Stirring the Pot of Creativity and Courage

Discover the art of culinary reinvention and personal growth as we take a whimsical journey from kitchen to character development. This episode is a veritable feast for the soul, steeped in the rich broth of history and spiced with the zest of self-improvement. Gather 'round as I recount transforming holiday leftovers into a delightful ham and corn chowder, a tradition rooted in the pragmatic gastronomy of the Great Depression. Then, we'll meander through the curious alleys of perpetual stews and nursery rhymes, finding resourcefulness in the most unexpected places.

Taking a break from the simmering pot, our conversation shifts to the exploration of life's flavors and fears. I'll share my offbeat encounter with buffalo wing soda and a chili that’s a symphony of chocolate, cinnamon, and beans, challenging the palate with the unexpected. We'll also dive into the essence of motivation, arming ourselves with strategies like 'fear setting' to confront our trepidations head-on. Listen as I detail a Toastmasters Club experience that proves with a plan in hand, the once-daunting task of facing our fears becomes a well-chartered journey.

As we near the end of our time together, we don't shy away from the weightier ingredients of life's stew. We tackle the overarching struggle with burnout, perfectionism, and aligning work with values, stirring in anecdotes and insights to motivate and ground you. The episode is ladled with pearls of wisdom on managing overwhelm, the fortitude of support systems, and the significance of gratitude. There's no recipe too complex, no ambition too grand, as we serve up a blend of nourishing thoughts and energizing encouragement to inspire your next steps, both in the kitchen and beyond.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Help Yourself.
Food and Philosophy with Brianand Nick.
I'm Nick and I'm Brian.
Brian, did you know that I'mgoing to open a rehab clinic for
procrastinators?
No, no, someday, what youeating?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's just.
That's too close to home,actually.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
What am I eating?
Yeah, I had a need to.
You actually inspired me on ourlast episode with your dinner
roll sandwiches.
It was really awesome.

(00:41):
So I was always I'm alwayslooking for a way, because so
much food after the holidaysgoes to waste, and so we had all
this extra ham, and so I andsince it's been cold recently, I
was like, hey, you know what?
I should find some kind of likeham soup, something that uses
ham in it.
Right, and so so I did.

(01:03):
I found this awesome ham andcorn chowder that I, that I made
.
I took, I made with love, Ishould say.
It was I always forget how gooda homemade soup can be, because
it's rarely do you do it.
Usually it's just like oh yeah,you get a can of soup and you

(01:23):
open it and you heat it up andyou do whatever it right.
And when you do that homemadeyou know the homemade feel to it
and you get to choose all theingredients and how they're
chopped up and how thick it isor how whatever.
So I found this ham and cornchowder that has bacon, onion

(01:44):
celery, it has a whole bunch ofstuff in it.
It's got chopped up ham in it,it's got garlic, it's got, and
then you put it a littlewhipping cream, like you put in
a little heavy cream in there tomake it a creamy.
So it's a chowder, you know.
So it's a creamy based soup andand frozen corn obviously put
the.
You take some just frozen corn,a couple cups of frozen corn

(02:04):
and and, of course, potatoes andit's super hearty.
Like it came out like reallyalmost like just a bowl of all
those ingredients with a littlebit of creamy liquid in it, you
know.
So it was very.
I did ask, I did add a littlebit of extra ham and a little
bit of extra potatoes to make ita little bit more chunky.

(02:25):
But, man, it turned out so good.
I was really, really excitedabout it.
Just because I, you know, like Isaid, I forget how.
You know, like, how easy it isand how good it is to make a,
you know, a homemade soup andhow many ingredients that also
how cheap, like people don'tunderstand.

(02:46):
That's the reason why, like inolden times I say olden times,
but like in the early, like inthe you know why there's soup
kitchens and why there's youknow why in the depression,
people ate a lot of soup andstews and things like that.
Because you can make it for,you know, you can sort of spread
it out, it fills up your bellya little bit better and you can

(03:08):
use very, very inexpensiveingredients.
I mean, buying three, threepotatoes is doesn't cost that
much.
Or, you know, buying an oniondoesn't cost that much.
But you can make this huge bowlof soup I mean, excuse me, huge
like pot of soup that will feedyou for multiple, multiple
meals, and, you know, per meal.
I'm sure that it's cheap, youknow.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
And if it starts running low, you just add more
ingredients to it?
Yeah, and they used to do that.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
I didn't know this, but if you ever do research,
this is total tangent.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
But if you ever do research on, on, on, like the.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
I want to say this was like 16 or 1700s, you know
they would.
They would just have a pot ofsort of what they would call
stew, I guess and I guess thiswould be not not the wealthy
people, but they would have juststew on the fire all the time,
that would just be there,staying warm all the time.

(04:04):
They never, like dumped it outand washed it and started over,
like if they got moreingredients, they just added
more ingredients, added moreliquid to the stew, and then
they just stirred it up and justkept eating out of that same
cauldron or whatever they were,whatever they were heating it up
in.
I'm sure it was like a castiron, something that was hanging
over a fireplace, right, and Ican't imagine the, you know the.

(04:28):
I think that people back then,probably their, their, their
constitution was probably verystrong because they ingested a
lot of things that had been notrefrigerated and not, you know,
in any way kept in any kind ofsafe food preparation manner.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
But Well, that is kind of its own way of
preserving something, right?
Because if you're alwayscooking it, there's no way
bacteria can live and grow Sure,it's just always scalded and
you're killing anything thattries to live there.
Yeah.
I mean, do you remember the orheard of the nursery rhyme peas
porridge Hot.
Yes.
I think.

(05:04):
I think that's a reference tothat practice.
Oh Peas porridge, hot peasporridge, cold peas, porridge in
the pot, nine days old.
Ah, yeah.
Some like it hot, some like itcold, some like it in the pot.
Nine days old Wow.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
I didn't even realize I completely had forgotten
about that.
Yeah Well, this soup that Imade is not going to sit on the
oven, I mean on the stove fornine days.
We actually put it in arefrigerator after we were done.
Peas, porridge cold, brian,yeah Well, but I feel like, so
it's funny because I so this isthe funny.

(05:41):
I got up this morning and I wassaying to my wife I said well,
man, I think I want to.
I want to find another recipethat I can use more of that ham.
And she was like why?
I thought you really liked thesoup that we made.
And she's like oh, I'm like.
Oh, I made, I did, but I wasjust going to find another
recipe to use more of the ham up, you know.

(06:01):
And she's like or you couldjust make more of the same that
you already like.
Why?
Why are you?
She's like I'm going to try tofind another recipe that I don't
know if I'll like and anyway, Ido have.
I do still have a lot of hamleft that I'm trying to use up,
and so some of that's going inthe dog bowl.
The dog is happy, very, veryhappy these days because she's

(06:25):
getting a little treat everytime she has her breakfast in
the morning.
So a little bit of cubed ham inthere.
But, but yeah, it was again.
I know it's.
I'm.
I'm sure that's not an epiphanyto most people, but every once
in a while it's like I cooksomething I haven't cooked for a
while and I go, wow, why don'tI just do this all the time?

(06:47):
I don't understand why I don'tdo this all the time.
So maybe a little motivationfor me to cook some more soups.
Brian's Beverage Corner.
I've got a thing.
This is sort of a throwbackfrom a few episodes ago where I
had some of those drinks thattasted like different various

(07:09):
things.
I think you, I think weremember some like you know,
soda that tastes like ranch andsoda that tastes like you know
those ones.
Yeah, you're like, vaguely, Ivaguely remember that.
Oh, I remember it because I wasdrinking it.
So, yeah, I blocked it from mymemory, right.
So mayonnaise flavored soda,yeah, oh, on that note I have to

(07:32):
share with you.
I'll share it with you off pod,but the there's a there's a
shot.
Patreon yeah, exactly.
There's a shot that I that Isaw that on one of the forums
I'm on and it was.
I can't remember what it'scalled.

(07:52):
It's called a tapeworm shot andthe reason why, no, so the
reason why it looks like atapeworm shot is because you do
it in a shot glass and then you,you, you have all your alcohol
and everything in there, andthen you take one of those
squirt bottles of mayonnaise andyou squirt it in there and it's
suspended in there.
It looks like a tapeworm Ithink I made.

(08:13):
I think I just made Nick throwup in his mouth a little, so I
haven't tried it.
I don't plan to try it.
There are limits to mymayonnaise obsession.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
but there's, there's a.
There's a couple of leaps toget here, but that makes me
think of the Chalaza and eggs.
Chalaza.
While I was, I'll, I'll getthere.
Okay.
So, while I was stillimpressionable and thought my
dad was an authority on certainsubjects or new things that I

(08:48):
didn't you know, gullibleactually, um, he was making eggs
one morning as, watching him,and he told me he pointed out
the three parts of it.
There's the you know, from nowI'm going to butcher the whole
thing but there's the white part.
um, the whites of the egg,there's the yolk and then

(09:09):
there's the Chalaza and it'sthis little little little tuft
of white looking mayonnaise,sploogey looking stuff connected
to the yolk Right, and he'slike that's the rooster sperm.
It's called the Chalaza and Ibelieved him as, like I thought

(09:34):
that was so funny, it's sointeresting.
It was a connection of all thestuff I was learning about you
know, and anatomy and what like.
It makes total sense.
It's not.
I don't know what the Chalazais, but all I remember is it's
not actually, but it is actuallycalled the Chalaza, like that's
the actual name of it.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
I've never heard that before.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Look at that, there's there's a Wikipedia article
about it.
It's functioning, the biologyof the egg and whatnot, but it
has nothing to do with theactual fertilization.
If you think about it, thatwould be pretty sick and
sadistic if that's what we didto eggs all the time that they
were fertilized and we justyoinked them just before.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so we weretalking about your food.

Speaker 2 (10:17):
So anyway, my yeah.
So we were getting back to myBrian's beverage corner and the
drinks that I had that were notChalaza flavored.
So I had one drink left fromthat little batch of drinks that
I had, and it is Lester Fixins,which we talked about before,
but Lester Fixins apparentlydoes all this stuff, and it is

(10:39):
Buffalo Wing soda.
It looks like orange soda.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
You hear that Marshall.

Speaker 2 (10:45):
Oh, I should send a case of this to Marshall.
I wonder, I wonder, how farMarshall is on his gallon of
Frank's red wine he told me theother day.
It's been a year hasn't beenlike a year.
It was like last year at thistime, wasn't it?

Speaker 1 (11:01):
He might have even sent me a picture.
Marshall, here we go.
Yeah, he's, but when was this?
This was mid-December of 2023.
And he this is after he justemptied out 12 ounces.

(11:24):
I'd say there's about 12% ofthat jug left, gauging from the
size of the bottle and how muchis in there.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Good job, Marshall.
He's good on his word.
He really does love the buffalosauce.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah, it's 128 ounces .
Yeah, a full gallon.
So yeah, he probably has 12 to14 more ounces.

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Oh wow, Back two weeks ago.
Two-wish, two-wish, that iscrazy.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Good job Marshall.

Speaker 2 (11:58):
Good job.
Seriously, I'm impressedactually.
I really am impressed.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
And I'm sure his wife is disappointed.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
Well, and so yeah, so for the audience members,
listen to a friend of ours,friend of the podcast.
Marshall's been on a few timesbut we gave him he loved buffalo
sauce and so he said heincorporates that almost all the
time into something on a weeklybasis.
So we gave him a gallon a whileback and we're just checking on

(12:29):
the progress.
So yeah, okay.
So I have this buffalo wingsoda, which I wonder if Marshall
would like that.
I don't know if he likes mixinghis stuff, but I will say the
color of it is very unappetizing.
It's really bad.
But I'll tell you this what itfeels like when you're drinking
it, because it doesn't taste alot like buffalo wing, it tastes

(12:49):
a little bit like orange soda alittle bit, and then just sort
of sugary, like sweet, but thenit feels like you know, when you
feel like when you have alittle bit of acid reflux, like
the back of your throat burnsand like stuff like that, that's
what it feels like you take asip and like maybe a minute
later you're like my throat isburning and it's.
It's the I'm sure it's thebuffalo sauce in that, but or

(13:12):
whatever semblance of or portionof the buffalo sauce, maybe
just the spiciness, but it's nota pleasurable feeling.
So I would recommend you drink,you eat something creamy or
something else to counteractthat.
If you're going to have thiswith a meal I really don't know
if there's anybody who actuallydrinks these things for real or
if it's just like a gag kind ofthing that people yeah, exactly,

(13:37):
yeah, exactly.
You know, a gag kind of.
Thing.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
It's a gag reflux gift.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
So anyway, I'm about a third of the way into the
bottle and I don't know if I cantake much more of it because,
again, like I said, it feelslike I need to go take Tums
because I'm having acid reflux.
I'm sure it's not that it'sjust the soda, but anyway.
So that's my, that's my Brian'sbeverage core, and I have water
too that I'm drinking out of mynormal, my normal aluminum,

(14:08):
double walled, beautiful bottle.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
So what about you?

Speaker 2 (14:16):
What are you eating and drinking?

Speaker 1 (14:22):
I am eating again.
Great minds man.
I'm on the similar track here.
I'm eating from a bowl as well.
Yeah.
I made chili and I would callit chili chili, partly because
I've let it get cold.
Okay, some of it cold, but it'sgot, you know, the usual medley

(14:42):
of beans black, kidney, white,actually two different kinds of
white beans.
Wow.
Lentils, and then for variousflavors, there's cinnamon,
cilantro, parsley, some coloua,some chocolate, yeah, chili,
spice, green chilies, and Iadded a ton of them after the

(15:07):
fact too yeah, a pinch ofcayenne, salt and sour cream and
shredded cheese.
Nice.
So kind of a hodge podge right.
Yeah, A hodge podge ofdifferent greens though.
Yep, yep, dory and I will betooting along for each other,

(15:35):
and I'm also going to add for mynext round, probably for dinner
, I'm going to throw in somelightly salted potato chips, oh,
and thicken it up and give it abit of crunch, crunch.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Uh-huh.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
So it's good stuff, very satisfying wholesome, like
you were saying.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
I like chilies that have different, weird like not
weird, but different things likecinnamon and chocolate and I
know those are relatively commonin some of the different chili
recipes.
But it gives it like a wholeanother dimension of like.
You can't necessarily likeindividually taste the cinnamon

(16:15):
in it, but it definitely tastesdifferent.
It gives it like an extra,something that you can't maybe
put your finger on, but you'relike, hey, this tastes different
.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
So yeah, yeah, there's a.
This may be just just me.
I have a strange doublestandard when it comes to
consistent flavor for my food.
Uh-huh.
If it's home cooked.
I like that each bite has a bitof variety between the next
bite.
Okay.
But if I go to a restaurant andeach bite is different from the

(16:49):
other, it's sus.

Speaker 2 (16:51):
I don't like it.
Did they stir this or whathappened?
I want to know what I'm getting.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
Yeah, Is this the part they poisoned, Right?
Is this where they found Likeit's not, that's not the actual
conscious thought, right?
But it's just an exaggerationof I don't know.
You use consistent process youtake, you make it the same way
every time on its own.
So not only should it taste thesame, across different you know

(17:17):
visits to the restaurant itshould taste the same within
itself.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
That's my, that's my biggest.
I don't know about like theconsistency within one meal, but
going going once and then goingthe next time you order the
same thing and you're like thisdoesn't taste at all like what
it was tasted like last time.
I get a little bit like weird,like what are they doing?
Why are they not?
Why does this not taste thesame?
You know, did they change theingredients?

(17:42):
Did they do you know what?
What happened here and you know.
But yeah, I think you're right,though I think having a
different bite every time whenyou're home, when you're home
cooked meal, you're like, causeyou know what went into it.
So you're like I know what Idid here and you know, yeah, I

(18:03):
didn't use an industrial mixerto mix it evenly.

Speaker 1 (18:06):
So this is fine.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
Yeah, and drink oh yeah, yeah Drinking water and a
caramel brulee latte.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
From Starbucks.
Caramel brulee no coffee.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
That's a, that's a mouthful to order.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's pretty rich, it's.
I think I ordered it because ofthe brulee part.
Yeah, I think it's a friend ofmine who his favorite dessert is
creme brulee.
Yeah.
I'm not actually much of a fanof caramel brulee or caramel in
general, but it's just, you knowdifferent chemistry and stuff

(18:51):
to make the flavor similar to itand I like the flavor similar
to it, kind of like pumpkinspice.
Doesn't actually have anypumpkin in it.
Right.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
So yeah, I don't like caramel, but I like caramel
though, so sort of weird.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
Oh yeah, I don't like either one.
I don't like desserts thatstick to my teeth.
Ah, yeah Like a dessert where,yeah, so yeah, toffee
butterscotch.
Yeah, I don't like caramel.

Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yeah, I could see, how that would be.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Well, do you want to work up some motivation to try
to get to our topic?
No, not really.
All right, see you guys.
Have a happy new year.
Bye.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
We can just talk about it next episode.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Well, we're yeah, as the audience knows, we're trying
to do our second episode hereof our, you know, continuation
of our last episode aboutmotivation.
As we said before, sort oforganically came up with this
topic because both Nick and I,towards the end of the year,
trying to stay motivated abouteverything, just trying to

(20:13):
continue doing what we want todo.
Being towards the end of theyear, we are everybody's sort of
in that mode of okay, what haveI done this year that I liked,
what have I done that I share,that I don't like, and you know
other things like that.
Actually, I think our friendMary Dunn brought up the what do
I want to start next year, whatdo I want to stop next year and

(20:35):
what do I want to continue nextyear?
Right, which I love.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Start, stop, continue .

Speaker 2 (20:39):
Start, stop, continue , and so everybody's sort of in
this.
But the thing is, you have tobe motivated for any of those
things.
You have to be motivated tocontinue.
You have to be motivated tostop something, you have to be
motivated to start something.
So in the last episode wetalked about something.
Which is real.
Yeah, and so we talked aboutsome of the causes of, you know,

(21:01):
lack of motivation, and I thinkin this episode we sort of want
to dive into as has been in thepast with this podcast, trying
to come up with somethingtangible that maybe you can use
in your life in order to moveforward, in order to try to, you
know, do something different,try to or do something exactly
the same, or however youwhatever is the best thing for

(21:24):
you.
But how do we fix a quoteunquote problem that you might
have?
And try to figure out how wecan.
You know, and really this isjust for us doing this for
ourselves, but we're hoping thatthe audience has some benefit
from it as well.
So, yeah, so, yeah.

(21:45):
So in the last episode wetalked about sort of those eight
things that know where, where,lack, where can a lack of
motivation stem from?
You know, basically, causes oflack of motivation, and I think
probably the best way to do isjust go through, probably go

(22:06):
through each one of those thingsand maybe discuss some things
that we, that you, can do tocombat that particular thing.
I think that'll probably takeus into some tangents, as it
usually does throughout theconversation.

Speaker 1 (22:20):
Sorry.

Speaker 2 (22:21):
No, that's, that's what it is.
Tangential, it's where we ourpodcast, should be called
tangentially related.
So well, so the first one onthat list was fear of failure,
and I think this, that's sort ofa.
I think they're all sort of bigones, but fear of failure is

(22:45):
interesting to me because thefirst word in that is fear is.
I think fear is a hugemotivator in both directions of
people who are you know, you'relooking at this going, hey, what
you know, fear.
Like I said, fear is amotivator to do to do things and

(23:06):
also to not do things, and Ithink in this case, we're
talking about it as in terms ofa lack of motivation to not do
things.
But I think that that, you know, like I said, that plays into
you know how to move.
You know sort of how to moveforward is how do you conquer
fear Is I guess that's theunderlying question is, how do
you, how do you conquer fear?

Speaker 1 (23:26):
Well, one.
One of the first thing tacticsthat come to mind that's worked
for me the times I've used it.
I need to use it more oftencomes from Tim Ferriss in the
TED talk he gave.
I forget the topic, but I'mpretty sure he's only done one.
It was something about theunexpected alternative to goal

(23:48):
setting or something like that,but he calls it fear setting and
it's pretty cool.
Briefly, you take a sheet ofpaper, flip it so that it's
landscape mode, right, and youmake three columns.
And on the leftmost column youjust list off all the things,

(24:13):
all the ways you're afraid offailing in this case, but all
the things you're afraid ofrelated to a project or that you
feel is causing you a lack ofmotivation, all things that
could go wrong, whether it'sgoing on a trip or doing your
taxes now versus later, whateverit is.
And the second column you listoff one thing for each item in

(24:38):
your list.
Just right beside it you put inone thing that you could do
that would reduce the likelihoodof that bad thing happening,
even by 1%, like, basically,what can you do to reduce the
odds of that happening in alittle?
And then the third column islisting, again, lined up with

(25:05):
each fear, one thing that youcould do to repair the situation
.
If the thing you're afraid ofhappened anyway right, even
though you might have donesomething to prevent it, imagine
it happens anyway what'ssomething you could do to
recover from that fallout, fromthat situation.
And it was super helpful I didit just to get a little personal

(25:30):
.
You might remember, brian, yearsago, when I ran for president
in our Toastmasters Club.
It was the first time in a verylong time that that club had a
contested election Right.
Usually it's hard enough tofind volunteers that you just
find enough people to agree toone role each, and that's good.

(25:54):
I felt called to run forpresident against somebody and I
was afraid.
I was worried about losing thatperson as a friend.
I was worried about beingostracized by my fellow members
because I was breachingtradition in lots of ways.
There's lots of fears and I justlisted off all the things that

(26:17):
go wrong and then listed offways I could prevent it and ways
I could repair from it, and ithelped me have the motivation I
was basically creating a planand a road map to navigate that
sticky situation Right and I'mto sort of in that case it

(26:37):
worked out from my perspective.
I did win that election.
And some of the things I wantedto prevent did come to pass,
but I had a plan for it.
Yeah, well, I had made thedecision appropriately
beforehand rather thanafterwards.

Speaker 2 (26:55):
I'll have to go watch the Tim Ferriss thing, because
his approach reminded me of theDale Carnegie book how to Stop
Worrying and Start Living, whichwe I'm not a stole it from that
.

Speaker 1 (27:11):
Yeah Well he might have.

Speaker 2 (27:12):
I mean, as we know, like self-help, in the self-help
arena, a lot of it isrepackaging, sort of putting
your own twist on somethingthat's been around for quite
some time.
There's nothing wrong with that.
I don't think it's stealing.
I think getting the messageacross, just like this podcast.
We might say something 10 timeson this podcast, but only one

(27:32):
of those resonates with theperson that's listening, and so
that's what self-help is.
Well, I really like TonyRobbins.
We'll just pick on Mary.
She really likes Tony Robbins.
So if Tony Robbins sayssomething versus another author,
she might hold that in a higheresteem just because of the way
that that person says it,because she knows background,

(27:53):
because she's in a relationshipwith him, basically.
But I think that's the thing.
So, anyway, that is sort ofanother tangent.
So the concept that he talksabout in that book is in order
to combat the worrying habit.

(28:15):
So the number one is analyzethe situation causing you to
worry, to determine the worstpossible scenario.
If you fail, then number two isaccept that the worst possible
case scenario if it is to happen.
So basically say, okay, I'mgoing to resign myself to the
fact that that is what's goingto happen, the worst case

(28:36):
scenario, and then the nextthing is focus on trying to
improve the situation so thatyou end up with a better outcome
than the worst case scenario.
So it's very, very close towhat Tim Ferris was talking
about.
And also, I think again, weprobably should talk about doing
a review of that.
This book One of my favoriteself-help books of all time is

(29:00):
this book and written in thestyle of Dale Carnegie, as we
did.
You know, we had the how to winfriends and influence people.
We did in the past, which aseries of anecdotes and all
kinds of other things.
But the interesting thing iswritten, you know, almost 100
years ago now and it's still.
You know, the worries thatpeople had in the 1930s are

(29:23):
basically the same as theworries that we have now.
It's just maybe there's somemore technology and some other
things that go along with it.
But I think that's a.
I love the idea of looking atsomething and going, yeah, okay,
you know what, I'm gonna failand I'm gonna get fired for my

(29:43):
job, or I'm gonna fail and mywife's gonna divorce me, or I'm
gonna fail and this is what'sgonna happen.
Okay, what can I actually do tomake it even 1%, like you said
1%, better than that worst casescenario, whatever that might be
.
And that's, I think there's acomfort level to that, because
you can do that most of the time.
You feel like I can conquerthat a little bit.

Speaker 1 (30:05):
So well, there's another element, I think, to the
fear of failure stuff andlisting out these fears and you
know, doing what Dale Carnegiesuggests and I'm borrowing this
from a guy who's borrowing thisfrom AA there's a TEDx Nashville

(30:28):
video that I'm pretty sure I'veput on my little watch weekly
list and haven't watched weekly,but I need to.
Yeah.
And he says the title is greatleaders do what drug addicts do.
And he has three main pointsand one of those is surrender
the outcome.
Yes, so I think, even thoughyou do these exercises and

(30:50):
everything else to become morecomfortable with, or
alternatives to failing, eventhough you're reducing the odds,
even though you're making itless likely, you could still
fail.
Yeah.
You've had to sort of surrenderthat outcome.
Right Right.
Sometimes we make sportsanalogies, even though I

(31:12):
personally am not a sports guy.
But when somebody goes for thegoal, they might be disappointed
that they miss the shot,whatever game it is.
That doesn't mean that they'redebilitated from taking the next
shot.
It doesn't wound them right.
There's that cliche if you miss100% of the shots, you don't
take.
People who think they're luckydon't actually win more often

(31:37):
than people who don't thinkthey're lucky.
Yeah, they just roll the dicemore often and therefore win
more often.
Yeah.
They pay more attention to winsthan losses, Right?
So, yes, there's the clichealso of feel the fear and do it
anyway.
Maybe have a plan, depending onhow big or ambitious the thing

(31:58):
is.
Don't quit your day job untilyou're ready.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'll say this with regard to sports, the reason why
we talk about I don't say we, Isay we is a human species why
we actually watch sports, why wecare about sports and also what
we can learn from sports, isbecause it really does give an

(32:24):
example or exemplify things thathappen in real life and it's in
an artificial construct.
It's a lot easier to understand, like, for instance, in real
life.
So let's just take the exampleof football.
Right, football, you have a 30to 45-second play and then you

(32:45):
stop for about 30-45 seconds andthen you do another 30 or
45-second play and then you stopfor 34 seconds.
So, in terms of, you don't getthe luxury in life to be able to
say, okay, I'm going to set mygoal for the next 30 seconds,
I'm going to do this.
Okay, now I'm going to stop for30 seconds, I'm going to
reflect upon what just happened.
Okay, now, for 30 seconds, I'mgoing to do this.

(33:06):
Okay, now I'm going to stop andreflect.
You just don't get the luxurybut it's a microcosm of what
actually happens in life andreally you can juxtapose that
and say okay, what is yourability to be able to forget the
last success or failure?
And I say success or failure,because it doesn't really matter

(33:27):
which it is.
Maybe your last play was highlysuccessful.
That doesn't mean that yournext play will be.
Maybe your last play was a huge, an utter failure, but that
doesn't mean your next play willbe.
And it doesn't mean you've lostthe game, right, in most cases.
You know, some cases, yeah,it's the last play of the game.
You get one shot, you get oneshot.
But it's also that's just likelife.

(33:49):
You're going to have a handfulof times where this is your shot
, you get this one time andthat's it, and you either
succeed or you fail.
And so you know, it'sinteresting to me because that's
you know, I don't think thatmost NFL quarterbacks walk up to
the line to take the snap andstart the next play and they're

(34:14):
still worried about whathappened in the last play.
I think that's one of thereasons why they're successful
is because they have the abilityto say, okay, well, that was
that, I'm done with that, nowhere's the next thing.
And I think it's harder to dothat in real life because
obviously there's, you know,it's that immediate feedback

(34:34):
loop.
Like, I got the immediatefeedback, but can I shed that?
And as another example, youknow golfers.
Another good example is howmany shots you might have on a
traditional 18-hole golf course.
Well, they're hitting the balland they're going to.
You know.
They're going to hit the ball70-something times, you know,
depending on how good they'replaying that day.

(34:55):
So the question is, when youand even them playing this game
all the time, they're going tomake, mess up a shot and not put
it the ball exactly where theywant it to be, or they're not
going to have the concentrationon that one thing?
Well, how?
What's your ability to shedthat last failure or success and
just say now this is a fresh, afresh slate.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
And so I don't know how that gets us to the fear of
failure but I guess, you know, Ithink it touches on it and I
don't know if this wouldn'tabout to say touches on the
other causes of low motivation.
But another way to overcomefear of failure is to, you know,

(35:40):
proverbially speaking, dip yourtoe in the water.
Yeah.
And they say in design thinking, prototype, yeah, so if you
like, you mentioned in theprevious episode, you have this
dream of owning a breakfastrestaurant, starting a breakfast
restaurant.

Speaker 2 (35:58):
Well, that's pretty ambitious.
I think I called it a fantasy,the fantasy yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Like you.
But what if?
What if you made a point tobringing different recipes of
breakfast items every morning totoastmasters and getting
feedback on the?
Or hosting brunches everyThursday for your clients?
But you know you're not doingany money outlay, but you're

(36:25):
experimenting, you'reprototyping, you're dipping your
toe in that water with lowconsequence, low stakes, but
seeing what's there and maybeeven building on the momentum or
the feedback.
You can do the same thing withthings like one thing I want to

(36:45):
do.
I know what I could do toprototype, I just haven't done
it Right.
People who want to get startedin writing.
You know there's all kinds ofvenues to write short stories to
build up to long stories rightTo write eventually books, or
develop a Patreon and developseries.

(37:06):
So there's plenty of ways toprototype to make small
incremental efforts in thedirection of your wildly
ambitious goal without riskingultimate failure.
You can quit well before youfind out way too late that it
was not viable.
It can just be a hobby thatyou're like yeah, this isn't

(37:29):
going to be something that I tryto do for the entire world,
It'll just be for my family.
Yeah, or for myself, you knowjust for myself, yeah, but yeah,
so long sort of it prototype,try get a great proceed Well.

Speaker 2 (37:48):
so the next one on the list is overwhelm and sort
of feeling overloaded or havingtoo many tasks and lead to
paralysis and lack of motivationto start anything at all.
And I think we talked a littlebit about this in the last
episode of you know.
We were talking, we got off onthe sort of tangent of
personality type and how you andI tend to be say yes to too

(38:11):
many things and sort of allowourselves or cause ourselves to
be overloaded.
Other people don't necessarilyhave that.
I mean you might be in a jobwhere you don't have any choice.
Your supervisor comes and sayshere's all the work you need to
get done, and if I, you knowsupervisor increases that
workload by 25%, then you eithercontinue with a lot of work or
you choose a different job, likeyou go and find a different job

(38:33):
, or you talk to your supervisorand say, hey, I'm feeling
burnout.
And if your supervisor listensto the help yourself podcast,
then they're a reasonable personand they so little right,
exactly.
So I think I think that's thenumber.

(38:54):
I don't say number one thing,but one of the things is are you
is how much control do you haveover the tasks that you have
you know the things that are onyour plate perverbially on your
plate.
How much control do you haveover them?
Personally, me, being selfemployed, I have complete

(39:16):
control over which clients Iwant to take on, which clients I
don't want to take on.
I have complete control over myworkflow.
I have complete, completecontrol over anything that I
want to do.
The question is do I want totake on more clients, Do I want
to have more revenue come intothe business?
And that's but that's the.
That's really the bottom linewith me.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
But overwhelm is feeling like you're not, your
things are out of control, rightLike you had complete control
until you took on too much.
That's right or too much wasgiven to you, whether it's
whether you have completecontrol or not, or it maybe, if
it's not even too much, it'sjust the sense feeling like you
have too much Right.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Oh, that's a good point, that's a really good
point, because that's differentfor each person.

Speaker 1 (40:01):
Sure, one of the things that I'm borrowing this
from that Ryan Doris, but I'veheard it elsewhere too.
I mean in Atomic Habits.
James Clear talks about this aslike breaking it down into an
atomic step the smallestpossible, hardest to miss, lower

(40:22):
the hurdle as much as possiblebreaking down into small tasks.
If you've got a project of likestarting a business, well, give
yourself a small, clear goal,right?
Yeah, Coming back to the sportsanalogy and this is directly
from Ryan Doris is you know, theplayers on the field aren't
least the ones that win, right?

(40:42):
The ones that excel and aren'tfreaking out are the ones who
aren't actually focused onwinning the game.
They're focused on getting theball in the net.
Yeah.
Right, or getting the ball youknow, to get through the
goalposts or whatever the gameis, and it's those small steps
of being able to focus andyou're using the parts of your

(41:04):
brain that are optimized forthat and are efficient such that
you're not you know how to sayyou.
We are incentivized to do aslittle as possible, like it's an
evolutionary, biological,adaptive thing to conserve
energy.
Your brain uses a lot of energy.

(41:27):
Yeah.
So if you can avoid doing work,especially knowledge work,
thought, work like design,planning, creativity, then
evolutionary speaking, you'rewinning by conserving energy.
Yeah, but then there's otherparts of your brain that are
like, hey, there's the here andthe now.
I got to work on the here andthe now and if you can connect

(41:49):
your goal large, long-term goalto the here and now.
You'll optimize for that andbuild upon your immediate
successes into somethinglong-term.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (42:01):
Yeah, that reminded me a little bit of you know what
you hit on with, the creativityor the you know mind work or
thought process.
You know that kind of and inany given profession there is
that I call I use the wordcreative creativity or
creativeness or whatever in thebroadest sense.
So, like you know, when you'reusing your brain to strategize

(42:24):
or to come up with ideas, orlike how am I going to tackle
this issue?
I think it's a, I think it'ssomething that there are many
people who have to do that intheir career, but it's often
discounted by the people thatare around them.
It's like what is that guy?
That guy's just sitting at hisdesk all day, like what is he
doing?
What is that person doing?
You know what I mean.
And many times, the people thatare like I don't want to say

(42:47):
like sometimes the people thatare saying that are the people
that are yeah, I have to,actually they're doing something
.
I've got to get process thisthing right and you've got the
person that's in charge of itall going.
Yeah, my job is to make surethat all of the things are
thought about right, which is aweird thing because they're,
because, like I said, the peoplearound them are like all I see

(43:09):
is them sitting at their desklike not doing anything the
whole time.
So I don't know how that getslike, why I'm, why I was zeroing
in on that.
It's just something that madeyou know that sort of hit with
hit when you said it, but Ithink, in terms of feeling
overloaded, I think I just Ialways go back to that, I think

(43:29):
I've mentioned this in one ofour Toastmaster meetings
recently is you can you knowthere's there's two things you
can worry about, you know.
One is you can worry about thethings you have control over,
and one is you can worry.
The other is you can worryabout things you don't have
control over.
And if you have control over it, then why are you worried about
it?
Because you can do somethingabout it.

(43:49):
And if you don't have controlover it, why are you worried
about it?
Because you don't have controlover it.
So and I'm stealing that fromWayne Dyer, wayne Dyer and I'm,
and Wayne Dyer might have stolenit from someone else, but
that's where I heard it, fromWayne Dyer.
So, anyway, if you have controlover things, then maybe that's a

(44:10):
way to help.
You know, sort of look at thatand say, hey, I've got to do
that.
The other thing that's theunderlying for all of these
things probably is what I saidbefore is are you reaching out
to someone and saying, hey, I'mhaving these feelings of being
overwhelmed or overloaded withthis, and that might be your
supervisor, that might be yourspouse, that might be someone

(44:32):
else in your life that can helpyou with that?
If you're not doing that, thenthat might, you know, that could
probably lead to a level ofhelplessness or, you know, it's
like I can't really do anythingabout this one.
Really, you could if you reachout to someone and say, hey, I'm
having these feelings, okay,well, how can we work together
to make sure that that's nothappening anymore?

Speaker 1 (44:52):
So Hold me to this.
This will be the last thing Isay about the fear of failure.
Okay, there's a book I'mreading called dream year and
one of the things it says andquestions that follows.
There's basically two things tofear.
You can have the fear offailure, which is the default,

(45:16):
or the fear of insignificance.
If you're, if you can't developand cultivate your fear of
insignificance to overcome yourfear of failure, then you won't
be living whatever your dream isright, like right.
Of course.
Yeah, there's the whole otherconcept of like, what is my

(45:37):
dream?
How do I find my dream?
But assuming you've, you'vegone through and figured out
that work, or you've admitted toyourself that you do have one
and you've just, you know,allowed yourself to forget it
yeah, it's part of the reasonyou haven't done anything.
That fear of failure is thedefault, and your fear of
insignificance needs to outweighyour fear of failure before

(45:59):
you'll pursue your ambitionright.
Be motivated to do what,whatever it is you think you
want or truly want.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Yeah, all right.
Next one on the list is uncleargoals.
So either having no goals ornot having clear and achievable
goals, and I think you talkedabout smart goals.
We've talked about this on thepodcast before having smart
goals and don't ask me whatsmart stands for, because every
time I say this I always forget,and you've told me 50 times but

(46:30):
it's like significantmotivating.
No, nick is like you're noteven close.
You're not even close, Bryce.

Speaker 1 (46:42):
Well, you're close in that those concepts are there,
but those aren't the words andthey're in different places.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
I told you, I forget every time.

Speaker 1 (46:48):
Yeah, specific measurable, not achievable.
Oh yeah, achievable, a isachievable, r is relevant and T
is time bound.
Right.
Some.
I'll say this every time, butit's what helps me remember that

(47:11):
R is not reasonable because, Ais achievable.
It's the same thing.
Yeah.
And R being relevant iscritical.
This is something a friend,Stephen Schaener, iterates and
reiterates, and I agree, Becauseif you don't have a strong Y
barring from Simon Sinek, we'rejust.

Speaker 2 (47:30):
we're just hard to find this, referencing everybody
Honestly this is.

Speaker 1 (47:35):
It's pervasive in our culture because clearly we have
a problem with it.
Everybody has something to say,but if you don't have a good
reason to do the thing, even ifit's specific and measurable on
time down, you're not going todo it because you don't want to,
you don't have to.
There's no condolences, but Ithink a clear goal needs to be

(47:57):
more than smart, right and thisis barring from that, ryan Doris
again Like winning the matchwinning the sports match that's
specific and measurable andachievable.
And was it relevant and timebound?

(48:19):
Yeah, but you're still notnecessarily motivated to do it,
or you're not.
You're going to have to thinktoo much about too many
variables to achieve it.
A clear goal would be,according to them him, get the
ball in the net.
Yeah.
Right that is specific andmeasurable and achievable.

(48:40):
Relevant because you want towin the match.
Right.
And time bound Like break itdown to the most fundamental
thing you've got to do.
Yeah.
To win, and just always connectit to what you really want to
stay motivated to do it.

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Yeah, yeah, and I think there's something I was
going to say about goal setting,but it was, oh, I think also
something that gets lost in thisall the time is I think that
one of the and I don't know ifI've ever heard anyone actually
I take it back.
I've heard, I think I've readpeople say this is write it down

(49:19):
, Like literally write it down.
It's got to be like it can't be.
I've set this goal in my headof to lose 15 pounds, Like it's
something.
There's something weird aboutwriting something down, whether
that's a pen on a paper, orwhether that's writing it down
and typing it into a spreadsheetor whatever it else.

(49:39):
It's now been recorded Likeit's outside of you, and I think
there's a weird thing thathappens.
When that happens, Like, atleast in my experience, if you
sit down and write things out,that's a completely different
thing than here's what I'd liketo.
Here's what I'd like to worktowards.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
And sort of an initial step to make it tangible
.
Right, you can't become areality.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Well, I think I think anything outside of yourself,
like outside of your physicalperson, like once you put a pen
on a paper and you writesomething down, it's now outside
of you and it's looking back atyou, whereas when it's in your
brain it's still inside you,you're you know, I know it
sounds weird, but it is a weirdthing that has some kind of
magic to it.

(50:26):
I and I say magic like itreally is like a.
It's a different thing when youwrite something down.
So I think that has thoughtsthoughts are easily dismissed.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
Right.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Right, yes, yeah, absolutely Okay.
Next is burnout, which sort ofgoes back to overwhelm.
So prolonged stress andoverexertion leads to burnout
and I think this go ahead.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
No, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
I was just going to say I thought we were going to
move past it, but if you gotsomething, oh no, I was just
thinking that you know sort ofwhat we were already talking
about with overwhelm, which is,you know, burnout.
I think feel like you need toreach out to someone outside of
yourself, like one of the waysyou can combat burnout is I'll
tell other people around youthat you're experiencing this,

(51:19):
because I think burnout is a isa what should I say?
A solitary thing, like it'sinside of you, you're feeling it
and it's different.
It's different for each person.
You know you might feel burntout at a certain level of work,
whereas I might not feel burntout at that, or vice versa.
So, but if nobody knows thatyou're experiencing it, then

(51:40):
nobody knows, because nobodyknows what your level of
performances.
If that makes sense, sure, okay.

Speaker 1 (51:49):
One of the things that came up I mentioned in the
last episode our engagementsurvey.
There was an interestingdevelopment was the dichotomy
between these two questions.
One was that burnout question.
Yeah.
And there was a higher numberof people saying burnout than
there were people who said ordisagreed, agreed with the

(52:11):
statement.
I have too much work on myplate.
Yeah.
So it's like in this situationit was on my team it wasn't that
they have too much work ontheir plate that's causing their
burnout, something else.
But to your point, others willand they would too, if they had
too much work probably feelburnout.
There's multiple possiblecontributing factors to burnout

(52:34):
and I think one thing that canhelp with it and again, like you
said, it's sort of overwhelmedprolonged would be to do what
Elsa from Frozen's talked about.
And that's you know it's funnyhow some distance can make
everything seem small.
Yeah.
You know that.
Go and you're alreadyemotionally disengaging, right,

(52:57):
you're fizzling out, soliterally disengaged, like take
some time off, be by yourself,quiet or in a calm situation,
and get some perspective thatmaybe the work that you're doing
isn't as essential as it feels.
Or get that perspective of, oh,this is important, this is what

(53:22):
should be focused on.
This 10% of my total list ofwork to do.
This other stuff is actuallyoptionable or delayable or
delegatable, deferrable,negotiable.
And get some distance to getthat perspective of what's
necessary.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
What you've hit on is a little bit of time management
of you know we've talked aboutit before the four quadrants and
my favorite person, stephenCovey, talking about the four
quadrants, and you know whichthings are absolutely necessary
or crisis.
This is you know.
Then, basically, you've got thefour quadrants that you can

(54:03):
prioritize or not motivate.
You can set priorities andthat's what you're talking about
.
There is, and that's part of it, Important.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Yeah, importance versus urgency Right Exactly.
The Eisenhower matrix.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Yes, which you know Stephen Covey stole from
Eisenhower.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
Who probably stole it from Confucius?

Speaker 2 (54:27):
Yeah, exactly.
So the next thing on here isperfectionism, and I think we
touched a little bit upon thatlast episode.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Yeah, I think surrendering the outcome applies
there.

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yes, and also focus on progress, not perfection.
So, as I said before the youknow, when I talked about going
to the gym, that's just focus onthe one thing, not it's.
You know, you've got to go tothe gym and your workout has to
be perfect and you have to thisand you have to that.
It's no.
Here's what you need to do isyou need to be consistently

(55:04):
going to the gym.

Speaker 1 (55:05):
That's it, and that's a bit of a paradigm shift.
I know perfectionists have thatparadigm ingrained, but to the
extent that they can, or anyonedealing with perfectionism,
acknowledge that nothing is everreally finished.
Right.
You clean your house toperfection, the dust is going to
accumulate all over again, oryou know, a software you're

(55:29):
developing could always bebetter.
Yeah.
Or the legal document you'redrafting is never going to be,
it's never going to be framed,you know, like it's not never
going to be a piece of work ofart, right, nothing's ever
really finished.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
You just hit on like the exact thing that is my
problem.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
I'm going to stop now .
This meets my standard andmaybe you need to lower your
standard, but I try to meetother people's standards.
You imagine the standards.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
I have experienced this in the gym and I've been
trying to expand that out intoother things.
I call that the good enoughprinciple is this is and I don't
know if I'm stealing that fromanyone else Like, for instance,
if the coach is telling me, likein the warmup, you need to do
20 of these things, and I do 16of them and I stop, I say that's

(56:25):
good enough and so you know,same thing.
There is like okay, is this upto my standard?
Maybe not.
Is it good enough to get thejob done?
Like, is this thing that I'mfiling with the court or is this
document that I'm preparing formy client?
Is it going to catastrophicallyfail?
No, the fact that it's notformatted correctly and maybe

(56:47):
there's a you know somethingthat doesn't look right on the
page is that of any significance, except for the fact that I
have a perfectionistic need tomake it look perfect?
No, it doesn't have any effecton the.
You know whether or not thatdocument is effective or not.
So, you know, trying to letthat go as another Elsa

(57:10):
reference, and you know, let itgo, that's the same song, right?
So, anyway, I think that's.
I think the good enoughprinciple is like is this good
enough?
Is it?
You know?
Like is, is anybody?
Like I said, there's a lot ofquestions, you can follow up

(57:30):
with that, but is it good enoughto get the job done?
If the answer if the answer isyes, then you don't really need
to go any further, right.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yeah, here it is.
So in the Ryan Davis videoagain, I'll provide this link
for both, both episodes, becausethey keep bringing it up.
Yeah.
He calls it.
It's under the challenge skillproblem.
I forget what he put there, butis define the scope or the end

(58:01):
state Right, like when insoftware development or things
like it, they call that thedefinition of done.
Yeah.
It's done when and you knowthere's perfectionists on my
team and I have to tell themlike, yes, you could do that and
yes, we want to value add.
That's another kind of clichein business.

(58:21):
We want to add value whereverwe can Sure.
If they want five columns, givethem seven, but they don't need
17.
Yeah.
They don't need to know everysingle possible configuration of
the information, right, justgive them what they ask for,
deliver what they need, yeah.
And then we want to createvalue for someone else, right?
Like, yeah, yeah, I guessthat's all I have to say about

(58:45):
that.

Speaker 2 (58:46):
No, that's actually a good point.
Okay, so next on this list islack of interest.
Tasks or goals are not alignedwith your personal interests or
values.
I think sometimes too, if it'snot aligned with your personal
values, I feel like that's adeeper problem than you're just

(59:06):
like, yeah, I'm just sort of notinterested in this.
But if you're really having astruggle of, yeah, I don't know
if I can morally or ethicallycontinue doing what I'm doing, I
think I've told the story aboutthis attorney before a local
attorney here that his job wasto look at cases criminal cases

(59:26):
that were on appeal, so somebodyhad been convicted of a crime
and then it goes up for appeal.
What many people don't realizein the appeal process is that
it's not a whole nother trial,the person that is evaluating
the case on appeal.
They're looking at whatevidence was brought up at the
lower case, the lower level, andthey're first making a

(59:46):
determination of whether or nota new trial should be given.
Right, because they have tolook at what evidence was
presented and whether it waspresented in a bad way or
whether there was bias or allkinds of a number of legal
things.
Right, and what happened withhim is he was doing that job and
happy, making money and doingwhat he wanted to do.

(01:00:07):
But then he found out thebackstory of some of the people
that were convicted of crimesand realized that he was making
his decision based upon a verylimited amount of information
that didn't tell him the wholestory and he wasn't by.
He wasn't like, looking at it,I mean I'm going to go research

(01:00:28):
and give them an appeal based onthat, but ethically he's like I
couldn't do it anymore.
Because then there's onespecific case that he talks
about where the person wasconvicted of murder.
But they were also heavilyabused as a child.
They were kept, they wereforced to be a prostitute.

(01:00:49):
It was a woman who was forcedto be a prostitute and she ended
up killing her pimp, the guywho was basically keeping her
captive, and according to theevidence that was presented, she
should have been convictedAccording to the entire story.
If you told someone she wasbeing held captive by a man who

(01:01:10):
was forcing her to sell her bodyout and taking the money and
there was no way out of that,and really her thought process
was hey, the only way I'm goingto get out of this is if I kill
this person.
And so she did that and wasconvicted, because it's a crime
to kill other people, right.
But if you knew that backstoryyou might say, wow, but I know
it's wrong to kill people, butin this circumstance so all that

(01:01:34):
to be said he had he quit hisjob and did something different
because he said I can't, thisdoes not align with my personal
values anymore, and so I knowthat's a really, really extreme
case, but sometimes maybe that'ssomething that will can help.

Speaker 1 (01:01:51):
Yeah, it checks out again.
Ryan Davis, he talks about that.
He doesn't use this term, butit's almost like a defense
mechanism.
Your procrastination mightactually be a good thing,
because it maybe it's not reallyprocrastination, maybe it's
ambivalence.
Yes, maybe it's subconsciously,it's a sign that you shouldn't
be doing the thing that you're.

(01:02:12):
You tell yourself you should doand you're not doing yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:02:18):
I find in that case, like sometimes, when I'm having
a thing like that, where it'sprocrastination for me is always
a problem, but one of thethings that I do, I will sit
back sometimes and just say,like literally ask myself the
question why am I not doing this, what is stopping me from doing
this?
And I try to like dive a littledeeper, just sit back and just
like think about it, just likewhy am I?

(01:02:39):
Why do I have such a resistanceto this thing?
What is happening?

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
here Be curious.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
Yes, yeah, and and I really try to figure out, like
what am I?
Am I seeing this?
Am I scared?
And a lot of times I willactually be able to evaluate and
say like, yeah, I'm worried,I'm going to fail, or I'm or.
I've never done this before.
I don't know quite what I'mdoing and so I'm not doing
anything because I'm scared thatI don't know what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Whatever, that might be.
And the dialogue between thehorse and the rider?
Yeah, exactly.
Well, I want you to drink thewater like, because I'm not
thirsty.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Right, oh yeah, and and so I don't know that
sometimes that helps, I mean,and it sounds stupid that you're
sitting there talking toyourself, but I talk to myself
all the time, so you know, it's,it's healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:23):
I don't care what the social stigma says.

Speaker 2 (01:03:25):
Yeah, exactly, um sec .
Second to last one is mentalhealth issues.
So this is actually where youhave depression, anxiety or
other mental health conditions.
Those can impact yourmotivation levels.
Obviously, if you havesomething that I mean I'll say
this on the record I feel likealmost everyone I'll say I'll

(01:03:48):
say probably everyone.
This is like a bold statement.
I think everyone could probablybenefit from some kind of
counseling at some point intheir life.
Uh, you know, a third partybeing able to talk.
The big issue is who are youtalking to?
Like?
Do you, do you respect thatperson?
Do you feel like you have aconnection?
Does that like if they gave youadvice, would you say, oh,

(01:04:08):
they're just doing that becauseof this, or would you actually
say, no, they're just trying tohelp me, you know.
And so, basically, if you canfind somebody like that where
you're like, hey, you know what,I don't need this all the time,
but you know, every other yearor so or every six months or
whatever I need, I just need tosit down and just hash out some
of the issues that I'm goingthrough in my brain and have
somebody say like yeah, thoseare perfectly normal, reasonable

(01:04:30):
things and maybe not even helpyou come up with solutions like
we're trying to do.
But maybe they just are thereso that you can have an outside
person to say the things thatyou're thinking to and have a
sounding board for, and somepeople have that in their family
.
You know, some people like somepeople's families are very
supportive in that way.

(01:04:50):
Other people's are not.
Some people sometimes you wantto.
They're personal issues, so youwant somebody that's a third
party that's not connected toyou in any way emotionally.
But I feel like if you have anissue like that, that there
shouldn't be a stigma.
You were just talking aboutstigmas.
I don't think there should be astigma against people going to
counseling, whether that'smarital or individual or
whatever else.

(01:05:10):
That's a healthy thing to do.
It's the same thing as if youwere having pain in your right
leg.
You would go to your doctor andsay I just have this chronic
pain in my right leg.
Can you help me with this?
And we don't see mental healthissues in the same way.
But I think we should.
I think that there shouldn't beany reason why you shouldn't

(01:05:31):
think that anyone should thinkhave shame about going and
seeing a counselor and saying Ineed to talk some of these
things through, and I thinkthere still is, though and
that's why I'm saying all this,because I think there still is a
stigma of like oh, you can'thandle this yourself, you can't
handle life yourself.
What's the problem here?
Why can't you just hey,bootstraps man, pull yourself up

(01:05:55):
, let's go, yeah.
One more time.

Speaker 1 (01:05:59):
Yeah, I get it and I agree.
I also know that my own innercritic, when I think about I
myself doing such a thing, thatstigma still seeps in I know
better, consciously.
But again there's a horse inthe rider.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
There's the thing I said, that I've never gone to
counseling.
I probably could benefit fromcounseling.
I've never done it myself, sothere's a reason why you know
whether, whether they'reprofessional or not.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
I think we all need a trustworthy not necessarily
trusted.
Yes.
They should be trusted andtrustworthy.
Right yeah, A trusted andtrustworthy confidant.
And again, whether they'reprofessional or not and I think
the more isolated we are, theharder that is to find.
Yes.

(01:06:51):
The more skeptical we become,the harder it is to trust, and
the more jaded we become, theharder it is to become
trustworthy.
So it's difficult and it'snecessary.
I think, yeah, I don't knowwhat, there's probably not one
solution to that problem, but Ithink they're counseling, like

(01:07:14):
you say, is an entity thatstands in that gap.
I don't know that it's bigenough to fill the gap, but at
least there's something therethat might help you get across
if you can jump far enough.
Yeah, we have another four tostick with.

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Well, and that leads us into our last.
They should take my own advice.
Well, I was going to say thatleads us into our last thing,
which is what we were justtalking about is.
The last thing is externalfactors, so a lack of support,
negative environments ordiscouragement from others
affect motivation.
So a lack of support.
The first thing there is, likeyou have to find your support
system, and that's you know thatthat's a variety of people,

(01:07:54):
right?
You also have to be able torecognize what we've already
talked about, which is thepeople that maybe aren't
supportive or are discouraging,maybe indirectly or directly, to
you.
And you need to limit your timewith them.
You need to limit your.
You know you've got to surroundit.
I think you mentioned it before.
It's like the you're the sum ofthe five people you hang out

(01:08:17):
with the most, or somethingsimilar to that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
I know it's been around.
I forget where I heard it.
I know it's been around.

Speaker 2 (01:08:23):
It's been around so many self-help circles yeah.
I've heard it with regard toincome, Like your income is at
the level of the, you know, the,basically the five people, the
income level of the five peopleyou're around the most.
So I don't know if that's pansout or not Like the data
actually plays out that way, butit makes sense, you know, if
you're around a lot of peoplewho are just, yeah, this is you

(01:08:45):
know, this is, this is what youknow, this is our level of
living than you know.
Theoretically that could, but Ithink counseling is one of the
things that you can do to have,you know, some level of support
If you don't have any otherlevels of support, like if you
don't have you know.
Another one is you've alreadymentioned, which is, you know,

(01:09:05):
aa and other you know groupslike that are specifically
called support groups.
I mean they're so you know,you're, you're, you're, you're,
you're, you're, you're, you know, and that's for a specific
thing, but there's lots of them.
There's, there's, you know,overeaters anonymous, there's,
you know, there's.
Narcotics anonymous.
There's.
Alcoholics anonymous, there's.

(01:09:26):
You know, sexaholics anonymous,there's all everything that you
might be having.
And, granted, those arespecific things, but there's
always a group of people who aresupportive, I think.
I think also just being aroundpositive people and having a
positive attitude.
So two other things I'll bringup is I did, did a search,

(01:09:48):
actually chat GPT gave me thisand I just asked it how can I
increase my motivation?
Just a flat question how can Iincrease my motivation?
So some of them we've alreadycovered set clear goals, create
a routine, find inspiration.
So that's what we do.
You know, that's what we're.
We've been borrowing a lot inthese two episodes from from a

(01:10:09):
lot of things we're finding,trying to find inspiration.
The other two are the last twohere are.
So number four is stay positive.
Focus on you know, focus onprogress, not perfection.
Stay healthy, so exercise,proper sleep, balanced diet and
accountability.
And then the only other thingthat I did that was not on this
list that I wanted to bring upbecause I know you, at least in

(01:10:33):
the past, have practiced this isone of the things suggestions I
saw was to to practicegratitude and to have, you know,
have some.
So one of the things that saidwas hey, maybe in the morning or
maybe in the night, at night,before you go to bed, write down

(01:10:54):
three things that you'regrateful for in you know whether
there's going to be anything.
You know there's no limit towhat those could be intangible,
tangible, whatever that is.
And I think that helps you withwhat I just said, which is
having a positive attitude whenyou're, when you start to turn
things into like man, I'm reallyI could.

(01:11:15):
I could say, man, I have allthis business, I'm super busy
and it's stressing me out.
Or I could say, man, I have allthis business, I'm so thankful
that I have all this business.
That's what my business is herefor.
Like I'm able to help morepeople, I'm able to add value,
as you said, for more people,right?
And so you can look at that onesame thing in those two ways.

(01:11:39):
Well, if you are grateful forit, then it's.

Speaker 1 (01:11:42):
It looks different to you than if you're not grateful
for it, or if you're just like,oh gosh, this is a burden, you
know so anyway, and taking adifferent glance at that, in any
time you're in a stressful orsurvival situation, anytime I am
even like in a video game, oneof the first things you do

(01:12:04):
that's affected.
I say you, one of the firstthings I do that seems very
effective.
Something I see a lot of otherpeople do that seems effective
is take inventory.
Like what do I have?
Yeah, answer that question.
What do I have?
You know, what am I equippedwith?
It could be skills, it could beyou know food and shelter.
Like what do I have?
That's good.
And then the other one would beyou know where am I?

(01:12:28):
Like?
Every, every directory andevery public place that has any
size to it is going to have thatyou are here.
Yeah map interspersed right andwe have GPS to know where we're
at.
It's like what's in that youkind of inherently create some
distance there, like where I'm.
What situation am I in?
Who are my antagonists?

(01:12:51):
What am I antagonists?
That's overwhelming me Takinginventory of how you feel, but
part of that inventory is whatI'm playing off of with regard
to gratitude, right, it'sremembering that, oh, I have
three pairs of shoes.
Why am I so frustrated aboutbeing in line at a grocery store
or turning it into a firstworld problem joke?

(01:13:14):
But at the same time, there isthat thing of having that kind
of gratitude.
Is having that perspective, tosome extent, of what do I have,
who's in my corner, who's on myteam, what do I have going for
me?
It's just a good reminder thatnot all is lost.
You're not necessarily in adire situation, right, and you

(01:13:36):
have things to fall back on.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
I, just, I just.
That's going to be one of ourepisodes this year is what can
video games teach us aboutself-help and motivation, and
what, what, what can we?
How do we?
learn from video games that youknow like, because that's a,
that's a huge thing and that's a, like you said, that just hit
in you know pretty big way, foryou know taking inventory,

(01:14:00):
because it's part of the processis you sit back and go, okay,
you know again, you're, you'renow, you're not looking at the
problem anymore.
You're saying, like, what can Ido, like, what do I have to
help fix the problem?
And that's a whole differentmindset than, oh my gosh, now
I'm just focused on this problemand so, anyway, I think we
covered it pretty good.

(01:14:20):
Man, that's good.
Yeah, it's good enough.
It's good enough.
It's good enough.
You know, I think, for, yeah,for you know everything.
I hope everyone's having a good2024 so far and we're going to
continue doing all thesepodcasts.
Thank you for listening andyeah, I think that's it.

(01:14:44):
So go out there and getmotivated.