When I start working with a founder or CEO, the first thing I hear is often something like, “I’m not sure I can do this right now. I’m crazy busy.”
Sometimes, there are events that can’t be avoided—
—A capital raise
—A sale
—An IPO
I have a client who just completed the process of selling her business and another one who is just starting that process. These things can feel like a death march, but of course there is a reward at the end and most people at least will say the reward is worth the punishment along the way.
But if you are feeling that in the day-to-day operation of your business, if your normal operating mode is “crazy busy,” I have good news for you.
It doesn’t have to be that way.
The Real Reason You Feel Crazy Busy
I notice that whenever I feel too busy, or whenever a client feels too busy, I can get them to focus in just a minute or two.
All we have to do is breathe together.
Slowing down for just a minute or two, taking a few deep breaths from your belly and letting them go, does a profound reset of your nervous system.
And it points out a fundamental fact—
You feel busy because your mind is racing.
Not the other way around.
When you are able to slow down your thinking, it becomes clear what you need to do next. And you never need to know more than the next thing to do.
Noticing when your mind is racing, and breathing a couple minutes in response, is transformational in and of itself. But there are other habits and practices that can create even more space, time, and perspective.
Habits That Create More Time Than They Take
In one sense, time is a construct and the feeing of being busy is merely a recognition that we are thinking a lot of repetitive thoughts. That our mental engine is redlining, and if we take the foot off the mental accelerator it will naturally slow down.
But in another sense time is one hundred percent finite and limited and using it wisely is essential.
Breathing can open up our capacity to intuit one essential next step.
And there are several other habits that have the seemingly magical quality of creating more time than the take.
Meditation, Exercise, and Sleep
I call sleep the magical elixir. Nothing has a more profound impact on me than getting enough good sleep.
When you get enough sleep the world looks like it has your back. You feel strong and powerful. Seemingly magic coincidences fall into place.
When you don’t, you feel frazzled and overwhelmed. You barely make it through the day. You wonder why you are doing what you do, day after day after day.
LeBron James gets 10 hours of sleep a day, including a nap. And he is performing like no other NBA player has at his age, night after night.
Meditation is like a 15 minute power nap. Exercise has the same impact.
If I have all three consistently, I get more done in 20 hours than I get done in 60 when I’m depleted.
Are you telling me you don’t have time for them? You don’t have time NOT to do them.
Teaching, Delegation, and Leading
When you are the leader, every interaction with one of your people is an opportunity to teach.
I had a client who led a sales organization and her people were constantly asking for help. Can you find me this RFP? What is our process for this? Etc. etc.
When she took five minutes to point out where her people could find things, they started doing it themselves.
The investment of that five minutes of time paid back a hundred times.
She discovered that when she stopped helping people, when they started figuring things out for themselves, it freed up 20 hours a week for her.
Which she used to create another job, at the same organization, that was more aligned to her long term interests and values.
Everything you teach creates an opportunity to delegate.
Leading can be harder but is even more powerful.
When you lead, you focus on the result of your team’s effort, not how they got there.
You are not teaching how, you are pointing where.
This is the goal. This is how we will measure whether you attained the goal.
Leading is true leverage. Yet it requires a giving up of control that is incredibly difficult for many people. Especially founders who have been rewarded for being the smartest person in the room for much of their lives.
Teaching, delegation, and leading are as powerful in the outer world as meditation, exercise and sleep are in the inner world.
Want more time? Want more freedom? These six practices will get you there.
Does That Resonate?
Does any of that resonate with you?
If so, reach out to me and I’ll send you a special video that goes even deeper.
More and more founders like you are coming out of the spiritual closet and seeing their work as a vital personal journey to both abundance and meaning.
This is what I write about. For founders, for original thinkers, no matter where they are in their transformation.
The world needs YOU, in all your brilliance and imperfection.
If you are a founder wanting to scale and sell your company, there are three shifts in identity that can help you do so with twice the impact and half the stress. Take a look at this video.
If you want to build a coaching business where you get to be yourself, help amazing people, and replace your corporate income in the process, here’s a video where I share the top three mistakes I see coaches make when trying to build a sustainable business—
http://bit.ly/creatingextraordinarycoaches
You can subscribe to my YouTube channel here.
You can follow me on LinkedIn to make sure you never miss a post by hitting the bell on my profile.
If you want to subscribe to this Creating Extraordinary Futures newsletter, you can do so here.
Leave a Reply