In this episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast, host Bradley Hamner (Speaker A) and co‑host (Speaker B) explore the idea that for small‑business owners, the value of hard work lies not in the number of hours logged but in the strategic focus of that work. The conversation opens with a framing question about how leaders can grow their teams and scale profitably. Hamner shares a personal story about his father’s relentless work ethic running a large seed‑conditioning and farming operation, illustrating the limits of sheer effort and the personal sacrifices involved. He then introduces a principle from Naval Ravikant – “what you work on is more important than how hard you work” – and connects it to Michael Gerber’s The E‑Myth, emphasizing the distinction between working in the business versus working on the business. The hosts argue that identifying high‑leverage, income‑producing activities and dedicating intentional time each week to them is essential for progress, warning against getting trapped in day‑to‑day whirlwind tasks. Throughout the episode, sponsor messages for Club Capital, Direct Click, Coach P Consulting, and Rock Solid are interspersed, offering services to help agencies with financial advisory, marketing, coaching, and virtual assistance. The episode concludes with a call to listeners to reflect on their weekly priorities, focus on the most impactful work, and continue growing both personally and professionally.
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So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable?
That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers.
I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.
Welcome to The Bottom Line, a new weekly podcast series that we drop every Thursday to complement our weekly Monday podcast.
Podcast interviews with the industry leaders. These podcasts are going to be designed to give you short, impactful, and value-driven information that you can start using right away in your business. I value your time and attention and will do my very best not to waste it.
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So with that, let's get into today's episode.
Hey everyone, hope you're doing well. So I want to talk about hard work today. Now I got to give you a little bit of a background story, and so If you're like many business owners, you work really, really hard. In fact, you probably bust your tail. So this is not going to be a podcast about you need to work hard and you need to work harder. In fact, it's not going to necessarily be the opposite of that, but it's going to be something that has really helped me and that I would share. I've shared it with some other business owners and it helped them. And so I thought I'd share it with all of you today as well. And so, but I got to give you a little bit of a background. My dad is the hardest working person that I know. So my entire life he's owned— well, actually, he started, I think, Clemenson Hamner Seed Company, which is a farming operation and then like a seed conditioning. So imagine if you're a farmer and you get wheat, your corn, soybeans out of the fields, and you've got to be able to get it processed and get it bagged and then obviously take it wherever you're going to sell it, or if you're going to use it, store it. Et cetera. So my dad does all that. So that's one aspect of his business. The other aspect is farming. And at one time they farmed nearly 10,000 acres. I think they're probably a little closer to maybe 4,000 or 5,000 acres now, but still a lot.
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And the reason I tell you that is because they started that company around 1980. I was born in 1981, so I'm 41 at the time of this recording. And he's still the hardest working person that I've ever seen. But that's not the only business that he had. He was the FFA agriculture teacher at my high school in Northwest Alabama. And so every day, he would take us to school, we'd get there obviously at 8 o'clock, and he'd be there, we'd be there until 3, of course, until I was able to drive myself and my brother. And then we'd come home and he would change from his duck head pants, literally, into his Carhartt overalls. And then he would go to the C-plant and he would be there from, you know, from 3:30 until, you know, usually 8:30 or 9 o'clock at night. And so if you get home before 9, that was good. Well, the same thing happened on Sunday and the same thing happened on Saturdays. Of course, we'd go to church on Sundays and we'd come back and go eat Chinese buffet or whatever. And then he'd go back to the C-plant. And so, you know, he missed a lot of my baseball games. He certainly didn't— wasn't able to be there with me for a lot of practices, etc. And I don't resent him for that. And he never really had this, you know, meeting with me or this time that he was telling me about the importance of hard work. I just observed it. I just observed what it actually took for him to be able to do all those things. And of course, I didn't appreciate it until much later in my life. Now, Do I think my dad, you know, spent too much time at the Z-Plan and working? Yeah, I do. But at the same time, um, he really instilled in me hard work and dedication, what real hard work means. And that's something that I've had to fight my entire life, but meaning working too much and working too hard, honestly, and burning myself out. In fact, that's exactly what happened to me in 2015, but I'll share that story for another time. And so ultimately, you have that. That's a big influence on my life. And then if you're watching this on YouTube or if you've seen me on the podcast that we've done previously, you know, my affinity for Auburn University and in their creed, they talk about, I believe in work, hard work. And so going to a university and the creed at Auburn is, you know, it's special to Auburn people and to the Auburn family. And, and so this, this constant idea of working hard has always been instilled in me at a really young age. Now, that being said, what has really come to fruition for me, and what I shared with some other business owners, after I paint that picture about how much I value hard work, it has been painfully obvious to me that what is more important than hard work is what you work on. In fact, it was a quote by Naval Ravikant. If you're not familiar with him, definitely consider picking up the book The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. He's an incredible, brilliant mind. And that is one of the things that he says: what you work on is more important than how hard you work. And I thought, man, is that really true? Because there are times that I can look back that I was busting my And many of you, you may be listening to this podcast and coming back off of a day that you really did work really hard. And have you ever had those days that you worked really hard, but you actually didn't feel like you got anything accomplished? And that is because I think that sometimes we just don't take the time to really think about what are the highest leverage activities? I mean, some people call them income-producing activities. I don't think that's true, but really what are the most important things that I need to be working on as a business owner. You know, I'm recording this. Obviously, if you're listening to the podcast, you can't see it, but the book— I went and grabbed it off the bookshelf— The E-Myth. And that talks about working on the business, not in the business. And so I just want to take a little bit of a spin on that and say that truthfully, what you work on is more important than how hard you work. And if And if you're going to be working hard, does not— doesn't it make sense for you to be working on the things that are going to get you the highest return on your investment? And that's kind of where I'll leave you, is that for different people in different stages, the thing that may be right for you, that's going to be the right biggest lever for you to be working on your business, maybe a little bit different from someone else, not only in terms of years, but also revenue and team size, etc. But no matter where you are, every one of you that's listening to this, and myself included, we want to get to the next level. We want to, we want to grow, and we want to become a better version of ourselves. And we want to see our businesses grow. We want to see the impact to our teams. We want to see them grow. And I think that just taking a little bit of time each week— and I can't say that I do this every morning, but one thing that I do spend time on, and I'm going to do a solo episode about this particular thing, is thinking. And one of the things that I think about is what should I be working on? Because a lot of times I can get caught into the day-to-day activities of the business, the whirlwind, because the business will pull you back down into that. And so I think that you have to work really hard to actually— really intentionally, I should say. So even there, I talked about working hard. You have to be very intentional about forcing yourself to work on the right things, to work on the business. And so what you work on is far more important than how hard you work. And if you are going to work hard, would it make sense to put all your time and your energy and your focus and most importantly, your attention on the things that matter the most? That's been helpful to me because I realized that some days And I still do this. Some days, I will think, where did the day go? What did I get accomplished? Did I actually move the business forward? And so it brings me back. And I'll say, you know what, I need to refocus. What I work on is more important than how hard I work. You don't get a trophy for, you know, staying at the office 9 hours out of the day, but getting nothing accomplished. We only get paid, literally, or rewarded, or recognized for the results that we provide in the marketplace. So, you know, hope that's helpful to you. It's been helpful to me and shared it with some other people, and they found it helpful for them to be thinking about that as well. All right, everyone, appreciate you. Lead well.
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