IAM1469 – The Struggle of Focusing

I had an awesome opportunity at the end of the year to be a guest on The Breaking Down Your Business Podcast with Brad Farris & Jill Salzman. Jill contributed on CEO Blog Nation to one of the roundups was a recent guest on the I AM CEO Podcast and has created an awesome community for entrepreneurial moms. I had the chance to jump on the hot seat on the “most entertaining podcast in the world.” It was loads of fun when I spoke about a business issue specifically the struggle with focusing on creatives.

My takeaways

• #toomanywhiteboards
• It's okay not to have a streamlined focus and it can be part of the process.
• Tap into my innate creativity to provide solutions for clients and instead of creating it internally but do more consulting. 
• Find 3-5 things to focus on.

Episode Link: https://progreshion.ceoblognation.com/2019/02/22/the-struggle-of-focusing/

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Transcription

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00:00 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:23 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast formerly the CEO Chat podcast. So doing something a little bit different as we ease into the fall from the summer and you know, everybody's traveling a lot more. You know, life is obviously a lot different than it has been in the last 4 years, definitely since I started this, let alone the last 2 years or so. But I had a podcast called the CEO Chat Podcast, which is a lot more of a long-form podcast. I didn't really reach the 1,400-plus episodes that we did with the IMCO podcast.

So there's a lot more long-flowing, a lot more conversational, but might be dusting off the CEO chat podcast and bringing that back out. So with that being said, while considering that what I wanted to do is go through some of the interviews that I had that were some of my favorites and share those. It's not going to obviously be the entire interview. We're going to have links in the show notes so that you can go and listen to the full interview, but I wanted to do some snippets that you can get. You're going to hear, of course, you know, the visibility, either the resources or the connections in each of these different snippets.

So it's going to be one of those things that are really going to help you to hopefully learn more about the guests that are on the show, what they do, how they do it, why they do it, but also get that opportunity to really learn about some resources that can make you more effective and efficient. So sit back and enjoy this special throwback CEO chat episode.

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01:27 – Brad Farris

I think we should talk to Gresham Harkless, who is just like us.

01:29 – Jill Salzman

You pronounced it correctly. This is a miracle. This is a Christmas miracle

01:36 – Brad Farris

Gresham welcome to business

01:39 – Gresham Harkless

Thanks for having me guys.

01:41 – Brad Farris

Why are you so famous for your honor show?

01:44 – Gresham Harkless

I was gonna say I was famous because I got a theme song before we started Basically have a community of niche blogs or I interview entrepreneurs and business owners Podcasts do a lot of videos and content to help them out and then I have a digital marketing company called Blue 16 Media as well.

02:02 – Brad Farris

Wow, that's super exciting

02:03 – Jill Salzman

Super exciting. Did you create 1 for the other?

02:06 – Gresham Harkless

No, actually, I was always passionate about entrepreneurship, so I started the blog, which was literally me trying to learn how to be a business owner, what it'd be in

02:13 – Jill Salzman

A business Best way to start, the best way to start.

02:15 – Gresham Harkless

I'm right in Deep End.

02:16 – Brad Farris

That's it.

02:17 – Jill Salzman

I like it.

02:17 – Brad Farris

I noticed you just started a podcast and your first guest was your mom

02:22 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, she was my first guess and also I gave her the microphone and she interviewed me on the hundredth episode

02:29 – Jill Salzman

That's super cool. Wait, were you her first guest too?

02:33 – Brad Farris

Oh, you

02:34 – Jill Salzman

Get it?

02:35 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. Do you see what we did?

02:37 – Brad Farris

Yes. Yes. That's great. I gave Jill a mic and let her talk on our hundreds. That's Pretty sad.

02:41 – Jill Salzman

It's pretty sad. So Gresham, what do you usually focus on in your podcast?

02:47 – Gresham Harkless

So I focus on just entrepreneurship. So it's a laser-focused podcast around 10 or 15 minutes. I give people the opportunity to talk about themselves, their background in their business, and then also some behind-the-scenes info and so like what makes them effective and efficient. So I have CEO hacks, which are things that people use to be effective and efficient. And then nuggets where, you know, word of wisdom and piece of advice. And then kind of like the core of it is to look at entrepreneurship business, what it even means to be a CEO and how business is changing and see how everybody kind of defines it for them.

03:17 – Jill Salzman

So that's amazing. We never talk about those things on this podcast, but also then why do you have a digital media company? What is that? What is it?

03:26 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. So it's called Blue 16 Media. We focus on web design and SEO primarily. But 1 of the things that I noticed and 1 of the reasons that it kind of started is like most people that probably start businesses, they don't necessarily know that they're kind of good at something. Sometimes you need other people to tell you. So that's kind of how my business started where I had somebody that I was doing like WordPress website updates and they said, hey, you need to start this as a business. And I ended up getting laid off. So

03:53 – Gresham Harkless

I had the blog already and then I got laid off. So I was looking for something to do anyway. And then I found like, you know, There were actually people that wanted to have their website updated, which wasn't in my front frame of mind So that's just kind of how it snowballed from there. And now I use it as a way to kind of network and connect with

04:10 – Jill Salzman

That's what I thought just kidding Question for you

04:19 – Brad Farris

Business problem

04:21 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, so my business problem, and probably my biggest problem for most creatives, is that I have and always come up with a lot of ideas. So I have a focus problem. So how do I laser focus, you know, in my business and be able to do that a lot more efficiently, because I have no idea, no, no problem with coming up with idea after idea, but how can I laser focus?

04:44 – Jill Salzman

I know it's the story of my life.

04:46 – Brad Farris

Have you tried speed?

04:47 – Jill Salzman

Hey. Okay, listen, those of us who have an issue with focus, Brad, did you ever have an issue with focus? I don't think you do

04:56 – Brad Farris

I do have an issue with focus from time to time.

04:58 – Jill Salzman

Oh, Gresham, I feel like I'm in your camp. And I feel like as a young entrepreneur who just started out maybe with this podcast, but even before then, you are creative and you have tons of ideas and you don't yet know which 1 of them you should follow. And so I'm wondering if you have that proverbial or actual whiteboard in your office where you can list out every idea that comes to you and because you know since you are unfocused yet that maybe not all of them are gonna be a go and some of them feel like a really good idea but they might not make you money and maybe money's not the goal for this one, but it is for this one.

Put it on the board and put it out into the world. Like maybe on your podcast, like maybe on social media and test it out and check Brad's making a face at me right now I don't know what the face means, But check out what those ideas could be. Otherwise, you're just going to keep chasing different things and just running yourself into the ground exhausted from stuff that might not work.

05:56 – Brad Farris

I don't understand what you're just saying. So I have a different piece of paper.

05:59 – Jill Salzman

Oh, maybe the question doesn't either.

06:00 – Brad Farris

I like the idea of writing everything on the whiteboard but everything after that I was confused about So

06:04 – Jill Salzman

I can clarify.

06:06 – Brad Farris

Let me give some context here When you're starting a business It's important to have a lot of ideas because you don't know what's gonna work, right? Right, And so we kind of throw things against the wall until we see what sticks. But what it requires to grow the business is to pick 1 thing and do it over and over and over and over and get good at it and get known for it. So people send you more of that and kind of stay in a lane until you have an audience of fan base Community is a customer base whatever you want to call it that knows you as doing that thing

06:42 – Jill Salzman

Brad, I have to respectfully disagree.

06:43 – Brad Farris

You can disagree all you want.

06:45 – Jill Salzman

I got this advice all the time when I was starting out and I hated it But I want to actually you haven't spoken yet. So we need to let you talk

06:54 – Gresham Harkless

Know that no you guys are right on and funny enough. I think I have about 4 or 5 whiteboards, which might be part of my focus

07:03 – Brad Farris

Hashtag too many whiteboards

07:06 -Jill Salzman

But the reason I hate Brad's advice is that the person who is creative, who has a million ideas, doesn't want to hear, but then sits down and focuses because we don't know yet how to focus.

07:16 – Brad Farris

And the person who has a million ideas is poor.

07:19 – Jill Salzman

Wait, Gretchen was talking.

07:20 – Gresham Harkless

Well, see, that's the biggest thing. So that's what I've been trying to figure out. How do you take what I feel is 1 of my gifts, meaning being able to not just come up with ideas but have that creative gene, I guess, so you can speak? And how do I harness that into things that can help me to grow and continue to build upon and not just come up with idea after idea?

07:37 – Jill Salzman

I'm going to look at the beauty of what you've already created, which is a digital media company.

07:42 – Brad Farris

Yeah.

07:42 – Jill Salzman

So underneath that umbrella, you have a million directions you could go, obviously podcast, blog, whatever you come up with other things. So what I, the reason Social media, the reason that I suggested to go out there and not keep this list to yourself and really test it out on other people is that you now have listeners, you have readers on the blog, and you clearly have your mom. So what you want to do is when you come up with a new idea for, oh, I think this could make money maybe possibly, ask people, would you pay for it? Or does this sound like something you would listen to read, consume, or buy?

And they, from the majority of answers, might say to you, it sounds okay, I'm not, no. And sometimes they'll be wrong, sometimes they'll be right, but as you're honing your own entrepreneurial instinct, You need a lot of feedback from a lot of people. I now have a very large community of mom entrepreneurs and I run a whole business based on it. But at the very beginning, I had so many ideas. I had probably 50 times as many as you do. And I would constantly just start

08:46 – Brad Farris

Them all. But I want to point out and I have what has made you successful is focusing on 1 idea.

08:52 – Jill Salzman

But that's not how I started. How I started was asking them what would work, what would work.

08:56 – Brad Farris

I like that. I like that's all good. That's all good.

08:58 – Jill Salzman

So if people help you kick out what actually is already done, doesn't feel good, or you don't feel right even though they tell you that this is gonna make you money, you can end up making those decisions along the way and get really focused, but I don't think Gresham can do it alone.

09:12 – Brad Farris

So let me add on to that, I'm gonna 1 plus it.

09:15 – Jill Salzman

You're always 1 pulsing my ideas.

09:17 – Brad Farris

They're good ideas, that's why I'm one-plussing them. So what I heard Gresham asking is, I have this natural ability, how do I turn it into something that people wanna buy? Is that what you were asking, Gresham? Kind of more about how I push it, not necessarily towards something people want to buy. How do I, I guess in a long-form way, yes, but it's more how do I take that natural ability and push it towards the ability to kind of focus so that it is something that people buy, I guess right? What I was going to say is you make that natural ability what people are buying.

So in your digital media company, you are gonna have lots of ideas that you're selling to clients, right? And there are gonna be some core things you always need a functional website You need some SEO but in your bit, you know for you could say to a client in your business you know YouTube might be the right audience in your business some other thing might be the right audience it's using that creativity to solve the client problems that allows you channel that creative idea-generating thing toward business that they pay.

10:19 – Jill Salzman

You're trying to get him to focus his creativity on a client.

10:23 – Brad Farris

Yes. Don't do a million things for your own business. Do 1 thing for your own business, but use that creativity. Sell the creativity.

10:30 – Jill Salzman

And I'm going to disagree again. He can do up to 5.

10:33 – Brad Farris

I would say 3. You're absolutely right. It doesn't have to be 1 thing.

10:35 – Jill Salzman

I just wanted to 1 plus year whatever you did But I'm gonna do my last year

10:38 – Brad Farris

I to mine.

10:39 – Jill Salzman

if I've blessed you 3 squared you that's yeah,

10:45 – Brad Farris

I square-rooted you

10:50 – Jill Salzman

From us that might help you focus a bit more today.

10:53 – Brad Farris

Not including the bad math.

10:55 – Gresham Harkless

First of all, 3, and figuring out what 3 things I could possibly definitely focus on is definitely key to our understanding. And then like understanding and using my creativeness, if that's a word, to be able to do it for clients and be able to kind of tap into them, being able to look at things in a different way. I think that's really big. And then understanding too that it's okay that I have a bunch of different ideas and that I can slowly, even though it's difficult, start to figure out what that 1 thing or 3 things will be so that I can focus on it as I move along.

11:31 – Brad Farris

He's a genius.

11:32 – Jill Salzman

You know what?

11:33 – Brad Farris

He should do this podcast. He doesn't even need us anymore.

11:34 – Jill Salzman 

Exactly. Yeah, just take over, it's fine.

11:36 – Brad Farris

So Gresham, I'm thinking that there are people who either wanna listen to your podcast or need help with digital marketing, where would they find you?

11:43 – Gresham Harkless

So my website progression.com is a funky spelling progression. It has Gresh in the middle. It's P-R-O-G-R-E-S-H-I-O-N.com. That literally has links to Blue 16 Media, CEO Blog Nation, the I AMCO Podcasts, and all the different projects I'm working on.

12:00 – Jill Salzman

Sweet! Love it.

12:01 – Brad Farris

Thank you, Gresham. Good luck. So, Jill, we're gonna welcome Saul onto the podcast.

12:05 – Jill Salzman

Saul is walking up to the microphone. Hello. You guys, Happy New Year. Saul is our producer who does amazing work. You would not be hearing this if it wasn't for him. It's true. And that's all the credit activity you saw. It would just be Jill and I talking to each other. Now we're gonna yell at you.

12:19 – Brad Farris

No, we're not gonna yell at him. Yeah, I would like to. I just wanna open the floor here. It's a new year, right?

12:25 – Jill Salzman

Okay, fine.

12:25 – Brad Farris

Are you guys resolution people? Do you set resolutions?

12:28 – Jill Salzman

Are you resoluting?

12:30 – Brad Farris

I'm not a resolution.

12:31 – Jill Salzman

You're not resolution. Oh, that's right. Every year you are never resolute.

12:33 – Brad Farris

That's true. Why? Are you resolute?

12:35 – Jill Salzman

Do you resolute?

12:37 – Gresham Harkless

What I do is resolute in my mind, but I don't usually.

12:42 – Jill Salzman

let anyone talk about it.

12:43 – Brad Farris

So in other words.

12:44 – Gresham Harkless

Oh, you just keep it to yourself as a secret?

12:46 – Jill Salzman:

Yeah, I feel like it's a jinx almost if I talk about it then it's less likely to So let's not do a reason.

12:52 – Gresham Harkless

Well, hold on.

12:53 – Brad Farris

Wait, Wait first. There's actual research that supports this idea When you tell people about your Goals

13:00 – Jill Salzman

Yeah,

13:01 – Brad Farris

It gives your brain the same response as if you completed them and so when you tell people about them It's almost like you don't have to do them anymore And it tricks your brain into thinking that you don't need to do them

13:11 – Jill Salzman

Science

13:12 – Gresham Harkless

I never knew that.

13:13 – Jill Salzman

But I'm wondering I Just to get it out of you now that the whole year's gone. Last year, what was the resolution you came up with? I don't remember.

13:19 – Gresham Harkless

Oh. But I'm more than happy.

13:22 – Jill Salzman

So you don't talk about them and then. You block them. Wow, okay, okay.

13:25 – Brad Farris

So you have a resolution for this year?

13:26 – Jill Salzman

Let's do it, let's do it.

13:27 – Gresham Harkless

I do. My resolution for this year is to react in a more measured and controlled manner to things.

13:35 – Jill Salzman

Do not laugh at him, that is a very acceptable, perfect resolution.

13:39 – Brad Farris

Here's what I think is funny about that. Because Saul has 2 levels of response. 1 is he raises 1 eyebrow.

13:47 – Jill Salzman

That's true, you guys.

13:48 – Brad Farris

He's a quiet producer. And then the next level of response is, what the hell! I don't know! That's true. I've never even heard

13:55 – Gresham Harkless

You do that.

13:55 – Brad Farris

That's exactly right. He's either, he either responds with like a 1 or an 11.

13:59 – Gresham Harkless

That's Right.

14:01 – Brad Farris

There's no in-between. So you're looking for some fives and sixes in there.

14:04 – Gresham Harkless

I'm looking for more ones.

14:05 – Brad Farris

More ones.

14:07 – Jill Salzman 

Yeah. I like that. Is that a, I wanna know like what triggers you to go to 11 so that, is that something? Wait, I don't even know the question. I just wondering why you have not been, why have you not been 5 or 6 in the past?

14:20 -Gresham Harkless

Well, I don't know exactly why I have not been 5 or 6. I think I know why. I think there are certain moments when I am, I have a tendency to overreact, let's just say. And there's not really a whole lot of rhyme or reason to it as far as I can tell. Some of it I think actually has to do with like time of day.

14:40 – Brad Farris

That's what I was gonna say. I think it has nothing to do with what's triggering you. I think it's what's built up to that moment, right?

14:45 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

14:47 – Jill Salzman

What's your time of day?

14:48 -Gresham Harkless

I think the morning is my morning. Bad day.

14:50 – Brad Farris

Yeah. Before it was always the morning.

14:53 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

14:55 – Jill Salzman

I get it.

14:55 – Brad Farris

See my bad times in the evening.

14:57 – Jill Salzman

Really?

14:58 – Brad Farris

I get tired and I don't I don't have all my faculties.

15:02 – Gresham Harkless

See, I've got a lot of piss and vinegar in me in the morning.

15:05 – Jill Salzman

Whoa, Whoa, calm down.

15:07 – Brad Farris

You can take care of that.

15:08 – Gresham Harkless

No, I like that. You know what I mean? I wake up and I'm feisty. And then later in the day, I'll thin to myself,

15:15 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, why was I so fired up?

15:18 – Jill Salzman

I like it.

15:19 – Brad Farris

You know something that I do in those situations is I'll go and apologize for whoever I unloaded on.

15:24 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I do that too.

15:25 – Brad Farris

Yeah, it helps. Because I feel like it makes me more humble and then I'm less likely to.

15:30 – Jill Salzman

I'm so sorry, How often are you guys unloading on people?

15:34 – Gresham Harkless

Not that often, but you

15:35 – Jill Salzman

Know what we wow

15:38 – Gresham Harkless

So not interesting.

15:40 – Jill Salzman

Okay. I like that resolution. Is there just 1?

15:43 – Brad Farris

Well, Jill, what are your resolutions?

15:46 – Jill Salzman

Fascinated by Saul's resolutions. I want to say from a business perspective, every year my resolution is to get better at accounting.

15:55 – Gresham Harkless

Hello, Hello, Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and the CEO Chat podcast. And I hope you enjoyed this special episode. Gave us an opportunity to kind of take some of the snippets from some of the longer forum podcasts that we have and repurpose them here. And we might be dusting off the CEO Chat podcast and talking a little bit more about some of those longer forum episodes and hopefully some of the people that have been on the I AM CEO podcast on the longer form episodes. But I hope you enjoyed this episode. I hope you enjoyed this little snapshot.

Of course, you can go to ceochat.co and have the opportunity to listen to the full complete version of the episode. But also you can maybe see that it's very important to create content but also to be able to listen to and take in the hacks, the nuggets, the stories, just all the things that make these interviews so unique and so special. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and be sure to follow up with the guests, follow up with the CEO Chat podcast, and hear about all the awesome things we're working on.

16:56 – Outro 

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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