This has been one of the most powerful habits I used to have, which I somehow lost.
I forgot how amazing it is to have the world’s smartest people, like Ray Dalio (Principles, like you see here) as my mentor, guiding me.
See past your blind spots (usually where there is emotion or dogged closed-mindedness) where you think you have the right answer, but don’t consider opposing points of view.
Find the most believable people in each topic and have thoughtful disagreements with them to together seek what’s true.
I’d gladly forgo an hour of TV or work to have an hour of reading each day.
You know that one email you’re supposed to send or that call you’re supposed to me, but you keep doing other stuff because you’re avoiding that one thing?
Tackle it first– and you’ll feel such relief, you’ll wonder why you kept putting it off.
Plus, most of the time, that one thing takes only 5 minutes to do, but has been on your mind for weeks or even months.
I put off exercise and daily reading for the longest time because I was “busy”. Now I do that first and the day opens up for me.
I swam 2 miles in the pool yesterday (the longest I’ve done in years), after swimming a mile a day the last few days.
Yesterday, I had one email that I dreaded sending, even though it was necessary– then I tackled it head on and was done in 5 minutes.
When the same issue pops up multiple times, it’s time for an honest examination of the situation– to look for blind spots and seek advisors, instead of ignore the pain.
But instead of being sure I was right, I sought out 5 of my mentors for help this weekend and got a plan that I would never have thought of, with their assurances to help along the way.
The silver lining of problems is that it draws your true friends and mentors close to you. If you can tolerate some pain, the learning is incredible.
I’ve viewed these not as problems that hurt me, but valuable gifts from these people. So I win no matter what.
The structure and accountability that I had been dodging is exactly the solution my business needed. And where I have weaknesses, other stepped into those roles (you know who you are), so we can each focus on our strengths.
Funny how the “wisdom” you hear oft-repeated (yeah, yeah, yeah, I’d say) doesn’t really strike you until it’s your own personal circumstances and your own breakthrough.
Because if it’s important enough, you’ll make the time.
Saying you’re “busy” really just means you aren’t managing your priorities.
Logan and I were up at 4:45 am yesterday to go on a sunset canoe ride, after going to bed after 1 am.
We didn’t want to miss a once-in-a-lifetime experience in the Amazon.
But we also had some business promises to keep and a promise to work out when on the road. So sometimes sleep suffers, though not ideal.
If anyone ever tells you they were too “busy”, it really means tour request is not a priority to them.
Even if you don’t have enough time yourself, you can delegate it to others.
I delegate out housekeeping services, grocery shopping, driving cars (I Uber everywhere), and anything that doesn’t personally require me to do it, so I can have more time.
Have you noticed that the people who make the most excuses get the least done?
That’s because the time they could have spent doing, they chose to instead spend complaining.
Worry not about looking good, but about achieving your goals.
Time is your weapon. Use it to you advantage by practicing #DDD— Do, Delegate, or Delete.
Handle everything just once via #DDD, so you increase your processing speed.
I have over 700 emails per day coming at me. Yet for the last month, I’ve been traveling, speaking, and vacationing in Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Taiwan, the Philippines, and many other places.
I didn’t claim I was “busy”.
Instead, I delegated out more than I usually do. And that’s possible because we have an awesome, growing team.
I said no to more things than usual, giving what we call a “polite decline” to meeting requests and various business opportunities.
You cannot “do” more— don’t fall for the lie. You have only so much time and energy.
Practice #DDD to clear your plate, largely by delegating and deleting, so the few things you choose to do REALLY count.
Say NO unless it’s a “heck yes” option that’s so good, it makes you excited.
Logan Young’s death ruled an accident, not homicide, according to police.
My heart stopped just for a second to see this just now, while scanning through Twitter mentions.
Of course, I quickly realized it was another Logan Young, among the dozens out there.
Do you Google yourself or Google your friends, whether for business or just for fun?
There’s a lot of crazy stuff out there…
You could have: * a porn star with your same name (good luck trying to outrank that one). * haters that want to destroy you (actually, they just want your money). * wackos that stalk you (they want intros to celebrities you know). * people you’ve never met, sharing how their lives were changed because of something you taught.
I’m not as big as Larry Kim or Mari Smith, but I still get hundreds of mentions and notifications each day– more than I could possibly look at, much less even respond to.
Some of these are potential customers urgently wanting to give us money, conference organizers that want us to speak, universities that want to run their young adults through our programs, and so forth.
So many business opportunities, but how to respond?
Here’s a hack that I’ll share with you.
Hire a Virtual Assistant from the Philippines working full-time for you, starting at $500 a month.
They’re loyal, smart, and work hard.
We have an army of them that take care of our top people and clients– monitoring, responding, and doing admin stuff that frees up our time.
They are invaluable to our operations– not because they’re “cheap”, but because they are loyal. If you can get someone in the United States to work for you for a year in that role, consider yourself lucky.
Learn from people like John Jonas and Jeff J Hunter on how to unlock the world of Filipino VAs– to free yourself from the mundane tasks and grow your business!
Make a list of things you do that are repetitive– imagine what your life would be like not having to worry about that anymore!
When you allow people to interrupt you, they are controlling your time and priorities.
Respond to true emergencies, which must be urgent and important.
99% of the interruptions you have are not important— they can wait and can go through email.
Could you imagine if anytime someone had a random question or non-life threatening situation they called 911?
What’s “more convenient” to them is cost on you. While you want to help people and be available, be also sure you aren’t trading your productivity for the convenience of someone who knows they can just ping you instead of googling it or using their brain.
You’d not hire them on your team if tou didn’t believe they were capable of figuring out basic things themselves, ask another teammate, send you an email, or stop what you’re doing to get immediate support.
Same for clients. Train them to respect your time, just like you respect theirs.
Jeff J Hunter, his team, and ours have spent the last two days here in the Philippines tuning our systems to manage the time and productivity of our people at scale.
If you ran a hospital, would you allow anyone to call 911 any time for anything? Would anyone who was thinking about buying a Tesla get a private meeting with Elon Musk to have him explain what the vehicle does?
Your customers should hire you based not on what they don’t want to do, but what they don’t know how to do.
That’s what Jeff explained today in how you make more money with your limited time.
If you’re struggling to make more money and drive results, while being out of time, I’ll bet you aren’t managing interruptions properly.
That means you can’t work more than 33% of your time, since you need equal time to learn and teach.
Delegation to even the smartest VA won’t work unless you invest time to build process, which is part of the 1/3 time you should be spending teaching.
If you’re “too busy”, I challenge you to consider how much of what you’re currently doing is repetitive.
I’ve learned how to do this from good friends like Jeff J Hunter and Zachary J. Babcock. Follow them to level up your delegation and to have a good laugh, too.
