I used to think low engagement meant I was doing something wrong. Wrong offer? Wrong content? Not showing up enough? But I realized it wasn’t about me trying harder. It was about the space not feeling safe enough for people to show up honestly. When I stopped trying to “perform” and ask myself what does my community want to feel? People responded. Gently. Slowly. But meaningfully. For brains like ours, big energy isn’t always sustainable. But safety? Your Pace? Realness? That works. @Sebastian Schroeder thank you for all your reflections, it has been quietly nudging me to this ✨What would it look like to build a space that feels safe for people like you to be fully themselves?

Very early on in Focus Founder's journey, @Rex Loyer created a channel in our company chat called "Company Wins". It's one of my favorite systems he's contributed to our company's growth. It's a channel dedicated entirely to sharing our little wins along the way. Clients telling us we were "born to do this" or that they've "never felt understood like this before" Community members sharing how much this community has impacted their lives A photo of myself sending out stickers to the winners of our first ever challenge Screenshots of us ranking #1 for "ADHD" in Skool discovery, or of us achieving the ⭐ Or, most recently, a video @Amber Kay sent to us of her fully set-up Christmas tree that we dropped off at her house this morning so she could have some Christmas spirit in her house. Any time there's something I feel excited about or proud of, I write it down and send it in the wins channel. Whether that's hitting a milestone, selling a new client, celebrating client or community member wins, catching my co-founder doing something awesome... whatever. Then, any time I'm feeling down about myself or unsure of the company, I can just hop in that channel and scroll through a wall full of wins to remind me why I'm doing what I'm doing and the impact it's making on people in Austin and around the world. This is a small but extremely powerful habit that is one of my defenses against shiny object syndrome and rejection sensitivity to remind me how the negative thoughts in my head are just that - thoughts. Not reality. Entrepreneurship is not easy. Celebrating the wins keeps you in the game when things get tough. Do you regularly celebrate your wins? Better yet, did you have a system to capture them? If not, I highly recommend you set one up. For Rex and me, it's a channel inside Signal we created between the two of us called "Company Wins"

Yesterday I deleted 3 calls off my calendar. Not because I couldn’t do them. But they weren’t aligned with my top priorities. I’ve been running fast, overcommitted, overstimulated, over it. So I slowed down. I said “no” more times in one day than I had in a week. And instantly, my energy came back online. The ROI of saying less is real. Clear thinking. Stronger boundaries. Time to actually build what matters. We don’t need more hacks. We need more discernment. What’s one thing on your calendar this week that’s a distraction in disguise?

Fire nation unite!!!!! I got me freaking 🔥 at some point today 😀 Thats all Thats my win Im just super greaking excited about that 😆

So, I just finished listening to a podcast episode with Mel Robbins and Dr. K about motivation (https://youtu.be/H_WJ5hgWLFo?si=K_RWIN5evXiWIRk5) and that was eye-opening, but anyway. Hustling and working your ass off is not getting you anywhere, if you don't know what you are doing. And why. And where you want to get to with all that hustling. So getting clarity helps - because it gives you certainty that you are not wasting your time and energy. Let me repeat that: The certainty that you are not wasting time and energy. And this is by no means a 100% success rate guarantee. It is the gut feeling, the estimated guess, the BELIEVE in something that at least gives you progress in the right direction. Something, that even when you fail with it, gives you valuable data, to evolve in the desired direction. And desired direction is key here, because if I do not have a desired direction, useful data you might gain from failure, as well as even being able to measure the success, is impossible. But if you have all that in place, go for the hard work. Motivation comes not from doing something that is easy, it comes from concentrating on the task at hand, and doing it despite the feeling of resistance. Which, again, is hard work. If you know that it will pay off in the end, one way or another, it is totally worth it. So, in case you wonder, I gained some more clarity today. (And some new great business ideas, I really, really should stop that). And with that comes the certainty, that I can shape a plan, action steps, and execute on a strategy, that might or might not work, but is worth the effort, because it is aligned with what I want to achieve. Big win, actually.