Learn how saving more money isn’t always the answer and what’s possible when you look at something as an experiment. Stephen Warley also explains his belief that the nature of work is changing.

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Stephen Warley runs a community and weekly podcast called Life Skills That Matter.  He believes work as we know it is changing. Stephen is on a mission to spread that message and help people prepare for it.

Important Highlights and Takeaways

  • Self-employment is a more natural way of being human and being 100% yourself
  • Trying self-employment for a year will teach you more than you ever imagined
  • Working for yourself makes you more attractive to future employers should you decide that self-employment is not for you
  • Working for yourself is a shift in self-identity
  • The hardest question you’ll ever answer for yourself is “What do I want?”
  • The industrial revolution let us put off thinking about and getting clear about what we really want
    • Technology we have created is now forcing us to answer it
    • What we really want will translate into the work we do
  • If you are feeling overwhelmed by a big project or a dream you have, write out a recipe for you what you think is involved:
    • What are all the ingredients you think you need?
    • What do do you think the steps are?
    • Who can you ask for help?
    • What’s the smallest next step you can take (even if it feels too small)?
  • You are self-employed the minute you decide to work on your own terms
  • Make calendar appointments with yourself–YOU are your most important customer
  • Be aware of past failings or disappointments you may be interpreting the future with
  • Looking at John’s next step as an “experiment” opened up so many new possibilities because there could be no “failure”
    • This is the future of work
    • Increasing uncertainty will require continuous iteration
    • Self-reflection becomes an important part of this process as well
  • Each week Stephen checks in with himself (self-reflection) to evaluate what is working and what is not working
  • If experiencing a series of negative thoughts, write them all out and get clear on what’s going on
  • Being stuck is a positive thing
    • It doesn’t mean something is wrong with you
    • Acknowledge it as a sign that something needs to change

If You’re at a Company

  • How can you start showing up now as an entrepreneur or consultant at your company now?
    • How could that change your mindset and the way you approach your work?
  • Get really clear on how much money you (not anyone else) need each month to live
    • “Your Number” is your number–it’s person specific
    • Provides freedom and clarity by breaking fears down into real numbers
    • This helps dictate how many customers you need or what your projected monthly income needs to be
    • You might be surprised to learn that the amount you need is much less than you assumed
  • Tuning your resume is the wrong first step in the job search process.  Instead:
    • Get really clear and define the type of work you want to do and are passionate about
    • Find companies doing the kind of work you want to do
    • Tailor your resume to those desires

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Credits

All songs licensed under Creative Commons

Transcript

This transcript was created automatically and may contain small errors.

Stephen: Work is fundamentally changing as you know it. And every day that you don’t do anything about it, every day that you don’t educate yourself about how work is changing, every day that you don’t learn a little bit more about yourself, you are going to put yourself at a disadvantage and you’re going to increase your anxiety and your stress levels. The more you cling to work as you know it, the more that you think your security is going to continue to come from a job, from a corporation or a government agency, because that That is just not where work is going.

John: Today I’m talking to Stephen Warley from the Life Skills That Matter podcast. Steven, thanks for joining me.

Stephen: Thank you so much, Mr. Poelstra, for having me on the show.

John: You’re welcome. Well, Steven is one of the puzzle pieces that has gotten me on this new adventure that I’m on, which is, uh, Going deeper with coaching. You could call it self-employment. You call it a leave of absence. You can call it whatever you want. And I thought it’d be great to talk to him today to talk about a couple of the pieces of the puzzle that he helped me put together through his challenges and ongoing conversations. And then also to have Steven share more about exactly what Life Skills That Matter is and his beliefs about the future of work, which some may think are very radical, which I think he might have— he might be onto something here. So

Stephen: you know what, John? Somebody— I feel like this sometimes— and somebody yesterday, I was in a mastermind call of sorts, and somebody said the original root of the word radical is it means rooted. And they were saying, they were almost giving me permission to be radical. ‘Cause sometimes I’m like, am I going too far? But as you know, I’m a person who’s like really thought about this and lived this for years. And I’m not one to, uh, just like normally shoot from the hip. It’s all coming from a very rooted place.

John: So just to kind of root the conversation, can you give like a, just a, just give your quick you know, how you got— maybe what you’re doing today, where you started from, how you got there, and then I’ll kind of weave in the couple of questions, the puzzle pieces that you challenged me with.

Stephen: So I believe the future of work is going to be rooted in self-employment in some way. I believe work is going to look more like what we think of self-employment right now. because of automation, because of huge disruptions in how things are made and done. How we look at work is going to completely change in the next definitely 20 years, might even be 10. And I believe I’ve been living this life for 17 years because I got laid off. I always say corporate America did the best thing for me, did me the biggest favor of my life. It kicked me off onto this path because I never thought I would ever work for myself. I never thought of it as an option. And now I can only understand as I’ve really gotten deep into this research and into understanding what is work, how is it going to change, that we have an entire system that indoctrinates you to think that the only way to survive, to pay your bills, to get income is you have to go to a large organizational entity, a public or private to get work. And now because of the internet and all these other new technologies, that’s not true anymore. We’re kind of getting back to what we were as humans, that we need to help each other create work.

John: Say more about this idea too of the company not being the lifeline or the mothership or whatever. I want to say many years ago, Pam Slim started this whole idea that she had a book, Escape from Cubicle Nation, and this idea that companies aren’t as safe as everyone thinks that they are.

Stephen: Right. And even recently, she’s kind of pulled back and said that, yeah, in that, that, you know, maybe not everybody should work for themselves. And I’m doubling down on this, John. Really? That’s another thing is lots of folks listening, and I’ve been told this all the time, this really fires me up, is when people say, you know, Stephen, not everybody can work for themselves. Not everybody’s going to be like you. You know, actually, that’s like, you’re one of the oddballs out there. And I completely disagree. I believe We have been taught to be employees. And I think that is actually out of alignment with our, what we are, what makes us human and what our natural rhythms are. I think self-employment is more natural to being a human than employment is because unemployment means you have to fit into the system. You have to suppress who you are and you, you’re this little cog in the wheel, no matter how inspirational that mission you’re on. Um, and you are not allowed to be your 100%. self. And after a while, that’s really draining. I think there’s people listening who might respond to that. And it was draining for me. And today I am 100% myself in everything that I do. You know, there’s no personal and professional personality split for me anymore. I am healed. I am a 100% full human. And, uh, yeah, I think, uh, so I, and I, and I also, John, I, I even tell people as a step, And you’re about to experience this. If you can experience self-employment for a year and just say, I’m just going to give it a shot for a year, guaranteed you are going to learn more about yourself than almost anything else that you’ve ever done in your life because self-employment forces you to answer that hardest question of all in life, like, what the heck do I want to do with it?

John: Hmm.

Stephen: And even if you decide to return to a traditional employment opportunity, you are going to be perceived as so much more valuable because you’ve looked like you’re a go-getter. You look like you’ve tried things out on your own. You’re also going to have more of an insight about all the different working pieces of a business. And employers like people like that. I mean, what’s really starting to happen now is it’s not enough to say, I just need a job and I’ll keep showing up. I’ll do it. I’ll do the basics. Like that’s not good enough anymore because it’s going to get so much more competitive as a lot of, especially we’re seeing that now, a lot of routine work is starting to get automated. I went out to lunch last week and I was talking to a lawyer and I never realized in their industry. Already AI, artificial intelligence, is starting to do a lot of the work that associates used to do and kind of all that discovery process. And they’re doing— and the machine is doing it better. Whoa. Yeah.

John: Well, getting back to what you were a little bit— we were saying just a little ago in terms of how employers might look at, you know, doing what I’m doing. Yeah, there’s also, there’s also an, uh, I, I think a large element of risk-taking.

Stephen: Yeah.

John: And, and ironically, that, that ties into one of the questions that we were kind of throwing around, which was I was talking to you about how, you know, I’ve been really careful with my money. By the way, best budgeting program out there, You Need a Budget. If you haven’t heard of it, try it out. You were— we were talking about, you know, how, okay, I’ve got an emergency fund and I’m saving and I’m continuing to save and I’m going to save a little more. I think you said, you know, kind of like a Dr. type. Like, so how’s that working out for you?

Stephen: Are you comparing me to Dr. Phil?

John: No, but it was kind of one of those like, great, you’re doing, you’re doing this thing that, you know, people know that they should do and maybe not as many people do it as they should. And you’ve got an emergency fund and you could live for a period of time without working. So why haven’t you left your, like, why don’t you try this? Like, why don’t you go all in on this coaching thing that you’re so excited about?

Stephen: It was funny. You were in an interesting situation because I’m a huge advocate. I mean, in terms of this preparation, I think people don’t realize that when you start to work for yourself, it’s a very different mindset than being an employee, right? It’s really— I’ve learned this is not about just about changing how you work and what you’re working on. It’s an identity shift.

John: Yeah. And you know what’s kind of funny is I like inadvertently ended up on that path maybe 9 years ago in work that I did with a coach where she started pushing me and challenging me like, What if you were to show up as an entrepreneur at your job today? What would it look like? Or a consultant? We kind of dance between the two. But I totally agree with you that it is a definite mind shift between what am I supposed to do and what does the boss want and what will get me promoted versus what’s the right thing to do here? Who am I and how can I best contribute?

Stephen: I mean, even in my definition of self-employment, I look at it more as a mindset. You can still be in a traditional employee situation and be self-employed in my view. And what I mean by that is, for example, that is a person who didn’t apply for the job. They had a lot of relationships that they developed, saw an opportunity inside a company, pitched some ideas. They said, we didn’t think of that before. Let’s create a position for you. They’ve created their own work. They’ve created a job for themselves. That is where we need to be headed. And because it’s also much more satisfying because then you’re you’re creating a work opportunity that’s in alignment with your values, your abilities, what you’re good at. You’re going to feel much more valued and the company is going to value you more.

John: Which is totally— yeah, yeah, go ahead. I’m sorry.

Stephen: And just to finish, I mean, just because so many times when you really think about, like, when you look at job descriptions and then you’re like, you’re always, you’re immediately at what a job description does to you. It says, how do I fit into that? How do I take what I have and fit it into this thing? So you’re already. In that first step of this employment process, already starting to repress yourself.

John: Yeah, and I was gonna say along those lines, it’s— yeah, it’s the job description. So the job description says this, so how can I rewrite my resume, reposition my LinkedIn profile, talk about it on social media so that if someone sees enough of my stuff, they’ll say that I fit into the box that they’re looking to fill?

Stephen: Uh-huh. And then you’re not happy.

John: No, because you’ve kind of turned yourself into something that you’re not completely are to— yeah. And that gets into the whole out of alignment with who you really are thing that you kind of started with.

Stephen: Can I just do a quick little radical Stephen Warley thing?

John: Get radical.

Stephen: I think people should not make the resume their priority in their job search process anymore.

John: What do you think it should be?

Stephen: I always tell people, think about what is it that you want to do? What do you think you’re good at and that you want to do and where do you— and how do you want to be working? And then go and find situations, companies, or people who might start living up to that and giving you that shot and building those relationships, um, and finding and really starting to target those companies and those people and approaching them. Because I, I bet you, if you do that process, it takes a little bit longer, but it’s much more satisfying. You’re going to get what you want. And I bet there’s going to be a couple situations where the people that you’re dealing with never even ask for your resume.

John: Yeah. Yeah. Doesn’t matter. Yeah. Well, and ultimately the employer is going to get way more than they wanted too, because you’re going to be totally fired up about what you’re doing and it’s going to be in alignment with who you are.

Stephen: Right. And that’s the, that’s what’s changed. I mean, traditional employment, we had to hire lots and lots of people to do very repetitive tasks for the last 100, 150 years, but that work is shifting into more problem-solving-oriented work. And it’s, you know, we need all different types of people. You know, there’s even theories out there where people say like, just hire 3 different people and see what happens, you know, and kind of look at these as like experiments or mini apprenticeships, you know, rather than committing all in. We had this huge interview process. We hired this one person. And then you get to working with them because people forget the context part, just because they were successful in their last role or position doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to be successful in a new work environment, new company, or a new role. It’s a different context.

John: Yeah. And, you know, I think Automattic, the company behind WordPress, does that. You do— from what I understand, if I’ve got the facts right— that you do some type of project for them, or you do some type of work for them for a certain number of weeks or hours before you’re Like to kind of check each other out. I think they’re more checking you out than you’re checking them out, but it’s that, that same idea.

Stephen: Well, you should be. I mean, cause it should be an equal negotiation, you know? And I think that’s the funny thing, John. People don’t get what they want in terms of work because they always feel like they’re negotiating with the person providing them with the work. You got to negotiate with yourself first. You have to figure out what the heck it is you want. And it’s funny how people just avoid this. I call it the hardest question in life. What do you want?

John: It totally is. Yeah, and it’s one of the— yeah, it’s one of the, the stumper coaching questions. What do you really want?

Stephen: And I— another radical Stephen Warley statement here, but buckle in, folks. I think traditional employment of the industrial era helped us avoid that question because we always say, oh, you know, I can’t do that, I don’t have time to answer that question because I gotta survive, I gotta go to work, I gotta pay the bills. It allowed us to kick that can down the road. What’s funny now is technology of our own making is going to force us all on a mass scale have to finally answer that question because that is the key to the future of work. You have to understand who you are, what is it you want to do, and make a unique contribution. Hmm. We’ll leave that hanging there. I’m going to circle back to your original question about your runway.

John: Okay. Go for it.

Stephen: So you, I felt, you know, at the end of the day, I think we all have different ways of not taking action or taking that next step. I mean, you had, from what I know, you and I originally connected through my last podcast, Unstuckable, and—

John: Which is really good, by the way. You already know that, but other people, There’s a, there’s like, it’s 150 episodes called Unstuckable. And, uh, yeah, gave me all kinds of ideas and afternoon walks. So continue.

Stephen: Yeah. So, uh, I thought, you know, a lot of people aren’t prepared. I mean, back to this shift of going from being an employee to be self-employed. When you’re self-employed, you’re starting to start a business, you know, and you Uh, but sometimes a lot of people start their business from that employee mindset and they make a lot of, you know, avoidable mistakes, in my opinion, that sets them back. But you gotta learn. I think the best way to learn is learn by doing. Make mistakes. Totally agree. See if people can accelerate through that a little bit. So one of the things is like, you got to get your finances in order, because if you don’t have your personal finances in order, your business finances are not going to be any better.

John: Yeah, they’re the same, especially when it’s just you.

Stephen: Absolutely. So I think a lot of times, again, because of the employee mindset, people don’t really know how much they need to live. People never go through that calculation, which I have a calculator people can check out. Can I do a shameless plug?

John: Plug away. You can plug as many times as you want.

Stephen: lifeskillsthatmatter.com/calculator. And it’s also now part of my Self-Employment Starter Kit. But it’s just a spreadsheet I developed to help people understand What is the cost of their ideal lifestyle in terms of what they want? What do they want to do? How they want to be? And then where they are now. And then what’s that gap? Because that way it’s much more helpful to understand how much money you need to be bringing every single month, which will also help dictate depending on your business model, um, how many customers or clients you need, right? You’ve got to— I, I’m a big believer in working backwards. Most business plans work forwards. I like working backward.

John: Say, wait, say more about that. I’m not sure I followed you.

Stephen: So I think a lot of business plans are, one, they’re designed for external people to get a loan from the bank, to get investors. They’re really not designed for you as the original founder, even if you’re just going to work for yourself or have a small team. And you’re always kind of making projections of how much money you want to make because it’s always done from a place of status. John, I always ask people like, alright, how much do you want to make every year? And people are like, oh, like 6 figures. I’m like, why? I don’t know. Because it sounds cool. Sounds like you’re successful. And I said, why do you do this calculator? Why don’t you just actually run your numbers and see how much you really need? And I love it, John. I get emails from people who’ll be like, I did the calculator. It turns out I only need $66,000 a year. And I’m like, see? Yeah. And it’s also achievable. You actually really know, you’re more motivated. You’re like, gosh, that’s achievable. And I know how much money I need to bring every month. So When you start there, so instead of saying, start from the starting point, like, how, how can I get as many customers as possible to make as much money as possible? And I don’t even know why I’m doing this just out of pure status and, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. You’re working backwards. You’re saying, okay, this is my number. This is what Stephen needs to be happy and feel good about himself. Okay. And that’s, let’s work backward from there. So that way, as I come to the beginning of the business plan, I know my core habits of what I need to be doing to make my product or service, and then how many people I need to be reaching out every single week. And after a while, you’ll, you’ll know how many people are going to convert into the, the number of clients that you need every single month.

John: And I love, well, I love what you’re saying about your number. No, well, I want to get a little more tactical anyway, but I love what you’re saying about your number being your number. Someone, someone’s number could be like Mr. Money Mustache. That’s like his— well, he’s retired kind of now, but his number is like $25,000 a year. Someone else might be $100,000. Someone else might be $70,000, $60,000, $50,000, whatever. But there’s something about knowing that number that then helps you filter out a lot of stuff.

Stephen: Yeah, because then you’re always— and as a person, I’ve worked for myself a long time, and I, in my last business, I did a digital advertising sales training business for broadcasters. Did really, really well. Made a lot of money, wasn’t any happier. And I’ve always been on this journey of like, well, I know I’m a motivated person at work. I’m always going to want to work, but I’m tired of being angsty about it. I’m tired of worrying about money. I think a lot of us are in that boat. So that’s when I really started exploring like, what do I need? What do I need? And because when you start thinking of money in that regard, number one, you’re thinking much more of that self-employment mindset. But it’s also much more achievable. You’re not— you get off that, that treadmill of more, more, more. Well,

John: because you know exactly what it is.

Stephen: And you also align your spending, you know. Then you know exactly— like, for my wife and I, our probably our most expensive thing that we spend money on is travel. And even then, we find frugal ways of doing it. Uh, we do— we have a— we have one car. We don’t need a fancy house. Uh, you know, that saves you a lot of money when you don’t have all that stuff. And everybody’s different. I don’t want— that’s not a judgment, John, and to anybody listening, everybody’s different. If cars are your thing and you want to own a Tesla, you should. But it’s the idea of not coming up with this stereotypical— there is no more American standardized American dream. I mean, I think we have to end that. You have to come up with your own dream and it’s okay. You have my permission to do your thing

John: and

Stephen: feel successful.

John: Right, right. Yeah, and so in terms of the tactical way I went about it, I took YNAB, You Need a Budget, and basically just dumped all of our spending. I didn’t look at the income. I dumped all of our spending for the year and then came up with like an average. No, I think I just took the total expense. So total amount spent on electricity, total amount spent on groceries, and divided by 12 and said, okay, That’s about— and then added that all up on a spreadsheet and I was like, okay, so this is how much we need a month to maintain the same standard of living. And then tactical step number 2 was like, okay, well, what, what would the scorched earth budget look like here? What if we didn’t save for retirement for a year? What if we didn’t do certain things? How low could I get that number down? And some of that was encouraging and some of it— Was discouraging. when you add health insurance in was like sobering. But once I got over that, I was like, okay, well that’s just the cost of doing this. This can be doable. And yeah, basically. And then the conversation that you and I had, it was like, okay, well using money as the reason for not trying this thing isn’t a viable reason anymore. Hmm.

Stephen: But it’s also to me, I, when I hear you just talk that whole process, what you were just describing to me is like, that is such a great example of how you started challenging your fear fears of money, because we all have some fear of money somewhere in there, what’s holding us back from doing what we want to do. But the only way to break down that fear is to do what you did. You have to break down your numbers. You actually have to see what you’re working with here. You have to break it down into these different parts and look at it one by one, so that way you’re not completely overwhelmed with, oh my God, I have all these expenses, or I do all these things, I don’t even know where to start,

John: right? No, and I— that was your I think that was one of your encouragements a long time ago too, which was come up with a plan.

Stephen: Mm-hmm.

John: So I also had a separate plan going of just like numbers. Like, okay, if I did, if I had this many clients per month that could equal this, and, and it was, I got totally carried away one night and, and it was like, wow, okay. Yeah, I’m gonna have to bust my butt and do some stuff here, but this isn’t like totally Out of the question. So I guess it— for me, this all just comes back to getting out of your head and get it onto paper. Like, what are the real numbers? What are your real numbers?

Stephen: And then I think it’s you, for your situation— and I went through this where I, when I got laid off, I like, for the first time in my life, like, I was always pretty decent with money, but I got a lot better after that. And you come to a point where like, okay, I can— I’ve cut everything I can cut here.

John: Yeah, then you have to start adding.

Stephen: There’s the other of the ledger of like, I have to bring money in. And I think that’s where, uh, I probably started saying, okay, you’ve, you’ve, you’ve done what you can do, John, here. There’s— you’ve— no, you know your numbers, and now you have to figure out how are you going to bring money in from this thing that you said you want to do, which is coaching.

John: And some of that— well, actually, a lot of that is still a work in progress. And When— But in terms of like being able to turn my full attention to it, that’s what happens. I mean, I have ideas now, but in terms of I’m still winding down my full-time job situation, but I’m really looking forward to having this like, that’s no longer the distraction or the big thing that’s pulling me. And now I’ve got this full amount of time to say, okay, what are these different things going to be? What’s it going to look like?

Stephen: So it was also interesting because I think you wanted to maybe bring this point up. I also challenged you again.

John: Yes. Yes. The second. So yes, the second one was what if, so, so as we get to talking about, we talk about them, I think this all happened in one conversation on my, I was walking to lunch or something. And so that was like, oh, okay. I’ll think about that more. And then the second one that came up was like, yeah, but what if there’s too much time? And I think some of this goes way, way back in time to a time in college where I I had too much going on and I just, I like cleared the decks of like the part-time job I had. I dropped a class and I was like, I’m really gonna focus on these 3 classes and do really well. And I didn’t. Like, I didn’t, I didn’t like totally crush those 3 classes. What ended up happening, I had the opposite problem where I had too much time on my hands. And so I think there’s some truth in that, but it’s interesting, just self-reflection here. Sometimes I think we carry past disappointments or past failings. We carry them too much with us and push them into the future. And so as you and I were talking, I think I was doing some of that. I was saying, well, gosh, what if I have too much time? Or what if this and what if that? And then you came back with, what if this is just an experiment? And then the skies parted. I was like, an experiment? Well, and I’ve shared this with several people, so maybe they’re hearing this for the 7th time. I don’t know. But it was profound in the way that it was like, if it’s an experiment, then there’s no failure. I’ll learn something. And those may have been your words too, but it’s like, well, if anything, by the end of whenever this thing ends, if it does end, you’re gonna learn something. You may not like what you learn, but you’re gonna learn something. And I’m all about learning and personal growth, so I couldn’t get away from that.

Stephen: And even to me, what you’re also describing once again is The employee mindset wants certainty and commitment for— in, in— they’ve measured in years, right? If I’m going to spend 3 years in law school, you know, I want to make sure that I’m making like 6 figures by the time I graduate, and I want to be doing that, be partnered by a certain age. But in the self-employment world, or the more entrepreneurial world, and definitely the economy we’re moving into, there’s a lot less certainty. You’re constantly iterating. You can’t be thinking necessarily 5 years down the road. You can have a broad general goal of where you want your life to go, but things are changing so fast now in such a dynamic way that it’s really about continually setting up a bunch of experiments to see what— oh wow, that worked. I’m going to see where things are after 30 days or 3 months. And then you take it from there. So you have this continual process of self-reflection, which that’s another thing that we do not do enough in our Western world is self-reflect. But self-employment, if you structure it correctly, will force you to do that.

John: How so?

Stephen: Because you’re always, in my opinion, back to— it’s the ongoing plan. So you have a plan, like I recently did my 2018 strategic plan and kind of my intentions of how I want my year to go. I’m sure that will unfold in very different ways than the way I’m thinking about it right now, and that’s okay. But I do have some guideposts of where I want to be going. I would say at least on a weekly basis, I kind of just stop to say like, how are things going? What’s working? What’s not working? Or I noticed that I felt pretty stuck a few times this week. What was that about? So that way I can start narrowing down and saying, well, what’s getting me stuck? How do I get out of this more quickly? Another way of looking at this is what’s working really well and what should I spend more time doing and less time doing? I think there’s also that— this is where I bring into a lot of that intuition, that self-awareness, that feeling, listening to my gut, because I think that’s another thing that’s been beat out of us in terms of the industrial system. They don’t want us to feel. And we are now moving into an economy where And once again, things are changing so fast that you have to have faith in your brain. Your brain is taking in so much more information than your conscious mind is aware of. I call it my back office brain. And I think that’s another, that reflection where I can stop for a moment, like settle things down, be still. I go for a walk or I go to a quiet place, um, or I just jot a lot of notes down, or I talk it out with somebody. Sometimes it’s always a little different. And that is so beneficial because it just, it does 2 things. It gives me validation. And at the same time, it gives me a lot of learning lessons to be like, I’m stuck here. I need help. How do I get out of this? Rather than just permanently staying in that, which so many people do. And they think it’s all their fault. This is about creating work together for me. That’s what That my vision for self-employment is.

John: How do you do this process? Is it organic? Is it like, do you have a calendar appointment with yourself every Tuesday? Like, what’s that look like?

Stephen: Uh, by the way, I just want to echo you to confirm, you know, people think when you become self-employed, it’s the day you leave your job and you start working for yourself. It’s the moment you decide you want to work on your terms, to me. So you’ve been self-employed for a long time for me. Yeah. Under my definition.

John: No, and I would, yeah, and I would say, I would say definitely how I’ve pursued different things, even inside my own company, I have pursued with the mindset of how can I contribute? Like, what do I want to do? How can I contribute? And where can I find these opportunities? And what could it look like? Versus, yeah, what’s available?

Stephen: So anybody listening right now is like, I think I want to explore this or have some ideas, or I don’t even know what I want to do, but I just need to start checking in with myself again is I tell people, make an appointment with yourself. You are your most important client or customer. You are. And if you’re not in good shape, if your head’s not in good shape, everything else, all the people in your life, personal, professional, you’re not helping them any better. So having at least that on a calendar, just playing a trick on your brain and saying, I have an appointment with Stephen Warley at Friday at 1 to 2, and we’re going for a walk and he’s gonna I’m going to take notes while he’s walking if he wants to.

John: How often do you blow it off though?

Stephen: Because you’re like, oh, it’s just me. I’m personally not that rigid because sometimes I have to, um, I have to remind myself I’ve been living this life so long, and I think you’re— you’ve been a great person to help me break down what I’m doing and how to make it a little easier for somebody just starting out, that this is just how I am all the time. I mean, I am doing all levels of self-reflection on a daily basis, right? That’s where I would love to see people get to. But when you’re starting out, I think you need to, to create a habit. You have, at least when I create habits, I have to have a strong intention. Like I am focused on making this work for the next week or the next 30 days. I’m going to do it at this time every single day, just so I can start creating space for that new thing. And other things are going to start kind of falling by the wayside so I can make that happen. And too often we compromise our own time by con— there’s always distraction out there. And, uh, you know, there’s so many obligations that you have, but you have to get to a point. Like I recently, you know, I’m in the process of writing a book to help explain where work is going, what you can do about it. And I said to my wife, you know, from January to like the end of March, like I am writing 7:00 AM to 11:00 AM every morning. So I just want to put that out there just to let you

John: know,

Stephen: just because there’s a lot. I mean, I’m, I have a very flexible work schedule, so, uh, she’s a professor and she has a lot of obligations, but I can juggle my workflow around in a very different way. So I just wanted to kind of help her understand that parameter, you know, not, not saying that things don’t happen, you know, but to put the intention out there, like, this is what I’m doing and this is where I’m going. So I think that’s another version of it. It’s sometimes it’s seasonal. It happens in different ways. Another self-reflection thing I do is when I feel like I have a lot of negative thoughts or I’m kind of feeling a little grumpy or cranky, um, especially if it starts happening over multiple days or even weeks, sometimes I’m like, Stop it. What’s going on here? And I whip out an Excel spreadsheet, John, and I will write down every thought about who is it about or when did it happen, what time of day, where did it happen, why do I think it— do I have any ideas of what triggered this? And then I kind of do that for like a week and then I go back to it at the end of the week and I start looking for patterns. Like, oh, I could totally solve this one. I just got to talk to this person about this, or I got to let this go. You know, there’s out of my control, sayonara, just the way it is. Um, or there’s some new behavior thing that I can, uh, can make adjustments on. Um, so it’s just a lot of self-awareness.

John: Now that’s really interesting because the last week or so I noticed that I was waking up in the morning with a lot of dread or a lot of like, ugh, I don’t want to get out of bed this morning. I don’t want to. And so I started I started writing them all down. And I, in coaching parlance, we call it like an inner critic. I call it my gremlins. Um, it’s kind of this, this notion that we all have kind of these negative voices in our heads that tend to want to maintain this, this voice or voices. They want to maintain the status quo, and they, they kind of want to hold us to where we are. They don’t want us moving forward.

Stephen: And in defense of the negative voices, they just, they’re doing that because they think they’re keeping us safe.

John: Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, because safety, safety is more of the same.

Stephen: Mm-hmm.

John: And, and so it’s been interesting to write in the morning, like first thing, no email before I do email or check the news to hope that something better has happened or anything else, is to, to start writing and writing these things down and realizing— and, and there’s something that happens just in the notion of writing them down. That kind of gets rid of them.

Stephen: Well, I always tell people it’s taking on this other, actually another perspective. Instead of seeing it in your mind’s eye, you’re seeing it on a screen or in your handwriting outside in the real world, and it starts to weaken it.

John: Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephen: Because you’re looking at it from a different angle. And when you write it down, sometimes I, as I’m typing it down, I’m like, I, sometimes I can’t type this. I’m like, yep, I’m typing it. I’m like, I can’t believe I’m having a thought like this. You know, this is ridiculous, but As soon as I— it’s amazing for some of those things, like just writing it down eliminates it.

John: Yes. Yeah, yeah. And then what’s funny is I sat down this morning because I’ve kind of gotten this cup of— this habit of a cup of coffee, and I just opened my journal and start writing. I thought, oh, there’s not very many of them around this morning. This is interesting. I wonder how come. It’s like, oh, I took my son to this event last night. I did this. I did a workout. I did some other things. Hey, silly, wouldn’t it be a good idea to do some of these things more often? So yeah, the whole self-reflection.

Stephen: I’m sure we’ve all been in that in life. I mean, that was the last podcast. It was all about why are more and more people getting stuck? What’s this about? And I think that’s— I always tell people the first recognition is to be aware that you feel stuck or that you’re not moving forward or that you are in a loop pattern of thoughts that, you know, you’re not breaking that loop. It’s not moving you forward. I think that’s kind of the first step. And then figuring out—

John: And not judging it. Did I sneak that in as like 1B? Yeah. In other words, there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re not broken. You’re not a horrible person. If you feel like you’re stuck, you’re not lame.

Stephen: Not at all. If anything I’ve learned, being stuck is a positive thing. That means parts of your brain say, hang on a second. That’s, that’s the positive part saying, you know what? But you need to move forward. This craving safety and doing the same thing over and over again is not working for you. You’re not happy. And that’s where that tension comes from. It’s kind of like we know we don’t want to go continue on the path that we’re on, but we’re not exactly sure where to go forward. So that’s that stuck feeling, and that’s where growth comes from.

John: What other things do you want to leave people with here before we call it?

Stephen: Back to our idea of experiment. If there’s something that you’re thinking about, you want to do, what’s some version of that that you can do and say, I’m going to try this for a day, I’m going to try it for a week, I’m going to try it for 30 days, or try it for a year? You know, I mean, just do as an ex— you don’t have to commit to it. Just do it for, I’d like to see what this is all about. Because I will tell you one thing, you can only read so much, you can only listen to so many of these podcasts, watch so many video courses.

John: Do it.

Stephen: The only way you ever— because I think before we jumped on, we are all so unique. We are the only versions of humans that have ever walked this earth or will ever walk it again because of how we grew up and different influences or somebody that said something to you in a certain way when you were 4 years old that prevented you from doing this thing when you were 40.

John: Right. And

Stephen: it’s crazy. That’s how humans are. And so that’s, you know, you just have to kind of really honor that and celebrate that. I mean, that is where things are going, and, and just kind of enjoy your unique chaotic mix.

John: And I would, I would sneak into there something that’s been really valuable to me and also some clients recently is what’s the smallest little thing you could try or you could do?

Stephen: Sure.

John: And just giving your brain that question to answer instead of like, well, how can I create a podcast that will reach a million people? It’s like, well, how could I record a 5-minute conversation? Or how could I just record 5 minutes of my own thoughts? Let me try that.

Stephen: And sometimes back to the planning, I just kind of, even if I feel really overwhelmed, I’m like, well, let me just write down. I kind of like do a recipe. I’m like, what are the ingredients that I think I need to do this thing? What do I think the steps might be? And then who can I ask for help? You know, and that, that’s something that was ingrained by my mother to my sister and I, when it came to doing homework, she said, you have to do as much as you can for as long as you can. And then you can come to me with a specific question. And I always loved that. I mean, at the time—

John: You loved it as a kid?

Stephen: I mean, now, I mean, as an adult, like, probably the time it was very frustrating because I’m like, just tell me. But the point where she was trying to lead is like, you have to, like, you know, she was giving permission, like, think for yourself, like, figure it out, do something, anything. And then we come to a point and have a specific question because her point is like, I’m not going to tell you what to do. I want to— I’m teaching you how to think for yourself. And I think that is another unfortunate part of the, uh, employee mindset is we’ve been conditioned from our educational system, you know, right. You know, the follow the directions. How many times did you hear that? growing up, right? And we are now conditioned to ask for permission in almost every aspect of our work. Like, we, we want to be perfectionists. We want to make sure that we don’t get fired. We want to do the right thing. And when you’re self-employed, that doesn’t work. That is not how you want to think. Can I leave one more thing?

John: Leave? Yeah. And not leave— leave us with one more thing, please.

Stephen: I just want everybody to know that I take it very seriously when I say that work is fundamentally changing as you know it. And every day that you don’t do anything about it, every day that you don’t educate yourself about how work is changing, every day that you don’t learn a little bit more about yourself, you are going to put yourself at a disadvantage and you’re going to increase your anxiety and your stress levels. The more you cling to work as you know it, the more that you think your security is going to continue to come from a job, from a corporation or a government agency, because that is just not where work is going. The future of work is helping each other create work together because that is being human. That’s what we did before the industrial system. We all helped each other out and that’s where we need to go again. Get started.

John: And thanks for helping me out.

Stephen: Well, thanks for helping me out, Tim. It’s always a conversation. I always tell people when, uh, you know, we just talking things out with other humans allows you to collect puzzle pieces and puzzle pieces you might not even know, have known that you needed.

John: So you can get more of those puzzle pieces at lifeskillsthatmatter.com. Any other resources or things you want to send people to?

Stephen: Yeah, if you are, if you’re like, alright, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll buy, I’ll do a little experiment, a little experiment for you for self-employment. I have a whole bunch of resources. I have a self-employment starter kit, has the lifestyle calculator, has a how to put together a strategic plan. Um, it has a whole bunch of other stuff, invitation to join our mastermind, all free. Um, so you can go to lifeskillsthatmatter.com/starterkit.