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Recently I had the distinct pleasure of speaking with fellow entrepreneur, Stephen Warley. Stephen hosts the Life Skills That Matter podcast, which focuses on empowering people to rethink the way they work and consider work in the context of their overall lifestyles.

Have you ever been in a conversation with someone who says one special thing that turns on a light bulb inside of your head? This was one such occasion.

Stephen and I were talking about my story, then his story, and then we got into a discussion about the nature of work. I agreed wholeheartedly that the nature of work has changed in our digital world, and that all people - not only entrepreneurs - have more options than ever before. Then he said something that was utterly brilliant: He described how he had come to peace with the fact that he has optimal times of day that he can get work done, and other times of day when he can't focus nearly as well.

I myself have been tossing this dichotomy around in my head for the past year or so, but my thoughts went a bit more like this: "Why the hell can't I get myself together at 3:47pm on a Thursday? What's wrong with me??" I had an inkling that, like Stephen, my mind and body were dictating a natural rhythm of sorts for how I work best. But, I wasn't so intuitive that I could definitively recognize or embrace it. Instead, I was fighting it. Hard. I blamed it on my turning 30 (the horror!), I blamed it on my lack of sleep the night before, and I blamed it on the fact that I had consumed homemade slow-cooker chili for three nights in a row (which I did, and it was delicious, by the way).

When Stephen asked me, "when do you do your best work?" I immediately knew the answer: between 8am and 1pm. I didn't even hesitate. I knew. Why, then, was I fighting it? Why not embrace it, as Stephen had, and stack my mornings full of strategy sessions, writing and critical thinking work so I could focus on more human activities later, like meeting with colleagues, checking in with projects, and doing some reading and learning? Ultimately, it took Stephen's light bulb-inducing moment to make me understand my natural rhythm and accept that I should simply go with the flow.

All I needed to optimize my day was to listen. Listening to my natural daily rhythm was easy, once I realized that I was subconsciously trying to tell myself something important. Sometimes, the simplest conversations can produce the most prolific changes in how we understand ourselves. Thank you, Stephen!

Now, it's 9:20 AM. Time to go back to work!

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