My theme a few year's ago was "SIMPLIFY!"

 

I was through, totally done with chasing down all the low profit, low return, or low interest items in my life. Time is the most valuable thing I have to offer my wife, kids, family, friends, and business interests.

 

Time is more valuable than money because you can always make more money, but you can't make more time.

 

Simplifying my life means being more selective about who or what gets my time. For example, I don't take unscheduled phone calls. I'm more selective about traveling. My speaking gigs are limited to carefully selected audiences.

 

Finally, I'm only writing to the people I like best...

 

 

 

At first, I was concerned about the unintended consequences of drawing a tighter circle around my life.

 

I've always struggled with the mindset of having to do everything, be everything, and figure out everything all by myself. Now, I haven't eliminated everything, but I have been much more selective about what I try to get done when it interferes with what I want to become.

 

Do you know how hard it is to teach yourself malware removal/prevention on a shared server running WordPress? It's hard, but it's not impossible. I enjoy it, it's profitable, and it's in my best interest because my private marketing clients' advertising runs in this environment.

On the other hand, there are many other things I've had to simplify. I let them go, especially anything that isn't in my core competency, isn't fun or interesting for me to do, or could be done by somebody more qualified for less than what it would cost me to do it myself.

 

For example, trimming my trees. Sure, I would save some money if I got out there and did it myself, but I really need to invest in better tools. I would need a chipper or some way to bundle the branches for disposal. Plus, there's those dang tree asps -- those suckers sting like nobody's business.

 

By not doing stuff like the trees, I'm free to do more of the things more valuable to me, my wife, kids, family, friends, and important business partners.

 

 

If we're not careful, we catch ourselves thinking, "I can't help it. My schedule is out of control. It's always something. All I do is put out fires!"

 

I'm going to agree with you, but I'm also going to challenge you because I believe most of the problems we spend our time chasing down are caused by the choices we've made. We all make choices.

 

My tree is growing out of control, but I chose to live in a house with a tree in the front yard. My fence is almost falling down, but I chose to spend my money taking the kids to Disney last summer instead of replacing the West side of my backyard fence. My salesperson is out of control. Who hired him? I wish I was 30 lbs lighter, but I keep stuffing OREO's in my mouth at midnight. We all make choices.

 

To not take responsibility for the choices I've made is to choose a victim's mentality. 

I'm not a victim. I'm in control of my destiny. I'm the one who answers for my own problems. I made the choices that got me here, and now I'm going to make the choices that get me out of here. It's not you, it's me.

 

✌ Mike