MBA1850 Q&A Wednesday: How do I pull myself away from my computer?

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Hey Yo. Welcome to the $100 MBA Show. Pump up the volume for better business goodness every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays, I answer a question from one of one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just email me over at omar00mba.net Today's question is from Jalen and Jalen asks, hey Omar, I've been in business for a little over two years and things are starting to move forward. I'm getting some traction and my business is growing. Great news, right? The only problem is that now that things are moving and my business is thriving, I'm having a hard time pulling myself away from my computer. I feel guilty when I'm not working. I feel like things are going to collapse if I don't shackle myself to my desk. This of course causes me to burn out and start to feel disenchanted. Any advice on how I can force myself to step away from the computer? Jalen this is a fantastic question because I know that many entrepreneurs struggle with this at different stages in their journey and it's very easy to slip into this situation even if you have it under control or have been working on it in the past. In today's lesson, I'm going to share with you some techniques that I do to force myself to have more of a balanced life, to be able to pull myself away from the computer and make sure I get the rest I need, get the recovery I need so I can go back at it 100% the next day. Also, how to deal with those demons on like, oh man, things are good now. I better not change a thing. I better not close my eyes for a second or it's all going to go away. Let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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So Jalen's question about how do I pull myself away from my computer, Especially when I feel like the whole business is dependent on me. If I stop working now, things are going to go south. What do I do? So this actually starts with your mindset. This is the best way to start solving this problem. You have to start inside your head. And the best way to do this is to use what's called first principles. This is a way of thinking or problem solving that forces you to ask the questions about what you know for a fact. What do you know for a fact? Do you know for a fact that if you don't work past 8 o', clock, for example, that your business is going to go out of business? Do you know that for a fact? No, you don't. So what do you know for a fact? Well, you might say, I know that if I work, things will go well and I should continue to work. Well, do you know that's just how it is because that's what you've been doing. You haven't tried the opposite. So you don't know for a fact that is the reason why your business is successful. So by going through this exercise in different angles, you start to realize, okay, this is starting not to make very much sense on a logical point of view. The other mindset shift that you need to make is to understand that you working 24, 7 or as much as you are, where you just feel like you can't pull yourself away from the computer. This is not a healthy business. This is not entrepreneurship in its purest form. Entrepreneurs build a team so they can implement the ideas that they have. Right? This is what they do. That's what an entrepreneur is. Self employed is a different thing. That's you doing all the work. If you want to learn more about this topic, you should check out Robert Kiyosaki's book, his second book, it's called Rich Dad Poor, the Four Quadrants. And in that book he talks about the difference between being an entrepreneur or investor versus an employee or a self employed person. So if you want to be an entrepreneur, somebody who builds a successful business and can step away from the business, I'm not talking about for a few hours, I'm talking about for a few days, months, maybe even a year, then you need to start changing your mindset about you are the glue that makes everything come together. If that's really the truth, then you need to fix that as soon as possible. You need to find somebody that can do the things that are so critical that you can't step away for a second. And if you're being honest with yourself, most businesses, it's not that many things and it's not really true that they're that critical. The other thing I want to acknowledge is that you are grateful for your success. You don't want to lose the success, you just start tasting the success. I know that feeling so, so well. And just the mere thought of losing it makes you feel like, I don't want to change anything. But what got you here won't get you there. This is a very, very good mentality to have. What gets you to a certain station or a certain point in your business is not what's going to take you to the next level. You got to start doing different things. You did a great job. You hustled, you bootstrapped it. Awesome. Now take that success and parlay that into something that's a little bit more autonomous, something that runs itself, something that is autonomous in terms of the team knows exactly what they have to do and they pull it off without you being around. This is incredibly important to start doing this now. If you don't have the system in place to do this, you should do it. I always talk about standard operating procedures, SOPs, we run our whole business on. This is like our playbook. Anything and everything that we do in our business, there's an SOP for it. Why? Because then I can just hand over that set of instructions. This is what you do to enter handle customer service queries. This is what you do to reboot any servers that go down. This is what you do when you need to change somebody's subscription and stripe all that kind of stuff, right? We document everything. So just in case the person that normally does it not around, they can look it up in the SOP and just follow some steps. Now, some of this is just habitual and you just need to force yourself to get off the computer. Some of us maybe even aren't really working. We're just around work. Okay? We're just in the office or in, you know, we have those tabs open for work. So I'm a big believer in a tight work schedule. You could be flexible and free as much as possible or as much as you like in your life. But at work, in business, keep it tight. Have your work day totally booked in your calendar. My whole life is run by the calendar, so whatever my calendar says, I do okay. If I ever find. At the end of the day, I felt like I wasted my time a little bit today, it wasn't efficient. If I look at my calendar, it was probably because there was a gap in my calendar, which was not scheduled, and I probably just wasted my time in there. And that's just the habits of human nature, right? This is just who we are as people. We're going to fill in any time gap with anything, and it's probably not going to be important if we didn't schedule time for something important. So sometimes you just got to be efficient. Meaning that just book every hour in your calendar with something that is going to help your business, something that actually is going to move the needle. Big tasks that you're responsible for that are going to bring in dollars, that's going to save you dollars, it's going to bring you customers, they're going to build your brand, all that kind of stuff, right? And if you do that, and it's super tight, you should be exhausted within eight hours, maybe even within. And then schedule in your schedule after your work, your free time. I actually have in my schedule, hey, this is when I'm gonna relax. This is when I'm gonna have dinner. This is when I'm gonna meet with friends. This is when I'm gonna go play basketball. And it's an appointment for me. I have to go to the appointment of relaxation. If you need to do this, if you need to actually force yourself off the computer, make some appointments outside your life, whether that's an appointment at a nail salon or a massage, or an appointment after work for a dinner reservation, something that's going to make you go and show up and leave. It could even be just A walk with a friend. You have an obligation to your friend, so you're going to show up to that appointment. So use your calendar to your advantage.

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To wrap up today's Q and A Wednesday's question from Jaylen. You need to force yourself to build systems to get you out of the cycle and then to use your calendar to force yourself off the computer and do other things. Even if it's an external activity that you're committed to, whether that's a yoga class or getting coffee with a friend or a family member, you could do this, but it's just like any habit, you gotta start. You gotta push yourself. It takes some discipline. And the last thing I want to touch on is what you said before. The guilt. Feeling guilty? You're not working all the time. Well, ask yourself this question. Why are you working? Why? What are you trying to do? What's the point of all your hard work? Yes, it's to be successful, to earn money, to be financially free. But it's so that you can enjoy your life, so you can have some more time with your families, so you can have some more freedom and time of your own. And you should never feel guilty when you're recharging your batteries. You have to rest and you need a break every day so that you can come back recharged 100%. It's actually better for your business to step away than to keep going. Remind yourself of this when you feel that guilt. Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you had a question and you want to ask it just like Jalen did, go ahead and ask. Just email me over@omar00mba.net so I can make sure I answer it right here on Q and A Wednesday to help you and others that are listening. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. You have to take responsibility in taking care of yourself. No one's going to do it for you, okay? You have to be the person that takes that responsibility. Says I have to be responsible for my own physical, mental health, spiritual health, my ability to function every day at a high capacity. That responsibility is on me. I need to do the right thing. I need to rest. I need to rest my eyes from the screens, right? I need to rest my brain so I can think more creatively tomorrow. That's your responsibility. Don't neglect it. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take care.

At Capella University, learning the right skills could make a difference. That's why our business programs teach you relevant skills you can take from the courseroom to the workplace. A different future is closer than you think with Capella University. Learn more at Capella, Eduardo.