How many hours a week do you work? In this episode, Ken Courtright talks about the beauty of working when you want or on your own timeframe. He shares some examples of how some billionaires go about their day, being productive with their own flow. When you do things your way, you will most likely reach your goal with pure bliss.
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Do It Your Way
This is episode 52. I’m calling this one Do It Your Way. It’s not like the hamburger from McDonald’s or Burger King. I’m talking about how you do your own business your way. I’ve been talking for 50 some episodes about leadership, mentorship and reading books. The reality of it is, I was looking forward to this podcast to counterbalance some of the 3 to 6 podcasts I did when I talked extensively on time management. I did a lot of Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week stuff, where I was talking about delegating out to interns and reading emails only on Mondays and Thursdays. I felt this strong pull that not everybody is wired like that. Not everybody is a Tim Ferriss, “I want to work less and I want to retire early,” type of person. Some people truly love what they do. They get up early. They stay up late. They’re true workaholics. I want to take a minute. This is part two of a series of short, hard-hitting episodes that I hope can give me people hope that love working. They love what they do.
Here are some tips. If you are, let’s say on the fanatical side about your business, maybe you think you are called to do it. Maybe you think God put you on this planet to get a project done. You know it’s going to take your lifetime to do it and you want to maximize every minute. This show is for you. This show is a day in the life of two incredibly successful entrepreneurs. There are a lot of people out there that wonder what goes into the daily activities of a successful entrepreneur. I thought you guys might find this informative and hopefully a little bit enlightening. There’s a gentleman out there named Jordan Zimmerman of Zimmerman Advertising. Some people call him the Iron Man. He has 22 offices. They do $2.6 billion in their advertising agency. Jordan wakes up at 3:30 AM and heads to the gym. He’s at the gym by 4:00 AM. After working out for 75 minutes, he’s home by 5:30 AM so he can get on his bike and bike for 25 miles. He eats breakfast with his three youngest kids, then he takes them to school.
True workaholics get up early and stay up late. Click To TweetAt four points during his morning, he does fifteen-minute diagnostic evaluations of his top twenty clients. By 10:00 AM, his assistant has set up twenty ten-minute phone calls, so that’s 200 minutes with each of his top twenty clients. He makes sure that he eats lunch with a member of his staff who currently has the biggest challenge. His assistant determines what member of his staff is going through the biggest challenge that day. All-day long, Jordan carries a tape recorder at his side. When he has quick ideas that need implementing, he can rattle it off into the digital recorder, download the MP3 to his assistant and effect change immediately. He makes it home for dinner almost every evening so he can eat with his family. He goes back to work for a few more hours and writes his blog so he can be in bed by 12:00 AM sharp. Let me remind everybody that he wakes up at 3:30 AM. His quote is, “You sleep when you die.”
You got the Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Work Week and Jordan Zimmerman thinks that it is criminal. He thinks that we’re put on this planet to get things done and do things. He thinks his body is a vessel to get things done so we want to keep it in tip-top shape. I’m guessing by his pictures. He looks close to 60. I might even go in the 60 or 65 range. He’s in Muscle and Fitness Magazine like the ripped guru. It’s astounding to look at. I’m going to finish with a more familiar face, billionaire Mark Cuban. Mark Cuban decided in 1995 that all interaction in his business through him will be via email unless there’s a check involved or a closing situation. He’s doing a big deal and the client is demanding that there is face-to-face interaction. One hundred percent of Mark Cuban’s business interactions are through email. He gets 500 inbound emails a day. He responds to on average over 100. He reads and replies to email continuously from the moment he wakes to the moment he sleeps.
It’s his opinion that this saves a tremendous amount of time via the back and forth of phone calls and one meeting, leading to another meeting and another meeting. He saves 10% of his emails and he relies heavily on filters and labels. For those of you that are not familiar with filters and labels, you might want to look that one up. If he thinks that there’s an email he should revisit, he saves it as unread for the next day. When he wakes up the next day, that email looks fresh and new as if he’s never seen it before. He wanted to restate that unless there’s a check involved, he does not take calls or meetings. He believes this method of interaction allows nothing but the facts and it eliminates any and all BS. That’s about 5, 6, 7 minutes.
Some quick tips and techniques of a billionaire and a gentleman running $1 billion company that is far extreme and in an opposite angle of what I was talking about. I’m hoping some people are reading these podcasts that were saying to themselves, “That’s not me. I don’t want to only do email on Mondays and Thursdays. I don’t want to do this.” Here’s the deal, you’ve got to run your business your way. I was asked in an interview, “What was the most impactful person that entered my life?” There’s no question. It was Brian Tracy and I didn’t meet him for twenty years after I read his book, Psychology of Selling. In Psychology of Selling, Brian is clear that all of us have an income barometer and that we will make an earn in our lifetime what we feel we are worth. He goes in deeper and he talks about how you will respond to the five people that you hang out with the most.
Meaning if you’re hanging out with five people that are continually broke and that’s all they talk about. By default, you will end up staying or being or becoming broke because of the power of association. Here’s what I’m here to tell you when it comes to running your business, and I’ve been at this for years and I’m now using my third different modality of running the business the way I do to-do list, the way I set up the day, the week and the month. That’s because the company hit a certain size and I have no choice. Were you to have a choice, if you look at the drastic differences between Jordan Zimmerman who starts every day at 3:30 AM and Mark Cuban who can work anywhere he wants at any time and he’s in total 100% control and he has been since 1995. This didn’t happen because he was a billionaire. He put this into play 21 years ago.
I’m here to tell you if you have a way that you think is comfortable, that feels right for you to make your to-do list, to work your email, to do your time management, I want to tell you, do not let a person, a mentor or coach or even a book sway you into doing something that feels incredibly uncomfortable. I’m saying that from the seat that I am in as some of you may know as incredibly ADD, ADHD and OCD. I’ve read many books that had me trying many different things and I would get headaches. I couldn’t see myself doing it that way. It wasn’t until I got comfortable with the goofy way of my Excel spreadsheet and I’ve all told in columns. I have 4,200 column to-do list and the world thinks I’m insane. I don’t care. I’m doing it my way and it’s working. I hope this helps. Take care.
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