August 8, 2025 • 15 mins
Ever feel like you’re just moving through the motions without knowing what it’s all for? This episode is about finding the thing that actually fuels you — not the version you tell people in job interviews, but the real why that gets you out of bed (even on the bad days). I share what I’ve learned, where I’ve messed it up, and how you can start uncovering yours.
🎧 Listen in. Your why might be closer than you think!
🎧 Listen in. Your why might be closer than you think!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
If I ask you why you do what you do
every day, could you give me an answer honestly? Or
if I asked you why you got out of bed
this morning, what would you say? Welcome back to the
Still Standing Strong podcast. Glad to have you back here,
listening in tuning in? What does tuning even mean?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We are halfway through season one of this new show,
and I don't know about you, but I feel better
talking about these things, these topics, these thoughts a lot
better and a lot of times late at night, these
things creep into my brain, and my brain wanders as
it does, and it doesn't really know what to do
(00:54):
with these topics aside from just dwell and think and
then forget about them in the morning. But there are
some gold nuggets inside of these topics that maybe we
haven't touched on yet, but we will soon enough. Just
to reiterate, my goal for this first season is just
to talk about a few things, toss some topics out there,
(01:16):
spark a conversation, and then in subsequent seasons, let's delve in.
Let's dive right into these topics like they are vanilla pudding,
and really expand on maybe some pieces that you would
like to talk about, you would like to hear me
discuss maybe you want my opinion on something, or you
(01:38):
want your opinion out there as well.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Let me know. But thanks for tuning in. These are great.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
But what I began doing with these topics is I
began writing them down so I wouldn't forget them. And
of course it's a lot easier having this so I
can express them to you, and it feels better to
get things off of my chest. We'll start this episode
out with that exact thing. I highly recommend writing down
(02:06):
those topics, those thoughts that bug you at three am,
that you just can't seem to flush down your mind
toilet as you're trying to fall asleep at night. But
speaking of those exact ideas and those topics, today, we're
going to be discussing something I gently alluded to in
(02:29):
the I Believe first episode when I began telling you
a little bit about my why. This episode's going to
be called Finding Your Why, and it's not next to
X and Z. Hope you got that I'm a big
pun guy. There's quite a bit more where.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That came from.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
But before I get too deep into the pun game,
let's begin so as we do as I do, and
eventually you too. Lots of rhymes in there. Let's talk
about this topic and expand a little bit about it.
So what is your why? Don't tell me what it is,
(03:12):
but why is your why? Why is our why so important?
When you wake up in the morning and you get
out of bed, what is the reason that you're doing that?
It could be as simple as well, you have to
go to the bathroom, or you need to drink of water,
or it's two o'clock in the afternoon and you got
(03:34):
to get the show on their own.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
But let's think deeper than that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Could it be that you need to brush your teeth
because you have a dentist appointment coming up it's about time.
Or could it be you need to take your car
in to go get an oil change. Well, I think
we can do better than that. Let's dig a little deeper.
(03:59):
Thish shovel can do much better. Maybe you have a
significant other that you are very fond of, and you
want to make sure that you are giving your all
every darn day and contributing positively to the relationship and
to society. Maybe your why is you want to make
(04:23):
your children proud, want to give them a excellent and
excellent role model to look up to.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Or maybe.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
You are doing it for you and you only, and
that there's nothing wrong with that. You want to prove
to yourself that you can get promoted, you can get
that job, you can go on that long road trip
and enjoy yourself, you can recover from whatever you're recovering from.
Those are your whys. And I think that the shovel
(04:58):
goes a little deeper than that too, but we'll stay
at that level. We don't want to hit gold just yet.
But let me tell you a little bit more about
my why and what I mean when I alluded to
this in the beginning, and maybe help churn some of
the thought colds in your head to help you discover
(05:21):
what your why is. So, as I mentioned, been through
quite a bit in my life, but I've never stopped
progressing and moving forward really without any hesitation. Why would
(05:41):
I do that? For better or for worse? My why
is to impact as many people positively in my life
as I possibly can, and that may not be necessarily
yet as successful as comedians or performers, doctors, you know, policemen,
(06:03):
anything like that. It could just be walking into the store,
making someone smile walking out of a doctor's appointment, and
being the one person that could deliver some self deprecating
humor to the to the cashier or whatever they call
them at the check out connor at doctor's offices, or
(06:27):
just make one of my friends laugh at something silly.
That is why I get up in the morning every
single day, to make someone else's day just a little
bit better. And that may sound cliche, and I'm well
aware of that, but if I had an entire day
of just that, my happiness meter would be off the charts.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
It would be the happiest I've ever been.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And I've had days like that before where I found
a way to crack the cod and just tell zinger
after zinger or maybe just again. Doesn't have to be jokes,
but make someone feel better, be there for them, offer
up some whyse advice. But that's my why. So when
(07:18):
you're thinking about your why, does it resemble that at all?
Are you living for yourself, for other people, for society,
for your pets? Is your why something you want to change?
(07:39):
Maybe you're living for the wrong why. I'm not sure
what the opposite of why is, but maybe you're living
for the who. But here's the problem. Here can be
the problem. So, as I just mentioned, maybe you're living
for the wrong why. Maybe you're not sure what your
why is. But if you lose your why or you've
(08:01):
never figured it out, that can end up in burnout,
or as we talked a lot about in our Fomo episode,
this instinctual obsession over comparing yourself to others. Or it
could just be as simple as chasing.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
The wrong goals. And I've done that.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I played soccer, I've almost scored in the wrong net.
We don't want to do that, but we don't want
those to happen. We only have so much time on
this planet and we want to make sure we are
not taking it for granted. So as you're on this trek,
this journey to figure out what you're why is, let
(08:41):
me tell you when I realized what mine was. So
when I went through the deaths of my mom and
my brother, it was very, very tough, and as I'll
get into in future episodes, I missed out on having
anybody there for siblings weekend in college any times, or
parents weekend, or it would have been nice, But I
(09:06):
quickly knew and realized that I needed to take care
of my family, my father, and I really liked that.
I liked being there for someone. I liked being the rock,
the boulder. I liked that feeling. And it just seemed
that in my life there was this stack of less
(09:26):
than ideal events that just kept happening. But in every negative,
I was able to find some sort of positive, some
some event or opportunity to seize the moment, seize the
event and twist it and turn it and make it
(09:47):
something good, whether that be getting into a car accident. Well, then,
for example, I was able to bring my buddy and
eye out to a Junkyard and go grab a replacement door.
We met a great I that was selling the door,
became friends with him. That's a positive. It was no
fun getting into the car wreck, but we made a
(10:07):
positive out of it. But it was in college when
I was thinking deeply about this, and as I'm learning
about all of these different situations childhood, parenting, it just
clicked that my why why I want to do this
(10:30):
and other things is to help out other people because
that makes me feel good, and of course it makes
them feel good, but I wanted whatever that takes, I
want to do that for them. There was another moment too,
when I had just began my career. It was the
second job that I held, and it was a very
(10:51):
very difficult, difficult role, very far outside of my comfort zone.
But we have to take those steps sometimes, and it
was one that I was always optimst stick and positive about,
but it was very difficult. It was in twenty twenty,
right during that pandemic. The support system I had to
work had evaporated, simply because we were all scrambling like
a bunch of ants whose hill just got stepped on.
(11:13):
At that moment, I was going so I was becoming
so blind to my why that I was literally burned out.
I was so tired. I would get out of work
and nothing seemed entertaining. Productive things seemed like a burn
of my energy, even if it was just a sign
on the dotted line, whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That was the first major.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Reevaluation of my why, recognizing that I had lost it
and coming right back to it.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Enough about me? What can you do?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You're my suggestions to help you uncover your why? Number one,
look at the twenty fifth letter. In the off of it,
you'll find the letter why.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Sorry. I had to.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Sneak that in there, Pay attention to what energizes you
and compare that to what drains you. For me, what
energizes me is being around my friends and family, being
included in events, being asked to do different things. What
(12:28):
drains me is well, I guess the opposite of that,
whether it be not being included or I'm an extrovert
so well, not being around people it just completely drains me.
Or being around the wrong people would be a good
one too. Folks that don't give as much as I give.
But what energizes you and what drains you? Write that
(12:53):
down and maybe write a list of five or six
different pieces for each one, starting with most and ending
with the least, or what energizes you the most and
what drains you the most to the least. Number two,
Notice the things that you do even without getting paid.
(13:13):
For me helping people, I would do it all day long.
I very much enjoy putting a smile on people's face,
putting them in a better situation than they were before.
Ask yourself this, if I stopped doing this tomorrow, what
would I miss? All?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, that longer awkward silence means we are just about
out of time. I hope that you enjoyed this episode,
and I want to finish this with We'll call it
a wrap because it's a double entendre. Really, it means food,
one of my favorite pieces of food, and it also
means the end. Remember, finding your why doesn't mean that
(13:58):
life suddenly makes sense. Your life light bulb doesn't just
go off. It may that might be what you're missing,
that might be the void that you've been trying to fill,
you've been trying to find, But it doesn't necessarily mean that.
It just means that you've got a compass when everything
else feels like static. Your why can be the north
(14:22):
star that guides you to figure out what next career
jump you want to make, or maybe what town you
want to live in, what state, what country. Why can
be what video game you purchase, what movie you watch tonight,
the book that you want to read next. It can
act as that north star. I hope that you find
(14:46):
your why, and I hope that you enjoyed this episode
as much as I did. I would love to talk
more about this in a later episode. Give me some
ideas again, send me an email still Standing Strong Podcasts
at gmail dot com. I know it's a little old
school but I'd love to just start getting some email ideas,
some topic ideas, episode ideas. I want to make sure
the darn thing works. Let's scoot some ideas my way,
(15:09):
some thoughts. We do have an Instagram. I mentioned that
in a prior episode. We have a twitter X. If
I get bugged enough, we may make a TikTok.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Whatever you want, whatever we want, whatever we want to
make happen here, I'll do. I'm learning every single day,
so put me to the test. But it's been great
speaking to you today. I was going to say speaking
with but there's no one speaking back. Thank you for
your time, thank you for giving this your ears, and
remember we're still standing strong.
If I ask you why you do what you do
every day, could you give me an answer honestly? Or
if I asked you why you got out of bed
this morning, what would you say? Welcome back to the
Still Standing Strong podcast. Glad to have you back here,
listening in tuning in? What does tuning even mean?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
We are halfway through season one of this new show,
and I don't know about you, but I feel better
talking about these things, these topics, these thoughts a lot
better and a lot of times late at night, these
things creep into my brain, and my brain wanders as
it does, and it doesn't really know what to do
(00:54):
with these topics aside from just dwell and think and
then forget about them in the morning. But there are
some gold nuggets inside of these topics that maybe we
haven't touched on yet, but we will soon enough. Just
to reiterate, my goal for this first season is just
to talk about a few things, toss some topics out there,
(01:16):
spark a conversation, and then in subsequent seasons, let's delve in.
Let's dive right into these topics like they are vanilla pudding,
and really expand on maybe some pieces that you would
like to talk about, you would like to hear me
discuss maybe you want my opinion on something, or you
(01:38):
want your opinion out there as well.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Let me know. But thanks for tuning in. These are great.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
But what I began doing with these topics is I
began writing them down so I wouldn't forget them. And
of course it's a lot easier having this so I
can express them to you, and it feels better to
get things off of my chest. We'll start this episode
out with that exact thing. I highly recommend writing down
(02:06):
those topics, those thoughts that bug you at three am,
that you just can't seem to flush down your mind
toilet as you're trying to fall asleep at night. But
speaking of those exact ideas and those topics, today, we're
going to be discussing something I gently alluded to in
(02:29):
the I Believe first episode when I began telling you
a little bit about my why. This episode's going to
be called Finding Your Why, and it's not next to
X and Z. Hope you got that I'm a big
pun guy. There's quite a bit more where.
Speaker 2 (02:49):
That came from.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
But before I get too deep into the pun game,
let's begin so as we do as I do, and
eventually you too. Lots of rhymes in there. Let's talk
about this topic and expand a little bit about it.
So what is your why? Don't tell me what it is,
(03:12):
but why is your why? Why is our why so important?
When you wake up in the morning and you get
out of bed, what is the reason that you're doing that?
It could be as simple as well, you have to
go to the bathroom, or you need to drink of water,
or it's two o'clock in the afternoon and you got
(03:34):
to get the show on their own.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
But let's think deeper than that.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Could it be that you need to brush your teeth
because you have a dentist appointment coming up it's about time.
Or could it be you need to take your car
in to go get an oil change. Well, I think
we can do better than that. Let's dig a little deeper.
(03:59):
Thish shovel can do much better. Maybe you have a
significant other that you are very fond of, and you
want to make sure that you are giving your all
every darn day and contributing positively to the relationship and
to society. Maybe your why is you want to make
(04:23):
your children proud, want to give them a excellent and
excellent role model to look up to.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
Or maybe.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
You are doing it for you and you only, and
that there's nothing wrong with that. You want to prove
to yourself that you can get promoted, you can get
that job, you can go on that long road trip
and enjoy yourself, you can recover from whatever you're recovering from.
Those are your whys. And I think that the shovel
(04:58):
goes a little deeper than that too, but we'll stay
at that level. We don't want to hit gold just yet.
But let me tell you a little bit more about
my why and what I mean when I alluded to
this in the beginning, and maybe help churn some of
the thought colds in your head to help you discover
(05:21):
what your why is. So, as I mentioned, been through
quite a bit in my life, but I've never stopped
progressing and moving forward really without any hesitation. Why would
(05:41):
I do that? For better or for worse? My why
is to impact as many people positively in my life
as I possibly can, and that may not be necessarily
yet as successful as comedians or performers, doctors, you know, policemen,
(06:03):
anything like that. It could just be walking into the store,
making someone smile walking out of a doctor's appointment, and
being the one person that could deliver some self deprecating
humor to the to the cashier or whatever they call
them at the check out connor at doctor's offices, or
(06:27):
just make one of my friends laugh at something silly.
That is why I get up in the morning every
single day, to make someone else's day just a little
bit better. And that may sound cliche, and I'm well
aware of that, but if I had an entire day
of just that, my happiness meter would be off the charts.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
It would be the happiest I've ever been.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
And I've had days like that before where I found
a way to crack the cod and just tell zinger
after zinger or maybe just again. Doesn't have to be jokes,
but make someone feel better, be there for them, offer
up some whyse advice. But that's my why. So when
(07:18):
you're thinking about your why, does it resemble that at all?
Are you living for yourself, for other people, for society,
for your pets? Is your why something you want to change?
(07:39):
Maybe you're living for the wrong why. I'm not sure
what the opposite of why is, but maybe you're living
for the who. But here's the problem. Here can be
the problem. So, as I just mentioned, maybe you're living
for the wrong why. Maybe you're not sure what your
why is. But if you lose your why or you've
(08:01):
never figured it out, that can end up in burnout,
or as we talked a lot about in our Fomo episode,
this instinctual obsession over comparing yourself to others. Or it
could just be as simple as chasing.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
The wrong goals. And I've done that.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
I played soccer, I've almost scored in the wrong net.
We don't want to do that, but we don't want
those to happen. We only have so much time on
this planet and we want to make sure we are
not taking it for granted. So as you're on this trek,
this journey to figure out what you're why is, let
(08:41):
me tell you when I realized what mine was. So
when I went through the deaths of my mom and
my brother, it was very, very tough, and as I'll
get into in future episodes, I missed out on having
anybody there for siblings weekend in college any times, or
parents weekend, or it would have been nice, But I
(09:06):
quickly knew and realized that I needed to take care
of my family, my father, and I really liked that.
I liked being there for someone. I liked being the rock,
the boulder. I liked that feeling. And it just seemed
that in my life there was this stack of less
(09:26):
than ideal events that just kept happening. But in every negative,
I was able to find some sort of positive, some
some event or opportunity to seize the moment, seize the
event and twist it and turn it and make it
(09:47):
something good, whether that be getting into a car accident. Well, then,
for example, I was able to bring my buddy and
eye out to a Junkyard and go grab a replacement door.
We met a great I that was selling the door,
became friends with him. That's a positive. It was no
fun getting into the car wreck, but we made a
(10:07):
positive out of it. But it was in college when
I was thinking deeply about this, and as I'm learning
about all of these different situations childhood, parenting, it just
clicked that my why why I want to do this
(10:30):
and other things is to help out other people because
that makes me feel good, and of course it makes
them feel good, but I wanted whatever that takes, I
want to do that for them. There was another moment too,
when I had just began my career. It was the
second job that I held, and it was a very
(10:51):
very difficult, difficult role, very far outside of my comfort zone.
But we have to take those steps sometimes, and it
was one that I was always optimst stick and positive about,
but it was very difficult. It was in twenty twenty,
right during that pandemic. The support system I had to
work had evaporated, simply because we were all scrambling like
a bunch of ants whose hill just got stepped on.
(11:13):
At that moment, I was going so I was becoming
so blind to my why that I was literally burned out.
I was so tired. I would get out of work
and nothing seemed entertaining. Productive things seemed like a burn
of my energy, even if it was just a sign
on the dotted line, whatever it was.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
That was the first major.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Reevaluation of my why, recognizing that I had lost it
and coming right back to it.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Enough about me? What can you do?
Speaker 1 (11:49):
You're my suggestions to help you uncover your why? Number one,
look at the twenty fifth letter. In the off of it,
you'll find the letter why.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
Sorry. I had to.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Sneak that in there, Pay attention to what energizes you
and compare that to what drains you. For me, what
energizes me is being around my friends and family, being
included in events, being asked to do different things. What
(12:28):
drains me is well, I guess the opposite of that,
whether it be not being included or I'm an extrovert
so well, not being around people it just completely drains me.
Or being around the wrong people would be a good
one too. Folks that don't give as much as I give.
But what energizes you and what drains you? Write that
(12:53):
down and maybe write a list of five or six
different pieces for each one, starting with most and ending
with the least, or what energizes you the most and
what drains you the most to the least. Number two,
Notice the things that you do even without getting paid.
(13:13):
For me helping people, I would do it all day long.
I very much enjoy putting a smile on people's face,
putting them in a better situation than they were before.
Ask yourself this, if I stopped doing this tomorrow, what
would I miss? All?
Speaker 2 (13:32):
Right?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, that longer awkward silence means we are just about
out of time. I hope that you enjoyed this episode,
and I want to finish this with We'll call it
a wrap because it's a double entendre. Really, it means food,
one of my favorite pieces of food, and it also
means the end. Remember, finding your why doesn't mean that
(13:58):
life suddenly makes sense. Your life light bulb doesn't just
go off. It may that might be what you're missing,
that might be the void that you've been trying to fill,
you've been trying to find, But it doesn't necessarily mean that.
It just means that you've got a compass when everything
else feels like static. Your why can be the north
(14:22):
star that guides you to figure out what next career
jump you want to make, or maybe what town you
want to live in, what state, what country. Why can
be what video game you purchase, what movie you watch tonight,
the book that you want to read next. It can
act as that north star. I hope that you find
(14:46):
your why, and I hope that you enjoyed this episode
as much as I did. I would love to talk
more about this in a later episode. Give me some
ideas again, send me an email still Standing Strong Podcasts
at gmail dot com. I know it's a little old
school but I'd love to just start getting some email ideas,
some topic ideas, episode ideas. I want to make sure
the darn thing works. Let's scoot some ideas my way,
(15:09):
some thoughts. We do have an Instagram. I mentioned that
in a prior episode. We have a twitter X. If
I get bugged enough, we may make a TikTok.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
Whatever you want, whatever we want, whatever we want to
make happen here, I'll do. I'm learning every single day,
so put me to the test. But it's been great
speaking to you today. I was going to say speaking
with but there's no one speaking back. Thank you for
your time, thank you for giving this your ears, and
remember we're still standing strong.
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