[Music] [Music] hello and welcome to the moonshots podcast it's episode 121 i'm your co-host mike parsons and as always i'm joined by the man who's rather effective mr mark pearson freeland good morning mark hey good morning mike what a stonking season and series that you and i are in the middle of right now for moonshots can you believe that we're only on our third episode in the timeless classic series and classic they are indeed mark and uh i mean we just had an onslaught of dale carnegie both his rather famous uh book but also how to stop worrying and to start living it was great that dale carnegie series didn't you think yeah i learned so much myself and i can see from the engagement that we've had from all of our listeners that both of these books are just i mean they're classics you know they speak to every generation they can inspire all of us no matter what we're doing in our life i think the lessons that you and i sort of learned out loud together were prevalent and relevant for for students for school children for professionals for anybody really i think there's a lot of mileage in in these lessons yeah dale carnegie had a lot to give and um it just reminds you that this classic series that we're doing uh they're not just of a moment but they truly are timeless and where are we going next because boy it's going to be a big one mark well this one was such a big episode that we decided we it would be a disservice mike if you and i were to try and tackle this next book only in one hour so listeners today you will be hearing part one of stephen covey and the seven habits of highly effective people this is an absolutely enormously not only a meaty and powerful book but also very very useful when we consider how we're going to go out and be the best version of ourselves this was a book from 1989 mike just a little bit younger than me and you know my the uh the thing that we can expect today and i i want to make a a pitch to our listeners and to you about why we should return to this classic in particular because he does a great job um similar to what dale carnegie did in the 30s but what he did in the 80s is covey essentially said look let's improve ourselves and then let's improve how we connect with the world around us and today we're going into the first three of these highly effective people habits and i believe that this work is so significant in reminding us of these essential timeless truths on how we should behave how we should think this deserves a re-reading it deserves returning to we may think we're very familiar with these habits that covey outlays for us but even if you are they are so powerful what i would propose is that they deserve to be returned to i think at the start of every year i think we should be going to these like a perfect way a foundational way to start your year to remind yourself to keep yourself on track and hopefully today we can go to the world of stephen cubby and we can remind ourselves on how we can really go inside of how we think and how we can master ourselves i mean mark are you ready i'm ready mike this is going to be a pretty good journey and i can't wait to dig into the first three of stephen curry's habits today followed by the next four next week now mike the question is would you like to get started of course we would and the great thing is that coming up in the show we've got a lot of clips from covey himself a little bit more recent than old dale carnegie but mark i think we're going to start with some other people giving some really interesting thoughts on covey's work we are and one of the fundamental principles and foundations of stephen covey's seven habits book is his reflection on people and he reflects back to pre-1920s and people post 1920s and one of his concepts is around what he calls the personality ethic and he believes that around the 1920s people started to view success in a slightly different way view success in how do i go out and achieve this how do i almost want to replicate somebody else's behavior that became more of a drive this idea of public image and he he looks back before the 1920s and thinks but hang on wasn't there a difference was there less public image and attitude focus and something more you know a little bit more humility and so on and this is pretty fundamental to his book because i think it creates the foundation of these seven habits so this first clip this introduction to stephen covey's the seven habits of highly effective people is a great little synopsis on how the personality as well as character ethics are quite different and this is a great little synopsis from wisdom for life now this book has touched millions of people's lives it's one of if not the most well-known success books out there there are literally thousands of success books out there so why should this one be any different well steven researched the last 200 years of success literature and found something quite interesting in the last 50 years most of the books have been focused on the personality ethic things like public image how you dress how you perform in social interactions positive mental attitude skills and techniques to get people to behave in certain ways these books focus on how to appear rather than how to actually be the seven habits of highly effective people takes an inside out approach it focuses on the character ethic rather than the personality ethic in the words of stephen covey almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the character ethic as the foundation for success things like integrity humility temperance courage and justice patience industry simplicity modesty and the golden rule the character ethic taught that there are basic principles of effective living and that people can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate these principles into their basic character you know greatness starts from the inside out of course there is a place for personality ethic but character forms the foundation personality ethics need to be rooted in character the personality ethic can be seen as fake or as a fake until you make an image if it's not rooted in character sometimes people apply these personality techniques in order to use and manipulate people to meet their own goals and agendas in the long run people will eventually see through this duplicity but you can't fake character ethic if you're still a little fuzzy on this concept picture an iceberg right the personality ethic is above the water the character ethic is below the water it forms a foundation it's where the greatest impact over the long term is it's where you sow the seeds of greatness the seeds of greatness oh my gosh mark he didn't warn me that we were leading with such a heavy first clip i mean i i mean we could stop the rest of the clips and just talk about this for the next hour oh my gosh i mean isn't this interesting that covey reminds us to return to virtues of true character which i mean this must have ryan holiday like nodding furiously in agreement i mean this is so profound in getting back to your true values that will inform how you behave and avoiding the mistake of trying to be a personality a persona you think you should be and this for me was when i relate to this personally i think one of the greatest things that has changed as i think about my career and actually far beyond it is that learning and understanding and reminding yourself of what you believe in and then just being yourself if you will the character and the personality alignment there stop trying to be a personality or a persona that you think is expected of you in your roles whether it be at work or in life but go back to the fundamentals be in touch with those values remind yourself of them live by them and as a personality one of my biggest breakthroughs and i've by no means mastered this is to be the true person you are don't try and be the person you think others expect or just to please people or to win people over it is so great that just in the introduction to this book we just uncovered this huge idea and so what i propose to you mark is how with such a big idea like this how do we kind of come back to our character this foundation how how do you stop falling for the trap of just that personality fix that we heard from wisdom for life yeah it's it's tough isn't it and it's gonna be um i imagine something that a lot of our listeners have to contend with day to day as well because we are naturally i think raised into this this almost emulation culture you know we see a lot of inspiring people all around us every day and it's very easy to think hey i kind of want what they have i want that car or i want to be confident you know it can be both emotional as well as as physical can't it the the need or the desire to have that that personality ethic as stephen is is referencing but i think something that is is really valuable is exactly what you've just said it's the ron holiday approach it's thinking from a stoic perspective and thinking okay well what actually makes me happy is it being a nice guy is it being caring for other people is it being considerate and you know it could be something as simple as holding the door open what gives you that small little smile that only you can give yourself do you know what i mean something you know when you when you make a difference in somebody's life maybe you pick up their dropped umbrella or their phone and they say oh thank you that was really really helpful that's a very small i think character-driven behavior that perhaps only you would do in that sort of way so what i would propose is the way we can remind ourselves or even discover what our character really is i think first one is it's you've got to read a lot don't you matt yeah that's true right that's true you've got it you've got to introduce new ideas to provoke your own thoughts well does that sound right how do i relate to that how might i do that and i think the second thing is and i think this again another big breakthrough for myself you got to write about it you've got to journal you've got to you've got to manifest these things it's all very good and well to say i'm going to work hard but you got to write it down and you got to do it every morning or every evening you've got to like go to the the mental gym and build that muscle that commitment because then it kind of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy doesn't it yeah as as even stephen himself is going to call out later in this in the show it's one thing to say you're going to do it you know you're going to in in today's um in today's episode we're going to dig into three of these habits but there's going to be seven in total and it's one thing to say oh yeah great i understand them i know what stephen covey's talking about here but it's another thing to put them into practice isn't it well the great news is that uh we've actually got this next clip which is from um from covey's son and uh this is uh stephen m r cubby um the son of the author of the seven habits of highly effective people and he's going to do something very important for us he is going to give us a sense the meaning you might say of this whole idea of being effective if we're going to be effective we need to understand what we mean by highly effective it could be efficient people or could be even successful people but the term is effective and i used the story of aesop in the fable of the farmer who is down in his luck and is terribly poor and then he finds a goose and to his delight this goose the next morning has laid a golden egg and he's thrilled because it's truly an egg of gold he's able to sell it gain value and then the next day he lays another golden egg he's thrilled again and then the next day another golden egg and the goose is continually laying these golden eggs and the farmer is absolutely delighted and thrilled and then after a several days he becomes increasingly greedy and he wants all the gold all at once and so as in his effort to get more gold faster he kills the goose reaches inside to get all the gold and realizes there's nothing there but a dead goose so he just killed the goose that lays the golden egg we use this this fable as a metaphor and we hear it all the time the goose the legs the golden egg that's what we mean really by effectiveness it's really a combination of both those things the goose and the golden eggs the golden eggs is our performance our production when we produce and perform then we're being effective but it's not enough just to produce and perform if we don't have a healthy goose that will lay these golden eggs and so it's always then also in addition to the performance the production it is the health the maintenance and the well-being of the goose and there's many organizations that sometimes can drive for results and get the production get the golden eggs but they do it in a way that diminishes in some cases even destroys the health of the goose and over time the goose gets sick or even dies sometimes the same thing happens with us as individuals we might drive hard for results get them again and again and again but do it in a way that destroys the health and the welfare of our of our goods so to speak where we become less effective and over time lose our effectiveness or dial together in our ability to produce now clearly the other side is true as well if someone only has a healthy goose and never delivers the golden eggs that's just potential we're not delivering real effectiveness is that balance of production and production capabilities the golden eggs as well as the goose oh two big intro clips to set us up for today's show mark we're never gonna get to the actual seven habits because the intros are too good i know i really enjoy that aesop fable i think that's such a good relatable uh tale isn't it again i mean this is why we're in the timeless classic series mikey you don't know whether do i explore this on a personal basis because you could easily see that that allegory being not only for people but for companies and organizations you know and and isn't it uh interesting that the idea of the goose that lays the golden egg how pervasive that is in business culture understanding you know your point of difference your unfair advantage or on a personal basis like what what you see is this relationship that if you're not healthy and well you know healthy body healthy mind you know it's so fascinating you can see this on so many levels i mean it just speaks to the power of the work from from covey this there's seven habits of highly effective people it's i mean we can't even get to the clips markets that good we're still we're still in the intros but i think both of those two clips that we've just heard are setting the scene for the our next couple of shows mike um because we now understand this idea of effectiveness we're not necessarily focused on efficiency what we're trying to find is how do we balance the production so maybe the eggs as well as the production capabilities i.e the goose how do we maintain that equilibrium because if you wait too much on the actual production piece or you're gonna start to lose track or even as as stephen covey's son puts it kill the goose and by not finding your core character-driven ethic this from the stoic point of view really being inward-facing and reflecting on yourself you're not going to be able to i think balance that equilibrium correctly because fundamentally your production output and your capabilities are intrinsically tied to your ability to understand yourself and be the best version of yourself day-to-day well i think we better jump in or or else we could find ourselves just jamming on these the first two two clips for the whole show and that would be rather disappointing for all of our listeners so let's kick this off let's go to this idea of uh habit number one and it's all about proactivity and not reactivity but what's really fascinating is there's actually lots of ideas deeper inside of this that you may have heard of so let's start by listening to covey himself talking about this idea of being proactive now we want to look at the foundational habit habit one to be proactive why foundational because all of the other habits flow out of it if habit one is present you can cultivate the other six if it is not present you will not cultivate the other six habit one be proactive basically means that your life is a product of your values not your feelings that your life or the organization's life is a product of your decisions not your conditions the opposite of being proactive is to be reactive which basically means that your life is a function of your feelings your moods your impulses other people's treatment the underlying principle of habit one be proactive is to take responsibility the concept is you and i have the capacity to choose our response if you don't believe that you're capable of choosing your own response if you don't have that vision of yourself if you're deep into victimism i'll just about guarantee you you will become disempowered you will not begin with the end in mind with careful thinking about the future you'll be a function of the past you will put second third fourth and fifth things first with your ladder leaning against the wrong wall you'll think win lose or lose win you'll always seek to be understood first rather than to understand and you'll be constantly watching all kinds of relationships because both parties feel misunderstood ego battles will develop at best you'll end up with compromise instead of synergy and you will not take the time to sharpen the saw because you simply don't have the time to get gas you're too busy you're buried in the thick of thin things that's why habit one is so foundational so basic it is the vital foundational component of every other habit what a perfect place to start with stephen covey essentially laying out the next seven habits yeah he said it's the the precondition to the other six habits is you gotta get be proactive right but it's more than just like you know go after the day and be on top of things isn't it oh it's so much deeper this is a fundamental shift in the way that we think you cannot go after the other six habits and be highly effective unless you get this first step right unless you essentially learn to think or learn to walk i suppose in the right way and this idea of being and thinking proactively is pretty fundamental actually mike and it's something that i think maybe some of our listeners will relate to because for me at least i've probably found myself in a reactive state more than once in my life reactive being happy to complain about circumstances happy to say hey well it's just the way things are i can't change and it's very surface level isn't it it's very immediate as opposed to what stephen's telling us here being proactive take responsibility and ownership of your own reactions your own decisions and responses to a certain problem and go out and make that difference owning that moment of decision i think is is really fundamental to this idea of being proud yeah lots of parallels here with um ryan holliday's work isn't there a lot of of uh collaboration uh sorry consistency with wrong holiday as well as i'd say um dale how to stop worrying yeah you know how you reframe yeah your mindset so i think um in a moment we will kind of deconstruct what we call that circle of influence like the things you should be focused on the things you should be proactive about owning um but mark let's call out some of the things let's remind ourselves of what we uh shouldn't be worrying about um this circle of concern there's stuff like politics uh yeah a classic one is oh you know our business is going to be tough the economy is really bad after code that's another good one what else do you see that people preoccupy themselves with which they have absolutely no control of so there is like no point in worrying about what else do you see them doing the biggest one that i think it's consistent in a lot of these other um innovators and and lessons that we've learned together mike is what other people think of you right right you can't control what other people uh how they respond to you how they interpret your actions or what they think of you i think that for me this idea of other people's opinions it's so easy i think we covered it in gary vee the episode as well we did it's so it's so easy isn't it to get caught into uh oh i'm really concerned about what so and so i think that you still i think our ego wants you know everyone to love us but i'll go even further what i think is perhaps equal to that uh in this circle of concern that covey is saying do not focus on these things let's be clear do not go is um what i see is a lot of judgment and blame in organizations towards others who supposedly didn't perform or haven't done their job and people can get really uptight and spend a lot of energy focusing on the mistakes of others don't they yeah i mean it's very easy to uh instead of working creating a solution to the problem finding where you can point the finger right and you know the interesting thing to to use some of carnegie's insights and blend it with covey he's he's just like it is a total waste of your energy because it achieves no gain worrying about the economy politics what people think of you the mistakes of others the opinions of it there is no net gain for that consideration so why would you dedicate your time energy and effort to that topic i think all you're doing is wasting energy that could be diverted into your circle of influence mark and there's a lot of goodies in there yeah i mean just a few circle of influence ideas that come to my mind mike is you know it starts with your attitude this is what exactly be proactive habit number one is talking about your attitude and your response to um challenges or opportunities i think other ones that might be are the skills that you can learn you know you referenced earlier mike uh one of the great traits is to pick up a book and be continuously learning i think that feels as though it's something you yourself can control right yeah and you know what covey was pointing out is this idea of victimization where people say oh the world is conspiring against me it's terrible it's awful pull me for me well you may not control some things but you do control your attitude how you learn how you think where you put your energy the routines the rituals the habits that you have and all of these can serve towards you being the best version of yourself because think about it you might be facing uh struggles challenges problems and if you were yakko willing you'd say problems are opportunities or even more so we've got a problem he just says good right good i can't really do yet but it's good um so the point here is like put your energy where you're gonna get something back where you're gonna get a return and that is okay the problem may suck but let's move on let's have a growth mindset let's embrace the challenge let's see problems as opportunities let's learn let's grow and i think this is really important to remind ourselves particularly when we've had a time in 2020 where so much happened around us that we're not really in control of is that you have to divert your energy towards the things you do control that circle of influence and that's where you can be doing things every single day that are part of your purpose why you're on the planet why you're doing the things you do so you might not have you know achieved the end outcome but the fact that you know that you are learning things every day you're adopting the attitude and the enthusiasm and the habits the atomic habits if we think about james clear that will get you to the destination so even though you don't have the whoo-hoo i've made it you have the whoo-hoo i'm doing the right things to make it and i think this is the power of habit number one be proactive from mr covey himself yeah it's really all about acting rather than being acted upon i think isn't it it's it's taking that first um step and letting your conditions drive you rather than the other way around do you remember that story holiday told was it edison who said quickly go get your mother she'll never see if i love that yeah yeah it was it was edison and uh it was in our fourth round holiday episode and that was a wonderful story of just accepting the situation edison's factory is burning down probably hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment all going up in flames and what does he do he can't do anything about it he can't put it out single-handedly so he just stands back and watches enjoys the ride yeah and that's that's really the payoff to this to this habit isn't it um because when you accept that there are things in the circle of concern that you can't change and focus your effort on what you can influence yourself you're you're on the right track and you get positive energy back you can still move forward you can still grow and be the best version of yourself now we've mentioned a lot this idea of like where you're going to like the end destination and you have to enjoy the journey as well but there's lots of questions and choices lefts and rights as we go along and this this next clip it really talks about um the second habit from stephen covey this is all about you know beginning this journey with the end in mind where do we get our sense of who we are where do we get our sense of what our life is about is it not from social mirrors parents siblings teachers leaders the media heroes models isn't that possibly the case of a mistaken identity think about it ask yourself where do i get my knowledge of myself and what my vision in life is what is it that i am really about what is truly important to me inhabit two begin with the end in mind is a clear and powerful declaration that you are the guardian the protector of your identity of your future in essence habit one is the awareness that you are the programmer it's the budding awareness that the best way to predict your future is to create it habit two decides what your life is about and everything would flow from that every decision large and small would be a function of that not only what your identity is but what your purpose is what is your vision of what your life is about you are the programmer then write the program you are the programmer write the program i think this is kind of just saying to me mike don't take guidance or knowledge of yourself from anyone but yourself don't let the opinions of others or the success of others really drive what makes you happy because fundamentally you are as stephen puts it in that clip you are the programmer you program yourself your mindset your reaction to these to these moments and legacy is really what he's sort of nudging at here and this came up with clayton christensen's book how you live your life and there's a bit of jim collins in this as well which is you know beginning with the end in mind and in the book there's a really um sort of uh disruptive question that he asked which is what will people say at your funeral now i know that sounds a bit dramatic here for a podcast but if you just uh just go with it for a second it's a very good question and um you know if everybody who listens to our show all you moonshot is we know that you want to be the best version of yourself so let's all take this test how many times have we not just thought about but how many times have we written down what the end is you know if covey is saying begin with the end in mind what will be said at our funeral how will we be remembered what is our legacy now here's the challenge how many times have you not just thought about it how many times have you written down your legacy because if that is the end goal this should tell you how fine-tuned you are how aligned you are today with who you want to be tomorrow right up until the end who do you want to be what are they gonna say at your funeral what is your legacy i mean this is really powerful and i think most people will find they have never written down what they want people to say at their funeral right oh i i can't imagine many of the people that i know uh who have done that because it's it's a pretty confronting and pretty um you know sensitive topic isn't it because i think the very act of writing down what you want people to remember about you what you want to leave behind what you want people to say about you if you it exposes any of your existing insecurities you know oh if i have not achieved this uh concept so maybe i want to be remembered for i don't know being a being a great guy then i might call into question hey but am i a great guy and this is exactly what steven's talking about isn't it by forcing yourself into the act of writing it down visualizing and thinking about it only then can you expose those uncomfortable moments and you think okay well am i i mean i got a little bit grumpy last week you know will that damage my um eulogy from my friend who's gonna say that i'm a great guy at the wedding at the funeral and i think that's a really valuable habit isn't it mike this act of actually physically writing it yeah and i will go one further this is just a practical tip because we're all learning out loud together here on the moonshots podcast i even go back not only to journaling on it i actually have a whole series of mantras of which one of those the opening one is my purpose and so i will repeat this i will write this i will listen to it so i've even recorded all of my mantras so that sometimes when i'm you know walking to a meeting jumping on the train going for a walk i will listen to those mantras to remind myself of who i want to be and how i'm going to get there and i i think what's inside of this is you will only in the end be the person that holds yourself accountable to your dreams and your visions and your hope and you know i don't want to be too dramatic about all of this but in the end nobody else will hold you accountable to what you dream of being other than yourself it will be on you so you may as well get a bit uncomfortable right take a take some advice from joe rogan embrace the discomfort and really ask yourself holy smoke you know am i building the legacy that i wanted to leave for the world and think about what that will mean to the people that you really care about i think this is ultimate accountability it's a little bit brutal it's certainly heavy duty for the moonshots podcast that's for sure but i think these are fundamental questions that unlock our potential i think that's why we want to go there man that's exactly why we do it isn't it mike we want to understand how we can dig that a little bit deeper into ourselves in order to be maybe it's more effective maybe it's more patient maybe it's more uh joyous in the way that we live our lives but only by really digging into ourselves and exactly as we caught out at the beginning of this show that inward facing look very very stoic can we begin to even uncover or scratch the surface of that absolutely absolutely well that mark we are we are only through two habits of seven thank goodness we divided the show into two parts but i think we we really want to take this this moment mark to to thank all of our listeners uh from all four corners of the planet they're all joining us to learn out loud and mark i want to propose to you that one of the ways we kind of learn and i mean you and me is we learn from all of our listeners and we love it when they reach out to us when they share ideas with us so mark if our listeners are super primed they're feeling very effective right very very effective as they're listening to us what is your invitation to them i would invite everybody every one of our listeners to pop on over to www.moonshots.io where you can find some of those mantras perhaps that mike's been talking about maybe not the recorded ones i think that by the way we should come back to that that's a great little tip but over at www.moonshots.com you've got some of our written mantras you've got all of our episodes all 121 by the time that this one comes out both past as well as future shows that we want to try and do you've got the ability to sign up for our newsletter but also you've got an opportunity to leave us a little bit of feedback we'd love to hear from you listeners as mike said one of the ways that he and i learn out loud is by getting recommendations and insights from you guys and one particular individual who i don't have their name so i i hope that they're listening and recognize the little story but they got into the moonshots podcast by wanting to learn something about architecture and listen to the frank lloyd wright episode and the architectural series that we got into and now they listen to us every morning mike isn't that isn't that fantastic it's great and by the way the frank lloyd wright show was a bit of a dark horse out of nowhere extremely extremely popular so thank you to all of you for listening uh to not only the most recent and current shows but also digging into our back catalog which you can get at moonshots.io and i want to send a special shout out to all of our new listeners in thailand because i don't know what's in the coffee in thailand but they're certainly getting into their moonshots podcast because we have catapulted up the charts in thailand to number seven in business and entrepreneurship so we really do want to welcome all our listeners in thailand who have they've trounced the eastern europeans we were doing so well with slovenia and poland and uh you know we have so much great love from eastern europe and central europe but now it's the the great uh asian wave of awesome thailand uh listeners is joining us and we just want to welcome you to somewhere here at the moonshots podcast where we like to learn out loud together to strive and to be the very best versions of ourselves so mark we've got a few more clips left uh and stick with us because the next episode we'll do the remainder of stephen covey's book the seven habits of highly effective people mark where do we go now that we have primed ourselves with being proactive starting with the end in mind what's next from stephen covey well the first three habits are all around self mastery and stephen covey's idea of moving from dependence to interdependence so we've heard about habit one being proactive rather than reactive habit two was about beginning with the end in mind and now we're gonna listen to habit three habit three is about putting first things first and this is really all about managing ourselves more effectively having the discipline to prioritize our actions based on essentially what's important rather than urgent and that's a really big fundamental shift that we're going to dig into but this let's listen to stephen himself tell us a little bit about put first things first in a sense to use the computer metaphor habit one is the awareness you are the programmer habit two is where you write the program habit three is where you run it you execute around it the third habit is put first things first i'm going to try to teach an entirely new paradigm in the field of time management essentially it is a paradigm or a way of thinking which focuses on relationships rather than schedules the traditional paradigm in the field of time management has always dealt with time scheduling control efficiency doing more things faster the paradigm is one focused upon efficiency and control it's called time management so you manage your time the clock is the symbol of it it drives us toward efficiency have you ever tried to be efficient with a loved one on the tough issue say with your spouse how did it go have you ever tried to be efficient with say a difficult teenage situation how did it go you see right off the bat you and i know how foolish it is but look at the paradigm that drives it so what do we do when it doesn't work what do we do we try to do it better more efficiently we try to be nicer we try to be more positive but the underlying paradigm which is not questioned of control and efficiency and that we're right and the other is wrong turns people into a thing the paradigm i'm trying to teach today is one of a compass based upon the sense of focusing upon the first things in our lives and they're always relationships the older one becomes and the wider and deeper the perspective of a person's life is the more relationships become the supreme thing and the essence of all effectiveness basically deals with people with relationships but these are governed by a moral sense of principles of what is right and what is wrong and of integrity around those i'm asking for sufficient openness and humility to just get into this pair of glasses this frame of reference this new paradigm this new map based upon relationships not schedules based upon principles not values based upon leadership first then management based upon a compass and then the clock i am amazed that this is still such a relevant topic mark i cannot tell you how many of my colleagues that i work with to help them understand the difference between things that are urgent and not urgent important versus not important and i think the big struggle we all have right now is being so reachable so interruptable that everything sort of becomes both urgent and important on this first things first tool some people call it the eisenhower matrix where you have a you know a matrix of what's urgent what's important and then you you kind of put things into the different quadrants i think we might do that together in a second but don't you think the battle we all fight is that we just have a megalist for today and that just consumes us so we're really not able to think about tomorrow let alone think about well what should be on that list one and isn't there's very few things that are as suffocating as having you know 20 30 40 50 items on your to-do list because you then don't feel aligned enough to know where to start where do i go what do i begin with how do i categorize what's the most important because i can work on any of them right now so what do you end up doing you do a little bit of each and don't you yeah you start multitasking or you don't go deep enough and you know talking about deep work big nod to cal newport what an amazing amazing piece of work that book was but to bring us back here um if you are able while we're chatting um definitely google the eisenhower matrix because this is the the quadrant thinking uh that covey is talking about but i think there's a i think we should go into this a little bit deeper don't you matt let's let's explore if we're going to put first things first what is that how do we do it right so i want you to all imagine that step number one is to focus on you know really um things that are have some urgency time and importance meaning big impact and so that might be pressing problems you know deadlines for projects or maybe unexpected crises that you need to solve what you want to do in that box is put things that meet that criteria because they have some urgency they need to happen fast and they're they really matter but you actually now this is the beauty of the model you want to reduce the number of things in that box so that there is only a few things there and i think mark we all struggle by putting too many things in the urgent and important quadrant right we all think that everything is a crisis everything is urgent everything is super important and i think that's the big blocker isn't it yeah yeah i mean another few things that would jump out in my mind uh big new business opportunities might come into that box i think like you say crises any immediate problems things that you've got that you feel like you just can't turn off you know there's always going to be a lot of stuff and if you don't um minimize what's in that urgent and important box i mean you're just never gonna you're gonna be like a hamster right stuck in the wheel spinning around running around no time to think about tomorrow but i found the most powerful tool is to actually look at your calendar and schedule something that's not it's not like super urgent for today but it is really important to you is you use calendar blocking as an activity to schedule it in the future something that you need to dedicate time to on your current projects but here's the other important thing the other things that should go into that are proactive relationship building planning for not just this week this month or this quarter but starting to think about h1h2 years start building road maps for yourself those things need time and consideration you need to schedule those sort of things in don't you mark otherwise you just keep going through your daily list and that's it yeah exactly and and you might tick off a couple of them along the way but it's never going to be as efficient as if you dedicate time to getting them done properly right it's almost like this is this is the long-term box this is the box of things that compound and create all sorts of value this is the strategic box this is the i think where a lot of people let themselves down is they don't schedule they don't appoint enough time for those really important things that are not urgent right thinking about broader plans plan b's um thinking about purpose and and legacy and all those sorts of things now that's not the only two parts uh there might be two parts but that's not only what is in this eisenhower matrix of putting the first things first there's two other parts to this mark isn't there and they're pretty nasty things this is where it all goes this is where it all goes wrong i think this is the danger zone don't you yeah exactly and the other ones are really uh how you distinguish i guess is the right word mic or maybe identify the things that actually feel very urgent but aren't important at all and those things are are distractions they are uh deceptive uh as you it's called out in the eisenhower matrix it's where we would call uh the ability to delegate work or delegate uh delegate items really come into it such as those meetings that you think i've gotta i've got to address it because it's at 10 pm today oh maybe somebody else can go oh those emails those calls that i keep on getting how can i do the deep work that cal newport would recommend when i've just got to be online all the time responding to other people you know the the common thing we find ourselves doing when we don't delegate is oh it will be faster if i do it right oh and look i'm going to be totally honest with with you as well as our listeners i do that all the time but you know the the the thing is that um you will so here's here's the insight if you invest in now in the delegation you'll be much faster in the future because you won't need to do it at all because someone else will do it you only need to train somebody once right so delegations is another one now here is the fourth quadrant this is where something is not urgent nor is it important so it might be a bit trivial lots of time wasters this is often maybe things that matter to others that have no relevance to you but somehow you're getting roped into doing them now we've talked about reducing in the top quadrant scheduling for those more long-term things we've talked about delegating if it's urgent but not important mark what do we do in this fourth quadrant in the decluttering i think it's just trying to not not get too bogged down and spend all of your time at it right it's those endless tasks i'm going to chat mark i'm going to challenge you no not at all oh really here we go you ready here's what you do you say a magic word no no i will not take part in that that's it you have to eliminate trivial stuff time wasters that don't touch them that's the whole point and that's what when by putting first things first the last things you don't do them you don't do them at all because they if look if you use the formula is it urgent no is it important no don't do it easy now so here's the interesting thing because we're often you know humans are by default they're nice and you find yourself saying yes to things you shouldn't have said yes to but that takes you away from focusing on important and urgent things which is part of your purpose which will no doubt have a positive effect both for you and the people around you the people you're serving so see this as i'm saying no to this person so i can say yes to others that's a very good way of reframing this this so you don't feel like you're being you know really nasty but i'm sorry i can't do that because if i was to do that i would not fulfill my current responsibilities done done it really comes down quadrant two you know this idea of future planning and investing yourself in the long term it's it's looping us back to the habit too isn't it begin with the end in mind know where you're going know what's important to you work on those relationships work on yourself and this is going to come into our next episode as well mike with some of the other habits about building your own personal um sharpness should we say but it's it's so valuable once you've got that really understood once you know how to delegate or say no you've suddenly opened up so much time in order to actually reflect and work in yourself that's indeed the truth and and one of one of the things that happens when you've you know really got on top of you know this idea of time management and prioritization is all sorts of possibilities different roads appear to you and um with all that comes good things and so it would only be appropriate that we listen to stephen r covey one more time talking about going down the road less traveled in conclusion just remember this everyone chooses one of two roads in life whether they're young or old rich or poor men and women alike one road is the broad well-traveled road to mediocrity the other the road to greatness and meaning the range of possibilities that exist within each of these two destinations is as wide as the diversity of gifts and personalities in the human family but the contrast between the two destinations is as the night is to the day a very teasing little outro there mike you know what's nice is steven's reminding us you've just got to be that little bit bold be that little bit daring go after and down the road that's that little bit less traveled because once you've invested in these three habits that we've heard today and next week we're going to be digging into stephen's other four habits of his seven habits of highly effective people you can create that ability that confidence that durability to go down that road and live that life that's a little bit less travel yeah and do where do you think he's going with this less travel do you think he's distinguishing you know there's kind of two roads there's sort of the easy erode but maybe less fulfilling and then there's the the harder road but that's where satisfaction legacy fulfillment lays is that what you think he's pointing out here well that's certainly consistent with some of the other work that we've done in the past you know you really get out of it what you put in when you listen to joe rogan you've mentioned joker willing you know there's a lot of our individuals that would encourage us to go out and see obstacles opportunities for example like grand holly i think what stephen's also calling back here though is a reminder on the personality versus character ethic that we heard at the very beginning of the show so rather than assuming um everything's uh very very rather than taking the easy route which i think is what stephen would now say is the public image approach the personality approach instead build on your integrity build on your courage and actually develop those character traits that are much more uh resilient when you get on that road wow that's pretty solid advice and i can you believe my we have only uh decoded half of the book i mean it's remarkable isn't it we did definitely need two shows can you believe that we thought we could squeeze this into one show that way i know idiots we were what idiots well we well it's just a reminder that this this learning out loud um journey that we can go on together with books as rich and uh enjoyable as stephen covey's seven habits of highly effective people there's so much to learn you can you can relate it so well to your life now i mean we're in 2021 the book was written in 89 and there's still so many lessons that are completely um relevant to us yeah yeah um so um i'm very curious looking at uh everything we've discussed today having now talked about them which one uh stands is there one of these that rises above the others as being oh really helpful for you mark i think the being proactive not reactive stephen would call out that this is the foundational habit that you've got to get right before tackling the other six and i'm going to take his side i'm going to agree with him there i think unless you've got that mindset correct unless you can consider those different circles of concern and influence and get the balance right i i feel as though you're always going to be swimming against the tide yeah it's really powerful isn't it because i think it's i mean i find myself falling into the trap of um thinking worrying about things i don't control and it's it's a real discipline to bring yourself back into your circle of influence isn't it oh it's so diffic i think it's it's a practice that as you've mentioned you can build by journaling that can bring you back you can have those mantras i think that's a great idea as well as maybe even moments in your diary maybe you schedule 15 30 minutes a day when you do consider you know a recurring a a recurring event that says hey are you being proactive or reacting yeah you know that's a little tip that that i think might be valuable well what a rich tapestry we have woven together mark you i and our listeners it's uh it's been just a delight to return to such a classic and to think maybe i thought to myself before the show i've got everything i need from this book but i find myself right now saying wow [Music] so mark thank you to you for sharing this journey with me and thank you to you all of our listeners as we have gone on show 121 into the world of stephen r covey and the seven habits of highly effective people wow and this was only part one but today we started with this notion of character and we made sure that we thought about protecting the goose as well as the golden eggs taking care of ourselves so we can take care of others and this journey started with the idea of being proactive and focusing on the circle of influence because you might not control the world but you most certainly do control your reactions heed this good advice all ye moonshotters this is good stuff but it gets better because we also learnt that we should begin with the end in mind what will be our legacy and the way we make that happen every single day is by putting first things first have a very clear view on what is urgent and important and if you do this good things can happen you will have the fortitude and the character to go down the road less traveled and there at the end of that road you will find indeed your own greatness well that's it for the moonshots podcast that's a wrap