This conversation is from a scene from the 1998 film ‘There’s Something About Mary’.
It’s between Ben Stiller’s character Ted and a hitchhiker he’s just picked up.
Hitchhiker: You heard of this thing, the 8-Minute Abs?
Ted: Yeah, sure, 8-Minute Abs. Yeah, the excercise video.
Hitchhiker: Yeah, this is going to blow that right out of the water. Listen to this: 7… Minute… Abs.
Ted: Right. Yes. OK, alright. I see where you’re going.
Hitchhiker: Think about it. You walk into a video store, you see 8-Minute Abs sittin’ there, there’s 7-Minute Abs right beside it. Which one are you gonna pick, man?
Ted: I would go for the 7.
Hitchhiker: Bingo, man, bingo. 7-Minute Abs. And we guarantee just as good a workout as the 8-minute folk.
If you look on YouTube, you can find 6 minute workouts.
5 minute ones too.
All working off two premises.
The reason people aren’t in the shape they’d like to be is that it takes too much time.
And that what they need is ‘more stuff’ to do.
7 minutes is still more than nothing.
I can top that.
‘Minus 8 minute abs’
Imagine someone watched half an hour less of TV a day.
And spent 22 minutes sourcing and preparing natural, balanced meals.
8 minutes up on the deal.
In better shape.
Or someone realised that their role at work doesn’t automatically take exactly 8 hours a day.
Simplified it, concentrating on the big wins and worked at pace (rather than allowing the work to expand to fill the time given to do it).
Maybe saves an hour a day.
45 minutes workout and 7 extra minutes for meal prep.
Still 8 minutes up.
The biggest successes in life are rarely from doing more things.
It’s identifying the truly important things that drive everything else and put the less important stuff lower down the list.
Or even knock it off the list completely.
Everyone’s life is different, of course.
Some areas will be harder, if not impossible to simplify for some.
But it’s very rare that we meet someone who’s life can’t be simplified at all.
There’s 168 hours in the week.
Minus 56 for sleep leaves 112.
What’s happening with those 112 hours a week for you?
Where can you make changes and work smarter so that you create room for things you’re struggling to fit in?
Much love,
Jon ‘Simpleton’ Hall and Matt ‘Simple as they come’ Nicholson
P.S. If you want to find out more about how we help our ninjas simplyfy their lives (and get abs), our find-out-more Briefing Meeting for our June ‘FREE 20lbs in 8 weeks challenge’ (and normal membership for those with less than 20lbs to lose) is next Tuesday – check it out at myrise.co.uk/briefing-meeting
