How To Get More Done By Working Less

There was a point where I was like, this has been happening for so long. I think it was almost four or five months that I couldn't get myself together in a way that I usually would show up as a person. And so day, night after night, I would wake up. And this was the time when it's Christmas holidays, you know, the office kind of goes on leave and everybody kind of chills out a little bit. And this was the time I was chilling out and I realized how alone I was when I was chilling out, because I had. I literally had destroyed, or at least not destroyed, and paused my relationship with my family, my friends, my relationship at the time that even if I was with people, I was just always alone. And I was like, there is something that is wrong here. There's something that is not correct. And that finally broke me to say, I gotta move on. And so I submitted my papers. I was running Mindvalley at the time. I submitted my papers in January. I took a little bit time to transition out because I was running the company. It took a few months to be able to transition out of the company and started just pursuing things that I liked. And I just simply said, I'm gonna just do what I love doing, which doesn't have to be sitting on a computer. I love being on the computer. Nothing to take away. I love work. I love doing what I do. I have nothing against work, but at the same point in time, that's not the only thing that defines me. So I said, what else is defining me? What are the things that makes Ajit beyond the website and the businesses he builds? Right? And that got me to explore areas and items and places within myself that I would have otherwise not explored. And that got me really finally rediscovering what is the work and the quality of work I want to do and how much control I want to have versus not control I want to have, what kind of team I want to work with and how do I want to carefully select them, how much I want to work on a daily basis, what's the relationship that I want and what would mean and what would it take for me to be or how would I want to be in a relationship? All that kind of good stuff, which took me months to discover. But I went and kept going deeper and deeper till the time I found my answers, knowing that I will continue to find answers as life goes on. I just need to keep the space there so I can keep looking.

So I am selfishly curious about this because I'm probably 80% of the way through this exact process of I had my big win. Like, I sold a couple companies, did pretty well, invested the money well, now what? Right. And so what I did was I covered that up with a whole lot more work.

Yeah.

And it's an attempt to, like, meet. Meet the needs of yourself through the only route, you know, which is more work, even when it's not necessary. And basically using work as the drink. Using work to. To soothe whatever ailment is going on. And so I burnt out, and now I'm going through the process. I'm in the rediscovery process of what would it be like if I just focused on what I was enjoying rather than what I was building? So what did you do during that time where you were rediscovering?

So, firstly, it's important for us to know that we are rediscovering, which is great that you already know that part that you're rediscovering. And there is no need for the white to be filled. So here is the difference that you may want to consider, and that's the difference that I made is I didn't try to go, okay, I don't have anything to do today, so let me just work. Right? That's us trying to say, I don't want to deal with myself. Let me just cover it up with something, which is probably unnecessary. Right. But I can qualify it as a work and say I'm productive and useful and. And so I don't have to deal with myself and my emotions. Right. One of the greatest journeys that we take is a journey within ourselves. It's the hardest, it seems the easiest. Where it's the hardest dang thing to do is to take that journey and really ask ourselves. The tough question is, okay, what do I really like to do? Say I did not have any work. What am I going to do? Right. And it's not because no one thing. As an entrepreneur, you'll never be lazy. You can always work a little bit more. Our minds are so crazy as entrepreneurs and people are watching this. If you're entrepreneurs, you know it's not going to shut down. You can try everything.

It's a lifestyle.

Yeah. It's not gonna shut down. So the only way for us to actually get more out of what's not gonna shut down is to shut it down, you see? And it's scientifically proven, too. So it's not just me making this up. Right. When you actually don't do anything, that's the best time for an entrepreneur, because your Default mode of brain gets activated. There's actual science research done where they say that when you're doing the most mundane, boring things, there is a part of our brain that gets activated which is called the default mode of the brain. The default mode of the brain is also our subconscious. It takes all the data that you've been processing all day long and actually processes it to come up with a creative solution. Right. This is why people say, oh, I get my best ideas in the shower.

Is this just entrepreneurs or is this everybody?

Everybody. This is for everybody. Everybody needs to shut down to get the best creative ideas. This is for professionals, too. If you're a professional, the problem is you're working too hard. It's not that that's why you will grow. The reason why you don't grow as fast is because you work too hard.

And I'm guessing doing nothing is not doing this.

No, no, no. Doing nothing. Literally fold laundry like the stupidest shit, where there's actually no active side of your brain or your, you know, your conscious mind is not engaged.

So I run from that place, right. I'm learning to deal with that as I uncover what I'm really running away from. But I think as entrepreneurs, we fill every one of those seconds through even more work. But what you're saying is it's actually that almost boredom is necessary in order for the next creative breakthrough to happen.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Think about it like this. Your best ideas never came when you were checking Facebook. Your best ideas were not on somebody else's Facebook feed. Right? It was always when you were taking a hike, you were in the shower, you were taking a bath, you were swimming in the pool or doing whatever is that is kind of boring in a way, but was actually disengaged your conscious mind and was just your subconscious that took over, suddenly connected the dots, and boom, you have your brilliant idea. That's the reason your best ideas come there. But entrepreneurs don't know how to do that. So firstly for entrepreneurship, it's good to have that space. Secondly, to that's also the time you actually go deep and you give time to yourself. So it's good for your soul because you finally figured out what you actually want in life. Not the next billion dollars you wanna make, because that's. Nobody wants the billion dollars. You want the experience of the billion dollars.

They want what's on the other side of a billion dollars.

Yeah.

Having that chase is a great thing. So again, there's nothing wrong with the chase. There's nothing wrong with money. There's nothing wrong with wanting money. The challenge is why do you want it and how do you want to get there, right? So you may want all the money in the world, but if you want it just because you finally get to sit next to Jamie Foxx for a life, it's a stupid reason to do it, right? It's like, what validation are you looking for, right? If it's for love and connection that you're doing it because Jamie Foxx is your love and collection, well, go do it. But otherwise, love and collection is also with your wife, right? Or your girlfriend or your kids or your parents or your friends or whatever that is, right? So you could find that you can find the same joys of somebody who would make 100 million today. You don't have to wait for 100 million at the same point of time. That chase of 100 million keeps us excited and keeps our creative juices flowing. It's a good thing for you, it's a good thing for the world. But to do that chase just for the validation or just for that I will show you type of behavior is not good for your soul, it's not good for your heart, and it's not good for your health. So eventually you'll come around and go, why did I do this? And that's the common thing, right? And the book actually starts with that. Literally the first thing that I quoted is the research that. And I forget the name of the lady right now. She was a nurse and she did research by talking to people who were on their deathbed and asked them what did they regret the most? And they regretted things that were nothing to do with money. Nobody regretted making less or more money. Everybody regretted things like, I could have done things that I really loved. I regret I could have spent time with my family and so forth.

It.