If Time Is Money, Stop Letting People Steal From You

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A longtime client once brought me into a high-level city strategy meeting to help shape how millions of dollars would impact the community in the years ahead.

Ten minutes into that meeting, my client representative started talking about his cat.

Within the next five minutes, the entire meeting went off the rails.

What my client didn’t know was that, under the table, the partner rep was texting me.

“WTF is going on?”

The meeting was never able to regain focus. We accomplished nothing, and all of it could have been handled in a two-minute email exchange.

This wasn’t a one-off.

I once had root canal surgery in the morning and still showed up early to a dinner meeting that I had scheduled with a magazine editor.

At 6:58 p.m., she texted me to cancel our 7 p.m. commitment and reschedule (for the second time) because she “had a long day.”

Years of wasted time made me realize that people often say time is more important than money, but they don’t actually mean it.

I know how much money I can make in an hour.

I also know how much money I can make from a single powerful connection.

Wasting that time is (literally) stealing money from my pocket.

It is why I don’t cancel my commitments, professionally or personally.

Out of the last 1,000 commitments I’ve made, I’d bet I’ve kept 997 of them.

Why? Because I’m not going to steal someone else’s time.

I value them and I respect their time.

For me, it’s sacred.

If I steal their time, it feels like I am reaching into their bank account like an ATM so I can do whatever I want with their hard-earned money.

My time that I clear out and make room to share with others is hard-earned.

Whether it is a business meeting or connecting with a friend, I hold it in high regard.

I have had enough feedback to know that the people around me feel that.

I hope that what they feel most is that they can trust me to keep my word.

This is what I did to stop people from stealing from me:

I no longer allowed recurring meetings that didn’t have a defined intention.

If someone canceled on me and it wasn’t due to something outside of their control, I was kindly inquisitive about why.

When someone canceled over and over, I didn’t reschedule.

I stopped going to meetings unless I knew I could contribute or learn something that I couldn’t learn via email.

I stopped hanging out with people who would keep me waiting for long periods. Their actions showed me that their time was always more valuable than mine.

I left every board, volunteer group, and committee meeting where my time never moved the needle on the mission of the organization.

As a solopreneur, there is no difference between my time as a friend or a business owner. It all impacts my life the same.

So I made a change.

Within 12 months, I eliminated 58% of my meetings. By 18 months, I had eliminated 91%.

That time went back into my life and transformed my six-figure business into a streamlined seven-figure operation.

Stress decreased. Communication improved. Profit increased.

Bad meetings weren’t personal. They were structural. Once I changed the structure, everything else followed.

This is how I made more money working 20–25 hour weeks than I did working 70+ hour weeks for two decades.

Start thinking about your time as money.

Are you stealing from others, or are you letting others steal from you?

Start protecting your time the way you protect your money, and do the same with how you treat other people’s time.

I promise you that the result will help you build trust AND build your bank account.

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