Take Back Your 5-9 and Control Your Time

sacrifices are not sexy. It sounds sexy when someone's saying sacrifice for your dreams. But when you actually have to make sacrifices, it sucks because the sacrifices sound like not spending time with people you love, not having the free time that you want to have, doing things that are hard. Mentally.

Staying in the game can be so challenging. The way that your life is today is built off of what you want to do, and the results that you have are directly tied to the way that you spend your time. The only way to make sacrifices sexy is to tie your sacrifices to who you want to be, where you want to go, and what this future state of your life actually looks like. I can't tell you how much hate I get online from people saying, I don't know

what I'm talking about. I only have business acumen because of the man I married. I'm just some blonde dumb gold digger. Super cool. They could say that about me ten years ago, and I might feel some sort of way about that. I might feel a little bit down about myself and then honestly think, why make sacrifices if I'm not going to get the life that I want to have? This is the worst way to think about what you have to do in order to create the

life that you want. Do not fall into this trap, because the coolest thing about making sacrifices is only you. Get to know the sacrifices that you made. And the bigger the sacrifices are, the better you are going to feel about yourself when you get to where you're trying to go because you know it wasn't luck. The worst thing that can happen to somebody is they just get lucky.

They stumble into success. They fall into it. When you actually take the time to say, I'm going to dedicate myself from 5 to 9, from when I'm off work until the time I go to bed, to becoming this next version of myself. And as you do this for six months and you make those sacrifices, no one can take that away from you. No one can ever throw stones at you, and you are going to be completely unbothered by anything people say. Why? Because you know what?

It took this sacrificial phase in the process of you becoming successful is the power. So lean into it and in your brain, rewire it. Make it so that you think sacrifices are sexy because the result at the end is super sexy. But it's not sexy just to get there because you happen to get lucky. No, you got there because you made sacrifices and you can be proud and stand tall next to those sacrifices. And this is

the intense balls to the wall phase. You got to be real honest with your family, real honest with your friends about how your time and commitments are going to look over the next six months. It's going to be different. That is okay if they don't support you. See you later. Bye. They were never really your friends to begin with, but when you let people know around you that you're going into the sacrifice phase, you're removing the excuse that the people in your life are going to be. The thing

that holds you back. Next is number two, which is to really think about where you're spending your time. I'm challenging you to map out every minute of your day for the next six months. There's nothing more important than mapping out your day, especially the time that you have between 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm, which is the before and after your current 9 to 5 job. Now, some people think I don't have enough time to work on my goals. That is a lot of freaking time. Now

I want to make something really clear here. I'm not recommending that you build your next thing during your 9 to 5. You should not be building your next thing during the time that you are currently in what you are doing right now. If somebody is paying you a paycheck, do not screw that person over. Do not start spending the majority of your time creating this other thing. Why you are always going to think and feel shitty about the fact that somebody else is doing that to you,

especially if you're wanting to become a business owner. If you become a business owner and you build that business on the back of somebody else paying you and you didn't do a good job with them, you are always going to think that your team members are doing that to you. They're going to be trust issues. Don't do it.

It is the wrong way to exit. You can work full time, 9 to 5 for somebody else, earn a paycheck for doing that work while still being able to build the next thing that you want to go after and you want to do. And you use the time after work, not during work, after work, to go build that thing. That is the right way to do that. But the time that you have after work from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm is a vital. It is important.

That is like the gold treasure time that you have, and every single minute of that time should be planned out. 2 to 3 hours of your 5 to 9 every single day should go towards study and application. These things go together. You can't just study something for six months and assume that you're gonna become great at it. I one time took this approach. For years I studied public speaking, and the study made me think that I was making progress towards public speaking. Let me just tell you something.

You can read every freaking book, you can watch every YouTube video, you can talk with other public speakers and get their advice. But if you never actually publicly speak, you are not going to get better at public speaking. So the study has to come. Yes, you should learn how to make a presentation in Canva. You should learn the basics of storytelling, but as soon as you learn that thing, you instantly move into application, study and application. So knowing that you have a 5 to 9 chunk

on a Monday night, you would study Canva. You would actually understand. How do I make things and put it in the right order and make transitions so that it makes the presentation interesting? Cool. Then for an hour that night you're going to actually use Canva. You're not just going to take this information. All this inflow without outflowing. That is my rule. If you inflow you must also outflow. You're getting information. You're receiving knowledge. Okay. Great. We're going

to apply that. That is how you make progress in your 5 to 9 over the six months. Instead of feeling like you're just making all of these sacrifices for this long extended period of time without really seeing, am I able to get a result in the field of study that I am currently investing my time into? Now I'm going to ask you to really look at where do you currently spend your 5 to 9? If you have a one hour commute to the office? First off, maybe you should move closer to work because an hour

of your time is valuable. It is precious. It is one of the most important things that you have. And if you are spending that full hour driving where you can't pay attention to really learning something new, you are robbing yourself of valuable time. Now you can use that

time in order to learn something. Listen to podcasts, but your full attention isn't there, and I would just strongly recommend get as close as possible to the places that you have to go every single day, because it's going to give you more time back in order to do things and create things that you might not right now

have time to do because you're stuck in a car driving. Now, if you're unwilling to move closer to your work because you want to make it easier for yourself to be more successful and you are just committed to this one hour commute, this actually means that you don't have a 5 to 9. It means you have a 6 to 9, so you just shrink the total amount of time that

you have and you have one less hour. Now you can still get a lot done from 6 to 9, but you will have to be extra vigilant about where that time is being spent, so you can make progress towards getting to where you were trying to go. Now that brings us to tip number three, which is that errands are distraction. Have you ever wondered why rich people don't go to the grocery store. It's because somebody else

can go to the grocery store for them. That is the least valuable thing that they could spend their time doing. It's not because they're so important or think so highly of themselves. They value their time and they can't get that time back. What I like to think about is if I want to make $1 million, I want to be $1 million earner. I can't also do things that somebody who makes $50,000 a year does. Because if I'm doing things that somebody who makes $50,000 a year does,

I can't then make $1 million a year. I can't be both people. It's confusing. I'm gonna be strategic. I'm gonna sell. I'm gonna learn all these valuable skills while also spending my time doing something that has no value. So think about your groceries. You can have your groceries delivered to you. Think about a workout. You can actually work out at home. You don't have to drive somewhere

to work out. You can shrink and use effectively the time that you once wasted by outsourcing and optimizing where you spend your time. The mindset shift is what I really want to hammer into you. Because if you do not value your time, you're going to add things that just waste your time and wonder why you're not making progress.

One of my hacks to get my time back very early on in my career was having all of my food in frozen containers that I would put in the freezer at my office so I could microwave it for 2.5 minutes and be able to eat it while I took more meetings. Now, some people aren't willing to do this. They're like, oh, I need time. I need to decompress. I have to check in with things. What the frick do you have to check in on? If you're trying to change your life, you need to spend more time

that you don't have right now doing productive things. Something that's productive would be eating as fast as possible so that you're able to actually talk to people, move an initiative forward, learn something new. So I don't add time to me having a meal. I try to eat as efficiently as possible. Now. Today I am no longer eating Lean Cuisines for lunch. However, I don't hate on Lean Cuisines. I think Lean Cuisines are fantastic and if that's what you need to do in order to get your time back,

eat the Lean Cuisine. It takes three minutes in the freezer. It takes three minutes in the microwave for you to efficiently get food so you can get back to work. But this idea of lunch breaks or spending a lot of time eating breakfast or going out to dinner with people just sucks time away from you. So what I'd recommend you do is take an audit of your 5 to 9 for the last two weeks. Where do you invest that time today and how do you batch those tasks? So you do them all at once and make it

as efficient as possible. And for the ones that you can't batch, how do you outsource them so that somebody else can get that task done so that it frees up your time and ability to make more progress? Next up is step number four, which is you have to earn your fun. There's no dinner with friends until you hit your goals. Use the things that you want to do as something that is a treat and a reward for doing the things that you have to do. Nothing

feels better than getting a treat from hard work. A reward for your sacrifices. When I'm in a period of sacrifice, it's frustrating. As much as I try to sell myself on sacrifices, sexiness is awesome. It feels shitty. It feels crappy while it's happening. So I create these little treats

for myself to look forward to along the way. When I first started working out, my treat was buying one new article of clothing for every month that I was consistent with my workouts, so I would look forward all month to being able to pop into Lululemon and to get a new top, or to get a new pair of shorts, and it would feel so good spending that 45 minutes going around the store, because I knew that I was making progress towards something that I wanted to

make progress in deeply, and it made me feel so good to go around the store and to pick out

something as a reward for the sacrifices that I made. Similarly, I remember during Covid it was such a crunch time in my business, but every week that I actually executed on the commitments that I made to myself with the meetings and the training I did and the bedtime that I had, I would reward myself with an hour long trip to target, and I would walk around every single aisle of target, and it made me feel so good about myself and the weeks when I slacked off, which

was only one I didn't let myself go to target. And during that four months of being heads down, so locked in, spending morning till night working and creating value inside our business, I was able to create these little tiny moments throughout that allowed me to feel some sort of a reward. It wasn't just four months of hard, it was four months of hard with little tiny moments of things that I could look forward to that helped

keep me in the game. One of my favorite quotes is pay the price today so you can pay any price tomorrow. Pay the price today. What are you willing to sacrifice and give up on today in order for you to get to where you're trying to go so you can do whatever you want in the future? That brings us to the last step, number five, which is all about learning and practicing how to learn faster than 99% of people. One of the fastest ways to learn something new.

Instead of going to college and paying some institution tens of thousands of dollars, use ChatGPT to put together a curriculum that is actually going to get you a tangible skill. ChatGPT can be a wonderful tool to get you to actually learn and then do, but it's only wonderful if

you prompt it to do that. So as you're having it build you a six month curriculum to become a master at sales, or to become a master in editing videos or creating viral social content, tell it that yes, you want the data and the information in the most up to date places where you can go to become an expert, but then have it give you quizzes and practicals so you can demonstrate that you actually know how

to do that data. I give it all sorts of additional requirements, such as how much time I actually have to dedicate to this, and the exact types of quiz questions that it should give me. Are they easy quiz questions? Are they advanced quiz questions? Do I want it to trip me up? I want ChatGPT to get me a final result, which is my ability to do something that

right now I can't do. So the more I'm able to structure a prompt to help it build me a curriculum that over time I am working through, the more effective it's going to be at actually getting me the education that I need. And when you get the education that you need and the implementation that can change your life, everything changes. It is wild how fast you can start to pick up new subjects, new topics, things that honestly,

you might have felt dumb about before. All because you were able to get somebody to actually understand what you do and don't know and fill that gap in the information. Now it's going to provide this list. You have to make the time, which is your 5 to 9. You can't just tell ChatGPT you create me a six month curriculum of me studying two hours a day and have it give you that information without you taking the action.

But we live in a day and age where there's no reason for you not to get the data that you need in order to change your life. You have the data, but now you need to use the time that you have to actually learn and then implement it. You can't just read and study. The way you become confident is by creating competence, and you get competence through implementation. If you're serious about changing your life, then the next step is to build the right systems and habits to make success inevitable.

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