Top 3 Things To Stop Doing

Episode Transcriptions Unedited, Auto-Generated.

Tyson (00:15):

Is it a social community show we're talking about help you learn, grow and transforming the place person want to come today a lot. Talk about top three things to stop doing. I know this might be a different concept. I really enjoy it. I think when you are able to trim the fat and really get rid of all those things were or talked about a lot of people talk about their to-do lists and making these great to-do lists. And there's a lot of great stuff in that. But what I think we fail to do is, is the flip side. A lot of times we it seems like in society, we tend to stay away from the negative aspects of the negative visualization, negative stuff. When in fact a lot of these things can be good. And I, this is what I want to talk about it, like this concept is when you know what you shouldn't be doing when you know what you should stop doing, then I think it gets easier and you can have a clear path, a clear vision of what you should be doing, because if you know all the things you're not doing, you're not supposed to be doing.

Tyson (01:07):

Then you, your list, your principles that you use to guide your thoughts and your actions, like, what am I going to take on? What am I going to do? I think that gets a little bit clearer. It's easier to see and whatnot. This is a concept. I think we've all kind of heard a lot about especially if you're you've read a bunch of books, you know around either time management or getting things done. Gary Keller, the one thing he talks about that he's a proponent of just focusing on one thing and effective executive. That's another good book about being, you know, effective versus efficient. Those are great concepts. I'll link to those books. If you guys haven't read them, I think they're great. I'm going to come from this angle from Jim Collins. He wrote a ton of great books good to great, and how the mighty fall great by choice and lot of things.

Tyson (01:55):

And one of my favorites is beyond entrepreneurship and the new updated version B 2.0, so beyond our partnership, 2.0, this is where I've got this exact concept from. I really like it. I have done a episode a couple of years ago episode 38, making your not to do lists, which I pull from Tim Ferriss. He does the same concept. But I think I said, I think it was a very powerful, I I've come to use these and adopt them and you really find the time socks and these different things that happen. And, you know, I know personally what I like to do unfortunately is I find little things to do and I don't want to do something. And, you know, the procrastination, whenever I find out the little things on my to do list that I just, Oh, these are quick, there's some knock this off and then I'll get to this other thing.

Tyson (02:39):

And I seen the find that I use that as a crutch to not do something I want to be doing or should be doing that's maybe hard or difficult, or I haven't thought through whatever. So I like to use this these, this concept either it's just top three things to stop doing, or it's making them out to do lists. I've done that. And I, it's fun. It's been a tremendous help to me. So this is why I want to share this with you guys. So let's kind of get into the, to the meat of this here a little bit. I mean, give it to my notes here. So the top three things to stop doing, or, or even reduce, you know, that's also something we could be doing. Maybe you're spending a little too much time in email or on Slack or social media, whatever.

Tyson (03:15):

And one of your items is to reduce that, you know, cause a lot of times, you know we have this false idea of, Oh, these things are essential. I must be on here. I must be doing this. I must be watching the news. I must be constantly on my feet. I must be constantly in my email and these habits and these, these, these beliefs we have are hard to break. So maybe one of your items is I'm going to reduce my time here. I'm going to reduce the amount there. That's also a good thing to do. And you really be surprised how much time you can free up in a day when we're not being distracted. We're not having our, our attention pulled here this wish. Wait, wait another. So here let's make a list of projects that we have underway.

Tyson (03:56):

The activities you're engaging in, then force people on the team, or maybe it's just you or your family or whatever it is to rank order them in order of importance, what things need to get done? One three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, whatever which way you want to do, then chop off the bottom 20%, just get rid of that. Don't freak out. You know, you're probably not even focusing on it. You're probably not spending any money. You probably not budgeting anything for us anyway. So it's not a big deal to kind of chop this off the bottom. You can always leave it on another list. Is it that getting things done, they have a great formula for different lists for different things. You know, I have an idea in box that I use for different ideas that pop in my head, but something I don't want to pursue now, but I want to write down and keep that and back to that.

Tyson (04:39):

And then, Oh, you sparkled a thought like, Hey, and this stuff's not caulking up your working memory. I always in the back of your mind, Oh, that thing I want to do, I think I needed it. I think I need to. So bringing that off your plate and put it on my side, not necessarily trash, maybe you should have them addressed. Maybe these are, are, you know time sucks or money sucks for your company. A lot of people, you know familiar with the 80 20 principle, you know 80% of your revenue is from the 20%. We know 80% of your crop use from, you know, 20% of the crop and this types of things like that. So when you're able to chop the stuff off the bottom you're able to free up team members, maybe a to free up capital.

Tyson (05:14):

You're definitely able to free up mind, space and brain space. So don't get scared or don't don't do I gotta do these things, you know, just move them off to the side, get your priorities. How are you going to do it? Then you can start allocating things properly. And then as you knock the things off, maybe you want to revisit those things at a bottom, or maybe they've taken care of themselves because you've knocked off items. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10. It's like, well, these are all done already because we did this other things. Or we found the new relevant because we've done these other things. Or we found them, you know, not, not to be worthwhile the market doesn't want them, whatever it be. Don't be afraid for this chop, that bottom person off, you can always come back to it later, put it somewhere else.

Tyson (05:53):

If you need, if, if you feel a little apprehensive about it, you'll probably forget it. And you'll never go back to that. And a lot of times you know, can you move places? You know, you move from one house and other, you have all these things in your first house and you pack it all up and know I'm going to need all this stuff. And in boxes might not be in the garage. And like, I've never opened this box in six months. There's nothing in here I could possibly need. And that's that concept, you know? So don't be afraid to pack it up and just put it to the side. And then what Jim talks about. A lot of it, if you're not familiar with his books is he talks about the Fox and the hedgehog. So what he says here is we should stop doing anything that doesn't fit with the hedgehog.

Tyson (06:28):

So if you're not familiar with the hedgehog, I got to keep referring back to this. These, sometimes these words get a little interesting, but here's the hedgehog concept, a quick little thing. So we can follow along the hedge con hedgehog concept is developed in the book. Good to great, which I highly recommend a simple crystalline concept that follows from deep understanding about the intersection of three circles. So if you're familiar with the Venn diagram, so you have a circle, a circle, and you know, usually they're like a triangle shape and then they all overlap in the middle. So in these three circles, one, what you are deeply passionate about to what you can be the best in the world at, and three, what best drives your economic or resource engine transformations from good to great come from, come about by a series of good decisions, make consistently with a hedgehog concept supremely.

Tyson (07:20):

Well, well-executed accumulating one upon another, over a long period of time. I will link to this for you guys. I'll link to the diagrams. You can really see this you know, this, this is gonna apply in a lot of things, not just, you know, in your work and also in your life too, you know, the things you're deeply passionate about coupled with something, you can be the best of the world, maybe being the best in your community, maybe the best in your neighbor made it best in your city. That's a big thing. If you're the best in your city at cabinet making or you're in the best of your city at knitting, whatever, that's something, you know, maybe you can make that your full-time thing, or maybe you can, you know, really make this into something. You know, if you have a bigger grander dream go for the world, what would it be like to be the best in the world at the thing you're good at there?

Tyson (08:05):

And then the different economic or resource engines you need to drive that. So I'll, I'll lead to this. So you guys can really dig down in that. But when you, you know what, going back to what I was kinda saying earlier, when you have this hedgehog concept, you have this framework to start, you haven't, you have a solid base, a solid foundation. You can know what you shouldn't, shouldn't be doing. It's easy to make these decisions easy to say, this doesn't fit in with my hedgehog concept. This doesn't fit in with my core foundation of things. I'm going to say no to this. I'm going to not say this. I'm not going to do this project. Maybe pass this project on to a competitor or someone to say, Hey, this is a great idea. Not something that fits with us, but we thought of you and you can pass out.

Tyson (08:44):

Maybe you can partner. Maybe you can get a little something or whatever, or just let it go and let it be something that goes out into the world that you don't have to focus on, but that's okay. When you understand these things, you're able to do these things. You're able to pass these things off. You're able to really hone down and you really get very crystal clear and very focused on the very few things we should be doing. And that's the point of this exercise is to understand if I stopped doing these things, I'll have way more time and a free have way more energy to focus on the things that I really need to be doing. The things that really are pushing my business forward my career for it, my business forward, you know, that's the thing here. So there's a, there's a good little segment in a Tim Ferriss podcast.

Tyson (09:26):

I'll link to that. I believe it's 43. It'll be in a shown us for you guys where he talks a lot about this personally. And there's some great ideas there. I, as I'm doing this exercise too, I'm always looking to reevaluate to see what's going on. My stop do list that I need to do is, is number one, skipping workouts. That is the thing that plagues me a lot. And I'm I'm committed to not skipping workouts. So that's always the one thing, you know, it's always scheduled on my calendar is always the thing, but when, when something's going on or my schedule gets delayed or things getting, that's always a thing that always push off. I always skip. I'll, I'll do it later. This afternoon. Never happens. I'll do it tomorrow. I'll, you know, double down on a rest day. I'm not going to do a rest day.

Tyson (10:10):

I'm going to add in and whatever. I'll just mental gymnastics. I do never works out. So that's something I'm going to on my stop doing this. I'm stopping to stop skipping workouts. I know the benefits of working out. I know that I'll be more productive. I know I'll have more longevity. I know I'll sleep better, which I'll be more focused. I know all the reasons I should be working out, but that mental gymnastics like, well, I can skip this and that's on my stop. Stop do this. Another thing that I identified with myself is, is I don't finish things. I, I have a great idea. I go, I started up, I get 50, 40, 80%, 90% done. And then I'm like, well, that's good enough for now. I got something else I need to be doing. And then I don't finish these projects. I've got a ton of projects that are sitting around that are never finished.

Tyson (10:56):

Maybe never even started. You know you get these annual emails, you know, all these domains and stuff. I own all these things I own for my different businesses that I've never finished. Some domains. I had a great idea. I was all, I'm gonna do that on my build this and I'll do that, whatever. And then here we go. Another year again, I see the domain renew. I never did nothing but buy the domain. So that is plastered on my computer monitors everyday. I look just says finish. That's my my overarching mantra for the year. That's the, that's my word of the year. I'm trying that this year, I'm going to do this. I have it on my whiteboard here. Like I said, I have on my monitor. It just is finished. That's my thing this year. So I spent any wait till the new year to start.

Tyson (11:37):

When I started thinking about these things towards the end of November and December, I started kind of gearing up. I start thinking about these different types of things. What am I going to do? What am I going to present to you folks, what am I going to do for clients and customers? Stuff like, how am I going to, you know, adjust for the new year coming forward? I take those last few weeks of the year to reflect and do these things. So that was what was the biggest thing that was holding you back or, or, or, you know creating something, an angst. And I always had, I always had this nagging feeling. There's these things, you know, I want to do these books. I wanna read his articles and I got a pile of articles. I never finished reading. So I spent the last few weeks of the year finishing and man, that, that just feels so good.

Tyson (12:20):

I knocked out a bunch of documentaries. I want it to watch. I plowed through a bunch of articles. I want it to wow, all these things. And after I was done, I was like, Whoa, what was I waiting for? What was I pushing these things off for? And I hadn't except for onto the next thing. I'll, I'll put this later when I I'll make time. And that's a, you know, thing we fall into is I'll make time for this later. I'll do this tomorrow. First of all, ain't none of us know we're going to wake up tomorrow. And that's something that's hard to think about, but once you kind of get around it and you understand that demo mental Maura, you know, tomorrow's never granted, you know w we never know what's going to happen. And you know, you come home. I come home, you know, a few weeks ago, my neighbor's house will burn down I'm guarantee.

Tyson (13:05):

They didn't plan on that. Like, Hey guys, see, now I've got some stuff done to the house is gonna burn down on Thursday. So let's wrap this things up. You know, things, things come out, things happen. So let's not take these for granted. That's not stop pushing off things til tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, next quarter, whatever. I start doing things. That's what I've really, that's. My overarching theme for this year is finishing things up. And like I said, the thing so far, I finished up and ended last year. And so far through the beginning of this year, it just feels so good. This weight is lifted off you, these thoughts in your head like, Oh, that thing or that thing, those are gone. And, you know it frees up that working memory or frees up that ability for your brain.

Tyson (13:44):

It's not always on these things. I really liked that. And the last thing I have on my stop do list is stop acting like an amateur. So there's a great, I think Oh boy, what is it? Farnam street. They got some good stuff on amateur versus pro I'll link that in the in the show notes for this episode, you guys can read through that great things, but where they really went really, where I got this from, and I really started thinking about this was Steven Pressfield. He wrote a really famous book the war of art. If you haven't read that, it's a great, a hundred recommended, but in the war of art, there's a section about being a provost amateur. So he's taken that concept and he put it into a, it's a pretty quick little book or whatever, but it's great.

Tyson (14:31):

You really get to think about all these things. What are pros doing? What are amateurs doing? What's what are you doing? What am I doing? So I'm doing things sometimes like an amateur would do, you know, instead of doing an ethic, a pro, if you guys watched a documentary on Michael Jordan and the bulls and stuff, watch how Michael shows up every day. That's what pros do. You know? And there's days where I'm not showing up because I'm acting like an amateur. So that's on my stopped. I'm going to stop acting like an amateur. I'm acting like I'm, I'm gonna act like a pro. So I got my list of things that I do that are amateur, and I'm gonna turn those into things at what pros do pros show up everyday pros put in the work pros, don't skip workouts pros, don't do these things.

Tyson (15:14):

So that is my third thing is no more amateur behavior. Professional Beaver act like a pro like a pro athlete would or whatever, these different things. So that's why I had to do also what I, what I've done is on my calendar. I have a quarterly revisit of these things. Things change, priorities, change the world, changes situations, change maybe, you know, really know what's going on in your life. And, you know, you come up across something that, well, this is where I want to guide my life. And if you're not taking the time to evaluate these things, looking at these things, like we said in the beginning, what are you going to chop on these things? What make Alyssa projects underway and activity engaged? If you're not constantly looking at these things, at least quarterly, not monthly, maybe some organizations are sometimes you want to weekly, are we on track?

Tyson (16:05):

What are we doing? I've got a whole list in my calendar. And calendar event, every quarter I go and I review all the things what's going on. Is there, you know expenses that we're no longer using as a company or business that needs to be chopped, these reoccurring things are happening. What's going on constantly revisiting constantly. What is our mission? What is the things? Are, are we doing things that aren't in line with these things? Sometimes we, you know, start to drift off course. That's okay. We've got to just nudge yourself back on. Now, if we're constantly reevaluate these things, we can constantly push yourself back on course, you know, boats and planes and everything. You know, they, they drift off course a little bit, but if you're monitoring them in often enough, it's a small little move back on one, two, three degrees off back on course, three degrees off back on course, five degrees off back on course versus at the end of the year, you're like, Holy crap.

Tyson (16:55):

We're 87 degrees off course. That's a huge hurdle to get back where you were versus if you're constantly correcting constantly correcting, you've got to evaluate that for yourself. That's what this is about. What are you needing to stop doing? What are you evaluating? It's not about what I'm doing. It's not about what Tim Ferris or Jim Collins or, or, you know, will Smith or whoever these guys are. What does not about what they're doing. That's understanding what you need to start doing. You know, it's not about just getting somebody else's Leicester morning habits or routines. And you're saying, well, if I just do this, if I have, you know, oatmeal with four raisins on it, I'm just going to be like this person. It's not it's about, you got to say what works for me, what's going on in my life? What are my priorities what's happening?

Tyson (17:36):

And, and pushing these through and adapting into yourself and add that new situation. These are great ideas. Take some don't. I hope it sparks something. That's like I said, this is the point. And then, you know, on the converse here, once have these things you should stop doing. I challenge you to come up with three things for this year, this quarter, or whatever that you need to do, that you need to accomplish, that you need to start doing what is on your list, what are on your things that you're not doing, you know? So come up with the stops and then come up with the start. So that produce those top three, you know I find that it's nice to have a, a large overarching theme or bigger project instead of having these, you know, little small things like what, Hey, this is an organization.

Tyson (18:24):

There's the vision or whatever. These are our top three things we're gonna accomplish this quarter, this half your year, whatever it is for you guys, what's worked for you and what you've got going on, where you're at these are the top three things we're gonna do. Let's call it this quarter. As we have, you know 400 more customers, we're going to cut expenses by 13% and we're going to hire 10 of people. And then you have those three things, and then you can take each of those and say, in order to accomplish each of these, what do we have to do? Then you can start breaking them down into smaller things. Instead of having those, all these little small little tasks. And, and sometimes it makes it hard to understand where you're headed. Versus we have our destination check now, like Google maps or whatever it is.

Tyson (19:05):

It's like, you put in a destination and then it says, Hey, you're going to start off. You're gonna leave your driveway. You can turn right. And you're gonna go down the street three miles here. It's her left. That's what you need to do too. So we have our overarching destination. And then you start coming, starting with the end in mind is also another great concept. If you're not familiar with it. And then you can back all the down to where you are now. And then I, you know, this is where we're going to go, but this is where we're at. And then you can start really each step. You can assign it to different people in different organizations, budgeting all these types of things. So there we go with that. I hope this really is a big help for you guys. I love this exercise.

Tyson (19:40):

I love doing these types of things. I love discovering new ways to become more effective. And I will link to all the things that I talked about here. So you guys can get on. You guys can get going, asking it, moving through and making this new year. Even if you've stopped things or you've gone off the rails, whatever, that's okay, you can start over at any moment. It doesn't have to be the beginning of a week. It doesn't have to. Beginning of a new year does not the beginning of a new month. I mean, the corner you start over at any moment. And if you fail and fall over it's okay. Guess what? Same thing applies. You can start over again any and every moment, but don't forget that don't get discouraged. Don't get down. No, you can always start over and you can make adjustments.

Tyson (20:25):

And for the challenge for this episode, I need you to pick a day to start to make this list. So you say, write down, however, you do things tomorrow at 10:00 AM. I'm going to make my three stopped doing for this year. You need to commit to a time and date, put it in your calendar and commit to that. That's where this stuff begins though. All y'all and I'll do that later. I'll let you know, I'll get on that tomorrow. Guess what happens? It doesn't happen. Trust me, we all play these games. We all play these mental gymnastics. Don't do it. Put a date commit to that time, commit to that date, do it. It doesn't take a lot of time. So that's what I want you guys to do. The final thoughts. You're wrapping us up, knowing what to do or stop doing, knowing you know, these not to do things.

Tyson (21:16):

He stopped doing things I think is more important than knowing what to do. Like I said earlier, because when you know what you shouldn't be doing, it's very easy to know what to be doing. So take that in mind. That's a key. I think lesson from this thing is understanding the difference and the clarity. I think it brings up what I shouldn't be doing, because it very easy to know what I should be doing. What I should be saying yes. To you're able to say no to the things that don't matter. And don't move you forward on your goals and things. You have the space and a time to say yes to the things that matter. There we go. And the best way to help and support the show and to help your community, help your colleagues and neighbors and friends. And everybody is to share this.

Tyson (22:05):

Should I say, should at least two people get together. You guys can come up with ideas. Maybe if you bought some things off of each other, like, what are your top three things? I only got two. I can't think of a third one. I mean, some ideas. This can help bring your division together, your group together, your team together, whatever it is, your family, the big, great thing that, Hey, Hey fam, what are three things that we should stop doing that really could, you know, I'm out in the evaluates for my own family. I never thought about that. You know, one of the three things we did to strengthen our family unit, what are the three things we can do to strengthen our team? Let's think about these things in between shows. You can catch us all week long at social chameleon show on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Hey, also, don't forget to subscribe if you haven't, if you're new here check us out on your favorite podcast app. Or if you want to see the video version, you can head over to YouTube. Check us out there, subscribe there at for everything I talked about here today, past episodes and links for everything. Check out the social chameleon.show until next time, keep learning, growing your transplants person. You

Speaker 2 (23:08):

Wanting to become [inaudible].