I Don’t Fully Buy the “Only Do What You Love” Advice

Friction is a data point. And it's not a directive. And I think collapsing it into a single rule of if it's hard, stop doing it, right? Like if there's friction, you should avoid doing that thing. I think that rule used universally leaves a lot of growth on the table for you. Let me tell you what got me thinking about this. I had Dave Rogenmoser on my podcast recently. And I'll link to it in the show notes. Really fun discussion that I had with him. And he said something that stuck with me. He said if you find yourself procrastinating, then it's a sign that you should be delegating that thing, right? To somebody who doesn't think that that thing is something you should procrastinate. Somebody that actually enjoys it. And instead you should look at the things that you do while you're procrastinating as clues for what you should be leaning into, right? So like the stuff that you naturally gravitate towards is the stuff that you want to double down on. And my buddy Chris Walker talks about something similar. And Chris has founded several companies, but one is Encoded, the company he's working on right now. And it's about frequency training, finding flow. And I'm actually... I'm part of... of Encoded... we'll link to his podcast below too. And really it's like, hey, the things that you find flow in are the things that you should be doing in the business. So... so reduce the friction. And if you're doing something that creates internal resistance, it's a signal that you shouldn't be doing it.

And directionally, I completely agree with this. Like I practice it. I've spent the last couple of years actively offloading things in my business that drain my energy so that I can lean into the things where I create the most value. Right? So if I'm doing content, if I'm doing strategy focused on culture, that's where I'm going to add the most value in my business. By far. So I get this concept. I respect it. I live it. But I've been sitting with it for a few days since this conversation with Dave. And I don't think it's a universal rule. And not because I think Dave or Chris are wrong, it's because I think that idea is incomplete without some context. Right? So here's the question I couldn't get past. It was, who do I know that only does stuff that they enjoy and avoids anything that has friction or like internal resistance and has a business that I would actually want? And I could really only think of like one person. Like I thought about this for a while. And it was like my buddy Justin Welsh. And some of you may know him as the... the ten million dollar solopreneur. He's got a huge... huge audience, great newsletter. And I know him well enough to know that he's... he's the real deal. He really doesn't do very much that he doesn't want to do. And if you look at his calendar, which he's actually... he's been kind of public about, there's very little on there that creates friction for him. So I think in a lot of ways he is living proof of what Dave Rogenmoser and Chris Walker are talking about. Like that philosophy. But as I thought about it, I was like, you know, Justin didn't start there. That's where he is today. That's the destination. That's the result of the business that he's built. But the path to get there obviously had... involved some things that he didn't want to do. Like when you go from zero to one in a business, there are a lot of things that need to get done. And some of them because they actually need to get done. Some of them because it's part of the learning and the experience that you need to go through to be successful at the next level. So, you know, you go, you try something, you find out it doesn't work, you find out, you know, you don't want to be doing that thing. And some of that process inevitably involves grinding through sht that you don't love. Like not because friction is the goal, but because it's just part of the path. And you know, if I sat down with Justin and said, "Hey, were there things along the way that littered your calendar... like or did your calendar look differently three years ago than it does today?" I'm pretty confident he's gonna say, "Yeah, man, for sure." Right? Like there were things that... that needed to get done that he may not have enjoyed doing in order to get to the point that the business is sustaining enough to do the things that he wants to do. So the destination validates like the advice, but the path to get there required some resistance and some friction. And I see this a lot with businesses that I work with. Like I work with a lot of IT companies, a lot of MSPs, and these founders... they don't want to make sales calls. Like they... they do not like sales, a lot of them. Because they got into it because they love technology. Not... had nothing to do with sales. And I get it. For a lot of people sales creates friction. It like... it drains energy and, you know, they're... that's... that's the thing that they're procrastinating. But if there's no salesperson and there's no pipeline and there's no process, who's selling sht? Like the founder is. Not because it's their passion and not because it's their superpower, but because it's... it's the prerequisite. You've got to sell some sht before you can afford to hire somebody to sell some sht. And specific to sales, I know for a fact that it's helpful for a founder to get into the... the process and take some sales calls, learn the process, experience it, respect it, and figure out what's going to be necessary to support the salesperson when they bring them in. Like having done the job for a little while is very, very beneficial to making sure that the person that you bring in to do the job is successful. So in that case friction is real, but the task is still necessary. And telling that founder, "Hey, just don't do it because you don't like it," that's going to keep them small. Right? Like that's going to keep them from ever getting to a point where they don't have to do it. So this isn't me saying Dave and Chris are wrong. Like this is an expansion on the idea. Like friction is a signal that you want to pay attention to. But in my mind, it's not an automatic instruction that you've got to stop. Like, hey, you know what, I don't like doing this thing, I should be doing it. Let me... let me get rid of it immediately. And as I thought about it, I landed on three questions that I think are worth asking when you hit this point of friction. Right? So first, does this task even need to get done? And I'd be really honest about it. If this thing didn't get done today, what's gonna actually happen in the business? And if the answer is nothing, or the answer is nothing severe or critical, then f***ing drop it. Right? Like don't even delegate it, just stop doing it. Like in that case, Dave and Chris absolutely right. Friction is a signal, just... just stop it. The second question is if it does need to get done, does it actually require you to do it? Right? Do you actually have to be the person that does it? Like you personally? You? Is there a skill, an experience, a... like some perspective that is legitimately necessary for you to... to be effective at that next level? Or is it something that you can hand off? And if it can... if you can, then just hand it off. Right? Like again, like they... they would be right here, just offload it. Your time is better spent somewhere else. But if it does need to get done, and you need to do it, then the third question I would ask is — and this is the one that I think gets missed most of the time — is do I need to do this forever? Right? Because a lot of friction comes from things that are temporary. Right? It's a... it's a stage. It's... like you take sales calls for six months, you learn the process, you build something repeatable, and then you bring somebody in to do it. That friction, yeah it was real... yes the task was necessary, but it wasn't permanent. It was... it was part of the process of getting to the point that you didn't have to do it.

Now the second part of this I would say is — and I think that this is just as important by the way... we talk about friction as a signal to stop, but we... we don't talk enough about the fact that the absence of friction doesn't automatically mean that you should keep doing that thing either. I look at people when they're avoiding a task because it's hard or they don't want to do it. They start procrastinating. What are they doing? Right? Like Dave says like look at what you're doing when you're procrastinating to see what you should double down on. And I think it's really good advice. But there's a lot of people when they're procrastinating they're scrolling LinkedIn. Right? Like they're... they're checking Instagram, they're reorganizing their desk, they're tinkering with some... like something that feels productive but doesn't actually move the needle on anything. And like all of that... it's effortless. It doesn't have any friction. And... and by "do what you gravitate to," you would say, "Hey, I should... I should do two or three or four times more of this thing." But that's... that's obviously not the right thing to do. Like you can't reorganize your desk to prosperity. So a lot of times what's happening during... when you're procrastinating is you're really just like dopamine seeking. And it's... it's like avoidance of something that you dress up as like, "Hey, this is easy. Like this is a time killer." And scrolling LinkedIn is not going to build your business. Like no matter how much of it you do. You can... you can eat up the entire feed in a day, it's still not going to grow the business. Like just because there's no friction associated with it doesn't mean it's something that you should do more of. Uh... Flow on the other hand, like flow is real. Right? And... and I feel it when I'm creating content. And I feel it when I'm in like the strategy seat. That's... that's real signal. But scrolling Twitter for 45 minutes is not flow. Like that's... that's avoidance. And I would say on the flip side... like what should I do more of? Right? Like there are two questions worth asking to me. Like one is, "What do I do when I'm not procrastinating?" Like that's the first sign. Because if I... in order to procrastinate the sht that I don't want to do, if I move to something like strategy or culture or content creation or sales or whatever it is... Okay, cool. Like that's a... that's a sign of where I should spend more time in the business. So, what do I do when I'm procrastinating? But then the second question which is really important is, "When I'm doing that thing, am I... am I going towards something that I find flow in? Or am I just seeking out like some dopamine? Am I just avoiding sht?" And... and doom scrolling through social media or whatever your version of that is... because those are two very different things that come from the stuff that you do when you're procrastinating the hard stuff. The core principle... like I'm completely bought in. Like spend the majority of your time where you create the most value, where you get energy, where you find flow. Absolutely. Like I... I completely believe that and I live it. Like personally, I know that I create a lot more leverage in my bus-... in my business doing content and doing strategy than I do in day-to-day management. Right? Anyone on my team can tell you that. But I had to do the day-to-day management. Like for... for a period of time. And not because I loved it, not because I was awesome at it, but because I had to do that as part of the process to get to a point where I didn't have to do that. Skipping that stage would not have gotten me to a point where I can find flow more quickly. Like it would have actually meant that the business never grew enough to support the structure that lets me operate in the flow that I have today. So the destination... like that Dave and Chris are pointing to, I think it's spot on. Um, but the... but the path to get there, to me, at least in my experience and that of almost every entrepreneur I know, will inevitably require some friction along the way. And if that task creates friction, I would say, is it draining and... and unnecessary? Or is it... is it an essential step to get where you want to go? And if something feels effortless, you want to ask like, is this flow real? Like is this high value work? Or is this comfort seeking? Right? That lets me avoid the real stuff that needs to get done. And those are... those are very different decisions. And again like full circle collapsing them back into one rule of if it's hard and I don't like it don't do it, or if it's easy do more of it... I... leaves a lot of growth on the table. And... and following it to a T, I know personally would not have gotten me to where I am today. So sometimes the hard thing is the right thing. Not forever, but perhaps for now. Hope it helps. Adios.