#34: "The Long Game" with Dorie Clark

Desc:

Tina Marie Sits and talks with Dorie Clark about her new book “The Long Game”. Dorie takes some time to talk about how saying no can lead you to success, how to overcome failure, how to build your life portfolio and the benefits of infinite relationship building.

Bio:

Dorie Clark is an adjunct professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and the author of Entrepreneurial You, Reinventing You and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, the New York Times described her as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives.” A frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, she consults and speaks for clients including Google, Microsoft, and the World Bank. You can download her free Entrepreneurial You self-assessment workbook and learn more at dorieclark.com/entrepreneur.

Links:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/dorieclark

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doriec/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dorieclarkauthor/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dorieclark/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DorieClark

Transcription:

Tina Marie St. Cyr  00:00

Hello, I'm Tina Marie St. Cyr and welcome to light your life the podcast. I believe our dreams have energy calling and purpose, and that when we move in their direction, our lives become even more joyful, fulfilled and effortless. This podcast gives you insights to the strategies our guests use to overcome obstacles and manifest their dreams, in business, career, relationships and in life. Listen to find new levels of energy, perspective and courage. Your journey to light your life begins now. Hello, and welcome to light your life. This is Tina Marie St. Cyr and it's so wonderful to share this moment with you. I'm excited about today's interview, because it's one of my favorite people and I stalk her and you will too. So, let me tell you what we're talking about today we're talking about your personal goals need a long-term strategy? It's so true. I do this to take inventory am I headed where I want ahead? So, today you're going to get some takeaways on how to make sure you're really on the path that's going to lead to fulfilment, not just success. So, there's no secret that we are pushed, every single one of us pushed to the limit. Today's professionals feel rushed, overwhelmed and perennially behind. Can you raise your hand on that one? So, we keep our heads down focused on the next thing and the next and without a moment to breathe? So, now how do we make sense of this endless hamster will cycle and create a kind of interesting, meaningful life, the ones that we all seek. The book that we're speaking about today is the long game, how to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world. My guest is Dorie Clark. Let me tell you a little bit about Dorie. If you do not already know about her, Dorie is an adjunct professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the author of entrepreneurial, one of my favorite books, reinventing you and standout which was named the number one leadership book of 2015 by Inc Magazine. She's a former presidential campaign spokeswoman and the New York Times described Dorie as an expert in self reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives. That's why she's on today. So, make a note of her website Dorieclark.com. Dorie, thank you for being our guest here on light your life.

 

Dorie Clark  02:23

Tina Marie, thank you so much. Great to be here.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  02:26

Yes. It's so wonderful having these conversations, because what you produce is very meaningful to our world, I can tell that you think through things so in depth that really touched the souls of those people that are wanting answers on how to live better lives and find fulfilment. The first question I want to start off with is, we do seem to be in a world that is quite busy. It's forcing busyness on us to simply be productive, because there seems to be some comparison race, we're in and we equal that to importance, but you're describing in your book that we really need to take a different perspective.

 

Dorie Clark  03:00

Absolutely. It has become in many ways a productivity arms race, or a busyness, arms race that, that we feel so often mean, a few years ago, there was actually a definition that was added to the Oxford English Dictionary and it was crazy. Now, of course, the ironic thing, crazy has been a word for a long time. But crazy as in crazy busy. So, crazy busy became the phrase that people were using so often to describe this new heightened level of busyness because it reached epidemic proportions and in fact, there were a couple of studies that came out around the same time that I thought were arresting when you juxtapose them against each other. One of them said that 97% of senior leaders in organizations said that strategy was pretty much the most important thing they could be doing. I think most people probably agree if you're leading an organization, setting the vision, knowing where you're going, making choices about the future, that does seem like an important thing for a leader to do. We're all on that page. Meanwhile, in a separate study, 96%. So, almost exactly the same number 96% of leaders said they don't have enough time for strategy. Wow, it's possible that literally the number one duty, the number one thing that you could be doing, there's not time for. Well, obviously there's a problem. Obviously there is a huge, disjunct part of it is that in some ways, we may be creating these conditions that we may be kind of manufacturing a type of busyness so that we feel he'll important part of it really is just figuring out how to deal with the stream, the endless stream of meetings and emails and stimuli and social media that are coming in. I mean, that's a valid thing and part of it, sometimes it's just grappling with ourselves, because oftentimes we choose busyness rather than deeper reflection. Because sometimes there's actually questions, we don't want to be asking ourselves. So, it's tough, because it's often all those things together.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  05:32

It does take time for us to hold the flood of information away from us long enough to find that stillness in order to ask those higher order questions, and then be courageous, which is in your book, courageous enough to actually face the decision points that need to come out of that self-reflection.

 

Dorie Clark  05:52

It's true. I think it's important to note as well, we're certainly not saying that you everybody needs a six-month retreat or a sabbatical or oh, well, you really need a cabin in Tuscany, otherwise, you can't possibly I think they could be great. But you don't have to, in my previous book, standout, I interviewed David Allen, who's best known as the creator of the Getting Things Done methodology and he had an observation that I thought was really powerful. He said, it doesn't really take a huge amount of time to have a great idea. Probably most of us, in fact, have had an experience where suddenly, just like the perfect idea popped into our head, right, you can have it in a minute. But he said, what it does take to have great strategic insight is space, mental space and that's the part that so many of us are lacking, where we just feel like it's constant reactivity. It's a constant barrage. So, it's really thinking about how do you set those boundaries and parameters in our lives, so that we actually are able to ask those questions.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  06:59

That's beautiful and one concept that you have that you share in your new book, the long game is that we do need to learn how to say no, to good opportunities. Could you share more about that, please.

 

Dorie Clark  07:10

Yeah, definitely. So, intellectually, we all know that  you can't add more water to the glass that's already overflowing. So, often in our professional lives, we often try to do that we just assume oh, well, I guess I can fit that in and meanwhile, you end up with a day, so many of us have that, especially during the pandemic, where it's 14 hours of meetings, and you don't even have time to go to the bathroom. Because like, oh, well, technically, there's a slot there, it just ends up being ridiculous. So, one of the things that is hardest for us to do, but really, really important, is, most of us, unless we're pushovers we're actually pretty good at saying no to bad things, you know, to offers that look terrible. But the hard part is learning to say no to good things, they're nicer, they're good. But it's the straw that broke the camel's back, that tips us over into not being able to enjoy anything, because we're just so busy, we're so overwhelmed. But we need to carve out that white space and we need to be willing to leave enough room in our calendars for serendipity. Otherwise, just everything's going to be a slog.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  08:28

My team, I hear them sometimes saying, oh, we don't want to interrupt you because you're busy. Around here, we call him busy, the four-letter word we'd rather say productive and being productive. There's a strategy, like you said, to the utilization of time here, and I'm with the other professionals that you're writing about that sometimes it feels like, Am I doing what I really need to be doing or could be doing to be most beneficial to the long game? Or am I simply getting things off my desk? Absolutely, definitely understand that you literally had me cracking up in the book. So, there's something that the dinner conversation that you found yourself out. and you were quietly smiling and you had some expletives that were going through the mind whenever you were talking about the other people were talking at the dinner table about their babies and their books and all their productivity. We do get to a place where we can compare ourselves to others, we can look at the outside world and paint a picture inside of our minds of everybody else success and how they must have gotten there. I love that you say that it lit a fire in you and became fuel of saying, okay, just had you stand up and say I'm going to write my first book. So, can you take us back to that five-year long success story that that you found yourself in?

 

Dorie Clark  09:45

Yeah, absolutely. I think in a very broad level, what the long game is about is the fact that frustratingly, success often doesn't show up for quite a while. Even if you're doing the right things, even if you're doing the work, we have to have enough strategic patience so that we don't stop in the middle and give up before the fruits of our labors have time to manifest. So, one personal example of all this was I went to a conference, and this is now you know, over well over a decade ago, and it was a conference with a lot of successful people. I was very proud of myself, because I managed to finagle this dinner invitation like, oh, good, I'm going to connect with people. I'm going to make friends. It'll be fantastic. But the truth was, I was the least overtly successful person at this dinner and the conversation going on around me. It was it was extremely triggering. Because everybody, they all kind of knew each other, they all had a history together and they were doing a tally, most of them had gone to college together, and we're doing a tally about all their college classmates and how many babies different ones had and then how many books different ones had, and it was just like, okay, they're enumerating the officially sanctioned life successes of all of these people that they knew. I, of course, had no babies, I had no books. I'm just sort of sitting there like, okay, I don't really have a lot to add.  I it did, as you say, a light a fire under me, where the next year I decided just come hell or high water. I was going to sell a book proposal. I did it all wrong. This is not what I advise people to do now. But I wrote three different book proposals, because I'm like someone who's going to walk something. Of course, they didn't, no one wanted anything.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  11:47

You got good advice in the process, though.

 

Dorie Clark  11:49

I did, yes but ultimately, what I discovered was the problem wasn't even necessarily the content. Although that probably could have been better, too. But. But the problem was that I was not famous enough and publishers want someone with a so-called platform they want, they want to see that you are known by enough people that you can move copies of books. So, I didn't want to do this. This was not the step that I intended to have to take, it felt like a detour. But I started blogging because I'm like, geez, I guess I have to do something and get famous. I'm going to write this damn book. So, it ended up taking between the time of that dinner and the time when I actually did have my first book come out, it was a five-year process. So, one of one of the things that I think is really illustrative for me, and I talk about this in the long game, is during that five years, so much work was happening under the surface. But also, if somebody was looking at me from the outside, they probably wouldn't have even perceived a change all of a sudden,  you have a book come out, that's a big thing. Well, guess what the book didn't suddenly happen overnight, as it had been percolating for those five years. So, it really is so important to nurture, and encourage anyone, any professional who is working hard in the small and subtle ways that maybe the rest of the world can't see yet. What are the things that can actually lead to you emerging successful down the road?

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  13:23

Yeah, one of my mentors told me great words, and I hear them often in my mind, I'm sure you have mentor words that show up in your mind too and it will stay the course, stay the course and the course may look like it's a long course. But trust it, that there's there are things like you said percolating there are things being birthed along the process and what would you say to people who, sometimes in the midst of that hamster wheel that we find ourselves on the day to day grind, and that's another word in your book, that we that we stay in that visionary of knowing what that outcomes going to be, so we can feel ourselves and reignite the passion.

 

Dorie Clark  14:03

Yeah, motivation is so critical in all of this. I think that one of the most important things that we can do is really make an effort to surround ourselves with the right people. Because in the moment, something that I've really learned is you can't trust yourself. Your own judgement is ultimate is prevented. Yes, I know, right? Its experienced pilots who get confused on looking at the horizon and, and there, like, wait, where's the ocean? Where's the horizon? They're all spun around when they're in the thick of it and in that case, theoretically they should be relying on the radar. In our case, the radar is our trusted friends. So, we really need to almost make a pact with our self in advance where we acknowledge, okay, here are the People in my life that number one, I know that they have my best interests at heart. Number two, I respect their professional judgement. These are the two critical parts and if you go to them, and you ask for guidance, and even if you feel like your idea is terrible, or it's not working, or nothing ever works, if you go to them, you need to pledge in advance that you will actually listen to what they have to say. Because if they tell you, Tina Marie, you're right, this actually isn't the best idea, then fine. Okay, move on to the next one. But if the people around you say, no, there's something here, keep going, then we need to believe them. I think that's really important.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  15:44

Thank you for that advice and that goes along with the types of relationship building you talk about in the long game is that there's some short term long term, and then the infinite relationship building, we seem to be in a world where we are in that instant gratification, and we forget about the long term relationships that we have been building and how to keep those alive.

 

Dorie Clark  16:06

It's really true. A lot of people are not big fans of networking, they sort of get freaked out that you hate it, they don't want to do it and part of the reason a big part of the reason is that so often when we talk about networking, the kind that comes to people's mind, you know, the sort of stereotype of networking is short term transactional networking, oh, well, I'm going to get to know Tina Marie, because I want to be on her podcast and when you do something like that, of course, you feel sleazy. Because it is sleazy. What I try to encourage people to do is it first of all, just as much as is humanly, humanly possible, don't do that. It really is kind of using people. So, I even have a rule that I suggested a long game, which I call no asks for year. I think this is actually an important discipline. Now, I don't mean like a silly, a minor ask, like, oh, Tina Marie, I love that color of paint on your wall, what brand is it, that's fine. But I think it's really important that for the first year that you're getting to know someone you not make any kind of a meaningful ask that involves political capital in some way, because it's so critically important, I think, for us to telegraph to the other person. That number one, we're not about that. Number two, also, to just keep ourselves honest, to keep ourselves from even going there. We just say no, that's off the table, so that you get to know people in a deeper way. So, the two kinds of networking that I do advocate are long term networking, and then what I call Infinite Horizon networking. And there, they're related in that they are both, obviously, about getting to know people in a substantive way over time, long term horizon networking, is something that probably most professionals can get behind. It's sort of like, you know, oh, well, I'm in finance. this other guy's in finance,  don't know exactly what we could do for each other, but probably something at some point, like, let's get to know him. Okay, fantastic. That's a perfectly good way to get to know someone. Networking is what I always call like the bonus networking. This is like extra credit, because many people don't do it, because it seems useless. Again, if you have a very transactional mindset, you're like, Well, why would I bother. But if we really want to open ourselves up to serendipity into some very powerful ways, this is what we should do. These are connections you have with people that it looks like no reason at all, why would you do it? maybe you become friends with a comedian in New Zealand, what can that person ever do for you? Nothing. But over time, first of all, paths change and in surprising ways, you may actually find yourself over time, converging in ways where they suddenly do become very relevant. Also, that person might influence you in different ways And they might tell you something, give you advice, or ideas that you haven't heard about, that could actually dramatically shape and reshape the trajectory of your life And most people don't bother to make those relationships but they can be the most powerful of all.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  19:34

That's so true. That reminds me I was in a waiting line for just getting a meal at a deli and behind me was a gentleman and it was taking a while so I just said hey,  have a good day and he ended up being the emergency helicopter pilot for Life Flight. My son's a pilot, so, I said, oh, we learned that this air Airport, do your hours and we struck up a conversation. He had a website. I don't know, let's just stay in touch and we Facebook friend and then I went to his website and he teaches helicopter flying and then also the emergency flight for lifeline. Years later, one of my clients comes to me and he wants to be an emergency life flight helicopter pilot, that's his destiny.  I know somebody. I connected them and it's been a beautiful relationship for the two of them. I would have never had that had I not taken the courage and the time to just simply say hello to a person that was behind me in line.

 

Dorie Clark  20:41

What a great story. I know how many coaches can hook you up with like, oh, you want to be an emergency life flight helicopter pilot yet done.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  20:49

I know someone. But you said those serendipities are around us all the time. It takes slowing down to really notice and be present with what the world in the invisible substance, as I call it is offering us to pay attention to.

 

Dorie Clark  21:04

That's fantastic.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  21:05

There's a word in there. I love that you share this and in the long game, it's in fact for those that may have been on our podcast right now just eating up what Dorie sharing with us, I want you to know that you're going to write down and put in your memory, Dorieclark.com. So, you're going to go to Dorieclark.com, you're going to digest everything she has there and the resources are amazing. Her books are so relatable. So, go find Dory on Amazon or wherever else and do what I've done become a stalker. It works. So, there's a word that you share in the book about something that you hate, it's a word that you really do not like, and it was patience. Why is it that the word patience is something that you went? Ah, just doesn't sit well with me.

 

Dorie Clark  21:50

Yes, oh, my gosh, probably a lot of you can relate. Ever since I was a little kid, when you're a kid, you have to be patient about everything. I was just always so indignant that like, no, you can't drive no, you can't vote no, you can't start a business, all the things that I thought sounded so cool and so exciting and it's just like, tick, tick, you're not allowed, I hated it. So, once I got to be an adult, I could drive, I could vote, I could start a business. Those are good things. But also, you come to realize that there's a different set of activities that you have to be patient about and oftentimes, it involves success, it involves having the kind of impact that you want to have. One of the things that is most frustrating, I've experienced this when I first started my own business, I've certainly seen it with the clients that I work with, I have an online course and community called recognized expert and 600 plus people have been through it. So, I've really worked with a lot of folks and gotten to see this longitudinally. So, one of the biggest challenges is that in the early days of starting your business, or you know, sort of making a concerted effort to grow your career and kind of reach for the brass ring, there is a marked gap between the difference that you can make, and how other people perceive you. Most other people, they're just not paying that much attention. I mean, it's not that they necessarily doubt you, maybe they do, but mostly, it's just they don't care. Mostly, they're just not listening at all and it's so frustrating, because you know, that if you were given the chance, if you had the eyeballs, if you had the opportunity, you could really make a difference. and instead, it's just like, crickets, and you have to Hustle so hard to get the attention or to land, the client or whatever you're trying to do. So, being patient about that is so extraordinarily frustrating, especially when it feels like you look around, and it's like, oh, well, it seems like everybody else on Instagram has it all figured out. So, that's why in the long game, one of the themes that I talk about a lot is strategic patience, because the truth is being there's a couple of ways to be patient, you could be patient where you just sort of sit back and like, well, maybe great things will happen. That that usually doesn't work. But if we can be strategically patient, actively patient and just doing the work and doing the things and knowing that if you invest enough time, over time, it will work out it will happen. There's something very powerful in that because so many people just get discouraged too early and they quit in the middle so they never see the results.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  24:42

Yeah, I love that. Strategic patience is definitely something that we need to cultivate within our own minds and understand that progress is happening even if we can't see it. There's a saying that I have it on my checks, who writes checks anymore, but I decided to put a mantra on my chest to check stock, and its progress equals happiness. So, anytime we can really take account of the progress we're making in our lives, even if it's getting out of bed and getting dressed, the simple progress, then it'll add to the happiness in her life and if we have happiness, then we can make those goals happen that are in our souls.

 

Dorie Clark  25:23

Yeah, that's so powerful, it's literally true. Its research  based, you may be familiar with research that has been done by Harvard Business School, Professor Teresa Amabile, she wrote a book with Stephen Kramer called the progress principle. She did a fairly large scale study of professionals working in companies and what she discovered was that the single most meaningful element, when it came to a worker feeling like they were going somewhere that they were, you know, making a pot, you know, positive difference, you know, feeling good about the work they were doing was actually the question of whether on a given day, they were able to make meaningful progress on a task that they thought was, was important, you know, if you're, if you're able to have that sense of forward momentum, even if it's just a little bit, but if you're having forward momentum on something that you think is worthwhile, that actually has a huge psychological benefit. So. you are exactly right.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  26:38

Sometimes we seek that outside perspective of our progress. I definitely ask my clients and friends to first look inside yourself for your own set of rules of progress instead of just the outside version of that, because then you'll know who you truly are. I'm looking for my next question, I wanted to restate something that's in your book. I love how you wrote this so that our audience can hear this. In the long game, my goal, Dorie’s goal is to lay the process bare the success process, how we get from A to Z, and to share the unvarnished reality behind what it takes to build long term success. This is one thing that I've known you to be is that person that's going to say, this is how I did it. This is what it really looked like, here's some secrets, this is some ways to go about it. But it's that understanding that raw understanding of what success looks like, and it doesn't need to be compared to anybody else's success. What would you share with someone who's investigating their own understanding of their success principles and how can they have a higher view of what that looks like?

 

Dorie Clark  27:45

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think that part of why I'm so committed to trying to share this is that when I started my own business 15 years ago, it really felt like everything was a little bit of a black box. I mean, I tried my best to figure things out, I read a lot of books from the library. I would sign up for these adult ed classes where you'd take a Saturday class, and oh, now I learned how to write a business plan, or now I learned how to use QuickBooks or something like that and it was good, that was helpful. But there were just so many elements that I didn't know and didn't understand. I really felt like I had to kind of invent it all myself, because the truth was, I didn't really have any entrepreneurial mentors, per se. So, I didn't have anyone to ask. I was just like, okay, and I wanted to try to find ways to make things easier for other people, because I feel like I had to make all the mistakes and scrap around to figure it out. And I want to see more good ideas, get out there. I want I want to see good, smart people making a difference and making the difference that they're meant to do. But you can't do it if you don't have clients and you can't do it if you don't have a platform where people actually are listening to you. So, figuring out what it took, both by my own trial and error and then, interviewing lots of people, synthesizing it is really important to me. One story that I share in the book is years ago, there was a woman that I knew and she was a very successful artist and you know, sh has international Commission's like, if any artist is making it, this woman is making it like you see your stuff in airports. I was very curious. This was not my field. So, it's quite obvious. I was not trying to like steal her secret sauce. But I asked her, I'm like, how is it that you've been able to break through so much, obviously, there's a million struggling artists. What did you do to get your work noticed like this and she said to me, just do great work. I just wanted to punch her. I'm like, are you either that dumb that you really think that's the answer, or I don't think so. Are you that smart? What I actually think, is that she just wanted to keep it a secret, because she didn't want other people on her tail and that is so offensive, that someone would hoard information like that. The truth is, you can lay bare the process all you want, they're going to do different ways. Nobody's going to copy you, nobody's going to steal your stuff. Let's have a generous mentality and help other people be able to succeed in their own ways and so, it drives me literally bonkers when people try to hoard information like that. So, I want to do the opposite.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  30:56

Thank you so much. Yes, we are in a very prolific world with tones of opportunities and the truth is, because I've mentored people too, and it's not competitive in any way, I want them to be successful and happy. Unfortunately, the majority of people when you give them the formulas, or the strategies, or even show them the way few people are actually going to do it. So, for those that are listening, this is your challenge to yourself to take the great advice, and put it in a planner and organize yourself and do it, make it happen. There's plenty places where you can get the information to be successful. It's up to us to actually execute. There's a concept that I love in your book, and please share this one for everyone. It's your concept of from distance to empty. Help us know more about that one, Dorie.

 

Dorie Clark  31:49

Yeah, absolutely. So, the credit for this one actually goes to my friend, Dave Crenshaw, who I profiled in the book, Dave, is a time management and productivity expert and part of the reason I was so fascinated by his story, part of the reason he actually got into that business, he grew up in not the best family circumstances. So, from the time he was young, from the time he was in college, she was really set on the idea that he wanted to priorities his own family life that he knew he wanted to get married, he wanted to have kids, and you want to spend a lot of time with them. So, he became really obsessed with the idea of how do you make it happen? How can you have a great living, and not work 100 hours a week, so that you're sacrificing the quality of your relationships that you claim are the most important. So, he really tried to set out to solve that. One of the things that he came up with was what he calls distance to empty and this is a phrase that you might be familiar with a course from cars, where they talk about how many miles you have until you have to fill up gas. So, Dave has actually built this amazing schedule for himself. It's pretty impressive. He works about 30 hours a week, and he takes two months off every year, he takes off the month of July, in the month of December and what he says is, understandably, a lot of people go to him and say, Dave, that's amazing. I want to do that and they're interested. But then they look at their calendar, and they see oh, oh, but I could never do it because of this and this and this. So, what Dave suggested and I think it's a really powerful tool for all of us, this is true for like running a marathon, you don't just decide to do it. Then the next day, oh, yeah, I'm running the marathon would not be smart, definitely not to similarly, when it comes to our schedules, you can't just say, oh, you know what, I'm going to take off a month, that's not practical. But what we need to do is just look at our schedules, and then sort of reverse engineer what, what is the distance to empty? So ,if you're working until eight o'clock every night, don't try to say, oh, I'll take the month off, say, how can I dial it back so that no matter what I stopped work at 7:30 every night, how can I make those small changes, and you keep doing it, you keep tweaking it over time, so that you're able to actually turn it into something manageable at an incremental enough pace so that it doesn't overwhelm you. It doesn't ruin your business. But when you are able to increase your distance to empty when you are able to increase the amount of time that you can go in between having your hands on your keyboard, you are creating more freedom for yourself.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  34:34

I love that. That is so awesome. I love that concept. My wife, Jackie, and I've set this goal two years ago, didn't expect the pandemic, not many people did and our month vacation is going to be in Africa next year. So, what we had to do was chunk that back like you said, we have to plan for it and what are those things the cycles, doing that you need to train someone else to do it and bring them in. So, our goal is that both of our businesses are running on their own. By that time, and we're pretty close to it right now. So, it's grateful, we're going to have another year to work out the and make certain that it's all going and then we can go.

 

Dorie Clark  35:17

Yeah, that's sensational and it's exactly right. When one of the points that Dave likes to make is that you think you're going to be less productive when you do it. But actually, you're more productive, because the exercise forces you to identify inefficiencies and root them out mercilessly.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  35:34

Yes, it's going to hurt a little bit, but it's totally worth it in the long game. So, for those that have read your other books, how is the long game different from, say, entrepreneurial or even reinventing you?

 

Dorie Clark  35:49

So, the biggest way that the long game is different is that in many ways. I view this as kind of the encapsulation of my business philosophy. I'd say that sounds a little lofty. But ultimately, I wanted to write a book that was a distillation of the most important things that I've learned in the past 15 years of being an entrepreneur, about how we can think about the career arc that we want for ourselves. Entrepreneurial U was a narrower and narrower look at how we can create more revenue streams in our business, which, of course, is a really important question, we'd all like to do that we'd all like to be earning more money and that's a valuable part. Because when you have more money, it enables you to have theoretically more freedom and more autonomy. But the long game is something that I think of as being well, it has very practical strategies in it, I think of it as being slightly more 30,000 foot look at how do you want your career to be? How do you want your life to be? How do you make the right choices, so that you actually end up in the place that you say you want to end up in and especially during a time like the pandemic, many people have been forced to reckon with these questions about what they really want to do, what really is important to them? What principles do they want to keep? What do they want to get rid of? It's a time for a lot of investigation about how we want our lives to look. So, this is a this is really a book that's about how do you apply the principles of strategy, the same principles that we use every day in our business, how do we apply that to our lives?

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  37:38

I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for writing this book, Dorie. It's very timely and needed. It's as though the world has been given a pause to really go into the self-reflection and this book is a perfect segue into that investigation and a strategy and a plan for us to come out the other side, feeling fulfilled on purpose and definitely in touch with our destiny. Thank you. So, for those that are ready, you're going to be going to Dorieclark.com, learning more about Dorie and they could find your book on Amazon, right?

 

Dorie Clark  38:09

They sure can. Amazon, the usual suspects. Also mentioned there's a Free Self-Assessment along game self-assessment at Dorieclark.com/the long game.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  38:20

There you go. I love your assessments, I sit with them and print them out. One thing I do caution some of the people that I give all your information to is like, I have the audible version of your books and I'm like, oh, I got to write that down. I've got to write that down. I'll be driving or jogging and I'm like, oh, I'm going to write that down. So, I'm the person that will listen to a chapter like 10 times to memories everything that you've given us and thank you for the assessments, the additional resources that are on your website. So, today we were talking about the long game long game, Dorie Clark's new book, how to be a long-term thinker in a short-term world. I know you're going to love it just as much as I do and do check out Dorie Clark's resources and all of her books. Thank you for being our guest here today on light your life, our wonderful little podcast here to help people understand how to light their life a little more and find that happiness, fulfilment and passion in a world that would otherwise want to take it away from you. Thanks for listening and we will be with you again on the next podcast Be sure to favorite this podcast and share with others. Thank you, Dorie,

 

Dorie Clark  39:20

Thank you so much, great to be here.

 

Tina Marie St. Cyr  39:24

That was so energizing, I have takeaways that will help my life and I'm sure you do too. To get show notes bonuses, gifts for you from our guests and more, head over to light your life podcast.com and be sure to bookmark this podcast is one of your favorites. I am Tina Marie St. Cyr, founder of bonfire coaching and creator of the bonfire method. Thank you so much for being connected. Now my homework for you. summon the courage to light your life a little more, and go make progress on your dreams today.

Previous
Previous

#35: “Get Different” and Profit First with Mike Michalowicz

Next
Next

#33: Energies: Understanding Your Own and it's effects With Dr. Donny Epstein