Speaker 1: The way that you focus is through subtraction. It's not
Speaker 1: by addition. You don't add more things. Anything that is
Speaker 1: not doing the thing isn't focused work.
Speaker 2: That was Sawbury Subi, founder of King Kong, one of
Speaker 2: Australia's fastest growing digital agencies, and a shark on the
Speaker 2: most recent season of Shark Tank Australia. Now, when most
Speaker 2: people think about productivity, it's additive a new app, a
Speaker 2: new system, a new habit stack. But Sabury does the opposite.
Speaker 2: He subtracts. He has built an entire philosophy around removing
Speaker 2: things from his calendar, his home, his to do list,
Speaker 2: so that what's left is only the work that actually
Speaker 2: moves the needle. In this episode, Sawbury takes me inside
Speaker 2: his full system, his King's audit process, whey he only
Speaker 2: takes meetings on Mondays and Fridays, how he trained his
Speaker 2: fixer to defend his time like a ouncer at the door,
Speaker 2: and the dream day exercise that keeps him from chasing
Speaker 2: shiny new objects. Welcome to How I Work, a show
Speaker 2: about habits, rituals and strategies.
Speaker 3: For optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imba.
Speaker 2: I want to start by talking about your King's audit,
Speaker 2: can you tell me what on earth this is.
Speaker 1: It's all about measuring every unit of time that you have.
Speaker 1: You know, I was always been fascinated by like the
Speaker 1: people that build these enormous businesses have huge, huge teams,
Speaker 1: and we all have the same twenty four hours in
Speaker 1: a day. And when I was building my business, I
Speaker 1: wore all the hats. I did everything from you know,
Speaker 1: being the account manager, doing accounts and changing the toilet
Speaker 1: paper rolls. Everything I've done every position in my company.
Speaker 1: And then you realize very very quickly, as you keep
Speaker 1: on building your business that your time is the most
Speaker 1: valuable resource that you've got. And everyone's heard of that.
Speaker 1: It's a very cliche thing, but the people that say
Speaker 1: it and then they don't treat their resource like it
Speaker 1: is the most precious thing. So the King's Audit is
Speaker 1: all about finding exactly where your time is going. You
Speaker 1: run a full week with measuring every hour in that week,
Speaker 1: and then when you get to the end of the week,
Speaker 1: you look at it all and you basically identify which
Speaker 1: of the tasks that you did that move the money needle.
Speaker 1: And everybody knows how much money that they make in
Speaker 1: a year, or they should if they run a business
Speaker 1: and they can figure out, okay, this is how much
Speaker 1: profit my business makes. Then you just divide that by
Speaker 1: the number of hours that you're working and you find
Speaker 1: out how much a unit is time is worth to you.
Speaker 1: And basically, you shouldn't do any tasks that are less
Speaker 1: than you're making per hour. Right, It's a simple thing,
Speaker 1: and then you start delegating and outsourcing all the other
Speaker 1: things that aren't that thing, because basically the game as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur is to keep on increasing how much value
Speaker 1: that you get for each unit of time, and the
Speaker 1: only way to do that is to keep on working
Speaker 1: on the higher value things, and you can't do that
Speaker 1: if you're stuck in the day to day operations of
Speaker 1: the business. Most people are kind of they'll identify with that,
Speaker 1: and that will resonate to them on some level and
Speaker 1: they'll be like, yeah, I get it, like I need
Speaker 1: a high a receptionist or someone to do bookkeeping, and
Speaker 1: they easily let go of the things that they don't
Speaker 1: enjoy doing. Where it gets hard is when you have
Speaker 1: to actually start giving up the things that you do
Speaker 1: really enjoy doing, or when you have to start automating
Speaker 1: your personal life as well and delegating things that you
Speaker 1: might have stigmas attached to, like I need to change
Speaker 1: my bed sheets, I need to clean the house. When
Speaker 1: you actually do the King's audit, and let's just say that,
Speaker 1: you know, you make two hundred dollars an hour, and
Speaker 1: then you realize that you could have somebody, for instance,
Speaker 1: come and clean for fifty or one hundred dollars an hour.
Speaker 1: You realize, hey, this is actually costing me one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars an hour to clean my own house, and you
Speaker 1: start to value time differently.
Speaker 2: I imagine this is an ex the size that you've
Speaker 2: done many times because new insights are always going to arise.
Speaker 2: What are two or three of the biggest insights that
Speaker 2: you've gained from this process and the changes that you made.
Speaker 1: I do this audit every year basically because as a
Speaker 1: business owned you just get dragged into things and then
Speaker 1: all of a sudden your plate is full, because you know,
Speaker 1: it's like an upside down pyramid where you get all
Speaker 1: the hardest problems to solve. Typically, when you're a business
Speaker 1: owner and you collect all these things, all these tasks
Speaker 1: that you're the person that does so I go through
Speaker 1: it every year and I go, Okay, what is it
Speaker 1: that I need to get rid of to basically get
Speaker 1: to the next level. There's always things that even though
Speaker 1: I'm so ruthless with my time management, things that creep in.
Speaker 1: I have outsourced a lot of the things that I
Speaker 1: don't like doing. But then there's things that I really
Speaker 1: like doing, and so I have to make the hard
Speaker 1: decisions of looking at it being very pragmatic and removing
Speaker 1: my emotions from it and even going okay, even though
Speaker 1: I love meeting with these teams, or I love doing
Speaker 1: last round interviews, or I love doing these one on ones,
Speaker 1: is that the thing that's going to move the company
Speaker 1: forward at this stage? Or is it just something that
Speaker 1: you like to do. It's habitual, so you do it.
Speaker 1: That's the big realizations that I have, is like a
Speaker 1: lot of the things that I'm emotionally attached to it,
Speaker 1: or I have some of my identity attached to I
Speaker 1: must do this because I am the business owner, I
Speaker 1: am the CEO XYZ. But then you realize that these
Speaker 1: are not necessary things. As they say, new levels have
Speaker 1: new devils, and a lot of the times that if
Speaker 1: you want to get to that new level. It's like
Speaker 1: you're going to have to give away something that you
Speaker 1: really really love in order to get there.
Speaker 2: I would love to note in your personal life how
Speaker 2: you've applied this, because it's something that I've done for myself.
Speaker 2: There have been numerous times over the last few years
Speaker 2: where I've I've tracked my time and for listeners going
Speaker 2: that sounds incredibly tedious. It is mind numbingly boring, but
Speaker 2: it's very much worth it, and there are ways to
Speaker 2: make it easier and automated time tracking software out there.
Speaker 2: One thing that I did many years ago, and I
Speaker 2: haven't actually replicated it, but I realized that every Sunday morning,
Speaker 2: my family and I used to have a little ritual
Speaker 2: where we'd go to the South Melbourne Market. We would
Speaker 2: stock up on all the fruit and bedge for the week,
Speaker 2: and then I would spend two or three hours washing
Speaker 2: and cutting and prepping fruit and vedge, and like, my
Speaker 2: happy place is not in the kitchen. I hated doing
Speaker 2: all the cutting and I probably injured myself lots of
Speaker 2: times because I don't have good nice skills. And I
Speaker 2: then thought maybe I could find someone to do this,
Speaker 2: like surely there would be a university student that is
Speaker 2: working in a cafe doing food prep, and maybe they
Speaker 2: would like to come to my house and do this
Speaker 2: for me and I can pay them and that is
Speaker 2: going to be less than my hourly rate. And so
Speaker 2: for about a year I did that and it was
Speaker 2: so wonderful And I don't do it anymore because my
Speaker 2: husband actually loves kitchen stuff and so we don't outsource
Speaker 2: cutting of vegetables anymore anymore, which has very very privileged.
Speaker 2: But yes, it did work out to save me time.
Speaker 2: It was like it was time that I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: I could be spending that with my daughter and being
Speaker 2: really present rather than in a kitchen and just consumed
Speaker 2: by carrots and pumpkin. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I've gone through that intimately, what you're saying, right, It
Speaker 1: was always difficult for me because I was raised by
Speaker 1: a single parent mother and I had like this broke
Speaker 1: mindset that I had to like deprogram in my mind
Speaker 1: where it's just like I watched my mum hold down
Speaker 1: three jobs, do absolutely everything, So why do you think
Speaker 1: that you don't need to do this right? And again
Speaker 1: that's just like a scarcity mindset. So I have automated
Speaker 1: all of those things so it's like, yes, I have
Speaker 1: a cook that comes in does the food prep. You know,
Speaker 1: I kind of count my calories and macros, so I
Speaker 1: know I have one hundred and fifty grams of like
Speaker 1: chicken breast, and all of my lunches are like prepacked
Speaker 1: in the fridge ready to go. Then in addition to that, yes,
Speaker 1: I have cleaners that come in, I have you know,
Speaker 1: other helps that come around the house. And a lot
Speaker 1: of people see that and they're like, oh, but what
Speaker 1: if you love cooking, Well, someone like you that you
Speaker 1: don't love doing food prep, right, And so a lot
Speaker 1: of the time that people that hate against this is
Speaker 1: because they feel attacked by the decisions that you're making.
Speaker 1: And so the way that I look at it is like,
Speaker 1: I want to free up as much of the minutia
Speaker 1: that doesn't need to be done, but it must be
Speaker 1: done to keep the household running. The changing of bed sheets,
Speaker 1: the washing of towels, the laundry, the cleaning of the house,
Speaker 1: the chopping of food, all of those things. So that
Speaker 1: I have three daughters under the age of nine, and
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that the time that I
Speaker 1: have with them is the best quality time. I don't
Speaker 1: want my wife to be stressed about having to do
Speaker 1: these things, or for me to be stressed about having
Speaker 1: to do them. I leave the house at five am
Speaker 1: in the morning when all of my girls are asleep,
Speaker 1: and then I get home and I get an hour
Speaker 1: and a half with them in the evening, and I
Speaker 1: want that hour and a half to be like really
Speaker 1: high quality time. I don't want to be like I'm
Speaker 1: frustrated because I'm going and cleaning up the play room
Speaker 1: or doing any of these things. So any of those
Speaker 1: things I can automate, I do so that looks like
Speaker 1: a cook, a cleaner, nanny's to help with the dropping
Speaker 1: to certain extracurricular activities that the kids do. Landscapers come
Speaker 1: in and do all the lawnmowing, the pool guy comes
Speaker 1: in and does the pool naturally. Then if I have
Speaker 1: any annoying tasks that are like husband tasks that need
Speaker 1: to be done, like screws need to be tightened in
Speaker 1: draws or anything like that, I use air Tasker. So
Speaker 1: just take a photo, upload it on air Tasker and
Speaker 1: I can have someone there in like an hour. I
Speaker 1: don't engage in those things. I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: like trying to figure out how to fix the AC unit,
Speaker 1: Like that's going to cost me thousands of dollars if
Speaker 1: I try to entertain those little things. So I always
Speaker 1: look for what I call like wastage of things. I like,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't choose to do this, and it doesn't add
Speaker 1: any value to my life, but it does add value
Speaker 1: being able to free myself up and take my girl's
Speaker 1: horse riding, or take them on a nature walk, or
Speaker 1: do some painting with them and spend that quality time.
Speaker 1: And I try to remove all the stuff that isn't that.
Speaker 2: I have read that you only do meetings on Mondays
Speaker 2: and Fridays and in fifteen minute increments. Can you confirm
Speaker 2: if this is still correct?
Speaker 1: Yeah, because otherwise basically what happens is you have these
Speaker 1: got a minute meetings, right do you got a minute?
Speaker 1: Do you got a minute? And for me, I don't
Speaker 1: have any more minutes? Right, Like my whole week is
Speaker 1: planned out in advance. There's so many things that I
Speaker 1: need to do. So I found that it was very
Speaker 1: difficult to build my business and to jump in between
Speaker 1: problem solving in a meeting, dealing with a HR issue,
Speaker 1: trying to hire somebody, sorting out anything that needs to
Speaker 1: be done international payroll, and then trying to jump in
Speaker 1: and do creative deep work, and so all of that
Speaker 1: work is like shallow work, and the deep work is
Speaker 1: the work that's actually going to propel and grow the
Speaker 1: company forward. And these are things that must get done,
Speaker 1: Like I must meet with my senior managers. I must
Speaker 1: meet with my leaders. I must meet with my operations manager.
Speaker 1: But I compartmentalize it to those two days, so I
Speaker 1: just write those days off. Like so I'm like, this
Speaker 1: is a necessity. I need to do this, I need
Speaker 1: to do interviews, and I hammer them all out in
Speaker 1: terms of confining it to fifteen minute increments. Most people
Speaker 1: don't know how to run a meeting. You just get
Speaker 1: in there, there's some loose agenda, there's nothing really like
Speaker 1: this is like people are talking and it's not necessary.
Speaker 1: So I first of all try to eliminate the meetings
Speaker 1: by using like Loom videos and like just like hey,
Speaker 1: send me a Loom video that just walks me through it.
Speaker 1: It forces someone to think about what they're going to say.
Speaker 1: It's very constructive, it's short, and I can just basically
Speaker 1: answer it on the go through a voice note. And
Speaker 1: so if someone's like, hey, let's have a meeting. I'll
Speaker 1: be like, okay, Also, we've got fifteen minutes to have
Speaker 1: the meeting, and you'll find that they'll compress all of that.
Speaker 1: That doesn't mean that all of my meetings are fifteen minutes, right.
Speaker 1: I have more senior leadership meetings that might go for
Speaker 1: an hour. I have a quarterly off site that might
Speaker 1: go for half a day. But if it's like you
Speaker 1: need something for me, my fixer, so I don't call
Speaker 1: my assistant an assistant, they're a fixer that they're to
Speaker 1: fix problems. She will basically be like, Okay, what's ther agenda?
Speaker 1: What do you need and make sure that it's an
Speaker 1: absolute must. And a lot of those meetings, when their
Speaker 1: requests to have a meetings, they don't even end up
Speaker 1: as a meeting because once they go through my fixer,
Speaker 1: they're eliminated in a meeting as it him needed.
Speaker 2: Coming up next, Savory takes me inside his deep work routine,
Speaker 2: the music hack, how he thinks about nutrition to enable
Speaker 2: better focus, and how he plans his next day at
Speaker 2: four pm so he never wakes up wondering what to
Speaker 2: work on. We also talk about how he handles the
Speaker 2: gray zone opportunities that aren't a clear yes or no.
Speaker 3: If you're looking for more tips to improve the way
Speaker 3: you work can live. I write a short weekly newsletter
Speaker 3: that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.
Speaker 3: You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com.
Speaker 3: That's Amantha dot com.
Speaker 1: Yeah sure. So I work from the office on Mondays,
Speaker 1: Wednesdays and Fridays, and then Tuesdays and Thursdays, I'll work
Speaker 1: from home. My days that I work from home, the
Speaker 1: routine is I wake up, I go for a walk
Speaker 1: to get outside because I mean, you know, sleeping for
Speaker 1: seven or eight hours before I head out, I turn
Speaker 1: on my coffee machine, come back, it's rearing to go.
Speaker 1: I pull myself a double shot, and then I sit
Speaker 1: down and I just unload. So basically, I plan my
Speaker 1: day the day before at four pm every day, so
Speaker 1: I don't wake up and go what am I working
Speaker 1: on today? I know what I'm working on. I've got
Speaker 1: three things that I need to knock down, and then
Speaker 1: typically I'm going into my office. I'll have some song
Speaker 1: that I play constantly on replay while I work, and
Speaker 1: it depends on what the task is but there's always
Speaker 1: typically some form of music playing and it's repetitive, so
Speaker 1: I don't need to think about doing I don't like
Speaker 1: this song, let me skip it or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's just like, this is a song I feel like
Speaker 1: listening to and it's just one repeat, and I pretty
Speaker 1: much work for as long as I can uninterrupted until
Speaker 1: I need to take a break. And then when I
Speaker 1: need to take a break, I'll go have something to
Speaker 1: eat or have a shake or whatnot. On my deep
Speaker 1: work days, I don't have like any calves until the
Speaker 1: evening because I find if I eat calves, I crash
Speaker 1: and then I'm no longer effective. So let's just say
Speaker 1: that I sit down to work at the computer between
Speaker 1: five and six am in the morning, and then I'll
Speaker 1: try to sprint until like eleven thirty or so, with
Speaker 1: one break in between there, and then I'll go for
Speaker 1: like an hour walk into nature. I'll then do any email,
Speaker 1: send any voice modes or anything that's not deep work,
Speaker 1: and then I come back and I do the second
Speaker 1: shift for the day, and so I try to eliminate
Speaker 1: everything that is not work. Most people, they're like have
Speaker 1: some like secret productivity ritual that they do or they
Speaker 1: use some crazy software to track everything that's not the thing.
Speaker 1: The thing is the thing, So I just focus on
Speaker 1: doing the thing. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: the way that you focus is through subtraction. It's not
Speaker 1: by addition. You don't add more things. You don't add
Speaker 1: some special Pomeodoro clock or time tracking technique. It's just
Speaker 1: like anything that is not doing the thing isn't focused work.
Speaker 1: So I try to eliminate all communication phones on aeroplane mode,
Speaker 1: everything's away from me, and all I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: is extend the amount of time that I can work
Speaker 1: on something without being interrupted.
Speaker 2: I'm intrigued about the no low cabs during the day.
Speaker 2: That is such a great idea.
Speaker 1: I just monitor how I feel right, and I know
Speaker 1: that like I want something to fuel myself that doesn't
Speaker 1: weigh me down. And I always go for a walk
Speaker 1: after I eat as well, so then like you walk,
Speaker 1: it helps with the digestion. And then it's like I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm like on a continuous, like level playing
Speaker 1: field of energy and I don't have these big spikes
Speaker 1: and whatnot. And then I just backload the cabs for
Speaker 1: the end of the day when I know that I
Speaker 1: don't need to be productive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, super interesting.
Speaker 3: Tell me about prioritization.
Speaker 2: So you're like four o'clock the day before you're deciding
Speaker 2: what am I going to do for my deep work sprints?
Speaker 2: How do you make decisions about what is the most
Speaker 2: important use of your time the following day?
Speaker 1: It all begins for me like at the end of
Speaker 1: the year, where I basically think about, Okay, I take
Speaker 1: a stock and do an audit on the last year
Speaker 1: and see, Okay, how did I go against my goals?
Speaker 1: And then when I start to think about, Okay, what's
Speaker 1: the goal for twenty twenty six, what is it that
Speaker 1: I want to achieve? And I used to have like
Speaker 1: these like long lists of all of these things that
Speaker 1: I wanted to achieve, And as I keep going, I
Speaker 1: realize that I just try to put it down to
Speaker 1: like maximum of two things, and I ask myself, out
Speaker 1: of all this list, so I still write the full
Speaker 1: list of goals, and then I say, what one goal
Speaker 1: if you hit on this list would make everything else irrelevant?
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, that's the thing I need to prioritize.
Speaker 1: And so then once I find out what that one
Speaker 1: thing is, then I say, Okay, what actions would I
Speaker 1: need to take to make it unreasonable for me not
Speaker 1: to hit that goal? Like what would be unrech reasonable
Speaker 1: amount of work, amount of inputs that you had to
Speaker 1: put in where it's like that would be almost impossible
Speaker 1: for you not to hit your goals. And then I
Speaker 1: start with that, and I use that to back into
Speaker 1: the year, so then I'll be like, Okay, if that's
Speaker 1: what it is, that's the level of activity that's going
Speaker 1: to be unreasonable for you not to win. Then I go, okay,
Speaker 1: what does that look like broken down to a quarter
Speaker 1: to a month, to a week and to a day.
Speaker 1: And so I hold myself accountable quarterly on like, hey,
Speaker 1: this is you need to directionally be moving in this
Speaker 1: way in order for this quarter to be a success.
Speaker 1: Because there's no universe that exists where you're going to
Speaker 1: finish this first quarter not be on track and then
Speaker 1: you're just going to magically hit your goals. You obviously
Speaker 1: need to use your prioritization and really understanding what are
Speaker 1: the inputs that are really going to drive it. And
Speaker 1: as you go through the year, it's like constant experimenting.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I thought this was going to get
Speaker 1: me closer, but it turns out that that's not really
Speaker 1: doing it, So I need to test a new hypothesis,
Speaker 1: and so you get a chance to do that every week.
Speaker 2: Like I'm thinking about that process for my own life,
Speaker 2: and I'm thinking about my own businesses goals, and i
Speaker 2: feel like that sounds good in theory, but where is
Speaker 2: the room for serendipity or like things just taking off
Speaker 2: where you didn't expect it. And like an example in
Speaker 2: my consultancy inventium, about like eighteen months ago, we were
Speaker 2: running some experiments doing some AI training and we thought,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe this is like a thing on the
Speaker 2: side that we can supplement the main programs that we
Speaker 2: do around productivity and innovation and high performance. And it
Speaker 2: just completely exploded And now it's about two thirds of
Speaker 2: the business if I look at revenue, and that was
Speaker 2: completely unplanned and kind of following that and prioritizing what
Speaker 2: was going on with those experiments then became the main thing,
Speaker 2: but it certainly wasn't the main thing at the time.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure that this happens a lot in your world,
Speaker 2: where just unpredictable things good and bad happen. How do
Speaker 2: you account for that when you're thinking about what is
Speaker 2: the thing that I'm focusing on, what are my goals
Speaker 2: for the year, the quarter of the day, and so on.
Speaker 1: There's so many things that you can focus on as
Speaker 1: an entrepreneur, and there's so many things that are changing right,
Speaker 1: And we're living in a day and age right now
Speaker 1: where it's like you wake up and every day something
Speaker 1: has changed. Like with all AI and where everything is headed.
Speaker 1: It used to be that you woke up every five
Speaker 1: to ten years and there'd be like a big shift.
Speaker 1: Now it's every day that it's happening. So I really
Speaker 1: focus on the things that aren't going to change. So
Speaker 1: in business and with what we do, like ultimately we're
Speaker 1: all compensated by the amount of value that it is
Speaker 1: that we create and the way that we can do that.
Speaker 1: They are going to shift and move over time. But
Speaker 1: it's fundamentally about looking at, Okay, what's true for your business? Right?
Speaker 1: What are the things that aren't going to change. It's
Speaker 1: like how Jeff Bezos that Amazon looked at it for
Speaker 1: this is where I got that from. He's just like,
Speaker 1: all right, there's so much changing in e commerce. What
Speaker 1: isn't going to change? People are always going to want
Speaker 1: the widest selection and they're going to want the cheapest price,
Speaker 1: and so everything else outside of that is kind of noise.
Speaker 1: And until there is something that comes and actually materially
Speaker 1: changes your business, like AI. Then once that happens, then
Speaker 1: I'm like, Okay, I better pay attention to this because
Speaker 1: it's actually making a change. But there's so many things
Speaker 1: that popped up like AI, Messenger, chatbods, x y Z
Speaker 1: that appears on the surface like, hey, this is going
Speaker 1: to be something that's worth my time. And I call
Speaker 1: them shiny objects, right, And I had SOS shiny object
Speaker 1: syndrome very very badly when I was a young entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: and so that affected me way more than ignoring everything
Speaker 1: else and seeing what actually meaningfully disrupted my business and
Speaker 1: then jumping on it. And I think that most people
Speaker 1: their businesses don't work because they're trying to do too
Speaker 1: many things. It's not that they don't allocate enough time
Speaker 1: for serendipity or this magic thing that they want to
Speaker 1: work on. Most people are doing that because they naturally
Speaker 1: gravitate towards where they get the most dopamine. And you
Speaker 1: get the most dopamine from doing like new, shiny, sexy
Speaker 1: things and not the boring things that actually scale a business.
Speaker 2: What advice do you give to people who are suffering
Speaker 2: from SOS?
Speaker 1: I would say, first of all, most people when speak
Speaker 1: to a business owner and I'm like, what are your goals?
Speaker 1: What do you want to do? And they're like, I
Speaker 1: want to do a million dollars a year. And as
Speaker 1: soon as I hear like a round number, I know
Speaker 1: that that's like something that they've inherited from somebody else.
Speaker 1: So then it's like, Okay, why do you want to
Speaker 1: make a million dollars just because we did five hundred
Speaker 1: k this year and a million would be great? Okay,
Speaker 1: what's going to materially change with your life? And so
Speaker 1: the exercise that I go through with anybody that's looking
Speaker 1: to scale their business is like why, like where do
Speaker 1: you want to go to and why? And most people
Speaker 1: they don't have any idea of why they want to
Speaker 1: go there. And I have a saying, you want to
Speaker 1: make the why so big that the how becomes easy.
Speaker 1: And when you have such a big why and you know, okay,
Speaker 1: this is exactly why I want the thing, And the
Speaker 1: best place to start is the dream day exercise if
Speaker 1: you ask most people, what does it your dream life
Speaker 1: look like? Like, Oh, I don't know because it's such
Speaker 1: a big question. But if you say, what would a
Speaker 1: dream day look like to you? What time would you
Speaker 1: wake up, who would you be waking up with, what
Speaker 1: would you eat for breakfast? Then? What would you do?
Speaker 1: What would you be working on? Who would you be
Speaker 1: working with? What are you going to do in the afternoon?
Speaker 1: Are you going out for dinner? Are you cooking in?
Speaker 1: Do you have children? What does the day look like
Speaker 1: an absolute dream day? And then you get clear on
Speaker 1: what that looks like, and then you come up with, Okay,
Speaker 1: what do I need to earn in order to make
Speaker 1: that dream day a possibility? And then you have the
Speaker 1: target and you have why you're doing it. And then
Speaker 1: whenever you're looking at opportunities that present themselves to you,
Speaker 1: you ask yourself, is it going to get me closer
Speaker 1: to that outcome or is it something that's just going
Speaker 1: to distract me and looks fun? And what people don't
Speaker 1: understand is the more quote unquote success that you get,
Speaker 1: the bigger and the more illustrious the oportunities look like,
Speaker 1: and the opportunities that like, I need to have discipline
Speaker 1: to turn down now like phenomenal opportunities, and they look
Speaker 1: like incredible opportunities from people from the outside as well,
Speaker 1: but I know that they all come with a cost.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good segue into something I learned
Speaker 2: about you in my research is that most people default
Speaker 2: to yes when they're asked to do something. You've said
Speaker 2: that your default is to say no. Can you tell me, like,
Speaker 2: when was the moment that that flipped around for you,
Speaker 2: because I assume at some point in time you were
Speaker 2: yes as the default answer kind of person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's when your time becomes a very limited resource
Speaker 1: and it's a disciplined thing. And most people's default is
Speaker 1: they don't want to be confrontational, so that it's like yes, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe right. But I'm a very straight shooter and I'm
Speaker 1: a very direct person, and it comes through down through
Speaker 1: the filter is like, is saying yes to this going
Speaker 1: to get me closer to the outcome that I want?
Speaker 1: And most of the time it's not right. Most of
Speaker 1: the time it's like, yeah, I'll just say yes to
Speaker 1: that coffee meeting or this random thing or speaking at
Speaker 1: this conference or whatnot. But when you ask yourself and
Speaker 1: you're really really clear on like what your goals are,
Speaker 1: and you know the inputs to get your goals, and
Speaker 1: you go, okay, well, if this is an input for
Speaker 1: me to get to my goal, is it going to
Speaker 1: get me there? And most of the time it's like no.
Speaker 1: So then it's like the answer is no, because like
Speaker 1: prioritization means to cut off right, to cut off the
Speaker 1: other alternatives. And most people hear all these things but
Speaker 1: they don't practice them, but I try to. Once I
Speaker 1: find something that works, is just optimize it and do
Speaker 1: it to the nth degree. And so it can be
Speaker 1: unfortunate for a lot of people, and some people might
Speaker 1: be like, oh, it's a little bit jarring, but at
Speaker 1: least they know that I'm honest, which is good.
Speaker 2: And also a quick note is a good no as well.
Speaker 2: I hate nothing more than a slow no. When I'm
Speaker 2: reaching out to someone, I can definitely relate to the
Speaker 2: nos default. I feel like no has definitely become my
Speaker 2: default over the last few years, and I think for
Speaker 2: me it's when the incoming requests outweigh the time I
Speaker 2: have available. I think that was the turning point for me.
Speaker 2: If I'm to think about why, But there are still
Speaker 2: opportunities that are incoming that I am on the fence about.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know whether that's a yes or
Speaker 2: a no, and you must get that a lot. How
Speaker 2: do you make that decision where it's not a hell
Speaker 2: yes and it's not a clear no.
Speaker 1: It's a muscle like anything. It's something you've got to
Speaker 1: get the reps in and you've got to be comfortable
Speaker 1: with basically doing it. But you also I used to
Speaker 1: think that I needed one hundred percent of the information
Speaker 1: in order to make that decision, but realistically I need
Speaker 1: fifty percent. So it's just like you run it through
Speaker 1: a basic framework of like what is the value of
Speaker 1: the unit of time that I'm basically going to get this,
Speaker 1: what's the probability that it's going to get me closer
Speaker 1: to where I want to go? And not a lot
Speaker 1: of the time it's like you can see, okay, clearly
Speaker 1: black and why this is no, it's definitely not going
Speaker 1: to help me. And yes, it's going to help me.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time. The problem is in the
Speaker 1: middle right when you're trying to ascertain whether or not
Speaker 1: it is and then you start to just think about,
Speaker 1: like what's the probabilities of this being because you always
Speaker 1: kind of fantasize in your mind that it's going to
Speaker 1: equate to this. But once you've done it enough and
Speaker 1: you've done enough of these meetings, or you've said yes
Speaker 1: to enough of these things, you kind of know. And
Speaker 1: then it's like, am I just being obligated to say
Speaker 1: yes even when I truly know that this is not
Speaker 1: the thing I need to be doing? Like, look at
Speaker 1: all these other things that I need to be doing,
Speaker 1: And then it's like, this is a list of things
Speaker 1: that I know that I need to get done this week.
Speaker 1: If I did those and I completed all of them,
Speaker 1: would the probability of me getting closer to my goals
Speaker 1: increase more so than this opportunity that is in front
Speaker 1: of me right now. And I think that if you're
Speaker 1: being true to yourself, you do know that it's like
Speaker 1: a sixth sense that you ultimately dial in over time,
Speaker 1: But you don't know. When I was on like Shark Tank,
Speaker 1: it came through as like an unsolicited message in the DMS,
Speaker 1: like the producer was calling my phone, like hit me
Speaker 1: up on LinkedIn, all social media platforms, and like they
Speaker 1: couldn't even get on the phone with me because I
Speaker 1: have so many layers of defense to not distract me.
Speaker 1: And I was like, then my assistant was handling it
Speaker 1: my fixer, and they wouldn't tell her where they were
Speaker 1: calling from. And I was like, yeah, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to jump on the call then, and then so they
Speaker 1: reluctantly told me. I was like, okay, let's jump on
Speaker 1: the call. And then even then, you still think it's
Speaker 1: a scam because every day there's somebody from somewhere that's
Speaker 1: calling about something. And unless you have like these default nos,
Speaker 1: it seems so innocent. But even entertaining something takes your way.
Speaker 1: So it might take two or three hours to sit
Speaker 1: down with your fixer or your assistant or whoever it
Speaker 1: is that handles your time and say these are the
Speaker 1: frameworks for determining whether or not something is worth of
Speaker 1: my time. And unless it passes this, don't even make
Speaker 1: me aware of it. Like I tell like with my fixer,
Speaker 1: it's like, I'm not looking for someone that I want
Speaker 1: to manage. You are here to manage me. You are
Speaker 1: the conduit between me and the outside world, and your
Speaker 1: job is to be like, defend my time at all purposes.
Speaker 1: The barbarians are at the gate and they're coming from
Speaker 1: my time, and you must defend me. And if for
Speaker 1: some reason one of these guys or girls gets in
Speaker 1: and they appear that they are of value and they're not,
Speaker 1: then we have let the system fail.
Speaker 2: So that's the end of part one of this two
Speaker 2: part episode. Make sure you follow or subscribe to How
Speaker 2: I Work so you are alerted when part two drops
Speaker 2: into your feet, because next week we're going to be
Speaker 2: getting into how Savory went from a sixteen year old
Speaker 2: selling ink cartridges in Byron Bay to mastering the art
Speaker 2: of communication. We're also going to get into why he
Speaker 2: thinks a video sales is the single most powerful thing
Speaker 2: any business can have and is top tips for negotiating
Speaker 2: from someone who's closed over three hundred million dollars in deals.
Speaker 2: If you like today's show, make sure you hit follow
Speaker 2: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.
Speaker 3: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of
Speaker 3: the Warrangery People, part of the Koler Nation.