This week Curt and Melody are naming the thing so many entrepreneurs quietly wrestle with: workaholism.

In a culture that glorifies the hustle, they ask, where’s the line between healthy drive and emotional avoidance?They swap stories of burnout, self-sabotage, and the tricky ways “freedom” can turn into just another excuse to stay busy.

Melody opens up about life after selling her first business (and why she still calls herself a recovering workaholic). Curt shares the year a product launch nearly broke him.

It’s a candid conversation about how busyness becomes a socially acceptable way to numb, and how to notice the signs before you burn out and hit the wall.

It's honest, funny, a little raw, and ultimately hopeful.

If you ever feel guilty for resting, this episode is definitely for you!

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor Podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Welcome, Melody. How are you today?

I am fantastic. Now that I'm in business therapy with you.

It does feel that way, doesn't it? Every time we get together.

Yeah. I'm excited. We have a lot to talk about today. What are we talking about today?

Well, Melody, I'm going to start off today with a question. Okay.

I'm going to ask you if you have ever sacrificed a family dinner or sleep or something for your own personal health just so you could get one more task done that day.

You know, I am outraged that you are calling me out like this. Kurt. Get outraged every day because I am a recovering workaholic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that is our topic today. Is being a workaholic and addiction, or is the grind culture another word for some sort of acceptable addiction?

Want to.

I want to unpack that with you today. I'll tell you, I'm just as targeted that question. I know I am very addicted to the check mark. I mean, or. Or it depends.

If it's on the computer, it's a check mark. If it's on my notepad, it's a line through it. But both of those are extremely addicting to me.

Interesting. I feel like our generation especially. But I'm sure it goes for every entrepreneur, maybe, that I know.

Even though we talk about, oh, we want to build freedom and space and time, a lot of us just build freedom to do more things that take up the time. Like, it's not real freedom.

Freedom to be more addictive. It's like a heroin addict. I need to get high so that I can steal something to get more.

But the thing is, like, we were trained to be, like, I don't know about you. I was trained to be a hard worker because that was a very important quality in my household. You have to work hard. My parents had their list.

They were always doing stuff. They were busy. You know what they tell me nowadays, Melody? You shouldn't be so busy. It's not a good. I'm like, you literally trained me.

Yeah. Like, wait, wait a second.

Thanks a lot. And they're still. They still keep pretty busy. But what I have come to realize is, yes, I truly believe it is an addiction.

I think entrepreneurs with our tendency to have our sparkly brains and our adhd, it's like we get to take all of the things that would normally be, you know, our weaknesses in the world, but we get to put it into a vault of goodness, I guess, and use all of our brain in different ways that seem on the surface like a good thing. Like we do. We start businesses to support our families and that's what we sell them on.

And then why do we keep working so hard after we're doing well? And I would say, like, there's a lot I always ask our clients, like when they're, they're asking about like getting a virtual assistant.

I'm like, well, one of the signs is if your family resents you or your business, that could be a sign that maybe a, you're working too hard or also you're a workaholic. I don't say that part to them because that's not part of the.

Or that you're using your business as.

A Shield to hide 100%, in fact. Yeah. Oh.

As you say, Dan Martell just, in his book, buy back your time, he actually talks about how business owners self sabotage psychologically, unknowingly, but their subconscious will actually self sabotage in order to remain in the behind position. So they're always playing firefighter.

Yeah.

And when I took that and I was like, what a jerk. How dare him talk like that. Started thinking about it and I'm like, I can think of two examples right now. Like, it was pretty embarrassing.

Well, and it's partially like when you start a business, you are fighting fires every day. You're doing everything.

And there's not unless you have money, unless you've done some, I don't know, like, I didn't have the opportunity to do it any other way. And so I, and I didn't understand that even though they say work smarter, not harder, I didn't actually know what that really truly meant.

So now I just actually posted on Instagram, no LinkedIn the other day a story about how I feel lazy when I'm not doing something. And that's something I've had to work on a lot because really that is the state my brain is actually going to create in.

And it's not lazy, obviously, but I've been conditioned to believe that's laziness.

When I was younger, I would work 70 hours a week and I did not move forward any faster because I didn't understand delegation or like, I just didn't know. And so you start off that way, but then you kind of get trained to that feeling.

And I find it in my company, like the Whole point of my business is to give people their time back, allegedly. And I've found that I can give people 20, 30 hours of their time back pretty quickly. What do they do with that time? They fill it back up.

Because it's our default setting. You have to.

With possibly less important stuff. I mean, let's get curious today because that is.

Actually, I think we're circling the landing spot here, what we do here on the Sole proprietor podcast. We get curious. And I was curious how ChatGPT would define addiction, how the robot would define it.

Absolutely.

How do robots view addiction for humans? Well, there's five things, five telltale signs for addiction. Number one, compulsive engagement. Okay.

The powerful urge, maybe uncontrollable, to perform an activity even when you know it's causing harm. Number two, loss of control. Repeated unsuccessful efforts to cut back or stop despite wanting to do that. Number three, tolerance.

Needing more of the substance or the activity over time to achieve the same high or relief or numbness, whatever it may be. I talked about hiding. We'll talk about that in a little bit. Number four, withdrawal. Take it away. What happens? Go on a vacation.

No, we'll get to that in a second. Okay. And number five, continued use despite harm, persisting the behavior, even though it damages relationship, health or work or finances.

You know, all that. So, Melody, I talk about that. It's very easy identifying heroin addiction right now. Let's apply that to work. Let's get curious. Does this.

Does this relate to your work? Like, what do you think?

I, honestly, I'm embarrassed how addicted I am. Even as I call myself a recovering workaholic, I'm either all in or all out.

Truly, if they had a Workaholics Anonymous, I would be a member, or I should be a member. I'd probably not have time to be a member because I'd be too busy working. But it's really hard to take space. And so it's. I have to force it.

And you know what, Kurt? I don't think this is your thing.

For me to shut down my brain, I have to turn on a podcast, which is more words, and so that my chatter isn't the loudest thing or I need to watch a show to shut my brain down. And I don't sit well in silence.

I was going to do all my creative things that I'd always wanted to do.

My husband had just graduated from engineering school and I put him through school and he's like, here's this gift of, you know, now that I've done it, I'm going to support you and your dreams. I'm like, great. The minute I signed those papers, I was like, oh my God, who am I?

Because I had been Melody the business human up till that, my entire identity. And I went through the most intense period of depression for probably about a year, where I completely lost. It was like my first true midlife crisis.

I have quarterly ones now, but that was my first one. Quarterly midlife crises, they're like, they're better.

Are they quarterly by the year or are they.

No, by the year. It's like a cyclical thing, but they're smaller every year.

You have four. Midlife crisis.

Yeah, like just to. Just to. I don't want to have like a huge one or anything. You know, little ones, like, why am I here in this world? Kind of stuff.

You know, the light things. But yeah, so what I realized, I felt, and this was a pain point for me and my husband also, because I felt tricked.

This was never his intention at all, but we had a young son and I felt like I had been tricked into being a housewife and a stay at home mom. And by the end, because I was not a creative human at that time, I was not doing my art, I was not doing my music.

I'd always said if I had the time, that's what I would be focused on, my passion. I hadn't done any internal work or had the space to do it for so long. When I finally got the space, I didn't know how to deal with space.

And so it was a really, really hard time in my life. I would ask retired people, this is not a joke, what the meaning of life was. Or like, how did you do it? How did you stop working?

They're like, girl, you're 30 years old, you're not supposed to. Like, you didn't stop, you know. But basically I did do a lot of work at that time.

I found actually I learned to enjoy being a mom and a wife and just having space. And since then I have found it very difficult to take space. Yes, I am building a business, so I have space. And I do, I do have space.

I can pick up my kid at school, I can like be there at night and hang out with my husband. But also I'm going to still be Hustling in my brain. Even sometimes when I'm present with other people or my brain doesn't stop. And so I'm very.

I talk about it a lot because I want to be not like that. And so there's been a lot of times when I've just been like. I had surgery last year. I was gone for six weeks. Didn't think about business.

Had my concussion for two months. Luckily, I had a team in place both times. Didn't think about business. So I know that I can walk away, and that's what it takes usually.

And so when I feel I'm getting to a place where I'm so in it, and I'm getting there right now, Kurt. Not this day, but, I mean, in this period of my life, I'm gonna have to take a break for, like, four weeks and just go away and then come back.

And, like, it's just a constant, constant struggle for me. And I don't know if I think it would be unfair to say that it won't, that I'll somehow.

I wish for it to be a thing where I'm just at peace and I can just be. But I don't know that that's gonna be who I am. And this. Maybe this is my way of doing it. So what is that like for you?

Would you consider yourself a busy aholic, a workaholic? Because I don't think it's all about work necessarily.

Well, I'm probably, like, every other time we talk, probably more like you than not. Are we just creating an echo chamber? Because I feel like there's a lot that I'm like. I will say a couple things. I'm doing a lot better now.

Yeah, me.

But you brought up something that is part of the 12 step program. If you've ever known anyone who's gone through Alcoholics Anonymous, they'll tell you the reason they say, hi, I'm Kurt, and I'm an alcoholic. Right.

The reason they say it is because you don't get to be. You can be an alcoholic who's actively an alcoholic or one in recovery.

Yeah.

And so you always say recovering workaholic.

I think that you might be lying to yourself about in recovery, you know, like, because there's times when you're in recovery, and there's times when you're not in recovery. And I think that cycle that you're talking about is probably just as true for me. As true for me as it is for you.

Yeah.

But let me. Let me just say, as far as I fit into It. I know in my early days when I had so much hustle, and it was not healthy hustle, it was hustle.

In fact, I actually probably have a VOX somewhere that I sent to a buddy of mine that said I would hate to be one of my competitors, because when they're sleeping, I'm working, and when they're working, I'm working. When they, you know, and I. And I sent the vox, it was like, really up in the grill of, like, no one's got more energy than me.

No one's more powerful than I am. I will never stop.

I.

You know, and that was my 20s.

Ah, the youth, the energy, the youth.

Early, actually, even early 30s.

Yeah, same. Yep.

So I had this super intense focus, and I had kids at home, and I did use those as my motivation.

Like.

Like, I had four kids by the time I was 34. And I. I, like, I gotta go out there every day. I was in a war. I was in a war to produce for the family.

Bring it, caveman, Kill it, Drag it, Bring it home. And I, you know, that producer role for me, you know, there's the productor the producer, all that. I view that too. I still do. I take it seriously.

But I used it the wrong way, and I used it as fuel to do things that I didn't necessarily want to do. We go back to the addiction that I was talking about earlier.

I think that what we want to define against today is the healthy hustle versus the addictive drain. You know, like the thing that takes us down.

And I've never drank alcohol, Melody, but I do know my dad always told me growing up, and I have uncles that prove this, if a Kempton drinks alcohol, they're an alcoholic, because just, I don't know. The Kempton personality is very addictive.

Yeah.

And so I have to walk this whole life that I've been living knowing of my addictive personality and knowing that if I'm not careful, I could be addicted to things that I don't want to be addicted to, which kind of is actually how you define addiction, because you want to stop it and you can't.

I've experienced things in my life that I'd be so embarrassed to share here, but, you know, had a conversation with my wife about things that I'm like, I'm so not proud of this. And the whole time I was doing it, I was telling myself, don't do this. And I did it anyway. So I know it's true about myself.

And so, yeah, it does show my work.

Yeah. I Mean, like, we've talked about sugar. I love sugar. You love sugar.

I love sugar so much.

And for me, it's on. Like, I either have. I can have it. I've gotten way better. But it really felt like at times an addiction where.

And so when I've stopped sugar, it's because I feel like, okay, this cannot control me because you, you know, you start to use it when you're feeling a little sad or feeling tired or, like, all sorts of feelings. And I think for work, it can be a very similar thing.

And I would say, like, the thing that this actually relates to is the idea of work life balance that everybody talks about. That's for normal humans. Like, I love that. Entrepreneurs talk about that. Like, I'm going for work life balance.

I actually don't believe in that for an entrepreneur because I think we don't know how. At least for myself, I don't, because I had to let go of that concept because I felt like a constant failure.

Yeah.

In a way, I do. Like, I can again. I can be there for my. I went to my son's art. My. His woodworking show this morning.

I just took the time and did it, and it was the best thing ever. And, like, I can do what I want to do when I want to do it, but do I. Right? Like, and when I was young, when my daughter.

When I was hustling, like, you were hustling. I missed things for my daughter, and I regret that, but I thought I needed to.

I could make an embarrassingly long list.

Yeah.

But instead of making myself feel bad, I'll just say this. I missed things. I intentionally missed things.

Like, I know, like, you could be there, but you don't have to do this for work, but you could do this for work and just get it off your plate so you don't start Monday with it on it. I mean, I did stupid stuff. And then I also was a scout leader. I would, like guiltless. I can't believe I was. I guilted the scouts.

I'm out here on a camp out with you guys. I have so much work to do back at home, and I'm here with you doing this. Yeah, I did some bad stuff, but I did it. I did it thinking I was righteous.

Well, yeah. And I. I actually have a lot of friends and people in my life who will say, like, I'm so busy. I got this. I've got this. I've got this.

It's almost like a competitive thing, and I don't think they mean it like that. And then, like, if. So if I ask, like, hey, can we hang out or something, they could say yes or no. And I think I'm guilty of this at times, too.

And maybe it's because they're. But they'll be like, oh, I'm so busy. I've got so many things.

And they list out all the things, and then they're like, oh, I think I could probably do it. And then I feel stressed. Like, they just.

Is my time valuable enough to take them away from all that?

Like, are you. Like, what does that mean? And I think there's just so much with that.

But I really think, like, there are cycles in business, of course, where you need to be very involved at times. Like, change can happen. You can lose a key player in your company or something. And even.

Listen, going back to Dan Martell's book, my friend Dave Mulcahy and I, we were hanging out yesterday and his book came up because I. In my. What is that ego thing, I was like, I've been saying this stuff for years now. Buy back your time. Like. But he really honed it in, right?

But at the end of the book, Dave said he shot himself in the foot. I'm like, why? He's like, did you read the end? I was like, no, I don't read it because I listened to it.

But he's like, when he was talking about thanking everybody, he said I had to take time away from this and my family and all of these things so I could get this book done and thank you, family for. And so that's what Dave noticed. And he was like, well, why should I listen to this guy?

I'm like, if he had said it differently, maybe he could have said, like, this was a passion project for me and therefore. But the whole point for him was like, buying back your time. And also, this took a lot of time. Thank you for.

Yeah, he could have done it. Like, who? Not how, where. He doesn't even write his own book.

Well, actually, we both, I think, know that most people ghostwrite their books, so he probably had a ghost writer, most likely. I'm pretty sure he did. I heard an interview with him some at some point, but that's just like the tours.

He was talking about going on the book tour and going on this and doing that. All of that stuff that you, you know, the time for that. Like, you don't have to do that unless you want your book to be a big seller.

Which it was. Which it was.

Oh, yeah. So let's. Let's.

Okay. When you go to 12 step program. First step is acknowledgement. So I think we've done a good job.

We're not going to go through all 12 steps today, but we've both done a step of acknowledgement. And I think that it's first for a very good reason. We know that we. We have a problem. A lot of people like us probably have the problem.

The problem's not going to go away. Certainly not on its own, but not ever either. Like, you can be in recovery. So I want to talk about a couple things.

The first is, is, do you notice as you're going through your cycles, what the triggers are? I know that for me, I can see when I'm getting to the end of the cycle, when I get to burnout.

So I personally, there'll be a trigger, and that trigger, we can talk about that specifically. But I. I think that mine varies. They'll be rooted usually in some sort of like a desperate attempt.

There might be a. I don't know what you call it when you throw your hands up in the air, like, frustration. Yeah, okay. I hate that. That. That's the word. But this frustration of, like, if I don't do it, it's not going to get done kind of thing.

I think self sabotage could throw its place into that as well, by the way.

Yeah, for sure.

So there's triggers and then there is. I can't do this any longer. There's just. There's not enough of me. There's not enough day.

And when I start hearing that coming, I know I am getting to the end of a cycle.

Yeah.

Not that I call it a cycle typically in time.

But I think that the thing about workaholism, that's the way you say it, is that it's not like alcoholism, where it almost puts its own fire out and then you relapse. I think most addictions can feed themselves.

You know, obviously they'll take you to death in certain cases, but they don't typically, like, bring you to stage. Like, you'll usually. It's the willpower that has to get you to a stage of recovery where a relapse will come.

I feel like recovery and relapse are sort of almost cyclically built into the burnout phase of workaholism. What's your experience, Melody?

I would say for me, what I've noticed about the cycle and I've actually am aware of it and I accept it now because for years I didn't understand. And I think having a husband who is not like me and I Don't know if Rachel's like this too. They see it or Matt sees it much more.

He saw it way before I did, if that makes sense. Like, he could see the patterns because he was living in them. I was living it, but I wasn't seeing it. Right. Cause I was experiencing it.

So from my point of view, there are, like, in my business, there are frustrations that things are not moving fast enough. I want fast because I have a thousand ideas. And I just, why can't these people move faster? Why are they, like, making a plan?

Like, just do the thing, you know? Like, we want these very responsible, good people who know their job.

I was just in a meeting today with a bunch of them and I was so grateful that they were actually taking the time to like, validate the test. They're going to test it, they're going to validate it, and then they'll put out the thing. Instead of what I do is like, let's just try it out.

And then I forget it. Why we did it or how we did it. We don't test it. And then it breaks.

And I'm like, you know, so this is why we surround ourselves with those kinds of people. Of course. So it's a frustration or I go through periods of intense inspiration and creativity. It could be a couple days at a time.

And I know that is bottled magic for me. When my brain is like that. It's sparkly. I need to take it and I need to go with it. And I actually talk about it like this now.

Like I talked about with my assistant yesterday. I said, look, because I'm supposed to make some videos tomorrow, I'm like, if I don't have that magic thing, then it's not going to happen.

I'll try to be in that place. We've made space for it so that I don't feel overwhelmed. But it's like we work around it.

And from my point of view, it's every month or two, I go through a period of time. It's almost like not manic, it's not media, but it's like where I can't sleep very well. I have so much idea inspiration.

I want to just get these ideas done. And I'll have prolific, like, bouts of just getting things done.

And in the past, it would be stuff that wouldn't even matter in the end because it was like my ADHD hyper focus on, I'm gonna do this thing. And then I'd forget, you know, Like, I'd even done it in like another week. And I might have spent 12 hours on it. Am I speaking your language?

Yeah. I feel that I don't think we need to spend a ton more time on this because we need to get to the more helpful part of this podcast.

But I just realized I could speak for hours on expounding on what you just said because I'll get tied up on something that doesn't matter. But it's on my to do list. I need to change the battery in my air tag.

Let go. Yeah, not let go.

Last night, I need to change the battery in my air tag. That was warning me that need to be changed. Put it on my to do list.

I sat down on my desk, I had a lot of important work to do, and I was like, oh, I'm going to check this off my two list and go change the air. So I get up from my desk, go find a button, battery, find the air tag, switch it out. Boom. Got it. Done. Other things.

I'll be sitting in a leadership meeting and we'll be like, man, we have this really hard problem to solve. If only we had something that we could use for this.

And I'll start working through a whole solution and then someone will be like, but didn't you already build a course for that?

Or didn't you already, oh, my God.

It was the most important thing. Don't we have a dashboard for that somewhere? It was the most important thing in the whole world that I had to get done.

And all of a sudden, when I actually need to use that tool that I've already put the work in for, why am I not using it? And so what you're saying is speaking to me very much.

And I, I want to make sure that, like, we're in lock, locked arms here for our listeners, so they know that skipping over this part is obviously not an option, but we could spend the whole day here because this is so real. And so you don't want to sit.

You don't want to sit in the pain.

Well, I think I live in the pain, so I don't know. Sitting in. It's just another form. I want to talk about what to do about it, and I want to talk about what is healthy. If we can't.

If you don't believe we can have work life balance, which I think that at this stage of my life, I think I have discovered something close to it. And I, and I want to share about that, but I also want to talk about before we get to that, what is it that we should be striving for?

If we can't have work, life, balance, Melanie, what do you want?

You know, when you were talking about.

You think you've gotten close to it, the immediate thing that popped in my head was, like, I want my family to not be mad at me for taking all of my time, and, like, I want to have a happy family, first of all. And so that's an awareness that I have, first of all. And so it might be that my balance is more about emotion than.

Than it is about actual, like, doing things in.

You know, to Matt, my husband, when he sees me on a computer for 12 hours in a row or whatever, he knows the consequences are gonna come, and he's partially. Probably gonna get part of that. Either I'm gonna be too exhausted, or I'm gonna get my concussion eye thing, or, like, things are.

There's gonna be repercussions, and I am so in it and really disassociated in a way. My. Like I've said before, my body is just a vessel for my brain when I'm in those states.

But he's aware, and because he goes to a job where he is very good at disconnecting, he goes. He's there, and then he comes home, and he does not think about it.

Punches out.

Oh, yeah. And I don't even know what that would feel like. I think even if I had a regular job, I don't know if I'd be able to do it. And so.

Well, I know that I'm jealous of people with jobs like that. I'll find myself getting very jealous of people like that.

Yes.

And then I remember how unemployable I am, and I go, oh, yes. Yeah, well, I'll never get a chance to experience that.

Well, don't give up hope. I just think, you know, for me, I want to. It's more of, like, I want to feel good about the life that I'm living. And so when I see there.

There's this toxic positivity towards, like, I see a lot of people and a lot of coaches being like, I just hustle all the time because I want to get. Squeeze every ounce of life out of life. Every moment is an ounce that I should be doing something and living a big life.

And then I have other people who are like, I want to live in the moment. I want to live in Zen, and I want to just be here, and that's how I'm going to enjoy life.

And so I've gone back and forth on those two extreme ends, thinking I'm doing it Wrong. And I realize it just has to be what. It works for me. And what works for me is, like, I need to be aware of my cycles.

And if I'm happy enough, if I feel good, if I can get outside, that's like, my saving grace. Being outside, I can do nature. Then if I'm a workaholic outside, that's okay. Because it's not business. It's okay in my husband's eyes, too.

It's just like, there's something toxic about doing business all the time. Because he probably looks at it. I know he does, as, okay, well, where's the ROI?

Even though he doesn't like business words, but the ROI is, like, $2, sometimes 50 cents on that hour that I spent doing that thing. Negative 200, you know, so it's not about. Yeah. Isn't business about money, Kurt?

Well, yeah, if you're doing it right, it better be involved.

Yeah. So what about you?

Well, I think that once again, we're pretty much on the same page. I want to just change a little focus on what you're talking about so that I can add something to this.

And that would be that, you know, in my family, I struggle with all the same things, so. So basically what Melody said, and I have had to recognize those patterns and do something about them because I used to.

You used the word, like, manic, and maybe I'll just call it just the cycle. What was the word?

Inspiration. It's like.

Yeah, it's the grind on the business and then the grind on you. Right. Like, that's kind of the cycles.

That grind sounds dirty, though. It sounds like you're grinding it out. And for me, it feels like magic when I'm in the best part of it.

So it does feel that way when I'm grinding on the business. I sit in my chair. It does feel like magic. It feels creative. I'll be kicking butt, taking names, and it's. It's fantastic.

And 12 hours will disappear without me even blinking an eye. Rachel will be bringing me food in, going, hey, you can eat today. And I'm like, what's food? Yeah, Like.

And then there'll be other times when I'm at my desk and I'm like, I don't. There's not enough hours in a day. The day is going too fast. I can't do it all. I start feeling really weak, and it's not a good place to live.

I have used. I have used media. Not usually podcasts, but usually, like, a TV show or something. As numbing agent I'm a big fan of the Office.

I pop on an episode of the Office and I can get my mind to move out another track and to numb. I wouldn't lay in bed necessarily just thinking about more things. I'm not. I don't typically deal with that, but I will.

Well, unless I've got, like, a hard decision ahead of me, I guess it's happening. But anyway, I can use a movie or TV to change my state of mind, which will get me to sleep. And that's obviously not a great way to live either.

Do you ruminate? So if it's at night and are you thinking of the to do list that you didn't like?

That's the thing that I struggle with is like, melody, if you just got up and did one more hour, you would get it done. But that's never true because I have no concept of time.

So rumination. Yes, I have. And I. I'd probably be lying if I said I don't anymore, but certainly I. I think people struggle with a lot worse than I do.

And I. I want to give that to other people so that it doesn't sound like I'm like, hardcore. But for me, now we're moving into the solution phase. Okay, so great.

I love it. Tell me the solution, Kurt.

Yeah, there are some things that I've done that have worked for me really well, and I can't wait to share them with the audience. But first, I have to tell you a story. And the story goes like this. Last year, we rolled out a new version of Responsibid.

And we had been working on it for years and years and years. You talk about how employees wish they could go faster. I spent years going, where are we? What's going on? This is so much to, you know, to do.

But, you know, when you're changing architectures and when you're changing a bunch of fundamental core code, it just takes longer and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we got it. We tested internally. Everything seemed to be working just great. We rolled it out. It was confusing.

It had bugs, lots of customer support requests. Then we had server outages because it was heavier on the server at scale than we thought it would be. We had problem after problem after problem.

I was up working and grinding, not because I had creative juices flowing. I was in full on alert mode. I was handling chat requests with customers. I was answering emails.

I did Facebook lives, trying to get information out quicker. I was working with the development team, trying to figure out what bugs are outstanding, what bugs need to be fixed.

I was working the UX team, trying to think, make things more intuitive that we thought were intuitive. But according to user tests, it was great. But then we put out in their user world, it wasn't great. And it was just.

I mean, seriously, I would get up at 4 in the morning just so that I could have before the east coast got started, because 4am my time, that would be 7am East coast time. That would give me two hours before they got into the office. I could have those two hours.

Then I would work until about 7 o' clock my time, which is Pacific time. So now everyone's pretty much out of the office and I can work three more hours. So I would work from 10 and. Sorry, I work from like 4am to 10.

I was not taking care of myself. I was not. Like, I would shower to wake up sometimes at 4am, but I was only showering specifically to wake myself up.

Yeah.

Anyway, my hair got really long. Face full of facial hair. I didn't want to show my face anywhere. I was so embarrassed by some of the stuff that happened.

You know, obviously there's a lot of, like, pouring your soul out. It's emotional with your team, it's emotional with your customers.

Yeah.

So I got to a point where I started not liking who I was becoming. So now that you know the background, we're through it. You don't have to worry about me anymore. I'm doing a lot better. I'm.

The code's better, Everything's great. Wonderful, wonderful. So just so the listener doesn't have to worry, I'm okay now. But I was not okay then. Definitely not.

And I don't think anything has aged me as hard as that particular rollout. We learned a lot of stuff. We're actually doing a massive rollout right now. But guess what? We're doing it way different and it's going much better.

And it can't possibly. Well, I say can't possibly. The way we're rolling it out, only two people are going to get it and then only four people are going to get it.

And it's all reversible. We can roll it back. So we've learned a lot of lessons. But in that time, I personally had to learn what my thresholds were.

I would work six days a week. Even on the seventh day, I was watching servers all day and, like, just constantly peeking at my phone.

And was this because you didn't want to overwork your team? You felt like this is.

Well, first of all, no. I worked them all in the sickness, like that's another problem we had. I worked my entire team the way I was working and I had it.

There's a time out of my nine developers, like eight of them were sick. Like bad sick.

See, I won't do that to my team because I don't want them to get sick or burned out because I want them to stay. And so I will take on the burden. But also what you're saying right there is this. You are the. You're not the face of responsibilities.

You've done a good job of not being completely the face, but it is your thing and people know it's you. They don't know your developers names and all the other people. Same for me. When we do something and it doesn't work, I don't.

People don't care why it didn't work and they're going to think I'm the one who failed. That's how I feel. Oh, and I'm.

And your reputation is at stake.

Well, integrity is the most important thing that you and I have, right?

It's 100%.

It's everything.

Not even about the software anymore, right? No, it's not about the software. It's not about. It's about their livelihood. When a server goes down, two bids per second go through. Responsive bid.

If we go down for five minutes, five minutes, that is 3,000 bids.

I wonder how many millions of dollars that is.

It's a bad. It's a bad thing.

Yeah, that's a lot of pressure.

So let me just say this. I started to become someone I didn't want to be. I noticed that I was getting a lot more quick. Like my family was never around me.

But if I went out, like I went for a couple days without eating and my wife brought in food and I'm like, you're worried about food right now? Seriously? And what the heck, dude, she's trying to do something nice for you and you're cutting like you're chopping your legs off.

Yeah.

I would hear them listening to TV out there for like a moment. I would hear tv. I'm like, they can listen to TV right now. Everything is crumbling. And they like just, just watch another TV show.

Okay, whatever, you know, and you start getting like. And I could feel the itch, right? And I could. I could feel who I was becoming. So here's what I did. Made a commitment to myself.

There was a team outside that I work from home. There's a team right outside that door that all they want to do is love you and rejuvenate you. This is why you're doing it.

Don't forget the reason you're doing this. You have a choice.

You can go out there and you can take out all your frustrations on them that they have nothing to do with, or you can make sure that they want to keep supporting you. And Melody, I'm so proud to say, even though I wanted to, not one time did I yell at one of my kids or my wife.

Even when I said seriously, it was just like, it was this moment of, like, seriously, you're worried about food right now. I am so proud to say that I made it that whole year without doing that because I remembered this is my support crew.

They are the ones who will love me even if I ruin everything in the whole world. Right? And so don't treat them any other way. Second thing, I learned about three weeks in, I was physically.

And by the way, this is about the whole process. I wouldn't have even called it out of the woods for six months. So it was a long process.

Now, the first three months for sure were the hardest three months and the first two months were probably the absolute. But at the end of the first month, I was about just a shell of myself and I kept pushing through. At the end of month two, I was basically useless.

And I discovered one night that I couldn't go to bed. My heart rate was so high and there's just so much pressure. But there was nothing else I could do right now. It was all in the hands of other people.

Like, there was no more emails for me to answer. There were no more chats for me to handle. There were no.

So I said, I'm going to put on some running shoes and I'm just going to go run it as hard as I possibly can down my dirt road. And then when I can't go another step, I'm going to turn around and walk back. And I did that.

Turns out I could run as hard as I could for about a quarter mile. That's about as far as I can make it. I decided to keep jogging, though. And I did jog just like.

Because I knew I was going to get to a mile, so I went to a mile. That's how entrepreneurs are, I guess. So I turn around.

Yes.

You're exhausted. Cool. Go 3/4 of a mile.

Yeah.

I turn around, I walk back. I got home and I felt great. Exhausted, but a new kind of exhaustion. It was wonderful. That kicked off.

My son's in the mountain bike team and they were looking for more coaches and I have A mountain bike background. And I decided that, you know what, I'm going to go dust off my old bike and I'm going to go ride with them.

Well, here I am now, well over a year later, but I am now almost as fit as I've ever been. I ride two hours a day, six days a week.

Now, I tell you all this because workaholism was taking over my life and it wasn't putting anything all that positive in. I have positive people to work with and, you know, our product does a lot of positive things and blah, blah, blah. All that's true.

But my actual experience at work was very exhausting, emotionally and even physically, but not the same kind of physical exhaustion. So now I just wake up at 5am, I go ride my bike for a couple hours, I get back, shower, eat a nice healthy breakfast, and I work.

And you know what, Melody? It started with me feeling like I got to replace this feeling that I'm feeling at work with something better.

And then I watched the weight come off, and then I started seeing, with the light just right, I could see my six pack showing back up.

And then I started lifting a little bit of weights because one of the coaches is like, dude, Kurt, if you want to really get fast, you got to start lifting weights too. Hey, I've got a bunch of weights in my garage. I could go use those. So I started using those one or two days a week.

And then my wife starts complimenting me on me, my clothes falling off of me and how good I look with my shirt off. And then I start, I'm like, I really like these compliments, and I only want to impress Rachel. That's like the best thing ever.

Is this going to a new addiction?

Yeah, well, I'll get there.

So Rachel did point out to me as time went on, like, hey, Kurt, it almost seems like, you know, you don't have time for anything else in your life between work and working out. I said, ah, you caught it. I gotta, you know, gotta do something about it. But I'm doing it with my boys. I like that part. And I have.

I've kind of gotten to a place where it's just sort of static. It's not like an increasing thing. And I'm. And I do think it's in balance now.

But when I say that if it's not possible to get work life balance, I think I found something pretty close. And here's what I mean. Now every day, I have blocked off my calendar, two hours of mountain bike riding.

Does my workday Someday times bleed into that.

Yes.

Do I sometimes not get the whole two hours in? Yes. Do I sometimes shift those two hours down a little bit later into my other personal life with the permission of other people in my family? Yes.

Am I making good experiences with my boys? Yes. There's a bunch of really positive things happening.

Yeah.

I like the way I feel better. I like the way I look forward to something non work related at the end of every day. And I'm doing something that I enjoy now.

I know mountain biking isn't something that everybody in the whole world would enjoy. I certainly don't actually enjoy the weightlifting part of it.

I just like the looks that Rachel gives me and it looks like a big piece of meats walking by her. So anyway, that is. That has been really good for me.

And what I find is that in the morning when I'm done working out, I'm looking forward into cracking into my work.

Oh, that's so good. I'm struggling and I've struggled with this a long time. I don't take the time. Like when I had my surgery last year, Healing was my job.

Like, literally, I needed all the time of all the whole day to make myself eat and then take walks and do the things that a normal human should do. Because if work had been involved, I would have been working like crazy because that's my default.

And so I also love biking, but I love electric biking because I feel like a kid and I look forward. Right now it's in the shop. But my favorite thing in the whole world is my bike.

And I love going out and just riding through the fields and by the river and just having an adventure before work, after work, whenever I can. It makes me so happy. It makes me feel like I felt when I was a kid. And it definitely.

I'm not saying that I always put the electric part on, but those are heavy bikes, so there's usually a little bit of assist on there. Yeah, definitely up a hill, because that's the part that makes it worth it.

Just to be clear, just so you know where regular cyclists stand on this, When I see someone out on an E bike.

Yeah.

It used to tick me off. How dare them cheat. Right? I don't see it that way at all anymore. And I. And I think a lot of cyclists see this.

How cool that cycling is getting more popular amongst more people who might not otherwise do it, except for with an E bike. So I just want you to know that you don't have to tell me.

You'Re not judging me on or off. Oh, well, I'm saying it because I accept it. I'm living proud in the fact that I do have to because it makes it more fun.

It's like I'm on an adventure. And. And so the other thing, I do. And I do. I do tend to go all in on things.

But I set up a tent in my backyard, and all summer I have a tent and I glamp. I don't camp. I glamp. I have a futon that I put in there, and I, like, I just set it up because I want to be comfy. I'm 48, but I sleep outside.

And it is the best feeling. There's nothing like it for me. Sleeping outside and just in hearing nature, that is the thing that puts me to sleep, right?

And just being in the fireflies are just insane in the summer. It makes me feel, like, so happy and so, like, at peace. And there's no computer in my tent, right? Like.

And Matt does not like sleeping out with me all the time. He'll do it sometimes. So I can't do it every night because I don't think I would stay married forever. It's not fair.

But I found these things, you know, being. When we were in the trades, we were outside every day.

And I didn't even think of myself as loving it as much as I actually do because it was a part of my job. It is so integral to my mental health.

And I'll be honest, like, walking feels like the most boring thing for me unless I'm in a city and, like, there's stuff to look at and I'm going somewhere just walking for the sake of it. But I. I started, like, recording. What on my walks I'll record. Cause I'm writing a book and I just talk out my book, right?

So there's a lot of things I do, a lot of tricks I do to get, like. So it's still kind of working in a way, or, like, there's a purpose for it, but it makes me happy. And it's not work work, you know?

Well, yeah, I do know. And I think that there's just something. I actually, for the longest time, I did a walk and talk.

Every morning I would go out and I would box and talk to everybody for work. And I turned my walk into basically pacing and talking to people. The problem is when I went to bikes, the wind noise was so bad they couldn't do it.

But I'm grateful that that happened because now my nature time, I'm in the nature focusing on that. And, and I think it was still good what I did. I. I think that the walk and talk was a good thing for that part of my life.

But now I'm to get you out there, you know, at least.

But that is the trick.

The trick is, can you find something that you'll look forward to and you will do it and it won't feel like a chore because if you say, I'm gonna do 100 push ups tomorrow, you will have enough willpower to do it and then you'll wake up so sore the next day.

Yeah.

And you might have enough willpower to do it again, but it's gonna be way harder and you're way more sore. And then the next day you pay this big, big penalty.

And at some point you don't have enough willpower to overcome this thing that you never really enjoyed anyway. But you're just doing it through sheer willpower.

The trick is to just stack a habit or stack an activity that you would want to do with something that's good for you.

Yeah. One more thing I wanted to mention about that is that I have found that when I'm in my business, I'm very deep into it.

So, you know, like, everybody on the outside can see exactly what's going on, but you are so deep in it, like, they don't know, they don't understand what I'm going through.

I have found that when I go away, I have and like take space away from the business, either to a mastermind or to something that's going to be a little bit of growth or even just to go away. I have so much space and I take huge leaps forward. What I say is that every day I move forward an inch.

When I go somewhere away from my regular life, I move forward a mile and then I go back to my inches. But now I'm a mile and an inch, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

And I found that that's very helpful. And so even in the, in terms of like work, you know, I used to go to these events and I would like, learn, learn, learn. And then what happens?

You're overloaded. And then you go back to work and it's like there's nothing. So now I'll even just skip the second day and just take what I've done the first day.

The first day, seriously.

I heard that once and I was like, brilliant. Or I'll stay an extra day.

And Because I know that when I get home, I'm going to feel stressed about the fact that I didn't do the work while I was there, away from work. So there's that again, it's tricks. It's not even tricks.

It's like ways that I've found to make it so that I can have growth and that I can be outside of the workaholic nature that is Melody and kind of like make sure that I am still growing my brain, but also not just doing it for the sake of being busy.

Yeah, well, there's something I didn't share with you about. So I do physical stuff, and that really helps me. We talked beforehand that there's.

There's three things that I want to make sure people take take away. The first is noticing your triggers. What are the things that put you into the cycle?

Typically, at that creative cycle that you're in, it's a matter of honing it to the point where you're getting all the creativity you need, but you're not building yourself up for burnout and trying to recognize what that looks like for each. Each of you. For me, the example I gave you was an emergency, and I had to learn a lesson.

And I'm not sure I could have gone around it or under it or anything other than through it.

But for me, previous to that emergency, it is that moment of feeling a desperation or a frustration and feeling like it all depends on me because inevitably I know I'm going to get to the part where I can't do everything and it doesn't depend on me. So I don't know about our listeners and Melody. Maybe you want to speak to your triggers, but I don't talk about triggers. I want to talk about being.

Having integrity to yourself, to be able to and lean into rest as part of your activities, something that you can do to look forward to that makes it so the outside life can somehow compete with your work life when you're in that workaholic phase. And then the third thing that we haven't talked about yet, but I can't wait to talk about just a little bit.

It doesn't need to be long, but it's the shutdown ritual. And I know we talked about having limited success on that before, so the triggers that I just talked about for me are very simple. It's.

No one else can do it. I'm either frustrated or I'm excited or whatever it is. This all depends on me. And then that takes me down a path that could lead a week.

It could be just a few days, but more than likely, I'm going to usually hang in for about a month or two. And at the end of a month or two, I'll typically start moving into this really negative phase of why doesn't anyone else, you know, Blah, blah, blah.

Yeah.

Melody, does your trigger look any different? I'm just trying to inspire listeners with maybe finding things for themselves.

Yeah, well, that's definitely a trigger for sure, is the frustration or just the inspiration, but also ego. Sometimes it's ego. In the business world, there's, you know, there's a lot of ego involved.

And because we are trying to prove something about ourselves in a way, even though we're. I talk about purpose and mission.

Well, also, I want to do the thing that I say that I can do, and I need to show everybody and prove that I. I can do what they say and I can do it my way and it will still be successful. But there's something inside of me that I just am striving for something bigger, and it's a struggle that I have.

And, you know, I don't know if that's a trigger, but it is trigger. It's actually is a trigger. It's triggered by sometimes social media, which I know you don't do. It's triggered by seeing.

I mean, this is normal, but seeing what other people seem to be doing and then just, like, buying it. You know, like they say they're doing it, then they must be as successful as they say. And I'm a failure.

That's like the younger part of me inside of me. And I've been dealing with that on and off. I mean, I still deal with it. I dealt with it this week. I'm.

I'm aware.

Yeah, I'm aware of it. And I don't feel good about it. I don't know how to not have that exist in my world. I'm not sure enough yet.

You know what, though?

If we're just identifying triggers, I don't know that there's a reason to right away out of the gates, try to, like, figure out how to not make it exist in your world. I think that the whole addiction. The whole addiction.

Well, okay, but the whole addiction thing is we don't want to be addicts, but maybe we just identify that we are. Give it a name. That's a big part of it.

In fact, when we go down the shutdown ritual, giving things a name is very powerful, and that can sometimes lead to solutions. I think that, you know, rooting out behaviors or tendencies that you don't want to have, very real part of the mortal experience.

But I don't think we need to sit there and feel guilty about the way we are first. You know, guilt can push to change. The problem with guilt is it also sometimes leads to a lot of bad, other relapse type things. So.

And it leads. It's guilt and it's shame. And if it moves to shame, it's.

Like almost not effective at all.

But I do want to say this is a very, very common experience with entrepreneurs. You know, know, we all have this. You know, I've talked about it.

I feel like a lot of people have a chip on their shoulder that they have something to prove. And success is a certain metric, right? Like, it might have been a million dollars.

Like, and then you get to a million and you're like, that, that's nothing. You know, like, but that.

How do people live off of this?

I know, like, well, listen, Kurt, I've never gotten to a million yet cumulatively, for sure. But I, I'm still aiming for that one. I always sell my businesses too soon before I reach that level. And this time I'm, I'm getting there much easier.

But it's always something, maybe external, but there's like an internal validation issue and that leads and workaholic. Like, that's why we have addictions in our life. Like, it's not just like some people, maybe some people are addicts and some aren't.

But like, you could have been an addict, but you have something in you that understands you're more self aware. Your dad told me you don't drink, but some people would have been like, screw you, dad. I'm gonna drink anyway.

Yeah, because that's like a teen thing, right? I think the awareness is so important.

Well, okay, so we go around, we find our triggers, we figure out what they are. Now we can do something with it, right? What are you going to do with it?

And I hope that those who are listening are maybe cluing in on, on a little bit of that. Then we talk about having something to look forward to outside of work. You know, you talked about being on the E bike. I'm on a mountain bike.

I really have enjoyed sweating my guts out and pushing myself to my limits and seeing those results. You know, if I hadn't seen the results, I'm not sure if I'd keep going. But I'm faster on my bike now.

In fact, this weekend is a big blood match between me and one of the other coaches at one of the races.

I don't want to get into that here, but I'll just say that this has been very high pressure and the youth team that we coach is all on board with this.

So wait, by the time this episode goes out, this will be. Have been. This grudge match will be decided. So we'll have to put something out there and show the image of what this turned into because it's really.

Well, just to be clear, the guy I'm racing is like one of the fastest guys he's ever been on a bike. But everyone wants this.

He said modestly and humbly.

He is modest and he is humble, but he is very fast.

Okay, well, I was talking anyway. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Well, okay. So we have things that we look forward to. We block them in our day, we intentionally put them into our day.

And we try to get our personal life to compete with our other life in terms our work life in terms of enjoyment, benefits, serotonin. Right. Like all, all the good feelings that can come, we just. We need to somehow match them up.

Then we talk about the shutdown ritual when we leave work. Rumination, in my experience, and I've talked to a lot of other people that deal with rumination.

So, Melody, I'm very curious on your thoughts on this, but rumination typically is one or two or three or four or five or six or seven things, right? It's a number of things that we lay in bed and we think about, and they usually have a spiral effect.

So you'll lay there and you'll be like, oh, my gosh, I need to make sure I get my taxes turned into the accountant. Oh, my gosh, I still am waiting on so and so. So I can turn my taxes into the accountant. Oh my gosh, that so and so.

They are going to make my life miserable if I don't figure out what to do with them. Oh, and that so and so, speaking of making my life miserable, there's this other person too.

And I've got this really hard decision at work, but I can't make that decision until I get my taxes done. Oh, I'm waiting on so and so to get me the stuff for my taxes. Oh, but that, you know. And then we start this cycle that feels infinite.

Why does it feel infinite? Because it's circular. Circles never end. And it's five things.

If you gave all five of those things a name, my brain will say, cool, I've got five things. Put those on my list for tomorrow. Cool, I've got five things. Maybe I can't get them all done tomorrow, but I can track them.

You can see where they're at. Tomorrow shut down ritual. What do I need to do tomorrow for meetings.

What do I need to do in terms of task list and looking at that and going tomorrow when I get here, this will all be waiting for me. Nothing burns down. You just look at it. I got my calendar organized.

Part of the things that are on my calendar, the things I'm looking forward to personally, part of things that are business, things that need to happen and they're scheduled. Some of those things are actual meetings, like I'm meeting with melody tomorrow at 1pm to record a podcast.

Other things are I am writing checks for people for our affiliate commissions or I am going to work on the website copy. Those things can also be to do lists. But this blocked out time is going to take time.

But something like an email or you know, getting your taxes to your accountant, those don't necessarily require time, but you might have like free task time that's on your calendar.

But if I leave the day and I see that tomorrow, not only do I know what I need to do, but I have time for all of it and everything's, everything's fine. That allows me to go enjoy the thing I'm going to do for my family time.

Yeah.

And look forward to it and know that none of it is dire. It's all going to be okay.

Getting one more task done today will only serve to prolong the time to get to the other piece of enjoyment I need to do and won't actually give me any extra benefit of getting something done earlier because I already have time to do it tomorrow. I don't need any more time to.

Do it today, I think. So my business was built on the idea that I don't feel like I can change myself very easily because I tried for years and years and years.

And so I'm going to bring another human into my life who is going to be my partner in crime, in business, meaning my assistant, my Melody Manager. The whole concept of the idea of the Melody Manager is I don't need more people or things to manage. I need somebody to manage me and my things.

And so that's one of my things that has helped me and I call it a shutdown ritual in that we have a master list where everything lives and there's orders of urgency and we know which things there's not fires the same way there used to be. And I've gotten really good at understanding because this is not natural to me. Everything's A1, everything's urgent.

Yeah, but if everything's.

Yeah, but if everything's a one, that's not possible. And I used to do that. I'd like, write 1, 1, 1, 1. Now I defined it. One is today, period.

And then two is the next one to, you know, two days to three days, and then a week. So I have numbers for each thing, and we order things and. But I. I do that with my assistant, but she's the one who holds it.

So yesterday I drove about two hours to visit my friend Dave. And I spent the whole time downloading, like, just talking looms, getting the stuff out of my head. So, like, you write your little list and stuff.

I will do 20 to 30 minutes of just talking and talking, which can be very overwhelming for them. But what I've said today, I told her, think of it as a story that you're listening to, not as a thing that you have to hold on to and take from me.

And now you own it. It's a story because there will be things that are urgent. But just getting it out allows me to go off and, like, do my thing. That's very important.

The brain dump in Slack. Everybody should have a. I call it the Mel's Brain Channel.

And it's my favorite channel because it's where anything can go and nobody feels like it's. It doesn't have to be important. I had to write down a couple things.

The other thing is, there's something you talked about, like your list of I can't file the taxes until I do this and then this. There are things I'm resistant to, and they will be my ruminations because I know I'm supposed to do it and I don't want to do it.

Yeah, I'll keep it for months, sometimes years. And when you do it, it's like, sometimes it's 10 minutes or an hour, and you're like, whoa.

There's a column in my master list called, like, who's accountable and who's Responsible? Like, there might be. Whoever's accountable, they hold it.

I don't want to be accountable for as many things as possible because then things will actually move forward. But there's in that column, it says, sam Poke Mel. And what that means is she is going to be on me, and we're going to get that done.

So that doesn't happen as much. I have an ideal calendar, my ideal week. What does it look like? And we block it that way.

And that's been really hard because I used to just run on whatever. But what I've learned is I can have a couple days that are heavy meeting days, but then I need Days that have no meetings.

Or else I feel like my life is ending. Like, I just feel like I'm living in hell. Right?

Yeah.

So I think it's. I had to look to make sure it's Wednesday and Friday, no meetings. I can do Monday and Tuesday. And then like, by Wednesday I'm like, ah.

But I also have time to get things done. And I don't manage my inbox. So at night I don't look at my emails either. And like, this is the addiction part I used to live by.

Like, oh, I got an email, the Bing, then I have to look. And then I'm doing. I don't do that anymore. I'm. I'm all in or I'm all out. And so I'm all out.

And I know these are different than what you're talking about, but this has allowed me to let go of things and understand that it's not. If it's an emergency, that's one thing. That's different. But most things are never really an emergency. And you have to just frame it that way.

And then as for a shutdown or.

Or maybe even maybe marketing a component so, like, you might have a really big thing that feels like an emergency, but only one component of it is. So that's something I had to get good at.

Is this when I start feeling like, oh my gosh, this is really desperate, but I could never get this done in one day. Well, you're not going to get it done one day anyway.

So when you're making your lists of things that need to get done that are urgent now, maybe the component is what you're actually going to write down.

And then in those two, you got to just make sure you write it down three or four different ways so that the components are what you're listing, not the big end result.

Absolutely. And so all of these things are. I call again, I call them tricks. But it's my way of managing myself.

But I have to use the boundary as another human, another person who keeps me on track, who has the executive functioning skills, because that is one part of it. It's exhausting to try to be something and to be disciplined and all of these things that you can't easily be. So I will change, but it's.

But in the meanwhile, somebody else is going to help me. But the last thing I would say is I do very much. And I've always struggled to sleep at night. It's a big, big problem for me.

And it remains since I was like a very young child and I Would say there's trauma involved in that. Done so much work on it and yet still can't sleep. So one thing that I do to kind of like get myself into a better sleeping space is to take a shower.

My shower is beautiful. I built it myself. It's like a Moroccan hummam, all, like, beautiful marble. And it's my sanctuary. It's my safe space. And that kind of just lets me.

I don't know, I've just made it a thing. It's like, ritualistic of, like my place where I get to just be. And it's really. Water is healing for me.

And so, yes, I waste water, but I can go to bed and feel like, oh, okay, it's bad. It doesn't always get me to sleep, but it helps.

And then I'll do like, binaural beats or something that's going to get my brain into syncing and then I can fall asleep, but I don't always remember. It takes a lot of work, though. It shouldn't take this much energy because Matt falls asleep in about 2.5 seconds, which I resent deeply.

Same with Rachel. Rachel, yeah. Well, I think that's been incredibly helpful.

I did leave out maybe an important intake portion for me, the end of the day ritual for me as far as leaving work and going away from work. It's a culmination of everything that's been going on during the day.

And Melody talked a little bit about her intake method with her sheets and stuff. So I have two, well, three places that things can come.

Number one is, as I'm in meetings, I got my notepad, and my notepad is what I'm writing down of things that I need to take action on. By the time I get done with the meeting, if the meeting was important for me, more likely I'm gonna have something to take action on.

Or luckily, sometimes I'll end a meeting and I've delegated everything to everyone else and they're writing those down. The other one is I have an Apple phone, but I know that Android's got something similar.

I can just hold down the Siri button and I can say, remind me tomorrow at this time. I'll usually say tomorrow morning, but if you don't say tomorrow morning, you can say, remind me Wednesday afternoon or whatever.

Blank, blip, blank, blank, blank. That is my actual to do list that my paper will make it onto. When I can talk. If I'm in a meeting, I need to write it down.

I can't just sit there and talk to Siri. The whole time, but make sure that I can get a lot done really fast. Those are two of my. My how I take to do's. In the third is my calendar blocking.

And that is typically at the end of the day when I look at my to do list and I need to put in things that aren't meetings. So my. My day's got some meetings in it. Now I can fill it up with the tasks that I want to get done, ensure a way to do it.

And Melody brought up a really important point. Things that are on your to do list that you don't actually want to do, obviously the first thing you're going to do is who can you delegate it to?

Yeah.

Like, if you're an entrepreneur, that's the.

If there's enough really hard things about being an entrepreneur, there's one really great thing and that is, is that you basically don't have to do anything you don't want to do as long as you've got people surrounding you who do want to do it or who will do it, because they're not as close to it and it's not.

Well, listen, though, you're saying that in one sentence and saying how easy it is. How hard was it for us to learn.

Yeah.

And practice. And I'm a master delegator and I still. It's not my natural thing. I'll do. I'll want to do the thing because it's easy and it's a checkbox. Right. But.

And if I can get a checkbox by delegating something. So that's another thing is when I'm off work, I'll remember something and go, remind me tomorrow to ask Melody to do something.

And that's the check I'm gonna get tomorrow.

Yes.

I will literally get myself a check mark. Just by reaching out to Melody and saying, hey, Melody, I need you to call the accountant tomorrow and figure out what's going on with that thing.

Okay. Check mark. And that is a beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur. Now Melody brings up the point. Yeah, but it's not that easy.

Just saying it is one thing. Doing it is another.

There's a bit of a graduation to it, but at the end of the day, the biggest thing I think about this addiction that we're talking about is that it's the most unique addiction that you can get praise for. Not very many addictions bring praise.

Yes.

You can get praise from yourself, you can get praise from those around you. Your employees can talk about what a hard worker you are and make you Feel proud. Your customers can brag about it and talk about it.

You can go around wearing it like a badge of honor that I have no energy, I'm totally exhausted, my business is killing me. And everyone will be so proud of you and that I just hope that today in our discussion that a couple things have happened.

I hope the first thing is, is that you realize that this isn't a badge of honor. It's an addiction's. An addiction's an addiction.

And I just want to remind you, as I look at what ChatGPT tells me in addiction is, are you engaging with something that is hurting you and you can't stop yourself from doing it? Have you lost control to it?

Do things have to get bigger and bigger and bigger in order to achieve that high that you're getting, which you, you know the high I'm talking about, the one where you, you know, made some sort of big achievement or you check something off of the list or you got some sort of praise from somebody. Are you withdrawing or. Sorry, when you withdraw, are you feeling. Can you go on a vacation without getting the jitters?

Can you take three or four days off and know that you're still doing something of value and do you continue despite harm? If you're doing those things, you need to take the badge of honor off and you need to remember the three things we talked about.

Number one, what are your triggers? Identify them. Don't even do anything with them yet. Just, just identify them.

Yeah.

Then you got to make sure that you are making an outside life that is good enough, that it can compete with your work life and that can start to become a badge of honor for you. Right. I can tell you how fast I can ride a mile on my bike.

I can tell you how fast I can do the seven mile loop of mountain bike trail out behind my house. And I'm getting better all the time, by the way, everybody.

And I can tell you about my six pack abs and I can tell you about how my wife looks like a piece of meat. And guess what? That competes with the kind of results I'm getting at work. And the last thing I want you to think about is your end of day ritual.

How do you say goodbye to work without work, sitting on your shoulder all night long? Melody says she doesn't check her email anymore after work. That is actually. I am so imp. That is so awesome.

I don't ever like if I'm doing it right. I don't ever go in my inbox, not even during work. Wow. I can train Anybody to do it very quickly too. If anybody wants to know, just reach out.

Please do. And Mellie, I think we're only talking about that. I use a trick called Inbox zero.

If I get an email and it's not dire and it can wait till tomorrow before I go to bed, I just snooze it till tomorrow at 5am and guess what? It'll be there when I get there tomorrow. And I still have a nice clean inbox and my brain just sleeps like it's better. So it doesn't matter.

I think so much what you do for your end of day ritual. And I've had limited success with other things, but so far for me it's that goodbye work. I see that you're. You're all ready for me tomorrow.

Everything's going to be fine till tomorrow. That's the new drug. You know, if I can be that crass about it. But that gets me through the night.

Yeah. I'm going to just admit that right now I am going through a period of feeling like I'm coming to the end. Like I want my break.

We've been doing a lot of big things and changes. I want my break.

So this has been very helpful for me because it's reminded me again of all the reasons why I call myself a recovering Remember Kurt in the Business Misfits podcast? One of the questions I asked at the end is are you a workaholic or recovering workaholic? Which people laugh at.

But it's because most entrepreneurs can put themselves in the box. They don't even question what that means.

And I have to be eternally that because I'm going to struggle with it my whole life and I need to understand that. I would hope that it wouldn't be, but aspirationally. But if I know that that's the case, then what am I going to do about it to make my life better?

You talked about biking. I love woodworking. I haven't done woodworking in quite a while. There's a lot of things I love. Music, recording. Those are my things.

Welding. I love welding. I love driving my tractor. I'll move a pile of dirt.

Yeah.

One side of the property to the other side of the property just so I can move back to the other side of the property.

Yeah.

You know what?

Yeah.

Yeah. These hobbies, they could be so many. Baking. I actually do not enjoy baking, but I started doing meal prep as part of my fitness thing.

Turns out if I'm in the kitchen with Rachel and I'm making 20 things at one time actually like it. I can't believe I'm saying that, But I do know.

You're right. I do, too. If. If I have to cook every day, I don't like it because it feels like, oh, my God, I have to do this three times a day, every day, forever.

But if I'm meal prepping, I'm like, I don't have to do this for, you know, another week. This is amazing. So it's worth the time.

Even quinoa tastes better. Quinoa is the grossest thing I ever. And then I saw how good it is for you, and I'm like, well, I'll give it a shot.

Tell you what, when you're doing meal prep and you only have to make it one time and you can put a sauce on it that makes it, like, not taste like quinoa.

Yeah.

Then you're like, hey, even the food tastes better.

It's so great.

It's great.

Yeah. Oh, I appreciate this conversation.

I know that it's boring because I say that every conversation, but, you know, it's very relevant to where I'm at right now, and probably a lot of our listeners, and I would just encourage people, like, it can be in cycles. Maybe if you start to become aware, it might never completely go away.

You're not going to become like a normal human, perhaps, who just forgets that work exists, because we don't. We are unemployable, as Kurt said.

I know.

It's okay. We need.

And maybe that's. Yeah, maybe it's not so bad that we're. That we're not regular. And you know what?

Maybe it's not so bad that sole proprietor podcast, the most boring podcast in the world. You know what? Maybe it's not so bad because the mundane of our lives is where we live.

Yeah.

So why not be excited that. That we're eccentric or weird or entrepreneurial crazy?

And why not, you know, celebrate the fact that we want to make our task list a little bit more easy to manage in our. The fact that we don't like vacations because you can't work as easy.

I mean, I can't go on a vacation before first finding out what the Internet's like.

Oh, I can. I can let it all go. That's what I've gotten good at is.

Well, good.

See, so there are many ways, and there's a lot of growth that can happen. I can let it go. I will say, like, one last thing, which probably should have been at the beginning.

I have to be Careful because on the weekends sometimes I'll do fun work which is actually just regular work that I didn't have time for because I had to help on other projects. And so like it's fun work that's also just work. So it's just another form of.

But I love that we had this conversation because I would to love, love to hear what have people like us figured out that works?

Yeah, I'm guessing I've been thinking as we've been doing this, I would love for people to message us in at whatever email address or however they. I don't know. But we gotta think that all the way through. I am guessing based on how similar we are.

Melody, who is listening right now, that owns a business, is spiritually trying to figure things out, likes riding bikes.

And.

Sleeps outside every chance possible. Because if that's the case, Melody, we have created an echo chamber of people that. I don't know. I. I feel like we have a nice open mind.

So we're not like the echo chamber that's like trying to like militantly keep everything in the same box. But I really am always shocked by when you say things and I'm like, oh, Melody, we're even more alike than we thought we were.

I mean Kurt, I actually do think we're more alike than you know, we just have a different perspective. But it always gets to the a similar space, I feel like. Yeah.

So what you're saying is we are both open minded people and we have probably created some sort form of a cult if everybody sleeps outside and rides mountain bikes and wants their wife to look at their six pack. Yeah. But if you are. Not that. I would love to hear other opinions on.

Like if you are a person who really is self aware but you still feel like work is the answer because it's not work. Maybe it's something different for you. I would love to hear how you frame it because I'd love a different answer so that I can just be a workaholic.

Well, I do think that it'd be fun to have. We need to start having some guests on the show.

Yeah.

And I can even think of like some listeners that might be able to have some extra spicy view on something that would be really fun to beat up together.

Yeah. We're so weird. We're like come on and argue with us and tell us why we're wrong.

Yeah. We have rules of engagement of course.

But yeah.

Yeah. I actually love it.

Not an argument. Yeah, it's my favorite, so I can't wait. Well, Kurt, thank you so much. This was a pleasure and it was super fun. I can't believe how the time passed.

I know. It always is. Thanks, Melody.

We'll see you next week on the Sole Proprietor podcast, where we will ask all the hard hitting and super boring questions.