It seems like business is just antithetical to the 80-20, right? You're putting more in and you're thinking that doing more is more when the data really tells you that only a very small portion of what you're doing is going to contribute to a disproportionate amount of your outcomes.

Well, let me tell you two connected personal stories, like not so much the client, but like where it hit home for me.

So the first one is maybe on the personal cost side of it.

But very often as entrepreneurs, we think, well, I'm sacrificing something personally and we want it to be personal.

We're willing to make that to build our company.

And so I came home late for dinner, you know, Lori, and she'd waited for a while, but eventually they ate.

The kids are now doing the homework.

And so he had his own issues.

you, were you, I don't know if this is the right word, but were you mature enough as two adults? to know if that's the right decision or do you make an argument because you don't want to do something that's irresponsible at the wrong time?

I don't think there's a right or wrong.

Like you can't possibly know what was right because you can't run out the other alternatives.

Was that a right or wrong decision? I don't know.

It led to who I am today and it led to my book and like a lot of things like that.

So we realize that we make that choice.

We say, and to each other, and then we go to the team at the office and we say, listen, next summer, We're going to go away for the summer and we're going to take the kids and we're both going to go.

With it supposedly having all the information at our fingertips, it means it should be way more simple.

If you were going to design your perfect day and I a perfect week, because you've scaled businesses before, is it formulaic? Is it in today's world we've got work-life balance and we work at different times? How does Bill structure his world?

Well, so I think it changes with stage of life and different interests.

And I have kind of two modes right now.

I have the third one, which is this like retreat mode that happens about once a year.

But typically I have the home schedule and then I have the road schedule.

So I travel almost every week, sometimes two cities a week on average.

And then I have the schedule that I keep at home and the one that I do on the road.

Good point.

Tell us about it.

Well, you know, the title is already pretty resonant with a lot of people.

I've been on morning news programs now talking about like wellness from the angle of busy is broken.

Because even if you're not a CEO, we feel like the busyness is wearing a stand.

And we realize there's something about it that's broken and yet we're busy people.

i'm a busy person we like to be busy uh we have deeply ingrained psychology and culture around busyness and uh and there is a a good and a bad kind of busy there's a right place for busy and yet there's also something like why does that resonate busy is broken so everybody is out there for different reasons making personal sacrifices and we think they're personal And we're willing to make them.

Like, I'm building my company.

Yeah, these

How do you go about coaching the busy is broken philosophy in, you know, for new clients?

Right.

So it includes, look, my own story is I ran different companies growing up.

And when my kids were young, Um, I, uh, I walked in the house late one day for dinner and, um, as I often did, and then I continued to be on a call for a while.

And then after about 15 minutes, um, 20 minutes, I hung up the phone and I, I'd been looking over at the family in the dining room and my wife came over to me and she said coldly, if you're just going to be on the phone when you come home, we don't need you at home.

And it broke my heart.

And I realized I missed all the little events.

And then when that's the case, what is typically the reason why they can't pull the trigger on something like this that's this

so i think as we get into the conversation we might want to set the the context of the scaling up framework with people strategy execution and cash and can you just take a moment for those um who maybe they've heard of it but they haven't really had much exposure to it the like just the the paradigm of scaling up

Well, so Scaling Up is a best of business growth framework that was originated by Vern Harnish, who's been my friend and mentor for decades.

And Vern, so Vern, you mentioned Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.

He was teaching a program for entrepreneurs at MIT years ago.

And he read this book about the life and times of John D. Rockefeller, and he inferred, intuited, discovered in there some habits that were useful in any time, not just in olden times.

in times, but in modern times and into the future, like enduring things that we now enable with technology, but like basics around alignment and focus and prioritization and rhythms and like all that.

So all of that is distilled into the first book and then expanded into these four decision areas, people, strategy, execution, cash.

Okay, now let's get back to the episode.