He cut his hours in half.

Built his whole business around being home for his kids.

Stopped taking clients who could text him at night.

And then his eight year old son told his mum ”dad works all the time.”

That moment broke Jerry Potter. And it sent him down a path that changed everything.

Because here's the thing nobody tells you when you go self-employed.

You can do less and still feel like more.

You can be physically present and completely absent.

You can build the life you wanted for your family and still have them experience you as gone.

That gap. That's what this episode is about.

Jerry Potter is the founder of Done By Lunch. He helps self-employed business owners grow a lead-generating YouTube channel in 90 minutes a week so they can actually stop working at noon and mean it.

In this conversation, we go deep on the stuff that actually matters.

Why working less isn't about discipline. It's about design.

Why separating decisions from actions is the single most powerful productivity shift he's ever made.

Why recovering people pleasers and recovering perfectionists are running most self-employed businesses straight into the ground?

And why nobody ever knocks off at lunchtime when they're quietly terrified about next month.

If any of this resonates, I created a free audit that shows you what's actually running the show underneath all of it.

Ten minutes. No fluff. Just clarity.

Take it here: https://illimitable.co.uk/lifeaudit

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Follow on The Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theillimitablepodcast

Subscribe so you never miss an episode: @theillimitablepodcast

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Connect with Jerry Potter:

Website: https://donebylunch.co

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/mrjerrypotter

Instagram: https://instagram.com/mrjerrypotter

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0:00 — His son said dad works all the time. He was doing 25 hours a week.

0:29 — How Jerry got Andy off his backside and started this podcast

2:23 — Why 90% of podcasts are dead by episode 3

3:05 — The vulnerability hangover of putting yourself out there

4:13 — From shy introverted kid to radio presenter

5:09 — How a stranger on LinkedIn accidentally launched his business

6:09 — The moment that changed everything

7:28 — The hardest thing about entrepreneurship nobody warns you about

8:40 — Stop the to-do list. Start the high leverage list.

10:27 — Building your business as the opposite of everything you hated

11:46 — How Done By Lunch actually started (it began with a Friday lunch date)

13:25 — Parkinson's Law and why AI is quietly making it worse

14:42 — Using AI on a morning hike to move ideas forward before 6am

16:17 — Doing the same thing on the beach with the dogs

18:35 — The Ask Jeeves conspiracy theory

19:00 — Superman, superhero t-shirts and why optimism is a superpower

20:12 — Jerry's kryptonite (he runs his business on vibes)

22:46 — The emotional trauma of watching your unsubscribes

24:08 — What work life harmony actually means

27:42 — What Jerry wishes he knew when he became an entrepreneur

28:17 — Separate decisions from actions and watch everything change

30:09 — The Ted Lasso parenting lesson that actually works

32:34 — The one song that makes every single day feel like a vacation