How To Avoid The Deadly Busy Trap

Welcome back to another must-hear episode. In it I move away from talking about funnels and into something MUCH more important. Getting freedom from your business. Most people start business so they never have a boss again, yet their own business ends up owning them just as bad (or worse) than a boss would! In this episode I discuss why that happens and what you need to do to start living a more present, joyful life while growing your business.

Enjoy and let me know what you think!

 
Resources Mentioned

* JeremyReeves.com

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Transcript

Hey guys what is going on. It is Jeremy Reeves here again and welcome back to another episode of the sales funnel mastery podcast.

So it is Monday morning now that I am recording this and my wife just took my son, Connor. He has autism. It is autism awareness month this month, so I am actually thinking of doing some kind of cool thing for the entire month of April. I would have had it up right now, but I spend the weekend with Connor and Logan, my 2-year-old.

So anyway, I spent the weekend with the boys. I did not work at all, actually, I did a tiny little bit while they are sleeping, but basically, when they were awake I did not work at all and the whole weekend I was -- I was totally present with the boys you know, my wife, we have been doing a thing lately. We actually just started this thing were we actually rate each other.

Once a quarter, we rate each other on basically on how father, husband, and lover, right. So we give each other a score you know, out of 10 for each of those things and then for her obviously it is you know, lover, wife, and mother.

So what we do is every quarter, we do that, we give each other score 1 to 10 on each of those things and then we come up with one thing that we can change. One action that we can change to improve that score.

So my thing this time, we just did it on I think it was Friday, I do not know, I think it is Friday, but my kind of change that I am making this time was -- when I come up and I have kind of done this a little bit you know, over time, but I wanted to do it just to see the impact to that. I want to make sure that I am doing consistently you know.

And so what it is, is when I come up from work, I typically work from -- I get up around 6 o’clock. I typically work to about 3 to 3:30 something like that and then you know, my boys wake up from their naps around 2:30 or 3:00 something like that. They go to bed around 7 or 7:30.

So in between that time, in between -- when I am done working in 3 or 3:30 until 7 when they go to bed, I am going to be totally unplugged. Every single day, totally unplugged.

Basically, whenever I am going to be with them, I am going to be totally unplugged, so I can be present with them, okay.

By the way, I am going to show you how this you know, make sense, business wise, okay.

So I did that over the weekend and I did it Friday, I did it Saturday, and I did it Sunday and I got spent a ton of time with the boys and the impact that it had on them was profound you know.

Logan came up to me, he is my 2-year-old. He came up to me actually, he will be 3 in a little over month. He came up to me and just randomly, we are playing on the floor, I think we are playing Legos, we are doing a lot of Legos over the weekend and he just came up to me and gave me a hug and said, “Daddy, you are my best friend” you know, and I teared up a little bit and got all you know, weepy.

And then Connor, did the same thing. He just, he came up to me, he gave me a hug and he said, “Daddy, I love you” you know, and it was random and it has happened to me a couple of times you know, they have done it a couple of times before and I realized that every single time that they did that I was 100% present with them. I did not have my phone, I did not have my laptop open, there was just me and them and you know, obviously, Katie was there. Actually, this weekend, she was not, because she -- when Logan did that, she was out with Connor, so it was just me and Logan because -- no actually, it was me and Connor when Connor did because Logan woke up and he had to go to doctor, he had a hip thing.

So anyway, it got me started thinking about you know, what would happen if you are business. If you were totally 100% present in your business. You were not worried about you know -- and your building business so that you could be present with other people okay.

You were not worried about you know, you are not on all the time you know, it is so easy to get wrapped up and being just on all the time and it does not let your mind think. It does not let your mind you know, kind of you know, chill out because your best ideas, your most creative thoughts are going to happen when your mind is peaceful, okay.

It is going to happen when your mind is calm and rested. It is not going to happen when you are frantic every day running around you know.

I know there are a lot of people you know, (inaudible 4:39.1) and (inaudible 4:40.0) those guys are awesome, I love them, especially Gary V. I love listening to his stuff, but you have to you know, if you were that kind of person, you want to live that kind of life, that is fine you know, you should listen to them, but I do not think that that is how a normal person should live you know. I do not think that is how an everyday person should live.

If you are going out and you are trying to do world domination. You are trying to be the next Steve Jobs from Apple or you know, anybody like -- anybody trying to change the world okay.

You do not have to -- you have to give yourself permission to not have to be on all the time you know. Go and meditate, just walk down. They have a practice out in (inaudible 5:26.8) cooking show and they were talking about in India, people they just laid down on the street and they just kind of chill you know which I think, I mean maybe that is a little bit too far, but it goes to show you like, just relax sometimes you know.

This is something that I am going to start talking about a little bit more. It has profound implications on your business because when you, when you allow your mind to rest, you become more creative okay.

And what most people do not realize most people, they have this thing with being busy you know, Oh, busy, I am busy, Oh my God I am so busy. Busy, busy, busy you know and they think it is a good thing, but in reality it is a horrible thing.

If you are talking to somebody and you are like, Oh, you know man, I have been so busy lately you know, well I have not been able to stop. You are saying it like, like you are wearing it like a ring of pride.

You might want to consider that maybe that is not a good thing you know. Have you ever thought about that. Maybe that is not a good thing. Because what happens when you are busy, busy, busy all the time and you are just working, constantly working you know. Who are you, who are you leaving out in your life you know. Are you neglecting your wife or your husband. Are you neglecting your kids. Are you neglecting your friends. You have to think about that and what is the most important to you, you know.

A lot of people say, Oh, well you know, my business is my life you know. My business is my passion. I never work a day in my life. I mean, that is the biggest pile of bullshit ever you know. Maybe that is true. Listen, I love working too. When I work from 6 to 3, I love it. I love sitting down and writing copy and coming up with new marketing strategies. Coming up a new plans, I am doing that today actually it is a dead Friday because I am planning for the next work.

But consider this, what if you had more than one passion in your life. What about that you know. I know maybe that is a radical concept you know, people are like, Oh, I work 14 hours a day, 16 hours a day because I love business. Well, really, do you have no other passions in life. Is your life that sad that you love one thing. You do not love your spouse. You do not love your kids. You do not have hobby, I mean, is that it, is that what your life is, you just work. I mean, you know, think about that for a minute and see you know -- and it is okay if that is how you are right now, it is okay because you can change and look, if your life I mean if you are just -- you feel totally driven to just whatever it is you are going to completely change the world okay that is fine, if that is what you truly, truly love is you know, just working all the time, that is fine.

And also keep in mind that it is okay to do this for periods of time. So for example, a good example of this, I have been talking with a lot of people in the SAS industry lately. A lot of people in the SAS industry, they are kind of like lifestyle is -- they work really, really, really hard for like you know, just say like 2 to 5 years and then they sell the company for a couple of million dollars and then they take a couple years off, okay, that is their lifestyle and if that is what you love, that is fine, I can totally dig that you know, but you have to have you know, I like to live my life in a series of sprints.

So when I am working, I am working. I do not sit here and screw around, sit on Facebook and you know, most people are so unproductive, it is unbelievable.

When I am working, I am sprinting at work okay. And I can guarantee you that -- no offense to anybody listening, I can guarantee you that when I am in focus mode, I get more done than in 1 day than probably 90% of people listening to this in a week. I guarantee you that. If we sat down and say okay, what do you get done this week, and what do you get done this week.

I guarantee -- maybe not this audience, maybe not you guys because you guys are a lot more savvy than the kind of the average entrepreneur, but just say like you know, if I took my work let us just say against the average entrepreneur, and it was 1 day of mine versus 1 week of the average person saying they are “busy.” I guarantee you, I get more done in 1 single day than most people doing a week and it is because when I am working, I am 100% working okay.

When I am not working, I am 100% not working and it allows my mind to rest. It allows me to be more creative. It allows me to be more happy. It allows me to be, to have more longevity you know. I used to -- years ago, before I started doing this, I used to get really bad tension headaches in my head and it would knock me out of business, it would knock me out of working for a couple of days at a time.

That is your body’s way -- if you are getting sick a lot, if you sore a lot, if you are tired a lot, that is your body’s way of telling you, you need to slow down you know.

There is nothing wrong with slowing down. It is coming up on golf season now you know. It is April 4th, you know the day that I am recording this.

It is starting to get in a golf season here in Pennsylvania, and I am going to try to make it a habit every single Friday afternoon, I am going to go golfing okay.

Now, maybe won’t be every Friday afternoon, maybe every other one, maybe would be 2 out of 3 whatever it is, but the point is I am going to take a lot of Fridays off because look, I like to go out, I like to take a beer with me, have a cigar, go out for you know 2 hours or whatever and go golfing whether just by myself or with some of my buddies you know and just kind of get out in nature, just get away from everything and let my mind you know, chill.

People do not understand I should do an entire podcast on creativity and how your mind works. In fact, actually, I know somebody then, I should interview about that.

But you know, basically, the point is, your mind is set up to have a lot of input you know, to be able to put a lot of information into your brain and then let it rest okay.

Your brain, when you do that, it comes into your conscious and then when you rest, it allows your subconscious to process everything, that is like sleep you know. It is the exact same ting except you can do it during the day too.

I do a lot of this when I am copywriting. If I am trying to come up with a big idea, an angle, or a hook for a client, a lot of times what will I do is just bury myself in the research for you know, 2, 3, 4, or 5 hours and then I will take a nap you know, and I know, Oh my God, you take a nap during the day, Yes. I do a lot actually.

In fact, I might today depending on -- actually, no, I cannot today because I have meetings throughout the afternoon, but a lot of times, I do and a lot of times I do it if I am trying to solve a problem because again, if you put the problem in your mind you take a nap, a lot of times that solution is going to come up while you are sleeping.

A lot of old copywriter, Euguen Schwartz and stuff that is where I learned it from. He used to do that for you know, for copywriting, but it is applicable to anybody listening to this you know.

So anyway, do you know -- I know it is a little bit of a rant I kind of just got on here and just started talking. I really do not have an outline for this whatsoever, but what I want you to think about, I just want you to challenge the notion that being busy is a good thing okay.

For some people, it is okay you know, if that is what you really, really, really love and you get so fired up about working that you know, it just consumes your life then okay, you know, maybe you know, if you do not want it -- like for example, if you do not have a family you know, if you do not have a ton of friends, if you do not want any of that stuff okay, then working a lot is fine. I mean, I still would not, but you know, but I mean if you have a family, if you have friends you know, think of them in your life too and think of your own happiness you know, a lot of people have this like false pretense that they are happy when they are really not you know, if you really go and -- go take a hike you know, go take a 4, 5, 6 hour hike that is also coming up hiking season. I will be taking time off work to go into the woods and hike.

Take a hike and really think about this stuff you know. I am not saying that anything is wrong. I want you to understand that. If that is what you truly want to do is be “busy” all the time and that is what you truly love to do that is fine, okay. Totally respect it, but what I do not want you to do is think that you are supposed to be busy all the time, so you make yourself busy all the time, but you do not actually want to be busy all the time, okay, and it takes a while to truly get this you know, it takes a while to truly sync in, it did for me.

There is a lot of guilt that comes, like if you just stop working at noon and that is what I want you to do you know, if you are kind of resonating with this, if you are resonating with this and you want to figure out how to get started, pick 1 day this week or maybe 2 short of a time frame, pick a day next week or something where you already have stuff already planned and say, on this day next week, I am going to stop working in 12. I am going to work up until lunch, I am going to take lunch and I am not going to work the rest of the day, I am not going to look at my phone, I am not going to check my email, I am not going to do anything that is work related, okay and go hiking. Take your wife out for lunch or your husband. Take them out for lunch you know. Take them, give them, go give them a massage for half hour or take your kids you know depending on how old your kids are if they are younger you know, take them for ice cream, take them go play in the park with them you know.

Go do something that allows you to be present in the moment and allows you to actually have like kind of find some peace within you and be happy rather than kind of you know, being sucked up in this pretense that if you are an entrepreneur you have to be busy all the time because I can guarantee you I have never failed on this one time.

I can guarantee you that at least 30% of what you do every single day does not have to be done, 30% I guarantee you and that is -- I mean, usually it is more like 50%. So you can cut off 30 a day very easily. If you are working more than 7 or 8 hours a day of actual work that is like not including lunches just say 7 hours a day not including lunch so you know, roughly 8 hours with lunch.

I guarantee you, you are being inefficient okay. You can outsource some of those things. You can stop doing some of those things. There is something -- I was just looking in my business the other day at things kind of do an 80/20 and looking at it and say, okay, what is working and what is not working. Well I found something that it is really not being that efficient with my marketing so guess what, next, gone. Do not do it anymore, okay. Simple as that. Do not do it anymore and focus because what happens is you right now, I am telling you, with absolute certainty, that you are getting 80% of your results from 20% of your efforts.

So what you need to do is find the 20% and when you removed all that other 80% of stuff that is not doing anything, it is just busy work okay and you focus on that 20%. Well, let us just say that you are working 10 hours a day and you are getting 80% of the results from 2 of those hours 20%. What do you think would happen in your business if you did those 2 hours for 6 hours and then you took the other 4 hours off. What do you think would happen to your business, you think it will go up, yes, it will go up and guess what else would happen. You would be happy. And guess what else would happen. You would have a better relationship with your husband or wife. Guess what else would happen. Your kids would love you more, honestly.

They would do things like come up and you know, tell you that they are your best friend and you know, again, this is younger kids. If they are like 20 years old they might not do that or maybe they would, but they would notice you know, you create better bonding with your family and guess what else would happen. If your friends, do you ever have a situation where your friend really needed your help and you were to “busy” to help them. Well, guess what else would happen, you would become a better friend. You will be able to help people. And guess what else would happen, you would be able to actually work out and have better fitness. Guess what else would happen, you could meditate. You can be happier. You could have less stress. You could feel better. You could sleep better. Do you see kind of -- where I am coming from with this. I mean I could go on for hours about all the things that would happen okay.

And I tell you this because I have done this in my life. I used to be one of those people. And look, in the beginning of your business, if you are listening to this and you are like, oh my God, well I cannot do that, I just started my business, so screw your Jeremy you know, shove a stick up your ass.

I understand that okay. In the beginning of your business you cannot quite do all this yet you know, when you are just starting, you are just trying to get attraction, you have to hustle, I get that okay.

And again, there is times, okay. There is periods. It depends, okay. If you are already making you know, 6-figures, you can probably start to slow down okay. Is there a reason that you need to make a 7-figure income, do you have to or if you really want to why can’t you do it in a more efficient manner okay.

I just want you to start thinking about some of these things. A lot of these stuff is you know, some of you might be getting pissed off, I mean that is fine. But I just want you to start thinking okay. Just start challenging the notion of working so much okay. That is all I want you to do, just start challenging it okay, and think about it. Just put some thought into it because that is what started changing me is when I actually started challenging some of these beliefs that entrepreneurs had to work all the time. They had to be on all the time. They have to respond back to emails within 5 minutes. They have to this and this and this and that. They have to be there for employees every second of the day and all that stuff, and it is just not necessary okay.

You deserve to go and live your life and you know work and look again, I love work, but I can put -- I can work for 6 or 7 hours and get way, way, way, way, way more than in a day than most people doing a week. There is no reason that you cannot do the same thing okay. That is what I want you to challenge. Is why you are doing what you are doing and how you can make your life better. Just write down some of the things that you want in your life you know. Are you overweight right now, do you want better health. Well then, block out half hour of your day, it is not hard okay.

And of course, again, there are exceptions to all this okay. There are days that I missed my workout because things just getting insane. That happens.

There are weekends that I work because a client some kind of fire comes up where they are doing a launch or something breaks on a Friday afternoon or you know, whatever, that happens okay. That is the exceptions to the rule though, okay.

You just have to look at your life and see you know, what can I change and look at your business and say, okay, I am making whatever, whatever it is $100,000, $50,000, $150,000, $300,000 and I want to make whatever it is $500,000 or $1,000,000.

What I do is I say, alright, here is my income goal, how do I do that without working 1 extra hour. That is how I look at it okay and maybe you can come up something different that works for me and now before I sign off, I am going to kind of let you go here but before I sign off, you know, just think about, think about all of these, I want you to challenge those notions and then understand that I understand that there are exceptions like I was talking about before you know.

There are exceptions to your kind of weekly thing where you know, things just do not go in your way. Things have fires happen they break out that kind of thing. You have to put them out. That is -- it is business, it happens you know or you are doing a product launch and you are just on a full out sprint for a couple of weeks or whatever. Totally get that.

I do the same thing, okay, but those are short time periods, okay. It is not -- that is not the rule okay, that is the exception. There are also exceptions if you are just starting out okay. Maybe you do not want to only work you know 5 or 6 hours a day okay, because in the beginning you need to get that momentum. You need to get that momentum. You need to get the snow ball rolling. So I totally understand and you know, if you are married, I want you to talk about this to your husband or wife and have them just explain to them like look, over the next year or two you know, I am going to be working a lot, I am going to try to at least take weekends off or nights off or blackout some kind of time for family time you know, again, this is if you have family, because I am telling you I have seen it a thousand times. Your family will disintegrate if you do not do this okay.

There is always to improve I mean most people do not even know what a good relationship is because they think that you know, they think that what (inaudible 23:12.9) how it is supposed to be you know, and if you are not happy well that is not normal you know. Being overweight is not normal okay. Being stressed out is you know, waking up and you are having anxiety, not normal okay.

So again, that is another exception to the rule is, it is kind of like -- in the beginning you know, you have to do that. It is just how it is you know.

Now there are things you can do to minimize that, of course, that is kind of a whole another topic, but just -- all I want you to do is think about this stuff. Start challenging the notion. Tell me if this helps you, you know. I want to know -- I want to start talking a little bit more about this stuff because I am so much more you know, I know I am a sales funnel guy and all that, but one of my big passions is showing people how to get the same or better results but without the stress that comes along with it. That is one of the reasons that I love sales funnels because they reduce so much stress you know, because you can just get it working and then it works you know.

You get a paid funnel or a paid traffic funnel working and it just works. All you have to do is just give the money and you get more back in return you know, and that is what I love to do with my clients is -- I love to look it like you know, alright when your business is doing good, how is your life you know. How is your marriage. How is your relationship with your kids. How is your relationship with your friends. Do you have any hobbies you know. As you know, I am really big in cooking you know. So I am planning a day -- the weather is awful here in Pennsylvania now so I cannot do it this week, I was going to, but you know, I am starting to learn how to smoke food you know. So that is one of my new things and I am learning all these new cooking techniques and I am learning more of like wood working stuff and you know I am clearing out the backyard behind our house here so I can build stuff for the kids. We have like an acre, a little over an acre of woods behind our house. It is kind of like our house and then the yard and then the woods and I am clearing it all out. Over the last 2 or 3 years I have been chopping all the trees down by my hand probably I do not know, roughly 50 trees, good size ones and all by hand and it is a fantastic workout by the way.

But you know, a couple -- kind of a couple year of process so I am clearing that all out and I am going to build stuff for the kids. I am going to build a tree house. I am going to do like a little obstacle course back then. I am going to build out fun stuff for them.

So you know, you have to look and get these hobbies you know, play a guitar or go you know, if you are into -- go, go help somebody you know, go and volunteer somewhere or whatever it is, but I just want you to challenge all these and start thinking about ways and you do not have to jump right in. Start one thing. I always do a habit every quarter, I keep track of all the activities that I do okay, throughout my business and every quarter I look through those activities and I try to get rid of one okay, just one single thing alright, because or maybe if it is really small thing like so for example I used to do the editing on this podcast, well I do not do that anymore. So that is one small thing that is, I mean you can outsource that in like 5 minutes.

But that frees up you know, 10 minutes a week, well multiply that by 10 things to hundred hours a week, multiply that by something it saves you an hour times 10, that is 10 hours a week you know. That is over a full work day. You can take Fridays off now.

So start thinking about that stuff. Shoot me an email at Jeremyreeves.com. Let me know if you enjoyed this episode. If you like this type of thing you know, I know this was not really marketing thing. This all comes back to marketing because you are -- when you are able to think more clearly, you become a better marketer. You come up with better ideas you know, all that kind of stuff. You have more longevity you know. You are not getting stressed out. You are going to be happier for your employees. Your employees are going to like you better. You wife is going to like you better or your husband. Kids are going to like you better. I mean it is just you know, the benefits are just you know, they reverberate through you entire life you know.

So anyway, shoot me an email at Jeremyreeves.com let me know what you thought of this episode if you love it, you hated it, you agree of me, you did not agree with me. I want to hear your comments on this because it is something that I want to start talking about a little bit more and I want to see if you guys are into it you know.

So let me know how it is and again like if you are interested in getting a funnel done, again, Jeremy@jeremyreeves and just let me know you know, kind of what you are thinking you know, this is coming up -- I am going to do some kind of thing in April, some kind of charity thing. I am not sure what it is. I am going to plan that probably today or tomorrow, but I let you guys know maybe the next episode something like that or an email you know, if you are not on email list go to Jeremyreeves.com and just sign up on one of the free things. I have free webinars and reports and all kind of stuff.

Yeah, I got to do something you know, give you guys a way to save some money, get cool stuff while I you know can support autism for my son, Connor, because again, it is autism awareness month this month. So if you know anybody with autism, you know, give him a hug, seriously.

But anyway, I hope this, I hope this resonate with you. If it did not, let me know as well you know, feel free to yell at me if you think I am wrong. That is totally fine, I want to get some communications, some dialogue going here. So let me know your thoughts [email protected].

I hope you guys and girls have an amazing week. Go meditate this week. Maybe that is your weekly thing. Just take 15 minutes, 1 days this week and meditate. I am pretty sure you can spare 15 minutes you know. Tell me how it makes you feel okay.

Alright, I will talk to you soon. Bye.