What is a toxic entrepreneur and what can you do to avoid being one?
Find out on this week’s episode with Impact Aware business coach Casey Jourdan.
3:32 Casey’s story
10:02 What is toxic entrepreneurship?
14:23 signs that you have fallen prey to toxic entrepreneurship tactics
27:11 Toxic productivity and toxic positivity
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Transcript:
Hey guys, Megan here. Thank you so much for joining me today. You’re going to jump into a really fun talk that I’ve been with this person for how long?
A month now, but so. Yeah, yeah. So I’m talking to Casey Jordan.
And after years as a serial entrepreneur, Casey has embraced her knack for and love of starting new businesses. She’s harnessed those lessons, learned to focus on helping new entrepreneurs find their own success. Casey is a business mentor, supporting beginner entrepreneurs and building their dream business and troubleshooting small business struggles. And she’s going to help us talk about the ridiculous world of toxic entrepreneurship. Casey, I love you and I like you. Thank you for being here. Oh, thank you for having me.
I’m glad you still like me after our previous conversations.
So I was on Casey’s podcast, which you should check out because it’s also awesome. But we just kind of clicked, I think.
And like, you’re just so freakin inspirational. Like we were talking just before this about how she’s doing, why streams on Twitch. And I think that’s brilliant because not a lot of entrepreneurs are hitting up Twitch yet they’re sticking with clubhouse or things like that and just rocking saturated markets and is brilliant. That’s so smart.
Thank you. And it’s funny. I love it because there’s no time cap and I can talk because I want. But it’s also really hard because I’ve gotten so used to like Instagram or there’s a time cap on.
I need to keep things concise. So it’s like fun dynamic of getting to just like talk.
And then because of the live platform, like sometimes I talk to myself for an hour and nobody joins the call, the chat, and then today I will look myself. So I did a really short stream and it’s the best for my head. And all this conversation was happening and I’m like, why did you get shot today?
Oh, yeah. So it’s fun. I like trying different things.
Well, let’s start at the beginning. A very good place to start.
Let’s talk about your first business, but let’s talk about just your whole story. You were military to read. Yep. Yep. Where do you want to start?
Go. Oh, goodness. No pressure. No pressure.
So like the super condensed, condensed version is as military, I was Army National Guard Military Police and deployed to Iraq for a year. I was wounded at the end of our tour, literally two weeks before coming home, separated my shoulder, crushed some nerves, and then years later would be diagnosed with a brain injury and post-traumatic stress.
So I was there. Twenty three.
Twenty fourth. We didn’t know brain injuries were a thing. Like I didn’t even get screened for a concussion that I got hurt. Like they gave me ibuprofen and I went back to work the next day. Yeah, I guess that’s the army way. And we were so close to the end of our tour I didn’t want to leave.
My guys like the doctors gave me a choice. I was having a bunch of pain problems with my arm, like we fly you to Germany and I know what’s going wrong, or you feel like wait a couple more weeks and go home. And it’s like option number two, please.
And so.
So that kind of compounded everything because we didn’t deal with it right away. I always tell this part of my story, but because of because of the brain injury and the PTSD that has kind of I mean, that like.
Pun intended that being wounded in that bombing launched me on a new trajectory like that, I couldn’t have even pictured at the time I came home, struggle with PTSD for a while, got my shit together. I got my bachelor’s in political science, which you can’t get a job with. It’s just an interesting degree to have.
Yeah, my my degree in social sciences is the same thing.
It’s the same thing. So at that point it was more that for me it was just like to prove to myself I could before I got my degree, I’d actually flunked out of college like they put me on academic suspension and I didn’t know I had a brain injury, sort of like I had to learn how to read again.
So, like, realized my brain was damaged, what parts were damaged and learn all new tools for that. My bachelor’s degree was kind of like one of my crowning achievements because I didn’t know if I could go back to school.
And then I went on, I got my masters in mental health counseling, worked as a therapist for a while, love mental health, love that work. But it wasn’t good with my mental health because I was still dealing with my stuff. And so I got married and literally on our honeymoon and my husband, I still remember it. We’re sitting at a bar called the Men’s Room in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and we’re kind of like, OK, we’re married.
What’s next? I was like, you know, I think I want to quit my job and start my own business.
And I don’t think I ever mentioned entrepreneurship like in the back of my head.
It was the thing I’d come. Entrepreneurs always kind of but like seeing my health struggle, trying to keep a real job. I was like, well, and now now I’m married. I’m married up.
So like, I might as well. And he was like, wait, what? And so then we talked it through and he could see the logistics, the logical side of it being able to my health kind of ebbs and flows, which is not conducive to the standard American work world. Right. Even even working in mental health, it was difficult for bosses to understand that my mental health would impact my job, like this is what we do.
And they still sometimes didn’t see that.
And so we made some arrangements. It took a few months, but I left. I wasn’t even in corporate America. I left nonprofit America, launched my first business as a health and fitness coach and have been doing my own thing for the last seven years and have had a variety of evolutions and styles of business since that first one.
You and I both have shiny object syndrome when it comes to new business ideas.
Yes, absolutely it is. It is such a discipline to think like, oh, that’s a great idea and I won’t follow through with it.
I’m going to focus on my own shit and not do this.
New thing is I I’ve been this is a side tangent totally. But I have been learning how to crochet just for something to talk to you about this already. You just I’m trying to learn it as something to do that creates a tangible good that I cannot sell. So it is like this is my mission to do this hobby and have something come of it, like a tangible good and be like, nope, that’s not for sale. That’ll be the first time I’ve ever done something like that.
And so it’s hard.
Yeah, I just started playing with doing block printing with like the little thing with the same intention.
I’m like the some of some of this like it’s all but somewhat like the goal is not to start another business bigger my Brame just things and monetization.
Like I think it was a couple of years, this was a couple of years ago prepend. We had a giant like family reunion out on the coast of Oregon and a longtime family friend came by to see everybody and he brought his drone.
And like my husband, our fascinator, like he’s showing us how it works.
And looking at pictures, I’m like, why are more real estate agents not using drones to get aerial footage around the moon to do like a video through the house and like, my brain starts spinning and my husband just looks at me, you know, it’s like instantly I’m like, how can I, like, buy a drone and then sell my services to real estate? You know? And my sister in law was like, how did you even see an opportunity?
Like, my Brame just monetize this shit. It’s just what it does.
And you’re like, how can you not see the opportunity here? What’s right? It’s amazing. It’s so blindingly right there, you know? Well, let’s I guess this is a pretty good Segway into. Let’s talk about. Entrepreneurship. And so what what do you how do you define toxic entrepreneurship? What does that mean to you?
So to me, I think the Internet is still so relatively new. And in the explosive growth that came into the Internet, a lot of. But I got to find a better example, would a lot of used car salesmen jumped in on board and started finding a way to manipulate people who were playing with this fun new online thing? And you see all of these.
There’s so many great marketing books out there about the talk about sales psychology, which is a real thing. And people have twisted that so damn far that they’ve created this world of entrepreneurship that you have to pay to play.
Like if you just give me five thousand dollars, I will give you a little secret to a six figure business. And we tout six weeks. I’ve been doing this on and off for seven years now and six figures has been touted again and again. I realized in the last year I’m seeing more and more entrepreneurs help seven figures instead of six.
And I’m just like, oh my God. And just this like manipulative, unhealthy, unsustainable style slash facade of online business.
If you pay me five thousand dollars, I’ll show you how to get sixty thousand dollars. Just thank you for your five thousand dollars. Now you get some other people to sign up and you’ll get sixty thousand dollars.
That’s that.
I’ve talked about this on a couple of episodes, but what strikes me is that a lot of coaching businesses have turned to the multilevel marketing pyramid scheme of just like I’m not a coach, other coaches. And how you’re going to do this is you’re going to coach other coaches who want to coach other coaches. And it just becomes this pipeline of business coaches, coaching coaches. And if you’re listening is now your business, because I’m not I’m a marketing coach.
So I understand that you still do the essential job. But it’s interesting to me that, you know, you talk about this toxic entrepreneurship and this predatory behavior, and it the six and seven figures is totally right. Like, that’s just something that people have latched onto. And it becomes like an unfair benchmark almost to put your business up against. Yeah, absolutely.
It’s I wish I keep meaning to look up the exact statistics, but like the number, especially female entrepreneurs that actually make it to one hundred thousand is how it 15 percent or less look.
It’s it’s a surprisingly small, unfortunate number, and especially in another conversation comparing that to how many, like white males had that number, like the whole the whole other topic there.
But yeah. Six figures. Is it. It isn’t a given. It isn’t necessary, like the first time I ever had a coach sit down and say, OK, I want to write, like write out all your expenses. How much do you have to make? I was shocked at how small that number was. And when I even put in other expenses, hiring a podcast ever or getting a massage every week, like still shockingly small number.
And then the other side of that, to me, the more toxic part of the six and seven year conversation is we’re not talking about the optics of that is how much of that six figures take home, because there are a lot of businesses who’ve made seven figures who still go bankrupt, who are broke, who are not paying their employees like six figures, doesn’t mean anything if you’re not talking also about expenses and take home revenue and all those kinds of parts and pieces.
Well, and I think that your background, especially at the TBI, is so parallel to toxic entrepreneurship and not realizing you’re in this shit until it’s too late.
So what how do you coach people to recognize when they are falling prey to toxic entrepreneurship tactics or even like mindsets? How do you what are some signs of that?
If it feels gross, stop. That’s always that’s kind of always been the biggest one, and it feels really unnatural, uncomfortable, gross, exhausting if it feels negative. You’re probably dabbling in tactics that aren’t right for you not to say business isn’t hard like. The ship is really hard, but the challenge of being an entrepreneur versus using tactics that are. Monkeys that are manipulative, they feel different and so understanding that feeling and then also like as somebody shopping.
So like looking for a coach to hire, looking for a course on whatever subject you need is looking at things like their testimonials.
Is this a one off person who made this money on this launch or is this the daily standard? Is this testimonial actually even about this product or is this a testimonial from a different product that they’re slapping on that sales page and looking for?
I feel like it’s harder to see because good being a moral term, good toxic entrepreneurs write really good sales pages and so you get sucked into them. But if you catch yourself reading a sales pitch, you’re going like, oh, my God, I have to buy this product people. I can’t afford it.
Stop and take a deep breath and like, look deeper on what are they selling you. How do you recommend people build something that doesn’t fall prey to toxic entrepreneurship tactics then?
So like they say, you’re launching a course or whatever, you’re building your sales page, but it’s new. You haven’t tested it. So, you know, thinking about testimonials or things like that, how do you recommend people stay authentic, I guess, is what I’m saying, and not fall prey to these tactics that seem like such a standard now.
But some of it just comes down to education and learning new ways. So I am a big fan of Kelley Deals. And one of the things I’m in a copywriting course with her and how she writes sales pitches and actually the science is showing these kinds of changes can better start with the common vision.
So usually sales pitches that we’re taught to start with the pain point and like dial in on that might make them hurt and then tell them you can relieve that pain. But like, this model flips that SEO like we all want a world where we’re successful. Entrepreneurs want that. But toxic entrepreneurship is making it hard to know which way, like, oh, yeah, talk to entrepreneurships, bad and like SEO.
For me, there’s been a lot of learning, like how do I change my approach to business in my language? Some of it is also just. Testing it out, see how it feels for you see see what you’re comfortable saying, I get critique all the time because I will not put on my sales pages that, like, I will guarantee that you have your first client in three months for, like, my starter package or like I don’t make enough guarantees because I can’t guarantee these things.
Even if we work together and do great work, there are variables of entrepreneurship that you can’t control. And so only seeing things you are comfortable with and only saying things that are true.
So one of the toxic toxic things that I rag on a lot is like deadline funnels, not a fan. If there is a real reason for that deadline, like if this is a live launch and the course starts on Monday. Absolutely. You need a deadline. If this is an evergreen program, don’t give me an email. The deadline for an audit that’s fake fake scarcity been scarcity sells, which is true. But the toxic side of that is now we’re applying fake scarcity to things.
So like I do market that, like I have two spaces available for my big program right now. That’s because I only take four people at a time. That’s not I’m not saying to.
So you feel like the pressure is on. So like knowing what is you being authentic and actually having some sort of like scarcity versus like what is you what what is manipulating scarcity to try to create a response.
I like that. I like the idea of just it.
So it sounds so refreshingly simple, doesn’t it? Just like I don’t like this. Pretty much. Yeah. This is the way. Yeah. You know.
So how do you what are some other ways that you’ve seen toxic entrepreneurship work through the system.
So a couple other big ones are the toxic positivity, toxic productivity and like the hustle culture, the mindset side of it, like it’s a part of the reason I’m an entrepreneur is that even 20 hours a week takes so much out of my brain working for somebody else.
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And so for me as an entrepreneur, I do this largely so I can control my schedule. But all of the bigwigs told me I should work 24/7 because that’s the only way to make money. And if I really loved what I did, I wouldn’t ever want to stop working. I’m sorry. A lot lifestyle from the beach. If I’m on the beach, I’m not free laptop because I’m on the beach.
Sand is getting everywhere.
Then sand is right next to me. But we just have this.
So much of entrepreneurship surrounds this work 24/7. Hustle, hustle, hustle and all. We ever talk about the good stuff and all of those are so detrimental for so many different reasons. But just like like I said, the realities of my business situation, of not being on the world, I have things built into my business to compensate for what I need to shut down for a week, like when my health kind of forced me out from it. Like I’m not taking on knowledge that that’s there, but that’s built into my systems.
If somebody wants to work 24/7, that’s fine. But do it because you want to, not because that’s how you’re total success happens. And yeah, the mindset, I think, is another really big part of it.
Can you talk about what failsafes you have for when you need to shut down? Yeah.
So I try to do this once I feel safe to feel safe, but having enough content ready to go that I can kind of put some stuff on preprogramed autopilot. I always stay way ahead on my podcast. So like worst case, I always have a podcast going out every week. Same, I try to do that with social media. It kind of comes in waves. I only take calls on certain days of the week. So if I am having a bad week, I can cross my fingers.
So far I’ve never had to reschedule a client because things have been so bad. Should it be like, you know, sick with the flu? But if it’s just like a mental health week, I can always shop for my clients, analyze it.
Yeah, yeah.
But I keep that like a couple days a week. So I don’t like and also just for like. With the brain injury, a lot of it comes across like ADHD, which is something more people are familiar with, like I can’t tasks which very well. So like Tuesdays and Thursdays, I talk to people a lot, Mondays and Fridays. I typically try not to book calls so that I can stay focused on writing. So things like that. And then just a lot of it too is grace and practice.
I can kind of tell when I’m starting to head towards a rough patch and I also have to kind of scramble to throw some things in place, knowing that the wheels might fall off the bus and sometimes the wheels fall off the bus unexpectedly. And I take a few days off and I don’t beat myself up for it because that’s why I work for myself.
You some cases and so adult and so you can get it together once in a while, that can be your testimonial Megan that I’m an adult in the Internet.
That’s right.
It is. But it’s a learning process and it’s an ever tinkering process. Like another thing I realized over the last couple of years, about every five to six weeks, I do tend to kind of crash and burn.
And so that’s why I was like learning how I give myself grace and just like take a few days off, I now I’m playing I’m only two cycles into this, but I’m building my schedule around, taking every seventh week off.
So I plan six weeks of content, I plan six week focus, whatever I’m doing, and then I wake up and I have in my car. Your client calls that week. I will record my own podcast. I won’t get on anyone else’s show. The last one I did work a little bit, but I worked on stuff that I wasn’t making time for. That’s less important, more frivolous, more enjoyable. And so, like, I saw the trend in my business, so I’m building it in my business to just take a week off every six weeks, every week there.
You reminding me of a book that I just read called In the Flow. And I don’t remember the author’s name, but she talks about how obviously not every seventh week, but how your menstrual cycle affects your productivity and life and your everything and how to build your schedule around that to say, like, you know, when I’m ovulating, that’s like the time that I need to cocoon and take care of myself.
And that’s so healthy. That’s so, yeah. I’m very proud of you.
That’s taken a lot of years of beating myself up to get here. I couldn’t really. And because it is so counter, like it’s funny because I have several people who, like, I kind of look up to I’ve hired them. They’ve been my coach, my mentor at various points along the journey. And like what I told them I was doing this. They’re like, oh my gosh, that’s a great idea.
And I’m like, what am I doing this really? Right.
It was really wrong that I’m trying because it’s so counter to hustle culture to productivity. Like, I’m just going to two weeks out of every quarter, just like play video games for a week like. I might break this, like I said, it’s a new system, we’re trying it out. So far it’s worked great and more productive planning for me six weeks at a time instead of a whole quarter at a time. My brain really likes basically to break each quarter and a half.
And so that has really helped my productivity, which was not the goal. That wasn’t that was like an unexpected side effect. Like figure out what works for you and try it.
Well, I want to touch go back a little bit and touch points on toxic productivity and toxic positivity, because I think that some people know those are. But can you better define them? Yes.
So toxic productivity and hussle culture to me are basically interchangeable. It’s kind of that we should hustle 24/7, being busy for toxic productivity, leaning more towards being busy for busy sake. So I catch myself doing this all the time. It’s like I’ll work at eight or 10 hours a day because that’s the hours my husband works.
And at the end of the day is like, so you do that like no clue what you know how easy it is to go down the rabbit hole of tasks that you’re like, quote unquote supposed to do. But really achieving nothing, but you worked an eight hour day, so you feel accomplished as an American. So that’s the mentality.
You know, obviously, as long as there’s an ass in the seat for eight hours, work has been done. Yes, exactly.
Exactly. So that’s the toxic productivity that absolutely achieves nothing. If you don’t know what it is you’re trying to work on the toxic positivity. I like talking about these two things back to back. Our positivity is this idea of like. Like begets like so if I’m always if I talk about the bad stuff and the hard stuff in my business, it’s only going to keep me in a hard place. Like we always only want to talk about the good things in business.
We only want to talk about the good things in life to me.
And this is just my opinion on like manifestation it kind of and I know you’re alive, but like talks of positivity and manifestation kind of rub elbows in this. Like, if I just think good thoughts, the money will come like the no money mindset abundance books that I have read. Just make me want to bang my head against the wall because we go back and you look at a lot of them a level deeper and they’re not talking about the hard five years leading up to the year that the manifestation work.
They’re not talking about the privilege that that person already has by being white, by being male, by being just by being, you know, already having I have a privilege that like I’m on disability and my husband works were already at two income house, regardless of what I make in my business. That is a huge privilege for me in being an entrepreneur.
Like, it’s it’s not acknowledging all of the other things that aren’t necessarily exciting, exciting or upbeat.
I think I’ve told this story before, but there was a losing my was already there was a YouTube video by Abraham Hicks and it was the, you know, this entity, Abrams’, being channeled through this woman.
And that’s the manifestation of those things. And one of Abraham’s followers came up and said, you know, I’ve been trying to manifest I don’t remember, let’s say, six figures. I’ve been trying to manifest one hundred thousand dollars and it’s not working. And I see all these other people that say that they’re manifesting it and it’s happening, all these things and why isn’t it working for me? And Abraham said it’s not working for you because you just expect this money to fall into your lap.
And that’s not what this manifestation supposed to be. A manifestation is supposed to be understanding the mindset of a person who earns one hundred thousand dollars and doing the work to earn one hundred thousand dollars, not to just, like, let this I mean, open my hands and the money falls like it’s not it’s not about that.
And so when you’re saying these, like the parallels between manifesting an abundance mindset and toxic positivity, I can definitely see those parallels. And I think that it becomes. Like the wrong teacher for it can lead you down that path to where you’re like, I can’t think about the Amex bill that’s due in a couple of weeks because you don’t get paid and that’s fine. Instead, it’s supposed to be like, I don’t I’m not going to think about that Amex bill because I’m working towards the money to get it to get that.
And I think that I agree. And so I don’t want you to think like me being more wooroloo about it is like, I don’t know, I’m going to go play with my crystals. And you don’t know what you’re talking about. I know.
I know. I definitely like I own that. I come from a jaded perspective on one of the manifestations and like the people who get it, like I know you understand that like it’s more than holding your hand out, like the other stuff that work too.
And and I think if you could just hold your hands out, like, I would be like back to that whole living on the beach thing.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So how can you let’s say I’m starting a business, what kind of tips do you have for me to start? Figuring out how to create a schedule that works for me in not following susceptible to toxic creep, let’s call it.
Yeah, that’s what I’m going to still talk some creep. Thank you. It’s yours, really. Experimentation is number one. Look, you’ve got to look at kind of what your lifestyle, what your priorities are like if you’re doing this because of like a health thing like me.
Look at what that how what role that plays in your life. I have a friend who she worked for the government. And so when the state got a new governor, like she lost her job, like that’s how it works. The governor and his staff all left and she was on that staff. And so she’s now full time for herself and wants to prioritize more time with her kids and like doing a school drop offs instead of putting them on the bus.
So, like, first thing we did is like, OK, what time do you need to get up? What time do the girls need to be up and out the door? When does that put you back at your desk without rushing? And she’s like, well, if I don’t rush and I pick up a coffee on the way home, I’m back my about ten. I was like, cool, don’t ever book a client before ten o’clock.
I can do that. Yeah, you know, it’s like some of those testing I’m playing with, like with the health stuff, I’m having some issues balancing, like exercise, like I need to exercise because it’s good for my body, but it’s also really hard on my body.
And I used to work out in the mornings, but that doesn’t work for me anymore. So I’m not like clocking out by three thirty four o’clock every day and I’m trying. Let’s see if it works like a do I actually go to my workout at four o’clock or do I go sit on Tik Tok for an hour and start cooking dinner. Like what actually is going to happen on this thing of like seeing the patterns, this thing of like I realized I crash every so often anyway.
It’s a building in that week off, really. It’s looking at your life. If you’re still working a part time job or even a full time job, how many hours can you give to the business?
In addition to your job and in addition to life requirements like family and sleep, then you backtrack from there.
And if that means you only have five hours a week for the business, then you make those five hours really productive. And that’s OK.
Do you think that there’s a way to balance, I guess, the slippery slope, part of that of the busywork, I guess we’re like we’re talking about, but also the how do you.
How do you create productivity and not fall susceptible to. Busy work or not even like. I guess I’m trying to say, how do you not get lazy about business, you let yourself get lazy about business. Sometimes it’s it’s an ever evolving process. I have through a lot of experimentation, fairer system with my schedule that works for me and like how I track my to do list and how I prioritize projects. I think for me that has been kind of number one is I know what I am working on so I can stay focused on those things.
And if I catch myself out in left field like an idea pops in my head and I jump down the rabbit hole, as soon as I realize that it’s like, OK, I’m going to write that idea down somewhere and then I’m going to go back to the stuff that’s already on this week’s list.
And so it’s kind of like you are asking that question. The way you ordered it made me think of like beginner meditation or beginner mindset or my first idea is not necessarily that you’re stopping your brain from wandering, but as soon as it wanders, you acknowledge that and you come back to your breath.
This is my brain wanders. I write it down.
I have a system of where I put these random ideas so I can find them again later. And I come back to what this week’s task is. And I always have top three tasks for the week. And then I’ll break those three down and across the week, lay out that, like, here’s what I’m working on each day, or here’s how much time.
Like I’m actually for all the crap I give people up. Will, I’m finishing up a certification and tarot reading right now. Nice. The final application is like a jillion pages long and I have no clue how long it’ll take. I’ve never done one of these before and I have a bunch of readings for it and this and that.
So instead of saying like today I’m going to do X, Y and Z is I use the Pomodoro method.
So today every three pounds is how I write my calendar like three cycles of work. And so once I’ve done, which would be an hour and a half on that application, I’m done with that for the day and I move on to the next thing. So kind of building systems around staying focused on what the priority is, I think is the long answer to your question.
Do you have a reward system? Not really, no. In a way, I try to reward myself more, so once my day is done, I get up and walk away. So more on that button SEO mentality.
If I was looking down my 10 o’clock, I think what is done, I get up and I wander off or a flip of my computer game and a game or I take a super long lunch and then I pick something else that I want to get ahead on.
I’ll come back to work, but now more so time than some of the other rewards that and that was in my head, along with a harsher take, I guess, of and trying to figure out a way to survive this. But I guess I’m just going to see the way I see it. I think that also when. In my own experience, when I’m slipping towards the lazy side, for lack of a better phrase, I’m moving to the slippery slope, what that actually means, if I think about it hard enough, is that I’m avoiding doing something I really don’t want to do.
And sometimes that is a sign that this is not the thing for you. Maybe that means you’re not supposed to be an entrepreneur in this kind of business, or maybe it just means like you need to outsource some of this stuff. But that’s what I have noticed. Like, if I start slipping into where I can realize it’s not just me doing self care or me working in the systems, it’s me actually avoiding things, then it’s actually because I’m purposely, subconsciously avoiding doing those things.
Have you noticed that? Two hundred percent. Yes. And agreed.
It’s either this isn’t the thing for me or the other one that I catch when I’m procrastinating or I’m slipping.
The systems are falling apart is overload. One of the things I talk about a lot is people put and I’m one hundred percent guilty of this. I can look at my calendar today and tell you I have this written down. It’s like I’m writing a book. And so my calendar today says, like work on book.
I don’t know what the hell that means, that my writing and editing and I like working on the proposal. Am I doing research? So I’m not going to do any of it because when I look at it, I panic and I don’t know what it feels to be doing. And so that being the other thing is like, yeah, when the system slips, it’s either I don’t want to do this thing or I know how to do this thing.
So for me, keeping a very detailed breaking things down, a lot really helps with that. I can see which things I don’t like. I know like I edit my own podcast, though. I know the part I don’t like is prepping a transcript and like having a listen back through the whole show so that if someone else did that part for me, I don’t mind putting the intro outro and making the graphics like because I break it down into so many little tasks.
I know exactly which tasks I don’t like and I will hire out first. Or, you know, at one point I thought about like doing podcasts, I think for other people.
And I’m like all the terrible people who I know. I don’t like this big chance that is like essential to being a podcast editor. And the thing that’s it’s like I said, I don’t like the things that are too big. So when I’m having conversations, I point to my left. I have a whiteboard over here that has my entire brain written on it, like I’m tired of my business, like, what am I actively working on? What do I not want to forget what’s kind of next on deck?
And that’s all the big stuff is written over there. And then as I translate it from there to my calendar and break it down into all the parts and pieces. So I’m going to record these two videos. I’m going to edit this one thing. I’m going to create five days worth of Instagram content.
Like I don’t even say I’m going to do my week of Instagram content. I’m going to do five days work because it’s a week, three days or five days or seven days or does that count next Wednesday?
Because today is Wednesday, like you write for? As smart as we are, our brains are really, really dumb and we don’t know what to do, Michel.
That makes sense. I have two things for you. One, happy scribe, it’s what I use. It uses A.I. to auto create subtitles and transcripts. And me and my podcast are Policía. We both use it for this. And it just I think it’s on Apsey still.
If it’s not, then I’ll send you the link.
But check that out and to I have this, which is I know people on the podcast can see this, but this is like playing cards that a client told me about. It’s simply blank playing cards that you just keep and you just that’s my shiny object shit. Whenever I think of something, it goes on the playing deck and then I just kind of like peruse through it when I’m feeling like I don’t have anything to do it. I can do my referral network.
I can do the summit that I’m working on. I can do it. And just I love that. So I recommend to everyone they’re like eight bucks on Amazon for one hundred and they come to little case. Oh yeah.
That’s a great idea. I use the script for. I know. No, that’s another great one. But yeah, something like the cards. I have a friend who calls it the parking lot and so she was like a parking lot for all those ideas for me. I use the like the iPhone, the Apple Notes app on my phone. So like it’s just I just have a long commute and so I can without ever touching my phone, I can go, Siri, take a note about such and such.
So when I’m listening to a podcast, a genius idea pops into my brain. That’s my parking lot, that’s my deck of cards. And then every so often I open that up and like, I don’t know what that.
Oh, no, we’ll throw that one away. Like old this idea over here, this is and then like, I sort of periodically then go back and sort all that information and decide if it goes into the system or it goes into the garbage can. No smart. Yeah, that’s a great idea. We have something, whatever the system is, my my Brame lives on my phone.
I joke with my phone too much. It’s my brain is that is my brain. It’s an external device that I carry around whatever I feel.
If the playing cards on the decks like that’s a cool and I just look at the calendar on my desk and don’t want one more like that one would work for me because I end up putting it over there and forgetting about finding something. So when the shiny happens.
Right, the washed out and. Yeah. And then go back to it later and then just it’s out of your head.
You’re talking about writing a book. That was one of the reasons I wrote my book was because I wanted it out of my head. I wanted this whole task of like, I’m going to be you. I’m going to read a book someday, like I wrote the book. So it was out of my head so I could move on to the next thing. And I love my book, don’t get me wrong. But I just like that was the main reason just to get it out so I could go work on some other stuff because otherwise it was just in my head all the time, you know.
Exactly. Mind my knowing I wanted to write a book has been on my to do list for 14 years now.
And I finally figured out because a lot of it’s based around, it’s the book is about a resiliency after like life trauma after change you didn’t pick. And so it’s a very like I talk about being blown up in Iraq. I talk about fertility struggles with my husband. I went through so like it’s deeply personal. So part of it is I had to wait until I could handle being critiqued to write it. And now I know what what angle I’m writing from.
And now, like, I can’t get it out of my head fast enough. Yeah.
Now it’s like I’m constantly, like, sticking things to walls with, like, notes about the book or the book proposal or like. Yeah, definitely. Get that one.
Oh my God, that’s so cool. When can people when do you want people to start coming to you for help and what kind of work do you want them to do ahead of time.
Any time. And as much work as they want, really, so I tend to work with first year entrepreneurs, which also ranges to people who haven’t started the business yet, who have the idea.
And I’ve actually worked with a couple of people who don’t even have an idea, but they know they can’t stay where they’re at. And so I’ve helped to kind of tease out, like, what is the first iteration of your business going to look like and how do we start taking those steps? So pretty business all the way through that first year or two.
Anybody who feels like they’re struggling to be clear on what they do have the systems to run what they do, I do a lot of talk about systems because I think that’s vitally important to not losing your mind and staying productive. And anybody who’s struggling to get seen or heard more, those are the three big areas that I focus on.
And so really, there’s no work you need to do before you come to me. That’s part of what I do, is help go through all of what you have done and see what’s working, what’s ideal, what’s not working.
And part of the reason I say that, too, is a lot of people we get wrapped up in trying to fix our weaknesses. And so I have people who come to me and they’re like, well, I’m really working on, like, trying to pitch myself to more podcasts, but I’m terrified of speaking.
And I’m like, OK, look, let’s not go that route. Like, if it’s if you’re not doing the task because your brain isn’t consciously scared of the task, I don’t want to force you to do that task. So don’t feel like you need to fix anything. Let’s figure out what works, what doesn’t. What are your strengths so we can lean into those and then the weaknesses, how do we work around that instead of how do we push you through it?
And so that’s kind of where I’m at.
And how do you recommend people get a hold of you if they have any questions?
Best two options are my website, Casey Jordan dot com or finding me on Instagram Madames. My phone is always in my hand. It’s my brain. My Instagram Dems are literally always right there, which is Casey Jordan.
And is there anything we haven’t covered that you want people to know before we go? No pressure to pressure baby steps, baby steps.
We people get so wrapped up in the big picture and the optics of one hundred thousand dollars and we put so much pressure on themselves to that, like, eat the elephant one bite at a time. And as long as you are taking one step forward, you were doing an awesome job and we can find a way to build on that.
