Speaker 2: 0:03

This is the Rebel HR podcast, the podcast about all things innovation in the people's space. I'm Kyle Rode. Let's start the show. All right, welcome back, rebel HR community. I am going to be extremely excited about this conversation. Today With us we have Peggy Sullivan. She is a busyness addict and author of the brand new book available now Beyond Busyness how to Achieve More by Doing Less. She is also a consultant and speaker, and we are going to talk all about how to achieve more by doing less today. Peggy, thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 1: 0:43

I'm excited to be here. New year, new possibilities.

Speaker 2: 0:48

New year, new you. Everybody's saying that and it's funny, you know. I think the recording of this podcast is timed fairly appropriately. I have a feeling many of us are trying to find balance and that, in some way, shape or form, is some of the resolutions that we've made for 2025. Certainly, that's some of my goals, but I think so often we talk about that, we talk about, we throw around these terms like work-life balance, and we talk about terms like you know, focusing on what matters, but then we all fall back into these patterns of just doing what we're used to doing, the inertia of staying busy, and so that's why I think your book is really, really powerful and I want to dive into this topic today. So I want to start off with kind of the general question what motivated you to write a book about busyness and how to change our perspective on being busy?

Speaker 1: 1:47

busyness and how to change our perspective on being busy. I started a nonprofit about 10 years ago. I worked in corporate America and worked for very large companies, had many, many successful jobs, traveled the world, made great money, and at the end of that I took care of my ailing father and I wanted to figure out, after he died, what I could do, what was my legacy, what was I going to do back to the world? And so I started off with market research, because I'm a research geek and that's where everything begins from my perspective. So I asked a couple of thousand people what's your biggest challenge? And it kept on coming back I don't have time for what's important. So it became very interesting to me that people were looking for a how-to guide, that they knew where they were at and what they were doing. Traditional time management wasn't working. And as I started writing the book, I started realizing that my whole life was a series of raise the bar, run hard, run fast, do more cha-ching success. Raise the bar, run hard, do fast, cha-ching, you know. And I wasn't really looking at the price tag that it would cost me. I wasn't looking at happiness. I wasn't looking at at you know, things that really lit me up the small things, the everyday things.

Speaker 1: 3:20

So about 10 years ago I started off on this journey to really figure out how to not be so busy and how not to be a busyness addict. And I think the first thing is just getting right past the fact that busyness is an addiction, even though the American Medical Association does not acknowledge it. An addiction is anything that keeps you from doing what you should be doing, what you need to be doing, what you want to be doing, and for me it's an addiction. I can't help myself. You know it's like crossing a leg my left foot goes over my right every single time. I don't even know why I'm doing it single time. I don't even know why I'm doing it. So what I found out was that the addiction is complicated. But really there's a process that you can use to mitigate the addiction that works beautifully in the organizational environment as well as for individuals, and it's just as simple as one, two, three and you know, step number one in my busy busting process is about subtraction.

Speaker 1: 4:30

We just don't spend too much time on low value activities. We just do. You know, whether it's looking at email for five minutes and that five minute turns into 10, or maybe we'll multi-casting, but it's actually taking us three times as much time, you know, or maybe we're letting interruptions in. The other day, my husband's like I was working on this budget, I'm so into it. My husband's like do you have a minute? And I knew, I knew that if I said yes, that would be the end. But sure enough, I said yes and that took me a half an hour to figure out what formula I was working on and where I left off. And so there are lots of reasons why we spend time on low value activities, but most of them are habitual. So I worked with dozens of HR people and some industrial psychologists to identify 21 areas in which we commit this type of self-sabotage, and I developed this tool that I call the busy browser and a test for all of these. And so, really, step one is, you know, getting rid of your low value activities so you have time for what's important.

Speaker 1: 5:51

Step two in the process gets back to happiness and how. Happiness is a superpower, because when we're happy, our brain lights up, they send us endorphins and we actually focus more, we're clear-headed, we're healthier, we live longer, we're just in a better mood. So we tend to think oh, happiness is a definite thing. I'm going to be happy when I get the promotion, I'm going to be happy when I get married, when I have a baby, but we don't think about happiness as micro moments we create. So step two is about creating micro moments on frigging day long to just ignite your happiness muscle, and it could be something as small as I am a rock star, or it could be something that I do every day. At 11 am, I pop three pieces of dark chocolate into my mouth, I close my eyes and I moan with delight, and that is just a crazy thing I do, but it resets me.

Speaker 1: 6:59

And then step three, which is probably the hardest stuff to do, is really using your values as a filter for every decision you make. So you really have to get in tune with one of your values. What's most important? And because I'm a research geek and I started talking a lot about values, every time I talk to a group asking people what are your values, they look at their neighbor or they Google that, and so I got curious about what are the values that equate to happiness and fulfillment, and what I learned is actually that there are four. One of them is energy management, then there's growth, then there's growth, then there's authenticity.

Speaker 1: 7:51

And then the fourth value that it ignites is what did I say? Energy, human connection. How can I forget human connection? Because when we're busy we tend to put human connection on the back burner. And you know, like our Surgeon General said, you know there's loneliness epidemic. One in every 10 people are lonely on a weekly basis, one in every three on a daily basis, and it's equivalent to smoking 12 cigarettes a day. So you know, it's really for me as easy as one, two, three eliminate this low value stuff. Make sure you're doing things that make you happy, tiny little things that don't cost time or money. And then, three, get in touch with your values, really get in touch with them, and then keep yourself honest. I can go values report card and uh, you know I am not flowing. When there's a value I'm not flowing on, then I'll focus on it for the next couple of days.

Speaker 2: 9:00

Yeah, yeah, I, I mean sound advice and I think, um, as I hear that it all makes so much sense, but just because it makes sense doesn't mean it's easy, right, or it sounds simple Like, yeah, I should connect with other people, but the actual practice is more difficult, and I think so many people struggle with this, and so I know that you did a significant amount of research as you were writing this book and just in general in your day-to-day practice. So can you share with us some of your findings and some of the research that you think would be particularly interesting for this group?

Speaker 1: 9:42

I just crunched the numbers on last year's research, so this is all fresh out of the press, but 75% of individuals find self-care like giving a good night's sleep a challenge. 79% of working individuals struggle to identify their priorities. 80% of the population feels stressed, overwhelmed and struggles with mental health. 79% have lost a sense of purpose. They're why 74% struggle to make meaningful connections and 83% of people-task is their core strategy to get their work done. So those are pretty startling.

Speaker 1: 10:31

And I get back to this one, two, three, because you really need to eliminate low-value activities If you're going to find time for things that have more meaning. You have to eliminate the unimportant and you have to know what it is. You have to eliminate the unimportant and you have to know what it is and you have to set a plan. You know, I often, you know, tell a story about a friend of mine who was a single mother, lives down the street and raises three children all under 10 on her own and also is a CFO for a very large international company. So she's in the state of time poverty all the time. And she was like, oh my God, there's no time for self-care. And I'm like, okay, you know what? Let's start off small. Can you find 15 minutes a day? Just 15 minutes? Do one thing.

Speaker 1: 11:26

So she started off by getting 15 minutes up earlier so that she could have some peace and quiet. She did that for a week and she found, okay, I have to do both. A micro step. And then the next week she decided wow, I'm going to take 15 minutes at work and I'm going to actually take a lunch. I always eat at my desk. I'm going to take a lunch and feel the sun on my face. She did that. She realized how much more productive she was. And then the thing that she did that helped her the most was the 15 minutes she did before she went to bed. Instead of doing her to-do list, which was her habit, she counted her blessings and what she was grateful for.

Speaker 1: 12:06

So there are all these little micro steps that you can do that get you a little closer. And then you're like, yeah, this works. So I'm going to do it again, and for me it feels a lot better to be healthier, happier and productive than the alternative, that hamster wheel that I call busyness, and I fall back into it all the time. I mean, I get into time, I'm about to launch a frigging book and so there's lots to do and I stop myself and I remember the one, two, three. What's not important. You know, do these happiness rituals and you know what values are you ignoring and focus on them. And it really got to tell you anybody I've ever coached, every workshop I've ever walked into. Everybody says they're happier, healthier, but so much more important. They're more productive, they're getting more done in less time, and that's what really lights us up. Well, we can get good stuff done and feel good about it and aligns with who we are and what we want, and if a win for the organization, that's a win.

Speaker 2: 13:22

Yeah, yeah, it's. You know I, first of all, I guess, maybe before I jump in, I have so many questions, yeah, and before we hit record, I mentioned like this is like so important for me, like this is literally like a book for me, um, and so you know I, I use that, but I use that excuse a lot I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. I got CHRO, I got to do this stuff, I got three kids, I got all these things going on and trying to find five minutes to meditate, 20 minutes to meditate no way, right. But the reality is it's so. Much of this is about, you know, it's about prioritizing what actually matters and being aware of these patterns and habits. But I want to talk about the term that you used, because I like this term, this term time poverty. So what is time poverty and why do so many of us struggle with it?

Speaker 1: 14:17

You know, I mean, normally, when we think about poverty, we think about, you know, lack of resources, you know, lack of wealth. But time is something that we all, 95% of people don't believe they have enough time in their day to get done what they want to get done. So that's a problem. And so, you know, just acknowledging that we're all in a state of time, poverty, we don't have enough time, and that busyness is a catalyst, because busyness, we're in a hustle society. You know, every time we get something down like that, a hit of adrenaline. You know, that doctor is so busy I can't see him for six months. He must be good.

Speaker 1: 15:03

All of this mentality is like hustle, hustle, hustle. The more you hustle, the better you do. You know, and all the statistics show that it's not about the hustle, it's about focus and concentration, and so it's a very, it's a huge shift in our paradigm for people. I mean, we all love social media. It's so much fun. Go on social media, see what your friends are doing. Gosh, I looked last this morning and one of my best friends went to a bowling party and I started scrolling. It's like, oh my God, look who's there. And then, before I knew it, I'm like nope, this is a low value activity, this is not what I need to be doing today. Done, and it really becomes a discipline and it becomes a practice. And you know, that's why I do so many workshops with so many managers, so that it can, you know, they can learn how to do it. They all of a sudden see how well it's working and then they kind of really try to promote it within their teams and their groups, because what happens is productivity goes up all of a sudden.

Speaker 1: 16:20

I mean, I tell this story about this guy I used to work with at Blue Cross and Blue Shield. His name was Randy and he was the biggest go-getter of all and he was CMO and he was always being promoted and he had this great, big, huge opportunity, so psyched to do it, going to definitely get it done, and time got away from him and he realized he had a deadline, so he pulled everybody in his, in his group, into a conference room and said we're gonna work until we get this sucker done. And it was the middle of winter in buffalo, new york, and about two hours later there's a knock on the door saying there's a snowstorm. You cannot see two inches in front of you there's a driving ban and Randy's like this is great, we're going to get this done, I'm so excited. But then he looked around the room and he realized how worried and exhausted his team was, and then he started to think about how important human connection was and he had this aha moment that we're not going to work on this project, we're just going to connect as human beings. I'm going to learn more about these people that are sitting across the table. So they all went around and they laughed and they cried and they told jokes and they hugged and, lo and behold, his departmental performance went up 11% in 31 days. 11% their performance metrics. So you know, the metrics don't lie, the metrics tell the truth. And once you give it a whirl, you try, you see how the metrics work. It's like this makes sense.

Speaker 1: 18:02

And I'm not a rocket scientist, I'm not the smartest of smart people, but for me, I need process, I need to like when I'm in the thick of it, I'm like okay, what can I eliminate? What happiness thing can I do right here, right now? You know, I just gave my first 10X and I got nervous and then I went right before I got up on scale. I was. I was crazy nervous. I got so nervous I I forgot my words and I freaked out and I thought to myself I gotta do something really fun right here, right now, get out of my own head. So I did a handstand. I love doing handstands. I love being upside down. I did a handstand. People are looking at me like what the heck is this woman doing?

Speaker 1: 18:50

I get a morphine rush. All the nerves are gone. I walk up on stage and I have fun.

Speaker 2: 18:58

I love it. Side note disclaimer to the podcast audience if you're not comfortable doing handstands, I don't recommend you do that on a regular basis, but Peggy is qualified evidently to me that we get into this hustle and bustle and you see these, you know like, you use social media. So it's a great example of this, right Like, you see these influencers and everybody looks like they're just going a million miles an hour and everybody's doing all these amazing things. But you get sucked in this trap of thinking that you have to be constantly on and running full, full speed and you forget to do the things that really matter to you. Right Like, connect with you, know you're, you're the people that you care about in your life, or you know, or, or protect your, your, your energy, or take care of yourself, or you know, go to the gym or have five minutes of peace and quiet, and so I think it's such a valuable framework and so easy for us to lose sight of. So you know, the statistics are startling. I mean, you know, what I heard is we're struggling. We are struggling as a society, as employees, and I also like. For me, this just makes perfect logical sense, and I've gone through a lot in my personal life, kind of an awakening that, hey, this busyness isn't the right thing for me. All the time it ruined my personal relationships and I was lonely as I could possibly be.

Speaker 2: 20:53

And I'm curious what recommendations would you have for us who are in an HR profession? Our job is to help our companies and I think what I'm struggling with is I can't go to my company and be like everybody's got to stop working too much. We have, since the beginning of our careers, we've been coached to stay productive. You've got to stay focused all the time. Every minute's got to be accounted for, you know. You got to make sure that people are people. But what you're saying is essentially that that's not right. Right, that being too busy or being, you know, being so focused on filling the time actually makes us less productive. So what advice do you have for us that are? Maybe we understand this topic, it makes sense to us, but we've got to like convince others to be thinking in these terms. What would you tell us?

Speaker 1: 21:50

What I love to do is I love to walk into a company and say take this busy barometer, find out what your employees are doing. What's the corporate culture, what are your low value activities? Let's run a workshop and let's eliminate those, a couple of things. And hey, you know, by the way, can we throw in a little bit about happiness, rituals and what I call values vibing? And they always say yes, so I go in there and we do this, and then I'm like at the end okay, so how do you measure success here? You know, in your department, what are your metrics? And we'll share the metrics and then I'll go back in a month or two and say, okay, how do your metrics look? And they'll be like crap. My metrics have improved.

Speaker 1: 22:36

I'm like statistics don't lie. So you know, if people will just give me a little bit of time and kind of try something a little out there, and oh, by the way, we're going to have a ton of fun. Everybody in that room is going to be laughing and enjoying themselves and the paradigm of work and play and fun, it's just all. The boundaries are going to be crossed because this is your life and you're going to spend eight, nine, ten hours. You're going to be having fun and you'd better enjoy it, um. So I always say to people take the busy barometer. Um, and I give it to people free, but I don't give them all the answers on how to eliminate their busyness. But you know it starts with data and once you see that you are not, you are like everybody else and you know I go into corporations some of the improvement stats, they're startling, they're really startling, yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:44

Yeah, yeah, I think it's. I know you used the term addiction earlier. It's almost a disease.

Speaker 2: 23:55

As I see it, what I've observed, certainly and I've worked in the Fortune 500 organization actually a very similar kind of story to yours, organizations, similar, actually, very similar kind of story to yours, um, but, um, you know, you see these people and they it's almost, they almost look sick, right, they're, they're, they're sick with worry, they're, they're sick with, like, like, staying focused, like as an hr person, I I can, honestly, the minute I walk into a room, usually people who are, like, struggling with this get really nervous because they think I'm there to like audit how busy they are or audit productivity or judge them for how hard they appear to be working. But it's not really, it's like it's not helpful. And I you know my personal opinion and experience is as an HR professional or a senior leader in general to get people to slow down a little bit can actually help them make significantly better decisions and just get them to relax a little bit, like, hey, let's think about it. I love humor.

Speaker 1: 25:10

I love to tell funny little stories to people, make them laugh.

Speaker 2: 25:14

I love that.

Speaker 1: 25:16

And kind of illustrate the point. I mean, I had a wake-up call one time. You know, I was working for a healthcare company in the Medicare field and they had changed a lot of regulations and I needed to redo absolutely everything I've been working on for the last 30 days and get it done in two weeks. So it was like holy cow. This is a really hard, hard, hard thing, right? So I'm working all the time. I'm a single mother. I come home from work and I am ravenous. I haven't eaten. So I go into the cupboard and find anything to eat and I find this stale bag of pistachio nuts and I chop them down and I feel this pulling on my leg and I look down as my cat dazzles, saying I haven't eaten in a couple hours either. So I throw him some kibbles and I go lie on the couch and I wake up and I hear this cat noise and I look up and it's my cat throwing up pistachio nuts. And I look down and I realize I just ate cat food for dinner.

Speaker 2: 26:20

Oh no, I didn't even realize that.

Speaker 1: 26:22

Oh, you know it's crazy the things that we do, because we're in this rainfall, this mindless haze. I mean, how many times have you forgotten where your car is? How many times have you forgotten where your glasses are, where your keys are? I lose my keys all the time and it's just a reminder that you're not focused. You know you need to be focused. So I think people need to begin to not feel shame and guilt about their busyness because, hey, it's a hustle society, it's what we're taught.

Speaker 1: 26:56

Busyness is good, it's a status symbol, and really what we need is the tools. And your busyness is probably different than somebody else's busyness and that's why there isn't a one size fits all. That's why I really believe we roll up our sleeves and we find out what you're over the top busy on, make you aware of it, and then one micro step, one tiny little change, like my friend did with 15 minutes. She had no time for self-care and then you know, at the end of four months she's spending 45 minutes a day on herself, which was like unimaginable to her. But she's healthier, she's happier, and then she's like okay. Well, you know, she did that about six months ago and she's like okay, now I'm going to go for an hour a day for me, and what are we gonna do? Fun with that extra 15 minutes. And you start to see how magical it is and you're like this, this stuff, it's like fairy dust, it's like magic dust.

Speaker 2: 28:01

It just you'll do it, it works, and then you'll do it again absolutely, and I think you know, I, I, you know, I I've had, I haven't eaten cat food. I'm going to put that out there. That's thankfully, but I don't have cats, so I haven't had the opportunity to eat cat. Of the more humanistic jobs, like we're paid to think and we're paid to help people, and if we aren't helping ourselves and we're not like having good decision-making capability, we're not taking care of, like our ability to connect, reflect, you know, have a little bit of fun. Oh my gosh, how dare us, you know, how dare we talk about having fun at work, like, like, what are we doing? You know what I mean. Like, like, like, what would you say you do here? Yeah, and, and so I, just, I, I love the, I, I love the framework, I love the, I love that you put this into tools and that it's not overwhelming, right, you know? Because, to go back to our conversation on time poverty, what you're really talking about just carving out a little bit, right, and starting to change habits, and that's really where, like all the research, that's where the change actually happens, right, it's these little kind of micro things that we do that eventually add up to a big change over time, right? And so one last call again to the listeners there.

Speaker 2: 29:35

The book is available now. Go out, click into the podcast show notes. The book again is Beyond Busyness how to Achieve More by Doing Less. With that, we're going to shift into the Rebel HR flash round. Are you ready?

Speaker 1: 29:52

Got it.

Speaker 2: 29:53

All right, perfect. Question number one when do we need to rebel?

Speaker 1: 29:59

Oh, I color outside the lines all the time. I think it's just really a fun thing to do, so I rebel in any way that feels comfortable for me. You know I'll eat ice cream for dinner. You know I'll be the one who stops drinking for three years. I, I, I just like doing new and different things and seeing how they feel. So you know, to me, coloring outside the lines is what makes my blood boil, which is a good thing.

Speaker 2: 30:33

Well, I love it. I'm the same way. I'm like every once in a while I just get bored. I'm like I'm just going to try this weird random diet. Like I went vegetarian for a year. I'm like I'm just going to see if I can do it and see what it does, and then I stopped because I'm like okay, I'm bored with this now. So I think we're wired similarly in that regard.

Speaker 1: 30:55

Question number two who should we be listening to? Well, I'm a big Mel Robbins fan, and she said a couple of things over the years that have stuck with me. And one of the things that she says is nobody's coming here to save you, you need to save yourself. And she said something on the Maria Shriver podcast I think it was two weeks ago that resonated with me so much and it was like I'm finally letting myself feel a sense of pride. I'm thinking to myself you're freaking, mel Robbins. What You're not proud. I mean, like you've been on Oprah, you've done all these. How can you? And it just made me realize that you know, the self-sabotage that we all do to ourselves is exactly that. So I'm a big Mel Robbins fan and oh yeah, by the way, she endorsed my book. I was the person that ran out in the middle of the street literally when I got her endorsement. It was like at one in the morning. And I'm like Mel, my blank Robbins, just endorsed my book.

Speaker 1: 32:07

And like somebody turns on the lights and comes outside like what the heck is going on? And something on fire and I'm like, oh no, no. Mel robbins just endorsed my book I love it.

Speaker 2: 32:18

I love it, yeah, and I, I'm a, I also. I follow mel robbins as well and just absolutely, you know wonderful content, yeah, and it's great, great point like, yeah, if mel robbins struggles with imposter syndrome from time to time or feeling accomplished, then my gosh, what a little old me you know doing. But I think, yeah, and congratulations, by the way, on that endorsement, that's amazing. And yeah, just really appreciate the time that you spent with us here, peggy, and appreciate you putting this content out there. Last question how can our listeners get their hands on the book and how can they connect with you to learn more about the work that you do?

Speaker 1: 33:02

Yeah, I mean they can connect with me on LinkedIn or go right to my website, peggysullivanspeakercom. I love meeting new people, I love helping people, I love shifting the paradigm and making people look good. So if you give me a chance, I think you'll find that together we could do pretty amazing things. And it's about we. It's not the power of me. It's about igniting the possibility within ourselves, our teams, everybody around us.

Speaker 2: 33:34

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Open up your podcast players. We will have all of those links in the show notes. Get your hands on the book and connect with Peggy Peggy. Thank you so much for joining me here today and thank you for the work that you do.

Speaker 1: 33:52

You are quite welcome.

Speaker 2: 33:55

All right, that does it for the Rebel HR podcast. Big thank you to our guests. Follow us on Facebook at Rebel HR podcast, twitter at Rebel HR guy, or see our website at RebelHumanResourcescom at RebelHRGuy, or see our website at RebelHumanResourcescom. The views and opinions expressed by Rebel HR Podcast are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any of the organizations that we represent. No animals were harmed during the filming of this podcast.

Speaker 1: 34:25

Baby.