How to Get More Done Than 99% of People (6 Simple Steps)

Have you ever found yourself working harder but you're still stuck in the same place? In this video, I'm going to be breaking down how you can get more done than 99% of business owners without burning out. My name is Lacedric Brantley, and in the next 10 minutes, you're going to learn the strategy of how I've 10x my output. So stick around. Welcome to the podcast, everybody. My name is Lacedric Brantley. I am a real estate wholesaling expert and an expert at the business of real estate. and I am joined right here with my co-host Kenneth Williams. He is a 20-year vet in the strategy of business, y'all. Business strategy. So in this video, what we're going to be doing is covering productivity and how you can make sure that you actually don't work harder, but you work smarter. So let's go ahead and get right into it.

Let's do it.

So one thing that most people think when it comes down to business is that just because we're doing a lot of things, that means that we're busy. But if we spend time not doing everything, what ends up happening here is we just really need to focus on the things that actually move the needle, right? I know if you've owned several businesses, I've owned several businesses. And when it comes down to people we can tell if they're doing busy work or if they're actually busy, right? What would you say? And for the viewers, we always typically like to start off with a question. I always ask my co-host a question. Don't know how it came about, but we always ask a question because I want you to really get some context here. Okay? So when it comes down to productivity, What would you say is a— if in your definition, what would you say is the definition to productivity, like true productivity and being productive?

Focus, man. And the reason why I say that is because most people, what they call focus is really scattered thinking. Yeah. Because you're constantly looking at various different things, especially if you have the mindset that you have to always be doing. Right. I don't believe that an entrepreneur can actually do many things at one time.

Right.

I think an entrepreneur— when I think of an entrepreneur, I think of a person that has strengths but is well-versed in their weaknesses. And so for me, I believe that a real— like, if there was a definition of what it means to be productive, It is that focus, that laser focus.

Yeah.

And you can be laser focused on the wrong thing. But for the sake of conversation, I'm referring to a person that's focused on the right things.

Yeah.

The right— everything is not a priority. And we're going to talk about that later. But everything is not a priority, even though it may feel like a priority. Everything is not a priority.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Like, and that brings me to this here. Is like, just because you're busy literally does not mean that you're profitable. Like the things that we do, we want to make sure that you actually spend the time on things that actually move the needle, right? So like, for example, right here, you can actually be answering emails all day and make zero money, but you can literally have one call, one client, um, one sale that literally makes you $10,000. And like, which would you say is more productive for you? Is it actually making money or is it the things that just keep you busy, um, and not making money? I think that's the most important thing you should understand is like, just because we're busy does not always mean that it's profitable. Okay. It's very easy to get distracted on a day-to-day because there are so many things that we think we need. There are so many things that we think we need, we need to be doing. We always say, hey, this is the last thing that I will need. And business is an everlasting— like, it's something that you will never get enough of because there's always something to work on or work in. So we're going to be breaking down, like, what's the difference between this busy work and things that you absolutely should be doing? And things that you absolutely don't be doing here later. So I think that's really good. Now, when you were in business, right, and when you're doing business, let's just say, what was like your first business that you started out with?

Oh, man. My very first business was I was in telecom. I was able to start a company that worked with a Lifeline program, the government program called Lifeline. And we handed phones to people who were on the poverty line or homeless. And that was the very first business that I did.

Okay.

Very profitable.

What was the focus on a day to day?

The main focus was seeing to it that the homeless and the people on the poverty line, that they actually had a phone at the end of the day. Wow. That was the entire focus. And that leads me to a thought most people feel as though if they're, they're doing a lot of things, like their calendar is full, their inboxes are, you know, to zero, the text messages to zero, but there is no revenue.

Yeah.

You know, there's no— so they're managing activity but not managing outcomes. Yeah. And I learned at a very, very early age that you have to manage the outcomes. You can't— you cannot be so consumed with activity. Yeah. Because what inevitably happens is that we get so bogged down into the everyday, right? We don't look at the outcomes of those particular tasks, and it leaves people tired and frustrated. And I'm talking to you because I know you're watching right now and you feel that. You feel tired, you feel frustrated, you feel like nothing is moving the needle. Everything is a priority. You're taking care of business, you're following through with your calls, you're doing all of these things, but you don't have the revenue. You're not meeting sales goals. You can't project anything, have projections, proper projections, because you're not really seeing any outcome. And so because of that, you get tired, you get frustrated. I'll tell you why. You're managing activity more than you're managing outcome. I had to learn that at a very early age.

Absolutely. So one of the action steps that actually come to mind for me is that one thing that I always ask myself is, hey, is this actually moving the needle or is this not? Like, people think productivity is literally like doing so many things, and it's literally just asking yourself the honest questions. What is my goal? What is my focus? And like, is the work that I'm doing on a day-to-day basis moving the needle, meaning getting me closer to my goal, or is it moving me farther away and just keeping me busy? Because there's a difference between just being busy and actually focus on the things that move the needle.

Absolutely.

So that's a question that you should always ask yourself is like, hey, is this moving the needle or is this just literally keeping me busy? Because if it's keeping you busy, this is not something that you want to be tackling, especially if you're trying to infuse yourself with cash or infuse your business with cash and you're starting out a business or you're trying to grow a business. That's very, very important. So the next thing when it comes down to this here is having clarity before you take action. Most people don't typically even know what their goal is, right?

And that's the truth.

Yeah.

Like, really? And but can I take it a step further?

Yeah.

Really? What most entrepreneurs, especially new entrepreneurs, what I see a lot of, they don't have realistic goals.

That's true.

Sometimes their goals are too lofty. Yeah. And, you know, they're unrealistic in nature. And so I always share this and I want to share it, you know, with our viewers today. Most people that have poor clarity you know, as it relates to their goal setting, often reach goals that don't produce anything. That's true. So they'll reach a goal, but it's not moving the needle or it's not producing anything. And if you're not producing, if you're not making revenue, you're just in motion. That's just the reality of it when it comes to business. So Clarity is very important. Understanding what you're doing, why you're doing it. And then here, I think, is the most important part. Should it be done now?

Right.

Absolutely. There are some goals that you don't even need to be looking at right now because you haven't even started with step one.

Absolutely. Yeah. Because if you just end up reacting all day, all day long, man, you'll react all day. And yeah, I remember There was a time when I first started my real estate business, and obviously, as a business owner, entrepreneur, typically there's multiple ways that you can get into real estate. There's multiple ways to skin a cat. There's multiple ways to do business. And you see all of these strategies. It's kind of like the— they call it the shiny object syndrome.

Yeah.

What they typically end up doing here is we end up seeing that there's so many ways to do something, and then we're like, man, it's so much to where we want to focus on more than one thing. And my advice, literally for clarity's sake, is literally to just focus and master one thing.

Absolutely, man.

Oh my God, most millionaires— I know we hear the, oh, 7 streams of income, etc., etc. Any millionaire, billionaire that you've ever seen, they always started and mastered one thing. One thing that then open the avenue and the gates for multiple other things that they could do. Uh, but we actually talked about this earlier, and this is a good thought right here, but, um, most people starting a business, $10,000 a year, maybe no money coming in a year, or maybe they're, they're even doing 5 figures a year, right? They try to adopt a billionaire's mindset but don't know what it takes for a billionaire, the risk, the mindset, the things. And they try to move at a billionaire— move to a billionaire mindset and a billionaire level without having the proper principles for even a six-figure-a-year person. Right. So there's totally different principles and mindsets and work tracks and sales things and KPIs that you, of course, track when you're going to $100K a year or six-figure-a-year business rather than a seven-figure-a-year business. Right. Long story short, most people typically move too fast.

Yeah.

Lifestyle.

Yes.

Mindset. They instantly want to go to get the instant gratification instead of the delayed gratification.

And you know why? Why? Because it speaks to the impoverished mentality.

Yeah.

It speaks to, you know, and we don't want to hear this stuff. Yeah. Because it's hard. It's hard enough that I'm an entrepreneur. And I'm looking at all these billionaires with these jets and sky— skyrise apartments and nice mansions and vacations and all of these things.

Yeah.

And I know that I would love to have a piece of that. Yeah. Right. And as a new entrepreneur, I'm now going to buy— this is the biggest fallacy, I believe, in entrepreneurship. It is the biggest fallacy. And it really angers me. It really does. To see billionaires get on the— or, you know, high-earning, you know, millionaires. And I'm talking about 7, 8, 900 million. Yeah. That are on the way to being a billionaire. They'll get on these lives and give— oh, man, I don't want to say that because I don't want to— I don't want to make anybody upset and, you know, not watch this anymore. But I just want you to think about this for a moment. And I really want you to really think All right. I teach my mentees, be thinkers, be thinkers. Think for a moment. What sense does it make for you as a person who's just starting out or you have a business and you've seen some, some level of success and you're probably making, you know, $80,000, $90,000, right? Or maybe you are a six-figure earner. You know, you're at that $100,000 mark, right? What sense does it make for you to adopt a bit, a mentality that skips steps?

Mm-hmm.

You skip steps. And I was always taught— I'm from the old school— I was always taught when you skip steps, you skip, you skip the lessons that's necessary to maintain where you're going.

That's true.

You're skipping the lessons that's going to help you maintain where you are going. You're going to eventually get there, but don't skip the steps of being a six-figure, a high six-figure, a millionaire, seven-earner, a 7-millionaire, a seven-figure earner, a high seven-figure earner. Right. Those are steps that you take. But what happens a lot of times, we go buy these books on top of books.

Yep.

These, these paid thousands upon thousands of dollars to sit in these rooms with these billionaires. And all they're doing is taking your money because they cannot teach you what it takes to be— because they don't remember it.

Yeah.

And I'm just telling you what I know billionaires have said. I've sat in rooms, right? I'm grateful that I've made it to a million-dollar status. And I was able to sit into some rooms with people that I probably should not have. But one of the things that they talk about is they say, don't listen to billionaires.

Yep.

I'm telling you, that's what they say. Real billionaire, real people that understand the game. Don't listen to billionaires. If you are a thousandaire, you should be listening to millionaires.

Yep.

If you're a millionaire, you should be listening to high-figure millionaires.

Yep.

Right. And the reason why they're so important is because they know where they come from and they just come from where you, where you are. They can teach you those things. But billionaires don't remember what it's like to be just starting out. They can tell you stories, but they don't remember the grind, the hustle, and all of those things. They just don't. They remember it in theory. But to tell you step by step on how to do this X, Y, and Z. I'm just telling you. So I'm, I'm with you on that, man. It's just, it's just, you know, um, so that was just a— that night when you mentioned, we were talking about that earlier, that was just a thought that I had a couple of weeks ago. And I was like, man, should we really be listening to billionaires when we are thousandaires, right? Should we be listening to billionaires when we are low-figure millionaires? You know what I'm saying? Like I understand the appeal, but I don't want to keep beating the dead horse. But I'm concerned about that because I think people are being given, you know, wooden nickels. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

5 steps to get here and get there. And you do those 5 steps and you're still stuck.

Yep.

That's because they don't work in your hemisphere.

Yeah.

And some people— air is different in the billionaire than it is over here.

And some people aren't really truly ready for that mindset. Wow. That's like literally praying to God for something that you like really, really want, and like, let's just say he gives it to you. I always ask this question: have you ever prayed for something and you were actually given it, and then once you got it, you squandered it?

Oh man.

The reason why is because you were not ready for it. If you are not ready for it. And if you cannot handle the things that you already currently possess, the blessings that you have, how can you manage more? It just makes no sense. You have to literally be a good steward of what you have already and make your ruler, and literally you will get more. That's right. So one thing that I want you to focus on, on step number 2, is having clarity before action. The first thing to take away is revenue driver. What is the thing that absolutely brings you revenue? Okay. What are the things— what's the thing that you know, like, for sure, within 30 days or less, hey, I can absolutely make money from this right here, right? What's your revenue driver? The second thing is your growth driver. You want to know what are the things that you can do to drive your growth to the highest path that you can get it, right? Whether that be like, let me give you an example. Very simple. Growth driver. Would you rather make calls 8 hours a day? Is that your growth driver? Or is it following up with the leads that you already have? Maybe both of them could be. Another example. Marketing strategies, right? We know that some marketing strategy, paid ads, is a growth driver. And then cold calling, you're going to have, um, you're going to have less leads than you get with people that are coming to you. So we have outbound versus inbound. That's a growth driver. Have you ran your KPIs, key performance indicators, and your numbers and your data to see which one is literally driving you more growth?

Metrics governing. Yeah.

That's it, literally.

Absolutely.

So that's 2. Number 3 here is just personal priority. All right. Should you actually be governing the tasks that you have or should you outsource this and hire for this? Because there are some things that you as a business owner, depending on what level that you're at, that there are things that you should be doing and there are things that you absolutely should not be doing because these are the things that, like, it wastes time. For instance, I have an assistant right now where we have niche data that we get directly from the county, and there are documents that need to be looked at, and there are hundreds and hundreds of documents. At the level that I am at, should I be copying and pasting those things to a Google Sheet, or should I be on the phones making offers? That's a growth driver more for me than looking at documents and getting the data. I could outsource that because that's a $3 an hour task. That's a $4 an hour task. That's a $5 an hour task. Right. So that's what we mean when we talk about personal priority, because at the end of the day, you need to know what, what are the things that, that you should actually be spending your time on.

Yeah. And everything else waits.

Yeah.

That's the key.

Yep.

Once you've identified those 3 things, Everything else waits. Absolutely. They will have their time. But right now I'm focused on those 3 areas. That's it. Yeah, very, absolutely very important.

And that's really good because at the end of the day, like, this framework right here is actually a framework that I labeled out. It's called the Daily Win Framework. Nice. And what it does is it's governed to make sure that you you target the most important task first, right? So instead of you just trying to do everything, when you look at this list of things that you absolutely need to do, for one, is it a revenue generating activity, right? You have to separate revenue generating activities from the things that literally don't matter. That's the number one thing.

Absolutely.

So one thing that you should absolutely do, y'all, is focus on doing the big things first. The major, the major tasks that you have that you know that absolutely needs to be done. Just do it.

Yeah. Signal to noise.

Absolutely.

Remember that?

Yep. 80/20.

Signal to noise. I'm, I'm— everything else is noise.

Yeah.

What is that? 1, 2, 3 things. And you figure, you say you figure this out the night before.

Absolutely.

You don't wake up in the morning and do it. You, you do it the night before. What are those 1, 2, 3 things that, um, I need to focus on for the next 24 hours? For the next 24, they're the one, they're the things, as you mentioned, that's going to move the needle.

Yep.

And their priority number 1, right? And everything else is noise, right? Everything else is noise. And I like to keep that 80% signal, 20% noise.

Absolutely.

Being laser focused on those 3 things. And you mentioned it, you want to outsource. You know, true entrepreneurs understand you can't do everything, so you have to delegate weaknesses.

Yep.

And activate strengths. You can learn how to balance your books later.

Yep, you sure can. You know what I'm saying?

Yep. Right now you need to learn how to get money in so you can have some books to balance. Absolutely right. Those kinds of things. So yeah, you're dead on it, man. I like your framework.

Absolutely.

I'm taking that.

Yeah. And another thing to add to this here is before you touch social media, before you touch your emails, before you even like have these random meetings and all of this stuff, what you should absolutely focus on doing is getting 3 wins for the day. Okay. Um, and I mean literally 3 wins to set your day up. Maybe that looks like completing the, the, the, the list that you were supposed to do so your, your dial, your callers can get calling, right? Um, you only know what those most important things are. So like, take away 3 things that you can absolutely do so you can get those things done and you can be even more productive. What are the 3 biggest things? Um, there's something that I I actually, um, I think I watched this on a video, but there was something called a, a 2-minute rule. If you know that it takes 2 minutes to do something, do it right away, right? Like, do it instantly. Don't even think about it. Some people typically emotionalize the things that they have to do. Oh, I don't want to do this. Or that's how some people frame their mind for Monday mornings. Oh man, people will frame their mind for Monday mornings as like the worst day of the week when it should actually be the jump on the week that you absolutely need.

I don't know why people— yeah, Mondays, absolutely.

So it's like a frame of mind that we put ourselves in when we think about these things. It's like, oh, Monday sucks. Friday is the best day though, right?

Worst kind of mentality.

Yeah, absolutely.

You're living your life for that Friday, you know what I'm saying? And for an entrepreneur, you should hate Fridays, especially if you have employees or 1099 workers. You should hate Friday. I used to tell the team all the time, look, Y'all happy about Friday? I'm missing money.

Yeah.

You know what I'm saying? I don't want to be missing no money. So I guess I'll see y'all on Monday.

Absolutely.

But I'll be fresh here. It starts at 8. I'll be here at 6. You know what I'm saying? Got to see you later.

So, yeah, I think that's very important to notice that, like, momentum absolutely builds your confidence. Absolutely. The more that you can push yourself to get momentum, y'all. And it's not about doing, like, the so many things. It's literally about choosing the right things to do that move the needle for your business so you can get to the next level. So when I think about like the time that we have in a day, there's two types of people and there's two types of times. What do I mean by that? Hey, there's only one clock, right? You have build time versus run time. Okay. What this is is simply the way that you either grow your future using marketing, sales, strategy, content, the way that you absolutely grow your future, or you have runtime. This is how you like maintain the present. Maybe that's meetings, emails, like your admins, your coordination, all of these different things, y'all. And if you spend the day like running your business, y'all, you have to know what's most important. If you spend the day literally trying to build your business, you need to know what time of the day that is. So what I usually like to do, um, and I'm gonna ask you about this, but when— actually, let me ask you, what do you think, when do you think is— and you know, different people, different businesses, different strokes for different folks, of course, but like, there's a, you know, parents used to say there's a time and place for everything, everything, right? Yeah, yeah. When do you think that it's time to build your business versus run your business? Like, how do you know, oh, Hey, I should be running my business right then, and I should— this is time I should be building my business and working like on the business versus in the business, if that makes sense.

I'm good. A little deep right here. Okay. Um, I think it's— it really depends on the rhythm of a person's circadian rhythm. Yeah. And what I mean by that is some people know how to, um, manage a certain time frame. They understand how to manage their day, their morning, you know, and so they're morning people. But then there are some people who are not morning people at all. They are absolutely night owls, right? And, you know, they think better in the evening. They, you know, their minds are just sharper in the evening time. Yeah. And that's your circadian rhythm. That's you know, what your body— your body tells you when you're at your peak, at, you know, I call it the prime time, you know what I'm saying? That's the time when all cylinders are clicking. That's when I feel like you need to be doing the hardest things. Yeah, that's the time to do the hardest things. So if that's the growth of your business, you should be doing it then. If that's the running of your business, Whatever the hardest thing is for you, that's what you should be doing. I think what a lot of people do most often is try to regulate, oh, this is most important to run the business rather than grow the business. Absolutely right. And I understand that mentality, especially early on. And as a new entrepreneur, a person that's just starting out, you almost are chained to running your business. Yeah. You have to run it, you know what I'm saying? Because who else going to answer the phone? Exactly. Who else going to answer that email or take that text or, you know, follow up with that customer that called in yesterday and didn't get a response?

Somebody's saying that right now.

Yeah. So, so it's like I'm almost chained to running the business. I can't really grow it. Well, I would tell you that may be the thing that you should do in your prime time.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know what I'm saying? And actually do that, right? So for me, it just— it's all about rhythm. Business has a rhythm to it. It absolutely has a rhythm to it. And once you find your rhythm and you can start to tell, hey, man, I feel— I mean, I feel good. I feel like I can take on Mike Tyson and beat him 3 times. Yeah, I'm saying absolutely. That's when you take on the hardest things.

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's very important to find your rhythm in the day because Now you'll know your focus block, like when you need to, you know, block your time for focusing. There's something that I always suggest, y'all. It's easy to say, hey, no social media, you know, no doing this, no doing that and scrolling. But like, if you have to put your phone on do not disturb, like me, or turn your phone off for the time being, or there's even apps out here that will block everything. On your phone just so like you don't get distracted as easily, right? So I think that's very, very important to know that. And there's something called time blocking that I think just very, very effective, um, in your business that you should be doing.

Go over that a little bit. Yeah, because that's a very effective method.

Yeah, so time blocking is essentially blocking out a piece of time during your day, like with your calendar Um, and what you do is if you've ever saw a calendar, y'all, you saw 10 to 11, 11 to 1, 1 to 2, uh, 3 to 5, et cetera, et cetera. You're blocking out your time. And what this does, y'all, is literally like when you look at the day and you have so much time in a day, what this does is literally control and governs how your day is going to go. And now you will know.

All right.

And here's the thing. If you cannot finish that task within that set time, either you need to adjust the time or you need to keep moving forward. We don't stay on that task, right?

That's right.

So you're literally blocking out your day time by time by time. And literally that's including your lunches, your meetings, all of this. And one thing that we have to start doing as people is stop being so nice with our time.

Right. Compromising it.

Yes. We're allowing anybody to get on the calendar. We have these random calls, random meetings, especially being in the building phase of your business. This is the time where you can't get time back. Time is essential. So this is why it's so important to protect your time and protect your build time, because at the end of the day, this is time that we can't get back.

That's right.

And the more you allow yourself to get— I guess I would say the more you allow yourself to get distracted and allow distraction, it literally governs how your day is going to go.

Well, that goes back to what we were saying earlier about clarity, right? When we talk about time blocking, what that does— that helps. Listen, You can never build business on chaos. There has to be structure. There has to be order. There has to be a solid infrastructure. And so chaotic building looks like scattered thinking. Yeah, right. So when you have true clarity, you don't realize it, but you're actually building while you're running.

Mm-hmm.

Because you're literally time blocking and having that clarity. And that's why whenever I get into a meeting, I just be honest with the people. Hey, I got 30 minutes allotted for this.

Absolutely.

I won't go over this. Let's jump right in. Yep. I say that in every meeting. And the reason for that is because I just want the people to know I value my time and I value yours.

Yeah.

So we're going to get in here, we're going to get to it, and then, you know, whatever we don't finish, we come back. But I got to go after this 30 minutes.

Absolutely. Yeah. Because saying like, saying yes is so dangerous in the sense of like we don't see these things and what it costs us immediately, but we see it in the long run, especially with the time that we spend. This is why they say, hey, protect your circle, protect your mind, protect what you hear, protect what you see. Because when you say no, believe it or not, it is a productivity tool by saying no, y'all. So I think that like your often answer should be no. If you're saying yes to people, especially while building a business, more than you're saying no, I don't know if you're serious about building a business, right? Like you, you want to grow, so you have to be very protective of your time. And saying no is totally fine, y'all, because at the end of the day, like, if you— they say you should put yourself first, and you got to be stingy sometimes, and that's totally fine. Like, it's totally okay.

People don't realize people don't realize that the greatest way to be unselfish is to be selfish.

Yeah.

Let me tell you what I mean. If you're not taking care of yourself, how can you take care of others? Right? And one of the things in entrepreneurship is you have this brand new baby, right? I always liken it unto a baby, right? Freshly newborn baby. You're not going to sit that baby over there on the, on the couch or, you know, in its crib and just go about your day.

Exactly.

You got to care for that baby. You got— when it whines, you got to get familiar with the whine. You know, when it moans, you got to get familiar. Okay, that means this particular whine means, you know what I'm saying? Oh, I hear that, that little grunt at the end. It means they upset.

Exactly.

You know, take care of it. You've got to take care of it. So my point there is, you know, why would you offer, um, a yes to other things? And when you're offering a yes to other things, you're saying no to important things.

Exactly.

So you have to be selfish in a sense to be able to be unselfish.

Yeah, exactly. And speaking of selfish, it's like most people typically don't protect their energy either. Like, if you are always tired, y'all, you take away time. Like, literally, your energy is your time, right? And if you don't have energy in the day, my people who don't work out, my people who are sleeping 2, 3 hours a day, you may not feel it that day, maybe not that week, but eventually it catches up to you. And if you're always tired, you take away from your build time.

You absolutely do.

Speaking of saying, like, Yes to something and no to other things. Typically when we say yes to something, we're saying no to other things. If you're always tired, you can't build. And if you can't build, you can't grow. And if you can't grow, you can't make money. You got to make money. So we have to make sure, y'all, that we, for one, make sure that you get to sleep. They say that on average you want to have at least a solid 6 hours minimum of sleep.

Minimum.

Minimum. And then of course, 8 hours is standard. Yeah. Um, the second thing here is exercise matters. I'm not talking about going heavy in the gym and lifting hundreds and 200, you know, pound weights. I'm literally talking about just being super active. Maybe that's taking a walk every day.

Get that heart rate up.

Yeah, getting your heart rate. Um, maybe that's walking on a treadmill. Maybe that is going to go lift weights, but you're not going to lift super heavy and crazy if you don't have a goal for that, right? Speaking of goals, it's actually brought something to my mind. Most people think that they have to take everything serious when you can be, for instance, working out, building a business, working out, choose one. Do you want to be a bodybuilder and spend 2, 3, 4 hours in the gym a day? Or do you want to spend that time on your business? You can actually do something and be consistent with something without actually having a goal for something. So it's okay to be content with whatever you're doing and still be active in it. You don't have the goal to literally gain weight in the gym, but you want to make sure that your body stays healthy. You stay in shape, you get your activity up, and you can literally just go and work out for the heck of it and not have a goal. So many people try to have so many focuses and understand that there are seasons for different things. And if you're not in a season of prioritizing, you know, maybe your business, maybe you are at a stable place in your business to where you can now focus on this. Or maybe working out is not the priority. Growing the business is. It depends on what season you're in. And I think that is very important that people know their seasons.

No, that's actually— I don't want to mull over that. That's actually very key to— because what you're actually talking about is self-aware, being self-aware. And even the art of saying no. Being self-aware, because most of the time we don't even realize it, but it's a reflection of how we think of ourselves when we're always doing for others but not doing for self. That's you literally saying that everybody else matters, but I don't. Yeah, right. And you give everybody, you know, all the, the energy and all the things and you end up picking up for crumbs. And we wonder why we're tired, exhausted, frustrated, you know, all of these different things. It's because we, we, we're not self-aware and knowing who we are, where we are, and not compromising ourselves by saying yes to everything else.

And that's true. Absolutely.

Yeah.

So long story short, y'all, make sure that you prioritize yourself, because I think that's very important with making sure that you you had the mental capacity, um, and you of course make great decisions. Because when you have exhaustion and you have these things, y'all, they lead to bad decisions, okay?

Growth never happens in maintenance.

That's true.

You, you will not grow while you're trying to fix things, right? You have to grow And you must grow. I'll put it this way. You must grow by building, period. Absolutely. Sometimes you got to tear stuff down to build it.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. What would you say is a way that we can beat motivation? Like most people say, oh, well, you know, I need to feel like doing this or I need to, you know, I don't feel as motivated. How can a person say forget motivation and really just have more discipline?

You got to recognize, you got to be familiar with the pain. You got to be familiar with the pain. You have to remember the pain. You have to remember the pain of being broke, the pain of being hungry, the pain of not having. The pain of seeing everybody else on social media, even though 90% of the things that you see on social media are lies. You know, you got people going to rent Bentleys and rent, you know, town, big, big mansions and all of that stuff to sell a lie to you. First of all, you will never catch us doing that kind of garbage. And I'll tell you why. Because people have had enough with lies and deceit when it comes down to business. And one of the biggest lies that is being perpetuated today is that you have to have more to be happy.

That's true.

You got to have the biggest this, you got to have the greatest this, you got to have the largest this. You know, these are lies that are being perpetuated. Well, that goes back to being self-aware. Be familiar when you went through that pain, you know what I'm saying? I teach my, my mentees when it comes to sales, if you cannot remind that individual of the pain that they're going through and the tediousness of having to hold on to that home or hold on to that product, or when was the last time you went and got your, you know, um, when was the last time you talked about life insurance you know, these kinds of things. If you don't make them remember the pain, the tediousness, the hardship— yeah, you know what I'm saying— they're not going to move to your solution.

Yep.

You have to have that separation of solution to pain, and they got to be able to separate themselves from that pain to get to the solution. And that's the same way I say to any entrepreneur The way to remain disciplined is to remember the pain. I remember the pain of being broke. It don't feel good. I remember the pain of having a car that I had to constantly put in the shop because I couldn't afford to go and buy another. It's the hardest place in the world And so my mindset now is to do the things necessary every day, not just some days. Yeah, every day. I'm going to tell you what I do every day and I'm going to be quick. Every day I allot 5 hours to work and 5 hours to ministry. Every day. I'm a pastor, if you didn't know that. So I allot 5 hours to ministry. And 5 hours to, to, to business. Now watch this. So I can't start my day at 1:00. Mm-hmm. That's true. Because I won't finish until 11 or 12:00 at night. But I can start my day at 5 a.m. and finish at 5 p.m. or finish at 3 p.m. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah.

So, so my point is, and I hope this is coming across clear, My point is very, very— and I'm saying this, y'all, with love, with, with, with, um, respect to you as a person, as an entrepreneur. If you're just starting out and you don't have the money to put in for marketing, you don't have the money to put in and buy extra product to sell, and you're trying to figure out piece by piece how to build and how to grow and all of those things, Remember these times. Remember them. Because when you become a millionaire, when you become a millionaire, you're going to have to tell somebody else, man, I remember that.

Yep.

I remember that. I remember when. Here's what I did to move from being a thousandaire to a millionaire. You'll be able to say it. But right now it's your season to go through this. Don't skip the steps. Stay not motivated. Stay disciplined every day. We talked about time blocking. Stay disciplined every day. Don't make no excuses. Don't give yourself any justifications. Don't make any compromises. I like what Kobe Bryant said. I don't know about her side of this. I like what Kobe Bryant said. Don't negotiate with yourself. Make no negotiations about yourself. Oh, I'll do it later. Oh, I'll do it. Give me just another 10 minutes. Or I'll do it in the next hour. Or I'll just push off until tomorrow. No negotiations. It get done today. I knock these out today.

Yep. All you got to do is do it. One thing that I've seen on a YouTube video that Alex Hormozi actually talked about was having a timer. You know, the kitchen timers that people have where they sit and it's really loud.

Now, my daughter did that.

Yeah, he said that, um, he has a 15-minute, you know, every 15-minute interval. Yeah. Um, and literally it's not to focus on the time, it's literally to like hold yourself accountable. Yes. For one. Um, another thing is working in— what I've learned is working in rooms, uh, for one with no windows, and then the lights, working it with it dark, no music, literally just pure silence, just working. It just get into it. That's another way that you can literally seriously be productive in it. But more than that, the last thing that I want to give y'all is operating this thing like a system, right? Systems beat everything, right? What you want to do when it comes down to systems, what do I mean by that? Not motivation, but systems beat motivation. What is the system? Every time that you wake up, right, you know that you do these 5 things. There's 5 things. Hey, I wake up, I make my bed, I brush my teeth, I brush my hair, I wash my face, I take a shower, I put my clothes on, I go to work. That's a framework, y'all. Very, very simple. What you want to do is create a system for your business, how you do things. SOPs, put SOPs in place, standard operating procedures. That is an SOP that I just named, or how you wake up and you get up and every single morning you do the same exact thing. If you focus on creating a system instead of trying to be motivated, you will actually know exactly what you're doing day by day, step by step. And now this makes it easier for you to bring people on and train them and be a better leader because now you have a system in place and you know what's happening at this point in time, this point in time, and you know exactly what to do.

Absolutely.

They say that if you cannot explain what you do as a business owner, you are not a true business owner. If you cannot explain your process of what you do, then it's going to be very hard for you to train somebody else because You cannot trust a leader who's never been to war.

That's right.

Right. So I think that's very important for y'all to know in these tips is create systems instead of motivation, because when you create a system and you put a step-by-step way of doing something together, literally it makes your job a lot easier. So how do you create a system? Very one way, takes 10 seconds. Get on Google Documents. Get on Google Docs, label out whatever task that you're trying to get done and that you're doing, and then label out what it takes to get it done. Step number 1 is this, number 2, number 3, number 4. Boom. That's your framework right there. So yeah, anything to add?

Yeah, I'll just add this one last piece. How you— and I teach this to my mentees— how you do anything is how you do everything.

Yep.

Period. How you do anything is how you do everything. So if you're a procrastinator or you're a negotiator or you, you compromise, you justify, don't be mad at the results that you didn't get because you didn't put in the work, right?

That's true.

Right. And this is the thing that most people don't get. I, I don't I don't have time. Time has me.

Mm-hmm.

That's why I don't subscribe to the theory that time equals money. No, it don't.

It does not.

Because time is invaluable.

So what you put yourself in a position to do—

that's right—

is value money more than time.

It's absolutely, absolutely right.

Yep.

So that's why I'm just saying, you know, how you do anything is how you do everything. Every time you— every day that you wake up, make it structured, predictable. I don't like unpredictable money. Yeah, I'm sorry. I just don't. I like predictable money. I like predictable ways. I like predictable outcomes. You know what I'm saying?

Yep.

And when you set your days properly, I want to encourage you, if I can, just for a hot second, I want to encourage you, look, this, this podcast is specifically designed to challenge your thinking, your belief about business, about yourself, to challenge you on it.

Mm-hmm.

Let's see what you really believe. Let's see what you really think. Let's see how your work ethic really lines up with the top 1% that's actually doing it right. And if it does not fit, you shouldn't be trying to force it. Don't force something that don't fit. That means that if you feel like that this is what you should be doing, but you don't have the outcomes to prove that this is what you should be doing, you need to switch that up. Don't waste time still trying to continue to do the same thing, hoping to get a different return. You're not. It's not going to happen.

They call that insanity, man.

It's a waste of your most precious asset, and that's your time. So I want to encourage you, get the proper frameworks, get the proper structure to your day. Don't emotionalize whether or not you feel like doing something. You alluded to that. Yeah, you feel like doing something, you don't feel like doing something. It ain't about your feeling. Business cares nothing about your feelings. Nope, it cares nothing about how you feel. What it cares about is that outcome. Did you make money today? If not, when that light bill come through and you can't pay that joker— I'm just speaking to you where you are— or when that family vacation gets ready to come around and they're looking at you, are we going to be able to take that family on vacation? Or you got your girlfriend or your wife, the anniversary is about to come around, birthday about to come around. and you don't have the money to really do like you want to do, man, that stuff hurt. Remember that pain because that's what's going to fuel you to continue to get these things corrected. All right, for sure, super true.

Yeah, last thing I'll leave y'all with is, um, like you said, remember your pain but remember your why. Typically something that I have learned is that