Ep. 49 – How Disrupting the Workday Improves Productivity & Happiness – with Stephan Aarstol
“We are enslaved with the wrong beliefs, and it starts at the workplace. We are prioritizing work, money, and possessions instead of health, happiness, and relationships. It’s time to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.”
––from The Five Hour Workday by Stephan Aarstol
This episode is part of the disruption series. We’re going to discover how incredible people disrupt their lives, their industries, and the world to create a powerful impact.
Stephan Aarstol is the Founder & CEO at Tower Paddle Boards, author of The Five Hour Workday, and one of the most unique success stories from ABC’s Shark Tank.
Stephan didn’t have the most elegant pitch on Shark Tank, but he still secured investment from Mark Cuban. The show wasn’t his endgame – it was just the first stepping stone towards disrupting an industry.
The five-hour workday was the second stepping stone.
“You want to get your employees to where they’ll run through walls for you. To do that in the modern world with knowledge workers, you can’t whip them harder or give them a little bit more money. You have to do something that is meaningful to them.”
Tower Paddle Boards was an attractive place to work, but they still lost some of their top talent. Stephan wanted to sweeten the pot.
How does Stephan change his company to attract the best people?
- Transition from an e-commerce company to a brand
- Embrace a consistent company culture
- Shorten the workday (for the same compensation)
Stephan wanted to attract efficient team members and repel slow workers; he wanted superstars. If you can adapt to a five-hour workday, you are rewarded with more control over your work life and personal life. If you can’t adapt, you’re fired.
This strategy puts full autonomy and pressure on the employee to figure things out, and the end result is that they actually think and act a lot more like entrepreneurs. The friction helps them cut waste and identify better tools. “You turn everybody into their own little productivity expert.”
Think about how you work – don’t be satisfied with just working.
Head over to FiveHourWorkday.com to read the first 48 pages of the book, receive a subscription to Tower Magazine, and download a bonus list of 38 amazing productivity tools… all for free!
“Work is not the point of life. The point of work is to finance this incredible life for us.”
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Don’t be a podcast junkie…
Resources:
- Connect with Stephan: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn
- Read the first 48 pages of The Five Hour Workday by Stephan Aarstol & download a bonus list of 38 amazing productivity tools for FREE
- Read Tower Magazine
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Production & Development for The Impact Entrepreneur Show by Podcast Masters