34) People Will Steal Your Time

People will steal your time every day and not think twice about it.

If there are people you want to be around, you need to understand that they understand the value of their time. They will not allow people to steal it. You shouldn't allow people to steal it either because you should value your time too. I don't care whether you make $5 an hour or $50,000 an hour — you have to value your time.

When I was a personal trainer, I would be booked from five in the morning till eight at night, plus half a day on Saturday. Sometimes people would stand me up or not show up. As this happened over and over again, it started to piss me off when people would skip. It was all take, take, take. No relationship. They were trying to take my knowledge and my time.

I started stiff-arming motherfuckers. I know what my time’s worth. I can do the calculations. If we have zero previous relationship and you offer zero value of any kind, then don’t think you’re going to steal my time. I may sound like a dick, but it’s just the truth. And I'll tell you why.

If I'm going to spend an hour of time where there's nothing based around it, I'd rather spend that time with my family because I'm a busy dude. I'm already working a bunch of hours, barely sleeping, and training. Then, if somebody is going to steal my time, talk about a bunch of nonsense, or it’s only a take, take, take environment, then why would I pick that over throwing the baseball with my kid? Or watching my daughter practice volleyball?

When you create a relationship with me, I'm always going to give back — whether it’s content, answering messages, or helping someone in need. I'm a steward of my time. It may sound a bit counterproductive with what I'm talking about, but at the end of the day, I'm talking about people that have intentions on just grabbing with no value. You have to guard it.