Capacity And Why It Matters

Amy Dardis 0:10

Welcome back to the Building Claire and the Brand Podcast. I'm your host, Amy Dartis. And in today's episode, we are diving into this topic of capacity, what it means, what it looks like, how we find it. And this is relevant if you're hiring and you need to find it in other people, find it through that interview process. But also, this is relevant for everyone. This is relevant for you as an individual in understanding what are your unique abilities. How do you find them so that you can hone in on them, you can develop them, and you can spend more time in the areas where you really excel and you can stop being burdened or weighed down or distracted by trying to do all of these things that are not your natural gifting. So this is all about understanding our own unique wiring, why that's important, and the impact that comes from actually embracing that and stepping into that. So we define capacity as abilities, potential, and bandwidth. And the best way for me to explain this is to kind of walk you through my own experience and my own journey of finding my own capacity, of understanding what my unique abilities were, are how I found them, and then how I started to develop them and apply them in basically all the different areas of my life. So growing up, I was a military kid. We moved around every two to three years, and I never had any obvious talents. Like I was not the smartest, I was not the most athletic, I was not the most outgoing, and I was constantly being thrown into new situations and new environments where I felt like I was continually having to start over again. And so I did not think there was anything unique or great about me. But there were things that were happening in my life that I saw patterns in, maybe not necessarily at the time, but as I got older, I started to become more and more aware of the things I was naturally drawn to. So for me, I really enjoyed writing and English in school. Those were my strongest subjects. I felt like that came the most naturally to me. I enjoyed projects where I had to write out an essay or communicate an idea. I enjoyed times when I had to actually get up and give a presentation in front of the class. I enjoy public speaking. I was drawn to that. I felt like it was a thrilling experience and it was very challenging. And I got such a high after going up there, even though I'd be so nervous and shaking and my hands would be super sweaty. I just felt like it was such a thrill to go up in front of everybody and try to articulate an idea. I would articulate ideas and passionate messages to an imaginary audience in front of a mirror by myself in my room. And I did that on multiple occasions for multiple years. There was this fire inside of me of wanting to influence and inspire other people. I was also drawn towards like drama and plays. I signed up for improv class and drama class, basically all of middle school and all of high school. I tried out for different parts and plays, and I really enjoyed that of getting on a stage and tapping into a character and being able to deliver lines in a compelling way. And I loved improv. I loved having to stand up and be put on the spot and have to think quickly and come up with an idea or a message in order to present it to an audience. Like that to me was very challenging. And I enjoyed that type of challenge of how quickly can I think? How quickly can I react? How quickly can I communicate and articulate? And then during this time, like I tried, I tried sports. Man, there wasn't ever a sport that I really excelled or thrived at. I hated having balls flying at my face. I couldn't react quickly enough. I couldn't sense like an object flying at my face fast enough. And even to this day, as an adult, I cannot handle things, objects coming at me. There is this physical reaction of pure terror, pure stress, like my body full on stresses out when something is flying at me, if it's a hockey puck or a football or a baseball or a frisbee, doesn't matter. It stresses me out. And so I recognize like, okay, this is just, this is not a gifting. This is not something that I'm gonna thrive at. So I did sports going through middle school and early into high school, but towards the end of my high school years, I started doing more things like speech and drama and debate that were more in line with my natural giftings and things I enjoyed doing versus trying to do things that it was just very obvious I was not nearly as good at as other people. The other part of always being the new kid was I was continually thrown into new social dynamics, new relationships, having to figure out, okay, how does this school work? How does this teacher work? How do these friends work? How does this country work sometimes? I had to be the new kid. I had to learn how to engage in new relationships. And a lot of that for me started with asking questions because I was actually terrified to just share my story. It just became safer and even more interesting to just ask questions of like, how does how does this work? Or what do you guys do here? How long have you known each other? How long have you lived here? And that kind of became my default for being the new kid and having to figure out new schools and new friends. And that continued with me as I started becoming an adult and going into the workplace. Now, when I graduated high school, I still had no idea what I was good at. I mean, I knew I enjoyed English, I knew I enjoyed writing, I knew I enjoyed editing. I would actually edit people's papers for them because I liked the idea of taking something that was raw and figuring out how we can make this better, how can we make this more clear? How can we articulate this idea better? Now, in that editing process, I was not good at the technical side, like the punctuation and the grammar. Is this the grammatically correct way to explain this? My interest was what idea are they trying to convey? And how can I help them make this a complete thought and flow smoother and more clearly? And a lot of times when you're dealing with high schoolers, there is a lot of bad writing. There is a lot of papers where you're reading it and you're being like, what are you trying to say here? So I started pulling out these thoughts and these ideas and figuring out how to make sense of it. So I graduated high school, had no idea what I wanted to do. I had a vague awareness of some things that I was good at, but still I was like, I don't have, I have no clear direction for my path. And so I actually ended up just continuing on in the same job that I had working as a teller at a credit union. And that even was interesting to me on the people side of it, because every person that came up to your window, or every person that came through the drive-thru, it was a different person, a different personality, a different approach to how they wanted their money handled. And I found that challenging and fascinating to be like, okay, how can I establish a rapport with this person within these few minutes and then build a relationship with them over time as they continue to come back and to notice the patterns of how often they came, what time of day did they come? Did they want to chat? Did they were they particular about how their money got deposited into certain accounts? Did they want labels with that transaction? Did they want the receipt? Did they not care about the receipt? I mean, I was observing all of these different patterns within the customers that came through. And that to me was super interesting. And so I continued to do that for a few years and eventually it kind of lost its intrigue. And I felt really bored and restless with it because I felt like I had accomplished the challenge. I felt like I had it figured out, and it was no longer thrilling. It was no longer interesting or challenging. And I wanted a challenge. I enjoyed being in gray areas. I enjoyed figuring out how can I make this better? How can I build a process around this? How can I figure something out? And that is the challenge. That is the thrill. And then once I create the process, once I create the system, then I get bored. And then I want to go and create a new system and a new process. So eventually I ended up going and full-time with my husband. He had started a web design business because he was into computers, he was into technology, he wanted to be an entrepreneur. I knew nothing about web design. I knew nothing about business. I knew nothing about the digital world at all. But I was willing to figure it out. And I started with just asking a bunch of questions, doing a bunch of research, looking at what other people were doing. And I started meeting with clients and just asking them a bunch of questions. Because to me, it was like working with the person in the drive-thru. It was figuring out, okay, what do you think? Why do you run your business this way? What are you doing in your business? How do all the components in your business work together? Tell me about your operations, tell me about your sales, your marketing, your customers. How do all of these things work together so that I can communicate this clearly and articulately for you? So I was using my skill sets of asking questions. I was using my skill sets of figuring out people. I was using my skill sets of writing and messaging and being able to articulate an idea. And once again, I saw that I was getting better and better and better and faster at that and figuring out, okay, how can I do this better? How can I do this faster? How can I use technology to instead of writing stuff out on a notebook, I'm actually typing my notes into the computer and I'm going to save myself time in the long run. And I was always thinking about how can I save myself time? How can I automate this? How can I streamline this process so that what feels like a lot of friction right now isn't going to continue to feel like friction. How can I improve this process? So I started to recognize oh, I'm a very systems-driven, process-oriented person. Not so much that I love to always be stuck in specific processes, but I love the experience of building the process and figuring out how I can make this better. And then once the process is built, then I want to go and I want to build a new process. And so again with a web design, I did that for five years full time. And I started understanding more and more about businesses and people and branding and storytelling. And it got to the point where I'm like, okay, I have this figured out. Now I want a new challenge. Now I want to go a little bit deeper. And I'm getting more drawn into this people aspect side of things. Why do these people run their business the way they do? Why do they choose to hire the people that they hire? What are the processes internally, the operational processes that support the marketing messaging that these businesses are putting out there? Because that was the big thing for me. Is like, okay, are you being authentic? Like if we say all these great things on your website, do you actually follow through? And how do you follow through? And how do you ensure that you follow through? What are you doing internally? And I saw a lot of misalignment there. I saw a lot of dysfunction there. And I really wanted to like sink my teeth into that. And so a door ended up opening with one of my clients. They were a gas and welding distributor, and they were looking for marketing help. They wanted to launch an e-commerce platform, and they wanted to get better at having processes that drove alignment within their business. So I stepped into an industry that I had no knowledge of at all. I had just zero understanding, zero background in the gas and welding and distribution world, as well as zero understanding, zero background in e-commerce. Everything I'd done up to that point was website building for marketing sites, like service-based businesses, not websites that sold products and connected with an ERP system. So I stepped into something that I had zero experience with. But instead of that being completely intimidating, I mean it definitely was intimidating, but like in my heart, I was like, I can do this, I can figure this out because I'm gonna ask all the questions that I can, I'm gonna do all the research that I can, I'm gonna understand this industry, I'm gonna understand how the processes work together, and I'm gonna figure out the people that I need to bring into this project in order to make this successful. Because I was like starting at this point to recognize that, oh, I ask a lot of questions, and my ability to ask all of those questions helps me get the information that I need. It helps me research everything that I need to understand. And it's easy for me to understand how businesses work, how industries work. Like how does, you know, how do we get the product? How does the product get to the customers? What needs to happen in order to make that happen efficiently? What are the bottlenecks that can stop that? What are the problems that we can face? How do we mitigate that? How can we use technology to make this process better, more streamlined, more efficient? And so I walked into that project, into this industry, and I used my natural abilities that now are starting to come into more clarity. I had more awareness of I can ask questions, I can build processes and systems, I can find patterns and themes, and I can communicate. Now I understand that this is what I bring to the table. So even though I have no experience in this, I understand that my abilities are going to help me develop the experience in this area that's going to make this project successful. And so that's what I did. Just day after day, I just I honed in on what it was that I was really good at and I was able to figure it out. Now, in the same sense, I also want to like compare and contrast this ability with I knew I could understand industries and how a business works and how the processes and the departments have to work together. That makes sense to my brain. But my brain is not capable of figuring everything out. So within the same vein of trying to understand this industry and this business, I was also trying to learn as much as I could about gases, low pressure, high pressure, welding products, cutting products, welding processes, MiG, TIG, pulsing, you know, the products that are used, how they're used. And I spent hours and hours and hours trying to understand all of these things. I went to the product trainings, I went and saw it in real life in customers' shops and businesses to see how this process created this thing. And man, five years of relentlessly trying to learn about these processes, and my brain still could barely register. Like that was not something that made sense to my brain about how the mechanics of machinery and welding processes work together. But at the same time, I watched new salespeople come on who would have to figure out these things. And I would see their brain start to get it. I would see their brain start to light up and to see the difference of how this filler metal affects, you know, this process or how it does this, or these are the issues that it runs into. And it was so fascinating to watch us, me and a new salesperson sit through the same product training and we would walk out with completely different levels of understanding from the same training with the same background or the same lack of experience in that process. So I was like, okay, their brain is getting this, my brain is not getting this. That makes them a much better, like, salesperson. And this would make me a terrible salesperson because I would never be able to understand the products or the processes to the level that I would need to excel at being able to understand what a customer needed in order to help improve their processes. So additionally, I was also trying to understand like the numbers side of the business. My boss loves spreadsheets and numbers, and everything he he does is through a spreadsheet. And every time he was trying to communicate something, it was a spreadsheet, and there were a bunch of numbers. And we even had this, you know, joke, and he made these t-shirts that said spreadsheets are my love language, and it was hilarious, and it was so true. But spreadsheets are not my love language. I asked him, I was like, Can you please train me? Can you please help me better understand how the numbers work? Like profit, loss, these spreadsheets that you're showing us, you show them and you explain it, but my brain is not registering, it is not comprehending. And so he took extra time to try to explain to me what it meant. And I learned a little bit, but I did not gain the understanding that somebody who's naturally numbers-wired and naturally analytical and data-driven is gonna understand. So I am data driven and analytical when it comes to looking at research that are presented to me through words, not looking at research that is presented to me through numbers. And so being able to identify like, okay, at my best, I could spend 10 hours in an Excel training course. Trying to understand a profit and loss statement. And I am not going to have the same level of understanding or comprehension as somebody else's who is numbers and data driven. So my husband is very numbers driven. He can quickly do math in his head. And I still have to work through like simple addition and subtraction and timesables just because that is not a natural wiring for my brain. So I launched this e-commerce project. I got more involved in the people and process side of the business, looking at how the employees were doing within their roles, what they were accountable for, who was really thriving and excelling, why they were thriving and excelling, why some people we hired were not. How were we going to structure our hiring process to find people who were going to thrive in the roles and within our organization? What were the things about our business that made us unique, especially from the other distributors who sold the exact same types of gases and products from the exact same manufacturers? So I started facilitating more meetings, more team building. And even though those were things I had never had a ton of experience before, it was something that I naturally came up with ideas. I'm like, okay, how could I bring a group of 20 people together? How could we spend 30 minutes to get to know each other a little bit better? What would be fun? What would be simple? And so I would research different ideas and then I would come up with the exercise and then I would facilitate it. And then I would get to see the impact that that had. And that was super exciting and thrilling for me. And I had all these opportunities to try out new ideas based on a deeper understanding of what I was good at. And it all came back to like these core abilities about myself. And then I started to see that I brought these core abilities to every area of my life. So I saw it in all of my work history, whether it was with the gas and welding company, or if it was building websites and working with clients, or it was networking, or it was serving at church, or it was growing up and going through school and sports and figuring out my life. I started to see these patterns and how these core abilities showed up and were developed in all of these different areas. And I became successful in certain areas because of these abilities. And the more I honed in on these abilities, the more I was like, man, how do I become even better at this? And about this time, I had read the book 10X is Better Than 2X. And it was around this idea of in order to 10x your business, you had to hone in on your unique ability and you had to be willing to let go of everything else. And I'd also read the book Essentialism years ago about this idea of finding what really matters. And how do we say no to all of the other things, all of the noise, all of the distractions that are keeping us from the things that really matter? Or this idea of 2080, like 20% of what you do is gonna give you 80% of your results. And every time I heard these ideas and these concepts, there was, it was like a love-hate relationship because it was like I heard it and I knew I desperately wanted that. I knew how do I hone in on what I'm really good at? Because now I'm actually starting to understand what that is. How do I now let go of everything else? And the hate was feeling trapped and it was feeling stuck, and it was feeling that friction of knowing that in order to let go, it was gonna hurt, it was gonna be uncomfortable, it was going to be, there was going to be resistance internally and externally when I tried to really hone in on the things that I wanted to be the best at. And what I started to realize is the more I tried to hone in, the more resistance and friction I experienced. And a lot of it did come externally because there are these outside forces, these outside pressures and expectations from people in your life who are like, why are you doing that? Like, why are you trying to be great at these few things instead of staying within the box that I want you to be in where I'm more comfortable? So what I ended up doing was saying, okay, these are the things I want to be really great at. How can I make more room in my life to be really great at those things? And I tried to add to my plate. But while I was adding to my plate, I was having a harder and harder time letting go of these other things that I had been holding on to because I was good at it, or there was an expectation for me to do those things. And eventually, honestly, I became overwhelmed and had a bunch of anxiety and a bunch of friction. And I had to come to this decision point. I had to come to this pivot point to say what really matters to me. What do I really want? And if I'm willing to go all in on this thing, I have to let go. And for me, that letting go is pretty dramatic. That letting go was quitting my job. That letting go was moving from one state to another. That letting go was making space in my calendar and in my time to really dive in, to really pursue these topics of communication and asking questions and understanding unique ability, not only in myself, but in everybody, of understanding how do I streamline a process. And in this case, it ended up being how do I streamline the hiring process so that I can help businesses better understand these ideas. I can help them cut out the noise, cut out the distractions, hone in on what really makes them unique in their business, help them hone in on what really makes people unique in their roles and hire accordingly, build a process that verified it. And letting go of all the noise and the distraction, that was painful. That was uncomfortable. But I knew if I didn't do it, I was always gonna have this regret and I was always going to be living in this constant friction. But once I let go, I was able to do deeper, better work. I was able to output 10 times more, to have 10 times the impact, to experience 10 times the fruit and the fulfillment from finally really honing in on what is the highest value work that I can do? What is the most valuable way that I can spend my time? How can I let go of these other things and really be the best, most impactful version of myself? Because from that, I have the deepest sense of conviction, I have the deepest sense of purpose, of calling, and of impact. And that right there ended up being the thing that I was like, I want this in my life more than anything. And I want everybody else to experience that as well because anything less, and we are missing out on our God-given potential and our God-ordained calling. And that to me, I cannot, I cannot live my life and not know that I didn't try everything that I could to put that out there to help people rethink how they think about their wiring, their gifting, their calling, their purpose, their work. And it starts with understanding ourselves as people, our natural wiring, and it does play into the workplace. It does play into how we choose to spend our time, who we choose to spend our time with. And there is 10x impact. There is multiplication that happens because God wired us that way. He made us to walk that path. But you know what? We have to let go of everything else. We have to let go of the idols, we have to let go of the distractions, we have to let go of the expectations from other people in order to walk that path. And it's going to be uncomfortable at first. There's going to be a lot of resistance at first, but if we push through, it is so worth it. And a whole different path opens up. And that's what changes us. That's what changes the people around us. And that's what changes businesses and the impact that we are called to have. So bringing this back full circle, and if I were to sum up like what this process and this journey has looked like, it was first being completely unaware. I was just living my life. But then it was coming into a level of awareness, of starting to see that there were some patterns, there were some consistencies in my life throughout all different contexts. Then it was starting to really recognize, okay, this is a gift. I'm not just aware that I have some gifting, but this is the gift. And then that recognition moved me into developing it. So how can I be more intentional about developing this gifting? So if I'm good at communication, how can I develop that? If I'm good at asking questions, how can I develop that? If I'm good at building processes and systems, how can I develop that? And then it was coming into this like mastery phase, this willingness to, okay, I've developed these things. I'm starting to see the fruit from that. And now I really have to commit. Now I really have to say, all right, this is the 20% of what I do. This is so ingrained in me. This is so inherent in my wiring. This is a part of my DNA. It's a part of how God created me. How do I fully embrace that? And fully embracing it means letting go of the things that keep me from it and hold me back. So this process of finding capacity in ourselves and in other people, it looks the same. When I go through an interview process, when I'm teaching businesses how to hire better, we're basically looking for this evidence of these abilities. And this evidence is found in these real life examples, in the patterns over different contexts, of seeing it consistently show up and of understanding this wiring, this belief, the thoughts that drive that behavior so that we know it truly is ingrained in them. And it's not something that they're doing just because the role requires it. They're doing it because that is who they are at their core. Everything we do comes back to story. Everything we do comes back to what we have lived through, what we have experienced, what we believe, and how we show up in different areas of our life. And we pull out the patterns, we pull out the themes, and we start to hone in. So it helps tremendously when a candidate has an awareness of their own gifting, but that's not always the case. Sometimes we have to be able to do that for them. Sometimes we have to know how do we look at their story, how do we find the patterns and the abilities so that we can determine are they going to thrive in our company? Are they going to excel in this role? And regardless of whether they have experience doing this work or not, that doesn't matter. You can see that in my own story. I had no experience running a business. I had no experience building websites. I had no experience doing sales or marketing. I had no experience launching an e-commerce platform. I had no experience understanding the gas and welding industry, but I had the natural abilities that I needed to succeed in all of those areas. That's all we need to know about a person when they walk through the doors. Do you have the natural ability? Do you have the potential to grow and excel within this the more you develop, the more you find mastery within your gifting? And do you have the bandwidth, the space, the time, the margin to do that development, to do that deep work, to become that master? And when we can help people find this alignment with their wiring and their work, that to me is the most impactful thing that we are called to do as leaders when we are hiring and leading and developing our people. So as always, if you want help with your hiring process, we have free resources. You can just check them out at ClearAuthenticbrands.com slash resources. That is all for this episode. I will see you next time.