Interview: Multiply Your Time with Rory Vaden

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Rory Vaden, who, among many things, is the author of two great books that I loved. And we've talked about and profiled on this podcast and on YouTube. Take the stairs. Seven steps to achieving True Success. All about self discipline and procrastinate on purpose. Subtitle 5 permissions to multiply your time. Both of them are awesome. I highly recommend them and I'm excited to chat with Rory today about some of my favorite big ideas. Rory, thanks for taking the time.

Yeah, buddy, thank you for having me. It's good to meet you.

All right. We had a fun chat before and I'm fired up to explore some of these ideas. Really love your style. And let's just start with Take the Stairs. Tell us what you were thinking when you named your book Take the Stairs.

Well, I mean, if you just think about the last time that you were walking along and you were in front of a set of escalators and some stairs. Did you take the stairs? And for most of us, the answer is no. We took the escalator. But if you say, why did you do that? We don't even think about it. We just naturally gravitate towards the path of least resistance. And yet, over the last 10 years, as we've been building Southwestern Consulting from zero, there were four of us that started this business as zero. And this year we have crossed well into the eight figure mark. We have had an opportunity to be studying and surrounded by some of the world's elite performers and their story. When you really get behind the scenes and you sit down with them and it doesn't matter if they're an athlete, a celebrity, a CEO, a church leader, like a nonprofit, it's always the same story. The most successful people in the world have simply formed the discipline to do the things they know they should be doing, even when they don't feel like doing them. So in other words, success in anything that matters to you is not about taking the escalator. So success is about taking the stairs.

I love it. One of the ways you bring this point home throughout Take the Stairs. And of course, you have seven steps to doing it. But the pain paradox. And you share a great story about cows and buffalo. Can you share that with us?

Yeah. So I grew up in Colorado, Brian, and in Colorado, most people think of the Rocky Mountains. That's what we're famous for. And to the western part of the state, we have the great rocky Mountains. But to the eastern part of the state, which is. We also have the great Kansas plains. So, because of that unique topographical landscape, Colorado is actually one of the only places in the world that has both buffalo and cows in such close proximity. Well, there's a great lesson for leaders and anybody trying to become successful to learn from studying the way that these two creatures respond to storms. So, when storms come, storms almost always brew in the west, and then what happens is they roll out towards the east. And what cow do is very natural. A cow can sense that a storm is coming from the west, and the cows will try to run east to try to run away from the storm, to avoid the storm. But if you know anything about cows, you know they're not real fast. And so the storm actually catches up with the cows rather quickly. Well, without knowing any better, the cows continue to try to outrun the storm, but instead of outrunning the storm, they actually run with the storm, which maximizes the amount of pain and time and frustration they experience from that storm, which is stupid. And yet humans do the exact same thing all the time. We are constantly trying to avoid the inevitable challenges that come along with the difficult circumstances that our very own choices have led us to be in. And I can speak from personal experience here, because about eight years ago, I was 45 pounds heavier than I am right now. And people who are overweight are constantly making rationalizations for why it doesn't matter or how they've already tried and it doesn't work, or it's really not that big of a deal. I also had over $50,000 in personal debt. And I can tell you that people who are in debt constantly try to find ways around paying their bills. People who are struggling in their marriage are often avoiding the difficult but meaningful conversations that need to be had to reconcil reconcile that relationship. And the great insight here that ultra performers have realized is that problems that are procrastinated on are only amplified. Waiting always makes it worse. Now, what buffalo do is very unique for the animal kingdom. Buffalo will wait for the storm to cross right over the crest of the peak of the mountaintop. And so, as the storm is coming from the west and it's moving east, Buffalo, instead of turning east to run away from the storm, Buffalo turn west. And they charge directly at the storm. They run at the storm.

And.

And by running at the storm, they run straight through it, which actually minimizes the amount of pain and time and frustration they experience from that storm. Now, the thing to notice here is it's the exact same storm. It's such a great metaphor for business or for life because all of us are dealing with the same types of storms. We all have some personal issue or some financial battle or some health related struggle or a relationship issue, or we're all dealing with challenges in our business. And we don't always get to choose whether or not we have storms. But the only thing that matters is not whether or not we have storms, but how we respond to those storms and more specifically here when we respond to those storms. So that is the story that we use to illustrate what we call the pain paradox. And the pain paradox, simply stated, is this. Easy short term choices lead to difficult long term consequences. Meanwhile, difficult short term choices lead to easy long term consequences. And that is the great paradox that most people don't understand is what feels easy, what feels good in the short term, the indulgence. Eating whatever I want, saying whatever I want, buying whatever I want on credit even though I can't afford it, taking the escalator. Those things that feel good in the short term are actually the things that create the more difficult life. And inversely, the things that seem hard. Making the sacrifice, saving the money, doing the extra work, going to the gym, having the tough conversation, those things that seem so hard that the world rejects those are the very things that the ultra performers do. And by doing those hard things first, that is the vehicle to create the easiest life possible.

That is awesome. I love it. Cows. Buffalo Pain Paradox. Run at the Storm. One of my favorite books is called the Tools. And in the book they have an idea called Bring it on, which is our listeners will know a similar idea of just charging toward whatever it is you're challenged by and growing in the process. Love it. Appreciate your awesome story. Tell us about visioneering. I love the way you unpack that in the book and I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yeah, visioneering is not a credit or not a concept that I can take credit for. Actually, I heard about that from Andy Stanley, who is one of the pastors that I follow and an amazing communicator and leader and all that. But the concept of visioneering really stuck with me is this idea about taking a vision and combining it with the practical, pragmatic part of engineering to make that a reality. And I think very few people operate in both of those strengths. It's the ability to fly at the philosophical level of like the concept and then also be able to operate at the pragmatic or practical, the practice level of the actual behavior that you arethat you are doing. And you know, just like for example, the pain paradox, easy short term choices lead to difficult long term consequences. Meanwhile, difficult short term choices lead to easy long term consequences. That is a principle. It's at the philosophical level. Now, boiling that down to the practical level, what does that mean? How do you actually put that into practice? It means, well, for example, if it's with money and you're getting out of debt, it means that you might need to cancel the cable, you might need to sell one of your cars, you might need to stop going out to eat, you might need to do all sorts of various things to cut the expenses. In the short term, that's going to be painful. And yet if you are saving that money, for most people, it takes about 18 to 24 months to get out of debt. And then once you are debt free, then the rest of your life you can have anything that you want, as long as you can afford it, as long as you can pay for it and you don't put it on credit. And that changes everything. And so that's the combination. So visioneering is this idea. When people think of vision, I think people get screwed up because there's so much out there. And it's like, oh, well, what is a good vision statement? To me, a vision is just, it's like, it's a daydream. It's just daydreaming about what you want your life or your business to look like. And then engineering is creating the step by step path, reverse engineering, deconstructing all those steps in backwards order if you can, or just saying, okay, well, what is the first thing that I know how to do to move me towards that vision and take that step? And then the next step, I guarantee will be revealed to you. But very often the second step isn't revealed until you take the first one. And so that dichotomy of long term thinking, the energy and the inspiration of the vision, combined with the practical pragmatic to do list of taking action. That's what the visioneering is all about.

Awesome. We'll talk more about taking action in a moment as we shift to procrastinate on purpose. But I want to ask you one more to share your thoughts on one more idea from Take the Stairs. You come back to the rent axiom a number of times. Can you talk to us about the rent axiom and why it's so important?

Yeah, this has become sort of the signature catchphrase of the book. And it's funny because, Brian, when people read the book or they hear me do a keynote or something, they will. Their almost immediate ensuing question is they'll say, okay, Rory, so let's say I start doing all this stuff. Like, let's say I start taking the stairs and I'm being disciplined and I'm doing the things I don't want to do. How long do I have to do all that for? And just two weeks, right? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, I don't. I don't. I don't tell people what they want to hear. I tell them what they need to hear. Because I figured out in my life, being told what I wanted to hear didn't really help me that much in the long term. And what we all need to hear is the truth that you never get to stop being disciplined. You never do. Now, that doesn't mean life is going to be one great big giant trip to the gym or that you're only going to eat foliage. Right? I mean, you work what we talk about in the book called Harvest Seasons to create. It's like that 18 month window of getting out of debt, this very intense harvest season. But then after that you're free and it's much easier to maintain. But the reason you never get to stop being disciplined is, Is because of what we call the rent axiom at Southwestern. And the rent axiom says that success is never owned. Success is only rented, and the rent is due every day.

Awesome. We had a chat with Mark Devine, commander in the Navy seals. And his equivalent is, you got to earn your trident every day. So they go through this rigorous training and, hey, you know, wait, I'm a SEAL now? He's like, yeah, congratulations. Now you got to earn that trident every single day. So I love your description of the rent is due. We're never going to be exonerated from future work. Such good stuff. Okay, let's shift to Procrastinate on Purpose again. Those were a few ideas from Take the Stairs, which was Roy's first. That was your first book, right?

Yeah, that was the first. That was the first book. And then Procrastinate on Purpose is the new book. But I just wrote this blog about why the book title sucks. And the blog was called the most painful, expensive and valuable marketing lesson I have ever learned. And it's about procrastinating on purpose. Because the book is not really about procrastinating. The book is about how to multiply time. And what we have seen is the ted Talk that I did, which is called how to multiply time is spreading like wildfire. I mean, it's going viral. The book is selling very well to the audiences that we directly reach, but it's not selling very well organically to people who don't. Haven't heard about me directly. And yet. I think the book is really powerful. I think it's, I love it, you know, so hopefully you don't mind the transparency of me sharing. It's nice.

Appreciate that. Yeah. How to multiply your time. Yeah, that's exactly what the book is. Right. Which is what you capture in the subtitle. But that's funny. On the marketing lesson, I wish we.

Would have called it just how to multiply your time. And if we had, I think the book would be just going gangbusters like the, like the TED talk is.

That's cool. Okay, so then talk to us about multiplying your time.

Yeah, so the, the whole thing here is that we really, you know, I, I'm like you a huge reader and I go through usually about a book a week and, and I am, I read all these books on time management and productivity and it just dawns on me like, I'm so freaking busy. Everybody is so freaking busy. I can't remember the last time I talked to somebody and you know, they did not say, oh, things are just so busy or so crazy right now. And I mean, I do remember a time in my life when I was actually bored that did exist at some point in, in the past, but we're so busy. And so how is that possible? How is it that we have, we have more technology than ever before? How is it that we can communicate faster? How is it that there are more systems and apps and tricks and calendars and checklists than ever before in history and we're working longer hours than ever before and yet none of us are ever caught up. We, we're always behind, our inbox is always bursting and there's not margin for the vast majority of people. And so we just really got frustrated with this and I started asking that question and one of the things that I realized is that most of the strategies that we are using related to time management come from antiquated thinking, meaning the books that are, you know, the most popular books, and these are great books. Like, I don't, I don't mean in any way to demean these books because they were so forward thinking at the time, but the, you know, one of them was the seven habits of highly effective people which changed the world and it's one of the greatest books ever written. It's 25 million copies. But that book was written in 1989. And think about how much the world has changed since 1989. I mean, we didn't have the, we didn't have Google, we didn't have the Internet. We barely had cell phones. There's not, there's not Facebook or social media, there's barely email. I mean, the world has radically changed and you cannot solve today's time management problems using yesterday's time management strategies. And the book, you know, Dr. Covey's amazing work, really, you know, in procrastinating on purpose, we talk about the three areas of time management thinking. So era one was really even pre covey, which is 1950s and 60s, which was very one dimensional. It was all about doing things efficiently. The idea was if I could do things faster, I could get more done. But there's a huge limitation to that, which is very well evidenced by the fact that we all carry around these efficient machines in our pocket, these computers that are cell phones, and yet we're not ever caught up. Well, Dr. Covey brings in 1989 this tool called the time management matrix, where he created two dimensional thinking where the Y axis was importance and the X axis was urgency. And this was huge because he taught us that not all tasks are created equal and that if you have a system for scoring your tasks that then you can prioritize, which is era two thinking, prioritizing your time based on focusing first on what matters most. So era one was managing your time by doing things efficiently. Era two was prioritizing your time by focusing first on what matters most. Now the challenge is how the world has changed because Dr. Covey talks about importance and urgency. Well, what we have noticed, and this is primarily through the work that we're doing at Southwestern Consulting. And We've had over 4000 clients that we coach one on one. We have about 1100 active right now. And we're talking to them. I mean we are engaging with them on a daily basis on all of their workflow and all the things they have going on. And we started to notice the emergence of a new type of thinker, which in the book we refer to as a multiplier. These people who seem to to create exponential results with the same amount of time. These people who have tremendous growth, not just linear growth. And the key is that they are making a third calculation that most people are not. And we call it the significance calculation. It takes Dr. Covey's two dimensional model of a square and it makes it into a cube. It gives it a third dimension. So significance, thinking back to algebra in high school, becomes the z axis. It gives it depth, right? And the distinction is that urgency is how soon does something matter. Importance is how much does something matter. But significance is how long is does something matter. In other words, how does it affect tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And what most of us do is we wake up in the morning and we ask ourselves, what's the most important thing I have to do today? But that is not the question that multipliers ask. Multipliers instead ask the question, how can I use my time in a way today that creates more time tomorrow and the next day and the next day. And so while most of the world operates in this paradigm of 24 hours and we even, we even tell each other the lie that there's nothing you can do to create more time, you hear people say it all the time. Well, there's, you know, time is the one thing you can never create more of. Well, it is true inside of the construct of 24 hours, there's nothing in one day, there's nothing we can do to create more time. We all have the exact same 24 hours, 14, 40 minutes or 86,400 seconds. But that is exactly the problem is thinking about everything from the perspective of one day. Multipliers explode that and they are thinking from a long term significance perspective. They're thinking about tomorrow and the next day and the next day. So what they know. And this in one sentence brings us to the premise of the entire book. The way that you multiply time is by giving yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things today that create more time and more results tomorrow. Even if you have to sacrifice a volume of tasks today that you have to procrastinate on purpose with all of those so that you can give yourself the permission to spend time on things today that create more time tomorrow.

Again, that is just awesome. And you kind of walk us through in the book, going from managing to prioritizing to multiplying your time. And then as you just brought us to the idea of permissions, you walk us through five permissions in what you describe. A focus funnel. I'd like to hear your thoughts. Those five permissions, just so I can say them first and people can hear them, then we can riff on them, are eliminate, automate, delegate, procrastinate and concentrate. Obviously you go into detail on each of those in the book. Super practical, big ideas, talk to us about that. And then I want to chat about my particular favorite.

Okay, okay. So the. Again, coming back to the concept of visioneering operating at both the principle or philosophy level and then also at the pragmatic, practical level. You multiply time by spending time on things today that give you more time tomorrow. That's the principle. That's the whole concept of the whole book. I'm just giving it away there. Right. Like, there it is. But then at the practical levels, how do I apply that to my life? And so what we came up with is this tool called the Focus Funnel. It's meant to be a visual depiction that codifies the thought process that multipliers use to evaluate all of their tasks. And so if you picture a funnel, at the top is all of your stuff coming in, your emails, your voicemails, your meetings, your to do items like your stack of business cards on the desk and your sticky notes. That's all the stuff you could do. Well, the first question that multipliers ask is, can I eliminate this? That's the permission to ignore. If you can't eliminate it, then it drops down to the middle of the funnel. And the next question they ask is, can I automate this? If they. That's the permission to invest. The permission to invest the time and energy and money to set up a process today so that it creates more time tomorrow. If you can't automate it, then it drops down to the bottom of the funnel and they ask the question, can I delegate this? If they can't, that's the permission of imperfect, by the way, which is giving yourself the allowance to let someone else do it who won't be able to do it as well as you initially. But when you make the significance calculation and you think longer term, you realize they're going to be able to figure it out and do it as well or better than you over time. So you, you give yourself the permission of imperfect and you delegate it. If you can't eliminate, automate, or delegate the task, then that task falls out the bottom of the funnel. At that point, there is one remaining question, which is, must this task be done now or can it wait until later? If the task must be done right now, then that is the permission to protect. That's concentrate, the permission to protect. That means you close the door, you turn off the email, you ignore incoming phone calls, and you give yourself the permission to focus on the thing that really multiplies your time. And you can have confidence that that next thing that is your next most significant priority. And until you get that next thing done. Everything else is a distraction. However, if the answer to that question is can I, can this wait until later? Is yes, then at that point, you don't eliminate Automate or Delegate, but you procrastinate on purpose, which is where the title of the book comes from, and we call it POP for short. And so what you're going to do is you're going to pop that activity back to the top of the focus funnel. Now, you're not going to procrastinate on it forever. What is going to happen is you're going to that activity or that task is going to now cycle through the focus funnel. It's going to enter into this holding pattern where it is cycling through the focus funnel. And till ultimately or eventually, one of the other four strategies, eliminate, automate, delegate, or concentrate, will be executed upon that task and it will kick it out of the funnel. But very often you find that if a task doesn't need to be done right now, if they can always wait until later, then you eventually develop the confidence to do what you should have done in the first place, which was to eliminate it. Or you'll discover a system or a process or a plan to automate it, or somebody will rise up to the level of leadership and it will effectively get delegated. Or when it drops out the bottom of the funnel and you ask that question, can this wait till later? The answer will shift from yes, it can to no, it can't. And then it slides down into the concentrate section and then you execute it and you complete it and you are done.

That's awesome. I love the tour through the focus funnel. And I have to laugh at how you. The model is just awesome. And then when we get to concentrate, it's, oh, then you just turn off your email, you get to work. Right. My last chat was with a guy named Cal Newport who wrote a book called Deep Work, which is all about that. Like, how do we actually get to the point where we do this deep work? Which is a great compliment to what we're talking about here. So I just love that. Eliminate, automate, delegate, procrastinate, and then concentrate. I want to start at the top, and my kind of favorites are the eliminate and then the concentrate, with some really valuable stuff in between, of course, the eliminate. I found this personally as I read your book. Permission is the perfect word for it, right? You just talk about giving yourself permission and I'm pretty bold in my nose, but. But I felt an even deeper sense of permission as I read your book. Just the logical coherence with which you kind of walked us through the importance of really being clear. And one of the things I want to hear you riff on briefly is the nose, the conscious and unconscious nose. I thought it was a really cool way to capture what we're doing and how we want to bring that to a higher level of awareness. Yeah.

So with Eliminate, it's an interesting thing that is the one that we have the widest swath of opportunity to immediately multiply time. Probably 70% of our inbox are things that really don't need to be dealt with, don't need to have an explanation. You just stop doing it with no warning. You just don't answer it. But we feel this guilt to respond. And that is. There's two major differences about this book that I think are truly different from any other time management book you've ever read. Read or heard or whatever. The first is the significance calculation and multiplying time by spending time on things today to give you more time tomorrow thinking longer term. The second, though, is really key, and that is permission. It's the emotional part of time management. Because I would guess that every book you've ever read or every time management course you have ever taken is all about tips and tricks, tools and technology, calendars and checklists, it's apps, it's organization systems, it's file folders. It's this really robust strategy for all this logical stuff to handle your tasks. But what we realize is that today time management isn't just logical, it's emotional. And our feelings of guilt and fear and worry and anxiety, those things dictate how we actually spend our time as much as what's on our calendar or on our to do list. For sure. Particularly with Eliminate. Because I have this guilt about saying no. I have this fear of telling people no. And so what happens is I tell people yes because I try to go through life without saying no. And in one of the interviews with one of the multipliers that I conducted, the multiplier says to me, rory, that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. And I was like, what? And they said, it's futile to try to go through life without ever saying no. What you don't realize is that anytime you say yes to one thing, you are simultaneously saying no to an infinite number of others. And so if you are not consciously saying no to the things that don't matter, then what ends up happening is you end up unconsciously saying no to the things that you end up unconsciously saying no. To the things that matter. Because you say yes to things that don't matter, and you end up unconsciously saying no to the things that really do matter.

Yeah, it's awesome. You bring it to life just very practically of when you say yes to watching TV or giving into your call reluctance. You say succumbing to procrastination. Your fear of wasting time. You just said no to more time with your kids, more time with your spouse, reaching your financial goals, achieving your dreams. You just said no to multiplying your time. Such a powerful concept. You said this in the context of your five permissions, but I just want to highlight it and then ask you one final question. You said, until you accomplish your most significant priority, everything else is a distraction. It's time to concentrate. And easier said than done, of course. And you give a lot of tips on how to go about doing that. But I just wanted to highlight that because I think it's so impactful. So we're kind of at our time here, so I want to kind of wrap it up with a final question I'd like to ask our wonderful authors, which is, if you can only share one piece of wisdom with someone passionate about optimizing their lives and actualizing their potential, what would that one piece of wisdom be?

Well, in terms of, like, a practical thing that you should do, I really. I would encourage you to just give yourself permission to take an hour. Go to procrastinateonpurpose.com and watch the free webinar. I really believe that'll change your whole life. Like it will. You'll see the focus funnel and it'll change anything. So from a. If I had to give you the next action step, that's what it would be. Go to procrastinate on purpose. Watch the webinar. From a philosophical thing, I would just say, look who you were yesterday. Whether you were successful or whether you were total failure doesn't matter. Who you were yesterday has nothing to do with who you have to be today. You get to choose who that person is. Or to capture it the way we've already said, success is never owned. Success is only rented, and the rent is due every day.

Right on. Where do people go for the practical step? What was the URL?

Procrastinateonpurpose.com okay, that's easy.

Procrastinateonpurpose.com how to multiply your time.com as well. Right. Just kidding.

Ouch. Painful.

Yeah. This is good. Yeah. And it really is what it is. It's how do you multiply your time. I think you modestly articulated the two things that were distinct, particularly distinct about this book vis a vis other time management books. I think there are a lot of other ones and I think if you listen to this and really enjoy the interview, I think you'll really enjoy the book. So check out procrastinateonpurpose.com, rorysorivaden.com as well. Although I'm sure you can sign up for a bunch of stuff@procrastinateonpurpose.com and then of course take the stairs as well. Rory, I appreciate you. Thanks for taking the time and thanks for doing all you do.

Thanks for what you do, brother.

Isn't it a bit odd we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me, connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosophers Notes, where I break down each great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TV episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101, confidence 101, business 101, meditation 101, that sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at BrianJohnson me join.