Don’t Let the Sound of Your Own Wheels Drive You Crazy

A friend once told me that self-employment is rewarding if you’re someone who likes to work hard—and I tend to agree. There’s often a clearer sense of input → output → financial reward compared to working for a large company1.

But what if some of us are addicted to the struggle?
That feeling that we need to put every ounce of energy2 into something that could have taken 35 minutes? Guilty as charged.

A lot of us grew up with seemingly well-intentioned messages like:

• Always do your best

• Anything worth doing is worth doing well

• How you do something is how you do everything

• You work until you need a vacation—not when you want one

• You take a break when your work is done and you’ve helped your team

These are mostly good. But they don’t account for things like:

• The time cost of money (what am I spending by focusing on this?)

• DOLBOCA- division of labor and comparative advantage (am I the best person to do this?)

• The simple reality that most people can only focus for ~45 minutes at a time

Layer onto that a lot of us who grew up in immigrant households, on farms, or in blue-collar environments. We may fundamentally understand work, effort, and struggle differently (a topic deserving of its own post!). We internalized ideas like “hard work is its own reward”—which, frankly, is a highway to hell. This is NOT livin’ easy and lovin’ free.

And I see this play out constantly in branding, communications, and marketing.

We work so hard on color palettes, logos, perfect taglines, fonts, thought leadership pieces. And yes—they matter. They really do.

But next time you’re working on a story pitch, brainstorming a hook, or workshopping a tagline, ask yourself:
What rolls off the tongue?
How would you explain this to your aunt or niece?

Go with that.

What feels natural when you say it out loud? Jot that down.

We spend so much time chasing target audiences, product-market fit, and industry standards that we forget who we are—and what the brand actually does.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on the phone with a client, they say something offhand, and I stop them:

“Say that again. I’m writing that down. Perfect. That’s the pitch.”

It came from the heart. No copywriting exercise. No A/B testing. Just…the truth.

So the next time you and your team are slogging through a pitch, drafting an op-ed, or writing website copy—take it easy.

Ask what your brand actually does. Why you do it. Start there.

Take it easy, take it easy
Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy
Lighten up while you still can
Don’t even try to understand
Just find a place to make your stand—and take it easy

PS — Hi Mom and Dad, I know you read this. Thanks for teaching me about hard work, entrepreneurship, and classic rock.

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