The Thrive Week Secret: Why Taking Time Off Skyrockets Your Success! - Joy Houston

When you make the switch from a constant launch mode cycle to an evergreen cycle that does have its challenges, Find the time to pull out of your business and actually focus on your business and on your quality of life. When humans have a constrained window in which they need to get shit done, they get it done. All of us have so much fire inside of us, so much fire light brilliance inside of us, that we all have to be realistic with ourselves. Because fire energy, anything like that, like, it's like nuclear energy, fire energy, any kind of energy is powerful if it's harnessed in the right way, and it's deadly if it's not harnessed in the right way.

Joy Houston, we're back for numero dos with you. How are you doing this fine morning here?

I'm doing good. I'm. I'm happy to be back with you. I hope you got your peptide stack in order last time we chatted, right?

Yeah, I know I do. How about you? Listening, Watching my hands always feel slightly better. You know, again, if you haven't listened to the episode that we dropped with Joy about peptides and. Or if you don't even know what we're talking about right now and you're like, how are peptides after this episode, since you're already moving on this one, go bookmark that one. It probably came out right before this or whatever. But just look for Joy's name and peptides and you'll see why we love those. But we're not talking about peptides this time.

Talking about that today. We're going to talk quality of life today, right?

So that's. I mean, I love that this is. I mean, you live it. I know it. You and Travis, your husband and I mean, you guys are always doing really fun stuff. You're just fun people in general, but you're also doing really big shit with business and exponential growth all around. But you have a great quality of life. That's like the essence of why I even have this show. It's evolved over the years, but the big thing is, like, how do we. How can we be great entrepreneurs, leaders in life and do really cool stuff in business if that's what you want to do, but also have a great life and not burn out in the process, because that sucks. Yeah, been there.

I'm gonna give you my favorite secret on how we do that today. I'm totally gonna open it up and, like, I'll tell you what I did. I think if there's anything that you need to know is a little bit fair. Warning. You're gonna think I'm crazy. Like, you will be literally, like, there way that I can do that. And I know that from experience because when I first heard it, I was like, you're crazy. All your clients will quit you. Everybody will hate you. It's not going to work. Your business will fall apart. I had so much resistance. So I'm intrigued by admitting that. Yeah, I'll start by admitting that.

Yeah, I love it. You probably. You probably got some of the attention of a few people here just now. So, I mean, like, I don't know where we start here because I don't know anything about this concept of thrive week. You've kind of told me a little bit about it, but I. We purposely kept it a mystery until we chatted, so. All right, I guess give me the. Yeah, like, what's the. What's the big idea here first? And like, what was the big problem you're trying to solve? Yeah.

Okay. So the big problem that I was trying to solve is we have an ongoing mastermind and we have rolling evergreen programs. Okay. So you know how it is when you're like, you either pick. You have a difficult decision. If you're making scalable online offers, you're either stuck in launch mode. Right. Where you're like, John Walker style. I'm going to, like, love you, John Walker, by the way. Okay. Where you're like, I'm going to launch, and then I'm going to rinse and repeat. And I'm going to rinse and repeat. I'm going to rinse and repeat. Right. And it kind of puts you on this cycle of like, okay, I'm going to fill all my offers and then I'm going to fulfill on all my offers. I'm going to fill them up again, and then I'm going to feel it's a very, like, wave. Okay. So my first sort of let's level out the quality of life was let's go for rolling Evergreen and. And then we just get our. Yeah, then we get our conversion mechanism firing on all cylinders, and everybody starts when they start. And at first, that was intimidating. If you've never made that jump before, that's intimidating when you first make that jump because it feels like if everybody doesn't start together and end together, that they're a community's not going to build. There's not going to be camaraderie. And that would be saying, like, oh, only kindergarten should hang out together, and then only middle schoolers should hang out together, and then only college People and then only elderly people. That's not really the way that society works, right? Like, we have our elders to look up to. We have our newbies to bring in new ideas and question our thinking and our paradigms, right? So when you make the switch from a constant launch mode cycle to an evergreen cycle, that does have its challenges, but I found that, well, when newbies ask a question, it reminds the elders of the basics that they've probably forgotten or taken advantage of. And then when elders ask questions that sort of stump the newbies and make them feel like, oh, shit, I don't even know what they're talking about, it actually has the newbies get excited about the levels that they're about to achieve in the community. So I'll say that first. Okay? So the first wave of let's calm the stress down, let's make life a little more. Bit more manageable is, you know, this was back when we were following the rule of five ones, right? Like one audience, one offer, one conversion mechanism on one platform, intel, one million or one year. So if you haven't read, read. Ready, fire, aim. I'm talking about when you're first trying to get your business to that 1 million mark. So when we were trying to do that, we made the switch from constant live launching to rolling Evergreen Cycles, and then just focused on the conversion mechanisms that worked best. And then you hit another problem, right? So new level, new devil, right then now you've got rolling Evergreen. So then the question becomes, when, when am I off? Right? I have to be on all the time. Like week over week over week over week. And if you don't plan it carefully, before you know it, your husband's forgotten your name, your kids don't remember you, they think you don't love them because you're not at their baseball game or ballet ritual or whatever they need to do, right? And so that right about the time we are at a peak level of like, oh my God, like, we love delivering, but we also need a little bit of time to breathe. We all. We can only inhale so much before we have to exhale. Okay? And so I was listening to Laurel Portier because I love her information and we're in her group to just stay on the forefront of Facebook ads and Meta and what's changing. And I think she's amazingly got her pulse on that. I absolutely love it. I would say between her and Kurt Molly, like, they keep me, you know, roller skating on the front line of meta. If I just follow both of them and listen really Well, I love. Absolutely love both of them, but Laura was actually having one of her brilliant little side conversations, and she was talking about Nick Peterson. I know you've had him as a guest here on the show, so if you guys haven't listened to Nick, like, go back, rewind the podcast.

He's in the archives. He's. He's, like, a few years back, but it's worth it.

Yeah, yeah. Honestly, you guys, he's, like, such a brilliant dude that sometimes I get a piece from him and I can feel the brilliance in the nugget. But it's definitely still, like, a raw gem. It's not, like, shiny and polished and carved. It's because what he can give you can be so almost, like, esoteric, like, big thinking, that sometimes it takes me a little bit of time to, like, land the plane and see, like, how am I going to actually implement that in my life? And this was one of those things. Okay. So she told me that Laurel mentioned that her and her wife were using. They. They were. They didn't call it what we call it. We call it a thrive week. Okay. So I can't remember what she was calling it. I'm sorry. I should remember, but I don't. And I was like, wait, that's really interesting. Say that again. And she's like, yeah, I deliver. So she looks at the monthly calendar, and she was delivering week one, week two, week three, and then in week four. And of course, sometimes there's those random months where there's five weeks in a month, first three weeks of the month, deliver in hardcore for her people, private clients, groups, rolling mastermind, just delivering. Okay. And then the last week, that was both her time to exhale and focus on what the business needed, to sort of, like, work on the business instead of in the business. It was also the time that then she would schedule, like, their longer vacations, like, oh, we want to get away to Rome for a while, or whatever, like, that kind of thing. And immediately I had this tightness in my chest when I heard her say that at the thought of it. Because I'm thinking. I think I call all of the practitioners that we serve in. In our world of little birds, right? So we talk about that there are little birds and they're all in the nest. And I'm thinking, oh, my God, how the little birds would chirp or fall out of the nest or something. Yeah, exactly. Like, if we just didn't show up for them, like, the last week. Are you fucking kidding me? You know what I mean? And. And it was a real. Like, it was one of those things. I really had to think on it, you know? And so she said, yeah, yeah, Joy, if you're curious. If you're curious, go read Bumpers. Okay? So I don't want to get the title of this book wrong because it, like, the name of the book says it all. And if you could put this in the chat for your people or in the link description below, that'd be great. Okay. Check out the title of this book. Okay? It's called Bumpers, and it came out in two versions. The first version, the subtitle. As a copywriter, I'm fascinated by V1 and V2 titles, right? The first one was the framework for finding your personal abundance, Maximum productivity, greatest profits, and highest quality of life. Okay. Now obviously someone told him that subtitle was too long. And then the new subtitle is bumpers. Maximum productivity, profit, and quality of life, the framework for finding your personal abundance. So he slimmed it down a little bit. Okay.

I remember this book because he, yeah, I read the very first unpublished version.

Of it, and, yeah, the unpublished one, it's just black and white. Like, it has just a black and white cover. And then later they did the one with the fancy cover. If you get the first one or second one, honestly, you guys, it really doesn't matter. The first one was like a. Almost like a gun. The way I heard the story, it was almost like a gun to his head. Like, publish it, because he shared the concept with his mastermind. This is the story that I got from just, like, listening to him Talk about on YouTube. The story that I got was. It was so powerful for the people in his mastermind that they were like, you got to publish this, dude. And it just sort of went out the door as a book with typos. Like, tons of typos. It was a mess, you know, Totally the best. But in a way, I kind of loved reading that grungy person before I reread the second one because it was like, wow, he was just showing up to serve, and he didn't give a flying fuck how it looked to put a book out with errors. He was like, hey, if this served, my people. And my people are saying, everybody needs this. Let's get access to us. And how genuine is that? And ego free just to be like, hey, they said it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to pull the trigger. I don't care how unpolished it is. Here you go. You know what I mean? I love that. I love that.

Super fast read. It's like 100 pages. Like, literally.

Super fast read. Yeah, super fast read. Okay, and. And, like, a few spoiler alerts here, but just to motivate you to read the book, the concept of bumpers is, like, if you take your kids bowling, that's just not going to be very fun because they're just going to hit gutter balls all the time, Right? But if you put the bumpers up right, then all of a sudden, they're having a good time because at least they're knocking down a pin or two, because the chances of this completely going out of the rails has been eliminated. They're just kind of, like, protecting themselves.

You're having more fun. There's more joy. No pun.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So you're. You're putting guardrails for, like, the things that matter to you in life to make sure that you don't, you know, land a gutter ball week over week over week and fail to partake in the things that light you up, that you're not living your values, you know?

Yeah.

Okay, so the basic concept. Again, a little bit of a spoiler alert here, but the basic concept is find the time to pull out of your business, like, out of your business, and actually folk focus on your business and on your quality of life. And so I decided to look at. Okay, is it possible that Travis and I could do this? You know, like, three weeks on deliver hardcore, and then actually give them the last week and sometimes two off? Okay. And I started slowly. So at first, I was like, the last Friday of the month. I'm not gonna work. We're not gonna work. We're just gonna work on the business, or we're gonna take it off and do three days in Palm Springs together. Reignite it one day.

Okay, Got it.

That's all I did. Okay. One day. And then, as I saw. Okay, well, the earth didn't end. The little birds didn't fall out of the nest, right? My. Our clients didn't quit on us. Nobody had a panic attack. Then I was like, Thursday and then Wednesday and then introduce the concept. Before I took the whole last week of the month off, I introduced the concept that, like, listen, you guys are only in our mastermind, or even if they were in a rolling evergreen program. You're only here because you want to get results. Okay. My guess is you want to get results in a way that sustains your quality of life. In other words, you want to make more money and you want to have more fulfillment for helping More people. Yay and yay. But my guess is you would also like to do that in a way that protects your quality of life and it keeps your ax sharp. So in our community, sometimes we'll talk about, it's like a Tony Robbins story. But like if you, if you listen to the old school Tony Robbins where he would talk about like the lumberjack who gets the job because he came in with his sharp ax and this and that, and then three months in he's going to lose his job because what did he forget to do? Sharpen his frickin axe, right? So like, so if we could start protecting time in a way that you come in and you get everything you need so there's no loss of reaching our objectives together, but we're going to compress that and do that more effectively in the first three weeks of the month. And then we're going to give you a month to implement, catch up, breathe, right? Make sure that you're actually living your values, actually enjoying your life. I thought for sure clients would quit. Like I thought my private clients would freak out. I thought Mastermind members would leave. I thought people wouldn't enroll in a 12 week program that was then stretched. Because you got to think about if you want to do four weeks in a row, that's 12 weeks. It turns a three month program into a four month program because you're taking that final week off every month, right? So you're now distributing that 12 week delivery time over four months instead of three months. Okay, I thought everybody would freak out. The complete fucking opposite happened. What happened was I got all of these messenger messages, all of these emails of gratitude from people saying, you know, I come to you because I want to be at the bleeding edge of marketing and I want to scale my business in a way that makes sense. And I trust you to do that while I stay in the forefront of what I'm really good at. But now that you've done this, you're forcing me to a, make sure I never have a reason for not implementing everything you tell me because I have a break and two, to protect my own quality of life by emulating this. And what happened was all of them that were. What happened was, you know, Kurt, Molly always says when he's telling a story, what happened was, love you, Kurt. So what happened was they all implemented their own programs the same way. They all started immediately going, oh my God, wait, this is so smart. And so they pulled out time from their own, even their clinic hours, even the ones so in case the in case any of you didn't hear the last podcast, my. My audience is all health entrepreneurs, right? So these are not your MDs working at Kaiser. These are people who want to own their own business online. They want scalable offers. So what all of them did, even the ones who had clinic hours and they also had online offers, they just kept pulling back Friday, Thursday, Wednesday. And then some of them keep their, like, clinic hours on Monday, Tuesday, one day a week. But almost all of them dropped entirely the last week, sometimes two. And there's five weeks in a month, and they all started following suit. And, and you can see how that's what I was saying, right? Like, you could see how, like, you would be like, no way. There's no way I could do that because I feel so busy right now. Yeah, you could see it. But I forget there's a name of the law. There's a name of a behavioral law or principle that I can't remember. I'm. I'm gonna fuck up exactly how you say it. But what it's basically trying to say is people will finish what needs to be finished in the space of time that you give them. So if you give them, every week.

Of every month will keep expanding.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But if you compress it and it needs to be done by this time, you know, look how quickly things can get done. You know what I mean? Look how. Look how quickly Gavin Newsom just had one thing put on one piece of paper in a bazillion envelopes that sent it out to California in like less than 90 days. Like, people would have told him that was impossible, right? And it was like, we're going to shrink it right on down. And like, when humans have a constrained window in which they need to get shit done, they get it done. And so now, you know, we look at the calendar at the beginning. So we put out our calendar in November for all of our audience. And they can see in advance. They can see, you know, work, work, work, break. They plan their vacations around it, they model their delivery around it. Like, we plan our. Like, there's. I think it works out, you guys, that there's like three times in the year at least some years there's four, but there's three times of year at least where there's two week breaks. So we can instantly look at that. Like, Travis and I have our 20 year anniversary. Brush our shoulder next week, actually. And so we can look at the calendar and we can see, oh, let's plan our 20 year on one of our two week breaks and let's go, you know, somewhere we've really been wanting to go, you know, and, and Maverick can look at that and he can, he knows when, like our son is Maverick. Like he can look at that and he can know when we have big gaps of time and we can make a cool, interesting travel request, right? And when we have shorter weeks, you know, and it lets us plan our vacations, our travel or our curriculum revamp, right? Because in your curriculum things change, especially for all of us, right? If we're in marketing, like AI is coming into play now, super agents are coming into play and fuck SEO now we have to get a chatgpt to find our brand instead of just Google search, right? Like everything constantly changing, right? So we can look at the weeks that we want to do content updates and content refresh and we just know what that's going to look like at the beginning of the year.

I think the big thing that I didn't know going into this conversation is I thought this Thrive Week was literally just for you and Travis, you know, your spouse and family. You know, you mentioned Maverick, but no, like you're literally instituting this for everybody. It's anyone that you're working with, you're saying this is the way we do things. And if you're joining us, like if you're working closely with us, our close high end mastermind group, you know, was annual contract. It sounds like an engagement, right? It's every time.

Yeah, yeah, they join annually. Exactly. Yeah, they join annually. Yeah.

So you're like creating this expectation of this is how we do things that just, I mean it literally is a benefit to everyone. So not only are they going to keep exponentially growing in the business together with you, with them, with their own business and they can actually apply things, but you're forcing them to take time off. And I think the thing I remember hearing about this from Tim Ferriss years and years ago is like when you have something to look forward to, even if it's a day off and like a mini trip or just even if you're staying in town, you know, you have something on the calendar that you get to look forward to your brain, you know, for all of us procrastinators, which I think all of us kind of are. Yeah, I mean like we all are. That's why we need to condense our time or put those bumpers back to the book. Like that's the idea is like how do we put bumpers around our lives that we know the most important shit needs to get done within that. Those bumpers that we set for ourselves. But then you have this, like, whole layer of accountability that you guys bring to the group. And it's mapped out for a whole year in advance. Like, I'd be. Yeah, like, you're like, thriving all year because, you know all this stuff's coming and ideally you're planning some cool stuff. You're not just like grinding out work the entire time you're off in your thrive week.

Exactly. Or. And if you know that you're going to grind on something. So, like, last week, this is the first week of November, Right. So last week we actually had a thrive week last week. And as I, as I shared with you and Heather, my son Maverick had to have his deviated septum corrected. Well, if you've never heard of that surgery, like, they're basically roto rootering your whole face. And it's just, it's a whole big, messy, scary thing. And so we could plan that when we knew we had a thrive week and we could be there for him and support and, you know, lounge on the couch and just be with him or whatever he needed, you know, Cool. But because he's. He's also like, he's going to be 17 in December, so he's like, okay, get away from me, mom, enough cuddles. You know, I mean, I'm lucky he's still a color. Right? But. But I also planned the filming of the. I have a. I had a book that just came out. So obviously in the book funnel, I have an implementation toolkit, like a little member portal with videos of me kicking their ass into actually implementing the book. And so I knew, okay, the days before his surgery, I'm going to be filming. The days after, I'm going to be taking care of him. And then when he's sleeping, I'll be filming then. Right? So I knew it. And because Travis and I want to protect our. Our spark, our fire, our passion. We know. Okay, well, if we're going to be filming on those days, which days can we do a half day and we go out to dinner or we catch sunset at the beach. We live. Right? We live at the beach. Like, when can we do the little things where stealing away a three or four hour block here or, you know, meeting for that little sexy lunch date, you know, like something like that. How do we pin all of those things and make sure every thrive week always has at least some of those moments that we know we're going to bank on, though? Like, those are our memories. You know, like the photo memories you take when you're like, I just want to remember this minute forever. Like, like we make sure that those thrive weeks, even if we decide to film a new course or, you know, write a, you know, we're going to power through three chapters of our next book or something like that, then let's go ahead and make sure that we at least do time blocks where, you know, the passion stays alive and the business is running well and family feels prioritized. All those good things, you know, that's.

What I was going to ask is, you know, in these thrive weeks. Because I think the way that maybe on surface level it seems like, all right, these are thrive weeks, I could just like take time off and screw off and, you know, and if that's what you need, like, I'm sure that's a big portion of it. Maybe that's even possibly the most important thing to do to rest, recharge and.

Exactly.

Yeah. Your brain just like works differently when it's not staring at a computer on constant calls or whatever it might be. But at the same time, like you said, you can have time blocks built into this thrive week where you can still, you can work on the business, not in it. Yeah, like a whole Michael Gerber approach. E myth.

Yeah.

You know, so you're working on the business. These things that. Which again, takes a different wire, you know, focus of your brain. It just, it's different than when you're like doing this kind of thing.

And also, Joe, just think about it, right? Like, if you're looking at the year, like when Travis had his bit, he had a big birthday, you know, like he wanted to go and stay a month in Barcelona. So we rented a pen, like penthouse with extra room so friends could rotate through and come visit. And we did a month in Barcelona, like little day trips here and there. And so we knew, like, okay, the first three weeks of those, of that month, it happened to be like a five week month, right? So we had two weeks where we just like, whatever, let's go Costa Brava. Let's go to sieges. Let's go on little day trips. And like, we just had a good time and we didn't think about work at all for the last two weeks of that month. But even like the first three weeks we're like, well, we just did the time calculation difference and we showed up for our calls and, you know, did a couple of private client sessions and our mastermind groups and like. But other than that, we were, you know, checking out Picasso Museums and eating tapas and having a good time, you know, so. Because you can see it in the year out, like, you can see the whole year out, which weeks have five weeks you can plan on. Okay, we're gonna just play hooky, and we're just gonna completely refresh and cut loose and let our brain relax and not do work. And then for those of us who love our jobs, like, I think a lot of people who are. Who are. Are attracted to you and your content. We do love what we do. And so it is easy for us to be those people that like, well, balance is just me being able to fit business in. In a life that I truly love every day. Like, that's what balance looks like for some of us, you know? So I think it gives you that freedom to choose. Which ones are we going to be working vacations, which ones are going to be pure play, like, and you can plan around it, you know?

Yeah. And I think it's an important note because when we're so ingrained in our business, especially like my wife Heather and I and you and Travis, spouses who work together, you know, and yeah, might not be on the everyday, working on every. But there's that layer that's different than a lot of other spouses out there. People, you know, like those of you watching, listening, your spouse or your partner might not be into business, and they might not even want to hear you talk about it. So what if your expertise could work for you 24 7, even while you sleep? So at AI Build Team, we create AI powered digital twins that clone your knowledge, your voice, and even your style so you can scale without burning out. So imagine multiplying yourself, but without multiplying your time or your team's time. And the cool part is, you don't have to imagine any of this. You can actually chat with my own AI twin right now. Just go over to AIBuildTeam AI Joe, and you can see how it works for yourself. Again, that's AI buildteam AI Joe Joy. My question is, how the hell do you turn it off? Like, is. I don't know if this is a struggle that you or Travis have, but maybe if it's from other people in your community. How? Not only for our partner's sake, but for our sake. Because sometimes I'll just say, you know, like, leaving the business mode. And then I go into family kid mode. I do. There's. There's a buffer that gets to happen there, and I'm not always perfect with it. And this is on the everyday as well. But it's like. And even Heather will remind me, she's like, all right, take the. The work brain off. Or, you know, like, I'm just. It's like, you know, yeah, yeah, remove business because now it's different. It's like lead with your heart more so rather than get shit done mode kind of thing. If that makes sense.

Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna totally tell you that. First of all, total transparency. Anyone who knows us know that, like, Travis and I went through a rough patch. We went through a, like, are we even gonna do this anymore? I wanna fucking kill you. You know what I mean? Which I do think that in a 20 year marriage, it's normal to have those like, ah. Like, can we even do this moment? And the real test is not whether or not you have those moments. It's whether or not when you have those moments, you assume the best about the other person. So you start, no matter how pissed off you are, you assume there's no mal intent.

Right?

And then you support the other person through getting to where you want to go. So the reason that I share that in advance is I can be. It's funny because sometimes it'll be him who does it and sometimes it'll be me. But that experience that you were just sharing of like, oh, you're winding down the day, but maybe she was working. Heather's working in her silo in the business, and you're working in your silo in the business. And Travis and I definitely have very clear silos. We would have killed each other a long time ago if we didn't have your side of the line. My side of the line. Right. Like, so, first of all, we have very clear boundaries. And this is your silence. Your my side of the line. I will take your advice from your side of the line about my side of the line. But I make my final decisions because of a big ass fucking girl. And I can make my decisions. And conversely, him being the tech and the AI and traffic side, I might have my thoughts about his side of the line and I get to express them, but I also have to respect that ultimately those decisions are his. So I would say it all starts from if you're going to be brave enough to be a couple that works together, those divisions need to be clearly aligned. But in answer to your question about how do I solve the problem of my head is still in business mode. And he's like, where's my super sweet, sexy, hot wife who I want to twirl around and dance and cuddle up with. Right. Like, if he catches me in that mode, then it's his responsibility to a assume the best about me. Right? So that looks like, oh, she's being a mama lion for all of our baby birds. Okay? So if she's being a mama lion for all of our baby birds and there's things on her blonde brain that she can't put down, I need to assume the best about her and say she's really just looking out for our people. Right. Or our bottom line or protecting our family financially. Okay? So it starts with him having a good assumption about me, or conversely, if he's chatting about business and it's date night, I have to assume the best about him. And then we have to recognize that and ask what it's going to take to take that hat off. So if I was Heather and you were doing that, then I would have to make the assumption that, like, all right, Joe's trying to provide for the family. He's being super, super driven about the success of his clients, the success of his business, all the things she has to make, all the positive assumptions about you. And then she has to recognize, okay, he's still stuck in business mode. And then she has to take upon herself. I have to take upon myself. When I do, it is like, okay, baby, you're still. Your business hat is still on. Like, there are things that are still brewing that are in the way of us hanging out. And I want you. I want your big, strong arms around me. I just want your grounding presence, like, for me as a woman in business. And you can ask Heather if this is her perception. I could be a whirling dervish of energy. And then when I'm. When I get to switch gears and be feminine and soft, that's a very driven, masculine energy to get shit done all day, make money, hit numbers. That's a very masculine part of my personality. So when I get to be with him, then I feel grounded. Like less whirling rocket ship and more like, oh, my gosh, like, I can actually be soft and, you know, like a bird flew by. How pretty. Like, I don't even notice that shit when I'm working. You know what I mean?

True.

So I have to look at him and I have to recognize, okay, he's. He's in business mode because he has the best intentions possible. And look at him and say, okay, you're still in business mode, and I need my grounding. Big, strong man. What do we need to, like, go through really quickly so that we can transition into hangout time and just be together and not talk about work and not talk about our kids or our planning and, you know, paperwork and that needs to be done. Like, how do we get there? And then it usually is. Okay, well, there's a new ad campaign going out tomorrow. I just need to make sure you're understanding. This is like, you, me, this done. Like, and then once he barfs it out, then he can put it down. But there's like, literally something like, almost tangibly in the way if. If he's still spinning and talking about work, if I'm still spinning and talking about work, it's because there's a few things that have not been communicated between the silos. And once the messages have been communicated to both silos. So both silos come home. Okay, one of us is communic, is still in business mode. What communications need to happen between the silos. We send those messages, we get clarity on ownership, responsibility, accountability for handling those within a specific timeline. Then the silos can go back and to being individual and they can shut down for the night and we can be together. That's my thing for it is assume the best about the other person. They're not doing it to be an asshole. They're not doing it because they don't think you're important, because they don't value family. That's a bunch of stories that our ego will tell us because deep down, a lot of us struggle to believe that we're. We're worth having the love that we have in our life. Right. So that's just a bunch of garbage. So if we can put all of that aside and assume the best about the person and then make a way for them to download out of that mode, that's it.

I love that. And that's. That's a. It's a healthy process. I think assumptions are a big thing. It's like we got to assume, albeit, you know, we're in a relationship for a reason. Like, I'm 16 years with Heather. This year behind you guys. We're almost there. But like. Yeah, yeah. When you. When you're with someone, you. You gotta assume the best, you know, in relationship. But that goes with your team at work too and all these other things. So it's a similar mode. And I like what you said is almost like you have that core of assumption that we're all in this together. Like we have a shared mission vision that we're all striving for. But at the same time, our brains are squirrely. They're crazy little things. And we need to unload that like, so it reminds me of that book, Getting things Done, you know, gtd. The GTD method, where the first thing is basically get it out of your brain, right? It's like, yep, brain dump. Wherever you got to do it on, On. You know, I'm using this app called Reflect lately. It's really cool.

Oh, I haven't tried that one. Reflect.

Reflect app. Yeah. Okay.

Okay, I'm gonna put that in my phone right now.

Great way to sync up all your ideas. It's daily remind. You know, you can sync up calendars, all that fun stuff. And, you know, it's that I do voice notes all the time too, but anything to just unload that shit. That might not make perfect sense, but it's like a bunch of to dos. Cause, yeah, it could spin all of us out. And that's what Heather will remind me. She's like, write it down and. Cause I did the same thing for her. It's interesting how it's flipped kind of sometimes over the years in a relationship too, but. Yeah, but you're right. Like, once you do that, assume the best for yourself and others and then just unload your mind, then I just feel like everything just gets a little freer.

And you use Reflect. I'll be honest. Like, if you don't have a fancy app, like, sometimes I'll just open my phone, pull up the next day's Google Calendar. Everybody has Google at Calendar, right? So, like, pull up the next day's Google Calendar, find an itty bitty block, right? Like, and I'll write all the things that are tripping me out. And even if I don't solve them in that span of time, at least there's a breather space in my day to schedule them or have them delegated or whatever, and then I'm done. Then I can, like, let my hair down and be feminine and be soft and not be driven and like, goal oriented and in business mode. So. So, yeah, that's my simple one.

That leads to another content I was thinking about was like, what are your daily bumpers? Or like, how do you make every day kind of thrive for you, Travis? Maybe your. Your whole group that you're chatting. Like, are there like, certain bumpers that you would put on? You know, time wise, Are there certain activities throughout the day that you always, or at least you roughly have a structure for that you could share?

Yeah, I always have structure. First of all, I have to say I'm. I'm spoiled fucking rotten. Because not only do I get my thrive weeks, at the end of the year I go up. So we live at the beach and there's a beautiful, like, vista up at Kate Sessions park near our house. And it's like a mile and it's a mile and a half up and back, right? So I take my little pupper, his name is Ace, and I get to hike up there and I get to hike home in the morning. And then I end my day in time to make my favorite yoga class. So I have to say for a long time I thought that was really selfish, like, oh, I should pick one. Like, I should do this or I should do that. I shouldn't be guarding so much time for like my physical fitness. But I'm fucking wired. Like, I'm wired to move fast, go hard, strong. Like I. And maybe that's a rare thing for women. You know, people might perceive that it is. But the more I meet people like, you know, Emma and Deb and, you know, I know, like, I'm not alone. There's a fucking lot of us out there that are wired to move really fast. And the way that I keep that on the rails, I think of it like, so I feel like all of us have so much fire inside of us, so much fire light brilliance inside of us that we all have to be realistic with ourselves. Because fire energy, anything like that, like, it's like nuclear energy, fire energy, any kind of energy is powerful if it's harnessed in the right way. And it's deadly if it's not harnessed in the right way. And I notice that, like, I can get short with other people, I can bowl other people over. I can like, you know, I can accidentally use that fire in detrimental ways rather than. It's a light that everyone can see their own way to their brilliant marketing and, and business strategy through, right? So my. When I did journaling meditation, like honest assessments of my life, I was like, when I do my morning and my evening and I sandwich my time between there, my morning gives my blood pumping. It lets me think out loud. It lets me like, go, go, go, so that some of that fire is a little bit released physically and then I can actually maintain a nice slow burn throughout the day of service. Like it never gets edgy or grungy. And then before I can be great mom to Maverick, great wife to Travis, I find I need to shut everything down. I give my ea everything that needs to be set up for the next day. Drop it, walk to yoga. And my walk there is where I'M shifting gears from work to like, okay, now I'm gonna go be in my body. And then my walk from. It's. Yeah, that's the bumper piece. And then walking back from yoga again, I'm blessed that I have a yoga studio. Like, we live in Pacific beach as, like, one of the highest walkability life scores in the nation. Right. So the walk home from yoga is okay. Now I took care of my body, my mind. I'm going to go and I'm going to be present with my family. So for me, that's what boundaring my time is. I mean, there's other things too, you know? You know, I'm committed to my peptide stack. You know, I'm committed to healthy eating. You know, I'm committed to making sure there's always a social. Like, I need my friends, I need my people. Like, I'm over the. We have to do everything alone. It's not fucking Covid anymore. We need each other. Let's get back in harmony, you know? So as long as I have my physical routine, my healthy food, my connected time with friends, those, I would say are my, like, daily bumpers.

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thanks for breaking it down. Because it's. I think, I don't know, we all live differently, but when we're in our bubble, work bubble, especially, like you said, a lot of us are working at home now because of maybe Covid or whatever else happened in our lives. I mean, I know that affected. I mean, I have two little, little, little ones, and they popped around Covid times. So it did put a little damper on the social life. But at the same time, it's getting better. It's getting better.

Yes, it is getting better. It is getting better. And for all the, you know, political temperature and as volatile as that is, I am really finding that there's a silver lining there that, like, people on the extremes are finally going, wait a minute, red, blue, we're all red, white and blue. We all want, like, ample money and love and community and freedoms. You know, like, we all kind of want the same thing. So I do think that even that is, like, we're all just humans and we all just want a decent life. Like, knock it off on both ends, like, let's come together. So I do feel like that community piece is. Is. I'm seeing it research everywhere. I know what your experience is, but.

Absolutely.

I think the divisiveness has finally started to hit a tipping point where they're like, wait a minute, we all kind of care about the Same thing. So I'm personally an optimist and a patriot, so I believe we will find a way to come back to a healthy middle where we all love each other.

I'm with you. And, you know, you have AI as another, you know, something thrown into the mix there, too, that, you know, it's. I guess, on the surface level, people can connect with AI and. But at the same time, what my thought is, humans get even more important in the whole mix is community. Yeah, that's going to be the thing that will have a lot more value, I think, over time, whereas tech will have a layer to it all. But you're right, like, we need to connect with people, get in groups, the masterminds we're a part of together.

Yeah, exactly.

Groups. I mean, like, there's trust there that you can't make without seeing people and without spending time, you know, legitimately. Like years of time with people, too.

I think so, too.

Well, Joy, let's wrap up on your book, because it's not on the surface level. It might not hit everybody here and be like, oh, this is for me. But on a conceptual level, I think it's really brilliant. So tell me what it is and, you know, concept and how it applies to everyone.

The book is called Get Cash, Pay Clients. I think everybody would like their clients that are ready to fork over money. So in that way, it sort of could apply to your audience. It's written specifically, so the subtitle is How Upfront Labs Create a Wildly Profitable Health Business with Less Work. Okay. So the takeaway for health practitioners is, you know, they've been doing marketing and then nurturing and sales and then finally enrollment, and then they would do a lab test. And a lab test isn't a really effective tool of showing people something's wrong and something needs to be done right.

Like blood work or whatever kind of data.

Blood work, a hormone test, a stool test, a sibo test. It's confirmation that people are like, I'm not crazy. There's actually something going on in my body. And so obviously, that makes the sales conversation for practitioners to have people enroll into working them much easier. So it was like, knock that shit off. Pull it from the bottom of the funnel, put it at the top of the funnel. Now there's legal things that need to happen so that tests can be ordered to prospects, not patients, in a legal way. So the book kind of covers all of that, but how that is applicable to your audience, a much wider audience, is this. The fundamental concept of the book is I. It presumes that you are no longer interested in growing an audience of freebie seekers, tire kickers, people who will bleed you, drive for information, never having any intention of actually investing and taking action and being responsible for their own results. Okay, so it starts from that premise. And if that premise is true for you, then it shares a lot of digging and research that I did, Kurt, Molly included, to kind of investigate a little bit what happened. Like, what happened to the effective lure opt in lead magnet? What happened to the effective webinar, right? So in, in our world, okay, we were seeing it tank and tank and tank and tank and tank. So ad costs going up, conversions going down, which means cost of client acquisition goes through the roof. And you start to wonder, what the hell am I doing? Like, I have this audience and this email full of people that I'm lucky if I can get, you know, a halfway decent open rate compared to what I got three years ago. And God forbid I actually wanted a click through rate and sales, okay? So it was really starting to look depressing and depressing and downright, like, morbid, right? And so in poking around all of my marketing friends, everyone I knew, I was like, hey, it's appearing to me that the algorithms, if we think about the algorithms as the minions that do the work for all of these free platforms that we're. We're all consuming content on, okay, if it's free, then we are paying with ourselves. We are the product, okay? So if the algorithms are serving that whole, you know, beehive, then the algorithms we know are tracking all of the things that we as advertisers can pay for, okay? So if you guys haven't run ads with me, just bear with me, okay? But if you were running ads and if you already run them, you know this, okay? You can pay for video views, right? You can just pay for something to be seen. You can pay for a view, you can pay for an opt in, right? You can pay for just a conversion, or you could pay for a sale, okay? So if we start from the premise that these algorithms that are checking us out and measuring our behaviors, it completely makes sense that those algorithms know, okay, well, Joe is a. He's a content consumer. He'll watch videos and he'll opt into shit. But he's not the type to buy from this platform. He's going to maybe go to Google, find it later. But Joy, she's happy to like, oh, she saw something that was cute from Vori. She's going to see that ad, she's going to click it and she's going to buy it today. Okay, then it makes sense that that algorithm is like, oh well, Joy would be a good person to serve up for people who actually run a want a sales conversion. And Joe would be the perfect person for to put in front of that. Opt in for someone who just wants someone to opt into something. So the algorithm is probably trying to satisfy its advertisers. Does that make sense what I'm saying?

That's right. Absolutely.

Okay.

And they're getting smarter all the time with AI too, All the algorithms.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I remember when Cambridge Analytica was early involved with the Trump campaign, they were sharing that like, oh, if you had made five moves in the online space, excelled you more about you than your family. And that was decades ago. So can you imagine now it's probably like, oh yeah, you do two or three things. It knows your first born child.

You know, it knows everything.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so assuming that we're believing the algorithms are now we're being watched, our behaviors being tracked, I make the argument in the book that we should all now move people from these free platforms over here. TikTok, Instagram, meta, YouTube, whatever. Okay. We should go from putting out our content on these platforms. We have to do that to be perceived as experts. And then when we move them over to our online echo sphere, and when I say our online echo sphere, I'm talking about our CRM, right? This is where we take people's money, their name, their information, all that. Right. So when we move people from the free world over here to our world, I am much more focused about having quality over here than quantity over here. And the filtration system that the book promotes you using is. Let's go from free content, not free webinar over here anymore. Because that's quality but not quantity. Why don't we go let's say a book. This book is like 9 95, right? So for me to have from free content over here and I share a concept from the book and they want it, then they can go into my world in a 995 offer. What does that do? That gives me a whole community list world in my online echo sphere of more quality leads that are known to be buyers. Okay. Now my favorite three ways of doing that are. Number one is a book because the cost is so low, right. You're going to get someone's attention for under, let's call it under 15 bucks. Okay, great way to do that. If they're not going to spend 15, they're not going to spend 15 grand if that's what your back end offer is. Right. And then that, and that's number one is the book because of price point. Number two, if you're a practitioner, is a lab test funnel. Number three is a paid workshop. Okay. Paid workshops can be tricky because you actually have to solve one specific problem that your avatar has on that workshop to prove that your value and get shit done. But all of those will give you an environment of people that are buyers. Now that gets you money. Yes, it's more, it's more effective, right, because you're actually making money faster. But here's the thing I'm really trying to do. I'm really trying to train the algorithm that your online content for free over here is trying to find buyers. It's trying to find the people who bust out their credit card. It's not trying to find your freebie seeker tire kickers, people who will never actually get off their ass and fucking do anything.

Yeah.

And the reason that I want that is twofold. One, the money, right? I like the money track to be faster, obvious. Okay. The second thing is I want clients who are actually going to be implementers. They're actually going to do what we teach them to do because if they don't, we never get the testimonial, they never get the result. It's not good for anybody really.

You're getting them from start from like ground level, right? Indoctrinating them to your process so it's, you're not trying to recreate shit when they're way over here and they're probably.

Exactly. And then it covers like the obvious pushback to that is. Yeah, Joy. But there's always a place for free content. Valid. So fucking valid. If I, if I'm going to be on someone else's podcast, if I'm going to be on a collab with someone who has a big audience, if I'm going to be on any sort of summit or stage, is that a perfect environment for me to say, hey, here's an opt in and we pull them into the list and those people are tagged? One could argue yes, okay. And I think that that is perfectly valid. Okay. But I will be completely transparent that I'm way more elitist and like superior than that. I'll even do on a podcast or on a collab. And I'll say, hey, if you want this free thing, DM me, right? Go to Instagram, DM me. And then I can still auto deliver that free thing through the dm, right? I can use Manny Chatter. If you go high level, you just use the in house system there. Right. So I still like the filtration. So me personally, my business is over the million mark. Like I'm not worried about it, right. So I would rather focus on quality. So even in those environments, like I do, I think that's the right environment for people who are still growing their brand, for people who haven't hit their initial numbers, for people who are still really revenue focused. I mean, I'm still revenue focused, don't get me wrong. Like that's still a benchmark that I measure my success by. But even when I do that now, I would Ray, rather be like, hey, come see me over at Real Joy Houston on Instagram and DM me the word book. If you want to know how to write your book, we'll pull it out of you in five days in Vegas and you'll get the shit done instead of waiting for a year. Right. So I would do that rather than we'll go opt in over here for this webinar and then they're going to think about it and then they're getting nurtured for six months. I'm actually conditioning those people to be the kind of person that drags ass on making decisions. And in case you can't tell, like I'm not a really great leader for someone who wants to drag out making decisions like they don't want to keep.

Up with you, then yeah, they're not going to be for you, which is great.

Exactly, exactly. And you know what, there'll be another train that will come by the station that goes slower if you don't like that bullet train, you know what I mean? So the book basically addresses, hey, here's what's happening, here's how the algorithm we're working, it breaks it down. Here's the argument for leading with if you want to give away something free, do it in a messenger. It gives you, it opens up the sell by chat door. Right now you can actually see is this person a good person. But when you bring them into your world, take a little bit of money, like if you used to give away a book, charge $5. If you used to host a webinar, that's actually fucking powerful. It has to be powerful. It can't be some cheesy shitty webinar. Right? But like if they come to a webinar that you could turn into a workshop where they finish one piece of it, charge $95 for that, you know, charge 45. I don't care, but like, put a little. When people pay, they pay attention. Enough said.

That's it. Yeah, it always has been. So definitely. I love your call to action, by the way, to Instagram. So say that one more time because that is something I wanted to mention about you, actually. You and Travis help pull out a book from someone. I don't know, does it matter which industry they're in or what?

It doesn't matter the industry. What matters is that you can clearly articulate the problem for your current audience. You have a proven solution. In other words, you have a process, a method, a protocol, a way, right, to solve that problem and that you're willing to break that down and share that process in the book in ways that. It's a client acquisition book, Joe. It's not a. I was born, you know, it's not your life story. It's not your magnum opus. That's not what it's for. It's literally a client acquisition book. Okay? So if you, if you know what the problem is and you can solve the problem and you have a back end offer that's ready to sell, meaning you already have your program, your process, your method, your pill, your magic bean, your super cool machine, whatever you have. If you have that offer on the back end ready to sell and you can tell the success stories and how your process works in a book, then we pull it out of you. We basically force you to give little mini TED talks about each step in your process and then we help you compile it. That way you're not actually typing. We find that something happens between the brain and the fingers that slows down. Authors, leaders, really bright luminaries get slowed down by that process. And so if we can let luminaries just go ahead and speak about it, like talk, they can talk about it no problem. Right? And they can share successors, no problem. And then with the power of AI, we can take what they said, not to be confused with all these fly by night people helping, like write a book with AI. Like that noise. Okay? This is taking your itty bitty TED talks about the processes of what you do and then compiling that your own words from AI. And then the cool thing is we pull it all out of you in a five day sprint in Vegas. You're literally sequestered in Vegas at the Aria. It's beautiful. And then on day five, Travis has this legit gangster GPT that he runs to find the appropriate categories in Amazon. So before you turn your book funnel on, you can have a soft launch on Amazon. You can get to number one in your category. Proven. You pick. You know, if you pick a small enough pond, you could just be a goldfish in that pond, and you could still be number one. Right. So he gained that system with a GPT. And so we all put our information, the topic of the book, our avatar, all into that GPT. And it's like. It like, lets us all know. Here's the categories you're most likely to rank number one in with the fewest sales. It does the calculations for us. And so we all leave the five days with our book completed, our categories selected, our covers off to the designer, and we're off to the races. And it's happening in February. We do it twice a year. The next one is February 22nd. So if you want details on that, go to Instagram. I'm Real Joy Houston. So at Real Joy Houston and just DM me the word book, and you'll see the whole details. It's just a private Google document because it, you know, it. It like, we put our heart and soul into it. So we only let 12. You know, we want 12 authors in with us at a time, and we do it twice a year. So if this one's already sold out, there were two spots as of this morning that were left. If it sells out, we'll tell you about the next one.

Sweet. I've heard about the model a lot more even right before this, and it is gangster. And when it's backed by not only you, but Travis. And if y' all don't know Travis Houston, well, hopefully mind blown.

Yeah. How that guy can, like, stay at the bleeding edge of, like, AI Marketing. Like, I'm constantly impressed by it. I mean, obviously he's my husband, so I'm partial, but, like, just on an intellectual level, I'm like, damn, dude, you're gangster.

Yeah. So do it. Go. Go hit up Joy. Because that is if there's a book in you, which everybody has. I mean, you need someone to rip it on out of you with a good.

Yeah.

And get it done.

And it's not for everybody. You have to have an offer because it's literally a client acquisition book. So you have to have an offer ready to sell on the back end or it's a waste of time. But everybody who's done it with us has a finished their book, and everyone who put the book out on Amazon has hit number one in their category. So that's a pretty impressive track.

Pretty damn good. Awesome. Well, yeah, definitely go there. We'll put stuff in the show notes so it's easy to find you and your book as well. Get cash paid clients. What's. I'm curious, what's like something on Thrive Week or what's something that you're looking forward to in the next, I don't know, few months or so that you're gonna do? That's. Yeah, like a Thrive Week, basically.

Well, first of all, my 20 year anniversary is coming up, so I'm super, super looking forward to that. But what we're wanting to do around our anniversary is explore a place that we heard of through Nuno. Do you know Nuno? He's like a go high level genius. Oh my God. If you, if you just go to YouTube and search Nuno go high level and you will find him and I promise it will be your new Netflix of knowledge. I swear to God. He's like so. He's so smart. Okay. But also a fucking amazing human. Just a kind, amazing, just salt of the earth kind of person. And we were. He found out that we were looking at Portugal as an, as a purchasing a second home kind of place. And he told us. Oh yeah, yeah, all those places you're looking at are fine and dandy and everything, but how would you like to move to the island that is known as the Hawaii of Europe? And it's also the place where fiber enters Europe. So you're never going to have Internet.

Really?

I was like, sold.

What's that? I feel like I was.

I tell you now everybody's gonna move there.

All right, so offline private.

So. So we are going to be doing some island exploring and, and we're gonna go there and check it out. So that's the thing that's like on the horizon that I'm like, You know when you, when you have something coming up and, and like every dog walk or whatever, you're like googling it or watching YouTube videos on it and you just get goosebumps when you think about it. That's, that's. That's the thing that's on the horizon for me that I'm so excited about. Yeah.

All right, well, I like the. I like people could do their own research, but I'm gonna get the intel right.

Yeah, I will. I'll tell you another.

Awesome. Well, hey, let's. This is great. Thank you, Joy. And yeah, this whole thrive week, I mean we covered so much. And here. And also in that peptide episode from before, whenever it was probably before this. Go check it out. Joy, you rock. He. I was gonna try and call Travis Houston Travis, you rock, too.

You're not even here, but you totally rock.

God damn. Yeah. So. Love you, too. And. Okay, we'll keep it going. So appreciate it. Thank you.

Give Heather a hug for me.

I will, I will.

All right. Bye, honey. Sam.