How Do We Produce More and Work Less? #188

How do we make a greater contribution to the world while spending more time with our families and doing the things we love? In other words, how do we produce more while working less? These are the questions I frequently consider today because this is how I intend to live. Thank you for reading about day 188 of Happier People Podcast and I hope you enjoy it!

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How Do We Produce More and Work Less?

I've been raised and conditioned with a productivity "do more is more" mindset and what I've learned after seven years almost of working online is that I can actually produce much more in terms of the good I do out of what I've produced when I actually work less.

Now, this sounds like some kind of fantasy or some way of a lazy person to rationalize, “You know what? I'm going to do more. I'm going to do more and I'm going to work less.”

It sounds like one of those things people say just to try to get out of doing real work and having a real job.

Here's the thing.

When we've been conditioned with this factory mindset, the number of hours we go to work and the amount of work we produce matters because everything is conditioned on how many units we can make.

The more units we can make, the more we can sell, the more we can profit.

We still largely mentally have an industrial age mindset where the more hours we are at work the more we produce, the more good we've done essentially.

The problem is, the way we live today we've got enough stuff.

Look around, this is my daughter's play area.

She has enough stuff.

We don't need to just crank a world out full of more and more and more stuff today. What we need are things that really make a huge impact, that solve problems, that people are in huge amounts of pain over, that help people feel inspired and excited to live.

That's what we need today.

We need things that make a real difference in people's lives. We don't just need more videos. We don't just need more widgets.

Now, sure, there are some places where we live and work where we just need more productivity, but even there we have an opportunity.

A lot of us equate with more is just doing more, and this is a very difficult mindset to break, especially trying to think that we want results, but what we really expect is more.

My wife had a classic example of this. Her boss said it was all about results at the job she used to have and as long as she got stuff done, then there was flexibility and everything else.

Guess what?

My wife got everything done, got way ahead on things, and then her boss still wasn't sure why she wasn't coming in early and staying late because that's what he expected a future partner at a law firm to do.

She wondered, "Where is this disconnection between the results I have gotten for this firm in a small amount of time and the idea that more hours equals better?"

"Why do I need to come in early and stay late, and go short on lunch when I finished up months of work and am now doing another person's job?"

What I found today, especially for those of us working online, the truth is that we can do a thousand times more good. We can help massively by doing work that is produced out of a high-quality state. A state of love and joy and happiness. That's what we're ultimately trying to communicate.

What I've seen in so many comments on my videos on my blog post is that readers and viewers can tell I'm genuinely happy. I genuinely love my life. I'm having fun doing what I'm doing.

Now, a lot of us think that's a luxury and say, "Well, Jerry, that's great. You've had a business seven years online, you've made lots of money, you can afford to have fun. You can afford to be happy. You can afford to spend time with your family. You can afford the luxury of someone who's made it, who can then just do whatever they want."

The key is, we get what we end up having out of the state we're producing in. I didn't get to a place, where I am today, of being happy and doing what I love out of grinding my way to it.

I got to where I'm at today by acting like that to start with, by seeing that grinding things out, trying to crank out a lot of videos and a lot of posts sucks, and then actually when I do things in a low-quality state where I'm frustrated, where I'm trying to make some extra money, where I'm feeling like I'm not good enough, I actually go backwards.

Once we comprehend this, especially for those of us working online and having our own businesses, but also in all aspects of life.

When I do things in a low-quality state I actually would have been better off to do nothing. Yes, I literally can sit on the couch and get farther ahead than if I show up to work and I'm trying to hustle. To me, trying to hustle implies what I have is not good enough now, and then if I hustle and work hard, and talk to a bunch of people, then I'll get somewhere in the future that is better.

The problem is our minds adjust almost instantly to new circumstances and we stick with that same set of beliefs, if I'm hustling based on the belief that where I am at is not good enough. This goes for any of us, whether we've got one follower online, no followers online, a million, two and a half million followers online, a billion followers online. It doesn't matter how many followers, how much money we are making, it's that mindset.

If you think, if we think where we're at is not good enough, nothing we do will prove it, and each new thing we get that should prove it will only convince us that there's more.

I used to think that if I got a certain number of followers it be good enough. It'd be enough. I have two and a half million today. It's enough.

The decision that what I have today is enough, that's crucial and there's no set number that will make that happen because I used to set goals, "One hundred thousand followers, that'll be enough. Well, at 250,000 it will be like... All right, 500,000? No. I really need a million. You know what? Two million will be better."

I finally realized, "You know what? However many people are following me that's enough. I don't need to hustle for more followers."

Now, that's not to say I don't wish to share my message. That's not to say I don't aim and intend to share my message with as many of us as possible. It's the basic starting point though of where I'm at today is enough.

I have enough money. I have enough followers. I have enough opportunities.

Yes, you could argue there are things I can't do, there are opportunities I don't have.

Sure.

What I have is good enough and this allows me to enter a high-quality state where I can make some things that have a fantastic impact on the person interacting with them. That is what I hope out of making this, that this has a giant impact in the person participating in it today.

I would say reader or viewer, but I'm participating in it too, I'm making this. I want this to have a giant impact on me because I need to hear this as much as anyone else needs to hear this.

It's really easy to get sucked into that trap of, "All right, I am just going to go to work, hustle, make as many things as I can, get more money and forget that I've already got enough."

My daughter has enough toys to play with, she doesn't need anymore.

I have enough money in the bank, I don't need more. I don't need more in terms of going and hustling, and trying to just make a bigger and bigger number.

Yes, I have a family.

Yes, I have bills to pay.

And I have enough to pay that for today and I have enough in terms of what's been set up. I've never not had enough money a day in my life. Not one day have I not had enough money.

Now, sure, I've had grand fantasies and I felt like lots of times I couldn't do what I wanted, and the key is the mindset. The mindset has to switch first.

I see people trying to build a following in a business online and I see the mindset that I used to operate with, that things aren't enough, that I've got to hustle to make more and maybe someday I'll be good enough.

Then people look at me and think, "Well, he's clearly good enough where he's at."

But I'm not good enough where I am at!

You see, it starts with looking around and saying what I've got is good enough, and then we're in a position to do really high-quality work, which will ultimately give us more proof that we're good enough. It's ridiculous, isn't it?

The thing is, when I don't feel good enough, I keep doing work that proves I'm not good enough. When we get down to these really deeper beliefs, then we can produce fantastically more. We can get crazy with what good we can do filming one video.

I've filmed videos that have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in one video, that only took a few hours, and yet I've spent tons of time hustling and grinding on stuff I didn't enjoy that lost me money.

Now, think about that for a minute.

I spent hundreds of hours when I used to feel my business wasn't good enough and I'd hustle. I spent hundreds of hours hustling, sending messages out and selling a service. I spent hundreds of hours building websites all to lose money.

That's the difference we're talking about here. The difference of spending a few hours to make something created out of love and joy that produces all the money we need for the whole year versus trying to hustle and struggle and coming out farther behind than we started.

I've done that. I've done that frequently.

I just did that recently with a post I made online. I put all this big effort and excitement into it and it would have been better if I had never made the post at all.

I need to hear this message as much as anyone else because it's so easy to get sucked into the "do more equals better" without regard to what the more is, without regard to what the contribution is.

I trust my inspiration each day, and yet it takes a lot of preparation.

Here are some of the morning routines I use that help me to clear the fog because many of us wake up in this fog where often we're not good enough in this fog, often we're not sure what to do, we just blindly start hustling and struggling that day, and then we look around and wonder, "Why did everyone else do this to me? Why is everyone fighting me? Why am I having a hard time? Why I am struggling today?”

Here are a few things that have helped me a lot.

First, I wake up and I pray. I pray to stay sober because if that goes out the window, everything else is out the window, it doesn't matter what else I do.

Now, that includes alcohol, that includes drugs, and that includes behaviors that are addictive and that have a similar mind-altering effect.

I get out of bed, and then I see my family. I spend some time with my wife and daughter each day. I notice them, I pay attention to what they're doing.

I've noticed one of the worst things for me to do is to immediately get into work as soon as I get up. The other day, one of the worst days I've had in probably a month, I checked my phone right away and there was some disaster.

I had missed calls and messages, and I dove right into that, and that was a miserable day. It was miserable because I chose to get right into something instead of paying attention to what mattered. I chose immediately to get in all this stuff before I was centered and feeling good enough, and then thankfully, that day helped reinforce the lesson.

Here are some more things.

Today, I got up, I changed my daughter's diaper, she's two and a half. I gave my wife and daughter some hugs. I talked with them a little bit even though I slept in a bit, and then I drank some tea. I feel most creative in the morning when I take a few hours to fast. When I don't eat right away, I tend to feel very creative and energetic in the morning.

Apparently, there's some scientific reason for this.

Basically, my digestive system is not consuming any energy. That frees up some extra energy for the rest of me. I do kind of my big time creative work in the morning before noon. That's when I've got the most energy and people say, "How do you have so much energy?"

Well, first, I don't poison myself with alcohol, drugs, medications and food. I get up straight away in the morning. I eat good, I eat mostly whole plant-based foods.

I get up in the morning and I read. I have some inspirational books I read in the morning. These tend to change over time. I take my dogs for a walk and that really helps because one of the things that goes along with the producing more mindset is "I don't have enough time."

When I take my dogs for a little ten-minute walk in the morning, it helps me to get outside. It helps me to feel like I have enough time, and when I have enough time I don't have to hustle, I don't have to struggle.

I can patiently go about my day.

The worst thing I do in my work is to get straight up and feel like I immediately don't have enough time that day. If I'm feeling like I don't have enough time, it's up to me to adjust my expectations on what I should be able to accomplish in the time I do have.

The days I don't go out for those walks with my dogs or do something like relax in the morning, like today, I walked my dogs and I watched some of Kevin Hart’s stand-up comedy for about ten or twenty minutes just to get me laughing, to get me in a good energy state.

These things make a fantastic difference, and another thing I do is I just present myself honestly. You can see my videos aren't perfect. Yes, I just threw one of my daughter’s toys in my dog's direction, I don't think it actually hit him, just to get his attention, and yes, I'm not editing that.

That's real! That is what really happens.

I find that so many of us cut out what makes us human. The flaws and the imperfections make us human, leave those in. I've noticed the things that I've done that are the most high quality tend to have the human elements in them.

Now yes, there's a place for perfect editing. There's a place to produce something for mass consumption. Most of us generally don't start out and don't walk into a place like that very soon.

It's best I just show up here as who I am, here's what I'm doing today.

How can I make a fantastic difference today in each person's life I come across?

How can I be a blessing to each person I meet today?

I hope this has been a helpful part of that.

Thank you very much for watching or listening.

I appreciate you joining me here on day 188 of Happier People Podcast.

I love you.

You're awesome.

Have a beautiful day today.

Final words

Thank you for reading this post, which was originally filmed as the video below.

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Love,

Jerry Banfield with edits by @gmichelbkk on the transcript from @deniskj

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