I listened to a podcast recently with one of my favorite people, Dan Koe.

There's a small chance you've heard of him but I'm going to guess probably not.

QA folks don't know this guy exists, and he seems to be in a pretty deep rabbit hole for online business nerds.

But this is the guy who coined the term "one-person business" after that other guy coined "solopreneur".

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You probably don't want to work 12-hour days but you may think people who do have some admirable superhuman discipline that you wish you had, even if you'd use it for things other than working all day.

Here's why you shouldn't envy this:

It's not genetic, that's not what I mean at all.

Dan talks about 4 stages that we all go through when it comes to creative work:

1. Perplexity
2. Curiosity
3. Intensity
4. Consistency

#3 is where you find those 12-hour workday people.

And one day you'll be there too, if you choose to pursue creative endeavors on your own terms, or maybe you've been there during "crunch time" at work if your company does that.

You're serving someone else's creative vision, so naturally you'll end up there by extension of that person entering their own "intensity" phase.

So what are the other ones?

Perplexity

Dan talks about this as the "lost" phase.

You have no sense of purpose and you're just floating through life, going through the motions.

No inspiration has struck you yet.

Curiosity

This is where you have a strike of inspiration and you want to dive deeper into it. You're feeling curious.

You want to follow the rabbit hole to see where it takes you.

And then eventually you may have a "eureka" moment when you find the problem you want to solve next.

Naturally that'll lead you to....

Intensity

Long hours come from a deep drive to finish your project.

Nobody has to tell you do this, but they might if you're working on someone else's creative project.

If it's your project, you'll struggle with work/life balance during this stage.

But all things eventually pass...

Consistency

The launch of a product. The finishing-up of your book, or the end of a creative journey.

The intensity wears off and you return to a "new normal".

We all have been here before.

You're once again going through the motions, but you're now trying to maintain the achievements you've won during the Intensity phase.

And eventually, you'll repeat the cycle as you get bored from your new baseline.

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All of this is to say you don't need to try to work 12 hours a day. You'll burn out if you're Intensity-mode all the time and you never return to Consistency to maintain your progress.

And it'll bite you.

So remember that the next time you're in "crunch mode". All things pass eventually. And if you see someone else doing this?

They'll eventually have to stop, too.

Life goes in seasons. If you're living a healthy life, that is.

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Have a healthy weekend. If you want me to share more of this online business stuff that you may not have heard of, let me know. I'm deeeeep down that online biz rabbit hole at this point.

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Cheers,

Steven