The Last Straw
Trying to be everywhere and do everything is a fast track to burnout, so why are so many of us doing it? I think there are 5 reasons. Will you agree?
How do you like your eggs? It’s time once again to celebrate the special day when Jesus and the Easter Bunny went around Jerusalem giving out chocolate eggs which the children would proceed to eat and eat until they felt ill. Or something like that. I forget exactly how the story goes… anyway, Happy Easter and take it easy on the hot cross buns.
This week I received a message from someone who follows me on LinkedIn about a topic that I think affects a great many business owners and podcasters, especially in the earlier days of business. It is a giant source of frustration for her and reminded me that I have previously done the same, so I hope she won’t mind me sharing some of my thoughts with you.
One of the things I have mentioned previously in my writings is that many people seem to think the solution to content not hitting its targets and not getting responses is simply to do more of it. Well, that may have some effect but what if the content just isn’t good? What if you simply don’t have all the hours you need to be able to keep creating new content? What if, what if…
In a bid to, as a certain popular entrepreneurial figure suggests, “be everywhere”, it’s super easy to end up breaking yourself trying to make that happen. Daily live videos, daily podcast episodes, increased content output, increased marketing output.
Low engagement? Do more. Start another podcast, start a new social media campaign, create a new lead magnet, go on more podcasts, write more articles… OH MY GOD! It’s exhausting just thinking about it.
Why are so many business owners trying to do everything and be everywhere? Is it just ‘hustle culture’ or something else? I want to lay out five of the main culprits and see if there’s a better solution.
1. Hustle & grind culture. Are you working hard or hardly working?
My problem with hustle culture is that it often does lead people to burnout, stress, illness, despair, damaged relationships and more besides. Some may consider that a reasonable price to pay for success but I do not. I love my work and enjoy it enough to want to put in long hours but I also know that it won’t matter how many hours I work if I am not doing the right things, or if I tire myself out. We can only skim the edge of the chasm of overwhelm for so long before we start to fall into it.
Working hard is not its own reward and this idea that if you’re not half killing yourself trying to make it then you’re not really in the game is fucking toxic and needs to go in the bin. Recovery from burnout is far harder than preventing it in the first place.
In my conversations with other business owners and professional podcasters, we all have so much to do and then some. Realistically, unless you have a team and support, you are not going to be able to get done everything that ideally needs to get done, so instead, you have to figure out what must get done, what is good to get done and what can be cut or ignored if you really have to.
If you enjoy feeling overwhelmed, have at it. However, I think most of us do not. There is only one solution for overwhelm and it is simplification. Simplify to amplify. If you don’t know where to start or what to cut, ask someone to help you figure it out. Cut out or burn out, your choice.
2. Survivor Bias. This may seem like a strange thing to include as it’s a logical fallacy that we would all do well to remember. We tend to look up to successful people and because NLP and the self-help movement have told us to model successful people, this is what we do. Seems like a good idea, right? Kinda, but…
Who do we hear success stories from? Successful people of course. Whose stories don’t we hear? The ones who didn’t make it (yet). Do we care what their morning routine is? Do we care what time they wake up? If they sleep only 4 hours? No! If an unsuccessful person says they only sleep 4 hours, we would likely think that must be part of their problem. However, if a successful person says the same thing, it must be why they’re successful. Do you see the problem?
I’m not saying that success doesn’t leave clues but I’ve been around long enough to know that the difference between success and failure is often just down to luck, timing, the right connections and sometimes a few other things we don’t always have control over or access to.
We give more weight to the actions of someone who has achieved success because we think we just need to be more like them but there can be a host of things you can not account for and that may not get mentioned due to that thing we call ego. Be willing to apply a little scepticism, especially if you’re modelling a super achiever. You will only ever know and see what they let you know and see.
3. Bad Teachers. In my early days of personal development, I can remember that I was being shown and told to develop a go-getter overachiever type personality. It seemed like that was who I had to become to have any hope of success. It was surely my lack of motivation and positivity that was the real reason I was not already successful. It had to be.
The guys on the stage would brag about how little they slept because they woke up pumped with energy every day to get on their mission of saving the world and whatnot. They’d eat feedback for breakfast and were living as their ultimate selves, fully self-actualised, the pinnacle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Trouble is, when you set yourself up as the exemplar and archetype, you can’t go letting any cracks show, any more than those Instagram influencers will show you their uncurated lives without the filters turned on.
We believe them because they look the part, they seem to have what we aspire to and they sound so damn confident. Our emotions start running high, we want to believe them. We want to believe someone has the answers so much that we start to disregard any red flags that we might otherwise spot if we were being more rational.
All we have to do is get more motivated, think more positively, invest our time, money and life into these teachings and we will have all the success we can dream of. Sounds like a cult, no? And what happens when inevitably people do not achieve these promised results? Well, it must be you. I once thought like that too, right up until I saw one of these ‘gurus’ get all his cards declined in a hotel. ALL OF THEM!
The real reason most people are not more successful is that they mostly don’t know how to start or run a business, they don’t know how to manage their time or finances, they don’t know how to get investment or create value in the marketplace because they were never taught at school, never lucky enough to have a mentor, conditioned for a life of working for other people. Not because they weren’t motivated enough or had a few negative beliefs, although that stuff never helps.
We want to believe the voices that tell us we can take the shortcut, the magic pill, the get rich quick and transform ourselves and our lives overnight but deep down we know life doesn’t work that way. The work it takes to try and be everywhere ASAP is unsustainable for very long. A slower and sustainable build might not seem so sexy but it will serve you so much better in the long run. Add it to the list of uncomfortable truths we prefer to ignore.
4. FOMO. Fear of missing out. People are figuratively breaking their necks to do all the fancy things we see other creators and business owners doing, especially when it comes to podcasting and content creation. I fall into this trap quite often.
We see someone who’s killing it with their content, going viral, from zero to hero on a social media channel and we want in on that, even if it means switching to Insta when we’ve been growing our audience on LinkedIn. We don’t want to drop the work we’ve been putting in, so we add this to our neverending list of things we need to do to be successful. Next, they start doing daily live streams, now we have to add that too etc…
I’m not saying success shortcuts and hacks don’t sometimes work but let’s get real, you simply don’t need to be everywhere. You only need to be where your target audience is. You don’t need the flashiest content or super slick live streams, you just need to be there helping people. You don’t need to have the book, the course, the coaching, the speaking, the podcast or the newsletter all right now. You only need to be starting with whichever thing makes the most sense and can start making you some income.
Ditch the shiny object syndrome and start focusing on mastering the basics. You can’t build anything that will last without a solid foundation but as my old martial arts instructor used to say to me, you can win championships just by mastering the basics. It’s not the sexy path, it’s not the magic pill and it’s not the fast track but it is reality and I generally prefer living there. How about you?
5. Impatience. I guess this is the natural lead on from FOMO which leads to impatience.
We can get same-day delivery with Amazon, surely we can just plug ourselves into the matrix and download success? I see people who have success right now and I want that. I don’t want to have to wait. That one has the car I want to drive, lucky bastard. Why am I driving this old crap bucket?
It’s natural to want things like a better life and more money. It’s also natural not to want to have to work too hard for those things but this can lead us to look for quick fixes. Maybe marry rich or try be super nice to your wealthy elderly aunt or start a super successful Only Fans and it could happen. None of those were options for me, so I’m stuck with the slow path but it’s not so bad. In fact, it’s great.
I’ve discovered that much of life seems to be about lessons in patience. The willingness to master the basics, to learn your craft, to happily show up consistently and persistently and do the things that create results rather than only the things we want to do or are good at.
No one goes from apprentice to master in one leap, no matter how quickly those kids learned karate on Cobra Kai. There is a process to go through, a learning curve, an experience curve and several levels of competence. The journey to black belt is only the beginning in martial arts. The same principle applies to professional success and pretty much anything in life.
You may as well learn how to enjoy the ride, find joy in the process and treasure the journey to success. The things we earn taste sweeter than those we don’t and let’s face it if everyone could do it, everyone would and then it would be nothing special.
Working hard and smart is a good way to go but playing and enjoying your life, nurturing relationships and maintaining good health should not be bonuses you only get to have if you’re a good little girl, boy or other preferred pronoun.
Let’s drop the entrepreneurial guilt and recognise that you will perform much better and have a happier day to day when your life feels good and you have more to look forward to than another week of grind.
Temper your patience and stick with it. Bless what others have and be grateful for what you do have. It doesn’t mean you can’t also want more. Learn from good teachers who are self-aware and willing to let you see a real person rather than a carefully crafted image.
Remember that you never see the full story of someone else’s life, so it’s good to be a little sceptical and not assume that by doing what they tell you they did you will be successful. Work hard and work smart but not at the expense of a life. Things nearly always take much longer than we hope they will and all-out hustle and grind is just not sustainable for most of us, especially more mature entrepreneurs like myself.
This turned into a much bigger article than I had planned but I hope you find some value and takeaways in it. Please, let me know if you did? Or let me know if you disagree with me? Let me know if you need a bit of help with any of this or you have something to add that I missed?
I was lucky enough to have an amazing chat with a mentalist recently, something I have been hoping to do for the longest time. He is the founder and CEO of the Influence Association in the UK and has written a terrific book called Effective Influence. If that sounds like your kind of show, take a listen to the latest episode of Speaking Influence.
If you’re following me online then there’s a good chance you want to build your influence and authority in the professional sphere? Maybe specifically by leveraging podcasts? If so, then I want to invite you to download my free ebook on building authority through podcasts without needing to have your own podcast.
I like to offer you a great tune each week because few things can lift our emotions like music, help us improve our state and feel good. This week, I invite you to bop along to an absolute classic by the legendary Chaka Khan who once kissed me on the cheek in Heathrow airport. Well, that’s her claim to fame sorted I guess. Bonus points if you know who did the rap part?
Originally published at https://presentinfluence.newzenler.com.
