30. 4 Steps to a 4-Day Work Week for Entrepreneurs

If I offered you $10 million to learn a new language completely in one day, could you do it? What if I offered you that same $10 million to learn a language completely over a five year period. A little more doable? So if you could get that $10 million, or maybe a more significant number for you, if that's not a significant enough number for you financially, if you could get that number and you know, Okay, it might take me 10 years to do it, or five years or two years, a little more time, I can make that happen. But no, I probably couldn't make it happen in a day. Would you still pursue it? I want you to take that same logic and apply it to working a four day work week, whether you're an employee or an entrepreneur. But I'm going to speak even more specifically now to the entrepreneurs that right now are already making enough money, or let's say 80 to 90 % of the income you need to be making to live the lifestyle you need. And just consider something very almost annoyingly simple. I have coaching clients that have paid me to help them work a four day work week, and I have other clients who are clients from my software company that have seen the ideas I've shared.

Then later came back to me and said, Hey, wait, oh, by the way, I'm working a four day work week now. Then I looked through my notes and said, Oh, but you never signed up for the program. They said, Oh, no, wait, I just listened to a couple of the ideas you said and I just implemented them. So I want you to understand, if you need help implementing this, coaches can help. But nothing says you can't just take this idea and run with it. I'm going to suggest you do. My particular goal, I have a goal to help 444,444 people work a four day work week. So a couple million here or there don't pay me to work a four day work week. That's okay. I'm looking to help you get there. The first step is you just break it down into something simple. Let's say right now that you're working 40 hours a week and you don't want to be working 10 hours days. Maybe you don't want to do that yet. You say, Wait, no, I still want to keep things simple and sane. So what if you said, Wait, in months one through three of this year, I'm going to drop from 40 hours a week to 38 hours a week.

So on Fridays, instead of to use a traditional nine to five or eight to five with a one hour for lunch work week, I'm going to stop on Fridays at 3 PM instead of 5 PM. And for the next three months, or you know, wait, even if it took me longer, for the next three years, but I'm going to work two hours less per week, and I'm going to figure out how to get the same amount of income and results done in two less hours over the next one to three months, or again, even one to three years. And then in months 4 through 6, or years 4 through 6, if you like things a little more slowly, you figure out how to get the same results and or hopefully more in 36 hours a week. Now you're cutting off work on Fridays at 1 PM. You're taking half days on Fridays. You're making sure you have time to figure this out. This is not a rush. This is not a frantic thing. This is not meeting somebody going to Vegas and getting married. I mean, hey, if you did that and that worked for you, awesome.

But this is just slowly and steadily moving in the direction of your goal. Then shocker, months 7 through 9 or years 7 through 9, or years, 7 through 9, you get to 34 hours and you get the same results or more income and more results. See, this to me doesn't seem like a lot because it took me 22 years to figure it out. So if somebody had said to me, Wade, you can figure out how to nine years get to 34 hours a week. I said, Awesome, dude. Awesome, dudeette. How do I get there? And then eventually, months 10 and 12, or years 10 through 12, get to 32 hours. So often I talk to people and they'll tell me, Wade, this four day work week stuff is nonsense. What's nonsense about it? Well, this idea of working less and making more. Okay, tell me, how much money did you make per hour when you started working? Well made, wait, I made 10 bucks an hour. Here's a simple round number. Okay, you still make 10 bucks an hour? No. Good God, Wade, that was 30 years ago. How much you make per hour now, Wade?

I make 40 bucks per hour. Okay, so you used to make 10 bucks per hour. Now you make 40 bucks per hour. So you make four times as much money. Do you have to work all 40 hours? It totally just depends on your budget. If you spend the equivalent of 40 bucks an hour, then yes, you do. But if you don't, maybe you don't have to. In all this, this is just breaking it down. I know there's no tactic here of specifically how to do this, but the actual how is to just get out of the office at three o'clock and come back. So to give you the real specific prescription, I've told this to at least two clients this is worth for. One of the clients, I was trying to explain them strategically how and why they needed to work less because they just were being ineffective. They were over investing time in their business model. The person was having a hard time, but I could tell she wanted to get it. I said, Look, do this. At 3 PM on Friday, I want you to close your laptop. I want you to turn off your cell phone.

I don't want you checking email on anything until Monday. What I want you to do is come back in Monday. Remember, you left at 3 o'clock. I mean, 3 o'clock on the dot. I don't care if this is open. You just shut down your computer, you go home. Monday, you come back in and you look at where you left off. You finish whatever you left off and then you figure, What did I do last week that I really didn't get done? And then you do the next week and you leave at three o'clock every time, and then you leave at one o'clock. And then it's really that straightforward and that simple. It's about making it a priority and then filling up that Friday and those Fridays with something that's more fun, that's more exciting, whether it's time with kids, with family, with volunteering, with giving back to the community, whatever it is you want to do. Maybe you want to start a side gig, another job, or another income opportunity because you don't like the current one you're in, whatever it might be. But just slowly create a situation where you're working less hours. And just because you're an entrepreneur doesn't mean you have to stick with your business.

One of the toughest things is when you have a business that's doing well and you're the entrepreneur, but you don't maybe like that business, we'll slowly phase yourself out of that business and figure out how to run that business in two days a week or three days a week and then start your business on the other days. There's so many ways you can do this, but you've got to make the choice and you have to start working that direction. Now, if you want more specific tool to help you map out exactly what it would look like, go to 4day gameplan. Com and register to receive for free, my gift to you, the 4 day work week game plan. It's a series of training videos similar to this one and a tool that you can do either written or Excel based that will do the math for you if you put in your variables and help you map out what would it look like, what are the 12 steps to work in a four day work week and how do I map those out? It helps you do that. It doesn't mean you're going to get there right away, but it gives you the big picture plan, whether you're an employee, an entrepreneur, or a small business owner.

I hope you find this helpful. If you have any questions on this, please put them in the comments section below or shoot me an email. As always, I look forward to helping you make more money in less time doing what you do best. Thank you.