0
SPEAKER_00
Welcome to the Art of Charm.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
0
SPEAKER_00
Today we re talking with my friend John Lee Dumas.
0
SPEAKER_00
He s been on the show before.
0
SPEAKER_00
We re talking about focus, discipline, productivity, and responsibility.
0
SPEAKER_00
Some war stories in there, some light war stories, fear not, in there, and some definite techniques and tricks for super productive people.
0
SPEAKER_00
or if you re not so productive, techniques and tricks to get there.
0
SPEAKER_00
Enjoy the show with John Lee Dumas, and remember, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the AOC toolbox.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s where we discuss things like reading body language, having charismatic nonverbal communication, the science of attraction, negotiation techniques, networking, influence, mentorship, persuasion tactics, and everything else that we teach here at the Art of Charm.
0
SPEAKER_00
check out theartofcharm.com.
0
SPEAKER_00
For that, and also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show.
0
SPEAKER_00
All right, here s John Lee Dumas.
0
SPEAKER_00
Here with John Lee Dumas, founder and host of EO Fire.
0
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people, look, I m just gonna face facts.
0
SPEAKER_00
I think most people know what Entrepreneur on Fire is if they listen to podcasts.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s an award-winning podcast, which is always a big deal.
0
SPEAKER_00
Are you still doing seven days a week?
0
SPEAKER_00
You re still doing seven days a week, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Seven days a week, brother.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s insane.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s really, really crazy.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s just so much content.
0
SPEAKER_00
Do you ever just kind of forget what s happening in the middle of the show?
0
SPEAKER_00
Because you re like, oh my god, I ve done so many of these.
0
SPEAKER_00
I just tuned back.
0
SPEAKER_00
Do you ever go in full autopilot mode and you re like, wait, what?
0
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, I m on air.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, you know, that Will Ferrell speech where like he or it wasn t the speech where he was actually at that event and he just kind of blacked out and came up with the right answer.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then he was like, I don t even know how I did that.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like sometimes I finish episodes and I m like, I don t even know what I said during that entire interview, but we re just going to go with it.
0
SPEAKER_00
Right.
0
SPEAKER_00
It was like Ignite.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then there was a book involved and like some software as a service.
0
SPEAKER_00
And then like I flashed for it.
0
SPEAKER_00
Suddenly I was eating a burrito and then I went to sleep.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
All of the above.
0
SPEAKER_00
1400 plus interviews, which is just nuts.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, this has been going on for a long time.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you ve been doing it for such a long time, and you ve been on the show a few times, so of course people are familiar, but tell me a little bit about what s going on with you lately.
0
SPEAKER_00
What are you working on right now that you re using to master your productivity?
0
SPEAKER_00
Well, let me back up the truck.
0
SPEAKER_00
How do you even stay disciplined and focused enough
0
SPEAKER_00
to do shows every single day, because you do have a life.
0
SPEAKER_00
You go on vacation, you move around, you ve got events and stuff like that, so it s not just like, yeah, I m unemployed, so I just, you know, I do the show every day.
0
SPEAKER_00
I mean, you ve got other things going on.
0
SPEAKER_00
How do you stay focused and never skip a beat?
0
SPEAKER_01
So I say focus because I m really disciplined to the fact that I m going to work hard sometimes and then basically not work at all other times.
0
SPEAKER_01
And that kind of balance gives me the ability not to burn out.
0
SPEAKER_01
So this is going to sound crazy to a lot of people.
0
SPEAKER_01
And it would sound crazy to me, believe me, back circa 2012, just like, you know, to compare it to like a marathon runner.
0
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t run 26.2 miles tomorrow or 0.1 miles tomorrow.
0
SPEAKER_01
I couldn t do it.
0
SPEAKER_01
I m just not in marathon shape.
0
SPEAKER_01
But just like a marathoner builds up to that and being able to run a marathon, over the last 1,500 now episodes, I ve built up the stamina to where I now on the first Monday and the first Tuesday of every month, so basically the first and the second of every month around there,
0
SPEAKER_01
I m doing 15 interviews each on those two days.
0
SPEAKER_01
So in two days a month, I m recording 30 podcast interviews, which means the other 28-29 days of the month, I m doing other things.
0
SPEAKER_01
That might be working on a project or a book or something.
0
SPEAKER_01
Or it might just be like, I just got back from a 21-day vacation to Maine where I did not do much of anything except ski and hang out with family because I had that batching process down, that discipline focus to say, I m going to sit down,
0
SPEAKER_01
crush it for two days, and by the way, it wasn t easy, and I was burned out, and I was like, oh my God, my head s about to pop off, but after those two days, I was like, okay, now I ve just freed up the next 28, 29 days of my life to go do other things.
0
SPEAKER_00
Did you find when you first started that, because a lot of people right now who are listening are going, wait a second, alright, I m gonna batch this, but then somewhere after lunch on day one of a day two, or two day,
0
SPEAKER_00
binge of work, they re going, I don t know how I m going to do this.
0
SPEAKER_00
Did you when you first started this process?
0
SPEAKER_00
Were you already did you have the stamina to do this?
0
SPEAKER_00
Or was it something you built over time?
0
SPEAKER_01
Totally built over time.
0
SPEAKER_01
And number one, let me kind of back up.
0
SPEAKER_01
Don t eat lunch during these two days at all.
0
SPEAKER_01
That will just kill you.
0
SPEAKER_01
You literally you can t eat, you have to be on just a straight purge of food.
0
SPEAKER_01
Because if you eat, you re gonna want to go right to sleep.
0
SPEAKER_01
So skip food for sure.
0
SPEAKER_01
But for
0
SPEAKER_01
For me, day one, back when I was interviewing people, I was trying my best to do one to two interviews a day, and then I d be done.
0
SPEAKER_01
I d be going and lying up in a little ball on my bed, trying to recover for a couple hours.
0
SPEAKER_01
After I interviewed Seth Godin, for instance, I ll never forget, I was just like, I can t do anything the rest of the day.
0
SPEAKER_01
I was so amped up for that interview that I just crashed, like I was on drugs or something.
0
SPEAKER_01
that was me back in 2012.
0
SPEAKER_01
I built it up over a year and a half to where I was doing four episodes, four on a Monday and then four on a Thursday.
0
SPEAKER_01
So doing my eight-ish interviews a week then.
0
SPEAKER_01
So I had that one buffer for a cancellation or something.
0
SPEAKER_01
Then I moved it up into 2014, where I was doing eight interviews every single Tuesday.
0
SPEAKER_01
And for a long time, Jordan, that was my thing.
0
SPEAKER_01
That was
0
SPEAKER_01
So, every Tuesday, I was getting amped up for those eight interviews back-to-back and that allowed me to go forward.
0
SPEAKER_01
And then May 1st came and I moved to Puerto Rico and I said, I want to be able to travel a lot more.
0
SPEAKER_01
I want to be able to not be anchored to my computer and to my desk one day a week.
0
SPEAKER_01
I want even more freedom than that.
0
SPEAKER_01
kind of said, I m going to give it a try.
0
SPEAKER_01
Kate s like, you re insane.
0
SPEAKER_01
You re not even going to survive.
0
SPEAKER_01
And to be frank, it was tough the first round, but now I m on the seventh or eighth iteration of that.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I kind of now look forward to it because now I ve gone 28, 29 days without talking to anybody on my show.
0
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, I kind of miss it.
0
SPEAKER_01
And so I look forward to the days.
0
SPEAKER_01
By the middle of day two, I m over it, but I suck it up and press on.
0
SPEAKER_01
But that is the process that I built to.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I ve always wondered about that, because a lot of people go, oh man, I m beat, or how do you do this every day?
0
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, well, I look forward to it.
0
SPEAKER_00
And now, so much of the process is not necessarily on autopilot, but is so practiced that I m not worried about it.
0
SPEAKER_00
And you know, you got like a producer here working with us, so it s easier to not, I can outsource some of that thinking.
0
SPEAKER_00
But yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
I used to do my show notes, I used to do my editing.
0
SPEAKER_01
I don t do any of that stuff anymore, so it s just, there s a lot less to what I do.
0
SPEAKER_00
Right, you can focus on the part that you actually enjoy, and it is interesting to talk about how this is something that goes with stamina, because it s really easy to say, yeah, I hit the gym, and oh, I went and benched pretty light, and then I did these really light squats, and oh my God, I m so sore, how does everybody do this?
0
SPEAKER_00
But we all know that, yeah, if you go to the gym once a month, you re sore every time, but if you go to the gym,
0
SPEAKER_00
three times a week, you don t really get sore.
0
SPEAKER_00
Even after hard workouts, you re like, oh, I m a little sore, it feels good.
0
SPEAKER_00
You look forward to that, but you re not like, I can t go, I m tanked, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
I m gassed out.
0
SPEAKER_00
So it s the same thing with talking, which uses a lot of energy.
0
SPEAKER_00
And I would imagine just the thinking on the fly, and it s been so long for me, and you for that matter, it s been the better part of a decade for both of us.
0
SPEAKER_00
It s been over a decade for me and the better part of a decade
0
SPEAKER_00
for you that I kind of forgot what it s like, but yeah, I mean, there s neural pathways being built here and blah, blah, blah, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
That are happening, and the brain, actually, as I found out somewhat recently, uses a ton of energy.
0
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean, I think it uses like 25% of your overall energy, which is just kind of sitting there as a blob.
0
SPEAKER_00
Right, which is why in
0
SPEAKER_00
sort of humans past and pre-humans and stuff like that, and I just learned this from this book, Sapiens, that I read recently.
0
SPEAKER_00
The brain is such an energy hog that it wasn t efficient to have a big brain that can do pretty much anything humans can do for millions and millions of years, because it was like, oh, you might not eat for three weeks, so you just have to be able to deal with that.
0
SPEAKER_00
But if you have a human brain, you re dead.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s it.
0
SPEAKER_01
That book is so fascinating by the way, and I think that s everybody needs to read that at least once I ve actually read that book through twice and the biggest takeaway that actually got from that book the second time I read it through is that your brain is such an energy hog that it actually it tries to Psychologically trick you from thinking too hard like that.
0
SPEAKER_01
It really does I want you just to do the quick easy little win So it doesn t have to take too much energy so that you can survive and for me that was like
0
SPEAKER_01
oh, that s why it s so hard to focus.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like, that s why it s so hard to sit down and like do the work.
0
SPEAKER_01
And like that Steven Pressfield book, you know, The War of Art, that s why the resistance is there because, you know, and it s more difficult now than ever, Jordan, too, because we have these little wins, the Facebooks and the emails and the Instagrams and the Snapchats.
0
SPEAKER_01
Like we have all these little goodies that our brain can kind of just glob us towards.
0
SPEAKER_01
So we don t have to sit down and really do quality, productive work.
0
SPEAKER_00
And that s scary.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, it is scary, and it s also the, I would imagine, and again, I haven t gotten to this part of the book, I don t think, but it s, I would imagine this is the birth of cognitive bias, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Because your brain s like, look, alright, I don t wanna have to do this work every time.
0
SPEAKER_00
I m gonna come up with some rules of thumb that are true some of the time that are safe
1
SPEAKER_01
assumptions like out-group bad, in-group good, or, you know, oh, it looks that way at first glance, I don t need to do any further investigation, I m just gonna make a harsh judgment on this, and dot, dot, dot, survival, and that s where we get cognitive biases, and that s why we can t really stop doing them without, well, we can, we just have to use even more energy to outsmart our own bias, which takes up a lot of, again, brain power, slash calories, slash,
1
SPEAKER_01
energy, so it s interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
That book was super interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
How did you hear about it, by the way?
1
SPEAKER_01
How do you normally hear about books besides interviewing people every day?
1
SPEAKER_01
Is that your normal source?
1
SPEAKER_00
Well, that is honestly a huge source.
1
SPEAKER_00
Um, I also like love like the magazines, like Success Magazine, Fast Company Inc.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m a subscriber to those and they re always kind of talking about this book or that book.
1
SPEAKER_00
So those are kind of my main ways that I hear about books.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I just heard of that book as saying like, this book is taking over Silicon Valley.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I was like, well, I m not sure what that means, but I wouldn t mind reading the kind of pre-op of it.
1
SPEAKER_00
So what I love to do with Kindle now is you can just download the sample and you can read like the first five or 6% of the book.
1
SPEAKER_00
And for me, if a book can t grip me by
1
SPEAKER_00
by then, like, sweet, I ve just saved my money, but the thing is, I was like, oh my god, I wanna read this book now, and I ve now read it twice, which I super rarely ever read books twice, so this was a special one.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, book and reading stuff is actually tricky, because to read a book again,
1
SPEAKER_01
You ve gotta go, alright, I ve got a hundred books on my wish list in limited time, why would I ever read something again?
1
SPEAKER_01
So it is pretty high praise, especially if you read it kind of right after you read it once.
1
SPEAKER_01
You re like, wait, wait, hold on, let me go back and do that again.
1
SPEAKER_01
That s a serious mark of content-dense stuff.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that book, yes, Sapiens, we ll link to that in the show notes as well, super interesting, basically human history.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t read it if you re super religious, because it won t make any sense to you, because it s about evolution.
1
SPEAKER_00
You will not like that book.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yes, you ll be like, but the, no, I don t want to go there.
1
SPEAKER_01
I don t wanna go there at all.
1
SPEAKER_01
Right, so focus and discipline, got it, but were you disciplined all the time?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because focus is separate from discipline in many ways, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Like if you re naturally good at focusing, sure, maybe you can sit down and do a bunch of work all at once, but you have to have discipline to go not gonna take the pull that string, not gonna follow that shiny object.
1
SPEAKER_01
Don t you run into fires a lot?
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you run a business, you run a company,
1
SPEAKER_01
aren t there fires, literally, figurative fires, literally every day, that are like, John, I need your attention on this, and you re like, yeah, I m recording things for two days in 20 minute blocks, like, go fly a kite, I can t deal with this.
1
SPEAKER_01
How do you stop that from distracting?
1
SPEAKER_00
Distraction is everywhere.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, being a military guy, like I do love the phrase, weapons of mass distraction will break you down.
1
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, kind of going back to your question about discipline, like that is where actually my discipline was developed, was in the military.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like I graduated in 2002 as an armor officer and spent eight years for active 400 reserves as an armor platoon leader, like as an officer in the U.S.
1
SPEAKER_00
Army.
1
SPEAKER_00
And
1
SPEAKER_00
you sink or swim based on your discipline, based on how disciplined you are to being able to create a plan and then execute on that plan.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so I realized early on that if I was going to lead a platoon into war, which we did in Iraq, 2003, 2004 timeframe, I was going to have to, for the first time really in my life, learn and be disciplined because, you know, I just wasn t.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was your typical 22, 23 year old that was, you know, much more focused on where the keg party is going to be that night than, you know,
1
SPEAKER_00
what is the right order of operation March, you know, if we re going to court on this town at night and, you know, and make sure that we don t let any insurgents leave.
1
SPEAKER_00
Like there s a whole different mindset that goes into that.
1
SPEAKER_00
So I was able to kind of take that learning with that discipline.
1
SPEAKER_00
And of course, you know, you have to mix in a little bit of a focus there, um, into when I launched EO fire, that kind of allowed me to build those systems and automations that said, Hey, like I can actually do a daily podcast
1
SPEAKER_00
But build a business too.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because Jordan, that s what a lot of people were telling me when I launched and I m not sure what you were hearing because you ve been around at this significantly longer than I have.
1
SPEAKER_00
But they were saying, John, you can t monetize a podcast directly.
1
SPEAKER_00
So if you re doing a daily podcast, that s going to take up all of your time.
1
SPEAKER_00
Right.
1
SPEAKER_00
themselves can t make money, how are you going to make money?
1
SPEAKER_00
By the way, this was Cliff Ravenscraft.
1
SPEAKER_00
This was Jamie Masters of The Eventual Mania.
1
SPEAKER_00
These were the top podcast mentors telling me these things.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was like, wow, I should probably listen to them and at least do a deeper dive into how true this canon is.
1
SPEAKER_00
It did bring up some red flags.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean it s so funny because my well nobody even knew what a podcast was including me when we started it was brand-new the shows that the shows that were around back then were like I think Leo Laporte a Couple of others that still exist and everything else is just done I mean it was all like I remember when iTunes got cover art, and we were like whoa you can add an image To your show.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is awesome.
1
SPEAKER_01
This is really cool.
1
SPEAKER_01
I
1
SPEAKER_01
Because before it was just a podcast symbol, and it was a list.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was ugly, to say the least.
1
SPEAKER_01
But no nostalgia for that.
1
SPEAKER_01
What s it like though, having people, and this is totally tangential to the topic at hand in a way, but what s it like having the responsibility, literal life and death responsibility, if you re trying to cordon off a town in Iraq,
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, talk about checking your work.
1
SPEAKER_01
What are you feeling in the moment where you re like, oh God, I hope nobody dies because I just had a brain fart.
1
SPEAKER_01
I mean, that sounds, I don t want that level of responsibility.
1
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and neither did I. And sadly, it s just one of those things that because of timing.
1
SPEAKER_00
Timing just was everything.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so for me, I just happened to be the first round of commissioned officers post 9-11.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so guess what?
1
SPEAKER_00
We were in war, but guess what?
1
SPEAKER_00
the four years before me when people graduated, the person that graduated in 1994 from Providence or even the graduate in 1996, that person just spent four years twirling their thumbs on a base, which I thought I was doing until I was a senior in college and I woke up and saw the Twin Towers burning in New York City.
1
SPEAKER_00
And that was just like this, okay, timing, I guess my life is going to be different now.
1
SPEAKER_00
So now I m going to actually make this mindset shift and take this responsibility that I know I m going to have.
1
SPEAKER_00
have when I m in war.
1
SPEAKER_00
And so, when I found myself in that situation, a short time later, it was about a year, a year and a half later, I was actually in that situation from when I saw those smoking towers.
1
SPEAKER_00
I was like, this is what I ve been training for, for a year.
1
SPEAKER_00
And this is the mindset that I need to have going forward because I m not this 22-year-old
1
SPEAKER_00
you know, now I m a quote unquote, 23 year old army officer, like there s this huge difference.
1
SPEAKER_00
There s not.
1
SPEAKER_00
But I had to make that difference, that mindset shift and take on that responsibility because now you do have lives literally in your hands.
1
SPEAKER_00
Because when you re an armored platoon leader, you have 16 men, you have four tanks that you are commanding.
1
SPEAKER_00
And frankly, you don t really know that much because you haven t been in that world that long.
1
SPEAKER_00
So fortunately, you look around and you see the discipline that s been grown from that platoon that s been operating together for years.
1
SPEAKER_00
My platoon sergeant was 51 years old.
1
SPEAKER_00
So he d been in the army longer than I had been alive.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you have to look around and say, who s been there?
1
SPEAKER_00
Who s done that?
1
SPEAKER_00
Who has the discipline, the structure, the focus that has done this before?
1
SPEAKER_00
Maybe even though it s only been in training, but I can learn from them.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you start to rely on the people around you and you really say,
1
SPEAKER_00
We re gonna do this as a team.
1
SPEAKER_00
I m not gonna do this as a solo officer.
1
SPEAKER_01
We re gonna do this as a platoon Yeah, this this seems a little scary because I can imagine I was in ROTC when I was in college and I remember being like I don t have the discipline for this but I remember all the other people being like and this is 1999 or 1998 going like dude all you have to do is is make it through four years of like not that hard ROTC they pay for your school and
1
SPEAKER_01
yeah, there s some bureaucratic BS, but then you re gonna serve, you re gonna be a commissioned officer, you re gonna sit around in Florida or Maryland or if you re lucky, Hawaii or some place cool, maybe even get to go abroad, work on your language skills, and then you re just catapulted with no debt, with a bunch of cool military experience, with a bunch of friends from back in the day, and you got to kind of extend your childhood a little bit in a way, because it s military, it s a bunch of bros, whatever, and ladies there kind of acting up, because we re all young.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then you re launched into the working world, and you re just gonna remember those days fondly.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then, two years later, I was out of ROTC because I was just like, I don t have, speaking of discipline, I cannot handle this.
1
SPEAKER_01
I m going insane.
1
SPEAKER_01
I wanted to learn Russian and Arabic.
1
SPEAKER_01
And they were like, no, we need engineers.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I m like, I m not switching my major, I like languages.
1
SPEAKER_01
Of course that, then two years later, they re like, we need Russian, we need Arabic, we need it now.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I just thought like, oh guys, it s like they don t even know what they re doing.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I left and then all my friends who were still in ROTC were like, almost overnight, same thing like you, just went, oh man, wait, hold on a second, we re Iraq?
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, Afghanistan?
1
SPEAKER_01
Oh, wait a minute, hold on, I just thought I was getting this easy free ride, like I don t think I m gonna be stationed.
1
SPEAKER_01
in Maryland anymore, it looks like we re going to where?
1
SPEAKER_01
I ve never even heard of this, let me Google Earth this, oh God, that s ugly, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
It was just kind of immediately, some guys were really excited, most guys were kind of thinking, maybe I m not gonna be able to work for my dad s company part-time after college, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
Or like maybe I m gonna have to sort of take a harder look at what s happening here.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was kind of uncertain and I remember just thinking to myself, wow, I am so glad, not because I m afraid to serve or afraid to go do that, I m afraid to screw that up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Not afraid to go there, I m afraid to blow it while I am there and then somebody else pays the price and I can never forget it.
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, it s the weight of the world on your shoulders.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I can say that, um, truly, you know, 37 years old now.
2
SPEAKER_00
So this is, you know, over a decade since I ve been an active duty officer and, you know, of my 16 men, you know, four didn t come back.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like four didn t make the ultimate sacrifice.
2
SPEAKER_00
And those are scars that I still literally do carry around to this day.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, and, and always will, because it s, it s something that I failed at as an officer in the U S army.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was my ultimate responsibility.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it just was a failure.
2
SPEAKER_01
Wait, so while you were doing, while you were, I don t even, what do you call this?
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t want to say on missions.
2
SPEAKER_01
It sounds like I ve been playing Call of Duty.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, during my tour of duty while, you know, while I was deployed to Iraq, four of my 16 soldiers did not make it back.
2
SPEAKER_00
They were killed in action.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this is basically unavoidable, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, are you just thinking about, oh, I made a ton of mistakes here, oh, this is my fault, or are you like, look, we did everything, and, you know, this person still got shot, or, you know, something, or booby-trapped, like some, do you feel like it was unavoidable?
2
SPEAKER_01
Because it seems like a lot of that stuff is unavoidable.
2
SPEAKER_00
some of the situations were unavoidable.
2
SPEAKER_00
Some of them you can go back and you can say, well, you know, if we would have taken a left instead of taking a right, you know, we wouldn t have hit that IED or, you know, we wouldn t have gotten that sniper fire.
2
SPEAKER_00
So you can always like just kind of put holes in, you know, your excuses and things that you did or didn t do.
2
SPEAKER_00
And, you know, for me, I just learned then that I could always be doing that, or I can just say, you know what, I m going to take a hundred percent responsibility for what happens in my life with them and with everything going forward.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was kind of the mentality I took.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I mean it seems like it would be so easy to beat yourself up over that, but you could have made a left instead of a right and they could have had snipers there too.
2
SPEAKER_01
You will literally never know.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s true, I mean, we could have gone left instead of right, and then, you know, we might have lost half of our platoon instead of 25%.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, we might not be having this conversation because you made a left.
2
SPEAKER_01
No, no true.
2
SPEAKER_01
Because you can play that game all you want, and you can do it, people do it in business as well, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
I look back and I go, if only I had not hired this person, or if only I had thought of doing this, oh, I wish I d gotten in on, I mean, everybody does this with some area of their life, it s just usually the consequences are much lower, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
If only I invested in Yahoo in the 90s, or Google in 2001, I d be so rich right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s it s just that there s less weight on your shoulders.
2
SPEAKER_01
It seems more forgivable to think Oh, yeah, I wasn t really paying attention to the market at that point versus Something that that other people maybe had to had to deal with the consequences thereof I just said I just say I didn t have any money back then which is true, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, there s also that excuses excuses, right
2
SPEAKER_01
So I would imagine that at some level, this informs your discipline, it informs your focus, not just because you built the habits while you were there, but you kind of realize like, wow, there were other guys pretty much same bucket as me, that it must be kind of hard to waste
2
SPEAKER_01
knowingly, willingly waste your potential after coming back from Iraq, seeing a country where there s a lot less opportunity, and having been around people where they literally gave their lives, and it s hard to come back and go, eh, I m bored, I m just gonna play Xbox all day, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
It seems like there would be some motivation, not just because you re like, wow, life is good, but because you can t waste it.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s so true.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I can actually honestly say this because it wasn t like one situation that we lost all four of those soldiers.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like it was throughout the 13 months of that happens.
2
SPEAKER_00
And at every single one of those funerals, I can remember standing like at the actual casket and saying to myself, like this hero made the ultimate sacrifice.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I am committing to make sure that
2
SPEAKER_00
I, if I make it out of here, live a life that is, you know, worthy of his sacrifice.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m not going to go and just get fat in some cubicle and like waste away my life because this, this guy s, this person s life was taken away from them.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that kind of always gave me strength throughout my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
Whenever I kind of got to that moment, like when I was in law school and I was like, I hate this.
2
SPEAKER_00
Like I quit, like I dropped out of law school, which was the most good goal.
2
SPEAKER_00
It was the bravest thing I ve ever had to do, Jordan, because I mean, like I was in war, but like quitting law school was the bravest thing I had to do because like my father was so excited, you know, he had paid for like, there s all these things going on.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I knew that it was I was just going down the wrong path.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I know so many people in my position just kept going.
2
SPEAKER_00
And there s and you know, they re just miserable now.
2
SPEAKER_00
And they re just happy.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I don t want to pick on lawyers, but that was my scenario.
2
SPEAKER_00
But it s so many people that started medical school.
2
SPEAKER_00
I like to just say sunk costs is such a fallacy.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you wake up today and you let yesterday or decisions you made before dictate your future,
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, why?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, why are you doing that?
2
SPEAKER_00
Like, there s an opportunity to say, listen, I m going to go forward in the direction that I know that I should be moving forward today.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was always me, because I was able to go back and kind of draw from that strength from every one of those sacrifices that I saw, you know, when I was deployed as a soldier in Iraq.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it led me to where I am today.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I do pick on lawyers in a joking way, having been one, having went through law school.
2
SPEAKER_01
I didn t have the foresight to go, gee, this isn t for me.
2
SPEAKER_01
I just thought, well, if I can handle it.
2
SPEAKER_01
I had this mindset of, if I can handle it, I should do it, which is kind of dumb.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s kind of like those people who run a marathon every day for a month because they re like, well, I want to push myself.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s great if you re challenging yourself physically.
2
SPEAKER_01
I even would rather run a marathon every day for a month
2
SPEAKER_01
Then send someone through law school because the law the legal stuff or the any school for that matter medical school Whatever if you re not super into it You don t know what you re in for you re basically planning for a career that you don t know if you re gonna like and you re going into massive debt Etc and then you come out the other side going well all I did was show that I can do it It s like well.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you could live your whole life that way it doesn t mean you should and
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, there s a lot of regret involved there as well.
2
SPEAKER_01
And this sort of leads into one of the topics I wanted to mention today, which is, especially in legal careers and in entrepreneurship and things like that, you do run head first into Parkinson s Law.
2
SPEAKER_01
And I d love for you to expound on that a little bit, since you and I both know this concept all too well.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_00
So Parkinson s law has been huge in my life.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s where tasks will expand to the time that s allotted.
2
SPEAKER_00
And for so many people, they just make these goals or they just set these plans of action into motion, but they never put it into a timeframe.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so they just wonder why it never gets accomplished or why nothing really moves or happens.
2
SPEAKER_00
And it s because they re not putting in that timeframe.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that s where a lot of people ask me, like when I launched the Freedom Journal last year, which was accomplish your number one goal in 100 days.
2
SPEAKER_00
People are like, well, John, why 100 days?
2
SPEAKER_00
Why do you got to put a time limit on it?
2
SPEAKER_00
Or why not 50 or why not 200?
2
SPEAKER_00
We were having all those conversations.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I m like, the actual number of days isn t as important as the fact that there are a certain number of days.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s the critical thing that I want you guys to realize.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because if you put a number there, if you put a number of days,
2
SPEAKER_00
Then all of a sudden now you have this timeframe, this mindset you can get into.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so you don t fall into that Parkinson s law where tasks will expand to the time allotted, which is if you don t put anything in there, then it s indefinite.
2
SPEAKER_00
So that was what was key for the Freedom Journal.
2
SPEAKER_00
I know that it struck a nerve with people.
2
SPEAKER_00
I mean, we became the sixth most funded publishing campaign of all time on Kickstarter with $453,000 of revenue in just 33 days.
2
SPEAKER_00
You know, your podcast was a huge part of that, Jordan, because you have a lot of listeners who are looking to better themselves, and I was a guest on your show last time for that, and that was huge.
2
SPEAKER_00
And to this day, we ve actually now sold 17,000 hardcover freedom journals and counting, because more are sold every single day.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I just saw that that worked, that a physical product worked, that putting that time-boundness works, and that Parkinson s law, it just frankly works.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s kind of crazy, the publisher.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, what was the number one most self-published, like Shades of Grey 2, or Fifty Shades of Grey 2, or something like that?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, if they had used Kickstarter, I m sure they would have blown it away, but it was Eric Ries  book.
2
SPEAKER_01
Oh, okay, well, okay, so already sort of in the space and all that stuff, that makes sense.
2
SPEAKER_01
Cool.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, when we look at our workload expanding to fit the time a lot, which, I mean, I can absolutely vouch for that, as can anyone who s ever done anything that lasts longer than a few hours can probably vouch for Parkinson s Law, how do you
2
SPEAKER_01
Both stay focused and stay sane because when you re doing your sort of binge or focus and whatnot, you have to be taking breaks.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can t just plow through nonstop, pedal to the metal the whole time.
2
SPEAKER_01
You d go nuts, you d burn out, you d hate every second of it and you wouldn t want to continue.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yes, all of those things happen.
2
SPEAKER_00
And so what I m really big on, this is another thing that I did a ton of studying in 2016, because that was my main goal, because I knew I was coming out with my next journal.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I was like, Okay, I m going to focus on these three things, productivity, discipline and focus.
2
SPEAKER_00
And while I was
2
SPEAKER_00
uncovering what it meant to master those three skills, which I know are really important.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you re going to be a success as an entrepreneur, as a businessman or woman, I came across Pomodoro technique.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that to me was a game changer.
2
SPEAKER_00
I learned of this.
2
SPEAKER_00
I d heard of it plenty of times before.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I just never tried it.
3
SPEAKER_00
We ve all heard of Pomodoro Technique or Parkinson s Law.
3
SPEAKER_00
We just never apply it to our lives until we do.
3
SPEAKER_00
And for me, that was early 2016.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was blown away by what applying Pomodoro Technique did to my life.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was just an absolute game changer where I used to just be lucky to produce one thing of quality
3
SPEAKER_00
all day long, I would produce one thing of quality and whatever timeframe I gave it under that Pomodoro technique.
3
SPEAKER_00
And for a lot of people, I think the traditional Pomodoro technique was 25 minutes of focus time and then a five-minute break.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s somewhere in that area.
3
SPEAKER_00
But that didn t work for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s one thing I want to stress to people that might want to try this as well.
3
SPEAKER_00
I found that was just way too short of a focus time and also way too short of what I ve actually termed a refresh time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, I played around with that in early 2016.
3
SPEAKER_00
My perfect Pomodoro technique is 42 minutes of focus time.
3
SPEAKER_00
That means no distractions, nothing but the one task I have in front of me, and then 18 minutes of refresh time.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know why that s ended up working for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s psychological, I m sure.
3
SPEAKER_00
For some reason, 45 minutes sounded like a lot of time, and 42 minutes just seemed like less.
3
SPEAKER_00
15 minutes seemed like a really short break, but 18 minutes seemed like a really long break.
3
SPEAKER_00
It just mentally, for me, worked.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, I now do four of those sessions every single day.
3
SPEAKER_00
My day is not complete without doing four sessions of 42 minutes of focus with 18 minutes of refresh.
3
SPEAKER_00
And you have to honor the refresh just as much as you honor the focus.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, my refresh time could be doing some
3
SPEAKER_00
pull-ups, maybe some jumping jacks, or just going outside and breathing in the nice Puerto Rican air down here.
3
SPEAKER_00
Maybe it s watching last night s episode of Bachelor or checking on the latest sports game.
3
SPEAKER_00
Whatever it might be, that refresh time is my time to give my brain the ability to relax.
3
SPEAKER_00
kind of circles back to our conversation about sapiens randomly.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s why it works.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because if you can tell your brain, listen, I m only going to need you for 42 minutes and then you re going to get 18 minutes of pure veg time to do whatever you want.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like your brain, it s going to, it s going to be an easier yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Where if you re just like, Hey, I m going to sit down at 9am and I m locking myself in this room till 4pm and I m just going to work hard.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your brain s like, heck no.
3
SPEAKER_00
Not gonna do it, not gonna do it.
3
SPEAKER_00
So you have to trick yourself.
3
SPEAKER_00
Pomodoro Techniques works amazingly.
3
SPEAKER_00
I now get more done in these four sessions in one day than I used to get done all week long.
3
SPEAKER_01
So during those sessions, what exactly are the rules?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, first of all, it s usually 20 minutes, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
But you were just like, I can go longer than that.
3
SPEAKER_01
How did you come up with 42?
3
SPEAKER_01
That seems so random.
3
SPEAKER_00
It is random.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it didn t because the 20 minutes didn t work for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that the actual, if you like Google Pomodoro technique, I think it s 25 and 5 or maybe 20 and 10, whatever it is, it didn t work for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was too short of a focus time.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just felt like it was over before I started.
3
SPEAKER_00
And it wasn t a long enough refresh time.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I just played around with it.
3
SPEAKER_00
I tried 60 minutes.
3
SPEAKER_00
It was way too long.
3
SPEAKER_00
I went to 30, like not quite enough.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I just kept playing with it, tinkering back and forth.
3
SPEAKER_00
And guess what, a year from now, it might be like 50 and 15.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, but I know that right now, that works for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it seems like a great amount of time.
3
SPEAKER_01
And the rules are, again, what?
3
SPEAKER_01
Your phone is off, what else is going on?
3
SPEAKER_01
You re just focused on one single technique.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s zero distraction.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s one task that I have, one focus, and nothing else can happen during those 42 minutes, period.
3
SPEAKER_01
And so does this maybe involve
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you do email during this?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, are there things that it doesn t work for?
3
SPEAKER_01
That you re just like, ugh, okay, you can t do it for that because it s... So email would actually be what I consider your refresh time.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s when you re on quote-unquote OPA, other people s agenda.
3
SPEAKER_00
So if you re willing to be on other people s agenda, that s gonna be during your refresh time.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s when you can start busting through some emails during those 18 minutes, jumping on Facebook, Instagram.
3
SPEAKER_00
Your 42 minutes of focus needs to be on a task that s going to move your business forward.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I mean, Jordan, if you were writing a book, that would be a great session to do one chapter in.
3
SPEAKER_00
Or maybe the third session of the day is going to be, I m going to research 10 podcasts to be on to promote my book when it goes live.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that can be just your focus session.
3
SPEAKER_00
And whatever you re doing though, it s really deep, productive work that you re just completely committing to completing.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, okay, this makes sense.
3
SPEAKER_01
It has to be, it can t be like a very complex... I m imagining this can t be a super complex project.
3
SPEAKER_01
It has to just be kind of heads down.
3
SPEAKER_01
Is it more repetitive or is it just any task?
3
SPEAKER_01
It s just that you re on lockdown.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, you re on lockdown.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s your tasks that you are going to decide are meaningful for your business.
3
SPEAKER_00
And what I actually do is I ve created this whole process that we can talk a little bit more about later.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I know what those four things are going to be because during my morning routine, I am setting that plate up.
3
SPEAKER_00
I m setting those four tasks that I m going to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I know going into it, what my four sessions will be, what those four tasks
3
SPEAKER_00
they re going to be critical to moving my business forward.
3
SPEAKER_01
Great.
3
SPEAKER_01
And does this, can you work without this now?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like, are you kind of in the habit of doing this or do you still need, all right, phones off, timers on?
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you still use the ritual around it?
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, I ve tried, I ve tried to go away from like having to like use my journal and having to, you know, go away from the ritual and it just doesn t work.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just let other things kind of slip in.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so I have to just commit to the entire process that I ve created.
3
SPEAKER_00
And that s me.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, other people,
3
SPEAKER_00
maybe after doing this for 100 days or 30 or 200, you re there.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s just not me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I just know that I m a systems guy.
3
SPEAKER_00
I like to have a system in place.
3
SPEAKER_00
And plus, I actually love journaling this process myself because I like to go back and look at what was working and what wasn t working down the road.
3
SPEAKER_00
I love when I
3
SPEAKER_00
here at Tim Ferriss.
3
SPEAKER_00
He talks about how he journals everything in his life.
3
SPEAKER_00
And he s like, if I look at a picture of myself in 2007, and I look good, all I have to do is pull a book off my shelf from that month in 2007.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can see what I was eating, what I was drinking, what exercise I was doing.
3
SPEAKER_00
And if I want to get back to that person, give or take 10 years, I can do that by just getting back into that because that s what was working for me back then.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I was just like, you know what, that makes sense.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to start documenting more things.
3
SPEAKER_01
So do you have categories that you document when you journal?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, what does your journal look like, actually?
3
SPEAKER_01
Actually, didn t we just accidentally segue into this thing you ve got here?
3
SPEAKER_01
Hold on a second.
3
SPEAKER_01
Maybe it was an accident for me.
3
SPEAKER_01
It wasn t for you.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know how you roll.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tell me about the journaling stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
Tell me about what you ve got going on as well, because I know you ve got a journal coming out, the Mastery Journal.
3
SPEAKER_01
Let s just talk about that.
3
SPEAKER_01
It makes sense.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, I d love to because you had me on last year, which was so kind of you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we talked about the Freedom Journal, which was kind of my solution that I was providing to my listeners of my podcast, EO Fire, where my listeners were struggling with setting and accomplishing goals.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I created the tool, the resource, the step-by-step guide to guide them in accomplishing their number one goal in 100 days.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then that was such a success and a hit.
3
SPEAKER_00
I said, well, this is something that people obviously want.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like a physical product works.
3
SPEAKER_00
Journaling is working for my audience.
3
SPEAKER_00
So is there something else that makes sense?
3
SPEAKER_00
And then I realized that we re goal setting was what all of my guests on EO Fire had in common for why they were successful.
3
SPEAKER_00
I looked kind of inside and said, well, what are my three greatest strengths?
3
SPEAKER_00
And I realized after much contemplation that
3
SPEAKER_00
although I have way, way more weaknesses than I have strengths, pretty much when I boil it down to what my three greatest ones are, it would be productivity, discipline, and focus.
3
SPEAKER_00
Those are what s allowed me to launch a podcast back in 2012 that was daily, and then turn that into a business that s grossed over $10 million in just a little over four years now.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I was like, how can I take those three skills that I ve been able to master over these years and put them into a tool, a resource, a guide that can show people how I did it and how they can too.
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you sort of walk us through what a page in this might look like?
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, what does it actually have us doing?
3
SPEAKER_01
You know what I mean?
3
SPEAKER_01
Like specifically.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
A page of the journal, literally.
3
SPEAKER_00
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the mastery journal is you mastering productivity, discipline, and focus in 100 days.
3
SPEAKER_00
So what the process is over these 100 days is every single day, you re going to get up and you re going to have your morning routine.
3
SPEAKER_00
Now, quick side note is that I have this thing that s called win tomorrow today within the mastery journal.
3
SPEAKER_00
So the night before,
3
SPEAKER_00
you re actually writing out what your morning routine is going to be.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have nine bullet points for you there.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, some people might use six, some people might use 11, whatever you need, I have nine there for you.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so you are going to be going to bed knowing what your morning routine is going to look like.
3
SPEAKER_00
Like, you know, mine s pretty standard, but you know, some things that are always in there are exercising, journaling, meditation, things along those lines.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then you re going to be moving into the next section after you finish your morning routine, which is what are your four focuses going to be this day?
3
SPEAKER_00
So you re really going to sit down and say, Hey, what are four things that I am really excited about accomplishing today that are going to be meaningful for my business?
3
SPEAKER_00
I m going to move my business forward in whatever way makes sense for that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And then you move into these four sessions.
3
SPEAKER_00
And when we talked about the Pomodoro Technique, Jordan, this is all centered around the
4
SPEAKER_00
pomodoro technique.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you have a focus time and a refresh time.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I leave those blank.
4
SPEAKER_00
I don t say like 42 minutes and 18 because that s what works for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And I want people to find what works for them.
4
SPEAKER_00
And within the first few pages of the mastery journal, the kind of the prologue, I, I train you and guide you on how to kind of figure out what your perfect time is.
4
SPEAKER_00
So again, for me, it s 42 minutes of focus and then 18 minutes of refresh.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you do just that.
4
SPEAKER_00
You start, you start that timer and you focus on that one thing for those 42 minutes.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then that timer goes off, 18 minutes of refresh, whatever it is that you want to do.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then it s session two, and then maybe you break for lunch.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then it s session three and session four, and you are committing to doing those four sessions intraday.
4
SPEAKER_00
And after every session, Jordan, you are self-evaluating yourself on your productivity and your discipline score.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you re going to be continuously having this score average on both of those two skills as you re going forward over these 100 days.
4
SPEAKER_00
And again,
4
SPEAKER_00
Self-evaluation is not easy for everybody.
4
SPEAKER_00
So I teach and train you within the first few pages on what that means, how you do come up with that score.
4
SPEAKER_00
I give you a sample of that number.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you finish the day pretty simply by just saying, Hey, what did I struggle with?
4
SPEAKER_00
Where did I come up short?
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you identify those struggles, those obstacles, those challenges, and you come up with some potential solutions for them.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then you say, okay, well, what were some things that went well today?
4
SPEAKER_00
So you can start to identify the things that you re really rocking and rolling with.
4
SPEAKER_00
And then of course, as I said at the beginning, you re going to win tomorrow today at the end of every one of those days by writing out tomorrow s morning routine.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you re waking up not like, oh, what am I going to do to fill this void?
4
SPEAKER_00
Am I going to jump into email or to Facebook to jump on other people s agenda?
4
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully not.
4
SPEAKER_00
Hopefully you re going to follow that morning routine that s going to be beneficial to you in your life.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I like the idea of planning this out beforehand.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t use the Pomodoro stuff, but I m kind of naturally hyper-focused, but I do use a calendar, so every moment of my day, even some of the relaxation stuff is in there.
4
SPEAKER_01
So today it was like 8 a.m.
4
SPEAKER_01
Chinese, and I m up before 8 a.m., but I already know that I need to brush my teeth and blah, blah, blah.
4
SPEAKER_01
I just know I have to be done with all that stuff by 8 a.m., so I allow myself the flexibility to decide whether or not I shower or brush first, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
I know, the freedom, the freedom.
4
SPEAKER_01
that comes with being an entrepreneur or self-employed.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I get Chinese for two hours, then I ve got a show block, then I ve got a show block, then I ve got a call, and then I ve got transit time, because I m going to get a time massage later, right, because I ve got to work out the neck.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then I ve got an email block, because God knows what s in my inbox.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then it s like dinner at the parents  house, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
So I ve got all that stuff in there, and then that s already, we re looking at 9, 9.30 p.m.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it s gotta be in there because I want zero time going, hmm, what should I do right now?
4
SPEAKER_01
I guess I could check my email, or I could go online.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, you know what, let s go on Facebook for just a minute.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then like three hours later, you re like, oh crap, I don t have any free time.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I saw that happening with me when I first started the business, and I m like, this is just a waste of life.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I know that a lot,
4
SPEAKER_01
A lot of people who run businesses run their whole business like this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Oh, I just couldn t get to it today.
4
SPEAKER_01
What d you do today?
4
SPEAKER_01
And I know, I can see the gears grinding and it s like ate ham sandwich, had a phone call, chatted with my coworker for a minute.
4
SPEAKER_01
I don t know, I didn t do anything today.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m like, then you re not busy.
4
SPEAKER_01
No, I am.
4
SPEAKER_01
OK, well, then let s fix this.
4
SPEAKER_01
Right.
4
SPEAKER_00
So that s the thing.
4
SPEAKER_00
There s such a difference between the word busy and productive.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s why when everybody ever says to me, John, I m so busy, I always say back to them, OK, but are you productive?
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like always stops him in their tracks.
4
SPEAKER_00
They re like, well, what do you mean?
4
SPEAKER_00
I m like, well, you re busy.
4
SPEAKER_00
But are you productive?
4
SPEAKER_00
Are you doing something that s actually benefiting your life?
4
SPEAKER_00
Or are you just running around putting off fires all day?
4
SPEAKER_00
And frankly, a lot of people are just doing the latter.
4
SPEAKER_00
And it s sad.
4
SPEAKER_00
And that s why I knew that since I was able to master these three skills.
4
SPEAKER_00
And Jordan, someone like yourself, obviously, it sounds like you ve mastered at least two and probably three of these skills over the time.
4
SPEAKER_00
that, you know, you might not need this.
4
SPEAKER_00
And like, I actually didn t think that I needed the Pomodoro technique because again, I had heard it for years and years, but I just never done it.
4
SPEAKER_00
I was like, it s just an extra step I don t need to take.
4
SPEAKER_00
But man, when I tried the first time, I was just like, my brain clicked into this new gear when I knew there was this timer going down that
4
SPEAKER_00
And after that time was done, I was done that task.
4
SPEAKER_00
I had to be finished and move on to the next one or move on to my refresh time.
4
SPEAKER_00
That was kind of a big mindset shift for me.
4
SPEAKER_00
And so, those are the things that I incorporated within the mastery journal so that people can really understand that, hey, if you re struggling with one, two, or all three of these skills, well, welcome to the club.
4
SPEAKER_00
You re in the vast majority.
4
SPEAKER_00
But here s a tool, a guide, a resource that can get you over that hump.
4
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, thank you for that as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I agree, there s a lot of techniques and things like that that we resist because we re like, well, I m already productive enough.
4
SPEAKER_01
And you just gotta try and see if it helps you be more productive after that learning curve of using the technique helps.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m at the point where, I m sure you are as well, and a lot of us who are listening to this, if I m 1% more productive forever, each day, then that s literally a priceless increase.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we re talking about 1%.
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you might get a tenth of a percent or something like that, which is also really, really good and also priceless.
4
SPEAKER_01
But for some people, it s like, wow, it was 20% more productive today or 15% or 10%.
4
SPEAKER_01
Imagine how much.
4
SPEAKER_01
We don t have to do the compound interest math here.
4
SPEAKER_01
Another additional 1% return over time is millions of dollars for the average investor.
4
SPEAKER_01
So a 10% return over time on your time is tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, depending on if you re running a business and you re high leverage or not.
4
SPEAKER_01
So think about it, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, oh, I don t really want to get a timer.
4
SPEAKER_01
It kind of seems dumb when you re looking at, well, it might earn you $25 million over the course of your business.
4
SPEAKER_01
It seems like you might want to get that timer, right?
4
SPEAKER_00
So true.
4
SPEAKER_01
John, thanks so much for coming on the show, man.
4
SPEAKER_01
Appreciate it.
4
SPEAKER_00
Jordan, it s been a blast.
4
SPEAKER_00
Thanks for having me, brother.
4
SPEAKER_01
Great big thank you to John Lee Dumas.
4
SPEAKER_01
His new book will be, of course, linked up in the show notes for this episode.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you enjoyed this, don t forget to thank JLD on Twitter.
4
SPEAKER_01
We ll have that linked in the show notes as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
And remember, you can tap our album art in most mobile podcast players to see the show notes for this episode right on your phone.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m also on Twitter, at The Art of Charm.
4
SPEAKER_01
I post a lot of insights there, articles.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s frankly just the best way to get a hold of me on short notice.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s at The Art of Charm on Twitter.
4
SPEAKER_01
Boot camps and our live program details, that s our school in LA where you work on these skills in the toolbox with us as AOC as your coaches here.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s a live, it s a week-long residential program, quite intense if I say so myself, but super rewarding.
4
SPEAKER_01
The details of that are bootcamp.theartofcharm.com and I also have the Art of Charm Challenge here for you to dip your toes in the water at theartofcharm.com slash challenge.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s about improving your networking skills, inspiring those around you to develop a relationship with you.
4
SPEAKER_01
I also do regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward, and we ll email you the Fundamentals Toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
4
SPEAKER_01
It ll make you a better networker, a better connector, and a better thinker.
4
SPEAKER_01
That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge, or if you re here in the States, you can text the word charmed, charmed, to 33444.
4
SPEAKER_01
For full show notes for this and all previous episodes, head on over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
4
SPEAKER_01
This episode of AOC was produced by Jason DeFilippo.
4
SPEAKER_01
Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor, and the show notes on the website are by Robert Fogerty.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
4
SPEAKER_01
Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
4
SPEAKER_01
So stay charming, and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.