Do Less Emotional Labor In Your Business

At first this will seem like a story about my online yoga instructor.

But it’s really a story about making your business more sustainable by stopping unnecessary and exhausting emotional labor.

First of all, I know what you’re thinking. It’s so unexpected to hear about a 52-year-old white woman doing yoga. Kidding.

This past fall I was getting back into yoga after several years away. I started with a 30-days-of-yoga video series by an instructor. I sensed that I’d like her in real life. She had spunk, made kind of inapropriate jokes, wore fun rocker outfits, and had good banter. She even had a sweet dog who joined her on the mat.

It took me about 3 months to get through all 30 videos.

When I was done with those, I wanted to do more of her videos. I searched her name on YouTube again, and a different instructor came up.

I started trying one of this new person’s videos. It was OK, but this person wasn’t telling jokes. Her voice was lower. There was more silence.

I was kinda pissed. I called my partner over and said: “Isn’t this illegal? She’s got the same name, she even has a dog who looks like the other instructor’s dog. Can she DO this? It’s like identity theft.”

And Ames said: “That’s her. That’s the same person.”

“NO it can’t be” I said.

I looked back and discovered the 30 days of videos I had watched were from 9 years ago.

This new video was her now.

I’m used to all of us aging. This is not ONLY about aging.

Something else really big had shifted. I was bummed at first. Where are the inapropriate jokes? Where’s the banter? where’s the rocker vibe?

And then I followed the new video and realized her teaching had gotten even better. She was suggesting small adjustments that were gentler on my body.

I was relieved that no one had stollen the instructor’s identity. And of course this was the same sweet dog 9 years later.

As I like to do, I made up a whole story about this instructor. This is ONLY my conjecture, based on my own projections.

I decided that between those videos 9 years ago and now, this instructor decided to stop doing the emotional labor of trying to be liked.

When she started her youtube channel, she truly enjoyed making those videos. For the first 10 or 20 or even 50 videos, she enjoyed being silly, providing banter, and dressing with a rocker vibe. She felt satisfied expressing real parts of her personality on her channel.

She got feedback from her fans that they loved it, so she gave even more of the same.

The pressure to get more subscribers and to make a living as an entrepreneur led her to keep performing these parts of her personality.

And then little by little, she stopped having fun with it. It started feeling like emotional labor.

For a while, she kept performing this way. The videos were popular, and she wasn’t exactly being inauthentic. It was just a little tiring, but work is supposed to be tiring, she told herself. It’s better than working in a mine.

But working in this way was feeling less and less sustainable until she began to DREAD making those videos.

She decided she either needed to consider letting the whole channel go, or to start doing the videos in a more easeful way.

She decided to just teach the yoga. She decided to focus on delivering great yoga instruction, but to let the rest of the effort go. She decided to just stop performing, and wear what felt appealing and comfortable to her NOW.

She decided to let people be disappointed by her more boring clothing and lack of jokes.

She started with “Let’s start in a seated position.” rather than “OK it’s day seven. Let’s go to heaven!” with a wink.

Her voice came out a little lower because that’s how her body was naturally changing AND because she was relaxing into her easiest way of speaking.

She decided that this was the only sustainable and joyful way for her to continue.

I’m an entrepreneur too, and I can relate to this story. And yes, I haven’t forgotten that I made this story up.

I’ve been through a somewhat similar process. My process has shifted how I run my group coaching calls.

I used to show up to group coaching calls feeling the need to amp up my personality and lean into the parts of me that made people feel comfortable.

I performed warmth. I wanted to show that I was someone you could be yourself with.

I tried to bring a lot of energy to calls and show each person that I cared about them.

I was self-deprecating. I made lots of jokes. I’d always scan the zoom room for the least satisfied person and try to please them.

And then I got tired, and decided to show up to my calls in my more natural state, and stop performing so hard.

In my more natural state, I actually DO care about every person I’m working with, but the way that looks when I’m not performing is different.

Now I allow myself to breathe. I ask people to take care of themselves.

At the beginning of just about every call, I ask people to take a breath, notice if there’s anything hanging over their head, and then to jot it down or otherwise let it go so they can be more present.

Then I ask them to take another breath and see if there is an intention they’d like to set.

My focus in my coaching now is on being clear, giving honest and helpful feedback and asking questions that will help each person make their own best decisions in their businesses.

I’m fairly obsessed with doing that well. That’s part of how I love.

The feedback I’m MOST interested in now is what outcome participants are getting, and NOT how much they like me.

When I was performing care with more effort, my focus was, in a certain way, on me. When I’m serving and in more of my realness, I provide authentic care without translating it into a performance.

It’s TRULY OK with me now if I am not every person’s cup of tea.

The funny thing is though, I was never every person’s cup of tea anyway.

I wonder if folks who were coached by me back 5 or 10 years ago would notice a big change in how I behave now.

I wonder if they would see me as less vibrant. Or just less anxious.

I share all of this of course to invite you to ask yourself what you want to give yourself permission to stop performing.

I’d love to know what you come up with.

Show notes at https://rebeltherapist.me/podcast/225