354. Creating Your Business in 10 Hours a Week with Neill Williams

I’m Jody Moore and this is Better Than Happy, episode 354: Creating Your Business in 10 Hours a Week with Neill Williams.

Did you know that you can live a life that’s even better than happy? My name is Jody Moore. I’m a master certified life coach and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. And if you’re willing to go with me I can show you how. Let’s go.

Okay, all my entrepreneurial friends or those of you who I think maybe you want to start a business, whether that be a traditional business, or a non-profit, or grow your network marketing business. Listen up, today’s episode is going to be so helpful. I talk to so many people who tell me that they want to do this but they don’t have 40 hours a week, or they don’t want to devote 40 hours a week to building a business. And they ask me all the time, “Are you sure that can be done?”

Maybe I talk to a lot of people who have another full-time job that they need to keep to pay the bills until their business gets to a point where it can take over that. Or they have children and they’re in the thick of raising kids and they don’t want to sacrifice all of that. And so, they think there’s going to be a good time one day when all my kids leave the house, except then all the kids leave the house and they feel like now they have no experience. And they’ve lost their confidence. And all of this other nonsense, which is all nonsense.

But at any rate there is no right time, especially if you feel the call to do something right now then that means right now is the right time. So, whatever your situation, if you have a business that you want to grow or you are interested in starting a business and you think, how do you do it with only putting in a few hours a week, up to 10 hours a week. Most people, if you were to carve out two hours a day, five days a week, that’s doable. It might require focus, not to say that that’s easy, that would still require some planning and focus.

But that would be doable, you wouldn’t have to give up the other things that matter to you in your life. And Neill is someone who I have watched do that. I had the privilege and honor of meeting Neill a few years ago when she first went through coach training. And we’re going to talk about that a little bit here on the podcast. But I watched her create a business that replaced and then exceeded her corporate salary all while being a mother.

I’ve have had the privilege of working with her for the last seven or eight months as she’s been in my Business Minded coaching program and watched her business really take off as she’s applied the things that we’ve been studying in there. And I’m just so excited to introduce her to you. She has an awesome free tool that you’re going to want to grab. So, make sure you listen for that.

And I do as I’m putting this episode out there want to just mention that I am planning an event. I don’t know if I’m supposed to be saying this already but I’m just going to say it. I am planning a conference for entrepreneurs. It’s specifically geared towards women with conservative values, who value family, who don’t want to change their value system in order to be successful at again, either a network marketing business, or a coaching business of some sort, or a photography business, or you feel called to do some non-profit work.

We’re going to be representing all of those areas. I love, love, love helping individuals in this space, especially women who are in the thick of raising kids and everything else. And it’s going to be July 27^th and 28^th in Salt Lake City. It’s going to be called Impact 2.0. And we will have the registration page up soon. And I’ll be able to give you more details. I just wanted to put the message out there, to be on the lookout for it because we have some amazing speakers. And I have some good ideas for what I’m going to be teaching you there as well, so you’re not going to want to miss it.

But let’s go ahead and turn it all over to my conversation here with Neill Williams. Here we go.

                                                                                                                   

Jody: Alright, Miss Neill Williams, I’m so excited to have you on the podcast today.

Neill: Oh my gosh, I am so thrilled to be here. Thank you so much, Jody.

Jody: Yes. Thank you for coming on. So, we’re going to be talking to our entrepreneur friends today, yeah?

Neill: Yes, we are.

Jody: Okay, let’s begin by telling people a little bit about you. Who are you? Why are you here? Make sure you brag a lot. This is the part where you brag.

Neill: It’s the hardest part. So, I am a master certified, deep dive certified coach with Life Coach School. You actually were my teacher in coach certification which is so amazing.

Jody: Man, that was fun.

Neill: We were one of the last in person groups.

Jody: That’s right, I remember that, yes.

Neill: And I teach other coaches how to build their businesses, working just a few hours per week. So that was the big challenge that I had. I had a full life like most coaches do. Most coaches don’t graduate high school.

Jody: And then go into coach training, although some. It’s becoming more popular but yeah.

Neill: Yeah. But I think many coaches come at it, they’re changed by coaching. They get certified, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, I want to do this in the world.” But they already have this full life. They’re parents. They’re spouses. They have a nine to five or other things going on. And then they’re like, “I don’t have time to do this.” They think time is the obstacle. And that was definitely my story. I had all of those things. And I thought I would never be able to build my business. And I just figured out how to do it in about 10 hours per week. And so that’s what I help other people do.

Jody: I love it so much. So, are you coaching now? What hours do you work now? Do you still have your nine to five?

Neill: I recently let that go about six months ago. But I was doing both for quite a long time honestly. Yeah, but not anymore. I’m full-time on my own entrepreneur now.

Jody: That’s exciting.

Neill: I know. It’s kind of freaky but it’s exciting too.

Jody: Yeah, right. Okay, and you have kids, family?

Neill: Yes, I have a spouse. And I have a 12 year old amazing son who I’m totally in love with.

Jody: Awesome, okay. I love it. So, we think time is the obstacle. And we’re going to gear everything today to entrepreneurs, especially coaches. This is of course going to be relevant to anybody building a business. But I want anybody listening to know that even if you’re not building a business, this whole trying to get a handle on your time in whatever your objective is that you’re trying to fit into your life, whatever you think you don’t have time for. You’ll find some real nuggets of wisdom here.

So, let’s start out with, you said that we think time is the obstacle as though, Neill, you don’t think time is the obstacle. And I’m just curious if you could expand on that.

Neill: Yeah. I think I used time as the justification. I blamed time for a lot of things for why I couldn’t have what I wanted. And for a long time that was my business. I just don’t have time for this. I was so jealous of the coaches who didn’t have to work full-time. And they got to just spend all day playing businessowner and I didn’t have that. And I used that for a long time as an excuse for why I couldn’t create the business that I wanted. And then I got coached actually in master coach certification. Do you remember?

I was in the group where we went to Grand Cayman. And it was the end of the week and we’re all a mess. We’re exhausted and all the things. And Kris Plucky came in to coach us to leave, build us back up.

Jody: Now that we tore you down. Master coach training is a little bit like bootcamp mentally instead of physically.

Neill: Yeah. I think it was you who said, “Well, they brought Kris in to put you all back together so you can [inaudible] to the world.” Yeah, that’s exactly what was happening.

Jody: Thanks, Kris Placky. Okay, so she came in.

Neill: So, she came, and she was like, why have – because my goal was to make $100,000 in my business. And my C-line is I have a corporate job. And she’s so wanting me to understand how my circumstance of having a corporate job had nothing to do with me being able to make money. And I could not get it. I could see it but I was like, “I just don’t believe you, Kris.” And she was so frustrated with me. She was like, “I literally want to punch you in the face right now because [crosstalk].

Jody: That sounds like how Kris Placky coaches.

Neill: I know. And that was the moment where I was like, “Oh, I’m missing something here because she feels very strongly about this.”

Jody: She’s not giving it, well, so here’s what’s interesting. So, for people listening, they aren’t trained coaches, but they listen, they understand what you’re talking about with the circumstance line. But I have a corporate job is a circumstance.

Neill: It is.

Jody: That’s why it’s so challenging to see because our brains so quickly jump to all the thoughts then. That means I have this many hours at work. I don’t have enough time. You need this many hours to build a business. I have to still sleep. All of the other assumptions just happen so immediately that sometimes even though we do have a factual circumstance it’s hard to see that that doesn’t mean you don’t have time to build a business. Anyway, okay, continue.

Neill: And so that was the moment I decided, okay, I’m going to test her on this. That was literally the thought that I had. I was like, alright, I’m going to test this out. So, I was like, okay, over the next year I’m going to see what I can do. I’m going to work 10 hours per week because that’s what I felt I could fit into my life at that time. And I’m like, “Alright, I’m just going to go after it and see what I can do.” Maybe I’m wrong, maybe time has nothing to do with this. I would love to be wrong about this actually.

And so that willingness to just test it and explore it, and figure out how it might be possible for me to do this is what led me to believe that actually time has nothing to do with money. Time doesn’t create money, I do. And that’s really kind of the belief system that I landed on that helped me go out and create. That year I ended up creating $210,000 working about 10 hours per week in my business. I literally blew my own mind. I couldn’t even believe what I created.

Jody: Now, a couple of things you said there that I just want to tease out. First of all, you said, I wanted to be wrong. I decided I would love to be wrong about this. And I think it’s important for people to understand in your self-coaching that you have to genuinely want to be wrong. I was just coaching a woman yesterday about her marriage. And pointing out to her, she has tons of negative thoughts. And she finally was like, “Okay, well, what am I supposed to do then, not think that?”

And I was explaining, we have to want to be wrong. And she’s like, “Okay, I want to be wrong.” And just her tone and everything. I was like, “No, you don’t yet.” And that’s okay because it’s our default to want to be right which is so crazy to me. Why would I want to be right about that I can’t build my business because I don’t have enough time? Why would I want to be right that my husband isn’t interested in me? But that is how our brains are wired. Our brains are designed to be right. It’s their job to be right.

So, in order to override that it might take a minute. You might have to hold it in front of you, get coached on it like you did and have Kris Placky see so clearly that it’s not true for you to go, “Maybe I am wrong. I want to be wrong.” And it can take a minute to turn that corner. But you have to genuinely turn that corner before you’re going to be able to let it go, don’t you think?

Neill: Yeah. I mean that was the pivotal moment for me. I was like, okay, I totally want to prove that I’m wrong. And I was like, “I want to show myself that I’m wrong about this.” And I thought if I could do that then so many other coaches that I was in certification with and we’re all kind of doing the same thing. We have jobs and we can’t build our businesses, and we’re just in this. I could show them that this is possible too. I could be wrong for them too.

Jody: Yes. What an amazing thing it would be to be wrong about this. And when you see that and you see that it is just a story, that’s when your brain can go to work on it and you can start to find the evidence that you’re wrong. And you can start to find the solutions. Okay, so the other thing you said was that you realized that amount of money you make has nothing to do with the amount of time you work actually.

Neill: Yeah. No, they’re a pivotal understanding, yeah.

Jody: I know, but a lot of people don’t understand that. A lot of people think it does. And a lot of us are coming from, whether it be our jobs now or at least jobs that we had when we were younger where we got paid hourly.

I remember this conversation I had with a friend years ago. And she said she was going to get family photos taken. And she was talking about the photographer. And she’s like, “Well, I’m not going to pay the photographer who does our photos more than”, whatever it was, a couple of hundred bucks or something, “Because it only takes an hour and a half to take our pictures and then maybe she does a little bit of editing, that’s three hours. So, to me that’s worth this amount.”

And I remember being like, “That’s insane.” Because the photographer has equipment, experience, knowledge, training. You’re paying for so many things outside of their time. You want a photographer that cares about your pictures as much as you do, you’re going to have to pay a little extra. You want a photographer that has put in some time, you’re not just paying for the four hours it takes her to take, and edit, and upload your photos. And what I remember thinking was, first of all, I mean yeah, that’s too bad for your photographer.

But what I felt more was that’s too bad for you that you view the world that way because you’re going to limit yourself and your ability to generate revenue by thinking about it in that way, that time equals money. Time doesn’t equal money, value equals money, right?

Neill: Totally, that’s exactly right. But it took me a hot second to get there. I had to start really examining my ideas about money and how money is created and all of that to really understand. There is a model in the world I think where there is the exchange of money for time. That is the one way of doing it. But in my mind it was the only way. I didn’t realize there was another way that was an option. And once I started exploring that as an option, that’s when I was able to just let that idea go, that time actually creates money.

It’s not that, it’s the value that I create inside of the time that is what creates the money.

Jody: Yeah, oh my gosh, so good. Okay. So, what can we teach people that are like, “Okay, I’m in Jody and Neill, I want to work 10 hours a week and build my business.” Where do we begin?

Neill: Yeah. I think it begins with number one, carving out that 10 hours and being very clear with yourself about what you’re doing inside of that 10 hours. That is creating value to create money. I see so many coaches that I work with or do calls with who are wasting so much time in indecision. So, it’s a matter of understanding what decisions matter when you’re first starting out in your business, making them quickly, implementing them quickly.

And not sitting down in front of your computer and you’re like, “Alright, what am I going to do today? I don’t have any clients. Where are the clients?”

Jody: Oh my gosh. I go through waves in all honesty. I have times where I’m doing exactly what you’re describing which is planning ahead and putting in my calendar. And then I sit down, I know what to do. And I have other times where I’m just like, “What shall I do today?” And honestly, in those times I would say I am, even though on my calendar I’m working more than that, in reality I’m actually only working 10 hours a week.

Neill: I think if everyone sat back and really looked at the time that they’re actually accomplishing something or producing something, it’s a very little amount of time. It’s not equivalent to the amount of time that we’re sitting in the chair in front of the computer. Those are two different things. And there was actually even a study, I think Harvard did this study that looked at employees in the corporate world and of their 40 hours how many hours they’re actually using to get their work done was 12 hours out of the 40.

Jody: I totally believe that because I worked in corporate for many years. And I would say that is for sure true. And they say, I can’t remember where I heard this. You expand your work to fill the time especially if you have to sit in a cubicle all day from nine till five. You’re like, well, let’s drag this out a little bit. But even like you said, working from home building your own business, you expand your work to fill the time that you set up. I honestly believe that. I think we could get so many things done so much faster if we were just focused.

So, decision making, making decisions ahead of time about what do I need to do. I find even breaking it down beyond that. So maybe I’ll just get some free coaching out of you while we do this podcast. Because I want to figure out text messaging. I want to start texting out some of my content to help people. I think people are more attentive to text. I want to be able to send them an inspirational thought or message or things like that.

And so, I tell myself, okay, I’m going to figure that out, I have my husband that will help figure out the tech and things. And I still find myself just spinning of where do I begin. So, tell me, what do I do, Neill, to get myself moving?

Neill: Yeah. So, I would use what you’ve taught me, which would be my best educated guess of the steps that I’m going to have to take to get this from start to done. And I would make that list of all these things I need to do. And then the other thing that I think, so that’s a little bit tedious. Most people don’t want to do that. But if you notice that you’re procrastinating on something, not doing something. Probably what’s happening is in your mind it seems very overwhelming because it’s big.

So, they’re more stepped out and if you’re like, okay, this is a step I know I can do and it doesn’t feel big. It’s very concrete, getting this thing done.

Jody: And I think sometimes that step is even spend an hour and a half or two hours on Google and YouTube. And figure out what I need to figure out even for some things. It’s not even knowing what we don’t know. That’s why we’re just like, “I don’t even know where to begin.” A step in my calendar might be, I’m going to spend an hour on Google, or I’m going to call this person who I know uses text messages, or set up a time to talk to her. It’s not rocket science even if you don’t know what to do, you know how to figure out what to do in today’s world. And that could be your step.

Neill: You even know at least the next step. And that’s all you really need to know. You decide, what is this first step that I take here, that’s all I need to know for right now. And then you also ask yourself, okay, how much time do I want to give myself to complete that step? What you’re saying, I’m going to give myself an hour. I’m going to give myself an hour and a half. And then following through. So, I literally, I transfer that to my calendar. And then that time goes up and I follow through.

I don’t negotiate with myself with following through or not following through on the calendar that I set up for myself. And I think that’s a really important thing too because when you have 10 hours, you have to be very strategic, you have to be very focused. And you have to follow through on the decisions you already made for yourself instead of wasting time undoing those decisions, making different decisions and then moving everything around. That’s just such a waste of time.

Jody: That’s right, I would agree with that. Now, what do I do, Neill, if the amount of time I gave myself isn’t enough and I find that I need longer?

Neill: So, I’d first examine why you didn’t execute on the plan that you gave yourself. I think there’s this idea that things take a certain amount of time. It’s so funny to me because it’s like we’re looking for the thing to tell us how much time it should take for us to get it done. And I think that’s so backwards because then we’re at the effect of the thing, which I never like to be at the effect of anything.

Jody: Of a task, yeah.

Neill: Yeah, in control as much as possible. So, it’s a matter of, okay, you look at your calendar, you’re like, okay, I gave my self an hour to research this on Google and this is the result that I want at the end of this hour. It’s my job to show up to that hour with making sure that I get that done in that one hour. So, it’s, look, I made this plan for myself and I’m going to go execute it so that I get this thing done. So that’s the framing that we want around the time.

Instead of thinking about how long the thing takes, how long do I want to give myself to get this task done, this product one, or whatever it is. And then if you don’t execute, maybe being curious about what happened. Was there something I didn’t think of? Was there something that came up? Was there something that I noticed I distracted on or I gave myself longer than I had decided originally that I was going to give myself.

Jody: Yeah. I always say, it’s like you’re on a reality show and you need to make this dessert out of these ingredients. And when the timer goes off, it’s done, whatever you’ve done goes to the judges and you’re done. So, if you think about your work tasks more that way and less, like you said, at the effect of the task to tell me how long it’s going to take. Then you are way more focused, first of all. And second of all, you just have to drop your perfectionism, I think happens. Because you could always spend longer on anything making it better. So, at some point done is better than perfect.

Neill: Yeah. And I think a lot of us learned this lesson in COVID when our kids came home and then we had to be the teacher on top of everything else that we were doing. And we’re like maybe we had a little bit more luxurious time blocks then, now it’s like, okay, I’ve got 20 minutes. Then I’ve got to check to make sure that my kid is on Zoom and is doing all the things.

So, it was a matter of figuring out, okay, this is the time that I have, how do I show up and use it the most effective, be the most focused and create as much as possible inside of it. Instead of blaming lack of time for what I can’t do.

Jody: Yeah, that’s good. Speaking of having kids at home. A lot of my listeners have a lot of kids and little ones. So how do you accommodate that when there are going to be interruptions that you hadn’t planned for?

Neill: Yeah. I think plan for the interruptions. That would be the first thing.

Jody: How do you do that?

Neill: And don’t plan for a life that is not yours or what you would like it to maybe be. But what is it? If you’re going to have 10 minutes distraction free. Okay, let’s see what we can get done in those 10 minutes. Then the kids are going to come in and need a snack or they’re going to need a movie put on or whatever is going on. And then getting back, okay, I’ve got another 10 minutes. What can I accomplish here?

It’s a matter of really thinking about what can I do with what I have going on right now? Instead of using what I would wish, I wish was different and living in that world that doesn’t exist and wasting time there.

Jody: Yeah. I think too for entrepreneurs, you’ve got to invest in your business. And one of the first investments I made was in childcare because I remember growing up thinking it would be so nice if I could work from home. And then I could work and be there with my kids. And then I realized, no, that’s a terrible idea because now I’m trying to do two jobs. I’m frustrated, I’m not doing either one very well. So, at some point, even if you can just hire out for someone to come in three hours a week and watch your kids, it’s probably a good early investment in your business.

But also, I used to just know any task I want to accomplish, if I want to give myself 30 minutes to accomplish it but I know I have kids at home. I’m going to give myself an hour. I might double or add on to the time. There’s a chance I’ll get interrupted so I am going to need to plan a little longer for that task. And then if I got done early I could do something else but just in case, I wasn’t then frustrated.

Neill: Totally. Yeah, I think it’s a matter of, starting a business you’re going to invest time and you’re going to invest money. Those are the two resources. And it’s just a matter of where are those minutes and where are those dollars going that make the most sense for where I am right now. And then that might change as your business changes down the road.

Jody: Okay. Alright, so we talked about making decisions ahead of time, not debating whether or not we’re going to follow what we put on our calendar. What else? Let’s give one more tip for people working on this.

Neill: Yeah. I think this is one that was really solidified in my mind in conversations with you. But it is really structuring your 10 hours so that you have time to work in your business and work on your business. I think it’s very easy for us as coaches because we love coaching so much, or for you, whatever it is that you’re doing. To work in your business and spend all of your time working in your business, doing the coaching, doing the delivering.

And we forget that we need to actually be the CEO and entrepreneur, and do the marketing, and be responsible for creating the results that are keeping the business, making the business grow, making money, all of that. And having the balance between those two and then making sure you understand what it means to be a CEO, and entrepreneur, and what do you do in your time when you’re in that, wearing that role inside of your business.

Jody: And that’s all stuff that you help coaches to learn more about, what is that role. Yeah, I was thinking about this exact topic. And I think that when we decide to start a business, especially those that I know that have decided to become coaches. We just picture us coaching and teaching, and how amazing that will be. We don’t have a picture of the part where we’re building our business because we’ve never seen that part. Maybe we’ve worked with a coach before, we’ve had a coach but we don’t see what happens behind the scenes of them building their business.

I think as soon as you have somebody teach you or show you what it looks like, it is actually fun to do. Sometimes I know people are disappointed when I say, “You’re always going to need to work on your business.” Half the time, you need to be making your business more efficient, or maybe you want it to grow, or maybe something changed, your marketing that was working isn’t working now. You’re going to have to recreate it.

And people, I see the disappointment in their face. I’m like, “No, this is super fun when you know what to do and you know how to do it. It’s actually just as fun as working in the business.” But you’re right. I remember back when I was first building my business and Brooke Castillo said on a group call one time, there was a bunch of people and people just weren’t doing it, we’re just spinning and not working on our businesses and then complaining that we don’t have any clients.

And she’s like, “You have two jobs”, like you just said, Neill. She said, “You’re the entrepreneur and you’re the coach. Now, tell me, which job is more important?” And everybody was like, “The coach.” And she was like, “No, the entrepreneur. If the entrepreneur doesn’t do her job, the coach doesn’t have a job.” I remember going, “Oh.” It’s not I’m a coach first, oh, and I build a business. It’s I’m an entrepreneur and I get to be a coach.

Neill: It’s kind of the privilege that we get to do and have, because we’ve done the work of being an entrepreneur.

Jody: Yeah, so good. And it’s so fun being an entrepreneur, don’t you think?

Neill: I love it so much. I used to be so freaked out by it but because I understand it in such a fundamental, this is the way my brain works. I have always had jobs where I’ve been able to take very technical complicated stuff, like IRS code and make it very simple for people to understand. And I was like, “Oh, I did that for a business, now I took this big thing that seemed very complicated, and hard to do, and required a lot of time and energy and I made it very simple.”

And as soon as I did that, I’m totally in love with it. I geek out on all the things. I’m following all the people, reading all the things.

Jody: Me too.

Neill: So fun, it’s so fun, I love it.

Jody: Well, and because especially for coaches, we’re interested in human behavior, we’re interested in helping people and that’s what entrepreneurship is, it’s understanding human behavior and helping people. Marketing is just helping people for free in advance. So, it really isn’t that much different if you’re willing to dive in and learn. And I love how you’ve simplified it for people. So where can people get more help from you?

Neill: So, they can go to my website, www.neillwilliams.com. And I have a 30 day planner which is really amazing. It helps you start building your business in just 10 hours per week. I literally give you the weekly schedule and to-do lists, so you know exactly what you’re doing in those hours. And I also, depending on where you’re listening to this am doing a 10K in 10 hours mastermind which is really designed for the coach who is struggling to build their business because they think they don’t have enough time.

So, I work with those folks and help them get to at least 10K, my goal for everybody is 100K, working 10 hours per week. So, you can check it out on my website.

Jody: Brilliant. I love it. If you’re a coach not making 100K yet, that’s a great investment. So, Neill Williams, we’ll put it in the show notes, it’s Neill with two L’s. If nothing else, go grab that free 30 day planner and just give it a try. So fun, Neill, thank you for coming on today.

Neill: Thank you for having me, Jody, it’s so fun to be here.

                                                                                                                   

Hey there, if you enjoy this podcast or even if you just find that it sort of piques your curiosity, or it makes you think, you’re going to love the book that I wrote. It’s called Better Than Happy: Connecting with Divinity Through Conscious Thinking. And it’s available now at Amazon in print or kindle version. Or if you want me to read it to you, head over to audible and grab the audio version. And why not grab a copy for your sister, your best friend, or your mom while you’re there too. Just saying.