How to Work and Rest? Gref, Durov, Storonsky Answer
How much time to spend on work, what to do on vacation, when to go on a trip for 9 months or take a “half vacation” - in a selection of statements by German Gref, Leonid Boguslavsky, Igor Rybakov, as well as other entrepreneurs and top managers
Pavel Durov
The founder of VKontakte and Telegram follows rather strict rules and restrictions in his daily life. So, in 2020, he shared with the subscribers of his channel a list of seven principles that help you stay younger. Some of them are pretty obvious: get more sleep, don’t overeat, avoid stress, and exercise regularly. In addition, Durov completely abandoned alcohol (in his opinion, he “like all substances that cause addiction, deprives you of health and ages in appearance”) and has not eaten meat for many years. The last piece of advice, to live alone, provoked a controversial reaction. “Surprisingly, all the young-looking middle-aged people with whom I spoke lived most of their lives alone,” the entrepreneur explained. - Perhaps this is the result of their independence from the food, behavioral habits and daily routine of another person. Or is it just a correlation and people
A year later, on his 37th birthday, Durov also published a list of the three most underestimated and seven most overrated things in life. Sleep, nature and - again - loneliness fell into the first category. The second part included megacities (“sources of pollution, crime and noise”), restaurants (“the slowest and most inefficient way to eat”), hot climate (“risk of cancer and rapid aging”), fashion (“expensive and useless”), real estate (“restricts freedom of choice and generally a controversial investment”), social networks (“a constant stream of garbage that clogs the mind”) and celebrity tips. “Famous people often give unfounded recommendations that are not related to their area of expertise,” Durov writes. “When it comes to important life decisions, it’s best to rely on science and expert opinion.”
German Gref
The life of the head of Sberbank is subject to a tough schedule. “When I’m at home, I usually wake up at ten minutes to six, read for an hour, sign mail, go to the gym at seven,” Gref said in an interview. - I run for half an hour, go out to take my daughters to school, and return to the simulators for the second part of the classes - strength. Then I put myself in order, have breakfast and go to work. Till late evening". He admitted that although he tries to spend more time with his family (for example, he always tries to have breakfast with children), work is still in the first place for him.
It is known that Gref loves to read at his leisure and encourages his subordinates to do this: he regularly compiles collections of useful books for Sberbank employees. “I usually read three or four books a month. I simply don’t have time anymore, although I know the technique of speed reading, I specially studied it", said Gref. He reads everything that seems interesting to him, he does not have certain literary predilections: Gref himself considers this a consequence of a “complex of undereducation”.
Sergei Solonin
Qiwi co-founder and ex-CEO Sergey Solonin has been married for over 20 years and has five children. However, his workaholism almost cost him family happiness. “If you ask, many will say: “For me, family comes first.” In fact, we often turn into hostages of our work, the entrepreneur reflects. - At first, you seem to work to earn money and sort of like for the family. And then you become addicted to it.” When it became obvious that a divorce was close, Solonin made a radical decision: he left with his family on a trip around the world for 9 months to try to save the relationship.
Later, Solonin admitted that he was afraid to leave the company for such a long time, but he gradually calmed down and realized that all the worries were just a figment of his imagination. As a result, for all the time the entrepreneur had only a few times to connect to especially important calls. The purpose of the trip was achieved - the family crisis was overcome. “When I left, I had the idea that there is a life-work balance - a balance between work and life, and I need to figure out how to achieve it,” Solonin explained. - How much time to pinch off from one part to transfer to another. Now I understand that the point is not so much in the amount of time spent with the family, but in quality. Work Solonin now considers only one of the elements of self-realization.
Igor Rybakov
Billionaire Igor Rybakov is sure that increasing the number of working hours for the sake of achieving success is not the best strategy. It is suitable only in the first five years of a career, when you need to “cling” to any opportunities. “This is a path that will lead to wear and tear and dead ends. It’s already close to the coffin,” he says. Rybakov advises either to increase efficiency, that is, to do more in the same time, or to increase efficiency; he adds that in this case, one should not think about money, but about the benefits to others. Usually this is an entrepreneurial path, which, however, also requires a lot of dedication at the start. Finally, the best option is “effectiveness”, the maximum result at a minimum cost, when it becomes possible to delegate important tasks to trusted persons or find partners (for example, to scale a business).
After the start of the pandemic, Rybakov switched to remote work. He says that keeping the usual regimen helped him not to relax. A businessman gets up at 7:30 and goes to bed at one in the morning, and even at home he follows a work dress code - this helps to create a working atmosphere. “In order to separate work time and leisure time, make rules that will be known to everyone in the house. I have it simple - I do not work before breakfast and after dinner. The rest of the time, you can’t count on me at home", advises Rybakov. He also recommends that those who work remotely do 15 minutes of exercise daily to make up for the lack of physical activity.
Nikolai Storonsky
The creator of Revolut works very hard on his own and tries to select the same workaholics for his team. “Engagement score correlates very strongly with the amount of time he spends. Therefore, I consider such an indirect factor", he explained. According to the entrepreneur, if a person loves his work, if he treats it as a hobby, then he is not in danger of burnout.
Storonsky adheres to a clear schedule. He gets up at six in the morning, starts working at eight, and finishes around 21:30. “I have meetings from Monday to Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday I try not to have any meetings. But it doesn’t always work out,” says the entrepreneur. He also plays sports every day - either in the morning or in the afternoon. Storonsky admits that he does not read the news, since for him this is “extra informational noise” and a waste of time, and all the most important things are already told to him by friends and colleagues. In his spare time he reads, but also not for entertainment: usually these are books that can be useful in work, not fiction. “I am interested in reading about entrepreneurs, learning how companies were built. Why were some things successful and others not? Books, of course, greatly distort history, because it is not written by the entrepreneurs themselves, but by someone for them. After reading two or three such books, you can already understand some patterns of success,” explains Storonsky. He considers sports and good sleep to be the best remedy for accumulated fatigue, and also tries to go on vacation for a week every four months. However, he prefers to spend it actively: Storonsky has long been fond of kitesurfing and hiking.
Leonid Boguslavsky
Venture investor and entrepreneur Leonid Boguslavsky also likes to play sports in his spare time: since 2013 he has been involved in triathlon. The craze began with a friend’s gift of triathlete Chris McCormack’s I’m Here to Win. “After this book, I wanted to test my endurance. I came to the sports club and did the first Olympics in my life: swimming - 1.5 km, biking - 40 km and running - 10 km. After that, I decided to train with a coach", recalls Boguslavsky. That same year, at the age of 62, he entered his first Ironman race and, to his own surprise, finished third in his age group. “I remember a feeling of real happiness, similar to what I experienced in the eighth grade when I won the All-Union Mathematics Olympiad. Happiness comes from the fact that you understand: you can be stronger than others, and you have come to the goal,
Now Boguslavsky is 70 years old, he has five Ironman races and 20 triathlon starts in total. He believes that sport changes a person’s attitude to stress and helps to strengthen willpower. “Such a sport trains endurance, and for me endurance is synonymous with will. Triathletes constantly find themselves in situations in which they have to overcome themselves", explains Boguslavsky. In addition, thanks to sports, he made many new friends and acquaintances. “Because these events are often expensive, triathlons are addicted to established people, many of whom are entrepreneurs. One day, the legendary American investor from Russia Partners, Drew Guff, found out that I was involved in Ironman, and sent me a letter saying that he was also his fan, after that we moved to a new level of communication", he says. Passion for sports resulted in two of his new projects:
Arkady Novikov
Restaurateur Arkady Novikov says that he usually does not sleep for more than seven or eight hours: he goes to bed before midnight (but not later than one or two in the morning), and usually gets up at six or seven in the morning. He usually starts work immediately after breakfast. A personal assistant helps Novikov keep track of the schedule, affairs and meetings: he believes that there is nothing worse in business than not keeping a promise. “If you want to succeed in business, in business, you must not forget anything. In my entire career, maybe just a couple of times I didn’t do something that I promised", he notes. In his free time, Novikov goes in for sports, writes poetry, and spends about half an hour a day on Instagram (the organization is recognized as extremist and banned in the Russian Federation), where he communicates with subscribers and visitors to his restaurants.
Novikov says that earlier work took his whole life, but now he is trying to devote more time to rest. “I really enjoyed this life. Nothing else simply existed. And in recent years I have felt certain changes in myself, and work has become just work for me. Now I want to rest,” he says. Novikov takes short vacations several times a year, and in an interview he said that he once gave himself a “big half-vacation”. The restaurateur explained that he “did not completely disconnect from work, but for two or three months the phone worked only for outgoing calls.”
Sources: TASS , Forbes, The Bell, Sekret Firmy, GQ, VC.ru, Pavel Durov’s Telegram channel, Igor Rybakov’s YouTube channel.