 Well, welcome to the show Jeff. We're so excited to have you. Thanks so much pleasure to be here. Now, of course, we're going to jump right in to what is the one thing? Could you give us a high level overview? Sure, sure. The one thing's the surprisingly simple truth behind extraordinary results. And really, we're talking about time. When you think about it guys, it's our most valuable resource. The problem is most people go through their days spending their time not investing it. And everything that we do is about helping people really wake up and ask the question, how do I actually invest my time with the expectation that it brings me a return in my personal life and in my professional life? And what have you learned about multitasking and how we can break free of splitting time over multiple tasks at once? Yeah, sure. So little backgrounds from my partners. I'm a co-founder of the training company behind the book. One of my partners is Gary Keller. He started Keller Williams, largest real estate company in the world. He's a self-made billionaire. And then his co-author Jay, who writes all his books with Gary, they invested five years putting the research and writing into what became the one thing, which is now a book and one of the highest rated business books of all time. One of the things that they came across that really surprised them in the research was that multitasking actually leads to us wasting 28% of our time, which to put that into context, if you work a normal 40-hour work week, that means you waste 1.4 workdays a week because you treat everything like it matters equally. And this is literally what we see. People show up to the office or now they're home office, they open their computer and AJ, what's the first thing they check? Email, notifications, yeah. Johnny, until they go to a... Whatever it is, the meeting, shower. Yep, exactly, right? You get out of the meeting, realize you got five minutes, so AJ, they check. Again, their email. And then somebody calls and says, hey, you got a minute? And they go through their day being so busy. You guys ever had one of those days where you looked up at the end of the day and you're like, oh, I was busy. Did I get anything done? And that's what's happening with the multitasking is we... I don't know at what age we decided to tell the world that I'm going to be responsive to every channel at every time because we're focusing on something that really matters. And then we hear the email ding and we have FOMO and we go, oh, I got to check that. And then our text message goes off, well, I got to check that. Then somebody says, hey, do you got a minute? And then the email dings and the anxiety builds and the more loose ends that we just... We leave out there, the less likely we are to ever come back and tie them up. And here's the point. We are not suggesting to you that all of a sudden you should pause this episode and never multitask for the rest of your life. I think that would be awesome, but I don't think it's realistic. The point is, if doing the most important thing is the most important thing, in that moment, give yourself permission to not do anything else. Well, it certainly comes back to a lot of Zen ideas and Buddhism ideas of focusing on the one thing, getting the most out of it, deriving whatever value you can and focusing on it so that you're giving it your full efforts. Well, I'm glad you mentioned FOMO because we had Patrick McGinnis on the show who coined the term and we talked a lot about now with COVID FOMO is sort of dissipating for people because there just aren't as many options to be missing out on. But still, it becomes very difficult to decide on that one thing and really prioritize it. What is the framework that we can work from to get down to that one thing and start wallowing ourselves off from this multitasking trap? Sure. Well, I'll share a story of how this hit me in my life and then I'll give you a real simple framework that anybody can put into practice immediately. When I co-founded this company, I was told there were three things I had to do exceptionally well or I was fired. That's, by the way, what we call a job description. The two to three things you have to do exceptionally well or you're fired, legitimately. And they were, I had to cast a vision for the business, I had to prove I could drive revenue, I had to create $100,000 in 90 days or I was fired, and I had to prove that I could recruit talent. So we go in order. Let's start with vision. I had to create what we call a GPS, a one-page business plan because it literally tells you how to get where you want to go. And I remember walking into the boardroom, it was Gary, Jay, myself. I hand each of them a copy of my GPS. This is a single sheet of paper. It's got a goal at the top. That's the G. It's got the three top priorities. That's the P and it had the supporting strategies. That's the S, GPS. We started talking about priority number one. AJ, I remember Gary asked a bunch of questions. I answered them and asked, are we good? And he said, yeah. So John, I started talking about number two. And about halfway through number two, Gary started asking more questions about number one. I remember thinking to myself, oh, he must have forgotten. I answered the questions, asked if we were good. He said, yeah. I went back to number two, finished it up, started talking about number three. Johnny, guess where he went? Back to number one. He started asking more questions about number one. Either you guys seen the, meet the parents. Yes. You know the circle of trust? Yeah. I was not in it. In that moment, I realized there is a reason he kept going back to number one, but I could not figure it out. So I did the best I could do. I answered the questions and asked, Gary, are we good? He said, yeah. I was talking about number three for about 10 seconds and then he stopped me a final time and he asked, Jeff, do you need to do number three in order to do number two? I said, no. He asked, do you need to do number two in order to do number one? I said, no. He said, you know what? Do me a favor, draw a line between number one and two. And he literally waited till I grabbed the Sharpie and drew a line across the business plan. And then he said, actually do me a favor, rip the page in half. Guys, I kid you not, he waited while I took the piece of paper and I tore 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 mastering number one. And where this came from is if we took a walk into his office, he has a piece of paper with Sharpie written on it that says, until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction. I'm actually wearing a t-shirt right now that if I took off my sport coat and showed you the back, it says that until my one thing is done, everything else is a distraction. It was in this moment that I realized my entire life I had fallen trapped to the number one lie of productivity, the lie that everything matters equally. Of all the stuff that's on our plate, it is not of equal importance. And yet we also know the solution. Do either of you guys play dominoes when you're a kid? Do you ever line them up? Of course. Yeah, of course. How many think you ever lined up like Max? What was in the box that was given to me? I really should figure out how many come in a standard box. I should know that answer right now. AJ, what do you think? Well, I guess it's a hundred. Cool. If you lined them up correctly in order and you spaced them appropriately, how do you knock them down? Just got to flip the one. It's the same thing. We fundamentally understood this as kids. It's the same thing with the stuff that's on our plate. The best way to knock them all down is not to stand them up randomly and whack away at each one every single time. It's to line them up and understand that, hey, this very first one is the most important one. So let me just whack away at that one first. That's what the one thing is. So here's the question. How do you figure out what your one thing is? Yeah. Here's a simple framework. You guys ever created a to-do list? Of course, absolutely. Yeah, you make the list of all the things that you can think that you could do. Here's the challenge with the to-do list. We subconsciously tell ourselves we have to get them all done. So we either start at the top or the one that's easiest, because when we cross that sucker off, it feels great, but we can be busy and not actually be productive. So here's the steps. Step one, make your to-do list. Go ahead, knock yourself out. All the things you got to do this week. Then look at that list and go, okay, everything does not matter equally. There are 20% priorities on this list that will drive 80% of my results. All I need to do is start at the top and look at the very first one and ask, is this a 20% priority that'll unleash 80% of the results in my life? Yes or no? Nope. Skip to the next one. Is this a 20%er? Nope. How about this one? Nope. How about this one? Yes. Put a star next to the 20%ers, because in that moment, what you've done is you've separated what you should do from all the things you could do. So step one, make the to-do list. Step two, identify what the 20%ers are. Step three, and this is where the rubber meets the road, you look at the shoulds, the 20%ers, and you ask a tough question. In a strange world, if I could only do one, what's the one that would make the biggest impact? Put a number one next to that. Then you get to ask the question, okay, well, should I earn the right to focus on another? What would be two? Should I earn the right to focus on a third? What would it be? Should I earn the right to focus on a fourth? What would it be? AJ, where do you think you start? Number one. Number one. It's that simple. I think many of us have become addicted to crossing things off the list, and putting number one at the top is usually the toughest task. It's one that requires the most effort and energy to unlock that 80% that we're looking at, and I know myself. I will often add things to the to-do list that I was going to do anyways, just so I can feel that little cross-off burst of energy and accomplishment. It's a little intimidating to only cut it down to one, knowing that one has to take all of my priority. So for those of us who are breaking out of this trap, and we're still sort of struggling to determine what is the 80-20 in our lives, how do we frame it so that we can pare down that to-do list? Sure. So from a high level, this is Pareto's principle, the idea that 80% of our results come from just 20% of our activities. The challenge is most people never actually stop and ask the question, what's my 20%? Exactly. What are the minority of things that will generate the majority of my results? And the truth is, if you really created the space to search for those answers, you could figure it out. And we also definitely know what the 80% is. Let me give you a real example. For the two of you, did the art of charm become the massive success that it's become because either of you were the best email checkers in the world? Sadly, no. But yeah, it had to have been your ability to be the best meeting attender. Let's be honest. Your notes, they freaking sparkle, right? That certainly isn't- I wish. Yet if we followed people around with a camera and documented their every move, they behave as though their careers and personal lives depend on them being the best email checker and the best meeting attender. We are not saying don't check email. We're not saying don't go to meetings. What we're saying is be clear about what matters most and make sure you have time reserved to do those things. Jeff, can I just mention that is such a brilliant point. There have been brilliant email checkers and brilliant meeting attenders at the art of charm. They're no longer here. Because they majored in the minors. Yeah. And many of us feel we're always busy, but not understanding that that's blocking the productivity that our managers, our boss, those above us want to see in terms of results. And here's what's missing because, I mean, the book was written for the individual, that person who works in the cubicle who wants more out of life and doesn't feel like they have a path to getting it. The reason it's one of the highest rated business books of all time is because it ended up helping everyone. And it's at the point now where we started training individuals, but now we have the honor of getting to go into some of the largest companies in the world to help them reshape their culture. And I promise you, whether it's you starting as an individual or you're trying to shape an organization of 500,000 people, all leadership starts with self-leadership. What's beautiful about this is it's actually a grassroots movement. You do not need your boss's permission for you to ask, what are my priorities? You do not need your coworkers for permission for you to acknowledge that, hey, for the next 15 minutes, I'm actually going to shut my email down, not minimize. I'm talking hard shutdown. I'm going to put my phone on, do not disturb, and I'm just going to narrow my focus on one thing that really matters. Because guess what? When I come out of that time block, spoiler alert, the earth will still be spinning, the sun will still be shining, the emails will still be there, and nobody will even care. They won't even notice usually because they're so busy doing their own to-do list. You know, and all of this as well, for everyone who is dealing with all this anxiety of the beeps and buzzers and bumps and the buzzers, everything that is going on in their lives that they're worried about and they're trying to focus on, this is simplifying their lives so they could just let go of all the things they are mediocre at, all the things that they are worried about to focus on what they excel at. And if you're excelling, it's probably one of the more important things to you as well, because you've already spent so much time with it in order to figure out how to excel with it. That's right. And the thing I want to make really clear, people hear the idea of the one thing and they immediately have doubt because they think I have more than one thing. Welcome to the party, we all do. And we're not saying only do one thing. And we're not saying don't show up to meetings. We're not saying any of this. What we are saying is that first and foremost, get clarity about what your priorities are. And when you identify that, just make sure that when you look at your schedule, whether you use a paper planner or a digital calendar, that you have time blocked for you to do those things. We're great at scheduling meetings with other people, just leverage that strength and schedule some time for yourself. And here's a pro tip. If somebody asks if you can meet at that time, as long as you don't tell them that you're meeting with yourself and as long as you say, hey, I've got a commitment at that time, they will say, okay, and they will schedule around it. It's freaking amazing. All we're saying is get clear on what matters, schedule a little bit of time for you to do what matters most with yourself. And watch how the rest of the world falls into place. Many in our audience, we've had a couple of episodes on procrastination and perfectionism and how they often get in the way of us completing that one task or many tasks. So for those in our audience who struggle with perfectionism and often leads them to not even start on the one thing, how can we reframe it so that we are putting the effort and energy there and staying disciplined when perfectionism keeps us from those results? This is one, AJ, such a great question. This is one of the biggest challenges that people have when they start going on the journey to living the one thing. We're all good at thinking big. We're good at casting a vision for our life, the place that we want to be. The mistake people make is they try to act big. They go after things that are what they think they should be able to do or what they'll feel guilty if they can't do it. And it's not a realistic mark of success to begin with, which is why we actually say, think big, but go small. So small that it's a two inch little domino that effortlessly with the flick of a finger, all the other dominoes will fall. Think big, go small, trust the dominoes will fall. Here's why this matters. It's about progress over perfection because perfection gets in the way of what's possible. Whatever you have in your mind in terms of perfect health, perfect focus, a perfect relationship, acknowledge it, and then understand that getting there isn't by holding that as the standard. It's by going small, that one thing, that two inch little domino that if you just flick that thing, everything else becomes possible and celebrate the wins around doing the thing you can do. It's so powerful because I know when we visualize success and we think about perfection, we often don't think about the moments in our life where we achieved it and all the steps and iterations it took to get there. So there's really nothing in your life that you do for the first time or the second time or the third time that is that perfect vision that you have. It's iterated, it's completed and then you try again and then over time you get better at it which leads to the question of now discipline. Because in order to focus on the one thing, we have to motivate ourselves and be disciplined enough to get those small wins, those small steps to hit that two inch domino that knocks over the string of hundred dominoes. So how do I build more discipline around the one thing? I've identified that one thing that I need to do. Discipline matters but it's a lie to rely on it. Because it's not always there for you. The opportunity is to leverage it. And this is my favorite quote from the one thing. It's from FM Alexander and he said, people do not decide their futures. They decide their habits and their habits decide their futures. 100%. Uh-huh. The reason so many of us have gone through that course or listened to that podcast or attended that event and go, oh that's such a good idea. I'm going to do that and didn't do it consistently was because we relied on our discipline. We just, and we looked in the mirror, we're like, I'm just not disciplined enough. You know, guys, I have had this, my wife is super eco-friendly and she has had this dream to get rid of our washer and dryer so that she can just do laundry on my washboard abs. And I'm just not disciplined enough to make that happen for her. It's a lie. The opportunity is to identify that one thing, that two inch little domino, that if I can just knock that down consistently for research would say on average 66 days, that's how long it on average takes to form a habit, I can make doing that one thing a habit that sticks. Now I become the type of person who does that one thing habitually. Well, I know for many of us listening and even the participants in our X Factor accelerator group, we want big results. We want them fast. And when we don't see them, when we don't see that result of the one thing leading to a loss of weight on the scale, more social opportunities, whatever those bigger goals are, we often then just give up and go back to eating the chicken wings, go back to not hitting the gym. This is why I say again, think big, go small, trust the dominoes will fall. If you actually look at the shape of success, it's that hockey stick growth. It's doing the same thing over and over and over again. It looks like nothing's happening. And all of a sudden, boom, you're a 10 year overnight success. People don't trust the domino effect. They do not trust that if they keep doing their one thing every day that over time, extraordinary results become possible. Most people go through their days. This is a writer downer, just adds up. Failing so slowly, they think they're succeeding. Okay, we're going to have to unpack that one. Every time you hear the email ding and you stop doing what you're doing and check it, you failed so slowly, yet you thought you were succeeding. Every night, you're watching Game of Thrones or whatever or Netflix show you're watching and you're like, oh, I want that cookie. And you have it. You fail so slowly, you think you're succeeding. Every time you avoid the tough conversation with your significant other, you fail so slowly, you think you're succeeding because over time, if you do the wrong activities, that hockey stick growth actually flips. And you have massive failure gradually then suddenly. Here's the thing, when you start doing the right activities to your point, AJ, you start succeeding so slowly, you think you're failing. I will tell you as a millennial, starting this company, I remember when I started doing my one thing every day, I wanted to run across the hall to my partner's office and get a freaking trophy. I did my one thing, give me a trophy. Still no trophy. And I had to trust that over time, if day after day after day, if I did it, something extraordinary would happen. And boy did it. That trust is difficult for many of us to build because we are inundated with other people's success that often looks effortless. People only show you the side that they want to see, and most people are posturing. This has been one of the things that I've really learned getting into business with Gary and Jay is, especially in this world of social media and podcasts, like everybody's an authority. And if you really look behind the curtain, you realize most of them are not true business owners. They're not, their advice is worth how much you're paying for it, which is zero. And so I think we got to stop comparing ourselves to everybody else and start benchmarking ourselves against ourselves. Am I doing better today than I did yesterday? Hold yourself to that standard. Once again, you're letting yourself, you're taking the chains off of other people's ideas about you, other people's thoughts, your own thoughts about what other people are thinking about you. You're unchaining yourself to be able to focus on the thing that you need to do and your progress with it. And a lot of this, I mean, what we're seeing is an opportunity to detach from all of the things that we've chained ourselves to in modernity. Nailed it, Johnny. Now, I'm just thinking to myself and realizing that, well, man, there are so many things I want to do outside of just the art of charm. Can I have more than one thing? Can I have something related to my fiance, Amy? Can I have something related to my personal life and still succeed? How can we have multiple one things in different areas of our life that we're trying to build and reach success in? Folks, the path to getting everything you want starts by getting one thing at a time. We all have more than one thing. My one thing for my spirituality may be different than my one thing for my physical health might be one different than my one thing for my personal life or my relationships, my job, my business, my finances. The question is, can you look at the areas of your life and acknowledge that we all have opportunities to improve all the areas? And if we hold that to the standard that we have to improve every area of our life at the same time, we're going to fail. It is too big. Yet if we say, if I could only focus on one area first, which would it be? And identify a lead domino within that area and just start proving ourselves that we can walk away at that first. Develop a habit around that. Not to say we're not doing anything else, but that's the measure of success. Then we, once that's a habit, we earn the right to form our next habit and our next habit and our next habit. It mirrors my experience around trying to make exercise a habit, but always putting it off and putting it at the end of the day and then not getting to it. And the habit for me was actually starting my day earlier. And we give this same advice to our clients and they're like, but I didn't get my workout in. It's like, again, me getting up early for 66 days, it led to working out at times and at times I didn't have the discipline or the willpower, which we'll talk about. But after the 66 days and now I'm getting up every morning the same time, no alarm, well, of course I have more time to work out and then working out becomes easier. But instead, if I set the goal of I want to lose 50 pounds or I want to be shredded, that I'm going to beat myself up when I'm not shredded and I hop on the scale, I'm going to get frustrated when I have that extra cookie and all of the other downstream effects that work to whittle away at our willpower and take away from our satisfaction in life. People aren't going small enough and even for some people like AJ for you getting up earlier was a lead domino. There are some people that that's still too big. Well, what's one thing you can do to wake up earlier? I'd have to go to bed earlier. Well, how would you know if you're successful? I'm in bed by 10 p.m. Well, what's one thing you can do to make sure you're in bed by 10 p.m.? I'd have to stop watching Game of Thrones, but that won't happen. Okay, well, I asked what's the one thing you can do. I can turn off the TV at 9 o'clock and that's the mark of success. If they just turn off the TV and they spend hours on TikTok, it's still a frickin' win. The mark of success is did they turn the TV off because if they turned it off, they're more likely to get in bed by 10 and if they're in bed by 10, they're more likely to be up at 5.30. And if they get up at 5.30 with the intent to do something physical, they're going to do something physical. And if they do something physical every day, they will transform their health. And what's great about this, there's a mindset shift that needs to go along with this. Notice that everything in modernity is set up to be more convenient for us. Yet we still find ourselves being slaves to all this convenience when if we look at it correctly, we can make all the Game of Thrones shows when we have our time and when we're ready to see it. We don't need to be a slave to its release schedule. We have convenience. It's time that we start using convenience for its convenience rather than being a slave to whatever this convenience is. You ready for me to twist this one? We've used this on people to help them who really struggle with getting up earlier. Fine. Most of them are staying up late because they're watching their favorite TV show. You ready for the pro tip? Wake up early so you get to watch your favorite TV show. Watch it in the morning because then you start getting used to getting up early and then all of a sudden you're watching it on your phone while you're on the elliptical and all of a sudden you're like, oh maybe I want to go touch those weights over there. Yeah, it's so powerful but we don't take the small view. We get so hung up on the big results and then the process becomes intimidating and the excuses kick in. I think we have to evaluate what the purpose of the goal is to begin with because we compare ourselves to everybody else like Johnny's talking about and we make that our goal and we attach ourselves to the result but here's the deal. The purpose of the goal is actually not to achieve the result. The purpose of the goal is to be appropriate in the moment. It should inform like a compass how we need to behave right now. It's actually not about losing the 50 pounds. It's about becoming the type of person who exercises five days a week or the type of person who eats plant-based versus whatever your other diet is. It's how you behave today so that you know you're in alignment with the vision you have. I love that analogy because when we often goal set, we're not realizing all of the steps it's going to take to get to that end goal from where we are now. We typically think about the later steps after some level of success has been attained and those will certainly become easier if you have built time and built the habit that gets you there. But here's the biggest mistake people make when they set their goals. They set them looking forward. They ask what do I want to achieve this year and they look at all the things they could do and they whatever is most attractive they pick as their goal but we have a friend of ours named Keith Cunningham who said there's nothing worse than running enthusiastically in the wrong direction because what can seem like an attractive goal in the short term can actually be a distraction over the long term. A great example of this is an airplane. AJ, where are you? Are you in NorCal? I'm in LA. Where are you guys in LA? Johnny's in Vegas now. I'm in LA. Okay so let's say the three of us got on a plane in LA and we were going to head to New York City. If after we took off, we'd look for and say we're going to New York. If after we took off that plane got 10 degrees off course and did not correct, what's the probability we land in New York City? Zero. And this is what happens when we look at setting our goals forward. We can pick a goal that's attractive in the short term but is actually a number of degrees off track and year after year after year when we follow that path we end up at a massively different destination and the thing that we learned from Gary, this is actually how billionaires set goals, is they actually go, they time travel, they go way into the future and ask, what do I want my life to look like someday from now? For you, you get to decide what that is. 10, 20, 50 years. Do you think it's easy to have clarity on what you want your life to look like 20 years from now? No. But nobody stops to ask the question and gives space to search for the answer. We do. We facilitate that. And these people actually all of a sudden say, this is what matters to me. And then once you've got that, you can actually imagine looking back on your life and ask, okay, well, what would we have to achieve in five years to feel like we're on track for the someday? Again, this is, it takes searching for that clarity. This reminds me of something that had always stuck with me since Boy Scouts. And now Jeff's, since your last name is... You don't strike me as a Boy Scout, dude. Hey, I'm 46. There's been a lot of miles going to get here. With your last name being Woods, have you ever, were you in the Boy Scouts? I was not. Okay. So when there is this idea that when you're lost in the Woods, you would want to walk in a straight line to find your way out. And hopefully in the straight line would get you out as quick as possible. If you don't know, if you can't see over the canopy, you have to realize you have to put markers up to allow yourself to know that you're moving in a straight line. If you just start walking through the Woods, you will eventually find yourself walking in circles. You have to line up a site of trees that will help you walk straight. And that simple idea has stuck with me through life. And anytime that I've realized if I'm spinning my wheels, if I'm not getting to where I need to be going, I need to sit down and I need to sight up smaller achievable goals or a line of sight and hit each marker in order to know that I'm moving in the right direction. And that tree may be five feet in front of you. It may be 10 feet in front of you. But that's exactly what you need to get you moving in the right direction. That's right. That's right. And it's just like driving a car. We type in the GPS where we want to go. We know where we want to end up and it's telling us turn by turn. And if we take a deviation, it tells us how to get back on track. It's the same thing with our goals. Cast the someday vision. Get clear on what your five year goals are to be aligned with your someday vision. Because then when you have that, when you ask, well, what are my goals for this year? That's really easy. What are the things I have to do this year to be on track for my five? Your focus gets really narrow. And once you know that, this is where I believe we are different. Because we do not believe that the world needs a new way to set goals. They need a way to have a relationship with them. Just like when you have a relationship with a person, you don't say, oh, you are good-looking. I'm going to see you in a year and let's hope that this works out. You go on dates. You think about them. You communicate them with them. When things are going well, you think bigger. And when you're off track, you change your activity. So you get back on track. Same thing here. I got my annual goals. Now what the heck do I need to do this month? Oh, shoot. All of a sudden, this is getting real. And once I know that, what are the handful of things that belong on my calendar this week? To the point that you know exactly, these are the two to three things I got to get done this week. Because if I don't do this, I'm legitimately undermining my chance of achieving the life I want someday from now. And you see the markers and they are clear. This sounds like it's going to take a lot of willpower. And willpower is one of those loaded words that many of us hope that we'll just have enough willpower to reach these goals. But it doesn't work that way. And I know you have some great tips on how to develop your willpower and use it in a meaningful way. How can you make the best use of the willpower now that we've understand this relationship with goals? This is the fourth lie of productivity. The lie that willpower is always on will call. It's not. People show up thinking there's a will, there's a way until there's no will and they're going no way. What most people do is they go through their days thinking, let me get all this stuff done so I can free up time to do the thing that matters most. We're just saying flip it on its head. Your most important priority, your one thing probably takes effort, probably takes focus, probably takes willpower. So let's do it in the morning when our willpower is at its best. I have learned to slam everything that I want to do up front in order to fulfill about the day and for me, and I can't remember who was who had brought up this idea. I think it was Brandt Pivenek, which was to win the day. And what I need to do in order at the end of the day to feel like, hey, I did good. I feel productive. I won the day. And then to repeat that every day. That's right. When it comes to having willpower and discipline and starting to put some goals into action, it's easy to not hold ourselves accountable, to be distracted, to realize that, well, something else jumped on my plate. It's more important and I'll get to the one thing tomorrow. We're huge fans of accountability at The Art of Charm. It changed my life on the exercise piece outside of building that Keystone habit around getting up early, helped me overcome a lack of willpower to work out at times and a lack of discipline knowing that I was going to be held accountable by Johnny and vice versa. What are your thoughts on accountability and building that in if we don't necessarily have that amazing spouse at home or maybe our boss isn't someone who's so equipped to hold us accountable to these things and our self-discipline isn't quite there yet? It's one of the three commitments you must make to yourself if you really want to live an extraordinary life. Now I'm going to pause there. I said if you want to live an extraordinary life, this is not a conversation we are having with somebody who wants status quo. We're talking truly to the 1% that wants to taste extraordinary. There are three commitments you must make, meaning no ifs, no ands, no busts you commit. First is you got to commit to following the path of mastery. It's a journey you go down, not a destination you arrive at, which means you are always a student and you are always humble and you are always comparing who you are today to who you were yesterday and expecting growth. The second commitment is that you move from what we call E to P, from being entrepreneurial to being purposeful. I'm sorry, a lot of people go through their days doing the best that they can do and it's irrelevant because they're reinventing the wheel. The opportunity, the way that truly extraordinary people think is they stand on the shoulders of giants. They're humble enough to recognize that somebody went before them and got to a very far level. If I can just study those people and figure out what they did so I start where they finished, that's a whole other level. That's how you shatter ceilings of achievement is you move from E to P, you start developing models and systems to shatter what your current possibilities are. So you follow the path of mastery, you're constantly moving from E to P where it matters most and the third, AJ, is you live the accountability cycle. When life happens, you do not go to blame, shame, justification. You look in the mirror and acknowledge that it's your DNA and you don't earn the right to look anywhere else until you figure out what you can do better. Everything about us is about what we call graceful accountability. This is not like hammer, why didn't you get this? It's kind, it's graceful and it's honest. These were your priorities last week. How'd you do? Okay, well how do you feel about that? Well based on that, what are you going to do differently this week? What's most likely to stop you? What's the solution for that? Everything about this has accountability woven through it. It's vital. It's an important part of all of our coaching programs and understanding that what we want is that journey to mastery. We don't want the fast and easy results. We think we do. We think we just want that six pack abs, but in reality the journey is what makes it fulfilling. It's not the end result and to get there, it's going to take having some accountability outside of yourself and setting up some relationships with people who will be honest with you and it sounds like your business partners have done that, ripping the page, holding you accountable and it's important that we seek that out in areas of our life. It's oftentimes built into our work life and it's allowed the company to get tremendous results and we need to bring that to our personal life and build that board of advisors for those personal goals that you have. Yeah and I think you have to acknowledge there's different degrees of accountability. At the most basic level, it's can you hold yourself accountable? Are you doing what you said you do? You want to ratchet it up at all? Start using a system that can help you. Like I mentioned we have that 66 day challenge calendar just so you can track it with yourself. That's a system. The 411 is a system. You want to ratchet it up? Pure accountability. Do you have a friend that can hold you accountable? Want to ratchet it up? It can keep going and going until you get to the highest level which is hire a coach. I mean I look at my partner Gary, he has always had coaches in his life and it was one of the things that they said to me like at some point you are going to really need to look at hiring a coach because there's no way we can teach accountability if you aren't living it at the highest level as a co-founder of the organization. So I love that you guys believe in coaching because it is massively important in you. The thing that a peer or a friend won't do is they won't go where you want to hide because they're trying to protect the relationship where a coach you are paying them to take a stand for your greatness when you are fighting for your limitations. That's something to certainly look for in a coach. And it's so true because as friends we definitely want to be there for our friends. We want the best for them but when the excuses cook in, the shame, the blame, we want to manage and mitigate that. We don't want to lean into that and we don't want to truly hold them accountable because we're afraid of losing their friendship. Yeah and here's the thing when you are willing to stand with them on the front lines of their business or whatever matters and truly be a partner in helping them get what they want it enriches their relationship. Can I give you an example? Yeah. So there's an organization we're working with. They got about 45,000 employees and I'm working directly with the chairman of the board. Dude's a self-made billionaire. No one is willing to be direct with him because of his position and last week we had a call and I looked at his 411 and I said to him, sir I think you'd be disappointed in me if I didn't ask what I'm about to ask you. So I'm going to ask you something that's very direct. Are you ready? And now you watched him shift and he went yeah so what I'm doing right there is I'm letting him know I'm coming in and then I met and so in that moment I was not aside from him. Now we're locking arms and we're partners and I said for three weeks you have told me the exact same story and for three weeks you have not got it done and I am no longer buying your story. What are you going to do differently this week so that we are not having this conversation in a week? And I let it hang there. Any answer? And I go okay now let's talk about it. You good? You okay? Your feelings hurt? We okay? Do we need to hug? No he's good. Okay and he literally looked at me and said Jeff nobody in my organization has ever talked to me like that and it's what I need it. We had a very similar experience with one of our clients. Same thing runs a massive multinational corporation self-made billionaire and he said no one in my life will be this honest with me because you reach a level of success and stature that people look up to and they refuse to be honest for fear that it will impact some future relationship with that person and he's like I sought you guys out for this exact advice that I know other people know about me but will not open their mouth and share with me. And I just want to say this when it comes to somebody of that stature who's went through put that many miles in to get where they are, they're looking for that feedback and they're willing to pay a pretty price to get it. When I, when I, AJ started laughing at the same point I did, I'm going to guess it was the same point, when you mentioned that the body language started shifting because they're preparing themselves because this is what they've paid for, it's what they've asked for and they know it's coming and they know it's going to be uncomfortable but they have also have done enough in their lives that if they don't get this they're not growing and I've even seen it in myself where I have been put in a position of like oh right this yeah this sucks at the moment but this is this is a growing moment what am I going to do with this how am I going to move through this after this what what is my response going to be and if if you're listening to this right now then it is obvious to yourself and to us knowing that you're listening that you want to be at your best to achieve what it is that you've always desired and know deep within yourself you know it you can do try it what I heard there is the mindset of somebody on a path of mastery Johnny when they get the tough news they don't just shunt it and get defensive they look in the mirror and go okay is this an hour how might this be an opportunity for me to get better for me to grow now you mentioned the 411 a couple times you got me salivating is there any way you could just walk us through a little bit more of what you mean by this exercise because it sounds very impactful so a 411 stands for the relevant information or truth just like how when we used to call 411 we called to get the relevant information now 411 also stands for four weeks one month one year it's a way of understanding what do we need to do each of the four weeks of one month within a year to be aligned with where we want to be someday from now so it's a very simple framework that you can use as an individual and if you're a leader in organization this is the backbone for the one-on-one conversations you have with your direct reports where the direct report walks in and says here's my top priorities for the year personally and professionally because we all know if our personal life is struggling how does that affect our professional world crushes it so this teaches people to look at the whole person okay well now that I'm clear these are the 20 things I need to focus on this year here's the 20 things I need to do this month to know that I'm on track here's exactly how I'll know by the end of this month if I'm on track for my annual goals or not and once I'm clear on that I can tell you exactly what I have to deliver this week to know that I'm on track it's like the day before vacation miracle AJ you ever gone on a vacation a few times before COVID yes few times right how much did you get done the day before you left a tremendous amount because you had a deadline we actually love deadlines this brings a deadline every week by the end of the week I have to get this 20% done and that way you know that if you look at your calendar you better have time blocked for those vital priorities those are the things that matter most it's just a way of bringing a tremendous amount of urgency to the activities that will generate your future result and this is something if you guys go to the one thing which is with the number one in the URL on the training tab we have this thing called basics courses these are the basic principles of the one thing in 15 minutes or less for free I've got a free training video on how you can start doing a 411 when we go into companies this is what they pay for and this is the tool that any individual can use as well I love that so that's a great challenge for our audience this week we love asking all of our guests what their x-factor is and we believe your x-factor is what makes you unique creates incredible results in your life and it's typically when a mindset unlocks a skill set for you to make you extraordinary what do you believe your x-factor is Jeff when you just described x-factor I also thought of purpose right that things that's unique to you that's like a God given talent that the reason that you're here and one of the things that I've developed is my x-factor is the ability to share ideas that change what people think is possible it's why this conversation if we looked at my calendar you would see it coded as 20% because right now I am living my purpose this is one of the highest value things I could do for the business to share ideas that change what people think is possible and I will tell you the ideas you shared on this show are transformative we've had so many in our audience who've read the book the one thing and it's come up multiple times in conversation with our clients and I finally had to tackle it myself because I was tired of hearing about how great it is and then you realize how hard it is right exactly usually that's it right the simplest things are often the most difficult but when we accomplish them they unlock the greatest things in our life that's right that's right thank you so much for joining us Jeff we really appreciate it yeah my pleasure stay safe