Ray Sclafani (00:00.142)
Welcome to Building the Billion Dollar Business, the podcast where we dive deep into the strategies, insights, and stories behind the world's most successful financial advisors and introduce content and actionable ideas to fuel your growth. Together, we'll unlock the methods, tactics, and mindset shifts that set the top 1% apart from the rest. I'm Ray Sclafani, and I'll be your host.
hundred sixty eight. That is the number I want to start with today. There are one hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week. That's it. Not a different number for founders, CEOs, top advisors, coaches, parents, or anybody else trying to build something meaningful. We all get the same hundred and sixty-eight hours in a week. And lately, I've been hearing the same thing from high performers. Hey, Ray, I'm overwhelmed. I feel overcommitted. I've got too much to do and not enough time. Now, these are not lazy people, I promise you.
They are not people who lack drive. They are smart, capable, trusted, and deeply committed to the people around them. That is exactly why more keeps finding its way to them. The client issues come to them, the team questions they come to them, the strategic decisions land on their desk. The recruiting conversation needs their attention. And then outside the business, the family still matters. Health still matters. Faith, friendships, marriage, recovery, and the future still matters.
So they keep carrying it all. For a while, it feels like leadership. Eventually, it becomes the ceiling. I've had more people ask me lately, well, how Ray, do you get it all done? And I always pause before answering because the honest answer is I do not get it all done. None of us do. That is part of the point. The real work is not figuring out how to do everything. The real work is deciding what deserves your time, what does not, and what someone else needs to learn how to own.
Ray Sclafani (01:59.225)
That is why I want to talk about time blocking. Now, I know this sounds silly and a little tactical, but for leaders, time blocking is not a productivity hack. It's actually a way of telling the truth. Let me explain. Your calendar shows what is actually protected. If strategy matters, well, it deserves time. If developing the next generation matters, it needs time. If your health and family matter, they need time. Otherwise, they become hopes.
And hope is not a calendar strategy. One of the traps here I see among successful leaders is confusing responsiveness with effectiveness. They answer quickly, they solve quickly, they jump in quickly. That can help, but it can also train everyone around them to bring every meaningful question back to the leader. And once that happens, the business is not really scaling, it's just orbiting around the leader's availability.
That is why the real multiplier is not another app, another list, or another early morning. The real multiplier is the team. More specifically, it is developing others who can develop others. The goal is not simply to squeeze more into your week. The goal is to build a business where the right people own the right work at the right level. That requires real delegation, not dumping tasks, not handing something off because you're really tired of it.
Real delegation is development. It means teaching people how to think, how to prepare, how to decide, how to work with clients and recover from mistakes and coach the next person behind them. That is the move from practice to enterprise. Dave Allen wrote a great book many, many years ago called Getting Things Done, the GTD Method. And it's useful here because his core premise is simple and true. He says your mind is a terrible place to store commitments.
Most leaders are carrying too much in open loops. Follow up with a client, talk to a team member, review compensation, think about next year, make the hiring decision, prepare for the partner meeting, respond to the email, fix the process, check in with something they care deeply about. Now you may be laughing as I'm rattling through all of those, like, whoa, is he talking about me? All that's stuck in my head. Well, none of these things are bad. The problem is they sit in the background quietly taking energy. They create pressure.
Ray Sclafani (04:23.51)
without progress. Allen's system is built around capturing what has your attention, clarifying what it means, putting it where it belongs, reviewing it regularly, and deciding the next action. For so many leaders with too much in motion, that's pretty powerful. Before you can protect your time, you have to know what is already consuming your attention. Some work belongs in your calendar, some belongs on someone else's calendar, some belongs on a future calendar.
And some should be deleted entirely. Now that last category matters. Not every good idea deserves your time this week or next. High performers often struggle with that because they see possibilities everywhere. They want to help, they want to move, they want to be useful. But focus is not only choosing what matters, it's also leaving some good things alone so the better things have room to grow. There's a technique called the Pomodoro technique.
This is one practical example. Francesco Cirillo created it as a university student using a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, probably the one you remember in your great-grandmother's home. This classic rhythm is 25 minutes of focused work followed by a short break. But the timer's not the point. The point is that focus needs a boundary, a beginning, an ending, a clear target. I use an app that sits on my phone and my desktop called Session.
And the reason I like it is that it forces me to name the work before I even begin. There's a big difference between saying I need to work on the business and then saying, for the next twenty five minutes, I'm going to draft three decisions our leadership team needs to make this quarter. The first one's just a wish. The second one is the real work. Dan Sullivan and strategic coach deserve all the credit here. Dan's entrepreneurial time system gives entrepreneurs a useful way to think about the calendar.
Free days, focus days, and buffer days. Free days are for recovery and renewal. Focus days are for the highest value work. And buffer days are for preparation, planning, and cleanup. I first joined Strategic Coach in 1994, and to this day, I still keep track of my free days, my focus days, and my buffer days. And what I love about Dan's model is that it recognizes that not all time is the same. A recovery day is not a performance day.
Ray Sclafani (06:51.053)
Preparation day is not a client day. A thinking block is not an email block. Yet many leaders blend it all together and then wonder why they feel scattered or exhausted. They try to recover while checking email. They try to think strategically between meetings. They lead the team while also acting as the team's emergency room. And that creates leakage, attention leaks, energy leaks, judgment leaks, and over time, leadership leaks. There are practical ways to stop that.
Some leaders theme their days. Certain days are for clients and growth. Other days are for leadership and planning. Certain days are for review, writing, and preparation. Others block energy. They put their hardest thinking work into the hours when they are the most mentally awake, often before the inbox starts setting the agenda. Some leaders cluster meetings so the week does not get chopped into pieces. Others create decision blocks so the team knows when approvals and key calls will be handled.
And for anyone leading a growing advisory firm, I would add one more, a delegation block. Once a week, look honestly at what you're still carrying and ask why. Are you holding it because only you can do it? Or because you have not slowed down long enough to teach someone else how to own it? And that's an uncomfortable question, but a useful one. Many leaders say they want leverage, but they don't make time to create leverage. They want people to step up, but they don't create enough room for them to step in.
They want a stronger team, but they keep rescuing people from the very experiences that would make them stronger. That's not a criticism. It's just a pattern. And once you see the pattern, you can change it. The better question is not simply, how do I manage my time? The better question is, what should no longer require my time? That is the leadership reframe. Time blocking is not about filling every square on the calendar. It's about protecting time for the work only you should do.
While creating room for others to grow into the work they should be doing. Because the future of your business cannot be built only on your personal endurance. It has to be built on leadership, judgment, capacity, and trust. So here's the actionable idea for this week. Grade yourself on how well you are investing your 168 hours. Not how busy you are, not how many meetings you attended, not how many emails you answered, how well are you investing.
Ray Sclafani (09:14.478)
your time. Look at focus. Are you spending enough time on your highest contribution? Look at preparation. Are you creating the conditions for better work or reacting all day? Look at recovery. Are you protecting your energy or borrowing from tomorrow? Look at delegation. Are you handing off meaningful work or simply assigning tasks? And then look at team multiplication. Are you developing others who can develop others? Now be really honest with yourself.
Not how much you can carry, how much capacity can you create? You have 168 hours this week. Spend them like they matter because they do. And as you look at your calendar, take these three coaching questions with you. If your calendar became a visible expression of your highest priorities, what would need to change or shift first? What work are you still holding on to that could become a development opportunity for someone else on your team? And one year from now,
What would be different in your business and life if you invested your time more intentionally for each of the next 52 weeks? Please like and follow today's episode and share it with a friend or team member you know will find it helpful. Well, thanks for tuning in, and that's a wrap. Until next time, this is Ray Sclafani. Keep building, growing, and striving for greatness. Together, we'll redefine what's possible in the world of wealth management. Be sure to check back for our latest episode and article.