I was asked a question about planned vs. unplanned work. How do you manage interruptions that come up throughout the day?

My take on it is to put all my planned and unplanned tasks (things I just need to do but don't know when) in Asana, and any meetings on my calendar. Then, if a new unplanned task comes up, I first add it to Asana as well. It is the tool I use to capture and organize all of my todos. Depending on the priority of that new task, I assign it to myself for today, or tomorrow, etc.

That means that I often have to rearrange my priorities and the tasks I'll be doing today, tomorrow, and in the following days.

How do you manage interrupting tasks?

To be fair, I used to be pretty good at coding, especially on the back-end side. I even enjoyed coding the logic behind the landing page I started building today. But I was never great with CSS, and trying to make it do what want was beyond frustrating - and honestly a waste of my time.

So I went on Fiverr, spent about 30 minutes finding a good programmer, and messaged a handful of them. One guy responded almost immediately, and hired him after clarifying what I need. I've hired programmers extensively and have a full-stack development team I work with regularly, but since I just needed something simple to test out an idea and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on, Fiverr was the best option.

I also suck at accounting, and I'm delegating that as well : )

What are you currently doing in your business that you either suck at or hate doing and that you could delegate to someone else in your team or outsource it?

Today I stopped by to Le Massif de Charlevoix on my way to Baie St-Paul and La Malbaie to disconnect from work and get some mental rest. Enjoying a stunning view of the St-Lawrence River and the surrounding mountains feels a lot better than staying home and watching movies. It was more tiring to get there, but it gave my brain a rest.

I encourage you to do the same and spend some time in nature to completely disconnect for a few hours, a day, a weekend, or more.

The TBE Show (The Blind Entrepreneur Podcast by Johnathan Grzybowski) is a new podcast I very recently discovered. Johnathan is the co-founder of www.Penji.co. I interviewed him for a couple of series, Growth Hacking Geniuses and Leadership Geniuses, and he's a cool guy. I enjoyed getting to know him and giving him a chance to share some of his wisdom. So I'm sharing with you his podcast, which I'll be listening to in the next weeks and months.

Here's the link to his podcast: http://tbeshow.com/

I don't think we need to debate the benefits of exercise. It's good for you, for so many reasons - both mentally and physically. In this day and age, most of us entrepreneurs and business owners work long hours seated at a desk. So the question is, have you exercised today? Will you exercise tomorrow?

I try to do some exercise on a daily basis, even if it's just some push-ups throughout the day. For the last 3 years I've been training in martial arts, but haven't gone since before the holidays. Even though I want to get back to it and will, I keep exercising regularly meanwhile - 2-3 times at the gym weekly, and push-ups and other exercises daily.

What is your exercise routine like?

1. WHAT IS THE CHALLENGE SALESPEOPLE AND LEADERS FACE THE MOST?

- The biggest challenge is themselves - the “inner game”

2. HOW CAN YOU ASSESS WHETHER YOU'VE FIGURED OUT THE INNER WORLD? HOW DO YOU MEASURE THAT?

- Stress is a big indicator. Are you managing your stress in a constructive manner?

- Be aware that you need rest, and take care of yourself

3. WHAT IS A GROWTH MINDSET?

- Knowing that you have the ability to grow and develop and overcome challenges

- The opposite of a victim mindset

- Keep learning, no matter how old you are

4. WHAT'S YOUR PHILOSOPHY ON READING, LEARNING AND GROWING?

- TED Talks

- Well-reviewed books

- Take insights from anywhere you look

5. HOW DO YOU GET YOURSELF READY TO BE SUCCESSFUL?

- Have annual, quarterly, monthly, weekly goals

- Daily meditation - silent time

- Keep yourself in a good physical state throughout the day

6. WHAT BOOKS AND RESOURCES WOULD BE HELPFUL FOR PEOPLE TO CHECK OUT?

- TED Talks

- Shawn Achor - The Happiness Advantage

- Tony Robbins

- Dalai Lama

- Ryan Holiday - The Obstacle Is The Way

7. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON POSITIVITY?

- See things in a real mindset - acknowledge what frustrates you or annoys you then address it

- The dance ritual (dance by yourself in the dark) and notice your thoughts

- Ask yourself what you’re grateful for

- When experiencing a negative emotion, ask yourself “Is it true?”

8. WHAT'S YOUR VIEW ON GOAL SETTING?

- You can’t hit a target you can’t see

- If you’re reaching all your goals, you haven’t set them high enough

- Look at them quarterly

9. HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO DEFINE YOUR BUSINESS WHY OR PERSONAL WHY?

- Your WHY gives you the ability to persevere in the long-term

10. TONY ROBBINS' AND MASLOW'S PYRAMID OF NEEDS

- Certainty, variety, significance, love, growth, contribution

- “Know thyself” and what makes you happy

11. TAKE SOME TIME FOR YOURSELF

- 6 deep breaths can lower your blood pressure

- Pay more attention to your body

I came across this video by Neil Patel where he talks about his main growth strategy for 2018. I highlighted the main elements of it in this #DailyGrowth video.

One thing I forgot to mention is that the more under-monetized a blog is (the more potential for increased monetization it has), the better.

Here is the original video by Neil Patel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF2lvWEHzSw

1. HOW TO CONVERT TEXTUAL CONTENT INTO VIDEO CONTENT?

- By 2020, over 80% of the world’s traffic will be to video content

- Convert your evergreen content to animated or sizzle or production videos

2. HOW DO YOU MEASURE THE IMPACT VIDEOS ON YOUR BOTTOM LINE?

- Add a facebook pixel on your site to track views, adds to cart, etc. and see how much impact each video is having

- Measure the watch time

- Break up the videos into Instagram stories

3. FACEBOOK VS. YOUTUBE

- Look for what people are searching for

- Facebook is prioritizing video over other types of content

- Facebook is pay-to-play - boost posts and set up ads to reach more followers

4. LINKEDIN

- Cost-effective

- Post videos natively (YouTube links will soon get penalized)

- Until then, post YouTube links to get more views and engagement on your YouTube videos

5. IMPACT OF EACH PLATFORM

- Figure out who your audience is

- Share your content on multiple platforms

- Create content that your audience resonates with

- Leverage retargeting campaigns

- Chunk up your content and publish it on Instagram

- Optimize YouTube content for search

- Promote your YouTube video links on your website

- Have a distribution strategy to spread your videos

6. HOW TO OPTIMIZE YOUR VIDEO

- Have a good description. For YouTube, write long text.

- Add relevant tags

- YouTube has more capabilities than Facebook to optimize videos

- On Facebook, thumbnails and captions are crucial

- On Facebook, promote new published videos immediately with comments, shares, and an ad to increase your organic reach and make it more likely to be viral

7. CAPTIONS

- Use a service for captions, which makes it easy to edit directly within their platform

8. VIDEO SERIES

- Facebook Watch is creating TV production-style series. It is starting to compete with YouTube

- People binge-watch series

- For business, people prefer watching series of short episodes. Your brand can be integrated in those episodes.

- Start making a series as if it was on Facebook Watch - look at what is trending.

9. HOW DO YOU PERSONALIZE VIDEOS?

- Know your WHY

- People buy emotionally and rationalize

My morning and night routine are pretty simple, but I try to do it consistently. After some deep breaths, I ask myself this one question. I find that it allows me to focus on what's good in my life, and it motivates me to work harder to get more of the positive things.

I recommend you ask yourself the same question morning and night. I literally takes 30 seconds to do.

Online group calls are great because they allow you to run and build a company with a distributed team, but it also brings its set of challenges. The biggest one, I think, is communication. Since you are not in the physical presence of the other people in the meeting, non-verbal cues aren't as obvious, and you really have to be clear in how you communicate.

Also, I found that I get triggered by details (inconsistencies on tasks in Asana, for example, incomplete things, etc.) and I get an itch to want to address right then and there and make it perfect. So I am sometimes too impulsive on calls, and realized that the meetings flow better when I give more thought and am more patient before commenting or asking questions.