594: Shiny Object Mastery: Discover Sustainable Motivation, Achieve High Productivity Excellence, and Conquer Your Inner Game with Productivity Expert Michael Montague

Speaker 1 0:00 Marketer of the Day episode 594, shiny object mastery. Discover sustainable motivation, achieve high productivity excellence and conquer your inner game with productivity expert Michael Montague. Hey

Robert Plank 0:14 everyone, and welcome back to the marketer of the day podcast. We're chatting with Michael Montague, and Michael has a book out called shiny object mastery, the formula for overcoming distractions and increasing productivity. And you're going to want to sit up and pay very close attention if you're a business owner who finds yourself overwhelmed by distractions, and maybe if you're constantly chasing the next shiny object. And Michael's mission today, and basically through his whole career right now is to help people transition from the confusion of the information age into the clarity and the aligned intention of the age of purpose. So whether you think you're a productivity master and you're looking to get some tips and techniques, or you're probably like most people and say, you know, I'm so overwhelmed I just need to handle on all the the notifications and the beeps and the technology. Then this is also the episode for you to take lots and lots of notes on, maybe listen to a couple of times. So we're gonna get all right into the fun stuff. So Michael, how are things today?

Michael Montague 1:13 Doing great. It's such an honor to be on your show today. Robert, awesome.

Robert Plank 1:18 Well, the it's an honor to have a productivity with such as yourself to help set us straight. So as far as so this this shiny object mastery. What's a good jumping off point for us to talk about here? I mean, did you yourself struggle with this problem, or did you have, like, friends or clients or like, what was the genesis for you creating this book for people,

Michael Montague 1:42 absolutely, that's a great question, Robert, and yes, I did suffer from shiny object syndrome for years, back when I was in college, they didn't even have a personal computer or a cell phone, obviously at that point. So as the internet began to blossom, and we were had more and more access to more and more information. I was a big idea, kind of a guy, and so I kept gathering more and more information, trying to start a business. But what I found was, as I went and searched for more and more information, I began to be overwhelmed, and I was unable to really step into my dream, so I tended to keep my dream at arm's length, and I later discovered that I was really afraid of success. But during this journey, as years went by and I was still unable to reach the level of success that I wanted. I realized in one day really, that I needed to abandon my old self and really take a new perspective. And so I documented that journey, and part of that journey was understanding how I had become overwhelmed in the information age.

Robert Plank 3:02 Well, awesome. Well, congratulations on taking that journey. And I think that it's sort of scary, isn't it, that we have basically infinity in our in our pockets. We can get the answer to any question, we can look up any video. We can buy almost anything from just that smartphone, and it sounds like a really amazing tool at first and less. But if we don't have like those boundaries, it seems like that sort of thing can get away from us. And I mean, you always hear about like this, these staggering statistics about just how much information is out there and how much new stuff is being pumped out. Like, I think I heard one time, like, every second there's like 300 more hours of YouTube videos out there just every single second. Or you hear about how, if you look at all of the data that was created in the past two years, that amount of information is more than the entirety of human history before. And every two years, that's always true. So it keeps on going up in like, staggering, exponential numbers. And so it's, it seems like this whole like information age, as you're saying, is a double edged sword, right? Because all the stuff's out there. But if we let that whole fire hurdles of information out there, then that'll take up all the time in our day, and like you're saying, it keeps us from our dreams, and then we end up, like putting all these excuses, these obstacles in front of ourselves, and then next thing you know, we ran out of time in the day or the weekend, where we end up being really frustrated because we didn't really get enough accomplished, right? Exactly,

Michael Montague 4:34 you know, evolution hasn't caught up to our modern day society yet, so our brains are not really designed to filter out the volume of information that we are bombarded with each day. And so what happens is our ability to focus on our tasks becomes greatly diminished. We become unproductive, we become overwhelmed, we begin to question our decision making. So in order to try to solve that, we keep going into the internet and trying to gather more and more information, thinking that we'll be able to solve our problems. And if you ask people what is one of their biggest challenges, they will often tell you they never seem to have enough time. Now we all have the same amount of time in one day, right? So what makes people highly productive and some other people stuck spinning their wheels now successful? People understand that information must be implemented to have value, but most people are reduced to gathering more information rather than implementing the right information. So an example of that is, if you've got a problem, if you feel like you've got a problem in your business, most of the time, it's more a problem in your inner game that's magnified in your business. So people will look for secret tactics or hacks or shortcuts to success when they should become hunters of opportunity, and you can't even recognize opportunities when your attention is constantly shifting among all the shiny objects that are in front of you.

Robert Plank 6:13 Yeah, I agree completely that evolution has not yet caught up to all these gadgets in front of us, that implementation at some point is more important than just learning. I mean, try reading book after book about karate or book after book about driving a car, but never actually getting behind the wheel of a car. You'd never learn. You just keep And if anything, you might get more and more confused the more that you read about it. And then, and then, yeah, right there of saying that, that the inner game will solve most of your problems, and if you have, if you think that your business is unmanageable, or that you have these bad systems, well it might just be that inner game that's expressing itself in that way. And so as you're describing all this, it sounds to me like what we need is to develop better habits, right? It's like if we have that habit of letting the notifications go off, and we have the habit of all these Incomplete Tasks, or of biting off more than we can chew, or of just kind of letting the day go by, those are all bad. But it seems like if we can get our our tasks, our productivity, our schedule in order, then we can begin knocking things out. And it seems to me like that would be sort of develop, sort of a feedback loop, right of like now that we have this good tendency of habits of getting things accomplished and knocked out Right

Michael Montague 7:33 exactly. And so there are a couple of real main pillars to high productivity excellence, and one of them is to put in place better habits. So we all have habits we've developed over time, but they're not always best for us. So what I recommend for people, number one is to simply get enough sleep and keep your cell phone in a room other than your bedroom. Okay, so the first thing that most people do when they wake up in the day is look at their cell phone. So they're looking for instant messages, emails. They want to play games, whatever the case might be. And when you do that, when you react to the world at the beginning of your day, you're giving up your power. You want the world to react to you. So you don't want to set the tone at the very beginning of your day that you're replying to other people and reacting to other people. So put that aside. Don't even check your emails until maybe around lunchtime. And that's a simple concept, but it's hard for people to do because they've become addicted to the information. So the first thing that I would recommend people do just when they wake up, before they even get out of bed, is go through a ritual where they basically have intention for the day, you know, set the tone for today. What do you want to accomplish? The second thing I would recommend people do is have gratitude for your past. You know, so often it's easy for us to have gratitude for the days that went well for us, but as equally important, you want to have gratitude for all the challenges that you've had in your life, because those are the days that have given you the tools to better attack opportunities when they come to you in the present. So your challenges teach you at least as much as your best days. So I have gratitude, and then thirdly, I would say, have forgiveness. And this is not just forgiveness for other people that you feel might have done wrong to you, but forgiveness for yourself. If you can start out with a sense of forgiveness and gratitude and intention, those three things will set the tone for your day. You.

Robert Plank 10:01 Awesome. Well, this is some really deep and powerful stuff. I love it so far. So just to recap on some of those habits you're saying, number one, we need to get enough sleep. Don't be running around and trying to make it all work. Take that time. Take those six or eight hours, or however many you need. That way you're not functioning at at half capacity, just running on fumes trying to make it work. You're saying that number two, in order to get that quality sleep, to keep your cell phone out of the bedroom, and then that those two things will then lead into not checking your emails and not checking your notifications. The first time that you wake up, they'll still be there after lunch or around noon, or whenever you have deliberately set that time to check those things and like, yeah, and the whole not checking emails until lunch that time, that's huge, because up until maybe 10 years ago, I didn't even know that was a thing. I always just assumed that, you know, even going back to the dial up days, that as soon as you get on the computer, you connect and you go and check your email, and you see what new things came in. And I remember wondering why I was so scattered, and why I would start all these different projects, and why I wasn't making money. And then as soon as I learned just a couple of these habits, like you're mentioning here, and I didn't check email first thing in the day, then it, I mean, it's magical. Changed my life because I wasn't always switching gears. I didn't have that anxiety to always be checking it. I guess it took a while to unlearn that habit, but once I did, it would just be like, I would just batch up all the email checking that needed to happen. I didn't know. I didn't spend, you know, five minutes getting into the groove of things, and then five minutes again and five minutes again. It was like five minutes of getting used to what I'm looking at here in the email, 10 minutes of cleaning it up, and I'm done reply to a couple of things, and that's it. And then you're saying also that it's not just about the the clicks on the computer screen, but also about some of this morning stuff. So do that morning ritual? Have your intention for the day, and think about those goals and what you are caught with you'll accomplish. And in theory, on paper, it sounds so simple, but then I'm sure that, you know, Michael, that most people don't even apply this. They think, Oh yeah, sure, I'll set goals. Sure, all human goals in the morning, but most people don't actually do it. So for people listening, maybe it's time to actually do those sorts of things and to think about the, as you said, the gratitude for your past and those challenges that have made you stronger, and then finally, to forgive yourself and others. So that way you're not you think about the those past events, but you're not stuck on them, right? You're not reliving them. You don't hold these grudges. You're focused on those things that you can control, which is the future and which is the now. So this is, this is all really great stuff so far.

Michael Montague 12:56 Yes, exactly. And you know, we tend to go through our day reminiscing about the past, what we did right, what we did wrong, and so forth. So if you can think about that first thing in the day and then leave that behind, okay, and become present, because a way to really leverage your time is to be focused on the present. So the beginning of your day is obviously when you naturally have the most willpower. So you want to look at what are your highest value activities? What are those things that bring you purpose in life? What are you great at? Those are the things that you want to focus on during the most productive part of your day. So for most people, that's in the morning, up through lunchtime, and then as the day progresses and you might get distracted and get tired and so forth, you don't have as much willpower, then the smaller tasks on your to do list. Those are the times to check your email and take care of return calls and so forth. But if you can focus in the morning on your highest value activities, and then the other items that you need to take care of. If you can delegate those to other people who are experts at that task, or get rid of them entirely, that's going to at least double your productivity just with that one habit. I love it awesome. And

Robert Plank 14:18 the way that you describe it, it sounds like most people have things backwards. They have things flip flop right, and that they they wake up and they tend to check that email in the beginning of the day, just because that's what the default is. That's what they thought they had to do. But then it sounds like they're wasting that, that willpower that happens in the morning. And I've definitely heard of that this and experienced this concept of, there's that chemical in the brain that you wake up with a lot of it, and then during the day you run out of it, and that you hear about that's why a lot of crimes happen at night, not in the morning, because people make those bad decisions later on, and they once they run out of that. Chemical. And so, yeah, why would you waste that chemical when you have an abundance of it, on checking your email, on wasting time on things that aren't important, why not spend that early morning peaceful, quiet time before things are crazy, to actually get those important things knocked out? And so as far as those kind of important that you said the highest value activities. What are your highest value activities in the morning, as opposed to the less important stuff like email?

Michael Montague 15:30 Well, one of my highest value activities is writing, reading and trying to get in touch with how I can best serve my clients, my customers and my audience. So for me, writing is a great thing for me to do, because it's one of my highest value activities, replying to emails, working on a schedule and so forth. Those are things that I can do in the evening, and I can make a to do list in the evening, so that when I wake up the next day, I don't have to sit there and think about, okay, what am I going to do today? It's already in front of me, and I've already got it scheduled out. So one of the things we tend to do is we tend to wake up and we, you know, if we check our email or whatever we have to do, we start multitasking, and it makes you feel productive because you're doing a lot of different things, but really what's happening is that's called task switching. And task switching is when your mind has to refocus on a new idea. Now that actually happens relatively quickly in the brain, but over the course of your day, it takes energy and it takes a productivity out of your day. So what you want to do is try to batch tasks. So if you have writing to do, for example, you would want to batch that all in one part of your day. If you need to prepare meals for the day. For example, you could do that all at once, rather than having to run out to the grocery store or run out to the gym. You could have gym equipment in your home or in your office. There are lots of things that you can batch so that you don't have to continually switch tasks all day.

Robert Plank 17:22 All right? Well, great advice. So Don't multitask and batch any tasks that you can even little things or even with your your meal prep or your exercise and so as we're saying, like a lot of this, I mean, a lot of this, is really good advice, and these are all things that we should be applying, but it's easier said than done, right? So do you have any advice on making sure that these good new habits stick? Do you recommend like getting like a coach or being in a mastermind or accountability, or what tools do you think are out there to make sure that we make these positive changes and stick to them?

Michael Montague 18:00 Well, I would say, other than habits, the other main pillar that will get people moving and and sustainable motivation is really what people are looking for, is to get back in touch with your life purpose. Now, a lot of business people don't necessarily think of life purpose as one of their goals for the day, right? But what that gives you, if you can align your purpose within your business, and that should be in some way aligned with how you serve your customers, then when you wake up in the day and you are living your purpose through your business, then that's going to give you the sustainable motivation and the enthusiasm to keep going. So a lot of times, when people come to me, they maybe they're stalled, maybe they've hit a profit wall and they're overwhelmed with too much information and they're questioning their decisions, or maybe they've climbed that mountain. They've reached a level of success, but they find that they're not really happy. And so what I found is that if people don't have a foundation of purpose, then when they get to the top of their mountain, they're going to look around and not know what to do. They're not going to be happy. So if you can step back, take a look at what your purpose is. Try to align that within your business, and then add habits into that. You're going to have a much greater chance of success for the long term. And that's what we're all looking for, is long term success.

Robert Plank 19:35 You make it sound so simple when you put it like that, and you're making me think of like you know, let's say you were driving across town to the movie theater to see a movie, you'd be really excited about it. And then once you got there, you'd say, well, great. Now I've, I've done that, that first job of getting there. If you drove, you know, two towns over to go see a concert that you were really excited about, you'd be excited on the way over. Room. Once you got there, you'd say, Great, I made it. But if you just chose an address at random, and you drove across town there, and you say, Great, I drove to this address. Now what it would be a really silly thing to do, and you'd feel like you just wasted a lot of time. And it seems very black and white and that kind of analogy, but what it seems like, what you're explaining here is that people do this with their their whole lives. They they work a job they don't like, or they end up on a on a career path that they just kind of ended on by random chance. And then when they get to some sort of mountaintop there, then they're dissatisfied, and they're like, Well, what now? And it's like, well, what now is, is whatever you were supposed to make of it and so, so yeah, like, if you don't have any goal at all, or a good goal, or a goal that aligns with that purpose, and it sounds like that's a really clear recipe for burnout. And what I'm hearing from you is that it, there's like, multiple kind of ways to drive this right. There's like, your own motivation, but then you're saying, Well, my life purpose is to help this type of person right, to serve in this kind of way, and then that will get you through the slow productivity days, or those times when you're in a slump or can't make a decision. It seems like that thought of doing good for the world and helping people and helping your clients and making a difference and all that, it sounds to me like that's the real motivator that'll just push us through and make everything else secondary

Michael Montague 21:32 Exactly. We've all seen people that on the outside looked very, very successful. We see it every day. The The Internet is inundated with people that are shouting how successful they are. But if you really get in a conversation with them, they may be confused about what is their next step, you know, they have they've been so busy climbing that mountain, they haven't taken us a step back to realize what is really going to make them happy. You know, we look for happiness a lot of times in other people, in other people's validation of us, but the truth is, and this is a great thing to realize, is that our happiness really comes from inside ourselves. We are the ones that are the source of our happiness. And one of the great ways to become happy is to realize what your purpose is, and that purpose is to serve other people. What special gifts do you have to give to the world? And if you can focus on that, that is going to be a great driver, a great motivator and a great source of satisfaction in your life. So if you can combine that with better habits, you're well on the road to success at that point. Awesome.

Robert Plank 22:52 Well, that's that's super great, and that's a wonderful message. And so if people are thinking all right now, I'm aware of the problem. Now I need to take that step back, and I need those better habits, and I need that life purpose. My understanding is that you can help with that, right, like you have your book and your website and coaching. So can you tell us if people were sort of woken up at least a little bit by our conversation today, and they say, You know what? Now I know that I need to be doing more. I need to get a handle on some of those things. Where can they and where should they be going, in order to move things to the next step here.

Michael Montague 23:30 Yes, if you'd like to find out more information about my purpose and what I offer Michael montague.com is the place to go, and you can find information about my book. Got a couple of training videos on the site. And if you feel that you might want to work with me or have further conversation with me, I've got a place on the website to apply. And then I can send you a link to have a free consultation where we can discuss the best path for people to get where they really want to be, and everybody's definition of success is a little bit different. So the reason I want to have a conversation with someone is to see where they are now, see where they want to go, and to make sure that the information that I might have and the service I provide might be a good fit for them. So that's where people would want to check me out@michaelmontaview.com,

Robert Plank 24:27 awesome. And I like your philosophy there that you want to have that conversation, that way you get a feel for their needs, and that way you can custom tailor some advice or some solution so that people aren't stuck back in that problem that we started with, where they do all the reading, they get the fire hose of information, and then they get super overwhelmed, confused, spread thin, and they don't implement just because they were trying to read up on all the possibilities. Get all the one size fits all stuff, and it seems like some like a more. Healthy decision for them to reach out to a person and explain their exact needs, that way they can get the exact advice and help that they need to get. So Michael montague.com, is the place to go, and there's a link in the show notes, but just in case you're listening on the road or something, to spell that that's m, I, C, H, A, E, L, and then last name is, m, O, N, T, A, G, U, e.com, michaelmon.com, so that way you can go there and fill in that form and claim that free consultation. That way you get that outside, impartial expert advice, and you're not just stuck in your own head, or you're not stuck with whatever information found its way to you. You can get your problem solved by a real expert. So Michael montague.com is the place to see what Michael has going on, to contact him and then to find out about that shiny object mastery book. And we can all use help in that department of mastering those shiny objects that way, those shiny objects don't master us. So Michael, it's been super great talking to you, and I think I really just it's really put me into deep thinking mode, as far as thinking about my own life purpose and my own goals and how I can do better myself and give myself a break. So I think that a lot of people listening will kind of get some of these aha sorts of revelations. So thanks for providing that for us, Robert,

Michael Montague 26:27 it's a great pleasure to have been on your show today. And you know the good news is that we all have the ability to become the person that we want to be. It does take some work, and if you can just find someone that's a little bit ahead of you, maybe a couple of steps in front of you, that's been through that journey, someone that can give you accountability and help guide you. It's a great idea to invest in yourself and get in touch with that person, no matter who that might be that you find, take the time to invest in yourself and you can reach your potential. You

Robert Plank 27:03 thank you for listening to marketer of the day. Subscribe and listen to other shows at marketer of the day.com/episodes,