You have a choice – You can choose to create discipline and certainty in your business – here’s how!
Episode Transcription
Den Lennie (1s):
Howdy, guys! Den Lennie here host of the How to scale a Video Business Podcast with this week Shorty episode number 149. Can’t believe we’re a rocking up these numbers like we are. But there you go. Oh, that’s what happens with consistency. So today I want to talk about how you can avoid the feast and famine. And it’s all about choice. I’m talking about choice. You know, you get to choose how you show up and how you attack your day your month, your year, because you can make this the best year ever if you choose.
Den Lennie (45s):
And so this, this notion of choice, you know, we, we typically add default to habits, habits that are ingrained in us from childhood habits that are ingrained in us because we do things the same way every time. And, and as creative as typically showing up in a, in a certain way, especially when things get difficult. So if it’s a difficult or awkward and an opportunity or a, or a challenge, How how do we show up? Do we typically kind of go and do the shiny fund stuff or do we attack the difficult stuff? And I’m going to argue that. And most cases, people tend to fall back on the easy path.
Den Lennie (1m 30s):
And the easy path is rarely the path where you are going to make the most growth, rarely the path where you going to see the most, you know, expansion of your mind, and rarely where you going to get anything but the pattern emerging of default behavior. So, you know, if you are starting this year and you’re wondering how you are gonna ddo it differently, and you do it differently by planning, you do it differently by setting an intention and executing consistently. And that is probably the hardest thing that you will face in your business.
Den Lennie (2m 11s):
Growing Video Business is, is the consistency that is required to achieve the goals that you want. Typically, what happens as, as creative as we come up with a shiny idea, we want to execute it to do things differently, and that was great. And production by when it comes to business, you need consistency. So on this topic of choice, do you know, you get to choose what you do and you get up in the morning, you get to choose whether or not you go out and exercise or eat well take the easy path or take the more challenging path. And if you are someone who is used to the Rollercoaster or the Feast and Famine, and in some cases you might even get off of it.
Den Lennie (2m 56s):
You might even like, feel it as a drug, like, you know, ah, I’m going really bust my gut and kind of like push through for the next month or two, and then I’ll rest. But if you would like to have a more consistent life in a more consistent Business, then you have to start building consistency into absolutely everything that you do. You can’t simply pick and choose when you want to be consistent. And that can be a very challenging obstacle in business and in life as a creative, because you have to develop discipline and that’s the deiscipline to do things that you don’t necessarily want to do when you don’t necessarily want to do them, but you do them any way.
Den Lennie (3m 38s):
And, you know, everybody has challenges at home. Everyone has challenges in business, everyone challenges in life. Everyone has their own demons to deal with it or challenges to deal with. But the, the, the key is to, to understand it and, and recognize when those demons are showing up and, and pushing through it godless. And so, you know, you get to choose how to show up, you know, you can have a tough day and decide to open a beer or a bottle of wine, or you can have a tough day eat some healthy food, drinks, and water, and get an early night and realized that that feeling is only going to be temporary. It’s going to pass.
Den Lennie (4m 18s):
And, and, and, and I really believe that their successes business and in life is down too micro decisions, micro that we make to go left or to go, right. Do we go out and eat the bag of chips, or do we eat, you know, the salad? And, you know, it, I found this in my own life is that I’ve, I’ve always tended to kind of comfort eat. And if I’m feeling like a challenge, I would go and eat at a nice piece of you, you know, banana bread or something. But that the tough thing to do is to actually allow that feeling to subsite. And, and one of the, what are the ways in which they’ve been able to do that, and, and I’m still working on this a a hundred percent working on it is intermittent fasting.
Den Lennie (5m 3s):
So I had been intermittent fasting for about three to four months now, when I don’t eat between 8:00 PM and 12th, mid day. So it’s 16 hours of fasting, and there’s all sorts of research, which explains the benefits of your body going into ketosis. I’m not here to convince you one way or the other two, even do it, but I’m just saying that that’s what for me, but that started while it didn’t drink for six months, So, I, I’ve always struggled with discipline around food. And so I didn’t drink for six months. And then that gave me some, a stronger sense of self discipline. And, and that’s really helped me know with intermittent fasting.
Den Lennie (5m 45s):
I’m, I’m, I’m tracking my calories. If my fitness power lost 1.2 kilos, and the last fortnight, I’m really chuffed about that because I’m tracking the data. And, but it’s always a choice. Do you know if it’s a choice to, to, to have what you want in life, if you want a business that is successful and consistent, then you have to choose consistency and you can’t get, you know, you can’t have erratic Business methods going on in your life. If you want a consistent business with predictable income and cashflow. And I think the biggest obstacle that faces business owners and the creative space is our creative egos.
Den Lennie (6m 29s):
We think that, you know, we’ve got to do everything ourselves, and then there can be a panic that sets, and that says, wow, you know, I’ve got to do all this stuff to communicate that keeps the wheels turning. And, and so what I’m saying to you is it’s always a choice. You have a choice as to how you show up. You have a choice about how you spend your time. You have a choice about what you spend your time on it. And you know, what we are focusing on in the VBA just now is securing a solid strategic plan for 2021. And, and, and filling out the data that allows you to track and set a benchmark for where you’re at today, so that you can evolve that and track it month on month.
Den Lennie (7m 13s):
So you can grow tomorrow and beyond. And so, you know, be, be asking yourself this question, you know, are you making the right choices? Are you choosing to develop e-business in life that it has predictability? Or are you leaving some of it to chance? Are you genuinely investing and the right areas of your life, or are you someone who thinks, well, I’ll just pick a bit from here in a pet from that, and I’ll watch few YouTube videos then I’ll, and I’ll kind of just like our mix makes it all together and come up with my own solution. And because that is not a winning combo, you’ve got to be very, very aware and very, very diligent to self-sabotage very diligent, two habits that don’t serve you very diligent, too, not falling into patterns of behavior that don’t serve you and make sure you are looking after yourself.
Den Lennie (8m 10s):
You know, one of the areas that have helped me enormously is meditation. You know, I’ll often wake up on a Monday morning. I was saying to my wife, so I’m just yesterday. You know, I always wake up on a Monday morning feeling a little bit anxious, a bit restless, a bit concerned. And I think it is because I’ve generally had the best part of a weekend off. And that’s only just recently actually I’ve started taking the Sundays off and after 11 years in business. And so I’m, I’m exploring, you know, more photography, I’m doing some work, some of the things that really kind of feed my soul, but I wake up on Monday morning feeling guilty that I hadn’t worked on a Sunday and I’m not something behind. So what I’ll do is I have meditate it for 45 minutes and a Monday morning that I’ll have a coffee and a high of a salmon and the dogs.
Den Lennie (8m 53s):
And when they go to yoga and I’m going to start walking into love, meditate for 45 minutes and then an hour of yoga. And that tends to set me on the right track for the week. But, but, but I’m still, I’m still susceptible to being influenced by exterior forces. And So, I, I’m a first step is to be aware when you are being influenced by a force one way or the other, acknowledge it, ask yourself, is there a lesson in here be great for in the sea? Thank you. That’s really helpful. I’ve launched something from this and then move on. And if you’ve got a strategic plan, and if you’ve got a, a, a very disciplined way of operating than you will, you’ll find yourself any much stronger position to move forward with clarity.
Den Lennie (9m 38s):
And, and in the best advice I can do is say, a few years is here. If you are having a day that doesn’t feel a bit off and then move your body gone and go and walk or run or do whatever it is you do and, and change your physiological state, because that will change the way your brain feels. And, and, and they see, it’s always a choice as to, for me guys. I we’ll see you on Thursday. You’ve been listening to the how to scale a video Business podcast with me, your host den Lennie. If you are a video business owner, that’s hit the ceiling and would benefit from a mentorship support and coaching and check out how you can work with me over at denlennie.com.
Den Lennie (10m 17s):
Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the shore over on iTunes. I mean, I really appreciate your taking a few minutes to leave a review, and don’t forget to share if you feel you’ve gotten value from this episode that you think it would be useful for other filmmakers, you know, and please do me a massive favor and share it on social media and in groups that you might be in. So thanks for listening. See you in the next episode.
