Louis Massaro (presenter) argues that time is the most precious, non-renewable resource and must be actively negotiated to achieve business and personal goals. He recommends auditing daily/weekly hours, prioritizing high-impact work, blocking time on a calendar, delegating or changing processes to reduce interruptions, and firmly saying no to low-value requests. The talk mixes personal anecdote with practical, actionable tips for entrepreneurs seeking to reclaim time and increase long-term business impact.
Chapters
Do you ever feel like you don't have enough time? Like you got too much stuff going on, too many people flying at you? You've got, you know, your. Your employees, your customers, your family, all the things that you want to get accomplished in your business, and there's only so much time in a day to get it all done. You ever feel stressed out from that? Listen, I've been there. I know what it's like. And I've basically established that in order to achieve things at a high level and not give up on what you want to accomplish, right. And keep pushing forward, you've got to learn how to negotiate your time. You could always get more money. It might not seem like it all the time, but you could always get more money, you could always get more opportunities, you could always get more business. You could always get more of everything except time. So time needs to be your most precious commodity and the thing that you guard and protect the most. And one of the best ways I've been able to figure that out is to accept the fact that I need to negotiate my time and do that based on priorities. Years ago, I was super stressed out with my business. It was already successful. I already had multiple locations around the country, but I was flying here, flying there, and it just felt like there was just always stuff coming at me. It didn't feel like I was as much in control of the business as I should have been. Right? And even today, you know, people. You know, there's constant requests of people that want to, you know, work with me or want me to look at their product or want me to look at their business. And, you know, you have to be able to negotiate your time. And that's what I do on a weekly and daily and monthly and quarterly basis. You're feeling like you just got too much on your plate. The answer is not to take it off of your plate. The answer is not to say, you know what, Let me do less. Let me not try to achieve what it is that I want to achieve. The answer is to say, you know, what if I just accept the fact that on a weekly and on a daily basis that I only have 24 hours, period. You've only got 24 hours, and you need to be able to negotiate that time to work on the biggest impact items first. When you accept that right as a fact, especially in this modern day of technology, with things flying at you and what you need to get accomplished, because we start our business with the intention of, you know, let's get this thing moving, let's get this thing flowing, let's get the business coming in, let's get the money coming in. But once that starts flowing and once it starts all happening, right, there's a lot getting thrown at us on a day to day basis, right? And a lot of that has to do with the way that we structure our day and the way that we structure our time. So if you're in a position now where you have big things that you want to get accomplished in your business, but you just feel like there is absolutely no time in the day, you've got to do an audit of how you're spending your time and you've got to take a look at every hour of every day and see what you can negotiate to get your time back in order to work on the stuff that's impactful, right? You've got some big dreams, you've got some big vision for where you want to take your business. And the thing that's probably holding you back the most is the feeling that you have a lack of time, right? You have too much going on. But the reality is, and people don't like to hear this, the reality is that we all have the same amount of time and we all have the same amount of challenges and stuff being thrown our way. It's how you choose to use that time. So by taking the approach of a daily negotiation, meaning you might have to start off each day and say, hey, look, what are all the things that need to get done? What's the biggest priority? What stuff might not need to get done, right? What processes do I need to change around and redirect in my company so so much doesn't have to flow through me. And you know, there are definitely more complex ways of managing your time and things where you could really get them set up. We teach that at Moving Sales Academy. But for a simple, simple base of like, hey, you know what, let me work on what's important. Sit down, get out a sheet of paper, write down your big priorities of what you're working on, right? What needs to get done, what your priorities are for that particular day, which should all be based around your objectives for the quarter, the big things that you're working on. Because listen, it's way too easy to get stuck in a rut. It's way too easy to get stuck, you know, just kind of doing what you've been doing, right, for a period of time. What if you made a little adjustment in the way that you start just thinking about your time? You know, I could sit here and give You a whole strategy. But if you're not already thinking about, hey, maybe I need to kind of be more conscious of how I choose to use my time the same way that you, hey, what am I going to choose to spend my money on? Spend more time thinking about what you're going to choose to spend your time on. Because you could always get more money. You can't get more time. And the better that you're able to use your time, the more money you could get. I mean, period. So there's a quick tip. Just sit down every morning, plan out your day, figure out what your biggest priorities are and you know, other stuff just might have to wait. You might have to, you know, not respond to people. You might, people might email you and you might not be able to respond to them. Sometimes you have to tell people no. Sometimes you have to tell people I'm not available. Right. Friends want to see you and friends want to hang out. I'm unavailable, I'm sorry. Someone has a business opportunity that they want to talk to me about and they send me an email. You know, it happened, you know, it happens really several times a week. Listen, my schedule is, you know, scheduled out until April. We could circle back then, you know, and sometimes people flip out. Like, what do you mean you don't, you don't have time for a five minute conversation? You don't have time for a ten minute conversation? Listen, first of all, there's no five or ten minute conversation when it comes to business opportunity. And yes, I don't have time for that. Right, and you have to be okay with telling people no and telling people that now's not the right time for me. Oh, just keep this in your mind. You can never get more time back. Guard that time, focus it on priorities. What's going to bring the biggest impact to your business? Alright, because if you're in business, that's what you want. You want the stuff that's going to be the biggest impact. Allow you to make the biggest amount of money, largest amount of money over the long term. Okay? Give you a sustainable business and take care of your family. Not only financially, but be able to have the time to spend with your family and then on your priorities, your hobbies, your things like that. I mean, you've got to carve out your time. So take a look at how you're spending your time and if you don't have it on a calendar, start putting it on a calendar. Right? Because we tend to overestimate all the stuff we think we could do. But when we look at a calendar and there's only so many hours there. There's only so many hours in a day, so many hours in a week. You've got to be able to negotiate what is going to get a block of time on your calendar. So make sure you go out there today. Profit in your business, thrive in your life, and I'll see you guys later.
