The Unconventional Financial Advisor: A 7-3-7-3 Kolbe A Index Result Unpacked | Private Sessions

My whole life it was be like, "Alex, you always start 100 things and

you never finish up." One of the problems with your Kolbe results, one of the things that can pop up is people think they can put stuff off longer. They don't get a sense of urgency quite soon enough, and then they hit a deadline, just like, "I don't have enough time to finish all the stuff that really needs to be done." So you're nodding like that totally makes sense to you, right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Meet Alex. She's a financial planner and a busy mom who thrives in organized chaos. She's building a business that doesn't look like others, and it's working. Today, I'm giving Alex permission to ignore common productivity advice and lean into her Natural Advantage™.

That is who I am. You know? Like, I could try so hard to be very, very organized and stick to a plan, and it's just not gonna happen.

You just aren't gonna do it until it's, "Oh my gosh, I really have to do this now." That's 1000%. It's natural for you, and it's to wait until things really are urgent, and it's on a real deadline. Like, "I have that meeting with the client in two hours. I can't put it off anymore." That's a better approach for you. So we would describe your strength in Follow Thru, and frankly, it's your Natural Advantage. You're a Multitasking Hero.

So yeah, controlled chaos perhaps is another good way to put it.

So as a fellow, what we would call counteract Follow Thru, we don't like to say low in Follow Thru 'cause that implies that— Okay, sure.

Okay.

And you get it.

Like, oh, well I should want to be high.

Well, you just are where you are, and there's a benefit. There's a real advantage to it. And I'll just interject and interrupt, sorry, but like I think it's good just knowing that… So I'll say, what'd you say, the counterbalance

or counteracting.

Counteracting.

Yeah. Like that is who I am. You know? Like I could try so hard to be very, very organized and stick to a plan. It is just not gonna happen. Like, so just knowing that and saying, "Well, actually I'm really good at being very adaptable." Like, you could throw all sorts of things at me, and I'm not having any problem with that whatsoever. And not having to put myself and push myself so far into something that is just so counterintuitive for me to operate that way, I think is helpful.

Well, I love that you know that, and I love that you have the confidence to understand it is just who I am, and I'm, I will make that work. And yeah, are there times where maybe something else is needed?

Yes.

So how do you deal with that? It's, but you're not gonna change. Unfortunately, we work with a lot of people who don't yet have that confidence, and they get the results and they're like, "Okay, but I really should be like that. I should be more systematic and structured." And so they put themselves, they try to create an environment that leaves them no choice. But to be systematic and structured, and then they just are so stressed out all the time 'cause as you're saying, it's just not really what's gonna happen. It's not that they can't, it's that they can, but it takes so much more energy. They get taken out of what will make them actually successful. So I love that you're a few steps ahead of the game.

Okay.

So that's awesome. so let's talk a little bit about this cultural thing because I think- Sure … you're right. and yeah, we have enough data from people who do things like you to say that yes, you are not the norm with your Follow Thru result. Many more accountants are initiating Follow Thrus, so they're the other end of that spectrum. They're more like a seven than a three, so they're about systems and structure and organization, creating one and sticking with the ones that are already there. so when that's the cultural, in this case then a kind of the professional culture that you live in, there's kind of an expectation. You can make it work, and you already have, so I don't need to tell you this, but you and one can make it work where you are different than the rest 'cause you stand out, frankly. And again, with the confidence of, "Hey, I stand out," and that's generally a good thing. Might it cause some issues? Yeah, but those are fixable, and in the meantime, I'm different than those other people. So when you think about getting clients, you can get clients that maybe other people are unlikely to get because you will appeal to those people who are maybe also not so systematic and structured, and you can say, "Hey, I know you need that with some of your financial life, and I'll help you do that. But I also understand you're never gonna be you, client, are never gonna be that super organized and structured person, and that's

okay." And I, and I think actually now that you're saying that, I never even thought of it that way, but for a lot of clients, like they'll have like, or a lot of peers of mine when they're working with new clients, it's like they have a lot of intake and a lot of exercises that they have people do. They want them to track all their spending, and I'm like, "No. First of all, I don't wanna look at everybody's spending." I'm more of like, "Okay, I don't care what you spend it on. Your spending is your spending." it's like let me meet them where they're at. Like, and if I can even help them as part of a session, it's like, "Okay, well, you only got me half your stuff. Can we like log in now and pull some of the things that we need? And what can we do now that's gonna make the biggest impact," right? So like, yeah, I could do these other things, but like if you're not gonna get me that information or you're not gonna set the stuff up, it's like, well, what's gonna give you the highest impact that's gonna make a real big difference? I'm not gonna not do what needs to be done because I'm waiting on you to do crazy spreadsheet that this person's never gonna do.

Where a lot of people in your industry would basically say, "I'm not taking that first meeting until all the boxes have been checked." And look, if that works for them, that's great. That will turn off some clients. I'm a big believer in if you want to attract a broad range of clients, and sometimes you don't. Sometimes like, hey, I know who I appeal to. There are enough of those people in the world that I don't need to get people outside of my sweet spot. but even if you think about it I imagine you work with couples a lot or businesses where there are multiple partners. I mean, in other words, it's not just one person. So, you're going to have, even if you really do target a particular kind of client that you know you work best with, there's still gonna be some people who don't fit because they come as a package. So, you can do some of both. It's like where you sense, hey, one of the partners or one of the people in the couple, whether it's per- personal or professional, one of them really is that systematic, structured person. So if they see that I'm more open-ended and adaptable, that they may not feel comfortable. You can, you can change it enough so that you reassure them. Like, "Hey, we've got our systems in place. Everything is gonna run on track. at the same time, I'm also open-ended and adaptable enough that I'm gonna make this work for both of you." Millions of people have discovered their natural way of taking action. What's yours? Go to kolbe.com and take the Kolbe A™ Index to find out.

Yeah, and I think that what's interesting too is, like, when I look at the three on Follow Thru, and then the three on the, I put, what's that?

Implementor.

Implementor.

Yeah.

I'll have other peers, and as part of their plan that they make for people, they'll do, like, a full PDF, 100-page document, and I said in a study group I was in, I was like, "That would kill me if I had to put together a 100-page document." And they were like, "How do you not do that?" I'm like, "Because we have a program, and I meet with the clients, and I put all this stuff in there, and then I kinda let it go where they want it to go." Like, I have things I wanna cover, but I'm very adaptable on… Like, something may come up, and I give them the space to talk, and then all of a sudden they're talking about telling their spouse, "Well, you know what? For our 20th anniversary, I've always wanted to go on this, you know, Mediterranean cruise, and I never even told you about it." And now all of a sudden we're talking about that, which I think is a lot more meaningful than sticking with the plan of how it was supposed to go and handing them this document, and now we can really be adaptable. But I think it might stress some people out to be that open-ended in a meeting and not really know what's gonna happen.

Oh, it would definitely stress a lot of people out. But it doesn't stress you, and that's kind of the point. And here's the other thing. Those other people who need that more formalized plan and process, they might get to the same kinds of things, but for them, they'll get to it because they ask all of these questions. And some clients will respond well. A lot of clients… so some of this is also with Fact Finder. So you're a data-intensive person, so you need information and details. The way you get it will be less structured. So as you're saying, "I'm gonna interview them. I'm gonna ask a bunch of questions, and I'll figure out which are the important things, and it's gonna be a conversation, not just a, 'Oh, do all this stuff,' and I don't deviate from my checklist" with… You do that, so your approach to getting the information is different than a lot of people in your industry. But you get the information. and I think you can sell that to your clients and potential clients. Hey, there are other advisors you can work with who are… Look, they're not just thorough, 'cause you're very thorough with your seven in Fact Finder. They're, they're systematic and structured and organized, and you can sell to the people who are maybe more like you "Here's my process. I'm gonna get all the information. It's gonna happen in a way where you're not even knowing it some of the times, because we're gonna have a conversation, and I'm gonna ask you the questions that I need answers to. But because it's a conversation and I don't just have a pre-selected list of questions that are the same for everybody, I'm gonna realize I need to delve deeper in some areas with you than I might some other client." And you can tell them that, and especially if you sense that, one or more of the people you're working with are initiating Follow Thrus, you can reassure them that you do have a process. Your process is more of this interview-driven, open-ended, adaptable one. A lot of Follow Thrus don't see that as a process until they're told that's the process, and they're like, "Oh, okay, I get it, and I love that you're going to go deeper with me where that's appropriate." So you can tell people that. all right, I wanna get back to something you talked about and I alluded to earlier, too. You wanna build out your team, and we talked about your strength of being open-ended and adaptable, that multitasking hero. yes, I do wanna acknowledge, by the way, that's not always seen as a positive with any of the four Action Modes®, and we'll go into them a little bit deeper. With all of them, it's those lower numbers, the counteracting strengths, where you're often not recognized as that being a strength. So for you, your strength and Follow Thru being open-ended and adaptable, it's more likely, especially when you were younger, it's like, "Why don't you just stick with the plan? Why don't you finish everything you start?" Oh my gosh.

My mom, every- my whole life is be like, "Alex, you always start 100 things and you never finish 'em." You know? My husband, when we first started dating, he called this one area of my house, he's like, "This is hobby corner." It had like 50 different hobby equipments in there. And you add the Follow Thru with the high Quick Start and it's like, "Oh boy, you're really doing a lot of stuff, and it's really getting out of control fast."

Yeah. And so that's you. As you're saying, it goes back all the way to you as a kid. It's not that you learned this along the way. It was just baked into you. so usually you would've been maybe chided for it or just kind of like, "Oh, it's funny." So I'm great that there's a sense of humor around it. but I do think that for what you do when you think about building out your team, my guess is that's the most important support that you need. Because there are lots of times when things need to get filed, all the follow-up stuff that needs to happen with clients, that's not natural for you. Like, you can do it. You do it.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean, you're successful.

Exactly.

But- And obviously the things that have to get done obviously get done, and I try to, like… And I s- noticed one of the things was like, you know, make sure you set things up in places that are easy to see and stuff. And I always, I have stuff like that, like things that need to be done, and I try to save things as quick as possible on, like, a to-do list to make sure. But even just somebody who naturally can, like, get systems into place or somebody who, likes more kind of redundant tasks, which to me it, it and it's hard to see that, like, why, how could somebody do that? Like, it almost feels like I am giving someone this horrible work that I never would wanna do. How could I give this to someone else? But then there's people, hard to believe, that are happy doing that kind of work.

Yes. And it's… So you and I, we share this, and I agree. It's hard to believe, and yet they really truly do thrive on it. And you're giving somebody else the opportunity to show their best work and succeed wildly.

Yeah.

And it's amazing.

Yeah. And it- I mean, I can give the example. I was in Toastmasters and I was, the vice president of education for our club, and I loved doing that. I loved talking with the different members of our club of, like, what their goals were, and mentoring them, and putting them with other people. But one chore as the education vice president was I had to upload, um… We would record all the speeches and then put them on the YouTube channel. And, like, doing that each week, like, I couldn't. I don't know what was wrong. I couldn't do it. Like, it was… And it was so far behind, and I remember one of the club members was like, "Let me do it for you." And I'm like, "No." I felt so horrible that someone would have to do my job. and I waited, and he's like, "Just give me the stuff to do." And I gave it to him, and then, like, every- He got them all today, and then every week he would just do it right away. And I was like, "Oh my God, how are you doing this?" And it was like, it was so shocking to me that, like, somebody wanted to do the job and then, like, did it so well, and it was just so hard for me to do that, like, redundant task. but everything else of that role, people were like, "Oh, you're s- you know, doing so great. We love having you do the education and the mentoring." But that redundant piece was painful.

Yeah. Yeah, and he got to do it, and most people love when they can make a real contribution to a group effort. what they don't like is either what you're describing where- I mean, I know I should do this, but it's just so painful for me. You don't like that stuff. Or busy work. Like, okay, yeah, I can do that, and it's maybe my thing, but I know it doesn't… It's not actually important. Somebody's just giving it to me. Like, so that wasn't busy work. It needed to get done, and he sounds like he was just the right person. So same thing in your office. When you get people who can do that stuff that is just so painful for you know it needs to happen, it's important for the clients and the business. That's the person to bring on and set you up to succeed so that you don't have to do those things. A couple of techniques, and I think it sounds like you do this a little bit already when you talk about having it where it's visible and things. with somebody with your combination of three in follow through, so that multitasking hero, i.e. doesn't always follow through on things that then you need to. Also with your Quick Start, so you're an initiating Quick Starter, which we haven't talked about really yet. But that's, just, it's experimenting, it's taking chances, it's trying things out. There's also a sense of immediacy and urgency that's important for Quick Starts. So for you, I'd say do it now, immediately. Like, if you have a conversation with a client- Immediately.

Exactly. That's what I do.

Yeah, and think of that, about that with your scheduling. Put a five or 10-minute buffer at the end of a call. Try not to race to the next thing because if you just get it done, boom, boom, boom, that's way better than putting it in a stack of, oh, I need to do all of these, like, note entry things or reviewing stuff. Do it, do it now.

Yeah, and I think that's, like, why someone, like, with our tendencies, like when people say like, "Oh, do time blocking," and like let it all, and do all these types of tasks at the same time, and then like you look at them and you're like, "Ugh, this is like I don't wanna do any of those." but my calendar, so I have three children, a dog, a husband, and a business. and so when anything needs to be done, like I immediately put it in the calendar. I get a birthday party invite for the kids, immediately in the calendar. Doctor's appointment, immediately in the calendar. And so my calendar is real- very tight. but I do exactly what you say. I'm not gonna wait around because there's, there's just too much going on with that many people to not be taking care of it, and it's been very helpful. So yeah, I like that suggestion a lot.

That's great. Yeah, it kinda reminds me, I don't know if you listen or read to Mel Robbins, but she's got five, four, three, two, one, do it. That's her thing, is just sometimes it's painful, but just you're gonna do it. You just do it. So whatever technique helps you do it, but you're, it sounds like you're well on the way. So, you mentioned your husband. I know he's taken a Kolbe A result. I have his results here, but do you remember them?

they are Is it like… I'll let you say it.

Two of them are similar. I'll say it. So he's an eight in Fact Finder, so you're both similar there. You're both get more information, data knowledge, both gathering it and sharing it kinds of people. He's a little bit even more than you are on that one. he's a seven in Follow Thru, so he complements you really well in terms of systems and planning. He's a two in Quick Start, so you guys are at different ends of the spectrum there. His strength is to stabilize, to make sure that the things that work well keep working well. where you- Try different things, experiment, just, jump into stuff. You kind of seek out the unknown, whereas he seeks out the tried and true. And then in Implementor, he's a four, where you are a three. So you're similar. Both of you are more on the envision side. Implementor is about the way we use our… It's the way we deal with the tactile, tangible, three-dimensional world in problem-solving. So both of you are toward the more envision, imagine, rather than physically build and construct. He's a little bit more toward the build and construct side, but not a lot. So I think the things to talk about, you guys complement each other in Follow Thru and Quick Start. So you're nodding like that totally makes sense to you, right?

Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely.

Where do you see it in real life?

All the time. I could… I- Before he even took it, I knew he would be the opposite to me, on those things. And so for me as far we've talked a lot about Follow Thru, but for me, I've literally never taken a Scantron exam and went one to 50. I'll do one to five, then I'll start at 50 and go up to 52, then I'll hit the middle, then I'll fill in back from six to 10. Like, I don't go in order on things like that. And so we were even, doing Legos. I was doing it with my son, and now, I don't know if they were always like this. There's like the set we had three bags that you open. Open bag one, do the steps, then you open bag two. And he had started it with him, and then he had to do something, so I was finishing it. And my son goes, "I wanna put all the people together." So I'm like, "Okay." So we skipped ahead and we opened bag three, and the last steps is putting some big person thing together, a figurine. And so we did all that, and my husband comes over and he was like, "What are you doing? Like, why would you open the third bag? You weren't even done with the second bag. How do you even know where to start?" And like for three days, he was like distraught about like opening that bag of Legos. And like for me, I'm like, "Why wouldn't I just open that bag of Legos?" Like we wanted, oh, we could always just go back and start, start at the step. And we even, we didn't even ear, dog ear it, but I mean, you could just look at the picture and look at where we left off and get back to it. But he was very stressed out that someone would not follow the steps for it, which I thought was like really, it's very telling of how we are. and then the Quick Start for sure. I remember we first started dating and I saw there was a group on to take, a week-long sailing course and I was like, "Let's take this sailing course." And he was like, "Oh no, it's gonna be too cold. It's in September." And I'm like, "September in Florida's still in like the high 80s.Like what are you talking about?" and so like every, I always wanna do things and I'm always looking at things to do, and I joke with him too. I'm like, "Do you think you're fun?" And he's like, "No." I'm like, "Okay, good." Like at least you're like you know you're not that fun. But he's always the stable one. Like, he's like… I always say with people like he's very, gets like stressed on vacations 'cause it's a lot of things like outside of what's his norm. I said, but his level of stability—I can depend on him. Like, he's always keeping things running and going, and like I don't have to worry. Like he I'm the one who's like has all these ideas and wants to do all this stuff, so yeah.

So one thing I'll throw in, I hear what you're saying about the fun and the joking about it. I think sometimes people with his MO, with his Kolbe result, it's a little unfair to say they're not necessarily fun because we stereotype fun needs to be… We kind of romanticize the spontaneity. So he is not as much a spontaneous person.

Sure. No, he's not. Not at all.

And we equate that with fun, and look, there are people who aren't as much fun in other ways, and maybe that's him and he's fine with that. But I won't label everybody with that MO as not fun. But even with him, like he's, he can be so much fun with, he'll research stuff. He will find some things out. When he has time, like thinking about traveling and vacationing, when he's got time to be the one to do the research about what are some activities, and if you can convince him, and it doesn't need to be a big debate or a difficult process, but if he just gets this notion of, "Hey, you know what? On this, on each vacation that we as a family have, we should do something we've never done before," if that's part of his plan, all of a sudden… And you can tell him, "Honey, don't tell me about what the new thing is because for me, I want it to at least feel spontaneous 'cause that's fun for me." And then he can use his strengths where it's like he knows what's gonna happen. He did the research, he put it into the plan. He knows every time. That's, it's not new and scary and different or like, "Why are we doing this?" It's, he's bought into it's a good thing.

Yeah, I think that's a really, that's really great advice 'cause like he act- like, like you said, his research, he like loves, grilling and he has like a smoker and he's watched all these videos and researches the best smoking techniques for pork and this and that and he like makes the… Everybody loves everything he makes and he's got this ice cream machine now and he's researching. He makes like the best ice cream. We have a nanny and she was like, "Oh, I'm gonna open an ice cream store with him" 'cause it's so good. And he spends so much time doing that, but I've never even thought about that with the trip. And then he would know what's going on because I know we've figured out that like all planned stuff and then he doesn't really know what's going on and it totally stresses him out. so and like it wouldn't really bother me. so it's like okay, if he knows what it is and he planned it, he'll do a good job.

and that, yeah. And let him take the lead on the planning, and I mean you can divvy up the research part because both of you are initiating Fact Finders. But as far as the planning parts and he's, it's just more natural for him Kinda like getting the person at work where they can do those Follow Thru things. I mean, at home if he can do more of that. and then you just need to figure out… And so again, maybe I won't- I'll try not to bring too much of myself. I have the same dynamic with my wife in Follow Thru, except the genders are just reversed. You and I are the open-ended adaptable ones kinda need room in a plan for, we don't know what's gonna happen, and that is important for us. We actually enjoy the vacation more when I don't know what's happening, and I have… And also with our Quick Starts, have a chance to explore. And some of my favorite- Or if something comes up and someone's like, "Hey," you meet someone randomly, "Why don't we go do this special thing? Go- we can go rock climbing in this new place or secret whatever." It's like, okay, sounds great, you know? And I'd be down for that. I don't know, Matt might be very stressed out. But I love stuff like that when I'm on a trip.

Yeah.

So, what I bring to that a lot of times with my wife is just making sure that we both have the opportunity to get those things worked in. And it, so much of the time it's just a, it's communication. I mean, that's such a basic thing in any personal rela- well, work relationship too. Yeah, but by understanding your Kolbe results, it can take some of the judgment out. my wife has expressed, and I've said this on the podcast before, but, she's talked about how learning who my Kolbe results, and it helped her understand some of the things that I do, it's not really about her, it's about me. So she doesn't take it personally when I don't follow through on a plan that she has or something she expected. She understands it's not because I don't care or I'm trying to do something to her, it's just this is me. Now, it can still be really annoying, really annoying, don't get me wrong. So I need to understand, look, if it's really important to her and she's told me that, just 'cause it's not how I generally do things, I need to like, okay, you know what? I'm, I'm not messing up her plan for this weekend 'cause it's important. This is about her. And so I do that. But it makes it easier to do those things because I don't think, oh, every time we do something it has to be this planned, systematic, structured way. It's this time 'cause it's really important. Let's talk just a little bit about your Quick Start. So initiating Quick Starts need real deadlines, not fake ones. So I'm sure you have tried to set up, like make yourself do things with fake deadlines, and I even earlier said just do things immediately, which is a little bit of a fake deadline. They don't always need to be done immediately. But that can also be a habit. Like if you just get in the habit of needs to be done, do it. That's a better approach for you. But you should— Well, here's a better way to put it. It's natural for you and it's fine for you to wait until things really are urgent and it's on a real deadline. Like, "I have that meeting with the client in two hours. I can't put it off anymore." You've been doing this long enough that you know what that timeframe is, so if it's two hours before the client's there, and that's enough time to look at the briefing documents that they've already given you, that's fine. People earlier in their career, one of the problem with, with your Kolbe results, one of the things that can pop up is they think they can put stuff off longer. They don't get a sense of urgency quite soon enough, and then they hit a deadline, just like, "I don't have enough time to finish all the stuff that really needs to be done."

Yeah, yeah.

You've, you've made those mistakes already. You've learned from them, so I'm not particularly worried about that happening to you. If anything, it would be more, just communicating to other people, 'cause they'll panic. Like, so your business partner, make sure … Is it a he or a she? A he. A he. Make sure he knows, and he may already. He, you guys might have worked together long enough. Just tell them ahead of time, "I, hey, I know that meeting is tomorrow morning. I'm on top of everything." And on top of it m- for you might mean, "I haven't done anything, but it doesn't matter because I'm gonna do it tonight

00 when the kids are in bed." But in the meantime, he knows you haven't forgotten about it. He trusts, he's seen you do it enough times that, if he's an initiating Follow Thru or a counteract Quick Start. So, like, thinking of your husband, so maybe at a personal level, it's, he will be uncomfortable when things get put off too long. His sense of urgency is gonna kick in two weeks before yours does. But if you communicate to him, "I know that's coming up, I am not going to put it off too long," that will help the situation.

Yeah, and that's even happened before with certain items, 'cause he'll, it, like you said, his kind of like alarm system goes off earlier than mine on things, and he'll always then tend to it before I do. And certain things that were like kind of out of sight of, I'll say his department or whatever, and I was handling it, and then I was like, "Oh my God," I started getting really stressed out, and I did it. And he's like, "I didn't know you'd get stressed out." And he's like, "Obviously your threshold was a lot different than mine." I'm like, "Well, I get there, but you usually step in before it hits, the point that I have the level of urgency for it." Yeah.

Another thing that I'd suggest with the two of you, and this can work with your business partner too, if he asks you to do something, like that is gonna be needed, like, hey, get you information. I'm thinking tax stuff 'cause you're a CPA maybe, but don't ask him what the deadline is. Because if he tells you, if he's asking for it now, he thinks you should get it now. If the deadline isn't really for two weeks, and he tells you it's not for two weeks, you're not gonna do it for a while.

But so I have… Well, so the flip to that is he'll say "Could you handle this? And it, you don't need to do it right now." Which to me is like I have the rest of my life to do it. And so it's like, well, did that mean tomorrow? You know what I mean? Like, okay, if I don't have to do it now, I need to like have some… You know what I mean? 'Cause he'll, we would do that, and then it would just sit forever, and he's like, "Well, did you ever do that?" And I'm like, "Well, you said it wasn't im- like urgent." And so it's like, "Well, I wanted you to do it like the next day." I was like, "Well, I did that." Right.

So, you're right. You do need to know the deadline when you're just g- in charge of something, and he's just giving it to you and expecting you to handle it. Then you 100% need to know the deadline. If he, and if he just says, "Oh, not right away," well then he has to tell you when it is done. Because, I'm right with you, not right away means, okay, I don't need to do it. You just told me I don't need to do it now, so I'm not gonna do it now. And unless I know it has to be a week from Wednesday, it, I can lose it. So yes, have him give you a real deadline for that. If it's something that he's asking you to do essentially for him, and he wants it done essentially, like it doesn't have to be done for two weeks, but it would be better for him to just, "Could you do it right now?" That's where don't even ask him. Just like, "Okay," and just do it right now. If you don't have time, then you can say, "Hey, I don't have time right now. When do you want me to give it to you?" And then the communication needs to be, um… I, I think when it works well for couples, they communicate their real needs. So if he really wants it by Tuesday- He's got to be okay with not getting it until Tuesday. And he, and … But what happens a lot of times i- is people will say, "Well, I don't need it till Tuesday," but they really, for them, they actually need it by Sunday night because then they're gonna do stuff with it Monday, if they can. So they don't have to have it till Tuesday, but they'll get, start getting antsy with you on Sunday and certainly Monday. If they don't need it till Tuesday, then they've gotta just relax. If they need it earlier, they need to tell you earlier. Well, it has been great chatting with you. I do have more time if you wanna If you have more questions, fire away.

I, it looked like I was about to cut you off.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I was just wondering, so then, like, as far as, like, building out a team, I, I think, like, having those opposites for the Quick Start and the Follow Thru are … Well, maybe Follow Thru, whatever. I don't know. Yeah.

Well, we have a- Like- We have a process that helps with that so you don't have to do it this way. So yeah, if I'm guessing, I would say complement you. So, and especially my guess would be in Follow Thru, you probably need somebody who's more along the planning and systems kind of side of things. But we have something called a Kolbe B™ Index, or sorry, a Kolbe C™ Index, where you answer questions about the role that you're thinking about. so especially if, well, if, whether it's a new role or you're replacing somebody who left in an open role. so then instead of guessing, it's figuring out, "Oh, what am I really looking for?" So you can do that. You can go to kolbe.com and just take a Kolbe C Index and it will do that. and then since you have a business partner, the two of you should do that 'cause you're probably gonna be sharing this person, so it helps to get alignment. So you can have stuff in your mind like, "Well, oh, I'd like somebody who's gonna complement me." Your partner could be thinking, "Well, I want somebody who's gonna complement me," and that might not look the same. And if you know that ahead of time, then if you need to make compromises, you can. but you can also-- it'll help you work toward alignment, because what we see is if you guys have very different demands on that job but you're gonna split that person's time, it's gonna be tough for one person to do well in that role. Whereas if you guys kinda come to an agreement and a compromise like, "You know what? Okay, we're gonna have to set up this role so that it's a little bit," not an either/or, like half the time it's systemized and structured, and the other half of the time it's super open-ended. Like that's got trouble written all over it. But let's find somebody who's gonna maybe accommodate those things. We're not gonna expect lots of planning and system-generating stuff for them, but following through on the ones that are already in place. Okay.

And then the other question I had, and since you might have experience and you're a similar MO as I am, for the Quick Start you hear all this stuff, and I read a lot on-- and as you can imagine being high on the Fact Finder, I'm always like reading and taking in a lot of information. I love self-improvement and stuff like that. And so with time management, they're always like, "Oh, time block," and like, "Every week for these hours, work on this type of stuff." And I've just n- I've been very successful, and I get a lot accomplished, but like that time blocking is s- does it, has never worked for me. Is that just something I should just like further think about?

You should just give it up.

Okay.

Yeah, that works great for other people.

Okay.

Time blocking, I think for you, the time blocking is fine when it's, "I'm gonna set aside a whole day," or a hou- and it doesn't have to be a large chunk of time. But I'm gonna set aside some time for some open-ended things, like so for some brainstorming, for the kinds of things you wanna do. But what I think really doesn't work for people like you and me is do the same thing at the same time every week. No, it makes you dread it. If you're gonna do that kind of stuff, just make it pretty vague and open-ended. Like, oh, I'm gonna have… It's gonna be catch up on nonsense morning. And that might mean going through your email list. It might mean, tying up some loose ends. You just know it's that general category of nonsense that needs to get done, and I'm gonna figure out what's most pressing for me today on that. Whereas other times it's, client-focused work.

But it could be four different kinds of client-focused things.

So I would encourage you to do it that way if you're gonna… 'Cause look, schedules help, even for we counteract Follow Thrus. They do help, and they help us get things done. But it's more about the immediacy for you, the do things now, don't wait for a schedule. encourage people to interrupt you. so yeah, give up some of that time management stuff that works great for other people but not you.

Yeah, I've never really been able to implement it, and I always kind of felt a little bad about that. but I'm fine just scrapping it and never- Yeah … having to worry about it.

So the feeling bad about it is very common, and I feel like a therapist sometimes 'cause I can just say, "Don't feel bad about it." I know that we've been taught that's the way everybody should operate, but it isn't the way everybody operates, and it's okay. You'll, you've, you make it work in all the other ways.

Right.

Right. Awesome. Okay, so Alexandra, as we've been talking, have there been, one or two things that you, that kind of popped into your head, like, "Oh, I love that. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that"?

Yeah, definitely, just getting things done right away. That has worked for me, like I said, in my calendaring system, kind of as a trial and error situation. And so trying to, like, bunch the like tasks, like you said, I would do that and then just dread it, and it would be soul-sucking. And so just getting things done quickly, especially the types of tasks that I don't naturally wanna do, is gonna be super helpful. And also, like you said, g- getting that buffer time, like post-meeting, take care of the items that need to be done, and then moving on, I think is gonna, to bring a lot of efficiency and make it a lot more helpful.

Well, great. Well, it's been lovely to chat with you and get to know you a little bit. And I hope you've been able to take a couple things away that you're gonna-

Yes, great … put into practice.

Yeah, great. Thank you so much.