The Two-Week Vacation Test: Building a Successful Business that Runs Without You with Austin Netzley

What I did is detach myself from the business. And I realized that me actually taking time off, it allowed me to mentally detach from the business and stop the addiction that I was addicted to it. I was addicted to like checking my email, checking my site, making sure that the clients were responding to as fast as humanly possible, all these different things. So I stopped that. I was able to let go of certain tasks. I was then kind of forced into having a set deadline of like, all right, I got to create these systems so that the team can run it. So I improved my team and operations and detached from the business so I had more time, freedom and a better lifestyle and a much healthier company that wasn't nearly as reliant on me.

Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create a business with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic Hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experience and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

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Absolutely. I've been looking forward to this moment for years now. We've been in the same circles for a long time and I'd love to see your development. And we are so aligned now, so hopefully you get some good value now.

We've been through some similar things, parallel paths, different ways. Yeah. And I know a bunch of mutual friends got a shout out. David Gonzalez. I know, he was the one that prompted me to get you on this podcast. He's been on the show years ago. Gotta bring him back. And also, yeah, we're in the same mastermind here. I guess it's virtual. I'm in San Diego, you're in Austin. But yeah, Speakeasy Mastermind. Gotta, gotta shout out our friends there. So, yeah, man, I mean, you have an interesting. And I love the fact that you have a couple books and I just gotta shout them out right away because from six to seven figures is the book. I know you re. You've updated that recently and I read that. I think it was a few years back or so. I think, I think we met back at TNC Traffic Conversion, so I know a lot of similar folks there. And the newest one you have out, which is the two week vacation test, this is. I like this one because. And I'm just gonna tell you straight up, my wife stole this book right when it arrived at my house. She's like, I like it. She's an entrepreneur as well. So she's like, yeah, we're gonna do this. Like, we gotta set the date like you said in the book. So yeah, man, I think.

It'S a perfect topic for everyone listening here. Ethos of this is to not burn out as entrepreneurs and have business be the fuel for not living in the business. So I'm curious how you got here to this point, to. To writing this book and maybe giving some scope around 2x your company and what you guys do too.

Yeah, absolutely. I think most things that become successful start with some pain. And that was the case in this situation is I was building my first business and I was still in the corporate world. So I started, I was an engineer in the corporate world and I started my first business on the side. And between the two, I was working about 80 hours a week, sometimes a hundred hours a week. And I was still trying to live a 20 something single lifestyle. So I was trying to party a lot, but like, I was super healthy. Like, I was running spartan races and doing half marathons and I was very fit. But like, I was so stressed out and overwhelmed that ultimately, after months and months of just grinding, my body kind of gave up on me. It started having anxiety attacks where I couldn't breathe or sleep. Every time I would drift off to sleep, I would gasp up in bed for breath and ultimately had to call 91 1- not once but twice, thinking I was going to die as I was having anxiety attacks. And by the time I did that, I was like, all right, hey, I'm doing this wrong. Like, people around me that are succeeding, that are thriving, they're not working 80 hours a week, they're not grinding, they're not killing themselves, they're not having anxiety attacks, they're not having to call 911. And that was like a really spooky time that I was like, all right, there has to be a better, simpler way. So then I took some time off. I went and traveled around the world and recharge. And I wanted to come back with something that I was passionate about, but also I wanted to come back with understanding, hey, what's that better, simpler way to run and grow a successful business so that I could have both, just as you mentioned. How could I have big success but also not kill myself in the process? So I really went on the journey to master that and that led me from one thing to the next to now teaching others how to do that.

Right on. And so engineers. So that was. Yeah, I know that's a lot of work. I have a lot of engineer buddies. So it's, it's crazy because the breakdown, I know you even put it in the book, but it's something I've heard before, is like after a certain threshold, you're. You're kind of useless in terms of productivity and in work in general. And obviously burnout is probably just like right there at the edge of that. So what was that? I guess that was the breaking point. But how'd you get, how'd you make that transition and I guess do it cleanly, as clean as possible?

Yeah, well, as soon as that started to happen, I started to learn about this cool thing called systems. And systems are amazing. They're life changing. They help make things so much easier, more predictable, more scalable. And I started to systemize everything that I was doing. So at the time, my first business was a day trading company. So I got heavy into day trading and I was like, all right, I'm going pro. I'm making this a real business. But it was so stressful. Every day I was making or losing thousands of dollars and growing up without a lot of money, like adding in the amplification of money every single day, coming and going, it was just so stressful. So I started to create systems for everything that I was doing. Everything from making decisions of what stocks to invest in, my recap for the day, my tracking of the numbers, different templates for different things, just so that everything was easier and more consistent. And that started to give me so much more peace, so much more flow, so much more ability to work on the right things and focus on the right things and not have the stress. So that was my first taste of it. But then I started to add in not only systems but, but other people as well. And ultimately that started to give me true leverage where ultimately, after a few businesses, I was able to create a seven figure business that could run and thrive without me. And building up towards taking more and more time off has allowed me to do that. But that was spurred on my path to a burnout a third time. All right, so I was building my agency. Yeah. And I'm a slow learner, so sometimes it takes me multiple failures to really have things sink in. So this is where the two week vacation test was started. Right. So I was building my first agency and we came out of the gates swinging. We had a lot of success right away, but I was so dependent or the business was so dependent on me. It was my talent. I was managing the clients. I was doing the strategy. Like I was really, really driving things. And at the beginning that's fine, but over time you've got to ultimately be able to remove yourself. I didn't do that just yet. And I was on the path to burnout. And I was like, I know what this feeling is. I know this tension in my chest. I know what this builds up toward. I'm not calling 911 again. So I had a. I was in a new relationship at the time and she was a teacher. So she had all summer off. And we had like six weeks or something before the her summer break started. And I was like, hey, babe, we should go and travel. She wanted to go travel. This is like her dream to go and do this. I was like, we should go travel for the summer. And my business was not ready for this to happen. Right. Not ready at all. And I did it and I went and took. We went about, I think it was about 10 weeks and we had like at least like 10 different stops that we did mostly throughout the US and it was super cool. And I worked a little bit during that time. But what I did is detach myself from the business. And I realized that me actually taking time off, it allowed me to mentally detach from the business and stop the addiction that I was addicted to. I was addicted to like checking my email, checking my slack, making sure that the clients were responding to as fast as humanly possible, all these different things. So I stopped that I was able to let go of certain tasks. I was then kind of forced into having a set deadline of like, all right, I got to create these systems so that the team can run it. So I improved my team and operations and detached from the business. So I had more time, freedom and a better lifestyle and a much healthier company that wasn't nearly as reliant on me. So this was like, I was like, this is amazing. This is the best thing I could ever. Why didn't I do this years ago? And that stopped the burnout that led to a lot more success. And since then went on to build, you know, multiple seven figure businesses using the same methodology of operational excellence. So things weren't reliant on me. And the path to do that was spurred by taking time off. So that's what led to the 2 vacation test.

And what I'm hearing is you set a date, you had, you had six weeks ahead of you, or was it 10? Either way, you set a date.

Six weeks. Six weeks. Ready? Yeah.

There you go. And so you weren't that far out. I mean, that's a month and a half right there. And obviously you're already in the middle of things. You're on the edge of burnout again. And I'm speaking to the people listening right now as well, because it's the power of setting a date, and I know you said it in the book is Pareto's. Not Pareto's, but Parkinson's law. You know, it's like it's set the date because you need to have a container around yourself. Because let's be honest, we're so addicted. Like you said, work, everything is at our fingertips. Our bleep, blops and all that distract us and pull us back into the business or working in it, not on it. Right?

Yep, yep, absolutely. And studies show with cell phones now, which everybody has a smartphone, we're working 72 hours a week. The average professional is working 72 hours per week because we're always one second away from checking our Email or being on a slack or some, some type of way being interacting with our business or thinking about our business. That's too much, right? And you, you started it with is like there's a certain number of hours that studies show that your productivity actually declines overall. So basically per studies, anything over 55 hours is pretty much useless. And anything past 70 hours is actually very detrimental. Especially if you're doing that week after week. But even more like we only have like really about four, maybe six if we're really healthy and focused of like pure hours per day that we can actually move the needle on something outside of that we're not really productive. But we think we are because we're super busy. So. So if we can be really intentional with our time, it's great. And one of the ways to do that is what you mentioned Parkinson's law. However much time we give ourselves, we'll use that full time. So just like in college, like if you're waiting until like the last three days to study for an exam, well do the same thing here. Give yourself a deadline. It doesn't have to be two weeks, but you know, we have seven steps on the path to taking two weeks off that. If you give yourself a deadline to do some of the first steps right away again, you can just take back so much control of your time and ease so much pressure that we put on ourselves. That's the thing. It's self induced so much.

It is man. And that's where I go back to the addiction concept. Because it's true, man. I mean addictions, we could think where the healthiest. I don't drink, I don't smoke, whatever it might be. It's like, well how much are you working? Have you checked your screen time lately? Are you tracking that? Which I actively do. And when you. It's the whole thing of when you're looking at the metrics or if you're tracking your time, your schedule, just in general working, you start to become aware of the numbers and your focus. And it's almost like with that awareness you already, it's, it's so much easier to start the momentum of maybe dropping habits of picking up your phone. You know, you're more aware of everything. The work time you're putting in. If you're tracking how long it's taking you, what are your thoughts on, on.

That you are hitting it nail on the head. The awareness to like that's the first step to fix anything. So we don't often know that we are addicted to these things. So that's why we're working through small steps. And like for instance, the first step on the path to two week vacation test is taking an evening 100% off. So by doing this, that's pretty easy to do, right? Like pretty much anybody that isn't in the middle of a major fire or major launch, you can take the night off and hopefully not have to worry about it. But what you'll realize by doing that is you'll start to notice some addictions of like checking social media or checking your email or thinking about tomorrow or thinking about that fire or stressing out about this conversation that you need to have. Like we have all these things that we are attached to our business. Again, oftentimes we don't even know it. So if you start to take these small steps and time off and be really aware of where your addictions and attachments are and what your urges are, that will just give you so much awareness and then, then you can address it. But if you don't know it and don't think about it, then then again you're not going to be able to address it in the same way. So that awareness is a major first step.

Yeah, man, yeah. And talk about, I guess the stair step approach because that's what I love about this and it's with everything. There's another thing I've, I've talked about a lot on the show and do is are these micro actions every single day there's like 10 things and it could be as simple as, you know, having, having or doing a hundred pushups in a day might not be simple for everybody, but at least like spreading it out, it's something consistent. And I can kind of track what's going on, water consumption, you're drinking right now. It's like I make sure to have four of these big boys every single day. It's like, so what are the, I guess talk about the stair step approach and how to build momentum in this and starting with awareness we talked about. Yeah, yeah.

Well, first of all, let me explain the two week vacation test real quick because basically what it is is a test to see the health of your business, but it's also a methodology to build a much more successful business. So for instance, if you go right now, today and take two weeks off from your business, no strings attached, you can't, you know, touch your email, you don't have any access to your clients, you don't have any access to your team, how would your business do? Most businesses would falter pretty quickly, right that's not a really healthy business. That means it's reliant on you and your time and brain. What we need to do in the better, healthier business is one that can run and thrive without you, where you've got the team and operations in place that things are thriving and not necessarily reliant on you. So this doesn't mean that you forever go on a vacation and you're not working at all. No, it means you're in complete control of your time and you've got thriving team and operations so that then you can spend your time on the things that you like doing and the highest impact things so that you can grow to the next level. So this way you've got the great lifestyle, low stress, and the ability to have a wildly, wildly successful business no matter what your goals are. So that's the path to it. So the way that we want to get there is through these small micro steps. So the first one is taking evening off like we talked about, just doing that 100%. So let's say you end work at 5pm, have a wrap up routine to kind of make a transition from your work day into your personal life and then not work at all until the next day. That's the first step. So then we're building up more and more, taking a weekend off and then doing a deep and focused work and doing a full crush today. And I can explain these in more detail, but the first four or five steps are pretty small things that most people can do in a week. And what they are doing is first and foremost breaking the mental attachment and the addiction to our business then, and that's one muscle that we need to rebuild is how can we turn things off? Right. If you want to really be productive, you got to be able to turn things on and be able to turn things off. And so oftentimes again, as we're talking about with cell phones and everything, it's like it's so hard to turn things off. So we got to rebuild that muscle. The second muscle that we're trying to build with this stair step process is the ability to do deep and focused work. All right, so there's great quote from Steve Jobs. I'm going to butcher it a little bit, but it's really impactful of everything in this room. Everything is created by people just like you and I, right? So what that means is basically any problem, especially in entrepreneurship, is figureoutable. Right? It may not be easy to do by us, but we're able to be able to figure it Out. So the really, the only thing between where we are and where we want to be is by doing deep and focused work on the right things. But so oftentimes we're fixing a hundred different fires that we never are able to work on the deep and focused things and the most important things that we should be working on. So what we want to do is build that muscle of being able to have the structure in place to do deep and focused work, and then from there, letting go of tasks, improving your team and operations. So we can break through each. Each step if you want, but it's really a mental attachment that we want to break, then a physical attachment and being able to be really in control of your time as you improve your team and operations. Ooh.

Yeah. I mean, there's a lot there. And I know going through the full stair step, maybe, maybe the first couple stages, because I feel like that's the one that starts to build the momentum. Right. And. And there's something you said as well with the whole the mental switching, and I don't think he even said that, but that's what I heard is multitasking versus batching, because we're doing so much, and without that deep and focused work, I mean, you can't solve some of the bigger problems that we are probably out to set are out to go get, but we're being distracted or we're working in the business so much. And that's where I feel like that addiction just keeps compounding.

Right.

It's like a flywheel.

Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. And again, we end our days or end our weeks. We're like, man, I worked hard, but did I really get ahead most of the time? No. So. So we want to take back control and be able to focus on the right things. So, yeah, let me walk through a couple of those first steps. So I mentioned the first one, which is taking an evening 100% off. And as you're doing that again, notice your attachments, notice your urges, notice where your stress is and be able to be fully present with your partner, your kids or yourself or whatever, whatever that is going to be. The second one is very similar, but it's taking a full weekend off. 60% of entrepreneurs are working on the weekends, especially with cell phones. It's probably much, much more than that. So. So can you take a full weekend off where you're not working, you're not thinking about working out, stressing about work, you're fully present. This way you can be much more recharged and you can go into the Next week, much more focused, rejuvenated, better mindset, happier, all the different things. Right, so that's the second one. Then the third one is as we were talking about, let's get into some deep and focused work. The first way that we suggest doing that is as something that everybody can start tomorrow, which is something called done by 10:30. So this is basically a morning structure to do deep and focused work before you get into the reactivity of the day to day, the day to day. So the simple structure of this is everybody will have their own morning routine. If you have kids or you have a spouse or you have a dog, there's going to be a little bit different than, than everybody's. But have a simple morning routine that helps you get into the right state of mind and write it into flow. And then the main thing is from a work standpoint, we want two hours of deep and focused work before we get into anything reactive. So before you check your email, before you check your social media, before you check in with your team, before you check anything that could pull you off your path, do two hours of deep and focused work. Now at the beginning, this may be pretty scary for people to do because we're just, we're getting, we're addicted to waking up, checking our phone, checking our emails, checking all the things. We're instantly reactive right from the start. That's a stressful situation to be in. But imagine if you could get clear on the day before so you get clear on the highest impact things that you're going to work on and you spend at least two hours improving your business or filling your pipeline with leads, or working on a really important system or you know, creating a big marketing campaign, whatever it is. Two hours of high impact work before you check anything reactive. This means every single day you're moving the business forward. And we call it done by 10:30, because by 10:30am with the right structure, you should be like, wow, day's been a great success, right? And it's barely even started and it's already a big success. So this allows you to get into flow, get a lot of momentum, get important things done, always be improving your business work, quote unquote on the business and reduce your stress. Like it's so much of a better feeling than starting your day just reactive. So that's the third step. And then the fourth step is taking that even further step or even further, which with a full crush it day, this is a full day with zero meetings. So imagine if you have a full.

Day, I'm Just kidding.

Yeah, exactly. A full day with zero meetings, zero client interaction, zero team interaction. Like the amount of things that you can get done in a crush a day are more than most people get done in about a three week period. Because you like, we're oftentimes overlooked, like looking over our shoulder of. All right, I got this meeting in an hour and then you got a little break for like 20 minutes and you got another meeting and you got one like an hour and a half. So you can never get in to a deep work state, you can never get into flow and like that, that again, just kills your productivity overall. So having this, and this is the first step where you start to train your team to not need you. Because we are training our team day in and day out to come to us. They got fires, they got issues, come to us, we'll help them, we'll fix it. Right? And we got to retrain our team that they are going to solve the problems themselves, that they're going to bring solutions and not problems in some of these things. And that's kind of the first step where we're creating the team in operation. So those are the first four steps. All of which a lot of people can do in the next seven days at least.

Big announcement here. The Hustle and Flowchart podcast is now the newest podcast on the HubSpot Podcast network. They're the audio destination for business professionals. It's exactly, exactly why I joined the network to expand what we've been doing here. Making business the fuel for your life, not the stressor or the burnout. We want to build fun and make business a big part of who we are and our expression out to others. So you're going to expect a lot more, more curated guests that sync up with this mission. Also more topics and episodes from me. And I want you to keep listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. Go check out other shows on the HubSpot Podcast Network at HubSpot.com podcast network. Oh yeah, man. I mean that's, it's all very achievable. And, and I know looking through the book here, it's like it's all drawn out in a very linear way that you can build on. I mean that's the whole stair step approach anyway. And I guess there's a couple things that stand out. A few things. First one, the team, that's the latest one we just talked about. It's. It's interesting because yeah, when we, a lot of us who are here right now are those listening Maybe solopreneur, but. Or at least a small team, maybe some VAs, couple of them. And you're right. Like especially with Slack and having that on our phones, it's very easy to be attainable or, you know, like reachable by them at any time of the day. And then that just, that turns on work again, no matter what time it is. Even, especially a va if they're overseas, that can probably crush that whole process of being done by five o' clock or whatever. What are some tips on training your team and getting them buying into this whole concept of you kind of stepping away or stepping out of the business a little bit?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Great question. A couple things that come up. Number one is systems. If you can create a culture of systems, this is going to impact you, it's going to impact your team, it's going to impact your profitability, it's going to impact your ability to let go, your ability to take vacations. Like, systems are the secret. Now, the cool thing is if you're doing something, you're already doing the work. Now we just need to be a little bit more strategic about it, turn it into a system. And this allows us to be more efficient with this or more efficient with it or be able to delegate it to somebody else. So a system could be anything, such as a template. It could be a process as far as like a standard operating procedure that breaks down step by step, what to do. It could be a template, could be a checklist, it could be a automation or a program or software application. Anything that's going to allow you to get more done for something that you're going to do more than once or to make it easier and more efficient, that's a system. So if you can start to create systems yourself and train other people on how to do those particular things that you're doing, that's going to, again, set them up for success. We think that people know what we know, they don't. All right? So we got to map it out for them and then guide them and support them. The second thing is, is a very simple question that you can ask. All right? So everybody brings their problems. There's challenges to you, and you oftentimes answer those. But what you want to do is very simply throw it back to them and have them start to think for themselves with the simple question of what would you suggest that we do? Right. What would you suggest that we do? Like, as soon as they bring. We call it a monkey, everybody brings their monkeys to you. These are the problems. And challenges and it's like you already got your own full slate and they're bringing other things to you throughout the day. It's exhausting. Right, so we just, let's just retrain them and start to ask that question because oftentimes we are training them that we're going to answer it for them. So we're actually limiting them from building the confidence and the problem solving themselves, which is what they want to do. They want to grow and they want to make more impact and they want more autonomy. So if we just start to teach them to bring solutions and not problems, oftentimes we'll see that they're actually right. They know what to do. We just hasn't given them either the confidence or the training to, to be able to answer that. So that, that's a simple shift that will have them be bringing way less problems, way more solutions to you and that, that starts to again, train them that you're not going to answer all their questions and that they need to be more autonomy or autonomous and, and you're going to support them in doing that.

Ooh, I like it, man. And one of the tools I've used for this are loom videos just showing, showing a process. Oh yeah, man. And everyone always reacts like that too. It's like. Because when you think of SOPs, people are like, ah, checklist. How do I write this out and teach? Like, we'll just show. And I think it was my mentor and buddy, James Schramko, who talked about this and how he trains his team and he actually gets them to write the SOPs, I believe it is, and then almost like really re. Explain it to James to really have them almost teach him and, and that's just locking everything in and they're probably making the system better, let's be honest. You know, ideally they're going to find some, some ways to automate even further, or at least we're encouraging them to do so.

So ab absolutely, like you're already doing all the work. If it's online, press record on the loom, talk through as you're doing it and then you're right, somebody, a VA can take that and they can create a full SOP from that with screenshots and steps. And if you then go through what they just created based on your guidance and it's not like accurate, that means you haven't given them like the next steps or you haven't explained that. So now you can find the gaps more easily. But yeah, you're already doing all the work. But you're right, it's a great training process. And now you have an SOP and you have something in case that person that you trained is out. Well, you get an SOP that could be handed off to somebody else. So it's duplicatable over and over and over again. So that's a great way to do it.

Yeah, man. Cool. And I'm sure there's. Well, I guess this is a question for you, but tools, I mean, now in the age of AI and all these, you know, chatgpt and ways that you can slam a bunch of data in through like something like Claude AI, like, are you leveraging any tools like that to systemize your processes with your teams and systems in general?

Well, the biggest thing I would say is to actually keep it simple. So until you can start with the basics of the basics, don't think about AI, don't think about even some major applications. Like oftentimes we have people start with spreadsheets. Like the world's built on spreadsheets and it's still built on spreadsheets. Right? So, so I would say the main thing is keep it simple, take it one step at a time and build up and then you can get to more of the tech and automation and AI stuff. We aren't as heavy into that. We definitely leverage chat, GPT and different things to, to get more like about three times the productivity of an assistant versus what we could like a year ago, which is pretty wild. But yeah, I would say, like, we're less on the fancier tools as much as we're about simplicity and making sure that we're doing things that we're actually going to use. Because that's actually the sign of a good system. Is, is it used? Right. Like, a lot of times we've created systems, but if they aren't used or they aren't followed or they're, you know, used for like a month and then stopped, that's not a good system. So we want to keep it as simple as possible so that it's actually used.

I'm actually happy you said that because there's so many, so many tools, the bubble of tools and new things coming in, shin objects, and it takes us away from the foundation of what's running our business and maybe always has, or it's a lot easier to do than learn the next new thing. So, yeah, I'm happy you said that. There's a. There's another topic and it's around sleep, ultimately, because I know that's a big, big Piece because I've experienced panic attacks or anxiety. The same chest feeling, you said. And sleep was a key for me. But even before sleep, the whole concept of wrapping up your day and it's something you mentioned. I would love your thoughts on the process of wrapping up our days, whenever, whatever time that is and how that dovetails into actually getting good sleep and like a whole evening of turning, turning that whole thing off.

Yeah, yeah, well, you mentioned it. Turn it off. Like, it's so hard to turn things off. So what we need to do is we need to have a proper trigger. And again, what we suggest doing that is what we call the wrap up routine. So it's just very simple. This could literally, like now it takes me about three minutes to do and it doesn't take long at the beginning, it'll take a few minutes more. But basically just reflect on the day. Like if every single day you're reflecting on the day, you're like, all right, what worked? What didn't? Did I get my big three items done for the day? Like, you're, what you're going to do is you're going to learn every single day. You're going to identify where your time's going that it shouldn't have. You're going to identify systems that you need to fix certain problems that you're like, all right, if I create this system, that problem's not going to show up again or you're going to have more awareness. Like we talked about, the first step to fix anything is to have awareness. So taking just a few minutes to reflect on the day and specifically in the case of what we're talking about here today is related to your time, right? Where's your time going? The second thing then is to plan your next day. Right? It's really important to go into a day. And we talked about not being reactive. Well, most people don't have a plan and they check emails and they're instantly reactive in every way possible. And their next day. No, let's, let's, let's have an initial plan. Now, that plan may change just a little bit. Like, I'll map out my big three items for the next day. And sometimes item number one will go to number two or whatever it is. It may tweak just a little bit based on what you think about overnight or what your subconscious thinks about overnight, because your subconscious can work just fine and that not impact you and your energy at all. So having the initial plan for the next day and you're looking at what's coming up the next couple of days so that you're aware. Um, and then having a trigger, and this is the really important part, to separate and to go from the work energy to the personal energy, which again, if you have a spouse, if you have kids, if you've got, you know, other people that you want to be hanging out with, you can't carry the stress of the day to day into, into that and, and have that be a level 10. So, so a simple trigger could be doing the 50 pushups as you talked about, be going on a quick walk, doing some certain ritual that you do, or you clap your hands and you, whatever it is, doing a short little five minute, changing your clothes. Even if you work from home, you can change your clothes. And that's a mental trigger. So any type of way that we can have an official wrap up to our day, we kind of put a close on it as far as reflecting on the day. We have enough of a vision for what's going to happen the next day so that then we can be at much more peace and then have a trigger that signals that that's done. That's a beautiful muscle to build. And then you're able to actually turn things off. So that leads to a much better evening, much better relationships, much more presence, and so much better rest. Because if you don't get rest and you always never aren't able to turn it off, that just stacks and stacks and stacks until you ultimately break.

That's it, man. Yeah. And I was just chatting with a doctor yesterday and he's all about longevity. Longevity doctor. He does for 30 years now. And the three core three things are nutrition, physical movement and sleep. And sleep was that big thing. And it's brain health ultimately. And if we're thought leaders or thought workers, I guess even more so more than laborers. Like, we better be protected in that tool between our ears and no better way to set it up. I mean, not only are you benefiting in your day and working less, working on clear agenda items, not bouncing around, but now you're actually preserving it through focusing on great sleep.

Yeah, absolutely. It's huge. It's been one of the probably top two or three most impactful things in my life is to go from so stressed out where I wasn't sleeping to really mastering my health and leaning into great sleep. And I don't sleep super long, but I sleep really, really well. And my energy without any caffeine or anything is, is pretty insane. So sleep is the cornerstone habit that impacts everything. I highly encourage everybody to if that's a podcast that you just did, listen to that podcast because it impacts everything.

Yeah, man. And I want to speak back to the times in the very beginning. So someone that might be in the middle of things right now, like stressed out, anxiety ridden, just panicky, almost like that tightness, like, let's talk about that a little bit more because that's a sensation I know a lot of us will experience when there's just a lot happening. And what I've found is like, when it's a lot of the wrong things happening or the things that are really where you want to put your time. Whereas, like, if there's a lot of things happening, but they're all the things you're choosing and prioritizing and you have in order, it's almost like you could take on that, but it feels okay. You're more in flow. So let's dive into that. I know we already touched on it, but I really want to speak to that more because I feel like that's a point where a lot of people will get. Get stuck. It could lead to depression, you know, really dark places and maybe even just stopping this whole entrepreneur game in the first place.

Yeah, well, what I would say is, is definitely work through the steps because if you can even do that first one of taking an evening off, like that just leads to so much more relaxation and better sleep, which leads into everything. So like, if we were just able to better turn things off, that's going to lead to more. But one thing I wanted to know based on your question is every single business has a ton of waste. And when I look at the times where I was super stressed out and overwhelmed and I look at what I was spending my time on, I was making everything pretty important. When in fact, like the 8020 rule is real. 80% of our results come from only 20% of our inputs or efforts. Right. So that means that most of what we're spending our time and energy, effort and effort on is not necessarily waste, but pretty darn close to it. Right, Right. And if we can simplify and cut things out and make some of those hard decisions of what's not really necessary, what's not essential, that just creates so much capacity. So now we work with six and seven figure businesses all across the globe and the first thing that we go in is to understand their business inside and out. And every single time, these are already again successful businesses that have a team, that have traction. Like every single time we find so much waste of what they're spending their time Energy, effort and money on that. If we can just create some capacity by freeing up 20 or 40% of that or pushing it off to a later date, which, guess what, if we push it off to a later date and it's not super important now, 99.999% of the time, it's not going to be super important in the future. So we just got to, we just got to simplify. And that's one of the hardest things as entrepreneurs is we've got to master the skill of simplification for ourself and also for other people that we hire and for our team is like, we always gotta be looking at what can we cut out, what's not essential, how can we make things easier? So those are two things that I'd recommend is start to take some time off, be able to turn work off, do the first two steps of a night off and a weekend off, really take your health to the next level. And the second is identify what are some things that you can push off to a later date or how can you free up time. And if you can, just like the, the better, better than delegation, better than systems is cutting things out, right? Like that's the best thing that you can do. And I would say those two things will create a little bit more ease that, you know, you can get to the next level from there.

I like it, man. Yeah, because that's where, you know, changing a business at one point, dropping. My old business partner used to be the co host of this podcast. Like there was just, there were a lot of things that were for my personal anxiety and what things were. I just noticed things were going the wrong direction for me. It wasn't, doesn't mean in general for him it was great. And, and I'm just talking real here is, is when I remember cutting things out, it was the best feeling. It was like immediate unload of that pressure on my chest and I got a lot more clarity. And that was all without ruining any relationships or anything like that. But it was just this, this decision of, no, I, I gotta kill this part of the thing. You know, it's like there's this kill automate delegate. My buddy Aaron Fletcher talks about that, the KAD method. And it's like, well, you sometimes have to kill something and, and it could be some, like even a business partnership in some cases, or it could just be an operation in your business that you're doing all the time without thinking about it.

I love that, I love that it's again, so hard to do. But Every single time that you do that and it's the right decision, which it is most of the time, it's like you instantly feel some weight off of your shoulders. And it's like. And you set other people up for success too, if it's not a good fit. So I've done the same thing. I've been in a partnership that we had to go our separate ways and like, that decision. Both, you know, romantic decisions like that and also business partnerships like that, like, those have been some of the best decisions I've made for them and for me to be able to move on. So, uh, one thing that we talked about earlier is awareness. So I would say if you're really feeling that stress, like, first write it down, start to make it tangible of what that actually is. And if you do that, then you can start to problem solve. All right, all right. What are different ways to attack this? And there's maybe some scary options, such as having a big decision to cut out a partner or whatever. Um, but, but. But making it tangible and being aware of where that really is is is again, the first step. And we usually see that there's three major, major stresses. One is money. Another is time and how the things that you're spending on and being folded in too many different directions. And the third is the people. Whether you don't like the clients that you serve or the people on your team or somebody. Vendors stressing you out, it's usually one of those three that just keeps you up at night and really, really has the stress. Be kind of overbearing at times. So if you can, you know, address those three head on, then you know, you're gonna hopefully be in a pretty good spot.

The power of writing, man, and noticing. I guess it's like two things for what I've. What. What you've said and what I've experienced is noticing it body, like actually being aware of, like, oh, that just there's an elephant on my chest right now. Or my gut's all like in knots because I'm anxiety, you know, anxiety. And I think it's Alex Hermosi talks about anxiety is basically not having prioritization over your tasks. And. And because once you get some clarity there, which is what we've been talking about, and even better building systems so it has a place, then I mean, you're gonna feel better naturally. But the power of writing it down, like journaling, that's one of the microhabits. I have a couple different ways to write. Could even turn into a book, which is kind of where it's leading to. The next question is, with all this extra time, I mean, a lot of us have these ideas. I want to write a book. I mean, you wrote two of them and you've revised one. You might even have others I'm unaware of. But there's this extra time now where you can, you can have clarity of thought and maybe package up some of these thoughts that we can then use as a tool to like, as a ripple for others to expand our message, but help other people. And I know that's what you've done. And it's obviously a great marketing tool, you know, and it opens doors, it opens up opportunities. Talk about the power of even writing books in general. Because I know a lot of us are sitting on ideas, but the excuse is usually time. And that's what we're talking about here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So our, our basic marketing strategy is create assets, create machines, and do more of what works. So what that means is a lot of people are focused on creating something that's just like a kind of a one time thing, like a social media post or a one off email. What we're trying to do is create an asset that can be used and leveraged over and over and over again. So for instance, a book is a major asset. A podcast is an asset that lives. Somebody will be listening to this in two years, right? So assets are first. Second is machines. So a lot of people have seven different marketing channels, none of which are optimized, consistent, predictable and scalable, not reliant on them. So if we turn the one, at least one into a machine that's every single month generating customers, that then will allow us to scale that more easily and stack on new channels. So we want to do that. And third is do more of what works. So it's hard to get something to work, but if it does, you want to do more of that, right? And you want to have the numbers and guidance to say, hey, that works really well. How do we scale that up or how do we duplicate that? So those are, that's our basic marketing strategy. But that ties in the books. So the books are how a lot of people make decisions to invest in a coaching program or invest in a mastermind. So I always knew that books would be big for us. But out of our, this company's five years old, out of the last five years, at least four of the years, our number one driver of new clients was books. Because again, it's just a great asset, it's great marketing tool. It's a great way for people to see our, some of our methodology get indoctrinated to that topic. And it's a very warm buyer. So there's a lot of trust there, there's a lot of ways that we can leverage it. And there's a great way to bring in a great client that is again, already indoctrinated into our language and into our beliefs. Um, so it's by far the best thing that we can do outside of referrals. And referrals has always been our number two. So those two, like, have taken us to many millions of dollars. We've been on the Inc. 5000 back to back years and we spend pennies in advertising because we've got great assets, great people talking about us like that. So every book that I've done, I'm really fortunate to say, has been worth at least a million dollars in revenue. Some of them have been worth much more. And it's fun to do so. It's like my dream is to write a book every single year and I've got the time, freedom to do that.

I like it.

And now next year we have plans for three books coming out. So now that we have the engine behind it, now that we know the numbers, we know how, how profitable they are and how impactful they are for people as well, like it's everything, right? And now we've got the vision to have other people be writing books as well. That I'll be the co author of, that I'll do very minimal amount. And we'll be building our own library. So books have been super impactful. It's the best asset that we can create. If you have a high ticket service, if you have a coaching program, even if you have a professional services business, write a book, you've got it in you, you can get the right structure and it's an asset that you can leverage for years and years and years and years. And the ROI on it compares to nothing else that I've seen.

Man. Thank you. Thank you. Because that's a big. Other than getting out of the work and the overwhelm of our businesses, the other part of my mission is to, to share our missions with the world or what we have inside of us, because we're all thought leaders in our own regard, experts in our own domains. And podcasting is the thing I've always done, but the books, and I've done some books, but they're nothing like the books that you've written with an actual purpose, with a whole plan behind It. I mean, going through here, you know, you have tools that are associated with it. You have ways to refer, refer or. And. And leave reviews and. And create that referral, almost like a network effect within the book. And I love how you're doing that. You're prompting it through it. So as a marketer, I'm looking at the book not only for the content, you know, as a business owner, but then seeing I'm like, man, it's genius. And. And this is where I advocate for podcasting as well, is that it could become your marketing machine. If you do it right, your branding, your pr, opens doors all over. So.

Yep, yep, absolutely.

And it comes down to conquering our time. Right. And being able to clear off enough space for it. So. Yeah.

And the last thing there is like. And also match up the way that people make decisions for investing in your product or service with your zone of genius and what you want to do. Right? Because, like, you're amazing at podcasts. That's your path. At some point, we'll have a podcast too, but, like, my dream is to, like, write books, so I love that. And it aligns with how people make decisions in our things. Perfect. That's exactly what somebody should do. So every marketing strategy will be a little bit dependent, but depending on your business and your interests and desires, and if you get those matched up, you're in a beautiful spot. Combine it with everything that we talked about from a time freedom standpoint, it's the recipe for some cool things, dude.

All right, well, I mean, there's a lot there, and I want people to dive into the book because it's actionable. I think it's something. I know it's something that we can all start day one right now. And I feel like all of us have this desire, this. This itch to do more, yet not do more. You know, it's like we want to do more, but without the time investment of ourselves and knowing that there's more than just our own inputs, it can be exponential. So tell me how folks can get a hold of this book. And also maybe some of the things they should. They should be thinking of as they're. They're waiting to get their hands on the copy and all that, because I know you have a lot more than just the book itself, too.

Yep. Yeah, absolutely. Well, as a special gift to your audience, Joe, and as a thank you for having me on, what we'll actually do is we'll actually ship out the book for people. Not. Not the digital PDF. No, we want to Send the physical book out to people and you can get that for free. So we've set up a special link to X co Flowchart to get that. Just put in your name and address, we'll ship it out. You'll get it pretty much right away. It'll be there within two days usually. And would be happy to do that because, like, my mission is to help free up entrepreneurs from the stress and the overwhelm and the burnout and the things that I've been through. The things that you've been through, Joe. So we'd love to get that book out there. 2x CO flowchart. Happy to send it out again. We'll cover all the costs. There's no hidden fees or anything there. And my biggest thing would be if you teach me or you tell me what your takeaways are from that. And I hope that you actually apply the steps, because that's the juice. You can read it, you can go through all the charts, you can go through the tools, but actually applying the steps, that's where the real breakthroughs will happen. And I've been hearing so many great success stories. So much more time off, so much more enjoyment out of their personal lives by people taking the steps. So that gives me so much joy. You can see the smile on my face right now that that's what I want. So check out the book. Would love to give that. And then, you know, we help. We have some done with you implementation programs as well. But my main thing is to move the book right now.

All right, so make sure to go to 2x co flowchart, get that book, and most of all, implement it and let Austin know on the public forums that you read it, that you've implemented it as well. And because it's, It's. You got all the tools, you got all the. The reasons to do it. It's just up to us to make that decision. And I know I've made. I've made some of the moves, but I'm going to dive in and actually implement. I'm setting the date with my wife. I'm telling you, she already saw the book and stole it from me and I had to pry it from her hand. Plans for this podcast. So I'm committed with her, which is rad. So I'm gonna let everybody, everybody know as well. So, Austin, appreciate your time so much, man, and you being here.

Sharon, absolutely love your mission, love the impact that you're making. So happy to be a part of it. Keep it up, man.

All right. All right. That's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living to work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be fueling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share, or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list, writing a review or or whatever it might be. Everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.