2 Critical Factors To My Productivity And Achievement

One question that I often get asked is, “How do you get so much done?”

Many people that follow my Monthly Goals Reports and progress over the years have seen that I am able to accomplish a lot on a monthly and yearly basis.  Those that follow me on Snapchat (user: stefanjames1) have noticed that I'm also extremely productive and getting a lot done.

So if you're wondering HOW I do everything that I do, then I'll explain.

There are 2 critical factors that I've been able to identify that has allowed me to be so productive and achieve so much.  You can find out what they are by watching below.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch on YouTube)

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Video transcript

Hey guys, Stefan here, just at the gym right now finishing up a workout. I want to record a quick Q & A video, to answer a great question that I just got. Gotten this question from a few different people now, but the question, in essence, is, “How is it that you're able to do so much?

How is it that you're able to achieve so much and make progress towards all different areas of your life, and have balance in your life?” This person, they've seen the progress since 2012 on my blog, YouTube channel, the monthly goals reports month after month, the progress that I'm making, the goals that I'm achieving in all areas of my life.

They also see on social media, on SnapChat every morning, I wake up, do my morning ritual, I do my morning cardio, I plan out my day, making progress towards my businesses, I'm recording videos, I'm reading books, I'm learning and improving myself. I go back to the gym for my second workout, and I got a relationship, I'm traveling the world.

All these things and oftentimes people have a tendency to compare themselves, and it's just human nature, we compare ourselves to other people. We might see this person's doing this, and then you compare yourself at your speed, your rate of success and progress in your life. You wonder, how is that possible? How is it that you're doing it? It's really unfair to compare yourself, but human nature, because everyone's at a different stage of life, different path. Everyone's on a different path.

I can give you like a time management tip, productivity tip or something like that, and I've already shared a lot on my YouTube channel, how I plan my day, how I plan my life. Really the biggest things, the biggest differences are number one, passive income, the biggest difference by far.

The biggest challenge

The biggest challenge that a lot of people have is that they have primarily active income. 100% of their income is active income. They don't have any passive income whatsoever. Active income is when you're trading your time for money. You're only getting paid based on the time you're putting into something.

Often times people that have a job, it almost puts you at a disadvantage because 8 hours of your day is spent dedicated to someone else. Someone else's dream, someone else's vision. So you're working 8 hours a day plus your commute, most of your day is spent working for somebody else. That's a disadvantage because that 8 hours or whatever that you're spending every day, you're basically spending that time.

It's omitted from the day. You're getting money in exchange for that, which can help pay for your current lifestyle, and how you are living right now. But the challenge is that your current lifestyle that you have right now may not be the lifestyle that you want. It's not going to give you the ability to work out twice a day, to travel the world, to really make quantum leaps in your life and really improve yourself and grow.

I had a job, been a long time ago, back when I was 21 years old. I was working for my dad, the family business, before that working for a car dealership, before that I was selling Cutco cutlery knives and stuff like that. So it's been a long time but I know the difference. I've seen the difference in my life from then to today.

You really have to make passive income

The biggest difference is passive income because I don't have a job that I have to spend 8 hours a day on for somebody else.

Every minute of the day I can spend it to build my own vision, to achieve my own goals, my own results in all areas of my life. I have total freedom throughout the day. If I want to wake up at whatever time, go to the gym, take breaks during the day,nor do something fun or whatever it is, I have the freedom to do that. If I want to take a month off from my business I can do that and my business will still grow and still continue making me money.

All the work that I put in years ago and today, of building these passive income streams, of building up content and products, and things like that, that are basically self-sustaining. So if I stopped working, my YouTube channel is still going to be there. Thousands of people right now are watching videos that are on my YouTube channel, going on my blog and buying products of mine and all that sort of stuff, and that's the power of passive income.

Basically, it’s automated, auto-piloted income that comes in day after day, while I sleep, while I'm traveling, it doesn't matter what I do, it can't stop. It's like this force that basically never ends. Maybe it will end eventually if I did nothing and if I didn't sustain it or maintain it in some way. But for the most part, if I do nothing for the next few weeks or whatever, next few months, I'm still making money. I'm still going to have a six figure income coming in year after year.

If I retire, which I probably never will because I love what I do, I'm not going to have to worry about money or a pension or anything like that because of the passive income. I got different investments in real estate and in online businesses. All the different things that I've set up. When you make a passive income that's a big difference, a huge difference, a huge advantage because I don't have to trade my time for money.

My time is not related to money right now. I can do nothing and still continue making money. When you trade your time for money, when you stop working, you stop making money. In fact, you lose money. You go on that vacation, you basically take your weekend off, you're losing money because that's time you can be spending to make money. So that's a huge advantage, passive income.

I believe everybody should make it a goal to make passive income, you have to really. It's such an important thing because a lot of people they depend on their pension or something like that when they retire, and unfortunately a lot of people are not going to get as much as they expect when their pension comes. So you really have to make passive income to help prepare you for different stages of your life.

Passive income comes in many forms

It could be investing your money, you could still have a job, but invest your money into stocks that pay dividends or real estate that can provide a passive income for you. You can rent it out. You can build businesses whether it's online or offline. You can create a vending machine or something like that or a car wash, there are many different forms of passive income.

I don't think it's ideal or smart to have 100% of your income be active and 0% being passive. Maybe it's better if you can eventually get 95% active, 5% passive income. For me in my case, 98% of my income is passive, while 2% is consulting or coaching that I do but only because I love it and it's fun and really enjoyable for me. You want to make it your goal to make passive income if you want to have a great lifestyle because the challenge is the money that you are getting from your job.

There is nothing wrong with that but understand that it can be holding you back in your life because during that 8 hours a day you're not able to really grow and improve yourself and live the lifestyle that you want. It's basically allowing you to live the current lifestyle of a 9 to 5 life. Traveling a few times out the year, you're not going to have the time and the freedom as much to work on other goals and do other things in your life.

I can relate to this more recently because my girlfriend, she doesn't have a job right now because she's building an online business, but when I first met her she had a job. It was a huge challenge for me, just frustrating because she wasn't able to travel with me and do these fun things that I wanted to do. I'm used to just having so much freedom. That's the biggest thing that has given me the advantage that I am able to do so much.

I don't try to do everything by myself

I'm smart enough to realize that there are only 24 hours in a day, we all have the same amount of time, but if I try to do everything by myself, I'm also limiting myself as well. I'm basically still being a slave in working for myself. What I mean by that is that I need to work on the business and not in the business, and that's a very important thing.

So what I've realized a long time ago is that I need to leverage myself. I need to use my time in a lot smarter ways, and I need to hire other people, build a team of people, that can help me create more free time because time is the most valuable thing.

So what I've done is that I outsource different parts of my life. I bring in a virtual assistant, I got a team now that edit my videos, that does a transcript, that does my audio podcast and audio engineering for that. My social media, my customer support, I have programmers, I got pay per click guy on my team, I got my affiliate manager. I've built a team and what that's allowed me to do is it freed up my time more so I can spend my time doing things that are really important for me.

Those are things like working out, building my body, work and spend time on my relationship, and traveling, having fun, recording content and videos, learning things and going to seminars, doing the things you guys see me do, because I don't have to do all the boring stuff that I have to do. The really repetitive boring stuff I don't have to do that anymore because I hire other people to do that for me. I personally cannot stand cleaning and having to cook and prepare meals and stuff.

Free up your time so you can focus on what's most important

I much rather spend my time on doing things that are more meaningful for me. If I want to cook, if I want to clean whatever, fine I can do that, and get some enjoyment if it's a fun thing that I'm planning to do. But for the most part, I want to free up my time so I can focus on what's most important, what I enjoy and what I'm the best at.

Those are the two biggest things in this video here because I can go on forever, but those are the two biggest things. They come together because once you start making money and passive income you can then use that money to free up your time even more. You can outsource and delegate things to other people. So really I think passive income is the ultimate. It has changed my life more than anything because not only does it give me the freedom, I can live the 4 hour work week if I want, but again it basically provides the money that I can use to free up even more time.

Time is so important, the most scarce resource that we have, it's a depreciating asset. Most people act like we have an unlimited amount of time and we don't. You have to use your time wisely, spend it now on building passive income. Make money so that you can get out of your job which is basically sucking up a lot of your time every day. Once you make a passive income you can use some of the money you are making to outsource other parts of your life and grow even faster.

That's my advice, that's how I do what I do, that's the essence of it. Combine that with a lot of productivity tips and time management stuff and that's how you're able to live whatever kind of life that you want. Not sure if that's really helpful or not, but that's the answer. Thanks for watching guys, make sure to leave a comment below and subscribe for more videos. Going to get back to my workout so take care.