In this episode of the Shark Theory podcast, Baylor discusses the importance of productivity and how it can be a valuable asset to achieve our goals and dreams. He shares tips on how to eliminate distractions and focus on the things that push us forward, such as adopting a success-driven mindset and making an action plan. Baylor also suggests finding ways to be more efficient and productive, such as multitasking and starting early in the day. By investing in our productivity, we can achieve our desired outcomes and reach our full potential.

The Importance of Productivity [00:01:01] Baylor talks about how productivity is like a stock and how we need to eliminate the extra things in our lives to move forward.

Success vs. Doing [00:02:22] Baylor discusses the difference between succeeding and just doing, and how we need to have a success mindset to reach our goals.

Efficient Productivity [00:04:54] Baylor shares tips on how to produce more efficiently, including the concept of “twofer” and being quality in the hours we put into our craft.

Active Recovery [00:05:31] Baylor talks about the concept of active recovery in fitness and how it can be applied to productivity by doing something productive while chilling.

Asking Yourself How [00:06:12] Baylor suggests asking yourself how you plan on approaching things to put it in the forefront of your mind and prime your subconscious to find an answer.

Start Earlier [00:06:50] Baylor advises starting earlier in the day to give yourself a jump on the competition and be purpose-driven. They suggest waking up 30 minutes earlier to add more time to your day.

 

___

TRANSCRIPTION

(00:00:00) – You are now listening to Shark Theory. I’m your host, Baylor Barbee.

 

(00:00:08) – Hey, what’s up everybody? Good morning. Let’s jump right into it. I was reading this fascinating story on a guy named Ronald Wayne. Now Ronald Wayne was one of the first investors in Apple. Um, but here’s the thing. He had a 10% interest in the company, but 12 days after Apple started, he decided, I don’t wanna be a part of this. And he sold his 10% back to Steve Jobs and them for $800. This is back in 1976. As of today, right now, that stock would’ve been worth 260 billion. If you had that, think of how important that stock is. Just imagine if you knew this particular stock right here absolutely is gonna pay dividends beyond my wildest dream. Wouldn’t you jump on that stock? Well, guess what? When it comes to what really matters in life, which is you, your time, your life, and where you’re headed, you have an opportunity to take advantage of that stock.

(00:01:01) – Now, what is that stock I’m talking about? That stock is your productivity, which is, if you really look at ’em and think about what productivity is, is our relationship with time right now, you have an opportunity right now to develop that skill. What you’re doing is you’re giving value to that stock. The problem is so many of us are, are going through life doing all of this extra stuff, right? I, I go to the butcher, my brother told me about this butcher, and I wanted to experience like a real life butcher shop for myself. And you get there and there’s these huge slaps of meat. And what do they do is they trim the fat, they leave some fat on it because some fat locks in the taste. We said, you don’t need all this extra. That’s what we have to start to look at in our life right now.

(00:01:40) – How many things are we doing that are just extra? Yeah, they feel good. Yeah, they look good. Yeah, they might give us a little bit more flavor in life, but ultimately it’s fattening. Meaning it’s not really pushing us forward. It’s not really doing much of actually propelling us and we have to get rid of those things. There’s a book, um, called The One Thing By by Gary Keller, and I referenced this book a lot or used to, uh, but it’s called The One Thing, the Surprisingly Simple Truth Beyond Behind, uh, extraordinary Results. And one of the concepts in there that I’ve, I’ve just always loved and thought about it for years is this concept of succeeding, not doing right. And, and he kind of equate that to, uh, you know, a lot of people make to-do lists just to mark things off to say they did ’em, right?

(00:02:22) – That’s just being busy. But it tells you to remove the things that don’t move you forward and make a success list and do that. So I ask you this, like in in, in the pursuit of what you’re trying to accomplish right now, are you just doing it or are you succeeding it? Think about the mindset shift. You have to have to just say, well, I’m gonna do my best in saying I’m absolutely gonna get it done. That small little, uh, differentiation in how you approach it is gonna lead to a massive impact down the road. I think that’s the problem, is we give ourself out routes before we ever start. We have one foot up. We prepare for the excuses. We prepare for what we’re gonna say if we fail. Right? That’s the doers in the world say, well, I mean I’m gonna do it.

(00:03:01) – I’m gonna, I’m gonna try to start the business. I’m gonna try to lose weight. I’m gonna, uh, you know, try to start saving money. And then you have the people who say, no, I, I am. Absolutely. Yeah, I’m starting that business. You know what? I filed the LLC today. I’m meeting with the business manager tomorrow and get him, get a mentor on, on Wednesday and or, you know, whatever the the case may be, they make an action plan, they get it done, right? You have to start to adapt. The surefire way to start cutting out and trimming the fat is to put yourself in that like success mindset. Meaning like, no, it’s already done. Now I just gotta go do it. It’s like I heard a, a, a phrase, um, and and said, you know, you’re a millionaire. You just have to find somebody to write or to sign the check.

(00:03:39) – You know, you have to approach your life like that. Think of how much more purposeful if bought that philosophy of, and again, millionaire’s not just monetary money, but in whatever matters to you say, look, you already have it. Your job is to find somebody to write check. You would approach life differently, right? If you’re trying to start a business, you look investor for an investor, you would have it together so that you could go put your best foot forward. That’s what it’s saying about a lot of productivity is just like, no, I gotta move with purpose. Cuz I said I’m going to get X done and so I’m going to get X, Y, and Z done because that’s what I said I’m gonna do. I’m not giving myself a chance to make excuses. I’m not gonna think about all the reasons that it couldn’t work because of the people that do those people that try.

(00:04:17) – I’m not either one of those. I’m a success driven person, meaning I reach my goals, I cross my finish lines, I do what I set out to do. That’s the mindset you have to have. Just by, by way of staying laser focused on that, you’re gonna eliminate, eliminate a lot of things, right? You’re gonna eliminate those time waters, those slapping at the waters. Like I told you, you know, when I do, first time I did a triathlon, I got in the water and just, I was swimming as hard as I could just smacking the water and not going anywhere. And that’s what a lot of us would do. We just smack in the water, but we’re not moving forward. We have to figure out how do I become efficient? Not how do I be busy, right? So be sure you have a success, not do mindset.

(00:04:54) – So how do we do that? How do we produce more efficiently? Cause again, I’m not over here saying you gotta work more hours. In fact, lesser hours is better, but we want to be quality and hours that we put into our craft. Uh, Zig Ziegler was one of the, the one I learned from probably 20 years ago. But he had this, this idea of twofer, like, what can you do two things at, at, at the same time? And so, like for instance, he said, uh, I was watching a ball game and I’m reading a newspaper because I can do this at the same time. He said, cause if it’s good enough play, they’ll show it again, right? So you think about where can you do the twofer. Uh, one of the ones that I personally do is when I work out, that’s when I listen to my audiobook, right?

(00:05:31) – So it gives me a chance to get my workout done and, and retain some good information. So it allows me to learn while I’m working out. So you figure out for yourself, uh, what can you do while you’re doing something else? And typically what it’s saying is use some sort of productivity productive, uh, method of something while you’re chilling, right? Uh, in in in fitness they call that active recovery, you know? So it’s like, yes, we’re, we’re, technically it’s an off day, technically it’s rest, but we’re still gonna stretch. We’re still gonna move forward, forward. So we’re resting, but we’re also continuing to push our body. So you figure out what those, uh, twofer that you can do to kind of start, you know, doubling up on some time. And again, this is not saying multitask, but what can you do while you’re chilling that you can still be some productive things on?

(00:06:12) – Um, another thing I do is ask myself how, like asking yourself how, you know, like, okay, I’m gonna be successful. How do I need to do that? You have more answers in your head than you realize. A lot of times we don’t get to our results because we don’t even really sit down and have this like, honest conversation about how we plan on approaching these things. But just by the way of asking yourself that, it puts it in the forefront of your mind. Like, when I have a big problem, ask myself right before I go to bed, when I’m wake up in the morning, how am I gonna get this done? And then all day, and a lot of times we’ll just come to you because your mind subconscious has been primed to find an answer to the question that you ask it. And finally, this one sounds so silly, but I’m telling you start earlier.

(00:06:50) – Start earlier in the day if you can. Literally just, I, I had somebody other day was telling me, uh, they wanted to, you know, be a writer. I’m like, well, if you just literally write for 30 minutes a day, just wake up 30 minutes earlier. Like that is a lot of time. Like how much time you go through in a, in a by adding to your day, adding to your life just by taking 30 minutes outta your sleep. Even if you’ve gotta go to bed earlier, you just take 30 minutes away, starting earlier gives you a jump on the competition. Jump on the competition is infectious because you realize you staying ahead of the competition and you don’t wanna resort back to it. If you can just for a couple of weeks until your body, your mind can, can adjust real. Tell yourself this is just a two or three week process of me hating the mornings. But after that, I’ll never give up. These mornings persons. Get rid of this mentality of I’m not a morning person. You don’t have to be a morning person, but you, a purpose-driven person starts early. You purpose.