This week on Freedom In Five MInutes, we will talk about time.
Of all the assets available to you, time is the most valuable. Time that is lost, spent, or given away can never be taken back. So, how do you create more time in your business and personal life?
Overview & Episode Content
- Your Most Valuable Resource is Time
- Lessons from Family Meetings
- Get Massive Wins in Time through Delegating Administrative Tasks
- People Who Say “That’s Just The Way It Is” Are Usually Wrong
- Separate Your High-level Tasks from Your Low-level Tasks
- There are More Time-saving Resources for You Out There
- You Must Seek and Uncover Resources that Saves You Time
Your Most Valuable Resource is Time
I have family meetings every morning and every night. And these meetings are fantastic ways to spend time with our kids, talk, and pray together as a family.
For the family meetings that we do in the mornings, we pick one word that would guide each of us throughout the day. One of my daughters, for example, might pick the word, “Perseverance.” She would use that word as a guiding idea for her day. As an example, “I am going to persevere and do a lot of good work today.”
Every one of my eight kids (going on nine kids) would take turns to pick out their words and share their guiding ideas. And in the evenings, we would have another family meeting.
Now, the family was gathered for one of these meetings when I asked my kids a question, “What is your most valuable resource?”
And almost immediately one of my daughters, Amelie, responded, “Time!”
“That’s exactly right!” I was beaming with pride at her.
The most valuable resource is time.
People can get money with investors, or through borrowing, or by creating a product. You can always find people to ask, or help do stuff for you—sometimes for free! But you can never get back your time. So, time is your most valuable resource.
Lessons from Family Meetings
The person most famous for quoting time as the most valuable resource is Peter Drucker—one of the most influential management thinkers of the 20th century. He is also the author of The Effective Executive.
I was completely blown away that my daughter arrived at the same idea on her own—I love it because it’s true! And I had taught them this concept a while back because they don’t just see me as their dad. They also see me as a business owner, and also know that we are doing well.
So, at one point, I asked them “What is their most valuable resource?” They answered money, or people, or other things like that. My daughter, who answered this, is below 10 years old. And this was a lesson that I did not learn until I was 29 years old as I was starting my business. I never learned this lesson in school or from my family.
I never learned this lesson, period. But when you do learn this lesson, you realize just how valuable your time is. When you have that as a starting point in everything that you do, it becomes very important.
So in this episode, I am going to talk about some ways to increase your time in your business. I want to give you some useful advice whether you have a product based or service based business. Here are some ways that you can increase your time and optimize the time that you have.
Tip 1 – Get Massive in Time Wins through Delegating Administrative Tasks
Tip number one is knowing that all of your administrative tasks can give you massive wins in terms of time. This is something I say over and over again with different clients who work with our Virtual Systems Architects at ProSulum.com.
Whether it is a product-based business or you’re in a service-based business, you will always have administrative tasks. But for whatever reason, you feel like nobody else can do it for you.
When I was still running my dropshipping business, I thought I had to be the one to find suppliers or new products, do customer support, and work with the new suppliers. Those three things took a good amount of my time on a regular basis.
I thought that there was no way to get out of that loop! How would anyone—other than myself—find good suppliers? I was dropshipping on Amazon—at that time a lot of people thought it was a big No-No. They thought it was not possible to drop ship on Amazon.
As with anything—just like with this worldwide event that has happened, a lot of people say, “You cannot go to stores without medical procedures or without putting something around your face.”
A lot of people say that those are the rules. Well, what I found out on a regular basis is that when people say, “That’s the way it is. That’s how the world works.”
Most of the time, they are absolutely wrong.
People Who Say “That’s Just The Way It Is” Are Usually Wrong
People from the Amazon Seller Community kept on saying that drop shipping was not possible. They said that it was against the rules! Well, they were sort of right. Amazon did not like people who would drop-ship from places like Walmart.
They do not like it when people buy from Amazon and they get a box from Walmart. Obviously, for a good reason.
So, Amazon created rules where Sellers must have an account from Suppliers in order to drop ship. And that is exactly what I did. I built a $1.4M drop shipping business and it was working out well. But as I said before, I was trying to find new suppliers, working with suppliers, listing products from suppliers and at the same time, I was handling customer support.
And the entire time, I was convinced that nobody else could do that. It was not until I saw that I did not have to do any of those things.
If I could just clone myself through one person—handle all the different tasks and copy how I speak with clients through documentation then I don’t have to do those tasks ever again. So, that’s what I did. Once that was done, I did not have to do those administrative tasks anymore!
What did that allow me to do? That allowed me to start creating information products. I created a course called “Dream Dropshipping” and that taught people how to sell on Amazon via drop shipping. That course did well and it freed me to consistently give value to clients and customers who were constantly asking questions.
Getting rid of your administrative tasks—delegating them—is key to growing your business and creating more time for yourself.
Tip 2 – Separate Your High-level Tasks from Your Low-level Tasks
Tip number 2 that can help you create more time for yourself is to separate your high-level tasks from your low-level tasks.
This coincides with my point earlier. A lot of times, we do not see that high level tasks are things that only we can do.
So, what are those things—in reality— that only you can do? In my current business at Pro Sulum, the thing that only I can do is create strategic partnerships. At some point in time, I will not be doing that. In fact, I have found people who are much better at doing these things. The other thing that only I can do is talk with other business owners and potential partners.
A low level task for me would be creating content. You might think, “Dean, you are recording a podcast right now.”
Well, this is something that can be outsourced to somebody else. If you search “Online Empire Academy Podcast” on Youtube.com, you will see somebody named Joshua Woodward.. I outsourced and delegated that podcast to him that helped us get affiliates, get content out, and helped us become one of the bigger names in the Amazon space.
Look at how many different television programs are out there. NBC. ABC. FOX—and all these other networks. Are the network owners doing the acting, directing, producing, etc…, by themselves? NO!
The owners find the talent who can produce, direct, host, perform, etc… They simply pay the talent for whatever show it might be. The owners are the ones out there creating all the opportunities.
Tip 3 – There are More Time-saving Resources for You Out There
What are your high-level tasks and which ones are your low-level tasks? Remember, those things will shift.
When I first started with VSAs for Pro Sulum, I was doing most of the sales. Those were high-level tasks for me. Now, I have people who do sales for me and that has become a low-level task for me.
The last tip I will give on how to increase your time in business is to know that there are more resources out there than what you can see right now.
I was just on a podcast with Jarrod Haning recently. The conversation was really impactful. It was less about business and more about how I, as a business owner, think.
What goes through my head when I am doing certain things? I built this awesome business with the help of an awesome team but what was I thinking on a daily basis?
I am going to share another story from my highschool days—I pretty much flunked in highschool. During my last year, I spoke with the guidance counselor and they told me that I was not going to make it for graduation. I did not have enough units, so it was not going to happen.
I asked, “Okay. what do I do?”
He replied, “You could go to adult school and finish there.”
And that’s what I did. I went to Adult School—about 4 miles away from my house.
The first time I got there, they handed me packets for my classes that I had to fill out. They also had teachers on the outer rim of the building who would help with whatever subject I needed. But overall, I simply had to work at my own pace. And I did complete all the work required.
You Have to Seek and Uncover Resources That Saves You Time
I finished my final year in high school through those packets from Adult School. And I wish that they had told me about this alternative method of learning in high school because I would have saved three years of my life!
The same thing happened in college. People think that you have to attend four years! But here in the U.S., we have CLEP—College Level Examination Program. These are tests that I took every semester that credited subjects if passed.
For example, when I passed the CLEP for Microeconomics and College Algebra I no longer had to take those classes anymore. And on top of that, I was also allowed to take the classes online from separate schools at the same time. So, I finished a four-year degree in about two years!
You have more resources and opportunities that you know of. But people will not tell you that you have those resources. They will tell you whatever gives you value but they will do their best to keep you as a customer. It is just human nature.
Do schools let you know that you can do a four-year degree in two years? Of course not because that is less money for them.
In the same sense, would a systems consultant let you know that you can hire a Virtual Systems Architect for under minimum wage who would document every single process you have while saving you over a year’s worth of time and trouble?
No.
They will offer to document all the stuff for you and go from there. Of course, a systems consultant would not tell you about VSAs because they will be making $400,000 off of you by making some simple documents at the end of the year. It’s just human nature.
Conclusion
You have more resources than you know and the more willing you are to do research, to ask around, and to figure out new ways of doing things then the more you can access those resources and transform your business. You may even transform your life in ways that you can only imagine!
Resources and Links
In this episode, I mentioned The Effective Executive By Peter Drucker. Grab your copy on Amazon.
Also, go check out ProSulum.com and FreedomInFiveMinutes.com if you need a Virtual Systems Architect. Do that and I will see you in the next Freedom In Five Minutes podcast episode!