Seven Secrets To Maximizing Rewards In Your Business And Your Life

Let's talk about seven secrets to maximizing rewards in your business and your life. Let's focus on time and optimization, and let's start where we've got to start.

Secret #1—All things being equal among the normal run of humanity, nobody has any advantage over you. Now, God bless 'em, there are people who are born with certain problems that don't put them into the normal category, but blessing them, let's move on.

We've all got "E", or “energy” capacity, thank God or the Gods. God has given it, and we can use it to achieve—or we can fritter it, waste it, underachieve it, away.

You have to have faith, that's the secret—faith that you can achieve. Otherwise you'll never even have the drive, the motion, to get into action.

Re-read Chapter 2 of The NEW Think and Grow Rich, and you'll see what we're talking about. We treat deeply of it there. And how to get it we treat deeply in Chapter 3—and Chapter 1 is important, too.

But faith—you've got to have faith. You've got to develop the faith that you can have a better life, a better business; otherwise you'll never move forward.

HoloMagic Secret #2 for maximizing rewards is to understand that time management, which is what we're going to be focusing on, is really not possible. You don't manage time. For you number folks, we all have the same 86,400 seconds or 1,440 minutes in a day.

Everybody's equal in this—the richest, the most productive, and the bums who have chosen to live on the street. Now, not every bum has chosen that. But most of them have, even though they may not know it and government entitlement programs don't promote it. You and I in the achievement sector know it.

But my point is, what's important is that we all have 24 hours in a day.

Assume we've got to use 12 of those hours just to be a human animal. We've got maybe 6-8 hours to sleep, we do deserve and need social time, we've got to eat, we've got to do our necessaries, we've got to bathe, we've got to get dressed, et cetera, et cetera. So we're talking about plus or minus 12 hours left over in a day. That's what everybody has.

It's what you do with those hours, it's the activities you invest in, that makes the difference. You can't manage time; you can only manage yourself.

Secret #3 for maximizing rewards in your business and your life is that you cannot save time either. You can only spend it or invest it differently. You can fritter it away, waste it. What you're talking about, as an achiever, is reallocation of time from non-revenue generating activities, or minor league revenue-generating activities, to activities of the highest value.

You see, HoloMagic Secret #4 is that the quality of your time management determines your quality of life and the business success you will have. It's how well you handle the reins of the horse that determines where it will go. It determines whether you'll be a sportsman or a duffer. It's how well you do.

Here's something important for you to think about—the Pareto principle, also known as the 80/20 Rule, which applies just about all the way across the board. Now, there are some people who say it's really the 90/10 rule. Some say the 95/5 rule, and some even say the 97/3 rule. The principle's the same whichever number you choose to go with.

That is, for the normal person, 20% of their day—20% of their activities—produce 80% of their rewards. Which means 80% of their activities produce only 20% of their rewards. You’ve got to assert control of that statistic, and consciously make it work for you. You've got to focus on the things that count. Make sure you're investing your time in high-priority, high-reward, high-payoff activities to really get the most out of your business and your life.

Think about it. Is this a 20% thing, or is this an 80% thing? Make sure you invest 80% of your time at least in the 20% of the things that bring you the greatest rewards. And when you carry that consciousness with you, it's going to make you re-evaluate every single thing you do, because you're not going to fall off the boat.

Secret #5—You'll never get caught up. Let it go…let it go. There'll always be something to do. But just don't get caught up in doing the minutia before you get around to the big stuff. Don't waste your precious time and energy doing the stuff that doesn't count.

I can tell you, for instance, that I do my creative work in the morning, when I'm most juiced, most jazzed, most popping…and it's not only the coffee that helps. Of course I like espresso, but it's a good night's sleep, it's a rejuvenation, and for me that's my sharpest time. It may be different for you.

And then in the afternoon, I do my business activities. I follow up with vendors, and I handle bills and anything that I need to get involved with that involves running a business.

You'll never get caught up. Invest your time properly.

HoloMagic Maximization Secret #6: those people who continue to spend their time on the low reward activities are destined for a life of mediocrity. They're doing it to themselves. You get ahead by changing what you're doing, by investing your time, recognizing that you only have a finite amount of time.

In fact, you only have a finite number of days in your life. If you're going to contribute, I suggest that now is the time. And if you're going to maximize your rewards, I suggest you look closely, and evaluate and ponder on what you're doing, with an eye to, "Where is the value?"

Here's HoloMagic Secret #7—there are really only three ways to reallocate your time. Now, you do have to be thoughtful, but hey—as the author of The NEW Think and Grow Rich, when did I ever say it didn't take thinking? No I've always said it takes being conscious, being thoughtful.

Number 1, you can do completely new things. Or #2, the opposite of that—you can stop doing certain things altogether. Or #3, you can adjust certain things you're doing - either you do more of them, or less of them.

You may decide to do new things. You may decide to eliminate things that are costing you and holding you down; and you may decide anywhere along the line to do less of those things that are less productive, while deciding to do more of the things that you know you should be doing more of, because they're more productive in terms of the rewards.

So that's it - the seven secrets to maximizing rewards in your business and in your life. And they all do relate to getting conscious, evaluating what is productive in your life, and managing yourself so that's what you invest and focus your time on.