The Most Organized Man in America w/ Andrew Mellen

Episode Transcript

 

SPEAKERS

Andrew Mellen, Mark Young, Justin Girouard

 

Mark Young  00:18

Welcome, everybody to this edition of CPG insiders. I'm your host, Dr. Mark Young. I don't usually say that though, actually. I know. And Justin Girouard. So Justin, we're gonna have a different kind of show today. And I hope people like this. So we normally always talking about consumer packaged goods. But in the world of consumer packaged goods. There are there's two types of people in that business. There's, there's the big multinational companies, the big firms, and they've got layers and layers of people. And then there's the entrepreneurs. And the entrepreneurs, we are, we are a different breed. Yeah, you've been living around me now for years. And you can see that. And we are a different breed of people. And the way that I describe myself to people, is when people say, Why are you an entrepreneur. And the reason I say that is because I say because I'm unemployable. And being unemployable as entrepreneurs, there's a few things that we all have, that we all share in common. One of those things is, almost all of us knew by the time we were five years old, that we were the thing that didn't match with everyone else. We probably had all been accused of having attention deficit disorder at some point in our childhood, or in our later years. And entrepreneurs all believe they have a secret. And it is an I have a secret that you don't have. And the secret I have is that I know how to do something nobody else knows how to do, or I know how to do something better than anybody else knows how to do. And that's my secret. And along with that comes some other problems. And I'm going to get to our guests here, and this will all, I'm just kind of setting the table here. Along with that comes the issue of when you become an entrepreneur, you start off and you have no money and plenty of time. And then you start to trade the time for money. And eventually you trade away all the time for money. And then you go back and you figure out how can I get more time. And this is how your life becomes complicated. Because we start to build think about, we start off and we build a three bedroom house. And then we bolt on an addition. And then we put on a screen porch. And then we put a dormer on the roof. And this is how we start to build our lives, we start to just pile on these these things where eventually we need to just tear the house down and build a bigger house.

 

Justin Girouard  02:52

Right.

 

Mark Young  02:53

So what happens is, a couple of things happen. We try to solve the complexity of our entrepreneurial life with more complexity. But what we really need to do the only solution to complexity is simplicity.

 

Justin Girouard  03:09

 Yep.

 

Mark Young  03:10

To come to deal with complexity, you must simplify to grow, you must simplify. The other thing that we do as entrepreneurs is we head we go headlong into something, and we do something that everybody tells us can't be done.

 

Justin Girouard  03:28

Of course.

 

Mark Young  03:28

This is a dumb idea. Why would anybody quit their job and go off and start a an advertising agency? What makes you qualified to run an advertising agency? Well, the answer is nothing at the moment. But I'll figure it out. So what happens is we go off and we start something, maybe it's a new product, and we launch a new product. And it works. So then we do the next thing, and it works. But guess what, when we do the next thing, everybody tells us again, it can't be done. And then we go and do it. And now we do another thing and people say well, okay, I know you got that one, and you got this one. But this is a really bad idea. This one, you're never gonna get this one. And then we go do it, and it works. And here we are. So what happens is, we tend to become our own echo chamber. Because we tend to think my advice is the only advice that matters. Because everybody in my life for the past 15-20 years has been telling me you're wrong. It can't be done, but I've done it.

 

Justin Girouard  04:37

Right.

 

Mark Young  04:38

And now I'm sitting there and I'm saying, Okay, well let's see, I'm I'm pretty rich, and you're not why should I listen to you?  So we tend to not take advice from people. But what we need to learn how to do is we need to understand yes, we're unemployable. Yes, we have done we have we beat the odds. Yes, we don't fit into polite society on many occasions. And we, we have a tendency to take our own counsel. Because if we didn't take our own counsel, we wouldn't be here.

 

Justin Girouard  05:16

Right.

 

Mark Young  05:17

At some point, we have to, we have to discover that I is this unique snowflake entrepreneur, which I'm here to tell all of you, you are not unique snowflakes. Because if you put a put a room together with all of us, which I do on a frequent basis, you take all of us who are unique snowflakes, in our old world and you stick us all in the room together, and we're all the same. We just do different things. But we're the same type of person. So at some point, we have to make a transition. And that transition is one, we have to learn how to simplify. And to we have to learn to take the advice of other experts. We have to understand there are people in the world who know how to do things that I don't know how to do. Sure, came as an incredible shock to me, by the way, because I assumed I was the only person who knew how to do anything. Because everybody told me everything I'm trying to do was a stupid idea. So setting net, that long introduction. I'm going to introduce our guests. Now our guest is Andrew Mellen. Justin tell us a little bit about Andrew, he let's get us started here.

 

Justin Girouard  06:33

Well, I would normally I'd like to introduce our guests. But but Andrew, you have such a great story after going to your site and hearing your background that I think a lot of entrepreneurs will really connect with.

 

Mark Young  06:48

Very similar to me

 

Justin Girouard  06:49

Very similar, right? It's colorful, it's got a lot of twists and turns. It's it was it was a journey of discovery appears to be that I think a lot of entrepreneurs can connect with. So if you don't mind, could you tell our listeners a little bit about your story?

 

Mark Young  07:06

The Andrew story.

 

Justin Girouard  07:08

Right.

 

Andrew Mellen  07:10

Sure.

 

Mark Young  07:11

 Because we haven't seen the movie yet. We're waiting.

 

Andrew Mellen  07:14

Well, you know, it's still in development. So, all right, in that world of in that world of entrepreneurship, right. I mean, it's been optioned several times, but it's never actually made it onto the screen. So, you know, in the work that I'm doing today is not the work that I ever thought I was going to do. And Mark, you're exactly right, right? I mean, I have been an entrepreneur since I had a paper route. I sort of answered to somebody, but I didn't. And, and I had certainly jobs when I was in high school, you know, working at gas stations working at restaurants and doing that kind of stuff. But the first half of my professional life was spent in the theater as a director as an actor, producer playwright. And so I've always been I've always had to hustle for work and make work where there either was an opportunity or the glimmer of an opportunity or a no. And my job was to turn a no into a yes. And so 27 years ago now, I was laid off from a theater that I was running in Seattle, Washington and I got a gig, co producing an award ceremony at the Kennedy Center back in DC. So I went back to, to take up take on this job. One of our awardees was a Nobel Peace Prize winner, I had to go to his office to get some photographs. So I could put together a slide show and the process of pulling together the photographs, which were a mess, they were mislabeled miss file they've been lent out, never returned. He and his wife said, Would you like to organize our photographs for us? And I said, that would be a tremendous honor. I wouldn't love to do that for you. Because my plan was to move back to New York when the gig was over in DC. And so made a date for me to go to work the day before I supposed to show up. phone rang, their assistant said something unexpected has come up. We need to reschedule for a month later, fine. This happened three times, the four time the phone rang, they said when we're ready to proceed, we'll get back in touch with you. So I actually never went to work for this Nobel Peace Prize winner. But in those four months, I told every living human being I've got this amazing gig. I'm going to create a comprehensive photographic archive for a Nobel Peace Prize winner, which led my friend to refer me to her accountant who needed a filing system. So I built that for her. Then she started referring her clients to me so people would show up on my doorstep literally with like a duffel bag full of receipts. The letters in the duffel bag. They hadn't filed their taxes in five years letters from the IRS or the state tax agency. They're freaking out. They would say to me, I don't want to go to jail and I don't know what to do. I'm so overwhelmed. I'm frozen. Can you make sense out of this paperwork before something really bad happens? So I'd organize their receipts, put it in QuickBooks, give it to the accountant account will file their taxes and they're like Oh my god, you're amazing you saved my life, they would tell all their friends will never believe I gave this guy a pile of garbage, he turns it into my tax returns. He's a genius. And that is how this practice that I've been doing now for almost three decades, it's mind blowing. Started was all word of mouth. And it was just about solving problems. And making order out of chaos, right? I mean, just it's so often I think, each of us, right, we have our own blind spots where we can't see the forest for the trees and with some objectivity, somebody as you pointed out, right, I mean, another entrepreneur, probably more than somebody who tends to think in the box, only another entrepreneur might be able to look at that and go, Oh, if you just shifted this 17 degrees, everything would open up, you'd have a clear path forward, but we can't see it. Because we're like, I'm trying to make this fit. Why doesn't this fit? This should fit. It's fit before, you know, and we're just keep hammering at it. And so that became my practice as a solopreneur. At the very beginning was solving problems for people who had run into a roadblock, whether that was on the b2b side, or the b2c side, I was in people's homes. I was also in people's offices.

 

Mark Young  11:17

Now, by the way, Andrew, we call that that it's difficult to read the label when you're stuck inside the jar.

 

Andrew Mellen  11:24

There you go.

 

Justin Girouard  11:26

Yep.

 

Mark Young  11:27

 And that's, that's so happens to entrepreneurs because you're in the jar, right?

 

Andrew Mellen  11:31

Yes, you are.

 

Mark Young  11:34

So and you came from Detroit?

 

Andrew Mellen  11:36

 Yes, I did.

 

Mark Young  11:37

Now, where are you now? You're not in Detroit now I take it?

 

Andrew Mellen  11:40

No, I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida.

 

Mark Young  11:42

Ah, okay. And I'm also in Clearwater, Florida.

 

Andrew Mellen  11:45

Amazing

 

Mark Young  11:48

So yeah, so

 

Andrew Mellen  11:50

Why haven't we met before?

 

Mark Young  11:53

I'm kind of curious. Now. We haven't crossed each other.

 

Andrew Mellen  11:55

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  11:55

And you were an actor at one point and a director. And let me tell people, anybody who's in entertainment. And I've done entertainment. I have a lot of friends in entertainment. You're an entrepreneur.

 

Andrew Mellen  12:07

Oh, yeah.

 

Mark Young  12:08

Whether you're a musician or an actor, or a director...

 

Andrew Mellen  12:12

Dancer. Any of it.

 

Mark Young  12:13

You're always looking for your next meal.

 

Andrew Mellen  12:15

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  12:16

 And whatever it is you're doing, no matter how good that show is, or how good that gig can be. It can be over tonight.

 

Andrew Mellen  12:21

Yes.

 

Mark Young  12:22

So it's very entrepreneurial.

 

Justin Girouard  12:24

Yeah. Absolutely.

 

Mark Young  12:26

So. So tell us what you're doing. Now? What what does your practice do for people?

 

Andrew Mellen  12:31

So I help I mean, I still am all about solving problems. Slightly different focus, I still, on the b2c side, we run our own programs, we have our flagship program called the unstuff, your life system, which is a 10 week program, where we take people from chaos to some form of control where they they shift their mindset, and their entire approach to physical clutter to begin with. I always say it's always the stuff behind the stuff that is keeping people stuck. So even though we meet on the surface with the physical obstacles and the clutter, it's typically we get deep pretty quickly. And so we change how you think about feel about and interact with stuff. And that's what I do on the b2c side. On the b2b side, I'm often speaking at conferences, I'm doing corporate training, where we're looking at how you think about feel about and interact with time. So most businesses live in that narrative, not that individuals don't as well. But most businesses live in that narrative of too much to do not enough time. And I help turn that around for them. And I help them figure out what doesn't need to be done at all, what doesn't need to be done by them, and what does need to be done by them and how we elevate that and prioritize that.

 

Mark Young  13:51

So talk to us. Let's back up for just a minute. And talk to us about people that are getting stuck on stuff.

 

Andrew Mellen  13:59

Sure.

 

Mark Young  13:59

Let's let's open that conversation. What does that mean?

 

Andrew Mellen  14:04

Well, you know, I mean, so let's start with the organizational triangle, one home for everything like with like something in something out. First two legs are how you get organized. Everything has one home all like objects live together and I'll break those down for just a second. Something in something out is how you stay organized. So it's really three rules will get you and keep you organized. One home for everything means everything has one home only one home. So where you keep your keys can be different from where I keep my keys, but your keys have a home, my keys have a home they can only ever be one of two places in our hand unlocking something or in their home. You apply that rule you'll find anything in 30 Seconds or Less guaranteed.

 

Mark Young  14:44

So let me ask let me ask a question real quick. I can literally I could hand Justin my wallet right now. And I could tell him in what order my credit cards and identification are in in your wallet. Not just what my wallet is.

 

Justin Girouard  14:57

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  14:58

But that driver's license here Amex card is here behind the AMEX card is this card. Is that obsessive? Is that ridiculous? Or is that the kind of stuff you're talking about?

 

Andrew Mellen  15:09

It? Well, let's not, we don't need to label it or judge it right? It works for you. It feels as you've described, and it feels very comfortable, it doesn't feel like an imposition. And so knowing where everything is, is the baseline. You have taken it a few levels beyond that, which is awesome, I like you can tell you exactly what's in my wallet exactly where in which pouch and which little sleeve it's in. Everybody doesn't need to live that way. They do need to know where their wallet is. And everything that shouldn't be in the wallet should be in the wallet, their driver's license shouldn't be in the bottom of their bag, or in a pocket or you know, in a sport coat hanging up in the closet. So that that's the baseline of everything having one home, and all of your all of the siblings being together, right. So I often say we don't want to keep most of the tools in the toolbox in the garage. But we keep the Phillips head screwdriver in the junk drawer in the kitchen because we got a story about the knobs in the kitchen always being a little loose, don't want to go all the way out to the garage. This is good time management, it's actually right at my fingertips when I need it. The problem is you don't remember your hack. So you go to the garage looking for the Phillips head, you don't find it. You might even go to the hardware store and pick up a new screwdriver. And then three weeks later, you're rifling through that drawer, you know, you move the pizza delivery menus out of the way the leftover IKEA hardware, maybe a few bread twist ties, some dead batteries, a couple of dried out pens. There's the Phillips head screwdriver, and chances are your first thought is not Aha, your first thought is probably who's the idiot that left in here? Why didn't they put it back where it goes? Your second thought is oh, wait, wait, that was my great idea. The third one is one of your 200 lies. And that is now that I've remembered this, I'll never forget it.

 

Mark Young  17:02

And this is this makes a ton of sense to me. So my wife actually thinks I'm bizarre, but she understands it because I've ritualized everything. My morning is a ritual, my, my keys, my wallet, everything about me is sitting in the exact same spot.

 

Andrew Mellen  17:22

Yep.

 

Mark Young  17:22

 Every night when I come home. And by the way, if my wife goes and grabs one item, and moves it, then she throws my whole morning off the following morning, because it's like, this is gone. What happened?

 

Andrew Mellen  17:33

Right.

 

Mark Young  17:34

 But that's the kind of stuff you're talking about and for me. I did it one because I do have a million things going on in my head.

 

Andrew Mellen  17:41

Sure.

 

Mark Young  17:42

And the second reason is, I tried to set up systems and tell me if this makes sense. I tried to set up systems so that I do not use up decision making power and do not use up my my executive function on unimportant things. So you that's similar to your program?

 

Andrew Mellen  18:04

 Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you never want to solve the same problem more than once. Right? And everything needs to be set systematized. That's, that's the path to, to efficiency. And of course, right? Nobody wants to become a robot necessarily. And what you're describing is a system that works for you. And somewhere between you and your wife, there's a there's a hybrid version that works for both of you so that she doesn't feel penned in by your precision. And you don't feel compromised by her, sometimes lack of precision or not the same degree or the same kind of precision, maybe that you employ. Right. So that's, that's the synthesis about keeping a happy relationship. And the precision is what we're always aiming for, again, to a level of personal comfort, because if it's onerous to maintain, nobody's going to do it, even if it's the most efficient way of doing something, if it feels burdensome, if you've got some resistance to it, that's worth recognizing and interacting with to find where is where is the line where you have zero resistance to adopting this behavior and turning it into a habit. And that is your sweet spot. It's anyone's sweet spot, right? Like, where is that place? That's where I'm, that's where I'm trying to coach people and guide them towards so that they can find that for themselves.

 

Mark Young  19:29

So Justin, you might notice. Probably notices. My wife refers to how I dress for work as my work uniform.

 

Justin Girouard  19:37

Yes.

 

Mark Young  19:38

 Because I dress for work in two ways. Either wear the same, almost the same thing every day, or I wear a suit, which to me is an easy uniform.

 

Andrew Mellen  19:47

Right.

 

Mark Young  19:48

 So it's either these type of pants with one of these shirts.

 

Justin Girouard  19:55

Yep.

 

Mark Young  19:55

Or grab a suit off the rack because suits are like me. Suits are Garanimals, you just take them off and they work.

 

Justin Girouard  20:02

 Yeah, yeah.

 

Mark Young  20:04

And I do that because I don't want to spend energy in the morning, picking out what I'm gonna wear.

 

Justin Girouard  20:10

And we talk about this all the time, right? And it should be for every individual, but even bring it back around the beginning of entrepreneurs. Everything that entrepreneurs trying to do is create freedom that drives their being is creating freedom. And so what you're talking about now is now leveraging simplification. Now to create more freedom, these systems are simplifying life so that there is more freedom for other things. But that's the goal. And that's when you talk about Andrew, that concept of creating that system to get rid of the resistance because that now it's free now you're free to do other things.

 

Andrew Mellen  20:47

 Exactly

 

Mark Young  20:48

We refer to it as we refer to it as the four freedoms the, Dan Sullivan four freedoms. Which is Dan I don't know if you know, Dan Sullivan, but...

 

Andrew Mellen  20:55

I know of him. I don't know him.

 

Mark Young  20:58

Very close friend of mine. And Dan's four freedoms, are freedom of time, freedom of money, freedom of relationships, and freedom of purpose. And that real entrepreneurs are in search of those four freedoms all the time.

 

Andrew Mellen  21:10

Yes. Yep

 

Mark Young  21:13

 So now let's go to the other side. We're talking stuff. Now the other side was what now?

 

Justin Girouard  21:18

Time.

 

Andrew Mellen  21:18

It's about time.

 

Justin Girouard  21:19

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  21:19

Okay. 

 

Andrew Mellen  21:20

Time and productivity, efficiency, friction. And so I mean, it's my, my latest book, calling bullshit on busy is all about the Eight Deadly time thieves, interruptions, over committing, poor planning, multitasking, meetings, email, social media, and procrastination. And addressing all of those to again, eliminate any friction points, any bottlenecks from your day from your life from your business. Let's, so we address all of those.  sorry?

 

Mark Young  21:56

Run through those for us, give us a little, little, little snippet on each one.

 

Andrew Mellen  22:00

 Sure. Well, I mean, interruptions are probably the biggest time thief. And it's all about not having good clear boundaries, and a culture that reinforces or rewards interruptions. And the only way you can eliminate interruptions is to change the culture. So whether that's the culture at home, or the culture at work, if you're working from home, the idea that, that it's okay for people to just say, Hey, I'm so sorry to bother you. When in fact, if you were really sorry to bother me, you wouldn't be bothering me. Right. But it's, it's the way that we it's the way we manipulate language, right to like to minimize the consequences for us as the interrupter. And to get pass that. It's like, well, I said, I'm sorry. So it's okay. I have to say that, you know, I'm not a big fan of that idea of like, it's better to ask for forgiveness then permission. I think it's probably better to ask for permission, right? I think if you want if you want your boundaries to be respected, it's I think it's useful to respect other people's boundaries, in anticipation of them respecting yours, right?

 

Mark Young  23:11

So if you're going if you're going to be the Get out guy, don't be that guy who interrupts everybody else.

 

Justin Girouard  23:16

Right.

 

Andrew Mellen  23:16

Exactly.

 

Mark Young  23:17

Yeah, what's our next one?

 

Andrew Mellen  23:19

Over committing. And that is just that's another form of people pleasing and raising your hand and volunteering for things that you get that little dopamine rush of putting your hand up. And then when it's time to actually deliver. You're dealing with that time compression of I've overextended myself, there's too many things to do. Now, I don't know how to prioritize. And you you get into that cycle of taking care of everybody else's agenda first. And then when everything else is done, another one of our 200 lies, right? Oh, I'm gonna do my real work now that everybody's happy and satisfied. Everybody leave me alone. And I can really focus in and do my real work now at nine o'clock at night or on a Saturday morning. Not a not a sustainable model for success.

 

Mark Young  24:11

So we refer to that as one of the things we refer to as every yes us a no one every no is a yes.

 

Andrew Mellen  24:17

Yep.

 

Mark Young  24:19

 Because they say yes to something you are saying no to something else.

 

Andrew Mellen  24:22

Yeah, yeah. And I say every time you say no, you're saying yes to something that you value more right? So that's the glass half empty glass half full, the glass half full. The glass half empty mindset is looking at what you're missing out on the glass half full is I've already committed to these things. These things are already aligned with my values. They're important to me. Why did they suddenly become diminished in importance because something new and shiny and flashy appeared on the horizon.

 

Mark Young  24:51

So another really close friend of mine wonderful guy. I don't know if you know him or not. His name's Joe Polish.

 

Andrew Mellen  24:57

I don't.

 

Mark Young  24:58

Joe Polish is a Have a really big name in the personal development world.

 

Andrew Mellen  25:04

Cool.

 

Mark Young  25:05

He runs Genius Network. And Joe has a really I love Joe's approach to this because Joe's approach to this is a yes isn't good enough that you only respond to the hell yes.

 

Andrew Mellen  25:19

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  25:20

 And it's Joe's approach. I can't say hell yes, I want to do that. Then he says I don't do it.

 

Andrew Mellen  25:26

Right.

 

Mark Young  25:28

Let's go to your next one.

 

Andrew Mellen  25:29

Sure, we've got multitasking, which, you know, the brain science tells us is actually a lie, right? You cannot do open heart surgery and bake a cake at the exact same time. You can do them sequentially, but you cannot do them simultaneously. They did a study at the University of London with 1100 workers attempting to multitask with electronic media. And they discovered that it created a greater decrease in IQ than people who were high on marijuana, or hadn't slept for 24 hours. Both of those groups of people functioned at a higher level than somebody who was attempting to multitask with electronic media.

 

Mark Young  26:03

So I can add to that, that, as my background is in neuroscience and psychology as about 3% of the population can do multitasking. Statistically. The problem is, and one of my colleagues here, we're just talking about his wife test, test, texting and driving, because she thinks that she can do that. And the problem with only 3% can do it is 80% believe they're in the 3%. And this is this is by the way, Andrew, this is the same problem we have with IQ. Almost 80% of America raise themselves as above average IQ, which would mean then there's a new average. So sometimes we overestimate our ability to do things. And I agree with you. I think multitasking, for the vast majority of people multitasking is a is a lot.

 

Andrew Mellen  27:01

Yeah, yeah.

 

Mark Young  27:03

Okay.

 

Andrew Mellen  27:04

So we got meetings, you know, which 95% of those do not need to happen. No meeting happens without an agenda. Meeting agendas are distributed at least 24 hours prior to a meeting, but no more than 72 hours. sweetspot is 48 hours before the meeting. I don't want you I don't want you spit balling. I don't care how talented you are, I don't want your best guess in the meeting, I want your best work. So I want you to show up knowing what we're there to discuss and work on and ready to do the work. And if we don't have an agenda, we don't actually have a meeting.

 

Mark Young  27:38

We do something I'm going to add to this, we do something in the meetings that we call an impact filter. And this is a Dan Sullivan thing. And the impact filter is basically a little mini agenda that you can just write out with a pen.

 

Andrew Mellen  27:52

Uh huh.

 

Mark Young  27:53

Let's type out a whole agenda. But it basically is what are we going to talk about? What are the things we want to accomplish? And then at the bottom of it, it says, what is the best outcome that we hoped for in this meeting? And then under that, it says, What is the worst outcome if we do not have the meeting? Now what we find out is that people can't come up with a worst outcome. So it's so you're telling me if we don't have this meeting, nothing bad's gonna happen.

 

Andrew Mellen  28:23

Right.

 

Mark Young  28:23

 So why are we having a meeting?

 

Andrew Mellen  28:24

Exactly.

 

Justin Girouard  28:26

Absolutely. Well, and I think the other benefit of this tool, and that we've seen here is not only does it lay that out. So in the name the filter, it allows the individual to understand is this worth it, but it also makes them list what the success criteria will be. So what is going to make this exactly a good meeting, what does it look like and why we're here? So they have to think through every aspect of the outcome before they get into the room for everyone's time. Right? It was not even just an agenda. It takes it to that next level of understanding the why and what the trends and topic is.

 

Mark Young  29:04

Yeah, because instead of saying what we will talk about, it says what is the outcome that we're anticipating.

 

Andrew Mellen  29:07

Exactly, yes.

 

Mark Young  29:08

All right, let's go to your next one.

 

Andrew Mellen  29:10

Sure. Then we've got emails. You know, I'm gonna be my number one. Sorry?

 

Mark Young  29:16

I'm gonna emailed you a day?

 

Justin Girouard  29:18

A few. I mean, at least 300.

 

Mark Young  29:20

 About 300? How about you, Andrew, how many emails do you get a day?

 

Andrew Mellen  29:22

I'd say probably 150 to 200.

 

Mark Young  29:25

Yeah, I'm around 400, 400 plus.

 

Justin Girouard  29:27

Yep.

 

Andrew Mellen  29:27

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  29:28

So what are we going to do with email?

 

Andrew Mellen  29:29

Well, the number one tip that I tell people is always don't, don't read your email if you don't have time to read it and reply to it. So at best you're wasting the time reading it because you're gonna have to reread it at worst. You're upset by what you've read. And now you can't concentrate on what you need to be concentrating on because you're caught in that little loop of upset so that's, that's one thing that you can do and the other I mean, there's several things you can do. You can certainly automate your emails so that they you apply rules or filters to get you mails out of your inbox using AI. I mean, it's a low level, it's a, you know, it's an if then construct. I mean, it's a form of AI, but it sort of predates the AI that we're talking about these days. Right?

 

Justin Girouard  30:12

Yeah.

 

Andrew Mellen  30:13

And then I also I check email three times a day, which is sufficient for me, because I mean, email is not my preferred mode of communication. If something were truly urgent, sending me an email is the worst way to get my attention. So if you needed to get me you would text me or you would call me. And otherwise, I'll get to you when I get to you. I mean, I'm not. There's nothing that I'm doing that is so time sensitive, that an email is going to be the way for us to be put on alert that there's an urgent tech activity that's coming in. We also I moved my team off of email for internal communications and moved us onto slack about three years ago. And that was a total game changer to get out of the inbox. So the only emails that I get today are from people who don't work with me.

 

Mark Young  31:04

Okay. You like Slack a lot?

 

Andrew Mellen  31:06

 I do. I do.

 

Justin Girouard  31:07

Yeah.

 

Andrew Mellen  31:08

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's great to be able to keep the threads of communication by by channel. And we, you know, our our hack is to give everything a headline. So as we're reading through the threads, it's also very clear about what we're going to find there. And we only tag people, it eliminates all that CC BCC stuff. So the only people who are tagged with something are the people who actually have something to do with the task at hand. Anybody can go through the channel, if they want to get caught up on what the channels activities are. But you're not getting constantly pinged by things that you don't, you don't need to know about unless you need to know about it.

 

Mark Young  31:48

Devin Kelley create slack. Somehow, for some reason, I'm thinking that he created that. Alright, what's your next item?

 

Andrew Mellen  31:58

Then we got social media.

 

Mark Young  32:00

That's a time sucker.

 

Andrew Mellen  32:01

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you use social media for work, that's one thing if you're using it, you know, to kill time, and I don't think anybody has enough time to murder it. Right? If you if you are spending your time, just scrolling through social media, that could be redirected. I mean, if we go to the Eisenhower quadrants, right, I mean, that is the lower right hand quadrant, it is not important and not urgent. It's just a waste of time. It's, it's the 21st century version of channel surfing. So if you if there's a reason to be on social media for work, or or for pleasure, and you have budgeted time for it, that's one thing, but getting lost down the rabbit holes of the various social media platforms. It's just, it's just a waste of time. 

 

Mark Young  32:45

Now, you know what's happened to us, because neither one of us use Facebook hardly at all. And we'll miss family functions now. Because that's people's method of sending out an invitation. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That we're gonna have a family picnic next Friday at such and such park and they tag everybody in it. And then if you're not on social media, then it's like, well, I'm gonna go on family picnic. And you know, there was a family picnic,

 

Andrew Mellen  33:10

Hmm.

 

Justin Girouard  33:11

Yeah, well, and that's interesting, too. So what Andrews talked at least so for me, again, the only reason why I'm on social media is for work. So I'm on social media. I'm analyzing ads, I'm looking at Brands, I'm seeing different execution. So yes, I'm in the newsfeed. But I set aside time. Every day, I set aside 45 minutes or so a day. That's why I'm in there. I'm not engaging.

 

Mark Young  33:36

You get the same thing? Do you have friends or relatives who think It think that's a formal invitation?

 

Justin Girouard  33:41

All of them.

 

Mark Young  33:41

It's like, dude, if you want me to show up, you need to call me.

 

Justin Girouard  33:43

And I told them they have you've had to text me or call me because I'm not paying attention to that at all. I'm going to miss it. And it's not intentional.

 

Andrew Mellen  33:51

Yeah. Now, you guys could set up auto responders, right? You could say that if they ping you, they get a message back saying, you know, this is a bot. And your message was received by the bot. But Mark or Justin hasn't seen seen it yet. If you want to reach me, give me a call or text me.

 

Mark Young  34:12

Now. The problem I've got is they're not pinging me. They're posting.

 

Andrew Mellen  34:15

 Oh, and they're just tagging you.

 

Mark Young  34:17

 Yeah, yeah. And if you're not paying attention to it, you're not going to the picnic.

 

Andrew Mellen  34:21

I guess they didn't really want you there.

 

Mark Young  34:24

Alright, let's go to the next one. I guess nobody wants me at the picnic.

 

Andrew Mellen  34:27

 Sure. So we've got it we've done interruptions, multitasking, over committing, we didn't we still have poor planning and procrastination. So poor planning is exactly that. Right? There's no plan you're flying by the seat of your pants you you're relying on your talent your ingenuity, which can only get you so far. I was taught early on by an English professor. That for the bulk of us, the best work happens in revision that that is where we take ideas, we refine them, we hone them. And that's where the magic is transformed into something that is both sustainable and, and refined. And so I think often people because they are beleaguered, overwhelmed, they feel like I don't have I don't have enough time to plan. So I just have to wing it and hope for the best. And that, you know, they they do that thing, which is very common. They, they're set up to thinking that they need a big, big block of on structured time to do the big thinking, instead of working in smaller increments, 5-10-15 minutes, and actually drilling down into something, setting a timer and working focused on something to move the needle forward incrementally, because we're never gonna get that big block of unstructured time. So you keep pushing off the planning, thinking, Oh, I don't have the time yet. I don't have the time yet. Instead of focusing on well, what could I actually do in five minutes? If I if I was precise, and focused in in five minutes? What could actually get done?

 

Mark Young  36:11

Okay, all right.

 

Andrew Mellen  36:14

And then when it comes to procrastination, I mean, the number one thing to do there is just eat the frog, as Mark Twain famously said, and then Brian Tracy has run with that idea, right? I mean, you do the thing that is the most unpleasant Mark Twain said, if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, the rest of the day gets better. And so the thing, the thing that we want to spend the least amount of time with, we often end up spending the most amount of time with because we keep dragging it around behind us. We tell ourselves one of those 200 lies, right that the frog is going to be tastier in the afternoon, you're going to batter fry it and put some tartar sauce on it. It'll be much tastier than eating it first thing in the morning. But the reality is, it's never going to be a it's never going to be tastier, you might as well just get it out of the way and set yourself up for success for the rest of the day.

 

Mark Young  37:01

All right. All right. So there's we've got that now. Now what do entrepreneurs what need to do what? So? And again, this we're really talking to the entrepreneurs.

 

Andrew Mellen  37:12

Sure.

 

Mark Young  37:13

What else do they need to do? Because they're always feeling overwhelmed. They're always like they have too much to do. So what are the other techniques that you would give them to to take control of their day?

 

Andrew Mellen  37:26

Yep, the two things that I would the three tools that I would encourage people to use, first of all, a timer and a calendar. So everything is quantified. You're you're no longer working in narrative based goals, like I'm gonna work on this till I'm finished. Work on this until it's more finished. You're going to work on it for 15 minutes, you're going to work on it for 30 minutes, you're going to work on it for 12 minutes. Then the timer just like you were talking about earlier, Mark, right. The idea of you don't need any bandwidth dedicated to like, what should I put on in the morning, you don't have to keep score, the timer will keep the score for you, you get to work uninterrupted until the timer interrupts you and says it's time for you to shift focus, go do something else. So you don't have to spend any time scorekeeping, you can just drill into whatever it is that you're working on, let the timer do the work for you. Also, driving your day from your calendar, rather than a series of post its or the back of an envelope a bunch of to do items that you've listed for yourself. Because again, often to do items don't come with quantification, you've just you've got a series of things you want to get done in the day, but you haven't necessarily quantified how much time it will take you to complete any of them. So often, it's we overestimate what we can get done, and we underestimate how long it will take us to do those things. So then we we perpetuate that cycle of, oh, I got to the end of the day, there's still so much that I didn't get done. Maybe tomorrow will be different with no recipe for tomorrow being any different. So I'd say that we drive our days from our calendars, we make those discrete appointments with ourselves. And then we honor them, we keep them and we budget the time and we use our core values to determine what is what merits our attention and our time, because there's plenty of things that we could do that may be fun. And in no way am I denigrating fun, right but if you're trying to get things done at work, the primary objective is getting the things done that only I can do for my business and I need to do so I also point people back towards that Pareto principle idea, right? Like, what's your 20% Where do you get the biggest bang for your buck? There, no amount of social media posting or blog writing is going to create more revenue for me than speaking on stages and attend Networking events. That's where all of my that's where all of my business comes from. Right? I could sit and write blogs all day, and I'm sure people appreciate them. Nobody's ever called me up to book me based on a blog that they read.

 

Mark Young  40:15

So we always try to tell people is this thing that I do. And that is where a lot of people are told, you should only do the things you're good at. And you you got it, right, which is you need to go beyond that and do the things that only you are good at.

 

Andrew Mellen  40:33

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  40:34

And be willing to accept that there's other people in your organization who can do things. They may not do it as well as you do.

 

Justin Girouard  40:41

Right.

 

Mark Young  40:42

But that's okay.

 

Andrew Mellen  40:43

Sometimes good enough is good enough.

 

Mark Young  40:45

 Right? And also, keep in mind that there for everything you hate doing, there is somebody out there who likes doing that.

 

Andrew Mellen  40:52

Yes.

 

Mark Young  40:53

Or as Dan Sullivan says, If you spend all your time focused on improving your weaknesses, you just end up as a person with lots of strong weaknesses.

 

Justin Girouard  41:05

Right, yes, right. Well, and so what that the question that popped in my head, when you're going through this, Andrew, I think it comes back around to the concept of, of boundaries as it relates to those who not how concept, right. So I know me personally. And Mark, I've seen it with you as well. So I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs will understand this, where I feel at times that my calendar has gotten out of control, that all sorts of other people are controlling my calendar now. And so how, and what your advice would be to entrepreneurs, and especially smaller organizations, right, where you're starting out, you've got five people, how do they set those boundaries and take control of their calendar? How do they take that back?

 

Mark Young  41:48

Just do what Zuckerberg does it just so as Zuckerberg does he meetings are only allowed to be an hour. And then he requires an hour off, after the one hour for him to contemplate and think about what happened in the meeting?

 

Andrew Mellen  42:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, I I tell people all the time, no, back to back meetings ever, right? You always the end of the meeting isn't the end of the meeting, the end of the meeting is when you've debriefed yourself from the meeting, synthesize everything you needed to created whatever tasks you needed to do made appointments, figured out your deliverables, things that have been delegated to other people, then the meetings over. So if you walk into a meeting, from a meeting, you're physically there, but you're still mentally processing what happened in the other room. So you're not even you might as well sit in the hallway and debrief yourself. Because you're, you're not getting anything out of being there. And it's like a false positive. People think you're there and listening. But you're actually looking at your agenda from the previous meeting, trying to figure out like, what did I mean by this note, and who do I have to contact when I get out of this room? So it's all a waste of time, you'd be much better off building those buffers in between every meeting.

 

Mark Young  43:02

It's really good point, because I've jumped from meeting to meeting. And I think the deeper they're stacked up, the further behind I am mentally...

 

Andrew Mellen  43:10

Yeah

 

Mark Young  43:11

...with where I'm at. I'm still 10 o'clock meeting and I'm in the 1pm meeting, right?

 

Justin Girouard  43:15

Absolutely.

 

Andrew Mellen  43:16

Well, and and because you've you've stacked all that information on it, it becomes harder to filter through of like, what, I know that there was something I had to do, when I like when all of these meetings are finished, there was one deliverable that had to get done this afternoon. And it's now completely obscured by everything that's been stacked on top of it. And you would have been much better off after that 10 o'clock meeting, to either do it, or to at least make the appointment with yourself at 2pm when these meetings are finished, do this thing next.

 

Mark Young  43:48

So when you meet with our most of your clients, entrepreneurs, or executives, what makes up the bulk?

 

Andrew Mellen  43:55

I mean, I tend to do a lot of work with associations, so clumps of entrepreneurs and small business owners. Occasionally, you know, companies like the New York Mets bring me in or the Metropolitan Museum of Art, American Express, Goldman Sachs, then it's obviously I'm working with a team or a series of teams to improve their productivity. But when I'm at these conferences, so everybody's, everybody's their own shop, and they're all under the umbrella of like the IIABA or, you know, their their associations, Sherm those kinds of those kinds of associations, wherever it is, everybody's got their own company, but they're all doing the same kind of an activity.

 

Mark Young  44:41

So do you find the do you see a big difference between the entrepreneurs and the corporate executives?

 

Andrew Mellen  44:52

Yeah, I would say that the culture and the approach to culture from an entrepreneurial point of view, entrepreneurs tend to view the culture as much more malleable and adaptable and less moribund, less, you know, locked into something where often in corporations, even when I'm working with CEOs and people who can shift the culture, there's a sense of, it's harder to move the, it's harder to move this machine that far as quickly as we need to. So I find that entrepreneurs are much more adaptable, a good idea they're willing to, you know, they're willing to play with a good idea much faster.

 

Mark Young  45:38

And it's one of the big advantages an entrepreneur has.

 

Andrew Mellen  45:42

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  45:43

Because a company making an independent line of shampoo with an entrepreneur can go look at his formula and say, you know, what, we're going to add, whatever, we're going to chose your oil, or whatever the case is to it. To do that at P&G is probably a three, three year process.

 

Andrew Mellen  46:04

Totally, yeah.

 

Mark Young  46:05

You're gonna have to go through the chemists and it's going to have to go through marketing, and it's going to have to go through finance, and it's going to have to go through purchasing, and it's going to have to do all this stuff, then it's gonna go to a committee that it's gonna go to the CEO, if it's that important.

 

Andrew Mellen  46:18

And then there'll be a, you know, there'll be 18 months of focus groups.

 

Justin Girouard  46:21

Right? Exactly.

 

Mark Young  46:23

So that's one of your great strengths, folks, as entrepreneurs. That is, you can pivot on a dime.

 

Andrew Mellen  46:30

Yes.

 

Mark Young  46:31

You know, you're a watercraft and P&G is is a cruise line.

 

Justin Girouard  46:35

Right.

 

Mark Young  46:36

So which one of those can change directions the fastest?

 

Andrew Mellen  46:39

Yeah.

 

Mark Young  46:40

And that's one of your great experience, one of your great skills. What would you say when you meet with a new client. What's the what are the single most common items that you, and the the best way to put it, where's the low hanging fruit? When you walk in the door? Where can you go in and say, do that, that and that, and we're going to fix 50% of your mess right now. What are the what are the big glaring, easy wins for you?

 

Andrew Mellen  47:10

The email shift out of out of internal communications using email and moving whether if they're a Microsoft house, and they're, they have Microsoft products, they can easily pivot to Microsoft Teams, or slack any of those. That's, that's a, that's a huge time saver. Really looking at why we're meeting and when we're meeting and eliminating as many of those as quickly as possible, so that a meeting really has to earn its right to be called. And and then I would say, you know, just that idea of where are the SOPs? Do we have SOPs? If we've solved this problem more than once? Let's not solve it again, without documenting how we've solved it, so that everybody has the recipe. You don't need to keep reinventing the recipe to make you know, an omelet. We know, right? It's three eggs, it's a quarter of a cup of milk, and it's some butter. Let's make an omelet. We don't need to like, Well, should we use vegetable oil? Should we use Crisco? What what's what are we doing here? You know.

 

Justin Girouard  48:15

Right? And SOP means standard operating procedures.

 

Andrew Mellen  48:18

Sorry, yeah, standard operating procedure.

 

Justin Girouard  48:19

I mean, they probably did. But..

 

Andrew Mellen  48:22

 Yeah.

 

Mark Young  48:23

So Andrew, you've got a couple of books in the background, I'm assuming those your books tell us about the book.

 

Andrew Mellen  48:27

So I've got unstuff your life, which is my first book, which is a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and that, you know, that was published by Penguin, God 14 years ago now. And it's, it's a, it's a how to book on how to get and stay organized. So what I discovered when I was when I was wanting to write the book, many of the books on organization that were in the marketplace, describe what organization looked like, but didn't tell anybody how to actually make it happen. So it would say this is what you want to achieve. And then you were left to connect the dots yourself. And so I wrote a book that literally tells people set the book down, go do this, come back, pick up the book and let's take the next step together. So it's literally a step by step how to book on getting and staying organized.

 

Mark Young  49:18

And you've got another book there.

 

Andrew Mellen  49:20

Yeah, then there's calling BS on busy which is, which is my newest book, which just just last week, was a number one bestseller on Amazon in the time management category. I was so pleased I you know, I took a screenshot of of I was in number one position. Tim Ferriss was a number two position and David Allen was in number five position and Brian Tracy was a number seven. So I was like, wow, this is so it's a good day for me, right? My book as a Kindle as an ebook was in position one. And the audio book was in position number four. So that was a good day I was very pleased. And that again, it addresses the Eight Deadly time thieves and so on. It takes you step by step on how to shift the culture around interruptions how to stop over committing how to say no and have no be a complete sentence. How to stop multitasking and really be able to focus, how to do proper planning how to how to call meetings that are useful address, social media address, email, and, and how to eat the frog and beat procrastination.

 

Mark Young  50:28

So just you know, everybody will have links to Andrews website into the books in the show notes when you go to CPG insiders to the show with Andrew Mellen, we'll have all those links. So if you're driving around, you don't have to figure it out.

 

Andrew Mellen  50:41

Yeah, you don't have to don't try to multitask and write it down.

 

Mark Young  50:44

We've already established that multitasking doesn't work.

 

Justin Girouard  50:49

No. So this is I mean, this has been great. I love this conversation. And again, I know that we work with entrepreneurs all the time. Right.

 

Mark Young  50:57

And we are entrepreneurs.

 

Andrew Mellen  50:58

 Exactly.

 

Justin Girouard  50:58

And oh, the big idea. It was just actual focus time. So, no, this has been fantastic, Andrew.  We are entrepreneurs. And so one of the the greatest challenges that we're constantly trying to coach our clients on is this constant simplification is get organized, slow down, slow down, is the way to speed up, right? And I really think that you've got a lot of great just, like tangible actions people can take, and I think I've taken this conversation is that you have, you're giving people the game plan, you're not just talking about theory, it's, here's how to do it, here's a way to execute it. And again, a big takeaway for me that I know I'm going to take away is that concept of instead of trying to schedule an hour to think about a big thing is not take 15 minutes, just put your calendar 15 minutes of just focus. And using a timer. I'm gonna take that away personally. Because, you know, I find myself and you talked about it to where that shower moment happens, right? It's because you were actually just nothing else was going on? You got

 

Andrew Mellen  52:08

Oh, thank you, thank you.

 

Mark Young  52:09

You uh, you offer courses for people also. So they can learn that at your website.

 

Andrew Mellen  52:13

Yep. Yeah, yeah, as I said, we've got the unstuff your life system, which is a 10 week program to take people from where they're at to really employing the organizational triangle and creating some systems for themselves at home typically, mean you can do it at the office, but it's primarily a residential based program, we've got your next big thing, which is I teach people the five phases of project management, and how to actually get something done in 90 days. And then we've got to destress your mess challenge, which is a five day introductory to me and my methodology, the mindset, which is so essential, right? I mean, underpinning all of this along with your core values is glass half empty glass half full, right? I mean, do you see the opportunity? Or do you see the limitation and the gift of being the entrepreneur is really. Can you find the opportunity in this when you run into that brick wall? What's the opportunity for you instead of just instead of just accepting it as this brick wall must always be here? No, it's just it's an opportunity to pivot in a different direction. So.

 

Mark Young  53:19

What did Earl Nightingale call that the acres of diamonds, I believe, was the comment, years ago. Earl was actually probably the first person. And I remember him Earl Nightingale was probably the first person in this or one of the first in the self development area.

 

Andrew Mellen  53:39

Like a  Zig Ziglar? Like, I mean.

 

Mark Young  53:41

Zig Ziggler worked for Earl.

 

Andrew Mellen  53:42

Got it. There you go.

 

Mark Young  53:44

Zig Ziglar was published by Nightingale Conant.

 

Andrew Mellen  53:46

Oh, there you go.

 

Mark Young  53:48

 And Earl to this day actually still holds the record of the most sold records of a speaking record.

 

Andrew Mellen  53:56

Wow.

 

Mark Young  53:58

And it was a record in his Earl had the voice of God. And the record was what was the strangest secret record, or was originally the radio host of the Paul Harvey moments. Oh. And then when Earl Earl left radio to run Nightingale Conant as he was publishing Zig Ziglar and Tony Robbins and all these people. As he left he actually discovered I just said his name. No, no, not Tony Robbins. He's the guy I'm thinking of. I just said his name. The guy who did the radio moments.

 

Andrew Mellen  54:43

Paul Harvey.

 

Mark Young  54:44

He actually discovered Paul Harvey.

 

Andrew Mellen  54:46

Oh, wow.

 

Mark Young  54:48

Interesting thing with Paul a share of people. Paul Harvey had a very interesting way of speaking. So you might remember him Andrew. And Paul Harvey, a woman from Dubuque, Iowa. And it'd be Long pause, sent me a letter. In her letter, it said, the reason is Paul Harvey was a stutterer. And I had the chance to know Paul Harvey, he stuttered. That's how he overcame the stuttering was he would say these quick little bursts of words. And like your program where we're saying, okay, you have to come up with these hacks and His ways to do it. Paul's way of doing it was a woman from Dubuque. Okay, take a break. Sent me a letter today. And then he take a break. And, and you noticed they were very staccato, so it was super quick.  I received a letter. And that's how he controlled the stuttering. And so literally, a guy who had severe stuttering became one of the most famous radio hosts in America for years.

 

Andrew Mellen  55:40

Yeah. That's a great story.

 

Mark Young  55:55

I finding a way to overcome that. But yeah, that was Earl Nightingale discovered him. So folks, check out check out the books, you get the books on Amazon, I'm assuming.

 

Andrew Mellen  56:04

Oh, yeah.

 

Mark Young  56:04

 And go to Andrews website. If you want to get the program Andrews are the are the programs video? Or do you have a coach that you work with on Zoom? How does the program's work?

 

Andrew Mellen  56:13

So they're all taught live. I mean, what we've discovered is that for, for people to be held accountable, hold themselves accountable. This is not none of it can be dripped delivered. So

 

Mark Young  56:26

The weight watchers model we're gonna make you come in and get on a scale every week.

 

Andrew Mellen  56:29

Exactly. And and we get great results for folks because of that, because it's not it. Look, if you were disorganized, you how likely is it that you're going to sit down at eight o'clock at night and watch a video for an hour on how to get on or you know how to get organized, it's not going to happen. So we we we discovered, I've been teaching online for 14 years. And when we first started, we tried to do a drip delivered model. And we would get lots of people signing up. But we were not getting the kinds of the kinds of transformation that we were looking for. And while I you know, I certainly appreciate earning money, I want the transformation for the customer, I want them to get what they came for. Because then they'll become raving fans, and they'll tell all their friends, right? I've tried everything else. And finally, this guy unlocked the secret. I got what I needed. And and I got what I came for. So we made that transition, literally just before COVID happened to we're just going to teach everything live. And so I do have a couple of coaches that work with me to deliver some parts of the program. All of the pedagogy is coming from me because it's it's my technology, if you will. So it's they can support people around accountability, motivation, all of those kinds of things. When it comes to the to answering the questions because I've been doing this work for 27 years. It's just better for me to be the person who's going to instruct you. This is what you want to do with those kinds of things is what you want to do with these kinds of things.

 

Mark Young  58:02

What made Weight Watchers work, by the way. Isn't the point system and the frozen meals.

 

Andrew Mellen  58:07

It's getting on the scale.

 

Mark Young  58:09

You're getting on a scale with 20 other people standing there.

 

Andrew Mellen  58:11

Yep.

 

Mark Young  58:13

And all right, Barbara, did you go up or down? Let's watch. Yeah, not wanting to be the person who went up.

 

Andrew Mellen  58:19

No, no, you definitely do not want to be the person who steps on to say I'm like, Oh, how did this happen? How did I put on three pounds? I was so good. Except for that cake.

 

Mark Young  58:30

And pizza and cake. I would have been fine.

 

Andrew Mellen  58:32

 Yeah.

 

Mark Young  58:32

But yes, it is. It was it's the accountability. So I really get that. So you can go to Andrews website. There'll be a link in the show notes. Any last thoughts for you, Justin?

 

Justin Girouard  58:41

No, I appreciate your time here. Andrew. I think that again, I can't emphasize enough. How, how the skills the end in the topics that we talked about that that Andrews talked about on the show today.

 

Mark Young  58:52

You got lots of notes.

 

Justin Girouard  58:53

I've taken so many notes today, and how but how seriously how we don't think about the loss of productivity because we're so busy. Busy, right? And if you just take the time to simplify how much more productive your life and how much the end of freedom again...

 

Andrew Mellen  59:14

It's all about the freedom.

 

Justin Girouard  59:15

Freedom you're going to get from it. So this is fantastic. And I hope

 

Mark Young  59:19

It cut off your opportunity losses.

 

Justin Girouard  59:21

Yes, yeah.

 

Mark Young  59:23

 Thank you, Andrew. Folks, if you liked today's show, make sure you go to wherever you get your podcasts, leave us five star review. You can always get in touch with Justin or myself at CPGinsiders.com. And you can always ask us questions and you can always give us topics of subjects you'd like to hear us cover.

 

Justin Girouard  59:43

Absolutely.

 

Mark Young  59:44

And that's it for this week. We'll see you on the next episode of CPG insiders. If you're looking to greatly increase sales on your CPG product, don't hesitate to contact us at Jekyll and Hyde advertising and marketing. By the way, the only average tising agency with a guaranteed result just go to Jekyll Hyde agency.com Or feel free to give us a call at 800-500-4210