Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Hala Taha: Keep Your Sanity While Scaling, How to Master Work-Life Balance and Banish Burnout | Productivity

Episode Date: July 26, 2024

Passionate entrepreneurs like Hala Taha pour their hearts into their businesses. But this often means working late hours and spending less time with loved ones, resulting in burnout. With smart strategies like regular therapy, solid routines, and task prioritization, you can channel your passion into productivity without sacrificing your mental health. In this episode, Hala shares essential tips to manage stress, boost productivity, and maintain healthy relationships while scaling your business. In this episode, Hala will discuss:  - The prevalence of neurodiversity among entrepreneurs - Maximizing your potential despite neurodiversity  - Why entrepreneurs need therapy - Hala’s best productivity hacks - How to manage stress and anxiety  - The three levels of listening to improve relationships - Recognizing and leveraging neurodiversity strengths - Techniques to improve work-life balance - Practical steps for developing daily and weekly routines - Affordable and convenient therapy with BetterHelp - Ruthlessly prioritizing tasks to maximize efficiency - And other topics… Try BetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com/profiting  Resources Mentioned: Betterhelp Full Webinar: Betterhelp Full Webinar: https://youtu.be/FB6Bw34GlPo Daily Hustler Huddle Tracker: https://youngandprofiting.co/tracker  Ruthless Prioritization Matrix: https://youngandprofiting.co/projectplan Find out what kind of ‘bird’ you are: https://youngandprofiting.co/bird  LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass, Have Job Security For Life: Use code ‘podcast’ for 30% off at yapmedia.io/course. Sponsored By:  Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify  Indeed - Get a $75 job credit at indeed.com/profiting  BetterHelp - Sign up for a webinar on mental health for entrepreneurs presented by BetterHelp at https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/8617213361628/WN_Kz-vBbxtSfSj_dUBywS8OA  Active Deals - youngandprofiting.com/deals Key YAP Links Reviews - ratethispodcast.com/yap Youtube - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ Social + Podcast Services: yapmedia.com Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com/episodes-new

Hey, appam. Today we are doing something special. We're going to replay a webinar that I did with BetterHelp called Keep Your Sanity while scaling. The webinar is really designed for entrepreneurs with neurodiversity like ADHD, but it's relevant for anyone, corporate professionals, freelancers, entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who just want to live better, more productive lives. We cover things like why entrepreneurs. are more likely to be neurodiverse and have things like ADHD and bipolar disorder and dyslexia. We also start to understand all the ways that entrepreneurs have more anxiety and stress than others and why that is.

And we also learn about how entrepreneurs are more lonely than the general public. We spend less time with our friends and family. We're more isolated. We have relationship problems. Then we go into ways to maximize your life, ways to build in routine. with your productivity. I give some free downloadables that we're going to put in the show notes

that are literally life-changing. So I'm going over strategies like the ruthless prioritization matrix and the Daily Hustler Huddle Tracker. These are two things that are going to transform the way that you handle your tasks throughout the week.

It is going to make you feel so much more organized. It is going to make you feel so much more centered and it puts your work and your personal life at balance because you're able to plan not only your work life but also your personal life in a way that's going to make you feel grateful and ready to tackle on the week and the day. And guys, this is going to be an interactive workshop. This is different than other podcasts that I've had. So you want to grab a pen and paper. You want to make sure that you are ready to work, ready to receive all this amazing information. The last part of this webinar is all about relationships.

So how can we increase our social capital? How can we dig the well with our relationships before we're thirsty, before we need anything? How can we listen better? Because at the end of the day, relationships is about communication. And when it comes to good communication, it's really just about meaningful questions and being a better listener. I'm really excited to share this with you guys. I poured my heart and soul into it. And by the way, shout out to our sponsors of this episode, BetterHelp, our sponsors of this webinar.

I usually put out my courses for hundreds of dollars and we were able to do this for free because BetterHelp sponsored us. And when it comes to weekly and daily routines, something that all of us entrepreneurs, especially neurodiverse entrepreneurs need to keep us on track, weekly therapy is going to be a game changer. As entrepreneurs, we often feel like we can't show any weakness. Again, we've got these stakeholders, employees, families, customers, investors, we've got to make sure we look strong. And often that means we're not really sharing about our mental health because we don't have anybody to share it with. And BetterHelp allows you to speak with a third party that's not going to judge you.

That's not one of your customers or clients or somebody who you employ. And so it's a safe space for entrepreneurs. And you don't want to DIY your mental health, young, and profiter. So if you want to try BetterHelp, go to BetterHelp.com.com for 10% off your first month. Again, that's BetterHelp.com slash profiting for 10% off your first month. All right, guys, I'm so excited for this webinar. Let's jump right in.

Let's start off discussing the entrepreneurial mind. A little game here. What is the common denominator between all of these amazing entrepreneurs? So aside the fact that they're entrepreneurs, what do all these entrepreneurs have in common? Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Barbara Corkeran, Jenna Coochard, and Damon John. All right, we got a lot of answers. Took action, growth mindset, bold, creative, commitment, had vision, entrepreneur, their go-getters, think differently, brave, ADHD,

highly experienced, continuous learning, smiles. Some people got it partially right, but nobody got it right yet. All right. Let's get the answer up. Some else got it. They are all highly successful neurodivergent entrepreneurs with mental health conditions like ADHD, dyslexia, bipolar disorder, and or autism. And guys, some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world were brought about by neurodivergent founders.

This is becoming more and more of a thing. As people do research on entrepreneurs, they're realizing that so many entrepreneurs have neurodivergence. So let me just go back to this slide really quick. And almost all of these guys have ADHD. The only one that doesn't have ADHD is Elon Musk. Elon Musk and Bill Gates have Asperger's, which is the type of autism. Richard Branson and Barbara Corcoran have ADHD and dyslexia. Okay.

So entrepreneurs often have one neurodiversity or even more than one. So Aristotle has this great quote that no great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness. When you think about entrepreneurs, they're typically highly creative, right? Creativity is also associated with mental health conditions. A lot of famous artists had mental health conditions. So love this quote because it's super relatable. And just to have the data back this up, almost half of entrepreneurs suffer from a mental health condition. So 49% of entrepreneurs have a mental health condition compared to non-entrepreneurs where just 32% of them have a mental health condition. So according to a study by researchers of the University of California, the types of

mental health conditions that make up this 49% are ADD, ADHD, depression, anxiety, dyslexia, addiction, and bipolar disorder. Those are the primary conditions that a lot of entrepreneurs have. And if we break this down even further, this is another study. There's been many studies about this. And like I said, it's becoming this trend that's starting to bubble up. 29% of entrepreneurs have ADHD compared to just 5% of the general population. 30% of entrepreneurs have depression compared to just 15% of the population. 11% of entrepreneurs have bipolar disorder compared to just 1% and 12% of entrepreneurs have addiction compared to just 4%.

Why do entrepreneurs have these mental health conditions? So when it comes to things like stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, a lot of it is just because they're an entrepreneur, right? It's hard being an entrepreneur. There's stress. There's uncertainty. You're working the loan. There's social isolation. There's so much pressured for stakeholders and clients and you're bored and whatever it is. And there's also barriers to mental health resources because a lot of us don't have insurance. If you're a freelancer or a solopreneur, I just rolled out insurance to my company like three months ago. A lot of us don't have insurance yet because we're startups. And a lot of us are few

using our identity with our company. And we are our work. And so any sort of negative thing or failure that happens, we are really down on ourselves because we believe that we are our work and we have to work on creating identities outside of being an entrepreneur. And then the last one is really interesting. Our neurodiversity also makes us more likely to become entrepreneurs. We didn't necessarily fit into the mold of traditional corporate world. For example, ADHD people are always late. ADHD people might miss deadlines, but they've got amazing strengths, like the ability to hyperfocus and being extremely innovative, right?

So a lot of the strengths of neurodiversity across ADHD autism, bipolar disorder, are really similar in terms of it's hyperfocus, its innovation, it's being able to problem solve, and all of those things make us good entrepreneurs. So a lot of us are just predisposed to become entrepreneurs eventually because we don't fit into corporate. Okay? So let's talk a little bit about, I've been throwing out the word neurodiversity. A lot of you guys may not have heard of this word yet.

So let's talk about the difference between being neurotypical and the difference between being neurodiverse. So neurotypical refers to how a brain typically functions. And because it's the most common way for people to think, this is what shapes all of our cultural norms, our society. This is why everything is based on being an early bird going to work nine to five. This is why being on time is just as important as the quality of work that you do when you work a job, right?

Neur divergence is really referring to the natural differences in brain function amongst individuals with autism, ADHD, dyslexia, and bipolar disorder. And the whole concept of neurodiversity is that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways. And there's really no one right way of thinking, learning, and behaving. And so, for instance, ADHD, it's not a disorder. It's not a dysfunction. It is a unique way of thinking. It is a unique way of being.

And there's lots of strengths that come about it. I wouldn't want it any other way. The reason why I'm such a successful entrepreneur with a company that's on track to make 10,000. million dollars in 2024 is because of my ADHD superpowers. I'm proud to have it because I'm different and that's okay. And there's no right or wrong, of course, neurotypical people are very successful. Norodivergent people can be very successful. There's no right or wrong way of thinking. Do you think? By the way, I'm undiagnosed ADHD and I have an ADHD coach and everything like that, but I'm token ADHD, ADHD, the inattention

type. And if you don't know, we're going to go through some of the symptoms. How do you know? Because as you're going to learn in a bit, something like ADHD is really a spectrum. You can have a little bit of ADHD. You can have a lot of ADHD. It's a spectrum. Society favors neurotypical workers. Okay, I alluded this to this already, but school, the way that school is set up, the way that companies are set up, they're really for people who can maintain sustained, effortful focus and attention to repetitive, low stimulation tasks. Whereas neurodiverse people really have a hard problem working on things that they don't have personal interest in. They have really low self-control in general, especially people with ADHD. And many traditional

jobs require patience, persistence, organizations, self-discipline, and the ability to work towards delayed or abstract rewards. So let's talk about the good news, right? As neurodivorough virgin entrepreneurs, we are working with our brains and not against our brains. We essentially get to lean into all of our strengths. People are neurodiverse. Like I mentioned, they're innovative, they're problem solvings. They have high creativity. Also, we don't like being put in a box. We don't like this traditional structure. Some of us stay up really late. Like, I'm a night owl, guys. I can't fall asleep until 1 a.m. I'll be working until 1 a.m. I worked on this presentation on Monday till 3 a.m.

Because I get my best creative work done super late at night and hyperfocus at night. And so everybody's different. And being an entrepreneur allows us to lean into these really flexible work lives and do the best work that we do personally. And by the way, neurotypical colleagues make the best co-founders and executive teams. So even if you're neurotypical, that doesn't mean you can't be an entrepreneur. that might mean that you would team up with an innovator like me and become a co-founder. So, for example, Kate on the call is my business partner.

I created the idea of YAPMedia and innovated it. And now she helps me manage it and operates it. And I believe she is neurotypical. And she has all the strengths that I don't have. And so we work as such a great team. So even if you're neurotypical, that doesn't mean you can't be an entrepreneur. It just means that you might not be the one inventing something or continue. continually inventing something and problem solving, but you might be the one organizing and handling

all the operations and the finances and things that neurodiverse people may not want to do, okay, or may not be good at. So let's talk about ADHD and entrepreneurship. Just some quick stats. People with ADHD are 60 to 80 percent more likely to have entrepreneurial intentions than others, and they're two times more likely to start a business. So cool that it just happens to be what people with ADHD end up doing. So we want autonomy, achievement, those kinds of things. So let's get into ADHD and entrepreneurship. What is ADHD? It affects executive functioning, which is memory, attention, organization. These are typically the cognitive abilities needed to achieve goals. And there's three types of ADHD. There's the inattentive kind. That's when you have

difficulty paying attention. You're forgetful. You're easily distracted. There's the hyperactive kind. you're fidgety, you're talkative, you're impatient, and then there's a combined kind. You have symptoms of both. So, for example, I have the inattentive kind. Now, one thing I want to know is that ADHD, and this is becoming more and more of a common ideal, is that it's really a continuum.

It's really a spectrum. People have varying amounts of ADHD. I remember I talked to one of the most famous brain experts and psychologists in the world, Dr. Daniel Amen, on my podcast. And I asked him in ADHD, question and his response to me was everyone has ADHD. It just depends how much you have it. Okay. And he's like an expert on ADHD. And that was mind blowing for me because I was like,

oh, that's so interesting because I've got a business partner, Jason, for example, who's kind of like a mix of me and Kate. He's got neurotypical things about him. And then he's got a lot of stuff similar to me. That's neurodiverse. And I never really knew what he was. And it makes sense because it's all a spectrum. You might have some qualities, a little bit of ADHD. and there's other mental conditions that are like this too, like anxiety, depression. It's all sort of like a spectrum. How much are you deviated from the norm? So ADHD is not really a thing that you have or don't have.

That's becoming more and more of a common thought out there. So ADHD in the workplace, poor time management skills. This is why we don't fit in in corporate, chronic lateness, missed deadlines, difficulty completing mundane repetitive tasks that are not a personal interest. What happens if you try to do a repetitive task is you keep multitasking because you're just bored, you get distracted. Also, difficulty with relationships, which we're going to talk about later. Difficulty getting along with managers and colleagues sometimes because you have emotional outputs is really hard to control your emotions when you have ADHD. Okay.

So here are some signs that you have ADHD based on the two different kinds. So hyperactive is you fidget, excessive talking, you interrupt others. so you have lack of impulse control. Inattention, ADHD, you might have trouble with organization, especially with things you don't care about. So, for example, I might be organized in something I care about, like a project. But if it's something I don't care about or it doesn't matter or no one's seeing it or judging me on it, I'll be disorganized.

Forgetting instructions, losing track of time, being late, forgetful, misplaces and loses things, not listening well or paying attention. You might have a doomsday pile, like one of your drawers just has like a bunch of crap and you don't even know what's in it. That's like an ADHD symptom. Trouble concentrating on repetitive work, emotional outbursts, poor emotional response, leaving some tasks unfinished, especially if you're not interested in it. Another symptom is you buy things and you already have them.

I'll have like eight contact solutions even though I'll go to the store and buy more because I'll forget that I have them. and that's the symptom of it not remembering what you have. So let's talk about some neurodiversity superpowers. Okay, what are the superpowers of ADHD, autism, bipolar disorder? So ADHD superpowers, like I mentioned before, I'm so happy I have ADHD because I feel like it makes me uniquely me. And I think very differently from other people and I have strengths that make me unique and successful. high energy, alertness, full of ideas and innovative, strong problem-solving abilities,

risk-takers, we take proactive leaps of faith, we can hyper-focused and do intense work for long periods. Guys, when I'm focused, I feel like I get four hours of work done in 10 minutes. I can really get things done fast. I just might procrastinate until the last minute. resilient and resourceful, ability to see opportunities that people don't see, comfortable and chaos, highly curious, more likely to be optimistic, which is also why people with ADHD tend to be late. We often think we have more time than we do, and we're just optimistic about how much it's going to take to complete a task. So very optimistic, okay? Always remember that your weaknesses can also be your greatest strengths. All right, autism spectrum disorder,

very different superpowers. Again, this is something that is on a spectrum. They literally call it autism spectrum disorder. Some of the most famous entrepreneurs in the world like Bill Gates and Elon Musk have Asperger's, a type of autism. So higher rates of giftedness. People with autism often are really good at mathematics, music, art, okay? The ability to focus really well, attention to detail. I have two employees at, yeah, that are on this spectrum. My favorite. employees. They are so motivated. They are so skilled and gifted in their specific area. They get obsessed with being the best they possibly can and the thing that they're experts on. They never make a mistake. They are doing lots of QA type stuff. And they don't get bored with really

repetitive work. It's stimulating for them. They like it. They like being sort of perfect. Such a good thing that you need in a business is people who are good at really repetitive attention to detail tasks, right? very strong work ethic, very loyal, enhanced memory skills, superior problem solving, really good at constructing systems and operations, and very good at pattern recognition. So again, lots of strengths. And if you're an employer, for example, you really want to consider having neurodiverse workers. You want to have people who have different ways of thinking in your organization. Now, bipolar disorder, this is really associated with high creativity and art. So some of the

most famous artists like Vincent Van Gogh, Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Chikosky. They all have bipolar disorders. So very artistic, very creative, high ambition, increased risk taking, tenacity. Actually, all neurodiverse people have tenacity and resilience because we grew up being different learning in school and traditional jobs that we didn't really fit in. And we had to learn to overcome those obstacles. So a lot of people that have neurodiversity, are resilient, they know how to adapt, they have tenacity and grit. That is also common across everybody with neurodiversity. Also, people with bipolar are really outgoing.

They're extroverted and they're really open personalities. So those are some of the superpowers. But our superpowers can also become our kryptonite. There is a high price of hustle. So I love this quote from Elon Musk. He says, running a startup is like, chewing glass and staring into the abyss. After a while, you stop staring, but the glass chewing never ends. What does this quote mean to you? What do you think Elon means by this quote?

Jackson, really good. Elon is telling you that there is so much that you do not want to do but have to do. The pain doesn't end even if you can clearly see the business. Yeah. You guys did really well with that. So let's break it down. Running a startup is like chewing glass. So really what he means here. And I watched a video where he literally breaks down what he meant. So as an entrepreneur, you're constantly in the know of everything that's going wrong in your business. You have the insider information. You know all the little things that are broken in your business. You also know all the things that only you can work on. It's things that you can't delegate, unfortunately. You're the only one who has the knowledge. You're the only one that can work on it and make it right. And there's all these things that are out

there that you want to work on. You want to innovate. You want to create new. You want to work on things that are fun, that you enjoy. But unfortunately, you have to work on the problems your company needs you to work on, not the ones that you want to work on. This is what chewing glass is. And if you're neurodiverse, the hardest thing is to chew glass. The hardest thing is to do things that you don't want to do because you want to have dopamine. You need dopamine. Your brain works differently. You can't just be okay working on things you don't want to do. So we need to combat this. This is what I'm going to talk about in the productivity section of today's class. And staring into the abyss, this is that you feel the pressure that your company is constantly facing extermination. So 90% of all startups fail

and 80% of them fail within five years. And what he means by chewing glass never ends and the staring into the abyss does is because eventually if you chew glass and do what you need to do, you get a foundation, you get some cash flow, you get some padding, you save up for emergencies, and then suddenly, even if something goes wrong, you're not going to face extermination. But the first two, three years of entrepreneurship is this, running a startup is like chewing glass and staring into the abyss. So that's what it means by this quote. So let's talk about why entrepreneurs are so stressed out. Entrepreneurship is full with uncertainty and unpredictability, market dynamics, financial instability, you always need to innovate. There's so much pressure,

constant decision-making, risk-taking, and responsibility for clients, employees, and stakeholders. Sam Altman has this awesome quote. He says, founders end up with a lot of weight on their shoulders, their employees, their families, their customers, their investors. And we have to make everybody happy. Your family wants more time. Your business needs more time. Your clients want cheaper prices. Your employees want more pay. It's hard to keep everybody happy, and it's all on. on your shoulders leads to some high stress. So what are you most stressed about right now in your business or in your job? What are you most stressed about?

Burnout, finances, clients, cash flow, financial instability, generating more income to fail, cash flow. All right. Let's talk about some of the dark sides of passion guys. So like I mentioned, one of the things that make neurodiverse people awesome is that we're like highly passionate, highly creative. But there's a dark side of passion. The more passionate about your business you are, the more that you usually self-identify with your business and you're emotionally dependent on your work, the more likely you're going to suffer from burnout

because you're working late hours, you're exhausted, you're not spending time with friends and family, you're not exercising, you're not eating right. And that's going to lead to health issues, stress, burnout, anxiety. In fact, 25% of entrepreneurs say they are burnt out. 95% of entrepreneurs are unsure of how to create an adequate work life balance. 70% of entrepreneurs feel lonely throughout the journey. 62% of entrepreneurs feel they're sacrificing their present lives for future success. Let's talk about why entrepreneurs are lonely. So first of all, working excessive hours and blurring the boundaries between work and professional

life. So we spend less time with friends, family, kids, 60% time, less time with spouses, 58% less time with kids, 73% less time with friends and family. We need to change those numbers so that we can be more balanced. On top of that, we're socially isolated. We often work from home. We often work by ourselves. When we're starting, we often have small teams. We don't have the same work balance where you go into the office and you've got 100 people you could become friends with. Also, if you've got neurodiverse conditions, you have it even worse. So, for example, somebody like me with ADHD, I have trouble paying attention to conversations. I'm forgetful of anniversaries and birthdays, and I've lost friends because they don't forgive me for that.

I'm late to events. I might have poor emotional response. If I'm upset, I can't control my emotions as much as I'd like to. It's something I always have to work on. And so that causes issues in relationships. people end up thinking that you're careless. Autism, bipolar disorder also has negative impacts on relations if they have their own things that happen.

Bipolar disorder, they get into these really bad moods. And so it's confusing for people that they have relationships with because they have totally different moods depending on how they're feeling. So knowing all this, how do we maximize our potential? How do we maximize our productivity? How do we maximize our relationships? How do we maximize our mental health? First of all, we've got to address the root causes.

So I'm just going to be really blunt right now. Let's talk about the top 20 reasons that startup fails. No market need, running out of cash, not the right team, getting out competed, pricing cost issues, user-unfriendly product, product-to-ad business model, poor marketing, and so on. These are the top 20 reasons, but let's laser in on the top three reasons. No market need, ran out of cash, not the right team. In fact, no market need is leading by lot, 42%. The next one's at 30%, the next one's at 20%.

And guess what? Everything is related to no market need. That's the main reason. If you calculate all of this, it's like 80% of the reason why startups fail or 90% is because of no market need, because no market demand is no money and not being able to afford or attract the right team. And so off the bat, if you're an entrepreneur and you're not working on the right idea, you are setting yourself up for bad mental health, bad relationships, bad productivity,

low self-esteem, all these things. You need to realize it's a dead horse and get off of it. And one of the biggest problems with not having the right idea is that usually the problem is too specific. There's no audience for you. Your target clients like finding a needle on a haystack. Nobody wants your offer. Something's wrong with your offer.

And a lot of the reason is nobody wants it, right? Your offer is not desirable to an audience that you can find in mass. So off the bat, you've got to work on the right idea and you've got to be honest with yourself. Am I just working on the wrong idea right now? Is there something I can be doing with my skills and talents where it wouldn't be such an uphill battle to get clients and customers? Can I make it less specific so that more people want it? Another thing is that you want to make sure you pick a diverse team. So neurotypical and neurodiverse people make the perfect match.

A lot of the times, if you're founding a company with others, it's like-minded people because you guys are all friends. But you've got to make sure that you're all different. Because if everybody is on the technical side, for example, nobody knows how to manage finances, create a business model, secure funding. You want a diverse team. And the other thing is because entrepreneurship is a lonely journey. you might really want to think about having a co-founder, finding a partner that you can work with,

and you guys have different strengths, right? It makes it more fun, less lonely. I got to say that I have so much fun being an entrepreneur because Kate and Jason, my business partners, are literally my best friends. I have so much fun with them. And I feel like compared to other entrepreneurs, I have like a really full life because I'm basically working with partners that started as colleagues and now have become my best friends. So before you give away equity and make things permanent, make sure you actually enjoy the people's time because you'll be spending a lot of time with your co-founders. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. At Yap, we have a super unique company culture. We're all about obsessive excellence. We even call

ourselves scrappy hustlers. And I'm really picky when it comes to my employees. My team is growing every day. We're 60 people all over the world. And when it comes to hiring, I no longer feel overwhelmed. by finding that perfect candidate, even though I'm so picky, because when it comes to hiring, Indeed is all you need. Stop struggling to get your job post noticed. Indeed, sponsored jobs help you stand out and hire fast by boosting your post to the top relevant candidates. Sponsored jobs on Indeed get 45% more applications than non-sponsored ones according to Indeed

data worldwide. I'm so glad I found Indeed when I did because hiring is so much easier now. In fact, in the minute we've been talking, 23 hires were made on Indeed according to Indeed data worldwide. Plus, there's no subscriptions or long-term contracts. You literally just pay for your results. You pay for the people that you hire. There's no need to wait any longer. Speed up your hiring right now with Indeed. And listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash profiting. Just go to Indeed.com slash profiting right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash profiting. Terms

and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed is all you need. What's up, Yap, gang? If you're a serious entrepreneur like me, you know your website is one of the first touchpoints every single cold customer has with your brand. Think about that for a second. When people are searching on Google, everybody who interacts with your brand first is seeing your dot com initially. But here's a problem.

Too many companies treat their website like a formality instead of the gross tool that it should be. At Yap Media, we are guilty of this. I am really due for an upgrade from my website and I'm planning on doing that with framework this year because small changes can take date. with my other platform and simple updates require tickets. And suddenly we're just leaving so much opportunity on the table. And that's why so many teams, including mine, are turning to framework.

It's built for teams who refuse to let their website slow them down. Your designers and marketers get full ownership with real-time collaboration, everything you need for SEO and analytics with integrated A-B testing. I love that. I love testing and making sure that we've got the best performing assets on the page. You make a change, hit publish, and it's live in seconds. Whether you're launching a new site, testing landing pages, or migrating your full.com, Framer makes going from idea to live site fast and simple.

Learn how you can get more out of your dot com from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at Framer.com slash profiting for 30% off a Framer pro annual plan. That's 30% off in 2026. Again, that's Framer.com slash profiting for 30% off Framer.com slash profiting. Rules and restrictions apply. Hello, Yap gang. I know my young and profiting listeners want bigger businesses and a better life.

And the New Year is the perfect moment to reset and commit to your growth. But let's be real. You can't build an empire if your finances are all over the place. That's why getting into it QuickBooks is one of the best first moves you can make this year. They've got powerful money management tools built right into their platform. And they have them for every stage of your business, whether you're a solopreneur or a small business. And I love that QuickBooks helps you get paid faster, pay bill smarter, and even gives you access to funding when opportunity pops up. So QuickBooks can help you with bookkeeping,

can help you with getting paid, can even help you with projections and understanding where your business is at financially. Plus, QuickBooks Money Solutions reduces manual work by half and keeps your money and your books perfectly synced. That means less time staring at spreadsheets and more time actually building the vision that you started with. That's the upgrade that every profiting entrepreneur needs. Start the New Year's strong, take control of your cash flow with QuickBooks Money Tools. Learn more at quickbooks.com slash money. Again, that's quickbooks.com slash money. Terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Incorporated, licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services.

Let's talk about developing routines. Question for you all. How often are you speaking with others about your mental health? Let me know in the chat. Some people are saying weekly. Some people said always, but like almost everybody is saying never right now. All right. Let me ask you another question. Why aren't you speaking to anyone about mental health? And if you are, why are you?

Why or why not? Not their business. Stigmas. No one cares. Too busy. Not everyone understands. No one cares about your mental health. Afraid of judgment.

All right. So we're going to get into routines, guys. number one, you want to start therapy. I use BetterHelp and you guys should really think about starting weekly therapy sessions. If you want to be a better entrepreneur, if you want to be a better person, a better husband, boyfriend, dad, friend, therapy is where it's at. We always want to talk about our mental health and especially as entrepreneur because as an entrepreneur, you have to create this facade that everything's okay constantly.

You can't even tell your business partners you're feeling down. You can't tell your employees how you're feeling. You need to have this confidence all the time. And it makes it really hard to share what's going on to somebody in your life. But a mental health professional is somebody that you can talk to in confidence, in private. I saw a lot of you guys saying like it's nobody's business, for example. So you want to make speaking with a mental health professional a regular weekly habit. So for example, I have a therapist Blair.

I meet her every single Sunday, no excuses. So you can talk about your fears or stressors without any repercussions. You can go to BetterHelp.com slash profiting, get 10% off your first month. BetterHelp is sponsoring this webinar. So shout out to them. So how does therapy help entrepreneurs, non-judgmental space to discuss your worries, broadens up your perspective and understands whatever role you're in is going on. So sometimes when we're so upset about something, we can't really see the facts.

We can't really understand the bigger picture. Also, integrating lessons learned from failures. Your therapist starts to get to know you, knows your stories. They're writing notes. And so they can remind you like, hey, this happened before. Is this some sort of a pattern that you need to work through? Helping you handle emotions, helping you handle conflict and avoiding burnout. because as entrepreneurs, it's often always about doing something for somebody else, doing something for your employees, doing something for your clients. This is an hour out of the week that is all about you. Your company will benefit if you take care of yourself.

BetterHelp is awesome because it's professional, it's affordable, convenient, and effective. Number one, it is so much more affordable than any other therapy that I've ever done. And I have to say that I tried therapy four years ago and it was maybe four, times as expensive. And I remember I'd always feel like thinking about, oh, like how much money I'm spending on this and is it even worth it or whatever. I never have those thoughts anymore because it is so affordable. It is worth its weight in gold. And it's the best therapist I've ever had. I feel like because BetterHelp has such a great company culture, they've got therapists that like actually want to be there. It's not a therapist that only has four clients, which is kind of

what I had before and it just made me feel like they just wanted to keep me as a client. Like I don't feel like a client to this therapist. I feel like their job is to be a therapist. And if I don't want to do therapy with them, there's somebody else who's going to do therapy with them. So it's not about like keeping me on as a client. It's like actually caring about my mental health. It's way different than any other therapy that I've ever had. And best therapist by far, really good training and things like that. It's also super convenient in the past when I had a therapist that have to like go back and forth on text. And it was like super annoying to try to find a time and it always has to be the same time.

I can literally change whatever time I want each week. I keep it on Sunday and I change whatever time I want on Sunday. And it's effective. You can do video calls. You can do phone calls and chat. I prefer to do phone calls because I like to like multitask and like clean while I'm talking to her and stuff like that. And then you can also look at classes, especially if you're like you're going through something

like a breakup or you've got something specific, they have all these classes all the time. If you like webinars, for example, you'll love better help because they just have like all these webinars all the time. So for example, I went through a breakup and I was like so upset. And I remember one weekend, I just went to all these breakup relationship classes and was just trying to make myself feel better by being around other people who are going through the same thing. if you want extra therapy and you want to do some group sessions, you can also do that. So that's just a little bit about BetterHelp. It's so easy to use.

Again, it's the best therapy that I've ever done. I never promote anything that I don't support. So if you guys want to try BetterHelp, go to BetterHelp.com slash profiting. You can get 10% off your first month. That is the number one routine that I would recommend to start off with is getting your weekly therapy sessions. So let's move on to the next routine, weekly and daily. prioritization. So you guys need to learn to ruthlessly prioritize and block out specific time to

complete tasks so you can focus on projects that truly matter so that you can chew laughs. You got to prioritize. What do you want to work on? What do you have to work on? And McKinsey found that only 52% of executives said that how they spent their time matched their organization's priorities. So that's not good. We need to learn how to prioritize. So Benjamin Hardy, who you got to get familiar with because he's going to show up a bunch in the presentation. He is an organizational psychologist. He's an expert on productivity. And he says 10x is easier than 2x. Sounds counterintuitive. How could 10x be easier than 2x? Because if you want to grow exponentially, you can't just do double of everything you're doing now. Could you imagine if you just doubled everything you're

doing now? You would just get burnt out. You can't just double everything you're doing. that's impossible. However, what if you leaned into the things that really worked? What if you got smarter about the way you worked? That's how you actually 10x. It's doing the 20% of the work that's going to get you 80% of the results. That's going to 10x your results. So the Pareto principle, you guys have probably heard of it, the 80-20 rule, 80% of results come from 20% of your actions. So when you really think about it, you've got to remember 10x is easier than 2x. You can't just double all your work. You've got to work smarter. You don't want to get burnt out. So the 80-20 rule, how do you waste your time by doing the wrong things? You're just not working on

the wrong things. They're counterproductive. By not doing the right things. You know what you need to do. You're just not doing it. Or you don't know what the right things are. By doing the right things in the wrong way, you're multitasking. You're not paying attention. You don't have the skills. deliberate practice. And also from not learning from our experiences. You might be doing the right things, but you're just never getting any better. You might need to slow down, pay attention. You might need to get some training. You might need to delegate, get a business partner, somebody else who can do the tasks more efficiently. It can do it better than you. So these are ways you might be wasting your time. Now, this is what I use every single week. And I'm about to

give you guys a free downloadable for a lot of stuff than I'm about to go over, which is pretty cool. I do this every single week, not only for my work life, but for my personal life. What is urgent and important that I need to do this week? What is non-urgent and important that I need to schedule for upcoming weeks? What is urgent and not important that I need to delegate or outsource? What is non-urgent and not important that I need to drop for now. I do this every single week for my work and personal life so that I can keep myself on track and make sure that I'm always doing the things that I need to do.

Now, every single morning, we do something at Yap called a daily hustler huddle. It's basically a mental health and productivity tracker. If you guys want to download this, it's young and profiting.com slash tracker. You can make a copy to download it. And so every single day, start off your morning. How do you feel today? What's your one word open? What are you grateful for today?

What is your business high, personal high, or recognition? Who do you want to recognize today? So for example, you might say, I'm so happy that we closed so many deals this week. You might say, I just learned how to make sourdough bread and it's really cool. You might say, I want to recognize Kate for helping me put on the Better Help webinar, right? What are you grateful for today this morning? Did you hit your goals from yesterday, keeping yourself accountable, making sure that if you need to reorganize because you didn't help your goals from yesterday, did you hit your goals from yesterday? what are your three to five work goals for today?

And what are your three goals for your health and relationships today? Okay. So again, as entrepreneurs, we're constantly deprioritizing ourselves, our own health, our own mental health, our own relationships. And this can be routine. So it might be go to my therapy session, go to my gym class at 730, make sure I spend time with help my kid with their homework. What are your three goals today for your health and relationships? And like I said, those can be routines. And what's your one word to close?

After you did this activity every single morning, which takes less than 10 minutes, 15 minutes max, how do you feel? Now, a pro tip, if you have co-founders, if you have a team, you can do this together every single morning. So for example, me, Jason, and Kate do this every single morning at 8.30 a.m. It keeps us aligned. It's like a gratitude practice. It helps us understand how each of us are feeling that day.

And by the end of it, we all feel better and ready to go. Then I do it again with my marketing and sales team. later on in the day. We do like a shortened version. One of the keys about being successful is actually knowing what you have to do. And whenever you have a project, you want to break your projects into smaller tasks. You want to chunk your projects, right? It's not enough to just have this big goal, create a website. It's not enough detail. You're going to get overwhelmed. You're going to procrastinate. You're not going to be motivated because it's just too big to tackle. You need to chunk everything down.

Also, it really just helps with really making sure you understand the project. You understand every single step that you need to take. I'm always telling my team, okay, you've got this project. What are all the little steps? I want every single little step that you need to take to complete this project. And guys, writing things down itself gets things out of your head. David Allen came on my show. He's the founder of the getting things done system.

and he taught me about open loops. If you don't write something down, it just stays in your brain as an open loop. It actually literally keeps you up at night because you haven't gotten out of your brain and written it down. So even just the action of writing it down de-stresses you.

So very important routines to start. Successful entrepreneurship is not sexy. And the vast majority of success as an entrepreneur is doing the things you know you shouldn't be doing but are, aka chewing glass. So I want to help you guys learn how to chew glass in a less painful way. So first of all, you got to learn how to say no. And you've got to get comfortable with saying no,

because behind every no is a deeper yes to what you actually want and need to do. If you could distill down focus, and I got this actually from Alex Tremozzi. He also came on my podcast. Focus is saying no to everything that is not what you said you would do. So you have this new priority matrix where every week you're ruthlessly prioritizing what is absolutely the things that I have to do this week. That means that if something happens during the week or the day, that is not what you said you would do, you've got to say no.

And through your head all day, you should be running this filter in your head. Is this what I said I would do? Is this what I said I would do today? No. Okay, no. I can't do it. I'm sorry. And it feels bad at first because we don't like to disappoint.

people. But you can say no with grace. And really you've got to remember that saying no is saying yes to yourself and your goal. So let's think about it for a second. What is one thing you're going to start saying no to? Other people's demands going out, saying you know to parties, gambling weed, junk food, alcohol, endless scrolling, yep, feeling pretty aligned. Distractions. Yeah, awesome. Let's get into productivity hacks. Steven Kotler's flow state. So I have a whole episode on this and at the end of this I give you guys some continued episodes for your learning. But the net net of flow state is you need to block off and schedule 90 to 120 minute chunks of time for uninterrupted time to complete your high priority tasks.

So it's very important to block off 90 to 120 minutes a day to do those things. that you said in your priority matrix that you need to get done today. And ideally, you want to batch similar things together. The other thing is you want to turn off distractions, right? Turn off your phone, tell your friends and family that you're unavailable. If you work from home, close your door, get focused, right? Another tip, Jason, my business partner does. He puts ear plugs in his ear. And that makes him pay attention more because even things like birds chirping can distract you. When you're a flow state, motivation, productivity, and great increases is 500% above baseline, creative decision-making spikes between 400 and 700%.

You can only get into flow if you're not distracted for 90 to 120-minute chunks of time. So you have to do everything to cut off distractions. Now, you want to task batch your calendar. You want to schedule everything. I know this seems ridiculous. When I first came across this idea, my friend Tim, who co-founded the company with me, did this. And I thought it was freaking insane. Now I do it and I'll never go back.

And it is the best way to make sure that you have time for yourself, your friends, your health, your business. And so that you actually do what you said you would do. You've got to schedule it all. It's not just for meetings. A lot of people treat their calendar like it's just for meetings. Calenders are not just for meetings. Schedule everything on there, your flow time, your personal time.

And the thing is that you can't multitask. Multitasking is not a thing. Multitasking is the myth. No such thing. When you say you multitask, I think like, oh, that means you don't get your work done. That's not something to brag about. Multitasking leads to 40% drop in productivity, 50% more errors. People who are interrupted and have to switch back takes 50% longer.

Every time you get interrupted, it will take you 20 minutes to get back in the zone. If you don't schedule the time to do the things you need to do, you'll never become the future you that you want to become. So schedule everything. Some of the things you might want to schedule is times to eat, times to shower, times to check email on Slack, time to get into flow, time to spend with family, social media, news, meditation, bedtime, bedtime, TV, entertainment. I don't watch TV, but if you guys have to watch TV, schedule it. Weekly prioritization, right? Usually it's Friday or Monday, spending time with your extended family, spending time with your spouse, date night, adventure time with kids, time for therapy, time for personal growth, time to spend on a hobby or charity, right? So you want to think about what are you scheduling daily?

What are you scheduling weekly? Think about it. Actually, plan out your days. And here's the thing. You don't have to be rigid. I change my routine like every month, every week even sometimes. I'll change like one thing around. You can change it up, but put what you need to do down in a schedule and stick by your schedule.

Okay. So another technique to help you chew glass. And this is my modified version of the Pomodori of technique. So I change this to add a reward. This is what I do to myself to get my work done. So you choose a single task to focus on. Then you decide on a reward you'll give yourself for doing it. So for example, I might say, I'm going to work on this Better Health presentation for 45 minutes. And when I'm done with it, I'm going to have a half of an ice cream sandwich. I love ice cream sandwiches, right? And I tell myself, I can't have an ice cream sandwich until I finish this 45 minutes. chunk. That's the thing that I changed. The regular Pomodora technique has no reward. I added a reward to gamify it from myself. You take a two to five minute break. You take your word and then you start the timer over again. You're still in flow. If you do this three, four times, then you're going to take a bigger break, the 15 to 30 minute break. So that's the Pomodora technique. Something else I want to

talk about is the times to get our work done. Daniel Pink breaks down the three stages in the day for most people if you're an early bird. So peak, our mood rises in the morning, best for analytical work. Truff, our mood declines in the early mid-afternoon, best for administrative work. So this is why people need like a coffee at 3 p.m. or 2 p.m. right? If you ever need like a caffeine boost, it's because typically if you wake up early in the morning, you feel really tired at this point. And then you get a surge of energy in the evening. And that's best for creative work, 4 or 5 p.m. So if you're an early bird, these are your stages. But not of all of us are early birds and especially neurodiverse people.

For example, I'm a night owl. Sometimes I have to be forced to be a third bird, but I'm a night owl. So there's three types of birds, and we're going to find out what bird we are. There's a lark, a third bird, or an owl. And it's all based on your chronotype or your circadian rhythm. So a lark is a morning person. An owl is an evening person and a third bird is somewhere in the middle. It's a buzzfeed quiz that literally takes two minutes to do, three minutes to do.

So again, take the quiz, young and profiting.com slash bird, take a few minutes. And if you score 80% on lark or owl, that is your type. If you have more of a balance, you are a third bird. So if you're a night owl, you're going to be doing analytical tests in the evening, whereas your lark gets the early morning. Admin tasks are mid afternoon for everyone, creative tasks. Owls do well in the morning. And I tried this and it really works. Like I'm so creative in the morning. Making impression, everybody's got to do it in the morning. Sorry owls. Making a decision late afternoon

evening for owls because we're not alert in the morning. Okay. Let's talk about temptation bundling. So I learned this from Katie Milkman. And she says temptation bundling is when you pair something you don't like to do with something that you love to do. It's a great strategy. So for example, Only watching your favorite TV show while you fold laundry. Only listening to your favorite podcast while you exercise. Only eating your favorite snack while you pay your bills. Only getting a pedicure while checking your email. Only scrolling your social media if you wake up by 6 a.m.

So temptation bundling can help make unpleasant tasks seem less stressful, increasing the chances of doing these tasks. The key is that you only allow yourself to do the thing you love if you're doing the thing that you hate. So the five-minute bundle exercise is basically in a two-column list. You're going to write down the pleasures you enjoy and the temptations you want to do. And in column two, you're going to write down the tasks and behaviors that you should be doing, but often procrastinate on.

And then you're going to write down as many behaviors as possible. And then you're going to want to link one of your instantly gratifying wants and behaviors with something that you should be doing. Some last tips for chewing glass. And we're going to get onto some mental health stuff is game of fire tasks. So can I finish his task in 25 minutes? One of my favorite things to do every morning to keep my kitchen and desk space clean is I play a game. Can I clean my kitchen by the time my coffee is finished brewing?

I do this with everything. Can I clean my whole house by the time this laundry is done? Anything that has some sort of timer, I'm like gamifying and like making myself do some sort of chore because otherwise it's really hard for me to do it. Can I read 20 pages of a book today? another thing I love is let's say you end a meeting early or you've got like a five minute break or a 10 minute break in between your next meeting. Can I do this email in five minutes before my next meeting? Can I call my mom in this 10 minutes before my next meeting? Right. So like if you

have little chunks of time squeezing in something that you have to do and saying if you could do it, also breaking your projects into daily challenges, you must complete to win the game. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Hello, young improfitors. Running my own business has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, but I won't lie to you. In those early days of setting it up, I feel like I was jumping on a cliff with no parachute. I'm not really good at that kind of stuff.

I'm really good at marketing, sales, growing a business, offers, but I had so many questions and zero idea where to find the answers when it came to starting an official business. I wish I had known about Northwest Registered Agent back when I was starting YAP Media. And if you're an entrepreneur, you need to know what Northwesternes. registered agent is. They've been helping small business owners launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They literally make life easy for entrepreneurs. They don't just help you form your business. They give you the free tools you need after you form it, like operating agreements and

thousands of how-to guides that explain the complicated ins and outs of running a business. And guys, it can get really complicated, but Northwest Registered agent just makes it all easy and breaks it down for you. So when you want more for your business, more privacy, more guidance, free resources, Northwest Registered Agent is where you should go. Don't wait and protect your privacy, build your brand, and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit Northwest Registeredagent.com slash Yapfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest Registered Agent at Northwest Registeredagent.com slash Yapfree. Happy New Year, Yap, gang. I just love the unique energy of the new year. It's all about

fresh starts. And fresh starts not only feel possible, but also feel encouraged. And if you've been thinking about starting a business, this is your sign. There's no better time than right now. 2026 can be the year that you build something that is truly yours, the year where you take control over your career. And it starts with Shopify. I've built plenty of my own businesses on Shopify, including my LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass. So it's a two-day workshop. People buy their tickets on Shopify. And then my mastermind subscription is also on Shopify. I built my site quickly in just a couple of days, payments were set up super easily, and none of the technical stuff slowed me down like it usually does because Shopify is just so intuitive.

And this choice of using Shopify helped me scale my masterclass to over $500,000 in revenue in our first year. And I'm launching some new podcast courses and can't wait to launch them on Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person, just like the millions of entrepreneurs that they power. You can build your dream story using hundreds of beautiful templates and set up as fast with built-in AI tools that help you write product descriptions and edit photos. Plus, marketing is built in so you can create email and social campaigns easily. And as you grow, Shopify can scale right along with your business. In 2026, stop waiting and start selling with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at Shopify.com slash profiting.

Go to Shopify.com slash profiting. That's Shopify.com. dot com slash profiting. Yap fam, hear your first. This new year was Shopify by your side. What's up, young and profitors. I remember when I first started Yap, I used to dread missing important calls. I remember I lost a huge potential partnership because the follow-up thread got completely lost in my messy communication system.

Well, this year, I'm focused on not missing any opportunities. And that starts with your business communications. A missed call is money and growth out the door. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled QUO, the smarter way to run your business communications. Quo is the number one rated business phone system on G2, and it works right from an app on your phone or computer. The way Quo works is magic for team alignment.

Your whole team can handle calls and text from one shared number, and everyone sees the full conversation. It's like having access to a shared email inbox, but on a phone. And also, Quo's AI can even qualify leads or respond after hours, ensuring your business stays responsive even when you finally logged off. It makes doing business so much easier. Make this the year where no opportunity and no customer slips away. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. That's QUO.com slash profiting. Quo. No missed calls, no missed customers.

All right. My favorite part of today's presentation, reducing stress and anxiety. This, I think, is the most life-changing stuff that I'm about to go over, that I was most excited to go over with everyone. So let's talk about Benjamin Hardy's the gap and the gain. Most people, especially highly ambitious people, are unhappy because of how they measure their progress. As entrepreneurs, we're constantly measuring ourselves on new goalposts. Our goals are constantly moving and moving and moving and moving. When I first had the idea to start a podcast, first I wanted to launch my podcast. Then I wanted to get 10,000 downloads. Then I want it to be the top 200 podcaster.

Then I want it to be a top 10 podcaster. Then I wanted to have a podcast network. And the goal just keeps moving and moving and moving. And if you're always measuring yourself against your future self, against this ideal that you have, against your top competitor, you're always in the gap. You're always thinking of yourself as a loser who's not there yet.

You're always thinking about everything that you aren't yet, right? So Benjamin says that we need to measure ourselves against our past selves. When we measure ourselves against our past selves instead of our future selves, now we're in the game. Now we're doing game thinking. Because think about it, you are so much different than you were last year, five years ago, 10 years ago, you've gone so far. So again, with my example, I'm a top 100 podcast.

Six years ago, I didn't even have a podcast. I've 1,000 X my progress since then. And that makes me feel really good and positive. And when you feel really good and positive, you attract more of that in your life. So measuring your current self versus your former self has enormous psychological benefits. But you don't want to stay there for too long.

You need to also think about your future. So if you want to be happy, if you want to be content, if you want to be not stressed, not anxious, is you need to have a happy past and an exciting future. That is the formula. You need to have a happy past and an exciting future. So let's talk about reframing your past. This is so important. You can apply the Pareto principle, the 80-20 rule to your past. Chances are that 80% of how you're framing your past is not really useful to you anymore. Your memory and the narrative of your past is actually not fixed. It's constantly under revision. And I talked to Laila Hermosie,

and she mentioned that a lot of your own memories aren't even reality. Like they've done studies where people don't even remember reality correctly. And your past is basically a story that you tell yourself, that you decided is the story. But you can change that story because your past determines how you feel and your self-esteem in the present. So you constantly want to be looking at the past with a gain mindset. You want to try to reframe your past and frame it positively.

How did you grow? How did you learn? The other thing you want to think about is that you are not your past self. Benjamin taught me this. And this to me was mind-blowing. I couldn't stop thinking about this because it's so true. You were literally not even the person you were 10 minutes ago, not even the person you were yesterday, not the person you were last week, not the person you were last year.

You have different experiences. You have different perspectives. You've learned new things. You are not your past self. You made a mistake 10 years ago. You are not that person anymore. Somebody hurt you. somebody broke up with you, somebody did you wrong.

They're not that same person anymore. So who are you even mad at? Who do you resent? They don't exist anymore. The past doesn't even exist, right? And it's up to you to think about what your past is. How do you go from it? I'll give you guys a quick story.

When I was 22, I got fired from an internship that I had at a radio station where I worked for free for three years. And when I first started getting interviewed on podcasts, I'd get asked about this. And I used to tell this story about how I worked for Angie Martinez. She kind of like abused me. She was really tough. She never paid me a dollar. Then she fired me.

She blackwalled me from the industry. She tried to crush my dreams. And I used to tell this story. And when I talked to Benjamin, I realized, why am I still telling this story? The story does not serve me. And if I can look at this maturely, maybe I wasn't ready for the job. maybe there was something wrong with me that Angie saw. Angie taught me so much.

The whole reason why I'm so good at radio and production now is all the skills that I learned from that experience. Maybe she thought I was ungrateful. And how much have I changed since then? I'm not even that same person. Angie's not even that same person anymore. So why am I telling this story and making myself feel like a victim and attracting more of this victimhood in my life? So I stopped telling that story. So a positive past sets you up for a positive future.

I want you guys to think about what is the negative story you tell about your past that you will start to refrain. We talked about past. Now we need to talk about future. So it's good to think about your past. Refram it. Have a gain mindset. Retell the negative stories that you have in your life. Relearn the negative stories that you have about yourself so that you can feel positive in the present and be able to be somebody who you want to be in the future.

future. So many people don't think about their future self. You assume you're going to be the same in 10, 20 or 30 years from now. I'm literally nothing like the person I was 10 years ago, nothing like it. Nothing like I'm a different person. You are going to be different than you think in 5, 10 years. You're going to be wildly different person than you think if you're intentional. So you need to remember you're never your past self and you're always growing into your future self. So what does that mean? You need to get clear and connected with your future self. You need to decide who you want to be in the future. And then you need to use that vision of the future to guide and direct who you want to be. One thing that we have as entrepreneurs

is that we tend to define our future in only the context of entrepreneurship. Even I was just doing it right now. I was talking about being a podcaster and how like that was all I was, right? I'm not just a podcaster. I'm a best friend. I'm a sister. I'm a lover. There's a lot of things to me. I'm a workout addict.

I have more things to me than just an entrepreneur. And it's the more things that make you well-rounded, that make it so if something happens in your business, you don't have stress, you don't have anxiety, because that's just one small aspect of your life. It's not everything. You need to start separating your identity from your business. I need to realize that your work does not define you. And that means you need to decide who your future self is in work and outside of work.

Who do you want to be? How do you want to become a well-rounded person? So this is where you guys bring out your pen and paper. We're going to do it together. So this is called the I Am, I should future you exercise. This is something I want everybody to do. So get out of pen and paper. Write a two-column list.

Right, I am on the top of one column, right, I should on the top of the other column. For the I am column, I want you guys to imagine yourself in five years. Write what you see about yourself, who you envision, who you want to be in five years in the I am column. So I am a loving dad. I am an amazing daughter. I am a talented painter. I am an accomplished skier. Whatever you want to be.

You're going to write it in the I am column. Do that first. Once you've thought about who you want to be. And remember, don't just do things about work. Do things about your personal life because we need to start to acknowledge the fact that we need to make time for relationships, make time for health and mental health.

Then you're going to write, I should. What are the things you should be doing now to be more like the person you want to become and think of it as a daily, weekly, or monthly task? I'm a loving dad. I should drive my son to school every day. I should spend 30 minutes every day doing homework with my son. I'm a talented painter.

I should take a painting class at least once a month. I should practice painting every weekend. Because then we're going to take those items as homework and put it in your weekly and daily and monthly tracker and schedule it in your calendar and become more of who you want to be because it doesn't happen by accident. It happens by intention. So I am column.

I should column. write down the adjective and persona, the thing you want to become more of, loving dad, loving mother, great sister, talented, penis, whatever the heck you want to be. And then what are the things you should be doing today in the present and think of it as a daily, weekly, or monthly task to do this. So really quick, we talked about the past, we talked about the future. Let's talk about our present. We also need to feel best in our present.

And when things are going wrong, it can be hard to just focus on your future self and ignore all the things that are going wrong. So one of the things you can do is practice self-distancing to reduce your anxiety in the moment. Ethan Cross taught me about the Batman effect. So thinking about a superhero, which really is the future you. Who do you want to be in the future? How would future you handle this situation? If you were everything you wanted to be and you had all the strengths and you improved as a person, how would you handle the current? moment. The other thing people say is to talk to yourself in the third person, talk to yourself

like a best friend. Self distancing gives you more space to think rationally, to think about the facts, and view a situation with less emotion, less passion, so that you can just think clearly. So you might want to think about who is your superhero. So for example, Beyonce has Sasha fears so that she can go on stage and be sexy and be an entertainer. And it helps because it's not you that has to perform. It's Batman. Okay. So that's a Batman. Now, if you are struggling with stress and anxiety, you're a perfect candidate to get therapy with better help. Not everything in life should be DIY. Therapy really helps with stress, anxiety, burnout, relationship stressors. It gets to the root cause of what's causing your stress. You really

don't want to do mental health DIY. This webinar was great, but it's not going to solve all your problems. And now we're going to talk about improving relationships. Last section of today. Number one, Jordan Harbender is one of my best friends. He's my mentor. And he taught me about digging the well before you're thirsty. Here's the thing with relationships. You need them. They're your greatest insurance. If your company shuts down. If you need a new job, if you need help, your network is how you get it. But the thing is, you can't just reach out to people when you need something. That's very transactional and people won't want to help you. So that means you've got to continually nourish and nurture your relationships before you actually need them. So you want to grow

your social capital by reaching out to people when you don't need them. One of the ways that Jordan provides value and is of service to his network is by introducing his contacts to one another. So he has this program constantly running in the back of his mind where he's identifying people's needs and finding somebody capable and trustworthy to help fulfill them. So if somebody tells him, oh man I wish I could figure out LinkedIn he'll be like oh I got the perfect friend Holla can help you and he's always sending me these emails hey I got this friend he's interested in LinkedIn do you want an introduction and he's doing these it's called double opt in intros where he's asking me do I want an intro he's asking them if I want an intro to get because

you don't want to necessarily put especially if somebody's like famous or something you don't want to put them on an email thread without letting them know also people are more likely to help me if you keep in touch before you need their help again you need a job and you've got some contacts that works at a Fortune 500 company. You haven't talked to him in six years. You go ask him for a job. He's going to be like, what the heck? I don't even know you.

Why would I recommend you for this? I don't even know you. But if every three months you're reaching out, you're giving him a helpful article, you've made introductions to him, you've just asked him how he's doing, then, oh, that holler girl, she's so sweet. She's awesome.

Of course I'll recommend you, no problem. So you want to think through what are all your dormant contacts? Because right now, you probably don't need anything from them. Perfect time to make a list of your dormant contacts and reach out to them. So go think back from your school times, from all your past jobs, from your neighbor's dad, whatever it is. Write down all your most important dormant contacts that you have

and get their contact information and start creating a plan to rekindle that relationship before you need them. Dig the well before you're thirsty. Jordan also has an awesome practice called the Daily Connect 4 method. And he does this while he's like waiting online in Starbucks, walking to the gym. He just does it in his free queue time, he calls it. So he basically gets four people from the bottom of his text messages, his social media DMs or email every day to reconnect and just see what they need.

And he sends them a very simple message, hey, it's been a while. What's the latest with you? So when they reply, it just kickstarts a conversation. it likely will lead to an organic opportunity to ask what they need to spot an opportunity to be of service. So this is called Connect 4. And now this is the last portion of today's session, and this is all about listening. Neuridverse people, especially for ADHD, I think one of the things that hurts us in our relationships is our inability to listen properly. And I think this impacts lots of people because we've just been trained to be selfish.

and we as people like to talk about ourselves. But listening is always about the other person if you're really trying to deepen a connection and to make somebody basically like you more and want to spend time with you. And there's levels of listening. So there's inward listening, which is like the lowest level. You hear what the other person says from your perspective

and you relate it to your own experience. So your friend says, I really love Vietnamese food. And you're like, oh, me too. or you say, oh, I never had it, but I like Thai food. That's inward listening. You hear what they say and immediately you're like, what's my experience about that? This form of listening helps us find commonalities and shared opinions.

It's a key aspect of likeability, but you're being very selfish in the conversation. You're not deepening your relationship. Outward listening is when you make it about the speaker and you relate to what you hear about what they said. So I really love Vietnamese food. Oh, really? What's your favorite plate? Where do you like to eat it? Oh, really?

I never had it. What's your favorite dish? Is it spicy? Is it not spicy? So you're asking them about their opinions and you're digging more about their interests and you're showing that you care about them because you're asking about them

and people love to talk about themselves. The last one is listening intuitively. So this entails not only focusing on the words a person says, but the tone of their voice, their body language, and even their energy. So, oh my God, I love Vietnamese food. Oh, you sound so excited about this. Do you want to go to Vietnam or something? Right. Listening to what they say and realizing that there's more to what they're saying, aside from just what they're saying, listening to their voice, their body language. Okay. So these are the three levels of listening. You want to practice getting up

the ladder, making sure you are doing at least inward listening. You are doing outward listening and you're listening intuitively. So we're going to do one game to close this out. and we're going to find out what kind of listener are you. All right? So one last game to close this out, and then we are done with today's session. So what kind of listener are you? Rate the following listening scenarios from 1 to 10, with one being most like you and 10 being the least.

All right? Let's get started. Rate yourself 1 to 10. Your coworker is telling you about how her boyfriend of three years abruptly dumped her the night before. You appear to be listening, nodding, smiling when appropriate, making those sad eyes when she tears up. You even interject the occasional, uh-huh,

but in your mind you're planning what to order for lunch. This is like so me. I'm like 10 all the way in this one. One means that you're not really like it, and 10 means you are like this. This reminds you of you. If you scored highly on this, you're a faker.

Okay, that's your listening style. You're a faker. On the surface, you appear to be fully engaged and what the other person is saying, but if they only knew you were thinking about your lunch, you're completely checked out and thinking about other topics when people are talking to you. This is like ADHD classic.

How to improve? You've got to be engaged. You got to ask questions about what the other person is talking about. This will help keep you engaged and make the other person feel hurt. The other tip that I got from my ADHD coach is actually staring people in the eyes and really looking at them in the eyes. And if you're on the phone, staring at yourself in the middle.

mirror because it makes you feel like you're looking at somebody else in the eyes. So ask questions, like make yourself pay attention because your job is to do some outward listening, what we just learned about, to ask questions to dig deeper, to keep yourself engaged, make the other person feel heard, make sure that you're actually paying attention, okay? All right, rate yourself one through 10. Your friend is telling you about a new marketing idea they want to pitch to their boss. You feed off their enthusiasm and start spurting out your own.

ideas. No need to wait for them to finish their thoughts or even pause to take a breath. You need to get all their ideas out before you forget them and your brilliance on this topic is lost forever. It's so funny how everyone's different, right? Some of these I'm like, I don't relate to at all. Then some of them are like, it's totally me. Okay, the interruptor. So no need to wait for the other person to finish their sentence. You've got something really important to say. You better get your thoughts out before you forget them. So how to improve? You've got to turn your attention away from your own ideas and switch your focus to the speaker. Try to understand their motivation instead of your own. Again, outward listening. Ask about them. Don't make it about you.

If you want to deepen your relationships and make people like you more, want to spend more time with you, care about you as a friend, you can't just be interrupting people and not letting them speak their thoughts. There's time and place for you to give your ideas, not when somebody is having their own idea that they probably spend a lot more time thinking about than you. Your boss is presenting the next team project. Everyone else is paying attention, taking notes, but you just keep wondering, where's his logic? Does this even make sense?

Why did she use that word? Your boss seems very excited about the new project, but her feelings are not important to you. You just want to understand the overall theme and logic of what she's talking about. So the logical listener, you can barely focus on what the other person is talking about because you are too busy trying to uncover the logic

and pattern of what they're saying. Where are they going with this, you ask? You often miss parts of the story because you're just searching for your logic. So you've got to get out of your own head and connect with the speaker. Maybe offer a compliment. Ask a personal question. Also practice remembering the information. It's okay to order it, but don't judge it.

So just listen before you judge. Listen wholeheartedly before you judge. All right, your significant other starts telling you about their crazy day at the office. But before long, you have hijacked the conversation. You had even a crazier day. You're sure of it. They won't mind you sharing your story. It's probably more interesting than their story anyway.

We've got a lot of high scores in this one. You're the Fisher. You listen to others while seeking out the perfect opportunity to jump in and show them how their story relates back to you. You often say things like, the same thing happened to me. Let me tell you about the time. How to improve. Fill that lull in the conversation with a question or clarification

or offer some words to show you understand their experience. Leave your ego out of the conversation and find other ways to feel good about yourself. Your son's teacher is explaining what she will be focusing on over the next quarter. While she's talking or thinking, what's wrong with this picture? I just know there's a flaw in her argument somewhere. I'm not argumentative. I just like a good debate.

You're just trying to figure out what's wrong with what she's saying. All right, if you scored high on this one, you are the rebuttal maker. You don't consider yourself argumentative, though you're always accused of being difficult. You have a knack for finding what's wrong with what other people are saying and you feel obligated to let them know about it. Look for the why of what the speaker is talking about rather than the what's wrong. Letting the conversation naturally run its course will ultimately yield the answer that you're looking for. This hopefully is eye-opening to make you think about like, oh man, I really need to stop doing these bad habits, right? All right.

Last one. Your coworker combines in the way that they're considering leaving their job to travel for a few months, but they're not sure if it's a good time. This is an easy problem, you think. Actually, it's not even a problem. I can solve this for you in no time. By the end of the conversation, they'll be set straight and much happier.

All right, we've got some tens, you got some low scores. You are the advice giver. You see yourself as a great giverate advice. You love to help other people with problems, even when they didn't even ask for guidance. You often don't even need to hear their full story to know what they should do.

You're just that good. Okay, this reminds me of Tim. Practice sympathy instead of problem solving, giving the other person room and time to find their own answer, will be better for them and for the relationship between the two of you. You may even get a thanks for listening. Nobody likes to be given advice when they didn't ask for advice, especially if you don't know anything about the topic.

You just want to listen, especially when somebody has a problem. Most of the time, they just want you to listen, okay, unless they explicitly ask you for advice. All right, guys, that is this session. If you guys want to thank me, write a review, a five-star review on Apple. If you guys felt like, man, this was an awesome two hours with Hala. Write me an Apple podcast review. Check out BetterHelp.

They are the sponsors of today's presentation would not be happening without them. If you got value from this, you're definitely going to get value from having therapy, being able to talk to somebody one-on-one every single week, make sure you avoid burnout, have somebody to talk to you that's not going to judge you. It is really affordable. You will be less stressed out and be more productive and be happier. It will make you money. Investing in yourself and your mental health is good for you.

It's good for business. All right, guys. Until next time. Bye all.