Welcome to the Elevated Edit Podcast.

I'm your host, Blakely Ramsey and the goal of this podcast is to discuss all things personal development, wellness and the art of editing your life in an elevated way.

From mastering morning routines to mastering your mindset, we're going to sift through the noise and empower you to take elevated action.

Make sure you catch the show notes for all the details.

Enjoy the show.

Hello and welcome back to the Elevated Edit Podcast.

Hope you all are having an amazing day.

I had planned on a snow day today and I woke up and there's literally nothing on the ground.

So I'm trying to find my motivation to kick it into high gear today.

But for today's short and sweet episode, I am someone who likes to reread my favorite books every couple of years.

I don't necessarily have to read the entire book from front cover to back cover, but I do like to go back through and just hit the high points and read some of the sections in the new version of myself.

With all my growth and where I'm at in particular seasons and the one thing by Gary Keller and I'm going to botch this next guy's last name.

I feel so bad.

It's Jennifer Papazon.

P A P A S A N.

I always get his name wrong and one day I'm gonna, you know, google how to say it.

But today's not the day.

But this is one of those books that you can read over and over again because it's not a fluff piece.

It is not all about the author.

It is really action packed and it is full of advice and tips that you can actually use.

And I love it because after I read it I always feel refocused and I feel super clear on what it is that I need to be doing and working on.

And so today I'm going to pull three lessons, very brief lessons from the book.

I would encourage all of you to read it, but I know that some of my girlies are not readers, so I'm going to pull some of the lessons for you and that way you don't have to read it.

Lesson 1 Focus doesn't mean limiting your passion.

So if you're like me and you're multi passionate, you have all the ideas, you want to do all the things, you have a lot of skills so it makes sense.

But at the end of the day you are not finishing projects or not seeing things through to the end or not really living up to your potential.

At least you feel like you're not.

This lesson from this book is so incredibly important because it kind of is, at least for me, a little controversial.

Like, when I first read the book, I was like, oh, this book is kind of useless.

Because that's easy for him to say.

He's already got money so he can slow down and focus on one thing.

But the more that I read it and the more that I started practicing the things in the book, I was like, oh, well, this makes complete sense.

Because priorities is not supposed to be plural.

Like, there is one priority.

And the thing that he teaches you in the book that really helps you narrow down what your 1 priority should be is he asks the right question.

So there's this one question that he asks and the question, and I might botch this as well.

I probably should have wrote it down.

But it is what is one thing that you can do that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or unnecessary.

And I love that, because there is always one thing that you can do in the moment that is going to make all the rest of your actions, all the rest of your to do list and goals easier, or it's going to make it unnecessary because it's going to eliminate a lot of the other work that you might have to do.

And if that sounds like I'm talking in circles, let me give you, like, my current personal example.

So as most of you know, and if this is your first time listening, I am going through a whole life and business rebrand.

I am not taking things completely off my plate, but I'm scaling back in certain areas and I'm adding things like the podcast, and I have a couple other things that I'm working on.

And so as I was reading through this book and looking at my current season of life as of first couple weeks of January 2025, I was like, okay, how in the world am I supposed to narrow down to one priority when I have all of these things on my plate and they're all so different?

Like, I just don't see how this is going to work.

But when you take that question and you say, you know, what is one thing that I can do in the next five years that by doing it it's going to make everything else easier or unnecessary?

And then you scale back to one year, and then you ask about six months, and then you ask about a month and then a week and then a day, and then you break it down by hour, and then you get down to the question of like, what is one thing that I can do right now that by doing it, everything else becomes easier or Unnecessary.

And it took me a couple of hours to like, map this out.

And it was so funny that the answer that came to me was content.

Because I need to like growing my personal brand in 2025.

If you are any kind of service provider, if you have a product you're trying to sell, having a personal brand is going to make your business run better, it's going to make it easier, it's going to give you more opportunities.

I mean, that's just.

There's no way around that at this point.

That's just where we are with technology and social media.

And I was like, oh, duh, content, obviously.

Because if I work on the content, like if I make a really good.

So I'll take a podcast episode, for example.

If I make a really good podcast episode.

So I'm like, okay, today my priority is putting out a podcast episode and I make it really good.

I can take that podcast episode and I can turn it into content for a real estate post.

I can turn it into content for a elevated edit posts.

I can turn it into content for my personal brand.

I can turn it into content for Instagram and threads and Pinterest.

Those are the only three that I'm focusing on right now.

So that's why I said those three.

I can turn it into an email newsletter.

I can do a lot of different things with this one piece of content and doing that.

I don't have to necessarily run as many ads for the podcast.

I don't have to get out and network as much.

I don't have to do these other things.

And so that is the one thing that I can focus on that makes everything else easier or completely unnecessary.

And I don't think this is always going to be a super clear answer right away.

Like I said, I've read this book three or four times.

I've obviously gone through a lot of rebrands, professionally and personally.

And so I think this is one that can meet you in any season that you're in.

But for me, that's been so pivotal.

And I've been practicing this the last couple of days as far as, like, I'm going to focus on my content.

And it truly does make everything else easier because I can say no to that networking event or I can say no to, you know, I don't have to have all these social media apps and me doing all this stuff and feel like I have to do everything.

I can focus on doing one thing really well and it will make everything else easier or unnecessary.

And so that's lesson Number one, focus does not mean limiting your passions.

You are just putting your attention and energy into the one thing that's going to be a catalyst for everything else.

And think about what your goals are, professional and personally.

You can do this for anything across the board.

You can do it for losing weight or if you want to declutter the house or whatever it is.

You can start with an overarching goal and then narrow it down to, like, what is the one thing that I can be doing right now that by doing it'll make everything else easier or unnecessary?

Lesson number two, consistency beats hustle every time.

I feel like I have been leaning into this lately for sure, because I am naturally a hustle person.

I grew up in the restaurant industry.

It's long hours, so I.

It's nothing to me to wake up super early and work all day without taking a break.

It is unnatural for me to take a break, to take the evening off, to take a day off.

That's just doesn't come naturally to me.

And so I'm having to almost like rewire my brain as far as what creates results.

And I am learning that I can be very focused and very consistent every day, a couple of times a day, instead of hustling all the time and making everything just, oh, I've got to work, burn the midnight oil and I've got to wake up super early and I've got to do all the work.

Like, I'm still going to wake up early just because I love being alone in the mornings and reading my books.

It's just, it's my time before the world kind of comes at me.

But consistency really is so important.

And I know I've talked about this before and I know it's common sense, but common sense is not always common.

So just because it's common sense doesn't mean that we're seeing it in action and we're seeing people, you know, act on it these days.

And like I said, for me, committing small pockets of time to being really focused and really intense has made huge impacts on my business and my personal life and my happiness.

I think happy is a very subjective word, but I'm definitely very happy in the Season of Life.

So I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing.

And then lesson number three, protect your time like it's sacred.

I've talked a lot about boundaries on this show.

It's definitely something I feel like I'm getting pretty good at setting boundaries, which is not something I ever thought I would be able to say.

But setting boundaries with people saying no when you need to say no, getting really clear on your calendar and your priorities and what needs to be a priority.

For me, my personal health ties back into creating content.

Like, if I want to come up with a good podcast episode, I need to have slept eight hours the night before.

I need to be hydrated, I need to work out, I need to, you know, be in a good headspace so that I can outline the episode well and show up with good energy.

And so it's so funny how you think if you have one priority, it's going to eliminate you from accomplishing anything else in your life.

But if it's the right priority, it's going to mesh everything together.

And okay, back to lesson number three.

I don't know how I got off on that tangent.

One thing that I've been doing to really laser focus in on protecting my time is I have been time blocking.

Now my end goal with building the life that I'm currently living is that I do want more time freedom.

And so I feel like if I time blocked my whole entire day, that would be me going backwards.

But what I have been trying to do is time block different parts of my personal life, different parts of my business, so I don't feel like they're stretched out during the whole week because you, how much time you give something is how long it'll take you to do it.

So if you say, okay, I'm going to spend two weeks cleaning out my closet, it's going to take you two weeks to clean out your closet.

If you say, hey, I'm going to take 45 minutes today and 45 minutes tomorrow to clean out my closet, then it's going to take you those two 45 minute pockets.

So I've been really trying to be really honest with myself about how long it's going to take for me to accomplish something and then time blocking it and saying, okay, I'm giving myself one hour, I'm giving myself two hours or whatever it is, and then really being consistent and sticking with that time block.

Saying no to other things that pop up, saying no to oh, I feel tired, or I would rather watch TV or whatever it is.

Just being really focused and really disciplined with my time blocks has been huge.

And that's what I love about this book, is that it really helps you simplify, it helps you narrow down because I mean, we're all so busy and with increasing technology and I just feel like schedules are just getting so crazy because there's so many options we all have a million things we can choose from and narrowing down is really freaking hard.

Especially if you're like me.

It does not come natural.

I want to do all the things all the time.

I want to be a millionaire and I want to travel twice a month and I want to like, I want to do it all.

And I do think it's possible.

But but it's not possible to get there if my focus and my attention is scattered all over the place.

I have got to narrow down my focus and narrow down my priorities so that I can take that elevated action.

And like I said, this book is on my reread list for a reason.

It is phenomenal.

I recommend that you all go read it or listen to it on audiobooks.

I love Audible, it is always in my ear it seems.

But go listen.

It's a great book and it is one that you will not regret finishing because it is definitely not a fluff piece.

And with that, I hope you have a great rest of the day.

That's all I got for you and I will see y'all in the next episode.

Thank you for tuning in to the Elevated Edit podcast.

I hope you found today's episode inspired, inspiring, and full of actionable tips.

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