#304: The Dangers of Making Safety and Comfort Our End Goals

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries today, I'm going to be talking about the importance of pushing yourself in your business. Not because of some desire for greater income necessarily, or some other external reward like income, but because of the person it makes you, when you push yourself to be better, to take chances, to try new ideas, new approaches, and to enjoy every last bit of the process, including falling down, scraping your knees, hurting yourself. The late Neil Peart was the legendary drummer for the progressive rock band Rush. He joined the band in 1974, 1975, somewhere around there, and he continued through his death from cancer in early 2020. Neil is considered one of the best drummers in history, regardless of the genre. I'll never forget, as a drummer myself in my teenage years, how blown I was in 1986 when I heard their music for the first time. I had heard some of their more popular songs on the radio, like Tom Sawyer and such, but it was kind of in the background and I will never forget it. I went to the library. Our library at the time had record albums you could check out. Not just books, but they had record albums. And I remember one day going after school and checking out a few records, and a couple of them were Rush albums. And I remember thinking, oh, yeah, I remember these guys. And I've heard that the drummer is really good. I put one of the records on and it's one of those pivotal moments in my life where, again, as a young drummer, I had never heard drumming like that. Neil and Rush were a huge influence on me. I've read articles that say that whatever music you're really into at around 14, 15 years old will stay with you forever. I was close to that age, a little bit older, but it's really held true, even though I've moved on from that every time I listen to Rush, and every once in a while I'll just play a Rush playlist. It just takes me back. I will never, ever. I'll be 85 years old and I will still be listening to it every once in a while. After 30 years for Neil of playing drums at that master level, and he'd been with Rush for 20 years, so this is like the mid-90s. This guy was at the top of his game. So this is a little bit later. He's made it, he's arrived. He's one of the very best in the world. In the history of rock drumming, no one disputed that. So here's what I found shocking. He did something unimaginable. He decided to take drum lessons from the jazz drummer Freddy Gruber. And not just take lessons, but to reinvent the way he played drums. I mean, like the whole process, the whole technique, how he played, his grip, the way he approached the kit. He wanted to reinvent his whole approach and technique from the ground up. A complete overhaul. That is pretty much unheard of, especially when you're at the top of your game like that, after 30 years of playing your instrument at that level. But Neil felt that after 10 or 15 years of playing along with click tracks in the background to help keep him and the band right on tempo, his playing had become too metronomic in the bad sense. So you got to remember, this is, you know, we're talking about. This man had gone through the 80s and some of the 90s. The music was very precise. We had moved on from that kind of free flowing approach and style of the 60s and 70s to one where everything had to be tight and perfect. And Neil is a classic perfectionist. So he was worried that his playing had become too mechanical, too perfect. It wasn't free flowing and he was starting to feel stiff with his playing. He knew he had to break out of that for the sake of his art. Now I want you to imagine yourself in that situation. You're more successful again than you've ever imagined yourself to be. I mean, these guys were all multimillionaires. I mean, so from a financial standpoint, they were extremely successful musically. They were at the very, very top. I mean, everyone admired you. You have no real external reason to reinvent the way you approach your art, the way you approach your instrument. But Neil knew that he had to push himself. He knew that success is not all found in your current state. Success is about pursuing progressively more challenging goals. It's about pushing yourself as an artist, as a professional. And as scary as that might have been, Neil changed everything about his drumming. Something, again, an approach. He'd been doing the same way since he was a young teenager. And what I found interesting is when asked in an interview why he wanted and why he was overhauling his approach, his technique, his methods, here's what he said, and I quote, After 40, 45 years of playing. I wanted to push myself and open up this whole new frontier. I've been able to do that as a lyricist and as a prose writer. And now as a drummer, you have to challenge your own limitations and your own expectation of yourself. End quote. So the way I read that is Neil felt that success is not an act. It's not some sort of destination. It's not measured by external factors. Success is a habit. Success, the pursuit of excellence is a journey. It's not a destination. And Neil's reinvention of his art, and let's just call it his business, he reinvented his business, is not unique, it's not unheard of. I mean, you've seen this elsewhere. In fact, as you're listening to the story, you're probably thinking of other examples. Tiger woods has changed his swing at least three times during his career. I mean, keeping in mind that what you're risking when you make these changes, what you're risking at the next tournament, that is a huge, huge thing to take on and to commit to. Baseball pitchers have reinvented their pitch mid career. So have Olympic swimmers, weightlifters, and even Olympic jumpers. So I recently read an article about Dick Fosberry. I've never heard of him before, but apparently he was a young college athlete who did something could be considered crazy at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. So he jumped over the bar backward on his back. Now that may not sound too crazy because that's how we all know the jump is made, right? But from 1890 to 1968, high jumpers went over the bar in a handful of ways, but always with the intent to jump and land on their feet. Everyone thought that landing on your feet was the safest way to do it. So no one tried anything differently. They just didn't even cross their mind. Like, why would you do that? But Fosbery changed that in 1968. He reinvented his entire form and technique. Again, I don't know the backstory, but I have to imagine a young man who has spent maybe 10 plus years every single day practicing the high jump a certain way and suddenly decide, hey, I have an idea I want to try and I'm going to change the way I do this. Well, it worked. And it worked like crazy. He shattered the previous Olympic record by clearing the bar at seven, four and a quarter feet. And he went on to win the 1968 Olympic gold medal. But you have to understand, just like with Neil, just like with all these other professionals at the top of their game. This was very controversial. People ask, well, why are you doing that? You know, it's, you're at the top of your game. Why are you going to change things? Even Fosbury's coach criticized him heavily for doing this, and he claimed that it was ridiculous and would lead to fatal injury. In fact, his coach said, this is going to cause a lot of young kids to break their neck and become paralyzed because they're going to try to imitate you, because based on your results, they're going to realize that this is going to get them better results and they're going to hurt themselves. So where am I going with this? Let's bring this to our world over the past three years or so, and I'm going to get a little personal here. I found myself striving for comfort and safety. Not all the time, but certainly more than I have in years past. I've reached a point in my business where I do very well for myself because I've gotten very good at what I do. I've been helping freelancers for 14 years now. I've been coaching formally for 10 years, coached hundreds of professionals. I add tremendous value to my clients. I help them generate massive breakthroughs in their business. And by the way, I'm not ashamed to admit that you'll see where I'm going with this. If you're good at what you do, and I know you are, you shouldn't be ashamed of that. You should talk about it. You should be open about what you're good at and what you need to work on. We all have both. But with that level of performance and success and achievement, I've also become comfortable. And it's something I've realized over the past few months. And I think this is very common. I think it's part of being human. We're wired to conserve energy, to stay safe, and comfort is part of that. We naturally seek comfort and safety, and the more of it we get to enjoy, the more of it we want and the harder it is to then let go of it. And that's what scared me a little bit over the past few months. And maybe you can relate. You know, let's just say that you've spent years trying to get to a certain level. I know many of us spend our 20s as an example, maybe even 20s and 30s, trying to get to a certain level in our career and our business. You finally get there after a lot of work, a lot of sacrifices, and you start enjoying the rewards. And sure, you might still go after bigger goals. Most of Us do. But the older you get, the less dramatic and risky the goals you go after. And it's just so easy to justify that approach in the name of, well, I have a family, I have responsibilities, I can't really take any chances. The question is, is that true or is that something you're just telling yourself? Is that a story you're telling yourself? We don't take big chances because we know the risks are higher. There's a risk of serious loss in some cases, or at least that's what we tell ourselves. And of course, all these risks are relative. I mean, when you think about it, look back in your life, in your career, and there are things you do now that you don't really think much about. But a few years ago, maybe it would have been out of the question. You would have never tried that. I have a good friend who's absolutely terrified of the idea of self employment. When we talk about work, he admits it. Look, I would never do that. I don't have the guts. I don't have the risk tolerance for that. But you know, I'm out there every day making a living on my own. So are you. I don't have a Fortune 500 company like my friend does behind me, supporting me with all kinds of resources and people and, you know, a safety net in terms of benefits and a steady paycheck. I'm out there every day like you are, taking risks. And I don't think much of it yet. I have my own set of fears about new levels of performance. So when I look up, he's looking up at me. I'm looking up at other people, other potential levels of performance, other things that I could be going after. And I'm asking myself, well, gee, why rock the boat? Why change what's working so well? I mean, I'm in a good spot. But here's why it matters. Because eventually you have to admit to yourself that continually succeeding at your current level of comfort has big risks. You think that going after bigger levels has huge risk, but staying where you are has even bigger risks. You may not realize it because your bank account looks great, your clients are happy. You might even have more work than you can handle right now. But the thing is, staying comfortable can easily impact your psyche in a negative way. And that alone can have a negative impact on your work performance. In his new book, Be youe Future Self Now, Dr. Benjamin Hardy talks about this quite a bit. He explains it for certain mundane skills such as driving your car or tying your shoes or those sorts of everyday Activities. Running on autopilot is a good thing. It frees up your mind to do other things. It would be very, very difficult just to kind of manage your day and deal with everyday things if you had to really actively cognitively engage in all those activities. But when it comes to developing skills or learning or improving your craft and boosting your performance, he argues that this kind of skills, automation, automaticity he calls it, causes you to get stuck and even slowly decline over time. And he cites research showing that doctors, for example, who have been in practice for 20 years are usually less skilled than they were fresh out of medical school. Which sounds completely insane and counterintuitive. Why would this happen? Well, turns out that doctors get stuck in habitual ways of thinking and acting just like we do. They don't update their models or their approaches for years. I mean, why would they, right? They seek comfort, they seek safety, they get to a certain level of achievement, like, oh, finally, all these years of struggle and trying to learn new things and I'm finally here. I think I got a handle on 98% of things that come my way and that's a great place to be. But as Hardy explains in the book, and I quote, rather than having 20 years of experience, they often have one year of experience repeated 20 times. That's so powerful, I'm going to repeat it. He says that rather than having 20 years of experience, they often have one year of experience repeated 20 times. Huge difference. This is a big problem for us, for self employed professionals. And the more successful you become, I'm starting to realize the bigger the risk that you'll end up in a rut. A rut that might not seem like a big deal right now because you're earning great money, you're doing well, you got all the work you can handle. So you associate the current state of your pocketbook, let's say, with your current level of skill. You may not consciously think about it, but you're thinking, oh, well, you know, I'm doing well, so therefore, you know, my skill level should be sufficient. You know, obviously that's getting me by, that's getting me this level of success. But the truth is that your skills and income are, to a great degree, out of phase. Think about that. Your skills and capabilities are slowly being left behind if you're not careful. But your income hasn't caught up to that, at least not yet. But it's coming. You just don't see it right now. And when it does, it's going to be time to pay the piper and that's when you have to scramble like crazy to catch up. Now let me be clear about something because I don't want you to get the wrong impression about what I'm communicating here when I talk about the dangers of staying too comfortable for too long. I'm not saying you should work harder. Now sometimes this of course entails hard work, but this is not about working harder. This is not about working longer hours. Hard work is often part of this, but that's not the point here. I'm not suggesting that you start working harder, longer hours. I'm not trying to shame anyone, including myself, for wanting to enjoy greater work life balance because that is a beautiful thing. I want to enjoy a great lifestyle. I'm sure you do too. I don't want to work crazy hours. I don't necessarily want to work like I did 20 or 30 years ago when I was hustling like crazy to try and get ahead. My priorities have shifted. You know, I have other responsibilities, other roles in my life that I prioritize. I know that there's a cost to working at that level for a long time or especially right now, to step it up like I did 30 years ago. What I'm suggesting here is way more subtle than that and I hope the message doesn't get lost or misinterpreted. I'm talking about changing things up, trying new things, innovating in your business, or just to give you some examples, maybe you haven't caught up to things such as new types of projects that are gaining momentum that you can learn more about and start pursuing new business models such as selling strategy as a standalone service, helping clients plan their content instead of just writing. Offering clients writing training for their marketing staff or other departments that need to improve their written communication. So in other words, not just writing. But hey, I can teach you and your team how to become better at this aspect of writing. Pursuing new delivery models or business structures such as scaling up your operation with either support staff and or other writers. You don't have to scale up to a team of 50 people. It's a spectrum. You know, there's so many flavors of that idea that you could start pursuing if it's right for you. Maybe looking into and pursuing new target markets that align well with your experience and skill set. I have a coaching client who did a 180 a couple years ago. She shifted from software and tech to healthcare and you know, keep. This is not. I mean that may not seem like a huge 180, but this is someone who hadn't done anything in healthcare, but she had a passion for a certain sector in healthcare and she really wanted to move in that direction. And she went all in. And let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. It took her two years of trial and error to finally get a couple of clients in that area. And it's still early days, even after a year and a half, two years, but she's building momentum. Maybe it's about looking for and approaching and suggesting new and different ways to work with your clients, or charging more for your value and focusing less on time in deliverables when quoting fees, or maybe starting a new side hustle that's going to challenge you. And look, I'm not saying you have to do all these things or even any one of those. I just wanted to give you some examples to make sure that you understood where I'm coming from here. The point is that staying put where you are because you seem to be doing well is not going to guarantee your success in the future. So maybe the question now is, well, how can you know if you're truly pushing yourself to reach a new worthwhile endeavor? For me, the litmus test comes from Steven Pressfield and his wonderful little book, the War of Art. And this is not the only place I've seen something like this, but I think he said it so well that I want to repeat it here. So he writes, and I quote, resistance obstructs movement only from a lower sphere to a higher sphere. It kicks in when we seek to pursue a calling in the arts, launch an innovative enterprise, or evolve to a higher station, morally, ethically or spiritually. So if you're in Calcutta working with the Mother Teresa foundation and you're thinking of bolting to launch a career in telemarketing, relax, because resistance will give you a free pass. To me, the translation is clear. If you have to fight that resistance, which he talks about so much in that book, which by the way, I strongly recommend, this is a must read for any self employed professional, especially every creative professional. If you have to fight resistance in pursuit of your goals every day and every week, you're probably on the right track. Okay, so that is a great litmus test. If you struggle with, you know, if you're pursuing something, a new model, a new initiative, a new approach, a new technique, and you're finding yourself petrified sometimes, or procrastinating, constantly procrastinating, then that's resistance. And if you have to fight resistance, there's a good chance that you're trying to move from A lower sphere to a higher sphere. As Pressfield states, the resistance is basically a signal that your goals are worthwhile. So, bottom line, keep doing what you're doing. Take the resistance as a sign that you're moving in that in the right direction. You're growing, you're improving your business and yourself. And, you know, it's easy for me to talk about this, but it's hard for me to accept. I'm a pragmatist. You know, again, if you're comfortable, things are working. Hey, why rock the boat? But I have to admit that this is true. You have to rock the boat. You have to change things up. You have to try new things, even if the idea of stretching myself sounds completely uncomfortable. Going back to Benjamin Hardy, in his book Be youe Future Self now, he quotes Dr. Anders Ericsson, an expert on the subject of deliberate practice and expert performance, who says, and I quote, the experts deliberately construct and seek out training situations to attain desired goals that exceed their current level of reliable performance. And that's the key, isn't it? Reliable performance. We each have current levels of reliable performance. We know what we can reasonably expect in terms of income, for example, from that level of performance. When we're not happy with the results, we work deliberately to raise our skills and capabilities. But when we're generally happy with the results, that's when we risk getting stuck in a rut. And look, I can understand that concept intellectually. I get it again. But in order for me to take meaningful action that will affect change in my business, I need to understand this risk emotionally. In one of the chapters of that book, Hardy gave me exactly what I needed. When he framed the issue a different way, he said, and I quote, if you want to become your desired future self, play at his level real quick. By the way, when I say his, I'm talking about me. Ed Gandia, future Self at Gandia. So let me read that again. If you want to become your desired future self, play at his level as quickly as possible. Commit at the level of your future self. Adapt at the level of your future self. Your current self is clearly not there yet and will therefore need serious training, humility, and feedback. So you may be happy and comfortable with where we are today. That's a good thing. But there's a future version of us who would absolutely love to send a message from the future to our present selves. That future self is wiser. Their experience, their season. They've gotten to enjoy much more of life, and they know things we don't know. They know things. They're a very different person than your present self. So based on what I share with you today, here's my question, something to really ask yourself, maybe even journal on. What would your future self tell you if he or she could call you right now and give you about five minutes worth of advice so he or she has a five minute time limit? It's like, look, this is me. Just know that it's true. Here's what I need to tell you. What would they tell you in five minutes? Heck, if you really want to press yourself, if they only had one minute to communicate a message to you, give you real valuable advice, what would they tell you? I bet that among other things, they would tell you to push yourself to take bigger risks, to innovate, to try new things, new approaches, new ideas, and see where they go. Because they know you're capable of more. They know you're going to fall, they know you're going to scrape your knees. They know you're going to get hurt. It's not going to be easy, but they also know the value of getting hurt along the way. They know the value of the challenge and they want to see you grow and that's the only way you're going to grow and get better. Now, again, would all these initiatives and ideas work? Of course not. Again, most of them might even fail. But you know what? I'd rather fail at trying and learning things that are beyond my current level of skill and expertise than to only succeed at what I find easy and comfortable. Or as Hardy puts it in his book, failing as your future self is better than succeeding as your current self. So bottom line, failing at the level of something you're not at yet or you are not there yet is better than succeeding where you are right now with your current level of skills and experience. So here's a commitment I know I need to make myself, and it's a commitment that honestly just scares me. If an idea gets me super excited, but it sounds outside my reach or even scary or sometimes even terrifying, that's exactly what I should go after. And I don't know how all this sits with you. I have to admit that I'm recording this episode as a way to get really clear on this topic with myself. I do this for me as much as I do it for you. My hope is that it at least inspires you to think about comfort and safety a little differently. If you're still in that struggle, early years and you're just trying to get somewhere, this may not resonate with you right now and I welcome you to to come back to this and see how it sits with you later. But if you're there now, if you know you've done well, you're successful from an external standpoint, you have the things and the circumstances that anyone looking from the outside looking in would think of as, wow, that's you've arrived. My hope is that this message inspires you to think about comfort and safety a little differently. And look, comfort and safety, those are all wonderful things. We all need them. It's a part of being human. It's a core need that every human has. But I don't believe we should seek comfort and safety at all costs. This has been Ed Gandia. I hope this message has resonated with you today and I hope you have a wonderful rest of the day. Thanks for listening. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Burn More and Less Time to Open Mindset Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.