Dr Liz Bywater on Chaos to Creation Confessions: Learn about the concept of Slow Down to Speed Up®

Debs Jenkins (00:00):
Okay, so, okay. So today I’m speaking to Dr. Liz Bywater, who is a one of a client leadership experts who works at the intersection of business and psychology. She works with senior executives and teams across all sorts of different companies like Johnson and Johnson, Bristol Myers, AmerisourceBergen, Nike, and Thomas Reuters. Liz developed this rapidly actionable framework for success. And she’s captured this framework, this idea in her book, Slow Down to Speed Up. Liz, I’m fascinated by your whole idea of slow down to speed up this kind of interesting talk to us about that.
Dr Liz Bywater (00:41):
Happy to Debs. So slow down to speed up. I developed a concept a few years ago in kind of a formal way in terms of creating a book and some content around it, but I’ve been working with my clients on this concept for a while. The idea is that we are all living in a world that is moving very rapidly. And we see that today more than ever change is pretty much constant and continual there’s always way more to do than time in which to do it. There are so many priorities on the list that nothing’s really a priority. It’s just a huge to do list of demands. Keep coming at us continually personally, professionally from people that work for us, with us, people for whom we work, there’s always so much going on. And often what happens is we are acting so quickly making decisions so rapidly.
Dr Liz Bywater (01:34):
I’m throwing so much off our plate. That mistakes get made sometimes important mistakes that take a whole lot of time, effort, and energy to fix things aren’t really getting done properly the first time. Sometimes we’re spending time, effort, and energy in the wrong places. So we don’t have time and energy for the things that are most important and most pressing, and that will help us get most rapidly to achieve what we want to achieve. So slowing down to speed up is about taking a thoughtful, deliberate, measured, considered approach to the work that we, that we do and the ways in which we live our lives. It’s about taking some pauses in the action, being strategic, being thoughtful, not, you know, dragging your feet and not you know, kicking your feet up and had some bomboms, which actually sounds nicer and about now taking just enough time that when you’re ready to hit the ground running you know, to use a whole bunch of silly phrases, but you really can’t, you know, you’ve got, you’ve got the resources lined up, you’ve got your plan in place. You thought through what can go, right. And what can go wrong and how do you mitigate risks? And so you’re much more likely to be able to make the right decisions and get the right things done.
Debs Jenkins (02:51):
Fantastic. So can we deconstruct a little bit here? So you say when people go too fast, when they rush into making decisions that they might make mistakes and they might do the wrong things in the wrong at the wrong time. Talk to us about that because when there’s this, there’s a pull to get stuff out, to get things completed, to finish, to get output, but you’re suggesting that people just take this pause to slow down before racing off again. Had, had you not talked to us about that? How do you know when to slow down and when to speed up?
Dr Liz Bywater (03:27):
Well, that’s actually a very good question to ask because the truth is it’s not as straightforward as slow down, then speed up. It really is figuring out when do you have to hit the brakes? And when is there no time? When do you just have to hit the ground running? I think what happens is if you have slowed down consistently and strategically you are almost at a moment’s notice, ready to go fast when you need to. So that’s really part of the trick there. But what I tell my clients is make sure you’re building blocks into your schedule. It can be a bit of time every morning. It can be at the end of the day, it might be at lunch. It might be an hour on a Friday afternoon, and you get the idea and you know, over the course of a month or a quarter, maybe you’re blocking out, you know, two, three, four hours.
Dr Liz Bywater (04:14):
And if you were an executive leading a team, maybe you’re pulling your team together for a day or two once every quarter, once every six months. Because then you’re planning for a larger period of time. You’ve got more people together that have to really mine up around who does what and where are the accountabilities? How will you communicate what gets done and when but if you’ve got, if you’ve protected time and you’ve refused to let others sort of grab hold of your calendar and you refuse to let yourself run in too many directions at once, you’re almost always poised to go fast when you need to, you know quickly use you know, something really obvious of what we’re going through now, as an example. So here in the United States when the COVID-19 pandemic struck, one of the biggest challenges was I think many healthcare organizations for instance, felt ill prepared to, to handle the influx of infections and people who were very ill.
Dr Liz Bywater (05:15):
We didn’t have all the equipment that we needed. We didn’t have you know, all of the plans in place. There wasn’t adequate communication. You know, many would say someone’s advice, but many would agree in the places where there was better preparation than, you know, patients came in at hospitals were better able and States are better able to manage the inflow, where there was less planning, preparation, and alignment. It became more overwhelming, more quickly and more difficulty in suit. So I don’t know if that kind of helps you to understand the concept, but that’s, that’s kind of what I’m talking about.
Debs Jenkins (05:50):
So I love the word you use poised. So once you’ve done that, that slowing down work, you are then poised to go fast. So not falling forward, you are moving forward with control. And and few doesn’t talk to me a little bit because you know, this idea of slow down to speed up. It’s such a fantastic phrase. Talk to me about how you captured that intellectual perspective, that intellectual property, how you captured it and now how you use it to generate business.
Dr Liz Bywater (06:23):
Well you know, I honestly don’t remember exactly what the moment was that I came up with the title of the book, but conceptually just made sense to me because you know, so many people around me, including myself at times were just, you know, running around so quickly. I mean, literally at times, running from space to space, trying to get from meeting to meeting and, and get things done fast. And I kept thinking to myself, I need to slow down. My clients need to slow down, not get stuck in place, but just take a breath, reframe, get the right mindset, make sure we’re aligned, et cetera. Once I started writing the book actually I think what happened was, as I was writing the book, I was working with a potential publisher who had you know, I’ll give them credit, had this idea of really sort of separating out aspects of books.
Dr Liz Bywater (07:16):
So the first section was, you know, how does one slow down? Why is it important? What do we do? What are the risks of not slowing down? And then second half of the book really being a set of tools and a whole lot of guidance around, okay. Time to speed up. Here’s how you do it. And so you probably know I have all kinds of frameworks and tools. C I a, which is control, influence, accept, and adapt control the things in your universe that you can, don’t waste a lot of time, effort and energy on the things over which you don’t have control. And we can talk more about that. You know, tools for managing email overwhelm, you know, sort of some productivity stuff, but also strategic things, you know, thinking through what do you want to accomplish? How are you going to get there most rapidly, et cetera.
Dr Liz Bywater (08:02):
So some of that came in dialogue with a potential publisher for the book. So I give them lots of credit for that. That was really helpful. And as you know, as you and I talked about, I am way more effective when I’m in dialogue with other people. So when you and I have spoken, for instance, all of a sudden I feel engaged and creative and the thoughts start flowing for me personally, when I’m just sitting in front of my laptop or pad, it’s just, it’s a blank page phenomenon. I don’t, I’m not as creative that way. So I think it’s fantastic to work with others and think out loud and answer questions and ask questions and get other perspectives. Once we got all that in place and the book was published, then it was really about how do I take bits and pieces of what slow down to speed up entails and repurpose it in lots of ways that could be useful to many different clients at many different points in time.
Dr Liz Bywater (08:55):
So you know, created a set of tools. I think one is called the strategic leaders toolkit, and it’s a whole bunch of tools and frameworks from slow down to speed up. Some are just individual documents, like my accelerating success action plan. So really simple document, but it’s, it’s highly applicable and I can send it out to a client or posted on LinkedIn or put it on my website, write an article about it, create a case study, et cetera. All of these ways to get the information out there to bring people’s attention back to my profile on LinkedIn and my website and, you know, help people get access quickly to the materials and maybe pick up the book. I’ve used it in keynote addresses workshops with clients I’ve created, you know, booklets that I can distribute when I’m running a executive team offsite.
Dr Liz Bywater (09:49):
And so, and so there are a million ways I’ve been able to repurpose it for utilize the material you’ve helped me tremendously with that. So I thank you because you are far better at creating the visuals and capturing the individual aspects. And I personally am not my forte. So again, I think for me having somebody or people to work with to collaborate with, to be able to hand off the aspects of the material that I’m not best suited for. I mean, that’s part of slowing down to speed up too, by the way, is not trying to do everything yourself and call it, not me, you know, so creating beautiful graphics and PDF. That’s not, that’s not me. That’s a depths for instance. I don’t know if I’m answering the question, it’s too much detail.
Debs Jenkins (10:34):
No, that’s brilliant. And I’d like to just pull that pull on some of those little things as well. So for example, you talked about articles, case studies, keynotes workshops got a whole list, tool, kits tools. So the book is kind of became like the hub of all these extra assets that you created around the book that then kept drawing people back to you back to the book, back to your website, back to your profile. And so there wasn’t, I mean, cause it’s like the lots of people ask me, like a chicken and egg type thing. What do I do first? Or have a book? Do I have a toolkit? Do I have a methodology? Do I have a, so for you, what was there one thing that came first, was there ever a moment that something came first or did it evolve organically?
Dr Liz Bywater (11:21):
For me, it was more of an evolution now that can really vary. I think person to person, some people are very systematic in the way they work and that’s super helpful. I’m a little bit more, I’m talking about this. Like sometimes I just throw mud at the wall and the key is not to just let it stick there, but you gotta be a little bit more thoughtful. That’s sort of my Achilles heel is I try to do a little bit of everything at once. I think you have to know your personal style and respect if you’re somebody that does well to create you know, a checklist of, you know, this is the broad category of what I’m trying to accomplish. These are the different tentacles. These are the ways in which I can address it. And I want to do a and then B and then C then great.
Dr Liz Bywater (12:05):
I think that’s fantastic. You know, I’m not one to say you need to originally adhere to anything, but if that helps provide a framework and a structure, I think that’s great. I think for me, it was really the book first, what the book was built on the work I’ve already done and thinking of already, but I, you know, came together. I had a lot of conversations with some fantastic clients that I’ve worked with over time. The book includes some quotes and some case examples and amount of stories and so on from the work I’ve done with clients. And then at that point, because the book I wrote is very pragmatic and has a lot of tools in it. It actually became very easy to use it, to create all of these ancillary materials. And at some point I may pull together all of the additional material I created and all of the additional experiences I’ve had with clients and their successes and maybe create a version two of the book that has more, you know, the book you’ve seen it, it’s, it’s a small book.
Dr Liz Bywater (13:02):
It’s like not even a hundred pages. I’ve got it. I joke around it’s a little more than a medical pamphlet, you know, I mean, it’s not war and peace, but that’s on purpose because if I try to make it too big, when it would take me forever to get out there, I really just wanted to get important material out there quickly. And to the concept of slow down to speed up and it really encourages you not to do more work than you need to do to get the job done. You know, super briefly. You know, when I was pursuing my PhD, you know, the tail end was writing a dissertation and I could have written a dissertation that was in this big, or it could have written a dissertation that would this fit either way. When I walked out of my oral defense, they would call me doctor. I decided to go with this one. So, you know, it served the purpose. Well, sometimes you need to do all the work and you need to be super rigorous and sometimes you need to do the right work and get the job done. So again, long answer to your question, but hopefully addresses some of what you’re asking.
Debs Jenkins (14:07):
No, it’s a brilliant answer. One of the things I’m helping clients with at the moment is what I’m calling minimum valuable assets. So it’s the minimum thing you can do that adds value to, to the client, to the person that wants to read it. And it’s an asset to you. So it works while you are not working. So your tool kits are minimum valuable asset. Your book is a minimum valuable asset. It helps the reader get from a to B it’s there when you’re not there. So it’s an asset to you and it’s valuable it’s so yeah, small things. I think sometimes we get caught up in this this thought that we have to make something big or extravagant or complicated or convoluted when really what does, what you have to, I think go back to what does the reader or the viewer or the user need and want to know what they need, then you can create the minimum valuable asset for them. So I love what you, what you’re saying about how the book is small, but, but small, but mighty like us.
Dr Liz Bywater (15:04):
Exactly. That’s exactly right.
Debs Jenkins (15:08):
Okay. So one of the things you mentioned us dis knowing what things you’re good at and knowing when to pull in someone to help you with the things that you’re not so good at. So one of the things I find with lots of my clients, especially their solo businesses are solo consultants and trainers and mentors and keynote speakers. One of the things I find is it’s really, really hard to delegate some of the work. So how do you, how do you decide which bits are the bits that only you can do and which bits should you look for some help?
Dr Liz Bywater (15:45):
This it’s a good question. And it’s applicable exactly, as you say to people in solo consultancies, and it’s applicable to CEOs of large companies. I mean, it’s across the board. I should say it’s an exercise that I actually recently did with a client of mine a few months back where what we did was we took a whiteboard, a big whiteboard in his office. And I said, I’d like you to write down everything that you have on your, to do list for the next three months, you know, over the next quarter, what are the things that you need to get done? And he very quickly filled in the entire whiteboard and then kept going about what forgot this. And I forgot that everything from you know, things that have to be done for the board to various customer meetings, to things with employees, organizational work, et cetera, there’s an enormous amount there.
Dr Liz Bywater (16:32):
And I said, okay, now I want you to take a look at this and I want you to filter through the lens of me, not me. And so, you know, he circled all the things that he personally, as the CEO of the company needed to do, because it was within his immediate responsibility. And that was the expectations, for instance you know, being, getting in front of the board, you know, that needed to be him. What are the things that he was exceptionally good at? And it would actually be better and faster for him to do than to delegate. And again, also appropriate, you know, he wasn’t working out a level or two or three elsewhere in the organization. He was working at his level. And what are the things that maybe he really loved to do? And so they were energizing and not, not a distraction from the other things that needed to get accomplished.
Dr Liz Bywater (17:20):
So we circled all of those things for all the other things I said, okay, well, who gets all these other things? You know, like, so it’s me, not me who if we want to be super literal about it, but then, you know, so to whom do I delegate all of these other activities. So for people like you and me, it’s, we’ve made it’s delegation, or maybe we’re simply hiring out, right. I hire people to help me with my social media and with creating beautiful graphics. And, you know, I can, I can name a number of other things because either I’m just not good at it. I don’t care to do it. It takes me too much time. It SAPs me of energy. You know, and I, there are only so many hours in the day and there’s only so much energy any of us has for the work.
Dr Liz Bywater (18:06):
So you know, I think it requires a little bit of self reflection. I would just, literally, I would take a piece of paper. I mean, I’m kind of old school. I would take a pad and paper whiteboard that you can take out your laptop, write down everything that you do or need to get done. Think about what am I great at? What do I love to do? What absolutely would take me more time, effort, and energy to delegate than I want to simply get done myself, and be honest with yourself, don’t keep stuff because you’re afraid to let go. You know, you, cause that’s another thing, right? It’s very easy to say, I have to do everything because you know, it’s too hard to let go of the rates. Well, once you’ve done that, then you just, you have to hand things off. Otherwise you simply won’t be able to accomplish the important things.
Debs Jenkins (18:47):
Yeah. I think as well, what I’ve done recently, I pride myself in the system cause I’m in this category. I know I talk about my clients. I am in the second category where I just do everything for myself. I can do this, I can do this someday. So I hired an assistant and I pay her, even if I don’t delegate work to her. That for me is my way of making sure that I responsibly delegate because otherwise I’ll just, Oh, I can do it faster than I can delegate it. I can just quickly brush your hands and do it. And that means I’m not doing the things that only I can do, you know, the thinking or the coming up with stuff. So yeah, I use that’s my full fit. So if I don’t give a stuff to do, I have to pay her anyway. So it makes me, makes me delegate. It makes me pass the Baton on rather than thinking. I’m the only person in the world that can possibly do it
Dr Liz Bywater (19:40):
Well. And I think you make a good point Debs, which is you have to be able to trust the person that tune you’re delegating. So you have to have the right team around you. And again, this could be for people like make or solos or it can be for people working in large companies, there’s nothing more important than hiring people who are competent and engaged and willing and able to learn quickly. And with whom you can communicate, well, it doesn’t have to be someone who’s done the exact job prior, although that can be useful. But if you’ve got the right person in place it’s so much easier to delegate. I mean, I’ve had assistants over the years where it really has taken me two, three, four times the amount of time to hand work off as it would have been to simply try and do it myself because they weren’t a good fit for a variety of reasons.
Dr Liz Bywater (20:28):
It just wasn’t a right fit. But when you get the right people in place, it is a million times easier. So that’s also a little bit of slow down to speed up. It gives me time to get the right team around. You, tell them what you need, get clear on, you know, by when and how you’ll know that it’s done properly and all of that. Then you can go much faster because then you say, okay, you take this, you take this, you take this, thank you very much. And you know, it’ll come back to unwell.
Debs Jenkins (20:54):
Fantastic. And I loved your idea of just writing everything down on the board. I can, that I could imagine how cathartic that would feel to just get it all out of here, the chaos in your head and cathartic and probably quite scary.
Dr Liz Bywater (21:10):
Yes. Well it can be because you are saying, I am going to be willing to circle some of these things as I’m not me. And but, but here’s the, here’s the upside and I’ve seen this work where once that’s done and again, under the assumption that you have the right people in place for the handoff it becomes a way to track progress, to a sense to reward the people around you for a job well done. And to determine, you know, when do you not have the right team in place and how quickly can you move on that? Because if you determined that you don’t have the right setup, whether it’s your solo person, you’ve hired somebody to help you or your, you know, a CEO and you’ve got an executive team that’s not performing, you know, once you’ve done slowed down to do that assessment, you do have to move pretty rapidly to having a plan for that person or those people, because that will drag you down, that will slow you down in ways that are not positive and are not helpful.
Debs Jenkins (22:09):
Yeah. Yeah. I understand. Okay. I’d like to completely change subjects a little bit or not really, but you know, let’s, let’s think about some of the things. Okay. So one of the things you mentioned was constraints now I am a very, I’m very keen on constraints not that type, but you know, constraints in general. So boxing things time constraints, resource constraints, decide making decisions. How do you constrain as a solo? What you do in a day, for example, like, you know, how do you decide today? I am going to do blah, how do you decide?
Dr Liz Bywater (22:49):
Well you know, again, cause full confession. I am not the most systematic with this. I have gotten much better in part because I myself have worked with advisors and mentors and coaches who have given me just basically super straightforward tips, right? Blocking out periods of time. You know, maybe you’re deciding how early in the day you can get up. And I think for everybody that’s different. If you solo, you have a little more flexibility. So if you’re a person who doesn’t sleep well, and if you try to get up at six in the morning, you’re shot for the whole day, then don’t get up at six in the morning. You don’t get up when you feel refreshed enough that you can really go through your day and tackle it. For instance so, but you know, I decide for instance, this week is a pretty flexible week for me.
Dr Liz Bywater (23:32):
I mean, life is a little different these days than it was three months ago. I’m not traveling out to clients and so forth. It gives me a little more flexibility. But I knew today was going to be a day where I would have a lot of video and phone calls. You and I have our call. I recall, you know, in an hour I have a couple of minutes in the afternoon. And so I decided that that’s, this is mostly going to be a day for calls, maybe writing up a few things, maybe working on a newsletter. And I wanted to really keep myself focused on that tomorrow. I know I’ve got a whole bunch of administrative stuff that frankly I have been procrastinating on because I don’t like the history of stuff. It’s not fun for me, but it needs to get done.
Dr Liz Bywater (24:08):
And some of that’s personal sort of household stuff and some of that’s business stuff, but I’m blocking out, you know, a good section of the day to just do that. So I think about what’s most pressing what, you know, where there are deadlines. I think about, you know, what are, what’s actually most important for today’s priorities and today’s priorities may very well look different from priorities three months ago. We always need to be reassessing. That’s part of slowing down. Am I still working on the right things? Am I still aiming for the right outcomes? You know, what’s changed. But you know, so you think about what’s most pressing what’s most important. What are the things that you’re going to do at a later time or not at all? So, you know, I haven’t, this is a framework called navigator, never. What are the things that I have to get done today because I’ve promised it to a client or because you know, the bill has to get paid by Tuesday or I’ll have a wait charge or whatever it might be, you know?
Dr Liz Bywater (25:03):
What are the things that I have to get done now, if there are things that can and should get postponed that goes in the later category now later, and then never means sometimes you need to take things off. So if I wanted to write the next great American novel, but I’m not really that great of a creative writer and I’m really just focused right now on my, my clients and my business and my children and you know, helping kind of get through this sort of hectic phase of, of the world that we’re in right now. Then I probably going to put that great American novel into the never category. It doesn’t mean I can’t go back and revisit it at some point, but we all have to, I think diligently say, what’s now, what am I pushing off? What am I taking off my list altogether? Because again, there’s only so much time in the day. We only have so much energy and there are only so many things that really bring us good results and some happiness and satisfaction and success.
Debs Jenkins (26:02):
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Your slow down to speed up actually impacted my business life quite significantly. But six months ago I changed my working patterns. I have Fridays where I don’t take calls. So I blocked them out entirely. Don’t take those unless it’s an urgent one, but you know, they slip in every now and then, and Fridays are my F day. So it’s fix it if I’ve broken something, which I do frequently finish it because I often have tailed and things. Or if it’s, if I’ve not got any clients and I don’t have anything to finish, which never really happens, then I can have the day off it’s the day.
Dr Liz Bywater (26:41):
Yes.
Debs Jenkins (26:43):
Then did that more recently, the last, this year in 2020, and now I take one week of every month off from clients. So the last week of every month to finish jobs, because one of my big problems is tail trailing things that sponsor me along and I never get to tick them off, never get to take them off and they stay open in my brain. They stay neat. Torment me at four o’clock in the morning. So I take a week off not, and that was the slow down to speed up philosophy. And I just like, Hey, how can I implement this? How can I make it work for me? So I think what you said about, you know, if you’re a morning person get up at six o’clock, if you’re not don’t I think everybody has to find their own slow down to speed up routine.
Dr Liz Bywater (27:28):
Yes, yes. 100% agree with you because this really is a philosophy. It’s a mindset. It is a set of tools, but I, you know, I, I think, you know, I’m a psychologist by training and I think one of the things that makes life very difficult is an excess of rigidity. So if we are handed you know, here’s a formula, here’s a set of tools and you have to stick to it in this exact way. And this is why diets fail. Right? People you don’t want, weight Watchers were told you could fill in so many boxes and if it’s seven o’clock and you’re done with your boxes, okay. Deal with it for the next day. Right. And all of the diets, you can’t eat a single card or you’ll, you know, explode. I mean, there’s all of these stringent mandates that were given.
Dr Liz Bywater (28:14):
And some people really do quite well with the structure, but I think you’re right for each of us to reflect on how do we best work? What’s our personal style. Again, you, you know, you and I have worked so well together. And part of it is because, you know, you’re fantastic. And part of is because I love the back and forth dialogue. I liked the extemporaneous. Let’s just get into it, you know? So yeah know who you are, work with your strengths, work with your style. You know, I had a mentor. Tell me once, you know, if you try to go from your weakest point and pull yourself up to, you know, middle you’re spending a ton of effort and energy just to be mediocre. But if you start where you’re already strong and you want to get phenomenally good, it’s just a little extra effort to bump. And then you really, you know, as good as you possibly can be. So start up here, forget about these things that are dragging you down. That’s the stuff that you put on your never list or you give to somebody else
Debs Jenkins (29:13):
Love that. I love that. That’s brilliant. I’m going to ask you some different questions. Now, the question that I’m really enjoying asking people is when was the last time you did something for the first time?
Dr Liz Bywater (29:27):
Oh my gosh, last time I did something for the first time. That’s actually a very good and difficult question
Debs Jenkins (29:41):
Time.
Dr Liz Bywater (29:44):
I will tell you I will tell you something I did recently that wasn’t the first time, but it had been a very long time and I sort of forgotten how wonderful it felt to do. And it’s not a business thing. It’s a personal thing, but I was out for a walk with my kids at a local state park and they brought me to a trail that we’ve not taken before they take. And I, I had not taken. And as we continue to walk, the very end of the park ended up bordered on a horse farm. And I know you’re and you know, I love, I’m not, I’m not a horse back rider. I’ve written once or twice. I’m a bit of a freak yet. I absolutely love horses. And we went up to the farm and there was a horse reasonably close to the fence and we walked up and that horse looked at us and decided to come on over and say hello, Oh, I must’ve spent 20 minutes.
Dr Liz Bywater (30:35):
Just kind of like petting, you know, you can pet the kind of the side of their face there. And they just kind of love it or pet the nose. And it had been so many years, I mean, maybe 20 years since I’ve had that experience. And it’s such a small little thing. I felt great the rest of the day, I’m smiling, just thinking about it. So you know, I think to find things that bring us a spark and some joy and some newness to discover something that we either haven’t done for a long time or discover something brand new is really, really important to productivity, creativity, innovation, happiness, all of that good stuff.
Debs Jenkins (31:11):
Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Okay. So what are you working on right now? So is there anything new coming up having a new creation on its, on its gestation period? Or are you working on
Dr Liz Bywater (31:23):
Well, what I’m most focused on right now is really helping leaders and helping people in general navigate this really difficult period that we’re going through. So I’ve written probably eight, nine, 10 articles over the last month or two on leading through crisis. And I think it’s applicable. You know, the guidance that I’m giving is applicable really all the time, but especially important when you’ve got people who are uncertain adapting to circumstances, you know, people whose show up at the office every day or travel to clients and so forth are all trying to work productively. Many of them are trying to work productively from home with family around sometimes with small children, pets, other distractions, as well as the distraction of just the constant news flow of, you know, a lot of churn that’s going on in our society right now. So I’ve been writing a lot about leading through crisis and also helping people focus not only on the heads down, how do we get today, but how do we focus on what’s coming next?
Dr Liz Bywater (32:23):
Because we will get through this difficult time. Some things are already getting better and you can’t stay stuck. You have to start. This is kind of part of that slowing down to speed up, but it’s next phase. So maybe we’re not thinking about what comes in five years, but comes in three months and six months and a year from now. And how do we both anticipate where the challenges will be so we can get out ahead of them and how do we really create something create something new, you know, carve a new path and help bring people along with us. So those are the things I’m really focusing on right now.
Debs Jenkins (32:57):
Fantastic. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’re dying to tell me?
Dr Liz Bywater (33:07):
There’s nothing there’s nothing specific, but what I would say is this I’m really think part of being effective, whether you are, you know, a solo practitioner creating intellectual property new offerings, a book, or you are an executive in a large company or anywhere in between. I really think it’s so essential that part of getting the right things done includes taking care of yourself. So having the right enriching, rewarding, social connections eating well, getting enough sleep, not being proud that you can get through a night after night on three to four hours. And then, you know, still, you know, get out ahead of the game because there are very few people who can actually function at their best that way. You know, getting out, getting some fresh air, you know, things that seem fundamental and basic, but we often neglect when we get overwhelmed and busy, very, very important. And right now, when life is especially challenging for so many people it’s, it’s incredibly important to, to do a little self care.
Debs Jenkins (34:10):
Yeah. Yeah. We love that. Okay. So you’ve mentioned lots of your tools as we’ve been talking, I’ve made some notes may not meet through CIA now later. Never. How can we get hold of these tools is how do we, how could we get hold of these?
Dr Liz Bywater (34:27):
Oh, there are several ways. So folks can go to my website, which is simply my name, LizBywater.com. And there’s a lot of free tools there, articles and videos and PDFs, and free chapter to the book and a way to get the book, the books also available on Amazon. And, you know, you can just look up, slow down to speed up lead, succeed, and thrive in a 24, seven world. And then we’ll find those materials. There are free materials on my LinkedIn profile, which is I believe it’s just Liz Bywater, right? Deb suggested you’ve helped me set these things up. Actually, if anyone would like a little bit more direct help, feel free to just send me an email is liz@lizbywater.com and be happy to have a conversation.
Debs Jenkins (35:10):
Thank you. Thank you Liz for your time. And it’s been wonderful today to speak to you, speak to you soon.
Dr Liz Bywater (35:15):
Thanks. That’s take care of yourself, be safe, stay well,