The Client Letter
September 5, 2013
The Desert of Arizona
Partly Cloudy 61 Degrees
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I have this habit of being way too willing to do work that I shouldn’t be doing.
It’s a remnant of the “people pleasing syndrome.” And while it’s a nice thing to do, it doesn’t exactly move me towards my goals. I’m getting better at it, but I still have to catch myself. Otherwise I end up doing the wrong type of work.
What is the “wrong” type of work?
Well in my book, it’s work that provides 1X value to the world instead of the amount of value I’m really able to provide… like 10X… or 1,000X.
The world doesn’t care which type of work I do. I can fill my days doing low value work or high value work. It’s my choice.
But I notice a difference depending on the type of work I do. Boy do I notice a difference.
And the quality of my life improves in direct connection to the value of the work I am offering to the world.
“If I could just get a few more clients, then things would be great.”
That’s something that any service provider might think. Get more clients and you’ll be OK. And that’s totally correct. But the minute you get those clients, then you realize what you’ve done.
You’ve filled up your TIME with the same level of work that you’ve been doing.
One way to deal with this is to start exercising your “lazy gene.”
Your lazy gene helps you discover ways to provide the world with more value without necessarily working harder. It’s a different way of seeing and a different way of approaching value creation.
Are you offering your full value to the world?
The goal isn’t to work more. The goal is to offer more value to the world per unit of work.
This is where creativity comes in. You have to exercise your “lazy” gene.
It’s not that you don’t want to work, it’s that you’re selective about the work you do because you truly GET just how limited your time is.
How do you do exercise your lazy gene exactly?
It’s not the answer that matters. I have no idea what your answer is. The important thing is that you ask the question.
The answer might not come immediately. It might not come tomorrow. It might not even come this year.
But I bet there’s an answer out there for you. An answer that could help you serve 1,000 clients at once without working any harder than you do right now to serve 1.
Think that sounds impossible? I don’t think it is.
It just requires a different way of seeing. A different way of seeing opportunity and of thinking about how to serve people in a much BIGGER way.