Chaos exists in all aspects of daily life. However, you don’t have to allow chaos to ruin your day! In this episode, Lori and Jimmy share stories, ideas and strategies that help them minimize, if not eliminate, chaos in their daily routines.
You will gain insight into:
- How chaos develops and what to be aware of in your environment to control the effects of chaos in your life.
- Strategies used by Lori that helps her turn chaos into effective actions.
- When to take your power back after chaos has entered the room.
- What Jimmy does every night that gives him control of his next day that minimizes – and sometimes eliminates – chaos from striking in his day.
- Who you should avoid to eliminate much of your chaos in life.
Podcast Transcript
JW:
Have you ever had one of those days where you thought the entire world was sitting on your shoulders? Have you had a day like that? Perhaps this morning while you’re listening to the World’s Greatest podcast? And of course I’m talking about Live a Life By Design. Hey, I’m Jimmy Williams, your co-host this morning, and we have a lady with so much talent. Her name doesn’t even have to be mentioned, but I’m going to. This is Ms. Lori Few joining me as this morning’s co-host. Good morning, Lori!
LF:
Good morning everyone!
JW:
Lori is the queen of what I call calmness. And today I’m gonna ask for her input.
LF:
We’re starting off with a little white lie this morning, Jimmy.
JW:
No, I just stretched the truth. I didn’t lie. That’s what they say in politics. I stretch the truth. Ah, stretch the truth. Hey, good morning everyone. Thank you for joining. Lori and I, we’re gonna have a few moments here to discuss something that’s been going on in both of our worlds in some form. And we’ve taken opportunities to help reduce, shall we say, the collateral damage. And yes, I’m talking about something that’s often out of our own control, but how we can take back control of the situation. And I will tell you this, is that five litter word chaos? You know, just like Lori, do you remember those? What show was it? Was it Get Smart or one of those nice shows back in the sixties or seventies? They had a evil empire and it was called Chaos.
LF:
Yes.
JW:
That’s what I always think of. And I see that word. So, hey, I gotta ask you a question now, Lori. So we’re gonna take this kind of a interview process today because Lori is just so, so knowledgeable in this area. And so I want to ask a few questions. So let me ask you, what do you deem as chaos versus just the world’s ordinary day?
LF:
Oh, goodness. Well, it’s hard because I, in my experience in life, in my all of 29 years plus, we’ll, just-
JW:
Absolutely.
LF:
I think there’s a, it’s the pre and post world of COVID. So pre COVID chaos was probably just your run of the mill average day, where you have multiple things going on. Post COVID chaos takes on a whole different term because we learn, I, I feel like we learned how to deal with it a little bit better because we had to pivot and we had to, you know, alter our plan of thinking, our plan of attack our way that we were, you know, gonna tackle things. And so, oh, I, but, you know, I, I’m that type of person. I, and this is gonna sound terrible, and I don’t know, probably there’s a better way to say it, but I thrive in chaos. I, I do, and I, not in a negative way, but I just do better in situations where I know that there’s something on the line or there’s something I’ve gotta accomplish, or there’s multiple things happening all at the same time. I love a good challenge and I’m a good multitasker. I think everybody has that multitasking tool in their toolbox. Some people just need to, you know, work. It’s kinda like a Swiss army knife. We each have prongs of that Swiss army knife that we use really well, and others that we don’t like. I don’t understand the can opener part.
JW:
You never were in the Girl Scouts, apparently.
LF:
No, but I think of it as that I think of chaos as kind of like a Swiss army knife. It has multiple layers, multiple facets, but it’s all about how you use those in harmony and trying to get all the things accomplished to settle down the chaos. I laugh because my, my name, I actually have a, a, a name on my door and it says my name and under it it says chaos coordinator. And so a lot of people that I work with refer to me as that affectionately. I hope that because they think I’m good at handling the chaos. But that’s it, it’s a, it’ll get you if you’re not on top of things. I will say that.
JW:
So I’ve gotta ask the chaos coordinator folks. Did I not tell you? This lady is really the queen of knowledge on this chaos.
LF:
I’ve always just been that way. I don’t know. I mean, I think as a kid.
JW:
Yeah, how do you thrive though, in chaos? So, and I’m just the opposite. So I would say I can take stress levels heightened the levels of performance that needed in sports or getting a deadline met. But, but chaos. Chaos to me means that somehow in the world, my plan of action, I either failed to plan for, failed to create, failed to document, failed to communicate, something happened. And now I just have the powers that be are on top of me, and I’ve got 14 things pulling at me. That’s just to me, chaos. How do you thrive in that? Now? I know women are superhuman beings, I get that. I’ve been married to one , multitask multitaskers, obviously. Tell me how you thrive in that though.
LF:
I think it’s about tackling it. I love to like it when there’s multiple things going on and there’s chaos, all chaos all around. And I, I think that of course, I, we departmentalize too, like during the day, the chaos of your job. So you strategically outline, okay, these are the things, and a lot of times it depends on when it’s due or when you know it’s coming up. So you prioritize those things. And I’m a big list maker and a check, you know, checking the boxes. I mean, if you hear me during the week, say, oh, today I’m just checking the boxes, it’s because I’ve got a lot going on, but I know that I’ve prioritized them in the area that I need to. That doesn’t necessarily mean they always stay that way depending on, you know, where you’re going or what you’re doing.
LF:
But I love a good challenge. Like I, I, I, I just, I feel like for me, it’s when I’m on top of my game, I’m hyper focused. I deal with a lot of moving parts. I deal with a lot of moving people now in chaos, that’s positive versus negative. I mean, if you’re looking at chaos and, and checking those boxes and getting those things done in a positive, it’s all leading to positives. I mean, that’s kind of like, almost like an adrenaline junkie. Like I’m driven to see that positive result at the end. So I’m like, yes, let’s tackle this. Let’s get it done. On the other side to that, if it’s a chaos that’s negative, there’s always a sense of dread or angst or you know, sometimes tears not gonna lie. Like it could be that for whatever reason. But once you kind of tackle it and start going down the list of, okay, here’s what I have to do, these are my responsibilities, ultimately it falls to me. You know, they’re, as you eloquently always say, weeping and gnashing of teeth you know, that that’s the other side of it. There’s a positive and a negative.
JW:
And it’s funny to me though, that a lot of us that aren’t good at dealing with chaotic events maybe I say dealing with them, coping with them might be the better term for a lot of us. Th those kinds of instances when they arise, are there some things you do to kind of get your mindset, get your frame of mind, whatever term we want to use around this particular set of facts that you have to accomplish?
LF:
Oh, I definitely think it’s a mindset.
JW:
Do you like spit spitting each hand right before you get in the batter’s box, rub ’em together and get that bad hand or-
LF:
Ok, but listen, 90% of the people I work with when I do when I speak to a group of people that I work with and I work with a lot of people, I always say, the first thing you need to say to me in the morning is, Lori, have you had your coffee-
JW:
Again, folks, the coffee addiction is real. It is real.
LF:
It is real. Go ahead. I was gifted this week, in fact a coffee mug that says, I’m in a committed relationship with coffee
JW:
. Her husband does not know this, folks do not leak this out.
LF:
But you know, I mean, that, that’s the thing. I I definitely am caffeinated first. So for your safety and for mine but for mindset, it’s all about whatever the goal is that, because I do work with a lot of people, so I know that in my mind, if I am getting myself prepared mentally and just taking a beat and taking a breath, and sometimes it’s even writing something down or, you know, looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, okay, I can do this. I’ve got this, what do I need in order to accomplish that? And most of the time it’s not just me, it’s multiple other people that I have to stop and think, okay, you know, gotta call this person, need to call this person, need to set up a meeting. I can’t, you know, there are some things that you can’t accomplish alone. And I think that that’s, you of all people can understand that because you’ve built yourself a great team. I think that when you have a great team and a set of players that you can assemble almost like your own oh, forgive me, I’m, I’m blanking. Marvel superheroes assemble, you know, when you have those kind of people-
JW:
The Avengers?
LF:
The Avengers, that’s it! Yes!
LF:
I knew you would get there. But those are the people that you go to when you have chaos and they are the ones that help you get your mind in the right direction and help the, you know, get the wheels moving so that you can accomplish what you need to accomplish.
JW:
You know, it’s funny you said that. A lot of people say, I look a lot in real life like Captain America, but mainly from the neck down. I mean, you’re just the body, the, the massive pecks, massive chest. There is massive muscles and the biceps, you know, that, that, but anyway, just those areas. I digress.
JW:
I think I look more like the Hulk. Some days I turn green because I’m irritated about something. But no, so, so, you know, one thing I do though, you’re gonna laugh from, we have some chaotic events that come up, but I will tell you I do my big three every morning before I ever get into what I consider the chaotic environment, right? The, the office place. So before I get there, I’ve got my big three now. I set ’em the night before and I go, these are the three most important things I have to do tomorrow. Guess what happens? Typically when you get to the office? I like to get there a little early so I can have that little bit of alone time, kind of get settled in and get things prepared, right? Look over my big three, know I got everything I need to get ’em done.
JW:
And then when that door opens and you have, you know, sometimes you have people that get their appointments wrong. And so like today we had one double booked. Okay? Yeah. And it’s crazy. Yeah, we, it’s crazy. But we didn’t book them. We had an appointment and accelerated their appointment when someone didn’t show like two weeks earlier. So we took ’em off our calendar. They didn’t remove from their calendar, which was okay. So we accommodated them and made it work. But our new D f i director of first impressions, Anna came to me and she goes, oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness, Cindy, we got, we’ve got someone here that’s showing up with an appointment and now your appoint person with your appointments out in the parking lot. She called and said she’s on her way running late. I said, breathe, this is okay, . Yeah. We’re not replacing kidneys or hearts or lungs here. This will be okay. Yeah, yeah. Look on the database, we always track their finest coffee, what their favorite snack is. We get her whatever she may need, get whatever coffee she likes, make her comfortable and we’ll go toward this as we should. We’ll tackle it one person at a time. And it was so funny, she looked at me and she goes, how do you do that? And I said, because my big three, I’ve got these three things I’ve got to do today.
LF:
TYes. Those are the priorities.
JW:
So, so to tackle this chaos, to overcome it to me means you gotta have a plan. Yes. And when you failed a plan, you know, the chaos comes in, wouldn’t you think?
LF:
No, absolutely. And I think that having the plan is a great start, but knowing in the back of your mind that sometimes the plan takes a detour. And that’s one of my favorite statements and I say it quite frequently I love movies and life sometimes plays out like a movie. And I always yell when something goes wrong, just yell, plot, twist, and move on . Yeah. Because sometimes you don’t have time to adjust the plan. You just have to keep going with what, with what you have.
JW:
You know, absolutely. But here’s the thing though, that a lot of people do, they panic first and think second. And I always try to caution ’em to say like you thought of, hey plot twist, stop for a minute. Gain your faculties for a minute, even though you may be overcome by all these things happening around you. And say to yourself, what would Jimmy do ? And when you say that-
LF:
No, listen, I have used that.
JW:
W.W.J.D.
LF:
Yes. Honest, I have used that. There have been a, a couple of times where I’ve thought, now hang on a sec, hang on a second. Jimmy and I have talked about this. What would Jimmy do?
JW:
You know, you’re gonna laugh. I and I will say this, I am am not in any way on an autistic spectrum. I’m not making fun of those people. But I am saying to you because they do suffer from that. But I am telling you as a person that’s very good at focusing, I just sometimes ignore all of that noise and chaos around me to get my big three done. And people will look at me and go, are you not even on the same planet as us? Look what’s going on, right?
LF:
Yeah, you’re that you’re that meme of the little dog that’s standing there next to the burning trash can when the world is on fire and it says it’s fine, it’s all fine. It’s fine. Yeah.
JW:
That’s me. Well I’ve got a t-shirt that says I’ll check back in when I’m ready. Anyway, so you know, that’s a T-shirt. That’s good.
LF:
I like it.
JW:
So, you know, but on a serious note, I do believe we possess, and I mean we all, everyone has a brain. Everyone on the planet has the ability with that brain to either do one or two things. You have the right to fight or the right to fight. Literally, those are the only two things that our brain does for us. Our brain is nothing more than the protective mechanism that says keep the body that’s got me housed here safe. because all I’ll tell you, you know, because keep in mind when the days of the dinosaurs, right, and the cavemen and all that, what’d your brain say, okay, you can’t outrun the sabertooth cat, Jimmy, you gotta hide. You gotta, right. So fight or flight. And so I think a lot of times though, we don’t stop to give our brain that chance to really know the facts.
JW:
We simply say, oh my goodness, here’s two people in the office at the same time. And she’s a younger, young younger professional. So she’s, she’s kind of gaining this. But it was so funny. After this all happened, I went up to her and I did a little bit of after action review. Now to me, Lori, that’s simply going up to someone and saying, okay, what happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? What can we do differently next time? And she said, I got this. She said how it happened. Somebody thought they had an appointment. They didn’t, I had not known about, there was nothing I could do. I said, yeah, you’re right. You answered, that’s great. But I said the answer now to the next question is, you’ve got the how and said, I didn’t know, but the why, why do you think it happened?
JW:
And she said, well, I don’t know the answer to that. And I said, let me tell you the why. The why is because we all have to be tested as to whether or not we’re gonna maintain our composure in times that are lacking the elements of composure. And she looked at me real funny. She goes, are you gonna use another one of those long statements on me? She said, I need to write that down. And I said, Anna, here’s all I’m saying to you. You did great, but just take a deep breath and go work what you already know in the process. We plan this all the time. Work on it. It’s just like a doctor’s office. Now, do you enjoy going to your doctor’s office early? because I get early. I’m there early.
LF:
Me too.
JW:
I am. I do not like to wait though. Nope. Beyond my appointment time. More than about 10 minutes. And you’re gonna laugh and people go, Hmm. Well that’s not very long at a doctor’s office. I’m usually the first appointment of the day. I will get up at four in the morning to be that first appointment.
LF:
I agree with you.
JW:
I’m do, why do you think, why do you think I do that?
LF:
Well, probably for the same reason that I do. Because one, if you’re the first appointment, there’s a lot less likely to be delay.
JW:
Yes. And don’t laugh. There’s always that one person in front of me. If I’m not the first one that has multiple comorbidities, that goes in there, doc, I’m here to see these 18 things I have going on. I’m like, oh, come on. You know? Anyway, it’s so funny that I’ve just always been that way at the first flight of the day at the airport. I wanna be on the first one. I don’t care if it’s 5:00 AM I wanna be on the first one. Why? Because it’s a system. So if you know chaos starts at a certain time of the day or with certain facts that happen, for example, you’re the third or fourth flight of the day and it’s bad weather and so forth, you know, you’re gonna probably see some delays in your travel, right? So always think ahead. So that’s why I’m like Lori, which I learned from her. This first one to the doctor’s appointment, first one to the airport. I’m first at everything I can be first at when it comes to my day.
LF:
I was gonna say, there are a lot of things that I can’t be first at. I’m, but if there are things in within my control that I could be first at, I’m definitely gonna do it. We had an employee in our office that literally, I, I don’t know what time he would arrive at work, but he was determined that he would be the first one at work every single day. And so I thought, well, I can’t let this person out do me. And so I started getting to work like five or 10 minutes early and he was still there. Like, I was like, come on, how is this happening? And he said, I, that is my mission. I want to be the first one in the office because I, I want to set up my day and it, it makes me calm and it makes me collected and I have a chance to have quiet.
LF:
And I never figured out. And he would never tell me. I I, I almost accused him of sleeping in the office so he could be first in the office and he was the last person to leave. And I, I would say goodness, like, just don’t you wanna go home? You’ve probably been here forever, you know? No, he said, I am, I’m the leader of this office. I take it very seriously and I wanna make sure that everyone else has the opportunity to go home and finish their day and then I will make sure everything is okay before I leave.
JW:
No, see, unlike me though, a good leader has the traits of showing the leadership by leading from the front. Now, unlike that gentleman or or lady, I don’t know who that is, but I like to get their first thing. I like to be the first one there because before the day starts, phone ringing, teams, messages, ringing in on your computer, you know, you just get their day started. But I leave earlier than people because I want ’em to know as a good leader, I know, show ’em the way out the door. See, that to me is a-
JW:
Hey, I get there early, I get to leave a little alert. And particularly if the weather’s good and the country club’s got the golf course open. Now see that’s the important thing.
LF:
We are having some really, really, really nice weather right now. So I cannot fault you for that.
JW:
Now did you know, and I mean this chaos can show up anywhere, Lori, and I’m gonna bring this to a close just a second, but chaos can be anywhere. And let me tell you why. It shows up at some of the most crazy places for me. For example, chaos can show up for me on the golf course.
LF:
Okay? You’re gonna have to elaborate on that. And I’m not much of a golfer, but golf seems to be the most relaxing thing you could do.
JW:
Well, you would think that, wouldn’t you? So, you know, whoever designed this game way back, I think Native Americans started this way back hundreds and hundreds of years ago. And the Scottish picked it up and, and took off with it with that. But I will tell you, golf to me as a game, I love one moment and I can just basically disregard the next . So my game’s that way, so-
LF:
Love/hate relationship.
JW:
Yes, yes, thank you. And I can show up one day and just fill in the zone man. And I’ll be stroking that ball. Well hitting it where I want it to go and so forth, putting great. And then I can show up the next hole and it be totally obtuse. I mean, I don’t know , okay. I can see that my playing buddies I play with are these kinds of people that never show excitement. They’re like every shot. Well, okay. And then they get up and tee up . They don’t say, that was ugly or that was a great shot. It’s just like, well, okay. And then they go on. So that leaves you in that realm of thinking, well, are they bragging on me or are they making fun of me? I don’t know which they’re doing. But anyway, so chaos to me can show up anywhere.
LF:
I, you know, I think that’s true. I I but I hope it doesn’t show up very often in your downtime or your off time, because that’s just, that’s no fun.
JW:
Well it does, as I said, I often get, you know, people look at me too and they think Brad Pitt. And so I can’t show up at some of the resorts. I show up wearing my Speedo because when I do that, people just think-
LF:
That creates chaos.
JW:
Brad Pitt, that’s chaos. People won’t let me relax. That’s chaos. I want to read my book, you know, and Brad Pitt, if you’re listening, we appreciate you, sir. But yes. You know, the only reason I pick him is because he’s very close to me in hair color. So anyway.
LF:
Oh, okay.
JW:
At least he is this month. I don’t know what color he is gonna be next month, but hey, let’s do one thing before we close with our challenge. We want to honest on a moment of seriousness. Just say, life is not always easy, but life allows us to make things easier if we have the right mindset when we are confronted with those things out of our control. Wouldn’t you say that’d be a good quote?
LF:
I think that is absolutely the truth. It’s, it’s an interesting scenario that we use the word chaos. We can use a lot of other words to define emotions and experiences. Chaos doesn’t necessarily have to be a negative. Again, I think the pendulum swings there. It can go positive or it can go negative. But the main thing to remember is it’s all about how you choose to look at it. It’s all about perspective. It’s all about thinking. And, and like Jimmy said, fight or flight. So sometimes you just have to harness your power and go straight head on into it and you, you’ll be fine. I promise it will be okay.
JW:
It will be. I gotta tell you, we’ve had chaos in our bed. And, and let me explain. Well, let me explain now. let me explain where before your mind runs amuck. Here we go. I was sleeping restfully and our, our younger daughter has a puppy and he is just like all over the place. But he’s a jumper. He’s a oo you’ve heard me mention Casper before on this podcast. He is a lover. He’s not a fighter. So he just wants to greet everybody and lick him and kiss on him and all , well, I’m lying in bed and she comes home one evening late. Her mother knew. I didn’t realize I went to bed early and so I’m lying in bed and I left my door open to my bedroom just enough apparently get his little hairy body through it. . He jumped up and scared, jumped right in the middle of my chest and scared me to death. I was in a deep sleep and starts doing this licking and jumping around on the bed and doing his zoomies. We call it, you know, those zooms in a circle that they do. . I mean, blankets are going everywhere. I’m like, what is going on? And meanwhile, my family is just laughing because I have awakened from this deep sleep hair’s sticking up all over my head now. Sure.
LF:
That’s a whole new chaos.
JW:
That was a chaos. I felt out of control. But anyway, I digress again. Yeah. So I did the best thing-
LF:
We’re gonna try to control it.
JW:
I just wrapped him in a blanket and made him lay down by me and we went to bed. That’s just how that works. Lori.
LF:
So Christy was ready to do that?
JW:
No he wasn’t. He got back up in a few minutes. Oh. Oh, okay. But you know, you do your best. You know, you try.
LF:
Yeah.
JW:
So our challenge for this week, Lori, is this, when we see you we have a chaotic situation begin to brew in our lives. Stop for a few moments. No, you didn’t plan for it, but you have within you the power to take control of the situation. At least to the extent that you can take the chaos and minimize, if not, eliminate it. So this week, Lori, what’s the big challenge from you this week?
LF:
You’re going to face chaos. It’s just a fact of life, but it’s all about how you choose to look at it. So embrace your positive chaos. Embrace your negative chaos, and live a life…
Both:
By design!
