When I first started my business, I was working more than 60 hours a week. I was building my website, choosing my logo, picking branding colors, getting booked on podcasts, checking things off my to-do list left and right.

There was just one problem: I wasn't making any money. And I couldn't figure out why.

When I finally hired a business coach and we looked at what I was actually spending my time on, the problem was painfully obvious. I didn't have a real offer. I wasn't doing any sales activities. I was doing a fantastic job marketing a business that had nothing clearly defined to sell.

You can be incredibly consistent at doing the wrong things.

That story fundamentally changed how I think about productivity — and it's exactly what this episode is about. Are you busy? Or are you actually making progress?

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why being busy and making progress are not the same thing — and how to tell the difference
• Four patterns that create the illusion of progress — including the sneakiest one that most people miss
• Why your gut is the worst measurement tool you have — and what to use instead
• Four practical tools to track whether your effort is actually getting you somewhere
• How I'm using my own recap ritual right now to course-correct my health and wellness priorities
  
  

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — The story that changed how I think about productivity

02:00 — Busy vs. making progress: what's the actual difference?

04:00 — Pattern 1: Measuring activity instead of outcomes

06:00 — Pattern 2: Reacting instead of directing

07:30 — Pattern 3: Confusing motion with momentum

09:00 — Pattern 4: No baseline to compare against

10:00 — Tool 1: The recap ritual

11:00 — Tool 2: Habit trackers

12:30 — Tool 3: KPI and performance trackers

13:00 — Tool 4: Daily team progress updates

14:30 — Bringing it all together

THE NEXT STEP OPTIONS:

✔️ Take the Overwhelm Culprit Quiz: www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculprit

✔️ Order my book: http://www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculpritbook

✔️ Connect with Me on Social:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/iamcorrielo
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/iamcorrielo
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/iamcorrielo
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcorrielo
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/iamcorrielo
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamcorrielo
Substack: https://iamcorrielo.substack.com/

✔️ Visit my Website: www.corrielo.com

✔️ Book me to Speak: www.corrielo.com/speaking

✔️ Enroll in Coaching: www.corrielo.com/coaching

SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE:

Don't miss future episodes where we dive deeper into topics like leadership, personal growth, and turning challenges into opportunities. Hit that subscribe button and join the journey to confident leadership!

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✔️ Subscribe on YouTube Podcasts: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2iLLfzM7QKFoP2JFPE41hUl1SVHcH3IF&si=Fk3ZsBem6xBLRF1R

What's the priority on your team right now? And if your answer is some version of "well, there are a few" — I want you to actually think about how many there are.

Because there's a massive difference between having multiple important things happening at the same time and creating a culture where everything is treated like the most important thing all the time.

If everything on your team feels urgent, your people don't have a time management problem. They have a clarity problem. And in most cases, it's not something they created — it's something leadership built without realizing it.

In this episode I'm walking you through four of the most common ways leaders accidentally create cultures of urgency — and a simple four-question framework to run before handing your team anything else labeled "urgent."

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why "my team needs to get better at prioritizing" is usually the wrong diagnosis — and what the right question actually is
• Four ways leaders unintentionally build a culture of urgency — and what to do differently
• Why adding a priority without deprioritizing something else isn't prioritization — it's accumulation
• The four-question framework to run before you assign anything as urgent
• What to do when you're the one being buried by shifting priorities from above — including how to make your leaders prioritize for you

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — If everything feels urgent, it's a clarity problem — not a time management problem

03:00 — Four ways leaders accidentally create a culture of urgency

09:00 — The four questions to run before assigning anything as urgent

10:30 — What to do when the urgency is coming from above

13:00 — Ways to take this work deeper

NEXT STEP OPTIONS:

✔️ Take the Overwhelm Culprit Quiz: www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculprit

✔️ Order my book: http://www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculpritbook

✔️ Connect with Me on Social:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/iamcorrielo
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/iamcorrielo
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/iamcorrielo
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcorrielo
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/iamcorrielo
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamcorrielo
Substack: https://iamcorrielo.substack.com/

✔️ Visit my Website: www.corrielo.com

✔️ Book me to Speak: www.corrielo.com/speaking

✔️ Enroll in Coaching: www.corrielo.com/coaching

SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE:

Don't miss future episodes where we dive deeper into topics like leadership, personal growth, and turning challenges into opportunities. Hit that subscribe button and join the journey to confident leadership!

✔️ Subscribe to the Podcast: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

✔️ Subscribe on YouTube Podcasts: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2iLLfzM7QKFoP2JFPE41hUl1SVHcH3IF&si=Fk3ZsBem6xBLRF1R

What if your team isn't overwhelmed because they can't handle the workload? What if they're overwhelmed because of the way your culture expects them to handle it?

When leaders notice everyone seems overwhelmed, the instinct is to look for the obvious answer — too much work, not enough staff, poor time management. And sometimes that's exactly the problem. But what if it isn't? What if it's that everything is urgent, no one knows who owns what, people are afraid to make a decision without approval, and every new process disappears three weeks later?

The real question isn't: are they overwhelmed? It's: have you built a culture that keeps recreating it?

In this first live episode of The Next Step, I'm applying my Five Overwhelm Culprits™ framework not to individuals — but to entire teams and organizations. Because when the same patterns keep showing up across multiple people, the question to ask isn't what's wrong with them. It's what are they responding to?

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE:

• Why team overwhelm is often a culture problem — not a workload or capacity problem
• How the Five Overwhelm Culprits™ show up across an entire team — and what each one signals about your culture
• Why you can't ask people to prioritize better if the organization won't — and other hard truths about leadership
• The difference between having people available to help and creating a culture where people actually feel safe asking for it
• The one diagnostic shift every leader needs to make when their whole team seems overwhelmed at once

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — What if your culture is creating the overwhelm?

02:00 — The Five Overwhelm Culprits™ applied to teams

04:00 — Culprit 1: Lack of Clarity

05:30 — Culprit 2: Lack of Confidence

06:30 — Culprit 3: Lack of Community

07:30 — Culprit 4: Lack of Conditioning

09:00 — Culprit 5: Lack of Consistency

10:30 — The diagnostic shift: what is your team responding to?

11:00 — Ways to go deeper

NEXT STEP OPTIONS:

✔️ Take the Overwhelm Culprit Quiz: www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculprit

✔️ Order my book: http://www.corrielo.com/overwhelmculpritbook

✔️ Connect with Me on Social:

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/iamcorrielo
Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/iamcorrielo
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/iamcorrielo
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/iamcorrielo
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/iamcorrielo
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamcorrielo
Substack: https://iamcorrielo.substack.com/

✔️ Visit my Website: www.corrielo.com

✔️ Book me to Speak: www.corrielo.com/speaking

✔️ Enroll in Coaching: www.corrielo.com/coaching

SUBSCRIBE FOR MORE:

Don't miss future episodes where we dive deeper into topics like leadership, personal growth, and turning challenges into opportunities. Hit that subscribe button and join the journey to confident leadership!

✔️ Subscribe to the Podcast: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

✔️ Subscribe on YouTube Podcasts: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2iLLfzM7QKFoP2JFPE41hUl1SVHcH3IF&si=Fk3ZsBem6xBLRF1R