The Empowered Entrepreneur — by Zach Marañon
November 1, 2023

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Hey bud,

Last week, I talked about how “The Comfort Zone is The Enemy” in Letter #26.

Today, I want to share a personal story about my own struggle with the comfort zone.

Back in August of 2018, when I was still a financial advisor with AIA Philippines, I had hit the income goal that I set in early 2017.

Additionally, I had just qualified to the Million Dollar Round Table for the 2nd time (a membership that only the top 2% of financial advisors worldwide qualify for based on production volume).

I was proud of myself.

I was satisfied.

I was feeling good.

And so, I thought that it would be nice to kick back and rest on my laurels for a while.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I effectively stopped doing what got me to where I was career wise.

I stopped putting in the work, I didn’t set any new goals, and I succumbed to laziness.

I downloaded the game Mobile Legends, and would play for the entire day.

If I got bored of that, I would switch to watching Netflix or memes on Youtube.

I was comfortable, until I wasn’t.

Stuck in Comfort

This extremely laidback lifestyle went on for one whole month, and I only took the minimum required effort to keep the lights on in my career for that month.

Like what I mentioned in one of my Instagram posts:

And I was very comfortable.

And even the thought of putting in a small amount of work in, or exercising, or even waking up before 10am made me feel uncomfortable.

My comfort zone had shrunk so much in that time that I felt stuck.

But I also started feeling antsy.

It didn’t feel good knowing that when I went to bed at night, I didn’t accomplish anything.

I wasn’t happy with my situation.

I started feeling sorry for myself and I decided, it was time to make a change.

Getting Out

I was held back by a LOT of resistance.

My comfort zone was so small at this point that it was a challenge to do ANYTHING related to productivity.

I would even think of all the things that I had to accomplish in a day:

1. Wake up early

2. Exercise

3. Shower

4. Get ready

5. Bust out the prospect list

6. Set appointments

7. Handle objections

8. Meet clients

9. Present available insurance solutions

10. Close sales

Thinking about all of this as I lay in bed in the morning overwhelmed me, and all I wanted to do is go back under the covers and hide from it all.

The comfort zone had become uncomfortable.

But of course, I still wanted to get out of this situation I was in.

I started setting goals again so that I had a deeper reason to move forward.

I listed down what I needed to STOP doing (playing mobile legends all day, sleeping past 12 midnight, etc).

And finally, I researched and found that I needed to grow my comfort zone once again.

In order to do that, I had to stop thinking about all the things I needed to accomplish and just focus on doing just one small uncomfortable thing for that day to move forward.

So, I did.

I started with forcing myself to get out of bed at a certain time, and put on my workout clothes. And then I’d stop there.

As long as I got out of bed on time and got dressed in workout clothes, I counted it as a win. Even IF I didn’t end up working out.

Once I got comfortable with doing just that, I would stack another uncomfortable action — like actually beginning the workout.

And once I got comfortable with doing just that, I would stack another uncomfortable action — like review my prospect list and identify people I can reach out to.

So on and so fourth until what was once uncomfortable became comfortable, and I found my stride once again.

In Conclusion

The following year, in 2019, I didn’t qualify to the MDRT, but taking the necessary actions became normal that year.

In 2020, I hit my 3rd MDRT qualification (during the pandemic at that).

This was all possible because I decided to focus on just the next baby step every time as I constantly grew my comfort zone.

I learned this:

So if you’re stuck in your own comfort zone right now, here’s what I would do:

1. Set clear goals (if you haven’t checked it out yet, I have a goal setting guide available for download — free for a limited time)

2. List down what you need to STOP doing (we sometimes need to subtract in order to add)

3. Focus on just the first baby step, rather than the entire staircase (to combat overwhelm)

I hope this issue was helpful to you. Feel free to message me about insights you got or questions you may have.

If you want to learn about the 4 stages of the comfort zone, you can read the letter I posted last Saturday here (in case you haven’t opened it yet).

All the love,
All the power,

— Zach Marañon

P.S. Whenever you are ready, there are 3 ways that I can be of help to you:

1. Follow me on Instagram here if you want a source of bite-sized ideas and content that can help you reach your next level in life.

2. Book a free kick-off conversation for one-on-one coaching here if you are an entrepreneur or sales professional currently looking to create solutions to a problem or challenge in your life but you seem to be stuck.

3. Download my goal setting guide here if you are wanting to create clarity on your desired outcomes (Free until 100 downloads — and then I convert it to a paid resource).

P.P.S. If you are from the Philippines and are looking for a personal mastery workshop to help you experience growth and transformation, check out Discovery by I Am Plus Coaching and Training Systems. It’s where my journey of self evolution personally got fast-tracked.