Vishen Lakhiani met a tech billionaire in Dubai who advised working just 18 hours a week, six hours on Tuesday through Thursday, keeping Mondays and Fridays open for unexpected opportunities. Lakhiani tested it by flying to Istanbul and now frames it as a strategy for entrepreneurs scaling from six figures toward $50 to $100 million.
Questions this video answers
Work 18 hours per week: six hours on Tuesday, six hours on Wednesday, six hours on Thursday.
About $100 million in revenue and 450 employees.
Entrepreneurs building a business anywhere between $100,000 in revenue to $10 million in revenue.
Chapters
I got an interesting story to share for all of you out there who are entrepreneurs. So recently I was in Dubai and I had this really incredible meeting. I was invited to meet this, this guy who's a tech pioneer. His name is Wayne. And he took me out to his gorgeous penthouse in Dubai, which overlooked the most amazing view I'd ever seen. Check out this view. We were gazing over the Palm Jumeirah in this guy's penthouse, which is overlooking the water and was in a building that was the highest residential tower in the world at one point. And as we were looking at this view, this, this dude, Wayne, he asked me a question. He said, vishen, you know what it takes to be a billionaire? And I said, I don't know, I'm not there yet. What does it take? And he said, Work 18 hours a week. Now, I was really puzzled. That seemed like really counterintuitive advice, right? Work 18 hours a week. He saw the look of puzzled in my face and he went on to explain. He said, you see, this is what I'd advise you figure out how to get all your work done by working six hours on Tuesday, six hours on Wednesday, six hours on Thursday. Keep Monday and Friday free. And so I asked him, okay, I understand that, but why? What's with the Monday and Friday? Wayne went on to explain. He said, you see, true success is not knowing where you're going to be next week. Huh? I said. He said, you have to design your life so that if a friend calls you up and there's an opportunity for you to explore in London, you can fly out Thursday night and be back Monday evening to continue work. That degree of flexibility, he says, allows you to truly experience all the opportunities that life has to offer. It allows you to come up with new visions, new ideas. It allows you to have time to sit back and think and not just be buried in your business. Work 18 hours a day and have the flexibility to be anywhere at instant notice. Now, this advice was so profound that it got me thinking about life in a new way. In fact, funny enough, my one hour meeting with Wayne, we ended up sitting together until 1:30am and as we were wrapping up drinks late at night, he mentioned that he was flying to Istanbul on Thursday. I knew some other people in Istanbul and I decided, well, why not? Why don't I just take that advice? We flew to Istanbul. I took that weekend to be able to spend time with Wayne and other inspiring people I knew in Istanbul. And the inspirations I got further shifted me. So the message here was this. Often the ways to build a business. The ways to be successful as an entrepreneur are so counterintuitive to what you may have learned at school, and you want to learn how to get there from people who have done it. Now I've built a business with about $100 million in revenue and 450 employees. The next step for me is to be a billionaire. If you are an entrepreneur and you're building a business anywhere between 100,000 in revenue to 10 million in revenue, your job is to get to 50 to 100 million. And just like Wayne, inspired me and gave me some insight that have changed the way I'm thinking about work. I'd like to do the same for you. If you find these ideas interesting, join me in Ajit. We're going to be going live on Zoom.
