How To Know When To Say “No”

You want to create a legacy for the people you love, but you let the people you love distract you so much and get in your head that you don't have time to actually build the legacy you want to leave them. Welcome to the Dean Graziosi Show. All success starts right here. Proactive planning. Okay, this is a fancy way of saying planning ahead. And spend more time thinking about the plan so you can spend less time doing the plan. Okay. I remember when I wrote this slide, I was working on so many things at once, and here's what I want to share with you. More time thinking about the plan. My best ideas don't come when I'm just sitting saying, okay, let me create my course. Right? What usually happens. This is why I say, always have a journal next to you. Always have your phone if you're going to type in your notes. Right? When you can find time to get in sort of like flow state. And flow state's really just when you get in that moment where you're really. All the distractions go away. And maybe it's a walk in the morning. Maybe it's while you're in the shower. Maybe it's that twilight when the kids go to bed and your husband falls asleep and you got this half hour window. I'm a morning person. My best flow State is between 5 and 5:30 every morning. It's like, I just. I feel like it was downloaded to me. So what I want you to. I want to give you a little secret for productivity. You can be thinking about it and rehearsing it. Like, Michael Jordan used to sit in his bed and visualize throwing foul shots over and over and over. Like, literally. He said he would visualize thousands of foul shots. Then when he got there, he could hit the foul shot, but you could think, okay, I'm going to teach parents of divorce how to make sure their kids are not fragmented, that they feel centered. And it's a child centered divorce so kids can be empowered, Man. What story would be the best story? Because of the experience I went through, what scene of my life can help set that up? If you just sit down and go write that scene. Hmm. But what I'd suggest is while you're on the walk, while you got that half hour at twilight, while you're exercising on the treadmill, just start thinking to yourself, what is that story that can say, oh, my God, I remember when my son looked at me and I could feel we were pulling him apart, and I looked at him and said, and blah, blah, blah, oh my God, that's the story. And then when you schedule that time, you get and type up that story. Or in the moment, record the story on your voice memo. Do you guys all know how to go on your phone and find the voice memo that you can record? That's been my secret weapon. Every time I have a moment or a thought, or like, oh, that's the story. Or like, oh, my God, I need to teach how me and their mom bonded as friends after our divorce and how my current wife and. Oh, my God, that's a great process on how we became friends. Let me. And I'll pull up my phone, I'll hit record, and I'll just sit and riff. Even if, like, sometimes I'll stop at a streetlight and then pull over and be like, oh, my God, here's the three things, or here's how I do this, or here's how I market. Here's that. And I'll just do it. And then later, when it's my scheduled time to work, I might send that audio off to Grow Rev. It's an app that transcribes everything I record. You should write that down. I'll record it. I'll send it off to Grow Rev, and when it comes back in an email, I'll just leave it there. And then when my hour schedule time, I'll go get my downloads and like, all the work. So much of the work for proactive planning is set up for me to really maximize that time. Does that make sense? Okay, so proactive planning, knowing what you need to do and do it in that order, and then making notes about it during the time, that's just kind of what I share. Knowing what to do allows you to understand clearly what you should not be doing. This one is knowing what to do allows you to understand as you go through. And you're setting up the things that you think that you know can move you forward, even if they're a little uncomfortable. What I want you to do is also start identifying the things that you need to stop or do less of. Okay, I'm being redundant on purpose because, listen, I think we already know that we could get in better shape if we had less sugar, ate less simple carbs, did cardio four days a week. Do we all know that that would get us in better shape? Is that true or, like, beyond true? Right. Just because we know it, Are we all doing it? Are we all eating less sugar and doing cardio four hours, four, five times a week? No. Right. Knowing and doing is two different things. I want to Share this with you. Knowing and doing is two different things, right? So when you feel your body say, well, well, I already know that I gotta be working on things that move the needle and I gotta stop doing the things that don't. Just because you know that, it doesn't mean you're doing it. Binary thinking, it's either measurable moves you forward or it kills you. But really what it's boiling down to is identifying what is gray in your life, because gray is hard to make that decision and make it black or white, make it yes or no, a one or a no. So binary thinking, it's either moving you forward or it's killing you. We try to do too much at once. Most of the stuff we do doesn't matter. We literally are damaging our brain's capacity to function by distracting ourselves all the time. Our perfectionism actually causes us to perform worse. So think of those last two. I kind of covered the other ones. We literally are damaging our brain's capacity to function by distracting ourselves all the time. So kill the distractions, right? Kill the distractions. Our perfectionism is actually causing us to perform worse. This is what I want to share. Some of you without realizing this is going to be a pretty tough statement to hear. Some of you without realizing, are addicted to learning, and you're addicted to way the learning makes you feel you could get addicted to. Oh, my God, that's amazing information. And I felt good when I learned it. But what we must get addicted to is not perfectionism and knowing it all. We must get addicted to taking uncomfortable action and put it into play. Then you take that success and it proves that the uncomfortable action is actually what gets you the results. The only person that can fail on it is you. And if I'm going to be here to disturb you if you don't take the action, then let that be me. Let me be that annoying voice that's like, damn it, I got to keep going. But you got to go at your own pace. But we must take that uncomfortable action and don't blame it on perfectionism. And this is what you really need to do. Take uncomfortable action. Don't wait to be ready. You will never be ready. Anybody ever feel when your child was like three months old that you were ready? Anybody? Were they ready? It's like, you're three months in. You're like, I haven't slept. I don't know what to do. This is crazy. We should have waited. Like your brain. You're never ready to be a parent. It's the greatest Thing in the history of the world. You're never gonna be fully ready. You jump out of the plane, and that's how you grow wings on the way down. Right? Your next mission is to schedule your activity. I'm going to go through this one kind of quick, but look at everything you want and need to accomplish in the next two weeks. This is where we're getting to the action part, right? Look at everything you want to do and accomplish in the next two weeks and then list in logical order what needs to be done and set hard deadlines and then chunk big things down into small things. You'll have 20 things. You'll get none of them done. Chunk it down, decide what piece you're going to do within that chunk. Schedule it, set a timeline, get it done. Okay. Your next mission is to eliminate distractions. It's good to be selfish. Who in here loves to help others and serve your family, your loved ones, your friends, your family? We all do. You're all givers. That's why we have that in common. That's this group. It's always been a group like this. Right? But what is. What about this? What if the truth? Yes, sometimes, but not all the time. You being selfish with your time and the people you spend it with can allow you to tap into a greater version of yourself. Therefore becoming the person who can make an even greater impact on those you love and the world. Think about that. Instead of giving all your time and being distracted and not getting done, what if you're selfish with your time in the short frame that you have dedicated time to be the best version of you? When you're the best version of you, are you a better mom, better dad? When you're the best version of you, living inside your true potential, are you a better husband? Are you a better wife? Do you have more confidence? Do you have more glow when you're in that space, when you're living into your full potential, are you a better version of you? Are you a better friend? Right? So we must sacrifice some time. Remember I said live the hard way is the easy way. Leave the easy way is hard. We got to go a little bit harder and dedicate this time. Right? Cycle of frustration. I want to create a legacy for those I love. I allow people I care about distract me during dedicated work hours because they're important. Because I deliberately choose to do this, I diminish my ability to create legacy for them. Feel that you want to create a legacy for the people you love, but you let the people you love distract you so much and get in your head that you don't have time to actually build the legacy you want to leave them. Selfish is good for others because the truth is you're a better friend, partner, spouse, parent if you take care of yourself and your goals first. Okay? Eliminate distractions. Decide who, who and what gets your attention during dedicated work time. Stand firm in your commitment, in your commitment to keeping all others out. Stay focused. Right now, it's the only thing that you can control. 60 minutes a day. Messing around on social media is seven hours a week. That's about how long it takes to create a new marketing campaign. Texts, emails, alerts, social media alerts, calls. The only people who are that accessible are desperate. I remember writing that if you feel that you have to reply to every text, every email, every message, as soon as it comes in, then it's time to train your friends and your family something different. You're working on you. It's time for you 3.0 and you're not going to be there by going, oh, I got to reply, give me a minute. Oh, I got another one. I got to reply, give me a minute. Oh, oh my mom. Oh my sister. I got no, they need to learn that Mona is working on Mona because she's going to her full potential and there's nothing going to stop her, right? Like literally figure these things out. The screen only turn on your computer to get online when you have to. It is so easy to go down rabbit holes, right? Dedicate, screen time. Email. When someone sends you an email, they're asking you to jump. When they say jump, you're either control of your actions or they are. You get to choose. Think about that. When you get a text, an email we talked about earlier, just train people that you're working on. You people make time for, make time for them later. Your work is your time. If you don't get it done, you'll be less present for them long term. So think about that. If you don't get it done and you're out to dinner with your girlfriend, right, your husband, your wife, you're out to dinner with friends. If you know that you've been kind of distracted not getting your stuff done, you know, life is passing you by, the knowledge industry is passing you by. You're not making the income you want, you don't like the job you're in, think about how you are, how present you are at dinner. Are you sitting staring with nothing else in mind except maybe the great glass of wine and the food and the person you're sitting with or a lot of times are we sitting there going, I'm still not in control of my time. Yeah, wat hun, I'm sorry, what did you say? Yeah, no, no, I'm here. I'm just, I got a lot on my head. We gotta shift this. I could retire and never do another thing in my life. I could still donate to charity every single year the money I want to donate and my wife and I can live the rest of our lives. I don't have to work another day. But guess what? If I did that, I wouldn't show my kids that you can continue to grow as a human. You can grow your impact, you can, you can evolve, you can grow like I am. My best version, what I did last week made me another level, better version of me. When I go home, I'm on another level of inspiring my kids and being a super dad and being 52 years old and being in the best shape of my life and having more energy than any 25 year old. I know I want my kids to see that because I'm being the best version of me. But if I wasn't doing this, if I just retired and was like, oh, it's three o'. Clock, I guess I should go pick up the kids. Let me get one more round of golf in like, no, that's not me. Maybe that could be you someday. That's not me. I want to maximize my time. Work on me. But my kids know this. When dad's in his home office working or I'm down here, it is dedicated work time because I can do dedicated work time. But at five o', clock, hun, I'll be there. I'm going to drive you to practice. But I can't do anything until five, babe. That's like literally, that's how I talk at my house, babe. Five o'. Clock, we got an hour in the car, let's do that. Oh, you want to grab pizza after? Boom, let's do it. But from now until 5, I cannot be distracted at all. Love you. See you in a little bit. That's how it's just got to be. And that's how I get to be a better version of myself for my kids. But here's what I'd love for you to think about. I promise you, if you've heard this a million times, you're not doing it to the full potential unless you have all the time you need to reach your next level. If you're not, you're not doing it at this level. And this Isn't something I dreamed up. This is how. It's the reason I started with all the things I do. This is how I get more done than anybody I've ever met. It's very. There's no gray for me. The other thing I was saying to you is we can't lie to ourselves either, right? Don't lie. I must do that. I gotta do that. I've been doing this for years. I gotta spend time with them. You don't. You don't. The greatest gift I gave my wife. The greatest gift, my wife. Anybody here. Say yes to everything because you feel bad. A cousin invites you over for a birthday party, even though you haven't seen him in nine months, you feel bad and you go anyway. Or the wedding you promised you were going to go to a year earlier, and now you're not even friends with them, but you promise to go, and you got this guilt to go. I say no to everything except for the things that I know I need to say yes to. My kids and my wife get my yeses. My business gets a yes. My dear friends get a yes. My team gets a yes. Because they're the things. That's what the definition of success is for me. Everything else is a no. Everything, everything. Everything. And I gave my wife that gift because she said, babe, we were together, married for six months or a year, and she's like, babe, I got to go to this happy hour. It's people I've worked with. I've been going for years. Will you please come? Me? I don't want to go alone. I'm like, babe, I'm not going. And let me just ask you. You have two choices tonight. I'll cook you dinner, or we'll go have a nice romantic dinner. If we're going to take the time, just me and you, you want to do that or you want to go there? She's like, oh, my God, I want to be with you. I'm like, then here's what you do. You just say no. She's like, yeah, but I mean, it was this thing. I had never seen anybody. Like, she was so nervous and fidgety. She's like, just say no. I'm like, just say no. And all of a sudden, it was like she went from this. Oh, my God. I said no. I said, did they send someone over to kill you? Did they post hate mail? Did they rent a billboard and said, lisa Graziosi sucks? No. I said, no. Police didn't come to the door. They didn't arrest you or Anything. And all of a sudden, over, like, six months, I got her to say no only to the things I knew didn't serve her. I wasn't pushing her to say no to things that she loved. I wanted her to have more time for the things she loved. And over six months, I watched my wife be afraid to say no to. She is the no queen now. Like, nothing gets through our home. Nothing. She works. She loves being a mom. She loves. We love hanging out together, thank God. She loves working on her business. She's a badass. Her business is booming. She's learned to say no to everything. And I've been teaching my wife what I just taught you. My wife was already a badass. She didn't need me. Massively successful people all the time go, oh, your wife got lucky marrying you. I'm like, no, I got lucky and she had all the money she needs. To this day, I still can't buy my wife shit. She's like, why would I use your money when I got mine? Like, that's my wife, right? She didn't need me. But what I taught her is how to do everything she's doing in a third of the time. So she's doing exactly what she always did. She's being the same family. She loves her family. She's crushing her business, but she gets to spend two thirds of her time with our son Luca. And she hasn't changed a thing. She doesn't make any less. She just learned all the things I just taught you today. If you like today's podcast, then you're going to love being a part of my texting community. What's that mean? You could text me right now at 480-40090 19, or it should be below, right here. And it comes directly to my phone. Doesn't go to my team. It comes to me. I've been absolutely loving the interaction. I send out some cool things about once a week. I text nothing but things to get your week going, to get your mind thinking. And when we have new videos and things like that, I always text my community first. It has absolutely been a blast, and I'd love for you to do it right now. Text me. 4 8. Oh. 490 19. Do it. Text me.