Simplify Your Strategy - Magnify Your Results

Episode 6 – Ryan – Owner of Real Estate Brokerage Firm – Call 2: Pillar Review and CAP Creation

Brian Margolis Season 1 Episode 6

On each episode Brian Margolis helps entrepreneurs, sales pros and other professionals create a simple weekly strategy using The Pillar System. A system that's helped multiple individuals become 7 figure earners and is licensed by some of the largest companies in the world to help their teams grow through simplification Some episodes have a 2nd part where Brian helps guests review and refine their initial pillars and solidify the CAP strategies they can use to turn pillar execution into a habit.

Listen as we review and refine Ryan’s initial pillars and help him solidify the CAP strategies he should be using to turn pillar execution into a habit.

To hear other episodes go to https://productivitygiant.com/simplify-your-strategy-magnify-your-results-podcast/



Brian Margolis (00:00):

This is Brian Margolis and welcome to the simplify, your strategy, magnify your results podcast. We're on each episode, I use the pillar system to help a sales pro entrepreneur or other results based professional, create a weekly strategy to run a simple, more lucrative business strategy. So simple. It can fit on an index card, but so powerful. It's actually helped create multiple seven figure earners and is now licensed by some of the largest companies in the world to create strategies for their teams. If you'd like a free copy of my book on exactly how to do this, or want to be considered as a guest on a future episode, head on over to productivity, giant.com. Enjoy the episode. Okay, so Ryan I guess, good to talk again here, I guess it's been maybe six weeks at this point or something in that area. Maybe a little bit longer.

Brian Margolis (00:53):

I'm not sure. So let me give a summary of what we talked about last time in terms of your goals and your pillars as the owner of your real estate company. And then tell me if I'm off. So you kind of had three goals, so to speak, they weren't real specific, and maybe you have specific goals, but, but we talked about more general goals of you wanted to grow your personal sales. You wanted to add agents to your team and you wanted to help those agents and the existing agents to sell more. Is that correct? Yes. Pretty, pretty straightforward. Okay. And then as we talked and worked out your pillars, you know, I'm showing seven pillars here that we came up with and then, you know, let me go through them and then you can correct me in terms of, or let me know if you've changed them, which ones have changed if you've tweaked them, things like that.

Brian Margolis (01:57):

But you, so the first one was two, three social media posts a week. Everything's a week, it's a pillar, right? Yup. So three social media posts a week. You're going to reach out to 10 agents, you know, trying to recruit them to your team. You're going to reach out to five current agents in terms of assisting them to sell more. I believe. Yup. You're going to send five non-cell touches to what you call sphere of influence people. You're going to request five networking meetings and you might have to fill me in on what that was. Again, I'm drawing a blank here and you were going to spend 60 minutes researching different marketing and lead generation techniques and what other people are doing. And then kind of as your followup pillar to make sure you're staying on top of prospects and in all different categories, whether that's recruits or, you know, personal customers, things like that, you're going to update and review that pipeline sheet or that opportunity sheet once a week from top to bottom. Yes. Did I, did I nail it? You nailed it. All right. So what has changed since then?

Ryan (03:18):

Not really. No, I haven't changed any of the pillars. I added a couple, couple pillars that I mean, one of them like, and I don't even know, I added a workout for like a physical health, like a workout pillar, personal, personal pillar. Exactly. There you go. Five workouts per week. And I also added one work-related pillar, which I don't know. How are you familiar with the way Facebook and Instagram work? Are you familiar with them? Like their formats and stuff?

Brian Margolis (03:47):

I mean they vaguely. Okay.

Ryan (03:50):

So in addition to the three posts, there's all, there's something called a story on Instagram or story on Facebook. Yeah. I wanted to do one story post every day. So I added that to my pillar as well.

Brian Margolis (04:05):

Okay. So in terms of, of that being a pillar, is that every day during the week, or is that seven days a week or

Ryan (04:13):

By just the weekdays? Just as a weekday. So weekdays, yeah. Okay.

Brian Margolis (04:18):

Here, here. So here's what I would do with that pillar. Just knowing what I know about these daily things, you know, first and foremost, again, pillars are done weekly, right? We measure them weekly. So one a day would really just be, excuse me, would just be five right. Five a week.

Ryan (04:37):

Okay. The rules are not, yeah. Don't truck it as a daily thing, instructor as five for the week is what is that? Where you're going yeah. Five for the week. Got it.

Brian Margolis (04:48):

But the second part of that is that you, you, you want to make it five a week because the last thing in the world you want to do is miss on Monday and now you can't hit your pillars. Right. All of a sudden the whole thing blows up. And so I'm all about routine. Like if there's things in other words, five a week is the pillar how you choose to hit them. That pillar is your choices to do one a day. Right. But if you don't do one a day, you can always catch up and do I guess two or three, or does that kind of kill the flow of a story?

Ryan (05:28):

No, you can. You can do, there's no limit to it.

Brian Margolis (05:30):

Yeah. So then, then, then I would have five story posts would be story posts per week. Got it. Yeah. Cause a lot, the last thing you want to do. And again, if, if the rhythm is story post and maybe you put that into your morning routine, go for it. Right? Yup. But the, but the pillar is five, the workout pillar. And I'm a big fan of combining personal and professional pillars. Because for me, as we're going to talk a little bit about today and as you read it in the book, it's all about the habit of pillar execution, right? Closing that loop, scratching that itch, whatever you want to call it. And so to me, it's all under the same mindset of, you know, if you're going to develop the habit of hitting your pillars every week, why not include your personal ones? It's the exact same mindset that these are the things I need to do that you know, are going to have that compound effect. I guess where I would ask you about the five workouts per week would be again, do the, are these weekend and during the work week, are these Monday through Friday, are you trying to go to the gym before work? What's the thinking behind the five? Oh,

Ryan (06:41):

I just, so it doesn't ha so it doesn't have to be the five work weekdays. It could be, you know, weekends can count towards it. I just have found, you know, five workouts a week gives me enough wiggle room where I might have a day or two during a week where I just have so much going on that, you know, it's very, very hard to get a workout in. Okay. So that's kind of where I came up with the five feet.

Brian Margolis (07:06):

Yes. So you are working out on the weekends then that's it. Okay, good. All right. And, and, and I don't remember if we discussed this last time, but I know you, you, you read about it in the book is that I believe that your pillar week should start on Saturday and end on Friday. Yes. I like that. Yeah. So the idea of being you can kind of, especially with working out is you can get ahead of the curve by doing one or two workouts, you know, during the, during the week, excuse me, on the weekends. Now having said that again, I don't know your, your personal fitness and things like that, but if you're not working out consistently to jump right to five, that's something you probably want to watch. If it's not an issue, if five is very achievable, then go for it. But, but to me, I'd rather like a lot of people throw, workout pillars in and you know, what I always say is, look, start lower. You can always do more workouts during the week, but you won't break the chain. Right. You won't break the chain. So, you know, that's something you'd have to figure out for yourself. Do you need to reduce that or is five realistic, right?

Ryan (08:13):

Yeah. And let me just say, I really like that aspect of and I'd liked to in practice, have the Saturday start on the pillars because then you can, on Monday morning, you come and see Oscar, you can cross stuff off already, you know, in terms of, you know, things you've achieved

Brian Margolis (08:30):

And it's a positive experience, not a negative one, right. Working on the weekends to catch up as a negative thing. Right, right. Yup. All right. So we've got two additional pillars. So you have now one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, you have nine pillars. And again, the number's not the issue because some of these probably don't take a ton of time. Right, right. Again, I'm not, I don't get caught up so much in the numbers is as much the time, the time they take. Okay. So you're happy with your pillars. These are the right pillars.

Ryan (09:05):

Yes. Okay. Okay.

Brian Margolis (09:08):

In terms of hitting them consistently, you know, kind of a multipart question here, have you been hitting them consistently? If not the times when you're missing them, you know, are there certain ones you're tending to miss? Are there certain reasons you feel like you're missing them, what's going on in that world? So I can really help you turn this in.

Ryan (09:31):

Sure. So I've been pretty good about hitting them. The two that I'm having the hardest time with are the 60 minute lead generation training in the update and review pipeline list. I don't know if it's, because I think, I think with the, like in a busy day, it just seems like those are the things that I'm like, well, I can put that off. You know what I mean? Yes, yes I do. So that's the other than that, I've been pretty good. You know, I've been, I've been pretty good and I also have saved what, you know, so we talked about, you know, a one sheet or note card where, you know, one place where you keep your kind of your pillars and kind of track them and stuff. And I save it each week so that I can see, you know, like I cross them off and then I could see like, we two, this is what I did, you know, we three, this is what I did. So I liked the, the, the format of having it all on one sheet, like a scorecard like that. That's been helpful, but yeah, those are the, really the two that I've had. So

Brian Margolis (10:41):

Let's, let's, let's dive into why you're having a hard time with those. And I have some suspicions based on talking to a lot of people. You know, one of the things you have to do when it comes to hitting your pillars and really being sick, I don't wanna say being successful cause you're already a successful guy, but kind of going to that next level, if you will, is you have to redefine what work is. Okay. And so, you know, you and I am guessing are, are in the same age category. And we kind of grew up with this, you know, hard, this badge of honor for hard work kind of mentality, right? Yup. And the busier you are, and the later you are in the more frazzled you are, the harder you're working, the more successful you'll be. And so in a way we have to redefine what work is, right.

Brian Margolis (11:37):

And so for you, and I don't know if this is conscious or subconscious, you can tell me, but in the heat of the moment, it's hard to justify that stopping what you're doing, not responding to things that are sitting there, not doing something that kind of has instant feedback. If you will, that stopping, slowing down and actually just, you know, goofing around on the internet or watching videos on marketing or reading blogs or books or whatever, we kind of have a hard time thinking that's work, right? Yeah. Like that's not work from a practical point of view. You know, if you think about don't, here's how you want to reframe it, here's how you should reframe it. Don't think about getting better at marketing and getting better at lead gen, you know, in terms of the learning. Don't think of it as work. Okay. What you want to think about it is as more as I guess, the way I'm trying to articulate it is you want to think about it as part of the formula.

Brian Margolis (12:46):

Meaning if you flat actually let me rephrase that. Don't think of it as work. Think of it as becoming successful. Those are the words I was looking for. That's your pillar to become, that's your becoming successful pillar. And sometimes you just need to change the words. That's one of the cap strategies in the book. You just need to change the words you're using around the pillar. So you could literally say one hour becoming successful or becoming more successful or, you know, growing my business, you know, whatever words kind of jibe with you because here's the reality two years from now, one year from now, five years from now, the thing that's going to determine the success of your business, based on what you've told me is how good of a marketer and lead generator you become, right? Yup. You can become a very average, you can be a very average real estate broker and a very average real estate agent.

Brian Margolis (13:48):

But if you're great at marketing and lead gen, you're going to be an extremely successful broker and real estate agent. Does that make sense? Yes. And so to me, there's nothing more important than becoming a better marketer, becoming a better lead generator. You know, you know, Dan Kennedy always says, there's plenty of people who can deliver, right? There's, there's no shortage of people who can deliver on the services you provide. The thing that separates you is your ability to market yourself, right? Your ability to market your services. And so that's more of the mindset of hitting that pillar, right? That really it's the most important one. And in the category of growth, not in the category of maintenance, but in the category of growth and the category of, if you're thinking Ryan that eventually you want to have a lifestyle business where maybe you're not grinding it five days a week, that's the pillar.

Brian Margolis (14:47):

That's going to give you the lifestyle business. Right. Cause if you market and generate leads, you basically own the world. So to speak, you can put people in place to do everything else, right. You're the most valuable commodity. So, or most valuable person in that whole ecosystem. Okay. From a practical point of view, I think you probably have to do that pillar early in the morning, before the day starts. It's not one of those things in the heat of the moment that you're going to stop everything and say, now I got to spend an hour or a half hour if you're breaking it up. Right. Yup. So to me, I would say, and we'll talk about this in a little bit. This comes back to kind of owning your mornings, right? Owning your mornings a little bit before I talk about that though, let's jump to the next, well, let me ask you, what's your opinion or what's your thoughts on what I just said? Does some of that agree? Not agree.

Ryan (15:43):

Yeah. I mean, especially the first part about not thinking of it, like, you know, the whole, the whole concept of like taking, you know, taking pride in being a hard worker and at some level not thinking that's work, you know? Yeah. That part I can, I can very much relate to that.

Brian Margolis (16:01):

Yeah. It's, it's, it's funny the Perry Marshall saying, or when Perry Marshall quotes about, you know, when you do too much doing and not enough thinking you actually create more work for yourself, right? Yeah. All right. So the updating and reviewing the pipeline list right now, if this pillar is what we originally intended it to be, which is this, is you staying on top of opportunities and leads? Correct. Okay. I would argue that this is how you get paid, right? Yep. This is how you get paid. I mean, there's not many they happen, but there's not a lot of lay down sales. Right? Yep. There's not a lot of agents where you reach out to them one time and then they, all of a sudden out of the blue say, you know what I've been thinking about your nonstop for the last month, I'm going to come over to your brokerage.

Brian Margolis (16:52):

Right. Right. It's just that, that's a very rare case. So to me, when you don't stay on top of this stuff, when you don't continue to follow up with opportunities, I mean, in a way it's like, it's, it's like building something for somebody, but never giving them an invoice. Right. We're doing work for them and not invoicing them and saying, Oh, maybe they'll pay me. Maybe they won't. Right. Yeah. And so if you think about it, and again, language is big in this, you know, language is big. I have people who call followup, they call it their payday matrix. They call it collecting, they call, you know, all sorts of stuff. They call it filling the bank. They, you know, just whatever word you like, but this is a pretty critical pillar in what you do. Because if you go back to that mentality of hard work in a way you're wasting a lot of your work. If you're not doing this consistently. Right. And you know, you can't be in business as long as you have and not realize how much, how many times you make the sale or make that connection with a recruitable agent on the fourth, fifth, sixth. Right. Connection. so let me ask you, what do you think the holdup is on this one? Where do you think the hesitation is? Or the, because this one's definitely worth following up is I don't think anybody would say that's not work.

Ryan (18:17):

My thought is that there's maybe, maybe it's, you know, and I hadn't even thought about this, but maybe it's related to the fact of like, I'm not, I'm not comfortable in what I would call high pressure sales situations from. So, so it's easier for me to reach out to someone and invite them to coffee. Then for me to follow up at the end and say, are you coming to tier one real estate? Or are you not? So I don't know, for some reason the first one is easier for me than the second. I think it might have something to do with that without even having thought about it. But

Brian Margolis (18:54):

So in other words, the first time you invite them to talk to you or to connect about whether, and I'm guessing, I shouldn't even guess you tell me, is this for, is this followup for both recruiting agents, but is it also followup for potential listings, potential clients or does it tend to be one more than the other?

Ryan (19:11):

No, it could be both. And also, okay. So pipelines involved in my, I mean, you could give me your thoughts usually involve people who have either given you a maybe, or even possibly already said no, you know, at some level so some that are like, so like on a listing, right? So someone in my pipeline, I may have already called them twice instead of you ready to list. And they said, no, not yet. Are you ready to let, so I think it's like, I feel uncomfortable calling your third time and right,

Brian Margolis (19:44):

Right, right. Yeah. So, so I think, I think there's a couple of things we can do here. Okay. Cause sometimes a lot of people who don't follow up, believe it or not to them, it's almost like they enjoy the novelty of generating new leads. That's more exciting to them than existing things, but yeah. Yeah. And that might be a play here partially, but I would agree with you that you're probably on you associate followup with, you know, a higher pressure, more uncomfortable thing. Like a lot of people, like a lot of people do, it's not, that's pretty common. So my advice to you would be, you need to change the way you follow up. So, so for example, when I've already kind of asked, you know, I'll do the traditional followup. I just, it's funny. I just did my followup pillar this morning, so it's free.

Brian Margolis (20:36):

So it's fresh in my mind, but some people I'll follow up and say, you know, you know, what do you think about like, I'm trying to get them on the phone, you know, I'll forward the email and say, you know, so what do think about connecting, right? Or are you still interested in, right. You're kind of your traditional followup, right? Hey, would you like to get back on the phone and go back home? You know, whatever that is. But a lot of my followup, just me personally, because I guess we project out, we, we project out on certain prospects that, you know, that they're actually thinking about us and they're ignoring us when we follow up. Right. whereas really most prospects, it's just the last thing on their mind. Right. And, and so what I do a lot later on in the followup process, if I genuinely believe they're interested and listen, I don't follow up on people that I don't think are, are interested in and I'm guessing you don't either.

Brian Margolis (21:33):

But a lot of times I just deliver value to them. So for example, you know, there was, there was a couple of people today that I just haven't heard back from them in a while. But according to my notes and my memory, we had some pretty good conversations about me working with their company. And so all I did, they kind of ignored the last couple of followups. So all I did today was send them something of value. I literally sent them an email, I cut and paste and I do this all the time. I cut and pasted this little question tree that I really believe in for people in their position that another expert came up with. And I basically said, you know, as the leader of your team, I think this is relevant to you. Take a look, right. And it's real simple. In other words, that's my way of saying, Hey, don't forget about me and giving them value, if that makes sense.

Brian Margolis (22:26):

So they're like, for example, let's say there's an agent you're recruiting, okay. There's an agent you're recruiting and you've kind of followed up with him. Didn't get anything back. And you're starting to think, all right, maybe he's not interested. Maybe he or she is blowing me off, just sending them an email of something valuable. Like if there's an article or a tip that you can send a link to, or you can cut and paste into an email and say, Hey, you know, beginning, you know, the fall is here, school's back in season, you know, check out this article on, you know, getting listings after the summer months. Right. Or something like that. Does that make sense? Yeah. So I think staying on top and following up with people in that sense and just redefining how you think of what followup is, right. Is something you should choose should think about. But here's the other part you should also follow up and review that sheet for no other reason than to hit your pillars, meaning it should be driving you nuts at some point that you're hitting all your pillars except one or two, right. Knowing full well, you have the time to do them, but you're falling short. Right.

Speaker 3 (23:47):

You know, what else is interesting

Brian Margolis (23:49):

Pillars? You're kind of skirting are probably the pillars that you need the most,

Speaker 3 (23:55):

Right? Yeah.

Brian Margolis (23:57):

You know, not, not wasting all that. Cause when you follow up who care, I don't care about the five that, you know, it never turns into anything. I only care about the six that it does. And so,

Speaker 3 (24:08):

Mmm.

Brian Margolis (24:09):

But let me, let me, let me get your thoughts on that. And then I want to sum up this part. So what are your thoughts on, on changing the way you look at followup? How do you,

Speaker 3 (24:18):

Yeah, I like the idea. I mean I think that it involves a little more creativity. So I'll have to, you know, put a little more thought into it, but it's a more comfortable, you know, approach. So I do, I get like, you know, I do like that, but I, I do, I can, you know, acknowledge that particularly the followup thing. It's like, it's like, you're putting in all this work and you know, in the other pillars and then you're leaving a lot on the table by not following up properly with them, you know? Yeah. I mean, yeah.

Brian Margolis (24:57):

It, you know, I don't know how I'm assuming you're a football fan, but yeah, it's funny. I can just assume that nine out of 10 times I'll be right. Knowing nothing about a person. Right. But if I know their age but you know, it's, it's, you know, it's the red zone, right? The teams that get the ball, you don't get, you don't get any points for moving at 90 yards. Right? Yup. I mean, you did all that work for nothing, so to speak. And that's what, you know, follow up is on the creative front. Okay. You have to be creative, but not as creative as you think. You know why? Because you're following up with the same kind of people over and over. So the same value things you send to one will be relevant to a lot of them. Got it. So you find one good article on this one link on that. Or even if you,

Speaker 3 (25:42):

You give them a tip, right?

Brian Margolis (25:45):

Like from your own content on social media, if you literally on social media, if you put up some good content, even if it was two years ago by you linking to that and just going, Hey, you know, it's the fall season, whatever. Or it's this, here's something I posted on LinkedIn about, you know, about a year and a half ago that I think could be relevant. Hope you get something out of it. Right. Hope it helps. Does that make sense? Like, and then, but when that's effective, you can send that same link, that same article, that same cut and paste over the course of a year, you could send it to 120 different people. Right. Cause if it's valuable to someone who's in the real estate world is probably valuable to other people in the real estate world. And if something's valuable to someone who's thinking about listing their home, like some advice on listing their home, then it's probably valuable to another person who's listing their home. So you don't have to think of something new every time you want to kind of create a bank of these things. Right. Yep. Which is kind of what I've done on my follow up sheet is I tend to use the same value things over and over. Not because I'm trying to, I don't care about bringing value to them it's because I know it's valuable. It's no less valuable cause I sent it to 90 other people. Right.

Speaker 3 (26:56):

Right. Okay. So I'm not sure

Brian Margolis (27:00):

In terms of you not hitting your pillars, I'm not hearing anything about running out of time. It sounds like you have the time.

Speaker 3 (27:11):

Yes. Okay. So,

Brian Margolis (27:13):

So really it's about, cause I always say there's two reasons you don't hit your pillars either. You don't have the time in which case we need to make time for you. Right. we need to talk about some, some cap strategies to do that, but that's not what I'm hearing. I'm hearing the, I have time. But during that time I'm either procrastinating getting distracted. I'm just not doing, I'm just not prioritizing my pillars. Right. And, and it sounds like for at least those two that's what's going on, would you agree with that?

Speaker 3 (27:45):

Yes. Okay. So

Brian Margolis (27:49):

The strategy, like I said, change your language, I think is one strategy. Another strategy you should think about is, is kind of the Parkinson's law. When I talk about the routine and Parkinson's law where, you know, for the first hour you're in the office or hour and a half or two hours or whatever you think will work for you.

Speaker 3 (28:12):

I think you,

Brian Margolis (28:14):

The pro what I call pro time, which is proactive, whether that's pillars or other things, if you use that first hour, hour and a half before you start answering emails, allowing appointment, scheduling things, all that stuff. I think number one, you're, you will do your pillars more effectively because of the high mental energy. Right. But number two, things like the marketing research will happen a lot easier because you're like, this is my time to build my business. Right. I'm in the building phase. And when I think about building my business, this 60 minutes is crucial to building my business. Right. Have you ever thought of that, like a morning routine or owning the first few hours of your morning?

Speaker 3 (28:59):

Yeah. More, yeah. To some extent. To some extent. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Margolis (29:04):

I mean, for me personally, and again, you're hearing this for the first time. People that might be listening to this, they may have heard at 3000 and they're getting sick of me. But you know, from seven to 10 every day is my time. That's when I build my business. Right. I do not accept calls before that. I do not schedule calls like right. Three hours a day. I focus on my pillars and other pro activities. When 10 o'clock hits, I'll be on the phone all day. If I have to, I don't want to be, but I'll be on the phone all day. I'll react all day. I'll deal with emails and fires and my clients and all that stuff all day I have to. But the crazy thing is no matter what happens, no matter how much people try to steal my day from me. And no matter how many times I get off course by 10 o'clock, I've done all the important stuff. Right. Everything else is just a bonus. I'll actually, I'll send you a video of my system on how I do that. I recorded like a 30 minute video sure. On how I plan my week and, and plan my day. 

Speaker 3 (30:06):

Do you think it's important to be an early morning riser? Cause I'm really not an early, like, okay. No.

Brian Margolis (30:14):

It's only important if you are in the kind of industry where you have to be available to someone early in the morning.

Speaker 3 (30:25):

See, I see our industry is the opposite where we're more of an evening industry. Almost like retail. Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Margolis (30:32):

So, yeah. So to me, I don't care if you get in the office at 10 o'clock and then you say from 10 to noon, that is my time. Like I build my business from 10 to noon. I work on my pillars. I work on any other proactive things that I have to do that I have to do that require high mental energy concentration thought at noon, I eat lunch. And then from one o'clock on or whatever it's going to be, you know, that's when I have scheduled appointments, that's when I deal with,

Speaker 3 (31:05):

Look,

Brian Margolis (31:06):

Control your schedule more than you think this is something that took me a long time to figure out. I try to help people figure out quicker. A lot of people don't believe it, but you actually, in your position, you control your schedule a lot more than you think, right? And your ability to not only schedule those two hours or hour and a half each day, or however you want to think about it and then protect it with your life. So to speak. Once you do this, Ryan, you will never go back to doing things any other way. It's like to me owning my I'll tell you two things I could never go back to now that I own my mornings, the first part of my Workday and I plan my day every day and work that plan. I don't know. I can't believe I ever used to function without it. I just must've been all over the map and it makes sense. Cause I used to work morning until night. You know, I don't know if you know this, I developed the pillar system for myself. This was never intended for anyone.

Speaker 3 (32:08):

No, I did not know that. Yeah, yeah,

Brian Margolis (32:09):

No, this was, this is for me. I mean, I know I never had plans of being a consultant, a coach, anything like that. I liked working for myself, my own businesses, whatever they were, but I'm an entrepreneur. And so what happened was a little bit of history is I was the biggest mess in the world. I mean, I mean, I still haven't even met me yet. Right. Like I help people all the time and I'm still trying to find a bigger mess than I was. I used to work till night hours, hours, hours, just, and I'd be like, what the hell am I doing all day? Right. And I was having success, but on a per hour basis, I was a complete failure. If that makes sense. Right. If I ever figured out what my hourly wage was. And so I figured out this system over time, I kept trying all different ways of doing it over time.

Brian Margolis (33:01):

I figured out something that worked for myself and that was kind of the end of it. It was only when I started sharing it with a couple of people. Cause I assumed I was, this was just me and I was lazy and undisciplined, not lazy. I was never lazy, but I was undisciplined and all over the place. It was only when I shared it with a couple of people that I know. And I just saw the reaction in response and Oh my God, this is what I need. This is brilliant. This dumb little simple thing you did. Then I saw an opportunity as an entrepreneur. I'm like, wait a second. Right? If maybe more people are a mess and they can kind of reverse engineered it. Right. I never called it the pillar system. I kind of reverse engineered it figured out what I was doing.

Brian Margolis (33:41):

And that was kind of the birth of it. So anyway, we went off track a little bit there, but yeah, I don't, I don't care what time you get in the office own the first couple of hours and you're good. And start with an hour, start with an hour and a half. Right? Yup. Whatever it is. And you know, you just block it out on your calendar and you tell your assistant and anyone else like, no, I don't, you know, don't schedule me before eight o'clock 10 o'clock whatever's going to be right. Yup. I mean, yeah. Do you work most evenings? I'm not. I mean, I work I'm home by anywhere between six and seven. So not like late. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, so, so if you're, if your days later yeah, I don't for you. I don't see the advantage in rising early, right?

Brian Margolis (34:32):

Yeah, no, that's good. I mean, cause it's, it's good to think that I could still do it without getting, you know, getting up super early. That's all. Yeah. I mean, it's very popular now. Like 4:00 AM, club five, you know, all that stuff. And again, that is for certain people you have to do that. Like for me, I, you know, I have kids in school, different things. And so for me, yes, sleeping til 10 is not realistic. Right. And I don't want to, and anyway, I mean, I'm one of these people it's just hard for me to wake up at five 30 as it is for me to wake up at noon. So it's always a miserable experience for me. So I'm hoping to be up earlier. Right. But, but yeah, so for me it's but yeah. And for some people who have jobs and there's a lot of CEOs out there who, I don't know if you know this, but they often get up early work at home before they go into the office because they know when they get to the office, everyone's going to have demands on their time. But yeah, for you, there's no reason you can't get into the office at whatever time, take that first hour and a half to yourself, do your important stuff and then let the day happen. Right. Yup. All right. Any other questions about hitting your pillars? Any other impediments you see coming?

Ryan (35:45):

I don't think so.

Brian Margolis (35:47):

Think you're good. How do you feel overall about, you know, and don't, you know, I'm not asking you to be a cheerleader I'm asking you to help you, but overall, how do you feel about this process for you?

Ryan (35:59):

I, I really like the, I like the structure because my, so being self-employed of a small company, I mean, my days are, can be very wide open, you know, at times. So I do very much like the structure of having stuff, you know, tasks to complete that or to be proactive. And I also, like I said, I'm a big fan of the, of the weekly look on a single kind of scorecard. So those are the things that I really like about the system itself. And then as far as the pillars I mean, I've been pleasantly surprised at how many people have been saying yes to like my coffee requests. You know, just as a, you know my success rates can pretty pretty high on, on, on that pillar. The social media pillar is something I've been doing. So that's, you know, continues to be, you know, good. And yeah. All in all it's been, it's been good.

Brian Margolis (37:07):

All right. Yeah. So it sounds like the focus has to be a little mental games that we talked about at the beginning. Redefining how you think about those, those couple of pillars, because yeah, eventually, like I said, you want to hit those. We want to get to the point where pillar execution becomes a habit, right. Not the individual pillars, cause those are going to change and you're going to put different criteria around them and things like that. But ultimately we want to get to the point where yeah, everything gets knocked out every week. No problem. It's just what you do. Right.

Ryan (37:37):

And it feels, it feels unfinished if you don't do it.

Brian Margolis (37:40):

That's yeah. And that's when, you know, it's habitual, like I said, it's an itch that has to be scratched a loop that has to be closed. Right. Yup. You know, I've, I, I remember like at least on two occasions working out twice on a Friday to hit my workout pillar, which is absolutely idiotic, like playing stupid games in my mind, like, well, I'm going to take a break and then do something else. And that's two workouts. Like, that's that, that's what happens when it becomes an open loop. I'm not saying you need to get there, but yeah. Anyway. All right, Ryan. Well, and any last minute questions before we stop?

Ryan (38:14):

No, no, I had a great call. I appreciate it.

Brian Margolis (38:18):

I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to another episode of simplify your strategy, magnifier results. If you know someone you think could benefit from this episode, be their hero and share it with them. If you'd like a free copy of my book or you want to be considered as a guest on a future episode, head on over to productivity, giant.com have a great day. And thanks again.