Sharing MITs & Your Ideal Day
Jason W Womack
Lessons
Introduction
17:50 2What Does it Mean to be Productive?
17:49 3What is your "More"?
25:27 4Opportunity & the Power of the "Undone"
21:53 5Recap & Questions
27:34 6Organizational Systems
28:24 7MITs (Most Important Things)
16:10Sharing MITs & Your Ideal Day
56:53 9Clarifying your own "So That"
27:18 10More "So Thats" & Individual Productivity
33:40 11The Tools of Productivity
31:34 12Identifying You "At Your Best"
11:47 13Three "Influencers"
24:55 14The "So That" Exercise
30:48 15Daily Limitations & Managing Energy
25:44 16Time Management
41:44 173 Kinds of Conversations
1:07:51 18Knowing How You Learn
22:58 19Student Hotseats & Learning Discussion
18:09 20Team You
29:04 21Team You Q&A and Discussion
17:36 22Mentors
27:23Lesson Info
Sharing MITs & Your Ideal Day
And someone asked me this a jason are you using mohr as a thing a cz almost a noun? And I said yeah, and even in context it'll change. So what more means to me professionally and then what more means to me personally then what more means to me and relationships? What more means to me with my health and then really getting a day today to explore what that means to you personally? So I shared with you that we would be building a productivity portfolio and like an artist or a musician or anybody really that portfolio has tools that they can access when they need them and so I'll just recap the four tools that you already have to walk away with and each one of these it could be seen as a almost a theory or an idea but then we did some work today that really grounded that in practice the first one was identifying what your mohr is and we did that in two very specific ways. First one is we looked at the quality and the qualification of that more so how many of those things and then what it w...
ould seem or feel or look like? And then of course the next thing we did is we looked at who your demographic is who you're creating that more for there were a couple of all hawes that I know happened this morning and even me looking out at you and then realizing the online audience, we've got a lot of different audiences tuning into this program a lot of different low rhs they're the next thing we took a look at was what the power of unfinished business condo's on the one hand, they can wake us up from a deep sleep at night. On the other hand, it can to our advantage, push us to finish something no one in this room, I think, is unaware of the power of of a procrastinated project and just how powerful that can be if I wait if I wait, if I wait at some white house to get done. One tactic that we put out there for everyone was taking a look at some kind of a what I call a gratitude plan if that fell on fertile soil for u aa lot of people ask, and I saw some of the chats come in online at lunch. You know, how do I start doing that? Or someone said, can I send an email as a thank you? And my thing is absolute just do it, but I know for me the impact of sitting down with a pen and writing on a piece of paper and spending those four or six minutes is about how long I spend on a thank you card, something happens, something changes I get to think about things in different ways and so we took a look later in the morning at the different ways that people think and I put the hypothesis on the table that there are people I work around that are now no oriented, that when they see a project when they think of an event when they bring to the conversation something they're heading toward, they can easily talk about the vision of what it's going to look like, what it's going to feel like of what it's going to sound like other people that I work with that I'll invite into those very same meetings, what we need to be doing and that's where I introduced this idea of taking a look at the smaller verbs that make for the big difference as we all broke for lunch this afternoon, one of your colleagues he wrote down on a piece of paper he says small is the new big and the fascinating like what would happen if as we left this course today as you think about your own thinking bigger and making more what are those small things that I can do consistently to create for that change? So I'd like to press pause and just ask I'm going to grab a seat here, but overall what did you pick up from any of those four elements or something that you may have talked about someone at lunch but the topic of the course is think big and make more and I love just to hear from a couple of folks willing to share how's it going? What? What do you see it? What what can you use out of this ladies first and then tony, I'm coming to the front, so when we're writing our lists, I remember you said something like, if you started on one subject, you might have sub subject underneath that I saw that in a couple places in one of them, I was with clients that there's some people that are sticking around, that I really should let go of, um and there's other people that if I would just offer more, they probably accept more and there's just new people I need to reach out to everything. I hadn't put it together in that way, but I just expressed frustration with certain individual clients mutuals buckets, but now I'm seeing the bigger picture of, oh, I don't have to try to make it work with some folks that might be better sort of someone else, and for those people, they're sort of waiting for me just to say, hey, I could do this for you I think they'd be happy to say yes and for me it's such a beautiful juxtaposition of this idea of the noun and verb languages because what could have I won't say what created that thought what could have created a thought was thinking of someone's name and then the magic sentence that you gave me at the end was you what I could do for them and I want I want to qualify those things I do I want to qualify the who and I want to qualify the what and I I know about me I love drafting drought writing scribbling note taking ah brainstorming I love that and I contest it where I'll put the topic that I'm bringing storming in the middle of a piece of paper and a test all run is as I'm brains storming and my brain storming in actions or in items in verbs or announce not to do anything different not right not wrong not better not worse but it's insight into what my thought calm thought trails has anyone ever looked inside your inbox of emails seen someone's name and totally stressed out just their name forget what they wrote because I oh gosh now what right alternatively you picked up your phone saw caller I d got all excited okay just me but you understand that concept right it's like wow there's something from the outside that created that engagement on my side and if it's anything that you could walk away with what I hope one of the things that falls on that fertile soil is your you're the commander of the next thought anybody know anybody who likes to complain to you know, someone who likes to complain, right? I mean is the bay area is the world is new york shy of things to complain about these days, right know and was fascinating to me is is to experiment with those people who like to complain someone will come to me with a you know, the potholes that was one reason the potholes in our city and I asked him I said, well, what have you done about the potholes? And they said, I can't do anything about the potholes well, that got the song you could write to someone you know you could protest something we're going to do about that thing now where it gets dangerous for me is when a complainer will meet another complainer and then they'll out complain each other oh no mine's worse than yours earlier this morning I asked who's ever had a bad day at work? The extension of that is if you've ever had a ok last job not this job your last but if you ever had a bad day at work and then you go home and you tell someone about that bad day anyone ever done this and then and then on the weekend you with some friends and you talk about the bad day but then they out bad your bad day and like where we going is this what we're doing? Where we you know what we want to talk about? Where do we want to think bigger? So you get to direct, I call it the next thought, all right? Maybe this one that I'm thinking right now, I'm stuck in it, but what can I do to teo to change that? Just a little bit. Tony, your hand shot up, I think, to the biggest take away so far from me was the question you posed or that was posed to you. What is your gratitude plan for your business? I say it it's wild and that's something that I would spend some time thinking about as it's really early in my business right now? Um, and then the other is, uh, the amount of time you spend acknowledging he said acknowledgements a huge, uh, part. And I want that to play a role, uh, a bigger role in my life and then also in the business as well. Those were to stand up. I mean, I really think that we're in this acknowledgment starved, community acknowledgement starved society at the end of the day are the way the brain works is it holds onto the undone? Let me thankfully so our brain is a dissonant, dissonant organ, it had notice is off it notices undone it notices unfinished it notices wrong right? So the those of you who are parents you know you walk into a room and you know something with you know that you know they did something you don't know what it is you'll get it out of you know something is off I want to rewire that keep the dissonance the dissonance has kept me alive in london because the cars come from the other direction all right? I want to look both ways add to that the completion and so you know those two tony where you combine the acknowledgment I called acknowledgement accomplishment and where those two things meet because what is it so easy to acknowledge judge something that someone accomplished um I have ah how many of you our client based your world is clients whether they big companies, individuals those of you online you know here's a tactic that I use all the time I've got google alerts set up and other search uh system set up so that when a client of mine is mentioned I get notified and I often I've sent congratulations notes to clients before they're intact team knew that they were promoted I want how to jason now well it's very important to me to be following your career now I had a google alert told me for you know, the festival the event that you're participating you're going have sponsors I'm thinking are you you'll have sponsors you know how how many of those sponsors their all their interaction with you is transaction based how do we move that toward a relationship building experience? How do we move that to an opportunity development experience and by the way, those three factors that would be a reason to come back tomorrow because I'm going to go into the triangle of communication transaction relationship building an opportunity I know the fastest way to create a relationship with someone is no that they can trust us at the transactional level. I also know that the fastest way to lose a sponsor or to lose a client is not managers transaction well anyone ever had that where someone said they would get something to you by friday and and then friday afternoon you call and say, hey, you're gonna get in that thing and they say, oh, I forgot now he forgot it if I can't handle you if you can't handle the transactions of our relationship, why would I go any deeper? And then once I start to go deeper in that relationship it naturally leads itself to the opportunities that we develop a lot of people watch ching online a lot of you here a referral based businesses and I always say to folks, my business is actually dependent on what I'm doing right now because someone could tune in and then leave or they can tune in and stay those of you here you can turn and write down it to do list for later this afternoon or you could write down something that I'm talking about your focus gets toe play with those two things, but in the online world I'm wondering if there's been any commentary around how the morning went on anything to bring to the afternoon people are being very emotional about some of the things they've been sharing I'm something's under perhaps we wouldn't normally readout on there but you know it's great that they're sharing them there just seems to be a lot of energy around anything that recovered this morning I think they're really excited to go get back in this afternoon they're also always willing to share the journeys that our students take they sort of they identified with the students in the audience and there's some challenges that may be facing them in their business career whatever it's interesting thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So in the afternoon you saw there's a little set change, we have a lighting change, so we're going to do some things differently let me a couple of times where I'm going to invite one of the in studio audiences to come up and work with me a little bit in front of the live studio and on air for those of you out in the web land as those questions if there's anything that I can talk about it more detail if there's an example you want me to expand on if I'm going too far downstream one and you got it, let the hosts know and I can pick it up a little bit but really, if I could say we've got about two and a half three hours left together today, what is your more what is your more? And how can you access these elements? And we're going about toe jump into the fifth element here that's kind of a different way staying in right good movie met any raising a new fifth element and I wantto do a public shout out a thank you to my mentor ron coke years ago ron was mentoring me through as I was becoming a high school teacher and one day the way that the program that I was in worked I went in student taught during the day seventh grade we taught advanced determination via focused class and then in the afternoon I will move on to the high school and I taught world history in spanish. So is this really wild world? I was working with kids who were kind of in that gate that advanced environment and that was popping over to another high school and I was speaking in I was teaching in spanish to mostly kids who were coming in for seasons of agriculture and at the end of one particularly challenging day, I'm sure I was complaining because I wouldn't have the story if I wasn't complaining. Yes, I used to complain public admission and through this exercise of me telling ron how hard things were, how terrible the kids were, how the society in this school and the this and the that ron stopped me, and he asked me this amazing question. You like that question earlier? You may love this question, tony, he said, jason, would you recognize a good day? If you saw it? It shut me up. It stopped me cold because I realized I didn't have a clear idea of what a good day would look or sound or feel like all I knew was what was off all I knew with what was wrong, all I knew was what I was focused on from a home leo static perspective. I've had four months of practice of noticing how hard things were, and so ron dropped this little question in that I'm going to go to the flip chart because I'd love to get from everybody here, I'm going to get at least one from everyone, but there might be two or three what I'd like to do is to think about this word ideal in the in the terms off if I had an ideal day what one or two words are synonymous to you along with that? What kind of pops to your mind when you think of the word ideal, just go any popcorn here peaceful, peaceful in person connections love I can I can write these as fast as you insane in stereo productive, productive you'll get that any one of these you could get through a day and not have one of these and, you know, that's life, but if you look back and said, wow, that was an ideal day for you to it would look back and go I was productive by some qualification and quantification we got four here saying my ideal days when I did something that brings me closer to my goals and also have some for creative time and then three eighteen media says on my ideal days, my imagination actually runs wild it's like the popcorn thought that you talked about, I'm right there helping imagination runs wild that's a good book title, by the way, if you're looking for a book title from can feeling happy so feeling happy and then notice what showed up for someone was laughter. Now what I love about this exercise to full cook show of hands, how many of you work with other people? Good news, everybody it's always an easy one, right? What I always love to say is I'd be willing to say if you went back and shared your quick little ideal day list with other people, you may get closer to winning. A lot of people are guessing what the other person's ideal day is kind of like my example I gave earlier for those of you who may not have been here this morning, I talked about a dad that I was working with, and he wanted to be the best dad he could be to us three and five year old, and when I asked him, have you ever asked your kids what the best dad would do? He had no answer. He was holding himself to a standard without the information from the people who it mattered the most, too. How often do I update my ideal day, similar to what I shared right before lunch? Seasonally if there's fewer more hours of daylight, I have different ideal days, and with major life career job change, someone gives me an opportunity that I didn't see coming. I may have to switch what an ideal day would be. Those of you who put who had something about creativity or innovation is part of their ideal day who else has something like that, right? And then we know online, so people had that as well. I find that through these cycles all be creative for a run and then I have to go close up all those things I created and then I'll be creative for run and I can always tell when I'm in there because I'll get back from one of my longer business trips and I'll go to that stack of magazines on my desk, the stack of books that people have sent me to preview the e mails that have loaded up over the past one or two or three weeks I just start getting I can't read that can't read that have to stop that subscription how can't respond to that email with with the the responses and no response and so really understanding what ideal means to you so of course I went to the dictionary you know, maybe I'm going to go to the dictionary and see what they've gotten a lot of information in here but we'll focus in on just a couple and those of you who are watching online if any of these words jump out to you for me I'm thinking about that optimum it's why I do things like I go to the the olympic training center to go meet with athletes I figure they're supposed to be the best in the world the gold medal says so so let's go talk to the source or it's why I go to normandy and stand on the beach is that these guys landed on is seventy years ago sixty years ago now knowing that I can image in those ideas now I'm going to go through just a couple of questions and show you a little something that to me was fascinating when I started learning about it so the first question I've got is what time of the day is your favorite part of the day? So I just got to think about that what time of the day is your favorite current time of the day? The second question that I'll throw out here is where you going for your next big or little trip? Where you going at that could be a big trip could be a blue chip um oh, this is a fun one this will make you think how about who is someone who is positively influenced you this year now the questions much less important than what I'm about to say actually let's do this quick showdowns how many had answers to all three of those questions that at least one answered all of your questions your brain has to answer the questions you've given this was a huge ahh haw for me huge my brain has to answer the questions I give it. So what does that mean? I need to start giving it different questions who's ever been on your wayto into an event, a sporting event, a music event, a theater conference? You're on your way and you're running a little bit late you running just you know, and and you had that thought, I hope. There's not traffic. Yeah, that thought, I hope I find I want I hope I can find a parking spot and then you get the car and you drive and there's no traffic and you find a parking spot and you get there on time and you're thinking, wow, maybe I should be asking for bigger things than parking spots for jodi and I were always pushing on each other is let's ask for something bigger than a parking spot. I do this question all over the world. I asked people, what's your ideal day, and because companies bring me in at work, we generally keep it along the topic of that work and here's one that showed up for me in belgium, in brussels, belgium. When I asked the audience what is an ideal day at work? Notice some of the things that are there that are the same as they are here in san francisco, the same that we're talking about live to the world being proactive, creating something, being engaged, helping others. He reminds me a little bit of something we talked about this morning when we said we walk away with that portfolio, that portfolio of productivity's, those tools that gear those systems, those processes to really do just three things so ideally, by now, one one of the things that you've heard is almost on call. I can change the way I think we had this experience just a moment ago where you started thinking down one trail, you added an element to that thinking, and now you suddenly turned a little bit. The next thing that we do is we I kind of share that simply by writing that down a piece of paper you communicate with yourself later on who has ever written something down on a piece of paper and a notebook, whatever, and then looked at that days or even weeks later, we had the sex exercise where you kind of forgot that you wrote it down. Then you're really did that that you wrote that's like wow. And I'm still on that fence, right? How much note taking dough I do digitally. How much note taking dough I do can aesthetically because I know for me, there's a difference. I mean, I can talk about one hundred fifty words a minute. When I get going, I can type it about seventy. Seventy five words a minute. I can hand right at about seventeen words a minute. I can type on my iphone at about twelve. So when I need to think through something quickly, I usually talk about it with someone I'll call someone on the phone say, hey, do you have about fifteen minutes? I need to run something by you are going to talk for a while at the end you tell me what you heard all the way to the other side if I need to think about something and slow myself down, I'll pull up that iphone and I'll type it out with my films, eddie long gates that thought it keeps me there a little bit longer so that it gives me that option how doe I pull in the track ability to it? And I tracked this overtime what joe I measure, I guess is maybe the best question how do I measure what you're picking up from today? I mean, as I look across, if I measured what they're picking up by how much their pens or flying across the paper, I'll go ahead it's a lot if I measured the application of the ideas from this workshop for the recording, if you're watching this later on, if I measured that later on, we'd look back and say, well, he was the baseline here's what I was starting and here's where we've come to something we have to talk about and this will be tomorrow and day two is the tracking process you know, people ask me time, jason, did you time tracking into you activity tracking? Do you do this track and you that tracking generally I'm always tracking something one thing I'll get three, four, five days of tracking of that, and that will let me know, and I've done this with diets have done this with excess size of bennett with relationships, and then it would clients let's have three phone calls before we decide to contract together let's see if we could make one of those meetings in person in the morning because over that time, I can pull out different pieces of information. So when you think about this idea of more, this next question, this next prop very important so what have you flipped your page? Go to the bottom of that page, go to the back side, those of you on my bring up a new text page, and what I'm gonna do is I'm going to see if I can give the in studio audience a prompt and then I love to throw I think we put a question out to the community, okay, great responses for it, so I'm gonna have them do a little bit of writing, we're going to have some banter back and forth and I will come back to you I would love if you could get seven, maybe nine pick a day a specific kind of day holiday vacation day work day travel day whatever you want so that's the kind of a starting point and then underneath that just to give you if I were going to have a good day on this kind of a day what would be some aspects or characteristics so topic one is toe pick a kind of a day and then underneath that what would be aspects of that that would let me know I'm living on an ideal day okay, I'll be right back hey you guys it's a landslide for the what time of day dru best because everybody said early morning jacqueline said early morning so did marilou yes and girls said napping time I'm not sure actually when that is for me that's any time of the day emily said early morning yes and girls early morning so early morning a landslide there although finally just got somebody came in and said the early afternoon or three eighteen media said that from one to four p m he says that's uh that's when he feels most positive yeah and also sonja says afternoons when they're by themselves and usually being created I mean a few people to about where they're going next on the next trip the forests of britain was one that came up from jacqueline I'm not sure where the forest of britain are subjecting please elaborate might go there myself you never know on going to a whole discussion about how wonderful brussels is, so maybe brussels is going to be the next place that everybody goes and then to answer your last question, which is water, who has positively amended u s sonia answers one big influence in my life is my friend and ex boss who's, the founder of thirst ease inc erin kimmitt so that's nice to get a shoutout um, and then let's see here we also have I guess somebody who's really wants to think that parents exactly actually it was my yes and girl says, my brilliant mother, I think this might be a good time to ask the question, jason, because sonya specifically asked, what have you don't have a mental? What do you recommend about what finding one? I think this is a question that we're going to cover in great detail day to the on ly part of that is that I wanted I want to replace one word with another word. J kale, the question as I heard it was what do you do if you don't have a mentor? Yeah, I want to take out the word if and replace it with win because I believe we can always be looking for our next mentor the opportunity we're going to explore tomorrow is how to clarify that that we're running a definition of the word mentor that is ten or maybe even twenty years old that there's some older, we wiser, experienced person that will sweep in and kind of care for us over time. What I'm doing tow update that to the two thousand and beyond version is there is something that I need to know there's someone in the world who's better at that than I am, and they have a little bit of time to give me over the next five, six, seven months, so when I don't have a mentor, it's a great point to clarify what more means to me to step into something we'll talk about tomorrow the social network and advertise what it is that I'm looking for. Um, I use social media, whether that's email, right? Because email was the first status update tool I ever had my email for my friends to tell him where I was going for dinner. I use email, I use any of the social media sites I use my own blawg tow let people know when I'm looking for a new mentor so well, it's, a topic very near indira's you could tell from my heart would not be standing on this stage if it weren't for a few people along the way. Oh and I did ask earlier how many of you have had a coach or a teacher a mentor that's positively influenced you this will make a lot of sense right now if they're alive right on the letter tonight if they're not alive write him a letter they'll get it it's california cool um one more common if if you have time I think this is pretty poignant sonia also shares her ideal day laughed at least once felt thankful for the people in my life and felt as if it couldn't get any better than that simple but very very poignant I get to answer the question often you know jason where'd you come up with this particular thing of the ideal day share with you my mentor iran I was huge influence I mean he asked me would you know a good day if you saw one and that came together with some co counsel some coaching out for my dad and he said while he was ran a couple of companies in his career when he woke up in the morning he look in the mirror this is my dad told me and he would ask himself how can I make today the best day it could be at the end of the day finishing it up same mirror same guy what did I do today to make it the best day I could make it and so those three prom's you left at least once it's like, you know, if that's if that's one of mine, I'm going to see how early I could make that happen, right? You know, let's, get up in the morning, let's, watch some cat videos on youtube to get that laughter so that we can check that one off the list and then over time, continue to up build that continued to create that that environment okay, we're going to do an experiment together, and for those of you watching online, come along with me as we go through this, but I'm going to ask for three of my student audience to come over here just to the side of the stage, and I'm gonna have one of you come up at a time and we're gonna have a little discussion about your ideal day that you just wrote out, so I'll give you a moment to figure out who the three r and I'll talk to the live audience. I just need three people. Come on, this next exercise is a pretty interesting one for those of you who have a note pad and a paper nearby, the scripting that I and the questions that I ask really ask you to pretend that you're getting these questions yourselves and that you get that opportunity to think to yourself through what kind of ideal day that you're pushing on. So I've got some folks over here that are going to help me out with this let me show a little bit of what I'm talking about from anybody in the audience and this is going toe jump online I just know it did anybody choose to write about an ideal day with their family got it this is going to come up online so over on this side did anybody choose near a family family sometimes it just works so come on over we do a little round of applause so what were some of the things that you came up with if if you look back on that day and it was an ideal day with the family what were some things that you wrote down so I thought of family is my partner and our twelve year old son and we were in indonesia by the beach in bali actually and ah there was lots of laughter and ah wonderment because it was my son's first day in first time in asia and bali and uh at the temples were all three of us together uh we were having good food there was a lot of relax ation as well as learning particularly for twelve year old son taj who really took in all of the cultural you know, aspects of being in bali um so that that to me is ah sort of an ideal family day where um our son is exposed to a new culture, um is learning something new and all three of us a healthy and not falling sick while traveling and we're together. Yeah, and it was neat because as I was listening to that, there were elements that were very familiar to you. There were other ones that we're kind of new to that experience. Laughter you know, when you when you said laughter is I go, we've been there before, but he hasn't been to bali, so that's kind of a new one. I remember way back when I was teaching high school see there's always stories about being a teacher, but I had a student who wanted to go to a college far away from home. The family was not set up in a position that would get him there, but maybe kind of a thing. Anyway, I called the chamber of commerce for the city where the university was, and I put this kid on every mailing list I could find from the parks and rec to the culture, to the music, to the sports, to the school and about three or four months we're just having a conversation and he says, you know, mr womack, you'll never believe them I'm getting all this stuff from this community, and it was about an eighteen months turn around, but his grades picked up his family found all kinds of exercises ways to get him there. What was abundantly clear to me as you were talking was there's things that we can start doing to create that ideal day before we're physically visibly the three of us standing on that beach and it was fun to watch you describe those things. Yeah, um son, he gets the national geographic for children so he's really into international exposure so thing yeah. Thank you for absolutely for this whole workshop it's been very enlightening. Thanks for taking a risk and coming up here. Oh, not a risk it all think what was yours? I wrote a couple different days that so I could do with friends, you know, with friends here. Okay, uh okay, so, uh, my ideal day with friends would involve a lot of laughter. Um and if hopefully a friend or two is washing, I have a comedy style that's not exactly always funny. They were just right. So it's it's corny jokes it's bad, but laughter is a big part of my life. Special friends, especially family. And so I want to make people laugh there's also this quiet thing that we have, like what friends and family where you don't need to be talking, you know, that's a special bond that I have with some friends but then I I love doing new things with friends or introducing them to new things eso an ideal day would probably be some sort of guys trip um with my best friend's where maybe I've been there before maybe I haven't if I have like showing them things I think it's gonna blow their mind or just flying from the hip and exploring doing new things uh and making memories that will be forever I'm hoping as people are watching online that you're giving yourself this exercise of thinking through in this case we talked about friends and those of you who are in the morning you'll know what I'm about to ask tony these next questions I am we talked a little bit this morning about homo stasis so as I'm hearing u you're saying we have this thing where I have a humor this way and we you don't always have to be doing something and then my friends know that I like to be doing new things you had another prompt earlier tony where you asked about this intersection I wasn't going to say dividing but it's actually an intersection of work in life what might be interesting just as an observer from the outside is as you look in the next sixty to one hundred twenty months how are those people who love you who gets you to laugh with you going to be a part of growing study abroad saver and watching that interaction not how do I use my friends but how do I incorporate that in the home you know, static response is this is what we do know the sixty to one hundred twenty months responses is there anything we could be adding to the mix through that time? So that was the one thing on my mind about that thanks thank you. Hey you okay? So the one that I put up here was racing triathalon okay, I'm one that well you know yeah and then I left it blank so jackie, you get to take it where you want to go I'm going to listen to it a little bit and then I'll see if I can drop something okay? I picked my work day okay? I'm starting to get too creative with that but in my work day I'm very much positive energy I need and I feed off positive positive energy and creativity so my ideal days one was surrounded by people because I don't like to be alone were physically active were being creative there's lots of positive energy we're being off one another I don't like mundane I don't like things that have to do every day I like that always bring in something like the car balls like that like that tie feed I like to be accomplished and motivated and like to be in the sunshine do not like to sit in offices I find that I do much better if I take a walk in a park or do something like that or ride a bike and dictate I'm thinking about our working relationship because we've done some projects in the past and as I think about it they always have been activity based yes offsite of of the of the workplace and you know for me the what I'm what I'm experiencing is going somewhere with this just let me know if you can see the enthusiasm and the excitement and just I want to be in that and then watching these two communities healthcare and fashion and I was going to throw on the table to communities that are traditional yes they can be seen as that and so when we get to tomorrow we start talking the social network I'm going to look out at you a couple of times because what we want to do is we want to start looking at who jackie's fans, supporters and guides so every now and then I'll have someone say you know jason I saw you on that one video I saw you on that one thing you need to tone it down a little bit you need to bring it up a little bit but I need that from the outside from time to time so that was that was we're going talk aboutthe social network I'm gonna look atyou for that one I think thank you I've got one for when I'm invited on the television I go through a script of ideal day and I didn't know this one was gonna happen but I did get invited to go to jury duty and before I knew it I was pulling out a piece of paper I had started to write down my ideal day of jury duty and to do it showed up a book signing so literally I showed up to jury duty I brought my book in chinese I brought my book in english I set up a little station in the back of jury duty I didn't sell anything because I didn't want to mix that whole thing but people came back and we had these nice conversations about the book the ideal day process is very simply when I get to the end of the day what will I want to have looked back on and said, yeah that was a good day when we get into this afternoon session I want to take a look at how these things combine connect and then support one another we talked earlier today about what your mauris we added that to your portfolio then we started to take a look at the importance of normal and home eo stasis and just now kind of taking a look at what would ideal be really it's tapping on that idea that I shared a limit earlier about the power of the image in process I get asked you know from time to time said jason have you ever had not an ideal day all the time totally honest all the time on a day when I arrive at the airport and there's been a canceled flight from edinburgh to london last week we got to the train station and I had my ticket printed up walked up to the chain station and in the most nice scottish way someone could tell me that train has been canceled it won't be here today that was all he said on then it was up to me to say well my ideal would be I'd love to be in london tonight so well we can help you with that right having that focus that what is it that I want I was going to say I'd love to hear how great things are going to have to give t give a shout out because whenever we get students up on the stage and on camera the chaplain's go live and they want to start making comments and they're always nice so dahlia you've got some comments here sign me up for this girl's ideal day they loved your story there we go I don't know this is an insult or not but I'm going to go for it ryan apparently look no tony looks like ryan from the office I'm not seeing the officer that's good but janis janis saying she loves your sweater on then on then I've lost number we had great your flow saying I love her hair with the shelves I want a squirrel that that way when you're up on camera so just be one of them but you got some great comments I do actually going back to the ideal day boom hand says wake up early running exercising working productively, eating healthy learning something new and send lps saying when I wake up grateful I do then in early activity and someone comes to me and says I have done something to positively positively affect his or her life yeah and yes and girl waking up to purring kitties making a t splitting wood for the fire and sitting down for a few hours of writing the rest is icing on the cake and party is saying typically an ideal day some work milestones a contract award or delivery then a sporting event with friends and then capping it off with my wife over evening cocktails and here's an interesting comment from zen lp wouldn't it be interesting to step in the shoes of someone else and live in his or her ideal day? You know to get some perspective great comments it goes back to one of the questions we had before lunch which was about the spousal interaction with whatmore is there's an activity will do right at the end of today that it's it's one of my favorite elements that will go through in the first day I'm saving it till the end so you have to stay for the whole time how's that when I saw jodi's list at my best when I changed my life it's it's that when I got to step inside her shoes for a moment and look at it the world and she wrote down essentially telling me the qualifications thie qualities of an ideal day with her at engagement all of a sudden I could be more supportive when I was able to share that and to these days you wouldn't have seen this but on seminar days my ideal day of a seminar day is I get a workout in and I eat two breakfasts that's ideal for me so I get up I put a breakfast in I get some kind of an exercise in and then right before I take the stage will put another five ten grams of protein and some other stuff in and what I find is if I tell my clients that the opportunity goes rockets upward that they can support me in it and so where where I went joe maria's you were saying that is oh my goodness what a way to frame it that I'm going to step in your shoes and just share with me what does ideal look like those of you who are going to go back to work on thursday tuesday, wednesday on thursday or whenever you're watching this, when you go back to work next, see if you can get out of a colleague, a co worker, a boss, a direct report, what does your ideal day look like? You know, it doesn't have to do with closing a deal that have to do with opening a deal? Does it have to do with being creative if I know that that last example, if I know that part of my ideal day has that many hours of contiguous creativity, I'm going to start to plan that five, seven, maybe ten days in advance me? Because I don't know about anybody here, but I don't randomly get three hours open to be creative it's kind of five minutes here, twenty minutes there, but if I know wow, I'm at my best win. My ideal day is, let me see if I can step into that who's thinking about sharing that ideal day process with someone a co worker called league, any questions about that or anything that I can help clarify some ideas I can share? So I'm thinking off first, um, putting it out on facebook and just seeing what people say about the ideal day or how would they would describe it and that's like the big crowd, but more at home for my son, sort of I've been thinking all along how doe I share what I'm learning here for my son so that he can begin to think in this way early on so uh I thought maybe I could ask him this coming weekend sort of what his ideal day looks like and how I can be supportive to make his ideal day come true every day um, as much as I can and also ask my partner what the ideal day it's like because partly I think it's a little bit of guilt because I've been away in nepal for five months and so I'm trying to make up ground to make up for all that time lost so but this is probably a good thing for him to learn early on so that he can develop it over time and I'm telling you I'm constantly surprised when I ask those around me beit clients being my wife be it my friends, the things from time to time that they come back with so it's just amazing I shared with you a great question that I use earlier this morning uh I'll ask this of a mentor a friend I'll say, what have you seen me do lately that when I dio and come back I'm nicer to be around and you know one time jodi says, you know she says, jason, you you did a day of work in ohio then you went straight to the movies and you saw that new action movie you like and then you went to dinner and you treated yourself to a nice supper and then you went home and you didn't bombard the office with emails I thought to myself wow that was part of her ideal day was getting through a day that did have that transaction based content at the end of the day in folks if you really want to complicate your life start a business with your spouse I promise it will add complexity that you never knew was coming and back with a little earlier when I was talking about those three kinds of conversations anybody write those down transaction relationship building opportunity development and is a struggle in a family situation in a partnership situation in a work situation to move out of the transaction something that we have to discuss in detail tomorrow I'll share with you some of the research I did on marriage before I got married transaction relationship building an opportunity development and these are the kinds of conversations that if I'm sitting in a meeting watching that conversation go by all start to just make tick marks when did they hand over a transaction will you do this all do that can you have this done by tuesday? No it'll be wednesday transaction based the relationship conversations in my case it's it's calling a friend saying how are you? You just launched a new company how you doing? You got that email how's it going and then that naturally to me leads thie opportunity development which is what do you working on next what's what's scaring you right now what's challenging you the hardest one for me to answer is what do you need to stop doing now? Because back to that what we're talking about lunch it's what I'm doing has gotten me here so maybe I should be doing this more faster when from an outside perspective maybe what I need to do is automate some of that delegate some of that mitigate some of that hoary eliminate some of those things jack I saw half a hand going I think particularly you mentioned it when we were up one state together you talk about people like, for instance healthcare where people very much have very traditional ideas and you start posing the question of people about what's their ideal day. Sometimes it just becomes a mudslinging and it becomes complainers room of complainers chapin chatting away about what their complain about and it doesn't become an idea of thinking about what is the idea that it just becomes mudslinging and how do you break that cycle vocabulary so so real quick recap this cycle of in there some environments I worked I worked in one education there's some environments that air just designed to have you all read stuff by seth golden right? There are some environments that are designed to be in the resistance they just designed for it we're not going to change that overnight I've learned over the past seventeen years of being on stage that when I walk into a room when I start a presentation, I need to put that dimmer switch on over the course of the day I can't walk in and just throw one hundred fifty watts on in the room, so my immediate response to you did you catch the first word when I one of the first word vocabulary don't use the word ideal to some people? Jason what word would you use a decent fund good exciting worth it so in that case, you know, grabbing onto oh here was a day that wasn't bad and then they'll bring one thing of that day that wasn't bad and then tomorrow I'm going to see if I could pull out a magnifying glass on that one little thing some of the fastest ways I know of to turn our acknowledgment it's just it's amazing, you know when I say thank you to someone um when they get that acknowledgement across the wires or across the mail it something just seems seems the happens like I want more of that I want more of that, you know, really that's the theme for the course and then what is that that that mohr is indicative of? I love the idea of twelve year olds thinking these things. I wished I would have learned some of these things when I was twelve. You know that I can actually change the way I think I didn't know that no one, no one sat me down today, jason, you can think different now. The analogy for me is, is if anyone's ever been driving later in the afternoon or dusk in the wilderness areas and your light beams of your car will catch a deer or an antelope or something. We're just the grand canyon. When this happened and we were going slow enough in that deer caught the headlights and it stopped, the deer just stopped and we were able to stop. We flash the bright lights a few times, and then the deer moved on. We have the ability to see those bright lights coming and then move. Whether we take advantage of that ability is all of other subset.
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Ratings and Reviews
Lisa Lloyd
As a staunchly creative person, I have never been that interested in many of the business-minded productivity books, blogs and websites out there. I find them too dry and too focused on doing less and making more (money). I am at a point in my life where I want to do more and hopefully make some money doing it. But the “more” is the most important element. Jason Womack is the first person to help me encapsulate and identify just what “more” means to me. I have always been great at envisioning the big picture and I’m constantly daydreaming about my Ideal Day, but I get hung up on the details of how to get there. For me, the envisioning and organizing myself in a way to make it happen, seem like utilizing two sides of my brain and I find it nearly impossible to make the two halves work together. A stalemate ensues, and once again, I’ll find I’ve done nothing to advance my own cause. Jason’s method of unpacking, and breaking things down into elements, each with its own set of exercises, is perfect for my type of mindset. Even though there are exercises to complete, they are part of an ongoing process of organization and behavior modification. There are no cookie cutter answers here, and last time I checked, life didn’t work that way. The exercises are meant to be ongoing and fulfilling; teaching you why you do the things you do, as well as understanding the people around you. The methodology here can be applied to any business, including, and probably most importantly, the business of you, creative or otherwise. The workshop is, at times, an emotional experience, forcing you to really dig down to what matters and why. It reminds me of being a child, daydreaming about what I wanted to be when I grew up, never once thinking that anything would ever stand in my way. I feel the wall breaking down, and the two halves are talking. Thank you, Jason, for helping me get out of my own way.
a Creativelive Student
LOVED this presentation by Jason Womack. Inspiring, encouraging and achievable.
a Creativelive Student
If you want to make more time in your life and you want to create more of what you've been wanting -- whatever it is -- this course is for you. Jason has created some very doable tools, even for the non-habit-prone, ADD-minded, to help you prioritize, focus and get more of what you want (yes, by thinking bigger!) I attended the live program and have turned much of what I learned into habits, something I rarely do!
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