The Less You Work the More You Make with Jarrod Haning

As an award-winning speaker, Jarrod Haning trains companies in the psychology of music. When you know how music creates inspiration in you, then you know how to create inspiration in other people. By revealing the subconscious mechanism that drives our emotional response to music and language, Jarrod is able to give his audiences some very unique tools for increasing their income and influence.

My clients normally double their income in the first year by PURPOSELY working less hours. I know that sounds like snake oil, but we use a Nobel Nominated map to make it happen.

Using a to-do list reduces your productivity.

Being focused on getting things done reduces your income (or in the case of non-profit, dramatically reduces your fund raising power)

It’s crucial that you understand why it’s true that the less you do the more you make. If you care about your mission, if you want to reach more people and make a bigger difference then we HAVE to get you in the mindset of highly effective leaders.

 

Read the Interview

Hugh Ballou: Welcome to The Nonprofit Exchange. Today, we’re going to talk about leadership and music. No, we’re not. We’re going to talk about leadership. We have a musician on here today, Russell. What do you think of that?

Russell Dennis: I think musicians should stick together. They are. That is the place where teamwork has to come together, or everybody looks bad. That is a place where you don’t get to point a finger. You have the whole group in there. If one goes off the rails, the whole thing goes off the rails.

Hugh: Jarrod is a violist, and I’m a conductor. We won’t tell either of those kinds of jokes today. There are plenty of both of those to go around. This is a pleasure. I’ve seen your TedX talk, Jarrod. It’s good. He models what we talk about with good leaders are vulnerable, transparent. Brene Brown talks about being vulnerable, and the trainer of conductors, James Jordan, talks about how you can’t make good music on the podium as a conductor until you become vulnerable. That is generally applicable to leadership. Jarrod, tell us who is Jarrod Haning, what is it you do, and why do you do this?

Jarrod Haning: Hey, folks, my name is Jarrod Haning. I live in Columbia, South Carolina. I play with the South Carolina Philharmonic. I have been there for 20 years. I have been the principal violist for the past 10 years. I recently stepped down back in May to do the work that we’re going to talk about here shortly with business owners and leaders.

One of the things that I was doing differently though in music is as a freelance musician, I made over six figures working 20 hours a week. We may talk about some of that because the strategies that I used are the same for anybody in the creative space, whether they are in pottery or painting or dance or instrumental music or vocal music, nonprofit board members, whatever it is. Those strategies still apply. We might have a chance to talk about those.

Right now, I work as a performance coach. I deal with business owners, people in high positions of leadership. My clients normally double their income by purposefully working half as many hours. I know that sounds like snake oil. The way that happens though is we use a Nobel-nominated process that teaches their mind how to think at a higher level. When your mind is viewing things from a higher altitude, it starts to see solutions that it couldn’t see before.

A great example there is if you think about driving your car, the only time you ever accidentally back into something was because you couldn’t see it. If you couldn’t see it, you can’t avoid it. In your car, when that happens, when you accidentally back into something, you get out of your car, walk around to the back, and go, “Oh my gosh, there it is, now I see it.” The key point is you solved the problem by physically moving the vantage point you were looking from.

In life or in business, any time you keep hitting the same obstacle or hurdle—you don’t have enough time, don’t have enough money, and doing everything you know—it’s not because you’re not trying hard. All it means is there is something about that situation your brain hasn’t seen yet. That is where we’re able to get people’s thinking patterns down on paper so we can see where that breakthrough is for them. It’s incredible. Hopefully, we will have a chance to share some of the stories of nonprofit owners and business leaders and that kind of thing, and how it has made a difference in their life.

I am also the world’s tickle champion in the five-year-old category. Very proud of that distinction.

Hugh: I like this. This is a real person we have here, Russell David Dennis. Jarrod, performance. Your TED talk. Talk a little bit about your transparency and your reluctance to want to do solo performing.

Jarrod: Solo performing. As a performance musician, I don’t know if anybody can relate to this, but I had stage fright. It was misery. I would practice, practice, practice. I would go play the recital or the audition. I would be overcome by this weird thing that would take over my mind, and I couldn’t think straight or see straight. My body was shaking, and I was breathing. I know I sounded like crap; this is not what I sounded like 30 minutes ago. It was misery. You have this passion in you to share the art, to share the music, but any time you had the opportunity to share, your body shuts down, and it sounds horrible. What? Is music some kind of mental illness where we can’t not do it? Good grief. That’s where it was. Any time I would play a solo or a recital or an audition, I would want to sell my instrument, quit. Forget it, I will go do something else. This is nuts. I had that I couldn’t put it down. This goes on my whole life.

Then I moved into a space where I was doing more performance coaching with leaders in business, showing them some tricks of the body and the science behind productivity. I was sitting on stage with the symphony. I was principal viola. The solo was coming up. The nervousness was starting to kick in. That misery. My brain is going batty. I know I am not going to be able to play.  I have 30 seconds now. Then it dawns on me. What if, get this, I just practiced what I tell other people to do? I know, right? Shocking! Shocking. Oh my gosh, what if I just take my own medicine? So I took my own medicine, and this is what happened.

I looked at the music. Here it comes. If you’re taking notes, your problem is you don’t have a big enough problem. The only reason you are stressed out about coming up with an extra $10,000 for your nonprofit this month is because you are trying to come up with $10,000. Somewhere in this country right now, there is somebody who has to come up with $100,000. I guarantee you they are not worried about 10 because they are thinking at a higher level. They’re thinking on a bigger scale. They’re seeing things you aren’t seeing. The problem is that you’re not dealing with bigger problems.

That’s where I was. My problem was small potatoes. Get all the notes right. Play my best. Look good. Make a difference. All this small stuff, small thinking. Time out, time out. What is this passage of music speaking about? I realized that particular passage, I wish I could remember the song we were playing, spoke to me about the felt experience, the received experience of being loved. I said, “All right, here’s the deal. I’m going to take a stand that my audience would have the received, felt experience of being loved. I have this solo. That’s what it’s speaking to me. I’m going to share that with my audience.” This was new. This was new. Up until now, every single time, it was, “I have to get the notes right. I have to play in tune. I have to sound good. I have to look pretty. Play my best.” All this stuff that is immeasurable. You can’t quantify it. It’s a target you can’t hit. It doesn’t exist.

I played and took a stand. I took a stand. I am going to stand for this possibility for my audience. Because I had never done this before, my brain is still trying to talk me out of it. A big shift. My brain would be saying, Whoa, whoa, whoa, this is a big shift coming up. You might miss it. I would have to choose. Am I going to play the game of getting all the notes right and looking good, or am I going to stand for what’s possible for my audience? I would say, Nope, I am going to stand for what’s possible for my audience. I am going all out here for the next 30 seconds. I’m not playing that game anymore.

The next note would come. Whoa, this note is hard to play in tune with this chord. Come on, here is a good reason for you to worry. Here is a good reason for you to worry, said my brain. No, I don’t care about playing that note in tune. I don’t care if nothing comes out of my instrument at all right now. I’m not playing that game. I’m in a new game. I’m in a game for what’s possible for my audience. I’m going to stand for them having the felt experience of receiving love. I’m not in the game of getting the notes right right now.

I know it sounds weird. It sounds counter-intuitive. I gotta tell you that after committing to what’s possible for the audience, every single note, and giving up the game of getting the notes right, playing perfect, playing my best, looking good, I played better than I ever had before under pressure. I felt better. This is the right breakthrough. I felt better about it than I ever had before under pressure. This had never happened in my life before. All the auditions, solos, recitals, all that crap, every single time I finished, I wanted to sell my instrument and quit. This was the first time I actually looked forward to doing it again. This was the first time the passion for music was met with the experience of sharing it under pressure. That’s my story about stage fright.

Hugh: I’m loving it. There are so many people- You and I both work as keynote speakers. I gotta tell you, standing up and talking is a whole lot easier than conducting an orchestra or playing a solo, either one. Speaking is a lot more forgiving. You can hit a wrong note and use it in your next phrase. Unless you’re playing jazz, that’s harder to do in music. I hear a lot of jazz. Things come up. They become the next motif, and they play around with it.

There is a real connection here with leadership. Leaders are always people of influence. We are always presenting to others, whether it’s our board, our staff, or a single donor or supporter. We get stage fright. What you have just given us is a pathway to rethink that. If you go back to Napoleon Hill’s writings and look at the second chapter of Think and Grow Rich, you have something of value. You signed yourself up with really good people. You have a positive mental attitude. What he discovered in interviewing 500 of the most successful people in America is the brain couldn’t hold a positive and a negative image at the same time. What he did was help people get that mindset changed.

We have this shadow that follows us. A lot of people have money shadow. We repel the money we want to attract. We actually repel the people we need on our board or as volunteers because of our attitude and the scripts we play inside. What you really did was overwrote those scripts, that voice that is saying, “No, you can’t.” You were saying, “Yes, I can.” But you totally reframed that. You work with executives, but nonprofit executives are important board chairs. We have our own set of challenges presenting. What are some of the experiences with nonprofit leaders to reframe their thinking, to reframe their positioning?

Jarrod: The reframe is key. The breakthrough with performance anxiety was not about resisting or overcoming. It was about playing a different game entirely. An example there is Gandhi, love him or hate him, tremendous influence bringing about peace in a country that was torn four different ways in civil war. One of the things he did was he spoke a lot to big audiences. He was a big orator in sharing his message and his vision for what was possible in peace. What many people don’t know about Gandhi, the guy that we know, is he was a lawyer in England. He was a crappy lawyer. On his first case, he was so terrified of speaking in public that he fled the courtroom, and his assistant had to close for him. On his second case, he went to his client the night before, gave him back all his money, and said, “I gotta tell you the truth. I am terrified of speaking in public. Because of that, I can’t represent you fairly. Here is all your money back.” Gandhi sinks as a lawyer in England and moves to South Africa. He set out his shingle in South Africa and thought he might do better as a lawyer down here. He has his shingle out and is going to try again.

The question is: What happened in his life to turn him from someone who was terrified of speaking in public to somebody who that clearly did not exist for him? It was not even a blip on his radar. Obviously, Gandhi was not dealing with it. He didn’t buy an e-book on public speaking tips. He didn’t attend Tony Robbins’ public speaking mastery and apply some ninjitsu trick or something. He wasn’t dealing with it anymore obviously. What happened was while he was in South Africa, he noticed that his countrymen, the people of India, were horribly oppressed. He decided. Nobody knighted him, nobody anointed him, nobody asked him, nobody gave him permission. He decided he was going to stand for the possibility of peace in India. He took that on as his job in life. Let me tell you. When you represent peace for an entire nation, speaking in front of 20,000 people doesn’t even exist on your radar. It’s not a blip. It’s gone. That is the power of stepping up to something bigger in your life and solving bigger problems.

The way this looks with nonprofit executives, leaders, board chairs, when we share with them the Nobel-nominated way of thinking at a higher level and accessing more parts of your brain, which is crazy because you think of the arts. People are very happy to talk about the difference that music makes. You use more than one part of your brain at one time, and that is absolutely true. But why isn’t that making a difference in our leadership, our fundraising, in the success of the individual businesses of the business owners who are sitting on the board? A rising tide lifts all boats. If we can get their businesses to increase, then that helps everybody involved. The work we do is different. We show them how to access different ways of thinking on demand so they can benefit from the different abilities in their brain.

Some examples are in the nonprofit world, there is an exercise I take everybody through that helps them get really clear on what their earning power is. Many people, especially in the nonprofit space, feel like I don’t have enough money to hire help. I can’t afford to hire an assistant. I can’t afford to outsource these things because we have to be a good steward of our funds. We have to take care of this. Then they think, I don’t have enough time to train the help. I have these volunteers. By the time I show them how to do it, I have to go redo it for them, so I should have just done it myself. By the time they do it, they mess it up, and we are back farther than we were before. I don’t have the time to train them. I don’t have the money to hire them. I might as well do it myself. We get in this way of thinking of solving problems that is the best way for me to solve my problem is to do it myself. If you’re taking notes, write this down. If I’m doing the work, my business is falling behind. Hopefully in a little bit, we will go through some slides that will show us what is going on in the brain when that is kicking in.

Any which way, after taking some nonprofit executives through this way of thinking at a higher level, how do you work less but make more? Why is that true? One of them up in New Jersey said she got really clear that the value of her time was $5,000 an hour. When she was doing the one thing in fundraising that she did better than anybody else, $5,000 an hour. She had the data to show it. When I make these phone calls and talk to these people, I make $5,000 an hour. Okay, great. What that shows is she can no longer afford to do anything that is not a $5,000-an-hour task. She has clarity on what that is. We instantly solved the problem of, I can’t afford to pay somebody, and I don’t have the time. No wonder you can’t afford to pay somebody. You’re spending your day doing $15-an-hour tasks. I don’t have the time to train them. Of course, you don’t have the time to train them. You’re spending your day doing $15-an-hour tasks. She got clarity on that.

What the sweet spot was, the zone of genius was, for her is going to be different for different executives. I can’t tell an executive what it’s going to be for them without looking at their mind scan, without looking at their map of how their brain is solving problems to see where their breakthrough is.

Hugh: That’s remarkable. We see this version of dumbing down really. We’re majoring in minor things because that’s what needs to be done rather than reframing. I guess it starts. This scarcity thinking starts with the word “nonprofit,” which is basically a lie. One of our guests gave us the term one time “for-purpose enterprise.” The official IRS nomenclature is tax-exempt. Nonprofit is something that came from nowhere. We think we can’t take risk. We can’t pay good salaries. We can’t spend money on marketing. We certainly can’t hire someone to help us with money because we got to do it ourselves. That is a major paradigm shift. It’s based on value for value. You just defined it. Your worth to the organization is this much money. That should be a wake-up.

The title of this is “Do Less, Get More Done.” How did you come up with that? how does that really work?

Jarrod: it sounds like snake oil, right? The less you work, the more you make. I get it. It totally sounds like snake oil. Holy moly. If you’re taking notes, write this down. “A breakthrough in your business will first occur as a breakthrough in your thinking.” This is what Einstein was talking about when he said, You need to try harder. I’m kidding. He didn’t actually say that. What Einstein said was “You can’t actually solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.” By the way, I apologize for my voice if I sound mean or angry. I have a head cold right now. I don’t normally sound aggressive with my voice. I apologize.

Hugh: You’re not mean and angry, are you? Those listening on the podcast, we will put some of these graphics on the website. These are good visuals.

Jarrod: The quote from Einstein, “You can’t solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it,” came from his involvement with the Nuclear Arms Committee. The United States had just opened Pandora’s box called nuclear weapons. After the war had winded down, we realized, Wait a minute. Maybe this isn’t a good thing. Maybe humanity should not have access to nuclear power. What do we do? How do we solve this problem? How do we put the genie back in the bottle? That is where Einstein’s quote came in. Time out, guys. We can’t solve the problem of what to do with nuclear power with the same level of thinking that created nuclear power.

If you’re at a place where you realize that you’ve been working hard, but every year you seem to make the same amount of money, every year your nonprofit seems to reach the same number of people, you realize you’re not doubling your income every couple years despite doing all you know, despite working hard. When that happens, I want you to know that it’s not your fault. There is a lot of bad information out there. There are people who advise you to use a to-do list. I am going to tell you that using a to-do list reduces your productivity. There are people who advise you to be more focused and check things off a list. I am going to tell you that the more you’re focused on checking things off your list, the lower your income is. I know that might seem like craziness, counter-intuitive. This is not the get-things-done approach. Wherever you’re at, if you keep hitting the same obstacles, don’t have enough time, don’t have enough money, don’t have the political support in your community to grow your nonprofit, don’t have the relationships or connections to get that anchor fund in place so that we’re not scrambling every month. If you keep hitting the same obstacles, it’s not because you’re not trying hard.

As a matter of fact, there are three things that are going on. You don’t need to write these down, but there are three things happening. 1) You’re already doing all you know to do. Come on, pat yourself on the back. You’re hustling. If there was something else you could do to solve that problem, you would. 2) Everything that you’re doing makes sense. It seems like a good idea. Well, duh. Come on, Jarrod. Say something smarter than that. Of course it seems like a good idea, or you wouldn’t be doing it. You’re not an idiot. What that means is a breakthrough in your situation. The thing that will transform your business to be more effective with less time, to making more money, to reaching more people with less effort, the breakthrough, the transformational doorway, will at first not make sense. It will sound like a bad idea. It will seem like craziness. If it made sense to do, you would already be doing it.

This is the same situation that we are in when learning how to ride a bicycle. Go back to that time. You’re five years old. They just took off the training wheels. You don’t have it yet. You’re a little wobbly. You’re doing the best you can. You’re going slowly because you don’t want to crash or get hurt. In that stage, before you experience balance, your crazy aunt Jenny comes over with some advice. She says, “What you need to do is go faster. When you go faster, it’s easier to balance.” You think, Now I know why they call her crazy aunt Jenny. That’s the dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. If I can’t balance going slow on this thing, how on earth can I do it while going fast? How is that going to help? That will make it worse. One day, you accidentally experience balance for the first time. When that happened, your brain went, Oh my gosh, now I know what she was talking about.

Notice, before you had that felt experience, no amount of explanation from crazy aunt Jenny made a difference. After you had the felt experience, no amount of explanation was needed. That’s what happens when we unlock a new way of thinking and solving problems in your mind.

Remember, a breakthrough in your business first happens after a breakthrough in your thinking. I want to show you a little bit on how this happens in reality. Back in the ‘50s, there was a guy named Robert Hartman. He created the Nobel-nominated Hartman Profile. This is a way of scientifically measuring the way your mind solves problems. With that work, we are able to print up a graph of how your mind solves problems. The value it’s using, the assessments it’s using, the inputs it’s using. Because we are able to print it up on paper, we are able to see right away where the blind spot was that was holding your breakthrough. Behind every blind spot, there is a breakthrough, I guarantee you. This is how these business owners are able to double their income by working less. These nonprofit executives are able to get the time and money they need by working less. They saw something about their sweet spot, their zone of genius, they hadn’t seen before. As you can imagine, it’s duh, it’s a no-brainer, that people would pay $500 to take something like this. It really is transformative. 30% of the people who take it are in tears because they find what it reveals about them so emotionally meaningful.

A little bit about what led me into this breakthrough in my business, and what led me into sharing this with other people. I was working as a freelance musician back in the day, hustling it out, working 40 hours a week, making 50 a year, doing the best I could. Teaching lessons, playing weddings, playing the symphony, that kind of stuff. In order to make more money, the advice was you need to work more hours. But that doesn’t scale. That’s like your first clue. If it doesn’t scale, it’s a bad strategy. You can’t solve a bad strategy with stubbornness. I had been trying to solve it with stubbornness all these years, and of course every year, I ended up in the same place, telling myself the same story. Oh, next year, I will try harder. The next year would come around. Do over, I am going to take a mulligan, this year, I am going to apply myself. Then that year would go around. Come on. You gotta be honest eventually.

I take the MindScan, and it shows me a couple things about how I was valuing my time and other people. The result was that took me from working 40 hours a week, making 50 as a freelance musician to working 20 hours a week and making 100 as a freelance musician.

Specifically, I made three changes. If you are in the arts, I would encourage you to look into these three changes for your line of work. 1) I stopped charging for my time. I started charging for the result. When someone came to me to learn music, I stopped charging based on the time it took to teach them. I started charging them based on the results they were leaving with. I consequently went from teaching one-on-one to teaching one-on-many. I started doing group lessons. Immediately, that doubled my income from any other teacher in my area without charging more. I didn’t charge people more. Getting access to the arts was still affordable for everybody. I just changed the way I delivered it.

2) Equip the people you’re teaching. People are coming to me, “Hey, what instrument should we use? What music should we use? What supplies should we use?” I recommend this, this, and this. You can get it down the road at the music store. Let me reframe that. I had people coming to me with money in their pocket, saying, “Jarrod, where should we take this extra money?” I would say, “No, don’t give me your extra money. Go down and give it to the guy at the music store.” I quit that nonsense and spent 15 minutes to fill out a retail license in my state. I called up some music distributors and said, “I have some people who want your stuff.” Done. When they would come, where do we get this, how do we get that, I have one right here for you. I started to equip my students.

3) Now that my students are getting expertise, back in the day, what I was doing was playing gigs. Remember, if it doesn’t scale, it’s a bad strategy. In order to make more money, I can’t play more gigs. I started booking gigs for my students. There is no limit on how many people I can put in a group. There is no limit on the number I can equip with supplies. There is no limit on the number of gigs I can book for other musicians.

Those three pillars allowed me to go from the hustle of working 40 hours a week, $50,000 a year, to a lifestyle that works and is sustainable of 20 hours a week and $100,000 a year.

But you might be thinking, I am not a freelance musician, or I am not in the arts, or I don’t have a side income. Fine. You’re a lawyer. You’re a banker. You’re a doctor. Let’s take a look. Could you, instead of doing the work, teach other people to do the work? You’re a lawyer and really good at attracting clients. Could you teach other lawyers to attract clients? There is no limit on the number you could teach. Could you equip them with the tools you use? Could you then book opportunities for them to teach other people? Any business can do this. Specifically, if you’re listening, I have a picture on the screen of what somebody’s mind map/breakthrough graph looks like. This is just a part of it. It’s not the whole thing. But this part of it reveals some interesting things.

Whenever we talk to somebody who is an achiever, a hustler, a go-getter, the kind of person that prides themselves on working hard and getting things done, the kind of person that prides themselves on checking things off their to-do list and making things happen, an achiever, a real-go-getter and ask them, “Do you ever have more on your to-do list than you have time to get done?” They say, “Oh my gosh, yes, all the time.” “Okay. When you see that problem, do you try working harder and faster to fix it?” “Yeah, yeah, I do. I got more to do than I have time to do it in. I just have to work harder.” And after working harder and faster, maybe you returned 100 emails and had 27 phone calls and had three meetings and skipped lunch and stayed late, but by the end of the day, it feels like you didn’t move the ball forward. It feels like you spent most of the day doing somebody else’s job. You weren’t doing it in that zone of genius that you know life is calling you for, so it feels empty. It’s exasperating because all this working harder and faster, tomorrow you’re just going to have to do it again. Yeah, I feel that all the time; it’s so frustrating. But I don’t have time for this conversation because I have to work harder and faster.

Whenever we have a conversation with an achiever, the hustler, a real go-getter like that, it makes this pattern in their thinking. What I want you to notice is in their thinking, the way their brain solves problems is really high in the taking action category. It tends to be low in the people category. They tend to say there is no sense in me writing this stuff down because I have it organized in my head. The time I spend writing it down could be spent doing something. There is no sense in me training somebody on how to do this because by the time I train them, they’re going to mess it up, and I will have to redo it. I would be better off spending that time getting the work done. It’s this way of thinking that in order to get things done, just do the work. Consequently, whenever this pattern shows up, we call it the Chevron of stress. It’s stressful because if working harder and faster doesn’t make a difference, the heck else are you supposed to do?

I want you to think of somebody. Could be a board member you’ve known, could be somebody who was influential in your life, could be somebody you read a book about. The kind of person who owns multiple businesses, but they don’t work multiple full-time jobs. They own three businesses but probably only work 10 hours a week. They always have more than enough time to give back. They always have more than enough time to contribute to their community or spend time in their hobbies. It’s like they have a golden touch. The less they work, the more they make. The less they hustle, the bigger difference they make in their community, the more people they reach with their message or their nonprofit.

Whenever we do a thinking pattern for them, it makes this pattern here. In this pattern, it’s really high in how people feel. It’s really high in planning and structure. It’s really low in taking action. This is counterintuitive. You would think that valuing action would cause things to get done, but it doesn’t; it just causes your brain to look for more to do. Remember, if you’re doing the work, your business is falling behind. The person with the golden touch doesn’t do the work. This is important in leadership. Your job is not to do as a leader. Your job is to cause. That’s why when this pattern shows up in someone’s thinking, we call it Leadership V.

There is a high emphasis on planning. The reason is if you’re doing the work, if you spend that block of time doing the work, tomorrow, you will be the one doing the work. But if you spend that block of time building a system to support you, then tomorrow you won’t ever have to do the work again. There is no limit to the number of systems you can create and build, but there is a very hard limit to the number of hours you can work. Same thing with people. There is no limit to the number of people you can train and build high-value relationships with emotional bank deposits, people who are driven and passionate and are constantly, “Hey, can I help you?” There is no limit to the number of relationships you can build like that. But if you are doing the work, there is a very hard limit on what is possible. So we call this the Leadership V.

A breakthrough in your business will first occur as a breakthrough in your thinking. Look. If you are in a place where you feel like, Man, this life business is taking way more effort than I thought it would take. It should not be this difficult to travel from Point A to Point B. It feels like going to those board meetings for the symphony or the opera or the ballet or the art museum, wherever you serve, it feels like, Man, I don’t feel like I have time for this anymore. I have to get back to work. Or while you’re there, it feels like hustle, hustle, hustle. It shouldn’t be this hard to raise money or make a difference. If it feels that way, I want to tell you that you’re probably right. You’re probably right. It should not be as difficult as it feels. We acknowledge that it will always take some work. It will take some elbow grease. But it feels like an overwhelming amount, the daily grind, it shouldn’t be like this. You’re probably right.

Remember, the less you work, the bigger a difference, you’re going to make. If that resonates with you, if you’re like, Okay, I can see how in some situations that would apply, but I’m not sure how that would apply in my situation. Here is what I have for you.

If you are a nonprofit board member, if you are a nonprofit leader, if you are serving nonprofits or in the nonprofit space, whether you are a business owner or not, it would be my honor to serve you with this information. You can test it out, you can try it for yourself, you can see if it’s a good fit for you, and I’ll even let you test it out on my tab. No need to pay for it. If you want to get your thinking patterns down on paper, see the breakthrough that is available for your business so you can double your income in half as many hours. I don’t know what it is, but I have to look at the map. Let me give you access to that. Go here: MindSetCall.Co. That will give you access to it, so you can print it up and try it out for yourself and see if you think it’s a good fit. It won’t cost you anything if you’re a board member, business owner serving a nonprofit, or nonprofit leader.

Hugh: MindSetCall.co. Russell, what are you thinking? We’re ganging up on you. We have two musicians who have taken the high-performance standards we have in music and applied it to the board of nonprofits. What do you think about all this?

Russell: I think it’s fascinating. This notion of doing too much and actually ratcheting it down, you’re right. It’s completely counterintuitive. I really like this. I am going to have my brain scanned. That will be frightening to put up on screen. Yes, a lot of leaders overfunction. I was thinking about a conversation I had with a very nice gentleman who reached out to me and is doing some really good work that is in line with some work my other clients are doing. He needs a team around him. He is definitely doing too much. We do too much, but we don’t get the results. This is a common problem for nonprofit leaders.

I wanted to have you talk about the notion of what we call productivity. Productivity and performance get confused or interchanged often. What do you find are some of the biggest productivity challenges that people have? How do you help them separate the productivity from performance?

Jarrod: It’s my opinion that productivity is not about getting things done. I’m of the opinion that if you view productivity from the mindset of getting more things done, you probably also have more on your to-do list than you have time to get done. You probably make the same amount of money every year. Your nonprofit probably reaches the same number of people every year. If you’re a leader, the people who work for you are probably more miserable than you think. Productivity is not about getting more things done in my opinion.

Productivity is about causing things to get done. Your job as a leader is to build systems and to build people. That is your job as a leader. If that day, you built, tested, refined, failed, tested again, refined, failed a system, and you built people, you did a good job as a leader. You did your job. If you put your fire out, no, no, no.

At the firehouse, when they get that emergency call, the fire chief’s job is to sit his butt in that chair and make phone calls. If the fire chief leaves to the house, he is now in danger to everybody. His job is to line up supplies, backup supplies, and emergency supplies if those fail. His job is to do training procedures and testing training procedures. If those fail, let’s try something else. His job is to line up people with emotional bank deposits, high-value relationships so they care about the job and are passionate about the vision. That’s not working. We had to let this guy go. What can we change in the training? That’s his job. Systems and people. If he is doing the work, if he is out there personally training, if he is out there personally interviewing companies for supplies, then the business is falling behind. His job is to build systems and people.

In my opinion, productivity needs to be thought of as causing and not doing. In the frame of performance, is your business performing? Is your mind performing? We usually look at standard metrics. Are we growing every year? Is our income growing? Are constituents growing? Are our concert attendees growing? Are we growing? If you keep hitting the sane numbers anymore, duh, it obviously ain’t because you’re not trying hard. Everybody is trying hard. That ain’t the problem. The problem is you could be looking at productivity in the light of doing more work means getting more things done.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand the pain. When you have a to-do list overflowing and 27 things are on fire and alligators are climbing out of the swamp and chewing on your leg, I get it. It feels like you have to hustle. The kind of person who always has more on their to-do list than they have time to get done solves problems by doing the work. The kind of person that always has enough time, always has enough money, always has enough people to come in and help, that kind of person solves problems by building systems and building people. When that person is stressed, their brain says, “I need to spend more time planning. I need to spend more time partnering with people.” The person who is stressed and is always stressed, their brain says, “I better get to work.” Guess what? You will be stressed tomorrow, too.

Russell: What’s a 30,000-foot view of actually walking somebody through this process? We know they’re stuck on the other side. Okay, it’s so counter-intuitive. What is a typical walkthrough the process look like from a 30,000-foot view? Starting with that brain scan, what sort of steps do you take to bring that person to that ship?

Jarrod: MindSetCall.co. If they are a good fit, if it makes sense for them because they are a business owner serving a nonprofit or a board member or a nonprofit executive, it does start with the MindScan. No, it’s not a good fit for everybody. Don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself.

This could be the 30,000-foot view answer. The difference between the work I do with business owners and why they double their income by working less hours and a business consultant, a life coach, a strategist, the other people in this space, is when you go to a life coach, they say, “I don’t know. What do you think? What do you think you should do?” Good grief. What you think you should do is what has you in this situation to start with. If you knew what to do differently, you wouldn’t be talking to them. If you show up at your first appointment at the gym with your trainer, the trainer doesn’t say, “What exercise do you feel like you should do today?” you go to the trainer and say, “I want to look like this, feel like that, and be able to do that,” and the trainer says, “Great. Do three of these and two of those. Call me tomorrow.” Done. That is the benefit of getting somebody’s thinking patterns on paper so we can see where they’re at and where they want to go. Now we know, do three of these, two of those, call me tomorrow. We know exactly what will get them to the next breakthrough.

Yes, it starts with the MindScan. We have no way of knowing why that individual has been getting tripped up in their productivity, performance, or profitability. Once we find the blind spot, we know what tools will build those muscles and thinking patterns for them, which will be different depending on the business they’re in.

Russell: What do you find is the most common road block that prevents somebody from executing it? I guess that would be- How similar is that to people that this system doesn’t fit? First of all, what sort of things would eliminate somebody from being a good candidate? Then, once they are a candidate, what is probably the most common bottleneck they experience in making that transition?

Jarrod: We just got the five-minute sign from Hugh, so we want to be a good steward of his time, too. People who aren’t a good fit are middle managers, people who don’t have control over their schedule or their time. You need to have at least 20% control over your schedule. I understand if there are things on your schedule you just have to do, but 20% of your schedule needs to be completely up to you. If you don’t have access to that, the breakthrough the MindScan is going to show for your thinking patterns likely will not be helpful. You need some kind of measure of control.

Another is some things just aren’t a good fit for everybody. 1% of the people who take the MindScan didn’t get anything out of it. 30% of them are in tears because they’re like, good golly, thank you, I understand, this explains everything. It’s so emotionally meaningful to them. About 1% of the time, somebody will tell me, “That’s not me at all.” “Tell me more about that. How do you experience that situation?” They will describe exactly what I just said. Maybe they’re just not ready. I don’t know. Maybe it’s not painful enough where they’re at. Sometimes that happens.

Russell: Egyptian river boat captains going down the Nile.

Hugh: Hadn’t heard that in a long time. We’re talking to Jarrod Haning. His business is MindSet Performance. His website is MindSetPerformance.co. For our listeners, go to MindSetCall.co, and there is some free stuff so you can start exploring how your brain works.

There is lot of good stuff in this, Jarrod. We are the product of our thinking, aren’t we? I think about that quote from James Allen that says, “People want to change their circumstances, but are unwilling to change themselves. They therefore remain bound.” That could describe lots of nonprofit leaders who are stuck in a thinking system and don’t want to have responsibility. They call them blind spots because we can’t see them. We need somebody external to help us find them. A lot of really good stuff here. I’m going to take that mind thing you got here. I hope my brain doesn’t come out looking empty. There is always a risk. Mindset Change.

*Sponsor message from Wordsprint*

Jarrod, I started conducting when I was 18. Never been in a choir. Never been in front of a choir orchestra. Somebody gave me a break, and I learned along the way. A lot of what Jarrod is talking about is in my second pillar in the five pillars about leadership. You have to have a system to work in. We can’t play without music. We need a road map for success, but we have to step up as a leader and change our thinking so we can influence other people.

Jarrod, what thought would you like to leave people with as we end this really good interview?

Jarrod: A couple quotes. If you are doing the work, your business is falling behind. At any point in your day. Just look at what you’re doing. Are you scheduling? Are you rescheduling? Are you emailing? Are you calling? Are you meeting with somebody? Whatever you’re doing, if you’re the one doing it, your business is falling behind. We need you in the fire chief spot, building systems and building people, empowering.

If it feels like that doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t apply to your business, it seems like a bad idea, then the second thought I would encourage you is that a breakthrough in your situation would at first sound like craziness, just like riding a bicycle.

Russell: Excellent thoughts. What a fast and fascinating hour. I’m looking forward to taking this test. Just out of curiosity, do you have a book on it? We are highlighting books that are written by some of our guests.

Jarrod: Oh gosh, I wish I did. I don’t have a book to share with you.

Russell: Not yet. It’s coming. That’s on his to-do list. Next year, we will be reading the book by Jarrod Haning. I’m looking forward to this. I’m excited already. Because he knows how to free up his time, getting a book is something that will not overcrowd Jarrod’s to-do list. I would encourage you to take advantage of taking this test to find out a little bit about how you’re thinking to see if this is something that’s right for you to make a shift. All of you folks are making a difference and solving problems in the world, making the world a better place. We are grateful for that.