INTRODUCTION Session 1 – Time is Running Out

Fast Action Steps

1. What activities, projects, and events which add minimal value to your life and work could you begin to eliminate?
2. Have you taken full responsibility for your own personal and professional growth? What are the areas where you could be more intentional?
3. Clearly summarize what you want to accomplish and become with your remaining years of energy.
4. Are you fully committed to immediately apply the tools and principles in this fast track to experience more margin and more fulfillment in your life, work, and leadership?

Session Transcript

Welcome to the Time & Focus Fast Track!

We’re so glad you’re here, and I know you’re going to make some amazing progress through this decision that you’ve made to invest in yourself through the Time and Focus Fast Track.

If you’re like me, you think of yourself as time conscious. Like, you’re really interested in making the best use of your time and your energy so you can bring your highest and best to your life, work, and leadership. The National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST, as it is referred to, coordinates universal time and you’ve probably seen on your computer or on your device the code or the acronym UTC, and that’s what it stands for – Universal Time. NIST is asked 50,000 times a second what time it is. That’s a lot of people, a lot of devices who are concerned about time!

How many times a day do you check your watch, or do you check your device? Is it 10 times or 20 times or 30 times? Or maybe you’re the guy that discovers that your time is still stuck on Standard Time two days after Daylight Savings Time began. Or if you travel, maybe you have trouble remembering to update your watch for the different time zones that you pass through.

Most people mark time by how old or how young they are until they get into their 40’s. Then it happens! You realize that you are never going to be young again – and you begin considering how much time you have left and what your life is going to mean. In fact, it may be why you’re here today.

So why do we spend so much time with activities, projects, and events that add minimal value to our life and to our work? Only to compound the problem by wasting more time on regret or grief or on poor decisions or behaviors.

Maybe it’s because, in all of our years of rolling around on this planet, we never stopped long enough to consider the purpose for our life, for our work, and the disciplines that would be necessary to fulfill that purpose.

Most people who know me well consider me to be relatively adept at time management. I can squeeze every last productive moment out of a work day. But, no matter how hard I try, there’s one thing that I’ve never learned how to do, as it relates to time, and that’s add time to my day. How can we add more time to the day?

Not one of us can add even a second to our day. When our time is up – it’s over!

The question then that we should be asking is – What am I doing with the time that I have left? What is it that I want my life to mean? How do I want other people to remember my life when I’m gone?

Years ago, I realized that developing influence with people, making an impact in my market, and leaving a positive legacy were not sure things. If my life was going to matter – to my family, to my friends, to my colleagues, to our clients – I was going to have to live and grow on purpose. I would need to be very intentional with how I live.

The only problem was, nobody stepped up with a step-by-step trail guide for my life and my work. I had to take personal responsibility for my personal and professional growth – and while we have put together a lot of tools and a lot of resources since that time, you’re going to have to take personal responsibility for your own growth too!

So, I did. I made a ton of mistakes, and you’re going to make mistakes, too. That’s okay.

What’s important is that we are making regular progress.

• • • From where we are toward where we are headed.
    • From what we used to do to what we were made to do.
    • From what is comfortable to what is most fulfilling in our life and in our work.
    • From what is convenient to what is most valuable, and from what benefits me to what benefits other people.

Time, Margin, and Focus is the chief competitor for your personal growth. Time, margin, and focus is the chief competitor for the development of your leadership skills and for the development of other people, and for working with your colleagues and the leaders above you even if they don’t do a great job with leadership. Time, margin, and focus is your chief competitor, what are you doing about it?

Here’s what I want you to do, I want you to take a few moments and download the Fast Track Journey Overview, and I want you to follow along. As we begin the fast track, I’m going to introduce you in the next session to the Simple Leadership Compass and the 4 Greatest Challenges That Leaders Are Facing Today.

That’s a great place for you to start, and after that session we’re going to move on:

1. Module 1 – DISCOVER, which is all about finding the right tools for time management, for focus, and for your planning. Then after Module 1, we’re going to move to –
2. Module 2 – APPLY, which is all about applying the learning right away into sustainable life and work habits. We’re going to help you do that all along the way.
3. Module 3 – REVIEW, we’re going to show you how to measure, track, and celebrate progress.

This is in review of the content that we’re going to cover in the fast track, this is actually to help you to put a review process into your life, work, and leadership.

Everything that we do involves applied learning. Because applied learning is the only way that you’re going to make sustainable progress. Applied learning is the only way that you can experience transformation in your life and work especially as it relates to time and focus.  So, along the way, we’re going to give you opportunities to try on the learning – to apply it – through fast action steps in every single session. If you haven’t already, take a moment right now download the overview and the worksheet for this lesson and then, complete the action steps for this session.

We’ve designed each session to be easy for you to complete in just a few minutes each day. No matter how you watch it, if you binge watch to all the way through or if you come back to it do one session a day, 10-15 minutes is the most that you’ll need each day. It’s important that you apply the learning right away in the right way. So, don’t skip this step. Honor your investment in each session and complete the action steps found in your worksheet.

Next Session

In the next session, I am going to introduce you to the Simple Leadership Compass and we’re going to look at the 4 Greatest Challenges Leaders Are Facing Today and how to deal with them.

You’ll hear us say often, “You don’t have to get it perfect, you just need to take the next step.”

So, I’ll see you in the next session.[/text_block]