 People actually respect you more when you say no Because when you say yes, and it's a half yes, and you have to cancel later Or you don't show up at your best or you don't give it your all you're actually damaging yourself more Then being respectful and saying no, I'm not a good fit at this time. I wish you the best on the event It sounds fantastic. Thank you for thinking What's up everybody and welcome to the show today. We drop great content each and every week And we want to make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do that You're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends Don't realize all the time sinks we have in our life Just like we don't realize all the calories we consume or all the drinks we had we always Underestimate what's happening in our lives and we think we have this clear of audience to see it And with our clients the first thing I hear when I when I hear I don't have the time is All right, let's do an audit of what your day actually looks like Set a timer every 15 minutes and just jot down what you're doing and be ruthlessly honest if you want to improve and They'll come back to me with that journal and then I'll say okay now open up your iPhone and let me see screen time And let's look at screen time, which is gonna be even more honest with me How many hours do you think we're losing we're not even realizing it and then we're we're saying I just don't have the time I just don't have the time We always have that choice and for Johnny the choice was simple remove the TV You know we have we have clients who are like, oh, I don't have the social life that I want I'm not dating the people that I want Well, how many hours are you watching Netflix? Oh? Well, you know, I just throw it out at the end of the day when I'm in the red zone Yeah, but that's time you could be setting up an online dating profile That's time you could be sending out messages to all your friends to invite them to go do something on the weekend Every minute you're spitting there just sitting around consuming other content, right can instead of creating consuming You're removing that valuable time from the equation and what we love about our older clients Who will be in the room with some of our younger clients as they'll they'll turn them and say man I wish I knew this when I was your age Because you don't get that time back You know we lost some money over the pandemic we gained some money after the pandemic money comes and goes but That time spent pulling our hair out freaking out burning out We're not getting that back to go on a long bike ride tomorrow I'm not magically getting blessed with an eighth day a second Sunday to enjoy it's not happening and Those who ruthlessly prioritize their time are the ones who seem like they have it all and they can get it done They've unlocked that success in their life and you talked about this the power of no And this was something that I really struggled with as I was raised to people pleaser I love helping others it brightens my day when I can do favors and help support those around me But it also takes a lot from me at the end of the day to do all of that And it was very hard for me to say no to small projects big projects. Oh, just be a guest on this Oh, come on this show. Oh, can you speak on this stage? Oh, it's just a zoom and It's easy to get caught up in that and not realize that oh I did all these favors for everyone else around me But I didn't get to the things that I needed to get done. I wasn't present for my fiancee I didn't get to actually enjoy my evening So when it comes to saying no if you're like me in the audience and you're struggling with saying no and Prioritizing what were the lessons that that you drew from the book that could really help our audience? Yeah, I still struggle with it So I think I wrote that section for me and like most people listening to this interview The opportunities available will always exceed the time available whether that's socially, you know And you make some really good points like okay I'm trying to date and meet somebody but my buddies want to go out with me every, you know Three times a week. Well, you could actually invest one of those nights to do something else So it almost all of life unless you have no life, which which is almost nobody Is involved saying no so a couple of things you have to think about start thinking about if it's not a nine It's a zero so that makes it easy, but where a lot of us struggle It's that fear of missing out. It's that idea that well It is only a zoom call, but not everybody gets an opportunity to do it And they want to pay me to do it So should I do it and you have to have a really clear internal sense of your priorities Like what matters to you and I've got a whole exercise and at your best the book that will help people focus in on what really matters What actually doesn't matter to to run it through that filter and then what I do is And I've trained my whole team to do this is you let people down gently now If you can say this with integrity and usually I can I would say something like man I would love to be able to speak at your event. Thank you so much. I'm honored You would ask me in order to fulfill the other commitments on my calendar. I'm unable to do it I really do appreciate you asking me. Thank you so much. Keep me in mind for a further opportunity Sincerely carry something like that now. Well, many want to say that with integrity So if you really don't want to do the event, you don't have to say that then you can just say thank you so much for The invitation. I appreciate it. Unfortunately. I'm not able to do it. Have a great day carry something like that But you know, you got to get good at saying no and being Canadian I think we figured out how to do it nicely or at least we're trying to figure out how to do it nicely the other thing I would say that trips up a lot of people and I talk about this and at your best, but I Believe you have a maximum number of things you can do in a week So this took me a long time to figure out my number is 12 to 15 So a blank calendar if most people look at their calendar like look three months in advance What do you actually have in your calendar? The answer for most people is nothing got nothing in my calendar and you think great You know December is gonna be amazing But the reality is December is gonna be just as busy as September was just as busy as October was because of the time You get to December. It's gonna be jammed with all these things, right? We drop great content each and every week and we want to make sure that you guys get notified and in order to do That you're gonna have to smash that subscribe button and hit that notification bell And if you've gotten a lot of value out of this make sure you give us a like and share our videos with your friends I have a magic number of 12 to 15 once there are more than 12 to 15 Appointments in my calendar for a week. I am full So if you look at a full week for me about 80% of my time is free and unstructured 70% of my time is free and unstructured at work Why is that because I work in a creative role and so I need that green zone to be protected I can't fill it up with meetings. I know that if I go above 15 I get stressed. I get angry I get frustrated. I get rattled if I go below 12 I get bored and then I start to create some chaos So I know for me the magic number is 12 to 15 if you become a student of yourself You'll realize that two nights out a week is plenty or I can do three meetings in a row But I can't do five meetings in a row or I need a 15 minute break or I can't do all-day meetings so for me Monday generally speaking in a normal non-book launch season is Free in the morning a few meetings in the afternoon Tuesday. I have no meetings They have to go on the calendar with my permission Wednesday morning No meetings Thursday or Wednesday afternoon podcast interviews Thursday is pretty much a solid meeting day But it's only one day and then Friday is open now. You might say well, that looks like a pretty easy week Yeah, but that's why I can produce content that gets accessed over a million and a half times a month Because otherwise what happens is well stuff inevitably breaks And so suddenly some of my writing time got taken up because I had to solve this crisis or Somebody had a problem or whatever and so you're gonna be a lot busier than you think you are So under schedule yourself and when when I look at a week like if you said okay a month from now carry Can you XYZ? I would look at it and go oh 15 meetings. You know what that week's not good for me I'm pretty full. Sorry about that. Do you have another week where we could we could have that conversation? So I think we over schedule ourselves and in this crisis, right? And I don't know when we're getting out of it, but it's gonna be a while But in this crisis we then are in a place where we're always in crisis mode and we're always overwhelmed So I would say be a student of yourself figure out your maximum number and then once you hit 12 15 17 8 whatever your number is you're full for that week. Then you have to move on to the next week I love that the best advice I ever received on saying no that's been the most impactful in my life is To create three goals for myself every year Write them down in any time. I'm given a request look at those three goals and say Honestly, does this move me closer to those three goals? And if it doesn't politely decline and My three goals this year have been to double AOC's revenue coming off of that horrendous year of the pandemic It's been to travel more before I have kids I'm gonna get married and I'm gonna start having a family and all of my friends who have kids are not traveling So any opportunity I can have to travel I was just in Seattle with a buddy of mine Who happens to have two kids was able to just barely get away for a weekend? He said where do you want to go? I said anywhere. I'm in and my third is break 80 in golf. Oh, that's a pretty big goal You know, I've broke 90 I'm working my way towards 80 and if it's a golf trip It can set solve two of those and I have to be honest like is this actually going to help me double AOC revenue not make me a couple dollars by hopping on zoom Not give another free favor in hopes that you know, maybe in two three years this will come back And that's allowed me to ruthlessly guard and prioritize my own time And it sounds selfish at first and I remember when I first heard it I was like, man, that's that's not a lot of stuff that you can really say yes to and Man, that's gonna be really tough to be saying no and since implementing it People actually respect you more when you say no Because when you say yes, and it's a half yes And you have to cancel later or you don't show up at your best or you don't give it your all You're actually damaging yourself more than being respectful and saying no, I'm not a good fit at this time I wish you the best on the event. It sounds fantastic. Thank you for thinking of me. I I That is such good advice that should make the second edition of the book I know it was just released, but if we have a second edition that should make it and I'll give you a case in point I read a lot of theology given my background and one of the top theologians alive today. He's 70 years old Was diagnosed last year with pancreatic cancer right after the pandemic started and I've had a conversation with him You know pancreatic cancer never goes well And I said, what are you learning? And he said that I have spent too much of my time Doing what other people have asked me to do And what millions of us who follow him his name is tim keller wish he would do Is write more books because he's one of the most unique voices we have alive on the planet today in his field And to hear tim say that just blew me away and you know, it gets in the way of your unique contribution I love that idea of three clear things whatever that happens to be And then if it doesn't help you accomplish that and you're right people do respect you more I just had to say no to one of those 20 minute zoom calls For a friend who texted me over the weekend like hey, you know, we're going to study your book You want to do a half hour 20 minute zoom call? I said no, unfortunately, I'm pretty booked up But thank you so much for studying the book really appreciate it. He got back to me like we'll pay you x number of dollars It was very generous for a thousand. I'm like, thank you very much I'm I'm gonna have to pass and ironically you feel like oh could have used that money or whatever But I think long term that the respect rises for you And if that's a good decision Then you're gonna be able to spend that time more valuably doing other things