114 How to Boost Your Productivity by Procrastinating with Rory Vaden

"Time management is no longer just logical; it's emotional." - Rory Vaden If you enjoyed this interview, check out show notes and pick up Rory's new book at www.lewishowes.com/podcast/rory-vaden. Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Lewis Howes?

  This is episode number 114 with New York Times bestselling author Rory Vaden.

• 0:07Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

• 0:33Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. My name is Lewis Howes. Very excited about today's guest. He is a new friend of mine that I just got introduced to. I'd actually never heard about Rory until just recently. And he is a New York Times bestselling author of a book called Take the Stairs. He's also a self-disciplined strategist and the co-founder of the international training company, Southwestern Consulting. He's also an expert on increasing self-discipline, overcoming procrastination, and enhancing productivity. And we talk a lot about that in today's episode. And my podcast editor was actually like, this was incredible. I love this interview. I love this information. This was like really helpful for me in my life.

• 1:18Lewis Howes?

  So I hope you guys get as just much out of this as well. It's all about the five permissions on how to multiply your time and really how to leverage, automate, delegate, and multiply your time. So we're talking about how to procrastinate on purpose today. So let's go ahead and dive into this episode with the one and only Rory Vaden.

• 1:48Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. Very excited about introducing you to someone new today. His name is Rory Vaden. I say Vaden, right? Is that how you say it? That's it. Rory Vaden. And I'd never heard about you Rory. We just had a good little conversation before now. And it's been fun to connect. We have a lot of similarities and. Never heard about you till I got a message from, I think it was you or someone on your team about your book. And doing more research on you, I was just like, wow, this guy's actually pretty interesting. And I got a lot of people submitting me to be on the show, so I'm excited to connect more and dive in. You've got a book out called Procrastinate on Purpose: Five Permissions to Multiply Your Time.

• 2:32Lewis Howes?

  And before we dive into that, I want to talk about your near victory of being the world champion in public speaking.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  Oh, well, come up with it. Start with the easy stuff there, huh? Go to the deepest, the deepest pain ever.

• 2:48Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, you got, is this, is this what is true? You got runner up or was it a top three or something?

• 2:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's Toastmasters International. They do a contest called the World Championship of Public Speaking. And it's, you know, 25,000 contestants compete from like 100 countries over nine months. And it was basically my life for two years when I was trying to start my speaking career. And that when I, the first year I made it in 2006 to the top 10 and I lost. And then the second year in 2007, I studied harder, got more coaching, went all the way back to the finals. Had my whole family there, thousands of people. And that was the year that I, I lost again, but I lost higher. I came in second, second in the world, but it's all, it's all good.

• 3:30Lewis Howes?

  Now, I remember I was in Toastmasters, I think it was 2007, 2008. So this was like right around the same time that you were doing it. I was just kind of like getting started and you were already a pro. So what was that like? I remember there was a guy who was like a bald guy. I forget his name, like a short bald guy who had won.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Darren McCroy.

• 3:49Lewis Howes?

  Yes. And I remember like, he came to like our Toastmasters, he was like doing the rounds, talking about his book and trying to like, I don't know, show us what it was all about. And he'd won like, I don't know, in 1999 or 2001 or something, I forget. And he was like the legend in Toastmasters or something when I was like going through it originally. And I remember being like, oh, that'd be so cool to be the world champion of public speaking one day. And after seeing, you know, I talk about Toastmasters every now and then on the show. And after seeing that you were in the championships, I was like, it sparked my interest again to get back into it. So I think I might put that as like a vision of mine here in the future sometime.

• 4:31Lewis Howes?

  Just to experience it, whether I win or not, it's like the process and the journey, I think would be incredible.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  It is incredible. Darren was, Darren was one of my mentors still, you know,

• 4:40Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  mentors and great guy and Toastmasters incredible organization and, and you know, you really, you really develop and learn a lot, so.

• 4:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, now you've got, you, you do speaking constantly now and before we dive in your book, I just want to hear some tips on what it takes to captivate an audience. And you know, you've done so much training, so much intense, detailed training as well through this process with Toastmasters and of course, taking it out on the road and getting paid big bucks for it. So what are like some maybe three or four lessons that everyone needs to be applying when they speak, either preparing or during or whatever it may be, to make sure that it's something that people will never forget?

• 5:22Speaker 01

  You are so going off script right now.

• 5:25Lewis Howes?

  You weren't expecting these.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  So here's the thing, if, actually, I think I can boil that down to one.

• 5:33Lewis Howes?

  Wow, okay.

• 5:34Speaker 01

  The one greatest speaking lesson that I have learned. And, and here's, here's how it kind of comes about, you know, so many of us are nervous when we're about to go on stage and what am I going to say and are they going to like me? Are they going to think I'm funny? And, you know, am I going to be stupid? I'm going to mess up? All this stuff. And I don't know, there was a saying that we, we say all the time around Southwestern, we say, "It's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service."

• 6:02Lewis Howes?

  When your heart's on service?

• 6:04Speaker 01

  On service.

• 6:05Lewis Howes?

  It's hard to be nervous when your heart's on service. Ooh, I like that one. We're going to link, we're going to link that up as a tweetable. I like that.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Tweetable, yes, definitely. And, and here's, here's what I do now every time is before I go on stage, or you know, I'm backstage or whatever, I'm looking out at the audience, I pick out like one person in the audience. And instead of thinking about what am I going to say and rehearsing my speech and yada, yada, I look at the person and I think to myself, I go, "What would life be like to be that person?" Like, what is that, what is that woman over there? You know, what is she struggling with? Like, is it divorce? Is it, you know, health issues? Is it some financial issue? And I literally just like, I just picked three or four people out of the room. It depends on how much time and where I'm at and who I can see. And I, I just try to think about what that person, what it would be like to be that person.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  And it, it gets me so out of the, the nervousness and so focused on, on, on just serving that person. And just, what could I say that would, would encourage that person or inspire them or help them in, in their life? And I'm telling you, that changed everything. And in fact, I know you're writing your book right now, which is awesome. I can't wait for it to come out.

• 7:16Lewis Howes?

  Thanks.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  The same, uh, it took me a while to figure this out because I was a much better speaker than that. I sucked as a writer. It took me a longer time to learn how to be a good writer. But I do the same thing with writing. You know, one day, um, would, would take the stairs with the first book. Uh, I don't even know if I should be saying this. There's a lot of people listen to this show, but there, I had a fight with a family member. And I had been writing for a couple of weeks and everything I was writing, it, it sucked. I mean, it, it didn't suck. It just, it sounded so generic. It was so like every other inspirational book you ever read, just, you know, blah, blah, blah. And, and one day I had a fight with, with somebody that is, I really love. And I was so mad that afterwards I, I sat down and I wrote at this person.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Um, and I wrote to this one person, everything that I wanted to say, that I didn't have the guts to say. That like, I did not have the courage to tell them directly. And I went back and read and I was like, oh my gosh, amazing. And so started the whole book over and, and that's what I do. So now in every single blog post that I write or every chapter in one of the books, I pick out one person in my life and I write to them. And same, same thing with speaking. I'm, I'm thinking of one person and that is, that's my, my biggest secret is totally off the cuff here.

• 8:36Lewis Howes?

  I like it.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  You're out of bounds.

• 8:38Lewis Howes?

  I like it. That's interesting you say that because I, a friend of mine and Phil Town, who's a number one New York Times bestseller as well, I gotta actually get him on my show. I haven't talked to him in a while, so I'm gonna get him on my show. But he, I had him come speak to a little mastermind that I was hosting a few years ago, probably four years ago. And he speaks in front of like 30,000 people at these huge mega events.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah, I know.

• 9:01Lewis Howes?

  They bring him in, right? And he's like with Colin Powell and like presidents and stuff, like speaking.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:07Lewis Howes?

  And I said, like, what's your number one tip? Like, if you get nervous in front of 30,000 people, what do you do to like get standing ovation? And he said, almost the same thing. He was like, you know, when I get off track or I get nervous, what I do is I go to someone close to the stage and I focus on just one person. And I speak just to into that person's feelings, their hearts, their desires, and I speak into what I'm, what I'm seeing in them in that moment. And I just connect with one person until I feel like I'm back on track, and then I can address the whole audience. And, you know, it's kind of similar to what you're saying, is to like, speak to one person and focus on that one person, but not be looking at them the whole time, obviously, but be speaking to them.

• 9:49Lewis Howes?

  So I really like that tip. That's very cool. Awesome. Well, okay, let's dive into this, uh, procrastinate on purpose. Because it's an interesting concept. And you talk about the five permissions to multiply your time. I want to know about why we should procrastinate on purpose. And what does that actually mean, first off?

• 10:08Speaker 01

  Well, procrastinate on purpose is actually one of the five permissions. So even though it's the title of the book, it's really one fifth of the strategy that is laid out. The concept of procrastinate on purpose is basically learning to put off the things that don't matter, so that you can focus on the things that do. It's giving yourself the permission to say no, and, and sort of protect, protect yourself. But, you know, we think of, we think of procrastination as a, as a bad thing, and, and, and it is, it is something that'll hinder you from your goals. And Take the Stairs, you know, the Take the Stairs book, is all about the psychology of overcoming procrastination and proving self-discipline. And sometimes

• 10:51Speaker 01

  people say, so wait a minute, your first book's all about getting rid of procrastination, and now you're telling us to procrastinate on purpose. What, what's the deal there?

• 11:00Speaker 01

  Here's the way that works. Inaction that results from indulgence is procrastination.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. What do you mean by indulgence?

• 11:10Speaker 01

  Like, knowing that you should work out, but not feeling like it, and saying, "Okay, I'm gonna indulge that feeling. I'm not gonna work out." Or, you know, knowing you should make that sales call, and you're sitting there and you're looking at the phone, and you're like, "Oh, maybe now's not the right, not the good time. Last time, they blew me off. Gosh, their secretary was kinda mean." You know, like, knowing what you should do and not doing it because you're scared, because there's this emotion, this indulgence, is procrastination. But inaction that results from intention is patience. Deciding that, you know, "I'm talking to Louis, so I'm not gonna be checking Facebook right now."

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Like, deciding that I am, I am, uh, working on a project, so I'm, I'm gonna ignore that incoming phone call. Like, deciding that today is a critical day, that I've gotta get this stuff done, so organizing my desk is gonna have to wait. It's taking that, that procrastination ability that we have, is sort of putting it to the positive use. And, and that's what people get mixed up, is waiting to do something when you know you should be doing it, but you don't feel like it, that's procrastination. That's the most expensive invisible cost in business today. But waiting because you're deciding that now is not the right time? That is patience. And, and that is a, it's, it's one quiver, it's, it's one, uh, you know, arrow in the quiver

• 12:32Speaker 01

  of the skills that multipliers really use, they actually use it to their advantage.

• 12:36Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I like that. Now, there's, there's lots of books out there on productivity, there's, you know, getting things done. There's, there's a ton of different systems and strategies and thought process on this. But why is, uh, you know, why is this different? Why is procrastination and purpose, uh, different? And unlike all the other things out there that people know about productivity?

• 12:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. You know, the opening line of the book is, "Everything you know about time management is wrong." And, you know, it's probably a more accurate way to say it would be to say it's incomplete. It ignores a certain discussion. And here's the number one biggest difference. Everything that you read on time management has to do with like, logic. It's about calendars and checklists, it's tools and technology, apps, it's all these little tricks to save time, right? It's like, you know, do this, do that, and, you know, planning out your week, and put a letter by the most important priority, and it's all logical.

• 13:38Speaker 01

  Well, the way that happened to me, Louis, is that, you know, one day I was with my business partner Dustin, and it was Saturday, and we were having a leadership planning retreat, and we had people literally from our, from Southwestern Consulting flying in from around the world. And this is the only day that we could like, meet and plan out. And so we're at Dustin's house early in the morning, and his little two-year-old baby girl, Haven, comes running down the hallways, we're leaving the house, and she's like, you know, she like grabs onto his leg, and she's like, "Daddy, Daddy, you know, where are you going?" And he's like, "Oh, you know, baby Haven, I gotta go to work today." And she looks up at him, and her little, little, you know, cute brown girly hair, and her little soft eyes, and she, you know, got a little southern Nashville accent, it's where we live.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  And she goes, she's like, "No Daddy, no, no work, no work." And I was, and it broke my heart. It was like, she had these tears in her eyes, and, and I realized two things in that moment. The first was that I'm not ready to have kids just yet. Amen, brother. The second one, though, is that time management today is no longer just logical.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  It's emotional and the feelings of how we manage our guilt and our anxiety and our fear and our worry and our desire to feel important and our desire to feel valued and to feel successful, our emotions dictate how we choose to spend our time as much as anything, as much as the calendar, but nobody ever talks about the human element of managing our emotions. And so that's where the the five permissions part of the book comes in procrastinate on purpose is is really about the emotional side of productivity.

• 15:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, because what's the point of, you know, being productive, you're still spending 15 hours a day being productive in your business and not, you know, expressing your feelings with loved ones and having a life outside of working, right?

• 15:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And here's the thing, too. It's not one or the other.

• 15:38Lewis Howes?

  It's both.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  It's both. And it's all about the right time. And it's about, but it's about how do you determine what is, as we say in the book, what is your next, what is the next most significant priority and when is the right time? If you're deciding, there are times, and take the stairs, we call them seasons, there are times where you have to imbalance your life to create a desired result. A book launch is a great example. Launching a business is a great example. You know, there's times where you have to imbalance, which is another one of the things that's so screwed up about, you know, time management. Everyone's about balance, but it's successful people have an opposite view where they basically imbalance.

• 16:18Lewis Howes?

  A surge of energy at one time, right?

• 16:21Speaker 01

  Bingo. So, so it's about deciding when is the right time. And if now is not the right time to do something, then you are intentionally delaying it. And that is procrastinate on purpose. And that ties into the focus funnel, which is sort of the visual depiction of the thought process that multipliers go through, which is kind of a centerpiece of the book.

• 16:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. Can we talk about the focus funnel? And can you walk us through the different parts of it?

• 16:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure. So, so here's the, here's the first thing, you know, the subtitle, five permissions to multiply your time. So just before we kind of dive into the focus funnel.

• 16:57Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 16:57Speaker 01

  You know, there is that question like, how do you multiply time? Like, how is that possible? Like, isn't, isn't that, you know, sort of crazy? Well, in one sentence, here it is. You multiply your time by giving yourself the emotional permission to spend time on things today that give you more time tomorrow.

• 17:18Lewis Howes?

  Could you give an example?

• 17:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, uh, here's a good example, just like a little, simple one. If I asked you, Louis, I said, hey, hey, do you, do you have three hours open, extra time in your day today to set up like online bill pay? You know, you have just three hours wide open?

• 17:32Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  No, I definitely don't. You know, I'm pretty sure not. I'm pretty sure, I'm pretty sure I've, I've not had a conversation in the last five years where somebody wasn't telling me, oh, I'm so busy. I'm just so busy, life is busy. I'm just begging for someone to go, you know what? I'm bored out of my mind. All I have is time. No, we're, we're all freaking busy. Well, what most of us would do is we operate with sort of outdated modes or paradigms of thinking as it relates to productivity. And the first one, the, you know, generation one time management was all about efficiency. Do things faster, right? So it's like, okay, well, I'm gonna just pay my bills real fast and that's gonna be my strategy. And there's nothing wrong with efficiency. All things being equal, efficiency is good.

• 18:16Speaker 01

  But efficiency has a point of diminishing returns that it, it's not gonna, you can only be so efficient. I mean, gosh, we have computers in our pockets, all of us, and yet we're all behind, all right? So efficiency is, is, it's like, we're, we're there, it's maxed. Um, some people then, in 1989, you know, the, the world kind of, you have seven habits of highly effective people. It all came about prioritizing your time. And it's all about, you know, scoring your activities, which ones are urgent and which ones are important. And then I'm gonna prioritize the ones that are, you know, urgent and important, or really important, etc. And, and that's all good. Prioritizing is valuable. But here's the thing, Louis, it finally hit me, there's nothing about prioritizing that creates more time.

• 19:01Speaker 01

  All prioritizing does is take item number seven on your to-do list and bump it up to number one.

• 19:06Lewis Howes?

  You still have, you still have 10 more things to do on your to-do list.

• 19:09Speaker 01

  Exactly. And it, and it doesn't create more time. It's more like you're borrowing time. You're borrowing time from items number, you know, the other 10 items to focus on this one. So, and when you really start to look at how do people create these explosive results in the same amount of time as everyone else? Well, they're multipliers. So they give themselves the permission to spend time on things today that give them more time tomorrow. It's an investment of time, literally a calculable investment, just like you would invest money, where I go, okay, if I spend two hours today setting up my online bill pay, I don't have that time, but if I give myself the permission to spend that time, and it saves me 30 minutes

• 19:51Speaker 01

  a month, every month moving forward, then after month four, I have broken even, and every day thereafter, I am getting, and this is a concept in the book, a R O T I, return on time invested. Mm-hmm. And, you know, technology, online marketing systems, you know, we use Infusion Soft, and we love it, and Infusion Soft was, it took me six months to build the thing. Takes forever. It was so hard and so painful. But man, we have thousands of moving parts of our business automated, thousands of internal pieces of communication and online marketing funnels that are completely automated, and it works 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

• 20:32Speaker 01

  I've gotten every single second back, plus a bunch, and that just keeps growing and growing and growing. And so, what multipliers are doing is they are making what we call the significance calculation. It's not just importance, and it's not just urgency. Importance is how much does this matter, okay? Urgency is how soon does this matter? And urgency is a part of the importance calculation. If it matters now, you know, if it's a fire, it makes it more important. But significance is the invisible, unconscious, third sort of dimension, or the third calculation that multipliers make that not everybody else does.

• 21:15Speaker 01

  Most of us fall victim to whatever's latest and loudest. We're constantly pulled in, priority dilution is the phrase that we use in Take Stairs. It's the new type of procrastination that affects not the lazy person, but the chronic overachiever. Who just has a lot going on and so they get pulled to the urgent. The multipliers, right? I mean, the people that you hear about, the Richard Bransons of the world, right? It's like they're spending time on things now. And they make that significance calculation realizing, you know what? This may not be the most urgent or important thing necessarily to set up to use my time today. But I know if I do this thing now, today, this is going to set a path in motion that I'm going to get a return on that investment forever.

• 21:58Speaker 01

  And that becomes the highest weighted part of the calculation. Instead of living urgent, they focus more on living significant and not how soon does this matter? But for how long is this going to matter? And that's significance.

• 22:13Lewis Howes?

  Interesting. Wow. I love it.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  I'm looking at the funnel actually right now. And you know, you talk about eliminating things, right?

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah.

• 22:24Lewis Howes?

  As opposed to just moving something up the list to prioritize like what's the most important? And then having the rest of the list still. Does that mean eliminating the list altogether and just prioritizing on three things? And then eliminating the rest? Or what does that exactly mean?

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Okay, so the focus funnel, which are all connected to the five permissions. Each one of these strategies represents a way to multiply time. And so you can see it, but since people are listening.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  Sure.

• 22:50Speaker 01

  It's eliminate, automate, delegate, concentrate, and then procrastinate on purpose, which is where the title of the book comes from. So if the way eliminate works is if I eliminate something today, that creates more time tomorrow. If I say no to something today, then it saves me time tomorrow that I would be spending on something I didn't really want to do. But I said yes to it because I felt guilty or I was afraid to tell the person no. Eliminate, in my opinion, is where we have the widest swath of room for improvement. Most of us are doing so many things that we should, we just should stop doing.

• 23:33Speaker 01

  There's just, there's just things that we do out of guilt, you know? Like, we get voluntold for things. And, and a lot of it comes from the permission to ignore. That's the permission that goes with eliminate. And it's realizing, for me, it was hard, though, because I'm a people pleaser, I am. And, and so I hate telling people no. And I'm trying to go through life, no, without saying no to people. And then, you know, one day, Louis, you know, one of our clients kind of slapped me in the face. This guy's a multiplier, and he goes, "Rory, you have to realize, it's impossible to go through life without saying no. You're always saying no to something. You're either saying no..."

• 24:11Lewis Howes?

  Right. To someone else or to yourself.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Right. Like, by, any, anytime you're saying yes to one thing, you simultaneously are saying no to an infinite number of others.

• 24:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  And so, you're either consciously saying no to what doesn't matter, or you end up accidentally saying no to the things that do matter. And so, that's where part of, that's part of the insight that brings you to the permission to ignore, the permission to say no, or what we call in the focus funnel, eliminate.

• 24:39Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so hard for individuals to eliminate things from our life and calendar? You know? Why is it hard for us to have an empty calendar? Or to have, you know, not a full calendar, let's say?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Well, I think there's a glorification of busyness. And it just kind of, one of the things that I write about in the very first chapter, we talk about everything that, I think it's called, "What You Thought You Knew About Time Management." And, and here's one of the things I'm kind of embarrassed to admit. I got a weird, almost, not almost, let's just call it a weird, sick sense of importance from telling people how big, how busy I was.

• 25:21Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Why is that? Why do we have that?

• 25:23Speaker 01

  I mean, we all just, we want to feel important and, and we're all busy and so we, we sometimes do it. You know, I used to have my autoresponder on and tell people, hey, thanks for your email. I'll get back to you, you know, blah, blah, blah. And it's just like, and, and one of my buddies was just like, dude, that just feels like a big, you know, F you right in your face. Like I'm more important than you are, I'm busier than you. And, and you know, the, the multipliers of the world, the ones that really are making it happen. They, they don't ever seem to complain about being busy. They, they seem to have a level of peace and perspective and it makes all the sense in the world to me now. Because multipliers don't live in only the world of what's happening today. They make the significance calculation. They are constantly thinking longer term than, and while the rest of us are sucked into the stress

• 26:08Speaker 01

  and the frustration and the urgency of what is happening now. Um, you know, and I, I just, we all have that desire to feel important and it's easy to be busy just being busy. And it makes me feel like, gosh, you know, I'm, I'm so important. I got a lot of going on, look at all the people who need my attention and it happens at a total subconscious level. Um, so, you know, as you move through the funnel and you, you get into the other things. It's, it's all about how can I spend my time today that creates more time tomorrow and making that a heavy part of the calculation.

• 26:39Lewis Howes?

  Right. And that's, you know, that's a lot of it's about automating your processes and then automating the things uh, that you don't need to be doing yourself every single time. And, uh, can you talk about, you know, you have a, a pretty powerful lesson that you learned in the automate chapter. Can you share what that lesson is?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. So this is fascinating. Um, it's funny, a lot of this stuff I don't really learn until I'm writing it and it comes out and, and it hits me. Um, here's a story. Do you know who Darren Hardy is?

• 27:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah. Success magazine, yep.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  Yeah. Darren is one of my favorite guys, you know, mentor for sure. You know, one of the wealthier people I probably know personally, like have a real relationship with. One day Darren and I are, you know, sitting at Starbucks and, um, uh, out, out in Cardiff. Um, you know, that close to where he lives. And I, I ask him, you know, hey Darren, what do you think is the most, the biggest difference between rich people and everybody else? And he launches into this story about three different types of people and how they might walk into a coffee shop and buy coffee. And the first person walks in and they say, "Do I want the coffee?" And if the answer is yes, you know, let's say this person is representative of more of like a lower middle-class kind of mindset. They're completely governed by impulses. And they say, "I'll do whatever it takes to get the coffee."

• 27:53Speaker 01

  So they'll beg for it, they'll borrow it, they'll steal it, they'll put on credit cards because they're just governed by the short-term impulse. Most people say, you know, they say, "Do I want the coffee?" "Yes." And the question is, "Do I have $5?" And you go, "Okay, that seems like a fair question." And it is. And that's how most of us think is, "Well, I want the coffee. Do I have $5? If I do, I get the coffee. If I don't, I don't get the coffee." But what he was saying is, rich, wealthy people, just financial money, a wealthy person makes a different calculation. They realize that if I spend $5 on this coffee today, that's $5 I'm not spending on an investment, either into a business that I have, or into real estate, or into my own personal development in coaching, which is, you know, something that successful people take very seriously.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  So basically, I said, "Well, that's opportunity cost." And he said, "Exactly." But then he said, "What a wealthy person realizes is that $5 invested at, let's say, 10% for 30 years would be worth about $50." So, the wealthy person doesn't ask themselves, "What do I have to do to get the coffee?" And they also don't say, "Do I have $5?" The calculation they make is, they say, "Is this $5 coffee worth $50 to me 30 years from now?" What? I mean, that's crazy. I never heard anything like that. And so, you know, he's talking about the power of compounding interest, right?

• 29:21Speaker 01

  And that's something we have all heard. So here's what finally occurred to me. Automation is to your time exactly what compounding interest is to your money.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  Anything you create a process for or a system for today saves you time tomorrow. And you know, something like Infusionsoft, for example, for us, you, when we set it up, now every day, it's got, it's completely on autopilot, just like compounding interest is working to, to, you know, make, make, your money makes more money. That's how automation works is the, the, the time you put into the system creates more time and more time and more time and it multiplies. And that is, that's a concept that only makes sense if you make the significance calculation. And most, most people don't, but multipliers, people like Darren, they live in that world

• 30:18Speaker 01

  where they're going, is this $5 coffee worth $50 to me 30 years from now? Is it worth a couple hours here so that, because it's going to save me a thousand hours over the long term? But most of us don't live that way. We wake up and we go, oh my gosh, text message coming in, emails, emails coming in, voicemails, fire, urgent meeting, conference, like, and we're just, it's priority dilution.

• 30:39Lewis Howes?

  Wow, fascinating. I like that. I just interviewed Tony Robbins about his new book and he talks a lot about the power of compounding. So it's very relevant right now for me. Very cool. Well, you talk about delegating next as part of your funnel. And can you talk about the emotional dynamics that are related to delegating?

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, a lot of people that they don't even realize that the real issue they have with delegating is an emotional one. It's really about perfection. You know, if guilt is, if guilt is the thing that you're fighting when you're, you know, when it comes to eliminate and saying no, perfection is really the, the feeling that you're fighting because we all have this, this thing, right? Like, like if you asked the average small business owner and you said, look, are there things that you're doing today that somebody else could be doing for you? That someone else could be trained to do?

• 31:32Lewis Howes?

  Everything.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  Everything. And then you say, why then don't you teach them how to do it? They would say one of two things. The first one they might say is, why don't I have the money to pay them? Well, in that case, they, they don't understand the, the return on time invested, which we just talked about. But the reality of what most of them would say is they would say, well, I'm just afraid that person won't be able to do it as well as I can. Or they'll say, "It's faster for me to just do it myself." And that's what, and that is the reality, that's the story we tell ourselves. But look, it's only faster to do it yourself once. That is somebody absent the significance calculation. But if I realize that if I spend the time training that person, and then every time after they get it done,

• 32:19Speaker 01

  80% done by someone else is better than 100% done by me. And over time, they're gonna specialize in it, and they're gonna get to a place quickly where they can do it better than I could've, because they're gonna be more specialized. But it's, it, so it really comes down to the permission of the imperfect. Uh, and that's the, that's the permission that corresponds with the choice to delegate. Is you, you have to be willing to be okay with things just being okay. Um, because that's how you multiply your time. And we use something, uh, called the 30X rule. The 30X rule says, spend 30 times the amount of time training someone how to do a task as it would take you to do it on your own. 30 times.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  30 times, which is huge, right? That's a lot. It's a lot. You go, "Holy crap." So if it's a five-minute task, what the 30X rule would say is spend 150 minutes, two and a half hours. That's what you should be willing to invest to teach someone else to do it. And you go, "That's crazy. Why would I spend two and a half hours teaching someone how to do a task when I could do it in five minutes?" And the reason is because of significance, because of the significance calculation. Cause, cause here's how it works. Five minutes a day on a task, okay? Say there's 250 working days in a year. That would be 1,250 minutes that you're spending on that task. Well, so then spending 250 minutes

• 33:48Speaker 01

  teaching somebody else, or excuse me, spending 150 minutes, uh, teaching somebody else how to do that, that's two and a half hours. It, it does seem ludicrous to spend that much time, but over the course of just one year, it would've taken you 1,250 to do it yourself, but instead you spent 150 training someone else. So you saved 1,100 minutes over the course of a year. That's like a 730% return on time invested.

• 34:16Speaker 01

  And, and, and yet, the, and the reason we don't do it though is we go, we say, well, they won't be able to do it as well as I can, or it's not worth it. It's, and it, we're missing the permission of imperfect, or, you know, the whole core portal, the whole book is we're not, we're not multiplying our time because we're not calculating based on significance. We're only calculating on here and now. And that's why, you know, to do lists are dangerous. Because to do lists keep you focused only on today. I mean, how do you put your to do list together? You ask yourself the question, what's the most important thing I gotta do today?

• 34:49Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  And what you should be asking is, what can I do today that will create more time tomorrow?

• 34:54Lewis Howes?

  Wow. Interesting. Man, that is a good concept. I love that. God, I had something on my mind that I wanted to ask you, then, then that thought just blew my mind that it took me away from it. Hopefully I get back. It's all right. Man, what is it I wanted to ask you? This is gonna bug me now. Go ahead.

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Okay, you think about that, and let me, let me go on to the next step. Okay, so here's, if you picture a funnel, I know it's weird because you're listening and you're like running right now, or you're in your car, or whatever. If you're, you picture the funnel. At the top, you have eliminate, automate, and delegate. And all, you have all your tasks and kind of, you know, work to do and meetings and stuff coming in the top of the funnel. When it comes out the bottom of the funnel, now you know, if it cannot be eliminated, automated, or delegated, now you know you have a task that must be done, and it must be done by you. So, and this is great, right? Only now are we talking about you doing something. Finally, you get to do something. Everything in this book is not about you doing more. It's not about trying to fit more in. It's not trying to

• 35:53Speaker 01

  work faster, or be a better prioritizer. It's actually about you doing less, but accomplishing more by learning to be a multiplier. So, when it comes out the bottom of the funnel, you ask yourself, Can this wait until later? And if it cannot wait until later, then you concentrate. That's where you give yourself the permission to protect. At that moment, you know you have a truly significant priority. It's something that you and only you can do must be done now. So that is when you ignore everything, like shut the door, stop the incoming calls.

• 36:28Lewis Howes?

  Right. So for example, if I've got 50 emails to reply to or 50 emails that came in of people asking me questions, it may not be urgent to get back to right now, but I've got a deadline on a product I'm launching or I've got an interview that I've got to do, then I need to just wait until later to focus on the things that aren't as urgent and focus, put my attention and urgency on what is important. Is that what you're mentioning?

• 36:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, you are. Yeah, yeah, that's the, you're concentrating on the thing that is significant and urgent. And it's significant and urgent and important, you know, so it's close, high on all three categories. But you're, and then the other part of it is you're procrastinating on purpose on the emails and the questions and the other things.

• 37:14Lewis Howes?

  Gotcha. That makes sense.

• 37:16Speaker 01

  You're not trying to do both at the same time, right? Like again, multitasking.

• 37:19Lewis Howes?

  Does not work, right?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Complete freaking myth. Balance, complete freaking myth. To do list, you know, I still use a to do list, but, but it's dangerous because it causes me to think in terms of today. So now I have to go, what's the most important thing I can do? You know, how can I use my time today to create more time tomorrow? And then whatever that is, I add it to my to do list. So you know, you could still do it, like I still have to prioritize those activities. But, but here's the thing, the, the part about this, it's not so much what you do or you don't do. It's about how you think, like successful people think differently. And, and it's, that's the part, like you're still going to do emails, right? And you're going to, when you procrastinate on purpose, long enough, your emails will pile up enough to a point

• 38:04Speaker 01

  to where you ask that question, can this wait till later? The answer won't be yes, the answer will be no. And that's when you're going to sit down and answer all your emails. It's like batching, it's, it's, it's, you're doing them all at once. But then you're concentrating on just email, you're protecting your focus. And usually I work offline so that none of the new, no new emails come in.

• 38:24Lewis Howes?

  So you're just having, you're just not having a text message conversation back and forth via email then?

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I get, you get like the email tennis going.

• 38:33Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. This is a cool. Okay, I remembered what I was gonna say.

• 38:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 38:36Lewis Howes?

  Um, so perfectionism. Why are so many people focused on having it their way and being perfect? When there really is no perfect and they'll never achieve perfection?

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Well, I mean, it's because they don't. I think it's because they don't know. I mean, psychologists say the number one cause of all real procrastination is self criticism. Um, it's thinking I won't be good enough. It won't work out. It's, you know, and so when it comes to delegating, it's, it's even harder because it's like, I already have enough self doubt about me going, it's not gonna be good enough. Now I'm relinquishing even more control to turn it over to somebody else and my reputation is the one that's on the line. But you, you know, that's where you have to, but, but multipliers, successful people think differently. They know that it's, success is messy and it's part of the process. You screw up and that's how you figure it out. It's like, you know, 10,000 ways not to make a light bulb work and that's how you figure it out. It's,

• 39:34Speaker 01

  but, but most of us haven't given us, given ourselves that permission. And, and it's, it's, that's where the emotional element of this is just, it's just so critical is until you can give yourself the permission, you're gonna constantly be chasing down other people's priorities. You're gonna be chasing invisible finish lines. You're gonna be chasing things that you think will bring you peace and that just make you busier.

• 39:56Lewis Howes?

  Hmm, I like that. Yeah. And you give a great example of Richard Branson. I mean, I've, I've had opportunity to, you know, see him speak a number of times and it just seems like he's always relaxed. And he probably is busy, you know, has more companies and things happening, uh, investment deals, foundations than anyone else. And he seems like he's the most relaxed person out of successful people because it seems like he's really learned how to multiply his time, delegate, automate things, hire the right people to train and allow them to, and empower them to take it, um, take it on themselves. So, I like this, uh, this example here.

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Here's the, here's the other thing, and this isn't in the book, um, but just as you were talking about Richard Branson, it, it occurred to me. Um, any challenge, like, let's say if you were driving home today, Lewis, and you had a flat tire, right? And tonight at dinner, you know, or whatever, somebody said, how was your day? You would probably tell them about the flat tire.

• 40:52Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 40:52Speaker 01

  Right, because it's like a flat tire is a pretty big event in the course of things that would normally happen in today. But if, you know, say it's many years from now and it's like I'm on my deathbed or whatever and somebody says, you know, tell me about your life. Do you think that in that moment you would tell them about the flat tire?

• 41:08Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  No, you wouldn't. You wouldn't even remember the flat tire. I mean, two weeks later, you totally forgot about a flat tire. Because a flat tire is a big event in relation to our day, but it's small in relation to our lifespan. And so here's the thing, problems, any problem in relation to today is a big problem. But any problem in relation to our lifespan is a small problem. And any problem in relation to eternity is no problem. What is that? That is the significance calculation. That's why you can be Richard Branson and have a bunch of customers that are pissed off at you, a bunch of businesses that need difficult decisions made, a bunch of money that's on the line. You can lose millions of dollars every day in the stock market.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  And you can be sitting back totally chill, hanging out on stage with Lewis and the audience.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah, exactly. I like that. Good way to think about it.

• 42:05Lewis Howes?

  Got a couple of questions left for you. And I want to wrap things up here, but this is not about the book. But one of my questions is, what are you most grateful for recently, Rory?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Oh, wow. So every single day when I wake up, I just cannot help but thank God for my amazing wife. I mean, my wife is incredible and we work together, you know, we started the business together and people are like, isn't that, you know, isn't that hard to work with your wife? And I go, I can't imagine it any other way, you know, to get, to have a woman that believes in me and we work alongside each other and to get to see your spouse perform in a professional setting. I mean, she's amazing. She dominates the room when she speaks and, you know, we've got, some of our consulting clients are huge, you know, Fortune 500 companies and, you know, they ask us not to share their name too often in the public.

• 42:55Speaker 01

  But, I mean, you're talking like big time companies and their CEOs and they don't make decisions without talking to her and. I just think it's amazing how, you know, who she is and how she supports me and she gets everything done. And so that's, I'd have to say my wife.

• 43:12Lewis Howes?

  Very cool. What's your wife's name, Rory?

• 43:14Speaker 01

  Amanda, AJ. She goes by AJ. Amanda Johns Vaden.

• 43:18Lewis Howes?

  Big shout out to AJ.

• 43:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:22Lewis Howes?

  Okay, cool. Final question, before I ask the final question, which is what I ask everyone at the end, I want to acknowledge you Rory for your commitment to supporting so many people in taking their lives to the next level, whether it be teaching them how to take action in your previous book, whether it be sales training, and now currently how to be productive and how to eliminate, automate, and delegate your time and energy so that you can multiply your time. I think this is really powerful information and I want to acknowledge you for the service that you provide to the world. So, thank you for all that you do.

• 44:00Lewis Howes?

  To go into the final question, to close up the interview, it's, what is your definition of greatness?

• 44:08Speaker 01

  Well, there's something in the Take the Stairs book called the rent axiom. And the rent axiom says this, that success is never owned. Success is only rented and the rent is due every day. And to me, you know, that's, that really speaks a lot to my definition of greatness. It's just that you, you keep, you embrace the idea that this, these principles, they're not, they're not quick fixes, they're not diet plans to get you to a point. This is an ongoing journey of you're always getting better and that you take pride in being willing, no matter how big you get, to do the things it takes to be successful. And you never,

• 44:52Speaker 01

  you never become an escalator person who just made it and you're just drifting along. You're, you're doing what it takes and it's the small, seemingly insignificant choices that you make each and every day, which is, you know, where Take the Stairs is the metaphor comes from. And so for me, it's just embracing that idea that success is never owned. It is only rented and the rent is due every day.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  Rory Vaden, I appreciate him in my end and I'll make sure to have everything linked up in the show notes for your book and everything we've talked about, but thank you so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Oh, my brother, it's a pleasure and thank you for what you do. I'm inspired and awed and impressed by you and I'm wanting to learn from you and I just, what you do makes a huge, huge impact in the world, Louis. So, thanks for the honor of having me, buddy.

• 45:37Lewis Howes?

  Thanks Rory.

• 45:42Lewis Howes?

  There you have it, guys. I hope you enjoyed this interview. I had a blast connecting with Rory and a lot of fun learning about his strategies. So if you enjoyed this, if you felt any part of it was useful, or helpful, or a great little tip for you, please go back to the show notes at lewishouse.com/114 and share this with a friend. Feel free to email it to a friend, share it with your friends on Facebook and Twitter. Again, if you found anything in this interview valuable, I would love it if you shared it with a friend via email or social media. Also, leave a comment on the blog if you have some thoughts or some additional tips on how to be more productive with your time. I'd love to hear your tips and your strategies. So leave a comment on the blog as well. And everything, you know,

• 46:25Lewis Howes?

  I'm seeing so many people tag me on Instagram lately with where they're listening to these interviews. So if you're an Instagram fan like I am, I love using Instagram, if you're on there, make sure to follow me @lewishouse and tag me where you're listening to this episode or any episode in the future. Take a picture of you with the phone, if you can, if you have another camera, where are you at in the world? And then tag me with that location, @lewishouse, hashtag School of Greatness. Would love to stay connected with all of you. I reply to pretty much everyone I can there when they specifically talk about the podcast, so would love to stay connected with you there. And yeah, you guys are incredible. I am so pumped for all the great interviews that I have coming up in the new year. And

• 47:08Lewis Howes?

  we're at episode 114 right now. I can't wait to get to 200. There's gonna be so much juicy, good stuff coming up in the next, you know, 85 episodes. So I'm very excited about this. Lots of great things happening. You guys are incredible and you make me smile so much when I'm able to hear from you guys and connect with you on these interviews and these messages. So, thank you all so much. You know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.