Work Smart AND Hard AND Take FREE Days – Episode 387

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors.

[00:00] Hello, partners. Welcome to the podcast. Today, we’re going to be talking about working smart and working hard. Notice we used partners again, Kim. Yes, yes, yes. I love that that’s what we’re calling this community because I just feel such connection between what we’re talking about and what our partners are listening to and taking action on. And I hope that they’re noticing, Spencer, you and I are both trying to do a better job of giving them one specific thing to do from the podcasts because that’s how we get results. It always frustrates me when I read a business book and then I just set the book down and don’t do anything with it. And a month later, I’ll see it. Maybe it’ll show up on my Kindle again or whatever. And I’ll be like,

[00:50] it was basically… I don’t want to call it a waste of time. I’m sure some of the ideas are running around in my head and I’ll do something with them. But this is really hitting the subject that we wanted to talk about today, which is to work smart. There’s a good word for you. The subject that we’re talking about today, which is to work smart and work hard. And then it’s bad titling language, but I want to throw in there and then to have the free days because those are important too. Absolutely, they are. Will you define what free days are just so our listeners are up to speed? Absolutely. So this comes from Dan Sullivan of Strategic Coach. I learned this when I was 24 years old. And he has an entrepreneurial time system, you can Google it, called Free

[01:36] Days, Focus Days and Buffer Days. And again, this is Dan Sullivan from Strategic Coach. And free days are by definition, midnight to midnight, no business activity. And that means no email, no computer, no talking on phone regarding business, etc., etc. And I always try to take a couple days a week and then obviously vacation time to have that. And it doesn’t mean if I’m going on a seven-day vacation, for example, but I don’t have one day in the middle to handle some business things to keep items moving forward. And yet, having that free time, being completely disconnected from business and truly focused on rejuvenation or our family or whatever it is that the free time is for enables me to then work smart and work hard at other times when I’m working on projects,

[02:29] helping our clients, etc. And it is a real clear dividing line that actually makes the work time that much more productive, that much more energizing, and I get that much more joy out of it. Yeah, absolutely. You know, that concept, I learned that years ago of having those free and focus days. And what happens when you don’t do that is you live in the gray zone all the time. So that’s an awful place to be. It really is. It is. And for our clients that might be retired, it’s an equally important idea to implement. Otherwise, you said it so well, every day is the same. For retired people, every day is a Saturday. For working people, every day is a workday. And it does. It becomes very, very muddy. And the analogy Dan Sullivan always uses is you want Neapolitan ice cream pulled

[03:25] out of the freezer cut with a sharp knife. That’s the division that you want. And so then when you are working hard and smart at something, and let’s just unpack that quickly, to me, working smart means that I’m prepared for what I’m going to be doing. I have all the pieces and parts or the team members or whatever. And we have a dedicated time and we get in there and get it done. And the working hard is that my brain’s totally on. I’m ready to go. I’m not multitasking. I’m not thinking about other things, you know, physically, mentally, etc. I’m all in. And that’s the equal and important aspect of it, both the working smart and the working hard. And I just think that there’s a societal element that’s

[04:16] floating around right now that says there’s a lazy way to get results. And lazy and getting results, I’m sorry, they’re not in the same sentence. Absolutely. They’re totally not. And I think it more or less is a marketing jargon that is enticing people. And it’s false. It’s dangerous. That’s what it is. It’s really dangerous. You know, I could almost say that passive income was the same kind of thing. And frankly, I sell an alternative space like the cash value of life insurance, totally, totally passive. Like you can, it doesn’t necessarily create income, but it can in the future with dividends. And there are certainly other spaces out there that truly do have passive income. But for the most part, generating income is not passive. It requires learning. It requires

[05:06] involvement. And again, you want to look at everything that you’re doing, work smart and work hard, go after it, and then go have your free time or do it the other way around. You know, sometimes rejuvenation needs to come first so that you can then get into the project and both work smart and work hard on it and not go in there with the false sense that you’re not going to get what you put in. You know, garbage in is garbage out. That is a rule of life. And there are just only extreme exceptions to that. Now to tighten up this message a little bit, I’m going to borrow from your expertise and Dan Sullivan’s expertise, which is, you know, this whole concept of working smart and hard, we’re not using a time calendar with that either. So it doesn’t mean that working hard

[06:07] means that you have to put in a massive amount of time and for a duration. Working hard doesn’t mean that you’re physically exhausting yourself. You know, when you are helping a family and planning out legacy pieces, you’ve done hard work over decades. And so you have an insight that you can take in a matter of minutes and apply that. And so it’s really decades of wisdom, but it’s compounded by you working smart in a matter of minutes. Wow, that’s super well said. And there are so many people that are at that space with the work that they’re doing. And it is a joy. It enables you to help so many people so effectively and efficiently, which is contributing to that smart and hard dichotomy that we’re chatting about today. And I love your desire to really tighten the

[07:02] message. So what do you think people can do with this? Like what’s the next step in this category? So I think that one, whatever it is that we’re doing, we should do our very best. Regardless if that is taking out the garbage, or if that is working on something in our business or at work, we should do our very best. And the reason why we do that is because we’re amplifying, we’re magnifying that. And if we don’t do our very best, we’re robbing everyone. Now, back to the other comment of working smart and hard. A day laborer has to work very hard with their body, because in many cases, they haven’t graduated by working smarter. They would graduate by learning how to use and operate equipment. And then from there,

[07:58] they learn how to manage people. And then from there, they’d manage projects and up and up from there. So we have to do our very best in whatever it is in order to graduate to that next level. That’s my opinion. I love it. And that’s just something for us to always be thinking about as human beings. It’s easy to have a desire to go at something half speed, if you will. And my reaction, and I’m guilty of this, too. When I have to clean out the barn from all the alpaca poop that’s in there, I’m not loving that. It’s totally day laborer work. And I have a choice. I can either get in there and get it done, or I can put her around with it, not do a very good job, and it takes longer. And so these are the kinds of things that we need to just be conscious of as human beings,

[08:51] for whatever reason, sometimes we just want something for nothing, or we want the results, but we don’t want to put in the effort. And again, it’s a rule of life. It’s a rule of our society. It’s as solid as the rule of gravity. And we’re so much better off just acknowledging it and embracing it and giving ourselves the free days also. Absolutely. Wrapping up with this episode, we have mentioned that we’re starting to do this single call to action, like one focus item on these episodes so that we’re not just snacking on information and snacking on wisdom, but we’re actually applying it. So what would the call to action be on this one, Kim? Conscious action, conscious. I just want to say to be conscious of the distinction and to just

[09:43] take the next 24 hours and watch yourself and see how often you want to adopt without even being conscious of it, the societal something for nothing, and then see how quickly you can flip the switch on that and go all in, turn your brain on, pick up the physical effort necessary, whatever it is, to get the results. Put our radars up and be aware for the next 24 hours. Be conscious. I love it. That works. I think that’s great. Wonderful listeners. Thank you for spending time with us. And I actually should correct myself and say partners. Thank you for doing that because we truly see you as partners and you are in a community with thousands of other people trying to do the same things as you, which is create a better life. And we want to thank you

[10:32] for that. Thank you for listening to the Prosperity Podcast. To take control of your money and have it work for you, visit us at partnersforprosperity.com. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe and leave a review.