Today’s topic one at a time. I am Doug Holt with Author of Your Own Story’s daily growth hacks where each day we give you a tip, trick, or daily Insight on how to better yourself in what we call the five to thrive. That’s mind, body, soul, relationships, and business.

Now, today I want to talk to you entrepreneurs that are out there. So if you’re an entrepreneur or maybe you’re currently in a job and you have an entrepreneurial flare, often times we jumped what’s called “shiny object syndrome” It’s when you have one project you’re working on that project, and then all of sudden you have a light bulb idea and you jump to that project. Soon, you feel like you’re juggling plates and you have all kinds of things going on. You have 10 projects going on at once, but none of them seem to get done. You may even schedule an hour a day for each project, but still, you’re not making headway. So what I’m going to encourage you to do today is what I’ve worked with clients with and has a lot of success. If you have the time with your family that means if you have the time, and even do that home is well with your family. Pick one project, one task, and focus on that for the entire day. Now if you have a 9 -5 job, you’re working on your new business, and you’re saying “Hey, Doug, I only have an hour a night.”I totally understand.

Pick Saturday. Pick Sunday. Pick one large chunk of time that you can barrel down focus on that project or task and really work on it. What you’re going to find is as you’re working on this project, while taking breaks, of course, really making sure 20 minutes of every 45 minutes of focus time. Remember to take a break, and then come back, but having that huge chunk of time to work on that project, you’re going to start to see yourself pushing through barriers. You’re going to see yourself pushing past where you currently were and actually seeing progress. It’s that progress that allows us entrepreneurs the ability to move forward.

Now, you can do this in your home as well. If you’re watching on video, you can see right behind me, I have a project I’m working on. It’s a huge wall map that I’ll be putting right behind me. If you’re listening to this, just picture this gigantic world map. Now, I can tinker with this and work on it 20 minutes at a time, and maybe by the end of the month, I can get it done. Or I can set aside a few hours of dedicated focus time to know exactly where I left off and not have to go back and recheck those items to make sure that I’m progressing fast enough. When we have to go back and look and see “Where did I leave off?” we’re taking mental energy. We’re also wasting time. If you have the ability to dedicate on those large chunks of time to a project, you’re going to find that you’re going to progress much quicker than the other people that are around you.

That’s it for today. I encourage you to look at your 5 to Thrive. That’s mind, body, soul, relationships, and business. See where you have projects just lingering. Theses could be workouts, these could be relationships that you’re just not cultivating very well. Then I want you to go to your calendar and schedule dedicated days. Maybe Monday, you’re just focusing on the world map. Maybe Tuesday, you focus on that new business. That’s up to you. And sometimes you can break it up over 2 weeks. It really depends on what you’re working but have chunked focused time. Put a comment in the Facebook group. Let us know what you’re working on and how we can assist you. If you have any questions, go to our Facebook community and our team will be happy to assist you. And as always, go to www.authorofyourownstory.com.

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You Don’t Want to Do the Work

Hey guys I want to shoot this really quick video for you. I woke up this morning, getting my coffee ready, and I looked down at my cell phone and I had a business owner that just blew my phone up with texts messages. Starting out with, “Doug I need your help.” Now this is a person that wants to be a coaching client of mine that I actually turned down. This is a six-figure opportunity for me. That’s what I charge for a one-year coaching program. And I just didn’t feel it was the right fit and the reason I didn’t feel is the right fit is because really what they want is my lifestyle and the lifestyle I’ve been able to develop. And what they don’t want is the actual work so instead of me telling you more about this, I’m going to let ET kick it off.

He told the guy, he said, “When you want to succeed as bad you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful.” This is what I’m saying: You give 70% effort, the most, the optimal that can come out of giving 70% energy as what? 70% an outcome. That’s it. So y’all got to do me a favor for real. I’m not playing, like the energy y’all give off sucks. Like it ain’t no other way for me to say it. It sucks and I don’t care about the energy you’re giving me right now but if you’re taking this energy you giving me into the real world, you’re gonna be average. So when you get out of here, I’m talking about, “I need energy. You don’t have to be the smartest person in the world but sometimes when you’re smart, people still don’t notice you. People always notice what? Always, if you’re not careful, you’ll get electrocuted. You have to pay attention to energy and things that energize. That’s all I’m asking you to do. I’m saying most of you are not successfully not because you have reached your highest level of success. You are not successful because you stopped focusing on it. You quit focusing on it. You got a job and you just stop. You’re young and you dream cause when you get to my age you don’t have a lot of time to do it. There’s a whole lot of responsibilities, you just can’t wake up in the morning, just go walk in 30 minutes, and just dream, dream, dream. You got bills, bills, bills. You know why I laugh when your people come to me and say, “you know ET, man, I want to blow up in the speaking industry.”

I told one young man, “Let’s just be honest. What you want is the life that I have now. You don’t
want to go through the life that I went through to get to the life that I have now. Let’s be clear.”

You can have the life that I have. You can make the money I make or more if you want to. You can travel the world if you want to. But you cannot do this without the lifestyle. You can’t do this by getting up at 9 o’clock in the morning. It’s 3 o’clock. There’s a 3 o’clock grind. Look, I want to show you something. When you dream, you see this right here, when you dream, all your dreams coming home. You ever notice that when you dream, they don’t come in halves. When you dream you see the entire picture you like I’m gonna be a doctor, I’m going to be a surgeon. I’m going to make $100,000 a year, I’m going to get married. You see how he look, you see the whole thing. When you dream and close your eyes, everything is a whole. But in real life, the lifestyle isn’t a symbol.

Listen to me: I want you to dream. Why? Because energy comes from dreams. Knowledge is good. But knowledge doesn’t necessarily turn into something. When you have an imagination and you can see things, BOOM, that change your whole life. So I want you to dream: in the morning, in the afternoon, at night. I want you to dream. I’m not a scrooge, I’m not telling you “don’t do it.” What I’m telling you is: when you dream you have to understand that it comes a symbol. Everything is there, but when you wake up, the lifestyle, somebody has to put that together. Somebody has do something to make that happen. So as a student, you are in the last phase of dreaming. That’s all I’m trying to tell you. I want you to dream. If you are a freshman, go for it. You’re a sophomore, go for it. You’re a junior, you have a little more time. If you are a senior, you should be not dreaming right now. No more dreaming. If you are a senior, dreaming is over. It’s over like I need specifics: What are you doing on Monday? What are you doing on Tuesday? What are you doing on Wednesday? You need to be very specific. It’s time to put your pieces together of your puzzle. I put mine together. I put mine together. I put this life together. I made it happen. My father wasn’t here for me. My mother worked until 4. Nobody helped me to get here. I had to get up, I had to go to class, I had to read, I had to study, I had to write, I understood that the dream is real. But the lifestyle is realer. You see people on TV and you want to be that. No, it’s real. Do you have what it takes when you stick the steel plate? You ready for that? You ready for the dream? You ready for the car? And what I hate about this generation, with the Snapchat and the Instagram, you can live something that you’re not living. You can put it up there and fake it like you’re included. You’re taking a pic by somebody’s car. You can fake it as a generation like you have money when you don’t. You can fake it on Instagram but when I follow you home, let me follow you home, what you got? Let me see with your house. Let me pull up the driveway, let me see what you really got, take me into your bedroom. Y’all acting like it’s your house. You all don’t realize how sick this generation is. It’s sick. You can fake it like you got something you don’t. You can fake it like you got a life like you don’t. But you got to get your butt up and go take the LSAT and you can’t fake it when you take that test. Y’all FAKE. You want a lifestyle but you don’t want to earn it. You got to earn this.

If Eric Thomas doesn’t motivate you, I don’t know who will. That’s it for me. Just remember when you look at somebody whether it be on social media or you get a chance to know them and they’re actually at a point that you want to get to, ask them how they got there. Remember, it does take work to get to that next level and whatever you’re striving for just make sure you’re putting in that time and get going.

That’s it for me, have a great day.

Today’s topic: extra time.

This is your daily growth hack, where each day we bring you tips, tricks, and insights to help you uplevel your life so you can become the author of your own story and what we call the five to thrive. That’s mind, body, soul, relationships, and business. Now, what do I mean by extra time. I know you’re thinking like “Doug, you know we all have 24 hours in a day. Nobody has extra time.” And that’s totally true, but let’s say you’re the average American.

Now, I know you’re watching this and you’re going off to www.authorofyourownstory.com and you’re participating in the community. You are anything but average. You’re extraordinary. You’re actually one of those people that are taking the bull by the horns, and living life on your terms. And I commend you for that, but let’s take a step back and just think, “What if you were average? You’re the average person, okay? And maybe we’re closer than we think. Well, did you know the average person spends four hours a day watching TV? Two more hours on social media. That’s six hours a day. Well, what could you do with six hours a day? I mean, if you just wrote that down, it would be astonishing. Did you know that if you just eliminated TV and social media, just in those six-hour average times, you can master a foreign language, be fluent in two months?

Think of all the things that you can do just by simply reducing that time. Let’s say you only watch two hours of TV and spend an hour on social media, then that frees up three hours a day of your time to pursue your goals, your passion. Start a new business, really connect with the people that you love, look at those people that in your life and spend time with them. Look at your goals: What do you want to learn? Is a foreign language? Do you want to learn to surf? snowboard? Do you want to travel more? Do you want to start a new business? What I’d love you to do is take out your journal or your notebook, and write down those things you do in a day. Now, everybody that I’ve coached says “Doug, I don’t watch TV. I’m not on social media that much.” Well, come to find out, they are a lot more than they think.

There are lots of good applications out there that can monitor your time on your computer. I use one to track my time to see what I’m on. What websites I’m spending too much time on. How much I’m on Facebook or YouTube or any other websites, reading journals or newspapers or etc online as well as on my mobile device: my cell phone. Really trying to see where I’m at and tracking my time. There’s also just journaling, writing down what you’re doing. You would be shocked to know how much time are you spending in the car, and while you’re in the car, are you listening to something that’s feeding your brain? Are you listening to bubblegum music? pop music or country or whatever it is that you enjoy? That’s fine, but do it with intent. Listen to music as you love it, but don’t listen to it just to drown out the other sounds. Try silence. Try our driving meditation so to speak. Or listen to something like the daily grow hacks that’s going to help you up level your life.

What I’m challenging you to do today is write down your times. Each day, write down all those things that you do. Write down how often you watch tv, watch the people around you. If you’re married with your spouse, don’t try to change this habit just yet. Just record it. Just be aware how often are you actually commuting, how often are you actually spending on social media.

I highly recommend downloading and installing one of these time-tracking applications that you can actually look at at the end of the day and see how much time you’re spending on websites such as Facebook, YouTube, or any of the news media outlets. Look at your time at the end of the week. See where that’s benefiting you and see where you want to move or pivot. Now, I know for me, I found that I was actually watching a lot more TV and I found myself on YouTube quite often.

Now, I watch you Youtube too because I watch shows like this too. I watch things that are going to inspire me or going to uplift my life, but I found that I was watching them a lot more than I thought. I was spending a lot more time on these websites and by consciously making a decision to cut that down, I’ve actually been taking that time and started practicing my Spanish. Now, over next course of a year, I could be fluent in Spanish if I continue on this path. If I multiply the hours they say that it takes to master of foreign language, I’m on track. And by this time next year, when you and I are having a conversation, I’ll be able to speak to you in Spanish, and it’ll be awesome.

So, the whole idea of extra time is being conscious of your time. So write your times down to really track it. I really highly recommend these time tracking devices are available for laptops as well as phones, but also manually tracking things that you’re doing. And I’m not saying TV is bad or social media’s bad. Nothing’s bad. It’s just is that where you want to put your intention? If you were to look at yourself a year from now and look back on how you got to where you want to be, was it the TV time that is really rewarding you? You know when you sit down binge-watching five shows of the Walking Dead, the next day, do you feel better about yourself? Or is that time better spent doing something else? Maybe watching one episode or two or maybe spending another time doing it? Really, what I’m asking to do is just be conscious of your time.

I’d love to hear your results, love for you to share them in the Facebook group. Also, remember to get these show notes and all the other show notes, as well as tips tricks and other ways to uplevel your life, go to:  www.authorofyourownstory.com today.  That’s it for me today. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

That’s it for me today. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.

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Today’s topic is Pareto’s principle and your to-do list.

Now, if you’re like me, your to-do list is a mile long. There’s all kinds of apps these days: web applications with different tips and tricks on how to manage it a to-do list. You know, people are always adding to it. It could be your spouse, another loved one, family member, friends, co-workers.

The list goes on, and no matter how much you chip away at that to-do list, it always seems to keep growing. Well, I want to talk about a technique that I utilize. It helps me be really efficient and get a lot more done as well as spend more time doing the things that I like to do.

Now, the Pareto’s principle also called the Pareto method or the 80/20 rule, is very commonly known as really states that about eighty percent of your results comes from twenty percent of the causes. So what this really is saying is that twenty percent of the actions that you perform really result in eighty percent of the outcomes that you’re looking for.

Now, of course, you always want to start with the outcome in mind, of what you’re actually trying to achieve. But apply it to a to-do list, what you can do is go ahead and print out your to-do list, write it out, or just pull it out wherever you keep it. Look at your phone I don’t care. Either way, what I want you to do is look at that to-do list, look and find those twenty percent of those to-dos that are going to produce eighty percent of the results that you’re desiring. Now, once you’ve highlighted, starred, or mark this twenty percent, you’re going to be able to free up a lot more time because, obviously, what this means is eighty percent of those items on your to-do list give you a marginal twenty percent of the results you’re looking for.

I’m not saying that that twenty percent isn’t significant, but let’s be realistic, you really want to start with that top twenty percent that you’re looking to achieve that’s going to give you those eighty percent of results, so you can free up your time. And what I found, and I think you will too, is as you focus on those twenty percent of those really high achievable items, you’re going to notice

that that other eighty percent just disappears. It goes away, because you’ll actually achieve the outcome you’re desiring. Often times, we make a to-do list with things we think need to be done, but for thinking of the outcome first, and I’m working on that top twenty percent of my list. And I achieve my outcome, I can wipe out the rest of it because I got what I wanted. I think you’ll experience the same thing.

Give this a shot today and let me know how it goes for you. I’d love to hear your feedback. Also, remember to go to authorofyourownstory.com where you can get daily tips, tricks, as well as deeper dives into other material that we talked about. And join our community.

I look forward to seeing you there and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.