We have been told for years and year that “practice will make perfect” but does having a successful business require more than just practice from employees? Is there something more we can do? Michael Simmons explains what he calls the “5-hour rule.”:
“Over the past year, I’ve explored the personal histories of many widely admired business leaders, including Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Waffen Buffet, and Mark Zuckerberg, in order to understand how they apply the principles of deliberate practice.
What I’ve done does not qualify as an academic study, but it does reveal a surprising study. Many of these leaders, despite being extremely busy, have set aside at least an hour a day (or five hours a week) over their entire career for activities that could be classified as deliberate practice or learning.
Matt talks with Michael Simmons, an award-winning social entrepreneur, bestselling author, and contributor to publications like Forbes, Fortune, Inc., Entrepreneur, Time, Business Insider, and HBR. Michael’s company, Empact, helps build the entrepreneurship ecosystem globally. Empact has held over 600 events at colleges, high schools, workforce development organizations, corporations, and Small Business Development centers in 7 countries.
Lessons from Matt’s Favorite Guys
What do the most influential men in our lives all have in common? Here are 4 examples from my life of those influential leaders and the qualities they emulate.
Bart Summerhays- (Youth Leader) “To Believe In Myself!”
The Lesson- Bart taught me to believe in myself. He always found time to be with me and around me and reflected the best of who I was back on to me. He was a light, not a critic.
When it comes to things I wasn’t sure I can do like an LDS mission college, getting married and starting a family, Bart got it into my head that I could do anything. He taught be to say, “Oh yes I can!”
Stories- I don’t remember any lectures, just gentle guidance during golf games, putting tournaments, road trips and working with him as a courier.
He just kept telling me what my gifts and talents were and modeling for them what that can become, not just what they think they can do.
Eventually, because of his guidance, I knew I could “Go on a mission, go to college and get married and raise a family!”
The Lesson I Now Teach- “Reflecting a person’s best self is a better motivator, and over time, can make miracles.”
Martin Townsend- (Dad)- “Lighten Up Life With A Laugh!”
The Lesson- My dad taught me the power of making people laugh to heal, handle hard things and soften some of the tougher lessons of life.
Story- My dad is a seriously funny guy with a hilarious sense of humor. I remember watching him use his unique social skills and his sense of humor to take difficult situations and taking the edge or pressure off.
The Lesson I Now Teach- “The fastest way to someone’s heart is one laugh at a time.”
Michael J. Preece– (Father In Law)- “A Life Without Learning Is Lifeless!”
The Lesson- “Learning is a Life Long Process”
My father-in-law is the smartest man I know. He’s a cardiologist, graduated number one in his classes and was one of the best doctors in Utah. He is also an avid learner and taught me the importance of constantly learning and sharing your learning.
Story- My father in law, while doing procedures in his office, would talk to his Spanish speaking nurse only in Spanish, and eventually over time he learned to speak Spanish pretty well. Now he’s an excellent cook, great tennis player, master woodsman, scholar, and author.
The Lesson I Teach- “Living, Loving and Leading are all made better when we’re learning.”
Ralph Smith- (Adopted Grandpa) “Love Is A Verb, Not a Feeling!”
My Lesson- Ralph taught me that love was a verb, not a feeling. He taught me that the harder one works and serves another, the more you fall in love with them. There is no one you can’t love, if you’ll lose yourself for them.
Story- He worked for his wife and loved her even when she couldn’t love him back fully, and there’s the story about the prisoners that he oversaw at the prison and how he learned to seriously care for them because he put so much effort into helping them.
The Lesson I Now Teach- “If you want to stay in love, stay in service.”
Lessons Learned from the Pixar Movie “Inside Out”
Relationship Insights From Pixar’s Inside-Out
Power of Recognizing Emotions of Others
Inside-Out taught us that emotions are our friends not our enemies, that emotions are our guides, to understand the other, but they are not the other person.
Emotions all serve a purpose and they exist to protect us, prepare and to help us enjoy, learn, and take advantage of life.
Pixar’s 5 emotions are- Joy, Fear, Sad, Disgust, Anger (There are more than 5 basic emotions).
They’ve been with us since the beginning. They all serve a purpose and every emotion has something unique to offer that needs to be understood by those around them.
Our partner’s emotions don’t just do battle with us, but they also do battle with with each other.
By learning to recognize the emotions (are they mad, glad, sad, scared, embarrassed or spent) we have already begun to understand our relationships better.
By recognizing the emotion we see we can inquire about the emotion and that will lead us deeper into their core identity issues.
Everyone’s Emotional Make Up Is Different
Don’t just assume that women are more emotional and men are more uncaring. Instead try to figure out what the emotional make up is of the person you’re relating to.
Remain curious, but not convinced. The minute we’re convinced because of our emotions, we stop trying to understand the other person.
Because emotions are powerful, many times we think we’re actually right, simply because we’re having an emotion.
Emotions will always fight for themselves unless we get out of our emotions and try to understand what’s really going on with the other.
In the movie we saw that
Joy was sure she was always right, despite what others wanted.
Fear acted out even when he didn’t need to.
Sadness was always blue, even when times were good.
Anger would always run the board aggressively, with two hands on the throttle.
Disgust always had a judgment or evaluation about everything.
Have discussions with your partner about their emotional make up and try to discuss your own use of anger, disgust, fear, sadness and joy in the marriage.
Changes In Life Foster Emotional Growth
The character in the Pixar movie was a young girl named Riley and it was really hard for her to move to a new city. The move threw in her emotions in to chaos.
In our relationships, changes can also take a toll on each of us. They have to be processed over time, not just overnight.
We can be there for friends and family as they need to process the many changes in their life.
We need to allow these others to share and process their emotions with us and look for the deeper and hidden impact on their identity.
Changes are always going to help our emotions to grow deeper and our insights to be broadened if we allow it.
You Can Only Know Joy If You Know Sadness
All emotions inform our spirit.
The risks of life, enable the benefits of joy.
We must know the sad to know the joy. We must know the hard to recognize the easy. We must sense the embarrassment to appreciate the confidence.
There is power in the paradox of our relationships which is why they are so important to us. No where in our existence can we experience more intensely the power of something than we do in our relationships.
That is why we are in families and couples: so that we can experience the pain safely with someone who will shelter us and watch over us when we are going through our darkness.
Rule- Allow people to go to their darker emotions instead of always having a need to pull them out of it. If it goes too long or too deep you can get help, but instead of trying to change their feelings, just understand them. Let them explore them with you. Then they’ll be able to let go of them so much quicker.
