Billy Keels  0:00  

Are you stuck in the corporate trap of working 80 hours a week just to stay ahead? Here's the truth. The better your company is, the more it's going to produce, which means at the end of the day, the cycle of work, it's never ever ever going to end, and it's not going to stop unless you change. So, in this episode, I'm going to reveal the exact time telescope strategy, so that you can start to reclaim eight hours a week, crush your corporate performance metrics, and even free up the time that you need, so that you can launch that profitable side business. Let's break down the blueprint and get you to optionality. 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

Speaker 1  0:47  

helping you build freedom without losing your edge. This is The Going Long Podcast with Billy Keels.

Billy Keels  0:59  

It's not uncommon for future clients or people that I'm meeting through different social media channels, or you loyal listeners and viewers here. When we start having conversations, one of the first things that we dig into is, you know, are you usually will share with me is the fact that you're working a lot of hours, right? And that's usually a question of, okay, well, How much time are you generally working or thinking about your work? And it may seem like a very basic question, it is. It's a simple question, but it's just about the mindset, and usually high achievers are always looking for the edge, always looking to be number one, always looking to figure out how can I actually be at the top of the stack ranking, how can I be more promotable, and it's no, it's, and because of the fact that you're always looking to figure out how you can get the next edge, it's not uncommon to hear someone say, "Hey, listen, this has been another 80 hour week, or, "You know what, I just wrapped up this week, it's been pretty light, and it's only been 65 hours now. You may be thinking to yourself, well, that seems like a lot of hours, but also you're probably nodding your head, going, well, yeah, that's what it takes. That's what it takes to be in a position where I can make more money, because that's just what it takes in the big multinational. That's what it takes for me to be able to be in a position where I'm constantly promotable, because that's just what it does, that's just how you show that you're valuable, because you're always on, you're always available, and that's what gets you into those 65 to 80 hour weeks. It's not uncommon, you know, you're driving in the car, you're walking on the treadmill, and you're silently shaking your head. I know you are, you know why? Because I used to do it. It's not uncommon, but that's one of the things early on. Yes, I was doing that in my career, and those were the things that I also thought were the things that made me the most valuable. Then I got to a point where I wanted to realize that, yes, being promotable, yes, making money, all of those things were important, and now the most important thing is that I can not have my brain constantly on fire, because I'm constantly thinking about work the way that I can get the next edge, and I want to be mentally and physically present with the ones that I love, and I also want to be able to be able to sit here in silence and enjoy it. Yeah, you get to a point where you want to be able to do that, because you realize working more hours, these constant 80 hour weeks, it is exhausting. This, when people talk about burnout, a lot of it, the burnout can lead to, because it's constantly working more and more and more hours, not having clarity about where it is that you want to be able to go the outcomes that you want to be able to produce, and so it's no wonder that you run into a wall and you crash and you burn, because here's the thing, and I know I've shared it multiple times, but I'm going to share it again. Large multinational companies, and I enjoyed them for 26 years. This is not shade, this is just the reality. They are organisms that must continue to grow, and because they continue to grow, they're always producing work. So, the work never ever ever stops. It doesn't ever stop, never ever, especially the better the company, the more work it produces. Let me say that again, the better the company, the more work it produces. So you have to be very, very aware, and usually you're not aware until you like one day you pick your head up and you look, and you recognize that there are other colleagues that are near you, that are senior leaders, that are top producers, and they don't look nearly as exhausted, or feel nearly as exhausted as you do. I'm a curious person, and I remember, and I think this was more than likely 2008 2012 so.

Billy Keels  4:59  

Thing like that, I remember I was leading a team in the UK, and I was traveling to England every couple of, every couple of weeks, actually, and I remember one of the people who was a top-producing sales executive, an AE, eventually went on to do a number of different things, leadership positions in the organization, but I remember people saying, yeah, you should meet him, and that guy always looked completely fresh, top of his game, and I was thinking, well, he's at the top of his game, he's making literally seven figure bonus checks, because he had one of the most high producing accounts in the company, and this was the company I used to work for, a German company, three letters, blue background. I think you get the picture. Yeah, you're shaking your head. You know which one, enterprise software. But the fact of the matter is, I went up to this guy one day, and I was asking him, like, hey, listen, you know, I'm new, blah, they've been around for a couple years, not nearly as long as he'd been working for the for the UK subsidiary, and I asked him, like, "Hey, listen, what are you know, what are your secrets for success? We started on the account, eventually asked him just about some, some work-life things that always looked on, always looked fresh, and he was saying, "Well, because I enjoy being here, I really like being here, I put in the hours that I need to, I'm producing the outcomes, and you know, I also have the real estate portfolio, and he was telling me about the real estate portfolio, and he got into like 2025, units, I was like, "Whoa, this is really cool, but like, how do you actually, how do you do that? And so, what I realized was, yes, there were other people that were around me. Now, it took me some time to actually kick in and start doing something similar, but this guy was living differently, he looked differently, he was walking differently, he was talking differently, and so I wanted to learn from that, and so what I realized was later on, and this is one of the reasons that I'm sharing with you, because now today one of the ways that I am helping clients, and so I want to take this from what I'm helping clients with, I'm going to just give it to you for free here, I want to share it with you, because I know it's going to help you, especially if you're working that 65 to 80 hours a week, we stop and we look, and we, we actually take a look in your telescope, through a telescope, through a lens, and look at your time, right. We're time telescope it and figure out how exactly are you investing your time, because those 80 hours, we need to figure out what those 80 hours are all about, and like, literally part of the way that I help my clients is saying, let's measure it, because you know what it is, and I'm going to say it, and you're going to finish this statement. What gets measured gets done exactly. You knew it, you knew it. So the thing is, is we start there, we look at your, your time. How are you investing your time? Every 15 minutes, we're going to take a snapshot, we're going to look at it, because we want to be able to look at that. We're going to do that over a specific period of time. At the end of that period of time, then we're going to get down and we're going to dig into it. We're going to analyze it, because at the end of the day, what we want to be able to do is understand how your time is being invested today. Because then after that, when we put the actions in place, it gives you the power to control how you continue to invest your time, because if it's all about the hours, that was never the rule anyway. Remember, the organism is constantly producing more work, so it's not about the hours that you work, because it's never going to stop. It's about the outcomes that you're producing in the time that you have in your, in your role. That's what it's about.

Billy Keels  8:22  

That's what this time telescope exercise is all about, because it's giving you the power to start to say, hey, listen, there's time that's leaking here that's not producing outcomes. Why am I doing this? There's time that's leaking there, or there's time that I'm investing over here that is producing zero outcomes. Why am I doing that? It gives you the power to start to make the corrective actions, and you're probably thinking to yourself, well, boy, this sounds like it's very difficult. It's not easy, but it's simple. It's a simple process. Are you going to be a little bit uncomfortable? Of course, you are, because you've not done this before. But the other question is, do you want to keep working 80 hours a week? Isn't that getting exhausting? Wouldn't just 15 every 15 minutes for a certain period of time, and just being able to realize, okay, well, this is actually what's happening. This is why I'm not producing as many outcomes as I could, and why I'm exhausted, and I'm investing so many different hours over here. Don't you think it's worth it for because once you get to that point, you're going to be in a situation where that 80 hours a week, if just going through this exercise on the very, very conservative low end, you can start to save 10% of the time that you are investing. Now, let's say you're on 80 hours a week, 10% of that, that's eight hours for some people that's a full day, you're a high achiever, so you're putting in more hours, but think about that eight hours, what could you do with that eight hours? Is that time you could invest going to the gym? Is that time that you can invest with loved ones? Is that time that you can invest with just being able to sit down and sit in silence and enjoy the silence? Could you use that time to start that side business, the one that's going to allow you to have more control ultimately over your time and your income? What if you're on the other end, on the low end, the 65 hours a week, that's six and a half hours, let's call it six, will be more conservative here. What can you do with that six hours? Is that a because normally Monday through Friday you were working 10 hours on the weekends you're working something similar, six and a half, seven, that's at least one day that you get back to full day that you can reclaim for yourself on the weekends, be fully present for yourself for family members. How's that sound? And that's just 10% going through this very simple time telescope exercise. I think it sounds like a heck of a bargain, because at the end of the day, yes, you want to get that time back, yes, you want to be able to quantify these hours, but you want to be able to feel like you don't have to constantly be on in work or thinking about work or thinking about how you can get to the number one position. Well, guess what? When you're being much more efficient with your time and producing higher quality outcomes, that could be one of the byproducts, is that you are number one in the stack ranking, or you do go from number five to number two, and you're doing it in less hours, being much more effective with the outcomes that you're producing. Heck, that sounds like pretty good deal to me. And so, here's the thing: if you're suffering from this, just go back, listen to the episode again, go through the time telescope exercise that I just laid out high level for you, right? 15 minute chunks, you're gonna actually go through that, you're going to do it for a specified period of time, and then afterwards it's about being able to dig in to analyze to figure out, okay, what are the right steps to now take, so that you can produce higher quality outcomes, and do that in less time.

Billy Keels  11:53  

If it's not you, share today's episode with somebody, share so that you can show them that you care, and then afterwards get on the phone with them, meet them for coffee, have your favorite beverage, and talk about the concept. Go from theory to practice, so you can start to build more expertise in mastering skills. That's it. Nothing else. So, while you're doing this, while you're thinking about today's episode, while you're putting it into practice, I'm gonna be here preparing for the next episode. So, until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much,

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