Why Does Growing My Business Mean More Hours?

We all hear this message so often.

As though you are a lesser-than-entrepreneur if you don't fork over your priceless, non-returnable hours of your life to feed this monster of a business.

It's not true, and it's not the only way to grow.

Direct Answer: I joke that my business is like the famous grapes of the Napa Valley. The grapes that make the best wines are put on a water starvation diet. They're on a drip system. Fed little drops of water. Because that makes the best grapes for award-winning wine. I've done the same for my business: doled out little bits of my attention and time, and asked big things of my business. And for the most part, my business has complied and given me success and clients. Year after year.

The Belief That Keeps Getting Repeated

As though you are a lesser-than-entrepreneur if you don't fork over your priceless, non-returnable hours of your life to feed this monster of a business that you've created.

If you're not working longer than the entrepreneur next to you...

If you're not putting in more hours than the measly 60 hours/week that you're already pulling...

Then, you're not worthy.

BOLLOCKS. You were born worthy. You'll always be worthy.

This is a myth and I'll prove it to you.

Let's dig in.

Why Working More Feels Like a Moral Duty

Sociologist Max Weber traced this belief back to Calvinism in his 1905 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Calvinists believed salvation was predetermined and couldn't be earned through good behavior, which created real anxiety: if you couldn't earn your way to salvation, how would you ever know you were saved?

Hard work, thrift, and worldly success got read as evidence of God's favor, not just practical habits but signs of being chosen.

And somewhere along the way, Americans, in particular, adopted this belief.

My guess is because many of the founding members of America were part of this Christian religion.

Weber's point wasn't that people worked hard in order to get rich. Rather, it's that working hard, and being seen working hard, became a way to prove your own worth to yourself.

That's the belife that's outlasted the theology: overwork became one of the few culturally acceptable ways left to demonstrate you deserve good things.

You don't just work to live.

You work to prove you're allowed to live.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Protestant work ethic";The Conversation, "Why do we think hard work is virtuous?"

Where the "Hustle Harder" Myth Comes From

Before the Industrial Revolution, most work was tied to daylight and the seasons, not a fixed number of hours.

Farmers worked while there was light and stopped when there wasn't. Artisans set their own pace.

That changed when factories arrived.

Factory owners wanted their machines running as close to 24/7 as possible, since machines didn't get tired the way people did. Workdays of 10 to 16 hours became standard, six days a week, and child labor was common.

The 8-hour day wasn't handed down by employers as a productivity discovery.

Rather, it was fought for, against employers, by workers.

Robert Owen, a Welsh factory owner turned labor reformer, coined the slogan "eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest" in the early 1800s.

In 1866, the National Labor Union became the first national organization in the US to formally call for an 8-hour workday. It took until 1933, under FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act, for the 8-hour day to become a national legal standard in the United States, nearly 70 years after that first campaign.

So the 8-hour work day was never a scientific finding about how many hours a person needs to be productive.

That 8-hours was a labor-rights ceiling, won specifically to stop industrialists from working people to exhaustion.

The idea that hustling past 8 hours/work is a mark of your character isn't a return to some deeper work ethic.

It's the exact thing the 8-hour day was fighting against.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Eight-hour day movement";Civics For Life, "The Development of the 8-Hour Workday"

What Content Marketing Actually Costs, in Hours

If you're posting on LinkedIn, you're spending 10 hours a week on posts that get 4 likes while your competitor (who can barely spell) just landed another $15K client through partnerships.

Not to mention, that online service providers who cite content marketing as their main marketing strategy also note that burnout is a big, real monster in their lives.

Content creators report high burnout rates broadly. An astounding 52% in one 2025 study, which, frankly, scares the bejesus out of me.

And the workload doesn't disappear just because you're running it for your own business instead of a client's.

What Grows Your Business (Not Working More Hours)

It's not about how many hours we put in, or if I work the equivalent of a salaried person's week in the space of a month, or if a dude in a suit and tie works 3x that in a week.

What matters is what you do with the time you've been allotted.

How well are you using this priceless life and particular collection of abilities and skills of yours that you've been given?

I love how Scott Galloway phrases it in his book, The Algebra of Wealth:

"Work for work's sake is economic masturbation."

He goes on to argue that people often use working hard as an excuse — for ignoring their partner, neglecting their health, or being cruel and exploitative. (Source)

A Stanford study by economist John Pencavel backs this up with data.

Productivity per hour declines sharply once someone works past 50 hours a week, and falls so much past 55 hours that additional hours produce almost nothing.

People working 70-hour weeks get roughly the same output as those working 55.

There's no point in working more than 55 hours a week.

Part of the reason is that genuine focused output has a much smaller ceiling than a workweek does.

And if you're doing deep work -- or work that requires deep mental concentration -- then you don't need anywhere near 55 hours a week.

Instead, you need about 3-4 hours of true, undistracted concentration, according to research done by deep work expert Cal Newport and psychologist Anders Ericsson.

Past that point, the same hour of "work" produces sharply less.

A 10-hour day stacked with meetings and email doesn't contain 10 hours of that kind of output.

It might contain 2 or 3.

I saw this happen first-hand in the second year of my business when I cut down my available working hours from 8-9 hrs/day to 1-2 hours/day.

And I saw my productivity soar.

I got more done in that 1 hour than I had in 7 hours of work.

It was incredible.

Because I showed up for that hour of work with the gas pedal smashed down to the floor, and when that hour was finished, I was done.

No more brain exhaustion and trying to work through it.

Sources:CNBC, "Stanford study: Long hours don't make you more productive";Asana, "Deep Work: Meaning, Benefits, and 7 Ways to Focus Today"

FAQ

Do I need to work more hours to grow my business?

No, that's an insidious myth. It's not about how many hours we put in. Rather, it's about what you do with the time you've been allotted and how well did you use it.

A business built on precision doesn't require proportionally more hours to produce more revenue.

Why do I feel guilty for not working as many hours as other founders?

Because you are told you're a lesser-than-entrepreneur if you don't fork over your priceless, non-returnable hours of your life.

That message is common, repeated constantly.

And it's nonsense.

What's the actual cost of content marketing as a growth strategy?

You're spending 10 hours a week on LinkedIn posts that get 4 likes while your competitor just landed another $15K client through partnerships.

Hours spent don't guarantee results as an entrepreneur or small business owner.

Is there evidence that restricting working hours can still produce growth?

Yes, I've done the same for my business: doled out little bits of my attention and time, and asked big things of my business.

And for the most part, my business has complied. Year after year for the last decade.

If this resonated, your next read is Why Can't I Just Use ChatGPT for My Cold Emails?