31. Focusing On Needle Movers and Growth With Multiple Income Streams | BONUS Listener Q&A

Build multiple streams of income, they said. But how do we prioritize our time to truly move the needle? Great question!

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Transcript

[00:00:00] I am back with another bonus episode, and today it's a q and a. That means a listener asked a juicy question, and I'm here to share my answer.

[00:00:38] Here's today's question. It says, your infinite wisdom on growing income through multiple streams while prioritizing only a few needle movers at a time. I smiled so big when I saw this question roll in because it tells me that the right people are listening to this show. So I don't know if I have infinite wisdom on this topic, but I absolutely have some opinions.

[00:01:10] So first I wanna unpack growing income. Most of us want to grow our income, we want to always be making more. But I also want to call out that it's okay if you're not in a season of growth and you're in a season of feeling content. It's totally okay for your business to have different roles in your life in different seasons, and if you are happy with the amount you're making and it's stable, and

[00:01:39] it's comfortable, and it's making the math math, and it's getting the job done, please don't feel like you always need to be chasing growth and you always need to be making more. That being said, if you are in a season of growth like this person is, multiple income streams can be a great way to get there.

[00:02:00] Truth be told, when I think about multiple income streams, I think more about safety and stability than I do growth potential. That's just my personal perspective. And if you go back to the early episodes, the first three in this podcast where I share my story, you hear me talk about an A bucket and a B bucket and how one is like my safe, secure,

[00:02:25] guaranteed income. And then the other one is like a passion project that I'm growing to see what's possible. So I think about multiple income streams, usually from a stability standpoint, but absolutely having two income streams versus one sets you up for potential of growth. 

[00:02:45] That being said, if you're in a season of growth, they always say where energy goes, growth flows, right? So it's also okay to bring laser focus to one thing for a sprint and for a time period and really help it grow. You don't need to have multiple pots on the stove in order to get dinner on the table.

[00:03:11] So this question also talks about prioritizing only a few needle movers at a time. At the end of the day, whether you have one income stream and one goal, or multiple income streams and multiple goals, you're only going to be able to prioritize a few needle movers at a time anyway. We had a business book club episode where we talked about the book 12 week year, and I've talked to some listeners who are going through their first 12 week sprint. A 12 week sprint is a great way to practice putting your blinders on and saying no. For this short focused period of time, I am just focused on this one clear goal. And there will always be other shiny things that I'm excited to dive into, but I'm not gonna do it right now. And I think the 12 week sprint is what really helped me get comfortable with the fact that it was okay and it was safe to focus on this one thing right now.

[00:04:19] Because I know that I will dive into those other things later, but I don't need to spend brain energy on them right now. And the other thing that helps me prioritize only a few needle movers at a time is mapping out the plan for the quarter or the year on my Asana calendar because I can see what my capacity is really clearly on my calendar, and I can see the buckets that I have available and how full they already are.

[00:04:50] And it's tough but for me to put something on a day that already has prioritized needle moving tasks on it, I have to make a game day decision. I have to ,say oh I was going to write a blog post on Wednesday, hmm. Now there's a webinar about this new marketing channel that I'm interested in, hmm. When I look at my goals for this year, is the blog post the most important next step?

[00:05:23] Or should I reprioritize my plan and move that blog post to another day to make space for this webinar? Is this webinar something that needs my attention first? Is this webinar something that needs my attention more urgently? And so by picking those tasks up on my digital calendar and asking myself those questions, but really honoring the capacity that I've shown on my calendar,

[00:05:56] that's the process that I go through when prioritizing. Because I know how finite my mental energy is in a day, and I know what I can accomplish in that bucket of time that I have to work. And so I know that I can do one or two big things today, but that it's my job as the CEO to pick the right next one or two steps.

[00:06:25] So I unpacked that question from a few angles. Today we talked about seasons of growth versus seasons of being content when it comes to income. We talked about multiple income streams, reflecting on whether we're using them to grow or whether we're using them for safety. And then we talked about how to practice prioritizing

[00:06:47] and putting our blinders on to make sure we can stay focused on the goal that we said was so important in our heart. So those are a few tools that help me along the way. They're all tools in my toolbox that I've talked about on this show before, but I hope connecting them to this question that was burning on your heart is helpful today.

[00:07:09] If you have a teacher business question you're hoping to hear answered on the podcast, I'll leave a link for you in the show notes. I really want this to be our podcast and our show that we build together, and I'm so grateful that you're here as a listener.