The Importance of Thinking for Entrepreneurial Success

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re likely constantly moving, doing, and checking off items from your long to-do list. However, what if we told you that taking time to think is actually crucial for your success as an entrepreneur? In this blog post, we’ll explore why thinking is so important, how to create space for it in your schedule, and when the best time to think might be. By valuing thinking as a vital aspect of entrepreneurial success, you might be surprised at the brilliant ideas you come up with and the ways in which it simplifies your life. So, it’s time to start prioritizing thinking and see what happens!

Why Taking Time to Think is Crucial for Entrepreneurial Success

As entrepreneurs, we’re often so focused on the doing that we forget the importance of taking time to think. In fact, thinking is a skill that’s often undervalued when it comes to a successful entrepreneur. But, when we do give ourselves the space to think, we’re often surprised by the brilliant ideas that come to us. So, why is taking time to think about our own life so crucial for entrepreneurial success? Let’s explore.

When entrepreneurs focus too much on the doing

The entrepreneurial mindset focuses much on what to do, but they often get stuck in a cycle of constant busyness and can lose sight of the bigger picture. Taking time to step back and think allows you to reflect on your goals, assess your progress, and develop new strategies for growth. It also gives you the opportunity to identify potential roadblocks and come up with solutions before they happen. One of the most famous entrepreneurs who embodied this mindset was Thomas Edison, who famously said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” And thinking is what gets you to that 10,001th trial!

Strategic thinking can be undervalued

While the doing gets a lot of content, entire conferences, and PM systems, thinking strategically is often considered a given rather than a skill to develop. Outside of a few classes in business school, it’s not a common topic–especially for service providers in the online business world of entrepreneurship. Strategic thinking is a crucial skill for the most successful entrepreneurs–but since it doesn’t have a clearcut tie to ROI (even though it drives it), it’s easy to undervalue the skill. It requires you to take time for problem-solving, to evaluate different options, and consider the impact of your decision-making–all activities that require devoted time to thinking them through. By dedicating time to think strategically, you can make informed choices that will benefit your business in the long run.

The brilliance comes from the thinking

Many entrepreneurs discount thinking as a lesser activity, thinking that all the important things come from the doing. However, as we’ve already established, thinking is the lucrative skill that makes doing easier. When we take the time to think, our ideas become simpler, and we’re able to make more money and live easier lives. So, it’s time to stop thinking of thinking as a lesser activity and start valuing it as the crucial aspect of entrepreneurial success that it is.

How thinking boosts positivity and builds resilience

Positive thinking is essential for entrepreneurs to maintain their motivation, even in the face of setbacks and challenges. When you take time to think positively, you can gain a fresh perspective on your situation, identify opportunities where others see only obstacles, and cultivate resilience. By focusing on the power of positive thinking, self-doubt can be overcome, and positive outcomes and solutions can be identified instead of dwelling on problems. You can build the mental strength needed to push through difficult times and achieve success by prioritizing positive actions and a positive mindset as part of your journey to becoming your own boss.

Creating Space for Thinking

Now that we understand why thinking is crucial for entrepreneurial success, let’s talk about how to create space for it in your busy schedule. As entrepreneurs, we often overbook our schedules, leaving little room for thinking. However, we need to start creating space in our lives for thinking time. The better we think, the more money we’re likely to make as entrepreneurs. That’s why, when I coach my clients, I always ask them to put thinking time on their schedules, which may sound ridiculous, but it’s the only way to ensure that we carve out time to think.

How to create space for thinking in your schedule

Creating space for thinking in your schedule doesn’t have to be complicated–it just means you choose to be self-motivated. Start by scheduling dedicated “thinking time” into your calendar. That means blocking off a specific time each day or week for reflection. This can be reflection on your thought processes and personal life, in addition to business ideas or client problems you’re working out.

This could be as simple as walking outside or scheduling quiet time to meditate or journal. It’s important to disconnect from distractions during this time, including phones and emails, so you can fully focus on thinking. You could also consider attending conferences, workshops, or networking events that allow for both learning and thinking time. Remember, the more space you create for thinking, the more successful your entrepreneurial ventures will be in the long run.

When is the best time to think?

The best time to think isn’t necessarily when we’re glued to our desks. In fact, many of us find that our best ideas come to us when we’re doing other things, such as running, flying, or driving. Ever heard a colleague say their best ideas come to them in the shower? This is because we’re not forcing our brains to come up with a solution. Rather, we remain open to the good idea, trusting that it will come to us when we least expect it. The key is to be open to when it does come, and not judge or require it to come at a certain time.

Putting It All Together

When we’re working on our own businesses, it’s usually easy to understand and internalize the concept of thinking time. However, when we’re working on client projects, we often find ourselves struggling to give ourselves the necessary space to think. To combat this, it’s crucial to quote project timelines realistically, giving ourselves the necessary time to think. By doing so, we level the playing field between our clients’ projects and our own, ensuring that we have the space we need to come up with brilliant ideas.

What Is The Best Way To Think For Entrepreneurial Success?

The best way to think for entrepreneurial success is to have an entrepreneurial mind, a growth mindset, and create time and space for thinking. This means embracing challenges and persisting despite obstacles. It’s also important to keep an open mind, be creative, and constantly seek new opportunities for growth and improvement. Having an entrepreneurial spirit is crucial for success in the business world.

Conclusion

As entrepreneurs, we often forget the positive impact of taking time to think. However, thinking is a lucrative skill that makes doing easier. By giving ourselves the necessary space to think and valuing thinking as a crucial aspect of entrepreneurial success, we can come up with brilliant ideas for business growth and simplify our lives. So, let’s start creating space for thinking time and see where our ideas take us!

Quotables:

“I don’t look at the time, I look at what I’m creating inside of the time.”

“We get paid because the lucrative entrepreneurial lucrative skillset is the ability to think and solve problems in ways that other people haven’t solved them.”

“The creative brain doesn’t like to be boxed in, it likes to have freedom, it likes the play, the space and the openness.”

“If you want to out think your problem instead of out working your problem, then you take time off of the table as an option.”

“As an entrepreneur, there are no in-the-box solution for things.”

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Britney Gardner 00:03
All right, Neill, welcome to The Know, Like and Trust show.

Neill Williams 00:05
Oh, my gosh, I’m so excited to be here. Thank you for having me. You are most welcome.

Britney Gardner 00:11

I am really interested in this topic. longtime listeners know that I don’t work a quote unquote full time schedule. Which, by the way, I’d like to just get rid of that. That terminology in the first place. Like I feel like I work very full time. But I, you know, I think there’s this idea that if we’re not working, as much as you know, your average office worker, who, well at this time of year leaves the house when it’s dark, and gets back when it’s dark, if they work in person, that we’re not like working hard. And I don’t really understand that whole thing. I feel like, I’m, I’m as efficient as someone who often works 60 hours a week, because I have to be I mean, I’ve designed my life to be. So I’m just I’m really interested in hearing your take on all the things and hustle culture and creating a business that you actually can make work within your life.

Neill Williams 01:08

Yeah, yeah, I love that. You’re an example of this. Because I think the idea of hard work, create success is the thing that has us punching the clock as if like, the time is the thing that’s valuable, I look at it very differently, just like you do, Britney, I don’t look at the time, I look at what I’m creating inside of the time. So when you get really inefficient you look at you can create a lot of results in just a small amount of time. You don’t need 40 5060 hours per week to do that. And in fact, there’s a lot of studies that have been done that show that on average, this is kind of mind blowing, on average, many workers get their work done in 12 hours a week. So then the rest of the time is just time for time sake, not time creating value or results.

Britney Gardner 01:57

You know, it’s it’s so funny, you said that so, you know, I look at my husband when when the pandemic began, you know, he like everyone came home from his downtown sky, you know, Ryan’s office and everything. And I had my first clue into how he worked, right. And I think we also the memes, like, Oh, my husband’s the guy that says, let’s circle back, right. Like, I laugh so hard at those because I was actively thinking that. Yes, yeah. But, you know, I, I had hopes that, you know, they would all figure out that, you know, without the, you know, I’m gonna wander to the bathroom and talk with five people along the way, with all of that going on that they would all learn. You don’t have to actually work 40 hours to get your job accomplished. But it seems like they’ve just filled it with Zoom meetings instead. And now we have like the, you know, zooms that could be emails, memes floating around. Right. But I had really high hopes that it would shift at least somewhat, and I don’t think it has in the corporate world, at least I don’t think it has I don’t know about us. Yeah,

Neill Williams 03:03

I think it’s because like, if you’re looking at your job through a lens, like I have to do this in 40 hours per week, or 50 hours per week, like somehow, in your mind, if it’s the time that’s valuable, then working less wouldn’t fit into that. And so you wouldn’t you will artificially fill, find a way to fill it up, which is what has happened in the corporate world. Like, there are all these needs we didn’t used to have. But now because you know, we can get our work done or whatever in less time, we have to find some way to fill that time to feel like we’re doing our job, like we’re actually like, fulfilling on what are what we’re supposed to be doing. And so that’s what happens, right? And let instead of thinking about it in the reverse, which is the way that you think about it. And the way that I think about it is what are the things that I want done, what is the result? What are the accomplishments, what’s the value, and then I just go to work, and I get those things done. I don’t have to have like 50 hours to do it. I just tell myself, okay, this is the amount of time I have, I’m getting it done in this time. And then you do. And then you have all this other time that you can then just spend in doing your life the way that you want. That’s the model I will love to see in the corporate world. Because then you’re thinking about the value of your time, not just like the time itself. It’s like what you’re creating inside of the time. That’s what’s important. That’s what’s valuable.

Britney Gardner 04:24

It’s interesting because I’m sure you’re in a plethora of Facebook groups online, just like the rest of us, right and I see it every so often people are like, I you know, I just quit my full time job I’m gonna make a go of my business and I feel like I’m getting less done now. And you know, I kind of like sadly laugh inside every time I see that because it’s it’s something I feel like everyone has to go through at some point just to realize that you will fill your container of time regardless of the fact that you used to not feel that same You know, volume of time, you’re still gonna fill it in are not actually gonna get a whole lot more done. Right? So you get really regimented or systematized about your thinking about it not so much systematized in terms of like, Oh, I’m gonna, you know, punch in my clock every 15 minutes. But like, you have to, you have to get there.

Neill Williams 05:18

Yeah, yeah. And I think what happens in the corporate world, it DNS descent of incentivizes stuff. Like saying, I’m like, that doesn’t sound right. But it D incentivizes any efficiency, because as soon as you get this is exactly what happened to me in the corporate world, too. As soon as you get really efficient and really good at getting something done quickly, what happens is, then they’re like, Oh, well, you can just take on more. So that taking on more taking on more than that’s the artificial way of just like filling up the time filling up the time as if the value in that role is in the time that you do it not in the results that you created it. And so then if that’s the world that you’re used to, when you go into entrepreneuring, that is what you’re going to also be naturally inclined to do in your business. And that’s why that happens for so many people, even though they could do their business in 10 to 20 hours per week. They don’t know how to not work that extra time, it feels uncomfortable, it feels like they’re not doing it right, like they should be doing more. And so they will naturally increase their workload, or what the time they spend getting their work done to fulfill that idea in their mind that they’re somehow doing it because they’re working the right number of hours.

Britney Gardner 06:29

Yeah, I love the way that you just stated that that, you know, as an entrepreneur, we do have all the incentive in the world if we can get our mindset correctly, right, like yes, to, to spend less time on things. And yeah, that might be different for one, you know, business owner to another, it’s actually even for me, it’s different from one client project to another because if I’m really building a, like a measurement dashboard for someone that’s hands on work that I have to be doing for that person, and I know it’s gonna take a certain amount of time, no matter what. But if I’m doing copy for someone, for example, the vast majority of my time writing copy is actually spent thinking. And I don’t have to actually think at my desk, as it turns out, you know, I do need access to a voice memo just in case something brilliant comes up in a moment, right. But I can do that thinking, while I’m driving to the gym, I can do that thinking while I’m in the shower, I can do that thinking while I’m chopping vegetables for dinner. And that doesn’t necessarily mean that I wouldn’t qualify that as work time, because I’m not. I’m not in my office. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not getting work done at the same time.

Neill Williams 07:38

Yeah, I love what you just said is so brilliant. And it’s actually like one of the things that I was hoping that we would get to in this discussion is the thing that people are used to doing when they’re in their corporate jobs is the doing like the working less so used to doing the thinking, which is what entrepreneurs do, right? We we get paid because we think like that is the entrepreneurial, lucrative skill set is the ability to think and solve problems in ways that other people haven’t solve them in. So also like thinking about like, not busy in your time with like working in your business. But what you’re saying is working as the CEO working on your business thinking, problem solving strategizing, thinking about things in a different way. And that often happens very naturally and very easily, but not in front of a computer. Because the way that the brain is structured, that’s the right brain is the one that’s doing all that innovative, creative thinking. And it hates the idea of a box or schedule or a budget or a plan. So when you’re noticing all those ideas are coming to you kind of like naturally elsewhere, it makes

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sense. Because you’re not sitting down telling yourself, you have to have three answers, you have to solve this, you have to do this. And so it allows the right part of your brain to just be activated and just work naturally the way that it is. And I think that some people have the idea that that’s wrong, that we shouldn’t be doing that. So then they discount that as like, No, I should be able to just do that what I’m seeing from my computer, but that’s just not the way the brain works. So leveraging that creative genius that’s going to happen outside of your office, I think is an amazing way to do

Britney Gardner 09:23

business. I love I love the way, but you said you know, one of our entrepreneurial things, right? Like it’s thinking, thinking is our skill set is like yeah, I feel like more people need to talk about that for starters. But also, I think, I think as a general rule, a lot of especially if you’ve come from the corporate world, I did not come from the corporate world. So I’m a little bit of a different piece there. But I think that the act of thinking is not given enough space. And then when you do actually come up with something brilliant I feel like people think it’s a fluke. Whereas I have found that if I am staring at a problem on my computer screen, like you said, right, and it’s just not happening. And sometimes it does flow, you know, I’m sitting here, but if it’s not happening, the best thing I can do is go do some sort of enjoyable chore, I am not talking about scrubbing my shower out, I have, not once ever in my life, walked away from my desk to go scrub my shower, if that’s not me, but I’m really excited to have a garden again,
now that we’ve, you know, moved to a house that has a backyard with more space, because I used to get really great ideas while I was gardening, and yeah, like two houses ago, AI and those are the kinds of things that I think we create space in our world for, as entrepreneurs in like talk, right? We say that we’re creating space, there’s this like, whole time freedom thing that everyone talks about, but most entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, excuse me, I know, they talk about creating that time freedom, but they still don’t have it.

Neill Williams 11:08

I think one of the reasons is, is because we’ve discounted as a lesser activity, we think that the making of the money and all those important things come from the doing. So we’re so hyper focused on that. But if we just stopped, like, what you’re saying is, and we realize the brilliance comes from the thinking, and if we just gave ourselves the space to think like, literally, when I coach my clients, I asked them to put thinking time on their schedules, which sounds ridiculous. But it makes sure that they carve out time to think like the better you think the more money you’re going to make, the easier things are going to be the simpler, you’re going to make things in your business and in your life. And once we start to realize like that is the lucrative skill, more of us are going to be inclined to actually be doing that more often. And I’m with you, like my best ideas come when I’m running, when I’m in a plane, when I’m driving, like all of that stuff. And it’s again, because I’m not forcing my brain to come up with a solution. I just like know that it’s going to come but I’m not like judging it or requiring it to come at a certain time. Just like being open to when it does come. And I always know that it does. And it does. You just have to be open to giving yourself your brain the space to like digest it and marinate on it for a little bit and then return the answer to you.

Britney Gardner 12:27

I think for me, when I’m working on my own business, that’s a really easy concept to understand and internalize. But when I’m working on a client project, I still even even knowing all this stuff that we’ve been talking about, they still struggle, right. So you know, like I’m working on the sales copy for one of my clients right now. And it’s a subject I’ve never written about before. So I did, I did my research. That’s the doing right. And then I just sat there and looked at it. And I walked away. And it was easy for me to walk away. I think time timing wise, it was time for me to walk away from my desk. And it took me a couple days of not touching it to get the angle in line to like think through the kind of the the pattern of how the sales copy was going to flow. And I wouldn’t have been able to do that. Had I been working on a tight deadline. And and I’m getting better at quoting client project timelines, that gives me the ability to do the same thing for my clients that I do for myself, which sounds like a really interesting, really easy observation. But it’s taking an embarrassingly long time for me to figure that out.

Neill Williams 13:36

Yeah, I think that’s that’s one of the things right giving yourself space to think, and not trying to cram it in. Or like having expectations that you’re going to return an answer within a certain timeframe. Again, that’s like, the creative brain, it kind of shuts down in those scenarios, because it again, doesn’t like to be boxed in. It likes the freedom it likes, the play likes the openness and the space. So the more that you can give yourself that the easier it is going to be like, the more quickly your brain will work for you. And even think about like that, Brittany, like if you forced, like, you just chose something and you did something without you’re like, Okay, I’m on a deadline, and I have to do this, you would have come up with something, but my guess is later that idea would have come to you and then he would have redone that or you would have probably right. So it’s actually more efficient to just let the Lord give yourself the space. Because then you’re maybe not questioning yourself. Are we doing things that you wouldn’t have done that

Britney Gardner 14:34

the other way? Yeah, no, that’s that’s a very powerful observation, because I would have probably gone back and read on it and rejigged and, and it would have taken me maybe not twice as much, but certainly more time, so I Yeah, that’s great.

Neill Williams 14:48

Yeah, I think the better that we get at thinking first and then doing the more efficient we use our time, the more value we create in our time and the quicker that process happens, the more you’re It just happens faster and faster and faster.

Britney Gardner 15:03

Yeah, but maybe let’s not tell my parents that because then that whole Think before you speak thing they used to scream at me all the time would be a little more appropriate.

Neill Williams 15:12
Alright, we’re just gonna think before we do as entrepreneurs, yes.

Britney Gardner 15:16

There we go. So I know like how I came to my place of working less and creating room in my life and all of that, and I know my reasons for it. But I guess we could have started with the interview with us. But how did you get to this place where you found like, kind of your sweet spot about how much you’re working? Yeah.

Neill Williams 15:37

Well, it started, I became a mom, and your mom’s who everyone tells you like every other day? And I’m like, No, it’s fine. I’m different. Like, it’s not gonna change, right. But I, I tried to keep my whole world the same. Even though I was a mom, it was so hard. It’s overwhelming, I was drained, I was still working that crazy corporate job of like 60 Plus, you know, sometimes 80 hours a week. And I was like, this is just not working. So I just, I was like, there has to be a better way to do this. Like, this just seemed to make sense. And so what I decided was, I wanted to work less. And I had this idea, like 30 hours felt really good to me, like about a five to six hour day. And then I just have space to be a mom and do the other things that I want to do in my life. So I started down that path. And people kept telling me, Well, you can totally do that. But you’re not going to make as much money, you’re going to have to take a demotion. And I’m like, this is such crap. Like, I just think that is the only option here, right? I didn’t. So I didn’t take that as the only solution. And I finally figured out like how to do my same job basically, in 30 hours. So that was like my first stab at this. I was like, okay, that’s fine. But I’m just gonna figure out how to do this, I’m creating the same result, I was just as productive, if not more productive than everyone else who was working those crazy work weeks, I got the same amount done that they did, I just use less time to do it. So that was like my first iteration of that. And then I started my own business. And I was like, Okay, I’m not gonna do that thing that people do, where they like, trade the job for the business where they end up working 5060 hours a week, I just didn’t give myself the option to do that. So I decided it’s going to be 25 to 30 hours per week, or I’m not doing it. And I just drew the line in the sand for myself. And I just figured out how to do it in that amount of time, because I didn’t give myself the option of more time. And that’s what I think happens is, you know, it’s like this slow process, you’re like, Okay, well, just this one time, I’ll like work that weekend, or I’ll work tonight to get that thing done, but I won’t do it again. And you know, if we’re honest with ourselves, we do it one time, it’s easier to do it the next time, and then it just becomes a pattern that we do. And before we realize like, Oh, my goodness, I’m working 50 to 60 hours a week again, how did that happen? So when you take more time, as a solution off the table, what it forces you to do is to think about things in a different way. And that’s where all the innovation that’s where all the creative solutions come from. That’s where you learn how to do things and get them done in the time that you do have is by not allowing time to be the solution.

Britney Gardner 18:09
I I love what you just said when you take it off the table, it forces you to think about doing

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things in a different way. Yeah, because yes, that is where all the magic happens totally out you you say no, no, this, this is simply not an option. And you know, you have to seek a solution within the new container.

Neill Williams 18:27

Right. And we’re so smart as humans, we always like we figure it out. It’s just we we go to the easiest solution, which is more time often the more time solution doesn’t require thinking. But if you want to think out think your problem instead of out working your problem. That’s the way you do it, you take time off of the table as an option.

Britney Gardner 18:50

It’s interesting. So right now my 10 year old is on the other side of the house trying to learn how to set up a WordPress website on Elementor. Right, like he wants to learn how to do something to make money and I was like, Well, you know, I often like do this repetitive things. If you could figure all this out. All I’ll pay you to do this for me. And I set him up last week with like the Elementor Academy like the basics, right, like learn the basics. And their tutorial video, it looks a little bit different. It was probably on like a different WordPress version, right? And he got frustrated and I told him straight up. Now I happen to not be working that day. I think it was painting one of the rooms in the house. But like, I told him, Hey, I can’t keep coming back here to answer questions. This is something that you need to figure out if it costs me more time to teach you how to do this than it would for me to do it myself. This is no longer a good solution for me. And he got really frustrated and quit. And I was like, Okay, well, that’s your choice. You wanted a way to earn more money and I gave it to you and you chose not to do it. That’s your choice. Well guess what he’s doing today. He’s back at it because you know he wants to earn the money again. He wants to celebrate. And I told him like I have two podcasts to record Back to back, you cannot come and interrupt me I am busy. And you know what? He hasn’t interrupted me. And in between the two, he was still working on it. So I feel like when you just take that easy mom card out of that situation, he found a way to figure it out, or he’s just futzing around, which could totally be the other option. I don’t know. Right. But, you know, like, I want him to become that solution seeker. And I can say that as his parent, and as his, you know, adult in training, right. But if I’m not doing that, myself and my own life, what kind of example am I setting for him as a parent, and I’m really excited that he’s hopefully still

working. So that I can go out there be like, Look, buddy, you found a way around something that you previously wanted to quit at, like, you can make this work for you, you can make this work for your life, and maybe even help your mom in the process. But, you know, like, you know, it is an option. But like, these are, these are learning skills that we aren’t exactly taught.

Neill Williams 21:03

No, and that’s the thing, like school teaches us some stuff. But the solutions that were asked to come up in school are very much like in the box predetermined solutions. And then it’s challenging, then you get out into the world, especially as an entrepreneur, there are no in the box solutions, like you have to create the solutions for things. And that’s a totally different skill

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set. So I love that you’re doing that so much for him, like, can you imagine like he has a skill set of being able to solve any problem that comes his way going out into the world? Like, how you couldn’t even set him up better for life,

Britney Gardner 21:38
that honing their skills? Right? You know, because

Neill Williams 21:41

he’ll just be able to figure it out. He’s like, Oh, that didn’t work. Okay, not a problem. I’m gonna try this. And that didn’t work. Okay. Like, he will just figure out how to create a solution without someone telling him what the solution is. Yeah, it’s amazing.

Britney Gardner 21:52
And I think if, if all of my clients felt the same way about their business, I feel like we could

make such magic happen in this world, right? Totally.

Neill Williams 22:01

Yes, I agree with you like, this is why I think, in my opinion, like entrepreneurs have the opportunity to really change the face of what it looks like to do work, and business. Because we have so much flexibility, we have autonomy, to be able to do it in the way that we want. We just have to grab on to that magic and use it for us. And I think the more of us that do that, like you’re an example out there in the world, I’m an example of doing it in the world, the rest of the world is going to like take notice at some point, and that shift is going to happen, where we’re not using time to create things. We’re using our minds to create solutions in new and different ways.

Britney Gardner 22:45

I feel like, as, as an online business, like society, I feel like we’re halfway there. You know, there’s a lot of people who have figured out, you know, I’m not, I’m not someone who has to charge, you know, an hourly rate, I can charge by a project. So they’ve already got the value portion of it done, where you know, I am, I am doing the service for you. There is a value associated for that service, it doesn’t matter whether it takes me 10 hours or 20 hours, because you’re receiving the same values. I feel like we’re halfway there. On that side of things. We just need to actually like, apply it to our own lives. And take the next step.

Neill Williams 23:20

Yeah, yeah. And I think one of the things like anybody who’s listening for this, if you’re working more, more hours than what you want, or you’re working, you know, 5060 hour per week, no one’s saying that that’s wrong. All we’re saying is there’s an opportunity to not work as many

one’s saying that that’s wrong. All we’re saying is there’s an opportunity to not work as many hours if you want to. And the way you get to that as you just start scaling it back, you start like I have a even like a six month plan that he has with a lot of my clients where it’s okay, here’s what you’re working now, in six months, what do you want to be working? And we just like, we just chunk it back a little at a time, like maybe a half hour a week, maybe an hour a week? And you figure out how do you get your work done in 45 and a half hours instead of 46. And then the next weekend 45. Like it, there is a systematic way to do it. And what you’re going to learn is like, oh my gosh, I’m creating so many more solutions. And I have so many different ideas because I not using time to solve these problems for me or as the answer to all of these things. And that’s really where all of the creativity lies is in taking time off the table as the answer.

Britney Gardner 24:25

I love the direction that this conversation has gone. I mean, it’s a little bit longer than we probably were planning on but like, you know, it’s I do agree with you. I think creativity is an entrepreneur’s greatest strength and setting yourself up in the best way possible to exercise that creativity. Why wouldn’t you do that? Right.

Neill Williams 24:47

It’s fun. I mean, like, it’s some of the most fun things that we do right is coming up with amazing ideas. How good does it feel to come up with a brilliant idea? It’s like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be amazing. I can’t wait to tell people. I can’t wait to Use this idea. And I think one of the best ways to start engaging with that is asking yourself really great questions. We have so much wisdom inside of us, but it’s the getting out getting it out of our own minds and out of us. That is sometimes the most challenging thing. So just even posing one question a day to yourself, and coming up with maybe three answers to that question like a high quality question, how can I make this simpler? How can I make this easier? How can I get this done? In maybe 30 minutes less or and half the time? Your brain has the answers? That’s the thing that I think we miss is like, the answers are in here. We just have to give them an forum to come out. Sometimes questions are the things that bring those up to the surface and to the forefront.

Britney Gardner 25:43

I love it. And we’re probably gonna close up soon. But do you have a couple more examples of those high quality questions? I mean, how can I make this more simple? It’s a wonderful one. I love that.

Neill Williams 25:57

Yeah. Along those same lines, when I think about simplifying, because in some in to some degree, like, when you do scale back your workweek, you do end up creating a simpler business, a cleaner business that’s easy to run, because it can be super complicated and messy, and all that and you do it 20 hours per week, right? So that’s kind of a nice, strategic byproduct that comes from that. So I like to think about simplification in two ways. Number one, how can I simplify the steps? That’s like layer one? That would be first question I would

ask. And then layer two of that. Is there a kind of like, learning about mastering simplicity is, what can I eliminate? What steps can I eliminate? Because no steps is way easier than simpler steps? So thinking about like, like that, how can I make it easier for myself? The other questions that I like to ask are like, How can I do this in half the time, like, if it were possible, and a lot of time your brain is like, initially, your brains gonna be like, it won’t, right? But you just can’t keep pressing forward. So the thing I like to think of is, okay, if it were possible for me to do this, and half the time, what might I try? And sometimes it’s through the trial that you learn the actual way that you’ll get there. But you have to start with a question of like, what would I try to do this? So things like that. And like, if I, if there was a way for me to not do this, how would I make that happen? So some of the things that are under scheduled like, Oh, my God, I hate doing that. Like if it’s sales calls, or it’s writing an email or anything else? Like, how can I figure out a way to not do it, or to make to do it in a way that is really fun for me. I can make it fun, what that look like. So all of those are really high quality questions that are going to ask your brain to think about things in a different way than you probably have thought about them before. If you’re just like, kind of chugging along and going along and doing the same thing you’ve always done. That’s what we want to do is kind of shake it up.

Britney Gardner 27:51

I like that. Yeah, shaking it up, and shaking it up is how you and I both got here. I mean, I I’m working about 20 hours a week right now, you’re a little bit more than that. But you know, I think we’ve each found what works for our lives. And I, I’ve said many times, I didn’t create my business to run my life, I created my business to allow me to live my life. And I am so glad to hear that you’re on the same page.

Neill Williams 28:20

Yeah, I love that so much. I have a similar kind of like mantra is like, how do I work my business around my life? How to create a business that works around my life instead of the other way, which is what the corporate world was built on. Right is like, we work first and then we live just flipping that don’t live first and then work. Yeah.

Britney Gardner 28:41
And I’m much happier as a result.

Neill Williams 28:44

Totally. Right. And I mean, obviously you don’t need the extra hours. That’s the thing that is so funny. Like when we realize that we don’t need it. We’re like, Why was I ever working that many hours in the first place? I actually didn’t need it to create what I want it. Yep. Yeah. And here we are. Awesome.

Britney Gardner 29:05

This has been fantastic, Neil. Thank you.

This has been fantastic, Neil. Thank you.

Neill Williams 29:07
Yeah. Thank you for having me. Such a fun discussion.