Beyond Money: A Motivation That Lasts

 

Is it really possible to be motivated by something other than money, material objects or any other tangible outcome? Is there such a thing as sustainable motivation? It’s almost a cliché to say that we need to be motivated by the process of creation instead of the outcomes of that process, but it’s also almost too hard to extricate ourselves from the material aspects of success. Jason Wrobel and Whitney Lauritsen spend this episode talking about where they are in their lives and careers now and what motivates them to do the things they are doing. Like them, you would be in one form of motivation or another. What keeps you going? Listen in and weigh in on the conversation. 

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Beyond Money: A Motivation That Lasts 

Finding A More Sustainable Approach To Success

One thing that has been coming up a lot is the concept of motivation. Whitney and I have spent a lot of time on this new app called Clubhouse, which we’ve talked about in previous episodes and something that we continue to dive deeper into. One thing that’s come up a lot is how motivational speakers/entrepreneurs/business leaders are seemingly dominating this platform. We’ve some feedback we received where we moderated a room about elevating your wellness. 

It was such a magical experience as an aside of going into a room, thinking it was going to be one thing. All of a sudden, our dear friend and previous guests, Max Goldberg, was in the room with us and he pinged some other people into the room and it morphed and evolved and changed into this 2.5-hour experience. Whitney ideated this fantastic concept that is a play on Shark Tank, but it’s called Dolphin Tank. Every Wednesday, if you dear reader are on Clubhouse or want to get on Clubhouse or looking to receive an invite to Clubhouse, and you are in the wellness health food industry, and you are involved in the business of that in some kind as either an influencer or a brand or a consumer packaged goods or media, a buyer, whatever it is, we have this new thing that we’re doing on Wednesday from 4:00 to 6:00 PM called Dolphin Tank. We’re getting people together from the wellness industry. If you’re interested in that and you want to learn more, you can always shoot us a direct email to Whitney and myself, it’s [email protected]. 

We also have it on our website now. There’s a page where you can sign up for notifications and be alerted when we have these new events, which is a little bit easier to manage than going into Clubhouse because I have found it challenging to keep track of events so I made an Add to Calendar button that you can click after you enter in your email and you can put it right on your calendar and come join us. I’m so excited about this, Jason. I’m glad that you brought it up and shout out to our new friend, Greg, who gave up the inspiration for the format and the name. 

Going back to this, Whitney, it was interesting to get not only Greg’s feedback, but also a few other people. I was tracking some of the comments when people were in the room with us. It does seem that this app in particular is flooded and dominated with people who are in that life coach, money mentor, TEDx speaker type of person. It’s interesting to see how many rooms at least I’ve seen are talking about making money, scaling your business, 10X–ing your business, where to find motivation. These subjects seem to be coming up ad nauseum on this platform. I’m not slagging it. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but I’m starting to see that it’s attracting a certain type of person that is in that mindset of in some of the rooms that you and I have been in I’ve felt exhausted by some of the rhetoric I’ve heard. 

It feels to me not all, but a lot of cases it feels very transactional and a lot of the same tropes are being recycled over and over again. I get very bored, frustrated and tired listening to the same stuff. I wanted to hone in on motivation as a jump off point because I see a lot of people on there being motivated by making more money by scaling their businesses, by 10X–ing their businesses. When you see people like Grant Cardone, for example, in a room and you see all these people wanting to get advice from him, it’s made me reflect on my motivations moving forward, not with business but in life. This is also piggybacking on the fact over a month of you, Adam and other people telling me about, I finally watched the movie Soul on Disney Plus. Without giving away too many spoilers for you, dear reader, first of all, it’s a phenomenal movie. It’s so heartfelt, funny, deep and beautifully done and written. I highly encourage you to watch this movie, dear reader, if you have not done so yet. 

Many people chase certain material things or outcomes, but is that a sustainable motivation? Share on X

This idea, Whitney of the idea of purpose, one spark and motivation is all this coalescing conversation to my heart and my mind. I’m realizing that a lot of the things that used to motivate me, I don’t feel motivated by anymore. I’ve told you many times offline that I feel a little bit lost right now because a lot of the things that I was motivated by, I don’t feel in my heart that I want to chase anymore. I don’t feel l they’re sustainable motivations. This particular term is something that I’ve been sitting with a lot lately of what is a sustainable motivation. What does that mean? 

For a long time, whether it was my journaling or I mentioned that I destroyed my vision board after doing it for about 12 or 13 years. I don’t have one for 2021 and I don’t intend on making one. I realized that for me, I was feeling motivated, Whitney, by this idea that getting material things, by getting this particular house, car, status in society or in our industry was the thing that was going to make me fulfilled. I see a lot of people chasing those things. I almost on one hand want to share my experience more because there’s a part of me that wants to tell people like, “This isn’t a sustainable motivation. You’re going to chase that money and you’re going to get the money and you’re going to want more. You’re going to get to 6 and 7 figures. That’s not going to feel enough. You’re going to want 8 and 9 figures.” 

I feel like I want to shake people and be like, “This is not going to lead you somewhere that is going to be satisfying. You think it is.” Maybe that’s me transposing my particular life experience, but I feel concerned about people when I see this desperate on yielding, fervent chase for money, success and titles. Clubhouse triggers me, sometimes, Whitney is what I’m trying to say in terms of seeing what people are motivated by. I don’t feel greatly motivated by those things anymore. I’m curious what you’re observing because you spend more time on there than I do. Using Clubhouse as a microcosm of what’s going on with social media and society, I feel turned off a lot by it. I see people chasing the money. I don’t feel like super motivated by that the way I used to be. 

This is an important thing to discuss because I reflect on this a lot too. Each of us understand that money is important to life because we need it to survive in most cases. I suppose we could come up with a whole bartering system if we wanted to. Some societies perhaps found ways to work in exchange for each other. That’s wonderful because what’s tricky for me about the money side of it is it puts you into places like status and this could happen even in a bartering system. Status has been part of our history for so long. We talked a little bit about this with Chris Guillebeau because at the time, I had read his book about the history of status and why it plays a big role in our lives. It’s nothing new this hierarchy that we developed. That’s part of human society. I’m not sure that we can escape it. Part of the trigger there is that money is a quick way for us to feel more less important. 

Money is a way for us to get what we want or not be able to get what it is. Money is a way that we often times define our worth. Speaking of Clubhouse, I was on room listening to some women talk about how to set your rates and how to ask for what you’re worth. It’s such an interesting conversation because a lot of people with that, myself included. Almost every single time I get a new client, I have this moment of pause, “What the heck am I going to charge?” It’s still perplexing to me because I’ve been doing my work for so long, you’d think that I would know. 

I doubt myself so much and that doubt gets in the way. I don’t doubt my ability to coach or consult, to work with people. I’m very confident in that, but where I doubt is connected to like, “Is somebody going to see my worth and pay the amount money that I would?” How do you even determine this? This is something that people have asked me a lot in my coaching practice and training especially when I was focused on helping content creators with monetization, which was a big part of my work for many years. I thought a lot of classes and had a membership and group training programs and one-on-one coaching all around helping creators monetize. 

That’s still a little bit of the work that I do because I like supporting people with money. The most common question that I would receive is, “What do I charge for this.” The answer frankly is there’s no set charge or rate for anything. Pretty much any job, any skill, there is a range and that range depends on many different factors and I personally get caught up in that range. I’m like, “I’d could charge on the high end,” but my fear is often, “Will somebody A, be able to like financially able to pay me? B, do they see enough of my worth?” 

One thing that it was brought up by this amazing woman, Natalie, who is running the Clubhouse room I mentioned. I was hoping to have her as a guest on our show because she’s knowledgeable and passionate about this. She brought up this great point, Jason that I thought was interesting was that you’re not charging someone based on where they are now. You’re charging them based on where you’re going to bring them as a result of your products or services. I thought that is such a brilliant mentally. 

A lot of people get caught up in this like, “I don’t have the money right now so I’m afraid to pay somebody for this.” Often times, you and I have done this too, Jason. When we’ve enrolled in coaching programs or gone to coaching events or whatever we’ve done to invest ourselves as business owners, it sometimes feels like a financial stretch. The reason we pay that money is because we are looking to get the results. Sometimes spending money on things helps us get results because we’re more motivated. 

At the same time, no matter how many times I’ve gone through this process, it’s still a challenge for me. Jason, part of this is because I don’t want somebody to feel like money is getting in the way of what they need and that’s where I think like going back to your feelings about how people talk about money on your platforms like Clubhouse. There’s a lot of discussion around like, “You can charge this much money and you can make this much money, but I am often looking at my work from the individual level.” With each person that I’m working with, I’m thinking about them. I’m not thinking about myself and thinking like, “Who is this person? Where are they at? How can I help them and what would I like to charge versus what is accessible for this person?” 

 

That needs to be brought into this conversation more often. We’ve all been in a place where we have wanted or needed something and felt like it was out of reach for us financially. That’s an awful feeling. I don’t want to be responsible for someone feeling that way. The trickiest part of that is if you lower your rates too much, somebody doesn’t find you valuable. It’s that ongoing battle of what is that perfect rate for this person. I haven’t fully figured that out for myself. I’m not at a point where I want to have a flat rate for everybody and it’s either you can pay it or you can’t. If somebody can’t pay what I’m charging, I’m always happy to discuss them to try to make it work. 

When I open up in that way, Jason, a lot of people are willing to have a discussion to find something that work. Sometimes that even lays people to realize that they have more financial flexibility than they realized. It’s when they see a price tag, it can be scary. The psychology around money is interesting too because when you get excited about something and you see the price points, sometimes the price completely blocks your brain. You’re like, “I can’t afford it. I’m not buying it or paying for this service.” The whole psychology of how you talk about money with someone is an ongoing interest of mine. 

The thing that I’ve observed that I’ve tried to incorporate into I suppose pricing structure business model is a sliding scale in the sense that, “I have the upper end of my rate and then I have a rate that I know I’m not going to go below.” I’ve seen this with friends, therapists that I’ve worked with, I’ve seen it in terms of fitness classes. I’ve done this also with clients and people I’ve worked with too, Whitney is that I have a rate that if people don’t question or feel fearful of the rate, you can afford the highest rate. If people are concerned, I’ve incorporated the idea of this sliding scale. 

I’ve seen that in many cases be effective. In some cases, people have a mentality that they can find whatever they feel like they need on the internet for free. That’s a comment that I’ve received in different forms over the years is like, “I could hire you. Don’t they have YouTube videos on this?” I’m like, “In a general sense, yeah. There are YouTube videos about this. There are books you can read.” The whole reason of working with say a coach, a fitness trainer, a mentor, etc., is you get a level of hopefully personal touch and personal connection. You also get accountability. A YouTube video doesn’t give you accountability. A book doesn’t give you accountability. A course, depending on how it’s structured and on how the community operates, might give you some level of accountability. 

To me, one of the reasons that I have worked with people one-on-one, mentorships, coaches, courses, Whitney, is that there is that human element of accountability and direct connection. I can have this person one-on-one either on a call once a week or twice a week, whatever it is. That’s the thing is I’m realizing that sometimes when I get on a call to discuss working with someone, I want to make sure that the energy and the personality feels good. This is taking a hard right turn for motivation. It’s important to discuss that. 

I have said yes to contracts with clients, business deals and working with brands in the past, some of which you know that there was something in my gut that said, “I don’t know if this is going to be a good fit, but I said yes anyway because of the money. It ended up getting into that relationship and realizing that I did not like working with that person or that team and getting into it and thinking you should listen to your gut.” It’s interesting because it’s tempting when we have someone who wants to work with us, whether that’s a brand or a client or a business collaboration, and there’s a certain price tag on it, or a certain amount of rate that we’re getting and we get excited about it. We get enraptured with the idea of this dollar sign that’s attached to the project or the client. What I’m trying to do a better job of is pay attention to the energy and the feeling of the relationship when I speak to this person. 

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I don’t think it’s one phone call. Oftentimes, I like to get on multiple phone calls and talk through things with a person because if there’s any hit that I get intuitively in my gut that this person’s going to be difficult, challenging, super high maintenance, a pain in the ass. I want to be better at saying no to those things. I‘m curious in what you’re doing. We do things with Wellevatr together and we have our individual businesses. If you’ve had any lessons like that where your gut or your intuition was saying, “You might want to think twice and you said yes anyway.” Realize later on, you should have listened to your gut. Do you have any things that come up for you in that regard? 

Yeah. It’s interesting because in this moment immediately coming to mind had the opposite experience, Jason. I had this one client who was taking a long time to onboard. He was interested in working with me. We had a great first call. I sent him an email and it was like back and forth emails for a long time. I remember thinking, “I don’t know if this is a good fit. This is not feeling right.” There was some part of me that was questioning those feelings because it wasn’t clear was it the process that was triggering me or was it an intuitive hit? 

I kept exploring and I thought, “I’m going to keep going through this because I’m not sure yet and I’m going to use it as an opportunity to learn from this. I’m going to use this as an opportunity to get clearer on my website like that’s an ongoing thing.” Almost every single day I’m thinking of new ways to talk about myself, my work and also ours. I work on our websites for Wellevatr and our show frequently because the more that you speak with people, the more that you get information and understand how you’re showing up and your opportunities for clarity. 

With this client, he needed a lot of clarity more than I’ve ever experienced before. While I was frustrated in the beginning, I recognized that I could use that as a way to be very clear for future clients. I thought, “I’m going to keep going through this onboarding or this exploration to see if he’s going to become a client.” At the very least, I’ve got great questions to answer on my website now. I’m glad I went through that because he did end up a client, Jason. He’s phenomenal. I love working with him. 

 

It was that he needed some help from a security standpoint and part of that was it was big decision for his business and it was a fairly large financial investment for him. Once I understood where he was struggling, I could see how I could support him more. I was glad that I didn’t have that knee-jerk reaction of, “This guy is too much work. He’s not going to be good for me.” I was wrong about that and that was humbling. 

I also had a similar experience with a sponsored-opportunity I had for my brand Eco-Vegan Gal. I had this company that felt like it was taking so long to come to an agreement. It was in depth. I was like, “I don’t know if this is worth the money. I don’t want to do this.” I almost turned down the opportunity. For some reason, I decided to push forward. I did it. It ended up being a phenomenal relationship that was worth it for me. 

It was a great learning experience that had helped me clarify how I work as an influencer, a content creator. That’s an interesting thing, Jason because sometimes what feels like it’s our intuition, triggered wound, frustration or it’s specific to what’s going on that day. Each of us go through these waves of energy, motivation, clarity, burnout and all of this different ongoing rollercoaster of emotions as a business owner. I’m not always right. My intuitive hits either aren’t always accurate or what I perceived to be an intuitive hit is a different trigger that’s appearing as if it’s my intuition. 

How do you differentiate? That’s my question. What you’re saying is incredibly wise and insightful, Whitney. I’m glad you brought that up, but I’m wondering from a very somatic experience like in your body, is it that you start to pay attention to how your body is giving you the signals to differentiate between a trigger, trauma and intuition. You bring something up that’s important to examine. I’m wondering how do you practice differentiating that? 

One thing that’s helpful is to try to step outside of myself and either journal about it more, take some extra time to reflect on it and also talk to other people. As I’ve mentioned in at least one previous episode, I find it beneficial to ask other people like, “What would you do in this situation?” I’m trying to do a little less of that because in the past I’ve leaned too much on not following what I know to be true but I think this is part of the challenge especially for someone like me, Jason. My self-doubt comes from a lifetime of doubting myself. In terms of those roots of not feeling like I have the right answers, questioning myself, “Am I good enough? Am I getting the validation that I want?” 

It’s been so much of questioning. My tendency is a questionnaire, which benefits me in some ways and holds me back. Sometimes I get way too stuck asking questions that I don’t take action. That’s why I will turn to other people to try to get some feedback from their outside perspective. A few episodes ago, we talked about a challenging situation I’d been in with an email I’ve received that felt harsh and critical and it triggered me. I talked a few people about it and got some great perspective because they weren’t in it with me. Their emotions weren’t attached. Take a look at it from a more of a logical standpoint than from an emotional standpoint that I was in. 

That helps a lot when I’m feeling confused. Also, strengthening that muscle of tapping into your intuition is a process that I haven’t fully mastered yet, Jason. I’m now getting back into meditation after ignoring it for a long time. Part of my goal with meditation is to be able to tap into myself a little more effectively. I spend so much time in the external world that I could benefit from practicing and honing in on the internal so that it’s easier to make these decisions. Throughout my life, I’ve struggled a lot with making decisions. That goes hand in hand with that self-doubt. It’s like, “I could do this or that. I’m doubting my ability to make a decision so I’m going to ask somebody else to make a decision for me.” That is effective. However, you’re constantly dependent on other people in that case. 

That was part of my childhood. It was like feeling dependent on other people, not trusting my internal compass, having other people guide me and yet simultaneously, I thrive in leadership environments. I’m very good at helping other people make decisions. I’m good at leading groups. When it comes to making my own personal decisions, that’s where I’m weak. It’s a muscle you have to practice. It’s like, “I’m going to ask other people for some perspective on this and simultaneously, I need to do a lot more tapping in to see what is it that I want to do.” 

Perhaps it’s switching the steps around. Before I ask other people for perspective and what would they do in this situation, their opinions on it? First, it’s important to go inward and reflect and say like, “What am I feeling? What do I think I want to do here? What feels good to me in this moment and why?” Not feeling in the place of unknown, not allowing myself to go, “I don’t know.” Instead, it’s like, “What is it that I’m feeling?” Sometimes, it’s writing that down. 

A lot of times you get great answers when you put things on paper or even digitally. Speaking it out loud to yourself can help too. Once I’ve done that process, bringing that to somebody else, that helps me figure things out. Plus, lastly, I would say, Jason, “Many of us know that when we go to somebody for advice, we’re hoping that they’re going to say something. you’re going to hope that they’re going to agree with something.” If we go, “What do you think I should do here?” There’s part of us that’s hoping that they’re telling us to do Option A versus Option B. When we’re leaning towards Option A through that conversation, that’s our message. Sometimes asking somebody else, you get answers before they even give them to you. 

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I’m wondering is that failure mitigation? Is that some system of the seeking of confirmation of, “I’m not crazy? What I want is I want you to reflect back to me so that you want what I want, so I can feel more safe and secure in the decision so that I may not fail.” I’m curious with asking other people, breaking it down in real time, “Is it a component of validation seeking, approval seeking. Is it like we’re trying to hedge our bets against failure?” If we get enough consensus from the people we know, like and trust in our lives, whether that’s family, friends, or colleagues that if we build up enough unofficial survey results from talking to these people, “I can hedge my bet. I can say yes to this thing and do this thing that I want to do. Now I feel confident because enough people I know, like and trust are also saying to do it.” What is it? Is it the validation and approval? Is it trying to inoculate ourselves against failure? Is it all of the above? I’m asking in real time, what do you think it is in seeking out the advice and the approval from other people on decision? 

It is part of that. I don’t know if I would say it’s failure prevention necessarily because nobody knows if we’re going to fail at something. Somebody’s opinion about what’s failing versus what’s succeeding can be very different. Most of us are fumbling our way through life and business. We’re constantly learning and tweaking. We’ve seen incredible people. Immediately that comes to mind is Marie Forleo. She made some choices during the Black Lives movement in summer of 2020 that we talked about on the show a bit. 

Marie Forleo is incredible. To me, she got everything. She’s financially successful. She’s been talking about business, training people with business for many years. Yet, Marie has made some mistakes here and there. That doesn’t mean that she could be canceled. That’s showing that she doesn’t always have the right answers and maybe what she thought was best for the moment wasn’t something that people agreed with her on. 

I’ve done that too plenty times. I talked about this in that episode I referenced earlier, which was about my newest book, The Mindful Mug. I thought I was being clear about the fact that the book wasn’t done and it was in this pre-order state. I was trying to setup people’s expectations properly, but a great number of people were very confused with what I was doing. It was quite the learning experience because what I thought was going to be success was not a success in other people’s eyes, Jason. We can go and seek advice from other people. We can seek advice from ourselves and still feel like it didn’t work, it was a failure and we’re fumbling. Those are learning experiences within them. We can try to seek validation, but that validation doesn’t guarantee we’re not going to fail or fumble. 

There’s also a component of this too. By saying this detecting that you do it, Whitney, per se. Although you might and I might not know about it, but there can be a tendency in human behavior to do what others tell us, acknowledge or validate us to do. If it doesn’t work out or if we have a perceived failure or we fall short, it’s easy to go back to that person and say like, “You told me to do this,” even though it was our idea in the first place. 

It’s almost as if in some cases seeking out the approval and the opt-in from people in our lives too much gives us an out if we do fall short or fail to say like, “Everyone told me it was a good idea and almost like placing blame or shirking responsibility for our own actions because everyone else told us it was a good idea.” I don’t detect that behavior. Being your friend as long as I have, but there’s a potential pitfall in that type of behavior of, “Everyone told me it was a good idea and I invested in this stock and I started this business. Everyone told me I should make a cookie business. It sucked and it failed.” It’s what I see a lot in our culture and I’m saying this because I see it a lot in myself. I‘m trying to undo this, Whit, is blame mentality/victim culture of, “We’re in this struggle because the government doesn’t take care of us. It’s the president. It’s the senators. It’s this. It’s that.” 

It’s not to say that all of these forces and these institutions don’t have an energetic effect on the world, of course, they do. What I’ve seen in myself and I’ve seen a lot is people blaming and complaining about forces that are outside of themselves. I want to be very careful here because I’m not to say that we have this sovereign reality and we’re not affected by other people’s choices, we are. The interconnectedness of this planet is more evident than ever, especially after the 2020 we’ve been through. What I’m mindful of, Whitney is making sure that I’m not blaming other people for my perceived failures or mistakes. Sometimes asking too many people what we should do potentially sets up a structure to be able to do that. 

I want to loop back to what we started this conversation with, which was this idea of motivation and learned how I’m detecting lately that it’s not that I’m not motivated by money. As you said, “I want to live, breathe, have freedom and feel comfortable.” Money is more of a vehicle to those feelings than it is anything else. When we talk about motivation and for a long time, I was feeling motivated by looking at people in positions of success or fame or notoriety or influence because it was this idea that if I get over there and I have what they have, I’ll feel better about myself. 

It’s simple is that if I look at this person as an avatar, a mentor or someone to look up to and I see what they have, what they are, what they do, then somehow, I’ll be more content, joyful and feel like my life has meaning and my life has been worth it. It goes back to one of the big messages I got in the movie Soul. I’m going to try and not share any spoiler alerts. One of the big messages, Whitney that I got from that is we so often have this idea that when we “make it,” we get our big break, we get the huge opportunity we’ve been waiting for our entire lives. 

Everything will change. Our lives will magically be different. We’ll have this validation. We’ll have this approval. We’ll finally be seen in a certain light by our parents, the public, our contemporaries. Many messages in that movie I’m still digesting days later because I realize how often in my career, in my life that I’ve chased the same thing. The big thing for me is realizing that mentality still motivates a ton of people of, “I need that one big break. I need to work with that one right person. If I could only work with Grant or Tony or Dean or Brendan, Charlene, or whoever it is. If I could like get in their DMS, if I could get an email into them, if I could find this one thing, that’ll be my big break, then it’ll all be worth it.” 

I think that mentality from my own perspective of having held onto some version of that for so long, Whitney, and part of my depression I’m going through is realizing how long I have held on to that mentality, which was so brilliantly showcased in this movie. One of the messages was, “You have this thing that you think is going to make your entire life worth it.” You have to accomplish this one thing. When you do, your life will be worth it. I see that this is a rampant mentality. It’s not just in Hollywood where we live, but in general, in the world, “If I could get this video go viral, if I could get one million followers, if I could have this one thing to happen, then finally I’ll feel like my life was worth it.” 

It‘s a dangerous mentality because it makes us dependent on this thing happening to make us feel like our lives are worthwhile. If that thing doesn’t happen for us or never happens, or maybe sometimes it does happen and you realize you don’t feel that much different about your life. It was years and years of sweat, blood, pain, fear and struggle. The thing finally happens and you’re on the other side of it. You’re like, “Was that it?” That sometimes can either be liberating or it can be heartbreaking to realize you put that many years or decades into something. It finally happens and you’re like, “This is it. This isn’t what I thought it was going to be.” For a lot of people, it can be a liberating thing or it can be something that makes people spiral mentally. 

We see this so much. It’s because of this big drive to have status. It’s almost weird too when you think about it, Jason. It’s not only this desire to be acknowledged, recognized and validated, but we cling on to other people because we’re hoping that they’ll drive us up to success. I’ll be the first to admit I still think this way. It’s a hard thing to untangle yourself from. Don’t you think? I imagine that you think similar too, Jason. That’s a common thing and it’s like a mental habit that many of us have been programmed with for most, if not all of our lives. 

It’s challenging because it’s this idea, “If I work with the right person,” we could have so many examples. “If I get the right book deal, I get the right publisher, I get the TV deal,” I’m speaking from my own personal experience or, “If I get signed to the right record label and have the right record producer, I‘m working with so-and-so.” We see this a lot of people making these big announcements on social media, “I’m working with so-and-so.” It’s a fine line because on one hand, you want to celebrate people’s accomplishments. At least I do, the people in my life who are doing well, and they’re joyful about what they’re doing. 

I‘m not going to be the person to be like, “You got a record deal and Pharrell is your producer.” I’m not going to put poo–poo that but I think it‘s crucial to look at the mentality on doing this of, “All I need to do is work with this one person and have this thing happen.” We see a lot of examples too, Whitney of those things happening. Getting the big record deal, getting the big book deal, getting the right producers, the right publisher, a million examples again. All of the pieces seem to be in place, all the things we’ve dreamed about, we’ve planned, we’ve envisioned and all that stuff. It’s easy to get caught up in being attached to the result. 

If I get A, B, C, and D, and all these things are lined up in a particular way, then on paper, it should equal this level of success. The danger is mentally we have to realize that expectations and thinking that if we check enough boxes, check them in the right order, work with the right people or have the right mentor. Again, a million different examples of this, then we’re going to automatically get the result we want, which is usually fame, money, influence and success but it doesn’t always work that way. We’ve certainly seen enough examples of authors, celebrities, entertainers and musicians, checking off the proverbial boxes and the results aren’t what they thought they would be. 

I think it comes down to like, “What are we motivated by? Are we motivated by the results? Do the results have to be a particular way for us to keep being motivated or is there a way to be motivated by as cliché as that might sound the process of creation, self-exploration, becoming more self-aware and knowing ourselves more through those channels?” To your point, Whitney, this is not easy work because we’re conditioned to chase notoriety fame, success, money, and think that if I line everything up, it’ll happen. If it doesn’t, we have the possibility of being completely shattered by it. The question is if we’re going to look at our motivations and take a good hard look at ourselves, instead of being motivated by specific outcomes or concrete results, what’s a more sustainable motivation? To me, that’s the question I’m sitting with right now. I’m curious, Whit, when I bring that up to you, what do you feel motivated by right now in your life? 

I’m in a stage of which is hard to admit. I’m trying to think of a different word because I don’t want to use the word hustle. I don’t have great associations with the word hustle. The more I think about this in this moment, I don’t feel like what I’m doing is hustling. I’m doing a lot at once. It’s more like I’m juggling. I’ve taken on a lot. It’s exciting. I feel like I’m getting into different flow states. I’m feeling lit up by a lot of different elements of my life now. I have extreme motivation. I’m in this stage of getting energy from places I didn’t even know it existed. 

At the same time, I need to work up a bit more on my wellbeing because sometimes when I get into these flow states, I put my wellbeing goes by the way side. I noticed I got excited after we did Dolphin Tank Clubhouse and my brain was going a mile per minute. I had so much energy. Earlier that day, before that Clubhouse and some other things I had done, I was drained beyond belief. I didn’t know how I was making through the end of the day. 

 

I had a phenomenal client meeting and I did that Clubhouse, it was like energy up to wazoo for hours and hours afterwards. That’s part of how I’m indicated when I’m in the flow states like, “This feels fantastic,” As Brendon Burchard, would say, “The power plant doesn’t have energy. It generates it.” I forget his exact words. I’ve always loved that statement. Sometimes we are generating energy from places and ways that we did never realized we’re there. That happened to me. The downside of that, Jason, is that I didn’t go to bed early enough. I didn’t set myself up for a successful night of sleep so I didn’t sleep very well. 

I need more unwind time. I need more disconnection time. I’m adding in the meditation. I’m trying to be better about doing yoga. My decisions to focus so much on getting things done for my career had a massive ripple effect that I’m still dealing with. I didn’t sleep well. I overslept a bit because I was trying to catch up on the sleep I missed from the earlier part of the night. I slept through my alarm. I woke up 1.5 hour later than I wanted to. 

As a result, I wasn’t able to fit in yoga yet. I didn’t do my meditation and much of this day has felt like trying to catch up and compensate for all of that. That’s not great. I don’t want that. I would say, “I’m feeling incredibly motivated. I’m feeling satisfied with how things are going for me business–wise.” A huge part of this conversation and a note that we can end on for Food for Thought is, “We need to prioritize and find balance in our wellbeing.” 

I also reflecting a lot on what it must be like to a parent. On these days like that, for me, I don’t have children. I have very little responsibility beyond my personal choices and that gives a lot of flexibility in my time and my schedule. I was thinking, “I don’t know how I would be a parent right now.” I know many parents struggle with this time is an ongoing thing. Parenting is very similar to business in the sense where a lot of parents struggle to take care of their own wellbeing because parenting is a full-time job. 

My heart goes out to you as a reader whether this is resonating with you on a personal or professional level. Wellbeing needs to be a priority. Otherwise, we’ll burnout. Wellbeing is simultaneously hard to make a priority because our brands are constantly trying to do all of these things and trying to satisfy these needs and fulfill our purposes in life. Now, Jason, I feel motivated to find more balance in my life and that’s got to be a very intentional practice for me. It doesn’t come easily all the time. 

I appreciate you sharing that, Whitney. For me, my motivation now is to get much clearer about my aim in life. I have been communicating to my mentor, Michael, and some other friends that I feel for the first time in decades, I don’t have a clear aim. For me, clarity and having a very purposeful clear aim is my primary motivation right now. For you, dear reader, we always love hearing from you. We love getting your emails. We’ve gotten some great feedback on some episodes and our weekly newsletters. If you want to comment on what your motivation is, or you want to weigh in on this conversation, we love hearing from you. Send us an email at [email protected]. 

We also have some incredible free resources on our website that we’d love for you to access. We have some incredible eBooks about self-love, self-care, purpose and consistency. We have some great programs. Check all of that at Wellevatr.com. To go back to the beginning of this episode, if you are on Clubhouse or you find yourself on Clubhouse soon, you can find Whitney and myself. My handle is @JasonWrobel and what’s yours again, Whitney on Clubhouse? 

It’s @WhitLauritsen. That’s my username that I am moving into away from Eco-Vegan Gal. You’ll see that on TikTok, Clubhouse and Instagram as well. 

You can connect with us on a variety of platforms in a variety of ways. We love your feedback. We love your comments. We love your reviews. We love your jokes. If you have any dad jokes, any jokes at all, we love those comedy is making the chaos much more palatable. With that, we appreciate you getting uncomfortable with us or getting comfortable. Maybe this idea of motivation made you feel super comfortable. We don’t know. That’s why we love your feedback. Until next time, dear reader, we love you. We appreciate you. We’re glad you’re with us. We’ll be back again soon with another episode. 

 

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• Organic Living: An Inside Look with Max Goldberg – Previous episode 
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• Staring Down Financial Uncertainty in the Midst of the COVID-19 Pandemic with Chris Guillebeau – Previous episode 
• Marie Forleo 
• The Mindful Mug 
• Instagram – Whitney Lauritsen 
• TikTok – Whitney Lauritsen 
• Dolphin Tank on Clubhouse

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