E9: Questions are the Answer

In this final episode of Season 1, we look back at the first 13 episodes of The Impact Foundry Podcast. Episode 14 is part Index, part Table of Contents, and part Glossary. In this episode, we tie The Impact Habits together, integrating each of the other episodes in Season 1. Each of the episodes in Season 1 introduced a habit which, when combined with another one of the habits, increases the yield of both habits exponentially. Working each of The Impact Habits into your career and life is a path to being more purpose driven, bearing more fruit, and having greater impact.

As creatures of habit, we are what we repeatedly do. Winston Churchill said, “Watch your habits, they determine your character.” Our habits are in need of our attention and our effort. We won’t just discuss our good habits in Episode 13 of The Impact Foundry Podcast, but also our bad habits. Bad habits are like toxins which undermine all of the other things we strive for--like piss in a fine merlot. Join us as we discuss some practical ways to keep our bad habits at bay, and make room for good ones to rise up in their place.

Periodically, we need to take the time to look at all that we have going on in our lives from 30,000 feet: a big picture point of view. We need to look at 8 different areas of our lives to make sure we are giving each of them the attention they deserve. That’s because if one area, or one “gear”,  is out of line, the rest of the gears of our life can follow suit and our lives don’t run smoothly. In this episode we take on “The Gears of Life”,  a tool which helps us gain clarity on how we are doing and what we need to be paying more attention to. It can also be a great tool to complete as we look to be mentored or coached. Join us for Episode 12 and gain some insight on you.

As long as there have been people inhabiting the earth, the sun has come up and gone down at the same time. Days have lasted 24 hours. It’s amazing to see what some people have done with their 24 hours over the course of their lives. In this episode, we will take a look at our Time Management Toolbox, a set of tools that has become even more critical in our world of hyper-busyness, remote work, and the quest for work-life balance.

We need other people for many reasons. Strong relationships improve our quality of life, give us a greater sense of purpose, help us to benefit from and pass on wise counsel, and give us more opportunities to laugh deeply. Strong relationships take work and don’t form and grow by happenstance. They aren't accidental. Join us for Episode 10, where we discuss the ingredients to strong relationships, and also the ingredients that we want to avoid at all costs. Get started on some initiatives that will make our most important relationships at work and on the home front better.

Effective questioning is a critical communication skill which should be paired with our listening skills. Effective questions allow us to go deeper and discover insights, enabling us to better understand the other person’s point of view, as well as what is important to them. These skills also set the stage for us to be a better resource, mentor, and leader, allowing us to make a difference, influence, and have greater impact on others. In this episode we will share how we can ratchet up our questioning skills. Are you ready to do that?

The Good Lord gave us two ears and one mouth...but you would never know it with some people. Listening to understand goes way beyond listening attentively or listening to respond. When we listen to understand we not only listen with our ears, but with our eyes and our brain. Listening is work because we must not only manage a great deal of external distractions, but we also need to  mange the even more common internal distractions that happen between our two ears. Listening to understand will make us remarkably more impactful in whatever we do.

Jim Rohn said, "A life well-lived is worth recording." The Journaling Habit involves capturing our thoughts, dreams, goals, and ideas in writing. The number of benefits of journaling is astounding.  Listen to this episode to take a deeper dive into the benefits of journaling and design a Journaling Habit that is right for you. If you already practice the Journaling Habit, you will find a number of ways to optimize what you are already doing. With regular journaling, you will increase the probability of your desired future state becoming a reality. You'll also create a record that you can come back to and see how far you have come. 

The world we inhabit is jammed packed full of distractions that are constantly trying to interrupt us and focus our attention on something else. That something else can often be trivial, or even harmful.  A Discipline of Solitude is a block of time (an appointment) that we set with ourselves to think, write, and reflect on the things in our lives that are most important to us. Think you don't have enough time? Then throw your current scheduling process on its head and start scheduling Solitude first! Tune in and find out how a Discipline of Solitude can rock your world. 

Achieving our desired impact rarely happens by accident. In this episode we discuss how the vision we established in E1 can help us to develop meaningful, clear goals. Once we have clear goals, it's all about actions—the right actions—that narrow the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Are you ready to launch the rocket?