Work Smart, Not Hard

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Imagine working for four days and completing six months worth
of work. That's what I call being productive. Hey, I'm
Brianna Aponte, your host of the Self Life CEO podcast.
I dropped out of college at the age of nineteen
to start my first business. I worked seven days a week,
wore way too many hats, and was the true definition
of a hustler. Years later, I'm finally living the dream

(00:23):
that I worked so hard to make my reality. I've
transitioned from a hustler to a soft life CEO, working
only two days a week to maintain and run a
high earning business that gives me the freedom to live
a life I love. Now it's my mission to help
as many entrepreneurs as I can elevate their brand, increase
their income, and reclaim their time. Join me and guest
experts as we share our transparent journeys, work smart and

(00:43):
not hard strategies, and the behind the scenes of running
a successful brand in business. You're tuned in to the
Self Life CEO. So, guys, this is probably my favorite
thing to talk about. So many people struggle to get
things done and to reach their goals simply because they
aren't attacking them correctly. People get overwhelmed with the process

(01:03):
and they end up quitting before giving themselves a real chance,
or they have goals that are so big that they
don't know where to start. And so if that's you,
I'm here to help. I consider myself a goal slayer.
I set my goals, I reach my goals like clockwork.
When dra first met me, he said that the thing
he found most attractive was my ambition to want something

(01:25):
and go get it. So today I'm sharing the things
you need to know, to do and master in order
to work smart, not hard, and achieve your wildest dreams.
But before anything else, shift your mindset and mentally prepare.
I know that I talk about this all the time,
but I have to because it's so important to believe

(01:46):
in yourself and your capabilities of doing what you put
your mind to. The more you accomplish, the more confident
you become. But you have to start somewhere, work on
your self confidence and the skill sets needed in order
to reach the goals you have. If you don't do research,
and if you have no experience, you should work on
those before even creating a plan to accomplish your goals.

(02:10):
Preparation is just as important as the execution. In fact,
without preparation, you may not be able to execute at all.
So having the mindset that you can do something will
majorly affect the chances of you actually doing it. Take
the time to mentally prepare yourself and restore the confidence
you need in order to slay your goals. Now here

(02:30):
are my steps for mastering the art of working smart
not hard. One create a plan from start to finish.
In order to work smart, you need to know exactly
what the plan is in order to properly execute it.
Creating the plan is simply understanding the steps of what's
needed in order to accomplish the end goal. For this episode,

(02:52):
I will continue to use this podcast as my example.
My plan included the following steps. One Research the things
I had questions about or didn't know when it came
to doing a podcast. Two. Decide on a title and
focus for the podcast. Three. Decide on the verbage and
background music for the intro and outro. Four. Purchase the

(03:14):
necessary equipment. Five choose topics for six months worth of episodes. Six,
create the scripts for all twenty four episodes. Seven edit
all of the episodes. Eight automate the episodes. Nine automate
social media and email blast and ten launch podcast. Get

(03:35):
my free training from Hustler to soft Life Ceo, which
includes my untold entrepreneurial Journey, the soft Life CEO Roadmap,
and my winning recipe for elevating your brand, increasing your income,
and reclaiming your time. Head over to the Soft Life
Ceo dot com backslash free training. The plan provides a
step by step guide for what needs to be done
in order to reach the goal, which in this case

(03:57):
was creating and launching a podcast. The number two you
have to think of everything in order to work smart.
You need to think of all the things that will
allow you to get the max results with minimal effort.
For example, I realized that I could use the podcast
scripts and turn them into blog posts, allowing me to
launch both a podcast and a blog without adding additional

(04:20):
work to my workload. Max results, minimal efforts. I also
wanted to make sure that I talked about things that
my audience would be interested in or that they need
help with. So instead of spending hours of brand storming
or second guessing myself, I created an ig story asking
what topics my audience would want, and I turned their
suggestions into episodes and then built off of what I had.

(04:44):
Another example is this I knew for my research that
in order to be listed on Apple Podcasts, I needed
at least fifty reviews and ratings, So before I launched
to the public, I sent out my intro episode to
family and friends and had each of them leave a
rating and review. So by the time time my podcast
was released to the public, I was listed and branked
on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. This step will sometimes shift

(05:07):
your actual plan because you might think of things that
you didn't think of originally when you first created it,
and that's totally fine. You can always adapt and change
your plan. Number three is to do proper research or outsource.
Once you have your plan and you've thought about all
the other possible things that could help your process and plan,

(05:28):
research what you need and what you need to outsource.
For example, I had no clue what type of equipment
I needed, so I outsourced that part to someone who
I knew knows about technology and recording. Now, lucky for me,
that person who was my fiance. But if there's something
that you know you're not good at, definitely get an expert.

(05:49):
I also knew I needed marketing material, content for social media,
graphics to announce a new episode, covers for my free guides, website,
page for the podcast, and blog, et cetera. Again, I
was lucky because I do all of these things professionally,
But this may be things that you might need to outsource. Now, yes,
you could try to do all of these things on

(06:10):
your own, but remember the goal here is to work smart,
not hard. If you take the cheap or shortcut route,
it's only going to cause more headache in the long run.
So if you're going to do it, I say do
it right. Number four is batchwork. Batchworking is literally my
life saver. If you truly know me, you know that
I hate being on social media and I hate taking pictures.

(06:32):
And I know that this doesn't add up at all
with what you see or probably assumed of me. But
that's because I've mastered the art of batchworking. I understand
the importance of social media, and because my businesses thrive
off of it, I have to be intentional with creating content,
so batchworking allows me to do that. I spend three
to four days a year creating content that lasts me

(06:54):
three to four months. That means I only shoot content
one time every three to four months. That content is
then automated with captions and hashtags, allowing me to intentionally
show up on social media without having to physically be
on the platform. I spend my time doing the things
I love with the people I love, while also building

(07:14):
my brand and growing my influence. Batgeworking is amazing because
you're able to be super strategic with your brand instead
of taking photos in the moment and throwing them up
on your page. Instead, you think of the things that
are small but make huge differences, like your clothes, your background,
your lighting, your captions, and ultimately the call to action

(07:35):
that will be tied to that photo. This is when
you shift from using social media as a form of
entertainment to using it as a free tool to build
your brand or business. Batchworking is not just for content creation,
it can be for anything. For the example I'm using,
it would be for creating and recording the podcast episodes,

(07:55):
my email blasts, and automation. Instead of writing one episode
out of time and then recording it and then scheduling
it and then creating an email blast, I would pick
one day to focus on scripting all of the episodes,
another day to focus on recording them all and another
day to create the email blasts and automate everything out.
Studies prove that we work best when we are focused

(08:18):
on one task at a time. So instead of switching
back and forth and doing tedious work, knock out each
step of the process one at a time, because once
it's done, it's done. Imagine working for four days and
completing six months worth of work. That's what I call
being productive. So number five is automate. Automation is by

(08:41):
far the number one time saver. You will make your
life so much easier once you start to automate. You
can automate everything from social media posts to emails and newsletters.
Think about all the things that you currently do or
would need to do on a weekly or daily basis,
and automate them so that you only have to worry
about it one time a month instead of weekly or daily.

(09:03):
If you're really prepared, automate one time every six months,
like I do. It's amazing to go on with my
life and know that every week my subscribers are getting
a blog post, a podcast episode, a YouTube video, social
media postings, and updates via email, allowing me to properly
dedicate my time to bigger projects, my clients and my

(09:23):
loved ones, Because in order to work smart, you have
to have your priorities figured out and you have to
be able to say no to the things that don't
align with your goals and only waste your time. Once
you have that down, you can start with step one
of shifting your mindset in order to work smart, not hard.
Create a plan, execute the plan, batch work, and automate.

(09:45):
This won't be easy at first, but practice makes perfect.
If you truly want to reach your biggest goals, follow
in the footsteps of those who have reached their own.
Most likely, your friends and family won't be able to
help you because chances are they've never done on it themselves.
So get around people who are where you want to be,
or who are like minded and have similar values as

(10:07):
you do. Listen to podcasts just like you're doing now,
read books, do your research. Your goals aren't as far
as you think they are. Trust me, I know. Put
in the work to prepare yourself, dedicate yourself to execute
your plan, and use these tips to work smart. Matt Hard,
thanks for tuning in to Soft Life, CEO. I hope

(10:27):
that today's episode gets you a little bit closer to
achieving your definition of a soft life. If you're ready
to start the journey from hustler to soft life CEO,
go to the Soft Life CEO dot com backslash Society
for a thirty day free trial in my coaching community.
If you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend,
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