Tomorrow, we start building businesses that don’t drain you dry.
Last year, my kids were in after-school three days a week.
Before that?
Almost every day.
Back then, I still believed momentum required more.
More hours, more output, more everything.
This summer was a reminder that simply isn’t true.
For the last ten weeks, I’ve had my six and four-year old at home with me.
Most days, I worked one focused hour in the morning and one in the afternoon while they played. That was it.
It reminded me (and served as an example for my students) that it’s less about the number of hours you work and more about what you do with the time you do have.
It’s about having the courage to let some things drop, so the things that matter most don’t.
And over the years, it’s also forced me to build a skill I was able to avoid when I gave myself more hours to work: the skill of ruthless prioritization.
To stop asking what could I do and start asking what must I do?
What’s essential right now?…
Because when time feels endless, you can fill it without really answering that question. But when time is scarce, you don’t get to avoid it. You’re confronted with it every single day.
In those one-hour sprints this summer, I often struggled to galvanize the energy to start working after being out and about with the kids all day and that’s when it hit me.
During the school year, that’s what happens with my kids.
Once I pick them up from after-school at around 4pm as I’m shifting out of work-mode, it’s them that are getting the leftovers.
The business got my peak energy; my kids got the dregs.
Family is one of my core drivers—yet without intention, they weren’t getting the best of me.
So I made a decision that’s wildly impractical on paper and exactly right for this season: we’re not doing after-school at all this school year.
They finish at 2pm, and then they’ll be home with me.
That choice forces me to further scale the systems that allow me to operate only in my zone of excellence.
And it requires me to cut, delegate, and simplify even more, which keeps me honest about where my energy truly belongs.
It’s just another layer in showing myself that, yes, I’m deeply passionate about where the business is going and am so energized by that vision… but I’m also protective about how I go about it.
And I’m just as excited about showing myself just how much of an impact I can make, as I reclaim more time and bandwidth back for myself (and teach my students how to do the same).
And tomorrow, we begin the Freedom-Focused Income Bootcamp, which feels like perfect timing.
Because the trap isn’t giving your business too little—it’s giving it everything and still not seeing consistency. That’s what changes when you learn to prioritize what actually moves the needle.
