In yesterday’s Meeting of the Titans, the Member in focus shared his intention to decrease his work hours, whilst increasing productivity, to have more time to spend with his wife and kids, and for himself.
Myself and Members of the Brains Trust who have successfully navigated this change in their own lives and businesses, shared experiences, perspectives and tips to support the Member in the shift that was necessary, so that he could see his way clear to fully committing to making this a reality.
He identified that he had a limiting belief which had been causing him to pull back, which was ‘If I work less, my business will go down’ which related to a previous experience he had had when he had reduced his hours in the business. The other challenge he had been encountering is the addiction to the longer hours.
You probably recognise that we become addicted to anything we do regularly, and working long hours can become an ingrained habit which is difficult to break without the awareness that our system will actively seek that experience out, as that is what it is used to. This is a challenge shared by many business leaders, and can be a contributing factor to why it can feel so difficult to change the pattern – as a part of us is actually wanting to continue with it.
In order to make anything new a reality, what has to come first is the ability to commit to having it as an outcome. In this instance, after some exploration of the situation, tips, wisdom, experience and tools shared by the group, the Member in focus owned the real possibility that he could work less, make more and be happier. From here he was able to commit to making this happen over time with some planning and support from the group, in a way that had previously been blocked by his perspective, past experience and feeling like he was doing it alone.
In nearly 12 years of assisting leaders with reclaiming time, while increasing productivity, revenue and profitability, it has become apparent, that it’s not just a good idea to reduce the hours in the hope of growing their business; it’s a requirement. See this Forbes article sharing a Stanford study.
Utilising our proprietary approaches, for Members who would like to reclaim time, and not at the cost of their business productivity or growth, we’ve assisted many business owners to reduce their work hours between 10 and 50 hours a week, while 3-5X’ing the business. One of the attendees yesterday has reduced his work hours about 15 hours a week and, in that time, has 3X’d his business, and hit a monthly record in October (last month). Another has reduced his work week from 5 days to 4, been holidaying for about 3 months this year, and is experiencing daily profitability records.
The other Members in attendance shared that it was a great reminder to continually tweak and improve the way they invest and utilise their time. After all, each of us have the same number of hours in a week – 168 – so it’s therefore just a question of how well we manage and invest them.
