Quiet Quitting VS Ultimate Success

Hello everyone! So we wanted to touch base on some of these topics and fill you in on some of the discussions we've been having. So you better check out our youtube videos and interviews coming up and let us know what you think. 

For the first question, What is your take on quiet quitting?

As far as quiet, quitting goes, I think it's just a really sad product of the modern business environment. Sadly, while there's a ton of blame, that 100% goes to the employer. I think the reality is that many people are blaming the employer for not having the work experience or the career that they want. Like any employer they just pick out of a hat has like this full 100% game plan for each employee of what their whole career should look like. 

At the end of the day, while many big huge corporations do have that and they have this whole ladder that you can climb and you can achieve this and most companies don't especially smaller companies or even mid-size companies don't have like the set ladder and the set steps because they just haven't been around long enough or just because they haven't gotten around to this full employee development structure. 

My take on it is that it's 100% the responsibility of the employee. So, the solution is never just to do the bare minimum and just scrape by. If you want to do that, that's fine. Just don't expect the higher levels, right? 

I get that. It's like a quiet protest against this lack of opportunities by many companies or feeling overlooked but basically, it's just passive-aggressive, not doing above and beyond and if you want to do that, that's fine. Companies need people that just know the role inside and out and are willing to just do the bare minimum, just do the basics. But if you have expectations that you want to grow, then the responsibility is to take the next step and say, does my company value me? Are there opportunities where I'm at? If the answer is no, and you're the employee, then you need to find a place where that is the case, and you do have the opportunities and your company does value you and your hard work and what you bring to the table. 

But the flip side of that is you also have to bring a lot to the table, meaning more than just the bare minimum expectations, or just assume that you're gonna be in the same place. 

At the end of the day, my take is so at the end of the day, my final take on quiet quitting is this. The company definitely needs to provide a clear path of how an employee can step up to new levels. But from the employee's perspective, the responsibility of the employee is to bring home the bacon and if they want more from their employer, they need to go first and do more. 

In the instance where the employee is going above and beyond, and there's just literally no opportunity or they're being overlooked or whatever, it's their responsibility to find the next job and not just sit in a role and be upset or be pouty or be passive aggressive, or just do the bare minimum. 

Go take control of your situation and go find a situation as the employee where you do have that opportunity, otherwise, accept where you're at and just do the bare minimum. If you want to skate by then just skate by with zero expectations. That's essentially my thoughts on quitting.

At the end of the day, as far as quiet quitting is concerned. If you, as the employee wants more, you must go first and do more. If you, as the employee, don't want more, you're fine where you're at, then that's fine. Just cruise by with exactly what your expectations are and just keep going and staying on the path. But if you want more, you must hustle and create more value because at the end of the day, then you as the employee, hold the power and hold the cards because then you're doing more than is expected of you. So you're adding more value to the situation.

In the era of quiet quitting, the employer needs to be extremely clear on what the next level of opportunity and pay looks like for the employee and needs to outline how to get there. If you're the company in the area of quiet quitting, the best thing that you can do is try to see which employees are trying to take the initiative and work their way up and build into your company. They are telling you that they believe in the company and they want to grow with the company. So if you can identify who those players are, then you must give them the opportunity as the company, because those are A players. Those are level 10 players, and they want to be always growing and always achieving, and always working their way up. So if you don't give them a path to progress, then frankly, you don't deserve to keep them. That employee deserves an environment where there's level 10 opportunity and to be a player in another organization that has that room for growth for them. 

An employee who understands the company, culture fits it perfectly, and wants to grow and expand the company in a major way is worth 10 of another employee, who's not engaged and not interested? They are invaluable. So it's worth paying them more. It's worth moving them up and putting them in positions to help that company grow and expand. Because they're bought in. You need to buy into those employees as well and everybody grows and the best players win. That's what you want in a company, the best people winning and the company winning at the same time. 

Second question is, what is your take on modern hustle culture?

For me, modern hustle culture is funny because there's that meme cartoon version of hustle culture, which is like the Gary V thing where he is working 19 hours a day. It's not realistic for most people and while I do have a huge amount of respect for hard work, there are diminishing returns for the average person where that amount of hard work and even the results are not actually what they want. So you don't need to glorify something that's beyond what you're trying to reach. 

So modern hustle culture, in my opinion, needs to go more in the direction of not going on the unhealthy route and just going to something in a massive level, 10,000 extremes, but more so picking the small list of things that you can do over the course of your lifetime, that's what you wanna spend your life devoted to and pour into those. Do you need to work your butt off? I mean, yes, work extremely hard, right? But you can't do everything in reality. So don't try to do everything. Just try to be incredibly top 1% at the small number of things that you want to be and hustle into those and the reality is the snowball of decades of experience, or even a handful of years just focused on something. That's a high-growth, high-technology space. 

You'll be at the top of your peers and that's where real growth and real returns on your investment come from is where you have spent the time, you know, something inside and out better than anyone else, and to me, that should be a modern hustle culture is don't try and do 10 things because the reality is you can't do it without giving up sleep or other families things or things that are really important on a long-term basis, as proven by hundreds of studies of psychology, pick a small number of things, but be top of your global top 1% level talent and that's hustle culture, to me, that should be the focus. 

Next, how do you personally define success?

So, with us having a discussion of just like, what even is a success, how would you even define that? I mean, the definition of success is just so wide and I like that actually. I think each person needs to clearly define what their success is. To me, it's kind of two categories. There's one side, which is very clear. It's cut and dry. Did you get your stuff done or did you not? And for me, that's very clear in business. I know at the end of the week if I moved my biggest projects forward, the biggest, most important task and focused in my realm that I needed to do. If I move those forward, I'm pretty confident if I move those forward and as I look back on the last seven days, I'm confident I can see huge leaps and bounds of progress. So, I actually do the same thing in my personal life and my family life. I just have my benchmarks and I have my exact goals for that week and that period of time. So if I get those done, it's black and white, and I feel successful or I don't. I either succeeded in getting my things done that were important or I did not succeed at getting the things done that were important. So that is literally success. Did I succeed in getting my stuff done or did I not? 

The other side is more like a fulfillment side. It's more the emotional side. It's not black and white. Like, do I feel like a success? Like people ask themselves, am I successful? It's like, well, did you get your shit done because you're successful on paper if that's the case, do you feel it, is it rewarding? Does it feel like there's a bigger picture? All of those things are kind of the more emotional side of success. 

For me, on the emotional side of success, I would use words, mostly like content, proud, giving back to the world, and making it better. If I'm doing things in those categories, having connections with the people that are most important to me in the world and giving them something that I could provide to them, or just having that connection in general, those are the things that make a success like a wholesome, entire big picture. 

So what I find in the trends that I find in those for my own life, is there is no such thing as a balanced life.  I don't wake up every week and be like my percentile of time spent at each thing was just perfect, I had a perfect week. Instead. It's usually like, I'm going way after something with like 99% of my focus and then when that sprint period is over, I get time to do these other things that are fulfilling in different ways. So it's more like a blended whole period of time. Do you check the boxes and get those experiences overall? Right? Like over the average. 

And so for me, I find that if I'm getting those experiences in the connection with my kids, the time with my family, where I'm feeling really connected, being there for people when it's important and when there are important things in their lives where I can give back or I can show support or I can help in some kind of big way and then also doing all of those things along with when the business needs me and I have kind of a clear path or a more clear path on my average schedule that I'm taking those opportunities and building the business and going all in and making the most of that. 

So it's really both sides handled over a longer period of time because a week is just too short. It's like, you gotta look at like quarters or multiple quarters to say, Hey, did I make enough time for the big pieces in my life? and that's when I feel successful most on a relationship and a personal and an emotional basis.

Once I am successful at getting my stuff done, cause it's clearly defined, my stuff and I think that's a great skill. There are many great books on that. Like 12 week year or the one thing by Gary Keller. These are books that change your life as far as organizing your goals is concerned. 

But I think there's the other side of that, which is your relationship side and your emotional side. So if you balance both of those out, I think it makes your goals worth it to have the other side with the people you love and also achieve your goals. It makes you feel like you're making a big impact on the world and you're building something pretty cool. So that's kind of how I balance it and how I would define it overall 

Then the next question is, what is your advice when you want to switch careers?

In an era where people are leaving their jobs more than ever, there was a great resignation and jobs are being constantly swapped and people are shopping the labor market massively. I keep hearing the question of how you would switch careers or when you recommend switching careers. This is actually a painful answer for me to give with my opinion because I want to think so long term on most of my goals and most of my strategies, I want to be able to 10 years it or 20 years it, right? 

But I did this. I switched full careers and sold a company and did something on the opposite end of the universe. So I get it and I do think it's important to be able to understand when you've reached the end of the road somewhere where you're spending a lot of time, effort, and energy. 

This is when I think it's most appropriate to switch careers. If the industry is going through a major turn of events where you may or may not have a job in the future.

If the role that you're in is going to be completely wiped out by technology, you just have to wake up and bootstrap it into another sector where you're not gonna get wiped out. If you find that the market you're in is very stagnant and that you've hit a ceiling and the reality is in order to grow past your limits today, you have to do something completely different and between those three, what I'm really saying is that the market, which is bigger than any operator or any individual, if that market is making a turn in a different direction, and it's not going in a direction where you can force success it, like, I don't care how good of an entrepreneur or business owner you are. 

If you're in the freaking newspaper business right now, you are not in the right market. That is a difficult industry that was dropping by double-digit percent for a decade. So choosing your market is incredibly important. 

If there's anything we've learned from our worst deals in real estate, I'm gonna paraphrase Warren buffet real quick. Cause I think he said it best where he'd rather get a fair price on a good deal or a good company than a good price on a fair company, right? Because that's his business he picks companies to invest in. So he's saying most importantly, the company that he's choosing to invest in must be great. At essentially a less amazing price for a very amazing company versus an amazing price for a worse company. So if you think about that in the market that you operate in, if your market is not great, then your opportunity in that market is gonna have some ceiling and your length that you can go with that industry is gonna be shortened. 

So if the market isn't there and the opportunities aren't there, I'd say it's worth considering making a career change or shifting to a different industry where there are a lot of opportunities and a lot of upside long term.

In the event, you're dealing with more of an emotional reaction to an industry where you're sitting there saying, I just don't feel this. I don't feel like I have passion. I don't feel like burning or my daily work in this industry. My question to somebody that's in that position because I get it and you spend a massive amount of your life working. So you want to be happy and you want to enjoy what you do and feel that passion and that desire. But the reality is you're never gonna feel that every day, right? Just because I don't feel that exercising or weightlifting or going to the gym doesn't mean I shouldn't go to the gym. Right?

But if somebody's feeling that deeply at their core about their job or where they're at, I would ask them, Is it the company that they're at? Is it the people that they're around in their small little tribe or is it the industry overall because maybe they need to move within their industry? and they can move laterally and still have that upside of all that effort and all those skills that they built in the industry they're in. 

Maybe they just need a different camp to be in, but in the event that somebody's just very confident and it's their whole industry. There's a high likelihood they're gonna take some degree of a pay cut, moving to a completely different industry, and if that's the case and they're at peace with that, and that works well for their life, then I'd say that's a great choice for them as an individual. 

Overall though, I'd say most of the time when I see that and somebody's like, I just don't feel it. I just don't have that passion for what I'm doing right now. Usually, it's the people they're around or their company or just the smaller or slightly bigger circles that they travel in. What if they just shift that to a different company or different organization, there are a lot of opportunities and they'll get that same long-term return on investment, on their skills from being in the same industry or same role just with a different company 

Next is, how do you keep connections while leaving a job?

After you leave a job. I think there are a lot of ways that you can decide to keep in contact with people, how I've always done it. Frankly, I just know who my people are when I've left a situation and moved on to something else. 

So like in a previous industry, I maybe keep in touch with a handful of key people that are just the most valuable that I have the most in common with that, and I'm most interested in their success and vice versa and there's that connection, but also the growth because at the end of the day, life is really short and we don't have a lot of hours in the day. So to think that you can keep in touch with everybody, I think is just not realistic and it takes more effort than it's worth and it takes more effort than it's worth, sadly, I don't like to say that out loud, but that's the truth. 

So what I'd say, is to add them, on LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram, TikTok, or wherever you want to keep in touch casually, that's fine. But pick the top people let's say one to five people at an organization or at a situation you are in and keep in touch with the winner winners of those people and make sure that as you move through your career and the different things that you do and achieve just collect the relationships with the top people and those are the people that I want to be around anyway. 

I hope that this is helpful for you to touch base on some hot topics that people are discussing right now on all kinds of different platforms. Hopefully, it added some value to you personally, to your business, and to your life. If you have any questions, let us know and we will get back to you with some information until next time stay hungry and see you.

Frequently Asked Questions: