Transcription
This is how CEOs get more done in a week than most get done in a year. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I wasted so much time traveling, and I would use it as an excuse to fall behind on my commitments until I implemented these five CEO productivity rules that helped me compress decades into days. So here's how to compress time like a CEO.
Number one: Daily non-negotiables. The first CEO rule of productivity is to keep your commitments. If it's in your calendar, do it. When I was starting my coaching program, I sat down and outlined all my daily non-negotiables that made it impossible to fail, and then I followed them. It made my results inevitable. Here are three non-negotiables that any person can use to absolutely accelerate their life:
1. Read every day, 10 pages without fail. If you follow me on social media, you will see me post about my morning reading. Why? Because, A, it's accountability. I'm reading to find the gold nuggets I can share with everybody that follows me. And two, I'm feeding my mind. I'm ramping it up so that I'm connecting these different parts of my psychology, so I can be available for conversation. Why read in the morning? It's literally a primer for the day. I also consider it an offering to the world because now I have this thing I can gift to the world: this new thought, this new quote, this new idea. I'm like, "Hey, have you ever heard about this?" "No." "Yeah, I read it this morning." Now you've got value to give; walk around with a little secret.
2. Work out: Exhaust the body, tame the mind. If you're struggling with focus, struggling with creativity, struggling with your energy, it sounds crazy, but if you go and work out, you'll have more energy when you leave. Dude, I don't do anything that's important without working out first. You just feel your brain get better as you work out. A lot of people think it's the opposite; they're like, "I'm going to be tired." It's like I've never left the gym emotionally tired. I've left the gym physically tired.
3. Review goals. I have 12 goals for the year—12 massive things I decided to do: personal, professional, community contribution, revenue. I look at these goals three to four times a day, and I'm looking at my calendar and asking myself, "Does my time reflect these priorities?" I use my calendar to guide my actions, to hold me accountable, to set my priorities. When it shows up, I do it. It's not a negotiation. The opportunities that have showed up in my life in the last 12 months—when people see that I speak on Tony Robbins' stage, the book being number one—wouldn't have happened. The coaches I get to work with wouldn't have happened. None of that would have happened if I didn't invest in becoming pro at social media.
So your calendar is where I'll encourage you guys all to consider when you look at the amount of time you put towards the thing you say is important. If it's not in your calendar, think about what a pro athlete does to decide to go for gold in the Olympics. They show up, right? I call it want power, not willpower. Some of you guys think you need willpower; you don't need willpower. You need want, you need desire, you need drive. If these are the goals I want to achieve this year, have I properly allocated both my bank account, my resources, and my time to those goals? If not, I change something. It allowed me to build the business as a byproduct of the daily non-negotiables that I committed to because I'm keeping them front of mind. It's impossible for me to fail.
At the end of the day, we build our confidence by keeping the commitments we make to ourselves in private, and that's why I have these non-negotiables every day. This leads us to number two, which is plan the play. I first learned this by watching Richard Branson, the billionaire that every other billionaire wants to be like, operate his day-to-day. I had the privilege of spending a week with him in his home in Verbier, Switzerland, and I watched him execute every day. Every minute there was no time that was unallocated. Now, did he also allocate time to come skiing with us? Sure did. But did he have time with his assistant in the morning so he could respond to the hundreds of people that want his attention? Yep. He tries to squeeze as much life out of life.
See, most people freestyle their day and wonder why they don't get anything done. They literally don't put anything in the calendar because that way it feels more freeing. But the truth is, sometimes constraint creates freedom. Knowing what I have to get done and doing those as early as possible in the morning means that I feel free for the rest of the day. A goal without a plan is just a wish. So many people say, "I have this goal this year to make a million dollars." I'm like, "What's the plan?" If you can't back out your goal into weekly and daily actions and activities that make that goal inevitable, then it's just a wish. Everybody wants to be successful, but success is where preparation and opportunity meet.
Think about this: Most people would win in life if they actually just took a little bit of time in the morning to prepare for their day. Think of it this way: We plan our work, and then we work the plan. If you don't, then life will happen by default. If you do, life will happen by design. The way I look at the world, it's like Tetris. The blocks come down. If we don't set them up right to put them in that grid, it's your life. If you're not optimizing using this framework, then you might have a lot of blocks, but you've got a lot of white space because you didn't do it in the right sequencing. Sequencing equals success.
This leads us to rule number three, which is create a cadence. I used to travel 200 days a year. My schedule was packed, but the truth is it wasn't efficient. I used to think that because I was busy, I was being productive. Couldn't have been further from the truth. What I realize now is my life is a marathon, not a sprint. Because if you sprint and then fall, and sprint and then fall, you're actually not making as much progress. If you just set up your life to be this ongoing, never-stopping marathon, success is not achieved in bursts. People that do that to themselves, in many ways, are self-sabotaging. They burst into new opportunities instead of saying, "Okay, what could I commit to every day that sustained effort over time that on the back end of that would make my goals and my dreams inevitable?" Like they would just have to happen.
So what did I change in regards to my travel? First off, one trip per month, maximum seven days away from my family. Because I have that constraint and I have that rhythm, I'm very diligent about what goes into those seven days. I'm talking to people, I'm coordinating, I'm reprioritizing because that is the one shot I have on goal for face time with people. I batch all my speaking, my podcast, my founder dinners, my events, my book meetups—all of it into as little time as possible. When I land in a city, I make sure I take it over. I see all the people I want to see, I do all the things I need to see, including the fun stuff like going to a comedy show, but I make it part of the rhythm so it's sustainable over the long run.
Alright, if you have a question for Dan, he'll be right here for Q&A. When I set a goal, no matter what it is—financial, personal, health—I then ask myself, "What is the daily standard I'd have to maintain that makes that goal inevitable?" You know what's funny? Some people win; they can't tell you how they won. But if you watch the behavior, it was that they just did this: they woke up every day consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently, consistently, and it turned out that it worked. So don't tell me what your goals are; tell me what you're willing to sacrifice.
I just look at what we do as like little mustard seeds planted—every book, every handshake, every conversation, every question—we're building a tidal wave. This leads us to rule number four, which is curate connections. I first learned this strategy reading a book called "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazzi. He talked about the idea of getting people together to break bread. I tell you, as an introverted programmer, when I started, there was no way I was going to do this. What value could I give them? I had so little self-confidence that I convinced myself out of it for so long until I finally did it. I remember my first was with a guy named Larry. In that meal, it was just him and I. I felt all this pressure, but at the end of it, I thought to myself, "That was the most valuable two hours in a long time." I learned a lot about the industry; I learned a lot about myself. I realized I didn't have to talk that much; I just had to ask really good questions.
So now I always host either founder lunches, founder dinners, or founder hikes. Connection for me is so valuable because you can't get away from in-person. And guess what? I booked Hamilton Collection Studios' magic, and I didn't even know they had a coin. Wow, isn't that crazy? Yeah, that is. Hey, nice to meet you, Tommy. Good to see you, dude. We're here because I have a bunch of event stuff in Chicago, and I had you guys on my radar. So this is my group going up. This is Sam; this is my creative director, Todd. Todd runs a media company. This is going to be an expensive visit. When you see me get this car, you'll know the moment it happened.
I used to go to cities and then just stay in my hotel room, and then I would leave feeling like, "Man, I didn't see all these people that lived there." Here's what I've learned: The biggest opportunities will come into your life through loose ties of other people. It's not the people you know well. Your big opportunity is probably going to be introduced to you by somebody you haven't seen in a while. You just have to make an effort to see them, invite them to a meal. The more people that you know, the more opportunities you create. Think of them like little seeds that you're planting every time you see somebody. And that's what's new. You tell them, "Oh my gosh, my buddy Mark needs to talk to you."
If you think about it, your number one job is to solve problems. The best way to solve a problem is to know the person who's the best in the world at solving that problem. You have 50,000 words, so you wrote a book so far? Okay, I want to get it all out, though. Well, I mean, it all depends on your style. I like to collaborate with people, so finding an editor that you can collaborate with. Dude, we're going today to self-publishing on.com. That's where I'm doing my book meetup, which is the number one community for book editors. So when we're there, I'll introduce you to Chandler; we're going to solve that right there.
And here's the crazy part: A lot of people talk about it's who you know. I would say it goes even further than that. It's not who you know; it's who knows you. How would they know you? Because people will talk about you if you show up and you do good. If you invite them to a meal and you share your progress and things you've been up to, they're going to be impressed. They may mention you to somebody else. That is the highest form of leverage.
So the way I do it is I just ask my community when I go to a city, "Who should I meet with? Send me some names, tell me some people, give me some ideas." I'm always open to it, and usually, those recommendations are great. They're people that know me and incredible people to chat with. This leads us to rule number five, which is intensely integrate. I used to go to a city for one reason, and what happened is over the years, I got more and more people reaching out. There was more demand on my time, and there were things I wanted to do—new companies I wanted to start, people I wanted to invest in, or just things I wanted to experience with other people.
So what I do now is I integrate it intensely. I did the Jet Set Mastermind; people applied to come hang out with me on my jet and fly around. I did team meetings and dinners with people that are CEOs of my company. I went and hung out with them; I did dinners. I made sure I poured into them. We did the SAS book signing and promo material shoot just in like a 15-minute window—speaking at other events, keynoting, showing up and saying hi, podcast opportunities, even driving supercars.
When your work is part of your life's purpose, every moment becomes meaningful. Like, it's time. Give a warm welcome to Dan Martell. What up? Let me tell you about a five-day period in my life recently. Okay, I got on my jet, I flew to Florida, hung out with John Maxwell, the next day did Tony Robbins, the next day hung out on Memet's private island, and then flew home. I want you to understand, as a kid that grew up in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada, that that happened. Any one of those would have had my head explode. That was one five-day window. How does that happen? You think I sat there with a to-do list, G-chart, and I'm going to sit there? No, dude, this is spiritual. This has nothing to do with that.
That's what I'm saying: You go on this journey to figure out who you are. That's why goals are really important, only to the degree that they help you understand and guide you to figure out who you are. If you do that work, those magical opportunities will come to you, and you will know that you're doing the work. I'm always trying to integrate every aspect of my life so I can show up for people. It does require people around you, but it is one of the most productive things I do. And that's how CEOs get more done in a week than most get done in a year. If you want to learn how to schedule your day like a CEO, click the link, and I'll see you on the other side.