EP157: When Did Doing It Properly Become Doing It the Hard Way?

Send us Fan MailWhat if the reason you keep making things harder than they need to be has absolutely f*ck all to do with having ‘high standards’?What if somewhere along the way, you actually learned that things only really count if they're bloody difficult?This week I'm sharing something very real and live from my own identity work.A conversation with one of my mentors uncovered a pattern I just hadn't seen before: my lifelong need to "do things properly" might actually be tied to achievement, difficulty and ultimately... worth.Because if achievement has become one of the ways you prove you're good enough, perhaps the achievement needs to be sufficiently difficult for the proof to count.F*ck.In this episode, I'm exploring this in real time. No perfectly packaged breakthrough or five-step solution. I'm still right in the bloody middle of it!We talk about:• Why "doing it properly" and "doing it the hard way" aren't necessarily the same thing• What happens when achievement stops being something you do and starts telling you something about who you are• Why being incredibly good at surviving hard things can become part of your identity• The uncomfortable difference between purpose and proof• How money, success, visibility and ambition can quietly become scoreboards for our worth• Why our motivations don't need to be perfectly pure, but we do need to notice who's driving• The questions I'm now asking myself about what I'd choose if there was absolutely nothing left to prove• Why reinvention doesn't always have to start with everything falling apartBecause maybe you don't need another mountain to prove you're brilliant at climbing.Maybe desire is enough.Maybe curiosity is enough.Maybe simply thinking, I'd quite like something different now, is enough.And maybe the next version of you doesn't need to become even better at surviving the hard road.Maybe she needs to learn that the flat road counts too.BE YOU NOWThis episode also gets right to the heart of why I've created Be You Now, my identity reinvention event for founders and business owners happening in London on Friday 4th September.You can have the strategies, plans, funnels, systems and colour-coded fucking spreadsheets in the world.But you take yourself into all of them.Your identity. Your beliefs. Your patterns. Your relationship with money, visibility, leadership and success.And sometimes the thing influencing what you build next is something you can't even see yet.That's the room we're creating at Be You Now.Friday 4th September 2026LondonFind out more and join us here:BE YOU NOW Come and find meIf this episode hit somewhere slightly uncomfortable, I'd genuinely love to hear from you.Tell me: where might you have confused effort with value?And if you happen to know Graham McKenzie from Normandy Primary School...No you f*cking don't 😂🔥 DOWNLOAD RESOURCES TO FUEL YOUR REINVENTION📲 FOLLOW on Instagram and Facebook📚 EDIT YOUR LIFE: No BS Reinvention Journal on Amazon🩷