The Discipline of Slowing Down | Between The Builds

Chris Fay: Welcome to built with purpose. am Chris Faye and this is the show where vision meets execution and leadership leaves a legacy from design studios to innovation hubs and product lines to skylines. We need the people building more than great companies. They're creating culture, driving impact and shaping what's next. These are the stories and strategies behind how the world gets built with purpose. All right, hey everybody, welcome to built with purpose. Today is another episode of between the builds. ⁓ great conversation this past week with John Uprichard. He's a friend of mine. And honestly, one of the, one of the coolest things that I get to do is to actually interview people that live in my hometown. So I live in Greenville, South Carolina. It's funny. I was born in Florida. grew up in Atlanta and moved to Greenville. And I think that's as far north as I'm going to go. If anything, I'm going to go closer. closer to the coast and spend a little bit more time at the beach at some point in my life, but I've gotten a long way to go in that regard. But it's cool to interview folks that are here local. And so I've known John for a number of years, a great entrepreneur, a great business owner. And what's really interesting about listening to John's story is they lead a business purpose-built around people, fine, great people, the name of their organization. And as I was reflecting back on some of the key things that I took out of that conversation, number one, I didn't know John was in the Navy. I mean, I've known the dude for let's call it 15 years. And for the first time, I found out that he was in the armed forces. So, you know, it's always interesting when you get a chance to talk to people in a little bit of a different light, what you can actually learn from them. And so that was that was pretty cool. You know, and then if you listen to the episode last week, John talked about the shopping cart, and I went home and I told my kids and I told my wife about this idea of the shopping cart of, you know, when I when I am at the grocery store, I finish up with a shopping cart. ⁓ Do I bring it ⁓ back to the little buggy carrier or do I take it or do I leave it right in the parking lot or do I take it into the store? And so what's funny is I went to the store, actually went to the store after that conversation. Buddy, I took that cart all the way back in the, all the way back in and it was lot of fun. But had some really cool leadership moments with him. One thing that stuck out to me is the word that he was using around fitness. I have a really good friend that talks about running financial fitness in his business. John talked about running fitness in their business and just the way that you think about running your organization, the way that you think about running your team. And if you think about executing your company, your team, your organization, whatever it is that you lead with a certain level of fitness, it starts bringing a little bit of a different lens in how you're doing that. And so right now, like in our organization, we're going through massive change. We've got mergers and acquisitions happening, bringing new team members in and some team members out and, you know, bringing ⁓ systems together. And, you know, I start thinking about this word fitness and I'm like, golly, like we have so much that we can be working on to improve the fitness of our organization. And, you know, you know, one thing I always talk about is really focusing on the one thing. Like, what is that one thing? And when you start looking at all the areas of your business or team or or group or organization that you can improve. Oftentimes you can get a little bit overwhelmed with everything that you can improve. And so it's very important to kind of come back to that one thing and focus on the thing that moves the needle the most. So anyway, some great conversations with John, I would encourage you go back and listen if you haven't listened to it. But that's actually not the Between the Builds episode that I decided to talk about today. So today, as we all know, we're going through we're getting ready to enter into summer vacations. I mean, I've got people that were out last week. They're out next week. They're out the week the week following We've got kids, you know dealing with ⁓ end of school You know graduations and all the things that are going on and so today my eighth grader So I have an eighth grader and a sophomore in high school soon to be ninth and junior year And so today was my eighth graders graduation from ⁓ eighth grade moving on to moving on to high school And so I have been just, you know, I'm super open and honest with the people that I work with and you probably get probably more than you want out of me. ⁓ But you know, it's been it's been a pretty hectic number of months, you know, here inside of our organization, just with all the changes that are going on, you know, managing the podcast, which is which is a blast for me. ⁓ And and just everything that we're trying to do in the business has been it's been tough. It's been it's been hard. And and you know, I mentioned this This Galatians quote, think last time that we spoke or maybe it's in a previous one around just continuing to do the right things and reaping a harvest so long as you don't give up. And that word do not give up keeps just resonating in my mind as I'm going through the changes that we're working on in our company to ultimately make ourselves significantly better on the other side. But it's hard. It's tough. It's stressful. I was up this morning at 4am. I was pounding away on the laptop trying to get stuff done. I've got to travel next week. You know, I felt a little bit disconnected from my family and my friends because I've been so kind of locked in. And so today was a beautiful day. I'm like plowing on stuff this morning. We're trying to get a big RFP out the door. We're working on all sorts of stuff inside of the business. And at 1230, I go to my son's chapel service for him to graduate from eighth grade. And so I walk in and what was really funny, I was laughing at my wife, but I actually really appreciate her doing this. So my wife and I oftentimes communicate schedules on our Outlook calendar, right? So if it's like my Outlook calendar is where I live and die by, if you want to know where I'm at at any minute, you got to check my Outlook calendar. And so she puts this eighth grade chapel on my calendar from 1230 to 130. So man, it is like 1220, I am hauling butt. trying to get to the school. I'm like, man, I'm gonna be late. I'm gonna walk in all these kids are gonna be there. The parents are gonna be set up and here I come, you know, running in last minute. And I pull in the parking lot. And like there's room in the parking lot. There are still people walking in and I walk in I walk into the chapel and the chapel is like half half ⁓ full and I'm like, what is going on here? So I sit down next to my wife at 1230 right at 1230 on time. And I'm like, did this not start at 1230? Like what's going on? Why what and she's like, It actually starts at 1250, but I knew that if I put it on your calendar at 1230, you would actually be here on time and you'd be prepared when the thing started. And so like we had a good little laugh about it. We had some friends that were there with us, but you know, honestly, I needed the break. I needed a minute to take a step back and to relax without my phone, without phone calls, and just to spend a bit of time. And we're in this beautiful chapel. We just kind of chilled for a bit, you know 10 15 20 minutes while we waited on the kids to come in kids come in We'll watch my son go, know receive his he get they give him a little necklace and and Does that and then you know get to see some friends and hang out and I know I've got all sorts of stuff in the afternoon man I'm like I got meetings and calls and things I got to follow up on and and Recording today's podcast want to make sure I get this wrapped up But for that moment I had like an hour an hour and 20 minutes of just some calm and almost forced calm in the middle of a very chaotic day. And I had a chance to spend just a little bit of quiet time with my wife. I was able to see my son. I saw my other son as well. He came and hung out, got to experience this chapel service. You know, we prayed and we sung songs and we kind of just had a chance to take a step back. And so that is my thought and my challenge for each of you all today. Each of us are going through different things. And one thing that I know, For a fact, because I lead a business with over 100 people inside of the company, everybody has something. Everybody has something going on in your lives. Personal, professional, physically, with a family member, like we all got stuff. And if you don't, you're going to have something coming around the corner. And we're all working so hard. There's pulls with family, there's pulls with friends, there's pulls with work, there's phone calls to make and responsibilities, there's bills to pay. There's all these things in our lives. But the value of taking time to just set back in the middle of a day and to just be silent and still and to appreciate what's going on with your family in the middle of a chaotic day was such an impactful time for me. And so I thought about that as going into next week. I'm like, how do I make sure this happens again? And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna plan some time. I'm gonna plan whether it's a lunch, I'm gonna get out of my office, because I typically eat lunch at my desk or with somebody. is maybe just get out and grab a sandwich and go sit in the park. Just get outside in nature or go to church on Sunday and just take a minute to relax our time. how often do we actually take intentional time and intentional steps to pause in the middle of our chaotic day? You might get up in the morning and you might want to spend a little bit of time to meditate or to pray or to just have coffee and chill. At nighttime, when everybody goes to bed, you might want to take a little bit of time just to relax, whether you're reading a book or watching a bit of TV. You might want to take a break in the middle of the day. But one of the things that I know is in order to lead teams, it's a hard job, man. It is a hard job leading teams, leading a company, know, setting the example, setting the pace and the tone. But I'm always a better leader after I've had rest. I'm, always thinking more clearly. I'm always more focused. I'm refreshed and ready to go. One of the companies that we just purchased, the CEO who's now a part of our organization, he just took a vacation and he came back and obviously come back to this chaos, he was refreshed and recharged. But if we don't intentionally plan those moments, you will go through life and realize that you're just grinding every single day. So that's my challenge for you. You listen to this podcast, I want you to open your calendar up and I want you to schedule at least 30 minutes. If not one hour in the next three to five days for just a reset time for you. Don't be on social media. Don't do all this stuff. Take some time. Go for a walk. Go have lunch by yourself somewhere. Put your phone down. Go to church. Wake up in the morning and just kind of chill and have some coffee by yourself. Get up early. Stay up a little bit late, but find that time that you can just stop and pause and reflect and chill and recharge. You don't need a full vacation. It's amazing what a 30 minute or a one hour window can do in the middle of your day, in the middle of a chaotic time. So that's your challenge. That's what you got to do. You got to leave the podcast. You got to go schedule it, put it on your calendar and schedule it and make that thing a reoccurring invitation for yourself, whether it's on a weekly basis or a monthly basis to reset and recharge. And I promise you, I promise you, you will be a better leader. You will be a better human. You will be happier. more refreshed, recharged, and ready to go out there and build with purpose. So with that, I hope you guys have a great day. We have some awesome guests coming around the corner. I'm getting ready to record a really cool podcast on Monday with an amazing CEO leader, another podcast getting ready to launch next week with a great friend and mentor of mine, my coach, if you will. And so really excited for that and hope you all have an amazing time and make sure to take that reset. Have a great day. Okay, thanks for joining me on Built With Purpose. If you have enjoyed today's episode, subscribe, share, and leave us a review. It helps more bold leaders find the show. For resources and show notes, visit our website and connect with me, Chris Faye, on LinkedIn. Until next time, keep building great companies, cultures, and legacies with purpose.