Hey, hey, everyone, welcome back to the podcast. As mentioned in the last episode, we took a little time off, but I am so glad to be back. I spent some time away from a podcast just enjoying summer, some family vacation extra time with the kids. I also spent some time training a couple of new team members tackling a couple of big projects and gearing up for everything to come in business next. And I'm really excited about all that too. So we'll get to some of that in the future. For today, I want to talk to you about what happens in your brain whenever you choose to take some time off. Or when you have something really exciting that you want to accomplish, or there's just a deadline that's coming up. Oftentimes, our brains begin to convince us that we need to hurry up. Even if the downtime was intentional, which was the case for me. Even if you know that you've built out plenty of time, your brain is going to start putting pressure on you to rush. I know that that's what started to happen to me. I like I said I was so excited to get to new episodes out for you. And I kept thinking about them in the back of my mind and wanting to get back to it. But also knowing that I had some other things that I had to handle next. And so my brain wanted me to rush all of the things to get back to the podcast, instead of taking my time making sure that I was really, truly resting. And when I was working, that I was really truly giving the time that I needed to things. So that's why I thought it would be relevant to just jump right in there and talk about rushing success. Now after working in operations, and seeing behind the scenes of a lot of successful businesses, I have seen the effects of trying to rush success. So I definitely have a greater level of awareness of this than many of the clients who come to me. And I want to give you a behind the scenes look. So you can develop a little bit of awareness around this as well. Now, when I talk about successful businesses, I want you to imagine air quotes right now, because sometimes they look very successful from the outside. But when you see what's going on behind the scenes, it's a different story. And there's one particular business that I want to tell you about today, as an example here. Again, from the outside, it looked successful, it had crossed the $2 million mark in revenue. And this CEO was just so incredibly eager to get to 10 million that he started to rush things. And before I even get into the details, I want to make sure that as you're listening, if you're hearing me throw out numbers, like 2 million, or 10 million, and you're tempted to think that this doesn't apply to you, then I'm going to stop you right there and make sure that you listen carefully, because everything that I'm about to share stems from a mistake that I see made by business owners, anywhere from, let's say $100 in revenue to 250,000 to 2 million and beyond. I honestly think that revenue is not a factor at all in this, that we all do this as entrepreneurs. And so it doesn't matter what your numbers are. Okay, so with that said, let's get back into it. This CEO was in such a rush to get to the $10 million mark that his decisions repeatedly did the opposite. It set the business back. He prioritized speed above everything, above sound strategy, he'd rather move fast and break things he said above sustainability he thought that sustainability was a future problem to solve. Above his team's well being he kept making promises to reward his team as soon as there was quote unquote success. And because of his approach, he had a negative profit margin. Making over 2 million in revenue, but running at a loss, not paying himself. A team with morale that was absolutely non existent, empty promises that led to a revolving door of team members coming and going with no explanation given to the remaining team. There was literally an inside joke about who was going to be on the milk carton next, because people would just go missing with no explanation.

It was like he was stuck in rush hour traffic, he was in a hurry, but going nowhere. And this is just one example. And maybe a bit of an extreme example, to illustrate the point. But just one of many CEOs that I've seen encountered something like this when they tried to rush success, I say try because you really can't rush success. I don't think I've ever seen anyone try to rush success, without it costing them something that ended up delaying things later. There's a quote by William Shakespeare, he says, "Go wisely. And slowly, those who rush stumble and fall", I've seen this over and over again, and I don't want you to stumble and fall. I don't want you to get stuck, or to plateau, or to delay your results unnecessarily, just because you're in too big of a hurry. So I want to give you four signs to look out for that will help you again, drive that awareness, increase awareness, that maybe you're rushing success. So try to avoid these things. Okay, first, focusing more on the timeline than the vision. Maybe you're so attached to the timeline and what success or failure will mean. Maybe there's something that you're trying to prove either to yourself or to someone else. And you just want to get this thing done in this timeframe. Because someone else said that they did or because you believe that that's the secret ingredient and all of the clients will trust you once you say that you've achieved a certain milestone. Maybe someone in your past has told you that they didn't believe that this goal was possible. And so you feel like you need to prove it. But that doesn't work. When you're more focused on the timeline, than the vision itself, you end up taking shortcuts just for the sake of the timeline. And that impacts the quality of results. So even if you get something done faster in the short term, the quality isn't there. So then the results don't follow. Or you end up having to redo things start over. Maybe worse, you think that it just didn't work at all. And so you pivot and do something else, when all along it just didn't work because you were rushing? So a question that I have for you is does it really matter if you hit your goal by that certain date that you have in mind. This is something I like to ask my clients when they get super attached to achieving a goal by let's say, the end of the year, December 31 is coming up. And you had this big goal and you begin to put pressure on yourself. Maybe you feel the urge to begin to hustle a bit to try to make that goal happen. You want to force it just so that you can say that you did it within that year timeframe. And I know that it doesn't feel good for many of you when you come just short of a goal. But at the end of the day, whatever doesn't feel good. It's just because of your thoughts about it, right? It's just because of your thinking just because of the pressure that you put on it. Does it really honestly make a difference? If you come 50,000 short, a 100,000 short of your goal. The answer is no if you keep going right, because you might bring that in within the next few months. And it's okay to extend those deadlines, those timelines. Those timelines are self imposed by the way. And I think it's okay recommended even to put a timeline on your goals. I think that they, It's a good practice in general, but not when you use it against yourself. Never at the expense of you and your team. So I want you to treat your goal as if it's inevitable. And take the pressure off of that timeline. And that means you can hold on to the vision and completely let go of the timeline. Right?

Okay. The second sign is throwing money at problems. I have seen business owners put themselves in situations where they can create pressure, because it in quotes here has to work. Maybe they over invest in something that they believe is the answer. Whether it's hiring, or investing in a new growth strategy, working with a new consultant, whatever it is taking all of the time to build out this one funnel? And it's the answer and it has to work because if it doesn't, then what? And so they throw money at problems, when, what they need to remember, what you need to remember is that new strategies take time to optimize, new team members won't deliver an ROI right away. And so focusing on the short term is not the answer. You're putting your trust in something outside of you as well. An abdicating responsibility. What I mean by that is you're wishing and waiting and hoping. Even if you're taking action. You've invested all of your trust and hope that this thing will work. And I bet if you really look at it, when you're throwing money at problems, there's still some doubt underneath it as to whether it's going to work. I question whether there's even true commitment that it will. And that's only something that you can answer, something for you to dive into. The third siren is overcoming. This could look like taking on more clients than you can handle. Acting on way too many ideas, starting too many projects or strategies at once. And it doesn't work because you end up making a little bit of progress across the board on a lot of things. And that doesn't move the needle. Right? When you split your time, when you spread yourself thin across multiple strategies or ideas or projects, then it takes longer to get any single one through to completion and then actually benefit from it. So instead, I want you to focus on getting something done, because that is better than starting a lot of new things. And that means you need to prioritize, and systemize. Prioritize what you work on first, systemize it so that you keep getting the result. And then you can hand it off and focus on the next thing. The fourth sign is just changing too much too often. Often there's a lack of patience to see things through. There might be shiny object syndrome, you're seeing that someone else said something worked, or there's this new trend or a platform changes and you decide to just change your entire strategy. Maybe it stems from a belief that there's a right fill in the blank, a right team member, a right offer, a right coach, a right niche, a right marketing strategy. And you end up moving too quickly and changing course too often, to give anything a fair chance to succeed. Here's the thing. Scaling should actually be a little boring. Because it's all about simplifying. It's about focusing on the few things that work instead of doing the many, and overall remember that slow and steady wins the race. So just to recap, you need to treat your goal as if it's inevitable and remove any meaning if it doesn't happen within a specific timeframe. Don't make it mean anything about you, your clients, your offer, what's possible for the business. None of that is true. Just extend your timeline and keep going. Take ownership over the problems in your business. To solve them in a way that doesn't create more problems for you, so don't just throw money at problems, which will cause more problems and figure out the solution yourself. I'm not saying you can't invest in things but don't abdicate your responsibility, prioritize, and systemize and then follow through on your commitments to a strategy before changing course. Those are your next steps to slow things down a bit if you've been rushing success. So if that's you, if that's been you, I want to ask you, why are you in such a hurry? And really, really think about that? Why are you in a hurry? What's the story you're telling yourself? And is it true? Oftentimes, it's not. But if it is, then what can you do to give yourself space not to rush space to slow down? How has rushing actually delayed your success? Can you see evidence of that? What would you do differently if you knew with 100% certainty that you will hit your goal? Even if not in the original timeline? If you knew that you would absolutely hit your goal. Would you take that pressure off? Would you slow things down? Because if you do, if you slow down, it will actually speed up your results. I want you to ask yourself that question. How will slowing down actually speed up your results?