Put your Phone To Bed

Written By Bart Berkey | Founder of Most People Don't

YOU ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO ME RIGHT NOW

Before I walk on stage, I do my best not to look at a single email.  

Earlier this week, I found myself explaining "why", during the leadership training I was conducting.

A bad email can bring me down, in the thirty seconds it takes to read it, and a great email can lift me up just as quickly.

Either way, some part of me would be distracted causing me to be somewhere else rather than in that room.

I don't feel like this would be fair to the people who set aside their time to be there.

So intentionally, I keep my phone in my pocket.

My inbox remains closed.

Whatever is waiting for me can keep waiting, until I have delivered what I came to deliver.

During my presentation, I explained what I believe is the greatest gift we can give another person, which is our attention.

Our attention matters most during the busy seasons we all go through, when it is hardest to pause long enough to "Be Where Your Feet Are", with the person who is standing in front of you.

Our minds are always going to jump forward to the next meeting or fall back to the last conversation, and yet the most important thing in any given moment is usually the person right there across from us.

Picture this.

The next time you sit down with a client, or with someone on your team, you close your laptop, you turn of your phone and it's out of sight.

The only thing you are doing is focusing on the person in front of you.

Without saying a single word, the person knows that “They are the most important thing to you right now.”

This is a huge value that does not cost you anything at all.

There is one person Most People almost never do this for...

On a recent trip to Omaha, we found something in a great boutique, that could easily help. 

The shop was selling colorful, quilted sunglass cases that looked like tiny sleeping bags to us.

Terri & I both had the same thought at the same moment.

These would be great gifts, if they were available in a slightly larger size.

They would be perfect to use at the end of the day, to tuck your phone inside and actually "put it to bed."

We laughed about it.

The idea followed me home, and as I was thinking about why, I realized that the hardest person to give our full attention is often not the client or the team member or the audience, it's the one looking back at you in the mirror first thing in the morning.

THE FIRST VOICE YOU HEAR

One recent survey I read about, found that approximately 80 percent of Americans check their phones within ten minutes of waking up.

This means, that for most of us, the first voice we hear each day belongs to somebody else's agenda.

When the first thing you reach for is email or social media, you have handed the first decision of your day to someone else, and you have put their needs and their wants ahead of your own before you have even decided how you want that day to be. ("Deliberate Your Day"...something I often share in my keynote messages.)

The morning is the one stretch of time that most of us can still shape, and for some reason Most People give it away before their feet hit the floor.

Starting the day on your own terms is not about discipline for its own sake.

It's about being proactive.

It's about choosing how the day begins, and initiating it the way you want it to go rather than spending the rest of it reacting to whatever arrived overnight.

YOU ARE ON THE LIST, TOO

We talk a lot about how to "Notice, Anticipate, and Overdeliver" for the people we serve.

Our research proves that small daily acts of kindness make the person doing them happier.

Somehow, the part of that research most people skip is who the kindness is for.

In a study led by researchers at Oxford, 683 people performed acts of kindness every day for seven days.

The people who directed that kindness toward themselves, saw their happiness rise just as much as the ones who were kind to a friend or a stranger.

Your attention runs on energy, and that energy has to come from somewhere.

When you spend quiet time with your own thoughts, take care of yourself, and work on getting better, doing better, and being better, you are not taking anything away from the people who count on you.

You are building the foundation that lets you keep showing up for them.

That is "Why" the most important person in the room, the moment you look in the mirror each morning, is "YOU."

PUT YOUR PHONE TO BED

That is the phrase we have been using for a while now.

"Putting your phone to bed" means that the first appointment of every day is with yourself.

Give yourself the time you would give a client you truly cared about... your full undistracted attention, before anyone else gets assumes control.

It does not mean ignoring the world.

It does not require a sleeping bag.

It means deliberately deciding that your inbox can wait for you, the same way it waits while I'm on stage.

This is important.

You are the most important person.

You matter more than anything else especially at the start of each day.

If you don't prioritize yourself and your goals, who will?

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Three Things to Try This Week:

1. Put your phone to bed. Tonight, charge your phone somewhere other than your nightstand, and give yourself the first fifteen minutes of tomorrow before you look at it, whether you spend them with a cup of coffee, a short walk, a few slow breaths, or simply your own thoughts.
2. Close your laptop. In your next conversation with a client or someone you manage, close your laptop, turn your phone off and put it where you can't see it, and give them the kind of attention that tells them, without your ever having to say it, that they are the most important thing to you right now.
3. Count yourself. This week, when you do your one act of kindness for the day, make at least one of them for yourself, whether that is the walk you keep postponing or the quiet half-hour you keep giving away.

You can't give someone your full attention if you have spent all of yours before breakfast.

Tomorrow morning, your phone is going to light up before you have decided what kind of day you want to have.

Who are you going to give that first moment to, and when was the last time it was you?

Most People Don't... But YOU Do!

Bart