Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this episode of the Mastermind for Business podcast, I'm going to teach you a very simple three step process to make sure that you are working on the right things in the right way and that you're constantly moving the needle in your business. So strap in three super simple things that you'll be able to implement into your business straight away.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: If you want more time, money, freedom, and have a business that's not reliant on you, then you're in the right place. Each week, Mark Creedon, along with some of the very best business minds in the world, will take you through simple, practical steps you can take to create the business you always wanted. From his own practical experience, Mark will show you how to work less, make more, and get the business you always wanted, the one that you deserve. Now, here's your host, one of Australia's most sought after business coaches, Mark Creedon.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Mark Creedon. Welcome to the latest edition of the Mastermind for Business podcast. Now, you may have noticed if you're a regular listener to the show, that we've had a couple of weeks without an episode. I've been away at the wealth retreat, metropolitan wealth retreat with Michael Yardney, a whole bunch of other experts, Simon, Kirsten Marker, Doctor Andrew Wilson, all the good stuff, learning lots. And now we are ready to get back into the good stuff for you. And in today's episode, I want to talk about three simple things that you can be doing well. Three. It's a three step process, so you can work on the most important three to five things in your business. Because as you would know, at any given time in your business, there's probably a hundred things you could be doing, but really only three to five things you should be doing. Let's get into that right now.
All right, so if you are like most small business owners, you're probably a little bit overwhelmed with how many things there are to do, right? There's so many, so many things to do, so many challenges on your time. And we've spent a lot of time talking in this podcast about time management and how to. How to get that right and how to really improve what, where you spend your time, understanding your genius zone, the highest and best use of your time. We're gonna do something a little bit different today. I'm going to give you a three step process. And if you follow this process, then you're going to find it super simple, super easy, and you're going to make some real inroads into what you're doing and what you're achieving in your business probably as an overarching principle. Let's start with this, though. When we're talking about making changes in your business, I want you to think about the concept of shifting the dial or moving the needle on the dial, right? What we don't want to do is go from zero to 100. We don't want to go back and make massive changes in the business. I often tell this story from stage. I remember working for a company back in 1988.
I was really young and back in 1988 and one of the two directors of the business, two directors known as the business, had gone off to do a course at the financial Management Research centre in Ahmeda, which was an amazing centre. They did fantastic courses. I've been to a couple myself and they do fantastic work.
But one of the things that they said at the end of the course, and I know this because I spoke to the course presenter afterwards, is they said, which is what we always say at the end of a wealth retreat or intensive with our mastermind members, we always say, don't go back to your business and try and change everything at once. Right? That's the worst thing you can do, to go back and try and implement everything that you've just learned in the last couple of days or five days, whatever it might have been. And what these directors did is the exact opposite. So they actually went back and changed everything. They came in on a Monday morning and they just got us all together. There was probably about 25 staff and they went, right, everything is changing. Everything is changing. We've been away on this course and we've learned all this stuff and we're gonna change everything.
And out of that 25, they lost about nine almost immediately, certainly within two or three days. And in fact, I always remember this because the accountant in the office was so overwhelmed that he actually just walked out and disappeared. We tracked him down like a week later, concerned for his safety, for his personal wellbeing. He was fine. He just couldn't cope. And he couldn't even cope with resigning because he knew that the directors would spend time trying to talk him into it or trying to find out. And he just didn't have the energy to explain to them that what they had done by going in and changing everything was the worst thing they could do. So if you're a regular listener to this podcast, you know that I love going to courses, learning new things, an avid reader, and I will share with you ideas that I've discovered from books, from courses, things that I've created for you guys.
But I always want to have that overarching overrider that this is about making incremental changes in your business. It's like losing weight, getting fit. The more that you can do it on an incremental basis, and so you are layering these habits and you're bringing in this incremental change, the more likely that change is actually going to stick. In fact, if you want a good book on this, the book by Michael Yudney and Tom Crawley, rich habits, poor habits, talks about how you build habits. And Tom Crawley in particular talks about the concept of habit stacking, which is just one habit after the other, just small habits. And that's how you should bring about changes in your business. In the vast majority of cases, there's going to be some exceptions.
If you've got something that requires a legislative change or a safety change or something that's super important that you need to implement immediately, that's great. But by and large, what you don't want to do is bring about massive changes in your business overnight or within the space of a few days or a week or even two weeks for that matter.
So I want to help you to see a way that you can bring about change in your business in an incremental way, and that's by following a pretty simple three step process.
Here it is.
Step number one is to identify the drivers in your business and just to focus on the three to five things that are going to have either the most impact for your business or the things that you most want to focus on. Right? So the things that, that are going to bring about the greatest satisfaction for you, the greatest results for your business, the things that actually drive the performance of your business. So I want you to stop and think about this. If you were going, if you could only. This is the old gun to the head thing, right? You had a gun to your head and you could only focus on three to five things in your business right now. What would they be? Because if you are a CEO, director, managing director, business owner, whatever it might be, there's probably 105 things that you're focusing on in any given week. But I want you to think of three to five things that are really going to drive your business. What are the things that, if you could only work on those three to five things, what would they be? And I want you to identify them. And in fact, we use a little cheat sheet that I got from Tacky Moore. So credit to tacky for it called the five drivers. If you'd like a copy markropole.com dot au. Very happy to send you a copy. So mark.com dot au and just say five drivers, and I'll flick you a copy of the five drivers worksheet. It's a sheet we use all the time with our mastermind clients and something that we use even in our own businesses, the various businesses that I run as well. We use this sheet to help us to determine what are the five things we really should be focusing on.
Now, here's another little, just another little tip. If you feel overwhelmed in your personal life as well, then you can use this same tool. So what I'm going to share with you now around your business applies very much to your private life. To your personal life, right? Because in your personal life, there's a hundred things that you're being challenged on that competing for your time and energy. But at any given time, there's probably only three to five things that are really driving you, and I'm going to share with you what, what mine are. So you get an idea of it. So we identify what are those three to five things? What are mine? When it comes to mastermind, I like to know how many leads I'm getting in what my conversions are for new members into our mastermind program, what kind of net profit I'm generating, what results are we getting for our clients, and the final one is, how much time am I spending in my genius time. So they're the five things that I focus on in my private life, in my personal life. I really focus on time that I'm spending doing the things that I really love to do. So my genius time, how much time I spend with. With my wife, Caroline, how much time I spend with the grandkids, and then how much time I spend on me. Right? That's just me. Whether it's music, whether it's going to the gym, whatever it might be, you know, how much time I spending on me. And then finally, how much am I spending on developing my life as a business in lots of ways. So how much time I'm spending on my investments, my future, my legacy, and make sure I'm looking after those things. So there are five things that kind of drive me from a personal level, and then there's the five things that drive me from a professional level, which is, again, it's the number of leads, my conversions, the net profit I'm making, what results we're achieving for our clients, and how much time am I spending in my genius time? If you'd like to know more about genius time, we've certainly addressed that in previous episodes of the Mastermind for business podcast. So step number one is to simply identify what those times are. Step number two then is to give yourself a little score. I like to use a scale of one to five. So for each of those things, and this will change, by the way. So this is not something which is a set and forget calculation because it will change over time.
So beside each of those things, I look at it and I go, all right, for each of those things, how do I score myself between one, which is right now, it's pretty rubbish, and a five couldn't possibly be any better.
So step number one, identify those three to five things. Step number two, to go through each of those three to five drivers and give yourself a score. And again, you know, you can do it on a, on a professional level, on a personal level or both. I actually pull these, these sheets out every, every three months and I have a look at it and go, well, do you know what? On a professional level, I actually did this just before wealth retreat. So about two weeks ago and I realized that on a personal level, I hadn't really been doing what I love to do. I hadn't been playing music, hadn't been spending enough time with the grandkids, hadn't been spending enough time with Caroline, doing the things that I love to do. I've been doing really well at my investments and my life as a business, if you like, but I hadn't really been doing very well at those other drivers for me personally. So when I scored myself on those, I was scoring myself around a two or three. And keep in mind that this is designed to be a score as to where you are right now, not where do you want to be, not where were you last week? Not where are you on average? Do you love averages? Because you can go well on average, across the last twelve months, I've probably been a three or a four, or where are you right now? And if you were to pull this out every three months or every six months and just review it, it's a great opportunity to just assess what's going on for you right now. Now, the other little tip on that is that if you're finding right now, right here, right now, you're listening to this podcast and you're going, yeah, man, I'm just, I'm really struggling. I'm overwhelmed at the moment. I'm not coping as well as I'd like to. This is a great opportunity for you to stop, take stock, go back to basics. What are those three to five things that drive you. And how are you scoring yourself? I love scoring questions because it really puts it into reality for you where you get to see exactly where you're at. But the good part, it also gives you the opportunity to identify the room for improvement and how you are going to improve it. That, my friends, is, in fact, step number three. So number one is to identify the three to five drivers. Step number two is to give yourself a score out of five on each of those drivers. Step number three is to then come up with a couple of projects. Two, one. No more than three, right? Absolutely. No more than three projects on each of those scores. And the concept here, and this is really important. Well, let's go back. What do I mean by projects? If you are scoring, say, on your free time and how well that's doing, or the profit that you bring into your business, and you've scored that at a two, all we're doing is looking, how do we get that from a two to a two and a half? We're not trying to get it from a two to a five. That'll come. It will gather its own momentum. What we're looking to do is get it from a two to a two and a half.
And so the project really is, what are the things that I can do that are going to help me to get this needle moved? So I spoke at the very beginning of this episode about moving the needle. What we're looking to do is just move the needle from a two to a two and a half. So you've got to ask yourself that question, what can I do that's going to get me from a two to a two and a half? I'm going to come up with one, two or three ideas, and I'm going to list those ideas. So now what we've got is identified the three to five things that drive us. We've got a score attached to each of them, and now we've got a bit of a plan for what we're going to do to move the needle. And so you go through for each of those things, each of those three to five drivers that you've scored yourself on, you ask yourself the question, what are the things that need to happen in order to move the needle from where it is up a half a notch? Right. If it's at a four, great, let's get it to a four and a half. It's at a four and a half. Let's get it to a five. If it's a one, let's just get it to a one and a half. One of the biggest mistakes that I see people making is when they try and take it from a one to a five in one fell swoop. Right. Nicole Hewitt Donaldson, who we've mentioned on the program before, talks about jumping a tall building in a single boundaries. You can't do that. It's not sustainable. You might do it initially, but it's like losing weight quickly. It's like trying to get fit really, really quickly. It's not going to be sustainable.
In order to be sustainable, what you need to do is move it slowly, incrementally, half a step at a time. So just go. That's right. Let's just move half a step, two to a two and a half. You get it to a two and a half, you're in the position then where you can go. Right. No worries. I've now got some things that I can do. And often, by the way, when you've identified what those things are to say, to move it from a two to two and a half, it's often the case that just repeating those things on a regular basis, daily, weekly, monthly, whatever it might be, will actually move your needle then from a two and a half to a three and a three to a three and a half.
So often repeating those things that you've identified is actually what's going to get you to the next level. Quick recap.
Three steps. I said at the very beginning, we need three steps to really help you work out what you should be working on. And when. Step number one, identify the three to five things that are going to drive your business and or your life right now, give yourself a score on each of those three to five things. That's the reality check, right? That's the opportunity. We go, wow, that was a bit of a reality check. Now I can see, you know, I'm sitting at a two or a three or one or whatever it might be.
So you've given yourself a reality check. Now all you need to do is determine, okay, what are one, two or three things I can do on each of those drivers. That's just going to move the needle a little bit. And what will happen is you'll get this, a layering effect whereby if you're moving the needle up by half a notch, often it's the case that it's just creating these new habits. And often it's the case that you can, the ideas that you or the projects that the tasks that you come up with in order to move that needle that little bit is going to be repeatable tasks. And if you just keep doing, repeating them on a regular basis, weekly or monthly, that you're going to move the needle from a to a two and a half and a two and a half to three and so on.
So we started out with a simple three step process and how we were going to achieve that simple three step process. Number one, identify the three to five drivers. Number two, give you a score. Give yourself a score. Number three. Now determine what are the three, two, or one tasks that you're going to undertake in order to move that score up. So you look just looking to shift the needle by a half a point. Give that a shot, and let's see how it improves the performance of your business, but also the performance and probably the happiness of your life.
All right, so in addition to that little three step process, which I think is kind of really cool and really, really simple and easy to do, I've got another little calendar hack here for you that I love doing. And I shared this, I'm sure we've spoken about before in previous episodes of the Mastermind for business podcast, but it's a little calendar hack, which is about core preloading your calendar. And it's basically, it's about taking your to do list and preloading the things that are on your to do list into your calendar. Now, I'm sure I've mentioned it before. The reason I'm mentioning it again is I presented at wealth retreat about this, and it was amazing how many people just sort of went, wow, that's a pretty cool, simple hack. I hadn't sort of thought of that before. They've probably heard it before on the podcast or they've read it in my book, but it's. It's that reloading your calendar, right. It's about taking your to do list. I do this every week. I look at what's on my to do list, and if it's tasks like reaching out to somebody, making contact with somebody, getting something done, I actually preload that into my calendar. So the concept is that it's then out of my head. I don't have to go on thinking about it. I don't have to think about it anymore. I can now move on from it and I can actually have it in. So if it was that I needed to ring Nick and see when he's coming back after the birth of Connolly and Nick will be back with us for next week's episode. But I don't then have to constantly think to myself, oh, jeez, I've got to get on, I've got to make that mess. Send that message to Nick, or I've got a ring Nick, or whatever it might be. It's actually in my calendar. I'll do it Tuesday morning, 10:00 I'll give him a call, and I'll flick a calendar. Invite, say, hey, can we have a chat at Tuesday at 10:00 it's locked in. It'll make an enormous difference. These are really simple hacks, but they make an enormous difference. As soon as I started preloading my calendar from my to do list, it made an enormous difference to the amount of things that I get done. And somebody said to me the other day, Mark, you've got so much going on, right? You're the CEO of the Metropol Group. You're running your podcast. You're writing in a second book. First of all, updating the first book with a second edition. You're writing a second book. You're running the Metropolitan company. You're running the mastermind program. So much going on. How do you do it, ladies and gentlemen? This is how I do it. It's these really simple hacks. There's no great science to it. And I've seen all the ads over social media about having AI populate your calendar. Fantastic. That's great. Do that. And if it works for you, that's brilliant. I find that it's the really simple hacks that work the best. The concept of understanding the genius, my genius time. Understanding the highest and best use of my time, preloading my calendar with the things that really matter the most to me, the things that have to be done, and taking this to do list out of my above the net computer so that I don't have to think about it and I can free my brain space up to be able to work on more relevant, more important, better things for me. So, simple hack. First of all, three step process. Identifying the three to five drivers, giving yourself a score, and then coming up with projects to improve that score. Second, preloading your calendar. And then the third thing I want to share with you today is just a reminder. Seeing as we are talking about the concept of to do lists, it's a nice little reminder of the value of a not to do list. Now, we asked this question from the stage of wealth retreat. How many people had a to do list? Most people put their hands up. How many people have a not to do list? No one put their hand up. A not to do list is something I review every six months. Every six months, I I sit down, I work out, right. What's crept back onto my to do list that I really shouldn't be doing, right. And I start making out a not to do list. Now, if you've never done this before, I want you to think about what not who. In other words, what holds people back from taking up this concept of a not to do list? What holds a lot of people back is the thought, well, I don't have anybody I can delegate this to. And we spoke in an earlier episode of things, mastermind for Business podcast about using library cards. But what holds a lot of people back is the thought, I don't have anybody that I can delegate this to. Whereas in fact, that's not what you should be thinking because you can always find someone, right. You can go to fiverr or upwork or there's a whole bunch of offshore AI based help that you can get.
So it's not about who, it's about what. What is currently on your to do list that you shouldn't be doing. You shouldn't be doing because you hate doing it, because you rubbish at it. Because both you've rubbish at it and you hate doing it, or because you're actually really good at it, but you still hate it. And again, I've spoken before about some of the things that I've done in the past in the mastermind business, where I'm really good at them. And people say, mark, you keep doing that. You're fantastic at it. But I. I don't like doing it. So those things have a habit of creeping back onto your to do list. So if you're sitting there right now thinking, actually, you know what, Mark? You're right. There's some things on my to do list that I thought I'd got rid of. Those. How do they come back to me? Well, they do. People have a habit. It's almost like people feel it's their, it's their birthright to try and get stuff back to you.
Stop, take stock, probably every six months, look at your to do list and see if anything has crept back on that should not be there and should be on your not to do list. Make a not to do list. And then once you've got that not to do list, make it your mission in life to move it on.
That's a wrap for the latest edition of the Mastermind for Business podcast. If you have enjoyed what you've heard, if you've got some value out of what you heard, please like the podcast. Share it. It makes it so much easier if you subscribe it makes it much easier for other people to find us. And if you know somebody who's in their own business or professional practice who would benefit from some of the tips and tricks that we provide on the mastermind for Business podcast, please share the podcast with them. We would love you to help us in our mission to help as many small business owners as we possibly can to spend more time in their life and less time in their their business. Until we speak again in next week's episode of the Mastermind for Business podcast, this is Mark Creedon. Please make sure you spend time with those who matter most.
[00:24:41] Speaker B: Thanks for joining us on the Mastermind for business podcast. If you're ready to have a business that you're not a slave to, check out Metropolemastermind or have a chat with Mark and the team at all the w's see what's possible today.
