Power of an Hour

Change

Whether you own a business or just want to be the best person you can, you must subject yourself to change. Every day in my business I talk to business owners and corporate leaders who are working diligently to find the time to create the change needed in their businesses. Many also feel they’d be more effective if they were able to create personal change as well. But ultimately what initially holds everyone back is time.

While time may seem like the thing you need the most of, it turns out it isn’t time at all, it is focus, but a very specific kind of focus. I’m going to demonstrate that focus for you in your personal life and in your business over the coming chapters. You’ll get practical step by step advice and you’ll get expert instruction for the most qualified specialists in the nation who will show you exactly what to do, and when to do it. Most importantly, they’ll show you how to structure your activity so you are able to achieve exactly the results you want every time.

HOW THE POWER OF AN HOUR WORKS

Saying that time wasn’t the real issue in the previous paragraph will leave many of you scratching your head when you consider the name of the book, so let me elaborate.

We all get the same number of minutes in a day to work, create, live and prosper. It’s what we do with each of those hours that makes the real difference in terms of the quality of our life and the value of our business.

In order to create the kind of change that achieves truly meaningful goals, the focus must be on what I call the Critical Power Hour™. I focus on a single hour because virtually anyone can extract themselves from the rigors of daily life and invest one hour a day to create change. An hour is also the easiest quantity of time for us to schedule. Finally, I chose an hour because after 15 years of helping people realize their business and personal goals, I’ve come to realize it only takes an hour to initiate change. Any more than an hour of real focus without a break results in a rapid breakdown in productivity. After an hour of intense focus, the mind begins to wander, excuses come to the surface and restarting is harder than ever because of the amount of effort you’ve expended beyond an hour. I’ve also chosen an hour because it works. In virtually every business I’ve worked with, by getting people to use this process they achieve exponential results. Also, by limiting your focus to an hour, you will be able to immediately see and feel the gratification that comes from completion once that hour is past.

Now, I’m not saying there won’t be times that it is necessary to focus for longer than an hour, however those times should be limited. True focus is a marathon effort packed into a sprint, there is tremendous accomplishment at the end; there is also tremendous insight that occurs. I’ve covered more about that later in the book.

The Power of an Hour works because it limits the amount of time used and it is focused in a specific way. Here are the steps of the Power of an Hour program that should be applied each times a new area of desired change is identified.

SEVEN STEPS TO ACTIVATING THE POWER OF AN HOUR
1. Clearly Identify What You Need To Change
2. Apply Critical Thinking To Identify The Structure Of The Change
3. Apply Creative Thinking To Identify Other Solutions
4. Identify Next Steps
5. Schedule Your Change & Take The First Action
6. Evaluate Your Activity And Measure Your Success
7. Reward Your Successful Completion

Let’s take a closer look at each step to better understand each one and how it applies. It is imperative that you understand the steps because they will be the basis of your Power of an Hour system for success.