By the end of 2007, I was in the best place of my personal and professional life. My commissioning company had grown from one truck, one employee, one service, and one client — to I can’t remember how many trucks, almost fifty employees, over a dozen services, and national coverage for several clients while we focused on the eastern US for the rest. We bought a house in the neighborhood of our dreams, and while we didn’t know it we were about to grow are little family to a point where we no longer had a “spare” room.
At the beginning of 2008, everything changed. The economy was getting worse, but we still felt safe because our customer base (mainly grocery and big box retail) had historically been recession proof. That feeling quickly dissolved one Tuesday afternoon as I received phone calls from our three largest customers. Each one informed me their construction programs were on an indefinite pause, and in less than an hour we lost half our business. Then, while we were on vacation celebrating the news that a new daughter was on the way, our house burned down. I was now tasked with rebuilding both our home and our business.
To say I was putting in the hours was an understatement. A typical day involved me arriving at the office around 6:00 am and finishing up a bit of flooring or custom cabinetry in our home around midnight. But I thrive in chaos, and at the time I felt like I was in my zone. For eleven months in 2008, I pushed myself to accomplish more than I ever had, and it was working. The house was coming together, our business was back on track, and our family was growing. It felt good, and the positive comments from friends and colleagues weren’t exactly damaging my ego.
Every single day, I pushed myself to the limit. With all the good things happening, my sense of accomplishment was thru the roof. There was no reason to slow down, but the Thanksgiving holiday forced my hand. Our tradition of Thanksgiving Eve drinks with old friends was the beginning of the change. Because of those drinks, we continued our Thanksgiving day tradition of sleeping a bit late (we had a five-year-old so sleeping late as 8 am, but it was still glorious). As the day progressed, I thought of all the things I could be doing instead of enjoying the time around our friends and family. By the end of the day, I was feeling a bit off. The next morning, a little more off. By that evening, I was in the emergency room.
I was making good the enemy of great. We had good ideas in 2008 and 2009 that saved our company. But, in 2010, when I actually allowed us to slow down enough so our brains could take a break to process things, we had great ideas that forever changed our company. That year we created the first punch list tool for the iPad, worked with contractors all over the world on their construction tech strategy, opened the first mobile development shop for the construction industry, ended up being profiled by Apple, and I became one of Engineering News Records Top 25 Newsmakers in the world.never let up. If I wasn’t in that hospital room, I could have been installing that crown molding in the basement, lining up new clients for our commissioning company, or marketing our mobile applications. I was driving myself and everyone around me a bit crazy.
If this sounds like the part where I learned my lesson, it’s not. I was down until the New Year. By the end of January, I was once again pushing myself to the limit each day. As a result, just before Christmas Eve in 2009, I was right back in the ER. For two years I tried an alternative way of working, achieved amazing results, and put myself in a dangerous medical situation (not to mention the negative effects on my family and personal life). I was nervous about taking a break, but it was obvious I had to do it. I forced myself to slow down, take time to rest and recover, and I was prepared to watch productivity drop.
But it didn’t. It improved. My “personal” productivity didn’t improve. I was doing less. But productivity around the projects at work and at home improved. Productivity in my personal relationships improved as well (poor word choice there, but you get the point). I was spending less time doing and more time planning, delegating, and enjoying the company of those around me. The extra planning reduced mistakes, the extra delegation meant more projects were in motion at one time, and the extra time with friends and family — that was paying off more than anything.
We weren’t just more productive. We were more successful as well. I had set a poor example for my team for two years, and they noticed. Now I was trying to set a better example, and they noticed that as well. They were watching our company accomplish more, and they could take the time to enjoy it. People were happy, and it motivated them in ways I had never seen before. This is the period in which we produced some of our best ideas, and almost all of them came from the down time.
Today, I’m still a workaholic. But I get away with it because I focus my efforts on different things. Those two years taught me several valuable lessons that still motivate me to this day.
- My team needed to see me take a break. When I was pushing myself, I was setting a terrible example. When they mimicked my behavior, it created a scenario where my actions were damaging their personal lives as much as my own. Today, I set a different example. I take time off, and I’m vocal about it. I openly discuss how great it felt to slow down for a bit, how energized I felt upon my return, and the ideas I was able to work thru during the downtime.
- My family needed me to work as hard for them as I was at the office. They understood that I was putting in all those hours “for” them, but if I was never “with” them then why did it matter? I set boundaries between my business and personal time, and I discussed them with my family and the office. As a result, on the rare occasion that I needed to make an exception in either direction, both sides understood.
- I was ignorant of the fact that every saving comes with an additional cost. Sure, the work I did rebuilding our home was saving us money. But, it was costing me important time with my friends and family. My marriage suffered, as did several strong friendships. Now when I think of taking on a large task at home or at work, I consider the value of that task vs the value of my time. If paying a contractor means I get to spend an unforgettable afternoon with my kids, then I consider that money well spent. If delegating that task means I can work on something even more valuable for the company, I have to delegate or I’m costing the company money.
- I was making good the enemy of great. We had good ideas in 2008 and 2009 that saved our company. But, in 2010, when I actually allowed us to slow down enough so our brains could take a break to process things, we had great ideas that forever changed our company. That year we created the first punch list tool for the iPad, worked with contractors all over the world on their construction tech strategy, opened the first mobile development shop for the construction industry, ended up being profiled by Apple, and I became one of Engineering News Records top 25 Newsmakers in the world.
While it’s true that the amount of work an entrepreneur puts in will be key to their success, the law of diminishing returns is also true. I encourage you to take time to relax this holiday season, especially after all the additional stress 2020 has provided us. Eat breakfast with your family as much as you can, pet your dog more, take long walks, and sleep in a bit. In order to set a good example, I’ll be slowing down a bit here at the Blue Collar Business School as well. The podcast is on a temporary hiatus while we review all the great feedback we’ve received and decide what changes we’ll be making to the format. The weekly newsletter won’t be weekly in December. Instead, we will send out what we have time to put together—after we’ve taken a bit of time for ourselves. I hope you do the same before you read it.
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