Afford Anything - The Six Myths of Productivity

Episode Date: December 2, 2021

#351: Geoff Woods, Vice President of The ONE Thing and host of The ONE Thing podcast, is an expert on ruthless prioritization, habit development, and goal setting. The simple framework he presents allows you to focus deeply and commit to the actions you need to take if you want to take your productivity to the next level this year. Get the show notes delivered to your inbox by visiting https://affordanything.com/shownotes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey there, in 48 hours, we are dropping a new episode. It's going to be the first Friday of December 2021. Joe Saul See-high and I will be answering more of your awesome questions. In the meantime, given that it's the end of the year, this is a time when a lot of people are reflecting on the year that just passed and setting goals for the upcoming year. In honor of that, I want to highlight and emphasize an episode that we ran, the episode that we ran on New Year's Day about the one thing. So this is an interview with Jeff Woods. He's an expert at ruthlessly prioritizing. And he presents a simple framework for building better habits. It's a step-by-step approach for creating habits that allow you to reach your goals and getting clear on the one thing that needs to be done in order to achieve a vision. And he also

debunks six myths of productivity. And we'll actually, we'll go through those right now. So myth number one, everything matters equally. Myth number two, multitasking. Myth number three, discipline. Disciplined life is a myth. Myth number four, that willpower is always on call. Myth number five, balance.

Having a balanced life is also a myth. And myth number six, big is bad. So he debunks these six myths of productivity in this upper coming episode, and he talks about how if everything matters equally, nothing matters at all. So if you're the type of person who feels like you have to do all the things, because otherwise, if you haven't, you failed, like if you feel like you have too many goals that you want to accomplish and not enough time, and if you want a framework for ruthlessly prioritizing what matters and developing habits that allow you to focus deeply and commit to what you need to do,

This is a great episode. And so particularly given that New Year's is coming up, it's the end of 2021. We're reflecting on the year that just passed. We're thinking about what we want for 2022. This seems like a poignant one to air. So enjoy this rewind episode. This episode originally aired on New Year's Day, 2021. And it's a good one to check back into. This is The One Thing with Jeff Woods. You can afford anything, but not everything. Every choice that you make is a trade-off against something else, and that doesn't just apply to your money. That applies to your time, your focus, your energy, your attention, anything in your life. That is a scarce or limited resource. And that opens up two questions. First, what matters most to you?

And second, how do you align your daily decisions to reflect that? Answering those two questions is a lifetime practice, and that is what this podcast is here to explore. My name is Paula Pant. I am the host of the Afford Anything podcast. And welcome to 2021. This is our New Year's Day 2021 episode to celebrate the number one. And to kick off this new year, we're going to talk to someone who is an expert in goal setting. Because what better time than the start of a new year to begin with a blank slate, a fresh page, and set your goals for the year ahead. In this episode, we're talking to Jeff Woods. Jeff is the host of the One Thing podcast and the president of the one thing. And if you're not familiar with that concept, the one thing, it is a platform dedicated towards asking the focusing question, which is, what is the one

thing that I can do today that will make everything else easier or unnecessary? In other words, you may have a dozen goals. Maybe this is the year that you want to make more money, save more money, lose weight, build muscle, buy a house, sell a house. You may have tons of goals on your plate. What is the one thing that you can do that will make all of those other goals either much easier or unnecessary? What is that tweak from which everything downstream flows? We're going to deep dive into a conversation about that in this upcoming episode. So a little bit of further background before we get into today's episode.

You've heard of Keller Williams, right? The real estate brokerage? Well, one of the co-founders of Keller Williams, is a guy by the name of Gary Keller, and he, along with a co-author named Jay Popassan, wrote a book called The One Thing that's based around this focusing question. The book became a massive runaway New York Times bestseller, and at the time, Jeff was a guy who was in medical device sales. He encountered the book, and he thought about the famous quote from entrepreneur Jim Rohn,

the quote that says, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with. And so he realized that his one thing was to surround himself with high-level CEO, and successful entrepreneurs. Well, to cut a long story short, he met up with Gary Keller and J. Poppison. He became vice president of the one thing and then switched careers, left medical device sales, and decided to spend the rest of his career focusing on helping people with habit development, goal setting, and ruthless prioritization. I have long been a fan of the concept of the one thing.

I've long been a fan of life improvement through subtraction. and through prioritization, since after all, the concept of afford anything, the philosophy of afford anything is that concept of anything but not everything, which is also fundamentally a philosophy of substitution and a recognition of opportunity costs. And so given the alignment between the philosophies between the one thing and afford anything, it seemed like the perfect way to kick off 2021. The other major thing that we're doing in order to kick off 2021 is that we are hosting a 31-day challenge, which you can sign up for for free at afford-anything.com slash 31-day challenge.

And this philosophy that you're about to hear, the philosophy of the one thing, is the inspiration for the day one challenge. So day one of the 31-day challenge is rooted in what you're about to hear in this upcoming interview. With all of that said, here is Jeff Woods to discuss the philosophy of the one thing. Hi, Jeff. Hey, Paul. How are you?

I'm great. How are you doing? Delightful. Excellent. So, Jeff, let's just dive right into the concept of the one thing, since this is kind of a foundational concept that's going to guide the rest of the interview. For people who aren't familiar with it, can you explain what that is? Sure. The one thing is the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results. And there's a few words there that matter that are worth calling out. One is simple. Everything that we're going to talk about today, you're going to go, that is so simple. And I'm just going to say, just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy. But these are surprisingly simple truths that have been proven to unleash extraordinary results. These are not ordinary results. It's extraordinary results. And where they came from was a guy named Gary Keller.

You familiar with Keller Williams by chance, Paula? Yes, of course. Yeah. So it's the largest real estate company in the world. Gary is the co-founder and CEO of KW. And when he was starting out KW was a small little company in Austin. And he used these principles to scale it. to number one in the world with over 200,000 plus people. You fast forward in 2013, he and his partner, Jay Papazan, turned it into a book called The One Thing, which you fast forward is one of the highest rated business books of all time now. And that's the business that we're in.

Time. It's our most valuable resource. And here's the problem. Most of the people who are listening to this are spending their time. They're not investing it. And there's a clear difference between the two. Paula, when you invest money, what do you expect in return? A return.

A return, right? Yet how many people do you think go through their days holding their time to the same standard they hold their dollars to? Almost nobody. Almost nobody. And that's what we do. We help people learn how to better invest their time so that they can achieve extraordinary results. What is the differentiator between ordinary and extraordinary? I have never been asked that question.

It seems very subjective. And yet you emphasized it right off the bat. Yeah, well, I think about goals. I think there are people that when they set goals, they set goals that are within their comfort zone or skill set, and they set goals that are doable. That's ordinary. There's nothing special about that. And then you have some people who are high achievers that will stretch it. They'll go to the outer edge of their comfort zone, the outer edge of their skill set, and they'll push it, right?

They set stretch goals. Yet setting stretch goals is still pretty ordinary among high achievers. Yet when you cross the line into the realm of extraordinary, it's so far out there. that it's beyond what most people can even comprehend. If a person were to set those types of order of magnitude goals, as you seem to be describing, it seems as though that would fundamentally reshift their identity. Oh, so good. Let's revisit this. What do you think the purpose of a goal is? To disrupt the status quo and achieve something different in your life.

Love that. I remember I was in a room with Gary Keller and he asked that question. A lot of people shared ideas and they could be summarized as to achieve a result. And this is where Gary pushed back. He said, no, the purpose of a goal is not to achieve a result. The purpose of a goal is to be appropriate in the moment. And what he means by that is that your goal should become a compass for how you need to behave right now to be in alignment with that goal. And he said, the problem is most people, they only ask questions that are.

so big, which means that they only have to search for answers that are so big, like, what can I do this year? And because they only go what's within their comfort zone or their skill set, they're not required to evolve who they are as a human. Whereas Gary's saying, I'm going to set a goal that's so big, so far out there, I don't even know if I can achieve it. But that's not the point. The point is how can it become a compass for who I need to become to earn the right to. achieve that goal. So you're saying a goal is a framework for taking present action. I love that. Well said. Yeah, you're doing something right now. The question is, is what you're

doing actually in alignment and bringing you closer to the goals that you have for your life, or is it taking you further away? Given that most people have goals across different verticals of their life, most people have health goals, career goals, money goals, relationship goals. Given that there are an assortment of goals, how can people execute the one thing across a variety of many things? Yeah, fantastic question. And this is one of the most common misunderstandings people have around the one thing. They hear the title of the book or hear the title of the podcast, and they think to myself,

I have more than one thing. This can't work for me. And we are not here to suggest to you that you only have one thing. One of the things every year we facilitate a couple's goal setting retreat. And part of the framework is we'll have these couples sit down and look at what we call the seven circles, the seven most important areas of your life. So you've got your spirituality, because every single one of us is going to wonder why we're here. We have our physical health, because if you don't have your body, where are you going to live? We have our personal lives. You know,

the things that we do for ourselves as hobbies that allow us to be the best versions of ourselves. Then we have our key relationships. You know, your significant other, kids, mentors, colleagues, coaches, friends. Every single one of us has a job. Even if you're a business owner, you have a job in that business. And every single one of us is a part of a business. So job and business, are separate circles and then finances. What we have people do is we have them set goals in all of those seven circles. Here's the point. It doesn't mean that you're tackling them simultaneously. To unleash extraordinary results in your life, it happens sequentially, not simultaneously. It's just one thing at a time. So let me give you a perfect example. Right now, I am in the

middle of a 66-day challenge, which is something we go on to form habits that stick. and it's meditation. That one activity of meditating for 10 minutes a day fills my spiritual bucket. It fills my physical health bucket. It fills me personally. It spills over into my key relationships because I show up as a better husband and father as a result of doing those things. It spills over into my job and my business because I'm more centered throughout the day. That one activity knocks down dominoes in multiple areas of my life. So here's my point to you. all have more than one thing and we all have multiple areas of our life. But the point is, can you be clear if I could only focus on one circle to have success in first? Which would it be? And can you

really make a stand around forming a habit in that area of your life first? Then you earn the right to ask the question, great, what's the next circle that I need to form a habit in? Great, what's the next circle I need to form a habit in? So essentially, would a person spend 66 days for focusing on forming a habit in one given circle and after those 66 days then move to the next circle, assuming that they had adequately formed that habit? That's exactly what we're suggesting. Real world example. When I was co-founding this company with Gary and Jay, who co-authored the book, I remember Jay said

to me that one of the fastest ways you can get out of business with us is to not live the book. And at the core of the book is habits. So if you could only form one habit, which would it be? And I remember looking at the seven circles and saying, well, Jay, I need to improve all these circles. And he said, I know, Jeff, but what's the title of the book? And I said the one thing, but I really need to do these four circles. He said, Jeff, but if you could only pick one, which would it be? Well, I really need to do these two. Jeff, pick one. And here's what became really interesting to me, Paula. I looked back over the last five years of my life before getting

into business with Gary and Jay and asked the question, how many truly life-changing positive power habits had I formed in five years combined? The answer was two. The answer was two. And What were they? I can't even remember now that we're talking about it, right? But I remember if like it really took me. Exercise was one of them and personal development. But when I got into business with them, instead of Jay saying go and try to form four habits simultaneously,

form them sequentially, one at a time. In that first year, I formed four life-changing positive power habits when in the previous five years combined, I had only formed two. And here's why. When I told myself I had to do four things every day and I did three, how do you think I felt? I'm guessing defeated, thus triggering an all or nothing response. Exactly. Even when my previous track record showed I did none of them. So three out of four was still a massive improvement, but when I made the mark of success four, I felt like a failure. And what we know about human behavior is if we inflict the feeling of failure on ourselves, we will only allow that to go on

for so long before we just stop. We quit. Versus saying, I'm going to form one habit in one area of my life first. And once that's solidified, I earned the right to form the next habit. And by the way, that first one is still working in the background. And when the second one is that, now I'm starting to stack habits. So you fast forward over five years, the last five years of building this company, holy smokes.

I'm a massively different person because I've been very intense. about forming habits that decide my future one habit at a time. Under this framework, if a person were to form a habit in one circle and successfully form that habit over the span of 66 days, could their next challenge remain in that same circle again? So, for example, if a person wanted to form multiple finance habits, good financial habits, could they focus on a sequential series of better financial habits? Absolutely.

And there's something that's worth pointing out because we didn't call this out directly. I guarantee there's somebody who's listening to this who goes, you keep saying 66, why 66? I, before reading the one thing, thought it took 21 days to form a habit. And I had heard it took 30 days. But the University College of London in 2009 did the definitive study. And what they found is the point of automaticity when it requires the least amount of discipline or willpower just to maintain is on average. And that's the keyword, average, 66 days. Sometimes it's faster.

and sometimes it's longer. Like this year, Paula, my number one circle I wanted to focus on was relationships. And I knew the one thing that I could do to improve all my relationships was to become a more empathetic person. And my one thing for the 66 day challenge was, can I just demonstrate empathy once a day when I naturally wouldn't have? Well, here's what's interesting. It took me 218 days consistently before it started to feel like a habit. Because for some reason, the way I'm wired, that took a lot longer. So if you hear 66, that's an average. In that example, how did you know whether or not you were successfully demonstrating empathy? Great question.

I knew I was demonstrating empathy if I was putting myself in a person's shoes and if I was responding overreacting. Like there were so many times in my personal life, in my marriage, with my kids, where my natural reaction would have been to have been a bull in the China shop and just driven and pushed through. and as a result, there can sometimes be some chaos. Whereas instead, I was pausing, and I was putting myself in their shoes. And I was actually, like, instead of pushing, I was asking questions.

I was softening my body language. It was just so noticeable. But it took tremendous amounts of discipline, willpower, and focused for me to do that. And I remember after the first 66 day challenge asking, is it a habit yet? And it was like, heavens, no. Okay, great.

So let's go on another one. And at the end of the second one, I remember looking up going, is it a habit again? And it was like, no. And at this point, the novelty has worn off. I'm wanting to do something new and shiny, but it was like, no, I said this was the most important habit I could form this year.

I've got to stick with it. And on day 2, 18, I literally wrote it down in my planner, said, today it finally felt like a habit. I didn't have to think about it. I just showed up as the type of person who demonstrated empathy. And that has continued every day this entire year. And I can tell you, today is day 356. In what you just described, you mentioned both discipline and willpower.

And I know of the six productivity lies that are discussed in the book, the one thing, both discipline and willpower are mentioned with regard to their limitations. Can you elaborate a little bit more on both discipline and willpower, the myths and limitations around it and better ways to harness it? There are lie number three and number four inside the lies of productivity. And the first is the lie of discipline. And we want to be clear. Discipline is really important, but it's a lie to rely on it. The opportunity is to leverage your discipline to form habits. And my favorite quote in the one thing is from FM Alexander. He said, people do not decide their futures. They decide their habits. And their habits decide their futures.

Paula, you ever been to a conference or gone through a course and be like, oh, that's so good. I'm going to do that. And you started doing it, but you weren't consistent. All the time, constantly. And that's because people rely on their discipline. and willpower to keep it going, instead of strategically leveraging it so that doing that activity becomes habitual. Because when it's truly a habit, it requires minimal discipline or willpower to maintain. It always takes some to maintain,

but infinitely less. So it's like getting in your car, pressing on the gas, getting on the on-ramp to the freeway, and finally putting it in cruise control. That's what we're doing is we're putting our most important behaviors on cruise control. So that's discipline.

And then willpower is about when you do your most important work. A lot of people, this was me prior to getting into business with Gary and Jay, because I was in corporate sales, like climbing the ladder, yet feeling like I was called or destined for more. I knew I wanted to have a second career. I remember telling myself, if I can just get to inbox zero, if I can just get through all these meetings and get through all the 80% stuff that's on my list, I can free up time to do these things that really matter.

You ever heard people think that way, Paula? I think that way every day. And that violates the number one lie of productivity, which is the lie that everything matters equally. That's the point is that people do all the stuff that doesn't actually drive the majority of their results, hoping to free up time for the most important work later. But by the time that happens, their willpower is gone. It's like fuel in a tank.

They got nothing left. It's like, why I can start in the morning and have a green juice smoothie and be so clean and by three o'clock or five o'clock, I'm crushing cookies like it's my job. So it's about if you want to do your most important work, you have to understand that you need your willpower. So you need to front load those activities. A lot of people say if there's a will, there's a way until there's no will and there's no way. So do your most important priorities when your willpower is the highest, which for most people

is the morning. So don't rely on discipline, leverage it so that it becomes habitual. and don't rely on your willpower to always be there. Instead, strategically do the things that matter most when your willpower is the highest. How does a person execute that in a context in which sometimes the points of time in which their willpower is the highest? And let's just say for the sake of example, that for maybe 80% of people, that might be the morning.

How does a person apply this when urgent things, since there is that distinction between urgent and important, when urgent things come up in the morning or at the time in which willpower is at its peak. This is where we're going to come back to the surprisingly simple truth. Let me walk you through what my life looked like when I was starting this company. So for some context, prior to co-founding this company, I was in medical device sales. Great job. But every day I was busy. I was working long. I was working hard. Had a good life. But I was lacking fulfillment. and when I was coming home, I told myself I was being present with my family, but really I was still in my inbox. Does that resonate with you at all by chance?

Yes, absolutely. Well, except for the coming home part. So I remember getting into business with Gary and Jay, and Gary shared this idea in a mastermind that working long hours is cheating. And this literally stopped me dead on my tracks. I was like, hold on, beep, beep, beep, back it up. What are you talking about? And he said, it's cheating because you can do the wrong activities. And if you work long enough and hard enough, sure you can muscle your weight or a result.

But you cheat yourself out of what it means to live a life. And that's when it hit me. I was working long. I was working hard. I was successful professionally. I was climbing the ladder, good income, like all that stuff look good. But was I actually succeeding in life? Was I succeeding in the areas that mattered most?

Was I succeeding as a husband? Nope. Was I succeeding as a father? Nope. Was I succeeding in my health? Nope. And here he was saying that if you want to live an extraordinary life, you've got to be as efficient and as effective as possible during the hours that you work. And at pre-prescribed time, you shut it down and you go and you live your life.

So now let's talk about how I practically put this into action. Paula, what do most people do when they fire up their computer first thing in the morning? What do they check? Well, if they listen to this podcast, I hope they don't check email first. I think most of the people who are listening have heard me say not to do that often enough or heard other guests say that. And yet they probably still do. That's that's almost everybody, right? And they check their email until they have to go to a meeting. Get out of the meeting. Realize they got five minutes. So what did they check?

Social media? Social media or email. And then they get a message on Slack or teams or somebody calls and says, hey, do you got a minute? And that literally repeats all day long. And how many of them do you think have ever had one of those days where they were super busy and they genuinely questioned if they got anything done? Right. Absolutely. Right. So I understood I had to put a stop to that. So here's what I did. When I fired up my computer, I knew the very first habit I needed to form starting this company was the habit of acting in order of priority. I mean, I did the most important things first. And so my lead domino was really simple.

I needed to check my 411 before I checked my email. A 411 is a tool that we used to get clarity on our priorities. I just needed to check my priorities before I checked everyone else's. And what was amazing about this, Paula, was when I fired up my computer, I looked at my 401, I looked at my priorities for the week. And guess what I did when I was staring my priorities in the face? What's that? Started whacking away at the priorities.

And what was amazing is after a few weeks of just focusing on doing the most important things first, I realized that my entire career I had placed in artificial importance on my inbox. I realized my priorities do not live in my inbox. Everyone else's deal. We'll come back to this episode in just a minute. But first, Fifth Third Bank's commercial payments are fast and efficient, but they're not just fast and efficient. They're also powered by the latest in payments technology built to evolve with your business.

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What is urgent is not necessarily synonymous with what's in an inbox. What's urgent could be a major deadline. It could be a sick child. There are a number of things that play the role of urgent that live outside of inboxes, meetings, social media. So let me ask you this. If you were in a time block focusing on your number one priority and something really urgent needed to happen, Do you think it would find you? Yeah.

It would. And in that moment, you'd get to ask yourself a question. Is this actually my new one thing? Like example, you and I are doing this interview right now. This is my one thing right now. My phone is on Do Not Disturb. My email is not minimized. It's hard shutdown.

Slack hard shut down. The world literally cannot get a hold of me right now because for this hour, I've said yes to you and your audience as my one thing. Now, if my wife came and ran into my office right now and said, your daughter just cut yourself, we need to go to the hospital. In the split of a second, my brain would ask which is more important? Continuing this interview or hanging up, that would be an effortless decision for me. Right?

I'd say, sorry, got to go. Emergency, we're scheduled. Bye. And I'd be gone. Yet, what I've also acknowledged is they're very, very rarely is something that cannot wait one hour. most people allow urgent things to mask as a priority when it may actually not be. Can it really not wait 30 minutes? Can it really not wait one hour?

Almost always it can. And if you can become the type of person who accomplishes your most important priorities first, then you earn the right to knock out all the urgent stuff. You fast forward to the end of the day with an amazing sense of accomplishment. because not only are you delivering amazing results, but you're also handling all the other urgent stuff. Now, let's be clear, you're saying no to things. You're not in your inbox as much.

You're not dealing with those little 80% things that deliver the minority of your results. Some things are going to get dropped, but you're dropping the things that don't matter as much. It sounds then like part of this exercise is developing the judgment to distinguish between urgent and important. Mm-hmm. And let's be clear.

I have a saying that I share with my team, your lack of preparation does not constitute an emergency on my part. Oftentimes when things come up as urgent, quite often it's because somebody else didn't do their job. They didn't think ahead to acknowledge, hey, I might need Paula's DNA on this plan. And now the plan's due today and I need her advice. So it's an emergency. It's urgent.

We got to, Paula, you and I have to meet, I have to have your opinion on this thing. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm the one who dropped the ball. I'm the one who didn't think ahead and identify the fact that I would need to get your opinion and get on your calendar weeks in advance.

The first time I ever realized this was with my partner, Jay. I remember I had to put together this plan and there was a deadline on it. And literally, the day of, I came to him saying, hey, I need to review this with you. And he said, sorry, dude, I'm full. And I said, but the plans do today. You and I need to review it.

He said, you're smart enough to have known that you needed my DNA in this, and I'm not going to rescue you. Support without standards looks a lot like rescuing. And that's not what leadership is. Leadership holds a line. It takes a stand for people's greatness when they might be fighting for their limitations. In that moment, he said, dude, you're going to suffer the consequences, and the consequences are you don't get my input on this plan, and you're going to have to live with if the plan succeeds

or fails without me. It only took a few times of that happening before I stopped just assuming that just because I needed somebody that they'd be available for me on a moment's notice and started planning ahead. What if you yourself, and I'll speak for myself, I'm typically the bottleneck, right? I will procrastinate a project to death until moments before it's due. It pushes to the point of becoming urgent not because of what anybody else did. Everybody else did their job with lots of foresight. Everybody else turned in things ahead of time and gave me all the support I need. I'm the problem.

I'm the bottleneck. And I push it to the point where it's at deadline. And suddenly it becomes so urgent that now I can't work out in the morning. So can we have some graceful accountability right now? Sure. What I just heard, and there's no in this because this used to be me, what I just heard is you have yet to form the habit of doing the most important things first. What I heard is that you have a track record of going through your days,

probably reacting to things that might seem important in the moment, but actually aren't. You might go through email. You might go through your meetings. And all of a sudden, you're in the situation where, oh, my gosh, this massive 20% priority that'll drive 80% of my results, I've got to get it done and I've got to get it done last minute. And now I'm having to actually sacrifice my health or family or other things that matter to you.

And that's super normal. before you start living the one thing. The difference, and this is the switch, is that when you start operating from a place of priority, you wake up with real clarity that, hey, these are the things that I must get done this year, the most important priorities for my professional life and my personal life this year, period.

And in order for that to happen, here's the handful of priorities. I got to make sure I knock down this month to be on track. And if that's the case, here's the handful of things I got to make sure I knocked down this week that automatically put me on track for the month, that automatically put me on track for the year. That's what the 411 gives you. And then you do something crazy. You open up your calendar and you block time for those 20% priorities first. And everything that's currently scheduled,

it's flexible. It has to interview to keep its spot, but you place the boulders in the stream so that when the water hits it, it goes around it. There is no procrastination because you are doing the most important things first. So it sounds like the first habit is to get into the habit of building good habits. Gary said literally the most powerful habit he formed was the habit of forming habits. Because if you think about what it takes to achieve extraordinary results in your life, it really comes down to the habits you form and the people, the relationships that you form. Because who you surround yourself with is who you become. And the habits that you form decide your future. I think Warren Buffett's said it really well. He said, you know, the habits of our lives are like chains that are too

loose to be noticed until they're too tight to be broken. Most people are not purposeful with the habits that they form. And you're forming habits whether you realize it or not. And if you're forming them by default, then you're probably forming habits that might serve you in the moment, but ultimately will strangle you as you try to live a bigger life. The opportunity is to become purposeful. To cast a big vision for your life and choose habits that will scale with your ambition and form them one at a time. And the habit of priority is one of them. So at a practical level, for anybody who's listening to this, who's thinking at this moment, all right, I'd like to form the habit of forming habits. I'd like that to be the first 66 day challenge. What would that look like?

How would a person implement that into their day? You don't get to form that up front. You form that over time. The thing that you can do to unleash that domino effect in your life, though, is to start by choosing one habit that you want to form and go on a 66-day challenge to forming that one habit. And pending you feel like you've successfully formed a habit, you then earn the right to ask, great, what's the next habit I want to form? And you start a 66-day challenge, and when that one's a habit, you ask the question, what's the next one? And over time, because you've been doing it for so long, Paula, you form the habit of forming habits. But in order to form the habit of forming habits, you have to have purposefully formed a habit first. And I use a tool called a 411. I just check

my 411 before I check my email. Super simple. You don't have to use our framework. You could literally, it could be as small as before you earn the right to open your email. Whether it's on your phone or your computer, you have to ask, what's my one thing today? Because here's what's interesting. If you literally searched for all the things that are on my plate today, what is the one that is most important? If I only got to do one thing today, what is the most important thing that I must get done? Most people, if they are asked that question, would say, I don't know. And if you don't know what your one thing is, Paula, what do you think your one thing is? People will probably think that it's everything. to figure out what your one thing is.

If you don't know what your one thing is, then your one thing is to figure out what your one thing is. And it's literally as simple as asking, like closing your eyes, taking a deep breath and going, what's my one thing today? And searching for the answer.

When you hit the wall of, I don't know, you go, cool, that's where my brain normally stops searching. We're going to keep going. I promise you can come up with an answer. And when you're, clear on what that one thing is, then you earn the right to check your email. But here's what's going to be interesting. People are probably going to instead open their calendars and try to find

time to make sure that they do that one thing. Or they'll just start trying to do it right away. And when you start knocking down your most important priority day after day after day, suddenly, you start to look at your inbox for what it really is, a list of everybody else's objectives for you, not your priorities that puts you on the path to have a relationship with your goals. And let's be clear, there's enough time for both if you do the most important one first. Otherwise, you will spend all your time doing the things that don't matter and look up and feel like there's no time for the things that matter most. In terms of deciding the specificity of what a given habit might be, it strikes me that any goal can be broken down into smaller steps or can be broken down into its constituent parts. where do you draw the line? I'll just use an example. Let's say that a person decides that for the next 66 days, their goal is to, let's say they want to lose five pounds, right? And so for the next 66 days, working towards that, even if all five pounds aren't lost in that time span, working towards that is their focus. That could be the singular focus or the chosen priority over the span of 66 days, but inside of that, there could be all of these sub-constituent goals,

ranging from cardio to weightlifting, to tracking macros or tracking calories or intermittent fasting. Could all of those lump together be part of that habit, or is that too many things all at once? Too many things. This is where we need to take a page out of our childhood. When you were a kid, Paula, did you ever line up Domino's? I never did, no. Really?

Yeah, no, I know. You're the first inside ass who said no. But guess what? You still know the answer. Do you think that the best way to knock them all down was to stand them up randomly and flick them one at a time? No, it was to put them in a line and then, of course, there's the lead domino. You just whack that one and what happens? The rest of them fall.

This is what we call identifying the lead domino. So here's a perfect example. And this is super common, by the way, because most people want to lose weight. So you say, all right, I want to lose five pounds. That's my one thing. No, that's the result that you're looking for. The one thing is that lead domino, that if you just, you just, you just, you just, you just, you knock that down, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary. And that's important. It makes

everything else easier or unnecessary. And here's how we do it. We just start with the goal. Want to lose five pounds. Great. Well, what's one thing I can do to lose five pounds? Well, I can exercise more. Great start. Now we want to always make sure that what we're talking about is specific and measurable. So I might ask a question like, well, how would you know if you were successful working out more? I'd be exercising five days a week. And people go, oh, That's my one thing. Exercising five days a week. The focusing question of the book is, what's the one thing I can do such that by doing it,

everything else would be easier or unnecessary? Not the one thing I feel like I should do or I'll feel guilty if I don't do it. Most people do not have the track record that says that five days a week is something they can do. So we need to go smaller. What's the one thing you can do that would make exercising five days a week easier or unnecessary? I'd have to get up earlier. Okay, well, how would you know if you're successful? I'd be up by 530.

That's my one thing. That's my one thing. Nope. Nope, it's not. Because if waking up at 530 was your one thing, if it was the one thing you can do, your track record would already show you doing it. And since it doesn't,

we still need to go smaller. What's the one thing you can do that would make waking up at 5.30 easier? Well, I'd have to go to bed earlier. Okay, how would you know if you're successful? I'd be in bed by 10 p.m. Well, what's the one thing you could do that would make doing that easier?

I'd have to turn off the TV by 9 p.m. that's the lead domino. And we have a saying, think big. I'm thinking big. I'm going to lose five pounds and go small. And trust that the dominoes will fall. Trust that if you turn the TV off at 9 p.m. with the intention of being in bed by 10,

do you think you're more or less likely to be in bed by 10, Paula? You're certainly likely to be in bed by 10, whether or not you'd actually fall asleep is a different matter. Right. But if your track record, if that was earlier than normal, odds are you're going to fall asleep faster. And if you were in bed by 10 p.m., would it make it easier or harder to get up by 5.30? Certainly it would make it easier.

And if you got up at 5.30 with the intention of working out, are you more or less likely to do something physical? More likely. And if you did something physical every day, would you be more or less likely to lose five pounds? Certainly more likely. That's it. Assuming all else is equal. That's the point is people just don't go small enough.

It's back to my habits conversation. I set the bar at forming four habits simultaneously, and it wasn't something I could do. The one thing that I could do was to focus on one. Not to say I didn't do other things, but the mark of success was if I just did that one thing. I earned an X on my 66-day challenge calendar. It's actually that simple. You just got to go smaller. What should a person do if the habit that they want to form is a habit of inaction rather than a habit of action? So, for example, this interview is scheduled to air in January. A lot of people do dry januaries or sober januaries, where they decide not to drink alcohol for 30 days. In that example, a person is forming a new habit, but it's a habit

that requires abstention from something rather than engagement with something. Well, there's two things here. One, I would actually argue that that's not a habit because they're not talking about making it's a consistent behavior for the rest of their life. They're only talking about a short sprint of 30 days. So I would ask the question, what is it about giving up alcohol that you're trying to accomplish? And they might say, oh, well, I want to cleanse my body. And so I might ask the question, well, what's one thing you can do? That if that just became part of your daily rhythm, would make you feel like your body was always cleansed. And it might be, you know, when I wake up, I want to drink some water that has a squeeze of lemon juice, a sprinkle of Himalayan salt, and some cayenne pepper

and some apple cider vinegar. Because if I know if I do that, it opens up my cells and then it's going to process things faster and overall I'll be a lot cleaner. So I think the first thing is being clear on if you're actually trying to form a habit, this is not just a sprint. This is not just a 30-day challenge. This is about developing a behavior that you want to remain consistent. Now, the second thing, and I think this is the essence of your question, how do we form habits

that start by us doing less, not more? and I would ask the question, how do we interrupt the pattern? What's one thing you can do that would make not choosing a drink easier or unnecessary? And it might be, you know, before I grab the beer or before I pour the glass of wine, I have to pour myself a glass of water. Whether or not you drink the water or not is irrelevant. But you have to reach for the glass of water and fill it up before you earn the right to make the cocktail. because if I fill the cup with water,

am I more or less likely to drink it? More likely. And if I drink a full glass of water, what happens to my thirst? Your thirst is quenched, it's satiated. Yeah, and maybe in that moment I get to earn the right to pour the glass of wine, but I might not.

And so this is what BJ Fogg calls untangling bad habits. And oftentimes when we look at the habits that are strangling us, It's a combination of lots of little habits that have been formed together in this really complex knot. And one of the easiest things to do is to pull one little thread that you can easily untangle because then it sets you up to untangle the next one and then the next one and then the next one. It's replacing something negative with something positive. Right. Remove the behavioral cue and you remove the follow-up behavior.

Email's a perfect example. I used to be the guy that when my alarm went off on my phone, I silenced the alarm and then immediately opened my inbox. And I started seeing all this stuff. It put me into a reactive state. And then when I was making breakfast for my kids, I wasn't even present with my kids. I was thinking about that email that I marked as unread. And it was creating distance in my most important relationships. Well, I didn't say I want to break the habit of checking email. I said, I want to form the habit of doing my most important work before I check my email. And as a result of focusing on the things that mattered more, automatically I deprioritized email. Automatically,

I started checking it less. And everything else became easier or unnecessary. We'll come back to this episode after this word from our sponsors. We've talked about in terms of the six productivity lies. We've started with numbers three and four. I guess this will be like Star Wars, where we start right there in the middle. So admission, I've never actually seen Star Wars after the middle ones. Do they go to one, two, and three next or do they go to like seven, eight and nine next?

Guarantee there are some people in your audience who just went, what? And they just thought, that's her one thing. Now! Oh, man. So I'm assuming you want to go back to Lies 1 and 2? Is that what happens next? So after the middle, they go back to the beginning and then to the end? We should.

Let's put it this way. I've seen Star Wars. I am not enough of a fan to know what order they came in. But I think that sounds about right. Okay. We'll go with that. Yeah. If we could only talk about one lie, it's the lie number one.

And it's the lie number one because it's the most important. And it's the lie that everything matters. equally. Everything does not matter equally. All the stuff that is on your plate is not of equal importance. Yet people go through their day telling themselves, I have to get it all done. And it's a lie. We've all heard of the 80-20 rule, Paredes principle, the idea that 80% of our results come from just 20% of our activities. So the question is, how do we become clear on what the 20% is and how do we start doing the 20% before we earn the right to move on to the 80%? And I had a very powerful experience with this. In my first 90 days of starting this company, I had to come up with a vision for the

business and create a business plan. And I remember it was the day for me to present the business plan to Gary and Jay. I walked into the conference room for the state of the company meeting and handed them each copy of my GPS. That's what we call our one-page business plan model, GPS, goal, priorities and strategies. And just like the GPS on your phone, it's designed to get you where you want to go. And it was literally a goal at the top, and then three priorities, and then each of the priorities had some supporting strategies. And I remember Gary and Jay asked a bunch of questions about priority number one. I answered them. I asked if we were all good. They said, yeah. And so I started talking about priority number two. And about halfway through number two, Gary started asking more

questions about number one. Paula, I remember thinking, oh, he just must have forgotten. Let me answer the questions really quick. I did that. I asked if we were good. He said, yeah. So I went back to number two, wrapped it up and started talking about number three. And Gary went back to number one. You ever seen Meet the Parents? No, I haven't. I, I think. I famously have not seen most movies. I'm rather known for that. Okay. Well, there we go. So for any of you listening to this who know the circle of trust, I was not in it. There was a reason Gary kept going back to number one. I could not figure it out. So I just did the best I could, answering the questions, asked if we were good. He said yes. I went back to number three. And after about 10 seconds, he stopped me. And he asked, Jeff, do you need to do number three in order to do number two? I said, no. He said, do you need to do number two in order to do number one? I said no.

He said, then do me a favor. Draw a line between one and two. He waited while I took a Sharpie out and drew a line across my page. And then he said, you know what, even better, rip the page in half. I kid you not, Paula, he waited while I ripped my business plan in half along the line. And then he said something that really changed the way I view time. He said, don't even think about number two or number three until you've earned the right to. By accomplishing number one.

And that's when it hit me. my entire career, I spent my time telling myself that I had to get it all done. So I would move this one priority a little bit. And then I'd move to the next one. And then I'd move to the next one and then I'd move to the next one without advancing anything fully to the finish line. And here was Gary saying, no, man, path to getting everything you want is to get one thing at a time.

Just like Domino's, stand them up, line them up, and whack away the first one. first. You would never line the dominoes up and then immediately skip to the eighth one and knock that one. You would always flick the first one first. He was saying, just do that in your career. And what was amazing is when I started doing that, I started getting so much more done in way less time. And when I went home and was with my family, I was actually with my family because I got the most important things done. That's why line number one is everything matters equally. How do you then develop the judgment to know that priority number one is more important than number two or number three? Is that just a matter of the focusing question? Yeah, the short answer is you don't always know, but you make a decision, you declare one to be number one,

and you whack away at it, and you learn. I mean, there are some weeks where I focus on things that I think are the priority, but when things actually get knocked down, I realize, you know what, it was actually number three. But I'll tell you, when I work with executives inside of companies, whether it's small or large, they'll come prepared with what their priorities are for the week. And they might have a list of five things. And let's be clear, they have a lot more to do that week than just five things. But these are the five, 20 percent priorities that drive 80 percent of their results. And I'll ask them, if you could only do one of these, which would it be? And it's amazing. They always go, number three. Okay, cool. Well, should you earn the right?

to do another one. What would it be? Actually, it's number five. Okay, should you earn the right to do a third? What would it be? It'd be number one. Should you earn the right to do another? What would it be? It'd be number four. And then they have to reprioritize their priorities. It's a muscle that most people have never developed. We help people develop that muscle. It's massively powerful. Let's talk about the second lie, multitasking. Yeah, this one, you always get some people to go, what? I love what I get a resume that says, multitasking is a skill. Like, okay, my wife argued with me with this. She's like, you don't get it.

It's a stay-at-home mom. You have to multitask. I'm not saying you can't multitask. What I'm saying is multitasking does not lead to extraordinary results. In fact, research shows that when we multitask, we waste 28% of our time, which if you put that into context of a normal work week, you would waste 2.4 work days a week. You could literally get 100% of your workload done in 3.6 days if you did one thing at a time instead of everything at the same time. And here's what most people do.

Without realizing it, they try to do everything at the same time. They're focusing on their priority and their email is open. Notifications are on. Their phone is on. Notifications are on. And in the middle of doing that task, they hear the email ding and they go, ooh, I got to know what that is because I have serious FOMO. I can't wait. So they bounce over their inbox and halfway through reading that email.

Somebody walks in their office and says, hey, do you got a minute? And when they're having that conversation, then their text message goes off and they're looking at their text message. And before you know it, their head is spinning so fast, their anxiety is high and they can't even remember where the heck they started. Versus saying for the next 15 minutes, I'm doing my most important priority. I'm fully shutting down email. I'm fully shutting down any form of internal communication.

I'm going to put my phone on do not disturb for 15 minutes and prove that the sun will be shining. And when I knock that domino down, I earn the right to open my inbox and triage email for 15 minutes. And that is not the time where you see an email and go, oh, let's mark as red and deal with it later. No, now's the time to deal with it. You deal with the email and you shut it down. And then you go and you sit in that meeting and you are present. You're not checking text messages. You're being present and you're contributing. Otherwise, you should ask to leave the meeting. So you can take your time back and you get straight back into a time block. So you're knocking down the priority that matters to you. One thing at a time. Everything I say from a high level is simple.

And if you're sitting here and you work inside an organization, a corporate structure, and you're going, yeah, but that won't work inside my org? Of course it will. But what you're missing is the common language. You're just not clear. You feel like you should always be in your inbox. You feel like you have to respond quickly. You feel like you have to say yes to attending the meeting. Otherwise, you're fearful that people won't think you're a team player. And those are all valid concerns. And you have to acknowledge that they're not true. Because I promise you when your boss sends you an email, they're not sitting on the other end going send receive, send receive, send receive, waiting for your response. And if they are, they're calling you. And I promise you, if you've ever been

promoted, it wasn't because you were the best email checker in your organization or the best meeting a tender, even if your notes sparkled, that's not why you got promoted. Yet most people go through the days being fearful that if they don't do the minors, that something bad's going to happen, all we're saying is don't major in the minors. Be clear on what the majors are. Be clear on what your priorities are. Do those really well. That's how you get promoted. That's how you have a great career. That's how you live a great life. And then you earn the right to show up to the meeting. You will earn the right to check email. I promise there's enough time. But do your most important things first. We just have a couple minutes left, but I want to talk about number five and six, since we've touched on the six productivity lies.

Sure. Number five is a balanced life. There's no such thing as a balanced life. If I asked you to stand on one foot and if you actually did it, I would ask, are you balanced or are you balancing? Balanced is a result. Balancing is an action. It's a constant state of balancing between your professional and your personal life. And they're not equal. It's not going to be perfectly balanced. It's not like I get to say, I'm going to go work for eight perfect hours and then I'm going to be perfectly present for eight hours at home. It doesn't work that way. So get rid of this idea of balance and understand that when you are at work, we want you to go massively out of balance. We want you to give a majority of your time to the most important priorities. And everything else, all that 80% stuff, gets crammed into the minority of your time. That is out of balance. And then when you get into your personal life, you got to go shorter. You can never stray too far away in your marriage. You can never stray too far away in your relationship with your kids.

You can never stray too far away in your relationship with your physical fitness. Those are things that have to be maintained pretty tightly. Otherwise, it's like a glass ball that when you drop it, it shatters. So there's no such thing as balance. It's a constant act of counterbalance. That's lie five. And then lie six is this lie that big is bad. You know, for some reason, there are some people that are wired to think that setting big

goals or wanting to achieve big things in your life is a bad thing. And absolutely it's not, because the truth is, the amount of effort that it takes to achieve average results versus the amount of effort it takes to achieve extraordinary results is not that different. The difference is the habits you form and the relationships you form. As we've talked about, there's a distinction between your effort and the results. So your effort might be to take X, Y, Z specific action. you may have an idea of what ultimate result you want, but the day-to-day effort of it is take X by Z action. Given that what's within our locus of control are the actions and not the results, how then can we square that with setting a vision for big results? It starts with setting the vision.

Determine where you want to go and then you chart the path to get here. Let's use wealth as an example. if I said I want to increase my net worth by 1% this year, I could take certain actions that could get me there versus if I say I want to increase my net worth 40% this year, that would be a different set of actions or I want to increase my net worth 100% this year. That's a different set of actions.

The amount of effort to do any of those actions may not be massively different. But if I want to increase my net worth by 1%, I'm just going to be focusing. Maybe I take on a side hustle and maybe I manage my expenses. If I want to double my net worth in a year, well, now I'm talking about forming relationships with people who have done it before. I might be looking at how I can get into real estate or do what's called burr investing. That's a certain type of real estate investing where I can acquire a property with other people's money, rehab it, refinance it, get all the cash out and still own the property and my net worth can go up pretty quickly.

The actual amount of effort and time may not be massively different, but the actions that we take, very different. So I think you first and foremost have to recognize it all starts with the goal. What's the purpose of the goal? It's to be appropriate in the moment. I did this exercise about six years ago when I was in medical device sales, felt like I was lacking fulfillment, knew I desperately wanted to start my own thing, but had no idea how to. Instead of spending all my time trying to figure out how I could sell more things in my current job, I started investing my time and forming relationships with people who had built

really successful businesses. Same amount of effort, very different actions. The result was the opportunity came to partner with Gary and Jay to turn this company into a company that would change people how to invest time. And what happened to my net worth as a result, what happened to my amount of fulfillment, what happened to the quality of my relationships, holy smokes, exponentially different than what it would have looked like had I stayed in the 9 to 5. No more effort, just different actions. Well, thank you for spending this time with us. I bought the one thing planner. I got it from Amazon. It just came in the other day, the 2021 planner. I'll give a shout out right now for this thing. It's fantastic. And it asks the question, what should you stop doing?

Or what should you say no to? There's lots of deadly questions in that thing. I went on a little bit of a planner buying bender for 2021. So I have probably five or six different planners. This is the only one that asks what is likely to stop you and what should you say no to? We genuinely believe that getting more doesn't come by doing more. It comes by doing less and more of the things that matter most. This is a central theme we've pulled through this entire episode. Quit saying yes to everything.

Get clear on what matters most and say yes to that first. And then you earn the right with your remaining time to ask, great, what do I get to say next to? Yes. Next. And what do I get to say next to after that? What do I get to say next to after that? Just like Domino's one at a time. So if you guys would like to learn more about the one thing book, the podcast, the planner,

just go to the one thing.com. and that's with the number one in the URL, the number one thing.com. The book and the podcast, it's spelled out the O-N-E-T-H-I-N-G, but I would strongly encourage you guys, check out the site. We've got a bunch of stuff on the free stuff page. There's lots of training available on the training page. And since you're already listening to a podcast, I would just click the search button and type in the One Thing podcast and subscribe because every week we feature people

who are going on the journey of actually living this, where they struggle, where they're having successes, just so you got that weekly dose of momentum. Thank you, Jeff. What are some of the key takeaways that we got from today's episode? Here are six. Number one, prioritize ruthlessly. If everything matters equally, then nothing actually matters. You can do anything, but you can't do everything. The first thing that most people can do is commit to not checking email or social media right away. Your inbox equals other people's priorities, not yours. So don't let others dictate how your time is spent. Figure out your boundaries and set them. Instead, check your planner or whatever you use in order to organize your tasks and focus

on what needs to get done according to your one thing. He said, don't even think about number two or number three until you've earned the right to by accomplishing number one. And that's when it hit me. My entire career, I spent my time telling myself that I had to get it all done. So I would move this one priority a little bit. And then I'd move to the next one. and then I'd move to the next one, and then I'd move to the next one,

without advancing anything fully to the finish line. So here's an action item. If you have a to-do list written out, go through it and ask yourself, what is the one thing that needs to happen today that will make everything else easier or irrelevant? Mark that as the first thing you need to do, and if you get that done,

then ask yourself, what would come next? Get into the habit of putting first things first. That is key takeaway number one. Key takeaway number two, focus on one thing at a time. It's not news that multitasking is a myth, and yet we can't seem to help but engage in it. Many of us find ourselves getting distracted in the middle of a task in order to check email, check social media, or check slack. Or worse, we're not present with the people who matter most with our spouse's partners,

children, with our parents and grandparents, because when we're in their company, we're busy checking those things. We're busy checking email and slack. Multitasking doesn't work. It takes mental energy to shift between tasks. And sometimes this mental energy comes at a great cost. If someone interrupts you while you're working, doesn't it take a while for you to get back into the swing of things

after that conversation is over? Absolutely. I think if we reflect on times that we've been interrupted, it's easy to see the time cost, the attention cost, that that interruption took, the toll that it took. And yet, even though it's easy to recognize that when others interrupt us, we still routinely interrupt ourselves. And we do this every time we attempt to multitask. Multitasking does not lead to extraordinary results.

In fact, research shows that when we multitask, we waste 28% of our time, which if you put that into context of a normal work week, you would waste 2.4 work days a week. You could literally get 100% of your workload done in 3.6 days if you did one thing at a time instead of everything at the same time. So what do we do about this? Well, we've covered this before on this show. But as Jeff said, go into deep work mode. Shut off your phone, close out your email, shut down any potential distractions, and block out time on your calendar so that you're not available for anything else.

If something comes up, ask yourself, is this actually a priority? Is it actually urgent? And what would happen if I didn't tackle it right now? Would things fall apart if I was unreachable for an hour? We're not talking about being unreachable for a month. We're talking about, can this wait 30 minutes? Can it wait an hour? If so, this will help you gain perspective. If you're worried about what others may think, explain to them why you're doing these things and how it will also be a win for the other person. Invite them to help you achieve your one thing. That is key takeaway number two. Focus on a one thing at a time.

Key takeaway number three, forget discipline and willpower. Instead, build habits. Discipline is great when we have it, but it isn't reliable 100% of the time, particularly when we have a lot on our plate, as you probably discovered during the pandemic. Willpower is also unreliable, particularly if you can't focus on your one thing at a time in which your willpower is at its highest. So if you try to combine willpower with discipline, you may find that you're actually spinning your wheels and getting nowhere. That's where habits come into play.

Habits are automatic. You don't need to rely on anything when something is a habit. It happens without demanding a cognitive load. For example, when I sit in the driver's seat of my car, I put my key in the ignition. That's a habit. There's a cue or a trigger, which is sitting in the driver's seat. And then the automatic next step is to put the key in the ignition. There's no thought around it.

I don't have a checklist and I don't have to motivate or discipline or willpower myself into putting the key in the ignition once I've sat in the driver's seat. It's so automated that it is almost reflexive. Similarly, when I pick up my toothbrush, I immediately pick up a tube of toothpaste and put the toothpaste on the toothbrush. I don't have a checklist. I don't wonder what I should do next because the habit has turned this into something that happens automatically.

That's the power of habits. Habits allow you to get more done by virtue of stringing cues and responses together to such an extent that discipline and willpower no longer have to be involved. The opportunity is to leverage your discipline to form habits. And my favorite quote in the one thing is from FM Alexander. He said, people do not decide their futures. They decide their habits. And their habits decide their futures.

When it comes to willpower, working longer hours is cheating. You could work way more than you need to. But if you're working on the wrong thing, it's not going to matter. That classic work smarter, not harder argument. Work on the system rather than in the system. And when it comes to managing yourself, working on the system means working on building your habits. Because ultimately, if we no longer need to rely on discipline because our actions are

automatic, that means we don't need to think about taking an action because it simply happens. And that frees up resources to dedicate to something else. So in the same way that a business owner works on the systems and processes of his or her business, rather than working inside the business, you yourself work on building habits so that you create the guiding or governing structure from which all else flows. And so that is key takeaway number three. Forget discipline, build habits.

Key takeaway number four. Accept that you can't have it all. Balance is a myth. And I saw something on social media. I saw it just today. It was posted by an Instagram platform that I follow called The Angry Therapist. And he posted, do you want to be well-rounded? Or do you want to sharpen your edge?

I'm paraphrasing, but I love that phrasing, that paraphrasing of it. Because in order to succeed, you need an edge. You need an edge in business. You need an edge as an investor. And if you try to be very well-rounded, you, by definition, lose that edge. The truth is that we can only handle or focus on so many things at a time. And so if there is a season in your life that you really need to, hyper focus on something, you really need to hyper focus on growing your business, then it might

be that other things take a back seat. In order to stay in balance, you don't try to do everything all at once. Instead, you put everything else on maintenance mode, focus on one area, make hyper progress in that one area, and once that's done, you then put that area on maintenance mode and hyper-focused on a different area. So you will have essentially seasons in your life in which you are very focused on business or very focused on health or very focused on relationships.

There are different seasons in life for each of these. There's no such thing as a balanced life. If I asked you to stand on one foot and if you actually did it, I would ask, are you balanced or are you balancing? Balanced is a result. Balancing is an action. It's a constant state of balancing

between your professional and your personal life. And they're not equal. It's not going to be perfectly balanced. Be out of balance at work. Dedicate your time to the most important things and fit the rest in the margins. And when it comes to that work-life balance, do sprints. If you're going hard at work,

schedule in time for play after you've wrapped up a project. And likewise, if you've decided that you're going to do a sprint on play or rest, do that. and dedicate everything to that. During that season, make rest or relaxation or recovery unapologetically the focus. That's how you take a seasonal approach or a sprint-like approach, in which you can focus unrelentingly at the one thing at hand rather than pulling yourself in five different directions at the same time.

And so that is key takeaway number four. Key takeaway number five, think big. We've heard this echoed from a few guests like Ash Amberjay, who was a previous guest on this podcast. Many of our guests have mentioned that we are conditioned to think small, to stay small, and to silence our hopes and our dreams. We're told not to dream big or shoot from the stars. It might be risky. But if we don't, we settle for mediocrity. It's far better to think bigger and cast fear aside, but of course that's easier said than done.

I think there are people that when they set goals, they set goals that are within their comfort zone or skill set goals and they set goals that are doable. That's ordinary. And then you have some people who are high achievers that will stretch it. They'll go to the outer edge of their comfort zone, the outer edge of their skill set and they'll push it, right? They set stretch goals. Yet setting stretch goals is still pretty ordinary among high achievers. Yet when you cross the line into the realm of extraordinary, it's so far out there that it's beyond what most people can even comprehend. The purpose of a goal is to be appropriate in the moment. The point is not to achieve the goal. The goal is a compass to guide you toward who you want to be in order to earn the right to achieve that goal. Again, I'll repeat that. The purpose of a goal is not to achieve a given result. The purpose of a goal is to guide you to crafting yourself into the person that you want

to be. it is a compass that points you towards becoming a more ideal version of yourself as you define it. And once you become that better version of yourself, you then are more likely to achieve the result that you want. And so that is how we think big. That is how we set big goals. It is not by hyper-focusing on the result, but rather focusing on who we need to become in order to increase the likelihood of getting that result.

That is key takeaway number five. And finally, key takeaway number six, figure out your one thing. We've talked about a lot of ideas. It's time to put all of this together to synthesize this. Figure out the one thing that you want to focus on, maybe for this first quarter of 2021 or maybe for the rest of the year. Think of the seven circles that Jeff mentioned. Finances, spiritual life, physical health, job, business, relationships, and personal life.

which of those seven circles do you want to choose? Remember to identify the lead domino and then go smaller, as Jeff outlined in this example. We need to go smaller. What's the one thing you can do that would make exercising five days a week easier or unnecessary? I'd have to get up earlier. Okay, well, how would you know if you're successful? I'd be up by 5.30. What's the one thing you can do that would make waking up at 5.30 easier?

Well, I'd have to go to bed earlier. Okay, how would you know if you're successful? I'd be in bed by 10 p.m. Well, what's the one thing you could do that would make doing that easier? I'd have to turn off the TV by 9 p.m. The question is the one thing you can do, not the one thing that you feel like you should do. So what is the one thing that you can do

that identifies that lead domino and then tips that lead domino? Find your one thing. Focus there. Those are six key takeaways from this conversation with Jeff Woods. Thank you so much for tuning. in, my name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please share it with a friend or a family member. That's the single most important thing that you can do to promote these ideas around self-improvement and focus and habit development and personal

finance and financial independence. It is the single most powerful thing that you can do. Share it with the people that you love. So please share this episode with someone that you know who you think would enjoy it, who you think would benefit from it. Make sure that you hit subscribe or follow in whatever app you're using to listen to this podcast so that you don't miss any of our other awesome upcoming episodes. Thank you again for tuning in. My name is Paula Pant. This is the Afford Anything podcast, and I'll catch you in the next episode.