by Jim Harmer
A few weeks into this new venture and after graduating from law school, I decided it was time to create a podcast of my own. For some reason, I got it into my head that the bank vault would be the coolest possible spot to record a podcast from, so I went to the nearest hardware store and bought $200 worth of thick foam pads to quiet the echo from the metal walls. The show launched to great success with over 20,000 downloads in just the first week.
Emily and I bought our first house around this time. It was a basic 1,984 square-foot home because the builder knew it would annoy me that they hadn’t added in an extra 16 square feet. The home was in the most inexpensive area of Caldwell, Idaho—a suburb of Boise. With the housing market in shambles, we were able to scoop up the house for $84,000 and we paid cash. It was hard to believe—we were not only first-time homeowners, but we owned our home outright. I nearly lost my mind when I sat down at a conference room table in the title company’s office and wrote out a check for $84,000. I never thought I’d write a check that large in my entire life. Incidentally, that same home today is worth over $250,000.
Dave Ramsey is right about one thing. When you own a home outright, the carpet feels better, the grass feels thicker, and the whole thing is wonderful. We owned our own home without a mortgage, and it felt incredible, especially because of where we had come from.
I began tracking my net worth on a simple Excel sheet around this time. In September 2013, I had $90,000 of student loan debt. That number felt impossible to overcome. After I typed in all the numbers in my Excel sheet, I had a pit in my stomach thinking about the magnitude of the amount—$90,000. I would be paying for the degree that was collecting dust in a frame on my wall for the next decade. I was in financial prison: $90,000.
After the initial shock wore off, I made a simple plan. We had been broke before. In fact, we had been the other kind of broke before. We would simply reduce our expenses to that level, and I would write a blog post every single day on my website to increase traffic and help on the income side. My Excel sheet reported that at my current pace, this would be a years-long process.
As it would turn out, I was able to pay off the entire amount just 174 days later. Yes, we saved a significant amount of money by living frugally, but also my simple practice of writing a blog post a day had been the perfect fuel for my business. It had quickly boomed to bring in more income.
As the leaves began to fall off the trees, the romantic old bank-building-turned-podcasting-studio had over a dozen uninsulated gigantic glass windows along its front. Speaking of insulation, there didn’t seem to be any in the walls either.
We kept the heat pumping 24/7 on full blast, but it only got colder in the building. I got called over during the middle of a date with Emily one night because the pipes had frozen upstairs and were leaking down into our portion of the building. Fortunately, nothing was ruined. The restaurant owner upstairs apologized, and we became friendly acquaintances. I loved the small-town feel of my little office.
Yet it continued getting colder. With the heat on full blast, we came into the office one morning and could see our breath. I got a thermometer which read 35 degrees—inside the office. We literally wore coats and gloves all day until Dustin made an offhand remark about what OSHA would think of these working conditions.
It was time to leave the bank and the bank-vault-turned-podcasting-studio.
We found another office space and after a few annoying days of moving furniture and equipment, we were all settled in the new spot. This was an old building, but it didn’t have any character—orange carpet, drop ceiling, musty smell. I’ve always been a bit of a cheapskate.
I got a call one day from the guy who rented the restaurant above our old office space. As soon as I realized who was on the phone, I was surprised by the shake in his voice. I could tell that he was terrified to be calling me. I said, “Hey Mike, what’s up? You sound upset.”
He said, “Look, I’m a Christian and I’ve always tried to be an honest person, but the truth is gonna cost me my business today. Have you noticed how expensive your utility bills were in your office over here?”
I said that I had noticed and that it was because there was no insulation—that’s why we moved out.
He replied, “Well, there’s another reason. The meter reader messed up our lines and it turns out that you were paying for not only your space but also my space. Restaurants have huge energy bills—especially with this old equipment we have. Anyway, I was able to figure out how much I owe you and it’s several thousand dollars. The problem is that the restaurant is just barely scraping by. After paying everybody, there’s nothing left at the end of the month. So I’m calling to tell you that I can’t pay you today, but I will sell off whatever equipment I need to and pay you back as soon as possible.”
That’s the kind of man we need in this world. I was surprised by his honesty and of course, wanted to help him out, so I told him I would just consider it a sunk cost and not worry about paying me. I realized for the first time that having money was a fantastic tool to do good.
I could have wanted to help him out if I were poor, but most people simply aren’t in a position where they can reasonably forgive thousands of dollars of debt just to be nice. I saw that having money allowed me to do things I simply couldn’t do before.
I’ll always remember how cool it was to be able to help the restaurant owner in a time of need, and the only reason I got that chance was because I dreamed a goal to get out of debt, and I took daily actions to get there. Following your dreams opens up all kinds of doors.
It was still the early days of my business, and my simple daily efforts brought quick growth. Working on anything is fun during the rapid growth stage. After the work has been identified, the difficult starting period overcome, and the wheels are in motion, the work is exciting as you watch how far the initial steps propel you.
If you dream of being skinny, losing the first five pounds takes incredible self-discipline and faith that your hard work will bring about the desired result. After the first five pounds, the excitement of the rapid progress builds and it becomes easier to continue.
Learning a language is drudgery when you have to memorize the first 300 words and learn the conjugations. Then, once you can hold a basic conversation in the language, the remainder of learning becomes fun as you see the progress of your efforts.
The rapid progress stage of working toward any goal most often occurs when the learner understands the one thing they do that brings about 90% of the results. For me, I found that the time writing new blog posts and creating podcasts was bringing 90% of the success. More people came to the site, and thus I had more opportunities to make money. There were countless other things I could do such as improving the design of the site, creating more digital products, keeping up on the accounting, optimizing my site’s speed, and taking pictures myself to improve my skills. Yet I was able to identify the single action that brought the vast majority of the success. If I published some piece of new content each day, the business continued to grow even if all of the other aspects of the business were imperfect.
Someone losing weight may find that focusing on simply eating fewer calories is far more important than a more optimized exercise routine. Someone wanting to retire may find that getting rid of a car payment is far more important than canceling Netflix. Someone wanting to be a better parent can simply set aside 30 minutes each day to get down on the floor and play with their kids rather than taking a parenting class, reading parenting blog posts on Pinterest, or spending more time at work to earn money for a big family vacation.
Design Your Day to Produce 90% of the Results
After building my first online business, in the ensuing decade I’ve built a dozen sites from the ground up to success. I was recently asked how I’ve built so many web businesses. Millions of people try to build blogs and YouTube channels without reaching success, but I’ve done it a dozen times or more. I had to think about it for a moment, but I realized that I
always do the same thing. I identify the one thing that needs to be done in the business to drive 90% of the results. Then, I design a day where I can accomplish that one high-value activity, and I simply repeat that day like it’s Groundhog Day.
Remember the movie Groundhog Day? In the 1993 movie with Bill Murray and Andie McDowell, the main character was stuck in a loop. He would live out one day, which happened to be Groundhog Day, and the next day he’d wake up the morning of Groundhog Day again.
Here’s an example of how groundhogging a goal can work. When I was in college and realized I wanted to go to law school, I knew it would be expensive and the best way for me to avoid that expense would be a scholarship. I also knew that I had a below-average 2.8 GPA, and I frankly wasn’t the best guy out there when it came to taking standardized tests. Worse yet, most law school hopefuls were paying thousands of dollars for a complete course on how to do well on the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT). I didn’t have that kind of money.
Yet I managed to get an almost full-tuition scholarship to law school, which saved me a massive amount of money. Here’s how I did it.
First, I knew that I thrived on achieving difficult tasks where I could measure my progress. “Look Ma! I got a good grade on the test!” That’s my work energy. Eighteen months before I took the LSAT, I bought every single previous test of the LSAT that had ever been given. After a test is used, they publish the previous version so students can use it as a pre-test. I also spent about $50 on used versions of some of the old test prep books on eBay.
Then, I designed a day that would eventually make me a master at the LSAT. It was simple. Each morning, I’d wake up and spend 15 minutes researching law schools to determine where I wanted to go and what it’d take to get there. I needed to increase my GPA, so I simply made one change to my schedule—I spread out my classes so I’d have an hour after each class to study what had been taught or to do my homework. As soon as I got home from school but before I could be done for the day, I’d sit down for 30 minutes to study LSAT tips from the old books from eBay. Then every Wednesday, I’d take a full test, which lasted about three and a half hours. I planned for that time by not taking any classes on Wednesday afternoons. I created a graph on a piece of paper where I’d track my test score each Wednesday so I could compete with myself to maximize my work energy.
The day I “groundhogged” was designed to focus on only the most essential things I could do to move toward the goal. Rather than optimizing my note-taking in class, for example, I simply set up my day to ensure I did my homework. Ask any straight-A student and they’ll tell you that the most important thing you can do to be a better student is never get a zero on an assignment to drag down your grade.
I started the very next day, and then just groundhogged it, living the same schedule each day until the LSAT. I wasn’t a genius, and in fact, I had proven to be a below-average student, but I groundhogged the actions that gave me 90% of the result and I ignored every other optimization.
The night before the test, I had to drive to a city a few hours away. I went to sleep early so I’d feel my best for the test, but it did little good. I was so nervous that I woke up at 3 a.m. and stared at the ceiling for a while before getting up to look over my books and read through all the questions I had missed on the practice tests over the last year.
I arrived at the testing center early and heard all of the other students greeting each other who had been in test-prep classes together. I had focused on the most high-value activities, but I wondered if it would be enough compared to all of the other students.
The test was strictly timed, and I felt I was falling behind. I could figure out all of the problems easily if I had enough time, but the LSAT forces test-takers to understand logic quickly. After the test was over, I wasn’t sure how I’d performed, but it was done. All I could do was wait.
I wasn’t sure what to do with myself in the weeks after the test. I had established such a strict schedule to groundhog for the previous year that it was hard not to be studying anymore.
Finally, my test score arrived. I opened up the letter and timidly looked at my score. I was in the 85th percentile of all test takers, and it would likely be good enough to get a scholarship. Because of the 15 minutes I’d spent each morning researching law schools, I knew precisely what schools I’d apply to, and it wasn’t long before acceptance letters started arriving (and a few denials).
The result came because I identified a way that I could prepare for the test that matched my work energy. I like to take on big challenges and have a measurable way to track my results so I can feel the world’s approval of my efforts. My plan to take a test each week and draw the results on a graph to chart my improvement was motivating for me. It fed my work energy, and it focused only on the 90% actions while ignoring all minor optimizations. That’s the work energy formula, and it works every time.
Action Step Five: Design a Day Focused on 90% Activities, and Groundhog It Until Success
In previous action steps, you’ve identified your work energy and the type of work you want to apply it to. Then you decided the first step you could take to begin saving your first brick toward your goal.
Now, it’s time to design a day that, if you groundhogged it enough times, would enable you to achieve your goal.
Suppose you want to become the top salesperson in your company. You attend a lot of meetings and do a lot of tasks each day, but you know the most high-value activity is simply calling contacts on your customer list. It’s also the thing you put off the most because it’s awkward and intimidating.
Put your work energy in the fight. You’re a survivor? Walk into your boss’s office and tell her if you don’t achieve your goal this quarter, you don’t deserve a promotion this year, but if you do, you’d like to talk with her about a raise and a more flexible work schedule. Your work energy is helpfulness? Change your calls to focus on your customers’ problems and how you can solve the issues for them. Use your work energy.
Before you do anything else, buy a brick. Prove to yourself you’re not a lazy lump of lard by picking up the phone immediately, pushing all excuses out of your mind, and simply talking to one contact.
Next, it’s time to design a day that will achieve your goal. In addition to your normal work, listen to a sales podcast each morning to get you fired up and thinking about how you can sell. Instead of wasting an hour at lunch dreading when you have to go back to your desk, bring a brown bag lunch each day, lock your office door, and block off your calendar to stop all distractions. You simply call person after person for an hour straight, in between bites of your apple. Then, at the end of your day at 4:30 p.m., right before you go home, send a text to one person on your list and make one last call. Every day, simply groundhog that day until you succeed.
You’ve learned the secret. You already know more about achieving goals than most people will ever recognize in their lives. Most people will get lost in the minutiae of activities that are not essential to success. Most people spend their whole lives seeing opportunities but failing to go after them because they freeze up with intimidation when they aren’t sure how to begin. They will never learn about designing the day and groundhogging that day until success.
The work energy formula will give you the upper hand on every goal you’ll ever face. You only need to choose to move forward.
“We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.”
—C.S. Lewis
I started writing this book over four years ago, but I could never finish it. This book is 60% story and 40% lessons learned because I want it to be practical rather than theoretical. I knew I hadn’t yet finished living the story I wanted to put in this book, and there was one life lesson I had to complete first.
The thing stopping me from finishing this book was my weight. Yep, it’s time to get personal. Real perso
nal. We’re actually having a conversation about the cellulite circling my belly. How could I write a book with the subtitle Finish Everything You Start and Fearlessly Take on Any Goal while I knew full well that I was hiding the one goal that has always sneered at me—that knocked me over so many times I can’t remember them all? If I really meant what I have said in this book, it was time for me to prove it to myself.
I’m not a blimp. I’m five feet ten inches and 220 pounds, with an average amount of muscle, a significant belly, and cheeks that resemble Santa Claus—although they aren’t nearly as wonderfully rosy. Significantly over a healthy weight.
Years ago, on April 15, 2013, I committed to change. I remember the day specifically because I was at home sick, watching the news of the horrific Boston Marathon bombing where three people died and more than a dozen lost limbs from the blast. I think it was the continuous news coverage of the marathon over the next few weeks, combined with feeling sick from the flu, that inspired me to get fit like those runners.
While a sane person would get fit by getting an exercise DVD, I put my work energy into the fight. I wanted to take on a big goal with a measurable result. Remember? “Look Ma! I can run a marathon too!”
I made two purchases. The first was a registration for the Top of Utah Marathon in Logan, Utah. As I was putting my ticket in my online shopping cart, I giggled to myself because I had a wonderfully devious idea. I’d buy two tickets instead and rope my wife into it. She’s such a sucker.
My second purchase was the book The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer by David Whitsett (Whitsett, David, Forrest Dolgener, and Tanjala Kole, The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer, McGraw-Hill Education, 1998). I literally just went to Amazon and typed “marathon” to see what stuff I should have, and the book popped up. I purchased the book the very next day after the Boston Marathon bombing: April 16, 2013.
Emily and I got a babysitter and went on our first “running date.” We drove over to the local high school, put on our gym clothes, as I ignored the tag in my shirt which read XXL, and walked over to the starting line at the high school track. We wanted to get a baseline on how long it took us to run one mile so that we could know what pace to expect. At the time, we weren’t doing any regular exercise.
