The OYT Coaching Series – Jeff Kupietzky at Powerinbox

For many, success has a price. CEOs that put all of their energy and time into the work will often wake up one day and wonder what happened to their personal lives. I was one of those people and didn’t realize it in my first startup. One thing that CEOs must keep in mind is the importance of planning family time. Today’s guest is Jeff Kupietzy, CEO of PowerInbox. PowerInbox ranked on the Inc 500 list at #30 in 2019. Jeff begins by sharing his top strategy for optimizing his time, which is utilizing peer groups. In part two, Jeff is coached on planning more family time. You will discover the importance of being intentional about family time inside this episode.

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Jeff Kupietzky: The Transcript

Target Audience: Jeff is the CEO of PowerInbox. PowerInbox provides publishers, marketers, and agencies with dynamic, real-time, and personalized email solutions that increase email engagement and revenue.

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Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

Jeff Kupietzky
One thing that’s really unique, and I highly encourage people to get a peer group is that, you know, unlike, let’s say, again, a board, if you’re a CEO, and you know, you kind of were everything held accountable by them, for the most part, you’re setting the agenda, you’re kind of explaining when things kind of might not be perfect, and kind of how you’re handling that. Then you have your employees, which which are clearly not necessarily seen as peers. So there’s not necessarily a forum typically, where you can really kind of be open and transparent about issues, whether because someone is affected by that, or in the case of the board, where you have, you know, particular agendas you’re trying to get across. So the benefit of a peer group is you have people that are not really invested, you know, emotionally or kind of are affected by this, so they can see things objectively.

Intro [0:43]
Welcome to Growth Think Tank, this is the one and only place where you will get insight from the founders and the CEOs of the fastest growing privately held companies. I am the host, my name is Gene Hammett I hope leaders and their teams navigate the defining moments of their growth. Are you ready to grow?

Gene Hammett [1:00]
How you spend your time says a lot about who you are, how you lead, and what is most important to you. This is part of the optimizer time series where we talk to CEOs about what’s really worked well for them, what’s really allowed them to move the needle as it relates to their time. But also we go into a coaching moment where we look at what’s next for them, and I try to help them get more clear about what’s in front of them. Today, our guest is the CEO of power inbox, Jeff cookie esky. And Jeff and I talked about, you know, being a part of peer groups has actually given him different perspectives that has given him more time to grow his business. And there’s some different changes inside there that I want you to tune into, because he actually helps me see the power of peer groups as it relates to you being a better CEO, and leading your team to the next level. Now, when you think about your time, you also probably think about the challenge that Jeff was facing, which is his personal time. And it’s time for his family. And one of his specific challenges is, he’s in Israel, seven-plus hours from the New York time zone. And so he’s also available during the day for the local team. But he’s also doing zoom meetings at night, we talk about what that is and the impact that it has, and get him to look at that from different perspectives. What we got clear on was that he needs to make some changes around this. He knew it. And we talked offline, and I won’t divulge any of the private conversations we had. But inside the conversation today, on this podcast, you will see some of the struggles that you’re probably have had yourself when it comes to your time. So join me for this interview with Jeff. And I’ll see you on the inside.

Gene Hammett [2:41]
Jeff, how are you?

Jeff Kupietzky [2:43]
I’m doing well. Gene, nice to see you again.

Gene Hammett [2:45]
Well, glad to have you back on the podcast. Before we had you come back down to talk about leadership and culture, which we’re going to talk a little bit about leadership today. But we’re gonna look at it from a different perspective. Tell us about the power inbox before we get there.

Jeff Kupietzky [2:58]
Sure. So we are a company that provides monetization solutions for digital publisher digital media publishers. company’s been around for several years. And we now have a pretty broad network of kind of top-class publishers. And recently, we’ve been expanding our offering now to offer personalized messaging as well, whether that’s browser push her over email.

Gene Hammett [3:20]
Well, I love the work that you guys have done. And you’ve been very successful from this. The the size of your company right now has that grown much since we last talk, it was about 45 employees.

Jeff Kupietzky [3:32]
Yeah, we’re actually close to 70. Now we’ve taken advantage of the COVID situation, which I would say I hate to say it that way. But we’re seeing kind of a return to email as a preferred channel. And our publishers are seeing growth in terms of opens and clicks for their email programs. And because of that we’ve decided to invest into this situation by trying to hire more technical people, more salespeople, and so we’re getting close to 70 people now.

Gene Hammett [3:58]
Well, that makes this even more important because as you hire more people, it doesn’t mean that you have more free time, it means you have more time to manage. And you’ve got to think even further ahead. As you’re trying to look around the corner. This whole series of interviews is on how to optimize your time. And you had told me that you had kind of one big move that you felt like has made a big difference in your time. Go ahead and share with the audience what that move is.

Jeff Kupietzky [4:25]
Yeah, remember that what we talked about was the networking group.

Gene Hammett [4:31]
Peer groups, right? How do you leverage the peer groups?

Jeff Kupietzky [4:34]
Yeah, so we’ve been I think everything is in the context of now having moved completely remote. As I’m sure everybody in the audience has now been working in this way for the last nine months. I used to participate in a kind of in-person networking. And so those were once or twice a year. And once the world moves to remote was really nice as we move to a monthly cadence where my peer group would get together. You know, basically on zoom an hour or two hours, once a month. That created a check-in that, for me was very helpful because we were able to kind of now track business issues. On a more frequent basis, there was a good kind of feedback loop with these peers of mine. I always say it’s kind of one thing to tell your board one thing or you know your employees, but it’s much harder to kind of be accountable when you’ve got peers who are sitting in the same seat as you. So there, they’re extremely helpful, but they also really kind of make sure that you’re doing what you say you’re going to do.

Gene Hammett [5:28]
Now, I know every peer group has its own structure behind this, you’re not in the usual things I hear I hear to YPO. vestige. Which groups are you in?

Jeff Kupietzky [5:41]
Yeah, I was in those. But now that I kind of my home office is actually outside the United States in Israel. So I’ve no longer been able to take advantage of those groups, which only occur in the United States, this group is called the council’s and it is still an in-person, you know, a priori, that’s what they wanted to get, because I’ve been a member now for a while these virtual ones allow me to kind of participate, even though I’m remote, started by Phil Terry, I think it’s called the council’s calm, and they’ve got a tremendous network of like-minded professionals, there’s a group that’s just CEOs, just product managers, just HR professionals, and I’m in the CEO group.

Gene Hammett [6:20]
Now, I wouldn’t say these, these groups are kind of competitors to what I do, because I, as a coach, I’ve only worked one on one with people at your level. There are some real advantages to one on one coaching that you don’t get in these peer groups. But we’re not going to go into that today. Right now, we’re gonna really focus on how are you leveraging these peer groups to really get the most out of it. So what would you say is, is something you’re doing that, that you could share with the audience that within their peer groups?

Jeff Kupietzky [6:51]
Sure, and as I said, I think one thing that’s really unique, and I highly encourage people to get a peer group is that, you know, unlike, let’s say, again, aboard, if you’re a CEO, and you know, you kind of are being held accountable by them, for the most part, you’re setting the agenda, you’re kind of explaining when things kind of might is not about perfect, and kind of how you’re handling that. And then you have your employees, which are clearly not necessarily seen as peers. So there’s not necessarily a forum typically, where you can really kind of be open and transparent about issues, whether because someone is affected by that, or in the case of the board, where you have, you know, particular agendas you’re trying to get across. So the benefit of a peer group is you have people that are not really invested, you know, emotionally or kind of are affected by this.

Jeff Kupietzky [7:33]
So they can see things objectively, but at the same time, they’ve sat in your seat or sitting in your seat, and therefore they can be more direct. And I think that accountability of sharing with a peer group, what your challenges are coming to a resolution With their help, they really make sure that then you carry that out. Because you don’t want to be in this kind of group and not say that you did the thing that you said you were going to do the next time you meet the group. So I find that that’s one of the most valuable parts of this is that kind of feedback loop of getting back in front of your peers. And they’re asking you, you know, did you take care of that personnel issue? You know, did you make that strategic decision that you were talking about?

Gene Hammett [8:10]
Now, that really sounds like accountability them for. And I remember when I was a good coach, he was my first coach ever. And one of the things I made the decision was, I’m going to be the best coachee meaning the person that they coach that they’ve ever had. And when I decided that, because I invested a good bit of money, my business was about a million dollars. So it was growing fast. It really changed the game for me, because I every time I said I was going to do something, I knew I had to get it done by the next time we talked. Is that kind of what you’re talking about?

Jeff Kupietzky [8:45]
Exactly, exactly. I think the difference here and just again, this could work for everybody in different methods. Having a coach I think is a dedicated way to kind of really focus only on your own issues. Being in a group of 15 CEOs, that also includes a moderator allows you to be held accountable by multiple people, but at the same time learn by how they’re handling their own issues. I’ll share with the group, this was the most impactful thing that’s happened the last couple of months, we had, you know, a member of our group, who was actually asked to leave his position basically was fired by the board, and just his ability to walk through that whole process. What was the way he accepted it? How did he respond to it? And what’s he doing now, it’s kind of his next step. We found that that entire experience was extremely interesting to kind of, you know, help that individual through that. And it was really because it was a group setting. It wasn’t just a one on one. He has a coach as an example, but he felt sharing it more broadly with people that have gone through it, getting the feedback on what he should do next. It was a lot more meaningful for him than just the one on one.

Gene Hammett [9:50]
Well, it’s a good example there because that’s something that we don’t all go through but if you’ve taken any money from the outside, you have to think about you may not be the seat Yo, if you aren’t really committed to the goals and hitting the milestones that they’ve got targeted. Jeff, when you think about this peer group stuff, a lot of people have one objection mainly around this is it takes too much time that either you talked about in person, you know, if you were flying to a place, you know, it might take you two or three days out of your schedule, maybe four sometimes. But when your actually virtual, there’s a that’s not as big a deal. But then when you’re spending two hours with someone is, Do you ever think about how much time you’re spending in the peer groups?

Jeff Kupietzky [10:35]
I don’t, because I because I had participated these in the past, I always learned you’re not leaving the business to participate in a peer group, you’re bringing the business into the peer group. So you’re working on your business. And that’s my own opinion about why groups like maybe in a vestige of the councils are a little bit more kind of centered towards your work issues. And maybe a YPO, which I think does broaden its scope, to deal with personal issues as well. And obviously, you want to always understand someone’s context. But I’ve always found when I participated, you bring your agenda of the items you’re thinking about. And they can be extremely productive sessions because you’re coming back with very specific solutions on your business topics.

Gene Hammett [11:17]
That’s a great perspective. And I haven’t thought of it exactly like that, to be honest with you. But it’s so true, you’re actually still working, you’re just not in the same place you were before, and maybe even getting a different perspective that allows you to come back even sharper, more clear, and unable to move with intention.

Jeff Kupietzky [11:36]
Yeah, that’s why the in-person that the structure I’m in now has two times a year in-person to three days, that feels more like a retreat, kind of an off-site. And so it has that same kind of vibe, there’s a lot more downtime to network and things like that. But now that we’re in a fully remote kind of situation, you don’t have that same step away, because you’re kind of in front of your computer. And obviously, you know what’s going on. But but having it more frequent, I find is also extremely helpful as well, because I said, You’re not going six months between issues, you’re able to kind of check-in everyone.

Gene Hammett [12:08]
No place to hide to when you’re checking in every month.

Jeff Kupietzky [12:11]
That’s right.

Gene Hammett [12:12]
Jeff, so that’s the big move you’ve made to optimize your time. What I’m doing in part two of this conversation is just kind of put a spotlight on what are you working on now, as you think about the CEO pulled in many different directions? What is one area that we could talk about today that would add value to you?

Jeff Kupietzky [12:32]
So I’ll talk about the thing that I think that’s going well, and maybe I’ll kind of open it up to the things that I think I still need to work on. So you mentioned the growth in the team. And I think I have been pretty good about being disciplined that what I’ve done is put my management team in place first. And now the growth is all happening without people directly reporting to me. So what that does is allows me to be more of a coach to that layer of management. They’re the ones doing the recruiting, they’re doing the assessment, they’re dealing with, you know, performance plans, or anything that we need to do to make our employees as productive as they can be. And that allows me to focus on, you know, being their mentor, their coach, at the same time now focusing more on strategy and kind of what’s next for the company. So I do think about that, whereas we’re growing, it’s really my time, that should be better leveraged. And so it’s really allowing the team to kind of step into roles that I might have done myself before, but now they’re able to take on. So that’s the piece I think that’s gone well.

Gene Hammett [13:31]
Let me pause right there for a second. Now, everybody is in a different place tuning in here, maybe they have a board, maybe they don’t, but maybe they have a team that is emerging as a fully optimized team. not quite there yet. Most of the people I talked to would say we’re continuously optimizing, we’re never going to be absolutely kind of fully capacity with our executive team. Because there’s always room for growth. We’re always working on new projects. And you mentioned you are playing the role of coach to them. Is that on purpose? Or do you feel like that’s just the best way to engage them for their own professional development?

Jeff Kupietzky [14:10]
Yeah, I mean, I think I’d like to be seen not as their manager, but as their coach that if their goals are clear, their authority is well defined. And the interactions with their peers are ones that they can kind of, you know, influence, then I you know, my role is not, am I managing them, it’s more How can I support them? How can I be there to either lend some experience or be that, you know, objective voice that they can kind of bounce their ideas off of. So again, this is a work in progress, because obviously, every one of the management team might have their own different experience curve in this area. But if you can get to that point where you’re seen as their coach, I think it opens up a much different relationship, and frankly, makes them much more productive.

Gene Hammett [14:53]
Well, I have talked about that a lot on the show here today. So I want to make sure that was clear. And what is the area that’s not working So well for you?

Jeff Kupietzky [15:01]
Well, it’s probably personal time management, no different than any hardworking probably work-obsessed, you know, kind of executive. Now that we’re in a fully remote situation, I no longer have the natural break when you leave the office and you spend time at home. Now, I’m at home, so I no longer work only five days a week, it’s not seven days a week, and there doesn’t seem to be any time where you stop. So I think it’s thinking about the fact that while we might be at our home offices, how do you still define what is home versus the office.

Gene Hammett [15:32]
So I have been working from home for a long time, the first time I ever tried, it was 1997. And I was terrible at it. It was just it wasn’t my thing. And I had to get back into the office. But that was 20 something years ago, right? Today, you’re talking about, you know, you’re working from home, you’re instead of working five days and not having the natural boundary, you’re now working seven? Is that what it takes for you to get the work done? Are you just so driven, that you want to work as much as you can on whatever is in front of you.

Jeff Kupietzky [16:08]
Definitely, you don’t need that much time. And I definitely found it when I used to travel a lot. So just to put things in context, I was trying to figure out how much time I was spending commuting, and I did about 200,000 air miles the last couple of years on average. So think about how many, you know, standing in airports, commuting, you know, transitions, hotels, I mean, all those that time has now been re-deposited into my account. So it’s just now being used to continue to work, as opposed to adopting more hobbies or adopting other things that I think could, you know, maybe balance things out better. So I definitely don’t think this is the right way to do it. I’m just sharing that when it’s so accessible to you. I think it’s harder to kind of make the break.

Gene Hammett [16:49]
All right, so I can totally relate to that. Now, this is kind of the coaching portion on it. So we’re gonna kind of dive into this a little bit. You said it’s not working? How do you know it’s not working?

Jeff Kupietzky [16:59]
Well, there’s no need to work seven days a week, and there’s no need to, you know, we’re not we were not the company that’s working on the queue, you know, the vaccine know, the people there probably should be working seven days a week, but we’re not, you know, you get the sense of, you know, fatigue or burnout. You can kind of see whether or not you’re sharp, whether or not your ideas are kind of best fresh. So, I think, again, missing that normal cadence and having time in the office time commuting time indifferent, you know, localities meeting clients, there was a natural way that I think I got energy and I got information that now has been removed. And so I have to kind of rethink how do I replace that with other things that can provide me that kind of stimulus.

Commercial [17:43]
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Gene Hammett [18:10]
I want to get specific with this seven days a week, is it a little bit of a challenge, I think for anybody to to do on a consistent basis. You know, if we’re in a season of life, where we’re launching a product, maybe we can do seven days, or we’re doing a merger and acquisition, we can do that for a month or two months or maybe even longer. How long have you been doing this seven days a week?

Jeff Kupietzky [18:30]
Well, and full disclosure, I never worked seven I keep the Sabbath. So okay. I should have said sex, but no, I mean, think of it as even just on a weekday. You know, we support a local timezone. And then I am on the phone with, you know, the states, which for me is seven hours behind. So it’s very easy to kind of look up at the clock, and it’s, you know, 1011 o’clock at night, and you’ve been on zoom calls for about 15 hours already. So I think that’s probably more the, you know, I would say it’s not so much the number of days of the week, it’s kind of how long is each day.

Gene Hammett [19:02]
Okay, so you got some special things that we have to consider there because of timezone difference. Seven hours plus for Eastern timezone. Is that right? Yep. And so you get to work? Is it? Is it just you on that time zones? Are you working by yourself with your work for a few hours?

Jeff Kupietzky [19:20]
No, we have a local team. Yeah, but now almost 30 people in the current and again, when we were together, we were in an office. Yep. And then I would extend that day in order to, you know, offset some of the time zones with the United States. So that was another, you know, set of calls that you would do at the end of the day.

Gene Hammett [19:36]
All right. So you truly are starting at the normal time and you’re just working and then you just start picking up the next time zone.

Jeff Kupietzky [19:44]
Well, I’m finding I’m getting up earlier now even just because, again, you’re at home. So

Gene Hammett [19:52]
I’ve got a got this theory, Jeff. If you have to keep getting up earlier then it’s not There’s something at the core of what’s going on with your work style and your approach to work. Because getting up early earlier is not usually the answer.

Gene Hammett [20:08]
Yeah, I’m not saying I do it for work, I’m just saying, okay, maybe because of my age, I’m just, I’m finding, I’m sleeping less. So. Okay, available. But you’re right. If I spent the first I run, and I do some other things, so it’s not immediately, you know, jump on email, but, but open to ideas about how you create more of those boundaries, how you kind of think more like…

Gene Hammett [20:29]
So you’ve got some specific challenges, because, you know, just putting it out there, the time zones, one of the big ones, right, because you you want to be available for your team, your US-based team, and they’re seven to up to probably 10 hours different from you.

Jeff Kupietzky [20:46]
Again, in a normal situation, one week, a month, I’d be with them in person. So the time in person I find invaluable. Yeah, I think that the need to be on the phone and the other weeks was less, now that we don’t have the in-person, you know, we’re extending now effectively, that we have to fill that, you know, opportunity by meeting now more often by phone.

Gene Hammett [21:06]
One of the things I usually talk to clients around when they feel this, the sense of duty to be there for all hours, is, you know, there’s a limit to how much you can actually put through on a normal basis and feel still add value to it. Are you running to a place where you feel like, okay, creatively, I’m not able to keep doing this at at, you know, 18 hours a day.

Jeff Kupietzky [21:32]
Ya know, for sure. As I said, I think that I’m trying to find those activities that provide energy, not that take it away.

Gene Hammett [21:38]
Right.

Jeff Kupietzky [21:39]
You know, thinking about it working on some things, but definitely don’t have a perfect solution yet.

Gene Hammett [21:44]
You know, do you know what time of day you work best? Like, what is the air? What is the time of day that you are naturally the most creative and highest level of focus without, you know, discipline?

Jeff Kupietzky [21:57]
Yeah. [5:30] in the morning.

Gene Hammett [21:58]
Okay. Beautiful. Now, if that’s that call that the genius hours, what when you? How do you use that time on a normal basis?

Jeff Kupietzky [22:09]
Well, can be challenging, because that’s typically when you want to help the kids get to school, I mean, not at 530. But, you know, if you exercise, that’s a good time to do that, you know, there are some personal things I try and take care of. So I actually can’t use that time for any interaction with others, obviously, it’s early.

Gene Hammett [22:24]
Okay.

Jeff Kupietzky [22:25]
I do find that if I have to think through a problem, you know, whether on my run or, you know, just because it’s I’m fresh, then I find that I am very productive during that time.

Gene Hammett [22:36]
The reason I bring that up because I think everyone can learn from this, Jeff, that when you know what hours you do your best thinking, you actually protect it the best you can. In fact, I even know that I’ve read some articles around how Bezos attaches his work. And he’s like, I don’t have meetings really early in the morning. And I don’t have them in the late afternoon, that mid-morning is the that for him when he makes these big decisions. And he’s involved. And so he protects that time and has his highest value work during that period?

Jeff Kupietzky [23:12]
Yes.

Gene Hammett [23:12]
So here’s the mean, this is just a thought. I’m an early morning person, too. And I love to workout first thing, but I also know I’m an early morning thinker. And when I work out, I’m choosing my health over my thinking. Does that make sense?

Jeff Kupietzky [23:31]
It does. And actually, I’m not a workout kind of guy, I’m a runner. So what I find is sometimes it’s actually during the run that I can give you leverage some of that thinking time, but I understand what you’re saying.

Gene Hammett [23:44]
And it’s kind of the same thing. I’m not a runner, but I do different types of workout, I won’t get into details, but just when you know what your zone, your hours of genius are, and you really protect them. And maybe that is going to run and you know, you know what problem, you’re going to kind of go into it. That’s one way that will give you some boundary to creating a day that works for you. I won’t go into the details there because it’s pretty simple. Protect the time and try not to do the things that don’t matter as much and not saying your family doesn’t matter. But you know, maybe they’d wake up at 630 so you got a full hour off for you. I want to go into something else that I keep thinking about for you on this is that evening time would it be even possible for you to not go to 10 o’clock at night?

Jeff Kupietzky [24:40]
Obviously, it’s possible I think the challenge is how do you balance you know, the need for the folks on the east coast to you know, want to engage and kind of deal with the Office of its clients and we prioritize that. You know, opportunities like this, you know that they’re not typically done early on your timezone so they go late in the evening.

Gene Hammett [24:59]
Here’s one thing that I would I want you to consider, and I’ve done this with clients before, but if you ever decided on like, one day where you don’t do that like there’s one day during the week that you would normally work, but you just said, You know what, on Tuesdays, because today’s Tuesday when we record this, I don’t work past a certain period. Yeah. Have you ever thought about those boundaries?

Jeff Kupietzky [25:24]
No. And like I said, it works very well, at the end of the week, you know, Friday and Saturday, there are no calls at all. And that’s really protected time. Yeah, not been able to kind of carve out another day like that in the middle of the week. But maybe it’s a good suggestion.

Gene Hammett [25:37]
Let me share a story with you. I was working with an Inc 5000 level company. And they were at 45 people. And I was talking to the CEO there, his name’s Mike. And I go, what’s the challenge? He goes, I don’t feel like I have time to get the work done. And we were talking about it. And he comes back to me and says, and my executive team feels the same way. There are too many meetings, there are too many things that we’re doing and we can’t get the work done. I said, Well, what about your other team members than the other 40 plus people? He goes, Yeah, they feel the same way. And so I threw out a challenge to him. And his immediate response was, that’s impossible. Do you want to know what it was?

Jeff Kupietzky [26:17]
Sure.

Gene Hammett [26:18]
Could you have, like a no meeting Wednesday, immediately said, that wouldn’t work. And he went to this. And he’s like, tell me the reasons why it wouldn’t work. And he walks the wall clients. And we have all these production meetings and all this stuff and status and like, we just have a rhythm as like, would you just complain that you don’t have time to get the work done, that you’re always in meetings and always run from meeting to meeting? What if there was one day where you got the work done, and everyone knew that? I don’t care if it’s Wednesday, but that was just a day I picked. And he actually said, By the end of the conversation, he’s like, I want to give this a try. The first two weeks was a lot of resistance from his internal team because they had to, you know, scramble and reschedule meetings, and they were having trouble rescheduling and whatnot. But after the first two weeks, I had talked to him because I was his one on one coach. And we went through this whole conversation about how amazing it was to have one day to just do work. Yep. What does that mean to you? But when I? Because you probably said there’s no way you could just have a day?

Jeff Kupietzky [27:27]
Um, no, I might. I mean, again, I have to think through because two different localities for the team, so we’d have to have that in sync. But yeah, I think I’m, I’ve been through enough to know that less is more. It’s just choosing what is less?

Gene Hammett [27:43]
Well, I’m glad you said that less is more because here’s the reality, there’s a limit to how much your capacity to think, and even offer the coaching that you need to develop your team to be as fresh as you need to be. And it’s probably less than 18 hours a day. Yeah, it’s probably less than 12 hours a day. If you had to really put the put a number on to it. What do you think is like that, right? If you could just design your perfect week, what would be the number of hours per day than if you weren’t really focused? What would that number be?

Jeff Kupietzky [28:19]
That’s eight hours a day, not more?

Gene Hammett [28:22]
What if I said, that’s just a choice, Jeff?

Jeff Kupietzky [28:25]
Yeah. Well, again, I have to think through my unique situation. I think my challenge is I can do with the eight hours, but they are because of time zones, I’d have to create something in the middle, over the lobby, because that really is where there is less interaction, right? The mornings, very productive evenings very productive. It’s kind of the middle.

Gene Hammett [28:45]
I will tell you, I had a conversation with someone the other day inside this optimizer time series. And one of the things he decided to do was to integrate his life with his work, instead of kind of keep them separate. He wanted to integrate them. And what he ended up discovering and sharing with the audience here, and this hasn’t published yet, but it will in the scheme of those interviews, is he no longer works out in the morning because the morning was is that time, his best time to work. But he actually takes a break in the middle of the day. And he’s able to come back in for his second shift, if you will, with more freshness because it gave him energy, you know, to keep moving.

Jeff Kupietzky [29:31]
Yeah.

Gene Hammett [29:31]
Does that make sense? Absolutely. He basically created a new boundary for himself instead of working out at you know, 6 am He’s like, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take the moment at three o’clock in the afternoon some days and I’m, it’s my time, I’m going to come back at four. And I’m going to be I’m going to push hard till eight. And that had changed the way not only the way he was showing up for his team, but it was all just come back to this is it’s just a choice.

Jeff Kupietzky [30:00]
Yep.

Gene Hammett [30:02]
Now, we’ve been talking about this for a few minutes. And I’m not trying to prescribe to you one way or the other. If what you have been saying hasn’t worked, Jeff, what what is the? What are the choices in front of you, if you had to redesign your workweek?

Jeff Kupietzky [30:17]
Well, obviously choosing when I’m available, when I’m not, and how I prioritize the things that I have to do every day. So I do recognize they are choices, questions, how much you feel like you’re controlling them, those are your kind of being dictated to you. So I think you have to balance that.

Gene Hammett [30:34]
You know, I’ve been thinking about this morning, as I do this series. And I think a lot of people approach their time, from a very logical standpoint, like you is available for your team is a very logical reason for being there. But there are also emotional components to it that aren’t really thought through. For example, are you really able to serve them at 10 o’clock at night? After getting up at six? Are you able to truly be the kind of leader that they need, if you’ve gone 18 hours that day? And so you have to make the decisions. If I’m doing this, I’m going to leave you with one final story. And we’ll wrap up today.

Gene Hammett [31:22]
I remember in my coaching business, a lot of people would say, you know, it’s, it’s pretty easy compared to what you probably have to deal with. I don’t have 70 employees, I have five. I don’t have as many clients probably as you do. I do all one on one coaching. So it really is my time. But someone asked me to design my perfect week, and I thought to myself, okay, that would be really a luxury to be able to do that. And I started thinking, well, if I did do it, what would it look like? And I decided to coach on Tuesdays and Thursdays. My first thought too was That’s impossible. Just like Mike’s first thought, No meeting Wednesday’s impossible. But guess what, I was able to go into deciding how I wanted to work and show up and stack my schedule for Tuesdays and Thursdays do I make exceptions? Absolutely.

Gene Hammett [32:16]
But when I understand the rhythm that I’m working in for my business, it has worked out tremendously for me. The same thing for Mike, when they decided to make no meeting Wednesdays, they did that for over six months before they actually changed it to say, I think it’s no meetings on Mondays and Wednesday afternoons. So they shifted a little bit to work with them and the way they work, but they had space for no meeting. When I share all this with you, Jeff, what do you think your next move is here as it relates to your personal time?

Jeff Kupietzky [32:50]
Well, I definitely want to think about this idea of designing the perfect week, I have to think about that. I love the ideas that may be shifting when you take your personal time, from the places where you used to do it and move it, you know, different parts of the day. And thinking about that then to reorder how you prioritize?

Gene Hammett [33:08]
Well, I hope you will be able to do that. Because if you continue at the pace you’re going, maybe you’ll be able to do it fine. But I wonder what it would be like if you could truly show up and be and your team could get the best of you. But also your family could get the best of you as well because we haven’t talked about the impact that all this happens on on on the personal side of life, which there is an impact. And can we acknowledge that there? That is a choice as well?

Jeff Kupietzky [33:35]
For sure.

Gene Hammett [33:36]
And I will remind you, I don’t know how old your kids are mine is 13. He’s got basically five more summers with me.

Jeff Kupietzky [33:45]
Yeah.

Gene Hammett [33:46]
Five, doing on his own thing, doing his own thing. Now, will he come to visit me if I’m at the beach house, probably knowing him. But I want to make the most of that time together. So I don’t know how what your family is like, but you have to factor that into your choices as you do this. But I will leave you with this. It’s all just a choice. It’s not the way you’ve always done it that makes that you have to do it. You can decide to make a change. And if that doesn’t work out, guess what? You can make another change. Is that fair?

Jeff Kupietzky [34:21]
Great advice.

Gene Hammett [34:23]
Is this been helpful for you?

Jeff Kupietzky [34:25]
Yeah, obviously, it’s not stuffed I think about all the time. So it’s good to kind of have this opportunity to talk through it and got some homework.

Gene Hammett [34:32]
All right, Jeff, thanks for sharing with us a little bit about what you’re doing with power inbox what you have been doing to leverage your peer groups. And as I wrap up today’s episode, I want you to think about your own time think about how you as a CEO are coming in fully optimized, and making your time work for you.

Gene Hammett [34:50]
If you have any questions about your time, we’re putting out free content on this series, but we also got some resources for you and free training around this to help you optimize your time as a CEO. If you have any questions about that, make sure you go to genehammett.com. You’ll find it right there available for you. If you want to be a more visionary CEO and get electoral of the day-to-day, you got to learn to really change and manage your time differently. So can you think of growth and you think of leadership think of Growth Think Tank as always, we lead with courage. Well, see you next time.

Disclaimer: This transcript was created using YouTube’s translator tool and that may mean that some of the words, grammar, and typos come from a misinterpretation of the video.

 

 

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