[Transcript starts at 1:15]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. It is Monday, September 11th, not 11th. Well, actually, when I'm recording this, it is actually September 11th. But when this drops and you're listening to this or watching it, if you are watching, listening on the day that it drops, it'll be Monday, September 18th and we are discussing the topic whether or not you are pushing hard enough.
This episode actually ties into an episode I did, I don't know, a few weeks ago, episode 506 thank you, Courtney, that was titled, How Do You Buy Plane Tickets? In that episode, I talked about buying plane tickets for my friend's CrossFit competition. And I actually just got back yesterday from Sacramento for said CrossFit competition. Of note, like I said in that episode, it is not just about the price of the ticket.
You've got to think about the price of the experience, the cost of the experience. And they went with the basic economy. Never buy the basic economy ticket, folks. Don't buy it. Don't do it. They went with the basic economy. And yes, Brenda ended up sitting ahead of me. It didn't matter though, because I pay for the experience of not having to worry about having a seat, of not having to worry about getting my luggage checked.
Camille's luggage had to get checked because there wasn't room left. Uh, Brenda's didn't because Brenda like brought like one bag. But on the way back, we got done early. We had, we booked the last flight out on Sunday night. We got done early and so I was able to move to the 5:30 flight, whereas they had to stay until 8:30 to get they didn't get home till 10 because they bought that basic economy flight and you cannot change those flights. So folks don't buy that basic economy ticket. I know you save like five dollars. It's not worth it though.
But anyway went to Sacramento for Camille's CrossFit competition and that inspired not only that episode but this episode episode today discussing the value of pushing hard and the utility of it and also just asking ourselves a question are we pushing hard enough?
So CrossFit to me is magical. I did CrossFit for I think from probably 2014 until like 2018 really dedicated and then like a little dabbling 2019. Really got into knees over toes around then because my knees were just like sit your ass down, right? But to me CrossFit is magical.
I don't miss it, but I still appreciate it so much. And being back in that environment this past weekend just made me realize all of that, um, especially the community. It's been really interesting. Y'all know that I'm all into volleyball, beach volleyball now. And so I go to volleyball competitions and it's definitely different communities, a different feel than CrossFit.
And I do think that what's at the heart of the success of CrossFit is the community. And I think what's at the heart of it, being able to build community, is grit. It is the fact that everyone is united by pushing. Pushing hard doesn't take skill. It's just put your head down and work no matter what level you may be at.
Right. And you all then know that feeling, right? Pushing hard for an elite athlete may yield different results, yield different outcome than pushing hard for a novice, but they're both pushing hard and they're both feeling that horrendous feeling in your legs and in your lungs. And we've all experienced Fran lung.
Doesn't matter if your fran time is 10 minutes or your fran time is. Sub three, you felt it because it's just based on pushing. With CrossFit, anyone can compete and you can all suffer together, right? Yes. It's a little different if there's team, but if you're just going into a CrossFit box and you're just going to do a WOD, you know, do a Metcon, anyone can do it.
You'll scale it appropriately, but everyone can, you know, push through and, and push together. Little bit different with volleyball because volleyball is largely skill dependent. And that's kind of something that I've, I've a little bit struggled with because it's not like you're just going to outwork someone like, yes, if you're having a really off day, then you want to default to grit and like, you know, dive after everything.
But like, that can't be like the base for volleyball. Cause then it actually becomes a little bit spastic and is not good for, for playing. All right. So, there's a difference there. And there's definitely like, if you're a novice, you haven't experienced some of the things, a lot of the things that someone that's more advanced has, and it's like not fun to play.
You can't play volleyball by yourself. You need at least two people, right. For a team. So if there is a big difference in skill level, it's not as fun. Cause you're like, this person doesn't have the skill to be able to like, make this thing fun. Whereas with crossFit doesn't matter because you're not in teams as well.
It doesn't matter like what skill level you're at. You can all just suffer together. So in a little bit of tangent, but still relevant to the episode because we're talking about are you pushing hard enough?
So back to the competition that I was just at, competitions in general, like CrossFit competitions in general are such a great example of the utility of pushing as hard as you can.
No, we're not going to do it all the time, but there is a time and a place for pushing as hard as you can. And CrossFit, a competition, very clearly demonstrates that. I think that in general, the pendulum, the proverbial pendulum, has swung too far. I think it always has to go too far before it comes back to the middle.
But if I'm basing this off of social media, scrolling, and things like that, I think we're in a time where the default, when given options, is to choose rest. I'm not here to say there's anything wrong with that. Rest is fine. But also, if you want a specific outcome, if you want a specific goal, if you want to achieve a specific goal, to quote the great Britney Spears, you better work, bitch.
Right. It's as simple as that. Annie Miller has a lot of great messaging out around this. Um, namely with her discussion about the folks that are in the space right now, preaching this anti hustle culture, they got to a place where they could preach that by hustling. You gotta work, you gotta push. At this competition I was just at, yes, you could absolutely choose to rest.
Or go slower. But if your goal was to work, you better work, bitch. You better work. It's as simple as that. Yes. When it comes to sport, when it comes to, you know, CrossFit competition, winning is zero sum, you beat somebody else. There's only room atop the podium for one person. But with online business, you can just think about competing against your former self or just looking to hit a specific goal, right. Hitting, looking to hit a specific number.
It's still the same in terms of if you have a goal, you got to work. Yes, you can choose to go slower. You can absolutely always choose to go, do less, but then you cannot expect or want, demand that outcome. Can't do it.
All right, for CrossFit, we understand it's very tangible, right? What pushing looks like.
It looks like taking less rest. It looks like, trying new things that you haven't done before, new movements. It's risking doing too much. There's so much value in that. It's holding on to the bar and really leaning into that, really leaning into that discomfort. You all know if you've done CrossFit, you want to drop that fucking bar and it's holding on.
It's stretching yourself. It's testing yourself. It's pushing yourself physically, emotionally, mentally. Online biz, we can come up with examples. It's showing up every day for launch. Fuck, it's launching at all, because launches are hard. It's writing all the emails. It's pulling an all nighter to edit a video and get it posted.
Remember I did that video about chat GPT? Maybe let's link that, Courtney, because I worked really hard on that video. It's spending three hours on a post. It's working while you're on vacation, launching while you're on vacation, because the vacation got set up first and things got moved around. I'm like, you got to still show up.
It's seeing a full day of clients. It's doing things that your friends maybe don't understand. P. S. If your friends don't support you, get some fucking new friends, right? It's okay if they don't understand it, but if they're giving you shit about it, let's get some new friends, right? It's learning how to build a landing page.
It's figuring out tech. It's being in the weeds. It's physically, mentally, emotionally pushing yourself, right?
CrossFit is a great example just to use in general of pushing yourself because we can see that we cannot be pushing ourselves and redlining all the time. We understand that. There's a physical capacity, there's a limit.
But we also understand that sometimes it is absolutely necessary. And a CrossFit competition shows you this, like sometimes you got a red line, you got to go as hard as possible. There is a time for pacing and you can see it within a single competition, right? Where a metcon, a workout that's longer requires a bit more pacing.
Whereas a shorter one, like you just go. Camille had a workout, and I really love the strategy side of things and that's largely my role when I'm there with her. And for one of the workouts, it was just like, you better work, bitch. Like, you just gotta go. Don't strategize this. Just go. You've already built up the capacity for this.
You have to just go and you have to risk doing too much. Like, you'll be okay. The same goes for online business. There are times when it's necessary to just go all out. One of the reasons however, that I stopped CrossFit is because CrossFit is supposed to hurt, not supposed to hurt you, but you're supposed to have that Fran lung.
You're supposed to have those times where you're like, fuck, this is the worst thing ever. People love it. I don't love it. I don't love it. The second to last CrossFit competition that I did, I did it with Camille and Brenda, which are the two women that I went on the trip with. Uh, it was had, one of the workouts had a sled push and an assault bike.
That is power output. That is all quad. I don't really have either of those. I'm an endurance athlete. I don't know where my quads are. I've been looking for them. They're hiding in my hamstrings and my adductors. I don't really know. That workout burned so bad. There's actually a picture of me and I'm laying down and I'm squeezing Camille's leg and you can see like the indents, the indentations from my fingers squeezing her leg because it just hurts so bad and in that moment I decided, fuck this noise.
I don't want to feel this ever again. I don't want it. And that was the second to last competition I ever did. I did one more after that and I was like, this ain't it. It ain't it for me. We won that competition. It required us to push and dig and go to that place. But I was like, yo, I don't want this anymore.
Online business is very much the same. I think everything in life is the same. But, you know, the podcast, what we're talking about, the topic here, we'll speak about online business. It's very much the same. It is not easy. It requires periods of pushing and periods of discomfort. And you have to ask yourself, do I want this?
Do I want to do this? I know that I don't want to push the way that Jill does. She, this would be comparable to like CrossFit of like, she's a games level athlete and I'm like a recreational athlete. And I'm like, I don't want to do all that. I don't want to train all that. I don't want that. And so I've accepted that I won't have the same level of quote unquote success that she does.
I don't want to enter that competition. So I can't say that I want to win it. I see this in the online business space where people are like, they're not willing to put in the work that's required to be a games level athlete, but they're like, I want to win the games. And I'm like, that doesn't make sense.
Can't do it. So during these times of reflection, when we're asking ourselves, am I pushing hard enough, it's perfectly fine to be like, I don't want to push that hard. Amazing. And I have so many of you in my audience that have come to that realization or you've, you know, sat with that. And you tell me this, you're like, yo, I want more of a lifestyle business.
And I'm like, I fucking love that. Cause I want to be outside playing volleyball as well. I get it, and I love that. I think there's, there's so much freedom in, in real, realizing that.
So the last thing to consider here is that pushing, lots of utility in it, different levels of it, but it's always gonna feel like pushing and it's always gonna be uncomfortable to some degree.
Right? There's always gonna be some, some degree of discomfort that comes along with it. All right, for Camille, this is the example we're going to use. Camille, yes, she can easily do pull ups now. She can do butterfly pull ups. She can do butterfly chest to bar pull ups. If this doesn't make any sense to you, it's because you don't speak CrossFit.
But the rest of you listening to this, I think there's a good number of you, you've done CrossFit, you understand what I'm saying. She can easily do pull ups. She can easily do, you know, string together, uh, you know, high volume, uh, chest to bar and regular pull ups. She can do muscle ups. She can lift the traditional RX CrossFit weights, you know, 95 pounds.
Uh, excuse me, 65 pounds for things like thrusters. But the goalposts move with you. So to win this competition, it's not enough to be like, I can do pull ups. She has to do them faster. It's not enough to say that she can hit those weights at 65 pounds. Yeah, she can do it, but she has to do it faster. And she has to do more of them now, if she wants to win this competition, because the goalposts have moved. It's not just, can I do it? It's, can I do it at X level, at X speed, at X level of difficulty? Same, same for online business. Yes. In general, there's going to be ease if your goal is to do the exact same thing. But, if your goal changes, so must your effort.
And to that end, pushing will always feel like pushing. This was a big discussion that we had with Camille because she was just like, I don't like feeling like I'm not sure if I can do this movement. And I was like, I get that. And that, I think, is part of the mental component that we see between, you know, higher level athletes where they're just willing to push through it and they're like, I'm going to fucking figure it out.
And I'm going to see if I push too hard and I can't do it, then I learned that. Whereas on the other side of it, it's like, I want to know for sure that I can do it. I want to know for sure that I'm going to do really well in it. And there's nothing wrong with that, right? That's when we maybe don't enter that competition.
Maybe we, you know, enter a smaller competition and there's nothing wrong with it. I think on the flip side of this is actually tremendous, again, freedom in understanding what do I actually want? How hard do I actually… want to push. But I'm saying this and I'm thinking of clients right now, in particular, specific clients, the goalposts move with you.
And if you're expecting ease, then you have to expect your goals to stay the same. You cannot expect ease as you're like, but I want to do more. I want to have, I want to make more money. I want to serve more people. I want to have a bigger business. Then you're going to have to push and it's always going to feel like pushing.
Always. It's just, you're pushing with different things. So with online business, yes, writing emails will get easier. Making a video will get easier. Posting will become easier. But if your goal is a different result, it's a bigger result, something else, then suddenly you got to write more emails. Maybe they're more intricate emails.
Your podcast now has to have a vid, not has to, but it's going to have a video. It's another level to that. Your launch has more moving parts. You're delivering a service now to more people so maybe you have to bring a team on to fulfill on this. Right. The goalposts will move with you.
So no, it shouldn't feel like struggling all the time.
Right? There's a difference there. Hard work and pushing and struggling. There's a difference where you're like, I'm not getting any better. I'm, it'd be like over training where you're just like, I don't like this. I'm not seeing any improvements. I cry every day about this. Whether it's athletics or sports, it's CrossFit or online business, you shouldn't be crying every day about this. Immediately no. And if your coach is saying that to you, that's some fucking bullshit and that coach needs to not be doing that either. I see that in the space. And it's very problematic to me where coaches are like, if you're not crying every day, what are you even doing?
I'm like having good mental health and handling my shit. Like life is short. Let's not be crying every single day. So no, you shouldn't be struggling all the time, but this shit is work, whether it's CrossFit or online business or whatever. And it does require work. So to answer the question, are you pushing hard enough to hit your goals?
I don't know. Only you can answer that. And I would suggest putting the blinders on as we're assessing that because everyone's work capacity is different. And so again, to reference CrossFit, one of the goals you have with CrossFit is to have your 80 percent work capacity be someone else's 100 percent capacity.
Because yes, we're going against other people. And so that means that you can work at a sustainable pace while that person has to redline all the time. But in general, I get so into the CrossFit stuff, but in general, no I'm not going back to CrossFit, no. I said it earlier, I do not miss it. But in general, we want to put the blinders on.
Because everyone's work capacity is going to be different. So yes, I think competition can absolutely be helpful, but I think that oftentimes it's for most people, it's more distracting than anything, especially with online business, because there's so many variables with that. So, you know, looking at what other people are doing can be helpful if you're phrasing it as cool, I see what someone is doing. It's possible. I don't know if it's possible for me, but let me try. Let me try to do that. It's hurtful for you if you're like. That person did that, so I should be able to do the same and I'm the worst if I can't, right? Very, very different approaches.
So in general, I'm like, put the blinders on, focus on your goals and focus on the amount of work that's going to be required to achieve your goals, right?
So are you pushing hard enough? That is a question for you to answer, but this weekend really inspired me to kind of think about that and kind of dive into that.
So I said, you know what, let me do a podcast episode about that and pose the question to you fine folks. All right.
So I'm looking at the time. I'm going to wrap it up here. No reviews to read this time. I thought about going back to the archives and I was like, you know what? Not today. Not today. We're going to just record this, get it out, because I was excited about talking about CrossFit, uh, and express my gratitude for all of you.
You watch, you listen, you tune in. So if you want to leave a review, I would love that. I know it takes a little bit more time. I get it and I appreciate it. So if the spirit moves you and want to leave a review for the podcast, I would love to hear from you. All right? All right. All right. As always, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you. Until next time, friends. Maestro out.
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