Have you ever wondered why many successful people tell you to work 80+ hours per week? Are you trying to prove your value, wondering whether you’re “doing enough?” What is an “insecure overachiever?” Join us today as Cash Flow Expert, Chris Miles, shares why so many will NEVER have time freedom, UNLESS they work on this one thing! Tune in now!
Chris Miles Bio:
Chris Miles, the “Cash Flow Expert,” is a leading authority on how to quickly free up and create cash flow for thousands of his clients, entrepreneurs, and others internationally! He’s an author, speaker, and radio host that has been featured in US News, CNN Money, Bankrate, Entrepreneur on Fire, and has spoken to thousands getting them fast financial results.
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Listen to the podcast here
Why Do Many Successful People Lack Time Freedom?
I’m going to welcome you again. Be sure to check out our website, MoneyRipples.com. Also, thank you so much for sharing this show, discussing it with others, and creating a mastermind around it. I love those who are taking action and letting me know about it. I love the fact that this is creating a ripple effect in your lives because that’s what it’s about. It’s for those who have worked hard and want something more to life than just the status quo. You don’t want to live a mediocre life. You want to lead an exceptional life. You want to live that life. You want to have that life of freedom, control, and prosperity. That’s what this show is about for you.
I want to talk about that very subject because this likely could be you or it could be somebody you know. I get a lot of people that say they want time freedom and even money freedom. A lot of times, you want financial freedom because you want to have that time freedom. You believe that the money will buy you time. You go for financial freedom as a way to create that time freedom to be able to control your schedule and live the life that you want. Many people will look at my life and say, “That’s so cool that you can do that.” It hasn’t come without a lot of effort and especially perspective change.
I was reading an article here. In fact, you can go to Google and find it. The article is called If You’re So Successful, Why Are You Still Working 70 Hours a Week? I love that because, especially in the space of those that are consultants or coaches, this is huge. For those of you that are professionals, you probably work long hours. Especially if you work for consulting firms, partnerships, management-type companies or are in management positions. This is a common practice. This is a common thing that happens.
In fact, I even watched this thing in Japan happen where I watched workers scurry around well after business hours were over. They would still scurry around because they were afraid of what others would think. They were afraid of being shamed and not being looked at as a hard worker. We are going to talk about that in this episode because this is what it comes down to.
The term they give for that person is a good hard worker. They give good value. They are exceptional in what they do. They are very capable and ambitious but driven by a profound sense of their own inadequacy. They refer to these people as insecure overachievers. These are people that often will move up the ranks into management or move up the ranks in their businesses.
If you consider yourself successful, you should not be working 70 hours a week. Click To TweetEven though they are capable and ambitious, they are more driven not because of mission as much as they are by their own inadequacies. These are the people that usually, from childhood, may have had parents they couldn’t impress. There are various factors or things where they are deprived of something. They are deprived of love or attention, so they would always try to perform better. These are people who over-perform. It’s exactly what it sounds like. They are insecure overachievers that do amazing work but the cause of that overachievement is not something that’s elevating. It’s something that’s limiting.
They talked about some human resource recruiters. These are people that focus on a target in business and companies. They realize they are self-motivating and self-disciplined. This may be you. You are self-motivated. You are self-disciplined. You might even have an organization that says, “We are the best. We want you to work with us, which makes you the best too.” They are like, “I’m part of the family.” They will even use things like, “You are part of this family,” or even more intense terms than that. Sometimes, people will say, “I felt like I was working with a cult.”
This can also happen with organizations where they might give you all of these dreams, hopes, and everything else. They will build up your ego but ultimately, you are driven. They recognize that they can pretty much take advantage of the fruit of your own labor, so to speak. Here’s what happens. Here’s what’s really at the heart of it, whether you are joining this job or firm, you are getting new clients, or whatever it might be, you discover that. This is either you are moving up or moving out-type of policy. I remember hearing that in some businesses I worked with. They are like, “Either you move up or you move out.”
There’s no standing still. There’s no getting comfortable. You got to get out of your comfort zone. The up or out type of policy increases insecurities and fears because you don’t want to be exposed as being inadequate. You don’t want to be rejected. Since you don’t want to be exposed, you go above and beyond the call of duty to try to prove to them. You are also proving to yourself that you are worthwhile and give great value.
You are trying to help your clients as much as you possibly can. You want them to feel good about you and your work over time. You will give them all this extra mile work. The extra mile isn’t bad, and the clients respond to it. They are like, “This is great. Thank you. I feel important,” and that re-emphasizes it more of how you want to keep doing this, and that reinforces it. If you are around other people that also feel this way, then you create this comradery of these insecure overachievers.
I’ve heard of these people that are coaching other business owners or coaches saying, “You got to be working 100 hours a week until you are successful. You got to be doing this and this. You got to get out there and hustle.” We’ve talked about hustle in the show before. The funny thing is that language fires up those of us that are insecure overachievers.
I say us because I’m referring to myself. I’ve had to do a lot of work on myself of being an insecure overachiever. I will give you an example. In the previous company that I had before Money Ripples, I was working with that group. They had a very much of an up-and-out policy. You got to move up or move out. There were several times I was threatened because I wasn’t conforming to the things that they wanted me to do.
I had a vision of what I wanted to create. I wanted to do it my own way. I beat to my own drum a little bit differently. As a result, I got a little bit of pushback from them. When things got hard, I was the one that stuck around, and all the rest quit. It shocked those that were working there. They are like, “You are going without a paycheck.” Why? One, I was driven by mission but I was also driven because I wanted them to know that I was there to create value. I wanted to create value for the organization as well as for my clients. I knew deep down that I was the one that could do it.
Eventually, as I started gaining more confidence, even though I became less insecure and more secure and confident in my abilities, I was still trying to prove to myself and everybody else that I was there. I would be one of the first to show up and the last to leave at night. I would be doing everything I can to add value to the company, too. I remember saving them tons of money like restructuring how they did the whole coaching program and everything else. I did all kinds of stuff to try to prove that I was a linchpin.
Seth Godin talks about being that linchpin where you are irreplaceable. If you are taken out of the equation, that falls apart, and it did. They had a rough couple of years while they were trying to figure out what they were because I was running the whole coaching show. It was fascinating to watch that happen. When I go into my own business, then it’s all me. I got to prove to people, “I’m the guy that can help you get the results you want.” I still got to eliminate some of them.
The up-and-out policy increases insecurities and fears because you don't want to be exposed as being inadequate. Click To TweetI have so many testimonials on my site that it is almost ridiculous. I didn’t even put all of them up. I’m very picky about what I even put up there. I have more testimonials than even what I have up there. Why did I do that? I want to try to prove myself and my worth. That’s the thing, whether you are trying to justify your rates or higher fees. This is interesting because you are going above and beyond. You are working yourself to death.
In an organization like this, eventually, if their employees move up in management or move to the top, that attitude and hard work that got them there is the very thing they are promoting to people that are coming into the company and that they are managing. People feel like, “I got to keep up with that leader.” You perpetuate and spread it everywhere.
In business, you do that too. If you are coaching people, you are telling them they got to do the same thing and work their tails off. I’m not saying business isn’t hard work. If anything, I don’t think it’s hard labor. It’s harder in the mental space, the thinking or the brain power that it uses to be creative, to innovate, and do those things.
It’s fascinating. When I read this article, I resonated with it because I realized I’d done this same thing. I remember I used to have a clause that said, “Money back guaranteed.” It was like, “There are refunds. If you do all the work and all the recommendations I asked you to do but don’t get the results, then I will give you your money back or make up the difference.”
It’s interesting. When I had people that came to me, I asked them, “What do you want?” They were like, “I want to make my tuition back. I want to make my money back.” At the time, I was thinking, “That’s great. I want you to do that too,” but I started calling people when they would say those things, like, “I want to make I get my return back.” If they are going to go into it with that attitude, I realized that it doesn’t work. Someone like me, especially where I have the temptation to want to over-deliver.
It’s not bad to go the extra mile for people and deliver more value than what you’ve paid. That’s what you should be doing. When you feel this immense guilt that you got to create or keep doing more to the point where you were almost dragging them along with you and not doing anything but you are trying to drag them on to make sure they get those results so that they are happy. It takes way more energy and time. It destroys you as a person.
I remember hating different phases of my business when I would go through that cycle. I would attract those people. I stopped telling people about having any money-back guarantee. I tell them flat out, “I won’t take you on unless I can at least get double the result of what you pay me. If I can’t do it, then I will probably send you on your way or give you a resource and run along.” I don’t even want to deal with that because of that temptation.
If anything, I’m more qualifying the people that come to me that want to become clients or are interested in becoming clients. I qualify them more because I know that if they come in with that attitude of, “I want to make that money back. I hope I do it. I hope this works. I’m not sure,” they have all these doubts and fears. It’s not going to be a good fit, especially because I know my tendency. That’s why I love this article. I know there are people out there like me and you guys. Some of you are about delivering value.
In fact, my wife brought it to my attention when I had some clients that were getting upset about the value that they were getting. I rarely ever deal with that. It was crazy. I’m like, “These guys can get easy value. Why aren’t they getting it? Why aren’t they doing what I’m asking them to do?” My wife said, “What are you doing to attract those people?” I was like, “What do you mean what am I doing to attract those people?”
She said, “You keep teaching about telling people to create value. The reason you put such a big emphasis on that is that you wonder if you are enough. You wonder if you are giving enough value all the time. It’s not just in your work. It’s at home. You will overwork yourself at home and try and take care of the family when it’s not even necessary. In fact, you will do things that we don’t even ask for. How are you doing that in your business too?” It was one of those moments like, “I don’t like to hear this because I hate the fact when you are right.” It was true.
If you keep overworking, there's no such thing as time freedom for you. Click To TweetThere are a lot of times I would try to overwork. For me, that time is freedom, and this is what it comes down to. If you can’t kick this and you have these tendencies, there’s no such thing as time freedom for you. The way to kick this ability to create that time of freedom, for me, was a big upset. Going through a divorce a couple of years ago rocked my world. That got me to the point where I couldn’t overwork because I was emotionally not capable of overworking. I didn’t want to do any work at all, so I managed the clients that I had.
I started to ask myself and be honest, “Where is there fluff in my schedule? Where is there fluff in my business?” I mean fluff by wasted activities or activities that don’t produce the rate of return you would hope. I started to look at that and thought, “There are plenty of places it’s happening. I got to eliminate some of these things.” I started to eliminate activities. I started to eliminate different things I would do or go to. As I did that, I started to free up my schedule.
Here’s the hardest part when I did that. I then started questioning, “Am I doing enough?” That came up again. I was like, “Is it enough?” That is a typical thing of that insecure overachiever. They are like, “Is it enough? Maybe I should be delivering more. Maybe I should do this or this. Should I take on this new project? I should be doing something else to fill in that gap,” instead of saying, “You are okay. It’s great.”
I struggled with that for months. Even though I started to believe and adopt it, it still took several months for me to do it. I will hear successful people talk about all the hard work it takes. If you are starting in business especially or starting at any venture, there is going to be work upfront. There’s no doubt. It doesn’t have to be 60 or 70-plus hours a week but it’s possible that you might need to put a little bit of focus up front. Over time, you will start to notice that if you are not careful, this can become a habit. It’s not a necessity but because of habit.
I’ve watched successful people that can make millions of dollars a year and are still stuck overworking because of different things. The one I’m focused on is being this insecure overachiever. Be careful. Start to recognize that. Start to be aware. Be conscious of when you make these decisions. Ask yourself, “Is what I’m doing now necessary? Is this something I need to be doing? What are my specific goals?” Make sure you have specific goals, “Is what I’m doing going to get me towards my goals?”
As I shared in one of the episodes where I talked about how I had burned out as a financial advisor and a stock coach, the same thing shows up here. I had to ask myself, “What am I doing?” When I’m done with work, I go home. I don’t twiddle my thumbs, worrying if I did enough. I say, “That’s great. I did what I needed to do,” and leave. That’s the same recommendation to give to you as well. Don’t let this become a habit.
Especially as money becomes less of an issue, you will notice that with more money freedom. You will start to wonder if you need to do more. The truth is you don’t. It’s okay to choose to do more. If it’s something that lights you up and gives you passion, that’s great but watch that balance. Make sure you are taking care of yourself first instead of trying to sacrifice yourself for an organization or your business.
In the end, if you want to last longer, if you don’t want to get burned out or be dying young, there’s going to be a lot of people we are going to probably see die young because they burn out in business. There are going to be business leaders that you look up to that all of a sudden are going to say, “Their life was jacked up. It was horrible.” You want that lifestyle. You want that freedom, especially that time freedom. It’s got to start with you, understanding that it’s possible. Especially if you are that insecure overachiever, watch yourself. Watch your thoughts, watch what you are even saying, your behaviors, and then work on that.
That’s my challenge for you. For those of you that are awesome value creators that are talented, ambitious, and hard workers, yet you feel like it’s still not enough, this could be the key for you to be able to experience time freedom right away. I hope you make it a wonderful, prosperous, and time-abundant freedom. Enjoy that you are enough, amazing, and incredible. You are a value creator and rippler, creating a ripple effect in this world. Have a great day.