Work. Life. Balance.

Welcome to Throb, The Reality of Business podcast. Real business chat from real people

without the shiny veneer of gurus anywhere near it. With your hosts Bertie Cordingly and Paul Chapman and maybe some guests along the route, we'll talk about our experiences of running a business, helping others run a business and sharing real stories based on real experience.

Thanks. Hello, Paul Chapman. How are you?

I'm very well, thanks. Very well. I'm feeling a bit older today, randomly.

Why do you feel old?

I think I'm just old and broken. My 9,842nd wake up before 5am in the morning, I think. So yeah, normal stuff. But no, I'm good, mate. I am very good. How about your good self?

Yes, I'm grand. Thank you. I had a meeting in the Big Smoke yesterday. So I had to travel to London town, which was interesting. Didn't know I trained. We're still in mask territory, depending on when you're listening to this podcast. Yes. Just coming to the end of the pandemic, hopefully. They could be famous last words, couldn't they? What are we talking about today?

Well, I had one of those moments, I think it was yesterday, David? I can't remember. Anyway, so I was driving past something and I saw a guy that I don't know very well, but I know. And it just kind of reminded me because the last time I saw him properly, as it were, we were in a networking room or wherever, and he was telling me at great lengths and great pains about, you know, how it had been, I don't know, whatever it was, five years since he had, he'd had a break or he'd had a day off or he'd had a holiday and business owner. And the weird thing is, he's wearing it like a badge of honor. Like this is some kind of incredible thing that actually I kind of worked so hard. And again, we've, we've talked before about this kind of this hustle epidemic thing and where everything is, you just got to work, just work. And you know, there's two sides to it, et cetera, et cetera. But I think this is like a really interesting thing is that there are so many people that are so in their business, so entirely focused on it. So unable to see the world or have a world beyond it. I don't think it's really healthy. And interestingly, I get that people need to work. And we spoke before hard work running business is really hard work. You need to put loads into it. But actually I think as myself, the time I have away from the business is as important to the business as the time I spend in it. I come back to this thing with this guy and think, actually, in my humble opinion, I think it is complete nonsense to be wearing this as like a badge of honor that I don't get any breaks. And I, I just think people are not spending their time or allocating their time particularly well when it comes to their business.

Yeah, I, I completely agree with you. And it's something that I've seen witnessed experienced personally, of course, as well. It is that there is a lot of stuff, isn't there around hustle work, 18 hour days, etc. If you work an 18 hour day, then you're going to be 50 or I don't know the math, you're going to be much further forward. And yes, that makes that makes absolute sense. If you are working on the right stuff, and it all depends on the stage of the business that you're at. And if you are working on high growth stuff, and you are going after a land grab market that absolutely do that. But if your business has been established, and you're going in and doing the same things over and over again, and just firefighting, that is the wrong stuff to be working on, because you're not working actively on the growth of your business, your business is just doing the same thing, then there are processes and things that you can put into your business to make it more efficient. And I'll give anyone the Pepsi challenge. Like if someone's telling me that they're working these, all these hours of a day, it's like, I can find you some efficiencies in there. And it's amazing, as soon as you get that outside pair of eyes, which is almost your trademark phrase, which I've just ripped off, when you start looking in, and then you get those aha moments of that, oh, yeah, yeah, that's why am I doing that? And people do things out of habit.

So yeah, it isn't the amount of hours that you spend in a business. So if you are finishing your day thinking, shit, like I've just done another 18 hour day, etc. Like there are definitely things that you can change. Definitely think that there is like the end of that tunnel. But you have to make the effort to change it. And we're going to talk about some of those things today, aren't we?

Yeah, I think I think the important thing, you know, kind of being busy is not the, it's not the measure in itself. I think that's the kind of thing. I think these people are, yeah, I think too many people are just filling their day with stuff, kidding themselves that they're doing it. We've all done that. We've all done that all night. So we've all done that thing. And some of the time, I'm sure that has been a good thing. Probably, if I'm honest, most of the time, I've just been, well, I run a business, I got to hustle, I got to do work, I got to be busy, I'm doing the stuff. Do you know what, in fairness to everybody, which is unlike me, because I like a rant, it took me a massive amount of time, an enormous amount of time to realise that that was just bullshit. That was just nonsense. That actually, some of my most valuable business time is the time I spend away from the business, whether it's on holiday, whether it's with the kids, that ability to let your brain cool, to kind of let the, you know, let there be space for you to do it. And I think, but I think, yeah, I'm as guilty, less so now, but I'm, I have been as guilty as anyone as that kind of, and do you know what, I'm certain I've bragged in a networking room as well about how hard I work. I'm sure I've kind of done that, but it is, it's just, it's not helpful, is it? It's, it's not something that actually is going to move a business forward. And I think it's so important to kind of have, have that perspective. And I think, again, I've mentioned this before, I have held onto my business far too tight. I have, I have kind of, it has been the be on end at the detriment of other stuff. And actually that has slowed the business development down. It has slowed its growth and it's kind of nearly sent me over the cliff kind of thing. So I think, yeah, for me, this is why we're talking about today. I think it is a hugely valuable thing to say, well, okay, yes, you have to work hard. Yes, there will be long hours, but what are the things that we can help people with? What, with our, with our experience? What, what can we kind of put out there to say, well, look, have a think about this. So, I mean, I don't know, let's perhaps start it this way. What, what does your day look like? You know, how do you, with what you do now, what does your day look like?

That's a good question. So my day, pretty much, I will get up at five. Now, this is, this is why I just hesitated with this one. This is in, this is something that I've started doing in the last three to four years. And there are days, I didn't get up at five this morning because I went to London and I had a few, too many beers. So it was more, I had a lay in today, but generally I will get up at five. I will go for a walk and then I'll go to the gym around six. If I'm training at home or I'll go to the local gym if I, if I train down there and I'll do, and then the school runs and things like that. My work day generally starts around nine, sometimes 10. I'll try not to schedule meetings in for nine o'clock or anything before generally, generally around 10. And then I have that little buffer. I'll sort my inbox out and try and get that down to inbox zero. So that's what, that's one of my daily habit routines. Check what I've got on for the day and then just time block my day. Literally just, okay, I've got three or four tasks and then, and then fill the gaps with those. But in the afternoon, generally that's the time that I will start to flag as in, as soon as lunch, as soon as I get hungry, that's it. Like my work starts to stop. So about, about one o'clock after lunch, I'll generally just take it easy. I might respond to a few emails on my phone, do a little bit of social media or go and do something else. And then I generally won't start picking work up again until later on in the afternoon. So I generally do take some time off in the afternoon. And then I have my daily email, which I know you read, Paul. Thank you very much. So I'll generally write that. Thank you. And I'll generally write that early evening and then send that as soon as I've done it. So yeah, I suppose the point I'm trying to make is that my day is quite full, but there's lots of downtime in there as well. I haven't put in that. I'll have a little nap generally some days as well. Yeah. I suppose the perception is like, and I've wrote about this in my emails. If you were to fill in the gaps on my story, you could see me posting like me going for a walk in the morning. Then you might see me at the gym in my stories. And then you might be getting my email about nine o'clock at night. That does not mean that I've been working solidly throughout that time. Some days, yeah. But the majority of times I'm not. There are other things that I'm doing throughout the day to fill the gap. So yeah, that's generally my routine. And that's like Monday to Friday. Wednesdays, I'm trying to take off now if I can. And then weekends, I don't do much work other than my daily email. So that's, yeah, that's my work routine really. Does that,

does that all sound about normal? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think the interesting thing is, is that every routine has got to be different. And I think, you know, a big thing for people to do is it doesn't have to be nine to five. Businesses work better when everybody does what they're best at. And the way to do what you're best at is to do it in the way that kind of works best for you. And I think this is the really, the really kind of important thing is that everybody's got to think, everybody knows when they're at their best, use that time for the right kind of stuff. And it is, so I'm, I'm kind of slightly different weeks after kind of my kids are a bit younger and I tend to do kind of most of the kind of the school stuff there. And my day, oh God, normally it starts with five, but that's not by choice. My day starts at nine and that's the time. I mean, I don't tend to check my emails then. I tend to do the stuff that I know I need to do. And I'll normally kind of plan that the night before and that kind of that, because that's when I'm at my best and then I can do it, do it after that. But I think, you know, for me particularly, I've noticed I can't work in the evening now. The kind of sleep is such a premium for me for all sorts of kind of different reasons. I won't bore everybody with, but you know, sleep is premium. And I'm really fine. If I'm on a laptop after eight o'clock, it really impacts me. I don't do that kind of stuff now. So I have to kind of change the way I work to make sure it, it sort of fits in the day. And interestingly, I'm, I don't work Fridays now. Well, I suppose I don't book anything in on Fridays. Sometimes it's, it's there as an overspill day and to kind of clear up. But you know, the main reason that I don't work Fridays is that I want to be able to use that time to clear up anything I've got to make sure when it's the weekend, I can be kind of present dad rather than dad thinking about work stuff. And I think where both of these things kind of come from is that, yes, you've got to work hard as a business owner. And yes, we've all kind of broken these rules that we've just put down for ourselves. But actually we've said this before, you get to choose. And I think this is kind of the thing that I would urge people to think, and actually look, when you're at your best, that's when you do your work. When you're not do something else, fill it with some other stuff, create something that gives you that extra buzz of energy. Interestingly, I use the term loosely, I have started to have a cold shower every morning. And again, for various different kind of reasons, kind of family owners, all that sort of stuff. And that has really, that has made me much more alert, much more, I've really noticed even over a short period of time, whilst it was brutally cold this morning, that has become part of that routine because I know actually I need to be sharp straight away to look after the kids so that actually when the kids have done it, hasn't been just like, it's been right. Yeah. Yeah. Daddy's up, he's on it. He can play. And though, so when they do go to school, I'm not now thinking, I need the break. I'm thinking, right, let's kind of crack on with it. And it's interesting to have that, that sort of part of it there. But I think that, I mean, it kind of brings us into an interesting area with the energy for it, because I do think, I read a really interesting email from this guy called Rich Morris that sent it to me. Lovely, lovely guy, very astute business bloke. We should have a conversation with him actually. Talking about energy and business. And I do, I do think business ownership, for better or for worse, you need to, you need a different kind of energy. I think you need a different amount, a different kind of energy. Is that, would you agree with that? Or is that me talking out of my posterior? No, I think you do, but it's probably not the,

I think when you say, I think when you say that a business owner needs energy, I think it can be perceived that you have to be high energy or extroverted almost. They're the words that generally look, that come to mind. But yeah, I think you need to have, I think you have to understand what your energy is, right? And yes, of course, you have to be self-motivated and certainly enjoy the stuff that you're doing. That's, I think that's a prerequisite. And I think if you're not enjoying the stuff that you're doing, then you really need to question whether that's the business that you need to be in. But that's an entirely different subject altogether. But yeah, you have to have energy. No one's going to do that for you. Working in a business and running a business is quite a lonely place because you don't have that praise. You don't have that constant feedback. It's very easy to fall into a rut of doing the same unproductive stuff, which is what I was talking about at the beginning. Now you have to have a degree of energy, but it doesn't mean you have to be high energy. I understand that if your energy is depleting, then you need to find a way that works for you to replenish that. The analogy that I use a lot, I don't know whether I've used it on these podcasts, but if I have, apologies if I'm going to use it again, is I always think of the airlines where the masks fall down. I can imagine that would be terrifying. But you know, on the mask clearly says, put your own mask on before helping others. And I think if your energy is depleted, it always makes me think of that. Like if you, you know, if you can't look after yourself, then how could you service your customers? How can you service your staff? How can you actually effectively run that business if you're running yourself into the ground? And yeah, I think you have to protect your energy. And we've got some ways I think that we're going to talk about shortly. But yeah, what are your

thoughts on that? Yeah. So the same sort of thing, really, I think one of the difficult things about being in business is that you constantly or perhaps it's just me, I don't know, you constantly compare yourself to everybody else. And you're always looking at what other people are doing, I should be doing that too. I should be doing that too. And I think I remember I went to an event ages ago in Nottingham. And I forget the lady that spoke, but again, it just really, really smart lady. And she was talking about kind of business burnout. And what was quite terrifying really around the table is that every single business owner basically said, look, they had got to that point. And I think that is, that's really interesting because they were all good, smart people, all running a good kind of smart business. And I think what they'd allowed them to, everybody was almost kind of working to someone else's schedule. So trying to kind of run someone else's business, trying to achieve someone else's business dream. And actually, again, we've said before, running a business is a really, really personal thing. But it's so easy to take the eye off the ball and start doing the stuff that you think you ought to be doing rather than the trying to think, okay, what is it that I'm really trying to achieve here? And how do I do that? What are the steps to do that? And again, you and I have chatted kind of a bit previously actually to do that. This is where the danger of presenteeism, which I don't even know if it's a word, but this danger of being in your business.

Are you full of a word?

Yeah. Do you know what? We could get a whole dictionary out of this. We'll do the throb dictionary. We could. It might be a long thing. But yeah, this danger of being in the business the whole time, by definition, it stops you from coming back out and taking that kind of that view on the perspective and then kind of thinking, well, look, why am I doing this? Why am I doing that? Because you're just eroding this energy. You are just eroding. So you get to burnout and you're kid yourself that it's the right thing, that I will just work harder. I will just work harder. And I think you said this earlier, mate, you know, I'll work harder until X. And I see the concept of that because that is a thing. There is always a tipping point in a business. But I think if you are only ever in the business, if your head only ever spends time in the business, you don't get any of that perspective. And because of that, you make the wrong decisions. And actually, all that time, you think, yeah, I am building something. I'm building something. You're actually not. You're actually just chipping away at the foundations or something. And it will kind of come tumbling down.

Yeah, I think that point that we were just talking about before, that's something I really wanted to elaborate on. This is a really common thing. You can speak to someone at a networking meeting. Like every entrepreneur, everyone that you speak to always says like, oh, how are things? Busy, really busy, right? And that they'll say that whether they're busy or not, in the same way that when you say, you're right, mate. Yeah, everything's great. Good. It's almost a stock answer. It means fuck all for one. But, you know, like, what actually does busy mean? So for some people, they can have loads of customers. And that's what they're talking about. Other people just mean that, yeah, they're just firefighting their business. And they're really busy. And they don't know how to do anything different, essentially. So it's, they're just doing the same things. And sometimes they're expecting a different result, which is the definition of madness, really. I think if you're saying to, and everyone has days and weeks where it's like, suddenly I've got a huge workload. But if that is constantly, week in, week out, and you're not seeing any differences, then something has to change. Because if you're kidding yourself that things are going to get any better, if you're just doing the same stuff. The way to flip that, and this is almost what I see is like when people are, they have a mindset as it's about the destination. So it's like, I'm going to be okay next week. I'm going to be okay the week after. It will be all right if we just get over this hurdle. Now, again, temporary, fine. You always have these big jobs and things that you have to put on. But what you find then is actually you're living in the future that doesn't exist. And you're forgetting about the present. If you do that for too long, it's like, what's the fucking point? Like, really? Like, you're constantly, it's like when you're in a job and you're constantly thinking about, well, it'll be all right when I retire. It's like, what? When you're like 70, what are you going to do then? Like, it's, you know, you go for long walks and things like that. You're in the best time of your life now. The way that I like to work with people and the way that I like to explain this is if you can figure out a process, something actually that you're waking up and looking forward to your day and you're still doing the stuff that you enjoy. Like you were saying earlier, you wake up, you have that cold shower. What I really liked about that is that, and you've probably taken this for granted, you're like, I'm really alert for spending time with my kids before the school run. Like, you're living in the present and you're doing stuff rather than, well, actually, kids, daddy needs to work now, but when daddy's made all this money, we'll be able to do stuff later. And like your kids are really young. Like mine finished the school literally today. You know, they're those precious times. Like you need those memories. It is all about living in the present and doing that stuff. Your business is a means to an end and you're running your business for your life. And sometimes you can get that so wrong and think, well, I need to be busy and I need to be doing all this stuff because the future, the destination is going to be so good. But that destination, sometimes you might not get there. You have to enjoy the journey. You have to be enjoying the stuff. And of course, you're going to have hard days, right? And you're going to have busy days. I'm not saying that every day is going to be fucking magical. It's a roller coaster, but at least take time within that week to go for lunch and take your wife out or your husband out or you get whatever. Find times in your day to do this stuff. Because if you don't, like you are just living in a different time that just doesn't exist.

And I think that you made a really interesting point there. Your business is only ever a means to an end. And I think this is where anyone listening to this is just think really deeply, what do you want out of your life? And again, this is probably way beyond my pay grade, but back to this guy, these people in the networking rooms that you meet and they'll kind of say, oh, God, you'll say I'm off on holiday. Oh, I've not had a holiday for kind of three years. Why? Why on earth are you doing it? If your measure of success is you being able to have holidays, if the thing you love is to have holidays, go and have holidays, go and get a job. They will literally pay you to be on holiday. And again, you get people get trapped in this business ownership world. And there's loads of good stuff, but there's loads of shit stuff with it. And there's so many people, they shouldn't be running businesses because actually they don't want the stuff that comes with it. And there's nothing wrong with that. We're not any more noble, better, intelligent, smart. It's just not that. But you know, what is the thing that you want to do and then do that? And it is, it's, it's that means to an end. And it is, what do you really want? There is an aspect of business ownership, which means you can never switch off. And I think I do, I think there is a level of this, I think for everyone, because even the guys that make it, even the people that really, really make it, I bet it's always just in the back of their mind, even when they've done and sold and it's always in the back of their mind. And that comes with it. I have had to force my week into a very different thing so that I can switch off because I've spent too much time not being present with the family, too much time stressing about stuff, too much time just doing the wrong stuff. And I have, I'm as guilty as anyone. I have come and kind of put the kids in front of the TV and sat at my laptop and done nothing of value because I didn't feel I was able to not work. And mate, that's, I mean, how embarrassing, how stupid is that, that I'm saying that? And it is, and this is where, this is where I think-

I don't think it's embarrassing. I'm going to call across you there, Paul. I don't think it's embarrassing. I don't think it's stupid. I think it's, it's something that everybody has done at some point, right? Everybody needs, it's, it isn't embarrassing and it isn't stupid.

Recognizing, you know, something and doing something about it is important. But, you know, to think that we would all go through life and not make mistakes, it's just fucking crazy. Like, I'm not saying that's necessarily a mistake, but, you know, like looking at something like, yeah, I need to change that. Anyway, you may continue now. Thank you.

I don't know what I think is it, man. I think probably the biggest starting point is actually recognizing that you are going to get lost down this rabbit hole. That's just the nature of the game that we play. But that doesn't mean you can then kind of let yourself off the hook and just go and do it. You've got to put some stuff in place to, to do it. And again, this is where we come back to things like peer groups, whether it's formal mastermind stuff or just other groups. And I think you need to, you need to enforce that time in your diary. So you can't kind of go on forever without an intervention. If I mean, it's probably the wrong phraseology and appelled you there. It's probably not quite right, but you can't just go on and on and on. So regular touch, touch ups. I don't think that's what we're calling it. Regular check-ins. So actually you can't go four months disappearing up your own backside without someone trust who has actually experienced saying, Paul, what the hell are you doing? So I think that kind of thing. But I also think you need, I mean, perhaps a bit like you and I do for each other. Not that, but yeah, perhaps as you and I do, that kind of, like you said, we weren't going to talk about that publicly. This podcast, I'm so pleased we can put like a big 18 stamp on this one, but yeah, like an accountability partner, you know, somebody that you actually almost, it's almost like a prenup, like before it all kicks off, someone that you can kind of say to someone, look, if you see this set of behaviors, you have my permission to, and I did, I saw something really interesting the other day. And again, there's a bit of a link here, but it was a, it was a parent that was talking about the fact that he had written this letter. I think he had daughters, he'd written a letter for his daughters in a red envelope and put it in a drawer and basically said to them, look, if you've ever got something, you really need to tell me, but you know, I'm going to be cross. Just bring me this letter. And it, and you know, that was the thing that actually there was like, you know, there, there was someone coming to him. They'd done something wrong or whatever. And this was like, the letter was a sign of, remember dad, it's a mistake. You know, and I almost feel you need that in business. You need, you need to be able to kind of set out someone. If you see this, just stop me. And even though I'll go, no, I just got work. I've got to build a business. I've got to grind. I've got to do this. You almost need that thing to kind of say, look, here's your red letter. You're being a knob. You actually, you're hurting your business. Like a business safe word.

Like, how do you know about those mate? What? What?

Have you not, surely you've got, have you not got a safe word?

Not that I'm going to talk about it.

I mean, I'm not going to tell you what my safe word is. I mean, have you ever had to use the safe word?

Oh, we were doing so well.

But I think that's a way of looking at, you know, if you're saying to somebody, the safe word, something has to stop, isn't it? Like, you know, that's an immediate, yeah, whoa, no more. Like, pull out. No.

Why you got your head in your hand?

I thought Capri Sun from three or four episodes ago was going to be the low point. But yeah, here we are.

All joking aside, you've got to try and put something in play. This is when people come to me and say, look, I'm not very good at selling. Well, fine. That doesn't, however, mean you can't sell in your business. You have to find another way around it. Whether you've got to buy someone in, whether you want to train yourself. There is no get out when you run a business. And it's the same with this thing. You just disappearing up your own posterior and working the whole time is genuinely detrimental to your business. And I kind of don't care what you say. If you're doing it again and again and again and again, it will harm your business. It isn't going to move it on. And as such, you have to find a mechanism, coach, mastermind group, peer group, safe word person. You've got to find that way to do it because the longer you go on wearing your busyness as a badge of honor, the less profitable your business will be, the less good your life will be. All these reasons that you've kidded yourself, I'm going to set up a business because it gives me this freedom. It just goes out the window. And it's so, so important, but I just don't think people think about it.

It's very easy to lose sight of the important stuff, isn't it? And I can imagine if these conversations trigger people because it's like, well, you don't know my business, et cetera. And no, do you know what? We don't. But if we did, we could probably ask the right questions to actually help and support you. I know people that are working literally 18 hour days, six days a week. And they've had wake up calls as in illness, for example. And the question I always ask people is if you were taking out your business, what would happen? And generally the people that are working those long hours, and the answer is very simple. It's like the business will collapse literally. So, and everybody thinks they're invincible. I literally went through the first 30 years of my life thinking that I was never going to die and I would never get ill and all that sort of stuff. And without getting all macabre, is that the word? I'm very, what? What's the word? Like death talk and stuff. Macabre. That anyway. Macabre. Without getting all macabre, which I'm going to, like, I am very aware now of my own mortality. And I, yeah, I was, I was trying to make it. I'm very aware of my own mortality. Now, nobody, like the only thing, the only one thing is certain life is you are going to die. Right? Now, hopefully, you know, we want that period to be as long as possible. I think as I've got older and, you know, especially with this situation, the whole COVID thing that we've just lived through this pandemic has very, brought it much more to the forefront, I think for a lot of people. And I think it's just like, you know, what's it all for really? And you really have to understand like what you were saying earlier, like, why are you doing this? And if you're spending too many days where you can't answer that question, it's like, do you want to be living your life like this? Then something has to change. And it all does come back to doing stuff that you enjoy. Like when you spoke about burnout, and I'm not trying to oversimplify the problem, but you know, you don't get burnt out when you're doing things that you really enjoy. Do you like knows, burnt out, having too much sex, or, you know, you're burnt out from too much cycling, you might be a little bit tired, but you're still keen to, to get back on it, aren't you? And do those things again, because you really enjoy them. And it should be the same for your business. I'm not saying that you should love every single part of your business, but the core part of it would be, and if you're doing the too many things in the business that you don't enjoy, then change it. I'm going to give an example here. As you well know, and you've not sampled them yet, Paul, which is, which is a crime. At the back end of last year, I bought a pizza oven. I love now making pizzas. So when you're asking about my day earlier today, I was making pizza dough to make pizzas later. Love making pizzas. My kids are like, you should sell these. Like we should start a pizza business and things like that. And yeah, that would be fun to a degree. But I enjoy making pizzas. I enjoy seeing people eating the pizzas. And, but would I enjoy running a pizza business and employing people find it and all that other stuff? Probably not. It changed the game. It changes it. So you might love doing something. Now, if I could then just turn up and work for someone making pizzas or then again, it's a different game altogether. So even if you really like what you're doing, it's very easy to fall into like an area that you don't enjoy. So running a pizza business is very different from making pizzas as a hobby in the same way that if you've had people that are really good salespeople, and we spoke about this before that then become sales managers, they don't enjoy the job. Coders is another great example. People who love coding naturally can climb to being a CTO of a company, but suddenly they're managing people and not doing the thing that they really enjoy, which is coding. So you really have to look at the stuff that you're doing. Does it bring me joy? Is it giving me pleasure? And if it's not, you can change it. And I promise you, you actually can change it. The amount of people that give me fucking, oh, I can't because of this and I can't because of that. Like what? You're fucking special. Like there's how many billion people in this world? And if you were to say that to somebody else, they'd be like, oh yeah, it'd be obvious. Well, yeah. Take some advice. Like listen, you can change. Anybody can change. Anyone can change the stuff that they're doing, but you've just got to accept that really sometimes. Anyway, I'm going

off on a bit of a rant. You talk, you say some words. I think the interesting thing here for me is that there isn't actually a compromise. So people are thinking, well, if I don't work as hard, if I'm not filling every day, I'm going to earn less money. I'm going to this, the business. And actually that's simply not the case. There isn't a compromise here. The reality is if you did less, better work.

You will get more further forward than you will if you try and fill your time with stuff.

Yeah.

And I think this is one of the reasons that they just, people don't stop it because they just think, I've just got to do more, do more, do more. And it's just nonsense because they think the compromise is I will earn less. The business will be slower. It's not the case. The business will be better if you do more of the right stuff in the right order. And actually, therefore, as a business owner, you then have to go and make sure what the right stuff is. And that actually comes from either time out of the business or external input into the business. And actually, there are people that, there are loads and loads. There are too many examples of people that run businesses like yourself and actually make loads of money from it by doing the right things. I am super hot at selling. I'm going to do that. Someone else is going to do my accounts. I'm going to employ someone to account manage these people because I can't do that, but I'm just going to do this. So kind of less stuff, less of the right stuff done well, consistently. That's not all the time, but consistently that will win over trying to do everything. And a lot of people, they spend so much time on the low value stuff as well. And that's the stuff that actually stresses them out, fills the day and kind of takes them away from their day-to-day life. And it's hard. As I said, we've all done this. We've all kind of been in this thing, but you know, if I could pass any kind of advice onto people, which I'm not really in any kind of position to do, but if I could pass advice on, I'd be like, just be more confident. What's the stuff you do well, get rid of the other stuff. And there is no value from you working all

day, every day. Yeah. No, there isn't. And there will be another way. There will be another way. I run a, I'm not pushing this in any way. I'm just adding context to what I'm about to say. I run a weekly group mentoring session at the Get Shit Done Club. So I run that. And there's monthly themes and things like that. And this month we're focusing on automation specifically. Now the thing with automations is a lot of, and I started off by explaining like, you don't know what you don't know. So I was showing people tools where you could integrate websites with different things and diary automation, all that sort of stuff. And people were like, I had no idea this stuff existed. Literally can shave off, shave off like hours, days of your weeks and months, right? Like starting automating processes. Now the thing with automation is, you know, you can very quickly go in there and start automating stuff for the sake of it. But when I say you don't know what you don't know, and if you're thinking that you can't find a solution, like you can, like just look at the stuff that you're doing. Look at the manual stuff that you're doing and repeating. Like we're in like the 21st century now, like there are stuff, literally computers can do anything. If you're manually doing stuff, if you're, you know, setting calendar invites, whatever it is in your business, there is an automation for it. And if you are repeating those processes, you can build something that will do that, which will start saving you a lot of time. So there's always something you can do, but if you're stuck, then ask for some help. Of course you can ask us, but there's plenty of people in the world that you can go and ask, but you have to ask for help. And because asking for help is not admitting defeat in any way, shape or form. It doesn't mean that you're no good at your business. It just means that everybody needs help. Like if I'm stuck on something, I'll ring you. You've been times where you've rang me for stuff. And that's just how you, I've got that network of people that do help and support each other. And I'm really lucky in that respect. And I've got clients that if they're stuck on something, they will ask me, they'll be like, actually, I've got this problem. Do you know of any way of a solution? And sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, and that's just the way of the world. But you can ask, and if you don't ask, you don't get, and there might not be a solution for it, but it's very rare that there isn't. If someone's working 18 hour days, there will be things you can do to make your time more efficient. Yeah. And everything that you're going through as a

business owner, someone else has gone through different style, different format, different thing. And I think the asking for help thing, it is, it is. And again, this is where, I don't know how it's where my brain kind of gets a bit scrambled. This is where you actually need to be more conscious about it and think, yes, you know, kind of Paul and Bertie, you're incredibly astute people. What does that actually mean? And this is where people have to stop and go back and think, well, okay, I am running this business. I'm too much in it. I'm spending too much time. I have the, I don't have the clarity. I don't know what I'm doing. So I'm just doing everything. What do I do about that? Well, okay. What's it? Well, they say, go and speak to people. Great. I haven't got anyone to speak to. Right. So kind of step one is not fixing the business. Step one is going and having some conversations with people saying, do you want to do a regular coffee? And actually it said, that's the first step of fixing the fact that you're working 25 hours or whatever it is. And I think this is the other thing I think, you know, to point out about this is that the fixes are actually pretty easy for this, but they're also not easy fixes. You've got to do some stuff. It's not like you can just go, Oh, well, I'll just stop working 18 hours. That's not the real you should be able to do, but that isn't the reality of the situation. So you need to put in place those safe words, those, you know, accountability partners. You've got to kind of put that in place consciously. I don't want it to be the sale, but you know, the mastermind group stuff that is, it's still the most valuable thing that I do. Yeah. The groups that I'm a part of, not the ones that we run, the ones that I'm a part of that for me is as valuable that day off in a hotel somewhere is as valuable to the business in terms of ROI as direct mail campaigns I'm running or the videos I'm creating or the coffees I'm going to have. It's all part of the same thing. And I think people need to, people almost need to formalize asking for help. Cause even if you think you've got your shit sorted completely, there will be something you can do better, quicker, more profitably, more intelligently. So I think it's formalization again, is that a word formalization of asking for help or formalization of having the check-in having that outside pair of eyes. And I think it's, and do you know what, when I had, didn't have it, life felt kind of just a million miles an hour, just, just always on, always on. And actually the relief of actually almost kind of, kind of in that, I don't know, that business counseling session. I still remember the first person I went to go and talk to and it was just, oh mate, it was amazing. It was just, just, and it allows your brain to think about, and you know, almost immediately you kind of get rid of that kind of that, and actually you think, well, that's interesting. I could do that. And like, there's this space in your head for all this other stuff that you can do.

Yeah. Yeah. I get that. And I, and I see that like when I'm working with people and again, not a direct push for anything, but I think my job is just, yeah, but I think, I think sometimes I suppose I take it for granted, the wealth of experience that I bring to the table, but you know, joking aside, if I start working with somebody new, then, you know, that first like hour session generally is them just talking and just spilling out all of their problems. Right. It actually makes my job really easy because then literally I'm just picking one of those balls up that's just been thrown. It's like, okay, have you thought about doing this a little bit different? And then you think, you see the light bulb go, it's like, oh no, I haven't. Okay, well try this and let's see what happens. And that's essentially, that's all I do as a job. You don't need to hire me. You can just do that yourself. But I think a question that I ask often, I'll share this with everyone. So, so people, you listening can do this yourself is if you're fine that you're doing something over and over again and not really seeing the results, just ask yourself like, what will happen if I don't do that? And if you don't know, sometimes maybe just try it and actually just let, and that could be as an example, maybe you're micromanaging staff or maybe you're taking too much time to be supervising or whatever. Like you might lose a little bit of efficiencies, sorry, productivity. For example, if you weren't watching people constantly all day, every day, but you can mitigate that. And actually the time then saved for you personally will offset that. So there's, you can do things, you can ask yourself, well, what have I do? Stop doing this. What if I don't answer every email the second that it comes through? What if I stopped filing emails into little folders and all that? There will be things that you can do that will save you a lot of time and speak to somebody professional like me or Paul, or if you have somebody that is maybe doing a similar business that can become that accountability buddy. I know people that do that. So there's no change of, there's no like charging each other for your services in that regard. I literally just saying to someone, let's have an hour catch up each month or each week. And we'll just spend half an hour each talking about our problems and see if we can collaborate on that stuff. But that's a really easy way of doing it. But you've got to find someone at a similar level. So it's a fair exchange. But if you're not doing either of those things, and you're doing the same thing over and over again, and you're feeling busy, and you're just feeling that life is just passing you by, you need to change something, I guarantee you. Because you don't just want on your headstone, like this guy worked 18 hours a day, didn't see his kids and stuff like that. And I'm not shaming you if that's what's happening. I'm just saying that there is a better way, I promise you, there is a better way of doing this. Because I have definitely been there. I have been in that situation. And I'm sure you have as well. Like, and you've made changes now that you have your shower in the morning, and you've got real good quality time with your kids that they remember. And the amount of time that I've been on calls and things with you, especially during lockdown, I've seen the way that you interact with your and stuff like that. Sorry, seen the way that you interact with your kids. And it's really great to see. And a lot of people will be like, just shut up, that kind of stuff. And it's, they're not doing it deliberately to be bad parents. But you know, it happens, doesn't it? But it could be.

Yeah, it's that kind of clack. Look, what do I really want my life to be like? And I just realised that I didn't want it to be like what it was. It wasn't bad. It wasn't that we think, well, there's no point going through this extra hassle if I effectively have what I've always had. And if I kind of set up a business to have something different. And actually, a lot of it, particularly this time has been more about time than money. But it is, it's,

you're dead right. I think if anybody's listened to this thinking kind of, yeah, some of this kind of sounds kind of uncomfortably kind of familiar, that's not a kind of, it's not a shame thing or whatever. It's just, it's the reality of it. It's really easy. It, it, it just start with a conversation, go and speak to someone about it. You know, and again, I don't want to get kind of too kind of counselly into this, because that's definitely not my kind of, you know, kind of useful space. But you know, you, if, if you are feeling like that, you will have a real good spark. You'll have a thing about you that's driving you on for this business that you shouldn't waste by just working all hours. Cause that isn't the route. I think what's really interesting about this is a little side issue. It's so much easier to help someone else's problem. And then in turn, that helps you. So actually you're, we'll be around the table having a conversation and you can see that someone super stressed person A, they've had their turn, they're talking about or whatever it is. Then someone else is having their turn. So you kind of put business owner B is having their turn. And you can actually see business owner A is helping business owner B, which in turn, you can see this penny drop thinking, shit, I'm doing that. And actually just by starting, just by kind of thinking, well, okay, there is a different way of doing this. How's a different way of doing it? And it just, it just makes it a lot easier. And I think kind of this really important bit is that whilst possibly society and convention and the people around you and social media tell you that you should be every working every hour that God sends from kind of bitter thought experience here, I can categorically tell you that is not the case. Your business is not going to be better if you solely spend your whole time immersed in it. Exactly. And especially if you're focusing your

time on things that just aren't growing your business, like it's, well, yeah, I think, I think we've probably said enough on that. I suppose maybe we do, maybe we do another one of these, Paul, where we actually talk about things that you, a process that you can do to grow your business, you know, how to, because when you were saying about dine time down, when you were saying about downtime, that's where you get all your best ideas. It's the same for me. So the times that my ideas come are like when I'm literally doing nothing. So if I'm like walking in the shower, generally like you're literally doing nothing else. And I like long, warm showers, not of the golden variety, but you know, I'll just be in their ages. I can't like the thought of going into a cold shower is hell. Like the shower is a, it's a luxury time for me. I've got the big like rain thing that comes down. It's like amazing. I love it. Now and again, I'll FaceTime people from the shower, like just like making events of it. They're a pleasurable thing, but you know, just switching off and doing nothing is that's where my ideas come, but ideas are great, but then you need to find the time to be able to execute those ideas. And we can do a whole podcast series of podcasts on that, on, on, on this whole thing. If you're firefighting your days,

then how can we leave this? What can we tell the people? We get a lot of people listening to this. It is, it is, I do know. I love that. I love, I'm not really a figure of mine. I love watching the stats. I love watching how many people are, are kind of addictive, isn't it?

I mean, you just, you just, it is. What I've loved about this is when I've then had calls

and spoke to people afterwards and they will reference things like, oh, when you said that to Paul, I'm like, Paul who? In your podcast. Like, oh, right. Okay. Cause you think they're talking about like, like they know us and then it's like, oh, what did we say? I've been talking about, I've been talking about golden showers and masturbation in today's podcast. Like, you still want to work with me. That's a good sign.

Really? So, okay. So my, my start to pretend on this is I would, well, one, I would block a day out your diary. Do it now. Everybody listening block a day. Cause there is nothing in your business that can't wait a day. There just isn't. I don't care how busy you are. There is nothing that can't wait a day. Block a day out your diary. And for me personally, I would split that up into two halves kind of the morning, do some exercise, but I, yeah, I would write down all the stuff that you do in your business. Just, just put it all down on a page. And then I'd look at it and work out, look, what's the stuff that only I can do? What's the stuff I'm really good at? What's the other stuff? Yeah. And run it by the, will it make the boat go faster thing is what I'm doing actually going to get me further forward. And I would just spend a bit of time not doing the stuff, not, not making the thing, not sending the emails, not doing the consultancy. Just what, just don't do it. Only, only kind of break down what it is and then stop at lunch and then get out, get away from the business. Just leave it, leave it. Yeah. All the out of office or go on the night before. So no one, there's no emergencies, no phones or nothing. And just give yourself that time away from your business. And I think I kind of two things will happen here. Kind of, yeah. Number one is that you will have a, a, a, an utter cold panic or you keep going back to emails and you keep hovering over your phone. If that's the case, you definitely need some help because respectfully it's not suited for you or you are just never going to get where you want to get to here. Or I think, you know, option two is that actually you'll be quite surprised just how your brain works, just how it kind of settles, just the piece that it can give you. And actually the idea is the stuff, the problems that you're trying to fix solutions will just appear. And that sounds silly, but you know, that's stopping. It just helps. And again, kind of take it from someone that has got this wrong so many times, but actually that ability to just stop makes a huge, huge difference. And that, that'll be me. And again, we should do a podcast on this and it is a bigger problem than that, but force yourself to stop, do a bit of a brain dump, work out what it is and then

get away from the business for a bit. Exactly. Like if you're not in a position to be bringing anyone else in or anything, you've got people that you can talk to hopefully, but if not, even just stopping and looking at this yourself, like if you're in a position that you've built a business, then you know, you're, you're, you've already have the skills to be able to do this, like remembering why you started this business in the first place. And if you find that you're not doing the things and how it, you thought it was supposed to be, then you can change something. Like you can, you can change it. You are, you do have the ability to change stuff. Everybody does. And I know it's hard sometimes when you're in the middle of that fire and you've got your hose out and you're literally just constantly, you know, in the flames just keep coming, coming forwards, but it can be done. It can be done. And so just stepping out of there and just saying, well, actually what's, what's, what's the worst that can happen in, in this scenario and just stepping back, even if it's just for a couple of hours or a day, ideally, and just jotting some of those ideas down, I think is a really important thing to be doing. The power of just stopping is unbelievable sometimes. Silence. Yeah. Another, another trigger.

If you are someone that has been saying kind of more than a handful of times of, oh, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I just need to, I just need to, I just need to, or when I, when this happens, if you've been saying that for more than a handful of months, do you know what? You probably need some help as well. If we can help, ask us some questions. We are here as your, your vocal servants. And is that a thing? People always kind of ask me stuff, but actually it just made me think anything you listen to, if there's anything you'd like us to cover, send them in to one of our email addresses or get us on LinkedIn, drop us a question and yeah, we'll cover some off and in a future.

That's a great idea. Let's do a whole podcast on that. So if you send us some questions, we will answer those in a podcast. We will literally just do a special podcast answering the questions. So yeah, we can, we can do that. Let's say, yeah, let's offer some free help and advice to everybody. Let's do it, Paul. Love it.

We'll literally answer anything as you've heard. Most topics are not off the table.

As you've probably quite realized already. So yes, let's do, let's do that. Well, Paul, it's been an absolute pleasure seeing and speaking to you today. And the only disappointment that I have is that we are not face to face in the flesh. So I just get to see your pretty little face on screen and not...

Find it slight and comfortable using the word flesh. I don't know why.

Anyway, mate, I've loved that. Hopefully that has been useful and we will catch you the next time that we do.

Yes. Thank you very much, Paul. I'll see you again soon. Thanks everyone for listening. Bye. Bye.

We'll be back next week for another edition of the Throb Podcast. If you want to find out more, you can find me at paulchapmanuk.com. And you can find me, Bertie, at bertiecord.co.uk. Thanks again. See you next week.