The Off Switch: How to Run Your Business So It Doesn't Run You

By Sarah Greener

Most business owners love to think they are saving their business from impending doom by doing everything and in the process gain themselves a really expensive job there is no escape from.

I know - I’ve made every mistake in the book.

But it’s actually ridiculously simple.

Here it is:

Step 1: Hit the Pause Button.

Step 2: Work out what you really want

Step 3: Take action to get what you want

Everybody knows the first step is the hardest.

There are literally millions of problems to solve in your business and they all have to be done right now.

Right?

Wrong - And it took a global pandemic for you to realize you could stop and you could change.

But how do you turn that gift you just received into a business that serves you and your life. The life you want not the one you got after years of working too hard for too many hours

That’s what The Power Hour does.

And I detail every step inside this book.

Here's Just A Fraction Of What's Inside

The framework to build a Life Serving business. Follow this and you'll remember why you love it!

Why now is the perfect moment to reset your business and capitalise on this unique time.

Don't do this: The rules that will trap you in busy and cause your business to take over your life.

The North Star of building your business and why most ignore it.

The 1 one-hour investment creates ease and flow every week.

How to deploy the 'B' Word that ensures you build a business that doesn't require 24/7 hustle and grind.

How to make decisions that propel you towards business success with no sleepless nights

Generate clear boundaries in a single week and win back 8 hours of life.

How even a complete people pleaser can start to say No without guilt

The 4 step system that kills procrastination that is the exact opposite of what the gurus teach (and why they make it complicated)

And much, much, more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Apr 24, 2024

Book preview

Introduction

I see so many business owners doing what I used to do, sacrificing everything important to them, working far too many hours and far more than they need to. Telling themselves stories, the same stories I used to say to myself, about how working harder and harder will get me the results, and if I just do the ‘hard yards’ now, I’ll have more time for the important things later. Believing if I sacrifice in the short term, I will win in the long term.

I thought all this hard work would benefit my family in the long run, my loved ones, and my team. Like you, I was doing it for the freedom that I will receive ‘SOME DAY’ in the future.

But in reality, we’ve turned our business into a ball and chain.

Like me, you probably created your business because you wanted the freedom that came from running something yourself. You had a vision of doing it your way, working when you wanted, earning money on your terms, and having more time for your loved ones and yourself.

But in reality, it often doesn’t happen.

That elusive ‘ SOME DAY ’ never shows up.

I used to be you, and this is why I had to write this book. It’s also why I created the business I have now: to prevent others from burning out like I once did.

I was fifteen years old when I stopped wanting to be a farmer and knew I wanted to run my own business.

My parents were already in business, so I left school a year early and went straight into university to study business.

Buying into the story that hard work is the path to success, I thought that the harder I worked, the more successful I was and would be. So, just being a full-time university student wasn’t enough for me.

As I studied full-time, I also worked full-time at an accounting firm. (Are you Seeing  a pattern yet? Yup, me too!)

I thought it was giving me the skills and tools I would use later on down the track. But it wasn’t where I wanted to be

As my degree finished, I got my first taste of running a business. Mum and Dad signed a joint venture with McDonald’s (yes, the Golden Arches one—it was a big deal back then, too) while continuing to run their other business.

Recognising the need for more resources, Mum and Dad contacted me, and I took over the meat business McMaster and Daughters. Selling meat to hotels and restaurants was a two-person band. So, on top of being the general manager, I was also the apprentice butcher, delivery truck driver, accountant, marketer and salesperson, all rolled up into one. On that journey, I learnt a lot about what not to do and what to do well, with a privileged insight into what the corporate world looked like as my parents' adventure under the Golden Arches with no Qualifications continued.

The combination of my accounting years and my family's experience with McDonalds made it pretty clear I wasn’t headed to a corporate career. It didn’t excite me; there wasn’t enough freedom or flexibility in what you could do. Think cruising in a cruise ship versus that fast, nimble trailer boat. I loved the ability to see an opportunity and turn right towards it rather than the long, slow process that comes with a bigger organisation .

As with many young Kiwis, I headed off on my big Overseas Experience—jumping on a plane to land in Thailand the evening after the Boxing Day Tsunami hit (that’s another story for another day).

Focused on meeting up with travelling  friends and rock climbing I had no intention of staying for a long time. As with all the best intentions the universe intervened and instead I fell in love.

Not once but three times.

I fell in love with the country.

I fell in love with scuba diving.

I fell in love with Jonny.

Jonny was running a kayaking business at the time, and I launched straight into helping with that venture. I’m pretty sure he called it ‘interfering’.

We ran that business successfully in Thailand for a few years before we came back to New Zealand for a wedding.

During that visit, we were encouraged to head back North and experience a tourism product that I had experienced with my Dad on a trip we went on before I left for Thailand.

With our life in Thailand firmly in our minds, we explored and experienced everything this business had to offer. We took notes and planned what parts we would add to our business in Thailand.

And yet again the universe had another plan.

One as a Kiwi I was very keen on. A way to come home, be with Jonny and live on the water.

We sat having a drink at the onboard bar when the skipper and boat owner turned to us and said he was considering selling it.

With no thought and zero conversation with my then-boyfriend - I said We’ll buy it.

A complete u-turn from the original plan for growing the kayaking business, building a home and settling permanently in Thailand.

Six months later, we owned the boat in the Bay of Islands. Hindsight is a beautiful thing—2020, some would say. We were blissfully unaware throughout the handover process in December 2007 that a storm now called the Global Financial Crisis was developing both overseas and here in New Zealand.

That first season was hard work, but we knew no different. The GFC affected us - it impacted everyone in some way. And we were in the business of tourism - not an industry favoured  by poor economic conditions.

We had borrowed all of the money to buy the business at 13.5% interest.

And yet we paid off a quarter of a million dollars in six months as the worst global financial crisis in a decade happened around us.

I had always been told that hard work equals success, so we did just that, we worked - hard.

We lived on the boat.

We worked on the boat.

We socialised  on the boat.

We truly lived and breathed our business for that entire time.

We ignored all the people that told us that we were going to go bankrupt. And