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welcome to scaling up the podcast where
we scale up on knowledge so we don’t
scale up our systems i’m trace blackmore
the host of scaling up h2o and scaling
up nation thank you for tuning in i have
to say
so many privileges are bestowed upon me
because i have this podcast because you
choose to listen to this podcast i have
learned so much
doing this podcast for over the past
four years and i have been able to meet
so many people many of you out there
that are listening i would have never
been able to meet there wouldn’t have
been an opportunity for it had this
podcast not been started had people like
you not shared this podcast with your
friends and co-workers and i’m so
grateful for that thank you for doing
that thank you for continuing to do that
at the recent awt i got to meet so many
more people that i didn’t know before
and you came up to me because this
podcast is something you listen to on a
regular basis it’s helped you do
something it’s maybe redefined how you
do work i love those stories thank you
for every single one of you that shared
one of those stories at the awt
convention
something the podcast has also done is
it’s allowed me to meet some people that
have really helped me
with certain items that i would have
never been able to meet before and
specifically what i’m talking about is
the authors of the books
that i read and i really enjoy
reading now i don’t enjoy reading for
pleasure i enjoy reading or maybe i
should say i endure reading
so i can do something with it and i love
reading
personal help books i love reading
business books and my goal
is to find at least one handle that i
can pull out of that and carry into my
day-to-day to make my today better
now we don’t go very many episodes
without me talking about the seven
habits of highly effective people and i
hope you’re not tired of me talking
about that book but i i talk about it so
much because it is so foundational in
who i am
how i make decisions what i do with
myself personally how i work with others
publicly
it has just created a framework for me
to process all sorts of decisions well
back on episode
175
i shared with you a process
that i do each and every week each and
every day
and that has not changed for years it
has become so automatic for me in fact
after i told everybody about my process
on episode 175 i had several people
call me or write into me and ask me how
how do i make it sound so simple because
they were struggling with it well the
simple fact was it wasn’t simple was
very difficult for me to start doing but
because i did it for so long i got to
the point where i don’t even think about
it so if you’re interested in that
process you can go back to episode 175
my point with all of this is is that i
was doing the same thing the same way
and i was getting the same results and i
didn’t really challenge that the results
could be any different
i think that’s really the key
when you start challenging how things
are
to what things could be
that’s where you’re going to make
monumental strides in getting better
and one way you can do that is to put
yourself in a group of people that are
challenging you to do that that’s one of
the things we do in the rising tide
mastermind another thing we do is we
read books with each other now that’s
something that i do on my own but i know
a lot of people don’t do that on their
own or they don’t know what books to
read
and that’s something that we bring into
the rising tide mastermind
well one of the books we recently read
in the rising tide mastermind was a book
called procrastinate on purpose by rory
vaden
and in the book
he redefines
several things that i always thought
about
time management in fact he changed the
way that i look at my process that i
explained in episode
175 and having the podcast meeting all
of you and being able to speak with an
author that just gave me so much in his
book and i was able to ask him some more
questions that you’re going to hear to
really make that book come to life for
me it’s all because of this podcast it’s
all because you listen to this podcast
and i want to thank you for that and
because of all of that we get to
interview rory vaden
scout up nation my guest today is rory
vaden author of take the stairs and
procrastinate on purpose and so many
other things that we’re gonna find out
rory welcome to the scaling up h2o
podcast hey trace thanks for having me
man i’m loving this i’m excited to be
here you’ve been so kind and generous of
sharing and promoting my books and the
stuff and so it’s just it’s just great
to meet you man i’m honored to to have
had some of your attention over over the
last couple years
well likewise i i am i’m going to say a
huge fan i thought about time management
one way
we can’t have this conversation and not
talk about the seven habits so that’s
coming up just to just to warn you
and you created an entirely different
dimension
for not only me but everybody to think
about that time management matrix but i
don’t want to quite go there yet
i am very thankful for that we are going
to go there caesar hook little tv that’s
coming up
so but before we do
um can you tell the scaling up nation
who is rory vaden oh man well rory is a
ruggedly handsome uh brilliantly smart
uh fabulous and extremely modest
of a man extremely modest
i i mean when you ask who is rory vaden
i would say i
you know first of all i’m i’m a
christian i’m a husband i’m now a dad of
two little munchkins so i have a
four-year-old and a two-year-old a lot
of people would describe me as an
entrepreneur you know a speaker an
author etc but i honestly think of
myself more as a
student
just a big student i’m constantly
infatuated
with
what makes people influential and
successful and that started because i
grew up without any influence without
any money without much i was raised by a
single mom
and
she had been divorced twice by the time
she was 22
single mom of two kids no college degree
we lived in a trailer park in boulder
colorado at the time i just kind of grew
up really what it was it was like i
wanted air jordans and i got air
jordache
um and i wanted you know i wanted box
cereal and i got bagged cereal and i
wanted to be the cool kid but i got made
fun of and i you know i
wore sweatpants like every day to school
and i just you know shaved my head all
the time because we could do that at
home and like you know there were just
things like that that i started
wondering why like why do some people
have more than others
is it just a matter of luck like or what
happens and so i’ve been
extremely interested in the psychology
and the study of success and influence
my entire life and
i i ended up getting a black belt when i
was 10 years old that was a first big
goal and dream and pursuit of mine my
mom always told me she said you will go
to college
and you will get a scholarship because
there’s no way i’m ever going to be able
to pay for it
and so she planted that idea in my mind
when i was young and i ended up getting
a full academic scholarship to the
university of denver there i studied
accounting and management and leadership
i got my mba at the same time i got my
undergrad degree i was involved in
direct sales and direct sales was really
where i learned a lot about
self-discipline and success early on and
then from there i got into speaking and
you know that’s kind of like but that’s
like the the early the early years of
rory vaden i guess all all bundled up
well you mentioned speaking and in your
book you talk a little bit about this
but i find this fascinating because i
was involved just a little bit with
toastmasters when i
originally got in sales that was the
recommendation hey go to toastmasters
learn how to to work an audience learn
how to tell a story
and and toastmasters is the place to go
for that and by the way scaled up nation
if you have not checked up toastmasters
and probably some of the best uh speech
training that you could get i think
you’d probably agree with that yeah i
mean i think you know toastmasters is
not for professional speakers which is
interesting because it’s it’s like it’s
for people who just speak as part of
their everyday living but they have for
me i wanted to be a professional speaker
like my dream was to be in auditoriums
with thousands of people and like you
know be the guy up on stage and they
have a contest called the world
championship of public speaking and so
you know i was 20 22 years old i had a
lot of a fair bit of success in direct
sales i made about a quarter million
dollars while i was in college and i was
i was going door-to-door in the summers
and recruiting students to come with me
it was a very entrepreneurial thing it
was really difficult and anyways i left
that
and wanted to become a professional
speaker and i thought well gosh maybe if
i won the world championship of public
speaking that would give me the
credibility that i need to you know
launch a speaking career and so i i went
out i spoke 304 times i spent
thousands of hours watching film i spent
tens of thousands of dollars getting
speech coaching
i was you know i went through dozens of
different courses and read all these
books
and i made it to the top 10 speakers in
the world in 2006 out of 25 000
contestants and i lost but then the next
year i went back again in 2007
and that was the year that i
well i lost again actually but i lost
higher um i came in second and i was the
so i was the world champion of public
speaking first runner-up i was the
youngest person to ever do that
shortly after that i was at a conference
and a gentleman introduces himself to me
and he said oh you’re rory vaden you’re
the toastmaster kid right and i was like
well yes sir i am and i said i’m sorry i
i don’t know you and he said he said my
name is zig zigler
how about that uh-huh and so zig
introduced himself to me
we became friends and then he he
personally mentored me over the next you
know three four years up until he had a
fall and he started to lose his
short-term memory and that was a few
years before he died which was now a few
years ago
so that was a
big you know that was kind of like
toastmasters and right at that same time
i had finished graduate school
and a guy that i had met in college we
decided to start a company together
that we’re you know we’re like we’re
going to be the best speakers in the
world and we’re going to do these large
seminars and like we’ll have hundreds of
people come to these events
and
so we started that company
he had a girl that he had grown up with
that he knew and so she started the
company with us so that’s 2006
well we ended up growing that company to
eight figures we had 200 people i ended
up marrying that girl her name is aj and
then we sold that company in 2018
and then
it was a sales training company sales
coaching and then
aj and i so we exited in 2018 and then a
few years ago we started brand builders
group which is which is what we do now
so that that takes you the full the full
story of rory right there i love it well
tell us a little bit about what brand
builders does yeah so brand builders
group helps mission-driven messengers
to build and monetize their personal
brand and so
we believe and now we have data to prove
we just we just conducted this
nationwide
independent research study aj actually
led it she’s our ceo at brain builders
group i’m more like the cmo but she
partnered with this independent research
firm studying what u.s consumers it was
a us-based study think about personal
brands and what we found is that the
average u.s citizen says they’re 74
more likely to trust somebody who has
built a personal brand and so it’s still
in the vein of influence i would
describe my my whole life as the study
of influence and i think of influence
with four levels so level one is
influencing yourself
that’s where my first book take the
stairs was all about you know overcoming
procrastination and building your
self-discipline that’s influencing
yourself my second book was
procrastinate on purpose which is
influencing your time which just you
know basically is still influencing
yourself so that’s all level one then
level two influence we you know you
could think of this as sort of four
concentric circles is influencing
another person which is the world of
sales you know and i i got exposed to
that my mom sold mary kay when i was a
when i was a kid so i grew up knowing
more about makeup than i do about cars
um and i learned about sales from the
time i was young and then when i was in
college you know i went door-to-door for
five summers and recruited students to
do that and broke several different
records and that was really about sales
and then the company that we built was
sales so we spent 12 years just
understanding how do you influence
another human
what can you say and do and think and
and and how do you behave to influence
another person voluntarily and then
level three influence is influencing a
small group of people so i would call
that leadership you know it’s it’s it’s
leading a team we spent a fair bit of
time studying that my degree in college
actually got an official degree in
leadership in an mba and then obviously
being an entrepreneur now my whole life
pretty much it’s all about leading teams
and how do you influence a group of
people and then so what i would say with
brand builders group i would describe
brand builders group as level four
influence
level four influence is not influencing
just yourself or another person or a
team but influencing an entire community
it is mobilizing
an army of fans or volunteers or a huge
social media following and so we work
with some of the very biggest podcasters
in the world
like lewis howes from the school of
greatness is over 400 million downloads
we work with several new york times
best-selling authors we work with people
on the cover of time magazine and
billionaires who are extending their
personal brand
now those clients represent about five
percent of the people that we work with
most of the people we work with are just
starting on that journey where maybe
they’ve been an influential person maybe
they’ve been a top salesperson maybe
they’ve been a successful leader a great
entrepreneur and now they’re trying to
expand their influence to reach out into
a community and mobilize a mass army so
that’s what brand builders group does
and so it’s not always an obvious
connection for people it’s so like you
know why did you do a ted talk that went
viral about multiplying time you’ve got
a book on self-discipline a company on
sales that you sold and now you know
that you and your wife sold and now you
and your wife are doing personal
branding and and the the through line is
just influence
and influences the psychology of moving
someone to action
and that includes moving yourself to
action so that’s the that’s the not so
apparent through line i would say of our
companies our body of work and honestly
just my my curious fascination
it makes a lot of sense now that you’ve
tied everything together and speaking of
influence i alluded to this at the very
top of the show you’ve really influenced
me
to think about time
differently and and i’m one of those
guys i was i was taught the seven habits
of highly effective people with a
company i worked with back when i was 19
i didn’t realize what a gift that was
that the company was giving me and i
have referred to that throughout my
entire life i’ve let other people
through that program
and i’ve always thought about time with
how do i make sure i’m always doing the
important things how am i scheduling to
use in the cubby vernacular the big
rocks
so we’re working on relationships all
the things that matter most in our lives
and i had a whole process that i used
for years
and then i read your book and you kind
of upset me a little bit rory because
now i had to learn to do something
different yeah and and it was it was so
comfortable for me to prioritize based i
would prioritize and i’ve done podcasts
on this on is something important or
will it lose value today if i don’t do
it and these were all my to-do’s
and i would say okay well if i have to
do today if it’s going to lose value i
give it an a
if i should do it today but it’s not
necessarily going to lose value but
eventually it will it gets a b and then
everything else is an optional task and
then i go back and i ranked my a’s and
my b’s i didn’t rank my c’s
and i did that for years but i never got
any more time and there was always one
of the five f’s that we’re getting ready
to talk about one of the areas in my
life that was always suffering where
another one was just going great and the
process that i was doing never fixed
that and i don’t know if i realized it
was a problem until
you spoke about it in your book but you
added significance to that and i’m
hoping we can talk a little bit about
significance because it really impacted
what i do with my day
and i tell you that was the missing
piece of my day
yeah the significance calculation
changes everything
i wouldn’t necessarily say that like i
invented it
but i identified it in the lives of
these ultra performers and you know so
in our last company my wife and i you
know our team i mentioned it was like
200 people we were spending time with
some of the elite professional
performers in the world and we’re
spending time around a lot of these what
we called ultra performers in the take
the stairs book in the first book and we
noticed that they thought differently
about time they didn’t they didn’t do
things like the people would you know
like covey would teach necessarily there
were parts of it that they did
and what we realized is that most people
were making decisions on what we call
era to thinking which is based on
importance and urgency and dr covey
pretty much single-handedly introduced
that framework into the world
which was a huge evolution at the time
because before that era one thinking you
know time management as a body of work
really started in like the 50s and 60s
and it was very one-dimensional it was
all about efficiency it was how do i do
things faster and that was the that was
the modality of thinking at the time you
know was like the manufacturing era and
we come out of the model t forward and
then world wars like and and things are
just assembly line and do things faster
well dr covey then taught us in you know
1989 when that book comes out seven
habits that not all tasks are created
equal and he taught us to prioritize
which was to focus first on what matters
most and
he gave us a scoring system where the
y-axis was importance and the x-axis was
urgency
and that changed the world because it
taught us that maybe item number seven
on our to-do list need to be bumped up
to number one and ever since that time
prioritizing or era two thinking has
really been the predominant way of
thinking but what we started to realize
is that there’s nothing about
prioritizing that actually creates more
time like you’re saying prioritizing is
actually more like borrowing time it’s
just saying i’m going to do item number
seven first which is valuable it’s not
that that’s invaluable that’s a valuable
skill but it doesn’t do anything to help
you accomplish the other you know nine
activities or whatever on your to-do
list well that worked in the 80s and 90s
but you know a lot of people don’t
realize that seven habits of highly
effective people was written in 1989
think about the world in the year 1989.
we don’t have email we don’t have cell
phones we don’t have text messages we
don’t have social media we don’t even
have like we don’t have the internet
like the world has radically changed and
you can’t solve today’s time management
problems using yesterday’s time
management strategies because we live in
a much more connected world no matter
how fast you go you’ll never be done
you’ll never be caught up
that’s different than it was in the 80s
and 90s right like you could actually
finish and be bored but today nobody is
ever bored like boredom doesn’t exist in
the world because there is a non-stop
perpetual flow of things that you can do
and so what the significance calculation
is is it takes that sort of
two-dimensional square and it turns it
into a three-dimensional cube so it more
builds on to dr covey’s work which is
brilliant but it’s kind of an evolution
or an adaptation and here’s the
distinction
importance is how much does something
matter
urgency is how soon does something
matter but significance is different
significance is how long is it going to
matter
in other words what is the impact of
completing this task on tomorrow and the
next day and the next day and the
significance calculation changes
everything it is how it becomes possible
to multiply time
now i wish i would have called the book
how to multiply time that’s what i
called my ted talk and the ted talk went
viral and it was very clear and that’s
what the book is about we called it
procrastinate on purpose because i
thought that was cute and fancy and no
one had ever heard of it but it was
confusing it’s really about how to
multiply time which is the subtitle of
the book five permissions to multiply
time and most people trace when they
hear me say that phrase or they hear our
team
say that phrase multiply time they think
i’m exaggerating or they think that
we’re we’re using like marketing
hyperbole or that we’re like you know
just it’s like a superlative but we’re
not exaggerating we mean that it is
literally possible
to multiply time it is literally
possible to create time which fries
everybody’s brain because for years
we’ve been told oh time’s the one thing
you can never have more of it’s not true
it is flat out not true
now absent the significance calculation
it is true there’s nothing you can do
inside of one day to create more time i
can’t create more time inside of one day
we all have the same 24 hours which is
1440 minutes or 86 400 seconds
i can’t add time to a day but that’s
exactly the problem most of us live in a
world of urgency the urgency of today
most people wake up and say what’s the
most important thing i have to do today
but that’s not how multipliers think
they don’t say what’s the most important
thing i have to do today what we noticed
is that multipliers asked a different
question their question was what are the
things i can do today that make tomorrow
better easier faster what are the things
that i can do right now
and and that’s the significance
calculation the significance calculation
is breaking free of just thinking about
today and it’s thinking about tomorrow
and the next day and the next day and so
that’s how it becomes possible to
multiply time which i can tell you how
to do in one sentence this is the this
is the premise of the entire
procrastination on purpose book it’s the
premise of my ted talk and it’s one
sentence so if you if you haven’t been
paying attention you pay attention right
now and write this down because i’m
going to teach you how to multiply time
and it’s super simple the way you
multiply time
is by giving yourself the emotional
permission to spend time on things today
that create more time tomorrow
you spend time on things today that
create more time tomorrow
while there is nothing i can do to
create more time inside of a given day
there are a lot of things that i can do
we categorize them into the five
permissions there’s five overall buckets
there are five different types of things
that i can do
today
that will cost me time today
but they’ll make me time tomorrow and
the next day and the next day and the
next day and that’s the significance
calculation and it does it it changes
everything
yeah you gave words to an experience
that i had years before i found your
book good friend of mine charlie we
would get together on a regular basis
just discuss how his business is going
how my business is going and he saw all
the things that were on my plate and he
came up to me one day and he said trace
i’m worried about your health you’re
doing all these things you can’t keep
doing that something’s got to change
and at the point i wasn’t ready to hear
i was like well yeah thanks for thanks
for caring i don’t have any other way to
get this done so i have no options
well he came back and he said i really
think you need to hire an assistant and
i’m thinking i don’t have time to train
an assistant but i didn’t vocalize that
to him so
every month every couple of months we
would meet and he would bring that into
the conversation and i would brush him
off and brush him off and
and and then finally he said it one day
and i was a little irritated he keep
bringing it up and i was like charlie i
don’t have time to train a person i
figure it’s going to take me at least
the same time i could do it seven times
myself before the person can do it the
first time he goes finally you get it
i’m like i’m trying to tell you this
isn’t going to work what do you mean i
get it he goes you finally understand
what i’m trying to tell you you’re not
going to have to do it the eighth time
and that’s when i got it yeah so in
brand builders group speak or
you know we we have the focus funnel and
so if you say okay rory what are the
five categories to multiply time one of
them is delegate and we we call this the
permission of imperfect and so and these
aren’t average people these are high
performing people but what we’re talking
about here is not the difference between
failures and successful people right
time management and having a schedule
and prioritizing that’s the difference
between like failures and successful
people what we’re talking about is the
difference between successful people and
ultra performers the top 1
and procrastinate on purpose is really a
book written for entrepreneurs and ultra
performers and people who aspire to be
in the elite of the elite
because the next level of results
requires the next level of thinking
always well
there’s a rule that we use called the
30x rule because whenever we tell
someone or ask someone we say hey are
there things that you could delegate are
there tasks that you’re doing
that you know
somebody else could be trained to do and
and a hundred percent of the time if
it’s an intelligent entrepreneur they’ll
go well of course like of course
somebody could be trained to do this and
then when you say to them you go okay
great so why haven’t you done this why
haven’t you delegated they will say
one of two things one is exactly what
you said trace they’ll say i don’t have
time like this is just faster for me to
do it myself or the second thing they’ll
say is i can’t afford an assistant so
let’s look at the first one first
of going i don’t have time and that’s
what the 30x rule is all about so the
30x rule suggests that you should
consider spending you should be willing
to spend at least 30 times
the amount of time it takes you to do a
task once
on training someone else to do that task
for you
so if i have a test that takes me five
minutes every day you should be willing
to spend
150 minutes so that’s 30x so 150 minutes
training someone else just to do that
one task and honestly trace i lose a lot
of people here because they at first
they go rory that’s the dumbest thing
i’ve ever heard like why would i spend
150 minutes training someone to do
something that i could just do myself in
five minutes and i always say you’re
right it doesn’t make sense
unless you make the significance
calculation inside of the paradigm of
one day it never makes sense to trade
150 minutes for five minutes but if you
make the significance calculation and
you extend your time horizon let’s just
look at this over the course of one year
okay so if there’s 250 working days in a
year approximately and it takes you five
minutes a day to complete that task then
just over one year not the rest of your
life but one year that task isn’t taking
you five minutes it’s taking you
1250 minutes five five minutes a day
times 250 days is 1250 minutes
so now the conversation looks instantly
different right it’s not should i spend
150 minutes to save five it should i
spend 150 minutes to save 1250.
notice how the answer is just as obvious
as it was before but it’s the complete
opposite of what we thought it was
before
and here’s what’s wild the task hasn’t
changed
the person hasn’t changed all that has
changed is the leader’s thinking and
that’s why we say all the time the next
level of results requires the next level
of thinking
you can’t just keep working faster and
have exponential results there has to be
a shift what got you here as a performer
won’t get you there as a leader that’s
actually something we teach in our
leadership training but it applies here
to time management as well and so if i
came up to you on the street and i said
oh trace boy have i got a deal for you i
have a guaranteed investment that you
could invest into where i can guarantee
you a
733 percent return
most of us would think no way way too
good to be true completely impossible
because when you’re talking about money
it is pretty pretty impossible or
extremely rare like usually a six eight
ten percent return is a solid return but
if you were to evaluate this investment
of time the same way that we evaluate
investments of dollars
watch what happens here so
i invested 150 minutes in
and i got 1250 minutes back now the net
gain is 1100 so it’s 1250 but i have to
subtract the 150 i spent training so my
net gain is 1100 which means i invested
150 i got 1100 back if you divide those
two numbers together it is a
733 percent and here’s a new term that
we invented r o t i
return on time
invested
we believe that the next generation of
cost savings will not be as focused on
saving money people are so focused on
pinching pennies here and there about
where they order their business cards
from or where they buy their pens or
what’s their bulk discount rate they get
on paper clips and meanwhile they’re
avoiding the gigantic
massive pile of wasted hours of the most
expensive line item in the business
which is salaries people’s time
compensation and when when when a person
who’s paid forty five thousand dollars a
year self admittedly wastes 2.09 hours
out of every single day that costs
employers
10
396 dollars per year
per employee
25
of their salary
is gone
you could buy your paper clips from the
most expensive manufacturer in the world
and and never come close to losing as
much money as you will lose from having
one employee
waste a a couple hours a week like and
so
i i’m actually shocked that the world is
not waking up to this faster i mean
we’ve been talking about this for five
years already and it in some ways it
feels like it’s just starting to kind of
catch on because this is what it’s all
about is saving time is worth way more
than saving money
yeah we recently finished discussing
your book in the rising tide mastermind
group and so many light bulbs were going
off with people about that because
people were worried about paper clips
instead of what really mattered most
something that came up though that i
wanted to ask you about and i’m not
going to do it justice you list a whole
host of things that we just simply
should be delegating off
so uh yard care uh housework cooking
meals uh even certain children’s
activities
so my mastermind group wanted me to ask
you do you really delegate every single
one of those oh heck yeah okay talk
about that because it’s a there’s a hard
breakthrough thinking there’s no way i
can do that how do i get past that block
so i can really allow myself to start
doing what i should be doing
well there’s two sides of this right
there’s the logical side and there’s the
emotional side right the logical side
says i can’t afford it right the logical
side says i can’t afford to pay somebody
20 an hour to clean my house again it’s
flawed thinking because here’s here’s
another concept we call it mvot mvot the
money value of time
all of us have an hourly rate
every person on the planet has an hourly
rate you might not be paid by the hour
but if you take your total earnings
divided by the number of hours you
worked you have an hourly rate now if
you make a hundred thousand dollars a
year and you go and you spend an hour
cleaning the house
you already are affording it
in fact you’re not paying 20 an hour
you’re paying two and a half times that
you’re paying 48 an hour because you’re
either paying someone else at their rate
of pay
or you’re paying yourself at yours and
that’s what people don’t understand is
they go oh my gosh
i should be doing tasks that are worth
48 an hour because that’s literally what
i get paid or that’s what my goal is to
make so if that’s my goal to make then i
got to go i got to take every 20 an hour
task and get that to someone for 20
bucks an hour and then i need to
repurpose that time into things that
multiply or into things that produce
exponential results
this is both personal and professional
now
logically it’s it’s almost never cheaper
for you to do it yourself it almost
never is
like because you know even if you make
50 000 a year that’s 24 an hour it’s
still
cheaper to have someone else do that and
and i would argue that the way to grow
your income is to invest that money to
pay someone to do that because you’re
more likely to reallocate that time and
to know how to use that time in a higher
value way you’re more likely to know
that there are certain activities you
can do that create exponential reach or
exponential influence or exponential
results like gathering referrals making
sales call talking to past clients
investing in strategic things like
whatever crms marketing
on the personal side though a lot of
this is more emotional trace
especially for moms oh my gosh mom guilt
is such a real thing right
like too many moms equate
being a good wife to
cleaning the house or
being a good mom to making homemade
cupcakes
pardon me if i’m overreaching here i
don’t think your kid cares if you made
homemade cupcakes i think your kid and
the kid’s classmates aren’t going to
know the difference between a homemade
cupcake and a cupcake that you bought at
publix like there’s not a difference to
them what they will notice is did you
spend an hour playing with them at night
or were you busy making cupcakes that’s
my personal philosophy now if you love
making cupcakes make cupcakes if you
love doing it with your kids even better
make the cupcakes with your kids if you
love mowing the yard fine mow the yard
if you love it but make the conscious
choice to say this is costing me money
i’m doing it because i enjoy it that’s
what hobbies are by the way that’s what
vacations are we are aware it’s costing
us money we’re choosing it because of
the pleasure we receive from it but if
you don’t get joy out of it you don’t
get pleasure out of it don’t convince
yourself that it’s somehow cheaper for
you to do it yourself it’s more
expensive it costs you more money and it
costs your happiness this is the
stupidest thing ever we do it all the
time and i’m a fan of outsourcing
everything one of the things we just did
so we have a nanny now we had to ramp up
to this right you can’t go out and hire
10 people but the first thing we did was
we hired a va then after we got a va
then we got then we got a full-time ea
then we got a marketing assistant then
we hired a personal assistant then we
had house cleaners then we had a nanny
now we have a nanny during the day and
an au pair who lives with us for nights
and weekends au pairs are extremely
affordable it’s one of the coolest
programs ever it’s cultural exchange the
reason we have an au pair in a nanny is
not to take care of our kids
the reason we have an au pair and a
nanny is so that they can take care of
the house and every
rote mundane
repeating task that has to happen so
that we can be with the kids so that we
can spend time with the kids so that we
can play with the kids
and here’s another crappy belief and
i’ll say crappy because it’s unconscious
but a lot of moms think a good mom
doesn’t have help that’s a that’s a
limiting belief that a lot of moms have
good moms don’t have help
says who and if that’s the case let me
ask you how’s it working out for you
like are you full of life are you full
of energy are you getting a lot of sleep
are you getting a lot of quality time
with your spouse and your kids it
doesn’t have to be moms this could go
either way but you know entrepreneurs do
the same thing in order to be a
successful entrepreneur i have to work
100 hours a week you have to grind all
the time no matter what really how’s it
working out for you
there are lots of entrepreneurs who work
10 hours a week and make millions of
dollars a year so that’s not a recipe
for success it might be
a necessary season which is a concept
from take the stairs it might be a
necessary season but it’s not the
long-term recipe
and so yeah i mean i am a fan of
outsourcing everything and this is why
we started a new company a few years ago
we already have 40 45 people like on our
team we have a landscaper we have a
lawnmower those are different people we
have someone who just does tasks around
the house hang pictures like fix broken
stuff which you know lord knows like i’m
not gonna fix anything i was raised by a
single mom who sold makeup like i mean
really like am i gonna change the oil
it’ll take me 17 hours to change the oil
in the car like if i try to hang a
picture i’ll put six holes in the wall
like it’s not saving anybody time or
money and it’s gonna drive me nuts and
my wife right so we’ve got that we have
the nanny we have the au pair we have a
personal assistant to help with like you
know groceries and stuff we have hello
fresh delivered three times a week uh
obviously we’re using amazon i mean
we’re using i mean i have a whole
section on my phone for these we use
upwork to hire freelancers we use tackle
taskrabbit to get like odd jobs done
around the house we use top tool and
five fiverr to hire freelancers of
course we’re using you know post mates
and doordash and ubereats to deliver
food when we need it we’re using
hellofresh to have food delivered
instacart to deliver the groceries i
mean it goes on and on thumbtack is
another one that we use for for handy
people urban sitter is another app you
can use to hire babysitters
none of this is to avoid like being with
our kids it’s the opposite
it’s so that when we’re done with work
we’re with the kids someone else is
cleaning the house someone else is
prepping the meal some now my wife
happens to love cooking so we have
someone do the food prep because my wife
is also a ceo of a fast-growing
multi-seven-figure business right and we
got two toddlers so i’m not saying it’s
better i’m not saying that our way is
right and every other way is wrong what
i’m saying is a lot of people trap
themself into a mental prison of their
own construction
based upon a stupid limiting belief that
came from somewhere else that they’ve
never even thought about or challenged
and it’s not about being above certain
tasks i’m not too good to take out the
trash i’m not too good to wipe a toilet
i will wipe a toilet especially inside
of our company i’m not too good to make
a sales call to make a cold call to
write an email to do anything it’s just
going if i can get help with things so
that it frees me up to spend more time
with my kids my wife our key leaders
doing strategy and building
relationships those are things that
multiply cleaning the toilet doesn’t
multiply you can clean the toilet every
single week you’re still going to have
to clean it every single week unless you
build some ai robot that cleans the
toilet for you that’s a task that has to
be done over and over again i’m going to
train someone to do that task or better
yet i’m going to pay someone and it also
is it’s also about a healthy emotional
attachment with money if if i have
scarcity about money
if i believe that money is my source of
security in life i’m going to have a
hard time letting it go
but if i view money as a tool to help me
multiply
and to help me have more freedom then
it’s just i’m hiring people left and
right we’re creating jobs like crazy
everywhere we go we create jobs the more
busy work that shows up for our business
or for our house we’re creating jobs
we’re pumping money out as fast as we
can and what happens more comes in
because we’re reallocating that time to
things that multiply to things that
nobody else can do
you know if i sound passionate please
don’t take it as like we have it all
figured out and and you don’t uh it’s
not that at all we’re overwhelmed still
like this isn’t an insta cure for all
your problems it it tends to be like you
you have bigger problems right you just
have problems with more zeros on the end
but what i’m passionate about is i hate
when people feel trapped
that they can’t buy cupcakes from the
store because that would make them a bad
mom or they can’t hire a house cleaner
because that makes them a bad wife or i
can’t hire a babysitter when i’m home
because that makes me a lazy dad or
you know i can’t hire an assistant to
get the groceries because i’m a
stay-at-home dad and i should have to do
that you know it’s like at the end of
the day what do you want to spend your
time on and what multiplies what can you
do today that creates more time or
results tomorrow
i love how you put you’ve got to give
yourself emotional permission and i
don’t remember ever reading before your
book how there is an emotional component
to where you spend your time how did you
come to that conclusion
the very first time i realized it was um
i was actually at my old business
partner’s house and it was a saturday
morning
and he at the time had this this really
sweet like three-year-old daughter
named haven and we had a saturday
morning work meeting and i went to pick
him up we were leaving the house and
haven comes sprinting down the hallway
and she jumps and she grabs a hold of
his leg and she looks at him and she
says
daddy where are we going and he looks
down at her and he says oh
i’m sorry baby haven daddy has to go to
work today
and she says no work
please no work daddy
and her eyes have tears in them
and she says please no more work
at about that moment i realized two
things the first was i’m not sure i’m
cut out to be a parent
ever
now obviously we got two kids since then
so that has changed but but the thing i
really realized was that time management
isn’t always logical in fact it’s much
more emotional than we realize
it is our feelings of guilt and fear and
anxiety
our desire to feel successful and
important and influential those
underlying emotions actually drive our
behavior much more than what’s on our
calendar or on our inbox or on our to-do
list
it’s why i feel like i have to spend an
hour making homemade cupcakes because it
makes me feel like a good mom but what
if i could be a good mom by just being
with my kids that would free me up to
buy cupcakes or to have somebody else go
pick up the cupcakes it’s not about
cupcakes right but that’s that’s a
literal example that shows how
we prison ourselves to doing trivial
things at the sake of we’re we’re victim
to this emotional prison of saying i
must work 80 hours a week to be
successful you know i can’t do this or i
must do this and most of those beliefs
we’ve never even questioned we have
never challenged a lot of times we don’t
even know they’re there
roy help me out my wife’s love language
is acts of service
so when i’m vacuuming when i’m putting
away the dishes she actually interprets
that as oh wow trace cares what should i
be doing how can i take that to a higher
level and still
talk to her love language
well i mean
if it were me you know i would hire
someone else to vacuum
and then i would reallocate that time to
planning romantic evenings together i
would take her on a picnic at a winery
or something and you know write out 25
reasons why you love her
and i bet you she’ll respond more to
that than she will to the vacuum point
taken here’s a little tip just for us
between us guys here so only guys so if
you’re a lady you can’t don’t listen to
this part but
one of the best lines on this comes from
the movie finding forrester have you
ever seen that movie i don’t think i
have it’s not it’s not a great movie but
it’s uh sean connery is in it and he’s
like this old writer and he’s mentoring
this this young kid who is like an
aspiring writer
and he says this he says the key to a
woman’s heart
is an unexpected gift at an unexpected
time unexpected gift at an unexpected
time so buying your wife flowers on
valentine’s day okay fine that’s the
minimum that’s what you do to not get
fired what you should do is buy your
flowers right now
and have them come today on a day just a
day just because
but again if i am trapped into going i
have to do the vacuuming in order to be
a good husband
i never have the time and the capacity
for creativity and for romance and
because it’s just like oh my gosh i got
a vacuum i gotta hang this picture i
gotta pump up the tire with air i gotta
mow the yard i gotta fix that leak like
and this is what happens right and this
is what happens is people as their
marriage becomes their roommates
and it’s not always these roles okay but
you know i’m over generalizing mom is
taking care of the kids and keeping the
house clean and running the meals dad is
working and maybe he’s working too much
and maybe he’s traveling and then he
comes home and he’s got you know he’s
fixing a bunch of stuff and they’re
never together
they’re roommates they they they operate
a business but they don’t have a
relationship and that breaks my heart
especially when you go man for a few
hundred bucks a month i could solve a
lot of these problems and we could
actually just go on a walk together
there’s no better spend of money than
that
great point rory after an author puts a
book out there’s always something they
wish they put in
what do you wish you put in to
procrastinate on purpose
there hasn’t been something that i have
have wished that i would put put in
there
and i do find what you’re saying is
usually true
one of the things we teach our clients
at brand builders group by the way and
this is this is different is we say that
you’re writing a book should be a
conclusion not a hypothesis
a lot of people write a book as a
hypothesis
as like hey here’s an idea that i think
might be worth something
take the stairs was basically you know
the culmination of 10 years like the
first 10 years of our research and
career procrastinating purpose was the
next five years we haven’t released a
book in a few years so you know we went
through exiting the company starting a
new company rebuilding our social media
you know we launched two new podcasts
but like when we sold the company we
sold our email our social media
everything all of the ip everything was
gone um except for the two books like
you know we kept we kept my two books
but we’ve had to rebuild and so you know
i haven’t released a book here in a few
years well one’s gonna come out and it’s
gonna be really really good and people
are gonna go wow that’s amazing but it’s
it’s because we’ve spent three years
already
working on it and it’ll probably be
another two years before it’s actually
in print so for us a book is a
conclusion not a hypothesis that’s
really important to me and my wife as as
writers
and you know we’re testing stuff out in
real life and then we’re delivering the
conclusion
but in take the stairs there is
something that i wish i would have
talked more about and it was the the
concept of seasons there’s a chapter in
there called the the harvest principle
of schedule
and we talk about how the metaphor of
balance is terrible we think it’s a
horrendous metaphor for how you spend
your time
the much more accurate metaphor which
you don’t hear hardly ever is seasons
that life happens in seasons ebbs and
flows and that if you embrace that you
know versus trying to do an equal amount
of things all the time in equal
proportion in equal directions
we believe that if you have diluted
focus you get diluted results and so
even the concept of work-life balance
which is impossible to achieve in the
beginning but if you had an equal amount
of time spread across equal activities
we believe you get the least amount of
results in those areas because we think
that focus is power and the way that you
really create results is through
imbalance you imbalance all of your
excess energy and resources in one
direction for a season we call it a
harvest season to create a focused burst
of energy
where you you blitz through and you
create a big breakthrough
then you put that on autopilot and
everything else on autopilot and you
dedicate a hundred percent of the excess
energy and resources into the next thing
and you create a huge breakthrough and
then you put that on autopilot and that
it it happens more in seasons i’ve
sharpened a lot of that especially from
having kids i really wish you know there
was more on that back and and take the
stairs that’s a great question i’ve
never been asked that question but as of
this point my big wish for
procrastinating on purpose is i wish i
would have called the book how to
multiply time that’s what the book is
about that is
that is the value proposition
this is one of the lessons we teach
people at brand builders group right so
brand builder is just one-on-one
coaching for personal brands you know so
anyone who wants to build their public
profile we do one-on-one coaching and
one of the painful lessons that we
learned from calling the book
procrastinate on purpose i was trying to
be cutesy and clever and what we have
learned is clear is greater than clever
clear is greater than clever when it
comes to marketing
and you know we called the ted talk how
to multiply time didn’t even think twice
about it they asked us what’s this talk
about we said it’s about how to multiply
time that’s what they called the ted
talk boom it went viral i think if we
would have called the book that it the
book would have done a lot better so
that would be my big change for
procrastinating on purpose i wish we
would have called it a different title
well rory i have probably six dozen more
questions that i could ask you but i
want to be very conscious of your time
do you mind if i ask you a couple
lightning round questions
yeah let’s do it because i’m i’m i i
know we have to wrap it up and uh but
yeah we’ll do lightning round
all right so if you could go back in
time and speak to yourself on your first
day as an entrepreneur what advice would
you give yourself
play the long game
do what you’re doing it will pay off i
mean the significance calculation is
another way of saying play the long game
think long term
much of my life i’ve made different
decisions than the people my age all the
way back from the time i was young and
that’s why i was never one of the cool
kids but what’s cool now is a lot
different than what was cool then
and so i would just say stay the course
play the long game don’t worry about
what other people are doing
what are some of your favorite books
oh great one well um uh clearly the
bible and specifically the book of james
which many people believe was written by
jesus brother james this is my favorite
book of the bible separate of that i
mean it’s it’s it’s hard because i’ve
read a ton
you know if you say favorite books
there’s a there’s a bunch of them if you
say the books that have most changed my
life like have most altered my life i’d
say dave ramsey’s financial peace
university changed my life secrets of
the millionaire mind by t harvecker
changed my life um the go-giver by bob
berg 21 irrefutable laws of leadership
by john maxwell five dysfunctions of a
team by patrick lencioni the greatest
salesman in the world by agmandino
what to say when you talk to yourself by
shad helmstetter i quote that book and
take the stairs
those are probably the most
impactful books like they’ve changed my
thinking and changed my behavior
when hollywood makes a movie about rory
who plays rory
[Laughter]
oh gosh well i think it’s ralph macchio
or chachi from happy days uh i get that
all the time that i look like chachi
from happy days or ralph macchio or
scott yeah so scott baio or ralph
macchio
final question you now have the ability
to talk to anybody throughout history
who to be with and why
i mean
it’d be jesus
because i think
you know there’s a part of christianity
for me that’s the spiritual there’s
another part that’s historical like
actually studying
this is a book that should be on that
list
that truly truly changed my life there’s
a book called the case for christ by lee
strobel i’m a very analytical logical
person and you know there’s a whole part
of this whole christianity spirituality
like what like dude raised from the dead
like you know people getting swallowed
by whales and you know world created in
seven days like how like my mind
couldn’t process it and that book case
for christ really helped me specifically
about the the historical evidence and
the corroborating
documentation of the life of jesus that
being
you know a real person on earth you know
first of all you got to just ask
yourself was jesus a real person yes or
no
and if you look the documentation is
overwhelming that he was a real person
that was on earth then the next thing
you got to kind of decide for yourself
is you got to decide like was he like
the son of god and i think the ultimate
conclusion i came to there is he said he
was the son of god which means to me
only one of two things he either was who
he says he was or he was an insane crazy
person he’s not just a good guy like a
good guy wouldn’t say they are the son
of god they are either completely off
their rocker or they are who they and
there’s been people in history who have
said they are god or they are you know
from a different universe or whatever
most of us deem them as crazy so to me
jesus is either who he says he is or
he’s crazy then you got to say okay
did he die lee walks you through that
and then you go
did he disappear from the tomb all by
himself
you know so i think
that is the historical part but then
even the emotional part is going man you
know jesus was a radical i mean turn the
other cheek
pray for those who persecute you
give your money away be nice to the sick
and the needy you know spend your time
with children and widows i mean
especially back then those ideas were
freaking radical radical
you know roman culture was brutal and so
for him to come along i mean that’s just
like i mean where did it come from so uh
anyways that that’s who i’d spend my
time with i’d want to like know about
some of that stuff
well rory i appreciate you spending a
little time with us today and we learned
a whole lot more about not only your
book but some ways that we need to start
thinking about things a little bit
better thanks for coming on the show
well trace thanks for having me if y’all
want to follow me more you go to
roryvadenblog.com
that’s you can catch up with all my
social media and podcasts there and
books and you know i would just say
no matter who you are your life has a
purpose there is something significant
that you’re supposed to accomplish if
you’re still here that means you still
have time so use that time be fruitful
and multiply
scouting up nation so much fun when i am
able to do that what a what a great guy
what a genuine guy i was able to clarify
a lot of things that i wanted to ask him
as i was reading the book and some of
the questions that you heard me ask
directly came from the rising tide
mastermind they knew i was interviewing
rory and they wanted me to ask a couple
of those questions
so how cool is it that we have a direct
line to the person that wrote
procrastinate on purpose and by the way
take the stairs is amazing as well those
are two books that i would highly
recommend and the simple fact is we only
have so many hours
in the day and when we start thinking
about are we doing the right things with
those hours and the dimension that he
added which was just huge for me
was is there something that i can do now
that will allow me
not to do it in the future and now that
gives me time
back again we still have 24 hours but
now we can be a lot more purposeful with
those 24 hours and rory i want to thank
you for introducing me and the rising
tide mastermind and all of the people
that are going to read procrastinate on
purpose because of this podcast thank
you for all the hard work you did and
thank you for laying that out in such a
logical platform
i started this podcast with talking
about you really make changes in your
progress when you challenge yourself
when you’re making yourself a little bit
uncomfortable
and you have a higher end goal in mind
or you’re not satisfied with the way
things are
you want to make things the way they can
be i hope you’re looking at those items
i hope you’re constantly going through
your day-to-day and saying what can i
do better what has a time value what has
an importance value
what has a significance value we all
have definitions for those thanks to
rory and
i think every day is an opportunity for
us to continue to get better i know many
of you have started since you’ve
listened to this podcast since you’ve
urged each other to do this
to try something a little bit different
each and every week so you are
constantly increasing what your
productivity could be
you’re doing more meaningful things and
more importantly you’re learning
all the way while you’re doing this
you know no stranger to this concept is
james mcdonald and he of course tries to
help us with a brand new james’s
challenge each and every week so here’s
james
[Music]
hello scaling up nation the next james’s
challenge as we grow as an industrial
water treatment professional drop by
drop is
[Music]
perform a dissolved oxygen study on a
boiler derivative in feed water
is the derivative effectively reducing
oxygen
are you feeding too much oxygen
scavenger because of a poorly performing
deorator what are the proper procedures
for performing a dissolved oxygen study
how long should the oxygen scavenger
feed be turned off before conducting the
study
there are many factors to be considered
before starting and during the study
be sure to share your experience on
linkedin by tagging with hashtag jc21
and hashtag scalinguph2o
this is james mcdonald and i look
forward to seeing what you share
nation this is a really fun
challenge this is something that we do
with new employees is we have them run
samples on cooled samples and samples
that are straight from the boiler and
compare the results and you will see
some are not affected and some are very
affected so i think the next step to
that is why is that and i think we’ve
covered that in some previous podcasts
so you can go back and you can search
through the scaling up h2o archives for
those answers but when you start
treating the tests that you use as a
tool just like rory talk to us about
money those tools can allow us to do
what we need to do
a lot better
nation and my excitement talking about
rory i realized that i spoke about the
six f’s and we never came back to it so
i want to go ahead and tie that up for
you this scaling up nation so rory says
that we we have so many areas or so many
buckets he actually calls them glasses
in his book
that we can spend time in different
areas in our life so those are faith fun
fitness family
faculty and finances and you can tell
he’s got a love for alliteration and i
wanted to ask him because when i read
the book and my mind wanted the
challenge that that’s not it
and i actually really tried to figure
out what another f was of course we
never came back to that in the interview
but i did leave you hanging there about
what the six fs were so now you know
folks i hope you enjoyed this podcast i
hope that if you have an idea for
scaling up h2o you don’t keep that
locked up inside your head get that to
me let me know what you want to hear on
the next scaling up h2o podcast we’ve
got two very easy ways for you to do
that both of them include you going to
scalinguph2o.com
and one way you can go over to our show
ideas page and type out what your ideas
but what i hope you do is you record
your voice on our leave voicemail
feature and you record yourself asking
that question i love playing your
questions and answering those on our
pinks and blues episodes but if you have
somebody that you want me to interview
let me know that too because i love
meeting new people i also love bringing
you these podcasts and you will have a
brand new one
next friday until then have a great week
folks
scouting nation we have just started a
new group within the rising tide
mastermind i am so amazed at how
successful and how well received the
rising tide mastermind has been in our
community and we are starting a new
waiting list for the next group if you
want to get on this waiting list so you
can start with our next group go to
scaling up h2o.com forward slash
mastermind to see if this is the right
group for you and then after you and i
have a brief conversation to make sure
the group fits for you and you fit for
the group we can get you on that waiting
list i can’t wait to talk to you
remember scaling up h2o.com forward
slash mastermind