Elzie Flenard sits down with Jason Duncan, a professional business coach, multi-award-winning entrepreneur, and founder of 12 companies. They explore how an entrepreneur can maximize their business profitability while still maintaining a healthy and stress-free lifestyle. Jason shares his journey from pastoral ministry to entrepreneurship, and how he discovered his purpose through self-awareness and understanding the signals from within.

They discuss the importance of self-awareness, the dangers of synthetic happiness, and the necessity of change even when it is painful. Jason introduces the concept of the law of open cycles and shares how managing open cycles can reduce stress levels. They also discuss the "hero syndrome" and how it affects every entrepreneur, limiting growth potential for the company and putting unnecessary stress on the individual. Jason shares his four key principles for leaving daily operations and achieving freedom in business: Embrace Delegation, Eliminate Stress, Establish Systems & Processes, and Invest in People.

If you're an entrepreneur looking to maximize your business profitability and spend 50% less time in your business while retaining profits, be sure to check out Jason's online course at ExitWithoutExiting.com. Connect with Jason at The Real Jason Duncan to learn more about his programs and how he can help you find your passion and get the results you want out of your life. Tune in for an enlightening conversation and valuable insights into becoming an effective 10-hour entrepreneur!

Episode Highlights:

08:06 - An alcoholic cannot overcome alcoholism until he or she realizes or is aware that they have a problem with alcohol. Someone addicted to porn, someone addicted to overeating, whatever the addictions or problems in life, you can't overcome it until you're aware of it. So, for me, I've always had pretty good self-awareness, probably to my detriment at times, because I'm overly analyzing what people may think. As a matter of fact, I was talking with one of my best friends this morning. We meet every week for coffee and we're working through the Think and Grow Rich Workbook right now, which by the way, I'd highly recommend everybody to go through. He's a mindset coach. And so, we were going through that today. And one of the things that we read through in the workbook this week was a failure inventory and going through things where you could potentially fail if you don't keep it in check.

12:16 - There's always pain in change. It may not be immense pain, but there's some pain in change. I mean, I'm right-handed and brush my teeth on the right hand everyday. But if for some reason my right hand is not available and hurt and I have to brush with my left, that change is painful, and can be because I might hit my gums, or anytime we change, there's pain in it. But when the pain of staying the same outweighs the pain of change, that's when change occurs.

23:05 - Well, I think it's just minimizing at the base level. It's just getting your open cycles down to a manageable thing. And then once you realize and understand what causes stress is open cycles, if you start feeling stressed, you know what it's related to and you can do a quick open cycles inventory. Certainly, it doesn't take three hours once you know what you're doing. Because you can go, "What is on my list I need to take care of?" I mean, I've got my date, my planner, right here on the desk next to me, and in this planner, there's a list of 10 or 12 things that I need to get done this week. That's all I do. I just get that one done. Done! Move on to the next one. That's how I manage it.

25:16 - There's this thing I refer to as "Hero Syndrome," and the hero syndrome affects every entrepreneur. Nobody escapes it. And at the beginning, what the hero syndrome does, it teaches us that we are the hero and if it's going to survive, we must save it. So, the business is on our shoulders, we fly from town to town, we save the crying babies, we save the damsels in distress, we put out the fires, we do everything. We're the hero, we wear the cape, we wear it proudly. And that is fine in the first stages of any startup, of any business. The problem is that's not sustainable, long term.

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