december as a taper, think more and do less

Summary

december is hard for entrepreneurs. either business is booming and you can’t unplug, or it’s slow and you’re panicking. I used to push harder through the holidays and regret it every single time. here’s the reframe that fixed it.

1. treat december like a taper. in fitness, you taper before a big event. less volume, more recovery, sharp on race day. december is the taper before january. you’ve already done the reps. now you sharpen.

2. don’t slow down to do nothing. slow down to think. Keith Cunningham’s The Road Less Stupid is the book on this. set aside real thinking time on the calendar. one hour, one question on paper, no phone.

3. ask the big questions. how do I 10x next year. how do I 2x. what’s broken that I keep ignoring. write the question. sit with it for an hour. the answers won’t all come, but the ones that do will run your year.

4. when you’re with family, be with family. that’s the whole point of slowing down. work expands to fill the time you give it. shrink the time and be where you actually are.

trying hard isn’t always doing more. sometimes it’s stopping the wheel long enough to think. try harder.

Transcript

why december is hard for entrepreneurs

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey.

So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. Alright, I’ve got a new way for you to look at the month of December. It’s the way that I look at it, and hopefully it’ll help you out because holidays are tough for entrepreneurs in a lot of different ways, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

So let’s dive in. This is the Better Human Business Podcast. I’m Jerred Moon. So let’s jump into it. The holidays, they’re, like I said, they’re difficult for entrepreneurs for a lot of different reasons. One reason is because it can be very seasonal or cyclical, depending on your business type. I know some businesses who their busiest time of the year is November, December, right?

the taper mindset

And some businesses where things start to tank a little bit in November and December, and they think the sky is falling, but it just takes a couple of years under your belt to realize that things can be seasonal, things can fluctuate, and every business is going to be different. So if you’re like, my business is awesome, that’s great for you.

Some people not, and sometimes March is great for other businesses. So anyway, every business has a cycle or season, even if you are unaware of that at all right now. So that’s one thing that can make it difficult for the holidays, because either one, you’re not getting new customers and you’re freaking out, so you’re a little bit stressed out around the holidays, or you have so much business and extra business during the holidays, you’re not really able to take the time off.

That makes December difficult for a lot of people. And then I know for me as an entrepreneur, early on, I wouldn’t say I struggle with this right now, but early on, it’s very difficult for me to take time off around the holidays. Like I never really wanted to slow down, and even when I would slow down and take the time off, because I ultimately wanted to be with my family, I might not be there mentally.

what to do on the days you work

I might be somewhere else, because as we end out the year, I’m thinking about the next year. What are we going to do? What are the plans? And really trying to dive into that when I have more free time, which is when I take this time off, so it doesn’t make the time off super enjoyable. What do we do?

How do we deal with all this stuff, this junk that happens around December for an entrepreneur? Whether you’re experiencing some of this, all of it, none of it, here’s how I look at the month of December now. I absolutely do slow down around the holidays. And I slow down from probably a productivity standpoint, like not as many widgets are being delivered from my desk, if you will.

I’m not producing a lot of stuff. You may have even noticed that the podcast has dropped down to once a week. I didn’t really announce that anywhere, but I did that starting around the holidays. And then in January, I’ll pick back up to this being a twice a week podcast. Really just trying to slow down the cadence a little bit.

thinking time, not producing

And so that’s what I’m doing in the month of December. I slow down. I’m not as productive, but I’m still working. I take the time off towards the end of the year around Christmas with my family in the month of December. But what I’ve realized and what helps me best is to look at the month of December like a taper in fitness.

So quick for anybody who may be unfamiliar with like how a taper works in like a training program, if you had a, it doesn’t matter to be honest, it’s everything. Like if you had a bodybuilding show or you were training for a marathon, it doesn’t really matter what it is. Typically, let’s call it a week, 10 days before is it can even be up to two weeks where you start this taper process.

The volume decreases a lot. You’re just not training as much. You’re not putting in like the work’s already been done. Now it’s just time to recover, recharge and get ready to hit that event, whatever that training event is. And that’s how I look at the month of December. It’s I’m still putting in the reps.

being fully present

I’m still doing things, but I’m slowing down a lot so I can really hit the ground running in January because I don’t want December to burn me out or stress me out to where I’m not ready to hit the ground running in January because January historically for most of the businesses I run are really good for business.

They’re just a good time of year to be in the industries that I’m in. And so I’m preparing for that cycle, right? And so when I look at it as a taper, I’m like, okay, I’m getting ready. I’m recharging for this next year, 2024. But what am I actually doing? So if I’m slowing down on productivity, I’m not doing as many things.

What am I? What am I doing on the days that I’m still working? I’m doing a lot of thinking. And if I haven’t recommended on the podcast already, and I probably maybe have mentioned it several times, one of my favorite books is called The Road Less Stupid by Keith Cunningham. Amazing book. And if you read the book, the main premise is to have thinking time set aside in your week, day, month, whatever it is.

I try to do this as much as possible. It’s been harder lately. I’ll be honest. It’s been more difficult for me to set aside this thinking time. But in December, it’s like a non-negotiable. It starts going on the calendar. Because some of my best ideas that I’ve ever had in business strategy, whatever, it comes from just sitting down and thinking.

And we just don’t do this enough today. If we have free minutes, free moments, we don’t sit there and think through a problem. We scroll our phones, right? That’s what people do these days. We don’t sit around and think. And so that’s what I’m doing a lot of in December. I’m not trying to write more.

I’m not trying to record more podcasts. I’m not trying to come up with a new program. I’m not trying to produce. I’m trying to think. That’s it. I’m trying to highlight and synthesize all the data. So I’m looking back at the past year, like in my previous podcast where I was talking about looking back to motivate you to push forward.

But this is different. This is looking back at actual data points and what happened. What did you think you were doing? What did you think the goal was and where did you end up? And thinking through all this and then actually putting questions on paper. How do I improve X, Y, and Z? Having that question on a piece of paper, sitting there for 30 minutes or an hour, coming up with solutions until you get somewhere.

Asking big, broad, general questions. How do I 10X the business next year? Write it out. What does that look like? How could that be possible? How do I 2X the business? What does that look like? How is that possible? What will you have to do? Thinking through all of these ideas and questions are huge.

I can’t even tell you how big of an impact it can have. So my theory on this is if you are inputting into your brain a lot of good data, meaning you’re listening to good podcasts, you are reading good books, you’re having good conversations with business colleagues, you’re part of a community where you can do these kind of things, you’re getting a lot of good inputs into your brain, your learning machine.

I do believe if you have a lot of great inputs going into your mind, a lot of great outputs will follow because your brain is making connections, things that you haven’t even thought about. They’re in there. It’s from all the good input that you’ve had over the last year, the habits you’ve built up in consuming knowledge.

The more you do that, the more good ideas are going to come, but you have to have a place where these ideas are going to pop out. That’s why you should implement thinking time as much as you can in December. Look at this as a taper. We’re still doing stuff. We’re still moving. We’re still getting things done, if you will.

You still feel productive after a thinking session, but we’re not actually producing. If you can start to schedule that into your week, and I get that’s not going to be possible for every profession out there to be like, oh, I’m just going to switch all my time to thinking time. I’m just saying set aside some time.

If you set aside admin time for your business, typically in a week, okay, maybe change one of those admin times if it’s possible for you to thinking time. Just think about what 2024 looks like. Think about what problems you have in your business right now that you need to solve. Think about what you want out of life.

Ultimately, I do advocate for a strong slowdown in the holidays. Implement more thinking time and not working more. I’ve done that. I’ve done the more work. I’ve done the push harder around the holidays, take minimal time off, regret it 100% of the time that I’ve done it. I want to be there mentally 100% with my family.

Looking at December as like a taper really helps me because I now know that I can put it in its own bubble. I’m like, this is not the time to push hard. This is the time to recharge, to get ready, to think, to plan, to strategize. When I’m with my family, I’m just with my family. I’m not thinking about anything else.

It really helps me to be able to do that as opposed to how I used to treat the holidays as an annoyance, a pest, something I didn’t want to do. I like the holidays. Again, not a grinch, just I want to be working. This really has helped me over the last several years be completely present around the holidays, be happier, more enjoyable around my family, actually enjoy the little moments because that’s all we’re really here for.

That’s all life really is, is these moments that we get to enjoy with our friends, our family members. This is it. This is why we’re doing it all. This is it. We’re not doing it just to do the work. We’re doing it to live a certain life. And typically to live a certain life, it’s with certain people doing certain things.

So don’t forget that as we roll into the holidays. So that’s what my challenge is to you. Most people don’t understand the fact that you want to work during the holidays. And if you’re an entrepreneur, it’s okay. I’m telling you, it’s okay to be that way. It’s okay to have that mindset, but it’s not okay to do it.

I don’t think that you should be working through the holidays. If you want to get the hard charger, screw your family, work 70, 80, 90 hours a week, like you can go listen to a different podcast. That’s not what you’re going to get from me. Spend the time with your family. Be completely present. And I think the way that you do that, implement more thinking time, strategize, slow down a little bit on the productivity side of things, and you will have such a better year for 2024.

And I know this is difficult. Like I said, I had to kill comfort in order to slow down, to think more and not produce and not check off more things on my to-do list. Killing comfort for me is slowing down. Trying harder for me is slowing down. Trying hard does not always mean doing everything to the max effort.

Trying hard is looking at new strategies, new ways to do something. So I’ve given you a new way to try hard, and that’s to look at December a different way than you would have previously. So I only got one thing for you. Try harder.