Looking back at life, nobody wishes they had spent more time at the office. In this episode, we’re going to be thinking about the opportunity cost of working too much, and the people it impacts the most.

Looking back at life, nobody wishes they had spent more time at the office. In this episode, we’re going to be thinking about the opportunity cost of working too much, and the people it impacts the most.

Who needs you to work a four day work week? Who needs more of your time, more of your energy, more of your attention? Is it your partner? Does that person need more of your love, your ability to connect with them, more of your presence. Is it your children? Do they need you to be more present when they come home from school so you can listen to them and hear what's actually going on in their day? When they come home from school, there's that 15 to 30 minute window where they'll actually tell you what's going on. Then after that, if you ask them if it's a couple of hours later, they'll just say, Oh, I'm fine. Everything's good. Not because they've shut down, just because they're onto something else. Is it maybe a friend that could use some of your help that just needs a little support, that could use your encouragement and your ear to be able to listen to them and hear what's going on with them? Is it another family member somewhere that's struggling with something that simply needs the time and the validation to know that they're important enough to be listened to?

Is it your community or the people that perhaps need you to be more present and share some of your gifts that maybe they're very valuable in the work world, but they're even more valuable to the nonprofits or to just people you help. I encourage you to really consider this concept of whether it's specifically a four day work week or making more time for life in general, that there's always an opportunity cost of things. And so often we talk about, Gosh, you don't know what you got till it's gone and nobody wishes they ever spent more time at the office. And by the way, that was validated by the woman who wrote the book, The Five Regrets of the Dine, and talked about how these people shared what were their most things that really bothered them, and they wished they'd done differently. She works as a hospist worker. And number two in it was they wished they'd spent less time at work. And that's not a knock on work. I love my work. I'm doing my work right now. But at the same time, there are other things in the universe, other things in the world that we can be enjoying and contributing to.

I encourage you not just to think of financial opportunity cost because it's easy to say, Well, if I work a four day work week, logically, on some level, maybe I'm leaving some money on the table. Now, of course, if it's an unproductive fifth day, you're not. But if it's a productive fifth day, yeah, you probably are leaving some money on the table, and there's a reality to that. But when you work in five days or six days a week, there's an emotional cost, or a relational cost, or a psychological cost, or a life experience cost, or something else. Again, there's a flip side opportunity cost. What are you missing out on? S o somewhere there's somebody in your life or a person or an organization that might be in a better position, that might be happier, that might enjoy life more, and that might, in fact, even impact you in some way. I encourage you to consider that. And if you're not sure, ask the people around you, Hey, why don't we do this on Friday? Why don't we go do this? Do you have time to do this? Or just start making more time to them.

If you fill up your weekend with things that you're doing, you say, Wow, gosh, I filled up my weekend and now I need a day just to get caught up. Well, why that way? Well, because on Fridays, nobody can take time off. I mean, I can. I'm an entrepreneur, but they can't. But so I'm present with people socially from Friday afternoon till Sunday evening, and then I need a day to catch up. Great. Okay. So if people aren't available in general on the other days, great. You connect with them on the weekends and then use your Friday to do your personal chores or whatever it might be. And by the way, in today's market and today's people working from home and different things, people are on all sorts of schedules. So there's almost always something going on socially. So again, this is not a knock on work. Work can be awesome. It can be extremely fulfilling and enjoyable. But there's other things as well. So I encourage you to think not just what are you missing out on, but somewhere is there somebody whose life would be better, even if it's you mentoring other people that are, let's say, younger than you in the same profession, where you're taking your skills now and you're using it for something to teach somebody something.

Who's missing out on something? Who's losing something? Whose opportunity cost is somewhat tied to you not being able to be available on that fifth day and see what you can do to create that space, maybe once a month. Start doing that and you'll find if you haven't found what I found is that there's so much more in the world going on than just work that's also amazing. Interestingly enough, it ends up coming right back around and contributing to your work. But overall, and it does that because it makes you a better person or you connect with people. Then sometimes the people, by the way, who are volunteering are the people that also are making enough money and have their businesses in order enough to volunteer. Then so sometimes you actually do make business opportunities at volunteer things and stuff like that. Even if it's something as simple as if you like golf, go golfing once a week and go solo and think, you know what? Chances are there's going to be somebody there that day that doesn't have somebody to golf with. Maybe they're going to feel a little lonely. Maybe they've gotten used to that.

Go golf with them. Whatever it is, think about whose life would be better or to word it the other way, who's missing out on you working too many hours and not being as present in life? I hope this serves you. I hope this inspires you. It's not meant to put us down. I listen to these things as I say to them. There's a concept that when you're a coach or a teacher, that so many of the things you bring up are the lessons you need to learn. I've learned this in different ways. I continue to apply it myself. I hope it serves you, your loved ones, your family. As always, I look forward to helping you make more money in less time doing what you do best. As entrepreneurs, we sometimes need to be locked in a room to get something done. We have a workshop called 4 Day Work Week entrepreneur Academy, where in two days we help you put together your game plan to create a four day work week lifestyle. You'll be in the room with other entrepreneurs who are networking with each other, creating a support network to implement throughout and after the program, and also understanding and learning the fundamentals of how to best do this.

​As we do this, we also follow it up with an online program, and we also follow up with weekly calls to help people make sure they're able to implement the content of the program. So if you're looking to lock yourself in a room and make sure you get some stuff done and you want to make something happen and get closer to a four day work week, go to 4dayworkshop. Com and you can learn more about the live event. Helped many entrepreneurs with this before and look forward to helping you and seeing you at one of our workshops. As always, look forward to helping you make more money and less time. Do what you do best. Thank you.