The power of low expectations part 2: Simple tips for less stress and more fun

Owning a business has many benefits. It gives you more control over your time. It gives you certain freedoms that employees will never have. It gives you the potential to make a LOT more money. And you get to make all the decisions. The possibilities are limitless. However, those benefits have a cost, which is often higher than what you’re led to believe on social media. Am I saying it’s not worth it to grow a business? Hell no! It’s worth it. Even if you don’t achieve your ideal lifestyle, building a business challenges you, forces you to learn valuable skills, and builds character like nothing else. However, if your expectations are too high, you’ll either burn out or give up trying to reach them. As I’ve said many times before, business is a mental game. If you can win that game, you can win at business. If you lose that game, it doesn’t matter how much money you make; you will lose. In this episode, I discuss a critical part of winning that game—managing your expectations. In the last episode, I discussed why high expectations are a recipe for constant stress and dissatisfaction and why intentionally lowering your expectations will reduce stress and help you be more effective and joyful. In this episode, I talk about how. Listen right here or on your favorite podcast app! HS053 – The power of low expectations part 2 – Simple tips for less stress and more fun Podcast Transcript I’d hate to lower your expectations, but that is the episode’s goal. Welcome to another episode of the Handyman Startup podcast. My name is Dan Perry, and today, I’m going to talk about managing your expectations. In the last podcast, we talked about why and the power of low expectations. Today, I want to talk a little bit about how to do that. So back in 2010, way back in 2010, this is 14, almost 15 years ago, after another boring day at work, my friend recommended a book called The 4-Hour Work Week. At the time, I was living in a three-bedroom home that I had purchased a year or two earlier. I lived about two blocks from my office, and I hated my job. I was so disappointed with what a 9:00 to 5:00 turned out to be. I mostly sat at a desk all day in a big open room with five other desks and five other engineers working, and then my boss was right across the room from me. And there were some good things about my job. I mean, I got to do some cool stuff with engineering, and it leveraged my skills. I was pretty good at it, but I just felt stifled. So, I read that book my friend recommended to me, and I remember being unable to put it down. Right after that first chapter, it hit a nerve. I sat on the couch and read it until my eyes turned red. Once I couldn’t read anymore, I put it down, picked it up again the next day,