Signal to Noise Ratio - How to Reach Your Goals

Season 2 Episode 8 Signal to Noise
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Cristina: [00:00:00] Welcome to Morning Coffee and Mimosas. I'm Christina. And I'm Joe. We are a father-daughter duo. We come here Sunday mornings, but you can come here anytime you please. We banter about life, about business, and we do it over coffee. And mimosas.

Joe: Good morning. 

Cristina: Good morning, FAJ. 

Joe: How are you? 

Cristina: I'm doing great. How are you? Good. 

Joe: I'm fantastic. 

Cristina: Yeah. 

Joe: Yeah. I'm really excited about this topic, so, 

Cristina: so would you say that it's all signal, 

Joe: no noise? That's correct. And now everyone's going, what the heck are they talking about? 

Cristina: What are we talking about? 

Joe: That's right.

We're gonna say signal to noise ratio and we're gonna explain that. 

Cristina: Yeah. And listeners, in case you think that my dad is struggling through this episode, he's been around a lot of [00:01:00] elements that he says, what did you say? You can't, you're allergic to the outside. 

Dad: Oh geez. Alright, so we took a walk this morning 

Cristina: and we, we are recording in my home where my dog lives.

I live there too. Um, and he is allergic apparently to the dog and apparently allergic to the outside's as a general's, as a generalization. The outside he's allergic to, 

Joe: right? On a technical basis, you know, what is it? The, the grass and all that stuff. But, you know, mentally you're just like, I really couldn't care less about being outside.

I'm very happy in the house, but I mean, but I'm also allergic to dogs. Christina has a cute little beautiful dog, but. Funny, but he, he doesn't like dogs. Dogs. 

Cristina: So don't, don't let him fool you. He's causing cute, beautiful little dog. No, he's not a fan. No, I, he's not a fan of the outdoors and he is not a fan of dogs.

I'm having, having adopted allergies to both. [00:02:00] 

Joe: I'm not a fan of having a dog. I don't understand why people put up with that, but that's another story. So this is not about that. Just like, deer are really cute and they're beautiful in the yard. Do I wanna bring them in and take care of them? No. 

Cristina: Interesting.

Okay. Okay. 

Joe: Right. I would, the dog belongs outside in nature, not in my house. 

Cristina: Can you imagine that little white powder puff in nature? 

Joe: Well, as long as it's in someone else's nature, not mine. So anyway, anyway, we digress anyway. Yes. Yeah, what we're gonna talk about is actually getting things done, but before you think, oh, I'm not interested in that, accomplishing your goals, why would people 

Cristina: not be interested in that?

Joe: No, I'm thinking of it from a boring topic, like, you know, know, oh, like, oh, it's been done 

Cristina: before. 

Joe: Correct, but, but how to accomplish your goals. How to achieve your dreams. there are songs, you know, you know, stay with your dreams, you know, all this, 

Cristina: Can you tell a little more about that song, song and, 

Joe: and [00:03:00] motivational?

Cristina: How does it go? 

Joe: Um, I don't know, I'm not gonna sing, um, and, uh, and stuff, but as mo motivation is important and being excited about things is important and wanting to do things is important, but at the end of the day, if you don't have a system or at least a mindset about, um, what needs to get done in order to accomplish those goals.

And that's what this topic is, is that we're gonna give you some guidance as to how to visualize it and then how to put it into practice and. 

Cristina: It's a topic that I think is speaking to both of us right now because, you know, we're in the home stretch of the year. Mm-hmm. And, with that there's always a lot of, energy that we need to put around finishing strong.

Right. whether you own your own business, whether it's personal. Goals that you're trying to accomplish, whether you work for somebody, this is the time that it's like, okay, you can put it all out, you know, [00:04:00] leave it all on the field and you know, if you've got revenue goals that need to be hit, if it's other things, now's the time.

And it's also a time though that is. Rife with distractions, right? Like more than most, right? The summer's ending back to school for kids had just, has just happened. You know, we've got the holidays coming up, so there's so much stuff and, and then also, you know, businesses, right? This is the time that a lot of change comes about.

There is so much distraction, and so much disruption that it's really easy to take your eye off the ball and take your eye off the goal, right? Mm-hmm. So this is, I think, for us. A reset too to, you know, like we said, we're always talking about topics that, you know, are, are good refreshers and good to dig into.

and it just feels really timely to say, okay man, there's a lot going on [00:05:00] right now, but we, there is no time more than now that we need to be as focused as we possibly can be. So, so what are some tactics, strategies, and systems maybe, that we can adopt to. Help with that. 

Joe: Right, right. And, and you bring up a great point because, so, uh, signal to noise signal is what needs to get done.

So focusing on the signal, meaning you're in tune, think about it, uh, about, tuning your radio to the right. Station or dialing. Uh, you're on the right website. You're, you know where it belongs. You all know if you, if there's a typo in the URL somewhere, it just goes nowhere and stuff.

Uh, or you know when you put the radio on and if you're switching stations, you get static. All right. That's the noise. So what is that in real life? in real life, your signal is when you are focused and working on things that have to get done and you're paying attention and, you know, going [00:06:00] through that noise is a friend calls and wants to, you know, chat about something or, you know, and, and now there is rational noise, real noise that we need to have.

IE if you have children, they need to go to school. You need to take 'em to school. You need to do the, you need to take care of that stuff. But if you don't plan. And focus on the goals of what you need to get done today. Take it day by day, three to five things that need to get done today. If you're not focused on being in tune in that signal, then what can happen is you allow the noise to distract you and you get diverted to the noise Now.

You might be thinking, well, Joe, I have kids that have to go to school. Or I'm in college and I have to study and I have whatever, you know, so some of that may be your signal, but if you think about it today is 24 hours, you're awake. Let's say [00:07:00] you're awake for 18 hours or whatever. What part of that day can you devote to being focused and what do you have to devote?

To the noise and, Steve Jobs, for example, had spoken about the fact that he, the 80 20 rule, which is probably a rule that everybody follows, uh, or knows about, but basically 80% of your time should be focused on doing what needs to be done, the signal in 20% elsewhere. And that's, we're taking that day by day.

That doesn't mean seven days a week, you have to do that. It just means. When you, you're five days a week or four or whatever you're working, stick to that percentage. 

Cristina: Well, and it, but it's not just work. Right. It's not just work. So I think the Steve Jobs example that you give, he talked about the fact that his number was, he needed to be 80% signal to be on point.

And we've heard other people talk about, you know, the most [00:08:00] successful of entrepreneurs. You know, there were, Kevin O'Leary spoke about this recently, was um. That if you study them, so many of them, their signal to noise ratio was mostly signal. Correct. So what that means is that, like when, when I think about this is every single day, do we know what our signal is like?

So if you, if you're focusing like what are the things that equal signal. that goes into the planning, right? Mm-hmm. And being able to really be in tune with what are my priorities? Your priority that day might be something personal, right? Yes. It might be something that's not related to your, you know, your, your work.

It could be, resolving a conflict with, you know, somebody in your family or who knows, right? But whatever the goal is, the things that are most important for you to move things forward in your own life. If that is what becomes signal and what you need to decide, okay, what is my ratio?

How much noise am I going to allow in [00:09:00] so that I can be successful? 

Joe: Right? And if you want a good analogy of that, think about you're gonna go on vacation, and I love this analogy. People will accomplish nothing drifting, you know, whatever. Then they say, oh. Alright, we're going, I'm going on vacation, I'm going down to, you know, pick, pick the place, the Caribbean or whatever.

What do you do? All of a sudden you have to, okay, I got, get the suitcases, get the stuff out. Okay, what clothes am I gonna wear? Boom. It's amazing. You turn into 100% signal. In order to make the fact that you can get together, you know, get everything together, get the Uber to take you to the, you know, airport, get on the plane, you know, do you have your documents, you have everything.

It's unbelievable. And then you'll come back from vacation, go to work, and you start. Now it's where there it was 99% signal and you know, one little 10th of 1% noise. And then. You are now [00:10:00] people. Fact, I think it's 

Cristina: very funny. Yes. That on our, on our episode on Signal to Noise ratio, we've got background noise.

Joe: In fact, the air conditioning went on. 

Cristina: We've got lots of background noise between the air conditioning and, and the peanut gallery between Ros. 

Joe: That's true. But, uh, yeah, Ruco is not being, he's, he's so listeners, this 

Cristina: is a perfect example of signal to noise ratio. There you go. We actually have quite a bit of noise going on on this podcast.

That's 

Joe: correct. But that's, that's an an example I love because people would, and again, doing something you like. It's amazing how. They'll drill right down into focus. And you, you're like, this machine. And then I, I say to people, why don't you do that for, you know, let's say you have a job you don't like, you know, and, and you want to do something different, you know, well, why don't you focus on, writing your resume and getting this out, putting the stuff out.

Yeah. Make that part 

Cristina: of your focus. 

Joe: Correct. Or, you know, if you're [00:11:00] in, in college, if you're in school, whatever, whatever the focus is that you need to accom or want. To accomplish. And I say that, and if you have a, you know, in your job, if you wanna progress in your job, uh, you know, any, any reason that you want.

And the best way to formulate this, number one, is. What do you want? Or what do you need to do now? Not everything is what you want to do. All right. You know, sometimes things happen and you have to do that. A friend, really, a friend of mine at work, uh, there was a fire in the house Oh yeah. Next to her, and the flames went up, and now her house wasn't destroyed.

But the roof collapsed. Oh, no. And the upstairs rooms were destroyed and everything was, but the house was not destroyed. Right. Her signal to noise ratio just got changed because she has children and they have to, they had to move out of the house. They have to [00:12:00] clean up, you know what I mean? You, you now have a new focus.

So all I'm saying is that was involuntary. Mm-hmm. But she had to adjust her. What was important now in order to fix this situation. Right. 

Cristina: Well, and that's where it's determining what is the signal for, like what are the things, the three to five goals. Correct. And you know, at the top of that list might be, you know, figuring out how to, where are you gonna live?

How do you repair? Right. How do you. 

Joe: Now, now if, if you were, you know, if you were good at, at this process, so that you have to have, the goal is this, this macro vision of where, where do I want to go? And you can have multiple goals by the way. So you, you know, let's say you're at work, you have a job and you want to progress, you know, what do I need to do to make it to supervisor or to make it to manager, or whatever you wanna accomplish, right?

But you may also have. Other things, hobbies, or other things that are goals or your children are, you [00:13:00] know, that's obviously, I hope, I hope that's a goal that your children, you know, are raised properly and things like that. By doing that. Then you take everything that you have to do and it has to go into a system, whether it's on paper, whether you write it all down, get it outta your head, what do I have to do?

Or in a, in a software, you know, uh, task manager or something. And then every single. The best thing to do is what are the three to five things that I must accomplish today to keep moving forward with, with those goals? And that is the signal, so that you focus on that signal and that way when distractions might occur, like you know, you're focused, you're working on, let's say the second thing that you have to do and you're really into that, and then somebody comes over and says, you know, Hey, you wanna.

You want to go get some ice cream or you want to get lunch or something like that, you [00:14:00] know, you could be, you know what, uh, no, I brought a sandwich, whatever. And, you know, not today, it's little things. You might laugh at that or whatever, but that's gonna help you get the second thing done. Mm-hmm. And then the third thing done.

But if you're not focused. Then it's, yeah, let's go. Come on, let's go. Well, it's the fir 

Cristina: I think you are real and you are really good at this. You have a really good system, and it's something that I, I try and emulate. Um, but like that's how you establish what, what is the, what are the goals and where do you need to.

Focus your signal that day. Correct. I think that I've had to adopt some tactics because, if you are, there's a, a lot of people are people pleasers, right? And you wanna say yes to things and you wanna help people and do things. Um, but at what cost? Right. So I've had to, uh, I like to use do not disturb.

Mm-hmm. Or sometimes like, you know, you have to block time and you have to be, if, if you're [00:15:00] a teams or you know, whatever Slack user, you've gotta go on red or do not disturb because you know, the second that something starts pinging and you know mm-hmm. You get slapped with, sometimes I've notifications are off because you, you might miss something in the moment.

Dad: Absolutely. 

Cristina: But, um. I, I find otherwise, like all of the sudden somebody else's signals become my signal because they drop their priority on my, on my lap. Right. Right. And um, and then when you get to the end of the day and you're like, I guess those things I wanted to get done will get done tomorrow. Like, that's not a good feeling.

Another thing that has I, I've found to be really helpful is I got a really cheap timer on Amazon, and it's not, I, not my phone because I've been trying to keep, my phone a little bit out of sight, out of mind and have, I have the, you know, notification silenced and, you know, work mode and, and all of that, [00:16:00] to help.

You know, limit any distractions. But the timer, it's just like literally this little digital timer that I have next to my desk and I turn it to set a time limit, whether it's, if I think something needs 60 minutes, 45, whatever, or if I just need it to kind of get me into that signal state. Right. I found that to be very helpful.

Yeah. With limiting distractions. That's good. And I'm like, okay, during that time, that's all I'm gonna do. 

Joe: Right. Is 

Cristina: whatever the goal I have. 

Joe: Correct. And that, that is a, that is a, a, a time management system. And many task managers have that where, you know, there are the tasks to do, but you time block them.

Mm-hmm. So you say, okay, I have a meeting at 10 o'clock, uh, I'm gonna have a lunch at whatever, and so on. So I'm gonna do this task between, you know, nine 30 and 10 o'clock or whatever it take, whatever you think it would take, and so on. I happen to be. Uh, blessed that I'm a morning person and I like to get up early in the morning and [00:17:00] before I leave for work, I have my day planned and, and then I literally, you know, write my focus on there Now, saying, this does not mean that things don't happen because, you know, we all have, I have a job that, something has happened and whatever, and I have to stop what I'm doing and take care of something else.

Right, right. this is very realistic. In case some of your listeners might be listening and saying, well, Joe, that sounds really great, but my job doesn't allow that because people call with problems or I have this or that. Yeah, and they're time sensitive. Well, guess what? You build that into your three.

What are the three to five things that have to get done? That's life stuff happens. But if you're not, if you don't have that in front of you, and I literally, I use a task manager or electronic, you know, one on the computer, it's also on my phone and so on. But I will have what I need to do today. Right?

But it may, I, I, in that one, I tend [00:18:00] to have more than those three to five things because if I can get more done, this is what I would like to get done. And then it, it's broken down to upcoming. tomorrow, the next day. Or someday. Or anytime, right? Because there are things that I don't have to do today or tomorrow or whatever, but I need to get them done.

But what I always do, and it sounds silly, but I have a little small pad, not an eight and a half by 11 one, but a little notepad, and I literally write, every morning I write focus on it, and I write three to five things that today I want to be able to cross those off. And they are also on my, how often 

Cristina: do you feel like you cross 'em all off?

Joe: I pretty much am pretty successful with most of, most of them. But sometimes, you know, the day gets blown up completely. Right. You know? 

Cristina: Right. 

Joe: But again, if you know what has to happen. You know, and I'm not talking about deadlines. Like I, you know, if I'm doing a tax return, for example, [00:19:00] through April 15th, 

Cristina: you're gonna get that done.

Yeah. That, that's gotta get done. 

Joe: Okay. Now you can get an extension to October 15th, but it's gotta get done, you know, by then. Very special day. Very special day. Get an 

Cristina: extension too. 

Joe: Correct. But 

Cristina: very, the most special of days. Yeah. 

Joe: But, you know, so there are deadlines, things you don't even know. Why do you, what, what, what are you talking what?

Cristina: See this, it's such a dad thing to do. 

Joe: What, what did I do? 

Cristina: You don't even know what October 15th is other than the second tax extension. 

Joe: I do know what that is. 

Cristina: Can you dig deep? 

Joe: It's your birthday. 

Cristina: Yeah. Best day of your life. 

Joe: That's right. 

Cristina: Come on. How? That's right. How? How is this such a surprise? 

Joe: Yeah.

Christina doesn't know that I wasn't there. I was doing tax returns until she was born. No, I'm just kidding. I was at your birth, I remember. Oh, best day. Ever. Ever. That was best day ever. That's right. I always remember it. Um. and, and in April, I'm, I'm looking at October 15th because that's, yeah, because it's 

Cristina: my half birthday, right?

That's right. Second best day of the year. There 

Joe: you go. There you go. yeah, so anyway, I, I'm, you know, does this [00:20:00] making sense to you, Christina? To what we're Oh, it does. 

Cristina: Yeah. And I think like that's where. It that that's like the first piece, right? Because you can't be all signal or you can't be 80% signal or 90% signal if you don't know what your goals are.

Joe: That's correct. 

Cristina: So that's, you know, and then, and then it's just how do you stay in that state? And I think like so much of it becomes energy management, right? Mm-hmm. Like you just said, you're really good in the morning, so how do you make sure that you're spending the best times when you. When you can be as focused as possible, um, on the right things.

Mm-hmm. It's, it's really knowing like, when are you at your best and when and what are the things that you need to do throughout the day to try and get more of that signal state. So like, you know, I, I think about if I get a good night's sleep, I have a, a better chance of having more signal Right. And less noise the following day.

If I work [00:21:00] out in the morning, I have a better, this is not, he's glazing his eyes. 

Dad: I don't work out. 

Cristina: But if I work out in the morning, I have a better opportunity to have more signal and less noise, right? For a longer sustained amount of time throughout the day. Um, if I get. Fresh air and sunshine, you know, maybe for 10 minutes.

It's some, you know, if I'm, if you're feeling like, if I start feeling like I'm losing focus, getting, you know, a little bit of fresh air or stepping away, that oftentimes helps. So I think it's, it's starting to just know what works for you too. 'cause everybody's different. Obviously for you, fresh air would be quite detrimental since you're allergic to it.

Joe: Totally. Exactly. Well, and, and will you bring, you bring up another good point. So when you have that focus and you know what you wanna accomplish and these things change 'cause things come up and all that stuff, but when you have the focus and things are you, you know what you have to do and you decide what those three [00:22:00] to five things are for today, right?

Then you have determined what helps you accomplish that. Going outside, taking a walk or walking the dog or, you know, what, whatever, or go, you know, working out and, and, and so on. You follow. Everybody's different. So it's not what, what I am, do you know getting up early and doing that in the morning? Yes, that works for some people, but it doesn't work for everybody.

For example, at night. I, I always tell mom, don't start any heavy conversation about something at night because I'm up super early in the morning and I'm kind of tired. You know what I mean? Like, I'm getting ready for bed. 

Cristina: That might be her strategy. 

Joe: That might be so, uh, So that's not my best time.

That's 

Cristina: how you keep ending up at the beach. That's how I, 

Joe: because now I'm just like, whatever. Just whatever. I wanna go to sleep. Because she has you recorded. She's like, this is the conversation 

Cristina: you said sounds great. 

Joe: Yeah. So I was just right. So, [00:23:00] you know, you have to know what works for you. But saying that you also have to know what do you need to change about what works for you to make what you want happen.

All right. Because you know, you could say, well, you know, I love going to the beach and I want to be in the water, and so I'm gonna make sure I'm, I do all that. Whatever. Well then now, now you're making your noise about, you know, that 80 20 is flipped, it's 80% noise and you're gonna spend 20% of your time on things that matter.

You don't do anything. 'cause there are only so many hours in a day that you're awake to do this stuff. Yeah. Alright. So, but it doesn't mean it's wrong to. Build it into your day. Just understand what do you, are you allocating enough time to focus and get those items done for the day? And are you devoting enough time to plan that what it is [00:24:00] you know you want in order to accomplish those goals?

So again, at the end of the day, very often I review, and I do this almost every day. I review everything that's in my to-do list and what was on the focus, did I accomplish it? Or, you know, even getting things done on that might've said, you know what, I did this, I did accomplish it, but now that I'm doing that, I, I need to do these other things in order to bloom this one and to make it work, or to, mm-hmm.

Or I need to talk to these people to sell the idea. You know what I, whatever it is, so. Yeah. When you plan at the end of the day to help you figure out what tomorrow is gonna do and evaluate, you know, what did, what happened today that I couldn't, you know, get to right? That was, yeah, nothing I could do about that.

Nothing I could do about that, you know, or, or, you know, yeah, I was weak, I should have not done something else. You [00:25:00] start to understand yourself better and understand what's necessary for yourself. Versus what was, I wanted to do it, kind of like if you're dieting, and you eat really well, and then somebody has a party and there's cupcakes there, now you can decide, yeah, I really should not eat that cupcake because I'm dieting.

Or you could be, oh heck, it's her birthday, I'm gonna. Well have the cupcake goes, goes with decisions. Right. Well that goes back to, but that 

Cristina: goes back to, right? Like how do you have a real goal? Right? And is it time bound? Right. Because yeah, if I'm just dieting, which I'm always just dieting, right? Like, I mean, you now as well, we, we are always kind of dieting.

Right? In some capacity. Yeah. But when I have a goal, like if I'm like, okay, bye. Like for me. I have a certain amount of weight I wanna lose by November 1st, 

Joe: right? 

Cristina: And so there's [00:26:00] certain things that have to happen in order for me to lose that weight by November 1st, 

Joe: right? 

Cristina: If I, so then it's weighing, will that bite of cupcake allow me to still lose that weight by November 1st, right?

Or does my goal go out the window? 

Joe: And, and again, that's why I love these analogies and stuff because. If you need to be at a certain weight on November 1st, it's very, when you know that goal and it's there, it actually makes it easier to discipline yourself. Yeah. 

Cristina: Because then you know, okay, I have this many calories and I can, and I can't touch, that can exercise longer if I wanna eat the cupcake, or it's just a no, 

Joe: or it's a no, you know?

And, and, but, but when you don't have a goal and you don't care about your weight. And I'm not, you know, I'm just, I'm just saying. Yeah. And the more 

Cristina: vague it is, the harder it is to signal in. 

Joe: Yeah. And then you, so you just have the cupcake, you know, I mean, you know, like where I work, you know, people are always bringing stuff.

They're really sweet people. They're really nice. But let's say they had a [00:27:00] party at the house and then in the kitchen area, you know, they'll leave, you know, cupcakes, donuts? Mm-hmm. Chocolate. There's, I could go past that kitchen and I could have a thousand calories of sugar if I want. Right. Uh, but. You know, I have to, in my head, just walk past it.

Dad: Mm-hmm. 

Joe: You know, have a cup of coffee instead, have some water. But again, if you don't care, if that's not important, then that's what you're gonna do. And then you're gonna blow up like a balloon and, and take that same thing to what we're talking about with signal to noise ratio, because the cupcakes and the chocolate and all that is noise.

If you're losing weight, if you're trying to watch your weight or blood sugar or whatever. Uh, that's a really good analogy to what do I want to accomplish? I want to be a manager. I want to be a vice president, or I want to start a new business. I want to have a side business that generates X amount of money.

Okay, well, what do I have to do? What are my goals then? Now what are [00:28:00] my three to five things I have to do every single day, you know, to accomplish that. And that's the same thing. Yeah. They're just, if you're not focused, you basically drift. And it's noisy. So it's just like if I got in the car and my phone signal was not carrying, you know, to the car stereo and it was just static and noise, 

Cristina: well it, right.

Yeah. And it doesn't feel good. 

Joe: No, 

Cristina: and that's, and, and I think it's just life is so much more fulfilling when we're checking things off and we're. Tackling goals. Right. I think most people feel that way. Exactly. Certainly if you're listening to a podcast, you feel that way. 

Joe: That's right. 

Cristina: Right. 

Joe: Exactly. So, well, 

Cristina: I think despite some of the noise we had in the podcast, I think we got enough signal in to check this one off and say it was a.

Dad: This was it. I think we did in 80, 80, 20. I think we had [00:29:00] 80% on the thing and 20% noise. So enough 

Cristina: to check this off and say, okay, we've got, we've got something here. That's right. But listeners, thanks for joining us. Yes. And uh, we're trying to get back on our every third Sunday of the month cadence here, so.

We'll see you, next month. 

Joe: Yeah. So thank you very much. If you liked what 

Cristina: you heard, give us a follow share with a friend. Subscribe to our channel, send us a note about things that you wanna hear. Yeah, let us know what goals you have and how, what strategies you're taking to, uh, to accomplish them.

Yeah, we'd love to you and we have a 

Joe: beautiful website, by the way, morning coffee and mimosas.com. You can go there and listen to all the, all the stuff, even you know, anywhere. So thank you. Wherever you are. Whatever your story. Thanks for spending time with us this morning. Now go and make a difference in your world.

Guess what? 

Cristina: No Dad joke. 

Joe: No dad joke. [00:30:00] Because it's all noise. It's all noise. I didn't, I didn't plan for a dad joke, but really? What do you call a dad joke 

Cristina: during a Signal to noise episode? What noise? It's terrible. Have a great week everybody. Bye.