In this episode of The Tactical Empire, Jeff Smith and Shawn Rider explore how to focus on the 80/20 rule to create a life of abundance, discipline, and high achievement. They discuss the power of identifying the top 20% of activities that drive 80% of your results, especially in business. Jeff and Shawn share personal stories on avoiding burnout by narrowing focus, playing to your strengths, and reinvesting time and energy where it matters most. Learn how applying the 80/20 rule can simplify decision-making, increase profitability, and accelerate long-term growth.
In this episode of The Tactical Empire, Jeff Smith invites Shawn Rider to discuss how entrepreneurs can focus on their unique strengths to achieve maximum business success. They tackle the importance of the 80/20 rule, emphasizing that 80% of outcomes come from 20% of efforts, and the need to focus on high-impact activities. They also touch on the maturation process in business, streamlining operations, and the importance of reinvestment. The hosts encourage adopting a long-term view and proper delegation to ensure sustained growth and profitability.
00:00 Introduction: Finding the Will to Fight Back
00:30 Meet Our Guest: Shawn Rider
00:35 Weather Woes and Home Maintenance
01:42 Family Reunions and Travel Plans
02:41 The Importance of In-Person Connections
04:39 The 80/20 Rule in Business
08:50 Focusing on Your Strengths
11:13 Investing in People and Time
14:09 Long-Term Thinking and Infinite Banking
18:06 Closing Thoughts and Community Engagement
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[00:00:00] How do you find the will to fight back against the world that wants to keep you sedated? S stuck plates? Join us for the tools and strategies you need to create a life of abundance, discipline, and high achievement. This, this is the tactical implied with Jeff Smith.
Jeff Smith: Welcome to another episode of The Tactical Empire. I'm joined by Sean Rider. How are you, man?
Shawn Rider: Uh, yeah. I mean, the weather's getting warm and you don't like me bringing up the weather, but I bring it up because of course the AC unit gives way and they come out and they're like, oh, it's a coil. But you're still under warranty.
So the, the, the coil under warranty is like $1,500, but it could take two months to get here, or we can just do it and it'll be [00:01:00] done sooner for $2,500. I'm like, like what, what warranty I still have to pay for shit. And then, and then you're gonna. Charge me more. 'cause you have the coil outside of warranty.
So that's, uh, the first maybe major bill for this house that we've lived in four and a half years. So hopefully that is not the start to many bills for this house.
Jeff Smith: Oh, I don't know, five to seven years. That's when shit starts breaking. I know,
Shawn Rider: I know. I just said it to my wife the other week too. So it, it is that time.
How are you guys? You're down in. In Florida, hopefully with Nice, yep. Uh, nice skies and great adventures outside, hopefully.
Jeff Smith: Yeah. We just left, uh, our, our month long quote unquote family reunion of, uh, full-time families. And so we, uh, dispersed throughout the country for our travels. Yeah, the way it kind of works is everybody hunker down in the south for the, the winter so you don't freeze and then [00:02:00] everybody travels, um, kind of from April to.
November. So everybody spreads out all over the country and then comes back to Arizona, Texas, Southern California, Florida.
Shawn Rider: Okay. So, so be it. Well, I'm excited. I know you're down in Florida, you're waiting anxiously for our meetup in two weeks, so, uh, we're excited. We've been planning it out, so I'm ready. Uh, like I said, we only meet twice a year, so, uh, I think the guys have been.
Getting that itch to get away and, and come on down. So I'm ready. I know you're ready. Hopefully the fellows are ready.
Jeff Smith: Yeah. It's gonna be a great two days for sure. Or three days, I guess. Um, it, it's, it's just such an important component to like these things. Yeah. Connecting with people in, in person and being able to create those relationships and deepen those relationships.
And then also, like, strategize, brainstorm, get some of the answers or aha moments that you. You otherwise don't [00:03:00] get when you're in your own little world and ecosystem.
Shawn Rider: Well, I know we've been harping on clarity, simplicity, focus, and the reason why we meet in person is to give the guys the time to disconnect and see where they've kind of gone off the beaten path.
And one of the topics, this isn't rocket science and it isn't obviously something that, that we created, but it, I think it holds true 'cause it just keeps getting brought up as we. Mentor business owners as I start creating, uh, connections and relationships with other metabolic franchise owners as one of the, one of the businesses that I own in that space and trying to help them improve their businesses, uh, what I'm finding is like some of these business owners.
Are doing way too many things. Even though even though those things may yield results, uh, they try and do all of them. It's kind of goes back to our philosophy with finances, like diversification. You need to diversify. You need to diversify. It's like [00:04:00] diversification isn't a. Wealth building tool.
Diversification is a hedging tool. It is a maintenance tool, uh, that you use once you become said wealthy. Well, in the business space, like you have all these strategies, you have all these things and areas of business that you can focus on, but if you're cutting yourself thin and, and trying to do all the strategies, let's say within marketing or all the sales strategies, or offer all the services, or offer all the products.
You're diversifying your attention, you're diversifying your time, and you're not going deep in any of those. And so what I'm getting at is, uh, the old 80 20 rule, right? 80% of your results in any given area are gonna be yielded by only 20%. Of your actions and my argument at the last meetup, my whole presentation was how, what is that 20% and, and turn that 20% into the 80%.
So what is your view on the 80 20 rule? How do you [00:05:00] keep yourself in that guardrail? How have you implemented it? How often do you look at the tasks that you're doing in any given area? Um, so let's just kind of talk on that today and see if that can help. Some, uh, business owners and investors, uh, dial things and, and narrow the focus for them.
Jeff Smith: Yeah, I, I'm really, really guilty of doing this. Um, I, I've always had two or three things going at any given time and, uh, so I mean, it's not always the best thing to do, um, like narrowly focusing on your primary source of income, like for example. Is very important 'cause like are you showing up the best you possibly could or are you spending three hours doing something else for some other company so you can make a couple hundred bucks when you should be running like paid ads and dialing in your systems and processes in your primary business?
Because [00:06:00] over time the long tail effect of spending that time in the thing that you actually own outright. To produce a, a much longer and more lucrative res response for you. And, uh, I think people get shortsighted in doing that. And it comes out of like some sort of scarcity. It's also also maybe that people believe that they have more capacity than they truly do.
Um, so it, it really does it, it. It comes from a place of being able to be really honest with yourself because like, if you can identify your gaps in your holes, like great. If you can delegate and be CEO truly, or be like a board member on a business you own, work yourself up to that position, then you can do multiple things.
Um, but I mean, if you're, if you're starting this fledgling business and it's like under two years old and it's, it's kind of producing results, this is what I see more than anything is that people [00:07:00] start making money. Then they're making okay money with their business, but they really could take it like five x more.
But instead they shift focus to these other things and start like part-time hobbying doing other things and their business just kind of stagnates at that level. And then five years, seven years, 10 years down the road, they're like, this fucking sucks man. Like this thing's only producing. Whatever, 300, 400, 500 gross a year, which gives me what, fifty, seventy, a hundred and twenty a year.
But it, at the end, it's like diminishing returns because when you were on the gas, you probably could have blown through that half a million and taken it to 1,000,002 to where you would've been making 300, 400,000 and, and it's the only thing you would've needed to do if you stayed focused on. I, I think there's a lot of honesty and [00:08:00] clarity that comes from like, identifying where you could be spending your time.
Yeah. Um, and that's not easy to do personally. It, it's, it's, it's a lot easier to do when someone like me comes in and looks at your business from outside and says, well, of course you're not doing this, you're not doing this and you're not doing that. Why? Oh, because I'm over here. Doing something else.
Mm-hmm. And so, but you're leaving so much meat on the bone on that particular opportunity, like you would, it would behoove you to just kind of spend 10 more hours a week getting this thing going because if you did that for three months, you wouldn't have to spend those 10 hours anymore and you would make twice the money.
Shawn Rider: Yeah. Yeah, I think that's the case for, for some people, but it wouldn't take someone very long if they had a conversation with you or I to see that. You and I are, are dabbling in a, in a few things, so I'm gonna come at it from a slightly different angle and it's not necessarily 80 20 for your projects.
I'm gonna [00:09:00] say it's 80 20 for your skillset and your strength zone, your unique ability, whatever term you want to use for it. I'm perfectly fine with building a brick and mortar business. Building the Al Empire online business having real estate. But what I've had to do as I've kind of created these projects, I've actually had to reduce the amount of things that I'm doing within those projects.
So I've had to go deeper on what my skillset is. And so I think, I think we can, people like you and I can have 2, 3, 4 things, but you can't. Do multiple things in those things, you should be doing the one thing that you're the best at. And even though I've had this real estate portfolio, uh, if you've listened to other episodes, you know, I'm kind of condensing it and then I'm gonna take equity and move it into these other partnerships and these other partnerships, I am 100% hands off with so I can continue because my skillset isn't.
To go find the deals. My skillset isn't to deal with tenants. My skillset isn't to [00:10:00] fix this or coordinate this. That's not what my skillset is. But that doesn't mean I remove myself completely from real estate, but I need to convert equity from things that still have me slightly involved to real estate that has me full hands off, so then I can focus on my skillset of content creation, marketing, and sales.
That's literally. My and, and education coaching, right? Depending on which business you're talking about. Um, I'm a teacher at heart, so I can consume content, I can create content, I can present content really, really well in written form and verbal that is. It's taken me 13 years to realize this. Like I knew I was good at that, but then I tried to become good at things that I'm actually not good at and I don't have passion for.
Mm-hmm. And I'm not, I'm not willing to dedicate the time to get good at those things. So whereas like I kind of went on this, learn as much as I can, do as much as I can. I'm now coming down that mountain and like honing in on Sean. This is, this is your strength. [00:11:00] Now I can implement that strength ACO across three different projects and utilize my time appropriately and move all of those to the highest of heights, is my, is my hope for that.
Now, what that has required, what that has required is heavy financial investments in other people. Within those businesses. And I think that's what hangs up a lot of business owners and investors is they're not willing to make that investment. And I think this quote this time around, this go around that I'm having with the two businesses that I'm highly focused on right now, um, is I wasn't willing to sacrifice, uh, my time, but that required me to not skimp on the money side, if that makes sense.
So if you're like Jeff and I, a a
Jeff Smith: hundred percent.
Shawn Rider: If you're like Jeff and I, I think you can have two or three things going on, but you gotta stay within your zone.
Jeff Smith: Well, and I think you gotta go in with a healthy dose of reality. Um, like a lot of the business owners, they, [00:12:00] they allow their lifestyle to creep to the point where their family needs a certain amount of money.
And, and at the, at the end of the day, guys like businesses take reinvestment for a long time to pay that, that. That investment off long term. It truly, and so like if you're not con if, well if you're not going in understanding, like a lot of people choke out their business by, by drawing a bunch of the cash out of the business early on in the first three years and, and like.
If you don't look at it as like an investment that you're building this thing that's gonna pay you into perpetuity, like a lot of people look at it like a job, like how much money can I siphon off of this job? And so, to be fair, I think you and I are coming at it from a point of maturity. You're in your whatever level of business ownership having.
Having bought and sold different businesses, bought and [00:13:00] closed different businesses, now you're coming at it from a perspective of like, you don't have an expectation that it's like seven figures of take home in the first year. Like I, I think you go into business with these rose colored glasses, like, look at all this money that's coming in, and, and then, and then you try to take it all for yourself, not understanding.
Like the business needs fed and not starved out so that you can eek off the back half of the like 20% of the profit. And, and that's where people get hung up. 'cause they pay themselves the salary and then they expect there to be profits too. Like I. If you come in with a level head and you're like, Hey, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna do some profit distributions quarterly, if there's something left over for me.
If you have the capacity to work like that, you can be very successful in business. 'cause then you're rolling it back in each and every year, creating a better and better product. Delivering more and more value and. Five years down [00:14:00] the road, you're gonna make more money than you even thought this thing could produce.
Shawn Rider: Yeah. Not to change topics. 'cause I think this is gonna relate heavily for some people. It's, it's, it's capitalizing a business both with money and time. And it's the same thing with infinite banking. The, the creator of the infinite banking concept, Nelson Nash would say this, he goes, you have to capitalize policies now.
The good thing about nowadays as opposed to the 1980s is there's actually high early cash value life insurance now. So the capitalization percentage happens way more rapidly. But what he talked about was you have to build your bank, and that takes a. Time and businesses are the same way, which is why the infinite banking concept relates, like business owners catch onto it very quickly.
'cause they're like, yeah, that makes sense. Whereas your normal person is, Hey, no, I wanna put money in something and make 8% right now, this year, this year in perpetuity. Whereas I think business owners have a little bit of that delayed gratification. Um, that may go [00:15:00] against what you just said about them siphoning money off.
And this is the maturity of businesses and. This is what I'm seeing with other, uh, franchisee owners. Uh, I ask them, is this your first business? And they're like, yes. And I'm like, that explains why you're thinking this way. That explains why you're talking this way. That's why that explains why you're trying to implement the entire playbook at one time.
Whereas I'm telling you. Find the one part and the one strategy in this playbook and, and just ni crush that for 90 days. Uh, which is why I'm, I'm, I, I've done a huge deep dive in traction over the past, uh, 90 days. I've read it four times, but like this fourth time, it's just like it is hitting the nail on the head for me, and it's taken me four reads over seven years to get to this point.
And I'm like, fuck. It makes, it's like a light bulb moment like. Yeah, I can only focus on on one to three things this quarter and it's gotta be in my wheelhouse, and that's how we're gonna grow these things. So it [00:16:00] goes back to the 80 20. What are the 20% of actions that you and we're talking about you personally?
I. As a business owner investor, what are the 20% of actions that you can take that fall within your strength zone, that make you money, that wake you up and fire you up and are in your passion? This goes back to Buyback Your Time by Dan Martel. All of these books. Connect to one another. It's like a web of success between these authors.
And it all comes down to simple fucking principles. And this simple principle today that we presented is the 80 20 rule. If you don't know the 20% of things that are yielding, 80% are results. You gotta dig deep and find it.
Jeff Smith: Yeah. Yeah. I, I mean, most people are trying to do too much and they're stepping over dollars to pick up nickels and, uh.
Into roles that don't suit them either, and they don't really understand the time value of things. And so it's, it's really important to get clear on what you're good at and what skills you can [00:17:00] bring to the table and then like delegate everything else or, or contract for it to be done so then you can move further faster.
Um, but, but the time horizon still has to be a long term outlook on things. I, I would say that like if you understand how much these things are gonna pay you in 20 years, that's the same thing as life insurance. Like you're not trying to get the, the two year return. But if you look down the road in 15 years on where things will be like, then you understand the benefits of both business and infinite banking for sure.
So think, think long range. Thanks.
Shawn Rider: Think long range. And I think I'm gonna pull. A quote from the, the other podcast last week is boring thinking, long range is boring. Doing 20% of the things that you think you're capable of doing is boring, but the boring shit is will what will make you and those around you successful.
So that is, that is [00:18:00] the topic for today, Jeff. Add anything if you want. If not, send the people out on that one.
Jeff Smith: Guys join us on Facebook. We have the Tactical Empire of Community. Follow us on all the channels at the Tactical Empire. You can shoot Sean or I a message at Instagram. Uh, let us know if you have any questions.
We're happy to help. Or if you're interested in hopping into our accelerator program, we are taking clients now. So if you want us to help you build your seven levels of financial freedom, or your business or whatever you're working on currently, if you wanna maximize your results over the next 90 days, hit us up.
We are about to roll into Q2, so talk soon. Have a great week, kick ass.