Transcription
What I'd like to walk you through now is a visual framework called the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid. I've given you the macro ideas on accelerating your productivity significantly. Now, allow me, please, to give you some specific tactics that will help you to do so. So, let's have a look at the model itself. It's the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid. There are nine elements to it, and let's dive right in.
The first element is the mighty mission. You really need to know your Mount Everest in order to architect and strategize and articulate the tactics that will get you there. People suffer from busy being busy because they don't know where they're going. They don't have a compelling cause. They don't know they're the central priority of their life. They haven't taken the time to contemplate and to think about what, where they want to go. And so, taking the time to get quiet on a consistent basis and taking the time to ask yourself, "What is my mighty mission?" It might change over time. That's just the nature of life. That's just the nature of you evolving and you and you growing. But pull away from the noise so you can start to hear the signal more.
When I went through the four interior empires spectrum and all those different tactics, I talked about meditation and prayer. And here's something to think about: prayer is talking to spirit; meditation is spirit talking to you. And so, get quiet and meditate. And pull out your journal. I mean, it might be a journal that looks like this. I, I journal almost every day. And start the process by asking yourself questions and just stream of consciousness writing: "What is my mission? How do I want to be remembered when I'm no longer here?"
There's something I'm just going to show you an idea here. So, people often ask me, "What should I do? What does my mission look like?" And I often would say, "Well, what are your talents?" In other words, what are the things that you're good at? We all have certain inclinations. We are born into the legendary performers. Just trusted their instinct. Important point here: we all have certain inclinations. Some people are good at strategic thinking. Some people are good at creativity or artistry. Some people are good at intellectual pursuits. Some people are good at tactics. I don't know what it is, but you want to know your talents and your inclinations. And the most successful people in the world, they followed their inclinations and they practiced the things they were naturally good at until they got to a place where they were seen by the world as geniuses.
Most people, when they're kids, they have these inclinations and they get knocked. They get the inclinations knocked out of them by teachers and and parents. And remember Penham, those five forces that pull us away from all we truly are. And so, when we're kids, often we, there are certain things we're really good at, but our parents or teachers or peers or whatever say, "Oh, no, that doesn't make sense. You could never be a poet, or you could never be an actor, you could never be a singer, you could never be a business builder, you could never be an architect." And we actually fall into the snare of believing their opinion. But their opinion is just their opinion.
So, you want to start thinking about your talents. And then, once you know your talents, ask yourself, "What do you love to do?" So, those are your passions. These are the three circles of personal mission. This model will help you find out what is your mission in life. And obviously, you can optimize it and change it. Circle number one is: What are your inclinations? What things are you just, you're really good at them? And how do you find those? Well, you think about them, and you can even ask your friends and your family, "What things have you noticed that I'm just naturally really good at?" Number two, your passions. Those are your enthusiasms. These are things that you love to do. You don't see it as work. You just would do it even if you weren't paid. And here's three: Money. What will you, what will the marketplace pay you to do? And at the intersection point of your talents, your passions, and enthusiasms, and what you'll be paid for, is your gateway into your mission.
Once you know your mighty mission, once you know your Mount Everest, then the second element of the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid is your Big Five lifetime. I was in South Africa one time, and I was blessed to go on a safari. And my guide said to me, "Robin, we're going to go out, and I'm going to show you the Big Five game." The water buffalo, and I think it's the lion, and the, I think it's the rhinoceros. I'm not sure. But essentially, five animals that are known as the Big Five, the most forceful animals on the savannah. And I went back to my hotel room that evening, and I asked myself this fundamentally life-changing question: "What's my Big Five?" What are the five priorities that I must achieve between now and the end of my life for me to feel I lived an absolutely world-class life? And that exercise transformed my life.
And so, essentially, you're going to take your mighty mission and you're going to deconstruct it into five priorities. That is your Big Five. Your Big Five game that you are going to hunt down for the rest of your life. Once you do your mighty mission and you articulate it, and I would encourage you to put it into a journal and look at it every morning while the rest of the world is asleep. So, first thing in the morning, it's like a meditation. You connect to what's most important. Then your day is going to be strategic versus reactive. Then, literally, you're living your day out in a way that is linked to where you want to be. I don't know if I said that clearly, but I really want to be clear. Imagine every single day is a stepping stone, or every single day is like a climb up Mount Everest, and every single day gets you closer to your mountaintop. That's the power of reconnecting with your mighty mission every morning.
You have the power to say no to trivialities because you are so precisely clear on where you're going. That not only gives you more precision of behavior, you become a better energy and time manager, but also it gives you hope. I want to make a link for you: knowing where you're going and having an exciting and ambitious mountaintop is a great way to fill yourself with hope and positivity and fire in the belly. And then you deconstruct the mission into element number two, which is your Big Five lifetime. Five priorities. You look at them every day. It could be: "Grow my startup to three or seven billion dollars in income," or whatever. Uh, the first. It could be: "Master my four interior empires." This is not an order. It could be: "Be a world-class family person and magical moment creator for the people I love." For it could be: "Being an aesthetic so that I love beauty every day," whether it's reading something beautiful, or listening to some inspiring music, or having a great family dinner, or watching the sunset four times a week. And maybe five: "It's being a philanthropist and a humanitarian so that I'm not only doing my dreams, but I'm lifting the world in the process."
That brings us to element number three. After your Big Five lifetime, which is your Deep Five Values. You don't hear that much about values in conversations about legendary productivity, but your values shape your daily performance. It is what you value that is almost like your OS, your operating system. It is your values that cause you to behave in a certain way. You see someone who is wasting time. There is a certain value of their operating system that is causing them to waste time. You see someone coasting at work. They have a value, perhaps, of entitlement, or maybe it's a value that they can't do very much, or they're not worthy of exponential productivity. You see someone who reaches a problem and rather than going around it to find an innovative solution, they just make an excuse and they say, "I can't get anything done." That is a value in operation.
So, you want to detect your top five values. Your value, one of your values could be integrity and honesty. Great value. Another value could be: "Use every single day to the maximum, but also ensure that I'm having some time for renewal." Your value could be: "Leave the world better than I find it." Your value could be: "The job of a leader is to grow more leaders." Your value could be: "In everything I do, I will represent mastery." You could have a value that says, "I will always put my physical fitness first, because when I'm in the fitness level of a professional athlete, I'm great with my family, I'm great at work, I have stamina, I'm creative, and I just feel a re-, feel really good, and stress doesn't really bother me."
After your Deep Five Values, element number four of the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid is the Dream Team. So, literally, when I work with the titans of industry, one of the first things I do within the first month is we set up their dream team. And if you look at a quarterback, again, you go to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan focused on one thing. He focused on his training and he focused on being a world-class basketball player. And he literally farmed out anything that didn't relate to that. And if you look at a quarterback, the quarterback has a team around him or her. And if you look at the real titans of industry, they understand they're paid to think. They understand they're paid to create. They understand they're paid to come up with ideas that keep them at the top of their game. You do not want to fall into the situation of being CEO and chief dishwasher. You do not want to be wasting your time on things that are not worthy of your time.
And so many people do that. I remember reading a biography on Michael Dell, and he describes how one day, someone knocked on his door, and this is when Dell was a billion-dollar company. He started it in his dorm room, as you probably know. And someone said, "Michael, do you have the keys to the Coke machine?" And he said, "What?" And he said, "Yeah, do you have the keys to the Coke machine?" And Michael Dell said, "What are you talking about?" And the employee said, "Oh, well, remember, you know, you always used to have the keys to the Coke machine in your desk. And you know, in the past, we all, even just a few months ago, we used to knock on your door to get the keys to the Coke machine. And I feel like having a Coke." And that reminded Michael Dell not to repeat the things that worked when he started out, now that the company was a multi-billion dollar company.
And I see it so often with business builders, and I see it so often with professional athletes. They're doing the same things that they did when they were unknown and in startup mode, when they're now superstars. And so, build a dream team around you. You know, I, definitely have a fitness trainer. And you might say, "Well, that'll cost money." Well, illness will cost more, and death is even more expensive. So, get a fitness trainer. One thing I learned from Warren Buffett is focus on the return on investment versus the cost. Victims, people complaining, people in poverty, these people are always saying, "Well, a new book will cost a lot." Well, a $20 or $30 book could have the ideas that make you a fortune. And not only a financial fortune, but a creative fortune, and a fortune of lifestyle, and a fortune of spirituality. Don't focus on the cost of things. Focused on, focus on the return on investment. Remember what Salvatore Gucci once said: "Quality is remembered long after price is forgotten." Cheap is more expensive. Cheap is more expensive.
So, your dream team. Definitely invest in a fitness trainer because when you get really fit, everything else in your life rises. It's the willpower researchers and habit scientists. They talk about a keystone habit. And that's the one habit that lifts every other habit. And if there were two keystone habits I would offer to you, it would be: join the 5 AM Club and have a great morning routine. Because the way you start your day, Dr., has an outsized impact on the way your day unfolds. And if there's a second habit, it's work out every morning. And I don't know about you, but I never work out as hard as I do when I have a trainer standing in front of me, pushing me. And hiring a trainer and booking her or him in for six months, that just builds accountability. And that trainer will be at my home at five o'clock or six o'clock, knocking the door three times a week. So I just need to do the workout. And it's a great way to beat procrastination.
So, on your dream team, also have perhaps a talk therapist, maybe an energy healer, maybe an acupuncturist that you visit once a month. Definitely a financial advisor. Your dream team could have a nutritionist that you visit with every three months so that you leverage the power of epigenetics and have the right nutrition so that you reduce inflammation and you extend longevity and you increase your energy. But building a dream team around you, even at work, you literally have people you know to do all the things that you don't like to do. Then you come to work every day and you just do what fills you with joy and what you're best in the world at. Having a dream team is is an absolute game-changing move.
Which elegantly, hopefully, brings me to element number five of the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid, which is the FOS. So, one of the primary reasons that that most learning has no traction and most digital courses don't really work, and even books don't really lead to any sustained transformation, is we get the ideas at a cognitive level, and then life invades the idea. And we put down the book, or we turn off the course, and we have to deal with the busyness of life. And then we just stay with our habits because they are familiar and they're easy to do. And then we buy another book. Often, it becomes an addiction. We buy another book, we learn how to be more productive, we put the book down, but we don't do anything. And then we always wonder, "Why can't I change?"
And what I want to suggest to you is, most people don't change because they don't have an ecosystem around them or a life structure that they install that mandates change. The solution is the FOS. The FOS means Forced Optimization Strategy. FOS, the Forced Optimization Strategy. So, how do you get super fit? You force the optimization of your fitness by pulling out your credit card, calling a local fitness trainer that you hear is amazing, and booking him or her in to show up at your apartment, to show up at your house, three times a week, or two times a week, for the next six months. If you really want to play it world-class, for the next year. Now you have forced optimized your fitness because the trainer will be at your door, ringing the doorbell, three times a week, or two times a week. You schedule the training six months in advance. You lock it onto your digital or paper schedule.
You want to increase your nutrition. You force optimize your nutrition by finding a nutritionist and booking in every two or three months for the next year and paying for it, so you have the accountability, so you have the leverage, and you pay for it. You want to start biohacking so you live longer and have more energy and get even healthier and reduce illness, inflammation. You find a biohacking clinic. You fly there, but you book it out one year in advance, every quarter. Let's say you want to have a mastermind. That's simply you get together with a group of like-minded people. Maybe for many years, for me, it was 6 AM at a local park, Friday mornings. I had a mastermind partner. We talk about books, we talk about business ideas, we talk about struggles we were having, relationship issues, life issues, victories that we would celebrate. That would be booked in one year in advance.
I mentioned taking a sabbatical, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. If you were to look at my schedule for the next two years, you would see July and August. It's all green, and I've got these lines right across, diagonal lines across July and August, because I do go ghost. I go dark. I have forced my team knows I will be in Latin America, I will be in Bali, I will be in Tokyo, I will be in Siberia. I will be off on some adventure with the people I love. Sometimes I go alone with my journal in hand, trying new food, getting exposed to new conversation. There's great value in that. And so, I force optimize my refuel times by blocking it out on my schedule and then telling my team, "This is unmessable with. I will not be around."
So, the Forced Optimization Strategy, even in terms of your financial life. You force optimize it by finding someone on your dream team, a financial advisor. And if you really want to get aggressive with saving and investing, you say, "Every Friday, let's have a conversation. Check in on my goals. Hold me accountable. Be my financial mentor and keep me on track." And let's schedule this for the next six months. I'll pay whatever it takes because you understand how Warren Buffett thinks: ROI. The return is much more important than the cost. Victims get caught up in the cost. "Oh, I won't go to this course. I won't go to this conference. I won't hire this coach because of the cost." And so they never build fortunes of creativity, productivity, prosperity, and service to humanity. You can't do world-class alone. You need a dream team. And then, once you have a dream team, you have to force optimize the strategy so the dream team works for you. Powerful, right? Force optimize it. Then you, you can't get out of it. You have to get fit. You have to save and invest. You have to, even finding a, a coach that will help you get to mastery in your work. You force optimize it. You have to work with them. They will hold you accountable. Even if, even if it's your force optimization is a group, you schedule it, you optimize it. Now you have skin in the game. Now you're like, in the Greatness Guide, I talk about burning your boats. Remember Hernán Cortés? Many years ago, he got to, he was traveling, and he wanted to invade this land. And he got up to the shore, and his whole army had all these boats. And the boats landed. And he said, "Okay, guys, now what? We're going to burn our boats." He said, "What? How will we go home?" He said, "We're not going home. We're either going to win, or we're going to die. We're either going to conquer this land, but we will not need boats because we're not going back home. We're either going to conquer the land, or we're going to die." Fascinating metaphor for you. Force optimize it. Burn your boats so you get your habits installed and you get your HVTs, your high-value targets done.
Circle of Genius is the sixth element of the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid. And your Circle of Genius is simply surrounding yourself with people whose lives you want to be living. You really do become your conversations. Remember mirror neurons. Remember emotional contagion. Mirror neurons are the type of brain cell we have that cause us to mimic the people we spend most of our time with. If you're around possibilitarians, around extraordinarily productive people, if you're around master workers, you will mimic their behavior automatically. It's just the way our brains are built. Remember emotional contagion. We adopt subconsciously the emotions of the people we spend most of our time with. You're around positive people, enthusiastic people, people with a sparkle in their eye to change the world. You're around people who see problems as opportunities and love life. Their enthusiasm and optimism and sense of wonder will automatically infuse you. Their behavior and energy and emotionality will affect you and show you how to live and what's possible. If you're around victims, energy vampires, and dream stealers, and people who are always saying "no" and "can't," well, these people will affect your energy and your emotionality as well. So, your Circle of Genius is essentially who you allow into your life and allow your friends and your associations and even the people you allow onto your team.
That brings me to element number seven. Another absolute game-changing and life-changing concept, according to what my titan and billionaire clients have told me over 25 years: the World-Class EAPA concept. W-C-E-A-P-A stands for a World-Class Executive Assistant and Personal Assistant. I should write that out to make it even more clear for you. W-C-E-A-P-A stands for a World-Class Executive Assistant and PA, Personal Assistant. So, sometimes the client says, "I don't think this would work," or they resist me like most people resist a breakthrough idea that disrupts the way they've done things in the past. I say, "Please, you've retained me as your one-on-one mentor. You want me to help you grow your company exponentially? You want to scale your fortune even more? You want to have more fun time? You want to develop a greater spiritual connection with your highest self? You want to feel like you're giving back more after achieving so much business and financial success? Please, trust me." And mostly they do.
And then what they do is they start the search. Sometimes they hire a headhunter, and they look for a World-Class Executive Assistant and PA. And then, once they do this, and sometimes they have to go through 20 different people, that's just business. They might have to go through 20, 30, sometimes 100 different people to find the right fit. Quick bonus point for business: hire slowly and fire quickly. Hire slowly, fire quickly. So, a World-Class EAPA is essentially someone who is your executive assistant. That person is your right arm. That person is your gatekeeper. That person manages your email and your notifications. That person books your schedule. That person books restaurant dinners and all your travel and all your vacations and every meeting with you. And helps you do the written projects. And if you're working on a creative project, works with you to take the changes and make them, put them into the document. And essentially, this is someone, an executive assistant to someone who runs your entire professional life for you. So, again, your energy is freed up, and your cognitive bandwidth can just focus on the few things that matter most, which allows you to get to BIW, best in the world.
But this person is not only a World-Class Executive Assistant, this person is a World-Class Personal Assistant. This person can book your kids' tennis lessons. If you're going through a move, this person can help you put everything in boxes and organize all the messes that might be in your workspace. This person can help you in all the personal things that you might need help with. Maybe it's booking medical appointments. Maybe it's setting up a family vacation. Maybe your parents, your father or mother, is having their 80th birthday party. So, a great PA will say, "No problem, I've got this covered." They'll find out the best place to have it. They'll do everything. You set the vision. A great PA will just get it done and basically say, "Here's the schedule. Enjoy your family meal." So, the World-Class EAPA concept is so important for exponential productivity.
Which leads me to element number eight: the Tight Bubble of Total Focus. That's what TBTF stands for. And it's a metaphor. The Tight Bubble of Total Focus metaphor is simply: you see yourself as an elite performer with a porous tight bubble, total of total focus around you. And you literally do not allow any idea, influence, activity, and person through that bubble that's around you, metaphorically, unless it upgrades your positivity and your productivity. You don't allow any, you say no to any activity that doesn't get you closer to your mighty mission and your lifetime Big Five. You do not allow any person through that porous bubble. It's like a personal moat around your castle of exponential productivity. You don't let people in, activities in, thoughts in, influences in that do not allow you to get to your mountaintop. Very powerful idea.
Which brings me to the last and the ninth element of the pyramid: the Five Great Hours. Insight, radical idea, transformational. Just work five hours a day. Five sweaty, heavy weight, monomaniacally focused hours where you're doing heavyweight work versus fake work, and then go have fun. It takes most producers, the majority, a month or more to get five mastery-grade, genius-grade hours of work done. Takes them a month, maybe two months, maybe even more. Imagine you set yourself up by using the elements of this pyramid to do five heavyweight hours of work every day, four days a week. Friday, call it your zero device day. Fridays are for fun. Friday is your digital sabbatical. Friday, you go off to art galleries. Friday, you try a new type of food. Fridays, you take a nap. Fridays, you hang out with your family at one o'clock in the afternoon. Five hours a day. Imagine the free time I've just freed up for you. Imagine your lifestyle now.
The thing I'll leave you with the idea is: work less to achieve more. Because those five hours will be fiery because you've had so much free time to renew those five assets of genius that when you work, you are working at your best. Your focus is great. Your willpower is strong. You're intimate with your genius. You're doing amazing work. All it takes is a few hours of amazing work to come up with an idea that revolutionizes the game. So, those are the nine ideas of the Peak Productivity Strategies Pyramid. Study it. Meditate on it. Live it. And you're going to find revolutions of productivity showing up for you so that you do become known as the legend of your field and the master of your craft.