Embracing Unhustle: Finding Balance and Creativity in Marketing

Eric Eden: 0:59

Welcome to today's episode. Our guest today is Melina. She is an entrepreneur and a rebel CEO. She is the CEO of Unhustle. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. Thanks for having me. We appreciate you making time to be with us. Why don't we start by you sharing a little bit about who you are and what you do?

Milena Regos : 1:24

Thanks, Eric. Yeah, I spent the majority of my life in a marketing career. Actually, I consider myself a marketer about 23, 25 years, Originally from Bulgaria. I will never forget how I made the decision to come to the United States, even though I had amazing clients working straight out of school and built a marketing career. I was a CMO for a ski resort and then started my own marketing agency. I had amazing clients. I even got to work with clients like Madonna and some celebrities. And I realized at some point in time that all that work, in the marketing world especially, is so driven by hustle culture that we have to work 24-7 in order to get ahead. Unless we are working all the time, we are not going to make it, which is so counterintuitive to the whole world of creativity, which is what marketing is. And so I decided to pivot and do 180 and start on hustle to inspire people to find that creativity and innovation outside of constantly doing, if that makes sense.

Eric Eden: 2:41

Yeah. So before we get into your story, I'm just curious about that. On hustle, it's increasing productivity by not necessarily embracing the fast-paced culture. How does that work?

Milena Regos : 2:57

So the way it works is. It's all based in anything from ancient wisdom to modern, then science, which points that when you're rested, when you have enough sleep, when you have energy, you can actually focus, you can be more creative and you can be more productive. So it's not about putting in the hours and subscribing to this cult of business that most of us do, but it's actually measuring your impact and your ideas based on the impact, not on the quality of work, not necessarily on the hours of work that go in the work, and so most ideas, as we know, are not born out of sitting in front of a computer. So obviously there needs to be a balance of putting in the work have nothing against hard work but also finding the time and taking care of yourself in making sure you show up rested and in finding inspiration outside of being in front of your laptop.

Eric Eden: 4:07

I like that. That's a lot more helpful than the buzzword of work smarter, not harder. I always found that buzzword just a tad bit annoying because it's vague. It doesn't have sort of the gravitas of what you just explained, which practically just makes a lot more sense. When I'm rested, I feel like I have a better day at work for sure. That just makes logical sense, of course.

Milena Regos : 4:32

Yeah, and especially for marketing people. There's a lot of competition, there's a lot of comparisons and there is little originality and authenticity. And if you want to build a brand and you want to build it successfully, it comes down to the authenticity, it comes down to the differentiation, it comes down to the creativity. All of that is born in moments. Most of it it's born in time off period. It's getting grounded in new values. It's getting grounded in what the brand stands for. It's digging deep instead of trying to out hustle everybody else with vanity matrix of how many social media posts you put up there and how many people you have in your email newsletter. Creating something with soul involves making time and space for that soul to come alive. And we're just guilty as charged for including myself for subscribing to that hustle culture, mentality and if you look around, we all stressed out burnout, we have mental health problems. All of that stems from our addiction to projectivity.

Eric Eden: 5:46

So I worked with one company whose tagline I really liked was intensity matters, because it wasn't the volume of time you spend working matters, it was just how productive you are during it. Because I think marketing is a very intellectually challenging task. It's not just about making 100 calls. A lot of times you're thinking about what are things that are more creative, what is the right message, what is the big idea, what is the creative way to execute this campaign, and a lot of times, at the end of the day, it's just like, mentally, I'm ready to not be thinking so hard. So I think that it is, like you said, more important for marketers. It is very important for marketers. I won't compare it to other functions, but I think it's very important for marketers. So let's hear about the story of the best marketing you've done, or marketing that you're most proud of.

Milena Regos : 6:47

Sure, that's a great question. I think the best marketing I've done I haven't done yet, but I'll give you three quick stories. First, it was when I was a marketing director for SQ Resort and I was trying to come up with this creative campaign what can I pull on this billboard? And the billboard was for people coming up from Rino, going up to Lake Tahoe, and I had paid for the billboard but I didn't have any space, any message that resonated. I worked with creative agency but nothing was ringing through. And at some point in time I went for a hike and this idea of why settle for roses? Because Mount Rose was our competitor down in the bottom of the hill. So the message that I came up with was why settle for roses when you can have diamonds? Because I was working for Diamond Peak SQ Resort and that really put Diamond Peak on the map and it really resonated. Obviously my competitors didn't like it, but that idea was born out of me going for a hike. It wasn't born out of a creative session with any of the agencies I had hired or of me trying to come up with it in front of the computer. The next idea that's similar is when I started on Hustle and I couldn't figure out how to grow the business. At that stage I was still in very much hustle mode I have to do the podcast and I have to write my book and all these projects that pile up and all these to-do lists. And I realized one day I just surrendered and listened to my intuition and what I heard from the place was to surrender and let it go. And out of that day came an idea for World on Hustle Day. And now a stranger on LinkedIn saw that idea and shared it with some high leadership people from Google, from NFL, and so I got invited to speak at the World Economic Forum on the message of unhustle for burnout prevention, for mental health. So all of these ideas are born out of time off, because the default network needs that time off to make connections, to come up with new ideas, to see things from a different perspective, and we don't give ourselves that time enough.

Eric Eden: 9:09

That's great. What was the impact of getting to speak at the World Economic Forum? That's a pretty huge win.

Milena Regos : 9:19

Yeah, the impact was to get more people to see the message of unhustle, to think different, but I got messages from people from all over the world that they saw that message and resonates with them and how they're going to do things differently in their company, on their leadership level, with their teams, with their employees. I have 43 countries that are currently on my newsletter people from 49 states. Don't know what the impact was in terms of numbers or dollar signs, but I do know that it was a good idea. That was born out of not necessarily me trying to figure out how to make more money or how to create a business, but rather how to be of service and what does the world need at that time.

Eric Eden: 10:12

Yeah, that's great. I think the momentum that it created is clear. It's not about a specific ROI number, but it clearly increased the momentum for what you were doing across all those countries. Yeah.

Milena Regos : 10:27

It's about ripples of impact, not necessarily return on investment.

Eric Eden: 10:31

Absolutely. I love what you said of actually your best marketing is still to come. That's an extremely great view to have. It's optimistic and we're always trying to do something better. I love that sentiment. What can you share with marketers? What advice can you give with marketers who want to do the next best thing, but they also want to have the balance that you've talked about with unhustle? What else can you suggest or recommend to them?

Milena Regos : 11:04

For marketers to do their best work, they need to obviously take care of themselves in the best way possible and to figure out how to follow their weirdness and their difference instead of the constant comparisons and falling for competitions. Just being true to who they are, being true to the brand and how can that brand serve people in the best authentic possible way.

Eric Eden: 11:41

That's great. I believe that you have on your website an assessment that people can take. Can you share a little bit about that?

Milena Regos : 11:50

Yeah, I have realized that burnout is a fairly kitschy phrase these days and we talk a lot about it and yet we don't realize how burnout we are. I know there's shame associated with it. I know I went through a period of creative burnout which, if I'm to guess, a high percent probably most percent of marketers are in that state, which is why we don't see a few. So Superbowl but I wasn't that impressed with the creative ideas on Superbowl, with the exception of maybe a couple. I would highly recommend that people measure their level of burnout and know where they stand, because not every burnout is the same. We've gone through a lot with the pandemic and we're still not in a place where we can move forward from a place of alignment and strength and creativity. I do have a free burnout assessment on my website that they can take it on and take 10 quick questions and they can see where they stand and they can also see where the rest of the people are in comparison to them. It's a helpful first place to know where you are, because if you're a burnout then you cannot be creative. Bottom line.

Eric Eden: 13:11

Awesome. All right, I'll include that in the show notes so people who'd like to check that out can easily go to take that 10 question assessment. Thank you for sharing your stories today and your insights and advice here Much appreciated. Everyone should share this episode with your friends so they can get the benefit of these great stories and advice. Thank you so much for being a part of the podcast today. We appreciate it.