The 6 Worst Lies About Productivity
By Bryan Ward, Husband, Father of 4, Inc. 500 Entrepreneur, and Founder of Third Way Man
I used to be the WORST procrastinator.
I'm talking a whole 'nother level of dysfunction… as in waiting so long to change my watch after daylight savings time that it synced up again six months later 'cause I'd never changed it.
Yeah. Like that.
When I was single, I blamed it on being a "creative type."
After getting married and having kids, I chalked it up to being a busy dad.
But deep down, I knew:
Something about the way I operated was fundamentally broken.
And if I didn't fix it, I'd never become the man I KNEW I was capable of…
…never create the life of freedom, abundance, and adventure I longed to provide for my family.
After a self-inflicted catastrophe almost wiped me out financially, I was finally forced to deal with the rot within…
…to GET REAL about the inner dysfunction that was robbing me and my family of my full potential.
In the next few minutes, I'm going to share the productivity breakthrough that took me from broke missionary kid to Inc. 500 entrepreneur and cofounder of a $33M health company.
But first, I'm going to rip the scab off and tell you the cold hard truth about "productivity in the wild"…
…to expose as BS the "conventional wisdom" that keeps dads like you and me broke and unfulfilled.
Here are six of the most destructive lies we've been told about execution and productivity:
LIE #1: You need a plan of execution.
TRUTH: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth" - Mike Tyson. Plans bedevil execution. A plan is just a sweet-smelling form of procrastination. Success lies in taking the bold next step, not in the fruitless mapping of shifting terrain.
LIE #2: Get as much done each day as possible.
TRUTH: Execute no less OR MORE than you what's on your daily action list. The important thing is to execute 100% of the actions you commit to. Execution is a game played at two levels: the visible work you achieve on the surface, and the invisible work you do beneath… proving to yourself that you can be relied upon.
LIE #3: Take as much time for your project as excellence demands.
TRUTH: Excellence is relative, and is always in the eye of the beholder. As such, it is an impossible yardstick. Let the DEADLINE determine the level of excellence, not the other way around.
LIE #4: The best work comes in fits and spurts, so don't try to force it.
TRUTH: It takes tremendous effort to unseal the boulder, but almost none to keep it rolling down the mountainside. The most productive people have "boring" routines that keep the boulder in motion.
LIE #5: The greater your esteem for your work, the greater your execution.
TRUTH: You must think LESS of your work, not more. Stop treating your work like some fragile, once-in-a-lifetime jewel. It's just meat on the board: trim it, cut it, send it out the door.
LIE #6: You don't execute because you feel like shit.
TRUTH: You feel like shit because you don't execute. Stop wasting breath on complex justifications. The only reason you're not executing is THAT YOU'RE NOT EXECUTING.
If you KNOW what you're capable of but struggle to make it manifest…
If you've been told your whole life you have "so much potential" but STILL have jack to show for it…
If your production is slow and tortuous… your successes brilliant, but few and far between, with no apparent way to further or recreate them…
I FEEL YOUR FRUSTRATION COMPLETELY, because this was my life, too… until circumstances forced me down a different path.
Thanks to a $208,000 mistake, I was forced to create a simple yet brutally effective productivity system… a process so idiot-proof even a lifelong procrastinator like me could succeed with it.
With this system, I was able to pay off six figures of debt in under 12 months, and went on to cofound a $33 million dollar health company…
…all thanks to the simple productivity system I'm now going to share with you:
