EPISODE 18: How to motivate yourself like a 6-Figure CEO

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the podcast. Today is going to be a phenomenal episode where we're going to talk all about motivation and how to get yourself into action, even when you don't want to do things. But before I say this, I want to invite you to join the six figure systems mastermind because enrollment closes at the end of the week. Systems week, which is the week long event where you're going to get all the systems you need to scale for the next six months, happens on July, on the 12 August. So if you want to get to work to make your business work for you, it's going to be a phenomenal six month time period. People are already in the group, they are loving it. And I, uh, would be honored to help support you through the second half of 2024, if that is when you're listening to this. So make sure that you use the link below to sign up if that's something you're interested in. And without further ado, we're going to get into the science of motivation and how to motivate yourself like a six figure CEO. Now, this is something that is so critical that I see so many entrepreneurs neglecting. And it's the reason that their businesses stay in a kind of stuck feeling place, which is like less than ideal versus growing and scaling at the pace that they wanted to. So, within your business today, we're going to talk about how to, like I mentioned before, how to get to work to make your business work for you, and the boomerang effect that happens when you put some effort in. The second thing that we're going to talk about is the science behind motivation. And the last piece is, I want to give you a trick so that after you listen to this podcast, you can get yourself into action at any point that you want. It's very quick and it's very easy to do, and I'll show you how to do it. So, uh, the first thing that I want to mention is when you are thinking about putting effort into your business, you want to make sure that you are putting effort into things that are going to give you a return. So in the short term, when you are motivating yourself to do things, you want to make sure you're motivating yourself to do things that are going to give you the largest rate of, uh, um, return on your investment so that you are actually investing your time in things that are worthwhile. So, for instance, when you're posting and things like that, those are things that if you think about the value that you're putting into your business the value that you're putting out into the world. You, if you put enough value into the world and you continue to show up and serve and help people, what happens is there's a compounding effect to the effort that you put in. Uh, so a lot of times I think that there's this misconception that time equals money. And, ah, if you are thinking about your business in a way that a lot of employees are trained, when, if you think about like, even hourly paid jobs, there is, you put in the time, you get paid. And so a lot of our brains think that entrepreneurship works the same way. If you put in the time, you'll get the reward. And that is not the case when you are an entrepreneur. It's not how much time you put in, it's how much value you give. So, for me, when I was first starting my business, I thought if I worked more hours, I was going to get more people. And that didn't happen. I was doing a lot of inefficient work, and I wasn't focusing on a small amount of things that I could do that would keep up, uh, consistency that helped me communicating with my audience and were constrained to something I could do. So when I was trying to motivate myself to do different tasks as an entrepreneur, what happened is I found that the things that I was focusing on just were really inefficient. Like, I was like, let's do a group program, let's start a podcast. And this is like back in 2020. So there were just so many things that I was throwing spaghetti at a bomb. My brain started to associate my work in my business to be a lot of effort. It felt like a lot of work in my business. And when I was thinking about motivating myself to do the work, it felt like I was throwing spaghetti at a wall. I really didn't feel like I had a clear strategy. And of course, as that's happening, your brain is going to be less motivated to do the things. For instance, uh, when we're thinking about getting to work to make your business work for you, you might, as you're listening to this podcast, already have some negative associations with the work that you've done in your business, looking for a rate of return already. So we want to come, um, into this conversation about motivation, knowing that you might have some past bias about your situation with motivating yourself to work in your business. And that's really important because today we have to figure out, uh, how to hack that part of your brain and get it excited to do work again. So one of the ways that I did that when I was first starting my business is I thought about the things that would give me the most return on my investment, and I decided to focus my energy there. When I talk about getting to work, to get your business to work for you, what I mean by that is that you're putting in effort and energy to put into place routines and systems that can help you to do things in a shorter amount of time later. Long term invest. Ah, a long hour time investment. But it gave me time in the future. For instance, when I first started using my marketing calendar, what I found is that it took me, even with the system that I had in place, it still would take me like an hour or 2 hours to write a post. However, I knew that if I put in the effort to develop that skillset of, uh, writing and timed myself to get faster and faster every single time, I was able to whittle down the two, maybe even 3 hours for one post, down to 30 minutes, and it was because I had, I had to put in that 3 hours to get the 30 minutes later an investment of time that created a better situation for me in the future. So sometimes, but I didn't know that, like, when I was first starting my business, like, you might not know that. So what you have to do is you have to hack the way that you think about it and think about a past job that you've had success with. When you're thinking about motivating yourself in your business, remember that you have multiple jobs as a CEO. It's usually around eight different hats that you have to wear as a solopreneur running a business. So what you want to do is you want to think back with each of these activities that you're doing to grow your business. And you want to think about it like a past job or a past skillset that you had to take time to learn and you were successful in another thing that you can think about will be like learning. So, for instance, when I was teaching, it took me three years to really get down starting school year. They actually have it in, uh, the Wake county school system where I taught. They called them bt one, bt two, bt three, beginning teacher one, two, and three. Because those first three years are so challenging that you get extra support, you get mentorship. That's included in my county when I was teaching. So for you, what you want to do is remind yourself that when you first start doing these things and getting your business to work, it's not going to be like where you're at, uh, currently with any other piece of your career. It's like you're at the beginning of your career when things are clunky, but you put in that time, that energy and effort, and once you put in that time, then you could see a clear return on your investment and you probably got better and faster. And it used to take me like a, um, month to get my classroom. And then it still, the first three years, it took me a solid month every day, going into my classroom, getting the books ready, getting the decorations, getting new book boxes, like all these things, to get my classroom ready. And then in year four and five, what happened in six? I was like, technically I was only. I say that because I was teaching virtually. And so it was just a whole other interesting thing with the COVID years. But, uh, what happened is when I was setting up my classroom in the future years, it got faster because I had experience. My brain started to create routines, it created systems, uh, around my classroom, and I got faster and faster as time went on. So the work I did in the short term, in the beginning, which was long and more challenging, paid off so much. So, in the long run, the other thing that happened is if you're learning, think about this as learning a skill set. When I first was learning how to, let's say ski, right? If I was learning how to ski or. No, a better one is surfing. I was learning how to surf and I was not good right away. I only served for like a week. I, um, taught in Nicaragua. So it was like what we did in the mornings before yoga. Such a cool experience. I was only there for a little bit, but at first I was really frustrated because I wasn't getting it right away. And it felt like I was just like falling and getting salt water at my nose. When I had took that time, practiced, got more experience after, uh, like, and it wasn't that long of a time, but after a couple of days, I was able to go out and go surfing myself. So within your business, you need to remind your business, hey yourself in your business. As the CEO of my business, I'm learning a new skill set. This is a new job. I've never done anything like this before, most likely. And I, I'm going to take the time to get my ducks in a row so that later on things are easier and it will help you start that motivation cycle. The second thing I wanted to talk to you all about was the science behind motivation. There is this thing called the motivational triad, which designed, it's a simplification of the way that your brain functions to get to work. Now, when you are thinking about the human brain, the human brain is designed for efficiency, and it wants to stay the same. So you, right now, as you are listening to this podcast, probably intellectually know that you want a six and multiple six figure business. You understand that it's going to create time freedom for you, that you're going to be able to go on more trips because you can work from home. You also might be able to have more financial freedom so that you can pay for things to support your family and create longevity and wealth. However, your brain, and I like to say your brain, you can think about your subconscious, your primitive brain, it wants you to stay the same. Anything different, anything new, even if it's great, even if it was wonderful, you, it's different. So your brain instantly is going to be fighting you along the way, your subconscious and your primitive brain. Again, oversimplification, oversimplifying the psychology of this, but, uh, when you're thinking about it, that part of your brain runs the show 80% of the time. Your prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain that's responsible for logical decision making, and it only runs the show 20% of the time. So what happens is, if that, uh, prefrontal cortex is not making decisions, we have to know and how to motivate that 80% of your subconscious and primitive brain so that it can get to work, to work for you. So, within motivating yourself, if we know that your brain likes to say the same because it's easier, there is a motivational triad that describes the change. So, the motivational triad says that you want to achieve, uh, it's, uh, conserve energy, avoid, uh, pain, seek pleasure. So our brain, the 80% of our brain, that lower subconscious lizard brain is what some people call it, that primitive part of your brain is running the show 80% of the time, and it wants to see comfortable things, it wants to avoid things that are new and different, and it also wants to conserve energy. So, if you're thinking about motivating yourself, what you have to do is you have to first understand that. And if, like, for instance, I've given y'all many a tip on this podcast, if this is your first episode, welcome. But, uh, within the, the things and I've told you about, most people don't actually do the things, even if you know it's good for you, even if you know it might be helpful for you, because there is this uh, subconscious part of you that is running the show 80% of the time, and what's happening is when that part of your brain is running the show, it doesn't want to do anything. It doesn't want to get to work. It doesn't want to do marketing, even if it knows that could mean that you can get an extra vacation next year. It doesn't want to get on a sales call, because then that means that, uh, it wants to stay safe. You could have the unfortunate situation of rejection, failure, or abandonment, and people could ghost you. It's extremely triggering to your brain to do things for your business. It feels like talking to someone and having a conversation online is like a lion is chasing you in the bushes. It feels so scary and intimidating. Even though intellectually you know you're probably not going to die if somebody decides not to work with you, you know that you are not going to be in a life threatening situation if you hear that, uh, if somebody puts a negative comment on your post, but it feels that way. So if we know that we need to have that motivational triad and we want to change it to something that I coined called the accomplishment triad of. So, when we're thinking about the level of motivation, and the trick that I would like to leave you with today is if you are thinking about your business, you want to identify which part of the motivational triad you're in. So you want to identify whether you are trying to conserve energy, seek pleasure, or avoid pain when you are feeling unmotivated. So, for instance, if I was going to record a podcast and I noticed myself picking up my phone and scrolling, I'm not pointing any fingers. This is something I do all the time. I know that may, I've coached a couple of you, and I know this might be something that you're experiencing as well. We want to first gain awareness when we are doing, when we are experiencing the lack of motivation, what are the things that trigger you to not do work? Is it wondering what is happening physically when you are avoiding your work? So that's step one, is awareness. Then we want to question, which is step two? What is your brain, your subconscious, your primitive brain, trying to protect you from? Is it trying to conserve energy? Is it trying to seek pleasure? Or is it trying to avoid pain? And we want to understand and think to ourselves, okay, that is interesting. I'm noticing that my brain's doing that awesome. Uh, um, a lot of times, and I know I'm saying brain like it's separate from me, and it actually helps me to dissociate myself from my brain and my, the mindset I have around my business, because then I can, it gives me more agency to choose something that's more intentional, which is actually the last piece. So you want to choose something that's more intentional. And I actually came up with the accomplishment triad, which is the converse of the motivational triad. So for the accomplishment triad, instead of conserving energy, you want to become energized. One of the things that, ah, again, we're self preservation, self focused. Of course, that's like how our brains keep us safe. It's like, yep, we want to keep the human safe, avoid rejection, avoid abandonment, avoid failure. Because in the past, that primitive part of you, if we're thinking about how human beings have evolved and grown over time, you literally, if you were abandoned from the tribe, if you were rejected, if you failed, you were literally like exile from the community, and you literally would die. Uh, so it's very logical as, uh, to why your brain is trying to protect you. It just doesn't realize that in the year 2024, whatever year you listen to it, this podcast, that you don't have to be as concerned about those physical, uh, concerns like the failure, the rejection and the abandonment. For most humans that might be listening to this podcast are in a situation where it's more so emotional concerns and emotional safety that needs to be met. So again, we want to understand whether you're going to be seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, and conserving energy with a, uh, mindset, and like, the light of compassion, being like, hey, brain. Again, I like to dissociate myself. Hey, brain, thank you so much for trying to keep me safe. I really appreciate this. However, this is what I actually want to create intentionally. And if we think about the mode, and I'll try and upload a picture of the motivational triad and the accomplishment triad to this, um, podcast. And what I want you to do instead is I want you to think, actually, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to make a worksheet for you all about this. I think it'll be helpful. So there's conserve energy, seek pleasure, and avoid pain. And we want to turn that, uh, motivational triad on its head to become the accomplishment triad. Instead of seeking energy and trying to conserve energy, we want to become energized by the things that you're doing in your business. So, for instance, when we're thinking about you and your business, you want to think about the longer service, focus side of things. And apparently Jackson is really hyped for life. I hope you guys can't hear our puppy. Uh, I think that we've got a package delivered. But within this coming back to the motivational, to the accomplishment triad, when you are thinking about you and your business, you want to become energized, and you want to be thinking about how amazing it is to serve your people. You want to think a little bit forward to the future, and you want to think about how amazing it's going to be for all the people that you could help to be hearing this amazing information from you right away. So that's the first thing that you want to do is if you notice that you're trying to conserve energy, a way that you can motivate yourself is to become energized, to feel excited and get really into this feeling of, uh, wow, I can't wait to help this person. Let me think about something I could do to help other people. The next thing is avoiding pain. That's the third piece of the motivational triad. Instead of avoiding pain, which might be like, it might feel uncomfortable for you to go, let's say, live on a story and share about your perspective. That is definitely something that your brain, your primitive brain, the lower part of your brain, 80% of the show brain, might be trying to have you avoid. You could say something silly, people might judge you, and that wouldn't be great. Your brain doesn't want that. And so what we want to do is we want to focus on, instead of avoiding pain, we want to focus on avoiding regret. I want you to think about every single thing that you're doing in your business right now. Every single thing that you're doing is something that is amazing, and it's going to help people. And I, uh, am the kind of person that wants to do everything I can in my life to the highest of my ability. And I don't want to look back on regret and think, you know, I could have done more. I could have probably helped more people. I would recommend that you just choose to live like that anyways. However, if you're feeling like, oh, I don't want to get on this story. I don't. What is my, um, nephew going to say? I don't have enough you. So I was like, that would be funny, but what is he going to say? You know, whatever your thoughts are, I want you to think back, and if you were towards the end of your life, would you regret showing up to help people, getting live, actually showing up to write a post going on that showing up fully for a sales call. And what do you think about that? If that's something that you are feeling, that avoiding pain again, you can get awareness for when it comes up, it's usually for me personally, it's times when I'm trying to be visible and you want to question, what is it? What is my brain trying to do? Oh, it's trying to have me avoid pain. I was bullied pretty harshly as a kid, and so my brain, usually with visibility stuff is like, no, we'd rather not do this. So I have to remind my primitive brain, thank you for protecting me, but I'm going to choose to live a life without regret. And I'd really regret if I didn't show up on this story, even if it's just helping one person. And last but not least, instead of seeking pleasure, like, I don't know about you guys, but I love scrolling on the gram. I think it is the funniest thing. And especially with my ADHD, I get so locked in and I'm like, I also get like hyper fixated on it sometimes. And I might send my fiance rob like 50 memes all in like 1 hour. He's like, what? I just looked at my phone, I had 40 notifications. I'm like, oh, I was clearly trying to seek pleasure in this moment. What was I supposed to be doing? And again, that I'll gain awareness of, like, what was I trying to do again? And I'm like, oh, I need to record a podcast. And it's a lot more fun to scroll on my phone than record a podcast. Uh, even though once I get started doing the podcast, I absolutely love it. But for you, there might be other things, like writing a post, do, uh, messaging people to see if you can get on their podcast, creating a collaboration structure, creating a referral program. All those things are things that your brain is probably not going to want to do. Talking to people and like, being like, hey, by the way, I'm doing a webinar, I'm doing a presentation. Your brain is going to want to seek pleasure over doing that anytime. So what you want to do is you want to seek this long term success of your business. What is your big why for why you decided to start your business? For me, I wanted to make entrepreneurship accessible. I figured out what worked for me and I learned that there was some crazy statistics that, like, only four or 5% of solopreneurs make six figures. And, ah, I was like, wait, what? And 86% of entrepreneurs work more than 40 hours a week. And I'm like, okay, to do something that you are passionate about, to serve people in a way that you are uniquely gifted and talented to do, you're going to get penalized, you're not going to make as much money, and you're not going to, and you might lose work life balance. I was like, oh, no, that is not the case. I figured out how to do this. It is my mission to make all of that accessible for all entrepreneurs, specifically, especially for solopreneurs, because I think that's one of the hardest times. And so whenever I am like, oh, uh, you know, it'd be really fun. Right now, I just want to go and watch cat videos because I love cats, I wouldn't go instead. And I want to seek the long term success in my legacy. Like, this is a legacy I want to leave on the world. I'm, uh, hopefully going to be freezing my eggs at some point within the next couple months, and I want my kids to grow up if I'm lucky enough to have them, and I'm going to come heck or high water, I'm going to either get pregnant or I'm going to adopt. I want to be a mother in this amazing lifetime of mine. And so for me, I want the future children. I have to think about entrepreneurship as not only a viable career option, but as something that is known and thought of as something that's an amazing career that would be worthwhile to do, instead of something that feels like a risk, something that feels like a gamble. Because I feel like that's what entrepreneurship is kind of, like, branded as. Uh, and the statistics are also not helping. So I want to be a part of this positive change. I want to create change, not just for this generation of people, but for generations to come. Genuinely think that these systems, like, I have so many dreams, you guys, about, like, getting these systems maybe into school, showing people that it's even more possible. Like, I think it's. It's so wonderful when we can think about, like, an economy that's fueled by small business owners, because I know that I go to that for every single client I have, I've never met a solo career that's like, yeah, like, I don't care about my clients. We all care so much, almost too much sometimes. We're thinking about clients all the time that we, uh, we'll do our due diligence to do right by our people. And I really, that's the world that I want to live into and the movement that I want to create. I'm insanely passionate about what I do. And if I always seek that long term success, that long term service based vision, I will always get out of that. Like, let's just scroll on the brown kind of mentality and I'll be like, let's get to work. We got to help some people today. How can I help Sally, who I just messaged? What are the different things that I can help Janae with? You know, it's like just anything that comes to mind, I get long. I get so locked, uh, in. So what's happening is you're going from instant gratification focused to long term gratification focused. It is not an easy skill to do. And that's why, for the entire course of my business, I've always had support. I've never been without a coach the entire five years, almost five years now. It's like we're coming up on five years in a month. And I have never been without a mentor, a coach, someone to support me along the way, because they can catch me. And at the beginning of my business, it was pretty apparent when I was, like, in a motivational triad spin and I was, like, totally unmotivated and wasn't doing things. But as my business has grown, it's gotten a little sneakier where it's like, oh, you know, it's like I really could. I feel so comfortable about doing my posts and stuff. It's like, oh, I need to really put work on my post instead of working on some curriculum or something or some systems, uh, sops that I want to create for my hires. So I want you to think about that, and I want you to know that you're not alone. If you are struggling to get motivated with your business, it is so normal. And I want to help you hack that, using, uh, that little three step tool, having awareness, questioning, and choosing intentionally what you want to do so that you can get into the world and help more people. I am so excited. I really do. Like, after you listen to this podcast, I want you to think about one thing that you've been putting off and struggling and not being motivated to do. I want you to think about one of those things, and I want you to try and implement it starting today. I don't want you to go another minute not fulfilling that huge potential that I know that you have. So that is my motivation for you this week. And if motivation is something that you feel like you're like me and you're like, yeah, I could use a little support. I definitely want to make sure that I'm staying motivated. I want the second half of the year to be the best half of the year ever had. I want to make sure that I have the support and the accountability to make sure that I hit my goals and I grow, not just for 2024, but for years into the future. I would be so incredibly honored to be our coach. I love what I do. I, uh, love working with my people and everyone is getting phenomenal results. There is not a single person that has worked with me that has, uh, developed less of a CEO skillset, I am very proud to say. And, ah, that means that, uh, for the CEO skillset I know, every single person has grown in their ability to market. They know how to manage their leads by generating new leads and nurturing their current audience. They know how to sell in a service based, amazing way that helps their people the most. And they know how to plan and track their metrics so that it's not a mystery of what's helping their business grow, it is just something that they do that's innate. That's so insanely helpful. So, uh, that is what I would love to offer for you. The link is in the show notes. If you're thinking about joining six figure systems, I would be. I would love to have you there. It's an amazing community of people already, and I can't wait for you to be a part of it. And I, uh, hope this episode about motivation helps you get to work to help more people today.