When given the choice, nine out of ten entrepreneurs choose work over leisure. But making time to smell the roses can contribute more to professional success than working back all those extra hours. Meet three “zentrepreneurs” who’ve made it their business helping other professionals relax, laugh and play, in the name of serenity… and productivity.
Interviews by Paul Ryan.
Brett Hollis
Adrenaline Director,
Big Stick Adventures
Former banker Brett Hollis arrived at his own work/life balance by leaving the suit behind and launching Big Stick Adventures, a company that designs custom adventures – from surfing safaris to luxury races to fast-paced mysteries – for groups and organisations interested in corporate weekends that venture beyond the golf course.
I spent 12 years in the banking industry. Gradually, I developed the feeling that I didn’t want to be there – that it wasn’t me. I reached a crunch point and decided there has to be something more to life. When you’re dedicated to the corporate cause, it’s a very difficult decision. You have people at the company who look after you and to whom you feel obligated. But once you make the decision to leave, it’s quite uplifting.
You hear and read about people saying you should do what you love. I thought, ‘I love surfing, I love outdoors, I love adventure, and I’ve been doing it all my life. Why not try and make a living out of it?’
We launched in December 2005, offering surfing tours along the Great Ocean Road. Within two months we’d won an adventure day for Coca-Cola, supporting their Coke Zero product launch. Within a month of that we did an adventure race supporting the Volvo Around the World Ocean Race. And it’s just gone gangbusters ever since.
This is something I ran off and did because I thought it would be cool. I had no idea the corporate side would be such a large part of the business. But now I think back to my banking days and realise this is exactly the kind of team-building day I wish I had been sent on.
Imagine if you put all the effort and energy you give your current employer into your own endeavours. It’s a lot more fun and you start deriving returns for yourself. Life is short, and what have you got to lose at the end of the day? You might lose some capital, but you can always go back to work. But when you’re 50 or 60 years old you can say, ‘Hey, I gave it a go,’ rather than sucking on sour grapes.
Building a startup does take a lot of time, resources and effort, but you need to take time out to enjoy life at the same time. It might be two o’clock in the afternoon and I’ll go surfing for a couple of hours. I still do the same amount of work, but it’s important to make the time to enjoy life.
Volker Krohn
Director – The Hoffman Process, Australia
Volker Krohn runs eight day retreat programmes in Byron Bay for high-performance individuals who feel their personal limitations are holding them back. The Hoffman Process, which has been operating internationally for 40 years (and in Australia for 18), focuses on steering people away from entrenched patterns of behaviour to improve happiness and success, at work and beyond.
Do you ever do things that you know you shouldn’t be doing but you still do anyway? Certain behaviours drive us rather than being driven by us. The Hoffman Process is a form of emotional re-education. It’s one of the most powerful ways a person can overcome self-limiting belief systems and patterns.
There is plenty of research that reveals a strong correlation between high achievement and childhood trauma in high achievers (especially entrepreneurs and CEOs). They have often experienced grievances as children with their parents – a certain amount of criticism and even neglect or poverty – which helps drive them to become successful.
Unfortunately, as they make their way up the corporate ladder, they sometimes have difficulty actually acknowledging their own achievements. There is often a sense of personal insecurity and the need to prove oneself, which can serve as motivation to put extra hours in. Research also reveals that these high achievers often live with high levels of anxiety and are prone to depression.
As a child, when I got angry, my mother would say, “Volker?!” and I would shut down. Whenever I wanted my way and it was likely to upset my mum, I couldn’t approach it directly. So I would focus on thinking and planning and scheming to get to the swimming pool. Later on, whenever I had anger (in relationships or at work) I would immediately go into that same thought process. It was an automatic response. Everybody has their own particular story along those lines. We help people come to a place in their emotional expression where they can be just themselves without having to worry about criticism.
We teach people to feel empathy towards themselves, then others, which ultimately makes them better leaders. It increases their emotional intelligence. And with a greater level of self-awareness, you’re more likely to acknowledge, for example, that you are getting tired and may benefit from a break. We’re living in an ever-changing world, so we need to learn to be flexible and adapt ourselves to the changing times and culture.
Cris Popp
Chief Laughing Officer,
Laughter Australia
Cris Popp has worked in a number of diverse roles – care assistant, ABC journalist, Looksmart editor, public sector online project manager, innovation facilitator and conflict resolution consultant – but now he laughs for a living. And given the chance, he’ll get you laughing too.
Laughter is an exercise. It’s quite easy to control your body, but much more difficult to control your thoughts. A good way to access your thoughts is through your body. When you smile (make sure you’re smiling with your eyes), your blood pressure and heart rate drop, your T-cell count goes up, growth hormone levels increase by about 20 percent and serotonin levels increase 80 percent. So it has nothing to do with humour. It’s about exercise that is good for you.
When you’re stressed, your field of focus narrows. Stress is great for responding to a crisis – sabre-toothed tiger jumps in front of you, competitor launches a new product, breakdown in the production chain – you focus right in. It’s really bad, though, for coming up with new solutions. Laughter helps you relax and opens your field of vision.
It’s been shown that people learn better when the experience is full of colour and humour. A school in Melbourne brought a dog into the maths class and everybody’s grades went up. Danish computer company, Four Systems, achieved a 40 percent increase in sales and 75 percent reduction in stress after introducing laughter as a stress-buster.
Ask entrepreneurs when they get their best ideas and they’ll say in the shower, or waking up in the morning, or on their way home from holidays – all those times when you turn away from your normal focus, because it lets your brain break from its usual pattern and put information together in a new way. You should practise laughing and strive for a better work/life balance because you’ll actually run a better business in the long-term.
Laughing is a fantastic team-builder. I think this is because you have to make yourself a little bit vulnerable. In any relationship, the way you learn to trust somebody is to expose yourself, bit by bit. We give corporate teams a great excuse to open up and trust each other.
Engaging in a laughter session sends the message to employees that it’s okay to have some fun. You’re knowledge workers – we’re valuing you for your capacity to be creative, not for your capacity to crunch numbers or create widgets.
