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My name is Boysie Gordon, and welcome to Boysie Talks Business.
In today’s episode, we’ll talk about the importance of the critical path! But first, I want to rant about burnout and sustainability.
I personally have a mixed opinion on these topics.
People tell me all the time, “Oh, don’t work so hard!” “Focus on sustainability!” “You’ll burn yourself out!”
And when I hear people start saying that, I start smiling.
Why?
Because I know I am entering the domain of the 5%
The Domain of the 5%
To understand this concept, you have to understand one thing.
Out of everyone in the world (100%), only 5% actually achieve their dreams
What does this mean?
95% of the world never fulfills their dreams.
Society will always perceive outliers as dangerous or risky. And most members of society are actually looking to help you when they give their advice. They don’t want to see you crash and burn.
But success, in itself, is an outlier.
And risk is subjective to the perspective.
What’s the difference between:
Default: Working for a company for 40 years to barely afford 15 years of retirement.
Outlier: Building your own business over 25+ years to afford to retire earlier.
Sure, in the 25 years of entrepreneurship, someone will fail plenty, but how many people fail at entrepreneurship and continue with it?
Most people go back to the default and don’t leverage what they’ve learned. Then, from the perspective of experiencing failure, advise against the outlier.
Even the people who tried to be the outlier return back to the flock.
Okay, and what does that mean?
There’s a 95% chance that the person telling me what to do isn’t qualified to tell me what to do.
So, if society isn’t telling me to slow down, I am not going fast enough. Don’t get me wrong, speed should NEVER be prioritized over quality.
But that’s the extent of the logic.
Go fast.
Learn from experience.
Ignore 95% of the planet’s advice
What About Sustainability?
Well, to be fair, sustainability is important, but it’s not what you may think.
I used to get burnt out fairly often over my 3-year tenure as CEO.
Once that happened, I’d stop to take a breather.
Maybe schedule some time in the gym.
This never helped me!
Shortly after returning from my breaks, I’d be burnt out again!
And this problem would continue all the way until I dissolved my company.
It was not until I started this personal branding/ business consulting journey that I figured out the solution.
Here’s the tea:
Burnout isn’t a sign of exhaustion, it’s a sign of misalignment!
And the key to sustainability is passion!
The whole time, my mind and body were trying to tell me my spirit wasn’t in it. Sure, the breaks and time away felt good, but it was only slowing the bleeding.
The real problem was that I didn’t enjoy what I was doing.
Now, I am energized by my work daily. There’s passion in everything I do, and I probably work more hours now than I did back then. I haven’t had a weekend off in almost five months.
Sure, I have lazy days, but I am working towards my dream daily.
Passion keeps me sustained, not some complicated routine or technique.
Follow the Critical Path
One of the first things I did once I pivoted into consulting was take a project management course. I felt like having a solid system for organizing client work would make my life easier, but I gained something even more valuable from this course.
I learned how to better organize the project that was my business.
There were many key concepts regarding timelines, task prioritization, project organization, scope identification, etc., but one concept resonated with me the most.
Critical Path
The critical path is the shortest possible timeline for a project's completion. It cuts out all the extra fat and helps lean down the process to ONLY what matters.
Staying committed to the critical path has helped me stay focused on my goals and is responsible for everything I have achieved so far on this leg of my journey. As I learn new things, I am going back and reflecting on my critical path to ensure everything is aligned…
Speaking of which, it’s time to update my path again!
Thanks for reading!
P.S.
If you want to work with me to help scale your online business, reply “scale,” and I’ll schedule a free strategy call with you.
Starting from scratch? I scale your presence.
Starting from experience? I scale your profits.
EP. 8 If You Take Advice From 95% of People, You'll End Up on the Default Path