1: In 2018, Oprah Winfrey provided Harper’s Bazaar with a detailed overview of her average day, Dan Martell writes in his book Buy Back Your Time.
7:01 a.m.: Wakes up surrounded by nature at her home in Montecito, California.
8:00 a.m.: Brushes teeth and takes her five dogs outside. Makes her favorite espresso.
8:30 a.m.: Enjoys a series of spiritual exercises like meditating, reading, and silence.
9:00 a.m.: Works out for an hour.
10:30 a.m.: Private shopping with Brunello Cucinelli in her living room.
12:30 p.m.: Eats lunch and sips a glass of rosé in her garden with Stedman (her partner) or a friend.
1:30 p.m.: Spends two hours on business matters, mainly approving any expense over $100,000 and checking in with Gayle King, O magazine editor-at-large, and Mindy Grossman, CEO of Weight Watchers.
3:30 p.m. Exercises again, then enjoys fresh tea and a good book.
6:00 p.m. Eats dinner and walks her dogs again. Occasionally, she enjoys a good movie.
9:30 p.m. Takes a luxurious bath, then goes to bed.
“I hope you caught it,” Dan writes. “Oprah spends only two hours a day on traditional business matters. . .
“She spends the rest of her time on health, discovery, and personal growth,” he notes. “She knows that her highest value is remaining a compelling, insightful resource for her audience and remaining open-minded to discovery.”
The key takeaway for us? “She’s making lots of money, and doing what lights her up,” Dan observes. “By focusing her time and energy on what makes her a valuable asset to her enterprise, she’s built multiple media companies and has amassed a net worth of almost $3 billion.”
2: Hearing about Oprah’s typical day, we might think, “Oh, she’s lucky,” or “She’s privileged.”
This type of thinking is a trap, however.
“Too many entrepreneurs get this backward,” Dan writes. “They think that an enjoyable life is only for those who’ve earned their way there.
So they grind, taking another bite out of the GSD (Get Stuff Done) mentality.”
That’s a mistake, he believes, because to achieve Oprah’s level of success, we need to start acting like Oprah does today.
We “may not have her money (yet),” Dan explains, “but we have some amount that we can spend to off-load the most time-sucking, energy-draining tasks.”
We can change our mindset by embracing what Dan calls the “Buy Back Loop.”
First: “Audit our time,” he recommends, “to find time-and-energy-sucking tasks that others can do.”
Next: “Reinvest that time in money-making initiatives and activities. Set aside time to grow our business. Invest only in tasks that make us the most money and light us up.”
That’s how we will reap the rewards: By investing our time where it has the maximum impact,
3: “Look at Warren Buffett,” Dan writes. “He spends his time on two primary tasks: reading books and searching for the next investment opportunity. His Berkshire Hathaway empire is approaching $1 trillion in value and employs nearly four hundred thousand people around the world.
“Of course, he didn’t start there,” he observes. “He worked his way up in the financial world, starting early on as a salesman. Along the way, he was transferring tasks to others, upgrading his time, and moving upward.”
Or, consider Tom Clancy, one of the bestselling novelists of all time.
Tom “employed writers to produce dozens of books under his name over the last two decades of his career,” Dan observes. He “served loosely as a front-end guide to conceptualize the stories and spent more time exploring exhilarating and lucrative new opportunities as a film producer and creative consultant.”
He made his mark as an author. Then, “as his company grew, he transferred some of the work to others and kept growing and exploring in his own life . . . from writer to storyteller to film producer.”
Andy Warhol took a similar approach. He “employed an eccentric group of ambitious artists and muses who helped him conceptualize and create his world-famous art,” Dan notes. “Over time, he began off-loading much of the lower-value portions of his artistic endeavors to other artists inside his studio, the Factory.”
Andy’s approach? “He came up with ideas, then off-loaded much of the middle portion of the work to other artists,” he writes. “Then he came in at the end to sprinkle on his magic.
“Over time, he created thousands of pieces of art,” Dan observes. “Whether he called it that or not, Andy Warhol used the Buyback Principle to become an iconic artist whose legacy continues to this day.”
The secret is in learning how to effectively focus our time and energy where we can make the biggest difference.
What do Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffett, Tom Clancy, Andy Warhol, and thousands of smart entrepreneurs all have in common?
“They all learned how to effectively focus their time and energy where it counted the most,” Dan writes. “This unlocked immense value for themselves, freed up their time, and injected their lives with joy. As a result, they made more money, which allowed them to buy back more time. With that additional time, they made sure to deposit it in places that lit them up and made more money.”
Dan’s big insight? “Successful people aren’t doing what they love because they’re rich. They’re rich because they’ve learned to do what they love, and only what they love.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: What would I fill my days with if I no longer spent them on draining, low-value work?
Action: Write down my vision for a life where I’ve bought back my time—imagining each day filled with energizing, meaningful activities instead of endless to-dos.