Nels Jensen took a year off from his company and it thrived without him. He built what he calls a Freedom Machine: systematize your expertise, document how everything works, and develop a leadership team that can run things in your absence. Start with one-month sabbaticals and work up to a full year away.
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What if after this meeting you walked out the door and disappeared for a year? What would happen to your business if you structured it correctly? After one year it would have grown. Well, that's exactly what I did four years ago when I took a one year sabbatical. Hopefully you could and you will after hearing Nell Jensen's talk. So Nels walked out of his company door in October 2024 and didn't return until April 16, 2025. When he came back, he found his company had grown in sales, there were no fires to put out, and he was rejuvenated both mentally and physically. As the founder of Williamsburg Learning, an educational technology company that delivers accredited online school programs for thousands of students in grades six through 12, Nels leads a team of more than 150 employees and runs an eight figure business. Now it's your turn to consider what Nels did. Start with one month, then three months, then six months, and finally take a year long sabbatical. How do you do that? This talk will show you. The title is Build you'd Freedom Machine. Please welcome Nels Jensen.
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Donyce. Thank you for that inspiring message about how we can ask better questions to get at the truth of the our help. I know something about you. You've done this. You've gone to Maui with your spouse and you've been on the beach at sunset and you've been squinting at your phone. Did Brad sign the contract? And I'm sure in that moment your partner looked over you and thought, damn, that's so sexy. Buddha said the immature think they'll live forever, but the wise know their lives will pass by like clouds in the sky. The end of your life is going to come sooner than you think. And at the end, people tend to reflect on what they've done and what they haven't done. And sometimes there's regret. One of the most common regrets is I wish I didn't work so much. I wish I spent more time with the people I love. But our lives aren't set up for that. And why not? It's because we've been sold a lie. The lie is you. You have to grind to get ahead. You have to spend decades doing it. And the more you sacrifice, the greater your success will be. Total bs. Here's what's true. You can have abundance, peace, rest, play and business success all at the same time. But it doesn't happen by default. Think about when you're 95. What's going to matter to you? It's going to be Three things. One, was I a good person? Two, who did I love and who loved me? And three, did I leave the world better than I found it? You're not going to care about whether you hit your sales targets in 2025, or whether you closed 10 more deals, or whether you were on such and such podcast. That's all going to fade away. So here's the test. If you walked out the door of your company tomorrow and you didn't come back for six months, what would be there when you return? Would the trains be running on time? Would your customers be happy? Would your employees be following your vision and your values? If the answer is probably not, I don't want to sound like a jerk, but I'm here to tell you you don't have a business. You have self employment. I don't care if you're netting a million dollars a year. If you're trading time for money, you don't have freedom. What you want is what Dan Sullivan calls the self managing, self multiplying company. To get there, you have to make a shift. It's a mindset shift. You really have two choices. Do you want to build yourself a freedom machine or do you want to check slack on vacation? Your choice. A Freedom Machine has three parts. First part is, hey, I hope you're.
Enjoying this video and I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.
First part is a business strategy that does not depend on the founder. Whatever it is that you do, your genius, you have to extract that, document it, systemize it, and it has to be teachable. Second, you have to have an operating system not in your head, written down, formalized, and your employees are continuously trained on it. And third, you have to have an aligned, loyal leadership team. These are people who you trust. They can operate the company in your absence. If you have those three things, you can build yourself as much freedom as you want and we have some social proof in the room. Raise your hand if you've ever taken a sabbatical, walked away from your company for multiple months and come back. So it's definitely possible Joe took a sabbatical. I asked him, what did you gain from that? And he said three big things. One is he took a look at his relationships and he had time and Space to figure out which ones belonged and didn't belong. Two, his sabbatical was during COVID and he had time to really stop and notice what was going on in society, what was really happening. And number three, he bought a ghost town, which he never would have done. And I know what you're thinking right now. Maybe you wish he didn't buy the ghost town, because if you have to hear about it one more time, you might have busted cap on somebody. Janelle Bruin also took a sabbatical, and she takes regular sabbaticals now. And I said, well, what has it done for you? And she said, well, I always come back rested and renewed, with a clear mind, ready to engage. It's also a great example to my leadership team of how to lead effectively. And it also tells me if I actually have the right team. The ultimate stress test for a business is can it survive for a while without its founder? The ultimate test for your skills as an entrepreneur is can you build a company that works without you? It's kind of like that first weekend where you leave home and you leave your teenager there and you find out a lot about what kind of parent you really are. Do you feel comfortable or do you need to put the valuables away and turn on the nanny cam? Think about this. There's really only one thing you need to do to start the process of creating a sabbatical for yourself. You can do it today. You need to set a date. When will it begin and when will it end? If this feels right to you, set the date today. Go home. Tell your spouse, promise your kids, teach your employees. Put it on the calendar. One thing I know, if you don't do that, in a year from now, you won't be any closer. But imagine two years from now, and you can take as much time as you need to to prepare. You might need one, two, or three years. But let's say in two years from now. It's day one. You wake up, you look at your calendar. You got freedom on the open road. No appointments, no zoom, no email, no one texting with a quick question. You have time to read for pleasure. You have time to make breakfast on a Tuesday afternoon. You have nothing better to do than go on a bike ride with your son. You pick up hobbies that you loved as a kid but you forgot about. And you nurture the most important relationships in your life, including with yourself and with your creator. And at the end of your appointed time, you go back to work feeling refreshed, and your team is there and they're happy to see you. And there are no fires to put out. You look at your books and your company's grown. And now you are free to survey the landscape and cherry pick only the projects you want to work on. Your highest and best contribution, all of this is possible and available to you. You can build yourself a freedom Machine if you start now. I know it's true. It came true for me. I want it to happen for you. Set the date. Put it in your calendar.
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