August 27, 2025 • 21 mins
What’s the most important decision you’ll make today?
In this episode of Habit Masters, we unpack a powerful idea sparked by a short Seth Godin blog post: “What should I do next?” We explore how our small, daily decisions—many of which we barely think about—are actually shaping our entire lives.
We'll also give you a few tips to help you work through how to simplify this big idea into something you can take action on right now—without feeling overwhelmed.
The big takeaway? Tiny, intentional choices made consistently will define who you become and the life you create. One decision at a time.
ACTION STEP FROM THIS EPISODE
Start your day by writing down one thing you want to intentionally focus on. At the end of the day, reflect on how it went—even just a sentence.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
00:52 – Seth Godin’s “What Should I Do Next?”
02:03 – The Weight of Tiny Decisions
04:38 – How to Avoid Overwhelm
07:49 – Simplifying Intentional Living
08:31 – One Thing: A Simple Daily Practice
12:05 – Strategic Laziness: Doing Less, Better
15:47 – Reclaiming Focus and Energy
17:22 – Final Encouragement and Real-Life Story
WE’D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Got thoughts, questions, or insights about this episode? Email us at hello@habitmasters.com
—we’d genuinely love to hear what stood out to you.
OUR MISSION
To help one million strivers take consistent action on their goals and live a life of greater freedom and contribution.
P.S. If this episode hit home, share it with a friend who could use it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to HabitMasters, you guys.
It's our second episode back.
We're actually doing it.
And we're super excited toshare some ideas that we've
been kicking around thatwe feel like can be helpful.
Yeah.
Kicks off Jeff.
We are, as a Seth Godin,that's sparked one that
we just wanna talk about.
Yes.
So this is what sparkedthe idea for today.
(00:21):
And, if you've listenedto us at all, you know
that we love Seth Godin.
He's got some awesome blogposts and they're really
short and awesome toread, so go check him out.
It's just Seth blog,seth's blog.com, if
I can say that word.
Seth's blog.com.
There you go.
He's done a blog post everyday for 20 something years.
Yeah, that's awesome.
And it's a great example of.
(00:41):
Don't try to overdo it.
Right.
Some of them are a paragraph,some of them are sentenced,
some of them are a page.
It's like very doable.
Yeah.
And, but that habit is so key.
Putting your thoughtsdown on paper.
It's akin to me to journalingand I've actually, for a long
time I didn't miss a day, butlike the last couple years
(01:01):
I'm kind of hit or miss.
I've, I've still beenjournaling, but not as much as
I. Would like, and I definitelynotice a difference when I
put my thoughts down on paper.
And even though I don'tgo back and review those
necessarily, it just solidifiesit in my brain a little more.
Yeah.
Anyway, I don't know.
But here's, here's the blog.
You ready?
Okay.
The most important decisionis what it's called.
(01:23):
And it says, what should Ido next, not next year or
for the rest of my life rightnow, the apparently trivial
choice, whether or not toopen an email, make a phone
call, or stand up to stretchthe endless list of options.
Some not even consciouslyconsidered that we work
through or thousand times aday, sum them up and these
millions of tiny decisionsbecome the life we've chosen.
(01:44):
One next at a time.
And it was like when I readthis, oh, it was just impactful
and I felt like, so today'sepisode is all about the most
important decision, or in otherwords, what should I do next?
Yeah,that's like hard to beat up.
The most important decision Imake is my next decision, right?
(02:08):
We've talked about this before.
It's like whatever, whateverwe are focusing on and
giving our time and attentionand you know, what we do
next is the most importantthing to us at this moment.
All the infinitepossibilities in the world.
Things we could do, say, thinkabout whatever we choose to.
(02:29):
Fixate on next is the one we'vedecided is most important.
I mean, that, that feels likea heavy burden if I'm honest.
Yeah.
But I think it needs to be,that's just part of life.
It's kind of likesaying this is reality.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Things to our mind,stuff we interrupted and
whatnot, but I think.
We all have choices throughoutthe day where we can decide,
(02:51):
okay, this is importantenough to continue onward,
or there's other things thatare more important to me.
Mm-hmm.
Spiritual, mental, familial,you know, relation with
your job, anything.
You know what I mean?
It's I think if we hadthis framework of is this.
Is this really the mostimportant thing I could
be doing right now?
(03:12):
Again, that soundsalmost too heavy to me to
Well, and this is one of thoseI, this is one of, oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
No, no, no.
Keep, keep going.
Catching up.
I said this is one of thoseideas for me that can be stress.
It can be like.
Okay.
This gives me anxietyand I don't wanna
think about it anymore.
Yeah.
And so you just don't, or it'sone of those ideas that you, you
really get to the root of whatit means, and it's not so much
(03:32):
that you have to make the rightchoice every second, every day.
Right?
Right.
And that you have to be thinkingabout every choice you make.
I think it's more, if you werelooked to look at it from a
more long-term perspective,it's about where are you
headed and what mm-hmm.
Is your trajectory.
It's like beingintentional in your life.
And that's what heis really saying is.
Rather than letting lifehappen to you, you're
(03:54):
choosing the life you want.
Right?
It's oh, okay.
And, and you're right.
If you really were toboil it down to okay,
what am I gonna do next?
What am I gonna do?
Then be thinking that throughthe most important thing
I could do right now.
Right?
Yeah.
And it, and initially maybethere is some of that that
happens when you, when you startto live more intentionally,
because you do have to bemonitoring a little bit.
(04:16):
'cause we, we have a tendency tofall back into old habits or old
routines or old patterns, right.
Of thinking and doing.
And so maybe for a minuteit's kind of like learning.
Anytime you learn somethingnew, it takes a lot more
brainpower Initially, like whenyou start driving or when you
start playing sports or whenyou start learning how to write
or use a computer softwareprogram or a new app, it's it
(04:37):
takes a lot of mental powerinitially, but then over time.
It starts to become routine andit starts to become normal and
standard and you're, and you getthe, the mechanics of it down.
And so I think that's partof it is maybe initially it
is okay, I'm gonna remindmyself of this every hour.
It's okay, was I, howintentional was I in
(04:57):
my, in my actions?
And then, you know, maybe that'stoo much too, I don't know.
It's well, you talkedabout journal, I think even.
Once a day for most of usis probably like that, that
looking back and saying,Hey, what, what, what would
I have done differently?
Or what went well?
And you know what I mean, withgratitude and graciousness
(05:17):
because we all make mistakesand we never are always making
the right decisions, obviously.
Yes, right.
But.
Yeah.
I think that's why you,you wrote journaling and I
don't know how many timesI've had this, this I'm
going to be better at that.
But you said it again andit, it struck me right then.
No, I, I want this.
Yeah.
So critical to growth and to,and to seeing at a. A friend
(05:43):
who said his Jo, his daughter,journaled every day at like
her entire youth onward and hadlike dozens of journals, right?
Yeah.
And he said he, he said hethought the, one of the outcomes
or the products of this ability,or this, this journaling, was
that when she decided to changesomething, like mentally change
(06:04):
something, she had the abilityto do it like almost instantly.
It could just like, Idon't know, you know, the
self-awareness or, or Idon't know what it is.
Do you know what I mean?
I don't, maybe we don'thave the right words to
describe that type level oflike introspection and, and
mindfulness, but like literallyhe's she had more ability.
Anybody I've ever known to,just once she made a decision.
(06:27):
It was changed and he, hecontributed that mainly to this,
the, you know, this journalingand this like recording and,
and review and, and I waslike, that's about, I want,
I wanna be more like that.
Well, and anything comes down tothat as like willpower, right?
And so it journaling's oneaspect of it, but maybe
it's almost anything you dothat you're intentionally
(06:50):
choosing to do that isn'tnecessarily automatic.
It's and, and there's probablysome that relate more to what
you're saying, like journalingprobably 'cause that intro,
that self-reflection andintrospection and kind of
looking at life from through amagnifying glass to some extent.
So maybe how dowe simplify this?
Because I think that's beenone of the things that we do
(07:10):
on this show pretty well istake somewhat of a complex
or seemingly stressful idea.
Yeah.
Stressful, maybe that'snot the word, but word?
Kind of how do I turnthis into action?
Yes.
That's always been oneof our ideals, right?
Is how do we, how do wetake a principle that seems
overwhelming and turn itinto simple actionable steps?
(07:33):
And I, one thing comes tomind for me right now, okay?
And it is that what ifyou just wrote down in the
morning, like one thing.
Okay.
As far as okay, today, andit can be one sentence, it's
it's almost like journalingthe start of your day and
journaling the end of your day.
It's here's my biggestgoal for today.
(07:53):
Boom.
Whatever that is, right?
I wanna do this thing.
If I get this one thing done,I. I can consider it like,
yes, I, I, I wasn't veryintentional about my day.
Right.
Yeah.
And there's obviously morethan one thing, but I think
if you just start with one,let's just try to do one thing
intentionally today, and thenat the end of the day you just
say, here's what happened.
(08:13):
Right.
It's da dah, and it can be asentence, it can be a paragraph,
it could be a whole page ifyou want, but I think it in,
in some ways, that's where youstart with something like this
is instead of trying to make adecision every hour, da, da, da
or try to, you know, anytime youtransition a task, it's starting
with, I start the day by saying,here's my main focus of the day.
(08:35):
And then at the end of theday, you just kind of review.
How'd it go?
Yeah.
What do you think of that?
I love it.
I ultimately, it's beginningwith the end in mind, right?
Yes.
It's figuring out those,it's skittles and oranges.
It's figuring outwhat your oranges are.
We all know the parable, right?
It's try and fill a jarwith Skittles and you.
(08:56):
The oranges, but if youfit the oranges in first,
you can actually fitmost of the Skittles.
Yes.
I think if it's just like, ourdecisions are a sign of what's
most important to us in themoment, and then we owe it to
ourselves to give ourselvesa sign of, of those things
those priorities, whereverwe want to move those goals,
those bigger goals mm-hmm.
(09:16):
We, we owe it to our futureself and it's a gift to
ourself to, to do something.
To move toward that.
It doesn't have to be big.
We, we should, I think weshould do an episode on
this idea of anything abovezero compounds, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a great idea.
Yeah.
It doesn't have to be a lot,but if you do something moving
toward these, these goals inwhich you want every single day,
(09:40):
like it compounds over time.
Right?
Anything above zero is progress.
Absolutely.
Well, and and anything abovezero is intentional, right?
So it's yeah.
We're choosing regardless,but are we choosing
intentionally or are we kindof letting life choose for us?
You know,are we letting the seeds
get blown into our gardenor are we deciding this is
(10:01):
what I wanna plant, thisis what I wanna water.
Yeah.
Every time we talk aboutthe garden, I'm like, okay,
we need to write this book.
Butlike everything in life, that
seems like a very dauntingtask when you think about
it as a whole book form.
Right.
But if you consider the bodyof work of this, even at
this podcast, even thoughwe've missed a year, right?
(10:21):
We actually had fouryears of podcasts.
Like that's, that'swhat writing a book is.
It's okay.
Write a, write a littlebit each week, write a
little bit each day, right?
And eventually you have a book.
So we gotta remindourselves of that.
Okay.
Today, right now, because thisis the morning I am going to
(10:42):
yet again, and it's funny howmany it's, I, we've done this
so many times that I alwaysneed reminders yet again, gonna
pull out my little sticky notes.
So it's temporary, it'ssimple, it's small.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm gonna pick one, two,maybe three at most things that
are like, all right, these.
Things.
No, I'm gonna make 'emsimple so they're not huge.
(11:05):
These, these, these twothings I want to do today
that if I don't intentionallyput it on my list and focus
and make sure I do that, itprobably wouldn't happen.
But I want it to be, do youwanna share what they are or
are you gonna keep it a secret?
Ah.
Or have you not decided yet?
Well, I haven't decided yet.
Oh, I have.
That's things in my mind, butI wanna simplify it and I,
(11:27):
and then again, to make thissimple, it's gonna take me
like two minutes, but I don'twanna do that on the air.
That's fair.
Everybody listenfor two minutes.
No.
Mm-hmm.
But I think the other partof this that I was just
thinking about and somethingthat I learned from John
Acuff back in the day.
Is these don't have to belike, I think sometimes
(11:49):
we think of goals as likeit's only specific to work
or fitness or some of, andthose are great goals, right?
But I think they can besimpler and even more
important than that.
Mm-hmm.
Which relate back to more ofwho you're becoming as a father.
As a husband, as a friend,right, as a disciple of Christ,
(12:12):
as whatever it is you're aimingtowards, and, and then look
at that and say, okay, I. Andmaybe, you know, maybe this
makes it more complicated orless, you know, you can decide
that, sorry if this makes itmore complicated but is for me,
I was just thinking about it inthis in terms of, okay, how do
I decide what that one thing is?
(12:33):
Well, I think you justlook at it and say, well,
who am I trying to become?
And then just pick one of thosecategories okay the person
that I, I'm trying to be, I'mtrying to be a great husband.
Okay, well.
Today, I, my goal is to,and a great father, so I'm
gonna intentionally expresslove to my wife, right?
Whatever in, in a, maybe a moremeaningful or more intentional
(12:57):
way than I've done in the past,or I. I'm going to compliment
and give my kids a hug orwhatever, or, say their actual
name and ask them somethingspecific about their day rather
than just like, how's it going?
I dunno.
You know what I mean?
I'm like, it can besomething as simple as that.
I think we try, try, tendto overcomplicate things
and maybe it's more just.
(13:19):
You know, buildingthat connection
Anyway, see, go ahead.
It's like we've over complicatedtalking about this.
Probably we, we always do.
Okay, but now you guysknow what the mental process
is of trying to work throughthis stuff and turn it
into reality in your life.
It's okay, gotta gothrough some of this.
Or human sites are,I guarantee anybody who is
(13:39):
patient and generous enoughto listen to this has an idea.
What they wanna do andhow they wanna do it.
I dunno.
So just run with it.
Make it simple.
I'm not gonna tellyou what to do.
. I'm sure you've gotsomething in mind.
Run with it.
You've got this.
Absolutely.
That's a good idea.
Justwhat's that thing you've been,
(14:00):
that's been nagging at you?
Start, start doing that all.
She, what else do youwanna say about this?
Are you feeling, wait,there was a Greg McKeen
that you had mentioned andwe got about four or five
minutes left to talk aboutfour or five minutes.
I would've to findit real quick.
Lemme find it.
I guess I, my intentionwith that whole portion of
(14:22):
this was really to say that.
You don't have to putqualifiers on this.
It can be anything oranything you want, just like
Sheldon was saying, anythingyou feel the need to do.
Okay.
I found it.
Maybe we can end with this.
Okay.
Okay.
Greg McEwen, he is anotherperson that we follow.
What's, what's the book?
His most famous book, he'sgot a couple Effortless
Is one Effortless.
Yeah.
(14:43):
Remember the otherone that I read?
Essentialism.
Essentialism.
That's the one thatis the most popular.
Yeah.
And it is this Belazy on purpose.
Right?
And he says that the mosteffective people are lazy,
and he puts that downin quotes about things
that don't matter, right?
Again, we get to choosewhat we focus on.
(15:03):
High achievers are taught tocare about everything, to do it
all, to push harder, but oftenthe real breakthrough comes
from doing less strategically.
Right?
Elite performers don't pourenergy into every task.
They underperform onpurpose in areas that
don't move the needle.
I. They ignore, eliminate,automate, where others
obsess about this stuff.
(15:25):
Not because they're careless,because they're clear of
where they want to go.
And so he says thatstrategic laziness is
a form of discipline.
I really like that.
'cause it's likeyou're not being lazy.
You're being disciplined onthe things that matter most.
It's how reclaim yourenergy from the trivial
and reallocate it to whatactually moves you forward.
I love that.
(15:47):
Pick one task today.
You're doing well.
That doesn't deserve your best.
Stop doing it, delegate it.
Do it with 80% effort andreinvest the energy and the
things that really count.
That's super good advice, andif you are to relate it back to
a lot of super high achievers.
(16:09):
In life and be it athletes,be it whatever realm
they're in is they'realmost all hyper-focused on.
Those things where theycontribute the most.
And darren Hardy talksabout this all the time
of when he interviews allthese successful people.
They're very specificabout, these are, this is
(16:29):
the part I play, right?
It's like a pitcher,pitches or a speaker's, you
know, the main guy, he'snot gonna do everything.
He's just gonna write thespeeches and speak, you
know, as part of his teamor write the book, right?
The writer writes like, Ithink it goes back to that is.
And the other things asmuch as possible, delegate.
Eliminate and automate.
(16:51):
Yeah.
Okay.
This is kind of ironic.
Sometimes when there's likea saying or something that
I really like, I'll actuallymake a, like a background and
I have it rotating throughlike pictures of my family
and things like that, and thequotes that I really like that
I want to come back to again.
Right.
Yeah.
The one that, that, thatpopped up that's on the back
of it right now, it saysyou always have time for
(17:13):
the things you put first.
What do you have time for today?
So we'll ahead.
And again, that can be usedas a, as a milestone, right?
Satan would, has a, usethat as like this stick
to beat ourselves with.
But I think what I, youknow, how I really wanna
look at it is so it's justa reframing of, you know,
(17:33):
what's most important to me.
Well, if it's reallyimportant to me, then
yeah, I've got time for it.
I've got time for mywife, for my children.
For my health.
Yes.
I love it.
Okay, Jeff, I thinkthat's a great spot.
Wrap us up.
Okay.
Well, , I was just thinkingthat, and leads me back to,
(17:56):
you know, I think it allties back into what we've
been talking about withthe gratitude, generosity,
and graciousness, right?
It's . Am I showing gratitude?
Am I being generous?
Am I being gracious inall the things that I do?
And if you are, Ithink you know, there's
nothing better than that.
Living intentionallyis all about making
the most of your day.
(18:17):
As far as.
The things that you do sothat you can serve better or
so that you can, you know,serve your family, serve the
friends, serve the peoplecontribute at a high level.
So, okay, I'm gonna put itout publicly right now.
Jeff, and I think maybe you'llagree with me 'cause we already
talked about this a little bit.
The next two episodes we'regonna talk about two things.
One is this idea of anythingabove zero compounds, right?
(18:39):
I love it.
Every effort.
Consistently given moves youforward more than you realize.
And the second one is what Jeffjust touched upon is gratitude
and graciousness and generosity.
We, we talked a lot about thisand wrote some good things
down and how that is the keyto being happy and successful.
Like you'll never behappier than you are.
(19:00):
Grateful.
Okay, we'll saveit for next time.
So now you guyshave to cliffhanger.
Okay.
Thanks for listening.
As always, we hope youenjoyed this episode.
Catch up.
Love you guys.
Yes, bye.
Welcome back to HabitMasters, you guys.
It's our second episode back.
We're actually doing it.
And we're super excited toshare some ideas that we've
been kicking around thatwe feel like can be helpful.
Yeah.
Kicks off Jeff.
We are, as a Seth Godin,that's sparked one that
we just wanna talk about.
Yes.
So this is what sparkedthe idea for today.
(00:21):
And, if you've listenedto us at all, you know
that we love Seth Godin.
He's got some awesome blogposts and they're really
short and awesome toread, so go check him out.
It's just Seth blog,seth's blog.com, if
I can say that word.
Seth's blog.com.
There you go.
He's done a blog post everyday for 20 something years.
Yeah, that's awesome.
And it's a great example of.
(00:41):
Don't try to overdo it.
Right.
Some of them are a paragraph,some of them are sentenced,
some of them are a page.
It's like very doable.
Yeah.
And, but that habit is so key.
Putting your thoughtsdown on paper.
It's akin to me to journalingand I've actually, for a long
time I didn't miss a day, butlike the last couple years
(01:01):
I'm kind of hit or miss.
I've, I've still beenjournaling, but not as much as
I. Would like, and I definitelynotice a difference when I
put my thoughts down on paper.
And even though I don'tgo back and review those
necessarily, it just solidifiesit in my brain a little more.
Yeah.
Anyway, I don't know.
But here's, here's the blog.
You ready?
Okay.
The most important decisionis what it's called.
(01:23):
And it says, what should Ido next, not next year or
for the rest of my life rightnow, the apparently trivial
choice, whether or not toopen an email, make a phone
call, or stand up to stretchthe endless list of options.
Some not even consciouslyconsidered that we work
through or thousand times aday, sum them up and these
millions of tiny decisionsbecome the life we've chosen.
(01:44):
One next at a time.
And it was like when I readthis, oh, it was just impactful
and I felt like, so today'sepisode is all about the most
important decision, or in otherwords, what should I do next?
Yeah,that's like hard to beat up.
The most important decision Imake is my next decision, right?
(02:08):
We've talked about this before.
It's like whatever, whateverwe are focusing on and
giving our time and attentionand you know, what we do
next is the most importantthing to us at this moment.
All the infinitepossibilities in the world.
Things we could do, say, thinkabout whatever we choose to.
(02:29):
Fixate on next is the one we'vedecided is most important.
I mean, that, that feels likea heavy burden if I'm honest.
Yeah.
But I think it needs to be,that's just part of life.
It's kind of likesaying this is reality.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Things to our mind,stuff we interrupted and
whatnot, but I think.
We all have choices throughoutthe day where we can decide,
(02:51):
okay, this is importantenough to continue onward,
or there's other things thatare more important to me.
Mm-hmm.
Spiritual, mental, familial,you know, relation with
your job, anything.
You know what I mean?
It's I think if we hadthis framework of is this.
Is this really the mostimportant thing I could
be doing right now?
(03:12):
Again, that soundsalmost too heavy to me to
Well, and this is one of thoseI, this is one of, oh, sorry.
Go ahead.
No, no, no.
Keep, keep going.
Catching up.
I said this is one of thoseideas for me that can be stress.
It can be like.
Okay.
This gives me anxietyand I don't wanna
think about it anymore.
Yeah.
And so you just don't, or it'sone of those ideas that you, you
really get to the root of whatit means, and it's not so much
(03:32):
that you have to make the rightchoice every second, every day.
Right?
Right.
And that you have to be thinkingabout every choice you make.
I think it's more, if you werelooked to look at it from a
more long-term perspective,it's about where are you
headed and what mm-hmm.
Is your trajectory.
It's like beingintentional in your life.
And that's what heis really saying is.
Rather than letting lifehappen to you, you're
(03:54):
choosing the life you want.
Right?
It's oh, okay.
And, and you're right.
If you really were toboil it down to okay,
what am I gonna do next?
What am I gonna do?
Then be thinking that throughthe most important thing
I could do right now.
Right?
Yeah.
And it, and initially maybethere is some of that that
happens when you, when you startto live more intentionally,
because you do have to bemonitoring a little bit.
(04:16):
'cause we, we have a tendency tofall back into old habits or old
routines or old patterns, right.
Of thinking and doing.
And so maybe for a minuteit's kind of like learning.
Anytime you learn somethingnew, it takes a lot more
brainpower Initially, like whenyou start driving or when you
start playing sports or whenyou start learning how to write
or use a computer softwareprogram or a new app, it's it
(04:37):
takes a lot of mental powerinitially, but then over time.
It starts to become routine andit starts to become normal and
standard and you're, and you getthe, the mechanics of it down.
And so I think that's partof it is maybe initially it
is okay, I'm gonna remindmyself of this every hour.
It's okay, was I, howintentional was I in
(04:57):
my, in my actions?
And then, you know, maybe that'stoo much too, I don't know.
It's well, you talkedabout journal, I think even.
Once a day for most of usis probably like that, that
looking back and saying,Hey, what, what, what would
I have done differently?
Or what went well?
And you know what I mean, withgratitude and graciousness
(05:17):
because we all make mistakesand we never are always making
the right decisions, obviously.
Yes, right.
But.
Yeah.
I think that's why you,you wrote journaling and I
don't know how many timesI've had this, this I'm
going to be better at that.
But you said it again andit, it struck me right then.
No, I, I want this.
Yeah.
So critical to growth and to,and to seeing at a. A friend
(05:43):
who said his Jo, his daughter,journaled every day at like
her entire youth onward and hadlike dozens of journals, right?
Yeah.
And he said he, he said hethought the, one of the outcomes
or the products of this ability,or this, this journaling, was
that when she decided to changesomething, like mentally change
(06:04):
something, she had the abilityto do it like almost instantly.
It could just like, Idon't know, you know, the
self-awareness or, or Idon't know what it is.
Do you know what I mean?
I don't, maybe we don'thave the right words to
describe that type level oflike introspection and, and
mindfulness, but like literallyhe's she had more ability.
Anybody I've ever known to,just once she made a decision.
(06:27):
It was changed and he, hecontributed that mainly to this,
the, you know, this journalingand this like recording and,
and review and, and I waslike, that's about, I want,
I wanna be more like that.
Well, and anything comes down tothat as like willpower, right?
And so it journaling's oneaspect of it, but maybe
it's almost anything you dothat you're intentionally
(06:50):
choosing to do that isn'tnecessarily automatic.
It's and, and there's probablysome that relate more to what
you're saying, like journalingprobably 'cause that intro,
that self-reflection andintrospection and kind of
looking at life from through amagnifying glass to some extent.
So maybe how dowe simplify this?
Because I think that's beenone of the things that we do
(07:10):
on this show pretty well istake somewhat of a complex
or seemingly stressful idea.
Yeah.
Stressful, maybe that'snot the word, but word?
Kind of how do I turnthis into action?
Yes.
That's always been oneof our ideals, right?
Is how do we, how do wetake a principle that seems
overwhelming and turn itinto simple actionable steps?
(07:33):
And I, one thing comes tomind for me right now, okay?
And it is that what ifyou just wrote down in the
morning, like one thing.
Okay.
As far as okay, today, andit can be one sentence, it's
it's almost like journalingthe start of your day and
journaling the end of your day.
It's here's my biggestgoal for today.
(07:53):
Boom.
Whatever that is, right?
I wanna do this thing.
If I get this one thing done,I. I can consider it like,
yes, I, I, I wasn't veryintentional about my day.
Right.
Yeah.
And there's obviously morethan one thing, but I think
if you just start with one,let's just try to do one thing
intentionally today, and thenat the end of the day you just
say, here's what happened.
(08:13):
Right.
It's da dah, and it can be asentence, it can be a paragraph,
it could be a whole page ifyou want, but I think it in,
in some ways, that's where youstart with something like this
is instead of trying to make adecision every hour, da, da, da
or try to, you know, anytime youtransition a task, it's starting
with, I start the day by saying,here's my main focus of the day.
(08:35):
And then at the end of theday, you just kind of review.
How'd it go?
Yeah.
What do you think of that?
I love it.
I ultimately, it's beginningwith the end in mind, right?
Yes.
It's figuring out those,it's skittles and oranges.
It's figuring outwhat your oranges are.
We all know the parable, right?
It's try and fill a jarwith Skittles and you.
(08:56):
The oranges, but if youfit the oranges in first,
you can actually fitmost of the Skittles.
Yes.
I think if it's just like, ourdecisions are a sign of what's
most important to us in themoment, and then we owe it to
ourselves to give ourselvesa sign of, of those things
those priorities, whereverwe want to move those goals,
those bigger goals mm-hmm.
(09:16):
We, we owe it to our futureself and it's a gift to
ourself to, to do something.
To move toward that.
It doesn't have to be big.
We, we should, I think weshould do an episode on
this idea of anything abovezero compounds, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
That's a great idea.
Yeah.
It doesn't have to be a lot,but if you do something moving
toward these, these goals inwhich you want every single day,
(09:40):
like it compounds over time.
Right?
Anything above zero is progress.
Absolutely.
Well, and and anything abovezero is intentional, right?
So it's yeah.
We're choosing regardless,but are we choosing
intentionally or are we kindof letting life choose for us?
You know,are we letting the seeds
get blown into our gardenor are we deciding this is
(10:01):
what I wanna plant, thisis what I wanna water.
Yeah.
Every time we talk aboutthe garden, I'm like, okay,
we need to write this book.
Butlike everything in life, that
seems like a very dauntingtask when you think about
it as a whole book form.
Right.
But if you consider the bodyof work of this, even at
this podcast, even thoughwe've missed a year, right?
(10:21):
We actually had fouryears of podcasts.
Like that's, that'swhat writing a book is.
It's okay.
Write a, write a littlebit each week, write a
little bit each day, right?
And eventually you have a book.
So we gotta remindourselves of that.
Okay.
Today, right now, because thisis the morning I am going to
(10:42):
yet again, and it's funny howmany it's, I, we've done this
so many times that I alwaysneed reminders yet again, gonna
pull out my little sticky notes.
So it's temporary, it'ssimple, it's small.
Mm-hmm.
And I'm gonna pick one, two,maybe three at most things that
are like, all right, these.
Things.
No, I'm gonna make 'emsimple so they're not huge.
(11:05):
These, these, these twothings I want to do today
that if I don't intentionallyput it on my list and focus
and make sure I do that, itprobably wouldn't happen.
But I want it to be, do youwanna share what they are or
are you gonna keep it a secret?
Ah.
Or have you not decided yet?
Well, I haven't decided yet.
Oh, I have.
That's things in my mind, butI wanna simplify it and I,
(11:27):
and then again, to make thissimple, it's gonna take me
like two minutes, but I don'twanna do that on the air.
That's fair.
Everybody listenfor two minutes.
No.
Mm-hmm.
But I think the other partof this that I was just
thinking about and somethingthat I learned from John
Acuff back in the day.
Is these don't have to belike, I think sometimes
(11:49):
we think of goals as likeit's only specific to work
or fitness or some of, andthose are great goals, right?
But I think they can besimpler and even more
important than that.
Mm-hmm.
Which relate back to more ofwho you're becoming as a father.
As a husband, as a friend,right, as a disciple of Christ,
(12:12):
as whatever it is you're aimingtowards, and, and then look
at that and say, okay, I. Andmaybe, you know, maybe this
makes it more complicated orless, you know, you can decide
that, sorry if this makes itmore complicated but is for me,
I was just thinking about it inthis in terms of, okay, how do
I decide what that one thing is?
(12:33):
Well, I think you justlook at it and say, well,
who am I trying to become?
And then just pick one of thosecategories okay the person
that I, I'm trying to be, I'mtrying to be a great husband.
Okay, well.
Today, I, my goal is to,and a great father, so I'm
gonna intentionally expresslove to my wife, right?
Whatever in, in a, maybe a moremeaningful or more intentional
(12:57):
way than I've done in the past,or I. I'm going to compliment
and give my kids a hug orwhatever, or, say their actual
name and ask them somethingspecific about their day rather
than just like, how's it going?
I dunno.
You know what I mean?
I'm like, it can besomething as simple as that.
I think we try, try, tendto overcomplicate things
and maybe it's more just.
(13:19):
You know, buildingthat connection
Anyway, see, go ahead.
It's like we've over complicatedtalking about this.
Probably we, we always do.
Okay, but now you guysknow what the mental process
is of trying to work throughthis stuff and turn it
into reality in your life.
It's okay, gotta gothrough some of this.
Or human sites are,I guarantee anybody who is
(13:39):
patient and generous enoughto listen to this has an idea.
What they wanna do andhow they wanna do it.
I dunno.
So just run with it.
Make it simple.
I'm not gonna tellyou what to do.
. I'm sure you've gotsomething in mind.
Run with it.
You've got this.
Absolutely.
That's a good idea.
Justwhat's that thing you've been,
(14:00):
that's been nagging at you?
Start, start doing that all.
She, what else do youwanna say about this?
Are you feeling, wait,there was a Greg McKeen
that you had mentioned andwe got about four or five
minutes left to talk aboutfour or five minutes.
I would've to findit real quick.
Lemme find it.
I guess I, my intentionwith that whole portion of
(14:22):
this was really to say that.
You don't have to putqualifiers on this.
It can be anything oranything you want, just like
Sheldon was saying, anythingyou feel the need to do.
Okay.
I found it.
Maybe we can end with this.
Okay.
Okay.
Greg McEwen, he is anotherperson that we follow.
What's, what's the book?
His most famous book, he'sgot a couple Effortless
Is one Effortless.
Yeah.
(14:43):
Remember the otherone that I read?
Essentialism.
Essentialism.
That's the one thatis the most popular.
Yeah.
And it is this Belazy on purpose.
Right?
And he says that the mosteffective people are lazy,
and he puts that downin quotes about things
that don't matter, right?
Again, we get to choosewhat we focus on.
(15:03):
High achievers are taught tocare about everything, to do it
all, to push harder, but oftenthe real breakthrough comes
from doing less strategically.
Right?
Elite performers don't pourenergy into every task.
They underperform onpurpose in areas that
don't move the needle.
I. They ignore, eliminate,automate, where others
obsess about this stuff.
(15:25):
Not because they're careless,because they're clear of
where they want to go.
And so he says thatstrategic laziness is
a form of discipline.
I really like that.
'cause it's likeyou're not being lazy.
You're being disciplined onthe things that matter most.
It's how reclaim yourenergy from the trivial
and reallocate it to whatactually moves you forward.
I love that.
(15:47):
Pick one task today.
You're doing well.
That doesn't deserve your best.
Stop doing it, delegate it.
Do it with 80% effort andreinvest the energy and the
things that really count.
That's super good advice, andif you are to relate it back to
a lot of super high achievers.
(16:09):
In life and be it athletes,be it whatever realm
they're in is they'realmost all hyper-focused on.
Those things where theycontribute the most.
And darren Hardy talksabout this all the time
of when he interviews allthese successful people.
They're very specificabout, these are, this is
(16:29):
the part I play, right?
It's like a pitcher,pitches or a speaker's, you
know, the main guy, he'snot gonna do everything.
He's just gonna write thespeeches and speak, you
know, as part of his teamor write the book, right?
The writer writes like, Ithink it goes back to that is.
And the other things asmuch as possible, delegate.
Eliminate and automate.
(16:51):
Yeah.
Okay.
This is kind of ironic.
Sometimes when there's likea saying or something that
I really like, I'll actuallymake a, like a background and
I have it rotating throughlike pictures of my family
and things like that, and thequotes that I really like that
I want to come back to again.
Right.
Yeah.
The one that, that, thatpopped up that's on the back
of it right now, it saysyou always have time for
(17:13):
the things you put first.
What do you have time for today?
So we'll ahead.
And again, that can be usedas a, as a milestone, right?
Satan would, has a, usethat as like this stick
to beat ourselves with.
But I think what I, youknow, how I really wanna
look at it is so it's justa reframing of, you know,
(17:33):
what's most important to me.
Well, if it's reallyimportant to me, then
yeah, I've got time for it.
I've got time for mywife, for my children.
For my health.
Yes.
I love it.
Okay, Jeff, I thinkthat's a great spot.
Wrap us up.
Okay.
Well, , I was just thinkingthat, and leads me back to,
(17:56):
you know, I think it allties back into what we've
been talking about withthe gratitude, generosity,
and graciousness, right?
It's . Am I showing gratitude?
Am I being generous?
Am I being gracious inall the things that I do?
And if you are, Ithink you know, there's
nothing better than that.
Living intentionallyis all about making
the most of your day.
(18:17):
As far as.
The things that you do sothat you can serve better or
so that you can, you know,serve your family, serve the
friends, serve the peoplecontribute at a high level.
So, okay, I'm gonna put itout publicly right now.
Jeff, and I think maybe you'llagree with me 'cause we already
talked about this a little bit.
The next two episodes we'regonna talk about two things.
One is this idea of anythingabove zero compounds, right?
(18:39):
I love it.
Every effort.
Consistently given moves youforward more than you realize.
And the second one is what Jeffjust touched upon is gratitude
and graciousness and generosity.
We, we talked a lot about thisand wrote some good things
down and how that is the keyto being happy and successful.
Like you'll never behappier than you are.
(19:00):
Grateful.
Okay, we'll saveit for next time.
So now you guyshave to cliffhanger.
Okay.
Thanks for listening.
As always, we hope youenjoyed this episode.
Catch up.
Love you guys.
Yes, bye.
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