Hollis Johnson/Business Insider
Jeff Raider is Harry's cofounder and co-CEO.
- In the midst of running Harry's, a razor company, cofounder and co-CEO Jeff Raider schedules personal time.
- At times work is all-consuming for Raider, and he realized setting aside time was important for his psyche, his ability to work in the long run, and his family.
- Scheduling personal time helps Raider divide his time fairly so he can positively influence every aspect of his life.
In the midst of running Harry's, a razor company, cofounder and co-CEO Jeff Raider schedules personal time in his calendar.
Harry's was founded in 2013 by Raider and co-CEO Andy Katz-Mayfield. The brand has five million active customers and has raised nearly half a billion dollars. In 2017, the company raised $112 million.
"When you have your own company, you realize that the work never stops," he said on an episode of Business Insider's podcast "This Is Success." "There's always more you can do. There's always more you can do to push the company forward. There's always more that you can do to be more responsive to the team."
He continued: "Work could just fill every second."
So he turned to the calendar. "I started to schedule personal time, and realized that that's really important, both for my own psyche and sort of an ability to do this in the long term, and for my family, ensuring that I can spend a lot of time with my kids, because it's something that I want to do for the next 20 years," he said.
"In 20 years, my kids are going to be grown up," he continued. "And so I need, then, to be able to have built in the time where I feel like I can, hopefully, be a good dad to them as I go through the journey."
When asked how he defines success in his life, Raider said he considers his company's impact on the world, and his own. "I think about impact in concentric circles," he said. For him, that first circle is his family. "How can I make sure that I'm being a good dad, and a good role model for my kids, and making my kids know that I love them, and that I'm there for them?" he continued.
Then, he considers the circles of friends, coworkers, customers, community, and the larger world of business.
"So there are lots of different layers of impact, and I try to positively influence all of them. And probably where I struggle most in my life is, like, where do you dial in these different things, because I tend to sort of like ideas, and like being around people," Raider said. "And sometimes, I can kind of get carried away in one direction or another, and have to kind of come back to that core equation."
He added: "What I've had to learn in the last few years is, how do I then create the balance in my life to enable this job to be sustainable for me?"