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how do you keep up with the stress?

iamwondering

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I am currently reading "The Millionair Fastlane" and I am working at a catering business (my moms firm) as a you could call it junior boss. but i also work in the kitchen, do deliveries, basically i am doing everything in that firm. (its tough in covid times..) my boyfriend also works there and we are living together. He also developes the firm and we are hardly trying to get the busniess to the next levle. We both work about 40-60 hours a week. Sometimes we ran out of ideas, or have actually "nothing" to do in the day to day business, so we only work 30-40 hours but keep the talking about business alive at home, because we really want to have better lifes as we currently have.

I always hear storys about people who work 10-16 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 5 years and are financially free after that.. but my question is: do you really do it like that? How much do you really work? whats your weekly routine? and if you do work so much, how do you keep up with the stress? i am trying to get one day off in a week or just get one long sleep in a week, one date night or a night in my own. All the other days are structured by the daily meetings and appointments, eating, doing a workout every second day and sleep.. i feel like this fastlane route is tearing us apart.. we fight a lot and all we talk about is work. Dont get me wrong: i like to talk about work, thats not the point. But talking about work means arguing about new ideas, talking about strategys and be angry and frustrated sometimes. On top of that, my mom really is a sidewalker.. so she did everything she could to make money but she was also good at spending it.. so we also fight about her sometimes. Because i sometimes get protected and my boyfriend has the feeling of wasting his time at that firm.

And honestly, it is stressing me out. The business is a hard job. i definitly enjoy it! I like being busy, i like being all in for a better life. but its also hard.. because it ist not going well everyday.. it is not easy going.. it is not a 9-5 job, it is a hard business. I am just at a point where i need to figure out if thats what it is to take.. tell me your story! I need to know if iam just weak and complaning or if am am actually "right" about beeing stressed out and could use a deserved break sometimes.
 
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Empires

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Regardless of anybody else's experience, you need to realize that your stress and emotions are valid.

If someone else wouldn't be stressed in a certain scenario, but you are stressed, that doesn't matter. That other person isn't the one in your situation, you are.

Business isn't easy, you are right. It gets ridiculously stressful sometimes. When things get hard, there is nothing wrong with taking a step back to compose yourself.

If you are working too many hours you will just become less and less productive over time. Take the breaks you need and don't over do it. Business and success at the expense of your health is not worth it.

Listen to your body.
 

iamwondering

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Regardless of anybody else's experience, you need to realize that your stress and emotions are valid.

If someone else wouldn't be stressed in a certain scenario, but you are stressed, that doesn't matter. That other person isn't the one in your situation, you are.

Business isn't easy, you are right. It gets ridiculously stressful sometimes. When things get hard, there is nothing wrong with taking a step back to compose yourself.

If you are working too many hours you will just become less and less productive over time. Take the breaks you need and don't over do it. Business and success at the expense of your health is not worth it.

Listen to your body.

Hello!
I'm very thankful for your replay. It got me thinking and helped me reconnecting with my values in life.

I found out that its very helpful for me to write down whats actually important for me. I structured my values and after that I knew how much time i need to take weekly for certain things. I think whats working for me is a weekly schedule. That way i know that I take time for myself but also work enough. I structured my aktivities in spots. Like "work", "fitness workouts", "selfcare", "household things" etc..

Now theres a Selfcare-Sunday (50/50 work/free time for selfcare) and Food&Film-Friday (50/50 work/free time for light freetime activities). I work on all other days fully and sorted the household/fitness things around the working time. I hope that brings back a routine for me and i stop losing myself in work. I planned the time I need for myself and the time i need to work. I have a good feeling about it, but it also feels strangely "planned". But, i'm hopeful!

I will try to post an an update at some point. I can imagine that thats helpful for other people with similar struggles.
 

Brrr

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The most practical business solution, as JScott mentioned, is to read the E-myth and implement what it says. It will transform your business approach and is a must for your line of work. You will relate to it a lot of what the book covers.

I would also focus on your first hire that will free up work time and mental space. Probably someone in the kitchen first as it is likely to be more consistent work compared to say delivery. Make sure you write down everything you do in the kitchen job and start to build up a manual you can give to the new hire so that a lot of training is written down rather than just passed on orally. Slowly fire yourself from each job by hiring people to do all the tasks so that you can concentrate on improving the business and growing it.

Onto the hours: In practice, few can sustain a genuine 14hr+ workday, every single day (which is what 7 days a week really means) for years. Certainly not without leaving a path of destroyed relationships & health, you can sometimes recover both later but not always. Personally, 60hr/week of full-on work, 20hr/week low-pressure work (research, bookkeeping, networking, planning) is about as much as I can manage without getting into serious burnout territory. A half-day off every couple of weeks also goes a long way to preserve sanity. Find a similar sustained pace for yourself, you might have to keep it up for decades.

Secondly, bringing business into your home with your family is inevitable, but you sometimes need to shut it off. You are allowed to say I don't want to talk about the business today and your everyone in your family should be able to play that card.
 
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iamwondering

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Sounds like you are working too much *IN* your business and not enough *ON* your business.

Until you spend time figuring out how to systematize your business (and actually do it), and bring in people who you can delegate the day-to-day work to, you'll never be able to remove yourself from the hamster-wheel...

Read "The E-Myth"...
Thank you for mentioning it! And you are absoulutely right! Thats actually also a point that we need to work on.

We (my partner and I) know that we work too much "in" the business. The thing is, due to my moms bad money management over the last years, we dont have much (or you can say zero..) savings in the firm. Plus, I'm from Germany and due to the ongoing Corona-Pandemic we needed to send our employees "home". There is a thing called "Kurzarbeit", (directly translated it means: "Shortwork"). But it means that the state is providing 60% of the salary of our employees and therefore the employees can stay home without us paying. It was a huge money saver for us the first month without any orders (nobody needs a catering when you are not allowed to meet). Now we do the work in the firm because otherwise we need to call our employees in just for two hours every other day.. That sounds very less, but when you are at home, working actually ON the business (thats what we actually doing.. or at least want to do..) and need to drive (with bicycles because we dont have money for a car) to the firm just for some work hours.. it rips the whole day apart and brings us out of concentration.

Long story short: we came a long way of bad money management + problems due to Corona.

But i'm thankful for your reminder! We have employees and need to "use" them so we have time to work on the business. My Partner and I always try to systematize the business. Thats our number one goal. My mom wanted to work until shes 60 and then retire, she never saw the benefits of systemizing... so there is zero system in everything.. Thats why we have a business (if you can even call it a business) which is not profitable, not systemized and has zero savings.. before covid it just ran (dont ask me how..) and my mom made money (mostly blackmoney) for her own life, spend it for vacations and stuff.. not a single penny was invested in the growth of the business..

ps: will read "The E-Myth", thanks for recommending it!
 

iamwondering

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The most practical business solution, as JScott mentioned, is to read the E-myth and implement what it says. It will transform your business approach and is a must for your line of work. You will relate to it a lot of what the book covers.

I would also focus on your first hire that will free up work time and mental space. Probably someone in the kitchen first as it is likely to be more consistent work compared to say delivery. Make sure you write down everything you do in the kitchen job and start to build up a manual you can give to the new hire so that a lot of training is written down rather than just passed on orally. Slowly fire yourself from each job by hiring people to do all the tasks so that you can concentrate on improving the business and growing it.

Onto the hours: In practice, few can sustain a genuine 14hr+ workday, every single day (which is what 7 days a week really means) for years. Certainly not without leaving a path of destroyed relationships & health, you can sometimes recover both later but not always. Personally, 60hr/week of full-on work, 20hr/week low-pressure work (research, bookkeeping, networking, planning) is about as much as I can manage without getting into serious burnout territory. A half-day off every couple of weeks also goes a long way to preserve sanity. Find a similar sustained pace for yourself, you might have to keep it up for decades.

Secondly, bringing business into your home with your family is inevitable, but you sometimes need to shut it off. You are allowed to say I don't want to talk about the business today and your everyone in your family should be able to play that card.
the point of leaving destroyed relationships behind is alwys a struggle for me. sometimes i feel like two personalities.. one is the wannabe-entrepreneur and the other is the loving daughter/friend/girlfriend.. its a struggle for me to find the right amount of "energy" which to put in differnt areas..

Thanks for sharing your work-amount! Its actually helpful to read how many hours some people manage to work. That way I can get a better feeling of whats "enough" and whats "lazy" without putting too much pressure on it!

Beeing allowed to shut things of sometime is a thing i will work on! I guess my weekly schedule is a good way of managing it. e.g. I could say: "not now, i worked 40+ hours and its only friday, this evening is for freetime, lets talk about it in the morning.."
 

XxThelionxX

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Regardless of anybody else's experience, you need to realize that your stress and emotions are valid.

If someone else wouldn't be stressed in a certain scenario, but you are stressed, that doesn't matter. That other person isn't the one in your situation, you are.

Business isn't easy, you are right. It gets ridiculously stressful sometimes. When things get hard, there is nothing wrong with taking a step back to compose yourself.

If you are working too many hours you will just become less and less productive over time. Take the breaks you need and don't over do it. Business and success at the expense of your health is not worth it.

Listen to your body.

Such helpful advice for everybody. Going to apply immediately.
 
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poseidn

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i've found the body/mind adapts VERY quickly. Quicker than you'd imagine.

If you go and do a PT session for 4 hrs a day, 6days a week for 3 months. First week will be unbelievably hard. First month hard. Last week of the last month it's normal.

Same with biz stress. Body/mind gets used to shit fast. Or you're weak. Then you fail and you're just another statistic.

Not sustainable for YEARS though, imo. Unless you're special. Can do non-stop 16hr days for 6months though (mid term) - just look at IB entry-level jobs. They put in so many hours... Although a lot of the hours when you're doing the 16hr days are BS hours - not much is achieved
 

MJ DeMarco

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I've found that recognizing that your life is short and will be over in a blink of an eye is a great reminder to enjoy the moment. Billions of people have lived and died on this planet -- few lived with no regrets. I don't plan on being one.

That said, meditation helps with stress.
Nature helps with stress.
A hot sauna helps with stress.
Petting the dog helps with stress.
Appreciating all life helps with stress.
Staying off social media helps with stress.
Watching NO TV helps with stress.
Getting some sun helps with stress.
Jumping rope for 10 minutes helps with stress.
 

iamwondering

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I've found that recognizing that your life is short and will be over in a blink of an eye is a great reminder to enjoy the moment. Billions of people have lived and died on this planet -- few lived with no regrets. I don't plan on being one.

That said, meditation helps with stress.
Nature helps with stress.
A hot sauna helps with stress.
Petting the dog helps with stress.
Appreciating all life helps with stress.
Staying off social media helps with stress.
Watching NO TV helps with stress.
Getting some sun helps with stress.
Jumping rope for 10 minutes helps with stress.
wow, a direct answer from you MJ! Thank you very much! Nice to hear those words from you!
 
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iamwondering

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Hello!
I'm very thankful for your replay. It got me thinking and helped me reconnecting with my values in life.

I found out that its very helpful for me to write down whats actually important for me. I structured my values and after that I knew how much time i need to take weekly for certain things. I think whats working for me is a weekly schedule. That way i know that I take time for myself but also work enough. I structured my aktivities in spots. Like "work", "fitness workouts", "selfcare", "household things" etc..

Now theres a Selfcare-Sunday (50/50 work/free time for selfcare) and Food&Film-Friday (50/50 work/free time for light freetime activities). I work on all other days fully and sorted the household/fitness things around the working time. I hope that brings back a routine for me and i stop losing myself in work. I planned the time I need for myself and the time i need to work. I have a good feeling about it, but it also feels strangely "planned". But, i'm hopeful!

I will try to post an an update at some point. I can imagine that thats helpful for other people with similar struggles.

try to post an update here. We have actually came a long way .. (I can't believe my post is only from March this year.)

In numbers: We are talking € 400.00 to € 2,000.00 / monthly salary. +- € 0.00 to € 40k at the business bankaccount and 4k to 50k euros a month in sales. In 7 month! (Actually, it feels a bit like a lifetime.)

I'll try to keep the story short. in march we sold products that "only we could" to make some money and left the staff at home to save money. Step by step we have canceled these products as normal business began to come back. We were able to get the staff back and work ON our system / business.

Now we are back at 50,000 euros a month in sales. (In March it was not more than 4 ..) Now we can finally pay out a "normal" amount of money per month and have thus achieved our first big goal: Earning a "normal" salary. (just to not being broke anymore)

We still work IN the business (in the office now), but I've found out that we are actually doing it the best way possible: we are working IN business about 9 to 6 on weekdays and ON the business after 6 and on weekends. In this "9-5-Job" we are getting to know the weaknesses and problems of the system. Step by step we are hiring people to work less IN the business. (We currently work on the Human Ressource System of our firm.) On Weekends and after 5 we are working ON the Business. Sometimes also whole days because a clear separation is not always possible.

Regarding my stress level, what works best for me is actually a weekly schedule.

I work out on two days a week and eat healthy. I plan my grocery shopping so i can keep the healthy diet up. me&my bf implied "date nights" so we do other things together besides working. Very helpful for me are also days for myself, where i get to spend time just with myself. I take those days every 6-8 weeks - at the point where i just cant take it anymore..

I found out that seeing results is the biggest motivation. Thats what keeps me going. The work pays off!

Maybe this is helpful to some of you!
 

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