Episode 834 · Aug 25, 2023

Valuing Your Time and Executing Your Plan: CRAVE Steps 4 and 5

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George Wright III wraps up his five-step CRAVE formula on The Daily Mastermind with the two steps that most people either rush past or ignore entirely: valuing your time and executing with intention. These final steps transform a vision and commitment into real, measurable progress in your life.

Most of us have been conditioned to grind, hustle, and work long hours without stopping to ask whether all that effort is actually moving us toward the life we want. George challenges that mindset directly, arguing that hard work only matters when it is aligned with your blueprint.

Why Working Hard Is Not Enough

Clocking 40, 60, or even 100 hours a week means nothing if those hours are not pointed in the right direction. George opens this session with a quote from Johnny Carson that reframes the whole conversation:

My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.

The operative phrase is "the business at hand" - working on the right things, not just working a lot. The V in CRAVE stands for valuing your time, and it starts with a fundamental shift in perspective.

How to Protect Your Time from Others' Agendas

One of the biggest time traps is letting other people's expectations and requests dictate your schedule. George is direct: when someone asks you to do something that does not align with your goals, your family, or your blueprint, say no.

He acknowledges that saying no in the moment can be hard, especially under pressure. His practical tool is the "feel, felt, found" framework borrowed from sales: "I understand how you feel. I may have felt the same way, but I found I need to focus my time on things that are going to help me get where I need to be." This response acknowledges the other person without surrendering your priorities.

What Your Time Is Actually Worth

George recommends a concrete exercise: calculate your time value in dollars per hour based on the income level you are working toward. Then use that number as a litmus test. Before taking on any task, ask whether it earns back that value. If it does not, delegate, defer, or decline.

This is not about being rigid. It is about having a clear measuring stick so that every hour is a deliberate investment, not an unconscious donation to someone else's agenda.

How to Structure Your Days Around What Matters Most

George references Stephen Covey's "big rocks first" principle: fill your schedule with the most important tasks before anything else crowds in. Block out dedicated time every day for the activities that move you toward your goals and protect that time as non-negotiable.

What you focus on grows. Where your focus goes, your attention goes.

Dream building plays a role here too. Spending time visualizing and reinforcing your goals keeps your attention aimed at the right targets. What you think about, you become.

Why Sacrifice Is the Entry Ticket to Success

"I don't have enough time" is, George argues, mostly an excuse. Everyone has 24 hours. The real question is what you are willing to give up to make space for what matters. Success requires sacrifice, and that includes cutting activities you enjoy if they are not serving your larger purpose. There is no entry into lasting success without paying that price.

How to Execute Without Waiting for Perfect Conditions

The E in CRAVE is execution, and George's core message here is to work with what you have now. Do not wait until your business replaces your job, or until conditions are ideal. People who build long-term wealth and success maximize their active income (whether that is a job, a business, or a current opportunity) and use it to fund and build toward their larger goals.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

This principle means showing up fully as an employee, a business owner, or an entrepreneur right now, not in some future version of your life. Execute in the short term while planning for the long term, and stay flexible as opportunities develop.

Action Steps

Calculate your hourly time value based on your income target and use it as a filter for how you spend each day.
Block out non-negotiable time every day for the highest-priority tasks that advance your blueprint.
Practice the feel, felt, found framework before you need it so saying no becomes natural under pressure.
Identify one thing you are currently spending time on that does not align with your goals and cut it or reduce it this week.
Maximize the opportunity in front of you now, whether a job or current business, as the foundation for building what comes next.

The CRAVE formula works because it builds from the inside out: vision, resolve, alignment, time management, and execution. As George puts it, once you have that blueprint, you are resolving to make it happen, aligning your resources, and valuing your time, execution becomes the natural next step. Things will evolve. Resources will arrive. It is never too late to start living the life you were meant to live.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

All right, day five of the five-step formula for creating your best life. And I know we talk about that in generalities. Sometimes we talk about your best life in lots of different ways. But this five-step formula, I hope you will agree with me, is something that's really going to help you to move to the next level by creating a clear vision of your life, resolving to accomplish your goals, aligning your resources, and now valuing your time and executing on your plan is a real key. So let me get you the quote of the day. The quote of the day is, my success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day. That's Johnny Carson. Johnny Carson said that. My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day. I think what you need to find out, I want you to really dig deep this week because what you're going to find is that if you can just start moving, just start working, but have a vision and have a plan, things will evolve. Things will come together. So let's get right into it. Have an amazing day. Welcome back to The Daily Mastermind. My name is George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education so that you can learn to crave your best life. I'm excited about this week. I hope you've had an amazing week, and I hope there's a lot of things that you've been able to do in your life to take your game to the next level. We're going to finish up today with our formula on how to crave your ultimate destiny. And I want to be able to do this because I'm trying to give you a different basically framework for you to be able to plan, execute, and live your life. Bottom line is we all start with grinding and hustling and executing, but a lot of times we don't back up to do what it really takes to constantly be moving in the right direction. And so this acronym CRAVE has been something that I felt was a good way to be able to outline some new steps, a new perspective, maybe a fresh look for you. And so the first step we had was to create your vision for your life. Create a blueprint so that you know that no matter what you're working on, you could be working towards a blueprint. The second step is to resolve that you will make it happen, to make that deeper level of decision and commitment to make it happen. And then we moved along to the A, which is align your resources. Everyone has resources, especially and most importantly, your unique talent. And that was A for align. So today it brings us to the letter V and the letter V stands for value your time. And this is something I think we're all guilty of not doing. And what I mean by that is we've been taught our whole lives and we're trained our whole lives, basically conditioned to grind and to hustle and to work hard and work long hours. And, you know, the bottom line is working hard and working long hours, that doesn't mean anything if you're not accomplishing what you want to accomplish in your life. Work is only good if it's moving you towards the directions you want to move in your life. And so just working hard and grinding and you know having your days pass by doing all this hard work is not going to do anything for you unless you aligning your time with your ultimate plan your ultimate blueprint So, you know, how many of you have been in that situation where you feel like you've been working and working 40 hours, 60, 80 hours, 100 hours, some entrepreneurs like myself, I mean, just all the time, and you look at what you're doing and you wonder sometimes if it's getting you where you need to be. So this is the topic I wanted to talk to you about, is valuing your time. So what do you need to do with your time in order to move you closer? What perspective do you need to change with your time? So let's talk about a couple ways you can do that. Number one, don't let the perceptions of others be your weakness. Don't let the perceptions of others drive the activity that you're doing. What I mean by that is when people ask you to do things that don't align with what you need to do to create a life for you, your kids, your family, your relationship, your partners. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't let the perceptions or what other people will think of you or what other people are trying to pressure you into doing drive your activity so that you're doing activities that don't align with what you want. Also, decide what your time value is worth. If you want to believe that you're going to hit a certain level of income or a certain level of success and you really truly believe that, then you need to identify what that time value is worth right now. Right down to the dollars per hour, decide what that time value is worth and use that as your litmus test to determine whether or not you should be spending your time on trivial things and use that as sort of a measuring stick for where you should be spending your time. The other thing I want to mention is dedicate specific time every day to some of the activities that you know are going to move you towards your goal. So some of us get so busy and so tied up and so overwhelmed with life that we never get around to the most important things. You know, Stephen Covey talks about big rocks first. Fill your schedule with the big rocks, the most important things first. So block out some critical time for those critical tasks that you know need to get done in order to move you forward and just always schedule and block that time out and make it time that you're going to get the best ROI or the best return on your investment for your time. So spend time on things that will get you the greatest return. That's something that I really, really recommend that you put some time into and you think about, like you think about what you need to do there. Now I'll give you a little suggestion here. Sacrifice is going to be needed. You're going to need to determine because a lot of us have that excuse and it's just an excuse. I don't have enough time. The bottom line is you're going to have to sacrifice some things that you may be doing right now or even some things that you love that are just not things you're going to be able to do while you trying to achieve the success in life that you want to have So be willing to sacrifice and ask yourself what the price you willing to pay for success Because success does come with a price So many entrepreneurs so many individuals think that they can achieve what they want to achieve without sacrifice And that's just not going to happen. The entry ticket, you call it, to the entryway to success will have a price. There's no question about it. And here's another suggestion. You've got to be good and learn how to say no. You're going to have to learn how to say no. because what doesn't line up with your best intentions and your best life and your blueprint, you've got to be able to say no to. And you may have to practice in advance. You may have to prepare yourself to say no because on the spot, it may be difficult for you. I'll give you a suggestion you can use. I always use this little, in sales especially, this little phrase called feel, felt, found. So feel, felt, found. It's a good response if you're under pressure and you can't think of a good response. It gives you some time to react. You can say, hey, listen, I understand how you feel. I may feel the same way, but I found I need to focus my time on things that are going to help me get where I need, and I just don't have time to do that. That whole saying Phil felt found works really well because it helps people to understand there's a reason. You're not just telling them no. There's a reason why you're not able to help them, why you're not being able to do this particular task, because there are things that are important you need to spend your time on. And again, very important, dream building. You're going to hear me say this a lot because what you focus on grows, you know, where your focus goes, your attention goes. Right. So what you think about, you become. And you've got to focus your time and effort and energy on tasks and things and priorities that are going to take you where you want to be. And dream building will help you to do that. So that's the letter V for valuing your time. So now let's cover quickly here the last step in the formula, which is E for execution. Now, we're not going to get into a lot of detail on execution because I have a couple strategies and a couple techniques and some training I'd like to be able to give you on execution, ways that I felt I've been able to execute more quicker, better, faster, and more effectively. But I do want to mention a few things because this is a very important step. And I know most of you start with execution, but this is where you now have your blueprint. You've resolved to make it happen. You've aligned your resources. You valued your time, focusing your time. You've got to get down to business and you've got to start to execute. and you need to work with the plan that you have now. This might be your job. It might be your current opportunity. It might be whatever it is, even if it doesn't necessarily look like it lines up with your ultimate, how you want your life to be. You need to work with what you have now because you have to always be open to opportunities but not distracted by opportunities. So take the opportunities you have now A lot of us get caught up and we try to get rid of our jobs get rid of our jobs when we trying to build a business or do other things But you have to realize that successful seven mindset people they maximize their active income, their job, their opportunities, the things they're doing. They maximize their active opportunities and their active income to be able to build their passive income, to be able to build their investments, to be able to build their business. So you have to maximize that active income, your job, your opportunity, because they both play a role. So don't minimize what you're doing now just because you know it may not be what you're going to do in the future. Take advantage of the opportunity. Create effort. Hustle. Keep your time balanced. But be very strategic with what you're doing. But always, always remember how you do anything is how you do everything. So maximize your opportunity. Be an effective employee. Be an effective business owner. Be an effective entrepreneur with what you have. But don't always be focused on other things where you know might lead you quicker to your path. You can do both. You have the energy. You have the potential. You have the ability to do that. So execute by just dividing your time and being strategic with your time. And at the same token, be flexible and be patient with yourself. Things will evolve. Things will happen. As long as you have followed this formula of creating a blueprint you know you're working towards and then resolving to make it happen, aligning your resources, valuing your time and using that as the measurement for where and what you spend your time on. and then you begin to execute as you go, as you build, as you grow. That execution will develop opportunities and things will come your way. Resources will come your way. Remember, always execute in the short term, even though you may be planning for the long term. So always execute hard. And this is really the final part of the formula. And I hope that's helped you. I hope it's given you a little bit of perspective. I really want to be able to help take you to the next level. And I found myself going through a lot of these steps, a lot of these actions. And the more you can be, you know, aligned with your vision, when you're doing your day to day, the more strategic and effective you'll be. So I hope that's been good for you. I really encourage you to share this podcast and this episode with anyone that you feel might benefit. I'd love to get your feedback. Hit me up on Instagram or Facebook at The Daily Mastermind, or you can hit me up on my personal page if those of you that are already friends with me on Facebook. but the last recommendation I have is download that mobile app. The Daily Mastermind mobile app is free. It has immediate streaming to the podcast, to the blog, to the videos. We've got all the free resources. It's a nice easy way for us to be able to help you and work with you. So I encourage you to do that. I look forward to talking with you again next week. Have an amazing weekend. Make it a great day. We'll talk to you soon.

About the host

George Wright III

George Wright III is an entrepreneur, investor, and the host of The Daily Mastermind. Over more than two decades he has founded and scaled several multimillion-dollar companies and built a renowned seminar business that put some of the world's biggest names and brands on stage. With 25+ years across marketing, sales, and executive leadership, he's made a career of turning bold ideas into results — and momentum into lasting growth.

Today his mission is singular: empower driven entrepreneurs everywhere to master their mindset, unlock their potential, and live their ultimate destiny. Through The Daily Mastermind, George shares the Prosperity Principles and strategies that help people create massive change — in their business and in their life.

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