Back in 1991, Bill Gates & Warren Buffett were at a dinner party when they were asked an interesting question...
"What has been the single most important factor to your success?"
Although Bill & Warren were both near the top of the Forbes list for "richest person in the world"...
They didn't really know each other.
But in this moment...
They glanced at each other like old friends & both said the same word...
The F Word:
Focus.
Now, I know we all hear that word a lot...
And it might sound like some sort of "feel good" cliche.
I used to think that too...
Until I hit a wall recently.
You see, when you start to get good at something - the opportunities multiply.
At first, this seems great.
If you're a business owner, this means more people will hit you up & ask to pay you to for your products & services...
You start making more...
You're no longer in "feast or famine"...
And you feel a sense of pride & accomplishment.
Everything seems great until your stress levels have gone through the roof & every other word popping into your head is either "client", "ad", or "email" lol...
And to be totally transparent with you...
This is how I felt.
STRESSED.
Like I had no time for myself... Not even time to think.
So I messaged one of my mentors yesterday and told him everything I'd been doing lately:
- Deliverability Jobs
- Email copywriting
- VSLs
- Landing pages
- Consulting
- Group coaching
- Email List Management
- and hopping on WAY too many calls
And by me saying all that stuff...
I realized I'd forgotten about the F word...
Focus.
It's easy to lose focus when people are willing to pay you for 8 different services.
You see the money & think that you have no choice but to take it.
Granted, I'm making more money than I ever thought I would... But not every dollar you make is the same.
Some are more stressful than others.
And eventually, it puts you over the edge.
That's what happened to me.
I didn't realize until recently that putting focus into 8 different things means I can only do each of them to 1/8th of what I could do if I focused on one.
And creates 8x the stress.
I'd been thinking about this lately - but it finally sunk in.
And I didn't want to take it anymore.
So I set some new rules for myself.
(If you ever feel as stressed as I do, hopefully these rules will be a benchmark to set rules for yourself, too)
1. I will only block off a MAXIMUM of 2 hours per day for Zoom/phone calls. Ideally, I want to keep it under 1 hour per day.
2. I will only offer the following services:
- Email List Management
3. When I wake up, I will ONLY work on the most important thing on my to-do list. I will not check email or notifications until that thing is done.
4. I will stop working by 6pm each day.
And I already feel relieved.
Like a huuuuuuuge weight is off my shoulders.
I've had a couple of these moments before - a moment when you realize you need to prioritize yourself & your health.
And the funny thing is, each time this has happened, I've made more money by doing less.
Most people think the opposite is true. But when you focus on less, you can actually put enough time into those thing(s) and get VERY VERY good at them.
And you can build your team & scale to the point where the amount of money you make is no longer a function of your time...
But rather your focus.
This has worked out every time I've done it before... but sometimes you just need to re-adjust your focus.
And I know this will be true again.
So I hope this helps if you're going through something similar.
- Troy "F Word" Ericson P.S. This post originally came from an email I sent to my private list. If you want to see more stuff like this from me & get my Email FAQ Answer Doc for FREE (it pretty much answers every single question you have about email), you can join my list using this link