Why doing less will help you achieve more. EP #151 - Shorty

G', day, guys. Dan here for this week's Shorty. Thanks to my wonderful assistant, Milka, who just reminded me I had to record one because I've gotten stuck into a really cool bit of work, which I'll be sharing with you in the next month or two. Actually been working a big project in the background. So excited to share that with you and yeah, bring that to you on in good time. So today I wanted to just share something with you very briefly that I think you'll find really interesting and that I think will help you if you're open to it. So I'll get into that in just a second.

So I want to just talk about the fact that I've had this massive breakthrough recently. Break the wrong word realization. And that is that the slower I go at something with more consideration, the faster I get results. And that is completely opposite to what I've previously experienced. I've tended to go, I'm a pretty big implementer. I tend to implement stuff straight away and I go hard and I get stuff done. But since kind of before Christmas, I guess since I started doing a yanga yoga.

I started to be more considerate in everything I'm doing in my business, in life. So I'm not working as many hours, and yet I'm getting the best results I've ever gotten. Our mastermind is growing, Our course is growing. Our clients are getting just phenomenal results. The community is incredible. You know, it's become much bigger than me. You know, the people in the community are so proactive at supporting each other. It just blows my mind. But. But I'm very conscious of how I spend my time. So my part of my life goal is to. To not work full time. I want to work 20 to 30 hours a week and enjoy mountain biking and yoga and reading and kind of hanging out in this beautiful place where we live, taking landscape photographs, playing music, all the kind of fun stuff that, you know, we used to do when we were younger until, you know, work got in the way. And before you know it, it was like suddenly, you know, I don't know, you just like. It was like, oh, God, I've got a real job now. And that's what most of running a business can be like. It can feel like you've given yourself a job. And so.

I've been sort of really thinking about how, how can I make myself more effective and more efficient? How. And one of the ways I've done that is by being super organized and super structured in my working week. And so I have very clear times. When I work, I've actually discovered that my optimal working time is between 12pm and 4pm so that's like four hours in the middle of the day. I get up at six. So for the first six hours I'm doing other things, but when I get to sit down at my desk, I'm so productive and so focused that I am getting more done with less effort than ever before in my life. I'm also largely focused on just helping my clients succeed. And if you take that philosophy and help your clients succeed, then literally you can't go wrong. You know, I did an extra call for a couple of my clients last night who've been struggling a bit with just, you know, homeschooling. They're in the UK and they'd missed a couple of calls and I could see they were getting behind and it was really bothering them. But, you know, priorities must be what they are, you know, and the UK being in lockdown, it's tough. So did an extra call and because I'm up at 6 in the morning, by the time I did a call at 8 o' clock at night, I was pretty knackered. So I spent 45 minutes meditating before the call to energize myself so that I give my clients the very best of me for the time they're on the call with me. And then I was buzzing after the call. And the same this morning, you know, I got up at 6, I meditated for half an hour, I had a coffee, hung out with my wife, watched a bit of YouTube and then went and did the call. I had an amazing call. We talked about, you know, the whole idea of affiliates and how can you get people to refer you work. And is there an argument for saying some people, look, here's a $500 incentive or we had this big, deep discussion about it and then we discussed storyboards of all things. So it was such a kind of interesting mix of topics. But.

But throughout all of this, I'm just like, why is it I'm getting so much done in such a short time? And part of the reason is that I'm very disciplined in how I run my day in terms of time slots. So I have time slots where I do focused work. And that focused work is uninterrupted. So I don't have any alerts. My email box is empty before I start a day, I don't check my email every 10 minutes, I don't respond to anything right away. I make sure that I'm in control. Of my time because I want to be as productive as I can with the time I have. And I want to serve my clients at the highest level and give you guys great value on these podcasts. And so the slower I have been attacking life, the faster I've been getting results. And it's counterintuitive. So I want you to think about how you run your day. And I know for from my own experience, and I wouldn't begin to presume how you run your day, but when I used to live in the UK and I was earlier in my business career, I was just constantly kind of felt on edge, felt like I was constantly panicking to keep the wheels moving. And I used to look at my mentors and go, why are you so chilled out? Why are you so relaxed? Why are you, like, not jumping at every opportunity? You seem to be kind of very focused on one thing, and I couldn't work it out. And now I get it that the single point of focus, the one thing focus is, is what makes the biggest difference. Saying no to things that don't support your purpose and mission is the absolute key to success. I remember an interview with Richard Branson where he said, we get people making us offers all day long for businesses. He said, it's so important that we say no to most of it because it might in fact be a great idea. And Steve Jobs is another one who said this. You know, it's like what you say no to is more important than what you say yes to. And you, you should be saying no to incredible ideas because if they're not aligned with your purpose and your overall mission, they will just distract you. I think that the reason I'm feeling this way now, and I wanted to share this with you, is because I have removed virtually all distraction from my life. My core focus is my video business accelerator clients. We have two courses. We have the mastermind, and we have a course we have. My focus is those two products, those two sets of people, and making this podcast and creating marketing to encourage more people towards our offer. That is all I do. That is it, full stop, and that is creating all of the wealth I desire. It's creating the lifestyle I desire. I love my job. I love seeing my members succeed. I love my clients. I genuinely would have every one of them around my house for a barbecue. That's because I get to choose who I work with. Um, you know, I reject a lot of people, and for some people, it's not a good fit and they don't stick around because it doesn't feel right, and that's okay, too. But the key is that I have. I just had to share this with you like that doing less is actually creating more because I'm working on the right things. So I want you to think about doing an audit in your own life. You know, track yourself for the next two weeks. There's a great app called Rescue Time. Download it on your phone, put it on your computer, see how you're spending your time. I just do not waste any time now. When I'm in the office, I'm there to work. When I'm not in the office, I'm doing something else. Be that reading, playing, having fun.

Doing yoga. And that's all part of my life goal of living a certain way, being in a certain state. So I hope you found this useful. I just wanted to share this with you because it was like this aha moment today. I was having breakfast with my wife, going. It just struck me, you know, like, it's like I am suddenly, like, achieving more than I ever have in my life, yet I'm putting in less effort or the effort is more focused. I'm not wasting energy sitting at a desk 8 to 10 hours a day trying to figure stuff out, chasing too many rabbits. I've got one core focus, and I do that at the expense of everything else. And so I want you to think about that in your own business and life. You know, what can you get rid of and how can you streamline what you're doing and get more focus? All right, guys, I will talk to you again on Thursday. You've been listening to the how to Scale a Video Business podcast with me, your host, Dan Lenny. If you're a video business owner who's hit a ceiling and we benefit from mentorship, support and coaching, then check out how you can work with me or over@denleny.com don't forget to subscribe and rate the show over on itunes. And we'd really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review. And don't forget to share. If you feel you've gotten value from this episode and you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, you know, then please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.