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Duayne

If I’m not right, how can I expect my business to be right? So, my business is a reflection of me.

Working IN the Business

Amelia

We talk a lot about working on the business versus in the business and how important it is for builders to actually, as business owners think about how they’re going to factor in time for working on the business. 

What do you actually say to builders? Because I imagine you get lots of questions when they see you talking about how you run your business. What do you say to builders when they ask you, how many hours do you work on the business a week?

Duayne

These days, I don’t work on the business. I work on myself. I tried working on the business for a long time. But the thing was, if I wasn’t right, then how could I make things right in my business?

Amelia

It’s so true, isn’t it? You forget that as a business owner, running your own business, what’s going on in your head, your ability to learn, create change, come up with ideas, and think about what you’re going to take action on. 

All of that actually fundamentally impacts what you’re choosing to spend your time on, what the next thing you’re gonna start to explore in your business. And so, if you’re not actually working on yourself, how can you expect to help improve your ability to do any of those things?

Duayne

And it’s one of those things, again, coming from a trading background, it’s really hard to get your head around. Like a builder, for a start, we are a business, so we need to get your mindset in, that you’re actually a business. But we wear so many hats. We are accountants, project managers, we’re designers, bloody schedulers, estimators, you name it.

Amelia 

Sometimes marriage counsellors.

Duayne 

Yeah, there’s so much going on. And for me, I just kept getting nowhere with the business stuff. Because I think mentally, I just didn’t have the capacity to know what I should have been focusing on. 

Working ON the Business

And that didn’t become clear until I started to put time into myself. And it doesn’t have to be difficult. I get coaching. I’ve done lots of coaching programs now. I’ve had a few mentors over the years. But for me, I don’t waste a minute now, like a lot of my learning comes from Audible books. So when I’m in the truck, there’s never any writing on. It’s either audible books or Spotify.

I’ve learned a lot from that. And through that, I’ve been able to focus on particular areas of my business. And I’ve seen the improvements that it’s been able to make. 

Amelia 

Yeah, I think that actually being a big business owner can be one of the biggest personal growth exercises available to you. I think also being a parent can, as well, that’s like giving you some personal growth. But being a business owner definitely does. 

If you’re willing to embrace it and embrace the idea of personal growth, developing your mindset, and embracing what you need to learn to improve yourself, you can really, really upskill yourself and grow that mindset. You’re incredibly amazing at how open-minded you are and how you really do. 

So it’s interesting to see how… if you just flip that mindset of,

“I’m not working on my business; I’m actually working on myself so that I can be working on my business far better.”

Duayne

Yeah. And, I just got to a point where I started to realise that when I was putting time into myself, I started seeing all these little incremental things happening in my business, and it’s created a real passion for me now that I’m addicted to. But I think the thing to take away from this video is that, If I’m not right, how can I expect my business to be right? So, my business is a reflection of me.

Amelia

Yeah, most definitely, you’ll have to excuse Duayne’s dog, Walter, in the background, who also wants to pop up about how important it is to work on yourself. 

So yeah, I think if you can think about that, instead of working on your business, you’re working on yourself, and what can you do to improve your ability and your capacity to be a better business owner through the work that you do. On your mindset, your personal health and well-being, you’ll be in a much better position to make better decisions, think differently about what’s going to be a great opportunity for you, what you need to get rid of, and how you need to improve your business overall. 

Duayne 

Definitely.

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