The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 40: Goals That Actually Stick
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Goals are tools for prioritizing time, not trophies. We rethink resolutions, build simple systems for consistency, and make space for family, faith, fitness, and work without burning out or waiting for January to start again.
• why most resolutions fail and what to do instead
• using goals to prioritize time, not chase status
• building consistency with simple, visible tracking
• accountability that actually works
• redefining success across parenting, fitness and work
• outcome-based flexibility at work
• environment design for sustainable habits
• starting small to build momentum
• seven enduring goal categories to guide planning
• the role of intensity vs time-based targets
Kicking Off Season Two
SPEAKER_01Welcome to the Daily Edge, where we bring you the latest insights, opinions, and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business, and beyond. Let's go. Welcome back to the Daily Edge season two. I'm here with my brothers TJ and Todd, and uh we're ready to get back after it.
Why Goals Fail And How To Start
SPEAKER_01We are here today um to talk about goals. I think we all come into January and we set you know goals, um, New Year's resolutions. You know, by the time this gets out, it'll be interesting to see how many of you are still still hanging on, right? The statistics say 80% are gone by you know January. So would love to talk to you guys, I think, in a lot of different facets. One is the time you spend setting these goals. Like, how do you really dive into deciding what's most important? And then two, how do you sustain them? So either one of you want to jump in and get us started off. Uh I'll jump in. I mean, I've been big on goals. I think goals are super important. Um, I was reading a book the other day called Indistractable, and what I loved about the one thing he said in this book is that you can't be distracted if you don't know what you're being distracted from. And that hit me so hard because if you don't know what you should be doing or could be doing, or what's most important to you to be doing, then you're really not distracted, right? I think we all think of phones and scrolling, whatever is distracted. If you're planning to do that, you're technically it's technically not a distraction. We live in a world that obviously that we're drowning in distraction, the noise is is deafening. Um, and so I think one of the biggest ways to combat that, one of the most underrated ways to combat that is to plan and know what you want to be doing or should be doing during those same times. And so I think you know, the the beginning part of the year, and I think a lot of times the one-one thing is overplayed. It might be two-one, it might be three-one. There's no, there's no, it's never too late to put a plan in place and know what you want to be doing and what the most important things are for you to be accomplishing in a given week, month, or year. And so I I do love the process of goal planning because I think that's the foundation for knowing what you should be doing with your time. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think you're gonna be the expert here because you've been doing this for over a decade and like you know, tiers of goals. You have your big goals and then you kind of work your way down, you know, yearly, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, uh, in your case. But yeah, I I'm gonna, I think in this particular instance, I'm really gonna be excited
Consistency, Accountability, And Resetting
SPEAKER_00to glean some information from both of you because I mean, in one facet of the three or four you talked about earlier or mentioned earlier, you know, faith, family, fitness, whatever, business being the fourth, um, not necessarily in that order. I've I've gotten one of those down, maybe one and a half of those down. So, like taking some insight from you guys, you know, I think there's there's a lot to what I've noticed recently. You know, I think a lot of people have read the book Atomic Habits. I haven't taken a ton from that, um, but I know you probably have better memory of it than I do. But one of the big things is those baby steps. And I think too often, this is one of the biggest pitfalls, is too often we're putting these huge goals in front of ourselves that we're going to do X, Y, Z. And it's just there's no path to get there. Uh, for me, financial planning is one of those things. Took some small steps this year, but not where I wanted to be at this point in time, you know, a few weeks into the year, so kind of reconfiguring that. And again, would love insight from either of you when you're not hitting a goal, how do you reconfigure? What are some of the things that you try to implement to get you there? I can speak to that on the fitness side of things, but as it relates to business or as it relates to, you know, again, personal finance or or whatever, um, what are some of the things that you guys put in play when things aren't working uh right off the get-go and you recognize like, oh, I'm three weeks in and I haven't made any progress at all?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I think consistency is important. Todd, you just said something that was interesting. It's like we use one one as this like magical day, right? And then I think the problem with that is it feels like it's the only day you can reset, right? So if one one becomes, I'm doing this this year, and the minute you stop it, you're like, well, I can't start again until next year, right? So I could tell you in the business world where we spend, um, you know, we get together, we do off-sites, quarterly off-sites. They say spend time working on the business, not in the business. It's consistency, it's routine and habit. As much as I don't love to say that, um, we are constantly re-evaluating. And the truth is, is your goals might change and they might shift throughout the year, and that's okay too. They should. Yeah. I mean, you're gonna think you're gonna try things and be like, I thought this was like the surefire, like this was the holy grail, and we try something like, no, I don't think it, I don't think it is. So we create that consistency to have those meetings, um, and then accountability. Like from the IMG standpoint, when we're meeting, like, I don't want to show up in a room with my other with my leadership team and have not delivered on the things that I said I would execute on. So the accountability for me is a huge one. Um, just like this last year with the races, that we had set some goals when we first started the podcast. And it's like, I said I was gonna do it, I'm going to do it, and therefore I got to go through the experience of it. And I didn't I didn't love all the training up to it, but I had some incredible experiences for it. So consistency, accountability, building the habits, and then giving yourself permission to start over, change or shift. The phrase that jumps out to me is what gets measured gets managed. I think the key to consistency is tracking and measuring. I think that's the the lack thereof is the easiest way to fall off. And the existence of a good tracking system that's in front of you on a regular basis is the best way because you're continuing to remind yourself, hey, I spent time deciding that this was really important to me this year. And to continue to remind yourself of that is critically important in the world today because as I mentioned, we're drowning in distraction, the noise, the things that others will prioritize for us is another one of my favorite phrases is if you don't prioritize your day, someone else will. And there's so many companies that have gotten so good about taking our attention and uh prioritizing our day for us, and it's quite a travesty.
Tracking What Matters At Home
SPEAKER_01But I'll give you an example for us. Uh, and my my 12-year-old is one of the most motivated of the three of my family, but he's still 12. And trying consistency is a tough thing for any kid at that age. When uh we set some goals, he and I did. I wanted to do a certain number of pull-ups a year, he wanted to do a certain number of push-ups last year. Um, and so we had a calendar, a 365-day calendar that we taped to the wall right when you come in. And you guys have probably seen it when you come in, and it's right there when you come in the back door from the garage. And every single day you walk in, you see it. And if you're behind and your numbers aren't there, you're reminded wait a second, this was an important thing. Why am I not there? And then you find a way to make the time to do it. Now, that's obviously a very substantial thing. Not everyone has to start there. I think you can you can start smaller. In some cases, it's doing a to-do list for the day. Hey, these are the most important things I want to get accomplished this day. And that obviously is not speaking to annual goals, but I say that and that you don't always have to have this big, huge and you know, goal program. Um, sometimes it can be simple, but that's an example where what gets measured gets managed. Uh that's been a huge that was hugely successful, and he hit his push-up goal last year.
SPEAKER_00How do you put yourself on the right
Shifting Priorities With Family Life
SPEAKER_00path? Because what we've seen, I'll speak again in the fitness space, is it's very difficult to begin a journey if you don't see results quickly. Right. And and the good thing for something like a weight loss journey is normally that first week you do. Like you'll see a big jump. Then you plateau, but maybe you can use that historic reference as something to keep you pushing forward. I think as you get older, priorities sometimes shift without you knowing. And it gets hard. We've talked about this, I think maybe in prior podcasts. We've talked about, you know, generating self-worth from other things, especially as you mature and as your responsibilities become different. When we were in our 20s and 30s, um, me, I had kids a little later. Uh, so you know, you can focus on like raw uh work output, right? I'm putting 50 hours a week into work, or I'm putting you, and you can focus this passion in different areas that are very measurable, that you can just lock in and go. And the more you accomplish, the more that reinforces that you're doing something. Then you get to a stage in life where you have kids that are specifically where the majority of ours are. You have one that can drive themselves, but then it changes. And so it's like, what are some of the best methods for stepping back? I will talk about this from a personal perspective. The kids and the sports. My day starts to decay depending about 2:30 p.m. That's really hard to come to grips with the fact that, like, man, I had X goal or Y goal or whatever, and I've got all these things to fit in, where in the past I could just do this activity for this period of time and I didn't have any worries about anything else. Well, now I don't feel like I am meeting my own standards because I'm spending five hours a day getting kids to and from sports or three or whatever. I'm spending an hour and a half a day running, I'm spending six hours a day working, and then this, that, and the other thing. So, like, what are some of the mechanisms or some of the things you tell yourself to put yourself in a place where, you know, dividing your attention is okay versus you know being frustrated with yourself for not hitting these really high marks that you've hit in the past because you just have more responsibility?
Redefining Goals As Time Prioritization
SPEAKER_01I think it's a planning problem. And what I see what I what I mean by that is I think it's very easy for us to miss goals like that. I think it's very important for all of us and for all parents out there to support their kids in athletics and to be there to get them to and from, but also attend, watch, talk with them about it. And those are the kinds of goals that are hard to quantify. Like, how do you put that into a goal? I want to do X hours of shuttling for my kids, right? But at the end of the day, that is a very important priority. It's not that it's not something that you do and you're like, you regret doing it, right? It is actually an important thing, but I think the lack of satisfaction comes from the lack of realization and upfront planning that that is actually an important priority and something where you want to be investing your time. So that I think is for me one of the most important things. And and as I've gone through goal setting phases, I've had more of an appreciation for that. Um, one of the things that comes to mind is I know I've mentioned a few times here is the quarterly trips with the boys, is like there's no way to really quantify that other than a pass fail, right? Supporting them or spending time with them in that capacity. But I put it on my goals because I want to recognize that that's not a waste of time, that shouldn't be something that's competing for other, you know, quantum more quantifiable goals. I think we just got to recognize that. This is interesting because I think when I think goals, and I think a lot of people, it's generally self-improvement goals, or it's kind of focused on self. You're talking about a goal of my goal is to make sure I'm at 80% of my kids' games, or that I'm I'm having these. Yeah. Um, which I think is interesting because I I I would be curious how many people actually would identify those as goals and track those. I mean it'd be like, yeah, I want to go to all my kids' games, but like do you really sit back and say, okay, well, I'm gonna be intentional about this, the conversations I'm having before before and after. Um, that doesn't seem so intuitive to me. I don't know if you feel the same way.
SPEAKER_00Well, no, I think I think it's really intriguing, and I think this is a big thing, and I I want to bring that back to like your guys' perspective as executives as well. Everything has evolved tremendously over the last 50 years um in terms of like let's look at work in general. I think a lot of it is there's there's there's conscience, your conscience is there saying like the this
Outcome-Based Work And Flexibility
SPEAKER_00I let me step back. I guess I was I saw a quote just a uh a few minutes ago. Uh was it Catherine O'Hare? The the one of these actresses just died, and somebody caught her in an airport recently.
SPEAKER_01Lady from Home Alone.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh recently just died. Somebody caught her in an airport, and they're like, you know, you've been in all these iconic roles. Which role do you want to be remembered for the most? And her comment was the mother of my kids. Right. And so, like, then you go back and you think about all right, I mean, really, um uh 50%, if not more, of our goals as humans is to raise this next, this next group of humans to accomplish more and drive society forward, as well as you know, improving ourselves, setting a good example, whatever. But a lot of it funnels down to that. And I think that historically, the way that the economy was set up, um, you know, there were much more defined roles, there was uh there's many fewer efficiencies. So all of your goals traditionally were centered around self or were centered around business output. And so then we collectively developed this consciousness that if I'm not excelling in these particular arenas, then I'm failing. And as all of these things have evolved and sports have gone from uh sports have gone from one rec practice a week and one game a week to you know three or four or five plus all of these games, we've the optimizations and enhancements and improvements have actually given us the opportunity. You couldn't work from home if you worked at a factory, you couldn't work from home. Our dad was in distribution. He couldn't work from home, they didn't work from home. Um, there wasn't the technology available to do that until the 90s. And even then, not so much because you still didn't have video conferencing and things like that. So the opportunity to be present in your kids' lives wasn't as prevalent. Um, so now I guess I say all that to ask you guys as business executives, and you can take this another way if you want. Does that change your perspective? If you found if you had a person working for you that was getting their job done, but you found out that 40% of their day was kids' activities, like you said, going and watching them and then being able to talk with them after practice about the good and the bad and help them work through these things and improve them as a human. If you're finding out, well, my my my my worker's getting things done, but there's more of it, more time allocated to being a good parent and raising this next generation, you know, is that something you're cool with? Because I think in again, just to restate, we have this internal conscience that if we're not focused on these one or two things that we are failing and there we should we shouldn't have goals in those areas, other areas.
SPEAKER_01Uh that's a that's a big uh that's a big question um on the business side. Before I answer that question, I just want to say one thing about goals. I think what you hinted at, Trent, is I think a little bit the challenge with goals. Goals really the only the primary reason that we have goals, or in my opinion, we should have goals, is just to help us prioritize how we spend our time. We want to spend our time on the things that are most important to us, and that's why
Presence, Parenting, And Tradeoffs
SPEAKER_01you go through that prioritization process. And so, so goals I think have been um they've been I don't know what the word I'm looking for is bastardized, maybe, uh, and they've kind of become a self-obsessive like achievement, and I think they're really just a prioritization mechanism so that when we look back, you know, you hear about the people that look back and they say, Well, you never wish you would have worked more, right? You know, at 80 or 85, you look back and you want to say, I spent my time exactly how I would have wanted to spend my time. This much with my kids, this much trying to create professional outcomes, that sort of thing. Um, that's where I think goals really become a great tool when they're looked at in the right way. To answer your question about work, if someone is miraculously talented and is getting their job done in a half a day and they're deploying the other half of their workday for personal gain, uh, I think it depends on whether or not I'm compensating them for the job that they're completing or if I'm compensating for the level of their talent, if that makes sense at all. Meaning, if I am if someone is compensated more for the level of talent and they're an extremely high quality person who is very um capable of delivering high-level, high strategic things, then I think I'm gonna be more inclined to want to get the bulk of a workday out of them, whatever they can accomplish in that workday. Now, if it's someone that I'm paying to manage a, you know, or we're paying to manage a certain size book of business, and this is the role, uh, and they're able to do that and you know, keep customers happy and all that in this amount of time, then I'm probably more flexible with that sort of thing. I think the key component to that, the second part of that is um having the metrics to support that story. When COVID happened, we were probably more of a call it a traditional old school business, which is like clock in, you clock out. And and I think that is, you know, we used to joke as you know, uh, dad and their company was like you're there at eight o'clock, you're there till five o'clock, and it doesn't matter if you're playing Candy Crush for two hours at lunch, right? But you're there physically there. And when COVID happened, we had to kind of rethink that and become more outcome-based. So to Todd's point, it's like, what percentage of phone calls are you answering from home? And and how many rings? Um client closed referral um loops where we're actually getting feedback from the client. What is your NPS score? You know, there's things that you have to measure to actually be able to validate the outcome that you're trying to achieve. So it it is complex. I think we try to offer as much flexibility within all the companies to support um in realizing that business may not be their main focus and and the thing that they um prior prioritize. And different roles have different challenges. I mean, if you're in a customer service role, it's tough for somebody to not be at their desk answering the phone when a customer's calling in. If you're in accounting, maybe there's a little more flexibility for you to do things later at night after the kids go to bed.
SPEAKER_00It's interesting. It's like is it let's just say, you know, as an as an organization, if you've developed uh a scenario where you're delivering the best customer service possible, right? You've created excellence and you have this uh staff, right? These these partners, these employees, these human resources that are able to do that. And then as we advance tech technologically, that gets easier to do. Um and let's say that everything is still on the up and up, it's it's it's interesting to think about. I'll think about it from my perspective. You know, we make cables for people to charge their phones, and our value proposition is that we allow you to express yourself through your mobile power, right? So you can get something that helps you express your personality. Is that the is humanity going to die off if we go out of business tomorrow? No. However, if the employees at our uh at our office um stop raising their kids because, you know, like let's say, for instance, they're like, look, it's nine to five. And I'm just using these are hypothetical examples, this is not real life, but hey, we need you in California every week. So you need to fly out here. And and and we know people, but we have a good friend, I think Pete Wallace's sister. Um, we used to fly a lot together when I was traveling a ton, flew to New York every week for work and stayed there all week and came home. So, like, it's really interesting to see how things are evolving. And it's like, should that be like again, if we went out of business tomorrow, that's not going to change anything. But if I stop raising my kids and stop being there for my kids, what happens to the next generation? And and again, you know, you can look historically and say, hey, there were generations where the kids basically
Staying Interested When Motivation Fades
SPEAKER_00raised themselves and they were fine, right? But um, it's just really interesting to evaluate the situation.
SPEAKER_01Those are probably few and far between because uh there wasn't as many dual working families back in the day, right? So there was always uh an adult for the most part in normal um traditional family settings was were probably raising the kids, and now that's not necessarily the case. Right? You have dual working families. It's a it's a really interesting, um interesting concept and thing to think about because it's just unique.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I know this has gone off on a tangent, but like setting goals in those spaces that aren't necessarily traditional spaces to set goals is just something that I've never even explored, really. Um, because it's always been kind of a secondary thing that you just Do you may set goals? Actually, you just said you did. You set goals as it relates to like your quarterly trips with your sons and things like that. Um, but setting goals on some of those things that may be more under the radar that that you don't that society doesn't um look upon with favor like they do other things, which is kind of interesting, right? I think you ask any adult, any parent what their biggest accomplishment would be, and it would be their kids, but like very few people are looking, and I guess maybe you get these compliments later in life. There's not a lot of reinforcement for oh uh you know, you there's not a lot of, I guess, tools to measure how great of a parent you are in the moment.
SPEAKER_01You know, it's 10, 20 years down the road. I I think one of the struggles that I have the most difficult time with is just staying interested in the goal long term. And I find that even more so when it's um I am more accountable to others than myself. So if I've got a self-goal that I've set that's important, uh I can then you know maybe a month later I'm like, ah, it's not that important. Uh and that's just an interesting thing that I've noticed over the years that I'll set goals and when I commit to other people or other things, I value those as more important or I respond better to those because I guess you could even say that it's more upsetting to me to lose face than it is to fall through with my own. Um why do you think that is? Do you think it's because you didn't spend enough time up front actually truly truly assessing whether or not that was important and that's why a month later it wasn't as important? Or what what what do you feel like in those cases is the primary driver of it being really important today and not a month from now? Yeah, I tend to jump around quite a bit. Um, it could be some of that, it could be uh the lack of clarity, but I've always jumped around quite a bit, and I'm always the new next thing gets me excited, the new idea to chase and build, and the new idea to chase and build. And um I think it's a cop-out to say that's the way I'm wired. I think that would be a but in some instances, um
The Power Of Environment And Accountability
SPEAKER_01I just I get disinterested. I something changes and I get interested in something else, and I want to go do something else.
SPEAKER_00I wouldn't say that it's necessarily a cop-out. I mean, from my perspective, it's like I'm wired very similarly in terms of if if there's not other human accountability. I just don't care. I mean, I I think that's pretty obvious in terms of you know, like you and I talked the other day about the races, right? And I've been pretty forthcoming about the races. Like, my goal with the races is to create a new platform for somebody to accomplish something that they didn't believe, and I believe there's a cascading effect. If this person comes and accomplishes something they didn't believe they could do, then that inspires their community or their children or gives somebody a good example. Um, you know, I'm so bad to the point that you've, you know, you guys are both you've come up and said, Hey, let me help you with this because there's, you know, you guys have put a lot of time and effort into something, and there's no reason for it to be where it where it's at. Um, but I think I'm that way with everything.
SPEAKER_01Here's what happens, and this pattern has played out in my life. You start doing something because you're passionate about it, you're changing lives through your races. At some point in time in your life, it's gonna be just another number, another racer, and it's gonna you're gonna impact hundreds and then thousands, and then it's just going to be the majority of your time is gonna be doing billing and registrations. And I I feel like I I hate I hate that, yeah. Yeah, but it you get desensitized to at least my experience is what starts as a super passion project and builds over time becomes desensitized, and the true mission and the true impact starts to fade, and that's when I start to lose interest. And I have a really hard time pulling myself back into that um, to that part to really tie the meaning back into it because you end up doing these things up here, and they're way far away from the things down here, and that person that just accomplished and changed their life and committed to this race and lost 30 pounds and is healthier, and all those things that used to be like blown away by, you don't even see anymore. Well, I want to ask you both if we if we play with this hypothesis for a second that goals are really a tool to help you prioritize your time. I think one of the things that even though you guys aren't goal people, I'm my gut tells me you're if you were to look back over the last few years, you would still be very pleased with maybe how your time has been allocated, or maybe not. I'd be curious to know how you guys feel about that. Do you feel like you have found a way to allocate your time properly over the past few years? And if not, where have been the biggest gaps or things when you look back that you're like, man, I wish I would have.
SPEAKER_00I think it's been pretty good uh over the last couple of years. Um there's always shortcomings, but it it's the big thing over the last two years is been realization that my value is in different capacities than it has been in the past, and being comfortable with that. Um realizing that you know I need to operate in an optimal manner now that we are juggling and we all juggle a ton of things, and most of society does, or maybe a portion of it does. But I think you know, it's been recognizing like, look, you don't have to sit here and knock out a spreadsheet that's gonna take you personally four hours to do to feel like you're important and that you got something accomplished when you have LLMs or other um AI tools at your fingertips that can do it for you in 10 minutes. Just because you were um efficient with your time doesn't make you less of a person, you know, realizing what high-level impacts you can make with with ideas and laying framework and foundation and the relationships that you have, uh, what kind of an impact you can make with those things versus like again, like this raw horsepower, crazy output. Um, so I I think for me it's been pretty good also recognizing where
No Promised Land, Only Consistency
SPEAKER_00and what needs to be in place for um those things to happen, right? So it's like not taking on anything that's too monumental in one of those particular silos so that it borrows from something else, right? I'm not doing you know, uh Corey's a good example. He does these double threshold work. I can't do that. I can't do it not just because my body can't handle it, but I can't do it from a scheduling perspective. Because if I'm doing it, then I'm missing getting the kids up and getting them to school, and on the back end, I'm missing the sport side of things. I can't do it, and then I'm taking too much time out of my work day. So, like, you know, I can't put that time and effort into fitness, but I can do these things to make my fitness goals sustainable long term. So that's kind of yeah, I feel pretty good about it. Um, and even though I'm not super formal with goals, I think that there are some guidelines or guardrails in place to push me down the right paths.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I mean I had a couple of goals last year, especially on the fitness side, which push me into, you know, training and staying in shape and and accomplishing some things that I felt over overall pretty good about. I have a tendency to to, when I reflect in a moment, to say, I never did enough, or I never had the best plan, or I never but yet a couple my daughter's birthday was a couple days ago, and um I spent time going through her pictures and I was reminded of everything that happened. Like when I look at it in a moment time, be like, man, did I really like no, I never really do a really good job. But then I think about all the things that we did this summer and the intentionality, and and when I'm going back and reminded of the memories, um, I think I do better than I give myself credit for, but I have a tendency to um kind of get pretty down on myself from a timing standpoint. But I've done some things where I try to spend a day a week with Isaiah, he's homeschooled, which has been a lot of fun for us. Um, and then you know, sometimes call them the guilty pleasures when I want to play Bellatro or get on whatnot or any of those things, like like that's me being a kid, and um where I could always look at those and say, like, oh man, anytime I'm on that, I'm completely like that's sometimes that's okay. Like it's okay to have that time and to kind of section that off. And when I feel like it's getting out of control, which it it did, it does. I said, Look, I'm not gonna play it this week. And I told my youngest son, I was like, dude, we're not playing this week. And I literally and I showed him my screen time every night when I got home. I didn't play it, like so. There's there's times when I know it gets out, and and so the whole balance thing, but I I go to all my kids' games, I'm as present, I'm home for dinner, you know, every single night that I'm not out of town. And um as as if you asked me, I would say I could do better. I don't know if I'm I'm my hope is especially with my kids that they look back and they see a dad that was present and engaged. Um and and um from a business perspective that I've I've I'm very similar, that I'm engaged, that I'm leading, that I'm passionate, um, and that I'm providing the support and the direction to help us get to the next level. So uh I do believe it goes in in waves, and I do believe we have seasons of calmness and patience, and then we have seasons, I like to call it the Moses season, where you're out taking risks and you're living on the edge and and you're doing things. And I find myself um coming in and out of those cycles quite often. Yeah, I would just say a couple of things on that. Um, both of your responses there. A, I think it's there's an element of encouragement in there that you don't have to have a monstrous goal plan to be able to prioritize your time appropriately when again, ultimately that's the goal. Because in addition to that, you guys, again, TJ, you hardly set any goals, but from a fitness perspective, you've achieved what you've wanted to achieve. You've hit those things, you found a way to prioritize if you know, you have a few main focuses each day and you can hone in on those. Um, and so I think there are different ways to skin the cat. Uh, the other thing that
Momentum, Intensity, And Training
SPEAKER_01I think I would add is I think the conversation we just had is important, you know, going back and saying, is there anything I'm missing? You know, as I look back as part of my planning each year, I'm looking back at the prior year and thinking, okay, yeah, I really missed the mark on this one. Spiritual is uh really important to me, and I didn't do any of these things, and I feel like that left me really exposed, more stressed out, more anxious than I've been in previous years or needed to be. So I really need that to be a part. I think looking back and having that retrospective is just very, very important to understanding uh what you may want to prioritize more going forward. How important is environment in hitting some of those goals?
SPEAKER_00Oh, I think it's extremely important. I mean, again, I can go on the fitness tangent forever and understanding your own personality and what drives you. And we've talked about how things, you know, morph over the years or shed their old skin. And um, you know, I think that it's important to pay attention to that. You know, I see a lot of different people that utilize different things to drive them forward. You know, we you you mentioned your you know accountability is big for you, having somebody else that's accounting on you to be there. I think if that's something that drives you, um, that's a big thing to harness then and utilize that to your you know, find a group of people that are going to do the same thing, you know, after doing that for a and it goes in waves, right? You know, for me personally, at the beginning of the journey it was solo and then it was a lot about accountability, and and now it's something where because of the other schedules, right, and everything else that's around, um it can't be that, right? I can't add 30 minutes of driving to a run because I just don't have the time to do that and I'm taking away from something else that needs to focus. So I need to be on the treadmill. And I really think it's unfortunate that you see society at large ridiculing people or uplifting particular behaviors versus others because it's whatever is in vogue at the moment. You know, you see a if you if you take the last half decade of the David Goggins approach to things, right? And you're seeing people highlighting that they're outdoors running when it's negative five and they have no shirt on, and you're a you're a, you know, you I I mean, I could be vulgar, but you know, you're just not a man. You're not the one if you're not out doing that, right? You're not tough if you're not out doing hitting, you know, runs at minus five at 4 30 in the morning, you know, where you know, whatever. And I think that's terrible because there are people that either have, from a timing perspective, um not the not enough time or not the time to do that in the morning. Maybe they work something that doesn't allow that, or maybe it's something like, you know, they can't be sustained. Maybe they're at a point in their journey where they can't sustain effort if it means freezing ass cold and dark every morning. Maybe, you know, it's more sustainable for them if they're on a treadmill. And there's nothing wrong with that. And I think unfortunately, right now in the fitness space, you have too many people telling you that there's a particular way to the promised land. Um, and there's not, and it's going to change for you.
SPEAKER_01You know, there's there's no promised land.
SPEAKER_00No, there's not. There's not in anything. But I think the promised land is consistency, right? Is is the promised land is okay, I have a diet that's not a diet anymore, it's a way of life, and I eat a particular way.
SPEAKER_01I'm still I'm still looking for that one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I mean that that's what works for me. Or I found a fitness routine that I can do until I'm 90, or at least some component of it. That's what works for me. That's what you're right. There, there's always hard things. Um, but there's you just need to be honest with yourself. You need to recognize
Seasons Of Risk And Renewal
SPEAKER_00what works for you in that particular season you're in, and you embrace that and go for it. Um, and you're gonna get people that ridicule you, and it's unfortunate, you know. But it is what it is.
SPEAKER_01Well, I think what what you're saying, Todd, is like a goal is a way to prioritize your time because there's no ending, there's no promised land, there's no sub-130, you know, half, sub-three hour full. Like, there's no number that's that shows everyone that you've arrived that gives you this ultimate, you know, like, okay, I'm I weigh, I weigh 150 now, and now it's okay, I can weigh 200 next year, right? Like the there's no ending in anything, and it's the constant progression of feeling like I think as men we want to feel like we've accomplished things. There's an accomplishment of I've done something that's helping myself or others, and we use these these goals and other things to help us feel accomplished. Yeah, I I think that's 100% correct. Now, I will say I think the the there is certainly a benefit to having some quantified goals in there because you're not only prioritizing your time in some sense, but you're prioritizing the level of effort or intensity you put into those activities. And what I'll say is last year I tried this and it and I uh it didn't work out as well as I I had thought it might, which was five hours. I changed my um goal from miles to time. And so I wanted to work out five hours a week, whatever I was doing. It was Orange Theory was an hour or running or whatever. And I that didn't go very well for me. Now I I mean, A, I missed the goal. I had some injury issues I missed, but it was not a very motivating, and I found myself kind of doing a lot of easier workouts, and I didn't get the mental benefit that I get from uh some harder workouts and from some of the progress uh and achievement from a pace perspective. So I think um it's interesting that that so all that to just kind of also say I think there there is value if you're setting goals, if someone's setting goals that you know, really wanting to specifically achieve, and I'll I'll speak to one uh that I've set this year is to break three at Boston, which is gonna be a super tall order, but it has really helped guide the intensity of the workouts that I'm doing. I'm doing these threshold workouts, I'm measuring it, I know what intensity I need to bring to these workouts in order to achieve that, and that's helpful. That's helpful, and I think it provides some positive reinforcement. You're accomplishing certain things, uh, and it helps with the momentum. I think more than anything, it's that momentum. I would agree 100%, but the the point I was trying to make is like you break three hours in Boston doesn't really matter, right? It doesn't, I mean it matters to you, it's important in the moment, but it's like, you know, breaking three hours was the most important. You spent what 10 years chasing that, seven years chasing that goal, and then you broke 250. And you were way more excited, way more energy in breaking the three hour than the 250, and you don't even talk about it because it's not a big deal anymore. And you know, it's so it's like there's this like I agree a thousand percent, you're gonna achieve more by setting goals. And the environment question was like spiritually, I struggle to spend time in the word, and I got with a couple of guys, and we started memorizing scripture, and we're like 15 weeks in, and I and I found that like I go to bed reciting it. I mean, we're 30 verses in, like in memorization, and it is like it takes 10 minutes to go through, but it's has me in the word at night, has me in the word when I wake up. I'm thinking about it. I find numerous times that it's applicable throughout the day, and it's just because we decided to do this, we get together only once a month, so it's not a huge time thing, but we're we're when we get together, we recite this, right? And so it's like having the environment help build the habit, which helps me be better in my life and be able to apply things from scripture to my life and others, and so like it all stemmed for me in that instance from being around the right people from a habit. And that can build momentum. I think we should not overlook some of the side, the fringe or um unintended uh benefits of some of this stuff, right? So, like that is probably psychologically your ability to do that and the progress, that is probably finding its way into other areas of your life and it's providing momentum. I mean, I know that with some of these workouts, to your point, the three-hour marathon goal is there's no value to that. There's no tangible value. But through this process of trying to achieve that,
Culture, Influence, And Finding Your Why
SPEAKER_01the quality of my days so far this year, since I've been training, have been night and day to uh the several months leading up where I wasn't able to train. The lower stress, the lower anxiety, the momentum of being able to do difficult things and get through those workouts relatively sets a sets a much lower bar for the difficulty and other things that are going on. I think those are important um elements to recognize as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, this has been, I've just been thinking the entire time you guys have been talking. I mean, it's really intriguing. And I like some of the stuff we've talked about around like set, I'm gonna call it just setting goals in the negative space, meaning like, you know, the positive space being goals for fitness, negative space being goals for rest, um, positive space being goals for business, negative space being goals for family. Just the alternate, right? The areas we don't typically set goals in. I wonder, does it ever get to a point? Probably this question is more for you, Todd, where it's like, okay, I wake up and I look at my goals, or I know roughly what my goals are for this week or this month. Um, and it's it's it gets overwhelming. It's like I have sleep goals and fitness goals and kids' goals and business goals and other business goals and third business goals. Like, is there is it ever get to that point where it's like, oh, and you need what Trent talked about earlier with okay, I have an hour of this time for Balach or whatever it is. Does it ever get to that point?
SPEAKER_01For sure. Uh especially when you're not hitting the goals. That's when the momentum fades and it gets very, very difficult to continue to plow ahead. Now, I will say, when you are firing, it actually builds on itself and it's more motivating and more exciting. When you are every day crossing off the lists of the things that you know are most important to you and you're putting your time exactly where you want it, the psychological momentum that builds is insane. Like you just continue to like want more and to do more and plan more because you know you're using your time as optimally as you possibly can. So it can go both ways uh for sure, depending on.
SPEAKER_00Do you feel like you need to evolve your um set goal setting in in areas where you're more mature in your accomplishments? Like I say that we've talked about the sub three goal. You know, I sometimes I'll sit there and knock out a workout and be like. I think we talked about it the other day where I'm like, I don't know. Like the numbers don't really matter. Like, I'm not out here to prove anything. I'm doing it. Um I'm doing it because it I think it can be a great question for you. To keep self-confidence up there. Um because you don't race much anymore. No.
SPEAKER_01And is it because you're like you've accomplished everything that you've and you kind of just like what does it take for you to get the edge back?
SPEAKER_00Well, and that's that's kind of this interesting conundrum. You know, I uh Keegan did his thesis uh or or partial thesis, and I hope I don't butcher this, Keegan, so I'm sorry if I do, on the motivating factors for long-term endurance athletes, what keeps them coming back? And the three things are um competency, perceived competency, and environment. How good you are, how good you think you are, and the environment that surrounds you. Um you know, and if you look at that, seems insightful but obvious. Um, you know, I never had thought about it through that lens, but thinking about it through that lens now, you know, that's why you see the in the pro athlete ranks, a lot of them go back and train with their college coaches. Two best marathoners in the United States right now, both train with their college coach. Um, same with some of the best female
Parenting Through Sports And Community
SPEAKER_00runners in the country because that's a familiar environment for them. It's somewhere where there's uh you know, a lot of there's reduction in stress and and things like that. But for me, yeah, I mean that was kind of the premise to my question for him was like it does get um like you said, I've broken 250. I've won the last two races that I've run. You know, I now I'm cherry picking a little bit. Um like I'm not gonna go run monumental and expect to win it, but um yeah, it's it's like it it does get more difficult for me to kind of figure out who, what, when, why, and where. And a lot of times it is like um I can relate.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's the beauty in the planning process, though, because you get an opportunity to find your why. Right? You get an opportunity because uh I'm a big fan of Simon Sinek. We've talked about the start with why several times on here before, but I think that's the beauty of that is what is important to me and why. And when you really spend time there, like I would say this might be subconscious, but a lot of what you do is continue to do hard things to set an example for your kids, either in similar sports or in others. That's true, right? And so there's a why there, and I think spending time in that place and understanding what and why is important is is a huge part of it of the value proposition.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I well there's three layers, yeah, you're right. It is now if I guess if I were to think about it, that is one of them. One of the other ones would be um, I want to have context for what other people are going through so I can empathize with them in particular situations, because I think without being able to do that, I've looked at people in the past and had a negative emotion towards them. Like I see somebody go do something, and I'm like, that is the dumbest thing I've oh well wait, let me empathize with oh, maybe I've been there um because I've gone through that in some capacity. So I think that's another thing. But if I look at goals today, um I'm sure there's something egotistical about it. Like I'm sure there's a self-reason there for sure. Um, I mean, I I like looking like with the lactate thing, I like looking and seeing, oh, I am progressing. That's um it's human nature. It but at the same time Yeah, it's tough.
SPEAKER_01What I think happens to a lot of people, um, and I don't think this is just endurance athletes, I think it's in everything, you compete until you reach a level of success and then you coast. And the ones that are wildly successful are the ones that never coast. And if you go back to the biblical parallel of like an Abraham versus a Moses, like I arguably have nothing else to accomplish in the business world. I have no I don't have to, you don't have to run another race, I don't have to do anything different. However, that's I think when you look back on life, you'll regret that pause. And it's something that as you wrestle with in athletics, I wrestle with in business, is like I'm coming out of a season of Abraham and I'm going into a season of Moses where I've been challenged to get excited and to reinforce the why and reattach the why, which is hard to keep front and center. Um it's hard to keep front and center, and when you've achieved so much, arguably to anyone else and to yourself, it's an easier way to be passive. It's easier, arguably, to run race to be the director of a race and run it and go through the training of it. Um maybe not prairie, that's an ammo on itself, staying up for three days. But uh I'm actually in the middle of this transition right now, and um I'm excited about the going into the season of Moses, but it's one of more risk. It's one with highs and lows, where the other one is just kind of like it's even keel. Um, and I think going back to why keeping that at the forefront and the center over time is really hard to do.
SPEAKER_00Is it okay to shift though? Meaning that, like, like you said, you look at some of the extraordinarily successful people. And unfortunately for us, the the top, top, top, top of the food chain, we don't have a lot of you don't know how much honest insight you have into the rest of their life. You know, whether it's reading of autobiography on Elon or on Jordan or on whoever, you don't know what the rest of their life was like. And you see some of these, and you don't know what to attribute to them and what not to. Um, you know, I think of is Marcus or James, one of Jordan's sons, like recently in the last
Seven Goal Categories That Endure
SPEAKER_00year, year and a half, getting arrested for DWI and like giving them the do you know who I am? And like, is and again, he's an adult, right? Whatever, but is some of that perceived, what you know, is is some of is that some of that situation attributed to my dad never paused ever until he retired. And so he missed out on my some of my stuff as as a kid, and therefore, you know, I developed these defense mechanisms, one of them being ego ego, egotism. So it's like, okay, I'm not going to continue to push so, so, so hard in this one particular area, but I'm gonna shift and push hard. So I look back and say, Man, yeah, I I didn't make a hundred million dollars in business, but I I raised these kids, or I, you know.
SPEAKER_01But you never hear about that, right? Because the most successful people, most of them, their personal lives are train wrecked. They've been divorced, right? They have issues. And if someone has a really good balance, they're probably not wildly successful at anything and they're not in the media. One of the guys that I admire in basketball that I think is pretty incredible, and I'll look LeBron James is still married. He has raised kids. He's like, he seems like a very wholesome. I don't think he's the best basketball player. I think Jordan is better for the record from a go-on-the-court standpoint, but arguably a better person. And arguably, you know, to still be faithful and be in, and I'm not saying he's been faithful every minute of every day, but like he's still in a relationship. He seems to have his priorities, and I don't think those get recognized. Those have to be internalized, and you've got to believe that because you're not getting rewarded for that externally.
SPEAKER_00Well, and was he in a situation, and that's interesting you bring that up because you've had this philosophy for a long time. You get to the top 10%, and then that's kind of you're like, okay, next, top 10% next. And I wonder with like LeBron, is that a situation where, from an effort perspective, that's what he put forward because he's so athletically gifted, potentially the most athletically gifted person that's ever existed. You know, there are people like Bo Jackson and Jim Thorpe and guys you hear about historically, but like in modern society, LeBron James could have effectively done anything he wanted to do. You don't find people that are 6'9, 240 with all of that explosiveness. And so is it a situation where for Jordan, because he was, you know, 6'6 and and he had athletic gifts like no other from an explosiveness perspective, but he wasn't LeBron. LeBron is this freak. Um, is it because LeBron maybe, and you've seen this, right? Because you and I guess Jordan did it a little bit more on the extreme side where, but LeBron, you see him, especially these last five or six years, even though he does spend a lot of time and money on his body, you see him relaxing a lot more. Taco Tuesdays and drinking lots of wine and doing the podcast. And and um, yeah, so so I wonder if if he had gotten to that 10% thing and has been able to coast just because he's so athletically gifted. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's really interesting. Uh I think what I would say to all of that, I think, you know, certainly balance is good. I think for everybody, it's just making that decision. Like Jordan, it may have been a conscious decision. Like, hey, I mean, you can't argue with the fact that the dude inspired millions of millions and millions of people, and maybe he was willing to sacrifice the fine details of his kids and how they turned out because that's what he wanted to do. I know we've talked at times between about uh Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods and how their dads approached. I mean, psychologically, I think it's kind of come out over time that both Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods were pretty dysfunctional based on the pressure that was put on them at a young age to excel in their craft. And that was their, you know, I would assume an intentional move by their fathers, and they decided that's what they wanted to do. And again, for anyone else, and Tigers in a similar fashion, we saw what happened to him personally. Maybe that was intentional. My point is, I think that's at the end of the day, I'm not here to judge somebody if they want to go all in on one thing or they want to have balance. I think at the end of the day, what we all want is to have lived a line a life that's in alignment with what we intended to live. And so if it happens to be throwing it all on this particular sport or skill or whatever, or it's maintaining a perfect balance across the six most important aspects of your life, I think that's what goals can help with. You think people have the freedom to think about that because we're so heavily influenced and people are always telling us what we should think is most important? Well, that's where I think the planning process comes in. It's just taking that time. And I think we can all find the time with all of the distractions and noise that we do, so we all do so much it has so little return on our time. But is that if we're taking the time to think, whether that's once a year, once a month, but half a day, few hours, a few different like the more time that I think we can just think about what is most important to us and develop that, I think, yeah, we're all very, very capable of that. And there's plenty, plenty of time to do that today's society.
SPEAKER_00I I think, I think, yes, but I think that comes with something that's becoming more and more rare, and that's emotional maturity and self-control. Yeah, I think that what there was a statistic we've gone over in prior podcasts about like the biggest predictor of success in a lot of situations is your ability, is is essentially self-control and how you can approach situations um with that in mind. And I think what's happening now is that people are being captured um in a lot of instances. I think there's two reasons you don't have the time to think, right? And you always talk about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I think that's one. If you're I'm listening to a book right now uh called Jungle Keepers, and it's absolutely phenomenal. But what's it called? Jungle Keepers. Um and uh it's Paul Russ Rosselli Rossoli. Um but the premise. The premise is essentially um this guy is dedicated. He he was he traditional struggled in school and found that like nature was his thing and has dedicated his life since he was 17 years old to the Amazon rainforest. And so he's been down there for over 20 years. Um and we're we're not talking like from a scientist's perspective where he's like measuring and we're talking like barefoot swimming in the Amazon,
Sustainable Systems And Starting Small
SPEAKER_00like like living as remote, like his the the guy that he felt uh developed his initial relationship down there, who he started working with, grew up in like those tribes that are right on like the edge of like the guy didn't have shoes till he was 13. So like he learned the Amazon through that. But um, so it you know, a lot of the people down there, they don't have time like right, but it's in the same breath, I think that everybody can look and say, this is the way that I can best impact the world based on the way I was raised or the skill set I was given, and this is where my focus should be. And Tiger probably gets to the age of 13, 14. He's like, Well, I'm the best golfer in the world. I might as well lean into this because I have the opportunity to inspire millions and millions of people versus somebody who grew up in the Amazon without shoes and without any modern amenities. Hey, the way I can impact people the most is maybe I can start a touring thing down here, or maybe I can partner with somebody who does have access to technology so we can expose people to what's happening in the Amazon and how they can contribute and help keep it uh alive and well, you know, for the next X number of thousands of years.
SPEAKER_01It's fascinating because I would arguably say the guy down on the Amazon would have the ability to figure out his why and impact more than the person in the States. And I don't think it's a time thing as much as it is an influence thing. So I go by, let's say, take a data cent myself, and I'm like, okay, you know, what's important, what's important. Well, I want my kids to grow up well. Okay, well, you know, what are the experiences they need? Well, then you go back to sports. Well, sports are important. Well, why aren't sports important? Because everyone says they're and we're doing like there's so many things that tell us that this is the norm and these are the things that are important. And I'm not sure I can pull myself away to get to the true meat of it all. And someone that doesn't have all these things that the society or the environment we've created says are important. I think you'd surprise yourself. Maybe we're gonna find out this year. Gotta got a two-day silent retreat on the books, but um, it's to me it's fascinating because I think we are heavily influenced and our goals are heavily influenced, even if we spent time coming up with them on our environment and what the people around us feel is most important or what our social media is telling us most important, and we set these things that aren't true center north of maybe who God's called us to be.
SPEAKER_00Well, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Go ahead.
SPEAKER_00No, I I think you're right in a sense, but I think you do, you just really have to step back and and again, when it comes to that self-control and that perspective, you know, sports, great example, right? I thought about that at that high level as well. Like, why? But then you think about okay, wait, what are the what are the important aspects of of a of hum of a human when they they are thrust into the world? It's like, okay, community. All right, well, I'm putting them in a community. Do the same thing at school, right? But now I'm putting them in a community that has a goal. How do we work together to achieve a goal? Like that's something that you can test in sports. Failure. There are certain aspects, like if the guy in the Amazon, you know, they were talking about these guys can fillet piranhas at three years old. Um, like you make a mistake down there, you're dead. You can test the waters and try scary things in in that sports environment. So I think like it does take some extra time to step back and say, okay, what are the underpinnings of sports? Why is this important? What about it isn't important? You know, uh, we were at a track the other day. Um, I had snow blowed a track, I was telling him, for off-season track practice. And sounds like you the kids are out there and it's they shouldn't set it on fire. The kids are out there and it's 10 degrees out, right? Or whatever it is, 12. Um, and the coach walks out that who's been kind enough to let us use the track. And normally you'd look at that objectively from the outside or subjectively from the outside and be like, these parents are psychos. Why do they have these kids out here and it's 12 degrees? Um, the coach walks out and he's like, Man, this is so cool to see. And he's like, It's also cool to see you parents standing over here, like completely detached from this, not caring about anything, you know, as it relates to, because we are not there to analyze the kids' strides during warmups, like a lot of people are. Those are the unimportant things. Like, I'm focused on this at 11, they're they're technical aspects. Um, or I'm forcing, like we don't force any of those kids to be out there. It's up, it's optional. And nine or 10 of them show up every time because of the community aspect and tackling something together and the feeling they get from doing that. So being able to detach those elements from the the hierarchy, I think, where it we struggle is when you haven't developed that emotional control, which I really think comes probably in your mid to late 30s, just through exposure to things. I mean, you look at how much all three of us, especially us two, used to argue whether it was sports or politics online and then realize that that's kind of futile. Um, you know, I think there are some people if they step back, and I'm not saying that any of this is wrong, and maybe we'll talk about this in a future episode, but is protesting something somewhere, an avenue of your life where you're going to make the most impact? Maybe it is. Maybe, maybe these people need a voice, and maybe it's the most impactful for you to be there. But I would challenge you to analyze that, step back and say, hey, look, maybe this isn't where my time is best used. Maybe it's best used, um, especially if if I'm a parent on my immediate family and I can help raise them. I can set goals to help raise them and spend time with them to get them to a point where maybe they can exact change. Um, but sorry for the long rant.
SPEAKER_01I I think it's good. I mean, I think you just uncovered within a particular category, parenting, what elements you found most important to instill in your kids an ability to deal with failure, confidence, uh, whatever those characteristics are, and then you can center in your time around that. So I'm just gonna quickly cover these. I'm interested into your guys' reaction more than anything. These are the seven categories that I've landed on and my goals over like the decade of refining them. Write these down, folks. These are probably pretty good. They may not be for anyone else. I would be interested what you guys would add or remove from this list for yourselves. Spiritual. That is important. I was gonna mention it a little bit earlier, but I think some of the most motivated people are the most spiritual people. They put forth just on the heels of Fernando uh Mendoza winning the Heisman, winning the national championship, very devout in his faith. And I think a lot of times spiritual, when you're putting effort forth in a gift, or you talked about a skill or a talent to honor God that he gave you with that, like there's no bottom to that well, right? You just keep going and going and going. When it's ego-driven, that's when you have these cliffs of motivation versus like, I'm gonna do everything I can with this gift. So, anyways, spiritual. We can get into the actual goals within these categories, but uh that's I don't think I think it's less important right now. Fitness and longevity. I want to be able to, as as long as no disease or other thing that I might come up with might limit my lifespan. I want it to be as healthy and uh as long as possible. Um mental wellness and balance. Like I think there's an element, this is three of seven, just feeling good and operating from a good place day in and day out. That that I'm four is just personal growth, continuing to learn, develop, take in more information, develop certain skills that are gonna help me. Five is parenting, six is giving back, and seven is professional. Just professional types of things that I want to contribute, accomplish uh towards in professional endeavors. So spiritual, fitness, you talk about faith, fitness, and fatherhood. Those are three of them. That's probably an easy way to remember those three. And then there's like a mental wellness, a personal growth, giving, and professional. What aspects of your guys' life would you say you would what would you drop? Which of those are not as important to you, and what might you add in its place? I mean, I can't argue I wouldn't argue any of those. I think those are all I'm not saying argue like I'm just wondering how much of this is fit. This list has worked for me, but I don't know that this list would work for everybody. I I think the thing about the list for me is it's it's a long one, right? If I was every day thinking about all seven of those things, I think I'd have a tough time managing it. But throughout the year, um all of those take spot number one at certain times, depending on what I'm at and what I'm doing. Um I haven't articulated it that way. But I wouldn't take anything off the list and I'd have to put some thought into adding it, I nothing off the cuff. I mean 'cause I think marriage for me is a obviously a big one, but it's that could be a pursuing those other things are gonna be good balance for that. But you know, honor God and and you know your marriage is pretty much number two or should be almost at the forefront of kids. So there's some there, but I would agree with that.
SPEAKER_00For me, it would just be what what are my definitions for each of those? I think they are all encompassing, really. So I wouldn't think that that um there would be any others that I would add. It would just be how I would define those.
SPEAKER_01So we go back for a second. We started this talking about the fact that 80% of people have failed on their goals, that uh we've gone down all kinds of different avenues here. What tips and tricks do you guys have for sustainability of however you're spending your time to continue to spend it productively and be in a headspace where you're willing to and excited to continue to invest in that activity that you've deemed to be so important?
SPEAKER_00Analyze your personality and your strengths and proceed down the paths that make the most sense to you. Uh we talked about wanting, and I always will talk in a fitness sense, but we talked about you know getting bored with things. So I know that I get bored. Let's let's try some different things. Let's experience diversity and running, let's explore what it has to offer. Certain people that won't work for, right? Certain people are very um, you know, I know a guy who is who for the longest time just ran a half mile loop around his neighborhood for like a decade, and that was his thing, and that's fine. Um, but find what works for your personality and execute against that. Um, realize that that I think, and I I've always kind of bought into this. This was a concept we talked about years ago, but I think I feel like there probably is some sort of limited willpower on a daily basis. So, like, in make sure you understand that, you know, I found myself in situations where it's like, okay, I'm gonna go do this monster workout, and then I'm just worthless the rest of the day. If I right-size it, then I'm in a great space. I'm stoked, I accomplished something, like I'm a happy, positive person. But there's some days like, oh, I'm gonna go run for three hours and I come home and I just want to lay on the couch all day and I'm not I'm not engaging with the kids and I'm not in a great mood because I'm exhausted and I'm whiny and whatever. Um, so figure out what's sustainable um for you and and do that and don't be afraid to do the things like a run on the treadmill because someone told you it wasn't tough.
SPEAKER_01Assuming you understand your deepest level and why, I mean, environment and accountability is it for me. Uh and when I say accountability, I mean to others, and that probably again comes from uh lack of wanting to lose lose face to anybody or let anyone else down. But those are two things that have driven me. I mean, I'm uh over two years on a run streak because there was accountability, and now it's like I don't even think about it, it's just part of my day. Like I run every day. I just like it's not a chore, I don't even care. I mean, sometimes it's just 10 minutes, but like um, I run every day, and my wife knows to run every day, and it's no big deal now. So accountability and building good habits. One of my favorite quotes is doing ordinary things over a long period of time creates extraordinary results. And that is so true in so many ways and so many aspects. If you're just consistent, finding the things that are gonna make you be consistent for me, that's environment and accountability. Yeah, I I think you mentioned why, knowing your why. A lot of people don't, and they just kind of jump into something and they don't realize they they don't distinguish between this would be cool if I could versus I really, really want to do this. We've talked about weight loss and the fact that if you've only got three discretionary hours, meaning free hours in a day that you're not already doing kids stuff or work stuff or whatever, and you've got to spend half of that, an hour and a half of that three hours every single day, half of your free time is gonna be completely dedicated to eating right and or working out, and maybe more than that could be all of the three hours. I think you better have a really strong why and know exactly why you want to do it. The other thing, and you touched on this really early on that I would add is just start small. Start small. Atomic habits, you hit on that wonderful book, and the the idea is remove the barriers, remove the psychological barriers, just put stuff up, put stuff on, and our eyes just get bigger than our stomach. It's nothing more than going to the grocery when you're hungry and buying all this stuff, and you know, if it's one-one and everyone's telling you, like, do all the things you're like, yeah, I'm gonna run a marathon this year, and you haven't even run a 10k. Like, that's that just don't like be smarter than that. Um, maybe if you have a really strong Y, maybe you can pull off that leap, but it better be really, really strong. Otherwise, just get your stuff on, go to the gym, walk on the treadmill for five minutes and go home. Do that for a week, then walk on the treadmill for 10 minutes. Just start small because you're you're we've talked about this, you're you're not only overcoming and trying to overcome physical uh challenges and in many of these goals, but also psychological. And when you're trying to do those all at once, like in at a high level of intensity, the willpower is just it can dry up quickly. Yeah.
Closing Thoughts And Looking Ahead
SPEAKER_01Well, that's a wrap uh on our first episode coming back here in season two. It's good to be back and uh looking forward to spending more time with you guys this year. Thanks.