Episode 114 – The Long Road of Shortcuts

This is Rebecca Clark Episode 1 14. The Long road of the shortcut This podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk? Mm hmm. If you look up quote, there are quite a few interesting quotes for shortcut. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going from. Beverly Sills. Shortcuts is the longest path you’ve ever chosen when it comes to success. There are no shortcuts by Beau Bennett in life. There are no shortcuts. All things are connected for success. There’s no fast lane work, hard. Focus, your energy. Practice, remain honest, Truthful, loyal and committed from cam lash thing. There is no shortcut to achievement George Washington carver. When it comes to work, I have been someone who has engaged in short cutting. Mhm. In my life. And I have also took the long route, right. And sometimes the long route is because I took too many shortcuts but I wanted to look at shortcuts today from a broad perspective as it relates to work. So when I was young I think I’ve mentioned that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I may not have used that word, but I always wanted to be in business for myself with something. So I started with a lemonade stand, I had babysitting jobs, I mowed lawns, I shovel driveways in the snow. I had a paper out for about eight years and as I worked on all those, I also sold some Girl Scout cookies and some magazines and some fruit for the school for those kinds of fundraisers you have growing up and I was pretty lucky because I would go and sell all these things to the people on my paper out and on the paper outs that I substituted for. So I substituted for Scottish winderman, brian Vreeland and another guy but I can’t remember his name. So I was into all these money making things and all of these money making things felt like hard work to me, right? I had to ride my bike, I had to walk, I had to go in the rain, the sleet, the snow. I had to find people to work for me. If I had to go on vacation. If I was mowing lawns in the hot michigan summers, it was sweaty, it was hard, but I did it. And of course in the winter it was cold. And then if I was babysitting they were crying kids and people who wanted stuff and that kind of thing. So all of these required some effort. They also required hours, Right? So it’s very easy to see. I babysat for five hours. I’m getting paid 10 or 15 bucks. Oh, I babysat after midnight. Okay. They kind of gave me time and a half. Right? You mow this lawn, You get five bucks, you know this one? You get 15. Which one do you think I wanted to know the most? And I don’t know what the rates are right now. These are the rates back when I did this over 30 years ago. So it’s always trading time for money. And I’ve always wanted to get out of that mindset. And I’ve tried really hard despite being an employee for most of my life. Because after those little endeavors growing up where I felt like I was a little bit of an entrepreneur, I very much went into employee mode. You know, as a waitress, Yes, you can earn some good tips but still you have to be their on premises for a certain number of hours and have a certain number of clients and it have them pay certain percentages. If you sit at a desk job, you usually paid some kind of salary. And so if you work over the 40 hours you’re not getting more money even though once in a while some of the positions are set up so that you can get salary plus a little overtime for extra hours. But in general you’re trading that time for money and you can decide whether you like that idea or not. But as we get older, some of us desire to do more of the rich dad, poor dad approach or the cashflow quadrant approach. Where if you’ve read those books, you know that he’s encouraging you to get out of the employee mode. Get into becoming a consultant, then get into owning a business and then get into investing so that you have multiple streams of income. It’s growing whether or not you are sleeping or working or sick or vacationing or whatever. And there are so many ways to set ourselves up for success in all of those areas as an employee consultant, business owner and investor. Right? So I’ve been contemplating this lately as I go through this big transition from being an employee to a consultant and trying to create online products that will sell themselves. And it’s been a very interesting journey because I’m someone that has realized that I’m just not about making the money. I want to be known for the right things and the right things according to me, right? According to the things I care about, according to what I want to be known for and what I do not want to be known for. And that very much matters to me. And so I’ll try something and then I’ll pull back a little, then I’ll try something and try it some more and then I will continue to experiment and get frustrated and then start all over again. But in between all of these experiments and failures and successes, there are some general themes that constantly emerged for me. And so I know I need to spend more time on those, on building out those businesses on building out that kind of consulting or investment. But what’s fascinating to me is to watch others going through the experience. I’m going through of trying to up level their work in a way that honors their true desires and goals for their future. And it requires some tough decision making. So for example, I don’t prefer to consult full time. My dream would be to do a little consulting, a little advising and have some online products that I sell and to do a little coaching kind of have that variety all in the realm of the same types of topics. But I have no interest in earning more money by working over 25 hours a week as a consultant and maybe if it was super interesting I’d say Okay yes I could go to 40 hours for a while, but my whole goal is to have that part time and have other activities filling the rest of my life. But money doesn’t grow on trees, does it actually? Money is made from trees? Oh often. So that’s a nice twist. So how do I make sure that my home has what it needs today while also preparing a sustainable approach for living in the future for bringing in money that doesn’t come from hourly work but instead brings in money from creating value for someone in a way that is repeatable and can be purchased multiple times so that I do one set of great work and it can be purchased thousands of times. That is easier said and done at times. Some people figure it out quickly, they get a business going, they bring in all the money, they don’t have to struggle through this. Others of us have to figure it out. And so in that process we have to ask ourselves some questions and say, what am I willing to do part of the time that is hourly work that sustains me while I’m creating this broader strategy that will bring in more ultimately, and how much trading off of time for money do I do in this process so often in the past like I just gather more and more jobs and realize that you only have the capacity to work 24 hours a day, right? There’s only 24 hours, so that’s all you can work and believe me, I have done it, I’ve pulled 48 hour shifts before between three different jobs. I don’t have the energy for that nowadays. So how do I bring in enough hourly work while also maintaining a vision of the future? It’s a very interesting problem and all of us get to work through this on our own and decide for how long we’re going to do it and what the trade offs were willing to make are in that process for me being my age and having a young child, I have decided that I am too old to create a brand new regrets and I say this to myself all the time, Rebecca, you’re too old to create brand new regrets. And what I mean by that is I have made promises to myself for how I would act and what I would do if I had a young child and I want to remain true to the values and goals I put in place For that. And what that means is that I am not going to go work 60 or 70 hours a week somewhere to provide for that child. Now, some of you listening may say, well, who do you think you are? Well, I’m Rebecca and that’s what I’ve decided. So what does that also mean? Well, that also means during this transition and that decision, I am not going on any big fancy vacations are going out and splurging on some fancy stuff to own right, because that’s the tradeoff I’ve made. But on the flip side, I am willing to do work that is aligned with the future. I’m trying to create and work a few extra hours of that if that is needed, because I am gaining more from doing that work that helps me propel into the future. It gives me more ideas, gives me more contacts, it gives me more insights that I can apply to what I’m trying to create and I don’t view any of that time as waste. I have some interesting situations I’m hearing about as I interact with family and friends and as I coach and finding that others are in these similar decision making processes. We have a family member that lives up at one of the entrances of Yellowstone National Park and I’ll tell you there are tons of jobs there in the summer months like May through october So if you are looking to work hard and make a lot of money, that’s the place to be the one constraint is. There’s not very many places to live and they’re not building more right because they’re really trying to limit it. So that corporations don’t overtake this natural setting an area. But you can go be a waiter, you can go work in ice cream shops, you can go work at gas stations, you can go work at sandwich shops, you can be guides, whatever you can work 24 7, Make lots of tips, do really well and that may be awesome if you’re a teenager and that may be awesome. If your family is of age where all of you can go participate in the work and it may be awesome if you have a place to stay, even if it’s a camper in one of the campgrounds around there or Island Park, Idaho or West Yellowstone Montana Cody, Wyoming Jackson Hole, Wyoming any of those places. But if that does not match your goal and you’re seeking that, take a minute to ask yourself why, why am I super motivated to go work 24 7 for a minimum wage job that gives tips versus build out what I actually want to do and some of this has to do with psychology and conditioning and that kind of thing because it’s going to give a quick hit, right? It’s going to give quick money every day. There’ll be cash that you can put in the bank and when, I mean cash, I mean literal cash, right tips come with cash most of the time in these places. But if that’s not your goal question yourself, why would you seek that for yourself? Why wouldn’t you put more time into building your business? If the building of business is really what you want or your mask yourself, how can I do both? Maybe this benefits me, Maybe I will go do this for five months, work really hard. Save up a bunch of money and then use that as I build out my business or pursue school or a dream that I have. My point is more to be conscious of why you are choosing to do that. And to notice if you choose to do the approach of always going for the quick money over the long term building, if that’s what you now want instead, because we can see patterns in our lives in my transitioning of work. There have been times where I have interviewed for full time jobs and in those times I’ve had to question myself and say, are you interviewing for these because you would absolutely love to go and do that work or are you doing this out of fear? And because you are not in abundant mode thinking that there are other options to pursue your goal. And the process of thinking through this can be very informative to your soul. I have a friend that’s just gotten another job and she did get a pay raise, but it wasn’t as high as she wanted. And so we talked about it and to find out, you know, well, if they don’t give you any more money, would you still go? It’s like, well, yes, they’re gonna be doing new and innovative things that I want to be part of. And like, okay, so it’s not all about the money, right? It’s partially about the money. And let’s not pretend here. A lot has to do with money, but a lot also has to do with what you want to offer in your work. And she was able to go through that mental process and decide willingly to work through what she may be worrying and thinking about and realizing that it’s okay that she got a certain amount of raise that was slightly lower than what she wanted because this would be taking her into a new world of responsibilities that she thinks she would love. I’m talking to another woman that has looked into some other opportunities and she was excited about them and found out that they paid less than what she was making and she decided the opposite that no, I’m not willing to make less because I don’t know that I would love that more or I’m putting my family at greater risk And that is not a trade off I’m willing to make right now. I talked to another gentleman the other day that I may be consulting with and he talked about his journey of leaving the federal government and how you use the 401K. And all those investments to get started. And he hardly made any money his first year. And the despair and the fear and the anger and the shame, all the emotions you feel when you do this kind of thing, because people sometimes act like you’re crazy for doing that. And yet any one of you that has tried to uplevel your work, knows when you get really serious about it. You start doing things that are different than the average person does. And you start doing things differently than you have in the past. Because you’ve realized if you want a different results, you have to do things differently. I am not here to discourage anyone from going after the quick money we all need our basic needs met. This is where it goes back to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, food, shelter, clothing, water, air is right there at the bottom and in order to progress higher up into better relationships and better work and self actualizing by giving your best to the world. Those basic needs really do need to be taken care of. And so sometimes that quick daily work that pays some bills is necessary for a longer while than we want. But be careful because if we don’t maintain the vision and we don’t remain open to other ideas and give ourselves the proper rest and food and time to process our thoughts, we can get stuck in the short term winds that come from showing up to do each hour of work for someone, there’s so much more to say about this topic, but I encourage you to take a look at what you’re doing. If you’re trying to shift into different work and carve out time for you to work on the dream, the vision, the up leveling part, so that your entire week isn’t filled with trying to make the quick buck from the perspective of mindset and working on our thoughts and how they translate ultimately into our outcomes. There must be time set aside to think differently than the work you are currently doing, because at that time is not set aside, your brain and your conscious and your subconscious especially will be trained up in only knowing how to do what you are currently doing and if that is working for you, great, keep going with it. But if that is not, it’s worth carving out time, even if it’s one specific hour a week where you’re like, this is the hour each week where I’m going to pursue my next possibility in this process, understand that I’m not saying that hard work isn’t good, the trading time for money isn’t good. I’m just saying that in the process of doing that it could be worth finding something that works better. That will open up the possibilities of you being able to fulfill all of those desires you have in your life that go beyond work with family, friends, travel writing, that book, mentoring those inner city youth, mentoring those suburbia in youth, building that fort you want to build for your child or creatively designing a piece of clothing or pottery that you’ve always wanted to do but have never made the time to do. Now is the time carve out a little time to pursue that other work you want to do. Pay attention to where you shortcut and notice if you keep doing it over and over again and decide what to change up so you can get different results, the results you are seeking, and if you need help thinking it through, give me a call, enjoy your week and talk to you soon. That’s thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, sign up for a weekly nudge at move your desk dot com.