Utkarsh Narang (00:01.422) Today I'm having a conversation with Phil, who we have something in common which goes back years. He being an exercise physiologist and he'll share more about that and me being a physiotherapist. So there's that some connecting link that brings us to workplace well-being and more that we'll speak about today. Welcome Phil, looking forward to this conversation with you today. Phil Wolffe (00:21.254) Thanks, Utkarsh Yeah, I've been looking forward to this for a while. So yeah, let's get into it. Utkarsh Narang (00:25.162) Absolutely. The first question, Phil, that we kick this conversation off all our podcasts is if that eight year old Phil who had dreams, who had challenges, who was just growing up were to come and meet you right now and have a conversation. What do you think? What kind of a conversation will play out then? Phil Wolffe (00:43.814) This caused me a lot of introspection over the break. I think my eight-year-old self, he would be in some ways a little bit disappointed because I'm not a world-class athlete at this stage. I'm not playing state of origin football. I haven't won any premierships in the NRL. And also I'm not managing a group of a hundred hotels. So that was eight year old Phil's dream to play in the NRL and to be a hotel manager. Now, neither of those things panned out. One, because I wasn't good enough to play in the NRL. And two, I realized that hotel management and hospitality was absolutely not for me. I had this idea of what it was. And truthfully, it was from the movie. Utkarsh Narang (01:35.128) Mm. Phil Wolffe (01:40.646) Do ever see the movie "Dunston checks in" with Jason Alexander and it's a monkey and he caused all kinds of chaos. I watched that movie and I wanted to be a hotel manager. I don't know why but that's just how my eight-year-old brain worked. But I soon realised that that industry was not what I wanted. So eight-year-old me, silly little boy with... Utkarsh Narang (01:43.146) I remember that. I remember that. Phil Wolffe (02:09.593) with not much knowledge of the world might be disappointed that I didn't achieve his dreams. However, eight year old me growing up to 38 year old me, certainly not disappointed with the trajectory of our life. Cause yeah, things change, dreams change and I think you should be able to update them on the fly if they don't serve you anymore. So. Yeah, I mean it would be really, really interesting to have that conversation with eight year old me and try and explain to him why I didn't do the things that he wanted me to do. yeah, things have worked out pretty well anyway. Utkarsh Narang (02:43.437) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (02:47.49) Fascinating. Thank you for sharing that. I often say this to the listeners. When you listen to a podcast, get a diary and a pen. Because these ideas around how do you update yourself on the fly, dreams change, reality is very different. But what would you say, Phil, to that eight-year boy to convince him? Because he would be going ballistic. Like, what the hell? Why did you not become a hotel manager for those 100 hotels? What would you say to him? Phil Wolffe (03:14.745) Yeah, that's a tough one. I would try and convince him that there's more than one path to success. There's actually infinite paths to success. And what you see as success at the start is not necessarily what you see as success when you end up because you don't have the data. Right at the start, you have this notion of what you want and you think I'm going to achieve this and I'm going to do that and this is going to be fantastic. But no plan. survives contact with the enemy or as the great philosopher Mike Tyson says, everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the face. And basically life is punching you in the face and you've got to adapt your plan. So I think it would be very difficult to convince him because he's a very stubborn little boy, but I'd tell him that there's more than one way to succeed. And if you... I think in a lot of ways if you are living the dream of your eight year old self maybe you haven't taken the time to update your dreams and to challenge your ideology and to challenge your ideas of the world. Or for some very, very lucky people, yeah, you are living your dream. Some people wanted to be an ice skater, an Olympic ice skater when they're eight and by gosh they're doing it. But for the rest of us, yeah, I think it's important to be able to. to view success as a multifaceted complex thing that you don't achieve. It's something you constantly work towards. And I think that's the goal to always be working towards it, I guess. Because if you achieve it, your bar's probably set too low. Utkarsh Narang (04:56.014) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (05:01.634) Interesting. I love the words of the great philosopher Mike Tyson. It's absolutely true. Because once you're hit in the face, then you realize the magnitude of the force that's coming. And reminds me, Phil, I have this conversation with my young one. He would be like, dad, it's too hot today. I don't want to go to school. I want to be staying at home. And I tell him, that's not an option. Your mom and dad went to school in India. Phil Wolffe (05:06.895) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (05:27.55) where it was like 45 degrees and we did not have air conditioning and this and that. Absolutely. And they have so many resources and then still they have this challenge. But let's go deeper on this idea of success being multifaceted. When you look at this 38-year-old Phil now, how do you think you define success and what could you share about that journey that you've taken? Phil Wolffe (05:32.601) Yeah, barefoot uphill both ways. Phil Wolffe (05:54.576) Yeah, I think that's one of the most important things to get clear on what success is for each of us. And for me, it's am I driving towards my purpose? Am I living by my values? And is my system working? Is my system working basically? So if those three things are being achieved, then I am succeeding. There's no number in my head that I have to reach. There's no certain amount of status, there's no follow account or monthly turnover. That's to me, that's not success. That's an arbitrary thing that we pick and we work towards. So what I have is a strong purpose and my purpose is to serve people in the best way that I can. Now, my skill set is as an exercise physiologist and my my experience is in workplace well-being. It has been for the last almost 15 years now. So the best way I can serve people is by putting everything into that and by changing the paradigm of workplace well-being. So that is my purpose. My values, I got very, very clear on my values and I revisit those consistently. And as long as I'm making decisions that serve my purpose and are guided by my values, it can't be the wrong decision. So if I'm living by my values, that is success. And if my system is running, so am I doing the things that I know I should do for myself and for my family, for my business? Am I exercising? Am I sleeping well? Am I eating right? Am I putting enough time into training and development, both for myself and for my people? Am I spending enough time with my partner? Am I giving time to my friends, to my family? That's my system is all of that on track and is all of that running. If the answer to all three of those things is yes, then I'm succeeding. When the answer becomes no, then that's it's time to adjust. It's time to revisit. these things still serving me? Do they need to be changed? Do they need to be updated? Because success for me is not a, it's not an end goal. It's the path. So I have absolutely no idea where I can get to. Phil Wolffe (08:16.271) where my ceiling is or what I'll achieve over the next 40 years. I have no idea. So I don't set a success goal in those terms. I'm gonna run my system. I'm gonna aim for my purpose. I'm gonna live by my values. And as long as I'm doing that, wherever I get to, that's where I'm supposed to get to. Utkarsh Narang (08:37.422) This is almost like, let me paraphrase this equation. So success is equal to being able to serve your purpose while you live by your values, while the system continuously runs in good shape. Now let's go onto these one by one. do you have like, I'm sure you have, but how many values do you live by and what are those values if you're open to sharing? Phil Wolffe (09:02.797) I am open to share that, yeah, so I have five. And housed within those five are different sort of, guess, sub values. It took a long time to actually whittle those down to just five. I didn't want any more because it's something that I can't really keep in my head at all times. And some of them might start competing with each other. So in order, I've actually got them, they're... Utkarsh Narang (09:05.463) Mm-hmm. Phil Wolffe (09:32.112) they're staring me in the face right there. They're on a board that I look at every single day. So wellbeing is number one. For me, that encompasses health, physical health, mental health, emotional, social health, all of that. Wellbeing is the most important thing for me. Freedom is second on the list. that, for me, money is in that. Money, is important to me in so far as it is a vehicle to do the things that I want to do. It's the dollar figure, the number, the amount of money is absolutely inconsequential. I could not care less as long as I'm able to just service my life and do the things I want to do and have the freedom to do the things that I want to do, make the choices I want to make. And also my health is tied into that as well. Can I, if I want to go for a run, am I able to do that? If a friend calls me and says, you want to go whitewater kayaking this weekend? I want to be able to do that. Freedom is extraordinarily important to me. Third is growth. So constantly learning, upskilling, adapting, growing in all ways. that's it's reading, it's studying, it's learning, it's paying attention, it's being curious, it's absorbing and retaining information. That's incredibly important to me. Number four is belonging. My network, my family, my friends, my support, it's all very, very important to me. It's one of the main reasons that I've been able to get to where I am and do the things I've been able to do, having that strong network and it's so important to me. And the last one is utility, which is... In my mind, I think that we should strive to be useful to the world. think that's a, it's incredibly important to me. And I think if everyone, if everyone looks at it as their responsibility to have utility, not just for themselves, but for the world, I think the world becomes a better place. So there's a lot of sub values tied up in that, but that's, that's probably the most succinct way I can put those. So well-being, freedom, growth, belonging, utility. Phil Wolffe (11:56.813) I make my choices based on those. Utkarsh Narang (11:59.31) Thank you for sharing these. I did this work a few years ago for myself, I think about 10 or 12 years ago, where I started to see what values could emerge. And there was my early experiments with values. And since 2018, I've had these five values, which again, as you were saying, have these subvalues. And the five that I have are discipline, excellence, freedom, love, and growth. And how I'm fascinated is that Phil Wolffe (12:26.947) Well. Utkarsh Narang (12:28.27) Freedom, growth, and belonging in a way extends to love or love extends to belonging. mean, they're interrelated. So I'm amazed that out of the five values that both of us picked, three of them are same. And I 100 % agree with this. People sometimes don't value freedom enough and don't value the value of money in buying that freedom for you. And I think it's... Phil Wolffe (12:34.181) 100%, yeah. Utkarsh Narang (12:56.142) extremely important for us to have that relationship be built over time. But here's the challenge, and I know both of us have kind of built these values, so we understand how to go through this process. But someone who's listening to us, Phil, 25, 30 years old, maybe 35, they are in their organization, product manager, struggling, because there's so much to do, and they want to have a life outside of work as well. But the culture, the manager, the... the KPIs, the OKR, they want them to work 12 hours a day. And it does not seem that easy to be able to live by the values. It does not seem that easy to be able to break free or make the choices that you and I have maybe made. Where does that person begin? Phil Wolffe (13:44.218) Yeah, that's such an interesting question and we deal with this quite a lot actually because we obviously work with companies on exactly that. How do we manage workload? How do we get the best out of people without them burning out? We also work with individuals on the same thing. So they're coming at it from two seemingly opposing directions, but they're actually not. actually, they should be a lot more united on this. If it's really interesting that you use that term, they want them to work 12 hours a day. Now, that would be a conversation with leadership. What does 12 hours a day mean? So why 12 hours a day? Is that an arbitrary number? 12 hours a day does not necessarily mean a certain amount of work will get done. That doesn't lead you to certain outcomes. You can put a high performer on a four hour schedule. and they'll get you 12 hours of work done that a low performer would do in 12 hours or maybe even longer. time, using time, I understand why we use time as a metric for hard work, but it's very, very flawed. I know why we use it because it's easy. 12 hours is more than 11 hours. 11 hours is more than 10 hours. And you can track that. Utkarsh Narang (15:10.424) you Phil Wolffe (15:12.229) and someone can sit at their desk for 12 hours and be considered a hard worker, but get 40 % of the work done. And someone else can utilize their time effectively and bring time, focus and energy together, which the middle of that Venn diagram is flow. That's real productivity. But you can sit there with no energy and no focus and put in the time and be considered doing a good job. So my first question to the leadership would be, why 12 hours? Why do we land on that? My next question would be what outcomes do you want to actually achieve? And how are we going to structure work in order to achieve these outcomes whilst maintaining sustainable performance over a long time, over a long period? So everyone's looking for high performance, but what we often don't realise is that you can get a lot more work out of people if they can maintain a level of high performance over a longer period of time. So if we're putting in 100 effort, let's say that product manager putting in 12 hours a day, putting in 100 points of effort, at the start you're gonna get 100 output points, then over time you're gonna get 95 and then 90, then 85 and 80. You're still putting in 100 points of effort, so your effort has not decreased but your performance has. Now we consider someone else who's putting in 80 points of effort. and they have 20 points of effort to take home to their family to invest in their exercise or reading or whatever they want, they're going to maintain 80 output points. And when they need to, they can ramp that up. So if a big project comes across their desk and for two weeks they need to put in 90 or 95 or 100, they have the capacity to do that. And then they come back down to 80 and they can maintain their 80 over a longer period. That's a person that can give 80 output for an entire career, as opposed to giving 100 for as long as they can and then burning out, going to zero and having to start all over again. So that's an equation that I'd really like to get across to people. We can produce more if we can produce for a longer period of time. So that's what sustainable high performance is all about. And there's different ways that we do that. We have... Utkarsh Narang (17:11.694) Hmm. Phil Wolffe (17:36.485) we have seminars and workshops and programs on exactly that. It's not as complicated as we make it, but yeah, the first thing is why are we using time as our metric? It's very fallible metric. I understand that it's easy, but it's certainly not the best way. Utkarsh Narang (17:50.456) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (17:57.345) I think I love that idea. And again, I think what you're alluding to is that time is such an easy thing to set. Person X is more hardworking than person Y just because they work three hours extra. But that does not mean that their output is high performing because they might be working for those 12 hours. But if they're only 50 % productive, then that's less. And then the other idea is by continuously asking them to put in that level of effort, which would be like 100 points. you're taking them to burn out because then they'll have to extend themselves to the families or social relationships or not have them, which is even worse, which then starts to impact their work. So that state of flow is not going to come for them. I'm going to park this word state of flow because I'm intrigued to know more from you as to how this plays out. But I'm going to go back again to our definition of our equation of values and we'll keep doing this dance. So the equation of success had the values in there, had the purpose and had the system. we were to think about values. How did that journey emerge for you? When did the values start to be like, these five things start to make sense. And you started to kind of put them on that page or board that you have in front of you. Phil Wolffe (19:10.031) Yeah, it got, actually, sorry, one thing. I don't think I answered your question properly because from the product manager's perspective, how do you actually make that happen? It's communication with leadership. I would take those questions to them and communicate openly. Say, my capacity has been reached. Let's look at different ways to measure my output to measure these outcomes. it... Utkarsh Narang (19:12.558) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (19:22.186) Mm. Mm. Utkarsh Narang (19:27.822) Yeah. Phil Wolffe (19:37.016) always, always, always goes back to communication. If you don't feel that you can communicate with your leader, that's a really, really, really big problem. That's a huge problem that needs to be addressed in one way or another. But yes, sorry, just had to tie a little bow on that. So for me, I've always lived by those values and I realized I've always lived by those values when I actually got Utkarsh Narang (19:54.094) Mm-hmm. Phil Wolffe (20:06.391) Intentional about them and I actually wrote them down which actually wasn't that long ago. It was probably a year ago when we started to We started to articulate this process for our clients that we work with and We sat down and we really worked out How do we get people from where they are? To where they need to be in terms of sustainable high performance both as individuals and as teams and as organizations so articulating that process meant that we had to really get specific with these things. They couldn't be concepts anymore. They couldn't be ideas. They had to be black and white steps. And going through that process, I realized that I would have to do that for myself. had, my values have always guided my decisions, but I've never actually gotten clear on what they were and articulated them or written them down. So it was probably about 12 months ago that I did that. for real, took me, it took me a few weeks to really get clear on them, because I did them, I did them in about an hour or two hours, and then I went away and came back and I revisited, and then went away and came back and revisited, and then every now and then, I'll just sit here and look at them and go, are these right for me? The order has changed a little bit, I've included more sub values in them. Utkarsh Narang (21:29.582) Mm. Phil Wolffe (21:36.442) But that's probably, that's what it was. I think having to teach someone something makes you get, makes you have to get really clear on it yourself, which is fantastic. And most of my work involves teaching people stuff. So I gotta get really, really clear on it. It can't just be an idea. It has to be concrete steps. Cause in my mind, the function of knowledge. Utkarsh Narang (21:41.528) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (21:56.163) Yeah. Phil Wolffe (22:04.933) Sorry, the value of knowledge is in its utility. Can I use this knowledge to produce an outcome, to produce a favorable outcome? If the answer is no, then okay, what do I know this for? If the answer is yes, then great, that is valuable knowledge. So that's my job to impart valuable knowledge to Utkarsh Narang (22:12.43) Hmm. Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (22:24.846) Got it. Got it. So, so early experiments, I think is what I'm hearing. Get those values out there, maybe work with a coach or a facilitator, whoever that might look like, and get those values on a page. And then you start to kind of live by them. Did you face any early hurdles, you thought like, this value does not make sense. I need to change it. And how did that process go on for you? Phil Wolffe (22:48.29) actually no, I didn't. I've always lived, yeah, I've always lived by these values and they've always been very strong within me and within my decision making so I didn't really face any internal pressure there. I think the... Utkarsh Narang (22:51.938) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (22:57.314) Mm. Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (23:04.418) Hmm. Phil Wolffe (23:06.879) The... The... Okay, look, how do we put this? So the pressure comes from external sources for me. My internal values I'm very, very clear on. Externally, you hear a lot of noise. You should be doing X amount in sales, you should be doing this, you should be doing that, and if you're not at this point, then you're not succeeding, and why aren't you doing X, Y, and Z? So the... Utkarsh Narang (23:25.067) you Phil Wolffe (23:36.918) external metrics of success do conflict with my internal metrics for success which is it was I suppose difficult in the beginning it's becoming far less so now as I realize honestly who cares the external noise is much much quieter now and I'm able to pass through that and and recognize that it doesn't actually serve me and it probably doesn't serve the people who are talking about it, they're just saying it because it's what they're supposed to say or it's what they've achieved and so retroactively they say that they wanted that. So internally, no, no hurdles. Externally, some incongruence, I guess, with my values and what people view as success, but that incongruence is... Utkarsh Narang (24:06.862) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (24:27.171) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (24:32.046) Hmm. Phil Wolffe (24:35.653) it's becoming less important. Utkarsh Narang (24:36.974) Yeah. Yeah. And it's a journey. It's a journey where that incongruence becomes less important. But if you were to, to advise someone or someone who's maybe working with you, what's a, what's a good way to expedite this, getting over this incongruence because this external metric of success is going to be, is going to be at some ways conflicting to your internal metrics. Right. So, so what's your advice on that? Phil Wolffe (25:04.323) Yeah, that's a great question. I suppose I would tell someone to imagine that the person or people or things that are telling them what is important. Imagine that in two months they're going to disappear or let's say in two years they will disappear off the face of the earth. They will no longer be here telling you what to do. Now, now that that external pressure is gone. Utkarsh Narang (25:21.006) Hmm. Phil Wolffe (25:33.752) in two years time, are you pointed towards the right things? Are you living your life depending on or based on what you actually want and what would make you happy and what would give you a sense of fulfillment? Or are you doing it to appease people who honestly don't matter? Is it social media that's pushing you? Is it your parents? Is it your boss? Is it your partner? And I'm not saying that these people don't matter, but their opinion should not matter to you and should not matter to your internal success metrics. So just imagine that those people are going to disappear or their opinions are going to change, or they're going to stop telling you what success is and live by your success metrics. Because if you don't, you're going to turn around in five, 10, 20 years and go, crap, I've been pointed towards the wrong things. So. Utkarsh Narang (26:26.574) Hmm. Yeah. Phil Wolffe (26:30.873) Yeah, I suppose that's, I mean, there's a bunch of different ways to do it, but just imagine that they're gonna disappear. Are you gonna be happy with where you're at? Utkarsh Narang (26:38.574) I love that. I love what you said. there's something that I often share with people I work with, that it's not that the person does not matter, Phil. I think it's the opinion that we are kind of going against or asking us to ignore in a certain way. And this idea that if that person were to disappear in a few weeks, months, years, then how would you want to be is the other one. And I think the other thing that I felt, and I love your thoughts on it. So the five values, sometimes... you also have to be flexible with the five values and flexible where you don't really kind of negotiate on the value, but you negotiate on the intensity of the value. What are your thoughts on that? Phil Wolffe (27:18.869) I completely agree, I 100 % agree with that and I put that into practice, definitely. So all of those five are not all as important as each other at all times. sometimes you will have to sacrifice a little bit of wellbeing in order to achieve a little bit more freedom or more growth or more belonging, more utility or whatever the case may be because Utkarsh Narang (27:39.725) Mmm. Phil Wolffe (27:47.718) we can't fire at 100 on everything all the time. Sometimes physical health is going to have to take a little bit of a backseat because we honestly just do need to get this work done. our workouts might decrease a little bit or our belonging might take a little bit of a hit because we can't go to that birthday or we can't spend as much time with our family as we'd like because there's different priorities. So They're all always important, but they're not always as important as each other all the time. yeah, 100%. Just having that awareness to dial it up and dial it back as we need. Utkarsh Narang (28:18.478) Love that. Love that. Yeah, Yeah, one value that I often get conflicted with is discipline, which is something so deeply ingrained within me since the very early days. There was this client who showed up like eight minutes late to a meeting. I patiently wait for about 10 minutes. I send them an email at five and then wait till 10. And they show up at eight. And I'm like, not going to be able to work together. And this is why it is. And then we had a good conversation. We ended up working together. But it's just, makes me, it makes me feel, it makes me, now as I'm speaking with you, I'm realizing it makes me judge the other person when they're not disciplined. And I think that's the intensity that I'm trying to reduce. It comes out really strongly with my kids that if you got to sleep at 10, you got to sleep at 10 because there's school tomorrow. And that does not mean that you will break that discipline on a, a Friday night, okay, but not on a Sunday night, not on a Saturday night. Yeah, it's a journey that I'm on myself. The third one that you said in that equation of success, Phil, was system. Tell me a little bit more about that. What does that system look like and how does one define that system? Phil Wolffe (29:33.924) Yeah, so systemizing things, think, having a framework, I think is one of the most important things, especially as a business owner, when everything relies on you, everything comes down to you. If you don't do the work, the work doesn't get done. And having a framework that's relatively rigid, but able to adapt as needed actually sets you free. So I used to think that When I was younger, I wasn't very disciplined, which was a big problem. And I used to think that because freedom has always been so important to me, that if I structured everything, then I was impinging on my freedom. And that was incongruent with my internal values. But I was wrong. I was just lazy, honestly. I was just justifying my own laziness. So now I systemize basically everything. If you could see my calendar, I block out my sleep period, I block out my exercise period, I block out lunch, I schedule in when I'm going to have meetings, I schedule in when I'm going to work on this project. I do that every Friday, I look forward to the week ahead and I schedule in everything and it changes all the time, all the time. I've never ever had a week, not one week where everything has gone exactly as I planned it out. but that's fine because I have a framework and I adapt that framework however is needed. So as long as that system is running and as long as that's working for me, setting it out and adapting as needed, then that's that success. But some of the things that I do not ever compromise on are my sleep, my lunch break and my exercise. Those three things are absolute priorities. Utkarsh Narang (31:26.606) Hmm. Phil Wolffe (31:30.585) for me, everything else gets scheduled in around that. And I not book in meetings important or not because it infringes on that time. I'm relative, I'm pretty inflexible about that because I know that those three things, they're gonna maintain my sustainable performance that we were talking about earlier. If I'm sleeping well, if I'm exercising regularly, and if I'm taking that break, Utkarsh Narang (31:46.83) Mm. Utkarsh Narang (31:54.092) No. No. Phil Wolffe (32:00.378) to have a nutritious meal and to give myself the mental space and eat lunch with my partner or by myself or outside or whatever, then I'm gonna be much more effective. So those three things I don't budge on. Utkarsh Narang (32:15.136) I'm, you know, my, again, I've heard this younger generation use these terms. So I'm not that young to use these words, but I hear them say, you're my brother from another mother. I'm going to use that hair, Phil, because when you were saying this calendar thing, I'm so identical. Everything on the calendar is programmed from my sleep to my meals, to the time I have to drop in, pick the kids up to every meeting, to exercise, to meditation, to my creative thinking blocks. And I've color-coded them as well, which sounds hilarious to some. It's insane. But I really feel that if someone's not done that yet, and if you're listening to these two middle-aged dudes going mad about this, but it is so effective. is unbelievably effective when you have control over your time, because that'll allow you to have the freedom of not negotiating on things that are important to you, as Phil said. Phil Wolffe (32:47.704) Me too, yeah. Utkarsh Narang (33:13.6) Exercise, sleep, lunch, what are we working for if you don't have a healthy body? What are we working for if you cannot sleep peacefully at night? And I think if anything, and I really mean anything is coming in the way of that, I think you need to tweak the system. You need to listen to this podcast again and make sure that you make that happen. But here's a question, again, I keep playing the devil's advocate in these conversations because I know listeners are not that seamless yet with these systems, right? What if the system starts to be impeded by your partner, by a family friend, by your business outcomes, by the noise? Then how do you again recalibrate the system? What's your trick? Phil Wolffe (33:58.202) Yeah, great question. that, first of all, if it's being infringed on by outside sources, then that means that we haven't established our boundaries and communicated them effectively. So boundaries, think, are some of the most important things that we have. And people think that boundaries are somehow rude or inconvenient, or it's going to make you seem mean or selfish. Nothing could be further from the truth. Utkarsh Narang (34:11.566) powerful. Phil Wolffe (34:28.611) like the old Robert Frost saying, good fences make good neighbors. If you, if people don't know where your boundaries are and they don't know what they can ask of you and when, what they can't and why, they don't know how to treat you. So by establishing our boundaries and by communicating them and sticking to them, fairly rigidly and make allowances where you absolutely have to, but not, not often. If we're doing that, then we're giving people a blueprint for how to treat us. and for what's important to us and... And I think too few of us are doing that in our personal lives, in our work lives. Far too few of us are doing that. And it's part of the work that we do with teams and with organizations about setting those boundaries and respecting them, being strong with them in ourselves and respecting them from our partners, from our coworkers, from our friends. So that's where I would 100 % start. Two things, look at what are your foundational activities. So for me, sleep, exercise, lunch, and everything is built around those three things. Now my exercise, I value it very, very highly. So that's like a two hour or two and a half hour period each day. That's not gonna be the same for everyone. It could be honestly 10 minutes. It could be a 10 minute walk outside. Use that as your anchor, as your foundation and build things around that. So what are your foundational activities? and then set your boundaries in order to protect those and to protect your time and to be able to be of service to others, not always on everyone else's terms. It can't always be on your terms, but it certainly can't always be on theirs. So foundational activities, set your boundaries and communicate those boundaries very, very, very clearly. Because if you're not communicating them, then honestly, they don't exist. They only exist in your mind. You have to give people a blueprint for how to treat you. Utkarsh Narang (36:22.318) Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, powerful. And these things just don't apply to you as an individual, but they do to the team, they do to the organization because there's this concept, Phil, you might have heard or practiced it, of building a user manual. And I often tell this to people that when you're a new manager, for example, build yourself a user manual and share with your team because they need to know what kind of manager you are. Maybe you're someone who will send these late night emails, but the team does not have to respond to them. Maybe you're someone who will try and check in on a certain project, but that's not you micromanaging. So I think it's really effective. And I love this statement. Find your anchor, build boundaries around it, communicate, and that's how you protect your time. That's how you serve yourself to then be able to serve others. Phil Wolffe (37:13.177) Yeah, exactly. And I love that term user manual. we're, yeah, you bang on there because in our workshops, that's exactly what we do. We work with managers in their teams to develop an idea of what each person is and what they need. And we go so far as to look at each person's individual performance pattern. So when is their social, emotional, cognitive, physical energy highest and lowest? And we actually have a chart. Utkarsh Narang (37:23.096) Yeah. Phil Wolffe (37:40.442) where people input their highest energy time, their lowest energy time, their most contactable time, and their least contactable time. And you can see at a glance where those things cross over. And you can see that Sharon has her highest energy in the morning, so that's when her cognitive tasks are gonna be best served. So let's not plan meetings in Sharon's highest energy time because she needs that for work. Everyone's lowest... Utkarsh Narang (37:46.862) you Mm. Phil Wolffe (38:08.547) What we actually, in the last one that we did, we found that meetings were scheduled at one o'clock. And that was the one time that was crossed over with everyone's least contactable time, which is insane. But no one had said anything because the meetings were always scheduled at one, so everyone turned up at one, even though it was the least convenient time for everyone. So even just that one thing, meeting times changed to cross over as much as possible with everyone's most contactable time. Utkarsh Narang (38:13.166) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (38:19.022) you Yeah. Phil Wolffe (38:36.728) And that one change has saved an enormous amount of time and an enormous amount of grief for people trying to shift things around to make that meeting that didn't make any sense. yeah, having a user manual for your team and giving them yours, it's just so powerful. It's what we call team wellbeing dynamics. That's the heart of team wellbeing dynamics. And yeah, that's what it is. Utkarsh Narang (38:46.776) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (38:54.462) so powerful. Utkarsh Narang (38:58.86) Right. Yeah. I'm planting a seed as we speak on this podcast that very soon you and I will get to work together. I don't know how and when, but I'm pretty sure that'll happen. We're getting into the tail end of the conversation. I don't want to end this conversation without speaking about this concept of flow, because to me, that's another thing that, right, it makes you, it makes... It elevates your performance. It elevates who you are. It elevates how you show up in the world. And it's like, whether it's a state of flow in work or in your own self care time or workout, for example, or with your family and loved ones. But what's, what's your kind of approach in a very simplified teaching, like eight year old Phil, what does flow mean Phil? Phil Wolffe (39:50.362) Yeah, that's one of the big questions that matters the most. Flow for me is the same as success. So am I working on something purposeful? And have I brought my three greatest resources together, which is time, energy, and focus? So that's what flow is, doing purposeful work when you have the time, you have the energy, and you have the focus, and you're applying those three things. We can't... I don't think that you can achieve it without all four of those things coming together, honestly. You can be productive or you can be hard working or you can get get shit done, but I don't think you can achieve flow without those four things. So that's what I try and bring together as often as possible. And I will, I'll sacrifice a lot of work time if those, if those four things aren't together, at least time, energy and focus. So if I don't have energy and I have let's say two hours in the afternoon to work but I have no energy and my focus is all over the place. If I apply that to work that is wasted time because those two hours could be better spent doing something else. They could be better spent preparing some food, maybe making a meal and freezing it so I don't have to do that on another day or going for a walk or spending time with my partner or reading or doing something that I enjoy. So that the next day I'm to be much better because what I can get done in half an hour when I have those four things, when I'm in flow, yeah, it's impressive. And what I can get done in three hours when I don't have those things is truly, truly sad. So yeah, it's about bringing those four things together. Utkarsh Narang (41:36.354) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. One practice. Absolutely love that. And one, one thing that I've started to do is when I feel low energy in the afternoon, instead of grabbing a cup of coffee, I go and take a 15 minute nap. It is the best 15 minutes of my life because that nap and again, it depends on who you are, right? If you are someone who goes to sleep or does off very quickly, go try that. If you're not then, then find something else. I think all Phil Wolffe (41:52.207) Yeah, nice. Utkarsh Narang (42:06.478) What Phil, you and I are alluding to is people should find what works for them, what are their set of values, what their purpose is, what their system looks like, then manage the time, energy, and focus to get into the state of flow more often. I think that's how I will summarize this episode. Phil Wolffe (42:21.727) That's a great summary. Yeah. And your nap, for me, it's a walk. I think going for a walk outside in the fresh air, ideally in nature, is the most underrated health and wellbeing activity of literally all time. It's space for your brain. It's activity. It's blood flow. It's more oxygen. It's fresh air. It's sunlight. It's everything. And it's free. So just... Utkarsh Narang (42:28.716) Yeah. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (42:46.09) Everything. It's free. Yeah. Yeah. The best things in the world are free, I think it's the iPhones and the smartphones and whatever technology that we pay for through the internet, which is very expensive in Australia, by the way. Folks in India are listening. You won't believe how expensive internet in Australia is compared to India. That's a conversation for another day. Phil, as we go into the final question. Phil Wolffe (42:48.751) Go outside, walk around for 10 or 15 minutes, come back, I guarantee you're gonna feel better. Utkarsh Narang (43:15.138) We spoke about that 80-year-old stubborn little Phil who had dreams of the NRL and Dunson Checks in, so the hotel management, to where you've reached now. If we were to go forward into the future four or five decades, that 80-year-old Phil now looks back and looks at you right now. And he has this one piece of advice that Phil, over the next four decades, what would he say to you? Phil Wolffe (43:41.899) I think he would say stay true to your values. Don't let the outside noise creep in. Don't... Don't get scared. Don't get scared to live the way that you wanna live and don't give in to the noise and the pressure from outside. Live according to your values. And as a side note, keep moving. Just keep moving, keep exercising. Don't ever, ever, ever stop moving because honestly, if you don't move it, you lose it. I mean, the statistics on... People who move against people who don't, particularly as we age, are just incredible. So yeah, I think that's what it would be. Stay true to your values. Don't be scared to live the way that you wanna live and just never ever, ever stop moving, I suppose. Yeah, that'd be the one. Utkarsh Narang (44:45.464) Beautiful. And it's very hard. It's to those who are listening and to Phil and I will agree to this, it's not the easiest path you take when you try to live by your values and when you try to live the way you want to beyond the noise, because the noise is very powerful and the way it's increasing, I think that's beautiful advice from our 80-year-old Phil coming to all of us. Yeah. Truly appreciate this conversation, Phil. It was heartwarming and I think we spoke about some beautiful ideas, which again, I'm gonna tell the listeners to go back and listen to it again and put this into practice because unless you create the system, nothing's gonna work. Thank you for your time today, Phil. Phil Wolffe (45:29.231) Thank you very much for having me. really enjoyed this. Utkarsh Narang (45:32.302) Absolutely.