PODCAST EP.47: Retrospective Special - Part 3 - Capacity

Episode Summary: In this final retrospective episode of the year, Tim Sweet delves into the concept of capacity, exploring how it extends beyond time and energy to include personal priorities, relationships, and intentional choices. Drawing on insights from past guests, Tim underscores the importance of leaders prioritizing themselves to avoid burnout and make space for personal and professional growth, learning how to take steps outside the comfort zone for new challenges, and focusing on key goals while relying on facts instead of hope. Tim concludes the episode with a call to action, encouraging listeners to evaluate their current state, identify areas of over-commitment, and align their choices with their goals and values.

Episode Notes
In this final retrospective episode of the year, Tim Sweet delves into the concept of capacity, exploring how it extends beyond time and energy to include personal priorities, relationships, and intentional choices. Drawing on insights from guests, including Renee Miller and Anna Morgan, Tim underscores the importance of leaders prioritizing themselves to avoid burnout and make space for personal and professional growth. 

Additional clips from past guests, including Richard Young, highlight the power of evidence over hope in decision-making, while Dan Löfquist and Julie Friedman Smith discuss the rewards of stepping out of comfort zones to embrace challenges and foster adaptability. Jeff Massone emphasizes the transformative role of positive relationships, and Tim Beissinger shares how focusing on key goals can lead to significant achievements. These conversations provide a holistic view of capacity as a critical leadership tool.

Tim concludes the episode with a call to action, encouraging listeners to evaluate their current state, identify areas of over-commitment, and align their choices with their goals and values. By creating space for what matters and surrounding themselves with supportive relationships, leaders can build capacity for success. Tune in to discover actionable strategies for intentional living and leadership.


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Transcript
Tim  00:00
I'd like to ask you some questions. Do you consider yourself the kind of person that gets things done? Are you able to take a vision and transform that into action? Are you able to align others towards that vision and get them moving to create something truly remarkable? If any of these describe you, then you, my friend, are a leader, and this show is all about and all for you. I'm Tim sweet. Welcome to Episode 47 of the Sweet on Leadership Podcast.

Tim  00:31
Today we're diving into the critical topic of capacity. Capacity is about more than just having enough time or energy. It's about making room for growth, prioritizing what matters and understanding how we lead ourselves and others sustainably. We'll be drawing on insights from nine incredible guests to explore this theme. These are leaders, thinkers, experts, who have all shared authentic, surprising and fearless perspectives on how we can unlock our own potential while creating environments where others can do the same. They've been my guests over the last year with Sweet on Leadership podcast. So I'm eager to dive in. Capacity begins with prioritizing yourself. As leaders, we often focus so much on serving others that we forget to check in with our own needs and aspirations. But here's one truth, you cannot pour from an empty cup and a well that gives no water is just a hole. When I spoke to Renee Miller in Episode 42 her perspective on this was both authentic and actionable. Renee one of two intrepid thru hikers that join me, challenges us to see how easy it is to get caught up in daily demands while sidelining our professional and personal dreams.

Renee Miller  01:42
You get so caught up into your daily lives, and the tasks that you, you know, you go to work and have to get all these tasks done and come home and have responsibilities at home, but yeah, you kind of forget about yourself. And you know, what about that professional engineering license that would be really good for my career? Oh, I don't have time for that, because I'm busy working and, yeah, just talking with people and reminding them to prioritize themselves and their resumes, and it'll probably be good for their company as well.

Tim  02:20
Prioritizing yourself is not selfish. It's essential for sustainable leadership. Anna Morgan, a career coach and speaker, added another layer to this. In episode 31. Anna spoke powerfully about the importance of balancing your professional identity with the things that bring you joy outside of work.

Anna Morgan  02:37
Care about yourself enough, and this is the other thing I see, especially at the manager to executive level, is people get so wrapped up in their identity as a small company CEO or as an executive, and it takes me so much time to unwire and alchemize a lot of that identity that if I don't have that I am less than or I'm not enough, and it's balancing out and making sure that you have hobbies and side hustles and things that bring you joy outside of that 40-45, plus hour work week, so that you are just not in that rabbit hole of you know work which, and then you look at your life, because nobody on their deathbed is going to be like, I wish I worked more right? They're going to say, I wish I spent more time with my kids. I wish I went on more trips.

Tim  03:41
Servant leadership is an important concept, but we can't let work, we can't let our roles as leaders define us entirely. Our capacity expands when we make room for joy and relationships and fulfillment and development beyond our current office, beyond our current team. But it's not all feelings, capacity also depends on evidence, concrete facts that help us move from I hope this works to I know this works. If you're seeking to manage your capacity, the word hope should be a red flag. If you're using it, you're no longer in the driver's seat. You're playing the lottery without evidence. We risk making decisions that are based on emotions instead of facts. Richard Young, my friend, a performance researcher and the author of Simplify and his new book Amplify, shared a powerful story in Episode 27 about how evidence can close performance gaps.

Richard Young  04:34
They said, "hoping" is a flag for evidence that's missing, and "knowing" means the evidence the gap has been filled. So it's a good word, generally, universally, for human nature to have hope. But in the performance game, it's another trigger, and there needs to be a leader who spots that and says, Well, it's, you know, I hope it all comes off. So before Olympics, I hope I get Lane eight. So there was one rower who was world champion, and they started to fade, and they became kind of disillusioned with their fitness. And the psych team, an army of good intent, you know, wrap themselves around her. But it turns out it was, and I had this one in the book as well. It turned out it was the evidence that they had numbers for, but she wasn't aware of them, and so he just presented those numbers to her every day on how she was tracking. And suddenly she had evidence that it's not as bad as I thought. Feelings aren't facts. Facts are facts. And so suddenly her progress since she became world champion that year, and he knew it wasn't mindset, because you can't hope your way to victory. You do have to have prep. You know that goes into flow, which we can talk about later.

Tim  05:55
Context brings calm. It's a saying that I love, and it's truly t-shirt worthy. Evidence fuels confidence and clarity, and when you focus on what you know, you can build capacity with intention and precision. But how do we know what to focus on? Sarah Elder, founder of Piped, a platform helping engineering interns document their most meaningful experiences, shared in Episode 18, that the first step in building capacity is understanding your current state, often in the simplest of ways.

Sarah Elder  06:29
Once it's written down, you can't ignore it anymore. Tim, you talked earlier about building capacity. You can't build capacity. You can't you can't have capacity without understanding the state. So getting everything into one place and being able to understand that is the first step in building capacity. You can't cut what you don't know, or you might cut and it might not be enough.

Tim  06:52
Whether it's your time, energy or goals, getting a clear picture of where you stand is key to moving forward. As we continue this clinic on capacity, we must realize that it also requires us to leave the familiar behind. Growth that gives us the ability to handle more is found outside our current comfort zones. Dan Lofquist, a technology consultant and one who shares the Red House of Debbie Potts, emphasized how stepping out of a comfort zone drives growth and adaptability.

Dan Löfquist  07:23
That's how I try to be myself. I mean, I can't stick to old things that doesn't work and it doesn't make me happy, and I can't do my job properly. So I need to adjust and then learn new things, new processes, new techniques or whatnot. In order to move forward, I think you have to have that mindset, and also it's good for you, because if you are in your comfort zone, nothing fun or exciting is going to happen every day. It's going to look the same. In order to have some kind of excitement in your life or in your workplace or anyway, you need to step out of that comfort zone, because the amazing things happens outside, but it's a scary place, but it's very rewarding if you're there.

Tim  08:15
Growth is always on the other side of fear. Taking bold steps to develop outside of your comfort zone, leads us to rewards that you never thought possible. This is one area that pays dividends again and again and again, but easier said than done. Right capacity isn't just about adding more to your plate. It's about making choices trade offs. It's about carving out space for what truly matters and who truly matters and being true to yourself in the process. Julie Friedman Smith, again, great friend, teammate, author, podcaster and a parenting (my parenting expert) spoke about this in Episode 34. Julie captures the uncertainty that many of us feel when we're navigating our roles and responsibilities outside of work, often asking ourselves, Am I doing the right thing?

Julie Friedman Smith  09:05
I'm doing all these adult things. I still do not feel like an adult. I'm not even sure that what I'm doing is something I like, but I'm not sure how to get out of it, or, am I going to look stupid for getting out of it? Or, you know, and, and that is what another time where we kind of take that left turn of like, oh, it could be different. And if this is what adulting is really about, how do I do it in a way that makes sense for me, instead of playing the role of adults, how am I going to be an adult that's really true to myself? So I think there's a, there's some kind of a pivot point in that mid 30s that comes along as well.

Tim  09:42
I remember, in my experience, it was almost like a you start to focus on something a little bit more, and you have to cast off certain hobbies, and you have to cast off, even in some cases, friends and certain social groups. And it's like I have to pick my lane, in a way, I guess is how it...

Julie Friedman Smith  09:59
Or I want to, also, I want to do this like I want to spend time doing what I really want to be doing, if I can. Or maybe the question is, how do I spend time doing more of what I really want to be doing? I have these obligations. I've got to meet those things. I've got to meet the needs. I've got to earn the money that I need. And, you know, fulfill these obligations, and how do I carve that piece of my life that's really fulfilling?

Tim  10:25
In truth, to be in charge of our own capacity means continuously evaluating our choices. Carving time out for what truly matters means being intentional and courageous about how we allocate our energy. Capacity and capacity management just isn't about what you do. It's about who you surround yourself with. In episode 34, I met Jeff Massone, a leadership consultant I discovered I'd like to spend time with.

Jeff Massone  10:51
From my perspective, it is really get around the right people. Now explain what we explained at the beginning of the podcast, is getting around people of who've achieved where you want to go. And if you're starting to hear people in your workplace that are negative, you know, just politely, kind of distance yourself from them. You're not better than them. You just don't need to hear negative things. Leadership Development is not about being better than your co-worker, not about being better than your neighbor. It's about being the best version of yourself and adding value to other people.

Tim  11:25
Capacity isn't just a solo journey. It isn't a unilateral decision. It's shaped by people we surround ourselves with. When we're intentional about building positive, supportive relationships, we can create environments where growth becomes contagious. Finally, to bookend this episode, let's talk about how capacity means we can make space for those big, audacious goals. Tim Beissinger, a trailblazer and thru hiker, shared how prioritizing what matters allowed him and his partner Renee Miller to chase their dreams of hiking the Pacific Crest Trail and have many more adventures.

Tim Beissinger  11:59
So the way we've done it in the past is we make room for them, and I'll give an example. But if the big goal is big enough that it needs to push something else out of the way, we push it out of the way. The example is our first thru hike of the Pacific Crest Trail. Renee really wanted to do that trail, and I was a new professor, Renee was an engineer, and we felt like, I felt like there wasn't room to tackle that big project, that big goal of doing a PCT, it was something to put off until we retired. And Renee was persistent and said, No, we're only gonna get slower and weaker and like now's the right time to do a hike like this.

Tim  12:45
Tim and Renee's story is a reminder that you can't do this alone, that making space for what matters isn't just about time. It's about aligning your actions with your priorities and the people you care about. From Renee's reminder to prioritize yourself, to Richard's focus on evidence, to Anna's wisdom about identity, to Julie's quest for fulfillment and Jeff's emphasis on relationships, we've seen how capacity is a balance of internal clarity and external alignment. So here's my challenge for you, understand your current state. Where are you? Where are you over-committed? And where can you make space, create time for what matters, what obligations can you re evaluate to prioritize your goals and choose your relationships wisely. Look around who inspires you to grow and supports your capacity for success? It isn't just about doing more. It's about doing better. It's about living and leading and aligning with your values so that you can create the life that energizes you and sustains you.

Tim  13:47
Thank you for joining me on this retrospective. I hope you'll join us for the next new episode, and I hope you'll check out our other two retrospectives on Vision and Arriving. I'll see you. Hopefully with better capacity and more gas in that tank to lead. Take care.

Tim  14:07
Thank you so much for listening to Sweet on Leadership. If you found today's podcast valuable, consider visiting our website and signing up for the companion newsletter. You can find the link in the show notes. If like us, you think it's important to bring new ideas and skills into the practice of leadership. Please give us a positive rating and review on Apple podcasts. This helps us spread the word to other committed leaders, and you can spread the word too by sharing this with your friends, teams and colleagues. Thanks again for listening, and be sure to tune in in two weeks time for another episode of Sweet on Leadership. In the meantime, I'm your host. Tim, Sweet encouraging you to keep on leading.