Chad Silverstein argues that the common excuse "I don't have time" masks poor priorities. Despite modern time-saving tools, people waste hours (e.g., phone scrolling) and their calendars and bank accounts reveal true priorities. Silverstein urges making personal development a top priority, measuring progress via calendar/finances/relationships, and seeking time with successful people to accelerate growth.
Chapters
The number one reason people don't work on themselves. I don't have enough time, no time. Today we have more tools, resources, we have more access to things that save us time. Ironically, they do the opposite. They bury us deeper in our work. And I think if you look at two things for anyone, this will hold true. If you look at their calendar and if you look at their bank account, you'll see what their priorities are and you'll see what they have time for. And the fact that we're so connected online and that the average person has anywhere from three to six hours of time scrolling through their phones to say that you don't have time to work on yourself is ridiculous. And if you want to do anything great in life, then you've got to make time for the most important things. And if you're rationalizing and you fool yourself into telling yourself you don't have time because you're so busy with your tasks and your to do's, I would love to see your calendar and I would love to see your screen time on your phone and your bank account to see where you're spending all your money. Because wherever you spend your money, that is a clear indication of whatever you're prioritizing. And whatever you're prioritizing is going to be where you spend your time. And so there's never an equal balance of this. And it's very telling for individuals who are fooling themselves and kind of pulling the wool right over their eyes. Because it feels really good to say I don't have time to do something, because you rationalize that. But if you want to become good or great at anything, you've got to make time for it. And if you look at the things that are the most important things in your life right now, you probably don't have to make time for it, you probably just do it. And so your development, the biggest investment you can make, which is on yourself, will pay back the biggest dividends and your life more so than any financial investment. I mean, if you think about just working on yourself time and time again, over time you're going to see such, such crazy growth. And with that comes all the things that people want in their life. And it may be financial, it may be time, it may be the relationships, but you get what you, what you earn, and you earn based on how hard you work. And if you're not working on yourself, you're not going to attain a much. You're going to probably, probably be one who's going to say things like, wow, Time goes really fast, and you'll look at your New Year's resolutions and realize it's probably not even worth setting them, because I don't. I don't achieve them. And if you look back a year from now and look at where you were, and if you don't see a lot of growth from the previous year, then you're not working on yourself. And I'm not talking about your situation being different. I'm talking about how you feel, talking about your calendar. I'm talking about your finances, your relationships. Look at all those things and determine how they stack up against you in the past. Because if there's one thing I've learned in my career and in my personal life is that history repeats itself. So if you're going through whatever you're going through now, there's a really good chance if you look backwards, you're going to see that same pattern. And maybe it's an unhealthy relationship, maybe it's a job you hate, but you've probably been stuck in it before, and that's on you. It's on you to make changes, and it's on you to grow. And if you grow, you'll see things will change. If you are more aware of who you're spending your time with, who you surround yourself with, you. Everyone has access to incredible people who are smarter and have done things that you want to be able to accomplish in your life. Go spend time with them, steal their time, meet them for coffee, get them on a call, ask them questions, hang out with more people who are successful. And you'll start to see changes in your life. It just. It just happens almost automatically because your mindset will change, and you have no room in your life to not afford to be able to do that. And you have to make that one of your top priorities. So stop saying you don't have time to do things and start making time for it.
