The Power Of Rest

Carrie: Hello.

Ezra: You know, I get a lot of the credit for what happens here at SmartMarketer.com because I’m like the face, I’m the head, literally the talking head. But really, this woman is responsible for everything that you see and everything good in my life. So thank you.

Carrie: My pleasure.

Ezra: Yeah. So what we’re here to talk about today is rest. And rest is sort of an undersold thing. You don’t really get sold rest that much. It’s kind of sold with spas and health treatments and things like that.

Carrie: But if you read a business magazine, they’re likely gonna tell you ways that you can work harder or faster or smarter but not ways that you could rest more.

Ezra: Yeah. The commonly used example when discussing rest is bodybuilding, right, weightlifting. If you lift a bunch of weights and you never rest, your muscles don’t have time to build back up. And actually, what we really want to talk about is keeping yourself inspired. But the best way that we have found to keep ourselves inspired in our attention on growing our business . . . We have several successful businesses. We have, more importantly than that, a very, very pleasurable and fun and successful partnership, and one of the ways that we’re able to achieve that is by having a lot of attention on rest and . . .

Carrie: What we’re doing when we’re not working.

Ezra: Yeah. What we’re doing when we’re not . . .

Carrie: And there’s only so long that you can spend on any one activity before you just get tired and burn out. And the answer to that is not to just like force yourself to do whatever you’re doing for longer even though you’re really feeling done with it . . .

Ezra: And you will be sold that, by the way. Grind, hustle, sacrifice, everyone’s telling you work harder, work longer, work faster.

Carrie: We’re not telling you that.

Ezra: No, we’re not telling you that. We think the opposite, in fact. Actually . . .

Carrie: Work with what you actually want to do and maximize your own system of desire for an activity, and then desire for another activity, and then come back to the first activity when you feel like it.

Ezra: There’s a study out there that the average CEO only gets two hours of work done per day. Those are our birds. We live in the country here. We got a lot of birds. Only gets two hours of work done per day, and the average entrepreneur only gets two and a half hours of work done per day. So for the most part, you’re not actually working as much as . . .

Carrie: What are you actually doing?

Ezra: What are you actually doing? Exactly. You’re not working as much as you think you are. So if you actually have less time to work, you will get more done. So if you put attention on a hobby . . . One of the things that we do is we have hobbies and interests and passions that we put our attention on, which allow us to find out more about ourselves through something that is not work, and then we can bring those skills into our work.

Carrie: I recently started singing, taking voice lessons.

Ezra: She’s really good at it.

Carrie: Thanks, honey. And one of the beautiful things about that has been learning things in my voice lessons that apply to other parts of my life, other hobbies such as my physical practice, working out.

Ezra: What she means by that is working out, like acrobatics and stuff.

Carrie: Yeah.

Ezra: One thing I want to say . . . I’m gonna interrupt you, okay?

Carrie: And work too.

Ezra: And work, yeah, totally.

Carrie: Yeah.

Ezra: Yeah, I’m gonna interrupt you. I’m not gonna interrupt her.

Carrie: When you do new things you will make connections to the other things you do in your life.

Ezra: Now I’m gonna interrupt you.

Carrie: Go for it.

Ezra: Okay, thanks. Diet is sold heavily to you, and that sort of fits in with rest and health because there’s money to be made there. But when you look at other parts of health, there’s movement, there’s sunshine, there’s sleep, there’s human contact, which is a huge part of your actual overall health and productivity. And it’s not really sold because you can’t really sell someone a cuddle. Although I actually do know a guy who sells cuddles, believe it or not. But the point here is that you’re being undersold by society, rest. Rest is not being heavily pushed on you, but it’s a very, very important part of keeping inspired. And keeping yourself inspired, will allow you to produce more, which is ultimately your goal, right?

Carrie: Yeah.

Ezra: Yeah. So the other thing, the other way to stay inspired, is to consume new and diverse information.

Carrie: Well, this goes along with the hobby thing.

Ezra: Right.

Carrie: It’s good for your brain to learn new things, and whether you can see while you’re doing them how they apply to your business or another important part of your life or not, it’s good for your brain. The act of learning has you be able to learn better.

Ezra: You could get learned. Okay, Ezra Firestone here, Carrie Firestone from SmartMarketer.com. Thanks for watching. We’ll see you soon.

Carrie: Test. Test. Testerson.

Ezra: You’ll need to talk a little louder.

Carrie: Test. Test. Testerson.

Ezra: Test. Test. Testerson. Test. Test. Testerson.

Carrie: Testeroni.

Ezra: Testeroodle.

Carrie: Testeroceros.

Ezra: Testeramathorn.

Carrie: Testersaurus Rex.

Ezra: Testicles.