Building Excellence on a 4-Day Work Week: Focus, Boundaries, Sustainable Success

There's a difference between my intent and my impact. And I may not have intended to hurt someone, but the words I did or the actions I did actually did cause hurt. And sometimes there can be a tension between well, how is the person perceiving you? Or how is the person receiving your words?

This show is powered by others over self. Hit that subscribe button to keep training your brain. From others over self. It's hardcore and at ease. A show about people who are keeping.

Their edge without going over the edge.

I'm host Shelly Rude. What if you could replace your full time income while only working four days a week and actually serve your clients better? Well, today's guest, Andy Rodenbaugh figured it out. We explore the Friday protection principle, the project stacking system that eliminates his constant urgency, and how saying no to 20 clients helped him serve 28 exceptionally well.

This is hardcore and at ease.

Here's the real test of sustainable excellence. It's not what we accomplish Monday through Thursday, it's what we protect on Friday. Because here's what's happening right now and I'm talking to myself here as much as anyone. I'm checking emails at 4 in the morning. I'm taking calls on the weekends wearing our 60 hour work weeks like badges of honor. And we've somehow convinced ourselves that some success requires constant availability.

That if we take a break, everything will break.

I just lived this out coming out of the holiday break. Beautiful family time, deep conversations and real connection. And then January hits and I find myself right back in that constant urgency trap. I'm stacking commitments. I'm starting to say yes to things.

I know I shouldn't.

And I feel this old familiar pressure that's building and I secretly love it. This weekend I had to force myself to ease off the gas because I could feel myself sliding back on all the relationship building that's happened over the holidays. So here's what ambitious leaders like us need to figure out. How do we build thriving businesses while protecting what matters? How do we replace full time salaries while working only four days a week? How do we serve dozens of clients, design multiple websites, conduct hundreds of networking calls, and still shut down our houses by 8pm every night? Today's guest has figured it out. He's my fellow certified story brand guide Andy Rodenbaugh. And the numbers don't lie. In his first calendar year at Clearsight Design, Andy built a business that replaced his W2 income on his terms.05 day work weeks every Friday, protected family dinner every night. And if you Listened Back to episode 30. You heard me break down the three phase framework for our focus. Well, Andy is living proof that this framework works. When we implement all three phases correctly, we don't just manage time better, we reclaim our lives. As we talk with Andy today, I want us to listen through the phase filter. Which phase is he describing? Where is he using boundaries to protect what matters? How is he choosing self first so that he can serve others better? Because what Andy has built isn't just a successful business model. It's a masterclass in what's possible when we stop wearing burnout like a badge of honor and we start protecting what matters most.

It really is, yes, a big career shift, but not as, maybe as big as people might think from the outside. Because a lot of the things that I was learning and doing in my previous roles are directly translatable and very similar to what I'm doing now.

And most people wouldn't think that your original industry was what?

Yeah, so I was in the nonprofit space with a faith based nonprofit and I was helping college athletes develop spiritually. And so I was interfacing with athletes and coaches day in and day out, helping them reach the goals that they have. And then I was also a part of a team that helped our staff in the organization I was with developing their cross cultural proficiency. And again that's a lot of face to face interaction, training, teaching, coaching, guiding, that sort of thing.

What does cross cultural proficiency mean?

The idea is that we live in a very divided society when it comes to issues of race, culture, power, community. And it doesn't have to be that way. We see a lot of people operating from a place of fear, a lot of people operating from a place of ignorance. And oftentimes that ignorance and fear is created by a lack of proximity. And so what we help people do was learn how to set aside fear, or rather allow it to drive us towards proximity. And then a lot of times you would see a lot of things I'm afraid of or the things I think are true actually are not. And that the person I think is so different than me or that I think I might be better than is actually quite similar to me. Those differences are actually significant. And if I don't understand those differences, then it keeps me at a distance and it just perpetuates a cycle of fear and ignorance.

Can you give me an example of something that we might be seeing or living with on a day to day that is actually a bigger issue than we might think it is?

Yeah, I think our nation as a Whole still has not come to terms with the issue of race and the history of white supremacy in our country and the foundations on which the country was built in terms of race. And we like to pretend that we are exceptional in every way. There is what I would call the myth of American exceptionalism. And it is true that some things have been done very well. That is true. And it's also true that some things have been done catastrophically wrong and have been very devastating to certain communities. And we, as a nation, we don't have a common memory. Some groups in our country like to pretend certain things didn't happen.

That's such a good point of view that you had.

Yeah, I learned that term from a Native American named Mark Charles. And he talks about how we can't recover from the collective trauma that race and racism has done to all people in this country. We can't recover from that collective trauma until we have a common memory of what took place and of what is still taking place today.

So it sounds like you're coming from a philosopher's perspective of there actually being an overarching truth. Because what we're hearing a lot today, right in modern church terms and everything, is this idea of postmodern truth, which basically means that your truth is just your perspective. And there's a lot of us out there that are like, no. I mean, if you get hit by the bus, you don't get to tell the bus that the bus didn't hit you. There is an overarching truth there.

There's two aspects to that, I think. There is an overarching truth of what actually happened. And then there's also the person's experience in the midst of what actually happened. And our experiential truths, oftentimes we try to make those the ultimate truth. The other side of that is some people want to just hold on to the ultimate tangible truth or observable truth and not listen to someone's experience.

I'm thinking firsthand of a time when I was interacting with a gentleman and I accidentally offended him. And he was so upset, and he just shut down and wouldn't communicate with me, not even on the subject. And I had absolutely no idea what had happened. It turns out that he thought that I slighted him with a word that I had used, and I had. And it wasn't a bad word. I mean, it wasn't even anything that we would consider controversial, but he wouldn't let it go. He was willing to go around and kind of talk to other people, and he was Doing that angry rumination about the experience. I was so surprised when a third party person told me what was happening.

Sure. Yeah. And in the work I used to do as far as vocation, you know, what we, what we help people do, one part of it was helping recognize the difference between intent and impact. So. And I don't know what this is like for you and your, any potential family relationships or anything like that, but we discuss it in our home all the time. There's a difference between my intent and my impact. And I may not have intended to hurt someone, but the words I did or the actions I did actually did cause hurt. And sometimes there can be a tension between, well, how is the person perceiving you or how is the person receiving your words? And there does need to be some ownership on their part as well. And particularly in the case you just described, what we would teach is the person needs to come to you and there needs to be some type of conversation instead of going to other people to talk about it. But yeah, a lot of times we, particularly when it comes to race in our country, we like to say things like, well, I didn't mean it that way. And we don't listen to the hurt that we've actually caused, whether it was personal or whether it's a policy or anything like that. And we don't take the time to connect with the person and hear their experience and hear the pain that it's caused and hear the effect of that.

And I think that's missing a lot right now. Just in day to day interactions and corporate interactions. I know I have found myself walking on eggshells. We used to joke about the term politically correct.

Right.

What's the politically correct way to say things? But it's so much further than that now.

Yeah, yeah. In regards to conversations like this, around topics that are very polarizing for a lot of people, is embracing the concept of shame. In my life, I know Brene Brown has done a lot of work in this social science space on the concept or the topic of shame. I've done some reading on it from a different perspective as well. A lot of times shame is just seen as only a bad thing and it can be extremely toxic. Where the idea is, I don't just, I don't just think, oh, I didn't do that. Right. Or I didn't do that. The voice inside becomes, I am wrong for being me. Instead of the voice being, that didn't go as I wanted it to or that didn't go perfectly and it's okay that I'm not perfect. It's okay that I messed that up.

I'm looking at an article from the Attune Philadelphia therapy group, and they say that shame is connected to the processes that occur within the limbic system, which is your emotional center of the brain. So when something shameful happens, it overrides any other emotion that's coming in there.

Yeah. And what I've seen in spaces where we're talking about race, culture, power, etc, and in the context of either our present day or history as a country, it's like one of the worst things, if not the worst thing that a white person could ever be called is racist. And so we want to avoid that term at all costs because it conjures up images that we know are wrong, such as the KKK or things like that, where it's like, no, I am not one of those people. And so anytime that someone wants to address an issue with us, it triggers this shame response and we immediately, our defenses go up and we're like, well, I'm not racist. It's like, wait a second. First of all, I didn't say you were. I didn't call you that. But I do want to address the thing that you just said. I do want to address the situation that you created, and I want to talk about it. I want to talk to you about your perspective. I want to talk to you about how I experienced it, how it made people feel, the damage that it caused. Can we do that without you being rejected? Can we do that with. While staying connected? And that's what I think as a follower of Jesus, like, that's what I see in the Bible, is that Jesus continually moved towards people in relationship and also challenged them, but he always drew near and gave them the invitation to draw near to him, even in their sin and their mess and whatever else.

I love this conversation so much because, Andy, you're talking about being defensive and how important it is not to hide.

Yes.

And one of the biggest impacts of shame is that the people who feel it are at risk for depression and anxiety.

Oh, yeah.

And I do a ton of work with military women and women veterans, and the divorce and anxiety rates for these women are nearly double that of the civilian counterparts.

Yeah.

When we're talking about shame and this defensiveness, as, you know, quote unquote, strong women. I was taking a executive protection course and we were learning how to navigate a room with gunfire going on. So how can you, you know, get from one end to the other with your team and effectively communicate when you Basically, not only can't hear the other people, but you're really disoriented overall. Yeah, we had done a couple of exercises and then during the break we were getting ready to go into the next one. One of the classmates said something to the effect of like, was it our turn or are we going next? And then he called me peepers. Like, like, my eyes. I have big eyes. It was such a weird comment and such an inappropriate place to put in a comment like that, you know, And I know we've been talking about race, and this is not a race issue necessarily, but it is a moment of time where I had no reaction except to go on the defensiveness.

Right.

And just say, why would you say that to me? And I'm leaning into this, Angie, because we're getting ready for a conference that we do every year for military women and women who work in male dominated fields.

Yeah.

So can you share some of your expertise with us? When you feel like somebody is quote unquote coming at you or you presenting this issue to you and you immediately want to go into defensive mode, how should we act?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm thinking there can be so many different scenarios where that type of reaction might come up. I think the first thing is to be able to be honest with yourself and recognize that you're having a feeling. I don't know about the context you do most of your work in. Coming from a context where I was working with a lot of athletes, like, they're almost trained to not be in touch with their emotions. Unless it's anger, which is like an only appropriate emotion in athletics.

Yeah, it'd be justifiable as long as.

You can contain it and channel it. And then if you win or lose, then sadness is also okay and you'll get consoled. And then if you cry over the victory and the end of your season, celebrating crying in that way is okay as well, but that's about it. So it takes a lot of hard work to become in tune with your emotions, which is energy in motion. So what are you feeling in your body physically?

Disgust.

But usually a feeling like anger or disgust or defensiveness. It's usually hiding and protecting something. So we talk in our home a lot about how anger is a protective emotion, and there's often another, deeper emotion behind it. It's usually sadness, fear, shame, hurt. There's not a quick and easy answer for your question. It's like entering the journey of doing the hard work of learning how to feel and how to honor and recognize and name your feelings as you get skilled in that. When you're in a moment where that defensiveness rises up, it's going to be easier to stay present and not just take the emotion down the rabbit trail towards the impairment of that emotion. And no one gets to tell us what we should be afraid of or not. You might be afraid of one thing, and I'm like, what's the deal? And I might be afraid of another thing, and you're like, how could you possibly be afraid of that? What happens is, though, is we oftentimes we don't feel the fear, or we pretend we're not afraid in order to look tough or strong or whatever. And this is what Chip Dodd teaches. The moment you decide not to feel, or if you don't recognize the feeling, the feeling is the truth. You are afraid. And if you don't recognize it and confess that fear to healthy people who can give you containment, you immediately are going to go down a path towards the impairment of fear, which is anxiety. And anxiety is that physical response in the body when you start shaking, you get dizzy, or your mind is racing, things like that, your blood pressure rises, heart rate increases. You're actually having a physiological response to the denial of fear.

So one more time. Anxiety is the impairment of fear inside the body.

Yeah. There's a need for mental health care around anxiety. For some individuals, it's not just, hey, you're not feeling your fear. For some people, there's a real concern there that they need to get help of a mental professional. So I'll say that in normal, regular circumstances, when we're. When we're finding anxiety coming up, it's usually because we're not being honest about a fear. When we are honest about can lead us to the gift, which is faith and wisdom. I like to tell the example of when I first took my daughter to the beach. She's a little toddler. Right. Do I want my daughter to be afraid of the ocean? What do you think?

Yeah, there's a lot of scary things. I mean, from jellyfish to sharks to. You name it should be scared of the ocean.

Just the water itself. Because if she is fearless, which is how people are taught to be in our culture, if she is fearless, then she will be careless and she will run into the ocean and it will harm her because she doesn't know how to interact with it. With wisdom. Yes.

And so that fearlessness is going to lead to carelessness. Carelessness.

And that's why people who are fearless or want you to be Fearless. They can be very careless and not be looking out for your actual well being.

And so I love this and I'm going to deepen this a little bit because I already disclosed that I have a previous marriage and it was a military marriage. And so you have this military driven mindset of, you know, mission go, mission go. No fear, don't be afraid. We just got to do the thing. And, and what's happening is that there's no space in there to actually care about each other.

Yeah.

Like, I truly believe that the divorce rate for military personnel is slightly higher than civilian personnel. And I think a lot of it does have to do with the smashing down of emotions.

Yeah.

And I see that, you know, in my women, it's so much deeper. When people talk about anxiety, it can be this issue about control. I mean, I have absolute control issues for me. And if I, if I'm in a situation that I feel like I can't control it. Like I just went to Nashville with Donald Miller. Right. And I got story brand certified.

Yeah.

And I rented a car instead of Ubering. Right. That's a couple hundred dollars that I don't need to be spending. But at the same time, for my own mental health, I need to be spending that because I have control issues and I need to know that the vehicle is going to be there when I wake up.

Yes.

And, and, but that anxiety is so real that it can be paralyzing.

Yeah.

And it can sound like I didn't know what anxiety sounded like for years. But when it's that constant questioning of things.

Sure.

How to control that, it means letting go, like you said. Right. You get what you're giving up by leaning into the fear and the anxiety is you're giving up that sense of peace and the gift from God, like you said, that we just can't attach to.

I was talking to someone the other day. Don't quote me on this statistic. But the idea is that most people in our nation come from some type of traumatized background. Now I know trauma is kind of used as a catch all thing these.

Days, but 70%, 70% of adults in the US have experienced at least one traumatic event in their lives.

Yeah. And so some, for some that might be an acute event and for others it might be an ongoing, you know, below the surface, chronic trauma. And so it just makes me think like going back to what I was sharing about at the start of our conversation with the work I used to do with cross cultural proficiency is teaching people how to become compassionate listeners to People and leaning in and hearing their story, the good, the bad and the ugly of it. Because all, almost all of us come from some type of adverse experience that has formed and shaped how we interact with people, how we view people. And I know a lot of times what can happen is as two people are talking, inevitably our defenses rise up and we start comparing our trauma to their trauma or their adverse experience to ours, and then thinking if it's not, if it doesn't seem to be equal, then we can't relate, but we actually can. I can sit with you and hear your experience and say, well, I've never experienced that, but I can lean in and hear the pain and connect with you, provide containment and relational connection. And you can do the same for me, even if my experience is totally different.

So, looking into your career shift.

Yeah.

There has to be something that has been a through line for you in your life. And you strike me as a very hardcore individual. So there, there's something about you that you are just fiercely dedicated and committed to. Tell me in your words, Andy, what makes you hardcore.

Yeah, well, I don't know that I've ever used that word or phrase for myself. I know it's the name of the podcast, but I do connect with it. I think the people that know me the best would use words like disciplined, intentional, things like that. I think part of it's my personality.

Of.

Just wanting to be excellent in the things that I want to be excellent in. I think part of it is my faith as a follower of Jesus. I want to be a steward of what God has given me. So I think that's part of it. Personality, my faith. I want to do well at the things I put my hands to, put my mind to.

Have you ever done an enneagram test? Have you ever gotten into that?

You know, I don't know if I've ever done the test, but I can tell you what I am. I'm a one for sure.

You're one? I'm a one.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know all that, all that it means, but definitely a one. My dad likes to tell this story of when I was little. I don't know how old I must have been, 18 months, two years, who knows? But he was trying to wean me off the pacifier, Right. It was time to, to drop the passy. And for anyone out there that's had an 18 month or two year old, you know, it can be a challenge to drop the passy.

I'm living through that right now.

Yeah. So he's like, okay, Andy, we're not going to do the passy anymore. I must have threw a fit or something. And he was like, okay, we. I will set the pacifier in your bed, but you can't touch it. And so he likes, he loves to tell the story of how the entire night I just laid there with my head facing the passy, but I never touched it.

That's hardcore, that level of discipline.

Like, I'm not going to touch the passy. Okay. So I chuckle at the story, but that's a story I connect to even as I think about things in my adult life now that when I decide I want to do well at something, I pursue it until I change my mind or accomplish my goal.

And what happens with excellence is you get to show other people that that bar can be raised. And there's so many stories, especially with athletes, where these athletic accomplishments have never happened before. The four minute mile. And then all it takes is for.

One person to raise that bar and.

Then all of a sudden, everybody else can do it too.

Yeah, totally.

So when you're looking at your future career, now you're a private business owner.

Yeah.

And you're doing graphic design, you're doing a lot of website design, you're doing a lot of message creation.

Yeah.

How do you find that your tend towards perfectionism fits into that. Good.

There's always that fine line as you're working towards excellence to not fall into perfectionism. One exercise for me is when I set the boundaries of a contract agreement with a client is that once I deliver the project and I'm done, like, I'm done. I'm not going to go back and email them and say, hey, I forgot to do this and you should change this.

It sounds like an artist. An artist always looks at their artwork and is just like, oh, one more thing never done.

And like, if it's something that I really think will help the client, I'll let them know. But usually when I'm done, I let it be and let them take responsibility for the next part of it. Because what I'm doing is, you know, I'm not helping them grow their entire business. I'm giving them one or two tools to put in their tool belt that they need to then put it to work and work it in their business.

And I think a lot of entrepreneurs, especially people who are new to business, they don't get that. They don't get that. Like, there really are five, six, seven different areas.

Oh, yeah.

Of running a business. And everything is overlapping and Connected.

Yeah. And I'm kind of learning all that myself as I'm going. And there's a lot of talk in our space about optimizing and scaling and hiring a virtual assistant and getting your automations all set up. And a lot of times it can feel like all this pressure, like, okay, what do I need to do next? And I'm wasting time and money and what I've been doing. Thanks to my story brand coach, shout out to Annie Fig and Shoe Downstage Media. My biggest need was just to earn money as quickly as possible because I had left my previous job. There was only so much severance money that I had and then that would run out and then I needed income. So like that was my biggest need right at the start. And she was just like, man, you just need to get scrappy. You just need to do the work. You need to figure out a system that's going to work for you, you know. And so I've been enjoying wearing all the hats that it takes as a solopreneur solo business owner. Eventually maybe I'll hand some of those off to other people, I don't know. But I'm just trying it out because I want to know how everything works right now.

Yeah. And that's where the fear comes in. Because it is extremely difficult to hand things off. It's extremely difficult to manage a team. I know my husband and I are co owners of the business, but I'm the primary operator in it.

Yeah.

And it was just me for the first three, four years solopreneur ing it. And just within the last two years we've actually expanded and now we have a full team. The fear is real from a perfectionist, from an enneagram one to say, well, nobody can write this Facebook post as good as me. Right. And even in the strong female space, we're starting to use this saying more and more about, yes, you can do it, but should you do it?

Absolutely. Different marketing channels that you can use, whether it's your website or email campaigns or social media. Which social media platform are you going to be on? Are you going to do blogs? Are you going to do YouTube? Are you going to do paid ads? Like even figuring out which ones do I want to focus on and then harnessing my energy towards that and being good at that instead of trying to be okay at everything. So that's even a process to figure out the other thing I do. And this goes back to being at ease in my work schedule. It doesn't always happen perfectly, but usually what I'LL do is I'll stack my projects. My business model is currently project based, not retainer based, so maybe that'll change in the future. But right now it's project to project. Most of the projects take three days. So I'll stack the projects where I'm only working on one project at a time. Monday to Wednesday, I'll do a project and then I won't start the next one until the following Monday.

So when you're looking forward with this mind of perfectionism and solopreneur, I'm right there with you. I feel that daily pressure. Do you have some type of spiritual discipline or physical discipline that really helps you keep one foot grounded so that you don't go over the edge?

A few different things come to mind. When I was starting my business, someone told me or I read somewhere the idea that work will fill the container that you give it. So start your business and your work schedule like you want it to be, you know, a decade from now or whatever, 20 years from now. And so I was like, well, I don't want to work Fridays because I want Fridays to be for appointments, grocery shopping, going on a date with my wife who works from home on Fridays so she has some flexibility, doing other things around the house, preparing for the weekend. Like I don't want to work Fridays. So I was like, okay, 10 years from now, 20 years from now, I don't want to work Fridays. So I'm going to start my business only working four days a week.

Is that what you're doing now?

Fridays are off limits. I'm not working. I will take a coaching call. I have some coaching calls through Story Brand that are on Fridays. So I still do those sometimes.

Well, you know, that's professional development, personal development.

I might filter through some emails on Fridays. I don't take appointments, I don't do client work. That has felt really great. Obviously the challenge is I need to make enough money in Monday to Thursday to keep that sustainable. So far so good. But that's one that Friday is a day I can breathe. Our daughter's still at school, so there's a lot of margin to get other things done that are not work related but that are essential to our life and health as a family.

Family and personally essential to your life and health as a family. Then just work. I woke up this morning with the anxiety of the day, of all the things to crank out. And immediately I went to. Well, my 15 year old needs to be registered for his baseball camp and my 5 year old needs to get Registered for T ball.

So that's one thing that's kind of a big on the macro weekly schedule. Then on the daily. Well, let me stay on the macro weekly. Saturday nights is family movie night and we hold to that pretty strong as a family. We'll eat dinner and watch a movie together.

Like Die Hard.

No, we don't want. No, this is a family movie night, Ellie. So we're watching some 8 year old friendly movie. Not Die Hard.

I got it.

That would be after we put our daughter to bed. Then we do a second movie and that's when we watch Die Hard.

Okay, good. I knew it had to be in there somewhere.

But seriously, that's a family rhythm that we do on the weekly that is intentional to create space for rest and connection. That's one of the ways that we feel connected as a family. Down into the daily. Like, I'm a morning person, so our daughter has to be at school at 8. So my morning starts at 5, and I have 5 to 7 to myself before I get her up and start the morning prepare for school routine. These are just some tangible things. So, like I get up at 5, I have time to journal, read scripture, pray, work out, read a book to stimulate my mind. And then I have a long connection time with my daughter before we drive to school. And so I do all that without turning my phone on on purpose. That's another thing. I turn my phone off at night.

And like, you actually use the off button.

Yeah, I literally turn it off.

I don't know where my off button is.

Some people. Some people need their phone to even fall asleep. So there's no judgment here. I'm just telling you what works for me. But having that time in the morning undistracted is super helpful and grounding to when my day starts. I feel like, okay, I've taken care of myself. The older we get, the more responsibility we have, the more attention we actually need. And we usually think it's the opposite. Babies and toddlers need attention, but the older you get, the less attention you should need. It's actually the opposite. And so I take that time in the morning to tend to myself because the rest of the day is me tending to everyone else. It is. Right?

Especially when you have little kids or when you're in a committed relationship.

Yeah. And then in the evening, we make it a point to have family dinner together. This is actually fun. Some dinners we will get the iPad out and watch a show at the dinner table while we eat. And that's fun and connective for Us other nights, we put the tablet away and we'll pull out a card game and play a card game while we eat so that we're interacting some way, somehow. We also do at dinner, we'll have a memory verse of scripture that we're learning. And then we do what we call appreciations. We'll say one thing we're grateful for and then one thing we appreciate about one of the other family members or Jesus and just getting that regular rhythm of like, okay, my day was actually terrible today. And with that, with the eyes of faith, I'm going to grab onto something that I actually am grateful for because there's always still something. And I'm going to let that be known in the evening, Shelly, the house shuts down at like 8 o'. Clock. Daughter in bed. I have a nice long stretching routine. I have some back issues I deal with, so I do this long stretching routine every night. It's very calming. She loves to do crossword puzzles, you know, sitting there with her little book light on the couch while I'm doing my stretches. Like, we just shut it down. And we'll sometimes watch a show together as well. So, like, those are just some things that help me to stay grounded, to be able to stay focused, to stay at ease. Those are things I've found helpful.

There's this serious pressure in our age group that we need to still be out there clubbing and have these crazy, crazy nightlives and up till four in the morning watching your favorite shows. And there's a song that my husband has really, really leaned into lately by Ben Rector, and it's Best life, right? Living the best life. And one of the verses says, I never thought I would have an opinion on an ottoman, but there's a whole.

Other way to live.

And it's wholesome. It's so beautiful and wholesome. And the thought of having your home shut down at 8 o' clock and having it nice and quiet and peaceful, that gives me a lot of hope that there's wonderful men out there like you that are doing that and giving that as a gift to your family.

Yeah.

And, you know, every family is different, which is a thing we say in our home all the time to protect against comparison and judging others. Because, like, some people might look at what we do. For instance, watching a show on the iPad, on the dinner table, oh, no, that's so bad. You know, how could you do that? And the reality being, like, every family has to take ownership for what God has given them and then say, okay, how do I best steward this. What does my family need so that we can be healthy, whole, loving people? I remember there was a time early in our marriage where we were doing in regards to our church life, we were doing every single thing that was being asked of us. And so from the outside it would look like, oh, look at them, they're so dedicated. They're so just on top of it. And we were really hurting on the inside and we were not actually loving people. We were so burned out and not even taking care of ourselves that we were not pouring out anything good. And that was very humbling realization to come to that I'm actually not loving people well, which is like central to my faith, right, Is loving people, loving God and loving people. And I was doing terribly at both while being incredibly busy. Every family unit or individual person has to decide what has God given me, how do I best steward this, what is going to help my family be healthy, whole and to love well. And that's the journey we're on as a family. We're still iterating as we go because we're a growing people and things change. But yeah, those are some things that have been helpful in recent seasons for us.

Well, I see you walking the walk because you have this in your public bio as it relates to your business. Andy says, unless it comes to the Wildcats or LeBron, I'm not interested in crushing the competition or dominating the industry. Yeah, I love working with peaceful companies and entrepreneurs who are committed to bringing truth, beauty and goodness to the world.

What matters to me is the Kentucky Wildcats winning more national championship, my alma mater, and LeBron James cementing himself as the greatest of all time. I'm from Ohio, come on. Anyway, they, they can crush, crush, crush the competition and dominate the industry. But yeah, I'm. As far as business goes, I'm. I want to come in to the work that I do with the mindset that I'm not in competition with people or other businesses. I'm here to serve. I'm here to provide value. I'm here to under promise and over deliver. I'm here to help people accomplish their goals. I'm here to provide excellent service. I'm here to affirm the dignity of the people I work with. So if I can do that and meet my financial goals while doing it, then I think it's going to be, I can say it's a successful business.

I think so too. So I know that there's a listener out there who is an entrepreneur or a business owner and they genuinely need a Good website.

Sure.

And they want something from Squarespace to go ahead and just knock it out. Right. Andy, tell me a little bit about how my listener can get in touch with you and the best way for them to be able to move forward.

Sure. The clientele I work with are mainly solopreneurs or micro teams, businesses or non profits who are in the service based industries. And the problem I keep encountering is people keep telling me I don't have time to build or update my website. If I did, I don't have the expertise to do it and don't want to have to go figure out how. I'd rather focus my time and energy on serving the people I love to serve. Awesome. I solved that problem. I can do all your brand messaging, all your website copy and your design and build in three days and I'll do it in just with just three hours of your time invested. How do I do it that quickly and still deliver a top notch production? On the messaging side, I use the Story Brand framework which helps to distill all the talking points that are needed to invite your customers into a story they see themselves in and they want to participate in. That framework has been proven over years with over 10,000 businesses and nonprofits utilizing it. And then on the design side, a lot of times you'd have to hire a copywriter, a developer and a designer. Well, I can do all three in one and I've been building on the Squarespace platform for over 10 years and so I'm very swift with it while keeping high quality.

That experience matters. I'm seeing a lot of Squarespace developers pop up, but they're new to the platform and I would so much rather hire Andy so he can knock it out with his 10 years of experience. Experience.

My website is clearsight.design and people can find me on Instagram @andyrodenbaugh. And I'd love to be in touch with any of your listeners that need help with their messaging or websites.

Wonderful. I see nothing but success for you in your future. Just not on Fridays. Thank you so much for bringing us Clearsight Design and the work that you do to lift up your family and to continue the kingdom forward here on earth. So best wishes to you, Andy, and you get the stamp of approval for being hardcore and at ease.

Thanks Shelly. Great being with you.

All right, let's talk about what just happened in that conversation. Because if you were listening through that phase filter like I asked in the beginning, you probably noticed something powerful. 5am mornings and an 8pm shutdown he designed his business around his life, not his life around the business. He protected Fridays from day one. He didn't wait for permission or success. His morning routine isn't a luxury and neither is yours. It's the foundation that makes everything else possible. This is the tactical center of the hardcore and addies framework. Everything builds from here. Now we saw phase two through his project stacking one client at a time. There was no context switching. He declined 20 proposals because he had clarity on what he will not do. He had available boundaries that were very clear in his contracts. And he chose service based work that aligns with his skills and his values. What Andy's living out is ambition, alignment in action. His drive is morally aligned with what he's doing in his business. And we saw phase three play out of who he was choosing to serve. He had 28 clients served well because he had the margin to serve them. He did 102 networking calls. He invested in these relationships and they were two way relationships. His 48 Google reviews are proof of a reputation that he built through excellence. And it's so great to see his business model evolving. He went from having templates to creating recurring revenue. This is how you generate momentum and expect excellence through these types of sustainable systems that serve others. And he absolutely can trust his own process. He hired two coaches which shows that he invested in his own growth and he built towards his 2026 goals. He knew right out the gate that freedom from debt was important and having reserves to fall back on was equally important. Andy replaced his W2 income on a four day work week. And he maintained that throughout the entire first year of his business. Andy demonstrates the sixth element of target trusting that the hardcore natty's framework works even when the outcome isn't guaranteed. And here's what makes Andy's success sustainable. All three phases are in place. He's not skipping phase one to rush into phase two. And he's certainly not sacrificing himself in phase one just so that he can scale his business with phase three work. And the result is that he did it. He replaced his full time income while working only four days a week. And that wasn't a hack. It was what happened when he gave proper attention to all three of his phases. So no matter where you are in life, I hope you're seeing Andy's story as encouragement and proof that there are ways to make our dreams happen. What if you and I protected our Fridays? What if we stacked our projects instead of juggling six things at once? What if we contracted with boundaries instead of just constantly being available. Because the truth is that Andy's not superhuman and neither are we. We just need to make different choices about what matters and then fiercely protect those choices with systems. And that's what I'm working on right now. That's what this entire framework exists to help us do. Before we wrap up, let's close out strong with your favorite segment. Get the gear. A good friend asked what microphone I'm using for this podcast. It is the Earthworks Ethos Broadcast microphone. It's what gives that really nice studio quality sound and it's really been a.

Game changer for recording quality.

So if you're podcasting, doing video calls, recording any kind of content, this is the mic and the affiliate link for it is in the show notes today. If you're listening to Andy's story and thinking, I want that, but I don't know where to start, well, you're not alone. I'm right here with you. And I'm catching myself too as I slide back into old patterns. That's exactly why we need account accountability and structure. This is the work that I do with mission driven leaders and coaching. We identify which phase you're working in and maybe which one you're skipping and we build out the boundaries to protect what matters most. We create the systems that let us serve others without sacrificing ourselves. You can email me at infomissionambition.org with the subject line Phase filter. Tell me which phase you think that you're skipping or battling with and let's schedule a strategy session. Let's build your version of Andy's four day work week together now. Next Tuesday and I'm here for you every Tuesday. We're going deep into our boundaries lesson that we started last week. We're chatting about walkways, windows and walls and how to make sure that what's important is to us is how we're living out our lives. And one thing that's extremely important to me is consistency.

It's why I'm here with you every.

Tuesday, because that's what we do. We show up, we stay consistent. How we keep our edge without going over the edge. This is hardcore and at Ease, powered by others of yourself. I'm Shelley Rude and I'll see you next Tuesday. Until then, stay hardcore, be at ease and trust the process.

You're listening to Hardcore and at Ease. Keep the conversation going at Join othersoverself. Com.