The 75 hour week

Guilt was the feeling

The overwhelming thought was that I should be working and of course I wasn’t.

On this occasion I was picking up a book. Not just any book. A fiction book. THAT was the opposite of work.

The guilt didn’t just come when reading though.

It would also come when seeing friends, playing with the kids, writing, exercising, going for walks, exploring. Doing anything I loved to do just for the doing had me clock watching.

It had me clock watching because I was armed with the belief that time not working on or in the business was time not contributing to the success of the business.

Enter the move to Denmark - 3 businesses closed down and I had just 1 left. I took 6 months to think, to decompress and to catch up with myself.

I had friends to visit every month. I started reading, exploring, exercising more, writing more. I planned many trips to Gilleleje and France. I picked up or dropped off the girls every day.

I basically did all of the things I wanted to do but felt I couldn’t. I needed to be hustling.

During that time become more relaxed, calmer, more present with people, I had more energy and I was better at solving problems and had more patience.

Life became more simple...

Of course it did, I was hardly working.

But I wanted to test this further. I knew that from a nervous system perspective health was about who I was being not what I was doing.

If I want to digest more food properly I need to be in the parasympathetic nervous system and if I want to fall asleep I need the same. 

Pressure, real or imagined causes problems for both systems.

The connection I hadn’t fully made was that the same was true of showing up and the best version of myself. 

When I was being guided by simplicity, clarity and joy and energy because I was living my best life... My business started to leap forward in ways I had never experienced before. Certainly not without grind and hustle.

We all know that good strategy is the system we need for success. The better the strategy and the implementation of that strategy the better the result.

What slips our mind is that the best strategy there is is showing up as the best version of ourselves.

It bends time in a way that getting stuff done just cannot, it moves our goals from 5 years to 2 year.

It’s one of those truths that we all know but fail to give enough weight.

We love to spend time with people that make us better thinkers. We love to spend time with those who inspire us and give us energy. 

It is better thinkers that are inspired and energised that solve problems to the best of their ability.

This isn’t an anti hard work message, far from it. It is a message that says if we can find and implement the ingredients that allow us to be our best, life not only becomes more rewarding, we become more successful too.

Ed Ley

Ps if you would like help with this I have space for just 3 new people on my programme this month just send me and email ed@edley.net