Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Welcome to the Happy Stack Podcast, where we explore the science and strategies behind creating a happier, more fulfilling life. I'm Terianne Richards and I partner with organizations to address the root causes of burnout, disengagement, and stress. Equipping leaders and teams with the tools they need to thrive, both organizationally and personally. Each episode, we dive into practical habits, insights, and strategies to help high performers like you level up from the inside out. Let's get stacking.
[00:00:34] Hey, friends, welcome back to the Happy Stack. I'm your host, Terianne, and I want to hit you up with a hard question right off the top. What are you actually measuring not just in your business, not just in your bank account, but what are you measuring in your life?
[00:00:52] What are you measuring to decide if you're doing enough, growing enough, or being enough?
[00:00:58] Because here's what I've seen and I've lived.
[00:01:02] We, on average, are measuring the wrong things. We're measuring metrics that don't align with meaning.
[00:01:11] We're checking boxes, but we're not checking in.
[00:01:16] And if you've ever been hit with a big milestone, like you've made money, you closed the deal, you hit the goal and you felt nothing or you felt something, but then it, like, quickly dissipated.
[00:01:30] It's not because there's something wrong with you. It's because the measuring stick has something wrong with it.
[00:01:39] So here's what I want to unpack. Today we're going to talk about why traditional performance metrics, the stuff that society and most of the world praises, well, it often leaves us feeling empty.
[00:01:55] And I'm going to share a framework I use to measure success in a way that's actually fulfilling, one that includes your whole life. Because you. You're not just like one section of your life. You're not just the career you have, the business you have, the title you have.
[00:02:10] You're all of these different facets held together.
[00:02:14] And success without knowing yourself, loving yourself, liking yourself, trusting yourself. Well, it's not success.
[00:02:22] And if we're growing without grounding, well, a lot of times we're moving through anxiousness and frustration and neglect, but we're high in productivity, right?
[00:02:36] So I want to take you back to a time in my life when I think people who might have been around me probably thought that I looked successful, right?
[00:02:47] I was getting the gigs, I was making money, I was leading, I was doing the things I had the business, I was getting awards.
[00:02:59] But on the inside, I was absolutely exhausted. I was disconnected. And I couldn't tell the difference between my Ambition and all the anxiousness and lack of worth around me, I was achieving at the expense of myself.
[00:03:20] And I had no idea how to define success outside of all the things I had been taught by my family or society.
[00:03:31] Revenue followers, likes, how many closed deals, how many clients served, how much money's in the bank.
[00:03:40] All of them, in a lot of ways, are important. Right.
[00:03:44] But do they tell the full story? Not even close. Right. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever sacrificed your sleep, your peace, or your body for a goal and thought that's just what it takes, right? Like, get up early, stay up late. Hustle, baby. Right? I mean, I got a sign right behind me that says humble hustle. It's a different kind of hustle. I'll talk about that in a few episodes from now. Have you ever just said to yourself, you know, once I hit this goal, then I'll finally slow down? Right. When I finally get to 10 mil, when I finally get to 1 mil, when I finally, you know, insert goal here, then I'll work less hours, then I'll slow down, then I'll take weekends off, then I'll stop answering my phone after 8 o' clock, then I'll finally take a vacation with my family. Right? And then have you ever hit that goal and then just move the bar? Yeah. And if you haven't, like, good on you. But I have. And there's a heck of a lot of people, certainly a lot of people I'm training and coaching these days that live in that band camp and, you know, just to kind of silo this for a second, you know, those of you who do do that right now, you're not failing. You're just playing a game that in a lot of ways, I feel was rigged for you from the start.
[00:05:00] Because we've been taught to measure growth through outcomes, but outcomes don't always reflect your priorities or alignment.
[00:05:10] They don't always tell you how fulfilled you are.
[00:05:13] They just tell you how good you are at achieving certain goals or pushing through.
[00:05:20] And. And again, I think of environment as a lot of just norms that have just been created around us that we just adopt, right? And it's sort of like if everyone's doing it, that must not be wr.
[00:05:31] That's just not the truth. And I think there's a heck of a lot more people these days that are recognizing that it's not always about, you know, those big goals and that big ambition and all the things that we've been taught that success is. It's about a whole lot of other things. And you know, there's a heck of a lot of studies of individuals who, you know, get to the end, you know, regardless of what age they are and the that they're regretting in life is not because they didn't succeed more, it's because they didn't take more time to maybe see, spend with family or friends or take care of their health or whatever it is, right? And so this is not me telling you you're wrong. This is just like, you know, where does EQ start? It starts with self awareness. And I think once we're aware we can start making the shifts and changes that are in alignment with who we actually want to be. That's where we're headed here, right? So what should we be measuring? And so this is the value based framework that I use now with myself and any of the leaders that I coach. And it's made up of four core dimensions. So number one, health.
[00:06:29] Not just did you work out, but did I sleep enough to think clearly today? Did I nourish my body or did I just caffeinate and white knuckle through, right? Is my nervous system regulated or is it on edge, Right? Is your parasympathetic nervous system actually going through that rest and digest on a regular basis or is it in that fight and flight mode all the time? Because here's the truth. If your body is falling apart, but your business is scaling, your career is just on this beautiful trajectory, you're not freaking growing, right? Like you're not growing, I'm sorry, it's not sustainable. At some point, right? If you are building on a non solid foundation, the whole damn mansion is going to fall down. What you are doing is your self abandoning, right? And so sleep, eat, move your body and ensure that you have some sort of a process to regulate your nervous system when shit hits the fan, right?
[00:07:31] Two relationships, this is important because outside of yourself, there's a whole heck of people. You know, it might be one person, it might be five people, but there are people in your world that you probably care about.
[00:07:46] Are you present with them? Are you present with them? Are you actually in the room with them when they're telling you a story, when they're talking, when they're just sitting and eating a meal? Are you present with them? Or is your head thinking about what you have to do, what you should do, what you didn't do, what didn't get done last week? Are you on your phone, scrolling through social media? Are you present with the people that matter?
[00:08:09] Do you feel Connected with the people that you are in relationship with. Your children, your spouse, your besties, your friends?
[00:08:18] Or do you feel constantly interrupted by thoughts or things or other people or the opps. Other people's problems? Right.
[00:08:26] Are your relationships nurturing or are they transactional? Right.
[00:08:30] There were more years than I would like to admit in my past that I was more emotionally available to my inbox or to the dings on my phone than to my family.
[00:08:44] And that is a truth. You can read it in my first book. That exists in my past. That is not who I am today because I was chasing success.
[00:08:53] And what I realized is that is not success.
[00:08:56] It's avoidance. It's neglect. And what it ends is a result that most of us are not looking for.
[00:09:05] Most of us think, if I just hustle this year, if I just do all the work this year, next year I'll be around more for my spouse. Next year I'll be around more for my kids.
[00:09:14] But what if next year doesn't come because that shit's real? What if next year doesn't come? Or what if next year they don't really want to spend that time with you because you just opted out of them for a year? Right. I remember an entrepreneur once said, like, you can sit down with your spouse and say, listen, I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go hard for the next 90 days. Do you got my back?
[00:09:33] Yeah. And then you gotta check in with them on a weekly basis and make sure, like, are we still on the same page? Are we still good?
[00:09:39] Right? You don't ask somebody, hey, can you just have my back for the next year or more while I go and do this thing?
[00:09:46] And I'm probably going to ignore you and not be present with you and not be around for you. And then. But I want you to still be here for me. And then when I'm done all of that, maybe I'll push the goalpost a few times. But then when I'm done all that, I want you to still be here. That's not fair. Short term, sure. But you still got to check in. Relationships matter.
[00:10:04] Three Impact.
[00:10:06] This one's a little nuanced. So, yes, results matter, but so does how you get there. So you need to ask yourself, how proud are you of how you've showed up recently? Not just of what you've produced, but how you as a human, your character, has showed up with the people maybe that you lead, the people that you work with.
[00:10:26] Are you making an impact that matters? Are you using your voice in a way that aligns with who you believe you are. Each of us have values, right?
[00:10:35] They're these internal gps, if you will, of what you believe is right and wrong. And a lot of times people can forget their values and do things that misalign with them.
[00:10:49] They make decisions that are not in alignment with their values. And I'm asking you, are you using your voice in a way that aligns with who you believe you are?
[00:10:59] Because if you're not, that will erode you. Are you leaving people better than you found them?
[00:11:05] Impact without your integrity is just you performing to the point where you will lose you.
[00:11:13] And then four self trust.
[00:11:16] This is the anchor. Because no matter what the world celebrates, if you do not trust yourself, you are always going to feel behind. If you don't trust you. There's this thing called the success cadence. I said it, I did it, I said it, I did it, I said it, I did it.
[00:11:31] When you say you will do something, do you do it?
[00:11:34] Do you honor the capacity that you actually have? Or do you ignore when your intuition gives you those yellow and orange and bright red flags?
[00:11:44] Are you building a life that reflects your truth?
[00:11:48] Or are you building a life based on society, based on fears, based on fomo, based on, and here's a big one, do you need the world's validation, external validation, to feel like you're enough?
[00:12:04] Because when you trust yourself, it is the currency of sustainable success.
[00:12:11] But it's often the last thing that we measure, right? Because we measure all this other crap out there. So I want you to pause for a second.
[00:12:20] How are you doing in those four areas, really? Like, how are you doing really?
[00:12:28] Because what gets measured, gets managed. And if you are only measuring profit, but not peace, if you are only measuring reach but not rest, only hustle, but not your healing, all those external things, but not your relationships, all that stuff out there, but not your health.
[00:12:49] If you care so much about what the world thinks of you, but you don't care about what you think of you, no wonder you're waking up every day without that pep in your step. No wonder you feel unfulfilled.
[00:13:04] So your reframe is start treating these four areas, health, relationships, impact and self trust as KPIs.
[00:13:12] And I'm going to use it a little different, key piece indicators.
[00:13:18] Because when those are strong, everything else flows from a healthier place. You'll make better decisions. You're going to lead more authentically. You're going to create from wholeness, not hustle. And you know what? You're going to feel a hell of a lot better.
[00:13:33] Now I know the high performer part of your brain is saying, but ta, how do I track that?
[00:13:40] Cool.
[00:13:41] Let's make it tangible. Here's your challenge this week. Build a whole life scorecard. Every Friday or whatever day works for you, rate yourself one to five. One being you did shitty, you need to improve. Five, you did awesome in these four areas. Health, relationships, impact, and self trust.
[00:14:02] Listen, you don't need to be perfect. You just need to be honest. Because again, self awareness, that's where it starts. And then we start taking action. If something's off, you're not going to judge it, you're just going to notice it.
[00:14:13] And that's where the power is because that's how we start to shift.
[00:14:16] Growth is not about fixing, it's about aligning.
[00:14:21] Let me leave you with this. You do not need to do more to be enough.
[00:14:25] You don't need to achieve your way into peace.
[00:14:29] You just need to make sure that what you're measuring reflects what matters to you. And yes, I'm saying to you, and sometimes the most courageous and brave thing that you can do is actually to redefine success for you.
[00:14:48] Peace.
[00:14:50] Hey, thanks for listening to the Happy Stack podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who could use a little extra happiness in their life. Let's keep stacking those wins together. See you next time.
