Maintaining Stamina For Productivity

Looking at your schedule a.Just the fact thatyou can post whatyou did all day kind of tellsme a little bit about howyou plan your day orthat you plan your day.And I think thatthat's somethingthat I struggle with in termsof just productivity in general,like when you go into the dayor the week knowing with a planand you have certainthings you'retrying to accomplish versussome kind of fuzzy ideathat's just lives in your head.So that's one part of it.The other part isjust the energy level,because you have to likea lot of mental energydoing all theseactivities and like,you have any tips, tricks,hacks for just maintaininga high mental levelof energy all daybecause it looks likeyou're going all day.And I know at some point it canbe taxing, especially if you'rereally focusing here and you'rereally, really focusing there.And that also will knockoff my productivityif I start to lose energy.So please hear.Sure is it justright now, Anthony,or do you have a whole team?There are a couple ofpeople work with youor just you, justthe subcontractors?Ok?so essentially, it's with abunch of remote freelancers,right?Correct OK.So I have a team, Iwant to make this pointso that you guys don'tthink, Oh my god, howwas he able to do this?Because I justhire people to helpwrite whenever I can afford it?If it if it means if I get $1in, I would rather pay $0.70out and just hold on to$0.30 and get more help.Because I know at leastevery time I do that,the organization grows and I'mable to do more in less time.And ultimately, there'sa much bigger payoffthan what I can putin my pocket that day.So we have to getover that mindset.So some of you guys are justholding on to all the work.We have to learnhow to delegate.We have to learn thatyou're doing everythingis the thing that'sthe bottleneckfor the growth of your companyand your own personal growth.Having said that,I have a calendar.I think I've sharedthis before and I'vedone a screen capture of it.And there are eight people,maybe nine people now,and it keeps growing thatshare my calendar literallyto have the ability to editand move things around.So that way, peoplearen't asking meall the time via email.Hey, do you haveTuesday open at 3:00?They just put it in there,and I tell them thisand I tell my wife this studentshe's getting the hang of.This is that I'm a busybody.I want to fill my calendar.So it's stacked frommorning to night.I really do.So what happens is when mywife is trying to figure outwhen we can go onvacation, she's alwayslooking for a window and thenthe windows fill up reallyquickly because Iget invited to speakor I have to recordsomething or there's a guestI have to bring on the show.So now she's learnedthe game, eventhough she's not sure shejust blocks out that time.So when it's on the calendarand I'm a slave to it,then I don't putanything else in thereand say, oh, we're goingto go on vacation, fine.That means two daysbefore I probablyshould start to slow down and 2days after I start to ramp up,I know myself wellenough that I don'twant to land literallyin La if I have toand then be at the officethe next day ready to dopodcasts and just be highenergy, as Anthony was saying.So I know that nowduring the week,I'm constantly like,if somebody says to me,we want to talk toyou about x, y and zbefore it's even approved beforeI get a firm confirmation.I put in my calendar and I needto make more deliberate habitof doing this to write somenotes because later on,I look at my count like,who the heck is that person?I didn't.I didn't recognize theirname, and I can't figure outwhere they contacted me frombecause I'm making appointmentsthrough LinkedIn, throughTwitter, through Instagram,through all these funnels,and not just through email.So all the times I'm lookingthrough email for their nameand I can't find anywhere.So this is a trap that I'vefallen into now because I'mmaking so manyappointments, so I'msure let me pull up my calendar.I'll share it withyou right now.And it's going to getcrazy really soon,because my wife sometimes like,I can't look at your calendar.Looking at your calendar,stresses me out.Like, imagine the person hasto live that calendar, honey.OK, here's my calendar, right?So I'm just going toshow you my work calendarand this is what itlooks like right now.So this is kind of whathappened yesterday.I know I'm going fishing, right?So you see the things thatare happening before aregetting really light.And the things that happenafter getting really light.But if we look into September.Things are startingto fill up again,so there's somefamily stuff in here.Again, when I have to flysomewhere and do a talk,it gets really light beforeand after because I need timeto prepare mentally.And then I have someappointments here and there.And each week whathappens is it getsfilled in with moredetails, so I just I'mjust trying to getby every single daybecause people areasking me, oh, whatare you doing in 3 days?I don't know, man.Just I'm just trying to makeit to end of the day today,and then I'll behappy with that.OK that's what I'm doing,so the calendar reallyhelps me to make sure that I'mbeing as productive as I can.I try to mix it up.I don't want to do fivelive streams in a row.That's mentally exhausting.And just I need a break from it.I need some distance, so I willdo maybe an in-person meeting.I will work on a project orI'll do a couple of other thingsor maybe have to do a managementmeeting with the team,and I mix it up that way.The other thing I liketo do to there's a bookand I haven't read it,I have in the back hereit says never eat alone.So it's a life hack sothat every lunch you'regoing to meet with somebody.And that makes itkind of tough, right,because now you're like,who am I going to meet with?What am I going to do?So that forces you to startthinking about what I needto reach out to Mary or Bob.I haven't talked to themin a really long time,but I need to do that justto maintain a relationship.But I'm generallyconcerned, like what'sgoing on in their lives.So your calendar can startwith just lunch appointmentswith people, you know,family, friends, colleagues.Potential new clients and youkind of scale up from there.OK, I know that it takesme about an hour, an hourand a half to eat lunchbecause I like to go out.I don't like to eatlunch in the office.I know a lot of people do that.For efficiency, but I'mstimulated by things thathappen in the outside world.Chance encounters bumpinginto people at the line.I saw Tatiana yesterday.She's a longtime schoolperson and she was dabblingin the future for a heartbeat.And then she was gone.But I see her from time to time.I run into our attendedgreens all the time,and it's kind ofcool to see thator just to kind ofcleanse your palate.To be able to come back intothe day kind of renewed.I like doing that.And I like seeing things.I like being stimulated by otherthings in the outside world.So yesterday,schedule was bananasbecause it wasgetting stacked up.Somebody movedsomething and thenit was like wall to wallstuff that I had to do.And the team havingvisibility to my calendarknows exactly whatto prepare for,knows how little timethey have with meso that they have toget on their a-game.So yesterday I wasrunning a little bit late.They have to set up to shootthe course ready to go.They stayed late thenight before because theyknew 11:00 AM I'mgoing to parachute inand then I have a call.I'm sorry.We had to shoot.I'm mixing up myschedule here, so if Ihave a shoot or acall at 2 o'clock,they knew they only had avery short window with me.And that's howeverybody does this.So they're coordinatingthings around meso that things get done.So, Anthony, youhave more questionslike how do youstay mentally sharp?I will tell you this whenI first started teachingand it was a three hourclass, one day a week,I would go teach the class andI was wiped out for two days.So it's worthless that the restof that day I was worthless.The next day I would showup to the office physically,but mentally I wasa total zombie.And I would tell peopleafterwards basically whatI teach on Wednesday.Don't do anythingwith me till Fridayunless it's just likemeaningless chatting.That's fine, but don'tdo anything heavy.Don't schedule anyclient meetings.I would not be sharpbecause I was exhausted.When you're teachingas many, if you guysknow who top beforeit is mentallydraining becauseyou're trying to keepthe attention of 1214 students, you'resolving problems in real time.They're hanging on your everyword for three hours straightand you're going to getbeat up in that process.But like all thingslike muscle, yougrow stronger eachtime you do it.So now when I go to teach, I canteach a five hour class, a sixhour workshop and beenergized by the end of it.It's just build thatresistance and tolerance to it.So I wouldn't beatyourself up too much sothat if you aredoing something thatrequires your mental focusfor you to feel tired,it should feel tiring.Give yourself a year ofconsistently doing itevery single week and you'llstart to get better at itand it won't drain you.So now I can jump infrom meeting to meeting.And I do very littleprep, like in the journalentry that you saw yesterday,I had a client call.I gave myself 30minutes of prep for it.But when the shoot was done, Ibasically had 10 minutes left.I had to run into theoffice, say Scott.Let me hear the audio recordingof the previous call at 1to prep for this.I started to pull up the files.I scanned it reallyquickly while Iwas listening to the audioplayback of the call.And when he called inboom, I was ready to go.It's like, so on the lastcall, here's what I remember,and I just literallylisten to it again.Minutes before the call.So my team, they're very good.They didn't give me the audiorecording of the entire call,just the part that I needed.And they put it on the server.Listen to it.I'm like, OK, Iremember them talkingabout this, this and that.I was ready for the call.So the team helps you prep.Right it's one ofthose commercialswhere some businessperson is walkingand somebody is likecombing the hair,cutting it and trimming theirtoenails as they're walkingand they flip aroundand then the brief,the product briefis put in their lapand then they're ready to rock.That's how it works.But you have to builda team around that.OK Anthea, was do youhave a follow up question?Anybody have afollow up question?I have one that's sort ofrelated, so what you were justtalking about as far aslike recording meetingsso you can go back and reviewthem so that they could index.Are they indexing that orare they doing it kind oflike a Shenault's thingor like, admit it.14 we started talking aboutthis and made it 37 versus I'vegot like an hour of meetingrecording to go through.Is that something that they do?Good question.Good question.We record most of ourcalls with our clients,not because we'retrying to indictthem or anything like that.It's because in case there'sa dispute, in case our notes,something happens.We can all listenback to it and say,whoa, whoa, whoa, you heard x.I heard why.Let's figure it out.And then it turns out it was z.We all missed it.We record the calls.We put it away inthe project fileand we just keep them dated.And that's all we do.We usually don't evertouch them again.In rare instanceslike this one, Idon't know what happened tomy notes on the initial call.It was just lockedup in my mind.That's all.I couldn't find itanywhere for life of me.That's when I askedthe producer, hey,can you pull that call?And this is the part I'm lookingfor when we talk about this.And he's able to find it, scrubthrough it really quickly.Find it.Clip it and give it back to me.Put it on the server.We're good to go.I wouldn't want my meetingsare not that interestingthat somebody would sitthere and index at alland write all these things.I'm not asking for shownotes or script supervisorto do all that kind of stuff.It's generally not necessarybecause I'll write seven words.That's all I really need.Right so in the rare instance,I have to listen to it again.That's when it comes in handy.However there havebeen a couple of timeswhen the call was so good, I hadsomebody transcribe it for meevery single word.Because I want tolisten back to itor read it and thenshare that with people.So there was acall when a guy whowas a very good salesperson.Called us and the way hebrought up the objectionsbefore I even open my mouthwas a thing of beauty.I have that call transcribed.I'm trying to figure out howto share that with you guysbecause it was just genius.The set up.So I want to break it down.Like what Matthew said.Take something that somebodyhas done really well.And chunk it out.And I remember immediately,right after that call,we hung up the phone and said,how was that meeting guys?And everybody was first givingme their general feeling.Excuse me?They're giving me their generalimpressions of the meeting,but what I was asking forwas, how was that meeting?Did you see what that guy did?Did you see what Isaw, the structure,how he brought thisup and he said thisand how I felt about whenhe said that I was thinking,yeah, right.I do feel that way.You do know me.You must be experienced.I will give you my money.He had it perfect.And so I went throughand I broke downthat call with everybody.And then afterwards,they said, hey,somebody transcribedthat because that'sa script right there when itturned that into something.Now, if you're a guy like me.You're alwaysmining for content.You're always looking forthings that teach people,because when you'reable to translate thatinto something that becomesvaluable to somebodyin the world, right?This was a call, a sales call.So you're thinking thisis a low value call to mebecause the bestpossible outcome of thisis I've wasted some time.And I've given themnone of my money.The worst possible outcome isyou've wasted a lot of timeand then you sign upright like now I'mout thousands of dollars.So I'm thinking.How do I turn this into aneven better win for all of us?Well, if the persondid a really good job,if they did a bad job,if I break that down,that becomes valuableto the world.So every littleinteraction that I have,and I know it seems reallystrange with my kids,with my wife, with people atwork or people are on Twitter.I try and turn that into apiece of content all the time.And that may be the onedifference between you and meand hopefully onesimilarity moving forward.Right, you weren't.That's what he's going to dois like, OK, all right, I see.So my daughter saidthis to me and thisis the advice I gave her.I wonder if that has anapplication in a businesscontext or what Ilearned from my daughter.So you're not always a teacher.Sometimes you're thestudent and you share that.Then you start tobuild influence.Anything you followup, are we good?No, that's great, that'sawesome, thank you.You're welcome, man.Anybody else havea question on this?I just wanted to addin terms of the recapbecause I know we recordthe calls all the time.I've never gone backand listen to anythingbut what I do all the time rightafter the call is I sit downin the room, I say, nobody move.I'm going to documentall this stuff.Let's recap everythingand then send thatright back to the client.So what I do is rightafter a call with a client,I'll write down all the notes.I summarize that ina one pager and thenI send that over tothem and confirm hereare the next steps.Here's what we heard.Here's what we'regoing to work on.And then when I jumpon the follow up call,when we're posting the workin progress from there,I just pull up thatlast email and said,last time we did this,here's what we addressed,and here's what I wouldlike you to focus on.So just very easy thateverybody's always aligned.And I share that with the team.I share that with theclient so that there'sno confusion about anything.That's a super hottip right there.Matthew, dropping some knowledgeon you guys because Matthew,you spent a lotof meetings, he'srunning things all the time.So he's developed processesthat are super hyperefficient and that'sreally what you want to do.