038: Entrepreneur Hours Are Kind of Like Dog Years

Have you ever looked at the clock and thought, "How am I this tired already?"

Not because you worked twelve hours. But because the hours you worked were full of decisions, problem-solving, responsibility, interruptions, and constant context switching.

In this episode, we talk about why entrepreneur hours can feel different than other kinds of work, what psychology teaches us about mental fatigue, and why being tired doesn't automatically mean you're doing something wrong.

Listen in for:

• Why some work is more mentally expensive than other work
• The difference between task fatigue and decision fatigue
• How responsibility changes the energy equation
• Why entrepreneurs often feel guilty for needing recovery time
• A better question to ask when you're exhausted after a short workday

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• This Week's Free Action Guide: 
• The Smart Soulful Business Facebook Community: smartbusiness.thrivecart.com/soulful-strategy-community

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Transcript

038: Entrepreneur Hours Are Kind of Like Dog Years

​[00:00:00] 

Laurie: Hey, hey, welcome back to the Smart Soulful Business podcast with Becky and Laurie. We are having some fun today taking a break from our that have seemed like a lot.

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: And Becky and I had a fun talk this week about entrepreneur years being like dog years or entrepreneur hours being like dog years, so that's what we're talking about today. If you're new to Smart Soulful Business, this is the show where we talk about building a business that actually fits our lives, without losing our faith, without losing our sense of humor, without feeling like we're sacrificing our now years for the future, is [00:01:00] what honestly a lot of advice tells women to do.

Becky: Absolutely.

Laurie: Hate that. So anyway, this week I had this thought that entrepreneur hours are kind of like dog years because sometimes I look at the clock, and I'm like, "How am I so tired at 2:00 PM?" Or, "How am I so tired after four hours?" And, you know, and I'll even say, I wasn't digging ditches all day. I know people, a lot of people, have a harder job than I do. I'm not running a marathon. But somehow, like, my brain is completely fried. I'm exhausted. I've had these talks with my daughter before who's in her, you know, mid-20s. She's a young adult, and she's like,, "How am I so tired?" And she also is an entrepreneur. She not only works for us, but she also is starting her own business on the side. And my son is an entrepreneur now, which is so fun to see. But I think this is such a great discussion to have, because that thing of 'why am I so tired' can send us into [00:02:00] shame spirals. And instead of saying, "Why am I so tired?" the question should be, "What kind of hours did I work? What kind of hours those?"

So anyway, Becky, like, let's jump in. When I brought this up to you the other day, what went through your mind?

Becky: Oh, I immediately knew exactly what you were talking about because the mental fatigue as an entrepreneur is unmatched, compared to, like, okay. So you guys, I was a sign language interpreter for eight years, and I was employed by a school district, and I was interpreting. And if you don't know a lot about the process of interpreting, there is a lot of mental work.

It's not there's a sign for every word. I'm not just, like, recalling words. I am taking full thoughts of what people are talking about and processing and getting the meaning, pulling the meaning, and making it mean something else in an entirely different language. Like, there is a lot of [00:03:00] mental process in that, and I was interpreting things like AP Calculus and AP English and heavy-duty stuff. And I just want to tell you that interpreting cannot hold a candle to the brain fatigue I get as an entrepreneur. So when you brought up the concept, I was just, like, nodding immediately. You didn't even have to unpack that. I was just like, "Yep, that's what's happening here."

Laurie: I know people will say to me like, "Oh, it must be nice to work from home." And it, even that thought kind of makes me wanna rip my hair out. Like, it's not that nice. Like, it's not that, like, it's hard. And you know, you bring up your other job and, and wherever you're listening from, like if you have a day job or you have another job, like, think about how much effort we've put into our jobs.

Like, I know people who serve at restaurants. Like I had a friend Deb who was a grown adult, made crazy amount of money serving at a restaurant. Like, sometimes we think that's a college job, you know what I mean? She had a career. She made a great income. She, like, [00:04:00] and she worked her tail off. And think about my jobs.

I worked for a college for a while. I was literally dragging equipment to a different high school every day with a different commute, different people, hundreds of students, not always well-behaved. That was exhausting. And entrepreneur hours, entrepreneur hours or owner hours, they are so different. Like, I look at the clock and go, "I should not feel so tired as I do right now."

Becky, what do you think is happening here?

Becky: Yeah. Well, I think our brains are doing incredibly high-level work of prioritizing and organizing, and it's high-level systems work. It's like, okay, I am in charge of everything. I'm not just showing up at a job and doing the tasks that I was asked to do. Somebody else isn't talking and I'm just figuring out how to interpret that thing.

I am figuring out from scratch. I'm trailblazing. Every single day I'm trailblazing in a different [00:05:00] way and creating a trail where there was none before. How do I do this here? What does this look like in an email, in a blog post, in a Facebook post? How do I connect with my audience? How do I, or communicate to my VA? How do I train them, and what systems? There's so much to it, and it is heavy brain work.

Laurie: By the end of this episode, we want you to start thinking of your hours a little differently.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: First off, to have a little more grace because that's what we're learning ourselves, grace with ourselves. But also just to be able to reframe a little bit, like what kind of hours did I work today?

Becky: Hmm.

Laurie: Not just how many hours. Like, I think that is such a disservice and even minimizes the work that actually gets things done. Like, I could do busy work for eight hours a day, ten hours a day, and not get my business where it needs to go, right? So if two hours a day of owner hours, of high responsibility hours, of problem-solving hours gets me there faster or moves me, moves the needle, [00:06:00] right, versus 10 hours of busywork, right? I think we would love for you all, like, to process with us. Be with us with our stories today and, and also a little bit of fun as we think about how we kinda shame ourselves and how we think about our hours. But would love for you by the end of, by the end of the episode today, to really start looking at your hours differently.

Instead of how many hours did I work, wow, what did I get done today? Because Becky, when you talked about, like, the mental load, you know, of all these, like, problem-solving and stuff, and even the context switching. We didn't really talk about that as.

Becky: Yeah

Laurie: But this is, you know, kind of where my brain went.

But I wanna tell you, my default is the 40-hour workweek, and if I wanna be successful, I need to work 40 to 60 hours a week. Like, when I don't work an eight-hour day, or a 10-hour day even, I'll be like, "Oh, I didn't work enough. I didn't, I didn't show up enough. I'm not committed." And that, that plays with my brain a little bit, you know.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: It's like [00:07:00] unlearning, unlearning that thing, that may be American way of if you wanna be successful, you're gonna work a whole lot of hours. Entrepreneurship, not like that.

Becky: Not like that. Nope, not the same. Not the same.

Laurie: So Wildfox and Isla are sitting at my feet literally right now while we record, they're, like, all stretched out. I was really thinking about dog years, how every year is, like, seven years for them. I'm like, yeah, entrepreneur hours are kinda like dog years, right? Like, we think, how old is that dog? Well, it... really not, not two. They're really 14, right? You know what I mean? In, in our years. So let's talk about, like, reframing our entrepreneur hours.

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: A real different way.

Becky: Yes, absolutely.

Laurie: Mm. So what kind of works do you think, I know you, you named a few of them.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: What kind of work do you think drains people the fastest, and can we talk about personalities and how it might not be the same?

Becky: Please. Yes. Okay. So yeah, I wanna throw that out to begin with. So I am an introvert. I love [00:08:00] people dearly, but I'm gonna call it peopling, 'cause it can be peopling in person, it could be peopling on the phone, it could be peopling through a Facebook message or an email, but peopling is exhausting for me. It drains my energy, even when it's really good peopling that I enjoy. It drains my energy. 

So I'm gonna throw out there as that context, because the first thing I wanted to tell you is one of the things that drains me most is answering emails, and answering messages, and all of those things. Communicating with my assistant, communicating with my team, that's hard for me because, it drains my energy fastest. So that's like a different category for me than it is for you even. That's not nearly as draining as you. Most of the time, I would say 90% of the time, you guys, Laurie doesn't even count that as work. When she sends messages off to people, she's like, "Oh, I didn't work today." And I'm like, "You sent like 20 messages to a million people."

Laurie: I am thinking more of Zoom calls for me because emails,

Becky: Oh.

Laurie: do kinda drain me a little. Zoom calls energize [00:09:00] me and I love them, but I still do wonder,

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: I still think they're draining. Like, if I don't have enough Zoom calls with my audience, you know, brainstorming with people, getting feedback, team-building, like in my businesses, right?

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: I don't have enough of that, I feel very deflated and very depressed. Like, I literally get into a hole. However, do wanna say it still drains me. It still feels like a lot of work. And like I'm thinking right now of that stress scale. Have you ever taken a stress scale? Wherever you're listening from, there's like, like a generic global stress scale out there.

Like, I know divorce rate's really high, relocation hates, rate's really high. The death of a spouse rate's very high versus other things. And there's literally, what do you call it? Like, points. Like, non-subjective points. Like, what is that called? Non-subjective is objective. There's just points. There's just points.

Like, you get 50 points and 60 points and 20 points and 10 points for whatever, a job change. It literally lists all these different [00:10:00] tasks or all these different situations, and it gives you a number of points. And if you're somewhere on the stress scale, you know, like they consider it rather dangerous. Becky and I have created one of these. It's in the action guide for you today. We need to make this into an amazing lead magnet 'cause I think everybody will do this. Like, where, where do your hours fall? And in that, I think the peopling would still have an objective number, right?

Becky: Yeah, I agree with that.

Laurie: Because even, like, divorce hits people differently.

Becky: So true.

Laurie: Divorce, depending if you're fleeing something into something better or if you wanted it or if you didn't. Like, but it still has the same stress scale, right.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: So

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: It's kind of interesting to think about.

Becky: I agree. And you know, you asked me, I'm gonna get back to your original question, what kinds of work seems to, seem to drain, people fastest? And I would say in general, creating systems. So the trailblazing that I said in, originally, that's creating a system of a pattern of like a Facebook post that you wanna make for your business [00:11:00] long term. This is the pattern I follow. I post every Monday, and this is what I post on Mondays. That is the trailblazing work versus, oh, I'm just gonna post on Facebook, or I'm gonna take a picture. That's,

Laurie: Yeah.

Becky: Those are different things. So I would say whatever area of your business that falls into, it's the trailblazing that is the hardest.

Laurie: And sometimes we avoid that. I've been doing that. Like, if I had a system for this, I'm currently doing this with my promotions for my events and my sales and my offers, a system that literally makes the decision what days the email goes out and what different types of systems there are for promotions. That is, like, costing me so much energy. Now, once it's done, it's gonna make everything simpler.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: But it does, it's almost like our time or our energy costs different amounts. Like, if we had to pay for it, it would be a different price. So you're talking about, like, the system set up.

Becky: Mm-hmm. Ooh, that's another huge one. So once you have a system set up and it [00:12:00] works for a while, and then all of a sudden,

Laurie: Mm-hmm.

Becky: You're like, "Something needs to change here," that evaluating a system, like auditing a system and figuring out what part of this needs to shift and how do I shift it, that is intense brainwork for sure.

Laurie: It is.. And troubleshooting when you didn't have a system, is a different points on the scale.

Becky: Oh my goodness, yes.

Laurie: Because I went in to test something the other day and things were broken, I was like, "Oh my gosh." We were ready for a launch, and I went in to test things, and I texted you beforehand. I said, "Well, if everything goes well, this'll take 20 minutes." You guys, it took two hours.

Becky: Ah.

Laurie: "Oh, that was wrong. Oh, that was wrong." And I had to, you know, so sometimes that troubleshooting when there's something unexpected, like we didn't even have a system.

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: Something's broken. I think we already talked about the peopling. Peopling I think always carries a different energy. And how about when you have delegated things? The delegation, but also the management. Becky.

Becky: Oh my goodness.

Laurie: You saw her face.

Becky: I know. [00:13:00] Well, because I love, I love having a team. There's so much value in having a team, but I don't think that often we plan in enough team management. So not only communicating with our team, but looking over their work, giving them feedback. There is a lot of work in managing people, even though we try to say, "Oh, like take that off your plate. Just give it to somebody else." It is just not that simple. And so there is just a lot of management in that. There is a lot of high-level thinking involved in all of these things.

Laurie: You know, as you say that, I just wanna say we're not just saying entrepreneur hours are like dog hours. We're saying that the hours we spend as an entrepreneur carry different weight.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: Because, and I think I'm starting to call them owner hours. Do we like that?

Becky: Hmm. Yeah.

Laurie: Like, because there's a lot of things I do that aren't really owner hours.

When I'm, you know, changing up, I don't know, when I'm creating tags in ConvertKit. Like, honestly, sometimes I do that busy brain work 'cause it's almost [00:14:00] relaxing when you can do something you don't have to think about, right.

Becky: Yes, and you can check it off the list without all the decision-making, yeah.

Laurie: But those aren't owner hours. Do you like the term owner hours?

Becky: I do.

Laurie: I'm just making this up. We're gonna call them owner hours.

Becky: Let's do it.

Laurie: So yeah.

Becky: Yeah, and I agree, and, you know, we've mentioned so far that not all the work costs the same energy, and we tend to gravitate towards, like Laurie mentioned, this 40-hour workweek, and we measure our work by time. And even when you mentioned tasks earlier, mentioning, like measuring by tasks, not all tasks are the same. ConvertKit tasks.

Laurie: Mm-hmm.

Becky: Tagging tasks are not the same as I created a whole new system today tasks. That's so different.

Laurie: Yeah.

Becky: And our brains tend to experience work through the effort that we pour in, the decisions we're making, the responsibility that falls on us. Y'all, the responsibility of owning a business and knowing if I screw this up, I might not make any money. You know? Like, that is high [00:15:00] responsibility and the mental load, which I would say also, some of these concepts still carry into, like, running your household, too. You know? Managing your time and schedule.

So Laurie, talk to us a little bit about the psychology behind this and what our brains are doing.

Laurie: Just for a little mental break here, I just have to call out the fact that you said 'y'all'.

Becky: Oh, I have become a true Texan. It's taken six years. True Texan.

Laurie: It's great you said, 'y'all', and I'm, I just married a Texan, so we're getting a lot more y'alls in our in our vocabulary as well. But anyway, what psychology says about this. You know, there's a couple things that pop into my mind, and by the way, Becky and I love psychology because we believe it's learning how God created us to be. So yes, smart and soulful here. There's a concept in psychology called cognitive load, pretty much a lot of the things we're talking about. It's basically the amount of mental effort that your brain is carrying. And again, this totally stands against this 40 hours work week, eight hours a day, [00:16:00] 10 hours, the more hours.

Like, we gotta get that out of our head. I also believe decision fatigue is part of this

Becky: Hmm.

Laurie: World today, not just in our businesses, but in our lives with the amount of information we have and the fast pace of society. We make thousands and thousands of decisions every day. We don't even know it. And, decision fatigue really weighs in because the more decisions we make, the harder our future decisions become. It's like our brain is kinda tired. and we can be tired because we've been thinking hard all day, and that doesn't feel like work to me sometimes. Becky, you call me out on that a lot.

Becky: I do, I do. When you say.

Laurie: If we don't think, we can't move forward. So it's like part of it, but it feels like it doesn't count to me.

Becky: Yeah, I think that yours isn't a work issue, it's a labeling issue. You just need to, you just need to label... Like I tell you all the time, that was work. That thing that you say wasn't doing anything, you worked hard.

Laurie: Yeah. I'll finish a day and be [00:17:00] like, "Oh my gosh, I barely worked," and Becky's like, "Oh my gosh." Like, so, you know, wherever you're listening from, am I alone in this? Like, I don't think I'm alone 'cause I know we talk to people in the strategy group, but I know a lot of women who are listening are building businesses alongside their day jobs or their, even their, just their, what the work they hold onto in their families or in their community and, and even outside families and, and relatives and things like that. So it's hard to separate, you know, 'cause we're doing both things at the same time.

Becky: It is. And yeah, I mean, and I would say you, yeah, you can't even separate the decisions you're making in the house. I am a mom of two small kids, so while I am working, I am deciding when do I wake him up from his nap today? He's been harder to get to bed at night. Oh my goodness. What, oh, is my six-year-old having too much screen time right now? Should I stop working and go to him? Like, what should, am I making something for dinner? Do I need to get something out to thought? There's just all these things, all kinds of thoughts, big decisions, small decisions, medium-sized decisions, and [00:18:00] like some of them you don't even have enough information to make a decision yet.

So it's like, oh, well, do I need to research to make this decision? It's just a lot on our brains, people. It's a lot.

Laurie: And with all this, like, why do we end up in this judgy place?

Becky: Hmm.

Laurie: Can't we end a day saying, "Wow, that was a good day," and, and not, like, put labels and numbers and all this stuff and, you know, success and failure. Like, it's... I feel guilty, and I'll just say where I'm going with this, 'cause this is kinda how it came up, is I feel guilty for being tired after working not an eight-hour day digging ditches.

Like, I really do. I think really globally, and I think about people who have really hard jobs and people are doing this, and I have a lot of risk management, and I have a lot of, I mean, I would say that's one of the things on our chart of, like, the scores, right? I have a lot of risk in my job. You know, online events, it's risky. Like, making offers, it's risky. There's a lot of risk. Being online socially, like Becky talks about, there, there's risk, right?

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: But I [00:19:00] feel guilty for being so tired. And I think some of it has to do with the fact that I look at my number of hours and decide whether I'm allowed to be tired.

Does that make sense?

Becky: Yeah. Well, and I think one of the things that you and I have been saying more often recently is,. And so, like, yes, it doesn't feel like I worked enough today. I have so much more to do. My to-do list is long. I didn't feel like I worked hard enough, and gosh, I did the best I could. I did the best I could, and I think that is one of, that has been one of the most helpful thoughts that you challenge me with all the time because man, you know, like splitting and being a mom and, be engaging with your kids and taking care of your home, and we just moved for the past three months. Like, how much of my time and energy should be there versus in my business?

And I think that that reminder of you did the best you could is important when we're talking about mental load of, like, whether you understand it or not, you did the best you could today.

Laurie: Mm-hmm. So let's, let's, let's [00:20:00] get really practical.

Becky: Yes.

Laurie: Let's talk about replacing a phrase with another phrase.

Becky: Ooh.

Laurie: So while I give you one, Becky, you gotta think of another one.

Becky: Oh gosh. Okay.

Laurie: We'll try to, try to riff a little bit back and forth without a whole lot of, a whole lot of prep here. So sometimes I think I say things like, "I only worked four hours today."

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: You were talking, I was like, "What should I replace that with?" Like,

Becky: Hmm.

Laurie: instead of saying, "I only worked four hours today." And right now I feel like I shouldn't even say this publicly. Like, did I literally just tell people listening that I only worked four hours on one of my entrepreneur days?

Because this is not abnormal for me, and I would plan to work longer, but I only worked four hours and my brain kinda crashes. So maybe instead of saying I only worked four hours, I should, you know, like pull out my journal, my business journal, and say what happened inside those four hours.

Becky: Hmm.

Laurie: Like, I made this decision, I had this conversation, you know... Or how many problems did I solve or, you know, those kind of things. So maybe I should replace I only worked [00:21:00] four hours with what happened inside those four hours, which I think is a difference between making a declarative statement and asking a question and being curious.

Becky: Yeah. Yeah.

Laurie: Like judgment versus let's be curious.

Becky: Yeah. Well, and I would say, okay, two things stood out to me as you were just talking. Number one, I wanna throw out there to our audience something super practical that you have done for a while. Sometimes at the end of your day, you will write out, list point by point everything you did that day. That has been really helpful for you because then you can't say, "Oh, I didn't... Like, oh, I've only done this and this." You're like, "Oh, actually I did a whole lot more than I thought I did." So I would, the second thing that stood out as you were talking, is the word only. I think if you're talking to yourself and saying only, and I would throw out there for me just is a word.

Ugh, I just spent, I just spent, four hours on my business, and I just finished this one thing. I only finished this one thing. Just and only are [00:22:00] big, like, warning words for me that I'm probably saying something in a way that's not helpful to me and not acknowledging the fullness. I'm minimizing something.

I'm minimizing something that I just worked really, really hard on, and I think a lot of times that's an expectation shift too. So instead of I worked so hard on this, and I just got this one thing done, and it doesn't feel like nearly enough, changing that to, okay, I need to shift my plan because this needed to be done.

This was really important, and I did this well so that I can move on, to these other important tasks next.

Laurie: Yeah, I love that. Like, instead of I didn't do enough, which is one of my phrases that

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: I'll say sometimes, and maybe not out loud, but I think it, I didn't get enough done today, it's, See? I'm slipping into this, 'cause I wanna say I did just enough, but, or I did enough. And, but you have to believe it. Like, we

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: We can't just change our thoughts.

Like, it has to be believable to me, and maybe the, maybe the replacement to I didn't do [00:23:00] enough is I did the best I could.

Becky: That, and I would also say one of the things I've said to you a lot recently is, "I honored my priorities today."

Laurie: Oh, so good.

Becky: Because I would say if I'm working on it, it's because it's important and I've decided intentionally, I've decided that this thing is important and I want to do things well. And if that takes more time, that's frustrating and it doesn't meet my expectations and it doesn't cross another thing off the to-do list, but it does honor my priorities that I preset for my workday.

Laurie: Mm-hmm. Owner hours. Owner hours.

Becky: Mm-hmm.

Laurie: Being an entrepreneur, how it messes with our minds, how we can shame ourselves instead of honestly celebrating and really, I'm gonna go in a just one more little point I wanna make here based on what you said, Becky. I honored my priorities today. my shaming will center around not getting things done because interruption

Becky: Ooh, yes.

Laurie: that I chose to follow.

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: Um, [00:24:00] I laugh. Becky has littles, and my kids are in their 20s, and my kids interrupt me as much as hers do. And honestly, one of them at least is probably listening to this podcast, and I love it when they do. Like, my son called me the other day. He had this little audition video to do. He was asking my opinion. It took a good chunk, like an hour, right? And it was an hour that I had ascribed to something else. And honestly, I would do it again. I would do it again, 'cause I'm honoring my priorities, and this is one of the reasons I think it's beautiful to be an entrepreneur. But then when we judge ourselves later, right?

I didn't get enough done. Well, I honored my priorities today.

Becky: Hmm.

Laurie: That is what I did, and that is what I chose, and I love that you brought that up. if you are struggling at all with what I struggle with or Becky struggles with, I didn't do enough, I didn't get it done, why am I so tired, why am I exhausted after only X amount of hours or after not getting this done, how do we, like, [00:25:00] reframe all this and wrap this conversation in a way that leaves us different and leaves us better, right?

We have an action guide for you today. We have one of these with every podcast we do, and I love them so much. It's gonna let you rank your, like, owner hours, like, to, to look at the cost. What do these things really cost you per hour? Kinda like dog years. We also have some really cool prompts down there just to, just to kind of, I don't know, make some changes in how we think and how we speak to ourselves. But Becky, what else feels important to you as we get close to the close of this episode?

Becky: I would say, like, re- learning to recognize these things as important, and I would say, number two, allowing yourself to celebrate these things, too, instead of it just being like, "Oh, I just did that thing," and minimizing the importance. Like, you did an important thing that was for this purposeful business.

Like, we're soulful and strategic here, and, we, yeah, I just think that it's so important to remember that some days are strategy days, [00:26:00] some days are admin days, some days are creative days, some days are customer service days, and some days are, like, don't even ask me to make another decision today days.

Laurie: And.

Becky: And that's what I was gonna throw in. Like, it is so important to recognize, let's go back to God's design for our week, right? We need a day of rest. The same is true for your business. Like, you need some days that aren't as brain heavy. She was talking about the ConvertKit tags not being as brain- heavy, so I call that rhythm work.

Laurie: Ooh.

Becky: Things that are important to my business, but I'm familiar with, I know how to do them, they're easy to check off a list. You need rhythm work days to give yourself a little bit of, ha, this is, it's still important, but I don't have to decide all the things right now.

Laurie: Yeah, and I think it's important, and Becky you've helped me with this too, to really look at recovery days are sometimes part of our work hours. Like, sometimes you need a recovery day when you plan to work. We're not saying take Sunday or take Saturday or... We're saying [00:27:00] sometimes recovery is actually part of your work hours.

And, and it can count as that because owner hours, entrepreneur hours, decision making, troubleshooting, it's a lot. And those hours that we count as regular hours that really shouldn't cost the same are gonna catapult your business in such a different way than the busy work and the things that take less time.

And so I just think we need a different way of counting our time, counting what it costs us instead of, like, really tracking these hours. I know I'm starting to pay a lot more attention to what tasks drain me, to what tasks restore me, to the work that I can still do when my brain feels done. Like, what can I do today?

And this isn't laziness. This isn't a lack of ambition or motivation or energy. It, it's not even about measuring our capacity. this is really being human, being the people that God created us to be. This is being smart and soulful. So we wanna invite you into this with us as we grow. [00:28:00] Like, come join our Soulful Strategy community.

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: It is an amazing Facebook community. Get in on the ground level with us right now because we're having some great conversation and making some great friends. Come join us there. It's where we're growing together. We have courses online if you, and we're building them. We're in a constant course creation mode, Becky and I are. We already have one released about, how to start and grow your email list. We have a foundations course in business. We have a podcast course. I'm not sure if that one's released yet, but I think it is. It is. It's out there. We have courses on how to write your book and get it published. And in saying all that, all the to-dos, right? We want you to be the person that God created you to be, which is a lot more than our tasks. Our identity is not just wrapped up in the things that we do.

Becky: So true. So beautiful. We would love for you to spend some time going through the action guide today because we really think this one is especially special. So take some time, go through it, identify the things [00:29:00] that are, that hold a lot of your, your mental load, mental weight, and just pay attention as you're going through the next week. Just pay attention.

Laurie: And come back next week. On the podcast, we're starting a series on mental blocks, the things that hold us back, the things that keep us from getting started, the obstacles. We're gonna do a lot of work really specifically in that, so we're excited. Thanks for, choosing to spend your time with us today.

Becky: Yeah.

Laurie: Love you tons. Go team.