Billy Keels  0:01  How to Stay massively motivated in the nine to five. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's makeitoptional.com. How to Stay massively motivated in the nine to five is for you. If you've ever had to work through a setback during your professional career, or just have been doing the same thing for quite a while and you're feeling like, ah, the love is gone. Just stick around. This is a very brief episode. The same thing happened to me, and I want to share this with you, actually. This is motivated by two calls that I've had recently. I'm like, Oh my gosh, if these are two calls that are just coming up, back to back, having problems staying motivated in the nine to five I went through it. I know what it takes to get out of it. And the good part is is you're already listening, and so if you're here, you're listening or you're watching. Thank you for that. But let me take you back to a moment in time. This is right at a moment where I was also feeling like I wasn't sure if there was enough, if corporate life was enough, like if what I was doing during the nine to five, which is never nine to five, by the way, you're always working a lot more than that. I think it was pretty much the norm to work 10 hours or more, not that I was obliged my by my employer, but culturally, like he kind of needed to be around or at least that's what I felt early on in my career, things changed later on, but, and I will tell you that I was also going through a moment of of pretty big frustration, because I was looking forward to having this job. It was in a different place. It was in Ireland, and I was going to have this opportunity to lead this team that was much larger. There was a big growth plan, and I really wanted to do that. Well, guess what? It wasn't in the cards for me to do that, and I was dealing with a lot of, let's just call them, mixed up feelings at that point in time, because it was one of the other, one of the few times when you are used to always going after and getting what it is that you expect when it doesn't go according to plan. Well, things kind of make you take a step back and reflect. And that's exactly what I was doing at that point in time, because I wanted to roll, because I wanted to show everybody that I could actually make this sales team grow faster, bigger. And the reality was, you know, after that happened, I just wasn't having fun. I just wanted to, I really wanted to do two things. I wanted to start to have fun again, because I knew I liked my employer. I knew that I liked getting that fat paycheck, and I liked being able to have the growth opportunities. And I also wanted to show that I'm a I was a promotable guy, right? Because that was, and this was still at a moment in time where my my self worth was closely, closely, closely tied to my title or my identity in the corporate role, things would change later on, but this is back in this moment in time, right? So want to show that I could do the role. Want to be more promotable, and also get to a point where I was having fun again, because that is really, really important, especially when you are investing so much of your time with these big companies and then these massive roles. And so the thing that I was wanting to do, because this was right after a setback. Remember, this is a setback. So if you've ever been didn't get the role that you wanted, or you've been pushed back to a more junior role, or you just something happened, because maybe somebody, you got, somebody in the organization pissed off at you. This does happen as well. So I did what you're supposed to do as a top achiever, is I was willing to go out and put my hand up to do more special projects. If it was my boss that added a special initiative that they needed somebody to run this from a management perspective, and you wanted to have greater visibility, you were going to start to meet people from different regions. That was always good for someone like me, because I thought, well, having more alliances is going to give up more opportunities for growth, for promotability, and because I was open to moving to new geographies. I mean, talk to you about Ireland, I looked to move and work in the UAE. That was another opportunity. There was a opportunities in England as well. So being able to show that, hey, listen, I wanted to do this. I was a flexible, promotable person, and I was really, really fortunate, because to support me in this process, I actually had my boss. So what I call my n plus one, so where I was in the org chart plus one, and I had the support of my boss's boss, so in plus two, and as I had this this support, I'd done the work. I just didn't get a particular role. I was like, I got to do what I've always done, and I got to put together a plan, because I got the right support. I knew who was there. I knew who was going to be there in and also to knew that if there was an opportunity to continue to grow, especially within the nine to five, when I was having a bit of a challenge, I was looking to find my motivation. Remember, the whole point of this episode is how to stay massively motivated in your nine to five? Because I had to figure that out, because I was going through a not so nice time. So what did I do? First and foremost, I started realizing. And it wasn't about the role, like the role could not be my identity. So I stopped drinking the corporate Kool Aid. Shocker, because up until a certain point, up until that point, right? I just thought everything was about, I have to continue to move up the org chart, if not all the lessons that I was hearing back at home and that I started to internalize, and you got to work smarter. You got in work smarter, not harder, make sure that you're working twice as hard as everybody else doing the output, so that you can get the similar kind of recognition. All those stories, right? I heard about those stories. So first up was stop drinking the Kool Aid. Like my self worth, my identity, was not related to a particular role, like it just wasn't that. And then I started to begin my own journey. So right around the same time, like, I just started the journey. Now I didn't say I actually took action, but I started the journey. I started to understand the theory about creating an additional stream of predictable and profitable income. My vehicle of choice was real estate. I know I've talked about that ad nauseam. If you listen to the first probably 250, 300 episodes of this podcast, you will get so much around in real estate and just different types of real estate and just different thought process that all started for me at that moment in time. So I started to learn about what specifically needed to be done to create an additional predictable stream of profitable income. Profitable is very important. And then once I did that, and this is the part that if you are a top achiever, if you are someone who is still in that phase where you believe that your identity is related to the role that you have, this is going to shock you a little bit. So just hold on, sit down, please. I don't want anything to happen to you. But yes, I started to put my own life priorities, my priorities, my life priorities, ahead of my company's priorities. Now I didn't do it where I was out in everybody's face and things like that, and you would really probably have to notice, because I was so overly involved in everything, that sometimes just taking a step back being much more strategic, rather than constantly being tactical, I made a bigger impact. And that was something that was awesome. So I stopped drinking the Kool Aid. I started to recognize that it was about, you know, starting to learn about how to have an additional stream of predictable, profitable income. And then lastly, started to start with my priorities. Now, I know that's a shocker, and this one against every single thing, so I was constantly internally conflicted, because I was like, I can't do this. I got to do this. If I don't do this, then I'll be stuck here forever. If I'm not stuck here forever, then, well, should I just stay here? Stay here? What should I be doing? And you're in this constant mode of you should have, could have, and would have, well, if you're going through that, I don't want to say that you should stay there, but it's not unexpected, because you're going against everything that you've been taught. I know I did, and so if you're going there, I don't want you to feel like you're by yourself, because you are definitely not alone. So what did that happen? So what actually happened, right? So being able to mass stay massively motivated in the nine to five it, it something little bit different happened, right? I had to realize that for a certain period of time I could not continue to be the most promotable person in the building. Actually, in a seven year span, I was only promoted, quote, unquote, and it was a lateral move one time, and I took that move just to be able to move up to a managing director as CEO of a particular region, and guess what? That didn't work out for me. Why? Because my priority changed. It wasn't about moving up the org chart anymore. It's about controlling my time setting boundaries and having those boundaries not only set but respected, first of all, by me. Because here's the great part. Like once that happened, not only did I continue to stay massively motivated in the nine to five, because I was up until the last day, I was literally in the top talent program. They call it catalyst, but the top talent program the year before I exited corporate life, stage left, right. But the biggest thing wasn't not taking the the any promotions in seven years. The thing of it was, is actually when I was massively motivated in my nine to five, why and where did it come from? It was because I had life outside of the nine to five under control. I wasn't 100% dependent on my job, and that helped me to have more fun when I actually went into the office.Billy Keels  9:42  Surprise, surprise. When I was so focused on being able to have fun and doing things outside of the nine to five of the life as it came into harmony with my work, I also became so much more promotable. I was constantly, I think, in that seven years, there were four or five different promotion opportunities and. What I you know, it is so powerful to say thank you, but no, thank you. And you can also sometimes leave people wondering, Well, are you committed? Well, absolutely I'm committed because I'm crushing my targets. I'm helping to have new leaders come through the company. Of course, I'm committed, just not in the way that I was before, and that's okay, because I'm still delivering on what this role should deliver for the machine. And last but not least, and this is my absolute favorite part, this is what you will also find. This helped to create a level of optionality, meaning I was going into my nine to five because I wanted to, and I was massively motivated to do so. You know why? Because in my five to nine, or outside of the nine to five, life was getting much better. That predictable stream of income, profitable income, it was starting to pump and pump and pump and do its its job eventually, right? That's what would happen, and it helped me to stay so much more engaged in what I was doing in the nine to five, right? Seems a little counterintuitive, right, but that was the thing, that's what actually helped me to stay massively motivated. It was actually to get my five to nine fully functioning right, so much to the point that I stuck around in my corporate role for four years, four more years, right? Not running for any political stuff. No way. Not me, but four more years is what I got, because I was massively motivated to say in my nine to five.Billy Keels  11:38  Yeah. So this is the thing, like I said, I said, I wanted to keep this short, but this is the way to stay massively motivated in your nine to five, is to make sure that the five to nine that you are managing your time appropriately, you are investing your time with the with the ones that you love the most, so you are actually optimizing the time that you have, getting the maximum amount of output, financially, emotionally, spiritually, so many different ways. And if you are struggling with staying motivated in the nine to five, now you know what you can do. And if it's not you and you know of somebody, well, do do them a favor. Share today's episode. Make sure that you share it, because they're going to know the how much you care about them. And after you share, make sure you give them a call. Talk about the episode, figure out how you can take the theory and put it into practice. And if you need help, like Dion said, I ain't hard to find you can find me. You can DM me. You can respond here. Be happy to have a conversation with you. But that being said, while you're doing that, sharing and taking today's episode. You know what I'm gonna be doing. I'm gonna be right here preparing the next episode. So until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's make it optional.com.