Why doing less could make you more money

I'd like to ship you a free copy of my book, Habits of High Performers. If you come and join the 2026 goal setting workshop, I will ship you one of these today. The link is in the notes. Please come and join me to set up the very best 2026 you could imagine. If you've set up goals in the past or New Year's resolutions and they haven't substantiated, I'm here to help you across all the key pillars of your life, nail your goals. I'll see you there. Welcome to One to One with James Laughlin. I'm a former world champion and now I work with and coach professional athletes, entrepreneurs and CEOs of billion dollar companies. I'm going to share with you in this episode some of the insights and strategies, some of the tools that I use with my clients. Every week I'll bring you an insight, an action or a tool that will help you go from great to to greatest. My mission is to cut through the noise and help give you the tools that truly transform your mindset and help you to take the right actions towards your desired outcome. So let's dive in. Well, I just got back from the most amazing trip to South Africa with Caroline and Finn. What an incredible country. The trip away gave me lots of time to reflect, think, create, connect. It was awesome. I encourage you all. Make sure you've got time where you can disconnect, where you can explore while whether that's in your own backyard or on a different continent. Just make time for that. Now, look, today I'm going to talk about why doing less will make you more money. This is so important because when I talk to people, when I'm coaching people, we're looking at all aspects of what success looks like. And fortunately or unfortunately, money is one of those parts of our lives that we've got to have an abundance of. We've got to have enough or better, more than enough. And what I've seen over the years, as you know, I like to really decode how the greatest become the greatest. And I try to help others do the same thing. So one thing I found is that they become specialists. They go deep on one thing. The people who try to be everything tend to be nothing to anyone specifically. They're just generalists. And generally their income reflects that, their success reflects that. So it's the person that wants to be able to do everything at the factory. It's the person who's a coach, but who's also this and that and everything else. It's the person who can be an expert in this, this, this, this, and this. Those people are generalists. They're busy being busy. The people I've met who are the most successful focus on one thing and double down on it. I had a young student at one point when I was teaching drums. His goal was to get into a university in the States, and it's arguably the best music school on the planet. And it was his mission. And I says, have you got a plan B? He laughed. He went, no, no plan B. I said, cool, awesome. Tell me why not? He's because if I have a plan B, I'll not give all my effort to plan A. And I just love that. Him and I, we operate on the same page. Double down on one thing. He got in with flying colors. He's still there doing great things. So I want you to think about yourself. Are you a generalist or do you ever complain that, oh, I'd just like a bit more money. I'd like another 10 grand, 100 grand, 10 mil, whatever your number is. Well, I promise you, if you stop focusing on the trivial many and start doubling down on the important few, things start to change and shift. Look, I want you to think of this. A massive factory, like a big, massive manufacturing plant, suddenly grinds to a halt. And every hour of downtime costs this company tens of thousands of dollars, right? Just disaster, right? The managers and engineers try everything they can to get it fixed, but no one at the plant can fix the problem. Eventually, they call in a seasoned expert, a consultant to come in, an older man with decades of experience. So he arrives with a very small toolbox, and he listens carefully. He walks around the machinery and he studies the gauges and look, after about 10 minutes, takes out a piece of chalk, marks a little X on a particular pipe and says, replace this part. They do it, and the factory roars back to life. Everything's good now. A week later, the company receives his invoice for $10,000. Now, stunned, the plant manager goes, what on earth? What the hell? And asks for an itemized breakdown. He's like, this is white. $10,000. He was here for minutes. How can there be $10,000? So the man, the expert, replies with an itemized breakdown, marking the pipe $1, knowing where to mark $9,999. There we go, folks. I want to reinforce how important it is to find something you're passionate about, double down and become the expert in it. Become the go to for it. People will pay you for your expertise, pay you for your experience, pay you for your perspective. And in this age of growing AI, we've got to realize that as humans we've got to double down on one thing. If you want to be a generalist, get chat GPT out. It'll tell you anything about anything. Become a specialist. Something that when somebody thinks of a sport, they think of you. When they think of plumbing, they think of you. When they think of civil construction, they think of you. When they think of accounting, they think of you. That is so crucial. You'll know that's happening when people start going, hey, seen this thing, Thought of you. And sometimes I get that with leadership. Sometimes I get that with high performance or mental skills, someone will message me and go, hey, see this high performance leadership thing? I thought of you. Or I'm reading this book by John Maxwell, thought of you. Awesome. That reinforces to me that I'm sticking to my knitting. Stay in my lane, you know, for me, high performance leadership, that's what it's about. Doubling down on that, learning about that, working with people on that, writing about that, speaking about that. I often talk about wmi and if you've pre ordered my new book, you'll get all the tools around how to find what your WMI is. Most people are focused on the wrong wmi. That is what's most imminent. Whatever's being thrown at them. The most recent email at the top of their inbox, the text message that's just went ding. The phone call that's just came in, they just focus on what's most imminent and they deal with that. They're busy being busy. But high performers, they know that the other WMI is way better to focus on. That is what's most important. What's most important over what's most imminent. To me, that's a thing you've got to get your head around. Be really clear on what's most important to me. Know where your priorities are. When people come to me and say, look, I'm super busy, I'm really busy saying, I just think you lack priorities. And it might be a bit harsh, but often it's true. I get them to get their phone out, look at where they spend their time. They waste a hell of a lot of time scrolling on apps that create no productivity, that create no work for them. So what are your priorities? Do you know what's most important? Get focused on wmi. You will be like that expert that rocks into the factory with the piece of chalk, marks an x and goes $10,000. Took me a dollar to mark the X, but 9999 to know which place to mark, that's your expertise. There's something beautiful about people who are deep experts. And on the show, as you know, I bring in people who are experts. The best selling authors, the leaders of countries, the people who went from nothing to becoming billionaires, people who run the best sports teams on the planet. Why? I want to know how they think. I want to know how they feed their mind. I want to know how they inspire others. That's the area that I'm so focused on, is helping great people become the greatest. And that's what I want to help you with, is you're already great at something, how do you become the greatest? And that's the difference that makes the difference. And that's what's going to make you continually relevant. I hear so many people operating from a place of fear right now around AI. Why they feel that they could become irrelevant. I laugh because you're never going to become irrelevant if you continue to add value to any marketplace. That marketplace could be your job, your school, your sports team, whatever it is. When you add value, valuable perspective, valuable connection, valuable voice, valuable insights, valuable writing, the value keeps going on. There's so many varieties of value. But if you continue to do that, you will always be relevant. You will always have a place in the market. You will always be remunerated for that. So please don't give up because AI has arrived. Use AI to support you in whatever way you can, but just get focused on the right wmi. I promise you there's massive ROI to that. The time that you spend developing your skill set, learning, reading, going to events, podcasting, whatever it might be, I promise you that's filling your head, your mind, your body, your spirit with the right tools to make sure that you can add massive value and not be another generalist, but an absolute expert. So please take a moment today to go, what is WMI for me? Am I focused on what's most imminent or do I truly know what's most important? If you know what it is and you stick to it, I promise you, you'll start to build up momentum, turn that flywheel and start to see epic results in sales, in business, in team leadership, in your family, in your relations, relationships, in your investments, whatever it might be. Focus simply on what's most important. The rest just noise. And folks, if you haven't pre ordered my book, Habits of High Performers, please consider doing that. Link is in the show notes or go to thehabitbook.com and grab a copy. I would sincerely appreciate it. It launches very, very soon, but if you pre order, I'm giving you a ton of epic bonuses. But for now, please get out there and lead your life on purpose. Thanks for tuning in to Lead on Purpose. If you find this episode valuable, please share it with one person that you think might benefit from it. And if you're serious about leveling up, please make sure you're subscribed to the show and continue to lead your life on purpose.