How To Be More Intentional With Your Time

The thing is, most people think they have to take on more projects to succeed. And I tell them no. First, you have to define the projects that will help you succeed. Define the projects that will help you succeed. Then second, protect them at all costs. Define the projects that will help you succeed, and then protect them at all costs. And then third, achieve those projects efficiently and quickly. I want to take you out of your 10 and 5 and 3 year thinking now and bring it back to what's the feasibility? Because, look, we got to be realistic. I talk with moms all the time who are. They feel guilt and upset. They're like, you know, I just had a baby six months ago, but I'm trying to do these seven different projects now, and I feel like I'm not getting ahead. I'm like, you just had a baby. Can we talk about that? No guilt here. Look, I know you have seven projects, but let's take these seven projects and go. Which one can you really do in the next 12 to 18 months? Thank you for being here. Listen, we got a big session of training today, so bust out your notes and let's do some work. We got a big one. This is a big, popular request I get about. Brendan, how do you manage all the. All of these things in your life? And, you know, how do you manage things? If you got a family and you've got a side hustle and you're trying to support somebody in your family, in a relationship, or you try to build a team, it gets hard. I feel it, too. Today I'll talk about project management. Cause could you imagine launching a podcast? What is that? That's a project. Writing your book. Building your business with a specific initiative, doing a specific promotion. Everything that we do can ultimately be broken down, often into projects. And when we know what those projects are, then everything can change for us. If we don't know what those projects are and we're winging it and we don't know what's happening, and we're struggling every day to deal with randomness, we're in trouble. And if you want to write down something right off the bat in this training today, it's such a simple one. And that is randomness and reaction are the enemies of efficiency and free time. The more that we're random with our activities and we can't cluster them into big projects or initiatives, the more that we're just randomly doing tasks, and we don't know if any of those tasks are actually lining up to the accomplishment of an objective. Now, if I'm already Boring the crap out of you. I'm sorry. But listen, you guys are always asking, how do we deal with project spread? And so today I want to give you six ways to think about your projects. Okay? So this will be big mindset stuff, and then we're going to keep dialing it down to those questions you guys are always asking about. How do you deal with focus? How do you deal with when you got 100 different items? Which one do you choose? When you're supposed to do all of them? How do you delegate? What should you delegate? Who do you trust? That is the topic of this session. So get your journal, shut the door or put the headphones on, and let's just spend this time working on you. Let's spend this time working on your dream. Because I know so many of our students, you guys are so busy, and you have so much to give, and you have so much to take care of, and you have so many responsibilities. A lot of times you don't spend any time on you. And by not spending time on yourself or your dreams, what ends up happening is your dream becomes a side project, actually becomes a side of a side of a side of a side project. You know what I mean? And you're not progressing at the speed that you are capable of in your life sometimes because the choices you're making sometimes of the obligations you take on when you knew you shouldn't take it on. I mean, have you ever gotten to a day and you looked at the day's agenda and you thought, oh, my gosh, I have to do that thing that you agreed to three or four months ago that you wish now you hadn't, because maybe you didn't at the time. Think through it, because maybe you were in a good mood so you said yes. Or you forgot all the other things you're supposed to be doing because you don't pay attention to the projects on a daily basis, so you said yes, and now you're overwhelmed because you said yes to too many things. I don't know if this is resonating for you, but I do know from our students that so many times they feel like they lose focus or they get distracted or they feel overwhelmed. But when I ask, do you feel like you're moving toward your dreams? They'll say, yeah, but just not fast enough. And when I hear that, it's never a level of, you know, do they have the competency or are they capable of it? It's usually just a matter of how they're looking at the achievement process. It's about how they're thinking about the projects they're taking on, or worse, not thinking about it. So let me give you an example. If today, and you know, your schedule is very undefined, you know, you just kind of woke up and you thought, what am I going to do today? But B, if you are a person who's trying to achieve your dreams, not so good. Because, you know, Friday should be as organized as Monday as should it be Wednesday? Because remember, it's those random days that steal away from our free time. It's those random tasks or all those reactive tasks that bite away from our ability to experience and achieve our dreams. And so let's use today and this last week as a barometer. Do you feel like this week you were rapidly moving towards the completion of a major project in your life? I mean, do you feel like you made major strides? I think every Friday is a good day to wake up and say, did I make major strides this week or was I kind of all over the place? And major strides mean there is a direction towards your efforts. You're not just randomly doing everything because they emailed you about it. You have a clear sight to where you're trying to go. You got some clear projects lined up. Even if, look, even if they're only lined up for the next 30 days, that's okay. You don't have to be able to see 5, 10, 15, 20 years out to be able to organize the next 30 days. Does that make sense? I'll be an example. I don't know where I'll be exactly in 10 years. I know I'll still be doing this for me. I'll be writing and I'll be teaching. But I don't know how that might be. I might be doing it by, you know, in 10 years from now, I'd be, you know, 100% hologram. I mean, in 10 years from now, I might be on your kitchen table right now in front of you. Creepy, I know. But, you know, we don't know what's going to happen in 10 years, but I hope you know what's going to happen in the next 30 days. Do you know what's going to happen in the next 30 days? Do you know what you're going to make happen in the next 30 days? I found that that's how high performers think. They are clear on the major projects and initiatives in their life, and they have taken all the tasks that are required to make those projects and initiatives happen, and they've organized them into buckets of projects. Or initiatives. I'm going to use the word projects because I think it's more common in the entrepreneurial space. And I know we got a lot of entrepreneurs here, but in a major company, let's say a Fortune 500 company, when a new CEO comes in, that new CEO in that first 90 days, the expectation is they kind of look around and understand where that company is, where it's trying to go, what capabilities they have, what's been generating the real revenue or the shareholder return, and what are the major current projects like, where's the stream of all the activity of all the employees moving towards their job in that first 90 days is usually to define just three to five major initiatives that that Fortune 500 company is going to take on in the next one to three years. That's the job of a Fortune 500 CEO. I've coached and advised a lot of them in that specific transition. And there's some great books on this topic. I know we've got a lot of readers here, so read a book called the first 90 days. Okay, I didn't write it, but great book. And it teaches executives how to think about, when you go in an organization, what do you need to look at and how do you need to establish yourself so that you clarify some initiatives for the company to follow over the next 90 days? Very common sense, right? But here's my question for you. If I flew into your hometown right now, where you live now, and we sat down at your kitchen table, could you open up your calendar and show me the major initiatives that you're trying to achieve? The major projects, could I see on your calendar next week, literally in the next seven days, could I see some blocks of time that were specifically designated towards achieving a major project of your life? Let me give you an example. As many of you know, we launched the podcast. Well, if you came into my world and you sat down at my kitchen table, which would be awesome. And there'd probably be a glass of wine or pina colada or maybe just water, but at least green tea, something, you know, some kind of thing. But if you came down, we bust out the green tea, which, watch out, if I have some green tea, I get pretty fired up. We're gonna have some green tea. And I opened up my calendar and I showed it to you. The seven days prior to the launch, you would see all these blocks of time that simply say, podcast that those blocks of time are protected. Those blocks of time were put in there weeks and weeks ago. They'd been moved around a little Bit honestly, because my project, we moved it. What I think, yeah, I think we were about two weeks behind when we released it. But leading up to all of this, for a great period of time was all this time that said podcast. And I can literally go back. If you and I sat down, I could go back to that time where it said podcast and I could open up my phone and I could show you texts I sent out to my entire team with some different options for the, like, the COVID art that I wanted to use. And that time that I sent that text out to my team is exactly in that little block of time that said podcast, meaning I do my work in little blocks of time that are scheduled out over a period of months that are part of major projects now. People ask all the time, well, Brendan, does that in your calendar, when they click on that, you know, does it have a full list of to dos? I'm like, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it's just floating. But the time is, is protected for the project. Write it down. I must protect the time for the project. It's got to be on there. You can't say, maybe one day I'll write my book. And I know this is already basic to you, but look, a huge piece of high performance in all the coaching I do. And I've been blessed to coach billionaires. So please don't anyone say, well, this doesn't apply to me. I already know it. Because the worst thing you can ever do in your personal development is go, yeah, yeah, yeah, I already know. It's not do you already know? It's do you implement with unbelievable amounts of focus, discipline and consistency. I don't care if you know the topic. You might already know. Block time. Yeah, Brenda, I've heard you teach block time. That's fine. That's why I'm here live with you, coaching you every single month to ask a question. Good, I'm glad you know. Block time. Did you do it last week? Effectively. Is it clearly scheduled this upcoming week? If I zoom out on your calendar, can I see these blocks of time clearly leading to the completion of an initiative or a project? If not, my friend, this is a million dollar moment for you. This is the moment where you go, whoa, I need to get more strategic and disciplined in defining my projects, breaking them down and making sure they land on my calendar. Because if they don't, you're only going to do what the world gives you. And if you only do what the world gives you, you will always be a reactive person and if you are always a reactive person, you'll never be capable of adding the value that, you know, you can add in the world. Right? Same thing for me. I remember when I worked at Accenture, it was really intimidating. We had, you know, at the time, 86,000 employees when I worked there. It was so many people, and it was so. And I was on all these projects with people at these different clients and. And we would be very well organized. We'd have a work plan of what everybody had to do, you know, with tasks and deadlines and accountabilities. I mean, we had Excel spreadsheets for our Excel spreadsheet. We had an Excel spreadsheet to organize our other Excel spreadsheets. You know, we had that kind of level of badassness going on. It was great. But I also noticed that the people who kept getting promoted were the people who were going outside of just doing that, and they were able to keep strategically adding value, and they were scheduling time to think they were scheduling time and projects that were beyond just taking what everybody gave them. And it was like a huge kind of opening for me as a young man in my 20s, going, oh, people are actually planning further out and asking how they can add value further out than I was. And it was a big eye opener. And it really helped me move up in my career in getting the actual gigs that I wanted to. And why do I bring all that up? Because I can tell you that that thief, that enemy, that pain point of our life is when we keep doing random tasks and we keep doing random tasks, and we keep doing random tasks, and then one day we feel like we're not fulfilled. And then one day we feel like we're not progressing. And then one day we feel like, because we're not fulfilled and we're not progressing now, we feel like questioning the meaning of it all. And that's a dangerous place to be in. And I want you to know today, if you're on that slippery slope, I want you to be honest with yourself today. I don't care how high performing you already are or if this is the first sort of training event you've had with me, I would love for you to think about that and just be honest with yourself. I mean, as you see in high performance, I'm always asking you to score yourself on a score of 1 to 10 every month. I ask you something. What could you score yourself on? Let's score yourself on your ability to create and organize and execute on projects. Are you a 1 out of 10? Which means you really suck at it or are you a 10? You're like, Brendan, I could SWAT team, any organization. You're NASA, Navy SEAL level project planning ninja. What do you do to project plan? What tools do you use? What do you like to do? What are your strategies? But I would love to give you some elements to think through as you plan these next stages of your life. And then we'll keep dialing it down while we're here together today. But my goal in this opener like this, I know it might seem a little awkward to you, but I'm hoping that you'll let me challenge you and really look at your last week, you know, as we finish today, later on, I'd love for you to open up your calendar and literally look back at the last week and say, where was some more opportunity to work towards the things that could really matter in my career or in my life? Where was some wasted time? Where was a moment in that week I should have asked for help? What was some of the tasks I frankly should have moved into another week or another month? I shouldn't even done them last week. What was something that I did with real excellence to move my life or career forward last week? What were some activities I really enjoyed last week? Why do I ask you those questions? I ask you those questions because none of us will ever get better at moving our lives forward and including our projects unless we have a weekly review where we look backwards. Right where we look backwards. So for many of you guys know, that's my Sunday reviews. And I love them. Sometimes they make me feel really bad because I'm like, I sucked last week. And other times I'm like, wow, I really nailed it. Good job, Brendan. I'm really proud of myself. So I want you to have the guts to start every single week looking back and going, how was I? Was I a good team member? Was I a good leader? Did I really show up? Did I move things forward? Or did I get caught in distraction? Because, look, without self awareness, there is no transformation to the next level. And there is no self awareness without self evaluation, self analysis. Really looking back and I think that our calendars, these simple things that we carry along, they're so powerful. I mean, honestly, I could sit down with you now and just sort of swipe back to my last 10 days and you could see exactly what I was focused on and where it was going. And I want that for you. I don't want your life to be so random. And I know that as I say that so many of you are like, But I'm so organized, Brendan. I'm like, okay, now our job today is to make sure that you've got clarity on the projects that matter. How do you pick when you have all these things to do, what to really focus on, and what will move your career forward? And I'll start with a little story about my podcast launch, and I want to give you a little behind the scenes today on that. Just in terms of the strategy of that project and how and where and where and why. It was a project. It was something that I literally was scoping out at the beginning of this year where I was thinking about the major projects that we're going to define this year. And I knew that launching this new podcast in a business category versus the Brennan show, which is in the self help category, would be a major project. It would require a different level of content. It would require more tasks on my part and my entire team's part. But it could also become something that would be really important in the world. And yet, guess what, there's other projects on there too, aren't there? There's like, okay, do I expand internationally this year? Do I translate more of our online courses? Do I take on higher and more levels of private clients this year? Do I do a major sort of sponsor or partner deal this year? Do I roll out major affiliate promotions this year? Do I partner with or acquire another organization that might be able to serve us in reaching more customers this year? All these major, I mean, you could probably count 20 or 30 major project ideas that I could take on this year. And how do I decide between them? It's these six things, and I hope that they're going to help you think through your project. So to begin, let's make this a workshop. Let's do some work. You're here, right? Let's do the work. So in your journal, what are some of the major projects that you could be working on right now? Not that you are, but all the major things you could take on right now, like the big buckets of things. Like, for me, like I said, it could be Translation International, it could be partner, it could be affiliate, it could be hiring, it could be starting a new brand, a new podcast, starting, swag, starting. I mean, there's like dozens and dozens of other things. Just take a moment and start brainstorming. Write down in your journal, what are some of the major projects you could take on right now. You're probably not an alien being who can just do everything. So if that is true, then the challenge becomes, okay, well, Then which of those are you going to take on? So what I want you to do with that huge list of projects, I just want you to think, even if you already discerned which of those you're going to focus on the next 30 days, let's just reevaluate them through a different lens. Okay? Just a couple simple big questions and then we'll drill down. Okay. The first thing, when I'm looking at all the projects that I have and when I say all the projects I might have, literally in general, I might have at any given time, probably 10, 15, 20 different projects. It's a big list. And each of these projects could have tons of tasks. Right. Every project has activities, tasks, milestones, deadlines. Right? That's. Think of project management. Each one of these, like so, for example, if this one was international expansion, think how many activities could go beneath that. International expansion. Hire international team lead. Great. Okay. Rebrand. So make sure the name is appropriate in different locations. Great. Translate. Okay, great. Get product in the international markets. Okay, great. Get promotional partners in the national markets. Okay, great. Get a legal team from or representing the international markets. Great. All these tasks could. Like this one little thing that looks like a project. It could have all these little tasks and same thing for you. What I mean, what happens when you've got all this going on is it's easy to get overwhelmed. And what most people do, they only see these big buckets of things they can achieve. And here's where. The biggest disasters I have ever seen in small businesses, in people's personal lives, in big, huge companies. The biggest disasters always happen when leaders only conceive and only conceive the big projects. And so they say, let's take on 10 big projects. They take on 10 big projects, and they don't see two little check marks that they're not even seeing. And I bet you've done that before. How do you know if you've done that before? There's this thing called overwhelm. And if you ever had overwhelm, you probably saw the lines, but not the tick marks. Is it true? Is there any element in your next six months that's going to be a train wreck because you're going after all the big lines without recognizing the tick marks. A lot of people do that. And so the reason I bring this up is because there can be so many projects. Your first job, your very first job, is to get rid of as many of them as possible over the next year to three years. In terms of your focus, you can't do all of these things. And as you keep doing all these things, your output quality goes down. Right? Obviously, we're all just a single person. Even if you have a team supporting you, you just can only take on for yourself a finite number of projects. And you have to be the guard at the gate of your attention. And you gotta be a mean guard, and you gotta be a weaponized guard and you gotta turn down thousands of people trying to get in to the gate of your attention. Same with projects though. I mean, you gotta be very careful because in the gate there's only so much size of your attention. And if you keep letting these huge projects, imagine a project as a tank, you keep letting these big tanks come in to your space. You can't get that many tanks in there. And the more you keep trying to get in there, the more it's war, the more it is a disaster. So I really need you to work just so hard at saying no. So hard at discerning which projects matter to you and be ruthless about is so hard. There's times in my life where I've told, you know, my clients, my teams, other people, you know, I'm going to take on this, this and this and this. But ultimately, when it came down to actually scheduling and planning, I was like, I can only do these two. And I had to cancel many other projects or delay them, and that just ends up happening. I've also turned away major television shows or bigger opportunities in my career because it didn't fit or align with the other projects I was taking on. Because the thing is, most people think they have to take on more projects to succeed. And I tell them no. First, you have to define the projects that will help you succeed. Define the projects that will help you succeed. Then second, protect them at all costs. Define the projects that will help you succeed, and then protect them at all costs. And then third, achieve those projects efficiently and quickly. Got it. What are the major projects that are going to help you really stand out? Succeed or bust through? Number two, what are you willing to turn away, stop doing, saying no to in order to protect that. And when I say protect a project, it also means not just saying no. It means a protected project. Mean it is on your calendar, right? You can't protect a project unless it's scheduled. A lot of people say right now I'm protecting my project. I'm like, show me. If it's not on the calendar and scheduled, it's not protected. It's a daydream. There's a difference. A project lands on A calendar. You can't protect something that's not in the calendar. All right? Be very wary of not understanding that. And then the last part, make sure that you are efficiently and swiftly moving forwards to completing that project. Right. Once I say I'm going to do a podcast, that sucker is that, that if I, when I say I'm going to launch a podcast and it is time to go, that thing is going to happen as a project within a 30 day period. That fast? Most projects are elongated so far. See, here's how. You know, I said I promised to teach you guys. How do you deal with the circumstance in which you have a hundred different tasks that you have to do as soon as possible? And we'll talk about that later. But my first suggestion to you is you should never had that list. You got that list because you let too many tanks in. You took on too many projects and you didn't swiftly complete them. And by taking on too many projects and not swiftly moving to the words of resolution of that project, things started adding up. Now at this point you're like, gee, Brendan, this is a really motivating session. When do the balloons and bears come out? You know, you might be completely free. I like, I might be too hard on you right now, but I think it is really important that people realize life is short, that your brand matters, that what you're doing in the world is important. So organize yourself. If you don't organize yourself for yourself, organize yourself for other people. I think it's really important. And I also see so many people who say, brenda, I'm going to write a book six years later, they don't even have a chapter done. I'm like, it doesn't take anyone six years to write a book. It takes you six years to choose to sit down and actually do the work. But most projects, people are elongating, they're not deciding, you know what, okay, here's the project. Let's SWAT team it. Let's challenge ourselves. How fast can we complete it? At what degree of high level of excellence can we complete it swiftly and quickly? Let's go. And so there's no defined challenge on a project, so the project isn't even feasible. Does it make sense? If you haven't said, I'm going to do this thing by this time, and there's a challenge to it, you'll keep letting the end of that project, the boundary at the end, bleed into the future. And now what you really have is a daydream or a hope. I would say the difference Between a project and a hope is a project has a boundary. A hope is just I hope to become a best selling author. You know, I hope I can train people one day. There's no boundary, there's no deadline, there's no firm box around this project and when it's going to be completed in a 30 day or 60 day calendar. And I share that with you because I really believe you probably think things will take longer than they really need to. And the reason you tend to believe things take longer than they really do is because you made the first mistake. And that is you took on too many of these make sense. Sometimes psychologically we think things, especially as you get older, maybe you develop a greater family or now you're in your 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s. And now the opportunity to help more people or the obligations to care for more people piles up. And as it piles up, you made the very first mistake of taking on too much. And by taking on too much, it fooled your mind into thinking things take long. Does that make sense? It's a big switch in people's minds. I have to do as a high performance coach a lot. It's oh, you think things take so long because you are used to taking on too much. Most dreams, most major initiatives can be accomplished in one to three years tops. And if you think I'm crazy, please go work one day of your life for a Fortune 500 company and realize that major CEOs are walking in saying, we're going to transform our whole company, all of our teams, all of our products, and we're going to do it in three years with these three initiatives. And everyone's like, whoa, how does that happen? And you're obviously, if you're a small business person or you work from home, it's easy to say, well, yeah, but they've got teams and budgets, Brandon. I'm like, it's not the teams and budgets that help them move forward. It's the defining of the right projects. Then it is protecting those projects and, and then it is moving swiftly to the speedy resolution accomplishment of those projects. It doesn't matter. It's not about the size of the team. Cause you and I both know major organizations with tons of team who take years to move. They're like just, I mean, molasses. So it's not about time and budget. Cause a lot of major companies are buried. Kodak had tons of team and they also had tons of budget. And they also couldn't turn fast enough. They took on too many Projects that weren't the relevant projects in the marketplace. Not only did they have too many projects, they had too many irrelevant projects. And now you're toast. There's nothing worse than too many of something and too many of the wrong things as well. And I know you know what I'm saying. So before I even define this framework for you and we jump in, I'm hoping this is changing some mindset gears. Most people are thinking wrong about their projects because either A, they don't have any, or B, they're going to think them too long. And I want to push you, I want to challenge you and go, what if the big dream that you have could be accomplished faster? There was an interview I did with a woman who was building a vlog on YouTube and becoming a blogger. And she'd interviewed some, I mean, major celebrities. And then she interviewed me. I don't know why, but she came over to the studio and she's telling me she's got this dream. And she's like, me and my husband, we can just see in five years, I'll be doing this, this, and this and this. And what she told me. I said, five years? She goes, yeah. I go, why don't you make that instead of five years? Why don't you make that six months? She was like, what? I said, that doesn't take five years to do this, this, this and this. If you make the decision to do those things, that's a six month thing. That's something you can be doing immediately with full effort and excellence in six months. And instead of taking five years to accomplish, if you really get at it, you may be six months to two years tops. And she's like, whoa. So here's the question I'd love you to pose. What if you could have your dreams twice as fast? What if you could have your dreams twice as fast? What would it take? What would it take? I'm guessing if you're honest, you're going to go, time for me to get serious and time for me to cut out some things. The distractions, the reactions, the number of undisciplined, unfocused and disorganized days. And look, I know it can feel like I'm being hard on you and I'm not being hard on you. Some of this I'm saying I need to hear. I had a tough week, too. I mean, it was a really difficult week to stay on track and to stay focused, and I didn't win every day and it was challenging. But isn't that every week for some of us at some level. Just let me do this coaching. Let me challenge you. Take a hard look at your last week. Take a real deep look at your beliefs. Take a deep look at how you're organizing yourself, because your time on this planet matters. So let's get serious about it. When I talk about project planning or massive gains in productivity, isn't it true most of those come up here? Most massive gains in productivity, they come up here. It's a mindset shift to going, oh, wait, that's not going to take three years. I'm going to do it in six months. I'm going to put a boundary on it. It's not a hope anymore, it's a project. And once we move things from hopes to projects and we get clear on keeping everything else out that doesn't lead towards the achievement of that specific project, I'm telling you, life can change. If you decide to make massive gains in your productivity this year, your life changes. And who gave you permission to do that? It wasn't me. Maybe I bugged you enough, you know, maybe you're already annoyed with me today. I understand my energy is a little weird today after having almost no sleep this week because of the podcast. I mean, it was a little crazy. And even it wasn't that I didn't protect my time to sleep, it's that I was really excited and I was laying and my brain was going so fast. And so I allow those times sometimes in my life. But I'm here to say I am a result of everything. I'm sharing with you that for me, in 2009, I got really clear why it was important for me to be a productive person. And I don't know, you know, I can't. I don't see you individually here, but I wonder if you've ever really stepped into that, you know, I remember was working with a woman, she was amazing. She had 10,000 plus people in her downline in a major network marketing type of company. And I said, you have 10,000 people. She goes, yeah. I said, that's a lot. I said, what made you able to achieve that? And she says, you know what? One day I woke up and I decided that I was going to become one of those highly productive people I heard about. She goes, I was good, but I said I was going to become a SWAT team member like you talk about Brendan. And I said, well, what do you mean? She said, no, I literally just decided. She goes, I just said, I'm going to become a person like that. And I said, well what? Like how did that happen? She goes, well, I realized that I was 45 and I had never identified as somebody who just walk in and handle things and check them off. She said I could get to do's done. She's like, you know, look, I had, she's told me about her fridge and she had a, you know, little boxes on her fridge and she'd check them off every day from some, you know, little craft shop. She got a little organizer for her fridge and she'd check things off every day. She goes, but that's different than deciding to move the earth. One person just like, I guess I. And the other person like, let's go. And she decided to step into that SWAT team mentality to take on projects and just crush them and then move on and move on. And for her, she said that for me was a different kind of energy than I ever had about it. Because for her, she said, brenna, I just kind of want, I just want to flow, you know, throughout the day, I just want to flow. And then she realized her big breakthrough was that flowing through the day was the same as being random and not building a meaningful, contributing, creative, fulfilling life. Listen, I'm all about flow. I'm all about flow. I find my creative flow all the time towards something that will serve my family and my team and this world. That makes sense. I'm not saying every second has to be organized. In fact, most of my free time has been organized too. I'm like, okay, I got three hours off today in the middle of the day. Why? Because I was organized last week. So I put that block time here. Sunday review. I looked at all the good things I did. I'm a little bit ahead of where I want to be. So you know what? I'm going to take this project. I'm going to move it to the next week. I'm going to enjoy these three hours in the middle of the day when everybody else is working. I'm going to give myself that three hours. And in that time, I don't know what I'm going to do. I'll just show up and be random for three hours. Many of. You know, one of my favorite things to do is just walk my city. So I put a hat on and I just walk all around the town. I'll walk two, three hours just walking around. New coffee shop. Oh, cool. New place to eat. Haven't tried that one before. New bookstore. Great. So I don't want you to think that having the mindset of somebody who just Demolishes projects, steals away from your enjoyment of life because all it does is give you more progress, more contribution, and more ability to have free time. Wouldn't you have more free time if you were more organized last week and the week before and the month before? I hope that in some parts of what I'm saying today, somewhere along the line, you're nodding your head and going, okay, Brandon, I got it. Yeah, you're right. Okay. And I just want, if anything, before I go into revealing things behind the sheet here, what I want for you is to step into this idea that you could really be a person of significant contributions in the world at a higher level than you already are. I already know I'm talking to high performers, so please don't pretend I'm talking to people who've never achieved anything. I know that you get stuff done, and I'm here to issue a challenge that you could take another level of mindset awareness to your identity in being a productive person and being a person who smashes projects, checks them off, moves them, and you're moving forward versus kind of hoping something happens. And that's true for people who are already good at it. Because here's what happens to people who are already good at projects. They start going through the motions. I mean, have you ever met a highly organized, boring person? I've met a lot of them. And the challenge is they're highly organized, but there's no zest and pop, because they've organized everything, but they've not issued any challenges to themselves for a while. Two different things, right? Some people have lots of projects, but they're bored, unfulfilled, not engaged because A, they might be too many projects and overwhelmed, or B, those projects aren't challenging them anymore because they're not having the identity going, let's kick this thing's ass. Let's just stomp this thing. Let's crush it. And that's too masculine. That's okay, too, because then you say, you know what? Let's complete this thing. Let's fulfill this thing. Let's see this thing through. Let's deliver this baby. Let's put this thing in the earth. Let's put this thing out there. Let's accomplish this higher calling. Let's fulfill this deep desire, this deep dream. Let me experience and manifest the very thing I've been thinking about. So whether if my metaphors are too masculine for you, there's some different style, but either way, this year will become something significant for you if you step into this mentality Whatever you call it, I just call it a more productive and project focused mentality. That's not very sexy, but that's what it is for me. I'm really good at this. You know, when this project came up for the podcast, it was like, okay, I just literally go all hands on deck everything into making this thing happen. And we're going to make it happen and we're going to do it in a short term. Let's go, right? And it's always too fast and it's always pushed and it's always challenged. But you know what? I'd rather have a project that completes and completes with a certain level of excellence. Let's call it a level of seven. And it completes a level of seven out of 10 in 30 days versus something that takes three years and completes at a nine. It makes sense. Like sometimes, as Seth Godin talks about, he says, you gotta ship, you gotta get that thing out there, let's go. Like that ship date is more important than anything else because your mind organizes itself. So this whole opening discussion with you is all about mindset. It's all about you re looking at how you are approaching your life and your days and your dreams. Because I want you to achieve them. I want you to experience them. I want you to have that joy. If you had that book you wanted to put out there, it gets done this year. If you had that podcast you want to launch, it gets done this month. If you had that, that goal or dream of taking the family somewhere that it happens this year. That if you have that project of starting that new company or that new brand or that new product that you launch this year and you won't do it unless you step into this mentality that you're get stuff done type of person who loves to see their dreams manifest. I love, love people with dreams, but I'll tell you, the people I can't be around too often are the people with dreams who don't want to SWAT team them and manifest them. They're, you know, good at conversational dreaming, but they're not good at doing dreaming. And that's hard for me. And I think it's hard for them too. Because if you keep waking up year over year over year with more projects undone, how does that feel? And then what ends up happening? More projects undone, more overwhelm. This is why this mindset that we've been talking about is so important. And if we just call it that productive, as my client tells me, I guess I say it a lot. She goes, brennan, you gave me that SWAT team mentality. If all I've done is give you more of that SWAT team mentality and I put a little edge to it because it matters at this time of your life, then this session was worth it. All that's the million dollar breakthrough in getting more projects done is to have the SWAT team mindset that knows that projects matter, that doesn't take on too many, that delivers them and sees them through with efficiency and effectiveness. Hey guys, it's Brandon. I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmode.com, click on Private group to apply to see you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progressmode.com write down your top five projects over the next one to two years and let's now swat team those and decide, hey, are we going to do them? And B, how can you do them with excellence? And in general, if you had that list of five, I bet you had a list of like 20. And if you've got a list of all these projects you can do, I want to help you choose the ones you're going to do. So maybe you had a process that you thought through to discern your top five. Let me tell you my process, how I would discern my top five. Okay, let's jump into this. This is how I choose projects that matter. Number one, I look at this thing that no one likes to talk about, feasibility, okay? And I got a simple rule here that you might write down. And this simple rule says to me, 12, 18. What does that mean? That means when I'm looking at a list of projects, I first identify the ones that I can feasibly based on what's already on my plate. The projects I'm already implementing, going to complete, trying to finish. Can I finish the projects that I'm trying to prioritize, which ones can I finish? What's the word? Finish in the next 12 to 18 months, that's the first thing I look at. I mean, assuming these are projects that matter, which I'm Assuming you wouldn't have written them down if it didn't. Now I start kind of prioritizing them. I go, okay, which ones can I finish? Finish in the next 12 to 18 months? And I tend to lean towards those. Why? One, psychological health, right? If you're just doing something for years and years and years and you have no completion towards it, at some point you're like, you don't get that celebration, that contribution, that completion. I think it's important to complete projects. Two, you know what? None of us knows what's going to happen in two to three years from now. And is it true? I mean, could you imagine, like, look at where our society is right now. Did you see this coming three years ago? Most people did not. Okay, but look at where we are. We're all like, what the heck is going on? We've had this sea change, it feels like in the entire culture in the last three years. So if you couldn't see that coming, a global cultural change in three years, how are you going to see what's going to happen for you if you couldn't pick it up from the culture? Right. Does it make sense? Humans, we suck at seeing the future in general that we love to envision it. That's why I want to tighten it down. I want to take you out of your 10 and 5 and 3 year thinking now and bring it back to what's the feasibility? Because look, we got to be realistic. I talk with moms all the time who they feel guilt and upset. They're like, you know, I just had a baby six months ago, but I'm trying to do these seven different projects now and I feel like I'm not getting ahead. I'm like, you just had a baby. Can we talk about that? No guilt here. Look, I know you have seven projects, but let's take these seven projects and go, which one can you really do in the next 12 to 18 months? Because you know what? If you take those seven and you boil it down to two, won't you wake up every day feeling better about yourself, feeling horrible about ourselves day in and day out about projects that we're not working on? That's not the game. That's not what's going to bring enjoyment or flow in your life. I tell a lot of people the reason you're blocked from more flow in your life is because you have too much overwhelm, you have too much guilt about undone things. How are you going to flow in the moment if you have all this guilt about undone things? So Stop thinking you have to do everything and minimize the projects and flow into one or two projects. You'll be way happier. So it's a feasibility standard for me. And I know this isn't popular with a lot of people. They're like, but Brendan, I want to dream 10 years out. I'm like, oh, no, do that. I'm just saying, what should you actually do in the next two years? And I'm not saying don't do projects that aren't going to achieve or help you move towards that 10 year dream. I'm saying pick the first things first. If you haven't ever read Stephen Covey's work and writing on first things first, go ahead and read that. It's kind of the same topic or same theme I'm trying to accomplish here with you. Feasibility test. Can I do it in the next 12 to 18 months? If not, it doesn't mean I'll never do it. Calm down. It means I'm going to take that little project, I'm going to pick it up, I'm going to move it out to a New Year's conversation in two years. That's all. I'm going to literally open up my calendar two years out, January 1st, and move this little project and put it in there for a reevaluation at that time. And guess what? The guilt goes away as soon as I hit save on that calendar day. There's no guilt because I have chosen psychologically, consciously to pick that thing up and move it and drop it over there. And I know that sounds so simple, but I promise you're probably one of the people, because high performers are bad at this. They carry so much guilt about undone things. I say, but these things, they're not feasible right now. So just take all these non feasible things and move them to their appropriate time. And once they've moved and you've locked them, there you go, oh, I'm going to get to that. Then your brain goes, thank you. You gave that a place. This is when I talk about how to achieve a project three times, how to achieve projects three times faster. The number one move there is do a feasibility test on what you have today and grab those projects that you feel guilt about being undone with or that are on your plate vying for attention right now and grab it, move it, give it a place in the future. And now you can give the time to the things that's right here. That is the near term thing that you can swap, team and achieve quickly. Within 12 or 18 months, when I sit down with people. Almost every major project I've ever talked with somebody could be done in three months. It's super rare that someone's working a project that's going to take multiple years. And the only reason it keeps getting multiple years is they keep putting so many other projects on their plate. Isn't it true? But if you only had three major projects you're working on, like a Fortune 500 CEO will do, with three major initiatives, life gets very woo. Achieve those three, pick new three. Achieve those three. Pick new three picks, whoop. Achieve those three, pick new 3. That's how I want you to move through. Stop trying to do 12. What I want you to do is take three, accomplish them, then the next set of three, then the next set of three,. Then the next set of three. And I know three doesn't sound like a lot, but all of a sudden, if you achieve three projects, your brain's like, I'm good at this. A confidence comes in, and of course, all the joys of the results of those projects come in, and you're moving ahead, baby. And that's what we want for you. So, feasibility. I strip it all down. I say, what can I do within the next 12 to 18 months? Number two, I ask, will I give it visibility? And this is important one, you can achieve that which you don't see. And so here's my test and my suggestion to you. If I came into your house, I said, okay, SWAT team time. Let's bust out all those projects. Can I see them? Like, if I show up at your house right now, is there a wall? Not a vision board? Because vision boards often are really bad if they don't have times on them. Okay. I always say a vision board should always have a schedule on it. Otherwise, it's hopes versus projects. Make sense? So now let's back it away and say, okay, if I show up at your house or your workplace, show me where are the projects at. In companies or teams, they'll drop those projects into Asana or Trello. These are project management tools that you often see teams have. Trello, Asana are probably the two big, most popular one. Basecamp is another one. And why are those popular? Because it visualizes the projects. Now people can move them around like tiles in time and space. It's important for you to have that. But here's the test I want you to have. And this is huge. I need you to have daily visibility of your projects. The number one thing I said you could do to achieve your projects three times faster is pick three, make it the near term ones, 12 to 18 months. Everything else, grab it. Give it a place in the future after those things. Okay, that's number one. It's a strategic ordering of the feasible projects in the near term. Number two, this was the one I told you. It changed my life forever. Ever, ever. I begin every day when I begin the work part of the day, looking at my projects, writing down my. I literally write down my projects. So if you guys have seen the one page productivity guide, if you don't know what that is, just google it. One page productivity guide. You'll see my YouTube video on it. I begin every workday in my mind with a fresh piece of paper saying, what are the three major projects I'm working on right now? And I really think about that every day. And then I say, what's the five next major steps to achieve them? That is how I began my workday. I've never in a decade began my workday looking at my email ever. That's like the worst thing ever. And we proved that. You know, however many years ago with High Performance Academy, we did that simple test. It was so simple. If we stopped people checking their email in the first 60 minutes of the day and instead gave them a morning routine and had them think through their projects, the people they need to reach out to, and the priorities of the day, that's what they did before email. They achieved 30% more in their chosen field of productivity that week. Meaning you're 30% more productive if you don't begin your day in your inbox, because then you're not beginning in reaction. And I know you've heard me say it a million times, but it's so important. The inbox is nothing but an organizing system of other people's agendas. I don't want you to do other people's agendas at the beginning of the day. I want you to do yours. So the number one transformation in my life is I have daily visibility to my projects. I literally start the day looking at the projects. Not emails, not tasks, not even priorities. Big picture, what are the three major things I'm working towards and the five things would have to accomplish now? It doesn't mean I'm going to accomplish each of those five that day. I'm just going to know what they are. Step one, then I look at the people in my life. Who do I need to reach out to? And who should I am I waiting on for a decision that I need to reach out to? And then number three, I take all that intel okay, I've thought through the major projects and the steps. I've thought through the people I'm waiting on or need to reach out to. And now what's my priorities for this day? And I write those out. Now, those may or may not align with the calendar, but I do that from my mind without looking at my calendar every day. In other words, I'm kind of both recalling and brainstorming every day. Projects, people, priorities. I do that first. Once I lock that in my head and I think I know what it is, then I open my calendar and I might see, oh, but from 9 to 11, I'm doing this interview. From 1 to 4, I'm doing these live casts. From this time to that time, I'm doing my email. And then I try to take those priorities and move them into any free boxes or into the already scheduled tasks. But it's by having visibility every day on the projects that I don't lose sight of them. And oh, my God, the number of small business owners and entrepreneurs I've worked with who literally every day they just sit down and they have a similar process. But what they do is they write out to do lists for the day. But the two to do lists of the day are just what comes to mind. And they're not organizing into projects yet. And so they get a lot of to do lists off and they run a lot of errands, but they don't feel any progress because they're not completing projects. Does that make sense? So I don't know what it is for you, but you need a visual tool every day to see your projects. If you use a tool like Asana or Trello or Basecamp. Cool. I use a blank piece of paper every day. You might use a flip chart or a. Assuming everyone has flip charts in their houses. Of course, you might use your whiteboard. You might use a pinup board. You might use, seriously, one of those erasable pens on your refrigerator. I don't care. But you need to write your projects down every day and think about them every day. It's daily. This is my challenge to you. Daily visibility to your project. It will change your life forever. It will help you prioritize. It will help you think through. They will help you reorganize. It's everything to me. Daily visibility. Without that, I would be a terrible mess. So please also notice where the daily visibility happens. I don't want you to look at it at noon. I want first work effort. This means if you did your morning run or your morning movements or Your workout or you did your morning reading or meditation or whatever you did when it's time to work and to move ahead that day, even if you're stay at home, even if you don't have a job, a career or brand, and you're a stay at home parent or single, and you're. Even if you don't have your thing yet, start developing the conceptualizations of projects, big picture thing that you want to achieve, breaking it down, tasks, goals, timelines, and start moving towards that thing. Even if it's just planning a vacation for yourself, make that a project and make it real. Just get at it. Okay, but I want it daily. You got to see your projects daily. Otherwise, guess what? If you don't, in your focal area, I want you, to use a metaphor. If you, in your focal area, you don't put this, you know, this circle of projects there on your dashboard of attention, guess what happens? Well, then everything else just comes in and you fill it with that. And now you're reactive. I need you to have a fixed point each day. And that fixed point is what are the projects you're working towards that will help you achieve your mission, your goal, your purpose, or your dreams? What are those projects? It's very important. It's operationally necessary for you to move forward faster. Okay, next up. And I don't care if you are to say, I know that. My question is, do you do it every day? Every day, first work, effort, projects, do you do it? If you do, congratulations. If you don't, you're a reactive person and you are slowing down your own progress. Number three, you see, you add an insult and then you pull the thing, it hurts worse. It's like ripping the band aid. Okay, phase ability. Okay, phase ability. Now this is going to sound really weird, and I'm not even sure that's a word, so let me break it down for you. When I'm looking at all these projects, what I like to know is can that project be kind of like phase one and phase two? Meaning can I like break it down into work efforts? Like, here's one major set of activities that I'll do first, and then here's the other major set of activities that I'll do second. Like, for example, I love the. I love book projects, like writing books. It's so easy because it's easy for me to break it down into feasibility. I can compartmentalize or chunk the activities to make it easier for me to manage. Like, you know, phase ability, first write the chapters. Okay, great. That's Easy. That's phase one. Write the chapters. Okay. Phase two. Now I get to move on to editing to make the book come together. Awesome. And in that editing, I'll write the introduction. I like it. Phase three, put the proposal together now to go out and sell the book or to figure out the self publishing or get a major publisher for it. Great. Phase four, plan and prepare book launch. Ooh, I like this even better. Phase five. Now launch book. It's like, it's nice when it can go through a process like that. It's an easy thing to conceptualize, right? Meaning it becomes a real project versus an esoteric thing. Right? Let me give you the opposite example. That something that doesn't have feasibility, right? What doesn't have feasibility? One day I want to be happy. Oh God, you're screwed. What does that mean? Right? You have to bust it down a little bit so it's tangible things you can do. Right. Here's another thing. Feasibility. Especially now, kids these days, I want to be famous, okay? That's their thing. I want to be famous. Social media, you can't break famous down into phases, really. Right. It just doesn't. It doesn't conceptualize that way. You need to pick projects that you can tangibly break into chunks to achieve it. And if you can, you don't have a project, you have a concept. And a lot of people have concepts, hopes, dreams, but no projects. And that's why they're miserable. Because there's no tactical thing they can be doing and tracking and measuring to achieve it. Now, believe me, I am built more as a concept, free spirit person. But I recognize that that was a weakness for me too. It's great on stage, it's great training, it's great in the moments of creativity. But it wasn't great in making money. But it wasn't great in building a business. It wasn't great in advancing my career. It wasn't great in serving more people. It wasn't great in scaling. It wasn't great in moving past my dreams. It wasn't great on bringing on more people. That wasn't great. I had to realize, God, if I don't get organized and bust things down into phases, I just won't do them. And you know what? If you just have a project with all these activities in it, and it's like a project and there's 500 to do lists, right? I promise to talk to you about what happens when you have 100 to do lists or 100 to do items. The first thing I do, if you have 100 to do items and they're do ASAP. I need you to look at all those and find and bust them into projects like move them into buckets. Because out of those hundred things, there's probably three major projects there. It looks like 100 different things, but they probably align up pretty good into one, two or three, four buckets. And now once you get them into one, two or three or four buckets, you say, okay, which bucket first? And instead of trying to do all the tasks at the same time, you do bucket number one, then bucket two, then bucket three. Even if that's done over a three day period, a seven day period, or a three month period, just take all your items, take out your 100 to do items, put them in buckets of interest or issues. And then once you have that busted up, now you order the buckets. And now it doesn't feel like you're working randomly because you know what, working randomly is miserable for people. They hate it. They finish the day and they're like, I didn't get anything done. But if you know you're working in this bucket of to do items and you can finish it, your brain, you know what your brain loves? Phases. If you have a project of 100 items and you're just slogging at the hundred items forever, your brain's like, this sucks. But if. And within that project, you have wins, like things to celebrate. Phase one, you did it. Good job. Phase two, did it. Good job. You know what? Your brain needs those good job kids. Your job needs the phases. It's the small wins on the long journey that we need to keep our confidence and our joy and our motivation alive. Right? So you got to bust out that project in little phases to let yourself win, but also to organize yourself. So it's a project management approach to just phase things out. I hope that helps. So for those with a to do list of 100 items, I want you to put them in buckets and then order the buckets. And I don't care how fast you got to achieve the buckets. It might be two buckets a day, three over a period of week or three, doesn't matter. Just get at it. Okay, Next up, big other item number four, accountability. Okay? Two levels of accountability for each project. Okay, Two levels of accountability for each project. One is making yourself accountable to the project. Okay? So the first thing you have to do to do that is go tell everybody in your life that you're working on this project. And I mean that everybody knew in my immediate circle That I was working on this podcast and that this podcast was going to be a big thing my team and I were talking about. This is going to be a big podcast. You know, weeks and months ago, this is like, with everybody in the last two weeks, they're like, geez, Brennan's working on this podcast. They're like, can I get podcast? I'm working on podcasts. And you have to push people away. Like, people should know the projects that you're working on. Why? Because they'll also ask you, how's that project going? If no one's asking you about the projects you are working on, you're doing it wrong. You're suffering from in silence. You are toiling in a vacuum, and no one wants that. You need your family and your friends or somebody around you to be cheering you on. So get into the mastermind. Follow up with the people you meet at seminars, Go into our forums here or into our Facebook group and just cheer each other on. Because without people knowing, if no one's ever asking you how things are going, you kind of stop doing the things that you were doing. But when other people take interest, it almost. Have you ever noticed when someone takes interest in what you're doing, it almost doubles your commitment for what you're doing? Like, when someone notices that you're doing something, they say, hey, good job. I really like that. You go, yeah. And next time you go to do it, you do it with a little more oomph. We need people to see the projects we're working on and be aware of them. And we need to set up accountability processes to make that happen. So maybe you tell your three best friends, hey, can I ask a favor for the next four weeks? Would you call me every Friday and bug me and ask me how this project is going? That's all I want you to do. Just call me every Friday and ask how it's going. Could you do that a favor? I can't tell you how many times I ask my friends to do that. They probably hate it by now. I'm like, can you just call me on Friday and tell me, ask me how it's going? They're like, okay, why? I'm like, accountability. Because when my friends are asking me how I'm doing, I feel bad if I don't get some progress that week. Sometimes we need that. The second aspect of accountability is the delegation piece. And this is one of the other things I promised to talk with you about. What do you delegate? How to delegate and when is an important topic. Isn't it. And what I would recommend you to do is this. Delegate 100% of everything that you can delegate. It is the boldest and the scariest and the hardest thing to do, and it will make you three times more effective at everything. I want you to say everything outside of my immediate concern in which I need to develop skill set or I need to specifically contribute, I'm going to delegate first, foremost, and fast. Most people wait too long to delegate, and then what happens is the longer you wait to delegate, the more you're doing it, the more psychologically your mind tricks you and says you're the one that has to do this. Oh, yeah, baby, you're a genius. No one else on the planet could do it, just you. That's what your stupid brain starts telling you and you start believing it. And then you don't delegate it. Because guess what? The longer you do something, the more you have what's called psychological ownership. Even if it's something you totally don't have to do, your brain and your body got in a rhythm and said, that's mine. That's what I do. Even if it's completely nonsensical for you to do anymore. And I know this. I've been trapped many times in my career as of thinking I had to do something. And usually it's not true. And almost always when I get behind on a project, I go, oh my God, why didn't I delegate this earlier? I'm so dumb. So I'm letting you know I also do these dumb things. So I really want you to understand the secret here, I said is this. First, identify what are the skills that you need to have in your business or your career to make you good? So do the things that are necessary for you to be good. Second, what are the things that you can uniquely contribute? And then third, please delegate early, first, foremost, and fast, and really try. What's 100% of this that I can give away to somebody else to do and keep them accountable to it. Whether that's meaning you hire that personal assistant this year. This is your year to hire that personal assistant or that team. Whether that's for you, you say, you know what? Here's 100 things. Husband, we need to sit down. And these are projects we agree on. This is what's important to our life, right? This is where we're trying to go, right? Okay, can you take all of these and just give all it to them? And they'll go, oh, my God, no. And then there'll be a bartering process where Sometimes you can't delegate everything to somebody, but then they kind of take on some, they give some back to you. Does that make sense? And the people that I always say you want to delegate to, the best people to delegate to are the people. When you delegate to them, they delegate some portion of it back to you. Those are the people you can distrust the most. If someone says, I'll do it all, usually that person is going to become overwhelmed, they're not going to get it done, and they're not going to be reliable. Because reliable people tend to be realistic people. Write that one down. Reliable people tend to be realistic people. So what they say is they'll look at that huge list you gave them, like, I can't possibly do that. Tell you what, could you do these five and I'll take these 10 and you'll be like good person. I trust reliable people. Reliable people are realistic people. I love to give and delegate when somebody gives a little back. And that's what I want you to develop. True. And it's true. Especially if you're a small business owner or you have a team that, yeah, you could give everything to everybody. But you'll see, most of my team, I don't give everything to everybody to overwhelm them. And I try to take on an appropriate amount that I can do and give out as much as I can to others. And it's not always a perfect balance, but we try to find it so that people aren't up too late answering emails or people aren't too late away from their family. You know, just. I'm not talking to anybody in this room right now, but I'm just trying to say that give as much as you can and let them push back and find it. And that will help you find the true thing. In other words, please don't think that delegation is the way they write about it in books or talk about it in videos where you just give it out and someone's supposed what you want. Delegation should be a back and forth where it finds this great balance of what they're doing and what you're doing. I want you to first try to think of what's 100% of what I can give away. But realize you're actually not going to be able to give it away because, I mean, think about it as parenting, right? Wouldn't it be great to delegate all of parenting to your spouse? Awesome. You clean up the poop, you get all the food ready, you do all the shopping. And I know some of you have done all this, and you've been allowed, allowed yourself to delegate that. You didn't set any boundaries. You're wiped out, beat up, tired, exhausted from having taken on too much. So for you, you also have to have the personal power to be realistic and say, uh, I need some help here, mister. And that's really important. And I know many of you give me a double thumbs up, and you've discovered this and you believe it too. So. And for those who haven't found that out, push back. Just because someone gives you something doesn't mean you have to accept it and do it. That's part of the personal accountability of making sure what we've chosen to do is feasible. Remember, we've got to make sure that once we've chosen the right things, we protect the right things by not taking on too much more. So there's a balance. I always want you to think delegation is a balancing process. It is not an assigning process. Write it down. Delegation is a balancing process, not an assigning process. Because one of the ways you achieve projects faster is you have people who like to work with you. And if all you ever do is you just assign, assign, assign, but you don't work with them to balance, they'll hate you, they'll leave you, and you'll be even more busy. Good leadership 101. Next up, number five, scalability. I love this one. I love to identify projects that I can achieve and then scale. Let me give you an example. We're working right now on some new webinars in our company. I love that as a project, right? Build webinars, set up the funnels, get it done, and then it's super once it's done. I love that. You can scale it, right? We can scale that. Like, we have the project done. We can scale that funnel by spending more money into it and making it go bigger and bigger and bigger. Like, I love a project that you can say, when it gets done, can it get bigger for us and get better for us? Can it scale? I really love that. Like, a book project is a great example. Get book done, get deal, make it all happen. Well, that's stage one of that project. Now it's like, how do you scale this book? And that's why I chose the project of podcasting. I'd done and completed the project of write, build, launch, book, finish, funnel, get it out in the world, right? But that book is a project. I'm like, well, now the project's done. How do I make this project keep working for me? How do I Scale it. I'll launch a podcast of the same name. Right. So it's just, how do you scale something once it's done? But I also ask that question, is this project something I'm just going to do one time and it's done and it's over? Or is this project I can do one time and automate? Right. And I tend to prefer. If you're going to increase your productivity massively, choose projects if you have one or the other. One thing you can automate, the other thing you can't automate. Always choose the one you can automate because you'll look more effective and productive. Like, a lot of people in the industry think I'm way more productive than I probably am because it looks like I'm always out there. Well, we're just automating and scaling things that I already did, sometimes weeks, months, or years ago, if that makes sense. So think about scalability and automation. Can you finish the project and then automate it if you're a Fortune 500 CEO? Great example. We're going to start this initiative to transform the customer journey. Great. Once that thing is finished, the project itself has its own measurables and own metrics. But now it's like, great, you did that customer journey in this one brand or this one business unit. Now take what you learned and scale that project in the other business units. And that's how CEOs become more effective. We'll have them run a project in one business unit, prove it, scale it, finish it, complete it, deliver it, measure it, and then go, ooh, good, that project was a winner. Let's take that project and now scale that to the next brand or the next business unit in the company. Right. So sometimes a project becomes like a test or a beta or phase one, and then phase two is to scale it. And when I work with large, complex organizations, that's a big part of the thing. Let's come up with this idea, let's formulate this thing, let's execute it here and see how it goes, and measure it and automate it so it's easy. Now that we've got it there, let's plug that same project into this other business unit or this other country or this other entity that you own. And that project now gets to scale. And this automation that's way beyond the original business unit we started it in. That's how CEOs are thinking. Make sense. So very few CEOs will ever go, you know what? I'm going to do this project organization wide out of the gate, and I want it to last five years. The reason CEOs get paid so much is because they're much more strategic and going, let me put it here, measure it, test it, prove it, and then scale it. And that's what I'd love you to do as you're thinking about some of other parts of your business. Number six, I know you're waiting for me to teach you this one, because you got to bring the joy to everything that you do. Enjoyability. If I look at all this list, I'm going to look at all these things, I'm going to say, okay, is it feasible? Can I keep it visible? Can I brush down to phases? Can I set up some accountability? Can I scale it? But ultimately, a lot of these things I'm going to cross off because I'm not going to enjoy them and I'm going to be left with just a couple. And so sometimes enjoyability is not always my first thing. Everyone goes, well, Brendan, you're the joy guy. Why wouldn't you make it first? The reason I don't make it first is pretty straightforward, and that is there's a lot of things I do in my career, in my life, that I don't naturally enjoy, but they're necessary. Because they're necessary, I'll do them and I'll bring good joy into those situations. I'll bring the joy, but I'm smart enough to go, don't love it, but it is necessary to do. And so I don't ever want just straight up enjoyment to be the answer, because I don't expect things or projects to give me joy. I'm going to make each step joyful. I don't wait for projects to give me purpose. I'm going to be purposeful as I do the projects. I don't wait for the fulfillment to come from the completion. I'm going to feel fulfilled that I'm in the activity with gratitude and joy, that I get to do it along the way. So I'm very cautious. But I do ask, is this something I'm passionate about? Can I grow here? Can I contribute here? Will I like doing it? And I do ask those questions. And then based on this question here, I'll often set up this issue up here, as we talked about, of delegation. Because if this is a no, it doesn't mean I'll say no to the project. Just because I might not enjoy it doesn't mean I say no. If I don't enjoy it, what I might have to do is move it up over here and delegate as much of that piece as I can so that I can focus on the things I do enjoy. So what I don't want you to be is one of those people who only, and this is important, please don't only choose the projects in the next couple months that are feasible and that you enjoy. If you only choose things that are feasible and enjoy, you're missing the ability to move forward sometimes. Because sometimes I say, how come you chose this project instead of this one? Well, I like this one better. I go, okay, but this one would have moved you forward faster. Why didn't you do this one? Let me give you an example. Someone just recently asked me, said, brendan, I can do a podcast or I can do an online course and I think they're both going to take me like 12 weeks. Which one should I do? I said, a, none of them are going to take you 12 weeks, but let's just assume your fault. The assumption is true that they'll take you 12 weeks, but now let's measure them. Which one first? He said, oh, I think the podcast. I said, why? Because I love podcasting. It's so much fun, it's so much joy. Okay, and tell me about the online course. Well, I know I need something to sell. I need an offer because if I don't have something to sell, I can't make any money. So even if I have a podcast, I'm broke. So I feel like the online course as a business reason, I need something to sell. I said, you have nothing else to sell. He goes, yeah. So he said, which one should I do? Now part of me wants to say, do the thing you enjoy only. But I'm like, you know what? Sometimes it's not about the project you enjoy, it's the one that's going to move your ass forward. So I had to say, man, listen, you need to make some money. Yes, true. Okay, do this one. Well, I know, but I feel like if I do that, I'm compromising my heart and my spirit. This person literally said this to me. I said, well, if you're compromising your heart and spirit, a, your heart and spirit doesn't live in the project, it lives here. You choose to bring that B, you told me it takes what, 12 weeks to accomplish this thing? He goes, yeah. I go, okay, so for 12 weeks, put yourself on friggin hold and allow yourself to do this project. That is important because do the projects that are going to move you forward, not just the ones you're like, yay, right? Because If I only did the things that brought me tons of joy, I wouldn't have the ability to reach you. I wouldn't have been able to build the team or make the money or scale the business or this wouldn't happen. So sometimes it's not just about passion, passion, passion, joy, joy, joy. It's about, okay, what's the moving blocks that are going to significantly move me forward right now? Let's do those. And. And then the rest of these pieces come into play to help those things sustain. I hope that helps you. I know there's lots of other topics that we could cover in productivity. That was a fire hose session. I hope it didn't overwhelm you too much, but all I'm trying to do is give you every single month. I'm trying to give you some new thinking tools, maybe a new mindset. I'm trying to give you some things you can score yourself on. I'm trying to challenge you. I'm trying to be here to say, listen, you're doing a great job in the world. Congratulations for your commitment to continuing learning. I appreciate you being here. Congratulations once again for your commitment to becoming the best of who you are. I celebrate you for taking time out of your day to work on you so that you can excel, so you can serve other people, so that you can make your difference, and so that you can reach high performance along with the rest of us. I honor you for being on this journey. Go out there every single day, live fully, love openly, and make your difference today.