Greg Voisen
As I do every one of these shows, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. Joining me from Oahu is Richie Norton. And Richie has written a new book called Anti-Time Management: Reclaim your Time and Revolutionize your Results with the Power of Time Tipping. We are going to be getting into that with Richie. Richie, how're you doing today?

Richie Norton
Oh man, I'm doing so good. I'm so grateful to be on here. You're always so good to me. Thank you. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

Greg Voisen
It is gonna be a lot of fun and he was just out paddle boarding with some friends from those who are listening from all over the world. And I said in one right now it's 9am in the morning, beautiful time to be out paddle boarding. And it's beautiful weather. I'm going to start off Ricci with letting people know a bit about you. You can find Richie at Richie Norton in o r t o n.com. There you can learn about his blogs, His books, His podcast, coaching, speaking consulting products, and so on. So I'd encourage everybody right off the bat. If you want to learn more go to Richie, richienorton.com. Ricci is an award winning author and serial entrepreneur and executive coach to CEOs he's featured in Forbes Bloomberg Businessweek, Inc, entrepreneur and Huffington Post. Recognized Richie is one of the top 40 of the best and brightest young business people in why he is one of the world's leading thinkers at the top 100 coaching and is honored by the MG 100. He is we were just talking about Marshall Goldsmith just a few minutes ago. He is the CEO and co-founder of the product and an Ink Magazine 500 company, a global entrepreneurship solution helping businesses go from idea to market and full service sourcing product strategy, and the end to end supply chain. He's the author of several books, including anti time management, the one we're gonna be talking about today, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, and resumes are dead and what to do about it. Richard was born and raised here in San Diego, not too far from Encinitas here, before moving to Brazil, and then Hawaii. He's married to Natalie, they have four boys, one son who already made his way to heaven, which we'll be talking about. And they've cared for three beloved foster children, and they live on the North Shore of Oahu, Hawaii with their little dog. Is that bouncy? That's right, I got that, right. Yeah, very cool. Well, you guys now know enough about him, you can look him up on the internet. But let's get into this book. Because given the times, we're in the just strange times we're in Ricci. You know, time is something that everybody has limited amount of, I lost two brothers, these last two years. finitude is part of our lives as you're very well aware. And the whole concept not to bring this in is, you know, death, fear, a lot of people fear it. And you start the book off with a very intense story. You intertwine the losses in your life and how it has affected you. And you have many different losses. But you also gained richness as a result of those losses in your life. And I love the way that you took something not so great and turned it into something good. Can you tell some of the stories including that ballistic missile text that you got when you were 3000 miles away from your family, and expressing the listeners why today is my everything? And that's Richie's mantra.

Richie Norton
That's right. So time today as my everything that's become my mantra to help me make better decisions, you know, based on what I want, what situation is who I'm carrying for what I want to influence, impact, contribution, those types of things. And I by the way, I love that you've read the book. So you know, it's brand new. It's not you know, as we speak, it's not out yet. It'll be out soon, people can preorder it now, but I love that you're able to get detailed, just a side note. So thank you. I appreciate that. You know, it was weird. I was in Nashville for something, and I get this random text. I'm having a great day. You know, it's a good day in Nashville. And I get this weird text and it's from the state of Hawaii. And it says, I'm not going to read a word for say it word for word, but it was something about a ballistic missile on his way to Oahu. Basically, at the end of the day, what everyone who lives in Hawaii guy Tex was saying that We were all about to die. And there was a there was a text at the end at the end of it that said, this is not a test. So in essence, it sounds silly now looking back, but in the moment, everyone in Hawaii was preparing to die. In moments. This was not a test. This was real. And I called my wife no answer. You know, when there's when there's crazy things happening. The cell service doesn't work very well, right. Everyone's trying to call at the same time. It's a disaster. She doesn't answer I call my kids, no one answers. Finally, my, one of my kids calls back. And he calls, crying, and he says his goodbyes. You know, I love you, Dad. You know, if you've ever mild don't think this and you probably shouldn't think this. But if you're a thought of someone saying their goodbyes to you, it's not something you actually will think will happen. And you're not thinking of it as some tragedy. Maybe it's, you know, it's expected. But this was real for him. And it was real for me. And it was real for a lot of people. And as a side note, there were people reportedly opening up manholes and jumping down inside to be sheltered. Like it was, it was crazy. Well, it turns out North Korea didn't want to blow up why? And it turns out that it was just an accident that someone sent this bizarre text message out to the entire state, anyone that's live there, and they have their phone number. And as I reflected on it, this is what you were talking about. He was weird, because I thought about Yes, my brother in law, who had passed away at 21, in asleep, out of nowhere, totally unexpectedly. So I thought about my son, my, my baby who caught whooping cough, pertussis and passed away. I thought about the time when our wonderful foster kids came, we were going to adopt them, you know, the way the foster system works, it's, it's a wild machine. And when they left after two years of, you know, of care that hurt different than death, in some ways, in some ways, honestly. Worse, because they're still out there things can still happen to them. We don't know where they are. Are they okay? different feeling. I thought about Natalie, my wife Natalie, she had a she had a stroke you know, a mini stroke and she lost her memory she couldn't she couldn't say our name she couldn't read you know, whatever was happening inside of her brain wasn't coming out you know the way it would normally come out and fortunately I'm fast forwarding through this all there's all these stories have stories within stories, right? But you know, she's okay now she has a memory back. She's thriving. I thought about my, my son who was crossing the street on his bike. On a highway we live right next to it, we live by the beaches is just the way it works. And he got hit by a car. And the car didn't see him at all, maybe distracted driver, whatever the situation was, did not see him didn't even slow down after he hit him. He slowed down of course, but life is so short, and my son is like he's okay. Now fortunately, he's riding his big 20 foot waves out here. And he's also thriving. But even though life story is, even that saying is cliche doesn't make it any less true. And this whole thing is not just about life or death, because some of the best lives have been short. It's about a life well lived. It's about doing your best where you are, when you can with what you do, and with what you have. But what was interesting is in the moment where I thought my entire family, and my home and Island was about to be blown up. And I probably never be able to return. I thought amongst all the, the mesh of feelings, I thought, at least we live without regret. At least we live without regret.

Greg Voisen
Because we lived a full life.

Richie Norton
With each of those. You can think strategically you can think you can think tactically, you can think all these things as a business person, but as an actual, just human being and not separating yourself into a million pieces of a pie. At the end of the day when you start thinking about what's going on in the world and where you fit and what you want. And, again, who you care for your contribution, those kinds of things. There are very few things that actually super matter. I get the butterfly effect, everything matters, I get it. But the things that you can impact me you can make decisions on the things that you can do. Exactly, rarely, rarely that many things we actually care about or impact. So when as is all going down I think you know this, I wasn't trying to like live without regret. After each tragedy, I thought, how can I live a little better? How can I improve my best? How can I better my best? How can I forget myself but to have self-care and help others in each one of these tragedies stacked? And then I started thinking I'll just we couldn't get to all your questions. But also, that's where like, now I have all my businesses that I've created. I'm an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur, have been designed around how to give people their time back. So like you mentioned, a business that makes over 100 different products at any given time for entrepreneurs, everything from creating it to, to fulfilling it, and the whole process of between. I'm not doing that for fun. And doing that, because that was way I got my time back. And I can give other people their time back. I do it with I have a video company where we're editing for YouTubers that have over a million subs or more, I didn't do it. So I know anything about editing a video, I architected that idea to give people their time back, all because I realized that the time I do have with my family, with my freedom with my autonomy, if I can just create space, instead of take it up, then I can lead a life without regret.

Greg Voisen
Well, that's what this book is all about. And you and I talked about this before, you know, Marshall Goldsmith, it's the urban life, he speaks from the continuum of regret all the way to happiness and familiar fulfillment on one side. And I think that echoes pretty strongly and a lot of people these days COVID, the incidence is our economy, everything that's going on, we're trying to find some equilibrium, we're trying to find some balance, because things have gone back and forth on this continuum. And that's part of life. And your intention for this book is to create a tension, prioritization and time creation as a learnable skill. And you state that time management was designed as a means of wage rate setting, not to increase the quality of our lives. Could you speak with us about the people first approach, and how this shifts our focus out of the old time management practices? Which, you know, go back to Deming, and all the people that I studied in college, right? Yes, yes, that was that was, you know, I have a business degree in business management, and, and a master's degree in spiritual psychology, which is kind of weird. But the reality is, is that, you know, back in the olden days, it was time is money, right? That old cliche that old cliche goes through. And I remember going to those classes, Richie, and the time, and motion studies that we would do, yes, actually track the steps of people. So the productivity would go up higher. This world is not that way right now. So I love your book, I love what you're talking about. Talk about the people approach versus the old time approach.

Richie Norton
I just gotta, I gotta tell you, I love everything you just said. Because 99.99% of people, not just in the world that I talked to have no idea what you just said. They don't know. They don't know that the way the whole time management thing was set up. The wage rate setting the time and motion studies, we don't even know that term. They don't even know the term. Why would you like institutional knowledge, we want it to be sustained. But maybe within the organization and the way we work it sometimes it's sustained. But every time a new person, not just new generation, every time a new person comes in, they don't know why people were doing it that way. They have no idea. So I appreciate that. So you know, I am a huge Edwards Deming fan and I you know, I'm a Six Sigma Lean Six Sigma master black belt, like I know this stuff I know.

Greg Voisen
Yeah, but right now you're actually shifting in a whole new direction, even though you know it. It's not that you're leaving. It is that you've realized that you know, this equal mindedness that we need to foster in the world today. I was asking a guy the other day, who runs his big company in Colorado, I flew there, and he's a multimillionaire and just long story short, he says we, you know, I, I use the Toyota way lien managing it the Toyota way. And he's the only company that was there. But he says, you know, Greg, I have not found contentment in my life. Wow. And I said, well, you know, if Marshall and I speak about nonattachment and impermanence do you get those high achievers when you start to talk about impermanence and non-attachment, don't even have a clue what you're talking about. It's not even in their realm, because they're high achievers. That's all Oh, okay, I know I am going someplace that you don't want me to go.

Richie Norton
This is really good. I like putting like a bookmark in my mind and where to where to come back to the answer your question. But what I want to I want to roll this for a second. Because it's just fascinating how this is this isn't the future isn't the past this is what is what happens is people will adopt business philosophies and apply them to their personal life as personal development. This is the way it's been for 200 years since the Industrial Revolution. This is the way it's been. And they don't know they're doing that. And they think it's the right thing to do. For example, normal words we use in like self-help personal development, personal growth, whatever we call it today. Our military words, Target, I'm on target. You know, we're constantly using these eliminate. We're using bizarre military words that we've then put into business that we've then put into the personal development space. And you know, what does it work? Sure. Is it there's different words people use efficient, that's sure? Is that effective? Maybe, maybe not. The word I like to use is that I think encompasses both in a better, better aligned is effectual, is it effectual, like encompass all the things I'm trying to do? Okay, anyway, so anyways, no, no,

Greg Voisen
I like that. But I was gonna say, you know, use look at goal is used all the time. Yep. But we don't always reach the goal the way we think. So if we're attached to the way in which we reach a goal, that's the biggest challenge that we face, I think you would agree with me, Oh, yeah. And go could be replaced with the word because I have this debate with authors all the time, around the language that we put into our subconscious to live our life that way. And one of those would be of what is my intention. And so I'd much rather use the word intention, then go, or I'd rather use the word aim, than goal. Not that I have anything against goal, I have nothing against the word goal. What I'm saying is, if you used aim or used intention, and you weren't attached, you certainly wouldn't have be a lot more content. If you walked away from that. Yeah,

Richie Norton
no, this is such a good conversation. I did my best. At one point in the book, I told myself, I've been writing this thing for years, you know, and you get, you get, you get more and more deeper and, and specific as the book gets closer to being finished. But I told myself, at one point, I was never even gonna use the word goal in the entire book, then I realized, that's not how normal people read and learn, like they have to have that word. And so I tried to develop a new vocabulary around different degrees of goals, you know, in through storytelling through being specific through different ideas. But at the end of the day, I, I discovered that a goal, people use the word goal to brush their teeth every day. In the same breath, they use it to make a million dollars, like, please come up with the same thing. What's your goal? Brush my teeth every day? What's your goal? Make a million dollars, okay? Like, what are you talking about? Different things. But to me, a goal from experience is a task, you've done it before. Do it again, a goal, outside experience is growth. These are different types of goals. And then we can talk about different ways we talk about goals, we'll all get into that. But let me jump back to the idea of where this idea of time management versus anti time management came from. Okay, and this philosophy of time tipping methodology that I've developed, it's a whole framework, by the way, which you know, but we're going on going wild, and I'm going wow, okay, so back in the day when time management was invented, and it was invented, and they did call it scientific management. for marketing purposes, no one thinks that systems are scientific. No one No one thinks is actually scientific. Now, back then, and go, Yeah, because I'm studying at the time motion studies, people don't even know what that exists. What time motion studies, people don't know the idea. Literally the example. You can find them on YouTube, I think old films about it. Or talking about it, they would watch somebody move a brick all day long. And then they would say, oh, this guy is faster, because he sets the brick stack closer to him. And he moves his arm this much instead of that much. And so these are getting so specific to how close you should sit to the wall or stand next to the wall. Where should your little shovel thing be for the cement house? That was time management. So I'm going to fast forward to today for a second then I'll go back again. It's bizarre to me that even the word time management itself has ever entered the vernacular of personal development. It literally makes no sense because it was specifically designed to take your time, never give you time never once it was designed to measure every drop of blood, sweat and tears that a worker did, so that they could exact all the strength out of every individual for every second to make money.

Greg Voisen
Exactly.

Richie Norton
And then you go, Oh, you

Greg Voisen
say that in the book?

Richie Norton
Yeah, I'm managing my time. And I don't feel like I'm getting anything done, or I don't feel like I'm fulfilled. And I don't think I feel like I'm out of control yet. Yep. That's the way it was designed. That's right. So it's finally when we try and tell ourselves, we're going to, we wouldn't know unless you do the research, you would know. It's funny to me that we use tools that were designed for something else and expect them to do something different than they were never designed for. So anyways, antitype management goes. So let's make it super simple for a second time manager isn't about controlling time. Time is it's its own thing. The word management is control. That is that they're the same word. So when we talk about time management, if the real question is Who controls my time, in time management, they control your time, in anti-time management, you control your time. In time management, they tell you what to do. And anti-time management, you tell yourself what you're going to do. Now, there's some blending, there's some crossover, you can decide when and how and where this all works. But in time management, they took up space, and anti-time management, you take up space.

Greg Voisen
Got your chart, you have a chart and graph in the book for all those who get this book. And I hope you all do. He makes this very simple through some graphs, some charts, some depictions, and I think that your visuals, by the way, are excellent.

Richie Norton
Yeah, thank you. Thank you. No, I really appreciate that. I really appreciate when

Greg Voisen
you compare and contrast things between old and new or the new way you could look at something, it always gives people a great perspective. And you do that you compare and contrast. So I like that.

Richie Norton
And it's not it's not that time management is the boogeyman and evil in and of itself. It's a great tool for what it's designed for. It's that when I'm frustrated, when people think and believe they are doing the actual right thing to get them the actual right result. And it never will. What do you think coaches and consultants are for? They're literally to come in and go, yep, that's not gonna work. Guys. Here's, here's the other way want to think about this for a second. Right? So you know what I mean? That's, that's what we're doing here. And it's been fastening to me when I when I pair all the life stuff, what do we really want out of life, with all the business stuff, these aren't necessarily they don't have to be. In contrast, we already know what it looks like to sacrifice your personal priorities for your professional ones. That's the way most people have worked now for 200 years before we moved from the farms to the cities, as is the way it is. But today, it's a different not only is a different circumstance, a different world, a different environment, where we have more choices. But the problem is we're still adopting these 19th century 20th century ideas and applying them to 21st century ideals and opportunities. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Right. So that's what antitype management for that time tipping is for is to help people navigate this, this new world. Here's how here's why. And here's what you can do about it. And all the challenges

Greg Voisen
is that your book and you're somebody that knows this, and I'll just say this right up front, the book isn't for everybody. It's a target market. People specifically in other words, if you look at your avatar, who's going to gobble up this content, because there's still a big part of our population, that no matter how much we try and kind of move it along, they may want to, but they're not going to get there. Now you might be able to open their minds with this book. But it also might be quite a reach as well. And that being said, I know that doesn't offend you. Because you know, this, you know, this is a writer, you know, it's like, okay, we sell a million copies of these books, and there's 7 billion people on the planet that reached a million people that I needed to reach. You know, you speak about how to work in the post management air. We've been saying this. Can you explain what that looks like? Because I think people work pictures are really important. It's one thing to say well, you say all this in the book, what does that look like Richie and if you would speak about the work life flexibility and protect are the elements of availability, ability and autonomy? And what is a time tipper? Okay, so I know I put a lot in that question. No, you're good. You're good. I'm trying to get I'm trying to get it, trying to get a lot out in the in,

Richie Norton
I got it. Let me so I'll tell a story. And let me preface the story with this. We talked earlier about you brought up the word intention. I found that it's a good word. It's a better word than a lot of a lot of others. But sometimes intentions are our worst enemies. And sometimes, attention is our best friend. Okay? Because you can be totally, you can have all the intent in the world and never get it. Like I can intend to coach my kids baseball team and never do it. Or I can attend to my kids baseball team and be coaching immediately. So the idea is that stop managing time start prioritizing attention. And then the other thing is, gosh, I can make a whole list of these but the

Greg Voisen
it's that's a big one. Ritchie, say it again, stop.

Richie Norton
Stop managing time, start prioritizing attention.

Greg Voisen
And prioritizing attention is the key. I love it. I love it.

Richie Norton
And when I wrote just sign up my last book, The Power of Starting Something Stupid, it blew up Brene Brown did a blog post about it went wild to 10 different languages. You know, I got amazing endorsements from, you know, Steve Forbes, Seth Godin, Covey, Jack Canfield, all these wonderful, you know, mentors, heroes, heroes of mine. And what I learned was, I thought I thought it was for a certain demographic, I thought it would be certain age groups certain, you know, dynamic certain situation. I'm shocked that it was people from all ages, all backgrounds all over. And I was like, well, then what brings them together? What's the glue? It's psychographic. It's not a demographic. And I really think that this the, the people that will resonate with anti-time management, I think anyone can apply it to their work or personal life or anything. But it's a way of thinking, I would have a way of thinking,

Greg Voisen
I would agree with you. And sometimes it's a short journey to take the shift of perspective. And sometimes it's a longer journey for people, it takes a lot of practice trying, you know, I had the honor of being four hours in George Leonard's living room, the guy who wrote the book mastery. And he's also the guy who co-founded epsilon in Big Sur. And George, you know, one of the things that I remember about his book is I was just doing it was practice, right, I'll just say the word practice. And for many of us, it does require that if we're on one track, in words, it's like a good coach telling you, hey, I need to hit the ball differently. Yeah, I need to practice hitting the ball differently. I will tell you, your book is about taking new concepts and practicing and ingraining them, because the only way you're going to make the shift is if you read Rich's book, read it again. Read it again. And read it again. And then really get it because I don't think this is a once pass through. Book is too deep for a once pass through. And I'm just not I'm not warning my listeners. I'm basically saying listeners, if you really want to get off the track, you're on Ritchie's books gonna help you get off the track, but you need to practice.

Richie Norton
I love that. I love that. Yeah, man. I thank you. Thank you. Thank you. That's a great endorsement right there. I love it. You're amazing. You're amazing. Well, let's make this real for a second.

Greg Voisen
Okay, there's a lot of talking about availability, ability and autonomy and what time tipper

Richie Norton
so people talk about work life flexibility all the time. And I've noticed that now that corporations are losing people or getting them back they're identifying the way they're attracting or losing talent based on work by flexibility. This is a big thing right now. Right? You they talk about the great resignation, and they talk about whether this is real or not, there's a whole debate but a lot of times it comes down to this idea of work life flexibility. And so I started looking at it as I am realizing Wow, it's really interesting when we saw during the pandemic is I'll give you work life flexibility, you can work from home. Oh, and by the way, you need to have zoom on for eight hours a day so I can look at your face. That's not work life flexibility, man, that's just a longer leash. So as soon as corporations start incorporating work life flexibility, as a way to monitor you Taylorism digital Taylorism and be able to control you it's lost, flexibility aspect, it's just work. So beware, beware, but work life flexibility to me defined is three things. Availability, are you available ability, are you capable, and you know the other resources are used to have the skill set and autonomy can you make the decision, or you have to ask somebody, and there's various degrees or grades, you know, within that of, of, of what you're trying to do? But ultimately, if you're not available? Do you have flexibility? Of course not. If you're not able, are you? Do you have flexibility? Of course not due if you if you don't have autonomy, do you have flexibility? Of course not. That doesn't mean you still can't have flexibility. It just means you don't have to be 100%, and all three of those things, you can always outsource, you can always delegate, you can always change the way you're working. But once you identify the degree to which you have those factors in your life, you can improve them. They can,

Greg Voisen
I think you're right. I want to add on question. You know, when I when I talk to Stephen Covey, and I work inside of companies helping them culturally, and you know, you get this command and control versus trust and inspire which, you know, Stephen, Mr. Covey, his new book, trust and inspire. And one of the things is accountability. Now you talk about autonomy. I say that the more accountability or however you want to talk it because still inside these companies, they're looking for accountability. And you can test it with would probably say that's true. To get your autonomy, though, and have the ability and to have the, you know, what you're talking about? What comment would you make there? Because this is, this is a real challenge. That's why Stephen wrote the book. He was trying to get more companies to have trust and inspire versus command and control. Well, and this old school of time management was all about command and control. Right, right. Yeah, it's all it's all it ever did.

Richie Norton
Yeah, I think we have to remember to we're, we're standing on the shoulders of giants we are, are the people that came before us. I have to assume in many cases, they wanted what we have now, it's led to this opportunity. But there's these old archaic structures that are fighting back in some way, shape, or form, you know, so we're very fortunate to have it. No one likes to be told what to do. Unless they have a hard time knowing what to do. And then there you go. You don't have a problem with that. You know, but I like the word accountability is a great word. But in my head, when I hear accountability, I hear that I'm accountable to someone else. Yeah, I prefer the word responsibility. I'm responsible to make it happen. I like it. And like for so like your, your work life flexibility, you can't wait to be gifted it from your boss. That doesn't work. You are responsible for your own autonomy. It's not a gift from some dude in a corner office. It's been there for 100 years. It's not it's not a gift from that person. This is your life. Let me let me give you an example. Everyone goes, why can't just let's ask some better questions and get some better answers. Because you can. And maybe it will happen over time or maybe will happen immediately. But as we're talking about Covey's, you know, Covey would say you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other. So he was feel like they're stuck. It's like, who made you stuck? Where you made yourself stuck? No, they did. You chose this job. You spent 10 years at school and decided to take $100,000 a year to do exactly what you're doing. Whose fault is that? Man? Please wake up, wake up, stop playing the blame game. So I love the trust and inspire idea because the Covey's never said, well, they said begin with the end in mind. They did not say begin with means in mind. Right? Right. you delegate results, not means. So goals are means goals are tools. Goals are not ends, we've made goals ends unto themselves. Strengths are tools. They're not ends. You kidding me. We're obsessed with strengths. But we know that corporations that have this whole StrengthsFinder thing. It's a great thing in many different ways. But when you read it, and you go, Oh, I'm good at three things. Guess what the boss man says. You're gonna do those three things for the rest of your life. You can't move laterally or upward or back. This is what you're good at right here to teach you something new. It's a whole thing

Greg Voisen
really stirred up the pot. And I liked that about this book because it gets you the reader to think, you know, I want to ask you about this. I know there's a time tipping framework and that the time tipping toolbox is not there yet not for download that was a free time clipping toolbox. But you are going to give that to the listeners later on. Right? Oh,

Richie Norton
so if you go to Richie norton.com/time Right in the in the moment that we're recording this because I because you have the advanced reader copy, it's just a landing page. But by the time you're listening to this shouldn't be relevant anymore, and good recently.com/time. And you'll have a whole toolbox of work. I don't even want to use the word worksheets. It's more like it's literally like actual tools you can use to move from where you are to where you want to be with little tweaks to

Greg Voisen
me, I was so looking forward to those, but you know, I'm gonna get him anyway, because I signed up for it. So for all the listeners, go there and sign up anyway, because you'll get your email, and then he'll give you those.

Richie Norton
It makes me so happy just getting people, you know, just excited. But if you're on my email list, you'll get all the things that you'd ever want. And

Greg Voisen
okay. So I have a guy here to talk about the time tipping framework or yeah, yeah, I mean, we move into the other question, and this is

Richie Norton
good. Let me let me let me frame the time to think framework this way. I had a guy reach out to me, he's making $250,000 a year, he's an executive, to some people, that's a lot of money to others. It's not I get it; this is just use this as a metaphor. This is a real situation for a real person. And he says, he hates his situation. Even though he has enough money. He has no time for his family. And he wishes he did, etcetera, etcetera. He wants to spend about two months out of the year in Italy and have more autonomy. What's your plan, man? And he says he's going to start a gym. And that's cool. You know, he's an accounting guy. He knows how much how long it would take to make the money back. You know, he's doing all the numbers. And he's like, Yeah, but I need two gyms for it to be profitable. Okay, so he needs two gyms now. And I say how long it's going to take his five years in five years. Okay, cool. And how old are your kids? He says 13 and 15. Hold on, I was nicer to him than I am on this, this this cilia, you know, just explaining real quickly. But I said, Wait a second. So your kids are going to be 18 and 20. When you finally have time to hang out

Greg Voisen
there and not gonna want to hang out with you.

Richie Norton
When the ESA problem is the problem isn't the accountant. The problem is what are you accounting for? What are you held accountable for? What are you measuring? That is you’re gonna cite as your success. And if you're measuring profitability to then have time, guess what, you're gonna get exactly that. But you probably won't, it'll probably worse.

Greg Voisen
But if you rate story, if you

Richie Norton
if you bake in the sugar into a cake, from the start, the cake will be sweet. In the end, how can you expect to bake a cake with no sugar, and have it be sweet? In the end? You cannot. This is what we have been fooled to think in time management, do these 10 things. And one day you'll have this Oh, really. And so in essence, if you bake in your personal priorities, as a way to develop your business, as a way to have your professional priorities to support your personal ones, you will build a business different, you will build it in a way that creates time that takes time, you will build you'll build a business that values your time instead of timing your values. Which is a disgusting way for most people with value statements to live. I value this I'll do it 10 years from now.

Greg Voisen
What your example is he was kind of doing it in the rain. It wasn't kind of he was doing it in reverse. And you're saying to rethink that. And I think that's what the book again and again refers back to it. So what it does, and you know you have a great chapter. And I didn't know this rapper, and all because I don't really follow rap music. But it's the chapter on make fun, make final cause your first cause how to choose what to do and when and this kind of goes along with just what we were talking about. And you tell the story about as it Sarah Saara the American rapper Saira site, and then I went looked her up. I went to her page, I went and looked at her pictures. I went to it. So she was which is really compelling. I mean, to go from the streets to winning a Grammy. I mean, it's like that was a great story. Explain why her story and what it teaches us lessons about life, time struggle and success, character and courage and also speak about the principle that we referred to final cause.

Richie Norton
Okay, I love Thank you. Syrah has been a huge source of inspiration for me. She's become a really good friend. I love her so much and her stories. When you read, it's crazy.

Greg Voisen
It's not a family. She's out on the street. No, nobody to go to. I mean, she would have been one of those foster kids you could have taken in it.

Richie Norton
But the idea of we will notice real quick final cause is a concept from Aristotle. So I went and looked at all the like history as much as I could, as far back as I could, you know, whatever on how people live in the philosophies around time, there's a million of them. But Aristotle, he calls it final call he there's four causes for something to happen. And essentially, the last cause was called Final cause this is where the thing is finished. So, in essence, an acorn becomes an oak tree, but I looked at that, and I go, okay, well, academics will use the example of a table that goes, you need materials, like wood, you need if you're gonna make a table. So you need some wood, you need a design, you need an agent or a person to put it together. And eventually you have the table final cause. And I look at it and go, you know, if your goal is to make a table, that's great. But what's the goal, the goal, what's the purpose of the table? What's the job of the table? And if the job that tables to be in your family for 100 years is an heirloom and whatever, great, but if it's if it's to host, some people at your house tonight, you can do UberEATS, the tables doesn't even matter. You don't you don't even go to it. You can go to a restaurant, you don't need to spend $10,000 on some guy buying fancy wood, who's going to do a fancy table and all this stuff. But we spend our lives doing the fancy table, when all would have taken was zero money zero time. What's the goal, the goal, the essence of what we're doing? Okay, this is very important to understand, because we're talking to this whole concept of putting your values in from the, from the start, it actually removes the bottlenecks that the biggest bottleneck to in a corporation, and also to entrepreneurs, and executives and employees is usually ourselves, we're the bottleneck. So when you put in your values, the things you really want, the reason you're working the essence of why you're working, when you put that in from the start. It makes you be creative with positive constraints, to be able to do things in a way that enhances the life and the outcomes, as opposed to being a bottleneck to them. Very different way of thinking, but extremely effective. Saira Yeah, I met her we were in Moldova, we were doing TEDx talks. It was it was cool. I got to know who she was. And as she told me her story, I was just blown away. So I had to have it in the book. And we've known each other now. And, you know, for several years, my family loves her. She grew up in a situation where she was selling her toys and things so that her dad could buy drugs. At some point her dad passed away. At some point, she was separated from her mom for, for whatever reasons. And she ended up being homeless on the streets, right? She's eventually from New York, she's in California, she ends up in gangs, she ends up being raped several times she ends up running guns, she ends up doing all these all these things to survive. This is all survival. This is all survival mode. And one day she has this thought in her mind is you need to be a rapper. Now, instead of learning how to become a rapper, she goes to one of those places in LA, where she stands on stage starts rapping and they and they blew her off the stage. And she does this I think every Thursday. Yeah, I remember this part of the story until eventually some other you know, people would know what they're doing. They come to her and go, what are you doing? And they teach her all about being a human and being a rapper and just giving her the love that she needed and built her up. And you fast forward. And yes, she's now a Grammy Award winning rapper. But what's interesting about this whole story is all those things and I am just this story I'm telling in a terrible way it is so much better than I'm saying it's a horrific situation that she turned around. But what was fascinating is to the average person

Richie Norton
she went from not knowing anything to being it immediately. Even though she was at it perfectly in the beginning, acting from the dream, not toward it, made it so she didn't have a chance to go to some music class. She didn't have a chance to go to some music. School in the summer. She didn't get a chance to go to some camp. She didn't get a chance to go do all these things that a normal person would do based on a goal setting. Right? She said I am, and she showed up. And she became and in that sense, we all can do that. In fact, no matter how many steps You take when you act from the dream, when you say I am this person, it's pretty clear in all the research, so you are more likely to become that person mentally, emotionally and show up that way.

Greg Voisen
Well, there was a wonderful story for the book. And, you know, her story reminded me of Joseph Campbell a minute ago, the hero's journey, you know, the reality is, so many people go through life, and they venture out and they have challenges, and they fall, and they fail, or however you want to look at it. But the reality is, they're learning lessons. And then somebody comes up and picks them up and gives them some help. And then they keep moving, and they keep moving. And the key is, you know, as long as you don't quit, which she didn't, she just kept going, and she kept putting one foot in front of the others, you will ultimately get to where you want to go as long as you don't give up and she didn't do it. And so that brings me to this quote, you have a quote in the book, from somebody very famous, but it says Love and success, always in that order. It's that simple. And that difficult. Mr. Rogers, you state that time tipping puts your ultimate life choices at the center, so that you can build your work around it, and supporting and protective role, like a moat around the castle. Speak with the listeners about the strategic moats, and the economic moats if you would.

Richie Norton
If you go, the idea is build the castle than the moat. Right. Most people will start with a moat, which is represents the work and they never get out of the work and never reach the castle when in reality, castles in many cases are built first, and then the moat to protect it. Okay. So if you live your life, you already know this. Now, if you're living your life with work as your center, your family and your time and your freedom and your autonomy and your availability and your ability to do whatever you want is on the fringe. But if you reverse that, and put your autonomy, your availability, your ability, your family, your travel, your etc, at the very start as your castle, then you can choose and or create work that supports that. This is straight up not theoretical, this is actual living today, all you have to do is open up the internet to see a million people do it, whether you like them or not as aside from the point, it's happening, and it will continue fast forward and it has to as AI takes over regular jobs. It has to be this way. What else are you gonna do? You know what I mean? Like, so get ready to be creative. And it's, it makes us more human. Right? It makes us way more human.

Greg Voisen
Well, it's, I love the little quote from Mr. Rogers. And I love the analogy that you use between the moat and the castle to explain it. And I think for our listeners, that's a great chapter. Now, let me say this. The book, in my opinion, is like an opus or magnum opus, and it's about a magnum opus around time management. But really, when you weave it in there, it's about Richie Norton's life, and how he's expanded his consciousness to bring you a gift here, everybody listening, this is a gift, around antitype management. The books filled with stories. It's filled with examples and ways to change your perspective about time, even if you only move that perspective, just a bit. And I'm going to show Richie something and only those people that are on YouTube right now we'll get this but I'm going to show it to Richie because this is what hangs here all day long in my office. It's perfect. This little thing goes back and forth and back and forth. We really only have now and that's what Richie realized. And okay. All of the greats have talked about it Buddhists, everybody. You know, we got all the guy who was the guy that sat on the bench and wrote all the books and became famous about talking about now, but filled with stories and example what three takeaways would you like to leave the listeners with today that they could apply in their life and would make a difference?

Richie Norton
I just want to say first you thank you for listening to this and being open that's I really appreciate that. But number one out the bill. belief that you can reclaim your time is really important. Okay? Because this is like, it's almost like a time machine. Because you can, you can look at your future and bring it to the present. And you can look at your past and make up for the things that didn't work out. That's what we're talking about. Okay? I would, I would also say, whatever that idea that is pressing on your mind that just won't go away. It's something you should consider paying close attention to, and do something about it in the present, even if it's something small, because the idea in the book, and for those that are on YouTube that can see this. The idea is that one decision through what I call prismic, productivity, there's that prison right there can turn to an array of possibilities. One decision, as they say, can eliminate 100 decisions. But one decision can eliminate 100 decisions and also create millions of desirable opportunities, projects, ways to do things. The sad news is most people are doing it the opposite. They're doing it, they're doing 20 things to try and create one result. And actually, none of them are working out. That is the reality. Okay, asymmetrical choices, where one small choice can create many other things. And I would leave you with a question, what's the job of my, my goal that I have right now? What's the goal? The goal? What's final? Cause? What's the essence of what I'm trying to do? When you ask that question, you'll realize what you're actually working towards, and realize that all of the steps you're taking there may be able to just disappear. Because you can just do the thing. And have many ways of making it happen. Most people, as an explanation, are doing what I call in the book, ghost steps. All these things are doing that make them feel like they're moving. But it's leading them into a phantom life, a life where nothing got done, nothing felt good, except for the random things that happened. And time management creates an opportunity, so that even when terrible tragedies happen, like they've happened to me, you can still make conscious better decisions and have room to make them because you're acting from your dream. And even when your projects don't work out, you're still successful. Because when you work from the dream, the goal, the idea that you want, there is no failure. There are just different ways to try to make it happen.

Greg Voisen
Well, Richie, I think in bedded in that last three things that you asked that you gave advice for people, or provided your wisdom, let's put it that way. You know, it was coming up for me was just this whole concept of quantum leaps. The book is really designed, you know, if you look at quantum physics, you and I both know this, we're talking about time, there really isn't any time to meet up concept. But we've had to have a time a watch that says, you know, hey, this is what time it is today. I always remember this from Buddhist because I go to meditation retreats on Orcas Island. And the guy that leads the retreats, Dr. Joel and Michelle leaving, a Buddhist monk came, and I'm gonna leave it with this as around time, they said, hey, you came all the way over here from Tibet? What is it that you would like? Any replies in broken language? I want to watch. Can you get me a watch? Like I said, well, I'd love to get your watch. So it gets him watch. He said, why did you want a watch? You know. And at the top of his bed, when you get to sleep at night, as you know, many Buddhists do, there's a skeleton to remind them of death, to remind them that they're living their life. And knowing that there is only so much time, he says, because I want to understand how much time I have left. Now, we use this watch to determine how much time we really have kind of in segments and quadrants and segments. And this gentleman's perspective, was very large. It was like, what can I do with the time I have left? And I think what's important is if our focus is on what can we do with the time we have left your whole perspective changes and for people my age, be 68 July 3, you do start to reflect on what time is left. And for all of those right now who are purpose driven. My podcast is all around helping people. How much time do you have left? And everybody? We none of us knows how much time we have left. So do what you have to do today as Ritchie says, live your life live to start and start to live. That's right. Regina, thanks so much for being on. I know you just got a cue from your wife. Namaste to you. Appreciate your time. Appreciate you being on the show. Thanks for everything.

Richie Norton
That was an amazing conversation. Thanks for Thanks for taking it deep with me that that was really fun. Thank you. Thank you a lot. That was That was great.

Greg Voisen
I'm pretty sure you're quite welcome. Enjoy the rest of your morning. Now let's state to you. How can you see my friend was yet Alright, bye.