If you don’t Love it, Kill it!

I wanted to scream!

It had only been ten months, and already I was contemplating calling a recruiter and looking for a job. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I left the corporate world because I wanted to be my own boss.

I wanted the freedom to do things my way, and to build the kind of life that I didn’t need a vacation from; so why did this feel like a worse version of my old job?

I had a database of about 700 potential customers, and I was starting to drown in opportunity. I had too many prospects to reach out to, and not enough hours in the day.

So I procrastinated and pushed off the most crucial part of being a business owner — sales outreach. I even took a few days and just did…nothing. Well, no sales outreach anyway.

Until the one day, while working out, it dawned on me.

And I want to share this with you because even if you’re not in sales, there’s a nugget in here you can use to supercharge your productivity.

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Social science tells us that once a group becomes larger than 150, there’s really no cohesion. We lose the ability to really stay in touch with our fellow group members.

While that number doesn’t hold exactly true for prospects in a sales database, it provides a useful foundation for the following statement: I don’t need that many prospects.

I was looking at some of the same names over and over again — and even after creative outreach strategies like a custom video (click here for an example) I didn’t get so much as a “please leave me alone forever” email.

So rather than beat my head against the wall, I just took my mouse and clicked “delete” — and instantly the weight lifted, and my mood shifted.

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What I was left with were conferences that I was excited about; prospects that I felt a special pull or connection to. People that I WANTED to pursue…not just those that I felt obligated to pursue out of some misguided sense of obligation to my business.

And since the amount of time I sink into this business is more like 24/7 if I don’t love something it’s gone. Either I reframe it, I outsource it, or I don’t do it at all.

I’m deadly serious.

Now, you’re probably thinking: “Ok, Greg — but what is the point? This may work for people in sales, but what does this have to do with me?”

I’m glad you asked.

What I was left with were conferences that I was excited about; prospects that I felt a special pull or connection to. People that I WANTED to pursue…not just those that I felt obligated to pursue out of some misguided sense of obligation to my business.

And since the amount of time I sink into this business is more like 24/7 if I don’t love something it’s gone. Either I reframe it, I outsource it, or I don’t do it at all.

I’m deadly serious.

Now, you’re probably thinking: “Ok, Greg — but what is the point? This may work for people in sales, but what does this have to do with me?”

I’m glad you asked.

What I was left with were conferences that I was excited about; prospects that I felt a special pull or connection to. People that I WANTED to pursue…not just those that I felt obligated to pursue out of some misguided sense of obligation to my business.

And since the amount of time I sink into this business is more like 24/7 if I don’t love something it’s gone. Either I reframe it, I outsource it, or I don’t do it at all.

I’m deadly serious.

Now, you’re probably thinking: “Ok, Greg — but what is the point? This may work for people in sales, but what does this have to do with me?”

I’m glad you asked.

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We all have something in our lives that is silently eating away at our job satisfaction…our life satisfaction…our joy. Can we say Joy? Is that word too “woo woo” to discuss? It shouldn’t be.

Because outside of this corporate construct of chasing profitability and building empires…we’re really just chasing joy.

We are drawn to smiles and happy faces from the moment our eyes can discern images; we have a natural bias towards those who are happy.

So here’s the “SO WHAT” that you can take away:

Your takeaway is that there are tasks and events in life that you have control over actually…you can choose to do them or not do them…to attend or not attend.

And then there are tasks and events over which you have no direct control, so you have must exert control over your perspective.

When we talk about “Dueling with Disruption” we talk about the dichotomy of change: making it and managing it.

You may not be able to “delete” the problems in your life as easily as I deleted those prospects…but you can shift your perspective and turn those problems into opportunities.

You can choose to look at the problem in a different way — to search for the opportunity hidden within the obstacle.

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When you do, you’ll be amazed at how quickly the world changes (really — not kidding — it changes) and you’ll see how much time we spend holding ourselves hostage to emotions and beliefs that don’t actually benefit us.

When you let go of all that, you can really free up your time for joy.