#511: Pleasure-First Productivity - #Tashmas Day 2 - Tash Corbin, Heart-Centred Business Podcast

Full article and show notes available at: tashcorbin.com/511

Not only am I turning 44 this Tashmas, but my business is also turning 13 in June. I’ve been doing this for a while, and one of the biggest things I’ve learned along the way is how crucial it is to understand what makes me truly productive. Specifically, I’ve discovered that I operate best with “pleasure-first productivity.” If you’re curious about what that means (and maybe even want to try it yourself), this Heart-Centred Business Podcast episode is just for you.

PLUS there's a chance to win with this episode of #Tashmas!!

Let’s dive into exactly how I use pleasure-first productivity to get things done—and enjoy myself at the same time.

Wait… What is #Tashmas?

I do it for both my birthday (1-12 March) and pre-Christmas (1-12 December) every year! Every day from now until my birthday on 12th March, there will be a new daily podcast episode, with a hot tip or practical strategy as per usual… but you ALSO get a gift! I love sharing the birthday vibes, and what better way to do that?! The daily gift could be a freebie, a special offer, a competition… but there will be something for YOU every single day.

What Do I Mean by “Pleasure-First Productivity”?

Okay, before you picture anything NSFW, let’s clear this up: Pleasure-first productivity isn’t about anything sexual. For me, “pleasure” means anything that feels genuinely good and motivating. It’s that spark of excitement or contentment that can kick off my work, keep me going, or help me bounce back when I’m stuck.

If you don’t love the word “pleasure,” I get it. But for my brain, pleasure is the right fit, and you’ll hear me say it a lot in this episode.

Unlearning What “Productive” Meant to Me

Starting and growing a business has been a huge personal development journey. As time has gone on, I’ve realised just how much society, school, and the workplace conditioned me around productivity. I picked up beliefs about work ethic, showing up, and what’s “worthy.” For a long time, I thought being motivated by pressure, deadlines, or fear of letting people down was just how I worked best.

...read the full article at: tashcorbin.com/511

Join us in Noosa at the Heart-Centred Business Conference in September!

Find out more and secure your ticket at: tashcorbin.com/conference

Transcript

1:34

Not only am I turning 44 at the end of this year's Tashmus— it is my 44th birthday— in June my business turns 13. So I've been at this for quite a while, and over the years one of the areas where I've really feel like I've learned a lot about myself and what works for me is in relation to productivity. And something that I have discovered about myself is my need for pleasure-first productivity. So in today's episode of the Heart-Centered Business Podcast, I'm gonna share with you some of the things I've learned about pleasure-first productivity and how it works for me, just in case you might like to try it out for yourself. This is episode number 511, which means you can find all the relevant links and the show notes of today's episode over at tashcorbin.com/511. And because it is a Tashmas episode, there's a lovely gift for you at the end of today's episode as well. As well. So let's dive in to pleasure-first productivity. Hello, I'm Tash Corbin, a business strategist and mentor based on the Sunshine Coast in Australia. The mission of this podcast is to help heart-centered entrepreneurs to make more money and in doing so change the world for the better. This podcast was recorded on the lands of the Gabigabi and Jinabara people. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. By the way, I do acknowledge that for some people the word pleasure is kind of like the word moist, like they don't particularly love saying the word pleasure and it kind of implies a sexual thing. I will reassure you, we're not going into sexual stuff today. When I talk about pleasure first productivity, literally pleasure is one of the drivers of my, um, um, like motivation and productivity in my system and in my brain. So I apologize if you don't like the word, but I cannot think of another word that actually has the same meaning to the same extent. For me, it just feels like it's the right fit. So I'm sorry about using the word pleasure so much, but it's going to pop up a lot in this unit— in this, uh, episode. So just strap yourself in for that one, okay? Strap in. Anyway, okay, so starting and growing a business is such a huge personal development journey, right? And the longer I'm in business, the more I unpack the impacts that society, schooling, and the workplace have had on me in terms of who I am, how I treat myself, what I think is good work ethic, what I attribute to being worthy of respect and reward. It has had such an impact on how I think about myself and how I treat myself in particular. So it has taken time and a lot of action for me to get to this point in my productivity journey. Lately I have been a lot more open about talking about how I— really operate on a pleasure-first productivity system. And I have even been calling it new boot goofin', which is a term from Reno911. I shared the new boot goofing video like 6 times last year, and it's literally— he's coming out of the, um, store and he's like, um, uh, genuine emu skin, I think it is. And it's like, I got him at half off. And he's like, whoa! And he's just dancing around in his boots and he's like, don't mind me, I'm just new boot goofin'. And And that's exactly me, right? I'm a little treat-driven. I am so excited by that amazing rush of dopamine and endorphins that come from experiencing pleasure, whether that be buying myself a little treat, grabbing my brand new stationery and using it, or something else. And it has made a significant difference to my productivity. And this is quite a huge shift for me because I literally used to say when I started my business, I am more motivated by the stick than I am by the carrot. And I think the statement like, do you want the carrot or the stick, like, that comes from like horses and like— I don't want to think about someone hitting something with a stick, but I literally was saying I am more motivated by pain than by reward, than by a carrot, like literally a treat. And so I used to say that and reinforce that over and over again. Part of that is probably due to undiagnosed ADHD autism, part of that is due to the way that I was brought up, part of that is likely due to the fact that I was really trying to force myself to do things as efficiently and productively as the people I saw around me did it. And the people I saw around me were often very neurotypical corporate types who just seemed to be able to get things done. They would get a task, they would start the task and finish it early. They would work— set up a project plan, they would meticulously follow their project plan and finish it early or on time, whereas I would feel like I need to sort of muddle through it a little. I needed time to stop and reflect and think about things, and then I needed the pressure and the endorphin hit or the adrenal— adrenaline rush of a looming deadline and feeling like I'm going to be a failure before I would ever actually get started on something that I could hand in, something that I could produce. So when I think about assignments at school, it's really interesting because when I look back on it, the subjects that I really enjoyed, I didn't struggle to meet the deadlines. But the subjects where the task was onerous, even if it was something that I enjoyed— like, I really loved chemistry, but I hated whenever we did a chemistry project and we had to come up with our experiment, our hypothesis, and then we had to do a bunch of, like, data tracking and then all the data analysis. That part just felt like literally sometimes watching paint dry. And so I found it so disengaging that I would leave those things to the last minute. Or if I had to do a modern history, um, report, part of the reason why I didn't really enjoy that was because and my modern history teacher didn't like anyone looking at history through a new lens. Everything just that was happened was happened, and it happened exactly as it was reported in the textbooks. And, um, little burgeoning feminist Tash would get very frustrated that there weren't any women's stories in a lot of these history textbooks. And so I would be pondering, well, when they say that the women ended up taking over the manufacturing plants while the men were away at war, what did that look like? And I wanted to to explore topics and areas that I was really excited and interested in, and he just wanted me to regurgitate the textbook in my own words. So of course, those were the assignments that I left to the last minute. But at the time, I had zero self-awareness as to why some were harder than others for me, other than this sense of, I just don't get really excited about it, or I'm more motivated by the deadline. I literally was collecting all of this evidence that I'm just more motivated by a really, like, doom and gloom kind of scenario that if I don't get this done, I've got to stay up till midnight, get this thing done, otherwise I'm going to fail and my parents will be disappointed in me. And I also had this huge, like, fear of authority thing, so I never wanted to get in trouble for anything. And actually, now that I have been exploring my own models of productivity and what really works for me and paying attention to what works for my brain, I can see I am more motivated by the stick than the carrot, but that's because I don't love a reward dangling out there at the end of a project. So I'm not really motivated or driven by, "If you get this done and finish it by a certain time, then you can have the reward." And it's so fascinating to me because when I look back at some of the natural tendencies I had, it seems so obvious to me me now, but at the time I was just trying to figure it out. I was just stumbling along as best as I could. So here I am, I don't feel particularly motivated or incentivized by a reward at the end of doing something, but also I don't like the feeling of that last minute rush, that last minute deadline, and needing to stay up late. That does not work for me, or needing to just get stuff done at the last minute does not work for me. I'm also far too smart for my own good sometimes, so even setting an earlier deadline for myself as sort of like a fake deadline does not get me the adrenaline rush that I need because I'm in charge. This is my business. If I want to move the deadline, I can. Um, sometimes I do get incentivized or motivated by putting a deadline out there and telling my audience because I do have an obliger leaning in the Four Tendencies. So feeling like I'm gonna let someone else down does tend to help me to get motivated to do something. But if I'm just spending most of my days feeling like the deadline is looming and I'm gonna let someone down, that's not a particularly enjoyable experience of business. And I would say for the first 5 or 6 years of my business, I just accepted that that's what I needed. I would just almost wear it as a badge of honor, be like, well, you know what, I'm just motivated by a deadline. You know what, I'm just motivated by the opportunity to not let someone down. I'm motivated by the fear of letting someone down. So therefore, I'm just gonna set myself up in these situations where that pressure gets applied to me, and therefore I know I'll rise to the occasion. But what that led to was a lot of highs and lows in terms of my motivation and my energy. It led to a lot of uncertainty for me about how I was spending my time. It led to a lot of just like not enjoying the experience of being a business owner. And I didn't start this business to have a non-enjoyable experience. I didn't start this business to, to tie myself up in knots feeling like I'm letting everyone down if I don't get to work and, um, there's a deadline looming. Like, that doesn't feel like anything I want to expose myself to, let alone set up my business to work that way with me based on that belief that that's the only way that works for me. Um, I'm also not an eat the frog person, so, um, You know, that whole, like, if you have a— I don't know why we have to eat frogs, but you know, there's that whole Brian Tracy approach is like, do the hard thing first, do the, the thing that's the most difficult or gross thing first, right? Now I interpret that to be do the most important thing first because I don't like the idea of doing yucky things first, but even that, not really a great approach for me. I prefer the, like, sandwich approach. Like, do something fun, then that will create this sense of momentum and, like, you're into the rhythm of it. Then you'll be able to do the hard thing and then finish off with something fun. So the hard thing is sandwiched in between the fun things. One of the things that I really noticed when I first started my business was this fear of being lazy. I had spent my entire life being called lazy, being observed as lazy, and when I started my business, that was one of my big fears, was that I will start my business now, I'm gonna be the boss, and I'm going to be so lazy, I'm just going to sit on the couch and watch TV all day, I'm not going to get any work done. And so I think what that ended up doing was almost making me more rigid when I first started my business and more mean to myself when I first started my business than I was when I was in a job because someone else could be that rigidity, could be that, uh, external sense of keeping me accountable. But when I first started my business, I was like, well, the buck stops with me now, so I'm gonna have to be really mean to myself, otherwise I'm not gonna get anything done. Now, if you've followed me for an extended period of time, you'll know that this then also led to me exploring this concept of being lazy. And really stepping into owning that as part of my identity. I love how lazy I am because actually my laziness is efficiency. And for a lot of my clients, my laziness leads to their efficiency. If there's a way to get a result without having to do something you don't like, I'll have found it. If there's a way to be able to get something done really quickly and easily so you can get back to enjoying yourself, I'll have found it. And because of that, I did have a lot of my content, a lot of my messaging was around this thing of really owning that I am lazy. But it was in going on the Rose Farm Retreat with Denise Duffield-Thomas in 2020 and doing a little bit more exploring of my Sacred Money Archetype, um, my top Sacred Money Archetype is the Romantic, which is a pleasure-driven archetype. And then doing the SMA course that Denise offers also really helped me to understand that it's not necessarily laziness. I mean, also, I was diagnosed with ADHD in there, um, and it's not necessarily laziness, although I do kind of still love that kind of sloth energy. I do love being a lazy kind of person but it's more this drive for pleasure as well. So a lot of my drive for laziness came from overexertion, came from burning myself out. So the most pleasurable thing for me was rest. I, um, have always been an early to bed kind of person. I've always been someone who gives themselves a little sleep in. I don't like waking with an alarm clock because that's gross. And even if I do set an alarm, it's the most gentle alarm you've ever heard in your life, and it can be going off for 3 or 4 minutes before it actually rouses me. And I really enjoy that kind of alarm, not that like, ah, ah, kind of alarm. Anyway, so it was actually in the last 2 years that I really started using this term pleasure-first productivity, and I've started talking about it a little more with others and sharing about it here on the podcast and particularly on social media as well. And a lot of people have had a lot of questions about this whole pleasure-first productivity approach. So this podcast episode is me explaining what some of the key things I do are and why, and how that pleasure-first approach really works for me. So if I'm not driven by a reward at the end of doing something, how do I incorporate that sense of pleasure and reward in the way I drive my productivity? Well, let me tell you about the gummy bear method. So when I was at university, well before I'd talked about pre— pleasure first productivity, I had a friend who she would reward herself when she'd done all of her study notes for our exams, she would reward herself with a packet of gummy bears. And so I loved gummy bears as well, little candy, and so I bought myself a packet of gummy bears on the way home from university one day I needed to do all my study prep for my exam, and the whole time I was trying to study, I was just thinking about those gummy bears and how delicious one of those gummy bears would be. And so I opened the gummy bears before I'd even done the first chapter of my notes. I was like, I'll just have a few little gummy bears. I've, I've, I've done half a chapter, I deserve a little gummy bear treat. And so what I started doing was portioning out my gummy bear treats, but I— at the start of every chapter, I would stop and have a little gummy bear treat, and then I would start studying that chapter. So, I was already doing it, right? I wasn't leaving the bag of gummy bears to the end of the study prep. I was having it along the way, and that's one of the principles of pleasure-first productivity. Is to start your day, start your work sprint, your work cycle with a lil dose of pleasure. So for me, if I start my day with a really pleasurable start to the day, I am far more likely to be excited and itching to sit at my desk and get work done. So my morning routine looks like waking up, going for a lovely gentle stroll with our dogs. Davey and I usually listen to a podcast together. We take one of the headphones each and listen to a podcast together, often stop and yap about the podcast we're listening to. We go and get a coffee if we feel like a coffee that day, and then we'll wander on home. We do our nervous system exercises. That involves me getting a lovely massage on my back. Um, there's this like special spinal thing that we're doing for a nervous system calming at the moment. Davey gets a little face massage, so we've got these lovely little rituals. We have our CEO date in the morning. It's focused on really pumping ourselves up. We usually draw a tarot card for each other. Like, we just have this lovely, beautiful ritual. And so that's a very pleasure-oriented start to the day. And I understand it's very, um, privileged of me to be able to start my day that way. I am childfree. Like, you know, we have a lot of spaciousness in our time and in our days, and that sets us up so well. And literally, I get so excited to sit at my desk and get my work done. I— if I need to be camera ready, I will listen to podcasts or listen to upbeat music or something I love while I'm putting my makeup on and doing my hair, and it just feels absolutely lovely. So I start with this really energizing pleasure. Now, if at some point during the day there's something that I need to do and I'm feeling a bit anxious about it, I've found myself avoiding it, I know that my best pattern interrupt to get me to do that thing is actually stop and in— experience something pleasurable. So that might be to do a little bit of art journaling, that might be doing some stretching. I love getting on the foam roller and like having a little— almost like a back massage as I'm rolling up and down the foam roller. It might be going for a quick swim. And so even if it's something that takes literally 3 minutes, if I do something that I enjoy and that gives me that burst of pleasure, it fires up my brain in such a way that, that is far more effective at me being productive than just forcing myself to recognize the deadline is looming. Because I definitely think— I haven't looked into the science of it, but I definitely think for my brain in particular, the adrenaline rush of, ah, I need to do this because it's due and I'm going to be late and everything's painful and, uh, I'm running behind, I'm letting people down— it definitely, like, it's more of an adrenaline cortisol-driven kind of sense of productivity. And then once it's done, I am exhausted. I'm so burnt out by it, and I might get there, but it wipes me out. And when I was a 20-something, very bouncy version of myself, I could probably bounce back from that far more, and I didn't really notice it as much. But now, coming up on 44, perimenopausal, with an ADHD autism diagnosis, right, like, I'm at the point now where I can't bounce back from an adrenaline rush like that. I can't bounce back from a cortisol-driven deadline. That is not a sustainable form of productivity for me. And so it's far more sustainable for me to take this pleasure-first approach, and I reckon it's worth giving it a go for you as well, don't you think? So I'm starting with something that's an a spike of energizing pleasure. And the reason why I say a spike of energizing pleasure is that for me, some pleasurable things don't energize me. Sitting on the couch and watching, uh, a TV show that's like— could lead into episode after episode after episode— that's not an energizing pleasure for me. But I can listen to a podcast or even listen to the audio of a YouTube video and be moving my body, that would be energizing for me. Or if I am doing some art journaling, it's like a one-page art journaling. I have a watercolor set that has the water in the brush, and so I can quickly grab that out, do a little bit of watercolor on a page, do a little bit of journaling around it, and it's done and it's sitting to dry. And that is an energizing kind of start for me as well, but But it's taken me a bit of practice to work out what is the dose of pleasure that I need that is actually going to energize me rather than send me into, uh, like, I'm just vegging out now and I actually don't want to do anything. So, um, having a bath is not energizing for me, for example, but having a shower is. Having a quick swim, a quick dip where I don't wet my hair very energizing. If I go full mermaid and wet my hair, I'm in play mode. I— you won't get back— get me back at my desk after that. And so, um, you know, I have practiced and I've experimented with different things to see what is a pleasure driving experience for me and what is energizing. Sitting and scrolling through Instagram can be, but it can also suck me into the vortex. A quick text exchange with a friend —definitely energizing for me. A quick phone call with someone—very energizing for me. My niece and I tend to have fairly consistent phone conversations with each other, and often I'm calling her because I have something that I want to sit down and get done at work, and I know that a quick conversation with her will fire me up and then I'm off. Um, sometimes even just drawing an oracle card and doing a little bit of, like, five-line journaling around it—that can be very, um, energizing, pleasure-driving for me. Um, finding 3— if I go on Instagram and scroll reels, but I'm specifically hunting for 3 reels to send to a specific person, that's very energizing for me because I'm watching reels through the lens of, would that person like it? And if they would, I'd— I send it to them. And once I get to 3, that's a nice, like, end point for that little, um, experience. And I'm not going to get sucked into the vortex of, like, all the doom and gloom that's on the internet. So starting with energizing pleasure is strategy number 1. Now the thing I want to say about that is I have big ways to get into pleasure first and small ways to get into pleasure first. So a small way that I get into pleasure first is in my planner, my day planner that I use every single day, it has Amazing colors, and I use stickers. And so when I'm setting out my to-do list for the day, which is a maximum of 4 tasks, as I write those 4 tasks out, I'm also decorating the page, picking some stickers and putting them there. So it doesn't have to be huge. I don't have to completely derail my day. You know, if I've sat down and I've got, um, some— writing to do and I'm just not feeling it, I'm not really in the right headspace, I'm not feeling particularly productive, I don't want to have to like, oh, I have to go for a swim and like go and get my bathers on and then go and get in the pool, like it's— it— that can be quite derailing, like I have to go off and distract myself. But if I'm sitting at my desk and I find myself avoiding doing the thing that I sat down to do, the best thing I can do is just grab my planner out I put a few stickers in it. So it's a teeny tiny way that I create pleasure first. Um, if I'm thinking about it through the reward lens, so let's say I've decided that, um, if I achieve my income goal for the year, I'm going to book a fabulous holiday for Davey and I. Well, I don't actually have to book the holiday, but I could set a timer for 5 minutes and spend 5 minutes scrolling and searching the internet for where we might stay, or what ex— um, excursions we might go on, or what restaurants we might eat at. Um, booking a, a social event or a social outing with friends, just booking it in, is pleasure first for me. Because if I do the pleasurable thing first It has me excited then. I've got something I'm looking forward to, and I've generally had a chat with a friend to organize it, so my extrovert self is happy, and away I go. So it doesn't always have to be big, big things. I try to incorporate as many pleasurable experiences into my week as I can that are the bigger ones. So Davey and I like to go to the movies in the middle of the day fairly regularly. I, um, like to catch up with friends pretty regularly. Um, if I'm looking ahead at my week and I'm thinking, oh, that week looks yucky, I'm gonna feel bad all week, I'm gonna drag my feet all week, I will not be productive all week. So if I chuck a couple of really exciting things to look forward to into that week, then I can see like it's, it's like, not just the— when it finally arrives and I get to do it, the pleasure of thinking about it and getting it booked in and connecting with a friend to organize it is enough to at least shift my perspective on how the week looks and also change the chemistry of my brain to be in productive mode. One of the other things that I am playing with and practicing a lot this year is making the work itself very pleasurable. And I think I've done a lot of this by default because of my previous exploration of my laziness. And so, for example, there are certain tasks in my business that I don't really enjoy doing, and so I've either found ways to achieve the same result without having to do it, or achieve a better result but outsource someone else doing it for me, right? I've, I've always kind of avoided the types of things I don't enjoy anyway. And it's the same in the way that I've structured my business model. I deeply enjoy connecting with humans. I deeply enjoy being in teacher mode. I deeply enjoy creating things that are visually dynamic. I deeply enjoy talking. Can you tell? So, when it came to deciding whether I do a podcast or keep doing my written blog, it was a no-brainer decision for me to switch from a written blog over to a podcast. When I needed to make a decision about, um, doing my social media strategy and how I create content— I love creating content, I cannot stand scheduling content, sitting and copying pasting it, and it's so straightforward and it's so quick and it's so easy. I've got the process right down to the tiniest little minuscule amount of work, but I still don't find it particularly enjoyable. So I've outsourced that bit, and I've outsourced it in a really efficient way because at first I tried to get it down to the least amount of workers possible, which meant that the system I came up with worked really well. And then I was like, you know what, I don't want to have to do this, so I'm happy to pay someone to do this for me, even though It's often less than half an hour a month that it takes for my assistant to do it for me. I don't care. That's half an hour of stuff I don't enjoy doing that I don't have to do. So I am not someone who's like— has that sort of, you know, just suck it up and do it kind of approach with myself. If I really listen to myself and I validate my feelings about things. Now, one of the things that, that has led to though is a much deeper interrogation of why. Because in the early days of my business, and as I've been growing my business, and as I've been doing all of this, I haven't always had the resourcing to be able to just not do it, or I haven't necessarily had an alternative strategy that meant I can just stop doing that and everything will still be okay. And in fact, when I have avoided doing some of the things that that really were contributing to the results in my business, and I'm just like, I don't feel like it, so I haven't done it, then I've seen a huge decline in my business results. And so for me, this actually means that rather than just, oh well, I don't like writing so much, so I'm just not going to do any writing. Instead, I look at, well, what kind of writing do I, I like the most? What kind of writing don't I enjoy? Why is it that that feels different to me? Why is it that that doesn't necessarily excite and ignite me? And a great example of this is actually posts for social media. There have been phases throughout the 13 years I've been running my business where my social media posts have gone through fluctuations of not getting as many comments and not a lot as of engagement. And so one of the things that I've noticed is that I don't enjoy creating content for social media when it feels like no one's actually there, like I'm just shouting into the void. But rather than just deciding, well, posting on social media is not for me because I don't enjoy it, instead I looked at, okay, well, what is it about the engagement that kind of gives me that pleasure? And how can I increase the part of it that does make it feel pleasurable? But also, how could I create that sense of pleasure for myself even if it's not happening in real life? And so with the social media example, for example, when I sit down to create social media content, I visualize a bunch of different people in my audience scrolling their phones, scrolling on their computers, and seeing my post and going, "Ooh, it's a tash post!" and getting all excited. They don't have to comment on it, they don't have to like it, they don't have to engage in any way. All I'm visualizing is people are going to see this and be excited to see it. And simply by visualizing them enjoying the content, I enjoy writing the content more because I feel like— it doesn't feel like I'm shouting into the void. It feels like I'm creating content for someone to scroll and upon and go get excited that they get to see it. And so even though I do come up with strategies to get more engagement, so, um, you know, I will create content and I'll start to focus on posts that are a little bit more, um, skewed towards getting engagement. I'll create some posts that I'm asking a few more questions. I'll create some posts that give other people the opportunity to promote something. So there are strategies that I have that can give me that sense that there are people watching, there are people reading my content, but I don't want to put my pleasure in the hands of my audience. I don't want my excitement to create content to be beholden to the level of engagement I'm getting on past content. Because if I'm always judging or dictating my new experiences based on the results of my past experiences, I'm always looking backwards, and my results that are behind me by definition really are done, right? Like I can't go back to those experiences. I can only look forward. And so I am very conscious of literally visualizing in my brain a bunch of people looking at my content and going, "Ooh, yay, a tash post!" And that is enough for me to feel like that's a pleasure-driven activity. That's a pleasure-first approach for me. So maybe there are some things that you find aren't as pleasurable for you to do. How can you make the work itself pleasurable? But it might not be that you externalize that, right? So a lot of people say that to me about social media. Well, I would enjoy social media far more if anyone was actually reading it and someone was replying, but I get nothing. I always get crickets. And whilst I understand that frustration, I don't think waiting for your audience to engage is actually the solution. I think the solution is find ways to make the work itself pleasurable. Another way that I do that is the way that I work is very color-oriented, it's very fun-oriented, it's very much tapped into my strengths. So I use a strengths-based approach to mentoring myself to self-leadership, because the more I'm tapping into my strengths, the more I am likely to enjoy and find pleasure in the work itself. And so if I love doing— like, if I love being in teacher mode, which I do, and I don't as much love being in, um, passive space holder mode where like everyone else is sort of doing their thing and I'm not involved in it then I'm not going to build my business around being in space holder mode a lot. I'm gonna be in teacher mode more often. So, I look for ways to incorporate being in teacher mode into my business, into my marketing, not just the delivery of my services. So, I'm not withholding my teachings only for paying clients because then anything that's in the marketing space that's before people have paid me I'm not going to enjoy it as much if I'm not in my zone of genius, if I'm not in teacher mode. So when I run my— when I record my podcast, just like this one, as much as possible, I put myself in teacher mode. And a lot of people comment that my podcast gives away far too much information for free. My podcast is very valuable. People have commented that this podcast is worth more to them than the program that they paid $10,000 a year to do for the last 3 years. Because I give far more detailed, strategic, practical advice. But that's actually a driver for me. If I wasn't in teacher mode, if I didn't make these really valuable and juicy, if I didn't bring my best advice and strategies to this podcast, I wouldn't enjoy doing it. If all I was doing was a very rigorous marketing sales pitch structure and I was following someone else's process, or if I was following a rigid sales technique to not quite give you the answers to anything that you want, I wouldn't enjoy doing it, and therefore I wouldn't be releasing as many podcast episodes, and then my podcast couldn't do its job. And so making the work itself pleasurable is probably my biggest breakthrough, and not being embarrassed or ashamed at some of the ways that I make make my work pleasurable. So, in Biz Boost and, um, Kickstart, which are the 5-day events that I run, um, I've got Biz Boost coming up in May. I have a bingo card in the workbook where people can literally— there's lots and lots of little tasks that they can do to build momentum in their business. And I've just— I could have given it as a checklist, but I find it more enjoyable as a bingo card because we can make lines and we can make pretty patterns. And the number of people who comment on how valuable it is to them that I have made it okay that they turn the list of tasks they need to do into a bingo card, and it's like, I totally get it because I've made it pleasurable. I've gamified my own business. I gamify it for myself. So even when I'm creating social media content, I will set that timer for 30 minutes. I'll see how many posts can I write in 30 minutes, have my little break, and then I set the timer for another 30 minutes and I see if I can beat it the second time around. So I'm literally like having a little competition with myself, but that gamification makes doing it much more pleasurable for my brain. I use colored Post-its. I always buy myself the most amazing stationery and little gadgets because I love working with them. I have stickers, I use my stickers, I reward myself with little moments of playing and coloring things in, and if I need to write down my goal for the day, why would I just write it in plain black pen at the top of the page? I might as well write it in colored pencil and draw little flowers and dollar signs around it, and I don't shame myself or judge myself for doing it that way because I know a pleasure-first approach really works for me. I used to, um, put all of my task notes and Post-it notes away if anyone came to visit my house because I thought it looked childish and I was embarrassed about it. But I've now been asked to teach that system so many times. I've done it as a paid speaker at events, I've done it as a paid speaker in people's memberships, I've done it as a guest at summits and, um, on other people's podcasts. Clearly it's something that resonates for a lot of people. I'm not going to be embarrassed by that anymore. And I honestly think that a lot of that sense of, oh, that's embarrassing that I have to do it that way, literally comes from patriarchy. It comes from like that belief that things that young girls are interested in are stupid. Are completely frivolous. And so being obsessed with stationery, being obsessed with having cute little paper clips and using colored Post-it notes, that feels so delightfully girly and frivolous that it couldn't possibly be serious business. But I tell you, I've had— I've previously in a tashmas episode talked about I turn Post-it notes into millions of dollars Why would I be embarrassed about that? Why would I be ashamed of it? I'm not. And instead, I'm just embracing it. The more I embrace it, the more effective and productive I am. And the final note I wanna say around this is that I think that this approach is not only more sustainable for me, but actually it's more the reason why I started my business. I didn't start my business to create a corporate hellhole for myself and just replicate the horrific working conditions that I escaped when I started my business. I started my business because I wanted to live my life on my terms. I wanted to have financial freedom and time freedom, and I wanted to enjoy myself, and I wanted to be my own boss because I get to set the rules that work for me. And then somehow, when I first started my business, all of that got thrown out of the window. Because I needed to be productive, and the only way to be productive was to be mean to myself. And that's just not true. I know the more I pay attention to how I feel and choose to treat myself with kindness and with love and give myself the pleasure-first approach that really works for me, the more effective I am, the more that I get done, the more that I show up, the more I am sustained in my energy for this business. And it just feels like it's wins all round when I do it that way. Oh, oh, actually, I said that was the last thing. I want to add one last thing because I was talking about this with the fabulous Kelly Sheets, and we'll link to Kelly's socials in the show notes or something. Um, so I know for a lot of people, they will hear me talk about this pleasure-first approach, and I mean, most of the stuff that I've talked about doesn't cost any money. But you might think, well, I can't afford to buy the pretty Post-it notes, or I can't afford to have those lovely rewards, or I can't afford a lot of the things that will give me that rush, you know, that pleasure. I get a lot of pleasure from shopping, but I don't want to frivolously spend my money. I don't want to waste money just to get that rush of pleasure and be productive for a day and then it's worn off. And, um, I was having a conversation with Kelly where I was talking about, you know, new boot goofin'. I was talking about the little treats that I was buying for myself. And she is a money management expert. She is a money person, right? So one of the things Kelly teaches is, especially for neurodivergent people, she teaches, um, things like budgeting and how to save up for things and how to look after your money so that you can use it on the things that are most important to you. And one of the things that she said is when you spend your money mindfully and in alignment with what feels really meaningful for you, you are far less likely to impulse buy. And that's actually true for me as well. When she said it, like, the truth of it just really hit me in the chest. Because when I worked in corporate, I got to a point where I owned over 175 pairs of shoes because beautiful shoes gave me a lot of pleasure, and I was trying to fill a hole, right? I was trying to fill this void of sadness and anxiety by purchasing delightful shoes. And I mean, a lot of them I never even wore other than like just trying them on from time to time in my bedroom and standing in front of the mirror and looking at how cute my feet looked. And, um, it was like seeking that pleasure. But because I wasn't spending my money in a mindful way, a lot of those shoes were impulse purchases. The most dangerous time for me in terms of impulse spending was on a Friday afternoon after work because I worked in the CBD of Brisbane. That just so happens to be when all of the shops are open late. Late night shopping in the CBD of Brisbane is Friday night. And so I would leave work on Friday evening and I would have to walk past a lot of shoe shops to get to my bus. And it was a really dangerous time for me because I'd spent the whole week stressed out and burnt out. A lot of our deadlines were on a Friday, so we likely will have just met a deadline, and I'm in that sort of post-adrenaline rush kind of come-down period, and I need a hit, my brain needs some joy, so I'll go and buy myself another pair of shoes. And so I just loved that perspective because I actually think that the more I mindfully purchase through the lens of treating myself, pleasure, but very mindfully, the less I actually purchase overall. And the less I'm purchasing things for a quick hit, and instead I'm being intentional about it. So I'm not purchasing stationery for a quick hit of— a sugar rush of joy. I'm purchasing stationery knowing I'm going to use it immediately, and I'm going to use it for the next 3 months, and over the next 3 months I'm going to use that stationery to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars of income. And so I'm less impulse spending when I'm more pleasure spending, but that pleasure spending is far more, um, considered. It's far more mindful, and so therefore it's going to be far more sustainable. It's going to be far more aligned with my values. A lot of my impulse spending wasn't even aligned with my values. I don't— I don't like being in like that consumerist kind of blah, you know. Feeling. I don't like feeling like I have to be up to date with the latest things or the latest fashions or the latest trends or the latest toy. I don't actually like any of that. I don't like keeping up with things. I don't like the, um, flimsy throwaway culture of purchasing cheaply. That's not what I enjoy anyway, but I'm far more likely to purchase those things on impulse if I haven't been mindfully purchasing the things that I actually want and that I actually will use. So even I have noticed in the last year I have made 2 clothing purchases, and 6 years ago I would have made 2 per— clothing purchases every month. So I'm actually spending less money, but part— I think a big reason why is because I'm mindfully spending money. I'm never feeling this sense of I must deprive myself of the joyful purchase. And because I've— it's a great example of this actually is that inner child healing. So, um, uh, Denise Duffield-Thomas talks about this in her Money Bootcamp, where sometimes she has purchased things just because it's healing for her inner child, because she wasn't able to have that when she was younger. And so, um, those impulse purchases that I was previously making, they often met a need that I wasn't consciously aware of, or I hadn't really paid enough attention to. And so I was just— I just— I had enough money to be able to buy them, so I bought them. I want it, I can afford it, I'll buy it. And it was a far more impulse-driven kind of thing. Part of the reason for that was actually I grew up where I didn't have that experience. I didn't— I wasn't allowed to buy new clothes. I had my feet size when I was growing up. This is why I bought a lot of shoes, right? When I was growing up, I have size 11 feet. You couldn't get size 11 shoes in any mainstream stores. To buy shoes, we used to go— I grew up in regional Queensland. We used to go to the capital city, Brisbane, once a year, and I was allowed 2 pairs of shoes from long line shoes. The, the store was literally called Long Line. I still remember it, it was so traumatizing. And so I would go to that shop and I could never buy shoes for pleasure. I could never buy pretty shoes. I could never buy shoes I actually wanted because most years I needed to buy a pair of netball shoes for the court. I needed some sports shoes of some sort and I needed school shoes. And so they were my two shoe purchases most years. Now I got a lot of pleasure and a lot of joy out of my new shoes because I wore shoes out a lot, but I never really got to buy shoes for pleasure. So then, is it surprising when I got my big fancy corporate job in the city and started earning six figures and above, my impulse buy on the way home from work was a pair of shoes? Right? It's not surprising. But now that I consciously purchase for pleasure and I'm making sure that I'm listening to what it is that I want and I've kind of ungated these things. I've healed that part of my brain that had been so hardwired to, "Oh, that's nice. I can't afford it." Oh, actually I can afford it. I better buy it instead. I can look at those things and go,"Wow, that's really pretty. I could have that if I wanted it. Do I want it?" So, I've changed the pattern there and therefore I just purchase far less. And I loved this conversation that I had with Kelly because it really highlighted for me exactly why I felt like this pleasure-first approach is— even around spending felt like it was the less expensive option, and it is. I spend far less these days, and I spend far more mindfully, even though I've completely ungated my spending barriers. I can spend whatever I want whenever I want it, and because there, there doesn't feel like there's this random limitation on me, I don't feel this, like, almost like compelling need to go and buy it. Okay, so this is going to turn into a Tash gives herself therapy on a podcast episode if I don't cut this off here. So that brings me to the end of talking about pleasure-first productivity and pleasure-first plan— um, purchasing. There we go, we've added that to the end of the episode. And because this is an episode of Tashmas, I have a little gift for you. And the gift that I have is um, related to something that's very pleasurable for me, and that is time with other humans. I love spending time with other humans. My business is becoming more and more an events-driven business, and by events-driven, I don't mean I'm going to be running a thousand in-person events every year, but just that if I want to do something as an event, I allow myself to do it as an event. So, I have updated the events section of my website, and over there you'll see that there are a bunch of events loaded up that are coming up this year. And so, I invite you to come and check out the events tab of my website. Some of the events are for free. There's some extra little events in there to go and have a look at. Um, so, some of those events are for free, so you get to go and choose what it is that you would like as your gift for today. So you can go to the events tab of my website. The link will be with the show notes at tashcorbin.com/511. Go and have a little look. There are some events I haven't even talked about publicly yet that are hidden in the events tab of my website. It's like a little Easter hunt, right? You go and find those lovely little Easter eggs. Um, and I really wanted to do that because if you also really love events, you love getting together, you love learning in a group, you love doing stuff with others and in the company of others, I wanted to— you to have the opportunity to go and pick some of those and grab them. Some of the events do have a price tag, some of them are very low cost, some of them are in the higher end like conference, um, some of them are completely free. So, um, there's a little summary of each of the events there for you, and then you can click on each one and go and explore further and register if it takes your fancy. Thank you so much for joining me for this episode. I'll see you tomorrow for Day 3 of Tashmas. Happy Tashmas, and until then, I cannot wait to see you shine. Bye for now.