#FtheHUSTLE ~ 083 – Define Your Risk to Reward Ratio (it’s not what you think)

Recently I’ve seen a lot of posts (primarily on Twitter) about doing things because you enjoy them – not because you can monetize them (remember hobbies? 😉).

Here’s a recent one that my good friend Sandi shared with me:

Obviously, these types of tweets resonate on a deep level with me (kind of what #FtheHUSTLE is all about).

We need hobbies and things that bring us joy just as much as we need good sleep, exercise, fresh air, and good food.

There’s very little risk involved when we do something for the simple outcome that it makes us feel good.

What if we applied this to our businesses too?

Here’s what I mean.

I’ve said “yes” to a few things over the past few months that should have been a hard “no.”

For a few of reasons:

• The thing I said yes to wasn’t in alignment with where my business is today
• Saying yes to these things means I have less time for other things (my things – not rocket science)
• I didn’t really want to do it 

So, why did I say yes?

I didn’t want to disappoint someone else and FOMO reared it’s ugly head.

In this situation, the risk was FAR greater than any *potential reward (If I’m going to gamble on potential, why not gamble on me?).

But I didn’t listen to myself.

Risk isn’t simply about money.

The risk in this situation is my time, which truthfully, is far more valuable than a potential return on money.

Thinking about this made me take a step back and look at where I’m getting the greatest return on my time.

The two things I’m doing that give me the greatest return are creating content (and promoting it), and sharing, connecting, and engaging on Twitter.

Period.

Here’s a reminder I created for myself:

I know that might be hard to read, so here are the 4 questions to ask myself:

1. Do I want to do this? This needs to be a HELL yes.
2. Will this attract my dream client? Does this project align with my business and serve my ideal audience?
3. Can I repurpose or reuse this? Is this something I can use in my business elsewhere?
4. Does this serve? How is this solving a problem? (for my audience OR myself).

These are my non-negotiables.

What criteria do you use?

A Little Brainpower 🧠

This was a great Twitter thread I found about growing your newsletter (or email list for that matter). It took a year to grow to 3k subscribers, with a pivot to adding 4k in 9 weeks. Read what changed from Katelyn Bourgoin here.​

Related: Book – Find Joy in Chaos: How to Build Your Twitter Presence so Connections and Opportunities Come Find You​

I love finding bite-sized tips to practice things I’m focusing on. In this case, this is a short thread about Copywriting tips anyone can follow. Read “10 Copywriting tips that will increase conversions and clicks” here.​

Related: 12 time-tested strategies for writing better copy, faster

Tool Time  🛠

As you can probably tell I’m starting to add more doodles, visuals, etc. to my work (my new site will have a LOT of this!). I thought I’d share a few things I’m using to do this.

• Sketch: I love using my iPad, but this is a great resource as well. I used this to create my non-negotiables above. Checkout Sketchwow here.
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• Notion: as I’m slowly moving everything into Notion, my biggest pet peeve is how things look (just being honest 😉). I found these great Notion icons that you can get for free (or name your price). Get Notion-style icons here. 
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• Icons & stickers: This site is my go-to for icons and stickers because I can customize the colors for my brand. Free & paid accounts. Checkout Flaticon here.
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• iPad: This has doodling & writing on the iPad 100% better. Paperlike is a protection film that also feels more like you’re writing on paper. Get Paperlike here (Amazon too).

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This Week on the Podcast 🎙

I’m still doing a lot of processing as I begin this transition in my business. This week I talked about why “It’s Taken Me 14-Years to Have the Courage to Do This.”​

And I have a few more visuals for you, including the “self-responsibility pie.” 👇

Lastly, in about a week’s time, I’m launching my first-ever challenge called, “Hit Send.”

The ONE thing this challenge is going to do is to help you get over your fear of writing emails and finally “hit send.” 😉 I’ve been working with the team at Framework.so and am pretty excited about this.

And a final little WOOHOO and congratulations to the Costa Rican football team! I don’t follow football (er, soccer), but it was fun to feel the joy & excitement here as the team progressed. 🇨🇷 ⚽

Have a wonderful day!

Pura Vida!
Kim