3 Steps to Making More Impact and More Money with Less Time with Joe Lau: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like the Gold Digger Podcast. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down three steps to making more impact, more money with less time. To drop these value bombs, I are brought to Joe Lau into EO Fire Studios. Joe was founded and sold several six and seven figure companies while working 25 hours a week. His approach simplifies the process by focusing on the things that matter.

0:37In today, Jay Fire Nation will talk about how if you don't know what's important to you, then you won't know what is important to do. We all have strengths and weaknesses. The secret to being successful is to maximize your strengths and delegate your weaknesses and so much more, Fire Nation. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Joe and our sponsors. Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, hosted by Amy Porterfield, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with a focus on online business, including digital courses, list building content and more.

1:08Online Marketing Made Easy breaks down big ideas and strategies into actionable step-by-step processes. A recent episode that will help you get more results with a whole lot less stress is on four ways to avoid burnout. Listen to Online Marketing Made Easy wherever you get your podcasts. Ever thought about giving a TEDx talk? It's one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world. And four-time TEDx speaker, Taylor Conroy from Thought Leader can help you get there. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor's free training, where he teaches you how to land a TEDx talk and spread your message to millions.

1:43Joe, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Woo, Fire Nation, what is up? John, I'm super excited to be here. Something most people don't know about me. I was tased with a taser. What? By law enforcement. Wow. True story. I need a little background here because I feel like this is going to be a good visual. So yes, you don't have to be a bad guy to be tased. And here's how. So I had this business, which I sell self-defense products like stun guns and tasers. So I'm one of those guys that I can only sell the things that I believe in and know exactly how it works.

2:24So in this case, lucky me, I had to find out whether a taser works or not. So I signed up for a taser certificate program that law enforcement has to take if they want to carry a taser, right? So I went to this class. I'm 5 '10 and weighed about 155 pounds and a skinny Chinese dude. And everyone around me was six feet tall, 200 pounds. And they're all like some kind of serious law enforcement, right? So I really stood out, but not in a good way. All right. So when the class started, the instructor asked, who wants to be Tase? A few people raised their hand and volunteered. And of course, they picked me.

3:07Oh, Lord. Then before you know, one big guy sat on my left, holding my arm, and another big guy sat on my right, holding my arm. And I was like, what's going on? The instructor said, okay, we just want to make sure that you don't fall on your face and break your nose. I was like, okay, that's comforting. So the instructor sat behind me and then here he goes. He goes like, taser, taser, boom. Then he hit me with the taser in my back. Man, I tell you, it hurt. And yes, I screamed and I just fell straight to the ground. So Fire Nation, personal advice. If you happen to be in a situation that a police is pointing a taser at you, my advice is stop doing whatever you're doing and just listen.

3:52because I'm telling you, because it hurts like a, you know what? So yeah, I was, I was, I was taste. Yeah, I can tell you being in the military, we actually had to go through some training where we actually got gassed and we had to take off our gas mask in the room where the gas was going off. And you're like, oh, I can handle it. I can make it happen. And let me tell you, like you are completely immobilized when it happens. Like you just start, you know, mucus are coming out of your nose. Your eyes are just watering. You can't keep them open. I mean, it was an experience that I literally still can just basically taste that gas in my mouth.

4:29So I can say, Fire Nation, just be a good person. And as I was sharing earlier with you, Fire Nation, today we'll be talking about three steps to making more impact and more money with less time. So these are some good steps you're going to hear. And I want to just start off by getting a little bit of background with you, Joe. So what was your biggest struggle as an entrepreneur to getting to where you're at today? My biggest struggle is definitely time. It feels like I never have enough time, right? So on this particular night, I was working late on my second business. It just happened to be, it's my StunGan and Taser business.

5:05Oh, Lord. So financially, it was doing pretty well, but I was really busy. So I was working really late and I finally got a chance to went downstairs and grab some dinner with my wife. And she was talking to me the entire time, but I swear I didn't hear what she said because my body was there, but my mind was still thinking about work. So I just keep like shuffling food in my mouth and try to rush back to work. When I finished, I get back to my home office. I was looking at my gigantic whiteboard. And as I was checking things off, I found myself putting twice as many things back to the list. I was so overwhelmed and frustrated because I think to myself, when I would ever get ahead of this.

5:46And all of a sudden, my wife came in and she gave me this look, right? You can feel it. It's kind of like the calm before storm. So as she asked me this, are you coming to bed? I was like, no. Look at this. Look at this huge list. It's not even halfway done. And she just really gave me this really sad look and she left. So I went back to work, right? It's legit. I'm not playing. I'm working. So I went back to work. So as I was working Man, I started to feel really guilty And all of a sudden It hits me I am my father I realized I'm married to this amazing woman I'm not really married to her I'm married to my business Just like my father He was always busy He's always put his work first You see, John When I was young My parents got divorced, right?

6:38So it was just me and my father left And he loves me but he was never around because he just works a lot. So I decided when I grew up, I want to be an entrepreneur. I want to own my business so I can make all the money and have all the time to spend with my family. Well, we all know how that goes. So that was really a wake-up call for me. And because I constantly feel guilty at work when I'm not spending time with my family. And when I finally spend time with my family, I feel guilty for not putting time for my work. So I start to wonder if such thing is work-life balance and how to do that. So I spent the next few years and tons of money on courses, workshops, coaches, and try to learn everything about my mindset, time management, productivity, you name it.

7:22Anything that I can get a hands-on to help me to get this work-life balance. And after two years of all this, like, yeah, I got this, but no, no, it just put me back way more. So I finally figured it out. So for the past decade, I was fortunate enough to found six companies and sold three of them. But that's not my proudest achievement. So today, instead of working 50, 60 hours a week, I now work a productive 25 hours a week. And instead of having a huge to-do list that make tiny impact, I now have a tiny list that make a huge impact to my business. And instead of not able to spend time with my family and my wife, today I spend so much time with my family, they're actually sick of me.

8:03When people ask my kids what I do for a living, John I'm telling you They literally tell the teacher That I don't work And I just play with them all day That does not look good I'll tell you So today I tell people I'm a part-time entrepreneur And a full-time family man A full-time family man And my schedules Allow me to have this amazing life That I can spend with my family Put a huge smile on my face Every single day And that's my mission To do the same thing For other entrepreneurs So they can have this amazing life as well It's because you see I believe you should never have to sacrifice your personal life for professional gain.

8:41When you master the art and science of being productive, money, relationship, health, whatever you dream of, you can actually have it all. It's so true, Fire Nation. I've experienced it over the eight years of continuing to strive towards better productivity by doing things and creating systems and building the right teams, et cetera. And I just love that phrase that Joe shared about, you know, going from a big to-do list and making a little impact or getting a little done to having a tiny to-do list and getting so much done and having so much impact. And you mentioned work-life balance, Joe, and so many people struggle with that very thing, work-life balance.

9:18So what are a couple of your top tips on how you do this successfully? All right. I have a little system that I have. It's called App System. Yep, you heard it right. It's an app. So APP. but this app is not an app that you download to your phone. It's an app that you download to your brain. A stands for attitude and a P stands for productivity. And then last P stands for people. And today I want to dive right into the productivity portion, which has three sections, which I call SPF. I have a lot of acronym. I know you like them too. So before today you think about SPF is protect your skin. So hopefully after today in this call, you think of SPF is to protect your time.

9:59So to answer your question, a lot of people ask me, okay, how do you fit everything into your schedule between business and family, right? And it's a great question. The truth is, I don't try to fit everything into my schedule. You see, when it comes to scheduling, everyone is thinking about fitting things in. I'm saying it is about taking things out to make room for things that matter. Things that will take you from where you are to where you want to be. I call this intentional scheduling. So I use the time blocking technique. What you do is you block out some time, you block out some of the time on a regular basis, whether it's 30 minutes, an hour, a few hours, it's not important.

10:41The key is consistency. And during those times, you only work on one thing that will move the needle. It is not about being perfect. It is about breaking things down to simple, small steps and making progress. Then you will plan the rest of your schedule around that time block. And you can have multiple time blocks for the day for all the important things like workout, play, spend time with yourself and your family, whatever you like. When you stick to this technique, no matter how your days go, in the long run, you're gonna achieve everything that you want because you're making progress to your goal every single time.

11:17And that's what I call intentional scheduling. Intentional scheduling. And that's just a word that I feel like so many of us don't even utilize in our day-to-day life, intentional scheduling and just being intentional in general, because Fire Nation, if you're not being intentional about what you're doing, you're just being haphazard. And again, you're having these big to-do lists and getting little done as opposed to tiny to-do lists and making massive impact. So Joe, what do you want to share to close down this specific topic we're talking about right now with those top tips on how to have that work-life balance in a meaningful way.

11:54Cool. The second steps I want to talk about is prioritize to impact. Now I have a simple three-step process called prioritize to impact. And one of my students, Roseanne, asked me, what the heck is that? It's a mouthful, right? Prioritize to impact. And we met at this one of my workshops and she's your typical entrepreneur, John. High achiever, very capable. She wants to learn everything and do everything. and she's constantly being busy and she has this huge to-do list and everything on it is important. And she asked me, how do I prioritize it? So you see, being busy is different than being productive.

12:32Being busy is about getting things done. Being productive is about getting the important things done. So every time when you're not prioritized to impact, you're wasting time, leaving money on the table, and more importantly, you're not achieving your mission. So there are three steps, I call it WWW, to prioritize the impact. It's who, what, and when. The first step is who. What you need to do is figure out who you are and your true value and your identity. And what you want to be known for is because when your time spent is not aligned with your value and your identity, you're going to have burnout, regret, and live a mediocre life.

13:13The truth is, you don't know what is truly important. If you don't know what is truly important to you, How do you know what is important to do? So first, figure out your value and your identity and what you want to be known for. The second step is what. First, ask yourself this question. What is your goal? What does the finish line look like for this product, service, project, or even a business? Write that down. And then ask yourself this simple question on every single item on your to-do list. You ready? The question is, what could possibly happen if I say no to this? Yes. Right? Ask this question.

13:51This will force you to think logically. Once you're done with this step, your list is going to shrink a lot. I guarantee you. And whatever is left on the list is probably important. Now the last step is when, and this is my secret sauce. What you do right now is draw a timeline and ask yourself, when do they become important? There are a lot of important things in business, that's true. but they usually don't become important at the same time. Let's say you're starting a business or launching a new product. There are two main events, marketing and transaction. So what you do is you draw two vertical lines and divide your timeline into three areas.

14:33If you look at it, each area is like a stage of business, right? The stage on the left, in this case, is like pre-marketing. The middle stage is between marketing and transaction. And the stage on the right is after transaction. So what you would do is look at your remaining to-do list, which are all the things that should be important, and see which stage the items falls in. And in each stage, your item will go in order from top to bottom. So you have something like 1, 2, 3, 4 on the left stage. In this example, pre-marketing. And then you have another 1, 2, 3, 4. Go down the list on the middle stage.

15:09In this case, it will be marketing and transaction. And then you also have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, whatever you have left in the last stage, which is the transaction, after transaction. And boom, just like that. Instead of a one-dimension to-do list, you now have a two-dimension list, what I call a success list. And because they are divided by stages, when implemented properly, you now have an actionable blueprint to get all the important things done in most efficient way. The last step is focus to finish. Now, I'm going to kick out on this one. Keep on rolling, brother. I'm going to kick this out. All right.

15:45So when it comes to focus, entrepreneurs are thinking about it wrong. They're thinking about it like this. The key to focus is just thinking about one thing. They should be thinking about it like this. The key to focus is eliminating all other distractions. I call it focus to finish. There are two types of distractions, internal and external. And today, I want to focus on the external distractions. Now, you put in all the effort to intentionally schedule your work with time blocking. And then you figure out what needs to be worked on by prioritizing impact. Now, let's make sure you actually get it done undistracted.

16:30So there are five secrets for undistracted focus. The first secret is communicate with those around you. You're an important person, which is a great thing. and people want your time and attention and that's an indicator that you're in porn. So you should embrace that, right? It's a positive thing. The key to harmony is communicate your work schedule, your time block. When are you going to start and finish and when you'll be available to them? Put up a no-interruptor sign, close the door and get to work. When you communicate, keep people in the loop and set expectation, I mean, you no longer feel guilty you're focusing on your work and not them.

17:12So that's secret number one. All right, Fire Nation, we're going to get to these other four strategies as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Expectations are at an all-time high these days for sales leaders and sales teams. Beyond your daily cold calls, the relationship building, and actually closing deals, you're also expected to leverage a slew of different tech to-dos. If you're not digging into the numbers, monitoring the best strategies, and switching it up when things aren't working, and collaborating across other teams within your company, then you're not on your A game. Sounds pretty exhausting, right?

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18:22Giving a TEDx talk is one of the most powerful ways to share your message with the world and Thought Leader can help you get there. Thought Leader is a speaker coaching company that has helped over 550 and counting coaches, speakers, entrepreneurs, authors, and experts land TEDxTalks. Thought Leader is not affiliated with TED or TEDx, but they're able to get these results because their founder, Taylor Conroy, is a four-time TEDx speaker himself and past EO Fire guest. You might be thinking a TEDxTalk sounds great, but where do you start? Taylor has put together a free training that's going to teach you how to land a TEDxTalk in as little as 90 days.

18:57Join Taylor to learn exactly what TEDx organizers are looking for in their speakers, how to write a talk that goes viral once it goes online, and more. Visit thought-leader.com slash fire to join Taylor for this free training and get your message out of your head, out of your heart, and out into the world where it belongs. That's thought-leader.com slash fire. So Joe, we're back and I'm really loving how you're breaking down these five secrets to stay focused in this incredibly distracted world that we live in here today. You've already shared one. You've got four more to share now. And Fire Nation, I know that some of this may be kind of difficult to follow just in the audio only version, but make sure you stick around till the end.

19:37Joe's got something pretty special for you that we will share. Joe, take it away with numbers two through five. All right, let's do this. The second secret is what I call create a star book effects. This one is my favorite. You know you like to work on a clean space. You just don't like to clean it, right? And that's one of the reasons that you like to go to places like Starbucks. Yeah. Because every time when you get there, you can expect the place to be clean. So you can just sit down and just jump right into work. So why not create the same thing at home or your office? So this is how you do it.

20:14Have a workspace that is only for work. I would literally put up a sign there so no one would do anything except for you do work. The key is find it clean, leave it clean, and have it ready to go all the time. And that's the Starbucks secret. Hashtag, bring your own coffee. So tip number three, the secret number three, is to turn off all notifications. Now this seems like an obvious choice, right? But it is extremely important. Research showed that every time when you are distracted, it takes about 20 minutes to get back to focus. Imagine you only get distracted like three times a day. I mean, that's a good day.

20:53That's a whole hour wasted. I don't know about you, but I definitely can use extra hour a day. So what you would do is this. Leave your phone, iPad, and all your attention-grabbing devices out of sight, out of mind. Close your Facebook and all your social media. Set up Do Not Disturb on your phone and computer. Implement an out-office email. And remember, there is time for those things. but just not when you try to focus and get things done. So that's secret number three. Secret number four, remove clutter. Virtually, only have the file that you're working on open and make sure you clean up your desktop.

21:33I know some of us that like to use our desktop as a file folder. Oh yeah. But that is okay. But when you work, just create a new folder and drag everything in that little tiny folder. And when you're done, just bring it back out. It will still be there. Trust me. So the second thing is for physically, keep only the things out that you need to work on for this one particular test. When you clear both your virtual and physical workspace, your brain is now clear to focus. And that's secret number four. All right, last secret. Last but not least, secret number five. This is a fun one. Affirm your goal.

22:13Yes. Affirmation is one of the most effective self-improvement techniques. Basically, you write down your goal, read it out loud to yourself every day, visualize and feel the success you want to achieve. So why not use it with your time block? What you do is write down your goal in just a few words on a sticky note. You're not supposed to write a whole paragraph, right? Just a few words. That's how you're a sticky note. For your work section, a study showed that you are 42 % more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. Then what you will do is read it out loud to yourself, visualize and feel how you will feel when you finish what you set out to do for the particular time block section.

22:55So the key is write it out, read it out and make it clear and focus on one thing only and get it done. And these are the five secrets for undistracted focus. Fire Nation, I'm just going to circle back to two that I really resonate with. Number one is the create a Starbucks effect. I mean, I love just coming back to a clean space. I always, as the last thing I do every day, is just do a complete sweep of my office so that when I walk in in the morning, I'm just like, yes, this space feels clean and I'm just excited to be in here. And then affirm your goal. I mean, 42%, that's a massive number. So Fire Nation, affirm your goal.

23:34And Joe, let's end with a bang. What do you wish you knew when you first started out? Share that with Fire Nation. Man, John, so many things. But one thing is I wish I knew how much time, money, and stress I would save myself by just working with a coach who has done what I want to achieve. Let me give you a real-life example. I like to stay fit, and I have been working with a lot of personal trainers. A few years ago, I wanted to take my game to the next level, so I decided to try something completely different. I want to work with someone who lives and breathes fitness. So I decided to work with a professional boxer.

24:17And man, I thought I knew fitness. But this guy is a whole new level. And not only he knows the mindset and the tactics on how to get me to the best shape of my life, the most important thing is he taught me how to live and breathe like an athlete so I can stay fit for the rest of my life every single day. And that changed my life completely. And Fire Nation, whatever you want to achieve, don't try to do it alone. If it's money, find someone who has a lot of money. Learn from them. If it's time, find someone who lives a productive life and learn from them. When you do that, not only you save yourself tons of time and money and stress, you actually get to where you want to be a lot faster, further, and more importantly, have so much more fun along the way.

25:04Joe, you have dropped a ton of value bombs in Fire Nation. I really hope you're going to apply one to, who knows, maybe you all-stars are going to apply three of these secret strategies that Joe shared with us today in your life for what is going to turn out to be massive results. Joe, I know you got something special for Fire Nation, so take a minute, share it, and then we'll say goodbye. Aristotle, one of the greatest philosophers, said, Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom Fire Nation Your business is a reflection of your beliefs and values It has real impact on how your business runs and grows One of the best kept secrets of a successful entrepreneur is They all know themselves and their values very well I want to offer you a chance to take a very useful personality assessment This assessment is value-based and it's only going to take you 90 seconds to complete.

26:01This powerful assessment is responsible for helping some of my students to get back a few hours of their time every single day. It has also helped the others identify and delegate 90 % of their work so they can completely free themselves up for the things that matter. As a special gift for Fire Nation, I just love you guys, right? Based on the unique results of your assessment, I will personally give you three custom tips that you can implement right away on how to skyrocket your productivity so you can get things done faster and stress-free. These are 100 % customized tips for you. It's because everyone is different.