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29 min read

How 15 Minutes a Day Can Transform Your Life with Author, Sam Bennett

What would happen if you spent just 15 minutes each day doing something that truly matters to you?

In this episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour, Becca chats with Sam Bennett, author of The 15-Minute Method. Sam shares her simple yet powerful approach to beating overwhelm and making real progress by dedicating just 15 minutes a day to what matters most.

Becca and Sam explore the power of small, consistent actions and how they can transform your life, whether chasing a big dream or trying to carve out more time for yourself.

They dive into the struggles of high achievers and creatives alike, offering insights on breaking free from burnout and self-sabotage while finding peace and alignment in daily life.

This episode will leave you feeling inspired to pause, reflect, and make time for yourself—one small step at a time.

What is the 15-Minute Method?

Sam explains her simple yet powerful approach to spending 15 minutes each day on something that matters to you. Whether it's a passion project, self-care, or reconnecting with a dream, the magic lies in the consistency of showing up for yourself.

Don't Refuse the Download

When inspiration strikes, take action. Sam encourages listeners to embrace their ideas, no matter how daunting, and trust that consistent effort will bring clarity and progress.

Overcoming Burnout and Prioritizing Yourself

Becca and Sam open up about their own experiences with burnout and how learning to prioritize themselves has transformed their lives. They discuss the importance of slowing down and making time for personal healing and fulfillment.

The Power of 15 Minutes for High Achievers and Dreamers

Whether you’re an executive struggling to find time for your dreams or a creative person who feels stuck, Sam’s 15-minute method can help you make consistent progress toward your goals without feeling overwhelmed.

Permitting Yourself to Pause

Becca reflects on how the 15-minute method has changed her own life, balancing a successful career with her passion for writing and speaking. She shares how intentional pauses and small steps have led to greater clarity, creativity, and joy.

Key Moments You Won't Want to Miss:

The Power of 15 Minutes – Sam shows how just 15 minutes a day can create lasting change. Small, consistent actions help you overcome procrastination, reach personal goals, and find more balance and fulfillment in your life.
Embrace Inspiration Without Overwhelming – Learn how to act on big ideas without feeling overwhelmed. Sam shares how small steps can transform even daunting tasks into achievable goals, inspiring you to embrace your creativity and act.
The Importance of Pausing – Sam and Becca discuss how intentional pauses and reflection can spark creativity, reduce stress, and lead to personal breakthroughs, helping you achieve more balance and clarity in life.
Overcoming Burnout – They share their personal experiences with burnout and how consistent self-care helped them reclaim their energy and avoid burnout while staying productive and fulfilled.
Letting Go of Control – Sam emphasizes the value of letting go of control. By releasing rigidity, you create space for creativity, unexpected opportunities, and greater personal growth.

Empowering Thoughts to Take With You:

“I want you and everybody else on the planet to spend 15 minutes every single day on something that matters to you.” — Sam Bennett
“Don't refuse the download.” — Sam Bennett
“There might be some things that are already broken that you could just break all the way.” — Sam Bennett
“I wish I had spent more of my life focused on what mattered to me and less on trying to make everybody else happy.” — Sam Bennett
"Let go of control, and you’ll find that sometimes things that need to happen just work themselves out." — Sam Bennett
"When you’re forced to let go of control, you realize you should have been doing it the whole time." — Becca Powers
“Why not live in your sparkle or your joy?” — Becca Powers
“I almost lost it all, but rebuilding myself and taking small, intentional steps every day brought me back stronger.” — Becca Powers

About Sam

Sam Bennett is the author of Get It Done, Start Right Where You Are, and most recently, The 15-Minute Method: The Surprisingly Simple Art of Getting It Done.

A writer, speaker, actor, and creativity/productivity specialist, she is the founder of TheRealSamBennett.com, a company committed to helping overwhelmed creatives and frustrated overachievers get unstuck.

Sam is also a popular course instructor on LinkedIn Learning with over a million class participants worldwide and she lives in Connecticut.

We Want to Hear From You!

How have you transformed your life by dedicating just 15 minutes daily to something that truly matters to you?

We’d love to hear how you’ve embraced small, consistent actions to break free from overwhelm, unlock your creativity, and prioritize your well-being.

Connect with us on social media or leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Share your personal stories of growth, empowerment, and the changes you’ve made by taking small steps toward your goals.

Your journey can inspire others to do the same!

Welcome to another episode of The EmPOWERed Half Hour! This week, I’m bringing you someone I’m so thrilled to have a conversation with. As I was reading her profile, so much resonated with me. I won't reveal too much yet because we’ll dive into it during the episode, but I’d love to welcome Sam Bennett to the show.

She is the author of The 15-Minute Method. Sam, welcome to the show!

Thank you for having me, Becca. Hi, everybody!

Let’s get right into it because I’ve been so eager to talk to you. I love things that are clear and short, and maybe not always easy because you have to put in the work, but simple in concept if you just commit. That’s exactly where The 15-Minute Method comes in.

So, tell us a bit about The 15-Minute Method so listeners can understand what it’s all about. And once we cover that, I’d love to hear the backstory of how you came up with it.

The Power of 15 Minutes a Day

The 15-minute method is subversively simple. Here's the whole idea: I want you, and everybody else on the planet, to spend 15 minutes a day, every single day, on something that matters to you. That's the whole plan. I don't care if it matters to anybody else.

I don't care if anyone knows. And I don't care what it is—whether it's writing, stretching, sitting in the garden with the sun on your face, reaching out to a friend, or keeping your resume up to date so you can go after that big job.

I don't know what it is—you tell me. But what I notice is that we spend all day, every day, getting everything done for everybody else. And that thing you know would make a difference for you is still sitting in a drawer. It doesn't even make it onto the list.

So how did you realize that the 15-minute method was something you could bring forward for people?

Embracing the Power of Small Steps

I've been beating this drum for about 15 minutes for a long time. It's in the title of my first book from 10 years ago, Get It Done: From Procrastination to Creative Genius in 15 Minutes a Day, if anyone's curious.

I work with a lot of overthinkers, highly sensitive people, highly creative people, and neuro-spicy people of all kinds. They often have these fantastic, big, glorious ideas—redoing the whole house, becoming an international media superstar, or starting an international grassroots movement with t-shirts. They have these beautiful visions, but then they're immediately overwhelmed, like, How would I even do that? How would I start?

As my reach has grown, I've started teaching on LinkedIn Learning and hearing from more people who wouldn't necessarily identify as multi-anything, but they've got the same thing. Every project has its thing, like But what if it's not perfect? How do I even start? They think I don't know anything about that.

But you've had the idea. You've had the download.

Can you repeat that for the listeners? This is important because we all get these. Say it again.

Don't refuse the download. And what I mean by that, if you're wondering, is when you get those ideas that are like boom, they're delivered like a package at the door. Here's the whole thing.

And sometimes they're weird, like, Okay, I don't know what just happened, but I now have an idea for a three-volume novel set in ancient Greece. And you're thinking, I don't know anything about ancient Greece, I don't know how to write a novel. But it doesn't matter. That idea picked you, and it’s your job to get it out into the world.

I knew I was going to enjoy talking to you—this is all my kind of stuff. I want to just pause for a second and go a little deeper into this for the listeners because I know on The EmPOWERed Half Hour we have a lot of dreamers, but we also have a lot of high achievers, and sometimes those complement each other, and sometimes they conflict.

A lot of high achievers have big dreams, but they get stuck in the lane they’re in and just keep going without pausing. And then, some of the listeners are big dreamers, the creatives, and they’re going for it but haven’t learned how to monetize their dreams yet, so they pull back. And I know you know what I’m talking about.

But I think there’s something really powerful about dedicating just 15 minutes a day, no matter what bucket you fall into.

So, what advice would you have? Maybe share more about what you've experienced using the 15-minute method and teaching it to others. How could it help someone?

Maximizing Growth with Just 15 Minutes

I think even logically we can understand that if I practiced guitar every day for 15 minutes, it wouldn’t be long before I became a better guitar player. If I reached out to an old colleague once a day, it wouldn’t be long before I strengthened those connections and improved my network.

If I spent 15 minutes a day in prayer or meditation—or as any doctor or fitness instructor would tell me, 15 minutes a day of stretching, dancing, running, playing—whatever it is, it’s fine, awesome, and in some ways, better than two hours on a treadmill.

So it makes sense to our logical brain. What doesn’t make sense, and what you don’t see until you do it, is the impact. We have a thing I offer called the Daily Practicum. It’s a subscription. People buy it, and every weekday at noon Eastern, we get on Zoom. Say hello, start the timer for 15 minutes.

Everybody puts their heads down or turns off their cameras. Fifteen minutes later, the timer goes off. And they look up at me with this post-orgasmic glow, like, “Oh my gosh, you won’t believe what I just did. I had this giant pile of paper on my desk, and I reduced it by this much.

I plotted out the back garden for next spring. I called that person I’d been putting off for six weeks. I dreaded it, and I just did it. And now it’s done!” Whatever it is, the elation, the sense of pride, that little spillover of “hair toss, that’s right, I did it. I did it.”

Knowing that there’s a community around you helps—especially for those with ADD, ADHD, and neuro-spicy folks—what they call body doubling or parallel play can be super helpful. Some people subscribe to the practicum and show up every day; some show up occasionally; some never show up at all.

But just having it on their calendar reminds them to do it every day, whether or not they join the group. It’s super simple, super effective, and has a cumulative effect over time. Jaw-dropping.

Yeah, it’s funny that you say that because one of the things I mentioned to you is that I work full-time as a senior salesperson at Cisco. So that’s Cisco Systems, and I’m also a published author, a keynote speaker—I do all these things. And everyone’s like, “Oh my God, how do you do it without burning yourself out?”

There are many things I could say, but one of the main things is I do it an hour a day. Sometimes it’s only 15 minutes, but I’ve been doing this for four years. And that cumulative effect? That’s how I’m an author. That’s how I just got picked up by a publisher recently. And people ask, “How did you do it?” I say, “I don’t know, but I do know it was intentional.”

I sat down every day and worked on my craft. Some days sucked, and I didn’t get much done, and other days were magical, where breakthroughs happened. I had that consciousness of, “I have a new understanding of things,” and then the next step revealed itself.

You’ve said so many important things here. How do you stay married? Fifteen minutes at a time. How do you parent a successful child? Fifteen minutes at a time. We’re not looking for perfection in every moment; we’re just looking for the general trend to be forward. Writing a book is a great example. If you sit 15 minutes a day, you can write about 250 words. In 400 days, that’s 50,000 words—that’s a book. Bingo.

But now I have to ask you because you’ve got a “real” job, which I’ve never had. I’ve always been an actor and entrepreneur and had a million different things going on at once. I’ve never had one of those jobs where they pay you the same thing every two weeks. But I have this fantasy, this dream of a revolution. I’d love businesses to start offering people 15 minutes a day.

Here’s why: I keep reading this statistic that 77% of employees are disengaged. Seventy-seven percent! Can you imagine if three-quarters of your family was disengaged? If three-quarters of your friends were disengaged? That’s a lot. And that seems like a very expensive problem for businesses.

I know that when I had gigs, I often felt like I was leaving half of myself in the car like I wasn’t able to show up as my full self. But if my business said, “Hey, okay. Every day between 4:15 and 4:30, that’s your 15 minutes,” or “Every day between 9:45 and 10:00, no meetings, no emails, no dentist appointments. This is not about your to-do list.

This is about who you are as a person and what you want to be doing for you.” It’s 15 minutes. I think we can afford it. Go knock yourself out. And here’s the stealth effect—not only would it be a lovely gesture, but it would also have a huge impact on the people doing it.

As I said, people are amazed at the results of doing something for just 15 minutes a day—especially the things they can’t get to at home or the office. You carve out a little pocket of time, and suddenly, it gets done. Studies back me up on this—if you show up at a meeting and ask people to introduce themselves not just with their role but with something personal, it changes everything.

“Hi, I’m Sam from sales, and my grandmother moved to this country from Sweden when she was 17, I have three cats.” I will be more effective in that meeting. I will have better ideas. I’ll be a more innovative problem-solver. I’ll feel more connected to myself and more present.

Then there’s Debbie down at the end of the table, whom I’ve never really cared for, but she says, “Hi, I’m Debbie, blah blah blah, and I do needlepoint.” And suddenly, I’m like, “I love needlepoint! I do needlepoint! Show me your pattern!” And now we’re needlepoint buddies. And what’s that? That’s engagement.

You can browbeat people with money all you want, and you’ll get a certain result, but people will do much more for each other.

So yeah, everyone, go do it. Even if you start small—just you and two friends—try it out. Let me know how it goes.

It’s so true. And many corporations are becoming more mindful and willing to do things like this. I think the 15-minute method is the sweet spot for corporations because it’s only 15 minutes. In terms of productivity and everything that needs to happen, 15 minutes is doable.

Exactly. There won’t be any terrible consequences from letting people spend 15 minutes designing their coloring book or learning how to speak Korean.

And that’s one of the reasons I was so excited to talk to you. I’m on a similar mission. In my career, I hit a moment where I went through extreme burnout and became ill. I had to rebuild everything—myself, my family, my finances. I almost lost it all. I was part of that 77%, and now I’m part of the 23%. So I’m here to say, “Hey, guys, there’s a different way to go about this. A way that nourishes your soul, yourself, your family, and your future.” The pauses I take throughout the day—those 15-minute breaks—have been transformative. My mornings are my connection time to myself, to the source, or to whatever I need to focus on. I’m living proof of what you teach.

Yeah, absolutely. I’ve had long-haul COVID for the last two and a half years.

Oh wow, I’ve met other people who’ve gone through that.

Yes, shout out to my brothers and sisters dealing with chronic illness. And this book is proof of its concept because there were plenty of days when I couldn’t even get out of bed. Rolling over seemed ambitious. Fifteen minutes was all I had to give.

And I had to be willing to say to myself, as a chronic overachiever, “Okay, 15 minutes is all you can do, and that’s enough.” I also want to add that staring at a blank piece of paper for 15 minutes isn’t the worst thing that could happen. When was the last time you sat still for 15 minutes without reaching for your phone?

It’s a great question for the audience—when was the last time you spent 15 minutes without your phone?

15 Minutes Without Your Phone?

Just being there. It's summertime now, and I keep thinking about those long road trips when I was a kid, spending hours just staring out the window. Now, we have entertainment.

Kids have entertainment now, but I think there's something about long hours of boredom that's good for a person, especially for the developing brain. I don't know. I don't have children, so consequently, I'm a parenting expert. You can ask me anything, and I know.

You're like, "I got this."

No, but it's funny. My kids are in college now. During their early years, electronics weren’t around. Then, in their later years, they were. And now, as young adults, they say they want to raise their kids with minimal electronics at least until age seven or eight, so they learn how to play outside, interact with nature, and entertain themselves.

My grandmother used to say, "I'm bored," and she’d respond, "Entertain yourself."

Yeah, figure something out.

I’d love to ask you another question: What’s a current “aha” moment or lesson that’s up for you right now?

When Things Fall Apart, It’s Not Always Bad

So, I'm in book launch mode, right? Which, like all entrepreneurial activities, and all of life, it's just this endless list of things that should have been done this morning, or three days ago, or even three years ago. It's never-ending. And on top of that, I still have long-haul COVID, so my energy is unpredictable.

For me, the lesson is just surfing the moment. What can I do right now? How can I stay nourished at this moment? Can I get a little protein? A snack? Some water? What can I do to nourish my body? But also, how can I be real with myself that my old strategy of, "I'll just muscle through it," doesn't work anymore?

That strategy worked until it didn’t. So, a new strategy. And I've been—what’s the word beyond shocked? Gobsmacked. Yeah, gobsmacked by how often I find myself saying, "Okay, clearly I’m done for the day." My list isn’t done, and the stuff that needs to get done isn’t done, but you know what? The Secret's out—I have to tap out. So, I lie down, or do something else, and I’m amazed at how often things just work themselves out.

I want to double-click on that for a second because I have a lot of A-types that listen to this show. Control is a big thing. I’m an A-type too, but when you get sick, you just can’t do it anymore. You can’t do it.

You’re forced to let go of control, to conserve your energy for what matters most. So, you let go because you have to. And then you realize, Crap, I should have been doing this the whole time.

Can you imagine? And then, the other people who have stepped up to help—help I never thought was available—became available. What I thought was so important? Turns out, if they don’t get done, no one cares. No big deal. Really? I spent 30 years torturing myself over that!

I’ve realized so much about myself. So, listeners, know that very rarely do things fall apart when you let go. Although it sounds counterintuitive, I understand.

And I might even reframe the story that things falling apart isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Yes! Go on about that—share more because I love it.

I think we spend a lot of time and energy trying to keep things glued together. We try to keep the facade. You know, "How are you?" "Fine."

We try to keep the house together, the appearance together. But sometimes, you just need to say, "Forget it. It’s fine. The house is messy, and that’s okay." Some people live in messy houses for a while, and it’s okay.

I didn’t choose the perfect birthday present for my best friend. She’s my best friend—she’s over it. It’s fine, she doesn’t care.

And even with things I used to stress over, like, I run these international leadership retreats for women, and last year we were in Crete, which was amazing—a lifelong dream for me. I was one of those super nerdy kids really into Greek myths, so when I got to Greece, I just wept.

It was beautiful. On the way back, I missed my flight from Heraklion to Munich. I have never missed a flight in my life. I was there, at the gate, and I just somehow missed it. To this minute, I still don’t know how it happened.

But you know what? I ended up rebooked on a much better flight. There were like 10 other things that happened that were so much better because I missed that flight. And it all happened because I screwed up in a way I never screw up. See what's broken for it.

I’m not saying go deliberately screw up your life. But I am saying there might be some things that are already broken that you could just go ahead and break all the way.

I love that because when I hit my most powerless moment—when you’re sick and need help—life changes. And what falls away is everything that didn’t serve you.

And when I gained my strength back, the world was my oyster—really! Not to sound cheesy, but hey, guess what? Now, all these new doors are available to me. I have a choice. I get to build the life I love now. Wow, what a blessing this thing was that I thought destroyed me—it rebuilt me.

Exactly. And we hear it again and again from studies with hospice patients. The number one regret they express is, "I wish I had spent more of my life focused on what mattered to me and less on trying to make everybody else happy."

We know we don’t have the power to make others happy. I wish we did. That would be amazing. But we don’t. Do you want to model for your children that the ideal parent sacrifices everything all the time and is constantly exhausted and stressed out? No, that’s not the parent you want to be.

And some of this, honestly, just comes with age. There are things I lost my mind over in my twenties and thirties that now I’m just like, "Oh, please." I used to worry so much about, "Do I look okay?" And now I think, "Sam, they’re not tuning in for your beauty tips. You’re fine."

That’s funny! Let’s take this opportunity to pivot to another question within all of this. How could 15 minutes a day empower someone’s life? We’ve touched on it, but I want to ask directly.

Small Steps, Big Impact

I want you to have the experience of 15 minutes a day where no one else’s agenda matters, where you’re not necessarily judging yourself or your output. I’m very happy with 15 minutes a day where there’s no tangible outcome.

I know people sometimes want to use that time to write a book or clear out the garage. And I can circle back to the garage thing because I know people are like, “You can’t clear out the garage in 15 minutes.”

Yes, you can. People say, "Oh, I’ve got a million ideas." Great. Write them all down, pick one, and do it. Then pick another one tomorrow, or keep working on the same one. It hopscotch's right over your perfectionism. It’s 15 minutes—how perfect is it going to be? And you’re going to do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.

“Oh, but Sam, I only did it three times last week.” Fantastic! That’s three more times than you did in the last six months, so be happy. Now, about this garage thing—people say, "Oh, I need two free weekends in a row." Really? Where on your calendar is that? Yeah, because I don’t have two free weekends in a row, and I don’t think you do either. And if you did, I doubt you’d want to spend them cleaning out the garage.

However, you can take a mug of tea, a cup of coffee, or a beer out to the garage, sit there, and contemplate it for 15 minutes. Just be there with it. Don’t do anything—just be there. Maybe the next day you do that again. And in minute seven, you might think, “Wait a minute, those 12 boxes are my brother’s!” Now you call him up: “Jeffrey, come get your boxes,” and suddenly half the garage is cleared out, and you didn’t even do anything.

I see this over and over. When you just let yourself be with the issue, be with the problem, be with the unknowing, be with the mystery—and see what happens.

I love that. Be with the unknown, be with the mystery. It’s beautiful. Dang, that was cool. So, let me ask you one more question: Why are you passionate about this job?

Awakening Your True Radiance

Because we're going to die. Not to put too fine a point on it.

No, but that’s it. That's deep. I've been fortunate to know many truly brilliant people. Many of them worked hard to make sure they expressed their brilliance, their talents, and their skills while they were here. So we have their books to remember them by.

We have their art, their movies, their plays, their quilts, their recipes—all the things they made as expressions of their heart, their wisdom, and their well-being, which they’ve left for us.

But I have friends who didn’t get their workout. And that breaks my heart.

You hit a really sensitive spot with me for a similar reason, and that’s really behind the scenes of my work too. Just to share and to reinforce what you’re saying for the listeners. So, the book I have coming out in 90 days is called A Return to Radiance.

It’s called A Return to Radiance. It bubbles inside you, sparkles inside you, and you don’t have to monetize it. But please go back to it because I was born into a kind of unique situation. My parents were full-time musicians when I was born. So I grew up seeing the radiance. I grew up with laughter, dancing, bongos, guitars, pianos—just joy.

And then, as I got older, it became traumatizing in the sense that my parents got committed to their careers. They stopped doing what lit them up. And my mom died at 46.

Oh my goodness.

And my dad died at 62. So I saw that, at their deaths, they weren’t shining in their radiance. They were dim. And I can get emotional thinking about it, but I’m like, God if I could just help people come back to their radiance. Like you’re saying—we're going to die. And not in a morbid way, but that’s just the end game.

No, and I hear it’s great. Everybody who’s died and comes back says it’s fantastic. I don’t think it’s anything to be afraid of.

Why not live in your glow or joy?

Exactly. And I want to be very careful here because we never want to imply that anybody has ever lived their life wrong or not done it properly. Everybody lives their life the exact right way. How do we know? Because it’s the only way—it’s what happened. So we have to bless that. We have to say yes, that was the right path because it was the path.

But one of the things I talk about in The 15-Minute Method is returning to that zone of creative genius, right? And I tip my hat to Gay and Katie Hendricks for their work on Zones of Genius.

But there's something everyone has—something you’ve always just been naturally interested in, naturally good at, something that fascinates you. You watch all the documentaries, and your family and friends are like, Wait, I’m sorry, you’re driving. How many hours to go to an exhibition?

And you’re like, No, I can’t wait! So you’re spending how much on what?

You’re obsessed with what?

With what? Okay, so whatever that thing is for you, it has to do with your zone of creative genius. It’s part of what you’re here for. So just lean into that a little bit. Give yourself the gift of that. And if you still don’t know what it is, here’s my little scenario.

Imagine someone waking you up at three in the morning. A friend wakes you up at three in the morning and says, Do you want to come? And you’d be like, Oh yeah, I’m in! Wait, where are my shoes? Okay, here I come.

I don’t even need my hair done.

I’m just gonna go.

No, I’m just gonna go. I’m getting in the car. This is so exciting. What is that for you? And whatever it is, could you find 15 minutes for it today?

Ah, that is such a good way to close out because we are 30 minutes away. And I knew this time was just going to fly by. Ah, Sam, thanks for being a guest on The EmPOWERed Half Hour.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

And guys, she has a book. It’s called The 15-Minute Method. We’ve been talking about it for 30 minutes, but imagine if you read it for just 15 minutes a day and then applied it—how much could your life change?

And I will say, it is designed for that.

The chapters are very short. They all have a little action step. It’s light but deep.

Light and deep at the same time. That’s why I started reading it. That’s why I was like, it’s easy. But you have to do it. That’s why I started this conversation. It’s one of those easy-heart things, but if you do it, then it’s easy.

Anyway, Sam, thanks so much for being a guest.

Oh, my pleasure. What a joy. Thank you for making the space.