Effortless Effort: How Top Founders 10x Output without Burnout with James Beshara

0:01John Lee Dumas:Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, brought to you by High Level, the all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Today we'll be breaking down effortless efforts, how top founders 10x output without burnout. To drop these value bonds, I brought to James Beshara and the EO Fire Studios. James is the founder of Magic Mind, angel investor, philosophy podcaster, electronic music producer, and general startup helper in sunny California. And he is now focused on flow, mental performance, and meaning. Today, we talk about the philosophy of effortless effort, finding flow across roles, real cause of burnout, the hidden cause of outcome obsession, and oh, so much more.

0:38John Lee Dumas:A big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to James and our sponsors. If you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. High Level gives you website hosting, funnels, email marketing, automation, calendar booking, payments, and course hosting all on one platform, plus award-winning 24-7 support. Get a 30-day free trial and my full bonus stack that includes a 15-minute private call with me and much more at highlevelfire.com, highlevelfire.com. Fire Nation, are you ready to build something special in the next 50 days? Check out my free YouTube series, 50 Days to Something, short and strategic step-by-step videos by me, JLD.

1:17John Lee Dumas:On day 50, you'll have a valuable asset and the best part is it's completely free. Visit eofire.com slash YouTube and start day one today. James, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. JLD, thank you for having me. I was just listening to you this morning on getting the incentives right in your previous episode. So good. Or the one that dropped this morning. And it's quite straightforward. Consistency over intensity. And what I mean by that is I think people think success is a finish line from a sprint that you do for two years, five years, seven years.

2:05And in that sprint for three years, whether it's building a company or it's rising up some corporate ladder, we confuse that milestone with you get there through intensity, working like crazy, going against the grain and oftentimes just burning yourself out. I know that from my 20s of failure after failure after failure, sending me to the ER with a heart condition because I was so drained burning myself out drinking six to seven cups of coffee a day. And productivity should not be measured in hours or even days. It should be measured in years and decades. And I think that's the thing that people really get wrong when it comes to their careers or any professional or personal pursuit is thinking that, okay, if I go crazy for seven months, I'll just start happening for me.

2:55But consistency and then not knowing it might be seven months, it might be 77 months, but it is inevitable if you prioritize consistency.

3:03John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, how top founders can 10x their output without the burnout? out. And I want to start by talking about the philosophy of effortless effort, because you do use that phrase, effortless effort, which it sounds a little contradictory, if I must be honest. So what is the underlying philosophy that makes this possible in real life, not just as a concept? I talk a lot about flow state. We'll probably get to it as a topic in this conversation, because I think about it so often, both from the academic side of things, but also the practical side of things and, and happy to touch on both during our, our time.

3:41But that flow state, that's all I really, I think 10 years ago, I realized I did not want to, I didn't want a professional path where I was just walk, walking 10 ,000 feet forward. I wanted to help found it just far more energizing when I thought about an alternative of helping 10 ,000 people walk a thousand feet forward, whether it was investing in, now I'm an investor in over a hundred startups, whether it's building magic wine, which helps people get into flow state every morning. And And it's just from my own journey of burnout and discovering what nature and science give us beyond coffee and caffeine for getting into flow.

4:14Or it's this philosophy that I have a podcast that has like nine listeners to a daily talk about consistency. Two years in, every day, 10-minute episodes on this ancient philosophy of Advaita Vedanta that goes back 5 ,000 plus years, the oldest philosophy on the planet. And one of the concepts, core concepts within the philosophy is swadharma, your nature. And when you lean into what you're wired for, it becomes, it's almost effortless to you. But everyone else from the outside looks on and like, oh my God, dude, John is just cruising past all of us. How is that possible? And it's when your nature aligns with nature itself.

4:53The perfect example is the albatross. an albatross can go up to 600 friggin miles on a single flap of its wings that's insane 600 miles on a single flap of its wings and it's not magic it's not a miracle it's it's not uh robotics it's just their nature uh and their understanding and it was a probably pretty hard for them to learn how to fly in the first place which is the case for any of us taking on a new skill or becoming a master or anything but once they knew how to fly they understood barometric pressure they They understood the cold and heat of different wind currents. They understood exactly how to glide.

5:31They understood wind patterns themselves. And then they're traveling up to 600 miles on a single flap of its wings. That is exactly, that's not an anomaly. That's how our work should be, where we fall into it. Because probably like you and everything you do each day is so aligned with your nature. that you're like, yeah, I could do this in my sleep. I would want to do this in my sleep because I love it so much versus that exact same albatross, effortless effort versus effortful effort would be that exact same, that exact same body, that exact same animal in the water paddling and maybe going two miles before its own burnout and maybe dying of a heart attack versus man, don't paddle.

6:18Don't go about it the wrong way. find what you're naturally built for and glide in every career. Everyone is built for a specific, unique role. And you put that exact same person in the wrong role. And everybody knows it's kind of cliche of like, just stick with it in investment banking, even though you're not wired for it at all. Maybe you should be an electrician running your own electrician business, making 500 grand a year, which is very possible by the way. Or, or no, stick it out with the golden handcuffs and you are burning yourself out seven years into your career, get divorced, you don't feel in alignment and it's very much an effortful effort equation for you.

7:00John Lee Dumas:Well, you use the word burnout. I want to dive deep there because that is such a problem with so many of my listeners, with so many entrepreneurs in general. Let's talk about the real cause of burnout. So from what you've seen, what's the number one reason that founders and creators alike burn out even when they're deeply aligned with their work? I think that last part of the question, I'm so glad you included that because that is the key is burnout is nearly non-existent when there is alignment. The biggest reason for burnout is misalignment and it might be the right career, but you've heard of zones of genius.

7:43Oh yeah. So you might have the right career. You might be building the right business, but you're holding, it's still misaligned on the individual personal basis because you're holding on to, let's say the, the egoistic three letters of CEO. I've got to be CEO instead of maybe you're really built to be the technologist, maybe really built to be the operation, supply chain management, uh, retail sales manage freak of nature when it comes to managing those parts of the business. But you're holding on to the three letters of CEO and, And there's a misalignment there because you're not built for, let's say, fundraising.

8:18You're not built for, you're not the vision person. You're not the recruiting. And then the most important aspect of talent is not recruiting. It's re-recruiting them on a daily basis. and that personal misalignment is is going to lead to burnout it's going to lead to you waking up each day putting your feet on the ground and being like i i'm not looking forward to the day in front of me versus you could have this and that's and that's if you get the other two pieces right where it's your work and the individual uh path that you're taking that career is is aligned Most people don't even get that right.

8:5396 % of people in a 2017 Gallup poll, 96 % of people said that they did not love the work that they do each day. So that's a huge assumption that people are aligned. And 96 % of people are not aligned with the work that they do each day. There's a great app called APT, APT AI, if you just Google it. It's the world's first AI personality test and career quiz. It gives you all the major personality test results back in one quiz. So it's basically like one quiz to rule them all. Highly recommend people go do that because it's five minutes, 10 minute quiz and gives you all. And then it also tells you the top 50 jobs you're aligned for and all the open roles for that.

9:33But that's it's a company I invest in because I was like, oh, my God, people are like people are asking their uncle or their dad what they should do. And why not use 300 billion data points? But it goes back to that that that stat. Ninety six percent of people do not love what they what they do each day. So the reason for the primary cause for burnout is misalignment. But if you can get that alignment, then we're back to that albatross example in whatever literal example that applies to someone's life, the electrician, the entrepreneur, the accountant, whatever it is, get that alignment. and it flows, it flows out of you.

10:12You can't stop yourself from waking up being jazzed about what you're about to do. And that's not for the lucky few, the lucky few of those 4%. It's meant for all of us. And sadly, did you know there's over 12 ,000 careers in the US alone? We think there's like 12. There's over 12 ,000. And the more you lean into what you're wired for, the more the world just starts to orient around you to say, actually, yeah, you should chat with this person instead of the real estate mentor that you think you should have. You're wired for bioengineering. You start to tell the world that start to surrender into what you're wired for and the world reorients around you.

10:52Someone recommends, you should chat with my dad's brother, my uncle. He does exactly that. You should chat with him. Boom. You're having a coffee conversation with the right mentor instead of the wrong one, kind of white knuckling to some career you're not wired for.

11:07John Lee Dumas:James, let me jump in here. Is it apt or try apt.ai? Yeah. Try apt. Try apt.ai. I make nothing off of people using it. It's just, in fact, I'll give your listeners a really amazing promo code to make it 100 % free. So I get nothing. This is how you can really know that I'm wired for flow. And the CEO of apt would probably hate that I'm sharing this, but I'm like, dude, F it. Uh, if you listen and you're interested and finding what you're wired for, it's apt pro 100. Probably they'll probably have to turn it off after three or four weeks. Um, if, if this gets you on Reddit subreddits, but, um, apt pro apt pro, and this is not a gimmick to try to get like, is gets 100 % free, um, apt pro 100, all one word.

11:56Um, and, and it makes it, it's a, it's 150 bucks, makes it a hundred percent free. And, and it's like I said, one quiz gives you all major personality. You know, you don't take one, one quiz and then your spouse is like, Oh, you should take the Myers spring. It's all the major personality tests.

12:11John Lee Dumas:Let me just say it out loud. It's APT P R O one zero zero. Is that the promo code? That's it. Boom. That's it. Fire nation. We have a lot to talk about the hidden costs of outcome obsession, talking about flow, and so much more when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Your website is doing a lot of heavy lifting, first impressions, trust building, driving growth, but if every small update still means waiting on a developer, then we've got a problem. This is exactly why companies of all sizes, from fast-moving startups to established enterprise brands, are building their sites with Framer. Framer is a powerful website builder that gives you real-time collaboration, a flexible CMS built for serious SEO, and advanced analytics with integrated A-B testing.

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13:30John Lee Dumas:Fire Nation, if you are building a real business, you need real infrastructure. That is why High Level is Entrepreneur on Fire's featured partner. High Level gives you a website builder and hosting, funnels and landing pages, email marketing, appointment scheduling, payment processing, course and membership hosting, and so much more. Everything you need to succeed, all under one roof. No duct tape, no juggling five platforms, just one clean system for your business, and their award-winning 24-7 support has your back when you need it most. When you sign up at highlevelfire.com, you also get my exclusive bonus stack, a 30-day free trial, a private 15-minute call with me, JLD, access to my weekly live office hours, a digital copy of my book, The Common Path to Uncommon Success, my 50 days to something execution roadmap, and more.

14:18John Lee Dumas:Visit highlevelfire.com and start building your something today. James, we're back and I want to talk about the hidden cost of this outcome obsession. I mean, so many creators, they fixate on metrics, on milestones, on external validation. What are the downsides of obsessing over outcomes instead of just focusing on the process? You asked what's the primary cause of burnout. The first one is misalignment. And then let's say you are aligned in your career, in your day-to-day job, what you're wired for. The next thing to watch out for in getting out of flow, and I'm so glad we'll get a chance to talk about what flow looks like in the theoretical and then the practical side of things.

15:02But the next thing to watch out for is outcome obsession. That outcome obsession will take you out of your work. And it is the number one thing that corrupts the work itself. It sounds like highfalutin language. But what I mean by that is let's say you're going on a road trip. We're in, I live in Malibu here. We're in Malibu and we want to go up to Lake Tahoe. It's a seven hour drive. If I'm so obsessed, you got to be aware of the outcome you're shooting for. Have every metrics dashboard up you want. Think about it 1 % of the time. Make sure you're looking. That means that every day, maybe you look at how far or how close you are.

15:42You're looking at each week. You absolutely should start with just like a road trip. Start with the outcome in mind. What does that destination look like? Because it would be insane. And that's even rare to find. It's one in 100 that even think about the outcome and work backwards. Most are just like, where am I today? How do I move forward? I got X amount in my bank account. I want more. And they move forward instead of start from success and work backwards. That's a really famous Jeff Bezos framework. Start from success, just like a road trip, work backwards. Lake Tahoe, boom. You, me, we're jumping in the car.

16:14We have that in mind. But then for the next seven hours, John, if I'm just like, dude, we're still 350 miles away or 346 miles away. Ah, F, John, we're, that would be so annoying to you. you'd be like, dude, we're, we're, yeah, it's not going to be perfect, but we're making decent time. We're going to get there. And James, you got to shut up. Cause if this is worth 31 minutes in, if this is what it's going to be like seven years in seven hours in, and I do not want to go on another road trip with you. And I can already tell 31 minutes in that's what it's like when a leader is so obsessed with the outcome.

16:49That's what I'm sure you see it all the time. When a creator is obsessed with, man, I only got, you know, 1800 followers on, on 1800 subscribers on YouTube. And you're like, dude, I'm a decade in. That's actually pretty good. And your stress about where you are is draining your energy and it has nothing to do, nothing to do with the work that you could be doing right now to grow it. And you hear this in startup land all the time of get a thousand customers to love you. That's all you got to focus on. That's it. You don't need to focus on some massive mansion. You don't need to focus on some validation from, from your parents that you're going to get.

17:30You don't need to focus on profit. Just focus on a thousand people loving you. Cause if you can find a thousand, you'll be able to find 10 ,000 more, but this obsession over the, the, that destination, the obsession over the metrics that will corrupt the work and detach you from whatever's needed in that day. And the flow state, which I would love to tell you more about, that is the opposite of thinking about winning the game. That's the opposite. Flow state has nothing to do with the outcome obsession and it ends up with optimal, your actual optimal performance.

18:02John Lee Dumas:James, I want to jump in here because you have something that we need. You have practices that create energy. They don't drain it. So share that with us. Share those daily practices that lead to effortless effort that are elite level outputs that actually can generate more energy instead of slowly depleting it give us those practices i think you you nailed it with this uh framework of what can generate energy and this goes back to this philosophy of of advaita vedanta which means a non-dual end of knowledge but it's basically another word for sanata and dharma which means um highest principles eternal principles um and there's about 25 26 principles one of which which is definition of right action is that which generates energy.

18:48Definition of wrong action is that which dissipates energy. So it's not like shoulds and should nots. There's no like 10 commandments. It's just contextual to you. Right action is that which generates energy within you. And it's completely specific to you. The work you might do today that could generate energy within you. And maybe it's service to other entrepreneurs. Maybe it's service to a community there around you, a person, a digital community. That's usually what generates energy within us. We're wired for that social amplification of what our communal goals are, not just our individual goals.

19:23You kind of will drain yourself if it's selfishness of like, I'm going to win and everybody's going to lose. Might help you in a little bit. It's like cocaine might give you a little bit of energy for the next three hours. And then the next 15, you're suffering. And I can only say that from other people's accounts. No idea. But any type of short time, man, I was drinking six to seven cups of coffee a day 12 years ago. It sends me to the ER with a heart condition because that short-term stimulant, I had no idea that actually when you drink too much caffeine, it spikes your body's stress hormones, cortisol.

19:59And the number one, the number one or the primary cause of procrastination. Did you know this, JLD, is it's low grade pervasive anxiety and stress. So whatever you think you're doing, obsessing over the outcomes, chugging that Red Bull. So the reason I started Magic Mind because I was like, man, there is no energy drink on the market that actually decreases stress naturally. So half the ingredients of Magic Mind decrease stress and anxiety naturally. They're called adaptogenic herbs. And when you decrease that stress and anxiety, then your to-do list just melts away. Your email inbox just, you're like, oh, yeah, let me jump in there.

20:39You knock, you get it to zero. You knock out that three-hour big task you've been putting off because you don't have that low-grade pervasive stress and anxiety. And when you get into that, when you add all of these things we're talking about, when you add them up, the alignment to the work that you're wired for, you add up not obsessing, being aware of the outcomes, but not obsessing over them, thinking about the work you have today. When you think about that right action, what is it that generates energy within you? That gets down to a daily practice of reflection. This sounds so vanilla. I wouldn't fault any listener of like rolling their eyes of like reflection.

21:15I thought you were going to say like, you know, wake up every morning at the exact same time. That is such a powerful way to get into a 24 hour circadian rhythm. That is so, so amazing for flow is to wake up every morning the exact same time. It's actually even more powerful than going to bed at the exact same time, but it's not as powerful as after you wake up, plan 10, 15 minutes before you jump into the inbox, before you start to see 27, you know, texts you got to reply to take 10 to 15 minutes to reflect on what you want to get done that day and what gave you energy yesterday. If you do those two things, reflection is a hundred thousand times more, but there's another Vedantic principle.

21:58Reflection. And if people want to check out the podcast, the daily Vedantic.com is the, is the website. Um, and, or you can just Google whatever you think that is spelled like, and you'll get, you'll get, you'll get close enough. Um, but, but the, that reflection for 15 minutes, grab your cup of coffee, take a magic mind, get a journal pen and papers is often so much better than the device that can pull you into your texts or emails and just jot down what gave you energy the day before a hunt this is a Vedantic principle that reflection is a hundred thousand times more powerful than listening healing or feeling hearing or feeling so you might you might get stopped in your tracks off of like something you hear in a podcast but if you don't reflect on it maybe for the next two three four four days.

22:42Everybody knows this. Two days go by. It's like it never even happened. It went in one ear out the other. It's like you never even heard it. But if you reflect on it, it's a hundred thousand times more powerful than that awesome thing you read, that awesome thing you heard. And that is what commits it to memory. It's what commits it to practice. And then you start to develop the pattern. What gives me energy? What drained my energy? What's wrong action for me? What drained my energy? That hard thing I thought was going to drain my energy, that hard conversation. oh my god that unlocked four hours i was beaming after the hard conversation man actually hard conversations give me energy that task that i thought was like gonna be really fun to like go on that podcast or something like that maybe for you and your wiring it drained your energy you reflect on it and you start to make improvements from there fire nation you can

23:29John Lee Dumas:see that james is just on fire with his focus with his passion with his clarity and james i mean i've already subscribed to your podcast. I just went ahead right now and I bookmarked the tryapt.ai and I've got the promo code. So, I mean, we're good to go there. So Fire Nation, make sure you get there because like James said, it might not be there forever. And if you could give Fire Nation just one concise value bomb to walk away with, then share how we can connect with you to learn more about what you have going on. Then we'll say goodbye. You got it. So Flow State's really interesting um and that flow state is academically defined as um opt when optimal experience meets optimal performance meaning let's use a basketball game example where you score 37 points more than you've ever scored and you have a better experience than you've ever had before optimal performance and optimal experience and that's the hallmarks of that are diminished sense of self where you're not even thinking about yourself for the score how much you're scoring you're just in the zone as they say.

24:34Diminished sense of time, you lose track of time. You're not thinking about like fourth quarter, three minutes, you're just in the zone. And you get to that place by not thinking about yourself. Obviously, you can't have a diminished sense of self by amplifying, well, what am I going to get out of this? So one of the things that I tell people is whatever decision tree you might be in in life we think the question might be what do i get and maybe a better question is who will i become not a decision between option a and option b let's say this job or that job or should i do this startup should i create this should i make this pivot in my career or my life it's not it's perhaps not about what am i going to get out of option a or option b and maybe it's much more about who am I going to become between option A, that job or that job, this pivot or that one.

25:32And when we start to change our shift, our decision tree to who do I want to become, which decisions then kind of they unfold of which decisions are going to help you become the version of yourself that you want to become the one that you want to tell your kids about 10, 20, 50 years down the road, the version of yourself that you really want to become. And what that helps with is it's a diminished sense of self, an amplified sense of service and duty and perfect guidance for alignment because you'll always be chasing in a healthy way the person you want to become. You might actually be really wrong about what you want in a given moment.