Hi everyone, Travis Robertson.
I want to talk with you today about something that's been coming up more and more in the
conversations I've been having and it's that agents are feeling more and more overwhelmed
by everything they feel like they have to do to keep their business up and running and
to market their business.
They're told by this person you need to be using this app or this tool or this resource
or this website and it feels like we just can't keep with everything because there's
more and more stuff that always seems to be piling onto an already busy, already overloaded
schedule.
How do we deal with it?
Do we need to keep with up with all these things?
Do we have to be involved in all these apps and tool and websites?
Or is there another way to do this?
I want to tell you a story, not too long ago, a psychologist was invited to the Pentagon
to give a presentation on time management and on resource management to a group of generals
that weren't really the top minds in the U.S. military.
The psychologist kind of opened up the session with one of those icebreaker-types of things
that they tend to do and he said here's what I want you to do.
In 25 words or less, I want you write down your strategy, your process for managing all
of the resources, all of the tools, all of the stuff that you have to do on a daily basis.
Write it down in 25 words or less.
It sounds easy right?
Here's the problem.
It stumped every single person in that room except for one person.
And that person happened to be the only female general in that room.
She was extremely decorated—Afghan vet, Iraq vet.
Very, very accomplished general.
Do you want to know what she wrote?
Here's what she wrote.
First, everything that I do is I take all of my priorities—one to—I just number
them.
I list out all my priorities—one, two, three, and so on and all the way down the list until
she gets all of her priorities listed out.
Then, she crosses out everything from three on down.
Now, I didn't say it in 25 words or less but she wrote that down in 25 words or less.
She crosses out everything from three on down.
Now, if you're like most of the generals in that room, they freaked out.
They're like that's impossible.
You're with one of the most complex militaries in the world if not the most complex military
in the world and you're telling us that you only have two priorities at any given point
in time and that you cross everything else out.
And she said yes.
She said because what I have learned is I can be doing all these other things but not
do them effectively or I can focus on or I can focus on two things and be effective and
I've learned that I can only do two things at any given point in time effectively.
The psychologist actually backed her up and said you know what, she's actually right.
We love to think that we're hardwired to be able to multitask.
Unless you're a guy...guys tend not to think that way but a lot of females do think that
they can multitask and what we've found from more and more studies that have been released
on how the brain operates is that we are actually hardwired not to multitask.
We're hardwired to be focused to be laser focused on activities.
That's where we find our most effective productivity.
What does this mean to you?
what this means to you is that you need to take all of these ideas, all of these things
that you're hearing and be able to filter it down and say you know what, while they
may be good things, they're not great things for my business.
I want to be not in inch deep and a mile wide.
I want to be laser focused on a few things and do a few things exceedingly well and be
okay with the things that I don't do.
It's interesting.
Steve Jobs, when he was—some of you may have even heard of this story.
When he was let go from Apple and then he came back to take over Apple, one of the things
he found is that they had over 350 product lines that they were working with when they
came back.
And he's like you guys, this is terrible.
You kind of suck at all of them.
You're not doing any of them really well.
So he took it down from 350 product lines all the way down to 10.
He said we're going to do 10 things exceedingly well and it's what catapulted Apple to the
top of the technology innovative channels, one of the most innovative technology companies.
What he said at the end of his life is he said I'm just as proud of the 10,000 things
we didn't do as the 10 ten things we did really, really well because he learned that to say
no to 10,000 things is what true innovation is all about.
What I want you to focus on is go back, look at you business, look at your marketing, look
at everything that you're doing and say, wait a minute, is this making me better and more
effective or is this making things more complex and more challenging for me to keep my business
going.
If it's making it more complicated, making it more challenging, making it more complex,
I would encourage you, cut it out.
Just cut the crap and focus on doing the things that you can be laser focused on, be effective
at and do a few things exceedingly well that a lot of things poorly.
That's my tip for you guys today.
Have a great week.
I'll be coming with more this week.
If you like this video, just down in this corner, go ahead and click on the thumb up
button or subscribe on the upper right.
I look forward to seeing you guys again.
Take care.