Over the past few years, I’ve been coaching my eldest son at soccer. This has been one of the most inspiring and exciting experiences I’ve lived with my son. Each year, I have the habit of giving funny nicknames to my players. It makes the kids laugh and creates good team spirit. Over the year, I’ve called my own son Big Bill the Train on the soccer field (his real name is William ) . There is a reason why he got this nickname. Just like a real train, he often takes a while to get up to full speed. While he shows amazing speed and strength on the field; he rarely use it during the first half of the game. However, once the train has started, there is nothing to stop him. Like a train, he will go through the field and never slow down until he reaches his goal. I’m trying to inspire myself from how he plays and become more like a productivity train.

I probably take more breaks than most people – as I’m working harder

When I see my son not giving a full effort at the beginning of a game, it always gets me as a father, but also as a coach. However, I must admit the apple didn’t fall off far too from the tree; I’m the kind of guy who takes lots of “time off” and doesn’t work very hard. I know that my “talent” can compensate for a good part of it and I don’t need to work as hard as my colleagues. Or more specifically, I just work better.

I love my breaks as much as I love to work hard. From September to December, I gave an additional push to my company. The results were amazing while I saw an increase in our revenue almost double between August and November. This is why I barely did nothing in December and simply surfed on my website successes.

Lesson #1: if you work hard, you must take even more rest

During last fall, I was working 2 nights from 8pm to midnight and going to bed around 1am since I couldn’t go to sleep right away. At the same time, I was working full time about 40 hours a week and waking up each morning at 5:45 am to have enough time to run 6km before going to work. Needless to say I was dead before the Holidays. But instead of working at the same pace all the time, I simply took a huge break of an entire month after a rush of 3 months hard work. This method enables me to give an extra effort as I know it is temporary and that I will allow myself some time off to recover and also enjoy the progress I’ve made so far. I’m now up for another round of hard work over 3-4 months before I leave for my RV trip!