May 17, 2026
EP 052 Why I Fired My Ambition | Entrepreneurial Self Care That Doubled Profits
Entrepreneurial self care isn't about yoga retreats—it's about firing the ambition killing your profit margins. Tracy Brinkmann reveals how running three "successful" businesses while making $7.50/hour exposed the toxic hustle myth. In this raw episode, discover why working less and thinking harder about your mindset success habits is the contrarian move that actually scales. Learn which ambitions to fire, which to keep, and why remarkable success demands strategic subtraction, not endless addition. https://YourSuccessDNA.com
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As an entrepreneur, you're reading
this or you're listening to this
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at 11:00 PM, whatever it might
be, because you can't stop.
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Not because you're passionate
anymore, but because you're
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afraid of what happens if you do.
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That, my friends, is burnout.
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Not the dramatic collapse kind,
the slow, visible kind that hustle
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culture never really warned you about.
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Your phone buzzes, another notification,
another opportunity, another reason
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to feel like you're falling behind.
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And somewhere between that third
espresso and the 44th st- strategic
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pivot you made, you made a decision
that no one tells you about.
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You optimized yourself into a corner.
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Your Success DNA Podcast.
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Your success is in your DNA.
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. All right.
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So not so long ago, I was running
three businesses, not because I
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wanted to, but because I couldn't
stop, and the logic was simple.
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More hours equals more money, and
more money equals, yeah, more freedom.
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Except it doesn't.
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What it equals is more hours.
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That's it.
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I was making six figures across all three
ventures, but here's the painful truth.
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I was making $7.50 an hour
when you divided it by all the
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actual hours that I was working.
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I was becoming a high-level earner
masquerading as a successful entrepreneur.
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There's a difference, and
it costs you everything.
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Here's what no one shows you in, in
all those motivational business videos
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that you see those famous names doing.
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The moment you decide to
chase growth above all else,
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you've already made the trade.
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You've exchanged something finite,
your attention, your health, and your
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relationships, for something infinite
that will never, ever satisfy you.
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I'm sorry, I'm gonna just... I'm
gonna drop the truth bombs here.
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You've agreed to a game where the
finish line d- not just doesn't
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exist, but it keeps moving, right?
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You've accepted that peace is what losers
get when they're too tired to want more.
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Yeah.
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And you did it so damn gradually
that you didn't even notice the
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moment you stopped being ambitious
and started being compulsive.
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And here's the weird part.
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Ambition and compulsion look
identical from the outside.
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Same hours, same hustle culture grind,
same posts about grinding and no days
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off on all the social media platforms.
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But there's a poison difference
running through the two of them.
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Real ambition has an end date.
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You want the business to hit seven figures
so that you can step back and enjoy it.
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You want to build something with
your hands and then hand it off to
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someone else and let them run it.
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You have a picture of
what winning looks like.
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Compulsion doesn't have that end state.
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It's a treadmill that tends to speed
up every time you hit a milestone.
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The goalposts don't move.
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They just disappear.
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I realized this on a Tuesday when
I was looking at my bank account.
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The, the numbers were good, don't get
me wrong, but my life was empty, and I
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had to ask myself a magic question that
entrepreneurs are trained never to ask.
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What if I am 100% wrong about
what I'm building towards?
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What if I'm climbing the ladder to
success, and the damn ladder is leaning
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on the wrong wall of opportunity?
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The question broke
something open inside me.
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I fired my ambition
about eight months later.
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Not the work, not the standards,
not the commitment to excellence.
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I fired the part of me that thought
more always meant better, the part
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that measured my worth in revenue and
launch dates, the part that couldn't
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be happy for more than 48 hours without
planning the next scaling phase.
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And here's the thing that the
algorithm will never, ever, not
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even once, recommend to you.
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Everything got better.
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Everything.
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My profits went up 35%, not
because I worked harder- But
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because I stopped working stupid.
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When you're running on fumes, you're
gonna make expensive mistakes.
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You're gonna hire the wrong person just
because you need a damn body, not talent.
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You launch products that aren't ready
because you need wins, not actual value.
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You say yes to clients that will
become vampires and drain your energy
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because you can't afford to say no.
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You'll be too damn tired to think
clearly, so you will make mistakes
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from desperation instead of strategy.
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This is normal in entrepreneurship
culture, the culture that tells
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you that this is strength.
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It's not.
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It's economic self-sabotage dressed
up as a pretty motivational poster.
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The moment I stopped the consistent
growth chase, I could actually see where
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the money was leaking out like a sieve.
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One of my businesses was losing
40% of its revenue in fulfillment
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costs because I never sat down long
enough to redesign the damn process.
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Another had a customer acquisition
cost that was so insane because I
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s- was spending on ads while running
on empty, so there was no creative
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energy left, so the copy was weak.
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I mean, really weak.
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The third was hemorrhaging
good people because I built a
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culture that worshiped overwork.
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Smart people are gonna
leave that type of culture.
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Why?
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Because they have options, so you're
left with the desperate and the broken,
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and broken people run broken businesses.
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I cut one bus- business loose entirely.
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It was profitable.
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It had recurring revenue, but it
was also a vampire, and I had been
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using it as proof that I was winning,
da da-da-da, while it was actually
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proof that I just could not stop.
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The revenue loss kinda looked
terrifying until I calculated what
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it cost me to just maintain it.
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You know what I'm talking about, my mental
health, my fatherhood, my ability to
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think clearly, my ability to think about
anything except the next quarterly report.
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Once I ran the numbers, cutting
it was actually the easiest
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decision I had made in three years.
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I didn't lose income when I let it go.
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I just lost the weight of it.
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With two businesses instead of
three- I had something radical.
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Bear with me.
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Time to think.
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Time to actually improve things.
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Time to see patterns I had been
too damn busy to notice previously.
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And this is the part that
breaks the internet's brain.
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When you stop chasing growth
and start chasing efficiency,
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growth seems to come anyway.
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But it comes completely differently.
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It comes as a side effect of doing
fewer things, but doing them way better.
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Not more things, kinda okay.
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You feel me?
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Okay.
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I started a four-day workweek, not because
I was lazy, not because I'm stupid.
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Stanford economist Joe Pencavel
found that productivity drops sharply
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after 50 hours, and beyond that, it
doesn't just decline, it inverts.
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You start creating problems
that take more time to solve.
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You start making
decisions that cost money.
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You miss opportunities because
you're too damn tired to recognize
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they're right there in front of you.
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The fifth day, it wasn't a day off.
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It was a day for strategy.
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It was a day for actual thinking
and for the work I had previously
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been too damn busy to get to.
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My revenue stayed relatively stable.
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The profit margin, ah, it went
up, while the stress went down.
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My ability to father got better.
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I started remembering why I started
building businesses in the first place,
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because I like to solve problems, not
because I needed to prove something
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to an invisible audience of people who
actually don't care about my growth.
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Heck, most of them don't
even care about me at all.
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Yet you, you... Right?
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You understand what I'm saying?
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But here's where I think it really gets,
starts to get a bit uncomfortable because
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the moment I stepped off that treadmill,
I had to face something that, that the
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hustle culture never wants you to face.
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Actually, they don't let you face it.
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Who am I without the grind?
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Yeah.
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When you're not defining yourself
by your productivity, what's left?
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And to some of you, that's
actually terrifying.
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That's why most people do not want
to or never will slow down, not
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because they can't afford to, but
because they're afraid of what they're
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gonna find in the quiet It's why
quiet quitting becomes a cultural s-
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flashpoint, because millions of people
simultaneously recognize that the
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anti-hul- hustle culture and anti-hustle
movement wasn't about laziness.
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It was about survival.
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It is about survival.
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I found a person I had forgotten, someone
who liked building things, someone who
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could sustain work without it destroying
him, someone who understood that real
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power isn't about how much you produce.
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It's about how little you need to produce
to live exactly how you want to live.
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That, my friends, is leverage.
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That's actually what entrepreneurs
are supposedly after.
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We just got confused somewhere
along the way and started thinking
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leverage meant more stuff, meant
more scaling, meant more everything.
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The trap is this: ambition
is supposed to be a tool.
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It's supposed to help you build
towards something specific.
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But somewhere between the first
productivity app and the one-hundredth
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motivational video, it becomes a drug.
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Researchers who study founder
burnout describe it as a process
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of progressive accumulation, each
small compromise stacking invisibly
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until the weight becomes structural.
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Your brain gets used to those
hits of achievement, the
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notifications, the sense of progress.
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So when you slow down,
it feels like failure.
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Your nervous system literally starts
screaming, "You're wasting time.
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Stop. You're wasting time." Your feed
shows you other people who haven't
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slowed down, which means they're ahead
of you, which means you're behind.
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It's, it's a casino, and you have
just become the slot machine.
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Here's a data that might just
wake you up a little bit.
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Eighty-seven percent of founders report
experiencing anxiety, report experiencing
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depression, burnout, or all three.
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Nearly half are considering quitting
their startup Due to stress.
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That isn't weakness.
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This is what happens when you mistake
motion for progress, when you confuse
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being busy for being effective.
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The real reason, uh, that I, I'm
telling you this is because nobody
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makes money telling you to slow down.
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Yeah.
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Right?
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The entire ecosystem of business
advice out there is built on the
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assumption that you want more.
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More money, more followers, more products,
more growth, more views, whatever.
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The advice industry doesn't profit
if you get off the hamster wheel.
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So the message you hear is
consistent, it's constant, and
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it's completely designed to keep
you running on that hamster wheel.
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And the worst part?
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It works.
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It keeps you running right up to the
moment you realize you're running towards
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a finish line that does not exist.
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Yeah, there is no straightaway.
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And I'm not saying don't be
ambitious when I'm telling you this.
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I'm saying be specific about
what you're ambitious towards.
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Because the difference between
sustainable success and burnout is
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exactly this, knowing when you're done.
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That's it.
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Mic drop.
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We could be done right here.
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Knowing what you're building towards.
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Knowing that at some point you can
actually stop, sit back, grab your
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favorite beverage, and enjoy it.
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Yeah.
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Most entrepreneurs never know this.
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They build businesses that
require them to be trapped
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inside those businesses forever.
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They're building a beautiful
cage, a gilded cage you might say.
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The ambition I'm fired wasn't
a desire to do good work.
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No.
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It was the lie that that more work was the
answer to every single problem out there.
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Yeah.
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It was the belief that my worth was
to be determined by my productivity.
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It was the surrender to an infinite
game as if it had finite rules.
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And when I fired it, everything
actually worked better.
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So Your move now is clear, but I bet you
won't take it because it requires you to
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believe something that nobody around you
believes, that less chosen with precision
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is more than more chosen with desperation.
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Peace isn't the reward for work.
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It's the prerequisite for
work that actually matters.
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All right?
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So if this, if this episode's hitting
you in the chest right now, good.
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If you're recognizing yourself inside the
story of endless hustle leading nowhere,
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a good, then here's what I want you to do.
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00:11:36,631 --> 00:11:39,149
I want you to get over on the,
uh, newsletter list, unleash your
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00:11:39,149 --> 00:11:43,122
success DNA, another weekly dose of
reality for my aspiring entrepreneurs
235
00:11:43,122 --> 00:11:44,340
and nine to five escapees.
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00:11:44,395 --> 00:11:47,504
Each issue delivers more mindset
shifts, more habit upgrades,
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00:11:47,531 --> 00:11:48,886
more doses of rebellion.
238
00:11:49,159 --> 00:11:52,749
Again, all helping you break free from
convention so that you can build a life
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00:11:52,749 --> 00:11:54,259
aligned with your version of success.
240
00:11:54,259 --> 00:11:56,304
Look, you don't need
more productivity hacks.
241
00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:00,395
You need permission to think differently
about what success actually looks like.
242
00:12:00,522 --> 00:12:03,622
Go ahead, head on over to Your
Success DNA, and join all those
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00:12:03,686 --> 00:12:07,240
future founders who are learning
to build businesses and lives that
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00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:09,386
serve their lives, not consume them.
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Okay?
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00:12:10,213 --> 00:12:12,159
So now why does this matter, Tracy?
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Well, I'm glad you asked.
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00:12:13,513 --> 00:12:16,559
Because we're living through the
greatest entrepreneurial awakening
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00:12:16,922 --> 00:12:20,413
in human history, and most people
are getting it bass ackwards.
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00:12:20,622 --> 00:12:24,868
They're optimizing for metrics
that don't matter while sacrificing
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00:12:25,077 --> 00:12:26,449
the things that do matter.
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00:12:26,668 --> 00:12:28,495
This isn't about business strategy.
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00:12:28,668 --> 00:12:32,368
This is about a bigger paradigm
of how we define success in a
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00:12:32,449 --> 00:12:35,904
culture that's addicted to give me
more, give me more, give me more.
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00:12:36,131 --> 00:12:36,531
Right?
256
00:12:36,759 --> 00:12:37,349
You feel me.
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00:12:37,468 --> 00:12:37,704
All right?
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00:12:37,704 --> 00:12:41,231
We've been sold a lie that
entrepreneurship is about escaping
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00:12:41,231 --> 00:12:45,177
the rat race, but most entrepreneurs
just build more expensive rat
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00:12:45,213 --> 00:12:46,631
races with better branding.
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00:12:46,922 --> 00:12:47,513
There it is.
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00:12:47,577 --> 00:12:51,240
The real revolution isn't in
the, the tool or the tactics.
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00:12:51,349 --> 00:12:55,259
It's in remembering that business
is supposed to serve life, not the
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00:12:55,259 --> 00:12:58,413
other way around, and there are
so many big businesses out there
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00:12:58,640 --> 00:12:59,759
that have totally forgotten this.
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00:13:00,031 --> 00:13:01,831
I hope... I'm hoping
you're not in one of them.
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00:13:01,995 --> 00:13:04,886
When you understand that,
everything starts to change.
268
00:13:04,995 --> 00:13:06,286
Your decisions change.
269
00:13:06,386 --> 00:13:07,613
Your priorities change.
270
00:13:07,704 --> 00:13:12,631
Your definition of winning changes,
and that's when you stop being a high
271
00:13:12,677 --> 00:13:17,131
income prisoner and start actually
becoming a real entrepreneur.
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00:13:17,159 --> 00:13:19,968
So all that said, here's your
whiskered wisdom for this week.
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00:13:19,995 --> 00:13:21,640
I want you to start with this thought.
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00:13:21,813 --> 00:13:24,459
Ambition without boundaries
becomes compulsion.
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00:13:24,986 --> 00:13:27,477
Compulsion without
awareness becomes your cage.
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00:13:27,622 --> 00:13:30,113
The action I want you to take right
after you're finished listening to
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00:13:30,113 --> 00:13:33,840
this isn't to optimize something
or add something to your routine.
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00:13:34,095 --> 00:13:35,786
I actually want you to take away from it.
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00:13:35,822 --> 00:13:37,068
Subtract something.
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00:13:37,177 --> 00:13:40,168
Look at your current business, look at
your current life, look at your current
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00:13:40,168 --> 00:13:44,913
side hustle, and ask yourself this:
What am I doing that I'm only doing
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00:13:45,131 --> 00:13:47,404
because I think I should be doing it?
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00:13:47,531 --> 00:13:50,931
Find one thing, one project, one
commitment, one quote-unquote
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00:13:51,022 --> 00:13:56,595
opportunity that is sucking the life
out of you without moving you towards
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00:13:56,595 --> 00:13:58,777
your actual goals, and cut it loose.
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00:13:58,868 --> 00:14:01,713
Not next month, not next year, this week.
287
00:14:01,922 --> 00:14:05,831
You'll know you found the right thing
because the thought of letting it go will
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00:14:05,831 --> 00:14:10,013
feel a little bit terrifying, but it'll
also feel liberating at the same time.
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00:14:10,113 --> 00:14:12,640
That, my friend, is your nervous
system telling you that you've
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00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:16,249
been carrying this weight on your
shoulder that you don't need to carry.
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00:14:16,568 --> 00:14:18,895
Freedom isn't always
about having more choices.
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00:14:19,004 --> 00:14:20,740
It's about making better ones.
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00:14:20,822 --> 00:14:21,068
Okay?
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00:14:21,231 --> 00:14:24,795
So listen, the world doesn't need yet
another burned-out entrepreneur who makes
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00:14:24,931 --> 00:14:27,477
mistakes from exhaustion for dedication.
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00:14:27,768 --> 00:14:28,386
It needs you.
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00:14:28,604 --> 00:14:32,959
It needs you clear-headed, strategic, and
building something that actually matters.
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00:14:33,040 --> 00:14:37,686
The courage to fire your toxic ambition,
it's not giving up, it's growing up.
299
00:14:37,795 --> 00:14:40,904
So stop optimizing your life
away and start living it.
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00:14:41,231 --> 00:14:42,068
Think successfully.
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00:14:42,404 --> 00:14:42,604
Take
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00:14:43,513 --> 00:14:44,276
action.
00:00:00,136 --> 00:00:03,236
As an entrepreneur, you're reading
this or you're listening to this
2
00:00:03,236 --> 00:00:06,509
at 11:00 PM, whatever it might
be, because you can't stop.
3
00:00:06,736 --> 00:00:09,636
Not because you're passionate
anymore, but because you're
4
00:00:09,636 --> 00:00:12,609
afraid of what happens if you do.
5
00:00:12,763 --> 00:00:14,445
That, my friends, is burnout.
6
00:00:14,618 --> 00:00:19,545
Not the dramatic collapse kind,
the slow, visible kind that hustle
7
00:00:19,545 --> 00:00:21,536
culture never really warned you about.
8
00:00:21,700 --> 00:00:25,681
Your phone buzzes, another notification,
another opportunity, another reason
9
00:00:25,681 --> 00:00:27,572
to feel like you're falling behind.
10
00:00:27,654 --> 00:00:31,690
And somewhere between that third
espresso and the 44th st- strategic
11
00:00:31,809 --> 00:00:35,054
pivot you made, you made a decision
that no one tells you about.
12
00:00:35,399 --> 00:00:37,590
You optimized yourself into a corner.
13
00:00:38,836 --> 00:00:40,200
Your Success DNA Podcast.
14
00:00:40,200 --> 00:00:40,790
Your success is in your DNA.
15
00:00:42,872 --> 00:00:43,145
. All right.
16
00:00:43,436 --> 00:00:46,790
So not so long ago, I was running
three businesses, not because I
17
00:00:46,790 --> 00:00:50,618
wanted to, but because I couldn't
stop, and the logic was simple.
18
00:00:50,772 --> 00:00:54,763
More hours equals more money, and
more money equals, yeah, more freedom.
19
00:00:55,009 --> 00:00:55,809
Except it doesn't.
20
00:00:56,163 --> 00:00:58,109
What it equals is more hours.
21
00:00:58,190 --> 00:00:58,790
That's it.
22
00:00:59,027 --> 00:01:03,427
I was making six figures across all three
ventures, but here's the painful truth.
23
00:01:03,618 --> 00:01:07,554
I was making $7.50 an hour
when you divided it by all the
24
00:01:07,845 --> 00:01:09,699
actual hours that I was working.
25
00:01:09,954 --> 00:01:14,345
I was becoming a high-level earner
masquerading as a successful entrepreneur.
26
00:01:14,736 --> 00:01:17,572
There's a difference, and
it costs you everything.
27
00:01:17,645 --> 00:01:21,818
Here's what no one shows you in, in
all those motivational business videos
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00:01:21,818 --> 00:01:23,345
that you see those famous names doing.
29
00:01:23,454 --> 00:01:26,727
The moment you decide to
chase growth above all else,
30
00:01:26,918 --> 00:01:27,963
you've already made the trade.
31
00:01:28,163 --> 00:01:32,490
You've exchanged something finite,
your attention, your health, and your
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00:01:32,490 --> 00:01:37,409
relationships, for something infinite
that will never, ever satisfy you.
33
00:01:37,527 --> 00:01:39,872
I'm sorry, I'm gonna just... I'm
gonna drop the truth bombs here.
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00:01:40,136 --> 00:01:43,736
You've agreed to a game where the
finish line d- not just doesn't
35
00:01:43,736 --> 00:01:46,263
exist, but it keeps moving, right?
36
00:01:46,436 --> 00:01:51,399
You've accepted that peace is what losers
get when they're too tired to want more.
37
00:01:51,636 --> 00:01:51,736
Yeah.
38
00:01:51,981 --> 00:01:56,254
And you did it so damn gradually
that you didn't even notice the
39
00:01:56,254 --> 00:02:00,054
moment you stopped being ambitious
and started being compulsive.
40
00:02:00,218 --> 00:02:01,209
And here's the weird part.
41
00:02:01,427 --> 00:02:05,627
Ambition and compulsion look
identical from the outside.
42
00:02:05,772 --> 00:02:10,663
Same hours, same hustle culture grind,
same posts about grinding and no days
43
00:02:10,663 --> 00:02:12,554
off on all the social media platforms.
44
00:02:12,772 --> 00:02:15,972
But there's a poison difference
running through the two of them.
45
00:02:16,090 --> 00:02:17,899
Real ambition has an end date.
46
00:02:18,236 --> 00:02:22,727
You want the business to hit seven figures
so that you can step back and enjoy it.
47
00:02:22,890 --> 00:02:25,836
You want to build something with
your hands and then hand it off to
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00:02:25,836 --> 00:02:27,627
someone else and let them run it.
49
00:02:27,799 --> 00:02:30,063
You have a picture of
what winning looks like.
50
00:02:30,254 --> 00:02:32,172
Compulsion doesn't have that end state.
51
00:02:32,354 --> 00:02:36,536
It's a treadmill that tends to speed
up every time you hit a milestone.
52
00:02:36,754 --> 00:02:38,472
The goalposts don't move.
53
00:02:38,663 --> 00:02:39,854
They just disappear.
54
00:02:39,918 --> 00:02:43,045
I realized this on a Tuesday when
I was looking at my bank account.
55
00:02:43,045 --> 00:02:46,672
The, the numbers were good, don't get
me wrong, but my life was empty, and I
56
00:02:46,672 --> 00:02:51,890
had to ask myself a magic question that
entrepreneurs are trained never to ask.
57
00:02:52,199 --> 00:02:55,999
What if I am 100% wrong about
what I'm building towards?
58
00:02:56,136 --> 00:02:59,736
What if I'm climbing the ladder to
success, and the damn ladder is leaning
59
00:02:59,736 --> 00:03:01,563
on the wrong wall of opportunity?
60
00:03:01,909 --> 00:03:03,945
The question broke
something open inside me.
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00:03:04,536 --> 00:03:06,399
I fired my ambition
about eight months later.
62
00:03:06,763 --> 00:03:10,518
Not the work, not the standards,
not the commitment to excellence.
63
00:03:10,590 --> 00:03:14,781
I fired the part of me that thought
more always meant better, the part
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00:03:14,809 --> 00:03:19,554
that measured my worth in revenue and
launch dates, the part that couldn't
65
00:03:19,554 --> 00:03:24,781
be happy for more than 48 hours without
planning the next scaling phase.
66
00:03:25,163 --> 00:03:28,599
And here's the thing that the
algorithm will never, ever, not
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00:03:28,599 --> 00:03:30,400
even once, recommend to you.
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00:03:30,681 --> 00:03:31,454
Everything got better.
69
00:03:31,709 --> 00:03:32,309
Everything.
70
00:03:32,345 --> 00:03:35,440
My profits went up 35%, not
because I worked harder- But
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00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:37,604
because I stopped working stupid.
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00:03:37,759 --> 00:03:41,013
When you're running on fumes, you're
gonna make expensive mistakes.
73
00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:45,495
You're gonna hire the wrong person just
because you need a damn body, not talent.
74
00:03:45,522 --> 00:03:49,859
You launch products that aren't ready
because you need wins, not actual value.
75
00:03:50,195 --> 00:03:54,677
You say yes to clients that will
become vampires and drain your energy
76
00:03:54,931 --> 00:03:56,295
because you can't afford to say no.
77
00:03:56,595 --> 00:04:00,404
You'll be too damn tired to think
clearly, so you will make mistakes
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00:04:00,404 --> 00:04:02,968
from desperation instead of strategy.
79
00:04:03,131 --> 00:04:06,549
This is normal in entrepreneurship
culture, the culture that tells
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00:04:06,549 --> 00:04:07,977
you that this is strength.
81
00:04:08,095 --> 00:04:08,549
It's not.
82
00:04:08,840 --> 00:04:13,268
It's economic self-sabotage dressed
up as a pretty motivational poster.
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00:04:13,486 --> 00:04:17,759
The moment I stopped the consistent
growth chase, I could actually see where
84
00:04:17,759 --> 00:04:19,668
the money was leaking out like a sieve.
85
00:04:20,004 --> 00:04:23,459
One of my businesses was losing
40% of its revenue in fulfillment
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00:04:23,459 --> 00:04:27,322
costs because I never sat down long
enough to redesign the damn process.
87
00:04:27,404 --> 00:04:31,668
Another had a customer acquisition
cost that was so insane because I
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00:04:31,668 --> 00:04:36,104
s- was spending on ads while running
on empty, so there was no creative
89
00:04:36,131 --> 00:04:38,777
energy left, so the copy was weak.
90
00:04:38,913 --> 00:04:40,059
I mean, really weak.
91
00:04:40,377 --> 00:04:42,513
The third was hemorrhaging
good people because I built a
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00:04:42,513 --> 00:04:44,786
culture that worshiped overwork.
93
00:04:44,886 --> 00:04:47,540
Smart people are gonna
leave that type of culture.
94
00:04:47,622 --> 00:04:48,022
Why?
95
00:04:48,286 --> 00:04:51,895
Because they have options, so you're
left with the desperate and the broken,
96
00:04:52,231 --> 00:04:54,349
and broken people run broken businesses.
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00:04:54,440 --> 00:04:56,740
I cut one bus- business loose entirely.
98
00:04:57,013 --> 00:04:57,931
It was profitable.
99
00:04:57,986 --> 00:05:02,786
It had recurring revenue, but it
was also a vampire, and I had been
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00:05:02,786 --> 00:05:07,295
using it as proof that I was winning,
da da-da-da, while it was actually
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00:05:07,295 --> 00:05:09,549
proof that I just could not stop.
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00:05:09,831 --> 00:05:13,804
The revenue loss kinda looked
terrifying until I calculated what
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00:05:13,904 --> 00:05:16,077
it cost me to just maintain it.
104
00:05:16,531 --> 00:05:20,068
You know what I'm talking about, my mental
health, my fatherhood, my ability to
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00:05:20,068 --> 00:05:24,322
think clearly, my ability to think about
anything except the next quarterly report.
106
00:05:24,513 --> 00:05:28,113
Once I ran the numbers, cutting
it was actually the easiest
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00:05:28,113 --> 00:05:30,395
decision I had made in three years.
108
00:05:30,577 --> 00:05:32,204
I didn't lose income when I let it go.
109
00:05:32,522 --> 00:05:34,704
I just lost the weight of it.
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00:05:34,886 --> 00:05:38,259
With two businesses instead of
three- I had something radical.
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00:05:38,377 --> 00:05:38,849
Bear with me.
112
00:05:39,068 --> 00:05:40,068
Time to think.
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00:05:40,240 --> 00:05:42,140
Time to actually improve things.
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00:05:42,313 --> 00:05:45,895
Time to see patterns I had been
too damn busy to notice previously.
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00:05:46,249 --> 00:05:49,140
And this is the part that
breaks the internet's brain.
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00:05:49,377 --> 00:05:53,295
When you stop chasing growth
and start chasing efficiency,
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00:05:53,477 --> 00:05:55,313
growth seems to come anyway.
118
00:05:55,559 --> 00:05:57,431
But it comes completely differently.
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00:05:57,631 --> 00:06:02,140
It comes as a side effect of doing
fewer things, but doing them way better.
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00:06:02,204 --> 00:06:04,768
Not more things, kinda okay.
121
00:06:04,904 --> 00:06:05,404
You feel me?
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00:06:05,604 --> 00:06:05,859
Okay.
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00:06:05,986 --> 00:06:10,768
I started a four-day workweek, not because
I was lazy, not because I'm stupid.
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00:06:10,831 --> 00:06:15,395
Stanford economist Joe Pencavel
found that productivity drops sharply
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00:06:15,549 --> 00:06:19,913
after 50 hours, and beyond that, it
doesn't just decline, it inverts.
126
00:06:20,022 --> 00:06:23,831
You start creating problems
that take more time to solve.
127
00:06:24,104 --> 00:06:26,286
You start making
decisions that cost money.
128
00:06:26,495 --> 00:06:29,877
You miss opportunities because
you're too damn tired to recognize
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00:06:30,049 --> 00:06:30,977
they're right there in front of you.
130
00:06:31,268 --> 00:06:33,549
The fifth day, it wasn't a day off.
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00:06:33,686 --> 00:06:34,940
It was a day for strategy.
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00:06:35,168 --> 00:06:39,013
It was a day for actual thinking
and for the work I had previously
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00:06:39,013 --> 00:06:40,913
been too damn busy to get to.
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00:06:41,177 --> 00:06:43,004
My revenue stayed relatively stable.
135
00:06:43,240 --> 00:06:46,740
The profit margin, ah, it went
up, while the stress went down.
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00:06:47,113 --> 00:06:48,868
My ability to father got better.
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00:06:49,095 --> 00:06:52,949
I started remembering why I started
building businesses in the first place,
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00:06:53,113 --> 00:06:56,213
because I like to solve problems, not
because I needed to prove something
139
00:06:56,213 --> 00:07:00,331
to an invisible audience of people who
actually don't care about my growth.
140
00:07:00,568 --> 00:07:02,668
Heck, most of them don't
even care about me at all.
141
00:07:02,713 --> 00:07:04,159
Yet you, you... Right?
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00:07:04,186 --> 00:07:05,131
You understand what I'm saying?
143
00:07:05,413 --> 00:07:09,395
But here's where I think it really gets,
starts to get a bit uncomfortable because
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00:07:09,395 --> 00:07:12,949
the moment I stepped off that treadmill,
I had to face something that, that the
145
00:07:12,949 --> 00:07:15,559
hustle culture never wants you to face.
146
00:07:15,559 --> 00:07:16,913
Actually, they don't let you face it.
147
00:07:17,504 --> 00:07:19,468
Who am I without the grind?
148
00:07:19,686 --> 00:07:19,968
Yeah.
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00:07:20,259 --> 00:07:24,749
When you're not defining yourself
by your productivity, what's left?
150
00:07:24,940 --> 00:07:27,004
And to some of you, that's
actually terrifying.
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00:07:27,313 --> 00:07:31,449
That's why most people do not want
to or never will slow down, not
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00:07:31,449 --> 00:07:34,477
because they can't afford to, but
because they're afraid of what they're
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00:07:34,477 --> 00:07:39,895
gonna find in the quiet It's why
quiet quitting becomes a cultural s-
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00:07:39,995 --> 00:07:43,913
flashpoint, because millions of people
simultaneously recognize that the
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00:07:43,995 --> 00:07:48,613
anti-hul- hustle culture and anti-hustle
movement wasn't about laziness.
156
00:07:48,786 --> 00:07:50,259
It was about survival.
157
00:07:50,468 --> 00:07:51,295
It is about survival.
158
00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:55,922
I found a person I had forgotten, someone
who liked building things, someone who
159
00:07:55,922 --> 00:08:00,422
could sustain work without it destroying
him, someone who understood that real
160
00:08:00,422 --> 00:08:03,077
power isn't about how much you produce.
161
00:08:03,313 --> 00:08:08,740
It's about how little you need to produce
to live exactly how you want to live.
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00:08:09,086 --> 00:08:10,731
That, my friends, is leverage.
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00:08:11,113 --> 00:08:13,986
That's actually what entrepreneurs
are supposedly after.
164
00:08:14,259 --> 00:08:16,831
We just got confused somewhere
along the way and started thinking
165
00:08:16,831 --> 00:08:20,795
leverage meant more stuff, meant
more scaling, meant more everything.
166
00:08:21,022 --> 00:08:25,204
The trap is this: ambition
is supposed to be a tool.
167
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It's supposed to help you build
towards something specific.
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But somewhere between the first
productivity app and the one-hundredth
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motivational video, it becomes a drug.
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Researchers who study founder
burnout describe it as a process
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of progressive accumulation, each
small compromise stacking invisibly
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until the weight becomes structural.
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Your brain gets used to those
hits of achievement, the
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notifications, the sense of progress.
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So when you slow down,
it feels like failure.
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Your nervous system literally starts
screaming, "You're wasting time.
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Stop. You're wasting time." Your feed
shows you other people who haven't
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slowed down, which means they're ahead
of you, which means you're behind.
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It's, it's a casino, and you have
just become the slot machine.
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Here's a data that might just
wake you up a little bit.
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Eighty-seven percent of founders report
experiencing anxiety, report experiencing
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depression, burnout, or all three.
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Nearly half are considering quitting
their startup Due to stress.
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That isn't weakness.
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This is what happens when you mistake
motion for progress, when you confuse
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being busy for being effective.
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The real reason, uh, that I, I'm
telling you this is because nobody
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makes money telling you to slow down.
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Yeah.
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Right?
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The entire ecosystem of business
advice out there is built on the
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assumption that you want more.
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More money, more followers, more products,
more growth, more views, whatever.
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The advice industry doesn't profit
if you get off the hamster wheel.
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So the message you hear is
consistent, it's constant, and
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it's completely designed to keep
you running on that hamster wheel.
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And the worst part?
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It works.
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It keeps you running right up to the
moment you realize you're running towards
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a finish line that does not exist.
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Yeah, there is no straightaway.
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And I'm not saying don't be
ambitious when I'm telling you this.
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I'm saying be specific about
what you're ambitious towards.
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Because the difference between
sustainable success and burnout is
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exactly this, knowing when you're done.
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That's it.
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Mic drop.
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We could be done right here.
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Knowing what you're building towards.
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Knowing that at some point you can
actually stop, sit back, grab your
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favorite beverage, and enjoy it.
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Yeah.
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Most entrepreneurs never know this.
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They build businesses that
require them to be trapped
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inside those businesses forever.
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They're building a beautiful
cage, a gilded cage you might say.
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The ambition I'm fired wasn't
a desire to do good work.
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No.
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It was the lie that that more work was the
answer to every single problem out there.
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Yeah.
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It was the belief that my worth was
to be determined by my productivity.
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It was the surrender to an infinite
game as if it had finite rules.
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And when I fired it, everything
actually worked better.
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So Your move now is clear, but I bet you
won't take it because it requires you to
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believe something that nobody around you
believes, that less chosen with precision
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00:11:18,386 --> 00:11:21,459
is more than more chosen with desperation.
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Peace isn't the reward for work.
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It's the prerequisite for
work that actually matters.
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All right?
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00:11:27,059 --> 00:11:30,195
So if this, if this episode's hitting
you in the chest right now, good.
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00:11:30,404 --> 00:11:34,722
If you're recognizing yourself inside the
story of endless hustle leading nowhere,
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00:11:34,886 --> 00:11:36,568
a good, then here's what I want you to do.
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00:11:36,631 --> 00:11:39,149
I want you to get over on the,
uh, newsletter list, unleash your
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00:11:39,149 --> 00:11:43,122
success DNA, another weekly dose of
reality for my aspiring entrepreneurs
235
00:11:43,122 --> 00:11:44,340
and nine to five escapees.
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00:11:44,395 --> 00:11:47,504
Each issue delivers more mindset
shifts, more habit upgrades,
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00:11:47,531 --> 00:11:48,886
more doses of rebellion.
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00:11:49,159 --> 00:11:52,749
Again, all helping you break free from
convention so that you can build a life
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00:11:52,749 --> 00:11:54,259
aligned with your version of success.
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00:11:54,259 --> 00:11:56,304
Look, you don't need
more productivity hacks.
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00:11:56,440 --> 00:12:00,395
You need permission to think differently
about what success actually looks like.
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00:12:00,522 --> 00:12:03,622
Go ahead, head on over to Your
Success DNA, and join all those
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00:12:03,686 --> 00:12:07,240
future founders who are learning
to build businesses and lives that
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00:12:07,240 --> 00:12:09,386
serve their lives, not consume them.
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Okay?
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00:12:10,213 --> 00:12:12,159
So now why does this matter, Tracy?
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Well, I'm glad you asked.
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Because we're living through the
greatest entrepreneurial awakening
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00:12:16,922 --> 00:12:20,413
in human history, and most people
are getting it bass ackwards.
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00:12:20,622 --> 00:12:24,868
They're optimizing for metrics
that don't matter while sacrificing
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the things that do matter.
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This isn't about business strategy.
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00:12:28,668 --> 00:12:32,368
This is about a bigger paradigm
of how we define success in a
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00:12:32,449 --> 00:12:35,904
culture that's addicted to give me
more, give me more, give me more.
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00:12:36,131 --> 00:12:36,531
Right?
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00:12:36,759 --> 00:12:37,349
You feel me.
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00:12:37,468 --> 00:12:37,704
All right?
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00:12:37,704 --> 00:12:41,231
We've been sold a lie that
entrepreneurship is about escaping
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00:12:41,231 --> 00:12:45,177
the rat race, but most entrepreneurs
just build more expensive rat
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00:12:45,213 --> 00:12:46,631
races with better branding.
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00:12:46,922 --> 00:12:47,513
There it is.
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00:12:47,577 --> 00:12:51,240
The real revolution isn't in
the, the tool or the tactics.
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00:12:51,349 --> 00:12:55,259
It's in remembering that business
is supposed to serve life, not the
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00:12:55,259 --> 00:12:58,413
other way around, and there are
so many big businesses out there
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that have totally forgotten this.
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I hope... I'm hoping
you're not in one of them.
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When you understand that,
everything starts to change.
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00:13:04,995 --> 00:13:06,286
Your decisions change.
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00:13:06,386 --> 00:13:07,613
Your priorities change.
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00:13:07,704 --> 00:13:12,631
Your definition of winning changes,
and that's when you stop being a high
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00:13:12,677 --> 00:13:17,131
income prisoner and start actually
becoming a real entrepreneur.
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00:13:17,159 --> 00:13:19,968
So all that said, here's your
whiskered wisdom for this week.
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I want you to start with this thought.
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Ambition without boundaries
becomes compulsion.
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00:13:24,986 --> 00:13:27,477
Compulsion without
awareness becomes your cage.
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00:13:27,622 --> 00:13:30,113
The action I want you to take right
after you're finished listening to
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00:13:30,113 --> 00:13:33,840
this isn't to optimize something
or add something to your routine.
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I actually want you to take away from it.
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Subtract something.
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Look at your current business, look at
your current life, look at your current
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00:13:40,168 --> 00:13:44,913
side hustle, and ask yourself this:
What am I doing that I'm only doing
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00:13:45,131 --> 00:13:47,404
because I think I should be doing it?
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00:13:47,531 --> 00:13:50,931
Find one thing, one project, one
commitment, one quote-unquote
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00:13:51,022 --> 00:13:56,595
opportunity that is sucking the life
out of you without moving you towards
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00:13:56,595 --> 00:13:58,777
your actual goals, and cut it loose.
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00:13:58,868 --> 00:14:01,713
Not next month, not next year, this week.
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00:14:01,922 --> 00:14:05,831
You'll know you found the right thing
because the thought of letting it go will
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00:14:05,831 --> 00:14:10,013
feel a little bit terrifying, but it'll
also feel liberating at the same time.
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00:14:10,113 --> 00:14:12,640
That, my friend, is your nervous
system telling you that you've
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00:14:12,640 --> 00:14:16,249
been carrying this weight on your
shoulder that you don't need to carry.
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00:14:16,568 --> 00:14:18,895
Freedom isn't always
about having more choices.
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It's about making better ones.
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Okay?
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00:14:21,231 --> 00:14:24,795
So listen, the world doesn't need yet
another burned-out entrepreneur who makes
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00:14:24,931 --> 00:14:27,477
mistakes from exhaustion for dedication.
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00:14:27,768 --> 00:14:28,386
It needs you.
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00:14:28,604 --> 00:14:32,959
It needs you clear-headed, strategic, and
building something that actually matters.
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The courage to fire your toxic ambition,
it's not giving up, it's growing up.
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00:14:37,795 --> 00:14:40,904
So stop optimizing your life
away and start living it.
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Think successfully.
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Take
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action.
