Demir: 0:00

So we're really butting up against a fixed limitation of the raw time that we have. So what is planning? It's just looking at that and being incredibly purposeful and strategic in how we are designing our week so as to solve the most sides of the Rubik's Cube as we possibly can.

Kristin: 0:18

Welcome to Elite Achievement, the podcast for high-performing business owners and leaders. I'm Kristen Burke, your coach and host. Together, we'll unpack the stories, mindsets, and habits of top achievers and explore how to turn ambition into remarkable results. If you're ready to maximize your potential and elevate your success, let's make it happen. How confident are you that the way you're spending your time each week actually supports the goals you set at the start of the year? We're a few weeks into the new year, and by now the excitement of setting goals has met the reality of full calendars, unexpected challenges, and endless to-do list. If you want to bridge the gap between the goals that you set and the results that you achieve, how you plan your week matters. Weekly planning reduces anxiety through preparation, surfaces misalignment before it derails you, and improves follow-through and consistency. Outcomes that make execution possible. Today I'm joined by Demir Bentley, productivity expert, co-founder of Life Hack Method, and author of Winning the Week. Demir has studied thousands of professionals and found that while nearly everyone believes planning ahead makes a difference, very few of us actually plan effectively. In our conversation, we explore why that happens, how to identify the right priorities each week, and the practical planning process that helps you move from intention to execution. Welcome, Demir.

Demir: 1:51

Thank you, Kristen.

Kristin: 1:53

I am looking forward to our conversation. I had a chance to read your book, Winning the Week. And I am really excited to dive in and help our audience understand what it means to win the week. Now, before we get there, I'd love to start with my favorite question, Demir, that I like asking guests. What does achieving elite success mean to you personally and professionally?

Demir: 2:20

Yeah. You know, I think about life is sort of like a Rubik's Cube, right? It's got multiple sides, and you can't really say that you've solved the cube unless you've solved every side of the cube. So when somebody's really successful on an elite level and I find myself a little bit envious or even jealous of them, it's never people who've achieved one thing at the expense of everything else. So you see these fitness influencers, and you know, they've got these incredible bodies, and you sort of tell yourself, yeah, but you know, how are you doing in the other aspects of your your life? Or you see somebody who's succeeded in business, and you ask yourself, well, how are they doing on the family side? So, really, to me, elite achievement is I'm not only crushing it in my business, but if you could see, you would see that I'm caring for my body and caring for my psychology, and I'm a great mother or great sister or a great person to the friends that I have. Um, and I've got that balance. My finances are in order. So in Life Hack, we're really focused a lot on all sides of the Rubik's Cube, not just that one side. And yes, for many of us, we're in the stage of life where we are thinking a lot about providing for our families and maybe we're at the peak of our powers in our career, but we also sort of secretly know that nobody ever, you know, takes their last last breath on their deathbed and says, Thank God I made partner at a law firm. You know, that's not what's going to be important at the very, very end of it. So we have to keep this eye towards all sides of the Rubik's Cube. So I think elite success is about having really managed and achieved success on every side of that cube.

Kristin: 4:00

And I think for high achievers, that can be really difficult and challenging. And I I know, at least in my uh experience, it can be easier to go all in on the business because there's measurables and there's data and there are uh clear-cut goals you can achieve where it might not be the same on the family side.

Demir: 4:20

Yeah, I mean, I didn't say it was easy, right? That is the harder challenge. And this is why a Rubik's Cube can be so devilish to solve, right? You're you've got it on three sides, but you're trying to get that fourth, fifth, and sixth side. It it but you know, one of the exercises that's very common in the personal development space that I hate is this wheel of life exercise where they have you, for 17 areas of your life, just really get a clear vision of what perfect looks like. And the reason I hate it is because who gets to have that? Nobody gets to have in adulting the perfect relationship with their kids, the perfect relationship with their spouse, the perfect success, you know, in business. And so I like to introduce this model of ranked choice voting. So in ranked choice voting, you get to vote for all of the candidates and instead of one. And what they do is do automated runoffs. So what happens in the end is people don't get their first choice, but the the majority of people end up getting their second or third choice. And I think that's a lot about adult life. We don't get to have our first choice option in any one area of our life. So that's not success. I don't see solving the Rubik's Cube as getting perfect on every single side. I see solving the Rubik's Cube as optimizing for the best outcome that we can get on every single side. So maybe it's not our first choice for the kind of fitness that we would like, but we're getting our second or third choice across every single dimension of our life. And I'll call that a massive win.

Kristin: 5:58

And I'm sure planning helps you achieve the best outcome on every side.

Demir: 6:06

Right. What is planning if not looking at the fixed limitation? Right? The fixed limitation is you only have 168 hours. And if you subtract out the time you're sleeping and the time that you're exhausted and the time that's devoted to family, we're really talking about 40 hours. And even inside of that 40 hours, how many good hours do you really have? Are you are you crushing it all 40 of the 40-hour week? No, like maybe 10 hours of that is your really good hours. So we're really butting up against a fixed limitation of the raw time that we have. So, what is planning? It's just looking at that and being incredibly purposeful and strategic in how we are designing our week so as to solve the most sides of the Rubik's Cube as we possibly can.

Kristin: 6:50

I know you are incredibly passionate about planning and about productivity. What Demir inspired you to create the winning the week method? And what makes this method such a powerful approach for achieving your goals?

Demir: 7:06

I'm gonna take a half step back. I like to say that most people expect me as a productivity coach to be like planning's the best and productivity is the best. No, actually, productivity and planning is as boring as bricks, and I'm not here to tell anybody that it's not. It really is not the most glorious, glamorous thing that you can do. What I'm stoked about is lifestyle freedom. I'm stoked about freedom. Freedom is actually my core value in life. And I'm a freedom seeker who rebelled against planning for my entire natural life because I felt that it was being trapped. When I saw a full calendar, I wanted to, you know, throw up a little bit in my mouth because that to me equaled, well, look at this, you're fenced in. There's no freedom here, there's no ability to improvise. But like Jocko Willen says, there's so much freedom on the other side of discipline. Right? Discipline equals freedom. And I didn't get that for so long. But what I love about planning isn't the planning itself. It's the freedom and the realization of the life that you want to live that comes on the other side of planning. So not here to tell anybody that planning is by itself glorious. It's the effect that it gets. There really is nothing more potent or powerful for its size. We're talking about 30, 60 minutes a week. I mean, for that investment of time, there's nothing better to get you to optimize your time, to get you that radical clarity on what's important versus what's not important, to sneak in the things that are important that might have slipped out, like that date night or that workout. There really is nothing more potent. And so what was interesting, for eight years, we didn't write a book because we're really focused on being more like clinicians than researchers. And so people kept saying, Demir, Carrie, you should write a book. You should write a book. And we just felt like, uh, we want to write something when it really feels like this is something that hasn't been said. And I was at a party, and this sort of jackass guy, I'm gonna be honest, like not a really great guy, was like, oh, you're a productivity coach. Well, what's the one thing that I should do to be the most productive? And I actually thought that was a really interesting question. Like, I definitely don't want to coach with this guy. I don't want him being part of my community. But it's an interesting challenge to say, if I could tell somebody one thing and one thing alone, and they will never learn anything else from me ever again, what would that one thing be? And it just felt like plan your week. Just plan your week. And I know it we make it so complicated. There's all these new books coming out, there's all these new technologies to be productive. And we think it can't be that simple. It can't be as simple as the boring thing that we all know that we should be doing, but nobody does. It can't be as simple as planning. And the truth is that a regular planning ritual is gonna do more pound for pound for you than any of these fancy technologies. And in fact, I'll just say one last thing. Planning is like dribbling the ball in basketball. Great if you can dunk it, great if you can hit three-point shots, fantastic. But if you can't move the ball up and down the field, that fundamental skill, none of those other things are going to matter. So, what you're gonna find is when you have a regular planning ritual, all of the other things you've been trying to get up on their feet in your productivity are finally gonna coalesce because you had that fundamental impediment that was holding you back.

Kristin: 10:29

And I find it so fascinating because I agree with you, planning is so important. And I talk a lot about the Friday ritual where you're identifying your wins and lessons and priorities and gotta go on your calendar and schedule time for those priorities. But in your research, Demir, with over 5,000 professionals, you found out that 94% said planning ahead was key to success, but less than 1% were actually doing it. Why do you think there's such a big gap between knowing planning is important and consistently doing it?

Demir: 11:03

Yeah, man, that one really blew me away. Now note that the what we asked them is not, do you plan? We asked them, have you consistently planned over the last four weeks? So did you plan four out of four the last four weeks? We wanted to not just ask who quote unquote plans, we wanted to ask who's got a consistent planning ritual. And the number drops significantly. It would have been even worse, Kristen, if I had asked to see what that they what they consider as planning. Oh, absolutely because often when I when I go into somebody's weekly planning, what they're doing is they're running the bases that they like and avoiding the bases that they don't like. So one of the things that's really special about the winning the week method is that we're forcing you to run all of the bases that you truly need to consider. And we tend as human beings to sort of buy us to the things we like and bias away from the things we don't like. And of course, the things you want to avoid are probably the very things that would help you the most. So, yeah. Why do we do it so little? I think it's because planning, in and of itself, is a little bit like taking a slap in the face today instead of a punch in the mouth on Thursday. It's not that you're ever gonna really love planning. Planning is in itself an anxiety-producing exercise. You are saying to yourself, for 60 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever you want to take for it, I am going to sit here and imagine all of the things that could go wrong and all of the things that need to be considered for next week. If you think you're gonna really do that in excellence and not feel something, you're wrong. If you're doing it right, you're gonna feel elevated anxiety, elevated stress. You're choosing to let yourself feel that so that you can feel so much less stress, fear, and anxiety for the rest of the week. So you're paying a small price today so that you can avoid paying a big price later. And you can really optimize joy and all of the positive emotions, that feeling of control, that feeling of killing it, that feeling of crushing it. So, yes, you're paying a price. I don't want to be glossy about that.

unknown: 13:13

Yeah.

Kristin: 13:14

And in my experience, it's so helpful because then you're not surprised in the next week. You're not forgetting to do that proposal or prepare for that meeting. You're actually resting over the weekend and enjoying some of your personal time, and you're walking into your work week super prepared on Monday. At least that's been my experience.

Demir: 13:38

Well, I know you and I both agree that the best time to do planning is the time when people least do it, which is Friday afternoon, or in my case, very early Saturday morning. And the reason that we're so focused on that is because one, you're fresh on the week. On Friday afternoon or Saturday morning, the week has just happened. It's very easy to get a sense of wins, losses, lessons learned. What did I accomplish? What did I not accomplish? What's going to spill over into next week? But most importantly, when you digest all that and create a plan for next week, you can give yourself the psychological reason to rest over the weekend. There's not that open loop that's circling in your brain, keeping you from really being present with your family and really getting that restoration that you deeply need over the weekend. So I know we both agree about that. That's critical.

Kristin: 14:26

Absolutely. So if our listeners are curious on how they should approach a planning session, what should they do when they go to plan their week?

Demir: 14:38

Yes. Well, this is why we wrote the book, right? Because we wanted to give people a way that they could sort of start at the beginning, run all the bases, and get to the end in the most time-efficient manner possible. And so for us, it's very simple. The bases are not overcomplicated. I like to say this is not diffusing a nuclear bomb. You don't have to worry about cutting the red wire versus the green wire. And it's simple. The first thing is just look back on the week and identify one win, one loss. But importantly, what's the lesson I can learn that I can carry forward into the next week? Because let's be clear, it's not important just to identify wins and losses. It's important to say, hey, I'm probably gonna do that again. If I had that loss, if I said yes to something I should have said no to, I'm probably gonna do that again next week. So it's a it's a way to create a learning loop so that every week you're getting a little bit smarter, a little bit more insightful, and you're seeing your game a little bit more clearly. The next step that we move into is we do just a calendar review. Right? So we just sit there and sort of say, what is my calendar showing me and what's on it? You know, the biggest value of this is to not pay what Dave Ramsey calls the stupid tax. The stupid tax is when you could have rightly seen that you signed up to take your kids to a volleyball practice, but it's not on your calendar. That could have been excuse me, that could have been a disaster. Well, I call it a landmine. It's planted there, it's waiting. All you have to do is step on it, and it's gonna blow you to smithereens. And then you get in a fight with your spouse. Oh, I thought you were taking them. No, you were taking them. There's just no need to pay that stupid tax if we take a gander and a mental walk through our week and say, what is our week actually showing us and telling us? And I can't tell you how many clients have soft things on their calendar that they sort of know they're not gonna. Let's get all that out of there. Let's get the calendar in a place where it's structured and we can trust it and it's a good representation of what's coming at us this week. Okay, well then let's move over to our priorities. What's what are our priorities for the week? What are the big rocks that we need to move forward? Um, I love the Eisenhower matrix, you know, the first two sections. What's really important and leveraged? It's gonna move the ball forward. And also what might not be so important, but actually has a lot of urgency and consequence around it. Let's at least get those big rocks in place. And I like to invite my clients to come up with one gold star action. I love gold star in kindergarten. We all we all remember that feeling of getting the gold star. What is that one thing that I can do, even if it's just one hour of my week, that will give me the gold star that will make next week just a little bit easier than this week or move me forward in some significant way. Then and only then, when we have a clear sense of our priorities and a clear sense of our time. Okay, now let's look at the task list. Now let's really open the task list. Because now what you're doing is you're, as you come into the task list, you're coming with radical clarity. The worst way to plan your week is to start with your task list and then try to work up to clarity. Never gonna happen because your task list is just going to pull you into a melee, a maelstrom of, oh my God, obligation, this needs to get done and that needs to get done. You need to come into your task list with clarity so that now you're bringing clarity to your task list and you're more likely to say, okay, here's that category of things that aren't gonna get done. And then finally, you got to marry it all together. I always like to say the last step, calendarizing your count, your plan, this is where Pinocchio becomes a real boy. Right? Up to this point, if you stop before you calendarize, what you have is a great wish list. You don't have a to-do list. And so when you actually take things off your to-do list and you put them in your calendar and say, my plan is to get this done on Tuesday from 11 to 1, now you have a plan. Make no mistake, if you are stopping short of taking your tasks and putting them on your calendar, you do not have a plan, you have a wish list. Once we've completed that, you've rounded all the bases and you have a plan for the week.

Kristin: 18:33

One of the things I found really helpful last fall when I was in my busy season and I'm traveling and I'm speaking and I'm still coaching my clients. I actually brain dumped all of my task into Chat GPT and I had it help me sort the task by what is truly important and what can be done after my busy season. Because I think sometimes we have this belief that every task deserves the same level of importance and urgency, and that's just not quite true.

Demir: 19:05

Yeah. You know, in Lifehack Tribe, we create something called a life map. And a life map is just a critical path of what you're up to this year. So it's basically what's my definite chief aim for the year, and how does that break down into initiatives by quarter, by month, this week, and today? And we have multiple lanes. So what's my biggest initiative? And then two bonus initiatives that might be secondary and tertiary. When you drop that into my prompt for winning the week in ChatGPT, basically what you're giving ChatGPT is a model of your priorities. It can be so much more successful in helping you plan out your week when you give it that higher level model. So I have this prompt that I people copy and they just paste in and drop in their life map. And when we get down to the task section, what I have it do is I have it take all of your tasks, just copy and paste them right out of a sauna, and say spread this into an Eisenhower. Matrix for me and try to take a guess at what I can push into next week versus what's really urgent this week. It would blow your mind when Chat GPT really knows where you're trying to go this year, when it really has a clear sense of what the wins are versus what they aren't, how good it can do for you in terms of doing that hard work. Because I don't know about you. I get into my to-do list, there's like 150 things. I mentally check out, um, I run the other way. Like I can't do this. So to have Chat GPT do a first pass spread into an Eisenhower matrix is so important. Now, again, I just want to proviso that by saying it can do a pretty crappy job if it doesn't really know where you're going.

Kristin: 20:43

That's fair. Absolutely. Well, how can we choose the right priority? Because it sounds like this is effective. Or let me say that again. All right. How can we choose the right priority? Because it sounds like this is essential for effective planning.

Demir: 21:00

Yeah. Boy, this is it, isn't it? You know, I'm all about winning the week. And I think if people would just institute this one little habit, they would experience this insane lift in their productivity and their joy in their life. But as you know, because I know you do quarterly reviews, clarity tends to come from the top down, not the bottom up. And so part of the reason people experience planning every week as excruciating is what they're really trying to do in the back, back, back of their head is put together an annual plan one week at a time. So every week you're constructing a model of where you're going. And you're trying to ask yourself, where am I going? And what is important? And that's really hard and excruciating. So what we do in Lifehack Method is we actually have our clients put together this like life map of where they're going this year. And when you've put together that, you're not forcing your brain to do that mental load every single week. Whether you know it or not, that's what's happening in the back of your brain. You're trying to construct a model of the future. And if you've never explicitly put it down on paper, on purpose, somewhere at one point, that's a lot of work to be doing week after week. So as soon as I get my clients up on weekly planning, very quickly thereafter, we try to start creating a little bit of a model of where am I going in the next six or 12 months so that I can get some of that radical clarity. So just let me pause and say, what is radical clarity? It's a very elusive thing that we've only experienced in brief windows in our life. Radical clarity is when I'm not just asking you, Kristen, are you clear on what you need to do today? What if I asked you, are you clear on what you need to do today, this week, this month, this quarter, and this year? And all of the steps you need to take to get there, not in just one dimension of your life, but maybe in two or three. Of course, the human brain can't hold that all. You might be a little bit clear about where you want to be at the end of the year, but not so clear about today, or vice versa. And so this is why I think it's so important for us, once we've actually got a good planning practice in place, to make it easier on ourselves by creating a little bit of a roadmap for ourselves. Like, where are we going here? And what are the key steps we're gonna take to get there? It's not just great to have, it's great because you're taking that radical clarity and you're putting on it on document. So when you wake up tomorrow and your brain is wiped and you're like, who am I? What's my name? What am I doing today? You can go to that external document. And the feeling you should feel is you should look at that, and it's almost a relief, like a feeling of remembering, like, oh yes, that's where I'm going. That's what I'm up to. And actually, this is a pretty good plan. All I have to do is follow it.

Kristin: 23:41

What's one of your favorite questions to help your clients get that radical clarity?

Demir: 23:48

Wow, that's such a great question. I mean, it's really more of a process. So a big thing that we do with our annual planning is we often try to get people to close the chapter that they've just been in. Because all too often, this happens in any level of planning, all too often we're not seeing clearly about the plan for this year because we're carrying a lot of regret and maybe dragging over some of the goals from last year. And so one of the things that we do first is let's close the chapter on last year, win or lose. And we've all had those years where we took some hard losses and things didn't go the way that we were, that we wanted them to. And so let's close that chapter, let's learn from that chapter, let's integrate that chapter, and then let's do like a really great look forward. So when we're doing a look forward, I'm always asking people about where the leverage in their life is. Leverage isn't just about what has to happen for you to meet your needs. Leverage is about what am I gonna do that is gonna make next year so much more potent and impactful than this year was. Leverage is saying, what can I do this year that will permanently make me better off? I think about it as scaffolding. Everything that I do that's leveraged, when I do it once, it will continue working for me every day without maintenance or with minimal maintenance. A good example is we wrote the book. We wrote the book, it was a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and now we're getting clients coming in every single day saying, Oh, I came in because I read your book. Great. I didn't do anything today or this week or this month for the book. The book is out there, it's doing work on our behalf for our brand, for our message, for our mission. It's bringing clients to us. That's true leverage. We did it once, it was intensive, but now we are harvesting the fruit year after year.

Kristin: 25:39

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. And I think that this is such a powerful reminder. If our listeners have not taken the time yet to do their annual planning, now is the time to do it. Even if you didn't get it done at the end of last year, like do it now. So that way you can have that radical clarity as you go throughout the year. One of the things I'm wondering, Demir, is that as we're thinking about different dimensions of our life, uh, there are probably multiple priorities that we keep thinking about. And I think a lot of times business owners and leaders can especially feel very overwhelmed or buried with all their workload and all of their priorities. How do you think they can minimize that feeling of overwhelm and get really clear on the most important priority?

Demir: 26:29

Yeah. Radical clarity isn't just about getting clear on what's the most important thing today. So much of radical clarity is about getting clear on what you're not going to do or what is not within your window of control right now. Listen, I always like to say if you choose what you're gonna work on this year or this week, and there's not a single tear rolling down your eye, you probably didn't do it right. Because when we're being choiceful, we're not just saying what we're doing, we're saying what's not gonna get done. And really powerful leadership, and even that means leading yourself, really starts with here's where I can make the biggest impact. And that I choose to put that first and foremost, even if it comes at the expense of this other thing that I really, really value. And so often in life, we've we have this feeling that if if you love your kids, then the most leveraged thing is to spend time with your kids. Well, what if the most important thing right now is creating financial security for your family? You're loving your kids if you're creating financial security for your family. And so it's really hard sometimes to say maybe this year isn't the year that I can coach my kids' soccer team because the business isn't on its feet right now. And maybe the best thing that I can do and the most leveraged thing I can do is get the business stabilized so that maybe next year is the year where I coach Timmy's baseball team. And that's hard. That's the single tier moment because I know in your heart of hearts, you're saying, I want to step in now to be the father or the mother that I really want to be. But sometimes we have to look when we're operating with radical clarity and leverage and say, what are the levers that I can pull now that make it easier to pull all those other levers next year? And the number one thing when we're creating life maps with people and we're creating annual plans with people that they mistake is they reach for wants before they reach for needs. They're trying to jump over a step of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right? They want to jump into fulfillment or mission, but they haven't really established their base, the base that's gonna help them really reach for that brass ring. And so a lot of times I actually have to back my clients up a little bit and say, what's the thing that we can do this year that makes it so that not just next year, but the year after and the year after and the year after that, you can reach further and further and further and get more time back and operate more powerfully and expand and scale yourself better. And often the answer to that is the work that's boring and tedious. Oh, you know, I need to create systems in my business, or I need to make my household operate more efficiently. You know, it's the stuff that's unglamorous and unsexy, or a thing that you've been desperately avoiding, like letting go of a client or a, you know, an employee in your business. It's like, oh, often we we understand that the leverage is coming from very unsexy things, but things that need to be done because they create a foundation upon which we can stand and reach for even higher things.

Kristin: 29:32

You know, I think so often we're looking for the one life hack or the one answer or the the thing that's gonna make the biggest difference. And it so often comes back to the fundamentals or the boring or the tedious or to mere listening to your inner voice. And it's the thing that you you keep telling yourself to do, but you try to ignore it.

Demir: 29:56

But it helps when you have radical clarity that that is your leverage. I I often like to say I'm not very religious, but I ascribe to the religion of leverage. What's the religion of leverage? I don't attack life anymore with an assumption I'm gonna get everything done. I know that. Down that path lies madness. I'm gonna die with a huge to-do list where a lot wasn't done. So I'm not looking to try to get everything done anymore. What I'm looking to do is say, where are the areas in my life where if I pull that lever, it makes everything else easier or unnecessary? The classic um Gary Keller, Jay Papazan in the one thing. Where's the lever I can pull that will make everything else more possible, more easy, more likely to happen? And if I can look back on a week or a month or even a year and say, wow, I love the leverage that I operated with. I love the work that I did towards that. I can be at peace with the things that I didn't get done because I'm not trying to get it all done. I'm trying to maximize on my leverage wherever I can find it. And every year's a little bit different. This might not be the year where you've got leverage in the business because the economy's moving against you a little bit. Okay, well, maybe top line isn't where I can go. Maybe I could get more leverage on ops. Maybe I can get more leverage on bottom line and profitability. Maybe I can get more leverage, even not even in the business, over in my personal life and in my health. Maybe this is the year where we're steady state in the business and health can come to the forefront. Where is your window of opportunity to find a leverage point where if you can pull it, it's going to make next year and the year after and the year after easier?

Kristin: 31:34

I think that's really important. You gave our listeners that permission that every year is a little bit different because high achievers, if they're not surpassing last year's numbers, it almost feels like failure.

Demir: 31:49

Yeah. I and I feel that. Believe me, I could sit here and preach all day long. But if we have a year where we're experiencing a little bit of retrenchment, even if it's not our fault, even if it's just macroeconomic headwinds, uh, believe me, I feel it. And there's a voice screaming in my head, you're failing, you gotta go bigger. But you know what? I've always been satisfied when I looked at the playing field and I said, listen, I could push over here and maybe I could push the ball a little bit. But there are areas in my life where I can push and move the ball a lot. And I'm gonna find the areas in my business or the areas in my life where I can push the ball. And in fact, right now in our business, we experienced a year where there was just a tiny bit of retrenchment, but we're like overachievers who want to see growth. And actually, in the last two years, we've really focused on customer success, customer orientation. We focused on profitability, and we focused on really making our service the best that we could possibly make it. And what's funny is one, we're seeing that in profitability, we're seeing that in retention, we're seeing that in the ease of our systems and how we're operating the business and how the our employees are happier, they know how to do their job. So we're seeing the real tangible fruits of it happening. And now as we're coming out of that and things are actually improving, what's great is I'm looking back and thinking, thank God I didn't work on the ball that wasn't gonna budge. Thank God I worked on the balls that were gonna budge and set me up to be an even more profitable, even more successful business in the long run. So it is hard, I concede, to look at the thing you want to move in the business or your life and say, now is not the ripest time for me to move that.

Kristin: 33:33

That is such a powerful message that I think is going to give our listeners energy as they go into the year and strive to achieve their goals. Well, Damir, I'm curious as we wrap up our conversation, what habits or routines have been the most critical in your journey to elite achievement?

Demir: 33:54

Well, the obvious one, I hate to be so obvious, is a habit and a ritual of sitting down and planning your week every single week. My wife and I do it every single Saturday. We take some time away from the kids, we go down to a cafe, we plan our weeks together, and then we collaborate. And not only is this great because we work in the business together, but it's also great as a couple because so much stress, fear, and anxiety in the coupleship happens because you're not synced up in this logistics operation called life. And make no mistake as an adult. If you aren't logisticing well with your couple, I don't even know if that's a word, but I'm gonna call it right now logisticing. If you're not handling the logistics of being a couple together well, it's really hard to have the closeness and that high five culture that you've got. So I will just say pound for pound, it's just that ritual of planning your week every single week without fail.

Kristin: 34:52

I had a feeling you were gonna say that, and I wanted to give you the chance to remind our listeners how important it is to plan your week. Damir, if our listeners want to learn more about you and the work that you do, where can they find you?

Demir: 35:08

We have tons of great stuff out there. I mean, you can find us at lifehackmethod.com where we've got a free workshop. Where if you're not a reader and you just want to maybe see more of a video version of the winning the week method, you can just want to sign up for a free masterclass there. Or you can check out some of our free content on YouTube. Just search Lifehack Method on YouTube. And of course, if you're feeling sassy, you can get the book Winning the Week on Amazon.

Kristin: 35:32

Awesome. It is a great book, and it is uh there are a lot of practical takeaways in the book, which I really appreciate. Damere, thank you so much for your time today.

Demir: 35:42

Thank you. Thanks, Kristen.

Kristin: 35:44

Until next time, elite achievers, celebrate your wins, reflect on your lessons, and consistently show up with the mindset and habits that will elevate your success. Remember, progress is made one step at a time. By listening to today's episode, you've taken an important step toward achieving remarkable results. If you are ready to continue your journey, visit my website, kristenburke.com, for resources, tools, and strategies designed to help you experience elite achievement. Subscribe now so you never miss an episode, and let's keep embracing the mindset, effort, and values that drive consistent elite performance. Thank you for listening.