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Rebellious Thoughts #56 - 🤘 You Don't Have Time

Rebellious Thoughts #56 - 🤘 You Don't Have Time

October 18, 2024

By Gus Balbontin
Edition #56

Hey Rebels!

As always, I promise to provoke you in less than 5 min once a week so that you can stay adaptable and on top of your game.

YEW!

Let’s get into today’s newsletter:

You’ve heard me speak before about the importance of dedicating some of your time as an individual or as a business to doing new things.

But often the excuse I hear is “I have no time”.

Now let’s recap on time from this newsletter.

Remember time is an illusion, there is no more or less.

You can think of it as another dimension if you want, you can count it in seconds, minutes, seasons, moons, trips around the sun, it makes no difference.

Remember you don’t “have” the time… you simply experience it differently according to perspective and context.

The challenge of “having no time” is often directly related to letting go - ie: the time we have is all taken up and the only way to have more time is to let go and create some space.

The issue is that we are really bad at it so we keep on doing what we have always done and whinge instead. Why are we so bad at letting go?

In today’s newsletter, I am going to explore this as it is, in my opinion, one of the greatest barriers to innovation in business and novelty in your life.

Is there such a thing as a good ad?

Like an ad that actually is trying to help? Let me try - cos I genuinely struggle to do this.

It’s like an endless discussion between Lucas (in my team) and me: “Gus the product is brilliant you should definitely promote it” “Lucas, it’s not my vibe man, I’m not pushy!”

If the newsletter resonated, if you know someone that needs a kick up the butt, if you are struggling to let go, do check out my program. It’s easy as, self-paced, and everyone that has done it loved it. Maybe even you are brave enough to get everyone in your team to do it or maybe you are the head of HR and want your entire company to do it!

Joining our program isn’t a magic fix. You still need to put in the work and let go of things to create space for the change you want. I want to help you create a clear path toward a more fulfilling life —one where career doesn’t “happen to you”… you happen to your career.

The program will help you over 6 sprints spread your risk across a number of activities, learn to let go, design a number of potential futures and detail your career.
Curious how the course can help? Click here:

But now back to the newsletter…

How much time do you spend doing stuff you probably don’t need to any more, but you hold on just in case?

A simple way to see how bad we are at letting go is to have a look at your wardrobes or sheds or garages! Ha! Full of shit we don’t need but we still hold on to.

Your business slowly stops innovating because there is no time… we are busy in BAU (Business As Usual) running resultless meetings, doing reports that only the person who wrote them reads and following processes designed back when the computing power in your head was larger than the computing power in your hand.

So... how do we let go and create space?… how do we release time so we can deploy it to new, novel things that will teach us not only about possible futures but also about failure and tolerance to discomfort and patience and being ok with uncertainty?

A few thoughts in no particular order…

Value your time correctly…higher generally!
If you value time correctly you would deploy less of it to dumb stuff that makes no sense. Help people value their time too! Remember there is no “more or less”, learn to value it properly.
Think about letting go as you start something
In other words… whatever you implement in your life or business remember that at some point in time, you’ll have to get rid of it. Either make things more impermanent or simply remember nothing is permanent (second law of thermodynamics, remember from this newsletter? Entropy increases!)
Find the root cause
ie: is there a reason external to you, perceived or real, that encourages you or forces you to continue to do what you do? Eg: I was told we have to do this so I just do it. Eg: I do Y because my friend does X, I’m just responding.
Surrender to the imperfection of letting go!
When you let go of things you know well and start new things you don’t understand very well you are going to feel stupid… it’s ok to feel stupid.
Accept the collateral damage that letting go will cause
This damage carries less consequence than not letting go!
Do something symbolic
Let go and make it obvious to yourself and others around you so they notice too.
Triple the plants in the office
Don’t know why really but I thought I would add it here.
Celebrate letting go!
Build a museum of shit ideas and dead projects. A museum to celebrate learning and courage.
Select All…. delete - hahaha!
Maybe dedicate a day to Let Go? Like “Let Go Friday”?
Grab the process you hate the most, make it worse
You’ll walk out of that session genuinely wondering how did you get there in the first place!
Make “to do” lists and “Don’t do” lists too
Zero-based thinking
“If I were to start over again today, with what I know now, would I do this the same way?” - applies to relationships, processes, products, etc etc etc

CHALLENGE OF THE WEEK:
Let go of something - stop something, make some space, don’t fill it immediately.
Maybe enjoy the space for a bit before you fill it with some novelty.

Yew!

Love

P.S. A little sneak peek into THE SHAKE UP! program… a program that will help you become an expert at letting go (we have a whole lesson about it)!

CHECK OUT