Hey, what's up, champion? This is your host, Neal, and I want to welcome you back to another podcast. Today we're going to be speaking about what I refer to as how to move your needle. Whoo. What is that? Well, we're going to be talking about productivity tips today on how you can get dialed in on your focus and start moving the needle on the things that really matter to you. I'm also going to help you understand that you're always moving a needle, whether you mean to or not. But you're either moving your needle to the things that matter or you're moving a needle in the area of distraction. Whoo. That's a powerful principle right there, guys. I'm fired up for today's show, and I pray you are as well. Get ready. This is your captain speaking. We want to let you know we've been cleared for takeoff. We have clear skies today with no wind, so we are expecting a smooth and highly enjoyable flight. However, should you experience some personal turbulence, don't worry as you've chosen the right airline. As we are trained in navigating unexpected bumps, our destination today is high performance and success. Sit back, relax, get hyped, or do whatever you do. As we too are pumped for today's flight. We understand you have options when you fly, and we are grateful that you have chosen to fly with us today. We recognize by choosing to fly in il Reyes, you are committed to growing personal development and reaching higher than you ever have before. Enjoy today's flight. Be blessed, and remember, the best is yet to come. What's up, champion? This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you to the executive perspective. For years, I struggled to answer the question, what do you do for a living? Why? Because most people who ask only expect to hear one thing. I am an executive with a deep level of understanding of business, operations, leadership, and technology. I'm also the president and founder of a worldwide ministry and CEO of an executive coaching and consulting firm. My number one passion is people, and I receive significant gratitude in life from sowing into others and encouraging them as they grow to achieve their fullest potential. If you're a high performance individual like me or you're simply ready to take your business leadership or inner potential to the next level, then strap in because I'm locked in and all in. This is the executive perspective. Hey, what's up, champions? This is your host, Neal Reyes, and I want to welcome you back to the executive Perspective. I'm fired up about today's teaching. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that I believe fits in the category of productivity. It's something that hits big, in my opinion, and it's something that I learned years ago. And as I learned it and learned how to get deeper into it, the success that I've had, the momentum that I've had, man, I've been knocking down one goal after another and after another. And I want to share it with you so that you can employ this as well, so that you also can start knocking down your goals. What I want to talk to you about today is a topic that I refer to as needle movers versus Noise. I'm going to say that again because that term might not be familiar with you, but needle movers versus Noise, specifically, I'm going to break down for you what I believe a needle mover is, and I'm going to give you some examples of what noise is. I also believe that if you feel in any way like right now you've been stuck in your momentum. You know, yesterday's podcast that we had, and if you haven't listened to it, we dealt with overwhelm and how to avoid overwhelm. Well, one of the things I will tell you is that sometimes people, and I talk about it in that podcast a little bit, but sometimes people are just busy being busy. In other words, they're not really accomplishing much. They're not really moving or making ground on things. They're just busy being busy. And sometimes that's what I refer to as noise. I especially refer to it as noise when you're busy with other people's busyness. What do I mean by that? Well, we're going to break that down today, but simply put, if you're busy by constantly being busy by other people, you're not going to get a lot done. In fact, you're probably going to feel overwhelmed, probably going to feel frustrated. And at the end of the day, even if you could say that you were busy and that maybe you were even diligent, you probably can't say that you were very productive, because there's a big difference. You know, being diligent is very important, but you can be diligent and take care of all the things that are on your desk. But if all the things that are on your desk or your to do list are all the wrong things, then you can be very diligent being busy knocking those off. But you're not creating any momentum, you're not creating any movement to lead effectively and grow with purpose. You're going to have to learn how to dominate your time. I'm going to say that again. To lead effectively and grow with purpose, you're going to have to learn how to dominate your time. If you're not intentional about where your energy goes, noise can consume your day and sabotage your momentum. I'm going to say that again. If you're not selective about where your energy goes, if you're not guarded about where your energy goes, noise will consume your day and it can sabotage your momentum. These are big topics that we're touching on today, and like I said, it falls in the category for me of productivity. Sometimes I see things like that based on my coaching business, because when I'm working with clients, I have different categories that I sometimes focus in that I categorize certain things that I'm helping clients with. I will tell you that whenever I'm working with my coach that I work with. Focus and productivity are some of my favorites. Focus, clarity, and productivity, those are some of my favorites. I almost could dedicate every coaching session just to that because I love working on it so much. I don't do that and my coach doesn't let me do that because I got to have balance. But at the same time, when I talk about the area of productivity, this is a really, really big thing. And I think today's episode is going to help you with some major unlocks and it's going to help to shift your mindset because I want to remind you, and if you're new to this show, one of the things that I do is I'm an advanced mindset coach. I'm a high performance coach. What does that mean to be an advanced mindset coach? Well, as a high performance coach, that's basically like a life coach, but on steroids. And there's nothing wrong with life coaches. But this is something where I'm constantly focused on the high performance of an individual. Whether if it's focused on the high performance of their productivity, of their abilities, maybe it's just of their growth, their personal growth. You know, this podcast, the Executive Perspective, we focus on three major areas on this podcast. I say it in every episode. We focus on leadership, business strategy, and personal development. And when I'm focused on coaching people, I'm focused usually on one of those three areas as well. Sometimes it's a little broader, but usually it's one of those three areas. Sometimes I have clients that reach out to me or that I'm working with and they say, hey, in our next coaching module that we do, I need to focus on this product I'm trying to get out, or I need to focus on this business I want to launch and start. Or I've already got this product, I've already got this business, but I need to focus on the marketing aspects of it. And so I help walk them through that so I can give them the coaching they need so that they can connect with their best self, their best performance. Well, when we talk about productivity, that feeds into just about everything you do. And what I'm going to tell you is that today the topic of needle movers versus noise, you can apply to any and every area of your life. I will tell you to start with one area, whether that's at work or that's personal. But the moment you apply it to 1, it easily spills over into other areas. Or I should say, instead of spills into it, it easily cross pollinates into other areas to help you be your most effective and productive self. If I had to tell you where I would start though, I would start with your work schedule, with your work responsibilities is where I would apply this. So let me ask you a question. Now that you know what a needle moving activity kind of is, and here's what a needle moving is. Whenever you turn around and you identify what a needle moving activity is, those are things that when you're working on them directly, you can say that this moves the needle in the areas that matter most to you. So let's give some examples of that. Let's say you started off this year or this month or this week with some brand new goals. Whether they're business goals, whether they're leadership goals, whether they're personal goals. Maybe it's about saving money or getting in shape, or maybe it's dropping weight, losing weight. Maybe it's Preparing for the 5K that's coming up. Or maybe you're a hardcore athlete and you want to prepare for the ironman coming up. Whatever it is, whatever your goals are, whatever your vision is that you want to accomplish, first of all, it's about understanding where your focus needs to be applied. And once you understand what your focus needs to be applied on, then you ask yourself the simple question, am I moving my needle? And these areas that I say matter to me. In other words, I'll give you a simple example. Let's just go back to the weight one. If you say that your goal is to lose 30 pounds by the end of the year, well, week after week, if you ask yourself, did I move the needle this week at all? Well, someone's going to Say, well, how do I measure that? Well, there's some simple ways to do that. The first one, Are you weighing yourself? Are you seeing a difference on the scale? Another one. Are you doing measurements or are you doing photos? Are you seeing any difference in those? Are they going down? Are they going up? Are they saying the same? Another one could be. Are you tracking your meals? Are you using any kind of a food journal, or are you using any kind of a food app to track your items? There's. Are you exercising? How many times a week did you exercise? What kind of exercise did you do? Did you do cardio this week? Did you do weights? Did you only do one or the other? What are the things you did this week? And if you're like, I had a really successful week. I walked on the treadmill three times this week for 20 minutes. Congratulations. What did you eat this week? And you're like, well, I had a couple cheeseburgers after I did my cardio, and the next day I decided I need to carb up, so I went and ate a whole pizza. You get the picture, right? You're not really moving your needle at all. In fact, you're probably moving it in the wrong direction. At the same time, though, if you tell me moving the needle in my weight is real important, and I say, okay, when, as your coach, how do you plan to do that? What do you think you need to put in place? And if you're like, well, I recognize I'm not exercising right now, so I need to start somewhere. Fair enough. How many extra times do you want to exercise this week? How many exercise sessions? And you're like, I think I can start with three sessions this week. Fair enough. What times are the most successful you to do that? Is it in the morning before the kids wake up? Is it in the afternoon when you get off of work? What's the best thing for you to do? And you're like, I think I need to work out in the morning. I'm like, fair enough. And I'm like, what time? You're like, well, I think I need to work out before, you know, I go into work or whatever. Okay, fair enough. Well, when I follow back up with you the next week, and I'm like, hey, tell me about a. When you had this last week, what went well for you? And you're like, well, you know, you start talking about different things. Like, okay, well, you know, you talked about your goal was to really work on your weight, but I didn't hear you mention that. How'd that go Last week, I'm just keeping you accountable. How'd that work? You're like, well, I said I was going to get in the gym three times, and I didn't get into it at all. I'm like, okay, why is that? And if you're like, because I honestly just forgot about it and I slept in every morning, well, then you're not moving your needle. But if what you really say is something along the lines of, man, I had everything dialed in. I did my meal prep this week. I had my gym clothes set aside. I was ready to go. And this week, my boss came to me and made me work late every single day. And I got home so late, all I had time to do was to grab a quick bite to eat, jump in the shower, get to bed, wake up the next morning, and then on top of that, they had me come in early every day this week. Well, fair enough. But understand, you're moving their needle. You're not moving your needle. And I know this can be kind of controversial because you have people who are saying, well, I've got to move their needle. I can't ignore that boss. I am not telling you to ignore your boss. I am very big on giving honor where honors do. And if you have someone you work for, then you owe them honor. However, I would ask you if this is the exception, not the norm. If this is just one week, no big deal. Let's plan for it the following week when work goes back to normal. Schedule, and let's get back in it. But if you're having to do a schedule like that week after week, then after a while, we're going to be asking the question, hey, do you have to work like that? Is it because you're not getting your stuff? Oh, I think Livy may be coming in the studio again today. Livy's one of my dogs. Are you having to work like that because you're just not being diligent during the day to get all your work done? Or do you just work for someone that they don't know how to turn it off because they have no work life? Maybe they're single or their marriage is kind of, you know, they don't care to be home, and so they just work, work, work, work, work. And so the unexpected, you know, expectation is. Or unspoken expectation is you have to do the same thing. Well, how about having a conversation with your boss? And if you don't feel you can do that, then that might be a clear sign that you need a new culture. Because if you do that Week after week, or you do that month after month and year after year. Well, what's going to happen with those fitness goals? You're either going to need to have to find a way to put them in somewhere else, or your fitness and potentially your health is going to ebb away from you little by little until you get to a place that now is a lot harder to come back from or that you might even feel hopeless from. Man, this speaks right here, and I'm just giving you one simple little example, but are you moving the needles you need to. And I said needles because you can have multiple needles. Are you moving the needles you need to, or are you just staying busy? I want to share with you that your calendar is either a scoreboard for your growth or a graveyard for distraction. Whoo. That's a big statement right there. Your calendar is either a scoreboard for your growth or it's a graveyard for distraction. That's our first leadership truth bomb right there. Man, that is powerful right there. When you look at your calendar, it's either a scoreboard for your growth. In other words, you did all the right things you needed to, or it's a graveyard of distraction, meaning that you have a lot of stuff on there, but none of that's moving the needle in the areas that you need it to. We're going to break this down a little bit more, so just stay with us as I go into this, because I know I'm provoking some thoughts, but one of the things I want to help you with is understanding what your needles need to be or what your items need to be you're focused on. I will tell you I made a shift a few years ago within my own schedule and in my schedule, and I keep a very active schedule. If I flip to my schedule right now on my iPad and I flipped it around so I could show you, or if I just shared it on the screen, you'd probably be amazed at what my schedule looks like. And it's color coded in different ways, but there's a lot of things on there. That being said, though, it's very systematic, it's very methodical, but at the same time, it's very, very focused. It's deliberate. And what I will tell you that I learned that was an absolute game changer for me was the first thing being dialed in, I mean, absolutely focused, 100% clarity on what were the initiatives that mattered most to me. Now, understand this. The initiatives that should matter most to you are the things that require your greatest focus. And these are the things that you absolutely must do and accomplish to win and be successful. Now, sometimes those are initiatives handed down to you by the company you work for. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, the clearer your company gets on this, where they can tell you, this is our vision, these are our goals, these are the things we need to work on. Whether if it's this quarter or this year, whatever it is, this month, whatever it is, you're dialed in because you know exactly what it is you need to work on. But then you got to dial it in even more and you say, okay, these are the three things that I've been given as our top initiatives I got to get done for this quarter. Now you have to figure out what are the specific things you need to do to accomplish those three things. And whatever those things are, whatever those tasks are or responsibilities are to absolutely get those three things done, that's what your needle needs to move in. And anything that requires your attention outside of that is just noise, because you can have good things that rise up that need your attention, but if they're not moving the needle in one of those three areas that are your goals for this quarter, then it's showing up as noise. And noise can be a distraction. In other words, it's possible to work on good things, but in the wrong priority. I see companies do this all the time where they think they're working on something that matters so much. They think they're being productive because they're working on so many different things. But when you look back and you say, all right, well, first of all, what are our goals? What are our visions? What do we want to do and accomplish this year and this quarter and this month? What are we focused on right now? What do we need to move on? And then we say, all right, show me everything that's list everything we're working on on paper. And they show you say, all right, now I want you to take a highlighter and go and highlight. And we had three goals, right? We had three initiatives that we were given that we have to accomplish this color. So I'm going to give you three different colors. I'm going to give you an orange highlighter, a pink highlighter, and a yellow highlighter. And you can use whatever color you want. I'm just giving you an example. So you turn around and you give these three colors and you say, all right, I want you to go to that list, and I want you to highlight everything that moved the needle in one of these three areas. And whatever was for the area of the Yellow. Then use the yellow highlighter, everything for the orange, use the orange, everything for the pink. For the pink. And let's just say you have 50 things on that paper or that schedule and you go down there, but you may only have seven or eight things that you highlighted total out of the 50 that were on there. What does that tell you? That tells you that you worked on some things to move your needle, but you worked a lot of things that were just noise, which created distraction. And now you're only a little bit down the way of being successful with up mattered and not a lot down the way or further down the way because you didn't guard your time and you didn't guard your focus. Man, I'm telling you, this is a massive unlock. And if you can focus on how to pull this thing together, you will start knocking down things. Things you thought would take 10 or 15 or even 20 years to accomplish with the supernatural acceleration of the Lord. Especially if you're a believer, you can knock those things out in just a few weeks or a few months. I've seen it over and over and over. It's part of a principle that's found in the word of redeeming the time. But even if you're not a believer and you don't know how to tap into those things, I'm telling you, these are high performance practices. High performance, high performer practices. You can know nothing about God and follow what I'm telling you here. And things that would have normally taken you years to accomplish, you'll knock out within just a short period of time because your focus is so, so dialed in. So I want to introduce to you something to you. And this is what I refer to as the 6040 principle. Now, you may have heard others talk about this as well. This is not something that's unique to me, but when I was praying and going before the Lord and seeking him about my schedule, because I felt like I was real busy, but I wasn't quite being productive like I needed to, he directed me to a 6040 principle. And when I asked him what that was, basically what he told me is that he wanted me to redesign my schedule where 60% of my schedule during the week went towards moving things that were specifically goals or initiatives that I had to move the needle on. So 60% of my schedule had to go to that. The other 40%, he told me I had to open up my schedule so I could help others move their needles. However, if I don't stay guarded on that, their 40 can dominate my calendar. And I'm going to help them move their needles, but I'm not going to move mine very much. And understand, I'm not saying he told me to open up my calendar, 40% of it to noise, so I can just have 40% noise and 6% productivity. No, the 40% that was to help move the needle of people who I had assigned things to, or people who couldn't move their needle at all without my involvement, help or. Or assistance or guidance or coaching or mentoring or something. In other words, meaning these are sometimes people who work for me, but sometimes they're other departments or whatever it is. But there's initiatives that they have to do that. Now, here's the kicker, though. When they ask me for my help, the first thing I look at is, do these things fall in alignment with what our goals are for the organization? And if it's yes, how can I help you out with that? Because I now recognize they might need a portion of my time to help them move their needle. You know, they may not be able to do something without my approval, or they may not be able to do something without my coaching or my guidance or my directive or some type of information that I might have for them that helps them move that needle. But if what they're wanting to work on is a good thing, but it doesn't move the goals or initiatives that we're aiming towards, then they're walking in the wrong direction. You know, I say all the time here on the executive podcast, and this is one of the reasons why I'm so guarded over this, because in my life, I've recognized that there's one direction that I focus on moving every day. And in this podcast, I focus on it the same thing. We focus on moving forward and upward. That's the focus that we have. We're moving forward and upward. Well, let's just say forward and upward represented north, if you were looking at a compass or something, and every time they bring you this thing, and if you're like, okay, well, we decided at the beginning of this year, or we decided at the beginning of this quarter or month that the direction we're headed as a company is we're headed north. And so anything we're working on, if it doesn't point us north, then it's the wrong direction, meaning it's just noise. And there may be some initiatives we have that want to take us west. There may be some initiatives we have that want to take us east, and those might be really good initiatives, but those are going to count as Just noise. If they don't point us north. Because as an organization, we've decided north is where we need to go. And so when someone reaches out for my schedule and they say, hey, I need help with something, I'm like, absolutely. Because I've got 40% of my schedule available for them, I say, absolutely. What is it we are working on? And when they say, I need your help with moving this because we're trying to move out west, but I need your help in doing so well, I might have the information and tell them how to move out west, but west is not where we're headed. We're headed north. So guess what does not go on my schedule? That meeting that wants to talk about how to move west, because west is not where we're headed. North is where we're focused on right now. Now, if next quarter or next month or next year, we decide that our new goal is we want to stop moving north and we now want to move west, then that comes on the calendar. But it's being real guarded over what you're working on. Now, I'm trying to paint a picture with my words that makes this very clear and very simplistic, but I'm trying to give you insight on how this works. 60% of your time should go towards your needle movers. These are the things that push your personal leadership or business goals forward. 40% of your time goes to helping others move their needle. Those could be things like coaching or collaboration or mentorship or team leadership. In other words, you're helping them in some way. You know, with my leaders that work for me, they're excellent at what they do, and I have been so blessed with such good people, and I have enabled them that they're the experts in their areas, and I trust them to do what they need to do. They don't need my approval to make decisions. I pay them to think critically, to have critical thinking, and to make decisions. But I also teach them how to have a 360 view, so that when they make a decision, it's not through the lens of tunnel vision. They're focused on things all around them. And if that sounds interesting to you, then go back to some of our older podcasts, because I've already broken that down. And some of our older podcasts around 360 leadership. But when we're looking at this thing, I help them with that. But sometimes they need some coaching from me on how to do something or they need a little mentoring. Sometimes it's just a little bit of encouragement. If they're feeling a little stuck or other times there may be things that go above them on what they're capable of approving because if it's a big item, then it's got to come to me and I help them with that. So focus on that 60, 40 split. Now, you might say I can't do that overnight. Then don't. You don't have to. This isn't all or not thinking, all or nothing thinking, right? On the executive perspective, we don't focus on all or nothing thinking. What we focus on is moving forward and upward. That's what we're doing. Forward and upward. If moving forward right now for you means at least trying to reign in to where 20% of your next schedule next week and the week after go towards needle moving activities for you, then you're now moving forward because you weren't doing that before. But we don't want to stay flatlined. We want to move forward and upward. We want to grow. So maybe the two weeks after that, now it moves from 20% to maybe 40%. Now 40% of your schedule is focused on your needle moving activities and then eventually you work up to 60%. Now if you get higher than 60%, all the more kudos to you. But I will tell you that the healthy balance that I've seen here is 60, 40. You don't want to be less than 60% of your time focused on your needle moving activities. But if you go higher than that, sometimes you impede growth of others and understand that sometimes their growth feeds into your growth. I'm going to give you an example. Let's just say that you're a content creator of some sort. Or let's say you have a company where you're making courses or you're doing books or something, membership something, whatever it is. Maybe you're in marketing at some degree or you're doing something. But let's say you have marketing tied to your business, but you're going to have people managing your social media, or you're going to have people managing your marketing and your communication out to your clientele and to new prospects, new customers. Well, if you don't ever give those people time to sit down and work with you, then they're going to have a hard time accomplishing their job. But understand, their job is to move your needle. Because if they have a marketing aspect that they do, their job is to either gain new customers for you, maintain customer retention, or they're trying to build your customer base with new products and stuff that you're Launching. And if you don't give them the help you need, then while you may not be doing that directly, you are helping them to move your needle. So that's why I wouldn't recommend you go above the 60 40. Now, here's another leadership truth bomb for you today. If you spend all your time helping others move their needle and never move your own, you'll never accomplish what you were called to do. Whoo. That's a powerful. And I'm going to read that one more time. If you spend all your time helping others move their needle and never move your own, you'll never accomplish what you were called to do. Now, I want to help you define needle movers versus noise. Now, this is not a full encompassing list, but this is just to help drive it home a little bit more so you have a little more clarity on what would fall into a needle moving category versus a noise category. So let's start with the needle movers. This would be strategic tasks that are aligned with either your quarterly or your long term goals. Another way of saying it, these are strategic tasks that align with either your short or your long term goals. These are focus effort on your calling. So it's focused effort on your calling or your assignment or metrics that matter. And I say metrics that matter. Sometimes you have goals, but other times it may not be a goal, but it might just be a metric. It might be a KPI that you know that if you don't meet these marks, your company is not going to be successful. You know, for example, if you own a restaurant, then you already know the most important thing to people is getting their food fast and getting it hot and it tasting delicious. If all your orders, if you're known to have amazing food but you take a really, really long time to get your food out, then you'll have customers who are loyal to that, but they may not frequent you as often because your service takes a long time. And typically when they go out to eat, it's because they're hungry. They're ready to eat right there. And then not many people go to supplement and say, okay, well, I'm not hungry yet, but I'll be hungry in an hour. But let's go to that one restaurant because the moment we order, it's going to take them an hour to get us our food. But by the time the food comes out, we'll be hungry. Nobody says that. So, you know, that's just an example of what a metric would be. Another one is, this is needle movers can be Deep work or planning. It can also be relationship building or executing. Vision man. Now let's focus on one of these here because it's important. Deep work. What is deep work? Deep work sometimes means you just simply getting in your office or reserving a conference room or getting somewhere private if you have a cubicle. No big deal. Do what they do at the gym. Put on some over the ear headphones. That's the universal sign that don't bug me, I'm busy. But as you do that, you're getting into a place where you're eliminating the noise, the real noise. I'm not just talking about noise of your schedule, but actual noise. You're getting to a place where you can focus and now you're doing deep work where maybe you're journaling or maybe what you're doing is you're putting things on a schedule or maybe what you're doing is you're whiteboarding or you're drawing it out. Maybe it's just on a dot journal or some paper. You're just drawing out some plans because as you visualize it, it helps it come to life. It's doing the deep work. Sometimes it can be going to a retreat or it could be going to a mastermind somewhere where you can go somewhere. I know people and I've done this too, just to let you know. I can think of last year where I was really focused on a launch I needed for my business. And my daughter Taylor happened to have a trip that she was invited to to go. It was for her college and she was. She works on the athletic trainer team for football. And they had asked her if she was given an opportunity to go outside of the state to go to another state to work at a camp that some very famous professional football players were hosting. And they only selected 50 people from the nation to go and show up to help out with this camp that they had people from all over the world coming in. Well, they had recommended her and she got approved to go do it. And so she went ahead and she went out there and what I told her is, hey, I'm going to use this opportunity and let's. This is close enough that we can drive. I'm going to drive you to this other state, but when I drop you off, I'm not going to stay in the same city. You're going to be dialed in and focused with that for three days. So what I'm going to do is use that time to bury my head in the sand. I'm going to go and drop you off, we'll head out early. I'm going to drop you off and then I'm going to go back to this other town that's about an hour away. Hour to hour, half away. I'm going to rent a hotel at a nice place. And all I'm going to do is focus on banging out this project that I have in front of me. I'm eliminating the distractions. And I cleared it with my wife because obviously I honor her. She said, that sounds like a great idea. Now, it cost us some money, but it was an investment. What I did was I traveled to this other town and dropped off my daughter. And I was close enough if she needed me that I could come back. But I came back to. Now she had been able to say, well, hey, Dad, I can have dinner in the evenings with you. Then I'd have stayed in that town so I can at least spend time with my daughter. And while she's at work, I'd be at work focusing on my stuff. But this one wasn't going to be like that. They put her in dorms and everything else, and she was busy with that the whole day. Well, what I turned around and did is I went back to that other town. And this is a really beautiful town. If I tell you the town that's in, some of you are familiar with it and you're going to say, that's a gorgeous town. And it's a gorgeous town. But I didn't go sightseeing. I didn't go check out all the cool places I worked every day. I would turn around and leave in the morning and I'd go find a place to eat breakfast at. And as I'm eating breakfast, I'm working on my computer. I then leave and go find a Starbucks or somewhere like that. And I'm saying Starbucks, not because I'm trying to plug for them, but I happen to enjoy them. But it was just a coffee shop I was familiar with. I went and found a local coffee shop and I'm there pounding away on my stuff. And I'm there for a couple hours. Praise God for Starbucks. They let me stay there. I wasn't loitering because I was buying stuff, but they honored me. And I'm there cranking away. And I like those types of environments. When I'm in those types of environments, I just. I'm able to accomplish a lot of work depending what I'm working on, but I'm able to accomplish a lot of work in those environments. And then as that wound up, I Went and found a place to go eat dinner, and I went and had a nice dinner. And I'm by myself and I'm pounding out on the computer and I'm doing that. Man, I did that thing for several days. I had my head in the sand, but I also had a focus of exactly what I was going to work on, why I was going to work on it, and why I needed to accomplish that. And I turned around and I was working. I mean, I'm telling you, I was working from sun up until sundown. I would wake up early in the morning, get ready and head to go to breakfast. And I was starting my day early in the morning. And when I would finish my day, it was a little before midnight. I'm telling you, I was cranking out some long days. But I felt so energized and so focused because I set time aside to get the deep work done. There are people who I coach, clients of mine who heard this concept of what I do, and now they are once a month, at least once a month, they're reserving a day where they don't have the. They don't spend time with the spouse and the kids, and the spouse supports them with this. People just have to be married. If you're not married, no big deal. But these people are married. And what they do is they go somewhere away from the house, or they arrange a day where the spouse and kids can leave the house and go have a play date with someone or do whatever they need to do. And all they do is focus for a complete day on their stuff. Some of these clients even go a step further. And what they do is they rent a hotel room at a local hotel, even though it's in the same town or a very close nearby town. Neighboring town. And they go there and will rent a hotel for a day. And all they do is focus on deep work for whatever the project is they're trying to get done. Now, usually these people who do that, they're not doing that for work for a business that they work for. These are usually people who own their own organizations or their own companies, but they're going and focusing it. I have other people that I network with that they focus on doing this, and they work on doing it around books. Books. And as they do this around books, it's highly, highly effective when you go, when you start working on your book because you're just in that area to focus just on your book. Now, let's talk about some of the noise. Noise would be random emails, reactive meetings, or shallow task switching. In other words, things that constantly pop up and say, you got to do this now. Oh, never mind. You got to do this now. You want to watch out for those things. Another thing might be is people pleasing detours. That's a strong one right there. People pleasing detours that simply dilute your purpose and clog your schedule. Man, that's a big one right there. And then here's a really big one. But I worded it kind of funny. Firefighting instead of future building. What do I mean by firefighting? Am I talking about firefighters? No, praise God for our firefighters. We honor our firefighters and first responders. We're so grateful for those people. But when I'm talking about firefighting instead of building your future instead of future building, I'm talking about you're constantly putting out fires all day long. And some companies, they don't even have priorities as far as, like, high priority, medium priority, low priority. They only have one priority. Everything's on fire. Everything can't always be on fire. Everything can't always be an emergency. When you have a culture like that, man, you are very distracted. The next thing we have is, why does this matter for leaders? Well, your team's going to follow your pace and your presence, they're going to follow the pace you work at. And so it's going to either spur them to work at a higher pace or they're going to slouch and do nothing, depending on how you work. But when you're a high performer and you're very focused, that doesn't mean running around frantic, but your focus, they're going to be focused and dialed in at the same time. They're going to watch your presence. Every time a new priority pops up or you're working on something. If you look overwhelmed and stressed and overwhelmed, they're going to feel overwhelmed and stressed, even if they don't have anything to feel overwhelmed and stressed about. But if you're cool as a cucumber, you're calm, cool and collected. They're calm, cool and collected. But because they know the person running the ship has it all together, they know that ship's not going to sink because that person has it all together. It doesn't matter if the wind starts blowing a little bit. Doesn't matter if the waves pick up and are slapping against the boat, they know that boat's not going down because the captain in charge, Calm, cool and collective. The other thing is you model prioritization through your own schedule. Who it's the big one, you know if you're distracted and scattered, they will be, too. So when they look and see how you model prioritization, and they look to see how you balance your schedule, those are big things for them to shoot for. Those are ways in which you can mentor even if you're not trying to. Because as a leader, someone's always watching you. Man, that's a big one right there. Here's another leadership truth bomb for you today. When you don't control your needle. Now, man, this is a big one. So I'm going to winding up a little bit here. When you don't control your needle, you don't control your focus. And when you don't control your focus, you don't control your future. Whoo. Man, that one hits deep. I'm going to say that again. When you don't control your needle, you don't control your focus. And when you don't control your focus, you don't control your future. Man, that's a big one right there. The next thing I want to help you with is how to audit or realign your time if you're struggling with this. So the first thing, simply track one week. I told you earlier about the benefit of tracking your stuff. Well, track one week is all I would tell you to do. Just simply track one week. And as you track that one week, go back afterwards and just get two highlighters, get one yellow and one blue or whatever. The yellow goes towards anything and everything that was moving your needle, no matter how many needles you were trying to move. And your blue goes towards all the noise. And then simply just go through that list and look back at it and ask yourself, did I have more yellow or did I have more blue? And hopefully you had more yellow. But if you didn't, that's okay, because you're just giving you a baseline of where you need to start. The next thing you want to ask yourself is, what can I delegate, what can I drop, and what can I delay? And yesterday's podcast that we talked about where we were talking about how to avoid overwhelm. One of the things I gave was a modified Eisenhower matrix. And these are some of the things that I talked about on there. Now, sometimes that when you're doing your schedule, you got to figure out, what do I need to do right now? What can I delay or schedule for later, what can I delegate that needs to be done, but someone else can do it, doesn't need my hands, and what do I need to drop or what do I need to delete? The other thing is to schedule your 60% first, not after everyone else's needs. So if possible, you want to move your scheduling to where, when you're designing your schedule for the week, over the upcoming weeks or the month. And even if you just got to start day by day, I have mine usually a couple months out in advance. But if it's my travel schedule, I usually have that a year out in advance. But when you have this, and granted, some things pop up, but for the most part, so I know where I'm going to be, when I'm going to be in, why I'm going to be there. But when you do your 60%, you want to make sure that the things that go on your schedule first are your 60%. That way you're being the most strategic about what union you're going to do, why you're going to work on it, and most importantly, when you're going to work on it. That way you're not leaving your schedule just for the leftovers of your stuff because it's so busy, occupied with everyone else's. The other thing that can really help you with this is if you employ principles or practices like time blocking or even calendar audits. You can do that on a monthly basis. A calendar audit is just where you go back and you're simply doing the highlighting thing and asking yourself, how effective was I on this? And as I let you go today, I have a closing thought for you. And this is so important. So please, please hear me on this. You're too important to stay buried in distractions. It's time to refocus, block the noise and move the needle, man. I hope you heard that because I care about you so much and I believe in you. Champion. I'm going to read that to you one more time. You're too important to stay buried in distractions. It's time to refocus. Time to block the noise and time to move the needle. Guys, you heard me say it. But I'm going to tell you again. I want you to know, and if I'm the only person you hear from today, I want you to know that I believe in you. I believe you have greatness that lives inside of you. You just need to cultivate it and get it on the outside. And whatever that thing is that you're working on, whatever your initiative is, go out and smash it. I believe in you. Go out and smash it. Guys, as we close, I want to remind you to swing by our website@neal Reyes.com where you can find all of our teaching resources and we have a bunch. We have a lot of good things on there that are meant to help you out. In addition to that, if you're liking this podcast, then I want to invite you to please follow it. Please turn around and share it with others. And what would mean a whole lot is if you could leave a review, because that helps us go out up in the rankings. And this podcast is growing like crazy. Praise God. That's all of him and none of me. But as this podcast is growing, the more rankings and the more reviews we have, the more they feed it to others, and it makes a difference. I created this podcast to give, not to get. What do I mean by that? I pour my heart into this thing, and I put a lot of good content in here, but all the content is designed to help others connect with their best life and their best future, their best version of themselves. And I designed it to give, not to get. Meaning that I'm trying to help get it to people so that they can grow off the things that we're sharing. Guys, one more reminder before I let you go. I believe in you, champion. I believe in you. You have greatness inside of you. All you got to do is begin to cultivate it and then go out and smash it. Guys, thank you for taking time to stop by and join with us today. I appreciate you. And until next time, have a blessed day.