The 3 Levels of Joyful Productivity

I've been a full time Solopreneur now for 16 years, hopefully many more. And one of the enduring questions that has always kept coming up for me, for my sake and also for my clients sake is how do we show up in our day to day work? Because, well, we spend so many hours of our lifetime working, right? And especially as solopreneurs, we don't have someone else telling us how to work. And so it's up to us to decide, commit and then show up and practice consistently how we work. So what do I mean by how we work? Let me explain to you what I see as the three levels of joyful purpose productivity. You could also say it's the three ways of showing up to work on a day to day and hour by hour basis. So by the end of this video, I hope that there is a higher level of awareness that both of us can have regarding how we are going to show up for the rest of today whenever we work on something in our business or for the rest of the week and onwards. All right, so here is the first level of work and the first level of joyful productivity which is not very joyful yet. The first level is actually how most workers approach their work in the world, unfortunately. Well, it's because no one else taught us, no one has taught us anything different, man. We don't really learn how to work well in school or from our bosses, etc. So what's the first level? The first level is simply just trying to get through the day, just trying to get things done as quickly and efficiently as possible. The first level is really one of delayed gratification because and this is most workers in the world, if you look at the polls of people's sense of satisfaction at work, whether or not they like wake up and get excited to go to work and be there, the vast majority of workers are not satisfied with their work. They are like I said, just trying to get through the day, just trying to get through the week so that they can get their paycheck and so that they can enjoy their weekend and once in a while enjoy a vacation and hopefully, you know, retire before too long so that they can stop working. And honestly, a lot of the anti work movement is people who never moved beyond level one of work. And so perhaps you know some people in your life like this. I've known many people in my life like this. I've been like this. Let's just be honest with our own experience. I'm not saying I'm enlightened or you know, now that I'm a soulpreneur, I, you know, find soulfulness in every moment of work. No, I'm a human being as well. And it is so easy to forget what this is all about. Some, some spiritual people call it the veil of forgetfulness. It's so easy to just think, oh, I'm, I'm this, you know, earthly body trying to do things so that I can have resources to buy food and pay for rent and, you know, care for my loved ones, et cetera, et cetera. And, and that's all true. Right. If we think about the Maslow's hierarchy. Yeah, we do need to have a basic level of survival necessities before we can think about more of the emotional problems and then the more spiritual problems. So this first level of work affects all of us. You know, if you, if you're part, especially if your business isn't yet thriving and you have abundance of money coming in, this first level of work is very much okay. I'm just trying to survive, just trying to make it. But even so, yeah, even so, we can still move to the next two levels, which I'm going to explain to you soon. But one more bit about the first level. I mentioned that I too deal with awareness at the first level work sometimes. And like, I have to catch myself saying, wait, whatever I'm doing right now, I don't have to just try to get this done. I could do it with, well, as you can see, more awareness in level two and level three. But the, even if people are stuck at the first level, they sometimes try to make the first level bearable with some tweaks, such as, let's put on some music. You know, let's put on some music so that, you know, it can be more enjoyable as I do my work. Or, you know, I might, I might do more energy reboots. Well, actually, that's more, that's more the third level, which we'll, we'll get to. But there's some kind of physical changes you can make to your environment so that it's more enjoyable. Maybe you don't like the, the exact work environment you're in and you have as a solopreneur, particularly, you can move your laptop to another room or maybe to a cafe or something like that. And that's, that's a first level adjustment to try to make it more physically pleasing your environment and your situation about working. So. Or, you know, turning off, turning off notifications and your, your phone so that it's not continually distracting you. Right. Those Are those are first level adjustments, which, you know, just like the Maslow's hierarchy, we need to make some first level adjustments. Why not? If it's not hard to make some adjustments so that at least our work environment is a little bit more pleasant and easier to focus, then why not let's go ahead and do that so that we can work efficiently and we can work with less distraction. So, so that's, that's level one, first level of work. Just trying to get it done, be efficient, make it as pleasant or least unpleasant possible. Now I'm glad you're here because perhaps we can all move our awareness also whenever we can move it to the second level of work. And the second level is where it moves from external motivation. Oh, I got to get it done so I can be relieved of this task. Go do something enjoyable, you know, or get my paycheck or whatever, make money. Okay. It moves from external motivation to work to a more internal motivation to work. So the second level is more about the mission of your work. Why are you doing this particular task? Well, hopefully it connects to if I, if I do this task well, it will then connect to doing this other task which then will then serve my client or something like that. There are, there's. You could second level of awareness of work. Joyful productivity is where you see the connection of this activity to the larger mission so that you can bring that larger mission to your mind and heart and you care about that mission. So you bring that same level of care to this particular task. It's that age old story of a traveler who came across two laborers. Ask the first laborer, what are you doing? Oh, I'm just laying bricks and trying to get these bricks laid as quick as I can so I can, you know, go home, get my paycheck and go home. That's the first level of work. The traveler asked a second laborer who is also seems to be laying bricks. And the second laborer says, I'm doing this because I'm building a cathedral. I'm doing this for the glory of God. That's what the second laborer said. I'm doing this to build a cathedral. Still same activity as the first laborer, but a different awareness of the level of work the mission driven. So even if you're laying bricks, so called. These days we mostly work online. So whether you're doing bookkeeping or you're responding to an email, or you are trying to organize some documents, or you are trying to work out how to write a particular offer, you can either say I just got to get it done. Get it done as least pleasant as possible, as little unpleasant as possible. Or you could say I'm doing this to serve the mission of my business, which is, well, what is it? Fill in the blank. It is something about relieving some suffering or about creating more joy, or about helping bring more, some kind of awareness into the world or behavior change that makes the world a better place. Right. Your, your business is significant in its mission. And every task that you do leads to that mission becoming more fulfilled, becoming more effective, helping you to help more people. So the second level of work focuses on the quality of the task because you care about the mission. Remember the second labor, the first labor might just be, ah, brick, you know, mortar, brick, mortar, and just trying to get it done. Or the second labor and when they place their brick, they know that if this cathedral is going to last for hundreds of years, maybe thousands of years, and it's going to serve so many community, so many people in the community and their spiritual well being, I'm going to make sure that this building is built really, really well. So this, this next brick I'm laying, may it be really solid, making sure that it is. Because the brick is going to create the foundation for the next brick and then the next brick. And so this brick must be done really, really well. So may you also have the mindset and the heart set of that second laborer who sees that even if you're doing a task that seems so mundane, like bricklaying or whatever that means for, for you, day to day, such a mundane task can be made holy by noticing that the connection of this task leads to another task and another task which leads to. It's all part of the mission. It's all part of, if you do this one well, the next one is more likely to be done well or, or to be even done possibly so that you can then do other tasks that lead to your greater mission. So that's the second level of work already. Already, I think we have progressed quite a lot. If more people can have this level of awareness of their work, I think the world will be a happier place. The world will certainly be a more meaningful place. I think people might actually want to go to work. And certainly as solopreneurs or as solopreneurs, you know, you can hopefully bring more fulfillment to every task, not just to the session that you have with your clients. Right. You might really love, you know, literally being in front of your clients and serving them and helping them, helping them transform, of course, but what about the so called mundane things or the things that are necessary to get to having those client sessions? That too is part of your, part of your, that that too supports your mission. So how can you bring more care to the quality of that task? And, and when I say quality, I don't mean you have to be worried that you're going to do something wrong. Okay. This might bring us to the third level, but I would say whenever I think about quality, I think about quality is a long term process. Not that if I make a mistake here then oh, I should be worried, I should be discouraged. No, if I bring my sense of caring to this moment of work and try to do something quality but not work too hard so that as to burn out, right? There's also the balance of well, you care but don't care, don't be wise in your caring so that you don't burn out and you can continue to have the opportunity to care. The capacity to care can continue. So that's what I mean when I say you work on quality, don't burn out, still work lightly, but just do it with more, with more intention, with more love for the task, with more love for the mission in as you're, as you're doing it. Because, and, and actually I, I do think that the majority of workers in the world, no matter what job they're doing, probably has, have this opportunity to bring a mission driven mindset to it. I think their bosses and their leaders have a lot of responsibility there to instill that kind of culture. But you know, every company, I mean many companies, I should say not every company, but many companies have a higher mission. You know, if it's a company that produces some software, well, that software helps other people do things more efficiently which serves their mission, the mission of their business. Right. If it's, you know, producing some product, well, you know, that product helps other people to have a more enjoyable life or whatever. So every, almost every company has a higher mission, that if we really look at the higher mission, we can, we can connect with that. And even if we're doing a bricklaying kind of thing, we can see, okay, this brick is important because it's connected to the higher mission. So but lucky for us solopreneurs, we get to have a closer connection between our mission and our day to day task. So you know, you know, it's, it's maybe easier actually for us solopreneurs and solopreneurs to bring Level 2 awareness to our work. And yet there is an even higher level, the Third level of joyful productivity. The third level of awareness of work is when we start to see that no matter what activity we're bringing, we this mind, body, spirit system called you are there in the moment. And there is an opportunity in every moment to grow. There's an opportunity in every single moment to practice some higher value, virtue, presence, spirit that can enlighten, enliven and in spirit, inspire this very moment. So what do we mean by this? You can certainly bring a mission driven thought to this particular activity. But even if you temporarily lose the connection to the mission, whether or not you have the mission in mind, you can still say, in this moment I bring more of and fill in the blank with whatever value or virtue means a lot to you. I bring. I'm going to bring love to typing these next few words. I'm going to bring curiosity to how to solve this particular problem. I'm going to bring patience to this challenging situation, this challenging task. I'm going to be practicing concentration to something that seems quite challenging or quite mundane or something like that. I'm going to be practicing playfulness and how I approach solving this problem that could otherwise be heavy and, you know, frustrating or whatever. I'm going to try to see if I can bring playfulness to it. There is always an opportunity to layer on top of a work moment some higher virtue, value or presence. So right now, in this very moment, I'm making a video. Of course it's easy for me to think about the Level 2 mission. I'm trying to help people. And that's very, it's very obvious when I'm making a video. But I can always, I can also say the third level awareness of am I bringing breath to this moment? Am I bringing a vibration of love into the video? Whether or not this video gets watched by anybody. Because these days, who knows with the algorithms, right? Whether or not this video, whether or not anyone watches the video to this point of the this, this is a long videos and they may or may not, nobody may have watched this very point in the video, but I can still say I am practicing love, I am practicing honesty, I'm practicing authenticity. I'm practicing a level of caring for my higher mission, my higher self, right? And that caring is kind of like a, it is experienced as a, a bigger heart, a softer and bigger heart in this moment to kind of, how can I basically enlighten this moment, bring more spirit into this very moment. Now making a video, it's maybe easier because I'm literally talking about that. That's Easier for me to think about that. It becomes more challenging for this third level of awareness when we're doing something by ourselves that seems kind of mundane or that seems frustrating. So for some of us, it might be like, you know, some of us who don't like working with numbers, oh, I gotta do bookkeeping. But notice yourself. Notice the negative perspective on any task, because when you can notice a negative perspective, you can then swap that out for a positive spirit. So when you're doing bookkeeping, if you don't like numbers and you're doing bookkeeping, maybe What's. What's a way. Comment below if you like. What's a way to bring level three awareness to this task? Level three, joyful productivity. You could say, all right, I don't like numbers, but I'm going to take this bookkeeping moment to practice concentration, because concentration is a great capacity that helps with any. Every other area of life. So I'm going to practice concentration. We're not even talking about whether bookkeeping helps with your mission. We're just talking about this. Having a mindful, Having mindfulness in this moment to bring some kind of virtue and presence and spirit into doing the task. Or maybe bookkeeping is. I'm going to get curious and playful about how each number can relate to something, some activity that is meaningful for me. So, oh, I purchased this service. Ah, oh, yes, the service. Let me re. Enjoy that service again in my mind. Okay. Or be grateful again. You know, gratitude, of course. Gratitude is another huge, really important value of mine. And I can bring gratefulness to doing whatever task that I'm doing. If you are solving a. If you have some technology is not working, so you have to solve some kind of tech challenge. It's so easy for most of us to bring frustration to it. If you can notice the negative, that means you have the opportunity also to take. To replace that negative with a positive spirit, to say, okay, this tech is not working. How can I bring curiosity to it? How can I bring love to the process of solving this tech challenge? I don't know. Be creative, right? And that's the point. So I always, I like to say that this is our highest work. I literally had a podcast 10, 12 years ago called Our Highest Work, and that was already me trying to bring that. This third level of joyful productivity to the world. I don't know how well I did there, but I'm bringing. I'm doing that again. Our highest work is not, oh, I gotta figure out this tech challenge so that I can then serve my clients that's level two, mission driven. That's great. But I think our highest work is whether and however this moment goes with this tech challenge, right, this problem, this is not working. May I have lived this moment with fill in the blank value, virtue, presence that you want to live with. Love, playfulness, joy, authenticity, courage, you know, etc, Etc. It's like to continually bring that spirit, that spirit, that presence to this activity enlivens and enlightens and inspirits, inspires this activity. And you know, don't be surprised if you find that by practicing this third level of joyful productivity, it becomes easier to practice the second level of joyful productivity, being more mission driven now, which then maybe becomes easier to practice the first level to actually get it done with more. Because if you pay more attention, you bring more love, you bring more spirit, for example, which brings your reminder of oh yes, this is going to serve my client. If I do this well, it leads to serving my client. And by doing it with more confidence, concentration, with more love and care, maybe you actually get it done faster, maybe you get it done more efficiently, perhaps you bring more of your intelligence to it, perhaps. So I hope, I really hope that this little talk, that you'll keep it in mind as you do your work in the coming hours, in the coming days, in the coming months, in the coming years, just every day may you have awareness of what level of work you're doing. Not every day, every hour, may you have awareness with what level of work that you're doing. And I'll just mention one more thing. I have an event that I facilitate several times a week called the work Retreat, the Joyful Productivity Work Retreat. And I'll try to remember to put a link below. You can go to georgecow.com workretreats and it's, it's, it's a benefit of my membership program or if you buy one of my courses, you get two months of work retreats. But it's basically where I like try to facilitate people to remind them of this third level of work and then we work quietly together. Anyway, who knows, maybe you're watching this far into the future when I'm not doing those work retreats anymore. And even so, you can still facilitate your own work retreat every day, even if it's by yourself, by bringing this third level of joyful productivity and the second level as well. So I wish you true fulfillment in whatever work you're going to be doing next. And may you be blessed. Thank you so much for watching this video.