STP 137 | New Show
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[00:00:03] James Marland: our culture rewards over work and it calls it normal. We've been trained to believe that exhaustion or feeling stressed is the proof that we're, we're valuable, that we're doing work. That the more we give, the more stressed out we are. The, the more valuable it is, the more you're worth. I, I see this all the time when I, when I go on vacation. I, I come home to a pile of work, a pile of projects, a pile of open things that, that I like, I feel guilty for not getting to, and the, the thought in my head is go, go, go, go do more.
Introduction: The Wisdom Trap
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[00:00:48] James Marland: You have the wisdom to change lives. The problem is you're close to maxing out. Giving all your time to others with burnout in your future.
[00:00:59] I'm [00:01:00] here to help you design an income stream that truly leverages your wisdom. It starts when you stop chasing a full schedule and start scaling that wisdom into income without a ceiling. Now is the time to create more impact, more income, and more independence. I'm James Marland. Income Stream consultant and this is the Scaling Therapist podcast.
[00:01:34] Hello. This is James Marland, host of the Scaling Therapist Podcast. Today we're gonna talk about something that happens in the life of every service provider. That's something you're gonna have to deal with. And there's no crash, there's no lightning bolt.
[00:01:52] There's nothing that really signifies that it's gonna happen, but it's gonna happen. It'll be like a quiet Tuesday [00:02:00] morning and you open your calendar and you look at the light rest of the week and you realize, you know, with this sinking feeling in your chest, that you've double booked yourself.
[00:02:10] You're, you've, you're gonna miss some sort of family event or community event, like it's a sports game or a recital, or the family vacation starts with getting back to clients, client emails instead of, you know, going to the beach. It could be a phone call from your parents asking for help and realizing.
[00:02:33] You're not available or the only available spot costs you income, and you, you tell yourself, well, I'm just a busy person. But if every day is busy, if every month is busy, if every moment of your life is taken up it's not just a busy season, it's a busy way of life. It's a busy system. [00:03:00] That system that you're involved in, in serving your clients and earning your income, it was never built to sustain or support your life.
The Busy System: How Hard Work Became a Trap
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[00:03:13] James Marland: Somewhere along the way, just working hard became a virtue or a way of doing things or what everybody does to get by. We try to max out our schedule and somewhere rest became a luxury or something. We plan around. Something that it isn't really rest because when you're trading all your time for income, you either have to maximize before the rest or maximize after the rest, and you're worrying about it the whole time.
[00:03:47] Somewhere, your goal to serve people, um, finish college, start a family, build a business, do something that mattered. Somewhere along the [00:04:00] way, the goal quietly became, I gotta work to pay the bills, or there's some fear in there. I gotta work because I might not always have this work in the future.
[00:04:12] One of my favorite authors recently Benjamin Hardy, he wrote The Science of Scaling. He says, what you aim for shapes who you become. When you lower your sights, you are unconsciously. Designing a life that keeps you small. You're unconsciously designing a life that keeps you small. We weren't meant to live in these systems that are designed to keep us just on the brink of burnout.
The Real Question: Where Are You Headed?
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[00:04:44] James Marland: We're designed to have purpose, and that purpose brings us joy. The subtle thing that happens to all. Business owners, if you're not careful, if you're not doing it intentionally, is the business begins to run [00:05:00] your life. The business becomes your life instead of freeing you to live your best life. So here's the question I want you to sit with today.
[00:05:12] Where are you headed? Where's your goal? And when you get there, will you be elated or bitterly di disappointed? Because if your goal is to be, have the fullest schedule possible to maximize your income, to fill up every moment with service just so you can feel successful or just so you can tamp down that fear in your head, then that's not, then the business is running your life.
[00:05:42] to me, that's not success.
[00:05:45] Our bi, our culture rewards over work and it calls it normal. We've been trained to believe that exhaustion or feeling stressed is the proof that we're, we're valuable, that we're doing work. [00:06:00] That the more we give, the more stressed out we are. The more valuable it is, the more you're worth. I see this all the time when I go on vacation.
The Culture of Overwork: Invisible Damage
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[00:06:12] James Marland: When I come home from vacation, I, I come home to a pile of work, a pile of projects, a pile of open things that, that I like, I feel guilty for not getting to, and the thought in my head is go, go do more. And it really, it takes away the fun of going on vacation. I worry about it when I'm away.
[00:06:36] I can't just be in the moment. Your calendar might look polished, color coded, impressive, but it, it could be the thing that is keeping you from living the life that you want to live overwork, like the full calendar is just, [00:07:00] it's invisible damage. You know, it makes you feel good. And it's, it's great to be disciplined and it's great to have a full, you know, it's great to have reliable income, but if filling up every moment is the goal, then it's really, invisible damage.
[00:07:16] Like you're giving away something when your life is so full. And if you're like me and if you're, you've, you, when you finally try to rest and you feel guilty that's where. The grind the thoughts come in like you're lazy or you're, you know, you're not as good as other people.
[00:07:37] And it just, it's insidious. you're not lazy. It's actually proof that you've been trained by the culture, trained by the system to think and act in a certain way. You're not even aware of it. And so my nudge here is for you to stop measuring your worth [00:08:00] by, like how full your calendar is, but to measure it about how, how sustained you feel.
The Fisherman's Wisdom: A Story About What Matters
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[00:08:09] James Marland: I'm gonna, this reminds me of a, a story. I'm gonna kind of get the punchline a little bit wrong, but bear with me. There was a, a businessman and he went down south American island and saw some guy, a fisherman sitting at the, um, sitting at the bar, sitting at the place where they get drinks and he's like, oh, what do you do?
[00:08:31] And he says, well, I fish and. The guy said, oh wow, this is a great area for fish. You could, how do you do it? And he's like, I go out in the morning, I fish for an hour and I come back and I hang out on the beach and chat with my friends and have coffee and you know, spend some time in the sun.
[00:08:50] And the guy's like, man, what if you got a second boat and hired? More people, then you could earn twice as much money. And then when you start [00:09:00] earning that money, maybe you buy a, a delivery truck that you can take it further up land. And then when you get more money, you could buy a, a cannery, you know, and more boats and work there.
[00:09:16] And then. You know, you could earn millions of dollars. And the guy who the fishermen was like, oh, what could I do then? And he said, well, then you could retire to the beach and have all your free time. And the fishermen blinked his eyes and he's like, I got that now. And I was just like, oh, my word.
[00:09:38] What a story because. You know, you could chase something and miss what is right in front of you. And sometimes, you know, I get it. I, I chase money, I chase that sense of that I'm accomplishing things, but I, I might be missing the life that now, like I could have the life [00:10:00] now if I put my priorities in another place and the business guy might have thought that the.
[00:10:07] The fisherman was lazy, but he wasn't really lazy. He was just living his best life. Uh, so let's be aware that the system is not always your friend. We need to shift from striving, striving and working and maxing out every moment to sustainable shift from striving to sustain sustainable.
From Striving to Sustainable: Building Rhythm
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[00:10:30] James Marland: So once we see the system. For what it is that it's trying to max you out and then burn you out. What do we do instead? Well, it's not necessarily about doing more or doing things like adding more. It's about alignment. It's about building rhythms that speak or honor both your mission and your humanity.
[00:10:53] You're building a business that serves your life, not building your life around your business.
[00:10:59] So [00:11:00] how you want impact. It's not just filling every moment with clients. Um, you need space. I, I just came out of camping season and when I talk about space, like I think about. Logs on the campfire, and if you separate the logs too far apart, they don't support each other and they don't burn.
[00:11:25] But if you pack them on top of each other, there's no air for them to breathe and they don't burn as well. You have to stack them with just enough space so that they get air and fuel. And that's the same way for your business. Your business needs air and fuel. It can't just have clients stacked on top of one another and it can't just have.
[00:11:46] One-off projects. You have to have some sort of rhythm that supports each other. So yeah, you do need to block off that time for family dinners. You do need to have priorities for your life and it could be [00:12:00] designing offers from your wisdom designing products that you can sell that don't always take your time.
Creating Space: Scaling Your Wisdom Without Burning Out
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[00:12:09] James Marland: That don't always mean that you are in the. Therapist chair, sharing your wisdom. There's other ways to do it. You, you teach what you already know. So this could be a handout, a worksheet, a template, a a, a skill or a technique that you use, relaxing, something to deal with anxiety, journaling prompts.
[00:12:33] It could be a little more complex, like a mini course or some videos or some social media things that bring people in to you that you can use to scale your time. So that you're not always in front of people doing one-on-one service. These activities use your wisdom, but change it in such a way [00:13:00] that you're able to, it's the system doing the work, not you carrying every bucket.
Reclaiming Your Why: The Business That Serves Your Life
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[00:13:09] James Marland: I want to bring it back to why you built a business in the first place. I think you probably started for some reason. Yes. To make an income. You really wanted some freedom. You wanted some way to express yourself and earn an income and be independent. You wanted to be present. You had a mission. You wanted to live and serve people, but somewhere along the way that got replaced with flexibility and availability. but your business quietly filled every open space. Instead of the business bringing you freedom, it brought you, like it chained you to the work. this isn't about working less, it's about working aligned with your [00:14:00] values, creating margin and space for that, those family activities. The longer breakfast, the walk, this isn't laziness. Margin isn't laziness, it's actually the, the, uh, oxygen for creating.
[00:14:17] Longevity.
Your Business Should Fund Your Life, Not Feed On It
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[00:14:18] James Marland: I want you to hold onto this. Your should fund your life, not feed on it. Lemme say that again. Your business should fund your life, not feed on it.
[00:14:30] Five years from now, you're gonna look back at this moment and you're, you're either going to whisper, I am so glad I started reclaiming the business for my life. Or you're gonna start thinking, I wish I would've started back then creating some space and margin, some oxygen for my life. You don't need to change everything right now.
Taking Action: Small Steps Toward Freedom
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[00:14:52] James Marland: You don't. Sometimes just being aware and naming things and tracking what you're [00:15:00] doing that can have a huge impact on your behavior. Just take one small deliberate step towards a life that creates you margin towards a business that gives you your freedom back. Start saying no to some of the things that steal your peace.
[00:15:16] Maybe it's just protecting one afternoon a week for what really matters. Or you put an appointment in your calendar book that's like family tr time and you treat it like a client. Not that they're your clients, but you wouldn't miss a client session. So maybe that's what you need to do.
[00:15:34] Put a marker in your calendar. And say, this is for that time. And honor it. Honor it for what matters. Honor it. Like if you don't, don't do it for yourself. Do it for the people that matter and do it for your future self. Who will thank you later? The world just wants you to grind away, but there's hustle is not always the [00:16:00] answer.
[00:16:00] Hustle actually could be the thing that's keeping you trapped. It could be keeping you from enjoying your business. Your work is important. It really is. What you do and how you help people is very important, but it's not worth trading your future joy for if this conversation hit close to home. I host a beyond fully booked workshop regularly, and this is for therapists, coaches and mis mission minded professionals.
[00:16:29] Who are ready to take small steps to start building what works for their life and not against it. Uh, join the wait list for the link, uh, in the show notes or just, uh, message me, [email protected] and use the word next and I'll send you the next link. Your clients need you, your family needs you, your future self is counting on you.
[00:16:56] It's now time to start building the business [00:17:00] that supports your life. I.
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