How Keynote Speakers Can Level Up Their Business - Featuring Peggy Sullivan

You can connect with Peggy at https://www.peggysullivanspeaker.com/

Owning a business is a challenge. Knowing how to keep innovating in your business is an even bigger one. Join restaurant owner, motivational speaker, and innovation expert Sara Frasca each week as she guides fellow business owners in taking the next step to level up their business. If you've ever pondered hiring a business coach but want a sample first, come along for the adventure!

Send us a message to join the show for free business guidance: https://pointnortheast.com/contact-us/

Sara Frasca is the founder and owner of Trasca & Co Eatery in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, an experienced and engaging motivational speaker, and the CEO of global business coaching firm Point NorthEast.

Transcript

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You're listening to level up your business, the podcast where we talk to hardworking business owners and leaders and help them solve real issues in real time. I'm your host, Sarah Frasca restaurant owner, keynote speaker and business coach. I've spent my career not only in corporate America, but also as an entrepreneur, carrying on my family's legacy through my restaurant. Now a business coach and consultant, I'm helping other businesses to use creative problem solving and innovative thinking, to drive lasting change. Stay tuned to hear some inspiring guidance that will help you to level up your business. All right. Well, today, we are very excited to talk with Peggy Sullivan. And Peggy, I just want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for joining me, I'm very excited for the conversation. And I'm excited to see you again in your beautiful read. It's a pleasure to be here truly. Well, you are such a dynamic person. So your beautiful read today is like just it's like a like a microcosm of your personality. So I'm just really excited. So as we get started today, at in kind of the early part of the year, which is always kind of a nice refresh, and kind of let's get in the zone, I wanted to ask you to kind of kick off a little bit with your background, like tell the listeners, where you've been kind of how you built your career, and what you're doing today. Yeah, I'd love to, I spent about 25 years in the corporate world working for giants like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and United Healthcare. And I've reached a point in my life where I really started to think about my legacy and how I wanted to give back. And I was becoming acutely aware of some of the challenges that people were facing, because I was facing them as well, too. I'm a busyness, addict in recovery. And I learned a lot about time poverty, and how to solve for time poverty. And so really, over the last 10 years, I've been writing books, speaking, conducting corporate workshops, and helping people get past time poverty, because the reality is 78% of our population, our working population feels as though they do not have time for what is important to them. And that's almost sad, because life is so much fun. And there's so much that we can do and so much we have to give. So I'm on a journey to help people optimize their, their time and their value. It's really great. Really great. You know, it's it's an interesting, personal connection for us. And I hope you don't mind me sharing this, but sharing you and I both lost our moms. And, you know, we've talked about that. And it's just one of those, you know, kind of tragedies. But I'm curious to know, does that weigh in for you at all? Like is that on your mind in terms of like, life is short, we got to really, you know, pack as much in as we can. But we also have to have this balance of like actually living life, right? So does that well, my gosh, absolutely. You struck a nerve, you you you hit my heart, right from the start. My mom died really young. She was in her 50s. She had a broken brain tumor, and then pancreatic cancer. And I hit this life changing moment. I mean, I was there every step of the way. But I can vividly remember walking into her hospital room. And one day, she just wasn't depressed and upset. And she wasn't focused on her pain. She was smiling. And she was actually doing a little finger dance and listening to some music. And I'm like, Mom, what's changed? And she's like, I finally get it. She says happiness is my responsibility. You know, I need to decide that I want happiness in my life and create it. And that statement was just like, you know, I mean, happiness is my responsibility that led me to write my first book and to truly understand that also, happiness is biological, right? Like, you can turn on your endorphins to make you happier, make you healthier, make you live a longer life, make your brain work a little bit better. And so long, long answer to your question. Yes. You know, my mom and my dad as well, too. He he was a huge influence in my life. That's beautiful. Yeah, and I feel like we've talked about this, but if we haven't, you know, obviously I've I've said Seeing your materials and you know, you talk so beautifully about your mom. But my mom also died at the age of 52 from a brain cancer. So there's that connection there. And I think, for me, it's the yin and yang. It's the, you know, there's terrible loss, of course, but there's also a really beautiful reflection of how short life is. And if we can do it in the right way. And if we can live the way that we, you know, each of us has a different answer to what that is. But I think it's a gift to be able to see how fleeting life is. So I don't disagree. I think it's about aligning your values, you know, your values are about what's important. And we tend to think about goals and time management. But if we start to re align around values, management, and what's important, and making sure that we get these priorities that they are first and foremost, when we choose what we're going to do, I think they're game changing. You know, I spent a lot of time studying statistics, and really understanding why are people in such a state of time poverty, and there are so many low value busy traps that we all get stuck in, you know, whether it's chronic meetings, whether it's not getting a good night's sleep, I mean, if you don't get a good night's sleep, you're not giving your brain the opportunity to heal and mend and work at its best capacity. So, you know, we need to understand our busy traps and to work away from them and do things that, you know, aren't going to waste our time, but that are really going to get us to the things that we value and that are most important. Yeah, that's great. So let's say you're working with a client, you know, any random client right now and they are stuck in this trap. Tell us can you tell us a little bit about how you would work them through that? Yeah, absolutely. Um, you know, being a busyness addict, myself, I know that busyness is truly habitual. I mean, every time we get something done, we get that hit of endorphins. So we want to do it again and again. So I developed something that I called the busy barometer. And what it does is it tests for the 21 Busy traps that most people feel not only in the work environment, but also in the personal environment. And so it all of a sudden becomes an exercise in what are your busy traps, you see them in black and white? And then what behaviors can you change? And it gets very simple because it's about these micro steps. But it's a data driven approach that is all about what am I busy traps awareness of my busy traps, because we don't even think about it, you know, oh, I took no breaks today. Well, guess what, you know, you take no breaks today, your brain kind of hits this plateau, and you didn't recharge and reset, and so you're not working to your optimal capacity. So it gets very easy to fix. So that for me is step one in the process. It's all about subtraction. It was kind of funny, because yesterday, my husband was we just got a new bag of sugar, and it was a five pound bag. And he was trying to fit the five pound bag into the three pound bag. And it just wouldn't work and the bad busted in the sugar all over the place. And that's what we do as human beings. And so the concept of subtraction is so important, because then you make room for the good stuff. That's great. That's great. You know, interestingly, when I meet with organizations, and you know, I talk a lot about the topic of innovation, and how can they, you know, maybe kind of, you know, let go of the status quo to reinvent and those sorts of things, the answer is not that plus the new things, we have to make sure if it's one in one out, or that it's one in one out, because it's the same in like a team setting or an organizational setting. It's like, you can't just keep jamming more and more and more and more and more. It's, it's overwhelming. It's, you know, people start to become so busy that they're not accomplishing what you have described as the priority. So the bag of sugar is a great analogy for what I see organizations doing. And I'm blessed. I'm guessing you do the same. You probably see. Yeah, absolutely. And here's, here's a stat that just seals it up. 68% of working people do not have a schedule that allows them to complete their work. So imagine every day you start your schedule, you start your day knowing that what's most important you're not going to have time You too, because you have other commitments, other obligations, you know, other pressures, you know, and it just begins like that. And then we get on this hamster wheel where we're just going round and round and round. And, you know, we don't know how to get off. So you know, that's why I love what I do. Because getting off the hamster wheel is really about a series of micro steps. And it's just not. It's awkward as we think about it. It's recalibrating, every single friggin day and saying what is important to me, and I'm gonna spend my time today, and it must include self care, you know, self care is the non negotiable, no, no self care on the back burner anymore. Because if you don't put the gas in the tank, the car's not gonna run, it's gonna sit in the middle of the driveway. So how many people can actually take your advice and your steps and implement this? I mean, I feel like, for me, I would get caught up again and lost. And I mean, is it? Is it kind of like a personal trainer like or a fitness routine, where you like, do it for a while, and then you fall back? And then you have to get back on and try again? Or do people like, change their ways forever? Yeah, that's an interesting question. Because I refer to myself as a busyness addict, kind of in recovery. And that is because, you know, it's, I'm so used to the goal attainment, being an overachiever, type, a trap, all of that stuff, that I am constantly reminding myself, but here's the deal. I am happier, healthier, and more productive, more innovative, more creative. I'm a better wife, a better collaborator, a better mentor, a better coach, a better speaker, when I am not over the top busy. So I tried to think about it as self sabotage. And I get up every morning and I say, I am not going to self sabotage today. The world has enough surprises. So I'm not gonna, you know, put myself at a disadvantage. And for me, you know, yes, it is a challenge. And there are some days that I slipped, but those are the days where I just say, okay, Peggy, stop, you know, what are you grateful for, or go out for a walk or go hold your kitty cat, or go call up your bestie? You know, and just take a moment to recalibrate? Mm hmm. That's great. That's really great. I mean, yeah, I think there are parts as you're speaking, there are parts of my life that I'm like, Oh, I know, I need to fix that. I know, I'm overly busy. So okay, so you are speaking and doing I would assume workshops on this type of activity. I'm speaking I'm doing I'm doing workshops. I'm also coming out with a new book that's called busyness, how to do more with less. And so I'm really ramping up for the book, I spent last year doing a tremendous amount of research and a couple of years prior testing my busy busting process, making sure it was effective. And so I'm just I'm so excited about this year. I've got some great speaking gigs coming up and some great workshops coming up. And it's just all you know, for me, it's about changing lives, adding value. I know what my life looked like, when I was at the height of my busyness, my hair on fire busyness, and, you know, I mean, I did some pretty outrageous things. You know, one night I came home and I was so tired. I ate cat food thinking it was pistachio nuts. And I was on autopilot. I didn't even realize it until my cat started throwing up the pistachio nuts. I looked down I'm like, oh my god, I just ate cat food. Remember, it was salty, chewy. I said, you know, and we're on autopilot. We do these things. But then you also think about the things like, you know, I had a stress related heart attack at a very young age. That was yeah, that was due to the pressure of being a single mom and a divorce and a high pressure job. You know, and so the price tag for our busyness is is you know, it's pretty significant, whether it's your distracted driver, to you know, your you're sacrificing your self care and and really, you know, stepping into your power. Yeah, or sacrificing relationships with the people around you. I mean, I unfortunately saw a lot of people in my corporate days that sacrifice relationships with their kids or their spouse or Yeah, so that's really a good point. You know, someone early in my career said that you could have a great career, great relationships, and be fit or great health. But you couldn't you could have two of those, but not all three. What do you think of that? I totally disagree with that. I mean, you know, I think about, you know, why would we want to sacrifice something that's important? Why would we want a lesson life, connection relationships are super important. Self Care is super important. And we want careers. And as women, we want to be good at our careers. But you know, we're moms and we're got these other roles and responsibilities. So, you know, there are times I don't believe in balance, I think there are times where your career is calling you and you just need to focus on your career. But it doesn't mean that you're putting your self care, or you're putting your relationships on the back burner, I really believe that when you step into your power, you have all of those in your life. And I call it the sweet spot that I call beyond busyness. It's where just everything is humming. And you're sitting there saying, Well, life is really, really good. And I feel really good. And I want to stay in this sweet spot. That's amazing. That's amazing. I mean, have you been in that kind of sweet spot for a while now personally, like you've, you've been able to have years of it. I have to be very transparent, and very, very honest. You know, I've gone through peaks and valleys in my life. Last year, I took on a lot of responsibilities. And towards the end of the year, you know, I lost my mojo a little bit, and but I caught myself and then I went back to drinking the Kool Aid, and really kind of looking at, okay, what are the low value activities? And, you know, how can I have more happiness in my life, I do these happiness rituals a couple of times a day that, you know, are really small activities, but just really light me up and relationships. You know, I was divorced at after 20 years of marriage. And I thought it was a good marriage until, you know, my husband came home and he's like, where are you bet you haven't been involved in our marriage, you know, I just fell out of love with with you. Because, you know, you were so busy with your career and your parents and listen that and, you know, you don't want to make those same mistakes twice. You know, you don't want to make those sacrifices and so yeah, I It's, I'm a work in progress. And when I catch myself a you know, into a law you know, I just pick myself back up and I say you are a much better Peggy a much more effective a happier Peggy when you do XY and Z. So sounds so self sabotaging, you know, take care of yourself. Right, right. That's really powerful. I mean, I can hear a, you know, a number of different veins of things I've tried to do with maybe it's mindfulness, maybe it's gratitude work, maybe it's, you know, other things. And I think you're kind of pulling it all together, which which feels great and is exciting. Okay, so your business is the business of helping others to not be slaves to their busyness. I'm summarizing, and I don't know if I've paraphrased properly. Perfect. Okay. Okay. So where are you headed? Where are you going? Are you hopeful that you'll write more books? Are you hopeful to do more speaking? Are you? What is the future of Peggy look like? Yes. In the future, I definitely want to do one more speaking, because that is one too many. And I love I love helping helping other people who are in a situation of time poverty, but I also like helping organizations too, because so many organizations have this, this group of middle level managers that they just don't know how to empower and they're kind of caught in the middle, they're stuck in, you know, having all this stuff and you know, if we can empower them and give them the tools to be successful, then as organizations we can be a lot more successful. So I would say, you know, what is my next couple of years look like a successful book launch. My book is going to be launching in a couple of months. I definitely want to do more speaking, I've been doing a lot of articles. I've got a couple coming out and time and fortune and an entrepreneur and things like that. And I just I I just want to continue to helping people. That's what my future looks like. My research is brash, my approach is fun, when we can have fun in life, to me, that's when everything is just really, really good. So I'm a big proponent of, you know, I go in to have a seminar, or teach or whatever, let's have some fun, let's make this memorable. You know, let's walk away. So incredibly Energize. You cannot wait to begin the process. It's really great. It's really great. So do you speak internationally right now are you do, um, I did a fair amount of speaking in in Asia over the years. Last Last year, I took a little bit of a break to finish my book, and to rewrite, you know, my signature speech and to publish some of my data and write some articles. And so, this year, I'm starting off with a couple of speaking engagements in Charleston and Kiawah Island, and then over to San Diego, and then over to Dallas. And so you know, it'll be, you know, it'll be a really fun, fun, fun ride. That's amazing. I'm so proud of you. I mean, that's just, you getting out there getting your content. And obviously, there's so much work that goes into all the research you've done and all of the testing and so Bravo on that front, I really think that's terrific. You know, I was curious, this is actually a maybe a little bit of a merge of what you do, and I do. So one of the things that, you know, point northeast, I believe, has really maybe built kind of a specialty on is that there's other operating systems and other strategic coaches who can kind of like, see the things that are missing, but they say, oh, yeah, you should go and do that. And so point ne, we're like, Come on, we'll help you and we like, walk with them where, you know, other other coaches might drop them off at the corner, a couple blocks from their destination, we will walk them to their actual destination. So I am curious, do you have a way to keep people accountable on the on the happiness tools are on, you know, some of the microsteps some of the things that you're teaching them? What's the what? Yeah, thing they add into the destination? Yeah, you know, absolutely. You know, people tend to think of busyness is a feeling, I feel busy, and it never, and it's also bipolar. I mean, some people love being busy, even if they're over the top busy. But um, my busy barometer actually gives people a score for their busyness so they can measure it on a week to week basis. And as their schedule change, and they get super busy with doing one thing that's a low value activity, you know, they'll see it'll show up for them, and they can get some data on and you know what to do. But for me, I love when people keep what I call a happiness journal. And I think that happiness journal is about minimally to happiness rituals every day. For me, I eat dark chocolate at 11am, no matter where in the world I am, the cacao just, I close my eyes, and it just resets me. And I also make sure that I understand what are my non negotiables you know, self care, sleep that and then I look at myself and give my give myself my happiness report card. Did I do it? Did I not do it? It's very simple. It's in my journal. But I do it on a regular basis. And I also have a value scorecard that is very focused on what my core values are, and how I spend my time and making sure how I spend my time aligns with my core values. And if I haven't done things within those core values, I will make it a point like, yesterday, I had a hectic day, and I wanted to exercise and I didn't. So you know, my report card last night was no matter what you are exercising two day period, and then that's a tomorrow thing to do. And so, yeah, I mean, I need to I'm a data driven person. So if I can look at the data, and the data tells me what to do and how to do it. That just gets so so easy. You know the schedule. That's great. So if someone wanted to engage you, Peggy, where do they start? Where can they find you? Do have? I mean, I've seen your website. It's beautiful, but what's the best way for them to engage you. Yeah, if they go to my website, and they want to grab some time with me, that's perfectly fine. My website is Peggy Sullivan speaker.com. They can also reach out to me on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is my best friend, I have met so many I met you through LinkedIn. No, actually, we met through a common friend. But um, yeah, I mean, no, we did meet through LinkedIn now that I'm thinking about it. But you know, I'm a big advocate of LinkedIn, too. And, you know, Penny Sullivan, I live in Palm Beach, you know, I love talking to people, I love helping people. So they can, you know, reach out to me my website, my LinkedIn account. And I also have my email address, right on my LinkedIn account, because every place important, that's perfect, that's fantastic. I mean, you know, at several points in time, during our conversation, I was like, Oh, I could really use help there, or I have a client that I know, could could use some help on that. So that's going to be that's going to be a great resource that I will use as well. So that's really great. I appreciate that, you know, when people get rid of their time, poverty, results, and performance and happiness, just accelerate, and those are the things we want more life, right. You know, so it's, it's just to me, it's about quality of life. And if you want to really step up your quality of life, you know, this is a tried and true path that has worked for almost everybody that has engaged in the process. Gosh, so Peggy Sullivan, speaker.com. Exactly. Good. We'll put it in the show notes to Peggy so people can quickly link to you and find you. And is the is the busyness barometer, something that is like in an app, or is it something that how do people use that? Yeah, if people want to reach out to me, I will send them a link. It's a four minute online survey. And then it'll automatically give them the results. And then if they feel like they need more help, or more consulting, hey, I'm here. But it's a great, great corporate environment. Because, you know, everybody is different. So getting a feel for what's going on in your department, your organization. And like, what are the key busy traps? It's a great way to see I mean, I just did it for for I think about 7000 people, they thought they knew they're busy traps, the data said, Nope, they're different. They're not what they are. And then, so we decided, okay, we're going after what the data says, right? And, you know, it really helped fabulous people find time in their life. So this busy barometer is just such a cool tool. It's really fun. It's really great. You know, for me, I think it would help me to have control of my time, you know, because we don't get any more time that is a as my colleague, Mike, the poem would say, it's a perishable item that we don't you know, it's perishable. So if we don't use the time, it goes away, it never comes back. And what I'm thinking is, you know, it would help me to have control in knowing, and then I can activate, you know, kind of do something about it. So I think that's really great. And I'm excited to try it. The reality is, the recommendations in terms of the busy traps are all from a group of experts on how to eliminate them. And so there was really a pool of 1000s of people that came together to, you know, what are the key micro steps you can do to eliminate this busy trap. And so the stuff is very simple. It's, it's so it's so easy to do. It's not major work. It's it's, it's pretty profound, how incremental it really helps us. That's amazing. Well, thank you for explaining. Everything you've done has been tremendous. And I and I'm really, like I said, I want to try this busyness barometer, I think that'll be a good tool for me. I will absolutely keep your mind as well as I have clients because there's so many folks out there struggling with that, you know, time poverty issue, and especially busy working parents, I would say that's a really you identify that and that's a really kind of key group of people who just don't feel like they have a choice. They just push through and then of course, their mental state suffers. So thank you for that. And I'm excited for your book to come out as well. Well, Okay, so I send you love and a big hug. I mean big Pegler. So I'm sending you a really big Virtual hug and have an amazing week. And thank you so much for the work you do and having me a guest on your show. This was so much fun. So fun. So fun. Great to see you again. Happy weekend and thank you for taking the time to kind of explain what you do and help others so have a great day, Peggy. Okay, great. Bye. Bye. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of level up your business with me, Sarah Frasca. If you have a problem in your business that's keeping you up at night. Please join us in a future episode so we can help get you unstuck. Just clicking the link in the show notes and send us a message. Please remember, stay innovative friends