Welcome to the Daily Quote, the podcast designed to kickstart your day in a positive way. I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to you by the Great News podcast. Because great news should be heard, and the link is right here in the show notes.
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Today, I want to start with a concept you may have heard of called Parkinson's Law.
Parkinson's Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion.
It was introduced by British historian and author Cyril Northcote Parkinson back in 1955.
And I'm sure most of us can relate to it.
And that brings me to today's quote from Peter Thiel.
Peter Thiel is an entrepreneur, investor, and co-founder of PayPal.
He once said…
“If you have a 10-year plan, you should ask: Why can't you do this in six months?”
Now, that's quite a challenge!
Think about it. We often make long-term plans and give ourselves years to accomplish them. We tell ourselves we'll start that business someday, write that book someday, learn a new skill, get in better shape, or finally pursue that idea we've been thinking about.
But what if you had to get it done in six months?
You'd probably have to rethink the whole approach.
And that's the really interesting part of this question.
It forces us to stop thinking about how much time we have and start thinking about what we're capable of doing with the time available.
I picked this quote because the other day I was listening to the 5AM Miracle podcast with Jeff Sanders and he asked this question…
“What if I had to?”
Think about something you've been putting off. Something you genuinely want to do, but somehow never seem to find the time for.
Now compare that with something you absolutely have to do.
Let's say you have a job that starts at 5 o'clock in the morning. You don't particularly enjoy getting up early, but you do it because you have a commitment. You set the alarm, get out of bed, get ready, and get yourself to work.
You don't usually tell your boss, ”I'd love to come in, but I just can't find the time to get out of bed.”
Why?
Because you have to.
And yet, when it comes to things that are important to us personally, we often find all sorts of reasons why we can't make the time.
We want to exercise more, start a business, learn something new, work on a creative project, launch a podcast or spend more time with family. But somehow those things keep getting pushed to tomorrow, next week, or next year.
So what would happen if we started treating those commitments with the same urgency as a jobt?
What if you had to finish that project in six months? What if you had to make that phone call today? What if you had to find 30 minutes every morning to work on something that really matters to you?
Would you suddenly find a way?
I had the idea for this podcast for years before I actually started it. I kept putting it off. And when I actually started working on it I found that there was always something else that needed to be done like watching TV, or scrolling social media or any other excuse to procrastinate.
It wasn’t until I finally decided that I HAVE TO DO IT. I made it a must and decided that I was going to publish a Daily Quote every day for a year. And I did it and I’m still doing it three years later.
So here's the question:
Think of one big goal you've been wanting to accomplish and ask yourself…
What would I do differently if I had to accomplish this in the next six months?
You might be surprised by the answer.
That's going to do it for today. I'm Andrew McGivern signing off for now, but I'll be back… tomorrow! Same pod time, same pod station with another Daily Quote.
