Since I have started working for Clay Clark as a business coach, I have been able to meet many successful entrepreneurs and watch many of them win at building their business. Every single person that succeeds at growing their businesses have one thing in common. They all have a completely different set of standards than everybody else. They all are coachable and take action on tasks they are given. They all work harder than everyone around them. They don’t take off for every holiday or even celebrate most holidays if their business will be affected by doing so. There are also the business owners who are not so successful. These are the ones who are still committed to taking off every birthday, every Christmas Eve, and every Independence Day. If you are committed to your goals of succeeding with your business, you have to accept the reality of your new normal or you will fail. There has not been one entrepreneur that has taken off every holiday in the calendar, worked 40 hours per week and succeeded.
When we say you can’t celebrate every holiday, that doesn’t mean forever. If you enjoy specific holidays, you can still celebrate them, not work on those days, and do whatever you want on those days…. But only after you have spent the years of intense grinding to get your business set up to run without you every second of every day. Once you put in the work for as long as it is necessary, you can spend your earned time as you please. I have seen business owners treat their business like a job and take off the entire day just to celebrate their birthday or their spouses birthday which means their customers could not receive service for one whole day. If you want to be successful and to keep your customers, you can’t take nonsensical holidays off throughout the year.
Not only will you have to work on days when most people are enjoying their paid vacation, but you will also have to work longer hours than them. Elon Musk says, “Work like hell. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. This improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.” Once you put in those 100 hour work weeks, you will be so far ahead of your competition and your old peers that you can take all the time you want to achieve all of your dreams while they are still working their 9-5 jobs and forty-hour work weeks. You must delay gratification so you can achieve your goals and enjoy them before you’re dead.
Once you put in the work for as long as it is necessary, you can spend your earned time as you please.
Once you start to work on these holidays, you will begin to notice your business coach friends and family’s comments. They will say that you are a workaholic, you need to change your priorities, and you will end up killing yourself. These are all comments you can not listen to. The 40 hour work week was implemented by our president Franklin D. Roosevelt and that is when our standards changed. All humans used to have to work from sunrise until sundown in order to survive. If the pilgrims were to stop working at 40 hours every week, none of us would be here today. Just think about where our nation would be if every American worked 80 hours every week and worked as hard as the pilgrims. We have to change our standards and we have to look at those who actually have success for advice not just those geographically near us.
It is time to take action and stop making excuses like “I’m too young” or “I’m too old”. I have personally been able to help business owners from ages ranging from 20 years old to their mid 60’s as a business coach. If you claim to not have enough time, it is time to start waking up with all other successful people when there are no distractions. At 2:30 A.M. If you are willing to make excuses as to why you can not ever achieve your goals, it is time to get a job and start surviving. You have to be willing to take action, be coachable, make sacrifices, delay gratification, and set goals if you want to Thrive.
