In this live “Elevenses with Charlie” session, Charlie Hugh‑Jones delivers a productivity lesson centered on the maxim “you can do anything, but you can’t do everything.” He opens by explaining the British tradition of elevenses and sets the stage for a series of short, value‑driven talks. Using personal anecdotes—his 8‑year‑old daughter Melody’s disappointment over not being able to watch a movie, a historic lion‑tamer’s three‑legged stool metaphor, and a violinist’s “planned neglect” story—Charlie illustrates how distraction and over‑commitment cripple focus. He ties these stories to cognitive science, describing retrospective and prospective memory as key drivers of goal achievement, and emphasizes the importance of narrowing one’s focus to a few (3‑5) clear goals. He references John Maxwell’s leadership teachings, his upcoming book Unlocking a More Productive You, and his own experience writing multiple books by applying core productivity pillars. The talk concludes with a concrete takeaway: define a limited set of goals, keep them vivid in prospective memory, and use disciplined “planned neglect” to achieve them. Charlie invites viewers to engage on social media, book a free strategy diagnostic, and follow his upcoming content on productivity pillars.
Chapters
Good morning. It is eleven o'clock. I'm Charlie Hugh Jones, and this is Elevenses with Charlie. Let's just take a couple of moments till a few people arrive on this live. It's elevenses, so I get to drink my coffee. Just for those of you who don't know, what is elevenses? Elevenses is a British concept. Well, it's even more an English concept. When the workers historically used to take their mid-morning break, they used to take a piece of cake or a cookie or something like that, just something sweet that would help get them through the morning. And that treat, when they were breaking it around 11 o'clock before lunch, halfway between breakfast and lunch, it was called elevenses. And so what I'm doing is on my Facebook Lives, I'm going to do elevenses with you. There are a number of them. Check back in the feed, my earlier videos. And I'm dealing with all sorts of topics where I'm gonna give you something of value, something that might spark your interest, inspire you, equip you just to think about. In this series, it's all about productivity. So today's live is called You Can Do Anything, But You Can't Do Everything. So I hope this is gonna be of value to you. If it is, please put a comment down there, give me a like, Share it with somebody else who it might be valuable for. So this is Charlie Hugh-Jones, Elevenses with Charlie. Thank you for joining me. So, I want to tell you a little story about Melody. Melody is my 8-year-old daughter, and Melody is with us here in Palm Beach for the summer. 8 weeks of fun, of sun, of sand, of surf, of Pool time, of camp, of all kinds of things. But I just recall this one evening, a few nights ago, when Melody came in to me. She had a tear coming down her face, and she was dejected. She was upset, and she was saying, but Daddy, it's not fair. I didn't get to watch my movie. And obviously, as a parent, you, you feel for your child in this situation. But you see, there was no way Melody was going to be able to watch her movie. She had 45 minutes before bedtime. I just let her know. She wanted to read a book about dolphins. She wanted to FaceTime a friend back in— back home and spend time doing that. She wanted to play her mermaid game with me and Abby, and she also wanted to watch the movie A Dolphin's Tale. And she'd spent so long reading a book and then on FaceTime to her friend Nora that she hadn't got to play a mermaid game. She hadn't got to watch Dolphin's Tale. And it was time for bed. And she knew it. And she was upset. But Daddy, it's not fair. I didn't get to watch my movie. And that's basically the principle that I'm talking about today. We only get a certain amount of time. And we are complex, sophisticated, incredibly— beings with incredible potential that can do anything, but we cannot do everything. And sometimes, for my clients who are high performers and passionate entrepreneurs, they are trying to do everything. And they're frustrated. They are confused. That might be you right now. There was a famous lion tamer, one of the first who came to prominence all those years ago in the traveling circuses. He was a lion tamer called Henry Martin, and he developed this methodology, this system for taming lions. Not only did he take pistol— a pistol and a whip into the ring, But he also took a three-legged stool, which he always said when he was talking to other people and training other lion trainers was the most important tool of the trainer. The trainer stands back, holds the stool in front of him, and thrusts the three legs of the stool into the face of the wild animal. The animal is trying to focus. On all 4 of those— all 3 of those legs at once. But in an attempt to do so, the animal is overwhelmed. The lion is distracted— sorry, is disabled by distraction. It can't focus on any one of the 3 legs. And so it's calm. It's paralyzed. There's a lack of focus. There's a lack of its attention. And gradually, the lion tamer can get nearer and teach the lion because it's been disabled by this distraction. And that's very much like our world. Very much we are completely disabled by distraction, or from a lack of focus, or from a lack of being able to attention on— put our attention on just one thing. Now my parents used to say when I was a kid, Charlie, you can do anything. I mean, this was very encouraging and inspiring. You can be anything. You can do anything. But They never really taught me about the cost of doing anything, of being able to do something so well, be so proficient at it, become so well known for it, that I have to pay a cost to get there. So I was grateful for the encouragement, but it's as I've grown up that I've learned the cost of being really, really good at something, of being a high performer in a particular area, and being a great life and business strategist. that I am now. You see, one of my goals was to write a book, and if anyone has been following me on social media, they've seen that we're just coming to the end of that process. One of my life goals was to write a book. In fact, I'm writing 4. Well, I'm writing 5, but 4 are being published in the next year. The first one, Unlocking a More Productive You, is going to be published on the 1st of December. That is 4 weeks today. I am so excited, as you can tell. Yeah, I've drunk an awful lot of coffee, as other people who've been looking at my social media can tell you as well. But to achieve that goal, I had to put other things down. I had to avoid— I needed to focus. I needed to avoid distraction. I needed to maintain my creative energy, and I needed a system to get it done. And quite ironically, well, not ironically, but when you read the book, you'll understand because it's a book on productivity, it's actually about the process itself. To be able to write a book, I've had to implement my core pillars of productivity. Now, I'm not gonna tell you what they are now. We'll let you know in the next couple of weeks, so keep yourself looking out for those on this Facebook page, on Instagram, on Twitter, on my LinkedIn, And gradually we're gonna reveal a little bit about what is in the book, the 3 pillars of productivity. But by applying them, I've been able to write this book in 6 to 8 weeks with the help of my book strategist and editor. But I wouldn't have been able to do it if I hadn't understood this principle, this very simple maxim, that you can do anything, but you can't do everything. I had to contract my world. I had to narrow my focus. I had to use my powerful no to certain things that I could be distracted by in order to deliver this book. See, John Maxwell in his book Developing the Leader Within You, something I read 12, 13-odd years ago, told a story about a young violinist. She was asked the secret of her success and she replied, planned Neglect. Then she explained, when I was in music school, there were many things that demanded my time. When I went to my room after breakfast, I made my bed, straightened the room, dusted the floor, and did whatever else caught my attention right then. Read articles about famous musicians, looked at sheet music for new things I wanted to try, and then I hurried to my violin practice. But I found that I wasn't progressing as quickly as I thought I should be. So I began to reverse things. This is the violinist talking, remember. And I didn't let myself be distracted. I didn't let my attention wander. I didn't do anything else until my practice period was completed. I deliberately neglected everything else. And that program of planned neglect, I believe, accounts for my success. I don't know who that violinist was, but I know a number of musicians, professional musicians, who that is exactly what they've done. Samuel, my eldest son who's 18, has become a fantastic guitarist in a band called The Elephant Trees. Again, if you've been following my social media, you've seen that they were on Virgin Radio recently. They were shortlisted as a top 5 band in the UK this summer, and in order to get there, he practiced and practiced. He was diligent. So although I tell the story of a violinist, the real story is Samuel and his application, his diligence, his discipline to practice. And you know, life is like that. But the question that I get asked as a coach, as a trainer, as somebody who is helping organizations and individuals be more productive is, how do you maintain this kind of focus? Well, I've been reading Dr. Carmen Simon recently. She's a cognitive scientist, and she explains particularly how memory works, because memory is actually something that powers us, that fuels us, that unlocks our ability to do things. And we have a very— 2 different parts of the brain when it comes to memory. We have retrospective memory, which is everything that has happened to us, the experiences that we've been through, the people we've met, the books we've read, and our brain holds that in very specific ways. But we also have something called prospective memory. And prospective memory is one of the most powerful determinants of success, of being productive, of achieving your goals. Because prospective memory is all about remembering the future you want. Let's get that for a minute. Prospective memory is about remembering the future you want. So what is it that you want to do? What is your anything? What is the goal? Is it to build your billion-dollar company? Is it to have a fashion line? Is it to set up a chain of restaurants? Is it to become this incredible musician? Is it to be the top performer in your industry? What prospective memory have you created about that? There's a marketing maxim which I knew for many, many years but hadn't internalized, which, which says, if you try to sell to everyone, you will sell to no one. And I learned a very valuable lesson in that a few months back. But that idea that if you're trying to sell to everybody, you will not be focused enough to be able To tell a singular, focused message that a prospective client will get. Hi Peter, thank you for joining, appreciate that. I'm just talking about that you can do anything but you can't do everything on today's live, and I've just been going through the idea of prospective memory. So thank you for joining, look forward to seeing you later on this week for coffee. So if you try and do everything you'll get nothing done. Melody had that experience. She wanted to do these 5 things but could only fit 2 in, and then was disappointed because her expectation was that she could do everything. She hadn't learned the lesson yet that she needed to focus and that she could only do 1 or 2 of the 5 things she was trying to do. And a lot of business owners and professionals are always trying to do this, trying to do more, spend more time in the office, working 23.5 hours a day in order to get their business off the ground. But that's because they're doing so many roles. So let me just remind you of this. Some of the most successful people that you come across have a clear vision of a very few things that they want to achieve. They don't say, I'm gonna change the world. They say, I'm gonna change this narrow part of the world for this kind of person. An instrumentalist doesn't say, I'm gonna try and play all the instruments in the orchestra. No, I'm gonna be the most effective cellist that I can be. A band doesn't say, we're gonna do so many styles of music that nobody will be able to— no fans will join us. They play one kind of music until those fans are so passionate, they're so ardent about it, that they spread it with everyone. And it's only then that they begin to broaden musical horizons, when you see the successful ones. So what's the takeaway from this today? I titled this, You Can Do Anything. But you can't do everything. So here's my takeaway. What can you do? Well, define just a few goals for your life, for your business, for your family, etc. Just a few, 3 to 5 maximum, and keep them front and center. Remind yourself of this future that you want. Engage your Retrospective memory and trigger it regularly. Create a clear, a vivid, a detailed picture of what you want, of these few goals, and you will be able to do anything. We all understand the 10,000 hours rule, the one thing rule. This is how you apply it to a goal. A few goals, keep them front and center, make sure the way you remind yourself of that future you envisioned is clear, is vivid, is detailed. And then you'll be able to focus on it, you'll be able to put your— invest your energies in it, other people will understand what you're trying to achieve and support you in it rather than distract you from it, and then you will be able to achieve anything. So that's all I want to say this morning. Thank you for joining me on this Elevenses with Charlie. If anything I have said has resonated with you, please like it, Put a comment down here. If you haven't joined my Facebook page, follow me there. If you haven't been on Instagram or LinkedIn, you can find me there, or head to charliehughjones.com. And if you want to take this conversation further, either instant message me or book a free strategy diagnostic with me where we can figure out exactly where you are, where you want to go, and create in 30 minutes a, um, what do you call it, A— what do you call it? Can you believe I said that? I need more coffee. Create an action plan with concrete steps you can take to continue on your trajectory so that you can do anything you set your mind to. I'm Charlie Hugh-Jones. This has been Elevenses with Charlie. Thank you for joining me. If you're joining on the replay, I hope this is valuable to you. Please share, please like, please comment, and if I don't see you either in one of my private coaching sessions or a seminar. I'll see you at some other point in time, maybe on one of my online courses. Until then, bye for now.
