A Daily Habit That Will Change Your Business

In this episode, Robert talks about Owner Time. Have you ever been at a point in your business where you realize one day that you’ve been mostly reacting to events over the past 6 months and not made a lot of progress towards the goals you’ve set?

Business owners aren’t a lazy bunch, but Robert reminds us that they often get caught up in momentum and don’t realize when they’re not focusing on the right things. Although it is true that action is ultimately better for progress than just thinking, taking the wrong action without thinking about the bigger picture will slow down the progress to a specific goal.

How do we get ourselves to pause for a minute? Robert tells us about his ‘Owner Time’ scheduling – this helps him stay on top of what he’s doing as an owner. This is split into 2 half-hour sessions, one of which is dedicated to ‘Thinking Time’, where he unplugs from all the distractions and assesses his goals and the progress he’s making towards them.

Robert reminds us to start by asking ourselves basic questions: why are you an entrepreneur? Who are you trying to serve? We should be asking questions that aren’t pertinent to the daily operations of the business, but rather the Bigger Picture questions. 

We learn that a formal degree doesn’t do much for you as an entrepreneur if you don’t add to it over time, and Robert recommends scheduling time for self-education. “If you’re growing, your business will grow with you.”

If you force yourself to take a step back and focus on something besides the day’s problems, and learn and improve yourself, this helps turn a tough day into an awesome one and gives you the motivation and energy to plow through your problems.

Highlights

“The faster you’re running, the easier the trap is to fall into.”“If your business can’t function without you, and you’re critical to its daily operations, then you’re an operator, not an owner.”“Your business is really only going to grow in proportion to the amount that you grow as a person in your skillset and your wisdom.”“Having a formal education is a great start, but if you don’t keep adding to that education as an entrepreneur, you’ve really wasted your time and your money.”“Remind yourself that, as a leader, you’re responsible for improving yourself.”“Not everything is about saving the world and impacting people’s lives. It’s totally okay if you want to make more money.”