In this special year-end episode, I challenge Recruiting Leaders to approach 2025 differently by rethinking how they manage their time. Drawing inspiration from unconventional success stories, like Rick Barry’s legendary underhand free throws, I encourage you to break free from cultural norms, focus on what truly matters, and double down on efforts that yield exponential results.
Episode Breakdown
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[00:00] Introduction - Reflecting on the past year and preparing for a breakthrough 2025.
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[02:30] The Lead Dog Principle - As a leader, your team will only go as fast as you lead them. Vision casting is key to long-term success.
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[05:30] The Rick Barry Analogy - Why breaking from the norm can lead to extraordinary outcomes, and how Rick Barry’s unconventional free throw style offers lessons in leadership.
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[09:00] Time Management Realities - Sobering statistics on how much time Americans spend on TV, social media, and radio, and the opportunity cost of these habits.
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[12:30] Reclaiming Time for Growth - Strategies to repurpose “lost” hours into productive activities like reading, skill-building, and leadership branding.
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[15:00] Doubling Down on What Works - How focusing efforts on platforms like LinkedIn has transformed my leadership brand and can do the same for you.
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[17:30] The Power of Intentionality - How being intentional with your time can create exponential results in recruiting and leadership.
Key Takeaways
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Challenge the Status Quo - Don’t settle for normal results. Be willing to take unconventional steps for extraordinary success.
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Reclaim Your Time - Analyze where your time goes and redirect it toward activities that drive growth and influence.
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Double Down on Impact - Focus on high-return efforts like building your leadership brand and engaging with recruits intentionally.
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Cast a Bold Vision - Great leaders plan far ahead and align daily actions with long-term goals.
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Live with Purpose - Every hour spent intentionally can move you closer to becoming the leader you’re meant to be.
2025 is your opportunity to get “weird” with how you manage your time and approach leadership. By breaking away from cultural norms and focusing on what truly matters, you can create exponential results in your career and life. Let this be the year you stretch yourself, reclaim lost time, and lead with vision and purpose.
If this episode inspired you, please leave a review and share it with others. Subscribe to my weekly email at 4crecruiting.com, or book a free hour of value at bookrichardnow.com to build a custom recruiting system that drives results.
So the big question is this. How do recruiting leaders like us who have 12 to 15 other job responsibilities win at this game of recruiting? How do we build a system that allows us to recruit effectively in a minimal amount of time while motivating recruits towards meaningful change? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Richard Meligan and welcome to recruiting conversations. Hey everybody it's Richard Meligan your host for recruiting conversations. Recording this podcast in between Christmas and New Year's and what a cool time of year it is and cool isn't cold because where I met in my studio I am I'm not wearing shorts and t-shirts I'm in the Midwest and so it's like a 20 mile an hour north wind and it's 30 degrees and so I don't know what it feels like but it feels cold how's that excited to come to you today to share a recent conversation that I have with a recruiting leader and if this is your first time up on this podcast let me define recruiting leader for you recruiting leader is someone that actually manages the team but it's also responsible for recruiting to that team it is a unique position if you're in a sales manager role a market leader role if you're in a position where you are recruiting experienced salespeople could be real estate agents loan officers could be insurance agents those typically are the three industries that this podcast falls in is inside the mortgage real estate and insurance communities and so if you are responsible at any level of recruiting this podcast was for you but specifically if you're responsible for wearing the 12 to 15 hats that a leader wears in managing a team and then has to throw that extra hat on for recruiting then this is bullseye for you the title of this podcast is recruiting conversations for a reason and it's that I share recent conversations that I have with recruiting leaders and I'm coaching and so I want to share well I think it's very apropos to the time of year that it is it's this time where everyone's evaluating where we've been we're looking forward it's that one window of time where everyone says that I accomplish what I really wanted to accomplish in the last 12 months and what do I want to accomplish as I look into the future and so we're leaving 2024 going into 2000 and 2025 and so more people now are saying look at the last decade and what I want to accomplish in the next decade I love that perspective by the way I love that framework I think that leaders that are casting vision or let's just start with this leaders who lead should cast vision okay I find that most leaders don't so if you're a leader you really should be looking into the future and deciding where you want to go where do you want to lead your team inside my house one of the principles that we have that we talk about all the time with our kids is we call it the lead dog principle and the lead dog principle is this is that when you understand how dog sled racing takes place there's only one dog that's at the lead of that pack and that pack never goes any faster than the lead dog goes and one of the things that I'm aware of is that if you're in a leadership role the people that follow you are never going to go any faster than what you lead them they're never going to go any further than the vision that you cast and I would dare say in a lot of my seasons of being under leadership that I wasn't being inspired I wasn't being challenged there wasn't a big vision being cast for me for the people around me in the direction that we were going it's our jobs as leaders to cast that clear vision just establish that is a great time to look at the next decade our company has a ten-year vision and every single year we sit down and we look at where we are in relationship to that ten-year vision and we set a one-year vision a one-year plan of how we're going to further the vision and what are we going to accomplish in that year and we just went through this process we have a new vision for 2025 that's completely aligned with the ten-year vision that we cast in 2017 when we started this company so the ten-year vision for this organization was in year 10 we wanted to impact in that one year 10,000 recruiting leaders now that vision has been propellant for a lot of things that we've done it's been a propellant for this podcast it's a propellant for a book that's been written it's a propellant for a number of things it's a propellant for a digital record it's a recorded coaching class there's all kinds of things that are looking into the future to say how do we actually get this message of we believe that recruiting is simple how do we get that message to 10,000 recruiting leaders in one year we would never be doing those things if we didn't have a large vision that's the power of vision the power of being able to look in the future and see where you want to go and then making plans for today that actually take action on where you want to be in 10 years it forces you way outside your comfort zone it forces you to do things that you wouldn't normally do so vision should be a big part of what you're thinking about and what you're planning around for the upcoming decade and specifically the upcoming year but the recent conversation I had was around time management so in time this is one thing that most recruiting leaders struggle with so if you struggle with this welcome to the club because I struggled with this for most of my career until about 2013 when I started doing some things differently and so it's a conversation that I start a lot of my coaching with when I'm beginning with someone as a new coaching client and we look at their idea around how they're managing their time so in the conversation I was having with them I was having this laying kind of the framework that they're going to have to manage their time differently and I came to the end of that coaching session by making this statement I said you need to go Rick Barry on your time management now because I do all of my coaching live I could see the look on their face and the look on their face was it's the look on my six-year-old's face whenever I use a big word and they have no clue what it means it was I have no clue what you're talking about so let me give you some context around that statement I need you to go Rick Barry what why I make that statement is because for those of you that aren't familiar with who Rick Barry is Rick Barry was an NBA player and in in 1978 Rick Barry actually set a record for the percentage of free throws that he actually hit now most people don't remember Rick Barry for setting that record which was like almost 95% of his free throws that he hit in 1978 to 1979 they don't remember him for that record what they actually remember Rick Barry for and where most people go oh I get it is because Rick Barry shot his free throws underhanded and in the history of the NBA he's like the only person that has regularly there have been a few people that have tried it no one has stuck with it so most people will reflect back on that underhanded free throw shooter and go yeah I know you're talking about what's interesting is that look I've done a bunch of research on Rick Barry and one of the things that I know is that Rick Barry is actually coach he's actually tutored other bad free throw shooters after leaving the NBA now in a interview one of the things that they asked Rick Barry was around that people had known an NBA circles that he's taken a handful of really bad free throw shooters and he's tutored them when they've interviewed him about this he wouldn't actually say who it was that he worked with because they never actually had the guts the people that he coached never had the guts to go back to their team and to go back into regular season actually shoot underhanded free throws now why is that the reason why it is because it's weird if you've ever seen that it looks a little odd however you want to describe it I laugh because in in a newspaper article someone was asking about this and his son Canyon Barry who was shooting 85 86 percent of hitting 85 86 percent of the free throw shots which is actually extremely well the NBA averages somewhere around 75 to 76 percent year over year in a moment where his son who was at Florida shooting underhand free throws Rick Barry happened to be sitting behind a fan and after Rick's son Canyon actually hit the free throw the fan made this statement that's embarrassing and Rick Barry said to the person why is that embarrassing isn't the in that basketball going through the hoop and the fan goes yeah and Barry's response was what's so embarrassing about making free throws right it's it doesn't make sense so what I know why I say why I use Rick Barry as an example my coaching is this is that to a large degree if you're going to be successful you're going to have to be counter-culture you're going to have to go against the grain of what is normal okay if you want normal results then go do normal but I personally and if you're listening this podcast listen you are already in the 1 percent you're furthering yourself you're growing yourself you're educating yourself you're looking for insight in ways that you can change your recruiting if you're listening this podcast you're in the 1 percent you're one of those people that's going to go most likely go against the grain so you got to go as I look at 2025 I want you to really challenge anything that you've done the status quo and I'm going to give you some stats around a handful of things here that are extremely status quo when it comes to American culture and just culture in general okay let's just start with the stat here the average American spends three hours and 58 minutes on TV every day okay so let's just it's two minutes shy of four hours okay let me just make that statement because it actually hurts my brain to think about this the average American spends almost four hours on TV every day okay here's a here's another statistical data point that's actually going to jump out at you the average time that we spend on social media is an hour and 35 minutes okay so let's just we're gonna start combining this now we're at four hours on TV where we'll just round it down to an hour and a half on social media we're at five and a half hours per day between TV and social media how about this the average person spends a hundred and two minutes per day on radio okay is that's just begin another huge data set that's just leaping out at me we're spending 135 minutes on social we're spending three hours and 50 I have 58 minutes on TV and we're spending 102 minutes a day on radio I took the time to just multiply those things out what does that look like over the course of a year get this okay on TV we're spending 1,460 hours okay or let's just quantify that differently if you are working a 40 hour work week you're spending 36 and a half work weeks on TV if you're averaging an hour and a half on social media that's 547 hours a year or 13.68 work weeks if you're investing 102 minutes a day into radio which by the way 97 percent of Americans say listen to the radio on their commute okay and a lot of that data point just comes in the commute because the average commute is 45 minutes one way in the United States so that information makes complete sense to me but that's 620 and a half hours per year or 15 and a half work weeks okay so if we compiled all of that we're actually investing more time in radio social media and TV then we actually are investing in the things that we do in our careers it's actually over 65 extra work weeks that we could get back if we eliminated those now that's an overstatement okay and I'm trying to make a really big point here so the overstatement I get the fact that no one's going to reduce their TV time to zero or it would be almost no one because they might watch you know a show per week with a friend or they might have a show that they love one show they love on Netflix that they watch you know an hour here or there I get that social media look I believe in having a strong leadership brand on social media so I've got to be intentional at that time but I am not going to spend an hour and 35 minutes a day in fact I limit my time on social to 30 minutes a day on radio I eliminate that completely there's no time on radio that I would spend on radio I want to give you some ideas around this to just say what if 2025 is a year where you become Rick Berry and Rick Berry-ish in a couple of places you become a little bit weird if you get really intentional with your time in this let's just talk about some ways that you can utilize at time first of all it's you don't have to listen to music in the car I love what Brian Tracy said back in the 80s he called radio bubblegum for the years you look with audiobooks today you if you use audible or whatever kindle or whatever app you use if you're taking a podcast right the average book that I read is some I listen to you I say read that's a that's not actually true I listen to about probably 95 to 98 percent of all the books that I take in the day but if there's 620 hours that I can capture by not listening to the radio my average book is somewhere around six hours long I could digest a hundred books in a year now I don't digest a hundred books in a year but I digest north of 50 and a lot of people say I don't understand how you do it it's because I'm being more intentional with my time I'm saying no to things that don't matter to say yes to things that actually do matter to things that actually allow me to grow and to become more so the bottom line is this I think everything is in play I want to be counterculture in the spaces I go into 2025 one of the one of the things that I have looked at as I'm evaluating why I want to go in this next year is I've asked myself this question where can I double down in terms of my own efforts where can I double down in terms of my own efforts that will actually allow me to exponentially grow so I evaluate in 2024 with some of the things that I've done one of the things that I did well in 2024 was linked in but I'm looking at LinkedIn and what I'm thinking about is what has the power of my leadership brand been there and it's been the result of a phenomenal I'm just telling you I'm probably somewhere between 10 and 15 appointments a week simply from what I'm doing on LinkedIn which is delivering daily content delivering consistent ideas and thoughts and videos and memes and these things to the platform but I'm gonna double down on that in 2025 I got an email today from someone that was inviting me to be their speaker at their sales rally I never met the person and I'm being invited to do that simply because I have a strong leadership brand they know what I believe and they believe that I understand recruiting and recruiting is the topic that they want to discuss at their sales rally so I will be the person to talk around that but that was all tied directly to the things that I'm doing on LinkedIn I will double down there I will take some of this time that is laid out in front of you and I will go to that place I'll deliver more articles I will do more videos I will get creative and some of the things that I'm that I will be delivering there there's a handful of creative ideas where I'll be actually just changing and shifting and actually improving some of the deliverables of what I'm bringing to the platform by saying no to things that don't matter I'm able to say yes to things that do matter and I'm able to go from being good or average to being becoming great and I'm not there but I do want to get there okay how many people could I influence with that time I just laid it out for you it's more time than investing if I'm working 40 hours a week how many people can I influence with that time that's a question you got to ask yourself how many ideas could you implement around your recruiting efforts if you were to do something weird with that time how many more people could you make contact with if you were to go counter culture in some of this I share this with you just to grab you and to create some tension okay I'm trying to create some tension here for you and the reason why I want to create some tension here for you is this is that I am more aware now than ever that time flies by I'm also aware that each of us not me not just you everybody that's listening this podcast has been created for something specific that's been created with the purpose with the plan that's been created for greatness I love what Ed Mylet says he says he's convinced that when he gets to heaven that though he'll get to meet the version of himself that he could have been and that's some perspective something that gives him perspective that allows him to stretch himself I want to stretch myself in 2025 and I'm going to go grab some of this time some of the space that I'm giving away and letting disappear I'm going to execute in it on some of the areas where I believe that if I double down on my efforts I'll get more results we have one life to live I want to make the most of it and my prayer for you is that you will make the most of it as we head into 2025 so with that said I hope everyone has a as a new year this will come out on New Year's Eve everyone has a new an awesome new year look forward to coming back here in the next podcast I'll come to you right after the new year I would be honored if you wrote a review if this podcast has brought some value to you would you please do me a favor and go out of your way to actually do a review on whether it's Google Play or whether it's iTunes wherever you listen to this it would be the biggest gift that you could give me going into the new year we're gonna we planned on cutting 52 of these in 2024 we cut 51 of these so we were one shy of what we said we were going to do and so as we're going into the next year our objective with this podcast is to break 200 total in number that'll be our objective is to continue to bring you value here and help you understand best how to grow yourself how to become the best recruiting leader that you can be so happy New Year's everybody I look forward to seeing you again on the next episode here recruiting conversations have a great new year want more recruiting conversations you can register for my weekly email at 4c recruiting.com if you need help creating your own unique recruiting system you can book a time with me at bookrichardnow.com. 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