Entrepreneur urges people to participate in 30-day 'work less' challenge for overall growth

Present-day work culture is highly competitive and toxic. Individuals work themselves to their bones to get the best results. They put all their soul and energy towards a single endeavor not leaving anything for their personal life. Though it is an overwhelming lifestyle, people believe that it gets them what they want from their work. But Phil Drolet, an entrepreneur, thinks otherwise. He believes that this way of making work the sole focus of one's life is not only unhealthy but also harmful to their venture. In a video uploaded by @healthymillionairehabits on TikTok, he explained how a balanced approach allows people to improve themselves and in turn, enhance their professional performance. It is a short clip from his 2014 TEDx Talks at the University of Colorado, Denver.

Drolet explained how he adopted a 30-day work-less challenge for both his personal and professional benefit. Sharing how he went about the challenge, he said: "For 30 days, I intentionally spent less time working and I reallocated the extra time to do things like spending time with my friends and going out in nature." Initially, it was only for his personal benefit, which worked perfectly as he had a very enjoyable month. To his surprise, he also cashed in other advantages from this step. He shared, "My business had its most profitable month ever, by more than 45%." He believes that because his mind got rest due to his activities in the month, he attained clarity to make innovative decisions that profited the company.

Drolet believes that the clarity enabled him "to see opportunities clearly and act on them decisively." His brain was recharged and his creativity was at a whole new level. Since the entrepreneur was not tired, he and his team were able to execute these decisions much faster. "I learned to build systems. I learned to delegate more and I learned to focus on a few things that actually mattered," he shared. Hence, he believes in the philosophy of working smart rather than hard.

In the description of his TEDx Talks video, he criticized the "work 'til you drop" mentality, calling it destructive and counterintuitive. He explains, "It leads entrepreneurs to sacrifice their health and relationships for a lifestyle of exhaustion and overwhelm, which dramatically affects their business results." To truly achieve one's goals, the individual must have a balance between his physical and mental health. One of his objectives is to start a counterculture of entrepreneurs that encourages taking care of mental health.

The comment section in the TEDx Talk video agreed that the culture of overworking is damaging and also pointed out how after 9 years of this video coming out things have intensified rather than improved. @onceuponatime6897 shared how there has been no improvement in the work culture and wrote, "It's crazy how this was 8 years ago and how there's even MORE pressure on entrepreneurs nowadays with social media." 

@user-gb5ff7gj1m was glad for this video, as it gave them the clarity they were looking for and wrote, "Thank you for putting this out in the world. I have been doubting if you have to put in so many hours as an entrepreneur. Most entrepreneur has been saying to work hard, sleep less than eight hours a day and sacrifice your personal relationships. The reward is freedom. I started to doubt how much freedom you have with so little personal time."