Jamie Atkinson asks how I'm doing, and I'm straight with him. "All a bit manic, if I'm honest, but all good."
I'm a guest on his show, the Entrepreneur Junkie Movement. He's in Bali, fighting a dodgy internet connection. I've just come off a two-day event on the Thursday and Friday, so I tell him the numbers. "I delivered 24 hours of training in 48 hours on Thursday and Friday."
"So you're in a coma, basically."
Not quite. I'm fine by the time we talk. But the weekend wiped me out.
Stage time takes it out of you
I told Jamie I don't think enough people are honest about this. Standing in front of a room for hours, giving your energy the whole time, drains you. I'd heard it said that "90 minutes on stage is like an eight-hour working day, which I can totally see the logic in."
I still packed it all in, though. I like what I call compressed time, something I picked up from the States. Five days of content in three, or four in two. Everyone in that room ran a busy business, and they didn't want to take four days when two would do. "Because if I'm taking time out of my business and out of my life, I want to maximise it."
The other big thing was implementation. I built it so the whole two days went "learn it, do it. Learn it, do it." So people went home having already done the thing. Maybe not perfectly. But they'd done it once, and that's enough to keep going from.
The promise that counts
Jamie told me about his morning in Bali. The cafe internet died, the power went at home, and he said that kind of commitment gets hard when everything around you is kicking off. That's where I got serious.
Making a commitment to other people is one thing. The one that really counts is the commitment to yourself, "because every time you let yourself down, you are lowering your standards for life."
I knew that was a harsh thing to say. I said it anyway. Every time you promise yourself you'll do something and then don't, "what you're basically doing is teaching yourself that it's okay not to keep promises to yourself."
I'm all for public accountability. Tell the world, and let people give you a nudge if you don't follow through. Most of us will go out of our way to stay consistent with who we've said we are. "But we have to have made the decision for ourselves first."
A video every day for a year
I gave Jamie two examples. Go back to episode one of Your Best Year Starts Here, the podcast I was doing with Nigel Risner, and you'll hear me say "We'll be back tomorrow." We'd been toying with going daily. Then we only managed four episodes on our first recording day, so weekly it was. We committed to that and made sure we always had enough recorded to stick to it.
The second was from the year before. I'd committed to a Facebook Live every single day for at least a year, or a recorded video if I couldn't go live. "I think I've missed like two days." One of those was a spiritual weekend retreat out in the UK countryside, where the only signal was half a mile down the road at the top of a hill. So I put a post out saying I wasn't doing it that day and why, and left it there.
Going in a level
That retreat was something I'd done at least once a year for a number of years by then. A few days out of normal life, working on myself.
"I don't view it as the I'm broken and I need to fix myself." My life's always got room for improvement, however good it is. I nearly told Jamie it's about going up a level. Then I changed my mind. "It's about going in a level."
So many people chase the next thing as proof of who they are, whether that's a promotion or a bigger revenue number. I'd rather go deeper, find out what really makes me tick, and do what I enjoy in a way that pays enough to support it.
If you fancy a nudge, there's more in Time for a personal MOT?
Listen to the full episode
The full episode is on Apple Podcasts and the other podcast apps.
First published August 2019 on Jamie Atkinson's Entrepreneur Junkie Movement podcast.
