Smart Business Growth with Nicky & Ness

The Four-Hour Workweek Reality Check

• Nicky & Ness • Season 2 • Episode 12

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In this episode, Nicky and Ness dive into the core reasons people start their own businesses and the reality that often follows. They discuss how the initial vision can get lost in the day-to-day grind and stress the importance of redefining what success looks like. This episode is a call to pause and reassess your business goals and personal values to create a fulfilling and balanced work life.

Episode Highlights:

  • The primary motivations for starting a business: vision, passion, and lifestyle.
  • The disconnect between initial dreams and the day-to-day reality of running a business.
  • The importance of redefining success to align with personal values and lifestyle choices.
  • Challenging traditional business beliefs and exploring the concept of 'outrageous opposites.'
  • Practical steps for reassessing business rules and creating a more balanced, fulfilling work environment.

Learn more about Nicky and Ness https://businesstogether.com.au

Buy a copy of Healthy Hustle: The New Blueprint to Thrive in Business & Life www.healthyhustle.com.au

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Instagram - @b2businesstogether
Facebook - @B2BusinessTogether

Connect on LinkedIn
Nicky LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/connectwithnicky/
Ness LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessamedling/

Give us a call
Nicky Miklos-Woodley 0403 191 404
Vanessa (Ness) Medling 0400 226 875

Or send us an email hello@businesstogether.com.au

Music by Jules Miklos-Woodley

Nicky:

Welcome to the Smart Business Growth Podcast with Nikki and Ness.

Ness:

We would like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of country, the Turrbal and Bunurong people of Brisbane and Melbourne respectively, where Nikki and I both work and live.

Nicky:

So, ness, as we've talked about previously, but for those of you who have missed it, we know that the research shows there's three main reasons that people actually start their business. They have a dream, a vision that they want to bring to life, a passion, or perhaps it's a lifestyle choice. They're sick of being somebody else's lackey. They want to be their own boss. They don't want the day job anymore. They want more time or option of time with family, or they really have seen that there's a better way of doing it out in the market. They want to create the impact because they know that they can do it better than what's out there. But we also know the reality through talking to business owners, through working with CEOs, leaders, business owners, through working with CEOs, leaders, business owners, directors, et cetera, that the reality is often untrue. The reason they went into business doesn't become their day-to-day. Instead of having more time with family, they have less. They have a day job with less pay and less time. That's what the business has turned into. They've forgotten or disconnected from the vision or the why, and they might still be making that impact and doing it as better or as good as people competitors out there, but that real driving factor for why we go into business can be lost, and I think what's really important about revisiting this and having this conversation is that we need to redefine what success looks like.

Nicky:

I wonder how many of us have just fallen in by default around what we've been told by society or those that have gone before us about what a successful business actually looks like. It's just become default, and Ness and I really want to pop the pause button for those of you that are listening and our viewers to say hold on a second. Have you consciously taken a moment to really think about what does a successful business look like for me? Because the reality is that when you're in early days of business, the four-hour workweek is a myth. But when you're established in business, like you are, and you have a team and you have the systems, and you've got team and you have the systems, and you've got a culture that's thriving and you've got the operating rhythms to support that, actually the four-hour work week could become a reality for you and it can connect you back to those other reasons that you went into business. Ness, what's your two cents here?

Ness:

It's really interesting. It just comes off the back of a coaching session that I've had today, which is just exactly that, but for a leader, not necessarily a business owner around how do you define success when going for a job? So, when you apply for something, what are your success measures? Is it getting the job? You fail if you don't. But what about all the other things that you do along the way? And I think this really applies in business as well, because one of the examples I shared was around, say, a particular dollar amount that you want to hit in revenue, and when we start to tie ourselves into this belief that unless I get that particular dollar amount, then I failed or I'm not good enough or just all that stuff that comes into your head, we've really got to step back and go. What happens if it was $500 under target? Did you still fail? It's that kind of thing around this, challenging the beliefs, and I think that it works really well, because when we start a business, there are like gosh.

Ness:

I remember reading that four-hour workweek book and feeling like a complete loser because it just seemed so impossible. Now, four-hour workweek isn't my goal, however. Now what I see in that is it gets you thinking about how things could be done differently. It's like saying to a business owner act as if you're going to sell this business in five years' time. What must you do between now and then to get it to a point where it's worthy of someone coming along and paying a lot of money to you to buy it? Imagine if you worked like that, with no intention of selling, and therefore you are creating the business that's going to be profitable for you to be in it, that someone else would want to buy, but maybe you don't want to do it.

Ness:

So the four-hour workweek, I think asking ourselves a question around. Okay, what happens if it was a reality? What would I do differently? What decisions would I make? How would I approach my day-to-day work? Would I be more focused if I knew I could only work for four hours a week? So it's really saying what are the belief systems that you have around business? How could you like? A lot of people think they can't. They have to double the effort in order to be able to double the income, for example. What happens if it was less effort for double results? Let's just really start to shake things up and look at something that is completely opposite to what you believe. Just to get you thinking differently, because I think we can get stuck. We get stuck because we don't stop to question our beliefs.

Nicky:

Yeah, and even what you said there around four hour work week is not my goal, and for some people it might be, for others it's not. And even to sell the business exactly what you said around that might not be my goal to sell the business but I think the lesson or the insight to take here is that it's having a business, as you said, that could be saleable, that is going to for really good money if you choose to do that it's. You could work four hours if you choose to do that. Because even if you set up the business, say, for a four hour working week, then you can still do other cool things with that time that are in the business. Actually, what it does is it untethers you from the day-to-day whirlwind so you can step into the place of your own genius zone.

Nicky:

We've talked with business owners that want to step out of the day-to-day whirlwind because there's other things that they can be doing that now excite them more. Another thing I see a lot is that at first, a lot of things about the business are really exciting, but we actually need to create a business that's boring because it's got processes. Success is replicable. So if you, as the business owner or senior leader are looking for excitement within the day-to-day whirlwind of the business. You're actually not setting your business up to fail. Get the structure happening, get the routine, get the right people in place so you can step back and you can find the thing that's exciting for you, for your next, whatever that is, albeit within the same business starting a new business. Some people will step into more consulting roles or different things. There's no rules here, and I think that's probably one of the big messages is that there are no rules. You get to create your own, but oftentimes what happens is so how do I even do that? Because I don't even know where to start.

Ness:

I think the other thing is we defend so valiantly what we do If we have a belief system around that. I think of it in a corporate setting, like every single team member that I've ever worked with will say we need more staff. Nobody says, actually I think we could lose a few staff in here and do better. It's a belief system, right. We've got to challenge the conventional way of thinking and so I think it's all the reasons, the excuses that I would have I could. I can't do a four hour work week because everything that comes after because is your belief around why that won't work and we've got to really start to challenge that and that can feel really uncomfortable.

Nicky:

So that's probably a really good action to take already is again whether you want to do a four hour work week or not. That's not the point. But if you finish that sentence, what comes up for you because they're the areas of your business that you want to work on to make sure that you've got flexibility, you've got choice of where you spend your time, and we often talk about the fact that in the early days we are doubling the effort for half the reward. If you think back to early days in business, it's a slog. We've got to hustle all of that and it's very easy to stay in that space If you don't pop this pause button and take a moment to go hold up. Do I need to be in the business as much as I am? What can change now? Because oftentimes, as a business owner, we play many roles, but we don't have to play as many as we did in the early days. That's one of the benefits of expanding and growing our business and being an established business.

Nicky:

And yet it's really easy to just keep going with the status quo rather than actually doing a bit of a circuit breaker to go. Do I still need to do that or do I have someone else in my team that can do it? Or someone else I can outsource it even if they're not in my team right now? And the exciting thing about being in business or one of the exciting things I think about being in business today, in 2024, we have so many tools available to us. A coaching session I was just in this morning was around. How can I be more time efficient? I need to do the same Again. It was with the leader, same outcome, with half the time. Okay, what are the tools that you, how can you replicate, automate? What are the tools you can use to shorten time? It was like whoa, these things are easy to do and right in front of me. I didn't even think of. It is what the leader said to me. So, again, it's challenging thinking.

Nicky:

Do the Smart Growth Survey in under 60 seconds to get your hands on our Smart Growth Blueprint. You'll get immediate access to our four favorite strategies for sales, profit planning and team and you'll identify which phase of smart growth your business is currently in, whether it's crisis, build growth or momentum mode, so that you can move your way to the next phase with ease. All you have to do is click the link in the show notes. So, ness, why don't we have a bit of a brainstorm to help? There's this concept of outrageous opposites and a shout out to Donna McGeorge and Mari Burgess, who first shared this concept with me earlier in the year, and it's really been percolating for me since then. And the outrageous opposite is all about looking at what is the maybe we say the belief, the norm, what we believe to be true for a CEO, director, leader, business owner, whatever role you're in, whoever you are listening, but first of all, understanding what is my belief of success. So even the leader you were talking to, ness, what was their perception of success? So we'll brainstorm some ideas to get the listeners and viewers going, and then the idea is to match or look at what the outrageous opposite could be, no matter if we think it could be true or not.

Nicky:

That's not the point here. We're going to get out our big magic wands people. So we're going to ideation, visionary exploration, curiosity mode. With this, put the lineal black and white thinking to the side for the next five to 10 minutes or so. Can we do that? I think so. Let's take up the challenge. I love it. So, on your behalf, we're saying yes. What are some typical norms or go-to unconscious biases where leaders, business owners, what they think success is? What are some of the typical ones?

Ness:

Ness, I think of the hustle culture ones. The hustle culture says get up at 5am, go to the gym, do a workout and then I don't know read a book and do all this stuff and so that you can be ready and starting work at 7am in the morning. That would be one.

Nicky:

Definitely. And I also want to say here we're not saying don't do a 5am start. What we're saying is that definitely works for some people and it definitely does not work for others. There's a whole actually epigenetics piece around this, but that's a different conversation. But the reason I bring that up it's actually understanding how do I thrive as a human being and what does my business need? And Vanessa and I we ain't that 5am club type. But again, it's not about dissing on that if it's right for you.

Nicky:

The problem is the expectation has landed across the board. There's this generalization that you've got to be in the 5am club, otherwise you're going to fail. No, actually that is complete BS. If that works for you, rock on, Awesome, we are here cheering you on. And if it doesn't, what could be the outrageously opposite In our business? I don't start work till 10am and I definitely get up, not at 5am. That works for me. That's how I'm wired. There's other peak times of the day where I can go to the gym or dance or read a book or whatever it might be, and that's the thing that we found with our clients as well, and yet there's this box that they feel they need to sit in.

Ness:

Well, for me it's that whole, especially starting my own business, I still have the corporate mindset of you work from nine till five and in some ways it's nice to have that sort of cut off, although I usually work later than that because I start later than that. So it's always that whole thing You've got to fit into a box wherever you work, and I think what COVID helped is to create some flexibility around that, to understand sorry that people, for example, who go for a walk in the middle of the day can actually be more productive in the afternoon than if they're sitting down at a desk all day long. So that's almost. I really think it threw in some outrageous opposite thinking, because so many clients that we work with I don't know about you, nikki, but clients that I worked with in the past wanted to see a coach face-to-face. They didn't want to do online in the past wanted to see a coach face-to-face. They didn't want to do online.

Ness:

Even in our family we were all apart and so we would do Zoom catch-ups, or my girlfriends and I would do Zoom catch-ups. And why didn't we do this? I think we did that for Mother's Day one year when we were all in lockdown and we go. Why don't we do this every year? Because I didn't live near where my mum lived, so it's really shaking up that belief system around. I've got to work how many hours a day? And for some people who own businesses or are senior leaders in business, that extends into the weekend, like they can't see a whole day. They don't believe they're being productive if they take that whole day off.

Nicky:

Oh, I had a conversation with somebody recently about taking naps in the middle of the day. There's a really good on the Calm app. There's a really good nap sleep story and it wakes you up at 26 minutes, not seconds, like I think it's Albert Einstein. There's a whole bunch of people that are known for taking naps for the same reason. When you talked about the walk, that reminded me of that. That is an outrageous opposite.

Ness:

It is.

Nicky:

We had a nap in the middle of the day or went for a walk in the middle of the day If we prioritized life and self-care as much as business. I also read an article recently about this that there might be this move to remove working hours overall. But I remember, ness, you were telling me about a client we were working with and in one of your coaching sessions in our early days of business together she was. I know I really like to work on Sundays to get the week sorted, but I can't. I shouldn't be doing that shooting all over ourselves. Do you want to share that? I think that's another really good example.

Ness:

Absolutely so. She liked to spend the weekend with her family, but on a Sunday evening she wanted to go in and prep her week. And exactly what you said it was like but I shouldn't be working on a Sunday because I need work-life balance and it's time away from the family. And when we worked through that, she realized that actually it helped to be more present with the family because she knew she had that time on a Sunday evening to prep for the week and otherwise she would go into the week feeling stressed and behind. So this is a perfect example around. You've got to check in and make sure it works for you.

Ness:

Now, she felt, because she had the rest of the weekend to be fully present. That was fine by her, but the rhetoric out there is work-life balance means you can't work at night, you can't work on a weekend. We don't. That's not what we want to do. But for her it really worked. For her, it actually then became something that she celebrated and her family would leave her alone and they loved it because she was able to do things with them for the rest of the weekend without constantly thinking about oh, on Monday, I've got to remember to do this.

Nicky:

Yeah, that release of guilt in that permission to set your own rules. Who says Now again, boundaries are really important in this? If it was, I'm working all weekend, yeah, that's a different story. Or I'm working all weekend and during the week. Maybe you do want to do more hours on the weekend because you want some time during the week. The big thing here the outrageously opposite to say the nine to five or the eight to 7pm, let's face it is what does that look like for you? Nobody sets these rules. There's nobody that was saying to her you must not work on a Sunday. Yet there's guilt. She's carrying around that. So as long as it's within boundaries and there's a give and take, there's a balance, then we make our own rules up.

Nicky:

A classic, another classic, would be this whole revenue versus profit. If you've got a $10 million, you've got 10 million revenue. So what? I think a big question here for everybody, including ourselves and everybody listening and watching to ask is for what purpose? So I'm getting up at 5am? For what purpose Does that work for me? Great, yes, it does. Keep it. I'm working on a Sunday. For what purpose? It doesn't work for me. Don't do it, Change it. That's not the rule you want. I've got 10 million revenue Amazing, so what? Because what's the factor that we need to make sure that it's in place? Profit.

Ness:

We want to make sure that there's a healthy profit balance in there, and so I think that's the, especially in the entrepreneurial space you hear about. Look at me driving my jet plane and working four hours a week and making millions of dollars and you go. Are you? Are you really that whole thing? Must we aspire to something that isn't realistic? And I think sometimes we do look at what other people have and think that have externally like the big, the expensive car, the expensive house and all that kind of stuff and I have to have that, and the reality is just like profit in a business, there could be a lot of debt there and actually not a lot of equity in those assets.

Ness:

So really we're working on a profit goal and we often talk to our clients around, like you just said, for what purpose? Like, why do you want that income? Because we know that the vision that we set for the business which includes what we want to achieve, what impact we want to make, what kind of money we want to make has to support the vision that we have for ourselves. So if we have a lifestyle vision about spending time with our family or providing opportunities for our family, and then we go and work ourselves into the ground and never see our family, just so that we can earn the $10 million turnover and maybe 50 grand profit like. For what purpose are we doing this? So it's really stepping back and reconnecting in to exactly what you said what works for me? Can I create a business that works for me?

Ness:

And I think it would be over a year ago now, nick, that you and I decided we'd throw in Friday RDOs every two weeks, and I don't know why we didn't do that before then, because we have just made that work through times where we've had a lot, on times where things have been a bit more quiet, we've always made that work through times where we've had a lot, on times where things have been a bit more quiet, we've always made that work and even to the point where, if we are traveling or we've got something else on, on the rare occasions that we have an idea, we swap them. So that is purely a mindset shift, because it actually hasn't had an impact on the level of work that we've been able to sustain and the level of income and profit we've been able to make.

Nicky:

Yeah, and I think so that's another really good one to have on the list working hours or working days, and there's again a lot of conversation around moving to four-day working weeks or nine-day fortnights. There's conversation around then having longer days, four days, and having the day off. But again I want to challenge around what if you worked the four days normal hours and then had the day off? Because the thing that we want you to think about here is not yet how would I do it, but to challenge yourself, to think what could that outrageously opposite be? What would it look like if I worked four days a week or nine days a fortnight, as in is that something that I would want? What would I do with that extra day? And then you can start to look at actually how would I do it, because reality is that a lot of the times there's solutions for these new scenarios that we've never considered, because we haven't considered the goal that we want to achieve, which could be a 10 am start, a four-day working week, a lower revenue with higher profit, or same revenue with higher profit. Let's go there.

Nicky:

But then that rolls onto even things like the size of our team. We know a lot of our audience. You've got again probably around that five, two to five plus mil. You've got a team. When was the last time you thought about the makeup of that team? Do they all need to be full-time? Do they all need to be working in an office? A big, outrageous opposite since COVID has been. Do we need a bricks and mortar building or can we have a more flexible workforce? These are the types of things that we want you to start thinking about, those that we've listed that are relevant to you, and add to that list to really challenge. Am I doing it this way because it's right for me, it's right for the business, it's right for my clients and my team, or are you doing it that way because it just is?

Ness:

Yep, yep, that's so good, nikki. I guess we're leading into it around this. Once we've identified what it is our belief system is, what our rules of play are within business, it's almost like time to grab a magic wand and just create something completely different. So what do you suggest we do? If people are starting to resonate with some of this and going why the hell do I do that? Why, why don't I have a Friday off? Why am I working on a weekend? That kind of thing? What do you think the next step is?

Nicky:

Look. I think that the next step is for those of you that are really resonating with this conversation grab a pen and paper, go old school, grab that magic wand. What we mean by that is, if we had a magic wand and anything could be the truth. Make sure you have that wand handy. You're going to start on the left side of the page, right, anywhere from five, minimum five go up to 10. Rules that you believe about success in your business or in your role right now, ie 5am club, big team, the turnover, whatever that.

Nicky:

You might've heard some things that resonated and add to it. So what you believe to be true up until this point in time, whether it's your reality. It so what you believe to be true up until this point in time, whether it's your reality or not, what you believe success looks like. Then, on the right-hand side, I want you to actually write down what and this is where you pick up that magic wand what could be the outrageously opposite? I'm working six days a week. The outrageously opposite could be I work three days a week as an example.

Nicky:

Don't worry if you don't believe it right now, because you probably won't because, it's not in your world of reality, but you want to come up with what that outrageously opposite is for each of those items. So let's say you've got five rules you believe around success right now, and then you'll have five outrageously opposites. That's when you can start to go. Okay, what's the one that might have the biggest impact in my life right now? And maybe it's around working hours, maybe it's around size of team, maybe it's around your personal routine outside of hours. Whatever that is, think about the one that will have the biggest impact. And that's where you can start going. Okay, what if I could make this a reality? What would need to happen? And you could even ask that question that you asked earlier reframe it so I can't work three days a week because there we go, so I can't X because? And see what the answer is. Because that answer is the thing you need to work on to be able to achieve that outrageous opposite.

Ness:

I love that and within that I think there's scope for maybe the three days is really outrageous, but you realized actually I can work four or five and you've already reduced a down from what your belief system is, what you don't necessarily want. Yeah, I love that.

Nicky:

So what's the stepping stone? We've got a client who's currently doing nine day fortnights. His goal for the next quarter is to be doing four-day. Bring it back down to four-day weeks, but don't allow that to limit. When you're first coming up with the outrageous opposite, that's when you're looking at how can I achieve this? What if it could be a reality? So goodness, let us know what your outrageous opposite is Let us know what your commitment is and just start with one.

Nicky:

Start to challenge your thinking. Is this my conscious thought and definition, or is this just something that I've gone along with for status quo? That's the starting point. It's amazing.

Ness:

So that's your action, actionable action within the next 24 hours, and we trust that you go well with that and, like Nikki said, we'd love you to let us know what did you do that was outrageously opposite to what you were thinking or doing in the past. You do that was outrageously opposite to what you were thinking or doing in the past. Thanks for listening everyone. Thanks for listening to today's ep. If you loved what you heard, connect with us over on LinkedIn and let's continue the conversation over there.

Ness:

Nicky and I are obsessed with helping businesses install smart business growth strategies and leveraging people leadership for peak performance and leveraging people leadership for peak performance. We bring two business minds and two perspectives into your business, and our number one goal is to make sure that your business is thriving, your team are thriving and you are thriving. We offer a 30-day business diagnostic, taking you from chaos to clarity in just 30 days. Are you curious to find out more? Send us an email or go old school and give us a call. Until next time, happy listening and here's to thriving in business and in life.