How to Ditch Goal Guilt with The Lazy Genius Kendra Adachi

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New year, fresh start, and that shiny list of goals you swear you’ll conquer this time around. Sound familiar? By January 14 (aka Quitters’ Day), reality hits, and those dreams are collecting dust. Enter THE Lazy Genius herself, Kendra Adachi. She’s a New York Times bestselling author, podcast queen, and one of my favorite voices of reason when it comes to ditching the hustle and focusing on what really matters.

In this episode, we’re taking goal-setting off its pedestal, flipping it on its head, and turning hopes into doable, guilt-free plans. If you’re ready to stop chasing goals that leave you feeling like a failure and start creating plans that actually move you closer to the life you want—this one’s for you.

Press play for the full interview or keep reading below!

In this Episode:

Starting a Business After Every Kid 🍼 The Lazy Genius wasn’t Kendra’s first go at entrepreneurship. Hear about her first two businesses & how they led her to where she is today!

Generating Pennies 👛 After breaking down how much she was making hourly with her second business, Kendra realized she was generating pennies. She knew that her business model wasn’t sustainable and something needed to change. 

Recovering Perfectionist 😅 Kendra opens up about her relationship with goal setting and how she viewed money in the early days of business.  

The Lazy Genius 💡 The idea for a new business. 

How to Keep Your Audience 👥 Kendra’s audience grew quickly through organic, relational growth. Hear her key to keeping an audience around & engaged. [15:21]

The Rocket Fuel 🚀 The turning point in her business that became her biggest revenue stream. 

Developing The Lazy Genius Principles 📋 While writing her first book, Kendra noticed recurring principles in her content over the years. This became the framework for the 13 Lazy Genius Principles.  [26:55]

A Hot Take on Affiliate Income 💸 Kendra explains how she uses affiliate income in her business and the why behind it. 

Compassionate Productivity ⏰ Kendra explains how this simple perspective can truly change your life. Hear Kendra’s heart behind her newest book The Plan & the freedom found in transitioning our goals from greatness to integration. 

Put’em on a Bumper Sticker. These Quotes are Pure Gold.

“I’ve always been a teacher. I think that’s just always been in my bones, there’s something in me that likes to take complexity and make it simple and communicate it to people.”

“I was making one cent per hour per box I sold, and my max that I could do on my own was 75 boxes. Yeah, that is not a sustainable business model.”

“You don’t have to have a life of big dreams and big goals in order for it to matter.”

“I gotta do something where I just write on the internet and eventually build to some place where I am generating income.”

“I just had this huge hang up that if I had ads on the show, that it somehow negated the authenticity of what I was trying to say in the actual show. It’s like it cheapened it trying to make money off of what I was saying, felt like it was cheapening the message, which, hear me everyone that is so deeply untrue, so deeply untrue. In fact, I think the opposite is true. I think that sometimes when we put the confidence in this is valuable, like this has monetary value, it raises the value like. The perceived value for the customer, but also for yourself.”

“I didn’t know how I was gonna make money. I was just sort of hoping that when an opportunity presented itself, I would take it. Again, I don’t know if that’s a great business approach.”

“One of the lazy genius principles is to set house rules, because they’re just things that help you kind of stay on the path and not get distracted by what does not matter. And we have some house rules in our business, and that’s one of them, we’re not affiliates for anything that we would not share if we didn’t get paid for it.

“We live in a culture that says the goal of everything, the primary purpose, is greatness. It is, master your time, optimize whatever, be as efficient as possible. Everything is about leveling up. And if you are not making millions, and if you are not constantly leveling up, you’re lazy, you’re undisciplined, you’re not motivated, you’re not doing it right. Which makes sense if the goal is greatness, if the goal is for you to be as great as possible.”

“What happens if we change the goal from greatness to integration, meaning, what if my goal every day is to be a whole person, to be who I am, where I am, no matter what is happening, to honor whatever feelings I’m having that day. It’s not always about being peaceful or calm or having it all together. It’s about being kind to whoever you are today. What if we started there?”

“When you change the goal from greatness to integration, when you start there, it changes everything. Work, life balance is not even something that I work on. It’s not even something I think about anymore because it’s not an either or. Or it’s because that still communicates that you are in charge of holding everything equally and perfectly, and if you’re out of balance, then you’re not doing a good job.”

More from this Episode

To hear the full story and more about Kendra, press play on the player above for the full interview or click here to download the transcript.

Resources Mentioned:

Kendra’s Benedict Cumberpatch Cookie Recipe

Emily Freeman

Kendra’s Latest Book— The Plan

The 13 Lazy Genius Principles

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Kendra Adachi

Kendra Adachi is the New York Times bestselling author of The Lazy Genius Way, The Lazy Genius Kitchen, and The PLAN and host of the nationally-ranked The Lazy Genius Podcast. As an expert in compassionate time management, Kendra helps others stop doing it all for the sake of doing what matters. She lives in North Carolina with her husband and three kids.

CONNECT WITH KENDRA:

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