A short motivational talk by Ndubuisi 'Andy' Egwim arguing that setting a firm deadline is the single most important action to increase the likelihood of achieving financial or business goals. He invokes Parkinson’s Law (work expands to fill available time), gives a personal example—publicly announcing his book release for Black Friday to force completion—and advises listeners not to fear embarrassment if they fail. The piece emphasizes focus, cutting activities, and the psychological leverage of public deadlines.
Chapters
Yes, sir. This one thing, just one thing will make it more likely that you're going to accomplish your financial goals or even any business goals you've set. Just this one thing. And I'm doing it right now. And some of you have seen me doing it in public. And it's just one thing. If you don't do this thing, you're almost guaranteed not to hit your goals. And the chances are you're going to be sad, Sad if by December 31st you said goes to start investing, get tax efficient or you wanted to start your business or grow it, but you didn't do this one thing or even just write your book. And it's sad, sad job. Just set a deadline. So it's not. There's nothing special. Set a deadline. And I'll give you a typical example. But first of all, I know some of you already know Parkinson's law. Not like Parkinson the disease, but Parkinson's law basically states that work expands to fill the time that's made available for it. So if you wanted to do a task and you said, oh, I'm gonna do it at some point, you have infinite time and that work will not get done. If you give it two days most time, you finish it in two days. But how many of you have actually gone out and decided to fix, oh, I'm going to get this thing done this weekend. And it gets example, you're seeing me now, I'm announcing, I'm telling everyone my book is coming out on Black Friday. Here's a secret. The book is not yet ready. In fact, I'm adding a few chapters and removing some of them. We've not done the editing. We haven't even done the structural editing. The COVID page is not finalized, but we have a waiting list already. And the book is going to come out on Black Friday and it's going to be high quality. We watch out for it because I've set a deadline, so everything has to align. I'm not taking any new meetings. I know we publishers are going towards the book. I'm not taking any new meetings. I'm not sort of like accepting events to speak at events that are not in line with the book. I've cut out most of my activities. And look, you don't even necessarily have to cut out all your activities. You can just sort of like set a focus time. And once you set that deadline, then it has to happen. So whether it's for your business or for your finances, you're thinking, look, I want to get this accomplished before the end of the year, you want to set up your SIP account. For two years you've been trying. I've been writing this book for two years. I just did the outline. I'll come out, I'll stop again. Or in the last month, now I'm like, I'm setting a deadline. The book is going to be out, and I know it's going to be out. What if it doesn't come out? And you've already announced it publicly? You've told somebody, you told people. You know, what if it doesn't come out? Maybe you feel a little bit embarrassed, but embarrassment is just the price of admission. Nobody's going to take it to the firing squad. You feel a little bit embarrassed, you can say, oh, I'm sorry I didn't accomplish it. And maybe that would be a LinkedIn post of how you failed at your goals and you're trying and you're not perfect. But what was the worst thing in the past when people failed? They became homeless or they were shocked, but for you, the price, Just a little bit of embarrassment. Nobody's going to actually come and flog you or do anything, anything like that. So don't be afraid to set a deadline. Set a deadline for your goals.
