Billy Keels  0:00  Stop ignoring yourself. Here's how to take back time. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's makeitoptional.com. Stop ignoring yourself. Here's how to take back time is absolutely the episode for you. If you've ever thought to yourself that working a 60 plus hour a week becomes the norm, like that's just the norm. That's just how things go. I'm here to tell you that that may be the case, but it shouldn't become the norm. And if you give me just a couple of minutes, you're going to understand how I went through that in corporate and the lessons that I learned, how you can actually make them work better for you than they work for me. Learn from my mistakes, so that not only are you performing better in your corporate role and feeling more filled at the same time, you are clearly able to be on your path to optionality. Optionality meaning that you are doing the things that you want to do, with whom you want to do them, when you want to do them, because you want to, not because you feel like you have to. Let me not digress, because I'm very passionate about this subject, because I talk to people about it all the time, executives. I talk to you, as you know, through LinkedIn, we usually start on DMS and then eventually get on a phone call and you're sharing the things that are happening in your life. This is not because it's something that I live by myself. I live this and because I recognize what I live in others that I'm still speaking to today. Whenever you're listening to this podcast, the same thing is still happening now. I want to share the story with you. I want to share this with you so that you can move further, faster and be on your path to creating optionality. So like I said, I got to a point where it didn't matter, like, literally, 12 hour days was the norm, working just in my corporate role at a certain point. Then I started realizing how I could use the time, that time better, et cetera, et cetera. But we're talking a normal maybe it was a 10 hour 10 hours a day, Monday through Friday, and then on the weekends, I was probably stealing four or five hours, right each day, and and I thought that that was just the norm, like, that's just what everybody does, because you're constantly you're highly paid, you're highly visible, you're like me, you're an enterprise software sales, or maybe you're in hardware, or maybe you're in in pharmaceuticals, and maybe you're even in like, other high roles, which are like my clients. The thing is, when the weeks begin to get out of control and you're constantly fighting fires, like, you're constantly fighting what is like urgent, and your urgent pile, like, continues to start high, and then it goes down every day. But the real pile that you need to think about the one that's really bothering you, in your mind, in your gut, it's the important pile. Because you keep putting the important off, you keep pushing it out, because you think the urgency is what's going to keep you afloat. I've been there, done that like so let me share with you, you are not alone and it and because those things happen, and that's what has it also happened to me. That's why I'm sharing it with you. Like I remember there was a phase, phase in my life where I was constantly pushing through and getting through the the urgent, the urgent, the urgent, and it wasn't until I started realizing, like, I need to also focus my time, effort and energy, and then eventually my financial resources on the important, because that's the stuff that set me free. That's the stuff that got me to optionality, and that is exactly why I'm sharing this, because I want this for you, because I got to the point, yeah, you know what? I wanted to continue to do more. You know I was the task King. Got got task things done. Maybe you're the task queen. You get everything done. Everybody looks to you. If it gets on Billy's plate, you know it's going to get done. Urgent, urgent, urgent. But remember, I've got an important part of my life too, that I wanted to get moving forward. And so what I realized that I just wanted to be able to also have time. I had to figure out how to carve out time to figure out what was important to me. So as we start thinking about stop ignoring yourself, stop putting your important behind everybody else's urgent. I'm going to share one thing with you that's going to help you to take back your time, because that's super important, because it's the one asset. It is the equalizer, because that's what everybody has. Doesn't matter if you're the richest person in the world or you are sleeping under a bridge, you got 24 hours to use, and how are you best leveraging using them? Et cetera. So what I started realizing was, yeah, I wanted to continue to work, wanted to continue to make money, wanted to continue to have more and more responsibility, because those were the things that at that point in my life gave me a sense of worth it. Got to the point that it was so so bad at certain moments in my life that I was afraid to say to other people like, Hey, listen. By being able to get work done, it helps me to feel better about how I'm contributing to my household, to my teammates, to my. My family, because it was really uncomfortable to verbalize those things. It took time training therapy to be able to recognize like, Hey, listen, these things are important to me. This is how I have a better sense of contribution that helps to increase my self worth, et cetera, et cetera. And so what I started recognizing, though, is that the thing that I needed to do was stop fighting against myself and stop just treating things that were done needed to be done urgently. And the thing that I want to share with you, it's going to seem a bit counterintuitive, because the single most important action that I did that I want to share with you, that helped me to stop ignoring myself and start thinking about how I could take my time back. Was very simply being able to put and protect my boundaries, because at a certain point in this, you know, and I didn't really understand what I didn't understand what that meant, like, put your boundaries, set your boundaries. Well, it just means it's okay to say no, someone like me who tends to want to please people, and it's not something that comes normal. Normally, you want to say, Hey, listen, yeah, I'll do that. I'll take that on. Yep, I want to help. Yes, I want to do this. Want to do that? Well, remember, if you just continue to fight the urgent, the importance never going to get done. So it is about how you start, stop ignoring yourself, start to pay attention to yourself, your needs. What it is that you know is going to help to move the needle in your life which is going to positively impact the ones that you love the most, the ones that love that that that you love the most, that love you the most, and that's going to give you a higher sense of fulfillment. And so it is about setting and protecting your personal time, right? And you do that by setting and protecting your own boundaries. So when there are moments that you need to get things done because you want to get them done, because it moves the important needle, not just the urgent needle. Then you've got to set it there. You've got to set and protect your time. That is really what it comes down is being able to create and set and protect your boundaries. Now here's where you can get a little bit uncomfortable, especially for anyone who's a people pleaser, also a perfectionist, because you want to get everything done right every single every single time, the first time it's got to be done perfectly well. Here's the thing, it's also you have to push through, because when you feel like you are having a conversation, that's going to make you and the person that you are sitting in front of, and whether that is your spouse, whether that is your child, whether that is your parent, whether that is whoever you think is the whoever that person is. That you have that feeling with that feeling of uneasiness, because you now have to explain why you need this time, why it's important that this time, that you're protecting and setting, why it's important for the person that's sitting in front of you, that you have that you have that specific time to get that task, that important task, done, or at least push forward. I've been there. I know it's uncomfortable, but it's one that you get better at the more that you have the conversation, but that starts with you by not ignoring yourself. You've got to stop that. Once I stopped that, and I started to take my own time back. Life got much better, me getting to the optionality with my family, got much faster, got much clearer, and it arrived sooner. So here's the thing, I want to make sure that you understand that it's possible, especially when you're working those 60 and 70 hour weeks. It's just about getting How can you carve out one extra hour per day by setting boundaries, not and I've done something where I woken up much earlier and I've gone to sleep later, and you can do that, and I chose to do that at the same time, you can look in your own calendar. There's some inefficiencies in there. I promise you, there are. Nobody's going back to back to back to back to back with meaningful meetings. Sometimes it's going to mean you say no to a meeting that's not adding value, or where you're not directly needed, and you begin to take back minute by minute. Get to an hour, an hour a day, an hour a day, over 60 hour a week, when you're working five hours a week, that's from 60 hours to 55 hours and on the weekends, don't work. Just don't work. Why? Because you become more efficient during the week and on the weekends. If that's important thing, then you have the time to be with your loved ones, to invest that time appropriately. So I am.Billy Keels  9:48  I remember when I did I like at the end, I was playing video games with my kids until they started beating me so bad that now I don't want to play video games with my kids anymore. But anyway, that let me not like. Grass too much, but so, so that's that's one thing, but more importantly, you will begin to feel better about protecting your time, setting the boundaries, because once you start cont working more on the important, versus just simply, the urgent, as you start to see the needle move on the important stuff in your life that's going to help you get closer to your own life goals, your life priorities, so that you can invest the time, energy, effort and resources with the ones you love the most. That's the moment that you really stop ignoring yourself. You continue to start paying much more attention, and you begin to take more of your time back, and you leverage that time for the activities that are going to give you help you move the needle on the important stuff, not just the urgent stuff. So if this is you, then you listen this podcast is meant to help you recognize that it's setting protecting boundaries. It's not easy. It can be uncomfortable. If you feel like you need somebody to talk to you. I ain't hard to find you know where to find me. I would also say, if this is not you and this is someone that you know you love, share the episode with them, and then share the episode, but then also go and speak to the person, talk about it. Go from theory to practice, start that uncomfortable conversation today, and then from there, while you're doing that, guess where I'll be I'll be right here preparing for the next episode. So until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much.Billy Keels  11:32  Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's make it optional.com