JustinWise.net

THINKING DIFFERENTLY

Corporate Codependency & Other Things That Need To Go

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Going into the new year, I’m ruthlessly focusing that I want to accomplish in the year ahead. They all deal with elimination in favor of clarity, focus, and simplicity.

Sometimes you’re in a season of growth and expansion.

Sometimes you’re in a season of pruning and contraction.

Both are needed. Both are healthy. The trick is to figure out where you’re at, when, and how long you need to be there. Here’s a look at what I’m eliminating.

Negativity

I mean this in the sense that I literally don’t want to be around people who can’t see hope. People who are always negative, dwelling on the negative, who can’t seem to see the bright side in any situation. This is the main reason why we’ve virtually eliminated all news from our information diet. News thrives on negativity because it drives ratings. It’s not moral, it’s practical.

We all know negative people. It’s more than mere annoyance. Brain studies show that the more we’re around people, the more we absorb their habits. So it stands to reason that if we’re around negative people, we will absorb their negativity.

It doesn’t mean that I only want to be around people who never have a bad day. It just means that I choose to surround myself with people who have the ability to see the positive and not just the negative.

Overindulging

I define overindulging as “enjoying past the point of satisfaction.” This can be food. This can be television. This can be praise and admiration. Just about anything can be overindulged, so I want to find the balance between satisfaction and desire. Learning to know when I’m satisfied and letting that be enough.

Device Distraction

I’m practicing leaving my devices in the car at the end of the day. Leaving them there until the kids go to bed and the house is quiet. This is not only good for my relationship with my family, but it’s also good for my relationship with myself. It’s simply not healthy to always be on a device. Sometimes we need to unplug. To take a walk without a phone. To live in moments without feeling the need to capture them.

Corporate Codependency

Codependency is defined as doing whatever it takes to keep the client happy. Sometimes the worst thing you can do is bend over backwards to keep your clients happy. Sometimes they need to be unhappy. But we don’t want them to be unhappy because we’re afraid they’ll leave us.

Codependent relationships say, ‘I need you to be happy so I can be happy.’ As long as you’re putting forth a good product and you can lay your head on the pillow at the end of the night, everything else is a distraction. The good clients will respect your boundaries. The bad ones will take their ball and go home.

Sometimes you need to say to your client, “this is what we do well, and this is what we don’t do. If you need us to do something we don’t do, you’re either going to need to find someone else to do it or be okay not getting it done.” It’s knowing what you’re good at and saying yes to that and only that.

Fear-Driven Marketing

I’m working on marketing from a place of inspiration and not manipulation. Marketing is one part, psychology, one part empathy and, if you’re not careful, it can also be one part black magic. I don’t want people to make decisions based out of fear. I want people to make decisions based out of inspiration.

Doing Stuff I Don’t Want To Do

This is such a great litmus test. Derek Sievers says, “if it’s not a HELL YES, it’s a no.” I love this phrase. I love this posture.

There are some things in life you simply have to do that you don’t want to.

One of those is paying taxes.
Another is clipping your toenails.
Another is cleaning up your toddler’s vomit.

Most everything else is negotiable. In business. I started asking myself the question, do I want to do this? If I don’t, then I don’t do it. If I do want to do it, I jump in with reckless abandon. This is a great gut check, and a great way to make sure you build a business you want instead of building the business that bubbles up by the default.

Just Work Harder

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“Just work harder.”

For so long, those of us in the U.S. have been taught that this is the answer to all our problems.

Not making enough?

Just work harder and earn more.

Don’t like your job?

Just work harder to earn a new position.

Don’t have enough to pay rent?

Just…work…harder.

Hustle.
Grind.
Push.

But “working harder” doesn’t work anymore. Working harder worked when we leveraged physical activity for money:

  • Show up in the office and punch a clock, you get paid.
  • Show up to the factory and push a button or pull a lever, you get paid.
  • Show up to work and dig a ditch, you get paid.
  • Show up work and make 100 phone calls, you get paid.

Most of us don’t work this way anymore.
Most of us leverage knowledge to do our work.
Most of our work isn’t quantifiable in the same sense.

“Just work harder” is dying a slow death because it’s comfortable. Easy to understand. Simple.

Make more widgets.
Make more calls.
Spend more time in your seat.
Push more buttons.
Pull more levers.

But you can work ceaselessly and still not have enough money to pay your rent.

What’s required now is a complete rethinking of how and when and why we work. It’s about finding the right things to do, in the right quantities, for the right people, at the right time.

It’s complex and scary and FASCINATING, all at the same time. It requires a massive amount of personal responsibility to take charge of one’s own career.

Some will rise to the occasion and chart a path for themselves that didn’t exist 50, 25, or even 5 years ago.

Some will leverage what’s in their mind through code or media.

Some will literally change the world by doing in minutes what used to take 10 lifetimes to complete.

But most will opt to “just work harder.”

Stop Optimizing For Growth

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Most players in the digital business world are proudly anti-establishment.

We all got into this because we didn’t want to spend our lives sitting in cubicles, punching in at 9 o’clock every morning, and hoarding PTO for winter vacation.

But in our enthusiasm to “redefine business,” we’ve gone too far.

→ We hate email…so we manage our teams with a strange (and grossly inefficient) blend of Voxer, Slack, and Facebook Messenger.

→ We hate cubicles and clock-in times…so we work from bed at 10pm, with The Office reruns playing in the background.

→ We hate politics…so we hold back from building industry-disrupting empires that would require a full-fledged team.

→ We hate red tape…so we refuse to create basic SOPs, job descriptions, and business plans.

→ We hate management…so we hire pricey consultants and high-overhead agencies instead of hiring and training for a few key roles.

→ We hate corporate speak…so we bash, swear at, and make fun of our clients—and call it “personality marketing.”

I think it’s time we take back the middle ground.

I think it’s time we leverage our perspective, and distill lessons from corporate giants, lean startups, and modern digital businesses.

Look, this isn’t a trendy message.

It’s not gonna gain traction from any wannabe entrepreneurs, I can promise you that.

No one’s going viral for yelling “let’s take a more balanced approach to business development.”

No one.

But learning from a variety of business models, structures, and philosophies is the fastest path to sustainable growth.

And sustainability is my not-so-secret obsession.

  • I want to still own a business in ten years.
  • I want to maintain a 4-day work week, year-round.
  • I want to make more money next year than I’m making today.
  • I want to pay for my kids’ college.
  • I want to take my wife to Hawaii for our 20th anniversary (and our 50th!).
  • I want to enjoy my life, next year and next decade.

And that means, for me, that I’m optimizing for sustainability and peace of mind.

Not growth. Not agility. Not even scalability.

My two core values drive every business decision.

  • $20K mastermind? Nope. I’d have to work 45-hour weeks next month to recoup the investment.
  • 16 new clients? Nope. I’d be stressed about fulfillment, and I want to enjoy the holiday season.
  • $5K/month marketing agency? Nope. I can get the same results if I train a $20/hour employee for a few months.

If I was optimizing for the fastest, sexiest, scalable-est growth, those investments might make sense.

But they don’t make sense for me.

I want to open my inbox to zero client messages. I want to spend two days a week writing, reading, and recording my podcast. I want to sell an offer I actually care about, and deliver it profitably—without stress. I want to take Fridays off.

That’s success to me.

And I’m letting my choices guide me there.

My name is Justin, and I’m optimizing for sustainability and peace of mind.

What about you?

Change Isn’t Scary, Death Is

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When you want something new, you have to choose to DO something new.

And to DO something new, you have to BELIEVE something new…about yourself.

The Belief Is: I DO NEW THINGS EVEN WHEN IT IS SCARY.

The choice is scary.
Nerve-wracking.
Weighty.

But don’t confuse the fear you feel as a reason for inaction.

When a car speeds towards you as you cross the street, the fear you feel is natural when it shows no signs of slowing down.

Normal. Biological. Reflexive.

But to say, “I feel afraid so I guess that means I should just stay put,” quite literally, means death.

The fear is telling you to move.

So you move.

And you live.

The 3 Entrepreneurial Traps That Will Keep You Stuck Forever

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If you’re a true entrepreneur, you’re not made to do the work.

You’re the visionary.

And it’s impossible to be both the visionary and the tactician—they work against each other when one person is trying to fill both roles.

In fact, if you’re doing 50% or more of the fulfillment work in your business, you’re in a dangerous place…

…and if you don’t course correct, one of three things will happen (I’ve seen this a million times):

1.) You fall for the “just one more month” myth.

You tell yourself to keep pushing, keep grinding, keep pounding for just a little bit longer…and nothing ever changes.

Next year, you’ll still be getting up every Monday morning with a pit in your stomach, dreading client emails, endless deadline cycles, and constant “technician” work.

No amount of time management hacks are gonna fix this issue. Unless you simplify your offer and rebuild it for scale, you’ll always be stuck.

2.) You fall into “desperate delegation” mode.

You reach the point of burnout and throw together a team, in desperation, so that you can GET OUT of fulfillment mode.

The only problem?

You haven’t built the foundation. You don’t have fulfillment processes, onboarding automation, support SOPs, troubleshooting sequences, culture guidelines, or communication pipelines set up.

So, your default team culture is chaos, and your clients take the hit. Big time.

(I know someone who fell into this trap. Nine months later, they’ve fired their entire team, and they’re building their business and reputation from scratch, all over again.)

3.) You fall into a reactivity pattern.

You’re so DONE with fulfillment work and technician tasks that you start to make rash decisions. You kill offers, fire clients, and launch random new products.

You say things like: “I’m never taking on another done-for-you client again.” “I want to quit.” “I hate my business.” “This isn’t worth it anymore.”

The entrepreneurs that reach this stage almost always end up burning their business to the ground. They’re just too exhausted to keep going, and they no longer have the bandwidth for profit-focused rebuilding, intentional restructuring, or team development.

…

I’m guessing many of you fit the psychographics of a “true entrepreneur”—you’re strategic, creative, impulsive, self-directed, growth-obsessed, innovative, and idea-fueled.

I’m also guessing that many of you spend most of your days on technician-level work: responding to emails, working on client projects, meeting deadlines, tweaking your marketing funnel, messaging prospects, or managing team members.

And, honestly, for just a moment—I hope that you FEEL the pain of that misalignment gap.

Because if you don’t feel it (if you “suck it up” for so long that you go numb), nothing will ever change for you.

You’ll live out your days as a “good service provider” and that will be all.

Which, to me is a tragedy.

Especially when you could be:

  • dreaming up the next big innovation in your field
  • writing a book that rocks your industry norms
  • scaling your business to serve 10x the clients (and impact 100x more lives)
  • leveraging your creative energy to change the world
  • challenging accepted mediocrity in your niche
  • spending more time with your family
  • spending more time feeling HAPPY

If that resonates with you…

…what are you going to do about it?

How are you going to make short-term HARD decisions in order to free up your time, your energy, and your creativity for the long haul?

How are you going to release your technician identity so you can step into your true calling as a leader, and entrepreneur, and a visionary?

How are you going to rebuild your business so that it doesn’t rely on your checking your email every 2 hours?

Send me a note and let me know.

I’d love to give you some from-the-trenches advice.

Because I’ve been the technician, and I’ve fallen into all the traps before.

But I’ve also gotten through to the other side.

And if you’d like one-on-one support to make BIG changes in your business, we should talk.