“How can I build in some little alarm bells or little things that prevent a disaster from happening? That is also being more at peace because we're all busy, right? And I don't think we can’t just decide we're not going to be busy anymore, especially not you with your free children. It's like, it's not working. Right? But how can we make it a bit easier?” - Conny Graf
Joe Casabona: Sometimes the stars align, and everything you do in a day leads to a perfect moment of serendipity. That's what happened here, though not really in a good way.
See, Conny Graf, who helps people find peace from chaos, was my last recording in a full day of meetings. I was all over the place. I was having trouble focusing or even figuring out what we were going to talk about. Kanye helped me take a beat and gave me a moment to find my bearings. We were able to turn that energy into a great show because I was experiencing the chaos, and she was helping me find peace, and that's exactly what you'll get in today's episode. Plus, for members, I tell them everything that led up to this chaotic moment. So, let's dive into it.
Welcome to the Streamlined Solopreneur, a show for busy solopreneurs to help you improve your systems and processes so you can build a business while spending your time the way you want. I know you're busy, so let's get started.
All right. I'm here with Conny Graf. It's very fitting that we're talking about chaos to peace because it's the beginning of the school year for me, and things feel chaotic. So, Conny, thanks so much for being with us today.
Conny Graf: Well, Joe, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited for this conversation.
Joe Casabona: Me too. So let's start at the beginning. Let's create our first building block here. Let's define chaos. What do you mean by chaos?
Conny Graf: Well, usually, we know we are in chaos. As you kind of mentioned already, when a lot is going on, we're often in chaos. And the more we are not structured beforehand or before stressful times come, the more we are in chaos.
So, I define it by when you have too much thing, too many things going on, too much in your environment that distracts you, too too much on your calendar. Right? All kinds of unfinished projects floating around with deadlines that are making you having sleepless nights. The environment sees it. Right? You have no time to actually take care of your environment. It becomes more cluttered and more cluttered.
So, I would say for it, the threshold might be a little bit different for different people. But in general, we all know when we're in chaos. We all know when the moment comes, like, okay. Now I'm really in chaos.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. But I like what you're saying here. Right? Like, you know, when there's a lot going on and we're not structured. Right? So, Yeah. You know, for me today as we record this, to be kinda completely transparent, I have done a lot of context switching. Like, I have no meetings on my, I had no meetings on my calendar yesterday because I was recording a new course. But because of that, a lot of things that I would usually do on that day got pushed to today, and I have a lot of meetings, and I have a lot of recordings. And so there's a lot on my calendar. I haven't really come up for air. So, things feel a little bit chaotic.
And then, you know, that coupled with my new position in my kid's school, and just school starting in general, you're absolutely right. This feels like it could have been preventable. Right? Like, I knew all of this was happening. And so maybe you said we know when we're in chaos. I know when I'm in chaos. Right? But how do we know when we're getting into chaos? How do we determine, oh, like, in 2 weeks, it's gonna be pretty chaotic. I need to do some things now to make sure I'm not feeling overwhelmed.
Conny Graf: So, my language is often around feeling. And when you start feeling, you become agitated. When you start feeling, you become nervous. When you feel like things are slowly, slowly starting to slip out of your hands, but you still kind of have everything together, that is usually a sign that somewhere in your structure and the setup of your life, whether that's in your private life or your business life, something is not properly taken care of.
And I'm not one who says, oh, we have to be completely structured in our life. In general, I feel like we put way too much. Like when you read anything of Doctor Benjamin Hardy always talks about the future self. And I love that concept because we always put everything onto our future self. And so when we're starting to feel that, it becomes a bit too much, it's starting to slip in out of our hands. And then we're saying, oh, I do this next week. Oh, I do this week next. We just push everything onto the future self that should be, should is also another word I love to use.
But it's still, it should be kind of like a warning light going off in you that you realize, okay. Wait a second here. It's starting to become chaotic. And we're all in this. And so it also like, I always want to give a little bit of grace to it. Like, it depends what's going on in your life. Like, yes, you knew school is starting. Right? We all know school is starting. I just came from 3 weeks of vacation, and I'm just on the 2nd day in my office. And I also don't feel 100% in my regular flow or in my regular calm seat. Right? And we all know it's coming, but we only can prepare so much. So it's not about being 100% prepared and everything is structured and every minute is planned out. It's more like, okay. When I come into this, I'm starting to push everything away or I'm seeing that there is a time coming that this could happen. What can I do now already? What can I maybe take off my plate? Like, I often love to talk about what can we take off our plate. And then people say, oh, no. Everything is important. Well, no. Probably not everything is important. So maybe even if we have high standards or we want to be highly productive, maybe we do have to take something off our plate instead of just pushing it to the future self. Right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I love that. I mean, my, I always joke that my future self hates my past self because of the situation I got. Yeah. I got him in.
Conny Graf: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: And, you know, the way you were talking, it kind of, it made me think about, you know, I've got 3 kids, and so we try to give them tubbies every day. And sometimes, the thing, you know, my daughter's practicing cello. My son is doing some sort of tactile thing. My youngest is running around. We start filling up the tub, and it's filling up.
Conny Graf: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: And then maybe my wife nor I are paying attention to it, and we realize, oh my god. The water's still running. It's going to overflow, and we need to turn it off. Right?
Conny Graf: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: Being in chaos is like, is like the overflowing tub. Right?
Conny Graf: Mhmm. Yes.
Joe Casabona: You gotta be able to turn it off before the water comes over the tub and ruins your bathroom. So, I just like what you said, like, really, like, kind of painted that picture in my head, and I really...
Conny Graf: I love that picture. So I don't have children, but I have animals, and I have to turn the water on too to fill their water trough. Right? And, like, one thing that I could do that you might not be able to do, I put a timer on my water faucet so that it actually turns off when it's supposed to turn off because, again, it's not about being 100% perfect. It's about how can I help myself to be less in chaos.
So this gives me peace of mind, right? That I have a timer there. I still need to go and turn it really completely off, but I'm not wasting water. I'm not, it's not overflowing and ruining the whole barn or anything, right? It turns off.
So, this is the other visual may be that we can use that, how can I build in timers, so to speak? Or how can I build in some little alarm bells or little things that prevent a disaster from happening? That is also being more at peace because we're all busy. Right? And I don't think we can just decide we're not going to be busy anymore, especially not you with your free children. It's like, it's not working. Right? But how can we make it a bit easier in general?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I love that. We can't just decide we're not gonna be busy. And, like, life happens. Right? Things come. My parents are moving out of their child… out of my childhood home.
Conny Graf: Yeah.
Joe Casabona: Right? And so that's another thing I need to think about. So I really like this. How can we build in timers? This show is all about building processes to help you, and, like, you know, getting you know, they have, like, those smart faucet attachments that will turn the water off, like, from your phone or whatever. I love that. I love that.
Conny Graf: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: So, I think, we can't just decide we don't wanna be busy anymore is a, is really like the mantle for this. Right? Because we are people, this show is mostly solopreneur parents. We've made the decision that we want to do all of these things. And some people will say you can't have it all, and there are certainly things you can take off of your plate.
But we're, especially if you have small kids. Like, you're just every time I say to somebody, oh, my kids are 7, 4, and 2, they're like, oh, you're in the thick of it. Right? So I just know that's how life's gonna be for a while. And so I, like, I can't be in chaos for 10 years. That's bad. So, I think I just kind of teed up the next question or point that I have here.
But, you know, when I was a younger man, I would have said, let's just power, can I just power through it? Right? while I'm in chaos, I need to work through it to be out of chaos. Is that a good approach?
Conny Graf: You're asking already in a way that you're expecting me to say no. Right? Well, it depends, I would say. Like, there is maybe times when we have to power through. You never know. Right? But we should learn from it then and set things up differently. In general, I always feel like it depends how, like, what the situation is. So with your children, you said something a few minutes ago that I actually want to pick up because you said you always joke that your future self is hating you, hating your present self, right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Conny Graf: So this is, so this really stuck with me because I was thinking for you, or for any out anybody out there who has children or other parents, what is the priority? The priority from the perspective of your future self, you probably in as your future self, is not gonna think back of a missed meeting or something that took longer or some period of time where you were not productive by your standards or whatever.
But you're gonna think back of, oh, I should have been on this soccer game of my son or I should have been there for my parents when they went through the hard transition of moving from their home where they raised their family into a different living space. Right? So that is where, yeah, we can power through to a degree. But, I think while we're doing that, we need to keep in mind what is really important. And yes, our businesses, like I want to, I work from home. I don't have children, as I said, but I have animals. Like, we can't just say, oh, now I'm recording a podcast episode. And my children, they can drown in a bathtub, like, to be extreme.Right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right.
Conny Graf: Right. Yeah. And so, yes, we can power through to a degree, but I think we all should get clear on what is really important. Like, I and I have to really look this up where I read this. But in one of my many books that I read, I read that somebody said you're in your life, you're kind of like juggling balls, but some of the balls are made from glass. And when they fall to the ground, they shatter. And when other balls are from rubber, so they just bounce back and you can catch them again. Right? And I would say the real important things besides our business is our baby, how some people call it, the people around us are really the important thing, and those are made of glass. Right? And any missed meeting, any missed deadline is more like a rubber ball that can bounce back.
So as long as we're kind of when we're powering through without because we have no time now to structure it better, as long as we're clear on what is the priority, then, yes, power through. And then once you see a little bit of daylight, then go back and see what would have been good to have in place as a clean foundation or as a launch pad or however you want to call it then, in your words, that supported me during busy times. Like we all go like in waves. We have busier times and less busy times. And what would be good to have in place when the times get crazy, like the beginning of the school year, we have to get all used to new schedules. We have to get used to new responsibilities like you have. So, yeah, long long answer to a short question.
Joe Casabona: This was really helpful. Right? We need to keep in mind what's really important. I think about this all the time. I saw something on Facebook, whatever, that said, like, your kid's not gonna remember that you worked late one night. You know? They're gonna remember that you missed their baseball game. Or, like, you know, your kids aren't gonna remember how much you worked maybe. Right? They're not gonna remember, oh, dad was so great. He worked all the time. They're gonna remember that he wasn't there.
Conny Graf: Yeah. Or he had no time to listen to me when I really needed to say something.
Joe Casabona: Right. Yeah. Right. Real like Cats in the Cradle stuff. I don't know if you know that song by Ugly Kid Joe. Well, I think the cover is Ugly Kid Joe. I'm really sorry for everybody who knows the original. But, I mean, it's, I think, you know, we need to learn from our current situation.
Once you see daylight, this is really good. Right? There's, a scene in one of the X-en movies where, like, the juggernaut is just, like, running through walls, breaking walls until, like, he gets, like, stuck in one. And being in chaos and just, like, powering through almost feels like that. Right? It's like we're constantly running through brick walls trying to, like, I don't know, get away from everything we're trying to do. Or, like, oh, if I'm just a little extra productive, I'll really have time. But you're still taking on more things, and there's more brick walls to run through. And so having a system in place, like you said, or, you know, thinking about the safety net that you're putting in place, you need to put thought into that.
Conny Graf: Yeah. Intention. Intentional setting things up, which means sometimes to say more no than yes and not putting everything on our future self, like I already said. Like, we're so happy to, oh, yeah, yeah, I can do that. I can do that in 2twoweeks. I see the daylight. In two weeks, I can do it. Well, but in two weeks, you're at your present self, and your present self is like, freaking out. So…
Joe Casabona: Yes. Yes. Yeah. So this is something that we mentioned in the preshow too. Right? Is, say say no more than yes, but also you talk about the notion of living and working clutter-free. And you said that some people think that this means minimalism. But it's…
Conny Graf: Yeah. Well, look at my background.
Joe Casabona: Exactly. Right? Yeah. If you're watching on YouTube, you could see Conny's background.
Conny Graf: Poster child of minimalism, but I don't practice minimalism. No.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So, what do you mean by clutter-free? And this isn't, like, get rid of all, like, all this is not like a, does it spark joy situation. Right?
Conny Graf: No. No. I'm also not sparking joy. Although I love. I'm more, well, I can't just say I'm more practical because I have also, like a spiritual side to me. But it's more, it's literally like it means something different to every single person. And clutter free basically means is you surround yourself with the things that you need to do the things you want to do, right? So that's like kind of like the base version. Most people surround their self themselves with that plus 7,000,000 other things.
And when you're able, and it's a constant thing. I always say, like, clearing clutter is not an event. It's a journey. It's, it doesn't have, you can't like, Marie Kondo, who talks about SparkJoy, she says, oh, get clutter free, and then you're clutter-free. It doesn't happen that way. You probably know that too. Like, there is even without children, but with children even more. There is a constant flow of stuff coming into our house.
With a business, there's a constant flow of things coming into our business. There is no way of being, okay. I'm getting clutter-free now and then I'm clutter-free for the rest of my life. That does not work. It's a process. So, but we can, like, put in filters. I talk about filters. Like, you can put in filters. Does that really need to come in? Yes or no? Or can I maybe make sure it doesn't even come in the beginning?
And so clutter-free to me is always like in the workspace, I always say, like, is your workspace and with workspace, I don't only mean the desk, but also the computer, your phone, your whole office. Is it set up to support you in what you want to do? Or is it more sabotaging you? Now, most people with a huge chaos, it's sabotaging, right? And then we use extra effort to get everything done.
In a family situation, it's a little harder because you have little children that kind of like, try to sabotage you constantly to your organization or what you try to create as order. And still with less things, with less also less things on your calendar. I feel like sometimes we're really overfilling our calendar and then it ripples out and everything suffers, like, and last, probably the parent in his self-care suffers. So that's also why I sometimes say, like, clearing clutter or decluttering or living clutter-free is self-care and self-love, which we need so that we then can show up as our best.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I think this is great. And something that I have done for myself, right, is, I block off my calendar every every day from 3 o'clock on. Right? With the exception of, like, one day where I know my wife has off from work for people who do need to meet later. But, for the most part, like, from 3 o'clock on, I don't have meetings, which means that if my father-in-law can't pick up my kids from school one day or, my wife needs a little extra time in the afternoon, I'm not at my desk. I can go get my kids from school and make sure they're getting their homework done. And on that same token, like, after 5 is just, like, non-negotiable meeting time for me. Like, 5 to 7 is the time when my kids are home from school and awake, and it's really the only time I'll see them during the day, you know, except for the morning, which is chaos in another way because I'm trying to get 3 small children out of the house and on time to school.
And so, like, those are some boundaries I've really set up for myself. Right? And so I think, like, what you're saying, right, is I have a few hours each day to have meetings. Maybe I should also limit the amount of meetings I can put on my calendar in a day so that I have that some wiggle room between all of these things. And that's software can manage that a little bit, but I also need to manage that. Right? And I need to get into the mindset of just because it's a blank space on my calendar doesn't mean it can it should be filled.
Conny Graf: Yeah. Exactly. And you, especially the minute or the day where when you're filling that is usually not the day off. And so how you don't know in what headspace you are that day. And then when you have back to back to back to back, I don't think we show up at our best if we're just going from one to the next to the next to the next. I think there needs to be buffer time, not just for recovering physically maybe, but also mentally, maybe digesting it.
Oftentimes, we talk too about how we realize or really get to know things only by reviewing them or by, like, letting them settle a bit. Right? But if you're running from 1 to the next to the next, do you even know after 4 meetings what you talked about in the first meeting without checking your notes? And this is also chaos. Right? And do you really show up as your best to serve with whoever you're meeting when you're already 3, 4 meetings in and had no breaks in between? Right? So yeah.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. That's exactly, and to peel the peel back the curtain a little bit. Right? Like, I got on this call with this recording with Conny, and I had just come from back to back to back meetings. And what I didn't include was I also sent off a quick video message in between the last meeting in this. So, I, in the last 4 hours have switched contacts, like, 5-8 times.
Conny Graf: Mhmm.
Joe Casabona: And so, luckily, Conny, practicing what she preaches, gave me a little bit of grace, and I was able to settle down, and we could come up with a good outline for this talk. But, you know, if we hadn't gotten there, I'd be doing Conny a disservice, right? Because I'm wasting her time. I'd be doing me a disservice because I'm not making the most of my time, and I'd be doing you, the listener, a disservice by not presenting the best interview and content that I can. So, I think this is really important, and I think this segues really nicely into how we're…
Conny Graf: Can I add one thing to this? Sorry to interrupt you, Joe. But this is not where it stops. This has ripple effects. You then, after a day like this, may not show up as the best dad to your children. You may be short with your wife or with your father-in-law or with your children. It goes further and further. Right? So, it we can't forget that we're not just like an island. It has ripple effects.
And unless you can find somewhere, like, in between some time where you can actually get back to you, and it doesn't need to be half an hour necessarily. Maybe it's good enough for 10 or 15 minutes, but you need to get back to you and to center yourself again so that you can show up better. And then also, like I said, may kind of woe to yourself that you're not going to put your future self through something like this again.
And I totally get it. I mean, I have a business too. I have clients who scream and whatever. It's not, it's often easier said than done.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Conny Graf: But if we don't do it intentionally more often, then it can really have big effects that most people forget in our life, that most people forget that they are, they have more more more ripple effects than just what you just said, like you and the listener and maybe the people on the call. Right? It goes further.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Great point. It's not like I'm gonna walk upstairs from my office after work and be like a fresh new person. I'm gonna be burnt out from a bunch of meetings all day. And but my kids aren't gonna understand that. They're gonna be excited to see me because they're home from school, and they got, speaking of clutter, a bunch of prizes from this fundraiser that we're doing for school. And they're gonna wanna show them to me, and they're gonna be all ramped up. And it's gonna be up to me to manage my feelings and, like, not get mad at them. Right? Because they, what am I, what would I be getting mad at them for? They're just excited to see me. So, yeah.
Conny Graf: But giving yourself grace too that you might not be able to show up as your best dad self to them after a day like this, right? And because often, I often talk about mental clutter. We do all this and then we're not happy and we're like, oh my god, I'm all freaked out. And then we're beating ourselves up for being freaked out. And this all doesn't really help. Right? It only helps if we start trying to turn like, it's like a a huge cruise ship. Like, we have to turn it around, and it only goes little by little by little. And mental clutter is really a hard thing, especially when we think we need to be productive. We need to do, we're not machines.Right? You need to give yourself some grace
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Conny Graf: That you can't show up perfect or, like, the most patient loving dad after a day like this unless you manage to get yourself back to a state of mind like this again.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Sounds like I'll be playing the drums after this and reset a little bit.
Conny Graf: Yeah. Why not? Yeah. That probably helps. Moving the body often helps. Like, oh, just shaking, what I often do is just shaking. I read somewhere a study that animals, when they were in a dangerous situation and they get out of it alive, they start shaking themselves. And they figured out that for humans, it's a good thing too. We're not in, like, life-threatening danger, but the stress sometimes feels to us or to our subconscious like danger. So if you can shake yourself or, like, thrumming is perfect because that's shaking with purpose. Right?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Shaking with purpose, hitting stuff, and where it's okay to hit stuff. Like, it's nice. You know, it's funny you say that because and so I think we're kind of moving into, like, act 3 of our interview here. Right? How do we go from chaos to peace? But my, you know, my therapist has said the same thing about when my kids are not listening or feeling angry, or they won't say anxious, but it'll kind of be anxious. It's like just, let's just take 5 minutes to, like, shake the sillies out or shake the angries out. So, it's really interesting, it's really funny that you mentioned that, because I've been given that exact advice.
Conny Graf: Yeah. And I think in our today's world, whether we're children or adults, we're trying to sit still too much. Right? And our bodies are not necessarily done for that. And I have to go look up the study, but they were saying that all this anxiety or the anger or whatever, and we feel it too, can come out if we move and we like we don't need to necessarily be drumming. But if we're really angry or needed, we could maybe hit the pillow or hit the mattress. Others would just be to jump around like crazy and your children might love that. If you jump around with them, and if you jump longer than they can keep up with, then maybe, do you have them calm enough that they can take a minute and listen to you.
Joe Casabona: Yes. And that's so, that's really a health goal for me is get to a point where I can jump longer than my children. They seem to have boundless energy. But…
Conny Graf: Lucky them. Right?
Joe Casabona: I know. I know. So this is so we've talked about a lot of I think a lot of good methods for kind of dialing back the chaos or taking preventative measures to get into the chaos, but let's end with some actionable advice here. How, you know, what are 2 or 3 tips for us to go from chaos to peace?
Conny Graf: Yeah. So the first thing that I always say is, like, when you're like, let's talk first physical environment. Most people kind of think, okay. Next weekend, we're gonna clean out and we're doing we're spending the whole day doing that. And then everybody dreads it and we're eating ice cream first and we're not doing anything and it's 5 o'clock and, oh, shoot, we need to do something. Right?
So, my first tip is always, like, don't put these big blocks of wanting to get organized or decluttered somewhere. Try to find ways how you can do this during the day on a like, one of my sayings is a few minutes a day keeps the chaos away. So, how can you find little pockets here and there, and we all have them, where you can actually create a bit more peace in your life? Start there.
The other thing that I'm saying is like start where it's not the most emotionally charged thing. It's not where like in one way, you want to start where it bugs you the most. Right? But then maybe sometimes that's not the best because you're all agitated and then maybe you're not getting to the best solution, right?
So, start small, start with short things and start creating your environment in a way that prevents the clutter from coming in or from that keeps the clutter at least at bay to a degree. Have maybe so I don't know if you, with children, but like, when they come home, they probably drop everything anywhere and then it's all over the place. Maybe you can get to a point where you tell them you can drop it, but it has to be dropped here, like, in the entrance, and then you can keep the chaos in the entrance. It also helps to know where they dropped it. You don't have to go try to find it afterward.
So that's with children. And, yes, I understand this may not work from the beginning. It's it might be taking a bit of time. The same with us. Right? Like, if we in our office just kind of try to survive in the chaos instead of having actually structure. So oftentimes I say, what I see on people's desks is not what they're working on. It's all the stuff that they postpone and procrastinate on and piles up here. And then they always tell me, well, if I don't see it, I'm not gonna do it. And I'm like, well, how long are you seeing it already but not doing it? So it's kind of like all these things where we need to actually create the surroundings for us in a way that they support what we actually do every day and not what we wish to do, kind of.
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Conny Graf: Does that help?Like…
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, like, to give a concrete example, my kids would take their shoes off wherever they were standing. And then the next time we had to go out, it would be frustrating to me that we couldn't find their shoes.
Conny Graf: You can't find the shoes.
Joe Casabona: So over the summer, we worked on, hey. Shoes go in the front. We have a shoe rack. Shoes go in the front. And now my kids know shoes go in the front. And if they are forgetfulness, I'll say, like, hey. Do your shoes belong there? And then they'll pick them up, and they'll bring them to the front. And that's been I mean, I can't this sounds like a little thing, but…
Conny Graf: Now it's huge.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It's because when they can't find their shoes, it's not just that they can't find their shoes. It's that they wanna go outside and play, and they're trying to go outside and play, but we gotta put their shoes on because there's, like, bees and we just redid our deck. So, like, there's nails in the yard, and and now they're getting mad because they can't do what they gotta, they wanna do. And I'm getting mad because I can't find the thing we need to help them do what they wanna do, and everyone's, like, frustrated. But…
Conny Graf: In chaos.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. In chaos. But…
Conny Graf: In chaos because of a silly thing of a shoe that have been just dropped somewhere, and now nobody knows. And I'm sure we have experienced that as business owners too. We don't want to just be mad at kids that just leave their shoes wherever they want to. But I have met so many people. I know I have that paper somewhere, but I don't know where. What did I see? Somebody said to me the other day, yeah, my computer saved it somewhere, but I don't know where. Right? So and then we all know how that feels. And then we're maybe not prepared. We have a meeting coming up 5 minutes, in 5 minutes the meeting, but we don't find the freaking paper. ‘
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Right.
Conny Graf: So, it's for us too. It's like if that happens and this can happen to any of us, I actually oh, my God. Scary. I actually had a problem too where I thought it should be safe here, but why isn't it here? Right? And then we get into this headspace and we're trying to figure it out where it is. We're trying to find it. We're in a time crunch and we're frazzled. And that's how we show up then afterwards. So that's why I'm saying, like, it's not ideal.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And, I mean, when we get frazzled, like, we're worse. Right? Like, have you ever not been able to find something and you're just like, where is it? And you're ripping things apart, and then, like, you just, like, calm down and go for a walk and you come back and it's, like, on the counter where you swear you looked 5 times?
Conny Graf: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.
Joe Casabona: No chaos, less clutter, like, means clear thinking. Right? Like, clean desk, clean mind. Right? Have you heard that before?
Conny Graf: Oh, yeah. Yeah. And then but then they always come to me and say, yeah. But Einstein didn't have a clear desk, and he was a genius. And I'm like, yeah. But how much more of a genius he might have been? He had a little bit of a clear desk. Right?
Joe Casabona: You take the positive. I just go, so you're comparing yourself to Einstein is what you're saying.
Conny Graf: Exactly. That's actually a good answer. No. But it's funny. It's like, when did, was that in the beginning before we started recording, you were saying that sometimes we don't even realize we might be in chaos because we're so used to it and our brain is literally it's so adaptable. So it filters out the chaos. But what we're not, and that might be a good thing. And we think, oh, yeah, that's awesome. So I can't live in chaos because my brain still works. But if we think about it, how much energy it needs for our brain to filter this all out that we could use for other things, like being more patient with somebody or being more clear when we're on a business meeting and actually having a good idea or can contribute to a conversation in a clear and concise way rather than thinking later. Oh, I should have said this and that and everything, but I was too frazzled. So…
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It's I mean, it's like, you know, if you're gonna get on the highway and put the pedal to the metal in your car the whole time, you're gonna burn gas faster than if you just kinda you know, when you go downhill, you don't, you keep your foot off the gas and you save gas. Right? So, like, if your brain's constantly filtering out chaos, like you say, it's like having our foot on the gas the whole time, and we're going to run out of energy. And then we might burn out or, like, have a panic attack or something, and then we're really not at our best. Like, we can't even, and then we get more stressed. Right? Oh, and now I'm now I'm, like, laid up, and I can't do the things I needed to do, and they're still so, like, it's a bad cycle to be in. And so you wanna, you wanna break that. And the great thing…
Conny Graf: And you probably miss a lot on the way too, and you're flying that fast. Right? You're not, like, you're missing things that might be important to you. Like, you missed the exit of the highway because and then you have to you drive a huge detour, which takes you longer than if you actually would have paid attention, but you didn't pay attention because you were just flying down the road like crazy.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Conny Graf: Yeah. So…
Joe Casabona: Yeah. There, you know, there was one time I was especially distracted by work. And, we were out with my kids. And, I think we're at the zoo or something, but, like, the, this animal did something, and my kids said, did you see that? And I was looking in the direction, but I wasn't there. Like, I wasn't present mentally. Right? I was thinking about some other project or some other thing. And like, like you said, I missed that because I let my brain get cluttered with work stuff when I shouldn't have been thinking about work stuff.
And, like, happily, I'm in a better place now, and the whole reason I've, like, restructured my podcast to talk about these things is because I want more parents to be where I'm at. But, you know, you know, also, I'm a work in progress as we see. It's a, it's…
Conny Graf: Oh, we all are.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. It's not something that you can do you know, it's like Lebron James got real good at basketball at 8 you know, by 18, he was in the NBA. It's not like at 18, he was like, well, I've learned everything. I need to learn about basketball. Right? He continued to get good over those 22 years, and now I think he's still playing. Right? Yeah. He's not retired yet. He wants to play with his son. So, yeah, it's something that you constantly need to learn and work at.
Conny Graf: Yeah. And I'm sure he looked. He watched videos of himself. He reflected how he felt. He analyzes what he could do better. Right? And we don't need to become James LeBron, but we can actually become a little bit more intentional and be a bit more aware in our life too. And like I've said earlier, it's like a cruise ship. We can't just change direction because we're part of a big big, network, let's say like that. But we can take more control to us what we can control and then start pivoting. Like you said, you restructured your podcast. You restructured your life, so you know it works.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And…
Conny Graf: But it doesn't come without cost. You need to let go of some things.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And like you said, like, incrementally. Right? I mean, like, you know, you said, you know, James watched videos, and this is true. I'm a huge baseball fan, and so my listeners are probably thinking, great, another baseball analogy. But, like, after every at bat right? Baseball is a little slower than basketball. After every at bat, Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton, will go and look at the iPad in the dugout and immediately watch the at bat they just had. So by the time they get back up in that same game, they can maybe make an adjustment. Right? Like, imagine how much better that is than playing all 162 games where you're getting 4 or 5 at bats per game and then looking at all of them and being like, where what went wrong? Right? It's a lot easier to make those incremental changes.
Conny Graf: Yeah. And that's what I meant with sometimes we can power through or we need to power through. But if we're not taking a break afterwards…
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Conny Graf: And starting to adjust our life, our calendar, our business to be better when the next busy time comes, then, yeah, then we're not getting anywhere. Let's say like that, we are staying in chaos or even slip even more and more in chaos.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Absolutely. Conny, this was such a great conversation. I really appreciate you taking the time today. If people wanna learn more about you, where can they find you?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. So my hub is my website. It's [connygraf.com]. I write Conny with a Y. So, [connygraf.com]. I also have a podcast. So podcast listeners often list love to listen to podcasts. My podcast is called, From Chaos to Peace with Conny. I have 231 or something episodes there, so you can go start binge listening. I talk a lot about intentional living. I have practical tips on how to do certain things, how to declutter your home, your office, and your brain. I often talk about mental clutter. So, yeah.
Joe Casabona: Awesome. I will link to those and everything that we talked about in the show notes, which you can find over at [streamlined.fm/438].
Conny, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Conny Graf: Well, Joe, I appreciate you having me. Thanks so much.
Joe Casabona: My pleasure.
And thank you for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. And until next time, I'll see you out there.