Video transcript:
hey there it’s brian ceo mastery so you know a lot of times it happens to everybody but it certainly happens to ceos um there is this moment of overwhelm just like too many problems at once and we become sort of immobilized you know it’s the old wake up at two in the morning and just your mind just bumping like a like a pinball machine from one problem to the next problem to the next problem and it’s worse at night because everything just like everything is like doom and gloom so anyway but the problem is that we can’t settle down we feel overwhelmed we feel powerless and we’re just kind of frozen and so the idea here is first of all to just stop stop trying to do it all stop thinking about it all and not making any progress and start making progress on the most important problem or opportunity that will make the the most progress for you and for your business okay so there’s a methodical way to do it my mom always said when when you’re feeling out of sorts get into a routine get into a routine do something structured and that’ll bring us that brings us down to earth okay so here’s what you do you open up a notebook or a an excel spreadsheet or a google sheets or something a fresh one and you’re going to list your top five problems but the way you’re going to do it is you’re going to write the first problem and then you’re going to count six lines and leave those blank for now and then you’re going to write the second problem and then six blanks and then the next problem and the next problem down to three four five six whatever it takes to empty the uh the bin of those uh problems that are torturing us torturing you in this case so you write that down then you go back to the top one and you um in the first line you cut the paper in half don’t cut it in half you write you draw a line you split it in half and the first line you write cost and then below that on kind of the left margin you put capital letters h underneath e underneath r underneath d h e r d and then the sixth line you write rank okay now you’re gonna figure out the cost of this problem you’re gonna take a ic objective quantitative look at this problem and at all the problems and you’re going to figure out which is the worst one and why so you go to the first one maybe you have a sales manager just just isn’t cutting it but you can’t figure out what to do all right so what uh that’s that’s that’s what you described h how many hours is it costing you how many hours are you spending doing their job how many hours are you spending on the floor selling how many hours are you talking with your partner about what you’re going to do about it but can’t quite figure out how many hours is this taking so just write a number maybe on a monthly basis on a monthly basis are you spending 15 to 20 hours write the number down you want to see it it will help you okay e emotion and this is on a scale of one to ten remember we’re all numbers here on an emotional level one to ten scale how much is this really bugging you how much is it affecting your your emotions maybe uh there’s a lot of unhappiness that you have a lot of frustration that you have a lot of guilt that you’re not doing what you need to do so write a number one to ten how much emotion the next one is relationship how is this impacting your relationship in a negative way what’s the relationship cost is it that other people are complaining to you and they they’re really you know you’re losing the respect of the sales team or of your partner or maybe your spouse at home is i mean heck who knows maybe the sales manager is related to your spouse and your spouse is like getting on you for for uh i don’t know for for for trying to improve it all right relationship and then one to ten and then the last is dollars how many dollars is this costing you in this case you know lost sales may be extra effort that other people have to put in to make up over time maybe you have to hire some sort of admin to do essential work that they should be able to do uh you know what what is the cost the cost of your time up there you had the hours well your times were three four five hundred dollars right in terms of the impact that you can have on your multi-million dollar business absolutely multiply those hours out you want to see the stark truth jim collins says face the brutal facts all right that’s what we’re doing then do that again for the next one um h e r d numbers next one h e r d numbers okay now after you have that all done let’s say you have five there you do all five you go to the top one and well you look at them all and you figure out which one is the worst which one is costing you the most and then you write a rank on where it says rank okay this one is number one this is two this is three based on cost now you go back to the top and you put underneath of just because you have the description across the page the page is split in half on the right next to where you see cost you’re going to write price and then under that you’ll write h e r d and then below that you’ll write y and then next to it end okay so now you’re looking at the price if you’re going to get something you’re going to have to pay the price if you’re going to get something in terms of removing that cost for solving that problem what price are you willing to pay because it’s going to cost so how many hours are you willing to put into fixing this problem put a number there how much emotion are you maybe you’re afraid of doing something maybe it’s going to be uncomfortable maybe you have to do things that you don’t feel good about maybe you have to hurt somebody’s feelings okay emotional cost to you the price that you’re willing to pay next one is relationship you might you might hurt some relationships as you fix this problem yeah one to ten and then last dollars are what are you gonna have to invest to fix this problem but the number okay now um ask yourself are you willing to pay that price to remove that cost and then circle either yes why or no end because you might not be willing to pay that price it may not be worth it to you then go on to the next one same thing what price are you willing to pay numbers h-e-r-d are you willing to pay the price yes or no and go through them all some you’re going to say no but and maybe all of them you say yes but then you decide what rank you how you’re going to rank the problems meaning which ones you’re going to work on by looking at cost price investment return investment return investment return and you’re going to say okay i’m going to do that one because i’m only going to do one that’s the whole point i’m not going to try to do all five i’m going to do one i’m going to complete it and then i’m going to move on all right so you pick one great now you go to a new tab on your excel sheet or a new page in your notebook and here you’re going to write the number one problem across the top and then below that you’re going to write the word vision and this is the vision of what it’s going to be like when everything is everything’s happening you’ve solved the problem huh and that vision is a date on this date colon then underneath that you write i have colon and then uh below that you write i feel colon all right on this date this is the date you’re going to solve that problem by march 3rd i have the world’s greatest sales manager who does such an amazing job and is so culturally powerful and positive and i feel powerful relieved happy strong hopeful did i say that encouraged optimistic
ecstatic how do you feel you’ve heard me say before perhaps emotion creates motion so you want to feel you want to have that in your in your heart present there how great it’s going to feel because that’s going to draw you to uh solving the problem uh and achieving that vision on that date okay fantastic you’re on your way now you just need to break that whole thing down into smaller chunks so you want to make some milestones maybe up to five milestones and the milestones are what when and test so you write a column says what a column says when and the column heading says test so let’s say you’re replacing uh your sales manager okay what’s the first thing you’re going to do well maybe you’re going to run an ad okay write an ad uh when uh next thursday next thursday okay and what’s the test i see the ad when i click onto the the site or i get the invoice for having placed the ad that’s the test okay great next one well i’m going to have a team help me interview okay so the next milestone is select and enroll the team when next friday perfect how do i know because we’re on a zoom call or in a conference room and we’re all together and we’re talking about what we’re about to do we’ve met it’s the kickoff meeting perfect next milestone well we’re going to establish criteria for this role this person we’re hiring we’re going to agree on that and we’re going to put it into a hiring matrix and we’re going to have and we’re going to do that by the following tuesday fantastic how do i know because i’m going to click on a google sheet and i’m going to see all the criteria listed and i’m going to be ready to put names in the column headings and be able to score every candidate that comes in objectively and comparatively so i have my criteria and so forth all right now you have your milestones kind of your game plan your step by step we’re chunking it down all those problems we’re taking all five we’re picking one we’re taking one and we’re writing a beautiful emotional vision that draws us and then we’re writing the milestones and then the next thing is and this is your power move every morning before you do any other work you have to get up a half hour an hour earlier so be it life is gonna be so much better so you know suck it up and every morning get up and the first work thing that you do is you look at your next milestone you identify your next step and you take action every day this is how people write books all they do is they invest in every morning writing for whatever they commit to two hours and they just do it some days are productive some are not productive it doesn’t matter they’re a machine you’re a machine you’re a problem crushing machine and how do you do that day by day action by action and you just get it done doesn’t mean you can’t work on it later in the day but do not miss a morning it just make it who you are get it done all right so if you need any help with this as always reach out i’m i’d be delighted to help you and uh just remember when everything’s flying around stop pick the biggest problem chunk it down get up every morning take action and take a deep breath feel powerful. go you.
