It’s freakin’ hard to build a big life, but most of the stuff you’ve heard about hard work and a packed calendar is so wrong!

You have permission to take care of yourself and to say no to things that fill your calendar but not your life. This is the (not so) secret sauce if you want to be an Empire Builder.

"Your role as a manager is not to do the work yourself, even if you are the best at it, because that will only take you so far. Your role is to improve the purpose, people, and process of your team to get as high a multiplier effect on your collective outcome as you can."

— The Making of a Manager, Julie Zhuo

Here are the three most important ingredients for building your empire and living a big, beautiful life.

1. Start with clarity.

Clarity is fundamental in all aspects of productivity and life.

Prioritize time and brain space to gain clarity about:

1. What your big goals are.
2. How you achieve your goals.
3. What needs to happen to move that needle a bit more each day?
4. What it looks like to achieve these big goals.

Clarity means understanding how your daily decisions impact your big goals, from calling meetings to defining success metrics. What outcome do I want from this meeting? What kind of data do I need to collect so I can make informed decisions about the business?

Clarity is queen, Queen!

2. Manage your calendar.

Time blocking – and sticking to those commitments – can protect you from filling your days with tasks that don’t meet your priorities.

Block out time for:

1. Reviewing your goals each week and every day: Scheduling your week around the activities that reflect what’s most important.
2. Breathing, literally and metaphorically: Giving yourself time every day to meditate, pray, or journal.
3. Putting out fires: Every single day something unexpected is going to demand your attention. Make sure you have white space in your calendar for things that go haywire.
4. Being human: People need you. Be available to them. Be the leader you need to be as you manage your team and love your family well.

Wendy reminds us that “white space” isn’t lunchtime. White space is thinking time. Lunch and breaks are, well, breaks. Give yourself permission to have a cup of tea in the afternoon, take your dog for a walk around the block or just spend a few minutes with one of your kids.

3. Don’t work yourself to death.

“We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.”
— Thrive, Arianna Huffington

If you want to be an empire builder, focus on the quality of your work instead of the number of hours worked. Learn to achieve more in less time.

Here’s the bottom line: Your most important goal is taking care of yourself so you can work as long as you can (or want to) and live a long life!

People really do need you. And you need to enjoy this one life that you’ve been granted.

Here’s the cool part of all this. When you have clarity of purpose, you can do more in less time with less stress. Empire building is about building a big life.

Live long. Prosper. Have fun.

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