Activating Feminine Power in Business — Less Hustle, More Joy

Why enjoying what you’re doing is more important than the doing itself

Last Friday I went to an all female breakfast where I realized that I hustle way too much and enjoying the results of my hustling (if there are any) way too little. And that puts me into a masculine, hustle mode all the time and leaves me feeling dry and deflated, unsatisfied and demotivated.

I’ve hustled and struggled enough to get “to the top” that at this point it’s just not worth it. The stress, the clenched teeth, the doing what’s necessary because “if it would be easy, everyone would do it” is not exciting or worthwhile anymore.

I want what I’m doing to be 20% effort, 80% results and I want to fucking enjoy those results as well as the journey. I’m not here to work like a horse for 20 years to build an empire so I can enjoy it then. I want to enjoy now.

I also understand that in order to build something of value you need to work hard and, oh my god, I do work hard. All my life I busted my ass off first working as a waitress at 14 years old delivering pizzas while my peers where vacationing with parents and then busting my ass at three jobs at a time while going to college. Once I started my serious job post-college I also worked for 12–14 hours days busting my ass off for a someone else and then busting my ass off working for myself building a million dollar business. So if anyone knows anything about hard work, it’s me and, as you can see, there was a lot of busting ass.

I’ve realized that in the past I’ve worked hard just to work hard. Without much vision, strategy or prioritizing joy and pleasure. I’ve worked hard building a million dollar business following someone else’s model that works for them. I never actually paused to ask a question: what do I want and what actually works for me? How do I want to work and for what goal or purpose? How do I design my life and my work that aligns with who I actually am? No one has asked me those questions or showed me the way to figuring out the answers to them.

I’m currently on a journey to discover all that.

I sense that so many boss bitches and boss ladies like me are on this journey as well. We’ve done it, we’ve proved it, we’ve made the cash, we’ve hired the team. We’ve proved it to the world and to ourselves. We’re amazing, we’re smart, we can do it. We can play with the big boys.

But playing this game like the big boys is not really fun or enjoyable in the long run. In sports if you play with the boys, they always win because they’re simply built different. Their bodies are stronger, they’ve got more muscle, they can focus at one thing at a time. Same with business. I’m not here to play and compete like the big boys. I’m here to play with myself and be myself. Do it my way. Create my own fucking rules. Who said I can’t spend days at a wellness club in Bali working out, sweating in a sauna and working at the lounge area?

I’m here to build a business that is aligned with who I am and not the other way around.

These are new times for business where women get to set their own rules (not the rules that men are currently teaching us to play.) Very few women have truly figured out how to play this new game.

One of the rules of the game that I’m actively playing with is prioritizing pleasure. Enjoying what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

Less hustle and effort, more enjoyment and pleasure.

Such an anti-capitalist, anti-hustle, anti-everything-we’ve-been-taught-about-work concept.

Are you hustling more than receiving pleasure and feeling joy from that hustle?

Here is an exercise for you to find out:

1. Draw a cross on a blank page and label each of the four lines as Body, Work, Relationships & Personal Growth (you can draw more lines for other areas of life like Health, Wealth etc..)
2. Rate each area of your life from 0 to 10 according to how much effort you’re putting into this area of your life
3. Rate how satisfied you are with this area of you life from 0 to 10
4. Look at these two numbers for each area of your life. If you’re putting more effort into an area of your life (8) but you’re overall less satisfied (6,) you have to start focusing on your satisfaction and pleasure in this area of you life.