The School of Greatness - 114 How to Boost Your Productivity by Procrastinating with Rory Vaden

Episode Date: December 11, 2014

"Time management is no longer just logical; it's emotional." - Rory Vaden If you enjoyed this interview, check out show notes and pick up Rory's new book at www.lewishowes.com/podcast/rory-vaden.

This is episode number 114 with New York Times bestselling author Rory Vaden. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast.

My name is Lewis Howes. Very excited about today's guest. He is a new friend of mine that I just got introduced to. I'd actually never heard about Rory until just recently. And he is a New York Times bestselling author of a book called Take the Stairs. He's also a self-disciplined strategist and the co-founder of the international training company Southwestern Consulting. He's also an expert on increasing self-discipline, overcoming procrastination, and enhancing productivity.

And we talk a lot about that in today's episode. And my podcast editor was actually like, this was incredible. I love this interview. I love this information. This was like really helpful for me in my life. So I hope you guys get as just much out of this as well. It's all about the five permissions on how to multiply your time and really how to leverage, automate, delegate and multiply your time. So we're talking about how

to procrastinate on purpose today. So let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about introducing you to someone new today. His name is Rory Vaden. I say Vaden, right? Is that how you say it? That's it. Rory Vaden. And I never heard about you, Rory.

We just had a good little conversation before now, and it's been fun to connect. We have a lot of similarities. And never heard about you until I got a message from, I think it was you or someone on your team about your book. And doing more research on you, I was just like, wow, this guy is actually pretty interesting. And I get a lot of people submitting me to be on the show, so I'm excited to connect more and dive in. You've got a book out called Procrastinate on Purpose, Five Permissions to Multiply Your Time. And before we dive into that, I want to talk about your near victory of being the world champion in public speaking. Oh, we'll come up with it. Start with the easy stuff there. The deepest pain ever.

Yeah, you got run. Is this what is true? You got runner up or was it a top three or something? Yeah, it's Toastmasters International. They do a contest called the World Championship of Public Speaking. And it's, you know, 25,000 contestants compete from like 100 countries over nine months. And it was basically my life for two years when I was trying to start my speaking career. And the first year I made it in 2006 to the top 10, and I lost.

And then the second year in 2007, I studied harder, got more coaching, went all the way back to the finals, had my whole family there, thousands of people. And that was the year that I lost again, but I lost higher. Um, I came in second, second in the world, but it was, it was all, it's all good. Now. I remember I was in Toastmasters, I think it was 2007, 2008. So this was like right around the same time that you were doing it. I was just kind of like getting started and you were already a pro. So what was that like? I remember there was a guy who was like a bald guy. I forget his name, like a short bald guy who would win. Yes. And I remember like he came to like our Toastmasters. He was like doing the rounds, talking about his book and trying to like,

I don't know, show us what it was all about. And he had won like, I don't know, in 1999 or 2001 or something. I forget. And he was like the legend in Toastmasters or something when I was like going through it originally. And I remember being like, oh, that'd be so cool to be the world champion of public speaking one day. And after seeing, you know, I talk about Toastmasters every now and then on the show.

And after seeing that you were in the championships, I was like, it sparked my interest again to get back into it. So I think I might put that as like a vision of mine here in the future sometime. Just to experience it. Whether I win or not, it's like the process and the journey I think would be incredible. It is incredible. Darren was one of my mentors still. Wow.

One of my mentors and great guy. Toastmasters, incredible organization. And you really develop and learn a lot. Yeah. Now, you do speaking constantly now. And before we dive into your book, I just want to hear some tips on what it takes to captivate an audience. You've done so much training, so much intense, detailed training as well through this process with Toastmasters

and of course, taking it out on the road and getting paid big bucks for it. So what are like some maybe three or four lessons that everyone needs to be applying when they speak, either preparing or during or whatever it may be to make sure that it's something that people will never forget? You are so going off script right now. You weren't expecting these. So here's the thing. Actually, I think I can boil that down to one.

Wow, okay. The one greatest speaking lesson that I have learned. And here's how it kind of comes about. So many of us are nervous when we're about to go on stage. And what am I going to say? And are they going to like me? Are they going to think I'm funny? And am I going to be stupid?

Am I going to mess up? All this stuff. And I don't know. There's a saying that we say all the time around Southwestern. We say it's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service. When your heart's on service? On service. It's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service. When your heart's on service? On service. It's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service.

Ooh, I like that one. We're going to link that up as a tweetable. I like that. Tweetable. Yes, definitely. And here's what I do now every time is before I go on stage or I'm backstage or whatever, I'm looking out at the audience. I pick out like one person in the audience. And instead of thinking about what am I going to say and rehearsing my speech

and yada, yada, I look at the person and I think to myself, I go, what would life be like to be that person? Like, what is that? What is that woman over there? You know, what is she struggling with? Like, is it divorce? Is it, you know, health issues? It's some financial issue. And I literally just like, I just pick three or four people out of the room. It depends on how much time and where I'm at and who I can see. And I, I just try to think about what that person, what it would be like to be that person. And it, it gets me so out of the, the nervousness and so focused on, on, on just serving that person. And just what could I say that would, would encourage that person or inspire them or help them in their life? And I'm telling you that changed everything. And in fact, I know you're writing your book right now, which is

awesome. I can't wait for it to come out. Um, the same, uh, it took me a while to figure this out because I was a much better speaker than that. I sucked as a writer. It took me a longer time to learn. I'd be a good writer, but I do the same thing with writing. You know, one day, um, with, with take the stairs with the first book, uh, I don't even know if I should be saying this. There's a lot of people listen to this show, but there, I had a fight with a family member and I had been writing for a couple of weeks and everything I was writing, it, it sucked. I mean, it didn't suck. It just, it sounded so generic. It was so like every other inspirational book you ever read, just, you know, blah, blah, blah. And one day I had a fight with somebody that I really love. And I was so mad that afterwards,

I sat down and I wrote at this person. And I wrote to this one person, everything that I wanted to say that I didn't have the guts to say that, like, I did not have the courage to tell them directly. And I went back and read and I was like, Oh my gosh, amazing. And so I started the whole book over and that's what I do. So now when every single blog post that I write or every chapter in one of the books, I pick out one person in my life and I write to them. And same thing with speaking. I'm thinking of one person. And that's my biggest secret. It's totally off the cuff here.

I like it. You're out of bounds. I like it. That's interesting you say that because a friend of mine named Phil Town,, who's a number one New York Times bestseller as well. I got to actually get him on my show. I haven't talked to him in a while, so I'm going to get him on my show. But I had him come speak to a little mastermind that I was hosting a few years ago, probably four years ago. And he speaks in front of like 30,000 people at these huge mega events.

Oh, yeah. I know him. They bring him in, right? And he's like with Colin Powell and like presidents and stuff, like speaking. Yeah. And I said,. And he's with Colin Powell and presidents and stuff speaking. And I said, what's your number one tip? If you get nervous in front of 30,000 people, what do you do to get an outstanding ovation? And he said almost the same thing. He was like, when I get off track or I get nervous, what I do is I go to someone close to the stage and I focus on just one person and I speak just to into that person's feelings, their hearts, their desires. And I speak into what I'm, what I'm seeing in them in that moment. And I just connect with one person until I feel like

I'm back on track and then I can address the whole audience. And, uh, you know, it's kind of similar to what you're saying is to like speak to one person and focus on that one person but not be looking at them the whole time, obviously, but be speaking to them. So I really like that tip. That's very cool. Awesome. Well, okay, let's dive into this procrastinate on purpose because it's an interesting concept. And you talk about the five permissions to multiply your time. I want to know about why we should procrastinate on purpose

and what does that actually mean first off? Well, procrastinate on purpose is actually one of the five permissions. So even though it's the title of the book, it's really one fifth of the strategy that is laid out. The concept of procrastinate on purpose is basically learning to put off the things that don't matter so that you can focus on the things that do. It's giving yourself the permission to say no and sort of protect yourself. But, you know, we think of procrastination as a bad thing and it is something that will hinder you from your goals. And Take the Stairs, the Take the Stairs book, is all about the psychology of overcoming procrastination and proving self-discipline. And sometimes people say, so wait a minute, your first book is all about getting rid of procrastination and now you're telling us to procrastinate on purpose.

What's the deal there? And here's the way that works. Inaction that results from indulgence is procrastination. What do you mean by indulgence? Like knowing that you should work out but not feeling like it and saying, okay, I'm going to indulge that feeling. I'm not going to work out. Or knowing you should make that sales call and you're sitting there and you're looking at the phone and you're like, oh, maybe now is not a right to not the good time. Last time they blew me off. Gosh, their secretary was kind of mean. You know, like knowing what you should do and not doing it because you're scared or because there's this emotion, this indulgence is procrastination. But inaction that results from

intention is patience. Deciding that, you know, I'm talking to Louis, so I'm not going to be checking Facebook right now. Like deciding that I am working on a project, so I'm going to ignore that incoming phone call. Like deciding that today is a critical day that I've got to get this stuff done, so organizing my desk is going to have to wait. It's taking that procrastination ability that we have is sort of putting it to the positive use. And that's what people get mixed up is waiting to do something when you know you should be doing it, but you don't feel like it. That's procrastination. That's the most expensive invisible cost in business today. But waiting because you're deciding that now is not the right time, that is patience.

And that is one quiver, it's one arrow in the quiver of the skills that multipliers really use. They actually use it to their advantage. I like that. Now, there's lots of books out there on productivity. There's getting things done, there's, there's a ton of different systems and strategies and thought process on this. But why is, you know, why is this different? Why is procrastinating on purpose, different and unlike all the other things out there that people know about productivity? Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the opening line of the book is everything you know about time management is wrong. And it's probably a more accurate way to say it would be to say it's incomplete. It ignores a certain discussion.

And here's the number one biggest difference. Everything that you read on time management has to do with logic. It's about calendars and checklists. It's tools and technology, apps. It's about calendars and checklists. It's tools and technology apps. It's all these little tricks to save time, right? It's like, you should do this, do that. And, and, um, you know, planning out your week and put a letter by the most important priority. And it's all logical. Well, the way that happened to me, Lewis is that, uh, you know, one day I was with my business partner, Dustin, and it was Saturday,

and we were having a leadership planning retreat, and we had people literally from Southwestern Consulting flying in from around the world. And this was the only day that we could meet and plan out. And so we're at Dustin's house early in the morning, and his little two-year-old baby girl, Haven, comes running down the hallway as we're leaving the house. And she grabs onto his leg, and she's like, Daddy, know, where are you going? And he's like, oh, you know, baby Haven, I, I gotta go to work today. And she looks up at him and her little,

little, you know, cute brown girly hair and her little soft eyes. And she, you know, got a little Southern Nashville accents where we live. And she goes, she's like, no daddy, sense where we live. And she goes, she's like, no, daddy, no, no work, no work. And I was, and it broke my heart. It was like, she had these tears in her eyes. And, and I realized two things in that moment. The first was that I'm not ready to have kids just yet. Amen, brother. The second one though, is that time management today is no longer just logical. It's emotional. And the feelings of how we manage our guilt and our anxiety and our fear and our worry and our desire to feel important and our desire to feel valued and to feel successful,

our emotions dictate how we choose to spend our time as much as anything, as much as the calendar, but nobody ever talks about the human element of managing our emotions. And so that's where the, the five permissions part of the book comes in. Procrastinate on purpose is, is really about the emotional side of, of productivity. Yeah. Because what's the point of, you know, being productive, you're still spending 15 hours a day being productive in your business and not, uh, you know, expressing your feelings with loved ones and having a life outside of working. Right. Absolutely. And here's the thing too. It's not one or the other. Um, it's both and it's, it's all about the right time. Um,

and, and it's, it's about, but it's about how do you determine what is, as we say in the book, what is the next most significant priority and when is the right time? If you're deciding, there are times, and Take the Stairs, we call them seasons. There are times where you have to imbalance your life to create a desired result. A book launch is a great example. Launching a business is a great example. There's times where you have to imbalance, which is another one of the things that's so screwed up about time management. Everyone's about balance, but it's successful people have an opposite view where they basically imbalance for a surge of energy at one time, right? Bingo. So it's about deciding when is the right time. And if now is not the

right time to do something, then you are intentionally delaying it. And that is procrastinate on purpose. And that ties into the focus funnel, which is sort of the visual depiction of the thought process that multipliers go through, which is kind of a centerpiece of the book. Yeah. Can we talk about the focus funnel? And can you walk us through the different parts of it? Yeah, sure. So here's the first thing. You know, the subtitle, Five Permissions to Multiply Your Time. So just before we kind of dive into the focus funnel. Sure. You know, there is that question, like, how do you multiply time? Like, how is that possible? Like, isn't that, you know, sort of crazy? Well, in one sentence, here it is. You multiply your time by giving yourself the emotional permission

to spend time on things today that give you more time tomorrow. Can you give an example? Yeah. So, uh, here's a good example, just like a little simple one. If I asked you, Louis, I said, Hey, Hey, do you, do you have three hours open extra time in your day to day to set up like online bill pay? You know, you have just three hours wide open. No, no, I definitely don't. You know, I'm pretty sure not.

I'm pretty sure I've not had a conversation in the last five years where somebody wasn't telling me, oh, I'm so busy. I'm just so busy. Life is busy. I'm just so busy. Life is busy. I'm just begging for someone to go, you know what? I'm bored out of my mind. All I have is time. No, we're all freaking busy. Well, what most of us would do is we operate with sort of outdated modes or paradigms of thinking as it relates to productivity. And the first one, the generation one time management was all about efficiency. Do things faster, right?

So it's like, okay, well, I'm going to just pay my bills real fast, and that's going to be my strategy. And there's nothing wrong with efficiency. All things being equal, efficiency is good. But efficiency has a point of diminishing returns that it's not going to – you can only be so efficient. I mean, gosh, we have computers in our pockets, all of us, and yet we're all behind, all right? So efficiency is – it's like we're there. It's maxed.

Some people then in 1989, the world kind of – seven habits of highly effective people, it all came about prioritizing your time. And it's all about scoring your activities, which ones are urgent and which ones are important, and then I'm going to prioritize the ones that are urgent and important or really important, et cetera. And that's all good. Prioritizing is valuable, but here's the thing, Lewis, it finally hit me. There's nothing about prioritizing that creates more time. All prioritizing does is take item number seven on your to-do list

and bump it up to number one. You still have 10 more things to do on your to-do list. Exactly. And it doesn't create more time. It's more like you're borrowing time. You're borrowing time from items number, you know, the other 10 items to focus on this one. So, and when you really start to look at how do people create these explosive results in the same amount of time as everyone else? Well, they're multipliers. So they give themselves the permission to spend time on things today that give them more time tomorrow. It's an investment of time, literally a calculable investment just like you would invest money where I go, okay, if I spend two hours today setting up my online bill pay, I don't have that time. But if I give myself the permission to spend that time,

and it saves me 30 minutes a month, every month moving forward, then after month four, I have broken even. And every day thereafter, I am getting, and this is a concept in the book, a ROTI, return on time invested. And technology, online marketing systems, we use Infusionsoft and we love it. And Infusionsoft was, it took me six months to build the thing. It was so hard and so painful. But man, we have thousands of moving parts of our business automated, thousands of internal pieces of communication and online marketing funnels that are completely automated. And it works 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I've gotten every single second back plus a bunch. And that just keeps

growing and growing and growing. And so what multipliers are doing is they are making what we call the significance calculation. It's not just importance and it's not just urgency. Importance is how much does this matter, okay? Urgency is how soon does this matter and urgency is a part of the importance calculation. If it matters now, you know, if it's a fire, it makes it more important. But significance is the invisible, unconscious third sort of dimension or the third calculation that multipliers make that not everybody else does. Most of us fall victim to whatever is latest and loudest. We're constantly pulled in. Priority dilution is the phrase that we use to take the stairs.

pulled in priority dilution is the phrase that we use to take stairs. It's the new type of procrastination that affects not the lazy person, but the chronic overachiever who just has a lot going on. And so they get pulled to the urgent, but multipliers, right? I mean, the people that you hear about, the Richard Branson's of the world, right? It's like they're spending time on things now and they make that significance calculation realizing, you know what? This may not be the most urgent or important thing necessarily to set up to use my time today. But I know if I do this thing now today, this is going to set a path in motion that I'm going to get a return on that investment forever. And that becomes the highest weighted part of the calculation. Instead of living urgent, they focus more on living significant and not how soon does this matter, but for how long is this going to matter? And that's significance.

Interesting. Wow. I love it. I'm looking at the funnel actually right now. And you talk about eliminating things, right? Yeah. Yeah. As opposed to just moving something up the list to prioritize what's the most important and then having the rest of the list still, does that mean eliminating the list all together and just prioritizing on three things and then eliminating the rest? Or what does that exactly mean? Okay. So the focus funnel, which are all connected to the five permissions, each one of these strategies

represents a way to multiply time. And so you can see it, but since people are listening, it's eliminate, automate, delegate, concentrate, and then procrastinate on purpose, which is where the title of the book comes from. So if the way eliminate works is if I eliminate something today, that creates more time tomorrow. If I say no to something today, then it saves me time tomorrow that I would be spending on something I didn't really want to do, but I said yes to it because I felt guilty or I was afraid to tell the person no. Eliminate, in my opinion, is where we have the widest swath of room for improvement. Most of us are doing so many things that we just should stop doing. There's just things that we do out of guilt. Like we get voluntold for things.

And a lot of it comes from the permission to ignore. That's the permission that goes with eliminate. And it's realizing, for me it was hard though because I'm a people pleaser, I am. And so I hate telling people no and I'm trying to go through life no without saying no to people. And then one day, Lewis,

one of our clients kind of slapped me in the face. This guy's a multiplier and he goes, you have to realize it's impossible to go through life without saying no. You're always saying no to something. You're either saying no. Someone else or to yourself. Right. Like by any time you're saying yes to one thing, you simultaneously are saying no to an infinite number of others.

Yeah. are saying no to an infinite number of others. And so you're either consciously saying no to what doesn't matter, or you end up accidentally saying no to the things that do matter. And so that's where part of, that's part of the insight that brings you to the permission to ignore the permission to say no, or what we call in the focus funnel, eliminate. Why is it so hard for individuals to eliminate things from our life and calendar? You know, why is it hard for us to have an empty calendar or to have, you know, not a full calendar, let's say? Well, I think there's a glorification of busyness.

And it just kind of one of the things that I write about in the very first chapter, we talk about everything that I think it's called what you thought you knew about time management. everything that I think it's called what you thought you knew about time management. And here's one of the things I'm kind of embarrassed to admit. I got a weird, almost, not almost, let's just call it a weird, sick sense of importance from telling people how busy I was. Why is that? Why do we have that? I mean, we all just, we want to feel important and, and we're all busy. And so we, we sometimes do it. You know, I used to have my auto responder on and tell people, Hey, thanks for your email. I'll get back to you, blah, blah, blah. And it's

just like, and one of my buddies was just like, dude, that just feels like a big, you know, F you right in your face. Like I'm more important than you are. I'm busy on you. And, and you know, the, the multipliers of the world, the ones that really are making it happen, they don't ever seem to complain about being busy. They seem to have a level of peace and perspective, and it makes all the sense in the world to me now because multipliers don't live in only the world of what's happening today.

They make the significance calculation. They are constantly thinking longer term while the rest of us are sucked into the stress and the frustration and the urgency of what is happening now. You know, and I just, we all have that desire to feel important and it's easy to be busy just being busy. And it makes me feel like, gosh, you know, I'm so important. I got a lot of going on. Look at all the people who need my attention. And it happens at a total subconscious level. So, you know, as you move through the funnel and you get into the other things, it's all about how can I spend my time today that creates more time tomorrow and making that a heavy part of the calculation. Right.

And that's, you know, that's a lot of it's about automating your processes and automating the things that you don't need to be doing yourself every single time. And can you talk about, you know, you have a pretty powerful lesson that you learned in the automate chapter. Can you share what that lesson is? Yeah. So this is fascinating. It's funny. A lot of this stuff, I don't really learn until I'm writing it and it comes out and it hits me. Here's a story. Do you know who Darren Hardy is? Oh, yeah. Success Magazine.

Yeah. Yeah. Darren is one of my favorite guys, you know, mentor for sure. You know, one of the wealthier people I probably know personally, like have a real relationship with. One day, Darren and I are sitting at Starbucks and out in Cardiff, you know, that close to where he lives. And I ask him, you know, hey, Darren, what do you think is the biggest difference between rich people and everybody else?

And he launches into this story about three different types of people and how they might walk into a coffee shop and buy coffee. And the first person walks in and they say, do I want the coffee? And if the answer is yes, you know, let's say this person is a representative of more of like a lower middle class kind of mindset. They're completely governed by impulses and they say, I'll do whatever it takes to get the coffee. So they'll beg for it. They'll borrow it. They'll steal it. They'll put on credit card because they're just governed by the short term impulse. Most people say, you know, they say, do I want the coffee? Yes. And the question is, do I have $5? And you

go, okay, that seems like a fair question. And it is. And that's how most of us think is, well, I want the coffee. Do I have five bucks? If I do, I get the coffee. If I don't, I don't get the coffee. But what he was saying is rich, wealthy people, just financial money, a wealthy person makes a different calculation. They realize that if I spend $5 on this coffee today, that's $5 I'm not spending on an investment, either into a business that I have or into real estate or into my own personal development in coaching, which is something that successful people take very seriously. So basically, I said, well, that's opportunity cost. And he said, exactly. But then he said, what a wealthy person realizes is that $5 invested at, let's say, 10% for 30 years would be worth about $50. So the wealthy person doesn't ask themselves, what do I have to do to get the coffee?

And they also don't say, do I have $5? I have to do to get the coffee? And they also don't say, do I have $5? The calculation they make is they say, is this $5 coffee worth $50 to me 30 years from now? What? I mean, that's crazy. I never heard anything like that. And so, you know, he's talking about the power of compounding interest, right? And that's something we've all heard. So here's what finally occurred to me. Automation is to your time exactly what compounding interest is to your money. Wow. Anything you create a process for or a system for today saves you time tomorrow. And something like Infusionsoft, for example, for us, when we set it up, now every day it's completely on autopilot.

Just like compounding interest is working to make your money makes more money. That's how automation works. The time you put into the system creates more time and more time and more time, and it multiplies. And that's a concept that only makes sense if you make the significance calculation, and most people don't. But multipliers, people like Darren, they live in that world where they're going, is this $5 coffee worth $50 to me 30 years from now? Is it worth a couple hours here because it's going to save me 1,000 hours over the long term? But most of us don't live that way. We wake up and we go,

oh my gosh, text message coming in, emails coming in, voicemails, fire, urgent meeting, conference, and it's priority dilution. Wow. Fascinating. I like that. I just interviewed Tony Robbins about his new new book and he talks a lot about the power of compounding uh so it's very relevant right now for me very cool well you talk about delegating next as part of your funnel and um can you talk about the emotional dynamics that are related to delegating yeah a lot of people that they don't even realize that the real issue they have with delegating is an emotional one. It's really about perfection. You know, if guilt is the thing that you're fighting when it comes to eliminate and saying no, perfection is really the feeling that you're fighting.

Because we all have this this thing right like like if you ask the average small business owner and you said look are there things that you're doing today that somebody else could be doing for you that someone else could be trained to do everything everything and then you say why then don't you teach them how to do it they would say one of two things the first one they might say is why i don't have the money to pay them? Well, in that case, they don't understand the return on time invested, which we just talked about. But the reality of what most of them would say is they would say, well, I'm just afraid that person won't be able to do it as well as I can.

Or they'll say, it's faster for me to just do it myself. And that is the reality. That's the story we tell ourselves. But look, it's only faster to do it yourself once. That is somebody absent the significance calculation. But if I realize that if I spend the time training that person and then every time after they get it done, 80% done by someone else is better than 100% done by me. done by someone else is better than 100% done by me. And over time, they're going to specialize in it and they're going to get to a place quickly where they can do it better than I could have because they're going to be more specialized. But it really comes down to the permission of the imperfect. And that's the permission that corresponds with the choice to delegate is you have to be willing to be okay with things just being okay because that's how you multiply your time. And we use something called the 30X rule. The 30X rule says, spend 30 times the amount of time training someone how to

do a task as it would take you to do it on your own. 30 times. 30 times, which is huge, right? That's a lot. It's a lot. You go, holy crap. So if it's a five-minute task, what the 30X rule would say is spend 150 minutes, two and a half hours. That's what you should be willing to invest to teach someone else to do it. And you go, that's crazy.

Why would I spend two and a half hours teaching someone how to do a task when I could do it in five minutes? And the reason is because of significance, because of the significance calculation, because here's how it works. Five minutes a day on a task, okay, say there's 250 working days in a year, that would be 1,250 minutes that you're spending on that task. Well, so then spending 250 minutes teaching somebody else, or excuse me, spending 150 minutes teaching somebody else how to do that, that's two and a half hours. It does seem ludicrous to spend that much time, but over the course of just one year, it would have taken you 1,250 to do it yourself, but instead you spent 150 training someone else. So you saved 1,100 minutes over the course of a year. That's like

a 730% return on time invested. And, and, and yet the, and the reason we don't do it though, is we go, we say, well, they won't be able to do it as well as I can, or it's not worth it. It's, and we're missing the permission of imperfect or, you know, the whole core portal, whole book is we're not, we're not multiplying our time because we're not calculating based on significance. We're only calculating on here and now. And that's why, you know, to-do lists are dangerous because to-do lists keep you focused only on today. I mean, how do you put your to-do list together? You ask yourself the question, what's the most important thing I got to do today?

Right. And what you should be asking is, what can I do today that will create more time tomorrow? Wow. Interesting. Man, that is a good concept. I love that. God, I had something on my mind that I wanted to ask you, and then that thought just blew my mind that it took me away from it. Sorry. It's all right. Man, what is it I wanted to ask you, then that thought just blew my mind that it took me away from it. Sorry. Man, what is it I wanted to ask you? This is going to bug me now. Go ahead.

Okay. You think about that and let me go on to the next step. Okay. So here's, if you picture a funnel, I know it's weird cause you're listening and you're like running right now or you're in your car or whatever. If you're, you picture the funnel at the top, you have eliminate, automate and delegate and all you have all your tasks and kind of, you're, you picture the funnel. At the top, you have eliminate, automate, and delegate. And you have all your tasks and kind of work to do and meetings and stuff coming in the top of the funnel. When it comes out the bottom of the funnel, now you know if it cannot be eliminated, automated, or delegated, now you know you have a task that must be done and it must be done by you. So, and this is great, right?

Only now are we talking about you doing something. Finally, you get to do something. Everything in this book is not about you doing more. It's not about trying to fit more in. It's not trying to work faster or be a better prioritizer. It's actually about you doing less, but accomplishing more by learning to be a multiplier. So when it comes out the bottom of the funnel, you ask yourself, can this wait until later? And if it cannot wait until later, then you concentrate. You give yourself the permission to protect. At that moment, you know you have a truly significant priority. It's something that you and only you can do must be done now.

So that is when you ignore everything like shut the door, stop the incoming calls. Right. So for example, if I've got 50 emails to reply to or 50 emails that came in of people asking me questions, it may not be urgent to get back to right now, but I've got a deadline on a product I'm launching or I've got an interview that I've got to do that I need to just wait until later to focus on the things that aren't as urgent and focus on put my attention and urgency on what is important is that what you're mentioning yeah yeah well yeah yeah that's the the you're concentrating on the thing that is significant and urgent and it's significant and urgent and important you, so it's high on

all three categories. Um, but you're, and then the other part of it is you're procrastinating on purpose on the emails and the questions and the other things. Gotcha. That makes sense. You're not trying to do both at the same time, right? Like again, multitasking does not work, right? Complete freaking myth, balance, complete freaking myth. To-do list, you know, I still use a to-do list, but it's dangerous because it causes me to think in terms of today. So now I have to go, what's the most important thing I can do? You know, how can I use my time today to create more time tomorrow? And then whatever that is, I add it to my to-do list.

So, you know, you could still do it. Like I still have to prioritize those activities. But here's the thing. The part about this, it's not so much what you do or you don't do. It's about how you think. Like successful people think differently. And that's the part. Like you're still going to do emails, right?

And when you procrastinate on purpose long enough, your emails will pile up enough to a point to where you ask that question, can this wait till later? The answer won't be yes. The answer will be no. And that's when you're going to sit down and answer all your emails. It's like batching. You're doing them all at once. But then you're concentrating on just email. You're protecting your focus. And usually I work offline so that none of the new emails come in. So you're just not having a text message conversation back and forth via email then. Yeah. You get like the email tennis going. Yes.

Exactly. This is cool. Okay. I remembered what I was going to say. Okay. So perfectionism. Why are so many people focused on having it their way and being perfect when there really is no perfect and they'll never achieve perfection? Well, I mean, it's because they don't, I think

it's because they don't know. I mean, psychologists say the number one cause of all real procrastination is self-criticism. It's thinking I won't be good enough. It won't work out. It's, you know, and so when it comes to delegating, it's, it's even harder because it's like, I already have enough self doubt about me going, it's not going to be good enough. Now I'm relinquishing even more control to turn it over to somebody else. And my reputation is the one that's on the line. But you, you know, that's where you have to, but, but multipliers, successful people think differently. They know that success is messy. And that's part of the process. You screw up and that's how you figure it out.

It's like, you know, 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb work. And that's how you figure it out. But most of us haven't given ourselves that permission. And that's where the emotional element of this is just so critical. Until you can give yourself the permission, you're going to constantly be chasing down other people's priorities. You're going to be chasing invisible finish lines. You're going to be chasing things that you think will bring you peace and that just make you busier. I like that. Yeah. And you give a great example of Richard Branson. I mean, I've, uh, I've had opportunity to, you know, see him speak a number

of times and it just seems like he's always relaxed and he probably is busy, has more companies and things happening, investment deals, foundations than anyone else. And he seems like he's the most relaxed person out of successful people because it seems like he's really learned how to multiply his time, delegate, automate things, hire the right people to train and allow them to and empower them to take it on themselves. So I like this example here. Here's the other thing, and this isn't in the book, but just as you were talking about Richard

Branson, it occurred to me. Any challenge, like let's say if you were driving home today, Lewis, and you had a flat tire, right? And tonight at dinner, you know, whatever, somebody said, how was your day? You would probably tell them about the flat tire, right? Cause it's like a flat tire is a pretty big event in the course of things that would normally happen in today. But if, you know, say it's many years from now and it's like, I'm on my deathbed or whatever. And somebody says, you know, tell me about your life. Do you think that in that moment you would tell them about the flat tire? No, no, you wouldn't. You wouldn't even remember the flat tire.

I mean, two weeks later, you totally forgot about a flat tire. Cause a flat tire is a, is a big event in relation to our day, but it's small in related in relation to our lifespan. And, and so here's the thing problems, any problem in relation to today is a big problem. But any problem in relation to our lifespan is a small problem. And any problem in relation to eternity is no problem. Jenkins calculation. That's why you can be Richard Branson and have a bunch of customers that are pissed off at you, a bunch of businesses that need difficult decisions made, a bunch of money that's on the line. You can lose millions of dollars every day in the stock market, and you can be sitting back totally chill, hanging out on stage with Lewis in the audience. Right. Yeah, exactly. I like that. Good way to think about it. Got a couple questions left for you.

Okay. I'm going to wrap things up here, but this is not about the book. One of my questions is, what are you most grateful for recently, Rory? Oh, wow. So every single day when I wake up, I just cannot help but thank God for my amazing wife. I mean, my wife is incredible. And we work together, you know, we started the business together and people are like, isn't that, you know, isn't that hard to work with your wife? And I go, I can't imagine it any other way,

you know, to get to have a woman that believes in me and we work alongside each other and to get to see your spouse perform in a professional setting. I think she's amazing. She dominates the room and she speaks. And, you know, we've got some of our consulting clients are huge, you know, fortune 500 companies. And, you know, they ask us not to share their name too often in the public, but I mean, you're talking like big time companies and their CEOs and they don't make decisions without talking to her. And I just think it's amazing who she is and how she supports me. And she gets everything done. And so I'd have to save my wife. Very cool.

What's your wife's name, Rory? Amanda, AJ. She goes by AJ. Amanda Johns-Vaden. And she's a- Big shout out to AJ. Yeah. Okay, cool.

Final question. Before I ask the final question, which is what I ask everyone at the end, I want to acknowledge you, Rory, for your commitment to supporting so many people in taking their lives to the next level, whether it be teaching them how to take action in your previous book, whether it be sales training, and now currently how to be productive and how to eliminate, automate, and delegate your time and energy so that you can multiply your time. I think this is really powerful information and I want to acknowledge you for the service that you provide to the world.

So thank you for all that you do. To go into the final question, to close up the interview, it's what is your definition of greatness? Well, there's something in the Take the Stairs book called the rent axiom. And the rent axiom says this, that success is never owned. Success is only rented. And the rent is due every day. Um, and to me, you know, that's, that really speaks a lot to my definition of greatness is just that you, you, you keep, you, you embrace the idea that this, these principles, they're not, they're not quick

fixes. They're not diet plans to get you to a point that this is an ongoing journey of you're always getting better and that you take pride in being willing, no matter how big you get, to do the things it takes to be successful. And you never become an escalator person who's just made it and you're just drifting along. You're doing what it takes. And it's the small, seemingly insignificant choices that you make each and every day, which is where take the stairs as a metaphor comes from. And so for me, it's just embracing that idea that success is never owned. It is only rented and the rent is due every day. Rory Vaden, I appreciate him in my end and I'll make sure to have everything linked up in the show notes for your book and everything we've

talked about. But thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom. Oh, my brother, it's a pleasure. And thank you for what you do. I'm, I'm inspired and odd and impressed by you. And I'm wanting to learn from you. And I just, you're what you do makes it a huge, huge impact in the world, Louis. So thanks. Thanks for the honor of having me, buddy. Thanks, Rory. There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this interview. I had a blast connecting with Rory and a lot of fun learning about his strategies. So if you enjoyed this, if you felt any part of it was useful

or helpful or a great little tip for you, please go back to the show notes at lewishouse.com slash 114 and share this with a friend. Feel free to email it to a friend, share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Again, if you found anything in this interview valuable, I would love it if you shared it with a friend via email or social media.

Also, leave a comment on the blog if you have some thoughts or some additional tips on how to be more productive with your time. I would love to hear your tips and your strategies. So leave a comment on the blog as well. I would love to hear your tips and your strategies. So leave a comment on the blog as well. And everything, you know, I'm seeing so many people tag me on Instagram lately with where they're listening to these interviews. So if you're an Instagram fan like I am, I love using Instagram.

If you're on there, make sure to follow me at Lewis Howes and tag me where you're listening to this episode or any episode in the future. Take a picture of you with the phone, if you can, if you have another camera, where are you at in the world? And then tag me with that location at Lewis Howes, hashtag School of Greatness. Would love to stay connected with all of you.

I reply to pretty much everyone I can there when they specifically talk about the podcast. So would love to stay connected with you there. And yeah, you guys are incredible. I am so pumped for all the great interviews that I have coming up in the new year. And we're at episode 114 right now. I can't wait to get to 200. There's gonna be so much juicy good stuff coming up in the next, you know, 85 episodes. So I'm very excited about this. Lots of great things happening. You guys are incredible. And

you make me smile so much when I'm able to hear from you guys and connect with you on these interviews and these messages. So thank you all so much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Outro Music