With summer unofficially started you might be thinking it is time to take a vacation, but find yourself unable to step away from your work or maybe you would like to find the fun again in running your own business. If this is the case, then today’s episode is for you.
In today’s episode, we interview Kris Ward, who is an expert at helping successful leaders and entrepreneurs get hold of their time and schedules to bring the fun back into their business.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Your business should support your life, not consume it.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Kris Ward is the leading authority in leveraging your time and scaling your business. Kris is the founder of the Win The Hour, Win the Day philosophy.
After the loss of her husband, Kris returned full-time to her work as a marketing strategist. She was relieved that her business had not only survived her absence but was growing. Now, Kris has completely changed the landscape for entrepreneurs by sharing the successful practices that allowed her absence.
Kris has shared the stage with Jack Canfield – Chicken Soup For The Soul, Kevin Harrington original Shark from Shark Tank, James Malinchak -ABC’s Secret Millionaire, Sharon Lechter – Rich Dad Poor Dad Co Author and Joe Theismann – NFL All star and commentator to name a few. Kris has also featured on award winning podcasts, radio and TV shows.
You can hear Kris on her own podcast – Win The Hour Win The Day, where she has engaging conversations with dynamic guests covering a variety of business topics so you can get to your next win now!
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And with summer unofficially started, you might be thinking it’s time to take a vacation, but find yourself unable to step away from your work. Or maybe, you’d just like to find the fun again in running your own business. Well, if this is the case, then today’s episode is for you. In today’s show, we interview Kris Ward, who’s an expert at helping successful leaders and entrepreneurs get a hold of their time and win the hour and win the day to bring back the fun in their business.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:48):
Now, Kris is the leading authority in leveraging your time and scaling your business. She’s the founder of Win the Hour, Win the Day philosophy. After the loss of her husband, she returned full-time to her work as a marketing strategist, and she was relieved to find that her business had not only survived in her absence, but was growing. Kris now shares those practices that worked to keep her business growing in her absence with other entrepreneurs and business leaders. Kris has shared the stage with well-known people such as Jack Canfield, Kevin Harrington, Sharon Lecter, and Joe Sizeman to name a few. She has also been featured on award-winning podcasts, radio, and TV shows. You can hear Kris on her own podcast, which is called Win the Hour, in the Day. You’re going to really enjoy this interview with Kris, so let’s go ahead and jump right into it.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (01:42):
Yeah. I’m Kris Ward, founder of Win the Hour, Win the Day.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:46):
As I understand, that’s also the name of your book, “Win the Hour, Win the Day”, and I’d love to just talk a little bit about that topic and for starters, give us an overview. What’s it about?
Kris Ward, Win the Day (01:58):
Okay. Well, you know what, let me start, if I may, with a little bit of a backstory. It gives people some insight because often I get lumped into different categories like productivity, and for me, a lot of times I think that just sounds like somebody that’s annoyingly organized. Who wants any part of that? So let me tell you where it all started.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (02:17):
When I started with my business fourteen-plus years ago, I started out as doing market messaging with my clients. And the first couple of years I was in business, I worked insane hours. My husband said I was always stealing from sleep, getting up earlier and earlier and staying later and later, and it was about the two-year mark that I was told I was losing some of my charm. And I was like, “This cannot be.” I was exhausted. I was cranky all the time, but here I had people surrounding me, cheering me on. My husband was my biggest fan. I thought, “Oh, we cannot do this.”
Kris Ward, Win the Day (02:47):
So I literally said, “Okay, enough,” and I turned it around. I went from working 16 hours a day down to six. Now, that did not happen overnight. That’s a whole story on its own. However, luckily I did this. It was a couple of years after that my husband was pulled away… I was pulled away from the business. My husband was diagnosed with colon cancer, and when I returned after his passing, my existing clients had no idea of my absence. It was not how he navigated his journey. We were very positive in nature. And so they started to come to me and say, “If you could be away and we didn’t know, maybe you could get us to our kids’ soccer games and I could start seeing my family and my friends and get to the real work and all that stuff.”
Kris Ward, Win the Day (03:32):
And so we started working with them under that capacity. And one thing led to another, and I started to realize that there’s so many people out there that look good on paper, have a book or a podcast, or they’ve been in business 10, 15 years and they’re still working way too many hours for where they are at this point in their journey. And so we started working with them with their teams, of Time in the Toolkit. My clients tell me all the time that they get 25 hours back a week within the first month of working with us. But fundamentally, the key to all this is that your business should support your life, not consume it. And that’s really important to tell that story, not just about, “Hey, being organized and reorganizing your stuff”, or my little pet peeve is when people say set boundaries, and it’s like, “Well, that’s all well and good, unless you’re being up by work.” So that’s where it began.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (04:23):
I love that phrase that you just said, “Business should support your life, not consume it.” So let’s dive into that a little bit. I’m sure someone who listens into this, and… Guilty as charged, right? My business at times has consumed my life, and I’m sure someone who’s tuning into this may be in that situation or has been in that situation. So how do you help people? You said this phrase, how do you help people recover from being a rush-a-holic where their business is consuming their life?
Kris Ward, Win the Day (04:53):
Yeah. So you said something to me and I said, “Hey, I’m a recovering rush-a-holic,” so that’s really interesting. We didn’t talk about this at all, but what happens is I have worked with so many entrepreneurs, and I found over the years that they fell into one of five categories. So I, myself, am a recovering rush-a-holic, and that there’s many strengths to that, but there’s also some kryptonites, and it’s really important to know how to navigate around that. If you’re interested in that, we actually have a really quick quiz. It takes a couple seconds and you get customized results. And people tell me all the time, “Oh my gosh, you’re in my head.” And you can check that out at free, F-R-E-E, gift, G-I-F-T, from Kris, K-R-I-S, dot com. FreeGiftFromKris.com. That’s your personality thing there.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (05:36):
So how do I help people? Well, here’s the thing. We really focus on your team, your time, or your toolkits. Okay, we’ll touch on each one really briefly, Tom, and then you tell me what you want to dive into.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (05:49):
Your time, 90% of people do not know how to use their calendar. They don’t use it effectively. It’s more like a memo board. And then you run around and you do a bunch of things off your to-do list in between appointments. That’s a big misnomer. It’s like your time bank account and you’re very misinformed and there’s all kinds of problems with that.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (06:07):
The second one is your team, even if you have one VA team, it’s a philosophy, not a number. We have all worked at some point in corporations. Even if it was a part-time job as a teenager, corporations are very parentified, and what that means is your boss is like your parent. They check on your work like a parent does or a teacher. And so when you want to have a team, you don’t want to be delegating, because delegating those means the work still has to come through you, and that’s time-consuming. That’s why it doesn’t work, why entrepreneurs say, “Oh my gosh, it’s quicker to do it myself.” So we focus on your time, your team, and then your toolkits.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (06:43):
So we have a signature program called Super Tool Kits. We created them, because here’s the thing. I don’t know if I’m the only one to ever have a job where they sat me down the first day and gave me a manual I could barely lift. And I kept thinking, I’m going to lose this job because I kept falling asleep. And it was their policies and procedures and their manual and all this foolishness. Those are never written by the end user, they’re static in nature, and they’re there to cover liability and they get clunky. And then you think as the entrepreneur, Tom, “Oh my gosh, I need a whole bunch of time off. I need a week or a month so I can write all these out.” And with the Super Tool Kits, what we have are dynamic documents that are constantly evolving in efficiency. And the real beauty, it separates them from SOPs, is their ease of use and how quickly they’re made.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (07:31):
And so those are the three areas that people just skim over as so rushing through their workday. And sadly, no one’s talking about this. And this is really what’s keeping you in your way and stunting your growth and why you have feast and famine in your business because you run out, you get new clients, and everything’s all well and good until you get busy, and then one of them peters off and then you’re like, “Oh, I need more business.” But it’s like planting crops the day you’re hungry. That’s not a good plan.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (07:59):
So these things are very simple, but hugely foundational, so that you can always get to the next thing. Because all being an entrepreneur is about is getting your ideas to execution. That’s it. That’s the name of the game. Getting your ideas out there. Putting these things in play allow you to do that continuously, effectively, and also it’s really enjoyable. Then your soul isn’t being crushed because you’re like, “Oh, I have this idea. I have this thing. I want to get this out and I can never get to it.” All that. You know the pain, Tom.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:31):
You’re probably creating and someone that’ll listen to this, I know in me, some of those relapse… “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.” You’re agitating pain that’s been buried that you lived through those moments. And going through that, you talked about the three Ts, the team, time, and tool kits,
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:48):
And the comment about delegation is interesting. It’s definitely a buzzword, especially if you follow any influencers or YouTubers or what-have-you, “Delegate. You got to delegate, delegate, delegate.” And I think it is gone where it’s not described well, in terms of what does delegation actually mean, and it’s more than just hiring an assistant or hiring more staff, because I’ve been through these cycles where I think I need to delegate, hire a lot more staff, and I’m just as busy or more busy afterward than I was before. So I’d love for you to talk about that idea of the delegation still passing through you as the leader of the department or of your organization. So elaborate on that, if you would.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (09:35):
Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah, that’s what happens, is you run around… Think about this. In a corporate world, if I was really good at sales and they say, “Oh my gosh, Kris, you’re really good at sales, we’re going to make you the sales manager.” What’s the first thing that’s happening? I’m going to supervise the other salespeople. I’m going to do less sales. I’m now supervising them. I’m parenting them. And that’s where we get this concept from, is when we build a team… Again, a team is a philosophy, not a number. So you can have a VA working part-time, and you have a team. And what happens is often we do three things we delegate, which means that work has to come through us and we give them partial information because we don’t have Super Tool Kits and we dump stuff on them and there’s missing information, missing passwords, and then they come back and ask you, and then you’re frustrated because working on something else and it just creates more chaos. Adding people to chaos does not create calm.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (10:27):
Okay, let me put a pin in that for one second though too, Tom, and say that we have a 12-Point hiring process and with a 90% retention rate. It’s one of the things we do for our clients, is we do find them a virtual assistant if they need it. We also work with their existing team, but we do that because we got to get to the real work, and we don’t want that to be their learning curve upfront. But that’s another thing, is that people say, “Oh my gosh, I need someone.” And then they run out, not understand it’s a whole career on its own, and when you need somebody, it’s not the time to be looking for them. And then you don’t have skillset or training or a process to do so, so that’s another whole kettle of fish. So we delegate, which doesn’t work.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (11:06):
We also, what I call, dump on them, throw a bunch of work at them here, almost like a toddler, “Hey, I got you some toys. Sit in the corner.” I know I need this work done. The problem is this has happened to so many people that, before they came and worked with me, is then you think, “Okay, I’ve got them busy for a couple of days,” and then that’s their zone of genius. They come back after three hours and you’re like, “Wait, what? I thought I had enough work for you for three weeks.” But again, you have no systems or flow to keep the work coming to them, so it really becomes the tail wagging the dog. And then the third thing is disregarding. Because you’re just dumping on them, treating them like a task puppet, you don’t have the setup to find out what they’re really strong at.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (11:51):
When we find a VA, or again, existing clients have them, we put them through our leadership program and this really empowers them to show their strengths and use their voice and really come up so that you’re in a situation where you have peers. It’s fantastic when I go into a meeting with my team, and I often joke that if it was a board of directors, I’d be out because they’re all smarter than me by a long shot, but they were put through the leadership program. So there’s just so much potential there. But in the busyness of reacting as an entrepreneur, you’re just trying to get that thing, make the thing, sell the thing, get more people to buy the thing. And all this other stuff is subtle but incredibly powerful. And we have been institutionalized by very faulty setups that didn’t work in the big companies, and they’re certainly not going to work for us.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:42):
Excellent. Well, and it sounds like this is… Cycling back, I realize as I see your book on my screen here, to circle back to “Win the Hour, Win the Day.” So these things we’re talking about sounds like it will help you win the hour and win the day, but I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that concept, maybe in a broader context or to continue the conversation here.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (13:04):
Where that really came from is so many things we do as entrepreneurs, we tend to clump things and like, “Oh, I’m going to get this done, or this is my next goal.” And often I talk to people, they say, “Well, I have this quarterly goal.” I’m like, “A goal means nothing unless you have a strategy to implement.” You can say a dream has no date, a goal has a date, but without the strategy, the goal is not worth the paper it’s written on.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (13:27):
So fundamentally, when I wrote the book, it started leaning more… And mostly in the beginning, the foundational part about the calendar, because that’s where people went wrong, right from the beginning. So one of the concepts I would say is if you can break anything down, then you can see it. So if you can win the hour, you can win the day. I used to go into Mondays with my hot to-do list in my hand waving to the sky thinking, “This is it. I am going to burn through this nobody’s business.” I don’t know why I thought Mondays were twice as long as any other day. I still have believed that.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (14:00):
But anyways, when I started learning how to use my calendar effectively, it was shocking to me, oh my gosh, how this to-do list wouldn’t have fit into a month of my calendar. And learning how to break my work down into segments of an hour was a game changer. I call your calendar your “time bank account”, because hear me out, Tom. So many people will just put… You have this interview with me, it’s on your calendar, but lots of times there’ll be gaps in your calendar, and then you just run around your to-do list shoving work in there trying to get stuff done.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (14:35):
And what I say is, this is your time bank account. And what I mean by that is you have to be counting your work, and you can do that in one-hour increments. I’m not talking about busy work and listing in a memo board, but one-hour increments. Because here’s the thing, so many people do not count things that they have to do every day. “Oh, I don’t need to put that on my calendar, Kris. I do that every day. I remember it.” Okay, it’s not a memo board. So even your emails, how much time does that take you? Let’s say emails, correspondence, whatever, let’s give that an hour. Phone calls, whatever. Well, that’s not on your calendar. And you say, “I do it every day.” Well, the time is still gone. That would be like, Tom, you saying, “Well, I have a car payment that comes out every month, but it comes out every month so I don’t count it.” Well, the money’s gone.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (15:20):
So then you are stumbling into your workday thinking you maybe have seven hours, but you might only have four, and then you don’t know why everything’s derailed in the afternoon, and then you try to speed up, “Let me just go faster.” That was always my answer. “I can go faster, I can talk quick, I can move fast. Oh, you don’t understand what I’m saying, and now you’re going to ask me to say it twice.” I thought speed was my superpower, but in fact I was skimming over things. It wasn’t getting traction. There was lack of creativity because I was just always focused on jumping the next hurdle.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (15:51):
And so winning the hour, win the day means anything we’re doing, whether it’s teamwork, your time, or your tool kits breaking things down. When we break them down, then we have success.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (16:02):
Can you give an example, maybe, of breaking it down? What might that look like? You gave a great example of what a hurried day ends up looking like, and I’ve lived through many of those days. And so how would a breakdown look like in a restructured… If you’re winning the hour to win the day?
Kris Ward, Win the Day (16:20):
Okay, let me give you an example. I used it to write my book. So what I did was… Here’s another technique. I talk about working backwards, and I also talk about the work that requires the most attention or focus is done first thing in the morning when your battery is recharged. So I will tell you that you can start work refreshed and leave fresh.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (16:42):
If you think you’re a night owl, I will argue that you feel safety when the world is shut down and you’ve got all your work done and you think you can relax and focus on the project you want. But that’s fear-based. Science does not show that you are more effective after a day of making something like 30,000 decisions, and you’ve got attention fatigue, and you’ve got all this other stuff. So first of all, do the work that requires the most attention or focus first thing in the morning. Book that hour for that, your golden hour.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (17:09):
Secondly, when I was writing my book, what I did was I realized that the editor needed it by June. She was going away, she needed it by June or she couldn’t do it till September. So I worked backwards. And we do this all the time in life, you might say, “All right, I got to be with the in-laws at 11, we’re leaving here at 10,” and you start doing the math working backwards. So what I did was, because so many of us just dive into a project, “I’m going to work hard on this every day,” or “I’m going to do with the important work in the morning, I’ll get my clients done and then I’m going to work on my book.” So I broke it down, and I realized in order to get it to the editors by June, that I had to do five pages per day, Monday to Friday, to get the approximate amount of pages I was looking for.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (17:50):
Now, there were days where I felt I did not have five pages in me, but because I broke it down, it sobered me up because I would be like, “Oh, if I didn’t have this formula, I’d be like, you know what? Today I’m tired. I had this meeting, blah, blah, blah.” All my excuses. “Tomorrow, the pages will just fly off the computer. It’ll be amazing.” That would’ve been my mentality.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (18:13):
But what would happen is because I broke it down, I worked backwards, and I had it in one-hour increments. I would say, “Oh my gosh, I don’t think I have five pages in me today. If I don’t have five pages in me today, I will not have 10 pages in me tomorrow.” So that kept me on the path and that kept it really clear. And that’s the problem. When we don’t break things down, we just go with good intentions, head down and try to busy our way through it. And then you have no idea how off course you are when you’re derailed. It’s just a hot mess. And it’s very basic stuff that we help our clients with. But again, they all get 25 hours back a week within the first month of working with us. Their income goes up, their stress goes down, they work “school hours”, we call it. It’s just putting some simple things in play.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:00):
Wonderful. Well, what’s the best way for someone to get a copy of this? I know you offered a free resource. Share some contact information for us.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (19:08):
Well, you can find me in any of the socials. I particularly like LinkedIn, but there is a free gift for your audience. You can go again where I mentioned earlier, FreeGiftFromKris.com, Free G-I-F-T from Kris, K-R-I-S, dot com. And what I’ve done is put the free audio version of the book in there, but it won’t be there very long. So grab it quickly and hopefully you’ll enjoy that.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:32):
Wonderful. Well, Kris, this is a great time in the show where we make a transition. We ask every guest the same four questions before they go. And the first question we ask is, have you had a miss or two on your journey, and something you learned from it.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (19:44):
I think for me, the miss was how hard I talked about in the beginning. I worked so hard, I worked so many hours. I thought this was me doing right by my business and the people who were supporting me creating this business. I was like, “This is the best thing I could do.” And I was wearing myself down, and I had no idea that it was so counterproductive that you’re just showing up every day hungover. You need your brain and hungover from being sleep-deprived, exhausted. And it was huge. And just trying to go a son of a gun and thinking, grinding it out, you’re moving so fast and you’re so busy that it all has to come out. Results have to be there.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (20:23):
So it really took a long time before I understood, “Oh my gosh, being a hard worker and throwing your back in sweat and everything into it, that’s not the plan.” Who ever thought… I mean, that’s the biggest criticism I got in school when I was a kid. “You’re not rising to your potential” and “You could work harder” and “She’s not paying attention.” May I go on? And to sit down… I remember having a conversation with my mother saying, “Who knew I’d have to learn not to work so hard?” So that was a huge miss, and it was really hard to understand that putting in a 14, 15, 60-hour day was not to my favor.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:03):
Let’s talk about a make or two on the other side.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (21:07):
The make would be when I started to hire my first virtual assistant and started to learn how to use my calendar. And I remember just thinking, “Oh my gosh.” I remember taking that to-do list the first time and putting it in my calendar. I often do this in a video. I’ll show a to-do list. It doesn’t look so bad. And I’m like, “Okay, here it is.” But then when you put numbers beside each task, like, “Oh, this is two hours, this is four, this is 45 minutes,” you are like, “Whoa!” Right?
Kris Ward, Win the Day (21:35):
And so when I started to learn how to use my calendar, to me it was just something like a Disney movie. Birds flew off the computer. I was like, “Wow, there was so much information there.” No wonder I was tired. No wonder I was stressed. I was trying to… It’s almost like trying to eat Thanksgiving dinner and put it all in your mouth at one time, and wonder why you’re not enjoying it and you’re not chewing and you’re choking. So when I turned that around, that what I learned is you can change your life and change your business when you start to know how to manage a team, manage your calendar, and start to put things in play like toolkits. That was when everything turned around for me.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:12):
Excellent. Well, let’s talk about a multiplier you’ve used to grow yourself personally, professionally, or businesses you’ve run before.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (22:21):
I think for me, something else in the busy-ness of a recovering rush-a-holic, it took a long time before, sadly, I realized I was rotating relationships instead of maintaining them. So I would meet with someone like you or have this interview, and I’d feel like, “Oh, I know you better” and we had this really great time together, and then I would see you in the feed for a little while and I’m going to stay and connected with you. Or also sometimes you get busy and you think, “Oh yeah, I’d love to stay connected to Tom.” I don’t have a reason to reach out to you, just to say “Let’s connect” and then hopefully we don’t because I’m too busy. And then I started making this very simple spreadsheet, and I had actually done a video recently on LinkedIn and people asked for it, so I have the link for that if you reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (23:03):
But I made this really simple spreadsheet. It just had people’s name and something personal about them that I remembered, and then their picture, because we forget names. And so many companies… It’s just really simple of how I keep in touch with them. But then I really could see like, “Oh…” And then I can connect other people and say, “Oh my gosh, Tom’s looking for some guests. I’ll go down my list.” So I have this little networking sheet. And when I started truly keeping track of the relationships, and I’m telling you, it took me seconds to slap this together. And also when I go to it, you might reach out and say, “Hey, I’m looking for a couple of guests,” and then I’ve got this list with faces, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, he’s really funny. Oh, Tom will love this one.” And that was a game changer for me. It was so simple, and… Oh my gosh, because the reality is, look, I’m going to say it, there was relationships I had when my business started new, and these people have really taken off, and it would’ve benefited me to maintain those relationships. And it’s not that I didn’t like them or didn’t care, they just got lost in the chaos of a day. So for me, that was so huge and so unnecessary. I could have done it better so much sooner, but I didn’t, and here I am.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:09):
Excellent. Well, the final question we ask every guest is, what does success mean to you?
Kris Ward, Win the Day (24:15):
I think to me, success means freedom. And that freedom is to choose what you want to work on, when you want to work on it. To take a long weekend off because you feel inspired. And just freedom, freedom, freedom. And we all signed up to be an entrepreneur thinking we have this freedom lifestyle, freedom to do the work we wanted, but then we get trapped in all this busy work. But to me, it does still come back to freedom. If somebody says, “Hey, all of a sudden something comes up exciting and I can take Friday off and not have to work Sunday or every night next week to make up for it,” it truly is about freedom of choice. And wherever those choices are, that’s your choice. But that, to me, is success.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (24:57):
Wonderful. Well, Kris, before we go, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you maybe haven’t had a chance to yet?
Kris Ward, Win the Day (25:05):
Ultimately, I think business should be fun. Otherwise, we could have just stayed at that job we didn’t like, and it would probably have been easier. So I think I say this over and over again. Your business should support your life instead of consuming it. And most importantly, it should be fun. And you should not have to put your head down and crush your soul and stifle your dreams because you’re like, “Oh, I got to work on this thing right now. I can’t even get to that. I can’t even think about that yet, that next thing I want to do, because it’s upsetting, I keep putting it off.”
Kris Ward, Win the Day (25:34):
And I’m just here to tell you that’s the sweet spot. That’s the fun. And that’s why I am insanely passionate about creating this movement where we all look at our business differently. Let me add this one last point, if I may, is we hear these big stories of people that have achieved great things and like, “Oh, he grinded out, or he slept on the floor for the first two years and worked day and night.”
Kris Ward, Win the Day (25:57):
But if you truly listen to the story, the part that’s not as interesting and not as dramatic is when he or she crosses that bridge. And their success is when they cross that bridge is when they get control of their schedule and when they start working with a team. And that’s not the most interesting part of the story. So we all get stuck on that, “This is what you do grinding it out.” But that just makes for a good dramatic story.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (26:21):
The really successful people learned that you need to have people around you and you need to know how to use your calendar. The most successful people in the world will tell you, they can look at your calendar and tell you how much money you’re making just by how it’s set up. Kind of like a nutritionist looking in your fridge, “I don’t know why I can’t lose weight.” And then you’re like, “Well, yeah, the ice cream’s there, but we only use that…” You know what I mean? So anyhow, those things truly matter. And thank you for asking.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:46):
Wonderful. Well, Kris, this has been an excellent interview. I really appreciate your time today. Thank you so much.
Kris Ward, Win the Day (26:52):
Well, thank you for having me. I feel like I’m on some sort of big radio show. You’ve got such a good radio voice. I keep wanting to answer enthusiastically, like I won something.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:02):
Kris, thank you so much for a fantastic interview and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:09):
So takeaway number one is when she said, “Your business should support your life, not consume it.” I really liked that a lot. She said, “Your business should support your life, not consume it.” And I like it because it’s a reminder for me and hopefully for you, but it’s something where I have found myself over the years sometimes getting consumed with my business instead of it supporting my life.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:33):
Takeaway number two, your calendar is your time bank account. I love this takeaway. It was a great description of it to say that you have to count the hours that you’re spending doing things, whether it’s checking your email or buying something on Amazon. You have to do that. And she said, many people don’t. And she described how she used to not do that and has made those changes and how it’s impacted her life. So I thought that was an excellent takeaway.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (28:01):
Takeaway number three is when she shared that she used to work so hard and so many hours for people that she wore herself down. And it’s hard to understand that when you’re in that zone, it’s not helpful to be putting in those 14, 16 hour days. It truly deteriorates your physical and mental health, and makes you unable to perform at the level that you want to perform at. And she described it as trying to eat Thanksgiving dinner where you shove all of Thanksgiving dinner into your mouth at the same time and wondering why you’re not enjoying it. I thought that was a great visualization and description.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (28:42):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (28:49):
So today’s win-win is that business should be fun. I love when Kris said that. Business should be fun for you. I know for me, that’s the reason why I wanted to get into business for myself and run my own company or maybe the franchise you’re running or being the leader of your organization. You enjoy it, and it ought to be fun. Most of the time there are things that you do that maybe aren’t the best part of it, but I think that’s the win-win, because if you can make it fun for yourself, it’s going to make it fun for your staff, for your coworkers, for your team, even for your family at home.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:24):
And it gets back to that quote that she said at the very beginning of the interview, “Your business should support your life, not consume it.” And if you can build it in that way, it will be fun.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (29:35):
And that’s the episode today. Folks, please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at BigSkyFranchiseTeam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.