Signal vs. Noise: Finding Focus in a Chaotic World

What separates truly exceptional performers from everyone else? It's not talent or intelligence—it's their unshakeable commitment to consistent action, regardless of circumstances.

The most successful people understand that choices determine where you are, but commitments determine where you're going. As Kevin O'Leary from Shark Tank noted, great entrepreneurs have mastered the art of separating signal from noise. They focus almost exclusively on what truly matters while filtering out distractions that derail progress. Steve Jobs operated at 80% signal, while Elon Musk functions at nearly 100% signal—though perhaps at the cost of social finesse.

These high performers establish non-negotiable daily commitments—specific actions they complete without fail. These commitments aren't necessarily monumental; they're often quite simple. But the consistency creates a compounding effect that builds unstoppable momentum. Like bank deposits that grow over time, each kept commitment strengthens your relationship with yourself and develops the mental muscle needed for greater achievements.

What makes this approach powerful is its emphasis on consistency over perfection. The most common mistake is setting unrealistically high standards, failing to meet them, then abandoning the practice entirely. Instead, start with manageable commitments you can consistently fulfill. Success comes from hitting singles regularly, not swinging for home runs. The home runs will come naturally as you develop the consistency muscle through regular practice.

Want a practical framework to implement this approach? Try the "Three F's": Focus on three priorities for tomorrow, identify three things you would Fix about today, and acknowledge three things you Feel grateful for. This simple structure builds clarity, learning, and positive perspective—all in just minutes per day.

When you consistently show up for yourself—especially when you don't feel like it—you activate what some call the "Mamba Mentality," that part of yourself that thrives in adversity and rises to challenges. Ready to transform your results through daily commitments? Start with the Three F's tonight.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Right, you're like that buzzer ain't rang, that
game ain't over with, so keepgoing.
I have thrived in that chaos.
How could this be happening?
Did any of you guys payattention to anything I said?
Like get arrested, guess, untilthey get the message.

(00:24):
Welcome back to the recklessceo podcast, where we keep it
real raw and reckless aboutbusiness and life.
They ain't really gotten thesauce and I ain't got.
You know what I mean it's like.
Here is your host, the recklessceo himself, michael mcgovern.
Welcome back to the recklessceo podcast.

(00:44):
I'm excited for today's message.
It's a little mix-up.
I feel like I have a goodpersonal experience story to
tell.
First off, it's been what anamazing day it's been.
My brother just recently hadhis second baby tonight.
Her name is Liberty.
That was an amazing experience.

(01:07):
You know, I think we all go sofast and we're always looking
for you know what's ahead andwhat's coming up next and you
know when you're sitting thereholding a you know, a newborn
baby.
You know it's almost likeeverything else kind of goes
away.
Right.
It brings you back to what'sthe important things in life.
You know, as you might say,because I think business is

(01:30):
important and making money isimportant, but, you know, family
and connection is one of thosethings that you know, no matter
how far we want to go, it'ssomething that's always going to
be important to slow down andtake advantage of when you can.
So congratulations to him.

(01:50):
Other big news this week Ireleased my first published book
, and so if you are interestedin checking that out, go over to
Amazon.
It's on homeowner wealth is thename of the book, and really
this has been something thattook, you know, it took me a
little bit of time.
Um, you know, I've I've wrote afew other books that I uh never

(02:11):
really did anything with orkind of took them to the finish
line.
Uh, you know, I think thatthere's a lot of judgment that
you have to be aware of, right?
Um, you know, and whetheranyone cares or doesn't care, I
think, as humans, you knowputting your words and thoughts
out there for others to read andgo through.
You know, there's something alittle bit a little scary to

(02:34):
that, you know, and then I tryto like, look at myself and say,
well, like, have I ever read abook and thought to myself, like
, who is this guy?
Right?
No, I don't know that I've everthought that.
And so often those thoughts wehave are just thoughts and fears
that we keep up in our head andnine times out of 10, they are
not as bad as you may think thatthey would be.

(02:57):
So, yeah, so if you want tocheck that out Homeowner Wealth
on Amazon, if you're going toleave me a review, that would be
great.
You can get it on hardback orand or audible.
So it's on our Kindle.
Sorry, not audible.
Not audible yet, that'll benext, but yeah, so that was an
exciting thing and really kindof I don't want to sell here on

(03:18):
my, on my podcast, but reallywhat homeowner wealth is is when
I look at the roofing industry.
Really, what homeowner wealth isis when I look at the roofing
industry, home service industryright, it's very transactional.
Right, it's very wild, wildwest.
It's very, it's very like,especially in the insurance game
.
You know it's about closingdeals, right, it's a lot of
quantity game.
And for me personally you knowI came from the real estate side

(03:51):
Before I got into roofing, Iwas flipping houses and learning
how to find an off-market,distressed property, buying it
at a value and then increasingthe value to add equity and to
eventually sell the home formore money than you bought it
for.
When I got into roofing I was,I've tried to kind of push that
message and you know to, to sitdown and explain that to
homeowners that you know thevalue of, you know what the roof

(04:13):
can do right, not just to lookat it as a transaction or a cost
.
Right, it can be in the rightlight.
To me it's an investmentbecause you know the roof itself
may not be the main thing, butthe roof is going to give you
the opportunity to create, in,you know, a capital event with
your home.
Right, you're going to be ableto, with buying a roof, use

(04:36):
financing to buy the roof so youcan stretch that out over 15
years.
Then you can go and take thatsame loan and you can get siding
done, you can get gutters done.
And now all of a sudden excuseme now all of a sudden, a
$50,000 investment has ROI10,000.
And then, if you look at aninsurance side, even on that end

(04:57):
, you can then take that sameinsurance check, keep the money,
use the financing to get thenew roof.
And now you put some money inyour pocket.
And so really, this book is myway of not so much of the value
of what I want to put out thereto the marketplace.
I'm like this is the end allbook.
Really, for me, it's anopportunity to educate

(05:18):
homeowners on.
You know, it's kind of likecreating those ideal clients In
any business.
Our goal is not to just sell tothe 3%.
In any sale or anything you'reselling, there's always going to
be out of 100% of people,there's always going to be 3% of
those people that are ready tobuy.

(05:39):
Right now you knock on theirdoor.
They've had this conversationin their head before.
They already want it andthey're in.
They don't need much more.
But then you get the 97% thatneeds more information.
They need to know more aboutyou, your product, why they need
it, all of these differentthings.
And so for me, by creating thisbook really becomes the

(06:00):
leverage of educating people onthis thing.
You also get a credibilitypiece to it.
You know, even if it's not agood book, just saying that you
got a book is something thatdoes add authority and
credibility.
And so if you're listening tothis and you are, you know,
whatever market you're in, right, think about your ideal client.
What is the thing that you knowyou would like to tell them and

(06:20):
write a book on it, and it'ssuper easy.
You can publish it on Amazon.
There's a lot of really, reallyeasy ways to get through it,
and if that's something that youlisten to, or you listen to
this, and you think that soundsinteresting and you'd like to
know a little more, I'd be morethan happy to help you out.
But so let's get into today.

(06:41):
First off, I am recording thispodcast while sitting in my
basement.
It's about 10 o'clock at night,almost.
I'm sharing this all with youbecause I don't want to be
shooting this podcast right now.
I didn't want to.
I'm tired.
It's been a long week tired.

(07:04):
It's been a long week.
But like, I want to share withyou today.
They say that life is areflection or correlation to the
choices that you make.
I think that's true, but Ithink it's also the commitments
as well, maybe even more so.
Show me the commitments as well, maybe even more so.

(07:26):
As I say, show me, show me yourchoices and I'll show you where
you're at.
Show me your commitments andI'll show you where you're going
.
Commitments are those thingsthat get you to the next level.
The choices get you through it.

(07:47):
Last week, I shared a little biton the podcast as well, that a
mentor of mine came in and spoketo the team, shared with him
some just incredible wisdom.
It kind of took you throughsome of that.
If you didn't listen to that,you didn't, you know.
Listen to that last week.
Definitely check it out.
It's probably one of my morefavorite podcasts that I've done

(08:07):
.
I just really felt good thatday getting things off your
chest right.
That's why I love this.
That's why I love this podcastis it's an opportunity for me to
you know, share and maybeconnect with some people, but,
as well as you know, it's a goodopportunity for me as well.
So last week, ryan shared aboutthese three daily commitments.
He's like you know every.
He's like the most successfulpeople that I've ever met.
They have this thing of three.

(08:30):
You know three dailycommitments.
You know three commitments thatare just like I'm going to get
these done today, come hell orhigh water, I'm going to.
I'm going to do this.
And then this week I listened toa podcast and kevin o'leary
from shark tank mr wonderful,he's on there and he's talking
about this, this idea of thesecommitments.

(08:51):
He said that the greatestentrepreneurs that he has ever
met had an ability to separatesignal from noise.
Right, noise is all the thingsthat keep you from doing the
thing you need to get done.
The noise, the signal, is beingable to attack everything.

(09:12):
That is actually the focal, thefocus points.
Right, that that signal is likecan't?
The higher that signal can be,where you know exactly what you
need to be doing, you canactually get those things done
and you can stick to it and youdon't allow the noise to affect
you, you will be more successful.
Right, he talks about SteveJobs and he's like you know,
steve Jobs was 80% signal 80% ofthe time.

(09:34):
He was on point, unlocked in20%.
Maybe the noise got to him.
Right, he would have torecalibrate.
He said Elon Musk, 100% signaland you can tell he's not very
social.
You know very, very awkward inthe way of doing some things and
the way that he shows up andthe stuff that he's.
You know the way that just, heis as a person.

(09:56):
So you can tell that he's wiredfor this like all signal all
the time.
And so I thought it was verylike serendipitous that I
haven't listened to Ryan andthen this week, you know, I've
been hyper-focused on that.
You know I, every day, I wrotedown my my three commitments
that I'm going to get done forthe next day and a few other

(10:17):
things.
I'll share that as we wrap uptonight.
I'm kind of going to give you afew things to kind to help you
with this process.
Every day this week I put mythree in In the morning or at
night.
When I wrap up the day in themorning, review them, make sure
that they're my focus points forthat following day.
I'm not going to lie.

(10:37):
There's been a couple dayswhere I didn't get those things
done.
Maybe I thought I had more time, didn't give things enough time
, but regardless, I was prettyon it all week and I even was on
my team.
I coached some of them on Fridayand got back into this stuff
today and said, yeah, you knowhow important it is.
You need to be doing it.

(10:57):
It's helping me already.
Make sure we're doing thisthing, guys, and as a leader, we
have to be that example.
As a leader, we have to pushthose things that we know is
going to make people successful.
We also have to do them.
Or it doesn't hit the same andeven if they don't know that,

(11:21):
you know it.
Subconsciously, you know thatif you are telling people or
you're setting a standard andyou're not meeting that standard
yourself, you know.
And so I wanted to shoot thison Friday didn't get to it.
I wanted to shoot this onSaturday didn't get to it.

(11:42):
Worked both days, didn't findthe time.
Today came, told myself I'mgoing to get over to the office
and shoot this today.
I didn't do it, didn't havetime.
Baby came, leah got home and soI just.
Next thing, you know, it's 9o'clock at night.
I'm wrapping up for the day, Iget a text from Reese and he's
like hey, man, what podcast arewe putting out tomorrow?

(12:04):
I'm like gosh, can we find anold one?
Or let's find some that I'mfeatured on and let's just drop
those so we can just keep theconsistency going.
Well, we were unable to do thatthis evening.
So I'm getting wrapped up formy day and we get back from the

(12:24):
hospital, I sit down and I'mlike I got to shoot this podcast
, because if I don't shoot thispodcast tonight, what example is
that setting for myself goinginto the week?
See, that's what we don'tunderstand.
Is that as much as it's aboutthese commitments that we make,

(12:46):
it's just about fulfilling thethings you say you're going to
do, whether you do them great,whether you just get them done.
Too often we look at thesecommitments and these things of
like.
They have to be life altering.
You know, they've always got tobe the three biggest thing that

(13:06):
you're going to get done everyday, and we hold ourselves to
this standard of perfection thatcan never be met.
So then what happens?
We set this super high bar, wejump all in, doesn't happen, we
kick ourselves and then we goback into that pattern again.
When you know the thing that yousay that you should do, that

(13:32):
when you don't do it it doesaffect you, right?
What is it?
There's a writer, ryan Holidayhas a book.
He says the obstacle is the wayand I'm not sitting here saying
, you know, run in and to findall the hard shit and run into

(13:54):
it.
No, sometimes the obstaclemight just be that daily
commitment, that dailycommitment.
So when you're making thesecommitments, understand that
these daily commitments, thedaily doing of the things that
you say you're going to do,again, they don't have to be

(14:14):
perfect, they just have to bedone.
These daily commitments arelike bank deposits.
It's these deposits that you'reputting in.
A dollar, a commitment here, acommitment there, right?
We look at the Steve Jobs or theElon Musks and you hear people
talk about how focused they areand how just great they are just
knowing what they got to do anddoing it.

(14:35):
That's the less than 0.5%.
And do you even want that?
Right?
We compare ourselves a lot oftimes to the lives of these
people that are doing more thanus, but do we even want what
they have?
We might want the result of allthe things, but I don't know

(14:56):
that we'd want the life.
So you're comparing yourself topeople who are setting a
standard of the type of way anindividual lives, or who they
are, and of somebody that youwouldn't even actually trade
spots with.
Maybe you would try it for aday, but there's a reason that
you're where you're at and I'mwhere I'm at and they're where

(15:17):
they are.
So understand that these dailycommitments are the things that
are going to get you toachieving these higher things
daily.
So when we're setting these,same for me, right?
You have a daily and a weeklycommitment, right?
So every week, I want to put apodcast out on Monday, and I

(15:38):
could have not done it tonight.
I could have went in themorning, shot something in the
morning, put something outtomorrow, release it on Tuesday.
I was still gutting it out.
It probably would have beenbetter than nothing.
But what kind of resiliencydoes it build in these little
moments?
I was coaching our team onFriday and gut into this same

(16:04):
thing.
It's been a challenging season.
There's been a lot of changes,a lot of things, and I'm doing
things that I don't want to bedoing.
I'm doing things that I thoughtI wouldn't have to do again,
and there's this part of me thatwants to be a victim and sit
back and dwell on it.
There's a part of me that alsoknows, by doing that that would

(16:29):
put me in a different, worseposition, definitely in a place
I don't want to be in.
There's the other part of theside of me that's saying just do
it, just get it through, get itdone, do those things.
And then there's this littledark energy side of me I think

(16:49):
Kobe and Tim Grover talk aboutit right the Mamba mentality.
There's this little piece of methat doesn't come out all the
time, stays in the shadows,worries about judgment, and not
so much judgment, but justjudgment of knowing the, the

(17:11):
capabilities of what thatindividual has and and keeps
locked up because it's adifferent version, it's a
different mode and you can't youcan't overuse that mode.
Sometimes it's like if you'rethere all the time, it's too
much, you burn to the ground.
But if you're never there, Idon't know that you ever get

(17:35):
ahead.
What I compare this to is thatwhen I was playing hockey and
you start the year out andyou're fresh, right and you feel
good, and as the year goes on,you're getting banged up, you're
getting beat up, you got theseinjuries.
Then playoffs come and you'replaying and practicing, and

(17:56):
playing and practicing, andtraveling, and you're exhausted
and you're tired.
But there's like that darkenergy that meant that mamba
mentality starts to creep upRight Just when you're exhausted
, just when you've got nothingleft.
There's nothing left in thetank, but there is, there's that
little part of you that's likeI like the pain, I need the pain

(18:21):
.
I can look at my life and seethat I haven't been through this
pain in a while.
And it's not the suffering typeof pain, it's the pain that you
lean into, the pain thatreminds you of who you are,
reminds you of what you'recapable of.

(18:42):
So we put that away sometimesbecause we can't have it out.
But there are times in life whenthe only way is through the
obstacle.
The only way is flipping thatswitch to that version, because

(19:02):
that version doesn't lose.
That version keeps hiscommitments.
That version might not getalong as well with people
Spouses, close friends,employees, sometimes Partners,
whatever it is but you also havethose people that respect it

(19:23):
and know when that version needsto come out.
That's what these commitmentsbecome.
What they do is they're thesedeposits, and these deposits
will compound and they createthis thing called momentum.
And they create this thingcalled momentum.

(19:47):
And now you've got commitmentsthat are compounding and
building momentum and it onlytakes one day of I'll get to it

(20:11):
tomorrow to kill all themomentum.
But it also takes one day ofdoing that thing that was hard,
that you didn't want to do, of10Xing the momentum.
And when you can flip yourmindset to I want to do this.
It's hard when there'ssomething.
It's like getting in the icebath and you know you get

(20:33):
through it and you're like man.
You always feel better on theother side, like hockey.
I'm hurt, I got half a brokenleg, but I like I would want
nothing more to get back on theice that next shift and just go
as hard as you can until younearly black out, because it's

(20:54):
that Jordan Peterson talks about.
He says you know, the mostdangerous guy in the room isn't
the guy that you know is crazy.
The most dangerous guy in theroom is the guy that is crazy
but can contain it, is an animalbut can hide that and be calm

(21:14):
and be a safe place and controlwhat's inside.
But have that mode.
So if you're going through someshit, take it on the chin.
Get through it.
It will make you better.

(21:35):
And when you're makingcommitments daily, don't shoot
for the fences.
Get wins right.
Success swings singles.
It's about wins over time, nothome runs.
The home runs will come withthe reps and the momentum and
all these things happen.
Next thing you know you'rehitting the home runs and you're
able to focus 100% on the mostimportant things every day and

(21:58):
knocking them out.
But until you get there, yougot to build the muscle, the
consistency muscle, thecommitment muscle, the doing of
the thing that you said you weregoing to do muscle, the showing
up for yourself.
When you do that, you willachieve those things every time.

(22:19):
Before I leave you tonight, Iwant to go over the practice
that I've been doing a way thatyou can apply this to your life
if it suits you.
So I call it the three F's.
Your first three are your focus.

(22:41):
What are the three things thatyou're going to focus on
tomorrow?
There's three big movements andguess what?
Maybe it's just getting to thegym on time, maybe it's making
somebody smile, but it's beingintentional about those three
things that you can achieve.
But they're going to make youachieve them.

(23:02):
Then you go over, then it's thethree.
Then the next F is fix thethree things you would have
fixed today.
Don't get into the why.
Don't try to fix it, don't tryto solve it, don't spend energy
and capacity on it.
Just the three things.
And the third is feel.

(23:23):
What are three things you felttoday, Three things you're
grateful for.
So it's the three F's Focus,fix, feel Reckless, ceo out.