John Maxwell’s #17 Law of Leadership: The Law of Priorities

📥 CLICK HERE to Download the free Leadership Workbook and submit your question for our Q&A with John and me. Being busy is one of the easiest ways to lie to yourself. You can work twelve hours a day, answer every email, take every meeting, and still go home without moving your life or your business an inch. This week is about the difference between activity and accomplishment, and why great leaders refuse to confuse the two. Law 17 in John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is the Law of Priorities, and I believe it is the most practical law in the entire series. We live in an economy of distraction where everyone wants a piece of your attention, and if you are not intentional, you can give your entire life away ten minutes at a time. I open this episode by breaking down why leadership gets harder as opportunities multiply, and why the real skill is knowing what not to do. John teaches this one from lived experience. More than thirty years ago, a single paragraph in a college business textbook changed the way he works, and he has been a student of priorities ever since. He explains why he only does four things, and he walks through the three questions he uses to find the top twenty percent that drives his results. I'll share how I divide my day into three mini days, challenge you to build a standard around your time, and give you a priority audit to run before the week begins. I also ask what truly deserves your best energy in this season of your life. Here is what you will gain from this episode: Activity vs. accomplishment: Why a full day can feel productive and still leave your life exactly where it was. Three priority questions: The simple filter that helps you find the few things worth your best energy. The Pareto principle: What it says about how you spend your time and the people you spend it with. Time compression: How three mini days help you evaluate and adjust faster than a single 24-hour day. Only you vs. happen to be doing: How to tell the difference between tasks that require your presence and tasks you have simply inherited. The 90-day calendar test: Why your calendar tells the truth about what you value. The priority audit: A one-week exercise to close the gap between what you say matters and what you schedule. At the end of your life, nobody is going to give you an award for answering the most emails. Your dreams deserve your best hours, not whatever is left at the end of the day. Decide what gets your best energy before the week begins, and protect it. This is part of a new series releasing every Thursday. Click the link to download the free workbook and track your rep for every law. 🗓️ New law dropping every Thursday so make sure you're subscribed so you never miss one. Click HERE to Subscribe to my email list to MAXOUT your life (all value, no fluff)Thank you for listening —Please Share it and get the word out! 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈→ → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ←➡️ INSTAGRAM➡️ FACEBOOK➡️ LINKEDIN➡️ X➡️ WEBSITE Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 AM to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 PM. And my third day, 6:00 PM to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years. And my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  Over 20 years in business, over 12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 1:06Speaker 01

  This is the Ed Marlin Show.

• 1:10Ed Mylett?

  21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Series, Law 17, The Law of Priorities. Being busy is one of the easiest ways to lie to yourself. Because you can work 12 hours a day, 12-plus hours a day even. Answer every email, take every meeting, feel like you're solving every problem. You can go home exhausted and still not move your life or your business forward. I'm sure you relate. Activity feels productive, but activity and accomplishment are not the same thing. Great leaders know the difference. This is the Law of Priorities. Welcome back to this leadership series on John Maxwell's 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership. John teaches the law, and I try to translate it into the decisions you and I have to make every single day. And today's law might be one of the most practical laws in the entire series. The Law of Priorities.

• 1:54Ed Mylett?

  John teaches that leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. And I think this law is more difficult today than it's ever been because we live in an economy of distraction. Everything is trying to conspire to distract you from what really matters most. Everybody has access to you. Your phone has access to you, your email does, your employees, social media, the news. Everybody wants a piece of your attention, and most of that attention is not directed towards forward progress. And if you're not intentional, you can give your entire life away 10 minutes at a time. One of the greatest leadership skills is not knowing what to do. It's knowing what not to do. Because as you become more successful, your problem changes. Early in life, you may not have enough opportunities.

• 2:39Ed Mylett?

  Later, you have too many. And now, leadership requires discernment. Good opportunity, great opportunity, necessary opportunity, somebody else's opportunity, or your opportunity. Those are not the same thing. I've learned that almost every successful, meaningful result in my life has come from a relatively small number of activities. A few relationships, a few decisions, a few habits, and a few skills. And if you're not careful, you can spend 80% of your energy on things that create 20% of the result. In fact, that's what most people do. John has taught the idea of evaluating priorities based on requirement, return, and reward. What is required of me? What gives the greatest return? And what gives me the greatest reward?

• 3:25Ed Mylett?

  Those are such powerful questions because not everything shows up on your calendar, needs to be there. One of the things I've been known for is how I divide my time and almost compress it. In fact, neuroscience is now calling this time compression. It's how you make your priorities get done. I ask the same questions John evaluates in his priorities, and I divide my day into three, what I call many days. This is just a way really of evaluating and measuring time differently. It's a time management strategy, time compression. In fact, as I've said, neuroscience has now shown that this actually works in the real world. And so, for me, it's not very complicated. My first day is from 6:00 AM to noon. I'm prioritizing what you would prioritize in any day. My faith, my family, my fitness.

• 4:09Ed Mylett?

  But what happens is at the end of those six hours, I start asking the questions that most people ask at the end of 24 hours. I've just shrunk the timeframe that I evaluate myself, that I'm self-aware. So, at the end of a 24-hour day, most people then go, okay, what did I get done? What did I not get done? What do I want to get done? And then they move forward and adjust the next day. I just do it in smaller timeframes. Why? Technology has afforded us the opportunity that we didn't have 30 and 40, 50 years ago, or several hundred years ago, to do things faster, to get information faster, to communicate faster. So, then day two starts right around noon. I reassess my priorities. I complete whatever needs to be done. And then my third day runs from about 6:00 PM to midnight. Now, by the way, some days are just Netflix all day.

• 4:54Ed Mylett?

  It's like any other day. I'm just saying that you can get things done in smaller windows of time if you value your time. And one other thing, when you value your time, other people value your time as well. And that's why I complete my priorities in each of these many days. And this connects directly to something I say often. You don't get your goals, you get your standards. One of your standards must become a standard around your time. If everybody can interrupt you at any moment, your time has no standard and no value. If every notification can redirect your attention, your focus has no standard. If every new idea causes you to abandon the old plan, your execution has no standard. And this law's not about becoming rigid, it's about becoming intentional. There's a huge difference. The best leaders I know, really, they're incredibly clear about the few things that matter most,

• 5:39Ed Mylett?

  and they make sure those things get done. They move the needle. As we talked about last week, they create big mo. The clarity creates peace. Because indecision creates enormous emotional fatigue. Remember this. Complexity is the enemy of execution. When you do not know what matters, everything feels important. Every email feels important. Every request feels important. Every problem feels like your problem. But when priorities are clear, decision-making gets cleaner. You can say no. You can delegate. You can postpone. You can even eliminate. And I want to give you another way to think about this. There are tasks that only you can do. And there are tasks that you happen to be doing. Those are not always the same thing.

• 6:25Ed Mylett?

  If you're the CEO, there are functions where your unique leadership creates disproportionate value. If you're a parent, there are conversations only you can have with your children. If you're married, nobody can outsource being a spouse for you. If your health matters, nobody can do your workout for you. Great leadership is identifying the things that require your presence, your grit, your gift, and your responsibility, and giving those things your best energy. Not your leftover energy. Your best energy. Because most people give their most valuable hours to everybody else and give their dreams whatever's left over. And usually, nothing's left. So, priorities are really an act of self-leadership. You're deciding in advance what you deserve in your life and what your life deserves.

• 7:09Ed Mylett?

  Because that's what time is. Your calendar's not a schedule. It's your life in blocks. And if you showed me somebody's calendar for the last 90 days, I could probably tell you what they actually value. I could also probably tell you where they're going or where they're not going. I also know what they don't value. What they actually value is in their calendar. That's confronting, but it's useful. So, as John teaches the Law of Priorities, don't just think about your to-do list. Think a little bigger. Ask yourself, what deserves my best energy in this season of my life? Audit it. Take a look. What am I doing that someone else should be doing for me? What have I called important simply because it's urgent? Or maybe I enjoy doing it? And it's a distraction?

• 7:53Ed Mylett?

  And what truly important things keep getting postponed because it never screams for my attention? Your future is hidden inside those answers. Let's hear John Maxwell teach the Law of Priorities.

• 8:06John Maxwell?

  The Law of Priorities says that leaders understand that activity is not necessarily accomplishment. So, let's talk about that for a moment. Activity is not necessarily accomplishment. Some of these laws, I do better on than others. And there are some laws that I excel more than others. I want to just say that probably the 21 laws, this is my best law. I really do understand the Law of Priorities. And so, let me give you a little bit of background. I'm working on a business degree in Indiana. Back in 1972, 1971, 72, in college.

• 8:45John Maxwell?

  And I read in a textbook about the Pareto Principle. Guy named Alfredo Pareto. It was the first time that I ever was introduced to the, what is known sometime as the 80/20 Principle. The first time that I've ever was introduced to it. And basically Pareto taught in that one paragraph in that book about priorities. And I remember reading that paragraph and saying to myself, this is very important to me. I need to learn priorities, the way Pareto taught them. And so I became a student of Pareto, I became a student of priorities. And that was, my goodness, that was well over 30 years ago. And I can tell you that when people look at what little things that I've been able to accomplish, and they come and say, how can you accomplish so much?

• 9:26John Maxwell?

  I can always tell them with great integrity, this law right here, the law of priorities, I have worked on and I have excelled in.

• 9:35Ed Mylett?

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• 10:19Ed Mylett?

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• 11:03Ed Mylett?

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• 11:36John Maxwell?

  So let's look at your notes, because this is a terrific law to teach. I've already got a diagram for you. So let's just look at the diagram for a second. On the left-hand column is priorities. And by the way, since I'm doing some teaching on this, I want you to put a slice there. And I want you to also put the word people. Because I'm going to teach you priorities, but I'm also going to teach you how to prioritize your people in about five minutes. So, but, but, but for now, the left-hand column is priorities. And the right-hand column is production. And it pretty well explains itself. Here's what Pareto says. Pareto says that if you have 10 things to do, and you prioritize those 10 things correctly, if you only do two of them, but you do the top two,

• 12:19John Maxwell?

  you're going to get an 80% return on everything you need in your life. It's very obvious. You do two things, you go to the production side, 80% return. That's huge. Pareto goes on and says, let's say, instead of doing the top two things, you do the bottom eight. You ignore the top two, the most important things you ignore, and you do the bottom eight. Here's what Pareto says. If you do the bottom eight, if you go to the production side, you can see you're only going to have a 20% return. That's why it's sometimes called the 80/20 Principle or the 20/80 Principle. It's really talking about how to prioritize your life.

• 12:59John Maxwell?

  And Pareto says, if you prioritize your life correctly, if you do just the two things out of 10 that you need to do, the most important two, 80% of everything you want. Everything you want in your business, I can tell you, this works in your family. If you prioritize your family time right, 80% of everything you need in your family, it's going to happen if you understand how to work the top 20%. What I have found is, most people don't understand the 20/80 Principle. And so therefore, they don't put the time, energy, and effort in the top 20%. So therefore, they don't get the return. Now, this is a great principle, but there are three questions, priority questions,

• 13:39John Maxwell?

  that you need to ask yourself, that I need to ask myself, that helps me to establish this top 20%. Question number one, requirement. I've got to ask myself, what is required of me? In other words, I've got to look at my job, I've got to look at my company, my organization, the one that I work for. There are certain job descriptions, there are certain requirements of the job. And I got to basically say, okay, what do I have to do? Because whatever I have to do, I have to do. If I don't do those, I'm fired. So it's got to be a priority, true? So I got to ask what's required of me. The second word is return. I've got to look at all the things I do, and I have to ask myself this question. What gives me the greatest return? The third word is reward.

• 14:24John Maxwell?

  I have to ask myself the question, what gives me the greatest reward? Now, those three questions, I have found to be huge in understanding the 20/80 Principle. But Alfredo Pareto says that if you prioritize your life correctly, and you do the top 20%, you get an 80% return. And on that top 20%, I have to have those three Rs. What's required of me? What gives me the highest return? What gives me the greatest reward? See, I've got to ask the requirement question, because if I don't do that, well, then I'm out of a job. I've got to ask the return job question, because if I don't do that well, I'm not going to produce. And I've got to ask the reward job, because if I don't like what I'm doing, and I continually do it, it's only a matter of time till I'll quit.

• 15:08John Maxwell?

  Requirement, return, reward. Let me illustrate it. I only have four things that I have to do. In fact, when I tell people I only have four priorities, they look at me, they just kind of look at me and say, what do you mean, you only do four things? What I mean is, I only do four things. They say, well, no, I mean, don't you do other things? No, no, read my lips. Now, the, the reason I only do four things, there's a lot of reasons. One is I understand priorities. Number two is, I'm kind of worthless in most things in life. It's, it's just a gift, so it's not yours, so don't worry about it, okay? But worthless I am. But the four things I do, I do very well. And my whole team understands this. And they do everything around me so that I can stay focused on these four areas,

• 15:49John Maxwell?

  because these four areas bring a huge return to me and to my companies that I have. So let me give you the four things. I'm only giving you these four, not because these are going to be your four, because they're not going to be. But you're going to have to go through the process, which literally took me months to go through, until you can settle in what your strengths are, what you need to be spending your time with. My four priorities, very simple. Number one is leadership. I lead well, so I spend a lot of time leading. It's a gift, and I know it. Number two is communication. I do it almost every day. I speak places, I, I lecture, I teach. I do a lot of communication. Why? Because it's a strength.

• 16:31John Maxwell?

  The third is create or slash write. I spend a lot of time creative thinking, I spend a lot of time in writing. Again, why? Because it's a strength of mine. I love to write books so that I could add value to people that I'll probably never meet. And the fourth area is in networking or relationships. Now, those are the four things I do. I either lead, communicate, create, or relate with other people. Those are the four things. I don't do anything else. You say, John, why don't you do anything else? Because I'm not any good at anything else. You've got to play to your strengths, not to your weaknesses. It's very important for you to understand. Listen to me carefully. People don't pay for average.

• 17:14John Maxwell?

  They haven't paid for average in your life, they're not going to pay for average in my life. People don't pay for average. So quit trying to be average. Find out what you do well. Stay to your strengths, because that's the ace. That's what's going to bring you home. Now, these four areas, these are the four areas I stay in. I don't do anything else. Now, I, I have to have a lot of things done, so I have players around me that they complete me, and they, they do things for me that are huge on the team, that are vitally important. Now, I'm not saying these are the only four important things. I'm just saying, for me, these are the four things that I do, and these are my four top priorities. These give me the greatest return, these give me the greatest reward.

• 17:56John Maxwell?

  You see, what Pareto is teaching you and me are the following lessons. He's teaching us, first of all, it's not how hard you work, it's how smart you work. He's teaching us that it's not how much time you put in the job, it's how you prioritize the job to be effective in it. He's teaching us things such as organize or agonize. In other words, get your act together and get organized, or you're going to always be behind the eight ball, and you're going to be agonizing because you're trying to always catch up. He's saying things such as choose or lose. Either you choose your priorities, or you'll lose your priorities to somebody else that will choose them for you. The question is not will your calendar be full? The question is, who will fill your calendar?

• 18:37John Maxwell?

  He's saying things like evaluate or stalemate. Evaluate your priorities on a consistent basis, or if you don't, you're going to plateau, you're going to stalemate before long. Now, before I close this incredible law of priorities, let's go back to the diagram one more time. I want you, instead of looking at priorities on the left-hand column, I want you to look at people. I wish I had 30 minutes to teach this part of the lesson. I'll try to do it in 30 seconds. If you have 10 people in your organization, or let's say you have 100, and each number represents 10, here's what Pareto says. If you have 100 people in your organization, if you prioritize them according to effectiveness

• 19:22John Maxwell?

  in your company, 20 of those 100 people would be giving you 80% return on everything you need in your organization. And the other 80 would be giving you a 20% return. And what Pareto would be saying to you and me as leaders is, you better prioritize your people. And what he would be saying is, once you prioritize them according to effectiveness, here's what Pareto would say is, he would say, spend 80% of your time with the top 20% of your people, because that's where the return is. Let me tell you what our biggest mistake is as leaders. I see it happening all the time. Instead of spending 80% of our time with our 20%, top 20%, do you know who we spend 80% of our time with? The bottom 20%, because they've got questions, and they want help, and they've got an ally, and, oh, it's tough.

• 20:13John Maxwell?

  We say, "Well, the top 20%, they don't need my time. The bottom 20%, they need your time." Listen, listen. You've got to decide whether you're going to be a counselor or an equipper. If you're a counselor, you're going to work with the bottom 20%. If you're an equipper, you're going to work with the top 20%. If you're a counselor, you're going to work on the weaknesses of people. If you're an equipper, you're going to work on the strengths of people. And I'll discuss that in another law coming up. Well, the law of priorities is absolutely huge. Basically, Pareto says, "Get your act together. Prioritize your life, prioritize your people, prioritize your time, and give 80% of the time to the top 20%, and you'll get a huge return."

• 20:54Ed Mylett?

  If you haven't done it yet, click the link below. You need the 21-page workbook in your hands to track what we call the rep for every law. Plus, that's the only way to get your questions in front of John and I for our Q&A sessions coming up. Get the guy, join the list, and let's get back to the teaching. At the end of your life, nobody's going to give you an award for answering the most emails. The question is whether you gave your life to what mattered. Great leaders understand that saying yes to one thing means saying no to something else. So choose intentionally. Protect what matters. Delegate what others can do. Eliminate what should not be done. And give your greatest energy to great priorities. Because activity is not accomplishment, and a full calendar does not necessarily mean a full life. This week, do a priority audit.

• 21:37Ed Mylett?

  Write down the 10 activities that consumed the most time last week. Beside each one, mark "required." Is this truly something I must do? Or "return." Does this activity create a meaningful return for my mission, family, business, health, or future? And "reward." Does this activity connect to something deeply meaningful to me? Then identify one thing to eliminate, one thing to delegate, one thing to reduce, and one thing to protect at all costs. Then schedule your three most important priorities before the week begins. Do not merely write them on a to-do list. Put time around them. And one more thing. Identify the time of day when you're mentally at your best. This is a huge key.

• 22:22Ed Mylett?

  Give that time where you're at your mental best to the high-value work. Stop giving your brain to your inbox, and then you're tired when you have to focus on your dream. The rep for the law of priorities is to make your calendar match the future you say you want.

• 22:49Speaker 03

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