The Unexpected Threat To Your DTC Business transcript

people are expressing this loneliness Factor all over the place right this is like a really known thing I mean I've even seen stuff from researchers saying like the predictor of longevity at this point like if you're going to talk about longevity is like deep friendships essentially like that that's like a stronger predictor of your longevity than than almost any like traditional Health Factor basically like if you think of it relative to sleep or muscle mass or obesity or something like that like basically that like it's the [Music] thing but do think you and I inhabiting the space of D Toc land specifically D Toc entrepreneurs there is the entrepreneurial thing and I certainly feel what you're saying is that you like I mean like right now you and I are talking I and and it's producing content or whatever right Al that's not it's not really like the point of this right but like I we could hang up this I could work I could finish my day at 5 o' and I could I absolutely could spend the next few hours after that working more to generate more money and it would probably create more money for myself right like if I if I did that instead of went and like hung out with my kids and my wife or whatever it is you probably do that and so that temptation is so ever presentent and and once you know once you do the math on this sort of thing it's like wait a minute I mean what is my what is my dollars per hour that I'm saying no to to like hang out with my friends or hang out with my kids and wife you know and that becomes like a ter like a you know tyrannical calcul you know what I mean like it's just so yeah it's a really what you're speaking to I think this combination of loneliness with like the entrepreneurial work for yourself like thing is a real thing uh that does make it so that work becomes all consuming I think yeah and even it happens to people who are are not Entre entrepreneurs I I think ironically maybe now so so my last full-time role before I started my Consulting practice was at a a very big company which was a complex highly Matrix organization where people had a lot of meetings and I was looking and kind of getting a view into my boss's day and their calendar and like they started taking meetings at 8:00 am and didn't finish until 700 p.m like consistently so where and then they were they were getting work done whatever like work product they had to produce and and knew that like I didn't want that I knew I wanted to have a kid um I you know I didn't want to spend the entire day at work and then see my kid like tuck them in at night um now that I'm I'm working as a consultant there is definitely that protected time um but I'm I'm constantly like fighting the urge like you said to you know the kids go to bed my husband's traveling am I going to zone out am I going to chill out or am I going to like try to do more work um and I think it's it's hard because we both work in uh metrics oriented like a metrics oriented part of marketing and so I know at least for myself I get a lot of gratification out of like seeing the numbers go up as a result of something that I'm doing so I'm constantly having to fight the urge of like oh I want to comp what I made last year I want to grow it by 2% when there's actually like I took a maternity leave this year so I'm not you know I'm not going to com what I made last year like it's constantly like beating down that urge how much better would your e-commerce business work if you had cheaper cogs faster lead times lower mqs and better payment terms that is possible for you by working with my friends at move supply chain the philippines-based supply chain expert agency that will help you go track down the best manufacturing options for your business I work move recently on uh a business that uh where move talk to 50 manufacturers in a week and then another 30 packaging manufacturers like two weeks after that they're incredible they bring deep expertise they know what to do to bring value to your supply chain which I'm convinced is the most under optimized part of your business and it has outsize impact on your success go to mov Supply chain.com to see what they can do for you it's also affordable go do it right now I remember talking to wa you described first of all it's right that like the people in in a more traditional corporate setting definitely feel this and I think I mean especially you're in New York right like there's just going to be an element where work becomes kind of allc consuming as like a normal thing um and that's probably true in a lot of places right but I think especially when you're in New York that's you're gonna you're going to see that's the definitely part of part of the cultural uh thing there um the the other thing is um you know I I agree with you that like part of the thing that was appealing to me about running my own business was the was the Freedom um and yet I always think back to a conversation I had with Dave recook who was talking about um when he was going through um cancer and it was not a form of cancer that was going to kill him and he knew that um but when he was going through cancer he uh he was like you know at the doctor like going to chemo sessions or something like that like checking his ad account and his reflection about that was he said that you know on my podcast his reflection about that was because first of all he wasn't it wasn't lifethreatening right so it just like a thing he had get through for the day so that that's part of it you know it didn't it didn't whatever so um so there's that but he was also saying that part of it is because it was it's fun like he it's a game to win and you like you said like you see the numbers go up and you like it and so it becomes all consuming and I think that's actually really fundamental to the challenge of navigating this thing here this like sort of social ties broader life values your relationship with your family and your relationship to work the challenge is that work is pretty fun and pretty interesting you know and and and but I think for me what I've experience is that while that is true it actually isn't as ultimately deeply satisfying as other things and um it's almost more like like maybe a way this is probably a clunky analogy but it's almost like at times like eating candy or something where it's like it is really appealing and you you do it because you like it not because you not because you feel forced to and that that I think is the way I used to think about what work would be like is some you know it's like your boss is standing over your shoulder telling you you have to do it or whatever in my case I if I'm tempted to do that it's because I want it it's because there's like a desire to to go and build more and do more things and and at least for me it's actually not even primarily about how many dollars I make at the end of the day it's like I mean that's nice but like it's just fun I just like the work I find it energizing certainly easier to take my mind there than playing with a four-year-old you know where it's like just that that requires something really different of me um and as much as I love my boys like it's just it Taps into something that's harder to tap into so there's a tempt but what I found is that um when I'm able to actually fully set that aside for a while the potential depth of joy that I can experience in these other areas of Life is meaningfully Richer and Fuller and so so it's a big deal to be able to do that so like in in that respect it is like the candy analogy where it's like actually there's a way to you know not that it's a problem to e candy like occasionally but just that like there's actually some ways in which you can be nourished and feel better if you if you resist eating candy more often you know what I mean I don't know that's again like I said probably a clunky analogy but like that is like that is the the thing that is the way that I'm thinking about like the sort of what's fundamental of the challenge in my mind yeah the way I and I was having a discussion with someone about this and an interesting analogy came up out of that which is it's kind of like playing a video game where is it a skill you can home that's right that's right like is it a thing that gives you a sense of satisfaction yes is it accomplishing anything in the real world no I mean debatable like with with a video game probably not with our careers like that's debatable and so it's um it it it's I I don't think that hard hard work or marketing Talent or whatever you grit whatever you want to call the stuff is is necessarily a virtue it's almost like a skill or a feedback loop but you have to be really cognizant of like what's the input that's getting fed into it because it will just you can just take yourself on a a wild goose chase and like wake up in five or 10 years and realize that you're not where you actually want to be or like you're not doing things that are like truly truly nourishing ing you and like making you feel like you're you've made the most out of your life getting into deep ter territory now this is where I expected us to go this is great yeah this is great um and that's been like that's been the story of my career really a lot of the things I've done or a lot a lot of the paths that I've set out on have been kind of like a reaction to something or a I wanted to prove someone wrong about something versus is trying to think about like where I actually wanted to wind up and so the Consulting practice was really the first major step away from that because I was my motivation There Was You know I I want to work with people who I'm happy to help um who treat me with respect and like I want to have more control over my day and I want to like architect my work around my the things that I'm actually naturally good at instead of like being in a corporate environment where I felt like I had to become like a I had to Riz myself up I don't know I had to become a masterer um I I just you know it's not me I can't be that I can't be always on like that like all the time yeah [Music]