From Overwhelm to Breakthrough: How I Built My Business on 25 Hours per Week

You have only 25 hours per week to grow your business. How will you do it?

I am standing in my laundry room in tears as I launder baby bedding covered with vomit. "Overwhelm" does not even begin to capture my experience of launching a business at the same time my first child was born. My daughter went to a babysitter for 25 hours per week so that I could work on my business and meet with clients. I was sleep-deprived and exhausted. How was I going to get it all done in those 25 hours?

My family was counting on me to make this work. There was no option to fail.

After five years of working as a psychologist with severely mentally ill individuals in an underserved, rural area, I was burned out and suffering from compassion fatigue. I quit my job and was determined to build a business that would support my family, not just financially, but in ways that matter more—my ability to enjoy life and be present and emotionally connected with my family. I was determined to work no more than 25 hours per week because that was the most I was willing to be away from my newborn daughter.

The Power of Mindset

The first challenge I encountered was limited availability to meet with clients. In a new business, getting clients is a top priority. I feared alienating prospective clients when I had only a few appointment options to offer each week. That's when I experienced the value of a different mindset.

My coach advised me to run my business from a "full-practice mentality." She asked, "How will you schedule clients when you have a full practice?" What a powerful question! With that, I began offering appointments without apology. Imagine the difference between saying, "I'm sorry. I only have Tuesday at noon or Wednesday at 11. I wish I had more options to offer you," and saying, "Tuesday at noon or Wednesday at 11 are my openings this week. Which would you prefer?" The latter reflects a full-practice mentality and was well-received as new clients filled my openings from week to week.

The next challenge was marketing to attract new clients while serving my existing clients and wearing all the hats in the business: marketing, sales, service delivery, bookkeeping, etc. Also, I did not know anything about marketing or running a business. I read books, took classes, and worked with my coach to learn how to run a thriving coaching practice. There were not enough hours in the week!

One Powerful Question that Changed Everything

That's how I came to be standing in my laundry room sobbing. Amid my breakdown, a powerful question arose: "If I can only get one thing done today, what's the most important thing I can do to move my business forward?"

I knew my answer. I did my one thing that day. That may have been all I got done on the business that day. I woke up the next day, asked myself that same question, did my one thing, and found a way to keep moving forward, even on my most sleep-deprived, stressful days.

The Power of $10,000 an Hour Activities

Along the way, I learned powerful lessons about focusing on my High-Value Activities, also known as big rocks, each day. Popularized by Stephen Covey in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, big rocks are priorities. Imagine filling a Mason jar with fist-sized rocks (your priorities), followed by gravel, sand, and water (trivial activities). If you were to start filling the jar with gravel, sand, and water, you'd never fit in the Big Rocks. So whether it's preparing a presentation instead of sorting email or hiring an A-Player to do your bookkeeping instead of muddling through payroll yourself, the road to building a business that supports your life begins with prioritizing your highest value activities. If you start your day by putting out fires and doing trivial activities (e.g., checking email), you will not have time for what matters most.

Over time, I also learned I was inadvertently applying the 80/20 principle to my time. Twenty percent of our activity yields 80% of our results. I asked myself, "If I can only get one thing done today, what's the most important thing I can do to move my business forward?" I focused on the top 20% of activities, yielding the most outstanding results. I was letting go of activities that were not high value.

From this, I began experiencing the benefit of $10,000 an Hour Activities. Most of us spend too much time doing tasks worth $10 an hour (e.g., checking email, posting on social media, etc.) and far too little time working from our gifts in our genius zone. In 2005, that was writing blog posts.

Talk about $10,000 an hour time! That was highly valuable time. Note that during the week I wrote those blog posts, no money in the business connected to the blog posts. Why consider the time spent writing those blog posts $10,000 an hour? The impact of this activity comes from the intent to add value for our top clients and the ability to systemize and scale the activity to bring in recurrent revenue.

Those blog posts helped refine my thinking and our systems for serving clients at Tap the Potential. Tap the Potential began to grow by leaps and bounds. All the while, I continued to work 25 hours per week to have time to be present with my family. However, I didn't tell anyone that I worked 25 hours per week.

The Secret I Was Afraid to Share

Even though I was proud of myself for building a business on 25 hours per week, I rarely revealed this to our clients. I feared clients with a "real" business would judge me negatively. That is the destructive power of gremlins— our imaginary audience who cast judgment on us. I bet you have some gremlins, too. When I shared this fear with a team member, she challenged me that I have a real business and a cool business because our entire team works part-time at Tap the Potential.

Meanwhile, our revenue typically grows by about 35% year to year. We can be at our best, showing up and adding value for our clients in a highly focused way. Part-time work forces us to create and utilize systems to serve our Top Clients.

Less Time, More Impact

I also have personal experience with the law of diminishing returns. I am less productive when I work 40 or more hours per week than when I work 25. When I work 25 hours per week, I am fresh. I am present with clients and our team. My thinking is better. I am more creative. The extra hours in a week do not add value. When I work more than 25 hours weekly, I waste my time on less valuable activities. I procrastinate.

In a 25-hour workweek, there is no time for procrastination. Although it may seem counterintuitive, working less makes our businesses stronger. Working fewer hours per week forces us to focus on our $10,000 Hour Activities. We are most effective when we spend that time working from our strengths and surround ourselves with A-Players whose strengths complement ours. By taking time away from the business, we create another "restriction" on the company that forces us and our teams to develop systems that make the business run when we are not there. When we encourage team members to take vacations, we are forced to build redundancy into the business, strengthening it.

I am proud to share that we are celebrating 20 years at Tap the Potential. That's 20 years of helping entrepreneurs take their lives back. Ninety-four percent of our clients are achieving our promised result: more time for what matters most and more money in your bank account than ever. Those are families with parents emotionally present and connecting with their kids! Those are families with financial stability and freedom because of a sustainable business.

With 9 out of 10 entrepreneurs experiencing burnout, we are proud to be disrupting the hustle culture. We believe work should support life, not the other way around. Over the years, we've helped thousands of entrepreneurs and their high-performing team members stop work at a set time each day, fully unplug, take weekends off, and create memorable experiences with loved ones. Making your time worth $10,000 an hour is the backbone of the success our clients are experiencing. You can download our Chart of $10,000 an Hour Activities at www.tapthepotential.com/10k

Go ahead, restrict your and your team's time in the business. You'll be surprised at the strength that comes from that!

Sabrina Starling, PhD, PCC, BCC, The Business Psychologist, is the international bestselling author of How to Hire the Best and The 4 Week Vacation®. TEDx speaker, founder of www.tapthepotential.com, and host of the top-ranking Profit by Design podcast, she and her team help entrepreneurs take their lives back from their businesses. They are on a mission to get 10,000 entrepreneurs to implement a Work Supports Life™ culture.