Business Coach : Refuse To Procrastinate
-Well, I think we can keep going–
-He is fired. They’re not allowed back here.
-We’ve got a rogue camera guy who’s getting off reservation. But we’re going to keep together. I’m moving on to step number 10.
-I don’t know what the point–
[LAUGHTER]
-We’re moving on. Refused to protect.
-Refu–
-Refuse to procrastinate. Now, Business coach Tim, procrastination kills business owners, and it seems as though this issue of paralysis by analysis is a huge problem. Tim, the guy that a lot of people will call the best hockey player of all time, Wayne Gretzky.
TIM REDMOND: Wayne Gretzky.
-He says, “Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest diseases, and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” Any business coach will tell you that. You work with clients all the time. I work with clients all the time. And they’ll come into a meeting. You haven’t seen them in seven days, maybe a month.
TIM REDMOND: Right.
-And you’ll say, did you get the job done? And they’ll say, nope. And it’s usually something different. Well, this week someone was sick, and I had some stuff I was working on, and we’ve been kind of– but the point is, you’ll start to see they just don’t get anything done. There’s a procrastination– it’s almost like a spirit of procrastination that’s over them.
TIM REDMOND: Right.
-What would you say to somebody on the other end of the camera over here who’s watching this who’s just been– they’ve kind of labeled themselves as, I am a procrastinator.
-Well, you become what you do. But I believe going back to the visualization and what you’re saying to yourself about yourself– you’re an action person. If you want to be successful, it will require you to overcome procrastination. And procrastination is just a mindset to say, I require it to be done perfectly the first time. A business coach can help you make that happen.
Perfectionism breeds procrastination. And the fear of failure and all these close cousins of that– and that’s not true. What is truth here is that you are destined for massive wealth. Wealth is built on the foundation of learning. Learning is putting motion in your life. Learning comes when you’re in motion.
-I want to say something real quick too for Thrivers watching this. Clifton Taulbert, who’s been an unbelievable mentor of mine. He’s one of our Thrive mentors. Clifton’s a best-selling author. And I remember I’d been working on a book. It had probably been two years into it. And Clifton says, well, you know, you need to break it up into a certain number of pages a day that you can commit to. And I thought, wow, that was the– I never thought about that. And it might seem just simple.
So, I started just committing I’m going to write two or three pages every single day. And then I thought, well, how long will that take? To write two or three good pages, that might take an hour. So, I realized I want take an hour every day. Then it was, when am I going to do that? And just breaking it into those very specific steps is what’s always kind of helped me whenever I get stuck in a rut.
So, I know for Thrive we have a ton of legal agreements. There’s legal agreements everywhere. And I know, for me, I just can’t stand legal agreements. I hate paperwork. But if I go, OK, I’m going to get this agreement done this day. How long will it take? I’m OK. But when I just look at the big sea of legal agreements, and say, I’m going to get all of them done? It’s overwhelming. And you don’t get a lot done there.
And so I want to read you this quote from Gary Keller. He says, “Extraordinary results are directly determined by how narrow you can make your focus.” And that, to me, was so liberating when I read that. Because I thought, I’m going to take this nasty legal agreements, plural, and turn it into a specific item.
And so for the people watching this– I know we talked about it a little bit with day planning and with mapping out your day– if I’m watching this, and I am somebody who’s chronically in that rut, and I struggle to focus, would you recommend that I maybe change my geography? My place? My location? What would you recommend I do so I get out of that rut? Is it maybe just getting a different office environment? Is it just kind of maybe rearranging my schedule? What would you say to someone who’s chronically stuck? A business coach helping would definitely be a good choice!
-Right. Sometimes just changing your environment is great. You may do your work out in the cafeteria. Or you may do it in your car before you come in. And then all the noise starts coming from all the office. What’s important is for you to think through– and for you be able to chunk down a small enough thing. Not for you to get done in a day, but chunk it down so you can get something done in 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Well, Tim, I got to do a lot of those things.
You know, the motivation is like a muscle. We mentioned that here. Procrastination can be like a muscle where you just– it builds, and you got all this procrastination muscle. You can’t move around. So just start creating motion. What’s important here is just create motion in it. Create motion in it. That’s the whole key. I like this quote from Goethe. He says, “Whenever you have something, you can dream something, just begin it.” Just begin it. Boldness has that genius and power and magic in it.
-Who is that quote by?
-Goethe. It’s some guy by the name of Goethe. He’s a guy that wrote some poems and programs.
CLAY CLARK: OK.
-So, he’s a writer. But it’s a powerful thought of just begin. To break procrastination in my life, what I’ve had to do, Clay, is I’ve had to break it down small enough for me to start action on something.