Pushing the Boundaries: Mike O'Kelly's Revelation in Balancing Workloads and Business Resilience | SOS Ep. 354

Ever tried to take on more than you can handle, only to find it was a mistake? 

That's what happened to me. I tried to up my game from five podcast episodes a week to seven. I took a leap of faith, thinking that pushing my boundaries would enhance my work. Guess what? It didn't. It was an unsustainable pace that left me scrambling, but it was a valuable learning curve.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Surviving Outside Sales podcast, hosted by Mike
O'Kelly, presented by SalesBuilder Academy, the goal is to
survive and thrive all phases ofoutside sales, whether you're
getting in, dominating orgetting out.
Surviving Outside Sales.
Now on with the show.
Welcome to the SurvivingOutside Sales podcast.

(00:29):
I'm your host, mike O'Kelly.
Sometimes in life you just haveto admit that you tried
something and it failed.
So, full disclosure I can'tkeep up with this pace of having
a podcast every day, so I'mgoing back to just five days a
week, monday through Friday.
I thought that more was better,but it wasn't.

(00:49):
So this is just a lesson foryou out there in the sales world
More does not always meanbetter.
And it's amazing how I thoughtwell, it's just two more
episodes per week, yes, but theamount of preparation, the
amount of time that it took,that's eight episodes more per
month.
That was basically a third ofmy monthly output that I had to

(01:13):
increase and, quite frankly, Ijust don't think that it was
worth it.
So I'm pivoting.
It was only about excuse me,about five weeks, but I'm
pivoting because it's notworking.
And so a couple of lessons youcan take from this.
First of all, sometimes youhave to experiment and you have
to try new things in order topush yourself, and one of the

(01:35):
things that I wanted to do is Iwanted to push myself with the
podcast and it didn't work, andwhat I realized was I can still
push myself in different avenues.
So one of the things that Ithought was all right well,
let's go to seven days, let'stry to do every single day.
It just didn't work.
So it's going to be Mondaythrough Friday, again with

(01:55):
guests on Thursdays.
So if you've been listening andyou've been liking the seven
days, I apologize.
I mean, the download numbersare very strong, it's just I
can't keep up.
So, basically, as a solopreneur, it is just it's very time
consuming, but I just wanted tokind of let you know what is

(02:17):
happening.
So, if you see any kind ofchange but it's also a lesson
what can you learn from whatI've gone through?
And that's really the point.
I tried something and it didn'twork.
It didn't, it didn't kill me,it didn't set me back.
There's no harm, no foul.
But what I learned was valuable.
I learned that I couldn't doseven days a week.

(02:39):
I learned that there werelimitations on creation.
There's limitations on what youcan do, and I've had to take a
couple of weeks off of LinkedInbecause it was just too much.
I have so much going on rightnow, launching a course.
We just signed our paperworkfor the franchise we're going to
be opening in the fall.
So that's going on in thebackground and it is taking up

(03:02):
some of my time and I knew itwas going to take up some of my
time.
But I've got the courses thatI'm building.
I'm interviewing podcast guests, creating podcasts, building
out more future products thatare going to be released for the
outside sales world or thesales world in general, and it's
just too much.
So you kind of say to yourselfokay, I'm starting to spread
myself too thin.

(03:23):
This is going to happensometimes to you in your
business.
The first thing to do is torecognize that you're spreading
yourself too thin, pull back andrecalibrate.
What you don't want to do isyou don't want to say, well, I
need to push more, I need topush more.
I need to push more.
If you're starting to spreadyourself too thin, if you're not

(03:45):
having the time to do revenuegenerating activities, pull back
, pull back, recalibrate and fixyour process, because through
the month of May, my process gotreally out of whack and you
know how much I enjoy talkingabout processes.
So you have to make sure thatyou're regulating and you're

(04:08):
looking over your business.
Don't spread yourself too thin,don't over commit, and if you
have, just pull back and justrealize that five weeks, I
learned a lot about what I canaccomplish and what I can't
accomplish.
The same thing is going tohappen for you.

(04:29):
You are going to understandwhat you can do and what you can
achieve.
But I feel as if, by pushingmyself towards that, what it's
done is now recalibrated.
Whereas before I thought, ohman, five episodes is a lot per
week, now I'm thinking, oh man,I've cut back from seven.
Five is going to be a piece ofcake.
You see what just happenedmentally, because I pushed

(04:50):
myself, I now believe that doingfive episodes a week is a piece
of cake.
Imagine if you pushed yourselfin your business and maybe it
was to book 15 meetings a week,20 meetings a week, and it was
to make 50 calls and it was tosend out X number of emails, and
you push, and you push, and youpush, and then you pull back.

(05:12):
And every time you push and youpull back, you're going to get
stronger, you're going to getmentally stronger, you're going
to get physically stronger andemotionally stronger, and when
that happens, that is where yourgrowth and your progress will
come.
It's by pushing yourself.
It's not by staying in yourcomfort zone.
It's about trying new things.
I highly recommend that you tryto push yourself and just

(05:35):
realize it's not a failureunless you give up.
So I didn't fail at doing sevendays a week.
It's just too much for me rightnow.
If I had a team around me whereall I have to do is just hit
record and they take care ofeverything else, it's a
completely different story.
So I didn't fail.
Seven days a week wasn't afailure.

(05:57):
It was just too much for meright now.
This is not the right time.
It's not the right time for mein my business.
It's not the right time for theaudience.
All right, it's okay.
Just know that you can trythings and it's not going to
completely destroy your businessand that's really how you

(06:20):
figure out new ways to stayrelevant and new ways to create.
It's to try.
Thank you for listening.
I appreciate it.
Please subscribe.
If you took any value out ofthis, please subscribe to the
appropriate channels YouTube orSpotify, apple.
I really do appreciate that, ifyou want to reach out to me,
connect with me on LinkedIn orreach out to me via email.

(06:42):
All of my links are down in theshow notes.
I really do appreciate it andwe'll see you next time
Surviving Outside Sales.
Bye-bye.