REPLAY: The "Heck Yes" Principle

Do you know what to say "yes" to and what to say "no" to? In this episode, Garrett discusses two main points from the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown. The first point is about making decisions based on whether something is a 'heck yes' or not. Garrett encourages listeners to prioritize their time and say no to things that are not a strong yes. The second point is about zero-based scheduling, where Garrett advises starting from scratch and intentionally choosing what to include in the schedule. He emphasizes the importance of being intentional with time and not letting pride or laziness dictate the schedule.

Takeaways

Prioritize your time and say no to things that are not a 'heck yes'
Start from scratch when scheduling and intentionally choose what to include
Don't let pride or laziness dictate your schedule

Chapters

00:00 Making Time for What Matters: The 'Heck Yes' Principle
13:53 Starting from Scratch: Zero-Based Scheduling
17:36 Overcoming Pride and Laziness in Scheduling

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Transcript

Hey everybody. As many of you know, I am on paternity leave. My wife and I welcomed our fifth little child, Miles Austin, a boy, about a week and a half, two weeks ago, and it has been such a blessing. So I'm taking a few weeks off. Please enjoy one of the most downloaded episodes from this past year. I hope it is a gift and a blessing for you all. I can't wait to get back on the show and connect with all of you. What is up faithful ancient family. Welcome back to another episode of the Faithful Agent Podcast. It is good to be with you all today. It is just me again. I know, I know collective sigh. Uh, we missed Tyler. We missed guests. But you're just gonna. Well, I guess you don't have to listen to me. So there you go. There's the win. You can just press pause. You can just delete any episode where it's just me. I wouldn't blame you. Tyler probably does the same thing, but for real, I'm excited to be with you all today. Going to share some thoughts with you, uh, that I've been learning and implementing in my own life. In my own business, uh, from a book that I've been reading called Essentialism by Greg McKeown. I think I pronounce that right. Mic kuow in. Uh, it's been a really helpful book. And so I'm going to share two main points with you on things that I'm implementing in my own business and how they might help you. So let's dive in for today's episode. Now before we do. As always, I ask ChatGPT tell me a funny Christian short story. So here it is. A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her young class. After explaining the commandment to honor thy father and thy mother, she asked, is there a commandment that teaches us how to treat our brothers and sisters? Without missing a beat? One little boy asked. Or answered, thou shalt not kill. Everyone laughed and the teacher continued, okay, now let's talk about forgiveness. Can anyone tell me what Jesus said about forgiving our enemies? A little girl enthusiastically raised her hand and said, he said to forgive them seven times seven. Very good, the teacher replied. And what do you think that means? The same little girl answered confidently. It means we need a calculator. Another boy chimed in. It means our enemies need a password reset. Every time we forgive them, everyone bursts into laughter and the teacher couldn't help but smile. Well, in a way, you're right. Forgiveness is like giving someone a fresh start. Just like a new password. That's just terrible. It is just. It is just. Just so bad. Okay, I'm going to try one more thing with ChatGPT. I just feel like every time has just been a swing and a miss, so let's try this. Well, they're all the same thing. If I say tell me a funny Christian joke, they'd just say the same three ones over and over and over again. So here's one. Why didn't Noah ever go fishing? Because he only had two worms. It's actually kind of funny. Okay, so let's get into some actual content for the day if you're still here. Believe it or not, I'd be shocked if you're still here. A few thoughts from the book essentialism that I've been reading again. Greg McKeown, MC, KUOW in. I would encourage you to go check that out. At the end of the day, just as an encouragement, just to read right? Just read in general, I always encourage, hey, before you pick up your phone for the day, certainly pick up your Bible, but then set aside five ten minutes a day to read and you're going to force yourself to do. I wasn't a reader, and I knew I needed to be. If I was going to grow and my business was going to grow. My mindset was going to grow. Any of those things that I was going to be able to do more and be more successful and have more opportunity. I was going to have to become a reader. I wasn't I didn't want to be. I didn't enjoy reading. And so I forced myself to sit down and do it. I started at 20 minutes a day and I just kept developing that habit. Now I'm reading 60 or so books a year because I love reading. I didn't before, I just started doing it. So absolutely challenge you, encourage you. And I started with fiction. You don't need to start with the business book. I started with fiction, a good book. If you don't like it at the beginning, then put it aside. Find a good book that draws you in, that gets your attention, and then from there, continue to just read and read and read. It's going to help your mindset grow. So much. So two thoughts from essentialism. Here's the first one. Now this is a general concept okay. I'm going to read to you an actual quote that he said and then explain how he talks about implementing it. The first is don't ask. So this is regarding our our time and our schedule. So I'm going to talk about that's both of these points. And he says don't ask. Quote how will I feel if I miss out on this opportunity, but rather quote, if I did not have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it? Similarly, we can ask if I wasn't already involved in this project, how hard would I work to get on it? One of the pieces that I've been implementing that he suggests, excuse me, is we look at our schedules. And he makes the point, which is absolutely right, that we look at the things that we're doing in our lives. When we look at an opportunity or someone offers us, hey, would you like to be involved with this or do you want to do social media? Do you want to do an open house? Whatever it is. And we often look at if we say that it's a 6 or 7 out of ten, that we just say yes to it, right? That we're often just saying yes to things that are like a 6 or 7, maybe an eight out of ten. And the reality is what we should be basing our time and our schedule is, is it a nine or a ten out of ten? Is it what he calls? You know, this is my Christianizing it. Is it a heck yes. If you look at what you've got going on and it's not a heck yes, then it should be a no. That's his point. If it's not a heck yes, then it should be a no. So how do we live that out? Right. So again he asked the question, how would I feel if I miss out on this opportunity? Because most of us are making decisions because we're afraid that we're going to miss out as opposed to a better question is, if I didn't have this opportunity, how much would I be willing to sacrifice in order to obtain it? That's a much better question. We all have opportunities that arise at any given point, and it's really easy to just want to say yes to them. I definitely have that problem. But the reality is, is I start to discipline myself and what I'm saying yes to. If I ask that question, hey, if I didn't even have this opportunity, but I saw that it existed, how hard would I be willing to work to try to get that opportunity? That's a great question, because the truth is, most of the things that come my way that are, hey, we'd like for you to do this or, hey, we want you to do this. It's really easy for me to say yes, number one, because I just have a fear of letting other people down. Just being completely honest with you, I'd like to make other people happy. I'm an included by nature, and so it's really hard for me to say no to somebody. It's really hard for me to if someone's like, hey, we really need you to come to this event, or we really would love for you to speak, or we'd love for you to hop on this podcast, whatever it is. Right? Or we want to sit down with you. It's really hard for me to say no because I love people. I want to include everybody, but the reality is I need to have clarity in where I'm trying to go. And one of the ways that I honor the Lord now, now, if you're not paying attention, pay attention to this. One of the ways that we honor the Lord is having clarity in what he's called us to do, and then saying no to everything else, having clarity in what the Lord has called us to do, and then saying no to everything else. That's one of the ways we honor the Lord. So what does that mean? The last episode I talked about how challenging is to want to be every piece of the body, right? I want to be the arm and the feet and the and the legs and the mouth and the brain. I want to be all those things. Right. But the Lord has specifically called me, just like Scripture says, to be one part of the body, my job is to understand what part I am and play that to the best of my ability, which means saying no to a lot of other things. I think often I fall into the trap that if I say yes to a lot of things, that's how I please the Lord, because these opportunities are coming up. And I said, say yes because, you know, whatever, it's a brother in Christ. He's asking me to do it as opposed to having a real understanding. How did the Lord make me? What is the Lord desire of me? What should my purpose be in these moments and then say no to everything else? One of the ways we do that, and one of the ways that's been helpful for me, is in the process of making decisions on what I'm going to say yes to. What I'm going to say no to is, when I look at it, is it a heck yes? If it's not a heck yes, then it's a no. So for example. I have opportunities recently where I had an opportunity to go speak somewhere. Now, I love speaking, so speaking for me almost always is a heck yes. However, in this particular scenario, it was going to be more difficult on my family. It was going to be not as much as I normally charge, which is okay, but it wasn't going to be a great pay off, quite honestly, for the time, and it just wasn't going to be there for my family. So it was still like a seven out of ten because I love to go do it. But it wasn't a heck yes, so it ended up being a no. I had another buddy recently reached out to me and he said, man, here's this really cool business that starting. We'd love for you to get involved with it. I think there's really great opportunity there. And I actually agreed with him that the opportunity there is huge. It came down to it's not a heck yes, so it needs to be a no. You know, you can look back in your life right now. I can look back right now, just in the last year of things that I said yes to that weren't a heck yes. And they ended up being a terrible. There were things that I wish I had said no to, but because I didn't have a filter, but because I was saying yes to seven out of 10 or 8 things that were an eight out of ten, I didn't have the space to actually say heck yes to the things I really wanted to. So as you look at your schedule, as you look at opportunities that come your way, the question is, what's a heck yes? And if it's a heck yes, you should do it. If it's not, you should get rid of it or you should say no to it. So I'm learning how to implement that in my own schedule. I'm learning how to implement that in my own life. And there's two things that are in play here. Number one, I would encourage you write down a list of everything you're involved in. What's everything that you've got going on? Just a list of literally everything, right? It's it's a lead generation. It's putting up signs. It's putting up lock boxes. It's negotiating. It's writing contracts. It's, uh, homeschooling your kids. It's making dinner at night. It's, uh, you know, cutting the grass. Whatever it is, write out a list of everything, okay? And then go through that list for the first time. And right next to it. Is it a heck yes or not? Right. So if it's a heck yes, maybe put a checkmark next to it. And then now let's be realistic. Not everything in our life is a heck yes that we can do. Aim for like 80% is going to be that way. Then you make a checkmark next to everything. That's a heck yes. And next to that, then go through the list again and say, is this a necessity that only I can do? Okay, so that second part is important. Is it a necessity that only I can do? So for example, let's say you're a stay at home mom and you homeschool the kids. Yes, it's a necessity and it's something that only you can do. Okay. So that supersedes whether you think it's a heck yes or not. And hopefully some days you do. Probably a lot of days you don't. Right. Uh, let's say it's putting up lock boxes for your listings. Uh, is it a necessity? Absolutely. Are you the only one that can do it? Absolutely not. You can hire that out. You can find leverage and we can talk about that. You can reach out to me. I'll show you how, uh, is it showing houses if it's not a heck yes, but it's a necessity, then who else can do it right? Find somebody who can do it. Now. You want to try to live in the things that are a heck yes, especially in your work time, right? When I'm folding laundry and I'm doing dishes at the end of the day. Whatever it is, those things aren't a heck yes for me, right? They're a necessity. They're way that I serve my family. However, in my work life, especially if I try to live in the things that are a heck yes for me, that's how I push the ball way further down the field in a given day than when I was saying yes to everything and trying to make everything happen. I just didn't have the same impact on my day, right? I was uniquely gifted in just a few things, just like you when there. Heck yes, it tends to line up with way, the way the Lord has gifted you and the way the Lord is calling you. Do the things that are a heck yes. And finally, if they're stuff in your calendar right now, and I'm going to talk about this here in a second point two, but if there's stuff in your calendar right now that isn't a heck yes, it is awkward. It is difficult to find a way out. I know that feels strange. I just recently had to do this. I had scheduled lunch with somebody who I absolutely love, and she was bringing somebody with her that she wanted me to meet. And I absolutely love and respect this woman. And so I said yes because I just do. But deep down, I knew it wasn't a heck yes. For all the things I have going on, it wasn't a heck yes right now. It didn't need to be a heck yes right now. So I had to unwind. And that's I hate that. I hate letting people down, but it was a necessary decision, right? So what is a heck yes in your schedule? If it's not a heck yes, it should be a no. You got to get out. So part two of this is he talks about what's what's called zero based budgeting. So very quickly in the accounting world, zero based budgeting is most of us probably if you have a budget, if you don't, you probably should not probably you should have a budget. But if you have a budget, most of us take the budget from last month and we just duplicate it into this month and we might make some tweaks. Okay, so we start. If we have X amount of dollars budgeted for groceries, then this month we're going to have the same amount budgeted for groceries and we might tweak it a little bit. Zero based budgeting means you don't do that at the beginning of every single month, you literally start from scratch, so it doesn't matter what you did last month, it doesn't matter what your budget was last month. What matters is that the very beginning of the month, you say we have X amount of dollars and we're just going to allocate where those go, and we're going to intentionally put them somewhere. Okay. So zero based budgeting is or zero based scheduling. Excuse me. It's the same concept. Instead of all of these things that we've had before, we start from scratch okay. So here's what he says. Zero based budgeting is when an accountant does not simply start a budget based off the numbers from last year, but they build a budget using zero as the baseline. We can apply zero based budgeting to our own schedules instead of trying to budget our time based on existing commitments, it's assumed that all bets are off. All previous commitments are gone. Then begin from scratch, asking which you would add today. So what does that mean when you come into the week? Now here's my actual rhythm and routine. On Sunday afternoon. I'm planning what my week is going to look like. So first and foremost, I'm asking the Lord. And I'm I'm sitting there thinking and considering as well what are the three priorities for me this week? Just three priorities. Where do I need to move the needle? Okay. What are the three priorities for me this week? And I write those down and then I build out how do I make sure that I knock those out? Right. Those are the important pieces that go into my schedule. And then I'm looking at my schedule coming up, talking with my wife about what we've got going on X, Y, and Z. Right. But I'm planning on Sunday. Then on Sunday I'm looking at my calendar for the week on Google Calendar. Right. And if it's like yours, it's terrifying. Uh, if you're excuse me, if yours is like mine, it's scary to see all the pieces that are on there. And so I look at it and I say, great, because you got to schedule things in advance. You can't actually start. Most of us can't actually start from zero and then build our schedule, you know, on Sunday afternoon and have it full for the week. That's not that's not likely. And that's not very common certainly in our industry. So instead I look at it with fresh eyes and I say assume any of these things can be canceled, right. If none of these things existed, which of these on my calendar currently would I still keep? Right. Which of these currently on my calendar? What I've actually put in if I didn't have to commit to any of these things. And so it just gives me a fresh perspective. So I hope that makes sense. Looking at my schedule. Saying I could say no to all of these things. I could remove all of these things. So if I'm looking at it, which of these if my skill was blank, which of these meetings, which of these times and schedules, whatever it is, which of these what I actually put back into my day. And then we look at the we look at the calendar and there's a lot of things that won't be a heck yes. There's a lot of things in there that you're like, why am I still doing that? Right? Why am I still committed to doing X, Y, and Z? It's something I said yes to a long time ago that I don't need to anymore. Um, there's so many pieces in there that we could remove from our schedules and just focus on what it is the Lord has for us. You know, one of my struggles in doing this in total transparency has been I'm not used to not having a full schedule. I feel like, uh, it ultimately is, as I dug deep that it was my pride. My pride said, hey, if you don't have a full schedule every single day, right, then you must not be very effective at what you're doing. You must not be successful. You must not be using the guilt, the gifts, and the skills that the Lord has given you. And it was my pride, right? I mean, just it really is like, I think if we just sit and stop for a minute and we think about our schedules, we think about how we spend our time. It's one of two things, in my experience, it's one of two things. It's either pride and so I. Schedule myself so tight because when somebody asked me and I'll tell you a story here in just a second, when someone asked me, uh, you know, can we get together? I want them to say, well, I know that you're probably super busy, and so we probably can't whatever it is. Right? Like, there's pride in that for me to think that I better be busier than somebody else. That's number one. It's either pride or it's laziness, right? If we look at our schedules and we say, man, I spent an hour scrolling Instagram today or whatever it is, convincing myself it was for work or whatever it is that we're doing. It's laziness, right? It's not pride. It's it's it's being lazy. It's not working hard. Uh, and you see those things in our schedules over and over and over again. So begin from scratch. What would you actually put in there? I'll give you a quick example of just the pride in my schedule, the pride and the things that I do. Total transparency again. Uh, you all know if you listen to this podcast, it's me just confessing a bunch of terrible things. So just yesterday we were at a pool party. This amazing woman in our neighborhood. And her husband, they're they're in their late 60s. Uh, they've been inviting my wife and other young, uh, moms from the church over on Wednesdays to take the kids swimming in their backyard. And they were doing a pool party last night with the dads. So all the dads were there, too. And it was super fun. We had such a good time. Well, there was a guy there who I knew from college but hadn't seen in years. I mean, probably seven years. I hadn't seen this guy. His name's Eric and sits down next to me. We're eating dinner and he goes. Garrett, how are you, man? You know what's been going on? And I asked him about his job, and he said, Garrett, what you been up to? And my immediate pride, guys, just just honest. My immediate pride was like, well, here's all the things that I'm doing, and I. And I've got, you know, this thing called the 210, I've got faithful agent, I've got my maroon group team, I'm writing a book, I'm hosting a podcast. Right. I've got this Amazon business, whatever. And I and I just said those things. And I remember thinking last night, right. Going to bed last night thinking, why did I say all these things? The truth is, I'm not doing very much at all on the book. I'm not doing anything on this e course right now. I'm not doing, uh, spending a ton of time on the podcast. I'm not doing anything with Amazon, but yet I felt the need to list those out because in my pride, I wanted him to think how busy I was, and I wanted him to look at me and think more highly of me than he should. That's what our schedules looked like too. So start from the beginning. Start from scratch. Is there stuff in there that shouldn't be in there? And if there is, just say no to it. Right. Cancel it. Guys, I need to not do this anymore. Whatever it is, is it pride that's keeping you from clearing out your schedule so you can actually focus on the things that you need to do? Is it you scheduling yourself so tight? And this is me often, y'all? Is it you scheduling yourself so tight that you don't even have time to pray during the day? You don't even have time to think during the day. You certainly don't have time to learn anything. You're just working and working and working and working. And when you get to the end of the day, you're exhausted and you show up to your family and you're no good to anybody anymore. Is that pride or is that really what it takes? I don't think that the Lord has called us to completely burn ourselves out each and every single day now. Absolutely. He's called us to work extremely hard. That's a good and godly thing. But do it in the right way. What the heck? Yes. What did the Lord put in your heart to say? Yes. Those are the things I want to do. I'm uniquely gifted in that. It's hard. It's hard. Look at your schedules. What's a heck yes? Look at your schedule. What would you put in there? If you had a blank schedule this week, what would you actually put in? It's hard, faithful agents, but this is one of the ways we're faithful. Let's be disciplined in this pursuit. I love you, faithful agents, and I will see you next week. Hey, faithful agents, thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I hope it encourage you to both grow your business and your faith. And as always, make sure you share this episode with a friend who you think would be encouraged by it, and join us on our Facebook group. If you aren't there yet to come together with the other faithful agents around the country. Just go to facebook.com and search the faithful.