173: Fix This Next with Mike Michalowicz | Tanya Dalton Skip to the content
Mike Michalowicz podcast interview on The Intentional Advantage
May 5, 2020   |   Episode #:

173: Fix This Next with Mike Michalowicz

In This Episode:

Are you running a company that can thrive without you there? If not, it’s time to start thinking about how to make this a reality. That’s precisely why I invited Mike Michalowicz on the show. Mike is the author of several books, including his latest release, Fix This Next. By his 35th birthday, Mike had already founded and sold two companies. Today, he is running his third multi-million dollar business. In this episode, Mike shares some of his biggest tips for creating a business with a lasting legacy, and how he’s able to take a four-week vacation every year. Together, we also discuss Mike’s framework for the business hierarchy of needs. So, if you’re wondering what to fix next in your business, you’re in for a treat!

Show Transcript:

The Big Idea

Can your business thrive without you?

Questions I Answer

  • How do I motivate my team?
  • What systems do I need in my business?
  • How do I decide where to focus?
  • What’s the biggest mistakes people make in business?

Actions to Take

  • Start to think about the framework that Mike discussed on the show. Examine which hierarchy of needs you need to work on and “fix next” to succeed as a leader.

Key Topics in the Show

  • What the survival trap looks like (and how to get out of it)

  • Why Mike takes a four-week vacation every year

  • Mike’s framework for the business hierarchy of needs

  • The number one mistake people make when trying to make an impact

Resources and Links

Show Transcript

This is Productivity Paradox with your host, Tonya Dalton and entrepreneur,
best selling author, nationally recognized productivity expert and mom of
two. This season is all about leading with confidence. Tonya, shifting
mindsets, redefining productivity, and equipping women with the strategies
you need to step into intentional leadership. Are you ready? Here’s your host,

Tonya Dalton.

Tonya:

Hello everyone. Welcome to Productivity Paradox. I’m your host, Tonya
Dalton, and this is episode 173. Now, as you know, this season is all about
leading with confidence. So we’ve had a lot of episodes over the past
few weeks where we’ve talked about habits that we can create to be
effective leaders, what an effective leader looks like, even how to
prioritize so that we can do our best as a leader. And that really led me
to today’s special guest because I felt like what is a conversation about
how to prioritize without really understanding what we need to work
on, what we really need to fix next. So I’m really pleased to have Mike
Michalowicz on the show today because he has a brand new book out
called “Fix This Next”.
He’s created a really smart framework to help you understand what you
do want to work on next, to really understand what you should
prioritize. So I think that this is such a great conversation to have in
terms of leadership today on the show, we’re going to be talking about
it in terms of entrepreneurship, but I want you to take a lot of what Mike
talks about and think about how it applies too, in your career and in
maybe the ladder you’re on, on your corporate path. So let me give you
a quick little background on Mike because I know you’re just going to
love him.
He is the author of several books including “Profit First”, “Surge”,
“Pumpkin Plan”, and by his 35th birthday he had founded and sold two
companies, one to private equity and another to a Fortune 500, and
today he is running his third multimillion-dollar company. He is the
former small business columnist for the Wall Street Journal and the
former business makeover specialist for MS NBC. Over the years, Mike
has traveled the globe speaking with thousands of entrepreneurs and
he’s here today to share the best of what he’s learned. And I’m really
excited to have him on the show.

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So let’s get started. Mike, I am absolutely thrilled to have you here on
the show today. It’s a joy to be here.

Mike M:

Thank you for having me.

Tonya:

Absolutely. Now I want to dive right into it because I loved the book. I
read it. There were about a thousand marked pages, underlined
passages, which is assigned for me of a very, very good book. And what
I love that you say is you say that one of the biggest problems that
people have is that they don’t know what the biggest problem is, they
get stuck in this survival trap. Can you describe for my listeners that
survival trap looks like?

Mike M:

Yeah, yeah. And if it’s okay, I’ll share how it came about. So I serve, so it
takes me about five years to write a book. It’s, it’s a labor of love. I’m not
an efficient writer. I have to write passages over and over and over
again. And the research component is the most intensive. So about five
years ago I reached out to my readership and said, what do you want
me to write about? Like what’s your biggest challenge? And I got
feedback, some feedback from the same people with different
challenges on the same day and that was the epiphany. I was like, Oh
my gosh. The biggest challenge business owners have is knowing what
their biggest challenge is. That became the fuel for the illustration
around the survival trap.
So this is how it works and you can do this in your head or you can do a
piece of paper, but draw the letter A in the center of a piece of paper
and put a circle around it. And what A represents is where your
business is, at this moment. For many of us right now it’s crisis or
challenge, whatever your business is facing, that’s point A. Then as a
second step, draw an arrow away in any direction you choose away
from A for a short distance and where the arrow represents is action
you take to get out of crisis or challenge, but now draw an arrow in
another direction away from a and then do it again and do it again and
you can do it four or five times. And what this demonstrates that any
action you take that gets you out of the crisis gets you out of the crisis.
As the final step… Draw the letter B in the bottom left corner of that
piece of paper. When you do that, what B represents is the true vital
need. Your business has the one thing it needs you to do, but you’ll
notice that most of those arrows, perhaps none of them point to B, and
that’s how we operate our business as small business owners. We know
the crisis we’re in now and we simply put out that fire, we rush to
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resolve and we get out of the crisis, but we don’t move toward what we
really need in our business. That vision, what we’ll think is out to the
future we want and in fact, many those arrows actually go in the
opposite direction so it actually worsens our business progress. We
ended up in a new A, a new crisis, and yet again make a decision to get
out of a, so we are in this constant stream of getting out of the
immediate pain, we’re experiencing, immediate relief, but the
consequences, longterm agony.
So in this book and in “Fix This Next”, my goal is to provide people with a
very simple system to point to where B is. To know what to do next.
Therefore then when you get out of the challenges you’re facing, you’re
moving in direction of what’s of service to your business.

Tonya:

I love that because I think you’re so right, like we’re looking for that
immediate relief and so we’ll go just about anywhere to find that relief
even if it’s not getting us closer to where we want to go. You know in
the book you talk about the Sarah Winchester house, which, I love that
example because I’ve been to the Winchester house, which is kind of
funny. We’re basically, for those of you who don’t know, the Sarah
Winchester house was this house built by a woman who was afraid of
the spirits in the house and she kept tacking on rooms, right. With no,
no plan in place. Like there’s stairs that go to like ceilings and doors that
open to just like walls and things. It’s crazy. It’s a crazy town. But that’s
what we’re doing, aren’t we? We’re like tacking on these rooms where
we’re building these like, you know, solutions that are like stairs going to
nothing. Right?

Mike M:

Yeah. So Sarah Winchester ended up building a 600 room house as
originally a farmhouse, a four-bedroom or, not even four bedrooms it’s a
four-room farmhouse. And she was just solving the immediate need,
which she believed that spirits were chasing her and that she needed
to continue to build to basically store the spirits. But every day she had
the new plan for the day and she went to her architect or not even an
architect, her textual team. She was the architect. She went to our
building team and they were building 24 hours around the clock. And
every morning when she got up, she gave him the new plans for the
day and it caused this bizarre convoluted structure. It’s massive and it’s
beautiful and sad all at the same time. The fascinating part I think of
the story is at the very end when she died, the house went on the
market and it was unsellable. Here’s this, you know, technically, it’s a
mansion, it’s a massive utility, and it was unsellable. It ultimately went to
oddity seekers that made it into a museum. So weirdos like me, and you
can go, but it was only, she was only able to sell it for pennies on the
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dollar. And that’s what many businesses experience. We’re building this
structure that is just convoluted and built without a, a direction forward,
no architectural plan and the structure as it may be beautiful to us. It’s
valueless to the market. It can collapse. Her building, by the way, it
collapsed when there was an earthquake. It collapsed and uh, we don’t
have a solid foundation in our business without the plan, and therefore
if anything gets shaken up, it too will collapse.

Tonya:

Yeah, I love, I love that idea of that physical representation of what we’re
doing with our businesses or even with our careers when we feel like, I
don’t know, I just need to do this. I just need to tack on another room.
And you say in the book, the only way to get unstuck quickly to unlock a
new level of growth is to stop wasting precious time and resources
trying to fix the wrong problems because that’s what we’re doing. A lot
of times we’re just looking for tacking on that extra room. And I think
one of the biggest issues is that people think that if you own the
business, it means you have your hands in every part of it. You’re getting
there, you’re doing it all and you say that you’re not a business owner if
the business owns you. I thought that was such a great quote. Can you
tell like underline that, like highlighted?

Mike M :

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I’m happy you did that.

Tonya:

Right. And so you give this example of, you know, going into
McDonald’s and asking to speak to the owner. I felt like that example
was such an eye opener. So can you dive into that?

Mike M:

Yeah, so I travel a lot, at least I did travel a lot before COVID. I admittedly
I stopped by McDonald’s, occasionally and when I stopped by
McDonald’s I started as I was writing this book, running this little test. I
would ask, the cashier may speak with the business owner and there’s
not one instance, there was not one instance where the business owner
was there. The feedback was funny. Like sometimes like, uh, the cashier
say, I don’t know who the owner is. They’re not flipping fries, you know,
they’re not making burgers I should say, and they’re not in that glorified
closet they call the manager’s office. That’s, that’s the manager and one
time my favorite feedback was a cashier said, uh, Oh, I did meet the
owner a couple of months ago. They came in to pick up the money and
I’m like – Oh, that’s the definition of ownership. I think when people say
they’re entrepreneurs, sadly that term has become so bastardized with
hustle and grind. Entrepreneurship is work your ass off supporting your
business, do everything to make sure the business gets by carried on
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your back. But I think there’s a better term and I think we should call
ourselves shareholders of a small business.
I own shares in Ford, this is not stock tip of course, but I own shares in
Ford and when I got the distribution check, I didn’t drive down to Ford
and say I have to earn this off at the factory and I didn’t return the
money to them. This was a reward for me taking risk, as a small
business shareholder like we all are. When, as the business grows, it is
there to reward us. It’s not there to make us work harder. In fact, our job
is to give other people opportunity to work because they don’t want to
own a business. That’s what a shareholder does it we render opinion
and direction. We don’t work for the business.

Tonya:

Yes. I think that’s so true. I think we do. I and my listeners know how I
feel about the words hustle and grind, because I hate the word hustle.
Oh my gosh. I’m like the full anti hustle. That’s my whole book, “The Joy
Of Missing Out” is about like let’s do away with busy. Let’s do away with
the word hustle because I do think that’s so synonymous with
entrepreneurship where it’s like hustle, grind, repeat, hustle, grind,
repeat. And there’s this whole glorification of just working 80-90 hours.
And it’s not about that at all. It’s really about empowering others on
your team, you know, so that they can know what to do and it’s fixing
the problems together as a team and moving together. And I know that
you and I agree that you’ve got to unplug in your business. I do it at
least twice a year where I fully unplugged my business. I know you do it
for a full month, which I was really impressed by. I think most people are
shocked that you can even do that.That it’s even possible.

Mike M:

Right. So yeah, I take it four-week vacation. Um, this is something I was
writing another book of mine called “Clockwork” and studying what
makes a business efficient. And I found the biggest determinant is the
independence from the owner for small business. And if a business can
operate and grow in absence of the owner for four consecutive weeks,
that seemed to be the proof that a business can live on to perpetuity.
And the reason is, is that for most businesses, every element happens in
four weeks cycles, monthly cycles. So you have the, you know, the billing
and the collections and the services and the products and so forth. So if
we can do that for sustained four weeks, and this is a full physical and
digital disconnect, you know, not work-cation.

Tonya:

Yeah, yeah. No, no computer by the pool. Because that is not a vacation
by the way, that is not unplugging.

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Mike M:

Yeah. And so what happens is when people commit to this, it’s a mind
shift that happens is like, Oh my gosh, am I really doing this? So it’s not
like the next morning you wake up and say, I’m out of here for four
weeks, this has to be planned. And it’s a mind shift, and you stop asking
how am I gonna get work done? And you start asking who is gonna get
this work done? Who am I going to empower and enable to do this
stuff? And it was transformative for me. So I’m going into my fourth
iteration of this, this year of taking a four-week vacation. And one of the
interesting things I didn’t know what happened was my own ego. So as
I was testing this and leaving my business, I remember one trip I went
to Australia to disconnect from the business and talk about disconnect.
Now you’re on a 12 hour difference. And I checked my email cause I
hadn’t removed myself digitally yet. I checked my email and there was
no email from my, my colleagues here for like four or five days. And all
of a sudden my, ego goes like, Oh my God, am I not needed? Am I not
important? And I started to reinsert myself in the business.
I’m embarrassed I did that in retrospect, but my own ego wanted me to
be needed and what I had to do was make this final transition and stop
calling myself the superhero for my business. I didn’t use that word, but
that’s how I saw myself. I could swoop in and fix anything. Savior. Yeah,
savior… and I moved from savior to the super visionary. What is the
outcome for my business that I want to achieve and how can I
empower my colleagues to achieve their own personal vision, visions
while achieving the vision for the business that I sat and when I
changed that kind of super visionary to be satisfying the business vision
and the colleague’s visions for their own personal lives. That’s when the
business took off and was able to run on its own.

Tonya:

It really is when you shift that mindset of, you know, delegation is, you
know, giving somebody else something else to do and you think of it as,
the delegation is development. It really does change how you look at it.
But I have to say, I’m so glad to know that you’re human. You had that
ego in there because I think it’s true because we feel like if our
businesses don’t need us, maybe, you know, what’s our – what’s our
role? What’s our part in the whole thing? So, I like that you are human.
That makes me feel a lot better about myself. Because I mean, I go
through that too, where it’s like, well, if I remove myself, what’s my
point?

Mike M:

Why do I even exist? Yeah.

© Productivity Paradox Page 6 of 13

Tonya:

But I love how you say there to be the super visionary that you’re really
looking at the longterm, you’re really creating that business. So it has a
lot more intentionality to it. And I think that’s what makes a huge
difference. And I think that’s what I love about the tool that you’ve
created here. And it is a book, but really the book is about the tool that
you’ve created, right? Because it doesn’t, you don’t have to do the
driving of that tool. Even other people in your team can do it. So I want
to dive into that a little bit because I think that most people or anyone
who’s taken Psych 101 in college, which is like 95% of people, they’re
familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, that triangle with the base
foundation of basic needs. And so you’ve taken that framework and you
created a business hierarchy of needs. Can you, can you walk my
listeners through that because I think it’s such a great tool.

Mike M:

Yeah, thank you. Absolutely. I will. So, just a quick primer, for anyone
that’s not familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy. Basically said that humans
have five levels of needs. They broke into five levels that need to be
satisfied in sequence for us to aspire to higher-level needs, meaning the

foundational needs must be satisfied before we can aspire to a higher-
level of needs. And just a couple of levels of his, the basic level is

physiological needs. You know, humans need to breathe air so we can
extract oxygen. We need, it’s kind of important food and water. And
then above that is safety needs, protection from harm, the elements,
and so forth. And the highest level self-actualization, like living life’s
purpose. And basically if at any time a base level needs not satisfied,
we’ll go to the base. So you know, you and I are talking right now, we
can consider this part of self-actualization as an intellectual
conversation. And I live in New Jersey where our winters can get pretty,
pretty cold here and this winter was mild. But if I was outside in a t-shirt
and we’re talking and all of a sudden the subzero freezing
temperatures are coming in, I will seek shelter, I will start to shutter and
I need to seek shelter quickly or clothing. But at the same time, if I’m
sitting here and someone puts like a plastic bag over my head and
wraps duct tape around my neck, which also because I’m in New Jersey,
that’s a possible concern for New Jersey. If that happens, I will tear at
the bag immediately to get oxygen because that supersedes the need
for shelter. So Maslow says if the base is not satisfied, we must service it,
to then aspire to higher levels.
Well, the business hierarchy of needs is the five levels that businesses
need, and it’s so similar to Maslow with one fundamental difference in
Maslow’s hierarchy, we are neurologically wired into ourselves. Our
senses trigger our needs. But in business, we’re not neurologically
wired. Our senses don’t trigger the need. Yet, many business owners
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say, Oh, I’m trusting my gut here and the gut can be very misdirecting.
We need empirical data information to back those assumptions. So the
five levels of needs in the business hierarchy are as follows. We first
have sales. Sales is the creation of oxygen, if you will, for the business. It’s
the creation of cash and no cash, no business. So we need sales
immediately.
Above that is profit. Profit is the creation of stability for an organization.
What I mean by this is that the organization has a runway to support
itself that have problems present itself, that it can sustain. That’s what
profitability allows. And it also fuels the lifestyle of the owners of the
business. It satisfies that need to have the financial freedom that many
business owners seek.
The level above that is Order. Order is the creation of efficiency,
organizational efficiencies, what we talked about, where it’s not a
dependency on the owner themselves, none of that hustle and grind
above that is Impact. Impact is the creation of transformation. This is
where you realize that your offering is not about the transaction and as
much as about the transformation, the way it’s shifting people’s lives
and serving them.
And the highest level, which is his fascinating to me, is Legacy. Legacy is
the day, it’s creation of permanence and is the day you realize you were
never a business owner in the first place. You’ve always been a business
steward. You’ve brought something of significance to life, if you will, the
entity itself and that business is of greater significance than you,
yourself are as the business owner. And so the goal and legacy is for the
business of life of its own. So that’s the five levels of needs. And just a
reminder, just like Maslow, if the base level needs not being satisfied, if
we have no sales coming in, legacy impact, all those things are
wonderful but not of importance. Now we must get that oxygen, the
business we must create cash and only once that’s satisfied. Do we start
addressing stability, Profit. We must have profit and no profit. You can
again not worry about impact or legacy cause you’re not going to be
sustainable enough. So you keep on going back to the base to shore up
that foundation to be adequate to support higher levels above it.

Tonya:

I love that because I think so often we hear those words impact and
legacy, which we’re all looking for. We want to make an impact. We
want to make a difference. We want to create a legacy. I want to get
into the difference between impact and legacy just a little bit, but I
want to first touch on this idea that yes, that is like the mountain top.
That’s the top of the pyramid, you need to get that base level secure.
Your business needs to make money. That’s the point of a business. You
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need money for the mission so you can get to that legacy. And I think
so often people either get fixated on either making money, making
money, making money, no legacy, or I want to make this big impact
and have this legacy, but they’re not really doing the cash infusions that
they need to be profitable at all of those other things. Right?

Mike M:

Yeah. You know, my mother used to say, Mike, you, you gotta give to get,
and I hate to call mom a liar, but mom, you’re liar, you got to get to give,
you need to get in order to give. Right? People, there’s a little shame
going around right now because of the crisis we’re experiencing of
people trying to sell, and saying, I shouldn’t be selling right now. And
I’m like, no, no, you need to sell because there’s shifting needs in the
market. So we have a responsibility to do this. And if you don’t sell, if you
simply give yourself away, you, you defeat your sustainability. So you
may be able to give for a few weeks or a few months and then you’re
exhausted and you’re done permanently. And what a shame that is a
business that set out to be of great purpose and be a great service can’t
sustain itself.
So there’s always the consideration of legacy and impact. We’re always
thinking about paying it forward, but we can only do that if we sustain
ourselves. We can only do that if we have profitability and efficiency. So
you must get those components in order to be a great contributor to
our society.

Tonya:

Yeah. Just like you have to be able to breathe before you can worry
about getting the coat on. Right, exactly. Yeah. And I think that’s so
important is because I think that for some reason, sometimes people
feel, you know, Oh sales and Oh, it makes me feel not good, but you
need money for the mission to make that impact and to make a
difference. And so can we just really quickly dive into that difference
between impact and legacy because they’re both there at the top.
Impact is right below legacy, but just to kind of differentiate those from
my list.

Mike M:

Totally. So, impact is a creation transformation. When your customers
come to you and say, or clients, when they come to you and say, you’ve,
you’ve changed my life, and there’s a measurable shift in their lives. That
is where you’re achieving that transformation. That’s where having
impact but can happen in any industry. You know, one example I used
recently is Harley Davidson, because I think it is a fascinating study. You
can buy a motorcycle anywhere and it’s a commodity if you buy a
motorcycle, but the day you buy a Harley Davidson, now you belong to
© Productivity Paradox Page 9 of 13

the family. You’re a weekend warrior, you know, you can get your tattoo
and there’s a sense of belonging. That’s a fundamental shift in the way
we perceive ourselves.So that’s one way to do it.
But impact does not have to be a sense of belonging. Um, you know, a
doctor who saves someone’s life, she’s a heart surgeon. She’s having an
impact, she’s shifting people’s lives. So impact can happen on a broad
basis or it can happen on a deep basis. So there’s this breath-in-depth
analysis. Um, the mistake people make when they try to have impact is
trying to do both at once. They try to go broad and deep and that’s very
difficult. You can serve millions or you can serve someone very deeply,
but to serve millions very deeply, is very difficult to do. So you got to
pick one path, master that and then start building the other.
The legacy level is where you actually extract yourself from the business
itself that you realize that you are as the business owner, we’re just a
cog in the wheel. You’ve served a degree of importance but no more
important than anyone else that’s really all about the business. So this is
the ultimate release of ego and the necessity to have significance. It’s
kind of like Maslow’s hierarchy. Maslow’s hierarchy, the fourth level is
esteem, where we gain respect and so forth. It’s similar to the impact
because it is about how you and your companies of service, but the
highest level of self actualization where it’s living life’s purpose is when
you realize none of this is about us as individuals. It’s about our
contribution. This is where I see business owners realizing that, that the
business itself is on a mission of significance. And if they are a
bottleneck, they’re the ones who should be removed. And I don’t mean
that in a negative way. I just mean that the business significance is
greater than anything. And the business is designed to live on into
perpetuity.

Tonya:

Whereas you cannot really, I mean you cannot, we’re human. And so
having a business that lives beyond you is really the ultimate legacy,
right?

Mike M:

It really is. It really is. And, and you, you can, you can establish a legacy of
great significance. One business I studied that I really admire, it doesn’t
need to tie back to a name, but in this case it does, is a fellow named
Dale Carnegie. He passed away a long time ago and his business, even
because it bears his name, it’s really not about him. It’s about the
impact of confidence and control and there are elements that deliver
that through public speaking stuff. But it’s just to me, it exemplifies a
way to live on, you know, you and I are both authors and so, inherent to
the work we do is legacy. So when we’re building products that have
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the ability to live on into perpetuity, but also consideration, you know,
how we write and how we do our work, is it something that can live on
for a next hundred years or whatever. So, legacy has a lot of
considerations and ultimately is extracting or removing significance in
ourselves and applying that significance to the business.

Tonya:

Yes, I love that. I mean the Dale Carnegie is a great example of that too. I
mean, his book is sitting on my shelf right now, right.

Mike M:

Classic, right. How to stop worrying, start living, when friends influence.
Yeah. Powerful stuff. Powerful stuff. It really is.

Tonya:

And so I love how with your business hierarchy of needs, each one of
those levels has a series of questions so you can start really figuring out,
okay, what do I literally, what do I fix next? Which is why it’s a great title
because we want to start with those base levels. It follows that whole
theory of constraints that a business can operate as fast as the slowest
part. So same thing as like you know a chain is only as strong as its
weakest link, but each time you shore up that base and you make that
foundation stronger, it just helps you climb higher and higher up to
getting to that point of legacy, and I feel like you do such a good job in
the book of diving into what those questions are and giving some good
examples so people can really see their own businesses and see
themselves in a lot of these different levels because we’re talking about
it at a very kind of bird’s eye view, but the book goes really granular I
think, and it has really great, very varied examples of different types of
industries, different of businesses. I think you do a really good job of
that.

Mike M:

Thanks, Tonya. Yeah, you know I found a common DNA, if you will, for all
business. How do you find common biology for all humans? Like if we
peel back the skin of humanity, figuratively speaking, that you know
our hearts in the same spot and the biological makeup is the same. Like
if I went to the doctor cause I was having cardiac arrest, she wouldn’t
say, Hey Mike, do you keep your heart in your foot? Like it’s always in the
chest, right? Exactly, exactly. Because the doctor knows exactly where
to go. Well our business makeup, when you peel back the skin of
business, there is this common DNA and so when a business needs to
be, when triage needs to be conducted or we need to fix something in
the business, it’s going to be in the same spot. So there’s, there’s 25
elements. Each level of the business target needs has five core needs
and we can go through it in a very simple sequence to pinpoint the one
© Productivity Paradox Page 11 of 13

thing that you need to work on. It’s always the most foundational need
that’s not being satisfied at the moment.

Tonya:

Yep. It’s, I’m telling you right now with everything going on with the
COVID crisis, a lot of people are feeling like they’re in that survival mode
that we talked about at the beginning of the show. They feel like they’re
in that right now. What do I fix next? What do I need to do? I need to
shore up something but I don’t know what it is. I feel like this book is a
great place to start, you know? Where do you want to start fixing next?
So can you tell my listeners where they can find you and where they
can get their hands on a copy of “Fix This Next”?

Mike M:

Absolutely. So you know, great starting point I think is to go to
fixthisnext.com because I have a free evaluation there and you can ask
or answer these 25 questions. Very similar. Yes, no, it takes less than five
minutes, but it will pinpoint what to work on within your business and
it’s free and you don’t even need to do a download. It just presents it on
the screen. Also if you want to get the book, if you go to fixthisnext.com
you’ll find links to all the different bookstores it’s at right now.

Tonya:

Excellent. Well I know they want to get their hands on this book
because I’m telling you this was really eyeopening for me and I know it
will be for my listeners as well, so Mike, thank you so much for coming
on the show today. I loved having you on. I enjoyed all of your insights
and everything you shared today.

Mike M:

This was a joy. Tonya, thanks for having me.

Tonya:

For me, I felt like this conversation with Mike really just clarified even
more about how we truly look at what we need to work on next. I love
that example that he gave of, you know, your starting point and where
you want to end up, but we have arrows going all over the page, so
really taking the time to understand where it is you want to go and
what you need to work on first to get there really can empower you as a
leader.
Now, next week we are going to be continuing this conversation by
talking about leading with vision, so really understanding where it is
you want to go. What is that point B that you’re wanting to get to so
that we can get to that impact phase so we can get to that legacy step
of that business hierarchy, because I think that’s really what we’re all
© Productivity Paradox Page 12 of 13

shooting for, especially when we think of ourselves in leadership. Now, if
you enjoyed the show and I hope you did, I would love for you to take a
quick screenshot, share your favorite takeaway. Be sure to tag me on
Instagram @tonya.i.dalton and Mike Michalowicz, who’s also on
Instagram. You can also tag us on Facebook or on Twitter.
I would love to see what your biggest takeaways were from this
episode, and I would encourage you to pick up a copy of Mike’s book.
It’s out now. All right. Until next time, have a beautiful and productive
week.