Disclaimer: This is unfinished writing! Beta means it'll get better, but why wait to publish before it does? It's B- work in action!
It begins with managing your mind.
"Until you understand that what you think about is going to create the emotion that either drives the action or the inaction, you’re never gonna take the action."
What you think about creates the emotion that drives the action or inaction. If stress, fear, and panic are fueling the action, you’re not going to be able to produce results at the level you want to produce.
I can remember times, back when I was first starting out when I was hustling my butt off. I was all over the place, connecting with different people, working with all kinds of clients, seemingly very successful—but the problem was, I wasn’t taking action on the things that could actually take me to a place where I could grow and scale my business. I was hustling. I was tired. But, to some degree, I was really just chasing my tail.
This is what Brooke refers to as “The Busy Hustle” — a tiring hustle that’s produced by negative emotion: stress, fear, panic.
You want to avoid getting into a state of busy hustle, where you may be working hard yet aren’t producing anything. Instead, your goal should be to get to a place of a productive hustle, where results are consistently produced.
Your inbox is like crack to the busy mind. Trouble sleeping? You might find the busier you are, the less sleep you get.
Brooke suggested if you want to produce something, don’t just sit down to “work on something.” Sit down to produce something!
It’s important to change our language around this. Let’s stop saying, “I’m working on so and so,” and instead say, “I’m producing XYZ,” or “I’m recording a podcast.” See the difference?!
You’re Giving Yourself Too Much Time to Get It Done!
When you are on the clock, you realize that if you quote a jog will take 2 hours but spend 4 hours on it, you're cutting your rate in half! Two solutions: STOP at the time determined or double your rate!
Daily Deadlines are key.
Many people, especially those who are newer to business, give themselves too much time to produce a result. In the beginning, you have more time than customers or clients, so you just expand the time you are “working” in your business. Yet while you may have the time, what you actually produce doesn’t line up with the many hours you’re working. Taking action does not equal more time just because you have it!
Look at the projects you need to get done this week and give it a realistic time block. Taking it one step further, you can use an invoice as a 'go no/go' indicator.
time frame in which we will get it done. For example: instead of my saying, “I’ll get the podcast recorded and uploaded to Dropbox by Wednesday”, Brooke would say, “I will have the podcast recorded and uploaded to Dropbox in one hour. I’ll sit down and get it done in that hour.”
Of course, you need to be realistic about time frames… some things are going to naturally take longer than others.
And what sort of results will be produced if we go this route? Brooke says, “When you decide how long something will take and you stick to that, that’s when your production gets huge momentum.”
Now for my fellow perfectionists out there: this can be tough because you’re going to have to embrace the fact that you might produce some B-minus work. I know that’s hard to stomach! Brooke had to give me a little life-coaching during the episode because I am not someone who got Bs in school! : )
Brooke’s argument for producing B-minus work is this: “B-minus work can change people’s lives. Work that you don’t produce at all, does nothing in the world.”
Brooke told a great story in this episode about producing B-minus work on a book she wrote, about how she got some negative feedback which caused her some real shame and embarrassment; but a letter she received from someone whose life was changed because of that B-minus book made her realize that had she declined to put out that work in favor of striving for an A-plus, that woman’s life would never have been affected. That was when Brooke decided that she was ok with B-minus work—because she knew it would still produce good results.
You’ll have to decide for yourself as to what level work you are ok with; but for Brooke, making this decision made a HUGE difference in her business, and because of that decision, she has reached epic levels of impact and business success.
Of course, no one loves failure and discomfort; but the truth is, if we’re going to learn and grow, there are going to be moments of failure and times where we will need to step outside of our comfort zone.
Brooke explained that our brains are literally wired to avoid any kind of failure, and the only way to produce a successful business is to fail repeatedly. So what do we do?! We have to show our brains that we are not going to die because of discomfort and failure. We need to learn the process to move into discomfort, and then get comfortable with that discomfort.
“Discomfort is the currency to your dreams.” – Brooke Castillo