DailyJim: Falling in love can screw up our business model

Hello everyone, welcome to another Daily Gym. Today is Monday, October 7th, 2024. Today I want to talk about how falling in love can screw up our business model.

So, maybe you won't relate to this as a business model, but what I mean is that our way of making money as individuals, as human beings, that could be having a job, that could be doing a specific type of, well, whether it's an employed job or you're self-employed or typically or certain investments or certain things that we're doing, just the way that we tend to receive money for our lives can be funding model, business model, whatever you want to call it, income model. Maybe that's better. And how falling in love can really screw that up, can really destabilize. It can really change it. So let's take an example. Let's say you are a salesperson and your whole job is based on you have some salary, but you also have commission. So the more that you sell, the more money you make. Now, often when it comes to sales, there is the idea of trying to make a profit. And so you will sell something to a customer customer, and you're not going to tell them exactly how much it costs to make it. You're going to try to see how much they're willing to pay. So you're going to try to find something that they need, that they want, and then try, depending on the type of sales, to get them to pay as much as they're willing to pay, regardless of how much it costs you. And there's an element of dishonesty or element of hiding. You're not telling them how much the thing costs. And so the goal is to have them really open up or really share how much they want this thing. And then you give it to them only if they pay you almost the maximum that they're willing to pay. Now, conversely, if you fall in love, if you have this huge, whether you fall in love with one person or whether you fall in love with life, this idea of your heart really opening up, you feeling really deeply connected on an emotional level to yourself, but also to others. As that happens as we go deeper into emotions. At that level, maybe you realize that this person has a deep need for this product.

And you don't even think about, you don't even want to sell it to them. You just want to give them the product because you can see that they need this so much. Now, this might cause problems with you if you're trying to be a salesperson.

So it's something I have thought about so much is that there is almost an emotional flavor, or certain emotional norms in organizations, in professions, in the working world in general, kind of organizational culture in general.

And if we become much more emotionally open than it is, or if we become much more alive or emotionally aware or connected or loving or good at dealing with conflict and approaching conflict, however we want to frame it, basically, if we just become more enthusiastic and alive, that can cause a lot of problems if we're trying to fit back into that organizational culture.

So it's something that I've reflected on so much because as I do this work, as I get really good at connecting to how I feel, it becomes hard for me to want to go back into a more transactional culture or transactional industry or job because I recognize that somebody has a need. I feel it. I feel it immediately. And then want to help that person. And I don't want to withhold the product because, or the product or service just because they don't have the means to pay or they don't have the desire to pay. No, no, no, no. Actually, I almost feel offended if they want to pay because like, you have this need. Let me fulfill this need. I will get the emotional reward. I'll receive the emotional gift back if I can help you out. So it's almost like the alleviation of my suffering is the prize for helping out.

And a lot of people will tell me, well, why don't you just go get a job? And it's like, I can. I can go get a job at an organization or I can go back into certain industries. The challenge is often when I'm in these organizations, I am much more emotionally honest or emotionally aware or sensitive or however you want to call it than most people around me. And it seems to cause problems because maybe I'm not coming in as the leader of the organization. Almost rarely am I. And so me being the enthusiastic one, the one that's noticing all the hidden conflict that nobody's talking about and wanting to bring that conflict to the forefront.

Seems to not go so well, especially because I'm not considered the leader of the organization.

And I can go crazy. And I think about this since I actually left two consulting firms before I started working on all this stuff. Because of how I noticed that there were things happening in the organization. Not bad things, but just noticed that there was conflict, interpersonal conflict that was going on. Kind of ideological conflict as well. And people didn't think it was happening. And I was like, no, but it's happening. And they're like, no, it's not. I said, let me interview everyone in the company and see what they think. And I did twice at two different companies, and I was like, yeah, see, conflict, it was happening. And then I left the companies, and I don't know if it was six months later or something, a lot of the things that I had heard from people came to fruition.

And so it's something that I've worried about so much because if I can't figure out how to create a business model, a funding model, an income model for people who really open up their hearts. If I can't figure it out for myself, then how, you know, what am I going to do teaching these things to other people? How can I bring them into this, oh, no, I don't have any money stage? How could I tell them it's so great to have our hearts open if we can't figure out some kind of sustainable way to receive resources as well as give them? And I was talking with a friend earlier who's exploring the high fashion modeling industry. And she said, you know, the challenge for her is similar. She said it's hard for her to go into the industry. It's people, she said, pretentious and, I mean, I think somewhat cold and more than anything, emotionally suppressed. Because to be in certain modeling industries, a lot of it is to walk down the aisle or walk down the runway expressionless and almost disappear so that the clothes shine, but not the model. And to do so one almost has to push down all the vitality one has to almost push down all the, emotional expression and the love for life and maybe that works unless you fall in love unless you take workshops with me unless you meet somebody or you doesn't have to fall in love and Just get inspired for life. Get the courage to confront some of the issues we've been avoiding. Taking therapy. Going to religious service or whatever it may be. Some of these things can really enliven us. And then make us feel stuck because we're in industries that don't want us to be so alive.

Because it almost requires us not to be so alive. Some of these very transactional industries or transactional jobs or whatever, it doesn't work if you're very communal.

If you see everyone as a friend, it's really hard to, okay, let me give an example. If you see Evan who was a friend, it's very hard to have the job that I had for a while where it was working in a store that sold lottery tickets and alcohol amongst other things. And to see the same people come in day in and day out and know that they didn't have money, but to see them buy alcohol over and over again and to see them buy the lottery tickets over and over again. And to feel the pain almost of them doing that and wanting them to stop, but knowing that this is what the company is selling.

The internal conflict of what am I doing? Why am I perpetuating this behavior with this person? It's one of the reasons I thought, you know, I would love to be a bartender until I realized, wait, that means I just have to feed alcohol to people who are getting more drunk than they should be. And I don't know if this is helping them. I think I might go a bit crazy serving them, having the incentive to serve them alcohol when they are not in a good place.

So yeah, I've just really been thinking about this because if I can't figure it out, it's really hard to one, intentionally teach people to come more into this open-hearted space and get better at dealing with emotional conflict. But two, to even unintentionally teach people just by being that way. It's hard for me to be in that space and know that people are starting to become more excited and more generous just by interacting with me because it rubs off. And then it screws them up because they can't figure out the business model. So yeah, so I've been working really hard to try to figure this out. And when I say working really hard, some of it's not, you know, you know, So, nailing, I'm looking like old John Henry metaphor of nailing stakes into the ground, building a railroad. No, it's not necessarily hard physical labor, but a lot of it is really just the emotional courage and stress to try to figure out, okay, intellectual gymnastics or whatnot to figure out, okay, how does this work? How could this work? Do I have the courage to do it this way? What are the implications, et cetera, et cetera? so anyways that's about 10 minutes the wall clock is going to go off in a second so I'm going to end right now but I will talk to you all tomorrow.