MBA2537 Q&A Wednesday: How do I find the time to start a business?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The $100 MBA Show – MBA2537 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Find the Time to Start a Business?

Host: Omar Zenhom
Release Date: October 23, 2024
Episode: MBA2537
Duration: Approximately 21 minutes

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Introduction

In this episode of The $100 MBA Show, host Omar Zenhom addresses a pressing concern from listener Greg: "How do I find the time to start a business?" Omar leverages his extensive 20+ years of entrepreneurial experience to provide actionable strategies for aspiring entrepreneurs juggling full-time jobs, family commitments, and other responsibilities.

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Understanding the Challenge

Omar begins by empathizing with Greg's struggle, sharing his own background as a teacher balancing a full-time job while bootstrapping multiple businesses. He highlights a compelling statistic:

"72% of entrepreneurs start their business while still employed as a side hustle."
— Omar Zenhom [02:15]

This underscores that initiating a business alongside existing commitments is not only common but also a viable path to success.

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Rethinking Time Management

Rejecting Conventional Advice

Omar challenges traditional time-management advice that focuses on identifying and eliminating time-wasters like excessive TV or social media usage:

"Forget about tracking how much time you're wasting on entertainment. It often leads to guilt without tangible progress."
— Omar Zenhom [03:45]

Instead, he advocates for a proactive approach: prioritizing and allocating dedicated time for business development.

Prioritizing Business Time

Omar emphasizes making business time non-negotiable, akin to essential activities like paying bills or maintaining personal health:

"Treat your business time as sacred. It's a must-do, not a negotiable activity."
— Omar Zenhom [04:50]

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Practical Strategies to Carve Out Time

Dedicated Time Blocks

Omar recommends setting aside 90-minute blocks for focused work, ideally three times a week to build momentum:

"Carve out at least 90 minutes, three days a week, in a distraction-free environment."
— Omar Zenhom [05:30]

He suggests specific timings, such as early mornings or late nights, to minimize interruptions and maximize productivity.

Creating a Distraction-Free Zone

Choosing the right environment is crucial. Omar shares his personal strategy of using a co-working space to ensure a conducive work atmosphere:

"Identify a place where you can work without interruptions, whether it's a co-working space, library, or a quiet corner at home."
— Omar Zenhom [06:25]

Scheduling and Accountability

Integrating these time blocks into one's calendar reinforces commitment:

"Put your business time in your calendar with reminders to hold yourself accountable."
— Omar Zenhom [08:00]

He highlights the importance of treating these appointments with the same seriousness as professional meetings.

Leveraging Micro Moments

Omar advises utilizing pockets of time throughout the day for personal development:

"Use lunch breaks, commutes, or household chores to invest in yourself through reading, listening to podcasts, or taking online courses."
— Omar Zenhom [10:15]

This approach ensures continuous growth without overwhelming one's schedule.

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Building a Support System

Communicating with Loved Ones

Omar stresses the importance of involving family and friends in the entrepreneurial journey:

"Have open discussions with your loved ones about the sacrifices and time commitments required to build your business."
— Omar Zenhom [12:00]

By setting clear expectations, entrepreneurs can garner the necessary support and understanding from their immediate circle.

Expanding Your Network

Transitioning to entrepreneurship often involves changing one's social circle. Omar shares his experience of joining business-focused communities to surround himself with like-minded individuals:

"Attend events, join meetups, and participate in communities where you can connect with other entrepreneurs. This normalizes your new path and provides invaluable support."
— Omar Zenhom [15:20]

He illustrates the impact of networking by recounting how joining a basketball meetup group in New York facilitated both friendships and business insights.

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Recap and Actionable Steps

Omar summarizes the key steps for finding time to start a business:

1. Prioritize Business Time: Allocate dedicated, non-negotiable time blocks for focused work.
2. Create a Schedule: Use a calendar to schedule and remind yourself of these appointments.
3. Utilize Micro Moments: Invest small pockets of time throughout the day in personal development.
4. Build a Support System: Communicate with loved ones and expand your network to include fellow entrepreneurs.

He also directs listeners to additional resources:

"Download today's worksheet for a checklist of all the steps to get started at 100mba.net/worksheets."
— Omar Zenhom [17:10]

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Final Motivation and Extra Tip

Omar concludes with a motivational analogy comparing building a business to pushing a boulder uphill:

"It takes a significant initial effort to start, but once momentum builds, success follows."
— Omar Zenhom [19:20]

He encourages consistency and perseverance, assuring listeners that with dedication, finding time to start a business is achievable.

---

Conclusion

This episode of The $100 MBA Show offers a comprehensive roadmap for aspiring entrepreneurs struggling to find time amidst their existing responsibilities. Omar Zenhom's blend of practical strategies, personal anecdotes, and motivational insights provides listeners with the tools and mindset needed to embark on their entrepreneurial journey successfully.

For more business lessons and resources, visit 100mba.net.

Transcript

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Narrator]

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His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking can he get through his expenses in that time?

He's going for it.

Is that his phone?

He's snapping a pick. He's texting round.

Jim is fast, but this is unheard of.

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[Ramp Announcer]

On ramp, expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com hey everyone.

[Omar Zenhom]

Welcome back to the $100 NBA Show. I'm your host Omar Zenholm and welcome to another Q and A Wednesday episode where I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners, one of our viewers. If you got a question you want to ask, go ahead to 100mba.netq and you could submit your question right there. And I'll answer on Q and A Wednesday. Today's question comes from Greg. And Greg asks how do I find the time to start a business? Listen, I totally get it. A lot of aspiring entrepreneurs struggle with this, especially because they're juggling a full time job. They got family, they got commitments, they got responsibilities. I know, I've been there. I was in a full time job as an educator, as a teacher. I had a lot of responsibilities. I had a lot of things to take care of. I totally get it. But in today's lesson, I'm going to give you some practical strategies to carve out time. The time that you need to give yourself a fighting chance to have a successful business. I'm going to actually throw away a lot of conventional advice when it comes to this topic. I'm going to tell you, do not do this because really it's a waste of time. It's not really going to move the needle. I'm going to give you the things that actually worked for me and hopefully it'll work for you. So let's get into it. But first, did you know that 72% of entrepreneurs start their business while still employed as a side hustle? This is a statistic by the Balance, a study that they did. And I love the statistic because it shows that most entrepreneurs, most business owners start on the side, right? You don't have to risk it all and put all your time and effort. I know there's some people that do that and that's fine. But there is a way to do this as a side hustle, as something that you're working on the side until it becomes your full time thing. And that's exactly what I did. I took a leap into full time entrepreneurship after side hustling for over a decade. And today I'm going to show you how to do the same without feeling overwhelmed with a game plan that you can stick to. The first thing I want to convey to you is I want you to forget this traditional advice of like, find out where you're wasting your time. You know, track how much time you're spending on watching TV or on social media or on YouTube. What is that going to do? Okay, I look at my phone, I find out I spent six hours on YouTube this week. Then what right? Am I supposed to, like, now work on a business every time I have five minutes spare when I usually watch YouTube? No, that doesn't work, right? This whole idea of like, oh, look how much time you're wasting. You got plenty of time. That's just some sort of guilt thing. That doesn't really work, okay? What really works is carving out dedicated, focused time, okay? And I'll talk about how to do that in a moment. But first thing is just forget this whole thing about, oh, you know, figure out where you're wasting your time and know that, okay, you're wasting X amount of hours. X amount of minutes. That's good. Then what? Right? This is a horrible, horrible advice. Do not do that, okay? Instead, what you want to do is now prioritize your business time. You want to make it a non negotiable time. We're going to talk about carving out time to work on this business of yours that you want to work on, okay? You want to treat this time like sacred time. Like you have to do it right? Like you will really suffer really bad if you don't do this. And the thing is, is that that's really what moves the needle with anything in life. You want to lose weight, you want to get fit, you're going to have to Carve out time to go to the gym. And you got to use that time and see that time, a sacred time, right? Time that you cannot negotiate with. It's a must do.

Okay?

And this is how you want to see building your business. Especially when you're getting started, you need momentum. You need enough wins under your belt, enough positive outcomes that from the actions that you're putting into your business in a row for you to get momentum and for it to actually be successful. So this is really a mindset, shift of thinking. Okay? I need to start thinking about working on my business as a priority. Just like I see my job as a priority. Just like I see as, you know, paying my bills as a priority, just like I see as a priority to go to the gym. If you feel that health and wellness is at a party for you, it needs to be a priority. Especially in the beginning. This time needs to be super sacred. So how do you structure this time? How do you get this time right? Well, I like to create a specific time block and I like to ease you into this.

Okay?

You want to carve out at least 90 minutes. The reason why I say 90 minutes, because 90 minutes is enough time for you to have some deep work time, right? This is very important. You need to carve out 90 minutes at a time. I'm not saying that you have to do this every day, but maybe you can start with, you know, two or three times a week. I would say three times a week would be ideal because this will give you enough momentum. So maybe this is like one day in the week, a Wednesday and then Saturday, Sunday, maybe something like that. 90 minutes. In these 90 minutes, you need to make sure you're in a distraction free zone.

Okay?

This is very important because in order for you to actually get things done, you need to be distraction free. So if your house is chaotic, if you are going to be interrupted, if you're a mom and your kids are shouting out mom every five minutes, then maybe that's not the best place to get this deep work done.

Okay?

So the first step is to think about where are you going to do this? 90 minutes, right? A lot of people are like, when? No, first where. Because the where might dictate the when. So where are you going to do this? So for me, me, when I was teaching, I took about two hours after work and I went into a co working space. So I went from my teaching job, went from the university I was working at, right? And I was teaching there at 3 o'clock I finished my job and Then I went to this co working space And I spent two hours there. So it took me about 15 minutes to get there. I got there at 3:15, I spent two hours, 5:15, I was done in 15 minutes. I was home. And there you go, 5:30, I was home. So I made sure that before I went home, I knew if I did this, if I went home, I'm going to get distracted, I'm going to get busy, I'm going to get tempted by whatever entertainment that's out there. Right? The point here is, is that if you carve out a place, maybe it is your home. If you have a distraction free zone, maybe it's the library. If you want to do this on a budget, maybe it's somewhere else, maybe it's a friend's place, it might be a cafe, whatever. You know that if you go there, you can actually work and not be interrupted. So for me, it was a co working space. I went there, I got my work done and I went home knowing that I got my deep work focus time done. So this is why I'm saying that it's important for you to know where first so that you could say, okay, when can I go to this place where it's distraction free? Okay, Maybe it has to be your home for you. And I understand that.

Okay?

And in this case, what I want you to do is think about when during the day, will it be distraction free? Maybe it means you gotta get up 90 minutes early when everybody's sleeping and you can be able to have really focused time with nobody shouting your name.

Okay?

And I really recommend this because it kind of gets things out of the way. I love getting up early and getting things done. I like to, you know, kind of get my workout done or get my journaling done or get my thinking time done in the morning. Get it done out of the way, the rest of the day is a win. Now that that's done. So maybe that's for you. Maybe it's late night when everybody's in bed. So think about where and then when are you going to do this based on where you are. And of course you got to work around your job, your 9 to 5 job or whatever the hours are, okay? So just keep that in mind. Now you want to treat this time again as sacred time. And it's like an appointment. You have to go to this appointment, right? This means no cancellations. That means no rescheduling. That means you have to go unless there's an absolute emergency, like somebody is being rushed to the hospital.

Right?

Think about your own job right now. If you had an appointment or a meeting at your own job, very little will stop you from going to that meeting. You have to go. It's your job. Your boss told you you have to go, right? So you have to be your own boss now. And you got to hold yourself accountable and make sure you go to that meeting, okay? You have to go to that deep work time, that 90 minutes that I. I'm prescribing to you as you get started, okay? So make sure you put it in your calendar. If you don't have a calendar, by the way, I'm shocked by how many people don't have a calendar. Like, they can use Google Calendar, which is free, or even just a physical calendar in their notebook or on their phone. It's super simple, okay? But if you put it in the calendar and you get a reminder that, hey, you have this appointment and you have to make, it's going to hold you accountable. So once we've carved out at least 90 minutes, three days a week, and you could do more if you want, but start out there. What about other times? There's some times that you could do things while you're doing other things. So, for example, you might be on a lunch break at work, okay? Now be very careful when it comes to working on your business at work. Do not use your company computer. Don't actually document anything, okay? Because this is the time that is allocated for your job, and they own anything you do at that work site at that job, even during the hours, and it may even extend if you're working remotely. So be careful, okay? Do not work on your business at your job. This is something that you should not do. Instead, what I recommend is work on yourself, okay? They can't take that away. So, meaning this is where, when you're eating lunch, you can watch an online course, right? You can maybe listen to a podcast episode. You could read a book. So this is when you could do multiple things at one time. When you're commuting, when you're eating lunch, when you're at the gym, right? When you're folding laundry, all this time where you don't really need to be focused. So you could do something else and listen to something else or watch something else. This is where you can invest in yourself. Remember, when you get better, your business gets better.

[Ryan Reynolds]

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[Narrator]

It looks like Jim from sales just got in from his client lunch and he's got receipts.

His next meeting is in two minutes. The team is asking, can he get through his expenses in that time?

He's going for it.

Is that his phone?

He's snapping a pic. He's texting around.

Jim is fast, but this is unhear.

That's it. He's done it. It's unbelievable.

[Ramp Announcer]

On ramp expenses are faster than ever. Just submit them with a text. Switch your business to ramp.com.

[Omar Zenhom]

Next. Involve a support system, right? Communicate with your loved ones. You are about to embark on a journey of entrepreneurship, of changing your life. Okay? This is just the beginning. Right now it's a side hustle, but it's going to be your full time thing. And trust me, you will have to sacrifice something. Some free time, maybe some outings, maybe some late nights with friends. You need to meet with the people that are closest to you, especially the people in your household. Maybe your partner in life, your wife or your husband, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, whatever it might be, right? You want to meet with any roommates you have. You might meet with your parents if you see them regularly, right? Meet with your very close friends, that you go out all the time and you have a serious meeting with them. You tell them, hey, I'm about to embark on this journey. This is what I'm about to do, okay? And discuss with your partner how this is going to happen. Right? I'm going to take 90 minutes and I'm going to go to this place and I'm going to work on my business every other day or three times a week. This is my schedule, okay? And this is my plan and I would love for you to support me. Right? And the reason why you need to get them on board is that it's really hard to do this alone when I mean alone. I'm alone in terms of moral support because there's going to be moments where they're going to be like, hey, we got invited for game night with Greg and Paula. Can we go? And it's just like, well, maybe that's during the time where you are Working on your business, that's not an emergency. Remember we said you have to make that appointment no matter what, right? So that means, hey, I can't go, maybe you go, or maybe we can go next week and I'll shift the appointment to go do the work a little earlier or whatever it might be. But the point is that you have to get this work done, okay? And they have to be on board. And it's very hard for them to be on board if you didn't have this discussion with them beforehand. You have to tell them, hey, there's gonna be some sacrifices sometimes and I'm gonna have to say no sometimes. This is one of the things that new entrepreneurs struggle with is saying no. And when you're starting out and you're trying to build something significant, you need to just say yes to one thing, which is building this business. And that means saying no to everything else or most of everything else. Because when you say no, you open up the time. You open up the opportunity for you to say yes thing that matters most. The opposite is true too. If I say yes to game night, I can't do anything else during that time other than game night. That means I say no to every other opportunity. And this is called opportunity costs. This is temporary, okay? This is not gonna be your life for the rest of your life, okay? This is just so you get the ball rolling, then you're gonna have more time. Once you let go of your full time job and you're working on your business full time and you're earning a good income and you start hiring staff and you start building and scaling your business and then you have systems in place and then you can go to game night, right? This is not like the end of game night forever, okay? But the point I'm trying to make here is that you need to communicate with your loved ones, with your circle of friends so that they can support you, say, hey, I get it, I got your back. No, no worries. We won't go to game night. We're going to chill at home because I know this is important to you. Lastly, you are changing your life and becoming an entrepreneur. This means you need to change the people you know. You need to change the circle around you. If most people around you are not entrepreneurs, are not business builders, are creators, it's going to be very hard for you to be motivated because it's going to feel weird, it's going to feel strange what you're doing. You're going to be the odd person out. And what really is important in this process is for you to make it so normal that of course I should be successful, of course I should be building a business. It's normal for me to make a million dollars a year on a business or 10 million or 100 million. This is something I see all the time around me. And that doesn't happen by accident. You need to build that circle around you. Let me give an example. When I was starting my side hustles and I was building businesses on the side as a teacher, right? My normal life, my day job, I'm surrounded by teachers. They're not building businesses, right? So they're not showing me what's possible, okay? They're not showing me this is normal. They're showing me that I should push myself. So I had to join a coworking space, like I mentioned, do my focused work. But in that co working space, they would have events on weekends, on Friday nights, pitch nights, people would talk about their business. I would mix with other people that are doing the same thing, building businesses. And it just seemed normal now. And I was inspired and I felt like I had new circle of friends. And I'm meeting new people, by the way. Not easy. When I was doing this, I was trying to make new friends at 25, 26, 27, 28, you know, 30. Not easy, right? But you have to do it so that you can start building a new life.

Okay?

Building a new standard for yourself. When I moved to New York and I became a full time entrepreneur and I left my full time career as a teacher, I started to really find communities in New York that I can just get to know people that are building businesses. I joined a basketball meetup, group of people that have startups, right? We used to play basketball on Saturday morning and afterwards we would talk about our startups over breakfast. And it was cool, we played basketball. I got to know people. But you're not going to meet these people. You're not going to have them a part of your life if you just stay home, right? If you just never meet these people, you never make an effort to go to these events. And sometimes all you need is just to go to one event, one conference in your area or in your city. And when you meet all these people at the conference, take down their details, their email, stay in touch, you know, send them messages on, you know, Instagram, whatever it might be. But the point here is, is that sometimes it just takes one event to start building a community. To recap, forget about all this traditional advice of like, oh, figure out how many minutes you're spending on Snapchat. No, that's not really gonna do anything. What you need to do is prioritize your business, carve out the time, find the place and the time that you're gonna do this 90 minute focus work three days a week to start with. This is your first task. Do this right now. And by the way, if you want a checklist for today's episode, we have it over in our worksheets. Just go to 100mba.net worksheets and you can download a checklist of all the things you need to do to get started and carve out that time.

Okay?

The second thing you're gonna do, of course, is create that schedule. I said put it in your calendar, make it a non negotiable.

Okay?

Third thing you're going to find those micro moments like when you're folding laundry, when you're having lunch, when you're commuting, when you're working out where you can yourself learn, grow, take that course, listen to that book so that you can be able to become better as a person and as an entrepreneur. And then lastly, you're going to have that talk with your family, with your friends, and also start expanding your friends by meeting new people at events, at meetups so that you can start normalizing success in business. Finding the time to start a business might seem challenging, but with the strategies I shared with you today, it seems doable, right? You could do this, right? I did it. It's not super easy, but it's also not impossible, right? And if you really care, if you really want to build a business, you want to start this new life and be an entrepreneur and create that independent wealth for yourself, then this is enough motivation for you to just get going, right? To carve out that time by forging your way and making it happen.

Okay?

And to add to this, just to add a little bit of an extra tip here, understand that it takes some initial push. It takes some initial effort to get a boulder down the hill.

Okay?

A boulder just standing there at the top of the hill is not really going to move. It's pretty heavy. But it's going to take a lot of effort in the beginning just to push it, just to get some momentum. And then once it starts turning, it's going to start rolling, rolling slowly and then faster, faster, faster as momentum builds. The same thing goes with building a business, right? In the beginning, it takes a lot of effort just to get going, to get off stationary, right? To get off this, like not moving at all. To moving a little bit. A little bit. A little bit. And once you give yourself that push, continue with that momentum and be consistent with your appointment with yourself to build on your business. You can't lose. Okay? It's just a matter of time. Love it. Thank you so much for listening and watching the $100 MBA show. If you love these lessons, if you want more valuable lessons, just go to 100- MBA-NET. We got a ton of business lessons. When I say ton, I mean 2,500 business lessons for you to choose from. And you can filter by genre, marketing, finance, whatever you might be. And don't forget, you can download today's worksheet, the check list for today's lesson [e-mail] worksheets. Thanks for tuning into the Hundred Dollar MBA Show. You got this. I know you do. This is a beginning that you'll never forget. I'm kind of envious a little bit because this is a fun, interesting, challenging time where you grow tremendously because of your commitment to build your business. Enjoy every minute. Be thankful you have this opportunity in the first place to even do this.

Okay?

Because a lot of people, they just dream and they never do. But you're a doer and I know that you're gonna follow through and make this happen. Take care. I'll see you in the next episode.

[Ramp Announcer]

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[Omar Zenhom]

Yay.

[Mint Mobile Announcer]

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