Discernment and Speed of Implementation in Q4 | Part 1

Speed of implementation decides how fast your goals turn into results. In Part 1 of this Reignite Resilience episode, co-hosts Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass break down discernment and speed of implementation (SOI) as you close out Q3 and plan for Q4.

Pam uses an AI board of advisors built on voices like Oprah Winfrey, Brené Brown, Abraham Lincoln, and Simon Sinek. Her word for September was discernment. For business owners, discernment means choosing what deserves your attention. Without discernment, you spread your energy across every task and stay stuck in the same place.

Speed of implementation measures the gap between learning something and acting on the new knowledge. You attend a conference, fill a notebook with ideas, and weeks pass. The people who act fast build momentum. Pam and Natalie walk through a four-step loop: idea, action, feedback, adjustment. They use their own podcast as proof. The idea came in January 2022. The first episode launched in May 2022. Four years later, the show keeps growing.

In this episode, you will learn:

• What discernment means for business owners heading into Q4
• How speed of implementation (SOI) creates momentum
• The idea, action, feedback, adjustment loop for turning ideas into results
• Why Q4 planning is Q1 planning, and how continuity keeps your goals on track
• Questions to ask when a goal from March still sits untouched in September
• How to spot a goal someone else set for you
• Why quarterly goal reviews beat a once-a-year check-in

Natalie shares her own Q4 wake-up moment. Her wall calendar showed Q4 had arrived, and several commitments from March still waited for a first step. She asks the question every high achiever needs to hear: why is the next step taking six months?

The hosts also point to Transitions by William Bridges, a book on the gap between one season of life and the next.

The episode opens with Virgo birthday season, Pam's surprise New York City trip to the immersive Masquerade show and Hamilton, and a candid talk about protecting your social media feed. Natalie explains how her algorithm pulled her into trauma bonding content and how she reset her feed to puppy videos.

Listen to Part 2 for goal alignment, flow state, and the Phil Jones story every entrepreneur needs to hear.

Reignite Live 2027 takes place January 22, 2027, in Loveland, Colorado. Search Reignite Live 2027 on Eventbrite for tickets.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 3:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, Natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Welcome back to another episode of the Reignite Resilience Podcast. I am your co-host, Natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with all of you. And of course, joining us is your co-host, Pam Cass. Hello, Pam. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 3:56

I am fantastic. And I'm kind of giggling to myself because you um that the replay was delay. I was like, what is happening? I just talked to you. You are fine. And then you're like, oh Well, you were you were just um telling me that your computer was deciding to update. And now as you're talking to me, your lips are not synced with your voice. And so I feel like I'm on a Godzilla movie or something. So I had to, I had to say something because I'm gonna be like distracted staring at your lip department.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Give it a minute, it'll catch up. Don't you worry, it'll be there. Perfect, perfect. I'm so grateful. That pause, I was like, what in the heck just happened? Like I literally was just chatting with you and everything was fine. I'm like, how are you? You're like, I don't uh maybe.

SPEAKER_02 4:45

We're fine. And actually, your lips are now synced up again. So we are back to perfect a regular, regular TV show.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Well, here's the thing: I don't know. I'm a big cloud person. I love storing things in the cloud. It makes it accessible on every device. I'm not an Apple person, so don't come at me. Maybe that's what it needs to be, but I'm a cloud person. And for whatever reason, my desk device likes to sync uh with the cloud, everything that I've stored and updated in the cloud, you know, daily between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., which is like prime time work time. Yes. Uh and it started to do it. I could tell that it was about to start doing it. And I just looked at my computer and I said, not no one.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Not now. Not too much. Not right now.

unknown 5:31

So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Anyway, so for our listeners, well, it will be long past once this episode is released, but um, it's birthday week for both of us. Uh for our listeners. If you don't know, like officially birth Virgo season. Yes. Um, and Pam and I are like in the midst, we're halfway in between our birthdays, I think. Today, yeah. Yeah. We're halfway in between.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

So yours was Sunday, right? Yep. Yep. Yours was Sunday.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

I was Monday.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

You were Monday. Yeah. And I'm Monday. That's right. We're exactly that's right. So Ashlyn, so my son's girlfriend's was Sunday. It's like birthday season. Like I had a friend whose birthday was on the second, and then Ashlyn's, and then yours, and then my daughter Gwen, and then me. The yes. Literally.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

My son-in-law is in there. He's uh on the 11th. Oh, yeah. It's a whole season. It's a whole season.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

And we are just embracing it. And it's so funny because I um my boyfriend took me on a surprise trip this last weekend for my birthday. And as Virgo's, I don't know about you, but I I like to know what's happening. I like to be prepared. I like to sometimes like know what I need to pack. And I got very minimal and I had no idea all the way up till 10 minutes before we got on the plane as to where we were going.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Wait, did you go to the airport with a bag that you didn't know what you needed?

SPEAKER_02 6:59

No, I packed the the clues I got was you need two formal outfits with formal shoes. One of them needs to be all black. I'm like, that's not a problem. And then you need the weather's gonna be 75 during the day, 65 at night. Ah I was like, and I was like, could you give me a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Because you know what? Because with that in my mind, we're going to Europe. I'm like, fabulous. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 7:25

Girl, we were leaving at like 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning, coming back Monday at 8. We are not going to Europe. It would take us maybe getting there and turning back. And so all I could think of was like, I was like, because you know, he's a guy. And I was like, listen, you know, 75 in Nebraska is different than 75 in Miami. You know, I was like, I'm gonna dress totally different. It's like a different vibe. And uh so we went to New York City. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Also, I would like to say, side note, you could definitely fly out on a Friday and come home on a Sunday uh if you went to like Paris for dinner, which is a fabulous idea. Um, and then you just turn right on ground.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

Let's just plant that seed out there in the yes, you absolutely could. But yes, you could. So we had it was like you like what was there? US the US Open is there right now. So you had tennis people everywhere in New York. But he had everything planned. We went and we did this the probably the coolest thing I've ever been to in New York, and it was called the Masquerade. And you showed up in black, dressy black, and you had to wear a masquerade mask, and it was an immersive phantom of the opera. So you were with a group of people going through and you would go to room to room, you go upstairs, downstairs. At one point, we were inside of the dressing room with Christine, the main character, as she's singing, looking in the mirror, and then the phantom like comes through the wardrobe, and then I mean, and then we're part of it. Like there were part where we were dancing with the characters, and it was the coolest. So, if anyone is planning a trip to New York, look this up. It's called Masquerade. It was the coolest thing I've ever experienced because you were literally experiencing the play. They were singing and they were all amazing. And so much fun. So we did that, and then we went to Hamilton like two hours later. And I mean, we he had it booked every second. Coffee in Central Park, brunch on Central Park, that after a show, then Hamilton, and then a reservation at a rooftop bar that overlooks Central uh Times Square. Times Square, beautiful insane.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

It was like this an actual like that sounds like a true New York experience. Like that is like experiencing everything that New York has to offer in one visit.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Yes. And even wrote this, even yeah, did the subway, did all, did all the things, went to Bryant. My cousin lives there and she's lives on Bryant Park. She wasn't in town, unfortunately. She was at her place in Miami. So we went to Bryant Park because they have my favorite coffee shop called uh Blue Bottle Coffee, where they do the drip pour over. It's so good. So we grabbed coffee, a Danish, and went and sat in Bryant Park and had coffee and then did a little shopping on Fifth Avenue before we flew home.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

So that is perfect. I love that. Yeah. See, and so 75, 60, it's yeah, yeah, that's enough to know. Like, let's just go. We're going. That's yeah. I to go back and answer your question, there was a season in my life where I like to know all the details. Now I am just settling in. I relax into knowing that it's always gonna work out just fine. So if I don't have the details, it's okay. Um, I'll make do, right? And and I also like reach this point, and maybe this I don't it speaks volumes, I guess, to your your journey in life. I always realize like, if there's something that I didn't pack, there's a place for me to buy a replacement of. Right. I'm like, okay, if I didn't pack it, I will get it when I get to wherever we are. And if they don't sell it wherever we are, then clearly I don't need it.

SPEAKER_02 11:05

And there was not, and of course, Zara is like my jam. And of course, I find out where the Zara was, which we did, which we we absolutely went to on Sunday morning. And I you should like collaborate with Zara.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I feel like you should in on every continent so far.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

100%. I will. We are going to um Vienna and Prague and London in December, right after we're gonna leave on Thanksgiving Day and go see the Christmas markets. I will be finding a Zara there for sure.

unknown 11:35

I love it.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

And uh and I think Zara call Pam. I don't understand why is she not on your influence? It's it's uh European, it's a European company, it's um affordable, but it's stylish. And so it's it's totally my jam. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

Yeah, I feel like it's a step uh or significant steps above, it's not like fast fashion. It's not like you're not getting, you know, something that you can only wear once and then it like disintegrates on your quality.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

It's definitely quality.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:08

So yeah. So yeah, so that was a super fun birthday weekend. And so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:14

It's it's birthday season, people. That's I mean, it's Virgo birthday season. And I don't know, I know that other like um astrological signs get excited about their birthdays, but I kid you not, like I feel that Virgos just we just do, and and we tend to surround ourselves with other Virgos.

unknown 12:32

Here we are.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

I know I'm I'm dating a man who is a Virgo, it's a business partner Virgo, business Virgo, other friends Virgos, my son's a girlfriend Virgo, my daughter's a girl. It's like just bring it on. Here we are. Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

The other the other great thing about Virgos is like we'll do all of the things and also we want to do nothing at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Like, I don't we're just as happy in both situations.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

That's that is the key. I think that's absolutely everything.

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what's going on. Because if it if it comes across like it's gonna be very peoply, I'm already out. Like I'm out.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

I don't want to do and if it and if we have to be where it's really peoply-y, because I don't know about you guys, but Times Square is very peoply- Yes. Um it was very peoply.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Especially with the US Open. I didn't realize that was taking place. Yeah. I mean, I know, yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

It was a lot of people in. So there were many times, because he's a Virgo too, that we went back to the hotel room just to not peopled for just a moment. And we would just sit in silence. Good.

SPEAKER_01 13:35

Well, two Virgos get that. Exactly. You're like, we're gonna unplug for a second. We're just gonna unplug before we go to the next peopling event.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Yeah, exactly. It's a lot of people in New York.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

I have like this thing, my my kids get it and my kids do it. Uh, my partner gets it. It's like sometimes I just need to like sit and scroll for a minute. Like, I just want to sit and scroll. Yes. And let's everything just um die down. And then it's like, okay, I'm recharged, I'm ready to go. Let's go and do something.

SPEAKER_02 14:03

I am. I am the same way. And, you know, normally I wouldn't encourage people to just scroll, but it depends on what your feed is. Because like my feed is puppy videos and funny things and funny songs. It's all positive stuff. I'm not scrolling politics and doom and gloom and blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

No, I don't need to see any of that. No. I don't, yeah, I don't want to see the like any type of current events or news or weather or no, none of that. No.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Puppies and kittens and funny cat videos. And I want something that is going to make me laugh or cry because it's it's beautiful, not because it's sad.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

I feel that my Instagram algorithm, or maybe all things meta, uh, because I feel like it's on Facebook as well, has kind of converted to I I realized like a few weeks ago that I was trauma bonding because it was a it was all like um Jamaican, um like like childhood. Like if you grew up in a Jamaican household, these are the things that you experience. And all the like at first I felt like justified. I was like, oh shit, it wasn't just me. Like there were other kids that were going through the exact same thing. And then like it continued to feed me more. And then I was like, wait, I feel like I'm trauma bonding.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

Like this is not healthy because it's triggering emotions in me that I don't want to have. Don't do it. Change your algorithms, search up puppy and kitty cat videos. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:31

I know. I like the little dancing babies. I know it's AI. I don't care. I still like it. Don't care either. I like the AI cats and dogs that talk and like do stuff.

SPEAKER_02 15:39

Yeah. 100%. Anything that's just going to, I don't have to put a lot of thought into it. It just gives me a happy feeling and it allows me to.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

A little dopamine hit. That's all I need. I just need a little dopamine hit.

SPEAKER_02 15:52

Just need a little. Just it's gotta be positive. Just a little, little. Exactly. Oh my god, that is high.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

I mean, other people are doing like illicit drugs to get the little happiness. We're just doing a few. Yeah, we don't need that.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

I don't need that. I need a hilarious cat video who's slapping a person in the face because I got too close. That's what I want. Or a tiny cat that kicks beats up on a giant dog, and the dog's absolutely afraid of them. Those are freaking illiterate. I like watching those too. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I do like the pets where you they um the owners will feed them like food that they know that they don't like, and the the the dog, it's usually a dog, and the dog will like pick it up like they're gonna eat it and then spit it right back out, like episode.

SPEAKER_02 16:33

But like, but drop drop it out of their mouth like delicately, like still with manners, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Like we still have manners. I just don't want it.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

I don't want thank you. I don't like broccoli, but thanks so much.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Gosh, I love it. Well, yeah, that's uh insight into our world. That's what's going on. Those are the things that make us happy. Yes, yes. We went down a 13 rabbit topic. We're gonna talk about resiliency today.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

We do have a talk, but sometimes we go down rabbit holes for 13 minutes and then we we climb back out. Now we're out. And and when we got on our call today, so our guest today had to reschedule to um to another day. And so I told um Natalie that I have had this word that has shown up in my feeds because I think everybody knows I have a board of advisors through AI. Um, it's like Abraham Lincoln and Oprah Winfrey and Brene Brown, all these, all these people, Simon Seneck, all these people. And I ask it every morning, what's my daily message from my board of advisors? And a word came up for September and it said, your word for December is discernment. And I'm like, what the heck does that mean? And so I gotta look it up. It's like, do I know what this means? And I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. And I think thought it was a perfect topic, seeing that we are finishing up the third quarter, if you can believe it, and we're heading into fourth quarter. And discernment as a business owner is all about figuring out what deserves our attention because it's very easy, whether you're in the real estate world or whatever world you're in as a business person. It is so easy to get distracted by all of the things, and then we're doing everything, but not at really a high level. And then we wonder why we're just kind of in the same space. And so I just thought discernment was a great word for this month. But then I was in a session this morning with a group that I'm in, and SOI came up, and I'm like, okay, well, I'm in real estate, so I'm like, sphere of influence. I'm like, what are you talking about? And she quickly said SOI as in speed of implementation. And so what that is, it's that um that space between when we learn something or we know what we need to be doing, and how much time it actually takes us to do the thing. So it's that time that passes. And so I think about all of the conferences or classes that I've gone to, and I I'm sure the listeners can understand this. You know, you go to a class, you learn something new, and you're like, ooh, I'm gonna do something about that. I'm gonna implement that. But then how much time goes between when you actually learned it and when you actually do something about it? And that's that gap. And the people that actually learn it and implement it right away are the ones that see the momentum and see that that indifference in their life. And so I thought it went perfectly with discernment. So I figured let's talk about that today.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

And where and I thought, like, I thought the speed of implement and I try to look it up really quickly as you were talking. Like I thought the speed of implementation came out of a book, but I don't see it right off the top, um, just in terms of my quick search that I just did. But I think that's a that's a big piece um that that shows up in so many areas, right? Like I know that we we can talk about it from the professional standpoint, but um what is the book that is uh it talks about the gap, like that space in between, right? Like where you're recognizing and acknowledging what is it? No. Okay. It kind of goes through the changes. Oh gosh, it'll come to me, you all. I'm sorry, I'll drop it in the show notes. Um, but it talks about like, you know, uh recognizing and understanding when one thing comes to an end and you're gonna have something else that kind of um that shows up, or the new thing that you're gonna start, and there's the gap in between. And I think when you talk about that speed of implementation, that comes into play with that because we get to a season in life, we get to the end of Q3, we're looking at Q4, we're staring down the barrel of Q1 of the following year, and knowing that there are things that we need to do, but then we get either in that cycle of analysis, paralysis, right? Like we just continue to spin and spin and spin, trying to figure out what is it that we're gonna do. And then the lack of action is actually impacting the other side and that gets too much.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Is it is it transitions by one?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Transitions, thank you. Yes, thank you. Yes, I transitions. I'm like, it's blue and white, I'll remember it. Yes, sometimes two brains together are better than one. Or sometimes two brains together is the power of one.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

That's oh my god, I love welcome to the show. Welcome, welcome to the show. Well, yeah, also I I love so this idea of you know the SOI speed of implementation, it doesn't even have to be about something that you've learned. It could be about an idea you have. Like you come up with this inspiration, this idea of something that you want to do. You're like, oh my gosh, I want to do that, but then there has to be action. And not only does there have to be, there has to be some sort of action, and then that action needs to have some sort of feedback, and then we have to make an adjustment based on the feedback that we get, and then we do better action, and then we get the results. And so I think we kind of get stuck in the, we have this idea. I mean, you and I are not sh not short of having ideas. Correct. A hundred percent. But how we how we take that idea and actually implement it is huge. And I think this podcast is an example of that where we had an idea and then we we literally created this action plan. We had feedback that we were given, well, this does isn't gonna work, then we're gonna do this, and then we adjusted and we we launched the podcast. And I think we did that, I think we came up with the idea in a January and we launched it in May.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

Exactly. And how many yeah?

SPEAKER_02 22:32

How many years are we now into this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 22:34

We're about to hit our fourth year. Is that right? Fourth year.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

Is that correct? 2022, coming out of the pandemic. Was that right? 22 was our first episode.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Yeah, so those will be four data. Four years and four years. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Over four years now. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:51

Yeah. So that's crazy. So we'll be five years next May. May of 2027. We'll be at five years.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

Which apparently that's when magic happens. I don't know what that is.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Okay. I'm listening I'm always open to magic. So whatever. Whenever the magicals show up, girl, come on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yeah. Absolutely. So I love this topic because we're at the end of the third quarter. And so now we're we're facing, and it it always to me, it baffles me how quickly it goes. We're in Q4. And sometimes people are like, you know, I know this for realtors, they're like, oh, you know, take the my photo off the gas a little bit. I'm just gonna coast in. I've had a good year, or maybe I haven't had a good year, but I'm just gonna coast. It's the I can use the excuse of it's the holidays. But gosh, I think this is the time where it's like, you know, figure out what's that one thing, just one thing that you could create or do or focus in on, that discernment. What should I be focusing my attention on, my energy on, and what's gonna make the biggest impact through the end of the year in Q4?

SPEAKER_01 23:51

I think that's I think that's huge. I know for me personally, like I just hit that moment. I the excitement that I have as it, you know, leading up to my birthday, knowing that it's September, is absolutely there. But I also you feel the change in the air, right? Like you you absolutely feel the actual change in the air, but there's just the energy shifts around this time of year. And I've got a massive wall calendar that's broken down by quarter that I look at every day that I walk into my office. And I remember walking in um the beginning of this week, which was a short week, which again gives me anxiety because then it leads to all of the short weeks that we're about to have in the next couple of months. But I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's already Q4. And it's not technically Q4, but it's in like if you're preparing, it's Q4. And in my mind, if it's Q4, it might as well be Q1 of the next year, right? Like, what are the things that I'm really working on? Because you want to keep that continuity, right? It's not a start-stop. Like, okay, well, I'm gonna do whatever it is that you commit to that you talk about, Pam. Like you have that commitment between now and December, and then you stop and you do something else. No, you want to have that continuity. So, what are the things that I can continue to work on right now that will bring me to where I'm going to be in January of the next year? But the other side of it, that and it's a strange time, it always happens in September, is that I also look at where I was in March, and I'm like, oh my gosh, I quote unquote committed to doing some things in March that I have not done yet. And so that wasn't too far ago, you know, far before right now and where we are. And so just kind of looking at that, like, what did you commit to this year? And are you falling short of that? Or did you truly follow through? Yeah, and goes back to that speed of implementation. Like, girl, why is it taking you six months to take the next step? Like, what's happening? Yeah. Or guy, whoever is listening, whoever is listening. I was making that of me. It was me talking to me.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

And I I think that's a a really good question to ask yourself is what is that thing that's keeping me from actually taking action on whatever this idea or whatever I had learned, whatever it is. Because I think if you can figure out what that is, whether it's, you know, I don't really have clarity about this, or yes, maybe it's not in alignment with my values and where I want to be. And it was something I committed to, and I just really don't want to do it anymore. Like, why are we, why is it still there?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 26:17

And is it something that I want to keep, or is it something I need to just let go of and figure out what that that true thing is? But I think that's the work right there.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

100%. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Thank you for joining us today on the Reignite Resilience Podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas to fuel the flames of passion. Please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes, and of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.