“You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die, or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now.”

Joan Baez

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively. Martha and Lee Brewer.

What do they have in common? They met on a blind date and are living happily ever after. OK. The third couple is a red herring. You probably never heard of Martha and Lee but they met on a blind date too and have been married for 70 years in Tennessee.

In many ways, blind dates that turn into “happily ever after” remind me of the resistance I hear from company leaders who tell me they are “too busy” to join my Vistage group. My response is “Show me a CEO who isn’t busy and I’ll show you someone who won’t be in the job much longer.” Every single one of the hundreds of thousands of Vistage members in our 65 years have been busy. Many didn’t want to join at first. They said they did not have the time.

But, like those who went on that blind date, they took a chance. Now they will tell you that being busy is the primary reason to join Vistage. It helps them stay focused and organized. Pursuing the most important strategic initiatives of the job. Just listen to the words of some of the members of my group:

Often I hear from the members of my group how they have grown more productive because they started holding others accountable and stopped doing their jobs for them. If you looked at the hours you work each week, I believe you’d see you are spending a significant amount of time performing the tasks that belong to another.

Time is one of those things they do not make more of. So you have to spend it wisely.