Energy Dynamics for Entrepreneurs

Uh oh. Have we already triggered you just based off of that question alone?

Look, it’s no secret that one of the biggest “sacred cows” of entrepreneurial productivity is the daily routine – the set of activities that you religiously observe because you believe that they will make you successful.

Pause – before you lose your sh*t. We’re not about to try and convince you that having routines is bad. For from it. Every successful person in the known universe has some level of personal discipline, and discipline stems from healthy routines.

In fact, we champion specific routines and rituals inside of all of our curriculum. So when we ask if you really NEED a daily routine, we’re genuinely asking. Does your specific personality require that level of rigidity? Or is that stringent set of activities choking out part of what makes you truly unique?

Once you start thinking through the lens of energy dynamics, you will realize that there is more nuance to this than the hustle gurus would have you believe.

Entrepreneurs are a rare breed, aren’t we?

The typical entrepreneur is required (to some extent) to be both logical, measured, and methodical… AND creative, innovative, and “out of the box.” As such, most of the entrepreneurs we meet and work with are both gifted left-brained and gifted right-brained thinkers.

Which is a difficult combination to have. The left side of your brain is attracted to the idea of rigidity, routine, and repetition. But the right side of your brain would rather be DEAD than do the same exact thing in the same exact way every single day ad nauseum.

Why is this? The answer lies with the Reticular Activating System (or RAS).

The RAS is a bundle of neurons at the base of your brain stem, the primary function of which is to filter out unnecessary information and signals, ensuring that only the ones it has deemed as important will get through.

Taylor breaks it down a bit more in this video:

Your RAS is tuned to filter information based on three criteria:

• Is it new/novel?
• Is it aligned with what I’m already looking for?
• Is it a threat?

SIDE NOTE: Because of how it filters info, your RAS can be trained (and even tricked) into helping you achieve the things you want. If you’ve read the book Psycho Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, then you have heard of the “Theater of the Mind.” This is a method of training your RAS to filter out any information that is not in service of your best possible outcome.

Back to the point at hand. If you regularly employ the creative side of your brain, you are also drawn to uniqueness (courtesy of your RAS). So having a stringent, daily routine that sees you basically living the movie Ground Hog Day, is at odds with how you are designed to work.

So, how do we appease the left side of the brain, with it’s desire for predictability and certainty, while also appeasing the right side, which is drawn to variety and uniqueness?

The answer is actually a hybrid approach. Moving from set daily routines, to set weekly routines.

Daily routines may make you tough and resilient and disciplined. But weekly routines will make you rich.

A weekly routine gives you just enough productivity (via consistency) to hit your targets, and just enough novelty to allow you to be creative in how you’re hitting them.

Example:

You want to go to the gym every weekday. A great goal! Good for your mind, body and spirit. Most people who were trying to make that a habit would reach for a daily routine – “I’ll wake up every day at 5 a.m., be at the gym by 6 a.m. and be finished by 7 a.m.” … every… single… day.

What if, instead, you employed a weekly routine. Something like this:

“I go to the gym on Monday and Tuesday first thing in the morning. Then on Wednesday I go in the afternoon (during lunch break). Then on Thursday, I go in the morning. Friday, I go in the afternoon.”

That may sound crazy, and hectic to keep track of.

But notice something. You’re STILL FOLLOWING A PATTERN. But you’re programming your brain to see novelty inside of that pattern.

We call this process “weekly mapping.” There’s a full break down of exactly how we train all of our clients and employees to map their weeks inside of our product called Peak Productivity.

So, why is weekly mapping an effective means of getting more productive?

There are two version of every entrepreneur that they vacillate between.

Version A is the “get sh*t done” version.

Version B is the “rest, reset, and wander” version.

Weekly mapping allows you to train both simultaneously, as opposed to daily rituals and routines, which tend to train only Version A.

Both versions are required, working in tandem, for you to be successful without burning out. If you only focus on feeding Version A of yourself, you’ll eventually end up where most hustle addicts do… resetting and looking for happiness in your business.