761 Denise Gosnell:

You know how when you get ready to go on vacation you often get a month’s work done in the couple of days before you leave? It’s a state of peak productivity, says Denise Gosnell, because the time crunch is forcing you to focus on what really matters and either eliminate or delegate the rest. So today we’re going to talk about the “vacation effect” and how to grow your business by subtraction with Denise, who runs several multimillion-dollar businesses on a three-day week. Sounds good right? Denise is going to share her practical hacks to free up your time to live the life you want without burnout, tradeoff, or apology.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and join the Wings community over on Podopolo, where we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring 7-figure entrepreneur who runs 3 companies in 3 different industries and works an average of just 3 days per week.

Denise Gosnell is a Business Strategist, Attorney, Author, Real Estate Investor, and Creator of The Vacation Effect®, a coaching and training company that helps busy entrepreneurs create a freedom lifestyle without sacrificing business growth. Denise has a new must-read book out this week called The Vacation Effect for Entrepreneurs: Grow Your Business Even Faster by Working Less and Having More Fun.

Ever feel like you’re running faster and faster and the destination seems just as far away as it always was? We live in a culture of ‘hustle and grind’, many people bought into the idea we get more of everything we want when we work harder.

What if the opposite were true? What if ‘having it all’ doesn’t mean ‘doing it all’? Imagine a life where you have ample time for all the people in your life, all the things you like to do – other than building your business? What if you actually grew your business faster … by only working three days a week?

Denise Gosnell – a 7 figure entrepreneur with three companies across three industries – is living breathing proof that such a life is possible.

Denise is the founder of the Vacation Effect, a program helping busy entrepreneurs streamline their operations and free up 10-20 hours a week for what really matters in life. A classic over achiever who once worked as much as 80 hours a week – co-Valedictorian of her high school class, getting her bachelor’s degree with summa cum laude honors in 3.5 years and Doctor of Jurisprudence while working a full-time job or burning the midnight oil as a software developer as she grew her real estate business and launched a law firm, Denise shares how watching her house burn to the ground was the moment she realized what really mattered, and she set about changing her life and making it her mission to help herself and others create a business and life they love without sacrificing their income. Denise believes that the American business culture to grind, grind, grind, is wrong, wrong, wrong. That’s why she teaches entrepreneurs and achievers how to grow by subtracting – not by adding more – to their to do list. She also helps entrepreneurs adopt a freedom mindset and eliminate the feelings of pressure and guilt about having to over-work. Denise’s proprietary methods combine business strategy, productivity hacking, lifestyle design and business growth best practices to enable busy entrepreneurs to free up 4-8 business days a month for creative pursuits or whatever they like without sacrificing business growth

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Denise Gosnell and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Denise, welcome to wings.

Denise Gosnell:

Thank you for having me, Melinda.

Melinda Wittstock:

I am excited to talk to you about this whole idea of subtracting from your life to grow rather than adding things. Entrepreneurs are always adding things, right? Addition seems more aligned with growth than subtracting. How did you arrive at this? What does it actually mean in practice?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. It’s totally counterintuitive because we’ve all been taught to do what I call grow by subtraction where you grow by removing from your to-do list instead of adding to it.

Denise Gosnell:

So you know how when you get ready to go on vacation, you get a month’s worth of work done in the two days before you leave? I’m sure most people have experienced that, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

Right.

Denise Gosnell:

Right. But what’s happening there, if we stop for just a second and look at it, is that you’re forcing yourself to focus on what really matters and eliminate and delegate everything else. And so you are actually forcing yourself to grow by subtraction, to grow by doing less. You’re literally focusing on the needle movers and really it’s the stuff you should have been focusing on anyway and you are eliminating and delegating all the fluff that you shouldn’t have been doing anyway with your time. So this idea, I stumbled onto that by accident with a time experiment I did one time where I had dreamed of having this three day work week, but I thought it was like pie in the sky because in the past, every time I had worked less, my revenue would to go down, I’d work more, my revenue would go up, right?

I’m sure a lot of people can relate to that. But I went to this meditation retreat and the download that I got when I asked how I could have the schedule I’ve always wanted was all you have to do is decide and make today what you want tomorrow to be. But I’m like most entrepreneurs, I’m like, “Yeah, right. I can’t just have a three day work week.” Right? But I’ll give myself permission to try it for 30 days. This is no different than taking a one week vacation. So what happened was I started working through that for a 30 day experiment and I started noticing how much I was really wasting, Melinda. There was a shit ton of stuff on my to-do list that really shouldn’t have been there. I was simulating that feeling you get when you’re about to go on vacation.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, I know that really, really well. Where you almost burn out getting all the things done. So you really need that vacation more than you needed it before. But our schedules get so cluttered on that to-do list, especially as women I’ve found, because we can easily fall into the mindset trap of thinking that we have to do it all. Whereas men I think have a little bit better of a delegation muscle. But it really comes down to prioritizing what are the things that only you can do and can you delegate the rest? I mean, how did you declutter your calendar in a way to get that down to a three day week? What were some of the things that you were doing that weren’t actually necessary?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. What happened as part of that 30 day experiment was I blocked out just three days a week as work days, two days a week that are what I call freedom days, where there was nothing on the calendar other than whatever I wanted to do and wake up and say, “Hey, what’s going to bring me joy today?” And whether that’s starting a new company, writing a new book, whatever that might be for someone. But when you force yourself just as an experiment … For example, for that period, I had to time block in a way where literally I couldn’t do meetings five days a week anymore. I only do them between one and four on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And I’d have very specific blocks on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning that are clarity working time from 8:00 AM to one until my calls would start would be my get shit done time.

And then there’d be a break from four to six after my calls to just collect my thoughts and figure out what I needed to do. So basically my Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule was that. That was nine to one, focus time where you’re just working and then one to four, calls back to back calls with a little pee break in between. You got to give time for that. And then four to six where I was just collecting my thoughts and documenting any follow ups and things that needed to be done. But what was interesting Melinda, was as I started working through it, I started noticing how I was actually, when I didn’t allow myself to work in the trenches for those two days a week for 30 days, I was starting to get into the habit of looking for the needle movers. Like when you’re about to go on vacation, when you got that hundred things on your to-do list and you pick the top five that really need to be done because they’re needle movers and you delete or delegate the rest. I was starting to do that more habitually as part of a pattern and that was really eye opening.

Melinda Wittstock:

Entrepreneurship’s about leverage. What’s one thing you can do that has a multiplicity of outcomes as opposed to try to do all these things. If you’re fixing broken links on your website or you’re doing all these other things that other people could be doing, that’s not necessarily the best use of your time. I remember one day where I had a very similar epiphany because my to-do lists over the years changed to an intention list and then finally now they’re an inspiration list that come to me from my morning meditation where the more I am in the practice of quieting my mind and the morning and just really asking for inspiration and opening myself up to actually receive it and hear it, my list is an inspiration list.

So one day I got the download of these are the five things that are really important in kind of a priority, like number one, two, three, four and five. And for whatever reason, willful Melinda was working on two, three, four and five rather than number one. I wasn’t getting anywhere with two, three, four and five. And finally I went for a walk with a dog, whatever, just kind of cleared my head. I was like, “Oh, I see. I’m not working on one.” Here’s the magical thing that happened, Denise. Number one, when I worked on it, not only did things move very quickly in the business that particular day, but the miracle was two, three, four and five sorted themselves out without any of my own effort. And that was my big epiphany that’s so in alignment I think with what you’re saying.

Denise Gosnell:

Totally. Yeah. I identify the top three levers and do them first in my day during that time window I was talking about on my Monday, Wednesdays and Fridays. And by the time I get done with number three, number four through 20 usually seem so insignificant and I could literally quit right then for the day and have done more than I used to in six days a week.

Melinda Wittstock:

It’s the prioritization and the understanding of leverage. That implies getting very, very clear in your head though, what are the levers that are really moving your business. I mean by any metric. Whether you’re growing the valuation of it or whether your use of time could create a whole new business line or perhaps a strategic partner that’s going to change the game for you or a miraculous new hire that is going to just improve your results tremendously or some new investment or something like that as opposed to the busy work of just the day to day. I mean other people can do that. So what were some of the ways that you got clarity about the best use of your time from that lens?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah, because that’s the hardest thing for people to do. So many people can easily pick what they think are the top three levers. Or it doesn’t have to be three, it can be two, it can be four. But it’s like there’s a certain amount of top levers, usually one to three I like to pick which is best. But it’s easy to pick them but it doesn’t mean they’re the right one. So it all goes back to the 80/20 rule that a lot of people have heard of as the Pareto principle. You’ve heard that said that 80% of your efforts only produce 20% of your results and 20% of your efforts produce 80% of your results. It’s like we wear 20% of our closet most of the time and 80% of it we never wear it. It may not be exactly 20/80 or 80/20, but it’s similar to that across many different contexts.

So it really comes down to how do you pick the 20% that are going to produce the 80% of the results, the needle movers. So what I do is I do a brain dump. I work with my coaching clients on is called the Daily Freedom Planner. And I teach them how to do a brain dump of everything that’s on their mind and on their to-do list and that they need to get done or delegated and then go through the list and look for the top three levers that have that 20/80 criteria where it’s like, “Okay, this is going to take the least amount of my time but it’s going to be the biggest result for my company and it’s something only I can do. It’s the big, big, big lever.” So it takes some thinking because you have to kind of compare, okay, well let’s say I’m raising money for my company.

So right now if I were to not get the funding … And this is a common thing I hear a lot of clients say like, “Well if I don’t get the funding then I can’t even continue.” Well guess what? You’re probably looking for what’s the least amount of time you could spend that if it came true, it would produce the greatest amount of results. Well in that scenario it might be making those outreaches to the VCs you’ve been connected with or the banker that you’ve been connected with. That doesn’t take a lot of time to do that, assuming you’ve already got your pitch decks and your funding stuff in order. And if you haven’t, a big lever would be creating those, right? Because if the next phase of what you really have to accomplish is tied to that, well then guess what? You probably should be doing that instead of updating your website link. You could delegate that to somebody else.

So you have to just think through what is the critical thing that only I can do and which of these items on here are going to be the least amount of work, but they’re going to swing the biggest doors? And you just kind of have to talk through it and then I have you put a 1A and a 1B and a 1C next to those and then prioritize everything else. And then I have a time hacking process where you go through and you apply a time hack to everything on your list to get it done even faster. But the key is to do the 1A, 1B, 1C, or you can call it one, two, and three if you want, but I have a reason I do the 1A, 1B, 1C. But you do those first in your day and like you said, from what you experienced, a lot of times two through 20 work themselves out by the time you get through those first three.

Melinda Wittstock:

100%. Another way to look at it is really interesting too when we think of the value of our time. So if I spent hours fixing broken links or making designs in Canva or something like that, say for Podopolo. Somebody else could do that for, I don’t know, 30 bucks an hour, 40 bucks an hour. On the other hand, if I create a really compelling pitch to a strategic partner for instance, that could be worth a quarter or a half a million dollars of business to Podopolo and takes the same amount of time, what’s my hourly rate? My hourly rate for say doing something like that is … What is it? $1,000? $5,000? $10,000 an hour? So if I’m working doing something else that could be done for 40, I’m literally stealing from my own company

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. And you’re not doing CEO level work.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. That was a really sobering realization for me. What’s the value actually of my time in terms of the results that it’s going to bring?

Denise Gosnell:

Well, and another way of course to look at that is am I doing CEO level work? And if the task is not CEO level work that only you can do as the founder and CEO of the company, well then you’ve got to ask one more question before you get rid of it is, is this my pure joy? There might be times something is not CEO level work, but to take it away from you would be taking away the very thing that is the literal reason you are in business. You love it so much that if somebody ripped it out of your hands … For me, I used to be a software developer and I love programming, but I don’t program my own website anymore. But I get pure joy sometimes in just going and making a quick change myself and uploading a certain image or something in the moment where I could do that quicker than me delegating it to my team because by the time I describe what I want, but I want to make the distinction here, most of the time I delegate all that stuff because it’s not CEO level work. But there’s times when the joy of me uploading my new book cover or something, it’s like the sheer joy that outweighs the fact that it’s not a CEO level task.

Does that make sense?

Melinda Wittstock:

It 100% makes sense. I referenced Canva before. One of my career paths was Fashion design I’ve always been really interested in design. So time can disappear for me very easily in Canva, right? Because I love design.

Denise Gosnell:

But we have to be careful though. Or we could end getting sucked into the stuff that isn’t the best use of our time.

Melinda Wittstock:

Exactly. And so I’ve had to really ring fence that and really apply that 80/20 rule. But a lot of this comes down to self-awareness as well. And I think the entrepreneurial journey to me has become very much … I’m very clear that it’s actually a journey into conscious awareness for folks who are really growing a business. Because entrepreneurship throws so many curve balls your way, so many things you can’t control, triggers you in all sorts of things that unearths any kind of subconscious limiting beliefs along the way. So the more you step into that conscious awareness of yourself, not only why you’re here in an earth suit right now, how you’re aligned with the mission of your company, what you’re really here to do, what brings you joy, all of those things. So certainly in my own entrepreneurial journey, as that muscle, that conscious muscle of the power of the now and all of that has really grown in my practice, I just have so much more ease and joy in my business and more clarity about the use of my time or my specific value. Does that make sense? Have you been on that kind of conscious trajectory as well?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah, definitely. And for me, the big realization came when I had a house fire, but I realized that I was caught in the American grind of … And we don’t even realize it’s happening because it’s such a deep part of our culture. Our thought leaders make it seem like the only way to grow your company is to hustle and grind all the time. And yeah, that certainly works but it’s not sustainable long term in that you actually can grow more and better and more fulfilling if you focus on results instead of time spent. It goes back to what we were talking about with learning to focus your attention on the needle movers like you do when you’re about to go on vacation so that you don’t have to hustle and grind. You can grow by subtraction, by doing less if the less that you’re focusing on are the right things.

I literally went from working six and seven days a week, Melinda, running my three companies and now I work an average of three days a week running those same three companies and we’re growing just as fast as we were before. And I have so much more joy in my life to be able to have space on my calendar. And I realize not everybody wants a three day work week, but let me tell you, it’s nice to just have a couple days a week that you don’t have anything scheduled where you can just wake up and say, “Huh. What do I want to work on today? What do I want to do today?” Even if it’s still doing some work towards a new company or a new book or whatever, imagine that feeling of just having a couple days with nothing on the calendar that says other than Freedom Day. To me that’s pure freedom.

Melinda Wittstock:

Well yes, it’s freedom and it’s also where the inspiration comes from as well because we can get off that task treadmill or American grind as you describe it. We actually free up our head space and heart space to actually receive these … I like to call them divine downloads, but where you really get that inspiration. Those inspirations always usually come when we’re not working.

Denise Gosnell:

Exactly. Well like the one I was telling you at the beginning of how I got that download on all you have to do is decide and make today what you want tomorrow to be. That was the most life changing thing I’d ever gotten during meditation and it was when I was taking the day to go to a meditation retreat and just give myself space.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that. I just want to repeat that again. Make today what you want tomorrow to be. And how does that break down for you in practice? Is it just being who you’re becoming and just making a conscious decision to do that? How does that work for you?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. The best way to explain that is you know how the common definition of integrity is. Are you a person of your word? Do you do what you say and that kind of thing. That’s the commonly accepted definition of integrity. So what if integrity is also, or instead of am I showing up as the version of me that I want to be? As that version that has the three day work week, the one that has balance, the one that has space, the one that focuses on results versus time spent, that gets a lot done, that delegates to my team, that has an amazing life, travels when I want to. That version of Denise that I want to be, I call that the amplifier and the one that just lives that beautiful lifestyle.

So what if integrity is whether I’m showing up as that person each day and anything I do that’s out of alignment with that, what if that’s being out of integrity with myself? And I use that as a compass to help me make decisions and it’s very life changing to say good morning to yourself, to that version of yourself and then step into it and claim it. Because it reminds me to focus on results, not time spent and to reward myself for the fruits of that. You shouldn’t feel guilty if you focus on results and get as much done in three or four days as you used to in six. You should give yourself that space to then be a creator and live in joy.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that. So inspiring.

Denise Gosnell:

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

I want to talk a little bit about the fire in your house and disclose that I’ve known you for a while, Denise. We were part of a mastermind group together. I guess you’d describe Maverick as that. But I remember watching you go through that. And often in life where we have some horrible thing happen, it can be a blessing in disguise. It doesn’t feel like it at the time, but talk me about what you … Sorry. I’m just going to say that again. Share with everybody what you went through, what was the big epiphany of losing your house in a fire?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. There were two. One of them was I realized … As the firemen were putting out the fire at my dream house, it’s raining and it took them eight hours so I’m standing in my neighbor’s garage. I kept replaying the question the fireman had asked me when they told us our house was on fire and that we had to get out immediately and it was, “What do you want us to retrieve in the next five minutes before your house is destroyed by fire and water?” And it hit me like a ton of bricks because how I answered them wasn’t all the fancy stuff, the artwork and jewelry and all that stuff that was in my multimillion dollar house that was being destroyed. It was my daughter’s stuffed animal. She was five at the time. It was like another family member. To get bunny the stuffed animal, to get my grandmother’s blanket she made me as a child and my wedding photos from 28 years ago that I didn’t have digital. It didn’t exist then.

So that was what I had them retrieve. And I realized I was living my life working 80 hours a week to pay for a bunch of stuff I didn’t even care about when it was burning. And so that was a big realization. So I vowed that day that I would figure out how to provide a nice life for my family, but without sacrificing what really matters and the free time and being present with my family. But it wasn’t easy to reconcile the two because even after the fire for a few years, I’d work more, my revenue would go up, I’d work less, my revenue would go down. I hadn’t gone to that meditation retreat yet and figured out a little bit about what we talked about earlier.

But the other big epiphany that I realized was that I was going to make that one of the greatest things to ever happen to me. Like you talked about setbacks becoming some of the greatest gifts. So I have this process called transform friction into freedom that was born as a result of that. But that night at the hotel, because we were then homeless … The night you have a house fire, you’re then homeless. Maybe not financially homeless, but physically homeless. So at the hotel that we were at, I was writing out what would it take to make this an exceptional experience, one of the best things to ever happen to me? And I just started on my journal writing down that I would learn so much about myself. I just wrote out all the criteria of what would make it happen that I’d come out better than before, all these other things.

And you know what, Melinda? Every single one of those ended up happening. And I have literally used that tool with myself and other clients. Anytime something happens that is terrible or that just didn’t go as well as you wanted it to, if you start asking the question, “What would it take to make this one of the best things to ever happen to me?”, and then write them down, your brain will start looking for that. It’s like putting it out in the universe, putting it out into the energy field. Your brain and your body and your actions will start lining up with that and bringing it into reality. So that way you can just breeze through setbacks with a lot more ease and grace and turn them into incredible growth instead of horrible, traumatic experiences.

Melinda Wittstock:

That’s just so beautiful. I love that phrase. Transform friction into freedom.

Denise Gosnell:

Thank you.

Melinda Wittstock:

Denise, one thing that we haven’t talked about, you run three companies in three different industries, working an average of three days per week. I think to many people listening that just seems extraordinary. It’s hard enough building one company. Let’s talk about all your companies and everything you do because you’ve got your real estate going, you’ve got this coaching. Take us through all of the things that you’re currently doing right now.

Denise Gosnell:

My husband and I have a real estate company that we’ve had for almost 30 years. We own and manage a large portfolio of real estate. We have a staff of seven people that the key to making that work is that we’ve got a great team of seven people that help us manage our properties and repair them and buy them and remodel them and deal with the tenants and evictions and all that. I’m not doing much of that at all because I set up the systems, I set up the way we wanted it to run. I’m the president of that company and the CLO and the CTO but that takes two hours a week of my time because of the people that we’ve hired, the seven people that do 95% of the work. My husband and I, he’s the CEO of that company and we work together.

He supervises the contractors. I get to be the designer. You talked about loving creativity, Melinda. So do I. When we buy a new house, I go in like you see on those TV shows, I pick out the colors, I pick out what it’s going to look like. And I might only have two hours in the project because I get to set the direction for where it’s going and then they go do it and I get to come back at milestones and be like, “Oh yeah, that looks great, but no, let’s not do that trim that color, let’s do that color.” But I love doing that. So that’s one of my companies, the real estate company. And the other one is a law firm I’ve had for almost 20 years where I work about 10 hours a week representing 10 thought leaders, 10 global thought leaders being their recurring legal counsel.

And it’s just a lot of fun because I get paid to give them great advice. They keep making a lot more money from my advice and I save them from a lot of headaches. But they value me for my results, not the amount of time that I spent. And that’s the key. I focus on relationships where it’s about the results I produce, not how much time it took me. If I can charge them $5,000 for two hours a month of my time, that’s a pretty good return on my time. And if they’re thrilled and I’m thrilled, who cares the fact that that’s like five times more than the typical hourly attorney makes, right?

Melinda Wittstock:

[inaudible 00:25:22] on that point though because that’s … We were talking a little bit about time and value. That a lot of people fall into the trap of pricing their services around their time rather than their results or what I call value based pricing. Did you always have that understanding of that time versus value? Because this is a really practical thing that I think a lot of women in particular need to understand say about their pricing. How did you nail that?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. I did not always do it that way. When I first started out as a lawyer over 22 years ago, I used to charge by the hour like all other lawyers tend to start out as. It was just the way you did it. But that was very unfulfilling and very unsustainable. And as I grew in that particular company, I got to a point about 15 years ago where I switched to a recurring subscription based model where I outlined the value in the outcomes they would get. And I mentioned that we would not be tracking time, there would be no accounts receivable, it would literally be a subscription model. You pay me X dollars to take your call and to produce these results. And as long as I do that, we’re not even going to have a conversation about how long it took me.

You’re agreeing to that outcome. And they were thrilled with that. The client loved it and I love it. And it’s just, imagine a world when no accounts receivable and where you’re being paid in advance, you show up and deliver. They’re happy and you’re happy. It changed my life to do that and we’ve also applied that to my other companies as well. It’s huge. It’s all about the whole thing. We’ve been talking about, the results versus the time spent and how you manage your life and how you manage your schedule and how you do everything. That’s how I run my life.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. That’s a wonderful piece of advice for anybody listening that has a service based business, to be time centric. A subscription model. That’s amazing. I mean as long as you’re delivering the results, who cares how long it took you? It’s your expertise, it’s your knowledge, it’s the delivery of it. However you get there. I mean that’s vital. And then obviously now you have this book. Let’s talk about the book.

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. That actually led me … Everything we’ve been talking about led me to branch my consulting company that I’ve had for over 20 years into now focusing on this concept I call the vacation effect. Which we started off this conversation talking about how you’re hyper productive before you go on vacation and making that a way of life. And so in my coaching company and in the book, which I’ll mention in just a moment, that’s what I’m passionate about. Helping busy, driven entrepreneurs and business owners and founders create this life that they love without sacrificing the growth that they crave. You can have both. You don’t have to pick one or the other. But you have to go about doing it in the right way. Like I mentioned Melinda, how when I would work more, I’d make more money and I would work less and I would make less money.

But until I figured out this very specific order, you have to do things, well that’s what my book, The Vacation Effect for Entrepreneurs outlines. The whole process that I went through and how I’ve now taken dozens of other clients through that process to transform their lives as well. It’s like taking you from being where you are now to having a business and life that you love without sacrificing your growth. And it’s a three part methodology that I walk through in that about how you do that. And when you do it the way I lay out, you literally can work less, grow by subtraction like we were talking about and still grow your business. And in many cases even faster than before because you’re learning to focus on the right things.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, so important. So Denise, you are a classic overachiever. Here you start out as the co-valedictorian of your high school class. You get your doctor of jurisprudence while working a full-time job. You do all these things. You’re a software engineer, you’re a lawyer, a business strategist, a real estate expert. You are literally a classic overachiever. How would that period of your life have had … Sorry. How would that period of your life and all those incredible accomplishments, things that you have achieved have been different do you think if you applied what you know now and what you coach now in terms of the three day week? The law of subtraction, let’s call it, the vacation effect. Do you ever think about that? What would you have done differently during that time? Would the results have changed?

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. That’s a great question. I do think about it a lot. And one thing that would have been different is I would’ve enjoyed it more. Melinda, to be honest, that period, all of that stuff you mentioned is a total blur to me. I didn’t have a college experience because through my undergrad and grad, I had a full-time job in both cases and I was going to school in the evening. I was working a hundred hours a week. When you consider a 40 to 60 hour week job, plus 20 credit hours of college, plus the homework you had to do in order to get good grades, to get the straight A’s that I got. Which I didn’t get in law school by the way, but I did in my undergrad I got straight A’s as well. But it’s one of those that it was exhausting and it was a blur.

I didn’t enjoy any of it, but I was doing it “to get to the next level”. We all get caught in that grind. And after my fire, I was looking at it going, “Man, I have literally wasted my life away working myself to death.” And it was a blur. I hope I don’t cry when I’m telling you this and if I do, it’s okay. But I literally, Melinda, don’t even remember holding my daughter as a baby. Because I was working 80 hours, a hundred hours a week to grow my companies. Yeah, I was holding her, but I wasn’t really with her. I wasn’t present with her. I don’t remember that. It was a total blur. And what is that worth? When I’m on my death bed, those are the kinds of things I’m going to regret. Not the fact that, oh yeah, I got done in three years. Well so fucking what? Sorry. You can cut that out if you want. So what? What if it had taken me five years instead of three years? I had those memories of having the college experience and really enjoying going to concerts with friends and living those moments. To me, that’s the biggest regret that I have in life. It’s not slowing down enough to savor each season of life.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah. To actually be in the moment. I think so many young women, and myself included at that stage, are in such a rush. We think we have to do it super, super quickly. And as entrepreneurs we impose a lot of time deadlines on ourselves that in the scheme of things don’t actually really matter. I guess you get into the tortoise versus the hare. It’s about being in that present moment. It’s funny you brought back some memories of me launching, I guess my first significant business as an adult. Because I had a whole bunch of businesses as a teenager.

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah, me too.

Melinda Wittstock:

But my first one as an adult, by the time I had raised money for it and done all the planning, I’d figured out that I was pregnant, the business launched, full blown. It was a political news agency in Washington serving hundreds of public radio stations to begin with before we moved into television and print and all of this stuff.

But Sydney was six weeks old when this business launched. And I was running around the US capital reporting in the first year, sometimes doing 20 stories in a day with my reporter gear on one arm and my breast pump on the other, running payroll, signing clients, all the technological innovation that the company was … All these things. It was insane. I don’t even know how I did that. And there were times when, yes, it was a blur. But the funny thing is that my big realization happened the day that I was interviewing, I believe it was Senator Patty Murray from Washington State and was at the end of the day. And like I said, I had my reporter kit with my microphone and I had my breast pump and I actually pulled out what I thought was my microphone, but it was actually the funnel breast pump.

Denise Gosnell:

Oh wow.

Melinda Wittstock:

And I pushed it in her face. I was saying, “Answer my question.” And she was just looking at me.

Denise Gosnell:

Oh my, that’s funny.

Melinda Wittstock:

Laughed so hard. And I was like, oh man. So what this actually translates into though for a lot of women is complete and utter burnout and health issues. By the time women get into their … Entrepreneurial women, professional women, by the time they get into their 40s, they’re done and they can have all sorts of health issues. We’re just not designed in that way and yet we’re acculturated to think we have to do everything, to have everything combined with, oh my goodness, this perfectionism thing that we not only have to do everything, but we have to do it all perfectly and we have to serve everyone before ourselves. And this idea that it’s somehow selfish to put our own wellbeing and our own health first. And so many women … I mean it’s just 750 plus episodes of this podcast, that perfectionism thing and do it all to have it all just comes up over and over and over again. And how many women who are really successful entrepreneurs have had to relearn all of that stuff.

Denise Gosnell:

Well, and back to your original question about that younger version of myself, would I have still gotten the same results? Some of the things would’ve taken a little longer like college. If I wasn’t taking 20 credit hours with a full-time job, it would’ve taken longer just because that’s the way that system works. But other parts of my life, I would’ve gotten the same results in actually the same amount of time had I focused on results instead of time spent. I would’ve gotten better results and had a heck of a lot more fun along the way. All those years running my own company, not knowing that. Because I had control of my time. The school wasn’t controlling my time. I was. That’s the thing. Entrepreneurs, we get to control our time. And if we don’t have the freedom that we went into business for ourselves to begin with to have, it is our own fault.

And the machine that I call the American grind may make us feel like it has to be that way, but it’s actually a choice. It’s a decision you make to have freedom and to build your business around it and to then force yourself to focus on results instead of saying, “Oh, well I’ll catch that up on the weekend, or I’ll just work harder this week to get that done.” No. What if you actually force yourself to say, “You know what? I am only going to allow myself to have a four day work week or a nine to four each day work week, five days a week, and that’s it.” And you know what? It forces you to actually think more creatively to start looking for results. And when you actually train yourself to work that way, you get better results than when you allow yourself to work six and seven days a week. But it’s a muscle that takes exercise, it takes practice because we’re in a machine that values the grind instead of the results. And so it’s a brainwashing we have to put awareness around and do something about it, if that makes sense.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yes. 100% it does. Denise, I could imagine a lot of people listening to this podcast saying, “Oh my God, how can I work with Denise?” What is the best way? And talk to me a little bit about that coaching practice and how all that works and what’s the best way that they can find you and also, of course, your book.

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah. The book is available on Amazon at, of course, amazon.com and it’s called The Vacation Effect for Entrepreneurs: Grow Your Business Even Faster by Working Less and Having More Fun. And I talk at a high level about a lot of the stuff we’ve been talking about today and the three part framework that changed my life and can change your listeners’ lives too. And if that resonates with them, then I would encourage them to reach out to me at denisegosnell.com. And literally I have a program, a coaching program that helps you do that transformation in your life. You could do it on your own but you won’t. When I say you could, things are going to come up where you’re not going to hold yourself accountable. You’re going to fall back into the old habits. And I find most people need that coaching and accountability to actually make it happen and to help them make it happen way faster than if they stumble through it on their own.

So denisegosnell.com and I have a program called the Grow by Subtraction Accelerator where it’s offered in two formats. One’s a group format, which is more budget friendly, and the other one is the one-on-one with me as an eight figure entrepreneur. That one’s of course the more expensive version to buy my one-on-one time for reasons we were talking about earlier as everybody else here should be doing for their own businesses too. But there are multiple ways to work with me and that Grow by Subtraction roadmap is the best place to start. That’s where you can hop on the phone with one of my awesome team members like my COO for example, and work through … Literally we build you a custom roadmap for free to tell you … You could tell us a little bit about your business, what you’re doing. We help you identify some of the biggest levers and how our three-part model could help you.

And then you could choose to hire us to help you implement it and hold you accountable to implementing it. Or you can go off and implement it on your own. And you can get that on my website at denisegosnell.com/roadmap or just go straight to growbysubtraction.com and it’ll take you right to that page. Oh, by the way, Melinda, if it’s okay, I’d like to offer your listeners a special bonus that we don’t give to anyone else right now.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful.

Denise Gosnell:

Yeah, if they do the roadmap session, like I said, it’s free. But if you mention Wings during the call with my team members that you heard about it on the Wings podcast with Melinda, I will give you guys a copy of that Daily Freedom Planner that we were talking about in the conversation earlier. My go-to tool I use every single day and I teach my clients how to make that exercise be just the most valuable part of your day in planning and picking out those levers and those needle movers. So make sure you mention Wings when you book that call if you choose to do so, and we will be happy to give you that Daily Freedom Planner that we give to our coaching clients. And also if you write this down, the Wings discount code. If you guys choose to work with us, we are happy to provide you with a 10% discount off of any of our programs. So happy to offer that to all the listeners.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, that is very generous. Denise, I’ve so enjoyed this conversation. So much value. Thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Denise Gosnell:

Thank you so much for having me. It’s been a blast.