How to Stop Drifting and Find Focus w/ Jule Kim | Ep 437

**Chris Do** (0:00)
Doing stuff is not equal to working, because we're always doing something, but we're not always working, especially when I was working on things that matter.
So when we say we're going to take a longer break or check our social feed, we confuse that activity and we convince ourselves that's actually going to generate something for us. Unless you're in the media business, unless it's your job to respond to comments and to look at what's going on and to report on trends that you're noticing or to provide reports on user sentiment, then that's not really working. That's something else. It's a distraction. It's an avoidance strategy, I think.

**Jule Kim** (0:38)
So then let's get into this. What do you consider work and all the stuff you do every day?

**Chris Do** (0:44)
In the stuff that I do. And we have to kind of caveat by what is it that I do. And for some people, they'd be really confused like, Oh, I just thought you host podcasts and YouTube videos. Well, that's part of the job. So we're a media company, primarily with an educational arm to it, that sells products, educational products in the form of standalone study at your own pace things, to digital downloads like booklets and guides and templates, to group coaching and then the higher touch stuff, it's like one-on-one coaching and public speaking and workshops.
Now, the things that I do that I will consider work, the recording of this piece of content is work for me. So all the prep that goes into it, all the stuff that has to be done afterwards, that's work. Checking in our channels, seeing how things are performing, responding to comments, that's work. Because it needs to be done and if I don't do it, somebody else will do it, but I'm going to be the person to do it. And then there's the actual coaching calls themselves, the one-on-ones, the group coaching, sometimes requires pre-work, sometimes it doesn't just show up and I'm good to go.
I'll give you an example. If you're a product manager, your probably highest priority is the ship, ship products and features on time. That's what your highest priority is. You could probably care less about what the other people in the company are doing. So you can see like depending on who you ask and what their priorities are, they're going to have a very different answer and take on this.

**Jule Kim** (2:11)
I think this is kind of the crux of it though, right? We have, I don't know, how many millions of people who have a job is questionable whether what percentage of them are actually delivering the results that the people at the top want. And yet, on the one side, on the worker side, they would say that they are doing work.

**Chris Do** (2:32)
Yeah. It's a classic management and labor disagreement or dispute. And there are lots and lots of people out there, quote, unquote, working, making effort, but actually not moving the needle.
And this is a responsibility that's shared by all. And basically, it doesn't really matter whose fault it is. If they don't do the work that's productive and moving the needle, then eventually the company will go sideways. The biggest problem, I think, to this is, we try to measure people's time. We try to measure people's energy, but we very rarely measure outcomes. In your life, you'll probably have three problems to follow you everywhere you go if you're an entrepreneur. Lead gen, sales, and delivery.
And they're kind of tied together.

**Jule Kim** (3:17)
So you already know that I'm wanting to build a personal brand. I'm wanting to put my ideas and my thoughts out there.
For me, that feels like work. But sometimes I question it. I have days where I question this because it's like, is that actually adding to lead gen in my business?
And I know that's debatable. I've had clients where when I asked them, okay, so what made you reach out to me? And then, what made you hire me instead of the other coaches you were looking at? And they'll literally say that they did some major cyber-socking. They went through my social profiles. They read posts. So I have days where I feel discouraged. I feel like I didn't really do any work. But then I have these small moments of maybe validation. It's like, well, at least something happened. Something moved a needle, even if I didn't see it at that time. So I think earlier when you were talking about every business has the same three problems. Lead gen, sales and delivery. And you hit them in a particular order, I noticed. So first, you're going to have a lead gen problem. And once you have that solved, you're going to have a sales problem. And then next is delivery. So I suppose it's up to us to correctly identify which stage we're at for the constraint. And I would say right now I'm back down to lead gen, having sort of switched my business.