[david_horsager]: Welcome to the Trusted Leader Show. it’s David Horsager and I have a dear

[david_horsager]: friend with me today. he is New York Time’s best selling author of Take the

[david_horsager]: Stairs. He is a hall of fame speaker, Co founder of Brand Builder Group. He’ also an

[david_horsager]: adjunct

[david_horsager]: entreprenure entrepreneurship editor at Success Magazine And he’s a love. your

[david_horsager]: family. Welcome, Rory.

[rory_vaden]: Hedy, good to be here.

[david_horsager]: It’s great to have you, And you have you know? Since we’ve known each other,

[david_horsager]: you’ve grown up a company massively and moved from there and built another

[david_horsager]: company called Brand Builders Group. We’ going to talk about your newest

[david_horsager]: research

[david_horsager]: soon with your co founder, but today I, I want to back up a little bit.

[david_horsager]: first of all, Just like for people that don’t know Rory Baton gives a

[david_horsager]: little. you know snapshot behind something we don’t know.

[rory_vaden]: Oh yeah, well, um, you know I, I was raised by a single mom, Uh, who sold Mary

[rory_vaden]: Ky cosmetics, And that’s an important part of my story. and Um, I’ve always just

[rory_vaden]: been fascinated by the psychology of influence. And why do some people have

[rory_vaden]: influence and others down? And and we grew up? I was born in a trailer park in

[rory_vaden]: in Colorado, and Um, we just never had much. but my mom sold Mary Kay cosmetics.

[rory_vaden]: And so I grew up around women who are always like teaching me the principles of

[rory_vaden]: success.

[rory_vaden]: Um,

[rory_vaden]: and I means, I also know more about makeup than I do about cars. Uh, which is a

[rory_vaden]: true story, and I just have have been kind of infatuated with that. And when I

[rory_vaden]: went to Um college, I, I spent some time in my summers in college, going door to

[rory_vaden]: door fourteen hours a day, six days a week. I learned about Um, one on one, like

[rory_vaden]: influencing another person there, and I would say I’d actually say You know the

[rory_vaden]: way I think about influence days. I sort of divided up into four levels, so when

[rory_vaden]: I was in Uh, high school, and when I was young, I learned about level one which

[rory_vaden]: was influencing myself, and I became a first degree black belt when I was ten

[rory_vaden]: years old, and I was the youngest black belt in Colorado to ever get beaten up

[rory_vaden]: by a girl. Um, which is true story, but uh, I, you know, I studied really hard.

[rory_vaden]: I was vaectorian, Uh, got a full ride scholarship. That was how I was able to

[rory_vaden]: afford college, and then when I was in college, I got involved in direct sales,

[rory_vaden]: and Um, and so I learned you know, knocking on doors level two influence, which

[rory_vaden]: is I. I consider influencing one other person.

[rory_vaden]: And then I became a recruiter in that company and I was. I was recruiting a team

[rory_vaden]: and so by the time I left college, I was in. I was involved in what I consider

[rory_vaden]: level three leadership, which is leading or influencing a group of people. Um. I

[rory_vaden]: had about fifty seven people who I had recruited when I was in college, And

[rory_vaden]: then, as you mentioned, my Um, my wife and I started a company in two thousand

[rory_vaden]: six with four people. We scaled it to two two hundred people. It was an eight

[rory_vaden]: figure business. We exited that in twenty eighteen, and over the course of that

[rory_vaden]: time we had learned a lot about Um, public speaking and writing, and Um building

[rory_vaden]: online followings and and creating movements. And we consider that level four

[rory_vaden]: influence which is leading a leading a community. So you have leading yourself,

[rory_vaden]: which would be my first two books To Take the stairs, and and and procrastinate

[rory_vaden]: on purpose, leading another, per, or influencing another person, which is sales,

[rory_vaden]: influencing a team, which is leadership. And then now we’re spending a lot of

[rory_vaden]: time teaching people and helping them influence an entire community. Uh, which

[rory_vaden]: is Brainuilders Group.

[david_horsager]: Love it. well, we’re going to jump all around here and it’s okay and I, I

[david_horsager]: think I’m so proud of you how you lead your family too, And tell tell us

[david_horsager]: about that family of your Is those kiddos and and your wife a ▁j, real

[david_horsager]: quick.

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, so we, um, we have a four year old named Jasper, a two two year old named

[rory_vaden]: Lim, Um. Jasper is kind and compassionate and empathetic. He’s he is likely to

[rory_vaden]: you know, work in the either the medical profession or a service industry, or he

[rory_vaden]: might have seventeen children. Um. Lim. our two year old is A, is a fraternity

[rory_vaden]: boy trapped in a toddler’s body. Um. he is a wrecking ball and there is nothing

[rory_vaden]: he won’t jump off of or eat or throw. Um. And he, he lives full throttle, And so

[rory_vaden]: the last few years have been crazy because we exited a company. How to St. Ha,

[rory_vaden]: had a baby had to start up. Um, hit covet, had another baby. So it’s it’s It’s

[rory_vaden]: been a. It’s been a while ride. but um,

[rory_vaden]: that’s uh. that’s our little. That’s our creative over here to Vaden Villa,

[david_horsager]: Well, I’m proud of not just who you are, but how you’ve done that and it’s

[david_horsager]: been fun to see and navigate. Uh, you know, leading well at home, trying to

[david_horsager]: lead yourself

[david_horsager]: and and leing this new company and seeing it thrive in the midst of amazing

[david_horsager]: challenges. Um, so really excited about that. Let’s Ste. step back for a

[david_horsager]: moment and and look at, you know, Take take the stairs a lot there about

[david_horsager]: discipline. It’s certainly who you are, but I want to bump up to Uh, this

[david_horsager]: multiplier time idea and

[rory_vaden]: H,

[david_horsager]: that book was really good for me. pop, uh, procrastinate on purpose. How to

[david_horsager]: multiply your time. I think this is still so relevant for everybody. even

[david_horsager]: even though it seems impossible you can’t boil by time Right. Well, we’ll

[david_horsager]: talk about that, but

[rory_vaden]: Mhm,

[david_horsager]: I think Um, we’re going to talk about that very soon. We have a ▁j. Aj, and

[david_horsager]: you on will talk about the newest research by brand builders and everything

[david_horsager]: around that that has all to do with trust and building trust. also, but I

[david_horsager]: know if we’re going to be trusted, One of the pills we talk about

[david_horsager]: contribution. we got to get results, and one of those, one of the ways we do

[david_horsager]: that is we use our time well, So I, I just think I got to jump into the very

[david_horsager]: first sentence in the book.

[david_horsager]: You say this. Everything you know about time management is wrong.

[david_horsager]: What you mean?

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, y. yeah. well, so here’s what happened, Dave. So, when you know to the

[rory_vaden]: topic of what we’re just talking about

[rory_vaden]: during our first company, we started to grow really fast, and once we got to

[rory_vaden]: where we had like thirty forty people, it was really getting crazy and I was

[rory_vaden]: working a lot of hours and I was trying to like. I wasn’t. I never planned on

[rory_vaden]: writing a book to to solve the world’s problems around like time. I was just

[rory_vaden]: trying to like learn some stuff to help me breathe, because

[rory_vaden]: theoretically we should know more about time management today than ever before.

[rory_vaden]: There are more books on the subject. Um, there are more productivity experts.

[rory_vaden]: There’s more courses

[rory_vaden]: and and yet I, we, also, by the way, have more tools and technology to help us

[rory_vaden]: calendar and organize stuff, and find things and automate things or whatever,

[rory_vaden]: And in reality, when I look around most leaders today, I think, feel more busy,

[rory_vaden]: more buried more behind, more stressed, more overwhelmed. almost, in some cases

[rory_vaden]: to the point of of, like an exhaustion, and even hopelessness of this idea.

[rory_vaden]: That, like will I ever be able to get ahead? Like will I ever catch a second to

[rory_vaden]: breathe. And so that right there kind of is what spoke to me originally. Even

[rory_vaden]: though we never thought we would write a book on the subject, it was like

[rory_vaden]: something is missing here like we somehow. Even though we have all this content

[rory_vaden]: in the world about productivity, it’s not working.

[david_horsager]: Mhm?

[rory_vaden]: And what happened was I was at a colleague’s house on a Saturday morning. We had

[rory_vaden]: a work meeting and I was over there picking him up and he has this little, this

[rory_vaden]: little girl, his little baby girl that that lives with him, And so we’re

[rory_vaden]: sneaking out of the house and she hears him. It’s like early in the morning and

[rory_vaden]: she runs out of bed and she runs down the hallway and she grabs his leg as we’re

[rory_vaden]: trying to leave,

[rory_vaden]: and and she looks up at him and she says You know Daddy. Where are we going

[rory_vaden]: and he says, Oh, I’m sorry, baby Daddy actually has to go to work today.

[rory_vaden]: Well,

[rory_vaden]: her little eyes turned to tears

[rory_vaden]: and she says

[rory_vaden]: no, daddy, please. no work.

[rory_vaden]: no more work, Daddy.

[rory_vaden]: and in that moment it dawned on me Dave, that everything I had ever learned

[rory_vaden]: about time management was all about tips and tricks. tools and technology,

[rory_vaden]: calendars and checklists. It was ways of organizing things. Um. In other words,

[rory_vaden]: it was all logical, and in that moment I realized that today time management

[rory_vaden]: isn’t just logical, it’s emotional and it is our feelings of guilt and fear and

[rory_vaden]: worry anxiety. it, it is our desire to feel successful and valued and important,

[rory_vaden]: as well as our fear of failing and letting people down. Um, it is guilt and

[rory_vaden]: obligation. There are these emotions that actually dictate what we end up doing

[rory_vaden]: with our time, as much as anything that is honoured to do Lister in our

[rory_vaden]: calendar, And yet

[rory_vaden]: nobody or nobody that I’d ever met had ever been trained on the emotional side

[rory_vaden]: of time management. And so that’s where we started digging in was going. What

[rory_vaden]: are the underlying emotions that are going on? Um, and that set us on a

[rory_vaden]: completely different trajectory? Um, And And, and we really uncovered a couple

[rory_vaden]: of really really big differences which end up becom my Ted talking. The Ted talk

[rory_vaden]: went viral. The book didn’t

[david_horsager]: over three million views.

[rory_vaden]: yeah, yeah, yeah, there’s There’s a ton of use. So they, but the the book

[rory_vaden]: doesn’t took. the book, Ironically doesn’t sell that well. Uh, it’s a lesson

[rory_vaden]: that we teach our brandbuilder group clients. Is that we titled it poorly if we

[rory_vaden]: would have called the book How to multiply time, which is what the book is

[rory_vaden]: really about? And that’s what we called the talk? Um. We would have done better

[rory_vaden]: because it’s clear about what it is. Procrastinating on purpose. is a kind of a

[rory_vaden]: confusing title. Uh, you know, looking after the fact, but that is the

[rory_vaden]: conversation And, and it led us to figure out how it is literally possible to

[rory_vaden]: multiply time.

[david_horsager]: Well, we talk about trust here, and that doesn’t sound like a very

[david_horsager]: trustworthy statement unless you, God. multiplying times seems like a pretty

[david_horsager]: big ask. But I read the book and I do like. actually, the idea of the

[david_horsager]: fundamental of what we’re going to get to procrastinating on purposes is is

[david_horsager]: right on. But let’s talk about this when. for thosekeeptics that are

[david_horsager]: listensting today, trust the leaders that are say, come on, you can’t

[david_horsager]: multiply time,

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, so I get that, Um, And and you know I think people typically when I say

[rory_vaden]: it’s you know, I’m go to teach how to multiply time. People typically have two

[rory_vaden]: responses. The first one is either no way that’s crazy. It’s impossible or the

[rory_vaden]: other. The the the other one is, they’ll say. Oh, that’s just my marketing.

[rory_vaden]: hyperbly. You’re exaggerating it. Y. you know, it’s like a superlative and it is

[rory_vaden]: neither of those things. Uh, we literally figured out how to multiply tide. And

[rory_vaden]: so here’s how this is is possible.

[rory_vaden]: Now

[rory_vaden]: it is true that there is nothing that that I can teach you that will create more

[rory_vaden]: time inside of one day. We all have the same twenty four hours, which is

[rory_vaden]: fourteen hundred and forty minutes, or eighty six thousand, four hundred

[rory_vaden]: seconds. But that’s exactly the problem most people wake up, and they say what’s

[rory_vaden]: the most important thing I have to do to day. But that’s not how multipliers

[rory_vaden]: think. What we discovered is that there’s this new type of thinker that is

[rory_vaden]: emerged. That, Um, we refer to it as a multiplier and a multiplier.

[rory_vaden]: Um processes decisions completely differently, so they don’t ask themselves.

[rory_vaden]: what’s the most important thing I can do to today. The way that multipliers

[rory_vaden]: think is they asked themselves. What are the things that I can do right now that

[rory_vaden]: make to morrow better? What are the things I can do to day That make to morrow

[rory_vaden]: easier. And this is how? Uh, This is something that we now call the significance

[rory_vaden]: calculation. And of course, the late great Doctor Cvey, Um, wrote a book in

[rory_vaden]: Nineteen Eighty Nine that changed the world. Seven habits, highly affected

[rory_vaden]: people. I know, you’ve all heard of it, sold millions of copies and he

[rory_vaden]: introduced, you know. Ar. One time, management thinking was just very one

[rory_vaden]: dimensional. It was about efficiency and doing things faster, but Doctor Cvy

[rory_vaden]: brought us into what we referr to as Erra too, thinking, because he introduced

[rory_vaden]: this framework called the time management matrix, where the Y acces is

[rory_vaden]: importance in the ex excess’ ▁urgency, You probably seen it, Um. and it was

[rory_vaden]: really too dimensional and he taught us prioritizing, And so that book kind of

[rory_vaden]: single handedly ushered in the era of prioritizing, which was to focus first on

[rory_vaden]: what matters most,

[rory_vaden]: which is still good. Its prioritizing is still good, as is efficiency, but there

[rory_vaden]: is a point of diminishing returns to prioritizing as a strategy, which is which

[rory_vaden]: is this. There is nothing about prioritizing that creates more time. All

[rory_vaden]: prioritizing does is reshuffle things. It’s more like borrowing time. It’s

[rory_vaden]: saying okay, I’ll take itom number seven on my to do listen, and I’ll bump it up

[rory_vaden]: to number one, which is valuable, but it doesn’t inherently create time, and it

[rory_vaden]: doesn’t help us resolve the other items that remain on our to do list, Which is

[rory_vaden]: why so many leaders are busy, buried and overwhelmed you. And and by the way

[rory_vaden]: that book was written in the year Nineteen Eighty Nine, think about the world in

[rory_vaden]: Nineteen eighty nine. there’s no cellphones. There’s no social media. there’s no

[rory_vaden]: internet like the world is radically different, and you you you can’t solve to

[rory_vaden]: day’s time management challenges using yesterday’s time management strategies. I

[rory_vaden]: mean the world has changed. So what we noticed was as we were profiling these

[rory_vaden]: ▁ultra performers. We call them ▁ultra performers and take the stairs. And then

[rory_vaden]: we kind of went back to a lot of them and said Hey, what are your philosophies

[rory_vaden]: about time? These top one percenters, they were making a new calculation which

[rory_vaden]: we referred to as the significance calculation. So, while Doctor Cvey changed

[rory_vaden]: the world with importance and ▁urgency, which are still relevant, these

[rory_vaden]: multipliers had evolved to making a third calculation, which, if you were

[rory_vaden]: looking at it visually, it would take what what Doctor Cvey had as a square, and

[rory_vaden]: it would turn it into a cube. The significance calculation becomes the ▁z axis.

[rory_vaden]: If you can think back to you know high school algebra and it makes it three

[rory_vaden]: dimensional well.

[rory_vaden]: in literal terms, what does that mean? The significance calculation is simply

[rory_vaden]: thinking about to morrow and the next day and the next day. So

[rory_vaden]: importance is

[rory_vaden]: a question of how much does something matter?

[rory_vaden]: ▁urgency is how soon does something matter? But significance is different.

[rory_vaden]: Significance is how long is this going to matter,

[rory_vaden]: and this brings us to how it is possible in one sentence to multiply time. You

[rory_vaden]: multiply time

[rory_vaden]: by giving yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things to day

[rory_vaden]: that create more time to morrow.

[rory_vaden]: Spend time on things to today that create more time to morrow. There are certain

[rory_vaden]: things, Uh, and we bucketed them. Basically, there’s five We, we think, there’s

[rory_vaden]: more or less only five different categories of things that multiply time. Uh, we

[rory_vaden]: talk about the focus Funel. We can talk through him if you want, But there are

[rory_vaden]: there are certain things that you can do that don’t actually save you time to

[rory_vaden]: day. They actually cost you time to day.

[rory_vaden]: But there are certain things you can do to day that will create more time to

[rory_vaden]: morrow. And and it is that significance calculation that long term thinking of

[rory_vaden]: the Ne, the future, tomorrow, the next day, the next day the next day, That

[rory_vaden]: changes everything. But but here’s the problem, Dave is that

[rory_vaden]: absent

[rory_vaden]: a conscious decision to focus on the significance, calculation,

[rory_vaden]: leaders

[rory_vaden]: inadvertently almost always default to the ▁urgency calculation, we constantly

[rory_vaden]: fall victim to what Charles Uh

[david_horsager]: Mhm,

[rory_vaden]: Hummel called in Nineteen sixty Nine, the tyranny of the ▁urgent. We are falling

[rory_vaden]: victim to whatever is latest and loudest. Most of us have our in boox organized

[rory_vaden]: not by what is most significant, but what is at the top of our inbox is what is

[rory_vaden]: most recent, and that is reflective of a mentality in a, in a mode of operating,

[rory_vaden]: which is, we’re constantly reactive and we’re not strategic about selecting the

[rory_vaden]: right activities because we live in a world absent the significance calculation.

[rory_vaden]: and

[david_horsager]: so let’s stop for one second here.

[rory_vaden]: yeah, go ahead.

[david_horsager]: I want to save this other because you said, but how soon it will matter Is

[david_horsager]: the question for ▁urgency.

[rory_vaden]: Yes,

[david_horsager]: The question for importance is

[rory_vaden]: how long does it matter like?

[david_horsager]: no. That’s the significance.

[rory_vaden]: Oh, sorry, importance is how much does it matter

[david_horsager]: How much

[rory_vaden]: now, Get not get this. So importance is the Y axis and Covey’s model

[david_horsager]: Mhm.

[rory_vaden]: right, And so uh, part of what we’re doing is really just adding to Coovey’s

[rory_vaden]: model, just by adding that ▁zik that ▁z

[david_horsager]: Yep,

[rory_vaden]: accis calculation. So both ▁urgency and significance are components of the

[rory_vaden]: importance calculation. But if the significance calculation is invisible or

[rory_vaden]: unconscious, then we default to what is visible and conscious, which is the

[rory_vaden]: thing right in front of our face, which we actually coined the term for that.

[rory_vaden]: Intake the stairs. So so so My first book Take the stairs was really about the

[rory_vaden]: psychology of overcoming procrastination, And it was a very like the reason.

[rory_vaden]: Take the Stairs sell so many copies. Iscause. It applies to everybody in the

[rory_vaden]: world, and companies will like Bi. It for every employe’s like it. It’s kind of

[rory_vaden]: like Trust edge. It applies to everybody, and that is how to build discipline to

[rory_vaden]: overcome procrastination. But there was one little section and take the stairs,

[rory_vaden]: where we talked about the three types of procrastination, one of which we

[rory_vaden]: invented this phrase, priority dilution and we said priority dilution is an

[rory_vaden]: emerging form of procrastination that we’re noticing in leaders, and it’s ironic

[rory_vaden]: because we’re noticing it in the very types of people who you wouldn’t consider

[rory_vaden]: to be procrastinators. In fact, they’re very much the opposite. They’re the

[rory_vaden]: chronic over retievers, the dogoters, the checkliisters, the task masters,

[rory_vaden]: they’re they’re the entrepreneurs, the executives, but as their star rises, and

[rory_vaden]: as their pur view grow, and this was reflective of my life Back in those days,

[rory_vaden]: Um, they have more and more on their plate and their priorities dilute and so,

[rory_vaden]: even though they’re not lazy or apathetic or disengaged like a classic

[rory_vaden]: procrastinator, they do have the same net result, which is at the end of the

[rory_vaden]: day, their most significant priorities are left incomplete. Not because they’

[rory_vaden]: are lazy, because they allowed their attention to shift to less important, but

[rory_vaden]: perhaps more. ▁urgent things I priority dilution, which is what set the stage

[rory_vaden]: for the second book and how to multiply time with the significance calculation.

[david_horsager]: let’s get through these really quick.

[david_horsager]: Just just kind to have the overview. The five permissions, because I think

[david_horsager]: it’s important because I think people are sitting here saying yes. That’s

[david_horsager]: me. Yes, I do a whole lot, but not the most important things. right. Yes,

[rory_vaden]: Yeah,

[david_horsager]: but how can I get out of the wheel? I’ve got this people come to meet for

[david_horsager]: this people coming down the Ceo. Im the senior leader. I,

[rory_vaden]: yeah,

[david_horsager]: How do I actually break out of that and maybe at least is a framework. We

[david_horsager]: could quickly go through the five decisions or permission.

[rory_vaden]: totally. so let’s let’s do it ill. I’ll give you the overview and then we can

[rory_vaden]: dive up. my. Uh, there’s a good chance that delegate for your audiences probably

[rory_vaden]: like where the magic is. So I, if we were going to dive in on one there it would

[rory_vaden]: probably be automat or delegate. But so all right, so we actually call this This

[rory_vaden]: is a framework. So we call this the focus Funel. Um, and by the way, you can

[rory_vaden]: watch my Ted talk to and

[david_horsager]: Y,

[rory_vaden]: it shows this Pi picture you could buy the book. Um, but the the Tet Talkck is

[rory_vaden]: free. But the, If you picture a funnel where just all of your stuff to do is

[rory_vaden]: coming in the top right, it could be text messages and your in boox, and sticky

[rory_vaden]: notes. And just like all the stuff there is to do,

[rory_vaden]: the sequence is important and there is A is a sequential set of thinking. Uh,

[rory_vaden]: that multipliers go through, and their first question is eliminate.

[rory_vaden]: So the the first of the five permissions is what we call the permission to

[rory_vaden]: ignore, which is the permission to eliminate

[rory_vaden]: anything that I say no to today,

[rory_vaden]: multiplies time tomorrow. because it prevents me from doing something that I

[rory_vaden]: would have otherwise been doing. So it creates time tomorrow. Spend time on

[rory_vaden]: things today that create more time tomorrow by spending time figuring out what

[rory_vaden]: you can say no to That is the widest swath of opportunity for an individual and

[rory_vaden]: an entire company. By the way, in both of our companies, the one that we exited,

[rory_vaden]: and in our current company we have had to shut down entire divisions in order to

[rory_vaden]: multiply and go all in on the on the one thing. So anyway, so that’s eliminate.

[rory_vaden]: If a task can’t be eliminated, then it drops into the middle of the focus

[rory_vaden]: funnel, which is automate automat, Is we call it the permission to invest, Um,

[rory_vaden]: because it is the permission to invest the time and the money to set up a system

[rory_vaden]: or a process to today. Because anything you create a process for today will save

[rory_vaden]: you time tomorrow. Um.

[rory_vaden]: Now, the irony is you, we think. Oh, I don’t have time to do that, but that and

[rory_vaden]: that is always true. Absent the significance calculation. you never have time to

[rory_vaden]: build a process today. but when you make the significance calculation you

[rory_vaden]: realize. Oh, that’s actually the exact opposite Until I create a process for it.

[rory_vaden]: I will continually imprison myself to having to do this myself. Um, because I

[rory_vaden]: haven’t created a process for someone else to follow to To do the thing. If you

[rory_vaden]: can’t automate it, Um, then it drops down to delegate,

[rory_vaden]: Um, which is the permission of imperfect and permission of imperfection, So we

[rory_vaden]: can probably

[david_horsager]: Hm.

[rory_vaden]: talk about Wh. Why that is Um. But delegating has a lot more to do with your

[rory_vaden]: emotional, Um, Some some underlying emotions going on, Um

[david_horsager]: Yep,

[rory_vaden]: than anything.

[rory_vaden]: Um. Now, if it can’t be eliminated, automated or delegated, then that task falls

[rory_vaden]: through out the bottom of the focus funnel, and at that point there’s one

[rory_vaden]: remaining question, which is must this task be done right now? Which is

[rory_vaden]: concentrate. The permission to protect, Um, which is all about focus, And I

[rory_vaden]: would say that’s actually what the Take the stairs book is about is about how to

[rory_vaden]: protect your focus from creative avoidance, and do the thing you know you should

[rory_vaden]: be doing, even when you don’t feel like doing it. That’s to takes the stairs

[rory_vaden]: book. There’s some other great books. Uh. I would say Cal Newport’s book Deep

[rory_vaden]: Work, Gregncuan’s essentialism

[david_horsager]: Mhm,

[rory_vaden]: Uh, ▁j, popasana, Gary colors the one thing. all of those books kind of ▁zone in

[rory_vaden]: on that. So to me that part wasn’t that fascinating. Um, Um, there’s because

[rory_vaden]: there’s a lot of books that talk about focus. Um, still really difficult to do.

[rory_vaden]: but, but the fascinating part was

[rory_vaden]: If the answer to the question, must this task be done now is no,

[rory_vaden]: Then it can wait until later. Then that is where we’re in encouraging you and

[rory_vaden]: inviting you, and challenging you to not eliminate automate, delegate, or

[rory_vaden]: concentrate, but to procrastinate on purpose, which is where the title of the

[rory_vaden]: book comes from. We call it the Permission of incomplete. It is actually

[rory_vaden]: a very big struggle that a necessary one that you have to embrace being okay

[rory_vaden]: with things being incomplete, because by allowing certain things to deliberately

[rory_vaden]: sit as incomplete, that is what creates the margin for you to reallocate your

[rory_vaden]: time into the things that will truly multiply time. the things that are really

[rory_vaden]: significant, Um in that great time tomorrow, So, um, Now, if you’re going to pr,

[rory_vaden]: you’re going to procrastinating on purpose, you don’t procrastinate on it

[rory_vaden]: forever. You pop, you use that. We, we call it Pop, You pop that activity back

[rory_vaden]: to the top of the focus Funel, And so what happens is that activity enters into

[rory_vaden]: a holding pattern where it’s just cycling through the focus Funel, until at one

[rory_vaden]: point sooner or later one of the other four things will happen. You’ll either

[rory_vaden]: eliminate it, automatated, delegate, or the question. Can this wait until later

[rory_vaden]: will change from? Yes, it can, to know it cannot, and then it will slide down

[rory_vaden]: and to concentrate and you’ll do it and you’ll complete the activity. So that’s

[rory_vaden]: the high level. I mean, that’s like the whole book in three minutes. Um.

[david_horsager]: Yeah, so let’s let’s say number one, you can go see the tad, talk like over

[david_horsager]: three million other people. You can get the book Pop and

[david_horsager]: progresse pop, or how to multiply your time, but let’s just talk about a

[david_horsager]: couple of things here because I know there’s a whole lot more we can talk

[david_horsager]: about. I’d love to talk. We’re just going have to have you come back. Talk

[david_horsager]: about building your businesses and all that, but

[rory_vaden]: yeah, yeah,

[david_horsager]: let’s talk about one problem I think we have and that is that delegate. We

[david_horsager]: talked about this before.

[david_horsager]: I think there’s a big challenge of leaders. leaders like me that really

[david_horsager]: believe in high quality high

[david_horsager]: calibre like you, built your business on high quality, and so

[rory_vaden]: yep, yep.

[rory_vaden]: yeah.

[david_horsager]: letting it go certain ways or certain places, its challenging. What are a

[david_horsager]: couple

[rory_vaden]: y.

[david_horsager]: things we can think about?

[rory_vaden]: okay. Okay. So so and let’s tackle this two ways? So if I, if you, if you as the

[rory_vaden]: average leader, whether they were a small business owner or fortune, one hundred

[rory_vaden]: C, E, O, right, and you said, Are there things that you’re doing every day

[rory_vaden]: that you know could be done by someone else?

[rory_vaden]: almost all of us would say yes. And then if you ask them, say Okay, Well, why

[rory_vaden]: haven’t you done it? They would typically say one of two things. They would

[rory_vaden]: either say it’s just faster for me to do it myself,

[rory_vaden]: or they would say because no one can do it as well as I can.

[rory_vaden]: So those are typically the two emotional Bel. These these beliefs that we have

[rory_vaden]: that prevent us from delegating, So let’s just tackle each of them independently

[rory_vaden]: for a second. So I first want to look at the one that says It’s It’s faster for

[rory_vaden]: me to do it myself and I want to introduce a technique here. Um. so this

[rory_vaden]: technique is called the thirty ▁x rule.

[rory_vaden]: Um, and uh, you know, it’s a little bit of math, but not much. so. if you’re

[rory_vaden]: reading along, it’s easier to follow. but I’ll I’ll try to keep it. you know,

[rory_vaden]: simple for you just to do in your mind, Okay, So the thirty ▁x role is all about

[rory_vaden]: the significance calculation and it’s a. it’s a. it’s a. it’s a. It’s a

[rory_vaden]: practical expression of significant calculation, so the th ▁x will suggest that

[rory_vaden]: you should consider spending thirty times the amount of time it takes you to do

[rory_vaden]: a task once

[rory_vaden]: on training someone one else to do that task for you.

[rory_vaden]: All right, So give an example. Let’s say you have a task that takes you five

[rory_vaden]: minutes a day to complete.

[rory_vaden]: The thirty ▁x. rules suggest that you should consider spending a hundred and

[rory_vaden]: fifty minutes, So thirty ▁x, thirty times five hundred and fifty minutes,

[rory_vaden]: training someone to do that task and dayve. This is where I lose people because

[rory_vaden]: they say they literally. I’ve had people look at me, Gorori. That is the dumbest

[rory_vaden]: thing I have ever heard Like Why in the world would I spend a hundred and fifty

[rory_vaden]: minutes? That’s like two and a half hours.

[david_horsager]: Yeah,

[rory_vaden]: Why in the world would I spend two and a half hours training somebody to do

[rory_vaden]: something that? could? I could just do myself in five minutes. That doesn’t make

[rory_vaden]: any sense, And and my answer is you’re right. It doesn’t make sense unless you

[rory_vaden]: make the significance calculation. Absent the significance calculation, we live

[rory_vaden]: in a world of ▁urgency, in the world of ▁urgency. It’s always one day paradigm.

[rory_vaden]: It never makes sense to trade two and a half hours for five minutes. That never

[rory_vaden]: makes sense. But when you make the significance calculation, everything changes

[rory_vaden]: so let’s do that. And if you just look at one year worth of time, so to keep the

[rory_vaden]: math easy, there’s about two hundred and fifty working days in a year, two

[rory_vaden]: hundred and three and sixty five days a year, about two hundred and fifty

[rory_vaden]: working days.

[rory_vaden]: If that task takes you five minutes a day to complete,

[rory_vaden]: it doesn’t actually take you five minutes. Over the course of a year. It takes

[rory_vaden]: you twelve hundred and fifty minutes, five times two hundred and fifty. you’re

[rory_vaden]: doing it every day Now. If you looked out over your whole career, it would take

[rory_vaden]: even longer than that. but you, maybe it’s not every day or whatever, So let’s

[rory_vaden]: just say it’s twelve hundred and fifty minutes. Now. the calculation looks a

[rory_vaden]: little bit different, right. It’s not. should we spend a hundred and fifty men.

[rory_vaden]: To say five. It should we spend a hundred and fifty minutes to save twelve

[rory_vaden]: hundred and fifty minutes.

[rory_vaden]: The answer is just as obvious as what we as what it was before. but it’s the

[rory_vaden]: complete opposite of what we originally thought,

[david_horsager]: Mhm,

[rory_vaden]: And here’s what’s crazy Dave. Like

[rory_vaden]: Notice, the task hasn’t changed.

[rory_vaden]: The the person hasn’t changed. Like the only thing that has changed is the

[rory_vaden]: leader’s thinking, And this is always necessary because the next level of

[rory_vaden]: results requires the next level of thinking. Um,

[rory_vaden]: this is a huge return. Like if I told you financially, I have a guaranteed

[rory_vaden]: investment that could guarantee you a seven hundred and thirty three percent

[rory_vaden]: return. You wouldn’t even believe me, you, would you? Would you would say that’s

[rory_vaden]: so unrealistic It’s impossible. I don’t even want to look at that investment

[rory_vaden]: because it’s like anything north of twenty percent would like. pretty much just

[rory_vaden]: be outrageous. But if you evaluate this use of time the same way that you would

[rory_vaden]: evaluate a financial investment, I invested a hundred and fifty minutes in.

[rory_vaden]: Now, your net gain isn’t actually twelve fifty, ’cause you got to subtract the

[rory_vaden]: one fifty you put in, so

[david_horsager]: Yeah,

[rory_vaden]: your net gains eleven hundred. So I, I invested one fifty. I got eleven hundred

[rory_vaden]: back. That is a seven hundred and thirty three per cent. and here’s a a new term

[rory_vaden]: for you, R o t. I return on time.

[rory_vaden]: Invest it. We believe the next generation of cost savings is gonna be much more

[rory_vaden]: focused on saving time than it is on saving money, Because the most expensive

[rory_vaden]: cost on a pan ▁ is the people. It’s the salaries. It’s the hour is. It’s not

[rory_vaden]: that we’re overspending on where we buy our pens and our paper clips from. it’s

[rory_vaden]: that it’s that any one hour of wasted time for an individual is massive. M. It’s

[rory_vaden]: it’s it’s gargantuin comparatively, and yet we never look at that on a pianel.

[rory_vaden]: There’s no no way to measure wasted cost of our people’s time, so

[rory_vaden]: it’s never faster to do it yourself when you make the significant calculation.

[rory_vaden]: Never is. but

[rory_vaden]: that points to the real reason we don’t delegate is not because of that. It’s

[rory_vaden]: really the emotional issue of Well, no one will be able to do it as well as I

[rory_vaden]: can, and this is the crux of the issue because you got to where you are

[rory_vaden]: by demanding perfection. You got to where you are by doing things with

[rory_vaden]: excellence. You got to where you are by caring and doing things perfectly and

[rory_vaden]: going the extra mile. That’s how you became the leader. Here’s what’s insane and

[rory_vaden]: really a difficult switch. To make.

[rory_vaden]: What got you here is a leader won’t get you, or what got you here is a performer

[rory_vaden]: won’t get you there as a leader.

[rory_vaden]: What got you here as a performer won’t get you there as a leader. And and and

[rory_vaden]: Um, Andy Stanley has the best ▁quote. about this. he says You got to remember

[rory_vaden]: that leadership isn’t about getting things done right.

[rory_vaden]: Leadership is about getting things done through other people.

[rory_vaden]: If you can’t get things done through other people than your leadership, can’t

[rory_vaden]: expand your influence, Can’t expand. You

[rory_vaden]: are throttling your impact to only what you are available to touch directly, and

[rory_vaden]: there is a limit on that

[rory_vaden]: anything great in the world requires a team. It requires a movement of people,

[rory_vaden]: and so the limiting belief that we all have, which it starts as a very healthy

[rory_vaden]: thing, Right like it’s you know. This is one of the reasons why I, i, I, um, I

[rory_vaden]: think that straight A students, which I was Rado’s Victorian, like straight a

[rory_vaden]: students make bad entrepreneurs. I. This is an article I’ve wanted to write for

[rory_vaden]: a long time straight. A students make bad entrepreneurs. Why? Because the world

[rory_vaden]: isn’t full of a students, the world is full of C students. By definition, And

[rory_vaden]: what makes you an A student’s demanding perfection? Well, when you’re trying to

[rory_vaden]: lead a bunch of C students, they don’t care as much as you care. they’re not as

[rory_vaden]: driven. They’re not going to work the extra hours. Maybe some of them might,

[rory_vaden]: but, but for the most part they’re not. But but here’s here’s here’s the magic,

[rory_vaden]: and this is where it trus up.

[rory_vaden]: so as a leader

[rory_vaden]: you think to yourself they won’t be able to do it as well as I can.

[rory_vaden]: And you’re right. That is true,

[rory_vaden]: once,

[rory_vaden]: maybe twice, maybe three times, maybe five times, maybe ten times.

[rory_vaden]: But even a de minus student

[rory_vaden]: over the course of time, if they’re only doing one thing or fewer things, they

[rory_vaden]: will be able to do that thing as well as you, and probably better than you

[rory_vaden]: could. because they don’t have as much priority dilution. They don’t have as

[rory_vaden]: many things pulling on them. So we call this the Permission of imperfect, But it

[rory_vaden]: is not saying that you need to compromise your standards. It’s not saying that

[rory_vaden]: you should compromise quality. It’s saying that you should make the significance

[rory_vaden]: calculation, and there should be a season of grace. There should be an allowance

[rory_vaden]: for a learning period. there should be a temporary, uh, relaxation of your

[rory_vaden]: standards

[rory_vaden]: for the, for the purpose of the the payoff of the long term of being able to

[rory_vaden]: multiply your impact overa Um. Now you can supplement it with the things that we

[rory_vaden]: teach an automate, which is you know, standardizing the processes and automating

[rory_vaden]: as much as possible along the way, but this it is this, this, this emotional. I

[rory_vaden]: have to do. otherwise it won’t be done right. That is true once. but that’s

[rory_vaden]: ▁urgency. Over long term, you, you gotta break free of that. Otherwise you’re

[rory_vaden]: just going to imprison yourself to a lifelong sentence of doing everything

[rory_vaden]: yourself

[david_horsager]: this is truth for me. Still as you can imagine why it hit me over the head

[david_horsager]: right. Oh, my goodness, you’ve given us so much, But this is something to

[david_horsager]: think about this funnel eliminate. Can I eliminate it or nor can I automate

[david_horsager]: it. Can I delegate it then? If not, do I need to do it now. Then

[david_horsager]: concentrate. If not. I have permission to. uh, leave it incomplete.

[david_horsager]: Basically right,

[rory_vaden]: procrastinate on purpose, which is where the title the book comes from. is

[david_horsager]: yp,

[rory_vaden]: you know, Because to me that was the fascinating concept. It’s uh. It just

[rory_vaden]: didn’t make a good book title because it needs some explanation. The, you know,

[rory_vaden]: but the core is how do you multiply time? And and if you think about it, one way

[rory_vaden]: to do that is if I procrastinate on the trivial stuff, then

[david_horsager]: y,

[rory_vaden]: now I have the margin of time I was going to spend on that to invest. It’s just

[rory_vaden]: like

[rory_vaden]: the the way that wealthy people invest money is exactly the same way that

[rory_vaden]: multipliers invest time. Like the way you you you find money to invest, right is

[rory_vaden]: it’s it’s it’s very rarely. Oh, I hit the lottery at of the jackpot and I got a

[rory_vaden]: bunch of money.

[david_horsager]: Mhm.

[rory_vaden]: It’s It’s very much typically more of. well, let’s we’re not going to go on

[rory_vaden]: vacation. We’re not going to buy the nicer house. We’re not going to buy the

[rory_vaden]: brand new car. We’re not going to buy the big screen T. v, and I’m going to

[rory_vaden]: instead sacrifice that short term pleasure, and I’m goingnna take that and I’m

[rory_vaden]: going to reallocate it. I’m going to invest it, and it will grow over over time.

[rory_vaden]: Uh, in automate one of the things that we we talk about actually is that

[rory_vaden]: automation is to your time exactly as compounding interest is. Uh. uh, sorry,

[rory_vaden]: automation is to your time. what compounding interest is to your money.

[rory_vaden]: Automation takes time and turns it into more money. It’s It’s the same mentality

[rory_vaden]: of an of an investor.

[david_horsager]: Well speaking, a time or running out of it. But this is there so much here.

[david_horsager]: We can we go on. So weve got that. we’ve got the funel. We’ve got some

[david_horsager]: amazing things to think about. You have given us gold. I want to ask you a

[david_horsager]: couple of questions, because I I want to think, Get a little personal

[david_horsager]: because I see you. You know we’re on a we’re to mastermind leadership group

[david_horsager]: together. You’re just amazing human, so everybody can find more about what

[david_horsager]: we just talked about. and really

[david_horsager]: I, I would encourage everybody too, because we’re dealing in time and we

[david_horsager]: want to invest it wisely and multipli. But um, how are you leading yourself?

[david_horsager]: You know, you listen to your your c e o, your co founder you, you’re

[david_horsager]: influencing a whole lot of others. What are some of the things you arere

[david_horsager]: doing? Because I’m proud of your discipline. I remember four and a half

[david_horsager]: years you hadn’t missed. Um, you know a workout.

[rory_vaden]: Uh,

[david_horsager]: Uh, you know, but what are some of the things you’re doing to lead yourself

[david_horsager]: spiritually physically emotionally so you can lead others well,

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, well, I really believe uh in in Take the stairs. So in my first book,

[rory_vaden]: probably the most popular ▁quote from that book, Uh, was something that I called

[rory_vaden]: the rent axiom, which is that success is never owned. It’s only rented and the

[rory_vaden]: rent is due everyda Um, you know, and we wrote that And it’s like Internet me

[rory_vaden]: now and all that stuff. And and in my life day, that’s what I just try to

[rory_vaden]: remember, And so there are things

[rory_vaden]: Uh, As an example.

[rory_vaden]: One of my big focus is is that every day when I wake up, the first thing through

[rory_vaden]: my head is thank you and it is thanking thanking God for whatever I can think of

[rory_vaden]: to be thankful for. Um, also, I want the very first words that I read every day

[rory_vaden]: to be scripture. I don’t want it to be a text. I don’t want to be in email. I

[rory_vaden]: don’t want it to be a news feed. I deliberately choose to control my attention

[rory_vaden]: so that the first words that enter my brain other than my own gratitude, Uh, is

[rory_vaden]: scripture, Uh, and then I, you know, So I get up at five fifteen. I got two

[rory_vaden]: toddlers right, so I have to get through all this before they get up. So um, you

[rory_vaden]: know I, I exercise every day. I only exercise for twelve minutes, but I do it

[rory_vaden]: every day. Um, the. uh, So a lot of it is these daily routines. You know I’ve

[rory_vaden]: I’ve That’s just something I found that most results in life come from our

[rory_vaden]: routines. Um,

[rory_vaden]: and so

[rory_vaden]: uh, I mean, I don’t drink alcohol. I, you know, there’s there’s a number of

[rory_vaden]: things Th. there’s a. there’s a great word, and this is not all I. this. The

[rory_vaden]: whole sounds kind of Christian stuff all all of a sudden, which I don’t mean it

[rory_vaden]: to be, But there is a. There’s a great word Um, called sanctification, which,

[rory_vaden]: which is a Biblical term, which means the gradual cleansing. Um. My life has

[rory_vaden]: been a series of gradual cleansing. Has been one indulgence that I tackled, and

[rory_vaden]: then another indulgence and then another indulgence in another indulgence. Um,

[rory_vaden]: of course having toddlers, I think I’ve been in a season of of

[rory_vaden]: realizing how self centered I was before children, and like that you being

[rory_vaden]: wrestled away and wrestled out of me of like wow, Um,

[david_horsager]: Nothing like kids to teach.

[rory_vaden]: So anyways day, daily disciplines, I, I would

[david_horsager]: Yeah,

[rory_vaden]: say would be the You know, to tell you

[david_horsager]: I love it

[rory_vaden]: the short answer, be daily disciplines,

[david_horsager]: roines good routines too.

[rory_vaden]: routines routines, routines.

[david_horsager]: I’m going to ask you one final question before I do, Rory. A whole lot.

[david_horsager]: you’ve given us here today, and people can find the Ted talk. They can find

[david_horsager]: your websites that can find your books. But what’s the best place to find

[david_horsager]: out about you?

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, I would just go to Roryvede and blog Dot. com. Um, We, That’s where you

[rory_vaden]: know. I do a free video every week, or you know I host a podca like. But if you

[rory_vaden]: just go to Royvade and blog Dot com. Uh, we’ve got a bunch of free trainings

[rory_vaden]: that are pretty in depth. Uh, several hours of them if you want on different

[rory_vaden]: topics. But yeah, so go to Roy Vaden Blog dot com and then from there you. Well,

[rory_vaden]: you know you have a smorgestborg of things that you can choose if you’re

[rory_vaden]: interested.

[david_horsager]: Looking forward to having an Aj on and more to come from Badens and from

[rory_vaden]: Yeah,

[david_horsager]: brand builders, Andcause We got the The Verse that you gave us hanging

[david_horsager]: right. I can almost show you exactly where it is Is pretty cool. so Um,

[david_horsager]: thank you for that.

[david_horsager]: Hey,

[rory_vaden]: I like it.

[david_horsager]: final question’s a trust the leader, Show who is a leader you trust And why?

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, do you know that I saw like that is such a big question? Um,

[rory_vaden]: you know the

[rory_vaden]: I. I. I actually had a hard time with this question. I’ll I’ll tell you because

[rory_vaden]: I have had some

[rory_vaden]: experiences that. Uh, that people that I would have said, I ended up n very much

[rory_vaden]: being betrayed and not trusting. Um.

[rory_vaden]: So

[rory_vaden]: I think when the for me, the answer that I came up with was Andy Stanley, um, I,

[rory_vaden]: I ▁quoted him. I ▁quoted him earlier. Uh, I don’t have a personal connection to

[rory_vaden]: him though, but he is who I follow Iss one of the people that I follow on

[rory_vaden]: leadership. There’s a lot of people that I that I learn from Um. But the the

[rory_vaden]: reason why the thing that I’m looking for is who are people who actually have

[rory_vaden]: results of leadership in their life, And that is something that I’m trying to

[rory_vaden]: really really pay attention to, Um. Is is the idea of just like,

[rory_vaden]: Um, not what it is on the surface, but

[rory_vaden]: who is actually

[rory_vaden]: you know accomplished the things that you’re trying to accomplish, and I think

[rory_vaden]: of the impact that he’s had. I think that that’s somebody that I admire to. So

[rory_vaden]: that was the answer that I came up as I was. I was. I was thinking about it

[rory_vaden]: trying to be outside of like you know, friend, like you know, personal family

[rory_vaden]: and stuff. but I, I’ll I’ll say this. I’ve never worked for a leader that I have

[rory_vaden]: trusted,

[david_horsager]: Hm,

[rory_vaden]: Um. And that’s heartbreaking.

[david_horsager]: yeah,

[rory_vaden]: Uh, To look back at this point in my career and go. I can’t honestly say that I

[rory_vaden]: have never worked for a leader That I fully trusted that I trusted their

[rory_vaden]: integrity, their their personal interests, and that I trusted that they had my

[rory_vaden]: best in their best, M my best interest, Uh in mind. And so it

[rory_vaden]: gives me a lot to aspire to Um, as a a leader. I. I’d

[rory_vaden]: like to be that for people, but I

[rory_vaden]: go ahead,

[david_horsager]: you know you know I. I just we were just talking about this this week.

[david_horsager]: How often do you have people say I just love my boss, almost never like.

[david_horsager]: I’ve got the greatest boss in the world. You don’t hear that I got an okay

[david_horsager]: boss. I got a terrible boss, but you don’t hear people say Yeah, I just I. I

[david_horsager]: just I love my. I got the most amazing, but you very seldom hear that.

[rory_vaden]: Yeah, No, you don’t. And and um, you know, and I think there’s, I mean, it’s one

[rory_vaden]: of the reasons why I’m such a big fan of your work, and I think Trust Edge

[rory_vaden]: should be a book that should be mandatory reading for every human on the planet.

[rory_vaden]: Um, uh, be be, and I, I think I think trust is a crisis. I think it is you know

[rory_vaden]: really hard in the world, and there’s so much distrust. Even in with our parents

[rory_vaden]: right, our our moms and dads, and um, you know, and social media has been a

[rory_vaden]: whole world of distrust and covet has caused a whole bunch of distrust like it’s

[rory_vaden]: a real real crisis. And um, you know, it’s even tough to say who do you trust,

[rory_vaden]: let alone who’s a leader that you trust. Like who’s somebody that’s leading you?

[rory_vaden]: So it was a. It was actually a really hard question, and and sobering because I

[rory_vaden]: hadn’t really thought about it. And and you asked me to that question, I was

[rory_vaden]: like man. I can’t. even. I can’t name someone who I would consider.

[rory_vaden]: I mean, I guess my pastor at at Crosspoint Church, I would. I would say I

[rory_vaden]: as Kevin. Um,

[rory_vaden]: but like somebody that I’ve directly worked for I, I, I couldn’t, I couldn’t

[rory_vaden]: give it. I couldn’t come up with one.

[david_horsager]: Well, we’ve got more work to do on Trust. We’ve got more work to do

[rory_vaden]: Yeah,

[david_horsager]: on

[rory_vaden]: but

[david_horsager]: uh, being leaders and certainly being trusted leaders. But a huge thank you

[david_horsager]: to my dear friend Rory Vaden, and thanks for spending time with us. Thanks for

[david_horsager]: giving all you got, and to everybody, that’s the trusted leader show for

[david_horsager]: today until next time, stay trusted.