The following is an excerpt from The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth & Purpose
by Robert Pagliarini. Copyright © 2010 Other 8 Hours, LLC All Rights Reserved. The book tells people to live life to the fullest by radically changing the way they spend “The Other 8 Hours” – the 8 hours not spent sleeping or working.
Your day doesn’t start when you crawl out of bed. Your day—and even your life—doesn’t really start until 5:00PM. What you’ve done with your time after 5:00PM last week, last month, and last year has determined where you are today. How you use the other 8 hours today, tomorrow, and next year will determine your future—they are your only hope to radically improve your life. The 8 hours you sleep are lost. The 8 hours you sell for a paycheck are gone. What you have—really, all you have—are the other 8 hours. Life not only happens in those the other 8 hours, but life is the other 8 hours.
Where you work, the size of your paycheck, the amount of debt you have, what you weigh, the number of people you can count on to help you in an emergency, your connection to God, the relationship you have with your spouse and children, and just about everything else that is meaningful to you is the result of how you’ve used the other 8 hours.
Look at each of the areas below to see the profound effect the other 8 hours has had:
Family
Even if you met your partner/spouse at work (I did), you needed to put time and energy into it after work if you wanted it to grow and mature. The dates you went on, long walks, and falling in love all occurred during the other 8 hours. Even the disagreements and arguments that make you the couple you are today occurred after 5:00PM.
If you have children, surely their conception and maybe their birth occurred during the other 8 hours. All of the diapers you changed, Elmo you watched, and homework you’ve helped complete—all of the things you did to build connections with your children today—wouldn’t have happened if it were not for the other 8 hours.
The reason my daughter runs up and hugs me when I come home from work is because of the other 8 hours I’ve “invested” in her (then again, it’s probably the M&M’s I bribed her with).
The love (and yes, the lack of love) your spouse and children feel toward you are entirely because of how you have spent the other 8 hours. The connection you feel toward your siblings and parents are based largely on what you’ve done during the other 8 hours. If you invested them wisely, you probably have some good relationships. If you didn’t, you probably don’t.
Relationships
The 9 to 5 working hours are a great time to meet people and develop friendships. I met most of my non-childhood friends while working. It’s no surprise. We come into contact with more people and for longer periods during working hours than we do at any other time of the day. But to convert your work relationships into real friendships, you have to spend some of your other 8 hours hanging out and getting to know those people on a different level. It’s one thing to chat about the latest American Idol contestant to be voted off around the water cooler or to relive Sunday’s big game in the lunchroom, but it’s an entirely different thing to share a drink or dinner with someone and really get to know them. Your close friends—regardless of where you met them—became your friends during the other 8 hours.
Physical Health
The notch you use in your belt, how out of breath you feel after climbing a flight of stairs, and how comfortable you are in a bathing suit are almost entirely dependent on how you have used the other 8 hours. What you choose to eat for breakfast, dinner, desert, and snacks are usually during the other 8 hours. If you’ve chosen wisely, it shows. Do you exercise? If so, when? While you sleep? No. While you work? No. During the other 8 hours? Yup.
Personal Growth
This category includes your hobbies, educational pursuits, travel, reading, art, and other activities that you find enriching and are passionate about. One of my hobbies is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and mixed martial arts. I’m not very good, but I enjoy it and I’m better than when I started. I also enjoy learning Spanish (even though those verbs confuse me). Another of my favorite pastimes? Reading. My clients wouldn’t appreciate it, and I wouldn’t be very successful if I spent my hours between 9 and 5 practicing Jiu Jitsu, learning Spanish, and reading books. No, I can only do these things that I love and am passionate about—these things that help define me as a person—during the other 8 hours.
Spirituality
Your spirituality and faith should follow you wherever you go—during work and during the other 8 hours. But, unless your 9 to 5 job is in ministry, chances are your spiritual growth and deepest connection to God occur during church/temple, small group meetings, Bible study, chanting, volunteering, meditation, or whatever.
Financial Health
Surely your financial health is the direct result of the hours between 9 and 5. It is during this time that you work and earn a paycheck. Your paycheck determines your financial health, right? Not so fast. Obviously your working hours play a significant role in your finances, but you might be surprised at the role the other 8 hours play in the size of your bank account.
Your financial health is determined by just two things . . . your income and your expenses. That’s it. No more, no less. Your income is based on what you do for a living and how well you do it. The best sno-cone maker in the world may make a fine sno-cone, but her choice of occupation limits her financial success. Likewise, a brain surgeon who botches every surgery isn’t going to be very financially successful either.
What you do for a living is based on hundreds of factors . . . where you grew up, your intelligence, your parents’ encouragement, your personality, your interests, chance, etc. What you do for a living also depends on if you graduated high school, if you spent the extra years getting an advanced degree, if you took online courses or night classes to earn an important industry designation, how hard you studied, and your personal network of friends and acquaintances. It is these factors—those that you can control—that have a huge impact on what you do between the hours of 9 and 5. And guess what? All of these other factors are the direct result of how you have spent the other 8 hours.
So the other 8 hours have a huge impact on our income, but what about the other half of the financial health equation . . . our expenses? You guessed it. Your expenses are the result of the decisions you make during the other 8 hours. How much you choose to spend on rent, the type of car you drive, the clothes you buy, the entertainment you experience, and the toys you purchase aren’t decisions you usually make while we are working, and they definitely aren’t decisions you make while sleeping. Every single one of these spending decisions—and thousand of others, both big and small—occur during the other 8 hours.
Still aren’t convinced? I need you to buy into just how important the other 8 hours are. If you read this book with the same skepticism you have when you read those tabloid headlines in line at the grocery, it’s not going to work. Go ahead. Drink the Kool Aid. Because once you do—once you realize the power the other 8 hours has had on your life—you will respect and appreciate the power that the other 8 hours can have on your life.
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