Dan Martell - August 07, 2023


How CEOs Buy Back Their Time

Topics
calendar investments outcomes
Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Travis
How to Kill Bad Habits Rich vs Wealthy

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

213.5

Word count

2,226

Sentence count

105


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I share three strategies that are not found in my best selling book, Buy Back Your Time, on how you can get even more leverage in your business and in your personal life. These are strategies not covered in my book, but I think you'll really benefit from them.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Here's three strategies that are not found in my best-selling book,
00:00:03.720 Buy Back Your Time, on how you can get even more leverage.
00:00:06.520 And I talk about calendar outcomes and leadership of your direct reports
00:00:10.620 that most people struggle with.
00:00:12.640 You know, recently I was doing a coaching call
00:00:14.620 with one of my clients in my elite coaching program,
00:00:17.000 which is for non-software founders,
00:00:18.860 so people that are not in tech,
00:00:20.700 building HVAC companies and coaching companies and agencies.
00:00:24.540 And they had read my book.
00:00:25.720 They installed the perfect week.
00:00:26.960 They did the time and energy audit.
00:00:28.200 They understood audit, transfer, fill,
00:00:30.340 but they were still running into people problems
00:00:32.500 or how do I connect my big vision
00:00:34.560 that I talk about in chapter 13,
00:00:36.120 dream bigger, achieve bigger into the calendar?
00:00:39.120 And then what about the people?
00:00:40.680 Like, okay, I bought back my time,
00:00:42.520 but I still feel like people are coming to me
00:00:44.260 to ask questions for me to give them the answer.
00:00:46.540 And I wanna be able to start working through people
00:00:49.440 because that is usually the complexity ceiling
00:00:51.460 that stops people
00:00:52.440 because they don't understand to work through people.
00:00:54.900 So I wanna unpack the three things I share with that client
00:00:57.560 that help them see the future, the vision,
00:01:00.000 get the blueprint for the next level
00:01:01.840 that's not covered in the book.
00:01:03.800 Let's get into it.
00:01:07.460 So this is an advanced strategy
00:01:09.300 for leading your direct reports, okay?
00:01:11.420 So anybody that's in leadership
00:01:12.980 has people that they manage,
00:01:14.580 they're accountable to,
00:01:15.560 their performance reviews,
00:01:16.780 their compensation,
00:01:18.180 their training, their coaching.
00:01:20.140 And as the CEO,
00:01:21.460 most people don't realize
00:01:22.860 that you should force yourself
00:01:24.440 to only have seven max.
00:01:26.580 Like, I'm talking Max.
00:01:27.780 One time I remember asking one of my mentors,
00:01:29.680 this guy Travis, he had built a company
00:01:31.540 to 5,000 employees in four years.
00:01:34.800 And I said, Travis, I can't even comprehend.
00:01:37.580 How did you do that?
00:01:39.020 And he said, well, I only ever have
00:01:40.720 five to seven direct reports.
00:01:42.880 And I'm like, what do you mean?
00:01:44.000 He goes, my job every day is to wake up
00:01:46.660 and create what's called management bandwidth.
00:01:49.460 And I'm like, okay, I like the sound of this.
00:01:51.080 What does that mean?
00:01:51.620 He goes, well, at the end of the day,
00:01:53.280 whatever we're trying to execute
00:01:54.680 or any crazy ideas I come up with for each division
00:01:57.860 in my business, I can move things forward
00:02:01.400 based on the ability of my team to move that forward.
00:02:04.920 So I have to look at each leader
00:02:06.660 that reports directly to me and say,
00:02:08.480 do they have the skills, the capacity, et cetera,
00:02:11.000 to move this forward?
00:02:12.580 And if I don't, then I've got to either upgrade them
00:02:14.740 or I got to coach them, right?
00:02:16.080 Or they, yeah, they might have to transition down.
00:02:18.460 Whatever it is, I want you to consider this idea, okay?
00:02:21.360 When you have direct reports, cap yourself to five.
00:02:24.680 maximum seven if you have to go to seven and really squeeze it out all right go to seven but
00:02:30.760 i'm telling you if you force yourself to only have five direct reports or seven direct reports
00:02:35.020 and those are the people that no matter what you want to get done in your life okay those are the
00:02:40.320 ones you work through it'll be a game changer and the key is is always have them come to you with a
00:02:46.060 one three one and i talk about this in the book but it is so important i want to repeat it anytime
00:02:51.200 they come to you with a problem I want you to immediately ask them back what's your thoughts
00:02:55.240 always what's your thoughts I literally was doing a one-on-one this morning with one of my direct
00:02:59.000 reports and they brought up three things and they forgot to bring a one-three-one so I can just keep
00:03:03.660 it simple and short what are your thoughts they said here's a problem I'd love to get your
00:03:07.600 perspective perfect what are your thoughts I want to hear from them I want to hear what they've
00:03:12.280 evaluated I want to hear what they've considered I want to hear what context that they've gathered
00:03:16.620 research conversation to have with other people. And through that feedback, I'm going to listen.
00:03:21.200 And then together, we're going to collaborate to come up with an outcome. Why this is powerful.
00:03:25.720 And this is where most people mess things up and they create a ceiling of complexity
00:03:29.420 is that you are teaching that person how to self-solve. You're teaching the person how to
00:03:35.120 fish. They don't need to come to you in the future because over time, they know you're
00:03:39.260 going to ask them that same question. What do you recommend? And oftentimes when we actually
00:03:43.340 stop and reflect. We know what we need to do. We just, I don't know, sometimes we just think that
00:03:49.180 maybe it's easier to have somebody else tell us. Or if I get somebody else to tell me what to do,
00:03:53.720 then it's not my fault if it doesn't work. And as a CEO, you may be doing that to your team where
00:03:57.960 you're always telling them what to do. So I want to encourage you. This is the thing I gave my
00:04:01.780 client. Cap your direct reports to five at most seven. Number two is how to fill your calendar
00:04:08.340 with the right things.
00:04:10.480 You know, it's cool to buy back your time,
00:04:12.360 but I often have people,
00:04:13.480 and I talk about this in my book,
00:04:14.800 where they buy back all this time
00:04:16.220 and then in a year they wake up and they go,
00:04:18.460 all right, I'm not really working too much
00:04:20.880 and I don't have a lot of stuff going on,
00:04:22.640 so I bought back all of this time,
00:04:24.920 but I don't feel productive.
00:04:26.340 I don't feel fulfilled.
00:04:27.700 And if you look at the drip matrix in my book,
00:04:30.060 drip is delegate, replace, invest, and then produce.
00:04:34.100 Most people don't realize,
00:04:35.380 but it is literally on the left side,
00:04:37.700 This is how we transfer things off of our plate, right?
00:04:40.540 Delegate and replace.
00:04:41.580 And then on the right side, it's all about investing, okay?
00:04:44.380 And then producing.
00:04:45.760 What do we do with the newfound time?
00:04:47.840 So this is my recommendation to you.
00:04:49.840 I always look at my calendar through a rhythm, okay?
00:04:52.660 It's energy management.
00:04:53.800 It's not time management.
00:04:55.320 I would much rather get into a flow of batching
00:04:58.180 a certain type of call in a certain day of the week,
00:05:01.760 maybe in a two-hour sprint where I'm like back-to-back-to-back
00:05:04.540 50-minute calls doing something that needs to get done
00:05:07.620 than managing those calls over the five days of the week, right?
00:05:11.520 So I really want you to think about the energy flow of your week.
00:05:15.020 And most people don't put in, these are the big ideas,
00:05:18.860 the skill development they need to develop to get to the next level,
00:05:22.480 the belief systems about how the world works
00:05:25.040 that they don't even realize are there.
00:05:26.800 It's oftentimes the things that you believe that are simply not true
00:05:29.800 that is an issue.
00:05:31.160 Sometimes we got to give some stuff up to make space
00:05:33.920 for the things we need to add, right?
00:05:36.540 Oftentimes, you gotta ask yourself,
00:05:38.080 what am I willing to give up?
00:05:39.260 If I want this crazy goal, what am I willing to give up?
00:05:43.200 Where's the space gonna come from?
00:05:45.260 And that's what you do with your calendar
00:05:47.760 so that it is in there, that it is part of the flow
00:05:50.660 so that you never feel like all you're doing is nothing
00:05:53.500 where you bought back all this time, right?
00:05:55.260 I had a client yesterday tell me,
00:05:56.820 I hired an executive assistant six weeks ago
00:05:59.300 and I now have 35 hours a week.
00:06:01.580 What am I supposed to do with that?
00:06:02.740 I'm like, you forgot the other part.
00:06:04.880 You forgot the invest.
00:06:05.840 you forgot to produce and the part is about becoming more so you have more to give right
00:06:10.880 so that for me is skills beliefs and more important your character traits the confidence
00:06:16.420 the communication skills the belief the self-worth you know you're never going to achieve a penny
00:06:22.420 more than you feel you deserve than you feel that belongs to you that you feel you're valuable at
00:06:29.980 most people under charge for what they do because they don't feel like they're worth more and that
00:06:34.540 where you got to go deep so you buy back your time to then go and actually schedule the investments
00:06:40.460 in the books in the mentorship in the training in the community in in whatever it is to help
00:06:46.220 you level up so you can become more so you've got more to give number three is outcomes to calendar
00:06:52.300 see when i coach clients i don't know i just see the world a lot differently i look at my calendar
00:06:57.820 i look at my vision i look at my goals for the year and i just i'm always mapping it like are
00:07:02.860 are the things I'm doing this week,
00:07:04.280 align with the things I wanna get done this year,
00:07:06.340 to the month, to the quarter, et cetera.
00:07:08.440 And oftentimes when I ask people,
00:07:10.580 they don't understand what's the number one thing
00:07:12.720 holding them back, right?
00:07:14.040 So they might have this crazy goal,
00:07:15.260 but when I say, well, what's the leading domino?
00:07:17.100 What's the one thing if you actually executed,
00:07:19.400 it would make everything else easier.
00:07:22.120 And once you know that, then show me your calendar.
00:07:25.760 Because one of my non-negotiables is every morning,
00:07:28.560 I wake up and I focus the first 90 minutes of my day
00:07:32.280 on the project that is going to move things forward.
00:07:35.780 And I stay on it, and I execute,
00:07:38.420 and I'm obsessive about it, and I put in the time,
00:07:40.940 and I create the activity so that it becomes inevitable.
00:07:45.240 See, most people don't put their outcomes in their calendar.
00:07:48.680 They just allow themselves to be distracted
00:07:50.440 by the squeaky wheel.
00:07:52.320 Whatever client's the noisiest, team member's the noisiest,
00:07:55.300 biggest fire they gotta put out,
00:07:56.780 they don't give themselves the gift
00:07:59.680 of blocking out the time
00:08:01.160 to move their most important project forward
00:08:03.620 so that everything else takes care of it.
00:08:05.620 And this is why I work with my executive assistant.
00:08:07.420 This is an advanced buyback strategy,
00:08:09.540 is she knows my goals.
00:08:10.920 She knows what my projects are
00:08:12.400 and we lock them into the calendar.
00:08:14.460 When we meet up, it's like,
00:08:15.780 okay, tomorrow morning you're working on this.
00:08:17.440 You also have this project, you have this thing coming up.
00:08:19.160 Do you want me to put 30 minutes there?
00:08:20.400 Yep.
00:08:21.240 Do you want me to put 60 minutes there?
00:08:22.080 Yep.
00:08:22.920 Do you want me to schedule a meeting with this person?
00:08:23.860 Yep.
00:08:24.680 Put it in the calendar.
00:08:26.320 See, some of you guys buy back all this time
00:08:28.200 you have this calendar space and it's blank that's not supposed to be how it works if you follow the
00:08:33.720 perfect week formula that i teach in the book you would know you want to allocate it but most of you
00:08:38.040 guys forget to allocate the outcomes the projects the tasks the meetings the conversations the
00:08:43.400 creativity that are really going to allow you to co-create with people at a higher level and that's
00:08:47.400 another thing most of you guys are building by yourselves and i want to invite you to consider
00:08:51.560 build with other people because you will do way more for somebody else that you made a commitment
00:08:56.280 too right you won't cancel a meeting on somebody else but you'll cancel working out with yourself
00:09:01.160 you'll cancel doing the hard work with yourself you'll cancel doing the sales calls the sales
00:09:06.040 chats the sales outreach with yourself schedule it with somebody else make yourself accountable
00:09:11.800 to them that co-creation will be like a three x it is one of my secrets right i love to build
00:09:18.040 companies with other people because it just makes the whole process more fun that is my invitation
00:09:23.960 to you. I want you to think about it. How efficient are you really with your time? And that's why I
00:09:29.020 wrote a whole chapter called The Time Assassins. Because sure, you can buy back your time, but why
00:09:34.280 don't we start with this? Why don't we eliminate the waste? Why don't we remove the things that
00:09:39.940 are vices, that are bad patterns, that are habits, that are robbing us of those precious seconds
00:09:46.020 every freaking day? Why don't we start there? Because sure, you can go spend a bunch of time
00:09:51.680 and money and hire people and manage all these people to buy back your time only to waste it or
00:09:56.640 you can get honest with yourself look in the mirror and say what do i need to do to become
00:10:02.440 even more productive with my time how do i force myself and create these forcing functions
00:10:06.880 it's like the day before you go on a big trip for most people it's the most productive day of their
00:10:12.220 month why because you know there's this forcing function to go on vacation set the scenario up
00:10:18.320 for you to win.
00:10:19.780 That's my invitation for you.
00:10:21.060 How do you level up your time
00:10:22.900 so you produce even more with the time you got?