942 Work Like An Elite Athlete

“Done is better than perfect.”Than has taught me so much over the years about how to build a successful business and I’ve watched him scale his from 30 employees to over 300 in just a few years. I wanted to bring him on the podcast because I know scaling your business can be one of the most challenging obstacles entrepreneurs face. However, when I asked Than for his best advice on this, we ended up talking about how to hire the right team and empower them to make decisions for you. This whole conversation is a gold mine for anyone in business. For this 5 Minute Friday clip, I am sharing his thoughts on leading by example, taking care of yourself so you can perform well, and managing your time wisely. If you enjoyed this episode, show notes and more at http://www.lewishowes.com/942 and follow at instagram.com/lewishowes 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.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is Five Minute Friday.

• 0:11Speaker 00

  Welcome everyone to this very special episode with my dear friend, Mr. Thanh Merrill, who is not only a stud on the football field, but also a stud in the boardroom. And a quick note about Thanh, he is one of the foremost real estate investors and educators in the country, a nationally recognized expert in real estate investing, real estate education, and entrepreneurship, and a sought-after speaker.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  I think it's vitally important that you, as the business owner, embrace a healthy lifestyle. I think, first of all, if you, you know, your diet and nutrition, I mean, energy levels differ greatly. If you're not eating well, you'll probably be two-thirds as productive as you could be, just by changing your diet. And as far as working out, you know, I work out six days a week. So I go, and I prefer CrossFit because they're very short, 30-minute workouts, most of the time. So, most of the time when I work out, four days a week, I'm doing that. Two days, I'll do just a run, because it's all I could get in that day. Down to the beach? Yeah. If I'm local, right down to the beach, or if I'm traveling or wherever, then

• 1:26Speaker 00

  I'll, I'll try to get in some sort of physical activity, because it's, it's very important. It's also important, I think, as a leader of your company, if you embrace that lifestyle, your, your team members and employees will do the same thing, and they'll follow suit. And they'll be more productive. Absolutely. And it's, it's a cult, you know, you create a culture, and the culture, really, the, the founder and the, the CEO, CFO, you know, the heads of whoever created the organization, whoever the founders are, create the culture. And so, that's something we've tried to do, you know, once a quarter, we get together, our company, and we do it what we call an inspire event. So, everybody in the company gets together, if people work virtually, we'll have somebody come in and just share for, you know, 90 minutes to three

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Hours, depending on the topic and the, you know, the last on in January, we had somebody come in and talk about nutrition and different types of, uh, so the whole company's on a water, a salad and no sugar or no bread challenge. I can't say the whole company, but the majority of

• 2:26Lewis Howes?

  People sign up for

• 2:27Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so things like that.

• 2:30Lewis Howes?

  Are you doing that right now?

• 2:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I'm on the, I'm on no bread. I'm on the no bread. No sugar is next week. No sugar is next week.

• 2:36Lewis Howes?

  No gluten or bread or is it just no?

• 2:39Speaker 00

  It's just no bread. It's, it's

• 2:41Lewis Howes?

  One thing at a time.

• 2:41Speaker 00

  It's a simple challenge, right? Actually a really good idea by one of the team members who works with us. He started off with, you know, a water challenge because everyone can have success drinking a certain amount of water each day. And then you go, you kind of progress up to the salad challenge and, but I think it all starts with whoever's running the company. I think that's important. And so, you know, our, one of the local, um, gyms, there's probably 40, 50 individuals at our company that all go to the same gym.

• 3:10Lewis Howes?

  CrossFit gym?

• 3:11Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. So it's, uh,

• 3:13Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 3:14Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's, uh,

• 3:15Lewis Howes?

  How many are local? How many employees local?

• 3:17Speaker 00

  Uh, probably about a hundred and 20.

• 3:20Lewis Howes?

  Wow. And you guys have grown a lot. So I think a couple of years ago, you only had like 30 or 40.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. It was just a couple of us in the office stacked up on top of each other.

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  Did you guys take another floor now or something?

• 3:30Speaker 00

  We have a couple of buildings all right around here. Yeah.

• 3:32Lewis Howes?

  Couple of buildings. So it's not just the one down the street.

• 3:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. Where we live is right near the beach. So there's not a lot of office space. So we, we picked up a couple of office buildings and that are right across the street from each other. So.

• 3:43Lewis Howes?

  What are some of the other rituals besides working out? Like what's your morning look like? Both physically, you know, going through the motions, but also the mental preparation you have for each day?

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, one, one thing, uh, now that I'm, uh, married and have a young son, my, I definitely had to transition some of my hours to morning time before they woke up because I do work from the house. So I, one of the things that I, that I like to do right off the bat is, is every morning I get to, I walk down to my office and for about five minutes, I just organize my day and I prioritize my day. And I think a lot of people don't. Do this and it's so small, but sometimes the most productive things are simple. And so I look at, you know, the 15 activities that I have to do for that day and I put them in order. And I say, okay, what's the hardest one that I've been putting off? I'm going to get that one done first and then I just prioritize my time and I time it. So I put down, okay, I'm going to spend 15 minutes on this.

• 4:40Speaker 00

  I'm going to spend an hour on this and I'm not going to spend more time because a lot of times we end up spending three hours when we were supposed to write. Maybe we're designing a presentation that we're going to give to whoever.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  We spend forever on it.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  Yeah. So you, you spend four hours.

• 4:54Lewis Howes?

  I'm going to give myself a limit.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I give myself a limit.

• 4:56Lewis Howes?

  And you, you put a time measurement against each one of these priorities first.

• 5:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:01Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 5:02Speaker 00

  So I always say done is better than perfect.

• 5:04Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Because you can.

• 5:06Lewis Howes?

  Good and done is better than perfect and never done.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Yeah. Cause that's, and that's the way I've always been. Cause there's always going to be things that interrupt your day, you know, as a business owner. And so I always, you know, make sure there's a little bit of time allocated for that. And then just put a limit on how long I'm going to work on that. And so I actually plan out the, the however long I'm spending working that day into those blocks. And it's very, been very effective for me because it keeps me on track. And, you know, it also keeps a mind that can sometimes get really excited about, you know, I get very excited about new ideas and new things. It's helped me say no to a lot of opportunities that, that would really would have been more distraction than actually a good opportunity for the company.

• 5:50Lewis Howes?

  Hey guys, if you enjoyed this inspirational clip from a past episode of the show, then you'll love the free book I'm giving away right now. It's called The Millionaire Morning. It includes some of my best tips for starting off your day with a millionaire mindset. Get your free copy at themillionairemorning.com and just pay shipping. Again, check it out right now, themillionairemorning.com.