Aligning Your Values to Set the Right Goals with Tanya Alvarez

“ First thing, you really have to figure out what do you want your life to be. Because I think that we look at many people’s lives and we’re like, Ooh, we want that. And then plus for example, take an Olympian, Ooh, I wanna be an Olympian, right? And then you’re like, oh wait, I can’t eat this. I don’t have time with my family. I don’t have time for my friends. Ooh, maybe I don’t want that. So I think you need to examine what are your values and what are you willing to do at all costs to get there?” – Tanya Alvarez

What do you want your life to look like?

Last week, I talked about how not being intentional is kind of like driving a car without the GPS, but goal setting without knowing what you want, that’s a bit like driving a car without having a destination in mind.

Well, today, Tanya Alvarez is going to help us figure out the destination. You can think of her as your own personal GPS and much like that Google Maps car that we sometimes see driving around. She’s well-traveled and has a ton of experience to back up her advice. From funding her first successful startup with credit cards to completing a half Ironman and traveling to 42 countries, she’s done it all. And now she wants to help you do it too by sharing her system for prioritizing your goals.

Look for these top takeaways:

1. Take the time to define and rank your personal values. Understand how these values shape your goals and prioritize them to ensure alignment with your desired outcomes.

2. View your goals as hypotheses and break them down into manageable timeframes. This approach provides flexibility for adjustments while promoting focus and effective work periods.

3. When faced with multiple business ideas or tasks, evaluate them based on effort, impact, and activity. This can help you understand your capacity and prioritize tasks effectively.

I really love how she breaks down this framework. So, be sure to listen closely to that towards the end of the show. In the Pro Show, I get to coach Tanya a little bit about storytelling and using stories to leverage what you are teaching. So definitely tune into that too. You can get every episode ad-free extended with that bonus content over at [streamlined.fm/join]. And if you want to learn more about Tanya and find all of the show notes, you can head over to [streamlined.fm/409. But for now, let’s get into the intro and then the interview.

Intro: Hey, everybody. and welcome to How I Built It, the podcast that helps busy solopreneurs and creators grow their business without spending too much time on it. I’m your host, Joe Casabona, and each week I bring you interviews and case studies on how to build a better business through smarter processes, time management, and effective content creation. It’s like getting free coaching calls from successful solopreneurs.

By the end of each episode, you’ll have 1-3 takeaways you can implement today to stop spending time in your business and more time on your business or with your friends, your family, reading, or however you choose to spend your free time.

Joe Casabona: All right. I am here with Tanya Alvarez, Owner/Founder of OwnersUp. Tanya, thanks for being here with us.

Tanya Alvarez: Thanks for having me. I’m stoked.

Joe Casabona: Me too. We had a really good pre-show. And so the first thing that I want to ask you, just like right off the bat is how do we set a goal?

Tanya Alvarez: First thing, you really have to figure out what do you want your life to be. Because I think that we look at many people’s lives and we’re like, Ooh, we want that. And then plus for example, take an Olympian, Ooh, I wanna be an Olympian, right? And then you’re like, oh wait, I can’t eat this. I don’t have time with my family. I don’t have time for my friends. Ooh, maybe I don’t want that. So I think you need to examine what are your values and what are you willing to do at all costs to get there.

So for me, when I first started my first business at 25, I wanted to like have the freedom and travel and make good money, right? And I had the balance of like, you know, training for marathons, having fun with friends, going traveling. But now that I have kids, my values and what I want are different. I was led before by ego and now I’m led by legacy.

Joe Casabona: Ooh, I love that. How are we having the cold open quote, like so early on? Because I think that’s really true, right? We talked about this a little bit in the pre-show, but I feel like a lot of the business advice that you read from influencers and online and everything is very, you could append to the end of it. I just, that was redundant, right? That’s what append means. You can append to it if you don’t have kids, right, and like my favorite example of this right now is Marie Kondo, right? Because like there was an article I think that came out last year that she abandoned her own, like Konmari, I think it’s called, right?

Tanya Alvarez: I know.

Joe Casabona: Since having kids, right? She was like, does it spark joy lady?

Tanya Alvarez: Oh yeah.

Joe Casabona: and like if it doesn’t spark joy, get rid of it. And like she has kids now and she like…

Tanya Alvarez: all the toys, right?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. And she’s like, yeah, I’ve abandoned that. I’m like, of course, you did. Like, there’s no possible way, like kids just accumulate stuff. And so I think like if you are following the advice of Alex Hormozi or whoever, like some, like a big, huge influencer, but they like, they don’t have kids, and you have kids, or you want kids, you can’t build your life like that, right? You can’t work 9AM-5PM, eat dinner, and then work from 6-2:00 AM. Because you’re gonna get that 5:00 AM wake-up call or that 6:00 AM wake-up call, or maybe your kids sleep great.

Tanya Alvarez: Or it’s like those mornings, right? It’s like, how’s your morning? And it’s like, yeah. It depends if my kids wanna put their clothes on in five minutes or if it gonna take me like the whole story about like elbow and something to get it on.

Joe Casabona: Oh my gosh. That resonates with me, incredibly. My daughter goes to a Catholic school. My kids go to a Catholic school, but my daughter’s the only one who has to wear a uniform right now. And sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. Like, yeah she’s like, I can’t get my socks on. I’m like, that’s weird. You get them on four out of five days a week, like, what’s, why not today?

You know, the other thing that like really sticks out in my mind is like that Tim Ferris interview from a few years ago, where it’s like, how are you so productive? He’s like, well, you gotta start your day with two hours of meditation. And I’m like, my guy, if I can get two minutes to drink my coffee before my kids wake up, I’m having a good day.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. Even James Clear actually said it from the topic Habits. He’s like, I got this book done, but now it’s gonna take me longer ’cause I have kids. It’s your priorities shift. And sure, there are parents that like have everything set up and you know, maybe they don’t have the resources to stop what they’re working because that’s their livelihood. But as an entrepreneur, you’re creating that. And so what I’m like making sure of, and I think that a lot of people don’t value constraints. They’re like, oh, freedom should be like, no constraints.

Actually, constraints are the best thing in your life. And what I mean by that is I wanna work 30-hour weeks, so that means I can’t do everything. And I wanna make sure that when I shut off for the day, I’m completely shut off. So I’m really present with my kids not thinking about, Hmm, I need to reply back to that person. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, sure, sure. Elmo. And then go back to my thinking in my head. Hmm. So the constraints allow me to be resourceful, delegate, and force me to make decisions. Because when you don’t, you have endless time to overanalyze. Be a perfectionist every, like, whatever your inner critic tells you.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. this is such a great point. Constraints are the best thing in your life. I have a background in software engineering and we would more or less say the same thing, right? You have these constraints you need to work into. And they could be a blessing, right? Otherwise, you could be spending endless time developing this app or thinking about all the possible ways that it could break, and trying to fix for those. But if you know, like, no, I know reasonably like this is going to run on an iPhone and there’s a specific group of people who are going to use it and they’ll be only able to do these things. Now, you know what tasks to prioritize to get this app out the door of this Website or whatever out the door. And so, I love that like having constraints around your life is really important. And I think I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t mean for this to turn into like a parent, this is not my parent versus, right? Like, I had problems when I was single. They were just very different problems. But, the perspective shift is different. Your constraints are different, right? Or maybe you…

Tanya Alvarez: but actually though, when I was, I didn’t have kids, I knew because I came, I was raised as low income and, you know, went through college and everything. I wanted to travel the world. So what I did is I was like, I booked tickets with a constraint financially, making sure I was like, I’m gonna somehow figure it out. And I made it happen. Those constraints allowed me to, oh, shoot, I gotta hire people. Delegate half systems, because when I’m in Peru hiking Machu Picchu, (I said it wrong right now). And there’s no internet connection. My team needs to handle any fire possible. So those constraints allowed me to streamline my business.

Joe Casabona: Mm. And you know what to tell a story from the other side of that coin, right? I was pretty unconstrained. I lived in Scranton, Pennsylvania, which, not to denigrate Scranton in any way, but like you could live like a king on not a lot of money in Scranton. And I was doing pretty well for myself. I had a good job at the university. I had my side hustle. I was making more than like the average, like four-person household, right? Like living in. And so I lived pretty unconstrained. I could, I had a remote job. I could go visit my brother in Disney World whenever I wanted to. And so like there were times where I’d be working in Epcot, like just brought my laptop and was working there and like, that sounds cool, but also like, do you wanna be working in Disney World? Like I just lived in an unconstrained way. And then when I did get married and have kids and had those constraints, it was like a rude awakening for me. Like, what do you mean I can’t just drop everything and go to Disney World for a minute? Like what? We don’t have the money or the time. That’s weird. And so like understanding your constraints no matter what stage of life you’re in will absolutely like make you a better business owner. I’m probably a better person.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. And then also reframing them like I get to, right? I’m sure you’ve heard that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Right?

Tanya Alvarez: I’ve felt like when you have kids like you, I signed up for this when they have a tantrum. I signed up for this. I wanted this…

Joe Casabona: this is one thing that I thought about during the pandemic right, is my kids were…well, my one kid, and then two kids were unexpectedly home and I was taking care of them. My wife and the people listening know my wife’s a nurse, and so I really tried to frame that as I’m getting bonus time like my daughter’s at an age where she would be spending most of her waking hours at school. And I’m getting extra time. Oh my God! I’m getting choked up. This is crazy.

Tanya Alvarez: Oh, yeah.

Joe Casabona: And I get to spend like extra time with her, right? So like it’s all about the way you look at things, and understanding your goals really helps you with that. right? Because if I didn’t have those goals, I’d just be like, oh, my kids are taking time away from me being able to work, right? But I know my goals are like to maximize time with my family.

Tanya Alvarez: So that’s a value. A lot of people don’t have value-aligned goals. What they have is goals. Like, I wanna make money. Why do you wanna make money? Probably ’cause you want to maybe invest in certain things for your family or you wanna have a certain lifestyle or you wanna like to spend money for your kids, whatever their extracurricular. So you have to define the why. So your value is family. And so some people set or borrow other people’s goals without realizing their own values.

So a story of mine is, you know, in high school, I got a scholarship at academically and athletically, and when I was in college, sure, I was like a great runner and I got on the team and, you know, based on scholarship and all that. But the whole point was, do I want to sacrifice my college life knowing that I’m not gonna be an Olympian? Like I don’t need to be number one. Even though like it was my identity in some sense to be a runner, I had to realize I wanted a college life. I wanna learn and I wanna experience everything. So there’s a cost to that. And the cost was, I’ll be on the top five, maybe top three on my team, but I’m not gonna be number one. And I think that a lot of people need to examine that based on their values.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I think that’s really smart. I didn’t let go of my dream of being a professional baseball player until there was like a manager that was my age and I’m like, oh man. No. I actually distinctly remember it was like when I was a lot older than the rookies playing that year, and I’m like, this dream is officially over for me now. It was never a real dream, but it’s officially over.

Yeah. So, and that makes sense, right? Because otherwise, I mean, I’ve seen this a lot where especially with sports, I mean maybe it’s like I’ve just seen it, I don’t know if it’s like the same for guys and girls, but a lot of dads will foist their forgotten dreams of being an athlete onto their kids. And it just makes their kids like hate the sport. And now they’re like going through the emotions and like not really happy about it like they’d rather be doing something else. And, understanding that you don’t at a certain point, especially you don’t need to like carry that with you, I think is really important.

Tanya Alvarez: By the way, that brings up another conversation about personal development and parenting. I think that I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs and myself included, that have gone to a level of like, ooh, like the first, like at 25, I grew in my company to over a million, and that was like this one big thing in like less than a year I want to do, but when I got there, I still didn’t feel like I was enough, right? There was something there, these belief systems, and I think that later on in life I really doubled down on personal development and it was huge.

It made me realize my values and made me realize that certain belief systems, no matter how much I achieved, I wasn’t gonna be happy. Right? And I had to like really look in. And then also having kids. Huh? That’s like personal development on steroids ’cause like your kid’s doing something and they’re like, oh shoot, did they get that from me? You know? Then you have to like get that muscle of being, you know, making sure your like growth mindset all the time.

And regulating your emotions. Nobody really tells you or teaches you that, right? You have to actually learn it. So that’s a whole other thing. But it goes back to like making sure that you have the goals and you’re investing on the right things and doubling down on it ’cause no matter what you achieve, you have to know that it aligns with their values and that internally you’re gonna be happy. Nothing externally is gonna make you happy. Nothing like growing your business bigger, and having a bigger team if you don’t internally have that set.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I love that. And so maybe we can talk briefly about the different, ’cause like I mentioned something I thought was a goal, you said is a value. How do we differentiate between those two? Right. Because I think, like, yeah, there’s a lot of, we’re throwing a lot of, we’re like, is a goal, a task is a goal, is a goal of value? Like, so let’s set some definitions before we get into like the real like nuts and bolts of what we’re talking about here.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. So values, it’s thrown them out a lot. And like, it’s the words like integrity, you see. So I’m actually Dyslexic and words don’t come as easy to me. So I’m a very visual person. So what I do is, I do a vision board and I say like, what’s really important? And I write and I just put all these pictures of what’s important and then I describe it. And then the biggest thing I do is I rank it. Because if you don’t rank it, you’re gonna get in trouble. So, what I mean by that is, number one is my health. Number two is my family.

And the reason why number one is my health is ’cause if my health isn’t okay, I can’t help my family, right? I would wanna have my family first, right? But then it’s like, oh, there’s certain costs to this. So I had to rank ’em. And then now when I do business goals, I’m like, okay. Or if something comes to me like, oh, this opportunity comes, I have to say, and I look at it and I was like, where are my values? Does it align with what I want? Or is this an outlier situation?

Now, how do you define a goal? First, I like to define it based on a certain outcome. Like what do you really wanna achieve and by when? Now, it’s not set on that date, but at least it gives you a milestone to shoot or else we’ll be shooting for that goal very long time, right? So we have the goal, and then we say, and I like to do it as a hypothesis, right? So there’s a deadline that says like, let’s say right now I’m gonna be doing a century ride in August, which is a hundred miles on a bicycle. So now I’m like, all right, it’s in August. Now,I have some challenges. The challenge is like, how the heck with a kid that’s a two and a 4-year-old? Am I gonna go on these long rides? Especially on the weekends when I value my weekends totally to my kids. So now I gotta figure that out.

So basically it’s kind of going through the challenges, your outcome, and putting the plan that aligns with you. Because if you don’t, like let’s say, I didn’t go through this plan setting, then I would be like, oh, I really hate this. Why did I sign up for this century, Ryan? I’m like, not being with my kids. It’s not really worth it when it starts getting really hard. Because like at the end, you have to like do three or four hours of like writing, and then I’m missing telling my kids I’m gonna hate it, and maybe like resent it.

But if you address those things, issues immediately, then I have to be very creative with my kids during that time. So it’s like, is there an activity that they would love that I can get somebody to go with them and explore and enjoy when I’m doing this writing? So it’s a win-win on both sides or do I drag ’em on the back for half of my ride? You know. Put some music on, and entertain them as I’m going through this. That’s something I still have to think about, but I think that people don’t take the time to research it, figure out if it aligns, and then figure out what are the steps to make it happen.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I like that a lot, right? Because I think a lot, I mean, I won’t speak for everybody, but something, I do a lot of planning in a vacu right? Where it’s like, I think of the, oh, and I’ll do this right now, and then, oh, in a couple of weeks I can do this. And maybe I’m not thinking about like I don’t know the school year and like when spring break is right?

Oh, I was gonna do this thing that week, but my kids are off that whole week, so now I can’t do that. And so I think like understanding your values and then doing goal setting based on an outcome and by when and creating that plan helps you not do things in a vacuum. It’s definitely something I need to be more mindful of. because then, as you said, I’m gonna get to a point where it’s like I resent, you know, my kids being off from school because I had this big project planned, or because I had this big personal thing planned that I didn’t consider all aspects of my life and all of my values.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. And by the way, that’s happened to me. I totally forgot to put that in my schedule. Like daycare was off and I was like, what? I have all these workshops, like, what the heck?

Joe Casabona: Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Now I have a little hack for parents or soon-to-be parents your schools will email you too much or not enough or somehow both, right? Like I feel like it’s like I don’t get enough emails, but also I get way too many. One of those emails is gonna be like this calendar for the year. Just like take that and put it in your Google calendar.

Tanya Alvarez: Put it on your calendar immediately.

Joe Casabona: Immediately, right? Because then when they’re like, by the way, school’s closed next week, you’re not gonna be like, what? You’re gonna be like, Yes. I knew that.

Tanya Alvarez: I planned it. Now I’m gonna like make this exciting day. Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Yes. Right. And like, or like for President’s Day just passed as we record this, like my wife, we knew that both schools were closed. My wife scheduled herself off that day because my father-in-law is away this week. And so I’m not gonna be able to work ’cause he watches my son on certain days. So, yeah, like that. I’m way less stressed now because…

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. You’re right.

Joe Casabona: We Understood that. Awesome. So, you know, we have our values, we have our goals. I think I alluded to this earlier, but when I was a young single man, my goals were very different. And so I wanna talk about like how we handle if our goals change. But first I do want to take a break to hear from our sponsors.

And we’re back. So, Tanya, what if our goals change? Like how do we handle that? We’ve made a whole maybe five-year plan based on this goal, and now it’s gone.

Tanya Alvarez: Well, I honestly have trouble with five or 10-year plans, I have to say. ’cause things change so quickly. So what I like to do is do a year and say, Hey, this is the vision, this is what I wanna create. But get it down to 90 days and then break it down to a month and be flexible with what it is.

Sometimes, like for example, let’s say I want to do a podcast. First, Let me see if like the rhythm of it before I go all in and be consistent with it. And if things change something like all of a sudden you didn’t see, maybe like you have a business and AI kind of like kind of like either advanced it or like all of a sudden you’re like, oh, shoot, what is my business now, right? You gotta reinvent yourself. So that’s why I like to do goals as a hypothesis and always have it where you’re checking yourself. There are checking points or like, okay, here’s a metric. Am I aligned? Am I still there? Do I need to pivot a bit?

Joe Casabona: I like that you repeated the goals as a hypothesis thing ’cause I don’t think I called that out earlier, but it’s, that’s a really smart way to look at it. ’cause I think, I think we can fall into the trap of this goal is set in stone and now I need to achieve it. And you fall into like that fallacy of the sunk cost, right? where it’s like, well I’ve put so much time into this that now I need to achieve this goal, right? Or I’ve put so much money into this, right? Like I was a Beacbody member for so long because I was like, I’ll do it eventually. Like my goal is to lose 50 pounds. Like I have to do this. Like, look at how cut, like, I can’t even remember his name anymore. Sean Ty like, look at how cut Sean Ty is, right? But, eventually, I realized I’m like this, I’m wasting time and money like Beachbody does not work for me right now. I have small children at home. There’s no way I’m gonna be able to do like hour-long workouts or go to the gym at this point in my life, right?

So, now I am, I have Apple Fitness plus I do yoga in the morning, which anybody who’s known me for a long time knows that sounds insane because I used to be like anti-yoga. I had really dumb strong opinions when I was younger. And, but like that works for me, right? And that’s working for me right now. And it’s, so I like this like goals as a hypothesis thing because it lets you be flexible. it lets you build flexibility into your life, which is really important cause things change.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. And it’s always a season, right? You kind of have to see if this is working for you right now. So, for example, I wanted to do a whole YouTube channel and I was ready for it and I was ready to go. Then I was like, wow. With everything that I’m looking at and what I wanna get achieved in my personal life, you know, my relationships, everything that I value, it wasn’t gonna work. Now is it worth it? Of course, it is, but I can move it on to later. So it’s really figuring out what is the right timing for it. And being okay with it. And sometimes you need the outside perspective, by the way, ’cause you’re so close to it.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, this is really important, right? And this is a problem I have and a mistake I make all the time is I am…So, I don’t know if you know about it is called M Code. It might be called other things, but like it’s my friend’s company and they have basically eight or so different personality types, and mine is achiever, which means that like in order for me to like, feel worth, or feel valued, I need to do a thing, right? this drives my wife crazy because when she complains about her day, I try to solve the problem and she doesn’t want me to solve the problem, right? I’ve learned that one. I’ve learned that one.

But in my business, I’m like, oh, I should start a YouTube channel and then I just like do it right. No plan. No Strategy. How am I going to keep up with the three podcasts I produce and my client work and now start a YouTube channel? And then that ends up making way more work for me in the long run because like now I’ve got two different YouTube channels and I’m like, okay, YouTube isn’t my focus, so what am I gonna do with these? How am I going to like make YouTube work for me. It’s like a way more complicated problem than if I had just thought I should make a YouTube channel, write it down, and like actually plan it later, right? So I think this…

Tanya Alvarez: and think about like challenges, what to do and really go through it. And I think that a common thing also is like this was something you’re really good at audio, you’re really good at video. So it comes natural to you Nate. I think a lot of business owners and me included, we go into what we’re used to. It’s like our default. So when we’re achieving it, we take that dopamine hit, we’re like, yeah, let’s cross this off. This is gonna be awesome. But those aren’t actually things that move us forward and the harder things we avoid.

So, like I said, I’m dyslexic and I actually don’t like writing. But writing and people would say, just go with your superpower. It’s your zone of genius. So I would avoid writing, I would delegate that. Then I was like, oh, this person doesn’t have my voice. They haven’t got it. But what I started realizing, I think, I don’t know if you’ve read the book, Adam Grant, but Hidden Potential, he wrote Hidden Potential, a really good book.

Joe Casabona: Oh yeah.

Tanya Alvarez: And he talks about, oh, I can’t believe I blinked down the comedian. He’s a famous comedian, what’s his name? He’s a white dude…

Joe Casabona: I’m a pop culture guy, so if you gimme like one of his bits, I might be able to help you. I’ll just start naming some. John Mulaney, Sebastian Man, the Scout?

Tanya Alvarez: No. He’s an older guy. He’s done movies.

Joe Casabona: George Carlo.

Tanya Alvarez: No. He’s…I’ll figure it out by the end. And so, basically, he would listen to people and then he would rattle and people like, oh my God, he’s the worst comedian. He would. Then finally, all of a sudden he started writing, and then he started writing movie shows and scripts and what have, what he ended up doing is this writing was so hard, but it helped him distill his ideas. And if he avoided that, he wouldn’t be the comedian he is today. I think it’s Steve. No, I forgot his name.

Joe Casabona: is like, is like a white guy, like, is that like a big part of, is it like Jim Gaffigan or Steve Martin?

Tanya Alvarez: You’re stuck on now. I’m like…

Joe Casabona: I know. Now I’m stuck on it, right? I gotta solve, I just, I am demonstrating the thing I just described earlier.

Tanya Alvarez: It’s gonna be stuck in right at the end of the show, but it’s this person.

Joe Casabona: And members can find out which comedian we were talking about, by signing up at [streamlined.fm/join].

Tanya Alvarez: They’re probably like, guys, it’s this. I can’t believe you blanked out on it.

Joe Casabona: I know people are yelling. I do that all the time. People are yelling at their PO at their app. Right?

Tanya Alvarez: So that’s the thing that we want to do is like the things that are challenging are actually the things that we need to get done sometimes, right? And there’s like, how do you decide which ones you should do and which ones you should delegate? If it’s easy and it’s not that hard for you, then you should delegate. It’s not gonna make an impact. But for me, writing was gonna be super challenging. In the back of my head I was like, ah, I don’t know if the return on investment’s gonna take me three hours to do one freaking LinkedIn post.

And then I started getting better and distilling my thoughts and then it worked out. It was just the timeline of the results was like a little bit uphill. And I think that what most entrepreneurs don’t see is when they’re going up and down, it’s actually in this direction. So the down just feels like they’re shooting down, but they’re really just kind of going up in the right direction. But they need to consistently do it. So I like the zone of genius. I agree in the zone of genius, but then we totally avoid it and then we can’t grow our business. So there, if there’s really challenging and you know this is a thing you need to do, take it on.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I like that a lot ’cause we hear, you’re right. We hear the opposite, right? It’s like delegating everything. Like only do the thing that you’re, the one thing you’re good at. And I’m guilty of saying that too, right? Like in, but in the context of podcasting, right? If you’re starting a podcast, you need, we need your voice, right? If it’s your podcast, then you need to talk on it, and like, you probably need to find the guests, right? Everything else you don’t need to do.

But like you said, some of those things are easy. Publishing the episode, have your VA do that. Some of the things that are hard, but waste your time like editing, right? If editing is only a skill that you’ll use for your podcast, then maybe that’s something to outsource. But like, maybe you hate doing research or writing the script, or finding the right guests like those are the things that you shouldn’t outsource because even though they’re kind of outside your zone of genius or whatever, those are the things that will help you make the best podcast because you’re spending the time like designing the content so that you can deliver it best. Is that, am I?

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. I like that. I like that criteria. I think what we’ve gone to is like how that helps you in the long run. So editing, unless you’re gonna be an editor and you’re going for a movie or something, then take that on. But there are certain skills, for example, like how you said, if you wanna show, if you wanna be a better public speaker, all of that, that’s a skill you need to hold onto even if you’re avoiding it. So a lot of people, number one fear is public speaking. Well, if you’re not gonna go in front of people, your message isn’t gonna be there, right?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s like, it feels frustrating ’cause people are like, how do I get better at podcasting? And I’m like, well, you gotta get your reps in like you need to do it. And I know that’s like, really? It’s, that’s as annoying as like, how long does my paper need to be? As long as it needs to be? Right? Because I used to teach in the classroom, so I got that question a lot, but it’s absolutely true, right? It’s the more you do something, the more comfortable you get at doing it.

Tanya Alvarez: And then ease your gets. Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, yeah. And so, I really love that. I’m trying to say I love that less, because I say that after like every guest point, but I think this is, let’s sum up here (’cause we took a little side quest while we tried to figure out the comedian) but if our goals change, right? Goals are a hypothesis. Break it down into a year, then 90 days, then a month. And that makes it a little bit more manageable which reminds me of The 12-week year. Have you had the 12-week year?

Tanya Alvarez: I haven’t.

Joe Casabona: It’s really good. It’s by someone that I will look up in a minute. And this is, we’re doing real good.

Tanya Alvarez: Can we do the guess again?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. 12-week year. Simon Sinna. It’s not him. No. But, it’s a really good book that kind of tells you to exactly what you said, right. It kind of breaks down your time and your years into shorter sprints, right? Because then you can goal set and achieve your goals better. (I have the authors in front of me and they’re like Brian Moran and Michael Lennington, and I guess they’re just really well known for this bit. You know what it is, is like they have a, it’s like a white cover with red writing. And that’s like every business book or like every like productivity book looks like that. So, but that’s what I thought about when you were talking about that. And then the other thing…

Tanya Alvarez: I would even dive in a little bit even more where I like to break down a goal and then the constraint is to commit and have a boundary of one and a half hours. So 90 minutes of like deep work, and you have, and so that’s what we have our members do, where we’re like, break it down and now you’re gonna be working on your business over one and a half hours minimum. And then we’re gonna hold you accountable to that. Because you can be a firefighter all day long. You’re a team, you’re answering questions, doing everything, and then you’re like working your business the whole time. But if you actually start getting consistently good at doing one and a half hours and then you’re saying, okay, what can I really get done in one and a half hours? It really is like different. It’s kinda like baking the cake or doing some ingredients like they, it says, oh, 20 minutes like, yeah, 20 minutes if you have all the pots, you have all the ingredients, you peel it up the oven, all of these things.

Joe Casabona: Oh my gosh. The Hello Fresh recipes. This will take you 20 minutes. It has never ever taken me 20 minutes.

Tanya Alvarez: So that’s how people deal with goals. That’s how entrepreneurs do it. Be like, oh yeah, I should only take this. We didn’t think about all the other things.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. That is a really nice way of framing it, right? Because something else, my friend Brian says this, like, we fill up the amount of time we have.

Tanya Alvarez: So Parkinson’s law? Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Oh, okay. Great. Okay. So that’s like a law. So I just attributed it to my friend. Parkinson’s law is, is what it is?

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah.

Joe Casabona: and it’s so true, right? Like I just finished recording a LinkedIn Learning course and I knew the deadline was mid-February, right? And I could have, I’ve known about the course for months and I could have like done little things here and there to get the course done over the…

Tanya Alvarez: No. [Inaudible 35:45.9] right at the end.

Joe Casabona: 18 hours over a week and a half, like wrote all the scripts, recorded everything. I know it was 18 hours ’cause I time track, ’cause I wanna make sure like I’m spending my time on the right things. And, yeah. All in a week and a half and like, it’s good, right? It could be great even right when the editors are done with it because the LinkedIn Learning editors are like magicians. But you know, it’s, I knew I had a deadline and I waited until like the last possible moment. And that’s like because I knew I could fill in all of that time and do some of the other things that I needed to do. So, I like this…

Tanya Alvarez: by the way, perfectly into accountability. Always have accountability partners. So you have a deadline.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, this is really important. Right? And maybe we can move into like the kind of the final act here, right? The actionable advice about prioritizing goals. Because I will tell people like when I do like a guest blog post or I need to do something for someone, and I say, when do you need it by? And they’re like, just whenever. I’m like, it’s if you tell me whenever I’m sorry. It’s not gonna get done. Like, you need to give me a date that you need it by.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. You’re like, next year maybe. Is that working? And you’re, they’re like, no, no, no, no.

Joe Casabona: No. Oh no. I meant like a month from now. And I’m like, cool. You should have said that. Like…

Tanya Alvarez: sometimes you have to like tell people like, huh?

Joe Casabona: Yeah.

Tanya Alvarez: That’s perfect.

Joe Casabona: The worst thing that ever happened to me was finding out that like an organization that I do work for builds in wiggle room to their schedule. So like, they’ll give me a deadline, but the real deadline will be like two weeks from now. And they told me that, and I’m like, you shouldn’t have told me that.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. And now you’re just like, it’s like telling the layperson who’s always late, Hey, I always put like, give you 30 minutes. Oh, okay. Now I know I’m not gonna rush.

Joe Casabona: Now. I know. Yeah, that’s why I like setting your clock. Oh, no. I just, I like, I set my clock ahead 20 minutes and I’m like, you did that though. Like, you know.

So, anyway. So how…so Accountability, having a deadline. I’m sure all of this ties into it. How do we prioritize our goals?

Tanya Alvarez: So entrepreneurs, tons of shiny objects, Ooh, I wanna do this, I wanna do that. And you’re bringing latches onto it. You need a place to put everything. So we have a system called the Goal Prioritization System, and we have categories like this.

So first off, you drop it in. So like say, I don’t know, the YouTube channel, the podcast, you know the, Ooh, I’m gonna be on Instagram Live all the time. You write it down, then you write like later on when you have time, you do it every week, kind of filter through what’s the outcome, what are you hoping to get out of this even if you don’t know like why you wanna do this, is it because everyone else is doing it? Okay. So how’s that gonna impact your business?

Then you put effort. So one being hard, five being easy ’cause you need to figure out like, is this even worth your time? The effort, right? And then one to five, five being high, what is the impact? Right. Is it gonna be big? Is it gonna be small? Like what is going on?

And now this is the biggest one. The activity has three categories: Sales, Marketing, and Capacity. I think those are three things every entrepreneur should know. Because a lot of people don’t know what their capacity is. Oh, I can take all-in-all clients. Okay, so if I sent you a hundred clients, could you do it? Oh, no, I didn’t mean a hundred. I think I can. Oh. So know your capacity, so you know what you can hire. And then if like you’re at capacity, then you can’t do sales and marketing goals. Right? So when you figure out what like after you add it up and you basically the highest number you prioritize ’cause it gives you the biggest return on your effort, right? In that case, then you start seeing. Now, let’s say they’re all tied, I don’t know, 20, right? They all got the best score of 20. Now you’re gonna be like, okay, where in my business I’m at capacity. So any activity that’s a capacity, I should prioritize. or I’m having a lead problem, I need to prioritize marketing.

And those are three ones you should see your business in and lens marketing, meaning you don’t have enough leads, you have enough leads, but you’re not closing, meaning you have a sales issue. And then, oh shoot, I have a lot of people, I’m at capacity. We can’t even handle anything. Our quality’s going down.

Joe Casabona: This is the effort and impact. Really smart. Write down your ideas, then write down the outcome. Also, really smart, right? Because I do it. We all do it, right? Entrepreneurs have shiny object syndrome. I should start this business. I should start that website. I’m gonna register the domain, right? Like, take a drink if you’ve said that right? So of whatever beverage you are enjoying right now.

And it’s true. I once heard freelancers, solopreneurs don’t die of starvation. They die of overeating which means that…

Tanya Alvarez: I didn’t, never heard that, but I love that one.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, it’s really good, right? Because it’s like, it’s not, it’s usually not that we can’t find enough work, it’s that we take on too much because we’re worried that we’re not gonna have enough work. And so instead of figuring out our capacity and adjusting our funnel, we just say yes to everything. Oh yes, that’s another paycheck. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. Right?

Tanya Alvarez: And it’s impossible to scale accepting everybody. Right.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly. And so, you know, there have been times last year. Last year was a slow year for me, but like I turned away a contract, like a $10,000 contract that I absolutely needed because I knew that it wasn’t good for me and it would immediately put me at capacity. And so like, it was sure it was a number. But it wasn’t optimizing my time properly.

Tanya Alvarez: Ooh. Ooh. That must have been, I’m surprised. Most people don’t, aren’t aware to do that.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. I mean, I’ve like been freelancing since 14, so that’s like a really hard one-lesson, right? And I’m so glad I did ’cause two months later I landed my evangelist job with rss.com. And you know, they’re giving me a lot more than $10,000 one time, right? And I wouldn’t have been able to do that had I taken on this other gig. So…

Tanya Alvarez: By the way, we should pause and just remind everybody about that ’cause I think most entrepreneurs are in scarcity mode and they take on things that are not their ideal clients. And they’re the pain-the-buck client, and then they end up being like, I hate my business. I wanna drop whatever it is where if you continue doing the right things, and having your goals that align with your values, then you will have the opportunity to come.

Joe Casabona: Yeah, I love that. And you know what? We talk in Episode 406, with Maggie Patterson about this exact thing, like finding the right clients, understanding clients, and some red flags. So, definitely check that out over at [streamlined.fm/406] because this is…

Tanya Alvarez: Wow! That’s amazing. You remember all the episode numbers.

Joe Casabona: Oh, thank you. Well, this is, I think this is like 409 or something, so like, we’re pretty close. So we’re pretty, I would, sometimes I am like typing while I’m looking at you to make sure the episode, but that one’s fresh enough that I do remember the number.

In my younger days when I had fewer episodes, I had pretty, like, I had like a perfect recall for like the first 150 episodes maybe. And then I was like, I think I talked about them in episode seven.

Tanya Alvarez: Some episode. Just look at this person’s name

Joe Casabona: Google it. Yeah. But, yeah. I think this is, it’s really important and like not, I mean this is a whole other conversation, but like understanding those red flags for clients who are gonna be a pain in the neck is also like, I mean again, I’ve been doing this since I was 14. I’m 38 now. And so like I’ve learned the hard way, right? That’s like you have the client who fights you on every penny, they pay you and then calls you at midnight ’cause that’s when they got inspired. Real thing that happened to me in college. And so, and then I added into my contract, like, you can call me on the phone from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM. Those are the, that’s the time that I’m available. If you call me after those hours, I will be charging you like double my hourly rate or whatever. And so yeah, it’s a hard…

Tanya Alvarez: That’s a reminder, personal development, right?

Joe Casabona: Yes. Yeah. Personal development and boundaries.

Tanya Alvarez: Cause that takes a lot to say, “Yes. No boundaries. Know what you want. Know what you’re worth. And not land into scarcity. I think it’s so easy as an entrepreneur to land in scarcity mode.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Especially if you’ve been through it, right? Like, you know, I was lucky during like the, oh eight crash housing recession thing because I was in Web Development and that was a time where everybody realized, oh man, if my business is going to survive, I need a website. So I was again, flippantly as a dumb 20-year-old going around going like, what? Recession? Which like again, like I didn’t have any, yeah, I wasn’t all 20-year-old guys are dumb. Sorry. 20-year-old guys who are listening to this. but, uh…So I like lucked out a little bit, but then like last year when I had real stakes and I pivoted my business and like people were throwing the word recession around and most of my money relied on advertisers, I freaked out a little bit, right? And I think again, even in that freakout moment, I didn’t just take any money because something inside me like knew, Hey, this is gonna be worse for you in the long run. So….

Tanya Alvarez: Double down on personal development ’cause it’s not that easy to say.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Like my values and my goals helped me with that. Like my value.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. It’s probably like you have three kids, so you’re like, wow, if I just start hustling, sure I’ll make money, but I won’t have time with my kids, so what’s the point? You might as well get a job at that point, right?

Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. ’cause you know what, like that job probably, I mean, for a… I know like there’s a lot of layoffs happening over the last year or so, so maybe people will disagree with this, but you, more or less know where your next paycheck is coming from if you have a steady job. So, I mean, this is, you know, this is a hard road, but I’m doing it because I wanna be able to leave my computer at 10:00 AM to go to the school to see my kids play. And not everybody gets to do that.

Tanya Alvarez: And by the way, with layoffs, when some of my friends have been laid off, I’m like, congratulations. You’re like, what? And I was like, Yeah. You [Inaudible 46:34:1] You can do your thing.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. This is a gift, right? Especially if it comes with a severance, right? I’ve never had a severance or a bonus.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. That’s the ideal. Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Like when clients fire you, they don’t have to give you a severance, I mean, maybe you working into your contract, but they don’t have to give that.

Tanya Alvarez: I haven’t had that one. Yeah.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. So I don’t, I mean any like shrewd person probably wouldn’t agree to that. Like, if you fire me, the client has to pay me for three months. They’re like, no, that’s dumb.

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. Unless there’s some sort of investment build-out, you know?

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, this was a really good conversation. Just to recap the how we prioritize goals? Was this your full system here? Are we missing any steps before I move on?

Tanya Alvarez: No.

Joe Casabona: Great. So, write down your ideas. Once a week, write down the outcomes. I wrote why you wanna do it. Did you say that or did I like, did I like chat to you?

Tanya Alvarez: Well, yeah. You should add that one down because it’s a value align. Make sure it aligns with your values.

Joe Casabona: Yeah. Effort where one is hard and five is easy. I like that because I think I would’ve done it the other way. But we’re looking for the high scorers here, right? And so like the easier it is, the better impact. One is low to five is high. And then consider your sales, marketing, and capacity.

This is great. Tanya, if people want to maybe get this in writing or learn more about what you do, where can people find you?

Tanya Alvarez: Yeah. They can direct message me on LinkedIn and Instagram. Sadly, they’re on that show and I’ll send them not only this goal prioritization but this sheet that helps you focus more. It takes three minutes every single day. It’s totally worth it. It helps some of my members go from like working 50 hours to working 30 hours and getting really smart with their time. So, my LinkedIn is Tanya Alvarez. And my Instagram is tanyacalvarez like the letter C.

Joe Casabona: Awesome. I will have that and everything we talked about, including the books that we mentioned, and maybe the names that we forgot in the show notes over at [streamlined.fm/409]. That’s [streamlined.fm/409]. You can also get ad-free extended versions of every episode by becoming a member over at that link.

Tanya, thanks so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.

Tanya Alvarez: Thank you. And if somebody figures out the comedian, I like literally direct message me ’cause I just totally blanked down. And I’ll do a one-on-one with them.

Joe Casabona: That’s amazing. So if you remember the comedian, click on that LinkedIn link in the show notes. That’s awesome. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.

Thank you for listening. Thanks to our sponsors. And until next time, get out there and build something.