66. Beyond Hustle: Cultivating Sustainable Success Through Intentional Living

In this episode, Laura Sexton reflects on a coaching session with a client who exhibited an enthusiastic willingness to achieve their goals, prompting a discussion on balancing the cost versus the benefit, particularly during the intense phases of business growth. The conversation delves into the dangers of excessive hustle culture and emphasizes the importance of intentional focus and rest to avoid burnout. Through anecdotes and practical advice, the host encourages listeners to assess the cost-benefit ratio in various aspects of life and strive for a balanced approach to success and personal fulfillment.

In this episode you’ll learn:

.     Balancing Cost versus Benefit

.     Avoiding Burnout

.     Embracing Intentionality

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Transcript

Laura: 0:02

Hello and welcome to the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. I'm Laura Sexton, your trusted financial coach and money mindset specialist. Join me as we explore the world of money and money mindset while also paving the way for a lasting legacy that extends far beyond money. Together we'll eliminate stress, amplify freedom, and ensure you stop paying for your past so you can start saving for your future. If you're seeking peace in your finances, more margin in your budget, and a legacy that inspires generations to come, you're in the right place. Hey, accelerators, I just had an absolutely amazing coaching call with a client and I wanted to talk to you about something that came up for us today. 1 of the things we discussed today was balancing the cost. Versus the benefit. Now, this person is working to not only take care of their personal finances, but also working to grow their business. And sometimes when we're in the middle of this growth period, we can get a little short sighted. With the things that are right in front of us and forget to. Balance out what it's actually costing us to do the things that we're doing. So let me tell you a little bit more about what I'm talking about. This client of mine got a very, in her words, an excited sense of I'm willing. I'm willing to do what it takes to reach my goal. This is a wonderful place for you to be and most of my clients, we jump into, okay, I know what I want and I know how I'm going to go get it. I'm going to do whatever I can. Sometimes we talk about having this gazelle intensity. It's Dave Ramsey term where he talks about in the Bible. There's a verse that says, deliver yourself out of the hands of the hunter, like gazelle from the cheetah. The idea there is the gazelle is running for its life. The cheetah is the fastest animal on the entire planet and the gazelle can outrun it. Why? Because the gazelle is running for its life. The cheetah. Only has to catch the gazelle once. The gazelle has to get away every time. The idea here is to get really intense and run as if your life depends on it. When it comes to growing your business, life doesn't always depend on it. Sometimes it does. Sometimes business money is the only money you have coming into your family. You have to really work at it and make sure that you are growing and your life is happening. But what happened? Was that this person went a little too hard on the hustle, and I think sometimes we get a little confused with this idea of hustle culture where it's hustling, hustling, hustling. It's constant movements going, grinding, making it happen. That is the most exhausting language I have ever heard in my entire life. I don't want to have to hustle all the time. I hustle my kids out the door in the morning because it takes them 45 minutes to put on their shoes. We hustle at football practice because we have to be able to go in the game. We should not hustle all the time. Hustle should not be a constant state of being. Grinding should not be a constant state of being because what we're going to do is we're going to grind ourself down into nothing. We're going to hustle ourselves into exhaustion and that's not what we want here. The gazelle only runs when it's being chased and then it takes a break. Because it's not constantly being chased by a cheetah. What we got down to, this client and I, is that yes, it's important to hustle at the appropriate times. It is not appropriate to hustle during dinner with your children. It is not appropriate to hustle at night when you should be sleeping. It is not appropriate to hustle first thing in the morning. Those are not the right times for this hustle. Those are the right times for spending time eating dinner with your children. Those are the right times for sleeping. Those are the right times for getting up and starting your day intentionally and calmly. Now look, if you were the type of person that says my house is very quiet and right now I can open up my laptop and work, please do that. If that makes you happy, As long as you are not doing it from a place of need, it's a great thing to do. If you're doing it from a place of just constant striving, hustle, grinding, that's not the best way to start your morning. I say all this because, yes, we need to be striving, but we also need to know when it's time to rest. This is where we have to really look into the cost benefit analysis. What does it cost me? And what is the benefit? And if it costs me too much, or if the cost outweighs the benefit, that is not what we should be spending our time doing. Think about it in the debt payoff world. If what I am doing is I'm putting all of my money towards my debt payoff, because all I want to do is pay this debt off, and that's all I'm focused on, and I don't think about anything else. I'm just spending all of my money on this, but I forgot to put money aside to buy groceries. Then I've done the wrong thing. The cost does not outweigh the benefit. Being hungry does not outweigh having paid debt down a little bit. Say it another way. I have clients that sometimes get overzealous and they get a third paycheck in the month and they're like, yes, I'm so excited. I'm going to throw all this money at the debt, but they got paid on the 26th and they owe rent on the 1st. The problem there is, of course, that the money from the 26 was also meant to cover rent on the 1st. So, we got too zealous in what we were doing and we forgot to weigh the cost and the benefit. We have to sit down and think about where the striving is required and where the striving is required. overkill. I really believe that we need to be focused, but not intense. And if we can be focused, we can move forward with intentionality. Intentionality is so incredibly important, but if we get too intense, we will burn out. And this idea of burning out, some, some people say, Oh, you can't burn out. I just think that this idea of burnout is possible if we don't have balance in our life. Now you're not going to get burnout because you work too hard and you're going to work yourself to death. That's not going to happen. But we can get emotionally exhausted because we have all of our intention on one thing and we haven't balanced out our life. So while we're balancing the cost and the benefit, while we're weighing that out, why don't we also look at how we can be focused, but not overly intense. We can be intentional, but not intense. One thing that that can look like. Is working really, really, really hard when it's time to work and I mean, going all in sweat equity. Pushing hard during work time, but when it's not work time. We do something that's going to calm and quiet our mind. Here's my thought. If you have 5 minutes of uninterrupted time, like, you're waiting on the water to boil before you can throw the noodles in a dinner. Don't spend that 5 minutes working. Spend that five minutes reading a book. What that's going to do is it's going to allow you to focus in on things that calm your body and calm your mind rather than looking for the dopamine spike of having deleted another email or answered another call. I'm all for do one more. But not do one more at the expense of your peace. So the day is winding down, and you find yourself with a 10 minute pocket of time. Let your kid see you reading a book. Go ahead and pull a book out and see how far you can read in 10 minutes. Now, you may be like me and think, I can't read a book in 10 minutes, that's not enough time. Actually, 10 minutes of time is about the length of half of a chapter. If you take 10 minutes of reading time every day, that doesn't seem like a lot. But 10 minutes of reading time over the course of a year is 60 hours of reading 60 hours of reading. If you read for 60 hours, would you think that you've read a lot and what you've done by choosing instead of taking. That 10 minutes to answer 2 more emails, or make 2 more phone calls, or throw in an extra little bit of work that you can do during that 10 minutes you're choosing to calm your mind. By reading a book and you're choosing to either increase your learning or increase your calm by 60 hours a year. I don't know about you, but when I sit down and think, oh, my goodness, I read for 60 hours. That feels like a lot of time. That's like 2 hours a day for a month. That's a lot. This may sound strange coming from me. I want you to pay off your debt. I really, really do. I think your debt is holding you back, and I think your debt is stealing from your future. I want you to stop paying for your past, but I also want you to enjoy your life along the way. I think that's totally, something you can do congruently. I think that you can be focused, all in, and intentional about paying your debt off. I want you to work extra. I want you to narrow down your budget. I want you to focus in so that You get this debt paid off and you get it paid off quickly. But I also want you to stop and smell the roses along the way. I think a full, rich, abundant life looks like peace on a Sunday evening. Looks like getting to sit down and play a game of cards with your kids, because you're not so focused on work and 100 percent intentional at work all the time. I don't think that you can balance life. 50 percent of the time at work, 50 percent of the time at home. I don't think it works that way. I don't think you can do it in thirds. Sleep for 8 hours home for 8 hours work for 8 hours. I don't think life works that way, but I think life balance looks like being where your feet are when you're at work work and work hard. And get it done, bring home the money that your family needs so that you can stop paying for your past and start saving for your future. But when you're with your family, be with your family, be where your feet are. Is there something in your life that you need to sit down and weigh the cost versus the benefit? When I say that, is there an area of your life where you're thinking, yeah, I'm not putting enough intentionality there. I don't put enough intentionality of sitting down and playing with my kids. I don't put enough intentionality on growing my business. I don't put enough intentionality on paying that credit card off. I haven't been intentional about keeping to my budget. Did something pop in your mind when I said that is there a place where you need to weigh out the cost and the benefit? I don't know about you accelerators, but after having this conversation with my client, I've got a lot of things to think about because I certainly want to be intense when it comes to growing my business, but I want to be very intentional when it comes to my free time. And it comes to being where my children are, there are reasons to be intense and there are reasons to be intentional. You have to sit down and balance out the cost and the benefit. Sorry to give you some homework this week accelerators, but I would love to hear. What you're weighing out, and I would love to be here in case I can do anything to help you make that decision. All right, accelerators. That's it for this week. Go out and make a difference. Thank you for investing your time with us today on the Accelerate Your Legacy podcast. Remember, your legacy isn't just measured in dollars and cents, but in the tools, habits, mindset, and reputation you leave behind. Don't just listen to the show, but take action on what you've learned. Share this wisdom with a friend who can benefit and help us spread the word by rating and reviewing the podcast. For questions or encouragement, reach out to me on Instagram at Accelerate Your Legacy or explore the resources listed in the show notes. I will be back with you next week. Until then, build your legacy with intention.