CEO Tips: The 5 Secrets of Today’s Billionaires (and what they have to teach you about producing more with less)

The world today is different in many ways, one key way is how the most successful business leaders have learned to break the chain between one hour of time worked and one unit of value created.

Time cards and grueling days don’t help business leaders create value. We create value by what we do with time, not just by “putting in the hours”.

Here are five ceo tips that the world’s most successful business leaders do to produce massively more value than the average business executive.

1. Massively leverage OPT (Other People’s Time)
Who says money can’t buy time? Of course it can, just not in the way most of us imagine. The most successful business leaders strategically buy time. Here are a few examples:

They have a great assistant who handles many of the mundane parts of their business and personal life, gaining back 10-15 hours or more of their life back each week with which to invest in higher value activities.

They make travel decisions wherein they pay for more useful time. For billionaire entrepreneurs this means private jets that fly on their schedule, but for you and I it can mean paying more for a better class of service so you can work on that long flight. Or getting a driver or taking an Uber so you can get more valuable work done. Or paying for a flight choice that minimizes total travel time to save yourself 3 hours of travel time.

Strategically buying services and expertise to save time and get a better result.

Letting your team own ongoing responsibilities.

2. Make clear, quick, decisive decisions.
When they have the relevant information, they decide.

When a decision is reversible or has a controlled downside, they decide.

When they know their answer, they decide.

3. Willingly say yes or no even if it is socially awkward or scary to do so.
They prize their values and key goals more than the temporary discomfort of what other people might say. They willingly do the thing they are afraid to do when they know it is a key step in accomplishing something that they value.

4. Focus on value created, not time served.
They start with their own time. They invest blocks of their best work time on those fewer, better activities that create the most value for their organizations.

Then they move on to their entire company. They have mastered the ability to galvanize and focus their entire organizations to invest its collective best time into those fewer, better activities that make the biggest difference. One of the most powerful ways to break the direct link between one hour worked and one unit of value created is by harnessing, leveraging, and unleashing the value of your team’s hours worked for best and highest effect.

5. Transform or crowd out “junk” time.
Other people may waste time, not them.

Other people may “kill” time, not them.

Other people may passively escape with unhealthy activities, not them.

They read books, listen to podcasts and audible books, always have something to write ideas down on, fill their transit time with things that nourish them or create value, and they exercise, recharge, and revitalize actively.

So consider this a wake-up call. How do you stack up on these five behaviors of the world’s most successful business leaders? When I observe our top business coaching clients, the ones who are growing fastest and have the best outcomes, I see the direct causal link to these behaviors.

If you enjoyed the ideas I shared, then I encourage you to download a free copy of my newest book, Build a Business, Not a Job. Click here for full details and to get your complimentary copy.