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NO B.S. Time Management for Entrepreneurs 39CHAPTER 3 / HOW TO DRIVE A STAKE THROUGH THE HEARTS OF THE TIME VAMPIRES OUT TO SUCK YOU DRYUnreasonable Man, continuedaren%u2019t enough people on earth to hire. Sorry, but it has to be On You, not On Them. You must be precise, not vague. Firm, not gentle. Demanding, not tolerant. Ultimately, it is your time that will be compromised or made of maximum value. Whenever you are waiting for things, delaying or slowing actions to afford others %u201cmore time%u201d to do X or Y or Z, sitting in Neutral burning gas, you are having time taken away from where you wanted to invest it for forward progress and having it put elsewhere, and all the cost including lost opportunity cost is yours to bear. I am often asked if I live by the same rules of engagement and unreasonable-man demands that I impose on everybody else around me, and the answer is %u201cOf course not.%u201d It%u2019s an interesting assumption, but why should I? The point here is MY productivity. I am not responsible for theirs. What%u2019s good for this goose defines how all the other geese must behave, but there is no vice versa. Hardly anybody tries it or, I suspect, even thinks about it. The fact that I may jump on the phone and call, say, my private banker or my broker or my car care guy, etc. and expect him to answer his cell phone for me does not alter the need for them to only fax or to work through my assistant to set up a phone appointment. In my mind, one has nothing to do with the other. I might very well pull an Ogilvy and demand a response overnight, but I would never accept such a demand.If this strikes you as unreasonable, we can agree it is, but so what? And what%u2019s your point?! For all this to work and for you to win at maximum productivity, you don%u2019t have to be an asshole, and, in fact, it%u2019s better if you