827: ACTION SATURDAY (ask THIS question every week!)

Transcript

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Hey, what is up?

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Wontrepreneurs and entrepreneurs all over the world it's Brian Lofermento here, host of the Wontrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast, with an actionable Action Saturday episode that I hope you repeat not only this week, but I hope you incorporate this action into every single week when it comes to laying out your tasks, laying out your priorities and really focusing on what's actually going to move your business forward.

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And it really pins off of one of my favorite quotes of all time from Abraham Lincoln.

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We've done quite a few episodes in this show's history with quotes featuring Abraham Lincoln, and this particular quote is the one that I think about often.

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As someone who creates a lot of content and obviously I'm speaking off the cuff a lot of times I always think about when Abraham Lincoln once said that if you want me to give a five hour speech, I'm ready to go right now.

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If you want me to give a five minute speech, I'm going to need five hours to prepare.

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Now, I love that very concept because it's absolutely true.

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I mean, I kind of have the freedom and the flexibility when I hit record here to trust that the good stuff will come out.

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We're not talking about any rocket science here, so it's very easy for me to sum up the things that I want to say.

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However, when it comes to giving speeches at weddings or important speeches, or delivering a keynote or a formal presentation in front of a company or in front of a college classroom full of students, you have to prepare, and there's a list of questions that Tim Ferriss I forget what he calls it in front of a college classroom full of students.

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You have to prepare and there's a list of questions that Tim Ferriss I forget what he calls it it's like the 12 most important questions for life, or something along those lines that Tim Ferriss has produced and it's out there.

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You can just Google it.

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Just Google Tim Ferriss list of questions and you'll find a free blog post or a PDF.

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There's so many resources out there.

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But my favorite question from that list of Tim Ferriss questions is if I could only work two hours this week, what would I do?

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And so I really think that these two things that Abraham Lincoln quote and this Tim Ferriss question, I think that these tie in so powerfully when it comes to our own business growth and when it comes to our productivity business growth and when it comes to our productivity and the way that we structure our to-do lists and, most importantly, what we're really talking about is what is it that we're going to focus on in the next week?

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And setting that focus correctly is going to be one of the key determinants in if your business moves forward or not.

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And so, with that Tim Ferriss question, what I really think about when it comes to us entrepreneurs I'm going to throw all of us under the bus right now is that we love working and we love powering through tasks, and also we have a lot on our plate.

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There's a lot of stuff that we could work on in order to move our business forward.

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I was just talking to a newer entrepreneur literally yesterday, and she was telling me that she's going to be working on her website and she wants to work on some blog posts, and in my head I'm just like well, you're clearly going to devote quite a few hours to growing your business this week, which is awesome.

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That's great to hear.

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However, under this Tim Ferriss principle and this question, if you could only work two hours this week to grow your business, would your website be at the top of that list?

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Would writing some blog posts that you have no existing website traffic?

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Would that be at the top of your list.

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Absolutely not, because you are forced to be incredibly selective.

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If you limit yourself in that way, and it's something that Gaston Smith and I talked about in his podcast episode.

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This was a few months ago.

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I think Gaston is such a brilliant guest.

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I honestly I love everything that.

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Thaton is such a brilliant guest.

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I honestly I love everything that that dude is putting into the world.

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He's incredibly creative, and when it came to us talking about creativity, I'm going to tell you what episode that was so Gaston was in episode 771.

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Gaston is one of the most creative entrepreneurs I've ever come across, and I love following him on Instagram and seeing all the cool things he's up to.

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But one thing that he talked about in creativity that I think was counter to a lot of cliches and counter to a lot of natural thought that we may have is that if you want to be more creative, put some constraints on it, because those constraints will force that creativity out of you.

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Those constraints will actually enhance it.

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And so this Tim Ferriss question of saying, hey, if I only had two hours to work this week, what is it that I would focus on?

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That constraint is forcing you to be incredibly strategic, incredibly intentional and incredibly focused on this week's tasks and on this week's thing that you want to accomplish, and so I think that is so important for us to consider that constraint literally on a weekly basis.

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This Action Saturday I'm asking you to do it today for the upcoming week, but I really hope that you embrace it and you ask yourself this question every single week because it, as a constraint constraint is going to force you to start focusing in the right ways.

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So I think it's super powerful, just like that Abraham Lincoln quote, tying it all the way back in with that how he started this episode is that if you only have five minutes to make a speech, if you only get a five minute speech, you really need to figure out what's important.

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These constraints help us focus.

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These constraints will help us find that guiding star.

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These constraints will help us get to the good stuff.

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So that's it for me in this Action Saturday.

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Go out there, ask yourself that one question If I only had two hours to work this week, what would I focus on?

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That's it for me.

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I'm super excited about tomorrow's Soul of Sunday episode, so I'm not gonna say anything else.

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Pound that subscribe button, I'll see you right back here tomorrow.

827: ACTION SATURDAY (ask THIS question every week!)

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