July 21, 2026

OPTIMIZED ENTREPRENEUR The Entrepreneur's Guide to Anxiety: Recognize It Before It Runs Your Life

OPTIMIZED ENTREPRENEUR The Entrepreneur's Guide to Anxiety: Recognize It Before It Runs Your Life
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Season 1

Entrepreneurs wear stress like a badge of honor. We joke about living on coffee, we brag about eighty hour weeks, and we keep telling ourselves we will rest after the next client, the next hire, the next milestone. But somewhere in that cycle, a lot of business owners cross a line they never notice, and the thing they have been calling drive quietly stops being drive. In this episode of Optimized Entrepreneur, Jeremy Hanson takes on one of the most under discussed problems in small business ownership: chronic anxiety, and why so many high functioning owners fail to recognize it in themselves. The premise is simple and uncomfortable. Anxiety in entrepreneurs almost never announces itself as fear. It shows up in side doors. It shows up as irritability over small things, as snapping at a spouse or a child, as checking a bank balance six times before lunch when nothing has changed. It shows up as brain fog, avoided conversations, guilt about resting, a jaw clenched in sleep, and waking at three in the morning to solve problems that cannot be solved until sunrise. Most owners call all of that the grind. Sometimes it is the grind. Sometimes it is something else entirely, and the difference matters enormously. Jeremy draws a clear working line between stress and anxiety. Stress has a source and a name, and when the problem resolves, the pressure comes down. Anxiety does not need a source, or it borrows one as a cover story and keeps running long after the original problem is gone. He explains why entrepreneurs are structurally more vulnerable to this, without ever framing the pressure as imagined or as a mindset failure. No guaranteed paycheck, employees and customers and family depending on your decisions, relentless decision fatigue, and no one above you to escalate to. High responsibility, low certainty, nowhere to hand it off. He also shares what he got wrong personally over a long stretch of running a service company, building a media network, and raising a large family, including the quiet moment from his wife that finally got his attention. From there the episode turns entirely practical. Get every open loop out of your head and onto paper. Separate fact from assumption and put catastrophic thoughts on trial with real evidence on both sides. Move your body for twenty minutes because anxiety is partly a physical state that needs somewhere to go. Protect sleep with the same seriousness you protect cash flow. Cut deliberate limits on intake and doom scrolling. Stop carrying the real numbers alone, especially from your spouse. Focus energy on what is genuinely controllable. Jeremy then lays out a four question daily reset built to survive an actual owner schedule, and closes with a direct and necessary conversation about when the load is bigger than any podcast can address, and why bringing in professional help is the same category of decision as hiring an accountant or an attorney. This is not an episode about eliminating stress. Stress is part of business, part of marriage, part of parenting, part of life. It is an episode about recognizing when stress has become something else, and doing something ordinary about it before it starts running your business, your family, and your life. Because the business you build will never be healthier than the person building it. QUESTIONS THIS EPISODE ANSWERS Listeners often ask what the actual difference is between stress and anxiety, and this episode gives a working answer a business owner can use immediately: stress has an identifiable source and it decreases when that source is resolved, while anxiety persists regardless of resolution and reliably attaches itself to a new concern. Another common question is why anxiety is so hard for entrepreneurs to spot in themselves, and the answer is that they are looking for fear. High functioning owners rarely feel afraid, so they conclude they are fine, when the real symptoms are irritability, short temper with family, brain fog, disrupted sleep, physical tension, compulsive checking, avoidance of hard conversations, guilt about resting, and eventually emotional numbness. People also ask whether entrepreneurial pressure is real or a mindset problem, and this episode is unambiguous that the load is genuinely heavier than most people carry, while still insisting that a real load handled badly will still do damage. On the practical side, listeners ask what actually works, and the episode gives concrete tools rather than platitudes: a full brain dump of every open loop sorted into what is actionable this week, what is waiting on someone else, and what cannot be controlled at all, plus an evidence for and evidence against exercise for catastrophic thinking, twenty minutes of movement, sleep protected like cash flow, deliberate limits on news and social intake, honest conversations with a spouse and with other owners, and a hard focus on controllables. Owners frequently ask how to make any of this stick, which is what the four question daily reset addresses: what can I control today, what is one thing causing unnecessary anxiety, what conversation have I been avoiding, and what one thing would make today a success. Finally, many listeners want to know when the problem has outgrown self management, and the episode answers that plainly. When anxiety persists regardless of business conditions, interferes with work or marriage or parenting, produces panic attacks, or drives reliance on alcohol or anything else to shut the mind off at night, that is the point to bring in a doctor or a licensed therapist, and that decision belongs in the same category as hiring a CPA or an attorney for any other critical system in the company. entrepreneur anxiety, business owner anxiety, stress versus anxiety, entrepreneur mental health, small business owner burnout, high functioning anxiety entrepreneur, signs of anxiety in business owners, entrepreneur stress management, owner burnout symptoms, decision fatigue entrepreneur, waking up at 3am business worries, entrepreneur sleep problems, irritability and burnout, guilt about resting entrepreneur, emotional numbness business owner, avoidance of hard conversations, brain dump exercise for anxiety, cognitive reframing for entrepreneurs, evidence for and against catastrophic thinking, controllables versus uncontrollables, daily reset routine for business owners, morning routine for entrepreneurs, protecting sleep as a business owner, doom scrolling and anxiety, entrepreneur support system, talking to your spouse about business stress, when to see a therapist as a business owner, entrepreneur therapy stigma, Optimized Entrepreneur podcast, Jeremy Hanson, Built Different newsletter, service business owner stress, family business pressure, leadership and mental health, sustainable entrepreneurship, business owner self care, anxiety warning signs, chronic stress small business ABOUT THE SHOW Optimized Entrepreneur is a show about building a business that works, without becoming a person who doesn't. Hosted by Jeremy Hanson, a twenty five year entrepreneur across service businesses and media, the show delivers direct, practical, no fluff conversations on ownership, leadership, systems, mindset, and the real cost of building something. No theory from people who have never made payroll. Just the mechanics of running a company and staying whole while you do it. New episodes weekly at optimized1.com. CREDITS Host: Jeremy Hanson Written by: Jeremy Hanson Produced by: Fuzzy Life Studios Distributed by: Fuzzy Life Entertainment Show website: optimized1.com Newsletter: Built Different, available at optimized1.com Featured in this episode: The MR. HANSoN Podcast, www.MRHANSoNpodcast.com

A Fuzzy Life Entertainent Production

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Welcome to Optimized Entrepreneur, The Entrepreneur's Guide to anxiety. Recognize

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it before it runs your life. Have you ever noticed

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how entrepreneurs wear stress like a badge of honor. You know,

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we literally joke about living on coffee, and we brag

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about eighty hour work weeks like somehow we've gotten a trophy.

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We tell each other that we're going to rest after

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the next job, the next client, after we hire the

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next person, or we hit this financial milestone, after the

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next quarter closes and the numbers finally looked the way

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that we promised ourselves that they would look. Well, that's

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when that time comes, and we don't rest. We just

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find a new milestone we need to hit. So let

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me ask you something, and I want you to think

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about this for a second before for you answer. Okay,

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not the answer you'd given a podcast interview, but the

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real answer. What if the thing you've been calling drive

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isn't drive anymore. What if it stopped being drive a

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long time ago and turned into something else and you

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just never gave it a different name. Okay. Anxiety doesn't

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always show up as fear. It doesn't always look like

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a panic attack in a parking lot. It doesn't look

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like somebody who just simply can't function. Most of the

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entrepreneurs I know who are carrying anxiety or functioning at

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an extremely high level. That's the part that it hides it. Okay,

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Sometimes it looks like snapping at your kid because they

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walked into your office while you were doing something important.

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Sometimes it looks like checking your bank balance six times

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one morning before lunch and nothing changed between check number

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two and check number six, and you knew that, but

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you checked anyways. Sometimes it looks like lying in bed

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at three in the morning, solving something that can't be

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solved until the sun comes up, and then doing it

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again the next night and the night after that. See,

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I'm not here today to eliminate stress. You can't. Stress

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is part of life. It's part of business, it's part

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of marriage, it's part of parenting. It's part of being

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a human being who actually cares about the outcomes that

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we don't control. See, if you've phoned a way to

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remove all stress from your life, I tell you that

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you probably also removed everything that mattered you. See that's

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not this conversation. The conversation is what happens when stress

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stops being a response to something and quietly becomes the

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way that you've adapted to live. Today, we're going to

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talk about how to spot that fuzzy line, that almost

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invisible line, how to know when you've crossed it, and

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what to actually do about it. I'm talking about in

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the real world with a real business and a real

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family and a calendar that doesn't have a lot of

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white space on it. Because your business will never be

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healthier than the person that's building your business. So let's

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get into it. Well know the afters up the riddle,

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mondays they got a sign of free optimiz one dot

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com business in your Life optimiwan. Welcome to Optimized Entrepreneur.

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I'm Jeremy Hanson. This show is about building a business

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that works without becoming a person who doesn't. It's the

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intersection of business and life. I've been running companies for

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over thirty years. Service businesses and media businesses and cleaning

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and restoration companies, debt companies, food trucks, you name it,

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and now I do consulting in the real world. I

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do these podcasts to try to help people achieve something

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a better life, and business is the tool that we use. Okay,

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I've had many, many businesses. I've had a podcast network.

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I've got the normal stuff, payroll to make, and employees

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who need answers, and customers who don't care what kind

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of week we're having. So when I talk about this subject,

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I'm talking about it from a clinical distance, if you

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know what I mean. I'm not a doctor, and I'm

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not going to pretend to be one. What I am

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as a business owner who spent a long, long stretch

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of my life calling something grinding when it already had

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turned into something else. So here's the frame for this

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whole episode of Optimized Entrepreneur. Anxiety is not necessarily your enemy.

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Anxiety is on the dashboard. It's a warning light. Okay,

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if it pops on, it's probably doing its job. It's

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not the failure, it's the notification of a failure somewhere upstream.

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The problem with the entrepreneurs isn't that we don't see

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the light. We see it, but we're like a hot

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rod racer. We put black tape over the light, covered up,

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and then we keep driving because we've got something to finish.

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We got a route to finish, and we just don't

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have time to pull over. And then one day, the

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engine gives out on the side of the road three

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hundred miles from where we were supposed to be where

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we were meant to be, and then we act surprise like,

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oh my gosh, what happened. So let's simply take the

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tape off. So stress versus anxiety. Okay, Now these two

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words get used interchangeably, and that confusion is costing business

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owners years of their lives. Okay, stress has a source.

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Payroll is short this month. That stress. A key employee

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gave their notice. That stress. A customer is unhappy and

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you have to make the call that you don't want

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to make. That stress. Your kid is sick, or your

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spouse is frustrated with your schedule. A vendor let you

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down at the worst possible moment. Every one of those. Okay,

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everything we just talked about has a name and an address,

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and you can point at it. Okay, here's a defining

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characteristic of stress. When the problem resolves, the pressure comes down,

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payroll clears, you replace, the employee, customer calms down, your

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kids get better. Okay, that tightness in your gut, in

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your chest go, maybe not all at once, but it

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let's go. That's the system. How it was designed to

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work correctly. You see, that's your body mobilizing resources to

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handle a real threat and then standing down when the

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threat passes. Okay, so let's move on to anxiety. Now,

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anxiety is different. You see, anxiety doesn't need a source,

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or you use as a source as an excuse and

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then keeps going long after the source of the stress

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is gone. You close the biggest deal of your year,

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and instead of relief, you get this feeling of dread

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about whether you're actually going to be able to deliver

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on it. Or you have the best month ever and

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your first thought is, well, what if next month is

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going to be worse? Maybe you get a text from

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a client that says, can you call me? And you

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get that text that I know there's entrepreneurs listening right

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now and they're like, yeah, I have that where your

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gut drops just because you've got a text that said

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can you call me? Your entire nervous system drops through

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the floor before you even know what the phone calls about.

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You see what stressed. The danger is the thing with anxiety.

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The danger is everything, and it's permanently everything. It's in

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the background, and it's forever and that's the line. That's

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the line I was telling you about. With stress, the

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danger is the thing. With anxiety, the danger is everything

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permanently in the background forever. That's the whole distinction. You know,

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write it down somewhere when you see it. Stress goes

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away when the problem goes away. Anxiety sticks around and

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goes looking for a new problem to attach itself to. Okay,

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that fools a lot of people, because anxiety is very

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good at finding a legitimate concern to point out. It'll

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say something like, Wow, I'm not anxious. I'm just being

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responsible about my cash flow. Okay, I'm not anxious. I'm

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just holding a high standard. I'm not that I'm not anxious.

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I just care more than other people do. Now, sometimes

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those can be true. Sometimes it's a very very well

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dressed lie or just bs from yourself. So here's a test.

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If I solve the thing that I'm currently worried about

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right now, okay, do today completely? Would you feel settled

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if you could make that go away? Would you feel

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better If the honest answer is yes, well that stress

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just go solve it. If the honest answer is that,

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my mind would immediately move to the next thing and

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the feeling in my chest that tightness wouldn't change at all.

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Then the thing that I'm worried about isn't the thing.

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You see. That's a different conversation and it requires a

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completely different set of tools to deal with. So why

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entrepreneurs are more vulnerable. Let's be super super clear about this,

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because a lot of mental health content aimed at business

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owners gets this wrong. And I know that because I've

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read about it, I've heard podcasts about it, and it

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makes people defensive. Okay, the pressure you're feeling is not

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an imagined pressure. It's not a mindset problem. It's really

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not a weakness. It's not these things that they say

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it is. It's not a lack of gratitude. You're not

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making this up to get attention. You are genuinely, really

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carrying a load that most people in your life don't carry,

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and pretending otherwise doesn't help anybody. Okay, I want you

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to understand what you're actually carrying. You're not like regular people.

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You don't have a guaranteed paycheck none. Your income is

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a result. Your income is not in agreement. There's no

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HR department behind you or a severance package waiting for you.

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If things go sideways. You have people depending on you

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who have mortgages and car payments and kids with brace payments, payments,

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and they're depending on decisions that you make on a

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regular day in the afternoon, within complete information. Okay, that's

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kind of scary. See, you have customers who chose you

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over a competitor and expect you to be right. You

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have a family at home who needs you to be

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there and who will absolutely notice when you're there physically

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but somewhere else mentally. And you have to make decisions

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all day, the hundreds of them, most of them small,

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some of them enormous, and almost none of them with

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all the information that you actually want they see. Decision

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fatigue is real, and it's measurable. It feels like by

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four in the afternoon, your judgment is not what it

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was at eight in the morning. It doesn't matter how

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tough that you actually think you are. And then add

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another thing on top of it. You're the last stop.

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There's nobody above you to escalate it to see when

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it breaks, It's simply it just comes to you. When

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nobody knows what to do, they just simply turn their

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eyes to you. And when you don't know what to

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do either. You're supposed to look like you do because

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that's your job. Now think about that, that combination, that

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high responsibility plus low certainty plus nowhere to offload it to. Well,

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that's one of the most reliable recipes for chronic anxiety

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that exists in the world today. So get this out

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of your head. If you've ever listened to a podcast

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or whatever that says you're soft, you're not. See. The

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truth is you're just carrying something really, really heavy without

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a schedule to ever put that thing down. Okay, let's

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be honest. Though this show isn't about comfort. The fact

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that the pressure is real does not mean that the

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way that you're handling it is working. I think that

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you're really trying to answer two separate questions. Real pressure,

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poorly handled, still crashes you out, still wrecks you. The

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realness of what you're carrying doesn't exempt you from learning

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how to carry it, And I guess that's the whole

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aim here. It's not eliminating pressure because you can't. That's

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not on the menu, and nobody is going to sell

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it to you unless they're selling lies. Okay, learning to

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carry pressure without letting it carry you or absorb into you.

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That's the key. So let's talk about the signs that

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entrepreneurs miss. Okay, this is a chapter i'd keep if

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I could only keep one out of this show. Most

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business owners who are dealing with anxiety, most of them

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don't even know it. And the reason that they don't

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know it is that they're looking for the wrong symptoms. Okay,

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a lot of times they're just looking for fear. They're

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waiting for that moment to feel afraid, and they never do.

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So they just conclude that they're fine and they keep

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going and they keep trucking. See, anxiety and high functioning

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entrepreneurs almost never parades itself out as fear. See it

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shows up in the side doors. It shows up in

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things like irritability. Okay, little things carry so much more

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00:16:18.519 --> 00:16:23.159
than they should. They misplaced tool, maybe a slow driver,

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maybe a question from your spouse that on any other

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day would have been nothing. See, you're not angry at

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00:16:31.279 --> 00:16:36.279
the thing. You have zero and I'm saying zero capacity left.

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And the thing is, it's just what happened to arrive

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when your BS tank was empty. That's it. See. It

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shows up as a short fuse with people for you

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00:16:50.919 --> 00:16:55.519
who are the safest. Your family gets the version of

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00:16:55.600 --> 00:16:59.440
you that the tank is empty, because your customers got

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the you with the tank that was full. And as

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you're going throughout your day, your tank simply goes dry.

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There's only so much of the good you to go around.

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Then if the entrepreneurs that are listening to this podcast

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right now they know this, it shows up as brain FuG. Okay,

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I have chronic line disease. I deal with this a lot.

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That's why you always hear me talk about writing things down.

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Brain FuG. You read the same email three times? How

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many you have done this? You walk into a room

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and then literally forget what you needed when you walked

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into the room. You sit down to do an important task,

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and forty minutes later you've done nine other ones that

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are probably less important instead. Brain FuG. Then it shows

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up as trouble sleeping. Okay, it's not always trouble falling asleep.

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Times you fall asleep fine, and then you wake up

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at two forty five like some sort of alarm went off. Okay,

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mind already going, already sitting there running numbers. Okay. It

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00:18:14.960 --> 00:18:20.039
shows up in your body shoulders that lives somewhere up

243
00:18:20.279 --> 00:18:24.519
near your ears, okay, a jaw you're clenching in your sleep,

244
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And stomach problems your doctor can't find a cause for,

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and headaches and heart rates that jump and go down,

246
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and just that feeling of dread when your phone buzzes.

247
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It shows up as racing thoughts and constant planning. See

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00:18:43.720 --> 00:18:47.680
you find yourself where you cannot be in a moment.

249
00:18:48.960 --> 00:18:52.400
See you're always three steps ahead of any moment that

250
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you're in. You're already there, and you're thinking about five

251
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steps before. Always going, always simulate, always running scenarios because

252
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your body has trained itself to feel productive and it's

253
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mostly not. It's the same loop with new scenery. It

254
00:19:14.279 --> 00:19:18.319
shows up as guilt when you rest. Literally, I see

255
00:19:18.359 --> 00:19:20.359
it in people all the time. I had this conversation

256
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with somebody that I consult with on a regular basis yesterday.

257
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He's having a problem going and playing basketball or doing

258
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something other than work because he feels guilty with himself

259
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when he's not working. See you sit down on a

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00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:45.119
Saturday with eleven minutes and there's this low grade, weird

261
00:19:45.400 --> 00:19:49.039
shame feeling about you're not working, you're not putting it in,

262
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So you don't rest or you do it badly. You're

263
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like half in and out, which literally gives you neither

264
00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:02.960
of the outputs that you want, nor recovery and no output.

265
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It shows up as a need for control. So you

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stop delegating, You take back task that you've already handed off.

267
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You tell yourself it's about quality. Sometimes it's about quality.

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Sometimes it's that letting go of a task means tolerating uncertainty,

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and your tolerance for uncertainty is currently at zero. I'll

270
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tell you about this still gets to me sometimes today.

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It was like four or five months ago, a customer

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called up and they wanted the tree cut down, just

273
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a big, big, big dead tree. And I had a

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couple young guys that have been working with us for

275
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a long time, and I had a dream one night

276
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that the tree fell on them. So I literally woke

277
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up and I told Maya, Hey, we're going to do this.

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So six point thirty in the morning, we're on our

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way to go to a job site that I know

280
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I ever should have been at. But because I had

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anxiety about a dream that these two kids got hurt.

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I call them kids, but they're adult men, I went

283
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and cut that tree down myself. See it shows up

284
00:21:15.240 --> 00:21:20.039
as avoidance. There's a conversation that you've not been having

285
00:21:20.079 --> 00:21:25.279
for six weeks. I'll say that you just keep sliding

286
00:21:25.319 --> 00:21:30.799
to tomorrow, or an email that you've opened and closed

287
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nine times. See, avoidance is anxiety's favorite disguise because it

288
00:21:35.799 --> 00:21:41.759
looks like you're being busy. It shows up as compulsive checking.

289
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What are you checking email and bank balance and reviews

290
00:21:47.079 --> 00:21:51.559
and analytics. It's not because new information arrived and you

291
00:21:51.640 --> 00:21:56.319
need to go through it. It's because checking briefly relieves

292
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the pressure, and the relief is a drug with a

293
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very very short half life, and at the very far

294
00:22:05.079 --> 00:22:10.079
end it shows up as numbness. Now, I want you

295
00:22:10.119 --> 00:22:15.319
to take this very very seriously. Nothing feels like much

296
00:22:15.319 --> 00:22:20.440
of anything. Great news just kind of sits there. Flat

297
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You close a deal that you would have celebrated five

298
00:22:23.680 --> 00:22:25.920
years ago, and you feel nothing at all, So you

299
00:22:26.079 --> 00:22:30.599
immediately go looking for the next one. There's no celebration.

300
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:35.000
You're looking for the next one and hoping to yourself

301
00:22:35.000 --> 00:22:38.160
and your subconscious that this one will hit and will

302
00:22:38.200 --> 00:22:42.799
register and you're going to feel good. Now. Back in

303
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the day, they used to say, oh, that's just being tough. No,

304
00:22:44.960 --> 00:22:50.400
that's not toughness. That's a system that's been running hot

305
00:22:50.640 --> 00:22:57.160
so long it burnt all the censors off. Now listen

306
00:22:57.200 --> 00:23:00.720
to me, clearly. Every one of these things can also

307
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just be a hard month. It can be a bad

308
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stretch of business. It can be normal life. One sign, okay,

309
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once is a Tuesday, six of them running for six months.

310
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That's a pattern. And patterns are data. Okay, and you

311
00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:23.079
already know how to read data. You do it every

312
00:23:23.160 --> 00:23:26.240
week in your business. Okay. You don't panic over one

313
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slow day, but you absolutely notice it when the same

314
00:23:30.119 --> 00:23:34.720
slow day starts repeating for a whole quarter. You look

315
00:23:34.759 --> 00:23:38.400
at trend lines, not single points. You've built a whole

316
00:23:38.559 --> 00:23:46.240
discipline around not overreacting to the bs and not underreacting

317
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to something real. I want you to give yourself the

318
00:23:51.240 --> 00:23:56.440
same analysis that you give your revenue. Here's a way

319
00:23:56.440 --> 00:23:59.759
to do it that takes about ten minutes. Go back

320
00:23:59.799 --> 00:24:03.319
through the last ninety days. Okay, not by feel because

321
00:24:04.640 --> 00:24:08.880
feelings can be unreliable. Okay, and you'll grade yourself generously.

322
00:24:09.559 --> 00:24:14.119
Look at the actual artifacts. Look at your text messages

323
00:24:14.119 --> 00:24:17.720
to your spouse, Look at what time your emails went out,

324
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:21.880
Look at your calendar and count how many days don't

325
00:24:21.880 --> 00:24:25.160
have a gap in them anywhere. Look at your photos

326
00:24:25.200 --> 00:24:28.359
and see whether there's any of you doing something that

327
00:24:28.559 --> 00:24:33.279
wasn't work. Then ask the people around you, honestly, ask

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your spouse whether you seemed a little different or off.

329
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Tell them you want a straight answer, and then do

330
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the hard part, which is not defending yourself. When you

331
00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:47.039
get an honest answer, you see the people who live

332
00:24:47.119 --> 00:24:50.279
with you have been watching this trend line that you

333
00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:56.720
can't see because you're standing inside it. Usually the people

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00:24:56.799 --> 00:25:00.480
closest to you know before you do. Most of them

335
00:25:00.519 --> 00:25:03.680
have been waiting for you to initiate a conversation or

336
00:25:03.720 --> 00:25:09.480
at least ask. Now, let's take a quick break, and

337
00:25:09.720 --> 00:25:13.119
it's a personal one. If you like the way that

338
00:25:13.160 --> 00:25:17.000
we dig into the stories behind the business on this show,

339
00:25:17.079 --> 00:25:19.680
The Life of It, you're going to want to hear

340
00:25:19.759 --> 00:25:23.319
what we do with the Mister Hanson podcast. That's my

341
00:25:24.079 --> 00:25:28.680
narrative mystery, true crime history show. Every episode is a

342
00:25:28.759 --> 00:25:32.799
full cinematic story about people who built things, people who

343
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did things, crazy mysteries and a lot of it. Like

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00:25:38.279 --> 00:25:42.079
the chapter number two is Empire Builders, Okay, Leo Fender, Les,

345
00:25:42.119 --> 00:25:47.039
Paul John Deere, Ingvar Kamprad, the founders behind the brands

346
00:25:47.039 --> 00:25:49.240
that you've seen your whole life and never once thought

347
00:25:49.240 --> 00:25:52.680
about it. We talk about a man who literally laid

348
00:25:52.759 --> 00:25:56.319
possession of the moon and sold it. Okay, We've talked

349
00:25:56.359 --> 00:25:59.799
about an axe murder in Louisiana. It is awesome and

350
00:26:00.079 --> 00:26:03.880
credible things that you get the true story and now

351
00:26:03.960 --> 00:26:07.119
you know the rest of the story. These aren't summaries.

352
00:26:07.160 --> 00:26:10.880
Their stories told the way that stories are supposed to

353
00:26:10.920 --> 00:26:14.920
be told. And if you're an entrepreneur carrying a heavy,

354
00:26:15.240 --> 00:26:19.640
heavy weight on your back right now, there's something genuinely

355
00:26:19.759 --> 00:26:24.920
steadying about hearing how the people who built empires got

356
00:26:24.960 --> 00:26:28.960
through their worst years because they all had them. Go

357
00:26:29.039 --> 00:26:31.759
find it wherever you're listening to this, or go straight

358
00:26:31.960 --> 00:26:38.759
to www Dot mister hansonpodcast dot com. That's www dot

359
00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:44.319
mister Hanson within all podcast dot com. Now let's get

360
00:26:44.319 --> 00:26:48.640
back into this. Let's go to chapter four, which is

361
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what I got wrong. Okay, I'll tell you where I was.

362
00:26:54.359 --> 00:26:57.799
There was a stretch of years I was running this

363
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service company, multiple outlets, but running this service company, okay.

364
00:27:02.680 --> 00:27:06.640
I was building this media side okay, and I was

365
00:27:06.799 --> 00:27:09.240
raising a house full of kids. I still have three,

366
00:27:09.559 --> 00:27:14.039
we have thirteen. Okay, And I would have told you

367
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:16.759
with total confidence that I was completely fine. I was

368
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super busy, but fine, always tired, but fine. That's just

369
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what it takes. I would have said, that's the price

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of admission to the life that we want to live.

371
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And the truth is I believed it. But now years

372
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:38.079
later I can say, hey, here's what actually happened. You See,

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I wasn't sleeping through a night. I'd get up at

374
00:27:41.759 --> 00:27:45.920
two or three use the restroom, and I tell myself, Wow,

375
00:27:46.000 --> 00:27:48.440
I'm just an early riser. Okay, well I'm up now,

376
00:27:48.440 --> 00:27:51.319
I might as well stay up, which sounds a lot

377
00:27:51.359 --> 00:27:54.039
better than saying that my body was making me up

378
00:27:54.079 --> 00:28:00.200
with a full report on everything that I didn't have solved. Yeah.

379
00:28:00.200 --> 00:28:03.759
I was extremely short with people. I wasn't mean to them.

380
00:28:03.839 --> 00:28:11.200
I was just constantly, constantly ornery. Okay, I was super efficient. Okay,

381
00:28:11.319 --> 00:28:13.640
you know that kind of tone that says, I'm listening,

382
00:28:13.680 --> 00:28:18.960
but please get to the point. The problem was I

383
00:28:19.079 --> 00:28:20.920
was that way with my nine year old telling me

384
00:28:20.920 --> 00:28:25.359
about their day. My wife would want to sit down

385
00:28:25.400 --> 00:28:27.480
and watch a movie, and I couldn't sit through a

386
00:28:27.519 --> 00:28:31.440
movie thirty minutes in I'd be reaching for my phone,

387
00:28:31.839 --> 00:28:36.279
not because anything needed me, but because sitting still had

388
00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:41.319
started to feel like something was wrong that I Don't get

389
00:28:41.359 --> 00:28:45.240
me wrong, I did things i'd wins in that time,

390
00:28:45.519 --> 00:28:49.920
real ones, good months, good years. But the truth is

391
00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:58.079
I remember exactly zero of them feeling like anything. And

392
00:28:58.119 --> 00:29:01.839
the thing that finally got my aten wasn't a crisis.

393
00:29:02.759 --> 00:29:08.240
There wasn't a collapse, there wasn't a dramatic bottom. It

394
00:29:08.279 --> 00:29:12.240
was my wife saying something very kind and simply to me,

395
00:29:12.880 --> 00:29:17.279
and somehow, somehow this made it worse. And it was

396
00:29:17.319 --> 00:29:20.000
like ba boom ba boom, ba boom in my head,

397
00:29:20.039 --> 00:29:22.319
in my heart, and I felt as it shuddered through

398
00:29:22.359 --> 00:29:25.799
my body. She looked at me one day with this

399
00:29:25.960 --> 00:29:28.920
disconnect that I hadn't seen in a long time, and

400
00:29:28.960 --> 00:29:32.839
she said, do you know what your office and your

401
00:29:32.839 --> 00:29:34.960
studio are out there? You hear all the time, and

402
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:37.480
I don't remember the last time I actually got to

403
00:29:37.519 --> 00:29:44.799
talk to you. Boom. It was like it was worse

404
00:29:44.839 --> 00:29:49.240
than when I got struck by lightning. Okay, I'm not

405
00:29:49.359 --> 00:29:51.559
the only guy who figured this out and wrote off

406
00:29:51.559 --> 00:29:53.920
into the sunset. I'd be lying to you to tell

407
00:29:53.960 --> 00:29:59.319
you that I did know it at the time something

408
00:29:59.480 --> 00:30:04.000
that b What I figured out was smaller and probably

409
00:30:04.079 --> 00:30:07.759
more useful than that. You See, I figured out that

410
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:11.960
I had built an entire identity around being the person

411
00:30:13.440 --> 00:30:17.119
who just would carry anything. I would put it on

412
00:30:17.200 --> 00:30:19.000
my back and I would take it because I believed

413
00:30:19.039 --> 00:30:25.720
that it was necessary, and that identity was costing me

414
00:30:25.839 --> 00:30:29.119
the only things that I was literally carrying it for.

415
00:30:31.880 --> 00:30:33.839
You See, I figured out that nobody was going to

416
00:30:33.920 --> 00:30:39.119
walk into my office and tell me to stop. Not

417
00:30:39.200 --> 00:30:45.039
my employees, not my customers. See, nobody is coming to

418
00:30:45.119 --> 00:30:49.559
give you permission. That's the way it works. You're the owner,

419
00:30:49.680 --> 00:30:53.680
you are the last stop. The only person who can

420
00:30:53.799 --> 00:31:00.319
call it is you. And then I figured out that

421
00:31:00.359 --> 00:31:06.559
the tools that work aren't glamorous. See, there's no breakthrough,

422
00:31:06.599 --> 00:31:11.920
there's no one conversation that just fixes it. The truth

423
00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:16.000
is it's a set of unremarkable daily practices that you do,

424
00:31:16.119 --> 00:31:20.480
whether you feel like it or not, exactly like every

425
00:31:20.559 --> 00:31:24.200
other thing that's ever worked in my life or any

426
00:31:24.240 --> 00:31:29.319
business that I know of which I guess brings us

427
00:31:29.359 --> 00:31:31.839
to the part that you actually are listening to this

428
00:31:31.960 --> 00:31:39.839
for what are the tools that actually work? Okay, I

429
00:31:39.880 --> 00:31:45.519
want to skip past the advice that you've already ignored. See,

430
00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:48.680
nobody's life has ever been changed for being told to

431
00:31:48.759 --> 00:31:52.759
drink tea and take a bath. Okay, it's not going

432
00:31:52.839 --> 00:31:57.440
to help you in the long run, but here's what

433
00:31:58.240 --> 00:32:02.279
moves the needle. You have to get it out of

434
00:32:02.359 --> 00:32:07.440
your head. See every open loop in your business that

435
00:32:07.640 --> 00:32:12.519
lives only in your mind, it's costing you the power

436
00:32:12.599 --> 00:32:16.359
you use to process, and it's using it around the clock.

437
00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:23.640
Your brain was never designed to be the storage for

438
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:28.880
your business. It is terrible at storage. It's a processor.

439
00:32:29.240 --> 00:32:32.559
What it will do instead is run a background process

440
00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:35.720
to make sure that you don't forget. And that background

441
00:32:35.799 --> 00:32:40.559
process is a significant percentage of the craziness that you're

442
00:32:40.640 --> 00:32:45.200
constantly feeling and hearing. So you need to empty it.

443
00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:49.400
And I'm saying all of it on paper in a document.

444
00:32:49.720 --> 00:32:55.240
Doesn't matter. Every worry, every unfinished thing, every conversation that

445
00:32:55.319 --> 00:33:02.000
you owe somebody, every bill, every half decision that you've made.

446
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:08.000
Don't organize while you're doing it. Just get it out now.

447
00:33:08.000 --> 00:33:11.359
Most entrepreneurs who do this for the first time rite

448
00:33:11.480 --> 00:33:14.400
for twenty five minutes and end up with something between

449
00:33:14.920 --> 00:33:19.039
forty and eighty different things, and then they look at

450
00:33:19.079 --> 00:33:23.319
the list and have a strange reaction, which is relief

451
00:33:24.720 --> 00:33:27.359
because eighty, Hey, I can live with that. Eighty is

452
00:33:27.359 --> 00:33:32.279
a number, you see, eighty is finite. See what was

453
00:33:32.359 --> 00:33:39.160
in their head felt infinite. Then sort it into three columns,

454
00:33:39.960 --> 00:33:43.599
things I can act on this week, things I'm waiting

455
00:33:43.680 --> 00:33:48.680
on somebody else, four, and then the big one, things

456
00:33:48.759 --> 00:33:53.880
I can't control at all. See the third column, the

457
00:33:53.920 --> 00:33:56.480
things that I can't control at all. That is where

458
00:33:56.519 --> 00:33:59.599
most of your suffering comes from. That's where it lives,

459
00:34:01.240 --> 00:34:05.079
and it's the column with the least action available to

460
00:34:05.240 --> 00:34:13.000
those things. So you need to separate fact from simple assumptions.

461
00:34:14.880 --> 00:34:22.559
Anxiety is not a liar, well, not exactly. It's just

462
00:34:22.639 --> 00:34:27.000
a really bad statistician. It takes a real data point

463
00:34:27.320 --> 00:34:31.800
and then extrapolates it into a catastrophe while giving you

464
00:34:31.920 --> 00:34:36.599
total confidence about it. So catch the thought and put

465
00:34:36.639 --> 00:34:41.559
it on trial. The thought was I'm gonna lose this business.

466
00:34:43.639 --> 00:34:46.760
What's the actual evidence for that? Okay, write it down.

467
00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:51.599
Revenue is down eleven percent over two quarters. Two clients

468
00:34:51.639 --> 00:34:55.199
didn't renew. Okay, that's evidence. It's real and it deserves

469
00:34:55.239 --> 00:34:59.800
a response. Now on the other side. And this is

470
00:34:59.800 --> 00:35:03.079
the art that most people don't do. What's the evidence

471
00:35:03.159 --> 00:35:08.039
against it? You have eleven months of operating expenses in reserve,

472
00:35:09.280 --> 00:35:13.480
your three biggest accounts while they just renewed. You've survived

473
00:35:13.519 --> 00:35:17.320
two downturns worse than this one. Okay, here's the thing.

474
00:35:17.400 --> 00:35:23.079
Both of those lists are true, but anxiety. You're the

475
00:35:23.119 --> 00:35:25.679
way that it was working with your mind only showed

476
00:35:25.719 --> 00:35:31.400
you one side of it. Hey, here's the last question,

477
00:35:31.880 --> 00:35:37.239
which is the one that really does the work. What

478
00:35:37.400 --> 00:35:41.599
would I tell another business owner in exactly this situation.

479
00:35:41.920 --> 00:35:44.559
Take yourself out of it, be the judge, look down,

480
00:35:47.119 --> 00:35:51.920
what is it? You will be dramatically more reasonable, more accurate,

481
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:56.000
and more useful to a stranger than you are being

482
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:02.559
to yourself right now, every single time. So borrow that

483
00:36:03.000 --> 00:36:11.000
voice and then turn it around. Then move your body. Okay,

484
00:36:11.039 --> 00:36:14.840
I'm not going to give you a fitness lecture twenty minutes. Okay,

485
00:36:15.000 --> 00:36:21.000
walking counts. The reason this works isn't discipline or willpower.

486
00:36:21.840 --> 00:36:27.280
Anxiety is partly a physical state. Your body has loaded

487
00:36:27.280 --> 00:36:31.480
itself up to handle a threat, and there's nowhere for

488
00:36:31.559 --> 00:36:36.159
that to go. Okay, the threat is a spreadsheet movement

489
00:36:36.400 --> 00:36:40.760
completes the cycle, it gives your system the signal that

490
00:36:40.840 --> 00:36:45.760
the thing was handled. Twenty minutes of walking will I'll

491
00:36:45.840 --> 00:36:49.119
perform two hours of thinking about the problem one hundred

492
00:36:49.119 --> 00:36:52.960
percent of the time reliably. I know that sounds too simple.

493
00:36:53.559 --> 00:36:55.559
Try it for a couple of weeks before you argue

494
00:36:55.559 --> 00:36:58.760
with me about it. Okay. My dad always told me,

495
00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:01.320
way back when I was a kid. He was a runner.

496
00:37:01.360 --> 00:37:04.119
He liked to do things. He was extremely efficient and

497
00:37:04.199 --> 00:37:07.840
worked really, really hard. He said, to change your mental state,

498
00:37:08.000 --> 00:37:11.079
change your physical state. He said that all the time,

499
00:37:12.400 --> 00:37:15.000
something that'd start bothering him, he'd go for a quick run.

500
00:37:17.760 --> 00:37:23.320
Then you need to protect sleep like it was cash flow. Okay,

501
00:37:23.800 --> 00:37:26.639
if you would not tolerate a thirty percent hit to

502
00:37:26.719 --> 00:37:30.960
your cash position in your company, do not tolerate a

503
00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:34.119
thirty percent hit to your sleep because it costs you

504
00:37:34.239 --> 00:37:42.079
vastly more. You see sleep deprivation degrades judgment, impulse controlling,

505
00:37:42.519 --> 00:37:48.880
and emotional regulation. All three are core job functions for

506
00:37:48.960 --> 00:37:53.960
an entrepreneur. You see a tired entrepreneur makes fast, bad

507
00:37:54.000 --> 00:37:57.559
decisions and then works long hours trying to clean up

508
00:37:57.840 --> 00:38:03.400
the problem, and in turn snowballs because it produces less sleep,

509
00:38:03.679 --> 00:38:06.760
which produces worse decisions. Do you see how that's going on?

510
00:38:08.280 --> 00:38:13.280
You see that's not grinding, that's a debt spiral. With

511
00:38:13.760 --> 00:38:19.760
better marketing, have a consistent wake up time, phone out

512
00:38:19.800 --> 00:38:23.280
of the bedroom, or at least completely off hard stop

513
00:38:23.519 --> 00:38:26.679
on work at a set hour. And yes, some night

514
00:38:26.840 --> 00:38:30.119
you're going to break it. But a rule you break

515
00:38:30.199 --> 00:38:37.960
sometimes still beats no rule at all. Then cut the intake. Okay,

516
00:38:38.000 --> 00:38:43.239
your nervous system does not fully distinguish between reading about

517
00:38:43.239 --> 00:38:48.159
twenty disasters and living near a disaster. Feeding it two

518
00:38:48.199 --> 00:38:53.000
hours of economic doom every day. Guess what it will

519
00:38:53.039 --> 00:38:56.920
act accordingly. See, I'm not telling you to be uninformed here,

520
00:38:56.960 --> 00:39:02.440
I'm telling you to be deliberate. True is when you consume,

521
00:39:03.079 --> 00:39:08.639
choose how much you consume, and then close it. I

522
00:39:08.639 --> 00:39:13.480
would say today doom scrolling before bed is probably the

523
00:39:13.559 --> 00:39:18.360
single most common self inflicted wound that I see in entrepreneurs.

524
00:39:19.880 --> 00:39:24.480
You end the day loading your brain with unsolvable problems

525
00:39:24.760 --> 00:39:26.719
and then wonder why you wake up at three in

526
00:39:26.760 --> 00:39:36.679
the morning. Stop carrying things alone. Now, in consulting, I

527
00:39:36.679 --> 00:39:41.039
will say that entrepreneurs resist this hard, and it's probably

528
00:39:41.119 --> 00:39:44.880
the one with the biggest return. You need to talk

529
00:39:45.079 --> 00:39:48.480
to your spouse. Okay, I'm not talking about the highlight reel.

530
00:39:48.519 --> 00:39:53.119
I'm talking about the real number. Now, most owners protect

531
00:39:53.159 --> 00:39:55.480
their partner from the truth about the business, and then

532
00:39:55.519 --> 00:39:58.800
they say, well, it's because I love them, But the

533
00:39:58.800 --> 00:40:03.199
truth is it's usually and usually the spouse already knows

534
00:40:03.239 --> 00:40:07.239
something's wrong and is now handling both the worry and

535
00:40:07.480 --> 00:40:13.280
the isolation. Find the other owner that you can be

536
00:40:13.320 --> 00:40:17.360
honest with. Okay, I'm not talking about a networking contact here,

537
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:21.800
somebody who has made payroll when it was tight. Okay,

538
00:40:22.800 --> 00:40:26.880
twenty minutes with a person who's been there does something

539
00:40:26.960 --> 00:40:30.119
that no book can ever do for you, and it

540
00:40:30.400 --> 00:40:33.280
will help you build a mental relationship if you don't

541
00:40:33.320 --> 00:40:36.960
have one, someone further down the road who can tell

542
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:40.599
you which fires are real and which fires just look bad.

543
00:40:43.840 --> 00:40:49.800
And then control what's controllable. So you can't control interest rates,

544
00:40:49.840 --> 00:40:53.440
you can't control the economy, you can't control what your

545
00:40:53.480 --> 00:40:57.800
competitor does, you can't control to a big degree what

546
00:40:57.960 --> 00:41:02.039
someone posts about you. But you can control how many

547
00:41:02.079 --> 00:41:08.199
sales conversations happen this week, how fast you answer your phone,

548
00:41:08.519 --> 00:41:12.320
what your follow up looks like, whether you show up

549
00:41:12.360 --> 00:41:18.119
on time, whether your attitude at the job site is

550
00:41:18.199 --> 00:41:22.199
before you ever meet the customer, you see, every hour

551
00:41:22.320 --> 00:41:25.760
spent on column three is an hour not spent on

552
00:41:25.880 --> 00:41:30.079
column one. And column one is the only column that

553
00:41:30.159 --> 00:41:39.039
has ever changed in outcome for anybody. So let's go

554
00:41:39.199 --> 00:41:44.440
to this. The daily reset. Tools you don't systemize are

555
00:41:44.559 --> 00:41:50.199
tools you'll use for nine ten days. Here's the version

556
00:41:50.360 --> 00:41:54.079
that survives in a real schedule. Okay. Four questions five

557
00:41:54.159 --> 00:41:58.079
minutes before email. Okay, because once email is opened, the

558
00:41:58.159 --> 00:42:04.719
day belongs to somebody else. Super simple. Question one, what

559
00:42:04.880 --> 00:42:08.880
can I control today? Not the whole business today? Name

560
00:42:09.000 --> 00:42:12.599
three things that are genuinely within your reach in the

561
00:42:12.639 --> 00:42:17.400
next fourteen hours. Anything not on that list gets set

562
00:42:17.440 --> 00:42:20.440
down and you may have to set it down again

563
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:24.559
in an hour, And that's fine, that's the practice. Okay.

564
00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:32.239
Question two, what's one thing causing unnecessary anxiety? Now? I

565
00:42:32.320 --> 00:42:35.559
want you to think about this. Unnecessary is the operative word.

566
00:42:37.159 --> 00:42:40.320
Some of your anxiety is pointing at a real problem

567
00:42:40.360 --> 00:42:44.159
and it deserves your attention. Some of it is a

568
00:42:44.199 --> 00:42:47.280
loop that you've been running for weeks about something that

569
00:42:47.360 --> 00:42:53.400
you've already decided. Find one of those loops, just one

570
00:42:54.199 --> 00:42:59.920
Either act on it today consciously, or release it consciously.

571
00:43:01.159 --> 00:43:04.159
What you can't keep doing is holding it in the middle,

572
00:43:05.079 --> 00:43:10.280
half worried and taking no action. That middle position is

573
00:43:10.320 --> 00:43:13.920
the most expensive place to stand, and it is the

574
00:43:13.960 --> 00:43:21.039
most expensive place for solvable problems to sit. Question three,

575
00:43:21.239 --> 00:43:27.320
what conversation have you been avoiding? There's always one, the

576
00:43:27.480 --> 00:43:33.000
employee that really needs correcting, the client who's invoice is

577
00:43:33.079 --> 00:43:38.119
sixty days out, the vendor that you don't want to fire,

578
00:43:38.159 --> 00:43:41.719
but you have to, the apology that you owe your

579
00:43:41.760 --> 00:43:46.239
spouse or your kids from last Thursday. You see those

580
00:43:46.280 --> 00:43:51.719
avoided conversations. They don't sit still. They compound, and the

581
00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:57.360
weights of the hard conversation is almost always heavier in

582
00:43:57.440 --> 00:44:00.800
the anticipation of them than they are in actually the

583
00:44:00.840 --> 00:44:06.440
reality of having them. I've never once had an entrepreneur

584
00:44:06.480 --> 00:44:10.000
tell me the confrontation was worse than the six weeks

585
00:44:10.039 --> 00:44:15.199
of dreading the conversation. So go have the conversation today

586
00:44:15.280 --> 00:44:20.599
if possible, because the relief is immediate and it's out

587
00:44:20.639 --> 00:44:27.639
of proportion to the effort. Do you understand that? Question four?

588
00:44:29.039 --> 00:44:34.800
What one thing would make today a success? Okay, one,

589
00:44:34.920 --> 00:44:40.119
not a list of fourteen, but one when you define

590
00:44:40.280 --> 00:44:45.639
success as an impossible list. Then you end every day

591
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:50.199
having failed, and one hundred consecutive days of failing is

592
00:44:50.360 --> 00:44:54.519
corrosive in ways that most entrepreneurs never even think about.

593
00:44:55.159 --> 00:45:00.559
They never account for one clear win and every after

594
00:45:00.599 --> 00:45:05.679
that is surplus. It changes your frame of mind. Okay,

595
00:45:05.960 --> 00:45:10.079
so do it four questions, five minutes, do it in

596
00:45:10.159 --> 00:45:13.800
thirty days before you evaluate whether this works. Just try

597
00:45:13.840 --> 00:45:18.599
it and keep the standard reasonable, because here's the thing

598
00:45:18.599 --> 00:45:21.639
you're going to miss days. This isn't something that you

599
00:45:21.760 --> 00:45:25.639
have to be perfect at. Perfectionism is one of anxiety's oldest,

600
00:45:25.800 --> 00:45:30.199
oldest tricks, and it would love to turn your recovery

601
00:45:30.280 --> 00:45:40.239
practice into one more area for failure. So when it's

602
00:45:40.280 --> 00:45:44.719
bigger than a podcast, I'm going to be really upfront

603
00:45:44.719 --> 00:45:48.519
with you because I think this is where I stop

604
00:45:48.639 --> 00:45:53.760
being useful. You See, everything in this episode is designed

605
00:45:53.840 --> 00:45:58.440
for the normal and heavy and chronic loads and pressures

606
00:45:58.880 --> 00:46:05.559
of owning a business. Now, ordinary pressure handled badly, that's

607
00:46:05.599 --> 00:46:09.360
what these tools are for, and that's most people. But

608
00:46:09.559 --> 00:46:14.320
sometimes it's more than that. See if the anxiety is

609
00:46:14.400 --> 00:46:18.320
persistent regardless of what's happening in your business, if it's

610
00:46:18.840 --> 00:46:22.079
interfering with your work, or your marriage, or your ability

611
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:26.239
to be a good parent, if you're having panic attacks,

612
00:46:26.280 --> 00:46:29.679
if you're leaning on alcohol or any other substance to

613
00:46:29.760 --> 00:46:33.440
shut your mind off at night, if you've been in

614
00:46:33.480 --> 00:46:36.360
it long enough that you can't remember what the other

615
00:46:36.519 --> 00:46:40.199
person that started this felt like. You See, that's not

616
00:46:40.239 --> 00:46:44.440
a discipline problem. That's not something you fix with the

617
00:46:44.480 --> 00:46:49.199
morning routine. And if you try, it's all you're going

618
00:46:49.280 --> 00:46:52.920
to do is add shame on top of it. And

619
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:55.039
that's when I say, go talk to a professional. Go

620
00:46:55.119 --> 00:47:00.400
talk to a doctor, a licensed therapist, someone who's job

621
00:47:00.519 --> 00:47:05.599
this actually is. Now I get it. I know the resistance.

622
00:47:06.159 --> 00:47:09.159
I know exactly what it sounds like in an entrepreneur's

623
00:47:09.199 --> 00:47:13.400
head because I've heard it in mind echoing I don't

624
00:47:13.400 --> 00:47:16.599
have time. It's really not that bad, you know what

625
00:47:16.639 --> 00:47:21.280
I should be able to handle this. Let me put

626
00:47:21.320 --> 00:47:26.400
this in language that you understand. See, you hire an

627
00:47:26.440 --> 00:47:30.519
accountant because you're not going to learn a CPA or

628
00:47:31.199 --> 00:47:33.880
learn more than a CPA on a tax code in

629
00:47:33.920 --> 00:47:37.639
your spare time. See you hire an attorney because you

630
00:47:37.679 --> 00:47:40.559
have better uses for your hours than becoming a lawyer.

631
00:47:42.480 --> 00:47:46.360
You bring in expertise for every other critical system in

632
00:47:46.400 --> 00:47:53.199
your company, and we have this reaction to this, this friction.

633
00:47:54.679 --> 00:47:56.360
But I think you would agree your mind is the

634
00:47:56.400 --> 00:48:00.760
most critical system that you own. Every decision in your

635
00:48:00.840 --> 00:48:08.400
business routes through your mind. See getting expert help with

636
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:14.800
the system that runs everything your business, your life. See

637
00:48:14.800 --> 00:48:18.760
that's not a weakness. It's probably the most obvious business

638
00:48:18.800 --> 00:48:21.360
decision that we have on the list. And the only

639
00:48:21.400 --> 00:48:24.119
reason that it feels different is that we've been trained

640
00:48:24.159 --> 00:48:30.679
to think that it does. See. If it's bigger than you, please, please,

641
00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:36.880
please go get help, because that's leadership. So let's bring

642
00:48:36.920 --> 00:48:43.280
this home. Being an entrepreneur means accepting uncertainty. That's the

643
00:48:43.360 --> 00:48:47.920
deal you signed. You traded the guaranteed paycheck for the ceiling.

644
00:48:49.400 --> 00:48:52.239
There is absolutely no version where you get the ceiling

645
00:48:52.400 --> 00:48:58.119
without the uncertainty. But see, accepting uncertainty is not the

646
00:48:58.159 --> 00:49:04.719
same thing as accepting constant anxiety. Those got welded together

647
00:49:04.920 --> 00:49:08.559
somewhere along the way, and I'd like you to pull

648
00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:12.280
them apart, because one of them is the price of

649
00:49:12.320 --> 00:49:15.280
the work and the other one is just damaged that

650
00:49:15.400 --> 00:49:20.960
you've gotten used to. The business owners I know are

651
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:25.400
not fearless, not any of them, every one of them

652
00:49:25.519 --> 00:49:29.760
has stared at a number that scared them. You know,

653
00:49:29.840 --> 00:49:33.800
it's something in the future that scared them. What they've

654
00:49:33.920 --> 00:49:38.280
learned is the difference between fear that's giving them information

655
00:49:39.000 --> 00:49:42.679
and fear that's taking the wheel and driving them off

656
00:49:42.719 --> 00:49:47.000
a cliff. Fear that says, look closer at what this

657
00:49:47.119 --> 00:49:52.000
contract is useful for. Well, listen to that fear. Fear

658
00:49:52.039 --> 00:49:54.079
that has you wake up at three in the morning

659
00:49:54.559 --> 00:49:58.559
running the same mental loop for the ninth night straight

660
00:49:58.679 --> 00:50:03.199
with no information. Well, that's not protecting anything. That's just

661
00:50:03.320 --> 00:50:08.840
an open loop running. Learn to tell them apart. And

662
00:50:08.920 --> 00:50:13.000
that's the entire skill set. And I want you to

663
00:50:13.039 --> 00:50:17.079
remember what I said at the top. The business you

664
00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:21.400
build will never be healthier than the person that's building it.

665
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:25.840
So you can't out hustle a body that's breaking down.

666
00:50:27.280 --> 00:50:32.800
You can't outstrategize a mind that hasn't slept. You can't

667
00:50:32.840 --> 00:50:37.039
scale a company past the capacity of the person at

668
00:50:37.039 --> 00:50:41.519
the center of it. And you are the person at

669
00:50:41.519 --> 00:50:45.400
the center of your company. So take the black tape

670
00:50:45.559 --> 00:50:49.519
off the warning light, look at what it's telling you,

671
00:50:50.599 --> 00:50:53.400
then do something ordinary about it, and do it today.

672
00:50:54.159 --> 00:50:57.559
Write the list, take the walk, have the conversation, call

673
00:50:57.639 --> 00:51:01.679
your wife or husband and tell them what's really going on.

674
00:51:02.800 --> 00:51:06.360
Go to bed, and remember stress is part of this

675
00:51:06.480 --> 00:51:10.960
journey and it's always going to be. Anxiety doesn't have

676
00:51:11.079 --> 00:51:15.880
to be Take care of yourself. Your family deserves it,

677
00:51:15.960 --> 00:51:20.719
your business deserves it, and most importantly, you deserve it.

678
00:51:21.679 --> 00:51:26.639
I'm Jeremy Hanson. This has been optimized Entrepreneur. Now, if

679
00:51:26.639 --> 00:51:30.559
this episode hit you somewhere real, please send it to

680
00:51:30.599 --> 00:51:34.039
another business owner who needs to hear this. That's how

681
00:51:34.079 --> 00:51:38.360
this show grows, and it's how somebody else gets a

682
00:51:38.599 --> 00:51:44.280
language or learns about something that they've been caring that

683
00:51:44.360 --> 00:51:47.440
they don't have a name for. You can find everything

684
00:51:47.519 --> 00:51:51.239
we do on optimized number one dot com. That's Optimized

685
00:51:51.239 --> 00:51:53.840
one dot com. And if you're not on the built

686
00:51:53.880 --> 00:51:56.960
different newsletter, go over there. That's where I put the

687
00:51:57.000 --> 00:52:01.039
stuff that doesn't fit into every episode every week. Okay,

688
00:52:01.400 --> 00:52:06.360
it's free, go get it on it. Go build yourself

689
00:52:06.559 --> 00:52:10.880
a wonderful, wonderful life and use business as a tool.

690
00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:18.400
I'll see you next week. Thank you for listeners. Sue

691
00:52:18.519 --> 00:52:34.320
the optimistrap Printer podcast. Sign up so you don't optimizone

692
00:52:34.719 --> 00:52:53.519
dot com optimizone dot com