Hacking Motivation

I can taste yo, yo, yo, I can taste yo, yo, yo I can taste yo, yo, yo I can taste yo, yo, yo I can taste. Hello and good afternoon. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach for ADHD business owners, coming to you live this Friday afternoon. I'm coming to. To the Facebooks, to LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and on Instagram over here on my phone. Trying to move this a little closer. Oh, my God. Can you guys see how cracked my phone is? That's embarrassing. Anyway, hi, the Gazelle. Welcome. It's Friday. I don't know how you all feel, but it has been a super weird week. Just weird energy. I know Mercury went to retrograde, however we say that, but just there's a lot of I'm feeling behind energy this week. And if you're feeling behind, hello. Just want to remind you, welcome. We're all behind. Okay? You thought I was going to say you're not. You are, but so are we all, okay? There's always going to be a gazillion and one things that you need to do. Your brain is going to tell you that you need to do them. And just know that your brain's job is to lie to you. Okay? Your brain's job is to come up with stuff that will scare you into doing whatever needs to be done. Okay? So, yes, there are gazillion one things that you can be doing. Okay? Doesn't mean that you have to do them. All right? You've existed and survived up until this point without doing absolutely everything on your to do list. You'll be able to make it the rest of your life without doing everything on your to do list. All right? That said, when we talk about getting things done, sometimes we get sucked into this conversation around motivation. Right? I'm not a fan of motivation. I think motivation is the biggest scam out there. Because when we think about motivation. Hi, Amar. How are you, Javi? Woohoo. I love how woohoo you are in my comments. Oh, my God. Hi. Happy Friday. Very true. Motivation is the biggest scam, okay? We. We wait to do things that we know will change our lives. Because we wait. What? For motivation to strike. We wait to feel like, oh, my God, now's the moment. Now's the moment. I need to go and do this thing. And people, people, we can't do that. If you wait for motivation to strike, if you wait for this urge to go and do the thing, guess what's going to happen? You're going to live your whole life and not do anything that really mattered to you. All right? We have to do things before we feel ready for it. We have to do things incrementally, day by day. We have to build up momentum to get things done. All right? The difference, though, I want to just paint a picture for you. Like, we've all been at a party kind of, like, late into the evening, and, you know, people are starting to leave, and, you know, like, there's beer bottles and cups everywhere, and you're kind of kicking around with some friends, and, you know, you might be a little tipsy or not, depending on if you drink or not. And there's, like, always, like, a sad balloon, right? Just kind of floating along the floor. Like, the helium wasn't very rich in it, or maybe it didn't have helium in it at all. It. Someone just blew it up, and it's kind of just floating around on the floor, and, like, someone just kind of kicks it, right? And it pops up in the air, and it kind of floats on down, and someone else kicks it, right? And then it goes over here, and it floats on down, right? And then someone else, like, taps it. And without anyone expressly saying that these are the rules, you started a game of don't let the balloon touch the floor. And as this goes on, people get more and more and more anxious about this balloon touching the floor, because that would completely end everything, right? It's like the worst thing that can happen is the balloon touches the floor. And these are adults. Like, let's just own that. Yes, we did this as children, but we still do this as. As adults. This is the power of momentum, people, okay? The power of doing something over and over and over and over again to the point where you're afraid to let it drop because you have done it so many days in a row. Hi, Jason. Strike while the iron is hot. No, no, no. Make the iron hot by striking. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Exactly, Exactly. Javi. I am that balloon. Oh, am I that balloon? I don't know. That feels like a personal choice. Javi. I won't make that choice for you. And who are you? The balloon for four. That makes me question some stuff. We won't. We won't go there, though. But here's the biggest challenge as business owners is Jorn. Woohoo yourself. Yes. I like the top hat. Here's the. I can't even talk. Here is the struggle that us business owners have to face. Figure out is we have to figure out what to build momentum around, okay? Because it's really easy to build momentum around the wrong things. Okay. When I first started my business, I was like, okay, cool, I'm gonna invest in all of these online business building courses, and I'm gonna do all my work around that. Now, I would go through these videos, honestly, I'd stop paying attention, like, five minutes in because they were so long and so boring. But I convinced myself that that was work. Right? But we know this truth, right? People can't buy from you if they don't know that you exist. Nowhere in my day was I doing any work to make sure that people knew that I existed. Right? If you're starting a business, if you're growing a business, even a really successful, established business. Hello. Welcome. Your number one job is to make sure that the people out there know that you exist. Hi, Jess. Welcome. So if you're thinking, what can I build momentum around? The number one thing if you haven't built momentum here is you want to build momentum around showing up somewhere. Now, this could be posting to social media every single day, okay? This could also mean going to networking events every day or every week, right? You want to create a goal, something. Sorry, the hiccups. Something that you're gonna do either every day, every week. Something that is on a consistent basis, all right? Because you want to build this momentum, you know, you don't want that moment where the balloon finally floats to the floor and people miss it. Right? Doesn't feel good. Right. When I first started on LinkedIn, by the way, LinkedIn is an amazing way to get creative clients when you're building your business. LinkedIn, I think the median average income of people who are on there is $70,000 a year, okay? So that means that they have disposable income and they can buy your service or your product. And only 1% of LinkedIn users who are active on the platform actually create content. Okay? So that means that if you're creating content on that platform, you're far more likely to stick out. Now, when I first started, I made a deal with myself that I was going to post every day for three months. I think it was three months. Yeah, let's just say three months. It was a very long time. And I made a deal with myself that I would post something even if it was bad. Right? So this brings me to the five things that you need to do to build momentum. So, number one, you have to be okay with doing it crappy, all right? It's better for you to show up with a piece of content. Piece of content than to not show up at all. All right. I would rather you show up and people see your face and they see your name. Even if the content isn't like that. Interesting. I would rather them come across your name and keep scrolling. Okay. Now my clients who are trying to get consistent on social media, what I love to do is the no ferret challenge. So you create a goal of posting every single day for say three weeks, a month. What? And if by 3pm that day you haven't posted yet, then your assignment is you have to go and post a picture of a ferret by the end of the day. All right? You don't have to put any, any words with it. You can just randomly post a picture of a ferret. People will see your name and they'll think like why? Why the ferret? Is this your ferret? It'll start a conversation. But more importantly, people will see your name and they'll see your headline and they'll see your picture and you'll pop up in their awareness and it'll remind them that you exist. Right, because they can't give you their money and hire you if they don't know that you exist. This is the bare bones of what you can do in your business. So number one, you have to be committed to doing it crappy. Doing it badly is the only way we're going to get through this. Let me see. Jordan, let's keep woohooing daily on our LinkedIn posts. Yes, like creating, we're creating the LinkedIn Woohoo crowd right now. I just feel so honored that this is happening in my space. It's like in How I met your mother. They talk about the Woohoo girls, but like way more fun because woohoo girls are actually kind of sad now that I think of it. Anyway, that is a whole tangent. Okay, so you're being, you're committing to doing it badly. Count me in on the Woohoo train. Yes. Yes. Okay, great. We have the Woohoo train starting. If you want to join the Woohoo train, then go and see Javi and Jordan in the comments. They can get you all set up anyway. So do it badly. That's number one. Number two, consistency. Obviously this seems like a no brainer, but some, sometimes people forget about this. To be consistent, you have to set up a schedule that is going to allow you to do this consistently. If you are trying to get in shape and go to the gym every single day, that won't happen unless you actually block time off in your daily schedule. All right. It's really easy to book yourself up and fill time and not get to the thing. That is a must do. Multiple times in the last few years, I've gone live every single day for a month. The only way I was able to do this is because I blocked time off. Hi, David. Welcome. When I started posting on LinkedIn for those first three months, I gave myself, and I had the liberty of doing this because I am single, I don't have children. Like, I have complete agency over my own time. So I'm not putting this on you if you do have kids and you have other obligations. But. But I gave myself two hours every single morning to figure out something to post. All right? Over time, I got a lot faster. I didn't need the full two hours. Okay? The first month, I would really, really struggle with what to write and, like, editing it and, you know, overthinking it and then finally posting it about a month in it, you know, I was able to get something out and posted within an hour. Right. By the time I got to three months, I was just spitting out posts in 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes is all it took for me to write something, get it posted, blah, blah, blah, blah, and that was it. But for me to get there, for me to get to the point where it only took 15 minutes, I had to block off time so that I could do it consistently. All right, you have to do this. If. If there's something you want to accomplish in your business or in your life, you need to make sure that if you want to do it and you want to do this daily, practice that you build it into your schedule. There's no one out there in the world who is going to make sure that you do this. All right, what does Mel Robbins say? Like, no one is coming. No one is coming. No one is going to, like, check your homework and make you do the thing. You have to check your homework. You have to do the thing. All right? Okay, so that's. Number two, is you have to build in a way to be consistent. Number three, inspiration. Inspiration. I don't care what your goal is. If it's around your health, if it's around your business, you cannot pour anything out of an empty cup. All right? I'm talking a lot about creating content because it's so impactful to your business. Because what. What is it? People can't hire you if they don't know that you exist. Right? But how do you post anything if you have nothing inspiring you? And I'm not talking about, like, going and looking at inspirational quotes. I'm not talking about, like, you know, doing exciting things. However, if you do want to do exciting things, Jason, who's watching on LinkedIn, does lead treks up Kilimanjaro and Everest. You know, not. Not my cup of tea. I don't like walking uphill. But if you want to do something really exciting, that's an option anyway. But I'm talking about reading books, going to a cafe. Hi, John. Welcome. Going to a cafe from time to time, seeing friends, you know, tarot cards. That's one of the reasons I started using these. And then I just had a lot of fun with them. Learning. Learning is a massive source of inspiration. And by the way, it doesn't have to be learning that's related to what you do. Okay. Actually, when we learn about things that are not related to what we do. Hi, Hanska. Hello. When we learn about things that are completely unrelated to what we do, it actually opens up all these different pathways in our brains to make all these wild connections and helps us access a different, different level of creativity when we're problem solving in our area of expertise. All right? Seek inspiration everywhere. All right. If you have a fitness goal, like, have inspiration, have things that will inspire you, you know, maybe some people that you look up to who achieve something really hard. I know that when I was starting my business and I had to, like, really tap into my creative side, you know, to create content, I looked up to Elizabeth Gilbert a lot. Her book Big Magic was a big inspiration for me. Right? Because her whole. One of her messages in that book is like, if you don't know what to do next, just go and do something. Right? So when she was in writer's block and she couldn't figure out what her next novel was going to be on, you know, she. She couldn't think of an idea. And so she just kind of, like, looked at, like, this mental list that she had of things that she'd always wanted to do. And one of those things was gardening. You know, she'd never gardened, really. And so she's figured, okay, well, I'll go and garden until I get an idea. And so she started gardening, and she started, you know, really learning about plants and getting more curious about plants until she ended up in this, like, botanical library in New England where she's, you know, looking up all these, you know, specialized seeds and where to get them, finding catalogs for everything. And that inspired her next book. She got an idea for it. You don't have to find the perfect thing that's going to inspire you. All right? There's no such perfect thing. And it can change. All right? You can change. You know, you don't have to do the same thing every single day to inspire you. It's one of the reasons why I have so many, like, card decks. Let me just show you this insane amount of card decks that I have. Oh, my gosh. I'm here. If you're looking at a blank screen right now, I'm seeing still here. I am just gonna show you all. I'm gonna out myself. I'm outing myself for all the crazy card decks that I have. All right, this is my inspiration, everyone. Okay, I have a super attractor deck. I actually haven't looked at that in a long time. The therapy game. If you want to get really uncomfortable in a social environment, play this guy. She believed she could, so she did. There are actually cards missing from this because someone gifted it to me after they gave a bunch of the cards away. So these are inspirational quotes. But, you know, if I need that one day, that can be inspirational for me. The game of storytelling by the moth. These are hard. I thought this would be actually a lot better to inspire me for content, but let me just. Okay, so, like, this is one of the prompts. Hold on. I can't get the card out. I'm just going to read it from the box. Okay, so try to come up with a story along these lines. Fuel to the fire. Prepare a story about escalation and acceleration. A blaze of love or a bonfire of woe. Heated words, toasty tempers, and the catalyst to the final straw. Going from 0 to 60, 60 bad to worse or worse to wonderful. Guys, if you're trying to do really simple posts on social media, that is not the prompt for you. Anyway, I have this fairy deck. My godmother gave it to me when I was, like, 14 and I was going through my, like, Wicca phase, which, honestly, I've revisited in my. In my 30s. The Affirmators of creativity. This one is really fun. They're just really cute, sweet cards. And they have, like, really cute little cartoons. You know, they all tell a little story. Let me see. Crush your goals. I forget where I got this one. I think this is a gift from a coach I signed up with. And then another tarot deck that I've had for a really long time just to show that you can get. You can get motivation and inspiration from anywhere. Hello. Okay, Jason, thank you. Of course. Love shouting you out. Happy Friday, Andrew. Hello, Javi. I'm still Here, Katie's cards. The next biggest thing. Let me see. That's like a normal day with my ex fiance. The okay to nuclear diverse fit. Oh my God. Okay, so Jason, maybe you could write a pro. Write a post on that prompt. David. Oh my God. Diagnosing random people with mental health issues in a social setting sounds like so much fun. Hahaha. I mean, you know, I mean we all do it. Let's be real. Anyway, okay, so inspiration is so important. Find a way to create. Oh God, I just threw one. Find a way to create inspiration everywhere. Okay. Go and live. Live a normal life. Don't. Don't worry about life being interesting. Don't worry about life being exciting. Okay. I was having this conversation with a client today about, you know, when you go and see a motivational speaker, oftentimes like they've been through something terrible in their lives or they've done something like really extraordinary that's like way out of the norm for the normal human. And we're talking about what happens in the audience after that, right? Like the audience is like, oh my God, how inspiring. Like, that's wild. Yes. Okay, cool. Now I'm going to go and do great things, but it doesn't translate to real life, right? Find, Find inspiration in the daily things. Find inspiration. Like, one of the things that's so inspiring to me right now is that I want to have ducks. Like, I would love to have like a little flock of about 10 ducks. I don't even, I don't even eat duck eggs. I'd probably give them to a local restaurant. But I just love the idea of having a really cute backyard with a little pond and docs that I get to like, let roam in my little vegetable garden and eat all the like, bugs that could, you know, create problems for my vegetables and hopefully my dog won't eat them. Right? That's, that's something that's super inspiring to me right now. And Andrew Stout, I do owe you a chat. Yes, I do. Okay, so you're committed to doing it badly. You are scheduling it so you can do it consistently. Whatever this thing you're creating, creating momentum around is, you are surrounding yourself with motivation. You are dedicated to being inspired. Next, you need support. You need support. You can't do this on your own. I know a lot of us are like, no, fuck you, I can do it on my own. I can do everything on my own. That's called hyper independence and that's a trauma response. You might want to talk about that with your therapist. Something that I'm currently working on in therapy. But we really, really do need support. And that support can be business besties. That support can be a, like a gym buddy that you go and see every day. Support could just be, you know, a group of friends where you hold each other accountable to whatever it is that you say you're going to do every day. Which reminds me, I was supposed to go to the gym every single day this week, and I didn't. And I was supposed to be texting my group that I went and I did not. So. Okay. So the support, you have to really lean into it and you have to create accountability within it. Let me see, Jason. That seems really decent. The duck bit. Thanks. My duck will be Duck Norris. Jason, you duck the point. I'm loving the the duck dad jokes happening in the chat right now. Yeah. So you need support, whatever that support looks like. Whatever works for you. Go and go get that support board. Recently, oh, my God. I met this woman in Denver, Laura Bernard. She lives in Montreal, Canada. Like, I would have no reason to really to know her outside of, you know, going to this event in Denver in, I think it was early June, and we created a tick tock together, had so much fun. And we've decided that once a month we're going to do a call. And we had our call today, and it just. It's like there aren't words for how good it feels to be able to check in with someone who's in a similar stage in their business, who gets it, who's struggling with some stuff, but, like, also just wants to talk through an idea here, there and everywhere and that you can do that with also, it's just magic. If you don't have any business besties, go seek them out. Go create those relationships. It'll change your life. Let me see. James Pond, Jason. I think Jason's gonna be in charge of naming my ducks when I get them. David Fryman. Duck Norris doesn't swim. He demands the water. Take him places. Oh, my God. Duck. Oh, God. Doc Norris doesn't lay eggs. He gets life. Oh, my God. Andrew Stout. You're from Montreal as well. I mean, I'm a big fan of people from Montreal. I've met a lot of really incredible people from there. Hi, Brian. Welcome. So you need support. Go and find your business besties or your besties with whatever it is that you're building momentum around. It will absolutely change your life. Yeah, I had another thought there, and it didn't have anything to do with this. So the last thing I want to say about creating momentum, I know who you are, and as I say this, you're going to feel like, oh, God, she's talking directly to me. And I know this because I'm this person, too. Create momentum around one thing at a time. Okay? Don't try to be a hero. Don't try to change your whole whole routine. Don't add, you know, working out every day and posting on TikTok every day and drinking a gallon of water and reading 30 pages in a book. Don't try to do all that at the same time. It's not going to stick. You'll last maybe a day, and then you'll leave one thing out, and then you'll feel like a failure, and then the whole plan goes kaput. Okay? 75. Hard is not for people with ADHD. It's not people with ADHD. Like, we don't have enough dopamine to do that consistently. Okay? We can do one habit at a time now as we create that habit in our life. You know, if, like, say you want to post every day to social media, it gets a lot easier to do it in tandem with other stuff once you've built that habit in. All right, but you have to establish it in your life first. Let me see. Katie's point is resonating to me a whole lot right now. Yes, Javi. I mean, I think a lot of people do this. See, Jason said. Well played, David. Well played. Okay, so Jason and David are gonna name my ducks and Jordan. Well played, David. Okay, David. David, I think won the comment game today in the live. But anyway, one. One thing at a time, whatever that is for me right now, I am posting every single day on TikTok. Actually, Laura Bernard, my. My new business bestie, she told me about this awesome platform called. What is it? My God, Repurpose IO. Repurpose IO. So basically, you can set it up so if you post on, say, TikTok, you can automate it to repost whatever you posted to Instagram. Tick. I'm sorry, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. Right. So you've hit all the places just doing one action. All right. You like that? That's incredible. But it's something that I'm building into my routine every single day, is posting to TikTok. All right, now, has my LinkedIn game suffered a little bit? Yeah, yeah, a little bit. This weird this week has been kind of weird for me anyway. But it'll be so much easier for me to return to my LinkedIn game once I have established this TikTok practice, because I've already established my LinkedIn habits. Oh, my gosh. Let me see. Jason, we're still on the ducks. We also need a Moby Duck and a duckleberry Finn. Okay? So I need to explain something to you guys that ducks. If you're gonna get eggs, you need girls. Okay? Girl ducks. We need girl duck names, okay? Because typically, I think this is true for ducks, because I know it's true for roosters. Like, they don't. Like, the males don't get along. So, like, we have to decide on one name for the one male duck that I will have and then nine names for the female ducks, okay? And I want them to be cute. Let me see. Oh, good ones. Jason Jordan, where is the ADHD duck? I don't know. Like, the ADHD duck is off wandering. There's no chance they're ever going to be in a row. Let me see. How do you feel about stop being a quack and build your business already? But what happens to the weenies then? What happens to the weenies, David? We like no weenie left behind. Channeling my inner. My inner bush. Oh, my God. Anyway, one practice at a time. This has gone off the rails, everyone. Let me see what's happening. All right. What inspires you? If you're in the chat? And besides coming up with random duck names for my future duck flock, what inspires you? What's something that you turn to that, like, lights a mojo in you? You know? Do mojos get lit up? I don't know. Let me see, Javi. Makes total sense to focus on one momentum rather than 20 different ones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I want you to imagine like, you're. You're dribbling a basketball. I'm doing a sports metaphor. David, if you're paying attention here, I don't know if in the bingo that this counts, but say you're. You're dribbling a basketball. You know, like, what happens if, like, you it up, like. Or what happens if you're trying to do too much? If you're trying to do two basketballs or three? It's just not gonna work. See, I started going one way with that and start. Didn't work. Let me see. Hot dog. Yes. Yes. The weenies. No weenies left behind. Welcome to the DuckTales with Katie. Oh, my God. Can you imagine, Andrew? This has gone off the rails big time. I feel like the ones where that go off the rails are really the best ones. Let me see. Jason. Surely Quack Sparrow can be a female. Yeah, Absolutely. Absolutely. David Fryman. Apparently, the ADHD duck has nine female ducks to himself. No shortage of dopamine there. Bingo. I promise you, when I get to the point where I do have these ducks, I will be going live with them in the background. It'll be a thing. Hopefully, Luna won't get jealous and eat any of them. She just looked at me. At that. I'm not making any promises. All right, everyone. Have I sold you on the idea that motivation is crap and that you have to build momentum? Just tell me in the chat, because that. That was my job today. I wanted to convince you that momentum is way better than motivation. And also, apparently, crowdsourced duck names. Anyway, I don't have anything else to share. It's Friday. It is almost 4:00pm I. You know. You know that feeling when you start, like, going a little crazy in your workspace and you need to get out and you need to go and do something? I think there's going to be a trip to the local pub. Oh, Javi. Sold. Thank you, Javi. Thank you for answering my question. You know, I think there's going to be a little trip to the pub with my laptop, and I'm going to. Javi, I got a money bag. Yes, there's gonna be a little trip to the pub. I'm gonna get some work done. I'm gonna do some writing. I'm gonna have people around me because I'm an extrovert. And does anyone else experience this? Like, there. There's kind of kinds of work that you do better when you have, like, a lot of voices and noise around you, but nothing that's discernible. That. Let me see. David, we gotta meet when I'm in New York at the end of November. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Wait, end of November? End of October. Jason, if you're at the end of November, then we're going to miss each other in the uk. Please tell me it's October. We got it. We got to confirm dates here. Local pub. Yes. Yes. Local pub. Oh, Javi, you texted me. I text you back. Yes, we have Weenie Adventures. We have Weenie adventures on the 23rd. We have to figure this out. I'm in scheduling mode right now. Let me see. Jason, it is October. Okay. Jason. Jason, you can't do that to me. I started panicking. You should be sorry. Jason. Yeah. Your birthday. Jason, I have to know also, like, what kinds of food do you like and don't like? Because I'm going to make a whole list of options for, you know, restaurants for you to go to because New York, it's just overwhelming. Anyway, I've done my job. You guys know that momentum is better than motivation. David is confirming with Jason to me that, yes, we can check out the ducks in Central Park. It'll be a duck adventure. And on that note, I like food, too. Yes, on that note, I'm going to wrap this up. Thank you to Jason, David, Javi, let me see. Jordan, Andrew, want to make sure I say hi to everyone? I think that was it. Thank you guys for joining me. Over on LinkedIn and over on Instagram, want to say hi to Brian, John, David, Jess, Ottawa Omer. I hope I'm pronouncing everyone's names correctly. And the Gazelle 31. Anyway, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money mindset coach, and future duck parent with very oddly named ducks and lots of weenie videos coming from Javi and me. Anyway, I hope you have an amazing weekend, everyone. I do plan on going live quite a bit next week, so stay tuned. And that's all she wrote. Have a good night. By.