[00:00:00] Katy Ripp: Welcome back to the Women’s Playbook. This is the #ActuallyICan series about changing the game. So this is a place where we’re gonna get really honest about old patriarchal rules of business that really just don’t apply to us, the ones we inherited, the ones we’ve been told, that this is the way it’s always been done, and then we burn them down together.

[00:00:23] Katy Ripp: If you’ve been following along, you know that this is a 12 week series. And each week I’m gonna tackle one of those tired old rules and replace it with a new one. Something designed for us. Something sustainable, something human. Something feminine. Pardon my voice. I have had a crazy few weeks. I got poison ivy.

[00:00:43] Katy Ripp: I’ve been on prednisone. We are trying to sell our house. I now have a cold. So this is actually a perfect segue into what we’re talking about today, which is the grind or die rule. And today’s rule is one of those that has deep claws in so many of us. And to be honest, I, it’s one I clung to for far too long and still struggle with quite a bit.

[00:01:07] Katy Ripp: And you’ve heard it hustle harder, sleep when you’re dead. Success is just one more light night Success is just one more late night away, and we are totally praised for it. We’re rewarded for it, and it’s baked into our identities in ways we don’t even realize. And yet it’s one of the most dangerous and damaging rules out there for women business owners.

[00:01:29] Katy Ripp: So in this sep, so in this episode, I’m gonna tell you my story with the grind, why it doesn’t work, especially for women, and what we can do to replace it instead. Spoiler, this has nothing to do with hustling harder. It has everything to do with honoring the fact that we are not machines, we are humans, and we have a life outside of our work life.

[00:01:51] Katy Ripp: Some of us do.

[00:01:52] Katy Ripp: I take that part out. Chandley spoiler. It has nothing to do with hustling harder. It has everything to do with honoring the fact that we are not machines, we are human. Okay, so let’s start with my story. I have always been the worker, and actually my best friend from kindergarten has called me a worker all my life.

[00:02:14] Katy Ripp: She’s like, well, you’re just a worker. Since I was a teenager, my work ethic was the thing that people noticed first about me, and I think that there’s something really great about the way my parents parented us, that we were workers, like we got up on Saturday mornings and picked rocks in the fields, and we were.

[00:02:34] Katy Ripp: Told that we had to get jobs right away when we were 15 and we were praised for. The harder we worked the more we were appreciated at home. And I don’t know that there’s anything wrong with that, except when it starts to affect the rest of your life, especially your adult life. And my work ethic was so tied to my character that I couldn’t even see where one ended and the other one began.

[00:02:59] Katy Ripp: And I wore it like a badge. Like Katie’s the hardest worker. Katie can handle it. Katie always shows up. Katie’s a yes girl. And all of those things, again, in and of themselves are not necessarily a bad trait. It’s just when it starts to affect the rest of your life. And for me, when someone questioned it, when someone, when I felt like someone was.

[00:03:21] Katy Ripp: When I felt like someone was challenging it, it was such a criticism and such an insult that I couldn’t see past the actual feedback. And I’ll never forget one particular day when someone made an offhand comment that I wasn’t pulling my weight. And I can still feel the heat in my chest, the way my ears rang, the way my eyes watered.

[00:03:46] Katy Ripp: I thought, don’t you dare, don’t you dare question. The one thing I know about myself to be true, that I will outwork anyone in the room.

[00:03:54] Katy Ripp: In my twenties, that identity totally ruled me. I worked two jobs, sometimes three, and when I could have stayed home, I didn’t. I found a part-time job and basically just handed my paycheck over to daycare. And so, and at the time I thought it was noble or responsible. I thought I proved something about me.

[00:04:15] Katy Ripp: Now with some distance, they can say, actually it was actually not the, it was actually not the right decision for our family. And honestly it was kind of sad. And of course when I started my businesses, I brought that same grind mentality with me. The late nights, the answering emails at midnight, the skipping meals, drinking way more wine than I should have just to take the edge off.

[00:04:39] Katy Ripp: I was totally ignoring my family’s needs because, well, this business was more important. We had to make sure that the lights were on and the people were doing what they were supposed to be doing, and basically I was micromanaging every single piece of the businesses. And I convinced myself that burning myself down was just like part of the package.

[00:05:03] Katy Ripp: Like that’s what entrepreneurs do. That’s what I was taught. That’s what you hear all the time by all of the gurus out there like, oh, you better be burning the midnight oil. You better be up until 2:00 AM doing all the things for all the people all the time.

[00:05:19] Katy Ripp: But here’s the secret that really no one told me the magical place I thought I was running towards. The place where I, it could finally get easier. The place where it could finally feel easier and get easier, where the grind would actually pay off that place just really never came. It was just more grind around the corner.

[00:05:39] Katy Ripp: So instead, I woke up one day realizing that my business completely owned me and I had. Just bought myself a job, not the other way around. And I looked around and saw so many wit, and I’ve looked around and see so many women nodding along, saying Same. Is this what I was promised? Where is the freedom and flexibility?

[00:06:01] Katy Ripp: Where are all of the perks of having an entrepreneurial life? Where are all the, you know, like big bank accounts and all of these freedoms and. Things that I can do outside of work when really it’s just more work.

[00:06:20] Katy Ripp: Okay, so let’s talk about why this rule doesn’t work, this grind and this rise and grind rule. The grind culture we’ve inherited was really never meant for us. It was designed decades ago for a very specific kind of person, a man in a gray suit who had wives at home managing every single detail of their life.

[00:06:44] Katy Ripp: Yes, that’s what it was created for. Those people could grind because they had someone else making dinner at home and folding laundry and calling the dentist and signing permission slips and shopping for groceries. And organizing birthday parties and somehow keeping the dog alive, but that’s not our reality.

[00:07:03] Katy Ripp: We are running businesses and running households. We’re juggling orthodontist appointments and staff meetings, and soccer practice and haircuts, grocery lists, partner support, client calls, home maintenance. We’re the calendar keepers, the emotional glue, the crisis managers, the planners, the everything. And let’s be really honest here, most of us.

[00:07:25] Katy Ripp: Don’t just need one wife, we need two or three. Here’s the kicker. Even if you don’t have kids, even if you don’t have a partner, even if you live alone, you still know the weight of the invisible labor. Running your home, keeping your friendships alive, being the one who remembers birthdays, maintaining your own health and wellbeing, it really all adds up and the grind doesn’t leave room for it.

[00:07:48] Katy Ripp: But beyond that grind, culture isn’t even a good business strategy. Exhaustion, leads to bad exhaustion, leads to bad decisions. Fatigue makes you sloppy. And I think consciously, we all know this, that burnout isn’t just an emotional state. It’s a full body collapse that can take months or even years to recover from.

[00:08:10] Katy Ripp: And the cost of that recovery is far higher than the cost of slowing down in the first place. Take my cold, for example. We have been burning the candle at both ends. I know this right now, and this is a season. I don’t do this. All the time, but I know my body and I know when we have been pushing too hard, this is when I get colds.

[00:08:31] Katy Ripp: This is when I have to be on prednisone for Poison iv. This is when I don’t sleep well or I’m looking for food at the wrong times of the day. And outside of the physical portions of, and outside of the physical ramifications of this. The grind robs us of the joy in what we’ve actually built, so you can have the business and the clients and the opportunities and still feel resentful because you’re just too fucking tired to enjoy any of it, and that’s not winning.

[00:09:03] Katy Ripp: That’s not success. That’s not what business ownership is meant to be. That’s a slow week draining every drop of energy and creativity and connection you have, and for what to prove. A system that you can survive instead. To prove to a system that you can survive inside a set of rule to prove to a system that you can survive inside a set of rules that were never designed for you anyway.

[00:09:32] Katy Ripp: Hmm. Let’s rethink this. I,

[00:09:37] Katy Ripp: okay, Katie. So what do we do instead? If you’ve got all these grandiose ideas. Yes, I do. Here we go. Okay, here’s the rewritten rule. Let’s work in cycles, not in sprints. All humans are cyclical. We have moon phases and seasons of the year, and of course, our menstrual cycles we’re not machines. Our energy rises and falls and patterns like nature.

[00:10:04] Katy Ripp: It’s true by the hour, by the week, by the day. It’s true by the hour, by the day, by the week, by the month, and even by the year. So let me break it down for you in an hour. Most of us can focus deeply for about 45 to 90 minutes, and depending on how old you are, and if you’ve ever been diagnosed with any kind of executive functioning challenges or a DHD 45 minutes to 90 minutes sounds like a lifetime, but that’s it.

[00:10:34] Katy Ripp: After that, your brain starts to fade. So instead of chaining yourself to a desk for four hours straight. Push hard for that hour or 45 minutes, let’s say. Then stand up, get some water stretch, reset. That’s not laziness. That’s respecting how your brain and your body actually works. So sitting down and setting a timer, sometimes for 10 minutes or 20 minutes to get something done, really be focused.

[00:10:59] Katy Ripp: Then remove yourself. Walk around a little bit, look for something else to do, and then go back at it. That might be a better option than trying to grind for eight hours straight in a day. Think about your natural rhythm. Think about your natural rhythms in a day. Maybe mornings are when you’re the sharpest.

[00:11:19] Katy Ripp: Save that time for your most creative or strategic work. Maybe not answering emails. Use the afternoons for those admin tasks or lighter stuff. And evenings that can be a season of rest. So close the laptop, put away your phone. Stop pretending you’re going to get your birth. Stop pretending like you’re gonna get your best work done at nine o’clock, because that’s when the household is quiet and that’s the only time you have, but your body is actually begging you to wind down.

[00:11:46] Katy Ripp: This is actually a really this piece, this daytime schedule was really one of the things that changed everything for me when I started to look at my. Rhythms and how I actually function during a 24 hour period. It changed everything. I had been in a nine to five mindset, just like most of us. We, since we were in kindergarten, we’ve been sort of on this school schedule of like seven 30 to four, and then if you have kids, you’ve got, you know, seven 30 to four 30 and it is a right eight or nine hour day.

[00:12:23] Katy Ripp: That you’re expected to get up, get out of the house, do all the things for eight hours, then come home and wind down. For me, I realized that I am an early riser, so I’m usually up between five and five 30, and that is my most creative time. So I get on my computer almost right away. I grab a cup of coffee and I get on my computer and I do.

[00:12:44] Katy Ripp: The things that need my attention, but also bring me a little bit of joy because that’s how I start my mornings. It’s quiet. I love my coffee by my computer. I check a lot of boxes in the mornings. Then I do a little bit of personal time with the kids. I get them off to school and then I get my own me time.

[00:13:03] Katy Ripp: I take time to eat a good breakfast. Most days I’m not perfect. Take a walk or do some yoga. Maybe I sit in the sauna, but I give myself at least an hour or an hour and a half to sort of take care of whatever needs to be done, chores around the house, that sort of thing. It also helps me start my day.

[00:13:23] Katy Ripp: Then I have about a three hour window from nine until noon that I really get stuff done. That’s when I’m meeting with clients or I am helping out at the coffee shop or I am having meetings, whatever it is. But I hit a wall around one o’clock. I do not talk to me. Between basically one and three 30, I am laying flat on my bed.

[00:13:45] Katy Ripp: I’m reading a book, I’m watching Netflix. I am doing something that requires very little energy from me. Lots of times I nap almost every day, probably five, four or five days outta seven. I’m napping between one and three. That’s just who I am. It’s how I get up. I get up early in the morning. I take a nap in the afternoon.

[00:14:06] Katy Ripp: Then I do that sort of personal stuff in the afternoon too. I’m picking up kids, we’re doing some sort of dinner, we’re, you know, chatting with each other, whatever. But after dinner I used to, you know, be guzzling wine all night. But now that I don’t, I have another little spurt of creativity and energy in the af in the evenings.

[00:14:29] Katy Ripp: Between like six and eight. And depending on the time of year, around seven 30, I’m in bed in the winter, but I can get, I can be up until about 10 or 10 30 in the summers. So I usually get another big burst of creativity in the late evening so I can get another.

[00:14:48] Katy Ripp: So I can start and get another project done, or I can catch up on emails or create some, be creative in some sort of graphic way or create a course or some sort of digital download, or I am talking to people in the grove, what, whatever the case may be. I like to sit in front of my computer and get some work done in the late evening.

[00:15:14] Katy Ripp: And then I go to bed usually by eight 30 or nine o’clock. So that it took me years to get to that place where I didn’t feel guilty for laying down between one and three, but I just honored my body. That is just how my body works. I don’t have to prove anything to anybody. Nobody’s watching my clock, nobody’s watching me.

[00:15:40] Katy Ripp: I, funny story, I might have told this before, but. When I was going through this transition of, I wasn’t at work every day, I was self-employed, we were not,

[00:15:51] Katy Ripp: when I was going through this transition and really trying to grasp what was going on here and

[00:15:58] Katy Ripp: funny story. When I was transitioning into self-employment, I would take a nap in the afternoon and my husband works outside the home. He’s also self-employed, so sometimes he would come home and if I heard the door open, I would fly out of bed and like act like I was doing something. Like I would come out of the bathroom like I was cleaning the bathroom, or I would turn off the TV right away or I would.

[00:16:29] Katy Ripp: But like, look like I was doing something. It was so ridiculous. First of all, he’s not my fucking dad, he’s my husband. But that’s like the anxiety I had around, oh my God, he’s gonna think I’m lazy if I am not doing something, if I’m not being productive. And he busted me more times than not. And one day he came up the stairs and I, he knew I had just gotten, I mean he sort of did it on purpose.

[00:16:54] Katy Ripp: He like ran up the stairs super quick and busted me like getting out of bed and turning off the tv. And he was like, Katie, he said, I don’t care if you nap in the afternoon. He was like, I think it’s hilarious that you are like trying to look like you’re busy. I don’t care. He was like. You’re working. I don’t care what hours you work, I’m not your boss.

[00:17:16] Katy Ripp: He was like stop. Just stop, stop trying to do that. So he did give me permission. It still took quite a bit of time after that, but it was sort of an eyeopener. Like, he’s not my boss, he’s not my dad, he’s my husband, and I don’t need to feel guilty for setting that boundary with myself and taking care of myself.

[00:17:40] Katy Ripp: And being the best and most efficient and using my time the most efficient way possible, which is matching with my energy levels. So if you’ve ever felt like that, you’ve ever like, oh my God, my husband’s home, I feel like I need to get outta bed and I’m a lazy piece of shit. Just know I’m with you. I’ve been there.

[00:18:02] Katy Ripp: Okay, let’s go back to another rhythm. How about in a week? So not every day needs to be full throttle either. There’s just no way that every single day is the same. We have five days of work, two days of weekend, if you’re, you know, in the corporate world. That’s sort of what it used to be. I don’t know that those five days actually.

[00:18:26] Katy Ripp: Are a real thing anymore. It feels like we are so far beyond any kind of boundaries of time that people are just like, they’re calling you on Sunday. They’re, you know, emailing you on Saturday morning or texting you on Friday night, but in general, you could stack client calls on two days, but protect another day for deep creative work.

[00:18:50] Katy Ripp: Maybe Fridays are lighter. You know, Fridays are sort of the favorite day for everyone. Monday is my favorite day, and Monday is my self-care day. So Monday is my day that I come off the weekend and I block the entire day to myself. I don’t take any appointments. Very rarely do I take appointments. I have my schedule blocked so nobody can schedule anything in.

[00:19:11] Katy Ripp: I am usually. Cleaning up from the weekend. I am answering emails, doing some admin stuff, maybe creating something. So Mondays can be my creative days. I’m usually trying to take care of myself, getting outside at least for a little bit, and really taking that day for myself and to ramp up for the rest of the week.

[00:19:35] Katy Ripp: But maybe that’s Friday for you, or maybe it’s hump day. Maybe Wednesdays are the days that you don’t take any appointments. And then on the other days, maybe on Tuesdays and Thursdays, those are your appointment days, and you stack all those together. The other thing is you could do this like in a day, in a week, right?

[00:19:50] Katy Ripp: So like maybe Tuesday mornings and Thursday afternoons you take appointments or you start blocking off all of Monday, but you do extra appointments on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’m thinking like if you’re a salon owner or you’re a hairdresser or you know, a therapist or a counselor. Maybe those things are outside of, like, you add another hour on a couple more days, so you can have four hours in on Monday to take off a whole half day.

[00:20:22] Katy Ripp: Those things can be done. You don’t have to follow anybody else’s rules. This is really about giving yourself permission to have a different schedule than the masses. So give yourself weekly cycles so you’re not running at the same pace every single day. Now, in a month, some weeks will naturally be heavier.

[00:20:42] Katy Ripp: You have launches or deadlines or events or holidays coming up, or you know, every month is a little bit different for sure, but balance them with lighter weeks before or after. Also, pay attention to your cycle. If you’re not familiar with your menstrual cycle and. What weeks you’re in compared to the weeks of the month and what events you’re kind of, and what events you’re planning around those things.

[00:21:10] Katy Ripp: Or meetings or big conflicts or big launches or something like that. Start paying attention to your menstrual cycle. Do a little bit of research. We’re going to do another series about cycle sinking coming up and I’m really excited. I’ve got some professionals that are gonna help me with that.

[00:21:27] Katy Ripp: But give yourself weekly cycles. Sorry. Take that out.

[00:21:35] Katy Ripp: Don’t expect yourself to sprint every single week of the month. That is literally how burnout happens. And we just go from month to month to month, and in a year, nature already knows how to do this super well. Like bears, hibernate, plants don’t bloom. Year round, the ocean tides shift. We are no different.

[00:21:55] Katy Ripp: We are natural beings. So for me, spring and summer tend to feel super expansive. I wanna launch and create and connect, and then fall and winter feel a lot slower, more reflective, and I totally lean into that and you can too. Here’s your permission slip. When you stop expecting yourself to be at peak Predictivity 365 days a year, you start working in a way that’s actually sustainable.

[00:22:22] Katy Ripp: And here’s the crazy part, you often get way more done in less time because you’re working with your natural rhythm instead of trying to bulldoze over it. So here’s my challenge to you this week, shake up your 24 hours instead of your day running on total autopilot emails, first calls in the afternoon, collapsing at night.

[00:22:41] Katy Ripp: Flip the script. Do something different. When you’d normally sit down to clear your inbox first thing in the morning, try starting with something creative. Instead, write or brainstorm or dream or create a reel or do something fun. If you’ve got a list of hanging chads, you know those tiny 10 minute tasks that weigh on, you set a timer and clear one off the list in the middle of the day.

[00:23:04] Katy Ripp: Give yourself permission to take a nap if that’s how you feel, or take a walk or read a book that inspires you. The point is this business ownership is not supposed to be work, work, work. It’s what we’ve been told. It’s what we believe, but it’s not the truth. The whole reason we chose this path, the whole reason we choose this path is for freedom and flexibility.

[00:23:28] Katy Ripp: The whole reason we choose this path is for freedom and flexibility, but that freedom and flexibility does not happen by accident. It actually takes effort and they take intention. So shake up your 24 hours this week, try one new way of working or resting. Try one new way of working or resting, and notice how it shifts your energy, your creativity, and your focus.

[00:23:52] Katy Ripp: The grind or die rule was never meant for us. It’s not sustainable. It’s actually not smart, and it’s not the only way to succeed. The new rule is this work in cycles, not in sprint. If this episode hit home at all, you can go read the full blog post. I’ll link it in the show notes and share this episode with a friend who’s still wearing the grind, like a badge.

[00:24:16] Katy Ripp: She needs to hear it, I promise. And she’s probably gonna get defensive. It’s okay. And if you want every new rule delivered straight to your inbox, you can join the email list for this series. You’ll get all the behind the scenes as I turn this series into a book too. Thanks for being here, you guys. I’ll see you next week with another old rule.

[00:24:35] Katy Ripp: We’re about to rewrite.