What if someone told you that the best way to grow your business is to work less and have more free time? It doesn’t sound possible if you follow the business model of most North Americans. My guest today has turned that business model upside down, and she’s proving that success and contentment are possible through working fewer hours each week. Today’s show is about maximizing productivity and efficiency, along with prioritizing free time, family, and the things that matter most in life.
Denise Gosnell is an internationally – recognized author, speaker, coach, attorney, and entrepreneur. She can teach you how to grow your business by subtracting and not by adding more to your to-do list. She calls it the Vacation Effect, which brings together business strategy, productivity hacking, lifestyle design, and business growth to enable busy entrepreneurs and leaders to work less, make more money, and have a lot more free time. In this episode, Denise shares how she used to work 70 – 80 hours each week until a life-changing house fire made her realize she was doing things all wrong. She then made it her mission to learn how to keep growing her companies while working less. Today, Denise uses this and other powerful strategies to run her three different companies in three different industries by working just three days each week!
The five minutes that changed everything
A life-changing moment occurred on June 20, 2011, when Denise’s house was struck by lightning and set on fire. A fireman appeared at the front door and asked which items Denise wanted them to save within the next five minutes before everything else would be ruined by fire and water. Instead of wanting to save the items with the most monetary value, Denise chose to rescue the things that held the greatest sentimental value. The revelation that hit her like a tidal wave was that she was spending her life working 80 hours each week to pay for stuff that she didn’t even care about as her house was burning. She vowed that she would no longer live her life doing work she hated and that she would figure out how to have nice things but also have more free time.
The Vacation Effect
The question for Denise was, “How do I have plenty of money and plenty of free time?” By accident, she stumbled upon the solution as she headed to a meditation retreat. The answer that came to her was that she needed to make today what she wanted tomorrow to be. It started with an experiment to try out her Tuesday/Thursday schedule, which gave her two days of freedom each week, sandwiched between Monday/Wednesday/Friday workdays. The Vacation Effect name came from the forced hyper-efficiency we all employ to get massive amounts of work done as we prepare for a vacation. What if we worked with that mindset on every workday? The second part of the Vacation Effect principle is that you can have joy every week, just like you do on vacation. Denise realized where she was wasting time and just how brainwashed we are by the North American business culture of having to work ourselves to death. With creativity and productivity, she learned how to accomplish as much in three workdays as she used to do in six.
How Denise uses her freedom days
With her Tuesday/Thursday freedom days, Denise focuses on the things she loves to do. Some of her time is spent at the salon so she can have the straight, beautiful hair that she loves. Other outings may include shopping or visiting a bookstore, friend, or family member. She doesn’t plan ahead of time for these days but does the things that bring her joy. She might go for a walk, work out, take a class, or do art. In case of emergency with one of her clients, Denise carves out a two – hour emergency buffer on each freedom day to handle those issues. She’s learned to give herself permission to step into her own freedom, and she’s a happier person for doing it.
Who can use the Vacation Effect?
Denise says the Vacation Effect can work for anyone, but the principles have to be customized to your lifestyle and your job. Even if you can’t make the three – day week work for you, you can still find your own hyper-efficient and happy sweet spot. Denise uses her version as an example and then works with her clients to find an adapted style that works best for each individual.
Why the Vacation Effect works
Working smarter is better than working harder in almost every circumstance. Finding a way to think outside the box and get things done faster is better than working yourself to death. Being hyper-efficient takes effort to learn to hack the hack. Denise employs these hacks to focus on what absolutely needs to get done each day, realizing that 80% of most of our efforts produce about 20% of the results. Her purpose is to reverse that statistic so that 20% of her efforts produce 80% of her results. We have to realize that our tasks in the trenches won’t all be things we love to do, but we need to focus on the top one or two tasks that bring the most productivity.
How to become hyper-efficient
Becoming hyper-efficient requires that you know how to delegate to your team effectively. You also have to learn to outsource some essential tasks. Denise runs a 24/7 operation with team members in the US and the Philippines. Because of this technique, she can expect work to be done within the hour, every day, around the clock. Having these three team members has been a huge accelerator for her business that costs her less than $1000 each month. Denise says that it’s a big relief to task something before she goes to bed and knows that it will be completed by the time she wakes up. Another component of her system that most people lack is to have highly documented policies and procedures in place. This means that no one employee can leave you in the lurch, because anyone can step in and follow the detailed policy to complete the task.
Highlights of this episode:
- 3:50 – Denise’s life-changing moment
- 8:48 – How Denise developed the Vacation Effect principle
- 15:00 – The magic of Denise’s Tuesday/Thursday rhythm
- 18:05 – The emergency buffer for clients on freedom days
- 20:28 – People who can use the Vacation Effect
- 22:23 – How to convince people that they don’t have to work so hard
- 29:03 – Surprising things about becoming hyper-efficient
- 32:05 – Fem Five
Resources mentioned:
- www.vacationeffect.com Check out Denise’s free downloads.
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny by Robin S. Sharma
Fem Five:
1. Favorite book to recommend for women?
- The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari: A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams and Reaching Your Destiny by Robin S. Sharma
2. Favorite self – care hack?
- “I have a morning ritual with meditation.”
3. Best piece of advice and who gave it to you?
- “From a meditation: Make today what you want tomorrow to be.”
4. Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now?
5. One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self?
- “I would tell her about the Tuesday/Thursday thing so I could learn to do it sooner.”
Last Time on The NextFem Podcast
Solving Gender Bias in the Workplace – with Andie Kramer
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