OUR DAILY ROUTINES - psycho edition? | S1E11

[00:00:12] Speaker A: I am so excited about this one because we're doing it in the morning. [00:00:17] Speaker B: Yes. [00:00:19] Speaker A: Not our typical 330. I'm not sure how excited everybody else is. [00:00:23] Speaker B: I'm excited. Listen, I mean, this is what we do. Tommy's a swimmer, right? Tommy's a former division one swimmer. He'd been in the pool for 2 hours by now. We're not teaching him anything he doesn't know. [00:00:31] Speaker A: Exactly. So for our listeners, it is 06:00 a.m. On Tuesday. We typically do these at 330. And today we decided that we are going to talk about our routines, our personal routines, which is funny, because we're breaking up the routine of doing our 330 podcast today. [00:00:51] Speaker B: I know. And you didn't try to sit in my seat, which is nice, because I thought you might try to mess with me. [00:00:55] Speaker A: No. Last time I did that and wrecked your routine, it was a big ordeal. [00:01:00] Speaker B: You got a stare and a semi tantrum, I think. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Well, listen, so we always sit in the same seats during our podcast. When I sat in the seat, you typically sit in the one you're sitting in right now. I felt awkward and I really didn't want to do it, but I wanted to see how you would react. I'm like, oh, this is about routines. Let's see. And it went exactly as I thought it would. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Yeah, not so well. Yeah, it rocked my whole world for that 22nd stint. Thanks for that. [00:01:27] Speaker A: You're welcome. So I think as we talk about routines, people are interested in. I know I am personally, in learning about people's routines. You hear a lot about morning routines, sometimes evening. But I do think we need to start with how we even developed our routines, and that starts back with childhood. I do think that people are not here to listen to that. They're here to. I want to know what you do today on an everyday basis. So I promise you, hang in there with us as we talk about our childhood routines and how we develop that. We will get to our current routines shortly. Here, do you want to start? [00:02:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Look, I think to skip to the now would probably even be a disservice because you learn this along the way. There's lots of trial and error, and whether you're aware of it real time or not aware of it, you're just nudged back into line. You're doing certain things, I think, for an outcome success, call it whatever you want, it doesn't matter, but you're doing things for an outcome in general and whatever it is. And I just think that someone would say, well, tell me some times when you realized you were doing it all wrong. There are some of those, but in general, I feel like my life has just been this small, minor pivots along the way to say, oh, that's a little bit better than this. I mean, I don't know that I've ever been so off course that I jerked myself in the exact opposite direction. But certainly lots of little course corrections along the way to refine, refine, refine. I'm sure we'll get on to some sports and some of the routines that we develop from there, but I think it, for me, it just comes back to the idea. I realize that I'm hyper aware of how small the differentiation is at the top. If you want to compete at the very top, the differentiation is small depending on what it is. It's fractions of seconds or fractions of shots in golf or whatever. And to me, those little tiny tweaks that would get me an advantage. I don't mean that in a cheating way. I mean, would get me better than I would be. That would have me executing faster, with more accuracy or whatever. That looks like the competitive advantage. Yeah, absolutely. One of my favorite people to watch over the years was Ray Lewis. Not because we're crazy Ravens fans, but because it was fascinating, which we are. We are crazy. [00:03:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:47] Speaker B: Not exclusively because. But because it was interesting to watch a guy that played something like 16 years in the league, and certainly you're going to lose a step. Right. That just happens with age. But to play at the ultimate, highest level and be the MVP of the Super bowl in your last year, there has to be that combination of natural ability and speed, if you will. But then as you get, you start to see the angles. Right, and you get to the tackle at the same time. But you might learn to run a more direct route. So I think those course corrections for me from a routine perspective are just about that. Right? Is getting to the play, whatever the play is, faster, even though I might not actually physically be faster than I was as a younger person. So I think that's what those routine evolutions along the way have done for me. And some of them, and most of them are incredibly unconscious. I think when you said routines or someone suggested through whatever medium, that we were going to talk about routines, and I got into it, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is a pretty deep rabbit hole. [00:04:50] Speaker A: Yeah. As I had told you earlier, it feels so intimate because it's just what you do behind the scenes all day, every day, and it's like, oh, my gosh, I almost feel naked exposing what my daily routine looks like. I don't know why I feel so intimate. But it's almost like I don't want people to know what I'm doing every single day. What is your first memory of routine and developing routine as a child. Especially those that you've held on to today? Or as you said, enhanced, refined. [00:05:26] Speaker B: Yeah. No, it definitely came from my father, who was Navy. And my household was tenacious and relentless. About time. The idea of time being on time. Schedule. Cadence, military word cadence. And it started at an early age. I got up, certainly we'll weave in all kinds of stuff. Sports certainly comes into there. Where you have a very defined routine. It started with playing golf and getting up at a particular time. Like, for example, you had a tea time. You had a game time in soccer. I mean, tea times were in eight minute increments. So it was this interesting thing, too. I mean, certainly you had game times. But golf was really interesting. In that you had tea times in eight minute increments. So you were constantly working on a schedule of sorts. So I grew up in a very scheduled, defined world. Where we got up at a particular time. If you set a time to be somewhere, you were there. And actually it was even more know, in Navy land, if you were on time, you were late. And if you were late, you might as well not show up. And that was just ingrained into me from such an incredible young age. And we just mean when it was Columbus Day or Martin Luther King Day. Or some of the holidays. That weren't necessarily business or industrial in nature. But they were government holidays. There was never even a know. The alarm went off at 05:00. My feet hit the deck. I was upstairs ready to go. At six. We walked out the door. We were at Hannibal street, our old facility at 630. And that was that. There wasn't even any conversation. It wasn't like Sunday. I was thinking, hey, dad, maybe I'll just sleep in tomorrow. That wasn't even part of the conversation. So it started there. And has just continued to be the same type of mentality. And I've been showing up that way for a really long time. [00:07:14] Speaker A: Yes. And you were raised and born in almost like a military style household. Where your dad was. How old would your dad be today? I know you've said it several times. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. He'd be 102. [00:07:31] Speaker A: Hundred and 250 years older than I am. Exactly. So that was his generation. That was his mindset. That's how he was built. And that's how you grew up. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Well, just think, too. I mean, even drafted into World War II, he fought in World War II in the South Pacific. So when you talk about cadence and the military component of that, know if you're not in your spot, doing your job, where your teammates, your fellow soldiers expect you to be, could be a life or death situation. That's not dramatic. That's the truth of how military organizations operate. The idea that when you're not at war, you're training, that training component never stops. That's something that's been very close or evident for me for a long time. So, yeah, I think that was just who he was, and that training was built into him, if not hard coded, because I think hard coding is more of a DNA conversation, but so regimented that it was right there next to hard coding. [00:08:30] Speaker A: Yes. And I wasn't raised that same way. My parents were a product of the. They were hippies, free spirits. My mother, she is very routine. My dad, not as much. Every single human being has a routine that we all are familiar with, we rely on to some extent, and that we enjoy. That's how we keep our lives together. My dad, though definitely less, even to this day, less routine. And I just didn't grow up in the same way now as you did. Being on time for social events, it just wasn't as important, which I knew you had to get used to when we first started dating, as we've also talked about that being on time, I wasn't going to be late for a work event or something, but if it was just doing something socially with no. What I thought in my head, ramifications, I didn't think much about it. It wasn't, of course, not intentionally to be disrespectful or anything like that. That's how I was raised. I didn't think it was a big deal. So that was something we've had to work on together. You being able to take your foot off the pedal for a second. [00:09:43] Speaker B: That's right. [00:09:43] Speaker A: And be like, hey, it's Saturday. We can be five minutes late or take a breath, but, hey, don't be an hour late. We made a plan on my side. [00:09:56] Speaker B: Well, the off button in general, you struggle with the off button, but I struggle with the off button in that regard. Just because it's so close. I would say even take it one step further, there's probably some comfort in it, too, that regimentation where I know what's coming on. I'm not a big fan of surprises, even the good ones. I always want to know. And there's just something about that cadence or that structure where I'm comfortable, and it's like, okay, well, we said six, so 558 I'll expect them. And what I've had to work on is not having my cage rattled when it's 605 or 610, just like ratling my cage when you sit in my seat. Right. So those are the types of things that I have to be cognizant of and really for good. Right. Not to change myself so that my game plan can't get so easily knocked off by the slightest change in my expectations. And I think that's one of the things about routines. It's great, but you don't get to do them alone. There's any number of things that can affect your routine, and it's really more about how do you respond to that interruption of your routine, especially if it causes discomfort, which it does for me at times or in spots. [00:11:01] Speaker A: It does. If my routine gets disrupted in any way, it really does affect me. But I think there is something to being very intentional about structuring your routine as much as you can so it cannot get disruptive. There are certain, when we get into our daily routines, there are things that we're doing early in the morning or at these certain times where it's unlikely it's going to get disrupted by the way we've structured it. So I think being very intentional about how you're setting them. Yes. At any point in time, something can happen and you have to change it and adapt. And that is very hard for me. I've got to work on that. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Let me ask you this, because you prep for this just like I do. Did you ever come to a reason why your routines, is there a particular benefit to you? If you summed up or you looked at, if you pulled the lens back and looked at your routines, could you hit on a word or two or three? That is the benefit of why you subscribe so aggressively to your routine. [00:12:01] Speaker A: I want you to go first, because I don't want to steal your thunder, because we've talked about this before, and I know where you're going to lead off. [00:12:07] Speaker B: Well, yeah. And I wasn't sure yours was the same. [00:12:10] Speaker A: It's not the same, but I would touch on that a little bit. So I want you to start. [00:12:13] Speaker B: Yeah, no. Okay, so mine's really simple. It's personal productivity. I mean, I think everything. We have a whole division that's based on productivity. And I have realized, and I've looked back at my career in retrospect, that I was always trying to improve my personal productivity. What can I do? Productivity being the difference between input and output. What can I do to hold my input the same and get exponential output? Right? Because that input component, whether it's time or capability, is very finite, right? I only have so much control over that I might learn a new trick. I might do whatever, which would allow me to have some input. I might get rid of something in my life or choose not to do it, which would create time or input. But generally, no. I mean, there's only so much time, so personal productivity and to a very scary level at times. I'll give you an example. It's so in my head that when I get in the shower in the morning, I will put conditioner in my hair and then brush my teeth in the shower so that I am doing those at the same time. Like I don't put conditioner on and then go out to the sink and brush my teeth because that would have me taking two minutes for one and two minutes for the other, when I can just take two minutes by stacking. Well, of course, but that's how bad it is from constantly looking and surveying. What are the moves? How am I going to plot my moves if I have to get from a to z? What is the absolute straightest line? And I would never even risk going from a to c and having to double back to b. I am so calculated in that regard because I only want to spend the absolute minimum amount of time. And I don't mean from a quality perspective, I mean from a quantity perspective. I think because I value my disposable time, if you will. Right? If I do all this perfectly, can I create some time where I get to do whatever the hell I want? And it might not be scheduled? I don't know if I'm capable of that. But I think in my twisted brain, that's what I'm trying to do, is create additional time. But sometimes it might just be a game of sorts to me. Like, can I outsmart this entire thing one more time? Can I get to z faster than I did last time? Because I learned some of the missteps that I made, but it's all driven by personal productivity. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Well, that's creepy. [00:14:30] Speaker B: I've scared the shit out of myself. [00:14:32] Speaker A: I'll throw a little wrench in that. And this is just from listening to a podcast this morning by the author. Have you heard of the book 4000 weeks? [00:14:39] Speaker B: Yes, I have. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Okay. [00:14:41] Speaker B: Not a great read, so I think everyone knows. Not a great reader. I think crayons are better for me. So you're a voracious reader and podcast and I'm generally a consumer of live tv, so on and so forth. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we've said this 1 million times. [00:14:56] Speaker B: That's right. But people might drop in later in the stack, so they just need to know that. [00:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I haven't, I've wanted to read that book for so long. I love to read so much, but I haven't. So I got a little glimpse. I probably got through like probably close to 2 hours of him on a podcast this morning. [00:15:12] Speaker B: So 4000 weeks is just south of eight years. [00:15:14] Speaker A: Sure. [00:15:15] Speaker B: Because I also love math. [00:15:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And I actually never took the time to do that math. Not going to lie. But he would say that people are way too obsessed with personal productivity. 80 years and then it's whatever. And then it's a lifetime. It's a lifetime that you have to live. 4000 on average. But he would say that the personal productivity people are a way to obsess and it becomes a big distraction. And his point was like, okay, he gives emails as an example. So say you become way more proficient in emails. You can now answer and get to 50 emails in five minutes as opposed to ten. Well, all you're doing is inviting more emails in and you're just continually going down this cycle, he said. So there are some companies that pride themselves on, like my company, like I always say, on being the first to respond, on being very communicative and you just respond to these emails, emails. And he said, you don't solve any problems. They're just more coming in. It's just a thought provoking. I don't want to dig into it. I feel like we could have a whole episode on it. But it did make me think a little bit like, okay, that's interesting. There's always another side to it. [00:16:26] Speaker B: I think it's great we've talked about this. I don't want to get off on this either, because you're right, we will hold. Because I have so many thoughts. Like my brain just went into fire. [00:16:33] Speaker A: I know, right? But that's about this. Know. [00:16:38] Speaker B: Tommy, can you jot that down so. [00:16:39] Speaker A: We don't miss this? So you initially asked me the question, which I promptly turned your way. There are a couple of themes, I think, in why I do what I do. [00:16:53] Speaker B: The why of your routines. [00:16:54] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes. It's funny because a lot of what you said is to get from a to b quicker or see the angles better so you can arrive there faster. A lot of what I do is not necessarily achieving the thing faster. It's doing other things around it. And I'll explain this that I think will make my input greater, which will, in the end, allow me to get there faster or better. What I mean by that is a lot of what I focus on, particularly in the morning, is for my physical and mental health. So it's a lot about wellness for me and just getting my mind and body right. That's super important to me and sets the stage for the rest of what I do. Do you want to get into our exact routines? [00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah. You have such a great, interesting routine. Why don't you run the audience through it and how you get from alarm to, I don't know, into the beginning of the workday, so on and so forth? [00:17:54] Speaker A: Yeah, I will go from alarm to being in the office arrival. Yes. [00:18:00] Speaker B: That's great. [00:18:01] Speaker A: I'll be super particular and specific about this. So, alarm goes off during the week at 03:00 a.m.. Today, since we're doing our podcast at six, it was 02:00 a.m. I just pushed it up an hour. But 03:00 a.m.. I go into the bathroom, change, wash my face, put lotion on, brush my teeth, go directly downstairs. On our first floor, we have a couple of gym pieces of equipment. Nothing extensive, but enough. So I go immediately down and I do a couple of stretches, get right on the treadmill, and I will do nine to 10 miles of intervals. So I'll tell you exactly what I have right now. So I have had 10.7 miles, 17,339 steps, 831 calories. [00:18:48] Speaker B: Okay, there we go. [00:18:49] Speaker A: It's 628 in the morning. [00:18:50] Speaker B: So you're negative calories for the day. That pisses me off. [00:18:52] Speaker A: No, I had a banana on the way here. Oh, wait, no, I changed up that routine. Weird. Okay. I'm really excited about that. But anyway, so I do that, and then right after I get off the treadmill, I do six to eight minutes of. It's very lightweight ab circuit. No time in between, just six to eight straight minutes. Then I stop, then I get into. We have a cold plunge. It's anywhere from. I try to get it down to 39 degrees, but usually it falls between 40 and 41, so anywhere from 39 to 42 degrees. I submerge my body in the cold, plunge for five minutes, then I dry off. I put my favorite robe on. I go upstairs, and I have my vitamin, my supplements, which I have laid out the night before, and my athletic greens drink, which I've made the night before. Also, while I am doing my routine, my workout. So it's between like an hour and 45 to 2 hours really is what it is. I always listen to a podcast and typically I've had on Spotify and I have had that or YouTube that's picked out the night before as well. What I've been doing lately, I think I just ate the mic. [00:20:04] Speaker B: Yeah, you are riled this morning. [00:20:06] Speaker A: I love it. [00:20:07] Speaker B: This is a danger, Tommy, of shooting Instagram. [00:20:11] Speaker A: What I've done lately is because it's a team effort. When we're editing, we're not doing the editing, but we're helping with descriptions of our podcast and how we're going to lay them out. So I've been listening to our podcast during some of our workouts and then I'll voice memo or just notes as we go through. So I've been doing that. So after I do my athletic greens, I go upstairs, I shower, and then I get right into work. So that is my early morning routine. Monday through Friday, Saturday, Sunday. The routine does not change as far as actually, none of it changes other than coming into the office. But the time is not always as early. So it's typically pretty early. But that can shift. The routine itself is the same, right? [00:21:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And then for my part of that, I'm a 05:00 guy at latest, and then I'll move it up accordingly. So if I'm flying to Chicago, I have a 06:00 a.m. Flight that could be a 345 wake up, but no later than five. And I think back to that routine disruption component because we have one bathroom, so on and so forth. There's some things that I've learned along the way to share resources, right where I know about the time you're coming up. We shower in the same space. So I've got an eyeball on, the alarm goes off. And some days I might be a little murky and not springing out of bed, but I've got an eyeball where I know you're coming up and my butt better be out of that shower by the time you come up because if I'm not, you're going to come around the corner cranky. [00:21:46] Speaker A: Okay, so talk about routine. We have many showers in our house that are unused. [00:21:52] Speaker B: True. [00:21:53] Speaker A: Yet we have got to use the same one. [00:21:55] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's terrible. But it's funny. You have trained me that my butt better be out of that shower because you've already been up for 2 hours working your tail off. And just because I slept up for ten more minutes I better not be in the way of your shower. And that's exactly how I feel about it. [00:22:08] Speaker A: I do get a little hustle. [00:22:09] Speaker B: No, I know, and that's reasonable. My ass should be out of bed and out of the shower and clearing the space. Because then once that happens, then there's two sinks, and that's cool. We're in a good spot. There's only one hairdryer. Fortunately, I have limited hair, so. Yeah, it's just funny as I think about that, or this. I was like, all right, I've actually tweaked my routine so that we can both be hyper successful and not in each other's way, or just have near misses in the morning. I don't know if couples are listening to this and laughing like those two are nuts, or, holy hell. My wife and I do that in the same space, too. But, yeah, it's been interesting how for a while, when I was living by myself, that wasn't an issue. And I had run to the place, get up, turn on all the lights, make all the noise in the world, which is nice. That's not an issue. We have our house by 05:00 in the morning is a storming metropolis. I mean, if you were a Sleeper, or you would be just livid trying to be in our space. But when I was living by myself, it was free rain and so on and so forth. And I think that's why I worked, because there was no change for me in that regard. You were up before me, and then when we lived in an apartment, you were downstairs in the gym. Hell, some mornings I would even hear the front door close on the way out. So just not disruptive at all. Back to that alignment component that we have. I mean, it's so aligned that we even have to come off of some of those early routines, which is important because those are so vital to our day. And starting the day and coming into work or whatever work looks like, whether it's going to a customer or to a meeting, to start in the right headspace, is so important, and I think sets the tone for the day, that it was super helpful. Our relationship is great in that regard and that no one had to compromise. And not that that's a bad word, but let's be honest. Why would you compromise if you didn't have to? Right? So there's no compromise on those schedules, which just made our association that much easier and that much more seamless. You might disagree. [00:24:06] Speaker A: No, I don't disagree. But as I'm hearing us talk, I am thinking about someone's listening to this. God forbid, in the morning, they couldn't spend 30 minutes apart getting ready in separate bathrooms. Like, we work together. We're together every evening. We travel together. It's like, no, but we have to make sure we can spend those 30 minutes together getting ready. [00:24:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And so much that we even sacrifice our routine, something so near and dear to our heart, to do that. [00:24:31] Speaker A: And that is something. So as we talk about jumping out of bed, and I don't hit snooze ever. I don't. And I think, generally speaking, I'm definitely a morning person, so I really look forward to waking up. That sounds weird. So I have no problem with jumping out of bed. Now, I'm not a night owl, so I'm not saying, like, I have this special by night. I'm tired, but I definitely am the morning. I look forward to what the day has to offer. So at the risk of sounding Pollyanna, I don't know, it's not that hard for me to just jump out of bed. [00:25:10] Speaker B: Let me ask you a question. So let's talk. The sports piece is always a big part of both of our lives, and I want to ask you something. Go ahead. [00:25:17] Speaker A: No, go ahead. I was going to stay on our current routine, but we can. [00:25:21] Speaker B: No. Then don't let me segue. Stay there. [00:25:23] Speaker A: Well, there were a couple of other things that were important when you said, why do you do that particular routine? And there were a couple of other things that I didn't get a chance to mention outside of just the health and the wellness and what it does for me mentally and physically. But there are a couple of things I know. Manufacturing is the same as construction. It starts very early. Like, my team starts early. So I've got to be in the office early. I've got to be starting my day early. We've got to be on call for our customers early. So that's part of it. I function best in the morning, so I front load my days very intentionally. You will not catch me scheduling a very important conversation or meeting or task late in the afternoon. I try to do before noon, if I can. All those important tasks and conversations doesn't always work out perfectly, but you'll be surprised if you're very intentional about setting that schedule. You can, a lot of times, arrange it in the way that's best for you. So that's also part of it. And then the other thing is, besides the fact that extreme movement and sweat, I think, is really the best therapy for me personally on the planet, I rely on it so much, especially the high pressure situations we're in a lot. I really need that. I also think there's another piece of just sticking to a routine that's challenging and hard and out of your comfort zone every day. And something we've talked about in the past is continuing to what we call lay the brick. So you could say, I'm Mick Arnold. I am XYZ. Or I could say, I am Britt Arnold. I'm a runner. I run a business. But I need to be able to prove every day that I am laying the bricks, that I actually align and match who I say. And that is about doing hard things continually, consistently. So it's undeniable. Like, you have all the proof here, you've done it, you've laid the Brooks every day. And that I need to feel that to. I don't want to say avoid imposter syndrome, but just make sure it's undeniable that I can be confident in who I say I am and what I do. [00:27:39] Speaker B: When does that shift, though? Because this is off topic, for sure, but when does that shift? Because I'm not sure how sustainable that is. What point do you get to believe that you're you without doing impossible things every day? Because it's hard to do impossible 365 days a year. At what point do you just get to graduate into you and you're wholly comfortable with that? [00:27:57] Speaker A: I wouldn't say impossible. I'm not saying nothing I'm doing is impossible. Clearly I'm doing it. [00:28:01] Speaker B: But hard. Jeez. But if you're building you that brick to brick, that has a building effect where if you have to somewhat outdo what you did the day before, that could be really hard. [00:28:12] Speaker A: So I don't think it has to be. I'll do, and I'm sure we'll get into this at some point, my goals, or what I need, physically or mentally, are going to be different. So it almost might be scaling back to achieve what I need to achieve. So I think it's more of an awareness and identification and maybe an awareness in actually doing what you're aware, then that could be scaling back and focusing more on something else. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So that was a. I did want to mention we didn't start this, but we were so fortunate to attend a Baltimore business journal event this past week. That was. What was it? [00:28:47] Speaker A: What's the enterprising women enterprise? [00:28:49] Speaker B: Thank you. That enterprising word kills me. But there was just a great panel and one of my biggest takeaways is in line with what you just said, right, the difference between giving up and standing down, which was really interesting. And I thought about that. I'm like, oh, younger Mick Arnold would have said, that's what quitters say. What's wrong with you? You can't actually stand down. There's no difference between the two. I disagree. What you hit on, I think, is along the lines of, at some point maybe I will mature enough to know the difference between giving up and standing down. I think I'm close. I'm not as close as the woman on stage that was talking who was a beast. But you're so eloquent. [00:29:27] Speaker A: I think we're also in different phases of our careers and you've been doing this a lot longer. I don't really have the right to stand. I haven't done enough to stand down yet. I'm only in my mid thirty s and I haven't even run this business for seven years. So you have to earn your stripes. And there's a lot of stripes I have yet to. [00:29:50] Speaker B: So let's get back to how routines are going to help us with that, because this one's a beauty. Katami making notes because when we can't think of stuff, we sit here and we're like, we got to talk about that. We got to talk about that. And then we'll just be have a writer's block as we're going through. So one thing I did want to ask you is soccer your life? Golf, huge part of my life. And I certainly play team sports, too, but the golf part of my life resonates. And as I thought about it, which is just routines inside of routines inside of routines. And when you got your tea time, and if it was your typical group, it was generally the same time every week. But if you're playing tournament golf, you were put into a place based on any number of things, how you finished the day before. If it was day two, typically, if it was a two day qualifier, you played in the morning on the first day and the afternoon on the second day. So everybody experienced the course at different times. And once you got your tea time, that started my routine. I was backing into my morning and it could start with drive time to the course. I was there an hour ahead of time. So fast forward then to the range. That had its whole routine. The first tee, the driver swing had its whole routine, as did every single club all the way through the hole. The irons had a routine. If I hit the ball in the bunker, I hit it into a hay patch next to the green. And I had a short shot. It was just routine. On top of routine, short putts had a routine, long putts had a routine. So, I mean, I didn't even realize how exposed to routines I was. I mean, if you think about baseball, if you watch batters in the batters boxes, which I'm always interested, you want to talk about a routine? You could record a guy from the time he puts his first foot into the box and everything he does until the ball hits the catcher's glove. I bet there's no difference. And I bet you could time that within seconds of each other in how they're getting their mental space, right, to figure out what that guy is going to throw them. So long question, too, because you played in that repetition, what were your personal routines that you were doing inside of a team sport where the coach was calling a lot of the shots, the starting lineup, the people, the lineup you're playing four, three, two, whatever. What are some of those things that you were doing inside, personally, amongst a team sport? [00:32:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. From the age of four through 21, 22, soccer was my entire life. And I would say it started really getting routine probably around twelve or 13 when I made that jump to club ball and we are playing throughout the nation, it starts just getting more serious and more. I mean, everything was a routine. I would eat the same things which I remember as a kid. While a lot of kids were eating fast food, I would only eat a plain turkey sandwich before my games. I would have to pull my socks up a little to the certain point on my knee. These were a mix between routines and superstitions. As we've talked, which I had a lot of superstitions. [00:32:54] Speaker B: Routines, habits, addictions, superstitions. Those are four things that are really fascinating. [00:32:59] Speaker A: Yeah. How I would roll my shorts, how I would do my hair. Everything was so routine. Definitely what I would eat when I was younger, which is funny because I don't sleep much, but I would pretty much always sleep on the way to the game when I was younger. And my dad always said he really believes it was something meditative about it for me, like mentally, because he said I would do it no other times, but on the way to the game, I would just sleep in the car. And it was almost like a focus thing for me. Everything was so routine. And then outside of the very specific, because we're really talking about game time and match time routines. [00:33:45] Speaker B: No, I don't know. But about the green wall in your backyard. [00:33:47] Speaker A: Well, that's what I was. [00:33:47] Speaker B: What was your routine on the wall? [00:33:49] Speaker A: I mean, I was just practicing twenty four seven. And that was just a product of discipline. Yes, but just passion. I mean, as we talked to Olivia, our youngest daughter, she was thinking about playing soccer. Just those moments of like that is the difference between the kids who really want to play and end up playing at that high level. You are doing your routine outside of your coach's supervision or anything structured. And that, for me, was as much as I could touch a ball, juggle it. My dad, as I said, the green monster, built this big wall that painted it green so it looked like it blended in with the trees. The amount of balls I hit off that wall, that would smack back or they have a cement wall inside of their garage that I would just. The amount of one touches, one, two touches, I would take off that wall running. I mean, it was nonstop. If my dad will come out and play with me or take me up to the park, I would beg him to death. It was nonstop. And that's all I did. And I know you can relate in the golf world. [00:34:56] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. I think that's cool. Just in that you might think that just because it's a team sport, that it's regimented by team, there is all of that work, that personal development work that goes on outside. Golf is a lot more, I think, obvious because you can hit balls forever on your own. I know in college we'd hit balls for 12 hours with one goal, trying to cut one shot out of our score. If I think back to it, we didn't really track statistics like they do today, which would have been great, which doesn't seem that hard. I think I was just so immature and such a mental midget in those days when I was younger, that if I had tracked those stats the way I absolutely would now, I would have honed in specifically on my weaknesses. Right. What are my sand saves? Just pick dumb stuff. But whatever those particular weaknesses are where I underperformed in a particular tournament, or I would go right back to that and say, well, why would I hit drivers? I hit every fairway. What am I doing? When I did make bogey? Why did I make bogey? I'd hone in on those failures, and then I would take that back to my routine and I would ingrain it. Maybe not forever, but certainly that would be a priority in my routine as I was coming out of whatever that test was. Right? Because that game is a test, that round is a test, and you're playing and doing all this practice work, and if you then equate that back to business, the tests are competitive sales situations or competitive hiring situations. You got a candidate that you love and you know they're interviewing with competitor B. Or maybe it's not direct competitor, maybe it's just another great company that buys for similar type of talent. Whatever that test is, if win or lose, done correctly, I think you would learn from that. And you take that back to your routine and then you drill yourself to get better at it, either to ingrain that win or to course correct from that particular loss. And I think that's where the routines are so valuable, especially if you can do the self assessment to understand what to do inside of your routine that's going to either ingrain or potentially fix whatever it is, that test, that you either did what you wanted or you didn't. But what would you do with that? And then how would your routine be supportive of it? [00:37:05] Speaker A: Sure. And that's why I am the biggest proponent of sports for kids and I think even more so female. I think sports are so helpful for females in developing confidence and walking into. Now I can walk in as a professional into the workplace with so much confidence. The translation of that is undeniable. But the development, amongst many other things, the development of routine and regimen and structure. If you want to be the best, you have got to develop a very good, supportive routine. And a lot of times, for instance, I think I was almost forced to do that to be able to be the soccer player I was. I wasn't raised in a military like background. Certainly my parents were. They disciplined me. But the sports definitely, I think, expedited that process for me and helped me develop that from which we've launched our business careers with that foundation. [00:38:19] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it also becomes part and parcel, too. I remember my father talking to me a lot about muscle memory. The reason that you have those routines and you put in those repetitions, right? Because those routines are also about repetitions. If you're getting up and doing that same thing every single day, it might not be quite as obvious as hitting 1007 irons. That where you're working on every single ball flight you could. But it's the same exact thing, right? And that muscle memory is important because when you're under stress, it's more likely to happen. Right? [00:38:50] Speaker A: Which you defer back to, or like the default because it's comfortable. [00:38:54] Speaker B: I mean, when that guy's got that five foot putt to win the US Open and he stood over a million of those five foot putts on his practice screen at home and other tournaments, so on and so forth. If you can calm your brain by letting your muscles take over, then you still have the same outcome and you're less at risk of being disrupted because of all of that pressure. I think that same thing transfers to business, too. [00:39:15] Speaker A: It does. So let's get into what the people are here for. [00:39:20] Speaker B: Oh, God. I never know what the people are here for. Tommy, what are the people here for? It's 620. Look at the mounting questions and let us know what everybody wants to know. [00:39:33] Speaker A: They want to know the simple things, right? If I'm waking up at three, you're waking up at 4435. What time do you go to sleep? [00:39:42] Speaker B: Oh, gosh, man, as early as I can. That's a really wishy washy answer. But I'm comfortable. If I feel like my day is over and I've gotten it done, I'm okay to hop in bed at 730 or 745 and ease into whatever my sleep pattern is going to be. Last night different. I mean, there are certain days that are just grinders. And we had a late interview. I hadn't done my preparation for this morning, so it ended up being more like 10:00 and knowing that we had to be here at six. So I don't know that the end of day is nearly as defined, but until I'm comfortable that I'm where I need to be, whatever that means, which some days suck, I'm just like, I'm not there yet. I'm not there yet. And it could be on a day where I have a 605 flight and the alarm is going to be 345. Like, airplanes don't play. I mean, that's the hardest of hard stops in the world is takeoff. So there are some days, and it can be a three or four hour night of sleep. I don't want to do that consistently, but that's a long answer, too. Mentally, until I'm comfortable that I'm where I am and it goes back to these preparation conversations that we had, my brain will not calm down or allow me to approach anything that looks like sleep until that preparation is there, I'm comfortable that I'm going to be able to do or perform the way I need to. And that all comes back to preparation. [00:41:05] Speaker A: So you can't give me a general, when do you go to sleep? [00:41:07] Speaker B: No, you're there. You know, it's all over the place. [00:41:11] Speaker A: I would say generally nine might be like an accurate. By that time we're actually asleep. [00:41:17] Speaker B: Aura says 815. Like, it tags me every day. It's like it's, hey, buddy. [00:41:20] Speaker A: Well, that might be when you should. [00:41:22] Speaker B: Be in bed let's start wrapping it. [00:41:24] Speaker A: Up definitely but by the time I'm asleep it's usually 9930 but yes, there's late nights we're in an entertainment business we go out with suppliers and customers a lot we don't do it as much as we used to I mean we were doing it two times a week which is half the week in. [00:41:41] Speaker B: Addition to our enjoyment of each other. [00:41:43] Speaker A: Socially and we would go to bed at ten or eleven generally if I'm looking at our aura ring which we should talk about if I'm looking at my aura ring I'm getting around anywhere from in between four and five and a half hours of sleep that's usually where I'm living which I feel good on I feel really good now someone may say well you don't know what you don't know which maybe true but I can tell you that my dad has never slept so could it be genetic? I think there's probably something to that but I don't know I feel good. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Though yeah, I would say so give you a legit answer I would say by nine and if I'm in bed by nine I'm generally going to be ready to go at four 7 hours is good I used to have that four or five hour thing that you do definitely as I've gotten older I'm not as comfortable or with the flow where I can spring up and then put in a really productive day I recognize that I start to feel those. [00:42:39] Speaker A: Now that's something I want to work on and very serious about let's give the people another question that they want to hear about another answer to the. [00:42:49] Speaker B: Question all right, let's do this look out. [00:42:51] Speaker A: Tell me a little bit about your nutrition and what you like to eat. [00:42:56] Speaker B: Well, until recently I ate everything that wasn't painted or nailed down I got it not true. You're kind and give me some passes. [00:43:05] Speaker A: For sure so you have always been disciplined since the day I've met you. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Since the day you met me but that's relatively new I had some injuries along the way blown Achilles and a shoulder and so on and so forth which were definitely related to some poor lifestyle choices too much food and beer because I was playing a lot of golf and golf you can certainly have a case of beer and play well unlike most sports but I would say most recently in trying to get ready for knee surgery which I had a month or so ago I did get a lot more discipline I basically cut the whites out so bread, sugar, cheese, what else? There's a fourth one in there that I can't think of. But just trying to be more disciplined around there. [00:43:48] Speaker A: You've pretty much cut all starch out. [00:43:50] Speaker B: I have, yeah, I have, I think just a cheat or something like that. But I haven't really missed it. But same thing. [00:43:56] Speaker A: Sweets. You've cut out sweets. [00:43:58] Speaker B: Sugar. Sugar. The toughest white. I can't remember. I'll think of it. But, oh, potatoes. Potatoes. So I've just basically cut those and had to retrain myself too. Let me tell you what, if you sugar isn't addicting, you're crazy. Because then I was trying to come off of that because I had that thing where I say I was heavier than I wanted to be because my knee hurt and my knee hurt because I was heavier than I wanted to be. And it's like this endless cycle where until you do something for me violent to break it, to start to get lighter and feel better, it's hard. And so I was like, all right, I just got to go whole ham on these food choices. So now I try to break the fast. I know there's every study in the world, but for me it's better to have something in my stomach in the morning, whether it's to soak up that acid. What time before I've actually started to eat at my desk in the office. Which is weird. I've never eaten a meal at my desk. But now I've got a box of cereal in my cabinet in there and I eat a bowl, not two bowls. It's frosted mini wheats, so there's sugar on there. But I do feel like I have the entire day to burn it. So that. Mix in some lunch, try to keep dinner as lean as possible. But I've just cut out all the crap in the middle. [00:45:10] Speaker A: What's much more disciplined, you're giving me roundabout answers. [00:45:14] Speaker B: We live in a food desert, so that could be anything. I mean, some days, if I'm fortunate enough to be out of the office, like today, I'll be out with a customer, I'll have a reasonable meal and I'll make good choices and actually have real food. Or I could eat one of those crappy bars. [00:45:26] Speaker A: Bars? [00:45:28] Speaker B: Yeah, bars. Nick's keto friendly protein bars, nougat bars. I think that's how they say it in Schweden. Or I'll have a bar or something crappy like that just to survive throughout the day. Because sometimes you book your schedule and you have an eleven and a one and next thing you know, you're like, holy hell. I don't have any time to get out of here and get reasonable food. Some days I will eat that second bowl of cereal. But no, I've had to be a lot more disciplined just because I said my metabolism is changing and I've had to shift my routines around it because it's not something I can do a ton about. Certainly trying to be more active and exercise. We bought bikes, but recovering from knee surgery has slowed that down a little bit. So I've had to get a little bit draconian on the diet short term, because I don't have the ability to burn calories that I used to. [00:46:20] Speaker A: So I simply can't take in as given. So you still have not given me, the people, the answer. You said cereal and Nick's bar. You haven't told us what you eat. What's for dinner? [00:46:31] Speaker B: Oh, God, anything light fish, pork, chicken, lean white meats, preferably occasionally some steak, but usually very high protein based, high veggie based asparagus and green beans. So lean proteins and green vegetables are what I generally try to eat. Eat a lot of chicken at home. I've been growing a lot of chicken and eating corn. Not ultimately. I prefer to have green vegetables, but, yeah, that's how I've had to shift my routine as I continue to be of advanced age. I learned that word. I hate it. But technically, I'm advanced age, so I have to be sensitive to what I'm putting in the machine. [00:47:09] Speaker A: As a female, I'm considered geriatric. So there's that. [00:47:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that's pretty funny, too. [00:47:14] Speaker A: It's true. We cook, I will say air fryer, but very. I mean, we don't cook a ton. [00:47:24] Speaker B: No. [00:47:25] Speaker A: So our cooking is pretty plain. [00:47:26] Speaker B: No, but I would say routine wise. Back to for our topic. We're very routine in what we eat. We split a lot of meals. Right. [00:47:31] Speaker A: I mean, if we're going out, we're exclusively. We always split a meal, but we just typically split an appetizer and a meal, and it's always pretty much these days, just protein. [00:47:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:44] Speaker A: Phil, thank you. [00:47:45] Speaker B: You're welcome. That was horrible. [00:47:48] Speaker A: Maybe I talked for five minutes, never told us what you ate. [00:47:51] Speaker B: Maybe I didn't want to articulate it because it was going to make me deal with it today and actually have real food. [00:47:55] Speaker A: Okay. [00:47:56] Speaker B: Bananas. Don't forget bananas. [00:47:58] Speaker A: I know, exactly. [00:48:01] Speaker B: We might rival the land of primates in the number of bananas that we eat these days. Yeah, exactly. So what's today look like? What's the rest of your routine going to be? What else do you have to leverage today? So let's talk about a routine breaker. We already talked about this, but the 06:00 podcast, I love when we break our podcast. [00:48:22] Speaker A: So are you talking about. What are you talking about as far as food or. [00:48:26] Speaker B: I don't know. Pick it. What's up next? [00:48:29] Speaker A: Work. [00:48:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:48:30] Speaker A: I don't want to get into work routines. They're boring. They are boring and there's no routine. [00:48:34] Speaker B: That's exactly right. That's why they're tough because we're whipsawed so badly that it's hard to actually keep a routine and they're constantly changing. Yeah, I would like to get into that 4000 months, years, weeks conversation. Yeah, I think that would be a good one. [00:48:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:51] Speaker B: Routines. [00:48:55] Speaker A: Nutrition wise, I don't eat like big meals during the day, ever. I graze all day. I think you and I share that. I do not like being heavy, being light throughout the day and agile is really important to me. So if I'm going to go to a breakfast event or a lunch event, like I'm not eating, I'm going to have coffee or something like that. Super important to me to stay light throughout the day. And we're pretty much, I mean we're, we're really on similar. You've spoke a lot to the nutrition side. We're eating a lot. The same at night. That's my real meal is at night. Everything else is just about staying light and I need to work on nutrition a little bit. A couple of the other routines I have is that I'll stay on nutrition. So I am so disciplined on the nutrition side. So anything like fried food or. I think this is funny because the last time I had a piece of fried food was on our first date. [00:49:59] Speaker B: There might have been one cheat and I say one. I mean in 1600 days I can't. [00:50:03] Speaker A: Even remember if I've had. But I had some fried on our. [00:50:08] Speaker B: Set me up. That was bullshit too. You set me up. I'm like, look at that, she's eating calamari or whatever. [00:50:12] Speaker A: I think it was calamari. [00:50:14] Speaker B: This girl's down. Like we could eat some crappy meals together and then you completely abandon me. Hey, that's right. [00:50:22] Speaker A: I like the foods I eat and they happen to be healthy. A couple of other things. So we have at our office, which is very cool because it's a newer office, we all have standing adjustable desks. So I stand the entire day at this point. I don't sit, which feels really good on my. I love it for my legs and as a runner, the extension of the hip flexors. So that's, I guess you could call a routine just standing all day at my workspace. The other one, which is probably my. I'm just looking at some of the notes I left. Probably one of the most long standing routines I have is that I call my parents every single day, and I already told them today the time would be off because I always call my dad at 630 and I generally call my mom at 730. Sometimes I'll have an early meeting, but typically it's always 630. Dad, 730, mom. Regardless, if there does happen to be an off meeting during those times, I will call them at another time during the day. [00:51:26] Speaker B: Well, so that's interesting. That goes back to the conversation that we're having about our routines or someone's routine affecting your routines because you started that you call them every day. You initiate. If you didn't call, I bet you that would absolutely put. That would. That would turn their routine sideways. Like, wait a minute, something's off here. And that could incite worry because you're so routine or regimented. So much. So you're like, I need to let them know that I will be in a podcast at 630 and I do the same thing with the girls. Right. So one of my routines is alarms. Alarms help me stay on routine. You, too, by the way, and you're welcome because your alarms go off constantly. Now, if I haven't told you. Yeah, hopefully you have a camera on her today. [00:52:07] Speaker A: Timeout. Do not even go there. [00:52:12] Speaker B: You're alarmed for alarm with me. [00:52:14] Speaker A: I have one alarm, okay? I have one alarm and it's a 730 for my mom. You have 20 alarms that I have to turn off. Half of them because they don't stop anyway. No, don't even go there. You don't want to go there. [00:52:30] Speaker B: Now, I'm just going to start pointing it out because. [00:52:33] Speaker A: Please. And I'll point yours out. [00:52:34] Speaker B: That's fine. [00:52:35] Speaker A: And we'll make tallies. I'll show them to you and we'll make tallies. [00:52:39] Speaker B: So the takeaway here is not our. [00:52:41] Speaker A: No, the takeaway here is we're going. [00:52:43] Speaker B: Alarm to alarm, prompt to battle. It's that I do use alarms to help me stay on routine because I will say I also struggle with losing sense of time anymore. I'm like part dog where I have no idea what time it is and it can happen so fast. Like, oh, that's right. I need to call livy in five minutes and an hour later, I'm like, holy hell, I missed. I mean, a squirrel ran by and I completely forget to do what I'm supposed to do. But I think, interesting how and even the girls have said that at times like, hey, dad, you didn't call last night. And now I'm like, oh my gosh, you're right. So I text them and say, at dinner, so on and so forth, going to miss you tonight. So on and so forth. So my routine of calling them at 20, 119 and 15, my routine actually has started to have an effect on their routine. It's like, wait a minute, say 30 and dad didn't call. So it's interesting how that has that reverse effect where me getting out of bed when I may not want to make sure I'm out of the shower for you, where your routine affects my. [00:53:36] Speaker A: Routine for the last. And I will never miss that 630 mark unless I have a weird routine in the morning, like for instance, for today. But if I'm out of my routine all of a sudden, that 630, I don't need an alarm for the 630 unless my routine is mixed for that day and it just doesn't fall into there, which is a couple of times. I mean, honestly, like a year. But it has happened in the last couple of months. And by 645, my dad's calling because he's worried. [00:54:05] Speaker B: Yeah, well, look, I would just say in closing, if we are just how these routines are so important. This is a love and business podcast, and we talk about both a lot and how our routines affect our love and what we're doing in our own space when we're off duty, when we are actually off duty. But then just how important those routines are in moments where I can look back at very stressful situations in sports, in business, and am so comfortable because I feel like I've been there so many times because of that preparation and even supervised preparation, I didn't hit on that yet. But back to coaching, and we're coaching people here. We're generally over their shoulder. We're supporting, we're helping and we're supervising their repetitions. Whether it's young engineers and they're working in software, they're designing solutions, so on and so know. Kevin, our vp of automation, is over their shoulder, supervising their know. Not quite do this the same way a golf coach would have done for me. The same way a soccer coach would have done for you. Where it's not just repetitions, where those repetitions are supervised so that they're perfect. Right? So perfect practice makes perfect and all of that stuff just boils down in those high stress, high pressure moments when you're trying to be the very best at what you're doing, and the separation gets really small. It can absolutely be the difference between success and failure. [00:55:31] Speaker A: Yes, and my final thoughts here. [00:55:37] Speaker B: And. [00:55:37] Speaker A: It'S only a product of now that we have long form podcasts and all this other type of media, there are so many platforms where people are just taking the time and energy to dissect these topics like routines so much now that we're hearing the good, the bad of all of it. So lately I've been hearing a lot more on probably what you would consider that the negative side of routines want being too reliant on them. What's the difference between a good routine and a healthy addiction? Which we could go off on tangents about how routines can be harmful and how some of these things that even I do could be considered a healthy addiction, which maybe we will talk about that. [00:56:20] Speaker B: Sure. [00:56:20] Speaker A: But I think for us, the overarching thought and principle is that far and above anything that it's done to the detriment of us or on the harmful side, the respect for our routine has done way more for us in helping us to achieve what we want and for lack of a better word, be successful, being very respectful of that routine and continuing to develop them as we go. [00:56:56] Speaker B: Yeah, and I think if the benefit for the rest of the world would be that we continue to be reliable, consistent and durable. Right. They don't have to be intimate with our routines or watch them up close. But as long as someone would look at that how I want to be viewed and possibly even judged, whatever I was doing behind the scenes would always have me showing up reliable, consistent and durable, then I'm happy with what I'm doing. [00:57:21] Speaker A: So our friends are going to leave one of two ways, maybe. Well, it could be three. It could be a relatable podcast. Hopefully leaving inspired, or leaving thinking that we are psycho. [00:57:37] Speaker B: All right, it's for them to decide. [00:57:39] Speaker A: I would say the third could be accurate. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Well, we don't get to judge ourselves. We'll have plenty of time together going forward so they can continue to make up their mind. [00:57:50] Speaker A: Exactly. All right, onto our next routine. [00:57:53] Speaker B: Indeed. True. See you soon, and thank you, Tommy.