How to be 10x More Productive!

Are the things that are on my. On my task list, on my to do list, do they get me the business that I want in three years? Did they get me the life that I want in three years? Or did other people, Other people's priorities, did those whittle their way in? And you didn't even realize that your agenda is filled with other people's priorities.

You're a productivity master. I'm curious, what does it take to become unstoppable at being productive?

Oh, man. Well, it doesn't mean that you're naturally productive. Let me just get that right out of the way. A lot of people like, well, I'm just not a productive person. No, no, no, no, no. It's about techniques and it's about habits. So it's putting the right habits in place. Stephen. Habits will get you there more than motivation. We can't lean on motivation because some mornings we wake up and it's just not there. If you struggle with motivation, if you struggle with some days waking, I'm like, I don't have it. That's okay. That's when we lean on our habits. So it's putting some good habits in place that will carry you through that consistently. I mean, it's. It's not what we do one day that really matters. It's what we do consistently that matters. So it's about those habits.

Yeah, for sure. Well, let's talk about habits for a second. Because most of most people that I know that are incredibly productive, their habits are basically automatic. They kind of conduct their business by principle, and they kind of are business life, every bit of it, by a certain way, however, converse that with people who are very low productivity, also conduct their lives and businesses in a totally different way. So how do we help the people who need to become more productive and maybe help the people who are already super productive, maybe give them a little more time in their day for themselves.

Yeah, great question, great question. So there's a couple of things. One is that. So in the nature of what I do as a business advisor, a lot of people sit down with me, Steven, and the first question is always, how do I get there faster? They want me to show them how to step on the gas, like, just get me there faster. What they can't always answer the question is, where's there? Like, they're climbing. They want to climb the ladder as quick as they can, but they're not taking the time to look up and go, well, is that a ladder you actually wanted to be up? And so I would For I'm going to tell you how to be more productive. Absolutely. I'm going to tell you how to master distraction. But first, know where you're going, know where you'd like to be. And what that can simply do is say, all right, where are we going in three years? So I would just say start with clarity. That's real important. That's often not the fun piece. Let's just call a thing a thing like that. Clarity step is not the sexy step. People want to go faster. They don't want to stop and go, where are we going? So lean out three years. Don't get stuck in the how. I, I, I said don't even think of the how. Just think about the what. We can get lost in the tyranny of the how. Instead, I just want you to say, in three years, what does success look like in your business? Personal life, health, doesn't matter. And then we reverse engineer that. So I'm not gonna spend a lot of time in clarity. But know where you're going. Once you get, once you get to that step. Step one of clarity, then you gotta move into ruthless prioritization. There is so prioritization.

I've never heard it said like that.

It's hard and you got to be ruthless about it. You've got to, because there's so many opportunities. There's so much things that are barking for your attention, and that's distraction. We'll talk about that in a second. But there's also opportunities. I mean, in your business, there's, well, I could make money this way. I could serve people this way. I could impact people this way. With so much available to you, ruthless prioritization is important. If you, Jim Collins says, if you have a lot of priorities, you have no priorities. Right? Like the nothing's urgent and so really prioritizing. What's the biggest needle movers in my day? What's the biggest needle movers in my business? What's the biggest needle movers in my family? Spending time with your kids isn't always equal across the board. There are, you and I both know as Paris, there are times that really matter to your kids. There are things, initiatives that really matter in your business. So know what those things are and ruthlessly prioritize those. That means some things ain't going to get done. That means sometimes letting some people down or some projects that have to be taken off your priority list and put in the parking lot because you know what matters the most? You know, those big needle movers. So you've Got to identify what matters most. So let's go ahead.

I was just saying, does it make sense to, when you're looking at those priorities to, to be ones that actually somehow allow you to compound your time or your talent, your resource?

Great question. Great. And there's lots of ways to compound that time. So absolutely. When you're figuring out what your most important thing is, you got to be able to connect how that's going to get you to your three year goal faster. So, you know, if you're familiar with the whole urgent, but when you're looking at prioritizing things like some things seem urgent, but they're not really that important and some things are important aren't really urgent. And so I always tell people the things that matter most in your business and in our lives, they often don't bark the loudest. Yeah, you've got to listen for them. And so again, when you're figuring out your most important thing, it may not be that client that's called you three times today that's urgent, but that may not be the most important thing you've got to tackle today.

Yeah.

So really getting clear on, hey, this is the thing that's going to get me to my three year goal. And when you look at your tasks like you're setting out for your day, really be able to answer, are the things that are on my, on my task list, on my to do list, do they get me the business that I want in three years? Did they get me the life that I want in three years? Or did other peop. Other people's priorities, did those whittle their way in and you didn't even realize that your agenda is filled with other people's priorities.

Yeah, man, that's good.

Right? And, and I will tell you, here's a quick tip. If when you're starting your day you're like, all right, let's see what's on the docket. And you gotta open up your inbox to find your priorities. You are not running your business. Your business is running you. Because your inbox is almost always filled with other people's priorities. The biggest thing you got to get done is probably not sitting in your inbox. Let's talk about the biggest thing you got to get done. So if you're familiar with the concept of the one thing Great book by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, essentially, what's the one thing that you could do that makes everything unnecessary or less important? Right. I loved this book. But what I encourage people to do is find out Your one thing each day. And you got to get it done, Steven, by 9:27am Every day. What's the significance of 9:27am I'm going to be honest, it's arbitrarily chosen by me. But you got to get it in the morning because I tell people, you know the movie, what was it, Office space. I say, Milton's going to come and he's going to burn down your building at 9:27am what's the one thing that you can get done that when the building catches on fire, you go, man, I'm so glad I did that one thing. And you've got to do it first thing in the morning because we often leave our biggest priorities because till the end of the day, like, I gotta get that proposal over and I'm gonna do it at 4:30 in the afternoon when you're fried. Totally. You're, you got decision fatigue, you're not at your best. We don't make good decisions when we're tired or scared. Um, also, oftentimes at the end of the day we're tired. That's not the best time for our one thing. So get, establish your one thing and get it done by 9:27am every morning.

Yeah. No, it's so good. That is so good.

Yeah.

How subtle, how subtle changes can make a massive difference.

For sure, right? For sure. And I tell people, make progress on that one thing before you even open up that inbox. Like it's got, it's got to be scheduled, it's got to show up on your day. I mean the old adage of tell me where you spend your money, I can look at your bank account, I can look at your calendar, and I know exactly what you prioritize that upsets people. But it's, but it's so true. It's so true, right? People get mad when you tell them and you're like, I'm sorry, Where you spend your money, where you spend your dollars and where you spend your minutes, that's what you prioritize.

And that showcases personal responsibility or the lack thereof.

For sure, right? For sure. And so you got to take control of your business. And part of taking control of your business, your health, any of the aspects of your life is by prioritizing what matters most. We try to like fit those things in around all these other big rocks in our day. No, those got to go first. So, you know, it's the clarity, it's the ruthless prioritization. And if you want we can pop in a distraction which is what usually kills.

Yeah. Because I find that people are spending about five hours a day in distraction mode, which means I don't know how much time in a week, in a month, in a year. Yep. Where I come in, I come into work, I love my team, I'll connect with them. But my, my day is my day so I can get home to my family and spend time with my family for sure.

And I'm glad that you brought that up, Steven. So I'm going to talk about how to battle distraction. But I love that you said I got to get my day done so I can spend time with my family. A lot of people don't directly correlate, and they should. When you get distracted, you are robbing time from your partner, you are robbing time from your kids, you're robbing time from the gym. Like, people just go, oh, the day is the day. No, no, no, no, no. The day is what you let happen to you if you don't design it. And if you get distracted, if you go down this rabbit hole, if you find a, I don't know, a TikTok video where you spend too long working on something that you don't need to be spending that much time on, you're then missing dinner with your family, you're then missing soccer practice or baseball practice, whatever it is, you've got to connect those, and that is pain. To connect those as the catalyst to get you out, to get you focused. So you're absolutely right. Most people are distracted for hours a day. If you follow an employee around, if you follow the average American worker around, it's amazing how many hours are lost time.

Oh, yeah.

And people, people talk about like, oh, man, I, I put in my 12 hour day. I, I'm hustle this, hustle, hustle culture. I don't care how many hours of you sat in front of your computer, you were awake. Right, right. Like how many. And, and you don't even have to what the biggest distraction is, but you don't even have to touch anything to get distracted. Like this three pound organ right here is an amazing tool at keeping us totally distracted.

Yeah, for sure. You know, it's funny, I'm thinking about, you know, that when I threw out five hours of distraction, I was being legitimate. There was a study done a year ago, maybe two years ago, and as you started going through the different generations, like the millennials, generation X generation, all that kind of stuff, the younger the generation, the more distracted and the more media that's being consumed on a consistent basis. But Even the baby boomers were still three and a half hours a day.

I'm distracted.

Being distracted in, in tv, radio, social media.

You know, over indulging with friends, like, overindulging with. Hanging out with your friends and stuff like that. But they, but yet, year after year, they say, well, I got these goals, I got these dreams, I got these. Am I ever going to make it? I'm thinking to myself that three hours a day is a great place to watch a video, read a book, go to a seminar. Yeah, go follow, pivot me. Like, there's, there's all these different things like that can be done now if you weren't distracted.

You're absolutely right, Stephen. That's exactly what people say. They don't have time. I'm like, oh, I. I can find time really easy for you. Give me your phone and I'll show you where your time is. Because, you know, Brandon Bashar calls phones weapons of mass distraction, which I love. That is what's getting in the way of a lot of our productivity. So whether that's we're getting it through a phone, whether we're getting it through our computer, it's mostly our phone. But every time you touch your phone, I mean, there's been studies done about how quickly you get sucked into it. I mean, they're designed to suck you into it, and you don't. It's why when I have people set timers, I'm like, don't use your phone. If you can avoid it, don't use your phone. Because the second you touch your phone, there's a text message or there's a slack message, or there's something that is gonna suck you back in. It's designed to suck you back in. So I caution people to stay away from their phone. So you're absolutely right about this distraction. So when I look at distraction, I look at digital distraction, which is things like your phone, it's the ding, it's the chime, and let's talk about how to tackle that. So, you know, one of the easiest things that I can tell people do is if they're like, I got a big project and I'm struggling on getting it done, I need to get this proposal out of this contract out, or I'm writing a book. It doesn't matter what the task is, right? You got a big project that you need to be focused on first. We're doing it at the beginning of our day, not at the end of our day. You gotta minimize the digital distractions. You've gotta Turn off the dings and the chimes and all the things that have been designed to get your attention back. Like they're those kind of distractions. They're robbing you of your genius. When you give in to them, they're, they're taking your genius away. You're ain't gonna create anything magnificent if you spend your day distracted.

Yeah.

So you have to correlate those things. It's not just about entertainment. I would argue it's not entertainment at all. It's simply distraction. And so say you're sitting down to write this proposal. You gotta turn the phone off. You gotta, you gotta minimize slack. You've got, you've got to put yourself as out of the office and time block that time. Now that makes people uncomfortable when you say, well, I'm going to be offline. And they're like, well, what if my spouse needs me? Or something happens or this or that. You let people know when you've become available again, like, I'm going offline from 9 to 11. I time block from 9 to 11 to get my key, whatever it is. I don't care if it's 30 minutes. I'd love for it to be 90 minutes. But even if it's 30 minutes, people will give you the time if they know when they can get your attention back.

Yeah.

So, I mean, it's amazing. You see how people sweat when you tell them to put their phone on an airplane. No, I can't do it. So just let them know when you become available. And if Everybody knows from 9 to 10am you're time blocking for an important project, they'll give you the time. So that's mastering digital distractions. Right. But let's, let's talk about internal distractions. Right? I talked about this, this three pound organ, Right. Your brain is a great tool. Everything's quiet. There's no chiming, there's no nothing. Maybe you got a YouTube video on that's like some relaxing study music. Oh, great. I'm going to be so productive. Nope. Your brain's like, I'm going to think about my dentist appointment. I'm going to wonder, did I answer that email? Did I hear back from Tracy yet? You're going to start thinking about all that stuff. Those are the internal distractions. And those are hard to battle too. Here's one of the ways that you can do it. If you're familiar with the Pomodoro technique, Right? So it's, um, setting a timer. They did it originally at 25 minutes. I find the sweet spot is between 15 and 20 minutes. You set a timer while you're working on a large project and all you're doing is competing against the timer. Now, the very first time you do this, Steven, it's amazing when the timer goes off and I'd encourage you not to use your phone if you can avoid it. Um, I use a YouTube timer on. It's the first tab of my, my Internet browser. At any time, it's always. My first tab is a timer. Yeah, that timer goes off, you will almost always be off task. Almost always. Even if it's just 15 minutes, you may have sat down to get a proposal out. That timer goes off and you go, oh, man, I was totally off task. I was up here, I was thinking about something else. I grabbed a sticky and I started writing about something else. That is how we manage our internal distractions and we create massive focus. It actually takes us a lot less time to get things done if we could cut out the distractions. So if you don't remember anything else from our conversation, remember this. When you're tackling an important project, turn off the digital distractions and set the timer for between 15 and 20 minutes. When that timer goes off, you just reset it. Just keep resetting it until that task is done. And that is how you combat distraction.

You.

You combat it by creating focus.

Yeah. No, I love that. You know, I think one of the benefits of having ADHD like I do is the ability to hyper focus. Right. With everything around you. But as soon as you get into hyper focus mode, you can go with it.

Yeah.

And for, you know, for me, one of the things I love about the Mac environment is this do not disturb button and how, at least on my. On all my devices, it's actually connected. So if I turn do not disturb on my phone on. It also does it on my computer, my iPad, et cetera, so I can focus. And I don't find that people actually use some of the productivity tools that are out there that are even built into some of these crazy devices. Even the people that built the crazy devices that want you to like, engage with those crazy devices on a regular basis and finally realize, yeah, yeah, they probably should get something done. So why don't we just go and put this button here for them?

For sure. And nobody's using the button. Use the button.

Yeah. Yeah.

Well. And it's not. Excuse me. It's not just because those options aren't available. They are, but let's call a thing a thing, Steven. It's addictive.

Yeah.

We don't want to be offline. We want to be dialed in.

Yeah.

We want to feel. It's a combination of fomo, fear of missing out. Like, is there something going to happen? Whether that's a fun thing or whether it's a. Oh, my gosh, what if there's a need that I can't meet? Meet Sometimes it's a significance thing. I'm important and people are going to need me. And what's I got guys in the field, what if they can't reach me? Well, people become really resourceful when you become unavailable. So we got to combat our ego a little bit on that too.

And.

And sometimes that's like the hidden thing behind it is like, ah, ego or fear is often writing shotgun when we feel like we have to.

When we're.

When we're struggling, going offline, ego and fear are often riding shotgun.

So good. This is so good. People are going to love this episode. Let's go.

Yeah, let's do it.

Let's pivot a little bit, right? Use your word. Talk to me about. Talk to me about the E3.

Yes. So with. In the Pivot Me. So Pivot Me podcast in the Pivot Me Academy. So we asked the question, do you E3. And the idea behind that is, here's our three E's. It's educate, elevate, and execute. So educate. It's a combination of educating yourself. And I don't necessarily mean formal education. I mean, are you reading books? Are you listening to podcasts like Steven, this amazing podcast that both gives you actionable vice inspiration. He's talking to people who've been through it and are laying out the roadmap. Are you. Are you dialing into that kind of education but also educating others? Like, are you willing to share this information? Because it's not just for us. To us. Us to keep to ourselves. Now, don't educate someone who doesn't want to be educated. Just be like, don't learn a technique and be like, I'm going to tell everybody. Because they all want to learn. Many people don't. And that's okay. They got to walk their path. But if someone wants to learn from you, if someone wants to be educated by you, man, share that. So that's the educate piece. Elevate. Same idea. Elevate yourself. We are supposed to outgrow ourself. If I am thinking the same thoughts I did this time last year, if my day looks the same as it did last year, I've missed 365amazing lessons right. The failures and the victories. And so it's elevating yourself, but again, that other piece, elevating others. Like, as you go along, as you grow, the things attached to you grow. Am I elevating the people in my business? Am I elevating the people in my industry, in my family? Am I, am I leading them? And I, am I, am I just getting better or am I helping elevate others? That's an important piece to that and obviously the last one, which is my personal favorite, which is execute. Now, we don't execute others, just to be clear, but we do need to be executors. And here's why that is so important, Stephen, is that many people talk about the amount of books they read. They brag about it, right? Like, ah, 52 books a year. Look at me go. Look at me go. I don't care how many books you read, I care how many books you've. You've executed on, like, what have you put into play? That's great. You read Traction. Did you do the EOs? Did you do the pieces that it said in that book you read David Goggins, that awesome. How did your workout routine change? Yeah, so when we, when we talk about execution, that's so important, Stephen, because a lot of us fail to execute, we get stuck in this whole education. I'm going to gather information. I'm going to gather information. Luckily, us entrepreneurs are usually pretty quick at executing. We like go ahead with like 20% of the data points. We're like, ah, I feel like I got it. Let's go ahead.

Yeah.

If you're someone that gets stuck in that, like analysis paralysis, if you feel like I need more data points, I need more education, I need more experience, you don't, you need execution. You just got to do it. I mean, we learn by doing, not by preparing. You got to do your due diligence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But then, then there just comes the point where like the rubber meets the road and you're going to learn by getting out there and doing it. So the edge, the execute piece is a really important piece of that.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, I can think about just my own journey. And the reality is, is what little bit of success I've been able to achieve, you know, physical success, you would call it, whatever is directly tied to the fact that I was like, I'm going to try. I don't know if it's going to work. I'm going to try anyway. What I got to lose, like, stay exactly where I'm at because I didn't try. I mean, you know, to me, so what was a nonstarter was a non choice. However, I spent a lot of time in my own way in trying to put these things at play. Right. So my question is to you now, what have you learned or techniques or strategies you've used to help people get out of their own freaking way?

Yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing you gotta battle. So what you need is rare. I mean, education is important. That's usually not what people are missing. Like they're smart enough, they know enough to start. It's that we get in our own way. We are our biggest hurdles, we are our biggest problems, we are our biggest handicap. And so it's a great question, how do we stop people from self sabotaging? How do we get people out of their own way? And there, there's a couple of ways, Stephen, but one is just, you know, one thing that I do for clients is I dial into their language when they're talking about some kind of bottleneck in their business, when they're talking about, well, I couldn't do this because of this. Or here, here's one that I hate. I hate labels. Oh, I hate labels. I'm a perfectionist. I'm an introvert. I hate those kind of labels. Not because there's not some truth to it. If you're listening to this and you're introverted perfectionist, I'm sorry, but I'm pick on you for a second. It's because when people use those sorts of labels, it is to just justify a lack of behavior, a lack of execution. It's not because, well, I'm an introvert, so I'm really good at connecting with people on one to one. No, they're like, I'm an introvert, so public speaking isn't for me. Or I couldn't go and do this. Yeah, that's just us getting in our own way. So mind your mind. Like pay attention to what you say about yourself and pay attention to what you're saying in here. And so a big part of it is just getting people dialed into their inner narrative. Left to, left to their own devices. Like what our brain says to ourselves is not empowering. Like your brain is designed to protect you. We know this, right? So it's going to say, watch out. There's this pitfall, watch out, you could fail here, you're going to make a fool of yourself there. That's what your brain's constantly doing. And we know, we know the story behind that. We know how our brains evolved and. But you can choose different. You can train your brain so that you're not constantly looking for the pitfalls, you're aware of them, but you're also looking for all the opportunities to succeed. This is going to work out because of this man. I got a great team. So this is going to work out. So being aware of what you're saying to yourself, both aloud and to yourself, and changing that, and that could be changed through mantras or affirmations. It sounds woo woo. It's amazing. It works like a frickin charm. And that's big. It's programming.

And you're either being programmed by your environment or you're choosing to program yourself.

Absolutely. And you can change, I mean, you can change connections in your brain by working through this process. One of the podcasts I just did was on negative thoughts and how to change those. And our brain is, we've, we're hardwired to look for the things that are wrong. Right. And then all we're doing is having the same thought over and over again. So we're reinforcing this pattern. So you disrupt the pattern and you're like, when I walk out of the room, instead of when someone gets up and walks away, I think, oh, that guy doesn't respect me. That guy doesn't care about what I have to say. Instead I'm like, that guy's gonna go get a notepad because he wants to write down what I'm gonna say. Like, reframe that.

Like my digital one right here.

That's right. Is that the remarkable one? Which one is that? Oh, I like that. Got a little digitala envy. I want one of those. Okay, so there was another one I was looking at.

I'm just kidding.

Yeah, right? This is not sponsored. But if it was, I was looking at that one now. I was like, oh, I want that. So just reframing things. Know that, know that if you do not. Here's the thing. When I talk to people about like affirmations and, and saying things to yourself every morning, stuff like that, I always tell people, either choose your affirmations or they will choose you. Everybody has a mantra that goes through their head every day. Oh, see how she looked away? She's not interested in one. I have to say, oh, see how he got up and walked away? He doesn't hear what I have to say. When my staff turns and looks the other way, it's because they don't respect me. Maybe, maybe your staff is distracted. Maybe Your staff has ADHD and they have to put their mind on something else so they can effectively hear you. I've got someone on my team that. She's like, I have to look away from you so I can hear you. Well, all right, glad I know that. So I could have understood that as she's multitasking, it's driving me nuts because I feel like she's not listening to me. No, she's multitasking so she can focus better on me. So pick your mantras. Be aware of that. And when you say something, when you say, yeah, I feel like my revenue is capped out, I can't get to that next level. When you say, I'd like to be a speaker, but I'm just not that engaging, push on that.

Don't.

Yeah, don't trust your thoughts. They're wrong a lot. When you say that, ask yourself, is this true? Is this really true?

Yeah.

What if it wasn't true? What is this thought costing me? And you can reframe that in your brain. I mean, we think that the past is, you know, all collection of facts. No, it's a collection of shaded memories that you could, you know, you can massage that. So your brain, if you know how to leverage it well, will be an amazing tool. But if you don't do the work, it's gonna handicap you.

Well, think about it. I just had this random thought on betrayal, right? So if you think about it, the greatest, you know, we all get offended if somebody betrays us. A friend, a loved one or something like that, whatever. Whether it's a large scale, small scale, but yet we don't get offended when we betray ourselves. We get. We give ourselves an out or an excuse or a whatever. And one of the things I'm hearing you say is the greatest thing that's actually betraying you is actually you.

Yes, totally.

Totally. So why not, like, literally get into this, to this intentional programming mode? And I think the word intentional is behind pretty much anything you actually want to see actually manifest into your life, right? You can't. You can't kumbaya your way into your dreams. Like, you've got to put in the work for sure.

For I. I love that. And one of the. One of the speeches I do is actually, circumstances don't make the man you do. You do by every decision you made about the circumstances. Because here's the thing, unfortunate things happen. But you can have. You can have a set of twins go through the exact same situation. They have a father that, you know, was abusive, is an Incarcerated. One twin turns out exactly like him. And he says, of course, because look at my father. And the next twin turns out completely different. And he says, of course, look at my father. Same circumstances. But it's the decisions we make about those circumstances. We either become victims or victors. And again, I'm not dismissing that. Some awful things happen. I've definitely had some trials and tribulations in my life, too. But I have to made a choice on whether this was going to make me stronger, whether this was going to give me grit or resilience, or if this was going to be the reason for me to play small. And I made that choice or any reason that.

That. That you're choosing to focus on what's missing or what's lacking or what didn't work, rather than shifting your focus into, okay, what's my approach?

Yep, exactly. Where were our wins? Where did we gain ground? What did we learn? I mean, every experience, not all is lost. Like, there was. There were lessons to be learned. We can focus on the doors that shut, or we can focus on the lessons we got and how we're going to be that much better going through that next door.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you also have this other thing that I think is really cool that I know increases performance, which is your Attaboy folder.

Yes.

Like, what in the world? How did you come up with the Atta Boy folder?

Well, I spent a long time in sales, Stephen. That's how I came up with that Boy folder. So I was in sales myself. I've trained salespeople all over the world in distribution and manufacturing and a lot of different places. And so the Attaboy folder is essentially a collection of successes you've had. And I'll be clear, they're successes to you. They don't need to be successes to anybody else. So it doesn't have to be the trophy moment of like top salesperson or Fortune, you know, 50. It doesn't have to be something big like that. It's the thing that connects you to like, oh, man, this is why I do it. This is where I won and what it is. It's not necessarily a physical folder. It's usually a Attaboy folder on your, like in your inbox, just like a email folder or I also have people put them on their phone too, where you screenshot, like a text message, an email, something like that, and they all go into your Attaboy folder and it's this treasure trove, trove of wins that you've had. Sometimes it connects you to Your purpose. Sometimes it's just you winning. And you know, at first, when someone's on their A game, they're like, yeah, I don't need that, man. Like, I. I know what I can do. There will come a time. I just had this conversation yesterday. There will come a time when you're gonna hit a snag. There will come a time where everything starts to slip. Maybe everything completely falls apart, rug is pulled out from underneath you, and you will need that Attaboy folder.

Yeah.

So you get hit with a lawsuit, or, you know, your spouse says, I'm out. Like, something happens and your foundation gets shook, and you're going to need to be reminded of who you are and what you can do. It's a great confidence boost, too. So it connects you to purpose, connects you to confidence. I've got one every morning, or I've got one that I. I could look at every morning if I needed to. If I was having a rough morning. I have it on my phone and I can open it up and I go through my. My add a girlfriend, shoulder.

Yeah.

And in there, it's, client wins, business wins. A message from my husband. Like, it can be a whole host of things, but it's to anchor me to the things that I do and the value that I bring. And it gets you up in the morning. It will pull you out of funk. I mean, again, when you're riding high, you feel like you don't need it, but there will come a time that you need that Attaboy folder. And it is gold.

Love it. I love it. You know, I was. When I was a. Studying more of your content, learning more about you. I was reading through your bio. It's crazy. I survived a one military coup. I was like, almost two.

That's why it was almost two.

All right, so sorry. Just for fun, I have to know the story.

Sure. Okay. I gotta abbreviate it because it's. There's so many things that happen on this. I mean, this could be a book. So I say it one, because I almost was in a second one in. In Honduras, but the one that I was in was in Fiji. It was the. The George Bate coup of Fiji. And I was in New Zealand at the time, and I was supposed to fly in to Fiji, and then this coup erupts. So my plane got. Or my plane got delayed by two days. And I said before kids, and I'm like, do I go? Do I not go? And I was like, I have a pretty adventurous soul. And I remember thinking, I Don't have anyone really depending on me. I'm gonna go. So it was my boyfriend at the time turned husband. But we fly in. There's another thing you need to know about me, Steven, which is I've been all over 40, 50 countries. Right. I actually know how to fly a plane. But as a passenger, I'm a very nervous passenger, which is hard when you travel a lot for business, because I don't control issues. You know, Everybody always asks me that. I say no, but maybe some people would disagree with me. So. So we're flying in to Fiji. It's in the middle of the coup. They closed Suva, which was the main airport, so they'd reroute us to naughty Fiji. And it's a real bumpy flight because there's a storm, and I've got a thermos with alcohol in it. And every time the plane would go up, shot would go down. Right? So I'm telling a very terrible story, but I'm. It's funny. So we land in Fiji. Like, they open up the airport for one flight to land was our. Our flight. We land, they close the airport because there's riders around the airport. We get out. I've. I've had a couple of shots, and I was like, hello, everybody. Thanks for greeting us. They were not greeting us. They were rebels. That's not. They weren't there to greet us. So we end up getting taken to this military compound, which was run by a voodoo priestess named Mama Sousa. And it was in barracks. We had. It was back. We lay like, an old video camera. We pulled it out and, like, said goodbye to our family. We're like, so we're here. We hope we make it out. But just in case, we're gonna send this message to our family that finds this video. Yeah. I tell my parents, please take care of my dog, Bart. Then we end up getting out of the compound, kind of escaping. We found a guy that had, like, this boat, and we asked him if he could take us to one of the islands so we could sort of sit out the military coup. And we paid him 15 bucks and dropped us off in this beautiful, beautiful island. And we tried to wait it out. Unfortunately, I got attacked by a wild dog while I was there, so I had to leave and get the rabies series, too.

So, goodness gracious.

It was quite an experience, though. And I say one coup because I was. I do humanitarian work. And we ended up almost being in a second one in Honduras. And I'm like, I've done this before. Let's go ahead and get out.

I'm out. I'm out. I'm out, guys.

Good.

Good luck to you. I wish you guys the best. I'm. I'm gonna, you know.

Absolutely.

Over here.

Yeah, it was pretty wild. It was pretty wild. So it was. It's. It's interesting getting the rabies series because they bring in all the out.

You don't hear stories. You just don't see things like that in people's bios. So I was like, I'm gonna ask about this.

I gotta know about. Well, and they bring in all, like, the medical staff. They brought in all the residents because they're like, oh, we got a rabies case. But to be clear, they don't know if you have rabies unless they cut your head off. So they didn't know if I had it or not. They just knew I was attacked by a wild dog. So they brought in all the medical students, and they're asking me questions, and they'd never given the serum before. So they're sitting there with, like, a calculator and the seven people, and they're like, okay, what's your weight? And they're putting it in and, like, multiplying things. And I'm like, could you do the calculation outside the room? Because, like, my. My confidence is kind of dropping watching you do that on a calculator. So it was a wild experience.

Either that or the witch doctor. So, you know.

Exactly. I could have been. Yeah. Mama Sousa probably would have taken care of me, too.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. I got a lot of crazy stories.

If there was a question you haven't been asked yet that you've been dying for someone to ask you so you could, like, show off some stuff or tell us some stuff, what would it be?

Dang.

That's a really good question, Stephen.

Well, you know, the first thing that popped into my mind, honestly, probably because you asked the travel question, is going your own way. I have a long history of bucking the system and going my own way, and I didn't even realize how much of it is until my my hundredth episode. And I had some people asking me questions, and it permeates every aspect of my life. So when I was younger, I was a skateboarder. It was only female skateboarder. Then I became a weightlifter, did a competition. I was the only female in Coach Coverley's weights class. He tried to get me to switch to home ec. Coach Coverly was not a nice man. Then I competed. I was the only female Competing and you know, and then when I turned 18, I didn't come from people that traveled and I pretty much bought a ticket to London right away and I was like, I'm out. And then at 20, I bought my first house. And I don't say that as like a blowing my own horn. I want to share that because I fought adversity at every step of those, whether it's being in a bench press competition with a bunch of guys or. And there's so many more things. There's so many more things. Stack, stack, stack, stack. I went into an industry where there's very few females. I, I was, I spent my career in rooms where I was not welcomed, you know, and.

That'S hard, but man, it's just given me such, such grit. And so I share that because. And maybe I sought out those environments. I mean, I think they're natural to me. It's hard. Maybe it's just my rebellious nature, but I really, I share that so that people know that Nobody knows what's right for you. Nobody knows what you can and can't do. And whether that's a parent, that's a sibling, that's an aunt or uncle, a teacher, or even like fast forward to being an adult and maybe that's a partner or a co worker. They don't know what you can and can't do. It's just because they've never seen it. They don't know that you can, you know, go to 40, 50 countries and, and be okay. They don't know that you can go through a military coup and leave with maybe the rabies series. But like I was doing things that nobody else I knew. I did not come from people that did these kinds of things.

Yeah.

And they constantly gave me a hundred reasons why what I was going to do wasn't going to work out. And I'm first generation entrepreneur as well. It was like, no, no, that doesn't work. You know, any businesses failed at. If there's something that's really like in you, don't let anyone take that away from you. And, and, and don't even give them airtime when they've got their laundry list of all the reasons it won't work. That list is about them. Either their own restrictions or, or their fear of what this change will do for you and will there still be space in your new life for the old them? And there's ways we can handle that and love, honor people that, hey, they're still going to, you know, I'm still me and there's still space, but.

We. We got to follow. We got to follow the things that are in our heart, and you can't let anyone take that away from you.

Yeah. That's probably why you and I resonate so well, because you and I have had not the same adversities, but and uphill fight all the same, for sure. And one of the things that's taught me is what you're saying, which is you. You really have one choice in life. Either live by someone else's expectations or set your own. Yeah, right. Totally.

Right.

You know, I remember when I first started my first business, when you and I were talking about a little bit off air 20, 20 years ago, literally 20 years ago, 20, 23 years ago, my father, in the moment in which I'm essentially choosing to start the business, tries to talk me out of it. And then about three years later, maybe four years later, he comes to me. I'm starting to have some level of success, meaning my business is now profitable. And I'm, you know, I'm now able to do a couple of different things, you know, not. Not to necessarily where I'm at in today, but, you know, I was able to have some affordabilities that really. He never really lived. Right. So as we're talking, as we're kind of talking through it, he goes, I always knew you could do it. And I was like, huh? But you. But you try to talk. He goes. He goes, I realized that. I was just. I was scared that you would have the same result that I had.

Then he goes, I'm not realizing you're. You're completely different. Like, you're, you know, you're a piece of me, but you're. You're not me. Right.

Wow.

That kind of thing. So I thought that was really profound, and I feel like entrepreneurs need to hear that from time to time, because being an entrepreneur, as you know, can be lonely at times.

Sure.

Skyrocket success sometimes. And then it's like, I guess it was a fraud. I guess I was a fake. I mean, everything's falling apart. What am I going to do? I don't know. Like, all this kind of stuff. Right. You know, and that's. And that's. That is the life of the entrepreneur, but the entrepreneur, obviously, or also creates something out of nothing every time. Right. They're the innovators. They're creators and stuff like that. So.

Sure.

That was such a. That was such a good lesson.

You're like, why couldn't you told me that before, man? Like, I had I had all the negative stuff like that.

I needed it, though. I needed. I needed to use that fire. That was fire for me. It's like, watch me. Yeah, I don't have it figured out. I don't have a. You know, I didn't know anything about business whatsoever other than the fact I know how to swing a hammer at the time.

Sure, sure.

Right. And then shake. I knew how to shake hands, so.

Exactly. Which is important. You know, I think part of the problem is, Stephen, is when someone airs their concerns and they mirror our own fears.

Ooh.

That's when it gets real dangerous. So I said the, the real. The real problem here is when someone airs their concerns and they mirror our fears. So if someone says, you know, you just. You're not really well spoken, so I don't see you being a speaker because you. Sometimes you get, like, caught up in your words and you're like, shoot, I've been worried about the same thing. I've been worried about the same thing, or probably right. I'm becoming a real estate investor. And I've been worried that it's not going to work out because, yeah, I knew someone who once was. And they failed. There's a book, Untamed, I love, but in there, she. I'm gonna probably paraphrase it, but she says, essentially nothing is dis. As disarming as the quiet concern of a loved one. And I was like, oh, she's so right. Because that. The, the. The. The just. Are you sure this is right? I'm just worried about, you know, how you just get so into things and then they don't work out and you get so disappointed. It's when they mirror the thing that. That's inside of our head that we're like, that's it. I'm out. They're right. They know me. They know me better. No, then. And we're reinventing. If you're doing the work, you're reinventing yourself, they may know an older version of you. Like, yeah, I used to get tongue tied. Now I don't. I used to do this, now I don't. So that's where we got to be really careful. And you gotta be careful who speaks into your dreams when we were doing something new, whether it's starting a business. I mean, I started my business.

I didn't.

I didn't talk to people about it because I knew what I tell people, a new idea, new business is like a fragile little egg. And the worst thing. Thing you can do is, like, put it in your hand. And go, what do you think of my egg? Someone's gonna go, that's what I think of your egg. Most people are going to come at it with a sledgehammer. I'm sorry, but that's just it. And again, that's about their fears and concerns. But when something's new, it is like it's just getting born. It's so fragile. Be very careful who you show that to.

Yeah. Because it can't defend itself yet.

Nope, nope. So you go to people who've done the things you've done, the people that are innovative, the people that are thinking outside the box. And then you can, you can kind of pressure test your ideas with them or your business, but don't do it with your neighbor that you have a beer with every Tuesday night when he's like, that's not gonna work. Let me tell you why. I had an uncle, and I had this and I had that. You can't listen to that guy. When I became a real estate investor, everybody came at me with all their stories of family members who had last money in real estate. I heard, I heard that story for years, the whole time. While I'm buying houses, I couldn't even buy a beer, and I'm buying houses and I'm. I could, but I couldn't legally buy a beer. But, like, and I'm out there doing all this stuff at. At 20 while I've got, you know, 50 year old sitting me down, trying to talk some truth tea into me, tell me how it's not going to work. And I was out there doing it. So they don't get to have airtime. They don't. They don't get a ticket, they don't get a seat at the table.

Yeah. Well, I think it comes down to do you really want it and are you willing to. Are you willing to do, do and. Or learn whatever it takes to get you there? Yeah, I was. My life was transformed by one or two mentors, strategically, at specific moments that said, okay, well, maybe I can do this. Yeah, I know I don't have that all figured out, and I know it's going to take time.

Sure.

And sure, I'm like every other entrepreneur. I want to get there faster. But the reality is it takes the time that it takes. And it's only that time that it takes is directly connected to the person you are becoming.

Yeah.

You're either becoming that person quicker or you're becoming that person. Well, at a snail space.

Yeah. Right. For sure. For sure. And Stephen, if you wouldn't mind, I think we should probably touch on one other thing, which is the peer group thing, like the importance of the peer group. So one of the things we talk about it pivot me a lot is the difference between a design peer group and a default peer group. And if you're getting somewhere, like if you're changing your status, you're leveling up your business, you're leveling up your life, even your fitness, you got to take a hard look at your peer group. So first, let me just define what a default peer group is. So most of us are operating off of our default peer group. Those are people that you live next to. Those are people that you work with, you know, maybe that. Friends from high school or college, your kids, parents, you know, friends, parents. That's your default peer group. Most of us spend all our time with our default peer group. Your default peer group not going to get you there. Like, if you get ahead, it's going to be despite them, not because of them. And I'm not, to be clear, I'm not saying you're better than them. I'm not saying that you're going to write them all off. There's a way that you do it, but you've got to incorporate a designed peer group. So if you're trying to start a business or try to start a different business, have someone that's done that in your peer group. If you're trying to run a marathon, don't do it and not know a single other runner. Yeah, you have to go out and bring in the people into your life that represent your goals. Because not only do they do they give you the path like you understand how, what it takes, but they also normalize success and the thing that you're going after. When I became a real estate investor, I didn't know a single other real estate investor. I went about it so bass ackwards. It was so much harder because I didn't know anybody that did that. I also had blue hair and was 20, so maybe that was part of it, but I didn't know any other real estate investors. And so it normalizes the success and the thing that you want to. So if you're saying, man, I can't do the 75 hard challenge, I got two little kids at home. You can't use that as an excuse if every Wednesday you go to lunch with a couple of parents that also do the 75 hard challenge. So whatever you're about to get after, whether it's relationship goals, fitness goals, it doesn't Matter. Make sure that you have brought someone into your peer group that represents that next level for you. That's, that's, that's key.

This has been so, so good. I knew it would be. I just knew it. Just wind you up and let you go.

Exactly. We need to do this more often. For sure.

Of course. Yeah. We're cut from the same cloth. No doubt. One final question. Okay. Because we're on the subject of kind of really the mind. You talk about this term called mental real estate.

Yeah.

And then kind of, you know, basically choosing your properties, so to speak. Break that down for us for one second because I think we're all over top of this mindset thing and I think people need to make a big shift.

Absolutely. So what I call mental real estate is sort of the thing that's occupying your, your brain power, if you will. So it. A lot of times people will think about, well, I did do this or I didn't do this. But they don't stop to think about, well, what are you spending your days thinking about? And we can have something occupy so much mental real estate in our mind that it's hard to go out and do something significant when you got some kind of crappy thought that's occupying all your mental health real estate. So, you know, and sometimes it's, well, what's this person going to think? Or we're thinking about a past business failure. There was a guy that I was working with, he owned an appraisal business, and when we looked ahead at the thing he wanted to do, he had so much mental real estate dedicated to the past business failure. He had like all of his, you know, boardwalk properties. Was this past business failure. And I was like, you got to evict that. There are people that need to be evicted. There are past experiences, failures. You learn the lesson, but the quickest, you can move on and, and fill your mental real estate with the right things. It, it's huge. And if you think about it like real estate, like, I'm going to choose what gets to live here and here and here. Again, that's not all by chance. Like, we don't have to just let our brain one riled. It's like, man, I have this thought in my head. Replace it with something else. Like put your attention towards what's ahead or this, your gap, your gains, your strengths, those sorts of things. Don't be thinking about a past business failure. So it really comes back again. Stephen, to mind your mind, like you need to know, think about what you're thinking about. And that's a common phrase. Right. Like, really be aware of where you're spending your time up here. That's going to indicate where you're headed. Like, we can be going around these habits and doing the right things, but up here is full of head trash. It's really hard to get ahead, and it's really hard to enjoy the process because even when we do get ahead, if we got the wrong things up there, it's not fulfilling. And the worst thing we can do is be a miserable high performer. Right?

Yeah. There's a lot of them. Oh, my gosh. Well, I think that's, you know, I think it's part of the journey. I think it's when. That's when you actually discover that you're earning or your impact or whatever. There's no such thing as a limit to it. But there's also no if. The more you chase that in and of itself, the emptier become.

Yes.

But when you're able to chase, you know, impact, income, legacy, time with your family, like, it seems like that's when the world starts to kind of just make sense.

Yes.

You spend. You spend more time in what I refer to as the happy zone. Like you're. You're legitimately happy because you're fulfilled.

Yeah, absolutely. And. And I'll tell you what gets people unfulfilled is that they're constantly looking at what's missing, not what's there. And so that's a gratitude piece, but it's also. There's a great book out recently, the Gap in the Gain by. Oh, so good. So good. Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy love their work, but I love this concept of always measure backwards. We always stand where we are. And we're like, all right, let's look ahead. Let's see how far we have to go. Well, us high performers, what do we do the second we even get close to the goal post? We push it out, right?

Yeah.

And what happens is there's no celebration. There's no excitement. There's no feeling of fulfillment or success. If we were to stop for one second and turn around and look behind us, man, there's stuff in your rear view mirror that's on somebody else's bucket list.

Yeah.

And if you would stop and appreciate that, you'd start to feel more fulfillment. You'd start to appreciate the house that you're in now versus the house that you were in 10 years ago, the family that you've built now, the business that you build now. Like, you start to appreciate it. When you. When you think about your gains versus just looking at your gaps. Because we wake up and we don't. We usually wake up and we're like, all right, what do we still need to do today? Instead of going, man, look at all the wins of today. Look at what we've already done. And so it's a bit of a deviation from just straight gratitude, but if you appreciate the progress and the impact you're making, man, those things are directly to tied to fulfillment.

This is so good. So good. I know we got to wrap it up, but, man, I'm telling you what, we're definitely doing this again. This was too much fun.

Absolutely. I'm so glad. I love the work that you're doing, man. I'm so glad I could show up and. And spend some time with you today.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's tell everybody what they can find out more about you specifically and what everything you're working on.

Absolutely. So our website is pivot-me.com, and in there we've got information on our digital course on time management and productivity, which is called Multiply Me, obviously, because who doesn't want to multiply themselves, right? And then on all the social platforms, I'm the April Garcia, obviously. The Pivot Me podcast we have as well, and we're about to relaunch our YouTube channel, and that is quite the endeavor, too. But pretty much everywhere you go, the April Garcia, you're going to find me.

Rock on. Well, thank you again. I can't wait to see you again.

Thank you.

All right, take care. Peace.

Bye.

If you love that interview, go ahead and check out this next one right here. Too many times people value the education or even the school that you go to to think that that's going to make them successful. It's not true. I mean, you and I both know Ivy League people who are as broke as hell.