Challenging ourselves to deviate from our daily patterns can be hard, but oftentimes we have to learn how to approach uncertainties without delays. Kris Ward, a woman with a great heart and old soul and the epitome of marketing, shares how we can conquer our hours and days without feeling guilt. The author of Win The HOUR, Win The DAY, Kris teaches us how we can win our hours or days even when we are sabotaged with unexpected events. Kris also opens up about her husband’s colon cancer and how they coped with the situation.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Erin Talks with Kris Ward About Conquering Analysis Paralysis in Business

Our guest on the show made my day. Her name is Kris Ward. I had announced I was going to launch this show eons ago. Not only did Kris send me a note, but she sent me a video note and it was this beautiful video note. It was saying that she wants to be on the show and here’s why. There was social proof backing her up as to the why. You had me at, “I want to be on your show.” This woman is the epitome of marketing, the epitome of a great heart and an old soul. She’s the author of Win The Hour, Win The Day. Kris Ward, welcome to our show.

That’s the best welcome I’ve ever gotten, even from family.

It’s my pleasure. We’ve known each other how many years now?

I’d say between ten and fifteen. It’s that long.

It’s a very long time. Have I aged at all?

Not a bit, I think you’re reverse aging.

I’m like, “This is why I keep her around.” You’re an amazing photographer. You’re an amazing writer. You’re a marketing expert.

I hadn’t done photography in quite a long time. That’s been something I gave up years ago, but it has evolved into a marketing company. It’s been very exciting.

Everybody, including myself, has a different definition of marketing. What kind of marketing do you do? What is your specialty?

My specialty is working with clients that are of a service-based industry that has been in business usually about five or so years. They have skillsets where they’ve got some real assets, maybe they’re good at speaking gigs or they get on local TV. They’ve got things that they’re confident to get out but they’re not getting the stickability or the leverage off that. I’m lucky that I work with very talented people. They may put on an event once a year where they have an impact on their community. What we do is market that more effectively and make sure that there’s sustainability there. We work with a special profile of a person.

Your book is called Win The Hour, Win The Day. What does that mean?

It means if you can win the hour, you can win the day. Literally, it’s that because too many people dive into Monday morning to-do list in hand and you think, “I’m going to take on the world.” You have no real plan and it goes off the rails. You beat yourself up at the end of the day with the to-do lists. One thing is two hours and the other thing is two days. You get all caught up in that grind of small business. If you break it down and you build success with one hour, you can replicate that easily. It is taking it down to the hour.

I spazz out all the time. Before I know it, something with my son, Eric, is happening and there are reactionary moments within my day completely not planned for. How can I win the hour if I’m constantly sabotaging myself? Can you help me?

You’re not always sabotaging yourself. With your son, sometimes you definitely are there. There are two parts, let me unpack that. Let me go to the sabotaging part first. My clients tell me this is when we start working and they start getting results. It’s effective. There’s clarity and there’s calm and they say, “It’s exciting.” They will admit that they’re not used to lacking that stimuli. When you get busy you’re like, “This isn’t working. I look to the email for distraction.” What they start to do is to identify when they pull themselves off course because they’re looking for an excuse like exercising or like, “It’s raining. I can’t possibly go out. Thank heavens it started to rain.” You start to self-sabotage that way, but when you start to see that that’s a big step of growth and you can adjust accordingly. The second thing and the question I get all the time, especially from moms is, “Something’s come up with Eric.” That’s a situation. That’s great. What I would tell you is this is when it’s your biggest asset. For example, I had a situation one day where something was on my phone. I’m on the phone with Apple and it took 45 minutes and we fixed it. My previous coping skills, years previously, would have been to run around into a tizzy all day trying to catch up for that lost time, stressing everyone out around me and go.

What I did is, I looked and I said, “I’ve lost 45 minutes.” I looked at my day and I said, “What are the priorities?” What do I need to move and let’s proceed with the calming clarity that will give me the best results versus trying to spin out of control and catch up? When you break it down and things do come up, then that’s your best tool because you can look at the inventory of the day and say, “I have a clear vision of the day. What can I move?”

Do you find that Win The Hour, Win The Day is good for people that still write with pencils and paper in their calendar?

Win The HOUR, Win The DAY!

What I would tell people is the tools don’t matter. There are tools that save you a few steps, but if you don’t have the fundamentals in place, I get the opposite question that all the time. “What’s the best hacking tools and the best software?” I did a funny video on Instagram and I was showing a hammer and I was saying, “You could give me this hammer, but I can’t build a house because I don’t have the skillset.” In the middle of the video, I dropped the camera and I said, “I can’t even hold the hammer so clearly.” The point of the story is the tools won’t save you. That’s the biggest misnomer. Once you get this down in place, if you like using a pencil, my only concern would be if you’ll lose that document or in the old school, you lose the book, then you’ve got no backup. That’s scary. You can communicate with others online much more quickly if it’s on digital, but the fundamentals are in the mindset. If you can make time management your superpower, you can do anything.

There are readers everywhere. For me, on my phone, when I get hit with what I’m calling message tone, I’m looking at my calendar and then I promise you, I never know where these are. If there’s a crisis coming, I don’t know where these readers are. I wear contacts and people email me and say, “Get bifocals.” I get it all. Trust me, I’ve explored it. I’m struggling because I’m looking down, I’m trying to figure out how to stay organized, but life still happening and that’s where my body goes and I get analysis paralysis of what to do. I can’t be the only one that happens to, but I even get a stomach ache with it.

I have an assistant now, we delegate. I try to keep it clear. I try not to jam over the day, but as a mom of a teenager, who works from home with two dogs, I’m thinking maybe I should go back to old school and never lose that calendar sucker. At least it’s there, and I can look, but I don’t know. According to you, that’s not going to help anyway. It’s that mindset of that blocks of time. I know what you’re saying but I need to digest it though. I’m trying what you’re saying on for size.

There are a couple of problems here. First of all, you didn’t create these habits in a day, so they can’t be unpacked in a day. I will tell you that no success can be built upon a weak foundation. That’s it. Once you get this foundation in place, you can execute it on any level. That’s an exciting part for me. I don’t think business should be a grind. I don’t think your dreams should cost your lifestyle and all that other stuff. Everyone’s got big dreams and I had the same. I have my marketing and branding company and then I said, “I’m going to write a book.” That took way more work than I understood. I had to compress that in the same amount of time. I had been off social media for a while for a couple of reasons. I did do that and you’ve got to market the book. I do that all in the same amount of time. Every day, I look and say, “What can I put in place to support me at a higher level of efficiency?” You do need to have some fundamentals there. I know your enthusiasm and your energy and your excitement for things. There are some fundamental issues there that are not about the pen and paper because you can change the font size on your phone. You can do a lot of things.

I did that too. I’ve got a new phone and I changed the font size and I said, “This is going to fix everything.”

Sometimes you look for healthy distractions and excuses. I’m throwing that out there because I do think there are very few people that I know, like yourself, you can make anything sound good, positive and entertaining. You could be sitting there looking at a pile of garbage saying, “Look at that laying on the floor, confidently looking up at me, that pile of garbage that the dog ate.” Your enthusiasm has a wonderful energy to it but underneath that, if you want to take a serious look at that, there’s definitely, “Should we be working together?” There are different strategies you can put in place, but you have to want to see some changes.

I want to see some changes. I officially want to start working with you.

That’s the thing too. Time management sounds heavy and I had a lot of push back on time management for years because first of all, I was organized. I got a lot done in a day so I couldn’t figure out how I could get more done. I thought, “Please, you cannot outwork me.” There were so many heavy systems out there that if you put them in place, they choked you. By the time you put that in place, you could have got more work done. My book is about simple and easy strategies because I know what you’re talking about. I remember eleventh grade, why they have exams when summer starts. I don’t know but I decided this year I was going to be a better student. I was going to try harder, study harder. I made this beautiful calendar with all different colors and it was awesome. I had this all set out how if I studied two hours a day, “I was going to ace everything.”

The next week, not so much. What did I do? I spent time revamping the calendar instead of studying. Come the third week, I’m thinking I need to study nine hours a day. Of course, that didn’t happen. I totally get what you’re saying. The problem is there are too many complicated systems out there when you’re already out of control with how you feel than trying to put out of control into this is very difficult. What I do with Win The Hour, Win The Day, we’ve had a lot of success with this over the years. It is pulling out your personality and your strengths and leveraging it in your timeframe and working with you. It’s not trying to stick you into something else, which I don’t think you’d be done in your case.

I heard this rumor that you think Rocky movies are the best franchise out there. I’ve been friends with you for a long time. I don’t know this, so I’ll bite. Kris, why are the Rocky franchise is the best?

I do love the Rocky franchise on so many levels. They revamped it and they’ve got creed and it’s amazing. It is the commitment and of course, the montage of you can do anything. Sylvester Stallone himself when he sold that story, he had no electricity and he lost his dog. They were willing to buy the movie from him, but he couldn’t act on it because he was unknown. He held out until he was part of the project. What a risk to take when you’re sitting there in the dark and you lost your dog. He held out and he got his name attached to the project and the story unfolds. Of course, the dog in Rocky I is the one he bought back with the money he made for the movie.

That’s a good story.

I love the movies and I love the story behind the movies.

I do want to turn the corner a little bit and talk about when your husband was diagnosed with colon cancer and you felt that it was all on you. You have this boat analogy. Let’s talk about this with everybody because I do feel that whether it’s a sick loved one, someone who passed or even in happy times, you seem to feel that all on you. Walk us through all of that, so our readers are brought up to speed as to what I’m referring to.

That’s another reason I wrote the book is because I felt that there are things that happen in every life. There are interruptions and your work should support your life, not consume it so that if something happens, what do you do? In my situation, when he was diagnosed, aside from the fact that these chemos and treatments and surgeries are totally a full-time job in itself. Let’s talk reality, take emotion out of it. That’s an income that I could lose so you can’t be going, “This is all happening and it’s costing extra money and time and all this stuff. I could potentially lose an income and I’m going to go back to a business that’s gone.” What happened is when I have pulled away from the business when I returned, it had not only survived but it had thrived. I had been very absent and my clients had not been aware of that. That had the beginning of the book.

To take you back, he was diagnosed. I had a full life. We had boys. I had a business that was growing. I was only in business six years then, so I was working a lot of hours, but he was my biggest fan. He certainly did anything he could to support me. He said I turned him into a 1950s housewife in two years because he started doing more of the laundry and the cooking. He thinks that I always pushed myself too hard. He did things to make sure that they weren’t there when I got home. He was good about that and that was amazing, plus from being a great cheerleader.

Winning Your Day: No success can be built upon a weak foundation.

When this all happened, nevermind all the appointments and all that stuff in the fear. I did feel as if we were in a canoe paddling along living a good life. All of a sudden, they turn the canoe around and I’m going upstream into rapid and I’ve got additional weight. I lost a paddler and I got extra weight because on top of all that, he was such a big supporter of me and my biggest fan. I had to be smiling all the time going, “The business is fine, don’t worry about it. John’s all good.” If he thought for a minute that I was suffering in any way because of him, that would have gutted him. I needed to be able to say to him, “No, it’s all good.” No matter if I believed it or not.

I felt that he was first diagnosed, it was a very grim diagnosis. They said six months without treatment, two years with treatment. We never bought into that. He did it amazingly well for four years and then he got really sick quickly and that was that. Our philosophy was if they’re wrong, then we spent two years clutching each other’s hands, crying about it and we wasted two years. If they’re right, then what were these last two years for? We wasted them sitting here clutching hands, crying about it. We felt that that was not the way to go. I also took them on a surprise vacation to see his cousins in England. I had family events and that took organizing, that doesn’t happen on its own.

That was when the day strategies allowed me to, it allowed me to be present and then I have no regrets about how I handled that journey with him. He felt me fully present at all times. I was clear-minded, I gave it my 100% focus and I was lucky enough to return to a business that was thriving. That’s what I want people to understand. Your business should support your life, not consume it. Everyone has a story. Sometimes I struggled in the beginning because people would be stowed too much sympathy on you and it was not comfortable for me. What I would say to them is, “Everybody has something. This is my something. Please, don’t pity me. Don’t treat me differently.” Everybody has something. It’s just my something became public. That’s all.

Kris, I’ve talked to a lot of people, I’ve interviewed a lot of people and it is so concise. You say, “Here’s what happened, so here’s what I did. Here’s this, there’s that and this is what you could do for you.” That’s impressive and heartfelt and amazing. I thank you for sharing that with us.

Thank you for asking.

Where can people get in touch with you because this is probably going to increase your schedule? You’re going to need a whole new system because my readers, we need you. Where can people find you directly?

You can check us out at WinTheHourWinTheDay.com. I can always be reached on LinkedIn and also on Instagram, @TheKrisWard. Those are my two primary focuses.

Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate your time.

We appreciate you. You are a bright light in the world and I am honored to have this time with you.

Thank you.

Important Links:

• Kris Ward
• Win The Hour, Win The Day
• WinTheHourWinTheDay.com
• LinkedIn – Kris Ward
• @TheKrisWard – on Instagram
• www.ShadowBlast.com
• https://www.Facebook.com/krisward.ca
• https://Twitter.com/krisward
• https://www.LinkedIn.com/in/krisward1

About Kris Ward

If you know anything about me, then you know that I am very passionate about Business. I love working with so many different professionals in so many different industries. I love the machinery of business and my great pride is that I get to be part of your success story!

Believes that the Rocky Movies are the greatest franchise in cinema.