The Tyler Wagner Show: Productivity Multiplier for Entrepreneurs
(The Tyler Wagner Show was formerly The Business Blast Podcast.)
Tyler Wagner and Chris got right after it with a rapid-fire 10 minute Q&A for The Business Blast Podcast. This short listen/read is packed with Chris’s biggest insights on how we can be more effective humans.
Audio recording and links below (10m). Transcript to follow.
Interview Transcript
Note: Transcript has been edited for clarity.
Tyler: All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of The Business Blast Podcast. Today I have Chris Sparks here with us, he is a productivity multiplier for digital entrepreneurs. So, welcome to the show, Chris.
Chris: Awesome, great to be here, thanks Tyler.
Tyler: Awesome to have you here as well. We’ll dive in here, Chris, the first question I have for you is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Chris: All right, well, I’m most known as a professional poker player, and I had a very eventful day where I woke up and my chosen profession was no longer legal and half of my net worth had been seized by the US government. As much as I would like to think that I would respond well to the situation, I was more like a deer in headlights.
I realized the importance of reorientation: the ability to face reality, however unexpected and inconvenient it is. By reorienting to your new reality you can take decisive action. That experience taught me that this ability [to reorient] is what separates.
I call these moments Inflection Points, where our trajectory changes on multiple dimensions in an instant. Now I teach clients frameworks to recognize and proactively generate these inflection points in their own lives.
Tyler: And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that’s within your expertise or industry?
Chris: My expertise is in productivity, and I don’t think that most people realize that productivity is not an entertainment business. Everyone looks for productivity hacks and tips, and they spend far too much time and effort trying to optimize their tools and their systems.
We are the common denominator in all of our problems, productivity included, and if we can shift our habits and our mental frameworks, our approach to everything we do changes. Any small improvement we make to our approach is extremely high leverage because this is a process that repeats many times each day, with each small gain that we make compounding infinite times as we grow older.
Tyler: What is your best piece of overall business advice? Not necessarily industry-specific.
Chris: Every entrepreneur that I work with, I try to instill in them this idea of operating in serial rather than parallel. We are always trying to move in too many different directions at the same time. It’s like that medieval torture where you get drawn and quartered, where four horses are ride off with each of your limbs in opposite directions. Getting pulled in several directions at once causes many of us to be effectively standing still.
My advice is to do fewer projects of higher average importance and leverage, with a higher level of presence and dedication. Operate in serial rather than parallel. Most of our efforts are actually wasted because they don’t address a current bottleneck. By both making sure that we’re working on the right priorities and by bringing the right time and attention to those priorities, that’s how true progress is made.
Tyler: If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Chris: Only one piece? I would tell myself to operate out of a stance of love rather than fear. I would tell myself that no one is paying close attention and that the only critic that matters is you. I think I was running away from things that I didn’t want rather than thinking, “What do I really want?” or, even better, “What do I want to want?” and creating the conditions to make that possible.
Now, I try to use fear more as my compass as an indicator of what compels me despite my outdated evolutionary programming. Fear is not something to be avoided, but to be cultivated.
Tyler: In your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Chris: My key insight here is that most people confuse happiness and fulfillment. There is overlap, but about 50% of each is actually counter to the other.
I think about happiness and fulfillment on a continuum where I try to maintain a constant awareness of where I am on that continuum. On the far right where I’m completely pursuing fulfillment, I risk burning out. On the far left where I am completely pursuing happiness, the old hedonic treadmill, I risk boredom and diminishing marginal returns.
Understanding that life is a constant oscillation between these two extremes of complete happiness and complete fulfillment, I maintain an awareness of where I am on the continuum at any given point in time. Whenever I have an opportunity to reflect I re-balance myself back towards the center, thereby avoiding burnout and boredom.
By understanding that both happiness and fulfillment both originate inside myself, I can reinterpret my own mental narrative in any way that best serves me and encourages taking action.
Tyler: That is an incredible answer. Thank you, man. What is the best book that you’ve read? What was the number one thing you learned from that?
Chris: My answer to this is always the book I’m currently reading, because I always try to make what I’m currently reading the best book that I’ve ever read or at least treat it like it has the possibility to be the best.
Right now, I’m really loving Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. Campbell spent his entire life studying ancient and indigenous cultures to identify what are the universal human stories. These myths were replicated in similar forms across many cultures who have never met. These patterns are humanity’s source code for the universal lessons we need in order to grow up, to become fully-realized humans, and to reconcile with our mortal condition.
I’d love to share two major lessons that I’ve learned from Power of Myth.
A majority of my coaching is empowering others to action. I realized that behavioral change happens not through facts, but through creating a narrative where the possibility of change is believed. Action is created by shifting the way that someone views their position in the world and their ability to act upon it.
On a personal level, for me, I’m trying to activate my own “mythic mode”. Every setback I have can be re-framed into essential character growth. I’m always in a critical stage on my own hero’s journey. Every experience I’ve had, no matter how painful or embarrassing, has gotten me to where I am. These were all essential experiences to become the person I needed to be for where I need to go.
Tyler: What is your favorite quote, and why?
“You improve what you measure.” I actually like to rewrite this as, “You measure, and you will improve.”
This is a core insight from my years as a productivity coach that works even if you don’t have a stated goal. If you improve it, it is because you measured it.
Never underestimate the power of increasing integer. Just by directing our attention toward something, we automatically notice opportunities to improve it. On the other hand, if you aren’t measuring something, you have no way of knowing whether it’s improving. The ego exists to convince ourselves that whatever we’re doing is great. Without these objective metrics to compare performance, it’s very tempting to believe that we’re improving when we’re really standing still or even regressing. I always encourage people to measure. If something is important to you, put a number on it.
Tyler: Thank you so much for coming on the show.