3 Principles to Blocking Out Time for Family and Friends

Audio Transcription

Learn the 3 Proven Principles to block out time for your family and friends inside of your busy schedule as a business owner from business coach Clay Clark.

SHOW NOTES from the BUSINESS COACH:

1. Principle #1 – Embrace Tradeoffs

“There’s no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.” – Jack Welch (Former CEO of GE who grew the company by 4,000% during his tenure)

2. Principle #2 – What is Scheduled Gets Done

“You either pay now or pay later with just about every decision you make about where and how you spend your time.” – Lee Cockerell (Former Executive Vice President of Walt Disney World Resorts who once managed 40,000 cast members / emploeyes)

3. Principle #3 – Be Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable

“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” – Tim Ferriss (Best-selling author of the 4 Hour Workweek, Venture Capitalist and one of the world’s top podcasters)

`Welcome into the man cave. Josh Merrill here with Tim Redmond and America’s number one business coach, it’s Mr. Clay Clark. Clay, what are we talking about today’s show? We’re talking about getting better at time management while factoring in your family. It’s so important that you can do this and we have many many thrivers all over the world that keep asking us, “Hey listen, I’m trying to factor in my family here. I’m trying to factor in my husband, I’m trying to factor in my wife. I’m trying to factor in my kids. How do i get better at that time management?” Josh, we have a mailbag, if you could read us kind of the specific question that was asked here, we’re going to break it down. “I’m getting better at time management. However, because my wife and I work strange time frames and sometimes different days, blocking out time for family and friends can be very difficult. Do you have any suggestions that can help with that?” Alright, I’m going to give you the three here.

Principle number 1 from the business coach is you have to embrace the trade offs. Now Tim, I’m going to ask you about this. Jack Welsh has this quote. Jack Welsh, the former CEO who grew GE by 4,000% during his tenure. He says, “There’s no such thing as work life balance. There are work life choices and you make them and have consequences.” So, Tim, I want to ask you. You grew Tax And Accounting from 2 people to 450 people with your partner there. What kind of trade offs did you and your wife have to make? Well, early on in the growth here, we were obsessed with growth. We were hiring dozens of people every week. We were growing just huge amounts, so coordinating that and running the marketing and overseeing the sales and the testing. I had 7 divisional managers that reported to me and it just took time to stay on top of it. And so we had to come together. There were a bunch of times that I would not tell her all that was going on, I would just heave into the work and that lack of communication really really shut down on some special moments that we could have had. So, I’m going to ask you this. I’m just going to tell you from my perspective, I know for me, I have chosen to miss out on many things that other people would think would be normal. I have said that I am not doing this to do that. My wife graduated from Oral Roberts University, but after I finished up at Oral Roberts University, I was asked to be on a intramural football team and I said no. Now part of me for a little bit wanted to do it, but I realized that the majority of me. But I said I would rather focus on growing my business than to participate in Oral Roberts University intramurals. We’re going to do a radio show for Thrive 15. It’s called the Thrive Time Show presented by scripts and 1170 KFAQ Talk Radio. We’re going to be there from 5pm-7pm. So I had to submit some outlines and talk to them about some of the things that we’re going to be doing. In order to get that done, I had to not do other things. We had to trade off things. So the main thing is you have to talk to your spouse and figure out if you agree, Hey these are the things that we’re trading off. It can’t be a passive aggressive thing. There has to be agreement. I’ve had one way discussions of here is what I’m going to do, not asking her to say let’s come in together and decide. Getting agreement is huge. Josh, you’ve been a video guy for many years. You’re 31? Yes sir. Have you ever had to miss out on some things in order to keep your video career going? Oh yeah, all the time. For me and my wife, the biggest thing was when we started having this amazing technological thing that happened, is that we could have calendars that synced with each other. So I could add something to my calendar and she could see a month and a half in advance, “Oh, he’s going to be gone all day on Sunday.” And she puts things in her calendar like, “Hey, I’m going to be at my parents on this day.” And then I see it and it’s this constant communication without actually having to communicate, but being able to see each other’s schedule and knowing how our lives are planned out. Do you use gmail? I use apple calendars. It’s through the iCloud. But, i’m sure that you could use google calendars as well. But the thing is, you and your wife have an open discussion about the things that you’re trading off. Because if you’re with family, you’re not with a video client. If you’re with a video client, you’re not with family. Alright, let’s move on to point number 2, Josh.

Principle number 2 here from the business coach is what gets scheduled, gets done. Lee Cockerell, who’s a Thrive15.com mentor, he’s a thought leader. He’s a guy that many people look up to as a leadership expert, as a manager expert. He once managed 40,000 cast members as a former executive vice president of Walt Disney World Resorts. He says this, “You either pay now or you pay later with just about every decision that you make about where or how you spend your time.”  This is the guy who was the peak of management. He managed 40,000 people as the former executive vice president of Walt Disney World Resort. He is saying ,”Listen, with every decision you either spend time here or you spend time there.” So principle number 2 is what is scheduled gets done. You can’t be two places at one time. Tim, talk to me as a business coach about why this is so important. Back in the day when you’re growing the company be 50% a year, you’re growing Tax and Accounting. You end up growing from 2 people to 450 people. Many years of 100% growth. Why was it so important to schedule what got done? So we have so many decisions coming at me. Most of us running a business, so many decisions to make if we don’t take time to sort it out what decisions we want to focus on and schedule those focus points. Schedule those priorities. It’s not just getting a list of priorities, you have to schedule those priorities. I find myself tending to drift from one thing or another that’s easier to get to or may not be as intellectually challenging so I’ll tend towards those. And so the most important big rocks don’t get done. So like today as an example, we had a wonderful person who was listening to one of our thrive15.com trainings and they had some very specific questions and he wanted to be coached one on one. At Thrive15.com for $19 a month, you can listen to all the video trainings that you want, watch the video trainings that you want, listen to the podcasts. For $50 a month, you can come out to workshops. So this guy said, i want one on one training. Now I blocked out a specific time to talk to him at 1pm. So when I was talking to him today at 1pm, I was not talking to other people at 1pm. But you know what I did at 1pm? I talked to him, i coached him, I helped him break through boundaries. This week, full disclosure, he did $17,000 in gross revenue at about a 30% profit margin which is pretty awesome. So he did about $4,500 of profit this week. And the reason why he’s having success is because he is implementing. And the reason we are having success as coaches is because we’re blocking off time to coach him on the proven best practices, but if you do not block out time, you will not have any success. So specific moves, I’m going to walk you through the sub moves here. One, put your phone down. Face down right now. My phone is face down right now, my phone has never stopped ringing. All day I’m missing calls. I’m missing calls right now. I have 19 missed text messages since we started this podcast. I just keep my phone down all the time. My Facebook, I’m not on it, my gmail, I’m not on it. I’m off because I’m focused here with you right now. So what is scheduled gets done.

Principle number 3 from the business coach is be comfortable with being uncomfortable. At the end of the day you’re going to make these systems, these checklists, this vision and you’re going to have to hold  people accountable to executing it. I mean you could sit there and go and watch Ted Talks. You could go to your local coffee shop. You could come up with a way to motivate people without consequences, but at the end of the day, you’re going to have to hold people accountable. So Tim Ferriss, the bestselling author of the Four Hour Work Week, he wrote a quote. He wrote a statement that’s powerful. He says, “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” Tim, why is this so important? This is really really important. I read a book that’s Dr. Cowen. He said, “The number one skill in the 21st century is getting comfortable with discomfort.” He talks about how people are so afraid of being uncomfortable that they’ll do crazy things just to move to comfort. Realize that if you want to succeed as the owner of the business, as an entrepreneur as this person that owns their own business and really wants to make it go, you’ve got to learn to do those things that are hard, do those things that make you uncomfortable. Just get them done. That’s from the business side. From the family side, is there some things that are an action step that we can take with our wife, with our husbands, is there something that we can do. Josh, with my wife, again everyone has their own relationship and I can’t push my values on you, I can just tell you what I do. This year, my dad has ALS. So if you’re listening and you don’t know what ALS is, it is a neurological disease that eventually kills off your ability to breath, to talk, to think, to move. It’s awful. But my dad is trapped in this cocoon where his body physically can’t work, but his mind can. And my wife and I made trade offs. So Sunday we were there with my dad, we weren’t here recording. Then I was there last night, but he didn’t know I was there. Probably didn’t know where I was. I talked to him, but he kept drifting out of consciousness. And right now, I’m here with you answering your question, but I’m not with my dad. And it’s an uncomfortable thought. I had a guy ask me the other day, “How do you justify spending this time focusing on growing your radio show, at the time when your dad needs you the most?” This is a question he asked. He’s a fun guy, went to college with me. People through Facebook ask the most obnoxious questions. They ask the most the truthful questions, they ask the most insane questions. That was the question he asked. I’m saying that my wife and I went eyes wide open. We talked about it, it wasn’t random. And we said that we’re going to spend time with my dad during this time and my phone is going to be off. So I took my phone and I turned it off. And I had a guy that really wanted to hire me as a consultant and said that he could only meet on Saturday. And maybe in the past, I would’ve met him on a Saturday afternoon, but I didn’t because I was with my father. All I’m saying is I’m not a hero for doing that, I’m a son. Anybody listening to this, I feel like you would do that for your dad. But I had to trade off. I had to say no. And on a super ridiculous, superficial, I like to have sex.  I like to chase my wife around. I like to have marital sex. I do. Come on, I’m married. I love my wife. She’s great, but I think my wife’s attractive. I like  to chase her around. So the thing is, I have to eventually turn off life to do that. And I like making money, which means I can’t be talking to my wife or my dad during those times. And all I’m saying is life is about intentional trade offs. The people who are the least successful are the people who just go, “Yeah, I’ll go ahead and do that. I’ll go ahead and do that.” And they feel pulled by everybody and they can’t say no. So again, Tim Ferriss says, “A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” I have literally said “I cannot meet with you this Saturday because I’m taking my daughters to Branson.” And someone said “This is a huge deal.” Can’t do it. “Hey, I really want to meet.” “Can’t do it, I’m with my dad.” “Hey I’d love to meet you tonight.” “Can’t do it, I’m chasing my wife around.” Tonight, I’m not going to meet with you. I’m just saying, I’ve had to have these uncomfortable conversations. I’ve had to say to people, “Hey you’re not meeting your key performance indicators. You’re fired.”

It’s so important that one, we embrace the trade offs, two, what is scheduled gets done, and three, be comfortable with being uncomfortable. Tim, as a business coach is there something else that you want to add about being comfortable about being uncomfortable? Life is made of decisions and the more you make the quality decisions, the more quality that you’re going to have in your life. Becoming distinct and intentional, it keeps me from drifting, it keeps me on track, it keeps me focused on the most important things. You’ve been listening to the Thrive Time Podcast. Clay, tell us real quickly about Thrive15.com. Well years ago, Dr. Zoellner was a guy that I spoke to, that I shared my vision and a couple of years before that, I talked to Tim Redmond about my vision. Before that, I talked to a guy named Bill Shaufty about my vision. What’s the vision? The vision was to build a business platform that allowed the world’s best business school to be accessible to people, regardless of their income status. We wanted to build a business school without the B.S. So what we came up with was this thing called Thrive15.com. It’s the world best business coaching business school platform. What it includes is you have exclusive access to in person workshops, best practice downloadables, you have exclusive access to the ask us anything business question hotline. Bottom-line, it’s the answer to any business question that you’ve ever had. And it’s all accessible for $19 a month. You need to check it out. It’s Thrive15.com. I’m passionate about it. I”ve spent millions of dollars on it. And I will tell you, it will absolutely change your life if you implement what you’re learning at Thrive15.com. That’s right. Thrivers, it’s your time to Thrive. Let’s hit it.