Listen, I’m not here to debate whether monks know something you don’t. I’m here to point out your monk mode has a Venmo balance of negative shame and a client roster thinner than the willpower you brag about on Skool. That video you just watched, “Why Productivity Is Bullshit! The Secret Is To Do Less Not More”, will get a quarter million views because it peddles a seductive lie: that your problem is too much action, not too little cash. You’ve been fasting from food, dopamine, and maybe sunlight, building pristine rituals around a bank account bleeding dry. Discipline without a cash register is cosplay for the insecure. And that video won’t make you log off and pitch a real human. So let’s gut it.
Early on he mentions a statistic about knowledge workers wasting 60% of their time on busywork. He frames it as an indictment of hustle culture. The claim here is that if we just stripped away the noise, the meetings, the endless to-do lists, we’d unlock some serene, high-leverage genius. I see how people can relate to the idea. It feels like absolution. You’ve been working hard and getting nowhere, so someone telling you the effort itself is the disease feels like a diagnosis you can smugly nod along to.
But here’s what the video strategically ignores: most of the people nodding aren’t drowning in corporate busywork. They’re drowning in consumption of content exactly like this. They’ve confused “optimizing my workflow” with actually working. The 60% waste stat is true for middle managers, not for someone who hasn’t made a single dollar from their “business” yet. Your problem isn’t too many tasks. It’s zero clients. Stop measuring productivity leaks when the bucket has no water in it.
There’s a moment where the creator leans in and says, with the gravity of a man who’s just discovered fire, “What if the secret to getting more done is doing less, but better?” Cue the soft piano. He advocates for a “not-to-do list,” eliminating obligations, and protecting your energy like a rare orchid.
The seduction here is that you get to frame your fear of rejection as enlightened prioritization. So you cancel the coffee chat, you delete the networking app, you stop posting offers because “I’m focusing on high-impact tasks.” You write in your journal about your renewed clarity. Meanwhile, the person who sent ten ugly, sweaty-palmed DMs yesterday has two new discovery calls. They’re not doing less. They’re doing the one thing that terrifies you: asking for money.
He then tells a story about a CEO who cut her workload in half and doubled revenue. Notice the silent premise: she already had revenue. She already had a machine she could subtract from. You’re trying to subtract before you’ve added a single customer. That’s like fasting to save money when your income is zero. You’re not optimizing; you’re starving the only thing that could save you: messy, unoptimized action.
At one point he says, “Guard your energy, not your calendar. Say no to almost everything.” I sat up. Because that’s the exact advice that will keep you broke and feeling spiritually superior about it.
If you have no customers, your energy should be spent on things that feel like a violation of your peaceful rituals. Sending follow-ups that make you cringe. Getting on calls where you might sound stupid. Posting an offer so direct it makes your friends think you’ve lost your mind. That’s not high-vibrational energy management. That’s trench warfare. And the video’s philosophy lets you call it “low energy” so you can avoid it altogether.
He frames this as a return to working like a lion , sprints, then long rests. Fine. But lions sprint toward a kill, not toward their own tail. Your sprint needs to end with someone’s credit card in your mouth, not just a clean inbox and a green smoothie. I’ll say it bluntly: if your “deep work” block doesn’t include an outreach component, you’re doing busywork with better branding.
There’s a clip, right around the 18-minute mark, where he reads a quote from some stoic philosopher about “he who does many things does none.” The comments will be full of people typing “YES” in all caps, feeling seen. They feel seen because this philosophy lets them quit anything that gets hard or awkward, believing they’re following ancient wisdom.
But applying that to someone who hasn’t yet achieved even basic traction is like telling a kid learning to walk that falling is inefficient so maybe just crawl less. You don’t yet know which things are the many and which are the one. You find out by doing the many, badly, and noticing which one someone pays you for. The video sells the end state , the streamlined, profitable operator , to people who haven’t even proven they can sell.
And that’s where the angle hisses loudest. You’re about to click away because this video won’t make you log off Skool and pitch a real human. It’ll make you queue up three more videos on essentialism and then “rest” because you’ve been so “productive” with your learning. The video’s ultimate function is to keep you in the ecosystem of content about productivity, not to jolt you out of it.
If you want to take the seed of truth in that video and actually use it, here’s the filter. Do less everything except the activities that directly generate a conversation with a potential client. That means:
The video wants you to subtract the wrong things. It wants you to subtract the awkward, ego-bruising work of selling and keep the serene, ego-flattering work of “optimizing.” True subtraction would mean deleting the apps you use to learn how to do business so you can actually do business.
I’ll give the video one sliver of credit. At around 24 minutes, he admits that this philosophy can be used as an excuse for laziness. “It’s not about doing nothing,” he says, half-laughing. “It’s about doing what matters.”
But then he pivots right back to examples of people decluttering their calendar from non-essential meetings and hiring virtual assistants. Again, for someone already cash-flow positive, that’s shrewd. For you, the only thing that matters is a transaction. Not a brand deal. Not a newsletter sponsor. An actual handover of money in exchange for a solution you provide. If your “what matters” list doesn’t have that at the top, you’re still in the laziness camp you think you’ve escaped.
The video gives a very pretty list of things to stop doing. I’ll give you an uglier, truer one. If you’re not yet making money from your skills, here are the rituals to torch immediately:
The video’s not-to-do list is designed for people who already have too much on their plate. Your plate is empty. You need to pile it high with messy attempts, not scrape off crumbs.
You will not manifest a client by removing friction from a process that doesn’t exist. You will not attract customers by vibrating higher while your bank account vibrates toward zero. The video’s underlying message is that by doing less, the universe somehow rewards you with more. It’s prosperity gospel with a minimalist aesthetic.
So let me give you the only protocol that works at your stage. Get your first client today or delete the app. Literally. If you finish this article and you don’t immediately open your DMs, find someone whose problem you can solve, and make an offer that scares you a little, then you’re not “doing less.” You’re doing nothing while wearing the costume of intentionality. The video gave you permission to feel wise. I’m revoking it until you feel the terror of a real pitch.
The secret isn’t to do less or more. It’s to do the thing that pays. Until you do, every morning routine is a lie you tell yourself to avoid discovering whether what you have is worth anything. You find out by selling it. Ugly. Fast. Today.
Read More HereJoin thousands already inside. Instant access.