Make Time for What Matters

Think about this. Doesn't this, when you know this rule, when you know these rules, doesn't it feel more possible to look at something like this, like none of this? You want to be assertive in your life, do this when you get home. What is assertiveness, Brendan? What does this mean? Do this get around people who are constantly talking about these things. That peer group will change your life. What are we going to delete? What are we going to remove? What are we going to take away? So we just work through the calendar of the last year. What did not need to happen, what did not move the needle, what was not necessary. And remember, I want you to all hear this because some people still are trapped in 30 years ago research. It's not the Pareto principle. 80, 20 is actually not how high performance happens. The good news is high performance happens at 60, 40, not 80, 20. The research is super clear. High performers spend 60% of their week on needle moving activities. They're human just like the rest of us. The other 40%, they got to do email too. And Slack and workplace too. They got to take the dumb call too. They got a prospect too. They're doing other things that might not lead to a specific result, that don't push it forward, that don't move the big needle. Right. All it is, is like they're handling life and work just like everyone else. And we think they're doing it 100%. They're not doing it 100%. They're doing 60% of their time. They're very clear. You know what that leads to. It means about 3.2 days of your week. Have to be really thoughtful about the major things that you should be doing. Other things will fill in there that, you know, one call, you gotta do that meeting with the employee. Like stuff fills it in. You need to know your needle moving activities, those are your most important ones. And that's only 60% of your week. That's good news. 40% is everything else. What we need to know is what that 40% is on a recurrent basis and delete it. Right? Get rid of it. And I mean you can be extreme at this because if you delete it, you can always bring it back. But I always go be assertive in the deletion. Right? Some of you guys saw this last year Shopify joined many other companies in this idea of they stopped doing standing meetings, recurring meetings with three people or more across the entire company, that we no longer do weekly meetings with more than three people. You just don't do it. There's no reason for it. It ends up being wasting a lot of people's times. We're gonna delete that entirely. And they saved over a million hours from the employment force already. A million hours where now there's people who are doing stuff. See, it's simple. What can you delete for me? I tell people, most people, I'm like, make sure you delete that hour of social media. That was just consumption. I know most people are doing two, three hours, but I want you to make sure you get an hour back a day. I need you to delete something from your day. I want an hour back. This is the gift I want to give you. Delete and hour somewhere of stuff that you do. Either be more planned or efficient at it. Get an hour back. Can you all say it with me? Get an hour back. Write it down, underline it. Get an hour back. It's the best gift. I give to people all the time. I want an hour back a day. I don't care where it comes from, but you gotta delete something to get it. I want an hour back. That's it. I will change your life. An hour back a day. That's 30 hours a month. That's 30 hours a month. That's three to six months. You get back a year. It's unbelievable. I just need an hour. That's it. I'm not asking something crazy. I'm not asking for five. I'm not asking you to change your life. I'm not even asking you to change anything in your life except to delete stuff so that you get an hour back. If we can do that, we're on. We're in motion now. I'm gonna ask, is there anything there that we could just delegate because. Cause it's not moving the needle or it's not initiative important enough to double down on. Is there something we can delegate? Just, like, hand it to somebody else. It's still important. It's not your important thing. There's many things that are important, but it's not your important thing. And you know the difference. Lots of important things, but not your important thing. In my company, there's a million important things across all of our companies. There's so many important things, but they're not my important thing. And every time someone tries to make my important thing, I have to tell them, that's not my important thing. And they're offended and I go, I'm sorry, not mine. So you gotta be willing to hold the line there about what your important thing is. And really delegate it. If we can just do these three simple things, I'll have some more this afternoon, but I think you get the idea. If we can do these things, then and only then, I'll get to more this afternoon of these ideas. But then you and I can talk about what are we gonna add. But I'm not gonna add anything ever. This is why people love working with me. I'm not gonna add anything to your life. Okay, I thought that was funny, but I'm not. I'm gonna work with you. You're gonna be like, he didn't ask me to do tens of people's fear of working with a coach. The coach is gonna ask me to do 70 more things. Actually, they're going to make sure you're going to do probably 59 less. That's the power. They're just going to help you kind of find what really matters at this stage for you and really work this. So it's very rare that I add a bunch of new projects or priorities or initiatives for the company or for a person. They usually kind of got them. They just haven't doubled down on that area. That's important. What are their big initiatives? What really matters right now? Go focus deep. Work important work. That's what I mean by double down. It's like, that's the important thing. You're going to do that thing. You're going to make that thing great. Delete everything else, delegate everything else, and then we can think about things to add. But this is about it. And see, when you think about this, doesn't this. When you know this rule, when you know these rules, doesn't it feel more possible to look at something like this? Like, none of this. You want to be assertive in your life, do this when you get home. What is assertiveness, Brendan? What does this mean? Do this, get around. People who are constantly talking about these things, that peer group will change your life. When you're around people who are moving, Let me go, let me go, let me go. Turn the person, shake them, say, get moving. Oh, no, you're on day three. Grab them, shake them, say, get moving. Yeah, let's get moving.