Stress, Work and Pleasure Whats the Right Balance- By Dan Cavalli

The catch cry of most business owners or executives is, "I work more than 60 hours a week" or more to the point, they say with pride, "Success comes from hard work and lots of it".

All rubbish! These words have been taken out of context.

I will share with you, what is in fact, the truth and what is egotistical baloney. It will enable you to view success in business from another perspective. You will be able to work within normal working hours and still be able to perform miracles in your business.

 
Sure, successful people do work long and hard and sometimes at the cost of family, social and personal relationships. This is their choice.

I know many people who:
Work for wages and who work more than 35 hours week. Even single parents dedicate long hours to their very important role.

TIP: Hard work being associated with success is a myth doesn't believe it.

There are two very strong opposing views about working long hours in order to claim it contributes to success.

First view is:
That hard work alone will ensure a successful profitable business.  According to a survey, as reported by All Business, conducted by The New York Enterprise Report, a regional small business magazine, small business owners said they work at least 50 hours a week.

Of those polled, 33 percent reported working more than 50 hours per week, while 25 percent said they work more than 60 hours a week. 70 percent said they work at least one weekend a month.

Second view:
Which is on the left field side is if a person can be a success and manage their time will enough to spend weekends with their family or is able to manage their time to enable them to pick up their kids from school is leading a more balanced personal and business life.

Seeing this more relaxed life, they themselves and others may perceive that they aren't working hard enough and they become suspect in theirs and others eyes.

If successful business owners were to answer truthfully, most would list success factors as sense of timing, ability to recognise an opportunity, receive help from people they know and of course luck.

To say arriving at work early and staying until late will ensure success, is like saying that every postman can be a Howard Hughes. There is a prevailing thought that sweat is obligatory for success and with each drop an executive moves a little closer to financial heaven.

Ricardo Semler, owner of the worlds' most unusual work place said he had to rid himself of this notion before he took his company from one that wasn't even known to one of the world's most famous businesses. 

Make no mistake about it. According to many experts having control and flexibility over your workload makes it easier to deal with stress.

The solution is not the number of hours worked that will give you success it is the accomplishment of building a business model and completing its elements in a certain time frame.

There are about 20 elements that must be carried out to build a successful and profitable business.

TIP: Completing those elements and building the model to support those elements to operate without you is the key.

Knowing this, you can plan your projects around the time it takes to build each and every element to make it functional. Once it is set up, the business should be able to work without your input.

Each business I have started I chose to work the 15-hour days for short periods in order to set up the elements in the model.

Once they were set up, the job was done. Now I only work in the business for a few hours a week. You can work 20 hours a day for a short time then take a few weeks off if you like. Or you can spread the work over a longer period of time to give you free time on a daily basis.

It is your choice. This mindset is what will give the successful business owner or executive the flexibility to move. Let's not hear any more whinging business owners saying it takes hard work.  That will only show others that they haven't mastered the art of building their business with balance.

To understand more about the life cycle of a business and the stages that a business goes through I recommend you read The Right business Model under articles in this site.

Dan Cavalli
dan@commandobusiness.com


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