The Payoff: 5 Rules for Work and Success

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1:15So you might have heard on this week's episode that I ended the ep with a section called the payoff, which is where I asked our guests five questions about how they operate and what their experience has taught them. And it seems only fair that if I'm going to be asking others these questions, then I put myself through it as well. So that's what we'll be focusing on today. All right, so the first thing I ask guests is steal this habit. It's the one habit that they have used that's been a game changer in their lives. And if I was to use it on myself, then the habit that I'd advise everybody to steal is eat the frog.

1:47Now bear with me, it sounds strange. But lots of people, when they're asked what they need to do to be more focused, more dedicated, and get on in life, they're told straight away to write a list of stuff. But the problem when you write a list of stuff, people usually pick the easiest thing to do first. And what Eat the Frog is all about is to change that and turn it on its head. It's about doing the hardest thing on the list at the very beginning. And usually, importantly, doing it first thing in the day. The reason for this is based on a psychological concept is that you're going to have more energy in the morning, you're going to have more focus around what you need to do when you start the day.

2:23So if you change the list and pick the hardest thing you need to do, actually it's double barreled in terms of a win. First, you've got more energy to attack the thing that's the most hardest thing for you to do. And also when you've got it out of the way, everything else becomes easier. So if you focus on the hard thing, which usually scares you, get it out of the way, nail it first, give yourself a massive pat on the back, then you've got more confidence, more dopamine, and all the good stuff to focus on the easier things, which should, if it's all worked out right, go quicker and actually give you more rewards in terms of what you want to do in a day.

2:58Lots of people do it the other way around. And unfortunately, that's what we've been taught to do. Get the easy thing out, tick the box off, make the bed because it's the easy win in the morning. Rubbish. If your bed's messy, you've still got other chores to do anyway. So just focus on the things that are really hard, focus on those, write a list down, get a plan and get them out the way first. So still this habit, eat the frog. So the second thing I ask guests is what do they put on their not to do list? That's something that they would have dropped off from doing that they used to do in the past.

3:30And the big thing I don't do anymore is say yes. Everyone used to tell me whenever you're in a situation, just automatically default to yes, because it gets you into rooms, it gets you opportunities, it gets you more experience than anybody else. And the difficulty with that is that you can get overwhelmed incredibly quickly. What I want you to focus on, because that's what I do now, is step back and assess every single thing to see, should I be doing this? Is this a conversation I need to be in? Is this a task that I'm going to put my most amount of effort in? Is this something that's going to take me forward from where I am now?

4:07Because there's lots of things that you'll get asked to do, which will distract you, take you in a different direction. We had a great conversation with Alistair Campbell, talked about his OST framework, which was all about having an objective, a strategy, and then the tactics. And difficulty with most people, they don't start with a clear objective. Now, when somebody asks you to do something, you surely have that objective front of mind to say, is this something that I'm interested in? Is this something that's going to take me towards the thing that I'm planning? Because without that focus, you'll get dragged into lots of cul-de-sacs and dead ends of things that aren't going to serve you well, but are going to make whoever asked you, that asked the question or the request, makes them better.

4:46And that's not a fair exchange. What you need to be really clear about upfront is what do I want out of this? And the reason why that's important is that most times when you get asked to do stuff, it's all about a tactical exchange. Somebody wants something from you and you have to work out, is it worth me giving them my time, my effort, my knowledge, my experience? Am I going to get something in return. It seems really cold, but actually the most important thing for you is that it's your time and that's precious. And sometimes you really have to protect it. So the thing that I'm focused on, which is about what I don't do now, is just automatically default to yes.

5:22Make sure you focus on, am I going to get something out of it? Otherwise, don't do it. The next thing I ask my guests is about what's their productivity hack? What's the thing that they have done to be more efficient around getting things done. Now, I'm the most haphazard individual sometimes. I've got a myriad of different things coming in from several different directions, whether it's my wife asking me stuff, it's the kids, or it's stuff at work in the businesses or in the things that I'm associated with. And sometimes it can become really overwhelming to manage all of that because there's a lot going on, right?

5:56As my younger kids will say, life is just lifing and it gets a bit hectic sometimes. But what I think is useful is to have a really clear framework about what you're going to focus your time and energy on. I apply the Eisenhower matrix to the things that are on my to-do list in order to make my time more effective in terms of the things that I've done. And the first thing you've got to do is write a list. Write out a list of all the things that you are tasked with or are taking up any portion of your time. And that's anything. It's like taking the kids to school. It's making sure the invoices are in time.

6:29Whatever it is that takes up any time in your day, look at your diary, look at your calendar and have a focus on all the things that are drawing on your time. Once you've written them down, write down a square in a piece of paper and draw a cross in the middle, dividing it into four equal boxes. Now, the top left hand box is the important urgent box. The box next to that is the important not urgent box. Now taking down on the left hand side, it's the urgent not important box. And next to that is going to be the not important, the not urgent stuff. Now, think of it like this. Everything in box number one, which is important and urgent is on fire.

7:09It's the stuff that is immediate. It needs your attention now. If you don't, you're going to get arrested, divorced, or worse, whatever it is, everything in there is important and urgent. It has to be done now. The next box, which is the important, not urgent box, think about that, that's just getting warm. It's a light, but it's just getting warm. And if you don't do something, it is going to be out of control and go into the important, urgent box. That's stuff that needs a decision from you as an individual, where you're the bottleneck, where you have to decide what's going to happen next. Or you've got a task that's a deadline-driven task, and the deadline is in the very near future.

7:47It could be the next couple of days or the next week. that's stuff that you've got to do so that's the warm stuff and then the stuff in the urgent and not important box it's just started the fire it's a little kindling it's a little spark which if you deal with it now it won't get hot but if you don't deal with it it will start to burn and need more of your time and resource and that's where you usually need to either delegate it out to somebody else pass on the responsibility so someone's asked you to do something you're in a good mood and you said, yes, I'll do it. My wife's asked me to go and pick up the shopping next week.

8:19And I said, yes, 100 % I'll do that. And then Finn at Bowers texted me and said he wants something. And I've said, oh no, that's going to conflict. That's the stuff that you need to delegate out to somebody else and get rid of that. The stuff in the not urgent, not important box, it's cold. It's ice cold. There's no temperature, no spark, no kindling. It's wet wood. It's the stuff in there that's not important. It's a distraction of your time, particularly when it's linked to what you want to achieve or what you want to do. So that stuff in the not urgent, not important box, my advice, get rid of it.

8:49But don't throw it away before you do one important thing. Understand the pattern of the things that usually end up in the not urgent, not important box. What are those things that keep coming in, ending up in your diary, but they don't have any benefit for you personally? They're not taking you forward. They're not earning you more money. They're not getting you a better relationship. All the stuff in there, recognize the pattern and don't repeat it. So my productivity hack is apply the Eisenhower matrix to the stuff that's on your to-do list.

9:25The next thing I ask my guests is what is their greatest failure and what have they learned from it? And this one really cuts deep when I think about it for me, because it's front of mind always, but keeps me focused in the things that I do. because the greatest failure for me was when I started my very first business. I just, for context, I just finished my tenure with Lord Sugar, then Sir Alan, working for his company. I had all the buzz of being the first apprentice. Every mum in the whole of East London thought I was the bee's knees and they're telling their son, be like Tim, be like Tim. So my head was big.

9:59I was super confident about all the things that I could go on to achieve. The challenge with that is that I was slightly overconfident. And I jumped into starting a business that I felt was going to be the next big thing, which was solely focused on what I felt was the best thing to do. And that was to create a cosmetic product. I'd just left from Lord Sugar's pupillage and had all the experience then. And I thought, this is easy. I've done it once. I'll just do it again. but this time for myself. I went out, I created a brand, I had designers, I had packaging, I had formulators who were putting products together.

10:38I had importing stuff from around the Far East to bring me jars that were beautifully ornate. And the difficulty with that is that I'd created all the superficial elements of a business, but not really understood how to make a business model, which was sustainable. My confidence had grown into arrogance and allowed me to miss the essential things that I needed to really take into consideration. And as a result of that, the very first business I started failed incredibly quickly. I lost over£50 ,000, which was all the money that I'd saved up having worked for Lord Sugar. And I was mortified. I remember driving down on a very fast motorbike that I'd bought, thinking about how to sell it in order to make ends meet, right?

11:22So I was distressed. And in that moment, I realised two of the greatest things because I was down on my luck, bouldering on depression, I think now, looking back at where I was and thinking that the whole world was going to know that Tim Campbell had failed. The decision to make me the apprentice was the worst one. It was a mistake. He should never have been the winner. And all these negative thoughts started coming in. And I realised two things. Firstly, I wasn't dead. Although I'd made a mistake, it wasn't fatal I hadn't collapsed, I hadn't died I'd still had the opportunity to go again And realising that, put everything in context Because in my head, I felt everybody cared But the reality is, no one gave them monkeys Everyone else had their own problems Everyone else was dealing with their own stuff And my issue was that I was over-dramatising How big this was in reality And in that moment, that was clouding all my judgements because I was making it much bigger than it needed to be.

12:23Rather than focusing on doing stuff that I could control, I was focused on the things that I couldn't control, which was people's reception to my failing. Wrong thing, wrong focus totally. And then the second thing it taught me was that the second I realised it was my fault and what I'd done, I asked for help. I asked people for help. The vulnerability of asking people and admitting something had gone wrong and then asking for help actually produced the best results ever. Because one, it solidified in my head that there were mistakes made, things hadn't gone right. I wasn't making it up or some, I wasn't in some delusion trying to convince myself something was good.

13:00And then I found out who my real friends were because by asking for help, the right people came along. The right people supported me. The right people shared that they'd also failed. And it wasn't just me that was the one who was a disaster at the bottom of the pile. Everyone had done it. It was normalized. It was okay. and importantly they'd found their way out of it so in that moment of failure when I thought I'd lost everything I actually found everything I found people that cared about me I found people who were willing to advise me and I found that I had the resilience to bounce back from the worst thing that I thought was happening to me at one particular time don't get me wrong I wouldn't wish it on anybody I don't want everybody to have to go through it if necessary but when we're talking about resilience, it does come from sometimes scraping your knee and getting a scar to prove that you've done it.

13:48And in that moment, my greatest failure taught me that you're not out unless you stop trying. And for me, that was the thing that stayed with me ever since. The final thing I ask of all of my guests is what's the one piece of advice that they wish they'd had when they were starting out? And for me, the one piece of advice I wish I had when I starting out is to stop comparing yourself to other people. The big challenge for me, whether it was at school, whether it was when I first went to university or got my first job working in the public sector, or actually going on the television show, was I was constantly in a mode of comparing myself to other people.

14:31And that's not a bad thing necessarily, because you saw all these other people who were either the brainiacs at school or the ones who got all of the equivalent to nine stars or whatever they grade the kids now in terms of their GCSEs or you saw the person who came out without really trying in my opinion who got the first or landed the first job or when I went into the show the person who had gone to the best academic establishments and had started business and were making huge amounts of money. And I constantly was comparing my journey to theirs. Like, why aren't I in that situation? Why can't I achieve that?

15:09Why don't I do that? I think it comes from childhood when I constantly heard my mum telling me to go out and get A's or work twice as hard as everybody else. And that comparison was embedded from a very early age. The challenge is that I now know that comparing yourself to people's stories where you don't know all the details is a waste of time. Because I don't know anything apart from the bits that they're willing to show me in terms of the bits I'm willing to be able to see. And that doesn't take into account all the difficulties, hardships, or the particular circumstances they may have gone through.

15:45So the bit that I find most rewarding now is not to compare myself to others, their other story, but to compare myself to yesterday or the thing that I had done previously. So my comparison marker now is me. It's did I do better than I did beforehand? Am I working faster than I did previously? Have I achieved more than I had set out to? Because that's the only thing that I can really know the full 100 % story. Everybody else's story is an Instagram reel. It's a LinkedIn profile story. It's the best bits that somebody is willing to tell you. And it's easy to get sucked in and say, well, I should be like that.

16:20Oh, I want to do that. But the reality is all you need to ever do, the one piece of advice I give everybody listening, is just compare yourself to you and your yesterday and what you've achieved and what you want to achieve because that's the only thing you can control and it's the only thing you've got 100 % evidence if the comparison is the right one. So the one piece of advice I wish I had started out is don't compare yourself to anybody else apart from yourself because that's the only one you're ever really going to know the full story of.

16:52So there you have it. That's my version of the payoff. Hopefully there's something in there for you And if you like those questions Then I ask each of my guests that same set When they join me on Mondays So make sure you've subscribed So you can listen to those too I would really love it if you'd share today's episode with someone We're trying to reach as many like-minded people as we can with this show Because too many people are making work harder for themselves Than it actually needs to be And the last thing I'd say is Thank you for giving me your time to listen to this episode I always love hearing from you and if you ever want me to answer any of your questions, you can email me at reworking at bowermedia.co.uk and you might end up featured on an episode too.

17:33Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back on Monday with a new guest. I'll speak to you soon.