220 | Optimal Performance & Your Social Entrepreneur Lifestyle with Paul Zelizer
This week's pod is our monthly solo episode. Awarepreneurs founder and podcast host Paul Zelizer shares tips for optimizing your business performance and strategies for increasing your effectiveness in 5 key areas: your finances, your product-market fit, your marketing, your storytelling and your wellbeing.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Optimal Performance & Your Social Entrepreneur Lifestyle Transcript with Paul Zelizer
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practices. Each episode, I do a deep dive interview, with a thought leader in this intersection, someone who has market tested experience, and has already transformed me many times.
Before I introduce our topic in our guest, I'd like to ask you a favor. If you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on, do a rating and review, it helps tremendously. Thanks for considering three times a month, we interview a fabulous guest. And once a month now I do a solo episode. And this episode comes from a direct request from you, our listeners and the aware printers, community members.
Our topic today is Optimal Performance & Your Social Entrepreneur Lifestyle. And to get started, I'd like to tell you a story.
Not quite three years ago, I was ready for a big change. I'd been living in Santa Fe for 13 years and after getting a young person through high school and off to college, I was ready to be in a larger city. So I moved to Albuquerque.
And as a way to start to connect with people in my new city. I did a couple things. But one of the things I started to do was go to a Friday evening trail running group. We'd run six or seven miles each Friday, and I hadn't run in a long time. By that time, I was almost 50. Or actually, I think I was 50 when I moved and started running. And, you know, six or seven miles sounded like the upper threshold, I would go, I met some fabulous people, but I'd get really, really sore. It was a lot of energy. And I'd have to take an Epsom salt bath. Not exactly feeling like optimal performance. :)
I kept going because I was having a really good time. One of the people I met there, the guy who founded that little trail running community was a guy named Joe. Joe and I became friends and then 2020 with COVID was hard on him and his business. He wound up having to shut his business down. He got certified as a running coach and started to work with me. I was sort of one of his test cases
And one of the things that we learned is that I was doing two things that a lot of runners do. I was heel striking. And I was overextending. All that meant is I was running in a very inefficient way. And that was causing a lot of friction. Literally, every step I took my feet were kind of like hitting the ground breaking decelerating. And then I'd have to get back up to the speed. Only to decelerate the next time my other foot found out that over however many times you let's call it a couple 1000 on the kinds of runs that I was doing. It added up to a lot of pain and stress.
Paul Zelizer 02:57
As we started to unpack what was happening and tried some simple strategies, suddenly, I started to be able to run and in ways I never thought possible. I was able to incorporate principles of optimal performance in my running.
And to give you an idea … in 2021 I've done things like the rim to rim to rim in the Grand Canyon. 46 miles took us about 20 hours - move time a little less, maybe 18 and a half hours and 46 miles, you know huge amount of vertical feet one of the most beautiful things I've ever see. I'm getting ready in a few weeks on October 30. To do my first official 50k race a little more than 32 miles. We've run the Zion traverse trail which is running from one end Zion National Park to the other with a slight pack on our back fast packing. We also did another fast backing trip on Catalina Island 70 miles in three days. Absolutely stunningly gorgeous.
And especially with COVID, I am so grateful to have my body and my ability to do these amazing adventures. And I now have a whole crew of people to do them with the difference between the Paul who was running six or seven miles and really hurting. W ho at 53 years old is doing ultra marathons and these incredible adventures is understanding optimal performance principles. So that's what we're here to talk about. I see a lot of social entrepreneurs that have that kind of friction in their life, where there may be without even being known to them. There is just a lot of inefficiency there.
And it means they either have to work really, really hard to get to their level of impact and income goals. Or they're not able to meet their impact and income goals with the allotted time they have or many people are even struggling with both of those things. Paul, I'm working really, really hard. Still not able to meet my impact and income goals. So, as people have been seeing and hearing me talk about on the podcast a little bit more on social media, that I'm living a certain lifestyle and getting to have great adventures, while still feeling really good about the impact that my work is having and the income than to be able to live, you know, very comfortably.
People are saying, Can you please help me understand how to do that, I want more of that? And thus, this episode on optimal performance.
So thanks for asking for what you want listeners. And here's my best bet how to get there.
First of all, I want to give you a couple of books that kind of helped me frame where I was at, and helped me find some of the inefficiencies in my life, I want to just give you some data and some great resources with these two books, then I want to help you look at five particular areas of your life, and encourage you to do some reflection, and I'll give you some ideas of how you might reflect those five areas are number one, your finances, the kind of overall, you know, not that you're trying to make every month has a big impact on what your life choices are. And so let's talk a little bit about that. Number two, I want to talk about something called product market fit in your business. In other words, what you're selling, is it a good fit for who you're trying to help? When there's good product market fit, there's much, much, much less friction, if there's less product market fit, you have to work much, much harder. So let's talk about that. What does that mean for the lifestyle you want to live? Number three, I want to talk about marketing and some things that can help you reduce friction and increase your efficiency so you can have more choices in terms of your lifestyle. Number four, I want to talk about storytelling and how leveraging that can help you have more robust and more easeful choices in your life, good storytelling versus somebody who's just paid less attention there. And then want to talk about your well being and your energy and body and immune system that you bring to your life into your work. And how enhancing that that you know just maybe taking a look there is there anything there that wants some attention so you can live the lifestyle that you're really excited about that brings you a lot of joy. So let's dig in with the two books to start with.
Paul Zelizer 07:31
The first book is by a man named Tony Schwartz and full disclosure, Tony was the ghostwriter for the book on Donald Trump called the art of the deal. he regrets that choice has talked very publicly about that. But you may see some people slamming him. And, you know, questioning his integrity because he did that. There's a lot written about that. The book I'm wanted to talk a little bit about is called The Power of Full Engagement. And Tony and his team before they got into coaching, very high level leaders in business, Tony learned how to do optimal performance coaching for athletes, very high level athletes, like Olympic athletes.
And one of the things that the whole world of sports, particularly as we get older as a ultra marathoner in my 50s, my coach tells me often, you got to pay attention to recovery, become an obsession in the world of sport, no matter how old you are, it's still much more important than we previously understood. In other words, both the physical body of human and particularly the emotional and spiritual body of a human being, were not designed for extended sprint. were designed to do hard things, and then rest, whether that was building back in the day, we're hunting and going out on a hunt. And then if you were successful in the hunt, you'd come home and you'd cook it up, and everybody would rest. And there'd be a big feast, everybody would eat a lot and sleep a lot, right? That pattern of hard work and rest is something that the powerful engagement talks a lot about. But in the modern business environment, it's like expected that we're supposed to have the needle kind of pegged to the red line, where, you know, high performance line just day after day, week, after week, month after month. And that's not what most humans and myself included. It's not a design for optimal performance through time.
So highly recommended. I'll put a link in the show notes, The Power of Full Engagement.
The second book that really helped me kind of reconfigure what I was doing in my life, and in my business, is probably the most impactful book I've read in the past 10 years at least, and maybe ever in my business, and in my career. It's called the Essentialism by Gregory McEwen. Again, I'll put a link in the show notes
The subtitle is The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. And reading that book encouraged me to bring a certain kind of mindset and to assess and evaluate what was I doing in my business and as a social entrepreneur, and it helped me make some shifts in places that I was investing relationships, marketing activities, even offerings in my business, it impacted every area. But the framework of those two books when I put them together, some really significant things started to change
So let me give you an example of what my life looks like now, and why so many people are like, Paul, can you help us understand what you're doing, because we want our version of the kind of lifestyle that you seem to be leading.
At the end of 2020, I was feeling pretty tired, I had already started making some changes. But in 2021, I made a pretty robust commitment on based on an observation. And the observation was that when I go have big adventures, and I told you about a few of them a trip designed trans Catalina trail, the he led national wilderness, it's the largest block of wilderness in the lower 48. In the United States. In other words, there's larger blocks of wilderness in Alaska. But other than that, in the United States, that he the wilderness, in the southwestern corner of New Mexico over by Silver City, it's the largest block of wilderness in the country outside of Alaska. That's a place where I've been blessed to do incredible adventures and see amazing things. These kinds of adventures, when I would do one, I'd come back so energized and alive. And there was a relaxation that happened when you weren't just going away for a weekend. But when I would go away for four or five or six days and these incredible places, and I made a commitment to do more of it.
Paul Zelizer 12:05
In fact, the commitment I made was that I was going to do one of these every four or five weeks, the upper threshold being six weeks, it's like a month and a half ago, I can sometimes barely …, there's like a memory of something cool that happened, but it's not in my cells in the same way. As when, like, two weeks ago, my girlfriend and I went up to Colorado and had a wonderful experience up there. And it's still very fresh, I can remember what we ate and the hikes we took it, the snow and we saw moose, we saw a whole family of moose, a mama and a baby moose and a popper moves. And then three other like males came along with these giant horns. And it was just a gorgeous day was exquisite up by a lake, in the high country, you can feel where I'm going, right? It's in myself, it's in my being an I am a more alive person when it's still pretty fresh. So I made a commitment that every four to five weeks, I was going to take a week off.
And I've done a really good job of that in 2021. And I've been feeling pretty happy and pretty energized and my business hasn't changed (that’s what happens for many people who implement optimal performance principles). For the most part in the actual income is still, you know, going right along where was I the impact the numbers of people I'm working with podcasts and our membership community for Awarepreneurs like the world didn't fall apart because Paul took a trip. And yet it feels seems so obvious, but it's kind of countercultural. This choice I made.
And, again, people were noticing and asked me what about that choice? Why are you doing it? How are you doing it? And can you do an episode so here we are. So that's the specific one example of how I baked it into my life. Let's go back and look at these five buckets that I'm one identify for you and encourage you to do some exploring around to help you find what your ideal lifestyle looks like. I don't want you to take mine like a cookie cutter, I want you to find your ideal lifestyle. And I think looking at these exact five buckets will help identify where there might be some of that inefficiency, some of that friction that doesn't need to be there. And as we start taking, you know, correcting, bringing more frictionless processes and systems, getting these things more optimized, I'll guarantee that there are opportunities for you to create a lifestyle that's more aligned with what's best for your nervous system and your values and brings you a great deal of ease and joy. That's the goal here.
Before we get into these five buckets, I just want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Do you have a business that's about making The world a better place. And you want it to grow both in terms of impact, and your income. You really like to talk to somebody about 123 really big decisions of right here right now you're trying to make. And it would be fabulous to have a thought partner who knows a social entrepreneurs base, who knows your values around leveraging business for good. And you don't want to sign up for like a six month or a year long coaching program or giant consulting contract that's going to lock into something and cost you 1000s upon 1000s of dollars. If that sounds like you, I have a strategy session package that's just for entrepreneurs, who want to take the next step in their social entrepreneur business. And they're looking at 123 here and now decisions, and you'd like a thought partner that understands this space. If this sounds like something that might be helpful to you, you can go to my website at Paul Zelizer Comm. Look at the services and let's chat and see if it might be something that can help you move the needle in terms of both your impact your income, and your quality of life.
So let's talk about these five areas that will help you optimize your business for both impact income and most importantly, today, your quality of life. Number one, we want to explore a little bit about your finances.
Paul Zelizer 16:29
Now, most of us don't think about this on a day to day basis. But the commitments that you have, and that you agree to, as a human being and as an entrepreneur, have a big impact on your life. For instance, I was recently talking to somebody who lives in the Bay Area. And housing in the Bay Area is probably about three and a half to four times as expensive as where I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I'm not saying that everybody should move to Albuquerque, or that you shouldn't live in the Bay Area. But just being mindful of our choices. It's an example of what I'm trying to help us as social entrepreneurs think about. And particularly those areas were our most, you know, our largest outliers every month. Things like our housing, transportation, things like health insurance, at least in America where, you know, that's a major expense for many fam. Things like the food we eat, etc, right? So, if you take a look at your finances, and you do some optimization there, make sure and ask yourself the question of what are you doing in terms of your major outlays each month? And are those aligned? Is it contributing to the quality of life? If you're making a major investment? Is it one that's contributing to the quality of life that you want? It is awesome, that's great. If it's not, then to be willing to have some honest conversation about what of other people who are addressing that particular bucket of financial commitment, what are some of the things that they've tried.
The second bucket that I want to encourage you to take a look at, is in your business itself. And this one is huge. It's called product market fit. It's a fancy way of saying that, you want to be really mindful of who you're serving in your social enterprise, who you're serving in your values based business, and then have the products and the services that you're bringing to them, make sure it's a really good fit for the challenges for the like, where they're feeling stuck, or like things that they want in their lives, but aren't yet like fully operational are really struggling to get to, to get that quote, right. There's an incredible amount of ease in your business. It's one thing you do it, not for the rest of your business, but it's something that you can do every once in a while you don't have to wake up every day and redo your product market fit. It's there. It supports you. And it brings in customers or clients on a regular basis with very little friction. If it's off, if it's not well synced up, then you're going to be dealing with the friction of that issue. Until such a time if and when and I hope you do that you decide this is something that needs a little bit of attention. The many, many social entrepreneurs, well meaning caring people have built a product or a service. That's absolutely they bake their care and their love and their desire for a better world into it. But it's just not quite dialed in for what the people that they want to help really want or need. And so for the rest of the time They're in that business up until such a point they do a little work. They're dealing with friction, that reduces their quality of life. So some readings, some care, some thoughtfulness around your product market fit, huge, huge, huge thing that I suggest you do. And as I was reworking, where I was going and what I was doing, I made some significant changes in my understanding of who I was helping what I was bringing to them, I got rid of small printings, for instance, have been offering a mastermind group for newer entrepreneurs for over 10 years. And in 2021, I stopped that. And I'm now referring out not offering that for a variety of reasons. The bottom line is take a look at your product market fit.
Paul Zelizer 20:54
Number three, I want to talk about marketing. For example, today, as I'm recording this, both Facebook and Instagram are down, not specific to them. But that would be one example. I personally as I did an assessment of where I was, where there was more friction, and where I was investing time and energy in ways that didn't really serve the quality of life I wanted, it was on these social media platforms. That was one example. And I made a big change. Number one, I greatly reduced the overall time that I was spending on social media. And number two, I really targeted LinkedIn, not because I think LinkedIn is such a fabulous platform. I like it, there's pros and cons to it. But it's where my audience was, these world class and emerging world class social entrepreneur are in a higher concentration on LinkedIn than any other platform that I know. So that's where I invest my time. It's not that I'm on the other platforms, but I do much less work there. And for some of them, I put everything into an app, it's called social media that distributes my content to all the various platforms. So I can go into one dashboard, and it goes to four or five different platforms, and then some of those platforms, that's the only thing I do. That's very different than what I was trying to do previously. Instead of these social platforms, where I've really doubled down and continue to invest my time, my energy, and my care is in what I call my featured marketing channel, which is this podcast for me. But it's not so much about podcasting. Specifically, it's about having a featured marketing channel where you bring your care, where you bring your attention where people know, in the aware printers, community, our listeners, people know that every Tuesday there's going to be a new episode, there has been for 219 episodes or something like that, I think this is 220 when it goes live, and other than an occasional week off during holidays, it's gonna be there on a Tuesday. That's where my care is, that's where I get the most return. It's a deep dive format, which really fits for me 5055 minute episodes, when I do interviews with guests. That's where I go deep. And I let myself off the hook and spend less time on some of these other platforms where in the past, I was spending more time but not getting a lot of return in terms of either my income, or my impact, it was kind of draining my energy my well being.
And I found that by reducing some of the activities that I used to do a lot of, and bringing it into a couple of key places for me, my featured marketing channel, this podcast, and what I call my featured networking channel. For me, LinkedIn, those two decisions, being really mindful of where those are for you. And making sure you're really getting skillful, I bought a new microphone for the podcast, like like I really double down and what I was doing and getting better at it, and sounding better, and etc, etc. and then let myself off the hook from some of the other things that I was doing, but not really enjoying and not getting a tremendous amount of results.
So that's the flavor of what I'm suggesting, rather than here's the exact strategy, everybody should be on LinkedIn. No, it's not a fit for everybody. But that approach, have a feature marketing channel, have a feature networking channel, go deeply in your investments there and do some real honest assessment of what else you're doing and do you need to be on as many channels and bring as much care to as many different places as maybe you happen in the past. I certainly found a tremendous amount of freedom with no reduction of my income or my impact, but a huge increase in my quality of life.
Paul Zelizer 25:23
The fourth bucket, I want to suggest is about your storytelling. And this is a skill that for a while there, people were talking about a lot in the entrepreneur world, it seems to have gotten real quiet. And I think that's because we have a lot going on in the world, I understand it. But I want to encourage you to really think about your storytelling capacity.
Now, there are resources that are directly related to storytelling and business. For instance, there is a book called Story 10x by Michael Margolis, and I'll put a link in the show notes, many of the ones that I've seen out there. For me, I kind of traced back to the roots of storytelling from my own tradition. For instance, a couple of years ago, I did a Jewish storyteller workshop, it was like a Jewish TEDx, or, actually more like the month if anybody knows what the month is, where seven or eight of us would coach to pick a point in stored in our lives, and really craft it into a story that had was optimized for impact and for wisdom, passing on wisdom, in Jewish context. And it was a fabulous experience and the woman who facilitated our group, she was just an incredible storyteller. And I learned, I learned in a way that felt really had some richness and some depth that I was really looking for.
So there's lots of ways from Toastmasters to books, like, you know, Story 10x by Michael Margolis and many traditions, you'll see the moth and there's lots of kind of copycat or similar type experiences, but to really look at, how are you telling stories. And what I've learned over the past five years that this has really been a focus for me is that the human nervous system is wired for story. For millennia, humans would like sit around the fire at certain times of the year, and at certain times of the day. And story is how we pass on information. It's how communities connected with each other. It's how we passed on our values, and even information to the next generations. We are wired for story. And when I assessed in the past, I realized I was okay at it. But there was a way that getting better at it would serve my goals. And I really have made it a practice and have done some things like that workshop and some practices that I do regularly. I think it's helped my one on one work with clients, it certainly helped me become a better podcast host and guest and my marketing, whether it's now a, you know a newsletter, or I'm writing a blog post, or I'm doing a podcast episode, you can leverage that muscle that I built over the past five years, and it's been a really good investment.
I encourage you t0 assess, how comfortable are you telling stories and what happens when you tell stories? Do people seem to lean in? Are they engaged, when you try it with a client or you're doing a talk or you've got a speaking gig, when you tell a story do people's eyes lighting up, or they kind of looking at you funny? If you write a blog post, and there's a story in or people referencing that part of the blog post, or they just, you know, crickets, you're not hearing anything that's kind of indicators can give you some sense of what's happening in the realm of your storytelling. And if you're finding that you're not seeing your stories, engaging people in the way you want, you're not getting that emails, wow, that story you told and that podcast or in that blog post, then I encourage you to, you know, look for a way that feels aligned to you to build that muscle. It's a skill that will help you in everything you're doing in your business.
Lastly, I encourage you to take a look at your well being when I use that word. I mean it in a holistic way, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual well being. And again, when I was really honest, and was looking like much of the world in 2020, doing some values clarification, who am I now and this world, you know, when when COVID in forced us all into lockdown, and I was in an inquiry of what's my life about now, and who do I want to be not been in Albuquerque that long, only a little more than a year and, you know, going into the empty nest phase in my life, there was a big change in my life. And you know, I did some deep inquiry and particularly three things that I really want to encourage you to think about, number one, what's going on in the realm of your spiritual life. My here to tell you what it should be, I'm not here to tell you, you should do it somebody else's way, I just want to really encourage you to have a simple, regular practice. For instance, a very simple one for me is I do meditate every day for seven minutes.
Paul Zelizer 30:20
I'm a busy guy, but I found that, that I still get great benefits in terms of my mental clarity, my happiness, and just feeling like I'm tuned, it's like tuning a guitar, I play guitar a little bit. playing a guitar, I have, you know, tune is just a miserable experience. Even if it's only like 5% out of tune, you have six strings in there all 5% off. I'm not such a fun experience, right? So I just think of that seven minutes I take every day to, you know, tune the strings, it makes a difference. So do you have some regular practices in the realm of whatever's larger than you are and kind of just tuning your human, nervous system and soul? Another place I really encourage you to take a look at is what's going on with your diet? What are you putting in your mouth, so much research about how we feel what's going on with our energy levels. And, you know, there were some ways in which certain stress patterns, again, 2020 was an incredibly stressful year, it was pretty good. I was like, running more and doing great things. But there was also some ways I was putting some things into my body that weren't 100% aligned that made some changes. And later, on doing things even more amazing that a 53 I never thought I could possibly do. And part of that was just bringing in awareness what was going in my mouth.
And then the last thing is exercise. There's so much research about, you know, just moving our body. And again, I'm not here to tell anybody about what you should do in terms of moving your body. But I do you feel extremely competent in saying that feeling good in our lives is definitely equated with moving our body in some way that works for you. And there are so many beautiful ways to do that, that are beyond the scope of this podcast, but just assess what's going on in those three buckets, regular sort of spiritual practice, the regular practice of noticing what you're bringing into your body through your mouth, and the regular practice of moving your body. And how's that going? How are you feeling? And are those things dialed in are there places that could use a little bit of attention.
So what's life like for me now, it's a little bit hard to imagine that this is the life I get to lead. And I was talking this morning with a guest who's going to come on in a couple weeks. And I'm excited to introduce you all to one guy in his 60s, he's getting ready for his first triathlon, there are a lot of similarities in our story. But this piece of like, working with a good amount of energy, a 34 hours a week or so, right, it's very manageable, and I get paid well to do it, I love my clients. And then I pause. I have clients in my orbit who understand this lifestyle I've chosen and respected and supported and celebrated. And I go on one of these adventures, and I get to see incredibly beautiful things and, you know, challenge myself almost 90% of the time doing it with very good people, sometimes I do them alone, but the majority I do is a, you know, a small group who, you know, really trust in seeing some of the most incredible things, at least since COVID, mostly in the American West. Or that even internationally, and then come back into my life and I love my home and you know, it really, really good life. Get to have what I want need, what I really want, not things I don't need, the things that really improved my quality of life with a great deal of ease, love, my clients love the impact I have financially and better footing than I've ever been in my life. And I want that for you listeners.
Paul Zelizer 34:35
I guess that's what I got. If you have questions about your version of a quality, sustainable, enjoyable, he's full life. If there's some way I can help you bring that about, I would love to be somebody who's, you know, cheering for you. And maybe there's a resource I know you can go To Paul zelizer.com and go to my contact page and feel free to ask questions and just share with me what is going on in your mind as you're working for optimal performance and a really good quality of life as a social entrepreneur is somebody who's making the world a better place. So for now, I just want to say thank you so, so much for listening. Please take really good care and these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.