Matt Gray is a well known Youtuber and content creator. He is also the founder of Herb - the largest and most engaged cannabis community in the world of over 14 million people.
Previously he founded Bitmaker, which trained full-stack software engineers and got them jobs at companies like Shopify, Facebook, and IBM. Bitmaker was acquired by General Assembly.
Guest Author: Matt Gray
At 22, I was $15,000 in debt and depressed. Now, I make $1.23 million every month and travel the world.
It’s not because of luck or hard work, it’s because I work every day in my Zone of Genius.
Here’s my simple 5-step process to Genius:
In his book The Big Leap, Gay Hendricks talks about 4 zones of performance: • Incompetence
• Competence
• Excellence
• Genius To work in The Genius Zone, you need to take control of your time. If you don’t, your dreams will fade away.
Here’s what you have to do:
Start the Day With Deep Work Morning meetings are the plague.
The first few hours of the day are proven to be your most productive, and I make sure to spend those hours in deep work on my most important projects.
1 year of daily deep work can earn you complete Founder Freedom.
Automate, Eliminate, Delegate Most founders spend too much time on menial tasks.
That’s why I use the AED System to restore value to my time while still getting tasks done. Poor delegation is why 90% of startups fail.
Here’s how it works:
The AED System
• Make note of tasks
• Note if tasks are energizing or draining
• Mark whether a task can be automated, eliminated, or delegated
• Eliminate draining tasks
• Delegate tasks within your team
• Automate where you can
This is how you reclaim your time.
Integrate the Founder Flywheel Right Now A flywheel is a device that uses momentum to store up energy in machines.
If you’re a founder, this device might do more than just help you build momentum.
The Founder Flywheel saved my life, and it can save yours.
Build Your Personal Brand My personal brand is the foundation of my business.
As you gain attention, your brand grows, and your opportunities to prove your skill with your business grow as well.
Attention is the new oil and your personal brand is the pipeline.
Leverage Your Audience to Build a Lead Magnet As you deliver to your clients and build your personal brand, the flywheel continues to spin.
Satisfied customers lead to more word of mouth, and you leverage this to your growing brand online.
The challenge is will be keeping up.
Hire Your Time Back Being a CEO is hard. As you build at a rapid rate due to the Founder Flywheel and Deep Work, you’re going to need help to keep everything in order.
Your value is not being in the room, it’s your skills and your vision. Losing is hard; winning is harder.
The Zone of Genius Creates Stability Your business may be growing, but if you don’t have systems to ensure that you’re getting Deep Work on essential projects, you’re on borrowed time.
Build, outsource, automate, and delegate. Repeat until you’re the architect of your life.
Check out the original tweet here.
