Three New Types of Vacation That Will Change Your Life | Ep. 143

Speaker A: It's the not urgent important bucket that really moves the needle in your life is that. But it constantly gets put on the back burner. So I need a focus cation to do the important but not urgent work. Welcome to King Moves. In chess, the king moves one step at a time. But that single move can change everything. Each week we explore mindset shifts and simple actions that could lead to the next breakthrough in your business and life. I'm your co host, Ethan king from Atlanta, Georgia, USA, entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and bestselling author of Wealth Beyond Money.

Speaker B: And I'm your co host, Justin King, no relation to Ethan from Cape Town, South Africa, entrepreneur, speaker and business growth strategist. Our journey crosses continents and cultures as we think out loud, challenge assumptions and uncover the small moves that create big momentum. Welcome to King Moves. Let's start the conversation. Okay, Ethan, so got a bit of a different topic for us today, and it's really about being curious how you get your life admin done. Uh, and when I say life admin, what I'm referring to today, I've had two appointments that I've been to. I had a dermatologist appointment this morning and then I went to the oral hygienist this afternoon. And it seems silly, but man, these are things that I put off for so long. It's, it's so bad to, to get there. It's just, I'll be honest, I'll, I've got an admission my wife booked both those appointments for, for me and they ended up in my calendar. That's, that's how bad I am at making it happen. And maybe that, maybe that there is the, is the life hack. But I was wondering to myself earlier today, should we take like a life week during the year? Uh, where every, every year, uh, you, you take a, essentially a week off and it's your, it's your life week. It's, it's, it's all these big things that you need to do for yourself that you just never do. And you, you line them up, you have your annual health check and you go to your oral hygienist and you go to the dermatologist and you, you get some other admin stuff done. You go spend time at the bank, whatever it may be. Because man, for me, these are cans that I just kick down the road. And sometimes I will kick that can down the road for years. And I think particularly on the health side of things, I'm very aware of it now. Having a, uh, young son, I want to be around for a Long time. And when it's kind of just you, you kind of live and die by the sword, and you kind of have this very carefree attitude. But I've got responsibility to my wife, I got a responsibility to my son that I look after myself. And anyway, I'm getting off topic there, but it's like, how do you fit this in? Or what is. What has your process been to make sure that these really important things happen regularly? Because I need to make sure that it happens for me.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, first of all, statistics show that men are worse at this than women are by far when it comes to, like, making doctor's appointments and health appointments, especially when it comes to preventative stuff. I mean, most men, we don't. We don't go to the doctor unless something's bleeding or broken. It's a last. Last resort. But what I'm starting to notice is, uh, in fact, sadly, one of my classmates from high school just passed away. I mean, this Guy's in his 40s. He was actually the salutatorian at our school, Sam Hong. So RIP Sam, salutatorian. I don't know if he all use the same language, but the second smartest person in the class, basically right under valedictorian. Um, but great guy. And, you know, he was in shape and healthy from that, from the outside, and from all appearances, he was healthy. But rumor has it. I have no idea if this is true. I heard it through multiple people, but rumor has it that he had high cholesterol, even though he was active and it seemed healthy. So the importance of getting your actual numbers checked, the older we get, I'm seeing it more than ever. Like, you have to get under the hood. You can't go by how you feel or how you look or even your routines. Even if you do work out and think that you eat well, you have to look at your actual numbers. Just like in business, you gotta manage by the numbers. So a few things that I do, I do, I use a lot of tech to help, surprisingly. But there are some apps that will automatically, um, I think twice a year, they actually. It nudges me to go get my blood panels done. One of them is ultra human, and there are. There are a lot of them popping up on the marketplace now. So I'm definitely not endorsing any one of them. Just get one that. Where you can go get all of your blood panels now. It's. It's not cheap. I mean, there is another one called, uh, superpowers. I tried that one, and what I Didn't like about it is that they charge you a membership fee. And then when you go through the checkout process, they. They add all these things to your cart, like all these additional panels. I wish they would just give me one fee up front for everything. Right. So that's what I liked about Ultra Human. But there are more and more of them popping up. Just sign up for one and it will remind you every six months or every year at a minimum, to go get all of your blood panels done. And then you go and I mean, they literally took like 14 vials of BL. So it's a lot of blood they're taking out because they're testing like over a hundred different things. But then you get your markers back and I mean, it's very eye opening. I'll take those results, I'll put them into AI. And now I have like a health coach. It doesn't substitute a doctor, but it's. It's a quick second opinion and I can run anything by it related to my health. So putting it. Putting it on autopilot helps. Using the app, when it comes to the dentist, they. Most dentists that I've been to have a great system where when you leave your appointment, they go ahead and schedule you for your next appointment. So I make sure that I do that because if I put it off, in fact, a few years ago, I didn't. I didn't go to the dentist for like two or three years because I didn't even. I didn't even realize that the time just went by so fast. And, uh, actually I think this was like during COVID So, you know, you couldn't go into the dentist at the time. And then I missed that auto booking for the next one. Next thing I knew years had went by and I had to get some stuff fixed. So any, any way you can put something on autopilot. I'm always a huge fan of that.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think you've done it a good way. And it's. The problem is, for me, I use time as an excuse a lot. So that's why, uh, I'll put these things off. And that's why I was wondering if condensing it, particularly the in person. So there's a lot that you can use tech or a lot of ways you can use tech to help you, but there's still you to get blood done. You've got. Well, maybe somebody can come to your house, I'm sure. But you've. You've got to physically have that done, um, to get Your teeth done, you physically got to have that done. To get your, to have your skin checked out, you've got to physically have a dermatologist check it out. Although having said that, I know they do a lot of online and things via photos as well, but everything takes time and I think when it's dotted all over and that's why I like I've fixated on this idea of the, the health week and I, you, you the man that could help me figure out how do I have an. I create an agent that its responsibility is to help me with my health week. And in that health week every single year. I know that at this particular week of the year, uh, I've got all these checks lined up and whether it's two or three a day or whatever it is, but man, that's the week that I get it done. And I mean I'm a person of routine and that appeals to me because if I know every year that week, that's what it's all about. And also think it's just when you make quite a big thing of it, you call it a health week or whatever. I'm just calling it a health week right now. That call it what you want, it becomes a real reminder, uh, that that needs to overflow into other areas of your life as well. Because if I'm going to focus on my health for a week, well, I kind of focus on my health for a month. Why can't I focus on health for a year? Why is it just a week? I don't know. I'm kind of going all over the shop and I mean show and on a bit of a tangent now. But the more I think about it, there's, there's something to it.

Speaker A: I think the broader picture of what you're talking about is we have so many, uh, dimensions of our life that we need to manage and what's the best way to do that? And I think batching is always a great idea when you can do it. Now I personally haven't had much success with trying to batch medical visits just because there's not always availability in the particular week that I would want. Although it is a great concept. Just like if I very rarely go run physical errands, but when I do have to go somewhere physically, I try to just batch it all like I'm already out. So let me go to this place and this place and this place. It's any. Just like we batch recording this show, you know, uh, so I'm a big fan. To me, batching is one form of automation. So I love the idea of having a health week, a self care week. Maybe not just getting your physicals done and, you know, dental work, whatever, your. Your health appointments, but also m. Maybe it's going to the spa, getting a pedicure, getting a manicure, getting a massage, all of that in like, we'll just call it a self care week, but looking like, zooming out and looking at the bigger pict picture of that. I'm a big fan of Think Weeks. So Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg very famously have this Think week every year or maybe a couple of times a year, where they just kind of go in isolation and cut off all communication and just read and study and think and like, just clear, like white space just to think. Because we, you know, we live in such a noisy world, it's hard to sometimes really think. And if. If you have ever been intentional about taking time to sit down and think, you can solve so many problems and unlock so many things that. That have seemed impossible. Like just taking time to think is remarkable. So having a think week, and that's something that I used to do it every year pretty religiously. I got the idea from them and I would just take a stack of books and go check into some random hotel room in a place where I wouldn't be like, distracted or feel the temptation to go, like, explore and sightseeing or anything like that. Some boring city hotel and just a bunch of books. And like, this is what I want to get done. This is what I want to absorb. And that was very, very beneficial for me. Now I haven't done that in a while, but now I have this new, new need and concept that I'm playing around with called a focus cation. That's what I'm calling it. We have a. We have a new guest. Look at that.

Speaker B: What?

Speaker A: Harrison Sam.

Speaker B: Hello.

Speaker A: Standing right at the screen. He's. Oh, uh, he is a handsome guy. Man. How old is he?

Speaker B: Uh, almost five months. Man, I can't believe how quickly the time's gone. If you don't mind, we, the two of us are gonna be on this podcast.

Speaker A: That's great. Even better. Focus cation. So Monica, uh, and I were recently talking about how we. You just have so many things that you need to get done, but you just get caught up in the whirlwind of the everyday work. So we joke like, you know, I need a vacation just to work, like, to actually, like, do work. Which sounds weird, but we're. We're what? We're Talking about is obviously a different bucket of work where if you think about the Eisenhower matrix or uh, you know, some people call it the urgent important matrix, you have that, that column where you have things that are not urgent but important that you need to do, but they always seem to get overpowered by the list of important things you have to do that are urgent or the everyday fires you need to put out. But it's the not urgent important bucket that really moves the needle in your life is that, but it constantly gets put on the back burner. So I need a focus cation to do the important but not urgent work. And that's my new goal actually for this month.

Speaker B: And are you going to make it a week, a weekend or what's the plan?

Speaker A: A week would be great, I think at least blocking off a chunk of five days minimum to and, and going in, going in with clear intention and goals of what I want to get done. This will be the outcome of this week or this five days is, is where I'll see the results. So I will report back and let you know. But I, I, I already can tell that uh, like if I don't do it, then next year, you know, months from now, eight months from now, I'll be in the same place where I am. This is the stuff you have to get done in order to, to achieve your goals. You have to get that not urgent important stuff done.

Speaker B: Yeah, I like that. I mean the idea of the focus, the focus week. The focus, what did we call it? The focus

Speaker A: Focusation.

Speaker B: Yeah. I mean the closest that I've got to that. Well, I haven't done it. So I, let me, let me retrace those steps. It's really been, for me it's been just a like lens shift. Instead of saying I need to do some work, uh, over the weekend or in the evening or something like that, which for m and I became quite tricky. We didn't like this idea of necessarily having to work. So we just rather say we've got some building to do and let's do some building over the weekend or let's do some building this evening. Because as soon as we say that, we both know what we meaning it's we, we building for the future, we going to do some work that is, is that the deep stuff, the things that we don't get time to do during the day and during the week that is really important and we know it's, it's going to be the foundation of what we wanting to, to build as a family and, and Build for ourselves. So, uh, even just changing some of those. There's just the wording of it has made it that much more palatable when we say it to each other, rather than kind of getting somebody's backup or getting somebody defensive, being like, hey, you're not supposed to be working in the evenings. We're not supposed to be working on that on the weekends or whatever it is. So, yeah, that's been a game changer for us.

Speaker A: Yeah, really great point to. The words matter because you can say, oh, I got. I have work to do, but that could mean multiple things. It's like, are you. Are you. Are you doing client work, busy work, or are you building? Building is a very word. It's work, but it's a different type of work. It's a. It feels more meaningful. It feels like you're moving forward a lot of time. For times for me, you know, when I'm doing client work, I. I don't feel like I'm moving forward. I mean, it's great. I'm thankful for my clients, you know. Love you. Thank you. But I just. It's different when you're building your. Your dream towards your dreams. So I like. Maybe we call it a. A buildingcation, but to find a good word for it.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. You guys say vacation. We say holiday a lot. So I was trying.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, that's right. Yeah, a building holiday. Focus Holiday.

Speaker B: Holiday. Bulls Dollar day. That maybe is the. The right way. So to take it all the way back. I'll. I'll finish this with a very short anecdote, a story from my dermatologist appointment to the Today Man. So it was just a checkup, but I had like, a little bit of a little lump on my. My tricep that I was. I thought, hey, maybe this needs to. To get checked out. So it turns out the. The doc wanted to remove that. And then he also found a. A, uh, spot on my left shoulder that I. In summertime, I enjoy running. And I enjoy running with my shirts off. And it's a bit of sun damage, a. Just a benign carcinoma. So I decided to remove that as well. Ethan, this doc says he usually uses half a vial of local anesthetic to. To numb the area. He put. He put two into my back and then three into my tricep. Because I felt him cut this thing out of the back of my back of my shoulder today. And he said to me, you know what? It's usually. It's usually alcoholics on that. That on which the anesthetic does not work so well. But he said to me, justin, you don't look like it an alcoholic. So, like, thank you very much. I. I'm not an alcoholic at all. But it was interesting. So I. I did not. Yeah, I did not.

Speaker A: The.

Speaker B: The anesthetic just did not work for me. Two shots in the back, three on my arm. M. And my arm felt fine. But, uh. So I had to tough it out today. I had to. Had to suck it up and tough it out and kind of get something cut out without too much anesthetic, which wasn't fun, but. But got it done. I prioritized it instead of kicking and on the road.

Speaker A: And this was just today. I mean, you don't look like you're

Speaker B: in pain this morning.

Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker A: That's interesting. You know, it's probably something genetic. I've had the situ. I've had a situation where I got a root canal once and the anesthesia didn't work. I swear I felt every bit of it. And they warned me. They were like, okay, this is going to put you to sleep. Or. I don't know if it was the, uh. What did you call the laughing gas. And then they wouldn't let me drive home, but I was like, guys, I'm fine. It did not work. All I feel is pain. But, yeah, that's. Well, I'm glad everything's, uh, going well with you and, uh, I guess, uh, you know, the land the plane here. I think it's a great concept, and I would frame it like this for King Move. Be intentional about the different dimensions of your life, and schedule a health holiday, a thinking holiday, and a building holiday, at minimum.

Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. And I'm. Yeah, I mean, I'm not. I can't add to that 100%. And I'm going to try to do it myself. And what you said is, and you made a good point, it's difficult to batch the health things because the appointments aren't always available. But I think if you make it a regular annual thing and you're booking a year in advance, I, uh, reckon you'll be able to get a lot of them in that same week. And that's what I'm going to challenge myself to try and do is see how many of those I can get into a week, six months, and then a year from. From then for myself. But I like this, uh. I like this thought process. Thanks, Ethan.

Speaker A: That's a wrap for today's episode of King Moves. Quick favor before we go. If this episode made you think differently or helped you see your next move More clearly, take 30 seconds and leave us a review. It helps the show reach leaders who need these conversations. Remember, in chess, like in business, one right move can change everything.

Speaker B: Take today's action step. Make your move and build momentum. And if you found value in today's episode, share it with someone who's ready for the next breakthrough. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss our weekly conversations.

Speaker A: Until next time.