The creative mind behind Nap Bar is Khaliah O. Guillory. As a previous C level executive, she knows a thing or two about handling stress. Nap Bar, the first white glove, self-care napping experience in Texas, offers communities and companies on-site and en suite rest sanctuary to help reduce sleep deprivation and increase productivity. Nap Bar’s mission is to turn sustainable rest into sustainable productivity for the health-conscious professionals, entrepreneurs, stay at home parents and travelers. Based on Khaliah’s philanthropy work in the community, Mayor Sylvester Turner declared October 29 as Khaliah O. Guillory Day.
As entrepreneurs, we always feel guilty whenever we take time off our business to focus on our personal lives. But according to today's podcast guest, we can become more productive and live longer, more fulfilled lives if we allowed ourselves to nap every now and then. Khaliah Guillory is the founder of the Nap Bar and is passionate about helping people live better lives by getting better naps. In today's episode, we learn about positivity, letting go of things that are outside of your control, and about allowing yourself to devote time for pampering and spoiling yourself, and how these can actually give you better clarity in reaching for your goals.
5:40 - Make sure that whoever you're with right now, be it your spouse or your partner, make sure they fully support your entrepreneurial dreams
12:20 - Selling sleep - how the Nap Bar came about
22:30 - How Khaliah pivoted her business when COVID hit
31:35- Those who nap 3-5 times regularly in a week increase their lifespan by up to 5 years.
39:59 - Napping reduces the signs of depression
48:17 - Understanding the manifestation of your brand, who you are and what you stand for
54:27 - Be grateful for the things you have and forgive yourself for the decisions that you've made that didn't work out
1:00:07 - Make priorities front and center, because a lot of things are gonna pop up that are out of our control
1:04:12 - Khaliah's passionate plea for entrepreneurs
"If you strive for perfection, it can paralyze you. But if you strive for excellence, it can catapult you."
GET IN TOUCH
Mark Leary:
www.linkedin.com/in/markhleary
www.leary.cc
Khaliah Guillory
www.facebook.com/khaliahguillory
www.twitter.com/napbarnow
www.linkedin.com/in/khaliahguillory/
Production credit:
Engineering / Post-Production: Jim McCarthy
Art / Design: Immanuel Ahiable
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, nap, sleep, business, navbar, thinking, entrepreneur, conversation, point, corporate america, big, months, world, visionary, life, bar, houston, years, continue, pivot
SPEAKERS
Khaliah, VO, Mark
Mark 00:00
So we're rolling, cool. We are live. This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson, Leary My name is Mark, I have a passion that you should feel in control of your life. So what I do is I help you get control of your business. And part of how I do that is by letting you listen in on a conversation between two people who have a passion for excellence in the entrepreneurial world, you're listening to listening to them have a conversation about something you may already know something about. But this time, we're digging in deep, and we're getting into the details so you can start to unlock your understanding. So hopefully, you can break through your own ceilings and limitations and really get that control of your life that you're looking for. So before we dive in, don't forget, please subscribe. Please leave feedback. It's so important. It helps us so much. And it really helps get the word out to those people who need and want to hear about what we're talking about. So I'm so excited about the uncertainty and the unpredictable and the fun we're gonna have today with my guest Kalia. Oh, Guillory, we're going to talk about the Oh in a minute. But she's the creative behind behind the nap bar, a place to to sleep. And so it was talking about the passion of sleep, but she's somebody who's got a previous C level background is, you know, got the corporate world and behind her and now is just clearly a visionary entrepreneur who's doing those kind of things that we all like to do as visionaries, got an active role in philanthropy. It has a day out of the year, named after her from Mayor Turner and Houston has given her that and so she's a lover of humanity. And she has some some some problems though, of course, her problem with with obsession with watches, sunglasses and socks, which we can talk about as well. But I would love to welcome Kalia Oh, Guillory, so great to have you here. To be here, man. Thank
Khaliah 01:45
you. Thanks for having me more. We're gonna cut up into a lot of things and get some gems out in the world? I think so. Absolutely.
Mark 01:52
Absolutely good. Because you're, you're living the fight. You're out there in the middle of COVID time having to pivot, adapt, stay strong, find money, do that kind of stuff. add value, play the long game, play the short game. Tell us about your journey. Tell us about your journey.
Khaliah 02:10
How did this even come about? Simply put, I was tired of sleeping in my car.
02:16
And I
02:19
got in that bar. Is that how you became an entrepreneur?
Khaliah 02:23
Well, let me take a step back how I became entrepreneurs. Because one day I woke up, I was like most people right in my age bracket, I'll be turning 41 in a couple of weeks, shout out to Scorpios. And our season is upon us. I don't know where this is going to end. But hopefully it'll be right before my birthday, which is in on the 24th of October. But it's an entrepreneurship. I was in corporate America, I was a C level executive for working for the same company, by way to mergers for 14 plus years. I had one point in my career, I was overseeing the book of business over a billion dollars, I had, you know, almost 300 people that were that I was responsible for. And every year I was setting my plans in December for the following year. Like what's going to be the next rung on the ladder? What's going to be the next thing you know what's going to be but yet I never really truly 100% satisfied. And I quickly realized when I you know when I when I hit the six figure Mark when I started earning six figures I thought that would be is like oh man when I when I start earning, you know, well into the six figures, like there's going to be golden. And then quickly when I got to that wrong. I was like, this was a lie. This isn't it. And so when one morning I woke up and I was one of those people that was like, Hey, I'm gonna retire with this company. I am a gamer. I'm a lifer. I already had my trajectory of my career, all mapped out, everything was done. I was working 70 hours, I was traveling 75% of the time, my territory includes the entire United States. So when we get to find myself traveling to San Fran, I'll wrap up in New York and then I'll come home Thursday night, get to catch the latest fly on Sunday on Thursday, get home early, early Friday morning. I will work all throughout the weekend to catch up and then I was doing it all over again. And one morning to Mark I woke up and I realized that I was at the intersection where my maximum contribution no longer met my satisfaction. And I realized that my passion, my divine passion and purpose. There was no way I could operate in those two succinct things because I was working for someone else now. Am I saying everybody should be an entrepreneur? No, because it's not it's not cut out for everybody. You need people to work in corporate America and operate in their genius. It's just so it's just so often found I found out that my ladder was leaning against the wrong building in order for me to fulfill my divine purpose and passion because in order for me to know do those two things, I needed to be able to operate as my own as my own leader, I needed to have flexibility I needed to be able to not create for someone else but create for myself. And, you know, after, after a couple of thought processes in my thin my thin wife, my ex wife, now, we had really good conversations about and I said, I am not fulfilled doing this work. And this is the kind of work that I want to do. She said, well go for it, go and chase your dreams. And so that's probably the biggest nugget I can draw right now is make sure whoever you are sharing your dreams with that you are having Pillow Talk with that they are supporting you in a way that they're gonna, they're gonna support your dreams and your aspirations, and it's gonna make it easier for you to go.
Mark 05:42
So I like to slow that down and make sure we unpack that because that is that's a frequent area of conflict. Entrepreneurs I talk to all the time when I'm coaching them in particular, and they're talking about their, their dreams, I say, Well, what is your What is your wife or your spouse or your partner? Think about this, because you can have a conversation today that could prevent a lot of pain in three months. Because I've seen a lot of pain side of that, like, hey, yeah, honey, I mortgaged the house, by the way. We shouldn't talk about that, don't you think?
Khaliah 06:16
Yeah. I'll say, yeah, I'm not the expert at that. Because although we have a conversation, where we fail to say we didn't have an ongoing conversation, you know, we sat down, we looked at our finances. I my Personally, I was $80,000 in debt, but you know, think about people's like, Oh, my God, how did that happen was like, Well, if you're making a certain amount of money annually, and you you bonus it out every year, then you know, it's you don't realize like, Man, I'm cash flowing and paying $80,000 a debt monthly, like, it doesn't hurt that much when when you start to consider all the things that you need to sacrifice so that you can achieve your dreams from a financial standpoint, in a fiscal standpoint, you quickly realize that I won't be able to cash flow and pay $80,000 in debt, I gotta figure something out. So you know, I'll be the first to admit, it's like, yeah, I had that conversation. But make sure is ongoing, and make sure that you are clear about what the vision is, and that they understand what the vision is, as well and timelines.
Mark 07:12
Well, I think you've hit a good point. And that is, it's one thing to have a partner that supports you pursuing your dreams. And maybe this is what you experienced? Maybe it isn't, but I have experienced that desire to support your dreams, who isn't going to say absolutely support your dreams take a risk? What what isn't always clear, is what does that mean? Exactly? That line in three months, and six months and nine months? And in two years? And in three years? Like what the other consequences to that? And the answer is there definitely are consequences. And there are potentially limits to how much you should sacrifice along the way. So that's it, did you so is that? How did it? How did it all unfold for you? Was it just basically one conversation, go chase your dream and then wake up six months later, like this ox?
Khaliah 07:57
Yeah, well, because it was it was one of those things to where, you know, we had a lot going on in our personal life already. You know, we were in the process of family planning. And, you know, I was transitioning away from my from corporate America, and now I'm on her insurance. So like, there was so many different facets and layers, that whenever you're entrepreneur, you're excited about what you're about to do, and you're sitting, you're scared all at the same doggone time, you might miss a couple of conversations to be had. Right. And so, you know, we had a couple of conversations, we had a financial conversation. But what we should have done that we didn't do is that we didn't revisit that conversation at the end of the month, every month, we should have had a check in about these are the three main main pillars. For me pursuing my dreams, financial, you know, emotional and physical. We need to make sure that all these things continue to operate in harmony and intact. And if not, we need to, we need to take a step back and figure out where we need to pull more into this. And that's, that's something that we just didn't do.
Mark 08:59
And so what I think is worth mentioning is that what you described is understanding are we keeping to our recipe, because we're I think people who aren't initiated into this experience will start saying things like balance, oh, we have that need to have some balance. And I've I've come to resent and ultimately rejected the word balance because I don't think balance makes any sense. I do think there are seasons to life. And there are recipes to what you you're trying to create something and there's a recipe is an optimal recipe for that if you're, if you're gonna make a hard candy, it's 100% sugar, a little bit of flavor. If it's a cake, it's a lot less sugar and a lot more flour. And so you your life has that same thing. And so what I think is the word that I use to replace balance is healthy. We need to have a healthy relationship which means the recipe we're we're cooking is making the food the product that we agreed we wanted to make. And if we wanted to make candy, we should be seeing the candy take shape. And if we wanted to make a cake, we should see cake taking shape. And so you're sort of describing like, well We should have digit you know, is the cake baking? Okay, is it still a cake? Is it a pancake? were we thinking pancake? Are we thinking? There's layer cake?
Khaliah 10:09
Yeah, well, we think about Okay, what we think is a spice cake? Well, we think an ice cream cake.
Mark 10:16
Yeah. Are we saving? are we are we consuming savings at a rate that's that it's acceptable? Are we preserving a relationship with a minimal but acceptable amount of maintenance? Are we you know, are what are we taking vacations? Are we not? I mean, because you can agree, you can say, look, look, no vacations for two years, but date night, every week, that's a recipe.
Khaliah 10:37
And we talked about vice versa. That definitely was one of the top the top of the conversation because, you know, we were used to taking a large, a large, expensive trip once a year, because we could, you know, we were going to Italy, and we were doing all these things, and it was like, Hey, we won't be able to do that anymore. Are we going to be okay, doing that? And instead, you know, say, hey, we'll just we'll go to Austin road trip. And, you know, I was I was traveling 75% of the time. So you know, we were thankful to have some reward points and points for hotel. So we were able to kind of still travel a little bit within, you know, within our means, but it still wasn't it still was a pivot for both of us.
Mark 11:17
Well, pivots a great word. I don't want to short circuit but I certainly you described a common two common things that I think everybody who hears this who's been in this spot or is thinking about this spot is the plunge, there's the plunge, there's the disillusionment in the in the goes with sort of, okay, there's a lot more here. And I've got to have some hard conversations with people besides myself. If you're if you're single, young and financially, not obligated, it's a very different experience to be an entrepreneur than it is if there's somebody else in your world who is dependent upon your usually your time and resources, right. So people experienced that you talked about pivoting in the relationship. So how does it How does the journey move forward to like a time like right now where it's, you know, all those even if you were super successful last year, you might be kind of back to this feeling of day one?
Khaliah 12:10
Yeah, so I could watch your timeline. So we give you a little more background about navbar. And how this even came about. So
Mark 12:19
I love to hear about that. I mean, a selling selling sleep. That sounds like something you can make some money on
Khaliah 12:24
me. I sell asleep mark, and people are paying people were paying me I was swiping your debit cards, FSA, HSA, they're flexible a health savings account, they will come and sweet.
Mark 12:34
Yeah. So that was a point of wisdom in that. Yeah,
Khaliah 12:37
we can definitely unpack that. Because I think people entrepreneurs, especially those of us who are in health and wellness are missing a ton. We're leaving a ton of money on the table, because we simply not accept the FSA HSA cards because you're approved. Why not? It people, people think it's difficult to get set up but it's really not. But going back to that bar, it really came about because one day, I was carpooling with my with my wife, my ex wife now and she, we were we were close. We were carpooling into the city. We lived out in the burbs. And she had she had a side hustle. We both were actually working a corporate and had had side hustles. And we were off this day to work on our businesses. We had meetings in the city. And it was probably right around my naptime around two o'clock. And I looked at her I was like, Man, it's nap time. But I can't take my nap because you're in a car with me. That would be a little weird. And she said, Well, Google, Google, NASA Houston, there's got to be a place where you could go and take a nap is Houston. It's like the fourth largest city in the country. And I was like you right? So A minute later, I looked at her. I was like, Can you believe there's no place for me to take a nap and we're in Houston. She was like, well, you should create it. And I was like, no one's gonna pay me like I'm probably the only adult that's taking a nap people. People aren't napping like that, because I've been a legit avid napper since kindergarten when the teacher said, Hey, can we go get your red and blue mat? I was a kid with my mat already in my corner curled up like asleep, she did have a fight with me. And I just continued I continued napping throughout my entire life, I play a playback division one basketball. So that was the way I tell people I kept my scholarship is that some days, I was taking two or three power naps like 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. That's how I was able to maintain my GPA and I graduated on time, and I largely rubric that to next.
Mark 14:26
That is where I think that's worth repeating. Because I'm a student of sleep in and what I've found is that when you start to peel back the onion, there's a whole lot of people including LeBron James who like yeah, sleeps, like every, like the first thing that changes everything. And highperformance as it turns out, seems to be they don't talk about it not not the same way you would expect. It's all about this sort of sacrifice. I can go on two hours of sleep. It's like you can unless you want a win. Win, you gotta rest
Khaliah 14:57
before I pivoted away from corporate I told myself I am going to dedicate 10,000 plus hours are researching. For those of you who are trying to figure out the math over the course of five years, that's five hours a day that you dedicate to researching. And I said, I gotta I gotta convince myself that this makes sense for me to walk away from this from, from, you know, my sanctuary from my stability from all these things. And I ran across it, I never forget, I had just finished, I think I just came in town, I just came back home, it was probably around midnight, I got home. And so I was like, I gotta do, at least I need at least do our research. It was like one o'clock in the morning. And I ran across this, this NASA stat. And it said that they conducted a test on sleeping military pilots and astronauts and found that a 26 minute nap, increase their productivity by up to 34% and alertness by 54%. I literally almost fell out my seat because I was like, Oh my god, like who wouldn't sign up for 54% increase in alertness just by taking a search for 26 minutes and 34% productivity just by taking a snooze. And so it's just been crazy. And you know, even just continue to unpack that, because I'm committed to research. I just ran across an article a couple of months ago in the Wall Street Journal, that the average employer is losing $1,967 per employee, due to sleep deprivation, loss of productivity. And so when you when you think about how much was it was it 1900 1967 per employee, almost almost almost two
16:29
grand, that up to
Khaliah 16:31
two grand and it's for people who have 100,000 employees. You know, I see I was making like, man, I want to people want to work with his Amazon because I read an article, like right in the middle of pandemic when everybody was like ordering everything from the sun. This driver literally parked his van in the middle of St. Louis and a busy intersection. I was like, I quit. I can't I can't deliver that one more package. just crazy. I'm overworked. I can't do this anymore. And I thought to myself, Oh, man, I wonder. I wonder if Amazon had an app or a hub where their drivers can go there strategically in their in their routes, they can take a 30 minute snooze, I bet you they will see an increase in productivity. They'll see a reduction in human ears. Same thing goes for corporate America, anybody that's on demand right now. I digress. Let me get back to that. So that when it came about so I did all this research, scientific research, I was like, Okay, let's do it. So then I This was April 2018. I went to my my wife, then I said, Hey, I'm thinking of doing this, like legit, let's do it. And then I went online this back when my Facebook would allow for you to poll your friends. And I said, Okay, friends, like, Listen, I had this crazy idea that somebody like, maybe I'm not the only one the only adult that's taking naps during the day. I was like, give me a shout, say yes. If you are taking a nap in your car and unused conference room, if you're sneaking off, like anyway, you're going to take a nap in the middle of the day. On your lunch break. 99% of my focus was like that to me. And I was like, Okay, cool. Well, if there was a rest sanctuary that was created right here in Houston, that was a safe haven for you take a nap that wasn't far from your job. You won't have to spend too much draw time you will waste time getting there. Or if it was on site was you participate? It was like Absolutely. And I was like, Huh, Okay, what else would you want there? We want to Roma therapy, one pill mass, you want candles, you want two shots? Like what do you want. And I literally, I completed my business plan based on surveys and polls, because I knew I didn't want to create something that I want. I'm out, I'm out to solve a $411 billion. I said a billion with a B billion dollar US economic loss problem. So I knew that I needed to depend on the masses to tell me what they wanted. And I went out and created it.
Mark 18:56
And it worked.
Khaliah 18:58
It worked. And so April 2018, is when I started doing my research. I retired from corporate America, November 2018. That's when I finally say, hey, deuces, I'm out of here. And then our beta tests for navbar started here in rice village. for five months, we did nothing but tracking KPIs key performance indicators, we measured the heck out of everything. We went through three rounds, four Mbps for the actual pause our minimum viable product to make sure we got it right. And so that's why it took five months people are like, Well, why did you Why did it take five months? I said, because we knew that this would be the first of its kind people would, you know, kind of give us a side is like What is it? What are you really doing here? So we knew we had to get it right. So that's why I dedicated not just 10,000 hours to find a science scientific data that proves my theory, but also making sure it was something that the masses will want. And so we did our beta test. That was March, march 2019. And then we found ourselves opening up our shop in the Galleria mall, which happens to be one of the biggest one of the top 10 malls in the entire country. And we were there over the holidays to help sleepy shoppers and employees get the adequate West rest that they need it. And that was from November, through March. And then March, we were scheduled to be a South by Southwest to allow the artist in the VIP lounge to get adequate rest before they took the stage. And then COVID hit.
Mark 20:28
I remember I remember when the cancellation of Southwest South by Southwest came in, I'm sure it was kind of a shot to the shot to the gut.
Khaliah 20:37
Honestly wasn't because I think at that point, we had heard so much about COVID. And what it was wreaking havoc on it across the pond, I reached out to our contact person said Hey, are you guys gonna cancel this because at that point, we saw what COVID was doing in China and all the other countries across the pond. And I personally didn't want to expose my staff or any of our volunteers or anyone who's gonna nap with us, or any of our products. And we didn't know anything about that, right? I was like, Well, I don't know if I want COVID on my mattress. So we're gonna say, Hey, what do you guys want to do? And she was like, Hey, we the city of Austin hasn't canceled yet. And I'm like, Well, what do we don't feel comfortable being there. And at this point, you you all the big class names have already pulled out. So now we're thinking like, well, what is this gonna look like for us, this is gonna be a complete waste of our time and our investment. And so thank God, they cancelled it. But you know, we were banking on our pipeline was banking on the exposure we received at South by Southwest to be able to continue to button up some of the other deals in our pipeline. And so COVID hit, we were we were not deemed as essential business, of course, and the team and I went back and said, Okay, well, what did we do here? Because at this point, Mark, we were only nine months old. Not even that because of you consider we were five months into a beta test. Most people don't count that. So we really didn't actually open until November 2019. So we had November, December, January, February, March, five months. And that was it. And we decided that hey, it made sense to allow for folks to take the navbar experience, how can we package up in the box, I had a strategy session with my business strategist. And we uncovered that maybe we could put some things in a box. Now funny is a part of my business plan. I had always mentioned and stated that I wanted to have white label products I eventually move into products that would be another stream of revenue ended up the navbar umbrella and those products would be you know candles pillow Miss, you know, anything that's around sleep, pajamas, sheets. And what's funny is COVID forced me to accelerate my product production plan. And now you know, we have a white label, pillow miss a big vegan pillow miss a vegan soy based candle we have eyemask we're rolling out for the holidays. We're going to provide sheets, organic sheets, downloadable brainwave. So, I mean, COVID really, in disguise has forced me to be even more innovative than I was thinking of it this way
Mark 23:14
absolutely deserves slowing down. Because what I'm hearing you describe on the surface sounds like, Oh, we just you know, we used to make the vodka. Now we make hand sanitizer, you know, and like, that's a very strong, logical, straightforward pivot. But I heard something very different in the story that maybe I don't maybe everybody heard this but let's assume it's easy to miss. And that is that you didn't start off as some sort of simple retail thing. You started off with a passion for an impact on people in this country sleeping better, producing better and making a monetary impact in a life quality improvement. So your your research your thinking, your ethos, your the purpose of your organization, is is not hard to it's not hard to uncover like there's 1000 ways you know how to help because you know who you are. And so the pivot was probably not that hard other than Well, I got some steps to take that I didn't want to take right now it's a money i want to i need to spend that I didn't want to spend right now. But in terms of our long term impact, nothing really changes.
Khaliah 24:22
Nothing changed. Nothing changed because now when the world reopens back up and that bar is opened again and I brick and mortar location so guess what, now we have a box, we have more product, we have products and now we're gonna when we open our doors for business, we have another immediate another stream of revenue that we can cater to. And I think you made a really good point is because we didn't start this business to make a gazillion dollars. The end game is for us to sell for a gazillion dollars. Yes, but that wasn't my primary mission. You know, the mission, honestly, is for people to be able to have quality life. You know, like whenever you go after you The old world when you were working all these crazy hours, and then you you got off and you fought traffic for two hours and you roll up home and it's seven o'clock and now you have to have dinner with your kids, but you're exhausted, you haven't even made any eye contact with them. You're on your phone, you're doing all these things. No, I really want you to be if you took a nap at work, perhaps you can go home at seven still same timeline. But be engaged with your kids, you know, have energy to play with your kids being engaged to do some math homework or something. Or even if for folks like me, it's like, my performance is much better at the gym when I take a nap. Yeah, my performance is much better when I'm solving a problem when I take a nap. So I just really am out to solve this sleep deprivation problem. That's literally costing us $411 billion. But I really want people just have a quality of life so that we can get back to what COVID has taught us and that's a really have a human to human connection. So I don't have enormous amount of gratitude.
Mark 25:58
I don't want to belabor the point. But I do think is a lot to mine in this and that is that. When when somebody Okay, so for myself, I hear the nap bar. Okay, what is that? I don't use it. It's a it's a it's a retail place that allows people to nap. And it's not. It's not near me. It's not I don't go I'm not going to the Galleria, you know, who can spend time and money on a premium nap experience? I don't get it for those people who are not like close enough to it. And that's, that's a very common type of perception, I would think. And I'm thinking like, holy Amazon, right. Amazon, like, books online? Yeah, it's not a big deal. I don't know. They got big plans. Do they? They're booked people. So I'm making I mean, totally, once you understand. Yeah, once you're about once you dig below the surface, you mean it's the I guess it's the iceberg, right? Like, well, the I see like a little some ice in in the water? No, there's lots below the surface. And it's meaningful. And we've done the work. And we have the passion. And so it's interesting to see how it can manifest it can give you so many more instructions about how to adapt and what purpose. And why does this why is this important? And you know, you've got lots of obstacles as a business to encounter. And there's never, never any business that I talked to it has it guaranteed, right? This is never guaranteed success is not assured you have to fight every single day. But when I hear you talk about this, I see like, how many weapons Do you have access to with all of this purpose, you know where your long term goal lies? And you can say, yeah, it's not just about you come into my store in the Galleria, it's about understanding this navbar logo means I care about you sleeping. And so do you know someone who wants to sleep? Is it you? Is it a family, I got some for ya. And so there's really a lot of depth in the brand, because you understand your purpose is so powerful.
Khaliah 27:43
Thank you for that, Mark, thank you for that. And I think that's oftentimes what we miss is that we don't know who we are. And then we go out and start this business. And then we can't understand what's the purpose of the business? Because we're not clear on who we are as a person as a human being what are what are my personal KPIs? What am I personally those was my was my personal pillars. Like, I know all these things. And that was easy for me to formulate the same thing for my business. So I think, you know, for any entrepreneur who is listening, and they might find themselves stuck, I would say, like, take a particular internal look like what's, what are some of those answers? You can? What are the questions you can answer off the top of your head about you, that has bled into your business, if you find yourself stuck, then you've got some soul work to do.
Mark 28:27
Yeah, I mean, that's that goes into this concept of knowing the customer, knowing the client know, and being able to speak for them, and with with real authority and knowledge of their pains, because that's what you're ultimately having to do as a business leader. For your team, you're having to make decisions and put products and services out there that are meaningful and land and you have to be there proxy. And the one of my clients is the fastest growing company in Houston right now, according to Houston Business Journal. And one of the things that this company does for sure is that they come from the industry they're serving, and they have a real authenticity of spirits in the leadership team. And it just, it's just so different when they can sit in the seat of their client and give them solutions and services that fit like a glove, as opposed to people who are very mechanical about the business just trying to sit in their seats from away from the client. They may not even like their clients. That's a whole other problem.
Khaliah 29:30
But that's a whole nother conversation. All
Mark 29:32
the myriad reasons you're not aligned with your client perfectly are those are problems. You got to tactically solve that what we've established through evidence of 1000s upon 1000s of companies, is it for you to really get that smooth glide of of clients coming on, you have to feel what they feel and your products and services have to reflect it from their perspective of what they need, not what you need. As a business owner entrepreneur who may have gotten themselves behind the wheel of something that feels a little burdensome.
Khaliah 30:07
Totally Well said. Well said, because, you know, it goes back to it's like you say, and what I mentioned earlier, it's not about what I want. If I'm really out here trying to solve the solve a problem, it's got to be about what my avatar and my clients, what do they want? And what are their What do they family want? You know, because now I'm thinking about my customer lifetime value. You know, it's not just about the customer in front of me, but the customer that can refer me to their family or friends.
Mark 30:39
Yeah, I mean, think about the comparison between a nap. I don't know what what's an app cost, by the way.
Khaliah 30:46
And that bar we were, so we had two forums, so it's either $1 a minute, or a membership, which was 99 bucks. Okay, so you can nap every single day.
Mark 30:55
So a couple ways, like, let's just say 23 minutes is to nap is 23 bucks, right? So a 20 to $23 nap, that is a transaction that is easy to kind of think of as how many of those I have to have as a business owner, like a lot. But how much sleep doesn't somebody consume over their life, you know, a third of their life.
Khaliah 31:19
Here's a stat. Here's a cool stat that kind of goes with that is another one of my my we are doing some research. I think it was in the Harvard Business Journal. And it was an article that found that both who nap three to five times were regularly in a week's time, their lifespan increased by five years, just by simply taking a nap three to five times a week. And of course, it's seven days. So you're talking to like, hey, alright, I could take a nap on a Monday or Friday and maybe catch a loozy after you know, dinner on Sunday. It will span your life your lifespan extended for five years, up to five years. That's crazy town.
Mark 32:05
Yes. And I'm a way Yeah, yeah, I'm, I'm passionate about sleep and rest and all the things you say. And so making sure I'm recovered and sleeping properly and feeling good. Cuz all those things about being sharp or being better, those are true. But for me just happiness. Like, if I'm feeling struggling, like I can't, I don't I can't pay attention. I don't want to pay attention. I'm not interested. Like that's a, that's a sucky part of the afternoon. And so if I can have an engaged alert afternoon after lunch, that's super high value for me. And so it's it's many years of sort of figured trying to figure it out trying to do the math and getting to the bottom, which probably the sleep side of this could really be its own podcast and of itself. And I've studied all those guys. And we could talk about that or we could do. And so we have those two, those two paths. So I just kind of leave that point it we can continue to kind of give sleep tips along the way, because I think it's important, but I also think it's really mostly to do both, for sure. I think what's so critical right now is how is this? How does this manifest at a time when people are still kind of all over the map? If you're a consulting firm, you're not pivoting to making hand sanitizer. That's for a marketer, we're gonna make faceshield No, you're not. That's not gonna work. So, so how is this pivoted continue on the journey of you trying to forget in the seat and get in the perspective of your customer? What are you selling them?
Khaliah 33:35
Yeah, you know, I think it kind of makes me think about just what's happening just in COVID. From our from business perspective, things that happened that I didn't even I couldn't even I didn't even manifest to happen, right? Cuz I didn't even know I think I was just open to I this is these are these are the goals of my company. And this is my intention. And then I just kind of let everything just happened in a folder where it was I continue to work the way I need to work. And I prayed when I needed to pray and I've had faith to believe that it was going to happen the way it was supposed to happen. They really was that simple. Now am I saying it was easy? No, because I am a true extrovert mark. World and recharging my energy being with people and hugging people. And the first two, the first two weeks I would say of this day at home order. I wasn't doing well. I am I've battled with depression. I can honestly openly in a transparent way say that. And it's an ongoing. It's an ongoing thing in my life. And for the first two weeks, I found myself gravely depressed and one of the things that I did is I gave myself permission to sit in it for a period of time because I understand when I go through the darkness, I know I'm going to I'm going to get out in the light. I know that for a fact. And for me that lightness was I said okay, you know what I need to unplug because I have been going like a crazy woman for the past 18 months. Not Stop. And this is going to be a time for me to really pause and unplug. And so I took 30 days from social media. And I got really quiet and really clear on what I wanted to do, like, what is this going to look like for me as a person was to look like for my business and for my income. And I mean, the box was born out of that quietness, the we have wellness, wellness, Wednesday, hashtag wellness Wednesday, where we give free tools and resources every week, and the style of a podcast, and we stream it live. And we you know, we have we're reaching, you know, some some videos are getting over 1000 hits and views and just in the same day, and we're talking about wellness, right, you're not talking about a thing that's super sexy or fancy, but it says super sexy and fancy to people who need it the most right now. And, you know, I think the the pivot of that is the boss came about, and people were just interested in like the survival piece of it, right? We were featured in Forbes over the summer essence, everybody's national publications, because I just refused not to stop telling my story. And I refuse not to stop going on social media and telling people like, Man, this is difficult. This is hard. You know, keep thinking about us holding that bar family up and your prayers and and your thoughts because, you know, we, we were we were five months old, we were nine months old to be counting the beta test. And, you know, we we're not, we're not allowing ourselves to be devastated. We're just gonna keep on going. And I had to furlough my two team members, that was the toughest thing I had to do. But you know, thank God, it talked about the big building it with the with the end in mind, I count my blessings for my CFO because she was hell bent on making sure that we did things right the right way the first time. So they were able to collect unemployment, I was able to qualify for PPP, because we had payroll taxes, we were paying our payroll taxes, we had all of our fears in order. So I wasn't running around here, like oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God, how do I qualify for this stuff? It was literally a conversation with her. She sent me the file, I uploaded it, I filled out the application. And that was it. You know, so i think i think i think that's that's really where it is, is I how you continue to pivot, is you just continue to do it, you know, and you stay true to who you are, you stay true to your brand, you stay true to your brand voice and think about some things that people need right now. I wasn't going in the hand sanitizer, I wasn't gonna create a face mask, because that's not consistent to my brand, I wanted to create something. And that was one of the things that I was very clear on, I want to create something a product, that whenever this is we get back into the new world, the new norm of the newness that I can easily bring back and fold Fold back into the plan, it will easily flow into our vertical markets, it will make complete sense. sanitizer. I mean, yeah, we could do sanitizer, but I don't want to make it harder with somebody, you know, but it really was about what's the experience? What's the experience of that bar that we can do now we're, we're like I mentioned, we're venturing out into sheets. So it makes sense, because sheets of people doing your research on it. She's like, being sold like crazy right now. Because, yeah,
Mark 38:13
yeah. And it's all consistent. So the boxes are joining the boxes are selling.
Khaliah 38:20
By selling my high case, man, I can't keep them in stock as soon as I get them in. And we haven't we haven't, we haven't run any ads, on social media with the boxes, it's all been word of mouth. Some really good loyal customers, I have these ladies who are executives at Dow Chemical who collected you here probably purchased 30 some odd boxes boxes at this point. They're giving them to team members for employee engagement, they're giving them to friends who are not sleeping well at night. So it's just been it's been really, really cool. And that's that's the reason why I realized like, Hey, I can I need to break into corporate America right now. Because in 2021, when folks are going back into the office, and even now, and even if they're not going back into the office, if they're going to continue to work remotely, through 2021 up until 2022 the sleep the sleep box is still applicable that you know, it still still will help with employee engagement. So why not have the support of the employee engagement program to ensure that your team members are operating at the highest maximum capacity that they possibly humanly can and it's not just a matter of you being selfish for your bottom line, but their internal and external bottom line when it comes to them, their self, their family? You know, most people don't realize that like how do you measure that? Right? Like, how do you measure that as a KPI that me as an employer because I'm allowing my team member to a take a nap on site at nap bar or be I ship them my wellness boss and once a month so I can make sure they're getting adequate sleep. I'm not just taking care of my bottom line. I'm taking care of their their household bottom line because they're gonna they're gonna get a boost and creativity about 40% you know, napping also shown that it reduces the size of the question. So when I feel the blue is coming off for me, I always check myself like, Hey, are you sleeping seven, eight hours a night? Because that's what my personal body needs. And if I say, Hey, are you napping? Are you getting your 26 minute nap in consistently every single day? And normally, whenever I start to feel those blues coming in Marcus, because one of those two things are off, my diet is off, or I'm not meditating consistent. My rituals are off. I'm skipping something in my normal routine. That's forcing me to go to the blue side,
Mark 40:31
Jews that are watching the presidential debate, I think they would probably cause the blues.
40:36
Well, you won't get a word in any way.
40:41
I'm the moderator here. I'm the moderator here.
Mark 40:46
We don't even need to pick sides. There was
Khaliah 40:51
no, that was beyond interesting. Beyond interesting. But you know, in doing things that feels good to your heart, right. I think that's another thing. And if we have time, we can talk about this. But I'm in the process of curating I don't know if you know, I have a nonprofit. So Cynthia, a Guillory Foundation, hidden out to my mother who lost the fight against ALS. No, I'm familiar with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. She lost that fight, gosh, back in weeks after I graduated from college, sorry here and lost the battle. But she's to see someone suffering due to cool disease you kind of want them to go on and that suffering more. And I made a promise to her that I will continue her the gift of giving. And so this is our ninth annual giving tree. And we are we're curating something really, really cool. And it's pulling at my heartstrings. I'm excited about the work that I'm doing. It just makes me happy. Because we need to feel good stories talk about the debate, like I sat back and thought like, I need to feel good story for myself, like, what can I do? That's going to make me happy, that's going to bring me back to my happy place. And I was like giving, giving and coming from a place of gratitude will definitely get me there. And since I have been on cloud nine.
Mark 42:08
Yeah. That's incredible. So So tell me, where do you feel like the entrepreneurial journey is right now, given where we're not through this? We don't know what through this looks like we're in it.
Khaliah 42:22
Right? What does that even look like?
Mark 42:24
So path, the viability path to like a business model? And are you thinking like, are in terms of, we're passing time until we get back to our primary model? Or you're like, well, maybe the old primary models gone, and we're gonna have a whole new foundation of the new thing. What Where's your mindset?
Khaliah 42:40
I still believe that the vertical markets will still be our clients, right? And when I talk about Amazon, I talk about corporations. I'm talking about travel. So airports, we did a pop up during our beta, actually, right before a beta test, we did a pop up at the United international terminal here in Houston at intercontinental Busch airport. And it was strategic. Right? We strategically were inside the international wing, because I knew that people in that wing had layovers. And the average, I did some research, the average lay overs, you know, a little over hour and a half. And so I knew that if someone saw the display, and we were there collecting data, not just from the travelers and the employees that we can we can then have some data to present when the timing was was right. Well, we thought the timer was way last year, but then we know what happened this year. And so I'm a firm believer that I think I saw a report that you know, by 2023 is when they're predicting the travel will start to normalize itself again.
43:39
COVID a.
Mark 43:42
So you're seeing travel normal in 2023. That is a long time
Khaliah 43:47
what I say in the way they said it in the normalize, and it's the new normalization. Like they're still predicting, it'll be at maybe 60 75% capacity, my gosh, in the airport. Yeah. So it's the won't be fulfill as it were, I think this gets a little back where we were before at 100% where, you know, folks are that the plane is or like maxed out, whereas flight Serbians oversold again. That was well into 2020 554 years from now. And at the NSC, that'd be it's true because, you know, I've traveled twice now, during COVID. I had a hazmat suit on I was very, very save. I felt good about it. I literally had a hazmat suit on. And there was more people in the grocery store the night before they were in the airport, really? And even on the airplane. Yeah, so I was like, when you put it into context, then it's like okay, well, I don't feel bad about traveling now, but there's not enough people in the airport right now for us to sustain our model to be in the airport. But when we you know, 2023 rolls around, we'll be ready. But
Mark 44:51
there's a brand new contract, contracts and things worth pointing out. There are already have been Not pop ups, but little micro hotel experiences, and especially in the international. Well, there's that's a thing, like, you know, but I guess what I, when I first reacted to that in my mind is like, Well, okay, now you're, you're the navbar. And you're showing up in an airport and you're competing with people who've been in that space, they've got retail space, you can do hour by the hour hotel rental type of stuff for long lay overs and that kind of thing. And then I started thinking, well, how are you competing against that, and then I really started to kind of go back to this earlier part of the conversation, well, I'm pretty sure that it's a hospitality oriented ethos. And you're, we're trying to get, we're passionate about sleep and rest. And so the, like the difference between the Microsoft mp3 player and the iPod, that's the difference, like they do the same thing
45:47
total. So
Khaliah 45:48
they do the same thing. But it's a different experience. It's a different experience. We cater to our avatar, health conscious professionals, entrepreneurs, stay at home, stay at home parents and travelers, because everything in our space is made up is organic is made out of wood, our bedding, our linen, our sheets, they're 100%, organic, and you know, I own the rice, the IP is mine for the stackable pods. And so you know, and there's also a corporate concierge that's going to cater to your every need. And the only way that you can do that is by coming into the network experience, you know, so that's another reason why we still haven't opened back up yet is because I refuse to go digital, I refuse to let someone come in and check themselves in and check themselves into their, their, their sleep space or rest sanctuary. And then they just get up and leave with no form of human connection, you know, one of the part of the synergy that we created and the reason why we were able in such a short amount of time, you know, put on nearly or over 400 some odd naps is because people came back they had repeat customers because it was more than just a nap. for them. It's the experience is the meditation music that we gave them as the soundscapes is the brainwaves is the connecting with someone else and say, Hey, you look like you're flustered a little bit you want to come and have a seat into our sleep lounge. Let me pour you a pre nap juice shot so you can start to unwind and get ready for your nap. Or hey, like you I see you like holding your shoulder here. You know, we offer CBD infused massages, you want to you want to schedule equipment size, let me see you Sydney's available to squeeze you in real quick. Like you can't get that anywhere else, but at navbar. So, you know, when we think about our competitors, our competitors are doing great, you know, I've done a lot of research, I see I saw their revenue, what they did in 2018, and 2019, they did great. And they're going to cater to the people who they cater to and therefore is going to cater to the people that we cater to them. So I think is enough pie out there for everyone in the entire world. And that's what they meant within any industry. That doesn't matter what you do and what you build. And what your product is, is that everyone's gonna have a competitor. And it typically refers to the stage of its time where you just drop lasers so people are gonna come behind you and that's that's just the head not very flattering,
Mark 48:03
I love the when we do these interviews sometimes I have no idea what the theme is going to be and like we talked about beforehand what I feel the theme that we've to the store we've told this what I'm sort of picking out of this is really understanding the manifestation manifestations of your brand. And even that worse we're slowing down so a brand is not a logo right a brand is what do you Who are you what do you stand for what matters most and and and when you look at something quickly and you say oh nap and sleep okay hotel and you know, like the little micro nap things like that's that's like the surface dressing it's a cleaners versus another cleaners when you and it's an iPod versus an mp3 player. When you dig in and you start to see like, well, what is it? What are the little touch points, the moments of truth in the experience that tell a completely different story that gets you all of your best, most loyal clients to show up and keep coming back and never even consider the alternative? And hopefully to a degree that even in his time of scarcity you got more more business than you can handle and other people are like complaining oh it's tough times. That's that's the magic to you the self awareness Then who are you? Who are you helping with them so closely aligned with you that that they really are meeting their needs and every step of the way there's something that wows them and furthers the cause. So I can't get that experience anywhere else.
Khaliah 49:36
You can only you can't get anywhere else and if even if someone tries to manufacture it, it still won't be the same experience because it's you and for me I don't people asked me that like Why don't you openly share like some of the experiences or advertise or video some of your experiences because I'm not concerned because I know it's it's it's organic just to the network experience because I worked Now bar. I'm the visionary for that bar. And I intentionally hired the team that we have in that bar because I know that they're going to provide a certain skill set. Same thing with our advisory board, right? Like we have an advisory board that is second to none that still so many different gaps and levels and things of that nature. and things of that nature. like Hey, Mark, was okay. So I will say that, you know, we I'm not worried about what people say, hey, you shouldn't you shouldn't share on social media or video or tell people about your experiences. I'm not concerned or worried about it, because I know there that Kalia Guillory only works in that bar. So my vision is in my head can only be manifested in that bar. Same thing with the people I hired our advisory board, even to the vendors that we do business with, I consider these people family, because we do good business. And it's not a matter of, hey, it's not a matter of checks and balances. That's a part of the conversation. But I met with my vendor that is going to provide our shift supervisor sheets. And we the good part of our conversation was about family, it was about COVID How's everybody doing? And we might have did 1015 minutes worth of business and and the rest of the time, it was just catching up, that I've been very intentional about doing business with people like that, because that ties into the ethos of what navbar is that ties into the culture of navbar. Because of what I get, and what I understand is that that's what people are gonna feel when they come and they rest with us. Yeah, that's right. So
Mark 51:47
what's what's your confidence level? That means you feel like how long can you go like this.
Khaliah 51:53
I will go as long as I need to go, because I understand that it won't last forever. And I also understand that I'm grounded. I have added additional timing for self love, self care, in the forms of rituals, right. So I, I've got this this year for personally has taught me a lot of things. And there's been some relationships that have been lost, that I had to mourn and grieve. And quite honestly, I'm still mourning grieving shedding. But at the same time, in the same breath, I'm also trans, I'm transforming, ascending, I'm healing, I'm doing all the things that I need to do. And I understand that the part of me for doing this and be able to do this internal work, so I can be what I need to be for everybody else, because I can't pour from an empty cup, is making sure that I'm at that my input outweighs my output. And what that looks like, for me, it's just rituals, right? So you mentioned about meditating. I'm also an avid metal meditator. I know that's a word. But, you know, every every first thing I do is in 2017. It was a very difficult year. For me it was right when I was on the cusp of realizing I needed to transition away from corporate. And I made a conscious effort on my birthday to stop sleeping with my phone. Because what was
Mark 53:11
like it was in bed with you my nightstand
Khaliah 53:13
now my nightstand or under my pillow, because the last thing I would do is grabbing my phone, I'm checking email, like all I got to respond back to this person, I respond back to that person, or I'm looking at something I had no business looking at. And then I go to bed. And then when I wake up, it's the same thing. And it's like, Oh, I got a meeting with someone. So I don't want to do that today. Right. But I've noticed in the past three years now is because my phone is intentionally in the bathroom, I had to literally get up and go and turn off my alarm clock is that I lay there and I go through my gratitude list until I tell God to tell my source to tell you know, whoever whoever's watching this, whatever you believe in what I'm grateful for, and whatever organically comes up. That's what I do. I read I do devotionals I listen to meditation music I and I'm not totally routine. So what I've learned is through my therapist, and that's another thing, I'm in therapy on a regular basis.
Mark 54:07
What I've learned, that's a good thing. therapy's good,
Khaliah 54:11
Mark, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now my friends.
Mark 54:16
my closest friends and partner Gino wickman. The guy who wrote the book He's like, you gotta if you're a visionary leader, you better have a therapist in your corner because that's what we're up against getting out of our own way. And I'm a big believer in that.
Khaliah 54:27
You got to and and only that is forgiving yourself for decisions you might have made that might not have worked out the consequences that you are being attached to the way that it worked out. That non attachment thing is something that I have to consciously strive for, and totally attach
Mark 54:45
to an outcome right? You're basically saying like, Hey, I had this plan, and I refuse to let go of the plan even though the whole world and all the universe is saying that plan is not going to happen. You got to let go and
Khaliah 54:59
let go. If the answer to your question is, how long can I go on and doing this is because I'm in flow, and I'm not attached to the outcome, like, I know what I would like to happen. But if it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. You know, it's I have resolved that I can't control everything, nor do I want to try
Mark 55:18
it, you can adapt, and you can, and you can sort of pull in the timeless truth. And that's the thing that I've really tried to get my leadership teams to get clear on the timeless truths, the things that you want it to happen in the long term, three years, five years, 10 years down the line, that's probably not changing. And it's probably, there's a probably pretty timeless things that might have something to do with quality and freedom and making a difference and solving big problems. And, you know, the best customer service and really wowing people, you know, that stuff doesn't change. And so when you get into the tactical world, like we got to motivate and motivate and mobilize, well, you can, you really don't have to change anything long term, you can adapt. And the more you know what impact you're trying to make, the more you can do what you did, which is you know, I can help somebody sleep anywhere. Like they don't have to be in a retail shop, I can help them, I can actually help somebody sleep remotely, I can send them something, it'll it'll do that for them.
Khaliah 56:09
Totally, you know, it really brings up my motto in my motto, my life motto is why duplicate mediocrity when you can borrow genius. And basically, an easier way for saying that is make sure that you have mentors and sponsors. And I will and I define and clarify mentors, as many people that you speak with on a regular basis. And sponsors are folks who talk about you when you're not in a room, they usually graduate from being your mentor to your sponsor. And I learned this valuable lesson that the way I'm able to move and pivot and start in a corporate. Again, corporate was great for me, I use transferable skills every day. And I had some incredible mentors. And I had some not great ones. And it taught me what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do. But the the reason why I say you know why you shouldn't be consistent with mediocrity and borrow genius in the form of a mentor and a sponsor is because I had a mentor that told me this one day, and it stuck with me and this has been over probably 20 years, is that the biggest advice I can give you in life life advice that you can also utilize and leverage in in career is to stay light on your feet, and never sweat the small stuff. And I think 2020 has been a true testament to that. It's like if I can continue to say like on my feet, and not sweat the small stuff, then I can continue to go at this rate. As far as as long as I need to. And I'm definitely staying grounded. You know, I take a bath every single night, a bubble bath, I love I love myself every single night because I realized that I was I was not I was not pouring into myself. I'm a self love standpoint as much as I needed to because I was giving, giving, giving and I wasn't receiving enough. So I said, Well, I'm going to receive myself a bubble bath every single night. I have a record player in my bathroom, I play records for myself, I have a whole full long concert every night. candles, like my own candle, which is cool. I use my filaments like I it's all it's a whole experience for me because I'm worthy of it. And I realized that in order for me to continue, is that I have to pour into myself so I can pour into other people. And this is really cool.
Mark 58:23
So there's a couple of things and you hit some points that are probably pretty good to even end on. But I can't quite stop on on these, these two things. One is the small stuff, the ideas. I've heard that a million times. I mean, I think even was it Kurt Vonnegut or somebody who did a great commencement speech you talked about? Well, don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff, right? And so that's easy to write down. Oh, yeah, I got that. But you know, everything feels big to me. A lot of times, and so it's time of COVID. It's sort of like, well, let's reassess. Let's, let's, let's talk about big, let's get you three, recalibrate your sense of big and small. And so I do think it's really been good, if painful to reset and say like, okay, there's some small stuff. And there's some big things and let's, let's get your attention about what that might look like.
Khaliah 59:14
Well, it's kind of one of those things that I can't remember the where I saw it, it was on YouTube. And I had a mentor that shared it with me. And it was like, it was like the big rocks theory, like you put all the big rocks in first. And then you put the little ones in. And it's almost like, the little ones are the things that you can't control. Or are the big rocks can be also the things that you can't control. But like really is the small stuff. They're the things that you can't control. It could be massive, but if you can't control it, then it really is small because you have no, you have nothing to do with it. Like you can't control the outcome. You can't control any Well, we really we really understand that we can't control any outcomes. Life might be a little bit more easier for us to maneuver.
Mark 59:56
And so that's exactly right. So the story you're referring to is used different ways. And the way I teach it actually is around the steeps with Stephen Covey's approach to, if if the the biggest most important things are the rocks and the pebbles or the or less important things in your work all the way down the water, which is sort of like the the total time wasters or maybe sometimes the story is things we do too. for recreation, you know, things that don't add direct value, but indirect, but the point is that if you pour the water in first, there's no room for anything, anything else you add to sort of spills over, you put the rocks in first, the most important elements, and then everything else kind of balances out in the remaining space and fills in the cracks. And so it's really important, understand the priorities, and make them make them front and center. Because, because to your point, there are lots of other things that are going to pop up that are outside of the control. And so we're going to have to react to those. And we want to be reacting to those with the leftover energy to some extent and be focusing on taking control with the most important things that we do have control over. Which is interesting. Back to your self care point, I wanted to highlight that as well. Because I hear self care a lot. I talk about self care a lot. And I think people resist it because it feels self indulgent. But I, I've had kind of a realization about the importance of self care. And what self care is, it's not self indulgence. It is the first step to putting yourself in position to make the impact in the world that you promised the world, like you are going to help you're going to provide for your family, you're going to you're going to be the best spouse and partner and son and brother. And for you to be at your best. You got to honor that commitment. And you got to honor the fuel and ingredients in every time you break a commitment to yourself, you are breaking a commitment to those other people who you said you were going to take care of. And that was a total like light bulb moment for me is a game changer for us total game changer to realize that self care was not about taking care of myself, it was about honoring the bigger commitments I'd made to others that I wasn't going to be able to show up at my best with if I didn't honor that first step to take care of myself.
Khaliah 1:02:04
That is well said my friend. And I'm telling you now I am going to take that and I will I will give you your credit for it. But
Mark 1:02:16
I hope that helps because
Khaliah 1:02:20
I think people think and get caught up that self care is just oh I'm going get my nails done. I'm going into massage and one yoga class yes, those things are constitutive of self care but spending time with yourself going on a walk you know taking a bath. Um, for the for the third year in a row I do draw the circle is by Mark batterson. I definitely recommend it to anyone and it's a 40 day spiritual journey and for the past three years, the 40 days leading up to my birthday. Always do this 40 day prayer journal I alleviate alcohol. I don't have any any mo occasional drinker. So I don't I give up something right. It's almost like my version of lint. I'm a cowgirl raised Catholic Catholic girl. So like this my version of lint and and I tell you I get it's the ultimate self care for me. I look forward to it every year because I know what I'm going to get on the other side of it. I'm going to honor myself, I'm going to honor others. I'm going to get clarity and clarity. I can't I can't put a price tag on clarity. You know, for everything that we do.
Mark 1:03:22
Yeah, that's the magic. That's the exponential. That's the multiplier right? You can type you can only increase your typing so fast you can get you I get how many emails Can I respond to per day 100 120 you're never gonna get to a million. But what's your one idea that might make 100 or 1000 times impact on your ability to help people make a difference? So can we can we I know I need to get you on with your day and we've covered a ton of stuff and I'm so so grateful for everything we've covered. And we can talk about more and we might take some time to do that in the future maybe
1:03:55
to part two.
Mark 1:03:57
Sure. Happy to happy to talk about that for sure. So to bring the point home what right now what right now is your most passionate plea to entrepreneurial leaders.
Khaliah 1:04:12
Gosh, I think you will come up with so many different forms. I think the first is to remind them to stay true to their brand voice their internal brand voice. Stay true to your brand voice of your business and remain constant constantly remind yourself that success happens in the oven not the microwave. Like you can't be these one trick ponies. Think about it right? Think about it like whenever you when you go on to heat up some leftovers doesn't it taste especially with let's talk about pizza because most people love pizza. Pizza tastes different when you preheat the oven. Especially whenever it's like a day old. If you preheat the oven, let the oven preheat any pop in as a slice. It tastes like it's as crunchy is the cheese's is even more like like stretchy versus whenever you zap it in a microwave The crust is hard, and it's not crunchy is chewy. So nobody wants a chewy product, we want crunch, we want to be able to savor that moment. So I would say just remember that success is developed in the in the in the oven, and it's not the microwave. And I think the other piece of it too is, I struggled with this in the very beginning. And I made a commitment to honor myself with this is that I strive for excellence, not perfection, because I'm a perfectionist by nature. And I will come to realize that perfection is perfection is it paralyzes me. But if I strive for excellence, it catapults me. So really being able to decipher those two has made the world of a difference. And I will say the last bit, the the last bit of advice I would give an entrepreneur, especially right now in this in this timeframe in this in this phase of our lives. And this journey, is to protect their creative space and protect their creative energy. So what I'm saying is to stop, stop sharing your vision with people who don't have the capacity to understand your greatness. So right now you're thinking of pivoting your business into a way that doesn't make sense to anybody else. But you and people are talking to you out of doing it. Well, if you know for a fact that this is your gut is telling you your spices are going off. And every time you think of is like oh my god, I need to do this, do it. Do it. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? It doesn't it fails? Well, okay, so you're gonna learn something from that. You're gonna learn something from it, and what's the best thing that can happen, it's gonna explode and solve a massive problem that we need solved right now. So just go.
Mark 1:06:39
That's so awesome. I saw so much in there. I love the quotes. I mean, success comes from the oven, not from the microwave. That's amazing. Excellence, not perfection. That's incredible. Because I've definitely been both of those. And it's great to have some terminology to clarify. And in certainly protecting your creativity, there's lots of ways that I see that. One first way that people, I think violate the boundary of their creativity is by working nonstop. Instead of creating that space to think and observe. And in the EOS system that I teach, there's this thing called the clarity break. And the clarity break is 90 minutes every week or so different for people person, but I say like this is your spot to ask yourself two questions. And one is, what am I doing? Like, what am I doing? Just take a look at what happened last week? And then ask yourself the question. Is it working? Yes, how's it working out? And when you do that, you really get to answer some real deep questions about like, wow, am I way off track? Are we on track? And then the second piece of that, of course, is visionaries who are alone on the journey. You talked about staying away from people who are not, who don't see what you see. I do believe you need people on the journey with you. And particularly a visionary leader really needs what we call them the EOS terminology and integrator. And that's somebody who is not really visionary as much but believes in the vision and can provide that powerful friction to say like yeah, that's like a great idea. Let's talk about how that would work. Let's pull it apart a little bit. So the visionary can start to see like, okay, it wasn't perfect. But I was saying but if we move this around this other idea this can wait because you're right, it's that's too expensive and not the right time. And you start to distill down all of these great visions down to something that is powerfully motivated in the vision but starts to become possible and there's somebody really bringing that vision down to the ground. So I so much urge people to protect that vision just like you said, the visioning and the vision part of that and bring somebody on the journey Who's that puzzle piece that can help you make it real so powerful?
Khaliah 1:08:41
Yeah, that's you know it because it makes me think about like my own philosophy with that you spot on Marcus because I, I believe in operating in mind genius and the things that I'm great at in my skill set and I delegate the rest so I delegate my areas of opportunity. And it's funny because the people on my team on the advisory board, they are the people that are able to fill those gaps for me so as a visionary I'm always like there's always something going crazy in my brain when I tell them that they're like, okay, Casey, let's let's let's think about this right and then and then they they're able to fill the gaps because I'm always like, from here to down there they're like okay, well what do we need to do here to get down there because I'm never concerned about here I get excited about the down there but they're like no, I'm gonna focus on these little things.
Mark 1:09:31
That's exactly right. Yes. It up perfectly. So much wisdom in that awareness. I mean, it people get stuck. That's the whole thing. Vision Without traction is hallucination is Gino Gino? wickman famously says, and it's so right. That's where the entrepreneurs get stuck. They have a vision that that could be amazing. And yet for some reason, we're not making traction, and it has to do with you well, what are the steps? What are the steps? It's you can't just try to start with the end. You can't do it. Stephen Covey famously said be with the end in mind, and that's true. But I know from my personal experience that a visionary like myself, tries to begin at the end. That's not to say you're not awesome. We're out of time. And I was so grateful for the time and I'm really excited to get this out in front of people and get some feedback on it. So thank you so much. This has been I'm just kind of thinking makes me want to end this on there on the right nose, but so powerful. I am grateful for everything. And so thank you for everybody listening to this. If this has been powerful for you, please share. Share this with people who you think it will help. Make sure you provide feedback and subscribe. Don't forget that. But that's it for today. And I'm so grateful for everybody who's tuning in and providing feedback, and we will see you next time on you're doing it wrong with me. Mark Henderson Leary.
VO 1:10:54
This is you're doing it wrong with Mark Henderson Leary for more episodes and to subscribe, go to lyric.cc