CTC Ep. 43 | Why Your Brain is Wired to Procrastinate + 3 Ways to Override It with Robin J. Emdon

Kris: [00:00:00] Welcome to from Click to Client, where we transform a confusing message into a clear, compelling story that sells. I'm your host, Chris Jones, StoryBrand marketing expert. I'm here to help you attract more dream clients with the power of story.

Hello, meet Robin Emdon, creator of GI Results ology. And after taking 10 years to finish a six year degree, Robin discovered the science behind follow through and he now helps solopreneurs achieve 33% more of their monthly goals. Robin, welcome. I am so thrilled to have you here today. I

Robin: am excited to be here today.

It was so kind of you to ask me. I'm really looking forward to our conversation.

Kris: So tell us a little bit about yourself. Like how did you get to get into doing this work that you're doing?

Robin: Okay. Well, I might as well start at the, at start, at the end. Really, I, I, I realized that I am a chronic [00:01:00] procrastinator.

And now that, you know, that might sound like a Oh, really? You know, so well, in 2001, I trained in California, although I'm British. I trained in California under the chage of Tony Robbins and his organization to be a life coach. So, um, you know, it isn't exactly congruent with being a life coach, that you wake up one day and you realize that you're a chronic procrastinator.

And in fact, that one day was not for like 18, 19, 20 years. When I was bragging to my older brother that I just got my degree, I was having a coffee with him in a coffee shop, and I was bragging to him in 2019, I've got my degree onto I Brilliant. Yay. Yeah. Yay. And my brother was like, oh, I'm so bored. Can we go?

And I was like, oh no, I know you can't. You can never impress your siblings, can you? So. So I thought, oh, I know, I'll tell him, trust me to take 10 years to do something I've done in, I should have done in six, which you kindly mentioned in the introduction. And he was like, yeah, what was that about? And I said, oh, you know, procrastination.

And I laughed and he laughed. And then we changed the subject. Well then I got to thinking about it driving home. I [00:02:00] thought, wait a minute, Emdon, you are a coach. You are a trained life coach. How dare you procrastinate? How very dare you? And you know, I thought, I've gotta square that circle. That makes no sense at all.

And I, I had a realization I had, it was like a face palm moment, and I thought, wow, I've never really thought about it before. I, I, I've always thought of procrastination in the same way that I used to think about a common cold before the age of COVID when every sniffle is a suspicious wor and, and quite worrying.

Most of us just work through cold. Oh, I've got a cold. I'll be all right in a few days. Don't worry about it. I'll be okay. It's a nuisance. It's uncomfortable and we get over it. That's how I thought about procrastination, Kris. And it was just like, wait a minute. What the heck is going on here? Because I used to just say, oh, you know, I've got procrastination.

Oh, I'll be all right tomorrow. Hello. Isn't that the procrastinator's mantra? I'll do it tomorrow. Right. So I got, that's what I, that's my background. I, I, I, my background is I. By, by 2019, I'd been concentrating on getting my degree. I was working from home, but [00:03:00] I wasn't doing coaching. I was doing online marketing.

And, uh, I, I'd put the coaching down a few years earlier to concentrate on being a full-time single father. And I just didn't wanna do the coaching at the same time. And, um, and so by 2019, you know, I, I didn't have any connections in the industry. I had no thought about becoming a coach again. But as I started researching.

Because I couldn't think of the answer. I thought all those dozens and dozens and dozens of days. I trained with Tony Robbins about a hundred in total, including the coaching training at the end of it all, and, and my brother was used at that time as a mental health professional and he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

And I thought, oh, it must be obvious what the answer is. And so here I am, five years on, I decided to, I used the gift that keeps on giving COVID and all the lockdowns, and I decided to research and I realized. Straight. I very quickly found out that in one 10 year period, by way of an example, in the early two thousands, they'd done over 10 years worth of res uh, sorry.

They'd done over 900 projects in that 10 [00:04:00] year period. Sorry, little brain, um, gas there. But I just, I thought, well, I don't need to research it, but I need to translate it into English. My degree was in arts and humanities. I'm not a scientist. Mm-hmm. I don't, I don't do science. It's in one ear and out the other and, and nothing connects.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: But I can, I can understand it in the moment and then it's like, well, how do I translate this into what I call English? You know, as in Right. Can

I understand it? And can you metabolize it? Right. Can you absorb it into your knowing whether it's your brain, your body, or both? Um, yeah. How do you do that?

So I get it. Yeah.

Well, absolutely. Well, the first thing that that, that I discovered was that procrastination is an inside job. We're hardwired to procrastination and it begins in the limbic system. Now I'm already, my eyes are glazing over 'cause I'm like, well, what the heck's the limbic system? Well, most people will know or could easily find out.

The limbic system is the most primitive part of your brain. It's where a. Our most basic instincts reside. It's where the fight, fight, or [00:05:00] flee response is triggered and it's an automatic system. And if you think about it, your human brain, I've got one, you've got one, we've all got one. Whatever is all about two things.

Number one, survival. Everything in our life is about how do we survive, and number two, procreation, survival of the species. Everything else, all the recreation that we do, all the jobs that we do, all the, everything that we do with our lives. Is incidental to those two primary purposes that your brain is hardwired to create.

And in that mix, I re, the, I I discovered the science was pointing out the, the neurology.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Um, and the psychology. That procrastination is actually hardwired into the brain. It's part of our flight or fight or freeze response.

Kris: Hmm.

So it's, it's programmed hard where it's hardwired in our brain to procrastinate.

Right? Is that what [00:06:00] you're saying? Like, we are wired to procrastinate, so we have to kind of override that limbic system to get unstuck. Is that Yeah. Am I hearing you right?

Robin: I, yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing is the same as you, which is, wait a minute, which part of survival is procrastination, right? Right.

Yeah. Well, it's the part that causes us, it's when we freeze. So think about it this way, if you were living in the wild and a man eating tiger was coming at you. Even though you might actually just want to get on with, you know, cooking your dinner, doing the washing, taking the kids to school. Mm-hmm. That man eating tiger is gonna kind of prevail right now there and then in the moment.

Gotta deal with that. Gotta figure out what do I do. Well, you don't have time to figure it out. That's why we have a limbic system.

Kris: Mm.

Robin: The limbic system goes straight into survival mode. Do I fight it? Mm, probably not. Do I freeze? Hope that it doesn't notice me maybe. Or do I flee? Well, you can't really outrun a tiger, but if you put your trainers [00:07:00] on, you can outrun the person next to you.

So that's probably a viable option, right? Well, in the 21st century, unless you happen to live where there are man eating tigers still prowling in the wild. Our equivalent of man eating tigers are bailiffs bad news in emails and through the post. Um, things that have been with us forever. Bad news about our friends and relatives, health issues, relat significant relationship issues with your significant other that just upsets you terribly.

All of these things. Cause us to feel threatened. So the limbic system embodies the threat modality and when we are threatened, we close down and when we close down, we put off doing things that we don't wanna do and only focus on the things that are, that either we have to do because it's urgent.

Because you know it's an emergency like an A man eating tiger running at you.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Or it's just. The freeze response or the flea response is, oh, I've got this, um, [00:08:00] bill I can't pay. Hmm. I think I'll just park that and go and watch TV 'cause I don't wanna think about it.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Oh, I've got this bad news about my, I can't pay the rent this month, or I've got this health issue, which I don't know how I'm gonna resolve it.

It's keeping me awake at night with worry or my, my dear de my beloved has a health issue that's keeping me awake with worry. How do you deal with it? Mm-hmm. You shut down. You go into threat mode, this is a threat to your survival. Mm. If you think about it. Mm-hmm. Because you are feeling threatened.

Mm-hmm. And when you are threatened, then you shut down. And we, we have a word for that. It's called fear and it's also called procrastination.

Mm. And

Robin: procrastination and fear aren't always quite the same thing, but they, but procrastination is the threat modality. Fortunately there's a solution, but we haven't got there yet.

Kris: So you studied 900 research papers on procrastination. What, what did you find the most shocking when you came into the other side of that research?

Robin: Right. [00:09:00] Well, uh, let me, let me just clarify. I, I didn't study 900 papers. I discovered that there were over 900 papers in one 10 year period. Got it. I understand why that that will creep in.

But what I did do was I, I, I looked for the common threads about the conclusions that were coming from those papers. And I went to the authority authors that had written their views on them. So I didn't go on, I didn't look at memes. Yeah. I didn't, I didn't look at other people, copying other people. I went to professors and academics and people.

Mm-hmm. And, and also other coaches who are experienced, who had also looked at it. And I was looking for the common themes. I wanted to bring the threads, the common threads together. What, what was actually true. Mm-hmm. And what wasn't true. Because if you, if you do a search on the internet. On procrastination and or productivity, which is the antithesis of procrastination, you don't get a few hundred answers back.

You get millions. Well, there's an awful lot of great information out there, but there's a lot of misinformation out there as well. And I wanted to sort the wheat from the chaff.

Kris: Mm.

Robin: And so what I did [00:10:00] was I looked for those common threads and then I, I pulled those together, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Got it.

Kris: There. There's another piece that I talk about a lot, which is from a messaging and marketing standpoint, um. Our brains are really wired to survive and thrive. And I think, you know, this overlaps a lot with what you're talking about. And when it comes to messaging, or for example, if somebody comes to your website and there's too much copy, our brain is trying to conserve calories.

All the time, right. In order to survive. And so if we come across a document or a book or something that, that has a lot of information, our brains will literally turn off and say, we don't have the energy to digest this information anymore. We're gonna bail. Like this is not, this is not what we, we don't, we're not cut out for this today.

Maybe tomorrow. Is, is that, um, is that idea similar to what you're talking about?

Robin: Yeah. You're talking about [00:11:00] overwhelm. Yeah. Yeah. Overwhelm is a key trigger of procrastination. Yeah, yeah. Right. Absolutely. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. It's, it's it's threat modality. Again, the brain felt, you've described a situation where the brain, the brain feels threatened.

It's too much things that are too difficult. We, whether that's true or not, the perception that something is too difficult, o overwhelm the i, this is why, you know, when we are organizing our day, some, some people will avoid the difficult tasks and do the easy stuff. Procrastination. A lot of people do it that way round a lot.

Other people, they organize their day differently. They do the difficult stuff first. 'cause they've learned that once they get that out of the way, the easy stuff is easier to do. That's, that's a strategy. And we haven't quite reached the point where we're talking about strategy. So let me just start shifting the, the dialogue a little bit.

Yeah. There is another part of your brain which is hidden under my hat and it's along here and it's called the prefrontal cortex.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Now the prefrontal cortex is, I'm told, 'cause I'm not a scientist, but I'm told, but those that know evolutionarily speaking, it's a much younger part of [00:12:00] the brain. And it's where we do our rational thinking.

It's where we do our decision taking.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: And here's the kicker, if you're under 25, it's not yet fully formed. Now, it probably won't come as a terrible surprise to you to understand that those 900 research papers, the majority of the projects took place at guess where. Colleges, universities. Right, right.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: And guess who hangs out at colleges and universities? People under 25. People. Under 25. Yeah. We call 'em students. Right. And it's a, it's, it's, it's a horrible fact that they're going through all the things that young life gives them. They've got the, they're getting their first taste of freedom, maybe the first time away from home in their teens and, and it's freedom of that.

So they've got all that distraction going on as they're turning into fully fledged adults. They've got busy social lives. They've got these huge curriculums that they have to get through. Which requires discipline and pro and being productive and the part of the brain that deals with all that isn't quite in the room yet.

Elvis has not entered the building yet. Nevermind [00:13:00] left the building. He's not come in yet. Right. And so you've got this challenging situation where, of course plenty do work through it, but the re but the, the research is so prevalent because. Every student in the world at some point has to deal with procrastination.

Some do it better than others. I mean, the, the statistics showed that, of those who admit to procrastination, I wasn't one of them. Mm-hmm. And maybe people listening would say that. Same thing I do now, but I wasn't, I didn't admit it then. But of those that do, 95% will admit to procrastinating sometimes. Big deal.

So the dishes are after dinner, knee cleaning. Alright, I'll do them later. That's a form of procrastination. It's not life changing, not, it shouldn't be, but of the 95% who admit to procrastinating, one in five of those 20% talk about having chronic procrastination and that is debilitating. That's life changing.

That has real costs. That gets you very upset. It damages relationships. It damages your finances, it damages your career, it damages everything about your life. [00:14:00] One in five out of, so that's out out of 95%. That's a huge number of people. Mm-hmm. And, and that isn't because there's anything wrong with them.

Remember, this is your brain. Your brain is, you know, you're normal. It's not Abby normal. It's just normal. Your name's not Abby Normal. Your name is normal. Right? And, and it's just a natural reaction to life, to feeling threatened, to being overwhelmed. That you described the feeling of overwhelm. You need strategies.

For dealing with that, you need plans. You need to find ways to get out of being in overwhelm, which is why I wrote the book. Mm-hmm. So the book is covered, covers three sections. The first section, which is what we've been doing, is we've been talking about beginning to understand it. So you've got the threat modality of the limbic system, and up here, the prefrontal cortex, they call that the reward modality.

And in the reward modality, you can enter full productivity. That's where your rational thinking is right. What I discovered was by discover, I mean for myself, I didn't do any original research, but the science was saying [00:15:00] that in order to be fully productive, you need to trigger three neurotransmitters in your brain.

Right? Mm-hmm. Now, bear with me because this is where I go into the science and my eyes glaze over, and if your eyes glaze over to, for, to the scientists psychology, but to the arts and humanity type people like me. Yeah. You'll understand, I'm sure, right? Yeah. Well, yeah. Right. You need three neurotransmitters.

The things that connect your, the neurons in your brain. You need dopamine. The very famous dopamine. Everybody's heard of dopamine, and if you've got a phone or call it the dopamine in your pocket. Right. Everybody knows that the dopamine is the feelgood neurotransmitter. Mm-hmm. Right. You need a lot of that.

You also need two others. You need acetacholine, and you need noradrenaline. You can wake up now because now I'm gonna translate that into English. Right. Dopamine, I call that the conductor, and I have the conductor living in the prefrontal cortex.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: In the reward modality. And it's like a conductor of an orchestra who has to bring all those separate, disparate.

Instruments together that make [00:16:00] an absolute cacophony of awful sound. Get them organized, give them sheet music, organize them, train them, rehearse them, and get 'em to the point where they make the music of your life.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Wow. Right? Mm-hmm. That's the conductor's role.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Then in order to do the work, you need to be focused now, the best kind of focus, and that's caused by the neurotransmitter called acetycholine.

That rattles off my tongue now, but that's because I've said it about a million times and I still have to, what was that word again? I still have to stop and think. I've got nothing between the ears when it comes to remembering scientific terms.

Kris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: Acetacholine is naturally present in children, and if you think about it, going back to survival when you're a child, you are the most vulnerable part of your entire life.

And you have to learn to do things at an accelerated rate, at a rate that you will never need to do again. Normal, under normal situ circumstances, you have to learn to walk, you have to learn to [00:17:00] run. You have to learn to speak and understand language, sometimes more than one language, but certainly your main language.

You have to learn to do that, you have to learn everything. You have to learn as a child, and it still takes years. You're still dependent on your parents while you're doing it, but a, but you are still learning at an accelerated rate compared to later in life. I mean, anybody that's tried to learn a language as an adult will tell you that it was, it felt a lot harder than learning their first language as a child.

They don't even remember learning their first

language.

Robin: Mm-hmm. And that's because acidic coline is the neurotransmitter that gives us focus. And it, I, I, it might be counterintuitive, but children are brilliant at focusing. They're brilliant at it. Sure. Yeah. Okay. They can be distracted easily, they can have their squirrel moments.

Mm-hmm. You know, like, oh, I've got gas. Mm-hmm. Right. But, and then they'll, they'll scream the house down and tell, 'cause they'll focus on that until you deal with it. Right? Mm-hmm. And, but the, but give them, I'm mean, my, my, my son watch the same movie. It was a Disney movie. He like Disney's first cars, not Disney, Pixar cars.

Right. [00:18:00] He and I have watched that hundreds of times and he never got bored and he was always. Glued to the, to the thing the whole time it was on. Right. Focus, focus, focus. Here's the kicker. When you're an adult, we don't naturally have acid coline in our bodies anymore. We have to manufacture it from scratch.

Kris: Mm.

Robin: Fortunately we can, but it's not naturally present.

Kris: Mm.

Robin: How do we manufacture it? Well, it isn't, you know, there's a, there's a, there's a chemistry lab in your brain. Your brain does it, and the way that I can tell you when it's present is the better way of describing how. To manufacture it, which is, have you ever sat down to do something and you think, and you're really focusing on it and it's important to you and you really want to get it done, and you look at your watch and you think, okay, I'll do this for 10 minutes, and then I got to do something else.

And then 10 minutes later you look at your watch and you think, hang on, where did that hour go?

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Where did that afternoon go? Where I've been doing this all night?

Mm.

Robin: Right. And it might be, you know, you could be playing a game, you could be reading a book, it doesn't matter.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Because you lost track of [00:19:00] time.

That's a clue that, that the assets coline is present. You've been focused. Mm-hmm. And when you're focused, you just lose track of time. You're completely focused. So, and I call that state the scholar. Mm-hmm. So you've got the conductor and the scholar. In a my productivity trifecta, the third member of the productivity trifecta is.

The fun sized warrior, like fun sized chocolate bars that you put in your children's lunchboxes, right? The fun sized warrior, not the big warrior. The big warrior brings out a different, uh, neurotransmitter called cortisol. And cortisol shuts everything down that you don't need for your survival and in and enhances everything that you do.

So it's cortisol that makes you run.

Right.

Robin: I know you need adrenaline for that and all that, but it's cortisol that gets your mind. Everything else shuts down the prefrontal cortex, the conductor, he goes back to his dressing room and has asleep. Mm. Right. You don't need her. Right. You don't need him. They, they, they, they are not in the building.

They have left the building. They are not wanted. You have not dropped time. If [00:20:00] there's a tiger coming after you to think, all you have time to do is run. Right? Mm-hmm. So the reward modality is shut down. And the fun size warrior is needed, not the big warrior. The big warrior is the full fight. Fight or freeze.

Now, if you're a soldier, fine, you're gonna need the big warrior 'cause that's exactly what you do for a living.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: But apart from that, you don't need that much. Cortisol or adrenaline in your system. What you need is noradrenaline, which gives you just a little edge of anxiety, a little bit of stress.

Just a little bit. And the best way to think about the guy that summed it up beautifully for me was James Clear when he was talking about the Goldilocks rule, where he talks about not too much, not too little, just enough.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: And that's what you need. You need just enough. You need to be like, like I'm talking to you now, Kris.

I'm sat on the edge of my seat. And I've just got a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of stress going on to keep my energy up. Mm-hmm.

But

Robin: if I sit back, if I physically did that. I won't because it'll move me away from the microphone. But if I physically did that, I know that my thinking process would shut right down, and I'd be struggling to think of what [00:21:00] I'm saying about what I'm saying in the next thought.

Mm-hmm. Because physiology is huge. Physiology makes a huge difference. Wow. So you do need, you do need that, that little bit of stress or anxiety, as I say, not if, if it's too much, you'll kick it over into big warrior and then you're into threat modality. And by the way, threat modality, you know, squirrel.

It's, it's triggered that fast. Mm-hmm. Right? That fast reward modality, kind of like moseys in and takes its time coming along. You have to, you know, you have to light a candle and put some nice music on and mm-hmm. Or whatever you need to get your environment right. For you to work, you have to encourage it.

You have to woo it, and that squirrel moment can take it away in a heartbeat. Mm-hmm. So you, you have to, whereas the reward modality doesn't take away the threat modality. So, for example, if I, if I'm, if I'm talking, if I'm sat sitting down to do some work and then I open an e, I make a mistake of looking at my email and there's a nasty one in there that upsets me, it triggers me in some [00:22:00] way.

I'll often get up and make myself a cup of coffee, a cup of tea, go for a walk. Anything to break that pattern to try and UNT trigger the threat modality. Depends what it is. But I will do anything to distract myself because otherwise I know the reward modality is not gonna come in. Now we can all work in through threat modality.

But it's not ideal, is it? No, it's hard. It's really hard. Yeah. Yeah. I

Kris: get it. I, I would consider myself a big procrastinator, and I've gotten better at it over time. I've gotten more skilled and more compassionate about it. But like back in college days, if I had a test or a paper. You would know because my room, my dorm room would be spotless.

I would, I would do things that I normally don't even enjoy doing. Just to avoid doing the real thing I, I didn't enjoy doing, which was studying. And I would redecorate the room. I would clean out drawers, you name it, and then all of a [00:23:00] sudden it would be 11, 11 30 at night. And I'd be like, now I can study.

And then at that point, I was so tired, I would just fall, fall asleep. It was not a good system. Fast forward a couple of decades later. I took a personality test called the Kolby, I think it's called the Kolby. Um, and it identified that quality in me, which is that procrastination piece. And what it, what it shared with me was that I am a procrastinator and that, and that I do best under pressure.

And so. I'm so glad you brought up that, that idea of like just a touch of anxiety, not, not so much that you've got cortisol, but when I have that touch of anxiety, I do my best work when I know I have a deadline, you know, even a day before or two days before, I am not someone who's gonna work a little bit every day.

Over [00:24:00] the course of a week, I need to know, like, I'm gonna dive in, I'm gonna dive deep, and I have to get this done by a certain date. Um, so that, like, when I learned that about myself, it, I gave myself that gift. Now I give myself that gift all the time, which is, I, I have to start ahead of time, but not so far ahead of time that I don't have that sense of an a little dash of anxiety around like, gotta get this done.

What are your thoughts on that?

Robin: Well, uh, it's fantastic. You covered a lot of ground in there and I'm gonna try and remember it what you said because you covered several points. So, first of all, as I say, procrastination, we're, we're all procrastinators, every single one of us. Now, I do know a lot of people that don't self-identify as procrastinators, and their behavior doesn't demonstrate that they do.

Kris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: Sometimes that's environmental, sometimes they just don't have the opportunity. They have a boss. And the boss won't let them. That said, the statistics show that something like $1.2 [00:25:00] trillion a a year are estimated to be lost to workplace procrastination. Now, I don't know how they calculated that figure, and maybe it's a few hundred billion dollars out, but that's still a lot of money.

Right, right.

Yeah.

And that's workplace, traditional workplace procrastination, because there are, you know, there are people in the workplace, there's no opportunity to procrastinate and there are people where there is, and they'll use it. But I, I personally work mainly with people that work for themselves.

They have no boss. I'm my own boss. I look in the mirror every morning and it's the boss looking back, I'm not, I'm working for a lunatic. But he's my lunatic. But equally, he will not hold me accountable. Now, I do know people who work for themselves, and they hold themselves very accountable, and they work very hard, and they don't struggle with procrastination.

Mm-hmm. So it segues myself. Wasn't intending to go there now, but it segues myself into the research again. In 2007, the American Psychological Association did some research into student procrastination, spookily enough. Students again, and what they found was was, it might [00:26:00] seem obvious, but it's interesting, the research backs it up.

They found that students that, like you were assigned something to do and given a time period to do it in. Tended to procrastinate it to death. I mean, how many people have seen the, the classic scenario, right? You've got three months to do this project, Kris, three months to do this essay, whatever. Mm-hmm.

And so you get a, you get a chart out, whether it's on a computer or put it on the wall, and you map out every hour of every weekday. You know, you make some time for, you know, parties and socializing, but you basically map out your work hours. Oh, I can do eight hours a day and still have time to go get drunk or, or go for a walk depending on your preference.

Right? And then, and you go, right? So by the end of the week one, I would've done this by the end of week two, I would've done this by the end of the month. I would've done this by the end of the two months, I would've done this. By the end of three months, I'll be ready to hand it in. Right? And you color code it, and you do all of that.

You go crazy. You get incredibly productive creating your charts of your, of your working plan, right? Yeah. Then what happens is, uh, by [00:27:00] the, you might, you probably get off to a good start first day or two, but by the end of the second, first week or even the second week, what have you done? Nothing. Nothing.

Right? Yeah. What happens is, is eventually you get to, you've got like three days left. And you're like, oh shoot, I wish I'd started three months ago when I planned and you panic and you end up in this. I'm not describing anything that nobody isn't aware of, that nobody hasn't heard of, but you panic and you're like, I've gotta get it in.

And you hand it and you, and you have like. You do like 48 hours without sleep. Right. And what you hand in is very substandard. You may, you may be lucky to get a grade at all. You might, you might just wing it, but you know, you've let yourself down. Mm-hmm. Nevermind the tutors. That doesn't matter. But you've let yourself down.

Mm-hmm. And you're kicking yourself. Right. Because one of the things that, and, and that, okay, so I I, I, I was gonna digress, but I'll stick to my point about the American Psychological Association. So what they discovered was, was that courses at colleges that have an element of a strong element of accountability.

Those students tended to score much higher [00:28:00] grades and get those courses had much higher pass rates than the courses where the, uh, the adults in the room, the, the, the professors and the teachers were more relaxed. Mm-hmm. And just, oh, you're an adult now. You, you have to learn to be self. Uh, you have to, you have to, you have to do it yourself.

You, you have to learn to do all of these things by yourself. That's not our job. We give you, we give you the work, and if you do it, that's up to you. And if you don't, it's up to you. It's very mature. It feels, it feels very liberating and enlightening that people that you do, that you don't have people, parents telling you, you've gotta be home by such and such a time at night, and teachers telling you gotta hand this in by so and so time, like they do it school.

Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Those courses they found they, they tend to score less well, they tend to have lower pass rates.

Mm.

Robin: Now, hello. That's not, that isn't rocket science, unless it actually is a rocket science course, but it isn't. That makes sense. Curiously, not curiously, unsurprisingly, the courses that have a reputation for holding the students more accountable tended to have lower enrollment rates.

Mm-hmm. Which is crazy [00:29:00] because if you are one of these people, I mean, there are plenty of very self-actualized students out there. If you really wanna get a good grade, get yourself on a course where they hold you accountable. Mm-hmm. That was the lesson. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And nevermind the fact that it might not be the most popular course.

That's because you know, you don't wanna be Right. Controlled at that level. Right. So that's what got me interested in accountability. That's why when I was writing the book, I realized I actually need to set myself up as an accountability coach. I was a trained life coach.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Your skill sets you never forget.

And I realized that 80% of the benefit that my clients used to get when I was coaching them was from the 20% Accountability had never occurred to me before. It was just like a, a penny drop moment. Oh yeah. It was the accountability that actually got them the results. Right. I can do that. I can help people with that.

Because that's the one thing you can't recreate from home, by the way. It's the one thing you can have a nice coffee machine if you like coffee. I do. You can have a nice view from your window. You can have flexible working hours, you know? Um, but you cannot recreate external accountability. And, and, and, and I encourage people to think about that.

We need it. We need it. Well, you might need it. [00:30:00] I'm not, it's too self-serving of me to say you must have it. But I will say that's where the 33% comes from. That was another piece of research done in the same year, 2007, uh, by the, uh, Dominican University of California, Gayle Matthews, and they looked at goal, the power of goal setting and writing down goals.

And I'm not a great believer in goals. You might find that hard to believe, but I'm not, because the research demonstrated something that I'd always instinctively felt about goals. I just didn't understand it that goals are not themselves a great way to be successful. And that is because the setting of the goal sets up in your mind an obligation.

Mm-hmm. That causes you to feel stressed and where to stress reside in our brain. Yeah. Yeah. In threat modality. In the limbic mode. And so if you feel stressed, you're gonna avoid the goal. Right. So I use goals in my coaching, but as milestone markers. As a way to getting to a bigger picture, which I call the personal life vision, which is about who are you becoming, who do you see yourself as?

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. I just wanted to, to, to mention a couple more things about what you said. Um, so you also mentioned, I've got a thing in the book [00:31:00] called the productivity gauge, which is where you can be very, very, very, very, very, very unproductive and that's called procrastination. You don't get anything done and it's obvious when you're doing it.

That's why I've got a, a whole section dedicated to understanding 'cause if you understand it. You can capture it. Mm-hmm. For example, well, by a way of analogy, lemme lemme explain. If, if you get to the end of the year and you don't have enough money, you can always make more money. Money is infinite.

Governments print money all the time and they want more money. They just print it. Mm-hmm. Right. You as an individual, it's against the law to print money, but you can come up with ways of making more.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: But when you get to the end of the year of procrastination, that's a year lost of time. And that's finite and you only have a certain amount.

You don't know how much you've got, but you do know you can't get back what you've used up. Mm-hmm. So the best time to catch procrastination is be as you are doing it whilst you are doing it, and before it becomes embedded in your day or your week or your month, or your year or your decade, because then you can do something about it.

So in the understanding section, I'm teaching people to, to fish [00:32:00] rather than just giving 'em the fish. Because you need to say, oh, oh my, oh wow. I'm procrastination right now. And then the second section of the book is about strategies and about motivation. And the third section of the book is about momentum.

We all talk about with, with productivity, about, um, motivation, but we never talk about, almost never about, well, how do you keep up the momentum? And that's where the 33% comes from with the Gail Matthews research in California University where she found that people who set goals, yes, they set goals, yes, they write them down.

But the ones who just set goals, she found it was only a very small, it was only a small survey study, but I think it would, it was highly illustrative. After a month about, uh, 43% of them reported that they were part of their way towards achieving their goals or all of the way towards achieving them. And they hadn't written them down.

'cause they held it in their minds. That's fine, we can all do that.

Mm-hmm. But

Robin: of the ones who wrote down their goals and. Had high levels of accountability. They were checking in weekly. They were getting emails from their accountability coach. They were having to send emails off to report what they were doing.

At the end of the same month, that group achieved [00:33:00] 76% of their goals, or, well on their way. That's 33% more. Now, that's not an astonishing figure. You see figures span, oh, it's a hundred percent more. It's 95% more if you get an accountability coach. No, the research shows it's 33% more if you have accountability as part of what you do.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Which, when you think about it, if you've got 33% more done by the end of every month, how much more cash is that in your bank account?

Mm-hmm. How

Robin: much more time does that mean that you can spend with your friends and family and your loved ones and doing your things, your hobbies? Mm-hmm. How much more health benefit is there because you're taking better care of yourself?

Oh, the way. It's it, I mentioned the health thing because as an aside, when I first started writing this book, I was 60 pounds heavier than I am now. Mm. And as I started rolling out the technology on myself and using it on myself, I started to think more and more and more, I don't want this weight, I don't need it.

And I dropped it all in six months, 60 pounds in six months. And it wasn't, I'm not using any drugs or injections, I [00:34:00] just decided. It, it raised my level of self-esteem so much and my level of confidence so much. 'cause I'm now dealing, I've now dealt with it. I still consider myself a chronic procrastinator,

but

Robin: I catch it and I do something about it.

Mm-hmm. And it never, it never takes over my life like it did before four decades. Mm-hmm. And so I'm just like, oh, and the way it's gone as well. So I know it can improve your health as well. That's a personal thing. I'm not claiming that it can make you thinner, but it worked for me. Yeah. 'cause that was something I wanted to achieve.

And so I have a thing in my book called The Productivity Gauge, which makes the distinction between being productive on things where you feel good at the end of the day and being pro and uh, but that doesn't mean you've got anything done that really mattered and being productive on the things that move the needle.

Mm. On my productivity gauge, which is all about achieving your personal life vision. So for example, if your personal life vision is in 15 years time from a standing start where you're not now and you want to be in 15 years, you want to be an oncologist, a very highly qualified specialist, doctor. It takes about 10 or 15 years, I believe.

Mm-hmm. I'm not an expert, but I believe it does. [00:35:00] Well, if I decided today I am gonna just tidy the garage at the end of the day, I'll have a very tidy garage and a great big smug look on my face, and I'll feel really pleased with myself, really, um, tired, but happy.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: I've had a productive day. If I then ask myself the question, did I, what have I done towards achieving my ultimate goal of becoming an oncologist?

Mm-hmm. Nothing. I'm not gonna be opening a surgery in the garage. I'm not gonna be opening a doctor's practice in the garage. It's just I decided to, to do some distract myself with productive work. That felt good. Mm, yeah. Yeah. So you can be very productive and still feel like you've achieved something, but.

You've gotta also be quite picky about, that's another thing where someone who holds you external accountability mm-hmm. Doesn't have to be a professional coach, can be just a, a, an accountability buddy. I've had l plenty of those over the years. In my book I talk about there's good things and bad things about those, you know, but to some pitfalls you need to avoid, but yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Kris: Yeah.

Robin: They'll help you with that. They'll point out, yeah, great. Garage is really clean entirely, but what was, didn't you wanna be an oncologist? Right. [00:36:00]

How did you, like you, you, you wrote. A book, right? Which is a lot of people wanna write a book. A lot of people never make that happen. You lost weight.

Uh, so many people wanna lose weight and just can't seem to do it. How did you implement your own systems on yourself? What did you do specifically?

Robin: Well, I would say to you about the losing the weight. The point I was making there was, it was a byproduct. It wasn't, it wasn't really a conscious thing. It was, I didn't just wake up one morning thought, oh, I'm losing weight.

I did actually decide, oh, I'm just sick of this. I'm, I'm just gonna get rid of this weight. Yeah, I did do that. Mm-hmm. Um, but that comes from self because when we talk about people who procrastinate, it's not always the case. And I don't want to general, no, I am going to generalize. I don't, 'cause I'm not, everybody is the same.

Mm-hmm.

That's why my book is full of different strategies. 'cause no two people will work with the, the same strategies will work the same people in the same way. You have to have a, a variety of strategies that you can work with. Mm-hmm. So, because some will work better for you than others, right? Mm-hmm.

[00:37:00] So, but for me, one of the things that we talk about in the book is how, is how, if you are not, if you are procrastinating, if you are staying in threat modality

mm-hmm.

Robin: It's because you have rationalized or even irrationally decided that that makes you happier. It fulfills your needs. And I talk about the human needs in my book, it fulfills your needs.

I'm not talking about your base needs, I'm talking about your emotional needs.

Kris: Staying in, staying in the fear in the fight or flight Yes. Is what you're saying Yes. Meets your needs. 'cause one of your

Robin: needs, um, uh, needs. The, the, the Tony Robbins, my teacher taught, taught teachers the six human needs. I mentioned those in the book, but he got that originally from, um, Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs.

Yep. And he refined it and, and, and, and, um, I'll credit to Tony for refining it in a brilliant way.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: But for example, one of your needs is certainty. Mm. Well, you know, if you are overwhelmed by too, you know that you were talking earlier about something that sends you into overwhelm. That's just too much information.

Mm-hmm. You be, that's because [00:38:00] you are uncertain.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: How do you get certainty? Here's a way. Eat something, preferably something chocolatey or, mm-hmm. Or fatty. Or sugary. That's how we put on whe because we get certainty from those foods. You don't get certainty from eating a lettuce. Mm-hmm. You do get certainty from eating a donut.

Why? Because of the sugar hit and the fat hit the dopamine, it just triggers the, yeah, well, yeah, all of that. I dunno if it triggers dopamine and now that's outside of my scope, but it do, yeah, you certainly, you certainly feel happier. Yeah. I had, um. I had a stressful day the other day, and Dec, I just decided I'm going to, in quote, treat myself and I had an ice cream.

Yeah, right. And I've been thinking about it all day and in the end I thought, oh gosh, just one ice cream. What the hell? You know? Yeah. Not gonna change my life unless I slip on it and break my neck. It's, it's fine. It's just one ice cream. Right, right. So I had an ice cream, and instantly the minute that ice cream was in my mouth, I felt a chemical change.

I felt it. You don't fill that with lettuce. Right, right, right. It's a comforting feeling.

Kris: [00:39:00] Yeah.

Robin: But I'm not prescribing ice cream for people. I'm just pointing out. That's why we comfort eat. Right. 'cause certain fields, if they are sugary or fatty, they do trigger comfort in the brain. And I don't, I'm not a biologist, but yes, there is a real biological phenomenon going on there.

And it's not healthy,

right? Don't do it. But it, but it

happens, right? Yeah. So for me, when I decided I just gonna, I just don't want that anymore. I'll get my comfort now from the satisfaction and knowing I've done a good day's work and that I'm feeling more successful and that I'm, I've, I've cracked this.

See, I didn't write this book, by the way. No disrespect. I didn't write it for your listeners. I wrote it for me.

Kris: Mm.

Robin: And as I was writing it, I just did what I've always done, which is I come from a place of service and I thought, actually, you know what? I could share this with other people, and that's why it's not written as though it was written by a scientist.

The only scientific word on the book is the ology at the end of Get results, ology, I've got anology, you know, like urology, psychology, biology, right?

Yeah. But you know,

Robin: there's other ologies out there. It just means the study of something. But in my case it's get results as in how can you get guaranteed to get results?

In a scientific way. So it's [00:40:00] based on the science uhhuh, which I've talked about. And it's also, it's a method which science always follows a prescriptive step-by-step system. Mm-hmm. So there's both of them are in there. That's, that's me trying to be clever. But the point is, is that I'm not that clever.

What I am good at is communi, I hope. Maybe your listeners don't agree, but I hope I'm good at communicating. I hope that they, some will remember noradrenaline dopamine and acid coline, but I'm hoping everyone remembers. You need the conductor. You need the scholar, and you need the fun size warrior. Mm.

That's all you need. I love, I love the fun size, those people in, in the building. When they're in the building. When they're in present, then you know that you are going to be productive.

How do you initiate that, that initial focus chemical? How do you, how do you invite that into your brain?

Robin: Yeah, that's a great question.

And the answer is just start. Okay. Just start to, to there. There are lots of ways that you break the cycle of whatever, whatever is stopping you from becoming productive today. That's the understanding thing.

Mm-hmm.

And then take some action. And if the idea of like, [00:41:00] like, you know. Reading that paper or doing that project is, which is gonna take hours, is freaking you out.

Mm-hmm. That's overwhelm. Yeah. You're gonna go and procrastinate, you're gonna go and do anything, but you're going back to your comfort zone, whether it's eating food

Yeah. Or,

Robin: or the mental equivalent. Watching tv, playing games, going for a walk, playing with the dog, right? Mm-hmm. Playing with the kids.

Mm-hmm. All of that stuff is, has its place. Mm-hmm. But if it's when you're supposed to be working, not such a good idea. So you can start with taking action. Five minutes. Just say, I'm gonna do it for five minutes, 10 minutes. Mm-hmm. I'm just gonna do what? I'm just gonna give myself 10 minutes and then I'll review and I'll see how I feel after 10 minutes.

Mm. Right? Mm-hmm. That's one thing. The other thing is strategy. You talked, we talked about that earlier. You mentioned Strat strategy. You need strategy to organize your day, routines in your day, things that are pre decided. Are much less stressful and much more likely to happen. Mm-hmm. So if you can plan your day, which is what I encourage you to do, whether you do it the night before or in the morning or the week before, plan your day around [00:42:00] strategies and build into it routines.

Mm. Mm-hmm. And so that when you come to do so, so like, you know, instead of sitting down and Right, okay, I'm gonna have to deal with that monster thing called the emails now. Or as I call 'em other people's agendas. Mm. So that, I think they should come with a government health warning. Just beware of emails, right?

Yeah. But just instead of like, well, I'll just, I'll just answer a few and see where it goes. Because then the next thing you know, you know, you have been focused on them and hours have gone by and other things are not happening. Right. Because you've spent too much time on them. That's not the best use of your, your scholar, that's not the best use.

Kris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: So maybe just say, okay, well I'm gonna do my emails for 30 minutes and then, and I'll, I'll priorit and I'll all, how I've got a hundred emails, what am I gonna do? Well, I'll prioritize.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Okay. That one, that one, that one. And then I'll, and then if I've still got time, then I'll go into that one, that one and that one.

And then at the end of 30 minutes, or an hour, or however long you got mm-hmm. You've, you've allocated to it. Your schedule says, time to do the next thing. You've given yourself permission to do that. Mm-hmm. So do it. Right? Mm-hmm. So it's all the strategies. Um, the, it's [00:43:00] it, that's why no one strategy works the same for everybody.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But yes, the answer to your question is absolutely, um, just, just. Start something. Um, I like using Pomodoros. The, uh, mm-hmm. That was a technique dreamt up by an Italian student in the 1980s. Mm-hmm. Where you do, it's called a pomodoro because you, I dunno why it's called a pomodoro, actually, that's a tomato.

You, you, it's just like a, you take a, a bite sized chunk of time, so 25 minutes. Anyone can focus for 25 minutes. Give yourself, and then give yourself a. Five minute break. Break and then do another Pomodoro. Mm. I call them pos like the Australian call, the Brits pos. I'm gonna do my 10 pos today. That for me is five hours each with, uh, with two five minute breaks in each hour.

I'm gonna do 10 pos today. I'm gonna do 12 POS today. Right. And I schedule them. Now the, the length of the po the. Is optional, 25 minutes is recommended, but you can make it 15 minutes, 20 minutes, 40 minutes, whatever works for you. And then a little break. Just a little break.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Right? Mm-hmm. All of these are strategies that are mentioned that are mentioned in the book, and most of your people will be aware of them.

And if you are on a computer, um, these, uh, [00:44:00] organized timings that are, I call Pomodoros a lot of software on computers now. A lot of apps mm-hmm. Built in. Built into the operating system 'cause it's a good technique. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah. Have a, have strategy, anything that, the reason that that works is 'cause it de-stresses you.

Mm. Mm-hmm. Right. It's like, oh, that's preci. I'm just gonna do that for half an hour and then I'm onto the next thing.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Oh, that's preci what I'm gonna do then. Right. Right. The final thing is, is. I hate to harp on about it. It does self, self-serving. But the external accountability, remember when we were talking about like, you've got 12 weeks to do something?

Yep. Well, in the business. 'cause you're a student and they give you three months to do something.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: If you're in the business world, you have, you have the equivalent, you have projects that need to get done.

Yeah. But

Robin: if you're working for yourself. Mm. Who's going, who's making you do them? Yeah. If you've got a client that you're working for, that's easy.

You're accountable to the client. You've gotta turn up when you said you were gonna turn up. Right. Otherwise, you're not being professional. And that's, that's unacceptable. Mm-hmm. But say you've got a new project, say you wanna write a book. Well, how many words am I gonna write this week? Mm-hmm. Who decides?

Mm, how many, how many chapters it's gonna be, [00:45:00] you know, who decides.

Mm-hmm. That's

Robin: when external accountability kicks in.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: That's when you need somebody there saying, look. When do you wanna finish the book by? Well, I wanna, I'm gonna take a year. Mm-hmm. That's realistic for me. It might not be realistic for someone else, it might be not enough time for other people.

It might be too much time, but I'm gonna take a year. Great. How many words do you wanna write by the end of the first week, the first month, the first two months, right?

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Okay. And the accountability coach will help you to drill it down and then, and here's the important distinction. They will hold you accountable.

Right. Mm-hmm. In a way that no one else can, and by the way, I'm not talking about, you know, they're gonna hold your feet over the fire and you, and send you electric shocks if you don't do it. The main thing that happens is, is that we don't like letting each other's down each other down. The other thing I didn't mention about your brain, by the way, is we're hardwired to be a, to be hurdled.

The herd instinct. Mm-hmm. We are sociable creatures.

Mm-hmm. And

Robin: it is perfectly natural. This is why AI won't hold you accountable because you know it's just ai. Mm. You know that even though you can program your computer. Oh. Just, you know, check in with me every [00:46:00] hour. Oh, I don't care. It's just a machine.

It's not really. Right, but I'm real. You are real. When the client feels accountable to you. Oh, I'm, I better turn up. You see, one of the things I do with my coaching, I do what I call laser focused coaching, where all my clients go can have as many 15 minute coaching bounces. They like, as many as they like.

Mm-hmm. Right. Because I'm results focused. I don't, I charge. I judge based on the fact that it's not hours, but it's what results do you want to get

Kris: right?

Robin: And I said, well, do you need, you know, 15 minutes a day, 15 minutes a week, 15 minutes a month, whatever works for you. But there's a condition when you turn up at the next session.

You must have completed whatever you agreed to do at the previous session. Mm. Otherwise don't turn up. Right. Mm-hmm. Because you are going to be letting me down. Mm. And more importantly, yourself. Right? Right. There's that, but that's that social connection.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. And that if, imagine if you throw your mind back to when you did your project at university and you had all of that time.

Mm-hmm. What if your tutor was saying, Kris, at the end of every week, I expect to see. Little [00:47:00] note, take a little note with like four or five bullet points of what you've actually done this week. Mm-hmm. And I will, and I will hold you accountable for if you haven't done that. Mm-hmm. How would that have made a difference?

It would've made a big difference. It really would've. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But if

Robin: it was just like, oh, I'm just gonna make a note in my diary in the end of the week, I'm gonna check my progress, but no one else is gonna see it. Right. Yeah. That's basically what you did. Yeah.

Kris: Yeah. A hundred percent. And I'm still doing it, you know, like, yes.

These interviews. For my podcast are so much fun and I'm accountable to you to show up and have this conversation. It, it, it feels fun and effortless. My solo episodes require more executive function planning and I am having to motivate myself to do it. And I, I always, I move it back one day. I move it back two days, and then finally my assistant is like, today is the day it has to be done, and then I do it, but I, right.

And what's

Robin: your assistant doing?

Holding me accountable.

Robin: Exactly.

Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. Right. Yeah. So either get [00:48:00] your assistant to do it or get a buddy or a a and, and by the way, I always stress not your significant other, it is not their job. Right. That's, that's a very unfair thing to do. Your significant other will hold you accountable, but don't make it their job to do that.

Right. That's not fair. But you can ask friends, other business associates, or you can hire an A professional who, and that is their job.

Mm-hmm. And

Robin: imagine if say, right, I, let's say you had a target of, uh, I want to get one of these done a week and that keeps sliding or two a week or through, and that keeps sliding, right?

Tell your accountability buddy or coach, that's my target, and expect to get hauled over the calls if you're not doing it right. Question for you. How much more likely is it to happen if you know that you've gotta do that?

Kris: Oh m much more likely. I mean, way more likely. I, I, I give myself a lot of wiggle room when it comes to that kind of thing, and I do push it back.

Or when it comes to doing the dishes, I avoid it. I avoid it. I mean, I am, I'm very. Skilled procrastinator when it comes [00:49:00] to packing for a trip. Oh, I just need to have, you know, maybe I need a bowl of chips before I start my packing. Yes. I hate packing. Um, so yes, you're a

Robin: professional procrastinator like I am.

I totally am. And that's not a judgment, I mean, you've said it yourself, but also it's self-acceptance. It's fine. Yeah.

Kris: Yeah.

Robin: But just have methods for dealing with it.

Kris: Yeah,

Robin: yeah. Like, you know, actually I was saying to someone the other day, you know, even the dishes. Right. Let's imagine, go back to my hypothetical that you want to be an oncologist 15 years from now.

Mm-hmm. I dunno why I picked that one. It's just one that sprung to mind. I wanna be a doctor. I don't wanna be a doctor. That's the last thing on earth I should do. I'd be a terrible doctor, but, but, but, but, but that is a very respectable, uh, thing to want to be, right? Yeah. And it requires a great deal of work, uh, an enormous amount of work.

So, okay, I'll do the dishes later. Is your excuse, that's your procrastination. I'll do it later. Yeah. Right. I'll do it later. I'll do it later. Mm-hmm. Or actually, I digress, whether that you'll laugh at this. Oh, I hope so. I always like the sign in, the famous sign in the, in the Polish bakery. That in Polish it says, [00:50:00] free bread tomorrow.

Right. And people go in and they come in and they say, oh, I was in here yesterday. I've come in for my free bread. And the baker says, tomorrow, don't make the sign. Right. And that's what we do. That's how we do it. Yeah. So my, back to my dishes thing, right? Mm-hmm. Okay, so not doing the dishes is not a big deal.

That's what I call my procrastination. Unless the dirty dishes are sitting on the table, that also doubles up as the table. You lay out your textbooks to study.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: And it interferes with you becoming, with your study.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: So there is, and, and you might, so if you, so your goal, because I, so I talked earlier about your goals by themselves are not enough.

Mm-hmm. In fact, they can set up obligation, stress. Say your goal is, oh, I've gotta get this, uh, essay done by the end of the month. That's a goal. Right. And it, or three months, and it just, the, the, the fact is it's just human nature. It feels too far away. It feels too ethereal. Mm-hmm. It's only when it's like, oh gosh, it's in three days time, you, you can suddenly relate and you panic.

Mm-hmm. But

Robin: three months, six months, a year, or never, because it's not something you have to do, [00:51:00] like the all solo podcasts.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: It just feels like, oh, we do, who cares? No one cares. If I don't do it, I care, but no one's gonna know. Mm-hmm. Right. Who one's gonna know if I don't do the dishes? But if you don't do the dishes.

And your dream is to be an oncologist 15 years from now.

Kris: Mm-hmm.

Robin: And in order to get to the next step of being an oncologist, you have to get that essay in and you have to get a good mark. Mm-hmm. And the only thing stopping you getting that essay to a good mark is you need to clear the table tonight.

Mm-hmm. Then the dishes are gonna get done, aren't they? When you are focused, 'cause that's the other piece I bring in the book. I have a whole chapter dedicated to creating your personal life vision. It's not a goal. Goals, they talk about writing down goals. I know lots of people have never written down their goals and they're very, very successful.

Mm-hmm. They're not a means, they're not by themselves enough, but a vision is something you just wake up with it in the morning. Mm. You know, I don't know what your personal life vision is, Kris, but I guarantee because you work for yourself that when you wake up in the morning and after you found your kids' clothes, where, where your kids hid their school shoes.

'cause that's always the first cry every morning. Where are [00:52:00] my shoes? And why didn't you put them where they were supposed to? And all of that going on. Yeah. Your first thought is 5, 10, 15 years From from now, I see myself living my life like. Whatever that is. Mm. I see myself sitting on the beach drinking pina coladas.

I see myself only working, having to work two or three days a week. Mm-hmm. I see myself being qualified in this, that, and the other, whatever that is. You don't need to write it down. It's in your head. It's what drives you. You just need to remind yourself and be very clear, and if you're not clear, get clear.

That's what the, that's what my personal life vision chapter is all about. Get very, very clear and specific so that you know that that's who you are becoming. You feel it, you sense it, you everything about you. Epitomizes it so that you know that not cleaning the dishes tonight could actually put off you achieving your ultimate dream for your life.

And then they'll get done as well. Mm-hmm. And if unfor, and if you don't need that table because you studied table is somewhere else in the house, and that's always clear because you have a space where you can do that.

Kris: Yeah.

Robin: Who cares. The dishes don't get done. So what? Right, right.

Oh, that's so good.

That's a, that's

Robin: pe kind of procrastination you don't need to worry about. Yeah.

Kris: I, I'm so glad you [00:53:00] touched on the life vision because I think that obviously it has more of an influence on our behavior and I think it's so important and I think that a lot of people haven't taken the time to craft that vision, so, um, oh, it's

Robin: vital.

Yeah. If you think about all the successful people in the world, I guarantee you, not all of them. Not all of them had goals. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Not all of them were, were educated.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: But I guarantee you, all of them at some point developed a burning desire to be somebody in their, in their field of expertise.

Mm-hmm. There's a, there's a, I won't name who, who it is because it's not relevant, but there's a British celebrity every time that the, uh, exam results are announced every August for how our year, how our students got their grades this year, he points out that he can get anything. He got nothing.

He

Robin: failed everything when he was at school.

And he is now not just very, very famous. He's world famous actually, but he's particularly famous here. But he is a multimillionaire [00:54:00] many tens of times over, right? He's not a billionaire, but he's very, very rich.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: And he said, and I never set a goal in my life.

Mm.

Robin: Right. I won't know who he is. 'cause you know, he is a controversial figure as well.

Not, and that's not the point. Yeah. He's a love hate type figure. But the point, but the point is he's saying, look, I'm successful, and, but when you are, but when you ask him why, he talks about, I just know I loved what I did. Mm. I, I always wanted to do this. And I just did more and more and more and more.

And he became so good at it.

Mm-hmm.

Robin: He didn't set goals, he just focused on it. Mm-hmm. He just went for it. Mm-hmm. He just was single-minded about it.

Kris: Yeah. And when you, when you love what you're doing, that that focus chemical is naturally at play as well. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Because that's

Robin: the thing about losing touch with time again.

'cause time is, it's a weird, it's a very ethereal thing. Time. We all know that time can feel like it's taking forever. Like during the COVID lockdowns, gosh, didn't that time drag? Mm-hmm. But now how many people look back on the COVID years and I can't remember what happened, what happened? Mm. You know, I'm, I'm not talking about the people that were bereaved and I'm sorry for those.

Right. But people that just got, got through those years. Yep. [00:55:00] And, and they were so bored, so amazingly bored. Time just felt like it was taking forever. And now, I dunno about you, but I was watching, um, what was it? I was watching earlier, something came on the TV and I was like, this was made when? 2016? No, no.

Five years ago. Short. And then I remembered, oh yeah, I lost five years.

Kris: Yeah.

Robin: And I've lost, I've lost track of the amount of times I've said, oh, I've lost five years. Yeah. In the last year or two. Like I, I, I mean, I was busy. I was writing my book. Right. But I, I, I still lost track of time 'cause there was so much of it to do, to be bored.

Mm-hmm. I mean, how many people have, if you fly. Many people hate being on a long flight. Mm. I know. I'm one of them. I hate what, what's the like, there's nothing to like about it. Mm. I mean, England to America is 11, 12 hours of utter tedium and boredom and discomfort. And every time I've been on one of those flights, I've sworn I'm never gonna do this again.

Never gonna do this again. And then three days later, I'm like, oh, I think I'll come out here again. And they're like, well, what's changed? I can't remember what, what, what they, I [00:56:00] can't remember the flight. There was nothing to remember. Right, right. That's time. This is all our perception of time. That's the point we're making.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Kris: Wow. We covered a lot of territory today, Robin. Thank you so much for being here. Tell us how we can find you and how we can learn more from you.

Robin: Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. Well, there's a couple of ways you can find me. Uh, the first is I'm on LinkedIn. Just look up, uh, Robin j Den.

Um, and, uh, I'm the only Robin j Edin in the world. I'm probably the only Robin Emin in the world, but I always use the J like JK Rowling uses a K because I think it just sounds cooler. I dunno why. I just do, it's just me being, being a bit, uh, uh, uh, egotistical, I suppose. But anyway, Robin James den looked me up on LinkedIn, messaged me there.

The other way is, um. Now I, I would love to get my book into people's hands now. You can, you can buy it from Amazon. You can borrow it from the British Library. They've got a copy of it in the British Library. I'm so thrilled. That's not 'cause they wanted it. It's 'cause it's the law in the uk They gotta have it.

So I'm bragging about it's in the British Library. Um, but um, you [00:57:00] can, you can buy it from Amazon. You can buy the Kindle from Amazon. I wanna get this technology out there. I wanna get it into people's hands. I wanna help people. I wanna add value. So what I've done is I've bundled it up as an unabridged PDF, and you can have it for free.

Wow. 100% free.

Wow. No strings

Robin: attached. You can just have it for free, and you can get that from, I've, I've given, I've created a you, you can find it through my main website, which is spooky enough. Get results ology.com, or you can get it from really useful tips. Com, they both take you to the same link.

Mm-hmm. It's really useful tips.com. It's just easy to remember because I really mean it. I'm really am giving it away for now. I haven't yet come to my senses, so get it while you can. It useful, as in, I hope you'll find it really useful. Tips as in it's full of them. It's full of tips. Really useful tips.com, and here's the thing.

In the book, at the end of the first chapter, I invite you to hold yourself accountable to me for free. No charge by signing a pledge saying that you're going to read the book and do the [00:58:00] exercises in the book. Yes, there are exercises in there because I want you to experience the strategies. I don't suggest that you will end up using them all.

I suggest try them out.

Yeah, put

Robin: like trying on clothes, see which fits best for you. See which doesn't. So commit. Sign the pledge and then email it to me. And there's an email address there. I think it's just my pledge@getresultsology.com, something like that. Just email me with a pledge. I read them all, I reply to them all.

I do not have someone answering my those emails. Mm. You will get a reply from me and I'd be delighted to hear from you. Um, and you can message me that way as well. Uh, you can just get me, um, robin@getresults.com. But um, do the pledge. Why not? What you got to lose the book's free.

Absolutely. Very generous one.

Oh, can

Robin: I just add, by the way, just as for some people, the book is too much, so if you wanna taste it, I've done a little video course as well, which I also give away from free. Oh, cool. And the video course, it's a little five day challenge, 10 minutes a day, just a flavor of what's in the book. It's based entirely on the book and that you can find at skyrocket your productivity challenge.com.

That skyrocket your productivity challenge.com. And they can also, again, no strings attached. You can have that for [00:59:00] free as

Kris: well. Wow. Thank you so much. We will put all those links in the show notes so you can grab all the goodness that Robin has to offer. Robin, thank you for being here today.

Robin: Thank you for allowing me to do it.

Kris: It's been my absolute pleasure. I hope it's been of service to you and your listeners. Is your website turning away Potential clients? I can help you turn that around. Book a moneymaking messaging call with me today and we'll transform your story into your most powerful sales tool. That's all for this episode of From Click to Client. Don't forget to subscribe and follow. I'm Chris Jones and I'll see you next.