A simple scroll through your Instagram feed or attending a fun networking event can result in
a ton of comparison and potentially lead you to base your worthiness as a human on your
ability to complete tasks. I'll tell you that I bought into that narrative for a while and
I competed against the voice inside my head to be the most productive person who ever produced
but i didn't realize how my productivity was actually hurting me and my business
so I want to share with you my journey to overcoming my productivity-based self-worth.
Earlier this year, I had to unexpectedly take about two weeks off when I came down with the flu
and while my body battled this virus, my mind was battling the false belief that
productivity equals higher perceived value and worth as if the more you work, the better you are. I
don't know about you but I am ready to unsubscribe from that narrative and it hit me pretty hard.
Productivity-based self-worth is an epidemic in itself and to be honest, that realization hurt more
than my flu symptoms. The productivity pandemic has a struggling to identify the difference in doing
versus being and while I was sick and I was in bed and I was watching you know several seasons of
Manifest on Netflix in one day, I felt guilty because I wasn't doing enough. You ever been there?
Have you ever noticed this over the course of the last several months or a couple years? Let
me know your thoughts in the comments. Part of me was grateful that I have the business that I have
and the team to take over and the opportunity to really take time off to do nothing but
nap and watch a lot of Netflix. I watched the whole first season of Manifest in like a day,
amazing show by the way but by day three or four, I was bored and boredom like I had never
felt before which I'll preface with this is not the worst problem to have.
I have learned a lot from it and while I was in it, I actually created a poll
on my social media and the answers were all ones that I could easily resonate with. I asked
how do you feel when you aren't or can't be productive? Now before I tell you the answers,
have you subscribed to this channel yet? I want you to hit that red button and be notified of the new
videos that I put out to accelerate your business every single week. So I asked how do you feel when
you can't be productive. Here were the answers: helpless, useless, worthless, guilty, frustrated,
anxious, depressed, which brought me to ask myself why the heck are we so consumed by comparison
and perfectionism and impostor syndrome and why are productivity metrics so pervasive?
Well maybe it's because even the simplest little social media spiral will show us five-year-old's
with million dollar YouTube channels or hashtag boss babes who wear busy as a badge of honor
or these smiling faces that are secretly on the edge of burnout. Isn't that exhausting to look at
like I think I need another nap. When I was sick, I was supposed to be taking time off of work
to heal but I observed this internal narrative going on that I was feeling guilty that I wasn't
working instead of healing. I was questioning if I should be doing more. You know that some countries
take three hours off every afternoon to nap? If we do that in America, how many of us would wake
up with anxiety like assuming there were fires to put out? Why? Because capitalism. Ever since the
industrial revolution, society has installed into us that the more we work, the more we produce, the
more valuable we are quite literally at this time because your contribution to the economy
made you more valuable and now with technology and innovation just advancing faster than ever, it's
hard to find the line between work and everything else in life and this isn't new to me but it came
very apparent that I and many of us have this self-inflicted hardware that I wanted to heal
in my mind as I healed my body and overcome this obsession with doing rather than being like we
are human beings, not human doings. Society has been installing the idea that self-worth is connected
to external validation. From relationships, financial success, physical appearance, popularity,
so this is a message to untangle your inherent worth as a human from how productive you are. This
is a really weird mindset shift for me because if someone told me years ago that I could work less
in order to grow my business, I wouldn't believe it. You know I grew up with the belief system
hearing that nothing worth having comes easy. You have to work hard to get what you want
so I operate my business with this belief and I thought that if I wanted to make more money, I just
had to work harder. You know put in more hours, to show up earlier, stay later, do the hard things but
just for a moment, let's define what that means to work harder. Does that mean that it has to
be painful or backbreaking? Are we implying that the work we do can't possibly be enjoyable, that's
where entrepreneurship for me began to expose my limiting beliefs because the harder I worked
still kept me being the bottleneck and that didn't translate into money. Maybe just more exhaustion
and poor decisions. You know when you start your business, you are the CEO, chief everything officer,
but then at some point the focus shifts from grow to scale. You don't do everything by
yourself anymore because what got you here won't get you there, what got you here will kill you.
If I continued operating like that, I may have burnt out and gave up before ever scaling past six
figures and I never would have been able to reach you know multiple seven figures that we have today
and I say we very strongly because I now know that I can't do this alone which is why my focus has
to shift to becoming a leader and that in being a better boss or being a better leader, the only way
for me to scale and grow a team is by me setting the vision and sometimes that means doing less,
that's where my identity has to shift from being a doer to a delegator, from being a manager to a
leader, which can be hard for us entrepreneurs who like to have control like, we started this business
from a place of we want to have creative freedom, we want to be able to create a lifestyle that
we didn't have. So, that identity shift requires overcoming some limiting beliefs. I know one for
me was if you want something done right, you have to do it yourself which is extremely limiting to
(A) miss out on the opportunity and experience of creative collaboration with the team member
and (B) for your own personal development and growth and becoming a leader and exploring your other
skills when you have your time back and (C) you only have so many hours in a day so your business will
not scale if you insist on being the bottleneck. I just want to give you a big disclaimer like a
big warning, as your identity shifts away from your self-worth being from how productive you are, you
may start to feel a little bit insecure. You may question your value you know if anyone needs you
and you might think like well that sounds silly, i want to be free i want it
would be a dream to have a business that runs itself and that it can make money without me,
but because we built this thing, because it's our baby, because we have this internal wiring that
this is just how we grew up and what we believed is important to society,
we can unintentionally become the bottleneck again trying to insert ourselves into places that
aren't necessary and this is where the most valuable thing that we can do as a leader
is sit and think and dream and learn and vision which on the outside doesn't look very productive
and if you like me had the belief that you have to work hard to get what you want and define hard
work by things that were challenging or difficult, sitting, thinking, dreaming, learning, visioning
might not seem very important or valuable but that's your job, to set the vision, to create the
image of the future direction that you're going and bring that back to your team to inspire them.
I also remind you that you don't have to be productive every single minute of the day to
maximize your cashflow and grow your business. One of my superpowers that I'd love to support
you with is teaching people how to create a content machine that can sell high ticket for you
on autopilot. So if that's something you'd be interested in, I'd love to give you my highest
revenue generating, most profitable campaigns that you can actually just plug and play into
your business to maximize your lead generation and sales. So if you're interested in that, click the
link below to attend our hello to high ticket training. Ever since the industrial revolution-
and I never would have been able to reach you know multiple cigaret- and that by being and that
in being a better boss or a better leader, my ship- which is extremely limiting to
(A) miss out on the opportunity to uh- and the big warning and here's what- we believed is that.