As business owners, we typically don't have that rest, that reset. We're always in go mode. We have people who are depending on us all the time to solve their problems, to make decisions, to steer the ship. So we wake up with ideas and we go to sleep with to do lists. If you aren't careful, that can lead to burnout, and it did with me. Welcome back to another
midweek modern craftsman. As business owners, we wear many hats, obviously being at the top of the food chain within the business, being parents, partners, problem solvers, and it probably feels like there's never enough time. But what if the most important thing you could do for everyone around you was take a little bit more time for yourself? In this week's podcast, I'm sharing why finding a hobby has been one of the best things I've done for my mental health, my relationships and my
business and why you might need one as well. I received a ton of emails last week after the podcast recording, from listeners, from people reaching out, looking to schedule consulting calls. So I appreciate all the feedback, all the insight everyone who's looking to hop on a call. It's amazing, super appreciative, super grateful. So thank you for that. Nick and I were talking recently about hobbies and how I personally feel like he needs a hobby. He's just 110% immersed
in work all the time. If it's not work, it's family mixed with work, and then, you know, he's working out once a day, but I feel like that's not really a hobby for him. That's something he's doing for mental health, but it's not the type of hobby that I think he needs. And we're just talking about what he enjoyed growing up, something that he could do with his kids, something that would just pull him away from a lot of the other
things in his life that are very demanding of him. And I know that I've I've shared about this before, and I apologize if you've heard it, but I was one of those people that when I started my business and for most of my adult life, I just didn't have any sort of a hobby. Work was my hobby, purchasing tools, researching tools, learning about my craft. That was my hobby that consumed me. It was good, but it also tied to work.
So it was, I'd get a job. I need to figure out how to do it. I need to purchase tools for it. So then the research would begin, and then I would all my spare time would be spent there. And it got to a point where I wanted to be able to detach from that, and my hobby being work and my identity and everything else, it wasn't conducive to being able to detach or isolate the way that I was feeling about a project or my to do list, or really just being able to focus on anything outside of work.
Everything was work related, all of my spare time. Yeah, there were some with the family, but I was always pulled in another direction, because I just never had any sort of respite from work or anything based around what I was doing day to day with my hands and building the business. So around COVID, which I'm sure a lot of people probably experienced, there was, you know, a lot of uncertainty. I think a lot of business structures initially changed, and then there was this massive
boom. And the way that I'm structured and type of work that I do, the boom from a financial perspective, like my business isn't necessarily built on volume. I don't have these massive systems in place, these like robust systems to be able to support a dozen employees. I only need so much work to survive, and the more work I do doesn't necessarily mean that I
end up making more money. So work, employees, volume lead, influx, work being more challenging, and not necessarily just being able to charge and capture all of those hours provided proved to be fairly frustrating for me, and I was, I was staying afloat. There was plenty of work for me. I wasn't hurting in the sense that I needed work or financially. I was underwater. I just didn't really feel like I was making much progress. It seemed that every day I was spinning my
wheels. I was going through the motions and the I guess my day to day, the stress was outweigh. And the enjoyment of what I was doing, it was more difficult to be in business, and I think that it's continued to be that way. As prices of everything have gone up, insurances have gone up. They require more of you as a business. You're paying more in taxes. Everyone is and we're a customer based industry, so people are also hurting, and
they're not necessarily willing to part with their money. So it's not as though you can say, well, you know, it's costing me 15% more to be in business, so I'm going to raise my prices by 20% and cushion myself a little. Just doesn't work that way. So as being in business has proven to be more challenging, I had
some options. I could pick up the pace. I could hire more people, absorb a little bit of a higher overhead, and put bigger and more robust systems in place to scale or I could scale back and focus on what I was really good at, and really locate my ideal client, my ideal project, understand my margins, understand my numbers, and position myself to say no to a lot of projects to ensure that everything that I was doing was meeting or exceeding the margins that I wanted To make long term,
not just for that job, not just for the quarter, minimum yearly. So that's what I focused on. And what that ended up doing was providing me with a little bit of free headspace and free time
to be able to commit to something outside of work. So as I was struggling post COVID and keeping people busy, and everyone was getting paid, and I feel like I was working twice as hard to make 1x i started slimming down, and I started restructuring, and part of that was to be able to give myself the free time to spend with my family who needed me and do some things for myself. So I started. I rode dirt bikes a little bit as a kid more so just kind of fun. I was one of five. My dad
picked up a little 80 CC four wheeler. We would go ride that when we'd go camping, find some power lines, and then he bought a couple of little XR dirt bikes, but you're just fun little trail bikes. Same thing I had my kids on when they started. Loved it, but we didn't have the funds, or we weren't in the financial position to really get into any sort of Moto, because it's an expensive hobby to get into it, between kids growing bikes, maintenance gear, everything else. One, my parents
didn't have the time. Two, they didn't have the money to do it. So we had a couple of inexpensive trail bikes that we would all like take turns on. We'd go out for the day. So for
a couple years, we did that. But then you get older, I guess at 16, at that point, priority wasn't as much dirt bikes as much as girls and hanging out with friends, and that hobby slid away until maybe I was 1718, and I got my motorcycles license, and I started riding street bikes, which I did, probably until I was done College, Rachel and I had met and we were beginning to have kids. I still did have a motorcycle or two when we had kids, but I was riding them less
and less because it just wasn't safe. People on the road always being distracted. I felt I didn't have the time with it, with business, and I felt super guilty about taking the time for myself to go ride a motorcycle. So I ended up getting rid of all of them, and for a few years, I really had no sort of hobby. It was just work all the time. Again, I would spend time with my family, but typically I was distracted, and my headspace was towards work, work related problems, goals. I just was
consumed by work, and I couldn't detach from that. Regardless, my kids could be sitting here asking me for something, looking to have fun or do something enjoyable, and I just couldn't detach. I could not remain present. So after COVID, when I decided I wanted to slim down some and I wanted to create some free time for myself, I decided that I wanted to start riding again, but I didn't want to ride on the road. I always liked
riding my dirt bike like a trail bike as a kid again. Never really got into it competitively, but I always enjoyed it. I enjoyed being outside. So I was like, I'm gonna get inexpensive street legal dirt bike that I can kind of take. Into the state forest, maybe hop on a trail,
hop on a road, be able to meet some people. Maybe join a club, and I did that, bought an inexpensive bike, ended up putzing around by myself, and found some trails, and realized that I really enjoyed riding trails more than I did road more than I did sand roads. So I got a more capable street legal dirt bike, and started riding that getting faster, primarily riding
trails. And then that transitioned into just a full fledged two stroke dirt bike, which I rode for a year to and then I got my first four stroke like race bike, which was a 350 and now I'm on my second one. So it's been about four years since I've gotten into riding again. COVID was what, 2020, 2021, so it's been like, four or five years, four years probably, that I've been on actual dirt bikes, and not, like, street legal dirt bikes that aren't quite as capable. So as with a lot of
things in my life, I'm gas in, gas on, or gas off. I've gotten into it pretty heavily. I've been riding. I try and ride once a week I did I usually would do like, I think my first year, I didn't race at all, maybe my second year, I did one race, and then the next year I did two races, and then the next year I did two races, and this year, so far, I've done three races, and it's the beginning of the year. So this year will be the most
that I've raced. I just don't have the experience still creates a little bit of anxiety for me, and obviously I don't want to get hurt, but I'm fairly competitive, so I do enjoy it, but when things go badly, it's frustrating for me. So so far this year, first race really happy with the results, did well. Second race had the flu, did well, I was top 20 overall, but I just like I knew I had way more potential than that. And then I raced two days ago, which I'm still very sore from. And
this format was a little bit different. It was a start control race, so it wasn't enduro timekeeping. It was basically there were six race sections. You transferred to them, they lined you up on the line, released you ever every minute you knew exactly how long this section was going to be, and you went, it was an all out sprint to check out of that section. So this, this type of race, really is, whoever's fastest, whoever keep it on two wheels, ride the cleanest. So we
check into the first section. My suspension pretty high speed. My suspension winds up being super soft. I end up getting bucked on a whoop on like a downhill, launching, landing half on the trail, half out of the trail, ended up kicking me, cartwheeled the bike got up. My clutch lever was bent down, tried to bang it up, couldn't so I finished out the rest of that section. I did all right, like I did fine, but I probably cost myself some time there, and definitely some confidence coming off being
sick, not really riding, crashing out at high speed. In the first test, I was like, oh boy, what did I get myself into? So just bummed to start the day off like that. So the next couple tests, I feel like I was regaining confidence. I had to continue to stiffen my suspension, because it just got more and more rough. I was still getting bucked and my my back end was swapping a bit because I was getting too far down on the
stroke. So I kept stiffening things up. By the end of the day, the last test so test six, I felt like I was back to myself. I felt confident I was pushing the bike. I felt like I was glued to the ground, I was like, in my flow state, not thinking about when I should turn, how far I should stand to this turn, how much break I was just riding. And so the last test, I did really well. As far as overall time goes, and my my feelings and my suspicions were correct, because my times were
really great in that test, as far as overall goes. So at the end of the day, I didn't feel good on the bike all day, I ended up taking 15th overall. And like this type of race, because it was start control and it wasn't enduro timekeeping. There was a lot of really, really fast guys who came out who typically don't race. So I think, from like, a double a perspective, there's one of my buddies I raced with is really the only guy in there that, like, wasn't ever double A or
double A at this point. So I'm really happy with the results. Like, I'm right there with a bunch of double A, essentially, pro guys, or has been, had been double A guys, pro guys that have been riding their whole lives. So like, I really couldn't ask for more. My I got progressively better and more confident throughout the day. So really happy with where it's going this year, how much I've been racing, how I felt on the bus. Bike, but that last test was why I ride like I was not
thinking. I wasn't I was one with the bike. There was nothing else going through my mind. I wasn't nervous, I wasn't anxious. I wasn't thinking about ruts, thinking about what was in the head of me, thinking about how many miles we had left, when I should hit my brakes, when I should how I should load my weight on the bike, how much gas I should be giving out of corners, what my suspension is doing, if I should be adjusting it. All I was doing was riding and not thinking like I there
was no thought in my head other than this feels right. This feels good. Keep going. Go harder, and that's why i i continue to ride after I started, because it's provided that headspace for me, which nothing else in my life has truly done for me. So this, this flow state I really haven't experienced in many other things of my life. I would when I was like, closing a job out and trying to push a job out, and I just felt like I was in the zone. It might have been late at
night, and I was just grinding through work. I feel like I would get to that, but it would be more anxiety and stress induced flow, where I was just like under the gun, pushing as hard as I could, physically, mentally, emotionally, and it didn't ever really feel healthy with the dirt bike aspect of things like heart rates up, exercising outside, fresh air, pushing yourself In a flow state. And it feels really productive and it feels really good with work. It was always
like anxiety and stress induced. And it's not that way while I'm riding it actually, although it's very physical and it's very exhausting, it really recharges me, which you wouldn't think, right? It's mental rest. It's an active presence. It's not the type of recharging like I'm going to sit on the couch and I'm going to watch Netflix, I'm going to watch a movie, I'm
going to watch a Supercross race that's that's passive rest. This is an active presence that really resets your system and gives your brain the space it needs to breathe to settle in, where the time slows down, possibly even disappears. When I'm writing, I am not looking at my phone. I'm not really even concerned about my phone. I'm not concerned about work. I'm not concerned about life, longevity. I'm not concerned about money, anything. I'm just concerned with the present
moment and not thinking about anything else. And a lot of that is because you're forced to right you're riding a 225, pound dirt bike that's 45 horsepower through the woods, through trees, at speed. So you know, there's roots, there's rocks, there's mud, there's trees, you can't really choose to do anything else, and as soon as you start thinking, you either slow down or you start making mistakes. So you're almost forced into that presence that's required. And as business
owners, we typically don't have that rest, that reset. We're always in go mode. We have people who are depending on us all the time to solve their problems, to make decisions, to steer the ship. So we wake up with ideas and we go to sleep with to do lists. If you aren't careful, that can lead to burnout, and it did with me. You can't always run on empty and expect to get better. What riding a dirt bike has done for
me. I think that a lot of people can get through other hobbies, but it needs to be the type of hobby that really draws you in. It could be riding. It could be fly fishing, painting, playing an instrument. When you become consistent with that and when you build that rhythm, it's going to provide you with
output, and it's going to provide you with recovery. The nice thing about it is now, when I have any sort of free space in my head or in my life, I can devote some of that capacity to riding my my dirt bike, to how it can get better at dirt biking something other than work, where I would have free time before and my brain would just shift to work. How can I better my business? How can I address an issue with the client, which is necessary, but
it doesn't need to consume you, not 100% of the time. And I think that's why it's so important for us, especially as business owners, as high performing individuals, to have a hobby that challenges us and draws us in and requires a lot of thought effort. Effort and input from us. Because if it's the type of hobby where it's like, Hey, I'm just going to go
through the motions, it doesn't really disconnect you. It doesn't require a lot of investment of your time and your resources and your mental energy, I think it's going to be short lived, and it's not really going to be able to provide that
flow for you. I it's important to have something that you can dive deeply into, similar to what you do with your career and with your job, but something that's less stress and anxiety induced and more free flow, absent of thought, and really just lets you settle in to that active presence that I mentioned before, something that you can look forward to that doesn't hinge on performance, execution or pressure, which I think is
typically the case with our jobs. So something that I struggled with as I developed this hobby, as I I've really nurtured this passion and worked on getting better, like four years into this when I look at the results from this race, and the top 15, the top 25 almost everyone, at least, everyone who finished ahead of me has been racing or riding dirt bikes their entire lives, and whether they ride as much as I do now or
not, they have experience. They've spent the time. And the fact that I've progressed to where I have in such a short amount of time is a testament to how much I've devoted to conditioning, to myself to practice, committing myself to just getting better and having a purpose while doing this, which has been great for my mental health. I've been a better father, a better friend, a better business owner. I've
pulled back and my business has been more successful. My personal life has been more successful, all because I have something that I can focus on and put effort into, other than work. And I know that that sounds counterintuitive, but me pulling back from a lot of those things has created the clarity I need to be successful in other areas of my life, and also created a lot of success and a lot of profitability in my business and my personal life. Because I'm not living within it
right now. I have opportunities to step outside of it and view it from the outside to help me better understand how my decisions impact the trajectory of my business, which I never had that opportunity before, because I was just completely immersed in it, and neck deep, struggling to keep my head above water, reacting to everything that was happening rather than being five steps ahead of everything, productive steps ahead everything, Not just planning, because planning goes
out the window as soon as you start construction, but understanding what my business is and then creating steps that will create what I need out of my business for life, financially, whatever that may Be, I'm able to view my business in my life from outside of it right now, not from within it. And that's been huge for me, and a lot of that is because of the hobbies that I've developed. One issue that I've struggled with
is guilt, right? For years, I didn't have two seconds, and I still don't really have two seconds to go ride my dirt bike for four hours once a weekend. My wife is 100% on board with this, because she sees the difference between me now and me four or five years ago. She understands how important this is to me and how great and amazing it is for my mental health, my physical health, my business and everything else. So
it's just it's a non negotiable. She puts whatever in place to make sure my wife will go travel for work and then make sure her parents are around to watch the kids if I need to go ride my dirt bike, because she understands how important it is for me to get into this flow state. And that's the type of hobby that I want you guys and girls to try and find for yourself something that's that important to you, your family, your business, your partner, that they're willing to do
whatever it takes to make sure it happens for you. But the guilt right? When I go to a race, I feel guilty my family's at home. When I leave on a Sunday morning to go riding and I'm going to come home at two, three in the afternoon, I feel guilty because my family's at home. That doesn't necessarily go away, but I understand how much better I will feel and how much more present I will be, how much more successful I will be, how much better of a father, a partner and a business owner I
will be when I take the time to do this. So I. You feel that you're stealing from your family, like every hour that I take from for me is an hour less for them. But the thing is, when you don't take care of yourself, when you're constantly pouring out for everyone else and not really filling the tank, which I think is something that Nick experiences, and he just doesn't know it. You're not showing up as the best version of you. You're you're tired, you're short tempered, distracted, have
less patience. You don't have the mental fortitude necessary to be as creative as you can be, as inspired as you can be. And this affects everyone around you. It affects your family, it affects your business. So you feel selfish as taking that time for yourself to go ride your dirt bike, to go practice yoga, to go hiking, to go take a music lesson, whatever it may be, but at the end of the day, you are giving so much back to those people around you through doing this, and you just you don't
even realize it. When I ride, I am better at everything else in my life. My business has been better, my relationship with my family has been better. My marriage has been better. My friendships have been better. I'm more productive. I'm happier because my cup is being filled and it's not constantly being drained. And again, it's not that I'm taking time for myself to be away from my family, at the end of the day, I'm setting time aside for myself so that I can give back, so that I can
fill everyone else's cup, and it's necessary for me. And I felt for a long time that that was the that that's the last thing that I should be doing. My wife feels that way. The last thing that she should be doing is going to a yoga class so she's going to wake up at five in the morning so she could be
home by the time everyone wakes up on the weekend. And I'm like, you don't have to do it that way, like you're going to be so much better at everything else that you do by just going and making time for exercise or yoga or whatever she needs for herself. That makes her feel good, and it doesn't matter if you're with us or without us. So this is your nudge if you've let one of those hobbies drift away, if you're constantly telling yourself there's just not enough time in the day. I have other
priorities. I have business. I have clients. I have people who are waiting on me. If you're waiting for somebody else to line up or give you permission to pursue something in your life. Here's your nudge to go out and do that. Pick up the instrument, dust off the bike, lace up the shoes, sign up for the class. Whatever it is, make the time for it, not just because it's productive, not just because it's efficient, but because it keeps you human. And in this business and in life,
staying human is what keeps you sharp. So hopefully you guys and girls take this to heart, and you start making some time for yourself, however, whatever that looks like, and you start becoming the best version of yourself through protecting your own sanity and creating some clarity. All right, guys and girls, that's it for this week. Hope you all enjoyed it. I'll catch you on the next one.