This week’s interviewee is Jodie Stevenson, owner of the Sunniva Group. Sourcer of all things Lending, Commercial, Development, Residential Mortgages, Business Loans, Life Insurance, Protection, Property Sales/Management.

1. Biggest Mistake you made in the last year & how you fixed it?

The line of work I’m in is full of horses. I’ll explain…

You have people who work very hard, stay well under the radar and are impossible to get a hold of, but they always deliver results. I call these Work Horses.

Then you have people who are ALWAYS there to talk to, who go to every single seminar in the UK, who are affiliates for almost everything, who ring you all hours of the day, are constantly able to solve a problem that nobody else can, are full of decades of experience and are very successful – But when push comes to shove, they never actually produce or deliver anything. I call these Show Ponies.

The biggest mistake I made last year was spending 95% of my time dealing with Show Ponies. I was sat looking at the millions of pounds I was going to earn, thinking “any minute now!” through wildly elaborate get-rich-quick schemes that I was absolutely certain were going to work for me, because I’m too smart to fall for a scam.

2. A lightbulb moment

My lightbulb moment was when I realised that I had spent said 95% of my time for 3 months working blindly on these elaborate schemes and producing a great big fat nothing.

I hadn’t spent any money doing any of them, luckily, but I also hadn’t made any money either.

However, with the 5% of my time that I’d spent on boring stuff, my actual profession, I had produced enough to cover myself for those entire 3 months.

“What if you’d spent all that time on the boring stuff?!?!” – My internal father was screaming at me.

I immediately closed down communication with every single leech, stopped committing to any of these projects and ended every useless “friendship” I’d had and focused entirely on the hum drum.

Tip for tomorrow

I guess my tip for tomorrow is to remember that tomorrow is coming. (Also, winter.)

And after tomorrow, there will be another tomorrow, in fact, a shit load more tomorrows and the next thing you know, you’re dead.

So stop fucking about. Make a list of everything you are currently doing and order it as follows:

1. Project Name
2. How much money HAS it made me this year?
3. How much money WILL it make me this year? (Not might, absolutely fact, cheque is in the post money)
4. How much of my time is it taking up? (% of working day no greater than a collective 100%)
5. On a scale of 1-10 how much effort does it take to work on this project?
6. Is it consistent passive money or is it a single lump sum?

Once you’ve done that, sit back, have a brew (or a Cortado or a flat white, if you’re a dickhead) and realise which things you are wasting precious time doing and which things you need to grow up and get on with.

Exciting, fun, risky projects should never take up more than 15% of your working day. Unless you have a guaranteed passive income of 200% of your bills and food (if you do, can I please borrow a tenner and I will pay you back once my jumbo jet restaurant opens next spring, I’ll be a millionaire by then, I promise).