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“What does your life look like?” It’s the question I get asked most—what does a typical day actually look like when you’re running a 7-figure business and still making space for family, training, and rest?

In this episode, I’m breaking down what my day actually looks like—and the surprising things I do (and don’t do) to make it all work. From working just 20 hours a week to deleting the email app off my phone, I’m showing you the exact choices that help me stay focused, energized, and in alignment.

If you’ve ever wondered what it really looks like to scale a business without sacrificing your life—this is it.

Key Takeaways

• Why I don’t work 40-hour weeks—and how I still scale
• My no-app, no-email, low-meeting approach to high productivity
• How I built a business that supports my life, not the other way around

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

I am ruthless. With my energy and time output, and that is essential. I love efficiency. I hate wasting time and I don’t like a lot of noise ’cause everybody’s got an opinion. But do you want their opinion? Why do we have to do a call? Why do we have to do a 10 minute call? I don’t like it. I think that the most important thing is that you are.

Challenging your perspective. I have created this ability to tune into what I need each day, but not to the extreme of like, I only do what I feel like. I think that’s also dangerous.

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you guys are having a great week. Uh, what are my updates? I still owe you and want to record an update after going to the Joe Dispenza event. To be honest, it’s gonna be a little longer of one, and so that’s why I’m not recording that one today, but I think I’m ready for it.

I’m prepared for it to share. It’s, it’s been interesting to try and. Kind of plan that episode because it’s hard to put into words the level of transformation that I experience. It’s like how do you explain something that is such a embodied feeling and it feels like everything has changed since that event.

Tremendously like that feels like a lifetime ago. So I’m really excited to share that with you. I have been. Really in integration mode and deep in both meditation every single day, a minimum of two hours. Which is crazy because I’m like, how did I find this time? And then consuming actually a lot of material related to everything that I learned, a lot of Joe Dispenza material.

And even trying to find like the root of who Joe Dispenza has learned from. I really believe in, ancient wisdom. And I think that we try and reinvent things, but if you go back to religion, scriptures don’t have to be religious. But if you look at ancient wisdom, it’s really the same thing as a lot of, like today, gurus are saying.

And I think it’s important to kinda strip it down to that versus sometimes it gets changed. Anyways, I thought it would be fun to do a podcast episode about. Some things that might surprise you as it relates to me and how I run my company, how I show up. And just me as a seven figure CEO. So I have a multiple seven figure business, and I think there’s a lot of assumptions that people make about seven figure CEOs and also wanna know like, what does your life look like?

I get asked all the time, like, what’s a day look like in your life? So I thought these would be fun. They’re a mix of business, they’re a mix of personal and really just how I show up every day in my life. So these are six things I do. Or don’t do as a seven figure CEO, that might surprise you. Maybe not.

Some of you who have been listening to the podcast forever, you might not be surprised by them, but I think you’ll still enjoy them. So the first one is, I don’t actually work 40 hour weeks. I also don’t work five hour weeks. And I say that because there’s usually like two buckets that people put me in when I have a conversation.

One is a lot of times with. Outside people, especially like if I’m at a, an event and I have parents that my kids’ friends know and, and they don’t follow me and see my lifestyle, they assume, oh, you have a business, you have employees. You must be so busy, you must work so much and work long days. ’cause there’s like this kind of assumption.

I feel like that sometimes happens with entrepreneurs that you end up working more than you. What if you had a job? I do not work 40 hour weeks. And I say the flip side of that is I don’t work five hour weeks because there are sometimes I have conversations with people who do follow me and see that I have kids I train pretty heavily in CrossFit and I do all these things outside of business and they think that I barely work and that my company, you know, runs without me.

So here’s what I wanna say about this. First, how much do I work? Because I’m sure you guys wanna know. I work about 20 ish hours a week, 20 to 25. So like a typical day for me looks like working 10 to two 30 ish. But then, you know, things come up. There’s sometimes days, like on Wednesdays that I take my daughter to an appointment.

That’s a pretty far drive. And so I barely work on Wednesdays because of the mix of. Training and taking her to the appointment. But on an average day, 10 to two 30 is kind of when I work. But I wanna talk about this like assigning an hour to the amount that you should work. There’s a few things. First, I am in a season where I have built my business to make sure it fits my lifestyle.

When I no longer was in the beginning phases of business of like hustling and n needing to really put in those hours and not being able to afford a team yet and having to do a lot of the things myself, which is a season that most entrepreneurs have to go through. Once I came out of that season, then you ask the question of how do I make sure my business works for me and my life so I don’t work?

More hours than I am able to, to also hit my non-negotiables when it comes to my family and my kids, my training, my travel, my hobbies, and what I’m creating in my life. So for me in this season, which it may shift to more or less hours that I work in the future, in this season. I require that my business and my time commitment allows me to train 10 hours a week in CrossFit and to be present with my kids in the afternoons and the evenings and not work on the weekends.

So that really looks like that, 10 to two 30. I also take my kids to anything. Right now it’s summer, but I take ’em to school every day. I’m very involved in the morning, and then I work kind of while they’re at school until four 30, but I train starting at two 30. So. I have created my business to fit my lifestyle, to check the boxes of the other things that I want in my life, which is in this season a lot of time for my training, being present with my kids, and also travel both solo travel and travel with my family.

So that looks like about 20 to 25 hours, but also. I don’t only work five hour weeks because I love to work. I love creating this podcast. I love communicating with my team. I love what I do. I love coaching. It doesn’t feel like work. I’m not counting down the hours and going, oh, I, I like, I don’t wanna work.

I don’t wanna put this time in and. I just had this conversation. This was, and I think this is a cute story. So last week I, it was morning time, we were hanging out as a family, like a slow morning, which I love and is one of the reasons that we started homeschooling. And I looked at my husband and I was like, as I was falling asleep last night, I had this thought.

I realized that I lived my perfect day yesterday. So the perfect day is an exercise I have a lot of people do. I’ve done it in workshops, but I do it myself. And that is your perfect ordinary day. Like a day that typically you are working. It’s, you know, an ordinary Tuesday. What does that day look like?

How do you spend your time? How do you feel? You know, who do you see? What do you get to do? What are your habits? And literally, last week, I, I lived it. Exactly my perfect day. I got to record a podcast. I got to work a little bit. I think I hosted a coaching call in that time. I had breakfast with my kids.

I got to train. I went to the chiropractor. I sauna, I cold plunged. I played games with the kids that night. We went for a family walk. I got to meditate like it was my perfect day. And so I said that to my husband and my kids. Were there. And one of my kids, I think it was my daughter, she goes, oh, my son. He goes, my oldest, my 10-year-old was like, well, is your perfect day, but you had to work.

And I said, yeah, babe, because I love working. Like I, I don’t, I’m not trying to escape working. And I explained that to him. Like, I, it doesn’t feel like work to me. It’s called that, but it doesn’t feel like work. I love it. I am so grateful for it. And then my five-year-old chimed in with some, some, some sarcastic comment of like.

You’d rather work than be with your children. Literally, my 5-year-old said that. But anyways, that’s an example that I wanna set for my kids, and I think that is the ultimate goal, is that your work doesn’t feel like work. And so I’m not trying to run away either from my business and work and only work five hour weeks because I love it.

And in this current season, this is. What is required from me in the business is about 20 to 25 hours, and I’m able to accommodate and live my dream life outside of work in terms of hobbies and my family and being present and experiencing life outside of the business, which I believe the business is a mechanism for creating your dream reality.

While also still showing up for the company and what the company needs in this season, and creating my bigger impact. So it’s not about the number of hours, like you might have a season where your goal of working is five hours a week, and if that’s your life goal, fine. Like there’s no right and wrong, but.

That’s my current season, and there are times where the business might demand more from me. There are times where we travel, like we travel most of August. I’ll probably work five hours a week during August ’cause we’re traveling as a family. I’m doing the bare minimum and so I am. I’m constantly making sure that I’m not telling myself the story of when X, Y, Z happens in the business.

Then I get this and that is because I have created a business that now meets my basic needs. If you were to ask me this 10 years ago, I was working every minute I could that I was not with my son because I hadn’t built the team yet and I hadn’t built the business. I was in a completely different season.

Okay. That’s the first thing. Second thing, I think this might surprise some of you guys just because of, if you know my personality, you might assume this, but I don’t actually rigorously plan. I used to. I used to, and when I was a kid, I can go back to like, this is crazy, but when I was like 12 years old, I would keep a journal and the day before I would plan my day out by like every 30 minutes what I was gonna do the next day.

I used to do this a lot. I used to plan like so strictly what my day looked like. And for me, during those times, I think it was a form of control, then I could control the day. I could control how it went. I could control how productive it was, make sure I wasn’t distracted and how I felt, because I feel good when I’m productive.

Now I’ve learned how to flow so much better with a day and so. I have a general idea of what a week will look like. I know if I’m teaching a training, I know my meetings, I know, you know, podcast recordings that are scheduled with guests. I know those type of things. I know my, my average cadence in a day of when I train and when I work.

But each morning when I get up, like sometimes things fluctuate and there are days where I get up and I’m like, I really feel like a slow morning with the kids and I’m gonna start work late today. Or I’m gonna surprise them and take them to the coffee shop before I start work and my nanny can get there and work on and she can clean the house and we’ll be back later.

Or I will go, I really need to go for a walk in the middle of the day, uh, or meditate. ’cause I’m feeling ungrounded and it’s the middle of the day. And so I have created this ability to tune into what I need each day and what I feel like each day. But not to the extreme of like, I only do what I feel like.

I think that’s also dangerous because. You have to do things you don’t feel like sometimes, and your brain will sometimes convince you that you don’t feel like doing something that is really in your best interest. But I know how to tune into what is needed, both myself and my family and the business.

And I leave that room for flexibility so I don’t rigorously plan my time, but. At the beginning of each day, before I start my day, I do take inventory of a list. I have this ongoing list of things in my notes app. So simple, and it’s kind of like a to-do list. But I take that and I pull what’s priority and what this allows me to do as well is every single day it, you know, every day, every week there are things that come up that I didn’t plan.

There is, you know, team things that come up. Things I need to review, discussions. I need to have decisions I need to make. There’s also stuff with my kids, an event I didn’t know about. One gets sick, one needs me. You don’t know when those exact times are gonna be. And so life is not supposed to be like so structured and rigorous.

It’s supposed to be. If you have the ability to respond intentionally to the things around you while also maintaining your priorities and staying present, I think that’s the goal. When we get into reacting, reacting to our email, reacting to Slack, reacting to our kids, it to me, I know when I’m in that state versus being intentional.

So each day I look at my list, I look at the meetings I have that you know, were pre-planned and I pull out what I know is a reasonable amount of things to do as priority. And that’s my only focus for the day. I ignore everything else, but I don’t rigorously plan that until that day because I don’t know, something might come up that is priority.

And I think a big part of being a successful CEO is constantly being able to weigh. All the things that you could do and pick out the most important. And you know, there are times that my team waits for me on something for more than they want, but I know what is actually priority and if that is delayed, but this is more important, I’m gonna do this.

So I don’t overly plan my days. I leave a little bit of room for. Things that might come up that I couldn’t have planned. I leave room for those moments of creativity where I’m like, I really wanna sit down and flush this out ’cause this idea just dropped in. I leave room for what I feel my system needs that day, like extra time with my kids.

Maybe I was busy the night before and I’m like, Hmm, we’re a little bit outta balance there. I need that morning with them. So I’m able to flow with that more than I used to. And I think that’s really key and, and. In that flow. It’s very intentional and present. Again, I can’t, I can’t emphasize that enough.

It’s not that I’m reacting and I’m just like, I feel like doing this. Okay, now I feel like doing this. Now I feel like this, there’s still structure, but not overly structured to where I am ignoring important. Pieces of information coming at me. Okay, next thing. Third out of the six, I hardly ever check my email.

I am terrible at email on purpose because I think it is such a waste of energy and capacity. Mental capacity. So I have a team member in my email who checks it every day. She will flag to me anything that is urgent that I need to either get my eyes on or she needs to ask me the question and I can respond to it.

I have not had email on my phone in probably like six to seven years. I have not had it on my phone. I took the, you can delete the mail app off your phone and. I just never look at it because the second I go in there, the amount of like noise and distraction that I feel is crazy. So I’d rather just not even open it.

I will on a usual week, about once or twice a week, I’ll go in and like bulk respond to everything, but on busy weeks, if I’m launching, or something’s happening, I won’t check my email the whole week. I do have obviously someone in there making sure that there’s nothing urgent, but I. Even if I go in there and I’m not gonna respond to it, when you see emails, it already, your mental attention is on them.

Even after you close out the email, like how many times have you seen a message and then you know that you can’t respond to it right now, so you close it, but then like 20 minutes later, you’re thinking about your response to that message. It’s taking up your mental capacity. I’m always trying to keep my mental focus.

Only on what’s important. There’s so much noise, good and bad around me. There is so many at one time. Messages. You know, social media, text messages, Voxer, slack, email. I try to minimize it as much as possible. And email is just so loud, so I haven’t had it on my phone because I don’t wanna see it. I don’t wanna see it all the time.

I wanna, I, when I go into email, it’s intentional. I’m going in and I’m responding to everything that my team member has left in there for me and I’m out and I will not go in there and, and that’s also. You know, when I have a limited amount of time that I work every day because my day stops and I go train.

And that is a non-negotiable, like non-negotiable that I get into the gym and get my training in. So there are days where that just can’t fit in. That wasn’t the priority checking email. So the, the, the ability to filter out noise also very important as a successful CEO. Okay, the next one, this might surprise you guys.

I thought this would be fun to include in here, and that is I am not techie at all. I think that people assume that I’m really techie because I own a digital company, but I hate. Apps. I hate extra softwares. I don’t wanna learn them. I think that’s what it is for me, is I’m, I like to be as efficient as possible.

I’m very wired for efficiency. And so all these other softwares like Notion and Asana and Basecamp, and I don’t even know all of them. I’m sure they’re great. I don’t use any of ’em. So my team uses Asana. My team uses, you know, softwares to keep things organized. I literally. Use the notes app on my phone for everything.

I’ve got my weekly planning in there, my to-do list. I’ve got a shared note with my nanny. I have stuff with the kids. I put my weekend list when I have stuff to do. I put notes when I read a book. It all lives organized in folders, in my notes app on my phone. It is so simple and it works great for me. I don’t like learning new apps.

It’s why it’s, it’s taken me a bit with AI because. The time investment in learning. It is challenging for me, but I’m not techie. I’m not into the latest app. I’m not into the latest software and like learning and playing around with it. I have friends who are into that and are actually so good at that, and I think it’s a skill and a strength of theirs, but it is not mine.

I prefer as simple as possible, at least amount of noise and the most efficient. So I don’t go in Asana. I don’t use a project management. I don’t personally, my team does. I do not use a project. I will not go in Asana. Like even if there’s a task for me. My direct reports have a document, a Google document, and they put everything they need for me in there.

It all lives in there. Any link to anything. I need to approve a question that they have. You know, we just had, venues for our event. I was reviewing them all. They all live in that document. Simple. So simple for me. Okay. I feel like there’s a theme with these as I’m reading them out and looking at them and the theme is.

I love efficiency. I hate wasting time, and I don’t like a lot of noise. So the next thing about me is that I hate meetings. I am ruthless with keeping meetings off my calendar. I’m also a typical millennial in the sense that I don’t like getting on a phone call. I would rather text or at least send me a voice note, like, why do we have to do a call?

Why do we have to do a 10 minute call? I don’t like it. I am ruthless with this, so I, it takes a lot to get me on a meeting. I have three direct reports and I meet with each of them for 30 minutes a week. We have a leadership meeting that’s one hour a week. I love that meeting actually because that meeting I’m able to brain dump every idea and everything on my mind, and then my team takes it and runs with it and it’s super efficient.

And then yes, sometimes I’m on, I have my mastermind call, but I don’t really consider that a meaning. That feels very different to me. Why I don’t like meetings is this, most of the time people don’t prepare for the meetings and also use it as a place to like process their thoughts. And then it’s just like, you’ve lost me.

If, if we’re on a meeting and you’re starting to like process your thoughts and get things out and you know, screen share and do all that, I’m like. You can do this on your own time and then bring me the completed thought and the opinions, and then we’ll just, that’ll take two minutes. So I am notorious for.

Not wanting meetings and then being very challenging to get on my calendar. They also take a lot of my energy, so for me to show up on a meeting, anything I do, I’m, I’m all in. And so when I show up on a meeting, like it’s a lot of energy output for me and I reserve that energy. However, this can sometimes show up.

As a weakness, because sometimes meetings are good and necessary and, and there are times where there’s been a situation where it’s like, okay, that back and forth could have been resolved in a 10 minute meeting, but I just don’t like them. So I, I’ve built my business to have as minimal meetings as possible.

And I, my favorite days of the week are the days where I have zero calls complete white space, because I can get done. Like if you gimme four hours with nothing to do, but get through my to-do list, I will get done more than anyone could do in a week. Like I just am so focused, so in it, and those are my favorite days.

So I am ruthless. I think the, the takeaway is I am ruthless with my energy and time output. And that is essential to be not just a successful CEO, but a successful CEO who also has the other components in my life. I get asked all the time, if not on a weekly basis, how are you doing all this? How do you have a business and how do you have three kids?

I just interviewed a guest who will be coming out soon. How do you have, she’s like, are you doing okay? Like, how are you doing this much? And I’m like, really? I’m great. It doesn’t feel like too much. I’m just. Extremely streamlined with my time, and I also have a lot of help. I have a lot of support, but I am ruthless with my time and energy because I want to not just have the successful business that’s seven, eight figures one day.

I also wanna train. I wanna be an athlete. I am an athlete, and I am a mom of three who really cares about the quality of time that I spend with my kids. I love to travel. I’m a wife, like I need to check the boxes to my standard in all of those other areas. And have my business, and so therefore, I have to be ruthless with my time and energy output.

All right, the last one on the list, I think this one may surprise you guys, but I think it’s an important conversation to have. I do not currently have a high paying business coach one-on-one. So someone asked me this recently and I was like, this is, this is something I wanna share. It’s probably been about three or four years since I’ve had a one-on-one coach.

And I think there’s a season. There’s a season where this is a necessary thing. There’s a season where this may not be a helpful investment, and I’m in a. Season where this is what I feel is the most helpful for my own business growth. First, investing in myself personally, so things like going to Joe Dispenza events, going to retreats, working on my, my nervous system, my system, my beliefs, how I show up.

My programming, because that impacts me as a leader. It impacts me as a person, as a mom. Every category gets impacted when I invest in that. So I’ve spent the last two years really seriously investing in that, both in big and small ways like that could look like, you know, spending time reading a book, it can look like going to a retreat.

The Joe Dispenza event. I mean, you bet that’s going to massively, massively grow my company because of how I show up. So investing time in that. And then also com surrounding myself in a community of entrepreneurs who are at least at my level or above, so that they can challenge my perspective. They can give me different feedback and thoughts.

They’re doing different things than me, but they also understand the level that I’m at. So I am in a mastermind with where the qualification to be in the Mastermind is a $3 million plus business, and it’s a mix of monthly calls. It’s very community oriented. There’s not like a leader of the mastermind who’s teaching everybody.

It is community oriented. There’s. Events they bring in speakers. It’s very focused on surrounding yourself with the network, and that’s very impactful for me. So having that, that’s one of the reasons I have a mastermind myself that I offer people because I think that yes, I can lead it, but also the community of other entrepreneurs that are at a similar level or ideally above you is really powerful.

And then the other thing is. A one-on-one coach at this level can get very expensive. Like you’re looking at, you know, I was paying my coach three years ago, $10,000 a month, and so I mean, that’s $120,000 a year. And I find that right now, putting that money back into my team and hiring a high caliber of people, especially my leadership team.

And then growing my company. So through ad spend and marketing and actually increasing, you know, our, our footprint is the best use of my, my money. So would it be nice to have a one-on-one coach, you know, at 120 plus thousand dollars a year? Sure. It’s not gonna hurt. Is it the best use of my investment right now?

No, I think that the most important thing. Is that you are challenging your perspective. You are putting yourself in rooms with people who have done already what you wanna do, built what you wanna build, you’re inspired by them, and you are, you’re, you’re being questioned to think differently. So I’m very intentional with that, both with the mastermind, but also friends that I hang out with in Austin and just.

The overall community that I build, and then that you have support with specific things that you need. So if you’re trying to do something specific, launch a podcast or add a physical product to your business or something very specific. I think getting a mentor who’s already done that is extremely impactful.

I think that in the beginning phases of business, when you’re doing things that are really new. And you’ve never done them before. A one-on-one coach can be really helpful. Like when I started building my team, you know, eight years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. Like no idea, no idea. Business structure, org chart, meeting, cadences, SOPs, any of that.

And so I had a one-on-one coach for a long time. It became a good friend of mine during that season. And then, you know, I kind of graduated and moved to the next season. So there’s no right or wrong. There’s definitely no right or wrong, but I think that as long as you check the boxes of you’re not trying to figure something out all on your own.

When you could hire somebody who’s already done it and shortcut your success, your investment is going into what’s going to grow the company the most right now. Understanding that growing you is probably the biggest needle mover, and then putting yourselves in rooms with people who are ahead of you.

And the bigger your business gets, the more challenging that is. And typically the more you have to invest in that because people who are up higher are gonna be in communities and groups that are more expensive. I just saw, there’s this guy I follow, Jesse Itzler. He’s married to, Sarah Blakely, and he has a three day mastermind in his $15,000 to go out to his house.

And, I don’t know, three days of, of basically access to him in different events and stuff. And I almost signed up because I was like, that is gonna be a caliber of incredible entrepreneurs. One, because they can afford the 15 grand ticket, but also, I mean, Jesse Itzler and Sarah Blakeley are like billionaires and just getting a day of their perspective would be incredible.

But I couldn’t make the dates work. Didn’t pull the trigger this time, but just an example of where my thought process is in terms of where I invest and every time I’ve poured back into myself, my own leadership. Beliefs, programming my energy, how I show up, it is never not paid off. All of this is one of the reasons why I structure my support the way that I do when I help entrepreneurs.

It’s not, Hey, meet with me one-on-one and I am the savior who you listen to. It’s let’s. Grow you the way you think that your beliefs, the way you show up, the way you lead all of that, and then let’s bring you in a community that challenges your perspective. I think that’s really important. And the more you grow your business, the more intentional you have to get with that, because everybody’s got an opinion, but do you want their opinion?

So. Those are six things about me that may or may not have surprised you. I would love to hear which one you like the most. If you wanna send me a message on Instagram, I read all of your guys’ messages, and I don’t say this often on the podcast, but if you enjoy this podcast, if you enjoy the new format of this podcast, it would mean the world if you went and left a review.

Wherever you listen and tune in. Thank you so much you guys for tuning in. I’ll talk to you guys next time.