:00] Like if you've gotta take it down to 10 minutes, that's fine. Or one minute, just gimme some pushups and some jumping jacks before you get in the shower. Let's count that and start where you are and then kind of build up, you know?

In the morning, I love a 10 minute mind shower, but if I don't have enough time, I'll take a two or three minute one. I have time for two or three minutes. And, and, and maybe I have to be in my car driving somewhere doing it. But, but I mean, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna get that in. 

So make it, make it small enough to keep the win going because then you're winning the, the battle of the brain chemistry because, you know, there is this brain chemistry where, you know, it wants you to succeed, it wants you to win.

And if you're not, you know, then, then it's gonna start producing some negative stuff and, and zap your energy.

[00:29:42] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, And I think it's about, you know, also when you're talking about someone who's starting like an exercise regimen or anything else, it's looking from where you started. 

So what you achieved, maybe your ideal is, you know, five days a week, but you, you did two, which was better than the zero you did last week, [00:30:00] you know? 

And so you do, you also need to take a look and celebrate your achievements too. Even if you miss your ideal, you know, as you go and help keep out the head trash for sure. Right? 

[00:30:10] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah. Yeah. And you, you're right cuz you'll win the mind side of it if you measure the gain and not the gap, right?

The gain from where you came and not the gap to where you this ideal that may end up being like the horizon that you never get to, you know?

[00:30:25] Kendra Corman: 

So I read that book, the Gap and the Gain 

[00:30:28] Blaine Oelkers: 

and Sullivan is a good, it's a good one. 

[00:30:31] Kendra Corman: 

I loved it. Loved it. And so it has definitely shifted my perspective and I am definitely working on living in the gain and not the gap and not talking about all the emails that I haven't gotten to, you know, looking at all emails I did get through cause there were a lot of them.

So, you know, again, I think it, I think it's definitely helps your perspective a ton and getting those wins helps with everything. 

So, you know, again, [00:31:00] 20, 21 second habits. Tying things to what you're already doing helps make that a habit. 

I'm always jealous of my husband cuz he is very disciplined in what he does. And so if he sets his mind to something, he does it without fail. Like he does not like, he's like, okay, I need to take vitamins every day. Done. And he does it every day. 

And I'm. Oh, forgot to do those yesterday. 

But he sets it up so that he is set up for success and he's really easily training his mind and his behavior that way, which I'm jealous of cuz I'm usually moving too fast to remember all the things that I forgot to remember, I think. 

[00:31:43] Blaine Oelkers: 

But you, you have a lot of habits that you're really good at already, like, like brushing your teeth and things like that, that you could link in, you know you know, to to that. Right. 

You know, and, and again, like, like the first time you open the refrigerator for the day, you know, there could be a note there to [00:32:00] remind you of the vitamins cuz you know you're gonna open the fridge every day to get water, juice, or what, whatever it is.

You look for those things in your day where you can set up a cue or little trigger, you know, to that other habit. And, and you, everyone is a habit master. 

So don't, don't be fooled by those ones that make it look easy. Like your husband, you, you have a lot of good, good habits that you could link up to and, and, and make stuff happen.

[00:32:24] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah, and I think that that's really important and a great way to look at it. And I love your 30 minute hour. 

I, you know, planning your day, getting up earlier, not necessarily every day, but getting up earlier so that you're not quite as rushed, right? I'm always feeling rushed in the morning and knowing, planning your day, you know, again, the night before, not focusing on head trash.

Things can wait. There are things that don't need to get done today and can be done later and be pushed off you know. 

embracing the word no, which I am doing. Staying on schedule, setting [00:33:00] timers, all of that stuff is so important. 

I'm a huge fan of batching. I do a ton of content batching myself. If I'm writing for clients and things like that, it's, you know, okay, let's do this client, and then, you know, rotate through. And it, it helps keep you focused than when you're jumping around all the time, cuz jumping around really hurts productivity. 

I think that there's just so much actionable stuff I hope that everybody finds value in in the 30 minute hour. But I do have a question that I ask everybody. The show is called Imperfect Marketing, and so what has been your biggest marketing lesson learned, Blaine? 

[00:33:40] Blaine Oelkers: 

You know, I've learned so many you know, trying to distill it down. I mean, at first, you know, that people buy an emotion and justify with logic. I think that was a big aha moment for me I is that you have to kind of create the emotional landscape for the purchase and then have the justification there, you know, with the logic, you know. 

And [00:34:00] people buy the destination, not the plane ride. I, I love that one to really focus on, you know, what benefits you're giving to people. They don't really kind of care how they get there. They, they're not buying the plane ride. They're, they're buying the, the destination. 

And then the other one I think was, you know, this guy Dan Kennedy, he talked about selling money at a discount.

And when I really got that, basically if I said, I'm selling $10 bills for $5, how many did you wanna buy? 

And you would be like, "all that I could, I would go get loans. I would go find the money."

Right? And so if you can get your, your offer, you know your business to be communicated, that value where you're selling money at a discount, that's that that's the easiest sale.

So anyway, I squeezed three in there. 

[00:34:44] Kendra Corman: 

Yeah. Well, no, and I think that there's a lot to it. I love that concept of selling money at a discount, cuz it is all about value, you know? That no matter what you are doing in your business, if you know, again, I'm, I'm big into email marketing, but the [00:35:00] focus is always on what's in it for your reader.

And if you focus on the value, you know, that is selling money at a discount. So you, if you're providing that value it's really gonna help drive your success. 

[00:35:14] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yes, a hundred percent. 

[00:35:15] Kendra Corman: 

And then just an off topic. So which Bible app do you use?

[00:35:19] Blaine Oelkers: 

I use the YouVersion Bible app. 

[00:35:21] Kendra Corman: 

Okay. We'll put a link to that in the chat for sure.

[00:35:24] Blaine Oelkers: 

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, the other thing is interesting that, that keeps track of the, the streak for you. Right. Keeps track of all that stuff. 

And then Headspace is, is what I use for the mind chart, but I also have used Calm, that's another great one. And then Insight Timer. 

And the, the head space and the calm they have, they have free, but then they also have pro versions. 

But then there's a free one called Insight Timer that allows you to even do meditations and different things with other people. And then there's one called Abide, which is a, a Christian meditation one. 

So I, I use all, all those different ones for the mind showers, but, but there, the thing I like is, you know, Headspace and [00:36:00] the YouVersion Bible app, they track your streaks, right?

So it's like, that's why I would say documentable. You know, provable streak, you know? So, yeah.

[00:36:07] Kendra Corman: 

No, those are, those are great. And I was just curious because I had heard, a friend of mine was telling me about one that she was using and now I can't remember the name of it. But I think it's always, it always adds value to, to share those tools that we come across.

So thank you again so much for joining me on Imperfect Marketing. I appreciate it. And for all of you listening, I hope that you got a ton out of this and are going to be pretending that today or tomorrow is the day before vacation, so that you can get more done in less time. Because, there's always more to do, right?

So definitely, definitely look at that and if you got something out of this, it would be great if you would rate and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. Have a great rest of your day.