Weekly 40 Hour Kit by Fabiano Abreu Ott

The journey of growing your business without grinding 24/7.

40 Hour Kit: Hold a Meeting With Your Heroes

(Here for the subject line? Find it in the 🚀 Challenge section)

Hey Reader,

Entrepreneur and investor Naval Ravikant once recommended treating your bookshelf like a collection in which you can pick up whatever book that you feel like reading, without committing to reading it from start to finish.
Inspired by him, I recently started to reread a few books that really shaped my thinking over the last couple of years. One of them was 'The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People' by Stephen Covey. Can't wait to experience how it inspires me six years after reading it for the first time.

What's the book that has shaped your (founder) journey the most?
Would love to hear about your recommendation.

Let's get into your 40 Hour Kit of the week:

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💡 Entrepreneurial Insight

Don't pay a flat fee to the people who help you grow. Pay them a share of everything above your target. Applies to you hiring agencies, freelancers or salespersons. If you stop buying effort and start buying outcomes, their incentive is to create more value, not to bill more hours.

Based on an insight from Nick Kokonas (co-founder of Alinea and the restaurant-tech platform Tock) on the 'Tim Ferriss Show'.

⚖️ Balance Hack

Before your next sprint, ask yourself one honest question: what's actually fueling this? Many high achievers are driven by old scarcity or a deep need to prove something to someone. It works, until it burns them out.
You don't have to stop your drive. Just name the fuel honestly, then choose a cleaner one: curiosity, craft, or the life you're actually trying to build.

Inspired by performance psychologist Gio Valiante (who coaches elite athletes and investors) on 'The Knowledge Project'.

🚀 Challenge

This week, hold a meeting with your heroes about the challenge you're struggling with.

1. Name the decision. One real thing you've been putting off: a price change, a hire, a pivot.
2. "Invite" three people you admire. A mentor, a founder you respect, or someone historical. Can be anyone famous or personal, alive or not.
3. Write the meeting. Give yourself 15 minutes and write what each of them would tell you to do, in their own voice.

You'd be surprised how much clarity you can gain from this exercise.

Based on the 'Invisible Counsellors' method in Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich.​

✨ Recommendation

The 'operating system' used to help thousands of founders stop firefighting. Here's the version that matters most for a bootstrapped founder:

1. Run on six components. Vision, people, data, issues, process, traction. Most business problems are just one of these six being weak.
2. Set 90-day Rocks. Pick 3–5 priorities for the quarter and let the rest wait.
3. Right people, right seats. A great person in the wrong role still drags. Define the seat first, then find the person.
4. Put the vision on one page. If your direction doesn't fit on a single sheet your team can repeat back, it isn't clear yet.
5. End meetings with decisions, not updates. Keep one weekly meeting whose only job is to solve issues, not to report status.

Based on Traction by Gino Wickman (creator of the Entrepreneurial Operating System, EOS).

❓ Question for you to ask another Entrepreneur

If you handed your business to someone you deeply respect for one week, what's the first thing you'd be embarrassed for them to see?

Have a productive week!

-Fabiano

Grow together with other founders - without sacrificing your lifestyle.

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​Read past 40 Hour Kits here.