281 – Power of Time

John (Intro): Over the last two decades, I’ve been on an insatiable quest to learn everything I can about leadership. What makes the best leaders so good? After running companies small and large over the last 20 years, today I speak on stages worldwide to audiences interested in that same question. My name is John Laurito. I’m your host, and I invite you to join me on this journey as we explore this very topic and what makes the best leader so good? Welcome to Tomorrow’s Leader. 

John: All right. Welcome to today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader, where we dive deep into all things leader-related, related to leading yourself and leading others. I am John Laurito, your host. And today I’m going to talk to you about the concept of time, not the magazine, but time, actual time. I’m going to take a little time to talk to you about time. Time brings us closer to life’s end. Time brings it all right home to you. Time brings it all right back to you. Time brings it all. And time brings us closer to live in. Yeah, remember that? That was the time theme song way back in the day for Time magazine, for those of you who remember that. Anyways, I’m not going to sing anymore, but I am going to talk about the concept of time. And here’s the great thing with time. Time happens no matter what, and I want to relate this to leadership, but this is a really kind of profound concept. Simple. But it was something I was thinking about the other day. I’m like, Wow, this is really actually a powerful concept when we think about it, how time works to our advantage in many, many cases, and sometimes it helps just to be aware of that. 

John: So I think one of the biggest regrets I have and one of my biggest fears is having regrets in life. I don’t want to be 65, 70, 80, or 91 to look back and have regrets. And we usually regret the things that we should have done and didn’t do versus the things we did and regret doing. In other words, we regret more not taking the chance, not taking action, than taking action, and it didn’t go the way we want it to. So as a general rule, I’m a big believer in taking action, trying it, and just doing it. So one of the things one of the biggest regrets I do have, though, is I gave up playing the saxophone. I used to play the alto sax. I played it for, I think, six or seven years. My sister played the violin, my dad played the trumpet. 

John: So at the same time, we had a loud household when we were all playing at the same time. But it was fun. I remember back in those days, I mean, I think I started when I was eight years old. Thank you, Mom and dad, for starting me on that. I had lessons with a guy who taught me every week and that I practice and you know, for the most part, there were a lot of days I hated it. I didn’t want to practice, just like every kid, eight-year-old kid, you want to be outside doing stuff. But I became pretty good at it. Like really good to the point where after a few years I started playing in bands and orchestras that were outside of my school, regional orchestras, and then even state. I played in the state-level band where you had to audition and be picked. 

John: And I did that for a few years. I think I played, I’m going to say seven years, maybe eight years. I can’t remember. And then at some point, I remember and I don’t even remember the exact reason why, but I think I was a freshman or sophomore in high school and I just quit. I quit. I gave it up. There were other things I wanted to do. I want to play

sports. I want to do this and that. I didn’t want to be part of the band. I was losing my enthusiasm. The band itself at school was not good and for whatever reason, I gave it up. 

John: So I regret that because wow, had I even just kept going and practiced and played an hour or two a week like here I would be 37 years later, I would be a badass. I would be so good at the saxophone. And my guess is there would be periods of time in my life where I’d pick it up, play more, get into it. I’d probably be in bands playing, you know, for fun all over the place. It would just be a whole nother dimension of my life that I don’t have because that day in high school I just decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. 

John: And it’s so easy to quit something, right? It’s so easy. It’s so hard to pick something back up. It’s so hard to start something. It’s super easy to quit something. It’s the easiest thing in the world. It takes no effort and no effort in the world to quit something. It’s as easy to quit something that you’ve been doing for ten years as something you’ve been doing for a year doesn’t matter. It all starts with stopping and that’s just stopping doing something. 

John: Okay, I’m not going to practice anymore. I’m like, I pick it up again and before you know it, you’ve now no longer played the saxophone. So again, I regret that. And the point is the power that time has. And you think about Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers concept, which is a great, great book about the top ultra outliers in sports and intellect in business and life in general and leadership. It’s how you become an outlier is it’s 10,000 hours of top-level practice or study. And being taught something or learning something at a high level for 10000 hours will make you, in essence, an outlier. That’s a concept boiled down to a sentence or concept. So if you think about that, I would have been an outlier as a saxophone player. 

John: So the concept here is, you know, time changes things over time. It makes it easier. Not only do skills get better over time, you become more of an expert, but it becomes the harder thing. The hard things become easier over time. So if you’re dealing with something right now, that’s really hard to do when you keep doing it over time, it gets easier if you’re starting a new job and it’s uncomfortable right now. Well, next week it’ll be a little less uncomfortable. Then it’ll be a little more comfortable and a little more comfortable. It will become more and more comfortable if you’re dealing with pain. And you have wounds, so to speak, from a bad breakup or unfortunate death or loss or something catastrophic. Time will heal that over time. It becomes the pain that doesn’t go away, but it certainly diminishes. In some cases, it can go away. Time has this magic ability. It changes our perspectives on things. 

John: We look at things differently. I look at things differently, dramatically different now than I did even two years ago, especially running my own business. I look at things differently now. I look at things differently, relationships, and people differently than I did five, ten, 15, or 20 years ago. Of course, it changes our perspective because we have more experiences in the aggregation of these tiny differences. If I’m doing things really even a tiny bit different, if my diet is out of whack for a week and I’m eating an extra 100 or two or 300 calories above what I’m consuming, burning off, rather, you know, that week to three weeks longer make that much of a difference. But over time, I’m going to start gaining pounds after pounds after pounds. It’s just over time, it’s going to add up the same. On the reverse. If I’m exercising an

extra workout a week, that’s going to make a difference in the first week or two or a couple of months. 

John: But over time, that extra one, if I can add another hour a week of self-study on something, a topic I want to become an expert on, that’s not going to make that much of a difference. But if I did that for a whole year, if I did that for five years, ten years, 15 years, what difference would that make? That’s the power of time. So if you’re leading an organization, what does this have to do? Well, in reality, it has a lot to do with everything, because sometimes what we have to realize is what we’re doing right now may be working very, very well. We can’t see the results right now, but we have to give it time and the results will be there. 

John: There’s a difference between going down the wrong road or going down the right road, and it’s really bumpy and ugly and uncomfortable and it’s going to smooth out and you have to be able to differentiate those two. Don’t give up on something because it’s uncomfortable or it’s hard. Ultimately, it will get easier. It will get more comfortable. I promise you it will. I promise you will. I see people give up on things because it’s uncomfortable or hard for those two reasons. And those two things are temporary feelings. They’re temporary feelings that time helps to fix and to solve. 

John: So my message to you is to embrace the power of time. It does magical, magical things again, makes uncomfortable things comfortable. It makes painful things less painful. It makes harder things easier. It helps make confusing things make more sense. It helps change our perspective on things. It helps build relationships. It helps through so many things, helps accumulate wealth, helps so much. Just give it some time. 

John: So that’s my message for today as I’m getting blasted with the sunshine. If you’re watching this on YouTube, wow. I feel like I just stepped in the middle of the sun. It is blaring through my window right in my eyes. So lighting experts out there are going to be all over me. Boy, is that just a shitty job of lighting Laurito. But anyway, if you’re hearing me, you don’t even know what I’m talking about, so that’s fine. The microphone still works perfectly. I can’t see, but I can talk. So hope you are having a great, great day. I hope this was valuable for you as always. Like, share, subscribe, go down below, give a five-star review and I’ll see you next time. 

John (Closing): Thanks for joining us on today’s episode of Tomorrow’s Leader. For suggestions, or inquiries, about having me at your next event, or personal coaching, reach me at john@lauritogroup.com Once again, that’s john@lauritogroup.com. Thanks! Lead on!