Important vs. Urgent
The following diagram has been made famous by Stephen Covey … he might even have come up with it in the first place:
Unless you fight to make time for that top right quadrant, everything to the left will just keep consuming all your time and energy. However, everything on the left will not change your life. If you keep feeding the dragons on the left, without making time to do what's on the right, you will find that a year, two year, five years, ten years from now everything is still pretty much the same. Your life will still be roughly the same. Your business will be more or less the same.
Your life changes and improves in direct proportion to how much time and energy you can dedicate to the top right quadrant.
Obvious vs. Impact
But here is another one that I've begun to realise is critically important:
Accidentally discovering the power of the Non-Obvious
Some time ago, I was part of a formal mentorship program run by Daniel Strauss. Every month I would have the privilege of spending 2 hours with him and six other entrepreneurs. At the time I was actually on a bit of a Sabbatical, and not really starting anything up, so I felt as if maybe my time was not going to be that well spent.
Being kind of in-between things, I did not have any specific questions to ask, or problems that I needed help to think through. So I would just arrive at each session with the attitude of listening to the questions of others, and learning from them and from Daniel.
The results were astounding.
I began to realise that if I had arrived with my questions, I would be operating in an environment that, in the above diagram, would be in the “Obvious and High Impact” quadrant. If I knew what the question was, I could search for an answer, ask someone for an answer, or even think up the answer. By not arriving with any questions, I was often surprised by the questions that came out, and then, even more surprised by what I learnt in the process as Daniel would explain certain concepts. I began to realise that for some of the most significant insights, I did not even have a framework to ask the right questions in the first place. Those were non-obvious insights.
You have to be humble to learn
Daniel is much younger than me, and I could probably teach him something about formulating and executing strategy. But when it comes to entrepreneurship and investments, he's done a ton more than I have, and he has clearly had the privilege of working with people in circles I have not. He has also achieved results in life that I had not, in areas that are important to me. By simply being humble enough to learn from him, my eyes were open to "Not Obvious, High Impact” ideas.
Another place I often find these thoughts is listening to podcasts like the Founders podcast by David Senra, who reads biographies of the world's greatest founders.
John-Mark Comer's teachings do the same for me on a spiritual level.
Reading books that fall outside of the normal topics I am naturally drawn to, also helps me find these.
Maximum Impact is in the Overlay of these two
When you overlay these two diagrams, it becomes clear that you will get the most power in your life by focusing your best and most creative time in the place where the top right two quadrants overlap.
Things that are Important and Not Urgent, AND that are also High Impact and Not Obvious.
Those are the things that you need to focus on discovering and implementing. That is where the highest leverage for future success lies.
To your success
Ashton
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