Buy Back Your Time! Dan Martell on All The Hacks

00:00:00.000 | And nobody shared this with me my whole life until one day I realized it's like,

00:00:03.600 | Oh yeah, we start off everybody.

00:00:05.660 | We start off trading time for money.

00:00:07.300 | And then if we get smart and more valuable, then we trade money for time.

00:00:11.940 | And then if that works out really well, and we get good at that, then we have

00:00:15.040 | an excess or like overcapacity of capital to then invest, to have our

00:00:20.300 | money work for us and that's freedom.

00:00:23.080 | And that's what people are after.

00:00:24.980 | They're like, Hey, I want to, I want to show up every day and I want to create an

00:00:28.640 | outcome so that one day I don't have to work.

00:00:31.840 | I can decide if I want to work.

00:00:33.760 | You, the, the, I get to is actually a real, it's not a mindset thing.

00:00:38.100 | It's actually like a reality.

00:00:39.500 | And that's where I think life gets really interesting when you wake up and you get

00:00:44.640 | to decide what you want to create on.

00:00:46.680 | Um, but it starts by just becoming more valuable so that you have the resources

00:00:51.620 | to be able to buy back more time to then become more valuable again to the market.

00:00:56.480 | Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks, a show about

00:00:59.320 | upgrading your life, money, and travel.

00:01:01.280 | If you're new here, I'm Chris Hutchins.

00:01:03.180 | I'm a diehard optimizer who loves doing all the research to help you

00:01:06.240 | get the best experience in life.

00:01:07.820 | And one of those things is managing time.

00:01:10.180 | And time management guru, Laura Vanderkam, who I've had on the show before, has a

00:01:14.440 | new book called Tranquility by Tuesday.

00:01:16.660 | I thought it was a good book that offered nine rules to help people

00:01:19.600 | spend more time on what matters.

00:01:21.420 | But there was one expression in the book that really stuck out with me.

00:01:24.720 | "We should all be time millionaires."

00:01:26.800 | And that sounds great, even better than being a money millionaire, maybe.

00:01:29.820 | But how does it happen?

00:01:31.020 | People can't just create more time in their day, unlike money.

00:01:33.960 | So what's the secret?

00:01:34.880 | And that's where today's guest can help.

00:01:36.840 | His name's Dan Martell.

00:01:38.200 | He's a good longtime friend of mine, and he has a new book about just this.

00:01:41.840 | It's called Buy Back Your Time, Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your

00:01:45.040 | Freedom, and Build Your Empire.

00:01:46.760 | In his years as a successful entrepreneur, after a rough childhood

00:01:50.820 | and a few run-ins with the law, he built five companies, sold three of

00:01:54.580 | them, and currently runs SaaS Academy, the world's largest coaching

00:01:58.220 | program for founders of software as a service businesses.

00:02:00.900 | But you don't have to have founded a business to apply these principles.

00:02:04.140 | You can make every aspect of your life better by buying back your time, and

00:02:09.020 | Dan's going to talk to us about how.

00:02:10.500 | We're going to talk about why buying back time has become his superpower, why

00:02:15.220 | mindset is such a key part of buying back time, how anyone can learn from

00:02:19.660 | super successful people like Oprah or Richard Branson about how they've

00:02:23.580 | increased their productivity, and more importantly, their fulfillment in life.

00:02:27.620 | I want to talk also about how you can create a playbook at work or home to

00:02:31.500 | codify how you do something, and also to help someone else do it for you.

00:02:35.500 | We'll also touch on why almost everyone should consider hiring some type of

00:02:39.980 | administrative assistant, and how Dan uses a house manager to take care of

00:02:44.500 | nearly every aspect of his family's life, and ways that you can start to

00:02:47.900 | implement pieces of that in your own.

00:02:49.860 | There'll probably be a lot more.

00:02:51.020 | So let's get started right after this.

00:02:53.180 | Dan, welcome to the show.

00:03:00.220 | Thanks for being here.

00:03:01.020 | Chris, it's an honor.

00:03:02.620 | I'm super excited.

00:03:03.780 | This is the podcast I've been wanting to do for a long time, just because I know

00:03:08.140 | your audience is nerdy as much as I am on this topic.

00:03:12.620 | I want to start letting people know who's coming on to get questions, because

00:03:16.540 | I'm sure people listening now would have great things.

00:03:20.100 | So that's something I might kick off in 2023.

00:03:22.140 | But I want to jump right in.

00:03:24.140 | Saving time, freeing it up, buying it back with help from

00:03:27.260 | others is your superpower.

00:03:28.580 | We've talked about this before, both in work and life.

00:03:31.300 | I want to hear how you got so good at it, because it's something that so many

00:03:35.340 | people struggle with, and also why you think it's so important that people

00:03:38.900 | start doing it, no matter where they are in their stage of life.

00:03:41.580 | I learned this the hard way.

00:03:44.740 | I've been a business builder, tried to be an entrepreneur growing up.

00:03:50.740 | Failed for 7 years.

00:03:54.140 | Just tried.

00:03:55.100 | And when I was 24, I found a different gear.

00:04:00.380 | Sounds crazy, but I read my first business book.

00:04:03.460 | Turned out to be a good move.

00:04:05.340 | And then I actually hired a business coach, this guy named Bob.

00:04:07.820 | He was an E-Myth certified coach.

00:04:10.340 | And Bob taught me a lot about business.

00:04:12.140 | And when I was 24, I started this company called Spheric.

00:04:14.980 | But what happened for me is over a 4-year period, even though we grew a lot, we

00:04:21.620 | became a multi-million dollar company within a couple of years and grew to

00:04:25.180 | about 40 employees and won a bunch of awards, I just got really good at being

00:04:30.260 | productive, I didn't understand how to think of time and energy and just how I

00:04:36.500 | was showing up as a brother and a son and a partner in life and as a friend.

00:04:41.740 | And what happened was, I was working at the office on a Sunday morning and I

00:04:46.780 | was supposed to be back around 11 o'clock.

00:04:48.340 | I was engaged to a woman at the time and we had just bought a house.

00:04:52.340 | And before I knew it, it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

00:04:55.700 | And I was like, ran home and walked into the house and I found my fiance in tears.

00:05:02.540 | And she just was beside herself.

00:05:05.420 | And she just looks at me and decides that that was that.

00:05:10.420 | And she just goes, "I can't do this anymore."

00:05:11.980 | And takes the ring off and drops it on the counter.

00:05:14.460 | And that was that.

00:05:16.820 | She walked out and 7 weeks before our wedding, and my life just shattered.

00:05:24.220 | Because I think anybody that's done anything from working hard at their

00:05:28.300 | job to taking risks in a business, they don't do it really for themselves.

00:05:33.260 | I was doing it for her.

00:05:34.180 | I was doing it for our future, our lives that we were going to build together.

00:05:36.980 | And that was when I had to look in the mirror and ask myself,

00:05:41.180 | "There's got to be a different way to approach time."

00:05:46.780 | Because there was a 6-month period, Chris, that I actually thought that maybe

00:05:51.100 | because I'm so driven in life and I was so horrible, I would go to birthday

00:05:56.300 | parties and bring my laptop.

00:05:58.180 | And that was normal.

00:05:59.660 | And I would think to myself, "I'm the best friend ever because I'm so busy that I

00:06:03.700 | showed up and I'd sit in the living room on a laptop while everybody else is

00:06:07.620 | enjoying music and partying."

00:06:09.540 | And it was just crazy.

00:06:11.660 | And that was the moment where I started reading books around leadership and

00:06:18.260 | personal development, really diving into that component of it.

00:06:23.020 | And I just realized that it's not just about being super productive, even though

00:06:29.220 | I think I've gotten world-class at that.

00:06:31.460 | I've read all the productivity books.

00:06:34.300 | It's really about understanding how your energy flows throughout your calendar and

00:06:39.020 | your week and your month and your quarter and all these things so that you can show

00:06:43.180 | up to the work or the people in a completely different way.

00:06:48.060 | And that's why I wrote this book.

00:06:49.700 | It's just become such a foundational part of my life that if we fast forward to

00:06:53.740 | today, I have 2 incredible kids.

00:06:56.500 | I have dinner with them every night.

00:06:58.060 | I do quarterly retreats with my wife.

00:07:00.860 | We go to seminars, personal development programs together.

00:07:03.420 | I think I did 12 weeks of vacation this year, and I'm the CEO of two 8-figure

00:07:07.980 | companies where I wake up and push things forward.

00:07:11.860 | And there was no way that I could have done that if I didn't go through that

00:07:16.780 | painful moment to force me to learn the lessons that I share with people today.

00:07:22.140 | Well, it sucks that you went through it, but I know that you're now in a good

00:07:26.500 | place, and I'm fortunate that you learned those lessons so you can share them with

00:07:30.020 | us. Where do you think people start with this?

00:07:32.380 | Because I think when I just heard you describe all of the stuff that you're

00:07:37.380 | doing now, my head kind of doesn't know how to compute it.

00:07:40.540 | Right. I'm like, well, I just have this one small little thing.

00:07:43.140 | That's a podcast. It's not an 8-figure company.

00:07:44.980 | It's just one of them.

00:07:45.820 | And, you know, I don't have that much vacation.

00:07:49.700 | My wife and I don't go on these retreats.

00:07:50.940 | So it just seems impossible.

00:07:52.460 | It kind of is, and I forgot to mention, I also did three Ironmans this year.

00:07:57.540 | So like, it's kind of nuts, but Chris, we don't start there.

00:08:01.660 | Like, it's not where I started.

00:08:03.020 | I think the big thing for people to understand is that their calendar is telling

00:08:09.260 | them a story of what's important to them.

00:08:11.620 | And I tell this to people all the time.

00:08:13.940 | It's like, if you show me your calendar, I will tell you what is important to you,

00:08:18.700 | not what you tell me is important to you.

00:08:20.500 | So every time that I, you know, I work with a lot of at-risk youth and I just

00:08:25.180 | even do the same process with them is we do a calendar audit, right?

00:08:29.820 | We look at what I call a time and energy audit of where are you actually spending

00:08:35.260 | your time and allocating that and try to create a life that's by design, not by

00:08:40.020 | default. And I think that's like a first principle.

00:08:43.820 | Like there's no way I can teach you all the ways to get more time.

00:08:47.460 | But if you don't at least, you know, admit to yourself that, "Hey, you have to be a

00:08:53.020 | little bit more proactive. You got to be a planner.

00:08:55.380 | You need to look at your time and assess and have a period of reflection to ask

00:09:00.980 | yourself, like, was this a good use of my time?

00:09:03.940 | Did it deliver not only the success impact that I would like it to have in my

00:09:10.220 | career or with my friends, but did it also bring the joy, right?

00:09:15.660 | Like one thing I do every year at the end is I look at my previous 12-month

00:09:19.860 | period and I look at all the things I said yes to and I did and then I go like,

00:09:23.780 | "Okay, what were the best experiences?"

00:09:25.860 | And then I go, "Okay, what's true about those ones?"

00:09:28.820 | And one example in my life is I don't go on vacation unless there's a physical

00:09:33.860 | component to what I'm doing.

00:09:35.380 | Even if it's like, you know, I've had people like, "Hey, come to Europe and let's

00:09:40.020 | go drive supercars."

00:09:41.180 | I'm like, "Eh, what else?

00:09:43.100 | Like, are we going to go hike a mountain?

00:09:45.740 | Are we going to do a 3-day bike trip?"

00:09:47.940 | Like, it literally, I just like had this feedback loop.

00:09:50.900 | And that's for me.

00:09:51.580 | For other people, they're like, "I have no interest in doing that.

00:09:54.100 | But, you know, riding around in supercars in Europe sounds fun.

00:09:56.940 | Let me do that."

00:09:57.540 | Like, I'm just saying, if we don't have a process of reflection, then there's no

00:10:02.980 | way you can be proactive and that's where it starts.

00:10:05.820 | It's with the calendar and it's not just a productivity thing.

00:10:10.500 | It's an energy thing.

00:10:11.660 | Because this is the cool part, Chris.

00:10:14.140 | I learned that the energy that I bring to the work can have a 3 to 4 times increase

00:10:21.740 | in output.

00:10:23.180 | What do I mean by this?

00:10:24.140 | Well, if I have...

00:10:26.300 | If before I start doing a creative project, I'm full of self-doubt and frustration and

00:10:32.060 | anxiety and all these negative beliefs and I'm in low energy, the thing I'm creating

00:10:38.860 | literally has an impact.

00:10:40.540 | And it's so funny because I see that where it's like, "Okay, if you're organizing

00:10:44.540 | an event and one of the tasks for you to do is to go and recruit sponsors, if you just

00:10:51.180 | got in a fight with your better half because you forgot to do something, that energy shows

00:10:57.260 | up in the emails.

00:10:58.060 | It shows up in your language.

00:10:59.260 | It shows up in your body.

00:11:00.380 | And it's just so fascinating that people don't consider that.

00:11:04.060 | So for me, I'm always looking at the work I do.

00:11:06.860 | And I just use a green highlighter and a red highlighter.

00:11:09.260 | It's like this gives me energy and this takes my energy.

00:11:11.660 | And as much as I can, I try to remove the things that take my energy so that I'm stacking

00:11:17.980 | this positive energy flow to the work because it literally will have a 2, 3, 4 times amplifier

00:11:24.860 | to the outcome I'm after.

00:11:26.060 | And I'm sure there are things, especially for anyone listening who has a job and they're

00:11:30.700 | not the boss, that just take the energy out.

00:11:33.900 | Are there certain places or times a day where you put those things?

00:11:37.660 | Yeah, I think everybody's different.

00:11:39.340 | I think, Chris, maybe you can relate to this with the new family.

00:11:43.500 | Before I had kids versus after I had kids.

00:11:45.900 | I used to be somebody that was more of a night owl.

00:11:49.260 | And then I would start my day later.

00:11:53.260 | And that was okay.

00:11:54.540 | So maybe I would get to work and I would jump into meetings and then do some more creative

00:12:00.700 | work in the afternoon.

00:12:02.140 | And then what happened is once I had these human alarm clocks, my 2 sons, and they're

00:12:06.140 | 11 months apart.

00:12:07.020 | So imagine having kids, it was bananas, which was another forcing function to get really

00:12:13.260 | good at the stuff I talk about.

00:12:14.460 | What I do now is I do all of my creative work in the morning.

00:12:20.220 | And I mean, maybe if your boss tells you what to do with your time, but I know my team,

00:12:24.300 | we focus on outcomes.

00:12:25.820 | We don't tell people what they should do.

00:12:27.900 | Sure, there's meetings they have to be at, but they're responsible for their own calendar.

00:12:33.260 | So if you can design it, the energy flows, what works good for me is all my creative

00:12:39.100 | work I do in the mornings.

00:12:40.780 | I try to push out any in-person conversations till later on.

00:12:45.660 | I personally like to work out at lunch because it creates a reset.

00:12:49.180 | And then I bring that reset energy into the afternoon conversations.

00:12:54.220 | And then I batch.

00:12:55.980 | I mean, there's so much stuff we can talk about around just getting more out of the

00:12:59.660 | time we have.

00:13:01.100 | But understanding and just asking people...

00:13:04.540 | So it's so funny because a lot of times, I'm managing my leaders and they're talking to

00:13:09.100 | me, "I'm overwhelmed.

00:13:10.780 | I don't have this and this."

00:13:11.900 | And then we do a time and energy audit with their calendar.

00:13:13.900 | And it's really just about negotiating constraints in an interface.

00:13:19.340 | A lot of people have the ability to call somebody up and say, "Hey, I know we have this meeting

00:13:25.180 | every Tuesday at 9.

00:13:26.860 | Is there any way we can move it to 11am?"

00:13:29.020 | Because it's the only thing that's breaking up my morning.

00:13:31.900 | And if I had an extra hour and a half and uninterrupted, not broken up time to work

00:13:37.580 | on some creative projects, I really think I'd be more effective.

00:13:40.140 | Most people would be like, "Yeah, it actually doesn't change my life."

00:13:43.900 | And if that's going to support you, game on.

00:13:46.620 | So I just think trying to understand how you like to work.

00:13:49.980 | And then the key is to honor the calendar.

00:13:52.300 | It's like, I know what my week looks like.

00:13:54.860 | And I review my calendar the night before and try to tweak anything that needs to be there.

00:13:58.940 | And then when it shows up, I put my work in the calendar,

00:14:03.660 | even if there's nobody else involved.

00:14:05.100 | I literally... My to-do list is in my calendar.

00:14:07.580 | And I just honor what I put in there.

00:14:09.660 | I think too often, people drag their feet, spend a little too much time on TikTok or

00:14:15.180 | Instagram, whatever.

00:14:16.220 | And then that thing that they had an hour blocked out of, it's really 35 minutes and

00:14:20.780 | they're rushing through it.

00:14:21.660 | So there's that.

00:14:24.460 | But if you have the discipline and you're proactive, then I think that energy management

00:14:30.140 | flow is actually more productive than just saying, "I'm managing my time and I'm being

00:14:33.660 | productive in my time."

00:14:34.540 | And that's what shifted for me after my fiancé left me and I had to rebuild my life, was

00:14:39.500 | now I structure things so that when I transition in between meetings, I can be 100% present.

00:14:47.500 | Because before, I was just dealing with arguments and friction and what I call emotional shrapnel

00:14:55.260 | that often I was creating myself.

00:14:57.020 | And if you're not a planner, I have one of my best friends, an amazing human being, but

00:15:03.980 | gosh darn it, this guy is so forgetful and not a planner.

00:15:08.380 | The amount of times that I've seen him lose 2 or 3 hours, I've seen him drive 8 hours

00:15:14.300 | to go pick something up because he forgot and he needed the next day for something.

00:15:17.740 | And I just think to myself, "Man, if he just spent a little bit more time measuring twice,

00:15:24.300 | cutting once, he would get back 2 months of his year.

00:15:29.020 | He would pull forward 2 months of productivity into his calendar year for a fraction of the

00:15:35.020 | time invested."

00:15:36.300 | So again, it's emotional shrapnel.

00:15:38.140 | It's self-inflicted.

00:15:39.340 | You're literally throwing hand grenades off in your life.

00:15:41.740 | And then you're dealing with the fallout of it just because you just haven't built that

00:15:48.460 | skill set and that discipline of being a little bit more disciplined.

00:15:52.540 | So 2 things.

00:15:54.220 | One, I encourage anytime I have a meeting that gets invited to me, especially if it's

00:15:58.860 | a recurring meeting at work.

00:16:00.860 | And I guess technically, I'm not at a company anymore.

00:16:03.180 | But when I was, if they didn't select the "Let guests modify events" button in Google

00:16:09.180 | Calendar or I'm sure on whatever calendaring system, I immediately fall out.

00:16:13.260 | But I say, "Hey, I know this meeting is not for a couple of weeks.

00:16:15.660 | Can you enable this feature?"

00:16:17.900 | And I had it enabled by default.

00:16:19.820 | So I'd encourage everyone to make calendaring easier to just ask everyone to enable that

00:16:25.500 | feature on any recurring meeting so that you have the ability to move it without having

00:16:29.500 | to say, "Hey, can we move it?

00:16:31.260 | Now we got to go back and forth spending on Slack or email."

00:16:34.380 | Just enable that.

00:16:35.180 | So that's one.

00:16:36.140 | Two, you talk a lot about discipline, but let's talk about what happens when I sit down

00:16:40.860 | and I've got 30 minutes blocked off to go plan the next episode I'm going to do.

00:16:46.220 | And there's a million other little tiny things on a to-do list that I could go try to knock

00:16:50.780 | off that seem easier to make progress on.

00:16:53.020 | How does that discipline work for you?

00:16:55.340 | What makes that possible?

00:16:57.100 | I think what's unique if you watch the way I work is I actually take all those projects

00:17:05.100 | or things that are in my calendar and I break down the tasks of the work I'm going to do

00:17:11.260 | in the calendar description.

00:17:13.100 | So everything that is creative output that I need to do, and I'm literally looking at

00:17:17.900 | like 17 projects I'm working on, they already have the mini tasks inside of it broken down

00:17:25.820 | because most people procrastinate because they don't have clarity as to what the next

00:17:30.300 | action item.

00:17:31.340 | So it's like if the thing says 60 minutes to go recruit sponsors for an event or some

00:17:37.260 | play or whatever it is, right?

00:17:38.540 | And in it, it's like, "Send 5 emails."

00:17:41.980 | You're literally that descriptive.

00:17:43.980 | You're like, "Send 5 emails to this person.

00:17:45.980 | Call John.

00:17:47.180 | Ask him about this."

00:17:48.620 | I write it all down and go probably a little bit like, I would say, 120% of what would

00:17:56.300 | need to happen for the goal to achieve.

00:17:58.380 | So I always try to give myself a little bit more tasks to do.

00:18:02.300 | That way, if I don't get to it, or if I do get to it, it's just like it increases the

00:18:06.060 | probability of the thing happening.

00:18:07.580 | But I'll tell you, because I coach so many CEOs, when we do these calendar audits, and

00:18:15.500 | I'm like, "Why didn't you do that?"

00:18:16.860 | They're like, "I mean, the truth was, I didn't actually know what I needed to do."

00:18:20.700 | And it's like, "Cool.

00:18:21.580 | Here's what we're going to change."

00:18:22.620 | Not when you got to do the work, but as you plan your week.

00:18:26.540 | So for me, I do them on Sunday nights.

00:18:28.460 | And I know a lot of people are like, "Look, you're asking me to work Sunday."

00:18:30.700 | It's like, "You can do it Monday morning if you want."

00:18:32.620 | But Sunday night, I grab all of my...

00:18:35.980 | I look at my projects and I grab the big rocks and I put them in...

00:18:38.860 | For me, my mornings.

00:18:40.220 | And I put them into typically 90-minute blocks.

00:18:43.020 | That's about as long as I want to work on one project for until I get bored with it.

00:18:46.460 | And I outline in that 90-minute blocks, all the stuff I'm going to do.

00:18:51.100 | And I just keep a note file and I just copy and paste it.

00:18:54.140 | And I work through that list.

00:18:55.740 | So Monday, I might attack it.

00:18:57.100 | Tuesday, I'll attack it.

00:18:57.820 | Wednesday, I'll attack it.

00:18:58.860 | And I'm just working through that list.

00:19:00.620 | And literally, as I get done that 90-minute block, I'll just edit it for the next day

00:19:04.540 | because it's shorter because I got a bunch of stuff done.

00:19:06.380 | And then that way, when I sit down, there's no procrastination.

00:19:10.060 | Because like you said, Chris, it's like,

00:19:12.140 | "I know I have this other to-do list that I can go get some wins on."

00:19:14.940 | But technically, your big project is a to-do list.

00:19:18.700 | And if you just break it down, then you just attack that one and you can get some wins.

00:19:21.820 | So you can build momentum because I always got frustrated

00:19:23.820 | in software development land that I grew up in.

00:19:27.580 | "Dude, it would take like months to write code to get a product built."

00:19:31.420 | Whereas this other guy who works in construction,

00:19:34.940 | he literally sees every day when he's done the progress he made.

00:19:39.580 | And it feels so good.

00:19:41.020 | I know that when I was helping my dad growing up,

00:19:43.500 | build a deck or redo a roof or whatever.

00:19:46.620 | It was like it felt so good to make these small wins.

00:19:50.700 | That's how I've set up my life.

00:19:52.380 | I just want to take the bigger outcome, break it down into projects,

00:19:55.980 | break those down into tasks, put it in my calendar.

00:19:58.460 | And then I just follow and I honor it.

00:20:01.900 | And look, if I get the wrong list and I get some feedback,

00:20:04.620 | it's like, "Oh, I thought I would do this and that didn't work.

00:20:06.700 | Next time, I'll just change it."

00:20:08.140 | But it just allows you to build momentum with your day.

00:20:10.860 | And I think that's what a lot of people are missing out of.

00:20:13.660 | And it is the lack of clarity.

00:20:15.660 | People procrastinate because they don't have clear...

00:20:18.780 | "Boom. This is what I got to go do. One. It's 15 minutes. Let's go get it done.

00:20:21.980 | Let's go get a small win. Let's build some momentum."

00:20:23.980 | And then that momentum becomes almost addictive.

00:20:26.300 | I just get excited about how much can I get done in a period of time

00:20:30.220 | and how can I look for leverage?

00:20:31.900 | Yeah. Leverage is going to be a bulk of this discussion.

00:20:34.700 | But before, I want to know,

00:20:36.460 | do you keep a separate to-do list or is the calendar the to-do list?

00:20:40.060 | I keep a to-do list.

00:20:42.140 | So I have a high-level Google Doc.

00:20:47.980 | Okay, it's called to-dos.

00:20:49.180 | And what's unique about it...

00:20:50.780 | And this is how I'm able to unplug at the end of the day.

00:20:53.260 | So now I'm blessed to have an executive assistant that manages 99% of my inbox.

00:20:59.900 | But things that do end up in my world,

00:21:02.300 | what I do at the end of the day is I take anything...

00:21:05.340 | That's why I like the world we live in where it's all linkable.

00:21:08.060 | Anything that I need to process the next day,

00:21:10.460 | I put it in the to-do list and I link to the email.

00:21:13.100 | So it's literally... It'll say "Reply to Chris" or whatever it is.

00:21:16.620 | And I link to the email in my Gmail.

00:21:18.700 | And then I grab that.

00:21:20.380 | So I put it in the Google Doc.

00:21:22.140 | And then I grab, let's say, the 5 or 6 that are there.

00:21:25.340 | And I put it in my calendar the next morning for a 60-minute block.

00:21:29.020 | And it'll just say "Process to-dos."

00:21:30.780 | And that way, again, this is how I want it defined and easy.

00:21:35.580 | So I open the calendar and I just open up all my tabs.

00:21:38.700 | I just open up just those emails.

00:21:40.460 | See, that's where a lot of people get stuck.

00:21:41.820 | They open up their inbox and then it's like "Burp, burp, burp."

00:21:44.300 | All these things they got to do.

00:21:45.900 | I just open up the tabs to the thing.

00:21:47.820 | So it's like, it could be like "Review a copy for a blog post."

00:21:52.300 | Or it could be like whatever it is.

00:21:54.860 | But it's like a sauna.

00:21:56.300 | It's like a link just to the thing.

00:21:57.980 | And when I'm done, I close the tab.

00:21:59.420 | So I create this almost like momentum I'm building

00:22:02.860 | because I start on the left side and I work through them.

00:22:05.660 | They're prioritized.

00:22:06.460 | And it's either emails or projects or creative stuff

00:22:10.220 | or some mirror document I got to prove or look at.

00:22:14.060 | And then because I put it in that Google Doc at the end of my day,

00:22:17.580 | at the very end of my day, that's the last thing I do

00:22:19.580 | is I look at my inbox.

00:22:20.700 | I look at my projects list.

00:22:21.740 | I move them into the to-do, copy, paste, and put in my calendar.

00:22:25.020 | Dude, I sleep like a champ.

00:22:27.260 | I don't want to brag, but I use Oura Ring.

00:22:29.980 | I'm literally going to pull up my Oura score right now.

00:22:31.820 | I got last night...

00:22:35.340 | Because people see me wake up so early and they're like, "When did you sleep?"

00:22:38.380 | I got an 88 yesterday, which is a pretty beefy score.

00:22:43.660 | But I've been rocking 88s, 90...

00:22:46.220 | I got a 91.

00:22:47.420 | So I've got the...

00:22:48.300 | Yeah. So I don't toss and turn.

00:22:51.420 | My brain doesn't worry about forgetting stuff

00:22:53.820 | because I've locked and loaded it into my life and my calendar.

00:22:57.340 | Now then... So that's the to-do list, the Google Doc that I...

00:22:59.820 | And what's unique is at the top of it, I have all my

00:23:02.060 | 25-year vision stuff in 5 years in 1 year.

00:23:06.940 | I'm a little crazy like that.

00:23:07.980 | I don't worry about the how, but I do know what I'm trying to accomplish.

00:23:11.980 | Like I wrote down that I wrote this book 6 years ago.

00:23:15.340 | I wrote down "best-selling book, business category."

00:23:20.060 | And I stared at it for this long until 2.5 years ago, we started working on the project.

00:23:24.220 | But that way, I'm looking at the big vision stuff 25 years from now,

00:23:29.340 | 10 years, 5 years, 1 year.

00:23:31.100 | And then my to-do and my calendar has to map.

00:23:34.860 | I've got to be able to see what I'm doing this week and how it drives to those outcomes.

00:23:40.620 | Specifically, you label them to it?

00:23:42.940 | Or just because it's at the top of the doc, it's a constant reminder?

00:23:45.820 | Because it's at the top and I scan it every morning as part of my process.

00:23:49.100 | So before I work on any of the to-dos, I just read through them.

00:23:52.620 | It's almost like it ramps up into my mind.

00:23:54.860 | It's like, "Oh yeah, don't forget. This is why we're doing it."

00:23:57.420 | And I use... Again, I have very unique, I think, approaches that work for me.

00:24:01.900 | I call it RPM.

00:24:03.020 | I always focus on results, then purpose, then the activity.

00:24:08.940 | So a lot of people focus on the "how."

00:24:12.460 | I focus on the "what" and the "why" first.

00:24:15.420 | Because I've learned a long time ago, the purpose of why I'm doing something

00:24:19.660 | actually matters more than the actual outcome that I'm trying to achieve.

00:24:23.740 | So my vision for my life is help a million at-risk youth.

00:24:27.500 | So mentor them.

00:24:28.700 | So that's a big one.

00:24:29.740 | Build a 3 billion multi-generational wealth.

00:24:33.180 | These are big things, but that's where I'm at.

00:24:37.580 | And so I can go through those and build 30 million coaching company,

00:24:45.100 | which we're well on our way by 2025.

00:24:46.860 | So that's the vision stuff.

00:24:48.860 | And then RPM is my different things.

00:24:50.780 | So I have my high-speed ventures, $100 million fund.

00:24:54.700 | I've got my book.

00:24:55.660 | It literally says right there, "Buy back books at New York Times bestseller."

00:24:59.180 | Back end, I have specific outcomes of those things, my coaching company.

00:25:05.180 | Then it breaks down into quarterly projects that I've committed to, to achieve these things.

00:25:10.220 | So like big vision this year, quarterly projects.

00:25:13.900 | And then I have my to-do list.

00:25:15.180 | Oh, and I also have a waiting on.

00:25:17.100 | This is another little secret tip that I like, which is...

00:25:20.780 | I don't worry if people get back to me because I take...

00:25:24.940 | If I send something to you, and it's really important...

00:25:27.420 | I only put stuff in my waiting on list if it's things that are going to affect my goals.

00:25:32.300 | But let's say I email you.

00:25:34.060 | I'll literally grab that sent email and put it in my waiting on list.

00:25:38.220 | And I'll do the same thing where I'll open up all the waiting on,

00:25:41.660 | maybe 5 or 6 people, and then follow up.

00:25:44.460 | So some people use software for that, follow up whatever tools.

00:25:48.620 | But I just do it that way.

00:25:49.980 | And that way, I can visually see it.

00:25:51.420 | For me, it's just superhuman.

00:25:53.260 | Remind me.

00:25:53.900 | So if it's a thing I don't care about, I'll archive it.

00:25:56.940 | And if it's a thing that I'm like, "No, this is really important.

00:25:58.940 | I want to..." in 2 weeks, remind me.

00:26:00.780 | In 1 week, remind me.

00:26:01.580 | I do think that I haven't found a good way to merge the to-do list in the email.

00:26:08.380 | Because 50% of my to-do list is email.

00:26:11.420 | Or it lives in my inbox, maybe, is a better way to frame it.

00:26:14.700 | That's why I take it out.

00:26:16.060 | I don't want it in the inbox.

00:26:17.660 | And that's where... I think there's tools like Motion is a new one that I've seen.

00:26:22.860 | Facebook ads about taking your to-dos and put them in your calendar.

00:26:27.180 | But I just either manually do it or I have my assistant do it.

00:26:31.420 | Because we talk often about like, "Here are my top projects."

00:26:34.620 | And I use color coding in my calendar to know

00:26:37.260 | if I'm allocating the right amount of time for different projects.

00:26:41.420 | So that's another little hack I use.

00:26:43.660 | So if it's like this, it's like 1, 2, and 3 are the most important to me.

00:26:47.500 | I can visually look at the color coding we're using in my week to know if I'm

00:26:52.300 | allocating the right amount of time to move certain projects forward.

00:26:56.380 | My book is orange right now.

00:26:57.740 | And the calendar is pretty orange because it is a top priority for me.

00:27:03.340 | Yeah.

00:27:04.380 | Well, I'm excited.

00:27:05.100 | I got a chance to read it.

00:27:06.140 | I want to jump into the theme because it's one thing to be productive.

00:27:11.180 | I've talked about it a little bit.

00:27:12.540 | I love hearing the way you think about your time management.

00:27:15.820 | But time is a limited resource.

00:27:18.140 | And one of the only ways to get it back is to try to find ways to outsource what you're doing

00:27:23.580 | so that you have more time to do what you want.

00:27:25.500 | So let's talk about it.

00:27:26.940 | I know one of the things that I want to start with is around mindset.

00:27:30.540 | You bring up mindset a lot, especially when it comes to buying back your time.

00:27:34.860 | So maybe let's just talk about a few of the objections I think some people hear

00:27:38.460 | or think of when they think about this concept, which is like, "Well, I don't have the time to go

00:27:43.340 | find someone to help me with all these things.

00:27:44.940 | I don't have the money to spend on this.

00:27:47.260 | And no one can really do it like I can."

00:27:49.500 | So are there other big ones?

00:27:51.740 | Or how do you think about all the objections people have before we jump into the tactic?

00:27:56.700 | So those are the top 3.

00:27:59.340 | And we can overcome those beliefs.

00:28:01.660 | The other one that comes up often that is unexpressed but is underneath the surface

00:28:06.140 | is "I don't feel worthy."

00:28:07.420 | And that one, I coach not a lot, but I've coached especially women CEOs.

00:28:14.460 | And they seem to struggle with it a bit more around...

00:28:19.740 | And the language that I hear is like, "I just feel guilty that I can't run my company and

00:28:25.900 | take care of my household."

00:28:28.460 | Or like, "I'm worried what my mom is going to say or my mother-in-law or my neighbor."

00:28:35.580 | It's really fascinating to hear that.

00:28:39.420 | But the truth is, everybody's got their own limiting beliefs about the world that's going

00:28:45.420 | to stop them from achieving more.

00:28:47.740 | It doesn't matter if it's like getting more time back or being successful in your career.

00:28:52.060 | You have to understand that your beliefs about how the world works and

00:28:55.580 | how we respond is what's stopping us.

00:28:58.700 | So the one of like, "I don't have time."

00:29:01.100 | Well, you decide what you do with your time.

00:29:05.180 | So it's changed the language to "I choose not to make time for this."

00:29:09.900 | As soon as you change the language from "I don't have time" to "I choose not to make time."

00:29:16.780 | That's an honest conversation that you can then address.

00:29:19.820 | But most people will blame an external factor and say, "I just don't have time for that."

00:29:24.140 | It's like, "No, you do."

00:29:25.260 | Because if we looked at your calendar and I asked you, "Tell me what you did yesterday."

00:29:29.740 | There'll be things that you chose to do instead of working on this problem.

00:29:33.100 | So let's talk about why you're choosing not to do it.

00:29:36.220 | So that's the first thing.

00:29:37.820 | And by the way, you can apply that to so many different aspects.

00:29:41.020 | I was talking to someone the other day who's like, "I would love to lose 10 pounds."

00:29:43.820 | I was like, "Would you really?"

00:29:45.100 | Because losing 10 pounds is not some mythical thing that is really hard to figure out.

00:29:50.620 | A combination of diet and exercise...

00:29:52.540 | It's a caloric deficit over time.

00:29:54.700 | Yeah, yeah.

00:29:55.740 | So you can do it.

00:29:57.020 | So don't say that you would love to do it.

00:29:58.860 | Because say, "I wish I had the time to do it."

00:30:02.540 | Well, not even that.

00:30:03.420 | How about, "I don't want to prioritize it right now."

00:30:05.580 | It's not important.

00:30:06.700 | Because if it was important, you could just do it.

00:30:08.220 | So I think when I hear, "I still catch myself up in this.

00:30:12.060 | It's hard to get over it."

00:30:13.740 | I feel like just as humans, we're trained this way.

00:30:16.140 | But yeah, you do have time.

00:30:19.500 | Just how do you want to prioritize your time?

00:30:21.100 | What's important to you right now?

00:30:22.380 | If it's not, that's okay.

00:30:24.140 | But just be honest.

00:30:24.860 | Yeah, I was...

00:30:26.220 | I know.

00:30:26.620 | I mean, it's on that line.

00:30:27.660 | I was coaching a client, Carrie.

00:30:30.060 | And she was complaining about, "I don't have time to go to the gym."

00:30:33.340 | It's like she knew what she needed to do.

00:30:35.020 | And then it's like...

00:30:35.740 | Then we talked about it.

00:30:37.340 | It's like, "Well, why?"

00:30:38.060 | Like you said, it's like you're choosing not to do it.

00:30:41.100 | You know the benefit of it.

00:30:43.100 | There's some friction there.

00:30:44.620 | There's some blockers we need to work through.

00:30:46.940 | And once we work through it, then it was like, "Okay."

00:30:49.820 | And it's this language of even "I get to" versus "I have to."

00:30:53.100 | I really think that a rich life...

00:30:56.300 | It's not about money, but let's just call it a rich life versus a poor life.

00:30:59.740 | A rich life is somebody that wakes up saying, "I get to do this."

00:31:03.740 | Whereas a poor life is somebody wakes up and says, "I have to do this."

00:31:08.700 | And it's such a subtle thing, but it will literally transform your life.

00:31:13.100 | If you say like, "I get to work out.

00:31:14.620 | I get to go to work.

00:31:15.740 | I get to drop my kids off at whatever.

00:31:18.060 | I get to work on this project."

00:31:20.300 | And these are things that you think are tough or hard, or "I don't want to do it."

00:31:23.820 | But it's like, "Yeah, let's reframe the stuff."

00:31:26.700 | So on the belief, "I can't afford it's another one."

00:31:33.340 | Here's the way I think about it is every person has the ability to create value with their time.

00:31:40.780 | It's why we have jobs, right?

00:31:42.460 | It's like when we start off in life, we trade time for money.

00:31:47.020 | Some people create more value in that amount of time, so they get compensated by the market.

00:31:52.540 | And Jim Rohn, he's one of the OG personal development guys back in the day used to

00:31:56.140 | talk about this.

00:31:56.700 | He goes, "A lot of people don't realize is that the market is a value-rewarding system.

00:32:03.820 | Whether we like it or not, we live in a capitalist society.

00:32:06.860 | And to the degree that you create value, you will be rewarded for that.

00:32:10.540 | And it doesn't matter if you're a business owner or a team member or CEO."

00:32:14.700 | Because he even says like, "The highest paid CEO in the world makes $100 million a year."

00:32:19.180 | And that's Tim Cook at Apple.

00:32:21.820 | Well, the reason why the board pays him that and he gets that and nobody blinks that is

00:32:25.900 | because he created a trillion dollars worth of value.

00:32:28.140 | So my question to people when they say, "Well, I can't afford it."

00:32:31.660 | I want to ask them, "Well, how can you become more valuable?"

00:32:35.020 | Because if we can talk about how you become more valuable to your employer, to your team,

00:32:40.620 | to your community, then you start to ask yourself, "Well, now that I know what I can do to become

00:32:47.740 | more valuable, I need to find the time to do it."

00:32:50.060 | And that's where the time trading comes into play.

00:32:53.020 | And that's what the best people in the world at is.

00:32:55.900 | They're just good traders of time.

00:32:57.660 | So you start off as time for money.

00:33:00.540 | And you'll do that for a while until hopefully you're getting paid a lot more because you're

00:33:05.900 | becoming more valuable.

00:33:07.580 | But then at some point, and this is...

00:33:09.420 | I think it doesn't matter if you're a business owner or not, you got to get good at trading

00:33:14.300 | money for time.

00:33:15.820 | That's level 2.

00:33:17.260 | And I talk about this in the book.

00:33:19.100 | Level 3 is where I want everybody to eventually get is where you start trading money for money.

00:33:24.060 | This is the investing side.

00:33:25.420 | These are skill sets.

00:33:27.260 | These are beliefs.

00:33:28.060 | These are strategies.

00:33:28.940 | You have to develop them.

00:33:30.380 | But that is the path of life.

00:33:32.300 | And nobody shared this with me my whole life until one day I realized it's like, "Oh yeah,

00:33:36.700 | we start off...

00:33:37.420 | Everybody.

00:33:37.980 | We start off trading time for money.

00:33:39.580 | And then if we get smart and more valuable, then we trade money for time.

00:33:44.140 | And then if that works out really well, we get good at that, then we have

00:33:47.980 | an excess or overcapacity of capital to then invest to have our money work for us.

00:33:53.660 | And that's freedom.

00:33:55.260 | And that's what people are after.

00:33:57.260 | They're like, "Hey, I want to show up every day and I want to create an outcome so that

00:34:01.740 | one day, I don't have to work.

00:34:04.300 | I can decide if I want to work."

00:34:05.980 | I get to is actually a real...

00:34:09.260 | It's not a mindset thing.

00:34:10.380 | It's actually like a reality.

00:34:12.220 | And that's where I think life gets really interesting when you wake up and you get to

00:34:17.100 | decide what you want to create on.

00:34:18.860 | But it starts by just becoming more valuable so that you have the resources to be able

00:34:24.220 | to buy back more time to then become more valuable again to the market.

00:34:28.300 | And then there's the "Nobody can do it better than me," Chris.

00:34:33.820 | My rule is 80% done by somebody else is 100% freaking awesome.

00:34:37.260 | And I just think we got to reduce our expectations.

00:34:40.780 | I don't...

00:34:41.900 | My wife...

00:34:42.700 | We were talking about this yesterday because she's like, "You're so good at not worrying

00:34:48.620 | if the person gets it right the first time."

00:34:51.420 | And I go, "Well, I can tell you where that comes from.

00:34:53.900 | Thousands of hours of being let down."

00:34:57.180 | And realizing that if I expect every person that I bring into my life to help me to know

00:35:05.260 | everything I know and do everything the way I think I'm going to do, I'm just going to

00:35:08.380 | live a life of being disappointed.

00:35:11.500 | And instead, the way I look is I reframe it and I just say, "80% done by somebody else

00:35:16.940 | is 100% freaking awesome."

00:35:18.860 | If I have somebody else go to the grocery store for me and bring me my food to my house,

00:35:23.260 | and yes, every once in a while, they got the wrong bananas or whatever, I didn't have to

00:35:28.700 | do it.

00:35:29.260 | And I'm really grateful that I got to take that time to go work on something creative

00:35:33.820 | or spend time with people I love or whatever.

00:35:36.860 | And it just changes the expectation.

00:35:39.820 | And I think that's where when we start working on these beliefs, then it frees us up to actually

00:35:45.660 | invite other people to support us and use these tools to get more productive, to get

00:35:50.540 | more done.

00:35:51.020 | But if you hold on to these beliefs, then you'll always hit a ceiling and you'll never

00:35:56.620 | actually free up your time.

00:35:57.900 | I want to go briefly back to the money one because I know that it's the one that I struggled

00:36:02.860 | with the most.

00:36:03.420 | And I'm guessing maybe there are some people out here that are feeling the same way, which

00:36:07.180 | is it's not that you necessarily don't have the money.

00:36:12.140 | It's that it just feels you're responsible, maybe.

00:36:16.060 | Or if I were to watch a movie, and then I'm like, "Well, I should pay someone to go do

00:36:23.020 | this thing.

00:36:23.500 | But I had the time.

00:36:24.540 | I just watched this movie."

00:36:25.420 | So how do you help people value their time?

00:36:27.420 | I always have them start simple.

00:36:29.980 | And the truth is, they need to understand what their time is worth.

00:36:34.780 | And the math equation is pretty straightforward.

00:36:37.020 | It's whatever you get paid annually to do a job.

00:36:40.700 | So you make, let's say, $100,000 a year.

00:36:42.380 | It's simple math.

00:36:43.100 | And then you divide it by $2,000.

00:36:45.420 | That's the amount of value of your hour.

00:36:50.620 | That works out to about $50.

00:36:51.820 | My rule, and I call it the buyback rate, is if you can pay somebody else to do whatever

00:36:59.580 | you're doing for a quarter, like one fourth of that amount, $12.50 in that circumstance...

00:37:07.340 | Or sorry, if you're... Yeah, $50 is $12.50, then you should.

00:37:12.220 | Right?

00:37:13.660 | And when you start using that filter in your personal life, from having people laundry

00:37:19.900 | service, to house cleaning, to Uber Eats, to a lot of stuff, you can start buying back

00:37:27.420 | that time.

00:37:28.220 | Now, I also don't think you should buy back your time to hang out on a beach or watch

00:37:32.540 | Netflix.

00:37:33.420 | I think you should ask yourself...

00:37:35.340 | Again, it's that time trade.

00:37:36.700 | It's how do we become more valuable to the market?

00:37:39.340 | And I also agree, you should relax and enjoy yourself and recharge.

00:37:42.860 | So I'm not saying you become a workaholic.

00:37:44.780 | But it's if you constrain yourself to say, "Look, I'm only going to invest 40 hours a

00:37:49.420 | week in my career."

00:37:52.140 | So you block it and you create this constraint.

00:37:56.220 | Then you go, "Okay, well, right now, if I do a time and energy audit on my calendar,

00:38:00.300 | I'm spending time on things that are taking my energy and very low cost to pay somebody

00:38:06.860 | else to do."

00:38:07.340 | And then you attack that list of those items.

00:38:11.100 | And you just start trying to bring support.

00:38:13.420 | And then the key is go do things that make you more money.

00:38:16.700 | So it only fits into one of 2 things.

00:38:18.780 | You're either doing more of the thing you know you're going to get paid more to do right

00:38:22.300 | now.

00:38:22.940 | Right?

00:38:23.260 | So it's a lot easier, obviously, if you're in a role like sales or there's some performance

00:38:28.460 | component of the thing you do.

00:38:30.060 | But you can negotiate that with your employer.

00:38:33.580 | Like I have half my team on some level of performance compensation.

00:38:39.180 | So they have a clear target that if they hit, they get financially rewarded for it because

00:38:44.460 | that means everybody wins.

00:38:47.100 | And then do more of that.

00:38:49.500 | Learn what that is or negotiate it with your employer.

00:38:53.500 | And then free up your time.

00:38:55.180 | And I'll give you a real example.

00:38:56.300 | Like this guy, Wendell, who worked for me in sales.

00:38:59.340 | I mean, he was making a half million...

00:39:01.980 | Like not half a million.

00:39:03.340 | He was making about a quarter million a year, which is a lot.

00:39:05.980 | And I get it.

00:39:06.620 | But what he decided to do on his own time, because he started to see like, "Hey, I'm

00:39:11.820 | on calls for 30 hours a week on calls and then follow up and all that stuff."

00:39:16.700 | He was listening to me coach my clients because a lot of stuff we do is public inside of our

00:39:22.140 | company.

00:39:22.640 | Not what our client shares, but me.

00:39:25.340 | I record everything I do and just give it away to the team and put it on social media.

00:39:28.860 | And he hired his own assistant to literally do all of his follow-up, do his prospecting,

00:39:35.660 | manage his calendar, manage his inbox, so that he could just do more calls because that's

00:39:40.460 | how he made more money.

00:39:41.900 | So all of a sudden, he doubles his output.

00:39:45.580 | Then he has a surplus.

00:39:46.780 | He calls me out one day.

00:39:47.580 | He's like, "I don't know what to do with all this money."

00:39:48.940 | I'm like, "Well, congratulations.

00:39:50.220 | This is a very good problem to have.

00:39:52.140 | Well done, sir."

00:39:52.860 | And I tell him to go into real estate.

00:39:55.420 | He's like, "Well, how do I do that?"

00:39:56.620 | I go, "That's you to figure out."

00:39:58.780 | This is the thing is you free up your time to then fill it with learning new skills that

00:40:03.980 | are valuable.

00:40:05.340 | So he went into real estate.

00:40:06.540 | He hired a mentor.

00:40:07.660 | This is what I teach people.

00:40:09.020 | Go find somebody that's done it before.

00:40:10.460 | Bring that person into your life.

00:40:12.380 | And now what's crazy is he negotiated.

00:40:15.100 | He only does sales Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, because on Friday, his assistant

00:40:19.980 | is queuing up all of the showings for him to go look at new real estate deals.

00:40:23.500 | He's already bought...

00:40:24.460 | I think he's on his fifth building.

00:40:25.980 | He owns like 20 some doors or whatever it's called.

00:40:29.260 | And he's doing really well because he's thought through this math, right?

00:40:34.860 | And I know a lot of people are like, "Well, that's easy.

00:40:37.020 | He's making $250,000 a year."

00:40:38.140 | It doesn't matter if you're making $50,000 a year or $100,000.

00:40:41.820 | You got to learn how to free up your time to then invest it in things that your employer

00:40:47.740 | is going to value, or at least the market's going to value.

00:40:50.220 | And then if you want to go chill out and watch Netflix, that's fine.

00:40:53.900 | It's just...

00:40:55.420 | If you're during the day and during the day, you could do something to progress your career,

00:40:59.740 | or you take an hour to drive to go get your food.

00:41:03.740 | And instead, you could just have the food delivered to you.

00:41:06.060 | So you could not have to take an hour to go do that.

00:41:08.620 | That sounds like a great trade.

00:41:10.860 | You just need to know ahead of time, when I'm buying back that time, I'm going to invest it.

00:41:16.140 | I'm going to fill it with things that will compound and create more value in the future.

00:41:21.180 | So there has to be trust.

00:41:22.860 | You have to have sat down and thought about this and have a plan.

00:41:26.780 | And you just keep working through it.

00:41:28.060 | So I just tell people to allocate a budget, right?

00:41:30.140 | Chris, it could be very simple.

00:41:31.980 | $500 a month.

00:41:33.180 | Just take $500 and do the time and energy audit on your calendar and say,

00:41:37.900 | "I'm just going to give myself permission to buy back maybe less.

00:41:41.740 | Let's call it $100 a month.

00:41:42.940 | I don't know what it is.

00:41:43.740 | And then if I buy back that time, I'm going to do this with that time

00:41:48.220 | that I think over a period of time will be more valuable."

00:41:51.260 | It could be going to the gym.

00:41:52.940 | Because I know for me, man, I show up way different if I worked out today

00:41:56.780 | than if I don't.

00:41:57.900 | And that has a huge positive impact on the outcomes that I get to achieve.

00:42:03.340 | Right?

00:42:03.820 | So that's just the way I think about it.

00:42:06.220 | So let's talk about some of those things that you think people can get started buying back.

00:42:10.140 | I think you gave some examples that I think are well known, like ordering your groceries online,

00:42:15.500 | or getting food delivered.

00:42:17.900 | Great uses of trading dollars for time, I think, personally.

00:42:22.540 | I do have some frustration with the grocery delivery thing,

00:42:25.820 | because I felt like early on, there were so many misses and poor replacements that

00:42:32.380 | if you were like me and you were trying to plan a dinner out, you'd get the wrong thing.

00:42:36.300 | Now, I find that Amazon's inventory management for Amazon Fresh, at least in the States,

00:42:42.140 | is so good that I don't have that fear anymore.

00:42:45.020 | So that's a few.

00:42:46.940 | What are some of your favorites?

00:42:48.140 | There's so many.

00:42:49.580 | I mean, when I look at the early days of starting to do this...

00:42:53.020 | Laundry service.

00:42:56.380 | I was crazy busy.

00:43:00.540 | My fiance is pissed off at me.

00:43:03.260 | I'm trying to get all my work done.

00:43:05.260 | And this is what happens.

00:43:06.060 | I literally had to get a laundry service so that I could work on Sundays in the morning.

00:43:10.380 | Normally, I was done by 11am.

00:43:11.660 | That was my rule.

00:43:12.300 | And I got in trouble that day.

00:43:13.340 | But obviously, just having somebody else take care of your laundry, like wash and fold,

00:43:18.540 | game changer.

00:43:19.340 | I mean, just low-hanging fruit.

00:43:20.860 | Having somebody come in, maybe once every 2 weeks, maybe once a week.

00:43:26.140 | My world is a little different today.

00:43:27.980 | But to come in to clean your house, to take care of the deep cleaning, that kind of stuff,

00:43:34.540 | that's a huge opportunity.

00:43:35.900 | I mean, but even...

00:43:38.700 | Because some people are like, "I'm not going to pay somebody else 25 bucks an hour to do

00:43:42.620 | something I can do myself."

00:43:43.500 | All right.

00:43:43.740 | Well, how about we just get better at getting our time back?

00:43:49.020 | How about you start using a calendar?

00:43:52.780 | That would be a big idea for people.

00:43:55.660 | I know if we fail to plan, we plan to fail.

00:43:59.660 | I don't know who said it.

00:44:01.100 | But I remember my wife's friend, she said that because she was just so frustrated with

00:44:07.420 | herself about the amount of wasted time running around her kids.

00:44:11.980 | And I forgot this happened and that.

00:44:13.580 | And it's like, people don't realize how much time is wasted in just the commute.

00:44:18.540 | Right?

00:44:19.180 | So even just asking yourself like, "Are you driving to Costco?"

00:44:23.500 | "Yes."

00:44:23.980 | "Why don't you just order online?"

00:44:25.420 | "Well, I like to go to Costco."

00:44:27.500 | "I know you like to go to Costco.

00:44:28.700 | But if you tell me you like to go there and you don't have enough time to go to the gym,

00:44:33.180 | then you're making a decision to go to Costco because you like it versus go to the gym,

00:44:37.500 | which you know will have a compounding effect."

00:44:40.060 | Especially with the health.

00:44:40.940 | I just want to say this.

00:44:41.660 | When you're healthy, you have 1000 goals and dreams.

00:44:45.980 | And when you're not, you have one.

00:44:47.500 | And I bring that one up because if that's not front and center for a lot of people,

00:44:52.060 | it should be the driving force behind everything we're talking about today.

00:44:56.700 | Because it will have the biggest impact on your life, your mental health, your physical health,

00:45:01.500 | worry your family will have for you.

00:45:04.220 | So it's like if you don't want your family to worry, that's all parents want.

00:45:06.700 | They want to know you're happy and healthy.

00:45:08.140 | So it's like, that's a big one.

00:45:10.220 | Other things is...

00:45:11.180 | Again, when it comes to scheduling, it's everything from cutting down on meetings,

00:45:15.740 | saying no, inviting people to you.

00:45:18.300 | That's a big one.

00:45:19.420 | Right?

00:45:19.660 | So for example, I don't do the "Got a second" meetings, coffee meetings, etc.

00:45:25.660 | Chris, and I'm sure you don't either.

00:45:27.020 | Because I can buy myself coffee.

00:45:29.260 | What I do instead is every Tuesday morning, I hike this mountain near my house.

00:45:33.420 | And it's an open invite for anybody that wants to pick my brain or hang out with me

00:45:38.300 | to come and do the hike with me.

00:45:40.220 | And I've been doing it now since I moved to this new city.

00:45:43.020 | We live in Kelowna, BC for 2 years.

00:45:45.980 | So every Tuesday morning, 6.30am, if you want to come hang out with me, anybody...

00:45:49.900 | And this is an open invite for your audience.

00:45:51.420 | If they want to fly to Kelowna and pick my brain,

00:45:54.300 | I will be there.

00:45:55.580 | And what's great is that now...

00:45:57.260 | I call it net time.

00:45:59.100 | No extra time.

00:46:00.220 | I compress all these other meetings into one experience.

00:46:03.980 | And usually, it's a 45-minute or it's a half-hour hike up and then 15 down.

00:46:07.980 | It allows me to have great conversations.

00:46:11.420 | It allows me to get my workout in.

00:46:13.660 | So that's a big time-saving one.

00:46:15.420 | Even considering using carpooling or public transit.

00:46:20.460 | I'll tell you why.

00:46:21.260 | Is a lot of people can do stuff if they're not driving.

00:46:25.500 | So a lot of people don't understand that

00:46:27.420 | taking the public transit, the train...

00:46:34.220 | I know in San Francisco, I used to use a car service.

00:46:37.980 | I mean, Uber, actually, funny enough.

00:46:39.980 | So Travis, who started Uber, was an investor in my company, Flowtown.

00:46:43.340 | And when it came out, I was using it for next level stuff.

00:46:49.740 | I remember Travis saying to me, he's like, "You're the only person..."

00:46:54.220 | I would send Ubers to go pick up my girlfriend at the time to bring her to the date to save me time.

00:47:00.700 | Right?

00:47:01.740 | So I would use it as almost like a delivery system of people to bring them to me to save me time.

00:47:08.540 | Now, that's an advanced thing.

00:47:09.500 | People aren't going to be doing this.

00:47:10.460 | But that's one for sure.

00:47:12.380 | When you say that...

00:47:14.060 | Now they've built in the delivery function.

00:47:18.140 | But I remember one time, little things like...

00:47:20.540 | I recorded an interview in person and the SD card didn't work.

00:47:24.620 | And there's a data recovery company in San Francisco.

00:47:27.100 | And I was like, "Well, I'll just send the SD card to the company on an Uber instead of drive to the

00:47:31.580 | city and drive back."

00:47:32.620 | And using that for delivery, you used to have to convince the driver to do it.

00:47:37.020 | You had to talk to him.

00:47:38.700 | Now it's just part of the service.

00:47:39.740 | "I left my laptop at this meeting."

00:47:41.340 | And you're like, "Hey, do you think you could pick this up?

00:47:43.340 | I'll have someone bring it out."

00:47:44.540 | So yeah, I love that one.

00:47:47.420 | Yeah, I mean...

00:47:47.980 | I know you got a big list.

00:47:49.100 | Let's...

00:47:49.740 | Yeah.

00:47:50.240 | I use... My whole rule, if you had to put it into a list, it's "Go mobile."

00:47:56.380 | So I do not use services that don't have a mobile experience.

00:48:00.460 | So... And this is for everything.

00:48:02.780 | Home automation, security systems, lighting systems...

00:48:06.940 | Anything that my wife wants to buy that's like an electronic,

00:48:11.340 | I ask if they have a mobile app because I want to be integrated into my workflow

00:48:16.940 | and just be able to access it wherever I'm at.

00:48:19.580 | So that's a big one.

00:48:20.780 | The other one is automation.

00:48:22.060 | Anywhere that I'm doing the same thing over and over, I look for tools for automation.

00:48:29.260 | I mean, we do that for lawn care.

00:48:31.180 | We do it for locks, lights, obviously.

00:48:34.860 | Cleaning cycles for things.

00:48:37.500 | I mean, the amount of automation and just services.

00:48:45.180 | Having somebody come to your house to clean your car, that's a real thing.

00:48:49.740 | Or like my buddy, Brad, his wife was spending every Wednesday afternoon cleaning their cars.

00:48:57.420 | And I was like, "Hey, dude.

00:48:59.100 | Why don't you guys have a cleaning lady?"

00:49:01.900 | She's like... He's like, "Yeah."

00:49:02.860 | I go, "Why don't you just ask the cleaning lady to clean the cars?"

00:49:04.940 | "Oh, geez. I don't know if we could do that."

00:49:07.740 | "Yeah."

00:49:09.680 | The woman who's cleaning your house obviously knows how to clean.

00:49:14.060 | She drives a car.

00:49:14.940 | Pretty sure she cleans her own car.

00:49:17.260 | She probably wants more hours.

00:49:19.660 | It's so funny when we just start thinking of things through that lens of like,

00:49:24.700 | "How do we put things together? How do we..."

00:49:27.340 | And then the no touch side is the third principle.

00:49:30.380 | The no touch is what we talked about.

00:49:33.020 | Using online like Costco.

00:49:35.340 | I don't go to grocery stores.

00:49:37.020 | I don't buy stuff.

00:49:38.460 | My whole rule is to the degree that I am not touching stuff,

00:49:43.100 | that's how I want the world to work.

00:49:46.220 | So like my brother, there was a point in his career.

00:49:49.100 | He's in the construction industry.

00:49:50.780 | He's a home builder and whatnot.

00:49:53.180 | He would probably spend 2 days a week, like 16 hours in his calendar,

00:50:00.460 | just bringing stuff around to people.

00:50:03.260 | Okay.

00:50:05.020 | And this is not complicated stuff.

00:50:08.620 | It's just driving.

00:50:10.380 | And eventually, I said, "You should hire a runner."

00:50:14.380 | So some people can't afford to do that.

00:50:16.140 | I just want them to think about that.

00:50:18.220 | It's like even if you...

00:50:20.620 | And it's a little work, Chris.

00:50:21.740 | I could get somebody to do wash and fold, but I got to bring it to there.

00:50:24.700 | Okay.

00:50:25.420 | But that's that company.

00:50:26.620 | There's actually another company that will come to your house and pick it up and do wash and fold.

00:50:31.260 | Oh, I didn't even know that.

00:50:32.300 | Yeah.

00:50:32.540 | And it's an extra $6.

00:50:33.580 | So is the $6 worth you saving 40 minutes there and back?

00:50:39.100 | Again, you do the buyback rate.

00:50:40.860 | Yes.

00:50:41.340 | Perfect.

00:50:41.980 | Use a different service.

00:50:43.020 | Some people are just not willing to ask.

00:50:46.540 | I'm really...

00:50:47.900 | I'll even go as far as sometimes...

00:50:50.940 | Last year, I'll give you a real example.

00:50:52.700 | Last year, Christmas time, I had my executive team in my hometown.

00:50:57.500 | We went, we did an offsite.

00:50:59.260 | And I wanted to give them a gift.

00:51:01.260 | So I called the store that I wanted to buy all the stuff from.

00:51:05.260 | And I said, "Look, I need 6 gift bags put together.

00:51:09.260 | But I need you to deliver it."

00:51:11.340 | And they're like, "Well, we don't do that."

00:51:12.380 | And I go, "I know you don't do that.

00:51:13.660 | And I totally understand why.

00:51:15.180 | But look, we're going to be at this restaurant.

00:51:17.260 | The only way this is going to work is if you guys can put it together, bring it to the restaurant,

00:51:21.580 | have them put it behind the counter, and just put it on my name.

00:51:25.660 | And then when I show up, it's there."

00:51:27.020 | And I share that, Chris, because some people just would not even ask to do that.

00:51:31.180 | And I said, "Look, if you need to charge me an extra 10% or whatever, please do it.

00:51:35.020 | But I knew the store they were... Their office,

00:51:38.060 | their location wasn't where the restaurant was, was walking distance.

00:51:41.340 | I mean, it takes 6 minutes to just take the bag, bring it over.

00:51:45.180 | They get a multi-hundred dollar order.

00:51:47.820 | And I look like I'm super thoughtful and kind because I got them this cool bag that

00:51:53.820 | had their names on them. It's just like...

00:51:56.380 | I just think a lot of people just don't even ask.

00:51:58.620 | They don't value their time enough to then ask people that have companies and would love

00:52:06.620 | more revenue to say like, "Hey, if you could do this and this, I'll pay you more.

00:52:11.100 | You know what your buyback rate is."

00:52:12.460 | And a lot of them will just say, "Yes."

00:52:14.860 | It's like, "I actually drive by that neighborhood every day when I come to home.

00:52:18.380 | So yeah, if you want me to drop it off..."

00:52:19.900 | We did this with meal prep.

00:52:21.420 | I remember, probably 8 years ago, my wife was freaking out because we have

00:52:27.660 | 2 young kids and I'm working.

00:52:29.820 | I had a venture-backed company.

00:52:31.020 | And I was just like, "You don't need to make dinner.

00:52:34.540 | I love you.

00:52:35.100 | And I know you want to make me food.

00:52:36.380 | It's not going to change my life if you're not the one cooking."

00:52:39.100 | And the way we did it is I was at the farmer's market.

00:52:42.780 | And there's this guy that we'd buy these frozen meals from.

00:52:47.100 | And I was just like, "Hey, would you sell me during the week?

00:52:50.860 | Would you make these during the week and just drop them off at my house?"

00:52:53.820 | And he's like, "Well, we don't really do that."

00:52:54.940 | I go, "I know you don't really do that.

00:52:56.940 | But maybe you could start and I could be your first customer.

00:52:59.500 | Here's where I live."

00:53:00.780 | I've even done it... There was a meat guy I did the exact same thing with

00:53:03.900 | that I wanted him to deliver his meat.

00:53:06.300 | Like you were saying, you're at a meat store earlier.

00:53:07.900 | But he was like, "I don't really do that."

00:53:10.620 | And I said, "Well, what if you had 6 or 7 people

00:53:13.100 | that you were delivering on at the same time?"

00:53:15.820 | And he goes, "Yeah."

00:53:16.620 | And I go, "Cool."

00:53:17.580 | I just called my neighbors up and said, "Hey, are you guys willing to commit

00:53:20.140 | to this level of purchasing from this meat guy?

00:53:23.340 | You guys all know this store and you like it.

00:53:25.340 | And if we do it, then he'll deliver it."

00:53:27.340 | And they were like, "Wow, you can get him to deliver?"

00:53:28.860 | I'm like, "Yeah, no problem."

00:53:30.540 | So, I'm just a very resourceful.

00:53:34.380 | I ask.

00:53:36.140 | I'm creative about how I find ways to get my time back.

00:53:39.580 | It's funny you bring up the meat store.

00:53:42.220 | There's this amazing meat store in Millbrae, California near SFO called Pape Meat.

00:53:47.900 | I learned this morning on the plaque on the wall.

00:53:49.660 | It's the oldest business in Millbrae, I guess.

00:53:53.660 | And we needed a particular type of meat, guanciale, which is the meat you use for carbonara,

00:53:59.980 | which is what we're going to make for Christmas Eve dinner.

00:54:02.540 | And if you go to their website, they do not discuss delivery on the website.

00:54:09.820 | There's not an easy way to get the meat.

00:54:14.860 | However, there's a website that I found.

00:54:17.900 | This is all I had to do.

00:54:19.340 | I searched "Deliver Pape Meat."

00:54:22.380 | And this other website, Towne.io, definitely some kind of startup, delivers for them.

00:54:30.380 | Unfortunately, because it's Friday and I need it tomorrow,

00:54:33.180 | and it's the weekend and the holidays,

00:54:35.100 | that wasn't an option this day with my poor advanced planning.

00:54:38.540 | But in general, I could have had it delivered.

00:54:42.300 | Not because they did it.

00:54:43.740 | And I'm sure if I called, they would have said, "Oh, no.

00:54:45.340 | But this other website does it for us."

00:54:46.700 | So, even just this year, "Oh, I need to order this thing.

00:54:49.980 | Let's just search to see if there is a service out there that delivers."

00:54:53.420 | So, I would just say, I now learned-

00:54:55.100 | It's a search.

00:54:55.820 | Yeah.

00:54:56.780 | Yeah.

00:54:57.180 | Most people don't search.

00:54:59.580 | Because their website doesn't say they deliver, doesn't mean they don't.

00:55:02.620 | And obviously, for restaurants, there's plenty of apps that we all know about.

00:55:06.220 | But there are alternatives like that.

00:55:08.540 | We started using ButcherBox, which delivers actual meat and all kinds of stuff to your house.

00:55:14.380 | So, we get fresh meat and talking about two different services.

00:55:18.700 | "Sorry, Pape. We can't buy all my meat from you."

00:55:21.260 | No. And you're allowed to do that, right?

00:55:23.340 | You can use Instacart for certain things.

00:55:25.820 | And you can use other services for the weekly reoccurring.

00:55:29.180 | It's really just being open to spending the time to figure it out.

00:55:35.180 | I remember my buddy Nick was frustrated because he just bought this thing off

00:55:38.460 | some online site.

00:55:40.620 | This furniture showed up.

00:55:41.660 | And then he's frustrated because he got it put together.

00:55:43.980 | And he literally was like...

00:55:45.260 | I showed up just to say hi.

00:55:46.540 | And I was like, "What are you doing?"

00:55:47.500 | Because this guy runs a successful business.

00:55:49.740 | I'm putting together this furniture.

00:55:51.020 | I'm like, "Why are you doing it?"

00:55:52.460 | He's like, "Oh man. I don't want to sit down and try to find the time to do the thing,

00:55:59.580 | to find the person, to hire them.

00:56:02.060 | I might as well just do it myself."

00:56:03.260 | And I go, "Totally get it. In this circumstance, it makes sense.

00:56:08.220 | But you need to consider the next time, the next time, the next time."

00:56:13.020 | So yes, the first time you do it, it's work to find a solution.

00:56:17.100 | But it's not that time you're actually trying to buy back.

00:56:20.220 | It's the dozens of times this year that if you find a handyman,

00:56:24.620 | or you use TaskRabbit, or use whatever service,

00:56:27.820 | you find a trusted resource that you can pay to come and do those types of work,

00:56:31.660 | that yeah, it's a little bit more work today.

00:56:34.700 | But down the road, then all of a sudden, you have this list of resources

00:56:38.780 | where it becomes easier and you can even get it scheduled and part of your lifestyle.

00:56:43.500 | And even the meal prep, I remember telling...

00:56:46.460 | Again, I have a house manager, so I know I live a privileged life.

00:56:51.260 | But if it was me, I would have done the same thing.

00:56:53.100 | I went and found a nutritionist that partnered with a meal prep company,

00:56:59.180 | so that they could take care of all of the food prep,

00:57:04.380 | so that I would hit 99% of my time.

00:57:06.780 | I'm hitting my macros, I'm hitting my nutrients, I'm hitting what I need for my health.

00:57:11.340 | So it's like some people look at that and they go like,

00:57:13.820 | "I can't believe you're paying $16 a meal."

00:57:17.500 | And I'm like, "You don't realize how much time I'm saving and the compliance."

00:57:22.700 | Right? This is the other thing is know thyself.

00:57:25.260 | I don't want decision fatigue by deciding what I have to eat.

00:57:28.860 | I want that taken care of for me so that I know I'm going to be healthy.

00:57:33.420 | I know that the meal is made and it's going to hit all the macros

00:57:36.860 | that my trainer gave me and all these things.

00:57:38.860 | And then that way, I can take that decision power or energy

00:57:44.460 | and give it to something that's actually required.

00:57:46.620 | It's why you see people like Zuckerberg wear the same clothes,

00:57:49.180 | or Steve Jobs, or all these people.

00:57:50.380 | The more you can take the decisions out of your life,

00:57:53.420 | then the more energy and time you're going to have to actually create and produce more.

00:57:58.300 | And that's another big part that people don't consider when you use these services.

00:58:02.300 | It's just you're freeing up your mental bandwidth.

00:58:04.380 | Yeah. You talk about your house manager.

00:58:06.940 | I'd love to understand just because it's a concept I don't think everyone knows.

00:58:10.220 | First, what that person does.

00:58:12.860 | And obviously, I know it's probably a luxury and a privilege to have that.

00:58:17.180 | But I also want to talk about ways that some of what they do might be

00:58:20.620 | things that people could start to put into place with a virtual assistant or something like that.

00:58:25.900 | And for context, I've thought for years about whether I ever

00:58:30.620 | was going to hire a virtual assistant.

00:58:31.900 | I've been collecting tasks over the last few months that would have been great opportunities

00:58:37.980 | to outsource that any individual one was not big enough for me to say,

00:58:43.500 | "Oh, let's go hire a person so that..."

00:58:47.260 | For example, one was we were thinking of doing a gingerbread baking party,

00:58:52.460 | where we'd make a bunch of gingerbread cookies, have people over.

00:58:54.620 | It's like, "Oh, it'd be really great if someone wants to find a recipe,

00:58:58.540 | figure out how to batch it for 30 people, go on Amazon Fresh,

00:59:02.380 | order all the ingredients and have them delivered."

00:59:04.060 | It would probably not take that long, maybe half an hour.

00:59:07.900 | I would probably take me even longer because I'm sure I would try to get caught up on what

00:59:12.300 | is the absolute best gingerbread recipe.

00:59:14.380 | And the average person would probably not spend as much time as I would.

00:59:17.660 | So it'd probably save me even more time.

00:59:19.580 | But I wasn't going to go hire a virtual assistant for that one task.

00:59:22.540 | But yeah, so maybe talk to me about the house manager and whether you

00:59:26.140 | think a virtual assistant could take on a lot of that and whether that's something

00:59:29.900 | regular people at the low cost you can get them now should be considering.

00:59:34.140 | I'll start with the administrative assistant type of task because that's super approachable.

00:59:40.940 | We live in a world where there are services out there.

00:59:45.500 | If you search virtual assistant, task management, etc., where you can pay per task or by the hour,

00:59:53.180 | the $15 to $20 type range, or hire somebody in another part of the world for $4, $5, $6 an hour,

01:00:02.300 | I mean, it is absolutely approachable for every person out there in the world we live in because

01:00:08.700 | there's these companies that have built this technology.

01:00:10.940 | The key though is to actually do the calendar audit to find out what are you doing with your

01:00:18.300 | time that is more administrative in nature, that is repeatable.

01:00:22.060 | Because what I want to encourage people to consider is

01:00:24.380 | find the cadence of repeatable tasks that you can insert a person into your life,

01:00:30.620 | then they're available to do the things you just talked about, Chris.

01:00:33.580 | Because if I have to think of finding another person to do a one-off thing, that feels heavy.

01:00:40.380 | If I already have somebody in my life that's working 5 hours a week for me,

01:00:44.380 | managing research projects, or buying stuff online, or scheduling my travel,

01:00:49.980 | or taking information from this system and putting it in this system.

01:00:53.340 | Every person that has a job probably does some type of work that isn't really rocket science,

01:00:59.500 | and you could just give to somebody else.

01:01:01.180 | Sometimes it's just collecting data, it's putting stuff in a graph,

01:01:06.620 | it's post-production of social media stuff, or whatever it is.

01:01:11.100 | Then you start with the reoccurring things or the person's part of your life,

01:01:14.780 | and then you can give them the one-off stuff.

01:01:17.660 | The way I've always looked at it, and what I teach in my book is,

01:01:21.820 | I always start with the calendar first, because that's where I'm going to start buying back time.

01:01:28.940 | And in the early days, it's usually task-based.

01:01:31.340 | A lot of the stuff we talked about from lawn service to cleaning, wash and fold,

01:01:37.580 | meal prep, project management, it's all task-based.

01:01:41.980 | And that's okay. You just start there.

01:01:43.660 | And you might have 5 or 6 different people doing different types of tasks.

01:01:47.500 | And then eventually you say, "You know what? I don't want somebody

01:01:50.700 | separate cleaning my car and cleaning my house. I'm just going to have one person do that."

01:01:54.380 | And you consolidate.

01:01:55.820 | So if you think at the lowest level, every person listening to this,

01:01:59.660 | start with a budget, challenge yourself to buy back some time,

01:02:03.100 | and just know that you can have 2 or 3 people supporting you in different services or whatever.

01:02:07.420 | And then what happens over time is you realize that there's

01:02:10.780 | a communication overhead, a management overhead of managing these things.

01:02:15.980 | And that's what happened for us.

01:02:17.820 | We had the house cleaner, we had the chef, we had the lawn care people,

01:02:25.980 | we had all these different people supporting our home.

01:02:28.220 | And then when I looked at my calendar, because my wife and I both run companies,

01:02:33.020 | I realized there's a lot of work I was doing of just managing stuff.

01:02:38.140 | I'm talking about going to the DMV and registering cars and calling my insurance company and

01:02:43.500 | maintenance on our homes and just transferring vehicles or literally everything.

01:02:50.860 | Putting boats in storage. It sounds... Again, I understand how privileged of a life

01:02:55.260 | that I have, but these are things that were still on my plate to do.

01:03:01.340 | So on Saturday morning, instead of going mountain biking with my friends or watching my...

01:03:07.500 | Deciding to say yes to putting our kids into soccer so that...

01:03:11.660 | I'm doing all this other stuff. And sometimes I just want to recharge.

01:03:16.460 | I want to sit down. I want to read. I want to work on supporting our community.

01:03:21.900 | My wife and I are very involved in the unhomed community in our city.

01:03:26.300 | So it's like, I'd rather go do that than manage a spreadsheet of making sure that

01:03:32.700 | we have the right insurance on all of our assets. So we got to a place where we just

01:03:37.820 | decided to hire somebody that was the CEO of all of our personal stuff.

01:03:43.180 | Now, again, this was after... I've had an executive assistant for a long time,

01:03:47.100 | for almost 10 years. But even at a certain point, because that person doesn't live in

01:03:53.500 | our home and is not in our home and not doing personal stuff, they're managing the business

01:03:57.980 | side of my life. Pass, purchasing, travels, all that stuff. Inbox, calendar.

01:04:03.340 | Then we essentially rolled up all of the other stuff to one person.

01:04:08.300 | And now we have one person. She's incredible. And we set up a rhythm where every Monday,

01:04:15.820 | I have lunch with her. We talk about the week. We talk about the tasks. We're eating together.

01:04:19.740 | So it takes no time for me. Every Wednesday, my wife and I, my executive assistant and her,

01:04:25.740 | get on a Zoom call. We call it the house meeting. And we review. We have an agenda.

01:04:29.820 | We review the projects. We review what they're working on. The playbooks. I mean, Chris,

01:04:34.620 | it's crazy. But I have an SOP. I have a playbook, handbook for the family, the Martell family.

01:04:41.980 | What does that mean? Yeah. Walk me through what that looks like.

01:04:45.660 | Who are our babysitters? It's all the names of the people that's like the kids, school principal,

01:04:54.700 | contact info, the vet contact. Think about all the contacts. So that's all in there.

01:05:00.860 | All of our preferences, all in there. My size of my shoes, my favorite colors for a T-shirt.

01:05:07.340 | It's crazy. Even just the preference file, where I like to sit on a plane, all these things.

01:05:14.700 | Then I never have to make the decision again. So it's like, you ever register for an event

01:05:19.900 | and they ask you the same questions every time? It's like, I don't do that anymore. I just...

01:05:23.340 | My assistant or my house manager asks us once and then she writes it down.

01:05:26.780 | So everything is in a Google document. I think we're moving everything to Notion right now. But

01:05:32.780 | everything... Even the... So we have a pretty cool sauna that does infrared and salt therapy and all

01:05:38.700 | these things. And it's got a procedure for how to schedule it to turn it on.

01:05:44.700 | How to reconnect the red light system. And it's all in the playbook.

01:05:49.580 | So that if I need to do it because it's a Sunday morning, I literally Google sauna and I find the

01:05:56.460 | playbook and I go to the section where it says "Reset the red light system" and I follow 7

01:06:00.380 | different steps to reset. It's all in there. All of our logins are all in one password.

01:06:07.180 | And it's all under the house vault. So it's like, I'm in my backyard and I need to get into

01:06:13.580 | a door that's got a lock. And we change all of our locks to pins.

01:06:16.780 | It's dynamic. Like an Airbnb. That way... Why? Mobile. Remember I said that. It's got to go

01:06:22.860 | mobile. So all the locks are all mobile-enabled. And all the pass... Or the numbers and the codes

01:06:29.260 | are all in one password. And it's literally... We've created this procedure for our life.

01:06:35.660 | Again, Chris, I'm sharing this because I want to inspire people. I also know I may infuriate

01:06:39.900 | people. When you show people some of the super cars and a lifestyle and flying...

01:06:46.700 | All this stuff, they can either be inspired by it or they're going to be like "This guy's a douche."

01:06:50.220 | And I totally get it. I'm sharing this to hopefully inspire people that there are ways for

01:06:56.460 | you to incorporate this into your personal life that allow you to increase the quality of life

01:07:01.820 | you have. And most importantly, create jobs. A lot of my clients that struggle with this,

01:07:06.700 | that don't feel worthy of having somebody to that level of support, I just tell them it's like "Look,

01:07:13.660 | you can go buy..." Because this is what they're doing, Chris. They're going and buying the new

01:07:17.500 | Mercedes or the new BMW. I watch them do it all the time. My neighbors, I watch them do it.

01:07:23.020 | The new car comes out, they went and bought it. Okay? Or you could stop complaining about not

01:07:29.580 | having enough time. And instead of buying the new version, just keep the current one for a

01:07:34.300 | couple years, hire somebody to manage your life, so that you have the time to recharge or go

01:07:40.780 | increase the value in the market to pay 3 times over the new car.

01:07:45.180 | It's so fascinating for me to watch, even in my world, friends of mine that struggle

01:07:52.140 | with their time and yet they don't understand where they're allocating their resources,

01:07:56.620 | their money. So yeah, pretty much, if it would show up on my wife or my to-do list,

01:08:04.220 | it is owned by our house manager, Betty. And we tell her all the time, "You're the CEO of our

01:08:10.700 | lives. We do not manage our things. You manage them. You create the playbooks. You take care

01:08:17.500 | of schedules and cadences and assets and relationships and all that stuff."

01:08:21.980 | And then we just create a reporting structure where we get the information we need on a weekly

01:08:26.780 | basis to keep us informed so we feel like nothing's getting dropped. So it's no different than you

01:08:32.540 | would for an executive assistant in your business life. You just do the same thing for your personal

01:08:36.620 | life. And it all evolved from having a bunch of individual things. So...

01:08:40.940 | You start small. Yes.

01:08:43.420 | Yeah. I think that... It's funny. Two things came up. One, I've been pushing...

01:08:48.620 | There's a company called Trustworthy that I invested in, which is building the family

01:08:52.300 | operating system. And it started as the central repository of all the information about your life.

01:08:57.580 | So like, "Here's our house. Here's our bank accounts." And if I were ever to pass away,

01:09:02.460 | I have my sister and another person set to be able to access it. They know.

01:09:08.700 | But now they've started adding things like, "For our house, here's our landscaping company." Or

01:09:13.420 | "Here's our internet service provider." So they're building a software alternative to

01:09:19.500 | Notion or Google Doc for this. And...

01:09:22.060 | I love it. Because most people don't know what information they should be collecting.

01:09:25.980 | Right. Yeah. So their coolest thing is when you're on board, they're like, "All right.

01:09:29.420 | Go put in your old tax returns. Go link your bank account. Here's your insurance policies."

01:09:34.940 | So Amy and I... Ann, for your benefit, they have a mobile app. So Amy and I know that if we're at

01:09:39.660 | the doctor's office and they're like, "Where's your kid's insurance card?" We know. "Open the

01:09:43.420 | Trustworthy app. Here's the insurance card." We get pulled over. "Show me your proof of insurance.

01:09:49.420 | Open the app. Here's our Geico card." We know where all of the things are.

01:09:52.780 | Exactly. Think about how much time you're saved. Even the other day, we had our meeting on

01:09:58.460 | Wednesday this week. And one of the projects was get my wife's passport renewed. Do you know how

01:10:03.980 | many of my friends end up at the airport and their passport's expired and they can't go on a trip or

01:10:09.340 | miss a speaking gig? It's bananas. And why? Because they feel like, "I'm supposed to manage

01:10:15.500 | this. It's my life. I can even manage my life." It's like, when you actually give it to somebody

01:10:20.460 | else, and you say, "Please treat me like a child. I am okay with that." Because that's literally

01:10:25.980 | what I tell her. I'm like, "I want you to just assume that I'm not that intelligent. And I want

01:10:31.820 | you to track the stuff, everything. And you tell me when it's due or just do it. And we'll build

01:10:40.060 | a rhythm for communication reporting so that I know..." And then that way, it's all there, right?

01:10:44.780 | And all that stuff you said, the insurance, your wills, it's essentially like creating...

01:10:51.100 | In a high net worth individual, they'll usually have a family office.

01:10:55.340 | You're creating the infrastructure for your own personal family office for your life that just...

01:11:02.060 | It just makes... Just even having a shared one password vault for your family's Wi-Fi logins and

01:11:10.220 | other online services is just a good idea. Yeah. I feel like you would absolutely love

01:11:15.980 | this product. I'm looking at it right now. And it says, "Renew driver's license." Because I

01:11:20.860 | already gave them my driver's license info. It says, "Trustworthy will alert you 120 days before

01:11:25.020 | your driver's license expires. Renew passport. Trustworthy will alert you 9 months before your

01:11:29.340 | passport expires." So by putting the information in, you get this reward of like, "Hey, passport's

01:11:35.180 | expiring in 9 months." I don't have to think about it anymore. I know that for all of our kids,

01:11:39.420 | I'm going to get an alert 9 months before any of those passports expire. And so I don't...

01:11:42.700 | It relieves the mental burden of me having to think about all these things.

01:11:47.340 | But this is an example of... Because you're on the journey to try to find ways to buy back your time

01:11:55.420 | and you look at where you've had friction in the past and you found a service like this...

01:12:00.060 | So some people might hear about the house manager and go like, "That's crazy. I could never afford

01:12:03.900 | that." Think about there's tools out there. This company is literally built... Probably takes...

01:12:10.060 | It would be 30% of what she does. The software automates it. And I talked about that. It's like

01:12:15.260 | automation, automation, automation. I just feel like people need to really challenge themselves

01:12:19.660 | to value their time, to go on the journey to build it. It's like, "Yeah, it takes work."

01:12:25.660 | I'll actually give a real tactical thing for people if they're still on the edge and they

01:12:29.980 | haven't done it. This guy Jack Canfield, he wrote a ton of bestselling books, bestselling author.

01:12:35.180 | Good dude. He talked about creating this thing called the frustration list because it's a muscle.

01:12:40.380 | And his argument was most people don't even see frustrations in their world to see opportunities.

01:12:47.580 | So it's a muscle you have to develop. And his argument was as you go through your day in your

01:12:52.620 | home, think about things that frustrate you. And just make the list. I'm not asking you to solve

01:12:59.180 | the problem. Just make a list. So it might be, "I'm downstairs working out and I don't have

01:13:05.980 | a cable to charge my phone." Literally, just write it down. "I don't have a cable to charge

01:13:10.620 | my phone." Or you get in your car and you realize you ran out of gum. And you like this certain type

01:13:16.700 | of gum and it's not there. Okay, write it down. Or it's like, you go to take... You get out of

01:13:23.020 | the shower and you don't have a hook for your towel after you dry off. It sounds crazy, Chris.

01:13:28.300 | But I want people to do that for 2 or 3 days because 2 things. One, honor those frustrations

01:13:36.940 | and build a muscle and a routine of solving those problems. Make the list and actually wake up on

01:13:43.900 | Saturday morning and say, "Hey, I'm going to work through this list and just see if I can be

01:13:47.260 | creative about how I solve this stuff." Some of it could be simple like buy another truck.

01:13:51.740 | And even that, it sounds so nuts, dude. People won't even give themselves permission

01:13:56.700 | to own 2 cable chargers for their iPhone. So there's one next to their bed and one in their

01:14:02.220 | office. Isn't it weird, Chris? They're like, "Yeah, no. I don't deserve that."

01:14:07.020 | If anyone listening feels they don't deserve it, I think I have like 20 extra iPhone chargers in

01:14:11.340 | my house. I will go ahead and send you one. Of course. Because you're like, "Hey, I want

01:14:15.500 | to have the things that I need and I'm willing to pay for extra stuff so that it doesn't become

01:14:20.380 | a point of contention." Because what's worse is if you're in... I do some backcountry skiing.

01:14:24.940 | If I'm in trouble and my phone is dead because I didn't charge it when I should have charged it,

01:14:29.180 | that's a bad circumstance. So I just really want to encourage people to realize that if

01:14:34.060 | it doesn't feel natural to you right now to identify things in your life that you should be

01:14:39.820 | trying to buy back your time on, it's a muscle that can be developed by just writing down the

01:14:44.700 | things that are frustrating or not optimal. Some of you guys are like, "I love life. That's not

01:14:49.660 | a frustration." Look, just in a perfect world, wave a magic wand. If you could live a perfect

01:14:54.460 | life and you go through life and everything's awesome, how would it look? Make that list

01:14:58.300 | and try to create that. Okay. I think next year will be the year

01:15:02.860 | that I get started with trying to actually hire someone to help outsource a lot of these tasks.

01:15:07.100 | Now, I'm going to probably... I need to hire a virtual assistant to help me go

01:15:10.220 | research the best virtual assistant services. So I'm not ready for someone full-time yet. But

01:15:15.100 | there are a few things that as I've listened to you talk, and as I've done my homework and

01:15:19.580 | just known you, that you've done that I think maybe don't fall exactly perfectly into buying

01:15:24.780 | back your time and the conversation we just had, but I think are worth running through because I

01:15:28.780 | think people find a lot of value out of them. One is on designing your perfect week. One is on

01:15:35.180 | thinking about the 7 Pillars of Life. And let's start there and then I'll get to the rest.

01:15:40.380 | Cool. The 7... The perfect week. And I actually have a diagram in my book that I put in there

01:15:47.260 | because I wanted people to actually see what that looks like for me. So there's... I think

01:15:52.060 | it's on page 141. It's literally the diagram. What's important is to design all the big rocks

01:16:02.620 | into your life so that you actually understand that you do have the capacity.

01:16:07.180 | A lot of people go like, "I don't have the time." That's cool. Let's talk about that.

01:16:11.820 | But let's just start by saying, "Okay, here's a 7-day template I give people."

01:16:15.820 | They buy the book, they go to the website and I give them the template.

01:16:18.860 | And then they make a list of all the important things in their life. Like spending time with

01:16:23.980 | their kids, going to the gym, their work, their creative stuff, their hobbies, or whatever.

01:16:29.100 | And then you take that and you put it into the calendar and you block them in. The big stuff.

01:16:35.500 | It's like, "Go to the gym every day. What time do you want to go? It's an hour or 90 minutes.

01:16:38.460 | Put it in there." And what I think people realize if they go through the exercise

01:16:43.420 | is there is actually enough time in a week to do everything you want to do.

01:16:48.300 | You just have to now then honor the calendar. And the reason why I encourage all of my coaching

01:16:55.820 | clients to do this is because when... If you have the rhythm of your week designed,

01:17:02.140 | then when you hire somebody like a virtual assistant to support you,

01:17:05.980 | they know where certain things go so they don't have to bug you.

01:17:09.580 | It actually is not efficient, Chris, if you have somebody that's managing your

01:17:13.420 | inbox and your calendar and helping you with scheduling meetings and stuff,

01:17:16.220 | to have to ask you every time, "Hey, are you okay doing a meeting at 3 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon?"

01:17:20.620 | Versus, "Hey, these are the 2-hour windows each day that I do meetings. So if a meeting comes in,

01:17:26.940 | just put it there." Now I take that another... I'll just give you an advanced tip on that for

01:17:31.020 | a virtual assistant. We do 3 levels of priority. So I'll sometimes do a P1, P2, P3 in the email

01:17:38.220 | reply. A P1 means cancel something to make it happen, a priority level. P2 is make it fit as

01:17:45.980 | soon as possible, but don't cancel anything. P3 is within the next 2 weeks. And P4 is don't rush

01:17:53.980 | if it happens cool, if it doesn't, no harm, no foul. And then... So even just trying to create

01:18:00.380 | these systems and language around how you work with somebody to manage your calendar

01:18:04.540 | is important, but it all starts with designing the perfect week. Does that make sense?

01:18:10.060 | Yeah. I was just actually thinking about some way that you could secretly encode that

01:18:15.900 | into your email. So you reply to someone and there's some...

01:18:20.060 | Here's how I do it. I leave an email draft and I write it in the draft so she sees it

01:18:24.780 | because she's in my inbox. Ah, yeah. If someone's in your inbox.

01:18:28.540 | But I was just... All my head could think about was like, "Oh, what if I had this secret code where

01:18:33.340 | I had a signature? And if I end it with an exclamation point?"

01:18:36.540 | Looking forward to hanging out... You could just do signature,

01:18:40.380 | enter, enter, enter, and put it right at the bottom and nobody even sees it or different.

01:18:43.980 | I think you're onto the same pattern of the language. So it's like, "Can't wait to meet"

01:18:51.020 | means this. "Looking forward to talking soon" means... You know what I mean? You can add that

01:18:56.300 | as a language signature. It was superhuman. They have these snippets. So that snippet could be

01:19:00.300 | called P1. I know that I just write P1 and then it posts this line that means...

01:19:05.580 | Boom. So the 7 Pillars of Life.

01:19:08.780 | 7 Pillars of Life is a way that I create a feedback loop for myself on how I'm showing up

01:19:15.740 | in my life and at least creating a point of reflection to improve it. And the reason why

01:19:22.860 | I designed this is a long time ago, a lot of my friends... I went through a challenging

01:19:29.260 | time with my fiance and that didn't work out. But then I got married. And I don't know about you,

01:19:34.620 | but it seems like people get divorced. And it's crazy. And you're just like,

01:19:39.100 | "Why do they get divorced? Why are they having challenges in their lives?"

01:19:42.140 | And typically, it's because there's a fracture. And then the fracture lasts for weeks and then

01:19:49.420 | months and then eventually a year. And the fracture ends up creating such a wide divide

01:19:53.980 | that they can't repair it. So what I've done is across these 7 core pillars... It's actually a

01:20:00.460 | bonus chapter. I wasn't even going to include it in the book. And my editor was like, "Hey,

01:20:05.340 | I really think the 7 Pillars would be a great tool for everybody to just wrap it all up."

01:20:11.900 | And every Friday morning, I sit down for 30 minutes. And it doesn't even take me 30 minutes.

01:20:17.820 | It takes me like 5 or 6. But I rate myself out of 10 on these 7 Pillars. This is a spreadsheet.

01:20:23.420 | I've been doing it for years. And the 7 categories are Health, Hobbies, Spirituality, Friends,

01:20:31.740 | Love, Finance, and Mission. And I do those ones because they encompass how I want to show up in

01:20:41.180 | the world. Spirituality is important. It doesn't matter if you believe in God or whatever God or

01:20:44.860 | the universal consciousness or spirit or energy, whatever it is. Just asking yourself, "Do you have

01:20:51.420 | a relationship? Are you spiritual? Are you meditating?" Whatever it is. And just giving

01:20:56.380 | yourself a rating on those things. Finances, right? A lot of people, they don't want to talk

01:21:01.180 | about money. They don't pay attention to their money. And then they wonder why they have none.

01:21:04.860 | Right? Or hobbies. People are like, "Oh, hobbies must be nice." It's like, "Look,

01:21:10.460 | all I know is that after I go snowboarding with my buddies, I'm a better dad. I'm a better husband.

01:21:15.260 | I recharge. I connect. I want to do those things." So what happens is I score myself on those 7

01:21:20.940 | pillars. And then this... I'll actually give you this like today's. That's always better real time.

01:21:27.660 | So today, I scored myself pretty high. I'm having a good time right now. My 2 lowest scores. One was

01:21:33.740 | Friends and the other one was Hobby. So here's the bonus one of this. I got an 8 and a 7.

01:21:38.620 | I always write in the spreadsheet a note on how to fix it. So the Hobby one is book

01:21:43.580 | snowbiking. So I do this crazy thing called snowbiking. And then the Friends one is low,

01:21:50.780 | but the good news is I go snowbiking with my friends. So I'm going to get a double whammy.

01:21:55.660 | And all I did the action... That's why I give myself 30 minutes to do this.

01:21:58.700 | I just made a list of all the dates that I'm free to go snowbiking. And then I sent a text message

01:22:03.580 | to my 5 friends that I go snowbiking with and says, "Hey guys, can we just schedule

01:22:07.820 | one of these days to go snowbiking?" And then I've accomplished it. Literally,

01:22:12.060 | it's that simple. It's just every week, I assess myself on those 7 dimensions.

01:22:16.380 | I take my 2 lowest scores. If it's love, because I haven't been there for my wife, it might be...

01:22:21.580 | Then I set a commitment to take action in the next 7 days. And that one might be like schedule a date

01:22:26.380 | night, give my wife night off on Monday, let her take a bath, whatever it is. And because I do that,

01:22:31.820 | Chris, I just feel like I get to live a higher quality of life because I'm not trying to fix

01:22:36.940 | things because there's a fracture that's been going on way too long around not seeing my

01:22:40.860 | friends or not taking care of my health or not focusing on my mission or whatever it is.

01:22:45.420 | And it's been a big part of my life. I love it. And on the topic of relationships,

01:22:50.620 | the last thing I wanted to chat about, you hired a coach to live with you and help the family and

01:22:57.500 | build deeper relationships. For those of us who aren't going to do that right away or it's not in

01:23:02.940 | the budget, what lessons did you take away that maybe we could steal from you?

01:23:07.020 | So many. Her name is Brooke. She is an angel. We've been working with her for 3 years.

01:23:12.540 | I'm just a big fan of hiring people to increase the caliber of our life in different areas from

01:23:18.620 | fitness to business to our family. And we got to the point where Brooke and I... It's fun because

01:23:26.780 | she'll have private calls with my wife and she'll have private calls with me and then we'll do a

01:23:31.180 | group call. But it got to a place where I was like, "I think there's another level of opportunity,

01:23:37.740 | but I think you'd have to see us instead of hear us." Because you think about it, Chris,

01:23:43.100 | explaining to somebody what happened is you recounting the situation. It was always their

01:23:51.180 | version, your version, and then the truth. Versus them being in the room, seeing it,

01:23:57.340 | and then they get to get their interpretation. So I literally offered to fly her up. She lived

01:24:04.380 | in California and she came and lived with us for 3 days. She slept in our house, lived in our home,

01:24:09.340 | woke up in the morning, watched the morning routine. So it was really fun to have her get

01:24:15.500 | a new level of insight into what all the conversations we were having meant in a

01:24:21.580 | real-world scenario. The things that I learned personally was she did some incredible work with

01:24:27.580 | my wife around reconnecting with her feminine. And you'd have to ask my wife about the impact

01:24:33.900 | it had on her, but I got to see it. She did some dancing. She invited me. She's like,

01:24:38.380 | "Do you want to do it with us?" And I'm like, "I'm here to play Fallout."

01:24:41.260 | So 7am, instead of going to the gym, I sat down and I danced with my wife and Brooke. And

01:24:47.660 | it was pretty crazy, man. Just understanding how women's physiology and their feminine side of

01:24:56.060 | their connection is just part of it. It's crazy. It's not what men do. Men scream and charge off

01:25:02.220 | into war. And again, it's masculine versus feminine. It's not even a gender thing.

01:25:06.860 | But that was a big takeaway. She worked with our kids. So she did some exercises with our kids to

01:25:14.380 | understand the way they were building their worldview and what was important to them.

01:25:19.180 | So she made them draw a picture of their family. You see this in therapy sometimes.

01:25:23.980 | But then we had some issues, dude. It was really cool. My oldest son had a meltdown.

01:25:29.980 | So she got to see how we responded to it and then gave us some cues. She explained to my wife that

01:25:36.700 | these things are 100% normal. So it allowed her to feel less guilty about those things happening.

01:25:42.300 | I think if you don't have an external perspective, you sometimes think like,

01:25:45.580 | "This is the end of the world. And I'm such a bad parent because this is happening."

01:25:48.620 | It's like having an expert come in and say, "Oh, actually, it's super normal.

01:25:52.620 | You handled that really well. Here's why. And in the future, if you want a little bit of coaching,

01:25:57.500 | do this." For me personally, it sounds crazy. I learned that my wife likes to tell me about her

01:26:08.060 | day, not because I'm going to have a test at the end of it so I have to remember everything,

01:26:12.860 | but just because it's her way of decompressing at the end of the day.

01:26:17.260 | So this was a huge win for me because I now prompt it. Where before I was scared of it because I was

01:26:25.500 | like, "Oh my gosh, she's going to sit there and talk for 20 minutes and I don't know.

01:26:28.940 | Am I supposed to help? Am I not supposed to help? Why is she telling me all this stuff?"

01:26:33.340 | And now I go, "Hey, babes, tell me about your day." This is literally the last thing we do

01:26:37.180 | every night because Brooke explained to me what was happening and that I'm not going to be tested

01:26:43.340 | and I'm not supposed to do anything other than listen. So I will tell you,

01:26:47.660 | it might sound simple for some of you men out there, you will be the best husband in the world

01:26:53.580 | if you say, "Hey, babes, tell me about your day." "Wow, that sounds tough. Tell me more."

01:26:59.500 | Literally that language. "Tell me more." Game changer. So that was big.

01:27:04.940 | And then just really like how to show up for your partner. Some physical things. A lot of women,

01:27:15.260 | they want to feel safe. They want to feel seen. They want to feel appreciated. So that was a big

01:27:20.620 | thing. Men don't want to... This one that I think my wife really took away is men hate to be

01:27:27.580 | criticized. I don't know if you've ever had your wife criticize you, or do it in front of another

01:27:33.420 | person. There's certain things that are just like, for whatever reason, is really challenging.

01:27:38.780 | So once she saw it and got some cues on it, it just changed the way we show up

01:27:44.620 | in public. We worked on this. There's a book. I can't remember the name of it.

01:27:48.780 | This is another big one. And I'll leave on this one is

01:27:52.700 | "Launchings and Landings." So she taught us the value of a launching and land. I'm so driven by

01:27:58.060 | time, as you guys can all hopefully pick up, that I'll just run out the door. It's like I'm leaving,

01:28:04.380 | going to the gym. I just ran out the door. She said the 2 most important things you have to

01:28:09.180 | get better at as a couple is launchings and landings. Meaning that when you leave, it is

01:28:14.540 | a deliberate go find the partner. "Hey, I'm leaving now. I'm going to do this. I will see when I get

01:28:20.220 | back." And then when you land, it's "I'm back. Here's what I did. Do you need me for anything?"

01:28:27.100 | And it might sound crazy, but that... We actually taught it to our kids. So even before I come into

01:28:32.460 | my office in the morning, because I have a home office, I go and I do a launch with my kids where

01:28:37.900 | I give them little kisses and I tell them about them and say, "I'm going to my office now."

01:28:41.100 | And we call it a launch. And then when I get back or at the end of the day, if I'm done early,

01:28:46.220 | I go find them and I'm like... I land with them. I'm like, "Hey, I'm done." And they're like...

01:28:50.700 | And they actually say, "I'm launching too." And they'll tell us about them going to do stuff. So

01:28:55.820 | I just think it's those little tweaks. In life, it's never about these big moves. It's these one

01:29:02.140 | degree, these two degree changes. And then when you follow that trend line over 5, 10, 25 years,

01:29:08.780 | they have these huge pieces of impact on your life.

01:29:12.540 | Yeah. So two things I took away. No Irish exits in the house. It's for parties only.

01:29:18.700 | But also, I've just learned to get better about communicating. I think sometimes there's a person

01:29:25.180 | in a relationship that takes the mental burden of everything that has to happen. And if you don't

01:29:30.620 | communicate that you're doing something, they feel like it's their responsibility to do it.

01:29:35.100 | So for me, if I don't say, "Hey, I am still planning on doing X," my wife might assume,

01:29:40.780 | "Oh, maybe you're not going to do it." So... Emotional shrapnel saved.

01:29:44.540 | We went through a lot. We're way over time. I got an advance copy of the book. So I've already

01:29:50.540 | read it, even though by the time anyone listening is listening, it will be out. I highly recommend...

01:29:56.220 | I feel like you've got three on your bookshelf. I was like, "I'm going to maybe have a bookshelf

01:30:00.220 | in this new studio. Now I need to go get a physical copy." I only read the digital copy.

01:30:04.940 | But definitely tell everyone where they can find it, who it's for and everything,

01:30:11.260 | and where they can find you. Yeah. The book is designed for people that obviously want to become

01:30:16.860 | a better time trader. It's called Buy Back Your Time. Buybackyourtime.com. It's available on

01:30:21.340 | Amazon. If anything I shared today serves you and you end up getting the book or whatnot, I would

01:30:26.540 | love, love, love a review on Amazon. I'm working with my team to create a movement around

01:30:33.340 | business and executive level performance and just really help people understand how to

01:30:38.620 | build a life they don't grow to hate. That's my biggest thing, Chris.

01:30:42.860 | I just don't want people to go after this achievement lifestyle or this success ladder

01:30:49.660 | to just find it leaning against the wrong wall because they just don't know how to think about

01:30:53.980 | the energy and the time and just getting more of their life. So that's why I created it.

01:30:59.980 | It's been two and a half years of love and sweat and frustrations and just putting everything into

01:31:07.020 | it. And yeah, I'm really proud of the book. And the hardcover is cool. And I'll tell you why,

01:31:12.460 | Chris. If you get a copy, you should get the physical copy. I actually got my signature.

01:31:16.780 | That's my signature inside. So take the jacket cover off. I designed the whole...

01:31:21.340 | People never see this stuff, but I cared about it. And I'm really proud of it. But yeah,

01:31:26.700 | buybackyourtime.com. Awesome. And what about you? Where can people find you on the internet?

01:31:30.860 | I am on all social media channels, Dan Martell, 2LzMartell.com, my website, TikTok, Instagram,

01:31:39.100 | Facebook, Twitter, you name it. I'm there. I put out content every day.

01:31:43.340 | Awesome. Thank you so much for being here.

01:31:45.500 | Dude, so fun reconnecting, man. Seeing you again. I appreciate the opportunity.

Buy Back Your Time! Dan Martell on All The Hacks

Chapters