I Refused to Work Sundays. It Cost Me Thousands

I've intentionally lost thousands of dollars because of one rule I've had since the day I started my business. We do not work Sundays. Nobody. Not me, not our team, not the office. We are completely closed. And there have been weeks where that meant we didn't finish every route. We skipped lawns and we lost revenue. I would make the exact same decision again. This was a rule that I started From day one, similar to Chick-fil-A, this wasn't something I created after being successful. It was from the beginning. Sunday was closed. That means zero generated revenue at all, ever. And we still hold that exact same philosophy. Nobody on the team ever works on Sunday. So let's talk about the financial cost of this. Weather sometimes can push routes back, especially when we're in the weekly rotation where let's say it rains two days out of that week. This can cause The routes to get shifted back. So we do sometimes have to work on Saturdays. Even if we aren't able to get all the routes done on Saturday, we don't make that up on Sunday. Very rarely will we push it to Monday because you can't really push a weekly mow that was supposed to be on Thursday to Monday when they're going to get cut again on Thursday. It's just like, doesn't really make sense. Sunday could easily become the catch-up day, but we refuse to do it that way. We have skipped weekly mow visits because of it. We have lost thousands of dollars over the years, and the rule has never and will never change. Let's talk about why Sundays matter. You see, God created for 6 days and rested on the 7th. There's something very intentional about that. And when you think about a lot of you guys that are just getting started in the business and you're in that hustle phase, it's very It's easy to fall into that trap of like, I'm going to lose revenue. I got to do what I need to do to feed my family. And it's legit, right? Like, it's a very fair debate. You got to feed your family. But God can do more in a snap of a finger than you can do in a 10-hour day working on Sunday. Seriously. Sunday for me is a rest day. Rest is not laziness. It allows mental recovery, physical recovery, emotional recovery, and spiritual recovery. And when you look about the well-being of you and yourself, right, you don't want to like just keep grinding 7 days a week. It's not sustainable, even for like 2 weeks in a row. Like, guys, I have been deployed to Baghdad, Iraq before, and it was— we were basically, uh, 12 on, 12 off. So we worked for 12 hours and then we were off for 12 hours. That was the lifestyle, and it is very draining mentally, emotionally. And I would not recommend that for anybody, even if you're just trying to feed your family right now. For your well-being, And your family's sake, you will be there more present by taking that rest day on Sunday. And maybe it doesn't have to be Sunday or whatever. I mean, obviously, I would always encourage you to like believe in something regardless of what religion or faith or whatever you have, right? Like for your mental well-being of your soul, it's imperative that you get some rest to be able to perform well those other 6 days. It's also a time for you to focus on what actually matters. It's time for you to step away from chasing money and work. Okay? This is family time, finding true happiness, growing your faith, learning. This is the time of day that you're able to reset and recharge. So let me paint for you the entrepreneur trap where most of us fall into. Business owners always have a reason to work another day. I promise you, there's always going to be another email. There's always going to be another text. There's always going to be another phone call. I promise you guys, it doesn't stop the larger you get. It doesn't. There's always going to be another customer, always going to be another route to dispatch, always going to be another sale to make. One more year of grinding is this crazy philosophy we tell ourselves. Oh, one more week, one more month, one more year of grinding, we'll get to the promised land. I'm telling you right now, from someone that's built a $1.5 million operation with 3 locations and 20 team members, that day does not come if you grind 7 days a week constantly and not focus on yourself and become emotionally and mentally more stable to be able to perform well with your team and be the leader that they want to follow. Eventually, the business you built for freedom can actually own you. So the key question here that I want you guys to ask yourself is, what are you unwilling to sacrifice just to make more money? Because money's a tool, it comes and goes. In fact, they continue to print more dollar bills off, so they're devaluing the dollar. Okay, so what are you trading for that? Your time, time with your family, your kids, your spouse. And guys, don't get me wrong, there's a phase of business that you have to grind. You have to go 6 days a week, 10, 12-hour days constantly for sometimes years, literally years. But I encourage you guys, take at least 1 day off. It's very, very important. There's something called the balance wheel that I talked in the last video. A healthy person needs stability in multiple areas of their life. I call it Wholesome Will's Wisdom. Spiritual. Are we believing in something that this life has a greater purpose? Okay, I encourage you to believe in something. I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. Mentally, where are you at? It's crazy how one chemical in your brain can affect the way that you operate and treat people. Are you emotionally and mentally stable to be able to carry the pressure and stress that you're wanting? You see, you may want to double your business. But are you the type of person that can handle that type of stress, the financial baggage that comes with that, the people's lives, livelihood, and their families that count on you now? Are you going to be able to handle that physically? Are we exercising our body? I'm sure most of you guys are in the field, so you got that one checked off. Great. Where are we at financially? Are we being a good steward of the money that we're making right now? Because what you'll learn is if you're not a good steward of the finances that you're making right now, why would you be given more? Like, if you can't manage or know what your profit and loss statement is or know what a COG is or an expense and you don't know your business financials, even just maybe on an Excel spreadsheet, like if you don't know how much money you made this month or let's say last month, how much money did you make last month? Where did you spend the money on? And then what's left over? Like if you can't tell me that right now, why would you be able to make more. We're not stewarding what we have right now when we're small. And you see, it's a very ironic thing that God blesses us with when we're faithful with the small stewarding of the small bank account. All of a sudden you'll realize, okay, we've proven ourselves to be a good steward of the small bank account, so he's going to be able to bless us with more. And we can showcase that we are responsible and we are good stewards, so he will give you more. But if you're not, he's not going to give you any more. So the key point is if one of these areas are broken, so the balance wheel, right? So you got spiritual, mental, emotional, physical, relational, financial. If any one of those are drastically broken, you'll find it affects every other area. If your personal life is crashing and burning, maybe it's your relationship with your spouse or significant other. If that's crashing and burning, I promise you it's going to affect your business. I promise you it's going to affect your mental and emotional state. Same thing as the flip side. If the business is not doing well and you're not making sales and you're not stewarding your time well and focusing on the highest leverage activities and being a good resource of your time, because we all only have 24 hours in a day. So why are there millionaires and billionaires that get so much more leverage? It's because of the things that they're working on versus someone who's stuck in their ways and doesn't want to hand off. Sharpening of the blades and doesn't want to hand off doing the oil changes because nobody's going to do it as good as us. Leave room for error. People are going to make mistakes. You did when you first started. Why would we change and expect that mindset for someone else to be perfect that we hand off responsibilities to? They have to learn as well. We need to be— give them a little bit of grace and patience for them to learn. That's us investing into our people. Making more money while all of these other categories are Failing destroys everything. It's not worth it. And so I would encourage you guys to look in the mirror and focus on that balance wheel and make sure that you're living more of a wholesome life instead of grinding away for 7 days a week. I read a book recently. It's called The Light Shines Bright in Babylon. Crazy name. I don't know why somebody would name it that because I don't even know what it means, to be honest. But what it talks about is, you see, we as business owners or leaders or managers in our organizations, Our highest leverage of impacting people and influencing and building people is our business. It's the highest influence you have and myself. And so we use our business as a ministry to minister to people to help them grow spiritually, grow financially, grow mentally, grow emotionally. We do this once a month with our leadership team. And what we're doing is we're trying to build better people, more wholesome people, That are well-balanced, that can carry more stress, that can achieve the goals and dreams that they want. We use our business, Military Lawn Cuts. It's more than a company. It is a true ministry to people to help them. And so our mission here is to build and develop people. We help people grow financially, mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and professionally. My definition of success changed over time. When I first started, I was like, you know what, if I could just build a A $500,000 business. Life would be great. And guess what? We did that. And I wasn't much happier, to be honest. And I said, yeah, you know what? If I could build a million-dollar business, get out of the field, I'll be happy. Guess what? We built a million-dollar business. I got out of the field. Money didn't make me happy. It's not going to make you happy either. It's nice. It's a tool. But success is not just about revenue, the trucks that you have, the customers, the many locations we're going to have, or the growth. That's all cool. We make a lot of tall grass short, but what's more important are the people. So ask yourself, did the business make a better person? I tell everybody that comes into our organization, I don't care if you're looking at this opportunity from a short-term perspective for just a season or 2 or a long-term career for 5, 10+ years. As long as you came in one way and we were able to develop and teach you skills and allow you to learn a mindset, certain way and be efficient and take ownership and constantly improve, and you leave our organization better off, we did our job. That's what we're here to do is build and develop people. You got to ask yourself, does it help your family? You grinding 7 days a week, does that really help your family? Take a day off. Take a day of rest. I encourage you guys. Does it help the team? Do you feel more refreshed when you come in on Monday where you actually took a day off or had a weekend? I know I do. I come in, reset, recharge, to hit the ground running and pour everything I have into that week. But I'll tell you what, if I had to work a Saturday and Sunday, you're not getting the full effect of me on that Monday. It's just not real. Are we stewarding what we have currently right now that God gave us?