Ask yourself: How are you using their time?
Welcome to One Thing Better. Each week, the editor in chief of Entrepreneur magazine (that’s me) shares one way to be more successful and satisfied — and build a career or company you love.
Today’s one thing: Getting things done.
That one thing, better: Getting things done — on time.
Do you protect your time?
Here’s an even more important question: Do you protect other people’s time?
We often do the first. We don’t always do the second — and the results can be disastrous.
How disastrous? Well…
A CEO once told me: “Ignore your schedule and win the moment.” Whenever something important was happening, he told me, he’d clear his calendar to give it his full attention.
I printed this advice in Entrepreneur — and later, I discovered that he was a con man. He’d lied his way into nearly $100 million of investments. Last week, he was convicted on three counts of fraud.
And that advice? Ignore your schedule? Its repercussions were bigger than I could have imagined.
Today, I’m going to tell you that story — and the critical lesson it taught me. Because now I know: Success doesn’t just come from valuing your time. It comes from valuing everyone else’s.
The advice of a con man
OK, let’s back up for a moment.
The convicted con man I just described is Carlos Watson. He was the CEO and co-founder of a once-buzzy digital media company called Ozy, and he’d become a media darling himself. He was fun, charismatic, and very quotable.
I interviewed him in 2019, while I was working on a story about leadership. I asked how he makes Ozy such a creative place, and he gave me that snappy line:
“Ignore your schedule and win the moment,” he told me.
The way he saw it, creative conversations were rare and important — so when something was really clicking, he’d reschedule everything else and keep things going. I liked how he prioritized the people he met with, which is why I printed his advice.
Then I learned that he was really doing the opposite.
Two years later, in 2021, the New York Times reported that much of Ozy’s success was fake. Fake traffic numbers, fake viewership, lies upon lies. Stories surfaced about Ozy’s terrible workplace and Watson’s erratic leadership.
The story felt personal when I read this…
CNN ran a report about Watson’s unpredictable schedule, and his habit of constantly rescheduling meetings. Staffers often gave up their weekends because Watson insisted on meeting with them — but there was no telling when he’d arrive.
“What was an hour of your Sunday then turns into like four hours of your Sunday because you have to be around and be available that whole time,” a former Ozy staffer told CNN.
My heart sank.
Here, I saw the repercussions of “ignoring your schedule to win the moment” — at least, in the way he did it. This wasn’t a way to value other people and their ideas. It was an act of supreme selfishness, with cascading effects for everyone.
That’s when something clicked for me:
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Time is our most solemn exchange
We often say that “time is our most valuable resource” — but we say that about ourselves. It’s a way to assign meaning to our time, and to use it carefully and wisely.
But we aren’t just the caretakers of our own time. When we work with others, we become the caretakers of their their time too — which means we control some of their most valuable asset.
I started to ask myself: What would it mean to be a better caretaker of other people’s time?
I now watch for examples of this. Here are three that I love…
1. The greatest meeting policy
Sarah Kellogg Neff is CEO of The Lactation Network, and she created a unique company policy: Anyone on her team can opt out of any meeting, at any time, for any reason — even if it’s with her, the boss.
Why? I asked her to write about this in Entrepreneur, and her answer was beautiful. Here’s part of it:
The way I see it, meetings are more than just gatherings of people; they are structures to build healthy respect for people’s time and talents. I want those ideals to be core to my company.
As they’re currently conducted, meetings trigger a forceful undercurrent related to our worth. How and when meetings are requested, accepted, or run (and by whom) have an outsized impact on our sense of value.
Her meetings policy is a statement about how she values her team. She’s telling people: You are the best steward of your own time.
How often has a boss told you that? When’s the last time you told someone that? It is one of the most empowering things someone can say.
2. The greatest meeting ask
My friend Mario Armstrong teaches people how to get brand sponsorships. Here’s one of his tips: When reaching out to a potential brand partner, ask for 11 minutes of their time.
Not 30. Not 15. Exactly 11.
Why? The hyper-specificity promises that you’ll be quick and efficient, that you value their time, and that not a minute will be wasted. “It really reduces their feeling of, ‘Should I have this call?’” he told my One Thing Better community last week, where he taught his approach.
“It’s 11 minutes and 11 minutes only,” he stressed.
3. The greatest meeting cancellation
A few years ago, Asana ran an awesome experiment: It asked employees to delete all recurring meetings on their calendars, wait two days, and then only add back the ones they need — at whatever length is necessary.
As a result, many meetings disappeared. Longer ones became shorter ones. The average participant saved 11 hours per month.
This is a company saying: We know your time is precious. We want you to use it most wisely.
So, how else can we respect others’ time?
Our sense of worth is tied, in many ways, to the control we have over our time — and yet, in our intertwined lives, we often hold someone else’s time in our hands. Let’s remember that.
An old boss once told me that he “owns” my time — and it was the most despicable thing anyone’s ever said to me. But I’m sure many other people have thought it. They just didn’t say it.
Ask yourself: How can you say the opposite? How can you build someone up, and build their trust, by valuing their time as much as your own?
When you respect people’s time, they feel good about you — as a friend, partner, or leader. It’s that simple. And there are endless ways to do this! Fewer meetings. No meetings. Strong boundaries. Predictable schedules. A belief that, when a 30-minute meeting comes to an end, the 31st minute is not yours to claim.
Carlos Watson was wrong: Don’t ignore your schedule. Better yet, don’t ignore anyone’s schedule.That’s really how you win the moment.
And that’s how to do one thing better.
