Hard work does not equal more money. Busting the lie that's keeping you broke & burnt out.

We’ve been sold a lie.

That in order to earn more, we need to work more.
That burnout is a badge of honour. That ease is laziness.

In this episode, I’m calling BS on the belief that hard work equals success especially for women and educators. Because if it were true, the hardest workers in the world would be the wealthiest... and we both know that’s not how it works.

I’m opening up about:

• The toxic hustle conditioning that’s keeping you stuck.
• Why rest, alignment, and nervous system safety are essential for receiving more.
• How I made six figures by working less. (yep, less!)
• And what it actually takes to build a business that pays you and protects your peace.

If you’ve ever felt guilty for wanting ease, or afraid to slow down… this episode is your permission slip to do things differently. If you loved this episode, snap a pic of you listening and share it on Instagram stories then don’t forget to tag me @_digiteach_ so I can cheer you on!

And if you’re feeling extra generous, drop a quick review on iTunes or Spotify. It helps the podcast grow, and I’m so grateful for the love. 💕

Transcript

0:05

Welcome to the Empowered Edupreneur Podcast. My name is Michelle Smit, and I'm an ex-teacher turned online business coach for Edupreneurs the owner of Digiteach and a six-figure entrepreneur. I am in love with empowering educators just like you to create freedom filled online businesses and lives they love. If you are looking to uplevel your skills, your finances, your mindset, and change the trajectory of your life as an educator in business, then you are in the right place. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of business and mindset development to help unlock the infinite potential within you, to play bigger with your life and go after your dreams. We are going to have so much fun together. So thank you so much for pushing play today. Now let's dive in. Hello, hello. Welcome back to my podcast. So good to have you here as always. And today I am going to be talking about one of the biggest lies we've ever been sold. Especially as a woman and especially as educators.

And that lie is: 1:17

that hard work equals more money. That whole idea of I need to keep grinding, keep sacrificing myself, keep pushing, hustling, and then I'm going to be successful and then I'm going to have, make money and all of that. That belief it's just not serving anyone because it's just leading to such extreme burnout. And I'm speaking specifically to women, as I'm a woman. And specifically to educators because I see this come up so much with my clients. And that belief comes up for me a lot, every time I reach a new level in my business. I always believe in order to reach the next level, I need to work harder. And I always have to push and question that belief because it isn't working harder and working more hours that's going to get me to the next level. That's just not how it works. And that belief is what keeps us trapped in this cycle of hustle, grind, that very extreme, unbalanced masculine energy where we just don't feel safe resting and it's not serving us and it's actually affecting our business. This belief in itself, which is ingrained, I believe in most of us. It's one of those beliefs that's making you feel guilt when you stop working, making you feel guilt when you take a holiday and you just rest and you have pleasure and joy and all that good stuff. And you start feeling like, oh, if I don't work, my whole business is going to fall to shit. Like that belief is the thing that just makes you keep grafting even when you don't even need to be grafting. Like you're just working for the sake of working. And it's literally wasting your energy. So we live in a very hyper masculine world. Patriarchal, it's designed for men. Especially for us women. And it celebrates burnout. It glorifies the grind. And we like clap for the woman who does everything and does all the things. And we reward the teacher that stays the latest. Gives the most, sacrifices, weekends, evenings, and does all this stuff for everyone else. And mothers who end up giving away everything for their kids, it's glorified. And then we wonder why we're all exhausted and burnt out. And why we feel guilty for resting. And why making easy money and I don't want to say easy money because I don't. I would rather say money with ease. So in alignment, money that doesn't wreck yourself. Money with ease, feels wrong. You need to work hard to make money. And money with ease is wrong. It's not possible. This is in us all, right? And here's the truth. I want you to hear. Hard work does not equal more money. Okay? Yes, in the beginning of business and yes, you're going to have to work hard. I'm not saying you're not going to have to work hard, okay? I have worked so hard in my business, especially in the beginning years. The graft was real. Those first years I was grafting hard. It did get a lot easier after that. The beginning of business, I believe, is going to be extremely hard for anyone. And running a business is hard. Building a business, building an aligned life, forging your own path, it is hard. I'm not discounting that. But the belief that you need to sacrifice yourself in order to make more money. And really just work the hardest and the hard work is what's going to lead you to being rich or wealthy or successful. That is not true. Okay. If the hardest workers were the richest, then the single moms working two jobs would be millionaires. The teachers pulling double shifts and doing all the things, whatever they need to do, working all the jobs to pay their bills, they would be rolling in it. And we both know that is not the case. And why is this especially real for educators and women? We are literally conditioned to overgive, to serve, to sacrifice. And there's this weird thing, the teacher world, that you want to wear the struggle as a badge of honour. It's like a strange, it's a strange thing, we must sacrifice ourselves for the kids and for the greater good of the world. But our nervous systems weren't built to run lives like this, to lead lives like this, to be working like this, it's not normal, we just cannot sustain this. And making money from a really dysregulated, depleted, overworked state, it's not sustainable, it's not scalable, and it's definitely not going to be feeding your soul in the long run. So this is the thing. I straight up believe this belief and I have proven to myself through evidence that this belief is not true myself. Because I used to think like I had to really, I didn't feel safe resting. I'd worked myself like crazy. I had these weird lack of boundaries. I was working weekends. I was working 12 hour days in my business and it was just from a place of I have to do this in order to make money. But that wasn't true. And let me tell you something that really surprised me. The first year I hit six figures in my business was 2020 and I worked the least. That was the year I worked the least. That was the pandemic year. Okay? And it's not because I was lazy, but I started doing mindset work around my beliefs around what it takes to make money. And the main belief that I had was hard work and sacrifice equals more money, and it was really not serving me because I was burning out. And it was only year two of my business I was burning out. And I had to really debunk that belief. I did a lot of mindset work consistently through that year, especially around that belief system. And I was very strategic in how I built my business. Basically I just followed strategy and was hyper intentional, and I only worked on the things that were going to move the needle in 2020. And I stopped saying yes to every opportunity. I stopped throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something would work. I was invested in mentorship and courses and I followed it. Stuck to it, stuck to the strategy. I didn't create new offers. I kept selling the same offer and I just got hyper intentional. One aligned offer, one strategic launch plan. And I worked on my belief system around what it takes to make money. I also worked on my nervous system. I remember I was doing like art and breath work and meditations. I was doing all of the things to regulate myself. I did a lot walking. I did journaling in the morning and I was like forcing myself to rest and it felt so weird, so weird to do it. Because it was so much guilt at the beginning. But I really slowed down and I just executed what I needed to do well. And that was the first six-figure year. So I had more rest. I felt more in alignment and I made more money. So that was the evidence. That was the evidence my brain needed. I didn't have to work ridiculous hours. I could work 25 hours a week and make 10 KA month, and that was proven to me. I had a launch, and I made 40,000 in five days. And I was like, cool, that was ridiculous. The amount of hours I had to work as an ESL teacher would've taken me many lessons, I was getting $20 an hour. So I was making money in less time and that's when I was like, cool, this belief is absolute BS. We've been sold a lie. They literally condition us to believe this because they are priming us to be these cogs in a machine that we can slave away, work extremely hard for these businesses, corporations, whatever at the expense of our health. Make someone else rich and like just keep going. Like it really suits the narrative. It really suits the power play, right? But it's not true. It's not true. And so if you're listening right now and you're thinking, oh, but Michelle, I feel guilty when I rest. I'm running my business and on the weekends, I can't even stop. I find myself overworking. I'm scared to slow down. I'm scared to lose the momentum. Here's what I want you to know. You are allowed to make money with ease. It is safe for you to make money with ease. You do not have to sacrifice yourself. You are allowed to be supported. You are allowed to create systems that sell for you, meaning being strategic in your business. And you are allowed to feel good making money and building wealth. It can feel good to you. It can feel good to your nervous system. You can slow down, you can rest. And your rest is your greatest ROI. If you can stick that mantra up somewhere, mantra, resting is my greatest, ROI. And just remind yourself that slowing down and resting, and then being intentional. When you work and strategic, that is the way you want to go. You want to work smarter. You don't want to be working harder, we want to be working smarter. That is how my brain is wired. If I can find the path of least resistance and to find a way to do something smart, I'm going to do it because I don't believe in working harder for more money and. I've seen the seven figure business owners who are not. They're not working excessive amounts. They're outsourcing the stuff. They're paying people to do the work for them. It's safe for you to hire someone to do the work that you don't want to do. Okay. And when you do that, you can focus on your zone of genius. You can show up with more energy and magnetism, and you can actually move the needle in your business instead of working in the business. You are working on the business. So this is the work that is very difficult. Following a strategy is easy, but unlearning these beliefs and finding evidence and creating new beliefs and ways of thinking and being in the world. That is the work of entrepreneurship. That is the mindset rewiring, the nervous system, safety and regulating. It's the identity stuff. It's all the stuff that makes the biggest difference. Doesn't matter how much strategy you have. If you belief system is I need to sacrifice myself in order to be successful and be wealthy. You are going to find ways to overwork, to hustle, to grind, to never slow down, doesn't matter. And the crazy thing is even when you are making that money you want, you're still going to do it. You're never going to change because that belief is literally guiding your behaviour. And until you shift that belief and genuinely create evidence for another belief that is a more service of you, that's going to empower you. That's going to help you rest and enjoy this life that we've been given. You're not going to be able to do it. Like it's the beliefs that drive our behaviour. That's the work of entrepreneurship. That is why being an entrepreneur is the most insane personal development journey of your life. Because you're going to be forced to do this stuff. Otherwise you're not going to be a very happy person and you're probably going to burn out whilst trying to make some money. Which who wants that? Why don't we just stay in our job that we hate if we're going to do that? You know what I mean? We didn't stop businesses and stuff to hate it. And burnout, let's be honest. So my final words to you, you don't have to hustle your way to success. Yes, you need to put in the hours, especially in the early days of business. If you're in the early days right now and you're in the trenches, it's okay. You're going to have to put in the reps. That's where you're at right now. There's a season of business and you're in that season where you're going to have to build the skills, put in the reps and do some really scary stuff. You can't skip it. You can't go from zero to money that's easy. Or money with ease. You have to go through what you need to go through in order to get to the point where you can work 25 hours a week and make 10 K a month. You don't just go from zero to that, okay? So you're going through the journey and you're in that space. It's fine. That's your season of business. That's where you're at. Keep putting in the reps. Don't stop. It's going to be worth it on the other side. It is going to feel extremely hard right now, and it's meant to feel really hard. That's fine. But if you're past that and you're already making money. And you're doing the things, but you still find yourself overworking, sacrificing, hustling, having no boundaries. Struggling to rest. Then your belief system is probably hard work equals more money. And if I slow down, I'm going to lose it all. And that is what you need to work on, because that's not true. And that's the work you need to be doing, it's not even skill moneymaking skills because you've built those skills. Now you need to be working on your belief system, what you believe to be true, your identity, all of that stuff. So you don't need to burn out to be worthy. You don't need to sacrifice yourself in order to have worth. You don't need to be a martyr. You get to build a business that feels good to you. That honours your energy, that allows you to rest and receive. So if you are craving that, then let this be a permission slip to you. And I would love to hear what you think about this. Send me a message on Instagram or an email. If you've listened to this. Let me know your thoughts. How does it feel listening to this? If you completely disagree, I'd be happy to hear it. I would've disagreed if I had listened to this episode a few years ago. I'm not going to lie, because I was like, you got to sacrifice, you got to work hard to make money. But really guys, can we just look at everyone around us and look at the wealthiest people in the world? They are extremely strategic, smart, intentional. They're outsourcing. They've got badass skills. Yes, they have seasons of working hard, but really, they're not working as hard as the person who's cleaning toilets every day to put food on the table. You know what I mean. Alright, I hope this landed for you. I hope you're feeling inspired and go rest, go enjoy something. Go do something that fills you up, makes you happy, go receive something. And I'm just wishing you a beautiful, beautiful rest of your day. Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. If you loved what you heard today, then be sure to take a screenshot of the episode and share it on your Instagram and tag me in it. I honestly love hearing from you, and I appreciate you so much and can't wait to connect with you in the next episode. In the meantime, go create a business and life you love.