2-3-4 Friday

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1 thought

Retailers were coming to us, asking us to do more watches.

No, I told them. We aren’t doing more.

What do you mean you aren’t doing more, they would ask.

We only do 240 per year, and that’s it.

We were disciplined on having no growth.

We went against everything business school would teach.

I met Max, the founder of MB&F last week at IAMWATCH in Singapore, and was blown away by his philosophy on business. They are an independent Swiss watchmaker, and each piece they make retails for $120,000.

Be disciplined about having no growth.

It’s a radical departure from what most would think about in business. Or life, for that matter.

You might think of looking for a place with a higher pay. Or you might want to look for a bigger house. Or even in your daily necessities, you might think of how you might want more luxurious food, better restaurants, or fresher groceries.

But if you touch your heart, you're really sick and tired, of being sick and tired. You're driving harder and harder at work, sitting in the car, going home, going to work, and you're thinking, 

Is this really worth it?

We always think more, better, faster.

We don’t think less, no, stop.

We live in a world where consumerism tells us that not growing our consumption is wrong. If you don’t want to own something, you’re seen as strange.

Here’s an example. In Singapore’s narrative on home ownership, buying your own home is seen as an important thing. When you tell people you might want to rent, they might think,

What?! Are you out of your mind?

Renting is wasting money. You should buy your own home.

Not that home ownership is a bad thing, but the cost that home ownership places on your flexibility can be stifling on your future choices. When you have a $4000 mortgage every month to pay, you can’t just quit your job and decide to do something different.

You might argue,

Ah but Max, he’s making $120,000 watches and must be an incredibly rich businessman!

He can afford to do this.

Not me.

I’ve a mortgage, kids, things to pay for, I can’t afford to be disciplined about not growing what I need to earn, what I need to buy.

Not so.

Max shared about how they nearly went bankrupt 4 times. But each time, he held to the same philosophy. No growth.

It was what led the team to continually produce great watches, and even better designs.

So today, if you’re thinking of more, better, faster, buying the next shiny thing, I urge you to pause and think,

What if I didn’t have to grow, for this season of my life?

1 talk

Saying yes to faster, better, more is always easy.

Ironically, you grow when you say less, no, stop.

1 tip

Let’s take it down to the nitty gritty. What does this really look like for someone who’s not a businessman?

You might try thinking,

how might it look like if I didn’t have to spend more this month, compared to the last?

How might I earn the same, but do less?

All these require a shift in approach to working, and living.

I will tell you one way it’s forced me to change how I work.

For one, it’s forced me to limit the time I spend at work. In the past, it was quite common for me to stretch out the days so that I worked from 9am to 9pm. After all, there was always more work to do, and not enough time.

But ironically, when I started to restrict hours from 9am to 6pm, it forced me to focus on what was truly important.

It also leads you to think of the best way to earn the most per hour. I began to focus exclusively on gigs that paid me the most per hour.

One of my gigs for example was doing facilitation, where the pay was $350 for 3 hours of facilitating a focus group discussion.

It leads you to think about how you can be more lazy at work, whilst earning more.

You might tell me,

but John, I’m a salaried worker. I can’t tell my boss no.

Yes, but you can change how you work on the things your boss asks you to do.

During COVID, you may have discovered the joys of working from home. You realised your work could be completed in 2 hours, and the rest of the time was actually spent at the water cooler, talking to colleagues, and not genuinely on work.

That requires you to have a hard think and ask,

What are the KPIs that I’m ranked against?

What are the actions that push me towards those KPIs?

Do more of those actions that push you towards those KPIs, and less of those that don’t.

For example, one KPI in my past life as a social worker was how many outcomes I helped a client to achieve.

I quickly realised that sitting in the office and being distracted wasn’t the most helpful. Rather it was the number of social reports I could write, and this needed deep focused attention on assessing the client’s needs.

So I stayed at home.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against work. But I’m against unnecessary work, work that forces us to appear in the office, to appear working, rather than genuinely producing work of value.

Don’t just do work.

Do better work.

John

Live Young, Live Well - Work Your Love

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