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July 7, 2023 57 mins

In this episode, Eric and Jenny explore the concept of heart-based decision-making in business and in life. They also delve into ideas about redefining success, learning to trust and follow your intuition, as well as getting comfortable with awkwardness and discomfort.We also discuss How to Find More Free Time and…

  • Defining heart-based business and heart-based living
  • Understanding that stress is a systems problem
  • How we can create systems to combat decision fatigue
  • The importance of learning to let go of control
  • The often missing and important metric of time to-revenue ratio
  • Examining the energetic time blueprint
  • Learning to trust and follow intuition
  • Why we need to embrace imperfection

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We all know that good habits are ways that we
bring what we value into the world, and we each
have our own list of what matters to us. Maybe
you want to feel more energetic, improve your relationships, have
a tidy your home, cook more instead of eating out
four nights a week. Whatever habit you want to build,
it's entirely possible to make it happen. But if you
feel under equipped and overwhelmed to make real sustainable change,

(00:22):
you are not alone. And that's why I've made my
free masterclass open to everyone and available to watch any time.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Now.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
It's called Habits that Stick. How to be remarkably consistent
no matter what goal you set. You can grab it
at oneufeed dot net slash habits. Again, it's free and
you can watch it whenever it works for you. Go
to one you feed dot net slash habits.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Control can be a hungry ghost because you'll never have
enough of it. It will never actually soothe the existential
discomfort of whatever it is trying to be in relationship
or trying to be in the world, trying to be
in your career.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't

(01:29):
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks

(02:03):
for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Jenny Blake,
an author, podcaster, and founder of Pivot Method, a growth
strategy company that helps forward thinking individuals and organizations map
what's next. Her motto is, if change is the only constant,
let's get better at it. Jenny is an international keynote
speaker and the author of three books, including Life after

(02:25):
College from twenty eleven, Pivot The Only Move That Matters
is Your Next One from twenty sixteen, and her new
book discussed here, Free Time, Lose the Busy, Work, Love
your Business.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Hi. Jenny welcome to the show.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Hi, Eric, thank you for having me. I'm delighted to
be here.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yes, you and I are in Gotham Production Studios in
New York City. So we are here, Jenny and I
for a week of in person interviews, which are always
so joyous for me, and particularly being with you. It's
really been fun to get to know you, and I'm
glad you're here.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Likewise, I know it's such a treat to meet for
the first and just a hit record. So in a way,
if you're listening to this, you're experiencing this connection and
conversation in the exact same way that we are.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
So that's always.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Has a little edge. Get a little nervous, but the
good kind of nervous.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
We're going to be discussing your book called Free Time,
but before we do, let's start like we always do
with the Parable. In the Parable, there's a grandparent who's
talking with their grandchild and they say, in life, there
are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.
One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness
and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
which represents things like greed and hatred and fear, and

(03:36):
the grandchild stops and they think about it for a
second and they look at it their grandparent. They say, well,
which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
So I'd like to start off by asking you what
that parable means to you in your life and in
the work that you do.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I share your love of this parable. I included it
in my second book, Pivot. I hold it close to
my heart, especially when I'm making decisions. A challenging heart
of decision making is often saying no to something good,
something that's working, or something that's perfect on paper. So
the way that the wolf parable plays out most frequently
in my life is am I making a decision based

(04:13):
on fear, either fear of what is already happening or
fear of what could happen in the future. Or am
I feeding the wolf that's magnetic, that's about joy, that's
about following my energy even if I'm uncertain and I
don't know how something is going to turn out. Am
I acting out of fear, out of avoiding fear? Or
am I moving toward something that my intuition, my heart,

(04:36):
my soul, my spirit is pulling me toward Yep.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
We've engaged a coach Jiny and I over the last
few years that I know, you know well, Charlie Gilkey.
He's been a guest on the show a couple times,
and that has been a real orienting principle that I
have needed. Is that looking away from fear, because you know,
I left a pretty lucrative, full time software development world

(05:01):
job to go out and kind of do this, and
money was uncertain, and so, you know, fear was an
element of it, and sometimes it's easy to get stuck
in there. And so it's been really good for our
work with Charlie for him to sort of remind me
of that and guide me towards more joy, which has
always been the orienting way. Like with the podcast, I've

(05:24):
just always been like, I'm just going to follow my curiosity,
Like if I do that with guest selection, with everything
we do, I think it'll be okay, and it tends
to work out fairly well.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
It's funny you mentioned that about Charlie. He's the one
that twelve years ago when I was thinking of leaving Google,
I said, am I crazy to do this? He and
his friend, my friend who Pamela Slim, both looked at me, said, Jenny,
you would be crazy not to. And I needed to
hear it from them because sometimes all of this it's
harder when even with podcasting, people say you can't make

(05:56):
money podcasting, you can't make that your full time gig.
And so sometimes I find those voices can be so
loud that we need the Charlie Gilkeys of the world,
somebody to say, I believe in you, you can do this,
and in a way then they become an external version
of the wolf that we want to feed, versus the
loud chorus of the one saying stay safe because it's

(06:17):
about survival and the other thing. I wanted to mention
about this parable. I got into self help and even
coach training when I was young. So I did coach
training when I was twenty four, but was self helping
myself before that, devouring everything I could find to soothe
this deep anxiety and worry in neurosis. I joke that
I have ten thousand hours of neurosis. That's what I

(06:37):
became really good at in my teens and twenties. It
never worked for me. I felt like all the literature
for so long is like the ego is bad banish
the ego, or your inner critic is vicious, like tame
your grumlins, get rid of the inner critic, And that
just never worked for me. Even these formulas like oh,
you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you,

(06:59):
I don't believe it. And so the only thing that
has ever worked for me is welcoming these other voices.
They're not going to go away. I don't need to
banish them. They're here. I joke that my imposter monster
is just like the big furry blue monster from Monsters, Inc.
Sometimes it helps me to just personify them.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Sure as like yeah, he's big, but or I'd.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Call one of mine the furry rest monster who pulls
me into the couch and I can't move. This is
when I kind of burnt out at the end of
the day. They're just trying to be helpful. So even
in this parable, the wolf we're not supposed to feed,
he's not really going anywhere, or they whichever gender of
the wolf, they're not going to go anywhere, and it's okay.
It's actually like petting a rabid dog, like oh, you

(07:43):
just are neglected or you're afraid of things, and it's okay.
You know, I used to say, instead of taming dragons
domesticating dragons, that what if we didn't have such an
adversarial relationship with this part of ourself that we think
is so bad, even the bad wolf, ye could just
bet them and they just need a belly rub and
then they'll just quiet down. So it's not that we

(08:04):
want to listen or let that one dominate, but it
just doesn't work for me to imagine that it doesn't exist.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
That's right, that's wherever will stop existing.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Yep. As you were talking there, it brought a quote
to mind of a gentleman I'm going to interview you
later this week, whose name is Andrew Solomon, and he's
an amazing guy anyway, but he has a line in
his book about depression. He says, basically, if you banish
the dragons, you banish the heroes. And I love that
as you brought up dragons. You know, these so called
negatives are often the way we become the best version

(08:36):
of ourselves.

Speaker 3 (08:37):
Yeah, and it doesn't help because when I was operating
under that paradigm that these voices are bad, it's bad
that I have them, and it's also bad that I
can't make them go away that my self helping isn't working.

Speaker 2 (08:49):
Even.

Speaker 3 (08:50):
Part of how I describe my podcast in my work
is embracing fear, anxiety, and security uncertainty as the.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
Superpowers that they are.

Speaker 3 (08:59):
Yes, because I've been podcasting almost as long as you,
not quite as long. You have the epic nine years in,
I've been doing eight years. And I joked with you
before we hit record, I still feel awkward every single
time before I start, after I finish, when I listen.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Back, it's all awkward.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
But if I let that awkwardness be bad, I wouldn't
have a show at all. I wouldn't produce anything at all.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
That's sort of the way that I team the Perfectionist
is just yeah, it is awkward, but I keep going anyway.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
So your book Free Time talks a lot about building
what you call a heart based business, and it's oriented
towards business owners, and you know, if you're trying to
build your own business. I think it's an outstanding book.
I'm going to take some of the things from it
and just shift it a little bit more to the

(09:47):
personal level, even though the entire book is personal, right,
I mean, it's about building a business that supports you
and who you are, not just a business that makes money,
but just to give an orientation for kind where we're
going to go. But you talk very early on and
you say that stress is a system's problem, So just
talk about that broadly.

Speaker 3 (10:08):
Sure, And yeah, I appreciate you shifting towards the person,
because really we could say heart based anything. It just
means that we're not letting external markers of success drive
how we act, how we structure things. And when I
say stress is a system's problem, even in the context
of a household, if I noticed myself fighting with my

(10:29):
husband about how tidy it is. He doesn't notice clutter
at all, and it really bothers me. And when we
have friction about that, that's really a systems problem. He's
not bad or wrong, and neither am I. But the
only way that we could address this is to create
a system that will work for the whole triad, you know,
for all of this, because if I become overly demanding,

(10:53):
like that's going to wear away at his soul and
his way of being. So long story short, stress is
a systems problem is really an invitation to look at
anywhere that we're experiencing stress or friction, and instead of
trying to make one or the other wrong, it's almost
elevating to another perspective of what steps, what system could
we put in place that would alleviate this stress or friction.

(11:16):
So in the household, it's a cleaner comes once a
week on Fridays. Now sometimes my husband doesn't like having
another person around too bad, Like you're not allowed to complain.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
We set up the system.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
Importantly, it's on a recurring basis, so I don't have
the decision fatigue. I used to think it was bad
to spend so much money on cleaning, and I also
used to try to wait, is the house dirty enough yet?
But even the constant wondering when should I call her,
When should I schedule it.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
What day? It's tiring.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Yeah, And then a person becomes resentful, the one who's
managing all that or the one that cares about a
clean house. And I got that from Byron Katie. It's like,
if you're the one noticing the dishes and the saying,
guess what you can do them because you're the one
noticing it. So I often take my own little annoy
dances or things in life, in business as Okay, I'm
the one noticing it. So instead of demanding that everybody

(12:06):
around me change, what could I set up that makes
an even better scenario? And why I say system some
people feel allergic to that word. Is that a good system?
It's recurring, it's kind of set it and forget it.
This is about setting your time free, yes, so that
once you put in place, it is harder not to
use it. Like we get pre made meals delivered once
a week. It's not the only thing we eat, but

(12:28):
it saves so many moments of friction or tension.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Who's cooking?

Speaker 1 (12:32):
What?

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Where are the groceries? Yep.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
There's a couple things in there that I want to
hit on. The first is, you know, when we say
that a system's problem between people, one of the systems
that is between people is the system of communication. Right,
And so there's a lot of couple's therapy ideas around
you focus on the dynamic of what the conversational system

(12:57):
structure that has evolved between you is. Then it's not
you versus the other person, it's you and the other
person versus this dynamic, this conversational dynamic. And I've also
heard people say, if you're having problems and arguing a
lot focus on the process. Oh right. And then the
second you mentioned is this decisional fatigue. And I love

(13:18):
the idea of being able to decide things once and
not have to keep deciding them, you know, being able
to say, like, every Friday, I go rock climbing. Now,
does that mean I climb every Friday? No, of course not.
Sometimes it doesn't work, but I'm not having to figure out, like, well,
what do I do on Friday? Or when am I
going to rock climb this week? It's like, well, Friday, right.

(13:39):
And then again there are exceptions to the rule, and
I can handle those. But the more we can sort
of decide that sort of stuff like this is what
I do in the morning, it's always set that way,
Separating that decision from the action is so valuable because,
as you mentioned, how much time and energy goes into
deciding or figuring something out let alone then taking the

(14:02):
action right, So, how much time do you spend swirling
in your mind about like you said, the cleaning lady.
Calling the cleaning lady is not very hard, right, But
for those of us who have minds that tend to
get stuck in a groove, you know, can churn up
a lot of energy.

Speaker 3 (14:17):
And it exacerbates the situation because if I'm booking on
an ad hoc basis, well, now she's not available. Now
we're going back and forth to ten messages for the
next date. When it's recurring, it's set in and forget it. So,
in your rock claiming example, if you don't block off
your calendar with a recurring do not schedule block, then
you might say, great, I'm going to go rock climbing.

(14:38):
Oh no, my team has booked me for five podcasts.
So you can in a calendar sense, and I encourage
everybody to do this, grab some time, design your calendar
first before anyone else has a crack at it, And
so you could have a recurring Friday, and then you
could even and I know you're big on connection and
community and accountability, you could even always meet somebody at
the rock climbing gym so you feel even more like

(15:00):
drawn to go, or oh I don't feel like it today,
Well I'm meeting my friend there. And so there are
just all these ways that we can set up the
system to be a little more ironclad. Part of the
reason we're recording here at Gotham as you mentioned, and
I record here a lot for solo episodes for the
sole fact that when I show up, I don't want
to burn my own money. So I have to produce,

(15:21):
because if I try to record my solo episodes at home,
it's like, Oh, I don't feel like it. I'm not
in the right mood. Oh whatever's happening in the living
room is more fun. I just fritter at the time away,
but when I come here, it's like, no, you're paying
for this, Make it happen.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
If there is a rock climber in Columbus, Ohio listening
to this, who would like to meet me at the gym,
let me know, because I do not have a climbing
friend my son when he's in town. So you talk
about not chasing what you call the four horsemen of
the business ambition apocalypse, and again this applies whether you're
talking about your own business, somebody you work for, any

(15:57):
of that, but you call them the hungry ghosts of money, power,
and control. Talk a little bit about those.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Money, power, and fame are the ones that we most
commonly hear as vices. And even one of my friends
has a theory that each of us has a proclivity
toward one of those three, even if it's not in
an extreme or a nefarious sense. We might be a
little more driven by money, by power, by fame. But
the one that I think we don't talk enough about
that I sort of added is control. And that whether

(16:26):
it is as a business owner or in your own
life or in your relationships, control can be a hungry
ghost because you'll never have enough of it. It will
never actually soothe the existential discomfort of whatever it is.
Trying to be in relationship or trying to be in
the world, trying to be in your career. We try
to control things, or we think we somehow can control

(16:49):
things and that that will make us feel better, and
I just don't think it works. It ends up kind
of suffocating the life out of most situations when control
is taken to an extreme.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
So let's go a little deeper on that. Because a
lot of your book is about creating systems that give
your life more freedom, and that happens by imposing some
degree of structure and repeatability. What's the difference between doing
that wisely and chasing the hungry ghost of control.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
Part of it for me has been a lesson in
choosing what to be a perfectionist about and then letting
the rest go. So I'm very detail oriented when it
comes to my books. No stone goes unturned. I went
through the entire Free Time manuscript and made sure no
hyphenated word was hanging off the right side of the page.
Stuff like that drives everyone around me crazy. So sometimes

(17:40):
I think you're right. Control can tie into structure, rigidity, boundaries,
you know, these all have a dance, but in the
free time sense. When I started the book launched a
little over a year ago, and people would say it's
a time management or productivity book. And I know I
share this thought with Oliver Berkman, who wrote Four Thousand Weeks.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
I know you've had him on the show.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
He and I both share this philosophy that just trying
to squeeze more out of the time we have feels terrible.
So in a way, efficiency means, oh, can you do
what you're doing, but more, better, faster. And then time
management just the word management. It's like time is in
a box slash prison cell. We're going to manage it
and even micromanage it and control it until it produces

(18:21):
exactly the peak performance output that we want, And there's
so many podcasts about peak performance, and the phrase itself
kind of drives me nuts because we're human beings, like
sometimes we're at our peak and a lot of times
we're not. So to me, the systems are actually a
gentle way of putting things in place so that we

(18:44):
relieve the burden off of our mind to have to
think about that thing again. Even teaching team members. You know,
if you ask me a question and it doesn't live
in our documentation, please add it for the next time.
That's a step that takes a little extra time now,
but it's going to save us all time in the future.
And so I think trying to control and this is
why I don't advise like manual time tracking or putting

(19:07):
your calendar fifteen minute increments. That does work for some people,
but I find that imposing too much control feels quite
constricting at the end of the day. I would rather
create the loose boundaries, even though I don't take calls
before eleven or after two. Then I can be really
loose and free, and then the work is actually dropping
the guilts.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Oh I should be working. Who says who?

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Factory system doesn't work for most of us. The factory
system was not at any point and even the way
it manifests in today's corporate structure was not in any
way designed for our physical and relational health and thriving.
It was purely designed for productivity. And really the only
person that it benefits to burn everybody out is the
one at the top who benefits from reaping all that reward,

(19:51):
and for the rest of us. Isn't just not a
sustainable way to be?

Speaker 4 (19:54):
Yep?

Speaker 1 (19:55):
Yeah, I think it's always interesting the level of structure
and CYSM system that gets put in place for anything,
whether it be a business, our own life. You know,
I was in software startups for a long time, and
I just used to say, like, what we're looking for
is enough structure that the train doesn't come off the tracks,
but that it also doesn't get slowed down, you know,

(20:18):
and you can use you can use that slowed down
metaphor doesn't mean you have to go faster, right in
the case of a train, you might want it to
go faster, but what's the level of structure that sort
of keeps things in place so I don't have to
keep deciding keep thinking about them, but then also does
allow me as much freedom around that.

Speaker 3 (20:38):
And I see what you're saying, because yes, there is
a level of discipline. I think when people join my
team they often say that they're learning a lot, which
I think is another way of saying, oh, I'm very
particular about how things are done.

Speaker 2 (20:50):
For me, the systems.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
As it would relate to even the word idea of control,
it's actually a way to mitigate the chaos or the repetition,
or the busy work or minutia that would result from
just not having designed an intelligent, elegant, graceful, repeatable system
in the first place. So I guess it's almost like

(21:13):
without controlling how things are done in the sense of
very intentionally saying how could this process flow more smoothly?
And even your example of in relationships, how could these
conversations when we're in intense disagreement, how can we move
through this even when we don't agree? And if we
can design that intentionally upfront. Yes, that might seem like

(21:33):
a little more sort of structure or rigidity or control
than people are used to, but I just think it
saves so much chaos and wasted time and energy down
the road.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
You talk about in a lot of businesses you know,
there's a missing metric. And again I want to expand
this more broadly to human things, right, because we all
are measuring our lives in many different ways kind of
all the time, you know, and so when we're unstructured
about that, to me, then it's very easy to start

(22:25):
chasing the hungry ghosts of money or fame, whether that
fame be big time fame or just being well known
on the school pta council.

Speaker 2 (22:34):
Right, how many likes the photo?

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Yeah, how many likes the photo? Gets? Right? And you
introduce a new metric that I love, which I didn't
have these words to use it, but has been again,
with a lot of help from Charlie in particular, been
something that we have really oriented around over the last
couple of years, which is the time to revenue ratio, right,
like how much time does it take me to earn
x amount of money. It's a really interesting way to

(22:57):
think about it because most of us think about, you know,
how much money is being made without thinking as much
about what's the cost to do so?

Speaker 3 (23:07):
Right, And in a way it makes sense who could
blame any of us? Because money seems so fundamentally tied
to survival, right, And you and I are both stateside.
I know many listeners may not be, but here in
America we're particularly obsessed with money. How much do we have?
Do we need to make more? Because we don't have
some of the broader social support structures that say the

(23:29):
Norwegian countries have. So money is vital because if you
don't have health insurance and anything happens to you, it
could spiral you into bankruptcy or I mean, there are
very serious money related concerns. Even the phrase from Benjamin
Franklin time is money, but it's so much more than that,
and so the missing metric is time. How much time

(23:50):
did it take you to earn that revenue in your business?
Or let's say you work for a company. Okay, you're
making seven figures, but you're completely burning yourself out to
the point where you might get very sick, then your
time will really be cut short. I had friends who
entered investment banking, and they were making more money than me,
but they were sleeping at the office. They were sometimes
getting three hours of sleep at night. And each person,

(24:12):
I can't tell anyone what to think or what to do,
but each person has to decide if I die tomorrow
or if I die in a year, is this trade
off worth it? The amount of time that is yielding
a seven figure salary or a seven figure business, And
to be really intentional, because sometimes what you hear from
even those people that in free time, the way I

(24:33):
put it is the way we bake is as important
as what we make. I'm not convinced that if you
burn yourself out, or you spend so much time to
achieve the money at the expense of your health and
the expensive relationships, that you'll be any happier when you
get there, or they you'll even be able to change
those habits once you get.

Speaker 2 (24:51):
There wherever there is.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
If you talk to wealthy people, a lot of them
say they're just as miserable as the next, or then
they become worried about losing that money, or then they
escalate their lifestyle on the hedonic treadmill and never ends.
So I just my curiosity is what if we could
spend the time and specifically measure not just how much
any of us is making, how much time did it

(25:13):
take to get there, how much life force did that
require from us? And you could have a really peaceful, joyful,
easeful six figure job or business, or you could have
one that's killing you slowly.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Yep, and keep referencing Charlie. But it's been fundamental because
it really became clear. Like I've coached a lot of
people on this too over the years, which is like,
if you're building a business, because you are saying that
part of what you want is freedom, be careful, because
you can build a business that will make you much

(25:44):
less free than you were in your day job if
you're not careful, you know. And so it's about being
really intentional about what am I doing and why. And
there are different times and places for different things, right
like what I had to prioritize the first year or
two as I left my corporate job to doing this
full time. You know, there were certain priorities there given

(26:05):
where we were, and we had to orient in a
certain way. But over time, what I've seen happen is
how easy it is to box yourself into a corner
where you get what you think you wanted, and then,
as you said, it doesn't make you happy either because
the thing itself isn't what you thought it was, which
is often the case. Okay, I've got my own, you know,

(26:26):
seven figure business, but I can never be away, can
never take a week off. I'm always working, I can
never stop thinking about it. So it's you don't get
what you thought you were going to get, or to
your point, the mind state of you know, I'll be
happy when is one of the most pernicious mind states.
I'm sure it's a human thing because I think we're

(26:48):
wired to always sort of want the next thing. It's
part of the survival mechanism. But it's something to really
watch for because if we get where we thought we
wanted to be and we're incapable of enjoying it, because
the goalpost just moves right And this is something we
all know.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
And all we've done is deepen the grooves on those
neural pathways. Yes, so we're even making even harder to
break those habits yep down the road whenever we get
there wherever they'rectly. I've also tried to be really intentional
about decoupling the idea that if I work less time,
I'll make less money. And just is that true?

Speaker 2 (27:24):
What if?

Speaker 3 (27:26):
What if I work half the time and earn twice
as much?

Speaker 2 (27:29):
Who says so?

Speaker 3 (27:30):
I noticed myself I had these narratives that society is
very happy to hand us that we assume a linear
causal relationship.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Yes, even maybe even subtly.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
As we're talking now, it's like, well, if I scale
back my time or my energy, we'll earn less. But
I'm okay with that and make it something it's assumed.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
Yes, and it says who. Yep, says who. So I'm
always just questioning that says who.

Speaker 1 (27:53):
That is one in me that really takes effort to
unwire because I don't know what it is. I mean,
I guess there's there's a lot of it that's cultural.
You know, it's around this work ethic idea which has
served me very well in many different ways in my life.
But it can get to the point that the point
is how hard you're working, right, And so I've had
to really work to unwind that. Like you said, says WHO.
I might work less, does that mean I'm going to

(28:15):
earn less? Maybe maybe not?

Speaker 3 (28:17):
And if you work less hard, does it mean the
work quality will suffer the impact or output?

Speaker 2 (28:22):
Maybe not?

Speaker 1 (28:23):
But if aprove yet? What last summer I was able
to take a month off. I've never had anything approaching
that amount of time off in my life. I started
working at a job when I was like fourteen, and
before that I had paper routes and I never went
to college. I don't think I'd ever been off more
than maybe two weeks, and the two weeks I had

(28:45):
been off might have happened the year before. Like, so,
I've never had any time beyond a week, and I
took a month off, which seemed gratuitous, right, I mean,
it just seemed even saying it, there's a little part
of me it's like, oh my god, everybody's gonna think spoiled.
You know. It was probably one of the best business
decisions I ever made, because in order to take that

(29:07):
time off, we had to systematize a bunch of things.
It was very hard to get to where I could
take a month off. So all of a sudden I
came back, and there were two things that were very different.
One is my energy level and my interest in what
I was doing had been restored, And the second was

(29:27):
there was systems in place to handle a bunch of
things that I now didn't have to do, so that
I could then turn my attention towards what I actually
quote unquote do, which is talking to people and building programs.
Like all of a sudden, there was more energy and
time for that, and it never would have happened if

(29:48):
I hadn't done what I thought was a decision. I'm
going to take a month off, and that's just going
to be a hit to the business, but I'm willing
to make that because I really want a month off. Afterwards,
I went, oh, not only did I take a month off,
I've now put it in place that I can do
it again.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
That's so amazing, right.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
And it all speaks to these things you're talking about.
But I had to question some fundamental assumptions that that
was doable, possible, reasonable, acceptable, morally correct. I mean all
those things. I know.

Speaker 3 (30:21):
I feel like there's a lot of talk about examining
our money stories, and you know, in the book, I
talk about our time, our energetic time blueprint is as
powerful and sometimes pernicious as the money blueprint.

Speaker 4 (30:34):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
So I think some of us know, oh, I need
to confront my money stuff, and I need to. You know,
I have some living beliefs around money, but we don't
even question the ones around time.

Speaker 1 (30:41):
Say more about that energetic time living?

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Well, well, I just think we get imprinted. What time is,
how to spend it, how to move through a day,
how hard to work or not. From the time we're kids,
we grow up in a household. We grow up in
a context of our home, what we see in our parents,
how schools are set up, how our first jobs are
set up, how society is set up. And absolutely here

(31:03):
in the States, we have this Protestant work ethic. Hard
work equals good and virtuous. Yes, and more work is
good and virtuous, more money is good and virtuous. And
yet the story I share in the book is that
as a kid, my mom worked full time, so I
was a latchkey kid.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
But I used to go to.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
All these activities after school because then I didn't realize
until as an adult that part of it was I
needed to keep myself busy until she could pick me up. Essentially,
so I would go to school, then do homework, then
have a piano lesson, then do ballet, then do aerobics
or acrobatics, then do gymnastics, and I would have this
massive stack. So then, of course, as an adult working
at a fast paced company like Google, my calendar was

(31:43):
stacked in the exact same way. Then when I go
out on my own in my business, my calendar was
stacked the exact same way. No matter how much I
said I wanted free time, I was always mapping my
calendar to this time blueprint of cramming things to the gills,
stuffing them to the gills, making exceptions for everyone else,
not myself. I always felt this unnecessary and false pressure.

(32:03):
Someone asks me for a meeting or asked me for
my time, I better squeeze it in wherever I can.
Or when I started coaching clients, whatever's good for them,
you know, roll out the red carpet. But then I'm
a disaster. So it got so refined talking about systems.
It got so refined that I'm not taking one on
one clients anymore. But when I was, I would have
them every other week, so A and C weeks of

(32:25):
the month, only on Thursdays and only between eleven and two.
And that might have meant I could take four clients
at a time, but my rates increased by that point.
I also put the billing on monthly retainer good inntil canceled.
I buil everyone on the first of the month because
I was tired of knowing who's canceling. When who am
I billing? When, oh, you're on a three month package.

(32:45):
You're on a six month and I'm coaching every day
of the week. There was no time to think yes, yes,
So just consolidating and batching in a really what seems
from the outside like really strict parameters set me free.

Speaker 1 (32:58):
Yeah, you know, one on one coaching is the way
that I made the transition from me it's a day
job to other things. And so yeah, I did a
ton of it until I realized, like, this is all
I'm doing, and it's chaos. I mean, I love it.
I mean I love working with people. Like so question
put to me is you know, well, are you going
to give it up? And I'm like, I don't think

(33:19):
I will entirely. I don't think i'll entirely give up
working one on one with people because I love it.
But I have scaled it way back, and like you said,
you know, it happens in these windows of time, and
it's just gotten much more refined, and so I enjoy
it much more and I think it's just better for
me and the clients.

Speaker 3 (33:36):
And even that's a more nuanced understanding of time, because
sometimes contact switching is very jarring, Like if you had
to go from an operational team meeting straight into a
podcast interview straight into a coaching session. That would probably
be a more taxing day than one where you have
three podcast interviews.

Speaker 2 (33:53):
Back to back.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, where you get in the zone and you stay there.
And then what you just described is hearing you talk
about coaching. It's clear though, that's life giving when you're
in it, that that hour of a coaching session or
a podcast interview, and they have a lot in.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Common they do because they've.

Speaker 3 (34:07):
Listening curiosity, exploration that those hours are life giving and
that those are those are the hours to figure out
how to block them, how to structure the week so
that you can get in the zone and stay there.
But then knowing, oh, these energize me, these give me energy,
give me joy. So that's also so much more important

(34:28):
than just how much money.

Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yep, that hour delivers.

Speaker 1 (34:30):
Right right, And to a point. That's the other thing
I sort of learned was like, I can love doing
something until there's too much of it. Yeah, you know,
And I'm such a big proponent of the middle way
that any tends to be at the extremes we find
ourselves in trouble. So loving doing something doesn't mean I
want to do it sixty hours a week. You know,
might mean that the optimal amount of time for me

(34:51):
to do it is five hours a week or ten
hours a week. You know, just everybody's different.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
And even to your one month that you took off,
I mean, just hearing how much it energized you reminded
me of Stefan Sagmeister. He has a ted talk explaining
how he takes a year off of his business. Every
seven years, he shuts down the whole company. There's no
one even remaining behind in his design studio. He's a
graphic designer, but so much more, and he says always

(35:17):
the next evolution of his business their best work, their
best art installations that he kind of does on the
side to the design work always always always comes as
a result of the year off.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
You talk about lower case hard work and uppercase hard work,
So we were sort of talking about this idea that
hard work is a virtue. But you're making a distinction
between uppercase and lowercase.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
What do you mean by that?

Speaker 3 (36:15):
This is one of these lines of the book that
I sometimes lose a little sleep at night or during
the day of should I have said that? Is that
the right thing? So I'll be curious to hear your take.
My intention when I put this in the book is
that uppercase hard work is this grind and it's almost
like we're grinding ourselves, we're martyring ourselves so that we

(36:37):
can do the hard work. And it's almost capital h
hard work is at the expense of ourselves, but we
think it's the right thing, or it's what we need
to do.

Speaker 2 (36:48):
I need to do this and then it will pay
off later. Lowercase hard work is of course.

Speaker 3 (36:53):
You're going to invest time, energy, money, resources into.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
Work or projects. That's what we love.

Speaker 3 (37:00):
Actually secretly even when a project, like a lot of
people are intimidated to write a book, but they say
they want to write a book someday. One study set
as many as one in three people have dreams of
writing a book. And I used to find myself complaining, oh,
writing a book is so hard, and I stop saying that, like,
writing a book is complex, it's meaty, it's challenging, but
it's exciting. And so even myself talk to myself. I

(37:23):
try to notice when I'm saying, oh, something is so
hard and complaining about it versus challenge that I'm choosing,
and also being mindful not to work hard just for
the sake of working hard, because while that can sometimes
be rewarded if you work within a company, when you're
self employed, there's no reward. There is no correlation between
hard work, martyring yourself for the business and any promise

(37:45):
of success as a result of that. In fact, I
think that energetically it kind of sends the wrong message.
Can you imagine if you were constantly complaining on this
show of how hard podcasting is, how hard it is
to prepare for your guests, how hard it is to
stay listening when they get on these tangents and they're
so boring, and then how hard it is to grow

(38:06):
the show. It's like it kind of sucks the joy out. Yeah,
and who would want to listen to that? So it's
either hard work in a really friction sort of way
where you maybe you should stop doing that altogether, or
it's lowercase hard. We accept that hard and we find
the good.

Speaker 1 (38:21):
Yeah. I think there's a couple things there. I think
there's sort of knowing what work gives you more energy
and you really like, and what sort of work wears
you down and you don't like. And then there's even
in that work that we do enjoy. As you were saying,
we can get very serious about it, right or martyred

(38:43):
about it, like I come by the martyrdom idea fairly naturally.
I will not say from who, but family inheritance that
I have to watch for and recognizing that it was
happening this week a little bit. I have a bunch
of interviews this week. I'm so excited in person with
all these amazing people, and it's a lot because I'm

(39:04):
a diligent preparer. But reminding myself, as our producer Nicole
will do you did this to yourself first, right, but
secondly reminding myself like, yeah, this is what I love
to do. Yes, it's going to take a lot of effort,
but don't turn it into a problem when it's not
a problem. It's effort. It is hard work. So I

(39:25):
do like this uppercase lowercase because if I remind myself,
this is the work that you love. How fortunate to
be able to come to New York and talk to
people and have a podcast that supports you, like that
is the dream. Yeah, you know, I remember being here.
I don't know the number of years, six, maybe Ginny
and I came to New York, and the reason we

(39:46):
came was to attend course Jonathan offered called the Art
of Becoming Known. I was still working my full time job,
and I had a couple interviews while I was here also,
and I remember this moment we were in a cab
drive from one thing to the next, and I don't
know if I said it out loud or I just
thought it, but it was like, God, I just wish
this was my life, Like I wish this wasn't going

(40:08):
to end at the end of this week, and I
was going to go back and go back to this job,
which was actually a pretty good job in a lot
of ways, but wasn't my thing. And I keep trying
to remember that at that time, if you told me
I would be here doing this, I would have said, yes, please,
anything for that. And to remember that helps me move
away from uppercase hard work to lowercase like, yes, we're

(40:30):
putting in a lot of effort and it's doing something
I love, And how fortunate is that? So reframing things
is a choice is always enormously powerful.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
That reminds you of two things. The saying abundance is
the overwhelm you've been asking for. Even this week, this
abundance of interviews, Well, this is the dream that you
asked for all those years, and then I forget where
I heard this. But whenever you say, oh, I have
to do a podcast today, or I get that way
sometimes about solo episodes because it's just me. There's no

(41:00):
accountability of another person across from me, and to just
shift it to I get to do, And truly it
actually works for me where I'll be grumpy with my
coffee and then I'll go I get to record an
episode today. That's a privilege, that's a treat. Or I
talked about authors. Sometimes they're like, oh, launching a book
is so hard, but it's like I get to launch

(41:21):
a book like this is the ultimate champagne problem. Oh
I don't know how to market it. It's like, well,
you created this thing. I just did a solo on
the glass half full or half empty, but you created
a glass. I was evaluating the first year of the launch,
how did it go? For free time? And sometimes I
find myself getting down because again the hedonic treadmill of metrics.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yes, it's never enough.

Speaker 3 (41:41):
How many listeners, how many readers, how many downloads? It's
never enough, never, and so I have to remind myself
the glass isn't half full or half empty. I created
a glass out of a figment of my imagination. That's
the thing to celebrate, that's the thing to stay focused on.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
Well, and it's getting to that idea of a art
based business and a missing metric is Yeah, what am
I measuring? And why? You know? Because you're right. When
we're looking at external metrics, the scale just keeps changing.
You know, if you told me when I started the
show that we would have the number of downloads we had,
I would have a never believed you and be jumped

(42:18):
for joy for a week. Right, But then you get
there and you're like, well, yeah, that's good, but you
know what we we kind of need the next level
and the next level. So those external metrics they have
a role. And I always have to sort of reorient
back towards like, okay, but what about this is important?
It's not just downloads, right.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Look, my faceless, nameless listeners. You're a download now?

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yeah, Like, what about this is important? You know? And
I go back to why did I start the show?
And I was like, well, I wanted to spend more
time with Chris, my best friend, who's the audio guy.
I knew it would be good for me, like good
for me to have these conversations. Those are the two
primary reasons. And I look back and I'm like, those
have been fulfilled in spades and continue to you know.

(43:05):
And then when it started helping people, it was like, oh,
my goodness, you know, that's the extra bonus. And so yeah,
the connections that I've made with guests and listeners, and
there are so many things that if I'm just looking
at the main metric of downloads, all that gets washed
away and it's not enough because you're not Tim Ferriss
or Joe Rogan or name your podcaster. Right, So all

(43:28):
this stuff is just a really important reflection. I think
for me, it kind of comes down to always coming
back to like what really matters here, Yes, what's really important.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
And that is heart based anything Yes, which is that
money isn't the only metric for me. Heart based is
I'm not going to sacrifice my values or my integrity
for the sake of growing the business or making more money.
I in those cases will sometimes take the longer route
or the scenic route because I don't want to put

(44:00):
into something I don't believe in or just because everyone
else is doing it. So there's a certain ginormous social
media site that started as a way to rate women
on their looks. I'm not going to give you my
ad money. I don't care if ninety nine out of
one hundred companies advertise there or say that's the only
way to grow XYZ thing. It doesn't resonate for me.
I'm not going to do it. I'm stubvern about that.

(44:22):
But the other thing about heart based is a permission
to follow your heart and follow your intuition. And sometimes
people denigrate intuition as, oh, I'm a data person. What
is intuition if not a thousand subconscious data points, if
not a million that you've been collecting.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Your whole life. So there is a place.

Speaker 3 (44:39):
For heart and soul and intuition in the decisions that
we make and the ways that we operate. And I
just feel so strongly about that. And my creative coach,
Jay Aconzo, to your point about metrics, he had us
do this great exercise of determining our even more meaningful metrics.
So it's not that we won't measure the really straightforward

(44:59):
stuff downloads, revenue, whatever, But what's even more meaningful.

Speaker 2 (45:03):
So one of his is CPP cackles per piece.

Speaker 3 (45:07):
How many times does he crack himself up when recording
one of his unthinkable episodes or one of mine. Number
of friends made through podcasting, Wow.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
That's a great metric.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Holenf number of new friends, because I joke podcasting as
like the introverts Guide.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
To making friends.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
You know, totally, So what if I measured number of
new friends made over the.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Last eight years. It's like, Oh, it's priceless.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
It's been priceless, even if no one's listening and zero
dollars are earned.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yes, I have hundreds of new friends.

Speaker 1 (45:37):
Made, right, Yeah, it's that intrinsic motivation, Like, yeah, these shows,
I do them because I love doing them and they're
good for me. And but I have to remember that
because I will turn anything into a job. I've talked
about this a lot on the show. I will turn
anything into something that has to be strived at and
conquered and improved. I took up rock climbing. Why did

(45:58):
I take it up? A my Sun does it? And
I thought it'd be a great way for us to
be able to do something together. And I wanted something
new and interesting and challenging to do with my body.
So I'm climbing, it's great, But within the second time
i'm there, I'm like, oh, I'm gonna need a rock
climbing coach and I'm gonna I'm just because that's the thing.
It's like I've just had to consciously with that really

(46:20):
work on, like, don't turn this into a job. And
there is a natural joy in improving, right, and probably,
so how do I balance that? So I wanted to
come back to something you just mentioned, which is intuition.
I find intuition fascinating, and what I find fascinating about
it is how do we tell the difference between our

(46:42):
intuition and to use a word that you used earlier,
my neurosis, Because both feel very strong and feel very natural. Right,
just because it feels real doesn't mean it is. So
I'm just curious how you sort those two things out.
Given that you said you've got ten thousand hours of neurosis,

(47:04):
how do you separate that which is very natural to
you at this point, and what is an actual intuition
that's worth following.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
And specifically, my neurosies tend to manifest as people pleasing perfectionism, worry, anxiety.
So those are my that's what I have a lot
of practice in intuition. I love Penny Pierce's work. She
wrote a book called The Intuitive Way, and thanks to
the podcast, we did a whole series. She became a
great friend. She actually gives a lot of practical ways

(47:32):
to grow intuition. Because I know you've said behavior changes
the skill, you can actually build the skill. Same thing
with intuition. We all have it, and to answer your question,
we can all improve how to discern the difference by
growing the skill, paying closer attention, observing things, making a
note of what we thought was intuition versus what was

(47:54):
just fear or anxiety. Intuition comes to me, and I
tend to get it's very quiet, come to me, kind
of as a download, whereas anxiety and fear is a
little louder, a little more panicky, a little more impulsive.
So I try to pay attention. And I guess we
can't always know as well, So sometimes I don't know.

(48:14):
I mean, I know, of course you've talked so much
about different mindfulness practices and those help, but I won't
even just say, oh, meditation is the answer to everything.
I just think it's learning how does your intuition speak
to you? When has it spoken in the past. And
something that I learned from Penny is that, well, a
couple things. One, when we're at the level of like

(48:34):
red flags, let's say in relationships, that's almost intuition in
its lowest, loudest form.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Or you get sick.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
That's where like you're not really listening, and so life
events have to become increasingly dramatic for you to listen.
Over time, it can become more nuanced. And so in
our book Frequency, Penny talks about finding your home frequency.
When are you or what self care practices lead you
to be sort of like calm, peaceful, have that equanimity.

(49:01):
That's when we can hear the more subtle intuitive clues.
And then she says the highest form of home frequency
is self entertainment, where we're entertained, we're delighted, we're curious.
Even doing something you love is a form of self entertainment.
Rock climbing self entertainment. And when we're in that playful spirit,
we also can get more creative ideas. And I find

(49:23):
that I get more creative ideas. The last thing I'll
say here is I've just also learned to sit with
my discomfort for longer and longer periods of time. The
last few years the pandemic have been really tricky in
my business because I used to earn a lot of
income from keynot speaking, which all but dried up. I
keep thinking every year we're going to turn the corner
and then new chaos unfolds, and so just sitting with

(49:44):
how uncomfortable it is not to have that income stream,
or not to know when the next speaking gig will
be booked, just letting it be and not rushing. I
call that when the financial tides received, not just rushing
to chase after those receding tides, but what has washed
ou up on the shore? What's the new insider opportunity here?
If I don't rush to chase after what was?

Speaker 1 (50:05):
That? Takes courage?

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Yeah, but that's a skill too. I don't have courage.
I don't have some innate courageous gene, and I never
had an innate confidence gene. It's like I just allow
myself to not feel courageous, or not feel confident, or
as we said earlier, to feel awkward. Like all the
things that we would make wrong. I just keep taking
the small steps. A while ago, I had postcards made

(50:29):
for my business. They said, build first, courage second. Just
courage follows action, it's not the other way around.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
Absolutely, yes, I mean that is such a truism, you
know that if we wait to do certain things so
we're not afraid of doing them, we will never do them.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
And there are just some things that are for certain
types of people always going to produce some fear, you know,
Like I'm never going to have a difficult conversation with
somebody where I have to bring up something that they're
doing that I'm not happy with that I would like
to be different or the at least discussed. Maybe I'm
selling myself short, but I think it's pretty unlikely that

(51:05):
I'm ever going to go into one of those without
a great deal of trepetition. It's just there. I just
know it's there. It seems that the more I do
it it gets a little bit easier. I'm not saying
it doesn't get better, but I'm still like, I don't
like doing it. It makes me anxious, makes me nervous,
and if I wait until the right time, I'll never
do it.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:25):
And I feel like something else that we don't really
discuss enough. In the realm of career and business are
different personality types, like the more empathic you are or
the more sensitive you are. And I find that for me,
being a highly sensitive person and empad I get overwhelmed
very easily. And just like you, if it's going to
involve a tough conversation, it's very easy to get overwhelmed.

(51:46):
That's very different than if I'm taking advice from practically
like the sociopath CEO next.

Speaker 2 (51:51):
Door who just doesn't care at all.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Right, some people are just building a way that they
don't care. They're not bothered. Yeah, now it doesn't you
don't have to be a social but that's giving an
extreme example. I cannot compare what I find challenging or overwhelming.
I mean even often I kind of used to beat
myself upbout networking, Like I get so overwhelmed that big
events or parties or I don't want to be on

(52:14):
the phone with anyone, yeah let alone, like running around
trying to build my network just doesn't work for me
the way that I know other people are so good
at it because it energizes them. And I've told myself, oh,
if you were better at if you had more patience
for like connecting with people. But I love being with
my dog at the park, just like ye listening to
podcasts nonverbal you know. And so anyway, I think we
need to give ourselves some grace to anything. In this

(52:36):
self development world, spiritual world. It's almost like everything is
a paradox, so everything has two sides of the coin.
And also these neurosis or the sensitivities, they're superpowers and
they mean that I'm overwhelmed more easily than some next
person or someone that wrote a book where it makes
it sound so easy.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Yeah, I think that's so important because if you're an
empathetic person, it's going to make certain things harder, but
it's going to make other things easier and better. And
trying to be somebody where not is really problematic. Like
I used to think I should be able to just
have that conversation and not have it worry me, but
that would make me not me because part of the

(53:15):
reason it's hard is because I actually do care and
I am compassionate and I am sensitive to not wanting
to make someone else feel bad. But that is also,
as you said, sort of a superpower. So I have
to balance those things out we are running out of time,
but I want to hit one last thing, which is
you've actually made an acronym out of something I've said
to coaching clients for years, A little bit of something

(53:37):
is better than a lot of nothing. And you have
a phrase better than nothing, and you actually call it BTN.
So talk to me about better than nothing.

Speaker 2 (53:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (53:45):
BTN can work both ways, as in it can be
positive and I think sometimes it can be negative. Where
I originated this a brieve BTN was actually in relationships
where sometimes I was finding myself in bad relationships dating wise,
because I would say to myself, well, it's better than nothing,
and I would kind of be settling. I also at
that time we call it like cookie crumbs from someone

(54:08):
who's just tossing out a few crumbs, and I'm like, oh,
thank you for these crumbs, and somehow operating on a
paradigm that well, this is better than nothing, having no one.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
That's not true.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
So anyone or anything that's draining you that you dread
that is just any manner of making you feel worse
after an interaction than better. That's not better than nothing.
They are actually taking your.

Speaker 2 (54:30):
Life for us.

Speaker 3 (54:31):
Yes, I'm sure you've talked about that many times. However,
on the positive side of better than nothing, it's like, again,
if either of us were perfectionists about our podcasts, we
wouldn't have one at all, because no episode is perfect.

Speaker 2 (54:44):
They have to go out.

Speaker 3 (54:45):
Every week, no matter their imperfections, no matter the misspeaks
or the filler words or the awkwardinate moments. Sure some
of it gets fixed in editing, but then some of
it doesn't. Some conversations are better than others, and sometimes
I feel so bad, like, oh no, but if I've
produced something that's not the best there is, people stop listening,
and the whole cascade of future tripping, worry, of catastrophizing

(55:06):
what's going to go wrong? But the better than nothing
is something is better than nothing. And if you put
something out and you do it again, it's really a
thousand tiny iterations over time that are what you see
from anybody producing anything. I guarantee that none of us
goes home at the end of the day. Well, don't
let me speak for everyone else, but saying oh that
was so perfect, right, It's just that I did it, yep,

(55:27):
and that was rewarding and it's imperfect. And actually, now
with all these chatgypt and AI and Deep Big Video.
They're so uncanny and horrible, Like if you hear a podcast.
I don't really like the shows where it's clear they're
just reading off of a script. It's too perfect, right,
it takes some of the humanity out.

Speaker 1 (55:47):
Yep.

Speaker 3 (55:47):
So secretly I think, even though we are hard on
ourselves and we think that oh, perfect or nothing better
than nothing, is actually the life giving mantra, done is
better than perfect. And in the book I say it's
like cookie is just as good as the baked cookies sometimes,
so look for the cookie dough in your life or
your business, where unfinished, imperfect is sometimes even tastier than

(56:10):
the finished product.

Speaker 1 (56:11):
Well, I think that is a beautiful place for us
to wrap up. Thank you so much for coming on.
It's been such a pleasure. And my new friends from
podcast Metric it is increased by one today.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
Oh I love that. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Eric.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
Yeah, And like any love notes from listeners, it's like
if one person, if this helps your day improve, we've
done our job. So thank you so much for having me,
and big thanks to everybody who's here listening.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Bye. Everyone.

Speaker 4 (56:56):
If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
consider making a monthly donation to support the One You
Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this
monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
It's our way of saying thank you for your support now.
We are so grateful for the members of our community.
We wouldn't be able to do what we do without

(57:17):
their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
To learn more, make a donation at any level and
become a member of the One You Feed community, go
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Podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
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Host

Eric Zimmer

Eric Zimmer

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