Why Business Advice Doesn't Work For You
You've tried all the things, you've put in a fuck-ton of work, you've followed the advice and bought all the courses and have found some success yet you are constantly on the back foot trying to battle a loosing fight and realise you're gonna burn out if you continue.
Or maybe you've found a lot of success but it still doesn't feel the way you want it to feel. What's going on? It's not you. It's business.
A Note On Transcriptions - In the interest of simplicity, I'm using Descript* to make podcast publishing as easy as possible. This means that sometimes the transcript won't match what I'm saying and sometimes it'll be hilariously different (tag me on Twitter telling me the funniest transcription you've found).
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy
Transcript
You are not broken.
Speaker:The entire concept of business is.
Speaker:Now that is one hell of a heavy thing to start my first episode of this podcast
Speaker:with but I really believe that so many negative feelings around productivity,
Speaker:simplicity, building, and growing a business stems from this feeling, that
Speaker:there is something wrong with you.
Speaker:That you aren't doing it in the right way or you're not
Speaker:fit to be running a business.
Speaker:And the only way you can hope to succeed is to fit into this story that is
Speaker:being told by other business experts.
Speaker:Now, before I continue with my thoughts and spiels.
Speaker:I really do believe that context is incredibly key.
Speaker:So let's talk a little bit about where I'm coming from.
Speaker:I've been in business for nearly 10 years.
Speaker:In fact, I think it's over 10 years.
Speaker:Allthough If you really want to be a little bit facetious simplicity
Speaker:specialist is around two years old, maybe even a year and a half
Speaker:But I started my business journey of entrepreneurship or
Speaker:whatever you want to call it.
Speaker:As a music teacher I taught guitar.
Speaker:I taught piano.
Speaker:I taught singing to people who wanted to learn.
Speaker:And I think that's where this whole concept of helping people to not feel
Speaker:broken, to simplify what business and back then guitar was in a way that
Speaker:fits other people because simplicity isn't about doing less or learning
Speaker:less or creating less it's around.
Speaker:Bringing all the parts of you together.
Speaker:When you understand how you work, when you understand what matters
Speaker:to you, what's important to you.
Speaker:Things become easier.
Speaker:Things become simpler because it just flows naturally.
Speaker:And this concept of being able to learn the things you enjoy and figure out
Speaker:your own way of playing an instrument.
Speaker:Is what started this whole process off.
Speaker:But, it wasn't always like that.
Speaker:I started teaching guitar for a reason.
Speaker:Teaching guitar came out of frustration with the traditional
Speaker:way that music is taught.
Speaker:You have to learn it in a certain way.
Speaker:You have to learn classical, you have to learn how to read notation and Tablature.
Speaker:You were told how to play music and how to express yourself creatively.
Speaker:Otherwise, you couldn't do what you actually wanted to do.
Speaker:You had to go through the hard graft first.
Speaker:Now I'm a self-taught guitarist.
Speaker:But I did have an opportunity to go to college and that was my experience
Speaker:with a proper guitar lesson.
Speaker:I came in, excited to play rock metal, Evanescence stuff that excited
Speaker:me because that's all I've done.
Speaker:But when I entered into my first, third, fifth, like multiple lessons.
Speaker:I was told to play C major.
Speaker:I for one never wanted to play in C major.
Speaker:I never wanted to be a solo guitarists for non-musicians when you learn your
Speaker:scales, it starts you off on the realm of solo guitar, lead guitar being upfront.
Speaker:Whoop.
Speaker:I provide rhythm.
Speaker:I wanted to sing and write.
Speaker:That's what I enjoyed.
Speaker:So chords were fine and by the time I got into the college that I was in.
Speaker:I knew most of my chords, I knew how to play them.
Speaker:And I asked, I want to learn how to play this song.
Speaker:How do I play it?
Speaker:Like, how do I play these chords?
Speaker:But I was told I had to learn the scales first because the scales
Speaker:helped me build up the chords and LA LA blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Now I don't fault my teacher for that because that's how it's traditionally
Speaker:taught you do it in a certain way.
Speaker:You have to follow a set structure and it builds upon one another.
Speaker:And that makes sense if you're teaching it to a robots.
Speaker:If you are making someone learn something and they're not passionate about it
Speaker:and they don't really care about it.
Speaker:That's fine.
Speaker:But if you have a young child or an adult who doesn't have all the time
Speaker:in the world or has low attention span or whatever it might be, who just
Speaker:wants to play the favorite song trying to make them learn scales first is a
Speaker:sure-fire way of making them hate music.
Speaker:Because when learning to play an instrument, it takes time and
Speaker:the ability to just keep playing, because you're gonna just screw up
Speaker:over and over again and I honestly feel the same is true for business.
Speaker:I believe that to be able to build a successful business.
Speaker:You have to have that want that desire and you have to stem from that.
Speaker:Your business starts from who you are.
Speaker:But often when people come to me as a systems person, or as a
Speaker:notion person, They feel like I need to help them fix something.
Speaker:Because they feel that they're broken, that something is wrong with them because
Speaker:they're not able to stay organized.
Speaker:They're not able to create clear task lists and go through that
Speaker:task list and prioritize, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker:There's something wrong with them.
Speaker:They're "broken".
Speaker:But they're not they're just doing something they don't want to do because
Speaker:they feel they have to 'cause they bought this course and spent all this money.
Speaker:And they have to do it this way because the joys of marketing shoving it down
Speaker:your throats around trying to be the best, this, and launching your signature
Speaker:offer and niching down, the pain points are hammered down if you don't follow
Speaker:the step-by-step process then you fail.
Speaker:That is how we as an industry have been taught to sell by punching
Speaker:people by making people feel like there's something wrong with them.
Speaker:And that's really hard especially as building a business, creating
Speaker:a business is probably the hardest hardest form of personal development
Speaker:because there is no one answer.
Speaker:No matter what the gurus and the experts say.
Speaker:There is never one answer.
Speaker:There are always multiple ways to do things.
Speaker:You don't necessarily have to have a single niche.
Speaker:The reason why business advice isn't working for you is
Speaker:because it lacks the context.
Speaker:And I believe the best way.
Speaker:To create context in business is to start with the person running the business.
Speaker:That's you.
Speaker:Because you are at the core of your business.
Speaker:Yes, you're out there to make a change in the world.
Speaker:I started simplicity specialists to help people just like you to
Speaker:not feel broken and create a system and a business that works for you.
Speaker:I care deeply about your success.
Speaker:However.
Speaker:It stems from the ideas in my head, from my experiences.
Speaker:As a musician, seeing people struggling as, the tech support, seeing people using
Speaker:apps and software and solutions that don't fit them, but they're using it because.
Speaker:The course they took, told them to.
Speaker:Because they saw an entrepreneur or business owner that they look up to.
Speaker:Using that software and then falling in to using it even when it doesn't actually
Speaker:function in the way that works for them.
Speaker:Because we look up to people and especially in this industry where the
Speaker:social media never really matches what the real life is it becomes really
Speaker:difficult to understand the why.
Speaker:But all the answers stem from within you.
Speaker:But you don't feel like you can be, you.
Speaker:'cause no one because you don't see it because you rarely see other
Speaker:people in business that work like you.
Speaker:That are seeing quote-unquote massive success.
Speaker:And the reason why is because it's a generalized field business advice has
Speaker:been generalized and boiled down to the certain step-by-step ways of working
Speaker:which then traps you into thinking you can only be a successful business owner.
Speaker:You can only run a successful podcast if you have a sexy spicy intro
Speaker:which talks about how good you are, how this is that, and you have a
Speaker:description and a good, sexy title, and a good this, and a good that.
Speaker:Those are all elements they're not useless.
Speaker:But they have to have a place.
Speaker:They have to have, an understanding there is context, which is almost always missing
Speaker:from most business advice these days.
Speaker:It is lacking that individual stroke of magic that makes the online business
Speaker:so wonderful because it allows people to be themselves to grow and create
Speaker:a business that works around them, that kids in the time to have their
Speaker:own hours, but then they get caught.
Speaker:By the advice.
Speaker:By the, you need to have a project manager.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:If you don't have a project manager, you can't keep self
Speaker:organized because you're so stupid.
Speaker:You can't do it.
Speaker:You need to buy my course, teaching you how to create a
Speaker:course because you need a course.
Speaker:Because if you don't have a course, you need to have passive income.
Speaker:Because if you don't have passive income, you'll never earn enough
Speaker:money so that you can live on a beach.
Speaker:Maybe I don't want to live on a beach.
Speaker:What happens for those people who don't want to live on a beach or retire at 33?
Speaker:Advice I've received in the past has been like, oh, you could just do this.
Speaker:And then you retire.
Speaker:Well, maybe I don't want to retire.
Speaker:Maybe I enjoy my business.
Speaker:On the other hand, you've got gurus and experts saying, you need
Speaker:to do this amount at this time.
Speaker:You need to sit down and plan out your week.
Speaker:You need to do it in a fixed way.
Speaker:This is productivity because, oh my gosh, does it drive me insane?
Speaker:You've got to sit down and plan out your week.
Speaker:You want to be organized and structured and you structure out your
Speaker:day and your time block everything.
Speaker:Each individual thing you do, you have to block it out in time and then you do that.
Speaker:Well, that's wonderful.
Speaker:If you are a solo person, you live alone, you have no one else, but I tell
Speaker:you something I can not time block my time to say that between this time and
Speaker:that time, because if my son , wants my attention or needs me for something,
Speaker:my time block goes out the window.
Speaker:Same thing of like, oh, you have to release 3, 4, 5 pieces of content.
Speaker:Every single day and be active on your socials.
Speaker:Well, that depends.
Speaker:If I'm in the house of my kids, I want to give my kids my full attention.
Speaker:That's why I started my business.
Speaker:To spend more time with my family.
Speaker:If I wanted to be working all the time and have fixed way of working,
Speaker:I would have just got a job.
Speaker:I want to be at home with my kids.
Speaker:I want to have the option to spend as much time on my kids.
Speaker:I want to have the option to go on holiday randomly without having to think about.
Speaker:Like, oh, taking time off of work of this, of that.
Speaker:The context matters.
Speaker:But often we try to fit ourselves in this box.
Speaker:We try to make ourselves work in someone else's way without
Speaker:understanding the context of why.
Speaker:Why do they get up at 5:00 AM in the morning?
Speaker:Why does that work for them?
Speaker:Why is that important?
Speaker:Well, If you work a job and you want to be able to balance
Speaker:two things at once, then yes.
Speaker:Getting up at 5:00 AM to be able to fit in a few things, make sense, but if
Speaker:your context changes, you can change it.
Speaker:Just because experts say it doesn't mean that you have to
Speaker:change everything that you do.
Speaker:Experts are experts in that own understanding and nothing else.
Speaker:Outside of their own understanding, there is nothing more that they have.
Speaker:This podcast is around sharing my experience with you.
Speaker:I'm not here to tell you what to do.
Speaker:I'm here to provide you with my context.
Speaker:And say here's an alternative.
Speaker:To give you the opportunity to figure out how to find more simplicity in
Speaker:your business to open the conversation beyond the here's what I do copy me.
Speaker:Because you're not broken.
Speaker:It's not you that's the problem.
Speaker:You are the solution.
Speaker:But business and the way that businesses promoted.
Speaker:It's becoming.
Speaker:No different to a normal job.
Speaker:Everybody has a course.
Speaker:Everybody must have multiple courses.
Speaker:Everybody must record YouTube videos.
Speaker:Now everybody must have a TikTok.
Speaker:Because that's what I that's, because what the successful people have.
Speaker:And if you don't have that.
Speaker:You'll never find success.
Speaker:You'll never be able to achieve what I achieve.
Speaker:But there is so much lacking in that because.
Speaker:For all, you know, that person could spend all day recording the TikTok.
Speaker:And that's the only thing they do.
Speaker:And that is great.
Speaker:That is perfect.
Speaker:But if you have kids.
Speaker:You can't spend all day recording a TikTok.
Speaker:And if you're a perfectionist and someone who wants to create the
Speaker:most perfect thing all the time.
Speaker:You will struggle to record something so short.
Speaker:You are not broken.
Speaker:It's not about trying to force yourself.
Speaker:A system is just what you do.
Speaker:Productivity is just how you work and if you start from a space of
Speaker:understanding that you're not broken, that there's not something wrong with you.
Speaker:It's just about understanding how you work.
Speaker:And you start there.
Speaker:So much opportunity can come your way.
Speaker:So much opportunity.
Speaker:So what next, what do I do now?
Speaker:Like what's the next step.
Speaker:What is the next step?
Speaker:Because this is incredibly, incredibly overwhelming.
Speaker:And that's the purpose of this podcast.
Speaker:The podcast is designed to help and support you and share
Speaker:with you how to understand and find the right advice for you.
Speaker:Because advice is not fundamentally bad.
Speaker:It's flawed.
Speaker:This podcast is a discussion and a chance for you to know that there is another
Speaker:option that apps don't matter that you can create a business that works for you.
Speaker:So if you have any questions hit me up on all the socials.
Speaker:There will be a link in the description and let me know what questions you
