![[QUĀY.jo]](https://theartofonlinebusiness.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AOOB-Logo-White-150x118.png){kind=logo}
After a four-month sabbatical, I am back, rejuvenated, and pumped to share my transformative journey with you.
So today I’m sharing with you 9 lessons I learned over the 4 months of my sabbatical; a sabbatical that afforded me the chance to enhance the relationships in my family, improve my physical health, and bring clarity to my business’s future.
The break was more than just a breath of fresh air, it was also a period of reflection, renewal, and re-energizing.
Plus, I’ve got a BIG announcement for you that came to fruition over the break.
In this episode you’ll hear:
- Updates on what I have accomplished and wanted to focus on during the sabbatical
- 9 lessons I learned during my sabbatical
- Introducing my new co-host!
- How you might incorporate some of these insights that I had into your business and into your life
Links & Resources:
Kwadwo [QUĀY.jo] Sampany-Kessie’s Links:
- Visit Kwadwo’s website for Facebook Ads help
- Say hi to Kwadwo on Instagram
Timestamps:
00:00 — Introduction
02:48 — Updates on what I have accomplished and wanted to focus on during the sabbatical
11:44 — Introduction to the 9 Lessons
12:28 — First lesson: Needing a break
13:43 — Second lesson: Time flies
15:58 — Third lesson: Sleep
18:05 — Fourth lesson: You cannot force things
20:06 — Fifth lesson: The importance of understanding one’s “why” in their work and life.
22:59 — Sixth lesson: The importance of thinking bigger and not getting caught up in the daily details
26:20 — Seventh lesson: Giving yourself time to think
26:47 — Eighth lesson: Thinking bigger and differently
31:12 — Ninth lesson: Thinking differently for better outcomes
32:05 — Introducing Kwadwo as new co-host
45:58 — The five insights and takeaways that you can incorporate into your business and life
Please support the podcast by giving an honest Rating/Review for the show on iTunes!
00:00
All right, we’re live. My friends. Welcome to the show. It’s been four months since I’ve been front in front of this microphone here, so I’m probably going to be a little rusty. Today I am back from sabbatical. I can’t believe it’s been four months already since I have gotten done any work here and I’m feeling really good to be back. I am more energized, I’m rejuvenated, I am clear on the future of my business and I’m really excited about some big changes that I’m making, which I’ll be sharing with you a little bit today. Huge announcement for you today coming up and I’ll be sharing other stuff with you in future episodes. Before I get into it today, thank you for all the support and the grace that you’ve given me as I took this time off for myself. When I announced the sabbatical four months ago, I got tons of emails. I got so many emails after I announced that I’d be taking a break and I can’t tell you what all those emails and words meant and still mean to me. You all are the best and I super appreciate you. Also, a big thanks to Kwadwo for contributing so many episodes while I was out, which the download numbers that I’ve seen say that you all clearly liked his episodes. Also, thank you to Brittany McBean for contributing her episode. I think it’s really fun to hear different voices lead episodes here on the show.
01:41
Speaking of different voices joining me on the show here, I have a special announcement for you, coming up a little bit later in the episode here when I share lesson number seven, which you’re definitely going to want to hear because things are changing here on the podcast. What I thought I’d do today is share with you the lessons that I learned during my four months sabbatical. Now, if you’re like, why does he keep saying four months? Because I thought he was taking three months off. Originally I was taking three months off and I’ll talk more about that in a second, but it ended up being four months. I’m going to share with you lessons I learned during my sabbatical. At the end of this, I’m going to share with you how you might incorporate some of these insights that I had into your business and into your life. I also want to update you on whether I accomplished the things that I had told you that I wanted to focus on during the sabbatical. I didn’t do some of them and I don’t really have a good reason as to why I didn’t do them.
02:48
Let’s start right there. First and foremost, the space that I took allowed me to reconnect and be much more present with Maya, my daughter, who is four and a half, and Amy, my wife. I have a stronger relationship with Maya now than I did ever before. I took the break, which is everything to me. That was one of the biggest goals of taking this time away from the business in order to reconnect with her, have a strong relationship with her and also with Amy. I’m going to rate this. For each one of these things I’m going to, out of a five star rating, I’m going to say this one was a five out of five. For sure. Five out of five. Definitely reconnected with Maya, stronger relationship with her, now more than ever. She started here in the West Coast. We have TK, which is transitional kindergarten. When I grew up on the East Coast, they have pre-K. She just started TK which I cannot believe when I’m recording this just a few weeks ago and the school is two blocks from us. We walk to school every day, which is amazing and couldn’t be more excited. Anyway, five out of five reconnecting with Maya and Amy.
Second update there, I have not had any headaches since two weeks after I started my sabbatical. If you recall, when I announced my sabbatical, I told you that I was having really bad headaches, come on pretty much every day. I firmly believe, especially now, that I haven’t had any headaches in four months. Those headaches were caused by the burnout and stress and everything like that. I have not had any headaches since two weeks after the sabbatical started. I said that the next thing. I said that I would spend my sabbatical time relaxing. Well, I’m going to give myself a three out of five stars on that one because I feel like I relaxed, but I also didn’t. One thing I found during a lot of introspection during this time frankly, I have a hard time relaxing. My brain is constantly going, going, going. I’ve talked about that here in the show a lot, but one thing is, I found myself focusing on one thing, being able to do that more and more, and how I found that was my buddy, Jude Charles, who has been on the podcast here a couple of times. Early on in my sabbatical he sent me a book and the book is called Silent Focus. I think it’s called Silent Focus and he said hey, I have been reading this. I think it’s really, really good. I thought of you and I know that you’re starting the sabbatical, so I wanted to send it over to you. So I read it and it was an actual book. It was actual, you know, physical book in my hands, rather than what I normally do is read on my Kindle. What I, what I found with that was reading an actual book allowed me to really focus my brain. Now you might be listening right now. You’re like well, yeah, of course, because I feel that all the time. Well, I have never I’ve not felt that and for some reason, I’ve really, really liked getting back into reading an actual book rather than the Kindle For me. I love the Kindle and I still read on it, but it was, you know, it’s just another screen, but reading an actual book, I found, allowed me to focus, really focus my brain. And not only that, but reading one book and only that book. I’m used to reading like four books at a time and jumping from book to book and I, I’ll be honest, I’ve gotten back to that a little bit, but I’m really trying to focus on one book at a time and that has helped me relax. So I’m going to give myself a three out of five on the relaxation chart here, if you will. Next thing, I said I was going to do more exercising and sort of jumpstart that I’m going to give myself a four out of five on that one because I feel like I have I’ve done a much better job. I mean, compared to where I was four months ago, I’m doing way more and I’m excited about it for the first time in a very long time. So that’s been really good and I can, I hope, to continue to. I very much continue again. I’m going to continue to do that. So four out of five.
In the exercising I said I was going to do more bass fishing. I love to bass fish. Bass fish yes, I throw them all back, treat them very respectfully. I do a lot of bass fishing with my with my very good buddy, pat Flynn, who some of you might know from Smart Passive Income. He and I go all the time. That’s a five out of five I got to. I don’t think I went as much as I thought I would, but it’s more of when I wanted to go I went. So five out of five.
The other thing that I said I was going to do a lot of is reflection, and definitely five out of five. I spent a lot of time reflecting on you know where things were for me, both personally and professionally, the type of things that were leading to the burnout, what I want to do going forward, et cetera, et cetera. So absolutely five out of five, and
I’m going to be sharing a lot more about the kind of clarity that I had as far as the business going forward in upcoming episodes, and I’m also going to be sharing with you a huge announcement again, as I mentioned earlier coming up here, because I’m making a big change to the podcast here, which I’m really excited about. And then, lastly, I said that I also might spend some time on a passion project that I’ve been working on and I’m super excited about, which you might even hear more about. You will be hearing more about this is Pick Rick’s Brain AI. It’s a coaching AI and it is a conversational AI, so I’m going to give myself a five out of five on this one in terms of spending time on it. However, I spent way more time on this project than I expected. The reason for that is what I haven’t announced is up until a couple of weeks ago, I was building two different AI conversational coaching chatbots with two different companies, and the reason for that was because I wanted to see which one was better to present and offer that to you all. Thank you for your time tering. Thank you. Now it is down to one company. It’s a long story. What happened with the other company wasn’t great, but anyway, I’m really happy that I’ve gone all in on this one company and it’s been way more work than I expected and I’ll talk more about that coming up. But one of the biggest things that I’ve found is it’s really hard to build a conversational AI coaching experience. Anybody, like literally anybody these days, can build a chatbot that is based on a set of data. Like I could take this podcast here and set up a chatbot that where you can ask questions against the podcast of 720 episodes and it’ll spit out answers for you and that’s helpful. But it’s gonna give you a general answer because it’s not specific to what your situation is. Well, that’s what I’m building PickerXbrain coaching AI is getting to the bottom of what you’re actually asking, why you’re actually asking it, and giving you the type of help that is helpful and relevant to you, not just a general answer. And what I’ve found is that’s not an easy thing to build. Now I’m not doing it. This company that I’m working with is doing it but a lot more about that later and so I did spend a lot of time on it. Five out of five on it. I’m super happy with where we’re at. We’re a little bit behind schedule, but that’s okay and I can’t wait to share all this with you. Okay, that’s the scorecard.
11:44
Let’s get on to the lessons, and I have. How many lessons do I have here for you? Let me look at my list here. I have nine lessons. Okay, so that’s the scorecard. A lot of fun there. Just wanna give you a quick update on how I sort of did I do what I said I was gonna do Some yes, some no. Now I wanna get on to lessons that I learned on the sabbatical, and these are really things that I hope that you can kind of take bits and pieces from and incorporate into your life, into your business, that are helpful for you, and at the end I’ll sort of summarize these for you that you can hopefully you can take away. And there’s nine lessons here.
12:28
The first one I really, really really needed the break. It took me about three weeks. So when did I go out June, july, august. No, may, may, june, july, august. Yeah, so into May. It took me about three weeks almost to like more of a weekend here in the States to come down off the go go go where I allowed my brain to relax. I had not taken an extended break like this in the 10 years that I’ve been running this online, I’ve been running this online business, but I did realize immediately that taking the sabbatical was the right thing to do. So I think the big lesson here is just listening to yourself, listening to your body, listening to how you’re feeling, and not sort of disregarding that because whatever, it’s a little bit woo-woo or whatever. Just listen to yourself, listen to your body. What is it telling you and how are you feeling about things. So that was that’s the biggest lesson. Right, I really needed the break.
13:43
Number two, second biggest lesson time flies. Time flies by super fast. So this is where I’ll share with you why I ended up taking four months instead of three months. Three months went by in the past. Three months went by in the blink of an eye and as I got toward the end of July, when I was originally supposed to come back, I knew I wasn’t ready. I could feel it. My brain wasn’t there physically, I just wasn’t, and so I was really struggling with that and because I said, you know, I told you all that I would be taking three months. But I was like you know what, I just can’t do that right now because I am not there yet. So I decided to extend it by another month, which was a hundred percent the right move, because once I made that decision by, say, early-ish August and so I’m recording this on September 5th, and about two weeks after I made the decision to extend it another month, I don’t know what happened. I kind of shifted and I could feel myself getting ready to get back into things. I started, my brain started to ramp back up and I started to get more excited, et cetera, et cetera. So time flies, my friend, super fast, and I think the big lesson here is if you’re going through something and what I’m not talking about is like burnout or something I’m talking if you’re going through something that’s really hard in your business or what have you, time flies really fast. So make those decisions and know that whatever you’re going through will pass. Now, I’m not saying ignore it, but time is gonna go by really quickly. So if you’re thinking about doing something, if you’re like, oh not really sure, go for it, because before you know it, it is the holiday season here at the end of 2023. And it just goes by so fast. So I realized that over the sabbatical Third thing and you’re gonna be like, well, really, rick, this major list? Well, yes, it did, because this is something I’m really really focusing on right now.
15:58
The third lesson is sleep. I know this sounds so obvious, but for me anyway, there is a huge correlation with my sleep and the anxiety that I experience and I’ve talked a lot about my anxiety here on the podcast over the past several years and everything like that and so there’s a huge correlation with the sleep and the anxiety that I experience. So I am now focusing on my sleep more than ever, and this is part of where I’ve had a big aha. It’s not just the and you might be thinking, well, duh, rick, of course, it’s not just the length that you sleep, but it’s actually the length of the quality sleep that you’re getting. So normally for me, it’s like 10 o’clock to 6 am, because my daughter’s up really, really early, and you might think, well, eight hours, that’s a long time. Well, what I’m finding is I might be in bed for that amount of time, but my quality of sleep is a lot less than that. So that’s what I’m working on right now. And so sleep. If you know, I’m just gonna, because that could be a whole other episode and I don’t wanna get into it all here, but it’s a big lesson that I’ve learned. So, if you’re experiencing a lot of stress in the business and I know this is very, very different for other you know, for different people how much sleep you actually need versus other people, etc. It’s just a big lesson that I learned. I was turned onto this app by Pat, my buddy, pat Flynn. It’s called the SleepWatch app and I have no idea if it’s on, you know, android or whatever, but I get it on. You know it’s iOS app and I wear my Apple Watch to sleep and the insight that it gives you the next day is awesome. And so, anyway, sleepwatch app. Third lesson sleep.
18:05
Fourth lesson here is that you cannot force things. For so long. Prior to my taking the sabbatical, I was just powering through, I was ignoring the signs and the feelings of being burned out, and I read a lot about burnout while on my sabbatical and one thing that kept coming up that you know, one of the biggest reasons for burnout that I really resonated with was not enjoying what you’re doing, because when you’re not enjoying what you’re doing, you’re just kind of powering through. And, as I talked about here on the show before my sabbatical started, I shared with you all that I hadn’t been enjoying the business like I normally do for a while, much longer than I realized, and you know, I frankly care to admit to Thus, I was forcing things, I was just powering through, and forcing things, my friend, just does not work. Yes, you can power through the odd time, but a prolonged period of powering through and forcing things when you are not enjoying what you’re doing, it’s not going to end well. So you can’t force things, maybe for a short period of time, but you powering through is only gonna get you, so you know so far. So what I’d really encourage you to do is really, if you’re not quite enjoying what you’re doing, if you feel like you know, oh, I have to do this, rather than I get to do this, I’d really look at, take a step back and look at all right, you know, what exactly am I not enjoying. Why aren’t I enjoying this? And start to piece those aspects together to try to paint the picture of what might be going on. Because, again, that’s a big lesson I learned is you cannot force things and power through things. So those are the first four lessons. Four lessons, five, six and seven. They’re all in a similar sort of area together,
20:06
and so the fifth lesson is. Prior to the sabbatical, I really lost sight of why I was doing what I was doing. Now you’ve heard this whole concept of what’s your why. You know it’s way cliched, overused, you know a million times, but yet it’s so important. And prior to sabbatical, while I was burned out, I completely lost sight of why I do what I do. And why is that? Well, first and foremost, why I do what I do is I wanna set an example for Maya, my daughter, that you can create something in the world that has a huge impact and helps a whole bunch of people, but hustle and overwork don’t equal more money or impact. And you can accomplish that huge impact without, you know, overworking and hustling and all that stress and everything. And I certainly was not setting a good example for Maya there, and so with this, you know, I tried to for as much as she understands as a four and a half year old. I tried to explain to her what you know what I was doing, daddy’s on a long vacation and why I was doing it and so forth, and I told her the other day. I said you know what? Daddy’s gonna go back to working with his business and she said when are you going back on vacation? So it’s a perfect example and I really wanna tell her that. Look, things are not gonna change much in terms of you know when I’m spending time with her and how much and all that stuff. But I just wasn’t setting a good example, and one of my superpowers is being able to take complex business topics and systems and simplify them. I love to create and coach and help people simplify. You know your businesses in this way and I love hearing how what I do changes people’s business and lives. But I lost the joy in that because of what I mentioned earlier when I talked about not being able to force things, like because of the burnout. I lost the joy in the day to day and also lost sight of why I was doing what I was doing, and so the lesson here that I’d love for you to think about is number one are you clear about why you’re doing what you’re doing? And if you are, are you remembering that when you get up each day and start doing you know working on your business? Because when you lose sight of that, it’s very easy to just start powering through and again, as I mentioned earlier, it’s only gonna get you so far.
22:59
Okay, number six I was definitely thinking too small and I got caught up in the minutia of the day to day and this is all about thinking bigger. And I know again, this is another one that’s like oh, I’ve heard this a million times, rick, it’s so cliched. Well, I agree with you, but hear me out here. So I really think this whole this is kind of a chicken or the egg kind of thing. But I thought a lot about the fact that I was feeling burned out. Was that feeling of burnout? Did that cause me to narrow my thinking just to get through day to day? Right, so was I burned out first, which caused me to narrow my thinking and think too small, just so I could get through the day to day, because I couldn’t handle sort of the expansive thinking and I wasn’t thinking bigger in any way prior to the sabbatical. However and this is like the chicken and the egg thing I also think the fact that I wasn’t thinking bigger in the first place did contribute to feeling burned out, because I was just in this mode of narrow thinking, and so I think I find that really really fascinating of did that sort of lead to the burnout, because I was like, oh, I’m just narrowed thinking, I’m just doing this is what I do and not really thinking like again the why and all that stuff. I’m just doing my day to day thing. And did that lead to the burnout or did the burnout lead more toward that narrow thinking? I think it’s a. For me personally, it’s a combination of both, and this whole book 10X is easier than 2X by Ben Hardy and Dan. It’s really by Ben Hardy, but he mentions Dan Sullivan, so Dan Sullivan is a co-author on it, quote unquote, but it’s just referencing a lot of his material and stuff like that. And I stayed away from business books, which is really hard for me. I stayed away from business books the entire time up until the month of August, and that’s when I read this book and I loved it. It was really, really good. Skip the introduction, go to the first chapter, skip the introduction, go right there. I’m actually rereading it again. That’s how much it was. It was really good. Just thinking bigger, but not just thinking bigger for bigger sake. Thinking bigger like just more expansively to accomplish what you want to accomplish and the mindset behind it. And again, I keep alluding to it. But I’ve got big announcements coming as far as thinking bigger One just coming up here in a couple of minutes and then more in the coming episodes here on the podcast, which that sixth lesson of thinking too small got caught up in the minutiae of the day today.
26:20
That leads me to one of the most important lessons on this list, number seven, and that is giving yourself time to think. So, once my brain started to settle down after my break started, I spent a ton of time thinking, thinking about what I want, what I don’t want, how I want to be as a father, as a husband, what I want for this business, what kind of people I want to work with, kind of people I want to surround myself with, et cetera. And again, you hear this all the time think bigger. But, as I mentioned, I wasn’t allowing myself to do that, and so a realization that I had in this whole online business space that we’re all in. It’s very easy to get caught up in only thinking about the things that everyone in this space talks about. Right, everyone in this space talks about what Webinars, evergreen funnels, online courses, tiktok, paid boot camps, paid challenges and everybody does them right, and there’s nothing wrong with that. All those things are awesome, but there’s so much more available for your business. And as I sit here and I say, think bigger, what I’m also saying is think differently than what you hear every day. And you can’t do this if you’re not taking time in your schedule to just think right. So I’m not saying you have to have a goal of a $20 million business with 30 full-time employees. For me, that sounds terrible, right, but what could bigger mean to you? And again, this is where thinking differently also comes in. So let me give you a couple of examples. Have you ever thought about building your business to sell? So many of us in the online space are just building our business. So let me give you a couple of examples here. So, like, first of all, have you ever thought about building your business to sell, rather than like all right, I’m just gonna start this business and it’s gonna cash flow and whatever. That’s great. That’s awesome If you wanna do that. But I think not enough people think about like, oh, what if I built this to sell? Well, you’re building your business very differently if that’s the case, you’re doing things within the business differently if you’re building it to sell. Another example of thinking differently than what most people think is when it comes to like you know, all my business space that we are all in is what if I’m using this business here as my cash flow business and I’m using this cash flow to buy other businesses or invest in other businesses? So that’s another example where you can be thinking differently. Like what have you thought about buying another business? Maybe it’s acquiring another business in your space, in your niche, and I’ll tell you, buying a business is not as expensive as you might think, obviously, depending on the business, of course. But have you thought you know? That’s an example I’ll tell you right now that not a lot of people in the online business space think about acquiring another business. Maybe it’s creating a software tool for your business that solves a huge problem that the people that you serve have. With AI today, it’s so incredibly easy to build something, or have something built for you very inexpensively, or thinking about you know other problems that your person has that maybe you’re not currently solving Right. Maybe somebody else that you know is solving that problem and you can partner with them. So these are just ideas of thinking differently in your business. Now you might be like, well, rick, I don’t want any of those things. I just wanna keep doing what I’m doing. I have a nice life. I am, you know, bringing in money that supports my family and the kind of lifestyle that I want, and that’s good for me Awesome. But for some of you, you’re wanting more, but you’re not really sure how to, what your options are, if you will, because all you hear is webinars and evergreen funnels and online courses and TikTok and, you know, paid boot camps and this and that which are all which all work, which are all great. But my point here is that when you give yourself time to think, you could be thinking differently and thinking bigger, simply compared to the type of thinking that you’d be doing towards your business right now. And again, all as I mentioned earlier. I’ll be sharing a lot more with you over the next 60 days or so about how this all looks for me. But one example that I’ve already told you about is Pick Rick’s brain coaching AI. That’s thinking differently. So when you start giving yourself a time and space to think in a bigger and different way than what you’re used to, your brain comes alive. Again, I’m not saying do bigger for the sake of it. I’m saying there’s more than one way to accomplish whatever it is that you want to accomplish, but you’ve got to give yourself time to think. Doesn’t have to be four months to think. It could be. I’m gonna take Monday and Tuesday off this week and folk and just give myself. You know I’m gonna go for walks each of those days, a couple times a day, and just think. But you have to give yourself time to think in order to do that. That’s a huge lesson for me.
32:05
Now here’s a big announcement for you. Speaking of thinking differently. Something that I’ve decided to think differently about is how I deliver this podcast to you. What’s something that I could do differently. You’ve been hearing my perspective on the podcast here for 718 episodes and almost 12 million downloads. I started this podcast in 2015. And so I started thinking about over the sabbatical, like what could, what could be different about it? What, how? How could I do differently? Not there’s anything wrong with the podcast by, by any stretch, quite the opposite, right so. But I started thinking like again, how can I do differently? And One of the first things that came up was like what if I added a co-host to the show here? Very few podcasts in the online spaces, in the online space, do this, so that’s different. I Think it it could add variety to the show and it’s fun to add an additional diverse perspective and voice to the conversation that we have here on the podcast. Likewise, it allows the opportunity to have deeper discussions on Topics and that’s one piece of feedback that I’ve heard from you Over and over over the years is like, rather than talk about Many different things on a podcast, go deeper on a specific topic, even though I’m talking about a whole bunch of different things today. So that’s an opportunity, and I also think you can add a diversity and skill set, adding a voice, for example, who’s working with clients on a daily basis, just like you, in a different way than I am. So this is exactly what I have decided to do. I’ve decided to add a co-host to the art of online business, Kwadwo, who you’ve now heard several times here in the podcast, is going to be the new co-host of the art of online business, and, if you missed any of his episodes and you don’t know who Kwadwo is, he’s a Facebook and Instagram ads expert, who he runs his own ads management business. For course, creators and coaches like you. He’s also an expert in funnels, especially when it comes to troubleshooting and improving the performance of funnels, and and he’s also an ads and funnels coach. He’s super smart with this stuff and he flat out gets his clients and students results. Now I’ve worked with Kwadwo in my business for years now. He originally came into my world. He was a member of accelerator several years ago and grew into being a coach inside of accelerator for the past couple years, and the accelerators love him and they’ve also reaped huge benefits from his knowledge, and now you are gonna get to do the same. So in the coming episodes, you’re gonna start to hear More from Kwadwo some solo episodes from Kwadwo in addition to co-hosted episodes and he and I were both really excited about it, and I think the dynamic that he’s gonna bring to the podcast here is gonna be awesome. So I’m also really excited for you all as listeners of the show and so again thinking differently and bigger, and so that’s an example of you know what I did. You know, one thing that I thought a lot about over the over the break is how can I do differently on the podcast here? Not a lot of people, very few people, are doing co-hosted Podcast, and I think that when done right, they’re really good. Okay, so got two more lessons here and then I’ll just wrap this up for you. This next one is Not that these other ones haven’t been personal, but this one’s very personal, but I’m gonna share it here. I cared, I realized During the sabbatical that I cared too much of what people thought of me, and this one became clear to me early on in In my break in that I was caring way too much About what people thought of me, specifically my students. I Kind of feel like I wasn’t showing up authentically, but when I finally Acknowledged that I was burned out and then I was gonna do something about it, I did show up authentically, and what I mean by that is Because I was forcing. You know, I was just Forcing my way through and powering through, I think, when I think that when you do that, you don’t show up as authentically as as you might be able to, and that’s what I mean by like. I kind of feel like I wasn’t showing up authentically, but when I acknowledge that publicly that I was burned out and what I was gonna do about it, I Did show up authentically, and you know very much showing up authentically here today for you. So here’s I mean about like, caring too much about what, like, my students thought of me, and I don’t mean this in a bad way in any way. So, but so hear me out here, I was putting way too much pressure on myself for them to succeed, which led me to not having strong boundaries and doing a lot of outside the scope work. And For a lot of you coaches listening right now, you might be like, oh, I do that all the time. You know I’m all, I have very few boundaries, or I have boundaries but I’m not really sticking to it. I was doing that. And you might be like well, rick, you’ve been doing this for 10 years now, why are you still having these? I mean, hey, I’m a human being, I just this is, this is what was going on, and I think this was a huge contributor to my burnout. So, for example, when somebody asked me, would somebody, when somebody would ask me a question, and I knew the answer that they needed to hear was going to take way more than they were expected they were expecting, right like so the answer to their question is going to take way more work than they were kind of Expecting, because I kind of know what people are expecting as an answer, right so. But it’s not my job to give that answer unless it’s actually the right one. I Would feel what I would do, that I would feel this immediate tightness in my chest because I wasn’t giving them the credit that they could take Responsibility for their own success. Isn’t that kind of like that’s what was happening, and I felt that I needed to do something different to help them because of these stories that I was telling myself that if I didn’t do these things, x, y and Z above and beyond of you know set boundaries, when, all along, I know that the solutions that I offer people work, been doing this a long time. I’m a really good coach, but it’s up to them to execute, right? So, just as an example like I just I’m thinking of, I’m thinking about somebody right now and this actually goes into number nine here in just a second. But thinking about somebody who had just applied to work with me and, by the way I’m doing I’m now accepting five one-on-one coaching clients Month to month. You meet with me each week. You get Slack access in between five one-on-one coaching clients. So if you’re interested, just shoot me an email. Rick at rickmulready.com. I can give you the details. But so I’m thinking of stuff about somebody who just applied for that. There’s only a couple of spots left and I know the answer to what, to everything. Like the biggest domino is they need to be creating more content period. But I know they’re gonna be like, oh, I can’t do that, I don’t wanna do all that, but that is the answer to what they’re hoping, what they’re looking to get out of their business. So originally I would think about that answer and I’m like I know what they need to do and I would just feel this pressure. But it’s, I can give you, I can tell you exactly what to do, but it’s up to you to execute, and so it’s. But I was taking responsibility for it. So I had this. I had a ton of clarity around this during my break. And when I say I cared too much of what people thought of me. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care now. Quite the contrary. I’ve just released that self-imposed pressure and setting better boundaries right and more about boundaries here in a second. But that was a big one, that was a big aha, and I think I kind of had a hard time coming to grips with that one and like, okay, I’m gonna talk about it All right, here’s the final lesson and this was more. This one here is more tactical, I guess and that is content, content, content, content. Build an audience and then promote. So, going back to the think bigger and differently lesson I spoke I just spoke about, toward the latter part of my sabbatical, I started paying a lot of attention to the startup world and specifically the tech startups world, and the tech startup space is very different than the online space that we run in. So, just as an example, I was listening to a podcast the other day which I like a lot. Somebody referred it to me and it’s called my First Million and it’s great. It’s really, really good. It’s more about startups and stuff like that, but there’s a lot of like tidbits that you can take away for the online space. But anyways, listening to that podcast and the guest brought up this concept of profit first that he learned about, and the hosts, who are very well known in the tech startup space, didn’t know anything about profit first, whereas in our online space and coach space, profit first is a very well known topic, like profit first. I’ve learned about that. I remember 2014, 2015. So that’s just an example. So the tech startup space, I find, is very different and they do things a lot differently, for example, audience building. They create content. They think about it differently. They create content to build an audience over a longer period of time, so they’re playing a long game so that they can then monetize it Right. And I know that Gary Vaynerchuk talks about this. He’s talked about it for years. The whole jab, jab, jab, right, hook kind of thing. I just think that you kind of have to hear it in different ways and I kind of tuned that out a long time ago. But anyway, I really noticed this as I started to study this for the past month. And so they in the tech startup space, they create content to build an audience over a longer period of time so that they can then monetize it. They’re not in a hurry to monetize it Right. Of course they want to, but it’s like, all right, well, I gotta do this first, and I keep witnessing examples of this, whereas so many of us do a launch right and the list building starts when you’re trying to get people into the launch. So that’s more short-term thinking and there’s nothing wrong with that and it works. But where you see the big gains and huge incremental gains, it’s the audience building, content, longer period of time thinking and then monetize it Right, regardless of what you think about you. Think about Alex Hermosi perfect example. Not in the tech startup space, mind you, but what he’s done in audience and brand building is not short of amazing. I mean, I checked the date he had what a million and a half subscribers on YouTube and I remember it was like hardly any. He’s playing a long game, came all through content Right, and it’s playing the long game through content and relationship building. So, yeah, this lesson here is very different from the previous eight lessons, but nonetheless, I thought a lot about because I allowed myself the space to be thinking about it. So how might you start to shift your thinking into? I need to do it this month and I need to start generating this month, or for whatever reason and of course there’s definitely reasons that we might have to do that. But what if we could start to think and shift towards longer term thinking and creating that content so that in a relationship, so that you could build the audience and then promote to them? It’s gonna be so much easier and when you do that, it’s just much bigger incremental gains. So those are the nine lessons and the big announcement that Kwadwo is joining me here on the podcast as the new co-host here of the Art of Online Business.
45:58
So, as promised, here are five insights and takeaways that you might wanna incorporate into your business and life. So at number one, if necessary, ask yourself what kind of boundaries do I need to put in place so that I don’t burn out? What kind of boundaries do you need to put in place so that you don’t burn out? Number two create space for yourself in your schedule. You’ve gotta allow yourself time to think and get away from the business. Right Few ideas and connection of ideas or of thoughts are gonna be made in front of your computer. Now, again, you don’t have to take a four-month sabbatical, but being intentional with scheduling white space into your calendar, even if it’s for an hour, is critical on so many different levels. So create space for yourself to think into your schedule. Number three huge sleep. Need I say more? Cover that. Number four constantly be trying to remove yourself from the day-to-day of your business. This is also going to allow you to take more white space in your business. When you’re doing things day-to-day, ask yourself if what you’re doing is in your 20% of the most important things in your business that are unique to you, that you, as the CEO, only you can be doing If they aren’t. Create a plan to offload those things or get rid of them all together so that you can be spending as much time as possible in your 20% of activities. And I would absolutely argue that thinking time is part of that 20% for you as the CEO. And number five the thinking bigger and differently. And again, you do need the time. You do need to allow yourself the time and space to do this. And one of the best ways to get inspiration, in addition to giving yourself time away from the laptop, one of the best ways to get that inspiration is to look outside of your niche or industry. Like I mentioned, I started listening, I started really studying the tech online start up, the tech startup space. Very different. Obviously, similarities, but they just different mode of thinking. Listen to what other entrepreneurs are doing outside of your niche, how are they thinking, and try to pick up ideas from them. And then, when you take that time, that white space in your calendar to that thinking time, that’s when you can start to make connections of those thoughts and ideas that you came across that can give you ideas for your own business. So, all right, my friends, this was way longer than what I was expecting it to be. Thank you for all the support again and grace that you’ve given me as I took this time off for myself. I can’t tell you what all the emails and words mean to me. You all are the best. I appreciate you. That’s all for today, my friends. See you in the next episode. We’ll see you in the next episode.
