The OYT Coaching Series – Johnny Owens at Owens Recovery Science – Doing the Hard Stuff

You have likely heard the phrase “Eat the frog.” It comes from the iconic Brian Tracy. It means that you have to keep doing the hard stuff every day. This means can’t procrastinate the problematic things. Leadership is a constant battle of being uncomfortable when you do the hard stuff. Today we talk about doing the hard stuff with Johnny Owens, founder of Owens Recovery Science. His company is #136 on the 2019 Inc 5000 list. Johnny begins by sharing his top strategy for optimizing his time, which is learning to delegate better. He shares insights on the delegation that has improved the company’s efficiency. In part two, he is coached on doing the hard stuff. You will discover how to do the hard stuff first thing each day inside this episode.

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Johnny Owens: The Transcript

Target Audience: Johnny Owens is the Director of Clinical Education Owens Recovery Science. The Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine is a global nonprofit organization created by Congress in 1983 to assist in accelerating the progress of military medicine. Our unmatched experience in military medical research makes us uniquely qualified to assist investigators and clinicians in managing scientific research.

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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Johnny Owens
Started moving in this whole concept of if it makes me nervous, I should probably do it. Because when I walk through that cloud and get to the other side, it’s always like, wow, that was so worth it. And that’s usually I think what kind of pushes the needle even further is when I tackle those kind of moments. It’s just getting through it. It’s so easy, I think to just get distracted. And when you’re in a busy business, there’s a lot of other things.

Intro [0:28]
Welcome to Growth Think Tank. This is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest-growing privately held companies. I am the host. My name is Gene Hammett. I hope leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow?

Gene Hammett [0:45]
When you think about delegation, you think that you do it well, today? Well, delegation is a part of leadership. And I think we all have different aspects of the delegation that we focus on. Today, we’re going to be looking at delegation from a couple of different perspectives. But we’re also going to be looking at the challenges of being a leader who’s got to put themselves out there. This is part of the special episodes of optimizing your time series with CEOs. And I’m really excited to bring you today’s guest. He is the CEO and founder of Owens Recovery Science. They are a medical device company, they do clinical trials, they do research, they do a tremendous amount of stuff, they’ve made the Inc list. And today we talk with Johnny about his number one strategy for optimizing his time, it really is talking about delegation the right way for him. And so maybe you can take some pieces behind this. And it really is a systematic way to show what he could let go of, and where he can let his team step in to support him. He’s got a very small team. But don’t take that into account. Because this is a great way to look at delegation. In part two is the coaching section of this where we look at something he’s working on today, something that’s not quite the way he wants it to be. And we look at it from different perspectives, we actually do a little bit of reframing on this concept of eating the frog, which is about doing the most difficult task first thing in the morning, we talked about putting himself out there, we talked about what he can do differently and see it differently, and how he must show up to really create movement in this area. This is that coaching series, it really is something I’m proud to share with you.

Gene Hammett [2:24]
Hopefully, it triggers something for you in a good way that you realize there’s something you can learn from it. And if you have a different issue that you’re facing, here’s my challenge to you is why not sit down with someone who’s an expert sit down with someone who can help you figure out what it is, if you want to get some free resources, then you can go to Gene hammett.com. But if you want to talk to me about what’s going on in your life in your world, go to genehammett.com. And find the start of your journey. And you can actually go through this and you can try coaching, you can see what it’s like to be a coach, and you can actually get the clarity you need to identify what’s really going on and create a gameplan for you moving forward. I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of these. And if you’re an audience member listening, I’d love to gift you that right now. Don’t think of this as a charity. Don’t think of this like a sales call. I’m trying to transform how you think and move as a leader. And if you’re willing to let me do that, then just go to Gene hackman.com. And go start your journey right now. Now here’s the interview with John.

Gene Hammett [3:25]
Hey, Johnny, how are you?

Johnny Owens [3:27]
Good. How are you, Gene?

Gene Hammett [3:29]
I am fantastic. excited to have you here on Growth Think Tank. This is your second time being on.

Johnny Owens [3:34]
Yes. And the world has changed a ton since the first time I was on and hopefully, 2021 comes out a bit better.

Gene Hammett [3:43]
Well, we’re all hoping for the same. But we’re going to talk about time today. And this is part of the optimizer time series. And Johnny, your company owns recovery science has been on the Inc list. Tell us a little bit about the company and what you guys are doing.

Johnny Owens [4:01]
Yeah, so we’re a medical company with kind of three components. We have a medical device that we distribute primarily for orthopedics. We do medical research, focused on how this device in the way we use it can help with injuries and illness. And again, most of those are orthopedic trials. But we do have some now diabetes trials going on in Germany, Parkinson’s trials, we’re moving into those groups. Our portfolio of studies is in the 40s. And then we do medical education. So we’ll train clinicians on how to use our device and what our research shows and how they should apply it.

Gene Hammett [4:40]
Well, I remember talking to you before we had a great conversation and today we’re going to go in a little bit different direction with optimizing your time. We’re getting really specific on what other founders have done to really improve the way they spend their time so they can work on the most valuable things. What did you tell me? What’s the one thing that moves the needle for you?

Johnny Owens [4:59]
Delegation 100% not being a control freak, and taking my Superman cape off that I have to be the hero that touches everything in our organization.

Gene Hammett [5:11]
You know, it’s interesting why you put that because I think a lot of people get benefit out of being the hero.

Gene Hammett [5:17]
Yeah, I mean, maybe it was some sort of false ego thing. There’s a control freak to it. And we, you know, we’re fairly small and employee wise, but our growth was really, really fast. I mean, just a hockey stick growth. And, you know, I felt like, things are gonna fall apart if I wasn’t touching it. And I had to learn that I was spending time on things that I was mucking up or was wasting my time. Now, when you said small, as I remember, before, you had about eight employees, is that still about the same thing? Yeah, we’re still around that size. We really, we try and stay lean has helped us a ton this year. And we have a lot of systems in place that helps us to keep that size small.

Gene Hammett [6:01]
I heard this the other day, I think it’s another podcast on masters of scale. Or maybe I was just listening to some of these experts. And they were talking like the new measure now is not the number of employees and revenue, but it’s how much revenue you have per employee. So you guys have been pretty good there.

Johnny Owens [6:16]
Yeah, yeah. I like that metric. So yeah, we really are and it’s, it’s nice, you know, we get to share the wealth with it with our, with our folks that are here, and it keeps them motivated. If we are going to bring in someone new, you know, we really check to make sure everyone’s comfortable because when someone new comes in, you know, the bonuses aren’t as big. And we know if they’re like, yeah, we need someone we know, we’re just that busy that they’re willing to give up money. Because we need to help.

Gene Hammett [6:42]
I like that measurement. I mean, it doesn’t work in every industry the same way. But it is a good measurement per industry. So anybody listening in it might want to take a check and see what your competitors are doing on a revenue per headcount. Johnny, when you talk about delegation, what is the what is your realistic approach to that give us some details behind delegation.

Gene Hammett [7:06]
So one thing I did is, I have an assistant now, and so I’m kind of funneling everything through her. And she almost tells me like, Okay, I think whenever, you know, one of our other people, this is perfect for them. So I did a first step delegation to get in another person who’s kind of like my left brain, that’s, that’s helping with it. And now, the first thing I do when I when I’m taking on a project or looking at email is saying, you know, would this be better if someone else handled it, not only to get it off my plate but also is someone I’m not super detail-oriented. might sound counterintuitive, when I’m doing these, you know, medical clinical trials. But I’m kind of always been come at it from the big picture of you. And so if it’s something really detail-oriented, that those things can’t slip through the cracks.

Gene Hammett [8:00]
Those right off the bat, I try and see if someone else can do it. And I keep a little journal now and I just write down what is gonna, what I’m about to do. And I just put either an arrow up, which means I, it’s, I like doing this and I’m excited. Or I put an arrow down like Jesus, I hate this. And the things that have Errol down, I kind of review and try and see, you know, someone else would this be in their wheelhouse because there are some things that I just, I just despise doing some things just have to do but some things. I know that other people could do better and it would make them happier and make me happier.

Gene Hammett [8:36]
I mean, visiting a paper journal on that. Is that what you mean?

Johnny Owens [8:39]
Yes, it’s just, it’s just this with a bunch of little scribbles in it. And if you look at it, it would look crazy with these arrows up arrow down arrow straight across, which I’m kind of agnostic to the task, but Okay, yeah. And then it makes me focus overall of like, what, what I want to get out of this company, you know, if I’ve got a lot of down arrows, and then something to wrong, I hope that I have more at the end of the day, another week, a lot more up arrows, which means I’m happy with what I’m doing.

Gene Hammett [9:04]
You know, I was recently listening to a podcast with my son who’s a 13-year-old who wants to be an entrepreneur. And I thought I would bring him into this and an easy way wouldn’t have to read some business books, even though he’s read some. But we were listening to Tony Shay’s story and Tony Shay’s first company, you know, rest in peace, but he walked away from the buyout. So he had actually sold the company and walked away from all the future payments because he was no longer happy with what he was doing at that company.

Johnny Owens [9:35]
Yeah,

Gene Hammett [9:36]
And then that’s what you’re kind of doing. You’re kind of creating a system for yourself of logging in what you’re doing. And then you’re, you’re putting the arrows based on whether it gives you energy takes it away, or kind of neutral, right?

Johnny Owens [9:51]
Yeah, yeah. If there’s a lot of down arrows then I’m definitely gonna do like Tony Shea and I’m gonna have to find something else you know, and his story is just so fascinating because it seemed like he had everything figured out. And then now where we’re seeing kind of the end times for him where we’re definitely different. So it’s gonna be an interesting case study from an entrepreneur’s perspective of what happened.

Gene Hammett [10:14]
Yeah, I was going back to the beginning of this. I haven’t gotten into that. I don’t think it’s fully out What, what? what caused the demise him? And I’m still, I guess I’m curious as you are you, Johnny, when you talk about delegation, it’s not just identifying what you’re going to give away? Do you have certain approaches to you know, handing something off to someone on your team?

Johnny Owens [10:37]
Well, yeah, so, you know, first, it’s kind of identifying if I hand this off, is this something that this person is going to kind of bring excellence too? You know, or is it just a task, some things are just tasks, and it’s just like, Okay, this is part of your day, just got to kind of get it done. The things that are like, Okay, this is something that I think is gonna really be beneficial to whoever I delegate it to, you know, I, you know, we talked Initially, I was with the military for 11 years. And that’s kind of where this business spun off of, we do a lot of after-action reports in our company. And it’s one something’s done, that it’s been delegated, we kind of follow up to see was it done?

Johnny Owens [11:21]
Well, Was this something you want to expand on, you know, one of one of our one of our clinicians who’s really in charge of education, he’s just gotten really good at our social media marketing. And he kept, you know, showing promise, so we’d follow up and follow up. And now he’s becoming like a really kind of a marketing and social media kind of Guru. And we’re now we’re like, Okay, this looks good. We delegated. This is your new thing. And now we’re just trying to, you know, do you need education in this? Do you want to send you to some courses or whatever and, you know, expanded role?

Commercial [11:53]
Before we move into part two, I want to go back and look at what has happened here. What Johnny talked about to optimize his time is this system for delegating better to his employees, he’s got a small staff, which is perfectly fine, because he’s starting early, which is great. If you have a bigger staff, you should be doing something similar on this journey, he actually takes his journal and writes down in there, the task he’s doing, and he puts an arrow up, if he gives them energy down, if it takes away energy from him, and to the side, if it’s a neutral kind of task. Now, one of the things I would add to this is being able to put down a name of who would do it, if you weren’t available. If you were on bed rest if you were truly not able to do this task, who would do it in your company. Now, there are some tasks that we never are able to outsource the visionary work and some of the more high-level strategic thinking and critical aspects and all of the big financials and partnerships and things like that. But eventually, if you had a big company, you would have someone in those areas. So every area that you can put a name next to that task so that you understand who could do it.

Commercial [13:08]
Now, here’s the next level of detail behind that. Why would you choose that person? Is it a skill set that they have? Is it a mindset they have is it you know, something that you have identified, they know that they could grow into, and if you could identify those early and often, you have a much better chance to delegate as you grow and focus on the most valuable aspects of your business, optimize your time doesn’t mean that you’re the most productive, it means you’re working on the most valuable parts. So all that being said, that is a recap. Now we’re moving into part two, which is the coaching aspect that will tell you, I don’t go as deep as I normally would. I want to respect Johnny for playing along with me on this. And it really is a great conversation about doing the difficult things, putting himself out there, having the courage, letting go of self-doubt, that’s just a little teaser, to what you’re going to see in this next section. So lean in, take some notes, hopefully, you’ll get some value out of it too. Here is Johnny.

Gene Hammett [14:06]
And you know, employees love the fact when they find something new that they’re actually good at they can bring that excellence to it. And they even love it more when you’re willing to invest in them for training. Those are part of the formula of people feeling like owners inside the culture of your company. I’m sure you get that. So thanks for sharing with me that one, you know, the major way of delegation and what you’re doing because it’s a little bit different than what other people have talked about. And I really appreciate the structure you put around it. I think that military background.

Johnny Owens [14:37]
Yeah. And we’re tracking it a lot more. So there was a time we were so busy, we were delegating, or I was delegated, and things were falling through the cracks. So now we’re using more apps and things like that to track everything on a daily basis and follow up to see if it was done or where the progress is.

Gene Hammett [14:56]
Perfect. Well, I want to move into part two of this. When you Do you think about what’s next for you? What is something in your life in your business that you want to be different than it is today?

Johnny Owens [15:09]
Yes, so I want to get much better at taking on, even though it’s something that I feel like, Okay, this is gonna give me energy, it’s in my wheelhouse I might get flow if I get engaged. If it’s really over overwhelming, I’m pretty good at pushing it away. And just answering emails or I’m like, there’s got to be something else, you know, I can do. So this whole swallow the frog kind of concept is something I need to get better at and want to get better.

Gene Hammett [15:39]
So that comes from the eat the frog book, probably everyone’s aware of, if you haven’t read it, but it’s by Brian Tracy, have you read the book?

Johnny Owens [15:48]
I have? Yeah, a long time ago.

Gene Hammett [15:50]
So you understand the concept. So help me, you know, through this coaching moment helped me really understand what’s getting in the way? Is it because you’re avoiding the difficult, it’s uncomfortable? Or is it something else?

Johnny Owens [16:03]
Yeah. So a lot of it, I think, is these are tasks where I have to kind of put myself out there, you know, so it’s writing a paper or, you know, I’ve got a book chapter do building out, you know, a potential new clinical trial where it’s, you know, it’s my thoughts and my concepts, and I have to kind of put it out there. So I think sometimes I’m hesitant of that.

Gene Hammett [16:28]
I was writing that down there. I got to dig a little bit deeper. If you’re hesitant to put yourself out there, what is it you’re afraid of?

Johnny Owens [16:37]
being wrong with it? You know, a lot of this is really new. And nowadays, you put stuff out there and it can go kind of all over. And you can get backlash. So yeah, I think even though it looks like I’m always like, at the forefront, the tip of the spear. There’s definitely a lot of self-doubts when it comes to these new concepts and ideas.

Gene Hammett [17:00]
Now, I wouldn’t have guessed that I’m going to ask the question because you look at and carry yourself as a very confident leader. But yet, you still have a little bit that self doubt that you carry along with you. Is that fair to say?

Johnny Owens [17:14]
Yeah. Oh, yeah. 100%.

Gene Hammett [17:18]
I’ve dealt with this, too. So I’m not saying that we, I’m not immune to it. But what do you do to help you kind of tame your self-doubt?

Johnny Owens [17:28]
Yeah. You know, I try and reflect on the successes of things that I’ve already put out. And it seems like it is done well, and people enjoy it, or my business enjoys it, when I put myself out there kind of started moving in this whole concept of if it makes me nervous, I should probably do it. Because when I walk through that cloud and get to the other side, it’s always like, wow, that was so worth it. And that’s usually I think what kind of pushes the needle even further is when I tackle that kind of moment. It’s just getting through it. It’s so easy, I think, to just get distracted. And when you’re in a busy business, it’s there’s a lot of other things.

Gene Hammett [18:14]
I will say that I’m not in the medical world, everyone knows that I’m in the leadership world, I work with cultures and fast-growth companies. All that aside, you’re in the medical world, which has a specific bar of research and all of that stuff. I mean, I got to ask you, are you taking shortcuts and that?

Johnny Owens [18:35]
No, I think that Yeah, no, no, I think that’s part of the problem. You know, and that’s what’s so frustrating. And you see it just like there’s so much lies out there outside of science and medicine, that, you know, I speak in a lot of conferences and you know, I can get fat check 20 different ways if I quote in a paper wrong or the stats wasn’t were really run right, you know, and so, I think it’s that just okay, this has to be 100% on point every time.

Gene Hammett [19:05]
I asked that question, you may have gotten it because I saw the smile on your face. I didn’t think you were short, short track and I didn’t think you were you know, putting it out there before it’s ready. So you strike me as a very methodical systemized person that when you’re got an idea that you’re putting it through the paces, you’re pressure testing it, you’re doing everything you know to do before you put it out there. Is that fair to say to?

Johnny Owens [19:32]
Yeah, Yeah, I think so.

Gene Hammett [19:34]
So, here’s the heart of this what why if you’ve done all these things, if you’ve done you know, not shortcutting you’re putting in the time and work on it. You’re you’re probably getting some peer review at some point in time with some of these things. Once you’ve gone through all those paces, why wouldn’t you still trust yourself and just be able to put it out there with the confidence?

Johnny Owens [19:57]
Yeah, I don’t know. I guess once you hit stop. admit that it’s out there. And then you’re like, Okay, I hope, everything and it could just be a blog post or something like that or a book chapter. As I said, I’m writing, it’s not actually a peer-reviewed thing. Sometimes we are ahead of the publications because science takes a long time and people are wanting answers now. And they come to you and say, you’re the expert. What do we do about this? And then you have to put it out there. So I think it is that just potential that I missed something. I think that’s always that. I will go over something over and over and over and, and rework it probably too much.

Gene Hammett [20:42]
Is it overthinking?

Johnny Owens [20:45]
I think so. I think. Yeah. overthinking? And, yeah, just not wanting to be wrong.

Gene Hammett [20:52]
Has overthinking paid off for you, as you build this, you know, incredible company, incredible team, has it really paid off for you to overthink like this?

Johnny Owens [21:02]
I don’t know. That’s a good question. It’s paid off and it hasn’t paid off. You know, I think, you know, we’re kind of a gold standard in our industry and what we do, and we’re kind of known for excellence. And so that’s kind of always been our motto. But then we’re also feel better is when we do something wrong, let’s figure out and correct it and make this a learning moment. But then there is analysis paralysis from overthinking. And I suffer from analysis paralysis, not pulling the trigger on a decision because I need to think so much.

Gene Hammett [21:37]
Is this something that you want to shift from where it is now so that you have more confidence and less of that self-doubt?

Johnny Owens [21:45]
Yeah. Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah.

Gene Hammett [21:47]
Okay. You didn’t sound really sure about that. Is it? Is this something that you think about? Like, what would it be like to have the kind of confidence that I could just put myself out there whenever needed to?

Johnny Owens [21:56]
Yeah, no. And I do that, again, I think there’s a lot of like, pushing this project away, pushing this project away. And then again, when I started reflecting on, it’s like, why aren’t you doing that? And it’s like, well, I’m a little nervous to put that out there. So yeah, that’s an issue. And again, it’s slowing me down on getting these big things done that need to get done.

Commercial [22:18]
Let me take a second here to remind you that if you want to keep getting episodes like this, you want to evolve as a leader, then you want to make sure you go to genehammett.com/subscribe. genehammett.com is my home base, the podcast is growth Think Tank. And if you want to be a visionary leader, if you want to keep learning from all of these amazing founder CEOs that go to genehammett.com/subscribe, so you don’t miss an episode.

Gene Hammett [22:44]
So we’ve been dancing around this for a second, I want to, I want to take you down to an exercise that I use with my clients. Again, this is the coaching part of this. I’m not here to make you cry, Johnny. But if you’re ready to let go of something, here’s, here’s the way that I can guide you through that you’re ready.

Johnny Owens [23:03]
Sure.

Gene Hammett [23:04]
So it’s a pretty simple way to look at this. You know, a lot of people think about what do I need to do? You know, you’re thinking about the reports, you need to finish up the chapter in the book that whatever it is, you need to publish the blog post, put out this peer research, whatever it is, you need, you’re thinking about what you need to do. And I think that’s a little bit ahead of the pace that I would love you to think about for a second. Who do you need to be? So in this case, you have been being a self doubter. Those are your words. And, you know, I would typically your client to write that down is like, you know, write down, you have a pencil paper in front of you.

Johnny Owens [23:45]
Yeah.

Gene Hammett [23:46]
Write down. I am a self doubter.

Johnny Owens [23:49]
Okay.

Gene Hammett [23:50]
When you write that down, how does that feel?

Johnny Owens [23:53]
opposite of what I think I feel, you know, if I see it on paper, and maybe it’s my image that I’m thinking of more than my internal.

Gene Hammett [24:04]
So I know your fear of failure. You talked about that fear of being wrong. But is this true? Are you at your core a self doubter? Yeah, probably. Okay. So that actually plays out probably in other areas other than just a blog post. Right. There are other things you’re, you’re avoiding the difficult work. Is that fair to say? Yeah. That that allows you to put yourself out into the future. I’m sure you’re making difficult decisions all the time, as many CEOs have to do. But when you avoid something we started off with, eat the frog or swallow the frog, as you said. And it’s because of that critical thinking, overthinking self-doubt. And you’ve written it down there. What would the opposite of that be? What would you like to step into?

Johnny Owens [24:56]
I am comfortable with what I have. Get out there.

Gene Hammett [25:00]
All right. I like that I am comfortable. Write that down. And I’m going to add the word because and what would you say? Because of what? Because you’ve done your work because you put in the hard work because you’ve you haven’t taken shortcuts?

Johnny Owens [25:14]
Yeah. Because I’m prepared.

Gene Hammett [25:16]
Because I’m prepared. Okay, perfect. So read that back to me.

Johnny Owens [25:20]
I’m comfortable in what I put out there because I’m prepared.

Gene Hammett [25:23]
Now. I know the military kind of, to a degree, I was never in the army, you’re in the army, right? or military. Marines?

Johnny Owens [25:31]
I was a government service. Sorry, I wasn’t active duty.

Gene Hammett [25:35]
You talked about these actor action reports. Like you’re, you’re growing this incredible company, you’ve got this incredible team growing fast, you’re doing great work in the world. It’s just not in alignment with someone who carries this kind of self-doubt.

Johnny Owens [25:49]
Right.

Gene Hammett [25:50]
And so what does it if you stepped into that? Read that to me, again, I am because I didn’t write it down.

Johnny Owens [25:57]
Come to what I put up there. Because I’m prepared.

Gene Hammett [26:00]
It’s a very simple statement, right? What if that were absolutely true?

Johnny Owens [26:06]
Would that feel like a fantastic what I want to be? And I, I think it’s all eat the frog thing is because I want to be so prepared that it becomes like an overwhelming task that’s like, Okay, I’m gonna work on this. I want to sleep because I’m just thinking about it and making sure I don’t miss something.

Gene Hammett [26:24]
And it that’s part of being prepared, right part of you pushing yourself to have it right, you’re in your you really are in the medical world of life and death. So it’s very important for you to put in that work. What you do, I asked you the question, do you? Do you take shortcuts in this? And your answer was the defense? Definitely no, right.

Johnny Owens [26:47]
Right.

Gene Hammett [26:50]
I am comfortable in what I put out there. Because I am prepared. When you really live into that. And you really believe that? What do you think would happen?

Johnny Owens [26:57]
Yeah. Have the confidence, to do it and just do it still a term from Nike?

Gene Hammett [27:03]
Yeah. You would not overthink yourself? No, I’m envisioning. There’s a lot of work that goes into being prepared. There’s a lot of research. Right? Right. It’s not, you know, scribbling down. I mean, to be honest, none of my ideas come to me when I read something else. And I scribble down something in the notes and say, you know, I believe that, but I believe this is more specific. I, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m a lot more on the cutting edge, I think than you are. You’re much more I got to prove this in my research and the clinical trials. So you’re doing work? I keep coming back to that. It sounds like I’m repeating myself, but I’m, I’m trying to help you understand you are doing the preparation work. Right? Why not live? The benefit of that? Without self-doubt?

Johnny Owens [27:50]
I agree.

Gene Hammett [27:51]
How long do you want to carry the self-doubt with you? Can you if you put it, you know, thought about how long you want to take that on the journey with you?

Johnny Owens [27:59]
Yeah, I mean, I think it’s good to keep, you know, to kind of keep me in check some but I would like, to dump it as much as possible.

Gene Hammett [28:08]
So part of its reframing it right. It’s not the self-doubt just shows you where you need to do the research to move forward not to stop you.

Johnny Owens [28:17]
Right.

Gene Hammett [28:18]
I picked up on something Johnny, you talked about, you’d rather maybe do email or do something else other than whatever that that important thing is that they swallow the frog. That’s a defense mechanism to going from what’s comfortable. And not doing what’s uncomfortable.

Johnny Owens [28:37]
Right. Yeah. And as I said, when I do the uncomfortable when I come on the other side, that’s when the magic happens.

Gene Hammett [28:44]
So when you want more of that?

Johnny Owens [28:47]
yeah, for sure. As I said, that’s my goal for 2020 is to just go at that and look, again, reflect on all the success and know that always come out, you know, pretty much where I want to be.

Gene Hammett [29:01]
I get the fact that we can convince ourselves that that overthinking self-doubt pushes us to create a better product. Is that fair to say that for you?

Johnny Owens [29:13]
Yeah, I think so.

Gene Hammett [29:15]
But is that an empowering belief? That the doubt you have inside yourself actually makes the product better?

Johnny Owens [29:22]
Yeah, no, it doesn’t. I mean it if it can hold you back,

Gene Hammett [29:26]
But what you wrote earlier, and I’m gonna read it for you. I am confident in what I put out there because I’m prepared. Is that an empowering belief? Which one do you want to carry with you?

Johnny Owens [29:37]
Belief number two. Okay. I’ll just add to that one on my arm.

Gene Hammett [29:43]
I know that we’re going through this, we’re repeating ourselves, but this is part of the process of you really get it and sinking it in. There are many more steps beyond this that I typically work with executives but realizing what the core issue is the most important thing. It’s really Not just eat the frog thing that’s going on. It’s the fear that you’re carrying and self-doubt. That keeps you from that you focus on something that you can control like email. Right? But the magic happens in your words when you do the stuff that makes you uncomfortable.

Johnny Owens [30:17]
Yep. 100%.

Gene Hammett [30:19]
And, you know, this is part of a lot of my work is around working with visionaries. This is the visionary work, this is the looking at the future, you’re on the cutting edge, looking at the trends, looking at the data, telling you, you know, where your products and they fit into this? And if you’re not doing it, who else in your team is doing it?

Johnny Owens [30:38]
Yeah, no, I mean, I’m, I have to drive it from the top for sure.

Gene Hammett [30:42]
So you get to I asked that, like, you can’t delegate, the visionary work really, especially at the level you have with a few employees. If you had, if you had 1000 employees, maybe we could talk about, you know, having a visionary Innovation Group. But that’s not where we are. It’s, it’s driven by your work, your thoughts, and the self-doubt that has slowed you down in this area. And I’m just asking you how long you want to carry it? Do you want to carry it for another? Another week? Or two or another? Are you ready to let it go now?

Johnny Owens [31:15]
Yeah, no, I love it If I can let it go. The second, that’s great.

Gene Hammett [31:19]
So here’s the way I would work with a client on this. And again, this is recorded for the podcast. So you know, I would go much deeper into this. If it was just you and me privately. But I will tell you, I would do you have a morning routine? Yeah, do does any part of that involve meditation or visualization or anything like that?

Johnny Owens [31:43]
No, I’ve tried that. And then my brain just goes crazy.

Gene Hammett [31:47]
Here’s a visualization technique that you can use. And this is the way I use it, you can borrow from it, you can kind of modify it for you. Before I get out of bed, I don’t do it every day. Because some days I’m kind of like, I forget, but 90% of the time, I will walk through my day in my mind, and I will see what’s happening, how I’m showing up how I’m prepared how I’m my energy, my mood, I’m visualizing the way I want to do it. What I would suggest for you is to visualize yourself, taking that first thing in the morning, eat the frog kind of thing. And saying, I’m going to hit this, I know that I’ve got three more things to do before I feel prepared or seven or 17, whatever it is. But today is step one of that. And when it’s time to put it out there you would be ready to put it out there because you’ve done the work. But you’re it’s happening in your mind first before you get out of bed. And this doesn’t have to be 20 minutes. This can be two minutes. Does that make sense?

Johnny Owens [33:00]
Yeah, yeah.

Gene Hammett [33:01]
And you already you’ve already connected to the magic of it, the power the benefit? And so it’s just letting yourself feel that before you actually go hit it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Every time I’ve done this with a client before, and they’ve actually done it, which is pretty high because my clients tend to do the work, they’re really engaged and getting the benefit behind this. The two or three minutes that it takes, they end up spending a little bit longer, they’ll spend four or five minutes, they’ll use it in other parts of their life, but the visualization in the morning, because you want to do this thing. First thing, eat the frog doesn’t mean you’ll do it down, you know, in the afternoon, eat the frog means you do it first thing in the morning Is it is a very powerful thing. If you get into the habit of having the visualization and then do all your other stuff. You know, brush your teeth workout, whatever it is you do. And as soon as you sit down at your desk, if you would start working on that instead of checking email, what’s comfortable, you’ll notice progress right away and you’ll end up building that muscle of believing in yourself. I know you’re confident you’re doing it. This is just part of the area of life that you have to put yourself out there, like you said, does all this kind of makes sense and connect for you?

Johnny Owens [34:21]
Yeah, totally and very applicable and easy to implement.

Gene Hammett [34:27]
It’s minutes. It’s not, and it literally is creating your mind first and showing up with full intention instead of showing up hesitant, like a self doubter. How would you show up? If you were completely new? You could get this done?

Johnny Owens [34:43]
Yeah. confident and ready, ready to knock it out of the park?

Gene Hammett [34:47]
Any questions on this at all?

Johnny Owens [34:50]
No. I mean, I think it’s very straightforward.

Gene Hammett [34:52]
So I appreciate you playing with me. I won’t go deeper with you on it. Because I don’t want to. I don’t want to make you cry. Here, Johnny. Good luck, final words about about this and you know, is this something you? Could you? Could you feel like you could do?

Johnny Owens [35:07]
Yeah, no, I think it’s great. I’m gonna try it first thing in the morning, I’ve got a project that I’m, I have to get done before Christmas. So that’s gonna be something that I want to try.

Gene Hammett [35:19]
If you’ll do this every day before that project is done and just test it for yourself. I love to hear back from you. Just send me an email. How does that sound?

Johnny Owens [35:28]
For sure, man. Appreciate it.

Gene Hammett [35:30]
Johnny, thanks for being here. Owens Recovery Science an impressive company, what you’ve done with your team and what you’re doing in the world. So appreciate you being a part of the show.

Johnny Owens [35:40]
Yeah, thanks for having me on again, man. Happy Holidays. Stay safe.

Gene Hammett [35:43]
So this wraps up another incredible episode of Growth Think Tank where we’re talking with founder CEOs about what does it take to optimize their time. This series is something I really been proud to put together, we’re gonna be putting together more like this in the future. But today, you’ve really seen some insight of what coaching is, like, you’ve seen Johnny have a different relationship with where he’s stuck. And reframing that giving them some very practical tips to move forward. I wanted to create content like this for you because I think it’s helpful as a leader to look at things with different perspectives and maybe learn that reframing trick if you have any questions about your own growth, your own plan for development, how to optimize your time, make sure you go to genehammett.com you can start your journey there, we can actually talk on the phone, no cost to you. So I’d love to connect with you. If you want to continue to evolve as the visionary leader that you are, you think of growth and you think of leadership, almost 10 times when you think of growth and you think of leadership, think of Growth Think Tank, as always lead with courage. We’ll see you next time.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

 

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