103. MONDAY MINDSET: Would you rather be liked or would you rather be happy?

Yes, I absolutely wanna be happy. But what is actually happening is something completely different. Now, I have a bit of, I have a bit of a story for you. We are in launch at the moment, and I broke, I broke the rule that I tell my clients that they absolutely should not do, and that is to do day by day in your launch.

So instead of mapping out the whole thing, so it's like if you have a month long launch, you know, map it out, decide when the emails are gonna be sent, write those emails, do everything ahead of time. The reason being is you never want a bad result or, or like quietness or something to happen that is going to like dictate your next move. Do you know what I mean?

It's like if you have an email that you send, you get 15 unsubscribes, then all of a sudden you're like, oh my God, people don't want this. And then that next email comes across as this point of desperation instead of you kind of just planning everything out ahead of time and then not caring, right? So I broke my rule. I didn't do that. And I wrote an email. And then when I went in to write the next email, I made the mistake of checking the metrics.

And when I say checking the metrics, did I look at the clicks? No. Guess what? I checked. I checked the unsubscribes. And what did I see? I saw a few unsubscribes, not many, but a few more than I would've liked. And it was people within my industry. So when I looked at their little email address, the domain at the the end, they were all in marketing. And I was like, Ooh. it was interesting.

Then what my brain decided to do next was to tell myself really unhelpful things I felt myself for a moment want to close the browser and go and do something else. I. And not send the email because my brain had automatically said, well, gosh, if your peers hate this, imagine what they're saying about you. And again, this is why I always tell you to lie to yourself because, your brain.

Your brain just loves to sometimes come up with some really unhelpful thoughts, which is why I'm like, no. They were so intimidated. They've decided to shut their marketing agency down. The reason they unsubscribe their business does not exist. Or they love you so much. They're on there with 15 different email addresses and they're getting no work done, so they have to unsubscribe. Right. it was interesting in this moment that I was like, oh.

Maybe I'm emailing a bit too much or maybe I am doing this, and I felt myself not wanna send that email and to prioritize other people's feelings and not my own. You know, it's like I, I have a business I need to sell to support myself and my life. I gotta sell to help my clients. I gotta fucking sell. And what makes me happy? Making money. What makes me happier? My clients making money. But it's interesting that in this moment.

I was going to alter my next move based on the actions of a couple of people. And what we always wanna remember is not everyone likes themselves. So why can they? Why can you expect them? Why can you expect, oh my gosh, why should you expect them to like you? Yeah. Why should you expect them to like you? You know, not everyone likes themselves, it's interesting.

I think when we decide, you know, if we wanna be happy instead of being liked, doing a little audit through our whole life and asking ourself, okay, sweet. Where in my business am I prioritizing being liked over being happy? You know, we can look at this with the content that we post. We can look at this with the offers, with our pricing. I think sometimes what this can come across as is us minimizing ourself. Maybe we don't wanna rock the boat.

Maybe we have some thoughts that we wanna say that we are not saying because we don't wanna upset people. And again, I've done this before. There have been conversations that I've wanted to have where I feel I can't say it because I don't wanna upset people. And I think sometimes, you know, it, it, the context may not come across in the way that I want, and I don't want people to misconstrue something and have a pile on. You know, I don't think that everyone should have a business.

The reason I don't is because it is a harder way to make a dollar. Do I think that some people would be happier with a well-paid job? A hundred percent. But it's interesting sometimes that when I feel like that there is this like funky, itchy feeling in my life.

It's interesting that I think that this happens because I am prioritizing other people's feelings instead, oh, this is gonna sound wanky expressing my authentic truth, like talking about something that I actually wanna talk about, like the thing that is just busting to get out of me. And it's interesting the amount of times that I have minimized that because I'm like, well. Oh, I shouldn't say that. Oh, I shouldn't sell. Oh, I shouldn't do this.

And again, it comes back to this conversation of being liked and being happy. And then I think a bigger conversation around that is it's like, oh, you're a woman in business. Everyone's meant to like you, and you're meant to keep everyone happy. I. That's a little fucked up, isn't it? it's so funny, I like this conversation's taking a turn from the original context of this podcast, but you know, it is true.

It's like you get a man and a woman and you give them the exact, the exact same attributes and how people will reflect back that a man has leadership skills and a woman is bossy.

where I want to acknowledge this is, it's like if you are a woman in business and you do feel that this is challenging, I think that this is why, because it has been shoved down our throats our whole life, that we are meant to put our feelings and how we are in the backseat, and we consider every single person before ourselves, and we meant to keep every single person happy. And I think that because of that, of course this is gonna come through in our business.

Of course, we are going to want to, you know, not do the thing that we wanna do, not post the thing that we wanna post because we are considering everyone else ahead of ourselves. And the only person that loses is actually firstly it's us, but then it becomes everyone else. And the reason is I see so many good people. That could have an incredible business that decide that they don't wanna do this anymore because. They have been prioritizing, being liked over being happy.

And this can be something as simple as them feeling like that they can't charge something because they don't wanna offend people or they don't wanna, they wanna be affordable. They, they don't want to be like the highest paid person in their industry. This can look like people not having the conversations that they need to have, like sacking these clients or saying, Hey, I understand that you love working with me, but if our relationship continues, we are gonna need to have.

A, a payment structure that you honor. So if I invoice you and this needs to be paid by the 15th, we are gonna need to, to have this paid by the 15th. Otherwise we're gonna have to reassess our working relationship. This is like a muscle, you know, it's not gonna be the kind of thing where you are able to like lift a hundred kilos overnight. It's gonna start with one rep of a small weight, and I think that this can be as simple as you deciding and waking up, or even in the next hour.

In like knowing that I have this situation coming up or I wanna post this thing. If I wanted to post to be liked, what, how, what would I do? But if I wanted to post to be truly happy, what would I do? I think it's about maybe getting clear on what both of both of these parts of you would do. The one that is going for the liking and the one that is going for the happiness, and then asking yourself, okay. I think that it, it's so much more than being like, what should I do right now?

But I find this really helpful in a situation like this is to think about my future self and asking, okay, well what would make her happy? Like what if she was looking back on where I am right now, what would she wish that I would do? The reason I say that is because sometimes when we look at or even instant gratification, or if something feels really itching and new, we can decide that we don't wanna do it because it does feel really new, even though it's gonna serve us really well.

You know what I mean? It's like if we wanna get. Fit and we're like, I'm gonna join a gym, but this feels really stressful because I don't know what to do and I don't know where any of the equipments are, and I have some like anxiety around this. It's like, well, we will probably pick sitting at home because that feels like that would make us happier. Even though long term it's going to be leading into that discomfort doing the thing so we can be happy long term.

you may be like, I don't think that I am building a business to be liked. I truly think that I'm being happy. think that this can creep up in a couple of different ways. It can creep up where we continually give discounts, It can be where we are overdelivering. It can be where we are. Not saying the thing that we want to say, and not in like a judgmental way, but just like holding a client to a higher standard.

this has been something that I've said before and trust me, I wanna crap myself when I do this. Like I have had clients before that will continually reschedule and I can't stand this. Yes, we have our terms, but you know, if you see a client reschedule a call six times, you're like, what's happening with you? Why is this happening? so this can be you getting really clear on. Am I doing things for validation? Am I doing things for praise that I could be doing within myself?

You know, being like people pleasing is not a business strategy. It is just a formula for burnout. Everyone wants to talk about burnout. They wanna talk about their fucking nervous system. You know what the best thing to do for burnout and your nervous system is know who you are. Know what you stand for, have your values be ruthless in pursuit of that and say no to anything that's not in alignment. And I say this as someone that, uh, recently I've been working every day.

I've been working long days and long hours. I am not burnt out. The reason that I am not burnt out is because. Every minute that I work on my business is in true alignment. if it is not like that little situation that we had the other day with the email, guess what? I catch it straight away. I. I catch it every, I catch it all the time, and I have felt more burnt out working 20 hours a week than I have when we are balls to the wall doing like, say 80 hours or something.

That is a, a, a lot more of a stretch. Right? And I truly think that this does come from us continually. Going against ourselves because we are thinking about everyone else except ourself. This is where we get to take our power back in this situation and we get to decide what we need. And I am not saying that this is gonna be easy because trust me, when you start to do this, it can feel challenging. But what I want you to remember is that you are doing this for future, you.

You are doing this for longevity in business so that you can stay an entrepreneur so that you can keep doing this. again, this is like a muscle Over time, this will feel stronger with every conversation that you have, every standard that you set, every boundary that you hold, every time that you choose yourself and your future self's happiness over other people liking you. Because when. Our strategy is dictated by other people's feelings.

When you think about it, we don't know if they are doing the work. We don't know what's going on with them. That is not really a strategy. Do you know what I mean? It's like we are putting our happiness in someone else's hands. You look and see how careless people are with their own life, their own business. They're not gonna be like, what are they gonna do with us? This is why you gotta focus on yourself. what I did is if we go back to this email example, guess what I did?

I sent an email and I told myself, if people wanna unsubscribe, that's okay. you know, if they want to exit from the land of professional babe. They can absolutely do that, but I don't wanna get to this launch and I look at a launch number that is reflected by me not doing things and having conversations and sending emails. I would rather be laughing all the way to the bank with a hundred K in the bank and five bitches hating me, right? It's like, give me the money, because guess what?

This also serves everyone else because I now get to be an example of what is possible. So when you choose being happy over being liked, you'll have better business. You'll make better decisions, you'll make long-term decisions. You'll make decisions that serve yourself, that serve the business, which ultimately will lead to the business that you want.

The clients that you wanna work with or selling products that you wanna sell, content and, and marketing and emails that feel like they are you, it is going to lead to probably everything that you want. And I want to leave you with this. What would it look like for you to go through your day thinking about being happy over being liked? The only caveat I'm gonna say. I would ask yourself, what would it look like to be happy long term?

So remove you feeling comfortable in this moment, because again, I know for me sometimes it's like, what would make you happy right now? It's like going and just laying and rotting in bed and scrolling. But I know future Peter does not want that. What does future Peter want? Well, I know exactly what she wants, so I'm gonna go and do that. And that is why I'm here today. That's why I'm showing up. I'm doing the podcast, I'm doing the thing. Hot stuff. I, I love you. I don't like you. I love you.

Uh, and what do I love you more than I love you more than. I'm probably gonna get some jealous people. I had an 1130 sleep in today. Yes. I got outta bed at 1130, I think. I woke up at 1120. I got outta bed, I got a little espresso. I went back into bed. I did some strolling. It was really fun. Then I went out for lunch with my mom. Lunch is very loose because I had a double espresso and I had a Danish, and now I'm here at work. I love my life. It is a long weekend. I'm at work.

I'm doing the thing that I love that is making content for you. It's serving my business, it's making cash, it is doing stuff for future Peter. So I love you more than that, I love you more than, uh, we're at, I think season six of the Gilmore Girls. Jan is so funny. She, as I said to you before, she loves things spoiled. She just does not like surprises. So I've told her about like a lot of stuff and she's just like, this morning we were, uh, at breakfast and she was basically like.

I just can't believe that they get married anyway. It's so funny because she's talking about these people, like we actually know them. I think the reason that she thinks that we know them is I feel that there's so much stuff that happens in the show and I'm like, this is so Maitland. Like this is so my hometown. And we will liken people and I don't know if you do this, but we will look at a TV show and we are like.

Like if we knew if, if we knew people in our life that had to play these characters, who would they be? And there's so many like little crossovers and similarities with people that we know, which I think is why she has formed such an emotional connection to the show. I don't know who you are if you are watching the show, I'm Team Logan. I didn't like Jess. I know everyone was like, I like JI don't like him. I do not like him. Dean was whiny. Dean was hot, but he was a bit whiny.

I thought he was better. Like he was just Yeah, he was just whiny. He was a whiny man. and of course I would be, he brought her a fucking Birkin. I wanna a Birkin team. Logan all the way. So I love you more than that. I love you more than, I am doing some, I'm gonna call it restructuring in my business. So we are like restructuring parts. I'm having this like umbrella company and I've been really stressed about what to call it and all, all of these things, right?

I love you more than people just helping me. I like. I've been like, I need some help here. I don't know what this is. You know, I am someone where if I'm stuck and I truly need help, I will ask. Like there, there is just no shame in asking for help. And I've gone to my network and I'm like, how have you done this? What have you named this? Why have you done this? And, and really asking people like their process with things. And I love you more than. How helpful some people have been.

There's a guy upstairs who's done his like MBA or something at Harvard he was doing this like little diagram the other day on this piece of paper. It was so funny. I have it on my desk and I was like, you know, I love that you spent all this money at Harvard doing your MBA. And then who would've thought that you would've graduated? And now you are doing a diagram for me explaining this in this little triangle form.

And I said, you know, I'm gonna keep this and when you become really famous, I'm gonna sell it on eBay. so, but I, it was really nice to kind of have, have him help and have everyone around me kind of say, this is what this is, this is how you would do it. Because again, we are structuring for big business land, which I always knew was coming. But it, it is obviously you have like the legal side and on all of this stuff, and it's just felt a bit at times overwhelming.

you know, I know the worst thing to do is sit in that overwhelm because your thoughts often are not gonna help if, if what you actually need is, is advice, right? You have to ask, you have to ask for help. You have to pay for help. So that's what I've done. So I love you more than the people in my life. hot stuff. I'm gonna leave this here. Have a sexy week. Be happy. Fuck being liked. You are too good for that Fuck everyone. Hot stuff. I love this. Have the best week. Go forth and be happy.