How ANY Entrepreneur Can Fix a Never Ending Task List

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In this episode, Dan Henry is going to talk about what happens to every single entrepreneur… the situation where you’re getting started or up and running and your task list is going NUTS. It continues to get longer and longer, you’re trying to delegate it out to your team, and then your team gets behind and overwhelmed too because there’s simply just too much to do or handle.

The solution to this is not productivity hacks or task/time management (even though some do help), and the answer will probably surprise you.

In this episode, you are going to get to hear a clip from one of Dan’s private coaching calls from within his program (yes, he got the student’s permission ahead of time, don’t worry!), where he will coach this client through, what he thinks, is the overwhelm of his task lists and organization problems.

Dan is going to share how the root of his problem is not actually anything within his productivity or organization skills, but something much deeper. And in order to keep his business afloat and successful, Dan will give him the exact answer to solve his problems.

As Dan says, “If there are leaves on the ground, chop down the tree.” In other words, solve the problem at its source.

In this episode, you will hear Dan coach his student on:

• How to differentiate between being “all in” on your business, and being disciplined while you run it
• How to recognize when it’s time to STOP adding more tasks to your current list and buckle down on your circle of focus, rather than adding even “one more tiny task” that directs your focus away from your core purpose
• Techniques for how to stay focused or organized in your business

If you want to learn more in-depth about how to systematically solve problems and stay on track, there is a dedicated chapter in Dan’s book Digital Millionaire Secrets called “Circle of Focus” that breaks down, step-by-step, the entire monthly process you should be following as a business owner. You can find the link to the book below.

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— TRANSCRIPT —

Dan Henry (00:00):

What happens when you're building a company and your task list just starts getting completely filled up overrun. You're trying to get your team to do things. You're trying to get them to get things done. And it's just all super overwhelming. That is what we're going to talk about in today's episode, where else can you see behind the scenes of a million dollar online business? So you better stick around. This is the Dan Henry show.

Dan Henry (00:36):

So when you're trying to build a business, this happens to almost everybody. It happened to me, you'll have a situation in which, you know, you're, you're getting started, you're getting everything up and running and your task list is just going nuts. I mean, it's just getting longer and longer and longer. And you start to think like, okay, how do I, how do I get all this done? And you try to delegate it to your team and then your team has trouble getting it done. And, you know, you're trying to get launched. You're trying to get everything going, but it's just super, super overwhelming. And this is something I've dealt with. This is something I've coached people on dealing with. And there's a, actually a very simple answer. And it's not so much productivity or task management or time management. You might be surprised what the answer is.

Dan Henry (01:17):

The actual answer is, so what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to play you a clip from a coaching call that I actually did earlier today, where one of my clients, Colton came on and he had this exact question. He literally had this exact question. He has a CBD company. He sells CBD flowers and oils and you know, all that he did, that's what he sells. And so this is not, you know courses or consulting. This is an eCommerce product CBD flower oils, gummies, all that good stuff. And he's, he's struggling to get his company off the ground because you know, his task list is going nuts. And by the way, I've actually had his product. It's a great product. It's, it's an awesome product. And so, you know, I really, really wanted to help him. And I really, really wanted to show him the root cause of his issue.

Dan Henry (02:08):

And I did have to be a little bit hard on him, but that's, I mean, that's why people pay me. That's why people get in my group because, you know, I'm the one that, that doesn't mind telling them as, as it is. I'm very transparent and I don't beat around the Bush. So right now I'm going to go ahead and play the clip from that call. And you can just go ahead and listen in and see how we dealt with it and the advice I gave Colton. And then I'll hop back on after the clip completes.

Kolton (02:53):

I'm wondering how you stay focused and how you stay organized. Cause I feel like my to list is getting bigger and bigger and I'm working longer, but I'm not able to even make a dent on my list and I've got a team, but it takes longer for me to teach them how to do what I need rather than me doing it myself.

Dan Henry (03:11):

Okay. So this is something that I've, this hits dear it's dear to my heart and it hits home because this is something that I've dealt with a lot in my business. And you know, I've tried every possible productivity hack out there and there are some good ones and there are some not so good ones. Would you like me to tell you overall how to solve this problem? At, at the root cause? Absolutely. Alright. So I have an, I have a saying if there are leaves on the ground, chop down the tree, in other words, solve the problem at its source. So I, you know, and we know each other, I see your posts, so I kind of follow what you do. I saw posted, and then I keep my, you sell CBD, right? Right. Your main product, the one that you've yet to make a million dollars with it's your first product is CBD, CBD related things, correct?

Kolton (04:07):

Yeah.

Dan Henry (04:08):

I saw you post the other day where you said, I forget exactly what it is, but basically you said, Hey you know would anybody be interested if I created this, this monthly membership or course, or whatever, where I talk about this and you know, you pay a monthly fee or whatever it was, you remember that, right? Yes. Okay. So here's the thing that I found in my, in my business and in my journey is that the reason my task list is so big and the reason that my team struggles to keep up is two things. One, I'm constantly experimenting with what works. So it's impossible for my team to keep up and be able to do things because I'm experimenting on what to do and how to do them. So it's impossible to, to expect your team, to be able to keep up when you're in experimentation mode and as well, when you have all these, cause you're the man, right?

Dan Henry (05:00):

You're, you're the entrepreneur, you're the, it's your brainchild, you're the guy. And when you're the guy, you have all these ideas and a lot of them are good ideas. And so the more ideas you have, you want to act on them. And it's very difficult to not, you know, to not act on them. It takes discipline to do one thing at a time too. You know, people often say to me, Dan, you know, I got this business and I want to start this side business and bit, bit by bit. But I said, well, how much money have you made with the first business? Well, we haven't made much yet. I said, well, listen, when you make a million bucks with your first business, then we'll talk about a second business. But probably I'll wait till you make 5 million. Like if you can't make a million with one business, what on earth would possess you to think you could make a million with a second?

Dan Henry (05:42):

And it's the same thing here. You're trying to sell CBD and I have your product. I've used your product. It's an amazing product. But if you're sitting there trying to do all this other stuff, like, like you guys have your CBD, right. And I know that you don't have your completely working yet. I know that you can't totally accept orders properly yet. I know that you're still working on some logistics yet. You've added this adoptive plant thing, which is very cute and very cool, but you've added these things before. You can even sell it before you've even been able to sell your core product. And it's a shame because I have your core product at my house. And whenever I get anxiety, I use it. And it's amazing. But again, you're sitting here talking about creating a course and this and that, and I know you want to help.

Dan Henry (06:25):

I know you want to do that thing, but here's the thing. You can't help people if your house is not in order, right? If your business is not streamlined and in order, you cannot help people because your business will fall apart. Your task list is big, most likely because you're just putting way too much on your plate. And so in order to deal with the productivity and the task list and getting your team to do the things, it, you gotta, you gotta fix the problem at its source. And the source is you're trying to do too much at once. Does that make sense?

Kolton (07:01):

Yeah, I'm just writing all this down.

Dan Henry (07:04):

I mean, bro, go get everything in order, focus 120% on getting everything in order to sell your CBD product, make sure your website's working. Make sure I didn't, I didn't something happen where I, I, I got your product and I mentioned it. I was on a Facebook live or I don't even remember what it was, but I mentioned your product and everybody went to try to buy it. And it crashed your website. Do you remember that?

Kolton (07:28):

Yeah. Yeah. You crashed our site.

Dan Henry (07:30):

Why on earth would you be talking about adopting a plant and creating a course and all this stuff, if you don't even have your website ability to handle traffic yet, this is not a task or productivity issue. This is a, you trying to do too many things at once issue and then expecting your team to not only keep up with that but keep up with the required experimentation in order to execute all those things properly. Do you get what I'm saying?

Kolton (07:58):

Yeah. It makes sense.

Dan Henry (08:01):

Listen, focus. Okay. Get, get that. Get your website. Good. Get, get your product line. Good. Stop taking on new things. Stop taking on new projects. Like I saw you guys all went out and got tattoos of your company logo, right? Yeah. Okay. That's great. Yeah. That's yeah. Yay. You know, but that's all time that could be spent getting your website up. You guys are getting tattoos of your freaking logo, which probably took quite a bit of time. And I get it. It's good to share on social media and yada, yada, but guys like get your website... It isn't even running properly yet. And you're getting tattoos of your company logo. Like I get it, man. I get it. I get, I get that. You're all in on this, but there's a difference between being all-in on something and being disciplined while you do it. Does that make sense?

Kolton (08:53):

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And I think I've just had to, I guess, shiny object syndrome or something, but yeah, I definitely keep adding a lot.

Dan Henry (09:02):

That's how you fix it. You stop adding, I mean, adopt-a-plant, courses, tattoos like, you know, Holy moly man. Like, I mean there, dude, I couldn't get all that done and handle all that simultaneously. And I'm a seasoned entrepreneur. That's created multiple million-dollar companies, including eight-figure companies. And I would never take on that much at once. Especially when you, don't your core product. Isn't even like right now, if I were to send a ton of traffic to your website, would you be able? And here's the other thing I remember we talked about, you have a CBD product and you it's, you know, you have flour, you have the oils, all the stuff was probably the main thing that's going to make you the most money is a recurring subscription where they automatically get delivered that product on autopilot every single month. Correct. You would agree with that, right? Is that set up ready to go? It is not the, why are you getting tattoos and creating courses?

Kolton (10:06):

Uh, I don't know.

Dan Henry (10:09):

Listen, I love you man, but you're me 10 years ago... and me 10 years ago was poor unfocused and full of these big dreams that, you know, you can't live those dreams without discipline. It feels great to be an entrepreneur. It feels great to do big things and to do more than that, the people you grew up with that have no ambition, no drive, no want or desire to do better. But that doesn't mean that if you imagine for a moment, like, like, do you know how you take like these, these fuels, right? Like, like gasoline? Or can you go, can you go and tap into the ground, strike oil and then just dip a cup into that oil important to a car and the car will run.

Kolton (11:01):

I don't think so.

Dan Henry (11:02):

No, it has to be refined. You know, just like you can't take plutonium and just throw it into a rocket and you know, like the end of it and shooting off, shoot it off. Like these things take refinement. So that raw power that you have that raw desire that raw I've yes, it is better than, I mean, do you have friends from high school that just don't have any ambition? Just don't have any, any, any, you know, want to improve? Do you have those?

Kolton (11:31):

Yeah, pretty much everybody.

Dan Henry (11:32):

Right. And, and it, and it eats at you because you know that they could be doing greater things, right?

Kolton (11:37):

Yup.

Dan Henry (11:38):

Can I tell you something? Do I have your permission to tell you something that may be hard to hear, but it's the truth.

Kolton (11:43):

Absolutely.

Dan Henry (11:46):

Having those dreams and having that drive without discipline is this, you're basically the same as your friends only instead of a loser, you're a dreamer. Losers don't think about big things. Dreamers, think about big things, doers live those dreams, and execute those dreams with discipline. The thing about it is that doers will move on and they will succeed. But dreamers and losers as different as they are, will still inevitably end up in the same place. It's just that the dreamer will be in a lot more debt.

Kolton (12:36):

Yeah. It makes sense. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it makes a lot of sense.

Dan Henry (12:39):

It is man, but I'd rather you swallow that pill than the pill that comes five years from now. When you know, you're in debt, nothing's working and your company is in shambles. I'd rather you swallow this pill first. Get it over with, I here's what I would do. I would take all the projects you're working on and I delete 90% of them. I would literally focus on the one thing that's going to make your company move forward. The fastest is the core thing and I would put 100% energy in that, put that in your social circle of focus and stop getting distracted with anything that does not directly make that happen. And then once that is fixed, once that is good to go, then, then, and only then do you start looking at adding things? Let me give you an example. I know you guys are trying to get your website moved over to a better platform. I know you're trying to get the subscription set up. I know you're trying to get that core thing set up so that when you market it, when you bring traffic, you can actually make money from that traffic you're at a good website, handle it. They can handle the traffic that can, can get the subscriptions. You're looking like that. That's going to be the core thing that moves you forward. Correct? Okay. You have a website guy or developer that's doing this.

Kolton (13:52):

Yep, yep. Yep. So it was being built out now,

Dan Henry (13:54):

What are you doing while he's doing that?

Kolton (13:58):

All these other million projects.

Dan Henry (14:00):

Why don't you stop doing those projects and help him? Alright, why don't you do what you ask him? What can I do to help you? And don't take this. No, I got it. Crap for an answer. Right? You can make phone calls if he's busy working on one thing, but he still has to make a phone call to somebody to see if this software will work at that, where you make that phone call. Yeah, you do it. Okay. All right. Like here's what I do. W what's your developer guy's name?

Kolton (14:26):

Brent.

Dan Henry (14:27):

So this is what I want you to say to Brent. I want you to say, “Brent, if there were two of you, if I could split you into right now, what would the second person be doing?” And whatever he says, you go and do that. And you stop getting tattoos. You stop talking about courses, you stop running around, putting seeds in trucks or whatever the heck it is you're doing. Unless that directly, you directly need that you stop doing that crap and you do whatever his clone would do until it's done. And then you move on to the next thing. Does that make sense? 

Kolton:

Yep. 

Dann Henry:

All right. Cool. Does that help? Do you have any further questions?

Kolton (15:02):

No. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah, I do. And Brent is living in my guestroom, so it's real easy for me to go spend time with him and help him with this.

Dan Henry (15:12):

Okay. That's good. You see, you guys got that. You got that, like Facebook, a Zuckerberg, a social network, a vibe going on where you're at a house and you're building the company from the house. You should, you should have all the time in the world to focus but listen, do one thing at a time. All right. What goes through butter, easier? A hammer, a knife, or a needle?

Kolton (15:39):

Needle.

Dan Henry (15:40):

Needle, because it is the most focused, then it just goes right through. Okay. Especially a hot needle. Right. And that's the thing is, you know, if you try to do a bunch of stuff at once, it's like literally like a big blunt object smashing into butter versus a hot knife or it, or a hot needle going right through just penetrating. And so in the beginning, especially like you don't have this huge team where you can delegate all this stuff, but in the beginning, you know, in that initial, beginning, that initial time you need to do everything. You can get a hot knife through butter, to be that needle that just pierces it, that gets you going. And then you worry about all the accouterments and the bells and the whistles and the things that can add to it and support it. But if you think of those things and you act on those things before your core engine is running, then you are a dreamer and not a doer. And again, dreamers end up in the same place as losers, but just with more debt. And I know that you don't want to end up there. You want to be a doer. And that takes discipline hard decisions, focus and above all saying, no. Steve Jobs said that focus is not about deciding what to do. It's about deciding what not to do.

Kolton (17:06):

I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Alright.

Dan Henry (17:09):

All right. I want to hear some really, really, really good updates on next week's call. Okay?

Kolton (17:15):

Good. Thank you. Alright, brother. Awesome.

Dan Henry (17:19):

All right. I hope that was helpful. I hope that you got as much out of that as Colton did. I know on the call everybody just, just really, really loved hearing that and seeing that interaction and it really hit home for a lot of people. You know, that, that deal with the same thing, a lot of entrepreneurs that deal with that same thing. So listen, if you would like some more help with this, there's a chapter in my book, digital millionaire secrets, it's called the circle of focus and it will give you a systematic way to remain focused. It's just not some, you know, arbitrary, arbitrary storytelling or, or, or analogy. It's literally a system it's a monthly system you can use to stay focused. So if you check the link in the show notes, you can grab a free copy of my book, just pay for shipping and I'll ship it right out to you as well make sure that you subscribe to the podcast so that you can get notifications of when we release new episodes. I will see you in the next one.