Bryan McAnulty: Welcome to The Creator's Adventure, where we interview Creator's from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. Today we're gonna talk about how to prioritize your productivity and focus on the tasks that will actually move the needle in your business. I'm talking with Jennifer Dawn, who coaches business owners to seven figures and beyond without sacrificing their personal life.

Hey everyone. I'm Bryan McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it.

Hey everyone. We're here today with Jennifer Don, who coaches business owners to seven figures and beyond without sacrificing their personal life. Jennifer is a Profit first certified coach, host of the Happy, Productive Podcast, and an author. She began her entrepreneurial career at age eight, selling apples off her grandfather's tree because Lemonade stand was so yesterday.

Uh, Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Jennifer Dawn: Thank you so much, Bryan. I'm happy to be here.

Bryan McAnulty: So my first question for you is, what would you say is the biggest thing that either you did or you are doing that has helped you achieve the freedom to do the things that you.

Jennifer Dawn: Oh, such a great question. I would say that the biggest thing is going to be, it's a little more of a personal thing, but it's gonna be around setting boundaries.

One of those fun things that so many of us don't wanna have to deal with, but I found that. The more effective I've been setting boundaries, the better I've been at, you know, achieving results in my business. Me, me being able to maintain a personal life, being able to maintain my soul and my sanity.

So many of the entrepreneurs that I coach will come to me and they're just like, I hate my business. It's just sucked the soul outta me. So I just see it all the time and really helping those business owners kind of reclaim their life, reclaim the joy of their business. And a lot of it, what it comes down to is going to be around setting really clear, effective, healthy boundaries on what I'm willing to do, what I'm not willing to do.

And I would say that's probably been, and for me that's a hard thing cuz I'm, I'm totally a people pleaser. I don't like most of us are, and it's, you know, it's, it was really a hard thing to be able to be like, Okay, I'm gonna say no. I'm gonna do this. I won't do that. But it's absolutely entirely possible to do and has probably been one of my most effective things.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Well, I'm really happy to hear that actually, because I feel, I think a little bit of the same way that rather than be like the most successful with everything or, or the most healthy or the most whatever, I'd rather be the most balance. I do really feel that it's, it's a skill. It takes effort to do that because it's easy to overwork yourself or, or go too far in a little bit in one direction.

But it's really hard to make everything work together the way you want. And I like that way that, that you're referring to it as like setting boundaries to accomplish that. Mm-hmm. .

Jennifer Dawn: So, yeah, that's great. Absolutely. It's worth the effort. I know it's, it's hard to get started with it, but it's absolutely worth the effort.

And I find that my, the results I get are better when I'm setting those boundaries because I'm showing up in a different place and I'm showing up at my best instead of showing up in a place where we're stretched too thin, we're overwhelmed, we're stressed out you're just not gonna be able to do your best work from that state.

Bryan McAnulty: Exactly. Yeah. That's great. So on your website we saw you mention your entrepreneurial journey started at the age of eight. I know I'm asking you to summarize it real lot but if you could kind of explain for the audience so they can get to know you a little bit better, can you walk us through the story of how you got to where you are today?

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, absolutely. So when I was a little kid and I came from a very dysfunctional family my parents were kind of a disaster and, but the saving grace of that is that we would spend summers with my grandparents. And my grandparents were like, everything you would ever want grandparents to be. And so we would spend summers with them.

And my grandparents were both chiropractors and so my, even my grandmother was a chiropractor and she went. Chiropractic college, like back when women just didn't do it. So she was one of those like strong women, you know, out there setting, you know, setting a great example for the rest of us. But at their house, their office was attached to the home and so the office was there and the home was there, and that's where we would spend all of our summers.

And so I would watch my grandfather go from, you know, working in the office, earning a living. My grandmother did insurance building billings, and she would also practice as well. And then they would go into the home and they had a big garden out back. And so it was just a really interesting thing for me as a child to really kind of see this whole like integrated work life.

I mean like truly integrated. It's all in that same space, but it's all happening. We're earning a living, we're cooking food, we're, you know, existing and being with our grandkids and we're doing all these things together. And so I, I, I really do credit my grandparents with, like, that must be where I got the entrepreneurial bug from because out in front of the office in the front yard, there was an apple tree.

And I very distinctly remember one day just thinking the patients are coming in the office, the apple tree is right here, the apples are falling on the ground. They're just going to waste, and maybe I should just do something with it. And I remember the adults saying, You know, Oh, you could just do a lemonade stand.

And I'm like, Oh, I was a little brat Bryan, and so I'm like, ah, I can't do that. You know, that's what all the kids do. I have to do something different. And so I, I created my apple stand and I did, I mean, my inventory was free. I just picked it off the tree. All of the, the patients from my grandfather's office were coming in and out of the office anyway, and I'll never forget that feeling of like having an idea.

and then taking some action and making it happen. And then I remember those shiny quarters, like in my, the palm of my hand. I remember those shiny quarters and thinking, this is brilliant. Like I could have an idea and then do some stuff and literally turn it into money like that. I could now go, you know, buy candy with, or whatever I was doing with it, but, I just really felt in love with that idea.

And so from there I went on to in high school I had, you know, a cake decorating business and I think I probably did some babysitting and stuff as well. But I went on to work for the governor of Florida. I worked for IBM for a few years, and then at 23 I started my first software company. I had been working for a competitor and while I was there, They had bought up several of their competitors, and so I learned a lot about that industry and I just saw all the things they were doing terribly, and so started my first software company at 23.

Didn't have any idea really anything about really owning a business and running a business, but. I grew up to seven figures and from there I, I did that for about 13 years and was like, Okay, I'm tired of software, let me do something else. And so I bought a log home company of all things and the real estate market like tanked that year.

This was many years ago cuz it's tanked a few times since then. And I had to literally like open and close my doors like within a year. So it was like my, probably my best, like fail fast. Story, but I became very disillusioned with being an entrepreneur after losing that second company. And I took a job in corporate.

So I went into corporate and I became the software division president for a big 54 million manufacturing firm. They had bought a software company, didn't have any idea what to do with it. And so while I was there with them, I. I grew it to multiple seven figures, but I just really I didn't like the morals of the company.

They just, there were things that were wrong. They wouldn't fix 'em the right way, and I, I didn't own it and I couldn't, you know, I couldn't do anything about it, so I just felt like my hands were tied and. I just did. I never liked the idea of, Hey, we know we have this problem in our software, but we're not gonna actually fix it the right way.

It just did not sit well with me at all. So I transitioned outta corporate and it's very interesting. I kind of went through a phase where I just wasn't sure what I was gonna do and, and then I relocated and, and I was asked actually I relocated up to New York. I didn't have any friends or family or people here at all.

I had to start from scratch. And so I went to a women's networking group in the city and I met the founder of this women's networking group and a few weeks later she offered me a position. And so I came in and I helped them with their accountability and masterminding circles. And while I was there, I tripled their revenues, put a lot of structure into it.

They made me the president of the company. It was a really amazing experience. And then that, from there is where I actually launched into my own coaching practice. That was about a decade ago. I've been coaching since then and been going strong on coaching and helping business owners. And then about a year or two years ago, we started our, our marketing agency.

So we also now have a digital marketing agency for our business coaching clients. Just to be able to support them cuz marketing these days in your online, Presence is just so huge. Especially whatever you wanna sell that's online. That piece is so very important. So now that's what we do. So we coach, we do marketing, and I think that's my story.

Hopefully not too long, but there you go.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah. No, that's great. I, I like how you described the, the beginning when you were a kid. I think you described it really beautifully of the experience of going through the whole process of saying like, Okay, this is like the product and then I'm offering it, and now I'm getting the result of I'm getting these quarters.

And I think that's so powerful for an entrepreneur to go through, whether it's a quarter or a few dollars, whatever it is that you end up earning. To be able to go through that whole process and, and earn any amount of money from what you're doing is really neat to see that. And I think There's something important to be said about how you were able to do it quickly, and so even if you don't make, I don't know, tons of money or, or whatever your goal is with money the first time you try something, if you're able to find a way to make even a dollar or two quickly, then that can be so much motivation for you to, to carry forward.

Jennifer Dawn: It really is. And you said something very important there and it's, it's follow the money, right? Because as business owners we have all these ideas. We're constantly like thinking of these ideas. And so it's easy for us to kind of like start stuff. But then before we know it, we can just have so many different things going and, you know, pay attention to where that money is coming from.

Because if you follow the money, I don't think that's, Not served me well to, you know, follow where that money is coming from and let go of some of that other stuff. Not that it may not be a good idea, but it's just you can't do everything all at once.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. That's something that is a challenge.

Uh, I think maybe we can get into that some more soon. In talking about the balance and, and boundaries and all that of deciding like how do you decide what to, to not. But I want to go into, so you said you were at this manufacturing firm as the software division president and we were reading about that on your website of how you, you wanted to quit even though it was a well paying job to be able to spend more time with your family, kind of regain your mental health.

Would you say that like today you feel like you've achieved that work life balance that you're, you're after? And, and if so, like what were some, some of the big steps in the, the boundaries you were creating to do?

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah, such a great question. I would say yes, I felt like I've created that, but it's interesting because as a business owner, we go through these different stages of our business.

You know, in the, in the beginning we're trying to get it off the ground. It's just a startup. And we do have to kind of work really hard to get it off the ground. And then in those beginning stages, you, you need to put in the extra hours. Like I. Found a, a different solution for that in the beginning.

And once you kind of move from startup to, there's like a stage of business next, it's like perseverance. It's like, okay, it's off the ground, it's making money, but perseverance, we're trying to stay alive. You know, we're, we're, we're working hard. We're getting those revenues. And once you kind of get past perseverance and you start to get into more of a stage of business where it's like, okay, vitality, like things are working where it's functioning.

The owner is not the bottleneck anymore, they're not having to do every job within the company. Then I feel like in that stage you start to get into more where work life balance is far more possible. So I am absolutely guilty of when my businesses have been in startup or perseverance. Working my butt into the ground, , there was not any work life balance.

It was simply just like I, I gotta get this thing where it needs to be. And even in my coaching practice, I would say most of the time I've done a really good job of maintaining work life balance. But I think it's been about two years now when we decided to, Start the marketing agency. It was literally like starting a whole new business, but because we had all these business coaching clients, we immediately had a lot of marketing clients.

It was like overnight kaboom. Whereas usually when you start a business, it's a little bit of a slower startup before you really get a lot of clients, and so. And then we had some employees come in, make some promises, didn't deliver, or we had to kind of clean up some messes there kind of in this process.

And so there was definitely probably a good year in there where I felt like I didn't have the work life balance that I normally would have, but I was really driven to get this agency off the ground and to solve this problem for our clients because I love them. We go the extra mile for our clients and.

Like, we need to solve this problem. But now that it's gotten into a place where it's like it's running really well, we're getting all the systems and stuff in there now I feel like, okay, yeah, I've gotta step back and, and get back into that work life balance. So the answer is yes, definitely had it, no, did not have it for a little while in there.

But now, yes, really kind of stepping back in and getting it. . The truth of the matter is like you can only like work at that pace for so long before you're just gonna burn yourself out. And you'll even find, at least I discovered this as like sometimes when you're just really, really hitting it. There was some times where I would show up to a meeting and like my brain, I was just in.

One of the, the head of our agency is my sister. And so I brought her in to run the agency and she's amazing. I, I never work with family or friends, but I made an exception for her and it's just worked out beautifully. But like, we would be on a meeting and she would just be like, Jennifer, and I was just like, literally my brain.

It just wouldn't work anymore. And that's always kind of a red flag. You guys, if you're listening to this and you're just like, I'm so tired, I really can't think you're probably like, pay attention to that because you're probably stepping into some burnout. It's not a good state for you to be in. And I, I literally, like, I took a week off cuz I was just like, okay, I need to just really decompress and get back to that work life balance.

And, and now things have really studied back out again. And, you know, I function at a full level when I can show up in with my energy and, you know, my brain functioning the way that it needs to. But at the same time, it's like sometimes when you're getting something off the ground and really building it at the beginning work life balance.

It's difficult sometimes in those early stages.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's important to mention because like I, I've kind of tried both ends of the spectrum. I've tried like basically not working and like stepping away from my business and thinking like, can I, can I retire? Do I wanna retire? Do I want it to be like this?

I'm like, a few years back and I realized like that that wasn't fulfilling. I, I want to, that got boring pretty quick. I wanna work on stuff. I wanna progress with everything. And then I also tried, like working really hard, but I've realized like as, as you're saying, like you can get burned out. Like not, like for me, there was never really a point where I was like, I'm so burned out.

I just don't wanna do this anymore. I guess like I never let myself get that far. But I could tell like it wasn't healthy. I wasn't able to focus on the things that I cared about at the right moments, you know? . So yeah, I'm really strong into like the idea of trying to achieve the balance. And definitely I would agree that like as soon as you start the company, like, yeah, it's gonna be hard to do that for a little bit.

But you just have to make a decision for yourself of like, well, how long do you wanna give yourself before you want to try to be more balanced and that you have this eventual goal of trying to have those boundaries so you can become balanced because otherwise, eventually, Things will suffer your, your own health.

Other things, things around you, your business even. But yeah, that, that's excellent. And yeah, I think everyone has to decide it for themselves cuz a story you made me think of is I got the opportunity to talk with one of the co-founders of Click Up and they're such a huge productivity software now, and he was telling me and the others around me of how.

Like for the first four years, like they only worked, he said like they made an agreement to like, not date or anything. Not like go out, they just worked like his life was click up and, um mm-hmm. At this point now they've raised so much funding, they're worth like $4 billion. Somebody made a comment and they said, Well, like, it sounds like the work life balance like wasn't so good, huh?

And he said, Well, now it's fine. Now they're, now they're worth $4 billion. And so now he is doing okay. But still like, so you have to make that decision for yourself. Like for them, I guess they were really confident that they had something that they could do that would, could become that huge. But for you, even, even if it is for potential $4 billion valuation of your company, is it going to be worth it for you, for your health or your family or whatever to really a hundred percent dedicate like that?

Or do you still want to have some kind of balance? Yeah.

Jennifer Dawn: Absolutely. Hopefully you've got support for whatever your family situation looks like, that they understand, hey, I'm getting a business off the ground. I mean, it could be tough sometimes if our family, our friends, are not business owners. They don't know.

When you surround yourself with other business owners, like they're usually gonna say, Yeah, the first year, two years, four years, whatever. Click up like you're gonna work. And if you don't work, you're probably. Gonna be as successful as you might be if you're just like sitting around going, You. I need work life balance.

I'll work three hours a day or whatever that is. Right? It's like, eh, you're probably gonna need to just work a bit in the beginning. And even my clients that I coach, like most of my clients that come in, it's the opposite. It's they're working too much and we have to get 'em into more work life balance.

But their businesses are off the ground. They're, they're making revenues like they're at a different stage of the business. But in those early days, I'm open to hear if somebody has a better idea on what you do to get a business started without just getting in there and working on it and working hard on it in the beginning.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. So going through your website, learning about you like as a business coach, you help these other businesses and companies reach the next level of growth. Looks like you're really successful at that. I'd like to focus on the idea of the, the one aspect of your business of accountability and planning.

So, apart from your coaching services, we saw that you created this planner that people can purchase on your site called the best planner ever. So what made you to decide to create your own planner?

Jennifer Dawn: It's interesting because when I was with the Women's networking group, they had a planner and I had to use it because I was the president of the company, but it really didn't work for me.

And so when I left the company, I remember sitting at my desk one day and I was just like, Okay. I had my planner, I had my vision book, I had sticky notes, I had, you know, motivational quotes. I had all these. Things, and it was just like all over the desk. And I just said, You know what? I gotta, I gotta create something better.

I need to combine, like I, I like the woo woo spiritual stuff. I really like visualization. I like setting goals. I like, you know, measuring my results. I like being inspired. I like all these different things and I love sticky notes. And so I sat down and I really just kind of flushed out a, a version of what my planner would be.

And I started using it every day. And I remember I said to my husband, one, This is the best planner ever. And he was like, It is. And I was like, Yeah, it is. And I said, You know what? I'm gonna name it that. And he's like, You are? I'm like, I am . And of course I thought I was crazy. But then I looked it up and the domain was free, and I figured that's a sign from the universe that the domain's available, so I'm grabbing it.

Best planner ever. How was that? Never taken. So then I started using it with my coaching clients. They started getting results. And then of course the entrepreneurial bug set in. And I'm just like, All right, I'm. This its own its own company, its own planner, because truly, I mean, When we talk about our best assets, everybody says time and money.

And I'm gonna argue it's time because with time you can always make more money. But you know, you, you really and truly only have the same 24 hours. We all have the same 24. And if we don't learn how to get more from that 24, we can end up just spinning and spinning our wheels. And this is where like even in later stages of business, when you're like, Hey, I can't work 80 hours a week anymore.

One of the great productivity tips is, you know, when you do start to kind of back off because of work life balance and you say, All right, I'm only gonna work, you know, 30 hours a week or whatever your number is. You gotta make those 30 hours count because you can't sometimes work in some of the old ways where we waste time and we're not effective and we're doing things we shouldn't be doing and we're not delegating.

You're not gonna be able to condense your work week and and, and be ineffective. So that's one of the things I love though, when you start getting into work life balance and that's how I use my planner to help me really make sure that those hours that I am working, that I can be as effective with every single hours I possibly can be.

And that way then, you know, in on the personal side, I can go. Mess around and you know, I can waste time on the personal side, that's fine. But I try not to waste the time in the business because I'm really limiting those hours and holding myself to higher standard of making sure those hours really count and that, and I use the planner to do that.

One of the things in the planner, I, we use the ABC as a productivity, and so an A task is a task. Moves the needle on your vision, like moves your goals forward, but it's often a task that we'll procrastinate or we don't wanna do or we'll put off to later. But if you do it, it's that thing that will absolutely move the needle.

And so in our to-do list and the planner, I literally have A, B, C, D, so that when I sit down to plan my day, I'm, I'm really super clear right from the very beginning on what's my a task today that will move the needle? What's all the important stuff? The bees I have to do, like show up on a podcast, you know, show up for a client call.

Those are all your bees see are things that can be procrastinated until later or put off until time permits. D is delegate and E is eliminate. And so I just built that into the planner. It's just a super simple system. It's easy to remember and then when you sit down every day, it's just, it becomes this habit of you just get into the habit of literally being productive.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's great. I would say that the point you made before about like, well, when you have the, the free, like personal time, that then you're free to waste it. Like, I wouldn't even say waste because like you've planned that time, Like that time is to do whatever you've chosen. So it's still, it's still set out and, and planned.

Like there's an intention behind it. Even if the attention is, do whatever I feel like at the. I wanna ask you though, so you said abc,

Jennifer Dawn: I've just, I have to share really quickly, so

Bryan McAnulty: Sure.

Jennifer Dawn: A lot of business owners, we struggle with that personal time, that free time, right? We feel guilty, we're just like, Oh, I should be working in my business.

And then, and then we don't really get the most outta that time. And so one of the things I did was I flipped that in my own brain and I'm like, All right, when I'm relaxing or wasting time, I'm gonna, Better than anybody else. And so that gave myself permission to be like, All right, that time, that's quote wasted.

It's not really being wasted. But that time I'm just like, I can take a nap better than anybody. I can flake off better than anybody. And when I did that, it just let my brain be free to just like really enjoy that time so that way when you're off, you can be off and not actually be feeling like guilty the whole.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah, I, I never really thought about it that way, but I think subconsciously, like internally, I am thinking about it that way as well. That like, that I'm, I'm thinking like, well, I'm, I'm better because I'm able to say this time I'm just doing whatever it is. That's not work. Yeah. I like that.

I wanted to ask though, so you said A, B, C, D, and E and you described those. Is the goal then to have like five tasks for each day, or would you have more.

Jennifer Dawn: No the goal is to have at least one a task a day. And for many people I try to say you could have three, like, don't have more than three, but try to have three A tasks a day, meaning three things that you do every day that move yourself forward for whatever your vision or your goals are.

They could be personal or professional, but if you're a business owner, like make sure at least one of those a tasks are definitely, you know, business. And then your bees are important things. They're, the meetings that are scheduled, the places that you need to be, those are your bees, and they usually just get scheduled on your calendar.

And then the rest of it is just a, a daily system to kind of remind yourself. So it doesn't have to be five things. It can be as many things as you need, but. So many of us, we will work from a to-do list, right? It's here, Here's all the things I need to do. But what we don't do is we don't prioritize the list.

And so that's where the ABCD comes in, is that now I'm looking at my list and I'm going, That's an A. That's a B. That could be, that's a C. It can go later. That I shouldn't be doing myself, I need to delegate that to somebody else. And that doesn't really move me forward. I said, Yes, I shouldn't have, you know, or I need to move that back to later.

That's a Q3 thing. And it really just, that system just helps us to really prioritize and organize. So when we sit down every day, you know, maybe we're doing, you know, three A's and, and a couple of B's and great. And now our time is being used to a much higher benefit because we've prioritized that list of where our time's gonna.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. Yeah, I like that. I asked too because one of like the first pieces of software we made was a like goal and habit tracking software. And like, I made that out of the same like desire to like optimize my own productivity. Right? And so that software we ended up like closing it down. It wasn't super successful, but I still use it myself every day.

And I find that like for everyone that's different, like how, how you wanna think about it and organize your, your to-dos, your productivity and all that. But of course there's similarities and like you're working towards a common thing. It's more so. How you can visualize it. That is a more personal thing, I guess.

So, but like from that it helped me like, so it was a software that we had like recurring goals and things you could work on, but also had analytics. And one of the things I think was an interesting finding from that is people think like, Okay, I'm gonna have all these to-dos. And I realized that on average you really only complete like five things per.

And so like, yeah, of course there's like little one or two minute tasks of things you have to do. There's tons of things you do, but from like the main like to-dos that you write out, usually you're gonna complete about five things per day. And so if you're looking at like, your list right now and saying like, Okay, well this is all my stuff and you've got 20 things, or a hundred things, or a thousand things.

Try to, to pick like, I would say pick like the top five. And, but for you, I really like, I really like that idea of like, what are the A tasks and what are the B tasks? So that's a great way to organize it as well. If somebody wants to learn more about yours what is the domain again, where they can find that?

Jennifer Dawn: It's best planner ever.com. .

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome.

Jennifer Dawn: It's easy to remember. Best planner ever. Even in the planner, I did the same thing that you're talking about, like our to-do list. It's not like a whole page long, it's short. Like there's three, there's three lines, three for a, three for B, three, three for C, and I think three for D.

And it's because you can't do. that many things in a day. And so we intentionally keep our to-do list shorter so that you can be more selective and here's, here are the things that I'm gonna do today. So exactly what you were saying.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Yeah. And I like how you mentioned about like the constraints and like figuring out if you're gonna work less hours, like then how can you focus on the important tasks and I totally believe that to be true because thinking on points in my life, I can point to a lot of areas where the constraint was powerful in helping me stay productive.

And so like when I was in my twenties, I did a lot of traveling. I traveled all around the world. Like I, I, at one point I was gone for over a year from the US and people would say like, Well, how do you work when you're doing that? For me, first of all, it wasn't like every single day I'm going somewhere. I would like try to stay in a place for about a month of like a home base for that month and then travel around from there.

But what was so powerful actually is when I knew it was coming time to leave to that next country that was like the next home base or whatever. Then I knew like certain things have to get done by that point. So that was a really good constraint for me to say like, Okay, well now here's the things that are the deadlines because I know there's gonna be a little bit of productivity lost in blind to new place, getting to know where there's the supermarket or food store, things like that.

And so it actually helped me be productive. So I wouldn't say like, I lost productivity or I was like not working during that time at all, actually.

Jennifer Dawn: Yeah. Yeah. No, that makes perfect sense and I love that you were able to do that. What a wonderful experie.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Yeah, I definitely would recommend that everyone try to take some time to travel.

I think it's an awesome thing. Yeah. Any other things that you would share about like either time management or like how can an entrepreneur be more productive in less time?

Jennifer Dawn: Oh, such a great question. You know one of the, I, I would say for so many for myself and for so many of my clients, what I see the most often is that they don't have their mindset.

In alignment with that goal of where they wanna be. So if your goal is, I wanna be more productive, right? I wanna work, you know, smarter, not harder, that's overused, but you get it. The mindset isn't lined up with it. So the thoughts that you're thinking are going to be. There's never enough time. I don't have enough time.

All I do is put out fires all day. I'm so busy. I didn't get anything done today. Right? So those are the thoughts that are going through your mind, and those are driving some of the feelings and the emotions, and those are, that's gonna drive stress, frustration, overwhelm, all of these different emotions.

And from there, that's actually gonna drive your, your actions because our minds always wanna prove us, right? So if we say, I don't have enough time, or I'm so busy, Or you know, there's never enough time in the day. Well, we will prove ourselves right with this thinking over and over again. And sometimes we'll even make choices, which will sabotage our productivity because we are busy proving ourselves, right?

And so the very first place that we always start is with our thinking. And even in the beginning, if you don't believe it, that's okay, but you gotta come up with some new thoughts to think. And the more you think those, they will eventually become your beliefs, the more and more you think them, and then it will in fact become your reality.

So the more times that you think I have all the time that I need, I am, you know, I take decisive action daily. I'm really, really effective with my time. The more of those thoughts that you think become the beliefs and those drive the actions and the emotions behind it as well, and so, That's always the first place that I like to start is take a look at your thinking and you gotta take some of those junky thoughts and you gotta replace 'em with the thoughts that you want to think.

And when you start thinking those things, those are gonna help drive, get the results where, where you really wanna be. It might, it might take more than a day or two guys. You gotta like stick with it and you just gotta stick with it until it really becomes the habit. And that is in fact the thinking and that becomes the reality.

So anyway, so for productivity, if you really wanna be more productive, you absolutely can, but you gotta start with your own thinking first. .

Bryan McAnulty: Yep. Yeah, I totally believe that. I would say to anyone who wants to question that and say like, Oh, I don't, the mindset stuff, I don't, I don't worry about that.

Like I would say that for me, even like I'm talking about how I'm, I'm productive or whatever now but like I, I didn't, I wasn't always perfect with things. I'm still not maybe, but what I would say is like there were the time when I did decide like, what if I just tried to not work for a while and see how that feels.

It took me a while to get productive again because it was like a totally new habit of like, it was hard for me to work even 40 hours a week when I actually timed myself and said like, Well, how much am I actually working? The week would pass by, I'd look at it, and I spent like 20 hours a week actually working.

And like, this is not, I'm not bragging about this. This was a bad thing. I wanted to work more, but it was, it was an effort for me to, to build the, the mental muscle and mindset into creating those habits. And so that's, I think a more, a less like like magical mindset, however you want to get into that, like way of looking at it.

But I think it kind of proves that there's something there about the exercise of your mind into productivity.

Jennifer Dawn: Absolutely. And I just think it's important, like everybody has to figure out what that right balance for you is. I mean, there's some people who, you know, a 20 hour work week is perfect for them.

There's some that, you know, 50 hour work week is perfect for them. And I just think own where you're at in that. And I love my business. Like I don't wanna work two hours a day. Like I, I really love my business, but I've kind of found that, you know, around like that 30. 30 ish hours a week. That for me just feels like a really good zone where I'm, I'm working, I'm super productive and I haven't started to step into where it's too much.

Not that, I mean, I can crank out 40 in a heartbeat. I can do 50 and be like, Yeah, yeah, whatever. Cuz I just love what I do and I love my business, but, Week after week after week of, you know, 50 plus hour weeks eventually takes the toll and that I've had to learn as well too. So just play around with it and figure out like kind of where is your ideal zone for you.

Don't worry about what everybody else is doing, just figure out what works best for you to kind of stay in that productive state, but not cross over to where you're now pushing it too far and getting yourself burned out.

Bryan McAnulty: Yep. I totally. All right. Well that's great. I've got one more question for you.

So we like to have each of our guests ask a question to the audience. If you could ask our audience anything anything you're curious about, anything you want them to think about, what would that be?

Jennifer Dawn: Oh, such a great question. So the question that I would ask the audience to ask themselves is, every day when you sit down to grow your business, if you asked yourself this, if I only had one hour a day to grow a, and if you're going after a seven figure goal, make it a seven figure business.

If you're going after a six figure goal, okay? Make it six figures. So if you only had one hour a day to grow a seven figure business, what would I do with this? And just start asking yourself that be when you sit down to work for the day and, and then do, and then do it. Whatever that thing is that you're like, Okay, if I could only have one hour a day to work on growing my seven figure business, what would I do with that hour?

And make that a habit of just asking yourself every day before you sit down to work and play around with that. And let me know how it goes. Cuz it's one of my favorite, favorite questions to ask myself when I sit down to work on my. .

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, I think that's a great exercise cuz that's gonna help you identify that a task, so

Jennifer Dawn: mm-hmm

And if the answer is I don't know, then get a coach and let them help you figure it out cuz they, there is a good, there is a right answer to that question.

Bryan McAnulty: Definitely. All right, well thanks so much, Jennifer. If people wanna learn more about you, where else can they find you online?

Jennifer Dawn: They can find me on my website, which is Jennifer Dawn, d a w n, Jennifer dawn coaching.com, and everything is there.

Contact form. You can find out more about me from there. All right, awesome.

Bryan McAnulty: Thanks for coming on the show.

Jennifer Dawn: You're welcome. Thanks for having me, Bryan.

Bryan McAnulty: If you enjoyed this interview and want the chance to ask questions to our guests live, tune in on Tuesdays when new episodes premiere on the Heights Platform Facebook page.

To learn more about the show and get notified when new episodes release, check out The Creator's Adventure dot com. Until then, keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.