by Jason Linett
I developed my morning rituals before I picked up a copy of the book The Miracle Morning: The Not-So- Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) by Hal Elrod. Check out this incredibly inspirational book to hear how Hal transformed his life by turning his morning into a series of powerful rituals.
Many people come to me for help with weight loss. For example, one woman came into my office with the goal of eating healthier foods and exercising more frequently. We worked together. When she reported back that getting to the gym was effortless, I scanned to see that she’d not been observing the new behavior from a place of novelty. Yes, I want her to be excited at how easily she made the change. However, I’ve found it’s best viewing the exercise from a place of ritual. As if it’s something she’s always done. Almost on the same brainwave frequencies that she uses to brush her teeth. That is, she’s just a person who hits the gym five times a week.
Then again, some business people reach out to me with a rather specific goal. They’re not necessarily solving a problem. Perhaps, like an athlete, they’re going for performance enhancement. Through the wonders of video web-conferencing platforms, like Skype or Zoom, I worked with an executive client on the west coast of Canada. The goal? That the first two hours of his workday be done in his own peak performance state. His laptop would be on airplane mode blocking all distractions, all web browsers would be closed, and he would zone into his planning for a solid 120 minutes. Rather than observe it as a new habit, he locked it in as if it was a ritual, and he’s kept up the momentum many years later.
The most impactful example of rituals comes from the work I’ve done with athletes. Through hypnosis we can dissolve away distractions, build greater attention to physical specificity, and help you replicate your best strategies. The more skilled the athlete, the more likely they already have well-defined rituals. The method, then, is to apply hypnotic strategies on top of their already-existing rituals. You’ll learn “Anchoring” in the WORK SMART strategies later in this book. If they’re an amateur, it’s more likely that we have to work together to create the ritual while also doing hypnosis. You’ll also learn an extremely direct method for “Self-Hypnosis” in the strategies later in this book. I’m going to teach you how to confirm the hypnotic state, then mentally associate your desired outcome. Rather than observing your goal from a dissociated perspective, like watching a movie, you’ll instead associate into the scene as if you’re already there. You are essentially running the new mental pattern to overwrite the old patterns. This technique is extremely helpful in turning habits into rituals.
Are you picking up the value of getting specific in your strategy? Realize my exact strategies may not be your own. Study the premise and test it out to see what new rituals fit for you. Your rituals may thrive in the evening, while mine start in the morning. You might be that person who plops down in a coffee shop with a laptop or checks into a co-working space for the day. Let it become a human guinea pig experiment to discover what time of day you will hold sacred to create your rituals.
My online calendar is color-coded like a Jackson Pollock painting. Appointments are green. Speaking opportunities are black. Personal events are yellow. Travel is gray. Educational events are orange.
And then there’s purple. Purple is power. If something is purple, I’m not allowed to change it. It’s blocked off. It’s a ritual. The same way I’m at my children’s school for a parent-teacher conference, that purple block is sacred. I’m not allowed to change it. If it weren’t for those purple blocks, I wouldn’t have programs for sale online, and you wouldn’t be reading this book.
Harness your most valuable asset and make your time sacred. Make the time for your success, that’s when things can really begin to grow.
WORK SMART ACTION STEPS:
☞ Start a list of things you’d like to do more of. Consider balancing the list with professional and personal items. As an experiment, pick an item from each category and commit to doing them with passion and intention for a minimum of ten days. You’ll be running new patterns in your mind, respectfully programming in the new behavior.
☞ There’s a chapter in the WORK SMART Strategies section of this book devoted to Self-Hypnosis. Here’s a preview. As your day begins, close your eyes and imagine yourself locking in these new behaviors as if it’s always been a part of your life. Mentally step into the experience as if that’s what you’ve always done.
☞ Become a ritual-creating-machine. As you establish what works best for you, keep the momentum going as you create new rituals that keep you focused on the growth of your business.
.
DESIGN SYSTEMS
You can’t do it all yourself, so here’s a method to do it all yourself.
I’m about to reveal one of my biggest productivity secrets to you. An easy-to-master method saved my life, enhanced my marriage, and tripled my income along my journey.
I’m going to detail the methods to turn your business efforts into “machines” that you will run and “systems” that operate with ease. If you ever want to increase your business, it can become as easy as pressing a button, and the operation will automatically run as predicted.
Random fun fact: I quit biting my nails thanks to hypnosis almost fifteen years ago. I share this even though it has no correlation to the story I’ll tell you about how a nail salon planted the seeds for my financial freedom.
As you move through this chapter, have this question in mind: “What repetitive tasks am I ready to eliminate from my life?” Ask yourself, “What methods have worked the best to grow my business?” We’re going to transform these things into systems.
Can the inspirational words from a television infomercial create massive waves in your life, even if you don’t buy the product they’re pitching? Find out more, right after this commercial break!
I do a lot. I previously described my business life as a “three-ring circus.” I see private clients in my hypnosis office most weeks of the year. I publish an industry-specific (micro-niche) podcast that broadcasts ritualistically every Thursday morning. I’m invited to travel and speak around the world. I maintain massive educational communities online.
When I’m recognized at a conference, nearly every time, their dialogue includes the exclamation, “Wow, you’re doing a lot these days!” My response is always the same. I smile, and simply respond, “It sure looks that way, doesn’t it?”
The principle to “Design Systems” changed my life. I modeled the most successful people that I met in business. I studied what was working for them. I read the books from productivity experts like David Allen and Timothy Ferriss to maximize my time, minimize my efforts, and produce the highest quality experience for my customers. Now, with every task I approach, I’ll ask myself, “How can I do this once” or “How can I streamline this to make it easier? ”
Technologies change from year-to-year, so I’ll refrain from turning this chapter into a laundry list of website recommendations for services that might disappear by the time you read this book. Let’s focus instead on the principles for “Design Systems,” as they will apply universally even as the technology world evolves.
Imagine turning on your television early in the morning. A man wearing an apron appears on the screen. He loads a raw, whole chicken onto a metal stick, which is exactly the image you wanted to see to start your day. This friendly man with a sincere smile, conveying his excitement is absolutely genuine, loads the meat into a toaster-oven shaped box. As if he and the audience had been rehearsing it for hours, he asks the live audience, “What’s the next step?” In perfect unison, the entire space roars with an enthusiastic “SET IT AND FORGET IT!”
Ron Popeil closed the door on his Showtime Rotisserie Grill, turned a dial, and walked away. Within a few hours, the door would open to what promised to be the most perfectly cooked chicken you could ever make in your own home. The infomercial sold over eight million units and generated more than a billion dollars.
The ca
tchphrase of the product changed the direction of my life. How can I apply the physical and mental ease of “Set it and forget it” to both my business and personal life ?
When I launched my local hypnosis business, I was inspired by a conversation with a local business coach. A point of frustration she expressed became an “away-from” motivation system for me, driving me to realize, again like a television infomercial, “there’s got to be a better way!”
She expressed that she loved meeting with new clients. A new client would mean she could directly help transform the shape of their business and their life. A new client meant money in the bank as she’d get paid for her services. Her only complaint was that it took so long to send a new client their first-session homework plus driving directions to her office.
This conflict opened my eyes to a flaw in her business systems. She explained that her welcome email to a new client had to include specific driving directions as her office was through a private entrance on the side of her home. They had to know exactly where to park. There were instructions about an email attachment they needed to print and complete by hand.
I was inspired to overhaul my office strategies. I crafted new welcome emails and office forms for my clients that evening. Other than a change-of-address, when I moved my office, and several rate increases over the years, the welcome email and office forms are the same nearly ten years later. The coach was spending forty-five minutes completing this office administrative task. In my world, an automation sequence from a drop-down menu took care of it. I shared what I had done with the coach, and she’s now using the same principle in her life.
To “Design Systems” doesn’t always have to be a technical adventure with online automation. When I do a keynote presentation for a business or professional organization, the program is templated and modular, so I can put the pieces together that address the goals of their team. I teach a number of strategies to internalize goals, one of which is self-hypnosis, which I demonstrate with volunteers from their audience. Depending on the event, I can piece together the best strategies to teach that align with their business environment. Another system is in place at the time of booking the speech, as a brief “needs analysis” system is employed conversationally with the executive team to identify their goals and set the objectives for the presentation. The program is easily custom-designed to match the needs of the client. Just like the story of the welcome email and office forms for a private client, the contracts and travel arrangements follow a similar systematic journey.
Ron Popeil was right. “Set it and forget it.”
Systems allow you to model yourself. The majority of my business now comes from fully-automated online activity. I frequently share seminars through “exclusive online learning events.” That’s a much better title than the tech-jargon of calling it a “webinar.” While you read the method of this presentation, realize the principles can be applied to any aspect of your business that needs systematization.
The strength of a webinar is that it’s a timely online event. People sign up online to receive a series of messages counting down to the date. They receive the attendance access link and then a follow-up series sharing the replays and resources. From one email signup, to be a part of the event, you have permission to send a number of checkpoints in communication. Lead with value. My goal is to help my audience produce a small win through learning something new. This easily transitions into a polite promotion for a product or service that will help the viewer create an even larger win.
Here are some examples of this education-to-conversion. I taught you a self-hypnosis technique to dissolve a craving? Please come to my office to knock out the entire smoking habit. You learned how to take your personal service and expand it to groups? Please purchase my complete business training. I taught you a mental trigger to provoke your own organic state of confidence? Please have me come share it with your staff. Abolish the mindset of this conversation being an “upsell.” Think of it as an “upgrade” to naturally pivot from education to offer .
Here’s where the systems come in. Every step of the process is automated. Every email of the sequence is pre-written before the first promotional email invite is broadcast. The countdown emails and subsequent replay sequence were programmed on schedule in advance. The benefit here is that your messages will all now carry a congruent tone of voice through the sequence, plus you won’t forget to do it later.
I had a programmer build this automation system for me years ago. Every new event is a model of a previous one. My task is to produce the new video program and present it. My team’s task is to create new graphics and change the name of the event and dates in the email sequences. This allows me to put my complete focus toward putting on an outstanding learning event.
Set it and forget it.
I strive to make the experience provide genuine value for the attendees. I can focus on sharing 100% value in this permission-based platform. To be transparent, my welcome emails state, “Yes, I will be promoting an upcoming training opportunity. However, I know you’ll benefit from the content I’m going to share during the program.” It’s no surprise that the end of the presentation pivots to an offer to get more. I also only allow myself to continue contact with the attendees who haven’t yet purchased if I’m continuing to provide value. “Here’s a download of the presentation” or “Here’s that document I promised you.” Value first, followed by “only four spots are left.” Lead with value. Your buyers will thank you for the experience.
I run this “webinar machine” system several times a year to print money. I hope you’ve already noticed that these WORK SMART principles can stand on their own, yet they become more powerful as you combine them with others. Having created this powerful system, my team duplicates an older campaign, changes the titles, images, and dates, and we’ll run the machine again to another audience with different content for the next event.
Team. I’ve used that word a few times now. Did you catch it? That word is magic.
Is your business bursting at the seams? Are you struggling because you’re behind schedule, trying to complete too many tasks, and, unfortunately, dropping the ball in several parts of your life? It’s time now to reveal the #1 thing that changed the shape of my life.
Let’s talk about outsourcing so you can become the wizard behind the curtain rather than the jack of all trades. Have you found yourself sitting at a computer for hours in a state of frustration because you could not figure out some piece of software? Embrace this frustration as your cue to hire someone else to help you !
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
In my previous arts management career, I learned how to operate professional sound design software. I also learned how to rapidly build websites and maintain them. These are essential skills in the businesses I operate. However, my time is better spent speaking to business groups, developing new programs, working with private clients, and spending time with my family. I designed systems in my life to hand off the technical tasks to someone else so my time may now be focused on the things that will scale up my business. Refuse to be a slave to your business and allow your business to now work for you.
Want an added bonus? The expert can handle the software better than you can.
My podcast is one of my systems. New content releases every week like clockwork. Sometimes it’s a solo session where I teach something. Other times, we capture a recorded conversation with someone I feel my audience needs to meet. The initial recording is completed and immediately saved in Dropbox. This folder is already synced with the filesharing service to my audio editors. They have the file within seconds of my hitting save. I produce another recording to capture my opening remarks, an introduction with a soft promotion for my programs, and the closing statements. I click save and, within seconds, it’s automatically uploaded to the Dropbox account of my editors, too. They handle the editing, perform magical things to make recorded voices sound better, and upload it into the productio
n cycle for release.
While this system is running, so is another system. The team of writers produces the first draft of the show notes. They save it into our shared Dropbox folder, and I receive an alert when it’s ready for my edits. It takes me less than five minutes to make a few adjustments, saving the final version in the shared folder. This automatically flies through the digital cloud to my web & graphic designer who prepares images and the website to promote the recording.
These are people I’ve been working with for at least two years. This next fact may surprise you. We don’t talk to each other. We don’t have to. There are occasional “Hello” messages or “Happy birthday” notes and the rare “My guest’s phone rang during the interview, can you edit it out?” We don’t need to directly speak to each other. We don’t have to. It’s a system that now runs on its own. My responsibility is focused on producing valuable experiences for my audience, applying a few finishing touches, and listening to the program with everyone else when it releases on schedule.
The systems go even deeper than that. This program releases on schedule every week. However, this isn’t a weekly task. I batch produce these programs. Remember the purple calendar entries? Just once or twice a month I’ll set aside time to record, typically producing programs well over a month in advance of public release.
Set it and forget it.
Whether it’s something you design for yourself or hire an outsourcer to build some automation for you, you empower yourself to WORK SMART. No longer will you need to metaphorically bash your head on a computer desk because of a lack of technical skill.
Start with the user experience. Work as if you’re not going to touch any computers or software at all. You will be responsible for some effort in communication and content creation, though this creator-only mindset will put your focus where it ought to be. Focus your efforts on the user experience.