77. Do You Want To Become a Time Creator? Start with Life Vision, Wheel of Life, and 5 Goals for the Year

00:05 Dr. Ann Tsung Are you struggling to advance your career and sacrificing time with your loved ones because of endless to-dos, low energy, and just not enough time in the day? If so, then this podcast is for you. I am your host Dr. Ann Tsung, an ER critical care and space doctor, a peak performance coach, a real estate investor, and a mother of a toddler. I am here to guide you on mastering your mind and give you the essential skills to achieve peak performance. Welcome to Productivity MD, where you can learn to master your time and achieve the five freedoms in life.

00:52 Hello. Welcome to Productivity MD, and I am your show host Dr. Ann Tsung. In today’s episode, I’m going to show you the exact steps that I take initially when I speak with a client and where we advise them to become time creators at Productivity MD.

01:12  First of all, what does that mean to become a time creator? What that means is, because you can essentially architect the time that you want to spend for yourself, for your loved ones, for work, you can architect that and essentially be in control, have time freedom, if you so choose and if you use your time wisely, and if you can make the decision and actually know that you are in control, instead of feeling stuck. The first few steps—that’s what we’re going to be going over—which is to create a life vision so you know where you’re going, to assess yourself in your current state with the wheel of life, and, spawning from that, you will create five goals for the year, depending on which category you truly need to work on. So let’s go ahead and dive in.

02:03 I don’t know if you guys ever heard of a life vision or have done the life vision. What that is, essentially, is: imagine yourself when you’re about 85, 90 years old. A lot of times, I get people where it’s like, “I don’t want to be alive for that long,” because they’re thinking that, from their experience, most people are not capable physically or mentally. And what I’m telling you is, just imagine. If you’re at your age right now and you take steps toward it, you can have good mental capacity and good physical capacity, what would you be doing? I’m going to be going through a lot of specific questions that I actually give the clients myself. You can kind of work through it in your head as you’re listening to this.

02:51 Why we are doing this, why this is literally the very, very first step whenever I advise somebody to become a time creator is because we need to know where we are going in the end, at the end of our life. And if we don’t know where we’re going, then we don’t know if what we’re doing is actually taking us towards that goal, if it’s serving us or not. If that’s not what we want, why are we even doing what we’re doing right now? So it’s super important to have a life vision, okay? We can go with the flow, the path there. Who knows what it’s going to be, right? But at least we have a target. We have a North Star, and it kind of guides us along our way to get there, right? If your life vision is that you want to have an impact on your kids, on your grandkids, but right now, you’re not spending any time with your kids because you’re working so much—or if you have grandkids, you’re not spending any time with them either because you’re working so much—then that’s not really serving your life vision down the line, right? So that’s the reason why we’re going to be going through the life vision.

03:59 Then the second thing we’ll be going over is the wheel of life. Tony Robbins does this. Essentially, we will rate the multiple categories in your life—where you are now, where would you like it to be, or what’s making you stuck, or what’s making you have that number—from a number of 1 to 10. Okay? After that, we’ll pick the lowest number, lowest two categories. That’s going to determine the BHAG or the ‘big hairy audacious goal’ that we’re going to set for ourselves for the year, if that is the category that we need to work on. So let’s go ahead and dive into the life vision.

04:43 This is our compass. This is our North Star. Just imagine. If you have a pen and paper, this is perfect, remarkable. Or just dictate, actually. Because when you dictate into ChatGPT—that’s the best one that can organize it for you—if you dictate to it, you will often be able to have stream of consciousness, thoughts, of all the dreams that will just come through to you. So it might be a little bit easier than pen and paper writing or typing, actually. Or if you have a dictation software on your laptop, you can also use that as well. I myself use Wispr Flow. It’s installed on my laptop, so I essentially dictate everything. It’s a little bit better than Siri, in my opinion. Anyway, so let us go ahead and dive into it.

05:33 The first question — these questions are not exactly in order, but these are questions that jot your creativity, your mind, about where do you want to be when you are 85 or 90 years old. Where do you want to be living? Maybe you’ll have multiple homes, maybe one in Hawaii, one in Alaska. I know somebody like that. Maybe you actually want to rotate through multiple homes, like live near your kids, near them for a quarter and maybe move next to your next child for a quarter, et cetera. So where do you actually want to live? Maybe you want to live in Tuscany, which is where I want to live when I’m older. I want to have a villa in Tuscany. That would be amazing because I just love, love Italian food. So who are you spending your time with? Whether that is your spouse, it could be your spouse, it could be your kids. It could be your great friends that you’ve had for a long time, maybe your peer group, your network. Who are you spending your time with at your end of life, like 85, 90 years old? You’re looking back throughout your life, how are you enjoying your life? Who are you enjoying your life with? And where are you traveling to, if you are traveling? Maybe every single, I don’t know, every quarter or every month, you’re visiting someplace new. Maybe you’re doing a road trip and an RV. Again, this is with good mental and good physical capacity, which is absolutely feasible if we actually take care of our bodies, right?

07:07 What business or what passive income do you have? Do you have real estate everywhere? Do you have real estate in certain cities? Do you have businesses that you already sold that you’re collecting royalties on? What businesses or passive income do you have? Or maybe you sold them all, and you’re just sitting there. You’ve invested so well that you’re just getting — now the retirement income is just coming in, and it’s not depleting your wealth. This ties into the next question. Any residual income a month do you want to have for you to do the things that you want to do? What are you contributing to? Whether that could be through — for me, school’s nutrition. It could be talking about time creation, efficiency, time with your loved ones. What are you feeling daily? For me, feeling of Zen, calmness, joy, happiness. I don’t want any sense of urgency or stress, which affects me quite a bit because of all these goals I have. It takes saying no to decrease that sense of urgency, that deadline that we place on ourselves, right?

08:21 In terms of contribution, I want you to think about, right now, of course, what is your why at that age? Is this still the same? To me, I was just thinking about it yesterday, actually. There was an epiphany about my why. You know, my why is I always want you guys, especially the ones with kids or people who are about to have kids, I want you guys to know that you can choose to spend time with them now. Because the time with them, we know, is going to go by so fast — that there are only 18 summers with them, right? I know that. I have my one and three-year-old, and I know that. I didn’t make the connection though why I feel so strongly about it. It’s probably because when I was young, my mom worked so much that my internal voice, my internal message, to myself whenever things get stressful is actually, “I’m alone.” I didn’t realize this until just a few months ago that that was my internal voice. “I’m alone. I’m alone. I’m alone again.” And so I think about myself in other kids’ shoes with parents who work so hard, who have to work really hard and have to spend time away. I just want to be able to give those kids just a little bit of quality time, a little bit of presence, a little bit of one-on-one time, or maybe just a hug, a kiss, or something that shows affection, where their parents are not stressed and they’re able to give time, even if it’s short, but presence and time, quality time, to their kids. I didn’t make that connection until recently, which is really strange. But this is why I feel so strongly about, I think, everything I do in terms of time, becoming a time creator, teaching people to become a time creator.

10:06 Okay. So moving back into the life vision, what are your hobbies and your passion, and what do you love doing every day? Do you want to learn guitar? Do you want to learn a different language? What do you love to do? Or maybe you’re still working out, still lifting weights, playing tennis. You’re swimming. Who knows? Well, gardening. What do you love doing every day? Just taking walks, or making great meals with fresh food. That’s what I would love to do in Tuscany: just go around picking fresh vegetables, like shopping for fresh meat and vegetables, and make amazing meals from simple ingredients. Because everything tastes amazing there. What are you learning? We talked about language instrument, but is there anything else intellectually that you’re learning? Maybe philosophy, maybe learning about other religions, maybe learning about other type of impacts in terms of nutrition in schools or the environment, et cetera. What are you learning? What are you curious about, and what are you doing to have vibrance, vitality? Essentially, what are you doing to keep your mind sharp and to keep your body with full vitality? Are you making sure that you’re sleeping at the same time every night, essentially deaf, blind, a little hungry as well, no light at all whatsoever with white noise? Are you doing that? Or are you just looking for the most nutritious, organic meal? Are you going to your physician? Are you doing any sort of biohacking, longevity type of practice at all whatsoever, like sauna, ice plunges, et cetera?

11:42 Now we’re going to get into the relationships a little bit, all right? How is your relationship with your spouse, your kids, if you have any, your siblings, your parents? How is your relationship with them? And if your relationships have been challenging now, where would you like it to be hopefully at the end of your life? Because by then, most likely, you will probably wish that you had a better relationship with them, right? No matter how they are as a person, that you’re accepting of who they are. You show compassion for who they are, and just meet them where they are, right? Instead of trying to pull them to where you are, meet them where they’re at. So perhaps that’s where you want to be. You want to have no reactivity with people that you care about. Like no matter what they’re doing or who they are, that you may not agree with, you show them unconditional love perhaps. I’m talking about this because that’s me too with my mom. So what level of self-mastery or consistency do you have over your habits and behaviors? We kind of talked about eating. Maybe it’s time-restricted eating. Maybe it’s your sleep pattern. Maybe it’s you’re working out, that’s part of your identity. You’re consistent, and so you have self-mastery over various habits and behaviors. Maybe let’s drink three or four liters of water. What are you doing that brings you joy—whether that’s going out to nature, spending time with friends, family? What does your life feel like kind of day-to-day? Is it exciting? Is it adventurous? Is it calm? Is it peaceful? What was the one purpose in life that you have achieved? If you just achieved one thing, what would it have been, now that you’re looking back in your life?

13:36 I think, for me, it’s that I have carved out time that’s a great balance. Currently, it’s about three to four hours a day with my kids, sometimes five hours a day with my kids, and also one-on-one time every two weeks. I would love to get to the point—which I think I am there now, very close, 80% of the time there—that any time that they have an event, any time they have an activity, that I am going to be able to say yes, be there, and share with them the life skills I’ve learned, my mental models. Also, my financial investment skills I’ve learned, I’ve been able to pass it down to them. I think that’s really the purpose, the biggest purpose, for me to pass things down to my kids and them impact this world, and to make sure that they understand that they don’t have to do anything and there is unconditional love for them. So I don’t want to raise kids where they feel like they have to achieve, achieve, achieve, and it’s never enough, which is where I came from. So if you have other purposes in your life—it can be something very simple. It can be something really grand where you want to solve the world’s hunger problems, you want to solve environmental problems—anything that you wish, what would be one purpose in your life that you have achieved?

15:03 How are you at that time dealing with stress? Because that’s always going to come, right? Stress is always going to be there. How are you dealing with stress at that time? Maybe it’s breath work. Maybe it’s meditation. Maybe it’s yoga. How are you dealing with stress at that time? At that time, your perception of yourself, your sense of self-efficacy, like how empowered do you feel? How resourceful do you feel? Just think. If you have unlimited resources, unlimited amount of people at your disposal, and the money, what problem in the world have you solved? So that could be similar to your purpose, but it could be different as well. So if I had unlimited resources, I would love to solve the nutrition issue that we have currently with kids—the childhood obesity. I think it stems from what they eat at the school, what they eat at home, what’s offered at the grocery stores, what’s offered in fast food chains and restaurants, the portion sizes, processed foods. It all starts there. Because I see them, when they’re grown or in the midst of childhood, obesity in the ER, sometimes I feel helpless a little bit in the ER, where it’s just one person and I can’t change the system at this time. But if I had unlimited resources—time, money, network—we would change the system. We would change the types of food that’s available.

16:37 The next few things, there are some questions kind of like for you to think about from now until the end of your life vision. What is a professional pursue you can always pursue and never take off? For me, it’s sharing how to become a time creator. Because that’s something that I’ve always been doing, and it’s not like I’m going to stop doing. There’s not a goal that I can just check off, and also to be Zen, to show compassion, to be playful, to be courageous with my kids, with my spouse and passion with my spouse. So the journey itself is where the fun is, right? The reward is the pursuit itself. What could I attempt if I couldn’t fail? What would 100x of my goals look like? You had that one purpose, or you had that one goal. What would 100x of that actually look like? What goals have I dismissed in the past that I thought was unrealistic or impossible? I know there are some limitations depending on what — a lot of people bring up the professional sports player example. If there’s something that you think is impossible, but if you truly put your mind to it, find the right mentors, the resources, what have you dismissed before, but truly it is actually achievable, right?

17:56 And so those are all ideas and questions to spark your life vision. I want you guys to just think about it. And really, right after you listen to it or while you’re listening to it, do it in one sitting. Just close your eyes. You can close your eyes. Just imagine yourself in that state, right? Just imagine the world around you, the people around you, and just dictate through it. Okay? You’ll find that you’ll have this amazing vision that you can review weekly. I do it on Sundays. I review weekly to see where I’m going and to make sure what I’m doing now matches, aligns, and takes me to life vision. So I hope that was helpful for you. In terms of where you are at now, the wheel of life is something that you can do, that you can rate yourself from 1 to 10 in different categories. There’s the work career mission category. Where are you now? Then have another number of, where would you like it to be? Finances. Another one is emotions, meaning spirituality. Another, the next one is physical body. Next one is celebrating and contributions. So it could be like, how much are you celebrating your wins, or what are you contributing to? Again, it doesn’t have to be charity that you’re contributing to. It can be to your kids. It can be to your spouse. It can be to your parents. It can be time. It can be presence, right? It’s not always about charity, right? Time mastery. How well are you controlling your time? Where do you think you’re at in terms of time freedom, where you can spend the time however you want for yourself, with your loved ones, however long you want, and just doing whatever you want to do full of control? Where are you at now? Then the relationships. Relationship. You can have a separate category for your spouse, your kids, and your friends, if you have any kids, or if you have a spouse. So that is the wheel of life. Then you will take the lowest score of that. Those two will be what you’ll be working on for this year.

20:17 The very last thing for this podcast episode is that you will create five goals for the year. Now that you know where you want to go, where you’re on now, where your lowest category is, now you want to create the five goals for the year. The five goals, one of them should be yourself, for yourself. It could be either in spirituality, your vitality, et cetera, anything, self-care. Number two, if you have kids, it will be your kids. How do you want to spend your time with them? How much time do you have with them? Where do you want to go? Number three would be your spouse, if you have any. Then if you have all three already, then you would just have two more business goals and that’s it. Cut yourself off at five. Because otherwise, you’re diluting your focus, all right, which is called dispersion. You’re diluting your focus like a faucet dripping down, with leaky holes through down the pipes. You’re not going to make progress as fast than if you just focus on two business goals. And you know, say, if you’re a time mastery, if time is an issue in terms of your spending time with your business, part of that will go into the goal of your business. Or maybe you don’t get enough time with your kids. Part of that will go into your goal that you have with your kids. Or maybe your spouse, that you don’t have enough time for date nights, or you don’t make time to do preventive marriage counseling. You don’t have to wait until you have problems or big problems for marriage counseling. You can do prophylactic preventive marriage counseling. Because truly, a marriage brings out our inner child wounds from before our model of the world and just exacerbates about how we defend ourselves as a toddler almost. It just comes out like we’re a toddler.

22:12 To review, I know we went through quite a bit, but to review, we did the life vision. So what are you doing when you’re 85 or 90 years old, with very specific questions? This gives you the north star, where you want to go. Number two, you would do the wheel of life with various categories. You can Google this in various categories. Rate yourself from 1 to 10, and then pick the lowest category of where you are. That would be your main goals for the following year, part of your five goals. Then set your five goals. One of them, one major one is going to be your BHAG, the big hairy audacious goal. That’s going to be like the singular focus. Maybe that’s like the lowest score on your wheel of life. That’s going to be the singular focus for the following year. I know that was a lot, a lot of work. What you want to do is review your life vision and your real life preferably—it can be quick—every week. It can be something quick on your phone that you just read through really quick. Because we got to remind ourselves. Instead of going back into the rat races, in the cogwheel, sometimes we got to zoom out and take a look at where we are, right?

23:23 So everything that I talked about is, of course, it’s going to be on productivityMD.com in the episode show notes. So if you’re ever confused about the questions, just go to the episode page. Of course, if people are interested in getting on a call to see whether Time Creator advisory is a right fit for you—if you want to get there that somebody guiding you through this entire process and giving you a blueprint about what to do after we diagnose. We know your life vision. We diagnose where you’re lacking in terms of the wheel of life—then go ahead and go on Productivity MD. There is a way to apply for our Time Creator advisory. We’ll get on a call to see if this is a right fit for you. So thank you again so much for your kind presence and attention. And just remember that everything you need is within you. Thank you.

24:20 Disclaimer: This content is for general information purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine. No doctor or patient relationship is formed. The use of this information linked to this content is at the user’s own risk. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical conditions they may have and should seek the assistance of their healthcare professionals for any such conditions. The views are personal views only and do not represent any university or government institution.