Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy | with guest CJ Bilangino

0:01CJ Bilangino:Welcome to Business Book Club, the show where top entrepreneurs break down the most powerful insights from the world's best business books. I'm your host, Sam Brown, and today we're diving into Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy.

0:16CJ Bilangino:Stop confusing being busy with being productive. Today, you'll learn the prioritization system that guarantees your most profitable work actually gets done. Listen to this quote that absolutely epitomizes this book. The ability to concentrate single-mindedly on your most important task, to do it well, and to finish it completely, is the key to success, respect, status, and happiness in life. But how do you do that? Well, Eat That Frog, written by the prolific author Brian Tracy, contains 21 methods and techniques designed to increase your productivity, your value, and your output. But my guest today has whittled those 21 down to his most impactful three.

0:56CJ Bilangino:CJ Bellangino is the CEO of Guerrilla Commerce. He's led the finance and the operations teams at multiple high-growth startups, and he uses the frameworks in this book to manage his energy, prioritize his tasks, and lead his teams every single day. Let's dive in. CJ, welcome. Why did you choose this as the most impactful book that you've read?

1:18Brian Tracy:When you think about business books, it has a more unique name. It's not the more fundamental names or standard names you may hear from other great business books that had been written. How I came about it was actually, it was a gift from my mother-in-law. She wasn't my mother-in-law at the time. I was dating my wife and she gave me this book, Eat That Frog. And I wasn't sure exactly what it meant. And I started reading it and I thought maybe it was, I was procrastinating on proposing to my wife. Like as we talked to her, you'll understand now today, but I've really come to love the book. It's a short read, which is nice.

1:46Brian Tracy:It's very concise. Brian Tracy did a great job of putting it together. And over the last 15 years, I've actually given it to everyone that I've worked with. To put it really quickly, the name Eat That Frog, it derives from Mark Tain's quote, if it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And if it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first. Brian is very great at just laying out very practical advice in a succinct way that you could apply on day one and not just in a business format, but also your personal life as well. So I found it very practical, easy to apply, and I think others have as well.

2:19CJ Bilangino:Let's dive into the lesson number one that you've brought.

2:22Brian Tracy:What is it? The first chapter, it's entitled Tackle Your Biggest Task First, essentially eat that frog. What Brian's really trying to talk about is what is a frog and what does that mean? And your frog is really your biggest, most important task, right? The one you're most likely to procrastinate on if you don't do something about it. What he's really trying to take away is get the hardest task that you have to do first. And the hardest task isn't always the longest task, right? It's not the one that's going to take you hours to do. It's the most important thing that you have going on. Get it done first thing in the morning.

2:55Brian Tracy:Don't procrastinate. Don't wait. All right. Because what happens sometimes is you don't get your first thing done and then the day-to-day administration or operations can stop you and limit you from getting that thing completed. When you don't get something done, you're still using that mental capacity in your head thinking about it, right? It's still going on in there. And sometimes you're losing energy from not being able to take care of that. You're still going on the back. So might as well just get it done first thing in the morning.

3:21CJ Bilangino:Another part that's kind of highlighted in the book is the ideas of procrastination and momentum. How important do you think those are?

3:27Brian Tracy:Really important. I think that's in both a business and in a personal setting. So just to turn it to personal, for instance, is I try to work out first thing in the morning. You get an accomplishment out of the day. It's harder for me as the day goes on, right? Because there are things that come up. I have three small kids. So that time in the morning is my time to get my hardest tasks done or build momentum to your point of getting my most important tasks completed. You think about procrastination. One thing that I really learned in the morning is I used to wake up and check email. That was the first thing that I did.

4:00Brian Tracy:And I wake up pretty early. I'm normally up around 435. I'm an early riser. And most people are not up at that hour. So that's my free time. So what I've come to do is instead I'll work on my number one project that I have going on. It could be a new strategy. could be we have a product launch going on, it could be reviewing some terms that we have going through, get that work done. And then 45 minutes later, that's when I'll start going and taking a look at emails, which is still pretty early in the morning. But when I'm freshest in the morning is when I'm using to complete the most important task that's happening.

4:29CJ Bilangino:Is this something that you've always done, like tackle the biggest, most important thing first, or has this been a revelation since picking up that book?

4:36Brian Tracy:It's probably more revelation. I typically would handle more administrative tasks of going in, checking my email, right, or seeing the news, right, to see what's going on or any industry periodicals. And those are important, right? It's important to see what happened from the night before, updates that are going on. But I found that in the morning, I have zero distractions, right? I don't know necessarily what's taking place. And by focusing on my most important thing, even if it's half an hour, that deep work time period, I can be 100 % focused on that task versus if I check email first and then go to that item, I may be thinking about what I saw in an email and how to respond to it.

5:12Brian Tracy:This also works with potential interactions. There may be a conversation that you have to have with a partner or an employee. This also goes into something may not be going well and you have to have a conversation with a manufacturing partner. It could be with a supply partner. It could be with a marketing partner that we're working with. And I think at times, sorry, in human nature is you don't always go and have that conversation and then it can eat away at you. But then when you actually have the conversation and talk through it, it's better. So trying to handle those things right away and don't procrastinate because you're gonna use that mental energy in the back of your mind, right?

5:49Brian Tracy:And still think about it. If you have those problems, it's not always the growth strategy, right? And the building momentum, it's also addressing some of those core problems or blockers for you. And just better to have those harder conversations earlier on. And most of the time they're positive, right? It's a misunderstanding, solvable. But as time goes on, people will fill that with assumptions, right? So it's better to have those conversations early on.

6:09CJ Bilangino:Let's move on to lesson number two. What have you got for us here?

6:11Brian Tracy:Prioritize ruthlessly and really apply the 80-20 rule. 20 % of your activities will count for 80 % of your results. So always concentrate your efforts on the top 20 % because time is limited, right? It's probably the most valuable resource in the world. You can't necessarily get it back. How you spend your time is really, really important on a day-to-day basis, especially as you're looking to build a company, grow your company. you only have so many hours in a day and you really have to prioritize or what are those actions what are those decisions that are going to bring the most value make your new startup or your existing business successful in this day and age we're all overachievers and we want to do everything but at the end of the day you have to pick and choose what you do and what you don't

6:52CJ Bilangino:it's incredible how many fields this pops up in obviously it's not an exact science but it seems to be there wherever you look when you first hear about it do you have a system of measuring what is having the impact on which activities that you do don't really have much impact?

7:06Brian Tracy:You have to think about what's the most important to you. If you think about on a business level, what are you trying to accomplish through your business, either from a growth or startup, and write out your goals. And then think about all the options you have in front of you, where you can allocate your time, but where do those items roll up into your goals, right? What are the ones that are going to add the highest value and get you where you need to go? Think about if you're initially starting a business, you're creating products for a consumer, You have options in this day and age to sell your products in many different forms and marketplaces and channels.

7:37Brian Tracy:But by doing so, especially early on, it's hard to be great in any of them. So pick the channel or the marketplace early on, focus on it, have discipline, grow it, be successful, and then think about where expansion is. I see a lot of times folks can chase revenue and spread themselves thin, and then they're not excellent in any one of those channels versus have they been more focused and disciplined, they could have been highly successful in the channel and then grow from there. So it's not just about what you say yes to. A lot of times it's saying no and having that discipline and prioritizing is equally more important.

8:07CJ Bilangino:That's an awesome little framework that you've got there. So first thing that you need to do is figure out what is the most important thing, because if you don't know what you want, you'll never get there. And then build it to become excellent at it. Keep digging in. And only after that, then you expand.

8:20Brian Tracy:And what we'll do from our company at Guerrilla Commerce is we'll come up with our three to five goals for the year. The leadership team will go in and meet with all the functional team leads and they'll come up with how their goals that they're going to support the business. Now, as time goes on, right, you do those on an annual basis, but you're reviewing them during the year, you'll go and determine have things changed. And if they have, then you may make modifications. But if new ideas or opportunities come up, maybe they're not now. Let's say there's a new product opportunity that we can go and create, or there's a new channel, right, that we can go start selling or a new retailer.

8:53Brian Tracy:If it doesn't fit in for the goals that we set for the year, we have to be disciplined in saying no, right? Because if not, it could be distraction and limit us from those goals that we had set out. So it's really important, especially early on to be disciplined because you have limited time and you have limited resources to be successful.

9:08CJ Bilangino:I think the key word here is ruthless. When you have five good opportunities, saying no to any of them is very difficult. If we have three different opportunities to go for, but we know that it's going to spread ourselves too thin, we should just pick the one that we can dig in on to do the best job at. How do you go about being ruthless and getting rid of those hypothetical two other great options?

9:28Brian Tracy:It's a little bit of process of elimination. Think about winning a championship as you go across, right? And what are the least amount of moves that you can make to win a championship, right? What's the least amount of games, right? If you're playing a best of seven series, right? Or best of five, or, you know, you have to score X amount of points. What's the least amount of moves or games you can do it in to get there? And so then think about all the opportunities in front of you as to what are the ones that are going to get you there in the least amount of moves or the least amount of effort and prioritize those, right?

10:01Brian Tracy:And do them as excellent as you can and focus on that, right? And that's essentially your roadmap for the year. Now, things do change on a macro level. Things change in the world that you have to make adjustments to. You can't always be hard and fast on what you set out, especially if you're doing an annual plan. So you need to be nimble. But at the same time, you need to ensure you're disciplined. It's spending the time up front to really plan and then execute on what you're going for and make sure that you don't have distractions. I think a term I've heard is like shiny object syndrome, right?

10:30Brian Tracy:They're the things that they look really good. They are great opportunities, but they can become a distraction and take you off course from being successful. So you can do many things, but maybe you're only doing it at the B level. You need to do a couple of things at the A level to be successful.

10:44CJ Bilangino:You speak about this book serving you in both business and personal life. Do you have anything for this lesson of prioritize ruthlessly that you want to pull from personal life?

10:55Brian Tracy:Yeah, and I think you kind of talked about it in there is making decisions when you're saying no to can be really tough. Business-wise, you're typically using logic to make decisions, but sometimes like in a social setting, it can be even tougher, right? As you go through and think about between family, friends, yourself as it comes through. So examples is 10 years ago, friends asked me to go out to a social event to go to a game or go meet them out for a drink or something like that. Yes, easier to do, right? But nowadays with kids, I have other priorities. Taking care of them, spending time with my kids is really important to me.

11:26Brian Tracy:So when you do get invited, it's kind of awkward because you do want to go and socialize your friends, but you know your priority is to spend time with your kids. So for me, it's a simple choice, but it is hard sometimes communicating and saying no to these events because you feel like you're letting your friends or others down when you can't do it. So I really try to define ways. And the good thing is a lot of my friends do have kids these days. So we'll kind of get together, right, and find other ways to define ways to get your social and personal life together. But sometimes you do have to decline the invite because your priorities, at least from my perspective, my priority is to spend time with my kids and help out around the house.

12:01Brian Tracy:But it's hard. it's hard to say no it's hard to say no to get out for a little bit and spend time with them

12:05CJ Bilangino:it certainly is i think this is something that just is in constant flux at certain stages of your business you need to say no to both family and friends a little bit just to make sure that things get off the ground but usually as you kind of mature and become a little bit more stable then saying yes becomes a little bit easier you can have a little bit more time and freedom away from business personal experience anyway what is your key final lesson for us plan every day in advance

12:32Brian Tracy:probably my favorite one and one that I actually thought was counterproductive when I first read it and thought about it. But Brian Tracy, what he was saying in the book is the most valuable time you spend is in planning your activities carefully before you begin. And what he talks about in the book is creating a roadmap for productivity and that eliminates stress of indecision and enables you to work intentionally, stay focused and better manage your time. And what he says is every minute spent in planning serves as many as 10 minutes of execution. And he talks about different ways in which you can do this and people have different ways of organizing themselves.

13:07Brian Tracy:What I took from it was every night writing down and going through my to-do list, right? The items that are my biggest responsibilities or items I want to take care of. I continue that of going through and the next day I would cross things on my list, sometimes add new things that would come on. And then that night I would do the same thing again is go through it. And at first, when I went through this process and thought about it, I go, you know what, I'm spending a lot of time writing this down and going back through my list. Like, is this actually the most productive? And what I've come to find out is that Brian Tracy was right.

13:38Brian Tracy:It saves you a lot of time because it allows you to be focused. And if you don't do this, what happens is you then have to make decisions and be reactive. But when you actually plan your to-do list, what we talked about earlier is you're prioritizing what you view as the most important things, right? So that list is broken down into your must-haves in order. Like here's my number one eat that frog that I have to do in the morning. And then here's my priorities I'm gonna do after. And then there's your wish list, right? If everything goes smoothly and there's no fire drills going on, the kids go to bed on time, right?

14:07Brian Tracy:Here's where I can allocate some time to take care of these. And then you go through your list and then as the week goes on, new things pop up. And then when you review it that night, you can reprioritize as you go on. It gives you an opportunity. So I didn't really understand this early on and I wasn't sure if it was counterproductive to spend all this time on planning, but it's actually saved me a lot and allowed me to be more focused and disciplined and more productive overall.

14:28CJ Bilangino:You know, before you were talking about if your brain's like thinking about something in the background, it can kind of drain you with energy. I feel like it's a little bit different if you do something at night. There's something incredible that happens when you focus your mind on understanding what the key problems are that you've got to solve or the key tasks that you're going to commit yourself to the following day. your brain is thinking about them a little bit for you while you're sleeping it's some kind of hack that you wake up with the answers sometimes since reading this book i've done two new things and one of them was i have like a shutdown routine that i've been meaning to do for ages but since reading this book it kind of prompted me to give it a go and that's one of the outcomes that i found from it the other thing that i've started doing is my list is now prioritized do you remember his a b c d e system essentially what it is is the a things are your frogs they're the things that you need to eat first thing in the morning.

15:14CJ Bilangino:If you've got multiple A's, you can have A1, A2. Your B things are things that you can get done as soon as your A things are finished. C things are probably not all that important. D things should be delegated. And if anything's on your list and it's an E, it should just be removed. Such a simple system. And I've just found it much more helpful in focusing exactly on what I need to do for the day.

15:33Brian Tracy:And Sam, just to go on to that, I think one thing you point out there is the E eliminate. I mean, how many times do we have things on our list and we think it's important, but if you just have it in general list and you'll prioritize it and you focus on it. But I know there are things that have been on my list and it's been towards the bottom and it may stay on there for a month. And then I realized, you know, it actually wasn't that important. I didn't need to do it. And then you eliminate it as it goes across. But had you not spent the time to go and prioritize it and focus on those frogs and those priorities, right, you wouldn't have seen it stay on that list and then eventually go away.

16:01Brian Tracy:And you may have put in the effort to do it, which would have not been the most valuable adding time, because if you're ultimately eliminating it, you didn't need to do it. So that's a good call out on the ABCDE method.