7 Things on my Not-To-Do List
Anyone performing on a high level whether in business or sports or education or art, must say no to many things. Time is limited and whenever we say yes to one thing, we are saying no to something else. It’s important to recognize what we are saying no to because that’s what gives us the ability to say yes to the things that really count. Here are a few things I’ve consistently said no to in my life since becoming an entrepreneur.
1. TV
We have satellite television mainly because we have a guest house on our property that we rent through Airbnb. I’ve thought about canceling it but can’t bring myself to do that because we might lose travelers who still think they need two-hundred channels.
Aside from watching the occasional recorded episode of Shark Tank or 60 minutes, I rarely sit down in front of the TV. I tried watching the Olympics this summer with my wife but lasted a cumulative total of about 30 minutes — long enough to see highlights of Michael Phelps sweeping the gold in every race.
For whatever reason, TV is just boring to me. I feel my life is wasting away when I sit on the couch and try to be entertained. Even in my downtime, I have this hyper feeling like I should be doing something that’s at least semi-productive. Maybe it’s a glitch in my operating system where I just don’t know how to relax. Maybe my life would be more balanced if I decided to consume every episode of Breaking Bad or Mad Men. But until there are more hours in a day or something changes in me, I’ll keep reading, writing, going for runs, working out, swimming with my kids, and dreaming up new ideas in my spare time — all without the aid of television.
2. Politics
I try not to get sucked into the political circus that tends to come around every four years. Honestly, it’s just not that interesting to me. Republican or Democrat, the result always seems to be the same. Bigger government. Entitlement programs. Wars in other countries. And every year me paying the IRS and Franchise Tax Board ungodly amounts of money to fund their schemes.
I prefer leaving the political banter to people with more passion or time on their hands than me. I see greater returns on my investment when I’m out building my business rather than figuring out who is the lesser of two evils. I’ll let other people debate and figure out who should be in office while I spend my energy where it matters — creating value in the marketplace and building up revenue streams and reserves for my family.
3. Ironing
We have an iron somewhere in the laundry room, and I think the last time I used it was about a year ago when we were having family pictures taken. I dislike ironing so much that I’ve considered making it a punishment for my kids when they are being unusually bad. Maybe if it didn’t take 28 minutes to iron a single shirt I’d do it more often. But the time it takes me to iron is disproportionate to the value I receive from being completley wrinkle-free. So I just don’t do it anymore.
Instead, I buy clothes that I don’t have to fuss with — clothes that I can take out of the dryer and wear immediately. Anything else goes straight to the dry-cleaners or to the local Goodwill.
4. Networking
This might be as much an extension of my more quiet, introverted self, but I’ve never been much for social events and gatherings. If I’m going to be around other people, I prefer to be with my family or one or two close friends. I get lost in large groups and my energy gets quickly depleted. I can’t recall ever being excited about a networking event.
Even when my buddies ask me to play poker or smoke a cigar with them on the weekend, I’m reticent to say yes. I’m normally connecting with people during the week in the office or over lunch, so when the evening or weekend rolls around, I’m ready to relax by myself and be with my family.
Knowing and accepting my limits on how much time I can spend being around others gives me the capacity to be a better husband, father, and entrepreneur. And it keeps me from getting burned out.
5. The News
Tim Ferris, author of The Four Hour Workweek, talks about how he maintains a low-information diet and how he hasn’t picked up a newspaper in years. If something happens that is important enough, he figures he’ll hear about it eventually. I’m the same way.
To be productive and to perform our best, we have to limit our intake. We simply do not have the bandwidth to take in all the stories and reports that are being pushed down our throats by the media. Besides, there’s no money to be made in good news or happy endings, so everything in the media is based on fear and intimidation — toxic ingredients for an innovator trying to create value in the world.
When I pay too much attention to current events in the news, I’m cut off from my entrepreneurial self and want to hide out. I get paralyzed by fear and become pessimistic about the future. I’m afraid to build a business or invest my money because I get the sense it’s all going to hell anyway.
I don’t think we humans were designed to take in so much hopelessness on a daily basis. Wars, terror attacks, beheadings — events I have no control over tend to fill me with a sense of dread and uncertainty.
That’s why I limit my intake of the news. I’m not a good bystander of life. I don’t like watching situations unfold from afar where I have no ability to change the things that are happening. I prefer being in the game, a game where I know I’m powerful to affect change and where I have a direct stake in the outcome.
6. Playing Music
I used to love playing guitar and would often play for several hours at a time during my college days. But about 12 years ago when I was really getting involved in real estate, I wasn’t playing much anymore. I ended up giving my prized Taylor to my friend Dave, whose guitar had recently broken. Dave was a far better musician than me and since I wasn’t playing much anymore, I wanted him to have it.
I’m the kind of guy that likes to excel at whatever I do. I don’t like being mediocre. With a lot of practice I was at best an average musician. But when I caught momentum in real estate and people started telling me I was good at it, I got excited about business. I thrived on that feeling of competency. Real estate began to consume more of my time and started bleeding into my nights and weekends. It overshadowed the hobbies I had previously enjoyed, and I slowly lost interest in the guitar.
I often wonder how good of a musician I could have been if I would have continued to play for this past decade. I don’t have many hobbies, and I sometimes think if I still played guitar I could experience more tranquility in a life that often feels busy and chaotic.
It’s a sad truth, but sometimes success means giving up the good in order to find the great.
7. Mowing the Lawn
My family lives on a private ten-acre property in northern California. We have majestic oaks, mature landscaping, an in-ground pool, and multiple yard areas in the front and back. It’s beautiful, but it’s also a lot to maintain.
When we first moved here, in my enthusiasm, I bought a riding lawn mower, a weed-whacker, and leaf blower because I thought it would be fun to take care of the property myself. That lasted about a month. I now have a professional landscaper who comes once a week to mow the yards, trim the trees, and blow off the decks and patios. This makes me happy.
Aside from realizing that mowing and whacking weeds in one-hundred degree heat was exhausting and not my favorite way to wind-down after work, I looked at the simple economics of the situation and saw the reality. If I could pay a landscaper to maintain my property for $25 per hour and if my time was hypothetically worth $50 per hour, me sitting on a mower for two hours a week was costing me $200 a month. If my time was worth $150 per hour, I was losing $600 a month, and so on.
Sometimes our reasoning is backwards. Sometimes we think we are saving money by doing things ourselves but we are actually squandering it. Not only was mowing my own yard costing me money, it was eliminating a job from the market that could have gone to a professional who would have done better work than me and been able to build his business, while I in turn could have been building mine.
If you enjoyed this article, please click the green heart below or comment on Facebook. It encourages me to keep sharing. Thanks for reading!
