TCC Podcast #378: Getting Things Done with Rob Marsh and Kira Hug

How do you get stuff done? What can you do to make sure your goals for the new year don't fall by the wayside. In the 378th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Kira and Rob talk about their strategies for accomplishing goals and resolutions and what they plan on getting done in the coming year. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript. We mentioned a lot of books on this show: The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller Who Do We Choose to Be by Meg Wheatley Breaking Together by Gem Bendell This One Wild and Precious Life by Sarah Wilson Quiet by Susan Cain Bittersweet by Susan Cain 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground Full Transcript: Rob Marsh: We're a couple of weeks into the new year, and if you're like the average resolution setter, tomorrow is the day you quit. 17 days is the average length of time that goal setters, resolution setters, whoever, stick to their goals. And maybe you've already quit, given up on what you expected to get done this month or this year, or maybe you're still going strong. Either way, on today's episode of the Copywriter Club podcast, Kira and I are talking about what we do to make sure we get stuff done. and some of the goal setting fallacies that might keep you from accomplishing everything that you set out to do. Stick around to hear what we shared.  But before we get into all of that, this episode of the Copywriter Club podcast is brought to you by the Copywriter Underground. It is truly the best membership for copywriters, content writers, and other marketers out there. given the value that you get for the very low price that you pay. There's a monthly group coaching call where Kira and I help you get answers to your business questions, your copywriting questions, whatever. We do a weekly copy critique where we take a look at what you've written and give you advice and insights and things that you might want to do a little bit differently. There are regular training sessions on copy techniques, business practices, everything designed to help you get better. And we even talk about AI and tools and things that you can do in order to stay on top of everything you're doing with AI. And that's on top of the massive library of training and templates that are there. The community is amazing. Lots of copywriters ready to help you with answers to any questions you have, even sometimes sharing leads. Find out more at thecopywriterclub.com/TCU.  All right, Kira, we're here just you and me again. and just chatting. It's the new year. I think I've got some goals of things I want to do. You've got some goals of things that you want to do in the coming year. You must have some. I know you're very goal oriented, but before we do all, before we talk about the new year, before we talk about, you know, what things we're thinking and maybe share some ideas that might help people get more done. If they're thinking about their goals, if they actually made resolutions, if they have a word of the year, any of that stuff. Let's just do a couple of warm-up questions. I want to find out a couple more things about you. Even though we've been working together for six or seven years, it's hard to believe there are still things I don't know. Kira Hug: Yeah, I know. I know. I guess we can always dive deeper in our relationship. Rob Marsh: Here we go. So first question, when's the last time you were really, really scared? Kira Hug: I mean, how scared are we talking? Rob Marsh: That's a good question because as I was thinking about this, the only time I am really terrified is in my dreams. I'm not sure that there's anything that terrifies me. that much in real life. But from my answer, I was thinking, okay, if I take away dreams, where the bad guys are always trying to kill me or chasing me or do whatever.  But when we were in New Orleans last year for our retreat with the think tank, there was a tornado warning and the tornado sirens went off at the hotel I was at, or it wasn't even a hotel. That was before I arrived. Yeah, I think it was before you got there. And I've been in one tornado before. I live in Salt Lake, so there's not a lot of tornadoes that come through here. The last tornado in Salt Lake City, I think, was in 1998, so literally 25 years ago. So hearing the sirens, the trees like banging against the windows and the place that I was staying, you know, looking around, it was a wooden structure, it wasn't like, you know, there was a brick wall or anything. And the tornado actually did touch down about a mile away from where I was staying. So I'm not sure that I was terrified.  But it's one of those times when that happened. And I'm looking around thinking, I'm not sure what to do in this situation, because it was so unfamiliar and so different from If there was an earthquake, I know exactly what to do because we have those occasionally in Salt Lake. We don't have tornadoes. Kira Hug: So what did you do? Rob Marsh: Well, for a while, I stood inside the bathroom. I know they say get inside a bathtub or whatever. I'm not sure that it would have saved me, though, because like I said, it was a wooden structure. But I kind of got into the middle. And I didn't actually get into the bathtub. But I was like there, like if the roof started coming off, that I could jump in. And so I just kind of sat there for 15 or 20 minutes waiting for something to happen. I don't know. So yeah, that's maybe the last time I was kind of scared or freaked out about something that I can really think of. Kira Hug: Yeah, I miss that. I guess I'm not bummed, but I miss that completely. And I arrived, I guess, the next day in New Orleans. That reminds me of when I was in Bali, I guess, I don't know if this was 2019, with my family, and that I experienced my first earthquake there. And that was terrifying, right? It's like, that's not something I've been exposed to. I've only heard about it. And when the ground is shaking, and you're in a hotel, and we weren't up that high, but it was that same feeling of like, oh, wait, what are we supposed to do? And I did the opposite of what you're supposed to do. I ran out and got the kids out, and we carried them out. And you're not supposed to do that. So good to know, but it was just disorienting when it's something that you're not familiar with. I wasn't, I should have been more prepared for it. But that was terrifying. So that would be one. And then also recently, Ezra almost chopped his fingers off. So he ran into the house. He was fiddling with the garage door, which is an old metal garage door. And I guess somehow his fingers got lodged in there, and then it slammed down. And he just ran into the house and was screaming for me and was just, he didn't want to look at his fingers because he thought they were gone. So he wanted me to do it to see if they were still there. That's when I realized that I could never be a doctor or a nurse. And I, I just, I can't handle those situations at all. But I thought he actually would be missing his fingers. They were fine. They were just bruised. So he survived. But I just don't do well with missing body parts. Like I'm not your go to person in that situation. Just don't come to me. Rob Marsh: I think in most couples, one person has to be the person that's responsible. Like is the one that deals with like broken bones or, or is at least calm when things happen and the other person can kind of freak out. Are you the freak out part? Kira Hug: I think I'm calm. I just don't, I just can't handle blood. So I'm calm and I, I don't even think I'm that calm. So I don't think either of us are calm. So we're kind of… Rob Marsh: You're a bad mix when it comes to that. Kira Hug: It's just a bad mix. But yeah, other than that, I mean, I read, I guess, I read a lot of pretty dark books about real life that scare me frequently. That's just kind of how I operate in life. Like I read one book every week that just terrifies me and it's not fiction. So I'm a regular. I'm just kind of scared about many different things. But I also like that's just how I function. It allows me to stay present. It allows me to feel kind of grateful for what I have when I'm constantly scaring myself with the future. And so I won't go through my book list, but there's some really depressing books in there. So that's just what makes me happy. Rob Marsh: While we're talking about books, I'm going to ask our second question then, which is, which books made you actually think the most? So not necessarily your favorite books, not necessarily the best books that you've read, but the books that have maybe changed the way that you think about something. Kira Hug: Yeah. Why don't you go first? Rob Marsh: I have a couple. When I was doing my MBA, somebody introduced me to a book called The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin. He was the business school dean at a couple of different universities, maybe Dartmouth, if I'm not mistaken, or University of Toronto. I can't remember. Maybe both. But The Opposable Mind is a book that really changed the way that I started thinking about brainstorming and coming up with ideas. It lays out an entire framework for doing it. It's really interesting. It's pretty easy to read, but it's one of those books where after I read it, I'm just like, okay, this has definitely changed the way that I'm thinking about… business or I'm thinking about life or I've heard other people recommend a book called Thinking in Systems. This book does something similar.  I haven't read that book, but The Opposable Mind is my number one. On a podcast interview that we had with Jereshia Hawk, which we actually just reshared a couple of weeks ago.