Book: "The 5/25 Rule".

Warren Buffett is undoubtedly the most important investor of this century since in 60 years he has managed to build a great fortune through his investments in the stock market, his is a clear example of a person who has a long-term mentality. Undoubtedly this has been a key aspect in his results, however, this character does not only dedicate his time to investments, but also gives advice on how to live a better life.

The story goes that one day Warren Buffett and his personal pilot Mike Flint were talking about professional goals and Buffett, realizing that his employee had been working for him for more than 10 years, jokingly told him "it's been 10 years and you are still working for me, that indicates that I am not doing my job well with you". So to help his pilot set priorities and career goals, he asked him to do the following exercise:

First: Set priorities and goals.

He instructed her to make a list of 25 goals she would like to accomplish. The idea of setting such a high number of goals was so that no important thing would be left out. Once his employee had written them all down, he moved on to the next step.

Second: Evaluate each of the goals according to their order of importance.

Now he had to select the top five.Having completed this part of the exercise Warren Buffett asked his employee "what are you going to do with the 20 goals you didn't select" to which Flint replied "well, the top five goals I selected will be my main focus, but the other 20 are also important, so I'll work on them intermittently as well. I will certainly spend more time on the first 5, but I will spend some time on those as well". Seeing his pilot's response Warren Buffett responded sharply "NO, you are wrong!"

Third: Avoid at all costs devoting attention to the remaining 20 goals.

Warren told him "Everything you did not select must become from this moment on the list of things to avoid, no matter what they are, all those goals will not receive any attention until you have achieved the five most important goals you selected". Mike Flynn was surprised, he certainly did not expect this to be Buffett's response, but if we look at it objectively we can realize that his advice is very valid, especially at this time when we have an infinite number of options that sometimes ask us to know what is really important. For example, if we are in a business we can have an infinity of new ideas in our head, we can consider so many options that we run the risk of ending up doing everything in a partial way. The excess of options is undoubtedly one of the main reasons why most people do not achieve the world-class level of competitiveness that mastery grants, since acquiring extraordinary skills in something requires us to direct our attention and efforts in one direction. So if you seek to complete your goals effectively you can also apply Warren Buffett's rule.

We can write down 25 goals that we consider important, then select the five most important ones and commit to devote our full attention to them. But within those five goals you choose there has to be one more important than the rest to which you should dedicate the most of your time. For example, if your current problem is money, concentrate 80% of your efforts on creating that business that will make you money. If your interest, on the other hand, is not money but acquiring a master's degree playing a musical instrument, you should divide your time in such a way that you dedicate the highest percentage to the goal that is most important to you; here it does not matter if you dedicate less time to the other four goals and they take a little longer to be achieved because from the moment you are devoting more attention and focus to that goal that has the greatest potential to transform your life will be a correct decision and because most likely if you get it you will even be able to achieve more easily all the other goals you have on your list.

We must be concrete about the goals we want to achieve because our time and attention are finite resources in our life, there will be many options, but if we go back and forth trying to do absolutely everything, we will not achieve anything remarkable; that is why we must make an effort to eliminate the options. If we do it this way we will realize that there are only a few that are truly important to us. It will be much better for us if we ignore most of the options and spend more time on what really matters.

I too have been in the place you are now. When I started my dream of setting up my own Medical Clinic and was the CEO, I didn't know how to fulfill my responsibilities at work and still be present at home with my family. However, after making changes in my productivity, goal setting and leadership, I was able to take my company forward through an economic recession the country was in and achieve positive results; all while being home in time to have dinner with my family every night.

I now teach the same principles that helped my leadership, along with my team, here at CIME Academy.

If you want to know more about our training proposal in aesthetic medicine, we encourage you to contact us. We will solve your doubts and advise you on what you need.

Dr. Manuel Rubio Sanchez

aesthetic doctor