Ross Harkness

A Harsh Truth:

You'd make more progress if you prioritised winning your mornings.

Because how you start your day is how you will spend your day.

Your ability to win the day is determined by 2 things;

1. How consistent your wake-up time is

2. The first thing you do when you wake up

Think about it.

If the time you wake up at is inconsistent, then how can you expect the rest of your day to be consistent?

You can't. Inconsistency in one area eats into the potential for consistency in every other area.

And if the first thing you do when you wake up is something weak, passive or useless...

The likes of scrolling, for example.

How can you expect the rest of your day to be strong, intentional and productive?

If you start your day at the bottom of the hill, you end up like Sisyphus trying to roll a boulder up the hill, only for it to keep rolling back down to the bottom.

How you start your day is how you will spend your day.

Wake up and scroll? You've already handed your focus and energy to something external.

Wake up and snooze your alarm? You've already lost the first battle.

Wake up and get straight into something useful, something meaningful? You've already won.

This is nothing more than momentum.

It's the direction and intensity that you move.

The further skewed the direction, the higher the intensity, the more likely you are to keep moving in that direction.

But this can work both positively and negatively, both for and against you.

You can either start your day on the back foot, moving away from your goals and who you know you could be - making it harder to turn things around.

Or you can start your day on the front foot.

Aiming toward progress, making yourself useful and productive, moving toward your goals and the ideal you have for your day - making it easier to stay on this better path.

The choice is yours, and it all relies on how you start your day.

This isn't to say you can't turn your day around. You can.

But business is already hard, so why make it harder than it needs to be by setting your day up with negative momentum?

Start your day in a way that makes you feel good. In a way that makes you feel proud and fulfilled. In a way that aligns with what you know is right. In a way that makes your ability to operate at a higher level, do the important work and make progress easier.

This doesn't mean you have to wake up at 5am. But maybe you should.

This doesn't mean you have to start your day with work. But maybe you should.

This doesn't mean you have to start your day with the gym. But maybe you should.

Likely you already know what your mornings should look like. If you do, follow what you know is right.

If you don't:

Figure out what the most important task is for your business and do it first.

Face the biggest challenge you have. You'll start the day with a win. You'll have positive momentum. You'll make everything else you encounter in your day feel easy.

And most importantly, you'll build self-respect.

You'll show yourself that you're capable of more, of better.

That you're capable of doing what you put your mind to and you'll respect yourself more.

Which makes doing hard things, following what's right, sticking to your word and making progress, easier.

But it relies on you doing 2 things;

Waking up at a consistent time to allow for consistency in the morning

And doing your most important, or hardest, task first.

Building momentum isn't a choice.

But the type of momentum you build is.

So start your damn day with a win, start it how you mean to continue it, and build momentum that benefits you.

Of course, a lot of this relies on you knowing what the most important thing you can focus on in your business is right now.

And for that, you need data.

So click the link below to get a training which will show you exactly how to use data in your business to work less and scale faster.

themasteryos.com/resource/scorecard/get

5 hours ago | [YT] | 56

Ross Harkness

A Harsh Truth:

You'll never succeed until you respect yourself enough to do the thing you know you need to do, even when you don't feel like doing it.

And nothing will ruin your self-respect (and therefore chances of success) more than always thinking but never doing.

Always planning but never acting.
Always aiming but never shooting.
Always dreaming but never chasing.

Realise that goals don't get achieved in your mind but through ruthless action in reality.

Yes, you need to delusionally believe you can make it work - that you can build a $100 million dollar business, change the world and live the life of your dreams.

You need a direction to head in, a plan for what tasks you need to do, and a strategy to follow.

But your business won't scale itself, your physique won't carve itself and your goals won't be achieved through planning, screaming affirmations or wasting 4 hours on a morning routine.

When you spend all day thinking, talking and planning but never taking action, always avoiding that 1 task, never following through or sticking to your word, you show yourself that you don't value the potential impact of your actions.

When you don't value something, you don't respect it.

So with your actions being the only things you have control over, when you don't respect them, you don't respect yourself.

The more time you spend not taking action, or not taking action on the tasks that are actually important, the more you lower your self-respect.

The more you lower your self-respect, the less you value the potential impact of your actions.

The less you value the potential impact of your actions, the less likely you are to take action and do the right things.

Creating a vicious downward cycle.

All that matters for success is that you do the right things for your goals, regardless of the circumstances reality throws at you.

So do the damn work.

See the impact your actions, can, could and do have. Realise the more you avoid the work that matters, the more you go against your word, the more you do what you know you shouldn't do, the more you ruin your self-respect and chances of success.

And don't be ashamed to start small.

Don't be ashamed to start where you are and do what you can, rising to the level you're able to.

This is how you build your self-respect to do the things you want and need to do.

You have the humility to realise where you are and you push just beyond that today, and then just a bit further tomorrow.

At some point you have to realise there's no greater shame than to waste both your potential and the one life you have by thinking everything but doing nothing.

At some point, you have to respect yourself enough to enter the damn arena.

- Ross

PS: I send out emails every week to help you systemise both your business and personal operations so you can scale faster.

If you want in, click the link below:

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get

1 week ago | [YT] | 286

Ross Harkness

How to know what to work on:

Give most business owners 10 more tasks and they’ll panic.

They’ve already got 100 tasks on their to-do list and no idea which to work on first.

So they end up doing none of them, which makes their to-do list bigger tomorrow, and the cycle repeats, only it gets worse.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

In fact, you can know exactly what to work on first. Here’s how:

Fundamentally, knowing what to work on relies on knowing what matters.

Because if you have something that matters and something that doesn’t, then you work on what matters.

And if you have 3 things that matter, and 10 or even 100 things that don’t, you still ignore the things that don’t matter and focus on the 3 things that do.

So how do you know what matters?

Well you look at it through the filter of your goals.

If you have a goal to grow your business, then there are certain tasks which help facilitate the achievement of that goal and certain tasks which don’t.

You always choose to prioritise the tasks which move you toward your goal over those that don’t.

Here’s a basic, but likely an all too familiar, example;

If your goal is to grow your business.

Well for that, you need more sales, which means you need more leads.

To get more leads, you need to do more marketing.

If in your business you use content for marketing, then your priority should be creating content, and you should work on it first.

Even if you have 1000 emails to respond to, 10 team messages, and 4 “urgent fires”.

But maybe you’ve convinced yourself that everything matters.

Well, not to burst your bubble, in fact, I fully intend to pop that bitch, but very few things actually matter.

Almost nothing moves you toward your goal.
There are 1-3 things that will, and 1,000,000 things that won’t.

Your job is to distinguish the 1-3 things that will and go all in on them. So that’s step 1. Figure them out.

But obviously, in business, you can’t just ignore everything that isn’t conducive to your goal.

You can ignore a lot, and a lot more than you think, but not everything.

For example, responding to your team won’t directly help you grow your business, but if you don’t help your team, well, you mightn’t have a team for much longer.

So, what’s the solution?

Identify the 1-3 important things you actually have to do today, to move toward your goals.

And then you do them first.

Always.
No exception.
None.
0.
Nada.
Seriously, stop looking for an exception, there isn’t one.

Once you understand that, you need a way to organise and structure everything else.

Because if you have 100 things to do, how can you ever expect to get them done if you don’t even try to organise them?

There’s 1000 ways to do this, but the classic Eisenhower Matrix works wonders

If it’s important and urgent, do it now.
If it’s important and not urgent, schedule it.
If it’s not important but urgent, delegate it.
If it’s not important and not urgent, delete it.

Now, the last thing you want is to try and sort this out in the middle of the day. That’s a recipe for disaster.

So plan your days the night before.

Schedule your 1-3 critical tasks.

Sort everything else through the Eisenhower matrix and sort accordingly.

Ensure everything is scheduled in order of priority, because as the day goes on your focus, energy, and willpower decline, so we want to target your most important tasks first when you’re at your peak.

Then anything that pops up throughout the day?

Leave them for your daily wrap.

What’s a daily wrap? It’s the last hour of your day.

You schedule it and use it to deal with anything that popped up throughout the day.

Just because something unexpected arises, doesn’t mean your whole schedule has to change. Instead, account for it and deal with it in a specified block of time.

Of course, knowing what to work on is one thing.

Finding the time to work on it is a whole other game, and it’s damn near impossible if you’re wasting a tonne of time.

So click the link below to get my free CEO Time Audit tool.

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get

1 week ago | [YT] | 125

Ross Harkness

Your business is a reflection of your habits.

If you're disciplined, your business will be structured and consistent.

If you're focused, your business will grow with precision.

If you operate with intention, your business will grow without you working every hour under the sun.

But if you're chaotic? So is your business.

If you're inconsistent? So are your results.

If your actions are constrained by limiting beliefs? So is your revenue and freedom.

Your business is simply a result of your actions and decisions.

So if your actions are inefficient, or if your decisions are biased in a limiting way, your business simply shows them back to you.

Every inefficiency, every wasted hour, every bit of clarity or skill you lack - your business amplifies it.

Struggle with marketing? Then you're struggling to understand human psychology.

Struggle with retention? Then you lack the skill to deliver a world-class experience.

Struggle with your team? Then you're likely struggling with systems, letting go of control and giving them responsibility.

Struggle with consistency? Then you lack the systems that make consistency, for both you and your business, automatic.

Struggle with working on the business? Then you're struggling with prioritisation, structure and personal operations.

In the end, you don't have a business problem.

You just have a personal problem that's reflected in your business.

Stop blaming the market. Stop blaming your team. Stop blaming whatever other excuse you can think of.

Instead, fix the root cause - fix you.

Your mental performance, your systems, your business psychology, your mindset and execution.

A business cannot grow past the level of the entrepreneur running it.

- Ross

PS: You can join my newsletter for actionable strategies that help you build systems for both you and your business so you can scale whilst working less

Click the link below to join

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 187

Ross Harkness

Business isn’t about strategy.

It’s about whether you’re willing to solve problems you’ve never faced under pressure you’ve never felt, with no one coming to save you.

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 173

Ross Harkness

How to never feel overwhelmed in business again

Most business owners are constantly holding everything together with duct tape.

They're running at full speed, reacting to fires, juggling projects, and trying to keep every idea, task, and responsibility in their head.

And that's exactly why they feel so overwhelmed and out of control.

Every time you think of a task, an idea, or something you can't forget, you open a loop in your mind, and every open loop consumes energy.

When enough of these loops build up, your mental bandwidth is drained. That's the feeling of overwhelm.

So the goal is to close those loops and free up your headspace.

Here's how you do it:



Most entrepreneurs are drowning in half finished projects and ideas.

They've got five tools, ten lists, and nothing ever feels under control.

Because when every project lives in your head or across 10 different tools, they all become open loops, and your cognitive load skyrockets.

So you need one simple place to manage it all. The tool I give to clients has a few components;

List your projects down one side. Break each into clear steps. Assign due dates. Assign owners. Then, work down the list.

That's it. When you do this, every idea, task, and project is clear and structured, so your mind finally stops trying to hold it all.



You know the game, right? Well, in Tetris, if you just drop blocks randomly, they pile up fast, you end up at the top of the screen, overwhelmed and about to lose.

But if you think ahead and place each piece intentionally, everything fits perfectly, and you can play forever. Your week works the same way.

Most business owners wake up and react, handling whatever falls from the sky that day.

But 90% of what you do is recurring, you do it every day, every week or every month.

So instead of holding it all in your head - which creates open loops as you have to remember to do all of those tasks - create your standard week:

Write down every single task you do each week.

Then assign each task to a specific day - some things will have to happen on a set day, some things will happen every day but for most tasks it’ll be up to you when you do them.

Essentially, this allows you to know that every Monday you do x, y and z. Every Tuesday you do a, b, and c, etc.

Now you know what you have to do and when to do it, this way important work never gets missed (plus, it gives you a great idea of what you're doing that you should delegate).




Even with a structured week, business will still throw curveballs. That's where most business owners lost control again.

But the fix is stupidly simple. You need something which removes the decision of "when to do what" each day.

So every night, take 5 minutes to plan tomorrow.

And trust me, you both can plan your day and need a plan for your day. Without one, how can you ever possibly expect to have a productive day?

So write down what needs to get done tomorrow based on your standard week and the next step of your current project.

Make one of them tasks your Most Important Task - the one that actually moves the business forward the most - and schedule it first.

Then schedule everything else in order of priority. And also schedule time for problems and fires at, for example, 12pm and 5pm.

That way, when something "urgent" comes up, you don't get derailed from what actually matters, you just deal with it in your set times.



Most business owners have their projects in one app. Their team's tasks in another. Your notes somewhere else. And your SOPs are essentially just digital dust in a notion folder that no one looks at.

And overwhelm explodes when your business lives in ten different tools.

So simplify it.

Use one ecosystem - I use Google Suite - and keep everything there. Tasks, projects, documents, calendars, SOPs.

What platform or software you use doesn't really matter, so long as it's as simple as it can be and only as complex as it needs to be.

And forget about using 100 different filters, or 12 levels of priority. Just have everything in one place, ensure it's as simple as possible, know what the one most important thing is, put it at the top of the list and then work down the list.

Because look, clarity does not come from more tools and more specifications. It comes from simplicity.

Do these four things and you'll close the loops that cause overwhelm.

You'll think clearer, work faster, and finally have the space to scale, whilst your business depends less on you.

Because once your mind is calm, your business follows.

And if you want to close another open loop of knowing exactly where your time is going and how to improve it

Click the link below to get my free CEO time audit tool.

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get?community=21-0…

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 97

Ross Harkness

The best entrepreneurs don't work in their business. They work on their business.

Here's how;

Most business owners think reacting to fires, emails, messages, and problems all day is just how business works.

It isn't.

It's only how it works if you're working in the business, rather than on the business.

When you work in the business, you wake up with a clear to-do list. A few important things you know would actually grow the business.

Then the day starts.

You check your emails. An email turns into a problem. A problem turns into a decision. A decision turns into a rabbit hole.

And all of a sudden, it's lunchtime – and you've done nothing that actually matters.

So you say "I'll just do it tomorrow", and the cycle repeats.

So what happens is your hours get stacked with fires, messages, approvals, decisions, admin, and emails.

You get stuck in the business.

And almost nothing you do all week actually moves the business forward.

This is why you can work all day and still feel behind.

And it's not because you lack discipline, or that you need to be more consistent with your schedule. Most of the time, it's the structure of the business itself that's the problem.

Your business depends on you.

So your time gets scattered across a thousand small things that, yes, they need done, but they don't need done by you.

Which leaves you stuck working in the business instead of on it.

And if you never have the time or focus to work on the things that grow the business, how can it ever scale?

Well, it can't.

And of course, systems would help.

If you systemised your business, your business would depend less on you, so you would have more time for important work.

But here's the paradox.

You need systems to free up your time. But you need time to build the systems.

So you stay stuck in a loop:

No systems → more chaos → more dependency → less time → no time to build systems.

So, where do you start? How do you fix this?

How do you find time to work on the business, build systems and do the work that matters?

Well you start by changing how you end your day.

This is the Daily Wrap.

How this works:

Set a hard stop time – this is the time you want to stop working, eg 6pm. What time it is, is up to you.

That last hour of your day, eg. 5pm-6pm, is your daily wrap block. In it you deal with:

Emails. Messages. Fires. Problems. Loose ends from the day. Tasks and anything else that popped up throughout the day.

See most of the tasks in your business (and all of the important ones that actually matter) are recurring and predictable.

But it's the unpredictable that takes you off schedule. So everything that wasn't predictable gets handled in the daily wrap.

And during the rest of the day?

Well, first, you should have a schedule. If you don't plan your days, it's your own damn fault for not getting important work done.

But whenever something pops up, say an email, instead of dropping everything, going off schedule and replying to that email, just note it down in a list.

Then, during your daily wrap, you go through the list. This way, everything gets handled, but when you choose to handle it, not when it shouts at you.

And all of a sudden, you can now stick to your schedule, have more control and do the important work.

Why this works:

If you answer everything instantly:

- Your team becomes dependent on you

- Dependency creates more dependency and uses up more of your team and time, making you more of the bottleneck.

You accidentally train the business to funnel everything back to you.

But when you only respond in set blocks of time, something interesting happens.

Your team are forced to think and make decisions themselves. So things move without you.

I get all my clients to do this and it changes the game for them. So yes, this will work for your business.

You are not special. Your business is not special.
It's not going to collapse if you don't reply to an email for four hours.

Plus, if something was not scheduled and is not recurring, chances are it's not fucking important.

And so it can wait until you have done what's important.

Now what do you do in that daily wrap block?

Well, I'd recommend spending ~50 minutes clearing that list of random things that popped up.

If something on the list will take more than ~20 minutes, delegate it or schedule to do it another time.

Then, in the final 5–10 minutes, decide tomorrow's priorities, schedule the important work, and schedule your Daily Wrap.

Now your day has structure before it starts, and most importantly, you don't get taken off schedule by something that doesn't bloody matter.

In business, very few things actually matter.

As a business owner, it's your job to identify those things, go all in on them, prioritising them and doing them first.

And then either delegating what doesn't matter, ignoring it or doing it later.

All of a sudden, you stop letting random, unimportant things decide your day.

You decide what you work on, when you work on it, and for how long. Which means you can do the work that grows the business, and the business grows.

But I will warn you;

This only works if you respect it.

You're still going to have no time if you randomly check emails throughout the day, or respond to every message the second you get it.

You cannot expect this to work, if you don't do it.

Yes, this might seem scary at the start, but you'll soon realise how powerful it is.

And once you combine this with;

Proper systems, ownership, and structure, your business becomes scalable, stops relying on you, and can grow, without you selling your soul.

Which if you want my help to systemise your business in just 12 weeks, click the link below for the info.

themasteryos.com/?community=19-05-26

2 weeks ago | [YT] | 118

Ross Harkness

If you want an uncommon goal, you need uncommon standards.

You are exactly where you’re supposed to be.

Because your level of success is just a reflection of you.

Big goals and fast progress require you to act like a professional, like someone capable of achieving them.

Achieving a goal is changing your reality in an upward, forward-leaning, positive direction.

Which you cannot do if you refuse to hold yourself to the level required to achieve that goal.

You cannot make $100M, if you act and behave and think and decide like someone who makes $100,000.

You cannot make a positive dent in your reality without creating upward, forward-leaning, positive changes in yourself.

That means you:

Remove limiting beliefs.
Don’t wait to feel motivated.
Show up - no matter how you feel.
Accept nothing less than your best.
Focus on your 1-3 important tasks.
Prioritise deep work and flow states.
Value your mental + physical performance.

It means you hold yourself to a standard necessary for reaching your goals.

It means you embody and act like the person who has already achieved it.

Not just in 1 area. Not just in areas you find easy. But in every area.

How can you expect to have the discipline to scale your business when you don’t have the discipline to keep your one and only body in good shape?

How can you expect to have the energy needed to work on cognitively demanding and meaningful tasks when you don’t have the energy to get out of bed on time?

How can you expect to live the life of your dreams when you worry about every dollar and believe money is scarce?

The bigger your goal, the more of you it demands.

A small goal can be achieved with only half your life in order, but a big goal requires your all.

It demands order, clarity, discipline, focus, grit, drive and delusional self-belief - not just in 1 area, but in every area.

If you want world class results, you must earn them. You must act like someone capable of achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself.

You must act like a professional - and not just in your business, but in every area of your life, from your health and behavioural habits to your mindsets and identity to your focus and drive.

As the saying goes:

How you do anything is how you do everything.

- Ross

PS: Want to see where your time is actually going so you can become more effective and focus on what matters? Click the link below to get my free CEO Time Audit Tool.

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get?community=18-0…

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 128

Ross Harkness

All success starts in the mind.

All success starts with your ability to focus, your ability to do the work, your self-belief, grit, resilience and willingness to learn.

It doesn’t matter what marketing strategy you use or what offer you run if your mind is not set up for success.

A mind not set up for success will cause you nothing but failure, mental blocks and self-sabotage.

You’ll shy away from opportunities, avoid important work and unknowingly limit what you think is possible or what you think is “you”

Your mind is the single driving factor in how you perceive every situation, every moment and the entirety of your life.

Every decision you make, every action you take and every thought you have all stem from the filter that is your mind.

Yet, all it takes is 1 single moment to change everything. 1 idea, 1 action, 1 decision and your entire reality can change forever.

But for most, this never happens.

They listen to the inner voice, the weaker self, who tells you to take it easy, that fills your head with doubts, causes you to jump from shiny object to shiny object and stops you from doing anything great.

But this is what most people don’t realise - your mind isn’t some uncontrollable organ.

You can train it to see the opportunity in every challenge, the solution to every problem and the positive in every negative.

You can train it to be filled with confidence, resilience, competency and ambition.

Or, if you’re not careful, you can train it to ruin your life

If you think you’re anxious, you will be.

If you think you’re doomed to be broke, you will be.

If you think doing the work, being disciplined and focusing is hard, then you will make it so.

If you think only the lucky few can taste success, or that it’s not possible for you, then that will be your reality.

Realise that the quality of your life depends entirely on the quality of your thoughts.

You cannot expect to live a life of ambition, progress and meaning if your mind is not set up for success.

Luckily, the mind is plastic. It can be moulded and shaped in a way that benefits you rather than hinders you.

This in itself can entirely change your life.

Your mind is under your control and you can train it to shape reality just like you train a muscle to be stronger - through intense challenge, reps and stimulus

The filter you hold within your head is responsible for every single aspect of your life and so if you want to change your life, you must change the filter that determines your actions.

Train it with daily challenge and big goals. Feed it with knowledge and curiosity. Shape it with mental models and rational thinking.

Your external reality is a reflection of your internal reality.

And so you are limited by nothing but your own willingness to master your mind.

- Ross

PS: I send out emails every week to help you systemise both your business and how you operate, so that you can scale faster.

If you want in, click the link below to join:

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 47

Ross Harkness

Nothing will ruin your chances of success more than your habits not being aligned with your goals.

Your entire life is a reflection of 1 thing: your habits.

Your business is the result of your habits.

Your energy is the result of your habits.

Your mood is the result of your habits.

Your focus is the result of your habits.

Your wealth is the result of your habits.

Your fulfillment is the result of your habits.

If you’re not happy with your life, your energy or how your business is growing, change your damn habits.

Instead of working with your phone beside you, turn it off.

Instead of winging your day and taking it as it comes, plan it and schedule your most important tasks.

Instead of working late and eating junk food for ease, have a hard cut-off time and cook something healthy.

Instead of going to bed late, pressing snooze and skipping the gym, go to bed early, get up early and make time for the gym.

Instead of working for your business, make it work for you by creating systems, setting boundaries and understanding constraints

You cannot expect a change until you make
a change.

The same old habits, mindsets, routines and actions will always create the same old results, spirals and pitfalls.

A new way of life requires a new way of living. A new way of business requires a new way of operating.

New habits, new mindsets, new routines, new actions, new systems, and a new you.

So figure out what it is you want to change.

Work out what inputs are creating your current outputs.

Change the inputs and measure the new outputs.

Repeat until the output moves in the direction you want.

A change in results requires a change in you.

- Ross

PS: I send out emails every week to help you systemise both your business and how you operate, so that you can scale faster.

If you want in, click the link below to join.

themasteryos.com/ceo-time-audit/get

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 154