204 exercises and frameworks, with steps.

1. Write your outcome for the event or meeting in one sentence.
2. Set a two-minute timer and tell four different people your outcome. Ask theirs.
3. Note anyone whose problem, skill, or goal connects with yours and follow up the same day.

Finish with: One written outcome and four new contacts who know it

Copy exercise

1. List every goal you have committed to for the year ahead.
2. Next to each, write the habit, obligation, or excuse you must cut off to make room for it.
3. Cross out any goal with nothing in the second column, or find something to cut.
4. Tell one person what you cut so it is harder to pick back up.

Finish with: A decision list where every goal has a named sacrifice

Copy exercise

1. Read the five types: comeback kid, explorer, wallbanger, builder, GOAT mindset.
2. Pick the one that describes you honestly today, not the one you would like to be.
3. Write the behavior that type explains and the one behavior that has to change for this year to be different.
4. If you are a wallbanger, name the adviser you will finally ask.

Finish with: A one-line self-diagnosis and one behavior change

Copy exercise

1. Score your beginner's mind from 1 to 10 in ten seconds. Be honest.
2. Check it against the evidence: books read this year, conferences attended, masterminds joined, and whether your circles push you.
3. Write one action that would move the score up by one point in the next 90 days.
4. Repeat each quarter and track the trend.

Finish with: A score, the evidence behind it, and one learning action

Copy exercise

1. Before a talk, meeting, book or podcast, set up four headings: $100K idea, $1M strategy, $10M strategy, Leaks (money saved or loss prevented).
2. While you listen or read, write only ideas that earn one of those labels. Everything else goes in ordinary notes.
3. At the end of the day, rank the ledger and star the one item you will act on first.
4. After the event, book or course, bring all ledger pages together and build your first-30-days list from them.

Finish with: A short ranked list of high-value ideas and leaks to plug

Copy exercise

1. Review the seven mountains: arts, sports and entertainment; business; education; family; government; religion; media.
2. Take a few minutes and write which one or two excite you. It can involve your kids or your family.
3. For each chosen mountain, write what reaching the top would let you do for others.
4. Write the first small step you could take this year on each.

Finish with: One or two named mountains with a five-year picture and a first step

Copy exercise

1. Take Tom Ellsworth's example: business and education, summarized as 'teach and enable'.
2. Write one verb or two-word phrase that describes what you do on each of your mountains.
3. Assign a rough percentage of your influence time to each mountain for the next year.
4. Put one recurring block in your calendar that serves the smaller mountain so it does not starve.

Finish with: A verb, a percentage split, and a calendar block per mountain

Copy exercise

1. Name the major move you are considering: a hire, a raise, a launch, a personal commitment.
2. Write the five moves that must follow it, in order.
3. Mark the move you are tempted to jump to early and write what breaks if you do.
4. Show the sequence to one adviser before acting.

Finish with: A five-step sequence with the tempting shortcut flagged

Copy exercise

1. If a boss, founder, or spouse paid for you to be there, text them before the first session: thank you for believing in me.
2. Write down what they said they hoped you would bring back.
3. At the end of each day, send them the top three items from your ledger they may have missed.

Finish with: A thank-you sent and a daily three-item report to your sponsor

Copy exercise

1. List your last ten videos or posts, or plan the next ten in one format.
2. Rank them by views and by average watch time.
3. Take the winner and write down its hook, thumbnail idea, and structure.
4. Remake it with one deliberate change: subject, location, or length.
5. Repeat the ranking after each batch and only deviate once the pattern holds for two cycles.

Finish with: A brief for the next video built on evidence from your best one

Copy exercise

1. Place the thumbnail next to the first six seconds of the edit.
2. Ask a person who has not seen the video what the thumbnail promises.
3. Ask whether the first clip delivers exactly that promise.
4. Cut any opening material about you, your day, or your setup until the two match.

Finish with: An opening that pays off the click immediately

Copy exercise

1. For each of your last ten videos, record length, click-through rate, average view duration, and revenue per thousand views.
2. Sort by average view duration, not by views.
3. Write one sentence on what the top three share and one on what the bottom three share.
4. Decide the target length for the next batch based on where retention holds, not on what feels complete.

Finish with: A one-page analytics sheet and a length decision backed by retention

Copy exercise

1. Write your core explanation in one paragraph with no jargon.
2. Read it aloud to one much younger and one much older person than your usual audience.
3. Mark every word or step where they lose the thread.
4. Rewrite until both can repeat the main point back to you.
5. Show the primary source on screen instead of describing it.

Finish with: A plain-language script that a broad audience can follow

Copy exercise

1. Identify the person whose support you need: a spouse, parent, partner, or board.
2. Propose a fixed window (Shirley asked for six months) and one measurable milestone (he chose 100,000 subscribers plus enough income).
3. Write down what happens if you hit it and what you will do if you miss it.
4. Report progress to them on a set day each month.

Finish with: A written, time-boxed agreement that turns doubt into a shared test

Copy exercise

1. Pick a rep type that fits your work: cold calls, door knocks, DMs, or on-camera approaches.
2. Set a weekly number you will hit regardless of results.
3. Log every rejection with one line on what you said.
4. At month end, count the rejections. If the count did not shake you, raise the number.

Finish with: A rejection log and a rising weekly quota

Copy exercise

1. Pick five of the largest creators in five different genres, as Shirley did with MrBeast, Logan Paul, Casey Neistat, Graham Stephan, and Meet Kevin.
2. Watch their three most-viewed videos each and note the first ten seconds, the thumbnail, and where you almost clicked away.
3. Write the three patterns that appear across genres.
4. Apply one of those patterns to your next video in your own lane.

Finish with: A list of attention patterns that work regardless of niche

Copy exercise

1. Search your name and business online and note every place your home address appears, including registrations and domain records.
2. Move public-facing mail and filings to a business address or registered agent.
3. Decide in advance who in your family is on camera and who is not, and what you will do if an address leaks.
4. Know which platforms you will cross-post to within the first hour if a piece takes off.

Finish with: A one-page plan for the day your work reaches far more people than expected

Copy exercise

1. Write one sentence answering: who do I want to be, and how big a life do I want to build?
2. List the seven seats Tom Ellsworth named: entrepreneur, intrapreneur (executive who builds inside a growing company), support team, solopreneur, influencer, sales, CEO/founder/inventor.
3. For each seat, score yourself 1-5 on: comfortable here, aspire to it, would hone it, could teach it, want to be led this way.
4. Circle the seat with the highest total. Write down what pressure, teaching and leadership style come with it.
5. Note where you are today versus that seat. The role that suits you may not be where you start.

Finish with: A chosen role with scores, trade-offs, and the gap between now and there.

Copy exercise

1. List every job or venture you have had, in order.
2. Beside each, write what you loved and what you did not know about yourself at the time.
3. Look for the recurring lens. Tom went sales, then operations, then marketing at a startup, then COO, and only later saw that his lens had been COO all along.
4. Write the one-line pattern and check it against the seat you circled in the role map.

Finish with: A one-line statement of your recurring professional lens.

Copy exercise

1. Answer in writing: will my wealth come from founding with equity, joining early with a piece of equity, building my own agency or practice, or salary and savings?
2. For your chosen path, write who controls the equity or ownership and what event turns it into cash.
3. Write what you must be true in the next several years for that event to happen.

Finish with: A named wealth path with the liquidity event and the conditions for it.

Copy exercise

1. Before committing to an exit dream like a house on Maui forever, schedule a genuine three-week break, ideally over Christmas.
2. Do not work. Notice how you feel at the end of week one, two, and three.
3. If you are stir crazy by week three, you are a driver. Redesign the dream so it demands more of you rather than less.

Finish with: A clear answer to whether you are built to drive or to retire, and a dream adjusted to match.

Copy exercise

1. Close your eyes and picture the dream. Does it energize you to drive on the path you are on today?
2. Write how demanding the dream is: does it force you to dig deeper, keep reading, keep learning what tomorrow is?
3. Answer the three mastermind questions in writing: Do I know where I want to go? Do I know what it takes to get there? Am I really willing to do it?
4. Rate the fire in your heart today from 1 to 10 and write what would keep it burning when 'they' block you.

Finish with: A yes or no on willingness, plus a fire rating and what sustains it.

Copy exercise

1. Draw three boxes: Larry the underachiever (the most talented), Cindy the achiever (does what is expected), John the overachiever (a third of Larry's talent, never quits).
2. Ask each other: who was the Larry of your school and how are they doing today? Who succeeded that nobody expected, and how?
3. Explain that John wins because he knows what he wants, knows the cost, is willing, and keeps the fire going.
4. Add Charlie Munger's habit: talk about the people with the most potential who made bad decisions and lost it, not only the winners.
5. Ask your child which box they are choosing and what one habit would move them toward John.

Finish with: A shared family vocabulary for talent versus drive, and one habit your child picked.

Copy exercise

1. Within your level, decide honestly whether you are a doer or an actor, someone who performs effort without putting it out.
2. Answer the four questions Tom posed: Am I a lifelong learner? Do I ask for feedback? Do I seek mentors? Do I strive every day?
3. Write the names of the five people you spend the most time with and their position in life. Tom said they dictate your self-image and your direction.
4. Choose one person to add and one habit to change this quarter.

Finish with: A one-page audit of learning, feedback, mentors and your five, with two changes.

Copy exercise

1. At any conference or mastermind, set a target of five new peers saved in your phone before you leave.
2. Exchange numbers, not just social handles, and send a first text while still in the room.
3. Agree the purpose out loud: someone to text on the worst week, not to commiserate, but to get encouragement to step out of it.
4. Message one of the five each week for the next month so the thread stays alive.

Finish with: Five active text threads with peers who understand the entrepreneur's load.

Copy exercise

1. Write your honest answer to Bet-David's question: would you rather be number one of an $800,000-a-year business or number three at a company that could pay you a $200 million check at exit?
2. List the last three times you tried to be the number one. Did it work? If not, what did you blame?
3. Ask Tom Ellsworth's question: is there a vision I would love to build an engine room for, so the CEO never has to look over their shoulder?
4. Decide for the next 12 months: number one of what size, or number two or three to whom. Write it down.

Finish with: A 12-month seat decision with the size of business or the leader named.

Copy exercise

1. Write your current recovery time after a setback: a month, two weeks, a week, two days, a day, two hours.
2. Set the next rung down as your target for the next setback (month to two weeks, two weeks to a week, week to two days, day to two hours, two hours to ten minutes).
3. When something goes wrong, log the date it happened and the date you were fully back on offense.
4. Before closing the entry, write the one thing you learned. Move to the next rung once you have hit the current one twice.

Finish with: A setback log showing recovery time shrinking rung by rung.

Copy exercise

1. For your role and each role you lead, write what a hard day is in counts: calls, appointments, messages, emails, visits, or the equivalent for your craft.
2. Pull the actual numbers for the last 30 business days. Find the worst day and the average.
3. Compare the actual to the definition. Bet-David found a salesperson claiming he was ready for bigger deals had never made 250 calls in a day and averaged under 30.
4. Publish the definition to the team so nobody can substitute hours in the office for output.

Finish with: A written, shared definition of hard work per role and a 30-day gap analysis.

Copy exercise

1. Write the name of one person you have met who is truly untouchable. Bet-David gave the room ten seconds and nobody could.
2. Write the names of three people you compare yourself to and assume are never scared.
3. Beside each, write one public setback they had (Tyson and Buster Douglas, Jordan and Nick Anderson).
4. Write the one thing you have been avoiding because of fear, and do the first step this week. Compete up, do your best, and do not be afraid.

Finish with: Proof on paper that nobody is untouchable, and one fear-driven avoidance turned into an action.

Copy exercise

1. Write your future truth as 'One day we will...' in one or two sentences. It should sound like a lie to everyone but you.
2. List the three groups who need to hear it: your team, your family, your customers. Say it to each of them this month, in Bet-David's words 'talk dirty' about the future.
3. Pick the next proof point, the first small piece of that future you can deliver within 90 days.
4. Deliver it, then repeat the future truth. Each kept promise is what earns you the word visionary rather than talker.

Finish with: A written future truth, an audience list, and one 90-day proof point.

Copy exercise

1. In the last week of December, buy about 50 magazines at a bookstore and boards, glue and cards from a craft store.
2. On December 31 from about 8 p.m., gather the family and anyone who wants to join. Everyone makes their own board for the coming year.
3. Use Bet-David's three sections from his 2009 boards: what inspires you (images of the life you want), what excites you (quotes that drive you), and your goals.
4. Put real time in. He spent 14 hours on his first set.
5. Hang each person's board in their room and keep the previous years' boards up so everyone can see the progression.
6. Have each person explain their board to the others.

Finish with: One vision board per family member, displayed for the year, and a tradition your kids can pass on.

Copy exercise

1. On one page, put your core business or product in the centre, as Disney put theatrical films in 1957.
2. Around it, write every business, podcast, show, product line, membership, club, referral relationship, and team you have.
3. Draw arrows showing what feeds what. Disney had merchandise, comic strips, Disneyland, music and TV all feeding films and each other.
4. Add the everyday links Bet-David named: a networking club, a cigar lounge, quarterly lunches with accountants who refer clients.
5. Circle any link that depends on one person or produces nothing. Pick one link to strengthen this quarter.
6. Draw a second small flywheel for your health team and a third for your family.

Finish with: A one-page business flywheel plus health and family flywheels, with one link to strengthen.

Copy exercise

1. Set a 15-minute timer and write, alone, without stopping to polish.
2. Answer the opening three: How does the world see you? How do you see yourself? What is the difference?
3. Answer the driver questions: What conditions produce the best version of you? What tends to bring out the worst in you?
4. Answer the mirror questions: Who annoys you, and why? What triggers you about other people? What type of people do you like most, and why?
5. Answer the pressure questions: How do you handle pressure in business versus at home? Where do you need control and why? What is your biggest accomplishment? What fear stops you?
6. Be as honest as you can; Bet-David said the breakthrough depends on it.
7. Then meet your group of four and share what the exercise did for you, not every private answer.
8. Finish whatever you did not complete that same night.

Finish with: A completed written audit and one breakthrough you can name in a sentence.

Copy exercise

1. Draw two columns: business and personal.
2. In each, write how you actually handle pressure: speed of decisions, ability to move on, stress level.
3. Where the columns differ, ask what you control in one and not the other. A $30 million manufacturer found he coped at work because he owned the company and relationships, and struggled at home where he did not.
4. Write why control matters so much to you and one place at home where you will practise letting it go.

Finish with: A two-column pressure map and one control habit to release at home.

Copy exercise

1. Write the three words the world uses for you. Then write the three words you use for yourself when alone.
2. Mark which list you want to live in. A franchise founder realised his public self ignored small problems and focused on the future, and chose to stay in that skin privately.
3. Write one daily trigger that flips you back to the private self, and what you will say to yourself when it happens.

Finish with: A named target self and one script for the moment you flip.

Copy exercise

1. List the last five big decisions you made in the past few months (Bet-David's range: $10,000 to $10 million at stake).
2. Write the dollar amount next to each.
3. Score each decision 3, 5 or 10 for how good the decision turned out to be.
4. Mark whether the set is all positive, all negative or mixed. If you only wrote wins, you are not done.
5. Add the one decision from the last twelve months that cost you money or went against you. Keep it for the next exercise.

Finish with: A scored record of five decisions plus one identified failure to dissect.

Copy exercise

1. Using your scorecard, count how many of the five went the way you wanted.
2. For each, note how long you took to decide and whether a competitor would have moved faster.
3. Rate your gut: did your instinct about the market, the people or the political climate hold up?
4. For each miss, write which of the three responses you gave: blame, escape, or responsibility.
5. Write one sentence on the pattern you see.

Finish with: A one-paragraph honest read on how often, how fast and how responsibly you decide.

Copy exercise

1. Start with Return: what is the impact of this crisis per week or per month if nothing changes? Put a dollar figure on it (example: no estimator means no bids, so $200,000 a week in lost revenue).
2. Then Time: how long will the fix take? (Example: thirty days with an interim consultant.)
3. Then Investment: what does the fix cost? (Example: $10,000 for a semi-retired estimator as an emergency consultant.)
4. Write the three numbers on one line and compare Return to Investment.
5. Bring the problem to your leader with the ITR attached, or, if the Return is small, just solve it and do not escalate.

Finish with: A one-line, quantified case for action (or a decision not to escalate).

Copy exercise

1. Write the problem at the top of a page.
2. Ask: is it a repeat issue? If yes, did the last solution work? If no, investigate: was it a money issue?
3. Write the impact and the tier: is this something we must address now? Decide if it is signal or noise, and score its urgency.
4. Root cause: ask why the problem happened, then ask why of that answer, five times, until you reach the real cause.
5. List the stakeholders who can help fix it. Was there buy-in, or was it all on you?
6. List your top five ideas to fix it and pick the one that solves it now.
7. Share the plan with your team. Then answer: can this happen again? Close and archive it, or flag it as likely to restart.

Finish with: A completed one-page analysis of a failed decision with a chosen fix and a recurrence flag.

Copy exercise

1. Form a group of four, ideally with people you have not worked with before.
2. Each person shares the failed decision they ran through the flow, in two minutes.
3. The group names the pattern: what could you do better next time you make a decision like that?
4. Each person writes down one rule they will apply to the next decision of that type.
5. Pick one specific (not general) lesson to share with the wider team.

Finish with: One personal decision rule per person and one specific lesson for the team.

Copy exercise

1. List the last three crises your company faced.
2. Label each with its type: health, technology, organizational, violence or revenge, defamation, financial, market, black swan, white swan, personal, natural.
3. For each, note how long it lasted and which factor stretched it: no strategy, panic, over-exaggeration, or downplaying.
4. Write the ITR you should have had at the start.
5. For the two crisis types most likely to hit you next year, write who owns the response and what the first three moves are.

Finish with: A one-page crisis map with owners and first moves for your two most likely crisis types.

Copy exercise

1. Read the facts: two best friends, 50/50 equity and decisions. Blake runs sales and vision, Eric runs operations and product. Revenue is $32 million; to stay relevant they need $80 million in 36 months. Eric runs ops the way he did at $8 million, does not read the books or attend the events, and takes 45 days of vacation a year. Three senior hires complained privately; two of Eric's direct reports quit; the biggest client called ops the weakest part of working with the company. Blake has confronted Eric more than once; Eric agrees every time and nothing changes.
2. You are Blake. In groups, write your next three to five moves for the next five weeks.
3. Stress-test every move with Bet-David's question: what if Eric simply says no?
4. Add moves for the two forgotten stakeholders: the senior hires who complained and the biggest client.
5. Present and grade each plan: par (sound), birdie (strong), eagle (something nobody else said).

Finish with: A five-move plan that survives a partner refusing to cooperate and covers staff and client fallout.

Copy exercise

1. Write each partner's equity percentage in one column.
2. In the next column, write honestly what percentage of the value created today comes from each partner.
3. Where the gap is large, ask whether that partner would like to take cash off the table.
4. Draft the valuation process: one valuer you choose, one they choose, one you both agree on, settle in the middle.
5. Decide what a serious conversation, a buyout offer, or a new operating rule (such as an EBITDA floor with veto rights) would look like.
6. Name the third party you would bring into the room.

Finish with: A written picture of where equity and contribution diverge and a resolution path for each partner.

Copy exercise

1. Take your next scheduled team training and cut your speaking to twenty minutes.
2. Write one prompt or case study with a clear question ('what are your next three to five moves?').
3. Split people into groups of four with a time limit.
4. Have groups line up and present; interrupt anyone who repeats an earlier answer and ask for something new.
5. Grade answers publicly (par, birdie, eagle) and close with a real story that shows how it played out.

Finish with: A repeatable training format that develops leaders instead of listeners.

Copy exercise

1. Create one shared channel (Slack, Teams, a group chat) called Experiments that everyone in the company can see.
2. Post a one-line template: Hypothesis / Variable changed / Metric / Result / What we learned.
3. Ask every team to list ten small tests they could run this month. Push for small: a subject line, a call opening, a thumbnail colour, a checkout step.
4. Run them one variable at a time. Post every result, failed or not, within a day of finishing.
5. Count tests per week and make that count visible. Do not track win rate.

Finish with: A visible feed of company-wide experiments and a weekly test count you can push upward

Copy exercise

1. Pick one customer or audience touchpoint (a podcast studio, a shop floor, a sales call, an onboarding email).
2. Walk through it as the customer and list twenty details so small you would normally ignore them: smell, sound, temperature, first sentence, load time, the music playing.
3. Mark which ones a competitor would never bother with. Those are your targets.
4. Improve three this week and post each one in a channel called 1%.
5. Repeat weekly with a different touchpoint.

Finish with: A running list of tiny improvements and a team habit of noticing them

Copy exercise

1. List six areas of your life and business: health, money, key relationships, skills, audience, product.
2. For each, write down the small daily behaviour that is either compounding for you or against you right now.
3. Ask: if I keep doing exactly this for five years, where does the curve end up?
4. Circle the one area compounding against you and choose the smallest daily fix.
5. Revisit the list once a quarter.

Finish with: A one-page map of what is silently compounding for and against you

Copy exercise

1. List every constraint your team currently treats as fixed: lead times, prices, formats, 'the way clients want it', how long a task takes.
2. For each, write who set it and when. If nobody knows, it is probably paper.
3. Pick three and ask the source directly: why does it take that long / cost that much? What would it take to halve it?
4. Record what you learn in a channel called Paper Walls, including the small ones.
5. Add the question 'what would it take to do this in a fraction of the time?' to your weekly planning.

Finish with: A list of constraints tested, and at least one that turned out to be preference or tradition

Copy exercise

1. Add this scenario to every interview: 'You have an event in six weeks. The supplier says it will take eight weeks to deliver. What do you do?'
2. Listen for the three answer types: scale back the event, push the event two weeks, or ask the supplier why it takes eight weeks.
3. Only the third type pushes back on constraints. Weight it heavily in your decision.
4. Follow up with: 'Tell me about a constraint you were given at work that turned out not to be real.'

Finish with: A repeatable interview question that screens for people who challenge constraints

Copy exercise

1. Write down your follower or subscriber count on each platform. Then write down how many email addresses, physical addresses and paying customers you own directly.
2. Calculate the ratio. Most creators are shocked by how small the owned number is.
3. For each platform, name the off-ramp you currently offer: newsletter, event, product, physical mailing. If there is none, design one this week.
4. Redraw your funnel with social at the top and owned channels at the bottom.
5. Set a monthly target for owned-relationship growth and review it alongside views.

Finish with: A funnel diagram with owned channels at the bottom and a monthly owned-audience target

Copy exercise

1. Every January, pull the view counts for every episode or post you published in the past year.
2. Compare your best-performing piece with your worst. Calculate the gap.
3. Compare that gap to the previous year's. A widening gap means the algorithm is sorting more aggressively and your follower base protects you less.
4. Use the result to decide how hard to push sovereignty and packaging tests for the year.

Finish with: A one-number read on how algorithm-dependent your reach is, tracked year over year

Copy exercise

1. Before publishing a piece of content, a book, or a product page, write ten title or headline variants and three thumbnail or cover variants.
2. Run them as a small paid ad test to a sample of your target audience with a fixed small budget.
3. Pick the winner by click-through rate, not by which one you like.
4. Rewrite the first 30 to 60 seconds (or first paragraph) so it delivers on the winning promise immediately.
5. Log the spread between best and worst to remind yourself how much packaging matters.

Finish with: A tested title and opening, plus a record of the performance spread

Copy exercise

1. Draw three overlapping circles: my audience will like it, the algorithm (or market) will like it, I want to do this.
2. Place every pending guest, client, project or partnership on the diagram.
3. Anything outside the third circle gets a no, however impressive, because you cannot sustain it for decades.
4. Prioritise the centre where all three overlap.

Finish with: A shortlist you will still be glad you said yes to in years to come

Copy exercise

1. Before your next interview, sales call or one-to-one, research the person until you are genuinely curious, but write no questions down.
2. Open with one broad question and then say nothing until they finish completely.
3. Follow whatever they lean into, even if it abandons your plan.
4. Afterwards, note what they revealed that you would never have asked about.

Finish with: A conversation the other person led, and notes on what listening uncovered

Copy exercise

1. Before a key interview or negotiation, draw four boxes: Reward, Ideology, Coercion, Ego.
2. Let the other person talk for most of the meeting. Bartlett spends up to two hours letting a candidate offload.
3. Fill in what you hear: what they want (Reward), what they believe and the chip on their shoulder (Ideology), what pressures they face (Coercion), what they want to be seen as (Ego).
4. Draft your offer to speak first to Ideology, then Ego, before you mention money.
5. Never use Coercion; note it only to understand their situation.

Finish with: An offer tailored to what actually motivates the person

Copy exercise

1. Write ten to fifteen scenario questions that reveal agency, ambition, hard work, a bias toward optimism, leaning in when the world changes, and willingness to have an uncomfortable conversation when it would be easier to be nice.
2. Put it in a simple web form and send it to every applicant before a call.
3. Score answers the same day and call the top scorers within hours.
4. Track whether high scorers become your best performers and adjust the questions each quarter.

Finish with: A pre-screen that finds high-agency people and a fast response habit

Copy exercise

1. List the new ideas your team has raised in the last year that you rejected.
2. For each, ask the three horse-and-carriage questions: Is it worse than what we do today? Are customers asking for it? Are we set up to make it? If the answers are yes, no, no, it may be exactly the innovation that kills you.
3. Pick one such idea and give it a small budget and a separate owner, away from the core business.
4. Repeat every quarter.

Finish with: One deliberately protected experiment that threatens your own core product

Copy exercise

1. At your next product or content planning meeting, put an empty chair at the table to represent the customer.
2. Write a one-paragraph persona of that customer and their three most painful problems.
3. Only then list product or content ideas, and only those that solve a named problem.
4. Reject anything that started from your own bias rather than their pain.

Finish with: A product or content plan that traces every item back to a customer problem

Copy exercise

1. Choose one problem you are wrestling with this week.
2. Write a one-page memo to your team in your own words, without AI, explaining the problem, what you believe, and what you propose.
3. Only after finishing, use AI to critique it or find gaps.
4. Send it. Keep the memos in one folder and re-read a month later to see how your thinking has changed.

Finish with: A weekly written record of your own thinking and sharper questions for AI

Copy exercise

1. Write down: if I could choose my future business partners, what would I want them to know?
2. List the character attributes you would require of any partner.
3. List the experiences you would want them to have had (jobs, failures, travel, customers faced).
4. For each line, write one thing a child or young relative can do this year to move toward it.
5. Share the list with them at an age-appropriate level and revisit it annually.

Finish with: A one-page development map for each potential successor.

Copy exercise

1. Write your vision in one sentence: where the business is going.
2. Write your mission in one sentence: what it does and for whom.
3. List five business principles: how decisions get made here.
4. List five values: how people behave here.
5. Read it aloud with every family member in the business and edit until nobody objects.
6. Post it where the family works and refer to it whenever a disagreement starts.

Finish with: A single page that settles most 'pulling in different directions' arguments.

Copy exercise

1. List every recurring responsibility in the business (sales, dispatch, hiring, bookkeeping, vendor relationships, and so on).
2. Write one name next to each. Only one.
3. Circle every item with your name on it.
4. Choose the three circled items a family member could own within 90 days and write a one-line definition of done for each.
5. Hand them over with a start date and a check-in date.

Finish with: A role map with a single owner per responsibility and a 90-day hand-off plan.

Copy exercise

1. Before hiring, promoting, paying, or giving equity to a relative, write one paragraph covering: the role, the pay, decision rights, and how success will be judged.
2. Add one sentence on what happens if it does not work out.
3. Add one sentence on what a good exit or sale would mean for them.
4. Read it together and have both people initial it.
5. Re-read it together every six months.

Finish with: A signed expectation note for every relative in the business.

Copy exercise

1. Once a year, bring your accountant to the family and review the full financials together.
2. Explain revenue, profit, debt, and cash to the children at their level.
3. Ask each child one question about what they would do differently.
4. Record the answers and compare them year over year.

Finish with: Children who understand the business they may one day own, and a record of how their judgment develops.

Copy exercise

1. List the books that shaped how you run the business. The franchisee's list includes Your Next Five Moves and Atomic Habits.
2. Add books on money, character, and your industry until you reach a number you believe in (his is 75 by age 18).
3. Order them by the age at which each one makes sense.
4. Give one to each child this month and talk about it over a meal when they finish.

Finish with: A family reading list that gives the next generation the same vocabulary as the current one.

Copy exercise

1. Pick one successor.
2. For 90 days, include them in every meaningful conversation you have: vendors, hiring, customer escalations, banking.
3. After each one, take five minutes: what did you notice, what would you have decided?
4. At the end of 90 days, give them one category of decisions to make alone.

Finish with: A successor who has heard how you think, and one delegated decision area.

Copy exercise

1. Name the specific gap in plain words (skill, effort, or alignment with where the company is going).
2. Agree on what improvement looks like in 60 days and how you will both know.
3. Offer the help a non-relative would get: training, a mentor, a clearer role.
4. Set the review date now, and decide in advance what happens if the gap is unchanged.
5. Have a second family leader present so two opinions can line up.

Finish with: A fair, written improvement plan that protects both the business and the relationship.

Copy exercise

1. Write the levels top to bottom: enlightenment, peace, joy, love, reason, acceptance, willingness, neutrality, courage | pride, anger, desire, fear, grief, apathy, guilt, shame.
2. Draw the line between courage and pride. Above it is power; below it is force.
3. For your business, your money, and your closest relationship, mark honestly the level you are operating from this month.
4. Mark the highest level you have ever reached in each, and note when and why you slipped back.
5. Circle the single rung you will aim for next in each area.

Finish with: A three-column self-score with a next target for business, money, and relationships.

Copy exercise

1. List every decision you have been avoiding for more than two weeks: a hire, an investment, a hard conversation, a stage you have been asked to speak on.
2. Next to each, write the fear underneath it in one honest sentence.
3. Write the courageous version of the decision as one concrete action with a date.
4. Do the first one this week.
5. Cross it off and add the next one to the top.

Finish with: A live list of avoided decisions, with the oldest ones cleared first.

Copy exercise

1. Take the idea you are most excited about and have not yet funded or staffed.
2. Ask two or three trusted people to prepare the strongest case against it.
3. In the meeting, your only job is to ask questions. No defending.
4. At the end, write one paragraph: what I now believe, and what changed.
5. If the idea dies, say so out loud to the team: 'You are right, this is a bad idea for us.'

Finish with: A funded idea you can defend on evidence, or a bad idea killed before it cost you an engineering team.

Copy exercise

1. Sit down with each business partner and ask: do you feel my contribution matches my share right now?
2. Listen fully before responding. Ask what they would change.
3. If they believe the split is off, propose one concrete adjustment (role, pay, or equity) within a week.
4. Write down the agreement and the date you will revisit it.

Finish with: A partnership where both people can say the split still reflects reality.

Copy exercise

1. Name the colleague or partner whose way of operating most frustrates you.
2. List the three differences that bother you.
3. For each, write what that difference makes possible for the business that your way does not.
4. Decide which differences you will stop trying to change.

Finish with: A short written reframe you can re-read before your next meeting with that person.

Copy exercise

1. Ask five people who report to you, anonymously if possible: 'Would you describe me as fair? When was I not?'
2. Collect the answers without responding.
3. Look for the pattern in the 'when was I not' answers.
4. Pick one decision habit to change and tell the team what it is.

Finish with: A fairness baseline you can re-measure next quarter.

Copy exercise

1. Print the ladder large and put it where the team meets.
2. Walk the team through it once, level by level, using your own examples of where you have been.
3. In every one-on-one where someone is stuck, ask them to point to their level.
4. Agree the first target together: courage.
5. Name the single action that would express courage this week.

Finish with: A team with shared vocabulary for where they are and where they are going.

Copy exercise

1. When a salesperson is afraid to make calls, show them the chart and ask where they are. Expect 'fear'.
2. Point to courage and ask what one call made with courage would look like.
3. Have them make that call in front of you.
4. Debrief only on the level they operated from, not on the outcome.

Finish with: A salesperson who can name fear and act past it.

Copy exercise

1. Write down every way money is made around what you do: the core product, tickets or access, merchandise, media rights, sponsors, referrals, follow-on services.
2. For each line, write who keeps most of the money today.
3. Mark each line: I own it, I rent it, I give it away.
4. For the biggest line you give away, write the question Mayweather asked: what would it take for me to own this?
5. Get an actual number, even a rough one, from the person who currently controls it.

Finish with: A one-page revenue-and-control map with a price on the ownership you do not yet have.

Copy exercise

1. Open a separate savings or investment account with no debit card attached.
2. Decide the share of every inflow you will move there. Mayweather's rule is half; start where you can hold the line and raise it.
3. Set the transfer to happen the day money lands, before any spending.
4. Write the rule on one line and put it where you see it: 'If it's $100, put $50 up.'
5. Review the balance on the first of each month. It should only rise.

Finish with: An automatic rainy-day reserve that grows with every payment you receive.

Copy exercise

1. List every person and system that can move your money, sign for you, or change where payments are sent.
2. For each, write when you last personally looked at the statements or paperwork they control.
3. Set a rule: any transfer above a threshold you choose, and any change of payment destination, requires confirmation from a second person by a second channel.
4. Book an outside accountant who does not report to your manager or adviser to reconcile the last 12 months.
5. Put a recurring 30-minute monthly slot in your calendar to read the statements yourself.

Finish with: A control checklist with names, thresholds, and a monthly review habit.

Copy exercise

1. Name your main competitor. Write the single thing they do best, in one line.
2. Write what you would have to do so that strength stops deciding the customer's choice.
3. Now do it to yourself: write your best attribute and how a smart rival would take it away.
4. Write one action this quarter that protects your strength and one that neutralises theirs.

Finish with: A one-page competitive game plan in Mayweather's format: jab, right hand, hook.

Copy exercise

1. Name the performance that scares you: a pitch, a keynote, a negotiation, a live demo.
2. Find a way to do a version of it in front of people every week: colleagues, a meet-up, a recorded livestream, a tougher sparring partner.
3. Each week, add one more observer or one more degree of difficulty.
4. After each rehearsal, note only one thing: did you notice the audience, or only the task?
5. Keep going until the answer is 'only the task'.

Finish with: A weekly rehearsal habit that makes the real arena feel familiar.

Copy exercise

1. List the five biggest losses your business or career has taken in the past two years.
2. For each, write whether it was a hit you had to take or one you could have avoided.
3. For the avoidable ones, write the early signal you ignored.
4. Turn those signals into a short checklist you read before your next major commitment.

Finish with: A personal defence checklist built from your own avoidable losses.

Copy exercise

1. Write the year your current main income realistically peaks or ends.
2. List three income sources you could start building now while still earning.
3. Pick the one you understand best or can learn fastest.
4. Commit a fixed share of every inflow to it, using the half-up account as the source.
5. Set a quarterly check: is it growing, and what did I learn?

Finish with: A funded second income source with a quarterly review.

Copy exercise

1. List the ten people you spend the most time with outside your household.
2. Beside each, write honestly: asset (wants me to win, makes me better) or liability (drains, discourages, or distracts).
3. For each liability, note why you have kept them. Fear of letting go counts.
4. Choose one action per liability: less time, one direct conversation, or a trade.
5. Choose one asset to invest more time in this month.

Finish with: A curated circle and a concrete move for each person on it.

Copy exercise

1. Write down the loss that hurt you most, in a few honest sentences, as Mayweather described his Olympic loss.
2. Name the feeling in one word.
3. Write the decision that feeling could drive if you let it, the way his drove him to turn professional.
4. Write one action this month that moves you toward never feeling it again.

Finish with: A loss converted into a specific, motivating decision.

Copy exercise

1. Draw three blocks of eight hours: sleep, work, and the third eight.
2. For one week, log honestly where the third eight goes, including every social media session.
3. Total the hours spent scrolling.
4. Reassign at least half of them to something that builds your next income source or your body.

Finish with: A weekly time audit and a reallocated third block.

Copy exercise

1. Read the facts: you are CEO of Hartwell Industrial Services, a $23 million mechanical contracting firm. On a Tuesday morning your VP of Operations, 19 years in, quits without warning. He knew every client, vendor and process; most of it lived only in his head. No key-man insurance, no accurate operations manual, no second-in-command. Two weeks later three client accounts ask for him by name and a critical vendor refuses to negotiate. Inside, four senior leaders think they are next, alliances form and meetings turn political. The all-hands is two weeks away.
2. In groups, take ten minutes to write your next three to five moves.
3. Sort your moves into: first 48 hours, first two weeks, and before the all-hands.
4. Check that your plan covers all four audiences: customers, vendors, the four senior leaders, and every department at the all-hands.
5. Present and grade each plan (par, birdie, eagle), rewarding moves nobody else said.
6. Finish by swapping the fictional VP for your own most critical person and re-running the plan.

Finish with: A time-boxed continuity plan you have already rehearsed against your own key-person risk.

Copy exercise

1. List every person whose sudden departure would hurt the company for more than a week.
2. For each, list what only they know or do: clients, vendors, processes, passwords, relationships, judgment calls.
3. Mark each item green (documented and someone else can do it), yellow (partly), or red (only in their head).
4. Name the interim and the number two for each role. Leave blanks where none exists.
5. Turn every red item and every blank into a dated task with an owner.

Finish with: A one-page map of where your company is held hostage and a task list to fix it.

Copy exercise

1. Write the list of customers and vendors you would call personally, ranked by revenue and criticality.
2. Draft the call in three sentences: what happened, who is in place, and that you personally guarantee continuity of quality and service.
3. Draft the internal message to senior leaders that names the interim and their own role in the response.
4. Draft the all-hands update: fast, clear, one paragraph per department.
5. Store all three drafts where you can find them in a crisis.

Finish with: Ready-to-use scripts for customers, vendors, leaders and the all-hands.

Copy exercise

1. Choose the one person whose knowledge is most concentrated.
2. Book them for one hour a week for four weeks.
3. Week 1: document the top 20 client relationships (contact, history, quirks, open issues) in the CRM. Week 2: vendors and negotiation history. Week 3: the five most critical processes as step-by-step SOPs. Week 4: the judgment calls they make that nobody else knows about.
4. Have their number two run one process from the documents alone and note every gap.
5. Repeat with the next most concentrated person.

Finish with: A shared, tested body of documentation for your most critical role, and a repeatable method for the rest.

Copy exercise

1. Export the last two years of invoices and, using a spreadsheet or an AI tool, produce a ranked list of transacting customers by spend.
2. Confirm in writing (with legal or HR) your policy for reviewing a departed employee's company email for prospects and open conversations before the account is closed.
3. Confirm you can pull every open opportunity from the CRM without a specific person's login.
4. Time how long the whole drill takes. Anything over a day is a gap to close.
5. Assign the drill to someone other than the person who owns the data.

Finish with: Proof that the customer and prospect picture can be rebuilt in hours, and a list of access gaps.

Copy exercise

1. Name the interim leader for the vacated role.
2. Assign four senior leaders one workstream each: (1) the operations manual and systems, (2) client relations, (3) internal office affairs and morale, (4) developing future people.
3. Hold twenty-minute huddles to list everything the departed person did and assign each item to a workstream.
4. Set a recurring operational-resilience check-in (weekly until the all-hands, then monthly) to measure the transition and catch dropped balls.
5. Report progress at the all-hands with a clear update for every department.

Finish with: An organised response with owners, a dependency list and a cadence for checking nothing is missed.

Copy exercise

1. Ask yourself honestly: was this a surprise? If yes, why did nobody tell you?
2. Meet each remaining senior leader one on one and ask what discontent or turmoil they saw and when.
3. Ask what the departed person's strengths and downfalls were, so the replacement is an upgrade.
4. Write down the cultural issue the departure exposed and one change you will make.
5. Decide whether this is a case of addition by subtraction before you rush to hire.

Finish with: A clear diagnosis of why the person really left and a better brief for the replacement.

Copy exercise

1. List every person you consider a running mate (someone who carries the same pressure you do, not just a title).
2. Score each 0-10 on six factors: character, trust, work ethic, vision, competency, Rolodex.
3. Circle the lowest score. Ask what that gap is costing you and whether it can be coached, supplemented by another hire, or accepted.
4. Add one interview question for your next senior hire based on the gap you found (Bet-David's was 'Tell me about your Rolodex. Who can you text right now?').

Finish with: A scored table for each running mate and one new interview question

Copy exercise

1. Write the names of everyone you would tell a company-changing secret to before it is public (a sale, a major hire, a firing).
2. Count them. One to five is normal; ten or more means you are treating too much as no big deal.
3. For anyone borderline, run Bet-David's test: share one low-stakes confidence and see whether it comes back to you from someone else.
4. Decide who is 'top secret', who is 'secret', and who gets need-to-know only. They can all still have jobs.

Finish with: A tiered confidentiality list you actually use

Copy exercise

1. For each inner-circle member, tick which of the 15 qualities they show: confidentiality, zero tolerance for games, accessibility, opportunity magnet, gives insight, attention to detail, strong Rolodex with trust and credibility, respectful approach, defends you behind your back, not cheap / takes care of people, accountability, exchange of value, fun and humble, presentable, X factor.
2. Flag any automatic disqualifiers: loose lips, games or triangulation ('they said'), arrogance that drains the room.
3. Note the one quality each person most needs feedback on and deliver it in their love language.

Finish with: A checklist per person and one feedback point each

Copy exercise

1. List everyone whose advice you currently act on: formal advisers, investors, mentors, coaches.
2. Score each on Tom Ellsworth's filter: processes issues several moves ahead; shares your values but different temperament; calm under pressure without delaying decisions; not afraid to challenge you; loyal with no personal agenda.
3. Rank them. Drop anyone who is promotional, agenda-driven, or wants your seat.
4. Write the level of adviser you would need at your next stage and what you must improve to attract them.

Finish with: A ranked adviser list and an upgrade target

Copy exercise

1. Write each direct report's name and pick their top one or two of the nine: we need you, recognition, praise, clear direction, vision, dreams, involvement, challenge, listening.
2. Note your own default language and where it clashes with theirs.
3. For each person, write one concrete action for this month in their language (public shout-out, a 'what would you do?' question, a competition, a listening session).
4. Re-check after a quarter: did engagement and retention move?

Finish with: A one-page team communication guide

Copy exercise

1. List your top five people and your revenue three years ago, today, and at your next milestone.
2. Score each person 1-10 at each stage on effectiveness, hunger, and clarity, the way Bet-David charted 'John', 'Cindy', and 'Larry'.
3. Mark who is trending down, flat, and up. Ask of the downward trend: do I have this person's best now, or is it behind us?
4. Schedule the conversation with anyone trending down, and new responsibility for anyone trending up.

Finish with: A trend chart of your key people and two scheduled conversations

Copy exercise

1. Draft ten to twelve one-line principles. Borrow freely from Bet-David's: never compromise our non-negotiables; micromanage until there is trust; what brought us here won't take us to the next level; no one has 100% job security, including me; create peer pressure by challenging one another; treat the company's money like your own; be radically open-minded but not easily persuaded; fight any temptation for lower standards.
2. Add the five things you evaluate people on (his are effort, attitude, teamwork, innovation, results).
3. Put them on the wall and in onboarding, and reference them in every calibration.
4. For a deeper version, take your leaders offsite for three days and write an 'I / We / Never' code of honour: 30 personal commitments, 30 team commitments, 30 things we never do. Sign it.

Finish with: A posted principles sheet, optionally a signed code of honour

Copy exercise

1. Name the person and the issue (client, employee, spouse, child, in-law).
2. Write your own concerns, fears, assumptions, motives, and asks.
3. Write what you believe their concerns, fears, assumptions, motives, and asks are.
4. Open the conversation by sharing your sheet and testing your assumptions about them out loud, as Bet-David did with his son over college.
5. Close with your specific ask and check whether their fear is real or dissolved.

Finish with: A two-sided prep sheet and a conversation that actually happened

Copy exercise

1. List every recurring task you do and the skill behind each.
2. Mark which tasks still require you and which only require someone who knows the practices and procedures.
3. For each transferable task, pick a non-seasonal person, document the task, demonstrate it, let them run it, and review.
4. Check the six requirements: skills listed, seasonal people excluded, the languages of sales / support / technical understood, culture keeper identified, procedures known, and a leader developing who spreads the mindset.
5. Apply the same list to your kids if you want to build a legacy.

Finish with: A task-by-task transfer plan with named successors

Copy exercise

1. Write every team member's name and assign one of eight types: doubting Tom, hide-and-seek, selfish, victim, team player, flag carrier, pace setter, optimist.
2. For flag carriers and pace setters, write how you will recognise them this month.
3. For selfish high performers, confirm they are in a closing seat, not a building seat.
4. For doubters and victims, schedule an accountability conversation before their negativity spreads.

Finish with: A typed roster with recognition and correction actions

Copy exercise

1. Define three to five measurable outcomes per role, including non-sales roles.
2. Set the scale: below, meets, exceeds expectations. Tie a meaningful slice of bonus (Bet-David cites a third) to the score.
3. Each quarter, score everyone, then meet one-to-one: 'Last quarter you met expectations. What are three things you need to do to hit exceeds?'
4. Send a short survey asking staff how well their manager discusses their career; compare departments.
5. Finish every review with the line: 'I believe if you improve in this area, you could have a major future here.'

Finish with: A calibration rubric, a review script, and a manager-quality survey

Copy exercise

1. Answer in writing: what happens to a person's life if they work with me? Which rooms do they enter because they know me?
2. Cross out anything every employer offers (401(k), insurance, vacation).
3. Count how many people's lives you changed positively in the last twelve months and why.
4. Write three connections you will build locally this year and how your team will see them.

Finish with: A one-page talent-magnet statement and a connection plan

Copy exercise

1. Read the case: $40,000 loan to a $12 million logistics company, 70-hour weeks, 14 missed games, four date nights, a spouse's year-end ultimatum, an 11-year-old who stopped asking.
2. Write your own next three to five moves as if you were Marcus.
3. Compare with the floor's answers: sort tasks into urgent / important / difficult and hire for what does not need you; block non-negotiable family time first and fill work around it; find your spouse's love language and give at least an hour a week; write the letter of how you want to be remembered; show up at home without waiting for another conversation.
4. Pick the two moves you are avoiding in your own life and date them.

Finish with: A five-move plan you can apply to yourself

Copy exercise

1. Immediately after any shoot, recording, or notable event, open your notes app.
2. Write the date.
3. Write what was shot or what happened, in broad strokes: who, where, what changed.
4. Note any moment of conflict, surprise, or emotion that could anchor the story.
5. Repeat every time you shoot. When a project is done you should have a complete list of everything captured.

Finish with: A dated, searchable log of all footage that lets you structure a story without rewatching everything.

Copy exercise

1. Read your content log for the project from start to finish.
2. Name the central conflict: what does the audience need to see resolved?
3. Map your material onto the beats from Save the Cat by Blake Snyder: setup and rising exposition, complications, the all-is-lost moment, the climax, the resolution.
4. Mark gaps where you need a shot, an interview, or a voiceover to make a beat land.
5. Hand the beat outline to your editor with the log, so the edit begins with structure instead of a pile of clips.

Finish with: A written beat sheet and shot list your editor can cut from directly.

Copy exercise

1. For two weeks, whenever a good idea arrives, note the time of day and what you were doing.
2. At the end, look for the cluster. Common windows are the minutes before sleep, the shower, walks, and flights.
3. Remove capture friction in that window: phone or notebook within reach, notes app on the home screen.
4. Protect the window. Do not fill it with scrolling or calls.
5. Once a month, reread the ideas captured in the window and star the ones worth pursuing.

Finish with: A known daily window for idea generation and a habit of capturing what arrives in it.

Copy exercise

1. List every format you produce: show, newsletter, short video, live event, ad.
2. For each, answer in one line: What is this medium today? Where do I fit in it? Who am I speaking to?
3. Compare against how the medium has shifted in the last two years, as podcasts shifted from entertainment to learning.
4. Pull your view or engagement trend for each format and write the plain fact beside it.
5. Mark each format Keep, Redesign, or Retire, and write one experiment for every Redesign.

Finish with: A one-page audit with a decision for every format and a redesign experiment for the stale ones.

Copy exercise

1. Create a two-column list: Yes (tried) and No (declined with reason).
2. This quarter, say yes to one opportunity outside your lane, as Logan said yes to WrestleMania.
3. Afterwards write three scores out of five: fit with my strengths, fulfillment, money.
4. Anything scoring low on all three moves to the No column with its reason, so future declines are evidence-based.
5. Review the ledger every quarter. Expect your No column to grow as your discernment does.

Finish with: A personal record of what fits you, and a growing, justified list of things you now decline.

Copy exercise

1. Write where you want to be in three years across work, craft, money, and health. Do not force a ten-year plan if you cannot see it.
2. List the assumptions about the world that the plan depends on.
3. Every quarter, check which assumptions have changed and adjust the plan rather than defending it.
4. Record one pivot you made this quarter and what triggered it, building your adaptability track record.

Finish with: A living three-year plan and a log of deliberate pivots.

Copy exercise

1. List the three platforms, partners, or employers you depend on most.
2. For each, write what you deliver that is hard to replace (your equivalent of performing at a high level).
3. Write which of your assets sits outside their control: an audience, a show, a product, a list.
4. Identify one asset you could build in the next twelve months that makes you harder to drop, and one negotiation you would run differently once it exists.

Finish with: A map of your current leverage and one concrete asset to build this year.

Copy exercise

1. Write what a successful exit or payoff from your business looks like: a sale, a partial sale, dividends, or a buyer type.
2. Write down the valuation or offer at which you would take some money off the table, before any offer arrives.
3. Have the conversation with every partner now and record where you agree and disagree.
4. List what a buyer would need to see, such as stable numbers and clean legal standing, and start producing it.
5. Revisit the document once a year or whenever an inbound offer appears.

Finish with: A written exit thesis, an agreed take-chips-off threshold, and a buyer-readiness checklist.

Copy exercise

1. List five true things that happened around your business this year: a conflict, a mistake, a win, an odd encounter, a customer story.
2. For each, ask what the audience would want to see resolved.
3. Pick one and match it to an upcoming launch or announcement, as Logan restaged a real fight to launch a protein shake.
4. Script it with a clear conflict and resolution, then produce it.

Finish with: One campaign or piece of content grounded in a real event.

Copy exercise

1. Write down what your child does when nobody assigns them anything: drawing, filming, building, running, writing, organizing.
2. Ask them what they would do all day if they could, and write the answer down without judging its earning potential.
3. Pick one passion and give it a tool or an outlet this month: a camera, a notebook, a club, a coach.
4. Say out loud, casually and often, that you believe they could be great at it.
5. Once a quarter, notice which passions persist. Persistence is the signal.

Finish with: A record of your child's natural pulls and one concrete investment in each.

Copy exercise

1. Choose one fixed weekly time to look at views, followers, and sales. Turn off real-time notifications otherwise.
2. At that time, write the numbers and one factual sentence about the trend.
3. Write one sentence about what the market did, not what you did wrong.
4. Write one action for next week. Then close the dashboard.
5. If you notice yourself checking outside the window, log it. The tally shrinking is the progress.

Finish with: A weekly one-paragraph metrics note and a shrinking compulsive-checking tally.

Copy exercise

1. Choose the two or three activities that actually produce results in each sales role, such as dials, appointments booked and appointments run.
2. Every Monday morning, have each person state last week's numbers for those activities out loud before mentioning any result.
3. Ask to see their calendar. Multiply appointments by average duration to estimate real hours worked.
4. Where the story and the calendar disagree, coach the activity gap first. Where they agree and results still lag, coach skill.

Finish with: A weekly activity scorecard per person and a habit of leading with inputs rather than excuses.

Copy exercise

1. Take the five headings: effort, attitude, leadership, innovation, results.
2. Under each, write four observable criteria. Start from the speaker's list: effort = urgency, quality control, personal development, raising standards; attitude = perseverance, buy-in, culture fit, personal character; leadership = teamwork, developing others, confronting respectfully, accountability; innovation = creative and critical thinking, improvement, implementation; results = one-club reliability, hitting KPIs, beating your prior best.
3. For each criterion, write one sentence describing what a 3, a 7 and a 10 look like in your business.
4. Share the finished rubric with every manager before the first scoring round.

Finish with: A one-page scoring guide that lets two managers score the same person within a few points of each other.

Copy exercise

1. Within a week of quarter close, every employee scores themselves 0-10 on each of the five categories with a specific example per score.
2. Each manager scores their direct reports independently on the same scale, without seeing the self-score first if you want a clean read.
3. The leadership committee meets. Each manager presents their scores. Leave 'meets' alone unless challenged. Debate every 'exceeds' and every 'does not meet' by asking 'why did you give this person that score?'
4. Agree a final number (for example self 47, manager 39, committee lands at 41).
5. The manager delivers the final score and the reasoning to the employee, opening with their self-score and the gap.

Finish with: A calibrated score out of 50 for every employee, a band (does not meet / needs improvement / meets / exceeds / outstanding), and a documented gap between self-view and company view.

Copy exercise

1. After scores are collected but before the committee meets, tabulate each manager's percentage of reports in each of the five bands, plus the manager's own self-score.
2. Flag any manager with zero people below 'meets' as a possible people-pleaser.
3. Flag any manager whose self-score sits far above their team average as a possible elitist.
4. Compare each against the steward benchmark of roughly 10 / 20 / 50 / 15 / 5.
5. Bring the flagged distributions into the committee meeting and ask the manager to walk through their reasoning person by person.

Finish with: A one-page chart of every manager's rating shape and a short list of managers who need coaching or a skip-level check.

Copy exercise

1. Open with the employee's own number: 'You scored yourself a 47. Tell me why you think you were a 47 last quarter.'
2. Listen fully. Then go to the numbers: which KPIs were hit, which were missed, what the calendar shows.
3. State your view plainly: 'At best I have you at 31.' Explain each category where the gap is widest.
4. Agree what a 40 would look like next quarter in specific, observable terms.
5. Write the agreed targets down and revisit them at the next calibration.

Finish with: A shared understanding of where the person stands, a closed expectation gap, and a written target for the next quarter.

Copy exercise

1. Pick one team per month, prioritising teams whose manager's scores looked skewed or whose turnover is high.
2. Meet two or three of that manager's reports for 15 minutes each, without the manager present.
3. Ask: What are you working on? What gets in your way? How do you find out how you are doing? Who helps you grow?
4. Do not promise outcomes. Write down where what you hear differs from the manager's scores and story.
5. Feed the difference into the next calibration committee.

Finish with: A second-source read on team health and a list of potential future stars the manager may be under-rating.

Copy exercise

1. List the levels that exist in your company for each major role family, the way Apple publishes seven engineering tiers.
2. For each level, write what the person must reliably do and the pay band attached.
3. Attach the calibration bands to money: which bands earn a raise, which earn a bonus multiplier, which earn nothing.
4. Share the document with the whole company and point to it whenever a raise or promotion is discussed.

Finish with: A public career and pay ladder that removes most arguments about fairness before they start.

Copy exercise

1. Pick one process people complain about, such as your review cycle or your customer checkout.
2. Count every step a person has to take today. Tesla counted 64 to buy a car.
3. Run the five questions in order: Is this requirement real? Can this step be deleted? Can what remains be simplified? Can the cycle be shortened? Only then, what can be automated?
4. Set a target step count and redesign toward it. Tesla reached 13.

Finish with: A shorter process with a before-and-after step count you can show the team.

Copy exercise

1. Open the last two weeks of your calendar. Print it or export it so you can mark it up.
2. Write your top three goals for the next 12 months at the top of the page.
3. For every block, note two things: hours spent, and whether it gave you energy or drained it.
4. Circle the draining blocks. Write down who was in each one. Look for the person who appears in most of them.
5. Label every block with one of the 4Ds: Delete (stop doing it), Defer (schedule it later), Delegate (give it to a person or AI), or DO (only you can do this, keep it).
6. Optional: paste the calendar and goals into an AI and ask it to act as a ruthless mentor, ask you four or five clarifying questions one at a time, then find waste and delegation opportunities.
7. Move at least three blocks out of your calendar for the coming two weeks.

Finish with: A marked-up calendar with a 4D decision on every block, the name of your energy-drain pattern, and three blocks removed from next fortnight.

Copy exercise

1. Write down what you pay yourself per year, including salary, draws, and distributions.
2. Add seller discretionary earnings: personal expenses the business pays that a buyer would add back (car, phone, travel, meals).
3. Divide the total by 2,000, the hours most people work in a year. This is your effective hourly rate.
4. Divide that by 4. Martell wants a 4x return on every hour you buy back. This is your buyback rate.
5. Example: $100,000 a year becomes $50 an hour, then $12.50 buyback rate.
6. List ten tasks you did last week, personal and professional. Next to each, write what you could pay someone else (a virtual assistant, a local service, an AI tool) to do it.
7. Mark every task where that price is below your buyback rate. Those are the ones to delegate first.

Finish with: A single dollar number for your time, and a ranked list of tasks you are currently doing below that number.

Copy exercise

1. Choose one recurring task you hate (Martell's examples: bookkeeping, invoicing, bike maintenance).
2. Open a video meeting with only yourself, share your screen, and record while you do the task. Narrate what you are doing and why.
3. Do this for three separate occurrences of the task so edge cases show up.
4. Get transcripts of the three recordings. Remove passwords and private client data.
5. Paste the transcripts into an AI (Martell recommends Claude) and ask for a standard operating procedure, a clear definition of done, and a one-page checklist.
6. If you have never done the task yourself, skip the recording: give the AI a link to a good YouTube tutorial and ask for the SOP instead.
7. Hand the checklist to a team member, contractor, or house manager. Ask them to do it once while you watch, then never touch it again.

Finish with: A one-page checklist and SOP for one task, and a named owner who is not you.

Copy exercise

1. Write your biggest goal for the next 12 months in one sentence.
2. Skills: list the two highest-leverage skills that would make you more valuable toward that goal. Ask 'what is the next-level version of my role?' (bookkeeper to tax strategist; creator who learns to code).
3. Habits: list the two or three daily or weekly habits that align with the goal.
4. Beliefs: write down one belief about money, people, or the world that might be holding you back, and the belief a person who has already reached the goal would hold instead.
5. Optional: give the goal to an AI and ask for a learning plan for the two skills, with daily calendar blocks and links to resources.
6. Book the first learning block in the time you freed up in the calendar audit.

Finish with: A one-page fill plan with two skills, three habits, one belief to change, and a first learning block on the calendar.

Copy exercise

1. Draw five rungs: Admin (inbox and calendar), Delivery (onboarding, support, fulfilment), Marketing (daily traffic and campaigns), Sales (conversations to transactions), Leadership (strategy and outcomes only).
2. For each rung, answer honestly: who owns this today? If the answer is you, or 'me plus someone I supervise closely', the rung is not yet replaced.
3. Find the lowest rung that is still yours. That is your next hire or next AI workflow. Do not skip ahead; Martell says admin first no matter where you start.
4. For that rung, write the outcome you need, the measure of done, and the first candidate (a person, a contractor, or an AI agent).
5. Set a 90-day date to have that rung off your plate.

Finish with: A ladder diagram showing which rungs you still own, and a 90-day plan for the lowest one.

Copy exercise

1. Ask yourself Martell's question: did you delegate your inbox, or do you still read everything and forward what you think your assistant should handle?
2. If you still filter, write the three categories of email you are afraid to let go of and why.
3. For each category, write the rule your assistant or AI should follow (reply, schedule, decline, escalate) and what 'escalate to me' looks like.
4. Give the assistant direct inbox access. Set a daily review meeting of 30 to 90 minutes where they bring only what they could not handle, as Helen does with Richard Branson.
5. If using AI: ask it to study your last 30 days of sent mail, draft replies in your voice, never send, and leave placeholders for facts it does not have.
6. After two weeks, count how many emails you personally opened. Aim for the number to fall each week.

Finish with: Written inbox rules, a daily review slot, and a weekly count of emails you touched.

Copy exercise

1. Ask: if I 10x'd my business tomorrow, what breaks first?
2. Write every answer that comes to mind: people, delivery capacity, cash, your own hours, systems.
3. Pick the one that breaks first. Martell's mentor told him his was building talent, which meant delivery had to stop depending on him.
4. Write what it would take for someone other than you to own that thing within 90 days.
5. Schedule the first step (a recording for an SOP, a job post, an AI workflow) this week.

Finish with: One named constraint and a first step on the calendar.

Copy exercise

1. Write down the single objection that most often stalls your sales conversations or DMs.
2. Gather three to five real transcripts or message threads where it came up (only ones you are allowed to use).
3. Paste them into an AI and ask it to identify every objection raised, group the common ones, and propose the best way to handle each.
4. For your top objection, ask for 17 different response examples. Pick the one that sounds most like you.
5. Turn that response into a script your salesperson or your DM team can use. Test it for two weeks and track the close rate.

Finish with: An objection-handling script for your top objection, and a grouped list of the rest.

Copy exercise

1. Pick one role on your team.
2. Outcome: write one sentence a 13-year-old would understand. Martell's example for a lawn company: 'the best lawn in the neighbourhood'.
3. Measure: list the five to seven parts that make up a great result. For each, describe what a 10 out of 10 looks like and what a 1 looks like.
4. Give the checklist to the person and ask them to self-assess after each job or week.
5. Coach: when a score is low, do not tell them what to do next. Run the three-step coaching conversation: state the principle they violated, tell a personal story about how you learned it, and get an agreement on what they will do differently next time.
6. Repeat for one more role each month.

Finish with: A one-page outcome and measurement sheet for one role, and a coaching script for when results fall short.

Copy exercise

1. Record your next one-on-one or team meeting with the other person's consent, and get the transcript.
2. Paste it into an AI and ask: how did I do as a leader against outcome, measure, and coach? Where was I telling instead of training? How should I show up on the next call?
3. Read the moments it flags in the transcript yourself. Do not treat the AI score as truth.
4. Write one change to make in the next meeting.
5. Monthly: run the same analysis across 30 days of team chat to find where communication is breaking down and end with the one question to ask the team this week.

Finish with: A short written assessment of your leadership in one meeting and one concrete change for the next.

Copy exercise

1. Instead of asking what to add, list everything you did last week that you should not be doing.
2. Include personal tasks. Martell counts anything you could pay someone less than your buyback rate to do.
3. Cross off the three cheapest to remove (a tool, a $10 gig, a family member, an AI workflow) and remove them this week.
4. Keep the list running. Add to it every time you notice yourself doing a $10 task.

Finish with: A living stop-doing list with three items removed this week.

Copy exercise

1. Choose one thing you are about to have built, designed, or produced: a renovation, a landing page, a product, a stage set, a piece of marketing.
2. Open an image model (Gemini or ChatGPT image generation; Claude does not generate images).
3. Describe what you want in detail and iterate until the picture matches your head. Expect ten or more rounds.
4. Print or share the final image with every person who will touch the work, so the bricklayer, the insert supplier, and the finisher all see the same target.
5. Also do this for your own future: generate images of the life and business you are designing and keep them where you will see them.

Finish with: A photorealistic reference image that everyone on the job is building toward.

Copy exercise

1. Gather everyone in your household, including kids and elderly parents.
2. Explain that 12 seconds of audio is enough to clone a voice, and that a scam call can come from an unknown number 'because I borrowed a friend's phone'.
3. Agree on one secret word or phrase that any family member must give when asking another to do something unusual by phone: move money, leave the house, meet somewhere, share information.
4. Agree the rule: no word, no action, hang up and call back on a known number.
5. Practice it once so it feels normal, and never write it in a shared chat.

Finish with: A verified safe word every family member knows and a call-back rule.

Copy exercise

1. List each service you sell and its current price.
2. For each, write the methodology in enough detail that a competent new hire could deliver it to your standard.
3. Re-cost each service as if that person, not you, delivered it: their wage, your margin, and the value of the outcome to the client.
4. Where the new price is higher than today's, you have been pricing your presence instead of your standards. Raise it.
5. Where you cannot write the methodology, that service is not yet a product. Fix that before scaling it.

Finish with: A price list built on the cost of someone else delivering your standard, plus a list of services that still need a written methodology.

Copy exercise

1. If you are tempted to stop growing, answer: Is the world expanding or contracting? Do my customers want more or less from me next year? Who are the one or two people I could not lose, and do they want a smaller or bigger future?
2. If you are tempted to sell, answer: If the problems driving this decision were solved, would I still sell?
3. If the answers point to 'keep going', write down the specific lessons the current complexity is trying to teach you, and pick one to learn this quarter.
4. If you still want to sell, you are at least selling for the right reasons.

Finish with: A clear yes or no on stalling or selling, and the lesson to learn if you stay.

Copy exercise

1. Write five fixed items on a card: progress against this year's goals, this week's top three priorities, blockers you need me to remove, feedback in both directions, one coaching point.
2. Use the card in every weekly one-to-one for a month without changing it.
3. Keep a one-line note per meeting so coaching threads carry across weeks.
4. At month end, ask each report whether the meeting is more useful than before and adjust one item at most.

Finish with: A repeatable one-to-one structure and a running log per direct report.

Copy exercise

1. For each manager who reports to you, ask the five questions Ellsworth listed: Have you sat down with everybody? Have you set expectations with everybody? Have you given your high performers their props? Have you given your low performers severe encouragement? Have you aligned everyone with the plan for the year?
2. Record a yes or no per question per manager.
3. Any 'no' becomes that manager's action item for the next two weeks.
4. Repeat at the start of each quarter.

Finish with: A simple grid showing which managers are actually managing and where to intervene.

Copy exercise

1. On the day the quarter closes, set three dates: self-assessments due in one week, manager assessments due one week later, calibration and delivery complete one week after that.
2. Employees rate themselves 1-10 on five categories with one specific example per score.
3. Managers rate each report on the same scale, independently.
4. Leadership committee reconciles the two and records a final score and band.
5. Managers deliver the result and the reasoning to each employee, like a report card, before the third week ends.

Finish with: A calibrated score and band for every employee, delivered within three weeks of quarter close.

Copy exercise

1. Set the company unlock: the minimum revenue growth and EBITDA that must be hit before any bonus pool exists.
2. Set a target bonus percentage for each job level so targets are fair across the organisation.
3. Map ratings to payout: does not meet and needs improvement = 0; meets = 100 percent of target; exceeds = a defined step up (like level-one over quota); outstanding = 150 percent of meets.
4. Split the calculation half on company performance and half on personal performance.
5. Write it on one page and walk the whole company through it.

Finish with: A bonus plan every employee can compute for themselves, aligned to company results first.

Copy exercise

1. For one open role, write the job spec in your own words rather than copying a posting from the internet.
2. List three to five culture attributes and give each a weight that adds to 100 percent (Mattenga's example: 25 percent problem solving, plus hospitality).
3. List the non-negotiables that must be asked aloud every time (location or on-site requirement, sobriety and drug test for restaurants, and so on).
4. Write two calibrating questions per attribute that ask for a specific past example.
5. Score every candidate on the same sheet immediately after the interview and before discussing impressions with anyone.

Finish with: A side-by-side scorecard that lets you compare candidates on evidence rather than rapport.

Copy exercise

1. For four weeks, log applicants received per role per week.
2. Log how many pass the resume or skills filter, how many pass culture and non-negotiable screening, and how many reach a live interview.
3. Compare to Ellsworth's shape (100 in, 20 ranked, 7 to the boss) and Mattenga's threshold (live interviews only for the top 40 scoring 80 percent or more).
4. Identify the stage that eats the most human hours and systematise it first.

Finish with: A funnel you can quote in numbers and a clear target for where a tool or template saves the most time.

Copy exercise

1. List your last 20 hires and who interviewed each.
2. Note each hire's broad personality type and the interviewer's.
3. Look for a pattern like Mattenga's, where a soft-spoken interviewer never hired dominant personalities.
4. If a pattern exists, add a second scorer or a structured scorecard before the next hire.

Finish with: Evidence of whether one person's temperament is acting as your company's hiring filter.

Copy exercise

1. Give each employee the five categories (effort, attitude, leadership, innovation, results) and a 1-10 scale.
2. Require one concrete example from the quarter beside every number; a score without an example is sent back.
3. Allow voice or mobile entry so it feels like a conversation, not a form.
4. Decide in advance whether managers see the self-score before scoring, and apply that rule to everyone.

Finish with: Self-assessments that give the calibration committee facts to weigh rather than bare numbers.

Copy exercise

1. Draw a three-by-three grid: impact (results) on one axis, performance or potential (the other four categories) on the other.
2. Place every calibrated employee in a box.
3. For the high-potential, low-impact corner, write what is blocking each person.
4. For the high-impact, low-culture corner, decide whether the culture gap is coachable.
5. Stack-rank the top-right box across departments to name your top 5 to 10 percent.
6. Publish the grid shape to the company without names or scores.

Finish with: A one-page picture of the organisation and a named list of who to invest in, unblock or move out.

Copy exercise

1. After calibration, list everyone rated exceeds or outstanding.
2. Invite them to one meal with the founder or CEO.
3. Before the meal, count how many you do not know personally.
4. Spend the time on encouragement, mentorship and what they need, not on company updates.

Finish with: Direct founder contact with the top performers each quarter, including the ones you had never met.

Copy exercise

1. Map your review workflow into four states: draft, manager review, committee approval, released to employee.
2. Confirm that nothing reaches an employee until the committee approval state, whether your tool is software or a spreadsheet.
3. Test the flow with one dummy record before the first real cycle.
4. Brief every new manager on the flow within their first two weeks.

Finish with: A review process that cannot leak uncalibrated scores to your team.

Copy exercise

1. Write down the one behaviour you most want more of from your team this year (referrals, attendance, new accounts).
2. Define it as a year-over-year change, not an absolute number, so growth is what wins.
3. Set an eligibility rule (Bet-David used 18 to 24 months of tenure).
4. Decide the recognition moment: where, when, and in front of whom.
5. Publish the rule to the team this month.

Finish with: A one-page recognition rule your team can read and plan toward

Copy exercise

1. List five experiences only you can give: a seat on a trip, dinner at your home, a private strategy hour, shadowing you for a day.
2. Attach each to a specific, measurable result.
3. Announce the menu a full cycle ahead so people can work toward it.
4. Deliver the prize publicly and tell the story afterwards.

Finish with: A prize ladder that costs little cash but carries high status

Copy exercise

1. For your next four events, meetings or classes, record how many people registered versus how many attended.
2. Segment by what they paid or committed (free, paid, premium).
3. Compare the ratios. If free or cheap tiers show up far less, consider raising the commitment required.

Finish with: A table of attendance ratios by commitment level

Copy exercise

1. List the roles on your team (closers, managers, rookies, setters or support).
2. Define one metric per role so each has a fair way to win.
3. Name a winner per category at your next all-hands.
4. Ask each recognised leader to recognise their own people the same way within a week.

Finish with: A recognition roster where support roles and newcomers can also win

Copy exercise

1. Draft the change you are considering (dropping a tier, raising a price).
2. Ask current customers directly, live or by survey, whether they would accept it.
3. Record the count of complaints versus expressions of gratitude.
4. Decide, and tell customers what you decided and why.

Finish with: A decision backed by customer reaction rather than assumption

Copy exercise

1. Pick one idea from these notes that seems above your pay grade (for example, quarterly calibration: structured scoring and accountability reviews of staff).
2. Write a 30-second pitch to your manager in this shape: 'I'm investing in myself to help take the company to the next level. At an event where many companies were over 100 million in revenue, most of them did X. I think we should entertain it here.'
3. Deliver it on Monday.
4. Offer to research and present how it could work.

Finish with: One delivered proposal that positions you as someone who brings value

Copy exercise

1. Picture yourself at 75. Who do you want to call you, visit you, and want your company?
2. For each person, write what you did with them this week.
3. Write what they would say about you today if asked 'does he or she listen to me?'
4. Change one thing this week so the answer improves.

Finish with: A short list of relationship gaps and one concrete change

Copy exercise

1. Write every excuse you have used for failing at home ('work took priority', 'I thought providing was enough').
2. Write every excuse you have used for failing at work ('the drama at home', 'the kids interrupt').
3. Write every health excuse ('too busy to work out', 'my partner doesn't support it').
4. Rewrite each as a system change with a time and place attached.
5. Cross out the original list.

Finish with: A page of system fixes replacing a page of excuses

Copy exercise

1. List every member of your household.
2. Assign each a five-to-fifteen-minute slot each day (longer on weekends).
3. Rule: no phone, you ask one open question, then you listen.
4. Tick a box each day for two weeks and note what they brought to you.

Finish with: A two-week record of one-on-one time and what you learned

Copy exercise

1. Write the ten decisions: who to marry; what career or business; where to live; when to have children; who to surround yourself with; how to manage and multiply money; what to believe spiritually and morally; how to care for body and mind; how to respond to failure and crisis; what to do with freedom (time, power, money).
2. Mark each Decided, Open, or Drifting.
3. For each Open or Drifting item write the next concrete step and a date.
4. Share the page with a spouse, mentor or accountability partner.

Finish with: A one-page life decision dashboard

Copy exercise

1. Score yourself 1 to 5 on each sign: not eliminating distractions; not dating with intention; quit pursuing big dreams; not creating new things; lost perspective and gratitude; unclear about the next level; letting the wrong person or party influence you.
2. Circle your two worst scores.
3. Write one action per circled item for the next 30 days.
4. Repeat the check quarterly.

Finish with: A scored compromise check with two corrective actions

Copy exercise

1. If you are single and want a spouse, write your ten to twenty non-negotiable questions (values, children, money, faith, family, where to live).
2. Buy or build a longer list such as a book of questions to ask before engagement.
3. By the second or third date, say plainly what you are looking for and work through the list together.
4. Treat discomfort as data and move on quickly if the answers do not fit.

Finish with: A written compatibility list you actually use

Copy exercise

1. Name the one person, place or habit you already know is pulling you off your vision.
2. Decide: cut off completely or hard-limit (for example a 30-minute daily limit on Instagram, set in the phone).
3. Tell one person who will hold you to it.
4. Review in 30 days.

Finish with: One distraction removed or capped, with an accountability partner

Copy exercise

1. List the genuinely new things you or your company created in the last ten years (new product, new market, new venture).
2. Compare against the benchmark: about two per decade to climb, four or more at the top.
3. Pick the next moonshot and write the first step you will take this quarter.

Finish with: A count of past moonshots and one committed next one

Copy exercise

1. Draw three columns: your current decade and the next two.
2. In each column write the percentage split you are choosing between business, health and relationships.
3. Under each, describe a normal Tuesday at the end of that decade in three sentences (where you live, who is around, how far you travel).
4. Note what the earlier decade must produce to make the later one possible.

Finish with: A twenty-year picture with deliberate trade-offs

Copy exercise

1. Draw a circle. Write inside it everything you would want within a few miles of home in twenty years: office, kids' school, church, gym, friends, family, water or nature.
2. Write outside the circle what you are willing to travel for, and what should travel to you.
3. Compare with where you live now and list the gap.

Finish with: A geographic picture of your dream life

Copy exercise

1. With your spouse or on your own, choose four words your family stands for (the Bet-Davids use lead, respect, improve, love).
2. Write one sentence of meaning under each.
3. Say them at dinner for a week.
4. Have young children write them out daily; older children explain one each week.

Finish with: A four-word family creed everyone can recite

Copy exercise

1. Open with quieting: noise, nerves, racing thoughts.
2. List what you want replaced (anxiety with peace, fear with faith, uncertainty with trust, pressure with confidence).
3. Ask for what you need today (clear mind, steady hands, wise words, peaceful heart).
4. State that your identity does not come from the outcome; you need only be present, prepared and faithful.
5. Close with a surrender line and, if it fits you, a scripture or a quote.
6. Say it every morning for 30 days, then revise.

Finish with: A one-minute personal prayer or statement you say daily

Copy exercise

1. Choose one weekly couple ritual (their Friday night), one weekly kids ritual (their Saturday movie night), and one weekly whole-family dinner with no phones.
2. Choose one annual ritual: a New Year's Eve vision board and a family business-planning conversation about what each person wants next year.
3. Put all of them in the shared calendar as recurring and non-negotiable.
4. Add one-on-one parent-child dates once the weekly ones are stable.

Finish with: A recurring family calendar with weekly and annual anchors

Copy exercise

1. List every recurring task at home and at work that does not need to be you.
2. Group them: childcare and household, admin and scheduling, finance, specialist advice.
3. Estimate hours per week for each group.
4. Hire or delegate the biggest group this quarter and write the rules of trust and respect for that person.

Finish with: A prioritised list of support to hire and the hours it returns

Copy exercise

1. Write your current revenue and your target for three years out.
2. For each senior leader, write the size of team or scale they have personally operated at before.
3. Mark anyone whose past ceiling is below your target as 'never been on the other side'.
4. For each such person, note which of the four options you would honestly choose today.

Finish with: A one-page map of where your leadership team's experience runs out

Copy exercise

1. Open with the org chart the company needs at the next level and where the gaps are.
2. Say: 'We're going to have to change, and there are four options.'
3. Lay out: hire someone above you; hire someone beside you to take pressure off; hire people below you so you can move up; or we part ways.
4. State your bias toward the person's growth and why you believe in them.
5. Agree the option and three skill targets for the next 90 days.
6. Put the 90-day review date in both calendars before the meeting ends.

Finish with: A completed conversation with a chosen option and a dated review

Copy exercise

1. Schedule a one-on-one with every leader within two weeks.
2. Ask one question: 'Who do you want to be in this company in five years?'
3. Sort answers into 'wants to step up' and 'comfortable or overwhelmed'.
4. For the first group, design a leadership program, a coach and an equity link tied to calibration results.
5. For the second group, plan the leadership to hire above them so they can keep flourishing.

Finish with: Two development tracks with names assigned

Copy exercise

1. For each leader, write the function skill they most need to grow and the leadership capacity they most need to expand.
2. Name one candidate skill mentor operating far above your scale and one leadership mentor.
3. Assign the leader to make contact within 30 days, using events and your network.
4. Track the relationship in the 90-day review.

Finish with: A mentor bench table for the whole leadership team

Copy exercise

1. For each leader, write three observable skills the next level requires (for example 'has hired and onboarded five reps', 'presents a 12-month cash plan').
2. Set the review date 90 days out.
3. At the review, mark each skill met or not met with evidence.
4. Two consecutive reviews with no progress triggers the next option in the four-option conversation.

Finish with: A recurring quarterly review sheet per leader

Copy exercise

1. With each early hire, describe where the company is going in five years and what roles will exist then.
2. Ask what they want to be in the company at that point.
3. Write three or four scenarios, including ones where they leave happy, with what each would look like.
4. Revisit the document every year.

Finish with: A written expectations agreement per early hire

Copy exercise

1. For the biggest capability gap, write what a full-time executive who has lived at your target scale would cost and what they would change culturally.
2. Write what a consultant who has done it would cost to teach the existing team, and how you would measure the transfer.
3. Decide per gap; the answer can differ by function.

Finish with: A per-gap decision with costs and cultural risk noted

Copy exercise

1. Ask three direct reports: 'Where do decisions wait on me?'
2. List every answer without defending yourself.
3. Rank by cost to the business.
4. Delegate, systemise or hire against the top two this quarter.

Finish with: A ranked list of founder bottlenecks and two actions

Copy exercise

1. Write your revenue, age of the company and whether you have repeatable customers.
2. Choose one phase: formulation, survival, momentum or plateau. Write one sentence justifying it.
3. Write what the next phase will demand of you personally that you do not do today.
4. Ask three people who see you work: 'How do you think I am doing?' Record their answers.
5. Choose the single book, course or mentor that addresses the gap you found.

Finish with: A one-page statement of your current phase, your next phase and one learning commitment

Copy exercise

1. Write the three seats on a page: dreamer, business person, SOB.
2. Put a name in each seat. Your own name may appear in more than one.
3. For any empty seat, write who could fill it: a partner, a president, an advisor, a board member.
4. For the SOB seat, write the last time that person told you a hard truth about a team member. If you cannot remember one, the seat is empty.

Finish with: A clear view of which of the three roles your company is missing

Copy exercise

1. Name your superpower: product, sales and business development, or something else that is your core.
2. Write: 'I am [title], but a significant part of me is chief [superpower] officer, and I will spend roughly [X] percent of my time there.'
3. Write the why in one line: what happens to raises, bonuses and promotions when the company grows, and when it does not.
4. Read it to your leadership team at the next meeting and ask each person what they need from you to make it real.

Finish with: A two-sentence compass statement your whole leadership team has heard

Copy exercise

1. Pick one leader whose department must run without you for your compass to hold.
2. Draft the ask in the first person: 'I need you to...'. Notice how it lands.
3. Rewrite it in the third person: '[Name], the company needs you in the role of [title] to deliver [outcome], because the company cannot grow as effectively if we do not clear the decks for [leader].'
4. Add what is in it for them and for the team if the company grows.
5. Deliver the third-person version. Save the first-person voice for encouragement afterwards.

Finish with: A support agreement with one leader, stated as a company need rather than a personal favour

Copy exercise

1. For two weeks, log your hours in four buckets: superpower, future planning, supporting functions (finance, HR, marketing, admin), and firefighting.
2. Compare against your compass. At PHP the founder aimed for roughly 60 percent superpower and 10 percent future.
3. List the external conversations you did not have in those two weeks because you were inside.
4. For each supporting-function hour, write who should own it and what stops them today.

Finish with: A picture of where your superpower is being pinched and a list of tasks to hand off

Copy exercise

1. Write the five external factors that could change your costs or capacity in the next year, such as fuel, rates, leases, labour and regulation.
2. For each, write the date or trigger you should watch, for example when your truck leases expire.
3. List the relationships you should have but do not: a second bank, the president of your largest supplier, the buyer at your biggest account, two retiring competitors.
4. Schedule one of those conversations for this month and one for next month.

Finish with: A one-page future list with dates and two booked conversations

Copy exercise

1. Name your most capable individual contributor.
2. Tell them the deal: shadow me on every major call, ask me why afterwards, and if it works I make you team lead as a first step to management.
3. Bring them onto every big-account call for the next several weeks.
4. Set the test: a week when you are away and off your phone. They deliver the reports and keep things moving.
5. If they pass, promote them to team lead over one or two reps and hand them the lowest-maintenance clients or opportunities.
6. Use the time you gained for the larger relationships only you can build.

Finish with: A team lead in place and a block of your week freed for big relationships

Copy exercise

1. List every department head and the people under them.
2. For each head, name the one person who could do at least half their job today. Leave it blank if nobody can.
3. Tell each head the rule: no promotion to the next level until someone under you can do half your job.
4. Have each head pick a shadow, give them certain days of the week, and set a test week away.
5. Review the map every quarter and move people up only when the blank is filled.

Finish with: A succession map for every department and a promotion rule everyone understands

Copy exercise

1. Choose one responsibility you are handing to someone.
2. Write three rows: 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. Columns: method, measurement, feedback.
3. Row 30: shadow and watch regularly without micromanaging; measure by having them repeat the instructions back; feedback is an ongoing dialogue with quick 'show me' checks.
4. Row 60: shadow occasionally, for example sit together 8 to 10 then let them run alone; measure by demonstrated results in the reports; feedback is a live 10-minute visit in their office or yours.
5. Row 90: write your own version, the recording ended before the speaker's. Aim for periodic review of results with them fully owning the work.
6. Only advance a row when you feel they know it, not when the calendar says so.

Finish with: A one-page delegation schedule shared with the person receiving the work

Copy exercise

1. Identify the next team, role or client you are joining, or one you joined in the last 90 days.
2. Write down the one behaviour that would tell everyone you are accountable (Rice's version: run every catch to the end zone).
3. Do it on every rep for 30 days, without announcing it.
4. Keep a daily tick sheet. Note the first day a teammate comments on it or copies it.

Finish with: A 30-day record of one standard you set by example, and evidence of whether the team noticed

Copy exercise

1. List every product and every retail door or channel you sell through.
2. For each, record monthly sell-through, gross margin to the retailer, and whether a reorder came in.
3. Flag any product that is sitting rather than moving.
4. For each flagged product decide one fix: the product itself, the price, the placement, or exiting that door.
5. Repeat monthly and take the scorecard into every buyer meeting.

Finish with: A one-page scorecard that shows buyers the numbers they care about and shows you where to act

Copy exercise

1. Write the sectors, stages, customer types and roles your business will not take on, following Montana's list: no sports, rarely consumer products, seed or earlier, no leading rounds, no board seats.
2. Under each rule, name one attractive opportunity you would have to decline because of it.
3. Add any deliberate exception mechanism, the way Liquid 2 added a later-stage fund to follow its winners.
4. Share the page with partners and re-read it before any deal that feels exciting.
5. Review and edit the page once a quarter, never in the middle of a live decision.

Finish with: A written focus statement that protects your reputation and speeds up saying no

Copy exercise

1. Create a five-line template: cash and runway, key wins, key problems, what you need, one number that matters most.
2. Ask every company you back, or every team you manage, to send it on the same date each month.
3. Keep a running list of who missed the update.
4. Call the silent ones first; Montana says they are usually the ones shutting down, but occasionally the quiet one is raising at a huge valuation.
5. Once a quarter, read three months of updates together to spot trends.

Finish with: A portfolio or team dashboard where silence is a visible signal

Copy exercise

1. Write down the evidence that the leader is in the wrong seat (for example a technical founder running a company that now needs a sales-led CEO).
2. Define the role that keeps their real strength, such as CTO or chairman, and what the company gains from the change.
3. Open the conversation with what is best for the company, as Rice framed his own move to chairman.
4. Offer the new role before discussing removal of the old one.
5. Agree a timeline and a follow-up meeting rather than forcing a decision in one sitting.

Finish with: A prepared, respectful script for the hardest conversation an investor or board member has

Copy exercise

1. Name the high-talent, high-friction person joining or already on your team.
2. List what is unique about them that you will not try to change (Deion Sanders kept his entourage).
3. List the three to five team rules that are not negotiable.
4. Meet them in week one, share both lists, and agree a 90-day check-in.
5. Decide in advance what would cause you to let them go, so the decision is not emotional later.

Finish with: A written agreement that lets a star stay a star while fitting the system

Copy exercise

1. After each leadership or partner meeting, write down what you said in the hallway afterwards that you did not say in the room.
2. In the next meeting, commit to saying one of those points out loud, early.
3. Ask a senior colleague to tell you afterwards whether the point landed.
4. Repeat weekly until the hallway list is empty.

Finish with: A habit of contributing in the meeting, which Montana says is what earned his son the other partners' respect

Copy exercise

1. Before a family member joins, write the role, its authority and the public criteria they meet.
2. Tell the team honestly what to expect, including the uncomfortable parts (Montana: 'you are going to hate her').
3. Require the family member to earn respect through daily work, not through you.
4. Schedule a review at six to eight months where the team, not you, assesses the hire.

Finish with: A family hire the team accepts on merit

Copy exercise

1. When a teammate is under-performing, check whether the skill shows up in practice or lower-stakes work.
2. If it does, keep giving them real opportunities instead of benching them; Montana kept throwing.
3. Name the pressure out loud: Rice says his drops came from trying to impress rather than doing the job.
4. Have peers, not just the boss, tell them to keep working.
5. After each attempt, make one specific correction and move on.

Finish with: A repeatable way to get a talented person out of a funk without losing them

Copy exercise

1. Draw a two-by-two grid: bottom left Operating Systems, bottom right Relationships, top left Next Innovative Campaign, top right Leadership Development.
2. Score your business one to ten in each box and write one line of evidence per score.
3. Circle the lowest exponential box (top row). Write the one action that would move it two points in 90 days.
4. Name an owner and a date for that action.
5. Repeat every quarter and keep the old grids to see the trend.

Finish with: A one-page picture of where your growth will come from next and who owns it

Copy exercise

1. Choose the one industry conference your buyers, carriers or partners attend this year.
2. Write your outcome in one sentence before booking.
3. List ten people you want to meet and one question for each.
4. Follow up with everyone you met within 48 hours.
5. Twelve months later, trace every deal, hire or investment back to the room and total the return.

Finish with: A conference you attend on purpose, with a measurable return

Copy exercise

1. Before your next vendor or partner negotiation, list everything you bring them: customers, introductions, volume, credibility.
2. Estimate the revenue that flows to them because of you (Bet-David counted ten dollars per policy across every carrier).
3. If that number is large, open with the position that they should pay you or discount to zero.
4. Brief your team on the position so nobody softens it on the follow-up call.

Finish with: A negotiation stance based on the value you create rather than the price they quote

Copy exercise

1. Write down who does not buy from you today and why.
2. Brainstorm ways they might buy for someone else, as gifts, or for the experience (Share a Coke put names on cans).
3. Pick one idea, personalise it, and test it in one region or one segment for 30 days.
4. Measure new-customer purchases, not total sales.
5. If it works, roll it out everywhere; if not, run the next idea.

Finish with: One tested campaign aimed at people who currently ignore you

Copy exercise

1. Map the path from newest recruit to top earner in your company, with the stages and typical timelines.
2. Attach real stories of people who climbed it.
3. Rewrite your recruiting pitch so it leads with the ladder and the leaders, not the compensation plan.
4. Track inbound enquiries month by month as the measure of whether the system is working.

Finish with: A recruiting story built on leadership development, which Bet-David credits for 60,000 agents

Copy exercise

1. Write the demographic or market thesis for the new market in three sentences, with the data source.
2. Name the single most solid person or couple who would move.
3. Give them one city, not a list, and send them for a weekend visit.
4. Set four milestones with a bonus for each (Bet-David used a twelve-month lease, a number of licensed agents, a revenue target and a recruiting target).
5. Set the move date. Check: too early and they collapse, too late and they cannot leave.

Finish with: A funded, dated expansion plan with a named leader

Copy exercise

1. Choose a process.
2. List the steps of the process and time the whole thing.
3. Remove a step. Then minimise the remaining steps.
4. Beta test the new process with one team.
5. Adapt the process and refine it, then repeat on the next system.

Finish with: A shorter process; PHP went from fifteen minutes per policy to one minute

Copy exercise

1. List the big decisions of the next twelve months: contest, campaign launch, new market, first COO or C-suite hire, fundraising.
2. Assign each to a quarter and write the signal that would tell you it is the right time.
3. Review the calendar monthly and move items deliberately rather than letting them slip.
4. After each decision, note whether the timing was early, late or right, to get better.

Finish with: A timing plan for the year and a record that sharpens your judgement

Copy exercise