RJon Robins: From The Vault
RJon Robins: From The Vault
Decision-Making Skills You Need Right Now
Welcome inside the vault. This is a collection of previously unreleased lessons from eight-figure entrepreneurial mastermind RJon Robins. And in case you didn’t see the warning label - this content can be explicit and it is for serious entrepreneurs only.
In this lesson, RJon takes you through a decision-making exercise to identify, categorize, and prioritize key decisions in your business (and life). He also shares insights on the mindset of making decisions and the importance of taking courageous action even when the "how" is anything but clear. Be sure to have a pen and paper at the ready when listening to this episode. It's time to make some decisions. Let's go to the vault!
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Turn the lessons in this episode into an actionable growth plan for your business with the FREE 5-Week Business Plan Bootcamp. https://htm.live/bootcamp
Welcome inside the vault. This is a collection of previously unreleased lessons from eight-figure entrepreneurial mastermind RJon Robins. And in case you didn't see the warning label, this content can be explicit, and it is for serious entrepreneurs only. Now in this lesson from 2016, RJon gives us an analytical look at identifying and making decisions in your business. Let's go to the vault.
Testimonials:Working with RJon is like having a shortcut to future you. Every time I can have an opportunity to spend time with RJon, I try to take it and be a sponge. I thought everyone was crazy. You know, they were running to the front of the stage to see this person. RJon's wearing his crazy shirt. You know, he drinks tiger blood in the morning just for fun and he's like breathing down my throat. Sometimes it's terrifying to work with him. It's like he's looking into your soul. But it's, it's growth the whole way.
RJon Robins:I'm going to take you through an exercise that we do every quarter. DECISION-MAKING skills. There is a mindset of decision making, which is different from the skills, but I'm going to share the skills with you first, because I think that if you understand the skills, if you get comfortable with the skills, then the mindset of making decisions becomes easier. Does that make sense? Yeah? Okay, good. So here's what we do. First, you're going to just do a brain dump. Just list all of the decisions that you've been dragging around with you. Meaning to make. Waiting to make. Procrastinating to make. Telling yourself you don't really have to make this decision. Let me tell you a little clue. If you have been telling yourself you don't have to make a decision, chances are you probably have to make a decision. Right? Now there are decisions that you're going to put on the calendar to make at a specific time, and that's okay. But if the decision doesn't have a date or a specific objective criteria to make it, you're basically just procrastinating. We all know that, right? All right. So here's the exercise. Just do a brain dump of all the decisions that you know must be made eventually in order to grow your business. This is an exercise that you should be doing. I would recommend quarterly. At least twice a year. We do this every quarter, pretty religiously. Alright, so what we're going to do next is, you're going to categorize"Get Money", "Keep Money", "Keep Sanity", and "Things You Want To Do". Now here's the key. The key is to make a decision. Don't waffle. It's got to live in one of these four boxes. It can't live on the line. Either it's a "Get Money" activity, it gets fresh new money coming into your business. These are principally going to be marketing and sales types of activities. It could be hiring. If that's something that gets money coming in, "Keep Money", are activities that prevent you from having to give refunds or prevent you from wasting money. If you've got a slow leak in your business, for example, if you're a merchant service provider, you know, every month you're paying. 4% percent and you've now reached a point where it matters that you're paying 4%. And if you can get it down to 2%, you'll be able to keep a bunch of the money that you're currently spending. That would be a "Keep Money" activity. Most of the production in your business is going to be "Keep Money" types of activities, because if you don't do the work, you have to give refunds. Make sense?"Keep Sanity" is mostly going to be administrative in nature. A lot of your processes, policies, systems, procedures, checklists, infrastructure, staff training, a lot of your financial management, financial controls, things like that are usually going to be "Keep Sanity". And then "Want To Do" are the things you want to do. These are going to be your rewards to yourself. This is not just business. All of these can also be personal. We're not going to make these artificial distinctions between your business life and your personal life. It's your life. Right? If you're waffling between, 'Well, you know, this is something that could get me money, but it's also something that can keep me money, but it's also something that I want to do.' Flip a fucking coin, right? It's got to live in one box or the other box. If you look at someone's calendar and the next 12 months is full of nothing but things that get new money coming into the business, what do you know is going to show up in the business over the course of the next 12 to 18 months? What's going to happen to revenues? It's going to go up. Yes? And if they're only working on 'Get Money. Get Money. Get Money. Get Money. Get Money!' and they're not working and you look at the calendar and there aren't any "Keep Money" activities, what do you know is going to be going out the back door?'Refunds, refunds, refunds, refunds, refunds!' And if you see nothing but'Get Money and Keep Money. Get Money and Keep Money. Get Money and Keep Money. Get Money and Keep Money,' the business is going to grow a lot, right? But there's no "Keep Sanity". What do you know the office looks like? It looks like a disaster. There's piles of files everywhere. There's things that are being lost. Everyone's going nuts, which leads to burnout. If you see nothing, nothing, nothing, but 'Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money,' activities, right?'Production, production, production. Customer service, customer service, customer service.' How do you know all the clients of the firm feel? How do they feel? They feel taken care of. They feel loved! All that's happening all day long is everyone in the firm is doing nothing, but things that keep money that's producing product that makes clients happy. So you don't ever have to give any refunds. You know, where lawyers love to hide out? This is where lawyers love to hide out. And lawyers hate doing "Get Money" activities. So what happens in a business that's got nothing but 'Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money. Keep Money,' activities?'Production, production, production, customer service, customer service, customer service.' The business is slowly dying. Revenues are kind of on a glide path down to nothing. We're flipping around. You're doing nothing but 'Keep Sanity. Keep Sanity. Keep Sanity. Keep Sanity. Keep Sanity,' activities. We call that failure to launch. We meet lawyers all over the country who are sitting there, "Well, you know, I, um, I can't get my law firm going cause I still have, you know, 37 more policies to draft. And 14 more procedures to look up. And I got to do more research. And I got to do more research. And I got to do more analysis. And I got to do more preparation. And I got to do more thinking. And I got to shop 19 different vendors to save a half a point on my merchant service fees to save a fraction of a penny cause I've got no money coming in. And who cares if you're paying 4% percent or 3% percent when it's 4% percent or 3% percent of nothing! But they'll hide out in this"Keep Sanity" mode forever. See what I'm saying? You want the result, learn how to make decisions. That's what we're here to do. All right. Step three. So far, this has been easy. This is the gut wrenching part. Step three is pick seven of these decisions that you're going to make before you leave this meeting. Let's decide which decisions are worth deciding. So take your seven decisions that you took from your list, that you checked off or circled from your list, and transfer them. And I'm just telling you guys. There's something valuable, there's something useful, there's something worthwhile, about the physicality of transferring the decisions from one written page to another. There's something about the messaging that goes through your hand to your mind. I can explain it, but it would take me having to teach you about a whole big long article that I read as to why that works, but it does. And by the way, that's one of the things that I would encourage you to do when you're making your most important decisions is do it by hand. There's something about using your hand to write that really connects to your brain that using a keyboard doesn't. So, these are my seven decisions, and now you get to reconsider, are they really "Get Money", "Keep Money","Keep Sanity", or "Want To Do"? Now this is the scary part. This is how my life could be better one year from now if I make this decision today. And act on it this month and it works out. So let me be clear. Okay. I'm giving you guys some cushion. This is how my life could be better one year from now, if I make this decision and assuming it works out. I'm giving you some, some emotional distance from the decision. So you can actually get through this part of the exercise. Later, we will close the gap emotionally between where you are now and actually making the decision. Right now, just write out for each of those seven decisions, 'This is how my life could be better one year from now, if I make this decision today and act on it this month and assuming it works out.'
Narrator:If this episode is resonating with you, click the link in the show notes below to learn more about the upcoming five week business plan boot camp. Yes, this is a free virtual boot camp, which means seats are limited in order to provide personal attention and laser coaching. Click the link below and turn this podcast episode into an actionable business plan to grow your law firm. And now, back to the show.
RJon Robins:Either you're conquerable or you're inconquerable. Either you're making decisions or you're not making decisions. Either you're in or you're out. Either you're up or you're down. Either you're black or you're white. See, indecision is a form of self-abuse. It truly is. I didn't make that up. I learned that from other people. Indecision is truly the worst form of self-abuse. Because we all have only a limited number of days on this planet. And we're going to get to the end of our lives and we're going to look back and it's going to be, 'Man, I wish I had April, May and June of 2016 back, but I wasted it, stuck in indecision.' It's scary though, because you don't have a clue how to do it. And you're waiting to find out how to do it before you make the decision. But the universe doesn't show you the way how, until you've made the decision. I can't make the decision to go to the top of the mountain until I know what's at the top of the mountain. But I won't know what's at the top of the mountain until I get where? To the top of the mountain. Because no matter how much I tell you what's at the top of the mountain. No matter how many pictures I show you what's at the top of the mountain, I can show you video at the top of the mountain. I can show you snow samples from the top of the mountain, but you're never going to truly know what it's like to be at the top of the mountain until you get to the top of the mountain. And you're not going to get to the top of the mountain until you take a courageous act. And you're not going to take that courageous act until you've made the decision. And so you're trying to basically do this entire thing in reverse. Which by the way is the way we're all taught in traditional education to do it. Traditional education is first you practice a skill until you're good at it. Then you take action using that skill. And then you make a decision what to do with it. Go to school for years and years and years and years and years and years and years until you get a degree and then decide what you want to do. Versus, decide what you want to do. And then figure out how to do it. That's why you need to learn how to make decisions. You don't make decisions by figuring out "How" first. The "How" comes later when you learn how to make decisions. This is why decision making is hard. This is why you have to learn how to make decisions. You've gotten this far struggling with this skill. You've had a deficit in this skill and you still got this far. Imagine what happens when we pour some lubrication on this skill and all of a sudden your business is going to grow even faster, even easier. I promise you it works. Everyone ready to make a decision?
Narrator:Thanks for listening. Tune in next week for more lessons From The Vault.
