This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 135 / F*@% One Size Fits All Success Principles

Episode Date: April 26, 2023

What are some of the popular approaches to success that you’re feeling pressured to do, but just don’t feel right to you? Success for me isn’t about rigidity, adding more shit to my plate, or even mental toughness and  these one size fits all approaches is just another thing that’s saying you must be perfect (no cheats, no misses, no exceptions), and that the way to become confident and all the things you want is thru achievement.  I call bullshit. And on today's episode I walk through some examples of these popular approaches and why I think they do more harm than good.  What other success principles drive you nuts? What other maybe more masculine approaches to business aren’t serving you? What one-size-fits all approaches are being shoved down your throat? TRUST yourself.  And while confidence is my passion, I hope I never send the message that there’s only one way to achieve it or that I EVER would make you feel bad or less than if my message doesn’t speak to you or feel right for you. To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com. 

Hi friends, Nicole Khalil here and you're tuning in to another episode of This Is Woman's Work. As I record this, it's been about six months since the release of my book, Validation is for Parking, which is absolutely wild to me. When people ask about the experience, I always say it was the professional equivalent of giving birth. It took a long time to create. It was painful and exhausting getting it out into the world. And the first six months was a complete blur. And the minutes moved at a snail's pace while the months went by in a blink of an eye. I found a level of commitment I didn't know existed. I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. And I would have felt really, really

proud and excited if I wasn't so damn tired all the time. I don't feel like I wrote a book. I feel like I birthed one. And as people often do after you've just had a baby, the question I often get is if I'm going to write another one. And the answer is the same for the book as it was for my child. I'm just trying to make it through this one without anyone dying, and I'm going to need some time to pass so that I can forget about how hard it was. But one thing I don't think I've shared with you before is that the book I started writing is not the book that's out in the world today. My original intention when I was doing all of my initial research was to write a completely different book. I got as far as planning the outline with my writing partner before I realized that that book wasn't ready to be birthed

yet. Or at the very least, I was making things way harder than they needed to be, which I sometimes do. My original book idea, the one that wasn't birthed, was to challenge some of the more prevalent success theories and question a few of those more masculine approaches to business. Basically, I wanted to pick apart some of these one-size-fits-all, some of these, if you do this, you'll be the best, and if you fall short in any way, you suck and will never achieve anything messages, and I wanted to take them to task. I wanted to call them out for what they are,

one way to do something, one way to think, or one way to achieve. They all work. Of course they do, or nobody would be buying into it. The problem is they don't work for everyone all the time. And if they don't work for you, it doesn't mean you suck or you're weak or you'll never achieve success. And our biggest opportunity, every one of us all the time is to find what works best for us. In a lot of cases, my issue isn't even with the creator of the success principle or the writer of the business book or the person who's advocating for this thing that has created their success. In many cases, my issue is with the consumers of the information who try to force feed it to everyone around them just because they're A, hoping it will work for them and B,

trying to get everybody else excited about something they're doing. Ultimately, my big issue is anyone who is made to feel wrong or bad or less than when they look at one of these approaches to success or these philosophies, trends, or belief, and they say, that doesn't feel right for me. Not I'm nervous about doing something outside of my comfort zone. That's usually a good thing to do, but that that thing feels inauthentic or out of integrity or harmful, or even possibly dangerous for me. Let me give you an example. The culture I came from valued hard work. I grew up valuing hard work. My parents are both immigrants, hard work. Let me say it another way.

Being lazy was like the worst thing I could be in my family. And then when I got into my professional life, they valued hard work just as much. And that could mostly be defined by who was in the office the earliest and who was the busiest. I heard speaker after speaker and mentor after mentor share how they got up early, worked out, did their morning routine, and raced to get into the office before anyone else to keep as many meetings as humanly possible like it was a badge of honor. Is that a bad thing? No. It works for a lot of people who are doing it. Jay, as an example, gets up most days at 4.30 in the morning and he reads and meditates.

He works out. Frankly, he probably cooks himself a five-course breakfast, makes handwritten motivational cards for each person he knows while solving some high-level world crisis that comes through on some secret bat phone. Who really knows is all of this is happening before I wake up at seven o'clock in the morning.

Okay. So obviously I embellished the last part, but you get the idea and this works for him. So my problem is for many people finding out that my ideal wake up time is 7am often leads to assumptions that I'm lazy, uncommitted or undisciplined. In the past, I've felt bad about myself because it was too hard for me to get into the office before 7 a.m. My managing partner used to joke around and say, good afternoon, when he'd see me come in in the morning. And he wasn't by any means trying to be a jerk, and he's certainly not a jerk, but the message was sent all the same. But here's the deal. I'm not a morning person. I've tried it, and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that my brain doesn't fully function until about 9 a.m. I'm also extremely moody,

reactive, and snippy if I don't get a full eight, ideally nine, hours of sleep. So I'm not sure how it would benefit anyone, not my team, not the people I was leading, and certainly not my clients, if I tried to operate on less sleep. I might not go so far as to say it would be dangerous for me to get up at 5 a.m. on the regular, but I certainly can tell you that it would never be helpful. I would definitely like people a lot less, and I'm guessing the feeling would be very mutual. The idea that every one of us would share the exact same sleep patterns is ridiculous. And the message that in order to be successful, you need to join the 5 a.m. club is bullshit. I read a stat that said almost 50% of self-made millionaires wake up early.

But doesn't that mean that the other half of them don't? I mean, I'm no statistician, but it seems to me that if I have a 50-50 chance of becoming a self-made millionaire either way, I'm going to get those extra few hours of sleep. There is all sorts of statistical evidence that supports how imperative, how important sleep is, and that we each have our own chronotype, meaning that our ideal wake-up times and bedtimes, peak productivity times, and therefore our habits are all different. This, by the way, should not be shocking information. It's pretty clear to anyone paying any attention that we are not all the same. And don't even get me started on how having young children can mess with any hope of a solid morning routine. I'm guessing most of the parents who crush these morning routines with babies or kids

either have help, their children are older, or they're dads. And imagine my extreme pleasure, because let's be real, it feels so good to be proven right, when I got my aura ring and it confirmed what I'd begun to accept many years ago, that my ideal wake-up time is in fact 7 a.m. My peak productivity isn't until late morning and that the quality of my sleep impacts quite literally everything. My sleep score is almost always in the nineties because I listened to my body and stopped trying to get less sleep and wake up with the roosters. And I'm a healthier and more productive person because of it. That's what works for me. Your job is to figure out what works for you. And fuck the 5 a.m. club if it's not the right fit for you. You can still be successful. And if you're feeling left

out and looking for a club to join, come find me because I'm the president of the get up whenever the fuck I want club. Okay, so clearly this other book was going to be full of rants and super fiery, which is not so unlike the book I ended up actually writing. So why didn't I write it? Well, because it was going to take forever. I was going to need to research the theories I wanted to challenge. I was going to need to find information, data, and stories to back up the challenge. And I was starting really mostly from scratch. When I actually started writing, I was already speaking mostly on the topic of confidence.

It was already a passion of mine. I'd done a ton of work with women. I'd already done a decade's worth of reading, researching, learning, and testing on the subject. In short, a lot of the book was already written. I just needed to put it down on paper. But this other book, the book with that working title debunked, I was pretty much starting that one from scratch. And I believe the best place to start is wherever your feet are. And I also believe it doesn't always have to be so hard. So I pivoted. Some people may say I chose the easy route or gave up because it was harder that I quit. And I guess that could be one way to see it. I'd say that I

stopped trying to overcomplicate things. I listened to my inner knowing and I reminded myself that quitting can actually be a spiritual practice if it helps you, if it's good for you when you're quitting something that doesn't serve you anymore. So that's another way to see it. And it also happens to be more productive and feel more empowered and genuinely true for me. So I'm going to go with that version. What are some of the popular approaches to success that you're feeling pressured to do, but just don't feel authentically right for you. Again, not uncomfortable. Discomfort is part of growth. I'm talking about that feeling in your being where you're like, no, this doesn't work for me. Let me give you a couple other examples. 75 hard.

I know some people who have done it and loved it. And I am genuinely pleased for you. I'm genuinely pleased when anyone finds anything that makes them a healthier, happier, and better person. But it's touted as the Ironman for your brain. And let me point out that only 0.01% of the population has ever completed an Ironman race. You might be thinking, well, this is pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. It's increasing your mental toughness.

And ultimately, if you want to achieve what 0.01% of the population achieves, you need to be willing to do what 0.01% of the population does. Okay, I could buy into that, except you need to be clear about what you want that top 0.01 mindset or those top 0.01 habits to do or to create for you. For example, if you think it's a direct line to business or financial success, let me remind you that the top 0.01 percent of the U. the US population makes an annual income of about $35.1 million a year. And the people I know who are doing 75 hard are not getting that outcome. Okay, I'm on a tangent here. So let's get back to the real deal. Ultimately, when it comes to 75 hard, the reason I don't like it is because I don't want to.

Success for me isn't about rigidity. It isn't about adding more shit to my plate. And it might not even be about mental toughness. I'm more excited about mental agility, mental flexibility. And what's interesting, if you look at the website about 75 hard, is while it promises confidence, self-belief and grittiness. And by the way, I can actually see how those things could be built through this program. Mostly what I see on the website getting promoted is weight loss and muscle gain. It's not a fitness program, but look at how fit I am. And frankly, it seems like an excuse for people to post pictures of their ripped bodies under the guise of self-development. So here's my beef.

It's yet another thing that's saying you must be perfect. It says no cheats, no misses, no exceptions, and that the way to become confident and get all the things you want is through achievement, especially achievement around how you look, which is why you need to take a picture of yourself every day, I presume. And yet another message that work ethic and effort is the only and best way to achieve like two 45 minute workouts every single day.

My question is, what about efficiency? There is lots of evidence that a 20-minute HIIT workout can achieve a lot more than maybe a 45-minute run as an example. And what about effectiveness? What if I can create confidence and self-belief without having to drown myself in a gallon of water every day? Or what if I'm mentally tough already because life is tough and birthing and raising a child is tough and having a father with dementia is tough and building a business is tough or whatever your tough is.

I haven't caught myself sitting around thinking, you know what I should do? I should make life harder. I should make things harder. It says fail anything and start over. Screw that. Fail something. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get back in action towards what matters. Give yourself some grace. Move forward. Don't start over. Jay one day made the unfortunate mistake of mentioning to me that he was thinking about trying 75 hard, and my response was something along the lines of great. If that's important to you, go for it. But I'm not picking up any of the slack. Your two 45 minute workouts need to be done before we wake up or during normal working hours

or after we go to bed. And while I'm always happy to eat healthy, there will be no diets done or even mentioned in front of our nine-year-old daughter. Don't get me wrong. I support the shit out of Jay and whatever's important to him, but he's already one of the most disciplined and mentally tough people I know. And I'm so sick of these trends that come along that ask you to do more. They ask you to take more time away from your family, stack more shit on top of your to-do list and definitely, definitely make you feel like shit if you're not perfect. And if you get sick and have to miss a day, or I don't know, don't feel like taking a selfie one day. Okay. To be clear, I didn't say all of that to him, but I was thinking it. And now that I'm thinking about it, we might've even had this

conversation on a day where I didn't get my full eight hours of sleep. And now you know why I'm so committed to my sleep. Do I hate the 75 hard challenge? Yes, I do. Because I'm concerned that diets create unhealthy relationships with food. For most people, working out an hour and a half every single day is excessive. It's uncompromising and life is just full of compromises. It asks for perfection and it's not sustainable. I'd be more excited at this stage in my life about a 75 gentle approach, but I don't hate it for you

or for anybody it helps. If it's a desire of yours, go for it. And I pray you have a more supportive spouse than Jay does. Ultimately, if it helps you, then I love it for you. I just don't love it for me. But let me remind you, you can do that and any other program without trying to convince everyone else around you that they need to do it too. And if somebody doesn't care to do it, they are not mentally weak. And you can take pictures without posting them. And the same goes for cold plunges, by the way. And I happen to like the cold plunge trend. We're even going to add one into our backyard, but I'm crystal clear. It's not for everyone. Okay. Now that I'm saying all this out loud, I'm pretty glad I didn't start with this book. I might have pissed a lot of people off and I might be doing that now. But let me just throw one more out there that was on my initial list to a legal day of labor. And that was to protect

workers' safety and sanity from having to work more hours than that. In 1940, the Fair Labor Standards Act was amended to reduce the workweek to 40 hours. Again, done to protect workers. But here is the real pickle we find ourselves in with the 40-hour work week. First, it was not then, nor is it creates efficiencies that could not have happened, could not have existed back then. So how is it possible that we can do just about everything faster today, but we still need the same amount of hours to do it in? And the research that has been done shows that people are actually more productive when they work less hours. They make fewer errors. They tend to work harder. They're more focused. They waste significantly less time. If you want to dig into this more, check out the research Adam Grant has done. He says about testing the 32-hour

workweek, and I quote, every performance-related outcome we can measure is either sustained or improved. So this 32-hour workweek could be a four-day workweek, but the data also shows that people would actually prefer to have a little more control to decide when they're working those 32 hours. And obviously, whenever I look at things like this, my lean is always to think about women. So imagine for just a second that you are a working mom and you get to decide to end your day at three o'clock in the afternoon, Monday through Friday. And not only are you not punished and you don't lose any income and you're not made to seem like you're less committed, you are actually just as, if not more productive at work. Or maybe you're not a mom and you just prefer to take Fridays off or Mondays and again, be just as

productive. How is this possible? You might be thinking, well, the real question is how is it not? Again, computers, internet, AI, machines, we damn well better be more efficient than we used to be. And again, it's backed by science. One study shows that the average office worker is only actually productive for two hours and 23 minutes each day. A different study shows seven and a half hours a week are being spent browsing social media at work. 91% of people admit to daydreaming during their meetings. And 60% of all online purchases are being made during working hours. We may have a 40-hour work week, but most people aren't working during their 40 hours. And we still get the pretty consistent messaging that we should be working more, longer, and harder. This is purely anecdotal, but at my Fortune 100 finance firm,

I was working 60 hours or more a week for my first several years. And I'll be up front and sharing that I do think hard work contributed to my success, but mostly because it was expected of me. It was a measurement of success. It was part of the culture. And as I got older, and especially after having JJ, I tried to stick to a 40-hour work week. And guess what? I was just as productive, if not more so. And more of the people around me were being elevated because I wasn't hoarding all the important work to myself. And now that I'm on my own, I make far more than I did as an executive and I work about 25 hours a week. But when I work, I work. I'm focused, clear, committed, and I take risks. Over the few months surrounding my book launch, I went back to working

a lot of hours. And I can say without a shadow of a doubt that while I did a lot of stuff and checked a lot of boxes, I wasn't focused or clear. I was a hot mess and I didn't make a single penny more during all that time. And of course, there are some jobs that require more hours. In my experience, and I would venture a guess that most entrepreneurs or business owners would say the same, you often do need to put in more time when you're new at something or when you don't yet have the resources to buy the help or leverage other people the way you might need. Most business owners I know work harder in the beginning, but if you're still working just as hard in your established business as you were in your new one, you might have to ask yourself if you're just addicted to the work. Bottom line, in today's day and age, many of us have the ability to increase our effectiveness and our efficiency, which should lead to the need for less effort. If it doesn't, you're probably doing it wrong. And if you can do something faster and better,

and there's somebody out there still only focused on the effort or the hours that you put in, and I don't think they really understand how achievement actually works. And the last thing I'll say here, at the time the 40-hour work week was established, it was beyond common that the man would go to work and the woman would take care of the home and raise the children. It was never designed with women in mind. It was designed with the idea that someone's full-time job would be inside the home. So if you're wondering why you can't seem to get it all done while working that full-time job in today's day and age, the answer is you were never meant to, regardless of your gender. What other success principles drive you nuts?

What other maybe more masculine approaches to business aren't serving you? And what one-size-fits-all approach is being shoved down your throat? Because let me be clear, the only thing I'm trying to shove down your throat is to trust yourself, which let me state for the record is also not a one-size-fits-all solution. If you have mental illness, for example, there may be times or situations where you can't or shouldn't trust yourself. If you're being or have been abused and manipulated or have experienced trauma, you might need to do different work first, get therapy before you can even begin to think about confidence. If you're trying something totally new and you don't have the first sweet clue what

you're doing, you might need to trust that you'll figure it out over time. But in the meantime, you need to listen to the others around you. And maybe if you've made a string of not so great decisions in an area of your life, trusting yourself might look like getting support from a coach or a therapist or some outside source while you work to reestablish and reconnect to that trust. While confidence is my passion, I hope I never send the message that there's only one way to achieve it or that I would ever make you feel bad or less than if my message about confidence doesn't speak to you or it doesn't feel right for you. So I'm gonna close us out by sharing

what I think 75 gentle might look like. Move your body. Every day you're physically able. Breathe in fresh air. Choose to be grateful for something. Drink water. It doesn't have to be a gallon. Half your body weight might be great or

just more than you normally do because progress is progress. Carve out some time every day to do something that fills your cup, gives you energy, or reminds you what's important. And if you miss any one of those things on any day, give yourself some grace. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and move forward towards what matters. If that's of any interest to you, let's give it a try. That doesn't feel right or true or good for you right now. Well, then fuck it.

You're the decider because that is woman's work.