Joe Hudson: Why enjoying work 10% more makes you 10% faster

Hudson argues the repetitive, critical inner voice is always “wrong” in how it motivates you. Instead of trying to silence it, experiment with new responses—like reassuring it (“I see you’re scared; I got you”) or playfully dismissing it—to reduce its power and eventually quiet it over time.

We decide emotionally and use logic to justify those decisions; if you’re unwilling to feel certain emotions (e.g., shame, conflict, failure), entire solution sets become unavailable. By learning to welcome and even love all emotions, you expand your behavioral options, take smarter risks, and escape recurring patterns (like conflict avoidance or abandonment).

Hudson suggests asking, “How do I enjoy this 10% more right now?” in any situation, without changing external circumstances. Enjoyment increases efficiency, quality of output, and staying power, and over time naturally pulls you toward work and environments that are aligned with who you are.

Operating from “should” creates shame, stagnation, and slow growth; operating from genuine wants and structured experiments creates movement and natural evolution. Hudson recommends treating all his ideas as experiments, not rules, and seeing personal growth as self-discovery rather than fixing something broken.

Hudson advises defining a small set (around five) of simple life principles—e.g., “embrace intensity,” “connection first”—and stress-testing them through daily experiments. Clear principles reduce decision friction, align behavior with values, and, when combined with emotional fluency, help you handle tension, disappointment, and conflict in service of better outcomes.